Biggest changes but we are denied the view

We are over the transitional period. Over the next year or two, the dawning of understanding will creep into the collective minds of those that “lead” the West. How this will manifest can be anything, but I remain hopeful…

A scaling back of many policies.
Changes in the way that many things are done.
Some attempts (which will be failures) that will try to prevent the hemorrhaging of the Untied States.

However, I am often wrong, and I fail at least 50% of the time in my predictions. Though, I’m often quite correct on trend-lines. Outcomes. Not so well.

What outcomes?

Flipping the tables with global nuclear war.
Invasion of Mexico, Iran, or Taiwan.
Civil war in the United States

Who know what will happen. I don’t.

Have a great day.

Posted for the record.

Self explanatory.

Those of us who consume western msm are not delusional when we state there is an anti-China editorial policy in western newsrooms.

Jason And The Argonauts (1963)

I always find with these stop-motion animation films that the wonderful Harryhausen creations always far out-act the human talent! Sadly, here is no different – Todd Armstrong in the title role and Nancy Novak as ” Medea” are as wooden as the Argo in this retelling of the ancient Greek myth.

It is still, however, an exciting action adventure though, with plenty of episodes to keep it moving along as Jason fights monsters and treachery to seek out the legendary Golden Fleece from the distant land of Colchis.

It’s got a decent enough, largely British, supporting cast with Honor Blackman standing out as his patron “Hera” and Nigel Green making for a wonderfully over-the-top “Hercules”, but the spoils definitely go to Talos, the Harpies and the skeleton battle is fabulous.

https://youtu.be/1c8NvctkSzs

What is the Chinese opinion of the United States of America? Do they hate us as much as we hate them? Is their dislike towards USA justified? If yes, why and if no, why not?

Not even half as much!

Chinese people thinks the U.S. system and policies are daft and don’t work. They don’t hate the country and certainly don’t hate the people. There is very few who are racist like some Americans.

The Chinese people sees Americans as good customer and America as huge market. The treat customers well. They will never be submissive and subservient to you as to them they are a far more mature and intelligent person. You can think what you want but that what they think about themselves.

They saw through the manipulation and cheating of the so call international rules based international order and so does most others. And they will certainly not allow it to perpetuate. Quite rightly so. They still hope you guys comes to your senses soon before you implode.

The Chinese are at least 3 full steps ahead of Americans in thinking and response. You can rant and rave if you want but frankly it is not beneficial to hate the Chinese or China or CCP. The U.S. will lose more. If China maybe they can it means 100% it can be done. China will be either your biggest customer or your biggest competitor that U.S. your choice.

Vietnam War: Racquel Welch 1967

Why doesn’t milk taste like real milk anymore? I just want milk that tastes like real milk.

Milk in America and Canada underwent a major deterioration in taste in the early 1970’s. In the UK and Europe it happened in about 1980.

Milk undergoes significant and irreversible biochemical changes once it is heated above 64.5˚C. And these changes are readily detected as a deterioration in the taste.

Prior to 1980 in the UK, and roughly the early 1970’s in North America, milk was commonly pasteurised by heating it to between 63˚C and 64˚C and holding it in that temperature bracket for 30 minutes. It was a protocol developed in 1906 by Public Health officials in Massachusetts, who were desperate to persuade people to drink pasteurised milk instead of raw milk. But bringing milk close to boiling meant the wonderful rich taste of the milk when raw was lost. So the public bought raw milk by choice.

With what must have been a considerable amount of research, they found that by heating milk above 63˚C but below 64˚C, and maintaining the temperature for 30 minutes, the pathogens were killed, but the rich taste of the milk was not damaged. After WWII it became the widespread approach to pasteurising milk.

But in the 1970’s a far faster method was developed, which was to heat the milk to 73˚C and run it through pipework for just 15 seconds. The pathogens they were concerned about were effectively killed off by this method. And though the wonderful rich taste of the milk was damaged, the industry was persuaded to switch over to the new approach by the great cost savings it brought.

And since that switch in the mid 1970’s the per capita consumption of milk in the USA has declined by over 40%.

In movies from the 1950’s and 1960’s you often see a glass of milk at the dinner table. Look at movies made since 1980 and a glass of milk is a very rare sight. If you have never tasted milk produced using the old protocol, then you do not know what you are missing.

My wife is a dairy farmer, and we pasteurise and bottle our milk for sale through shops across Scotland. (In Scotland milk sold to the public has to be pasteurised.) Ours is one of the very few dairy farms in Scotland using the old approach. We tried (once) heating the milk to 73˚C but hated the way the taste was dramatically altered, in our view, damaged. And so we stick to the slower, older method. But we have noticed that, should someone forget to turn off the heating elements at the wrong point, and the temperature of the milk in the big pasteurising vessel goes above 64.5˚C, it then develops a “sticky” quality. We studiously avoid this happening, as that stickiness means the vessel is suddenly a nightmare to clean.

As milk goes above 64.5˚C the proteins are increasingly denatured. And the denatured proteins then coagulate with the butterfat. And this seems to be what causes the stickiness. I presume it is also involved directly in the alteration of the flavour of the milk.

And so the vast majority of the population on both sides of the Atlantic have no experience these days of good old-fashioned drinking milk. And that’s a big pity.

Addendum: there’s an important topic that is related to all the above.

Crohn’s Disease has surged in the years since the HTST process was adopted, and it appears there is a direct link between the two topics. There is a very widespread disease amongst cows & cattle called Johnes Disease, and it is caused by the Mycobacterium avium subsp. tuberculosis, commonly referred to as MAP.

The bacteria, once introduced to a herd, is nearly impossible to get rid of, as it can survive in the cow pats in fields for years.

There is currently no treatment for Johnes Disease, which is a wasting illness of the digestive tract. The symptoms of Johnes Disease and Crohn’s Disease are identical. While it is a simple matter to demonstrate that Johnes Disease is caused by MAP, there are ethical barriers which make a similar determination of MAP and Crohn’s Disease impossible.

We can’t have two groups of healthy people, and expose the folk in one group to viable MAP, and see what happens. But there is an enormous body of circumstantial evidence pointing to Crohn’s Disease being caused by MAP. Some 10% of supermarket milk sold in the UK (for example) has been found to contain viable MAP, i.e., 10% of milk on those shelves just might cause Crohn’s Disease in people who consume it on a regular basis.

The older process of 63˚C for 30 minutes is actually 10 times more effective at killing off MAP than the typical HTST process. Longer exposure to high temperatures are needed it seems, and this is why the HTST approach is a poor process for milk pasteurisation.

China’s Fujian air wing is slowly taking shape

China’s Fujian air wing is slowly taking shape, possibly making it the first carrier worldwide capable of launching 5th-generation stealth fighters from its decks.

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Few days ago it was reported that China might be preparing to deploy a new stealth fighter or perhaps a stealth drone from its Fujian aircraft carrier, incrementally building the combat capabilities of its third carrier and flagship naval vessel.

It is noted that the J-31/ FC-31 will complement the J-15, China’s only carrier-based fighter. It also mentions that the J-31 will be used for air supremacy missions due to its stealth characteristics, while the J-15 will be limited to ground and sea attacks.

However, the report notes that both the J-31/FC-31 and the Fujian are still not combat-ready, with the J-31/FC-31 still undergoing ground tests and the Fujian expected to perform sea trials later this year.

China’s J-31/FC-31 has a 2,000-kilometer estimated range, maximum takeoff weight of 28 tons, an operational ceiling of 15 kilometers and a top speed of Mach 1.8 or 2,205 kilometers per hour.

FH-97A Loyal Wingman drone is an AI-powered unmanned stealth aircraft designed to complement the J-20 stealth fighter. Unlike other loyal wingman drones, the stealthy FH-97A has a 1,000-kilometer range with a six-hour maximum flight time.

The FH-97A is designed for air-to-air operations, noting that it has a front-mounted EOTS and internal weapons bay for six infrared air-to-air missiles. Apart from air-to-air roles, the report mentions that it can perform secondary missions such as surveillance, suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) and electronic warfare. Considerations are being made to develop a carrier-based FH-97A variant featuring in-flight refueling capability.

Foreign agents and protests in Georgia

A classic color revolution to disrupt the southern border of Russia.

Burial Bundles with Painted Bodies in Fabric Found in Peru Pyramid

Archaeologists in Peru have uncovered a monumental temple site where they discovered unique human burials wrapped in fabrics printed with bizarre zoomorphic designs. These bundles contain the remains of deceased individuals, as well as various offerings and personal belongings wrapped in multiple layers of textiles, often with intricate designs and patterns. Found in tombs and caves, many burial bundles have been preserved for hundreds, or even thousands of years.

High Status Ancient Burials

PAP reports that within one burial mounds, archaeologists identified the wrapped remains of a young boy whose skull was “ intentionally deformed .” Wrapped in a three meters (9.84 ft) long cloth which was decorated with “totally unique zoomorphic representations,” the researchers reported that the boy was born into a “high-status family.”

Cranial deformation was a common practice in Peru. The process involved binding the heads of infants to create a flattened or elongated skull , often with the intention of denoting social status or cultural affiliation.

Łukasz Majchrzak is a bioarchaeologist focused on pre-Columbian cultures in Peru, specializing in health, diet, and lifestyle. Majchrzak, said the boy’s wraps were covered with “unique” zoomorphic representations, and similar fabrics have never been found anywhere in the Andes mountains to date.

Dyed fabric found in a tomb at the top of the site, dated 772 -989 AD Photo: Łukasz Majchrzak

Painted And Wrapped for The Afterlife

The team of archaeologists were excavating what they describe as “a monumental temple” on the Cerro Colorado hill located near the city of Barranca in Peru, when they found the series of “unique tombs.” These were not ordinary burials because the people within the graves were painted and wrapped in high-quality fabrics.

Located near the coastal city of Barranca in Peru, Cerro Colorado is a famously red hill which is caused by high levels of iron oxide in the soil. With expansive panoramic views of the surrounding landscape, including the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains, this important archaeological site features a sunken plaza and an amphitheatre, which were utilized in the pre-Columbian era.

The recent excavations were conducted by a team of archaeologists from the Jagiellonian University and St Mark’s University, in the “Los valles de Barranca ” project. According to a report on Nauka W Polsce , four earthen mounds were excavated in 2022 and, amidst a monumental temple structure, four tombs were discovered containing painted human remains wrapped in high-quality fabrics that dated to 772 AD – 989 AD.

Cross-section of a Peruvian mummy bundle. Source: Juulijs / Adobe Stock

Unwrapping Ancient Burial Bundles

The above dating determined that the graves belonged to the Wari culture , whose legacy can be found at Castillo de Huarmey, located only 70 kilometres (43.5 miles) north of Barranca in the Huarmey district of Peru. Castillo de Huarmey is a 16th-century coastal fortress built by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro’s brother-in-law, Jerónimo de Aliaga. The castle is known for its unique blend of Spanish, Inca, and Chimú architectural styles and contains numerous well-preserved murals depicting daily life in the region, and a Wari mausoleum.

On two of the newly excavated pyramidal mounds, the monumental temple was found to have been constructed using dried red clay bricks and stone blocks. This discovery inspired a large-scale excavation of the site which revealed the burial bundles, also known as “fardos funerarios”.

An example of a Wari burial bundle (Public Domain)

Revitalizing Ancient Holy Sites

Research revealed that while the burials dated to between 772 AD and 989 AD, the temple complex itself was built between 2500 and 2200 BC. This dating is derived from two of the four structures, with the remaining two not yet excavated, so the site might prove to be even older.

Majchrzak explained that such settlements, with “imposing architecture,” were built in the Andes during the third millennium BC. As agriculture spread, as a result of increasing interactions with communities residing in the Amazon, later Andean cultures established burial necropolises in abandoned deeply-ancient places of worship, believing their ancestors were buried within the timeworn pyramids.

Top image: Peruvian mummy bundles, representational. Source: Bayamin / Adobe Stock.

By Ashley Cowie

China and Saudi Arabia just dealt a CRUSHING blow to the U.S. Dollar

Buffalo Chicken & Pepper Grilled Cheese Sandwich

BuffaloGrilledChickenPic 570x766 1 — BuffaloGrilledChickenPic 570×766 1

Ingredients

2 tablespoons hot sauce
1 tablespoon Cabot Salted Butter, melted
1 cooked chicken breast, shredded (about 1 cup)
4 tablespoons Cabot Salted Butter, softened
8 (1/2 inch thick) slices LaBrea Bakery Take & Bake Garlic Loaf Bread or any garlic flavored bread
4 roasted red bell pepper quarters (about 1 cup drained, jarred or 1 fresh roasted red bell pepper)
4 ounces Cabot Pepper Jack, thinly sliced

Instructions

Heat Breville sandwich maker until green light switches on, or two sided electric grill.
In medium bowl, combine hot sauce and melted butter; add chicken and toss until well combined.
Working in batches, butter one side of each bread slice and place bread on sandwich maker, or electric grill, buttered side down.
Layer evenly with chicken, bell pepper and cheese.
Cover with remaining bread slice, buttered side up.
Close lid and cook for 3 minutes or until bread is golden crisp and cheese is melted. Alternatively, cook sandwiches in heavy skillet over medium-low heat for about 3 minutes per side.)

Fighting Off The Children Of The Hydra’s Teeth | Jason and the Argonauts

This reminds me of a scene from the 1960s movie “The Ugly American”.

It says in Chinese: emergency relief, 1 set.

The photo is from Türkiye, and relevant information has been censored on the US platform.

Look at how it was “reported”…

Then here comes the question: did the US military buy these materials or just “borrow” them from Syria? Shouldn’t there be a comprehensive public verification of the executors?

LOL.

Alastair Crooke

March 13, 2023

The West is too dysfunctional and weak now to fight on all fronts. Yet there can be no retreat without some de-legitimising humiliation of the West.

Just occasionally, a window is opened onto the truth of how the ‘system’ works. Momentarily, it stands naked in its degeneracy. We avert our eyes, yet, it is a revelation (though it shouldn’t be). For, we see clearly how tawdry has been the attire which clothed it. ‘Liberalism’s’ seeming success – almost wholly an ephemeral PR production – serves only to make its underlying internal contradictions more obvious; more ‘in your face’ – much less credible.

This unravelling speaks to a failure to satisfactorily resolve liberal modernity’s inherent contradictions. Or, rather its unravelling derives from the choice to resolve a waning legitimacy, through an ever more totalistic and ideological reaching for hegemony.

One such window has been the sordid affair of the UK pandemic lockdowns – as revealed by a paper trail leak of 100,000 ministerial WhatsApp messages, managing the lockdown project.

What did they show (in the words here of pro-government leading political commentators)? An ugly picture of how a western Establishment interacts in adolescent sniping at each other, and in its utter disdain for the populace.

Janet Daley writing in The Telegraph:

“It [lockdown] wasn’t about science, it was about politics. That was obvious as soon as the government began talking about following The Science – as if it were a fixed body of revealed truth … they were engaged in a deliberately misleading campaign of public coercion. The programme was designed to frighten – not inform – and to make doubt or scepticism appear morally irresponsible – which is precisely the opposite of what science does”.

“The model for the monumental government programme in which sitting on a park bench, or meeting with extended family, became a criminal offence – was the nation at war. Horrifying levels of social isolation were deliberately designed to present the country as mobilised in a collective effort against a malign enemy. Much of this went way beyond what we generally regard as authoritarianism: even the East German Stasi did not forbid children from hugging their grandparents, or outlaw sexual relations between people who lived in different households. Every other consideration had to be relegated in a heroic national struggle against an invading army whose objective was to kill as many of us as possible. And this enemy was particularly insidious because it was invisible”.

Sherelle Jacobs:

“We have been granted a rare glimpse of Power’s true nature away from the media gaze: how, in private, it schemes, swears, sulks and derides. On full display are all its dismal paradoxes: its fierce megalomania and constant seeking of reassurance from political aides; its tendency to groupthink and relentless sniping.

“One feels a new cold solidarity with 1970s [Watergate] America in its horror at the “low-grade quality of mind” that characterised their political class. But perhaps the strongest parallel with Watergate is that … the state’s operations seem suffused with humdrum nihilism. It is there in the amused crusades to “scare the pants” off people. It is in the deadpan mocking of holidaymakers locked up in quarantine [hotels] (“hilarious”). It is in the remorseless dedication to “the narrative”.

“How zealously the state threw themselves into implementing draconian measures, once it had decided at HQ that lockdowns were the correct populist call. We have come to learn how Hancock (Health Minister) conspired to “sit on” scientists, who he denounced as “wacky” or “loudmouth” for defying the official lines. We must digest the knowledge that civil servants insisted the “fear/guilt factor” was “vital” in “ramping up the messaging” during the dubious third lockdown. Just as unedifying is the revelation that, in the run up to this lockdown, politicians seized on a new variant as a tool to “roll the pitch with”. Perhaps most galling is Patrick Vallance’s (Scientific Adviser) advice that the Government should “suck up the media’s miserable interpretation of scientific data” to then “overdeliver” in an atmosphere of cranked up fear”.

Fraser Nelson:

“We see the PM appallingly served and briefed. Almost suspiciously so. At one stage, he is so in the dark about Covid’s fatality rate that he misinterprets a figure by a factor of one hundred. [Yet] the most revealing moment came in June 2020, when the mild-mannered Business Secretary, argued for certain rules to be advisory rather than compulsory. At this stage, Covid circulation had plummeted – deaths had fallen by 93 per cent from the peak: “Why is she against controlling the virus”, the minister complains. She is motivated by pure Conservative ideology! The Cabinet Secretary retorts [i.e., she is libertarian].

“The Lockdown Files include thousands of attachments sent between ministers. When I first came across them, I hoped to find high-quality top-level secret briefings. Instead, ministers were sharing newspaper articles and graphs found on social media. The quality of this information was often poor, sometimes abysmal”.

The ‘Lockdown Files’ – as published in the UK by The Telegraph – expose a toxic culture where any minister or civil servant asking “awkward” questions knew they were liable to be briefed against, sidelined or ostracised. ‘Off the boil’ Members of Parliament thought to oppose lockdowns were placed on a secret Red List, and the then Health Secretary’s aide wrote, “these guys’ re-election hinges on us: We know what they want”.

But the Files reveal something even more chilling. What was the overall public response to the publication of the files? Plainly said: It is that a majority of the people are so numbed and passive – and so in lockstep – as the state inches them through a series of repeating emergencies towards a new kind of authoritarianism, that they don’t fuss greatly, or even notice much.

To be clear, the Lockdown episode is iconic of this new schema of control effected through hegemony, ideology and tech. Autonomy for the individual – and his or her search for a life, lived with meaning – now is displaced by its opposite: The instinct to subjugate and dominate, and to impose order on an inchoate and seemingly threatening world.

The surveillance-based liberal managerial state has, as Arta Moeini has written, ballooned into “a totalistic and aspiring globe-spanning Leviathan”, fraudulently disguised in the feel-good casing of liberal democracy – the key liberational elements of which, having been long replaced by their antonyms, in an Orwellian inversion.

To be clear: All the excesses of state power that occurred in the UK during the pandemic were permitted within the realms of the Western political system. The state may at any time suspend the rule of law for what it deems the greater good. The pandemic merely exposed the workings in extremis of liberal democracy – channelling Carl Schmitt’s notion of a “state of exception” being the source-code to state ‘sovereignty’ over the populace.

In this ethical vacuum, and with the capsize of societal meaning, western politicians can only snipe coarsely at one-another, Lord of the Rings-style, whilst hoping to surf whatever ‘the narrative’ and the media ‘play’ of the day can ‘up their level’ in the power matrix. To be blunt, in its lack of any deeper guiding principle, it is purely sociopathic.

However, in pushing the pendulum of the liberal schema so hard over towards the hegemony extremity, it has caused the other end to the spectrum of the overall liberal schema to catch fire: The demand to respect individual autonomy and freedom of expression. This antithesis is particularly apparent in the U.S.

Liberalism was conceived during the early French Revolution as a project of systemic liberation from oppressive social hierarchies, religion and cultural norms of the past, so that a new order of liberated individualism could come into being. Rousseau saw it as a radical clean break from the past – a disembedding of the individual from family, church and cultural norms, so that he or she could better evolve as a unitary component to a redeemed universal governance.

This was the meaning to liberalism in its early phase. However, the subsequent Reign of Terror and mass executions under the Jacobins signaled the schizophrenic connection between ‘liberation’ and the desire to force compliance on society. The persistent appeal of violent revolution versus imposed (Utopian) ‘redemption of humanity marks the two oppositional poles to the western psyche which today is being ‘resolved’ through the tilt to ‘hegemony’.

This inherent tension between the radical liberation of the individual and a conformist ‘world order’ was to be resolved via ‘new universal values’: Diversity, gender and equity – plus restitution awarded to the victims for earlier discrimination suffered. This ‘liquid modernity’ was thought to be ‘globally neutral’ (in a way that Enlightenment values were not), and therefore could underpin the western-led World Order.

The contradiction inherent to this was too evident: The Rest of World sees the ‘liberal’ order as an-all-too obvious device to prolong western power. They refuse its ‘missionary’ underside (this aspect was never present outside the Judeo-Christian Sphere), and the claim that the West should determine what values (whether Enlightenment or Woke) by which we all must live.

The non-West observes rather, a weakened West and no longer feels the need to offer fealty to a global ‘overlord’. The meta cycle of enforced westification (from Petrine Russia, Turkey, Egypt – and Iran) is over.

Its mystique, its thrall is gone, and though lockdown compliance in the UK (and Europe) was indeed achieved through ‘project fear’, the success came at the expense of public trust. To be plain: the authority of Authority in the West increasingly is distrusted – at home, as overseas.

The crisis of liberalism’ contradictions and waning authority deepens.

Carl Schmitt’s other two mantras were firstly, to keep power: ‘Use it’ (or lose it); and secondly, configure an ‘enemy’ as polarising and as ‘dark’ as possible in order to keep power – and to keep the masses fearful and compliant.

Hence, we have seen Biden – lacking an alternative – resorting to radical Manichaeism to bolster Authority against his domestic opponents in the U.S. (ironically casting them as enemies of ‘democracy’), whilst using the Ukraine war as the tool by which to cast the West’s war on Russia too, as an epic struggle between the Light and Dark. These Manichean ideological source-codes for now, dominate western liberalism.

But the West has put itself into a trap: ‘Going Manichean’ puts the West into an ideological straight-jacket. It is a crisis of the West’s own making. Put bluntly, Manichaeism is the antithesis to any negotiated solution, or off-ramp. Carl Schmitt was clear on this point: the intent of conjuring up the blackest of enmities, precisely was to preclude (liberal) negotiation: How could ‘virtue’ strike a bargain with ‘evil’?

The West is too dysfunctional and weak now to fight on all fronts. Yet there can be no retreat (without some de-legitimising humiliation of the West).

The West has gambled all on its fear-led, ‘emergency-crisis’ managed ‘control’ system to save itself. It’s hopes now are pinned on its ‘Beware! The big boss has gone angry-mad’ act; he might do anything’, which it hopes will cause the world to back-off.

But the Rest of World is not backing off – it is becoming more assertive.

Fewer believe what the western Élites say; fewer still trust their competence. The West has recklessly ‘placed its bet’; it may lose all.

Or, more dangerously, in a fit of anger, it may kick over others’ gaming tables.

Raquel Welch distracts soldiers in 1969’s 100 Rifles

https://youtu.be/tcyVLMfsZ_4

“Memes of the Floating World”: Artist Recreates Favorite Memes In Japanese Print Styles

According to an artist: “It started as a Christmas gift to my wife, who loves the “Woman Yelling at Cat” meme, and has unfolded into an art project called “Memes of the Floating World.” In this strange dream world, classic Japanese woodblock print art and legends mash up with memes, dead and living, and internet lore from the past and present.

I don’t know where this project will take us next, but it’s sure to be at least a little bit dank. Official art prints are available only at Society6, so make sure you can bring the weirdness into your home. Thank you for taking a look!”

More: Memes of the Floating World, Instagram, Society6 h/t: boredpanda

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Avocado, Bacon and Ranch
Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

8 bacon slices
1/4 cup Ranch dressing
8 slices white or wheat bread
4 (1 ounce) slices Cheddar cheese
4 (1 ounce) slices Provolone cheese
1 large avocado, peeled, pitted and cut into 8 slices

Instructions

Prepare bacon according to package directions then drain and set aside.
Spread each slice of bread with 1/2 tablespoon of dressing. Top 4 of the bread slices with 1 slice of Cheddar cheese and 4 of the bread slices with 1 slice of Provolone. Top each Cheddar slice with 2 bacon slices and 2 avocado slices.
In a hot nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray, cook the bread slices cheese side-up, over medium heat, until browned, about 4 to 7 minutes.
Press Provolone-topped bread slices and Cheddar-topped slices together.
Cut in half on the diagonal.
Serve immediately.

Do you think China will be thrown out into the cold by all Western countries?

China thrown out into the cold? I think the risk is more serious that the Western countries will be thrown out into the cold by the rest of the world, if things continue developing in the way as they do today. China is bigger than the whole west put together. And the forming camp that includes pretty much everyone else outside North America, Western and Central Europe, ANZ, Japan and S. Korea who aren’t interested at all in taking part in US-led sanctions, ideological, moral and cultural crusades is actually 80% of the world. The world is a very different place than a couple of decades ago…

The below graphic shows the most important trading partners by country in 2000 and in 2020…

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The US and the Western Allies would do much better if they wouldn’t push the rest of the world together into an anti-western coalition

EDIT: Following up on the comments about China being only a wobbly economy that is merely based on low cost manufacturing of poor quality “stuff”, and that is supposedly still very far behind the US and the west. I thought I would share a couple of interesting articles from the London-based The Guardian newspaper that will help to bust a few of these myths. I think it’s important that we don’t put our heads in the sand and have a clear picture about the reality

Statue of Kali

Why do people in the US see people who don’t own cars and use public transit as poor and low class?

I’m from the US. I live in a part of the country that does not have public transit. We don’t even have Uber yet if that tells you anything. To live in my town you need a car. Plain and simple. You can’t even get a job here unless you have a car or someone with a car who will bring you to work. It’s literally a question on applications: do you have reliable transportation? If your answer is no, forget working there. We don’t have grocery delivery unless you use Amazon. (Well, my grocery store will deliver to me, but it’s not something they advertise to the general public.) And the way that the town is laid out, you can not just walk to the store, the doctors office, your job, or anywhere really.

That being said, some parts of the US like New York City, do have public transit. It’s in need of updating and some pictures of it make me seriously question the cleanliness of it, but it exists. And I’ve never assumed that only poor or low class people use it!

I went to Singapore last year. In Singapore it is painfully expensive to put a car on the road. It’s not like paying US $20 here for a drivers license. No, you won’t put a car on the road in Singapore without a significant expense. But fret not, because Singapore has an extensive, modern, clean, and efficient public transit system. Bus lines and MRT will take you most anywhere you want to go, and you can easily find a taxi or a Grab driver.

I certainly don’t think people in Singapore using public transit are poor or low class! Far from it, even actor Chow Yun Fat who married a Singaporean woman, uses it. It’s convenient and affordable.

China is another country with efficient public transit in many locations. They have high speed trains and were one of the first in the world to use them. I don’t think people in China are poor or low class for using public transport.

What we should remember is that many countries have the infrastructure to support public transit, making car ownership an option rather than a necessity. Perhaps one day the U.S. will realize that they should invest in better infrastructure, making car ownership unnecessary for us as well.

Harryhausen100 tribute H264

Surface Tension by James Blish (Free full text)

This post is a free (short) science fiction story called “Surface Tension”. It’s a classic story, and well worth the read.

A contributor wrote a story (or two) Heh Heh… and it was good, I’ll tell you what. But I will not publish it here. What I will say is that it reminded me of another story. Not that I know why… the two stories are completely different in every way. But it did jar my memories, and so I unearthed this gem.

It’s a story I read when I was 12 years old or so, and man oh man, did it awaken my soul and stir up some stuff inside.

It’s funny that way. How unrelated things can come together and create thought movements.

Such as this post…

“Surface Tension” by James Blish first appeared in the August 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. In 1957 it was published by Gnome Press as The Seedling Stars along with three other pantropy stories by Blish to make a fix-up novel.

When the Nebula Awards were being created in the 1960s, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted for their favorite science fiction short stories published before the advent of the awards and “Surface Tension” was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One in 1970.

It has been anthologized many times.

The version of “Surface Tension” in The Big Book of Science Fiction is different from the one that appeared in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

It has “Sunken Universe” (Super Science Stories, May 1942) inserted into it after the introduction, which is the way it is in The Seedling Stars. However, the introduction had additional paragraphs not in the Hall of Fame version, and I expect a careful reading of the later sections should show changes too. H. L. Gold was known for editing stories and Blish was known for rewriting his stories, so we don’t know which happened.

My guess is Blish came up with additional ideas to add to the story for the book version. I’ve read the slightly shorter version three times before over my lifetime, and a few paragraphs in this version stood out to me as new. Mainly they were about the original crew theorizing about their future pantropic existence.

Lately I’ve been writing about why I disliked a story, but for “Surface Tension” I need to explain why I love a story, and that might be even harder to do.

Every once in a while, a science fiction writer will come up with an idea that’s so different that it lights up our brains.

Wells did it with “The Time Machine.”
Heinlein did it with his story “Universe.”
Brian Aldiss did it with his fix-up novel Hothouse.
Robert Charles Wilson did it with his novel Spin.

“Surface Tension” is one of those stories. It has tremendous sense of wonder.

I’m torn between explaining everything that happens and not saying anything. But I need to talk about “Surface Tension,” so if you haven’t read it, please go away and do so.

As I’ve said before about great short stories, they have a setup that allows the author to say something interesting – not a message, but an insight.

The setup for “Surface Tension” is five men and two women have crashed on the planet Hydrot that orbits Tau Ceti. Their spaceship can’t be repaired, their communication system was destroyed, and they don’t have enough food to survive.

However, their ship is one of a swarm of seed ships spreading across the galaxy that colonizes each planet with customized humans adapted for each unique environment.

This is called pantropy, also representing a kind of panspermia, and anticipates the idea of transhumanism.

In other words, Blish has a lot to say with this story.

Because no large organisms can survive in the current stage of Hydrot’s development, the crew decide to seed it with intelligent microorganisms.

The seven will die, but each of their genes will be used to fashion a new species of roughly humanoid shape creatures that can coexist with the existing microorganisms of the freshwater puddles on Hydrot.

They won’t have their memories, but they will have ancestral abilities.

The crew creates these creatures and inscribe their history on tiny metal tablets they hope will be discovered one day by their tiny replacements.

From here the story jumps to the underwater world of the microorganisms and we see several periods of their history unfold. Blish used his education in biology to recreate several concentric analogies of discoveries that parallel our history in his puddle world of tiny microorganisms.

The wee humanoids form alliances with other intelligent microorganisms in wars to conquer their new environment.

Then they begin an age of exploration that eventually parallels our era of early space exploration. But you can also think of it paralleling when life first emerged from the sea to conquer the land.

One reason this story means so much to me is Blish makes characters out of various types of eukaryotic microorganisms and that reminds me of when I was in the fourth grade and our teacher asked us to bring a bottle of lake water to class.

That day we saw another world through the eyepiece of a microscope.

Blish made that world on a microscope slide into a fantasy world where paramecium becomes a character named Para who is intelligent and part of a hive mind that works with the transhumans.

Their enemies are various kinds of rotifers. However, I know little of biology and don’t know what the Proto, Dicran, Noc, Didin, Flosc characters are based on.

The main transhuman characters are Lavon and Shar who’s personalities are preserved over generations.

I wondered if the seven original human explorers (Dr. Chatvieux, Paul la Ventura, Philip Strasvogel, Saltonstall, Eleftherios Venezuelos, Eunice Wagner, and Joan Heath) were archetypes for the microscopic transhuman characters? Blish suggests that in the opening scene:

However, I never could decipher who Lavon and Shar were. Each time I reread this story I notice more details, and more analogies. “Surface Tension” is both simple and complex.

At a simple level its just a space adventure tale about exploration and survival.

But in creating a fantasy ecology, Blish hints at the deeper complexity of a writer becoming a worldbuilder.

And Blish is also philosophical about the future of mankind, reminding me of Olaf Stapledon.

This is the kind of story that can blow adolescent minds. Like mine.

The entire story is HERE in PDF form. Enjoy the free download and the great story!

-MM

The October Game (full text) Ray Bradbury

The October Game || Ray Bradbury

He put the gun back into the bureau drawer and shut the drawer.

No, not that way.

Louise wouldn’t suffer.

It was very important that this thing have, above all duration. Duration through imagination.

How to prolong the suffering?

How, first of all, to bring it about?

Well. The man standing before the bedroom mirror carefully fitted his cuff-links together.

He paused long enough to hear the children run by swiftly on the street below, outside this warm two-storey house, like so many grey mice the children, like so many leaves.

By the sound of the children you knew the calendar day.

By their screams you knew what evening it was.

You knew it was very late in the year.

October.

The last day of October, with white bone masks and cut pumpkins and the smell of dropped candle wax.

No.

Things hadn’t been right for some time.

October didn’t help any.

If anything it made things worse.

He adjusted his black bow-tie.

If this were spring, he nodded slowly, quietly, emotionlessly, at his image in the mirror, then there might be a chance.

But tonight all the world was burning down into ruin.

There was no green spring, none of the freshness, none of the promise.

There was a soft running in the hall.

“That’s Marion”, he told himself. “My little one”.

All eight quiet years of her.

Never a word. Just her luminous grey eyes and her wondering little mouth.

His daughter had been in and out all evening, trying on various masks, asking him which was most terrifying, most horrible. They had both finally decided on the skeleton mask.

It was “just awful!” It would “scare the beans” from people!

Again he caught the long look of thought and deliberation he gave himself in the mirror.

He had never liked October.

Ever since he first lay in the autumn leaves before his grandmother’s house many years ago and heard the wind and sway the empty trees.

It has made him cry, without a reason.

And a little of that sadness returned each year to him.

It always went away with spring.

But, it was different tonight.

There was a feeling of autumn coming to last a million years.

There would be no spring.

He had been crying quietly all evening.

It did not show, not a vestige of it, on his face.

It was all hidden somewhere and it wouldn’t stop.

A rich syrupy smell of sweets filled the bustling house.

Louise had laid out apples in new skins of toffee; there were vast bowls of punch fresh-mixed, stringed apples in each door, scooped, vented pumpkins peering triangularly from each cold window.

There was a water tub in the centre of the living room, waiting, with a sack of apples nearby, for dunking to begin.

All that was needed was the catalyst, the inpouring of children, to start the apples bobbing, the stringed apples to penduluming in the crowded doors, the sweets to vanish, the halls to echo with fright or delight, it was all the same.

Now, the house was silent with preparation.

And just a little more than that.

Louise had managed to be in every other room save the room he was in today.

It was her very fine way of intimating, Oh look Mich, see how busy I am! So busy that when you walk into a room I’m in there’s always something I need to do in another room!

Just see how I dash about!

For a while he had played a little game with her, a nasty childish game.

When she was in the kitchen then he came to the kitchen saying, “I need a glass of water.”

After a moment, he standing, drinking water, she like a crystal witch over the caramel brew bubbling like a prehistoric mudpot on the stove, she said, “Oh, I must light the pumpkins!” and she rushed to the living room to make the pumpkins smile with light.

He came after, smiling, “I must get my pipe.”

“Oh, the cider!” she had cried, running to the dining room.

“I’ll check the cider,” he had said.

But when he tried following she ran to the bathroom and locked the door.

He stood outside the bathroom door, laughing strangely and senselessly, his pipe gone cold in his mouth, and then, tired of the game, but stubborn, he waited another five minutes.

There was not a sound from the bath.

And lest she enjoy in any way knowing that he waited outside, irritated, he suddenly jerked about and walked upstairs, whistling merrily.

At the top of the stairs he had waited.

Finally he had heard the bathroom door unlatch and she had come out and life below-stairs and resumed, as life in a jungle must resume once a terror has passed on away and the antelope return to their spring.

Now, as he finished his bow-tie and put his dark coat there was a mouserustle in the hall.

Marion appeared in the door, all skeletons in her disguise. “How do I look, Papa?”

“Fine!”

From under the mask, blonde hair showed.

From the skull sockets small blue eyes smiled.

He sighed.

Marion and Louise, the two silent denouncers of his virility, his dark power.

alchemy had there been in Louise that took the dark of a dark man and bleached the dark brown eyes and black hair and washed and bleached the ingrown baby all during the period before birth until the child was born, Marion, blonde, blue-eyed, ruddy-cheeked?

Sometimes he suspected that Louise had conceived the child as an idea, completely asexual, an immaculate conception of contemptuous mind and cell.

As a firm rebuke to him she had produced a child in her own image, and, to top it, she had somehow fixed the doctor so he shook his head and said, “Sorry, Mr. Wilder, your wife will never have another child.

This is the last one.” “And I wanted a boy,” Mich had said eight years ago.

He almost bent to take hold of Marion now, in her skull mask.

He felt an inexplicable rush of pity for her, because she had never had a father’s love, only the crushing, holding love of a loveless mother.

But most of all he pitied himself, that somehow he had not made the most of a bad birth, enjoyed his daughter for herself, regardless of her not being dark and a son and like himself.

Somewhere he had missed out.

Other things being equal, he would have loved the child.

But Louise hadn’t wanted a child, anyway, in the first place.

She had been frightened of the idea of birth.

He had forced the child on her, and from that night, all through the year until the agony of the birth itself, Louise had lived in another part of the house.

She had expected to die with the forced child.

It had been very easy for Louise to hate this husband who so wanted a son that he gave his only wife over to the mortuary. But — Louise had lived.

And in triumph!

Her eyes, the day he came to the hospital, were cold. I’m alive they said.

And I have a blonde daughter! Just look!

And when he had put out a hand to touch, the mother had turned away to conspire with her new pink daughter-child — away from that dark forcing murderer.

It had all been so beautifully ironic.

His selfishness deserved it. But now it was October again.

There had been other Octobers and when he thought of the long winter he had been filled with horror year after year to think of the endless months mortared into the house by an insane fall of snow, trapped with a woman and child, neither of whom loved him, for months on end.

During the eight years there had been respites.

In spring and summer you got out, walked, picnicked; these were desperate solutions to the desperate problem of a hated man.

But, in winter, the hikes and picnics and escapes fell away with leaves.

Life, like a tree, stood empty, the fruit picked, the sap run to earth.

Yes, you invited people in, but people were hard to get in winter with blizzards and all.

Once he had been clever enough to save for a Florida trip.

They had gone south.

He had walked in the open.

But now, the eighth winter coming, he knew things were finally at an end.

He simply could not wear this one through.

There was an acid walled off in him that slowly had eaten through tissue and bone over the years, and now, tonight, it would reach the wild explosive in him and all would be over!

There was a mad ringing of the bell below.

In the hall, Louise went to see. Marion, without a word, ran down to greet the first arrivals.

There were shouts and hilarity.

He walked to the top of the stairs.

Louise was below, taking wraps.

She was tall and slender and blonde to the point of whiteness, laughing down upon the new children.

He hesitated. What was all this? The years? The boredom of living? Where had it gone wrong?

Certainly not with the birth of the child alone.

But it had been a symbol of all their tensions, he imagined. His jealousies and his business failures and all the rotten rest of it.

Why didn’t he just turn, pack a suitcase, and leave? No. Not without hurting Louise as much as she had hurt him.

It was simple as that.

Divorce wouldn’t hurt her at all. It would simply be an end to numb indecision. If he thought divorce would give her pleasure in any way he would stay married the rest of his life to her, for damned spite.

No he must hurt her. F

igure some way, perhaps, to take Marion away from her, legally. Yes. That was it. That would hurt most of all.

To take Marion away. “Hello down there!”

He descended the stairs beaming. Louise didn’t look up. “Hi, Mr Wilder!” The children shouted, waved, as he came down.

By ten o’clock the doorbell had stopped ringing, the apples were bitten from stringed doors, the pink faces were wiped dry from the apple bobbling, napkins were smeared with toffee and punch, and he, the husband, with pleasant efficiency had taken over.

He took the party right out of Louise’s hands.

He ran about talking to the twenty children and the twelve parents who had come and were happy with the special spiked cider he had fixed them.

He supervised pin the tail on the donkey, spin the bottle, musical chairs, and all the rest, amid fits of shouting laughter.

Then, in the triangular-eyed pumpkin shine, all house lights out, he cried, “Hush! Follow me!” tiptoeing towards the cellar.

The parents, on the outer periphery of the costumed riot, commented to each other, nodding at the clever husband, speaking to the lucky wife.

How well he got on with children, they said. The children, crowded after the husband, squealing.

“The cellar!” he cried. “The tomb of the witch!”

More squealing. He made a mock shiver. “Abandon hope all ye who enter here!”

The parents chuckled.

One by one the children slid down a slide which Mich had fixed up from lengths of table-section, into the dark cellar. He hissed and shouted ghastly utterances after them. A wonderful wailing filled dark pumpkin-lighted house. Everybody talked at once. Everybody but Marion.

She had gone through all the party with a minimum of sound or talk; it was all inside her, all the excitement and joy.

What a little troll, he thought.

With a shut mouth and shiny eyes she had watched her own party, like so many serpentines thrown before her. Now, the parents.

With laughing reluctance they slid down the short incline, uproarious, while little Marion stood by, always wanting to see it all, to be last.

Louise went down without help. He moved to aid her, but she was gone even before he bent. The upper house was empty and silent in the candle-shine. Marion stood by the slide.

“Here we go,” he said, and picked her up. They sat in a vast circle in the cellar. Warmth came from the distant bulk of the furnace.

The chairs stood in a long line along each wall, twenty squealing children, twelve rustling relatives, alternatively spaced, with Louise down at the far end, Mich up at this end, near the stairs.

He peered but saw nothing. They had all grouped to their chairs, catch-as-you-can in the blackness. The entire programme from here on was to be enacted in the dark, he as Mr. Interlocutor.

There was a child scampering, a smell of damp cement, and the sound of the wind out in the October stars. “Now!” cried the husband in the dark cellar.

“Quiet!” Everybody settled. The room was black black.

Not a light, not a shine, not a glint of an eye. A scraping of crockery, a metal rattle. “The witch is dead,” intoned the husband. “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” said the children.

“The witch is dead, she has been killed, and here is the knife she was killed with.”

He handed over the knife. It was passed from hand to hand, down and around the circle, with chuckles and little odd cries and comments from the adults.

“The witch is dead, and this is her head,” whispered the husband, and handed an item to the nearest person.

“Oh, I know how this game is played,” some child cried, happily, in the dark. “He gets some old chicken innards from the icebox and hands them around and says, ‘These are her innards!’

And he makes a clay head and passes it for her head, and passes a soup bone for her arm. And he takes a marble and says, ‘This is her eye!’ And he takes some corn and says, ‘This is her teeth!’ And he takes a sack of plum pudding and gives that and says, ‘This is her stomach!’ I know how this is played!” “Hush, you’ll spoil everything,” some girl said. “The witch came to harm, and this is her arm,” said Mich. “Eeeeeeeeeeee!”

The items were passed and passed, like hot potatoes, around the cirle. Some children screamed, wouldn’t touch them.

Some ran from their chairs to stand in the centre of the cellar until the grisly items had passed.

“Aw, it’s only chicken insides,” scoffed a boy. “Come back, Helen!” Shot from hand to hand, with small scream after scream, the items went down, down, to be followed by another and another.

“The witch cut apart, and this is her heart,” said the husband.

Six or seven items moving at once through the laughing, trembling dark. Louise spoke up. “Marion, don’t be afraid; it’s only play.”

Marion didn’t say anything. “Marion?” asked Louise. “Are you afraid?” Marion didn’t speak. “She’s all right,” said the husband.

“She’s not afraid.”

On and on the passing, the screams, the hilarity. The autumn wind sighed about the house. And he, the husband stood at the head of the dark cellar, intoning the words, handing out the items. “Marion?” asked Louise again, from far across the cellar.

Everybody was talking. “Marion?” called Louise.

Everybody quieted. “Marion, answer me, are you afraid?”

Marion didn’t answer.

The husband stood there, at the bottom of the cellar steps.

Louise called “Marion, are you there?”

No answer.

The room was silent.

“Where’s Marion?” called Louise.

“She was here”, said a boy. “Maybe she’s upstairs.”

“Marion!”

No answer.

It was quiet.

Louise cried out, “Marion, Marion!”

“Turn on the lights,” said one of the adults.

The items stopped passing.

The children and adults sat with the witch’s items in their hands.

“No.” Louise gasped.

There was a scraping of her chair, wildly, in the dark.

“No. Don’t turn on the lights, oh, God, God, God, don’t turn them on, please, don’t turn on the lights, don’t!”

Louise was shrieking now.

The entire cellar froze with the scream.

Nobody moved.

Everyone sat in the dark cellar, suspended in the suddenly frozen task of this October game; the wind blew outside, banging the house, the smell of pumpkins and apples filled the room with the smell of the objects in their fingers while one boy cried, “I’ll go upstairs and look!” and he ran upstairs hopefully and out around the house, four times around the house, calling, “Marion, Marion, Marion!” over and over and at last coming slowly down the stairs into the waiting breathing cellar and saying to the darkness, “I can’t find her.”

Then ……

…some idiot turned on the lights.

“Sci-fi drink” stories by Kingsley Amis

These two unusual and very original stories [1] are examples of a rare genre invented by the brilliant author of Lucky Jim: “SF-drink”. They had me chuckling and even hooting, an enjoyable and all-too-rare experience indeed, and I dare say that they will have you doing the same!

1. The 2003 Claret (1958)
A scientific team in 1970 is anxiously awaiting the return of a member of their team who had been sent on man’s first exploratory mission into the future, to 2010 to report on the social and political situation then. But what intersts the scientific team most is the wine situation in those far-off days, and what the time-traveler has to tell them about the reversal of tastes that has occurred is quite a shock indeed.

2. The Friends of Plonk (1964)
Where people in 2145 after a terribly dsstructive atomic war try to recreate the fabled drinks of the past with no documentation at all apart from some garbled descriptions of the ceremonies surrounding the consumption of fine wines and liqueurs. With astonishing results.

THE 2003 CLARET (1958)

’How long to go now?’ the Director asked for the tenth time.
I compared the main laboratory chronometer with the dial on the TIOPEPE (Temporal Integrator, Ordinal Predictor and Electronic Propulsion Equipment). ’He should be taking the trance-pill in a few seconds, sir,’ I said. ’Then there’s only the two minutes for it to take effect, and we can bring him back.’
’Supposing he hasn’t taken the pill?’
’I’m sure he’d survive the time-shift even if he were fully conscious, sir. It’s instantaneous, after all.’
’I know, but being snatched back from fifty years in the future can’t do a man’s mind any good, can it? We just don’t know what we’re up against, Baker. I wish those blasted politicians had let us go slow on this project. But no, there mustn’t be any delay or the Russians will have developed time-travel before the Atlantic Powers, so we bundle Simpson off to the year 2010 and if we lose him or he turns up a raving lunatic it’s our fault.’ The Director sat moodily down on a work-bench. ’What happens if he gets tight?’
’He won’t have done that, sir. Simpson’s one of the Knights of Bordeaux. They never get drunk — isn’t it a rule of the society?’
’I believe so, yes.’ The Director cheered up a little. ’He’ll probably have a good deal to tell us, with any luck. The Douro growers are saying that last year was the best since 1945, you know, Baker. Imagine what that stuff must be like where Simpson is. Just one glass —
’Did you actually tell Simpson to sample the wines in 20I0 ?’
The Director coughed. ’Well, I did just make the suggestion to him. After all, part of our terms of reference was to report on social conditions, in addition to the political situation. And drinking habits are a pretty good guide to the social set-up, aren’t they? Find out how people treat their port and you’ve found out a lot about the kind of people they are.’
’Something in that, sir.’ I’m a beer man myself, which made me a bit of an outsider in the team. There were only the four of us in the lab that night — the VIPs and the press boys had been pushed into the Conference Room, thank heaven — and all the other three were wine-bibbers of one sort or another. The Director, as you will have gathered, was fanatical about port; Rabaiotti, my senior assistant, belonged to a big Chianti family; and Schneider, the medical chap, had written a book on hock. Simpson was reputedly on the way to becoming a sound judge of claret, though I had sometimes wondered whether perhaps tactical considerations played their part in his choice of hobby. Anyway, I considered I was lucky to have got the job of Chief Time-Engineer, against competition that included a force-field expert who doubled as an amateur of old Madeira and an electronics king named Gilbey [2] — no relation, it turned out, but the Director couldn’t have known that at the time.
’The receiver is tuned, Dr Baker.’
’Thank you, Dr Rabaiotti. Would you like to operate the recall switch, sir?’
’Why, that’s extremely kind of you, Baker.’ The Director was shaking with excitement. ’It’s this one here, isn’t it?’ His hand brushed the trigger of a relay that would have sent Simpson shooting back to about the time of Victoria’s accession. This may have been half-deliberate: the Director often got wistful about what pre-phylloxera stuff might or might not have tasted like.
’No, this one, sir. Just press it gently down.’
The switch clicked and instantly the figure of Simpson — tallish, forty-ish, baldish — appeared in the receiver. We all gave a shout of triumph and relief. Rabaiotti killed the power. Schneider hurried forward and there was tension again. `I’d give a case of Dow 1919 to see him conscious and mentally sound,’ the Director muttered at my side.
’Everything all right so far,’ Schneider called. ’I’ve given him a shot that’ll pull him round in a minute or two.’
We lit cigarettes. ’Pity conditions wouldn’t allow of him bringing anything back,’ the Director said. ’Just think of a forty-year-old 1970 all ready to drink. But I suppose it would have cost too much anyway. Next time we must find a better way of handling the currency problem. Very risky giving him raw gold to pawn. And we’re restricted to a lump small enough not to arouse too much suspicion. Oh, well, he should have been able to afford a few glasses. I hope that champagne’s all right, by the way?’
’Oh, yes, I put it in the molecular-motion-retarder myself, with the setting at point-three. It’ll be nicely chilled by now.’
’Splendid. I do want the dear boy to get a decent livener inside him before he faces all those cameras and interviews. I should have preferred a dry port myself, or possibly a Bittall, but I know what the occasion demands, of course. It’s a Lambert 1952 I’ve got for him. I don’t understand these things myself, but the Director of Lunar Projectiles swears by it.’
’He’s coming round now,’ Schneider shouted, and we all pressed forward.
There was an intense silence while Simpson blinked at us, sat up and yawned. His face was absolutely impassive. Very slowly he scratched his ear. He looked like a man with a bad hangover.
’Well?’ the Director demanded eagerly. ’What did you see?’
’Everything. At least, I saw enough.’
’Had there been a war? Is there going to be a war?’
’No. Russia joined the Western Customs Union in 1993, China some time after 2000. The RAF’s due to be disbanded in a few months.’
Then everyone hurled questions at once: about flying saucers, the Royal Family, the sciences, the arts, interplanetary travel, climatic conditions in the Rheingau — all sorts of things. Simpson seemed not to hear. He just sat there with the same blank look on his face, wearily shaking his head.
’What’s the matter?’ I asked finally. ’What was wrong?’
After a moment, he said in a hollow voice, ’Better if there had been a war. In some ways. Yes. Much better.’
’What on earth do you mean?’
Simpson gave a deep sigh. Then, hesitantly, to a silent audience and with the bottle of champagne quite forgotten, he told the following story.

The landing went off perfectly. Hyde Park was the area selected, with a thousand-square-yard tolerance to prevent Simpson from materialising inside a wall or halfway into a passer-by. Nobody saw him arrive. He changed his gold into currency without difficulty, and in a few minutes was walking briskly down Piccadilly, looking into shop-windows, studying dress and behaviour, buying newspapers and magazines, and writing busily in his notebook. He had several fruitful conversations, representing himself according to plan as a native of Sydney. This brought him some commiseration, for England had just beaten Australia at Lord’s by an innings and 411 runs. Yes, everything seemed normal so far.
His political report and much of his social report were complete by six-thirty, and his thoughts started turning to drink: after all, it was a positive duty. As he strolled up Shaftesbury Avenue he began looking out for drink advertisements. The beer ones had much in common with those of 1960, but were overshadowed in prominence by those recommending wines. MOUTON ROTHSCHILD FOR POWER, BREEDING AND GRANDEUR, one said. ASK FOR OESTRICHER PFAFFENBERG – THE HOCK WITH THE CLEAN FINISH, enjoined another. MY GOLLY, MY ST GYOERGHYHEGYI FURMINT, bawled a third. Well, practical experiment would soon establish what was what. Simpson slipped quietly through the doorway of an establishment clearly devoted to drink.
The interior was surprising. If some French provincial cafe had not been gutted of decor and furnishings to get this place up, then a good job of duplication had been done. Men in neat, sombre clothing sat at the tables talking in low tones, wine-glasses and wine-bottles before them, while aproned waiters moved silently about. One of them was decanting a red wine from a bottle that was thick with dust and cobwebs, watched critically by all the nearby drinkers. Simpson crept to a seat in an unfrequented part of the room.
A waiter approached. ’What can I bring you, monsieur?’
Here it must be explained that Simpson was not quite the claret-fancier the Director thought him. He enjoyed claret all right, but he also enjoyed other French wines, and German wines, and Italian wines, and Iberian wines, and Balkan wines, and fortified wines, and spirits, and liqueurs, and apéritifs, and cocktails, and draught beer, and bottled beer, and stout, and cider, and perry— all the way down to Fernet Branca. (There were some drinks he had never drunk — arak, kava, Gumpoldskirchner Rotgipfler, methylated spirits — but they were getting fewer all the time.) Anyway, feeling dehydrated after his walk round the streets, he unreflectingly ordered a pint of bitter.
’I’m sorry, monsieur, I don’t understand. What is this bitter?’
’Bitter beer, ale; you know. Haven’t you got any?’
’Beer, monsieur?’ The waiter’s voice rose in contempt. ’Beer? I’m afraid you’re in the wrong district for that.’
Several men turned round, nudged one another and stared at Simpson, who blushed and said, ’Well. . . a glass of wine, then.’
’France, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria . . .’
Simpson tried to think. ’A claret, please. Let’s say — a nice St Emilion.’
’Château Le Couvent, Château Puyblanquet, Château Bellefore Belcier, Château Grand Corbin d’Espagne . ..’
’Oh . . . I leave it to you.’
’Bien, monsieur. And the year? Will you leave that to me too?’
’If you don’t mind.’
The waiter swept away. Conscious that all eyes were upon him, Simpson tried to sink into his chair. Before he could compose himself, a middle-aged man from a nearby table had come over and sat down next to him. ’Well, who are you?’ this man asked.
’A — a traveller. From Sydney.’
’These days that’s no excuse for not knowing your wines, friend. Some of them Rubicons and Malbecs are as firm and fully rounded as all bar the greatest Burgundies. And I found a Barossa Riesling on holiday this year that was pretty near as gay as a Kreuznacher Steinweg. You well up on the Barossas, friend?’
’No, not really, I’m afraid.’
’Thought not, somehow. Otherwise you wouldn’t stalk in here and screech out for beer. Ger, ought to be ashamed of yourself, you ought.’
’I’m awfully sorry.’
’Should hope so and all. Now, I’m an honest working man, see? I’m a DRIP, I am.’
’A drip?’
’Domestic Reactor Installation Patentee. Don’t they go in for them down under? Now you listen to me. When I come in here to meet my colleagues and crack a bottle or two after the daily round, I don’t want my palate soured by some toff yelling out about beer, especially not when we got a really elegant Gevrey Chambertin or Chambolle Musigny or something of that in front of us. It’s psychosomatic, like. Just the idea of beer’s enough to cut off some of the subtler overtones, get me?’
’I’m sorry,’ Simpson said again. ’I didn’t realise. But tell me: don’t you eat while you’re drinking these wines?’
’What, and foul up the taste-buds with fat and sauces and muck? You got a nerve even mentioning food in a place like this. We’re oenophiles in here, I’ll have you know, not a bunch of pigs. Ah, here’s your claret.’ The stranger held the glass up to the light, then sniffed it delicately. ’Right, now let’s see what you got to say about this. And get on with it.’
Simpson drank. It was the most wonderful wine he had ever known, with a strange warm after-taste that seemed to seep upwards and flood his olfactory centres. He sighed deeply. ’Superb,’ he said at last
’Come on, come on, we want more than that; you got to do better than that. Give us a spot of imagery, kind of style, a reference to art, that type of stuff.’
’It’s — I don’t know — it’s the richness of summer, all the glory of . . . of love and lyric poetry, a whole way of life, profound and . . . some great procession of — ’
‘Ah, you turn me up,’ the man said violently. ’This is a 2003 Chateau La Bouygue, reconstituted pre-phylloxera of course. Now, light and free, not rich in association but perfectly assured without any insincerity, instrumental where the ’01s are symphonic, the gentleness of a Braque rather than the bravura of a Matisse. That’s as far as you can go with it. Love and lyric poetry indeed. I never heard such slop in my life. You aren’t fit to come in here, friend. You get off out to one of the pubs with your boss-class pals, that’s where you belong.’
Simpson threw down some coins and ran, a gust of ill-natured laughter sounding in his ears. He felt like walking the streets for the two hours in 2010 that still remained to him, but a nagging curiosity emboldened him to ask to be directed to a pub.
The place he finally made his way to was on the corner of a narrow street on the edge of Soho. It was a red-brick affair like a miniature grammar school or a suburban bank. As he approached, a bus drew up and a crowd of young people got off, chattering loudly to one another in what Simpson made out as a version of the upper-class tones current in his own time. He was more or less swept in through the front door of the pub, and had no time to puzzle out the significance of a notice above the entrance, painted by hand with what seemed deliberate inelegance, and bearing the legend: CRACKED UP BY THE WALLOP AND SCOFF MOB.
He found himself in a large, ill-lighted and crowded room of which the main feature was a long counter that ran from end to end zigzag-wise, as if to accommodate as many as possible of the tall stools that were closely packed along it. What were evidently glass sandwich cupboards stood every couple of feet along the red plastic top. A group of people, half-crowd, half-queue, was clustered round the entrance, and Simpson mingled with them. He noticed that most of the stools were occupied by persons drinking beer or some such liquid out of pint glasses and eating rolls or sandwiches. Conversations were bawling away around him.
’My dear, simply nobody goes to the Crown these days. Simon and I were given fresh crisps the last time we went.’
’It doesn’t surprise me. We had some mustard that couldn’t have been more than a day old.’
’The wallop’s first-class down at the George, and as for the scoff— the bluest piece of ham you ever saw. A really memorable thrash. I’m getting the secretary of the Mob to crack them up in the next issue of the Boozer Rag.’
’Have you bagged stools, sir?’
’I beg your pardon?’
’Sorry, mate. Have you bagged, mate?’
’No, I’m afraid not. May I see the head potman?’
’I’ll get him over directly, mate.’
’Shall we start thinking about what we’re going to have? Pickled onions to start? With a glass of mild?’
’Nuts for me. Mixed and salted.’
’Right, that’s three onions, one nuts. And then I can recommend the cheese rolls. They know me here and always see that I get the three-day-old, with plenty of rind.’
After some time, Simpson obtained a stool and ordered a pint of bitter from the grubby barmaid.
’Certainly, love. A fresh barrel has just come on.’
`Oh, I’ll have mild instead, then.’
’By all means, love, if you wish for it. Your taste is your own. And what will you have in the way of scoff, love?’
’Oh, er — nothing to eat, thank you.’
`If I may say so, love, with all due respect, you might perhaps do better at the wine-bar if you don’t wish for any scoff. We have standards to maintain here, love.’
’I’m awfully sorry. What. . . scoff do you recommend?’
’Our gherkins have frequently been cracked up, love. Not a dish is sold till it’s two days old.’
’They sound delightful. One dish, please.’
’Very good, love. With cigarette-ash garnishings, of course.’
The beer came. It was horrible. The gherkins came. Simpson took no notice of them. Dazedly he watched and listened to those around him. A kind of ritual seemed to be being enacted by a group of four immediately next to him. The two couples raised their pints in concert, intoned the word ’Cheers’ in a liturgical manner, poured a few drops on to the front of their greasy pullovers, and sank their drinks in one swallow. Afterwards they all sighed loudly, wiped their mouths with their hands, banged the empty glasses down on the counter, and spoke in turn.
’Lovely drop of wallop.’
’First today.’
’I needed that.’
’Lays the dust.’
’You can’t beat a decent pint.’
’Full of goodness.’
’Keeps your insides working.’
’It’s a real drink.’
When this point was reached, all four shouted ’Let’s have another’ in unison, and were immediately served with fresh drinks and small plates of sandwiches. The bread on these was curled up at the corners, revealing purple strips of meat criss-crossed with gristle. One of the men felt the texture of the bread and nodded approvingly. ’I told you this place was good,’ his friend said. Then the party got down to what was clearly the pièce de résistance, alternately biting at the sandwiches and taking pulls of beer, chewing the resulting mush with many a belch of appreciation. Simpson lowered his head into his hands. The talk went on.
’What’s the fighting like here?’
’Oh, excellent. The governor of the boozer gets it under way at ten-thirty sharp, just outside on the corner. I did hear a whisper that he’s going to allow broken bottles for the last five minutes tonight. The police should be with us by then. They’re very keen round here.’
’At the Feathers, you know, they kick off at ten-fifteen inside the bar. Don’t know whether I agree with that.’
’No. After all, it’s only the finale of the evening.’
’Absolutely. Shouldn’t make it too important.’
’Definitely not. Getting tight’s the object of the exercise.’
’Quite. By the way, who’s that fellow next to you?’
’No idea. Wine-bar type, if you ask me.’
’Hasn’t touched his gherkins. Refused fresh bitter. Shouldn’t be here at all.’
’Couldn’t agree more. I mean, look at his clothes.’
’Wonder how long since they were slept in.’
`If they ever have been.’
’Disgusting.’
’And what would you like to follow, love?’
This last was the barmaid. Simpson raised his head and gave a long yell of fury, bewilderment, horror and protest. Then he ran from the room and went on running until he was back at the point where the TIOPEPE was to pick him up. With shaking fingers he put the trance-pill into his mouth.

The Director broke the silence that followed the end of Simpson’s story. ’Well, it’s a long time ahead, anyway,’ he said with an attempt at cheerfulness.
’Is it?’ Simpson shouted. ’Do you think that sort of situation develops in a couple of weeks? It’s starting to happen already. Wine-snobbery spreading, more and more of this drinking what you ought to drink instead of what you like. Self-conscious insistence on the virtues of pubs and beer because the wrong people are beginning to drink wine. It’ll be here in our time, don’t you worry. You just wait.’
‘Ah, now, Simpson, you’re tired and overwrought. A glass of champagne will soon make you see things in a different light.’
’Slip away with me afterwards,’ I murmured. ’We’ll have a good go at the beer down in town.’
Simpson gave a long yell — much like the one, probably, he vented at the end of his visit to 2010. Springing to his feet, he rushed away down the lab to where Schneider kept the medical stores.
’What’s he up to?’ the Director puffed as we hurried in pursuit. ’Is he going to try and poison himself?’
’Not straight away, sir, I imagine.’
’How do you mean, Baker?’
’Look at that bottle he’s got hold of, sir. Can’t you see what it is?’
’But . . . I can’t believe my eyes. Surely it’s . . .’
’Yes, sir. Surgical spirit.’

THE FRIENDS OF PLONK (1964)

The (technical) success of Simpson’s trip to the year 2010 encouraged the authorities to have similar experiments conducted for a variety of time-objectives. Some curious and occasionally alarming pieces of information about the future came to our knowledge in this way; I’m thinking less of politics than of developments in the domain of drink.
For instance, let me take this opportunity of warning every youngster who likes any kind of draught beer and has a high life-expectancy to drink as much of the stuff as he can while he can, because they’re going to stop making it in 2016. Again, just six months ago Simpson found that, in the world of 2045, alcoholic diseases as a whole accounted for almost exactly a third of all deaths, or nearly as many as transport accidents and suicide combined. This was universally put down to the marketing, from 2039 onwards, of wines and spirits free of all the congeneric elements that cause hangovers, and yet at the same time indistinguishable from the untreated liquors even under the most searching tests — a triumph of biochemitechnology man had been teasingly on the brink of since about the time I was downing my first pints of beer.
Anyway, by a lucky accident, the authorities suddenly became anxious to know the result of the 2048 Presidential election in America, and so Simpson was able to travel to that year and bring back news, not only of the successful Rosicrucian candidate’s impending installation at the Black House, but also of the rigorous outlawing of the new drink process and everything connected with it. After one veiled reference to the matter in conversation, Simpson had considered himself lucky to escape undamaged from the bar of the Travellers’ Club.
For a time, our section’s exploration of the rather more distant future was blocked by a persistent fault in the TIOPEPE, whereby the projection circuits cut off at approximately 83.63 years in advance of time-present. Then, one day in 1974, an inspired guess of Rabaiotti’s put things right, and within a week Simpson was off to 2145. We were all there in the lab as usual to see him back safely. After Schneider had given him the usual relaxing shots, Simpson came out with some grave news. A quarrel about spy-flights over the moons of Saturn had set Wales and Mars — the two major powers in the Inner Planets at that period — at each other’s throats and precipitated a system-wide nuclear war in 2101. Half of Venus, and areas on Earth the size of Europe, had been virtually obliterated.
Rabaiotti was the first to speak when Simpson had stopped. ’Far enough off not to bother most of our great-grandchildren, anyway,’ he said.
’That’s true. But what a prospect.’
’I know,’ I said.
’Well, no use glooming, Baker,’ the Director said. ’Nothing we can do about it. We’ve got a full half-hour before the official conference — tell us what’s happened to drink.’
Simpson rubbed his bald head and sighed. I noticed that his eyes were bloodshot, but then they nearly always were after one of these trips. A very conscientious alcohologist, old Simpson. ’You’re not going to like it.’
We didn’t.

Simpson’s landing in 2145 had been a fair enough success, but there had been an unaccountable error in the ground-level estimates, conducted a week earlier by means of our latest brain-child, the TIAMARIA (Temporal Inspection Apparatus and Meteorological-Astronomical-Regional-Interrelation Assessor). This had allowed him to materialise twelve feet up in the air and given him a nasty fall — on to a flower-bed, by an unearned piece of luck, but shaking him severely. What followed shook him still further.
The nuclear war had set everything back so much that the reconstructed world he found himself in was little more unfamiliar than the ones he had found on earlier, shorter-range time-trips. His official report, disturbing as it was, proved easy enough to compile, and he had a couple of hours to spare before the TIOPEPE ’s field should snatch him back to the present. He selected a restaurant within easy range of his purse — the TIAMARIA’s cameras, plus our counterfeiters in the Temporal Treasury, had taken care of the currency problem all right — found a vacant table, and asked for a drink before dinner.
’Certainly, sir,’ the waiter said. ’The Martian manatee-milk is specially good today. Or there’s a new delivery of Iapetan carnivorous-lemon juice, if you’ve a liking for the unusual. Very, uh, full- blooded, sir.’
Simpson swallowed. ’I’m sure,’ he said, ’but I was thinking of something — you know — a little stronger?’
The waiter’s manner suffered an abrupt change. ’Oh, you mean booze, do you?’ he said coldly. ’Sometimes I wonder what this town’s coming to, honest. All right, I’ll see what I can do.’
The ’booze’ arrived on a tin tray in three chunky cans arranged like equal slices of a round cake. The nearest one had the word BEAR crudely stamped on it. Simpson poured some muddy brown liquid from it into a glass. It tasted like last week’s swipes topped up with a little industrial alcohol. Then he tried the can stamped BOOJLY. (We all agreed later that this must be a corruption of ’Beaujolais’.) That was like red ink topped up with a good deal of industrial alcohol. Lastly there was BANDY. Industrial alcohol topped up with a little cold tea.
Wondering dimly if some trick of the TIOPEPE had managed to move him back into some unfrequented corner of the 1960s, Simpson became aware that a man at the next table had been watching him closely. When their eyes met, the stranger came over and, with a word of apology, sat down opposite him. (It was extraordinary, Simpson was fond of remarking, how often people did just this sort of thing when he visited the future.)
’Do excuse me,’ the man said politely, ’but from your expression just now I’d guess you’re a conozer — am I right? Oh, my name’s Piotr Davies, by the way, on leave from Greenland Fruiteries. You’re not Earth-based, I take it?’
’Oh . . . no, I’m just in from Mercury. My first trip since I was a lad, in fact.’ Simpson noticed that Piotr Davies’s face was covered by a thick network of burst veins, and his nose carried the richest growth of grog-blossom Simpson had ever seen. (He avoided looking at the Director when he told us this.) ’Yes,’ he struggled on after giving his name, am a bit of a connoiss — conozer, I suppose. I do try to discriminate a little in my — ’
’You’ve hit it,’ Piotr Davies said excitedly. ’Discrimination. That’s it, the very word. I knew I was right about you. Discrimination. And tradition. Well, you won’t find much of either on Earth these days, I’m afraid. Nor on Mercury, from what I hear.’
’No — no, you certainly won’t.’
’We conozers are having a hard time. The Planetary War, of course. And the Aftermath.’ Davies paused, and seemed to be sizing up Simpson afresh. Then: ’Tell me, are you doing anything tonight? More or less right away?’
’Well, I have got an appointment I must keep in just under two hours, but until then I — ’
’Perfect. Let’s go.’
’But what about my dinner?’
’You won’t want any after you’ve been where I’m going to take you.’
But where are you — ?’
’Somewhere absolutely made for a conozer like you. What a bit of luck you happened to run into me. I’ll explain on the way.’
Outside, they boarded a sort of wheelless taxicab and headed into what seemed to be a prosperous quarter. Davies’s explanations were copious and complete; Simpson made full use of his supposed status as one long absent from the centre of things. It appeared that the Planetary War had destroyed every one of the vast, centralised, fully automated distilleries of strong liquors; that bacteriological warfare had put paid to many crops, including vines, barley, hops and even sugar; that the fanatical religious movements of the Aftermath, many of them with government backing, had outlawed all drink for nearly twenty years. Simpson shuddered at that news.
’And when people came to their senses,’ Davies said glumly, ’it was too late. The knowledge had died. Oh, you can’t kill a process like distillation. Too fundamental. Or fermentation, either. But the special processes, the extra ingredients, the skills, the tradition — gone for ever. Whisky — what a rich, evocative word. What can the stuff have tasted like? What little there is about it in the surviving literature gives a very poor idea. Muzzle — that was a white wine, we’re pretty sure, from Germany, about where the Great Crater is. Gin — a spirit flavoured with juniper, we know that much. There isn’t any juniper now, of course.
`So, what with one thing and another, drinking went out. Real, civilised drinking, that is — I’m not talking about that stuff they tried to give you back there. I and a few like-minded friends tried to get some of the basic information together, but to no avail. And then, quite by chance, one of us, an archaeologist, turned up a primitive two-dimensional television film that dated back almost two hundred years, giving a full description of some ancient drinks and a portrayal of the habits that went with them — all the details. The film was called ’The Down-and-Outs’, which is an archaic expression referring to people of limited prosperity, but which we immediately understood as being satirically or ironically intended in this instance. That period, you know, was very strong on satire. Anyway, the eventual result of our friend’s discovery was . . . this.’
With something of a flourish, Davies drew a pasteboard card from his pocket and passed it to Simpson. It read:

THE FRIENDS OF PLONK
Established 2139 for the drinking of
traditional liquors in traditional
dress and in traditional surroundings

Before Simpson could puzzle this out, his companion halted the taxi and a moment later was shepherding him through the portals of a large and magnificent mansion. At the far end of a thickly carpeted foyer was a steep, narrow staircase, which they descended. When they came to its foot, Davies reached into a cupboard and brought out what Simpson recognised as a trilby hat of the sort his father had used to wear, a cloth cap, a large piece of sacking and a tattered brown blanket. All four articles appeared to be covered with stains and dirt. At the same time Simpson became aware of a curious and unpleasant mixture of smells and a subdued grumbling of voices.
In silence, Davies handed him the cap and the blanket and himself donned the sacking, stole-fashion, and the trilby. Simpson followed his lead. Then Davies ushered him through a low doorway.
The room they entered was dimly lit by candles stuck into bottles, and it was a moment before Simpson could take in the scene. At first he felt pure astonishment. There was no trace here of the luxury he had glimpsed upstairs: the walls, of undressed stone, were grimy and damp, the floor was covered at random with sacks and decaying lumps of matting. A coke stove made the cellar stiflingly hot; the air swam with cigarette smoke; the atmosphere was thick and malodorous. Against one wall stood a trestle table piled with bottles and what looked like teacups. Among other items Simpson uncomprehendingly saw there were several loaves of bread, some bottles of milk, a pile of small circular tins and, off in a corner, an old-fashioned and rusty gas-cooker or its replica.
But his surprise and bewilderment turned to mild alarm when he surveyed the dozen or so men sitting about on packing-cases or broken chairs and squatting or sprawling on the floor, each wearing some sort of battered headgear and with a blanket or sack thrown round his shoulders. All of them were muttering unintelligibly, in some instances to a companion, more often just to themselves. Davies took Simpson’s arm and led him to a splintery bench near the wall.
’These blankets and so on must have been a means of asserting the essential democracy of drink,’ Davies whispered. ’Anyway, we’re near the end of the purely ritualistic part now. Our film didn’t make its full significance clear, but it was obviously a kind of self-preparation, perhaps even prayer. The rest of the proceedings will be much less formal. Ah . . .’
Two of the men had been muttering more loudly at each other and now closed physically, but their blows and struggles were symbolic, a mime, as in ballet or the Japanese theatre. Soon one of them had his adversary pinned to the floor and was raining token punches upon him. (We’re rather in the dark about this bit,’ Davies murmured. ’Perhaps an enacted reference to the ancient role of drink as a sequel to physical exertion.’) When the prostrate combatant had begun to feign unconsciousness, a loud and authoritative voice spoke.
’End of Part One.’
At once all was animation: everybody sprang up and threw off his borrowed garments, revealing himself as smartly clad in the formal dress of the era. Davies led Simpson up to the man who had made the announcement, probably a member of one of the professions and clearly the host of the occasion. His face was sprayed with broken veins to a degree that outdid Davies’s.
’Delighted you can join us,’ the host said when Simpson’s presence had been explained. ’A privilege to have an Outworlder at one of our little gatherings. Now for our Part Two. Has Piotr explained to you about the ancient film that taught us so much? Well, its second and third sections were so badly damaged as to be almost useless to us. So what’s to follow is no more than an imaginative reconstruction, I fear, but I think it can be said that we’ve interpreted the tradition with taste and reverence. Let’s begin, shall we?’
He signed to an attendant standing at the table; the man began filling the teacups with a mixture of two liquids. One came out of something like a wine-bottle and was red, the other came out of something like a medicine bottle and was almost transparent, with a faint purplish tinge. Courteously passing Simpson the first of the cups, the host said: ’Please do us the honour of initiating the proceedings.’
Simpson drank. He felt as if someone had exploded a tear-gas shell in his throat and then sprayed his gullet with curry-powder. As his own coughings and weepings subsided he was surprised to find his companions similarly afflicted in turn as they drank.
’Interesting, isn’t it?’ the host asked, wheezing and staggering. ’A fine shock to the palate. One might perhaps say that it goes beyond the merely gustatory and olfactory to the purely tactile. Hardly a sensuous experience at all – ascetic, almost abstract. An invention of genius, don’t you think?’
’What — what’s the . . . ?’
’Red Biddy, my dear fellow,’ Piotr Davies put in proudly. There was reverence in his voice when he added: ’Red wine and methylated spirits. Of course, we can’t hope to reproduce the legendary Empire Burgundy-characters that used to go into it, but our own humble Boojly isn’t a bad substitute. Its role is purely ancillary, after all.’
’We like to use a straw after the first shock.’ The host passed one to Simpson. ’I hope you approve of the teacups. A nice traditional touch, I think. And now, do make yourself comfortable. I must see to the plonk in person — one can’t afford to take risks.’
Simpson sat down near Davies on a packing-case. He realised after a few moments that it was actually carved out of a single block of wood. Then he noticed that the dampness of the walls was maintained by tiny water-jets at intervals near the ceiling. Probably the sacks on the floor had been specially woven and then artificially aged. Pretending to suck at his straw, he said nervously to Davies: ’What exactly do you mean by plonk? In my time, people usually. . .’ He broke off, fearful of having betrayed himself, but the man of the future had noticed nothing.
`Ah, you’re in for a great experience, my dear friend, something unknown outside this room for countless decades. To our ancestors in the later twentieth century it may have been the stuff of daily life, but to us it’s a pearl beyond price, a precious fragment salvaged from the wreck of history. Watch carefully — every bit of this is authentic.’
With smarting eyes, Simpson saw his host pull the crumb from a loaf and stuff it into the mouth of an enamel jug. Then, taking a candle from a nearby bottle, he put the flame to a disc-shaped cake of brownish substance that the attendant was holding between tongs. A flame arose; liquid dropped on to the bread and began to soak through into the jug; the assembled guests clapped and cheered. Another brownish cake was treated in the same way, then another. ’Shoe-polish,’ Simpson said in a cracked voice.
’Exactly. We’re on the dark tans this evening, with just a touch of ox-blood to give body. Makes a very big, round, pugnacious drink. By the way, that’s processed bread he’s using. Wholemeal’s too permeable, we’ve found.’
Beaming, the host came over to Simpson with a half-filled cup, a breakfast cup this time. ’Down in one, my dear chap,’ he said.
They were all watching; there was nothing for it. Simpson shut his eyes and drank. This time a hundred blunt dental drills seemed to be working at once on his nose and throat and mouth. Fluid sprang from all the mucous membranes in those areas. It was like having one’s face pushed into a bath of acid. Simpson’s shoulders sagged and his eyes filmed over.
’I’d say the light tans have got more bite,’ a voice said near him. ’Especially on the gums.’
’Less of a follow-through, on the other hand.’ There was the sound of swallowing and then a muffled scream. ’Were you here for the plain-tan tasting last month? Wonderful fire and vehemence. I was blind for the next four days.’
’I still say you can’t beat a straight brown for all-round excoriation. Amazing results on the uvula and tonsils.’
’What’s wrong with black?’ This was a younger voice.
An embarrassed silence, tempered by a fit of coughing and a heartfelt moan from different parts of the circle, was ended by someone saying urbanely: ’Each to his taste, of course, and there is impact there, but I think experience shows that that sooty, oil-smoke quality is rather meretricious. Most of us find ourselves moving tanwards as we grow older.’
`Ah, good, he’s . . . yes, he’s using a tin of transparent in the next jug. Watch for the effect on the septum,’
Simpson lurched to his feet. ’I must be going,’ he muttered. ’Important engagement.’
’What, you’re not staying for the coal-gas in milk? Turns the brain to absolute jelly, you know.’
’Sorry . . . friend waiting for me.’
’Goodbye, then. Give our love to Mercury. Perhaps you’ll be able to start a circle of the Friends of Plonk on your home planet. That would be a magnificent thought.’

’Magnificent,’ the Director echoed bitterly. ’Just think of it. The idea of an atomic war’s too much to take in, but those poor devils . . . Baker, we must prepare some information for Simpson to take on his next long-range trip, something that’ll show them how to make a decent vodka or gin even if the vines have all gone.’
I was hardly listening. ’Aren’t there some queer things about that world, sir? Shoe-polish in just the same variants that we know? Wholemeal bread when the crops are supposed to have — ’
I was interrupted by a shout from the far end of the lab, where Rabaiotti had gone to check the TIAMARIA. He turned and came racing towards us, babbling at the top of his voice.
’Phase distortion, sir! Anomalous tracking on the output side! Completely new effect!’
’And the TIOPEPE’s meshed with it, isn’t it?’ Schneider said.
’Of course!’ I yelled. ’Simpson was on a different time-path, sir! An alternative probability, a parallel world. No wonder the ground-level estimate was off. This is amazing!’
’No nuclear war in our time-path — no certainty, anyway,’ the Director sang, waving his arms.
’No destruction of the vines.’
’No Friends of Plonk.’
’All the same,’ Simpson murmured to me as we strolled towards the Conference Room, ’in some ways they’re better off than we are. At least the stuff they use is genuine. Nobody’s going to doctor bloody shoe-polish to make it taste smoother or to preserve it or so that you’ll mistake it for a more expensive brand. And it can only improve, what they drink.’
’Whereas we . . .’
’Yes. That draught beer you go on about isn’t draught at all: it comes out of a giant steel bottle these days, because it’s easier that way. And do you think the Germans are the greatest chemists in the world for nothing? Ask Schneider about the 1972 Moselles. And what do you imagine all those scientists are doing in Bordeaux?’
’There’s Italy and Spain and Greece. They’ll — ’
’Not Italy any more. Ask Rabaiotti, or rather don’t. Spain and Greece’ll last longest, probably, but by 1980 you’ll have to go to Albania if you want real wine. Provided the Chinese won’t have started helping them to get the place modernised.’
’What are you going to do about it?’
’Switch to whisky. That’s still real. In fact I’m going to take a bottle home tonight. Can you lend me twenty-five quid?’

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The Third Expedition by Ray Bradbury (with thoughts on the tunnel of light)

Imagine that you died. And there, as you are leaving your body, you are welcomed with long dead friends, and relatives. They welcome you, and it is a joyous time. They take you by the hand and lead you towards the bright tunnel of light.

Would you go with them?

This is a story that ponders that question.

…

Without a doubt one of the Bradbury stories that has made the biggest impression on me. It’s about strategy.

And horror.

The story is taken from Bradbury’s amazing The Martian Chronicles, a collection of short stories strung together to tell the story of what happens when human beings try to colonize Mars.

In this particular tale, an expedition from Earth to Mars encounters a town that seems eerily, yet comfortingly, familiar to them. It’s even populated by long-lost relatives and family.

But, of course, it doesn’t have a happy ending.

The Third Expedition by Ray Bradbury

The ship came down from space. It came from the stars and

the black velocities, and the shining movements, and the silent

gulfs of space. It was a new ship; it had fire in its body and

men in its metal cells, and it moved with a clean silence,

fiery and warm. In it were seventeen men, induding a captain.

The crowd at the Ohio field had shouted and waved their hands

up into the sunlight, and the rocket had bloomed out great

flowers of heat and color and run away into space on the

_third_ voyage to Mars!

Now it was decelerating with metal efficiency in the

upper Martian atmospheres. It was still a thing of beauty

and strength. It had moved in the midnight waters of space like

a pale sea leviathan; it had passed the ancient moon and thrown

itself onward into one nothingness following another. The men

within it had been battered, thrown about, sickened, made well

again, each in his turn. One man had died, but now the

remaining sixteen, with their eyes clear in their heads and

their faces pressed to the thick glass ports, watched Mars

swing up under them.

“Mars!” cried Navigator Lustig.

“Good old Mars!” said Samuel Hinkston, archaeologist.

“Well,” said Captain John Black.

The rocket landed on a lawn of green grass. Outside, upon

this lawn, stood an iron deer. Further up on the green stood

a tall brown Victorian house, quiet in the sunlight, all

covered with scrolls and rococo, its windows made of blue and

pink and yellow and green colored glass. Upon the porch were

hairy geraniums and an old swing which was hooked into the

porch ceiling and which now swung back and forth, back and

forth, in a little breeze. At the summit of the house was a

cupola with diamond leaded-glass windows and a dunce-cap roof!

Through the front window you could see a piece of music

titled “Beautiful Ohio” sitting on the music rest.

Around the rocket in four directions spread the little

town, green and motionless in the Martian spring. There were

white houses and red brick ones, and tall elm trees blowing in

the wind, and tall maples and horse chestnuts. And church

steeples with golden bells silent in them.

The rocket men looked out and saw this. Then they looked

at one another and then they looked out again. They held to

each other’s elbows, suddenly unable to breathe, it seemed,

Their faces grew pale.

“I’ll be damned,” whispered Lustig, rubbing his face with

his numb fingers. “I’ll be damned.”

“It just can’t be,” said Samuel Hinkston.

“Lord,” said Captain John Black.

There was a call from the chemist. “Sir, the atmosphere

is thin for breathing. But there’s enough oxygen. It’s safe.”

“Then we’ll go out,” said Lustig.

“Hold on,” said Captain John Black. “How do we know what

this is?”

“It’s a small town with thin but breathable air in it,

sir.”

“And it’s a small town the like of Earth towns,” said

Hinkston, the archaeologist “Incredible. It can’t be, but it

_is_.”

Captain John Black looked at him idly. “Do you think that

the civilizations of two planets can progress at the same rate

and evolve in the same way, Hinkston?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so, sir.”

Captain Black stood by the port. “Look out there.

The geraniums. A specialized plant. That specific variety has

only been known on Earth for fifty years. Think of the

thousands of years it takes to evolve plants. Then tell me if

it is logical that the Martians should have: one, leaded-glass

windows; two, cupolas; three, porch swings; four, an instrument

that looks like a piano and probably is a piano; and five, if

you look closely through this telescopic lens here, is it

logical that a Martian composer would have published a piece

of music titled, strangely enough, ‘Beautiful Ohio’? All of

which means that we have an Ohio River on Mars!”

“Captain Williams, of course!” cried Hinkston,

“What?”

“Captain Williams and his crew of three men! Or Nathaniel

York and his partner. That would explain it!”

“That would explain absolutely nothing. As far as we’ve

been able to figure, the York expedition exploded the day

it reached Mars, killing York and his partner. As for Williams

and his three men, their ship exploded the second day after

their arrival. At least the pulsations from their radios ceased

at that time, so we figure that if the men were alive after

that they’d have contacted us. And anyway, the York expedition

was only a year ago, while Captain Williams and his men landed

here some time during last August. Theorizing that they are

still alive, could they, even with the help of a brilliant

Martian race, have built such a town as this and _aged_ it in

so short a time? Look at that town out there; why, it’s been

standing here for the last seventy years. Look at the wood on

the porch newel; look at the trees, a century old, all of them!

No, this isn’t York’s work or Williams’. It’s something else.

I don’t like it. And I’m not leaving the ship until I know what

it is.”

“For that matter,” said Lustig, nodding, “Williams and his

men, as well as York, landed on the _opposite_ side of Mars.

We were very careful to land on _this_ side.”

“An excellent point. Just in case a hostile local tribe

of Martians killed off York and Williams, we have instructions

to land in a further region, to forestall a recurrence of such

a disaster. So here we are, as far as we know, in a land

that Williams and York never saw.”

“Damn it,” said Hinkston, “I want to get out into this

town, sir, with your permission. It may be there are similar

thought patterns, civilization graphs on every planet in our

sun system. We may be on the threshold of the greatest

psychological and metaphysical discovery of our age!”

“I’m willing to wait a moment,” said Captain John Black.

“It may be, sir, that we’re looking upon a phenomenon

that, for the first time, would absolutely prove the existence

of God, sir.”

“There are many people who are of good faith without such

proof, Mr. Hinkston.”

“I’m one myself, sir. But certainly a town like this could

not occur without divine intervention. The _detail_. It fills

me with such feelings that I don’t know whether to laugh or

cry.”

“Do neither, then, until we know what we’re up against.”

“Up against?” Lustig broke in. “Against nothing, Captain.

It’s a good, quiet green town, a lot like the old-fashioned one

I was born in. I like the looks of it.”

“When were you born, Lustig?”

“Nineteen-fifty, sir.”

“And you, Hinkston?”

“Nineteen fifty-five, sir. Grinnell, Iowa. And this looks

like home to me.”

“Hinkston, Lustig, I could be either of your fathers. I’m

just eighty years old. Born in 1920 in Illinois, and through

the grace of God and a science that, in the last fifty years,

knows how to make _some_ old men young again, here I am on

Mars, not any more tired than the rest of you, but infinitely

more suspicious. This town out here looks very peaceful and

cool, and so much like Green Bluff, Illinois, that it frightens

me. It’s too _much_ like Green Bluff.” He turned to the

radioman. “Radio Earth. Tell them we’ve landed. That’s all.

Tell them we’ll radio a full report tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

Captain Black looked out the rocket port with his face

that should have been the face of a man eighty but seemed like

the face of a man in his fortieth year. “Tell you what we’ll

do, Lustig; you and I and Hinkston’ll look the town over. The

other men’ll stay aboard. If anything happens they can get the

hell out. A loss of three men’s better than a whole ship.

If something bad happens, our crew can warn the next rocket.

That’s Captain Wilder’s rocket, I think, due to be ready to

take off next Christmas. if there’s something hostile about

Mars we certainly want the next rocket to be well armed.”

“So are we. We’ve got a regular arsenal with us.”

“Tell the men to stand by the guns then. Come on,

Lustig, Hinkston.”

The three men walked together down through the levels of

the ship.

It was a beautiful spring day. A robin sat on a blossoming

apple tree and sang continuously. Showers of petal snow sifted

down when the wind touched the green branches, and the blossom

scent drifted upon the air. Somewhere in the town someone

was playing the piano and the music came and went, came and

went, softly, drowsily. The song was “Beautiful Dreamer.”

Somewhere else a phonograph, scratchy and faded, was hissing

out a record of “Roamin’ in the Gloamin’,” sung by Harry

Lauder.

The three men stood outside the ship. They sucked and

gasped at the thin, thin air and moved slowly so as not to

tire themselves.

Now the phonograph record being played was:

“_Oh, give me a June night

The moonlight and you_ . . .”

Lustig began to tremble. Samuel Hinkston did likewise.

The sky was serene and quiet, and somewhere a stream of

water ran through the cool caverns and tree shadings of a

ravine. Somewhere a horse and wagon trotted and rolled by,

bumping.

“Sir,” said Samuel Hinkston, “it must be, it _has_ to be,

that rocket travel to Mars began in the years before the first

World War!”

“No.”

“How else can you explain these houses, the iron deer,

the pianos, the music?” Hinkston took the captain’s elbow

persuasively and looked into the captain’s face. “Say that

there were people in the year 1905 who hated war and got

together with some scientists in secret and built a rocket and

came out here to Mars–”

“No, no, Hinkston.”

“Why not? The world was a different world in 1905; they

could have kept it a secret much more easily.”

“But a complex thing like a rocket, no, you couldn’t keep

it secret.”

“And they came up here to live, and naturally the houses

they built were similar to Earth houses because they brought

the culture with them.”

“And they’ve lived here all these years?” said the

captain.

“In peace and quiet, yes. Maybe they made a few trips,

enough to bring enough people here for one small town, and

then stopped for fear of being discovered. That’s why this town

seems so old-fashioned. I don’t see a thing, myself, older than

the year 1927, do you? Or maybe, sir, rocket travel is older

than we think. Perhaps it started in some part of the world

centuries ago and was kept secret by the small number of men

who came to Mars with only occasional visits to Earth over

the centuries.”

“You make it sound almost reasonable.”

“It has to be. We’ve the proof here before us; all we have

to do is find some people and verify it.”

Their boots were deadened of all sound in the thick green

grass. It smelled from a fresh mowing. In spite of himself,

Captain John Black felt a great peace come over him. It had

been thirty years since he had been in a small town, and the

buzzing of spring bees on the air lulled and quieted him, and

the fresh look of things was a balm to the soul.

They set foot upon the porch. Hollow echoes sounded from

under the boards as they walked to the screen door. Inside they

could see a bead curtain hung across the hall entry, and a

crystal chandelier and a Maxfield Parrish painting framed on

one wall over a comfortable Morris chair. The house smelled

old, and of the attic, and infinitely comfortable. You could

hear the tinkle of ice in a lemonade pitcher. In a distant

kitchen, because of the heat of the day, someone was preparing

a cold lunch. Someone was humming under her breath, high and

sweet.

Captain John Black rang the bell.

Footsteps, dainty and thin, came along the hall, and

a kind-faced lady of some forty years, dressed in a sort of

dress you might expect in the year 1909, peered out at them.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Beg your pardon,” said Captain Black uncertainly. “But

we’re looking for–that is, could you help us–” He stopped.

She looked out at him with dark, wondering eyes.

“If you’re selling something–” she began.

“No, wait!” he cried. “What town is this?”

She looked him up and down. “What do you mean, what town

is it? How could you be in a town and not know the name?”

The captain looked as if he wanted to go sit under a shady

apple tree. “We’re strangers here. We want to know how this

town got here and how you got here.”

“Are you census takers?”

“No.”

“Everyone knows,” she said, “this town was built in 1868.

Is this a game?”

“No, not a game!” cried the captain. “We’re from Earth.”

“Out of the _ground_, do you mean?” she wondered.

“No, we came from the third planet, Earth, in a ship. And

we’ve landed here on the fourth planet, Mars–”

“This,” explained the woman, as if she were addressing

a child, “is Green Bluff, Illinois, on the continent of

America, surrounded by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, on a

place called the world, or, sometimes, the Earth. Go away

now. Goodby.”

She trotted down the hall, running her fingers through

the beaded curtains.

The three men looked at one another.

“Let’s knock the screen door in,” said Lustig.

“We can’t do that. This is private property. Good God!”

They went to sit down on the porch step.

“Did it ever strike you, Hinkston, that perhaps we

got ourselves somehow, in some way, off track, and by accident

came back and landed on Earth?”

“How could we have done that?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. Oh God, let me think.”

Hinkston said, “But we checked every mile of the way.

Our chronometers said so many miles. We went past the Moon and

out into space, and here we are. I’m _positive_ we’re on Mars.”

Lustig said, “But suppose, by accident, in space, in time,

we got lost in the dimensions and landed on an Earth that is

thirty or forty years ago.”

“Oh, go away, Lustig!”

Lustig went to the door, rang the bell, and called into

the cool dim rooms: “What year is this?”

“Nineteen twenty-six, of course,” said the lady, sitting

in a rocking chair, taking a sip of her lemonade.

“Did you hear that?” Lustig turned wildly to the others.

“Nineteen twenty-six! We _have_ gone back in time! This _is_

Earth!”

Lustig sat down, and the three men let the wonder and

terror of the thought afflict them. Their hands stirred

fitfully on their knees. The captain said, “I didn’t ask for

a thing like this. It scares the hell out of me. How can a

thing like this happen? I wish we’d brought Einstein with us.”

“Will anyone in this town believe us?” said Hinkston. “Are

we playing with something dangerous? Time, I mean. Shouldn’t

we just take off and go home?”

“No. Not until we try another house.”

They walked three houses down to a little white cottage

under an oak tree. “I like to be as logical as I can be,” said

the captain. “And I don’t believe we’ve put our finger on it

yet. Suppose, Hinkston, as you originally suggested, that

rocket travel occurred years ago? And when the Earth people

lived here a number of years they began to get homesick for

Earth. First a mild neurosis about it, then a full-fledged

psychosis. Then threatened insanity. What would you do as

a psychiatrist if faced with such a problem?”

Hinkston thought “Well, I think I’d rearrange the

civilization on Mars so it resembled Earth more and more each

day. If there was any way of reproducing every plant, every

road, and every lake, and even an ocean, I’d do so. Then by

some vast crowd hypnosis I’d convince everyone in a town this

size that this really _was_ Earth, not Mars at all.”

“Good enough, Hinkston. I think we’re on the right track

now. That woman in that house back there just _thinks_ she’s

living on Earth. It protects her sanity. She and all the others

in this town are the patients of the greatest experiment

in migration and hypnosis you will ever lay eyes on in your

life.”

“That’s _it_, sir!” cried Lustig.

“Right!” said Hinkston.

“Well.” The captain sighed. “Now we’ve got somewhere. I

feel better. It’s all a bit more logical. That talk about time

and going back and forth and traveling through time turns

my stomach upside down. But _this_ way–” The captain smiled.

“Well, well, it looks as if we’ll be fairly popular here.”

“Or will we?” said Lustig. “After all, like the Pilgrims,

these people came here to escape Earth. Maybe they won’t be

too happy to see us. Maybe they’ll try to drive us out or kill

us.”

“We have superior weapons. This next house now. Up we go.”

But they had hardly crossed the lawn when Lustig stopped

and looked off across the town, down the quiet, dreaming

afternoon street. “Sir,” he said.

“What is it, Lustig?”

“Oh, sir, _sir_, what I _see_–” said Lustig, and he began

to cry. His fingers came up, twisting and shaking, and his face

was all wonder and joy and incredulity. He sounded as if at

any moment he might go quite insane with happiness. He looked

down the street and began to run, stumbling awkwardly, falling,

picking himself up, and running on. “Look, look!”

“Don’t let him get away!” The captain broke into a run.

Now Lustig was running swiftly, shouting. He turned into

a yard halfway down the shady street and leaped up upon the

porch of a large green house with an iron rooster on the roof.

He was beating at the door, hollering and crying, when

Hinkston and the captain ran up behind him. They were all

gasping and wheezing, exhausted from their run in the thin

air. “Grandma! Grandpa!” cried Lustig.

Two old people stood in the doorway.

“David!” their voices piped, and they rushed out to

embrace and pat him on the back and move around him. “David,

oh, David, it’s been so many years! How you’ve grown, boy; how

big you are, boy. Oh, David boy, how are you?”

“Grandma, Grandpa!” sobbed David Lustig. “You look fine,

fine!” He held them, turned them, kissed them, hugged them,

cried on them, held them out again, blinking at the little

old people. The sun was in the sky, the wind blew, the grass

was green, the screen door stood wide.

“Come in, boy, come in. There’s iced tea for you, fresh,

lots of it!”

“I’ve got friends here.” Lustig turned and waved at the

captain and Hinkston frantically, laughing. “Captain, come on

up.”

“Howdy,” said the old people. “Come in. Any friends of

David’s are our friends too. Don’t stand there!”

In the living room of the old house it was cool, and

a grandfather clock ticked high and long and bronzed in one

corner. There were soft pillows on large couches and walls

filled with books and a rug cut in a thick rose pattern, and

iced tea in the hand, sweating, and cool on the thirsty tongue.

“Here’s to our health.” Grandma tipped her glass to

her porcelain teeth.

“How long you been here, Grandma?” said Lustig.

“Ever since we died,” she said tartly.

“Ever since you what?” Captain John Black set down his

glass.

“Oh yes.” Lustig nodded. “They’ve been dead thirty years.”

“And you sit there calmly!” shouted the captain.

“Tush.” The old woman winked glitteringly. “Who are you

to question what happens? Here we are. What’s life, anyway? Who

does what for why and where? All we know is here we are, alive

again, and no questions asked. A second chance.” She toddled

over and held out her thin wrist. “Feel.” The captain felt.

“Solid, ain’t it?” she asked. He nodded. “Well, then,” she

said triumphantly, “why go around questioning?”

“Well,” said the captain, “it’s simply that we never

thought we’d find a thing like this on Mars.”

“And now you’ve found it. I dare say there’s lots on every

planet that’ll show you God’s infinite ways.”

“Is this Heaven?” asked Hinkston.

“Nonsense, no. It’s a world and we get a second chance.

Nobody told us why. But then nobody told us why we were on

Earth, either. That other Earth, I mean. The one you came from.

How do we know there wasn’t _another_ before _that_ one?”

“A good question,” said the captain.

Lustig kept smiling at his grandparents. “Gosh, it’s good

to see you. Gosh, it’s good.”

The captain stood up and slapped his hand on his leg in

a casual fashion. “We’ve got to be going. Thank you for the

drinks.”

“You’ll be back, of course,” said the old people. “For

supper tonight?”

“We’ll try to make it, thanks. There’s so much to be done.

My men are waiting for me back at the rocket and–”

He stopped. He looked toward the door, startled.

Far away in the sunlight there was a sound of voices,

a shouting and a great hello.

“What’s that?” asked Hinkston,

“We’ll soon find out.” And Captain John Black was out the

front door abruptly, running across the green lawn into the

street of the Martian town.

He stood looking at the rocket. The ports were open and

his crew was streaming out, waving their hands. A crowd of

people had gathered, and in and through and among these people

the members of the crew were hurrying, talking, laughing,

shaking hands. People did little dances. People swarmed. The

rocket lay empty and abandoned.

A brass band exploded in the sunlight, flinging off a gay

tune from upraised tubas and trumpets. There was a bang of

drums and a shrill of fifes. Little girls with golden hair

jumped up and down. Little boys shouted, “Hooray!” Fat men

passed around ten-cent cigars. The town mayor made a speech.

Then each member of the crew, with a mother on one arm, a

father or sister on the other, was spirited off down the street

into little cottages or big mansions.

“Stop!” cried Captain Black.

The doors slammed shut.

The heat rose in the clear spring sky, and all was silent.

The brass band banged off around a corner, leaving the rocket

to shine and dazzle alone in the sunlight

“Abandoned!” said the captain. “They abandoned the ship,

they did! I’ll have their skins, by God! They had orders!”

“Sir,” said Lustig, “don’t be too hard on them. Those were

all old relatives and friends.”

“That’s no exuse!”

“Think how they felt, Captain, seeing familiar faces

outside the ship!”

“They had their orders, damn it!”

“But how would you have felt, Captain?”

“I would have obeyed orders–” The captain’s mouth

remained open.

Striding along the sidewalk under the Martian sun, tall,

smiling, eyes amazingly clear and blue, came a young man of

some twenty-six years. “John!” the man called out, and broke

into a trot.

“What?” Captain John Black swayed.

“John, you old son of a bitch!”

The man ran up and gripped his hand and slapped him on

the back.

“It’s you,” said Captain Black.

“Of course, who’d you _think_ it was?”

“Edward!” The captain appealed now to Lustig and Hinkston,

holding the stranger’s hand. “This is my brother Edward. Ed,

meet my men, Lustig, Hinkston! My brother!”

They tugged at each other’s hands and arms and then

finally embraced.

“Ed!”

“John, you bum, you!”

“You’re looking fine, Ed, but, Ed, what _is_ this? You

haven’t changed over the years. You died, I remember, when you

were twenty-six and I was nineteen. Good God, so many years

ago, and here you are and, Lord, what goes on?”

“Mom’s waiting,” said Edward Black, grinning.

“Mom?”

“And Dad too.”

“Dad?” The captain almost fell as if he had been hit by

a mighty weapon. He walked stiffly and without co.ordination.

“Mom and Dad alive? Where?”

“At the old house on Oak Knoll Avenue.”

“The old house.” The captain stared in delighted amaze.

“Did you hear that, Lustig, Hinkston?”

Hinkston was gone. He had seen his own house down the

street and was running for it. Lustig was laughing. “You

see, Captain, what happened to everyone on the rocket? They

couldn’t help themselves.”

“Yes. Yes.” The captain shut his eyes. “When I open my

eyes you’ll be gone.” He blinked. “You’re still there. God, Ed,

but you look _fine!_”

“Come on, lunch’s waiting. I told Mom.”

Lustig said, “Sir, I’ll be with my grandfolks if you need

me.”

“What? Oh, fine, Lustig. Later, then.”

Edward seized his arm and marched him. “There’s the

house. Remember it?”

“Hell! Bet I can beat you to the front porch!”

They ran. The trees roared over Captain Black’s head; the

earth roared under his feet. He saw the golden figure of Edward

Black pull ahead of him in the amazing dream of reality. He saw

the house rush forward, the screen door swing wide. “Beat you!”

cried Edward. “I’m an old man,” panted the captain, “and you’re

still young. But then, you _always_ beat me, I remember!”

In the doorway, Mom, pink, plump, and bright. Behind

her, pepper-gray, Dad, his pipe in his hand.

“Mom, Dad!”

He ran up the steps like a child to meet them.

It was a fine long afternoon. They finished a late lunch

and they sat in the parlor and he told them all about his

rocket and they nodded and smiled upon him and Mother was just

the same and Dad bit the end off a cigar and lighted

it thoughtfully in his old fashion. There was a big turkey

dinner at night and time flowing on. When the drumsticks were

sucked clean and lay brittle upon the plates, the captain

leaned back and exhaled his deep satisfaction, Night was in all

the trees and coloring the sky, and the lamps were halos of

pink light in the gentle house. From all the other houses down

the street came sounds of music, pianos playing, doors slammng.

Mom put a record on the victrola, and she and Captain John

Black had a dance. She was wearing the same perfume he

remembered from the summer when she and Dad had been killed in

the train accident. She was very real in his arms as they

danced lightly to the music. “It’s not every day,” she said,

“you get a second chance to live.”

“I’ll wake in the morning,” said the captain. “And I’ll be

in my rocket, in space, and all this will be gone.”

“No, don’t think that,” she cried softly. “Don’t question.

God’s good to us. Let’s be happy.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

The record ended in a circular hissing.

“You’re tired, Son.” Dad pointed with his pipe. “Your

old bedroom’s waiting for you, brass bed and all.”

“But I should report my men in.”

“Why?”

“Why? Well, I don’t know. No reason, I guess. No, none at

all. They’re all eating or in bed. A good night’s sleep won’t

hurt them.”

“Good night, Son.” Mom kissed his cheek. “It’s good to

have you home.”

“It’s good to _be_ home.”

He left the land of cigar smoke and perfume and books

and gentle light and ascended the stairs, talking, talking

with Edward. Edward pushed a door open, and there was the

yellow brass bed and the old semaphore banners from college and

a very musty raccoon coat which he stroked with muted

affection. “It’s too much,” said the captain. “I’m numb and

I’m tired. Too much has happened today. I feel as if I’d been

out in a pounding rain for forty-eight hours without an

umbrella or a coat. I’m soaked to the skin with emotion.”

Edward slapped wide the snowy linens and flounced the

pillows. He slid the window up and let the night-blooming

jasmine float in. There was moonlight and the sound of distant

dancing and whispering.

“So this is Mars,” said the captain, undressing.

“This is it.” Edward undressed in idle, leisurely moves,

drawing his shirt off over his head, revealing golden shoulders

and the good muscular neck.

The lights were out; they were in bed, side by side, as in

the days how many decades ago? The captain lolled and was

flourished by the scent of jasmine pushing the lace curtains

out upon the dark air of the room. Among the trees, upon a

lawn, someone had cranked up a portable phonograph and now it

was playing softly, “Always.”

The thought of Marilyn came to his mind.

“Is Marilyn here?”

His brother, lying straight out in the moonlight from

the window, waited and then said, “Yes. She’s out of town.

But she’ll be here in the morning.”

The captain shut his eyes. “I want to see Marilyn very

much.”

The room was square and quiet except for their breathing.

“Good night, Ed.”

A pause. “Good night, John.”

He lay peacefully, letting his thoughts float. For the

first time the stress of the day was moved aside; he could

think logically now, It had all been emotion. The bands

playing, the familiar faces. But now . . .

How? he wondered. How was all this made? And why? For

what purpose? Out of the goodness of some divine intervention?

Was God, then, really that thoughtful of his children? How and

why and what for?

He considered the various theories advanced in the first

heat of the afternoon by Hinkston and Lustig. He let all kinds

of new theories drop in lazy pebbles down through his mind,

turning, throwing out dull flashes of light. Mom. Dad. Edward.

Mars. Earth. Mars. Martians.

Who had lived here a thousand years ago on Mars? Martians?

Or had this always been the way it was today?

Martians. He repeated the word idly, inwardly.

He laughed out loud almost. He had the most ridiculous

theory quite suddenly. It gave him a kind of chill. It was

really nothing to consider, of course. Highly improbable.

Silly. Forget it. Ridiculous.

But, he thought, just _suppose_ . . . Just suppose, now,

that there were Martians living on Mars and they saw our ship

coming and saw us inside our ship and hated us, Suppose, now,

just for the hell of it, that they wanted to destroy us,

as invaders, as unwanted ones, and they wanted to do it in a

very clever way, so that we would be taken off guard. Well,

what would the best weapon be that a Martian could use against

Earth Men with atomic weapons?

The answer was interesting. Telepathy, hypnosis, memory,

and imagination.

Suppose all of these houses aren’t real at all, this bed

not real, but only figments of my own imagination, given

substance by telepathy and hypnosis through the Martians,

thought Captain John Black. Suppose these houses are really

some _other_ shape, a Martian shape, but, by playing on my

desires and wants, these Martians have made this seem like my

old home town, my old house, to lull me out of my suspicions.

What better way to fool a man, using his own mother and father

as bait?

And this town, so old, from the year 1926, long before

_any_ of my men were born. From a year when I was six years old

and there _were_ records of Harry Lauder, and Maxfield Parrish

paintings _still_ hanging, and bead curtains, and “Beautiful

Ohio,” and turn-of-the-century architecture. What if the

Martians took the memories of a town _exclusively_ from _my_

mind? They say childhood memories are the clearest. And after

they built the town from my mind, they populated it with

the most-loved people from all the minds of the people on

the rocket!

And suppose those two people in the next room, asleep, are

not my mother and father at all, But two Martians, incredibly

brilliant, with the ability to keep me under this dreaming

hypnosis all of the time.

And that brass band today? What a startlingly wonderful

plan it would be. First, fool Lustig, then Hinkston, then

gather a crowd; and all the men in the rocket, seeing mothers,

aunts, uncles, sweethearts, dead ten, twenty wears ago,

naturally, disregarding orders, rush out and abandon ship. What

more natural? What more unsuspecting? What more simple? A

man doesn’t ask too many questions when his mother is soddenly

brought back to life; he’s much too happy. And here we all

are tonight, in various houses, in various beds, with no

weapons to protect us, and the rocket lies in the moonlight,

empty. And wouldn’t it be horrible and terrifying to discover

that all of this was part of some great clever plan by the

Martians to divide and conquer us, and kill us? Sometime during

the night, perhaps, my brother here on this bed will change

form, melt, shift, and become another thing, a terrible thing,

a Martian. It would be very simple for him just to turn over in

bed and put a knife into my heart. And in all those other

houses down the street, a dozen other brothers or fathers

suddenly melting away and taking knives and doing things to

the unsuspecting, sleeping men of Earth. . . .

His hands were shaking under the covers. His body was

cold. Suddenly it was not a theory. Suddenly he was very

afraid.

He lifted himself in bed and listened. The night was very

quiet The music had stopped. The wind had died. His brother

lay sleeping beside him.

Carefully he lifted the covers, rolled them back. He

slipped from bed and was walking softly across the room when

his brother’s voice said, “Where are you going?”

“What?”

His brother’s voice was quite cold. “I said, where do you

think you’re going?”

“For a drink of water.”

“But you’re not thirsty.”

“Yes, yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

Captain John Black broke and ran across the room. He

screamed. He screamed twice.

He never reached the door.

In the morning the brass band played a mournful dirge.

From every house in the street came little solemn processions

bearing long boxes, and along the sun-filled street, weeping,

came the grandmas and mothers and sisters and brothers and

uncles and fathers, walking to the churchyard, where there were

new holes freshly dug and new tombstones installed. Sixteen

holes in all, and sixteen tombstones.

The mayor made a little sad speech, his face sometimes

looking like the mayor, sometimes looking like something else.

Mother and Father Black were there, with Brother Edward,

and they cried, their faces melting now from a familiar face

into something else.

Grandpa and Grandma Lustig were there, weeping, their

faces shifting like wax, shimmering as all things shimmer on a

hot day.

The coffins were lowered. Someone murmured about “the

unexpected and sudden deaths of sixteen fine men during the

night–”

Earth pounded down on the coffin lids.

The brass band, playing “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,”

marched and slammed back into town, and everyone took the day

off.

The End

Conclusion

And this is only the beginning.

Who knows what greatness, and strange mysteries lie in the future ahead of you?

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my Ray Bradbury Index here…

Ray Bradbury

Articles & Links

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The Mad Scientists of Mammoth Falls

I am more than a bit “burnt out” on all the Geo-political bullshit. When I read an article about “containing China”, and how “America is roaring back” I just exit the browser tab. I’ve have enough. I am “toast”.

America is so full-on crazy right now, and they treat us “citizens” as slaves, and dumbed down nincompoops. It’s just an insult to see what constitutes “news” these days.

Instead, what I want to do do is relive a simpler time when I was a boy. And for me, that meant chilling out with my dog, and my cat in my tree house. It meant riding all over town and going on “hikes” and all-day-long “bike rides” and exploring old abandoned bridges, trestles, tunnels, and long abandoned rural homes. It meant lazying around eating home-made sandwiches, and sprawling out upon the couch as I read one of my hundreds of boyhood paperback books.

And one of the books that I loved then, and still love today, is the “Mad Scientist’s Club” series of short stories.

I still remember the book fair as one of the highlights of my elementary school year. For a half hour or so the teacher would take us down the long hall to the multipurpose room. I lived in rural Western Pennsylvania, and my school was too small to have a separate gym. Though it did have a basement cafeteria and a library on the nearby High School. There, in the gym where table after table had been set up with stacks of books arranged by interest and age level.

I loved books as a kid and I always looked forward to the event.

As a boy, I used to hang out in the tree house with my cat and read. But other times my friends would come up and we would read comic books together, and do other things that kids are forbidden to do.

Some of the books I purchased there would shape my reading habits for the rest of my life. I still remember taking the two dollars my mom gave me for the fair and investing it in Chariots of the Gods. It was astounding to me, and I found it impossible to put down.

Since then I have collected a small mountain of paperbacks. With science fiction and history being my favorites. I also had some war literature, some “how to” books, and Marmaduke comics paperbacks.

Another book fair introduced me to yet another author: Bertrand R. Brinley.

Few of you will recognize his name, though some will fondly remember series he authored: The Mad Scientists’ Club (referred to as MSC among fans).

His initial work consisted of two volumes of short stories and a novel. A second novel written by Brinley but not really published until after his death completes the set. In my opinion his stories rank as one of the best young people’s reading series ever created.

I mean…

…the BEST.

Dinky Poore didn't really mean to start the story about the huge sea monster in Strawberry Lake. He was only telling a fib because he had to have an excuse for getting home late for supper. So he told his folks he'd been running around the lake trying to get a closer look at a huge, snakelike thing he'd seen in the water, and the first thing he knew he was too far from home to get back in time.

His mother and father greeted the tale with some skepticism. But Dinky's two sisters were more impressionable, and that's how the story really got out. They kept pestering him for so many details about the monster that he had to invent a fantastic tale to satisfy them.

That's one of the troubles with a lie. You've got to keep adding to it to make it believable to people.

It didn't take long for the story to get around town, and pretty soon Dinky Poore was a celebrity in Mammoth Falls. He even had his picture in the paper, together with an "artists conception" of the thing he'd seen. It was gruesome-looking -- something like a dinosaur, but with a scaly, saw-toothed back like a dragon. Dinky was never short on imagination, and he was able to give the artist plenty of details.

It was the artists' sketch in the newspaper that got Henry Mulligan all excited. Henry is First Vice President and also Chief of Research for the Mad Scientists' Club and is noted for his brainstorms. Neither Henry nor anyone else in the club actually believed Dinky had seen a real monster, but we were all willing to play along with the gag -- especially when Henry suggested that we could build a monster just like the one shown in the newspaper ...

Bertrand R. Brinley

Bertrand Brinley was born in Hudson, New York, in 1917. As a child he moved with his family from place to place, eventually living in West Newbury, Massachusetts as a teenager where he graduated from the local high school.

West Newbury, Massachusetts. Small town America.

He worked at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in California as a systems analyst during the early years of World War II and joined the army in 1944. His tour with the army allowed him to see much of the world.

He left the army for a short time, then reentered it during the Korean War.

Much of his work with the army involved public relations and in the late 50’s, right after the Sputnik launch, he was put in charge of a program to instruct amateur rocketeers in safety.

This lead to his first book published in 1960, Rocket Manual for Amateurs.

This book taught young boys, and maybe High School teenagers, how to make their own rockets from scratch. Not just the shape; nose cones, and fins, but also how to make solid rocket propellant motors, firing systems, and parachute escape and retrieval devices.

Sigh.

You would never see that today.

This is ancient history – even to me – but the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957 sent the United States into a crisis.

The successful orbiting of a satellite by America’s rival after the failure of several of our own rockets created the impression of a scientific gap between the two countries.

In 1958 the U.S. would orbit its own satellite, Vanguard, but by then the idea that America was behind the USSR in science and technology was firmly planted in the public’s mind.

To close this supposed “gap,” money was poured into education for the next decade or so. Not just funding for schools, and extra courses, but real STEM courses for everyone.

Everyone, all over America, were training to be engineers, designers, and scientists.

The introduction of new curriculum – such as the so-called New Math designed to promote engineering and science-was common. While it is doubtful that New Math really turned ten-year-olds into rocket engineers, it is indisputable that these events had Americans thinking about science and technology.

Elementary textbooks for fourth through six grade doesn’t resemble anything being taught in America today.

It was in this atmosphere that Brinley conceived his stories.

In 1961 the first of Brinley’s tales was published in Boy’s Life. Boy’s Life was, and remains, the official magazine of the Boy Scouts.

The story, The Strange Sea Monster of Strawberry Lake, told of a group of small-town teenagers whose genius for technology gets them both into and out of trouble when they build a fake sea serpent.

The story of the club was continued in two more stories that year in Boy’s Life. In 1965 the first seven of the short stories were gathered into book form and published under the title The Mad Scientists Club. It was a paperback copy of this I came across and purchased at a book fair several years later.

The crew in their tree-house. Plotting and scheming.

To say that I liked this book would be quite an understatement.

I read the seven tales contained in it over and over again.

Each, while involving the same characters and setting, were very different and engaging.

My personal favorite is The Secret of the Old Cannon, where the club probes the mystery of what is in the breech of a giant civil war cannon in the local park.

Mammoth Falls

A strange sea monster appears on the lake...a fortune is unearthed from an old cannon ...a valuable dinosaur egg is stolen. 

Watch out as the Mad Scientists turn Mammoth Falls upside down! 

Take seven, lively, "normal" boys -- one an inventive genius -- give them a clubhouse for cooking up ideas, an electronics lab above the town hardware store, and a good supply of Army surplus equipment, and you, dear reader, have a boyhood dream come true and a situation that bears watching. 

In the hands of an author whose own work involved technological pioneering, the proceedings are well worth undivided attention, as the boys explore every conceivable possibility for high and happy adventure in the neighborhood of Mammoth Falls. 

To the unutterable confusion of the local dignitaries -- and the unalloyed delight of Bertrand Brinley's fans -- the young heroes not only outwit their insidious rival, Harmon Muldoon, but emerge as town heroes.

The stories were told in first person by character Charlie Finckledinck (who didn’t have a last name until the first novel came out) but clearly the club’s most prominent member was the bespeckled teenager Henry Mulligan.

Henry, the group’s resident science genius, was just as likely to come up with some outlandish prank as a legitimate experiment or invention.

Other MSC members included Jeff Crocker, the president (by virtue of the club meeting in his father’s barn), Homer Snodgrass and Mortimer Dalrymple (experts in electronics and radio).

The club membership was rounded out by Freddy Mulldoon and Dinky Poore, the group’s Mutt and Jeff pair.

A couple of points about the characters: Freddy Muldoon was originally called Fatso Brown, and his cousin, the notorious Harmon Muldoon, Skinny Brown, in The Strange Sea Monster of Strawberry Lake. My father changed the names in the version that was published in Boys' Life and subsequently in The Mad Scientists' Club. Charlie Finckledinck, the narrator, did not have a last name until The Big Kerplop!

-The Mad Scientists Club

The adults of the mythical town of Mammoth Falls where the stories were set found themselves forever involved in some scheme or prank the club had thought up.

These, for example, took the forms of a fake monster in the local lake, an electronically-haunted house at the city limits and a mad balloonist in the town square.

When the boys weren’t giving Mayor Scragg, Police Chief Putney or Constable Billy Dahr problems, they often found themselves at odds with a rival gang formed by Harmon Mulldoon who had been a MSC member but had been thrown out for activity unbecoming of a scientist.

It always amazed me how the characters in the books were so clearly and finely drawn. Unfortunately Bertrand Brinley is no longer with us, but his son, Sheridan Brinley, explained how his father had come up with the characters.

Like many authors, Bertrand Brinley’s own personality found its ways into the people he created. “Henry is my father through and through,” said Sheridan. “A guy who thinks before he speaks, has an unusual perspective on things, has a vivid imagination, secretly feeds the dog at the table, is late to dinner because he is thinking about something, etc., etc.”

“Dinky Poore, I have always thought, was in part me, as I was small and skinny as a child and a bit of a whiner,” said Sheridan. “The Poore name is a family name in Westbury, Massachusetts, which is the source of a number of the names and places in the stories. For example, Billy Dahr is based on the constable in West Newbury in the ’30s. He was a bumbling sort of cop, as is Dahr.”

At least some of the events in the stories were inspired by real incidents that would have appeared in the news at the time. The accidental loss of a nuclear device off the coast of Spain in 1966 surely provided inspiration for the first novel, The Big Kerplop!, where an atomic bomb splashes into Mammoth Fall’s Strawberry Lake.

The Air Force’s Project Blue Book, which investigated UFO sightings, may have also been material for Brinley’s imagination to chew on. “The Unidentified Flying Man of Mammoth Falls was, I think, a parody of the Air Force program spending taxpayers’ dollars to trace down UFO sightings,” muses Sheridan.

“What a great joke: create a flying mannequin that makes fools of the town elders and police and scrambles the planes from the nearby Air Force base. Some of the same stuff is in The Flying Sorcerer.“

Engineers and Scientists

I’ve heard a lot of stories over the years about how the original Star Trek TV show in the 60’s influenced people to become scientists and engineers, and as a longtime Treker myself, I believe it is true.

However, I think there may quite a few people who made their career choices based on Brinley’s work. A gentleman named Mark Maxham runs a MSC tribute site and has collected some quotes from anonymous fans including this one:

I have had at least 5 copies of the Mad Scientist's Club over the years. I just gave away my only duplicate set. [...] They too were my favorites when I was younger. I am now a spacecraft flight engineer (worked with NASA controlling the Magellan Spacecraft to Venus) thanks in part to those books.

I suspect that this sentiment is widespread. There aren’t as many MSC fans around as Trekers, but those that exist seem to cherish their memories of the stories just as much as episodes of that seminal TV series.

I even suspect that my own choice of career as an Aerospace engineer hearkens back to Brinley’s tales of crazed boys tinkering around with electronics, rockets, and machinery. Sure there were many other influences. But only Brinley translated that love for gadgetry and messing around with machines that I so very love today.

Like all my books, I eventually lost my old tattered book. My best guess is that it lies at the bottom of some landfill in San Luis Obispo California.

By the way, do you know what I could use right now?

I could use a thin-crust cheese pizza with a goodly amount of salt on it. Maybe with a icy Coke. Not a beer. My doctor is telling me that my beer-drinking days are over. Beer is a “cold” food. I can only drink “warm” foods; like red wine and 53% alcohol. Sigh.

Anyways. For some reason, when I would plop myself and read these books, it was always with either sandwiches or pizza. I guess that I am just that kind of a silly guy. Eh?

What I liked about the thin crust pizza was that you could fold it up, and eat it like a gooey taco. I would plop myself down on this big sprawling 1940’s chair inherited from my grandparents, or our La-Z-boy and chill out. Smunching on a pizza, book about other kids like you, a nice breeze though the window, and a television or radio playing softly in the other room was what my boyhood was like.

Anyways, I had two books. They actually had a second volume that I had bought. It was titled The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists’ Club. I thought that it was even better than the first!

Unfortunately a novel entitled The Big Kerplop! Came out that I was unaware of, and so I never had the opportunity to read it.

Trying to get all these books has been a herculean task over the years. Not only due to the lack of availability, but also to the fact that I am in China. And obscure books in English are not readily available.

Unfortunately all of them had been out of print for many years and were almost impossible to find. This was bad news as I desperately wanted to get a hold of them for both myself and all the kids.

Purple House Press Reprints

Sheridan Brinley had been trying to get his father’s works republished for a number of years without success.

No publisher wanted to risk the money necessary to run off several thousand copies of the books no matter how ardent the small fan base might be.

Fortunately, Brinley came in contact with Purple House Press (PHP), a new publisher formed by a woman named Jill Morgan. Morgan had been locating and collecting out-of-print children books and had come to realize the cost of these original volumes were being driven through the roof.

Parents who wanted to share their favorite children’s books with their own kids were priced out of the market.This is that profit-greed based society that I always lament about. People in America do not care about society. They care about themselves; as a nation driven by psychopathic personalities, those of us with a different value system are often left out in the cold.

Morgan started contacting authors and their heirs and arranging for these works to be reprinted in small volumes. The company now has thirty-two books in its catalog including the original Mad Scientists’ Club, The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists’ Club and The Big Kerplop!

In fact for MSC fans there was perhaps an unexpected bonus from this alliance with PHP. Bertrand Brinley had written a second MSC novel, but it had never been published in the United States. After some editing, The Big Chunk of Ice – the story of the Mad Scientists entangled in a mystery in Austria – became available for readers for what was probably the first time.

I truly believe that one of the secrets of getting your kids to be great readers is not just to read to them, but to read to them stories you yourself are in love with.

The kind of excitement you radiate can’t be faked and kids pick up on it. That is one of the reasons why I am so happy to see efforts like Purple House Press succeed.

As a Rufus I’ve had the opportunity to not only share MSC stories with my kids, but my nieces and nephews as well.

From a technical point of view the stories show some signs of age – the radios, model rockets and remote controls the MSC kids used aren’t exactly cutting edge technology anymore (one can only wonder what trouble Henry and friends could get into using computers, the Internet and various wireless devices), but the stories are still great and worth sharing with a new generation.

Author’s Legacy

Bertrand Brinley died in 1994, but not without having left a significant mark in a lot of people’s lives.

I still can’t see more than two hot air balloons together without thinking of The Great Gas Bag Race.

I was ecstatic a few decades ago when I visited Fort McHenry in Baltimore and found they had a 15-inch Rodman cannon (the same one featured in The Secret of the Old Cannon).

I stood there pondering, could Homer Snodgrass really have wiggled his way down that barrel to find out what was inside?

In a way I like to think of this website, The Museum of UnNatural Mystery, as partly a tribute to Brinley’s work. I’m sure his stories inspired my interest in weird science.

I’d like to think that the halls of the museum are a place where the spirits of Henry Mulligan and Jeff Crocker, embodied into the children of today, can still find some adventure, or at least some mischief, to get into that would vex Mayor Scragg and the citizens of Mammoth Falls.

The Mad Scientist’s Club Series

The Mad Scientists’ Club – Seven Short Stories

– The Strange Sea Monster of Strawberry Lake – The club decides to shake up the town with a fake lake monster, but things go frather than they ever envisioned.

– The Big Egg – The kids find a dinosaur egg and it hatches, or does it?

– The Secret of the Old Cannon – What is hidden in an old civil war cannon up on Memorial Point?

-The Unidentified Flying Man of Mammoth Falls – A mad ballooner upsets the town’s Founder’s Day celebration.

– The Great Gas Bag Race – The club enters a balloon in the annual race and find themselves up against their old rival, Harmon Mulldoon.

– The Voice in the Chimney – The old house on Blueberry Hill is haunted, or is it just peoples’ imagination?

– Night Rescue – The club tries to rescue a downed jet pilot.

The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists’ Club – Five Short Stories

– The Telltale Transmitter – The club goes up against bank robbers.

– The Cool Cavern – The kids try to rescue Harmon’s gang from a cave in.

– Big Chief Rainmaker – The club tries to bring an end to a devastating drought.

– The Flying Sorcerer – A UFO seems to be visiting Mammoth Falls.

– The Great Confrontation – Harmon Mulldoon’s rival gang goes too far.

The Big Kerplop! – A full length novel that tells the story of the formation of the club during a scare when an atomic bomb is lost in Strawberry Lake.

The Big Chunk of Ice – A full length novel that tells the story of the club as it goes on a scientific expedition to Austria and gets entangled in the mystery of a lost diamond.

Do you want more?

You can go through the index page and explore. A lot of gems there. Have fun.

Master Index

You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
You can find out more about the author HERE.
If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

The tale of the three shepherds.

The following is my very own first attempt at a fictional story.

I have been told that I must be a great writer because all of my Metallicman writings are so fantastical and imaginative. I must have a great colorful and active mind to dream up such ideas. But that’s not really true. I only write what I have personally experienced, and talk about the life that I live and what I see and do.

There’s nothing fictional in this site whats so ever.

Never the less, I have tried to write fiction in the past, maybe the early 1990’s and it got no where. Maybe I could try again. Maybe I’ll be another Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke or Robert Heinlein. Who actually knows?

So with that introduction, let’s introduce my first internet published short story. And you’se guys are the first to read it. I do hope that you enjoy it.

The Three Shepherds

Once upon a time, in a rather pastoral land, were three shepherds. They were men of sheep.

All of them were tall, strong and carried about a long crooked cane. And as they went about their day to day life shepherding, doing sheep related things, and discussing sheep related current events, they would often gather together (as was their want) under this huge shady tree.

And there, under the great expanse of the mighty oaken limbs, they would discuss the latest in sheep husbandry, sheep technology, and sheep-related gossip.

The three shepherds went by the names of Tom, Dick and Harry.

Tom, the best shepherd of the trio had a massive and impressive flock of sheep. All of them were well cared for, happy and were the envy of the local village.

Dick, an average shepherd, had an average flock of sheep. There was nothing really that great about it. All of the sheep were solid “C” grade students in the local sheep academy, and it showed in their actions and behaviors.

And, Harry, well, Harry was the worst shepherd of the three. He tended to ignore his flock of sheep and left them to do their own bidding. Meanwhile he would cavort with a prized sheep or two off in the wilds behind the bushes in a most devilish manner.

And one day, on this fine and quiet pastoral land, they came to an argument.

It turns out that they were arguing just who was the best shepherd.

And the point was raised, that your actions are reflected in how the sheep behavior, and not whether or not you get ribbons at the local annual sheep parade, or are given the key to the city for the most amazing sheep.

Ai! And the argument went long and hard and well into the night. No one could decide who was the best shepherd.

By the crowing of the early bird, a cock named “amorphous weasel” on account of his propensity to steal long bananas, with (two) well rounded kiwi fruit off kitchen window sills, the group tiredly came to a conclusion.

It was decided that each shepherds would go off, one by one, and gather their flock and bring it to the tree. And there in front of everyone the sheer beauty (or maybe it’s “shear” beauty) and magnificence of the flock would be obvious to all to behold.

So Dick, the average shepherd, went off to gather his flock.

And after what seemed to be day, but was really a mere two hours, he came back. (Let it be known that he stopped for a blueberry pie, and maybe a little kiss, from the baker Lady Ms. McSmunch-a-lot in the town.) And refreshed, wiping the blueberry stains off his lips, he led his flock to the rest of the trio to observe.

And there, came the flock.

They were clean and presentable. Their hooves were all trimmed and well manicured. Their eyes were also clear, and the wool was obviously of the finest quality. They came well behaved, and presented themselves are docile, but proud sheep; they were the kind of sheep that you would introduce to your son.

And as they arrived, they sang a little sheep marching song. It went a little like this…

Baa Baaaa, Baa Baaaa,
We’re the sheep of Baaa Dick.
Baa Baaa, Baa Baaa.

And then, after a short while, the filed to the tree, and then upon the proper signal (by Dick obviously), they settled down. All the time making tiny cooing sounds…

Baaa Baaa.

Of course both of the other two shepherds were impressed. For indeed this was a fine, fine flock of sheep. It was undeniable. And nothing would make this moment more noteworthy than when a shepherd talent-scout showed up and wanted to take a picture of young shepherd Dick with his fine, well tended flock.

There were rumors that he was going to be on the cover of “Sheep News and Pastoral Report”.

And it seemed to be his destiny, for shortly afterwards a gaggle of young attractive lasses, with hair in long pony-tails, wearing short skirts with low cut bodices were asking for Dicks autograph. They all wanted a piece of Dick, and were willing to do anything to get a taste of this Dick action.

Well, as impressive as all that was, Tom decided to go off and get his flock of sheep.

Now Tom went off and it wasn’t long before the clouds in the sky opened up. And bright blue “spring time” sky appeared with two enormous sheep blowing long golden trumpets appeared. And as they blew the ground and surroundings became calm. Everything went absolutely quiet. Even the worms and the snails stopped their crocheting, and stood by a listening.

Then, brighter than day and appearing in blinding, and stunning radiance appeared the flock. It approached the stunned spectators in organized cadence. And they hummed, and sang, and their voices resonated in brilliance and within spectacular fashion.

Ba Ba. Ba Ba.
Baaaaaa!
Ba, Ba, Baaaa, Baaaa, Ba!

They approached the group in groups of three. marching to the beat, and their hooves landed ever gently upon the grass at the feet of the shepherd.

There was no question that this flock was truly exceptional. Their wool was of the finest texture, and so white and clean that it hurt the eyes of any who beheld it. The faces of the sheep were impassioned with glee, happiness and empathy. And when they finally gathered together they were polite about it.

They would say such things as “Excuse me, my fine fellow sheep, can you please pass me the Grey Poupon…. Baaahhh.”

Indeed, these sheep were exception. No one could deny it.

And when the shepherds started to talk, the sheep took the time to post insta-sheep photos for their followers, for after all, many of the sheep in this flock were famous influencers. And sheep all over the world would follow their postings. They would want to know what grass they were eating and why. They would want to see who they were hanging out with, and pictures of their latest meals, and pictorials of their latest pastoral settings.

It was absolutely clear that this flock was spectacular.

Well, the time came for Harry to show his flock. So he got up off the long he was sitting upon and ambled off to gather his flock. As he went he muttered something under his breath, but no one could make it out.

It sounded something like “truck fist” or something similar. He grumbled away saying things like “razzmatazz” and “hoodwink, and scurvy tweaky boondoggle”

Hours passed.

The sky got dark, and a wind started to blow.

Dark clouds appeared on the horizon and a cool chill started to cause everyone to gather their shawls and jackets around their shoulders.

And the ground started to rumble.

It was low at first but soon become enormously loud. It sounded like an air plane jet engine revving up, and the exploding and dying over and over as it’s internal parts bashed and clanged upon each other in the most terrible of grinding sounds. People started to cover their ears, and a light oily rain started to fall upon everyone in a brown oozy slimy mess.

And there, on the horizon were what appeared to be a herd of tiny tornadoes. These brown dusty and dirty nightmares approached the crew, the tree, and all the two flocks that were gathered there. The talent scout stopped talking and taking pictures, the Insta-sheep models stopped filming selfies, and everyone stood shaking where they stood. They remained rooted to the ground.

And as the group got close you could make out what was approaching.

For, in front of them was a small army of “Mad Max style” cobbled together quasi vehicles of all makes, models and unusual pedigrees.

Some looked like something the devil himself would weld together with nightmare steel, twisted metal, and chain link accoutrements.

Others looked like a maniac’s idea of a military vehicle if they had the budget of a used junk yard attendant.

And still others looked more like they belonged outside a meth-lab, a biker bar, or an abandoned kiddie circus prowled by nightmare clowns with chainsaws and blood lust in their eyes.

And they roared towards them.

It was like an avalanche or a tidal wave and they pulled up in front of all the startled spectators. they all revved their motorcycle and various engines for effect.

Barroom! Barroom!
Braaaaam!

And black oily smoke blew out of their exhausts. And the sheep themselves looked like Frankenstein-sheep.

Many had patches of wool missing, obviously from a diet low in vitamin “D”, or perhaps suffering from mange. Many were missing eyes, limbs, teeth. They all wore vests emblazoned with the words…

“Satan’s orphan lamb”

And many had tattoos everywhere.

Some were of names of a certain loved one, a sheep from their past, but with the name crossed out, and another one written next to it. Others were tattoos of knives, skulls, and “low brow art”.

And then…

…just then…

… a big noisy, and particularly malodorous motorcycle-like vehicular contraption pulled up. It sprayed dust and gravel everywhere, and the lone dark sheep got off the bike.

He was an ugly brute, a big blustering monstrosity, that was foul, nasty, criminally dirty, and oily…

…an onerous sheep that went by the name of Beelzebub.

He was big, and nasty. His wool was black and grey with red and purple highlights. He wore lipstick, and ear rings, with seemed to point to some kind of LGBT sheep hybrid of sorts, he wore a big leather belt with an enormous belt buckle featuring the head of one of the missing sheep-dogs that used to help the shepherd, and emblazoned upon his chest was a big garish tattoo with the words…

“My shepherd doesn’t love me”

And he scanned the people gather there with his one lone bloodshot eye. As he got off his bike and hobbled towards them, his single leg ended up hitting the dust while his wooden peg-leg went thunk, thunk, thunk….

…and he stopped in front of all the shepherds, and their flocks. No one said a sound.

A moment passed and then another.

Finally, shepherd Tom cleared his throat, and said…

“You are by far, the absolutely worst flock of sheep that I have ever seen in my life!”.

And no one moved.

…

No one.

No one said a thing.

You could hear a pin drop.

Then the leader, the biggest, the baddest, the most foul, and slimy sheep went up to him. his foul sheep breath was stinky, oily, nasty and disgusting.

And he said…

…

“We might be the ugliest, the most disgusting, the most untamed sheep that you have ever laid your eyes upon. But I will tell you one thing…”

…

And he paused for effect, and gave everyone a good harsh look with his remaining blood-shot eye…

…

“…. we’re baaaaaaad!”

The End.

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The Man by Ray Bradbury (Full Text)

The main theme in this story is the role of faith in gaining redemption. 

The Man is what the Judeo-Christian faiths would term the Messiah or Savior, but Bradbury opts to make this a broader, explicitly stating that this figure exists in many cultures and goes by many names. 

What the Man brings, however, is a sense of peace and happiness that is akin to what the Judeo-Christian faiths would call redemption - that is, a forgiveness of sins and a more enlightened way of life.

The Man

By Ray Bradbury

CAPTAIN HART stood in the door of the rocket. ‘Why don’t they come?’ he said.
‘Who knows?’ said Martin, his lieutenant. ‘Do I know, Captain?’
‘What kind of a place is this, anyway?’ The captain lighted a cigar. He tossed
the match out into the glittering meadow. The grass started to burn.
Martin moved to stamp it out with his boot.
‘No,’ ordered Captain Hart, ‘let it burn. Maybe they’ll come see what’s
happening then, the ignorant fools.’
Martin shrugged and withdrew his foot from the spreading fire.
Captain Hart examined his watch. ‘An hour ago we landed here, and does the
welcoming committee rush out with a brass band to shake our hands? No indeed!
Here we ride millions of miles through space and the fine citizens of some silly
town on some unknown planet ignore us!’ He snorted, tapping his watch. ‘Well,
I’ll just give them five more minutes, and then”’
‘And then what?’ asked Martin, ever so politely, watching the captain’s jowls
shake.
‘We’ll fly over their damned city again and scare hell out of them.’ His voice
grew quieter. ‘Do you think, Martin, maybe they didn’t see us land?’
‘They saw us. They looked up as we flew over.
‘Then why aren’t they running across the field? Are they hiding? Are they
yellow?’
Martin shook his head. ‘No. Take these binoculars, sir. See for yourself.
Everybody’s walking around. They’re not frightened. They’well, they just don’t
seem to care.
Captain Hart placed the binoculars to his tired eyes. Martin looked up and had
time to observe the lines and the grooves of irritation, tiredness, nervousness
there. Hart looked a million years old; he never slept, he ate little, and drove
himself on, on. Now his mouth moved, aged and drear, but sharp, under the held
binoculars.
‘Really, Martin, I don’t know why we bother. We build rockets, we go to all the
trouble of crossing space, searching for them, and this is what we get. Neglect.
Look at those idiots wander about in there. Don’t they realize how big this is?
The first space flight to touch their provincial land. How many times does that
happen? Are they that blas’?’
Martin didn’t know.
Captain Hart gave him back the binoculars wearily. ‘Why do we do it, Martin?
This space travel, I mean. Always on the go. Always searching. Our insides
always tight, never any rest.’
‘Maybe we’re looking for peace and quiet. Certainly there’s none on Earth,’ said
Martin.
‘No, there’s not, is there?’ Captain Hart was thoughtful, the fire damped down.
‘Not since Darwin, eh? Not since everything went by the board, everything we
used to believe in, eh? Divine power and all that. And so you think maybe that’s
why we’re going out to the stars, eh, Martin? Looking for our lost souls, is
that it? Trying to get away from our evil planet to a good one?’
‘Perhaps, sir. Certainly we’re looking for something.’
Captain Hart cleared his throat and tightened back into sharpness. ‘Well, right
now we’re looking for the mayor of that city there. Run in, tell them who we
are, the first rocket expedition to Planet Forty-three in Star System Three.
Captain Hart sends his salutations and desires to meet the mayor. On the
double!’
‘Yes, sir.’ Martin walked slowly across the meadow.
‘Hurry!’ snapped the captain.
‘Yes, sir!’ Martin trotted away. Then he walked again, smiling to himself.
The captain had smoked two cigars before Martin returned. Martin stopped and
looked up into the door of the rocket, swaying, seemingly unable to focus his
eyes or think.
‘Well?’ snapped Hart. ‘What happened? Are they coming to welcome us?’
‘No.’ Martin had to lean dizzily against the ship.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s not important,’ said Martin. ‘Give me a cigarette, please, Captain.’ His
fingers groped blindly at the rising pack, for he was looking at the golden city
and blinking. He lighted one and smoked quietly for a long time.
‘Say something!’ cried the captain. ‘Aren’t they interested in our rocket?’
Martin said, ‘What? Oh. The rocket?’ He inspected his cigarette. ‘No, they’re
not interested. Seems we came at an inopportune time.’
‘Inopportune time!’
Martin was patient. ‘Captain, listen. Something big happened yesterday in that
city. It’s so big, so important that we’re second-rate’second fiddle. I’ve got
to sit down.’ He lost his balance and sat heavily, gasping for air.
The captain chewed his cigar angrily. “What happened?’ Martin lifted his head,
smoke from the burning cigarette in his fingers, blowing in the wind. ‘Sir,
yesterday, in that city, a remarkable man appeared’good, intelligent,
compassionate, and infinitely wise!’
The captain glared at his lieutenant. ‘What’s that to do with us?’
‘It’s hard to explain. But he was a man for whom they’d waited a long time’a
million years maybe. And yesterday he walked into their city. That’s why today,
sir, our rocket landing means nothing.’
The captain sat down violently. ‘Who was it? Not Ashley? He didn’t arrive in his
rocket before us and steal my glory, did he?’ He seized Martin’s arm. His face
was pale and dismayed.
‘Not Ashley, sir.’
‘Then it was Burton! I knew it. Burton stole in ahead of us and ruined my
landing! You can’t trust anyone any more.’
‘Not Burton, either, sir,’ said Martin quietly.
The captain was incredulous. ‘There were only three rockets. We were in the
lead. This man who got here ahead of us? What was his name!’
‘He didn’t have a name. He doesn’t need one. It would be different on every
planet, sir.’
The captain stared at his lieutenant with hard, cynical eyes. ‘Well, what did he
do that was so wonderful that nobody even looks at our ship?’
‘For one thing,’ said Martin steadily, ‘he healed the sick and comforted the
poor. He fought hypocrisy and dirty politics and sat among the people, talking,
through the day.’
‘Is that so wonderful?’
‘Yes, Captain.’
‘I don’t get this.’ The captain confronted Martin, peered into his face and
eyes. ‘You been drinking, eh?’ He was suspicious. He backed away. ‘I don’t
understand.’
Martin looked at the city. ‘Captain, if you don’t understand, there’s no way of
telling you.’
The captain followed his gaze. The city was quiet and beautiful and a great
peace lay over it. The captain stepped forward, taking his cigar from his lips.
He squinted first at Martin, then at the golden spires of the buildings.
‘You don’t mean’you can’t mean’ That man you’re talking about couldn’t be”’
Martin nodded. ‘That’s what I mean, sir.
The captain stood silently, not moving. He drew himself up.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he said at last.
At high noon Captain Hart walked briskly into the city, accompanied by
Lieutenant Martin and an assistant who was carrying some electrical equipment.
Every once in a while the captain laughed loudly, put his hands on his hips and
shook his head.
The mayor of the town confronted him. Martin set up a tripod, screwed a box onto
it, and switched on the batteries.
‘Are you the mayor?’ The captain jabbed a finger out.
‘I am,’ said the mayor.
The delicate apparatus stood between them, controlled and adjusted by Martin and
the assistant. Instantaneous translations from any language were made by the
box. The words sounded crisply on the mild air of the city.
‘About this occurrence yesterday,’ said the captain. ‘It occurred?’
‘It did.’
‘You have witnesses?’
‘We have.’
‘May we talk to them?’
‘Talk to any of us,’ said the mayor. ‘We are all witnesses.’
In an aside to Martin the captain said, ‘Mass hallucination.’ To the mayor,
‘What did this man’this stranger’look like?’
‘That would be hard to say,’ said the mayor, smiling a little.
‘Why would it?’
‘Opinions might differ slightly.’
‘I’d like your opinion, sir, anyway,’ said the captain. ‘Record this,’ he
snapped to Martin over his shoulder. The lieutenant pressed the button of a hand
recorder.
‘Well,’ said the mayor of the city, ‘he was a very gentle and kind man. He was
of a great and knowing intelligence.’
‘Yes’yes, I know, I know.’ The captain waved his fingers. ‘Generalizations. I
want something specific. What did he look like?’
‘I don’t believe that is important,’ replied the mayor.
‘It’s very important,’ said the captain sternly. ‘I want a description of this
fellow. If I can’t get it from you, I’ll get it from others.’ To Martin, ‘I’m
sure it must have been Burton, pulling one of his practical jokes.’
Martin would not look him in the face. Martin was coldly silent.
The captain snapped his fingers. ‘There was something or other’a healing?’
‘Many healings,’ said the mayor.
‘May I see one?’
‘You may,’ said the mayor. ‘My son.’ He nodded at a small boy who stepped
forward. ‘He was afflicted with a withered arm. Now, look upon it.’
At this the captain laughed tolerantly. ‘Yes, yes. This isn’t even
circumstantial evidence, you know. I didn’t see the boy’s withered arm. I see
only his arm whole and well. That’s no proof. What proof have you that the boy’s
arm was withered yesterday and today is well?’
‘My word is my proof,’ said the mayor simply.
‘My dear man!’ cried the captain. ‘You don’t expect me to go on hearsay, do you?
Oh no!’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the mayor, looking upon the captain with what appeared to be
curiosity and pity.
‘Do you have any pictures of the boy before today?’ asked the captain.
After a moment a large oil portrait was carried forth, showing the son with a
withered arm.
‘My dear fellow!’ The captain waved it away. ‘Anybody can paint a picture.
Paintings lie. I want a photograph of the boy.’
There was no photograph. Photography was not a known art in their society.
‘Well,’ sighed the captain, face twitching, ‘let me talk to a few other
citizens. We’re getting nowhere.’ He pointed at a woman. ‘You.’ She hesitated.
‘Yes, you; come here,’ ordered the captain. ‘Tell me about this wonderful man
you saw yesterday.’
The woman looked steadily at the captain. ‘He walked among us and was very fine
and good.’
‘What color were his eyes?’
‘The color of the sun, the color of the sea, the color of a flower, the color of
the mountains, the color of the night.’
‘That’ll do.’ The captain threw up his hands. ‘See, Martin? Absolutely nothing.
Some charlatan wanders through whispering sweet nothings in their ears and”’
‘Please, stop it,’ said Martin.
The captain stepped back. ‘What?’
‘You heard what I said,’ said Martin. ‘I like these people. I believe what they
say. You’re entitled to your opinion, but keep it to yourself, sir.’
‘You can’t talk to me this way,’ shouted the captain.
‘I’ve had enough of your highhandedness,’ replied Martin. ‘Leave these people
alone. They’ve got something good and decent, and you come and foul up the nest
and sneer at it. Well, I’ve talked to them too. I’ve gone through the city and
seen their faces, and they’ve got something you’ll never have’a little simple
faith, and they’ll move mountains with it. You, you’re boiled because someone
stole your act, got here ahead and made you unimportant!’
‘I’ll give you five seconds to finish,’ remarked the captain. ‘I understand.
You’ve been under a strain, Martin. Months of traveling in space, nostalgia,
loneliness. And now, with this thing happening, I sympathize, Martin. I overlook
your petty insubordination.’
‘I don’t overlook your petty tyranny,’ replied Martin. ‘I’m stepping out. I’m
staying here.’
‘You can’t do that!’
‘Can’t I? Try and stop me. This is what I came looking for. I didn’t know it,
but this is it. This is for me. Take your filth somewhere else and foul up other
nests with your doubt and your’scientific method!’ He looked swiftly about.
‘These people have had an experience, and you can’t seem to get it through your
head that it’s really happened and we were lucky enough to almost arrive in time
to be in on it.
‘People on Earth have talked about this man for twenty centuries after he walked
through the old world. We’ve all wanted to see him and hear him, and never had
the chance. And now, today, we just missed seeing him by a few hours.’
Captain Hart looked at Martin’s cheeks. ‘You’re crying like a baby. Stop it.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Well, I do. In front of these natives we’re to keep up a front. You’re
overwrought. As I said, I forgive you.’
‘I don’t want your forgiveness.”
‘You idiot. Can’t you see this is one of Burton’s tricks, to fool these people,
to bilk them, to establish his oil and mineral concerns under a religious guise!
You fool, Martin. You absolute fool! You should know Earthmen by now. They’ll do
anything’blaspheme, lie, cheat, steal, kill, to get their ends. Anything is fine
if it works; the true pragmatist, that’s Burton. You know him!’
The captain scoffed heavily. ‘Come off it, Martin, admit it; this is the sort of
scaly thing Burton might carry off, polish up these citizens and pluck them when
they’re ripe.’
‘No,’ said Martin, thinking of it.
The captain put his hand up. ‘That’s Burton. That’s him. That’s his dirt, that’s
his criminal way. I have to admire the old dragon. Flaming in here in a blaze
and a halo and a soft word and a loving touch, with a medicated salve here and a
healing ray there. That’s Burton all right!’
‘No.’ Martin’s voice was dazed. He covered his eyes. ‘No, I won’t believe it.’
‘You don’t want to believe.’ Captain Hart kept at it. ‘Admit it now. Admit it!
It’s just the thing Burton would do. Stop daydreaming, Martin. Wake up! It’s
morning. This is a real world and we’re real, dirty people’Burton the dirtiest
of us all!’
Martin turned away.
‘There, there, Martin,’ said Hart, mechanically patting the man’s back. ‘I
understand. Quite a shock for you. I know. A rotten shame, and all that. That
Burton is a rascal. You go take it easy. Let me handle this.’
Martin walked off slowly toward the rocket.
Captain Hart watched him go. Then, taking a deep breath, he turned to the woman
he had been questioning. ‘Well. Tell me some more about this man. As you were
saying, madam?’
Later the officers of the rocket ship ate supper on card tables outside. The
captain correlated his data to a silent Martin who sat red-eyed and brooding
over his meal.
‘Interviewed three dozen people, all of them full of the same milk and hogwash,’
said the captain. ‘It’s Burton’s work all right, I’m positive. He’ll be spilling
back in here tomorrow or next week to consolidate his miracles and beat us out
in our contracts. I think I’ll stick on and spoil it for him.’
Martin glanced up sullenly. ‘I’ll kill him,’ he said.
‘Now, now, Martin! There, there, boy.’
‘I’ll kill him’so help me, I will.’
‘We’ll put an anchor on his wagon. You have to admit he’s clever. Unethical but
clever.’
‘He’s dirty.’
‘You must promise not to do anything violent.’ Captain Hart checked his figures.
‘According to this, there were thirty miracles of healing performed, a blind man
restored to vision, a leper cured. Oh, Burton’s efficient, give him that.’
A gong sounded. A moment later a man ran up. ‘Captain, sir. A report! Burton’s
ship is coming down. Also the Ashley ship, sir!’
‘See!’ Captain Hart beat the table. ‘Here come the jackals to the harvest! They
can’t wait to feed. Wait till I confront them. I’ll make them cut me in on this
feast’I will!’
Martin looked sick. He stared at the captain.
‘Business, my dear boy, business,’ said the captain.
Everybody looked up. Two rockets swung down out of the sky.
When the rockets landed they almost crashed.
‘What’s wrong with those fools?’ cried the captain, jumping up. The men ran
across the meadowlands to the steaming ships.
The captain arrived. The airlock door popped open on Burton’s ship.
A man fell out into their arms.
‘What’s wrong?’ cried Captain Hart.
The man lay on the ground. They bent over him and he was burned, badly burned.
His body was covered with wounds and scars and tissue that was inflamed and
smoking. He looked up out of puffed eyes and his thick tongue moved in his split
lips.
‘What happened?’ demanded the captain, kneeling down, shaking the man’s arm.
‘Sir, sir,’ whispered the dying man. ‘Forty-eight hours ago, back in Space
Sector Seventy-nine DFS, off Planet One in this system, our ship, and Ashley’s
ship, ran into a cosmic storm, sir.’ Liquid ran gray from the man’s nostrils.
Blood trickled from his mouth. ‘Wiped out. All crew. Burton dead. Ashley died an
hour ago. Only three survivals.’
‘Listen to me!’ shouted Hart bending over the bleeding man. ‘You didn’t come to
this planet before this very hour?’
Silence.
‘Answer me!’ cried Hart.
The dying man said, ‘No. Storm. Burton dead two days ago. This first landing on
any world in six months.’
‘Are you sure?’ shouted Hart, shaking violently, gripping the man in his hands.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure, sure,’ mouthed the dying man.
‘Burton died two days ago? You’re positive?’
‘Yes, yes,’ whispered the man. His head fell forward. The man was dead.
The captain knelt beside the silent body. The captain’s face twitched, the
muscles jerking involuntarily. The other members of the crew stood back of him
looking down. Martin waited. The captain asked to be helped to his feet,
finally, and this was done. They stood looking at the city. ‘That means”’
‘That means?’ said Martin.
‘We’re the only ones who’ve been here,’ whispered Captain Hart. ‘And that man”’
‘What about that man, Captain?’ asked Martin.
The captain’s face twitched senselessly. He looked very old indeed, and gray.
His eyes were glazed. He moved forward in the dry grass.
‘Come along, Martin. Come along. Hold me up; for my sake, hold me. I’m afraid
I’ll fall. And hurry. We can’t waste time”’
They moved, stumbling, toward the city, in the long dry grass, in the blowing
wind.
Several hours later they were sitting in the mayor’s auditorium. A thousand
people had come and talked and gone. The captain had remained seated, his face
haggard, listening, listening. There was so much light in the faces of those who
came and testified and talked he could not bear to see them. And all the while
his hands traveled, on his knees, together; on his belt, jerking and quivering.
When it was over, Captain Hart turned to the mayor and with strange eyes said:
‘But you must know where he went?’
‘He didn’t say where he was going,’ replied the mayor.
‘To one of the other nearby worlds?’ demanded the captain.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You must know.’
‘Do you see him?’ asked the mayor, indicating the crowd.
The captain looked. ‘No.’
‘Then he is probably gone,’ said the mayor.
‘Probably, probably!’ cried the captain weakly. ‘I’ve made a horrible mistake,
and I want to see him now. Why, it just came to me, this is a most unusual thing
in history. To be in on something like this. Why, the chances are one in
billions we’d arrived at one certain planet among millions of planets the day
after he came! You must know where he’s gone!’
‘Each finds him in his own way,’ replied the mayor gently.
‘You’re hiding him.’ The captain’s face grew slowly ugly.
Some of the old hardness returned in stages. He began to stand up.
‘No,’ said the mayor.
‘You know where be is then?’ The captain’s fingers twitched at the leather
holster on his right side.
‘I couldn’t tell you where he is, exactly,’ said the mayor.
‘I advise you to start talking,’ and the captain took out a small steel gun.
‘There’s no way,’ said the mayor, ‘to tell you anything.’
‘Liar!’
An expression of pity came into the mayor’s face as he looked at Hart.
‘You’re very tired,’ he said. ‘You’ve traveled a long way and you belong to a
tired people who’ve been without faith a long time, and you want to believe so
much now that you’re interfering with yourself. You’ll only make it harder if
you kill. You’ll never find him that way.
‘Where’d he go? He told you; you know. Come on, tell me!’ The captain waved the
gun.
The mayor shook his head.
‘Tell me! Tell me!’
The gun cracked once, twice. The mayor fell, his arm wounded.
Martin leaped forward. ‘Captain!’
The gun flashed at Martin. ‘Don’t interfere.’
On the floor, holding his wounded arm, the mayor looked up. ‘Put down your gun.
You’re hurting yourself. You’ve never believed, and now that you think you
believe, you hurt people because of it.’
‘I don’t need you,’ said Hart, standing over him. ‘If I missed him by one day
here, I’ll go on to another world. And another and another. I’ll miss him by
half a day on the next planet, maybe, and a quarter of a day on the third
planet, and two hours on the next, and an hour on the next, and half an hour on
the next, and a minute on the next. But after that, one day I’ll catch up with
him! Do you hear that?’ He was shouting now, leaning wearily over the man on the
floor. He staggered with exhaustion. ‘Come along, Martin.’ He let the gun hang
in his hand.
‘No,’ said Martin. ‘I’m staying here.’
‘You’re a fool. Stay if you like. But I’m going on, with the others, as far as I
can go.’
The mayor looked up at Martin. ‘I’ll be all right. Leave me. Others will tend my
wounds.’
‘I’ll be back,’ said Martin. ‘I’ll walk as far as the rocket.’ They walked with
vicious speed through the city. One could see with what effort the captain
struggled to show all the old iron, to keep himself going. When he reached the
rocket he slapped the side of it with a trembling hand. He holstered his gun. He
looked at Martin.
‘Well, Martin?’
Martin looked at him. ‘Well, Captain?’
The captain’s eyes were on the sky. ‘Sure you won’t’come with’with me, eh?’
‘No, sir.’
‘It’ll be a great adventure, by God. I know I’ll find him.’
‘You are set on it now, aren’t you, sir?’ asked Martin.
The captain’s face quivered and his eyes closed. ‘Yes.’
‘There’s one thing I’d like to know.’
‘What?’
‘Sir, when you find him’if you find him,’ asked Martin, ‘what will you ask of
him?’
‘Why” The captain faltered, opening his eyes. His hands clenched and
unclenched. He puzzled a moment and then broke into a strange smile. ‘Why, I’ll
ask him for a little’peace and quiet.’ He touched the rocket. ‘It’s been a long
time, a long, long time since’since I relaxed.’
‘Did you ever just try, Captain?’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Hart.
‘Never mind. So long, Captain.’
‘Good-by, Mr. Martin.’
The crew stood by the port. Out of their number only three were going on with
Hart. Seven others were remaining behind, they said, with Martin.
Captain Hart surveyed them and uttered his verdict: ‘Fools!’ He, last of all,
climbed into the airlock, gave a brisk salute, laughed sharply. The door
slammed.
The rocket lifted into the sky on a pillar of fire.
Martin watched it go far away and vanish.
At the meadow’s edge the mayor, supported by several men, beckoned.
‘He’s gone,’ said Martin, walking up.
‘Yes, poor man, he’s gone,’ said the mayor. ‘And he’ll go on, planet after
planet, seeking and seeking, and always and always he will be an hour late, or a
half hour late, or ten minutes late, or a minute late. And finally he will miss
out by only a few seconds. And when he has visited three hundred worlds and is
seventy or eighty years old he will miss out by only a fraction of a second, and
then a smaller fraction of a second. And he will go on and on, thinking to find
that very thing which he left behind here, on this planet, in this city”
Martin looked steadily at the mayor.
The mayor put out his hand. ‘Was there ever any doubt of it?’ He beckoned to the
others and turned. ‘Come along now. We mustn’t keep him waiting.”
They walked into the city.

The End

Some comments.

Captain Hart is faced with the possibility of this redemption, but makes two mistakes: first, he initially refuses to believe; second, when forced to believe by circumstances, he thinks he can take control of the situation with force.

Faith isn’t about taking control, after all, but releasing control and allowing a higher power to lead the way.

What Hart feels, then, isn’t faith at all, but a kind of agnostic desperation.

Agnosticism is a non-committal attitude to the existence of God: neither atheistic nor believing in God, but instead waiting for solid proof to sway one's position.

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Gulf (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein

This is a nice little story by Robert Heinlein. It’s a fun read on a boring day. It is a very Poul Andersonish kind of story. A super-spy discovers he is a part of a super society, and perhaps a part of a race that would overcome humanity.

GULF

THE FIRST-QUARTER ROCKET from Moonbase put him down at Pied-a-Terre. The name he was traveling under began—by foresight—with the letter “A”; he was through port inspection and into the shuttle tube to the city ahead of the throng. Once in the tube car he went to the men’s washroom and locked himself in.

Quickly he buckled on the safety belt he found there, snapped its hooks to the wall fixtures, and leaned over awkwardly to remove a razor from his bag. The surge caught him in that position; despite the safety belt he bumped his head—and swore. He straightened up and plugged in the razor. His moustache vanished; he shortened his sideburns, trimmed the corners of his eyebrows, and brushed them up.

He towelled his hair vigorously to remove the oil that had sleeked it down, combed it loosely into a wavy mane. The car was now riding in a smooth, unaccelerated 300 mph; he let himself out of the safety belt without unhooking it from the walls and, working very rapidly, peeled off his moonsuit, took from his bag and put on a tweedy casual outfit suited to outdoors on Earth and quite unsuited to Moon Colony’s air-conditioned corridors.

His slippers he replaced with walking shoes from the bag; he stood up. Joel Abner, commercial traveler, had disappeared; in his place was Captain Joseph Gilead, explorer, lecturer, and writer. Of both names he was the sole user; neither was his birth name.

He slashed the moonsuit to ribbons and flushed it down the water closet, added “Joel Abner’s” identification card; then peeled a plastic skin off his travel bag and let the bits follow the rest. The bag was now pearl grey and rough, instead of dark brown and smooth. The slippers bothered him; he was afraid they might stop up the car’s plumbing. He contented himself with burying them in the waste receptacle.

The acceleration warning sounded as he was doing this; he barely had time to get back into the belt. But, as the car plunged into the solenoid field and surged to a stop, nothing remained of Joel Abner but some unmarked underclothing, very ordinary toilet articles, and nearly two dozen spools of microfilm equally appropriate—until examined—to a commercial traveler or a lecturer-writer. He planned not to let them be examined as long as he was alive.

He waited in the washroom until he was sure of being last man out of the car, then went forward into the next car, left by its exit, and headed for the lift to the ground level.

“New Age Hotel, sir,” a voice pleaded near his ear. He felt a hand fumbling at the grip of his travel bag.

He repressed a reflex to defend the bag and looked the speaker over. At first glance he seemed an under-sized adolescent in a smart uniform and a pillbox cap. Further inspection showed premature wrinkles and the features of a man at least forty. The eyes were glazed. A pituitary case, he thought to himself, and on the hop as well. “New Age Hotel,” the runner repeated. “Best mechanos in town, chief. There’s a discount if you’re just down from the moon.”

Captain Gilead, when in town as Captain Gilead, always stayed at the old Savoy. But the notion of going to the New Age appealed to him; in that incredibly huge, busy, and ultramodern hostelry he might remain unnoticed until he had had time to do what had to be done.

He disliked mightily the idea of letting go his bag. Nevertheless it would be out of character not to let the runner carry the bag; it would call attention to himself—and the bag. He decided that this unhealthy runt could not outrun him even if he himself were on crutches; it would suffice to keep an eye on the bag.

“Lead on, comrade,” he answered heartily, surrendering the bag. There had been no hesitation at all; he had let go the bag even as the hotel runner reached for it.

“Okay, chief.” The runner was first man into an empty lift; he went to the back of the car and set the bag down beside him. Gilead placed himself so that his foot rested firmly against his bag and faced forward as other travelers crowded in. The car started.

The lift was jammed; Gilead was subjected to body pressures on every side—but he noticed an additional, unusual, and uncalled-for pressure behind him.

His right hand moved suddenly and clamped down on a skinny wrist and a hand clutching something. Gilead made no further movement, nor did the owner of the hand attempt to draw away or make any objection. They remained so until the car reached the surface. When the passengers had spilled out he reached behind him with his left hand, recovered his bag and dragged the wrist and its owner out of the car.

It was, of course, the runner; the object in his fist was Gilead’s wallet. “You durn near lost that, chief,” the runner announced with no show of embarrassment. “It was falling out of your pocket.”

Gilead liberated the wallet and stuffed it into an inner pocket. “Fell right through the zipper,” he answered cheerfully. “Well, let’s find a cop.”

The runt tried to pull away. “You got nothing on me!”

Gilead considered the defense. In truth, he had nothing. His wallet was already out of sight. As to witnesses, the other lift passengers were already gone—nor had they seen anything. The lift itself was automatic. He was simply a man in the odd position of detaining another citizen by the wrist. And Gilead himself did not want to talk to the police.

He let go that wrist. “On your way, comrade. We’ll call it quits.”

The runner did not move. “How about my tip?”

Gilead was beginning to like this rascal. Locating a loose half credit in his change pocket he flipped it at the runner, who grabbed it out of the air but still didn’t leave. “I’ll take your bag now. Gimme.”

“No, thanks, chum. I can find your delightful inn without further help. One side, please.”

“Oh, yeah? How about my commission? I gotta carry your bag, else how they gonna know I brung you in? Gimme.”

Gilead was delighted with the creature’s unabashed insistence. He found a two-credit piece and passed it over. “There’s your cumshaw. Now beat it, before I kick your tail up around your shoulders.”

“You and who else?”

Gilead chuckled and moved away down the concourse toward the station entrance to the New Age Hotel. His subconscious sentries informed him immediately that the runner had not gone back toward the lift as expected, but was keeping abreast him in the crowd. He considered this. The runner might very well be what he appeared to be, common city riff-raff who combined casual thievery with his overt occupation. On the other hand—

He decided to unload. He stepped suddenly off the sidewalk into the entrance of a drugstore and stopped just inside the door to buy a newspaper. While his copy was being printed, he scooped up, apparently as an afterthought, three standard pneumo mailing tubes. As he paid for them he palmed a pad of gummed address labels.

A glance at the mirrored wall showed him that his shadow had hesitated outside but was still watching him. Gilead went on back to the shop’s soda fountain and slipped into an unoccupied booth. Although the floor show was going on—a remarkably shapely ecdysiast was working down toward her last string of beads—he drew the booth’s curtain.

Shortly the call light over the booth flashed discreetly; he called, “Come in!” A pretty and very young waitress came inside the curtain. Her plastic costume covered without concealing.

She glanced around. “Lonely?”

“No, thanks, I’m tired.”

“How about a redhead, then? Real cute—”

“I really am tired. Bring me two bottles of beer, unopened, and some pretzels.”

“Suit yourself, sport.” She left.

With speed he opened the travel bag, selected nine spools of microfilm, and loaded them into the three mailing tubes, the tubes being of the common three-spool size. Gilead then took the filched pad of address labels, addressed the top one to “Raymond Calhoun, P.O. Box 1060, Chicago” and commenced to draw with great care in the rectangle reserved for electric-eye sorter. The address he shaped in arbitrary symbols intended not to be read, but to be scanned automatically. The hand-written address was merely a precaution, in case a robot sorter should reject his hand-drawn symbols as being imperfect and thereby turn the tube over to a human postal clerk for readdressing.

He worked fast, but with the care of an engraver. The waitress returned before he had finished. The call light warned him; he covered the label with his elbow and kept it covered.

She glanced at the mailing tubes as she put down the beer and a bowl of pretzels. “Want me to mail those?”

He had another instant of split-second indecision. When he had stepped out of the tube car he had been reasonably sure, first, that the persona of Joel Abner, commercial traveler, had not been penetrated, and, second, that the transition from Abner to Gilead had been accomplished without arousing suspicion. The pocket-picking episode had not alarmed him, but had caused him to reclassify those two propositions from calculated certainties to unproved variables. He had proceeded to test them at once; they were now calculated certainties again—of the opposite sort. Ever since he had spotted his erstwhile porter, the New Age runner, as standing outside this same drugstore his subconscious had been clanging like a burglar alarm.

It was clear not only that he had been spotted but that they were organized with a completeness and shrewdness he had not believed possible.

But it was mathematically probable to the point of certainty that they were not operating through this girl. They had no way of knowing that he would choose to turn aside into this particular drugstore. That she could be used by them he was sure—and she had been out of sight since his first contact with her. But she was clearly not bright enough, despite her alley-cat sophistication, to be approached, subverted, instructed and indoctrinated to the point where she could seize an unexpected opportunity, all in a space of time merely adequate to fetch two bottles of beer. No, this girl was simply after a tip. Therefore she was safe.

But her costume offered no possibility of concealing three mailing tubes, nor would she be safe crossing the concourse to the post office. He had no wish that she be found tomorrow morning dead in a ditch.

“No,” he answered immediately. “I have to pass the post office anyway. But it was a kind thought. Here.” He gave her a half credit.

“Thanks.” She waited and stared meaningfully at the beer. He fumbled again in his change pocket, found only a few bits, reached for his wallet and took out a five-pluton note.

“Take it out of this.”

She handed him back three singles and some change. He pushed the change toward her, then waited, frozen, while she picked it up and left. Only then did he hold the wallet closer to his eyes.

It was not his wallet.

He should have noticed it before, he told himself. Even though there had been only a second from the time he had taken it from the runner’s clutched fingers until he had concealed it in a front pocket, he should have known it—known it and forced the runner to disgorge, even if he had had to skin him alive.

But why was he sure that it was not his wallet? It was the proper size and shape, the proper weight and feel—real ostrich skin in these days of synthetics. There was the weathered ink stain which had resulted from carrying a leaky stylus in the same pocket. There was a V-shaped scratch on the front which had happened so long ago he did not recall the circumstances.

Yet it was not his wallet.

He opened it again. There was the proper amount of money, there were what seemed to be his Explorers’ Club card and his other identity cards, there was a dog-eared flat-photo of a mare he had once owned. Yet the more the evidence, showed that it was his, the more certain he became that it was not his. These things were forgeries; they did not feel right.

There was one way to find out. He flipped a switch provided by a thoughtful management; the booth became dark. He took out his penknife and carefully slit a seam back of the billfold pocket. He dipped a finger into a secret pocket thus disclosed and felt around; the space was empty—nor in this case had the duplication of his own wallet been quite perfect; the space should have been lined, but his fingers encountered rough leather.

He switched the light back on, put the wallet away, and resumed his interrupted drawing. The loss of the card which should have been in the concealed pocket was annoying, certainly awkward, and conceivably disastrous, but he did not judge that the information on it was jeopardized by the loss of the wallet. The card was quite featureless unless examined by black light; if exposed to visible light—by someone taking the real wallet apart, for example—it had the disconcerting quality of bursting explosively into flame.

He continued to work, his mind busy with the wider problem of why they had taken so much trouble to try to keep him from knowing that his wallet was being stolen—and the still wider and more disconcerting question of why they had bothered with his wallet. Finished, he stuffed the remainder of the pad of address labels into a crack between cushions in the booth, palmed the label he had prepared, picked up the bag and the three mailing tubes. One tube he kept separate from the others by a finger.

No attack would take place, he judged, in the drugstore. The crowded concourse between himself and the post office he would ordinarily have considered equally safe—but not today. A large crowd of people, he knew, are equal to so many trees as witnesses if the dice were loaded with any sort of a diversion.

He slanted across the bordering slidewalk and headed directly across the middle toward the post office, keeping as far from other people as he could manage. He had become aware of two men converging on him when the expected diversion took place.

It was a blinding light and a loud explosion, followed by screams and startled shouts. The source of the explosion he could imagine; the screams and shouts were doubtless furnished free by the public. Being braced, not for this, but for anything, he refrained even from turning his head.

The two men closed rapidly, as on cue.

Most creatures and almost all humans fight only when pushed. This can lose them decisive advantage. The two men made no aggressive move of any sort, other than to come close to Gilead—nor did they ever attack.

Gilead kicked the first of them in the knee cap, using the side of his foot, a much more certain stroke than with the toe. He swung with his travel bag against the other at the same time, not hurting him but bothering him, spoiling his timing. Gilead followed it with a heavy kick to the man’s stomach.

The man whose knee cap he had ruined was on the pavement, but still active—reaching for something, a gun or a knife. Gilead kicked him in the head and stepped over him, continued toward the post office.

Slow march—slow march all the way! He must not give the appearance of running away; he must be the perfect respectable citizen, going about his lawful occasions.

The post office came close, and still no tap on the shoulder, no denouncing shout, no hurrying footsteps. He reached the post office, was inside. The opposition’s diversion had worked, perfectly—but for Gilead, not for them.

There was a short queue at the addressing machine. Gilead joined it, took out his stylus and wrote addresses on the tubes while standing. A man joined the queue almost at once; Gilead made no effort to keep him from seeing what address he was writing; it was “Captain Joseph Gilead, the Explorers’ Club, New York.” When it came his turn to use the symbol printing machine he still made no effort to conceal what keys he was punching—and the symbol address matched the address he had written on each tube.

He worked somewhat awkwardly as the previously prepared gummed label was still concealed in his left palm.

He went from the addressing machine to the mailing receivers; the man who had been behind him in line followed him without pretending to address anything.

Thwonk! and the first tube was away with a muted implosion of compressed air. Thwonk! again and the second was gone—and at the same time Gilead grasped the last one in his left hand, sticking the gummed label down firmly over the address he had just printed on it. Without looking at it he made sure by touch that it was in place, all corners sealed, then thwonk! it joined its mates.

Gilead turned suddenly and trod heavily on the feet of the man crowded close behind him. “Wups! pardon me.” he said happily and turned away. He was feeling very cheerful; not only had he turned his dangerous charge over into the care of a mindless, utterly reliable, automatic machine which could not be coerced, bribed, drugged, nor subverted by any other means and in whose complexities the tube would be perfectly hidden until it reached a destination known only to Gilead, but also he had just stepped on the corns of one of the opposition.

On the steps of the post office he paused beside a policeman who was picking his teeth and staring out at a cluster of people and an ambulance in the middle of the concourse. “What’s up?” Gilead demanded.

The cop shifted his toothpick. “First some damn fool sets off fireworks,” he answered, “then two guys get in a fight and blame near ruin each other.”

“My goodness!” Gilead commented and set off diagonally toward the New Age Hotel.

He looked around for his pick-pocket friend in the lobby, did not see him. Gilead strongly doubted if the runt were on the hotel’s staff. He signed in as Captain Gilead, ordered a suite appropriate to the persona he was wearing, and let himself be conducted to the lift.

Gilead encountered the runner coming down just as he and his bellman were about to go up. “Hi, Shorty!” he called out while deciding not to eat anything in this hotel. “How’s business?”

The runt looked startled, then passed him without answering, his eyes blank. It was not likely, Gilead considered, that the runt would be used after being detected; therefore some sort of drop box, call station, or headquarters of the opposition was actually inside the hotel. Very well, that would save everybody a lot of useless commuting—and there would be fun for all!

In the meantime he wanted a bath.

In his suite he tipped the bellman who continued to linger.

“Want some company?”

“No, thanks, I’m a hermit.”

“Try this then.” The bellman inserted Gilead’s room key in the stereo panel, fiddled with the controls, the entire wall lighted up and faded away. A svelte blonde creature, backed by a chorus line, seemed about to leap into Gilead’s lap. “That’s not a tape,” the bellman went on, “that’s a live transmission direct from the Tivoli. We got the best equipment in town.”

“So you have,” Gilead agreed, and pulled out his key. The picture blanked; the music stopped. “But I want a bath, so get out—now that you’ve spent four credits of my money.”

The bellman shrugged and left. Gilead threw off his clothes and stepped into the “fresher.” Twenty minutes later, shaved from ear to toe, scrubbed, soaked, sprayed, pummeled, rubbed, scented, powdered, and feeling ten years younger, he stepped out. His clothes were gone.

His bag was still there; he looked it over. It seemed okay, itself and contents. There were the proper number of microfilm spools—not that it mattered. Only three of the spools mattered and they were already in the mail. The rest were just shrubbery, copies of his own public lectures. Nevertheless he examined one of them, unspooling a few frames.

It was one of his own lectures all right—but not one he had had with him. It was one of his published transcriptions, available in any large book store. “Pixies everywhere,” he remarked and put it back. Such attention to detail was admirable.

“Room service!”

The service panel lighted up. “Yes, sir?”

“My clothes are missing. Chase ’em up for me.”

“The valet has them, sir.”

“I didn’t order valet service. Get ’em back.”

The girl’s voice and face were replaced, after a slight delay, by those of a man. “It is not necessary to order valet service here, sir. ‘A New Age guest receives the best.’ ”

“Okay, get ’em back—chop, chop! I’ve got a date with the Queen of Sheba.”

“Very good, sir.” The image faded.

With wry humor he reviewed his situation. He had already made the possibly fatal error of underestimating his opponent through—he now knew—visualizing that opponent in the unimpressive person of “the runt.” Thus he had allowed himself to be diverted; he should have gone anywhere rather than to the New Age, even to the old Savoy, although that hotel, being a known stamping ground of Captain Gilead, was probably as thoroughly booby-trapped by now as this palatial dive.

He must not assume that he had more than a few more minutes to live. Therefore he must use those few minutes to tell his boss the destination of the three important spools of microfilm. Thereafter, if he still were alive, he must replenish his cash to give him facilities for action—the amount of money in “his” wallet, even if it were returned, was useless for any major action. Thirdly, he must report in, close the present assignment, and be assigned to his present antagonists as a case in themselves, quite aside from the matter of the microfilm.

Not that he intended to drop Runt & Company even if not assigned to them. True artists were scarce—nailing him down by such a simple device as stealing his pants! He loved them for it and wanted to see more of them, as violently as possible.

Even as the image on the room service panel faded he was punching the scrambled keys on the room’s communicator desk. It was possible—certain—that the scramble code he used would be repeated elsewhere in the hotel and the supposed privacy attained by scrambling thereby breached at once. This did not matter; he would have his boss disconnect and call back with a different scramble from the other end. To be sure, the call code of the station to which he was reporting would thereby be breached, but it was more than worthwhile to expend and discard one relay station to get this message through.

Scramble pattern set up, he coded—not New Washington, but the relay station he had selected. A girl’s face showed on the screen. “New Age service, sir. Were you scrambling?”

“Yes.”

“I am ve-ree sor-ree, sir. The scrambling circuits are being repaired. I can scramble for you from the main board.”

“No, thanks, I’ll call in clear.”

“I yam ve-ree sor-ree, sir.”

There was one clear-code he could use—to be used only for crash priority. This was crash priority. Very well—

He punched the keys again without scrambling and waited. The same girl’s face appeared presently. “I am verree sorree, sir; that code does not reply. May I help you?”

“You might send up a carrier pigeon.” He cleared the board.

The cold breath on the back of his neck was stronger now; he decided to do what he could to make it awkward to kill him just yet. He reached back into his mind and coded in clear the Star-Times.

No answer.

He tried the Clarion—again no answer.

No point in beating his head against it; they did not intend to let him talk outside to anyone. He rang for a bellman, sat down in an easy chair, switched it to “shallow massage”, and luxuriated happily in the chair’s tender embrace. No doubt about it; the New Age did have the best mechanos in town—his bath had been wonderful; this chair was superb. Both the recent austerities of Moon Colony and the probability that this would be his last massage added to his pleasure.

The door dilated and a bellman came in—about his own size, Gilead noted. The man’s eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch on seeing Gilead’s oyster-naked condition. “You want company?”

Gilead stood up and moved toward him. “No, dearie,” he said grinning, “I want you”—at which he sank three stiffened fingers in the man’s solar plexus.

As the man grunted and went down Gilead chopped him in the side of the neck with the edge of his hand.

The shoulders of the jacket were too narrow and the shoes too large; nevertheless two minutes later “Captain Gilead” had followed “Joel Abner” to oblivion and Joe, temporary and free-lance bellman, let himself out of the room. He regretted not being able to leave a tip with his predecessor.

He sauntered past the passengers lifts, firmly misdirected a guest who had stopped him, and found the service elevator. By it was a door to the “quick drop.” He opened it, reached out and grasped a waiting pulley belt, and, without stopping to belt himself into it, contenting himself with hanging on, he stepped off the edge. In less time than it would have taken him to parachute the drop he was picking himself up off the cushions in the hotel basement and reflecting that lunar gravitation surely played hob with a man’s leg muscles.

He left the drop room and started out in an arbitrary direction, but walking as if he were on business and belonged where he was—any exit would do and he would find one eventually.

He wandered in and out of the enormous pantry, then found the freight door through which the pantry was supplied.

When he was thirty feet from it, it closed and an alarm sounded. He turned back.

He encountered two policemen in one of the many corridors under the giant hotel and attempted to brush on past them. One of them stared at him, then caught his arm. “Captain Gilead—”

Gilead tried to squirm away, but without showing any skill in the attempt. “What’s the idea?”

“You are Captain Gilead.”

“And you’re my Aunt Sadie. Let go of my arm, copper.”

The policeman fumbled in his pocket with his other hand, pulled out a notebook. Gilead noted that the other officer had moved a safe ten feet away and had a Markheim gun trained on him.

“You, Captain Gilead,” the first officer droned, “are charged on a sworn complaint with uttering a counterfeit five-pluton note at or about thirteen hours this date at the Grand Concourse drugstore in this city. You are cautioned to come peacefully and are advised that you need not speak at this time. Come along.”

The charge might or might not have something to it, thought Gilead; he had not examined closely the money in the substituted wallet. He did not mind being booked, now that the microfilm was out of his possession; to be in an ordinary police station with nothing more sinister to cope with than crooked cops and dumb desk sergeants would be easy street compared with Runt & Company searching for him.

On the other hand the situation was too pat, unless the police had arrived close on his heels and found the stripped bellman, gotten his story and started searching.

The second policeman kept his distance and did not lower the Markheim gun. That made other consideration academic. “Okay, I’ll go,” he protested. “You don’t have to twist my arm that way.”

They went up to the weather level and out to the street—and not once did the second cop drop his guard. Gilead relaxed and waited. A police car was balanced at the curb. Gilead stopped. “I’ll walk,” he said. “The nearest station is just around the corner. I want to be booked in my own precinct.”

He felt a teeth-chattering chill as the blast from the Markheim hit him; he pitched forward on his face.

He was coming to, but still could not coordinate, as they lifted him out of the car. By the time he found himself being half-carried, half-marched down a long corridor he was almost himself again, but with a gap in his memory. He was shoved through a door which clanged behind him. He steadied himself and looked around.

“Greetings, friend,” a resonant voice called out “Drag up a chair by the fire.”

Gilead blinked, deliberately slowed himself down, and breathed deeply. His healthy body was fighting off the effects of the Markheim bolt; he was almost himself.

The room was a cell, old-fashioned, almost primitive. The front of the cell and the door were steel bars; the walls were concrete. Its only furniture, a long wooden bench, was occupied by the man who had spoken. He was fiftyish, of ponderous frame, heavy features set in a shrewd, good-natured expression. He was lying back on the bench, head pillowed on his hands, in animal ease. Gilead had seen him before. “Hello, Dr. Baldwin.”

The man sat up with a flowing economy of motion that moved his bulk as little as possible. “I’m not Dr. Baldwin—I’m not Doctor anything, though my name is Baldwin.” He stared at Gilead. “But I know you—seen some of your lectures.”

Gilead cocked an eyebrow. “A man would seem naked around the Association of Theoretical physicists without a doctor’s degree—and you were at their last meeting.”

Baldwin chuckled boomingly. “That accounts for it—that has to be my cousin on my father’s side, Hartley M.—Stuffy citizen Hartley. I’ll have to try to take the curse off the family name, now that I’ve met you, Captain.” He stuck out a huge hand. “Gregory Baldwin, ‘Kettle Belly’ to my friends. New and used helicopters is as close as I come to theoretical physics. ‘Kettle Belly Baldwin, King of the Kopters’—you must have seen my advertising.”

“Now that you mention it, I have.”

Baldwin pulled out a card. “Here. If you ever need one, I’ll give you a ten percent off for knowing old Hartley. Matter of fact, I can do right well by you in a year-old Curtiss, a family car without a mark on it.”

Gilead accepted the card and sat down. “Not at the moment, thanks. You seem to have an odd sort of office, Mr. Baldwin.”

Baldwin chuckled again. “In the course of a long life these things happen, Captain. I won’t ask you why you are here or what you are doing in that monkey suit. Call me Kettle Belly.”

“Okay.” Gilead got up and went to the door. Opposite the cell was a blank wall; there was no one in sight. He whistled and shouted—no answer.

“What’s itching you, Captain?” Baldwin asked gently.

Gilead turned. His cellmate had dealt a solitaire hand on the bench and was calmly playing.

“I’ve got to raise the turnkey and send for a lawyer.”

“Don’t fret about it. Let’s play some cards.” He reached in a pocket. “I’ve got a second deck; how about some Russian bank?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got to get out of here.” He shouted again—still no answer.

“Don’t waste your lung power, Captain,” Baldwin advised him. “They’ll come when it suits them and not a second before. I know. Come play with me; it passes the time.” Baldwin appeared to be shuffling the two decks; Gilead could see that he was actually stacking the cards. The deception amused him; he decided to play—since the truth of Baldwin’s advice was so evident.

“If you don’t like Russian bank,” Kettle Belly went on, “here is a game I learned as a kid.” He paused and stared into Gilead’s eyes. “It’s instructive as well as entertaining, yet it’s simple, once you catch on to it.” He started dealing out the cards. “It makes a better game with two decks, because the black cards don’t mean anything. Just the twenty-six red cards in each deck count—with the heart suit coming first. Each card scores according to its position in that sequence. The ace of hearts is one and the king of hearts counts thirteen; the ace of diamonds is next at fourteen and so on. Savvy?”

“Yes.”

“And the blacks don’t count. They’re blanks . . . spaces. Ready to play?”

“What are the rules?”

“We’ll deal out one hand for free; you’ll learn faster as you see it. Then, when you’ve caught on, I’ll play you for a half interest in the atomics trust—or ten bits in cash.” He resumed dealing, laying the cards out rapidly in columns, five to a row. He paused, finished. “It’s my deal, so it’s your count. See what you get.”

It was evident that Baldwin’s stacking had brought the red cards into groups, yet there was no evident advantage to it, nor was the count especially high—nor low. Gilead stared at it, trying to figure out the man’s game. The cheating, as cheating seemed too bold to be probable.

Suddenly the cards jumped at him, arranged themselves in a meaningful array. He read:

XTHXY

CANXX

XXXSE

HEARX

XUSXX

The fact that there were only two fives-of-hearts available had affected the spelling but the meaning was clear. Gilead reached for the cards. “I’ll try one. I can beat that score.” He dipped into the tips belonging to the suit’s owner. “Ten bits it is.”

Baldwin covered it. Gilead shuffled, making even less attempt to cover up than had Baldwin. He dealt:

WHATS

XXXXX

XYOUR

GAMEX

XXXXX

Baldwin shoved the money toward him and anted again. “Okay, my turn for revenge.” He laid out:

XXIMX

XONXX

YOURX

XXXXX

XSIDE

“I win again,” Gilead announced gleefully. “Ante up.” He grabbed the cards and manipulated them:

YEAHX

XXXXX

PROVE

XXITX

XXXXX

Baldwin counted and said, “You’re too smart for me. Gimme the cards.” He produced another ten-bit piece and dealt again:

XXILX

HELPX

XXYOU

XGETX

OUTXX

“I should have cut the cards,” Gilead complained, pushing the money over. “Let’s double the bets.” Baldwin grunted and Gilead dealt again:

XNUTS

IMXXX

SAFER

XXINX

XGAOL

“I broke your luck,” Baldwin gloated. “We’ll double it again?”

XUXRX

XNUTS

THISX

NOXXX

XJAIL

The deal shifted:

KEEPX

XTALK

INGXX

XXXXX

XBUDX

Baldwin answered:

THISX

XXXXX

XXNEW

AGEXX

XHOTL

As he stacked the cards again Gilead considered these new factors. He was prepared to believe that he was hidden somewhere in the New Age Hotel; in fact the counterproposition that his opponents had permitted two ordinary cops to take him away to a normal city jail was most unlikely—unless they had the jail as fully under control as they quite evidently had the hotel. Nevertheless the point was not proven. As for Baldwin, he might be on Gilead’s side; more probably he was planted as an agent provocateur—or he might be working for himself.

The permutations added up to six situations, only one of which made it desirable to accept Baldwin’s offer for help in a jail break—said situation being the least likely of the six.

Nevertheless, though he considered Baldwin a liar, net, he tentatively decided to accept. A static situation brought him no advantage; a dynamic situation—any dynamic situation—he might turn to his advantage. But more data were needed. “These cards are sticky as candy,” he complained. “You letting your money ride?”

“Suits.” Gilead dealt again:

XXXXX

WHYXX

AMXXX

XXXXI

XHERE

“You have the damnedest luck,” Baldwin commented:

FILMS

ESCAP

BFORE

XUXXX

KRACK

Gilead swept up the cards, was about to “shuffle,” when Baldwin said, “Oh oh, school’s out.” Footsteps could be heard in the passage. “Good luck, boy,” Baldwin added.

Baldwin knew about the films, but had not used any of the dozen ways to identify himself as part of Gilead’s own organization. Therefore he was planted by the opposition, or he was a third factor.

More important, the fact that Baldwin knew about the films proved his assertion that this was not a jail. It followed with bitter certainty that he, Gilead, stood no computable chance of getting out alive. The footsteps approaching the cell could be ticking off the last seconds of his life.

He knew now that he should have found means to report the destination of the films before going to the New Age. But Humpty Dumpty was off the wall, entropy always increases—but the films must be delivered.

The footsteps were quite close.

Baldwin might get out alive.

But who was Baldwin?

All the while he was “shuffling” the cards. The action was not final; he had only to give them one true shuffle to destroy the message being set up in them. A spider settled from the ceiling, landed on the other man’s hand. Baldwin, instead of knocking it off and crushing it, most carefully reached his arm out toward the wall and encouraged it to lower itself to the floor. “Better stay out of the way, shorty,” he said gently, “or one of the big boys is likely to step on you.”

The incident, small as it was, determined Gilead’s decision—and with it, the fate of a planet. He stood up and handed the stacked deck to Baldwin. “I owe you exactly ten-sixty,” he said carefully. “Be sure to remember it—I’ll see who our visitors are.”

The footsteps had stopped outside the cell door.

There were two of them, dressed neither as police nor as guards; the masquerade was over. One stood well back, covering the maneuver with a Markheim, the other unlocked the door. “Back against the wall, Fatso,” he ordered. “Gilead, out you come. And take it easy, or, after we freeze you, I’ll knock out your teeth just for fun.”

Baldwin shuffled back against the wall; Gilead came out slowly. He watched for any opening but the leader backed away from him without once getting between him and the man with the Markheim. “Ahead of us and take it slow,” he was ordered. He complied, helpless under the precautions, unable to run, unable to fight.

Baldwin went back to the bench when they had gone. He dealt out the cards as if playing solitaire, swept them up again, and continued to deal himself solitaire hands. Presently he “shuffled” the cards back to the exact order Gilead had left them in and pocketed them.

The message had read: XTELLXFBSXPOBOXDEBT XXXCHI.

His two guards marched Gilead into a room and locked the door behind him, leaving themselves outside. He found himself in a large window overlooking the city and a reach of the river; balancing it on the left hung a solid portraying a lunar landscape in convincing color and depth. In front of him was a rich but not ostentatious executive desk.

The lower part of his mind took in these details; his attention could be centered only on the person who sat at that desk. She was old but not senile, frail but not helpless. Her eyes were very much alive, her expression serene. Her translucent, well-groomed hands were busy with a frame of embroidery.

On the desk in front of her were two pneumo mailing tubes, a pair of slippers, and some tattered, soiled remnants of cloth and plastic.

She looked up. “How do you do, Captain Gilead?” she said in a thin, sweet soprano suitable for singing hymns.

Gilead bowed. “Well, thank you—and you, Mrs. Keithley?”

“You know me, I see.”

“Madame would be famous if only for her charities.”

“You are kind. Captain, I will not waste your time. I had hoped that we could release you without fuss, but—” She indicated the two tubes in front of her “—you can see for yourself that we must deal with you further.”

“So?”

“Come, now, Captain. You mailed three tubes. These two are only dummies, and the third did not reach its apparent destination. It is possible that it was badly addressed and has been rejected by the sorting machines. If so, we shall have it in due course. But it seems much more likely that you found some way to change its address—likely to the point of pragmatic certainty.”

“Or possibly I corrupted your servant.”

She shook her head slightly. “We examined him quite thoroughly before—”

“Before he died?”

“Please, Captain, let’s not change the subject. I must know where you sent that other tube. You cannot be hypnotized by ordinary means; you have an acquired immunity to hypnotic drugs. Your tolerance for pain extends beyond the threshold of unconsciousness. All of these things have already been proved, else you would not be in the job you are in; I shall not put either of us to the inconvenience of proving them again. Yet I must have that tube. What is your price?”

“You assume that I have a price.”

She smiled. “If the old saw has any exceptions, history does not record them. Be reasonable, Captain. Despite your admitted immunity to ordinary forms of examination, there are ways of breaking down—of changing—a man’s character so that he becomes really quite pliant under examination . . . ways that we learned from the commissars. But those ways take time and a woman my age has no time to waste.”

Gilead lied convincingly. “It’s not your age, ma’am; it is the fact that you know that you must obtain that tube at once or you will never get it.” He was hoping—more than that, he was willing—that Baldwin would have sense enough to examine the cards for one last message . . . and act on it. If Baldwin failed and he, Gilead, died, the tube would eventually come to rest in a dead-letter office and would in time be destroyed.

“You are probably right. Nevertheless, Captain, I will go ahead with the Mindszenty technique if you insist upon it. What do you say to ten million plutonium credits?”

Gilead believed her first statement. He reviewed in his mind the means by which a man bound hand and foot, or worse, could kill himself unassisted. “Ten million plutons and a knife in my back?” he answered. “Let’s be practical.”

“Convincing assurance would be given before you need talk.”

“Even so, it is not my price. After all, you are worth at least five hundred million plutons.”

She leaned forward. “I like you, Captain. You are a man of strength. I am an old woman, without heirs. Suppose you became my partner—and my successor?”

“Pie in the sky.”

“No, no! I mean it. My age and sex do not permit me actively to serve myself; I must rely on others. Captain, I am very tired of inefficient tools, of men who can let things be spirited away right from under their noses. Imagine! She made a little gesture of exasperation, clutching her hand into a claw. “You and I could go far, Captain. I need you.”

“But I do not need you, madame. And I won’t have you.”

She made no answer, but touched a control on her desk. A door on the left dilated; two men and a girl came in. The girl Gilead recognized as the waitress from the Grand Concourse Drug Store. They had stripped her bare, which seemed to him an unnecessary indignity since her working uniform could not possibly have concealed a weapon.

The girl, once inside, promptly blew her top, protesting, screaming, using language unusual to her age and sex—a hysterical, thalmic outburst of volcanic proportions.

“Quiet, child!”

The girl stopped in midstream, looked with surprise at Mrs. Keithley, and shut up. Nor did she start again, but stood there, looking even younger than she was and somewhat aware of and put off stride by her nakedness. She was covered now with goose flesh, one tear cut a white line down her dust-smeared face, stopped at her lip. She licked at it and sniffled.

“You were out of observation once, Captain,” Mrs. Keithley went on, “during which time this person saw you twice. Therefore we will examine her.”

Gilead shook his head. “She knows no more than a goldfish. But go ahead—five minutes of hypno will convince you.”

“Oh, no, Captain! Hypno is sometimes fallible; if she is a member of your bureau, it is certain to be fallible.” She signaled to one of the men attending the girl; he went to a cupboard and opened it. “I am old-fashioned,” the old woman went on. “I trust simple mechanical means much more than I do the cleverest of clinical procedures.”

Gilead saw the implements that the man was removing from cupboard and started forward. “Stop that!” he commanded. “You can’t do that—”

He bumped his nose quite hard.

The man paid him no attention. Mrs. Keithley said, “Forgive me, Captain. I should have told you that this room is not one room, but two. The partition is merely glass, but very special glass—I use the room for difficult interviews. There is no need to hurt yourself by trying to reach us.”

“Just a moment!”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Your time is already running out. Let the girl and me go free now. You are aware that there are several hundred men searching this city for me even now—and that they will not stop until they have taken it apart panel by panel.”

“I think not. A man answering your description to the last factor caught the South Africa rocket twenty minutes after you registered at the New Age Hotel. He was carrying your very own identifications. He will not reach South Africa, but the manner of his disappearance will point to desertion rather than accident or suicide.”

Gilead dropped the matter. “What do you plan to gain by abusing this child? You have all she knows; certainly you do not believe that we could afford to trust in such as she?”

Mrs. Keithley pursed her lips. “Frankly, I do not expect to learn anything from her. I may learn something from you.”

“I see.”

The leader of the two men looked questioning at his mistress; she motioned him to go ahead. The girl stared blankly at him, plainly unaware of the uses of the equipment he had gotten out. He and his partner got busy.

Shortly the girl screamed, continued to scream for a few moments in a high adulation. Then it stopped as she fainted.

They roused her and stood her up again. She stood, swaying and staring stupidly at her poor hands, forever damaged even for the futile purposes to which she had been capable of putting them. Blood spread down her wrists and dripped on a plastic tarpaulin, placed there earlier by the second of the two men.

Gilead did nothing and said nothing. Knowing as he did that the tube he was protecting contained matters measured in millions of lives, the problem of the girl, as a problem, did not even arise. It disturbed a deep and very ancient part of his brain, but almost automatically he cut that part off and lived for the time in his forebrain.

Consciously he memorized the faces, skulls, and figures of the two men and filed the data under “personal.” Thereafter he unobtrusively gave his attention to the scene out the window He had been noting it all through the interview but he wanted to give it explicit thought. He recast what he saw in terms of what it would look like had he been able to look squarely out the window and decided that he was on the ninety-first floor of the New Age Hotel and approximately one hundred and thirty meters from the north end. He filed this under “professional.”

When the girl died, Mrs. Keithley left the room without speaking to him. The men gathered up what was left in the tarpaulin and followed her. Presently the two guards returned and, using the same foolproof methods, took him back to his cell.

As soon as the guards had gone and Kettle Belly was free to leave his position against the wall he came forward and pounded Gilead on the shoulders. “Hi, boy! I’m sure glad to see you—I was scared I would never lay eyes on you again. How was it? Pretty rough?”

“No, they didn’t hurt me; they just asked some questions.”

“You’re lucky. Some of those crazy damn cops play mean when they get you alone in a back room. Did they let you call your lawyer?”

“No.”

“Then they ain’t through with you. You want to watch it, kid.”

Gilead sat down on the bench. “The hell with them. Want to play some more cards?”

“Don’t mind if I do. I feel lucky.” Baldwin pulled out the double deck, riffled through it. Gilead took them and did the same. Good! they were in the order he had left them in. He ran his thumb across the edges again—yes, even the black nulls were unchanged in sequence; apparently Kettle Belly had simply stuck them in his pocket without examining them, without suspecting that a last message had been written in to them. He felt sure that Baldwin would not have left the message set up if he had read it. Since he found himself still alive, he was much relieved to think this.

He gave the cards one true shuffle, then started stacking them. His first lay-out read:

XXXXX

ESCAP

XXATX

XXXXX

XONCE

“Gotcha that time!” Baldwin crowed. “Ante up:”

DIDXX

XYOUX

XXXXX

CRACK

“Let it ride,” announced Gilead and took the deal:

XXNOX

BUTXX

XXXXX

XLETS

XXGOX

“You’re too derned lucky to live,” complained Baldwin. “Look—we’ll leave the bets doubled and double the lay-out. I want a fair chance to get my money back.”

His next lay-out read:

XXXXX

XTHXN

XXXXX

THXYX

NEEDX

XXXUX

ALIVX

XXXXX

PLAYX

XXXUP

“Didn’t do you much good, did it?” Gilead commented, took the cards and started arranging them,

“There’s something mighty funny about a man that wins all the time,” Baldwin grumbled. He watched Gilead narrowly. Suddenly his hand shot out, grabbed Gilead’s wrist. “I thought so;” he yelled. “A goddam card sharp—” Gilead shook his hand off. “Why, you obscene fat slug!”

“Caught you! Caught you!” Kettle Belly reclaimed his hold, grabbed the other wrist as well. They struggled and rolled to the floor.

Gilead discovered two things: this awkward, bulky man was an artist at every form of dirty fighting and he could simulate it convincingly without damaging his partner. His nerve holds were an inch off the nerve; his kneeings were to thigh muscle rather than to the crotch.

Baldwin tried for a chancery strangle; Gilead let him take it. The big man settled the flat of his forearm against the point of Gilead’s chin rather than against his Adam’s apple and proceeded to “strangle” him.

There were running footsteps in the corridor. Gilead caught a glimpse of the guards as they reached the door. They stopped momentarily; the bell of the Markheim was too big to use through the steel grating, the charge would be screened and grounded. Apparently they did not have pacifier bombs with them, for they hesitated. Then the leader quickly unlocked the door, while the man with the Markheim dropped back to the cover position.

Baldwin ignored them, while continuing his stream of profanity and abuse at Gilead. He let the first man almost reach them before he suddenly said in Gilead’s ear, “Close your eyes!” At which he broke just as suddenly.

Gilead sensed an incredibly dazzling flash of light even through his eyelids. Almost on top of it he heard a muffled crack; he opened his eyes and saw that the first man was down, his head twisted at a grotesque angle.

The man with the Markheim was shaking his head; the muzzle of his weapon weaved around. Baldwin was charging him in a waddle, back and knees bent until he was hardly three feet tall. The blinded guard could hear him, let fly a charge in the direction of the noise; it passed over Baldwin.

Baldwin was on him; the two went down. There was another cracking noise of ruptured bone and another dead man. Baldwin stood up, grasping the Markheim, keeping it pointed down the corridor. “How are your eyes, kid?” he called out anxiously.

“They’re all right.”

“Then come take this chiller.” Gilead moved up, took the Markheim. Baldwin ran to the dead end of the corridor where a window looked out over the city. The window did not open; there was no “copter step” beyond it. It was merely a straight drop. He came running back.

Gilead was shuffling possibilities in his mind. Events had moved by Baldwin’s plan, not by his. As a result of his visit to Mrs. Keithley’s “interview room” he was oriented in space. The corridor ahead and a turn to the left should bring him to the quick-drop shaft. Once in the basement and armed with a Markheim, he felt sure that he could fight his way out—with Baldwin in trail if the man would follow. If not—well, there was too much at stake.

Baldwin was into the cell and out again almost at once. “Come along!” Gilead snapped. A head showed at the bend in the corridor; he let fly at it and the owner of the head passed out on the floor.

“Out of my way, kid!” Baldwin answered. He was carrying the heavy bench on which they had “played” cards. He started up the corridor with it, toward the sealed window, gaining speed remarkably as he went.

His makeshift battering ram struck the window heavily. The plastic bulged, ruptured, and snapped like a soap bubble. The bench went on through, disappeared from sight, while Baldwin teetered on hands and knees, a thousand feet of nothingness under his chin.

“Kid!” he yelled. “Close in! Fall back!”

Gilead backed towards him, firing twice more as he did so. He still did not see how Baldwin planned to get out, but the big man had demonstrated that he had resourcefulness—and resources.

Baldwin was whistling through his fingers and waving. In violation of all city traffic rules a helicopter separated itself from the late afternoon throng, cut through a lane, and approached the window. It hovered just far enough away to keep from fouling its blades. The driver opened the door, a line snaked across and Kettle Belly caught it. With great speed he made it fast to the window’s polarizer knob, then grabbed the Markheim. “You first,” he snapped. “Hurry!”

Gilead dropped to his knees and grasped the line; the driver immediately increased his tip speed and tilted his rotor; the line tautened. Gilead let it take his weight, then swarmed across it. The driver gave him a hand up while controlling his craft like a high school horse with his other hand.

The ’copter bucked; Gilead turned and saw Baldwin coming across, a fat spider on a web. As he himself helped the big man in, the driver reached down and cut the line. The ship bucked again and slid away.

There were already men standing in the broken window. “Get lost, Steve!” Baldwin ordered. The driver gave his tip jets another notch and tilted the rotor still more; the ’copter swooped away. He eased it into the traffic stream and inquired, “Where to?”

“Set her for home—and tell the other boys to go home, too. No—you’ve got your hands full; I’ll tell them!” Baldwin crowded up into the other pilot’s seat, slipped on phones and settled a quiet-mike over his mouth. The driver adjusted his car to the traffic, set up a combination on his pilot, then settled back and opened a picture magazine.

Shortly Baldwin took off the phones and came back to the passenger compartment. “Takes a lot of ’copters to be sure you have one cruising by when you need it,” he said conversationally. “Fortunately, I’ve got a lot of ’em. Oh, by the way, this is Steve Halliday. Steve, meet Joe—Joe, what is your last name?”

“Greene,” answered Gilead.

“Howdy,” said the driver and let his eyes go back to his magazine.

Gilead considered the situation. He was not sure that it had been improved. Kettle Belly, whatever he was, was more than a used ’copter dealer—and he knew about the films. This boy Steve looked like a harmless young extrovert but, then, Kettle Belly himself looked like a lunk. He considered trying to overpower both of them, remembered Kettle Belly’s virtuosity in rough-and-tumble fighting, and decided against it. Perhaps Kettle Belly really was on his side, completely and utterly. He heard rumors that the Department used more than one echelon of operatives and he had no way of being sure that he himself was at the top level.

“Kettle Belly,” he went on, “could you set me down at the airport first? I’m in one hell of a hurry.”

Baldwin looked him over. “Sure, if you say so. But I thought you would want to swap those duds? You’re as conspicuous as a preacher at a stag party. And how are you fixed for cash?”

With his fingers Gilead counted the change that had come with the suit. A man without cash had one arm in a sling. “How long would it take?”

“Ten minutes extra, maybe.”

Gilead thought again about Kettle Belly’s fighting ability and decided that there was no way for a fish in water to get any wetter. “Okay.” He settled back and relaxed completely.

Presently he turned again to Baldwin. “By the way, how did you manage to sneak in that dazzle bomb?”

Kettle Belly chuckled. “I’m a large man, Joe; there’s an awful lot of me to search.” He laughed again. “You’d be amazed at where I had that hidden.”

Gilead changed the subject. “How did you happen to be there in the first place?”

Baldwin sobered. “That’s a long and complicated story. Come back some day when you’re not in such a rush and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“I’ll do that—soon.”

“Good. Maybe I can sell you that used Curtiss at the same time.”

The pilot alarm sounded; the driver put down his magazine and settled the craft on the roof of Baldwin’s establishment.

Baldwin was as good as his word. He took Gilead to his office, sent for clothes—which showed up with great speed—and handed Gilead a wad of bills suitable to stuff a pillow. “You can mail it back,” he said.

“I’ll bring it back in person,” promised Gilead.

“Good. Be careful out on the street. Some of our friends are sure to be around.”

“I’ll be careful.” He left, as casually as if he had called there on business, but feeling less sure of himself than usual. Baldwin himself remained a mystery and, in his business, Gilead could not afford mysteries.

There was a public phone booth in the lobby of Baldwin’s building. Gilead went in, scrambled, then coded a different relay station from the one he had attempted to use before. He gave his booth’s code and instructed the operator to scramble back. In a matter of minutes he was talking to his chief in New Washington.

“Joe! Where the hell have you been?”

“Later, boss—get this.” In departmental oral code as an added precaution, he told his chief that the films were in post office box ten-sixty, Chicago, and insisted that they be picked up by a major force at once.

His chief turned away from the view plate, then returned, “Okay, it’s done. Now what happened to you?”

“Later, boss, later. I think I’ve got some friends outside who are anxious to rassle with me. Keep me here and I may get a hole in my head.”

“Okay—but head right back here, I want a full report; I’ll wait here for you.”

“Right.” He switched off.

He left the booth light-heartedly, with the feeling of satisfaction that comes from a hard job successfully finished. He rather hoped that some of his “friends” would show up; he felt like kicking somebody who needed kicking.

But they disappointed him. He boarded the transcontinental rocket without alarms and slept all the way to New Washington.

He reached the Federal Bureau of Security by one of many concealed routes and went to his boss’s office. After scan and voice check he was let in. Bonn looked up and scowled.

Gilead ignored the expression; Bonn usually scowled. “Agent Joseph Briggs, three-four-oh-nine-seven-two, reporting back from assignment, sir,” he said evenly.

Bonn switched a desk control to “recording” and another to “covert.”

“You are, eh? Why, thumb-fingered idiot! How do you dare to show your face around here?”

“Easy now, boss—what’s the trouble?”

Bonn fumed incoherently for a time, then said, “Briggs, twelve star men covered that pick up—and the box was empty. Post office box ten-sixty, Chicago, indeed! Where are those films? Was it a cover up? Have you got them with you?”

Gilead-Briggs restrained his surprise. “No. I mailed them at the Grand Concourse post office to the address you just named.” He added, “The machine may have kicked them out; I was forced to letter by hand the machine symbols.”

Bonn looked suddenly hopeful. He touched another control and said, “Carruthers! On that Briggs matter: Check the rejection stations for that routing.” He thought and then added, “Then try a rejection sequence on the assumption that the first symbol was acceptable to the machine but mistaken. Also for each of the other symbols; run them simultaneously—crash priority for all agents and staff. After that try combinations of symbols taken two at a time, then three at a time, and so on.” He switched off.

“The total of that series you just set up is every postal address in the continent,” Briggs suggested mildly. “It can’t be done.”

“It’s got to be done! Man, have you any idea of the importance of those films you were guarding?”

“Yes. The director at Moon Base told me what I was carrying.”

“You don’t act as if you did. You’ve lost the most valuable thing this or any other government can possess—the absolute weapon. Yet you stand there blinking at me as if you had mislaid a pack of cigarets.”

“Weapon?” objected Briggs. “I wouldn’t call the nova effect that, unless you class suicide as a weapon. And I don’t concede that I’ve lost it. As an agent acting alone and charged primarily with keeping it out of the hands of others, I used the best means available in an emergency to protect it. That is well within the limits of my authority. I was spotted, by some means—”

“You shouldn’t have been spotted!”

“Granted. But I was. I was unsupported and my estimate of the situation did not include a probability of staying alive. Therefore I had to protect my charge by some means which did not depend on my staying alive.”

“But you did stay alive—you’re here.”

“Not my doing nor yours, I assure you. I should have been covered. It was your order, you will remember, that I act alone.”

Bonn looked sullen. “That was necessary.”

“So? In any case, I don’t see what all the shooting is about. Either the films show up, or they are lost and will be destroyed as unclaimed mail. So I go back to the Moon and get another set of prints.”

Bonn chewed his lip. “You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

Bonn hesitated a long time. “There were just two sets. You had the originals, which were to be placed in a vault in the Archives—and the others were to be destroyed at once when the originals were known to be secure.”

“Yes? What’s the hitch?”

“You don’t see the importance of the procedure. Every working paper, every file, every record was destroyed when these films were made. Every technician, every assistant, received hypno. The intention was not only to protect the results of the research but to wipe out the very fact that the research had taken place. There aren’t a dozen people in the system who even know of the existence of the nova effect.”

Briggs had his own opinions on this point, based on recent experience, but he kept still about them. Bonn went on, “The Secretary has been after me steadily to let him know when the originals were secured. He has been quite insistent, quite critical. When you called in, I told him that the films were safe and that he would have them in a few minutes.”

“Well?”

“Don’t you see, you fool—he gave the order at once to destroy the other copies.”

Briggs whistled. “Jumped the gun, didn’t he?”

“That’s not the way he’ll figure it—mind you, the President was pressuring him. He’ll say that I jumped the gun.”

“And so you did.”

“No, you jumped the gun. You told me the films were in that box.”

“Hardly. I said I had sent them there.”

“No, you didn’t”

“Get out the tape and play it back.”

“There is no tape—by the President’s own order no records are kept on this operation.”

“So? Then why are you recording now?”

“Because,” Bonn answered sharply, “someone is going to pay for this and it is not going to be me.”

“Meaning,” Briggs said slowly, “that it is going to be me.”

“I didn’t say that. It might be the Secretary.”

“If his head rolls, so will yours. No, both of you are figuring on using me. Before you plan on that, hadn’t you better hear my report? It might affect your plans. I’ve got news for you, boss.”

Bonn drummed the desk. “Go ahead. It had better be good.”

In a passionless monotone Briggs recited all events as recorded by sharp memory from receipt of the films on the Moon to the present moment. Bonn listened impatiently.

Finished, Briggs waited. Bonn got up and strode around the room. Finally he stopped and said, “Briggs, I never heard such a fantastic pack of lies in my life. A fat man who plays cards! A wallet that wasn’t your wallet—your clothes stolen! And Mrs. Keithley—Mrs. Keithley! Don’t you know that she is one of the strongest supporters of the Administration?”

Briggs said nothing. Bonn went on, “Now I’ll tell you what actually did happen. Up to the time you grounded at Pied-a-Terre your report is correct, but—”

“How do you know?”

“Because you were covered, naturally. You don’t think I would trust this to one man, do you?”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have hollered for help and saved all this.”

Bonn brushed it aside. “You engaged a runner, dismissed him, went in that drugstore, came out and went to the post office. There was no fight in the concourse for the simple reason that no one was following you. At the post office you mailed three tubes, one of which may or may not have contained the films. You went from there to the New Age Hotel, left it twenty minutes later and caught the transrocket for Cape Town. You—”

“Just a moment,” objected Briggs. “How could I have done that and still be here now?”

“Eh?” For a moment Bonn seemed stumped. “That’s just a detail; you were positively identified. For that matter, it would have been a far, far better thing for you if you had stayed on that rocket. In fact—” the bureau chief got a far-away look in his eyes, “—you’ll be better off for the time being if we assume officially that you did stay on that rocket. You are in a bad spot, Briggs, a very bad spot. You did not muff this assignment—you sold out!”

Briggs looked at him levelly. “You are preferring charges?”

“Not just now. That is why it is best to assume that you stayed on that rocket—until matters settle down, clarify.”

Briggs did not need a graph to show him what solution would come out when “matters clarified.” He took from a pocket a memo pad, scribbled on it briefly, and handed it to Bonn.

It read: “I resign my appointment effective immediately.” He had added signature, thumbprint, date, and hour.

“So long, boss,” he added. He turned slightly, as if to go.

Bonn yelled, “Stop! Briggs, you are under arrest.” He reached toward his desk.

Briggs cuffed him in the windpipe, added one to the pit of Bonn’s stomach. He slowed down then and carefully made sure that Bonn would remain out for a satisfactory period. Examination of Bonn’s desk produced a knockout kit; he added a two-hour hypodermic, placing it inconspicuously beside a mole near the man’s backbone. He wiped the needle, restored everything to its proper place, removed the current record from the desk and wiped the tape of all mention of himself, including door check. He left the desk set to “covert” and “do not disturb” and left by another of the concealed routes to the Bureau.

He went to the rocket port, bought a ticket, unreserved, for the first ship to Chicago. There was twenty minutes to wait; he made a couple of minor purchases from clerks rather than from machines, letting his face be seen. When the Chicago ship was called he crowded forward with the rest.

At the inner gate, just short of the weighing-in platform, he became part of the crowd present to see passengers off, rather than a passenger himself. He waved at someone in the line leaving the weighing station beyond the gate, smiled, called out a good-bye, and let the crowd carry him back from the gate as it closed. He peeled off from the crowd at the men’s washroom. When he came out there were several hasty but effective changes in his appearance.

More important, his manner was different.

A short, illicit transaction in a saloon near a hiring hall provided the work card he needed; fifty-five minutes later he was headed across country as Jack Gillespie, loader and helper-driver on a diesel freighter.

Could his addressing of the pneumo tube have been bad enough to cause the automatic postal machines to reject it? He let the picture of the label, as it had been when he had completed it, build in his mind until it was as sharp as the countryside flowing past him. No, his lettering of the symbols had been perfect and correct; the machines would accept it

Could the machine have kicked out the tube for another cause, say a turned-up edge of the gummed label? Yes, but the written label was sufficient to enable a postal clerk to get it back in the groove. One such delay did not exceed ten minutes, even during the rush hour. Even with five such delays the tube would have reached Chicago more than one hour before he reported to Bonn by phone.

Suppose the gummed label had peeled off entirely; in such case the tube would have gone to the same destination as the two cover-up tubes.

In which case Mrs. Keithley would have gotten it, since she had been able to intercept or receive the other two.

Therefore the tube had reached the Chicago post office box.

Therefore Kettle Belly had read the message in the stacked cards, had given instructions to someone in Chicago, had done so while at the helicopter’s radio. After an event, “possible” and “true” are equivalent ideas, whereas “probable” becomes a measure of one’s ignorance. To call a conclusion “improbable” after the event was self-confusing amphigory.

Therefore Kettle Belly Baldwin had the films—a conclusion he had reached in Bonn’s office.

Two hundred miles from New Washington he worked up an argument with the top driver and got himself fired. From a local booth in the town where he dropped he scrambled through to Baldwin’s business office. “Tell him I’m a man who owes him money.”

Shortly the big man’s face built up on the screen. “Hi, kid! How’s tricks?”

“I’m fired.”

“I thought you would be.”

“Worse than that—I’m wanted.”

“Naturally.”

“I’d like to talk with you.”

“Swell. Where are you?”

Gilead told him.

“You’re clean?”

“For a few hours, at least.”

“Go to the local airport. Steve will pick you up.”

Steve did so, nodded a greeting, jumped his craft into the air, set his pilot, and went back to his reading. When the ship settled down on course, Gilead noted it and asked, “Where are we going?”

“The boss’s ranch. Didn’t he tell you?”

“No.” Gilead knew it was possible that he was being taken for a one-way ride. True, Baldwin had enabled him to escape an otherwise pragmatically certain death—it was certain that Mrs. Keithley had not intended to let him stay alive longer that suited her uses, else she would not have had the girl killed in his presence. Until he had arrived at Bonn’s office, he had assumed that Baldwin had saved him because he knew something that Baldwin most urgently wanted to know—whereas now it looked as if Baldwin had saved him for altruistic reasons.

Gilead conceded the existence in this world of altruistic reasons, but was inclined not to treat them as “least hypothesis” until all other possible hypotheses had been eliminated; Baldwin might have had his own reasons for wishing him to live long enough to report to New Washington and nevertheless be pleased to wipe him out now that he was a wanted man whose demise would cause no comment.

Baldwin might even be a partner in these dark matters of Mrs. Keithley. In some ways that was the simplest explanation though it left other factors unexplained. In any case Baldwin was a key actor—and he had the films. The risk was necessary.

Gilead did not worry about it. The factors known to him were chalked up on the blackboard of his mind, there to remain until enough variables become constants to permit a solution by logic. The ride was very pleasant.

Steve put him down on the lawn of a large rambling ranch house, introduced him to a motherly old party named Mrs. Garver, and took off. “Make yourself at home, Joe,” she told him. “Your room is the last one in the east wing—shower across from it. Supper in ten minutes.”

He thanked her and took the suggestion, getting back to the living room with a minute or two to spare. Several others, a dozen or more of both sexes, were there. The place seemed to be a sort of a dude ranch—not entirely dude, as he had seen Herefords on the spread as Steve and he were landing.

The other guests seemed to take his arrival as a matter of course. No one asked why he was there. One of the women introduced herself as Thalia Wagner and then took him around the group. Ma Garver came in swinging a dinner bell as this was going on and they all filed into a long, low dining room. Gilead could not remember when he had had so good a meal in such amusing company.

After eleven hours of sleep, his first real rest in several days, he came fully, suddenly awake at a group of sounds his subconscious could not immediately classify and refused to discount. He opened his eyes, swept the room with them, and was at once out of bed, crouching on the side away from the door.

There were hurrying footsteps moving past his bedroom door. There were two voices, one male, one female, outside the door; the female was Thalia Wagner, the man he could not place.

Male: “tsʉmaeq?”

Female: “nø!”

Male: “zulntsɨ.”

Female: “ɨpbit’ New Jersey.”

These are not precisely the sounds that Gilead heard, first because of the limitations of phonetic symbols, and second because his ears were not used to the sounds. Hearing is a function of the brain, not of the ear; his brain, sophisticated as it was, nevertheless insisted on forcing the sounds that reached his ears into familiar pockets rather than stop to create new ones.

Thalia Wagner identified, he relaxed and stood up. Thalia was part of the unknown situation he accepted in coming here; a stranger known to her he must accept also. The new unknowns, including the odd language, he filed under “pending” and put aside.

The clothes he had had were gone, but his money—Baldwin’s money, rather—was where his clothes had been and with it his work card as Jack Gillespie and his few personal articles. By them someone had laid out a fresh pair of walking shorts and new sneakers, in his size.

He noted, with almost shocking surprise, that someone had been able to serve him thus without waking him.

He put on his shorts and shoes and went out. Thalia and her companion had left while he dressed. No one was about and he found the dining room empty, but three places were set, including his own of supper, and hot dishes and facilities were on the sideboard. He selected baked ham and hot rolls, fried four eggs, poured coffee. Twenty minutes later, warmly replenished and still alone, he stepped out on the veranda.

It was a beautiful day. He was drinking it in and eyeing with friendly interest a desert lark when a young woman came around the side of the house. She was dressed much as he was, allowing for difference in sex, and she was comely, though not annoyingly so. “Good morning,” he said.

She stopped, put her hands on her hips, and looked him up and down. “Well!” she said. “Why doesn’t somebody tell me these things?”

Then she added, “Are you married?”

“No.”

“I’m shopping around. Object: matrimony. Let’s get acquainted.”

“I’m a hard man to marry. I’ve been avoiding it for years.”

“They’re all hard to marry,” she said bitterly. “There’s a new colt down at the corral. Come on.”

They went. The colt’s name was War Conqueror of Baldwin; hers was Gail. After proper protocol with mare and son they left. “Unless you have pressing engagements,” said Gail, “now is a salubrious time to go swimming.”

“If salubrious means what I think it does, yes.”

The spot was shaded by cottonwoods, the bottom was sandy; for a while he felt like a boy again, with all such matters as lies and nova effects and death and violence away in some improbable, remote dimension. After a long while he pulled himself up on the bank and said, “Gail, what does ‘tsʉmaeq’ mean?”

“Come again?” she answered. “I had water in my ear.”

He repeated all of the conversation he had heard. She looked incredulous, then laughed. “You didn’t hear that, Joe, you just didn’t.” She added, “You got the ‘New Jersey’ part right.”

“But I did.”

“Say it again.”

He did so, more carefully, and giving a fair imitation of the speakers’ accents.

Gail chortled. “I got the gist of it that time. That Thalia; someday some strong man is going to wring her neck.”

“But what does it mean?”

Gail gave him a long, sidewise look. “If you ever find out, I really will marry you, in spite of your protests.”

Someone was whistling from the hill top. “Joe! Joe Greene—the boss wants you.”

“Gotta go,” he said to Gail. “G’bye.”

“See you later,” she corrected him.

Baldwin was waiting in a study as comfortable as himself. “Hi, Joe,” he greeted him. “Grab a seatful of chair. They been treating you right?”

“Yes, indeed. Do you always set as good a table as I’ve enjoyed so far?”

Baldwin patted his middle. “How do you think I came by my nickname?”

“Kettle Belly, I’d like a lot of explanations.”

“Joe, I’m right sorry you lost your job. If I’d had my druthers, it wouldn’t have been the way it was.”

“Are you working with Mrs. Keithley?”

“No. I’m against her.”

“I’d like to believe that, but I’ve no reason to—yet. What were you doing where I found you?”

“They had grabbed me—Mrs. Keithley and her boys.”

“They just happened to grab you—and just happened to stuff you in the same cell with me—and you just happened to know about the films I was supposed to be guarding—and you just happened to have a double deck of cards in your pocket? Now, really!”

“If I hadn’t had the cards, we would have found some other way to talk,” Kettle Belly said mildly. “Wouldn’t we, now?”

“Yes. Granted.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest that the set up was an accident. We had you covered from Moon Base; when you were grabbed—or rather as soon as you let them suck you into the New Age, I saw to it that they grabbed me too; I figured I might have a chance to lend you a hand, once I was inside.” He added, “I kinda let them think that I was an FBS man, too.”

“I see. Then it was just luck that they locked us up together.”

“Not luck,” Kettle Belly objected. “Luck is a bonus that follows careful planning—it’s never free. There was a computable probability that they would put us together in hopes of finding out what they wanted to know. We hit the jackpot because we paid for the chance. If we hadn’t, I would have had to crush out of that cell and look for you—but I had to be inside to do it.”

“Who is Mrs. Keithley?”

“Other than what she is publicly, I take it. She is the queen bee—or the black widow—of a gang. ‘Gang’ is a poor word—power group, maybe. One of several such groups, more or less tied together where their interests don’t cross. Between them they divvy up the country for whatever they want like two cats splitting a gopher.”

Gilead nodded; he knew what Baldwin meant, though he had not known that the enormously respected Mrs. Keithley was in such matters—not until his nose had been rubbed in the fact. “And what are you, Kettle Belly?”

“Now, Joe—I like you and I’m truly sorry you’re in a jam. You led wrong a couple of times and I was obliged to trump, as the stakes were high. See here, I feel that I owe you something; what do you say to this: we’ll fix you up with a brand-new personality, vacuum tight—even new fingerprints if you want them. Pick any spot on the globe you like and any occupation; we’ll supply all the money you need to start over—or money enough to retire and play with the cuties the rest of your life. What do you say?”

“No.” There was no hesitation.

“You’ve no close relatives, no intimate friends. Think about it. I can’t put you back in your job; this is the best I can do.”

“I’ve thought about it. The devil with the job, I want to finish my case! You’re the key to it.”

“Reconsider, Joe. This is your chance to get out of affairs of state and lead a normal, happy life.”

“‘Happy,’ he says!”

“Well, safe, anyhow. If you insist on going further your life expectancy becomes extremely problematical.”

“I don’t recall ever having tried to play safe.”

“You’re the doctor. Joe. In that case—” A speaker on Baldwin’s desk uttered: “œnIe r nøg rylp.”

Baldwin answered, “nu,” and sauntered quickly to the fireplace. An early-morning fire still smouldered in it. He grasped the mantel piece, pulled it toward him. The entire masonry assembly, hearth, mantel, and grate, came toward him, leaving an arch in the wall. “Duck down stairs, Joe,” he said. “It’s a raid.”

“A real priest’s hole!”

“Yeah, corny, ain’t it? This joint has more bolt holes than a rabbit’s nest—and booby-trapped, too. Too many gadgets, if you ask me.” He went back to his desk, opened a drawer, removed three film spools and dropped them in a pocket.

Gilead was about to go down the staircase; seeing the spools, he stopped. “Go ahead, Joe,” Baldwin said urgently. “You’re covered and outnumbered. With this raid showing up we wouldn’t have time to fiddle; we’ud just have to kill you.”

They stopped in a room well underground, another study much like the one above, though lacking sunlight and view. Baldwin said something in the odd language to the mike on the desk, was answered. Gilead experimented with the idea that the lingo might be reversed English, discarded the notion.

“As I was saying,” Baldwin went on, “if you are dead set on knowing all the answers—”

“Just a moment. What about this raid?”

“Just the government boys. They won’t be rough and not too thorough. Ma Garver can handle them. We won’t have to hurt anybody as long as they don’t use penetration radar.”

Gilead smiled wryly at the disparagement of his own former service. “And if they do?”

“That gimmick over there squeals like a pig, if it’s touched by penetration frequencies. Even then we’re safe against anything short of an A-bomb. They won’t do that; they want the films, not a hole in the ground. Which reminds me—here, catch.”

Gilead found himself suddenly in possession of the films which were at the root of the matter. He unspooled a few frames and made certain that they were indeed the right films. He sat still and considered how he might get off this limb and back to the ground without dropping the eggs. The speaker again uttered something; Baldwin did not answer it but said, “We won’t be down here long.”

“Bonn seems to have decided to check my report.” Some of his—former—comrades were upstairs. If he did Baldwin in, could he locate the inside control for the door?

“Bonn is a poor sort. He’ll check me—but not too thoroughly; I’m rich. He won’t check Mrs. Keithley at all; she’s too rich. He thinks with his political ambitions instead of his head. His late predecessor was a better man—he was one of us.”

Gilead’s tentative plans underwent an abrupt reversal. His oath had been to a government; his personal loyalty had been given to his former boss. “Prove that last remark and I shall be much interested.”

“No, you’ll come to learn that it’s true—if you still insist on knowing the answers. Through checking those films, Joe? Toss ’em back.”

Gilead did not do so. “I suppose you have made copies in any case?”

“Wasn’t necessary; I looked at them. Don’t get ideas, Joe; you’re washed up with the FBS, even if you brought the films and my head back on a platter. You slugged your boss—remember?”

Gilead remembered that he had not told Baldwin so. He began to believe that Baldwin did have men inside the FBS, whether his late bureau chief had been one of them or not.

“I would at least be allowed to resign with a clear record. I know Bonn—officially he would be happy to forget it.” He was simply stalling for time, waiting for Baldwin to offer an opening.

“Chuck them back, Joe. I don’t want to rassle. One of us might get killed—both of us, if you won the first round. You can’t prove your case, because I can prove I was home teasing the cat. I sold ’copters to two very respectable citizens at the exact time you would claim I was somewhere else.” He listened again to the speaker, answered it in the same gibberish.

Gilead’s mind evaluated his own tactical situation to the same answer that Baldwin had expressed. Not being given to wishful thinking he at once tossed the films to Baldwin.

“Thanks, Joe.” He went to a small oubliette set in the wall, switched it to full power, put the films in the hopper, waited a few seconds, and switched it off. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

Gilead permitted his eyebrows to climb. “Kettle Belly, you’ve managed to surprise me.”

“How?”

“I thought you wanted to keep the nova effect as a means to power.”

“Nuts! Scalping a man is a hell of a poor way to cure him of dandruff. Joe, how much do you know about the nova effect?”

“Not much. I know it’s a sort of atom bomb powerful enough to scare the pants off anybody who gets to thinking about it.”

“It’s not a bomb. It’s not a weapon. It’s a means of destroying a planet and everything on it completely—by turning that planet into a nova. If that’s a weapon, military or political, then I’m Samson and you’re Delilah.

“But I’m not Samson,” he went on, “and I don’t propose to pull down the Temple—nor let anybody else do so. There are moral lice around who would do just that, if anybody tried to keep them from having their own way. Mrs. Keithley is one such. Your boyfriend Bonn is another such, if only he had the guts and the savvy—which he ain’t. I’m bent on frustrating such people. What do you know about ballistics, Joe?”

“Grammar school stuff.”

“Inexcusable ignorance.” The speaker sounded again; he answered it without breaking his flow. “The problem of three bodies still lacks a neat general solution, but there are several special solutions—the asteroids that chase Jupiter in Jupiter’s own orbit at the sixty degree position, for example. And there’s the straight-line solution—you’ve heard of the asteroid ‘Earth-Anti’?”

“That’s the chunk of rock that is always on the other side of the Sun, where we never see it.”

“That’s right—only it ain’t there anymore. It’s been novaed.”

Gilead, normally immune to surprise, had been subjected to one too many. “Huh? I thought this nova effect was theory?”

“Nope. If you had had time to scan through the films you would have seen pictures of it. It’s a plutonium, lithium, and heavy water deal, with some flourishes we won’t discuss. It adds up to the match that can set afire a world. It did—a little world flared up and was gone.

“Nobody saw it happen. No one on Earth could see it, for it was behind the Sun. It couldn’t have been seen from Moon Colony; the Sun still blanked it off from there—visualize the geometry. All that ever saw it were a battery of cameras in a robot ship. All who knew about it were the scientists who rigged it—and all of them were with us, except the director. If he had been, too, you would never have been in this mix up.”

“Dr. Finnley?”

“Yep. A nice guy, but a mind like a pretzel. A ‘political’ scientist, second-rate ability. He doesn’t matter; our boys will ride herd on him until he’s pensioned off. But we couldn’t keep him from reporting and sending the films down. So I had to grab ’em and destroy them.”

“Why didn’t you simply save them? All other considerations aside, they are unique in science.”

“The human race doesn’t need that bit of science, not this millennium. I saved all that mattered, Joe—in my head.”

“You are your cousin Hartley, aren’t you?”

“Of course. But I’m also Kettle Belly Baldwin, and several other guys.”

“You can be Lady Godiva, for all of me.”

“As Hartley, I was entitled to those films, Joe. It was my project. I instigated it, through my boys.”

“I never credited Finnley with it. I’m not a physicist, but he obviously isn’t up to it.”

“Sure, sure. I was attempting to prove that an artificial nova could not be created; the political—the racial—importance of establishing the point is obvious. It backfired on me—so we had to go into emergency action.”

“Perhaps you should have left well enough alone.”

“No. It’s better to know the worst; now we can be alert for it, divert research away from it.” The speaker growled again; Baldwin went on, “There may be a divine destiny, Joe, unlikely as it seems, that makes really dangerous secrets too difficult to be broached until intelligence reaches the point where it can cope with them—if said intelligence has the will and the good intentions. Ma Garver says to come up now.”

They headed for the stairs. “I’m surprised that you leave it up to an old gal like Ma to take charge during an emergency.”

“She’s competent, I assure you. But I was running things—you heard me.”

“Oh.”

They settled down again in the above-surface study. “I give you one more chance to back out, Joe. It doesn’t matter that you know all about the films, since they are gone and you can’t prove anything—but beyond that—you realize that if you come in with us, are told what is going on, you will be killed deader than a duck at the first suspicious move?”

Gilead did; he knew in fact that he was already beyond the point of no return. With the destruction of the films went his last chance of rehabilitating his former main persona. This gave him no worry; the matter was done. He had become aware that from the time he had admitted that he understood the first message this man had offered him concealed in a double deck of cards he had no longer been a free actor, his moves had been constrained by moves made by Baldwin. Yet there was no help for it; his future lay here or nowhere.

“I know it; go ahead.”

“I know what your mental reservations are, Joe; you are simply accepting risk; not promising loyalty.”

“Yes—but why are you considering taking a chance on me?”

Baldwin was more serious in manner than he usually allowed himself to be. “You’re an able man, Joe. You have the savvy and the moral courage to do what is reasonable in an odd situation rather than what is conventional.”

“That’s why you want me?”

“Partly that. Partly because I like the way you catch on to a new card game.” He grinned. “And even partly because Gail likes the way you behave with a colt.”

“Gail? What’s she got to do with it?”

“She reported on you to me about five minutes ago, during the raid.”

“Hmm—go ahead.”

“You’ve been warned.” For a moment Baldwin looked almost sheepish. “I want you to take what I say next at its face value, Joe—don’t laugh.”

“Okay.”

“You asked what I was. I’m sort of the executive secretary of this branch of an organization of supermen.”

“I thought so.”

“Eh? How long have you known?”

“Things added up. The card game, your reaction time. I knew it when you destroyed the films.”

“Joe, what is a superman?”

Gilead did not answer.

“Very well, let’s chuck the term,” Baldwin went on. “It’s been overused and misused and beat up until it has mostly comic connotations. I used it for shock value and I didn’t shock you. The term ‘supermen’ has come to have a fairytale meaning, conjuring up pictures of x-ray eyes, odd sense organs, double hearts, uncuttable skin, steel muscles—an adolescent’s dream of the dragon-killing hero. Tripe, of course. Joe, what is a man? What is man that makes him more than an animal? Settle that and we’ll take a crack at defining a superman—or New Man, homo novis, who must displace homo sapiens—is displacing him—because he is better able to survive than is homo sap. I’m not trying to define myself, I’ll leave it up to my associates and the inexorable processes of time as to whether or not I am a superman, a member of the new species of man—same test to apply to you.”

“Me?”

“You. You show disturbing symptoms of being homo novis, Joe, in a sloppy, ignorant, untrained fashion. Not likely, but you just might be one of the breed. Now—what is man? What is the one thing he can do better than animals which is so strong a survival factor that it outweighs all the things that animals of one sort or another can do much better than he can?”

“He can think.”

“I fed you that answer; no prize for it. Okay, you pass yourself off a man; let’s see you do something. What is the one possible conceivable factor—or factors, if you prefer—which the hypothetical superman could have, by mutation or magic or any means, and which could be added to this advantage which man already has and which has enabled him to dominate this planet against the unceasing opposition of a million other species of fauna? Some factor that would make the domination of man by his successor, as inevitable as your domination over a hound dog? Think, Joe. What is the necessary direction of evolution to the next dominant species?”

Gilead engaged in contemplation for what was for him a long time. There were so many lovely attributes that a man might have: to be able to see both like a telescope and microscope, to see the insides of things, to see throughout the spectrum, to have hearing of the same order, to be immune to disease, to grow a new arm or leg, to fly through the air without bothering with silly gadgets like helicopters or jets, to walk unharmed the ocean bottom, to work without tiring—

Yet the eagle could fly and he was nearly extinct, even though his eyesight was better than man’s. A dog has better smell and hearing; seals swim better, balance better, and furthermore can store oxygen. Rats can survive where men would starve or die of hardship; they are smart and pesky hard to kill. Rats could—

Wait! Could tougher, smarter rats displace man? No, it just wasn’t in them; too small a brain.

“To be able to think better,” Gilead answered almost instantly.

“Hand the man a cigar! Supermen are superthinkers; anything else is a side issue. I’ll allow the possibility of super-somethings which might exterminate or dominate mankind other than by outsmarting him in his own racket—thought. But I deny that it is possible for a man to conceive in discrete terms what such a super-something would be or how this something would win out. New Man will beat out homo sap in homo sap’s own specialty—rational thought, the ability to recognize data, store them, integrate them, evaluate correctly the result, and arrive at a correct decision. That is how man got to be champion; the creature who can do it better is the coming champion. Sure, there are other survival factors, good health, good sense organs, fast reflexes, but they aren’t even comparable, as the long, rough history of mankind has proved over and over—Marat in his bath, Roosevelt in his wheelchair, Caesar with his epilepsy and his bad stomach, Nelson with one eye and one arm, blind Milton; when the chips are down it’s brain that wins, not the body’s tools.”

“Stop a moment,” said Gilead. “How about E.S.P.?”

Baldwin shrugged. “I’m not sneering at extra-sensory perception any more than I would at exceptional eyesight—E.S.P. is not in the same league with the ability to think correctly. E.S.P. is a grab-bag name for the means other than the known sense organs by which the brain may gather data—but the trick that pays off with first prize is to make use of that data, to reason about it. If you would like a telepathic hook up to Shanghai, I can arrange it; we’ve got operators at both ends—but you can get whatever data you might happen to need from Shanghai by phone with less trouble, less chance of a bad connection, and less danger of somebody listening in. Telepaths can’t pick up a radio message; it’s not the same wave band.”

“What wave band is it?”

“Later, later. You’ve got a lot to learn.”

“I wasn’t thinking especially of telepathy. I was thinking of all parapsychological phenomena.”

“Same reasoning. Apportation would be nice, if telekinetics had gotten that far—which it ain’t. But a pick-up truck moves things handily enough. Television in the hands of an intelligent man counts for more than clairvoyance in a moron. Quit wasting my time, Joe.”

“Sorry.”

“We defined thinking as integrating data and arriving at correct answers. Look around you. Most people do that stunt just well enough to get to the corner store and back without breaking a leg. If the average man thinks at all, he does silly things like generalizing from a single datum. He uses one-valued logics. If he is exceptionally bright, he may use two-valued, ‘either-or’ logic to arrive at his wrong answers. If he is hungry, hurt, or personally interested in the answer, he can’t use any sort of logic and will discard an observed fact as blithely as he will stake his life on a piece of wishful thinking. He uses the technical miracles created by superior men without wonder nor surprise, as a kitten accepts a bowl of milk. Far from aspiring to higher reasoning, he is not even aware that higher reasoning exists. He classes his own mental process as being of the same sort as the genius of an Einstein. Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.

“For explanations of a universe that confuses him he seizes onto numerology, astrology, hysterical religions, and other fancy ways to go crazy. Having accepted such glorified nonsense, facts make no impression on him, even if at the cost of his own life. Joe, one of the hardest things to believe is the abysmal depth of human stupidity.

“That is why there is always room at the top, why a man with just a leetle more on the ball can so easily become governor, millionaire, or college president—and why homo sap is sure to be displaced by New Man, because there is so much room for improvement and evolution never stops.

“Here and there among ordinary men is a rare individual who really thinks, can and does use logic in at least one field—he’s often as stupid as the rest outside his study or laboratory—but he can think, if he’s not disturbed or sick or frightened. This rare individual is responsible for all the progress made by the race; the others reluctantly adopt his results. Much as the ordinary man dislikes and distrusts and persecutes the process of thinking he is forced to accept the results occasionally, because thinking is efficient compared with his own mauderings. He may still plant his corn in the dark of the Moon but he will plant better corn developed by better men than he.

“Still rarer is the man who thinks habitually, who applies reason, rather than habit pattern, to all his activity. Unless he masques himself, his is a dangerous life; he is regarded as queer, untrustworthy, subversive of public morals; he is a pink monkey among brown monkeys—a fatal mistake. Unless the pink monkey can dye himself brown before he is caught. The brown monkey’s instinct to kill is correct; such men are dangerous to all monkey customs.

“Rarest of all is the man who can and does reason at all times, quickly, accurately, inclusively, despite hope or fear or bodily distress, without egocentric bias or thalmic disturbance, with correct memory, with clear distinction between fact, assumption, and non-fact. Such men exist, Joe; they are ‘New Man’—human in all respects, indistinguishable in appearance or under the scalpel from homo sap, yet as unlike him in action as the Sun is unlike a single candle.”

Gilead said, “Are you that sort?”

“You will continue to form your own opinions.”

“And you think I may be, too?”

“Could be. I’ll have more data in a few days.”

Gilead laughed until the tears came. “Kettle Belly, if I’m the future hope of the race, they had better send in the second team quick. Sure I’m brighter than most of the jerks I run into, but, as you say, the competition isn’t stiff. But I haven’t any sublime aspirations. I’ve got as lecherous an eye as the next man. I enjoy wasting time over a glass of beer. I just don’t feel like a superman.”

“Speaking of beer, let’s have some.” Baldwin got up and obtained two cans of the brew. “Remember that Mowgli felt like a wolf. Being a New Man does not divorce you from human sympathies and pleasures. There have been New Men all through history; I doubt if most of them suspected that their difference entitled them to call themselves a different breed. Then they went ahead and bred with the daughters of men, diffusing their talents through the racial organism, preventing them from effectuating until chance brought the genetic factors together again.”

“Then I take it that New Man is not a special mutation?”

“Huh? Who isn’t a mutation, Joe? All of us are a collection of millions of mutations. Around the globe hundreds of mutations have taken place in our human germ plasm while we have been sitting here. No, homo novis didn’t come about because great grandfather stood too close to a cyclotron; homo novis was not even a separate breed until he became aware of himself, organized, and decided to hang on to what his genes had handed him. You could mix New Man back into the race today and lose him; he’s merely a variation becoming a species. A million years from now is another matter; I venture to predict that New Man, of that year and model, won’t be able to interbreed with homo sap—no viable offspring.”

“You don’t expect present man—homo sapiens—to disappear?”

“Not necessarily. The dog adapted to man. Probably more dogs now than in umpteen B.C.—and better fed.”

“And man would be New Man’s dog.”

“Again not necessarily. Consider the cat.”

“The idea is to skim the cream of the race’s germ plasm and keep it biologically separate until the two races are permanently distinct. You chaps sound like a bunch of stinkers, Kettle Belly.”

“Monkey talk.”

“Perhaps. The new race would necessarily run things—”

“Do you expect New Man to decide grave matters by counting common man’s runny noses?”

“No, that was my point. Postulating such a new race, the result is inevitable. Kettle Belly, I confess to a monkey prejudice in favor of democracy, human dignity, and freedom. It goes beyond logic; it is the kind of a world I like. In my job I have jungled with the outcasts of society, shared their slumgullion. Stupid they may be, bad they are not—I have no wish to see them become domestic animals.”

For the first time the big man showed concern. His persona as “King of the Kopters”, master merchandiser, slipped away; he sat in brooding majesty, a lonely and unhappy figure. “I know, Joe. They are of us; their little dignities, their nobilities, are not lessened by their sorry state. Yet it must be.”

“Why? New Man will come—granted. But why hurry the process?”

“Ask yourself.” He swept a hand toward the oubliette. “Ten minutes ago you and I saved this planet, all our race. It’s the hour of the knife. Someone must be on guard if the race is to live; there is no one but us. To guard effectively we New Men must be organized, must never fumble any crisis like this—and must increase our numbers. We are few now, Joe; as the crises increase, we must increase to meet them. Eventually—and it’s a dead race with time—we must take over and make certain that baby never plays with matches.”

He stopped and brooded. “I confess to that same affection for democracy, Joe. But it’s like yearning for the Santa Claus you believed in as a child. For a hundred and fifty years or so democracy, or something like it, could flourish safely. The issues were such as to be settled without disaster by the votes of common men, befogged and ignorant as they were. But now, if the race is simply to stay alive, political decisions depend on real knowledge of such things as nuclear physics, planetary ecology, genetic theory, even system mechanics. They aren’t up to it, Joe. With goodness and more will than they possess less than one in a thousand could stay awake over one page of nuclear physics; they can’t learn what they must know.”

Gilead brushed it aside. “It’s up to us to brief them. Their hearts are all right; tell them the score—they’ll come down with the right answers.”

“No, Joe. We’ve tried it; it does not work. As you say, most of them are good, the way a dog can be noble and good. Yet there are bad ones—Mrs. Keithley and company and more like her. Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men. The little man has no way to judge and the shoddy lies are packaged more attractively. There is no way to offer color to a colorblind man, nor is there any way for us to give the man of imperfect brain the canny skill to distinguish a lie from a truth.

“No, Joe. The gulf between us and them is narrow, but it is very deep. We cannot close it.”

“I wish,” said Gilead, “that you wouldn’t class me with your ‘New Man’; I feel more at home on the other side.”

“You will decide for yourself which side you are on, as each of us has done.”

Gilead forced a change in subject. Ordinarily immune to thalamic disturbance this issue upset him; his brain followed Baldwin’s argument and assured him that it was true; his inclinations fought it. He was confronted with the sharpest of all tragedy; two equally noble and valid rights, utterly opposed. “What do you people do, aside from stealing films?”

“Mmm—many things.” Baldwin relaxed, looked again like a jovial sharp businessman. “Where a push here and a touch there will keep things from going to pot, we apply the pressure, by many and devious means. And we scout for suitable material and bring it into the fold when we can—we’ve had our eye on you for ten years.”

“So?”

“Yep. That is a prime enterprise. Through public data we eliminate all but about one tenth of one percent; that thousandth individual we watch. And then there are our horticultural societies.” He grinned.

“Finish your joke.”

“We weed people.”

“Sorry, I’m slow today.”

“Joe, didn’t you ever feel a yen to wipe out some evil, obscene, rotten jerk who infected everything he touched, yet was immune to legal action? We treat them as cancers; we excise them from the body social. We keep a ‘Better Dead’ list; when a man is clearly morally bankrupt we close his account at the first opportunity.”

Gilead smiled. “If you were sure what you were doing, it could be fun.”

“We are always sure, though our methods would be no good in a monkey law court. Take Mrs. Keithley—is there doubt in your mind?”

“None.”

“Why don’t you have her indicted? Don’t bother to answer. For example, two weeks from tonight there will be giant pow-wow of the new, rejuvenated, bigger-and-better-than-ever Ku Klux Klan on a mountain top down Carolina way. When the fun is at its height, when they are mouthing obscenities, working each other up to the pogrom spirit, an act of God is going to wipe out the whole kit and kaboodle. Very sad.”

“Could I get in on that?”

“You aren’t even a cadet as yet.” Baldwin went on. “There is the project to increase our numbers, but that is a thousand-year program; you’d need a perpetual calendar to check it. More important is keeping matches away from baby. Joe, it’s been eighty-five years since we beheaded the last commissar: have you wondered why so little basic progress in science has been made in that time?”

“Eh? There have been a lot of changes.”

“Minor adaptations—some spectacular, almost none of them basic. Of course there was very little progress made under communism; a totalitarian political religion is incompatible with free investigation. Let me digress: the communist interregnum was responsible for the New Men getting together and organizing. Most New Men are scientists, for obvious reasons. When the commissars started ruling on natural laws by political criteria—Lysenkoism and similar nonsense—it did not sit well; a lot of us went underground.

“I’ll skip the details. It brought us together, gave us practice in underground activity, and gave a backlog of new research, carried out underground. Some of it was obviously dangerous; we decided to hang onto it for a while. Since then such secret knowledge has grown, for we never give out an item until it has been scrutinized for social hazards. Since much of it is dangerous and since very few indeed outside our organization are capable of real original thinking, basic science has been almost at a—public!—standstill.

“We hadn’t expected to have to do it that way. We helped to see to it that the new constitution was liberal and—we thought—workable. But the new Republic turned out to be an even poorer thing than the old. The evil ethic of communism had corrupted, even after the form was gone. We held off. Now we know that we must hold off until we can revise the whole society.”

“Kettle Belly,” Joe said slowly, “you speak as if you had been on the spot. How old are you?”

“I’ll tell you when you are the age I am now. A man has lived long enough when he no longer longs to live. I ain’t there yet. Joe, I must have your answer, or this must be continued in our next.”

“You had it at the beginning—but, see here, Kettle Belly, there is one job I want promised to me.”

“Which is?”

“I want to kill Mrs. Keithley.”

“Keep your pants on. When you’re trained, and if she’s still alive then, you’ll be used for that purpose—”

“Thanks!”

“—provided you are the proper tool for it.” Baldwin turned toward the mike, called out, “Gail!” and added one word in the strange tongue.

Gail showed up promptly. “Joe,” said Baldwin, “when this young lady gets through with you, you will be able to sing, whistle, chew gum, play chess, hold your breath, and fly a kite simultaneously—and all this while riding a bicycle under water. Take him, sis, he’s all yours.”

Gail rubbed her hands. “Oh, boy!”

“First we must teach you to see and to hear, then to remember, then to speak, and then to think.”

Joe looked at her. “What’s this I’m doing with my mouth at this moment?”

“It’s not talking, it’s a sort of grunting. Furthermore English is not structurally suited to thinking. Shut up and listen.”

In their underground classroom Gail had available several types of apparatus to record and manipulate light and sound. She commenced throwing groups of figures on a screen, in flashes. “What was it, Joe?”

“Nine-six-oh-seven-two—That was as far as I got.”

“It was up there a full thousandth of a second. Why did you get only the left-hand side of the group?”

“That’s all the farther I had read.”

“Look at all of it. Don’t make an effort of will; just look at it.” She flashed another number.

Joe’s memory was naturally good; his intelligence was high—just how high he did not yet know. Unconvinced that the drill was useful, he relaxed and played along. Soon he was beginning to grasp a nine-digit array as a single gestalt; Gail reduced the flash time.

“What is this magic lantern gimmick?” he inquired.

“It’s a Renshaw tachistoscope. Back to work.”

Around World War II Dr. Samuel Renshaw at the Ohio State University was proving that most people are about one-fifth efficient in using their capacities to see, hear, taste, feel and remember. His research was swallowed in the morass of communist pseudoscience that obtained after World War III, but, after his death, his findings were preserved underground. Gail did not expose Gilead to the odd language he had heard until he had been rather thoroughly Renshawed.

However, from the time of his interview with Baldwin the other persons at the ranch used it in his presence. Sometimes someone—usually Ma Garver—would translate, sometimes not. He was flattered to feel accepted, but graveled to know that it was at the lowest cadetship. He was a child among adults.

Gail started teaching him to hear by speaking to him single words from the odd language, requiring him to repeat them back. “No, Joe. Watch.” This time when she spoke the word it appeared on the screen in sound analysis, by a means basically like one long used to show the deaf-and-dumb their speech mistakes. “Now you try it.”

He did, the two arrays hung side by side. “How’s that, teacher?” he said triumphantly.

“Terrible, by several decimal places. You held the final guttural too long—” She pointed. “—the middle vowel was formed with your tongue too high and you pitched it too low and you failed to let the pitch rise. And six other things. You couldn’t possibly have been understood. I heard what you said, but it was gibberish. Try again. And don’t call me ‘teacher’.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered solemnly.

She shifted the controls; he tried again. This time his analysis array was laid down on top of hers; where the two matched, they cancelled. Where they did not match, his errors stood out in contrasting colors. The screen looked like a sun burst.

“Try again, Joe.” She repeated the word without letting it affect the display.

“Confound it, if you would tell me what the words mean instead of treating me the way Milton treated his daughters about Latin, I could remember them easier.”

She shrugged. “I can’t, Joe. You must learn to hear and to speak first. Speedtalk is a flexible language; the same word is not likely to recur. This practice word means: ‘The far horizons draw no nearer.’ That’s not much help, is it?”

The definition seemed improbable, but he was learning not to doubt her. He was not used to women who were always two jumps ahead of him. He ordinarily felt sorry for the poor little helpless cuddly creatures; this one he often wanted to slug. He wondered if this response were what the romancers meant by “love”; he decided that it couldn’t be.

“Try again, Joe.” Speedtalk was a structurally different speech from any the race had ever used. Long before, Ogden and Richards had shown that eight hundred and fifty words were sufficient vocabulary to express anything that could be expressed by “normal” human vocabularies, with the aid of a handful of special words—a hundred odd—for each special field, such as horse racing or ballistics. About the same time phoneticians had analyzed all human tongues into about a hundred-odd sounds, represented by the letters of a general phonetic alphabet.

On these two propositions Speedtalk was based.

To be sure, the phonetic alphabet was much less in number than the words in Basic English. But the letters representing sound in the phonetic alphabet were each capable of variation several different ways—length, stress, pitch, rising, falling. The more trained an ear was the larger the number of possible variations; there was no limit to variations, but, without much refinement of accepted phonetic practice, it was possible to establish a one-to-one relationship with Basic English so that one phonetic symbol was equivalent to an entire word in a “normal” language, one Speedtalk word was equal to an entire sentence. The language consequently was learned by letter units rather than by word units—but each word was spoken and listened to as a single structured gestalt.

But Speedtalk was not “shorthand” Basic English. “Normal” languages, having their roots in days of superstition and ignorance, have in them inherently and inescapably wrong structures of mistaken ideas about the universe. One can think logically in English only by extreme effort, so bad it is as a mental tool. For example, the verb “to be” in English has twenty-one distinct meanings, every single one of which is false-to-fact.

A symbolic structure, invented instead of accepted without question, can be made similar in structure to the real-world to which it refers. The structure of Speedtalk did not contain the hidden errors of English; it was structured as much like the real world as the New Men could make it. For example, it did not contain the unreal distinction between nouns and verbs found in most other languages. The world—the continuum known to science and including all human activity—does not contain “noun things” and “verb things”; it contains space-time events and relationships between them. The advantage for achieving truth, or something more nearly like truth, was similar to the advantage of keeping account books in Arabic numerals rather than Roman.

All other languages made scientific, multi-valued logic almost impossible to achieve; in Speedtalk it was as difficult not to be logical. Compare the pellucid Boolean logic with the obscurities of the Aristotelean logic it supplanted.

Paradoxes are verbal, do not exist in the real world—and Speedtalk did not have such built into it. Who shaves the Spanish Barber? Answer: follow him around and see. In the syntax of Speedtalk the paradox of the Spanish Barber could not even be expressed, save as a self-evident error.

But Joe Greene-Gilead-Briggs could not learn it until he had learned to hear, by learning to speak. He slaved away; the screen continued to remain lighted with his errors.

Came finally a time when Joe’s pronunciation of a sentence-word blanked out Gail’s sample; the screen turned dark. He felt more triumph over that than anything he could remember.

His delight was short. By a circuit Gail had thoughtfully added some days earlier the machine answered with a flourish of trumpets, loud applause, and then added in a cooing voice, “Mama’s good boy!”

He turned to her. “Woman, you spoke of matrimony. If you ever do manage to marry me, I’ll beat you.”

“I haven’t made up my mind about you yet,” she answered evenly. “Now try this word, Joe—”

Baldwin showed up that evening, called him aside. “Joe! C’mere. Listen, lover boy, you keep your animal nature out of your work, or I’ll have to find you a new teacher.”

“But—”

“You heard me. Take her swimming, take her riding, after hours you are on your own. Work time—strictly business. I’ve got plans for you; I want you to get smarted up.”

“She complained about me?”

“Don’t be silly. It’s my business to know what’s going on.”

“Hmm. Kettle Belly, what is this shopping-for-a-husband she kids about? Is she serious, or is it just intended to rattle me?”

“Ask her. Not that it matters, as you won’t have any choice if she means it. She has the calm persistence of the law of gravitation.”

“Ouch! I had had the impression that the ‘New Men’ did not bother with marriage and such like, as you put it, ‘monkey customs.’ ”

“Some do, some don’t. Me, I’ve been married quite a piece, but I mind a mousy little member of our lodge who had had nine kids by nine fathers—all wonderful genius-plus kids. On the other hand I can point out one with eleven kids—Thalia Wagner—who has never so much as looked at another man, Geniuses make their own rules in such matters, Joe; they always have. Here are some established statistical facts about genius, as shown by Armatoe’s work—”

He ticked them off. “Geniuses are usually long lived. They are not modest, not honestly so. They have infinite capacity for taking pains. They are emotionally indifferent to accepted codes of morals—they make their own rules. You seem to have the stigmata, by the way.”

“Thanks for nothing. Maybe I should have a new teacher, if there is anyone else available who can do it.”

“Any of us can do it, just as anybody handy teaches a baby to talk. She’s actually a biochemist, when she has time for it.”

“When she has time?”

“Be careful of that kid, son. Her real profession is the same as yours—honorable hatchet man. She’s killed upwards of three hundred people.” Kettle Belly grinned. “If you want to switch teachers, just drop me a wink.”

Gilead-Greene hastily changed the subject. “You were speaking of work for me: how about Mrs. Keithley? Is she still alive?”

“Yes, blast her.”

“Remember, I’ve got dibs on her.”

“You may have to go to the Moon to get her. She’s reported to be building a vacation home there. Old age seems to be telling on her; you had better get on with your homework if you want a crack at her.” Moon Colony even then was a center of geriatrics for the rich. The low gravity was easy on their hearts, made them feel young—and possibly extended their lives.

“Okay, I will.”

Instead of asking for a new teacher Joe took a highly polished apple to their next session. Gail ate it, leaving him very little core, and put him harder to work than ever. While perfecting his hearing and pronunciation, she started him on the basic thousand-letter vocabulary by forcing him to start to talk simple three and four-letter sentences, and by answering him in different word-sentences using the same phonetic letters. Some of the vowel and consonant sequences were very difficult to pronounce.

Master them he did. He had been used to doing most things easier than could those around him; now he was in very fast company. He stretched himself and began to achieve part of his own large latent capacity. When he began to catch some of the dinner-table conversation and to reply in simple Speedtalk—being forbidden by Gail to answer in English—she started him on the ancillary vocabularies.

An economical language cannot be limited to a thousand words; although almost every idea can be expressed somehow in a short vocabulary, higher orders of abstraction are convenient. For technical words Speedtalk employed an open expansion of sixty of the thousand-odd phonetic letters. They were the letters ordinarily used as numerals; by preceding a number with a letter used for no other purpose, the symbol was designated as having a word value.

New Men numbered to the base sixty—three times four times five, a convenient, easily factored system, most economical, i.e., the symbol “100” identified the number described in English as thirty-six hundred—yet permitting quick, in-the-head translation from common notation to Speedtalk figures and vice versa.

By using these figures, each prefaced by the indicator—a voiceless Welsh or Burmese “1”—a pool of 215,999 words (one less than the cube of sixty) were available for specialized meaning without using more than four letters including the indicator. Most of them could be pronounced as one syllable. These had not the stark simplicity of basic Speedtalk; nevertheless words such as “ichthyophagous” and “constitutionality” were thus compressed to monosyllables. Such shortcuts can best be appreciated by anyone who has heard a long speech in Cantonese translated into a short speech in English. Yet English is not the most terse of “normal” languages—and expanded Speedtalk is many times more economical than the briefest of “normal” tongues.

By adding one more letter (sixty to the fourth power) just short of thirteen million words could be added if needed—and most of them could still be pronounced as one syllable.

When Joe discovered that Gail expected him to learn a couple hundred thousand new words in a matter of days, he balked. “Damn it, Fancy Pants, I am not a superman. I’m in here by mistake.”

“Your opinion is worthless; I think you can do it. Now listen.”

“Suppose I flunk; does that put me safely off your list of possible victims?”

“If you flunk, I wouldn’t have you on toast. Instead I’d tear your head off and stuff it down your throat. But you won’t flunk; I know. However,” she added, “I’m not sure you would be a satisfactory husband; you argue too much.”

He made a brief and bitter remark in Speedtalk; she answered with one word which described his shortcomings in detail. They got to work.

Joe was mistaken; he learned the expanded vocabulary as fast as he heard it. He had a latent eidetic memory; the Renshawing process now enabled him to use it fully. And his mental processes, always fast, had become faster than he knew.

The ability to learn Speedtalk at all is proof of supernormal intelligence; the use of it by such intelligence renders that mind efficient. Even before World War II Alfred Korzybski had shown that human thought was performed, when done efficiently, only in symbols; the notion of “pure” thought, free of abstracted speech symbols, was merely fantasy. The brain was so constructed as to work without symbols only on the animal level; to speak of “reasoning” without symbols was to speak nonsense.

Speedtalk did not merely speed up communication—by its structures it made thought more logical; by its economy it made thought processes enormously faster, since it takes almost as long to think a word as it does to speak it.

Korzybski’s monumental work went fallow during the communist interregnum; Das Kapital is a childish piece of work, when analyzed by semantics, so the politburo suppressed semantics—and replaced it by ersatz under the same name, as Lysenkoism replaced the science of genetics.

Having Speedtalk to help him learn more Speedtalk, Joe learned very rapidly. The Renshawing had continued; he was now able to grasp a gestalt or configuration in many senses at once, grasp it, remember it, reason about it with great speed.

Living time is not calendar time; a man’s life is the thought that flows through his brain. Any man capable of learning Speedtalk had an association time at least three times as fast as an ordinary man. Speedtalk itself enabled him to manipulate symbols approximately seven times as fast as English symbols could be manipulated. Seven times three is twenty-one; a new man had an effective life time of at least sixteen hundred years, reckoned in flow of ideas.

They had time to become encyclopedic synthesists, something denied any ordinary man by the straitjacket of his sort of time.

When Joe had learned to talk, to read and write and cipher, Gail turned him over to others for his real education. But before she checked him out she played him several dirty tricks.

For three days she forbade him to eat. When it was evident that he could think and keep his temper despite low blood-sugar count, despite hunger reflex, she added sleeplessness and pain—intense, long, continued, and varied pain. She tried subtly to goad him into irrational action; he remained bedrock steady, his mind clicking away at any assigned task as dependably as an electronic computer.

“Who’s not a superman?” she asked at the end of their last session.

“Yes, teacher.”

“Come here, lug.” She grabbed him by the ears, kissed him soundly. “So long.” He did not see her again for many weeks.

His tutor in E.S.P. was an ineffectual-looking little man who had taken the protective coloration of the name Weems. Joe was not very good at producing E.S.P. phenomena. Clairvoyance he did not appear to have. He was better at precognition, but he did not improve with practice. He was best at telekinesis; he could have made a soft living with dice. But, as Kettle Belly had pointed out, from affecting the roll of dice to moving tons of freight was quite a gap—and one possibly not worth bridging.

“It may have other uses, however,” Weems had said softly, lapsing into English. “Consider what might be done if one could influence the probability that a neutron would reach a particular nucleus—or change the statistical probability in a mass.”

Gilead let it ride; it was an outrageous thought.

At telepathy he was erratic to exasperation. He called the Rhine cards once without a miss, then had poor scores for three weeks. More highly structured communication seemed quite beyond him, until one day without apparent cause but during an attempt to call the cards by telepathy, he found himself hooked in with Weems for all of ten seconds—time enough for a thousand words by Speedtalk standards.

—it comes out as speech!

—why not? thought is speech.

—how do we do it?

—if we knew it would not be so unreliable, as it is, some can do it by volition, some by accident, and some never seem to be able to do it. We do know this: while thought may not be of the physical world in any fashion we can now define and manipulate, it is similar to events in continuum in its quantal nature. You are now studying the extension of the quantum concept to all features of the continuum, you know the chronon, the mensum, and the viton, as quanta, as well as the action units of quanta such as the photon. The continuum has not only structure but texture in all its features. The least unit of thought we term the psychon.

—define it. Put salt on its tail.

—some day, some day. I can tell you this; the fastest possible rate of thought is one psychon per chronon; this is a basic, universal constant.

—how close do we come to that?

—less than sixty-to-the-minus-third-power of the possibility.

—! ! ! ! !

—better creatures than ourselves will follow us. We pick pebbles at a boundless ocean.

—what can we do to improve it?

—gather our pebbles with serene minds.

Gilead paused for a long split second of thought.—can psychons be destroyed?

—vitons may be transferred, psychons are—

The connection was suddenly destroyed. “As I was saying,” Weems went on quietly, “psychons are as yet beyond our comprehension in many respects. Theory indicates that they may not be destroyed, that thought, like action, is persistent Whether or not such theory, if true, means that personal identity is also persistent must remain an open question. See the daily papers—a few hundred years from now—or a few hundred thousand.” He stood up.

“I’m anxious to try tomorrow’s session, Doc,” Gilead-Greene almost bubbled. “Maybe—”

“I’m finished with you.”

“But, Doctor Weems that connection was clear as a phone hook-up. Perhaps tomorrow—”

“We have established that your talent is erratic. We have no way to train it to dependability. Time is too short to waste, mine and yours.” Lapsing suddenly into English, he added, “No.”

Gilead left.

During his training in other fields Joe was exposed to many things best described as impressive gadgets. There was an integrating pantograph, a factory-in-a-box, which the New Men planned to turn over to ordinary men as soon as the social system was no longer dominated by economic wolves. It could and did reproduce almost any prototype placed on its stage, requiring thereto only materials and power. Its power came from a little nucleonics motor the size of Joe’s thumb; its theory played hob with conventional notions of entropy. One put in “sausage”; one got out “pig.”

Latent in it was the shape of an economic system as different from the current one as the assembly-line economy differed from the family-shop system—and in such a system lay possibilities of human freedom and dignity missing for centuries, if they had ever existed.

In the meantime New Men rarely bought more than one of anything—a pattern. Or they made a pattern.

Another useful but hardly wonderful gadget was a dictaphone-typewriter-printing-press combination. The machine’s analysers recognized each of the thousand-odd phonetic symbols; there was a typebar for each sound. It produced one or many copies. Much of Gilead’s education came from pages printed by this gadget, saving the precious time of others.

The arrangement, classification, and accessibility of knowledge remain in all ages the most pressing problem. With the New Men, complete and organized memory licked most of the problem and rendered record keeping, most reading and writing—and most especially the time-destroying trouble of rereading—unnecessary. The autoscriber gadget, combined with a “librarian” machine that could “hear” that portion of Speedtalk built into it as a filing system, covered most of the rest of the problem. New Men were not cluttered with endless bits of paper. They never wrote memoranda.

The area under the ranch was crowded with technological wonders, all newer than next week. Incredibly tiny manipulators for micrurgy of all sorts, surgical, chemical, biological manipulation, oddities of cybernetics only less complex than the human brain—the list is too long to describe. Joe did not study all of them; an encyclopedic synthesist is concerned with structured shapes of knowledge; he cannot, even with Speed-talk, study details in every field.

Early in his education, when it was clear that he had had the potential to finish the course, plastic surgery was started to give him a new identity and basic appearance. His height was reduced by three inches; his skull was somewhat changed; his complexion was permanently darkened. Gail picked the facial appearance he was given; he did not object. He rather liked it; it seemed to fit his new inner personality.

With a new face, a new brain, and a new outlook, he was almost in fact a new man. Before he had been a natural genius; now he was a trained genius.

“Joe, how about some riding?”

“Suits.”

“I want to give War Conqueror some gentle exercise. He’s responding to the saddle; I don’t want him to forget.”

“Right with you.”

Kettle Belly and Gilead-Greene rode out from the ranch buildings. Baldwin let the young horse settle to a walk and began to talk. “I figure you are about ready for work son.”

Even in Speedtalk Kettle Belly’s speech retained his own flavor.

“I suppose so, but I still have those mental reservations.”

“Not sure we are on the side of the angels?”

“I’m sure you mean to be. It’s evident that the organization selects for good will and humane intentions quite as carefully as for ability. I wasn’t sure at one time—”

“Yes?”

“That candidate who came here about six months ago, the one who broke his neck in a riding accident.”

“Oh, yes! Very sad.”

“Very opportune, you mean, Kettle Belly.”

“Damn it, Joe, if a bad apple gets in this far, we can’t let him out.” Baldwin reverted to English for swearing purposes; he maintained that it had “more juice.”

“I know it. That’s why I’m sure about the quality of our people.”

“So it’s ‘our people’ now?”

“Yes. But I’m not sure we are on the right track.”

“What’s your notion of the right track?”

“We should come out of hiding and teach the ordinary man what he can learn of what we know. He could learn a lot of it and could use it. Properly briefed and trained, he could run his affairs pretty well. He would gladly kick out the no-goods who ride on his shoulders, if only he knew how. We could show him. That would be more to the point than this business of spot assassination, now and then, here and there—mind you, I don’t object to killing any man who merits killing; I simply say it’s inefficient. No doubt we would have to continue to guard against such crises as the one that brought you and me together, but, in the main, people could run their own affairs if we would just stop pretending that we are so scared we can’t mix with people, come out of our hole, and lend a hand.”

Baldwin reined up. “Don’t say that I don’t mix with the common people, Joe; I sell used ’copters for a living. You can’t get any commoner. And don’t imply that my heart is not with them. We are not like them, but we are tied to them by the strongest bond of all, for we are all, each every one, sickening with the same certainly fatal disease—we are alive.

“As for our killings, you don’t understand the principles of assassination as a political weapon. Read—” He named a Speedtalk library designation. “If I were knocked off, our organization wouldn’t even hiccup, but organizations for bad purposes are different. They are personal empires; if you pick the time and the method, you can destroy such an organization by killing one man—the parts that remain will be almost harmless until assimilated by another leader—then you kill him. It is not inefficient; it’s quite efficient, if planned with the brain and not with the emotions.

“As for keeping ourselves separate, we are about like the U-235 in U-238, not effective unless separated out. There have been potential New Men in every generation, but they were spread too thin.

“As for keeping our existence secret, it is utterly necessary if we are to survive and increase. There is nothing so dangerous as being the Chosen People—and in the minority. One group was persecuted for two thousand years merely for making the claim.”

He again shifted to English to swear. “Damn it, Joe, face up to it. This world is run the way my great aunt Susie flies a ’copter. Speedtalk or no Speedtalk, common man can’t learn to cope with modern problems. No use to talk about the unused potential of his brain, he has not got the will to learn what he would have to know. We can’t fit him out with new genes, so we have to lead him by the hand to keep him from killing himself—and us. We can give him personal liberty, we can give him autonomy in most things, we can give him a great measure of personal dignity—and we will, because we believe that individual freedom, at all levels, is the direction of evolution, of maximum survival value. But we can’t let him fiddle with issues of racial life and death; he ain’t up to it.

“No help for it. Each shape of society develops its own ethic. We are shaping this the way we are inexorably forced to, by the logic of events. We think we are shaping it toward survival.”

“Are we?” mused Greene-Gilead.

“Remains to be seen. Survivors survive. We’ll know—Wup! Meeting’s adjourned.”

The radio on Baldwin’s pommel was shrilling his personal emergency call. He listened, then spoke one sharp word in Speedtalk. “Back to the house, Joel” He wheeled and was away. Joe’s mount came of less selected stock; he was forced to follow.

Baldwin sent for Joe soon after he got back. Joe went in; Gail was already there.

Baldwin’s face was without expression. He said in English, “I’ve work for you, Joe, work you won’t have any doubt about. Mrs. Keithley.”

“Good.”

“Not good.” Baldwin shifted to Speedtalk. “We have been caught flat-footed. Either the second set of films was never destroyed, or there was a third set. We do not know; the man who could tell us is dead. But Mrs. Keithley obtained a set and has been using them.

“This is the situation. The ‘fuse’ of the nova effect has been installed in the New Age Hotel. It has been sealed off and can be triggered only by radio signal from the Moon—her signal. The ‘fuse’ has been rigged so that any attempt to break in, as long as the firing circuit is still armed, will trigger it and set it off. Even an attempt to examine it by penetration wavelengths will set it off. Speaking as a physicist, it is my considered opinion that no plan for tackling the ‘nova’ fuse bomb itself will work unless the arming circuit is first broken on the Moon and that no attempt should be made to get at fuse before then, because of extreme danger to the entire planet.

“The arming circuit and the radio relay to the Earthside trigger are located on the Moon in a building inside her private dome. The triggering control she keeps with her. From the same control she can disarm the arming circuit temporarily; it is a combination dead-man switch and time-clock arrangement. It can be set to disarm for a maximum of twelve hours, to let her sleep, or possibly to permit her to order rearrangements. Unless it is switched off any attempt to enter the building in which the arming circuit is housed will also trigger the ‘Nova’ bomb circuit. While it is disarmed, the housing on the Moon may be broached by force but this will set off alarms which will warn her to rearm and then to trigger at once. The set up is such that the following sequence of events must take place:

“First, she must be killed, and the circuit disarmed.

“Second, the building housing the arming circuit and radio relay to the trigger must be broken open and the circuits destroyed before the time clock can rearm and trigger. This must be done with speed, not only because of guards, but because her surviving lieutenants will attempt to seize power by possessing themselves of the controls.

“Third, as soon as word is received on Earth that the arming circuit is destroyed, the New Age will be attacked in force and the ‘Nova’ bomb destroyed.

“Fourth, as soon as the bomb is destroyed, a general round up must be made of all persons technically capable of setting up the ‘Nova’ effect from plans. This alert must be maintained until it is certain that no plans remain in existence, including the third set of films, and further established by hypno that no competent person possesses sufficient knowledge to set it up without plans. This alert may compromise our secret status; the risk must be taken.

“Any questions?”

“Kettle Belly,” said Joe, “Doesn’t she know that if the Earth becomes a Nova, the Moon will be swallowed up in the disaster?”

“Crater walls shield her dome from line-of-sight with Earth; apparently she believes she is safe. Evil is essentially stupid, Joe; despite her brilliance, she believes what she wishes to believe. Or it may be that she is willing to risk her own death against the tempting prize of absolute power. Her plan is to proclaim power with some pious nonsense about being high priestess of peace—a euphemism for Empress of Earth. It is a typical paranoid deviation; the proof of the craziness lies in the fact that the physical arrangements make it certain—if we do not intervene—that Earth will be destroyed automatically a few hours after her death; a thing that could happen any time—and a compelling reason for all speed. No one has ever quite managed to conquer all of Earth, not even the commissars. Apparently she wishes not only to conquer it, but wants to destroy it after she is gone, lest anyone else ever manage to do so again. Any more questions?”

He went on, “The plan is this:

“You two will go to the Moon to become domestic servants to Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Copley, a rich, elderly couple living at the Elysian Rest Homes, Moon Colony. They are of us. Shortly they will decide to return to Earth; you two will decide to remain, you like it. You will advertise, offering to work for anyone who will post your return bond. About this time Mrs. Keithley will have lost through circumstances that will be arranged, two or more of her servants; she will probably hire you, since domestic service is the scarcest commodity on the Moon. If not, a variation will be arranged for you.

“When you are inside her dome, you’ll maneuver yourselves into positions to carry out your assignments. When both of you are so placed, you will carry out procedures one and two with speed.

“A person named McGinty, already inside her dome, will help you in communication. He is not one of us but is our agent, a telepath. His ability does not extend past that. Your communication hook up will probably be, Gail to McGinty by telepathy, McGinty to Joe by concealed radio.”

Joe glanced at Gail; it was the first that he had known that she was a telepath. Baldwin went on, “Gail will kill Mrs. Keithley; Joe will break into the housing and destroy the circuits. Are you ready to go?”

Joe was about to suggest swapping the assignments when Gail answered, “Ready”; he echoed her.

“Good. Joe, you will carry your assumed I.Q. at about 85, Gail at 95; she will appear to be the dominant member of a married couple—” Gail grinned at Joe. “—but you, Joe, will be in charge. Your personalities and histories are now being made up and will be ready with your identifications. Let me say again that the greatest of speed is necessary; government security forces here may attempt a fool-hardy attack on the New Age Hotel. We shall prevent or delay such efforts, but act with speed. Good luck.”

Operation Black Widow, first phase, went off as planned.

Eleven days later Joe and Gail were inside Mrs. Keithley’s dome on the moon and sharing a room in the servants’ quarters. Gail glanced around when first they entered it and said in Speedtalk, “Now you’ll have to marry me; I’m compromised.”

“Shut that up, idiot! Someone might hear you.”

“Pooh! They’d just think I had asthma. Don’t you think it’s noble of me, Joe, to sacrifice my girlish reputation for home and country?”

“What reputation?”

“Come closer so I can slug you.”

Even the servants’ quarters were luxurious. The dome was a sybarite’s dream. The floor of it was gardened in real beauty save where Mrs. Keithley’s mansion stood. Opposite it, across a little lake—certainly the only lake on the Moon—was the building housing the circuits; it was disguised as a little Doric Grecian shrine.

The dome itself was edge-lighted fifteen hours out of each twenty-four, shutting out the black sky and the harsh stars. At “night” the lighting was gradually withdrawn.

McGinty was a gardener and obviously enjoyed his work. Gail established contact with him, got out of him what little he knew. Joe left him alone save for contacts in character.

There was a staff of over two hundred, having its own social hierarchy, from engineers for dome and equipment, Mrs. Keithley’s private pilot, and so on down to gardeners’ helpers. Joe and Gail were midway, being inside servants. Gail made herself popular as the harmlessly flirtatious but always helpful and sympathetic wife of a meek and older husband. She had been a beauty parlor operator, so it seemed, before she “married” and had great skill in massaging aching backs and stiff necks, relieving headaches and inducing sleep. She was always ready to demonstrate.

Her duties as a maid had not yet brought her into close contact with their employer. Joe, however, had acquired the job of removing all potted plants to the “outdoors” during “night”; Mrs. Keithley, according to Mr. James, the butler, believed that plants should be outdoors at “night.” Joe was thus in a position to get outside the house when the dome was dark; he had already reached the point where the night guard at the Grecian temple would sometimes get Joe to “jigger” for him while the guard snatched a forbidden cigaret.

McGinty had been able to supply one more important fact: in addition to the guard at the temple building, and the locks and armor plate of the building itself, the arming circuit was booby-trapped. Even if it were inoperative as an arming circuit for the ‘Nova’ bomb on Earth, it itself would blow up if tampered with. Gail and Joe discussed it in their room, Gail sitting on his lap like an affectionate wife, her lips close to his left ear. “Perhaps you could wreck it from the door, without exposing yourself.”

“I’ve got to be sure. There is certainly some way of switching that gimmick off. She has to provide for possible repairs or replacements.”

“Where would it be?”

“Just one place that matches the pattern of the rest of her planning. Right under her hand, along with the disarming switch and the trigger switch.” He rubbed his other ear; it contained his short-range radio hook-up to McGinty and itched almost constantly.

“Hmm—then there’s just one thing to be done; I’ll have to wring it out of her before I kill her.”

“We’ll see.”

Just before dinner the following “evening” she found him in their room. “It worked, Joe, it worked!”

“What worked?”

“She fell for the bait. She heard from her secretary about my skill as a masseuse; I was ordered up for a demonstration this afternoon. Now I am under strict instructions to come to her tonight and rub her to sleep.”

“It’s tonight, then.”

McGinty waited in his room, behind a locked door. Joe stalled in the back hall, spinning out endlessly a dull tale to Mr. James.

A voice in his ear said, “She’s in her room now.”

“—and that’s how my brother got married to two women at once,” Joe concluded. “Sheer bad luck. I better get these plants outside before the missus happens to ask about ’em.”

“I suppose you had. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Mr. James.” He picked up two of the pots and waddled out.

He put them down outside and heard, “She says she’s started to massage. She’s spotted the radio switching unit; it’s on the belt that the old gal keeps at her bedside table when she’s not wearing it.”

“Tell her to kill her and grab it.”

“She says she wants to make her tell how to unswitch the booby-trap gimmick first.”

“Tell her not to delay.”

Suddenly, inside his head, clear and sweet as a bell as if they were her own spoken tones, he heard her. —Joe, I can hear you. Can you hear me?

—yes, yes! Aloud he added, “Stand by the phones anyhow, Mac”

—I won’t be long. I have her in intense pain; she’ll crack soon.

—hurt her plenty! He began to run toward the temple building—Gail, are you still shopping for a husband?

—I’ve found him.

—marry me and I’ll beat you every Saturday night.

—the man who can beat me hasn’t been born.

—I’d like to try. He slowed down before he came near the guard’s station. “Hi, Jim!”

—it’s a deal.

“Well, if it taint Joey boy! Got a match?”

“Here.” He reached out a hand—then, as the guard fell, he eased him to the ground and made sure that he would stay out.—Gail! It’s got to be now!

The voice in his head came back in great consternation:—Joe! She was too tough, she wouldn’t crack. She’s dead!

—good! Get that belt, break the arming circuit, then see what else you find. I’m going to break in.

He went toward the door of the temple.

—it’s disarmed, Joe. I could spot it; it has a time set on it. I can’t tell about the others; they aren’t marked and they all look alike.

He took from his pocket a small item provided by Baldwin’s careful planning.—twist them all from where they are to the other way. You’ll probably hit it.

—oh, Joe, I hope so!

He had placed the item against the lock; the metal around it turned red and now was melting away. An alarm clanged somewhere.

Gail’s voice came again in his head; there was urgency in it but no fear:—Joe! They’re beating on the door. I’m trapped.

—McGinty! Be our witness! He went on:—I, Joseph, take thee, Gail, to be my lawfully wedded wife—

He was answered in tranquil rhythm:—I, Gail, take thee, Joseph, to be my lawfully wedded husband—

—to have and to hold, he went on.

—to have and to hold, my beloved!

—for better, for worse—

Her voice in his head was singing.—till death do us part. I’ve got it open, darling; I am going in.

—till death do us part! They are breaking down the bedroom door, Joseph my dearest.

—hang on! I’m almost through here.

—they have broken it down, Joe. They are coming toward me. Good-bye my darling! I am very happy. Abruptly her “voice” stopped.

He was facing the box that housed the disarming circuit, alarms clanging in his ears; he took from his pocket another gadget and tried it.

The blast that shattered the box caught him full in the chest. The letters on the metal marker read:

TO THE MEMORY OF

MR. AND MRS. JOSEPH GREENE

WHO, NEAR THIS SPOT,

DIED FOR ALL THEIR FELLOW MEN.

THE END

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The Road to the Rim (full text) in free HTML by A. Bertram Chandler

When I was a young teenager, I voraciously read science fiction stories like they were going out of style. I couldn’t help myself. I loved the adventure. I loved the stories about outer space. I loved exploration, and shiny metal mechanisms. I loved to hear the heroes get in and out of their particular predicaments. And as such, I read all the “classics”, from anthologies to Heinlein, Bradbury, Asimov, and many others. One of my favorites (alongside my collection of Doc Savage books) was the hundreds of stories by A. Bertram Chandler and his John Grimes saga.

This was around the time of Star Trek (the first season) and before Star Wars or any of the subsequent movies. Boys like myself read these adventure yarns and imagined that we commanded those slick needle-shaped silver rockets and plied the depths of space.

The idea of a “space opera” during the 1960’s and 1970’s was one in which a lone person would explore the heavens as part of some kind of military or merchant marine operation. It was short in space battles and infra-cannons, phasers, and photon-torpedoes. But long on adventure, inter-personal relationships and situational conflicts. I ate it up.

A. Bertram Chandler

A. Bertram Chandler wrote over 40 novels and 200 works of short fiction.

“He writes his stories in the middle of a hurricane with his typewriter lashed to his desk.” 

– John W. Campbell, legendary editor of Astounding Science Fiction

Chandler’s descriptions of life aboard spaceships and the relationships between members of the crew en route derive from his experience on board seagoing ships and thus carry a feeling of realism rarely found with other writers.

He was most well known for his Rim World series and John Grimes novels, both of which have a distinctly naval flavor. In the latter, Chandler’s principal hero John Grimes is an enthusiastic sailor who has occasional adventures on the oceans of various planets.

In the books, there is a repeated reference to an obsolete type of magnetically powered spaceship known as the “Gaussjammer”, remembered nostalgically by “old timers” – which is modeled on the Windjammer.

Chandler made heavy use of the parallel universe plot device throughout his career, with many Grimes stories involving characters briefly crossing over into other realities.

In his ironic short story "The Cage", a band of shipwrecked humans wandering naked in the jungles of a faraway planet are captured by aliens and placed in a zoo, where, failing in all their efforts to convince their captors that they are intelligent, some are dissected. Eventually they become resigned to captivity and adopt a small local rodent as a pet, placing him in a wicker cage. Seeing this, their captors apologize for the mistake and repatriate them to Earth, remarking that "only intelligent creatures put other creatures in cages".

Sex is frequent in Chandler’s books, often in free fall. Women on board are typically pursers or passengers; far less often are they regular officers in the chain of command. Chandler’s protagonists are quite prone to affairs and promiscuous behavior, but are also shown falling in love and undertaking long-lasting, harmonious marriages.

The combination of science fiction, life as a starship caption, adventure and sexy relationships in parallel universes was addictive to me. I couldn’t put these books down, and often I would find myself exploring old second-hand booksellers searching for a new and unread Chandler book.

Commander Grimes

"SF's answer to Horatio Hornblower." --Publishers Weekly

Pipe-smoking, action-loving spaceship commander John Grimes (think Captain Kirk with more of a navy, salty attitude) retires from heroic days in Earth’s space navy only to be immediately thrown into adventures on the remote edge of known space…

"As Asimov chronicled the Foundation, as Heinlein built his Future History, so Chandler constructs the epic of the Rim Worlds." --Analog

This is the very first book in the John Grimes story / saga. Please enjoy it as much as I have.

The Road to the Rim

Lieutenant John Grimes of the Federation Survey Service: fresh out of the Academy-and as green as they come!

“What do you think you’re playing at?”

“Captain,” said Wolverton, “I can no more than guess at what you intend to do-but I have decided not to help you do it.”

“Give me the initiator, Wolverton. That’s an order!

“A lawful command, Captain? As lawful as those that armed this ship?” “Hold him, Grimes!”

. . . They hung there, clinging to each other, but more in hate than in love. Wolverton’s back was to the machine; he could not see, as could Grimes, that there was an indraught of air into the shimmering, spinning complexity. Grimes felt the beginnings of panic . . . all that mattered was that there was nothing to prevent him and Wolverton from being drawn into the machine . . . .Violently Grimes shoved away. To the action, there was a reaction . . .

When he had finished retching, Grimes forced himself to look again at the slimy, bloody obscenity that was a man turned inside out-heart still beating, intestines still writhing . . .

HIS UNIFORM was new, too new, all knife-edged creases, and the braid and buttons as yet un-dimmed by time. It sat awkwardly upon his chunky

body-and even more awkwardly his big ears protruded from under the cap that was set too squarely upon his head. Beneath the shiny visor his eyes were gray (but not yet hard), and his face, for all its promise of strength, was as yet unlined, had yet to lose its immature softness. He stood at the foot of the ramp by which he had disembarked from the transport that had carried him from the Antarctic Base to Port Woomera, looking across the silver towers that were the ships, interplanetary and interstellar, gleaming in the desert. The westering sun was hot on his back, but he did not notice the discomfort. There were the ships, the real ships-not obsolescent puddle-jumpers like the decrepit cruiser in which he, with the other midshipmen of his class, had made the training cruise to the moons of Saturn. There were the ships, the star ships, that span their web of commerce from Earth to the Centaurian planets, to the Cluster Worlds, to the Empire of Waverley, to the Shakespearian Sector and beyond.

(But they’re only merchantmen, he thought, with a young man’s snobbery.) He wondered in which one of the vessels he would be taking passage.

Merchantman or not, that big ship, the one that stood out from her

neighbors like a city skyscraper among village church steeples, looked a likely enough craft. He pulled the folder containing his orders from his inside breast pocket, opened it, read (not for the second time, even), the

relevant page.

. . . you are to report on board the Interstellar Transport Commission’s Delta Orionis . . .

He was not a spaceman yet, in spite of his uniform, but he knew the Commission’s system of nomenclature. There was the Alpha class, and the Beta class, and there were the Gamma and Delta classes. He grinned wryly. His ship was one of the smaller ones. Well, at least he would not be traveling to Lindisfarne Base in an Epsilon class tramp.

Ensign John Grimes, Federation Survey Service, shrugged his broad shoulders and stepped into the ground car waiting to carry him and his baggage from the airport to the spaceport.

GRIMES LOOKED at the officer standing just inside Delta Orionis’ airlock, and she looked at him. He felt the beginnings of a flush spreading over his face, a prickling of the roots of his close-cropped hair, and felt all the more embarrassed by this public display of his embarrassment. But spaceborn female officers, at this time, were almost as scarce as hens’ teeth in the Survey Service-and such few as he had met all looked as though they shared a common equine ancestry. It was all wrong, thought Grimes. It was unfair that this girl (this attractive girl) should already be a veteran of interstellar voyages while he, for all his uniform and commission, should be embarking upon his first, his very first trip outside the bounds of the Solar System. He let his glance fall from her face (but not without reluctance), to the braid on her shoulderboards. Gold on a white facing. So it wasn’t too bad. She was only some sort of paymaster-or, to use Merchant Service terminology, only some sort of purser.

She said, her clear, high voice almost serious, “Welcome aboard the Delia O’Ryan, Admiral.”

“Ensign,” corrected Grimes stiffly. “Ensign Grimes . . .”

. . . of the Federation Survey Service,” she finished for him. “But you are all potential admirals.” There was the faintest of smiles flickering upon her full lips, a barely discernible crinkling at the corners of her eyes. Her brown eyes, thought Grimes. Brown eyes, and what I can see of her hair under that cap seems to be auburn . . .

She glanced at her wristwatch. She told him, her voice now crisp and businesslike, “We lift ship in precisely ten minutes’ time, Ensign.”

“Then I’d better get my gear along to my cabin, Miss . . . ?”

“I’ll look after that, Mr. Grimes. Meanwhile, Captain Craven sends his compliments and invites you to the Control Room.”

“Thank you.” Grimes looked past and around the girl, trying to discover for himself the door that gave access to the ship’s axial shaft. He was determined not to ask.

“It’s labeled,” she told him with a faint smile. “And the cage is waiting at

this level. Just take it up as far as it goes, then walk the rest. Or do you want a pilot?”

“I can manage,” he replied more coldly than he had intended, adding, “thank you.” He could see the sign over the door now. It was plain enough. AXIAL SHAFT. So was the button that he had to press to open the door-but the girl pressed it for him. He thanked her again-and this time his coldness was fully intentional-and stepped into the cage. The door slid shut behind him. The uppermost of the studs on the elevator’s control panel was marked CAPTAIN’S DECK. He pushed it, then stood there and watched the lights flashing on the panel as he was swiftly lifted to the nose of the ship.

When he was carried no further he got out, found himself on a circular walk surrounding the upper extremity of the axial shaft. On the outside of the shaft itself there was a ladder. After a second’s hesitation he climbed it, emerged through a hatch into the control room.

It was like the control room of the cruiser in which he had made his training cruise-and yet subtly (or not so subtly), unlike it. Everything- but so had it been aboard the Survey Service vessel-was functional, but there was an absence of high polish, of polishing for polishing’s sake. Instruments gleamed-but it was the dull gleam that comes from long and continual use, and matched the dull gleam of the buttons and rank marks on the uniforms of the officers already seated at their stations, the spacemen to whom, after all, a uniform was no more (and no less), than an obligatory working rig.

The big man with the four gold bars on each shoulder half turned his head as Grimes came up through the hatch. “Glad to have you aboard, Ensign,” he said perfunctorily. “Grab yourself a seat-there’s a spare one alongside the Mate’s. Sorry there’s no time for introductions right now. We’re due to get upstairs.”

“Here!” grunted one of the officers.

Grimes made his way to the vacant acceleration chair, dropped into it, strapped himself in. While he was so doing he heard the Captain ask, “All secure, Mr. Kennedy?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why the hell not?”

“I’m still waiting for the purser’s report, sir.”

“Are you?” Then, with a long-suffering sigh, “I suppose she’s still tucking some passenger into her-or his-bunk . . . .”

“She could still be stowing some passenger’s gear, sir,” contributed Grimes. “Mine,” he added.

“Indeed?” The Captain’s voice was cold and elaborately uninterested. Over the intercom came a female voice. “Purser to Control. All secure

below.”

“And bloody well time,” grumbled the shipmaster. Then, to the officer at the transceiver, “Mr. Digby, kindly obtain clearance.”

“Obtain clearance, sir,” acknowledged that young man brightly. Then, into his microphone, “Delta Orionis to Port Control. Request clearance to lift ship. Over.”

“Port Control to Delta Orionis. You may lift. Bon voyage. Over.” “Thank you, Port Control. Over and out.”

Then the ship was throbbing to the rhythmic beat of her Inertial Drive, and Grimes felt that odd sense of buoyancy, of near weightlessness, that persisted until the vessel broke contact with the ground-and then the still gentle acceleration induced the reverse effect. He looked out through the nearest viewport. Already the ocher surface of the desert, streaked by the long, black shadows of ships and spaceport buildings, was far below them, with the vessels and the immobile constructions looking like toys, and one or two surface vehicles like scurrying insects. Far to the north, dull-ruddy against the blue of the sky, there was a sandstorm. If that sky were darker, thought Grimes, this would look like Mars, and the mental comparison reminded him that he, too, was a spaceman, that he, too, had been around (although only within the bounds of Sol’s planetary system). Even so, he was Survey Service, and these others with him in Control were only merchant officers, fetchers and carriers, interstellar coach and truck drivers. (But he envied them their quiet competency.)

Still the ship lifted, and the spaceport below her dwindled, and the land horizon to the north and the now visible sea horizon to the south began to display the beginnings of curvature. Still she lifted, and overhead the sky was dark, and the first bright stars, Sirius and Canopus, Alpha and Beta Centauri, were sparkling there, beckoning, as they had beckoned for ages immemorial before the first clumsy rocket clambered heavenward up the ladder of its own fiery exhaust, before the first airplane spread its flimsy wings, before the first balloon was lifted by the hot, expanding gases from its airborne furnace . . . .

“Mr. Grimes,” said the Captain suddenly, his voice neither friendly nor unfriendly.

“Sir?”

“We lift on I.D. until we’re clear of the Van Allens.”

“I know, sir,” said Grimes-then wished that he could unsay the words. But it was too late. He was conscious of the shipmaster’s hostile silence, of the amused contempt of the merchant officers. He shrank into his chair, tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. The ship’s people talked among themselves in low voices, ignoring him. They allowed themselves a period of relaxation, producing and lighting cigarettes. Nobody offered the Ensign one.

Sulkily he fumbled for his pipe, filled it, lighted it. The Chief Officer coughed with quite unnecessary vigor. The Captain growled, “Put that out, please,” and muttered something about stinking out the control room. He,

himself, was puffing at a villainous black cigar.

The ship lifted, and below her the Earth was now a great sphere,

three-quarters in darkness, the line of the terminator drawn across land masses, cloud formations and oceans. City lights twinkled in the gloom like star clusters, like nebulae. In a quiet voice an officer was calling readings from the radar altimeter.

To the throbbing of the Inertial Drive was added the humming, shrilling to a whine, of the directional gyroscopes as the ship turned about her short axis hunting the target star. The pseudo-gravity of centrifugal force was at an odd angle to that of acceleration-and the resultant was at an odder angle still. Grimes began to feel sick-and was actually thankful that the Captain had made him put his pipe out. Alarm bells sounded, and then somebody was saying over the intercom. “Prepare for acceleration. Prepare for acceleration. Listen for the countdown.”

The countdown. Part of the long tradition of space travel, a hangover from the days of the first, unreliable rockets. Spaceships still used rockets-but only as auxiliaries, as a means of delivering thrust in a hurry, of building up acceleration in a short time.

At the word Zero! the Inertial Drive was cut and, simultaneously, the Reaction Drive flared into violent life. The giant hand of acceleration bore down heavily upon all in the ship-then, suddenly, at a curt order from the Captain, lifted.

Grimes became aware of a thin, high keening, the song of the

ever-precessing gyroscopes of the Mannschenn Drive. He knew the theory of it-as what spaceman did not?-although the mathematics of it were beyond the comprehension of all but a handful of men and women. He knew what was happening, knew that the ship, now that speed had been built up, was, as one of his instructors had put it, going ahead in space and astern in time. He felt, as he had been told that he would feel, the uncanny sensation of d‚j… vu, and watched the outlines of the control room and of every person and instrument in the compartment shift and shimmer, the colors sagging down the spectrum.

Ahead, the stars were pulsating spirals of opalescence, astern, Earth and Moon were frighteningly distorted, uncanny compromises between the sphere and the tesseract. But this was no more than the merest subliminal glimpse; in the twinkling of an eye the Home Planet and her daughter were no more than dust motes whirling down the dark dimensions.

The Captain lit a fresh cigar. “Mr. Kennedy,” he said, “you may set normal Deep Space watches.” He turned to Grimes. His full beard almost hid his expression, that of one performing a social duty with no enthusiasm. “Will you join me in my day cabin, Ensign?”

“It will be my pleasure, sir,” lied Grimes. III

HANDLING HIS BIG BODY with easy grace in the Free Fall conditions, the Captain led the way from the control room. Grimes followed slowly and

clumsily, but with a feeling of great thankfulness that after his training cruise he was no longer subject to spacesickness. There were drugs, of course, and passengers used them, but a spaceman was expected to be independent of pharmaceutical aids. Even so, the absence of any proper “up” or “down” bothered him more than he cared to admit.

The shipmaster slid open the door to his accommodation, motioned to Grimes to enter, murmuring sardonically, “Now you see how the poor live.” The so-called poor, thought Grimes, didn’t do at all badly. This Deep Space sitting room was considerably larger than the day cabin of the Survey Service cruiser’s Captain had been. True, it was also shabbier-but it was far more comfortable. Its decorations would never have been approved aboard a warship, were obviously the private property of the Master. There were a full dozen holograms on the bulkhead, all of them widely differing but all of them covering the same subject matter. Not that the subject matter was covered.

“My harem,” grunted the Captain. “That one there, the redhead, I met on Caribbea. Quite a stopover that was. The green-haired wench-and you can see that it’s not a dye job, although I’ve often wondered why women can’t be thorough- isn’t human, of course. But indubitably humanoid, and indubitably mammalian. Belongs to Brrrooonooorrrooo-one of the worlds of the Shaara Empire. The local Queen Mother offered to sell Lalia-that’s her name-to me for a case of Scotch. And I was tempted . . .” He sighed. “But you Service Survey types aren’t the only ones who have to live by Regulations.”

Grimes said nothing, tried to hide his interest in the art gallery.

“But take a pew, Ensign. Spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard-this is Liberty Hall.”

Grimes pulled himself to one of the comfortable chairs, strapped himself in. He said lamely, “I don’t see any cat, sir.”

“A figure of speech,” growled the Captain, seating himself next to what looked like a drink cabinet. “Well, Mr. Grimes, your Commandant at the Academy, Commodore Bradshaw, is an old friend and shipmate of mine. He said that you were a very promising young officer”-like a balloon in a comic strip the unspoken words, “God knows why,” hung between them-“and asked me to keep an eye on you. But I have already gained the impression that there is very little that a mere merchant skipper such as myself will be able to teach you.”

Grimes looked at the bulky figure seated opposite him, at the

radiation-darkened skin of the face above the black, silver-streaked beard, at the fiercely jutting nose, at the faded but bright and intelligent blue eyes, the eyes that were regarding him with more than a hint of amused contempt. He blushed miserably as he recalled his brash, “I know, sir,” in this man’s own control room. He said, with an effort, “This is my first Deep Space voyage, sir.”

“I know.” Surprisingly the Captain chuckled-and as though to celebrate this minor scoring over his guest opened the liquor cabinet. “Pity to have to

suck this excellent Manzanila out of a bulb-but that’s one of the hardships of Free Fall. Here!” He tossed a little pear-shaped container to Grimes, kept one for himself. “Your health, Ensign!”

“And yours, sir.”

The wine was too dry for Grimes’ taste, but he made a pretense of enjoying it. He was thankful that he was not asked to have a second drink. Meanwhile, his host had pulled a typewritten sheet from a drawer of his desk and was looking at it. “Let me see, now . . . You’re in cabin 15, on D Deck. You’ll be able to find your own way down, won’t you?”

Grimes said that he would and unbuckled his lapstrap. It was obvious that the party was over.

“Good. Now, as an officer of the Survey Service you have the freedom of the control room and the engine rooms . . . . “

“Thank you, sir.”

“Just don’t abuse the privilege, that’s all.”

After that, thought Grimes, I’m not likely to take advantage of it, let alone abuse it. He let himself float up from his chair, said, “Thank you, sir.” (For the drink, or for the admonition? What did it matter?) “I’ll be getting down to my cabin, sir. I’ve some unpacking to do.”

“As you please, Mr. Grimes.”

The Captain, his social duty discharged, had obviously lost interest in his guest. Grimes let himself out of the cabin and made his way, not without difficulty, to the door in the axial shaft. He was surprised at the extent to which one not very large drink had interfered with the control of his body in Free Fall. Emerging from the elevator cage on D Deck he stumbled, literally, into the purser. “Let go of me,” she ordered, “or I shall holler rape!”

That, he thought, is all I need to make this trip a really happy one. She disengaged herself, moved back from him, her slim, sandaled feet,

magnetically shod, maintaining contact with the steel decking, but

gracefully, with a dancing motion. She laughed. “I take it that you’ve just come from a home truth session with B.B.”

“B.B.?”

“The Bearded Bastard. But don’t take it too much to heart. He’s that way with all junior officers. The fact that you’re Survey Service is only incidental.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

“His trouble,” she went on. “His real trouble is that he’s painfully shy.” He’s not the only one, thought Grimes, looking at the girl. She seemed

even more attractive than on the occasion of their first meeting. She had changed into shorts-and-shirt shipboard uniform-and she was one of the

rare women who could wear such a rig without looking lumpy and clumpy. There was no cap now to hide her hair-smooth, lustrous, with coppery glints, with a straight white part bisecting the crown of her finely shaped head.

She was well aware of his scrutiny. She said, “You must excuse me, Ensign. I have to look after the other customers. They aren’t seasoned spacemen like you.”

Suddenly bold, he said, “But before you go, what is your name?”

She smiled dazzlingly. “You’ll find a list of all ship’s personnel posted in your cabin. I’m included.” Then she was gone, gliding rapidly around the curve of the alleyway.

He looked at the numbers over the cabin doors, outboard from the axial shaft, making a full circuit of that hollow pillar before he realized that this was only the inner ring, that he would have to follow one of the radial alleyways to reach his own accommodation. He finally found No. 15 and let himself in.

His first action was to inspect the framed notices on the bulkhead.

I.S.S. Delta Orionis, he read. Captain J. Craven, O.G.S., S.S.R.

So the Old Man held a Reserve commission. And the Order of the Golden Star was awarded for something more than good attendance.

Mr. P. Kennedy, Chief Officer.

He ignored the other names on the list while he searched for one he wanted. Ah, here it was.

Miss Jane Pentecost, Purser.

He repeated the name to himself, thinking that, despite the old play on words, this Jane was not plain. (But Janes rarely are.) Jane Pentecost . . . Then, feeling that he should be showing some professional interest, he acquainted himself with the names of the other members of the ship’s crew. He was intrigued by the manning scale, amazed that such a large vessel, relatively speaking, could be run by such a small number of people. But this was not a warship; there were no weapons to be manned, there would never be the need to put a landing party ashore on the surface of a hostile planet. The Merchant Service could afford to automate, to employ machinery in lieu of ratings. The Survey Service could not.

Virtuously he studied the notices dealing with emergency procedures, ship’s routine, recreational facilities and all the rest of it, examined with care the detailed plan of the ship. Attached to this was a card, signed by the Master, requesting passengers to refrain, as much as possible, from using the elevator in the axial shaft, going on to say that it was essential, for the good of their physical health, that they miss no opportunity for taking exercise. (In a naval vessel, thought Grimes, with a slight sneer, that would not be a request-it would be an order. And, in any case, there would

be compulsory calisthenics for all hands.)

He studied the plan again and toyed with the idea of visiting the bar before dinner. He decided against it; he was still feeling the effects of the drink that the Captain had given him. So, to pass the time, he unpacked slowly and carefully, methodically stowing his effects in the drawers under the bunk. Then, but not without reluctance, he changed from his uniform into his one formal civilian suit. One of the officer-instructors at the Academy had advised this. “Always wear civvies when you’re traveling as passenger. If you’re in uniform, some old duck’s sure to take you for one of the ship’s officers and ask you all sorts of technical questions to which you don’t know the answers.”

While he was adjusting his frilled cravat in front of the mirror the sonorous notes of a gong boomed from the intercom.

THE DINING SALOON was much more ornate than the gunroom of that training cruiser had been, and more ornate than her wardroom. The essentials were the same, of course, as they are in any ship-tables and chairs secured to the deck, each seat fitted with its strap so that the comforting pressure of buttocks on padding could give an illusion of gravity. Each table was covered with a gaily colored cloth-but beneath the fabric there was the inevitable stainless steel to which the stainless steel service would be held by its own magnetic fields. But what impressed Grimes was the care that had been taken, the ingenuity that had been exercised to make this compartment look like anything but part of a ship.

The great circular pillar of the axial shaft was camouflaged by trelliswork, and the trelliswork itself almost hidden by the luxuriance of some

broad-level climbing plant that he could not identify. Smaller pillars were similarly covered, and there was a further efflorescence of living decoration all around the circular outer wall-the wall that must be the inner skin of the ship. And there were windows in this wall. No, Grimes decided, not windows, but holograms. The glowing, three dimensional pictures presented and maintained the illusion that this was a hall set in the middle of some great park. But on what world? Grimes could not say. Trees, bushes and flowers were unfamiliar, and the color of the sky subtly strange.

He looked around him at his fellow diners, at the dozen passengers and the ship’s officers, most of whom were already seated. The officers were in neat undress uniform. About half the male passengers were, like himself, formally attired; the others were sloppy in shorts and shirts. But this was the first night out and some laxity was allowable. The women, however, all seemed to have decided to outshine the glowing flowers that flamed outside the windows that were not windows.

There was the Captain, unmistakable with his beard and the shimmering rainbow of ribbons on the left breast of his blouse. There were the passengers at his table-the men inclined to portliness and pomposity, their women sleek and slim and expensive looking. Grimes was relieved to see that there was no vacant place-and yet, at the same time, rather hurt. He knew that he was only an Ensign, a one-ringer, and a very new Ensign at

that-but, after all, the Survey Service was the Survey Service.

He realized that somebody was addressing him. It was a girl, a small, rather chubby blonde. She was in uniform-a white shirt with black shoulder-boards, each bearing a narrow white stripe, sharply creased slacks, and black, highly polished shoes. Grimes assumed, correctly, that

she was a junior member of the purser’s staff. “Mr. Grimes,” she said, “will you follow me, please? “You’re at Miss Pentecost’s table.”

Willingly he followed the girl. She led him around the axial shaft to a table for four at which the purser with two passengers, a man and a woman, was already seated. Jane Pentecost was attired as was his guide, the severity of her gold-trimmed black and white in pleasing contrast to the pink and blue frills and flounces that clad the other woman, her slenderness in still more pleasing contrast to the other’s untidy plumpness.

She smiled and said pleasantly, “Be seated, Admiral.”

“Admiral?” asked the man at her left, unpleasantly incredulous. He had, obviously, been drinking. He was a rough looking customer, in spite of the attempt that he had made to dress for dinner. He was twice the Ensign’s age, perhaps, although the heavily lined face under the scanty sandy hair made him look older. “Admiral?” He laughed, revealing irregular yellow teeth. “In what? The Space Scouts?”

Jane Pentecost firmly took control. She said, “Allow me to introduce Ensign Grimes, of the Survey Service . . .”

“Survey Service . . . Space Scouts . . . S.S . . . . What’s the difference?” “Plenty!” answered Grimes hotly.

The purser ignored the exchange. “Ensign, this is Mrs. Baxter . . . .” “Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” simpered the woman.

“And Mr. Baxter.”

Baxter extended his hand reluctantly and Grimes took it reluctantly. The amenities observed, he pulled himself into his seat and adjusted his lapstrap. He was facing Jane Pentecost. The man was on his right, the woman on his left. He glanced first at her, then at her husband, wondering how to start and to maintain a conversation. But this was the purser’s table, and this was her responsibility.

She accepted it. “Now you’re seeing how the poor live, Admiral,” she remarked lightly.

Grimes, taking a tentative sip from his bulb of consomm‚, did not think that the self-styled poor did at all badly, and said as much. The girl grinned and told him that the first night out was too early to draw conclusions. “We’re still on shoreside meat and vegetables,” she told him, “and you’ll not be getting your first taste of our instant table wine until tomorrow. Tonight we wallow in the unwonted luxury of a quite presentable Montrachet. When we start living on the produce of our own so-called farm, washing it down with our own reconstituted plonk, you’ll see the difference.”

The Ensign replied that, in his experience, it didn’t matter if food came from tissue-culture vats or the green fields of Earth-what was important was the cook.

“Wide experience, Admiral?” she asked sweetly.

“Not very,” he admitted. “But the gunroom cook in my last ship couldn’t boil water without burning it.”

Baxter, noisily enjoying his dinner, said that this preoccupation with food and drink was symptomatic of the decadence of Earth. As he spoke his knife grated unpleasantly on the steel spines that secured his charcoal broiled steak to the surface of his plate.

Grimes considered inquiring if the man thought that good table manners were also a symptom of decadence, then thought better of it. After all, this was not his table. Instead, he asked, “And where are you from, Mr. Baxter?”

“The Rim Worlds, Mr. Grimes. Where we’re left to sink or swim-so we’ve no time for much else than keeping ourselves afloat.” He sucked noisily from his bulb of wine. “Things might be a little easier for us if your precious Survey Service did something about keeping the trade routes open.”

“That is our job,” said Grimes stiffly. “And we do it.”

“Like hell! There’s not a pirate in the Galaxy but can run rings around you!” “Practically every pirate has been hunted down and destroyed,” Grimes told

him coldly.

“Practically every pirate, the man says! A few small-time bunglers, he means!”

“Even the notorious Black Bart,” persisted Grimes.

“Black Bart!” Baxter, spluttering through his full mouth, gestured with his laden fork at Grimes. “Black Bart! He wasn’t much. Once he and that popsy of his split brass rags he was all washed up. I’m talkin’ about the real pirates, the ones whose ships wear national colors instead o’ the Jolly Roger, the ones that your precious Survey Service daren’t say boo to. The ones who do the dirty work for the Federation.”

“Such as?” asked Grimes frigidly.

“So now you’re playin’ the bleedin’ innocent. Never heard o’ the Duchy o’ Waldegren, Mr. Ensign Grimes?”

“Of course. Autonomous, but they and the Federation have signed what’s called a Pact of Perpetual Amity.”

“Pretty words, ain’t they? Suppose we analyze them. Suppose we analyze by analogy. D’yer know much about animals, Mr. Ensign Grimes?”

“Animals?” Grimes was puzzled. “Well, I suppose I do know something. I’ve taken the usual courses in xenobiology . . . .”

“Never mind that. You’re a Terry. Let’s confine ourselves to a selection of yer own Terran four-footed friends.”

“What the hell are you driving at?” flared Grimes, losing his temper. He threw an apologetic glance in Jane Pentecost’s direction, saw that she was more amused than shocked.

“Just think about a Pact of Perpetual Amity between an elephant and a tom cat,” said Baxter. “A fat an’ lazy elephant. A lean, scrawny, vicious tom cat. If the elephant wanted to he could convert that cat into a fur bedside rug just by steppin’ on him. But he doesn’t want to. He leaves the cat alone, just because the cat is useful to him. He does more than just leave him alone. He an’ this feline pull out their pens from wherever they keep ’em an’ sign their famous Pact.

“In case you haven’t worked it out for yourself, the elephant’s the Federation, and the tom cat’s the Duchy of Waldegren.”

“But why?” asked Grimes. “Why?”

“Don’t they teach you puppies any interstellar politics? Or are those courses reserved for the top brass? Well, Mr. Grimes, I’ll tell you. There’s one animal that has the elephant really worried. Believe it or not, he’s scared o’ mice. An’ there’re quite a few mice inside the Federation, mice that make the elephant nervous by their rustlings an’ scurryings an’ their squeaky demands for full autonomy. That’s where the cat comes in. By his free use of his teeth an’ claws, by his very presence, he keeps the mice quiet.”

“And just who are these famous mice, Mr. Baxter?” asked Grimes.

“Don’t they teach you nothin’ in your bleedin’ Academy? Well, I’ll tell you. In our neck o’ the woods, the mice are the Rim Worlds, an’ the tom cat, as I’ve already made clear, is the Duchy o’ Waldegren. The Duchy gets away with murder-murder an’ piracy. But accordin’ to the Duchy, an accordin’ to your big, stupid elephant of a Federation, it’s not piracy. It’s-now, lemme see, what fancy words have been used o’ late? Contraband Control. Suppression of Espionage. Violation of the Three Million Mile Limit. Every time that there’s an act of piracy there’s some quote legal unquote excuse for it, an’ it’s upheld by the Federation’s tame legal eagles, an’ you Survey Service sissies just sit there on your big, fat backsides an’ don’t lift a pinkie against your dear, murderous pals, the Waldegrenese. If you did, they send you screaming back to Base, where some dear old daddy of an Admiral’d spank your little plump bottoms for you.”

“Please, Mr. Baxter!” admonished Jane Pentecost.

“Sorry, Miss. I got sort of carried away. But my young brother was Third Reaction Drive Engineer of the old Bunyip when she went missing. Nothin’ was ever proved-but the Waldegrenese Navy was holdin’ fleet maneuvers in the sector she was passin’ through when last heard from. Oh, they’re cunnin’ bastards. They’ll never go for one o’ these ships, or one of the Trans-Galactic Clippers; it’ll always be some poor little tramp that nobody’ll ever miss but the friends an’ relatives o’ the crew. And, I suppose, the underwriters-but Lloyds makes such a packet out o’ the ships that don’t get lost that they can well afford to shell out now an’ again. Come to that, it

must suit ’em. As long as there’re a few ‘overdues’ an’ ‘missings’ they can keep the premiums up.”

“But I still can’t see how piracy can possibly pay,” protested Grimes.

“O’ course it pays. Your friend Black Bart made it pay. An’ if you’re goin’ to all the expense of building and maintaining a war fleet, it might just as well earn its keep. Even your famous Survey Service might show a profit if you were allowed to pounce on every fat merchantman who came within range o’ your guns.”

“But for the Federation to condone piracy, as you’re trying to make out . . . That’s utterly fantastic.”

“If you lived on the Rim, you might think different,” snarled Baxter. And Jane Pentecost contributed, “Not piracy. Confrontation.”

AS SOON AS the meal was finished the Baxters left rather hastily to make their way to the bar, leaving Grimes and Jane Pentecost to the leisurely enjoyment of their coffee. When the couple was out of earshot Grimes remarked, “So those are Rim Worlders. They’re the first I’ve met.”

“They’re not, you know,” the girl told him.

“But they are. Oh, there are one or two in the Survey Service, but I’ve never run across them. Now I don’t particularly want to.”

“But you did meet one Rim Worlder before you met the Baxters.” “The Captain?”

She laughed. “Don’t let him hear you say that-not unless you want to take a space walk without a suit!”

“Then who?”

“Who could it be, Admiral? Whom have you actually met, to talk to, so far in this ship? Use your crust.”

He stared at her incredulously. “Not you?”

“Who else?” She laughed again, but with a touch of bitterness. “We aren’t all like our late manger companions, you know. Or should know. Even so, you’d count yourself lucky to have Jim Baxter by your side in any real jam. It boils down to this. Some of us have acquired veneer. Some of us haven’t. Period.”

“But how did you . . . ?” He groped for words that would not be offensive to conclude the sentence.

“How did I get into this galley? Easily enough. I started my spacefaring career as a not very competent Catering Officer in Jumbuk, one of the Sundowner Line’s more ancient and decrepit tramps. I got sick in Elsinore. Could have been my own cooking that put me in the hospital. Anyhow, I

was just about recovered when the Commission’s Epsilon Serpentis blew in-and she landed her purser with a slightly broken leg. She’d learned the hard way that the Golden Rule-stop whatever you’re doing and secure

everything when the acceleration warning sounds-is meant to be observed. The Doctor was luckier. She broke his fall . . . .” Grimes was about to ask what the Doctor and the purser had been doing, then was thankful that he had not done so. He was acutely conscious of the crimson blush that burned the skin of his face.

“You must realize,” said the girl dryly, “that merchant vessels with mixed crews are not monastic institutions. But where was I? Oh, yes. On Elsinore. Persuading the Master of the Snaky Eppy that I was a fit and proper person to take over his pursering. I managed to convince him that I was at least proper-I still can’t see what my predecessor saw in that lecherous old goat of a quack, although the Second Mate had something . . . .” Grimes felt a sudden twinge of jealousy. Anyhow, he signed me on, as soon as I agreed to waive repatriation.

“It was a long voyage; as you know, the Epsilon class ships are little better than tramps themselves. It was a long voyage, but I enjoyed it- seeing all the worlds that I’d read about and heard about and always wanted to visit. The Sundowner Line doesn’t venture far afield-just the four Rim Worlds, and now and again the Shakespearian Sector, and once in a blue moon one of the drearier planets of the Empire of Waverley. The Commission’s tramps, of course, run everywhere.

“Anyhow, we finally berthed at Woomera. The Old Man must have put in a good report about me, because I was called before the Local Superintending Purser and offered a berth, as a junior, in one of the Alpha class liners. Alpha Centauri, if you must know. She was on the Sol-Sirius service. Nothing very glamorous in the way of ports of call, but she was a fine ship, beautifully kept, efficiently run. A couple of years there knocked most of the sharp corners off me. After that-a spell as Assistant Purser of Beta Geminorum. Atlanta, Caribbea Carinthia and the Cluster Worlds. And then my first ship as Chief Purser. This one.”

One of Jane’s girls brought them fresh bulbs of coffee and ampoules of a sweet, potent liqueur. When she was gone Grimes asked, “Tell me, what are the Rim Worlds like?”

She waited until he had applied the flame of his lighter to the tip of her long, thin cigar, then answered, “Cold. Dark. Lonely. But . . . they have something. The feeling of being on a frontier. The frontier. The last frontier.”

“The frontier of the dark . . .” murmured Grimes.

“Yes. The frontier of the dark. And the names of our planets. They have something too. A . . . poetry? Yes, that’s the word. Lorn, Ultimo, Faraway and Thule . . . And there’s that night sky of ours, especially at some times of the year. There’s the Galaxy-a great, dim-glowing lenticulate nebula, and the rest is darkness. At other times of the year there’s only the darkness, the blackness that’s made even more intense by the sparse, faint stars that are the other Rim Suns, by the few, faint luminosities that are the distant

island universes that we shall never reach . . . .”

She shivered almost imperceptibly. “And always there’s that sense of being on the very edge of things, of hanging on by our fingernails with the abyss of the eternal night gaping beneath us. The Rim Worlders aren’t a spacefaring people; only a very few of us ever get the urge. It’s analogous, perhaps, to your Maoris-I spent a leave once in New Zealand and got interested in the history of the country. The Maoris come of seafaring stock. Their ancestors made an epic voyage from their homeland paradise to those rather grim and dreary little islands hanging there, all by themselves, in the cold and stormy Southern Ocean, lashed by frigid gales sweeping up from the Antarctic. And something-the isolation? the climate?-killed the wanderlust that was an essential part of the makeup of their race. You’ll find very few Maoris at sea-or in space-although there’s no dearth of Polynesians from the home archipelagoes aboard the surface ships serving the ports of the Pacific. And there are quite a few, too, in the Commission’s ships . . . .”

“We have our share in Survey Service,” said Grimes. “But tell me, how do you man your vessels? This Sundowner Line of yours . . .”

“There are always the drifters, the no-hopers, the castoffs from the Interstellar Transport Commission, and Trans-Galactic Clippers, and Waverley Royal Mail and all the rest of them.”

“And from the Survey Service?” The question lifted her out of her somber mood. “No,” she replied with a smile. “Not yet.”

“Not ever,” said Grimes. VI

ONCE HIS INITIAL SHYNESS HAD WORN OFF-and with it much of his Academy-induced snobbery-Grimes began to enjoy the voyage. After all, Survey Service or no Survey Service, this was a ship and he was a spaceman. He managed to accept the fact that most of the ship’s officers, even the most junior of them, were far more experienced spacemen than he was. Than he was now, he often reminded himself. At the back of his mind lurked the smug knowledge that, for all of them, a captaincy was the very limit of promotion, whereas he, one day, would be addressed in all seriousness as Jane Pentecost now addressed him in jest.

He was a frequent visitor to the control room but, remembering the Master’s admonition, was careful not to get in the way. The watch officers accepted him almost as one of themselves and were willing to initiate him into the tricky procedure of obtaining a fix with the interstellar drive in operation-an art, he was told, rather than a science.

Having obtained the permission of the Chief Engineers he prowled through the vessel’s machinery spaces, trying to supplement his theoretical knowledge of reaction, inertial and interstellar drives with something more practical. The first two, of course, were idle, and would be until the ship emerged from her warped Space-Time back into the normal continuum-but there was the Pile, the radio-active heart of the ship, and there was the auxiliary machinery that, in this tiny, man-made planet, did the work that

on a natural world is performed by winds, rivers, sunlight and gravity.

There was the Mannschenn Drive Room-and, inside this holy of holies, no man need fear to admit that he was scared by the uncanny complexity of ever-precessing gyroscopes. He stared at the tumbling rotors, the gleaming wheels that seemed always on the verge of vanishing into nothingness, that rolled down the dark dimensions, dragging the ship and all aboard her with them. He stared, hypnotized, lost in a vague, disturbing dream in which Past and Present and Future were inextricably mingled-and the Chief Interstellar Drive Engineer took him firmly by the arm and led him from the compartment. “Look at the time-twister too long,” he growled, “and you’ll be meeting yourself coming back!”

There was the “farm”-the deck of yeast- and tissue-culture vats which was no more (and no less), than a highly efficient protein factory, and the deck where stood the great, transparent globes in which algae converted the ship’s organic waste and sewage back into usable form (processed as nutriment for the yeasts and the tissue-cultures and as fertilizer for the hydroponic tanks, the biochemist was careful to explain), and the deck where luxuriant vegetation spilled over from the trays and almost barricaded the inspection walks, the source of vitamins and of flowers for the saloon tables and, at the same time, the ship’s main air-conditioning unit. Grimes said to Jane Pentecost, who had accompanied him on this tour of inspection, “You know, I envy your Captain.”

“From you, Admiral,” she scoffed, “that is something. But why?” “How can I put it? You people do the natural way what we do with

chemicals and machinery. The Captain of a warship is Captain of a warship.

Period. But your Captain Craven is absolute monarch of a little world.”

“A warship,” she told him, “is supposed to be able to go on functioning as such even with every compartment holed. A warship cannot afford to depend for the survival of her crew upon the survival of hosts of other

air-breathing organisms.”

“Straight from the book,” he said. Then, puzzled, “But for a . . .” He hesitated.

“But for a woman, or for a purser, or for a mere merchant officer I know too much,” she finished for him. “But I can read, you know. And when I was in the Sundowner Line, I, as well as all the other officers, was supposed to keep up with all the latest Survey Service publications.”

“But why?” he asked.

“But why not? We’ll have a Navy of our own, one day. Just stick around, Admiral.”

“Secession?” he inquired, making it sound like a dirty word. “Once again-why not?”

“It’d never work,” he told her.

“The history of Earth is full of secessions that did work. So is the history of

Interstellar Man. The Empire of Waverley, for example. The Duchy of Waldegren, for another-although that’s one that should have come to grief. We should all of us be a great deal happier if it had.”

“Federation policy . . .” he began.

“Policy, shmolicy! Don’t let’s be unkind to the Waldegrenese, because as long as they’re in being they exercise a restraining influence upon the Empire of Waverley and the Rim Worlds . . .” Her pace slackened. Grimes noticed that they were passing through the alleyway in which she and her staff were accommodated. She went on, “But all this talking politics is thirsty work. Come in for a couple of drinks before lunch.”

“Thank you. But, Jane”-she didn’t seem to have noticed the use of her given name-“I don’t think that either of us is qualified to criticize the handling of foreign and colonial affairs.”

“Spoken like a nice, young, well-drug-up future admiral. Oh, I know, I know. You people are trained to be the musclemen of the Federation. Yours not to reason why, yours but to do and die, and all the rest of it. But I’m a Rim Worlder-and out on the Rim you learn to think for yourself.” She slid her door open. “Come on in. This is Liberty Hall-you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard.”

Her accommodation was a suite rather than a mere cabin. It was neither as large nor as well fitted as the Captain’s, but it was better than the Chief Officer’s quarters, in which Grimes had already been a guest. He looked with interest at the holograms on the bulkhead of the sitting room. They were-but in an altogether different way-as eye-catching as Captain Craven’s had been. There was one that was almost physically chilling, that induced the feeling of utter cold and darkness and loneliness. It was the night sky of some planet-a range of dimly seen yet sharply serrated peaks bisecting a great, pallidly glowing, lenticulate nebula. “Home, sweet home,” murmured the girl, seeing what he was looking at. “The Desolation Mountains on Faraway, with the Galactic Lens in the background.”

“And you feel homesick for that?”

“Darn right I do. Oh, not all the time. I like warmth and comfort as well as the next woman. But . . . ” She laughed. “Don’t stand around gawking-you make the place look untidy. Pull yourself into a chair and belay the buttocks.”

He did so, watching her as she busied herself at the liquor cabinet. Suddenly, in these conditions of privacy, he was acutely conscious of the womanliness of her. The rather tight and rather short shorts, as she bent away from him, left very little to the imagination. And her legs, although slender, were full where they should be full, with the muscles working smoothly under the golden skin. He felt the urge, which he sternly suppressed, to plant a kiss in the delectable hollow behind each knee. She turned suddenly. “Here! Catch!” He managed to grab the bulb that was hurtling toward his face, but a little of the wine spurted from the nipple and struck him in the right eye. When his vision cleared he saw that she was seated opposite him, was laughing (at or with him?). At, he suspected. A

real demonstration of sympathy would have consisted of tears, not laughter. Her face grew momentarily severe. “Not the mess,” she said reprovingly. “But the waste.”

Grimes examined the bulb. “I didn’t waste much. Only an eyeful.”

She raised her drink in ritual greeting. “Here’s mud in your eye,” adding, “for a change.”

“And in yours.”

In the sudden silence that followed they sat looking at each other. There was a tension, some odd resultant of centrifugal and centripetal forces. They were on the brink of something, and both of them knew it, and there was the compulsion to go forward countered by the urge to go back.

She asked tartly, “Haven’t you ever seen a woman’s legs before?”

He shifted his regard to her face, to the eyes that, somehow, were brown no longer but held the depth and the darkness of the night through which the ship was plunging.

She said, “I think you’d better finish your drink and go.” He said, “Perhaps you’re right.”

“You better believe I’m right.” She managed a smile. “I’m not an idler, like some people. I’ve work to do.”

“See you at lunch, then. And thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. It was on the house, as the little dog said. Off with you, Admiral.”

He unbuckled his lapstrap, got out of the chair and made his way to the door. When he was out of her room he did not go to his own cabin but to the bar, where he joined the Baxters. They, rather to his surprise, greeted him in a friendly manner. Rim Worlders, Grimes decided, had their good points.

IT WAS AFTER LUNCH when one of the purserettes told him that the Captain wished to see him. What have I done now? wondered Grimes-and answered his own question with the words, Nothing. Unfortunately.

Craven’s manner, when he admitted Grimes into his dayroom, was severe. “Come in, Ensign. Be seated.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You may smoke if you wish.” “Thank you, sir.”

Grimes filled and lighted his pipe; the Captain ignited one of his pungent cigars, studied the eddying coils of smoke as though they were writing a vitally important message in some strange language.

“Er, Mr. Grimes, I believe that you have been seeing a great deal of my purser, Miss Pentecost.”

“Not a great deal, sir. I’m at her table, of course.”

“I am told that she has entertained you in her quarters.”

“Just one bulb of sherry, sir. I had no idea that we were breaking ship’s regulations.”

“You were not. All the same, Mr. Grimes, I have to warn you.” “I assure you, sir, that nothing occurred between us.”

Craven permitted himself a brief, cold smile. “A ship is not a Sunday school outing-especially a ship under my command. Some Masters, I know, do expect their officers to comport themselves like Sunday school pupils, with the Captain as the principal-but I expect my senior officers to behave like intelligent and responsible adults. Miss Pentecost is quite capable of looking after herself. It is you that I’m worried about.”

“There’s no need to be worried, sir.”

The Captain laughed. “I’m not worried about your morals, Mr. Grimes. In fact, I have formed the opinion that a roll in the hay would do you far more good than harm. But Miss Pentecost is a dangerous woman. Before lifting ship, very shortly before lifting ship, I received a confidential report concerning her activities. She’s an efficient purser, a highly efficient purser, in fact, but she’s even more than that. Much more.” Again he studied the smoke from his cigar. “Unfortunately there’s no real proof, otherwise she’d not be sailing with us. Had I insisted upon her discharge I’d have been up against the Interstellar Clerical and Supply Officers’ Guild.”

“Surely not,” murmured Grimes. Craven snorted. “You people are lucky. You haven’t a mess of Guilds to deal with, each and every one of which is all too ready to rush to the defense of a Guild member, no matter what he or she is supposed to have done. As a Survey Service Captain you’ll never have to face a suit for wrongful dismissal. You’ll never be accused of victimization.”

“But what has Miss Pentecost done, sir?” asked Grimes.

“Nothing-or too damn much. You know where she comes from, don’t you? The Rim Worlds. The planets of the misfits, the rebels, the nonconformists. There’s been talk of secession of late-but even those irresponsible anarchists know full well that secession will never succeed unless they build up their own space power. There’s the Duchy of Waldegren, which would pounce as soon as the Federation withdrew its protection. And even the Empire of Waverley might be tempted to extend its boundaries. So . . .”

“They have a merchant fleet of sorts, these Rim Worlders. The Sundowner Line. I’ve heard rumors that it’s about to be nationalized. But they have no fighting navy.”

“But what’s all this to do with Miss Pentecost, sir?”

“If what’s more than just hinted at in that confidential report is true-plenty. She’s a recruiting sergeant, no less. Any officer with whom she’s shipmates who’s disgruntled, on the verge of throwing his hand in-or on the verge of being emptied out-she’ll turn on the womanly sympathy for, and tell him that there’ll always be a job waiting out on the Rim, that the Sundowner Line is shortly going to expand, so there’ll be quick promotion and all the rest of it.”

“And what’s that to do with me, Captain? “

“Are all Survey Service ensigns as innocent as you, Mr. Grimes? Merchant officers the Rim Worlds want, and badly. Naval officers they’ll want more badly still once the balloon goes up.” Grimes permitted himself a superior smile. “It’s extremely unlikely, sir, that I shall ever want to leave the Survey Service.”

“Unlikely perhaps-but not impossible. So bear in mind what I’ve told you. I think that you’ll be able to look after yourself now that you know the score.”

“I think so too,” Grimes told him firmly. He thought, The old bastard’s been reading too many spy stories.

VII

THEY WERE DANCING.

Tables and chairs had been cleared from the ship’s saloon, and from the big, ornate playmaster throbbed the music of an orchestra so famous that even Grimes had heard of it-The Singing Drums.

They were dancing.

Some couples shuffled a sedate measure, never losing the contact between their magnetically shod feet and the polished deck. Others-daring or foolhardy-cavorted in Nul-G, gamboled fantastically but rarely gracefully in Free Fall.

They were dancing.

Ensign Grimes was trying to dance.

It was not the fault of his partner that he was making such a sorry mess of it. She, Jane Pentecost, proved the truth of the oft-made statement that spacemen and spacewomen are expert at this form of exercise. He, John Grimes, was the exception that proves the rule. He was sweating, and his feet felt at least six times their normal size. Only the fact that he was holding Jane, and closely, saved him from absolute misery.

There was a pause in the music. As it resumed Jane said, “Let’s sit this one out, Admiral.”

“If you wish to,” he replied, trying not to sound too grateful.

“That’s right. I wish to. I don’t mind losing a little toenail varnish, but I think we’ll call it a day while I still have a full set of toenails.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“So am I.” But the flicker of a smile robbed the words of their sting.

She led the way to the bar. It was deserted save for the bored and sulky girl behind the gleaming counter. “All right, Sue,” Jane told her. “You can join the revels. The Admiral and I will mind the shop.”

“Thank you, Miss Pentecost.” Sue let herself out from her little cage, vanished gracefully and rapidly in the direction of the saloon. Jane took her place.

“I like being a barmaid,” she told the ensign, taking two frosted bulbs out of the cooler.

“I’ll sign for these,” offered Grimes.

“You will not. This comes under the heading of entertaining influential customers.”

“But I’m not. Influential, I mean.”

“But you will be.” She went on dreamily. “I can see it. I can just see it. The poor old Delia O’Ryan, even more decrepit that she is now, and her poor old purser, about to undergo a fate worse than death at the hands of bloody pirates from the next Galaxy but three . . . . But all is not lost. There, light years distant, is big, fat, Grand Admiral Grimes aboard his flagship, busting a gut, to say nothing of his Mannschenn Drive unit, to rush to the rescue of his erstwhile girlfriend. ‘Dammitall,’ I can hear him muttering into his beard. ‘Dammitall. That girl used to give me free drinks when I was a snotty nosed ensign. I will repay. Full speed ahead, Gridley, and damn the torpedoes!’ “

Grimes laughed-then asked sharply, “Admiral in which service?” “What do you mean, John?” She eyed him warily.

“You know what I mean.”

“So . . .” she murmured. “So . . . I know that you had another home truth session with the Bearded Bastard. I can guess what it was about.”

“And is it true?” demanded Grimes.

“Am I Olga Popovsky, the Beautiful Spy? Is that what you mean?” “More or less.”

“Come off it, John. How the hell can I be a secret agent for a non-existent government?”

“You can be a secret agent for a subversive organization.”

“What is this? Is it a hangover from some half-baked and half-understood course in counterespionage?”

“There was a course of sorts,” he admitted. “I didn’t take much interest in it. At the time.”

“And now you wish that you had. Poor John.”

“But it wasn’t espionage that the Old Man had against you. He had some sort of story about your acting as a sort of recruiting sergeant, luring officers away from the Commission’s ships to that crumby little rabble of star tramps calling itself the Sundowner Line . . . .”

She didn’t seem to be listening to him, but was giving her attention instead to the music that drifted from the saloon. It was one of the old, Twentieth Century melodies that were enjoying a revival. She began to sing in time to it.

“Goodbye, I’ll run To seek another sun Where I May find

There are hearts more kind Than the ones left behind . . .”

She smiled somberly and asked, “Does that answer your question?” “Don’t talk in riddles,” he said roughly.

“Riddles? Perhaps-but not very hard ones. That, John, is a sort of song of farewell from a very old comic opera. As I recall it, the guy singing it was going to shoot through and join the French Foreign Legion. (But there’s no French Foreign Legion anymore . . . .) We, out on the Rim, have tacked our own words on to it. It’s become almost a national anthem to the Rim Runners, as the people who man our ships-such as they are-are already calling themselves.

“There’s no French Foreign Legion anymore-but the misfits and the failures have to have somewhere to go. I haven’t lured anybody away from this service-but now and again I’ve shipped with officers who’ve been on the point of getting out, or being emptied out, and when they’ve cried into my beer I’ve given them advice. Of course, I’ve a certain natural bias in favor of my own home world. If I were Sirian born I’d be singing the praises of the Dog Star Line.”

“Even so,” he persisted, “your conduct seems to have been somewhat suspect.”

“Has it? And how? To begin with, you are not an officer in this employ. And if you were, I should challenge you to find anything in the Commission’s regulations forbidding me to act as I have been doing.”

“Captain Craven warned me,” said Grimes.

“Did he, now? That’s his privilege. I suppose that he thinks that it’s also his duty. I suppose he has the idea that I offered you admiral’s rank in the Rim Worlds Navy as soon as we secede. If we had our own Navy-which we don’t-we might just take you in as Ensign, Acting, Probationary.”

“Thank you.”

She put her elbows on the bar counter, propping her face between her hands, somehow conveying the illusion of gravitational pull, looking up at him. “I’ll be frank with you, John. I admit that we do take the no-hopers, the drunks and the drifters into our merchant fleet. I know far better than you what a helluva difference there is between those rustbuckets and the well-found, well-run ships of the Commission and, come to that,

Trans-Galactic Clippers and Waverley Royal Mail. But when we do start some kind of a Navy we shall want better material. Much better. We shall want highly competent officers who yet, somehow, will have the Rim World outlook. The first batch, of course, will have to be outsiders, to tide us over until our own training program is well under way.”

“And I don’t qualify?” he asked stiffly.

“Frankly, no. I’ve been watching you. You’re too much of a stickler for rules and regulations, especially the more stupid ones. Look at the way you’re dressed now, for example. Evening wear, civilian, junior officers, for the use of. No individuality. You might as well be in uniform. Better, in fact. There’d be some touch of brightness.”

“Go on.”

“And the way you comport yourself with women. Stiff. Starchy. Correct. And you’re all too conscious of the fact that I, even though I’m a mere merchant officer, and a clerical branch at that, put up more gold braid than you do. I noticed that especially when we were dancing. I was having to lead all the time.”

He said defensively, “I’m not a very good dancer.”

“You can say that again.” She smiled briefly. “So there you have it, John. You can tell the Bearded Bastard, when you see him again, that you’re quite safe from my wiles. I’ve no doubt that you’ll go far in your own Service-but you just aren’t Rim Worlds material.”

“I shouldn’t have felt all that flattered if you’d said that I was,” he told her bluntly-but he knew that he was lying.

VIII

“YES?” JANE WAS SAYING. “Yes, Mr. Letourneau?”

Grimes realized that she was not looking at him, that she was looking past him and addressing a newcomer. He turned around to see who it was. He found-somehow the name hadn’t registered-that it was the Psionic Radio Officer, a tall, pale, untidily put together young man in a slovenly uniform. He looked scared-but that was his habitual expression, Grimes remembered. They were an odd breed, these trained telepaths with their Rhine Institute diplomas, and they were not popular, but they were the only means whereby ships and shore stations could communicate instantaneously over the long light years. In the Survey Service they were referred to, slightingly, as Commissioned Teacup Readers. In the Survey Service and in the Merchant Service they were referred to as Snoopers. But

they were a very necessary evil. “Yes, Mr. Letourneau?”

“Where’s the Old Man? He’s not in his quarters.”

“The Master”-Jane emphasized the title-“is in the saloon.” Then, a little maliciously, “Couldn’t you have used your crystal ball?”

Letourneau flushed. “You know very well, Miss Pentecost, that we have to take an oath that we will always respect the mental privacy of our shipmates . . . . But I must find him. Quickly.”

“Help yourself. He’s treading the light fantastic in there.” When he was gone she said, “Typical. Just typical. If it were a real emergency he could get B.B. on the intercom. But no. Not him. He has to parade his distrust of anything electronic and, at the same time, make it quite clear that he’s not breaking his precious oath . . . . Tell me, how do you people handle your spaceborne espers?”

He grinned. “We’ve still one big stick that you people haven’t. A court martial followed by a firing party. Not that I’ve ever seen it used.”

“Hardly, considering that you’ve only been in Space a dog watch.” Her face froze suddenly. “Yes, Sue?”

It was the girl whom Jane had relieved in the bar. “Miss Pentecost, will you report to the Captain in Control, please. At once.”

“What have I done now?”

“It’s some sort of emergency, Miss Pentecost. The Chief Officer’s up there with him, and he’s sent for the Doctor and the two Chief Engineers.”

“Then I must away, John. Look after the bar again, Sue. Don’t let the Admiral have too many free drinks.”

She moved fast and gracefully, was gone before Grimes could think of any suitable repartee. He said to the girl, “What is happening, Sue?”

“I don’t know, Ad-” She flushed. “Sorry, Ensign. And, in any case, I’m not supposed to talk to the passengers about it.”

“But I’m not a real passenger,” he said-and asked himself, Am I a real anything?

“No, I suppose you’re not, Mr. Grimes. But you’re not on duty.”

“An officer of the Survey Service is always on duty,” he told her, with some degree of truth. “Whatever happens on the spacelanes is our concern.” It sounded good.

“Yes,” she agreed hesitantly. “That’s what my fianc‚-he’s a Lieutenant J.G.-is always telling me.”

“So what’s all the flap about?”

“Promise not to tell anybody?” “Of course.”

“Mr. Letourneau came wandering into the Saloon. He just stood there staring about, the way he does, then he spotted the Captain. He was actually dancing with me at the time . . . .” She smiled reminiscently, and added, “He’s a very good dancer.”

“He would be. But go on.”

“He came charging across the dance floor-Mr. Letourneau, I mean. He didn’t care whose toes he trod on or who he tripped over. I couldn’t help overhearing when he started babbling away to Captain Craven. It’s a distress call. From one of our ships-Epsilon Sextans.'” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And it’s piracy.”

“Piracy? Impossible.”

“But, Mr. Grimes, it’s what he said.”

“Psionic Radio Officers have been known to go around the bend before now,” Grimes told her, “and to send false alarm calls. And to receive non-existent ones.”

“But the Sexy Eppy-sorry, Epsilon Sextans-has a cargo that’d be worth pirating. Or so I heard. The first big shipment of Antigeriatridine to Waverly

. . . .”

Antigeriatridine, the so-called Immortality Serum. Manufactured in limited, but increasing quantities only on Marina (often called by its colonists Submarina), a cold, unpleasantly watery world in orbit about Alpha Crucis. The fishlike creatures from which the drug was obtained bred and flourished only in the seas of their own world.

But piracy . . . .

But the old legends were full of stories of men who had sold their souls for eternal youth.

The telephone behind the bar buzzed sharply. Sue answered it. She said, “It’s for you, Mr. Grimes.”

Grimes took the instrument. “That you, Ensign?” It was Captain Craven’s voice. “Thought I’d find you there. Come up to Control, will you?” It was an order rather than a request.

ALL THE SHIP’S EXECUTIVE OFFICERS were in the Control Room, and the Doctor, the purser and the two Chief Engineers. As Grimes emerged from the hatch he heard Kennedy, the Mate, say, “Here’s the Ensign now.”

“Good. Then dog down, Mr. Kennedy, so we get some privacy.” Craven turned to Grimes. ‘”You’re on the Active List of the Survey Service, Mister, so I suppose you’re entitled to know what’s going on. The situation is this. Epsilon Sextans, Marina to Waverley with a shipment of Antigeriatridine, has been pirated.” Grimes managed, with an effort, to refrain from saying “I

know.” Craven went on. “Her esper is among the survivors. He says that the pirates were two frigates of the Waldegren Navy. Anyhow, the Interstellar Drive Engineers aboard Epsilon Sextans managed to put their box of tricks on random precession, and they got away. But not in one piece . . . .”

“Not in one piece?” echoed Grimes stupidly.

“What the hell do you expect when an unarmed merchantman is fired upon, without warning, by two warships? The esper says that their Control has had it, and all the accommodation spaces. By some miracle the Psionic Radio Officer’s shack wasn’t holed, and neither was the Mannschenn Drive Room.”

“But even one missile . . .” muttered Grimes.

“If you want to capture a ship and her cargo more or less intact,” snapped Craven, “you don’t use missiles. You use laser. It’s an ideal weapon if you aren’t fussy about how many people you kill.”

“Knowing the Waldegrenese as we do,” said Jane Pentecost bitterly, “there wouldn’t have been any survivors anyhow.”

“Be quiet!” roared Craven. Grimes was puzzled by his outburst. It was out of character. True, he could hardly expect a shipmaster to react to the news of a vicious piracy with equanimity-but this shipmaster was an officer of the Reserve, had seen service in warships and had been highly decorated for outstanding bravery in battle.

Craven had control of himself again. “The situation is this. There are people still living aboard Epsilon Sextans. Even though all her navigators have been killed I think that I shall be able to find her in time. Furthermore, she has a very valuable cargo and, in any case, cannot be written off as a total loss. There is little damage that cannot be repaired by welded patches. I have already sent a message to Head Office requesting a free hand. I have salvage in mind. I see no reason why the ship and her cargo should not be taken on to Waverley.”

“A prize crew, sir?”

“If you care to put it that way. This will mean cutting down the number of officers aboard my own vessel-but I am sure, Mr. Grimes, that you will be willing to gain some practical watch-keeping experience. All that’s required is your autograph on the ship’s Articles of Agreement.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me. I may be thanking you before the job’s over and done.” He turned to his Chief Officer. “Mr. Kennedy, keep in touch with Mr. Letourneau and let me know if anything further comes through either from Epsilon Sextans or from Head Office. The rest of you-keep this to yourselves. No sense in alarming the passengers. I’m sure that the Doctor and Miss Pentecost between them can concoct some soothing story to account for this officers’ conference.”

“Captain Craven,” said Jane Pentecost.

“Well?”

“The other man at my table, Mr. Baxter. I knew him out on the Rim. He holds Chief Reaction Drive Engineer’s papers.”

“Don’t tell him anything yet. But I’ll keep him in mind. Now, Mr. Grimes, will you join me in my day cabin?”

THE HOLOGRAMS were all gone from the bulkheads of Captain Craven’s cabin. To replace them there was just one picture-of a woman, not young, but with the facial bone structure that defies age and time. She was in uniform, and on her shoulderboards were the two and a half stripes of a Senior Purser. The shipmaster noticed Grimes’ interest and said briefly and bitterly. “She was too senior for an Epsilon class ship-but she cut her leave short, just to oblige, when the regular purser went sick. She should have been back on Earth at the same time as me, though. Then we were going to get married . . . .”

Grimes said nothing. He thought, Too senior for an Epsilon class ship? Epsilon Sextans, for example? What could he say?

“And that,” said Craven savagely, “was that.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” blurted Grimes, conscious of the inadequacy of his words. Then, foolishly, “But there are survivors, sir.”

“Don’t you think that I haven’t got Letourneau and his opposite number checking? And have you ever seen the aftermath of a Deep Space battle, Mister? Have you ever boarded a ship that’s been slashed and stabbed to death with laser beams?” He seemed to require no answer; he pulled himself into the chair by his desk, strapped himself in and motioned to Grimes to be seated. Then he pulled out from a drawer a large sheet of paper, which he unfolded. It was a cargo plan. “Current voyage,” he grunted. “And we’re carrying more to Lindisfarne than one brand-new ensign.”

“Such as, sir?” ventured Grimes.

“Naval stores. I don’t mind admitting that I’m more than a little rusty insofar as Survey Service procedure is concerned, even though I still hold my Reserve Commission. You’re more familiar with fancy abbreviations than I am. Twenty cases RERAT, for example . . . .”

“Reserve rations, sir. Canned and dehydrated.” “Good. And ATREG?”

“Atmospheric regeneration units, complete.”

“So if Epsilon Sextans’ ‘farm’ has been killed we shall be able to manage?” “Yes, sir.”

“Do you think you’d be able to install an ATREG unit?”

“Of course, sir. They’re very simple, as you know. Just synthetic chlorophyll and a UV source . . . . In any case, there are full instructions inside every container.”

“And this? A double M, Mark XV?” “Anti-Missile Missile.”

“And ALGE?”

“Anti-Laser Gas Emitter.”

“The things they do think of. I feel more at home with these AVMs-although I see that they’ve got as far as Mark XVII now.”

“Anti-Vessel Missiles,” said Grimes. A slight enthusiasm crept into his voice. “The XVII’s a real honey.”

“What does it do?”

“I’m sorry, sir. Even though you are a Reserve Officer, I can’t tell you.” “But they’re effective?”

“Yes. Very.”

“And I think you’re Gunnery Branch, Mr. Grimes, aren’t you?”

“I am sir.” He added hastily, “But I’m still quite capable of carrying out a watch officer’s duties aboard this vessel should the need arise.”

“The main thing is, you’re familiar with naval stores and equipment. When we find and board Epsilon Sextans I shall be transshipping certain items of cargo . . . “

“RERAT and ATREG, sir?” “Yes. And the others.”

“But, sir, I can’t allow it. Not unless I have authority from the Flag Officer commanding Lindisfarne Base. As soon as your Mr. Letourneau can be spared I’ll get him to try and raise the station there.”

“I’m afraid that’s out of the question, Mr. Grimes. In view of the rather peculiar political situation, I think that the answer would be No. Even if it were ‘Yes’, you know as well as I how sluggishly the tide flows through official channels. Furthermore, just in case it has escaped your notice, I am the Master.”

“And I, sir, represent the Survey Service. As the only commissioned officer aboard this vessel I am responsible for Survey Service cargo.”

“As a Reserve Officer, Mr. Grimes, I rank you.”

“Only when you have been recalled to Active Service. Sir.”

Craven said, “I was rather afraid that you’d take this attitude. That’s why I

decided to get this interview over and done with, just so we all know where we stand.” He put away the cargo plan, swiveled his chair so that he could reach out to his liquor cabinet. He pulled out two bulbs, tossed one to Grimes. “No toasts. If we drank to Law and Order we should mean different things. So just drink. And listen.

“To begin with, Epsilon Sextans doesn’t know where she is. But Letourneau is one of the rare telepaths with the direction finding talent, and as soon as he’s able to get lined up we shall alter course to home on the wreck. That’s what he’s trying to do now.

“When we find her, we shall synchronize and board, of course. The first thing will be medical aid to the survivors. Then we patch the ship up. And then we arm her. And then, with a prize crew under myself, we put ourselves on the trajectory for Waverley-hoping that those Waldegrenese frigates come back for another nibble.”

“They’d never dare, sir.”

“Wouldn’t they? The original piracy they’ll try to laugh off by saying that it was by real pirates- no, that’s not quite right, but you know what I

mean-wearing Waldegren colors. The second piracy-they’ll make sure that there are no survivors.”

“But I still can’t see how they can hope to get away with it. It’s always been an accepted fact that the main weapon against piracy has been psionic radio.”

“And so it was-until some genius developed a jamming technique. Epsilon Sextans wasn’t able to get any messages out until her crazy random precession pulled her well clear.”

“And you hope, sir, that they do attack you?”

“I do, Mr. Grimes. I had hoped, that I should have a good gunnery officer under me, but”-he shrugged his massive shoulders-“I think that I shall be able to manage.”

“And you hope that you’ll have your weapons,” persisted Grimes. “I see no reason why I should not, Ensign.”

“There is one very good reason, sir. That is that I, a commissioned officer of the Survey Service, am aboard your vessel. I insist that you leave the tracking down and destruction of the pirates to the proper authorities. I insist, too, that no Survey Service stores be discharged from this ship without my written authority.”

For the first time the hint of a smile relieved the somberness of Craven’s face. “And to think that I believed that Jane Pentecost could recruit you,” he murmured. Then, in a louder voice, “And what if I just go ahead without your written authority, Ensign?”

Grimes had the answer ready. “Then, sir, I shall be obliged to order your officers not to obey your unlawful commands. If necessary, I shall call upon the male passengers to assist me in any action that is necessary.”

Craven’s bushy eyebrows went up and stayed up. “Mr. Grimes,” he said in a gritty voice, “it is indeed lucky for you that I have firsthand experience of the typical Survey Service mentality. Some Masters I know would, in these circumstances, send you out on a spacewalk without a suit. But, before I take drastic action, I’ll give you one more chance to cooperate.” His tone softened. “You noticed the portrait I’ve put up instead of all the temporary popsies. Every man, no matter how much he plays around, has one woman who is the woman. Gillian was the woman as far as I was concerned-as far as I am concerned. I’ve a chance to bring her murderers under my guns-and, by God, I’m taking that chance, no matter what it means either to my career or to the somewhat odd foreign policy of the Federation. I used to be annoyed by Jane Pentecost’s outbursts on that subject-but now I see that she’s right. And she’s right, too, when it comes to the Survey Service’s reluctance to take action against Waldegren.

“So I, Mr. Grimes, am taking action.” “Sir, I forbid you . . .”

“You forbid me? Ensign, you forget yourself. Perhaps this will help you remember.”

This was a Minetti automatic that had appeared suddenly in the Captain’s hand. In his hairy fist the little, glittering weapon looked no more than a toy-but Grimes knew his firearms, knew that at the slightest pressure of Craven’s finger the needle-like projectiles would stitch him from crown to crotch.

“I’m sorry about this, Mr. Grimes.” As he spoke, Craven pressed a button set in his desk with his free hand. “I’m sorry about this. But I realize that I was expecting rather too much of you. After all, you have your career to consider . . . . Time was,” he went on, “when a naval officer could put his telescope to his blind eye as an excuse for ignoring orders-and get away with it. But the politicians had less power in those days. We’ve come a long way-and a wrong way-since Nelson.”

Grimes heard the door behind him slide open. He didn’t bother to look around, not even when hard hands were laid on his shoulders.

“Mr. Kennedy,” said Craven, “things turned out as I feared that they would. Will you and Mr. Ludovic take the Ensign along to the Detention Cell?”

“I’ll see you on trial for piracy, Captain!” flared Grimes.

“An interesting legal point, Ensign-especially since you are being entered in my Official Log as a mutineer.”

THE DETENTION CELL was not uncomfortable, but it was depressing. It was a padded cell- passengers in spacecraft have been known to exhibit the more violent symptoms of mania-which detracted from its already inconsiderable cheerfulness if not from its comfort. However, Grimes was not mad-not in the medical sense, that is-and so was considered able to attend to his own bodily needs. The little toilet was open to him, and at

regular intervals a bell would sound and a container of food would appear in a hatch recessed into the bulkhead of the living cabin. There was reading matter too-such as it was. The Ensign suspected that Jane Pentecost was the donor. It consisted of pamphlets published by some organization calling itself The Rim Worlds Secessionist Party. The almost hysterical calls to arms were bad enough-but the ones consisting mainly of columns of statistics were worse. Economics had never been Grimes’ strong point.

He slept, he fed at the appointed times, he made a lengthy ritual of keeping himself clean, he tried to read-and, all the time, with only sounds and sensations as clues, he endeavored to maintain a running plot of the ship’s maneuvers.

Quite early there had been the shutting down of the Mannschenn Drive, and the consequent fleeting sensation of temporal disorientation. This had been followed by the acceleration warning-the cell had an intercom speaker recessed in the padding-and Grimes, although it seemed rather pointless in his sponge rubber environment, had strapped himself into his couch. He heard the directional gyroscopes start up, felt the effects of centrifugal force as the ship came around to her new heading. Then there was the pseudo-gravity of acceleration, accompanied by the muffled thunder of the reaction drive. It was obvious, thought the Ensign, that Captain Craven was expending his reaction mass in a manner that, in other circumstances, would have been considered reckless.

Suddenly-silence and Free Fall, and almost immediately the off-key keening of the Mannschenn Drive. Its note was higher, much higher, than Grimes remembered it, and the queasy feeling of temporal disorientation lasted much longer than it had on previous occasions. And that, for a long time, was all. Meals came, and were eaten. Every morning- according to his watch-the prisoner showered and applied depilatory cream to his face. He tried to exercise-but to exercise in a padded cell, with no apparatus, in Free Fall, is hard. He tried to read-but the literature available was hardly more interesting to him than a telephone directory would have been. And, even though he never had been gregarious, the lack of anybody to talk to was wearing him down.

It was a welcome break from the monotony when he realized that, once again, the ship was maneuvering. This time there was no use of the directional gyroscopes; there were no rocket blasts, but there was a variation of the whine of the Drive as it hunted, hunted, as the temporal precession rate was adjusted by tens of seconds, by seconds, by microseconds.

And then it locked.

The ship shuddered slightly-once, twice.

Grimes envisaged the firing of the two mooring rockets, one from the bow and one from the stern, each with the powerful electromagnet in its nose, each trailing its fathoms of fine but enormously strong cable. Merchant vessels, he knew, carried this equipment, but unlike naval ships rarely used it. But Craven, as a Reservist, would have seen and taken part in enough drills.

The ship shuddered again-heavily.

So the rendezvous had been made. So Delta Orionis and Epsilon Sextans, their Drives synchronized, bound together by the rescue ship’s cables, were now falling as one unit through the dark immensities.

So the rendezvous had been made-and already the survivors of the wreck were being brought aboard the Delia O’Ryan, were being helped out of their stinking spacesuits, were blurting out their story to Craven and his officers. Grimes could visualize it all, almost as clearly as though he were actually watching it. He could visualize, too, the engineers swarming over the wreck, the flare of their burning and welding torches, the cannibalizing of nonessential plating from the ship’s structure for hull patches. It was all laid down in the Survey Service’s Damage Control Manual-and Captain Craven, at least, would know that book as thoroughly as did Grimes.

And what of the cargo, the Survey Service stores, Grimes’ stores? A trembling in the ship’s structure, a barely felt vibration, told him that gantries and conveyor belts were being brought into operation. There would be no great handling problems. Lindisfarne was Delta Orionis’ first port of call, and the Survey Service consignment would be top stowage. But there was nothing that Grimes could do about it-not a thing. In fact, he was beginning to doubt the legality of the stand he had made against the Master. And he was the small frog in this small puddle, while Captain Craven had made it quite clear that he was the big frog. Grimes wished that he was better versed in astronautical law-although a professional lawyer’s knowledge would be of no use to him in his present situation.

So, with some hazy idea that he might need all his strength, both mental and physical, for what was to befall him (but what?), in the near future, he strapped himself into his bunk and did his best to forget his worries in sleep. He was well enough acquainted with the psychiatrists’ jargon to know that this was no more than a return to the womb but, before dropping off into a shallow slumber, shrugged, So what?

HE JERKED into sudden wakefulness.

Jane Pentecost was there by his bunk, looking down at him.

“Come in,” he said. “Don’t bother to knock. Now you see how the poor live. This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard.”

She said, “That’s not very funny.”

“I know it’s not. Even the first time that I heard it aboard this blasted ship I was able to refrain from rolling in the aisles.”

She said, “There’s no need to be so bitchy, John.”

“Isn’t there? Wouldn’t you be bitchy if you’d been thrown into this padded cell?”

“I suppose I would be. But you asked for it, didn’t you?”

“If doing my duty-or trying to do my duty-is asking for it, I suppose that I did. Well-and has our pirate Captain cast off yet, armed to the teeth with

the weapons he’s stolen?”

“No. The weapons are still being mounted. But let’s not argue legalities, John. There’s not enough time. I . . . I just wanted to say goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” he echoed.

“Yes. Somebody has to do the cooking aboard Epsilon Sextans-and I volunteered.”

“You?”

“And why the hell not?” she flared. “Captain Craven has been pushed over to our side of the fence, and it’d be a pretty poor show if we Rim Worlders weren’t prepared to stand by him. Baxter’s gone across to take over as Reaction Drive Engineer; the only survivor in that department was the Fourth, and he’s only a dog watch in Space.”

“And who else?”

“Nobody. The Sexy Eppy’s Chief, Second and Third Interstellar Drive Engineers survived, and they’re willing-anxious, in fact, now that their ship’s being armed-to stay on. And the Psionic Radio Officer came through, and is staying on. All of our executive officers volunteered, of course, but the Old Man turned them down. He said that, after all, he could not hazard the safety of this ship by stripping her of her trained personnel. Especially since we carry passengers.”

“That’s his worry,” said Grimes without much sympathy. “But how does he hope to fight his ship if those frigates pounce again?”

“He thinks, he’ll be able to manage-with remote controls for every weapon brought to his main control panel.”

“Possible,” admitted Grimes, his professional interest stirred. “But not very efficient. In a naval action the Captain has his hands full just handling the ship alone, without trying to control her weaponry.”

“And you’d know, of course.” “Yes.”

“Yes, you’ve read the books. And Captain Craven commanded a light cruiser during that trouble with the Dring, so he knows nothing.”

“He still hasn’t got four hands and two heads.”

“Oh, let’s stop talking rubbish,” she cried. “I probably shan’t see you again, John and . . . and . . . oh, hell, I want to say goodbye properly, and I don’t want you to think too badly about either the Old Man or . . . or myself.”

“So what are we supposed to do about it?”

“Damn you, Grimes, you snotty-nosed, stuck-up spacepuppy! Look after yourself!”

Suddenly she bent down to kiss him. It was intended to be no more than a

light brushing of lips, but Grimes was suddenly aware, with his entire body, of the closeness of her, of the warmth and the scent of her, and almost without volition his arms went about her, drawing her closer still to him. She tried to break away, but it was only a halfhearted effort. He heard her murmur, in an odd, sardonic whisper, “wotthehell, wotthehell,” and then, “toujours gai.” It made no sense at the time but, years later, when he made the acquaintance of the Twentieth Century poets, he was to remember and to understand. What was important now was that her own arms were about him.

Somehow the buttons of her uniform shirt had come undone, and her nipples were taut against Grimes’ bare chest. Somehow her shorts had been peeled away from her hips-unzippered by whom? and how?-and somehow Grimes’ own garments were no longer the last barrier between them.

He was familiar enough with female nudity; he was one of the great majority who frequented the naked beaches in preference to those upon which bathing costumes were compulsory. He knew what a naked woman looked like-but this was different. It was not the first time that he had kissed a woman-but it was the first time that he had kissed, and been kissed by, an unclothed one. It was the first time that he had been alone with one.

What was happening he had read about often enough-and, like most young men, he had seen his share of pornographic films. But this was different. This was happening to him.

And for the first time.

When it was over, when, still clasped in each others’ arms they drifted in the center of the little cabin, impelled there by some odd resultant of forces, their discarded clothing drifting with them, veiling their perspiration-moist bodies, Grimes was reluctant to let her go.

Gently, Jane tried to disengage herself.

She whispered, “That was a warmer goodbye that I intended. But I’m not sorry. No. I’m not sorry . . . .”

Then, barely audibly, “It was the first time for you, wasn’t it?” “Yes.”

“Then I’m all the more glad it happened. But this is goodbye.” “No.”

“Don’t be a fool, John. You can’t keep me here.” “But I can come with you.”

She pushed him from her. Somehow he landed back on the bed. Before he could bounce he automatically snapped one of the confining straps about his middle. Somehow-she was still wearing her sandals but nothing

else-she finished up standing on the deck, held there by the contact between the magnetic soles and the ferrous fibers in the padding. She put

out a long, graceful arm and caught her shirt. She said harshly, “I’m getting dressed and out of here. You stay put. Damn you, Grimes, for thinking that I was trying to lure you aboard the Sexy Eppy with the body beautiful. I told you before that I am not, repeat not, Olga Popovsky, the Beautiful Spy. And I’m not a prostitute. There’s one thing I wouldn’t sell if I were offered the services of the finest Gunnery Officer (which you aren’t), in the whole bloody Galaxy in payment!”

“You’re beautiful when you flare up like that,” said Grimes sincerely. “But you’re always beautiful.” Then, in a louder voice, “Jane, I love you.”

“Puppy love,” she sneered. “And I’m old enough to be your . . .” A faint smile softened her mouth. “Your maiden aunt.”

“Let me finish. All right, it’s only puppy love-you say. But it’s still love.

But”-he was extemporizing-convincingly, he hoped-“but my real reason for wanting to come with you is this. I can appreciate now what Captain Craven lost when Epsilon Sextans was pirated. I can see-I can feel-why he’s willing to risk his life and his career to get his revenge. And I think that it’s worth it. And I want to help him.”

She stood there, her shirt half on, eying him suspiciously. “You mean that? You really mean that?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re a liar, Grimes.”

“No,” he said slowly. “No. Not altogether. I want to help the Old Man-and I want to help you. This piracy has convinced me that you Rim Worlders are getting the dirty end of the stick. I may not be the finest Gunnery Officer in the whole Galaxy-but I’m better acquainted with the new stuff than Captain Craven is.”

Her grin was openly derisive. “First it’s fellow-feeling for another spaceman, then it’s international politics. What next?”

“Where we started. I do love you, Jane. And if there’s going to be any shooting, I want to be on hand to do the shooting back on your behalf. I’ll admit that . . . that what’s happened has influenced my decision. But you didn’t buy me, or bribe me. Don’t think that. Don’t ever think that.” There was a note of pleading in his voice. “Be realistic, Jane. With another officer along, especially an officer with recent gunnery training, you stand a damn sight better chance than you would otherwise.”

“I . . . I suppose so. But I still don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to. But why look a gift horse in the mouth?”

“All right. You win. Get your clothes on and come and see the Old Man.” XI

JANE PENTECOST led Grimes to the airlock. The ship seemed oddly deserted, and he remarked on this. The girl explained that the passengers had been requested to remain in their accommodations, and that most of

Delta Orionis’ personnel were employed in work aboard Epsilon Sextans.

So I haven’t been the only one to be kept under lock and key,” commented Grimes sardonically.

“You’re the only one,” retorted the girl, “who’s been compensated for his imprisonment.”

There was no answer to that, so the Ensign remained silent. Saying nothing, he inspected with interest the temporary tunnel that had been rigged between the airlocks of the two ships. So Epsilon Sextans’ pressure hull had been made good, her atmosphere restored. That meant that the work of installing the armament had been completed. He hoped that he would not have to insist upon modifications.

The wreck-although she was a wreck no longer-bore her scars. The worst damage had been repaired, but holes and slashes that did not impair her structural strength were untouched, and spatters of once molten metal still made crazy patterns on beams and frames, stanchions and bulkheads. And there were the scars made by Craven’s engineers-the raw, bright cicatrices of new welding.

Forward they made their way, deck after deck. The elevator in the axial shaft was not yet working, so Grimes had time and opportunity to appreciate the extent of the damage. They passed through the wreckage of the “farm”-the burst algae tanks, the ruptured vats in which yeast and tissue cultures were black and dead, frostbitten and dehydrated. They brushed through alleyways choked with the brittle fronds of creeping plants killed by the ultimate winter.

And then they were passing through the accommodation levels. Bulkheads had been slashed through, destroying the privacy of the cabins that they had once enclosed. Destroying the privacy-and the occupants. There were no longer any bodies; for this Grimes was deeply thankful. (He learned later that Craven’s first action had been to order and conduct a funeral service.) There were no bodies-but there were still stains. Men and women die quickly in hard vacuum-quickly and messily.

Captain Craven was alone in the Control Room. He was working, rather slowly and clumsily, wiring up an obviously makeshift panel that was additional to the original one installed before the Master’s acceleration chair. It was obvious what it was-the remote controls for the newly fitted weaponry. Grimes said quickly, “There’s no need for that, sir.”

Craven started, let go of his screwdriver, made a fumbling grab for it as it drifted away from him. He stared at Grimes, then growled, “So it’s you, is it?” Then, to Jane, “What the hell do you mean by letting this puppy out of his kennel?”

“Captain Craven,” she told him quietly, “Mr. Grimes wants to come with us.” “What? I warn you, Miss Pentecost, I’m in no mood for silly jokes.”

“This is not a silly joke, Captain,” said Grimes. “I’ve had time to think things over. I feel, I really feel that you have a far better chance if there’s

a qualified officer along to handle the gunnery.”

Craven looked at them, from the girl to Grimes, then back again. He said, “Ensign, didn’t I warn you?”

“It’s not that way at all, sir,” Grimes told him, flushing. “In fact, Miss Pentecost has been trying hard to dissuade me.”

“Oh?

“It’s true,” said Jane. “But he told me that we couldn’t afford to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“I don’t know what’s been happening,” rasped Craven. “I don’t want to know what’s been happening between the pair of you. This change of mind, this change of heart is rather . . . sudden. No matter. One volunteer, they say, is worth ten pressed men.” He glared coldly at the Ensign. “And you volunteer?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“I believe you. I have no choice in the matter. But you realize the consequences?”

“I do.”

“Well, I may be able to do something to clear your yardarm. I’ve still to make my last entries in the Official Log of Delta Orionis, before I hand over to Captain Kennedy. And when it comes to such documentation, nobody cares to accuse a shipmaster of being a liar. Not out loud.” He paused, thinking. “How does this sound, Miss Pentecost? Date, Time, Position, etc., etc. Mr. John Grimes, passenger, holding the rank of Ensign in the Federation Survey Service, removed by force from this vessel to Epsilon Sextans, there to supervise the installation and mounting of the armament, Survey Service property, discharged on my orders from No. 1 hold, also to advise upon the use of same in the subsequent event of an action’s being fought. Signed, etc., etc. And witnessed.”

“Rather long-winded, sir. But it seems to cover the ground.” “I intend to do more than advise!” flared Grimes.

“Pipe down. Or, if you must say it, make sure that there aren’t any witnesses around when you say it. Now, when it comes to the original supervision, you see what I’m trying to do. Will it work?”

“After a fashion, sir. But it will work much better if the fire control panel is entirely separate from maneuvering control.”

“You don’t think that I could handle both at once?”

“You could. But not with optimum efficiency. No humanoid could. This setup of yours might just work if we were Shaara, or any of the other multi-limbed arthropods. But even the Shaara, in their warships, don’t expect the

Queen-Captain to handle her ship and her guns simultaneously.”

“You’re the expert. I just want to be sure that you’re prepared to, quote, advise, unquote, with your little pink paws on the actual keyboard of your battle organ.”

“That’s just the way that I propose to advise.”

“Good. Fix it up to suit yourself, then. I should be able to let you have a mechanic shortly to give you a hand.”

“Before we go any further, sir, I’d like to make an inspection of the weapons themselves. Just in case . . .”

“Just in case I’ve made some fantastic bollix, eh?” Craven was almost cheerful. “Very good. But try to make it snappy. It’s time we were on our way.”

“Yes,” said Jane, and it seemed that the Captain’s discarded somberness was hanging about her like a cloud. “It’s time.”

XII

AT ONE TIME, before differentiation between the mercantile and the fighting vessel became pronounced, merchant vessels were built to carry a quite considerable armament. Today, the mounting of weapons on a merchantman presents its problems. After his tour of inspection Grimes was obliged to admit that Captain Craven had made cunning use of whatever spaces were available- but Craven, of course, was a very experienced officer, with long years of service in all classes of spacecraft. Too-and, perhaps, luckily-there had been no cannon among the Survey Service ordnance that had been requisitioned, so recoil had not been among the problems.

When he was finished, Grimes returned to the Control Room. Craven was still there, and with him was Jane Pentecost. They had, obviously, been discussing something. They could, perhaps, have been quarreling; the girl’s face was flushed and her expression sullen.

“Yes?” snapped the Captain.

“You’ve done a good job, sir. She’s no cruiser, but she should be able to defend herself.”

“Thank you. Then we’ll be on our way.”

“Not so fast, sir. I’d like to wire up my control panel properly before we shove off.”

Craven laughed. “You’ll have time, Mr. Grimes. I still have a few last duties to discharge aboard Delta Orionis. But be as quick as you can.”

He left the compartment, followed by Jane Pentecost. She said, over her shoulder, “I’ll send Mr. Baxter to help you, John.”

The Rim Worlder must have been somewhere handy; in a matter of seconds he was by Grimes’ side, an already open tool satchel at his belt. As he worked, assisting deftly and then taking over as soon as he was sure of

what was required, he talked. He said, “Mum wanted to come along, but I soon put the damper on that. But I was bloody amazed to find you here.”

“Were you?” asked Grimes coldly.

“You bet I was. Never thought you were cut out to be a bloody pirate.” He cursed briefly as a spatter of hot metal from his sizzling soldering iron stung his hand. “A cold weld’d be better, but it’d take too much time. But where was I? Oh, yes. The shock to me system when I saw you comin’ aboard this wagon.”

“I have my quite valid reasons,” Grimes told him stiffly.

“You’re tellin’ me. Just as my missus had quite valid reasons for wantin’ to come with me. But she ain’t a gunnery expert.” He added piously, “Thank Gawd.”

“And I am one,” said the Ensign, trying to change the drift of the conversation before he lost his temper. “Yes. that’s right. Just stick to the color code. The blue wiring’s the ALGE . . .”

“I know,” Baxter told him. “Tell me, is it any good?”

“Yes. Of course, if an enemy held us in her beams for any prolonged period we should all be cooked, but as far as it goes it’s effective enough.”

“Hope you’re right.” He made the last connections, then replaced the panel on the open shallow box. “Here’s yer magic cabinet, Professor. All we have ter see now is what rabbits yer can pull outer the hat.”

“Plenty, I hope,” said Captain Craven, who had returned to Control. “And are you ready now, Mr. Grimes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Then we’ll make it stations. If you will take the copilot’s chair, while Mr. Baxter goes along to look after his rockets.”

“Will do, Skipper,” said the engineer, packing away his tools as he pulled himself toward the exit hatch.

The ship’s intercom came to life, in Jane Pentecost’s voice. “Connection between vessels severed. Airlock door closed.”

“We’re still connected,” grumbled Craven. “Delia O’Ryan still has her magnetic grapnels out.” He spoke into the transceiver microphone: “Epsilon Sextans to Delta Orionis. Cast off, please. Over.”

“Delta Orionis to Epsilon Sextans. Casting off.” Through a viewport Grimes could see one of the bright mooring wires snaking back into its recess. “All clear, Captain.”

“Thank you, Captain Kennedy.” And in a softer voice, “And I hope you keep that handle to your name, Bill.”

“Thank you, sir. And all the best, Captain, from all of us, to all of you. And

good hunting.”

“Thanks. And look after the old Delia, Captain. And yourself. Over-and out.” “Delta Orionis to Epsilon Sextans. Over and out.”

(There was something very final, thought Grimes, about those outs.)

He was aware that the ships were drifting slowly apart. Now he could see all of Delta Orionis from his viewport. He could not help recalling the day on which he had first seen her, at the Woomera spaceport. So much had happened since that day. (And so much was still to happen-he hoped.) He heard Craven say into the intercom, “Stand by for temporal precession. We’re desynchronizing.” Then, there was the giddiness, and the off-beat whine of the Mannschenn Drive that pierced his eardrums painfully, and beyond the viewports the great, shining shape of the other ship shimmered eerily and was suddenly warped into the likeness of a monstrous Klein

flash-then vanished. Where she had been (where she still was, in space but not in time) shone the distant stars, the stars that in this distorted continuum were pulsing spirals of iridescence.

“Mannschenn Drive. Cut!”

The thin, high keening died abruptly. Outside, the stars were glittering points of light, piercingly bright against the blackness.

“Mr. Grimes!” Craven’s voice was sharp. “I hope that you take more interest in gunnery than you do in ship handling. In case it has escaped your notice, I would remind you that you are second in command of this vessel, and in full charge in the event of my demise.”

“Sorry, sir,” stammered Grimes. Then, suddenly bold, “But I’m not your second in command, sir. I’ve signed no Articles.”

Surprisingly, Craven laughed. “A spacelawyer, yet! Well, Mr. Grimes, as soon as we get this vessel on course we’ll attend to the legal formalities. Meanwhile, may I request your close attention to what I am doing?”

“You may, sir.”

Thereafter he watched and listened carefully. He admired the skill with which Craven turned the ship on her directional gyroscopes until the red-glowing target star was centered exactly in the cartwheel sight. He

noted that the Captain used his reaction drive at a longer period and at a higher rate of acceleration than usual, and said as much. He was told, the words falling slowly and heavily in the pseudo-gravity, “They . . . will . . . expect . . . us . . . to . . . be . . . in . . . a . . . hurry. We must . . . not . . . disappoint . . . them.”

Speed built up, fast-but it was a velocity that, in the context of the interstellar distances to be traversed, was no more than a snail’s crawl. Then-and the sudden silence was like a physical blow-the thunder of the rockets ceased. The screaming roar had died, but the ship was not quiet. The whine of the Mannschenn Drive pervaded her every compartment, vibrated through every member of her structure. She was falling, falling

through space and time, plunging through the warped continuum to her rendezvous with Death . . . .

And whose death? wondered Grimes.

He said, “I should have asked before, sir. But how are . . . how are they going to find us?”

“I don’t know,” said Craven. “I don’t know. But they’ve found other ships when they’ve wanted to. They’ve never used the old pirate’s technique of lying in wait at breaking-out points. A Mass Proximity Indicator? Could be. It’s theoretically possible. It could be for a ship under Mannschenn Drive what radar is for a ship in normal space-time. Or some means of homing on a temporal precession field? That’s more like it, I think, as this vessel was able to escape when she went random.

“But if they want us-and they will-they’ll find us. And then”-he looked at Grimes, his blue gaze intense-“and then it’s up to you, Ensign.”

“To all of us,” said Grimes. XIII

SHE WAS UNDERMANNED, this Epsilon Sextans, but she functioned quite efficiently. Craven kept a Control Room watch himself, and the other two watchkeepers were Grimes and Jane Pentecost. Four on and eight off were their hours of duty- but there was plenty of work to be done in the off duty periods. The Captain, of course, was in over-all charge, and was trying to bring his command to the pitch of efficiency necessary for a fighting ship. Jane Pentecost was responsible for meals-although these, involving little more than the opening of cans, did not take up too much of her time. She had also taken over biochemist’s duties, but called now and again upon Grimes to help her with the ATREG unit. Its operation was simple enough, but it was inclined to be temperamental and, now and again, allowed the carbon dioxide concentration to reach a dangerous level. Grimes’ main concern was his armament. He could not indulge in a practice shot-the expulsion of mass by a ship running under interstellar drive is suicidal; even the employment of laser weapons is dangerous. But there were tests that he could make; there was, in the ship’s stores, a spare chart tank that he was able to convert to a battle simulator.

Craven helped him, and set up targets in the tank, glowing points of light that were destroyed by the other sparks that represented Grimes’ missiles. After one such drill he said, “You seem to know your stuff, Ensign. Now, what’s your grasp of the tactical side of it?”

Grimes considered his words before speaking. “Well, sir, we could use laser with the Drive in operation-but we haven’t got laser. The pirates have. They can synchronize and just carve us up at leisure. This time, I think they’ll go for the interstellar drive engine room first, so that we can’t get away by the use of random precession.”

“Yes. That’s what they’ll do. That’s why I have that compartment literally sealed in a cocoon of insulation. Oh, I know it’s not effective, but it will give us a second or so of grace. No more.”

“We can’t use our reflective vapor,” went on Grimes. “That’d be almost as bad, from our viewpoint, as loosing off a salvo of missiles. But, sir, when this ship was first attacked there must have been a considerable loss of mass when the atmosphere was expelled through the rents in the shell plating . . . the Drive was running. How was it that the ship wasn’t flung into some other space-time?”

“Come, come, Mr. Grimes. You should know the answer to that one. She was held by the powerful temporal precession fields of the drive units of the two pirates. And then, of course, when the engineers managed to set up their random precession there was no mass left to be expelled.”

“H’m. I see. Or I think I see. Then, in that case, why shouldn’t I use my ALGE as soon as we’re attacked?”

“No. Better not. Something might just go wrong-and I don’t want to become one of my own ancestors.”

“Then . . . ?”

“You tell me, Mr. Grimes.”

“Cut our Drive . . . ? Break out into the normal continuum? Yes . . . it could work.” He was becoming enthusiastic. “And then we shall be waiting

for-them, with our missile batteries, when they break out.”

“We’ll make an admiral of you yet, young Grimes.”

WITH WATCHKEEPING and with off-watch duties time was fully occupied. And yet there was something missing. There was, Grimes said to himself, one hell of a lot missing. Jane Pentecost had her own watch to keep, and her own jobs to do when she was not in the control room-but she and Grimes had some free time to share. But they did not share it.

He broached the subject when he was running a test on the artificial chlorophyll in the ATREG. “Jane, I was hoping I’d see more of you.”

“You’re seeing plenty of me.” “But not enough.”

“Don’t be tiresome,” she snapped. Then, in a slightly softer voice, “Don’t . .

. “

. . . spoil everything?” he finished for her sardonically. “You know what I mean,” she told him coldly.

“Do I?” He groped for words. “Jane . . . Damn it all, I hoped . . . After what happened aboard the Delia O’Ryan . . .”

“That,” she said, “was different.” Her face flushed. “I tell you this, Grimes, if I’d known that you were coming along with us it never would have happened.”

“No?”

“NO!”

“Even so . . . I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t . . .”

“Why we shouldn’t what? Oh, all right, all right. I know what you mean. But it’s out of the question. I’ll tell you why, in words of one syllable. In a ship such as Delta Orionis discreet fun and games were permissible, even desirable. No shortage of women-both crew and passengers. Here, I’m the only female. Your friend Mr. Baxter has been sniffing after me. And Mr. Wolverton, the Interstellar Chief. And his Second. And even, bereaved though he is, the Bearded Bastard. He might get away with it-the privileges of rank and all that. But nobody else would-most certainly not yourself. How long would it remain a secret if we went to bed together?”

“I suppose you’re right, but . . .”

“But what? Oh John, John, you are a stubborn cow.” “Cow?”

“Sorry. Just Rimworldsese. Applicable to both sexes.” “Talking of sex . . .”

“Oh, shut up!”

“I’ll not.” She looked desirable standing there. A small smudge of grease on her flushed cheek was like a beauty spot. “I’ll not,” he said again. She was close to him, and he was acutely conscious that beneath the thin uniform shirt and the short shorts there was only Jane. He had only to reach out. He did so. At first she did not resist-and then exploded into a frenzy of activity. Before he could let go of her a hard, rough hand closed on his shirt collar and yanked him backwards.

“Keep yer dirty paws off her!” snarled a voice. It was Baxter’s. “Keep yer dirty paws off her! If we didn’t want yer ter let off the fireworks I’d do yer, here an’ now.”

“And keep your dirty paws off me!” yelped Grimes. It was meant to be an authentic quarterdeck bark, but it didn’t come out that way.

“Let him go, Mr. Baxter,” said Jane, adding, “please.”

“Oh, orl right. If yer says so. But I still think we should run him up ter the Old Man.”

“No. Better not.” She addressed Grimes, “Thank you for your help on the ATREG, Mr. Grimes. And thank you, Mr. Baxter, for your help. It’s time that I started looking after the next meal.”

She left, not hastily, but not taking her time about it either. When she was gone Baxter released Grimes. Clumsily the Ensign turned himself around, with a wild flailing motion. Unarmed combat had never been his specialty, especially unarmed combat in Free Fall conditions. But he knew that he had to fight, and the rage and the humiliation boiling up in him made it certain that he would do some damage.

But Baxter was laughing, showing all his ugly, yellow teeth. “Come orf it, Admiral! An’ if we must have a set-to-not in here. Just smash the UV projector-an’ bang goes our air conditioning! Simmer down, mate. Simmer down!”

Grimes simmered down, slowly. “But I thought you were out for my blood, Mr. Baxter.”

“Have ter put on a show for the Sheilas now an’ again. Shouldn’t mind puttin’ on another kind o’ show with her. But not in public-like you was goin’ to. It just won’t do-not until the shootin’ is over, anyhow. An’ even then . .

. . So, Admiral, it’s paws off as far as you’re concerned. An’ as far as I’m concerned-an’ the Chief Time Twister an’ his sidekick. But, if yer can spare the time, I propose we continue the conversation in my palatial dogbox.”

Grimes should have felt uneasy as he followed the engineer to his accommodation but, oddly enough, he did not. The rough friendliness just could not be the prelude to a beating up. And it wasn’t.

“Come in,” said Baxter, pulling his sliding door to one side. “Now yer see how the poor live. This is . . .”

“No,” protested Grimes. “No.”

“Why? I was only goin’ to say that this is me ‘umble ‘umpy. An’ I’d like yer to meet a coupla friends o’ mine-and there’s more where they came from.”

The “friends” were two drinking bulbs. Each bore proudly no less than four stars on its label. The brandy was smooth, smooth and potent. Grimes sipped appreciatively. “I didn’t know that we had any of this aboard Delia O’Ryan.”

“An’ nor did we. You’ll not find this tipple in the bar stores of any merchantman, nor aboard any of yer precious Survey Service wagons. Space stock for the Emperor’s yacht, this is. So here’s ter the Waverley taxpayers!”

“But where did you get this from, Mr. Baxter?”

“Where d’yer think? I’ve had a good fossick around the holds o’ this old bitch, an’ there’s quite a few things too good to let fall inter the hands o’ those bloody Waldegrenese.”

“But that’s pillage.”

“It’s common sense. Mind yer, I doubt if Captain Craven would approve, so yer’d better chew some dry tea-that’s in the cargo too-before yer see the Old Man again. All the bleedin’ same-it’s no worse than him borrowing your Survey Service stores an’ weapons from his cargo.”

“I suppose it’s not,” admitted Grimes. All the same, he still felt guilty when he was offered a second bulb of the luxurious spirit. But he did not refuse it.

XIV

HE WAS A GOOD FOSSICKER, was Baxter.

Two days later, as measured by the ship’s chronometer, he was waiting for Grimes as he came off watch. “Ensign,” he announced without preamble, “I’ve found somethin’ in the cargo.”

“Something new, you mean?” asked Grimes coldly. He still did not approve of pillage, although he had shared the spoils.

“Somethin’ that shouldn’t be there. Somethin’ that’s up your alley, I think.” “There’s no reason why equipment for the Waverley Navy shouldn’t be

among the cargo.”

“True enough. But it wouldn’t be in a case with Beluga Caviar stenciled all over it. I thought I’d found somethin’ to go with the vodka I half pinched, but it won’t.”

“Then what is it?” “Come and see.”

“All right.” Briefly Grimes wondered if he should tell Craven, who had relieved the watch, then decided against it. The Old Man would probably insist on making an investigation in person, in which case Grimes would have to pass another boring hour or so in the Control Room.

The two men made their way aft until they came to the forward bulkhead of the cargo spaces. Normally these would have been pressurized, but, when Epsilon Sextans’ atmosphere had been replenished from Delta Orionis’ emergency cylinders, it had seemed pointless to waste precious oxygen. So access was through an airlock that had a locker outside, in which suits, ready for immediate use, were stowed.

Grimes and Baxter suited up, helping each other as required. Then the engineer put out his gloved hand to the airlock controls. Grimes stopped him, bent forward to touch helmets. He said, “Hang on. If we open the door it’ll register on the panel in Control.”

“Like hell it will!” came the reply. “Most of the wiring was slashed through during the piracy. I fixed the hold lights-but damn all else.” Grimes, through the transparency of the visors, saw the other’s grin. “For obvious reasons.”

Grimes shrugged, released Baxter. Everything was so irregular that one more, relatively minor irregularity hardly mattered. He squeezed with the engineer into the small airlock, waited until the atmosphere it held had been pumped back into the body of the ship, then himself pushed the button that actuated the mechanism of the inner valve.

This was not the first time that he had been in the cargo spaces. Some of the weapons “borrowed” from Delta Orionis’ cargo had been mounted in the holds. When he had made his inspections it had never occurred to him that the opening and closing of the airlock door had not registered in Control.

He stood back and let Baxter lead the way. The engineer pulled himself to one of the bins in which he had been foraging. The door to it was still open,

and crates and cartons disturbed by the pillager floated untidily around the opening.

“You’ll have to get all this restowed,” said Grimes sharply. “If we have to accelerate there’ll be damage.” But he might as well have been speaking to himself. The suit radios had not been switched on and, in any case, there was no air to carry sound waves, however faintly.

Baxter had scrambled into the open bin. Grimes followed him, saw him standing by the case, its top prized open, that carried the lettering, BELUGA CAVIAR. PRODUCE OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC

REPUBLIC. Baxter beckoned. Grimes edged his way past the drifting packages to join him.

There was something in the case-but it was not jars or cans of salted sturgeon’s eggs. It looked at first like a glittering, complex piece of mobile statuary, although it was motionless. It was a metal mismating of gyroscope and Moebius Strip. It did not look wrong-nothing functional ever does-but it did look odd.

Grimes was standing hard against Baxter now. Their helmets were touching. He asked, “What . . . what is it?”

“I was hopin’ you’d be able ter tell me, Admiral.” Then, as Grimes extended a cautious hand into the case, “Careful! Don’t touch nothin’!”

“Why not?”

‘Cause this bloody lot was booby-trapped, that’s why. See that busted spring? An’ see that cylinder in the corner? That’s a thermite bomb, or somethin’ worse. Shoulda gone orf when I pried the lid up-but luckily I buggered the firin’ mechanism with me bar when I stuck it inter just the right crack. But I think the bastard’s deloused now.”

“It looks as though it-whatever it is-is hooked up to one of the electrical circuits.”

“Yair. An’ it’s not the lightin’ circuit. Must be the airlock indicators.” “Must be.” As a weapons expert, Grimes could see the thermite bomb-if

that was what it was- had been rendered ineffective. It hadn’t been an

elaborate trap, merely a device that would destroy the-the thing if the case housing it were tampered with. Baxter had been lucky-and, presumably, those who had planted the-what the hell was it?-unlucky.

With a cautious finger he nudged the rotor.

It turned-and he was reminded of those other rotors, the ever-precessing gyroscopes of the Mannschenn Drive.

He remembered, then. He remembered a series of lectures at the Academy on future weapons and navigational devices. Having decided upon his specialty he had been really interested only in the weapons. But there had been talk of a man called Carlotti, who was trying to develop a device that would induce temporal precession in radio signals, so that instantaneous communications would be possible throughout the Galaxy without ships and

shore stations having to rely upon the temperamental and unreliable telepaths. And beacons, employing the same principle, could be used for navigation by ships under interstellar drive . . . .

So this could be one of Signor Carlotti’s gadgets. Perhaps the Empire of Waverley had offered him a higher price than had the Federation. But why the BELUGA CAVIAR? To deter and confuse industrial spies? But Epsilon Sextans possessed excellent strong rooms for the carriage of special cargo.

And why was the thing wired up?

Suddenly it was obvious. Somehow, the Duchy of Waldegren possessed Carlotti equipment. This . . . this beacon had been transmitting, unknown to anybody aboard the ship, during the voyage. The frigates had homed upon her. When, inadvertently, its power supply had been shut off the victim, using random precession, had been able to make her escape.

So, if the pirates were to make a second attack it would have to be reactivated.

“We’d better throw this lot on to the Old Man’s plate,” said Grimes. CAPTAIN CRAVEN listened intently as Grimes and Baxter told their story.

They feared that he was going to lose his temper when told of the

engineer’s cargo pillaging, but he only remarked, in a dry voice, “I guess that the consignees can afford to compensate us for our time and trouble. Even so, Mr. Baxter, I insist that this practice must cease forthwith.” And then, when Grimes described the device, he said, “Yes, I have heard of Carlotti’s work. But I didn’t think that he’d got as far as a working model. But the thing could have been developed by Waldegrenese scientists from the data in his published papers.”

“So you agree, sir, that it is some kind of beacon upon which the pirates can home?”

“What else can it be? Now, gentlemen, we find ourselves upon the horns of a dilemma. If we don’t reactivate the bloody thing, the chances are that we shall deliver the ship and cargo intact, at no great risk to ourselves, and to the joy of the underwriters. If we do reactivate it-then the chances are that we shall have to fight our way through. And there’s no guarantee that we shall be on the winning side.”

“I was shanghaied away here as a gunnery officer,” said Grimes. “Shanghaied-or press-ganged?” queried Craven.

“The technique was more that of the shanghai,” Grimes told him.

“Indeed?” Craven’s voice was cold. “But no matter. “You’re here, and you’re one of my senior officers. What course of action do you recommend?”

Grimes replied slowly and carefully. “Legally speaking, what we’re involved in isn’t a war. But it is a war, of sorts. And a just war. And, in any case, the Master of a merchant vessel has the legal right to resist illegal seizure or destruction by force of arms. Of course, we have to consider the illegal circumstances attending the arming of this ship . . . .”

“Let’s not get bogged down in legalities and illegalities,” said Craven, with a touch of impatience. “The lawyers can sort it all out eventually. Do we reactivate?”

“Yes,” said Grimes.

“And you, Mr. Baxter. What do you say?”

“We Rim Worlders just don’t like Waldegren. I’ll not pass up a chance ter kick the bastards in the teeth. Reactivate, Skipper.”

“Good. And how long will it take you to make good the circuit the beacon’s spliced in to?”

“Twenty minutes. No more. But d’yer think we oughter put the whole thing to the vote first?”

“No. Everybody here was under the impression that we should be fighting. With one possible exception, they’re all volunteers.”

“But I did volunteer, sir,” objected Grimes.

“Make your mind up, Ensign. You were telling me just now that you’d been shanghaied. All right. Everybody is a volunteer. So we just rebait the trap without any more yapping about it. Let me know as soon as you’re ready, Mr. Baxter. Will you require assistance?”

“I’ll manage, Skipper.”

When he was gone Craven turned to Grimes. “You realize, Ensign, that this puts me in rather a jam. Let me put it this way. Am I justified in risking the lives of all my officers to carry out a private act of vengeance?”

“I think that you can take Mr. Baxter and myself as being representative, sir. As for the others-Miss Pentecost’s a Rim Worlder, and her views will coincide with Baxter’s. And the original crew members-they’re just as entitled to vengeance as you are. I know that if I’d been an officer of this ship at the time of the original piracy I’d welcome the chance of hitting back.”

“You would. Yes. Even if, as now, an alternative suddenly presented itself. But . . .”

“I honestly don’t see what you’re worrying about, sir.”

“You wouldn’t. It’s a matter of training. But, for all my Reserve commission, I’m a merchant officer. Oh, I know that any military commander is as responsible for the lives of his men as I am-but he also knows that those lives, like his own, are expendable.”

“It’s a pity that Baxter found the beacon,” said Grimes.

“It is-and it isn’t. If he hadn’t found it, I shouldn’t be soliloquizing like a spacefaring Hamlet. And we should have brought the ship in intact and, like as not, all been awarded Lloyd’s Medals. On the other hand-if he hadn’t found it we-or I?-should have lost our chance of getting back at the

pirates.”

“You aren’t Hamlet, sir.” Grimes spoke with the assurance of the very young, but in later years he was to remember his words, and to feel neither shame nor embarrassment, but only a twinge of envy and regret. “You aren’t Hamlet. You’re Captain Craven, Master under God. Please, sir, for once in your life do something you want to do, and argue it out later with the Almightly if you must.”

“And with my owners?” Grimes couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw something like a smile beneath Craven’s full beard. “And with my owners?”

“Master Astronauts’ certificates aren’t all that common, sir. If worst comes to worst, there’s always the Rim Worlds. The Sundowner Line, isn’t it?”

“I’d already thought of that.” There was no doubt about it. Craven was smiling. “After all that you’ve been saying to me, I’m surprised that you don’t join forces with our Miss Pentecost.”

“Go out to the Rim, sir? Hardly.”

“Don’t be so sure, young Grimes. Anyhow, you’d better get Miss Pentecost up here now so that we can see how friend Baxter is getting on. There’s always the risk that he’ll find a few more things among the cargo that aren’t nailed down.”

GRIMES CALLED Jane Pentecost on the intercom; after a minute or so she made her appearance in Control. Craven told her what Baxter had discovered and what he, Craven, intended doing about it. She nodded in emphatic agreement. “Yes,” she said. “The thing’s here to be used-and to be used the way that we want to use it. But I don’t think that we should make it public.”

“Why not, Miss Pentecost?”

“I could be wrong, Captain, but in my opinion there are quite a few people in this ship who’d welcome the chance of wriggling out of being the cheese in the mousetrap. When there’s no alternative they’re brave enough. When there’s a face-saving alternative . . .”

Baxter’s voice came from the intercom speaker. “Chief Reaction Drive Engineer to Control. Repairs completed. Please check your panel.”

Yes, the circuit had been restored. The buzzer sounded, and on the board a glowing red light showed that the outer door to the cargo hold airlock was open. How much of the failure of the indicators was due to battle damage and how much to Baxter’s sabotage would never be known. Craven’s heavy eyebrows lifted ironically as he looked at Grimes, and Grimes shrugged in reply.

Then, the watch handed over to the girl, the two men made their way aft from the Control Room. Outside the airlock they found Baxter, already suited up save for his helmet. There had been only two suits in the locker, and the engineer had brought another one along for the Captain from

somewhere.

The little compartment would take only two men at a time. Craven and Grimes went through first, then were joined by Baxter. There was no longer any need for secrecy, so the suit radios were switched on. The only person likely to be listening in was Jane Pentecost in Control.

Grimes heard Craven muttering angrily as they passed packages that obviously had been opened and pillaged, but the Captain did no more than mutter. He possessed the sense of proportion so essential to his rank-and a few bulbs of looted liquor were, after all, relatively unimportant.

They came to the bin in which the case allegedly containing caviar had been stowed, in which some secret agent of Waldegren had tapped the circuit supplying power to the beacon. Inside the box the gleaming machine was still motionless. Craven said, “I thought you told me the current was on.”

“It is, Skipper.” Baxter’s voice was pained. “But I switched it off before I fixed the wiring.” He extended a gloved finger, pressed a little toggle switch.

And nothing happened.

“Just a nudge.” whispered the engineer.

The oddly convoluted rotor turned easily enough, and as it rotated it seemed almost to vanish in a mist of its own generating-a mist that was no more than an optical illusion.

It rotated, slowed-and stopped.

Baxter cast aspersions upon the legitimacy of its parenthood. Then, still grumbling, he produced a volt-meter. Any doubt that power was being delivered to the machine was soon dispelled. Power was being delivered-but it was not being used.

“Well, Mr. Baxter?” demanded Craven.

“I’m a fair mechanic, Skipper-but I’m no physicist.” “Mr. Grimes?”

“I specialized in gunnery, sir.”

Craven snorted, the sound unpleasantly loud in the helmet phones. He said sarcastically, “I’m only the Captain, but I have some smatterings of Mannschenn Drive maintenance and operation. This thing isn’t a Mannschenn Drive unit-but it’s first cousin to one. As I recall it, some of the earlier models couldn’t be started without the employment of a small, temporal precession field initiator. Furthermore, these initiators, although there is no longer any need for them, are still carried as engine room spares in the Commission’s ships.”

“And that gadget’ll start this little time-twister, Skipper?” asked the engineer.

“It might, Mr. Baxter. It might. So, Mr. Grimes, will you go along to the Mannschenn Drive room and ask Mr. Wolverton for his initiator? No need to tell him what it’s for.”

WOLVERTON was in the Mannschenn Drive room, staring moodily at the gleaming complexity of precessing rotors. Grimes hastily averted his eyes from the machine. It frightened him, and he didn’t mind admitting it. And there was something about the engineer that frightened him, too. The tall, cadaverous man, with the thin strands of black hair drawn over his gleaming skull, looked more like a seer than a ship’s officer, looked like a fortune-teller peering into the depths of an uncannily mobile crystal ball. He was mumbling, his voice a low, guttural muttering against the thin, high keening of his tumbling gyroscopes. The Ensign at last was able to make out the words.

“Divergent tracks . . . . To be, or not to be, that is the question-“

Grimes thought, This ship should be renamed the State of Denmark. There’s something rotten here . . . . He said sharply, “Mr. Wolverton!”

Slowly the Chief Interstellar Drive Engineer turned his head, stared at Grimes unseeingly at first. His eyes came into focus. He whispered, “It’s you.”

“Who else, Chief? Captain’s compliments, and he’d like to borrow your temporal precession field initiator.”

“He would, would he? And why?”

“An-an experiment.” said Grimes, with partial truth. The fewer people who knew the whole truth the better.

“An experiment?”

“Yes. If you wouldn’t mind letting me have it now, Chief . . . .”

“But it’s engine room stores. It’s the Commission’s stores. It’s a very delicate instrument. It is against the Commission’s regulations to issue it to unqualified personnel.”

“But Mr. Baxter is helping with the . . . experiment.”

“Mr. Baxter! That letter-off of cheap fireworks. That . . . Rim Runner! No. No. Mr. Baxter is not qualified personnel.”

“Then perhaps you could lend us one of your juniors.”

“No. No, I would not trust them. Why do you think that I am here, Mr. Grimes? Why do you think that I have been tied to my gyroscopes? Literally tied, almost. If I had not been here, keeping my own watch, when the pirates struck, this ship would have been utterly destroyed. I know the Drive, Mr. Grimes.” He seized the Ensign’s arm, turned him so that he was facing the gleaming, spinning rotors, endlessly precessing, endlessly tumbling down the dark dimensions, shimmering on the very verge of invisibility. Grimes wanted to close his eyes, but could not. “I know the Drive, Mr. Grimes. It talks to me. It shows me things. It warned me, that

time, that Death was waiting for this ship and all in her. And now it warns me again. But there is a . . . a divergence . . . .”

“Mr. Wolverton, please! There is not much time.”

“But what is Time, Mr. Grimes? What is Time? What do you know of the forking World Lines, the Worlds of If? I’ve lived with this machine, Mr. Grimes. It’s part of me-or am I part of it? Let me show you . . . .” His grip on the Ensign’s arm was painful. “Let me show you. Look. Look into the machine. What do you see?”

Grimes saw only shadowy, shimmering wheels and a formless darkness. “I see you, Mr. Grimes,” almost sang the engineer. “I see you-but not as

you will be. But as you might be. I see you on the bridge of your flagship,

your uniform gold-encrusted and medal-bedecked, with commodores and captains saluting you and calling you ‘sir’ . . . but I see you, too, in the control room of a shabby little ship, a single ship, in shabby clothes, and the badge on your cap is one that I have never seen, is one that does not yet exist . . . .”

“Mr. Wolverton! That initiator. Please!”

“But there is no hurry, Mr. Grimes. There is no hurry. There is time enough for everything-for everything that is, that has been, that will be and that might be. There is time to decide, Mr. Grimes. There is time to decide whether or not we make our second rendezvous with Death. The initiator is part of it all, Mr. Grimes, is it not? The initiator is the signpost that stands at the forking of the track. You weren’t here, Mr. Grimes, when the pirates struck. You did not hear the screams, you did not smell the stench of burning flesh. You’re young and foolhardy; all that you want is the chance to play with your toys. And all that I want, now that I know that alternatives exist, is the chance to bring this ship to her destination with no further loss of life.”

“Mr. Wolverton . . .”

“Mr. Grimes!” It was Captain Craven’s voice, and he was in a vile temper. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”

“Captain,” said Wolverton. “I can no more than guess at what you intend to do-but I have decided not to help you to do it.”

“Then give us the initiator. We’ll work it ourselves.” “No, Captain.”

“Give me the initiator, Mr. Wolverton. That’s an order.”

“A lawful command, Captain? As lawful as those commands of yours that armed this ship?”

“Hold him, Grimes!” (And who’s supposed to be holding whom? wondered the Ensign. Wolverton’s grip was still tight and painful on his arm.) “Hold him, while I look in the storeroom!”

“Captain! Get away from the door! You’ve no right . . .”

Wolverton relinquished his hold on Grimes who, twisting with an agility that surprised himself, contrived to get both arms about the engineer’s waist. In the scuffle the contact between their magnetic shoe soles and the deck was broken. They hung there, helpless, with no solidity within reach of their flailing limbs to give them purchase. They hung there, clinging to each other, but more in hate than in love. Wolverton’s back was to the machine; he could not see, as could Grimes, that there was an indraught of air into the spinning, shimmering complexity. Grimes felt the beginnings of panic, more than the mere beginnings. There were no guardrails; he had read somewhere why this was so, but the abstruse physics involved did not matter-all that mattered was that there was nothing to prevent him and Wolverton from being drawn into the dimension-twisting field of the thing.

He freed, somehow, his right hand, and with an effort that sprained his shoulder brought it around in a sweeping, clumsy and brutal blow to the engineer’s face. Wolverton screamed and his grip relaxed. Violently, Grimes shoved away. To the action there was reaction.

Craven emerged from the storeroom, carrying something that looked like a child’s toy gyroscope in a transparent box. He looked around for Grimes and Wolverton at deck level and then, his face puzzled, looked up. He did not, as Grimes had been doing for some seconds, vomit-but his face, behind the beard went chalk-white. He put out his free hand and, not ungently, pulled Grimes to the deck.

He said, his voice little more than a whisper, “There’s nothing we can do. Nothing-except to get a pistol and finish him off . . . .”

Grimes forced himself to look again at the slimy, bloody obscenity that was a man turned, literally, inside-out-heart (if it was the heart) still beating, intestines still writhing.

XVI

IT WAS GRIMES who went for a pistol, fetching a Minetti from the weapons rack that he, himself, had fitted up in the Control Room. He told Jane Pentecost what he wanted it for. He made no secret of either his horror or his self blame.

She said, “But this is a war, even if it’s an undeclared one. And in a war you must expect casualties.”

“Yes, yes. I know. But I pushed him into the field.”

“It was an accident. It could easily have been you instead of him. And I’m glad that it wasn’t.”

“But you haven’t seen . . .”

“And I don’t want to.” Her voice hardened. “Meanwhile, get the hell out of here and back to the Mannschenn Drive room. If you’re so sorry for the poor bastard, do something about putting him out of his misery.”

“But . . .”

“Don’t be such a bloody coward, Grimes.”

The words hurt-mainly because there was so much truth in them. Grimes was dreading having to see again the twisted obscenity that had once been a man, was dreading having to breathe again the atmosphere of that compartment, heavy with the reek of hot oil, blood and fecal matter. But, with the exception of Craven, he was the only person in the ship trained in the arts of war. He recalled the words of a surgeon-commander who had lectured the midshipmen of his course on the handling of battle

casualties-and recalled, too, how afterward the young gentlemen had sneered at the bloodthirstiness of one who was supposed to be a professional healer. “When one of your shipmates has really had it, even if he’s your best friend, don’t hesitate a moment about finishing him off. You’ll be doing him a kindness. Finish him off-and get him out of sight. Shockingly wounded men are bad for morale.”

“What are you waiting for?” demanded Jane Pentecost. “Do you want me to do it?”

Grimes said nothing, just hurried out of the Control Room.

Craven was still in the Mannschenn Drive room when Grimes got back there. With him were two of the interstellar drive engineers-the Second and the Third. Their faces were deathly white, and the Second’s prominent Adam’s apple was working spasmodically, but about them there was an air of grim resolution. The Third-how could he bear to touch that slimy, reeking

mess?-had hold of its shoulders (white, fantastically contorted bone gleaming pallidly among red convolutions of flesh), while the Second, a heavy spanner in his hand, was trying to decide where to strike.

The Captain saw Grimes. “Give me that!” he snapped, and snatched the pistol from the Ensign’s hand. Then, to the engineers, “Stand back!”

The little weapon rattled sharply and viciously. To the other smells was added the acridity of burned propellant. What had been Wolverton was driven to the deck by the impact of the tiny projectiles, and adhered there. There was surprisingly little blood, but the body had stopped twitching.

Craven handed the empty pistol back to the Ensign. He ordered, “You stay here, Mr. Grimes, and organize the disposal of the body.” He went to the locker where he had put the initiator, took out the little instrument and, carrying it carefully, left the Mannschenn Drive room. Neither of the engineers, still staring with horrified fascination at their dead Chief, noticed.

“How . . . how did it happen?” asked the Second, after a long silence. “He fell into the field,” said Grimes.

“But how? How? He was always getting on us about being careless, and telling us what was liable to happen to us, and now it’s happened to him-“

“That’s the way of it,” contributed the Third, with a certain glum satisfaction. “Don’t do as I do, do as I say.”

“Have you a box?” asked Grimes.

“A box?” echoed the Second.

“Yes. A box.” Now that he was doing something, doing something useful, Grimes was beginning to feel a little better. “We can’t have a funeral while we’re running under interstellar drive. We have to . . . to put him somewhere.” Out of sight, he mentally added.

“That chest of spares?” muttered the Second. “Just the right size,” agreed the Third.

“Then get it,” ordered Grimes.

The chest, once the spares and their packing had been removed and stowed elsewhere, was just the right size. Its dimensions were almost those of a coffin. It was made of steel, its bottom magnetized, and remained where placed on the deck while the three men, fighting down their recurring nausea, handled the body into it. All of them sighed audibly in relief when, at last, the close-fitting lid covered the remains. Finally, the Third ran a welding torch around the joint. As he was doing so the lights flickered.

Was it because of the torch? wondered Grimes. Or was it because the beacon in the hold had been reactivated?

Somehow he could not feel any real interest.

CLEANED UP after a fashion, but still feeling physically ill, he was back in the Control Room. Craven was there, and Baxter was with him. Jane Pentecost had been relieved so that she could attend to her duties in the galley. “Not that I feel like a meal,” the Captain had said. “And I doubt very much that Mr. Grimes does either.”

“Takes a lot ter put me off me tucker,” the engineer declared cheerfully as he worked on the airlock door telltale panel.

“You didn’t see Mr. Wolverton, Mr. Baxter,” said Craven grimly.

“No, Skipper. An’ I’m not sorry I didn’t.” He paused in his work to rummage in his tool bag. He produced bulbs of brandy. “But I thought you an’ the Ensign might need some o’ this.”

Craven started to say something about cargo pillage, then changed his mind. He accepted the liquor without further quibbling. The three men sipped in silence.

Baxter carelessly tossed his squeezed empty bulb aside, continued with what he had been doing. The Captain said to Grimes, “Yes. We got the thing started again. And we’ve improved upon it.”

“Improved upon it, sir? How?”

“It’s no longer only a beacon. It’s also an alarm. As soon as it picks up the radiation from the similar pieces of apparatus aboard the enemy frigates, the buzzer that Mr. Baxter is fitting up will sound, the red light will flash. We shall have ample warning . . . .”

“She’ll be right, Skipper,” said the engineer.

“Thank you, Mr. Baxter. And now; if you don’t mind, I’d like a few words in private with Mr. Grimes.”

“Don’t be too hard on him, Skipper.”

Baxter winked cheerfully at Grimes and left the control room.

“Mr. Grimes,” Craven’s voice was grave. “Mr. Grimes, today, early in your career, you have learned a lesson that some of us never have to learn. You have killed a man-yes, yes, I know that it was not intentional-and you have been privileged to see the end result of your actions.

“There are many of us who are, who have been, killers. There are many of us who have pushed buttons but who have never seen what happens at the other end of the trajectory. Perhaps people slaughtered by explosion or laser beam do not look quite so horrible as Wolverton-but, I assure you, they often look horrible enough, and often die as slowly and as agonizingly. You know, now, what violent death looks like, Mr. Grimes. So tell me, are you still willing to push your buttons, to play pretty tunes on your battle organ?”

“And what did the bodies in this ship look like, Captain?” asked Grimes. Then, remembering that one of the bodies had belonged to the woman whom Craven had loved, he bitterly regretted having asked the question.

“Not pretty,” whispered Captain Craven. “Not at all pretty.” “I’ll push your buttons for you,” Grimes told him.

And for Jane Pentecost, he thought. And for the others. And for myself? The worst of it all is that I haven’t got the excuse of saying that it’s what I’m paid for . . . .

XVII

DOWN THE DARK dimensions fell Epsilon Sextans, falling free through the warped continuum. But aboard the ship time still possessed meaning, the master chronometer still ticked away the seconds, minutes and hours; the little man-made world was still faithful to that puissant god of scientific intelligences everywhere in the universe-the Clock. Watch succeeded watch in Control Room and engine room. Meals were prepared and served on time. There was even, toward the end, a revival of off-duty social activities: a chess set was discovered and brought into use, playing cards were produced and a bridge school formed.

But there was one social activity that, to Grimes’ disappointment was not resumed-the oldest social activity of them all. More than once he pleaded with Jane-and every time she laughed away his pleas. He insisted-and that made matters worse. He was (as he said), the donkey who had been allowed one nibble of the carrot and who could not understand why the carrot had been snatched away. He was (she said), a donkey. Period.

He should have guessed what was happening, but he did not. He was young, and inexperienced in the ways of women-of men and women. He

just could not imagine that Jane would spare more than a casual glance for any of the engineers or for the flabby, pasty youth who was the psionic radio officer-and in this he was right.

Epsilon Sextans was, for a ship of her class, very well equipped. In addition to the usual intercom system she was fitted with closed circuit television. In the event of emergency the Captain or watch officer, by the flip of a switch, could see what was happening in any compartment of the vessel. Over the control panel, in big, red letters, were the words: EMERGENCY USE ONLY. Grimes did not know what was the penalty for improper use of the apparatus in the Merchant Navy-but he did know that in the Survey Service officers had been cashiered and given an ignominious discharge for this offense. The more cramped and crowded the conditions in which men-and women-work and live, the more precious is privacy.

It was Grimes’ watch.

When he had taken over, all the indications were that it would be as boring as all the previous watches. All that was required of the watchkeeper was that he stay awake. Grimes stayed awake. He had brought a book with him into Control, hiding it inside his uniform shirt, and it held his attention for a while. Then, following the example of generations of watch officers, he set up a game of three dimensional tic-tac-toe in the chart tank and played, right hand against left. The left hand was doing remarkably well when a buzzer sounded. The Ensign immediately cleared the tank and looked at the airlock indicator panel. But there were no lights on the board, and he realized that it was the intercom telephone.

“Control,” he said into his microphone.

“P.R.O. here. I . . . I’m not happy, Mr. Grimes . . . .” “Who is?” quipped Grimes.

“I . . . I feel . . . smothered.”

“Something wrong with the ventilation in your shack?”

“No. NO. It’s like . . . it’s like a heavy blanket soaked in ice-cold water . . .

. You can’t move . . . you can’t shout . . . you can’t hear . . . . It’s like it was before . . . .”

“Before what?” snapped Grimes-and then as the other buzzer sounded, as the additional red light flashed on the telltale panel, he realized the stupidity of his question.

At once he pressed the alarm button. This was it, at last. Action Stations! Throughout the ship the bells were shrilling, the klaxons squawking. Hastily Grimes vacated the pilot’s chair, slipped into the one from which he could control his weapons-and from which he could reach out to other controls. But where was the Old Man? Where was Captain Craven? This was the moment that he had longed for, this was the consummation toward which all his illegalities had been directed. Damn it all, where was he?

Perhaps he was floating stunned in his quarters-starting up hurriedly from

sleep he could have struck his head upon some projection, knocked himself out. If this were the case he, Grimes, would have to call Jane from her own battle station in Sick Bay to render first aid. But there was no time to lose.

The Ensign reached out, flipped the switches that would give him the picture of the interior of the Captain’s accommodation. The screen brightened, came alive. Grimes stared at the luminous presentation in sick horror. Luminous it was-with that peculiar luminosity of naked female flesh. Jane was dressing herself with almost ludicrous haste. Of the Captain there was no sign-on the screen.

Craven snarled, with cold ferocity, “You damned, sneaking, prurient puppy!” Then, in a louder voice, “Switch that damn thing off! I’ll deal with you when this is over.”

“But, sir . . .” “Switch it off, I say!”

Cheeks burning, Grimes obeyed. Then he sat staring at his armament controls, fighting down his nausea, his physical sickness. Somehow, he found time to think bitterly, So I was the knight, all set and ready to slay dragons for his lady. And all the time, she . . . He did not finish the thought.

He heard a voice calling over the intercom, one of the engineers. “Captain, they’re trying to lock on! Same as last time. Random precession, sir?”

“No. Cut the Drive!”

“Cut the Drive?” Incredulously. “You heard me. Cut!” Then, to Grimes, “And what the hell are you waiting for?”

The Ensign knew what he had to do; he had rehearsed it often enough. He did it. From the nozzles that pierced the outer shell spouted the cloud of reflective vapor, just in time, just as the enemy’s lasers lashed out at their target. It seemed that the ship’s internal temperature rose suddenly and sharply-although that could have been illusion, fostered by the sight of the fiery fog glimpsed through the viewports before the armored shutters slammed home.

There were targets now on Grimes’ fire control screen, two of them, but he could not loose a missile until the tumbling rotors of the Drive had ceased to spin, to precess. The use of the anti-laser vapor screen had been risky enough. Abruptly the screens went blank-which signified that the temporal precession rates of hunted and hunters were no longer in synchronization, that the fields of the pirates had failed to lock on. In normal spacetime there would be no need to synchronize-and then the hunters would discover that their quarry had claws and teeth.

Aboard Epsilon Sextans the keening note of the Drive died to a whisper, a barely audible murmur, fading to silence. There was the inevitable second or so of utter disorientation when, as soon as it was safe, the engineers braked the gyroscopes.

Craven acted without hesitation, giving his ship headway and acceleration with Inertial Drive. He was not running-although this was the impression that he wished to convey. He was inviting rather than evading combat-but if the Waldegren captains chose to assume that Epsilon Sextans was, as she had been, an unarmed merchantman (after all, the anti-laser screen could have been jury rigged from normal ship’s stores and equipment), taking evasive action, that was their error of judgment.

Grimes watched his screens intently. Suddenly the two blips reappeared, astern, all of a hundred kilos distant, but closing. This he reported.

“Stand by for acceleration!” ordered Craven. “Reaction Drive-stand by!”

It was all part of the pattern-a last, frantic squandering of reaction mass that could do no more than delay the inevitable. It would look good from the enemy control rooms.

“Reaction Drive ready!” reported Baxter over the intercom.

“Thank you. Captain to all hands, there will be no countdown. Fire!”

From the corner of his eye Grimes saw Craven’s hand slam down on the key. Acceleration slammed him brutally back into his chair. There was a roar that was more like an explosion than a normal rocket firing, a shock that jarred and rattled every fitting in the Control Room.

Craven remarked quietly. “That must have looked convincing enough-but I hope that Baxter didn’t really blow a chamber.”

There was only the Inertial Drive now, and the two blips that, very briefly, had fallen astern, were now creeping up again, closing the range.

“Anti-laser,” ordered Craven briefly. “But, sir, it’ll just be wasting it. They’ll not be using laser outside twenty kilometers.”

“They’ll not be expecting a gunnery specialist aboard this wagon, either.” Once again the nozzles spouted, pouring out a cloud that fell rapidly astern

of the running ship, dissipating uselessly.

Craven looked at his own screens, frowned, muttered, “They’re taking their sweet time about it . . . probably low on reaction mass themselves.” He turned to Grimes. “I think a slight breakdown of the I.D.’s in order.”

“As you say, sir.” The Ensign could not forget having been called a damned, sneaking, prurient puppy. Let Craven make his own decisions.

“Stand by for Free Fall,” ordered the Captain quietly. The steady throbbing of the Inertial Drive faltered, faltered and ceased. There were two long minutes of weightlessness, and then, for five minutes, the Drive came back into operation. A breakdown, the enemy must be thinking. A breakdown, and the engineers sweating and striving to get the ship under way again. A breakdown-it would not be surprising after the mauling she had endured at the first encounter.

She hung there, and although her actual speed could be measured in kilometers a second she was, insofar as her accelerating pursuers were

concerned, relatively motionless. Grimes wondered why the warships did not use their radio, did not demand surrender-Epsilon Sextans’ transceiver was switched on, but no sound issued from the speaker but the hiss and crackle of interstellar static. He voiced his puzzlement to Craven.

Craven laughed grimly. “They know who we are-or they think that they know. And they know that we know who they are. After what happened before, why should we expect mercy? All that we can do now-they think-is to get the Mannschenn Drive going again. But with that comic beacon of theirs working away merrily they’ll be able to home on us, no matter how random our precession.” He laughed again. “They haven’t a care in the world, bless their little black hearts.”

Grimes watched his screens. Forty kilometers-thirty-“Sir, the ALGE?” he asked.

“Yes. It’s your party now.”

For the third time reflective vapor gushed from the nozzles, surrounding the ship with a dense cloud. Craven, who had been watching the dials of the external temperature thermometers, remarked quietly, “They’ve opened fire. The shell plating’s heating up. Fast.”

And in the Control Room it felt hot-and hotter, Grimes pressed the button that unmasked his batteries. The gas screen, as well as affording protection from laser, hid the ship from visual observation. The enemy would not be expecting defense by force of arms.

He loosed his first salvo, felt the ship tremble as the missiles ejected themselves from their launching racks. There they were on the screens-six tiny sparks, six moronic mechanical intelligences programmed to home upon and destroy, capable of countering evasive action so long as their propellant held out. There they were on the screens-six of them, then four, then one. This last missile almost reached its target-then it, too, blinked out. The Waldegren frigates were now using their laser for defense, not attack.

“I don’t think,” remarked Craven quietly, “that they’ll use missiles. Not yet, anyhow. They want our cargo intact.” He chuckled softly. “But we’ve got them worried.”

Grimes didn’t bother to reply. The telltale lights on his panel told him that the six AVM launchers were reloaded. The AMMs-the anti-missile

missiles-had not yet been fired. Dare he risk their use against big targets? He carried in his magazines stock sufficient for three full salvos only- and with no laser for anti-missile work dare he deplete his supply of this ammunition?

He had heard the AMMs described as “vicious little brutes.” They were to the Anti-Vessel Missiles as terriers are to mastiffs. Their warheads were small, but this was compensated for by their greater endurance. They were, perhaps, a little more “intelligent” than the larger rockets-and Grimes, vaguely foreseeing this present contingency, had made certain modifications to their “brains.”

He pushed the button that actuated his modifications, that overrode the original programming. He depressed the firing stud. He felt the vibration as the war-rockets streaked away from the ship, and on his screens watched the tiny points of light closing the range between themselves and the two big blips that were the targets. They were fast, and they were erratic. One was picked off by laser within the first ten seconds, but the others carried on, spurting and swerving, but always boring toward their objectives. Grimes could imagine the enemy gunnery officers flailing their lasers like men, armed only with sticks, defending themselves against a horde of small, savage animals. There was, of course, one sure defense-to start up the Mannschenn Drive and to slip back into the warped continuum where the missiles could not follow. But, in all probability, the Waldegren captains had yet to accept the fact, emotionally, that this helpless merchantman had somehow acquired the wherewithal to strike back.

Two of the AMMs were gone now, picked off by the enemy laser. Three were still closing on the target on Epsilon Sextans’ port quarter, and only one of the target abaft the starboard beam. Grimes loosed his second flight of AMMs, followed it with a full salvo of AVMs. Then, knowing that the protective vapor screen must have been thinned and shredded by his rocketry, he sent out a replenishing gush of reflective gas.

He heard Craven cry out in exultation. The three AMMs of the first flight had hit their target, the three sparks had fused with the blip that represented the raider to port. The three sparks that were the second flight were almost there, and overtaking them were the larger and brighter sparks of the second AVM salvo. The Anti-Missile Missiles would cause only minor damage to a ship-but, in all probability, they would throw fire control out of kilter, might even destroy laser projectors. In theory, one AVM would suffice to destroy a frigate; a hit by three at once would make destruction a certainty.

And so it was.

Seen only on the radar screen, as a picture lacking in detail painted on a fluorescent surface by an electron brush, it was anticlimactic. The blips, the large one, the three small ones and the three not so small, merged. And then there was an oddly shaped blob of luminescence that slowly broke up into a cluster of glowing fragments, a gradually expanding cluster, a leisurely burgeoning flower of pale fire.

Said Craven viciously, “The other bastard’s got cold feet . . . .”

And so it was. Where she had been on the screen was only darkness, a darkness in which the sparks that were missiles and anti-missiles milled about aimlessly. They would not turn upon each other-that would have been contrary to their programming. They would not, in theory, use their remaining fuel to home upon the only worthwhile target remaining-Epsilon Sextans herself. But, as Craven knew and as Grimes knew, theory and practice do not always coincide. Ships have been destroyed by their own missiles.

With reluctance Grimes pushed the DESTRUCT button. He said to the Captain, gesturing toward the wreckage depicted on the screen, “Pick up

survivors, sir? If there are any.”

“If there are any,” snarled Craven, “that’s their bad luck. No-we give chase to the other swine!”

XVIII

GIVE CHASE . . .

It was easier said than done. The surviving frigate had restarted her Mannschenn Drive, had slipped back into the warped continuum where, unless synchronization of precession rates was achieved and held, contact between vessels would be impossible. The Carlotti Beacon in Epsilon Sextans’ hold was worse than useless; it had been designed to be homed upon, not to be a direction-finding instrument. (In any case, it could function as such only if the beacon aboard the Waldegren ship were working.) Neither Craven nor Grimes knew enough about the device to effect the necessary modifications. The interstellar drive engineers thought that they could do it, but their estimates as to the time required ranged from days to weeks. Obviously, as long as it was operating it would be of value to the enemy only.

So it was switched off.

There was only one method available to Craven to carry out the

pursuit-psionic tracking. He sent for his Psionic Radio Officer, explained the situation. The telepath was a young man, pasty faced, unhealthy looking, but not unintelligent. He said at once, “Do you think, Captain, that the other officers and myself are willing to carry on the fight? After all, we’ve made our point. Wouldn’t it be wisest to carry on, now, for Waverley?”

“Speaking for meself,” put in Baxter, who had accompanied Jane Pentecost to Control, “an’ fer any other Rim Worlders present, I say that now the bastards are on the run it’s the best time ter smack ’em again. An’ hard. An’ the tame time-twisters think the same as we do. I’ve already had words with ’em.” He glared at the telepath. “Our snoopin’ little friend here should know very well what the general consensus of opinion is.”

“We do not pry,” said the communications officer stiffly. “But I am willing to abide by the will of the majority.”

“And don’t the orders of the Master come into it?” asked Craven, more in amusement than anger.

“Lawful commands, sir?” asked Grimes who, until now, had been silent. “Shut up!” snapped Jane Pentecost.

“Unluckily, sir,” the young man went on, “I do not possess the direction-finding talent. It is, as you know, quite rare.”

“Then what can you do?” demanded Craven.

“Sir, let me finish, please. The psionic damping device-I don’t know what it was, but I suspect that it was the brain of some animal with which I am unfamiliar-was in the ship that was destroyed. The other vessel carries only

a normal operator, with normal equipment-himself and some sort of organic amplifier. He is still within range, and I can maintain a listening watch-“

“And suppose he listens to you?” asked the Captain. “Even if you transmit nothing-as you will not do, unless ordered by myself-there could be stray thoughts. And that, I suppose, applies to all of us.”

The telepath smiled smugly. “Direction-finding is not the only talent. I’m something of a damper myself-although not in the same class as the one that was blown up. I give you my word, sir, that this vessel is psionically silent.” He raised his hand as Craven was about to say something. “Now, sir, I shall be able to find out where the other ship is heading. I know already that her Mannschenn Drive unit is not working at full capacity; it sustained damage of some kind during the action. I’m not a navigator, sir, but it seems to me that we could be waiting for her when she reemerges into the normal continuum.”

“You’re not a navigator,” agreed Craven, “and you’re neither a tactician nor a strategist. We should look rather silly, shouldn’t we, hanging in full view over a heavily fortified naval base, a sitting duck. Even so . . .” His big right hand stroked his beard. “Meanwhile, I’ll assume that our little friends are headed in the general direction of Waldegren, and set course accordingly. If Mr. Grimes will be so good as to hunt up the target star in the Directory . .

.”

Grimes did as he was told. He had made his protest, such as it was, and, he had to admit, he was in favor of continuing the battle. It was a matter of simple justice. Why should one shipload of murderers be destroyed, and the other shipload escape unscathed? He was still more than a little dubious of the legality of it all, but he did not let it worry him.

He helped Craven to line the ship up on the target star, a yellow, fifth magnitude spark. He manned the intercom while the Captain poured on the acceleration and then, with the ship again falling free, cut in the Mannschenn Drive. When the vessel was on course he expected that the Old Man would give the usual order-“Normal Deep Space routine, Mr. Grimes,”-but this was not forthcoming.

“Now,” said Craven ominously. “Now what, sir?”

“You have a short memory, Ensign. A conveniently short memory, if I may say so. Mind you, I was favorably impressed by the way you handled your armament, but that has no bearing upon what happened before.”

Grimes blushed miserably. He knew what the Captain was driving at. But, playing for time, he asked, “What do you mean, sir?”

Craven exploded. “What do I mean? You have the crust to sit there and ask me that! Your snooping, sir. Your violation of privacy. Even worse, your violation of the Master’s privacy! I shall not tell Miss Pentecost; it would be unkind to embarrass her. But . . .”

Grimes refrained from saying that he had seen Miss Pentecost wearing even

less than when, inadvertently, he had spied upon her. He muttered, “I can explain, sir.”

“You’d better. Out with it.”

“Well, sir, it was like this. I knew that we’d stumbled on the enemy-or that the enemy had stumbled upon us. I’d sounded Action Stations. And when you were a long time coming up to Control I thought that you must have hurt yourself, somehow . . . there have been such cases, as you know. So I thought I’d better check-“

“You thought . . . you thought. I’ll not say that you aren’t paid to

think-because that’s just what an officer is paid for. But you didn’t think hard enough, or along the right lines.” Grimes could see that Craven had accepted his explanation and that all would be well. The Captain’s full beard could not hide the beginnings of a smile. “Did you ever hear of Sir Francis Drake, Ensign?”

“No, sir.”

“He was an admiral-one of Queen Elizabeth’s admirals. The first Elizabeth, of course. When the Spanish Armada was sighted he did not rush down to his flagship yelling ‘Action Stations!’ He knew that there was time to spare, and so he quietly finished what he was doing before setting sail.”

“And what was he doing, sir?” asked Grimes innocently. Craven glared at him, then snapped, “Playing bowls.”

Then, suddenly, the tension was broken and both men collapsed in helpless laughter. In part it was reaction to the strain of battle-but in greater part it was that freemasonry that exists only between members of the same sex, the acknowledgment of shared secrets and shared experiences.

Grimes knew that Jane Pentecost was not for him-and wished Craven joy of her and she of the Captain. Perhaps they had achieved a permanent relationship, perhaps not-but, either way, his best wishes were with them.

Craven unbuckled his seat strap.

“Deep Space routine, Mr. Grimes. It is your watch, I believe.” “Deep Space routine it is, sir.”

Yes, it was still his watch (although so much had happened). It was still his watch, although there were barely fifteen minutes to go before relief. He was tired, more tired than he had ever been in his life before. He was tired, but not unhappy. He knew that the fact that he had killed men should be weighing heavily upon his conscience-but it did not. They, themselves, had been killers-and they had had a far better chance than any of their own victims had enjoyed.

He would shed no tears for them. XIX

CRAVEN CAME BACK to the Control Room at the change of watch, when Grimes was handing over to Jane Pentecost. He waited until the routine had been completed, then said, “We know where our friends are headed. They were, like us, running for Waldegren-but they’re having to change course.” He laughed harshly. “There must be all hell let loose on their home planet.”

“Why? What’s happened?” asked Grimes.

“I’ll tell you later. But, first of all, we have an alteration of course ourselves. Look up Dartura in the Directory, will you, while I get the Drive shut down.”

Epsilon Sextans was falling free through normal spacetime before Grimes had found the necessary information. And then there was the hunt for and the final identification of the target star, followed by the lining up by the use of the directional gyroscopes. There was the brief burst of acceleration and then, finally, the interstellar drive was cut in once more.

The Captain made a business of selecting and lighting a cigar. When the pungent combustion was well under way he said, “Our young Mr. Summers is a good snooper. Not as good as some people I know, perhaps.” Grimes flushed and Jane Pentecost looked puzzled. “He’s a super-sensitive. He let me have a full transcript of all the signals, out and in. It took us a little time to get them sorted out-but not too long, considering. Adler-that’s the name of the surviving frigate- was running for home. Her Captain sent a rather heavily edited report of the action to his Admiral. It seems that Adler and the unfortunate Albatross were set upon and beaten up by a heavily armed Survey Service cruiser masquerading as an innocent merchantman. The Admiral, oddly enough, doesn’t want a squadron of Survey Service battlewagons laying nuclear eggs on his base. So Adler has been told to run away and lose herself until the flap’s over . . . .”

“And did they send all that en clair?” demanded Grimes. “They must be mad!”

“No, they aren’t mad. The signal’s weren’t en clair.” “But . . .”

“Reliable merchant captains,” said Craven, “are often entrusted with highly confidential naval documents. There were some such in my safe aboard Delta Orionis, consigned to the Commanding Officer of Lindisfarne Base. The officer who delivered them to me is an old friend and shipmate of mine, and he told me that among them was the complete psionic code used by the Waldegren Navy. Well, when I had decided to take over this ship, I’d have been a bloody fool not to have Photostatted the whole damned issue.

“So that’s the way of it. Herr Kapitan von Leidnitz thinks he can say what he likes to his superiors without anybody else knowing what he’s saying. And all the while . . .” Craven grinned wolfishly. “It seems that there’s a minor base, of sorts, on Dartura. Little more than repair yards, although I suppose that there’ll be a few batteries for their protection. I can imagine the sort of personnel they have running the show-passed-over commanders and the like, not overly bright. By the time that we get there we shall have concocted a convincing story-convincing enough to let us hang off in orbit

until Adler appears on the scene. After all, we have their precious code. Why should they suspect us?”

“Why shouldn’t we be Adler?” asked Grimes. “What do you mean, Ensign?”

“The Waldegren Navy’s frigates are almost identical, in silhouette, with the Commission’s Epsilon class freighters. We could disguise this ship a little by masking the dissimilarities by a rough patching of plating. After all, Adler was in action and sustained some damage-“

“Complicated,” mused the Captain. “Too complicated. And two Adlers-each, presumably, in encoded psionic communication with both Waldegren and Dartura . . . . You’ve a fine, devious mind, young Grimes-but I’m afraid you’ve out-fixed yourself on that one.”

“Let me talk, sir. Let me think out loud. To begin with-a ship running on Mannschenn Drive can put herself into orbit about a planet, but it’s not, repeat not, recommended.”

“Damn right it’s not.”

“But we have the heels of Adler? Yes? Then we could afford a slight delay to carry out the modifications-the disguise-that I’ve suggested. After all, forty odd light years is quite a long way.”

“But what do we gain, Mr. Grimes?”

“The element of confusion, sir. Let me work it out. We disguise ourselves as well as we can. We find out, from intercepted and decoded signals, Adler’s ETA-and the coordinates of her breakthrough into the normal continuum. We contrive matters to be more or less in the same place at exactly the same time. And when the shore batteries and the guardships see no less than two Adlers slugging it out, each of them yelling for help in the secret code, they won’t know which of us to open fire on.”

“Grimes,” said Craven slowly, “I didn’t know you had it in you. All I can say is that I’m glad that you’re on our side.”

“Am I?” asked Grimes wonderingly,. suddenly deflated. He looked at the Captain who, after all, was little better than a pirate, whose accomplice he had become. He looked at the girl, but for whom he would not be here. “Am I? Damn it all, whose side am I on?”

“You’d better go below,” Craven told him gently. “Go below and get some sleep. You need it. You’ve earned it.”

“Jeremy,” said Jane Pentecost to Craven, “would you mind looking after the shop for half an hour or so? I’ll go with John.”

“As you please, my dear. As you please.”

It was the assurance in the Captain’s voice that hurt. It won’t make any difference to us, it implied. It can’t make any difference. Sure, Jane, go ahead. Throw the nice little doggie a bone . . . . we can spare it.

“No thank you,” said Grimes coldly, and left the Control Room. But he couldn’t hate these people.

AFTER A LONG SLEEP Grimes felt better. After a meal he felt better still. It was a good meal, even though the solid portion of it came from tins. Craven’s standards were slipping, thought the Ensign. He was reasonably sure that such items as caviar, escargots, pƒt‚ de foie gras, Virginia ham, Brie, and remarkably alcoholic cherries were not included in the Commission’s inventory of emergency stores. And neither would be the quite reasonable Montrachet, although it had lost a little by being decanted from its original bottles into standard squeeze bulbs. But if the Captain had decided that the laborer was worthy of his hire, with the consignees of the cargo making their contribution toward that hire, that was his privilege . . .? Responsibility?-call it what you will.

Jane Pentecost watched him eat. As he was finishing his coffee she said, “Now that our young lion has fed, he is required in the Control Room.”

He looked at her both gratefully and warily. “What have I done now?” “Nothing, my dear. It is to discuss what you-we-will do. Next.”

He followed her to Control. Craven was there, of course, and so were Baxter and Summers. The Captain was enjoying one of his rank cigars, and a limp, roll-your-own cigarette dangled from the engineer’s lower lip. The telepath coughed pointedly every time that acrid smoke expelled by either man drifted his way. Neither paid any attention to him, and neither did Grimes when he filled and lighted his own pipe.

Craven said, “I’ve been giving that scheme of yours some thought. It’s a good one.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me. I should thank you. Mr. Summers, here, has been maintaining a careful listening watch. Adler’s ETA is such that we can afford to shut down the Drive to make the modifications that you suggest. To begin with, we’ll fake patching plates with plastic sheets-we can’t afford to cannibalize any more of the ship’s structure-so as to obscure our name and identification letters. We’ll use more plastic to simulate missile launchers and laser projectors-luckily there’s plenty of it in the cargo.”

“We found more than plastic while we were lookin’ for it,” said the engineer, licking his lips.

“That will do, Mr. Baxter. Never, in normal circumstances, should I have condoned . . .”

“These circumstances ain’t normal, Skipper, an’ we all bloody well know it.” “That will do, I say.” Craven inhaled deeply, then filled the air of the

Control Room with a cloud of smoke that, thought Grimes, would have

reflected laser even at close range. Summers almost choked, and Jane

snapped, “Jeremy!”

“This, my dear, happens to be my Control Room.” He turned again to the Ensign. “It will not be necessary, Mr. Grimes, to relocate the real weapons. They functioned quite efficiently where they are and, no doubt, will do so again. And now, as soon as I have shut down the Drive, I shall hand the watch over to you. You are well rested and refreshed.”

“Come on,” said Jane to Baxter. “Let’s get suited up and get that sheeting out of the airlock.”

“Couldn’t Miss Pentecost hold the fort, sir?” asked Grimes. He added, “I’ve been through the camouflage course at the Academy.”

“And so have I, Mr. Grimes. Furthermore, Miss Pentecost has had experience in working outside, but I don’t think that you have.”

“No, sir. But . . . “

“That will be all, Mr. Grimes.”

At Craven’s orders the Drive was shut down, and outside the viewports the sparse stars became stars again, were no longer pulsing spirals of

multi-colored light. Then, alone in Control, Grimes actuated his scanners so that he could watch the progress of the work outside the hull, and switched on the transceiver that worked on the spacesuit frequency.

This time he ran no risk of being accused of being a Peeping Tom.

He had to admire the competence with which his shipmates worked. The plastic sheeting had no mass to speak of, but it was awkward stuff to handle. Torches glowed redly as it was cut, and radiated invisibly in the infrared as it was shaped and welded. The workers, in their bulky, clumsy suits, moved with a grace that was in startling contrast to their attire-a Deep Space ballet, thought Grimes, pleasurably surprised at his own way with words. From the speaker of the transceiver came Craven’s curt orders, the brief replies of the others.

“This way a little . . . that’s it.” “She’ll do, Skipper.”

“No she won’t. Look at the bend on it!”

Then Jane’s laughing voice. “Our secret weapon, Jeremy. A laser that fires around corners!”

“That will do, Miss Pentecost. Straighten it, will you?” “Ay, ay, sir. Captain, sir.”

The two interstellar drive engineers were working in silence, but with efficiency. Aboard the ship were only Grimes and Summers, the telepath.

Grimes felt out of it, but somebody had to mind the shop, he supposed. But the likelihood of any customers was remote.

Then he stiffened in his chair. One of the spacesuited figures was falling away from the vessel, drifting out and away, a tiny, glittering satellite reflecting the harsh glare of the working floods, a little, luminous butterfly pinned to the black velvet of the Ultimate Night. Who was it? He didn’t know for certain, but thought that it was Jane. The ship’s interplanetary drives-reaction and inertial- were on remote control, but reaction drive was out; before employing it he would have to swing to the desired heading by use of the directional gyroscopes. But the inertial drive was versatile.

He spoke into the microphone of the transceiver. “Secure yourselves. I am proceeding to rescue.”

At once Craven’s voice snapped back, “Hold it, Grimes. Hold it! There’s no danger.”

“But, sir . . . ” “Hold it!”

Grimes could see the distant figure now from a viewport, but it did not seem to be receding any longer. Hastily he checked with the radar. Range and bearing were not changing. Then, with relative bearing unaltered, the range was closing. He heard Jane call out, “Got it! I’m on the way back!”

Craven replied, “Make it snappy-otherwise young Grimes’ll be chasing you all over the Universe!”

Grimes could see, now, the luminous flicker of a suit reaction unit from the lonely figure.

Later, he and the others examined the photographs that Jane had taken.

Epsilon Sextans looked as she was supposed to look-like a badly battle-scarred frigate of the Waldegren Navy.

XXI

IN TERMS OF SPACE and of time there was not much longer to go.

The two ships-one knowing and one unknowing-raced toward their rendezvous. Had they been plunging through the normal continuum there would have been, toward the finish, hardly the thickness of a coat of paint between them, the adjustment of a microsecond in temporal precession rates would have brought inevitable collision. Craven knew this from the results of his own observations and from the encoded position reports, sent at six hourly intervals, by Adler. Worried, he allowed himself to fall astern, a mere half kilometer. It would be enough-and, too, it would mean that the frigate would mask him from the fire of planet-based batteries.

Summers maintained his listening watch. Apart from the position reports he had little of interest to tell the Captain. Adler, once or twice, had tried to get in contact with the Main Base on Waldegren-but, other than from a curt directive to proceed as ordered there were no signals from the planet to the ship. Dartura Base was more talkative. That was understandable. There was no colony on the planet and the Base personnel must be bored, must be pining for the sight of fresh faces, the sound of fresh voices. They would

have their excitement soon enough, promised Craven grimly.

Through the warped continuum fell the two ships, and ahead the pulsating spiral that was the Dartura sun loomed ever brighter, ever larger. There were light years yet to go, but the Drive-induced distortions made it seem that tentacles of incandescent gas were already reaching out to clutch them, to drag them into the atomic furnace at the heart of the star.

In both Control Rooms watch succeeded watch-but the thoughts and the anticipations of the watchkeepers were not the same. Aboard Adler there was the longing for rest, for relaxation-although Adler’s Captain must have been busy with the composition of a report that would clear him (if possible) of blame for his defeat. Aboard Epsilon Sextans there was the anticipation of revenge-insofar as Craven, Baxter, Jane Pentecost and the survivors of the ship’s original personnel were concerned. Grimes? As the hour of reckoning approached he was more and more dubious. He did not know what to think, what to feel. There was the strong personal loyalty to Craven-and, even now, to Jane Pentecost. There was the friendship and mutual respect that had come into being between himself and Baxter. There was the knowledge that Adler’s crew were no better than pirates, were murderers beyond rehabilitation. There was the pride he felt in his own skill as a gunnery officer. (But, as such, was he, himself, any better than a pirate, a murderer? The exercise of his craft aboard a warship would be legal-but here, aboard a merchantman, and a disguised merchantman at that, the legality was doubtful. What had his motives been when he volunteered-and as a commissioned officer of the Survey Service he had had no right to do so-and what were his motives now?)

He, Grimes, was not happy. He had far too much time to ponder the implications. He was an accessory before, during and after the fact. He had started off correctly enough, when he had tried to prevent Craven from requisitioning the Survey Service cargo aboard Delta Orionis, but after that .

. . after he and Jane . . . (that, he admitted, was a memory that he wanted to keep, always, just as that other memory, of the bright picture of naked female flesh on the screen, he wished he could lose forever.)

He had started off correctly enough-and then, not only had he helped install the purloined armament but had used it. (And used it well, he told himself with a brief resurgence of pride.) Furthermore, the disguise of Epsilon Sextans had been his idea.

Oh, he was in it, all right. He was in up to his neck. What the final outcome of it all would be he did not care to contemplate.

But it would soon be over. He had no fears as to the outcome of the battle. The element of surprise would be worth at least a dozen missile launchers. Adler would never have the chance to use her laser.

ADLER, REPORTED SUMMERS, had shut down her Mannschenn Drive and emerged briefly into normal spacetime to make her final course adjustment. She was now headed not for the Dartura Sun but for the planet itself-or where the planet would be at the time of her final-and fatal- reemergence into the continuum. The last ETA was sent, together with the coordinates of her planetfall. Epsilon Sextans made her own course

adjustment-simultaneity in time and a half kilometer’s divergence in space being Craven’s objective. It was finicky work, even with the use of the ship’s computer, but the Captain seemed satisfied.

The race-the race that would culminate in a dead heat-continued. Aboard the frigate there was, reported Summers, a lessening of tension, the loosening up that comes when a voyage is almost over. Aboard the merchantman the tension increased. The interstellar drive engineers, Grimes knew, were no happier about it all than he was-but they could no more back out than he could. Craven was calm and confident, and Baxter was beginning to gloat. Jane Pentecost assumed the air of dedication that in women can be so infuriating. Grimes glumly checked and rechecked his weaponry. It passed the time.

Dartura itself was visible now-not as tiny disk of light but as a glowing annulus about its distorted primary. The thin ring of luminescence broadened, broadened. The time to go dwindled to a week, to days, to a day, and then to hours . . .

To minutes . . . To seconds . . . .

Craven and Grimes were in the Control Room; the others were at their various stations. From the intercom came the telepath’s voice, “He’s cutting the Drive-“

“Cut the Drive!” ordered the Captain.

In the Mannschenn Drive room the spinning, precessing gyroscopes slowed, slowed, ceased their endless tumbling, assumed the solidity that they exhibited only when at rest. For perhaps two seconds there was temporal confusion in the minds of all on board as the precession field died, and past, present and future inextricably mingled. Then there was a sun glaring through the viewports, bright in spite of the polarization-a sun, and, directly ahead, a great, green-orange planet. There was a ship . . . .

There were ships-ahead of them, astern, on all sides.

There were ships-and, booming from the intership transceiver, the transceiver that was neither tuned nor switched on (but navies could afford induction transmitters with their fantastic power consumption), came the authorative voice: “Inflexible to Adler! Heave to for search and seizure ! Do not attempt to escape-our massed fields will hold you!”

The effect was rather spoiled when the same voice added, in bewilderment, “Must be seeing double . . . there’s two of the bastards.” The bewilderment did not last long. “Inflexible to Adler and to unidentified vessel. Heave to for search and seizure!”

“Hold your fire, Mr. Grimes,” ordered Craven, quietly and bitterly. “It’s the Survey Service.”

“I know,” replied Grimes-and pressed the button. XXII

HE NEVER KNEW just why he had done so.

Talking it over afterward, thinking about it, he was able to evolve a theory that fitted the facts. During the brief period immediately after the shutting down of the Drive, during the short session of temporal disorientation, there had been prescience, of a sort. He had known that Adler, come what may, would attempt one last act of defiance and revenge, just as Adler’s Captain or Gunnery Officer must have known, in that last split second, that Nemesis was treading close upon his heels.

He pushed the button-and from the nozzles in the shell plating poured the reflective vapor, the protective screen that glowed ruddily as Adler’s lasers slashed out at it.

From the speaker of the dead transceiver, the transceiver that should have been dead, roared the voice of the Survey Service Admiral. “Adler! Cease fire! Cease fire, damn you!” There was a pause, then: “You’ve asked for it!”

She had asked for it-and now she got it. Suddenly the blip on Grimes’ screen that represented the Waldegren frigate became two smaller blips, and then four. The rolling fog outside Epsilon Sextans’ viewports lost its luminosity, faded suddenly to drab grayness. The voice from the transceiver said coldly, “And now you, whoever you are, had better identify yourself. And fast.”

Craven switched on the communications equipment. He spoke quietly into the microphone. “Interstellar Transport Commission’s Epsilon Sextans. Bound Waverly, with general cargo . . .”

“Bound Waverley? Then what the hell are you doing here? And what’s that armament you’re mounting?”

“Plastic,” replied the Captain. “Plastic dummies.”

“And I suppose your ALGE is plastic, too. Come off it, Jerry. We’ve already boarded your old ship, and although your ex-Mate was most reluctant to talk we got a story of sorts from him.”

“I thought I recognized your voice, Bill. May I congratulate you upon your belated efforts to stamp out piracy?”

“And may I deplore your determination to take the law into your own hands? Stand by for the boarding party.”

Grimes looked at Craven, who was slumped in his seat. The Master’s full beard effectively masked his expression. “Sir,” asked the Ensign. “What can they do? What will they do?”

“You’re the space lawyer, Grimes. You’re the expert on Survey Service rules and regulations. What will it be, do you think? A medal-or a firing squad? Praise or blame?”

“You know the Admiral, sir?”

“Yes. I know the Admiral. We’re old shipmates.”

“Then you should be safe.”

“Safe? I suppose so. Safe from the firing squad-but not safe from my employers. I’m a merchant captain, Grimes, and merchant captains aren’t supposed to range the spacelanes looking for trouble. I don’t think they’ll dare fire me-but I know that I can never expect command of anything better than Delta class ships, on the drearier runs.” Grimes saw that Craven was smiling. “But there’re still the Rim Worlds. There’s still the Sundowner Line, and the chance of high rank in the Rim Worlds Navy when and if there is such a service.”

“You have . . . inducements, sir?”

“Yes. There are . . . inducements. Now.”

“I thought, once,” said Grimes, “that I could say the same. But not now. Not any longer. Even so . . . I’m Survey Service, sir, and I should be proud of my service. But in this ship, this merchant vessel, with her makeshift armament, we fought against heavy odds, and won. And, just now, we saved ourselves. It wasn’t the Survey Service that saved us.”

“Don’t be disloyal,” admonished Craven.

“I’m not being disloyal, sir. But . . . or, shall we say, I’m being loyal. You’re the first captain under whom I served under fire. If you’re going out to the Rim Worlds I’d like to come with you.”

“Your commission, Grimes. You know that you must put in ten years’ service before resignation is possible.”

“But I’m dead.”

“Dead!”

“Yes. Don’t you remember? I was snooping around in the Mannschenn Drive room and I got caught in the temporal precession field. My body still awaits burial; it’s in a sealed metal box in the deep freeze. It can never be identified.”

Craven laughed. “I’ll say this for you. You’re ingenious. But how do we account for the absence of the late Mr. Wolverton? And your presence aboard this ship?”

“I can hide, sir, and . . .”

“And while you’re hiding you’ll concoct some story that will explain everything. Oh Grimes, Grimes-you’re an officer I wish I could always have with me. But I’ll not stand in the way of your career. All I can do, all I will do, is smooth things over on your behalf with the Admiral. I should be able to manage that.”

Jane Pentecost emerged from the hatch in the Control Room deck. Addressing Craven she said formally, “Admiral Williams, sir.” She moved to one side to make way for the flag officer.

“Jerry, you bloody pirate!” boomed Williams, a squat, rugged man the left

breast of whose shirt was ablaze with ribbons. He advanced with outstretched hand.

“Glad to have you aboard, Bill. This is Liberty Hall-you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!”

“Not again!” groaned Grimes.

“And who is this young man?” asked the Admiral.

“I owe you-or your Service-an apology, Bill. This is Ensign Grimes, who was a passenger aboard Delta Orionis. I’m afraid that I . . . er . . . press-ganged him into my service. But he has been most . . . cooperative? Uncooperative? Which way do you want it?

“As we are at war with Waldegren-I’d say cooperative with reservations. Was it he, by the way, who used the ALGE? Just as well for you all that he did.”

“At war with Waldegren?” demanded Jane Pentecost. “So you people have pulled your fingers out at last.”

The Admiral raised his eyebrows.

“One of my Rim Worlders,” explained Craven. “But I shall be a Rim Worlder myself shortly.”

“You’re wise, Jerry. I’ve got the buzz that the Commission is taking a very dim view of your piracy or privateering or whatever it was, and my own lords and masters are far from pleased with you. You’d better get the hell out before the lawyers have decided just what crimes you are guilty of.”

“As bad as that?” “As bad as that.”

“And young Grimes, here?”

“We’ll take him back. Six months’ strict discipline aboard my flagship will undo all the damage that you and your ideas have done to him. And now, Jerry, I’d like your full report.”

“In my cabin, Bill. Talking is thirsty work.” “Then lead on. It’s your ship.”

“And it’s your watch, Mr. Grimes. She’ll come to no harm on this trajectory while we get things sorted out.”

GRIMES SAT WITH JANE PENTECOST in the Control Room. Through the ports, had he so desired, he could have watched the rescue teams extricating the survivors from the wreckage of Adler; he could have stared out at the looming bulk of Dartura on the beam. But he did not do so, and neither did he look at his instruments.

He looked at Jane. There was so much about her that he wanted to remember-and, after all, so very little that he was determined to forget.

The intercom buzzed. “Mr. Grimes, will you pack whatever gear you have and prepare to transfer with Admiral Williams to the flagship? Hand the watch over to Miss Pentecost.”

“But you’ll be shorthanded, sir.”

“The Admiral is lending me a couple of officers for the rest of the voyage.” “Very good, sir.”

Grimes made no move. He looked at Jane-a somehow older, a tireder, a more human Jane than the girl he had first met. He said, “I’d have liked to have come out to the Rim with you . . . .”

She said, “It’s impossible, John.” “I know. But . . .”

“You’d better get packed.”

He unbuckled his seat belt, went to where she was sitting. He kissed her. She responded, but it was only the merest flicker of a response.

He said, “Goodbye.”

She said, “Not goodbye. We’ll see you out on the Rim, sometime.” With a bitterness that he was always to regret he replied, “Not very likely.”

The End

Final notes on John Grimes

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Double Star (full text) by Robert Heinlein

Double Star is considered by many to be the finest of his titles. Brian Aldiss called it his “most enjoyable novel.” Whether it is the simplicity of a lively tale, the complexity of the situation, or the depth of characterization, the book has developed a loyal following. It also won Heinlein his first Hugo.

Double Star is one of Robert Heinlein’s most enjoyable early period SF novels, a short and tightly-plotted story of out-of-work actor Lawrence Smith (aka “The Great Lorenzo”), who is unexpectedly tapped for a very important acting job, to impersonate an important politician named John Bonforte who has been kidnapped.

Double Star

Chapter 1

If a man walks in dressed like a hick and acting as if he owned the place, he’s a spaceman.

It is a logical necessity. His profession makes him feel like boss of all creation; when he sets foot dirtside he is slumming among the peasants. As for his sartorial inelegance, a man who is in uniform nine tenths of the time and is more used to deep space than to civilization can hardly be expected to know how to dress properly. He is a sucker for the alleged tailors who swarm around every spaceport peddling “ground outfits.”

I could see that this big-boned fellow had been dressed by Omar the Tentmaker-padded shoulders that were too big to start with, shorts cut so that they crawled up his hairy thighs as he sat down, a ruffled chemise that might have looked well on a cow.

But I kept my opinion to myself and bought him a drink with my last half-Imperial, considering it an investment, spacemen being the way they are about money. “Hot jets!” I said as we touched glasses. He gave me a quick glance.

That was my initial mistake in dealing with Dak Broadbent. Instead of answering, “Clear space!” or, “Safe grounding!” as he should have, he looked me over and said softly, “Anice sentiment, but to the wrong man. I’ve never been out.”

That was another good place to keep my mouth shut. Spacemen did not often come to the bar of Casa Manana; it was not their Sort of hotel and it’s miles from the port. When one shows up in ground clothes, seeks a dark corner of the bar, and objects to being called a spaceman, that’s his business. I had picked that spot myself so that I could see without being seen-I owed a little money here and there at the time, nothing important but embarrassing. I should have assumed that he had his reasons, too, and respected them.

But my vocal cords lived their own life, wild and free. “Don’t give me that, shipmate,” I replied. “If you’re a ground hog, I’m Mayor of Tycho City. I’ll wager you’ve done more drinking on Mars,” I added, noticing the cautious way he lifted his glass, a dead giveaway of low-gravity habits, “than you’ve ever done on Earth.”

“Keep your voice down!” he cut in without moving his lips. “What makes you sure that I am a voyageur? You don’t know me.” “Sorry,” I said. “You can be anything you like. But I’ve got eyes. You gave yourself away the minute you walked in.”

He said something under his breath. “How?”

“Don’t let it worry you. I doubt if anyone else noticed. But I see things other people don’t see.” I handed him my card, a little smugly perhaps. There is only one Lorenzo Smythe, the One- Man Stock Company. Yes, I’m “The Great Lorenzo”-stereo, canned opera, legit-“Pantomimist and Mimicry Artist Extraordinary.”

He read my card and dropped it into a sleeve pocket-which annoyed me; those cards had cost me money-genuine imitation hand engraving. “I see your point,” he said quietly, “but what was wrong with the way I behaved?”

“I’ll show you,” I said. “I’ll walk to the door like a ground hog and come back the way you walk. Watch.” I did so, making the trip back in a slightly exaggerated version of his walk to allow for his untrained eye-feet sliding softly along the floor as if it were deck plates, weight carried forward and balanced from the hips, hands a trifle forward and clear of the body, ready to grasp.

There are a dozen other details which can’t be set down in words; the point is you have to be a spaceman when you do it, with a spaceman’s alert body and unconscious balance-you have to live it. Acity man blunders along on smooth floors all his life, steady floors with Earth-normal gravity, and will trip over a cigarette paper, like as not. Not so a spaceman.

“See what I mean?” I asked, slipping back into my seat. “I’m afraid I do,” he admitted suurly. “Did I walk like that?” “Yes.”

“Hmmm… Maybe I should take lessons from you.” “You could do worse,” I admitted.

He sat there looking me over, then started to speak-changed his mind and wiggled a finger at the bartender to refill our glasses. When the drinks came, he paid for them, drank his, and slid out of his seat all in one smooth motion. “Wait for me,” he said quietly.

With a drink he had bought sitting in front of me I could not refuse. Nor did I want to; he interested me. I liked him, even on ten minutes’ acquaintance; he was the sort of big ugly- handsome galoot that women go for and men take orders from.

He threaded his way gracefully through the room and passed a table of four Martians near the door. I didn’t like Martians. I did not fancy having a thing that looks like a tree trunk topped off by a sun helmet claiming the privileges of a man. I did not like the way they grew pseudo limbs; it reminded me of snakes crawling out of their holes. I did not like the fact that they could look all directions at once without turning their heads-if they had had heads, which of course they don’t. And I could not stand their smell!

Nobody could accuse me of race prejudice. I didn’t care what a man’s color, race, or religion was. But men were men, whereas Martians were things. They weren’t even animals to my way of thinking. I’d rather have had a wart hog around me any day. Permitting them in restaurants and bars used by men struck me as outrageous. But there was the Treaty, of course, so what could I do?

These four had not been there when I came in, or I would have whiffed them. For that matter, they certainly could not have been there a few moments earlier when I had walked to the door and back. Now there they were, standing on their pedestals around a table, pretending to be people. I had not even heard the air conditioning speed up.

The free drink in front of me did not attract me; I simply wanted my host to come back so that I could leave politely. It suddenly occurred to me that he had glanced over that way just before he had left so hastily and I wondered if the Martians had anything to do with it. I looked over at them, trying to see if they were paying attention to our table-but how could you tell what a Martian was looking at or what it was thinking? That was another thing I didn’t like about them.

I sat there for several minutes fiddling with my drink and wondering what had happened to my spaceman friend. I had hoped that his hospitality might extend to dinner and, if we became sufficiently simpatico, possibly even to a small temporary loan. My other prospects were-I admit it!-slender. The last two times I had tried to call my agent his autosecretary had simply recorded the message, and unless I deposited coins in the door, my room would not open to me that night … That was how low my fortunes had ebbed: reduced to sleeping in a coin- operated cubicle.

In the midst of my melancholy ponderings a waiter touched me on the elbow. “Call for you, sir.” “Eh? Very well, friend, will you fetch an instrument to the table?”

“Sorry, sir, but I can’t transfer it. Booth 12 in the lobby.”

“Oh. Thank you,” I answered, making it as warm as possible since I was unable to tip him. I swung wide around the Martians as I went Out.

I soon saw why the call had not been brought to the table; No. 12 was a maximum-security booth, sight, sound, and scramble. The tank showed no image and did not clear even after the door locked behind me. It remained milky until I sat down and placed my face within pickup, then the opalescent clouds melted away and I found myself looking at my spaceman friend.

“Sorry to walk out on you,” he said quickly, “but I was in a hurry. I want you to come at once to Room 2106 of the Eisenhower.”

He offered no explanation. The Eisenhower is just as unlikely a hotel for spacemen as Casa Manana. I could smell trouble. You don’t pick up a stranger in a bar and then insist that he come to a hotel room-well, not one of the same sex, at least.

“Why?” I asked.

The spaceman got that look peculiar to men who are used to being obeyed without question; I studied it with professional interest-it’s not the same as anger; it is more like a thundercloud just before a storm. Then he got himself in hand and answered quietly, “Lorenzo, there is no time to explain. Are you open to a job?”

“Do you mean a professional engagement?” I answered slowly. For a horrid instant I suspected that he was offering me … Well, you know-a job. Thus far I had kept my professional pride intact, despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

“Oh, professional, of course!” he answered quickly. “This requires the best actor we can get.”

I did not let my relief show in my face. It was true that J was ready for any professional work-I would gladly have played the balcony in Romeo and Juliet-but it does not do to be eager. “What is the nature of the engagement?” I asked. “My calendar is rather full.”

He brushed it aside. “I can’t explain over the phone. Perhaps you don’t know it, but any scrambler circuit can be unscrambled- with the proper equipment. Shag over here fast!”

He was eager; therefore I could afford not to be eager. “Now really,” I protested, “what do you think I am? Abellman? Or an untried juvenile anxious for the privilege of carrying a spear? I am Lorenzo!” I threw up my chin and looked offended. “What is your offer?”

“Uh… Damn it, I can’t go into it over the phone. How much do you get?” “Eh? You are asking my professional salary?”

“Yes, yes!”

“For a single appearance? Or by the week? Or an option contract?” “Never mind. What do you get by the day?”

“My minimum fee for a one-evening date is one hundred Imperials.” This was simple truth. Oh, I have been coerced at times into paying some scandalous kickbacks, but the voucher never read less than my proper fee. Aman has his standards. I’d rather starve.

“Very well,” he answered quickly, “one hundred Imperials in cash, laid in your hand the minute you show up here. But hurry!”

“Eh?” I realized with sudden dismay that I could as easily have said two hundred, or even two fifty. “But I have not agreed to accept the engagement.”

“Never mind that! We’ll talk it over when you get here. The hundred is yours even if you turn us down. If you accept-well, call it bonus, over and above your salary. Now will you sign off and get over here?”

I bowed. “Certainly, sir. Have patience.”

Fortunately the Eisenhower is not too far from the Casa, for I did not even have a minimum for tube fare. However, although the art of strolling is almost lost, I savor it-and it gave me time to collect my thoughts. I was no fool; I was aware that when another man is too anxious to force money on one, it is time to examine the cards, for there is almost certainly something illegal, or dangerous, or both, involved in the matter. I was not unduly fussy about legality qua legality; I agreed with the Bard that the Law is often an idiot. But in the main I had stayed on the right side of the Street.

But presently I realized that I had insufficient facts, so I put it out of my mind, threw my cape over my right shoulder, and strode along, enjoying the mild autumn weather and the rich and varied odors of the metropolis. On arrival I decided to forego the main entrance and took a bounce tube from the sub-basement to the twenty-first floor, I having at the time a vague feeling that this was not the place to let my public recognize me. My voyageur friend let me in. “You took long enough,” he snapped.

“Indeed?” I let it go at that and looked around me. It was an expensive suite, as I had expected, but it was littered and there were at least a dozen used glasses and as many coffee cups scattered here and there; it took no skill to see that I was merely the latest of many visitors. Sprawled on a couch, scowling at me, was another man, whom I tabbed tentatively as a spaceman. I glanced inquiringly but no introduction was offered.

“Well, you’re here, at least. Let’s get down to business.”

“Surely. Which brings to mind,” I added, “there was mention of a bonus, or retainer.” “Oh, yes.” He turned to the man on the couch. “Jock, pay him.”

“For what?” “Pay him!”

I now knew which one was boss-although, as I was to learn, there was usually little doubt when Dak Broadbent was in a room. The other fellow stood up quickly, still scowling, and counted Out to me a fifty and five tens. I tucked it away casually without checking it and said, “I am at your disposal, gentlemen.”

The big man chewed his lip. “First, I want your solemn oath not even to talk in your sleep about this job.”

“If my simple word is not good, is my oath better?” I glanced at the smaller man, slouched again on the couch. “I don’t believe we have met. I am Lorenzo.” He glanced at me, looked away. My barroom acquaintance said hastily, “Names don’t matter in this.”

“No? Before my revered father died he made me promise him three things: first, never to mix whisky with anything but water; second, always to ignore anonymous letters; and lastly, never to talk with a stranger who refuses to give his name. Good day, sirs.” I turned toward the door, their hundred Imperials warm in my pocket.

“Hold it!” I paused. He went on, “You are perfectly right. My name is-“ “Skipper!”

“Stow it, Jock. I’m Dak Broadbent; that’s Jacques Dubois glaring at us. We’re both voyageurs-master pilots, all classes, any acceleration.” I bowed. “Lorenzo Smythe,” I said modestly, “jongleur and artist-care of The Lambs Club.” I made a mental note to pay my dues.

“Good. Jock, try smiling for a change. Lorenzo, you agree to keep our business secret?” “Under the rose. This is a discussion between gentlemen.”

“Whether you take the job or not?”

“Whether we reach agreement or not. I am human, but, short of illegal methods of questioning, your confidences are sale with me.” “I am well aware of what neodexocaine will do to a man’s forebrain, Lorenzo. We don’t expect the impossible.”

“Dak,” Dubois said urgently, “this is a mistake. We should at least—”

“Shut up, Jock. I want no hypnotists around at this point. Lorenzo, we want you to do an impersonation job. It has to be so perfect that no one-I mean no one-will ever know it took place. Can you do that sort of a job?”

I frowned. “The first question is not ‘Can I?’ but ‘Will I?’ What are the circumstances?”

“Uh, we’ll go into details later. Roughly, it is the ordinary doubling job for a well-known public figure. The difference is that the impersonation will have to be so perfect as to fool people who know him well and must see him close up. It won’t be just reviewing a parade from a grandstand, or pinning medals on girl scouts.” He looked at me shrewdly. “It will take a real artist.”

“No,” I said at once.

“Huh? You don’t know anything about the job yet. If your conscience is bothering you, let me assure you that you will not be working against the interests of the man you will impersonate- nor against anyone’s legitimate interests. This is a job that really needs to be done.”

“No.”

“Well, for Pete’s sake, why? You don’t even know how much we will pay.” “Pay is no object,” I said firmly. “I am an actor, not a double.”

“I don’t understand you. There are lots of actors picking up spare money making public appearances for celebrities.”

“I regard them as prostitutes, not colleagues. Let me make myself clear. Does an author respect a ghost writer? Would you respect a painter who allowed another man to sign his work- for money? Possibly the spirit of the artist is foreign to you, sir, yet perhaps I may put it in terms germane to your own profession. Would you, simply for money, be content to pilot a ship while some other man, not possessing your high art, wore the uniform, received the credit, was publicly acclaimed as the Master? Would you?”

Dubois snorted. “How much money?”

Broadbent frowned at him. “I think I understand your objection.”

“To the artist, sir, kudos comes first. Money is merely the mundane means whereby he is enabled to create his art.”

“Hmm… All right, so you won’t do it just for money. Would you do it for other reasons? If you felt that it had to be done and you were the only one who could do it successfully?” “I concede the possibility; I cannot imagine the circumstances.”

“You won’t have to imagine them; we’ll explain them to you.” Dubois jumped up off the couch. “Now see here, Dak, you can’t—” “Cut it, Jock! He has to know.”

“He doesn’t have to know now-and here. And you haven’t any right to jeopardize everybody else by telling him. You don’t know a thing about him.” “It’s a calculated risk.” Broadbent turned back to me.

Dubois grabbed his arm, swung him around. “Calculated risk be damned! Dak, I’ve strung along with you in the past~-but this time before I’ll let you shoot off your face, well, one or the other of us isn’t going to be in any shape to talk.”

Broadbent looked startled, then grinned coldly down at Dubois. “Think you’re up to it, Jock old son?”

Dubois glared up at him, did not flinch. Broadbent was a head taller and outweighed him by twenty kilos. I found myself for the first time liking Dubois; I am always touched by the gallant audacity of a kitten, the fighting heart of a bantam cock, or the willingness of a little mart to die in his tracks rather than knuckle under…And, while I did not expect Broadbent to kill him, I did think that I was about to see Dubois used as a dust rag.

I had no thought of interfering. Every man is entitled to elect the time and manner of his own destruction.

I could see tension grow. Then suddenly l3roadbent laughed and clapped Dubois on the shoulder. “Good for you, Jock!” He turned to me and said quietly, “Will you excuse us a few moments? My friend and I must make heap big smoke.”

The suite was equipped with a hush corner, enclosing the autograph and the phone. Broadbent took Dubois by the arm and led him over there; they stood and talked urgently. Sometimes such facilities in public places like hotels are not all that they might be; the sound waves fail to cancel out completely. But the Eisenhower is a luxury house and in this case,

at least, the equipment worked perfectly; I could see their lips move but I could hear no sound.

But I could indeed see their lips move. Broadbent’s face was toward me and Dubois I could glimpse in a wall mirror. When I was performing in my famous mentalist act, I found out why my father had beaten my tail until I learned the silent language of lips-in my mentalist act I always performed in a brightly lighted hail and made use of spectacles which-but never mind; I could read lips.

Dubois was saying: “Dak, you bloody, stupid, unprintable, illegal and highly improbable obscenity, do you want us both to wind up counting rocks on Titan? This conceited pipsqueak will spill his guts.”

I almost missed Broadbent’s answer. Conceited indeed! Aside from a cold appreciation of my own genius I felt that I was a modest man. Broadbent: “… doesn’t matter if the game is crooked when it’s the only game in town. Jock, there is nobody else we can use.”

Dubois: “All right, then get Doc Scortia over here, hypnotize him, and shoot him the happy juice. But don’t tell him the score- not until he’s conditioned, not while we are still on dirt.” Broadbent: “Uh, Scortia himself told me that we could not depend on hypno and drugs, not for the performance we need.

We’ve got to have his co-operation, his intelligent co-operation.”

Dubois snorted. “What intelligence? Look at him. Ever see a rooster strutting through a barnyard? Sure, he’s the right size and shape and his skull looks a good bit like the Chief-but there is nothing behind it. He’ll lose his nerve, blow his top, and give the whole thing away. He can’t play the part-he’s just a ham actor!”

If the immortal Caruso had been charged with singing off key, he could not have been more affronted than I. But I trust I justified my claim to the mantle of Burbage and Booth at that moment; I went on buffing my nails and ignored it-merely noting that I would someday make friend Dubois both laugh and cry within the span of twenty seconds. I waited a few moments more, then stood up and approached the hush corner. When they saw that I intended to enter it, they both shut up. I said quietly, “Never mind, gentlemen, I have changed my mind.”

Dubois looked relieved. “You don’t want the job.”

“I mean that I accept the engagement. You need not make explanations. I have been assured by friend Broadbent that the work is such as not to trouble my conscience-and I trust him. He has assured rue that he needs an actor. But the business affairs of the producer are not my concern. I accept.”

Dubois looked angry, but shut up. I expected Broadbent to look pleased and relieved; instead he looked worried. “All right,” he agreed, “let’s get on with it. Lorenzo, I don’t know exactly how long we will need you. No more than a few days, I’m certain-and you will be on display only an hour or so once or twice in that time.”

“That does not matter as long as I have time to study the role- the impersonation. But approximately how many days will you need me? I should notify my agent.”

“Oh no! Don’t do that.”

“Well-how long? As much as a week?” “It will be less than that-or we’re sunk.”

“Never mind. Will a hundred Imperials a day suit you?”

I hesitated, recalling how easily he had met my minimum just to interview me-and decided this was a time to be gracious. I waved it aside. “Let’s not speak of such things. No doubt you will present me with an honorarium consonant with the worth of my performance.”

“All right, all right.” Broadbent turned away impatiently. “Jock, call the field. Then call Langston and tell him we’re starting Plan Mardi Gras. Synchronize with him. Lorenzo …” He motioned for me to follow and strode into the bath. He opened a small case and demanded, “Can you do anything with this junk?”

“Junk” it was-the sort of overpriced and unprofessional makeup kit that is sold over the counter to stage-struck youngsters. I stared at it with mild disgust. “Do I understand, sir, that you expect me to start an impersonation now? Without time for study?”

“Huh? No, no, no! I want you to change your face-on the outside chance that someone might recognize you as we leave here.

That’s possible, isn’t it?”

I answered stiffly that being recognized in public was a burden that all celebrities were forced to carry. I did not add that it was certain that countless people would recognize The Great Lorenzo in any public place.

“Okay. So change your phiz so it’s not yours.” He left abruptly.

I sighed and looked over the child’s toys he had handed me, no doubt thinking they were the working tools of my profession- grease paints suitable for clowns, reeking spirit gum, crepe hair which seemed to have been raveled from Aunt Maggie’s parlor carpet. Not an ounce of Silicoflesh, no electric brushes, no modern amenities of any sort. But a true artist can do wonders with a burnt match, or oddments such as one might find in a kitchen- and his own genius. I arranged the lights and let myself fall into creative reverie.

There are several ways to keep a well-known face from being recognized. The simplest is misdirection. Place a man in uniform and his face is not likely to be noticed-do you recall the lace of the last policeman you encountered? Could you identify him if you saw him next in mufti? On the same principle is the attentiongoing special feature. Equip a man with an enormous nose, disfigured perhaps with acne rosacea; the vulgar will stare in fascination at the nose itself, the polite will turn away-but neither will see the face.

I decided against this primitive maneuver because I judged that my employer wished me not to be noticed at all rather than remembered for an odd feature without being recognized. This is much more difficult; anyone can be conspicuous but it takes real skill not to be noticed. I needed a face as commonplace, as impossible to remember as the true face of the immortal Alec Guinness. Unfortunately my aristocratic features are entirely too distinguished, too handsome-a regrettable handicap for a character actor. As my father used to say, “Larry, you are too damned pretty! If you don’t get off your lazy duff and learn the business, you are going to spend fifteen years as a juvenile, under the mistaken impression that you are an

actor-then wind up selling candy in the lobby. ‘Stupid’ and ‘pretty’ are the two worst vices in show business-and you’re both.”

Then he would take off his belt and stimulate my brain. Father was a practical psychologist and believed that warming the glutei maximi with a strap drew excess blood away from a boy’s brain. While the theory may have been shaky, the results justified the method; by the time I was fifteen I could stand on my head on a slack wire and quote page after page of Shakespeare and Shaw-or steal a scene simply by lighting a cigarette.

I was deep in the mood of creation when Broadbent stuck his face in. “Good grief!” he snapped. “Haven’t you done anything yet?”

I stared coldly. “I assumed that you wanted my best creative work-which cannot be hurried. Would you expect a cordon bleu to compound a new sauce on the back of a galloping horse?” “Horses be damned!” He glanced at his watch finger. “You have six more minutes. If you can’t do anything in that length of time, we’ll just have to take our chances.”

Well! Of course I prefer to have plenty of time-but I had understudied my father in his quick-change creation, The Assassination of Hu*ey Long, fifteen parts in seven minutes-and had once played it in nine seconds less time than he did. “Stay where you are!” I snapped back at him. “I’ll be with you at once.” I then put on “Benny Grey,” the colorless handy man who does the murders in The House with No Doors-two quick strokes to put dispirited lines into my cheeks from nose to mouth corners, a mere suggestion of bags under my eyes, and Factor’s

#5 sallow over all, taking not more than twenty seconds for everything-I could have done it in my sleep; House ran on boards for ninety-two performances before they recorded it.

Then I faced Broadbent and he gasped. “Good God! I don’t believe it.”

I stayed in “Benny Grey” and did not smile acknowledgment. What l3roadbent could not realize was that the grease paint really was not necessary. It makes it easier, of course, but I had used a touch of it primarily because he expected it; being one of the yokels, he naturally assumed that make-up consisted of paint and powder.

He continued to stare at me. “Look here,” he said in a hushed voice, “could you do something like that for me? In a hurry?”

I was about to say no when I realized that it presented an interesting professional challenge, I had been tempted to say that if my father had started in on him at five he might be ready now to sell cotton candy at a punkin’ doin’s, but I thought better of it. “You simply want to be sure that you will not be recognized?” I asked.

“Yes, yes! Can you paint me up, or give me a false nose, or something?”

I shook my head. “No matter what we did with make-up, it would simply make you look like a child dressed up for Trick or Treat. You can’t act and you can never learn, at your age. We won’t touch your face.”

“Huh? But with this beak on me-“

“Attend me. Anything I could do to that lordly nose would just call attention to it, I assure you. Would it suffice if an acquaintance looked at you and said, ‘Say, that big fellow reminds me of Dak Broadbent. It’s not Dak, of course, but looks a little like him.’ Eh?”

“Huh? I suppose so. As long as he was sure it wasn’t me. I’m supposed to be on… Well, I’m not supposed to be on Earth just now.”

“He’ll be quite sure it is not you, because we’ll change your walk. That’s the most distinctive thing about you. If your walk is wrong, it cannot possibly be you-so it must be some other big boned, broad-shouldered man who looks a bit like you.”

“Okay, show me how to walk.”

“No, you could never learn it. I’ll force you to walk the way I want you to.” “How?”

‘We’ll put a handful of pebbles or the equivalent in the toes of your boots. That will force you back on your heels and make you stand up straight. It will be impossible for you to sneak along in that catfooted spaceman’s crouch. Mmrn 11 slap some tape across your shoulder blades to remind you to keep your shoulders back, too. That will do it.”

“You think they wont recognize me just because I’ll walk differently?”

“Certain. An acquaintance won’t know why he is sure it is not you, but the very fact that the conviction is subconscious and unanalyzed will put it beyond reach of doubt. Oh, I’ll do a little something to your face, just to make you feel easier-but it isn’t necessary.”

We went back into the living room of the suite. I was still being “Benny Grey” of course; once I put on a role it takes a conscious effort of will to go back to being myself. Dubois was busy at the phone; he looked up, saw me, and his jaw dropped. He hurried out of the hush locus and demanded, “Who’s he? And where’s that actor fellow?” After his first glance at me, he had looked away and not bothered to look back-“Benny Grey” is such a tired, negligible little guy that there is no point in looking at him.

“What actor fellow?” I answered in Benny’s flat, colorless tones. It brought Dubois’ eyes back to me. Re looked at me, started to look away, his eyes snapped back, then he looked at my clothes. Broadbent guffawed and clapped him on the shoulder.

“And you said he couldn’t act!” He added sharply, “Did you get them all, Jock?” “Yes.” Dubois looked back at me, looked perplexed, and looked away.

“Okay. We’ve got to be out of here in four minutes. Let’s see how fast you can get me fixed up, Lorenzo.”

Dak had one boot off, his blouse off, and his chemise pulled up so that I could tape his shoulders when the light over the door came on and the buzzer sounded. He froze. “Jock? We expecting anybody?”

“Probably Langston. He said he was going to try to get over here before we left.” Dubois started for the door.

“It might not be him. It might be—” 1 did not get to hear Broadbent say who he thought it might be as Dubois dilated the door. Framed in the doorway, looking like a nightmare toadstool, was a Martian.

For an agony-stretched second I could see nothing but the Martian. I did not see the human standing behind him, nor did I notice the life wand tile Martian cradled in his pseudo limb. Then the Martian flowed inside, the man with him stepped in behind him, and the door relaxed. The Martian squeaked, “Good afternoon, gentlemen. Going somewhere?”

I was frozen, dazed, by acute xenophobia. Dak was handicapped by disarranged clothing. But little Jock Dubois acted with a simple heroism that made him my beloved brother even as he died … He flung himself at that life wand. Right at it-he made no attempt to evade it.

He must have been dead, a hole burned through his belly you could poke a fist through, before he hit the floor. But he hung on and the pseudo limb stretched like taffy-then snapped, broken off a few inches from the monster’s neck, and poor Jock still had the life wand cradled in his dead arms.

The human who had followed that stinking, reeking thing into the room had to step to one side before he could get in a shot- and he made a mistake. He should have shot Dak first, then me. Instead he wasted his first one on Jock and he never got a second one, as Dak shot him neatly in the face. I had not even known Dak was armed.

Deprived of his weapon, the Martian did not attempt to escape. Dak bounced to his feet, slid up to him, and said, “Ah, Rrringriil. I see you.” “1 see you, Captain Dak Broadhent,” the Martian squeaked, then added, “you will tell my nest?”

“I will tell your nest, Rrringriil.”

“I thank you, Captain Dak Broadbent.”

Dak reached out a long bony finger and poked it into the eye nearest him, shoving it on home until his knuckles were jammed against the brain case. He pulled it out and his finger was slimed with green ichor. The creature’s pseudo limbs crawled back into its trunk in reflex spasm but the dead thing continued to stand firm on its base. Dak hurried into the bath; 1 heard him washing his hands. I stayed where I was, almost as frozen by shock as the late Rrringriil.

Dak came out, wiping his hands on his shirt, and said, “We’ll have to clean this up. There isn’t much time.” He could have been speaking of a spilled drink.

I tried to make clear in one jumbled sentence that I wanted no part of it, that we ought to call the cops, that I wanted to get away from there before the cops came, that he knew what he could do with his crazy impersonation job, and that I planned to sprout wings and fly out the window, flak brushed it all aside. “Don’t jitter, Lorenzo. We’re on minus minutes now. Help me get the bodies into the bathroom.”

“Huh? Good God, man! Let’s just lock up and run for it. Maybe they will never connect us with it.”

“Probably they wouldn’t,” he agreed, “since neither one of us is supposed to be here. But they would be able to see that Rrringriil had killed Jock-and we can’t have that. Not now we can’t.”

“Huh?”

“We can’t afford a news story about a Martian killing a human. So shut up and help me.”

I shut up and helped him. It steadied me to recall that “Benny Grey” had been the worst of sadistic psychopaths, who had enjoyed dismembering his victims. I let “Benny Grey” drag the two human bodies into the bath while Dak took the life wand and sliced Rrringriil into pieces small enough to handle. He was careful to make the first cut below the brain case so the job was not messy, but I could not help him with it-it seemed to me that a dead Martian stank even worse than a live one.

The oubliette was concealed in a panel in the bath just beyond the bidet; if it had not been marked with the usual radiation trefoil it would have been hard to find. After we had shoved the chunks of Rrringriil down it (I managed to get my spunk up enough to help), Dak tackled the messier problem of butchering and draining the human corpses, using the wand and, of course, working in the bath tub.

It is amazing how much blood a man holds. We kept the water running the whole time; nevertheless, it was bad. But when Dak had to tackle the remains of poor little Jock, he just wasn’t up to it. His eyes flooded with tears, blinding him, so I elbowed him aside before he sliced off his own fingers and let “Benny Grey” take over.

When I had finished and there was nothing left to show that there had ever been two other men and a monster in the suite, I sluiced out the tub carefully and stood up. Dak was in the doorway, looking as calm as ever. “I’ve made sure the floor is tidy,” he announced. “I suppose a criminologist with proper equipment could reconstruct it-but we are counting on no one ever suspecting. So let’s get out of here. We’ve got to gain almost twelve minutes somehow. Come on!”

I was beyond asking where or why. “All right. Let’s fix your boots.”

He shook his head. “It would slow me up. Right now speed is more essential than not being recognized.”

“I am in your hands.” I followed him to the door; he stopped and said, “There may be others around. If so, shoot first-there’s nothing else you can do.” He had the life wand in his hand, with his cloak drawn over it.

“Martians?”

“Or men. Or both.”

“Dak? Was Rrringriil one of those four at the Manana bar?”

“Certainly. Why do you think I went around Robinson’s barn to get you out of there and over here? They either tailed you, as we did, or they tailed me. Didn’t you recognize him?” “Heavens, no! Those monsters all look alike to me.”

“And they say we all look alike. The four were Rrringriil, his conjugate-brother Rrringlath, and two others from his nest, of divergent lines. But shut up. If you see a Martian, shoot. You have the other gun?”

“Uh, yes. Look, Dak, I don’t know what this is all about. But as long as those beasts are against you, I’m with you. I despise Martians.” He looked shocked. “You don’t know what you are saying. We’re not fighting Martians; those four are renegades.”

“Huh?”

“There are lots of good Martians-almost all of them. Shucks, even Rrringriil wasn’t a bad sort in most ways-I’ve had many a fine chess game with him.” “What? In that case, I’m—”

“Stow it. You’re in too deep to back out. Now quick-march, straight to the bounce tube. I’ll cover our rear.” I shut up. I was in much too deep-that was unarguable.

We hit the sub-basement and went at once to the express tubes. Atwo-passenger capsule was just emptying; Dak shoved me in so quickly that I did not see him set the control combiiiation. But I was hardly surprised when the pressure let up from my chest and I saw the sign blinking JEFFERSON SKYPORT-ALL OUT.

Nor did I care what station it was as long as it was as far as possible from Hotel Eisenhower. The few minutes we had been crammed in the vactube had been long enough for me to devise a plan-sketchy, tentative, and subject to change without notice, as the fine print always says, but a plan. It could be stated in two words: Get lost!

Only that morning I would have found the plan very difficult to execute; in our culture a man with no money at all is baby-helpless. But with a hundred slugs in my pocket I could go far and fast. I felt no obligation to Dak Broadbent. For reasons of his own-not my reasons!-he had almost got me killed, then had crowded me into covering up a crime, made rue a fugitive from justice. But we had evaded the police, temporarily at least, and now, simply by shaking off Broadbent, I could forget the whole thing, shelve it as a bad dream. It seemed most unlikely that I could be connected with the affair even if it were discovered-fortunately a gentleman always wears gloves, and I had had mine off only to put on makeup and later during that ghastly house cleaning.

Aside from the warm burst of adolescent heroics I had felt when I thought Dak was fighting Martians I had no interest in his schemes-and even that sympathy had shut off when I found that he liked Martians in general. His impersonation job I would not now touch with the proverbial eleven-foot pole. To hell with Broadbent! All I wanted out of life was money enough to keep body and soul together and a chance to practice my art; cops-androbbers nonsense did not interest me-poor theater at best.

Jefferson Port seemed handmade to carry out my scheme. Crowded and confused, with express tubes spiderwebbing from it, in it, if Dak took his eyes off me for half a second I would be halfway to Omaha. I would lie low a few weeks, then get in touch with my agent and find out if any inquiries had been made about me.

Dak saw to it that we climbed out of the capsule together, else I would have slammed it shut and gone elsewhere at once. I pretended not to notice and stuck close as a puppy to him as we went up the belt to the main hall just under the surface, coming out between the Pan-Am desk and American Skylines. Dak straight across the waiting-room floor toward Diana, Ltd.,

and I surmised that he was going to buy tickets for the Moon shuttle- how he planned to get me aboard without passport or vaccination certificate I could not guess but I knew that be was resourceful. I decided that I would fade into the furniture while he bad his wallet out; when a man counts money there are at least a few seconds when his eyes and attention are fully occupied.

But we went right on past the Diana desk and through an archway marked Private Berths. The passageway beyond was not crowded and the walls were blank; I realized with dismay that I had let slip my best chance, back there in the busy main hail. I held back. “Dak? Are we making a jump?”

“Of course.”

“Dak, you’re crazy. I’ve got no papers, I don’t even have a tourist card for the Moon.” “You won’t need them.”

“Huh? They’ll stop me at ‘Emigration.’ Then a big, beefy cop will start asking questions.”

Ahand about the size of a cat closed on my upper arm. “Let’s not waste time. Why should you go through ‘Emigration,’ when officially you aren’t leaving? And why should I, when officially I never arrived? Quick-march, old son.”

I am well muscled and not small, but I felt as if a traffic robot were pulling me out of a danger zone. I saw a sign reading MEN and I made a desperate attempt to break it up. “Dak, half a minute, please. Got to see a man about the plumbing.”

He grinned at me. “Oh, yes? You went just before we left the hotel.” He did not slow up or let go of me. “Kidney trouble-“

“Lorenzo old son, I smell a case of cold feet. Tell you what I’ll do. See that cop up ahead?” At the end of the corridor, in the private berths station, a defender of the peace was resting his big feet by leaning over a counter. “I find I have a sudden attack of conscience. I feel a need to confess-about how you killed a visiting Martian and two local citizens-about how you held a gun on me and forced me to help you dispose of the bodies. About—”

“You’re crazy!”

“Almost out of my mind with anguish and remorse, shipmate.” “But-you’ve got nothing on me.”

“So? I think my story will sound more convincing than yours. I know what it is all about and you don’t. I know all about you and you know nothing about me. For example he mentioned a couple of details in my past that I would have sworn were buried and forgotten. All right, so I did have a couple of routines useful for stag shows that are not for the family trade-a man has to eat. But that matter about Bebe; that was hardly fair, for I certainly had not known that she was underage. As for that hotel bill, while it is true that bilking an “innkeeper” in Miami Beach carries much the same punishment as armed robbery elsewhere, it is a very provincial attitude-I would have paid if I had had the money. As for that unfortunate incident in Seattle-well, what I am trying to say is that Dak did know an amazing amount about my background but he had the wrong slant on most of it. Still.

“So,” he continued, “let’s walk right up to yon gendarme and make a clean breast of it. I’ll lay you seven to two as to which one of us is out on bail first.”

So we marched up to the cop and on past him. He was talking to a female clerk back of the railing and neither one of them looked up. Dak took out two tickets reading, GATE PASS- MAINTENANCE PERMIT-Berth K-l27, and stuck them into the monitor. The machine scanned them, a transparency directed us to take an tipper-level car, code King 127; the gate let us through and locked behind us as a recorded voice said, “Watch your step, please, and heed radiation warnings. The Terminal Company is not responsible for accidents beyond the gate.”

Dak punched an entirely different code in the little car; it wheeled around, picked a track, and we took off out under the field. It did not matter to me. I was beyond caring.

When we stepped out of the little car it went back where it came from. In front of me was a ladder disappearing into the steel ceiling above. Dak nudged me. “Up you go.” There was a scuttle hole at the top and on it a sign: RADIATION HAZARD-Optimax 13 Seconds. The figures had been chalked in. I stopped. I have no special interest in offspring but I am no fool. Dak grinned and said, “Got your lead britches on? Open it, go through at once and straight up the ladder into the ship. If you don’t stop to scratch, you’ll make it with at least three seconds to spare.”

I believe I made it with five seconds to spare. I was out in the sunlight for about ten feet, then I was inside a long tube in the ship. I used about every third rung.

The rocket ship was apparently small. At least the control room was quite cramped; I never got a look at the outside. The only other spaceships I had ever been in were the Moon shuttles Evangeline and her sister ship the Gabriel, that being the year in which I had incautiously accepted a lunar engagement on a co-op basis-our impresario had had a notion that a juggling, tightrope, and acrobatic routine would go well in the one-sixth gee of the Moon, which was correct as far as it went, but he had not allowed rehearsal time for us to get used to low gravity. I had to take advantage of the Distressed Travelers Act to get back and I had lost my wardrobe.

There were two men in the control room; one was lying in one of three acceleration couches fiddling with dials, the other was making obscure motions with a screw driver. The one in the couch glanced at me, said nothing. The other one turned, looked worried, then said past me, “What happened to Jock?”

Dak almost levitated out of the hatch behind me. “No time!” he snapped. “Have you compensated for his mass?” “Red, is she taped? Tower?”

The man in the couch answered lazily, “I’ve been recomputing every two minutes. You’re clear with the tower. Minus forty-, uh, seven seconds.” “Out of that bunk! Scram! I’m going to catch that tick!”

Red moved lazily out of the couch as Dak got in. The other man shoved me into the copilot’s couch and strapped a safety belt across my chest. He turned and dropped down the escape tube. Red followed him, then stopped with his head and shoulders out. “Tickets, please!” he said cheerfully.

“Oh, cripes!” Dak loosened a safety belt, reached for a pocket, got out the two field passes we bad used to sneak aboard, and shoved them at him.

“Thanks,” Red answered. “See you in church. Hot jets, and so forth.” He disappeared with leisurely swiftness; I heard the air lock close and my eardrums popped. Dak did not answer his farewell; his eyes were busy on the computer dials and he made some minor adjustment.

“Twenty-one seconds,” he said to me. “There’ll be no rundown. Be sure your arms are inside and that you are relaxed. The first step is going to be a honey.” I did as I was told, then waited for hours in that curtain-going-up tension. Finally I said, “Dak?”

“Shut up!”

“Just one thing: where are we going?”

“Mars.” I saw his thumb jab at a red button and I blacked out. Chapter 2

What is so funny about a man being dropsick? Those dolts with cast-iron stomachs always laugh-I’ll bet they would laugh if Grandma broke both legs.

I was spacesick, of course, as soon as the rocket ship quit blasting and went into free fall. I came out of it fairly quickly as my stomach was practically empty-I’d eaten nothing since breakfast- and was simply wanly miserable the remaining eternity of that awful trip. It took us an hour and forty-three minutes to make rendezvous, which is roughly equal to a thousand years in purgatory to a ground hog like myself.

I’ll say this for Dak, though: he did not laugh. Dak was a professional and he treated my normal reaction with the impersonal good manners of a ifight nurse-not like those flat-headed, loudvoiced jackasses you’ll find on the passenger list of a Moon shuttle. If I had my way, those healthy self -panickers would be spaced in mid-orbit and allowed to laugh themselves to death in vacuum.

Despite the turmoil in my mind and the thousand questions I wanted to ask we had almost made rendezvous with a torchship, which was in parking orbit around Earth, before I could stir up interest in anything. I suspect that if one were to inform a victim of spacesickness that he was to be shot at sunrise his own answer would be, “Yes? Would you hand me that sack, please?”

But I finally recovered to the point where instead of wanting very badly to die the scale had tipped so that I had a flickering, halfhearted interest in continuing to live. Dak was busy most of the time at the ship’s communicator, apparently talking on a very tight beam for his hands constantly nursed the directional control like a gunner laying a gun under difficulties. I could not hear what he said, or even read his lips, as he had his face pushed into the nimble box. I assumed that he was talking to the long-jump ship we were to meet.

But when he pushed the communicator aside and lit a cigarette I repressed the stomach retch that the mere sight of tobacco smoke had inspired and said, “Dak, isn’t it about time you told me the score?”

“Plenty of time for that on our way to Mars.”

“Huh? Damn your arrogant ways,” I protested feebly. “I don’t want to go to Mars. I would never have considered your crazy offer if 1 had known it was on Mars.” “Suit yourself. You don’t have to go.”

“Eh?”

“The air lock is right behind you. Get out and walk. Mind you close the door.”

I did not answer the ridiculous suggestion. He went on, “But if you can’t breathe space the easiest thing to do is to go to Mars- and I’ll see that you get back. The Can Do-that’s this bucket-is about to rendezvous with the Go For Broke, which is a high-gee torchship. About seventeen seconds and a gnat’s wink after we make contact the Go For Broke will torch for Mars-for we’ve got to be there by Wednesday.”

I answered with the petulant stubbornness of a sick man. “I’m not going to Mars. I’m going to stay right in this ship. Somebody has to take it back and land it on Earth. You can’t fool me.” “True,” Broadbent agreed. “But you won’t be in it. The three blokes who are supposed to be in this ship-according to the records back at Jefferson Field-are in the Go For Broke right now.

This is a three-man ship, as you’ve noticed. I’m afraid you will find them stuffy about giving up a place to you. And besides, how would you get back through ‘Immigration’?”

“I don’t care! I’d be back on ground.”

“And in jail, charged with everything from illegal entry to mopery and dopery in the spaceways. At the very least they would be sure that you were smuggling and they would take you to some quiet back room and run a needle in past your eyeball and find out just what you were up to. They would know what questions to ask and you wouldn’t be able to keep from answering. But you wouldn’t be able to implicate me, for good old Dak Broadhent hasn’t been back to Earth in quite a spell and has unimpeachable witnesses to prove it.”

I thought about it sickly, both from fear and the continuing effects of spacesickness. “So you would tip off the police? You dirty, slimy—” I broke off for lack of an adequately insulting noun. “Oh no! Look, old son, I might twist your arm a bit and let you think that I would cry copper-but I never would. But Rrringriil’s conjugate-brother Rrringlath certainly knows that old ‘Grill’ went

in that door and failed to come out. He will tip off the noises. Conjugate-brother is a relationship so close that we will never understand it, since we don’t reproduce by fission.”

I didn’t care whether Martians reproduced like rabbits or the stork brought them in a little black bag. The way he told it I could never go back to Earth, and I said so. He shook his head. “Not at all. Leave it to me and we will slide you back in as neatly as we slid you out. Eventually you will walk off that field or some other field with a gate pass which shows that you are a mechanic who has been making some last-minute adjustment-and you’ll have greasy coveralls and a tool kit to back it up. Surely an actor of your skill can play the part of a mechanic for a few minutes?”

“Eh? Why, certainly! But-“

“There you are! You stick with ol’ Doc Dak; he’ll take care of you. We shuffled eight guild brothers in this current caper to get me on Earth and both of us off; we can do it again. But you would not stand a chance without voyageurs to help you.” He grinned. “Every voyageur is a free trader at heart. The art of smuggling being what it is, we are all of us always ready to help out one another in a little innocent deception of the port guards. But a person outside the lodge does not ordinarily get such co-operation.”

I tried to steady my stomach and think about it. “Dak, is this a smuggling deal? Because-“ “Oh no! Except that we are smuggling you.”

“I was going to say that I don’t regard smuggling as a crime.”

“Who does? Except those who make money off the rest of us by limiting trade. But this is a straight impersonation job, Lorenzo, and you are the man for it. It wasn’t an accident that I ran across you in the bar; there had been a tail on you for two days. As soon as I hit dirt I went where you were.” He frowned. “I wish I could be sure our honorable antagonists had been following me, and not you.”

“Why?”

“If they were following me they were trying to find out what I was after-which is okay, as the lines were already drawn; we knew we were mutual enemies. But if they were following you, then they knew what I was after-an actor who could play the role.”

“But how could they know that? Unless you told them?”

“Lorenzo, this thing is big, much bigger than you imagine. I don’t see it all myself-and the less you know about it until you must, the better off you are. But I can tell you this: a set of personal characteristics was fed into the big computer at the System Census Bureau at The Hague and the machine compared them with the personal characteristics of every male professional actor alive. It was done as discreetly as possible but somebody might have guessed-and talked. The specifications amounted to identification both of the principal and the actor who could double for him, since the job had to be perfect.”

“Oh. And the machine told you that I was the man for it?” “Yes. You-and one other.”

This was another good place for me to keep my mouth shut. But I could not have done so if my life had depended on it-which in a way it did. I just had to know who the other actor was who was considered competent to play a role which called for my unique talents. “This other one? Who is he?”

Dak looked me over; I could see him hesitate. “Mmm-fellow by the name of Orson Trowbridge. Know him?” “That ham!” For a moment I was so furious that I forgot my nausea.

“So? I hear that he is a very good actor.”

I simply could not help being indignant at the idea that anyone should even think about that oaf Trowbridge for a role for which I was being considered. “That arm-waver! That word- mouther!” I stopped, realizing that it was more dignified to ignore such colleagues-if the word fits. But that popinjay was so conceited that- well, if the role called for him to kiss a lady’s hand, Trowbridge would fake it by kissing his own thumb instead. Anarcissist, a poseur, a double fake-how could such a man live a role?

Yet such is the injustice of fortune that his sawings and rantings had paid him well while real artists went hungry. “Dak, I simply cannot see why you considered him for it.”

“Well, we didn’t want him; he is tied up with some long-term contract that would make his absence conspicuous and awkward. It was lucky for us that you were-uh, ‘at liberty.’ As soon as you agreed to the job I had Jock send word to call off the team that was trying to arrange a deal with Trowbridge.”

“I should think so!”

“But-see here, Lorenzo, I’m going to lay it on the line. While you were busy whooping your cookies after Brennschluss I called the Go For Broke and told them to pass the word down to get busy on Trowbridge again.”

“What?”

“You asked for it, shipmate. See here, a man in my racket contracts to herd a heap to Ganymede, that means he will pilot that pot to Ganymede or die trying. He doesn’t get fainthearted and try to welsh while the ship is being loaded. You told me you would take this job-no ‘ifs’ or ‘ands’ or ‘buts’-you took the job. Afew minutes later there is a fracas; you lose your nerve. Later you try to run out on me at the field. Only ten minutes ago you were screaming to be taken back dirtside. Maybe you are a better actor than Trowbridge. I wouldn’t know. But I know we need a man who can be depended on not to lose his nerve when the time comes. I understand that Trowbridge is that sort of bloke. So if we can get him, we’ll use him instead, pay you off and tell you nothing and ship you back. Understand?”

Too well I understood. Dak did not use the word-I doubt if he would have understood it-but he was telling me that I was not a trouper. The bitter part about it was that he was justified. I could not be angry; I could only be ashamed. I had been an idiot to accept the contract without knowing more about it-but I had agreed to play the role, without conditions or escape clauses. Now I was trying to back out, like a rank amateur with stage fright.

“The show must go on” is the oldest tenet of show business. Perhaps it has no philosophical verity, but the things men live by are rarely subject to logical proof. My father had believed it-I had seen him play two acts with a burst appendix and then take his bows before he had let them rush him to a hospital. I could see his face now, looking at me with the contempt of a trouper for a so-called actor who would let an audience down.

“Dak,” I said humbly, “I am very sorry. I was wrong.” He looked at me sharply. “You’ll do the job?”

“Yes.” I meant it sincerely. Then I suddenly remembered a factor which could make the part as impossible for me as the role of Snow White in The Seven Dwarfs. “That is-well, I want to. But—”

“But what?” he said scornfully. “More of your damned temperament?”

“No, no! But you said we were going to Mars. Dak, am I going to be expected to do this impersonation with Martians around me?” “Eh? Of course. How else on Mars?”

“Uh … But, Dak, I can’t stand Martians! They give me the heebie jeebies. I wouldn’t want to-I would try not to-but I might fall right out of the characterization.” “Oh. If that is all that is worrying you, forget it.”

“Huh? But I can’t forget it. I can’t help it. I-“

“I said, ‘Forget it.’ Old son, we knew you were a peasant in such matters-we know all about you. Lorenzo, your fear of Martians is as childish and irrational as a fear of spiders or snakes. But we had anticipated it and it will be taken care of. So forget it.”

“Well-all right.” I was not much reassured, but he had flicked me where it hurt. “Peasant”-why, “peasants” were the audience! So I shut up.

Dak pulled the communicator to him, did not bother to silence his message with the rumble box: “Dandelion to Tumbleweed- cancel Plan Inkblot. We will complete Mardi Gras.” “Dak?” I said as he signed off.

“Later,” he answered. “I’m about to match orbits. The contact may be a little rough, as I am not going to waste time worrying about chuck holes. So pipe down and hang on.”

And it was rough. By the time we were in the torchship I was glad to be comfortably back in free fall again; surge nausea is even worse than everyday dropsickness. But we did not stay in free fall more than five minutes; the three men who were to go back in the Can Do were crowding into the transfer lock even as Dak and I floated into the torchship. The next few moments were extremely confused. I suppose I am a ground hog at heart for I disorient very easily when I can’t tell the floor from the ceiling. Someone called out, “Where is he?” Dak replied, “Here)” The same voice replied, “Him?” as if he could not believe his eyes.

“Yes, yes!” Dak answered. “He’s got make-up on. Never mind, it’s all right. Help me get him into the cider press.”

Ahand grabbed my arm, towed me along a narrow passage and into a compartment. Against one bulkhead and flat to it were two bunks, or “cider presses,” the bathtub-shaped, hydraulic, pressure-distribution tanks used for high acceleration in torchships. I had never seen one before but we had used quite convincing mock-ups in the space opus The Earth Raiders.

There was a stenciled sign on the bulkhead behind the bunks:

WARRING!!! Do Not Take More than Three Gravities without a Gee Suit. By Order of— I rotated slowly out of range of vision before I could finish reading it and someone shoved me into one cider press. Dak and the other men were hurriedly strapping me against it when a horn somewhere near by broke into a horrid hooting. It continued for several seconds, then a voice replaced it: “Red warning! Two gravities! Three minutes! Red warning! Two gravities! Three minutes!” Then the hooting started again.

Through the racket I heard Dak ask urgently, “Is the projector all set? The tapes ready?” “Sure, sure!”

“Got the hypo?” Dak squirmed around in the air and said to me, “Look, shipmate, we’re going to give you a shot. It’s all right. Part of it is Nullgrav, the rest is a stimulant-for you are going to have to stay awake and study your lines. It will make your eyeballs feel hot at first and it may make you itch, but it won’t hurt you.”

“Wait, Dak, I-“

“No time! I’ve got to smoke this scrap heap!” He twisted and was out the door before I could protest. The second man pushed up my left sleeve, held an injection gun against the skin, and I had received the dose before I knew it. Then he was gone. The hooting gave way to: “Red waning! Two gravities! Two minutes!”

I tried to look around but the drug made me even more confused. My eyeballs did feel hot and my teeth as well and I began to feel an almost intolerable itching along my spine-but the safety straps kept me from reaching the tortured area-and perhaps kept me from breaking an arm at acceleration. The hooting stopped again and this time Dak’s self-confident baritone boomed out, “Last red warning! Two gravities! One minute! Knock off those pinochle games and spread your fat carcasses-we’re goin’ to smoke!” The hooting was replaced this time by a recording of Arkezian’s Ad Astra, opus 61 in C major. It was the controversial London Symphony version with the 14-cycle “scare” notes buried in the timpani. Battered, bewildered, and doped as I was, they seemed to have no effect on me-you can’t wet a river.

Amermaid came in the door. No scaly tail, surely, but a mermaid is what she looked like. When my eyes refocused I saw that it was a very likely looking and adequately mammalian young woman in singlet and shorts, swimming along head first in a way that made clear that free fall was no novelty to her. She glanced at me without smiling, placed herself against the other cider press, and took hold of the hand grips-she did not bother with safety belts. The music hit the rolling finale and I felt myself grow very heavy.

Two gravities is not bad, not when you are floating in a liquid bed. The skin over the top of the cider press pushed up around me, supporting me inch by inch; I simply felt heavy and found it hard to breathe. You hear these stories about pilots torching at ten gravities and ruining themselves and I have no doubt that they are true-but two gravities, taken in the cider press, simply makes one feel languid, unable to move.

It was some time before I realized that the horn in the ceiling was speaking to me. “Lorenzo! How are you doing, shipmate?” “All right.” The effort made me gasp. “How long do we have to put up with this?”

“About two days.”

I must have moaned, for Dak laughed at me. “Quit bellyaching, chum! My first trip to Mars took thirty-seven weeks, every minute of it free fall in an elliptical orbit. You’re taking the luxury route, at a mere double gee for a couple of days-with a one-gee rest at turnover, I might add. We ought to charge you for it.”

I started to tell him what I thought of his humor in scathing green-room idiom, then recalled that there was a lady present. My father had taught me that a woman will forgive any action, up to and including assault with violence, but is easily insulted by language; the lovelier half of our race is symbol-oriented-very strange, in view of their extreme practicality. In any case, I have never let a taboo word pass my lips when it might offend the ears of a lady since the time 1 last received the back of my father’s hard hand full on my mouth… Father could have given Professor Pavlov pointers in reflex conditioning.

But Dak was speaking again. “Penny! You there, honey chile?” “Yes, Captain,” the young woman with me answered.

“Okay, start him on his homework. I’ll be down when I have this firetrap settled in its groove.”

“Very well, Captain.” She turned her head toward me and said in a soft, husky, contralto voice, “Dr. Capek wants you simply to relax and look at movies for several hours. I am here to answer questions as necessary.”

I sighed. “Thank goodness someone is at last going to answer questions!”

She did not answer, but raised an ann with some difficulty and passed it over a switch. The lights in the compartment died out and a sound and stereo image built up in front of my eyes. I recognized the central figure-just as any of the billions of citizens of the Empire would have recognized him-and I realized at last how thoroughly and mercilessly Dak Broadbent had tricked me.

It was Bonforte.

The Bonforte, I mean-the Right Honorable John Joseph Bonforte, former Supreme Minister, leader of the loyal opposition, and head of the Expansionist coalition-the most loved (and the most hated!) man in the entire Solar System.

My astonished mind made a standing broad jump and arrived at what seemed a logical certainty. Bonforte had lived through at least three assassination attempts-or so the news reports would have us believe. At least two of his escapes had seemed almost miraculous. Suppose they were not miraculous? Suppose they had all been successful-but dear old Uncle Joe Bonforte had always been somewhere else at the time?

You could use up a lot of actors that way. Chapter 3

I had never meddled in politics. My father had warned against it. “Stay out of it, Larry,” he had told me solemnly. “The publicity you get that way is bad publicity. The peasants don’t like it.” I had never voted-not even after the amendment of ‘98 made it easy for the floating population (which includes, of course, most members of the profession) to exercise franchise.

However, insofar as I had political leanings of any sort, they certainly did not lean toward Bonforte. I considered him a dangerous man and very possibly a traitor to the human race. The idea of standing up and getting killed in his place was-how shall I put it?-distasteful to me.

But-what a role!

I had once played the lead in L’Aiglon and I had played Caesar in the only two plays about him worthy of the name. But to play such a role in life-well, it is enough to make one understand how a man could go to the guillotine in another man’s place-just for the chance to play, even for a few moments, the ultimately exacting role, in order to create the supreme, the perfect, work of art.

I wondered who my colleagues had been who had been unable to resist that temptation on those earlier occasions. They had been artists, that was certain-though their very anonymity was the only tribute to the success of their characterizations. I tried to remember just when the earlier attempts on Bonforte’s life had taken place and which colleagues who might have been capable of the role had died or dropped out of sight at those times. But it was useless. Not only was I not too sure of the details of current political history but also actors simply fade out of view with depressing frequency; it is a chancy profession even for the best of us.

I found that I had been studying closely the characterization.

I realized I could play it. Hell, I could play it with one foot in a bucket and a smell of smoke backstage. To begin with, there was no problem of physique; Bonforte and I could have swapped clothes without a wrinkle. These childish conspirators who had shanghaied me had vastly overrated the importance of physical resemblance, since it means nothing if not backed up by art-and need not be at all close if the actor is competent. But I admit that it does help and their silly game with the computer machine had resulted (quite by accident!) in selecting a true artist, as well as one who was in measurements and bony structure the twin of the politician. His profile was much like mine; even his hands were long, narrow, and aristocratic like mine-and hands are harder than faces.

That limp, supposedly the result of one of the attempts on his life-nothing to it! After watching him for a few minutes I knew that I could get up from that bed (at one gravity, that is) and walk in precisely the same way and never have to think about it. The way he had of scratching his collarbone and then brushing his chin, the almost imperceptible tic which preceded each of his sentences-such things were no trouble; they soaked into my subconscious like water into sand.

To be sure, he was fifteen or twenty years older than I was, but it is easier to play a role older than oneself than one younger. In any case, age to an actor is simply a matter of inner attitude; it has nothing to do with the steady march of catabolism.

I could have played him on boards, or read a speech in his place, within twenty minutes. But this part, as I understood it, would be more than such an interpretation; Dak had hinted that I would have to convince people who knew hlin well, perhaps in intimate circumstances. This is surpassingly more difficult. Does he take sugar in his coffee? If so, how much? Which hand does he use to strike a cigarette and with what gesture? I got the answer to that one and planted it deep in my mind even as I phrased the question; the simulacrum in front of me struck a cigarette in a fashion that convinced me that he had used matches and the oldfashioned sort of gasper for years before he had gone along with the march of so-called progress.

Worst of all, a man is not a single complexity; he is a different complexity to every person who knows him-which means that, to be successful, an impersonation must change for each “audience”

-for each acquaintance of the man being impersonated. This is not merely difficult; it is statistically impossible. Such little things could trip one up. What shared experiences does your principal have with acquaintance John Jones? With a hundred, or a thousand, John Joneses? How could an impersonator possibly know?

Acting per Se, like all art, is a process of abstracting, of retaining only significant detail. But in impersonation any detail can be significant. In time, something as silly as not crunching celery could let the cat out of the bag.

Then I recalled with glum conviction that my performance probably need be convincing only long enough for a marksman to draw a bead on me.

But I was still studying the man I was to replace (what else could I do?) when the door opened and I heard Dak in his proper person call out, “Anybody home?” The lights came on, the threedimensional vision faded, and I felt as if I had been wrenched from a dream. I turned my head; the young woman called Penny was struggling to lift her head from the other hydraulic bed and Dak was standing braced in the doorway.

I looked at him and said wonderingly, “How do you manage to stand up?” Part of my mind, the professional part that works independentiy, was noting how he stood and filing it in a new drawer marked: “How a Man Stands under Two Gravities.”

He grinned at me. “Nothing to it. I wear arch supports.” “Hmmmph!”

“You can stand up, if you want to. Ordinarily we discourage passengers from getting out of the boost tanks when we are torching at anything over one and a half gees-too much chance that some idiot wifi fall over his own feet and break a leg. But I once saw a really tough weight-lifter type climb out of the press and walk at five gravities-but he was never good for much afterwards. But two gees is okay-about like carrying another man piggyback.” He glanced at the young lady. “Giving him the straight word, Penny?”

“He hasn’t asked anything yet.”

“So? Lorenzo, I thought you were the lad who wanted all the answers.”

I shrugged. “I cannot now see that it matters, since it is evident that I will not live long enough to appreciate them.” “Eh? What soured your milk, old son?”

“Captain Broadbent,” I said bitterly, “I am inhibited in expressing myself by the presence of a lady; therefore I cannot adequately discuss your ancestry, personal habits, morals, and destination. Let it stand that I knew what you had tricked me into as soon as I became aware of the identity of the man I am to impersonate. I will content myself with one question only:

who is about to attempt to assassinate Bonforte? Even a clay pigeon should be entitled to know who is shooting at him.”

For the first time I saw Dak register surprise. Then he laughed so hard that the acceleration seemed to be too much for him; he slid to the deck and braced his back against a bulkhead, still laughing.

“I don’t see anything funny about it,” I said angrily.

He stopped and wiped his eyes. “Lorrie old son, did you honestly think that I had set you up as a sitting duck?” “It’s obvious.” I told him my deductions about the earlier assassination attempts.

He had the sense not to laugh again. “I see. You thought it was a job about like food taster for a Middle Ages king. Well, we’ll have to try to straighten you out; I don’t suppose it helps your acting to think that you are about to be burned down where you stand. Look, I’ve been with the Chief for six years. During that time I know he has never used a double … Nevertheless, I was present on two occasions when attempts were made on his life- one of those times I shot the hatchet man. Penny, you’ve been with the Chief longer than that. Has he ever used a double before?”

She looked at me coldly. “Never. The very idea that the Chief would let anybody expose himself to danger in his place is-well, I ought to slap your face; that’s what I ought to do!”

“Take it easy, Penny,” Dak said mildly. “You’ve both got jobs to do and you are going to have to work with him. Besides, his wrong guess isn’t too silly, not from the outside. By the way, Lorenzo, this is Penelope Russell. She is the Chief’s personal secretary, which makes her your number-one coach.”

“I am honored to meet you, mademoiselle.” “I wish I could say the same!”

“Stow it, Penny, or I’ll spank your round fanny-at two gravities. Lorenzo, I concede that doubling for John Joseph Bonforte isn’t as safe as tiding in a wheel chair-shucks, as we both know, several attempts have been made to close out his life insurance. But that is not what we are afraid of this time. Matter of fact, this time, for political reasons you will presently understand, the laddies we are up against won’t dare to try to kill the Chief-or to kill you when you are doubling for the Chief. They are playing rough

-as you know!-and they would kill me, or even Penny, for the slightest advantage. They would kill you right now, if they could get at you. But when you make this public appearance as the Chief you’ll be safe; the circumstances will be such that they can’t afford to kill.”

He studied my face. “Well?”

I shook my head. “I don’t follow you.”

“No, but you will. It is a complicated matter, involving Martian ways of looking at things. Take it for granted; you’ll know all about it before we get there.”

I still did not like it. Thus far Dak had told me no outright lies that I knew of-but he could lie effectively by not telling all that he knew, as I had learned the bitter way. I said, “See here, I have no reason to trust you, or to trust this young lady-if you will pardon mc, miss. But while I haven’t any liking for Mr. Bonforte, he does have the reputation for being painfully, even offensively, honest. When do I get to talk to him? As soon as we reach Mars?”

Dak’s ugly, cheerful face was suddenly shadowed with sadness. “I’m afraid not. Didn’t Penny tell you?” “Tell me what?”

“Old son, that’s why we’ve got to have a double for the Chief. They’ve kidnapped him!”

My head ached, possibly from the double weight, or perhaps from too many shocks. “Now you know,” Dak went on. “You know why Jock Dubois didn’t want to trust you with it until after we raised ground. It is the biggest news story since the first landing on the Moon, and we are sitting on it, doing our damnedest to keep it from ever being known. We hope to use you until

we can find him and get him back. Matter of fact, you have already started your impersonation. This ship is not really the Go For Broke; it is the Chief’s private yacht and traveling office, the Tom Paine. The Go For Broke is riding a parking orbit around Mars, with its transponder giving out the recognition signal of this ship-a fact known only to its captain and comm officer- while the Tommie tucks up her skirts and rushes to Earth to pick up a substitute for the Chief. Do you begin to scan it, old son?”

I admit that I did not. “Yes, but-see here, Captain, if Mr. Bonforte’s political enemies have kidnapped him, why keep it secret? I should expect you to shout it from the housetops.” “On Earth we would. At New Batavia we would. On Venus we would. But here we are dealing with Mars. Do you know the legend of Kkkahgral the Younger?”

“Eh? I’m afraid I don’t.”

“You must study it; it will give you insight into what makes a Martian tick. Briefly, this boy Kkkah was to appear at a certain time and place, thousands of years ago, for a very high honor- like being knighted. Through no fault of his own (the way we would look at it) he failed to make it on time. Obviously the only thing to do was to kill him-by Martian standards. But because of his youth and his distinguished record some of the radicals present argued that he should be allowed to go back and start over. But Kkkahgral would have none of it. He insisted on his right to prosecute the case himself, won it, and was executed. Which makes him the very embodiment, the patron saint, of propriety on Mars.”

“That’s crazy!”

“Is it? We aren’t Martians. They are a very old race and they have worked out a system of debts and obligations to cover every possible situation-the greatest formalists conceivable. Compared with them, the ancient Japanese, with their girl and gimu, were outright anarchists. Martians don’t have ‘right’ and ‘wrong’-instead they have propriety and impropriety, squared, cubed, and loaded with gee juice. But where it bears on this problem is that the Chief was about to be adopted into the nest of Kkkahgral the Younger himself. Do you scan me now?”

I still did not. To my mind this Kkkah character was one of the more loathsome items from Le Grand Guignol. Broadbent went on, “It’s simple enough. The Chief is probably the greatest practical student of Martian customs and psychology. He has been working up to this for years. Comes local noon on Wednesday at Lacus Soli, the ceremony of adoption takes place. If the Chief is there and goes through his paces properly, everything is sweet. If he is not there-and it makes no difference at all why he is not there-his name is mud on Mars, in every nest from pole to pole- and the greatest interplanetary and interracial political coup ever attempted falls flat on its face. Worse than that, it will backfire. My guess is that the very least that will happen is for Mars to withdraw even from its present loose association with the Empire. Much more likely there will be reprisals and human beings will be killed-maybe every human on Mars. Then the extremists in the Humanity Party would have theft way and Mars would be brought into the Empire by force-but only after every Martian was dead. And all set off just by Bonforte failing to show up for the adoption ceremony… Martians take these things very seriously.”

Dak left as suddenly as he had appeared and Penelope Russell turned on the picture projector again. It occurred to me fretfully that I should have asked him what was to keep our enemies from simply killing me, if all that was needed to upset the political applecart was to keep Bonforte (in his proper person, or through his double) from attending some barbaric Martian ceremony. But I had forgotten to ask-perhaps I was subconsciously afraid of being answered.

But shortly I was again studying Bonforte, watching his movements and gestures, feeling his expressions, subvocalizing the tones of his voice, while floating in that detached, warm reverie of artistic effort. Already I was “wearing his head.”

I was panicked out of it when the images shifted to one in which Bonforte was surrounded by Martians, touched by their pseudo limbs. I had been so deep inside the picture that I could actually feel them myself-and the stink was unbearable. I made a strangled noise and clawed at it. “Shut it oft!”

The lights came up and the picture disappeared. Miss Russell was looking at me. “What in the world is the matter with you?”

I tried to get my breath and stop trembling. “Miss Russell-I am very sorry-but please-don’t turn that on again. I can’t stand Martians.”

She looked at me as if she could not believe what she saw but despised it anyhow. “I told them,” she said slowly and scornfully, “that this ridiculous scheme would not work.” “I am very sorry. I cannot help it.”

She did not answer but climbed heavily out of the cider press. She did not walk as easily at two gravities as Dak did, but she managed. She left without another word, closing the door as she went.

She did not return. Instead the door was opened by a man who appeared to be inhabiting a giant kiddie stroller. “Howdy there, young fellow!” he boomed out. He was sixtyish, a bit too

heavy, and bland; I did not have to see his diploma to be aware that his was a “bedside” manner.

“How do you do, sir?”

“Well enough. Better at lower acceleration.” He glanced down at the contrivance he was strapped into. “How do you like my corset-on-wheels? Not stylish, perhaps, but it takes some of the strain off my heart. By the way, just to keep the record straight, I’m Dr. Capek, Mr. Bonforte’s personal therapist. I know who you are. Now what’s this we hear about you and Martians?”

I tried to explain it clearly and unemotionally.

Dr. Capek nodded. “Captain Broadbent should have told me. I would have changed the order of your indoctrination program. The captain is a competent young fellow in his way but his muscles run ahead of his brain on occasion … He is so perfectly normal an extrovert that he frightens me. But no harm done. Mr. Smythe, 1 want your permission to hypnotize you. You have my word as a physician that it will be used only to help you in this matter and that I will in no wise tamper with your personal integration.” He pulled out an old-fashioned pocket watch of the sort that is almost a badge of his profession and took my pulse.

I answered, “You have my permission readily, sir-but it won’t do any good. I can’t go under.” I had learned hypnotic techniques myself during the time I was showing my mentalist act, but my teachers had never had any luck hypnotizing me. Atouch of hypnotism is very useful to such an act, especially if the local police aren’t too fussy about the laws the medical association has hampered us with.

“So? Well, we’ll just have to do the best we can, then. Suppose you relax, get comfortable, and we’ll talk about your problem.” He still kept the watch in his hand, fiddling with it and twisting the chain, after he had stopped taking my pulse. I started to mention it, since it was catching the reading light just over my head, but decided that it was probably a nervous habit of which he was not aware and really too trivial a matter to call to the attention of a stranger.

“I’m relaxed,” I assured him. “Ask me anything you wish. Or free association, if you prefer.”

“Just let yourself float,” he said softly. “Two gravities makes you feel heavy, doesn’t it? I usually just sleep through it myself. It pulls the blood out of the brain, makes one sleepy. They are beginning to boost the drive again. We’ll all have to sleep … We’ll be heavy … We’ll have to sleep. .

I started to tell him that he had better put his watch away-or it would spin right out of his hand. Instead I fell asleep.

When I woke up, the other acceleration bunk was occupied by Dr. Capek. “Howdy, bub,” he greeted me. “I got tired of that confounded perambulator and decided to stretch out here and distribute the strain.”

“Uh, are we back on two gravities again?” “Eh? Oh yes! We’re on two gravities.”

“I’m sorry I blacked out. How long was I asleep?” “Oh, not very long. How do you feel?”

“Fine. Wonderfully rested, in fact.”

“It frequently has that effect. Heavy boost, I mean. Feel like seeing some more pictures?” “Why, certainly, if you say so, Doctor.”

“Okay.” He reached up and again the room went dark.

I was braced for the notion that he was going to show me more pictures of Martians; I made up my mind not to panic. After all, I had found it necessary on many occasions to pretend that they were not present; surely motion pictures of them should not affect me-I had simply been surprised earlier.

They were indeed stereos of Martians, both with and without Mr. Bonforte. I found it possible to study them with detached mind, without terror or disgust. Suddenly I realized that I was enjoying looking at them!

I let out some exclamation and Capek stopped the film. “Trouble?” “Doctor-you hypnotized me!”

“You told me to.”

“But I can’t be hypnotized.” “Sorry to hear it.”

“Uh-so you managed it. I’m not too dense to see that.” I added, “Suppose we try those pictures again. I can’t really believe it.”

He switched them on and I watched and wondered. Martians were not disgusting, if one looked at them without prejudice; they weren’t even ugly. In fact, they possessed the same quaint grace as a Chinese pagoda. True, they were not human in form, but neither is a bird of paradise-and birds of paradise are the loveliest things alive.

I began to realize, too, that their pseudo limbs could be very expressive; their awkward gestures showed some of the bumbling friendliness of puppies. I knew now that I had looked at Martians all my life through the dark glasses of hate and fear.

Of course, I mused, theft stench would still take getting used to, but-and then I suddenly realized that I was smelling them, the unmistakable odor-and I didn’t mind it a bit! In fact, I liked it. “Doctor!” I said urgently. “This machine has a ‘smellie’ attachment-doesn’t it?”

“Eh? I believe not. No, I’m sure it hasn’t-too much parasitic weight for a yacht.” “But it must. I can smell them very plainly.”

“Oh, yes.” He looked slightly shamefaced. “Bub, I did one thing to you that I hope will cause you no inconvenience.” “Sir?”

“While we were digging around inside your skull it became evident that a lot of your neurotic orientation about Martians was triggered by their body odor. I didn’t have time to do a deep job so I had to offset it. I asked Penny-that’s the youngster who was in here before-for a loan of some of the perfume she uses. I’m afraid that from here on out, bub, Martians are going to smell like a Parisian house of joy to you. If I had had time I would have used some homelier pleasant odor, like ripe strawberries or hotcakes and syrup. But I had to improvise.”

I sniffed. Yes, it did smell like a heavy and expensive perfume- and yet, damn it, it was unmistakably the reek of Martians. “I like it.” “You can’t help liking it.”

“But you must have spilled the whole bottle in here. The place is drenched with it.”

“Huh? Not at all. I merely waved the stopper under your nose a half hour ago, then gave the bottle back to Penny and she went away with it.” He sniffed. “The odor is gone now. ‘Jungle Lust,’ it said on the bottle. Seemed to have a lot of musk in it. I accused Penny of trying to make the crew space-happy and she just laughed at me.” He reached up and switched off the stereopix. “We’ve had enough of those for now. I want to get you onto something more useful.”

When the pictures faded out, the fragrance faded with them, just as it does with smellie equipment. I was forced to admit to myself that it was all in the head. But, as an actor, I was intellectually aware of that truth anyhow.

When Penny came back in a few minutes later, she had a fragrance exactly like a Martian. I loved it.

Chapter 4

My education continued in that room (Mr. Bonforte’s guest room, it was) until turnover. I had no sleep, other than under hypnosis, and did not seem to need any. Either Doc Capek or Penny stuck with me and helped me the whole time. Fortunately my man was as thoroughly photographed and recorded as perhaps any man in history and I had, as well, the close co- operation of his intimates. There was endless material; the problem was to see how much I could assimilate, both awake and under hypnosis.

I don’t know at what point I quit disliking Bonforte. Capek assured me-and I believe him-that he did not implant a hypnotic suggestion on this point; I had not asked for it and I am quite certain that Capek was meticulous about the ethical responsibilities of a physician and hypnotherapist. But I suppose that it was an inevitable concomitant of the role-I rather think I would learn to like Jack the Ripper if I studied for the part. Look at it this way:

to learn a role truly, you must for a time become that character. And a man either likes himself, or he commits suicide, one way or another. “To understand all is to forgive all”-and I was beginning to understand Bonforte.

At turnover we got that one-gravity rest that Dak had promised. We never were in free fall, not for an instant; instead of putting out the torch, which I gather they hate to do while under way, the ship described what Dak called a 1 SO-degree skew turn. It leaves the ship on boost the whole time and is done rather qulckly, but it has an oddly disturbing effect on the sense of balance. The effect has a name something like Coriolanus. Coriolis?

All I know about spaceships is that the ones that operate from the surface of a planet are true rockets but the voyageurs call them “teakettles” because of the steam jet of water or hydrogen they boost with. They aren’t considered real atomic-power ships even though the jet is heated by an atomic pile. The long-jump ships such as the Tom Paine, torchships that is, are (so they tell me) the real thing, making use of F equals MC squared, or is it Mequals EC squared? You know-the thing Einstein invented.

Dak did his best to explain it all to me, and no doubt it is very interesting to those who care for such things. But I can’t imagine why a gentleman should bother with such. It seems to me that every time those scientific laddies get busy with their slide rules life becomes more complicated. What was wrong with things the way they were?

During the two hours we were on one gravity I was moved up to Bonforte’s cabin. I started wearing his clothes and his face and everyone was careful to cail me “Mr. Bonforte” or “Chief” or (in the case of Dr. Capek) “Joseph,” the idea being, of course, to help me build the part.

Everyone but Penny, that is… She simply would not call me “Mr. Bonforte.” She did her best to help but she could not bring herself to that. It was clear as scripture that she was a secretary who silently and hopelessly loved her boss, and she resented me with a deep, illogical, but naturai bitterness. It made it hard for both of us, especially as I was finding her most attractive. No man can do his best work with a woman constantly around him who despises him. But I could not dislike her in return; I felt deeply sorry for her-even though I was decidedly irked.

We were on a tryout-in-the-sticks basis now, as not everyone in the Tom Paine knew that I was not Bonforte. I did not know exactly which ones knew of the substitution, but I was allowed to relax and ask questions only in the presence of Dak, Penny, and Dr. Capek. I was fairiy sure that Bonforte’s chief clerk, Mr. Washington, knew but never let on; he was a spare, elderly mulatto with the tight-lipped mask of a saint. There were two others who certhinly knew, but they were not in the Tom Paine; they were standing by and covering up from the Go For Broke, handling press releases and routine dispatches-Bill Corpsman, who was Bonforte’s front man with the news services, and Roger Clifton. I don’t know quite how to describe Clifton’s job. Political deputy? He had been Minister without Portfolio, you may remember, when Bonforte was Supreme Minister, but that says nothing. Let’s put it symbolically: Bonforte handed out policy and Clifton handed out patronage.

This small group had to know; if any others knew it was not considered necessary to tell me. To be sure, the other members of Bonforte’s staff and all the crew of the Tom Paine knew that something odd was going on; they did not necessarily know what it was. Agood many people had seen me enter the ship-but as “Benny Grey.” By the time they saw me again I was already “Bonforte.”

Someone had had the foresight to obtain real make-up equipment, but I used aimost none. At close range make-up can be seen; even Silicoflesh cannot be given the exact texture of skin. I contented myself with darkening my natural complexion a couple of shades with Semiperm and wearing his face, from inside. I did have to sacrifice quite a lot of hair and Dr. Capek inhibited the roots. I did not mind; an actor can always wear hair-pieces-and I was sure that this job was certain to pay me a fee that would let me retire for life, if 1 wished.

On the other hand, I was sometimes queasily aware that “life” might not be too long-there are those old saws about the man who knew too much and the one about dead men and tales. But truthfully I was beginning to trust these people. They were all darn nice people-which told me as much about Bonforte as I had learned by listening to his speeches and seeing his pix. Apolitical figure is not a single man, so I was learning, but a compatible team. If Bonforte himself had not been a decent sort he would not have had these people around him.

The Martian language gave me my greatest worry. Like most actors, I had picked up enough Martian, Venerian, Outer Jovian, etc., to be able to fake in front of a camera or on stage. But those roiled or fluttered consonants are very difficult. Human vocal cords are not as versatile as a Martian’s tympanus, I believe, and, in any case, the semi-phonetic spelling out of those sounds in Roman letters, for example “kkk” or “jjj” or “rrr,” have no more to do with the true sounds than the gin “Gnu” has to do with the inhaled click with which a Bantu pronounces “Gnu.” “Jjj,” for instance, closely resembles a Bronx cheer.

Fortunately Bonforte had no great talent for other languages- and I am a professional; my ears really hear, I can imitate any sound, from a buzz saw striking a nail in a chunk of firewood to a setting hen disturbed on her nest. It was necessary only to acquire Martian as poorly as Bonforte spoke it. He had worked hard to overcome his lack of talent, and every word and phrase of Martian that he knew had been sight-sound recorded so that he could study his mistakes.

So I studied his mistakes, with the projector moved into his office and Penny at my elbow to sort out the spools for me and answer questions.

Human languages fall into four groups: inflecting ones as in Anglo-American, positional as in Chinese, agglutinative as in Old Turkish, polysynthetic (sentence units) as in Eskimo-to which, of course, we now add alien structures as wildly odd and as nearly impossible for the human brain as non-repetitive or emergent Venetian. Luckily Martian is analogous to human speech forms. Basic Martian, the trade language, is positional and involves only simple concrete ideas-like the greeting: “I see you.” High Martian is polysynthetic and very stylized, with an expression for every nuance of their complex system of rewards and punishments, obligations and debts. It had been almost too much for Bonforte; Penny told me that he could read those arrays of dots they use for writing quite easily but of the spoken form of High Martian he could say only a few hundred sentences.

Brother, how I studied those few he had mastered!

The strain on Penny was even greater than it was on me. Both she and Dak spoke some Martian but the chore of coaching me fell on her as Dak had to spend most of his time in the control room; Jock’s death had left him shorthanded. We dropped from two gravities to one for the last few million miles of the approach, during which time he never came below at all. I spent it learning the ritual I would have to know for the adoption ceremony, with Penny’s help.

I had just completed running through the speech in which 1 was to accept membership in the Kkkah nest-a speech not unlike that, in spirit, with which an orthodox Jewish boy assumes the responsibilities of manhood, but as fixed, as invariable, as Hamlet’s soliloquy. I had read it, complete with Bonforte’s misprofluflciations and facial tic; I finished and asked, “How was that?”

“That was quite good,” she answered seriously.

“Thanks, Curly Top.” It was a phrase I had lifted from the language-practice spools in Bonforte’s files; it was what Bonforte called her when he was feeling mellow-and it was perfectly in character.

“Don’t you dare call me that?’

It looked at her in honest amazement and answered, still in character, “Why, Penny my child!”

“Don’t you call me that, either! You fake! You phony! You- actor!” She jumped up, ran as far as she could-which was only to the door-and stood there, faced away from me, her face buried in her hands and her shoulders shaking with sobs.

I made a tremendous effort and lifted myself out of the character_pulled in my belly, let my own face come up, answered in my own voice. “Miss Russell!” She stopped crying, whirled around, looked at me, and her jaw dropped. I added, still in my normal self, “Come back here and sit down.”

I thought she was going to refuse, then she seemed to think better of it, came slowly back and sat down, her hands in her lap but with her face that of a little girl who is “saving up more spit.”

I let her sit for a moment, then said quietly, “Yes, Miss Russell, I am an actor. Is that a reason for you to insult me?”

She simply looked stubborn.

“As an actor, I am here to do an actor’s job. You know why. You know, too, that I was tricked into taking it-it is not a job I would have accepted with my eyes open, even in my wildest moments. I hate having to do it considerably more than you hate having me do it-for despite Captain Broadbent’S cheerful assurances I am not at all sure that I will come out of it with my skin intact-and I’m actually fond of my skin; it’s the only one I have. I believe, too, that I know why you find it hard to accept me. But is that any reason for you to make my job harder than it has to be?”

She mumbled. I said sharply, “Speak up!” “It’s dishonest. It’s indecent!”

I sighed. “It certainly is. More than that, it is impossible without the wholehearted support of the other members of the cast. So let’s call Captain Broadbent down here and tell him. Let’s call it off.”

She jerked her face up and said, “Oh no! We can’t do that.”

“Why can’t we? Afar better thing to drop it now than to present it and have it flop. 1 can’t give a performance under these conditions. Let’s admit it.” “But…but…We’ve got to! It’s necessary.”

“Why is it necessary, Miss Russell? Political reasons? I have not the slightest interest in politics-and I doubt if you have any really deep interest. So why must we do it?” “Because-because he—” She stopped, unable to go on, strangled by sobs.

I got up, went over, and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know. Because if we don’t, something that he has spent years building up will fall to pieces. Because he can’t do it himself and his friends are trying to cover up and do it for him. Because his friends are loyal to him. Because you are loyal to him. Nevertheless, it hurts you to see someone else in the place that is rightfully his. Besides that, you are half out of your mind with grief and worry about him. Aren’t you?”

“Yes.” I could barely hear it.

I took hold of her chin and tilted her face up. “I know why you find it so hard to have me here, in his place. You love him. But I’m doing the best job for him I know how. Confound it, woman! Do you have to make my job six times harder by treating me like dirt?”

She looked shocked. For a moment I thought she was going to slap me. Then she said brokenly, “I am sorry. I am very sorry. I won’t let it happen again.” I let go her chin and said briskly, “Then let’s get back to work.”

She did not move. “Can you forgive me?”

“Huh? There’s nothing to forgive, Penny. You were acting up because you love him and you were worried. Now let’s get to work. I’ve got to be letter-perfect-and it’s only hours away.” I dropped at once back into the role.

She picked up a spool and started the projector again. I watched him through it once, then did the acceptance speech with the sound cut out but stereo on, matching my voice-Mr voice, I mean-to the moving image. She watched me, looking from the image back to my face with a dazed look on her own. We finished and I switched it off myself. “How was that?”

“That was perfect!”

I smiled his smile. “Thanks, Curly Top.” “Not at all-‘Mr. Bonforte.’”

Two hours later we made rendezvous with the Go For Broke.

Dak brought Roger Clifton and Bill Corpsman to my cabin as soon as the Go For Broke had transferred them. I knew them from pictures. I stood up and said, “Hello, Rog. Glad to see you, Bill.” My voice was warm but casual; on the level at which these people operated, a hasty trip to Earth and back was simply a few days’ separation and nothing more. I limped over and offered my hand. The ship was at the moment under low boost as it adjusted to a much tighter orbit than the Go For Broke had been riding in.

Clifton threw me a quick glance, then played up. He took his cigar out of his mouth, shook hands, and said quietly, “Glad to see you back, Chief.” He was a small man, bald-headed and middle-aged, and looked like a lawyer and a good poker player.

“Anything special while I was away?” “No. Just routine. I gave Penny the file.”

“Good.” I turned to Bill Corpsman, again offered my hand.

He did not take it. Instead he put his fists on his hips, looked up at me, and whistled. “Amazing! I really do believe we stand a chance of getting away with it.” He looked me up and down, then said, “Turn around, Smythe. Move around. I want to see you walk.”

I found that I was actually feeling the annoyance that Bonforte would have felt at such uncalled-for impertinence, and, of course, it showed in my face. Dak touched Corpsman’s sleeve and said quickly, “Knock it off, Bill. You remember what we agreed?”

“Chicken tracks!” Corpsman answered. “This room is soundproof. I just want to make sure he is up to it. Smythe, how’s your Martian? Can you spiel it?”

I answered with a single squeaking polysyllabic in High Martian, a sentence meaning roughly, “Proper conduct demands that one of us leave!”-but it means far more than that, as it is a challenge which usually ends in someone’s nest being notified of a demise.

I don’t think Corpsman understood it, for he grinned and answered, “I’ve got to hand it to you, Smythe. That’s good.”

But Dak understood it. He took Corpsman by the arm and said, “Bill, I told you to knock it off. You’re in my ship and that’s an order. We play it straight from here on-every second.” Clifton added, “Pay attention to him, Bill. You know we agreed that was the way to do it. Otherwise somebody might slip.”

Corpsman glanced at him, then shrugged. “All right, all right. I was just checking up-after all, this was my idea.” He gave me a one-sided smile and said, “Howdy, Mister Bonforte. Glad to see you back.”

There was a shade too much emphasis on “Mister” but I answered, “Good to be back, Bill. Anything special I need to know before we go down?” “I guess not. Press conference at Goddard City after the ceremonies.” I could see him watching me to see how I would take it.

I nodded. “Very well.”

Dak said hastily, “Say, Rog, how about that? Is it necessary? Did you authorize it?”

“I was going to add,” Corpsman went on, turning to Clifton, “before the Skipper here got the jitters, that I can take it myself and tell the boys that the Chief has dry laryngitis from the ceremonies-or we can limit it to written questions submitted ahead of time and I’ll get the answers written out for him while the ceremonies are going on. Seeing that he looks and sounds so good close up, I would say to risk it. How about it, Mister-‘Bonforte’? Think you can swing it?”

“I see no problem involved in it, Bill.” I was thinking that if I managed to get by the Martians without a slip I would undertake to ad-lib double talk to a bunch of human reporters as long as they wanted to listen. I had good command of Bonforte’s speaking style by now and at least a rough notion of his policies and attitudes-and I need not be specific.

But Clifton looked worried. Before he could speak the ship’s horn brayed out, “Captain is requested to come to the control room. Minus four minutes.” Dak said quickly, “You all will have to settle it. I’ve got to put this sled in its slot-I’ve got nobody up there but young Epstein.” He dashed for the door.

Corpsman called out, “Hey, Skip! I wanted to tell you-” He was out the door and following Dak without waiting to say goodby.

Roger Clifton closed the door Corpsman had left open, came back, and said slowly, “Do you want to risk this press conference?” “That is up to you. I want to do the lob.”

“Mnim … Then I’m inclined to risk it-if we use the written questions method. But I’ll check Bill’s answers myself before you have to give them.”

“Very well.” I added, “If you can find a way to let me have them ten minutes or so ahead of time, there shouldn’t be any difficulty. I’m a very quick study.”

He inspected me. “I quite believe it-Chief. All right, I’ll have Penny slip the answers to you right after the ceremonies. Then you can excuse yourself to go to the men’s room and just stay there until you are sure of them.”

“That should work.”

“I think so. Uh, I must say I feel considerably better now that I’ve seen you. Is there anything I can do for you?” “I think not, Rog. Yes, there is, too. Any word about-him?”

“Eh? Well, yes and no. He’s still in Goddard City; we’re sure of that. He hasn’t been taken off Mars, or even out in the country. We blocked them on that, if that was their intention.” “Eh? Goddard City is not a big place, is it? Not more than a hundred thousand? What’s the hitch?”

“The hitch is that we don’t dare admit that you-I mean that he

-is missing. Once we have this adoption thing wrapped up, we can put you out of sight, then announce the kidnaping as if it had lust taken place-and make them take the city apart rivet by rivet. The city authorities are all Humanity Party appointees, but they will have to co-operate-after the ceremony. It will be the most wholehearted co-operation you ever saw, for they will be deadly anxious to produce him before the whole Kkkahgral nest swarms over them and tears the city down around theft ears.”

“Oh. I’m still learning about Martian psychology and customs.” “Aren’t we all?”

“Rog? Mmm… What leads you to think that he is still alive? Wouldn’t theft purpose be better served-and with less risk-just by killing him?” I was thinking queasily how simple it had turned out to be to get rid of a body, if a man was ruthless enough.

“I see what you mean. But that, too, is tied up with Martian notions about ‘propriety.’” (He used the Martian word.) “Death is the one acceptable excuse for not carrying out an obligation. If he were simply killed, they would adopt him into the nest after his death-and then the whole nest and probably every nest on Mars would set out to avenge him. They would not mind in the least if the whole human race were to die or be killed-but to kill this one human being to keep him from being adopted, that’s another kettle of fish entirely. Matter of obligation and propriety-in some ways a Martian’s response to a situation is so automatic as to remind one of instinct. It is not, of course, since they are incredibly intelligent. But they do the damnedest things.” He frowned and added, “Sometimes I wish I had never left Sussex.”

The warning hooter broke up the discussion by forcing us to hurry to our bunks. Dak had cut it fine on purpose; the shuttle rocket from Goddard City was waiting for us when we settled into free fall. All five of us went down, which just filled the passenger couches-again a matter of planning, for the Resident Commissioner had expressed the intention of coming up to meet me and had been dissuaded only by Dak’s message to him that our party would require all the space.

I tried to get a better look at the Martian surface as we went down, as I had had only one glimpse of it, from the control room of the Tom Paine-since I was supposed to have been there many times I could not show the normal curiosity of a tourist. I did not get much of a look; the shuttle pilot did not turn us so that we could see until he leveled off for his glide approach and I was busy then putting on my oxygen mask.

That pesky Mars-type mask almost finished us; I had never had a chance to practice with it-Dak did not think of it and I had not realized it would be a problem; I had worn both spacesuit and aqua lung on other occasions and I thought this would be about the same. It was not. The model Bonforte favored was a mouthfree type, a Mitsubushi “Sweet Winds” which pressurizes directly at the nostrils-a nose clamp, nostril plugs, tubes up each nostril which then run back under each ear to the supercharger on the back of your neck. I concede that it is a fine device, once you get used to it, since you can talk, eat, drink, etc., while wearing it. But I would rather have a dentist put both hands in my mouth.

The real difficulty is that you have to exercise conscious control on the muscles that close the back of your mouth, or you hiss like a teakettle, since the dun thing operates on a pressure difference. Fortunately the pilot equalized to Mars-surface pressure once we all had our masks on, which gave me twenty minutes or so to get used to it. But for a few moments I thought the jig was up, just over a silly piece of gadgetry. But I reminded myself that I had worn the thing hundreds of times before and that I was as used to it as I was to my toothbrush. Presently I believed it.

Dak had been able to avoid having the Resident Commissiooer chit-chat with me for an hour on the way down but it had not been possible to miss him entirely; he met the shuttle at the skyfield. The close timing did keep me from having to cope with other humans, since I had to go at once into the Martian city. It made sense, but it seemed strange that I would be safer among Martians than among my own kind.

It seemed even stranger to be on Mars. Chapter 5

Mr. Commissioner Boothroyd was a Humanity Party appointee, of course, as were all of his staff except for civil service technical employees. But Dak had told me that it was at least sixty- forty that Boothroyd had not had a finger in the plot; Dak considered him honest but stupid. For that matter, neither Dak nor Rog Clifton believed that Supreme Minister Quiroga was in it; they attributed the thing to the clandestine terrorist group inside the Humanity Party who called themselves the “Actionists”-and they attributed them to some highiy respectable big-money boys who stood to profit heavily.

Myself, I would not have known an Actionist from an auctioneer.

But the minute we landed something popped up that made me wonder whether friend Boothroyd was as honest and stupid as Dak thought he was. It was a minor thing but one of those little things that can punch holes in an impersonation. Since I was a Very Important Visitor the Commissioner met me; since I held no public office other than membership in the Grand Assembly and was traveling privately no official honors were offered. He was alone save for his aide-and a little girl about fifteen.

I knew him from photographs and I knew quite a bit about him; Rog and Penny had briefed me carefully. I shook hands, asked about his sinusitis, thanked him for the pleasant time I had had on my last visit, and spoke with his aide in that warm man-to-man fashion that Bonforte was so good at. Then I turned to the young lady. I knew Boothroyd had children and that one of them was about this age and sex; I did not know-perhaps Rog and Penny did not know-whether or not I had ever met her.

Boothroyd himself saved me. “You haven’t met my daughter Deirdre, I believe. She insisted on coming along.”

Nothing in the pictures I had studied had shown Bonforte dealing with young girls-so I simply had to be Bonforte-a widower in his middle fifties who had no children of his own, no nieces, and probably little experience with teen-age girls-but with lots of experience in meeting strangers of every sort. So I treated her as if she were twice her real age; I did not quite kiss her band. She blushed and looked pleased.

Boothroyd looked indulgent and said, “Well, ask him, my dear. You may not have another chance.”

She blushed deeper and said, “Sir, could I have your autograph? The girls in my school collect them. I have Mr. Quiroga’s I ought to have yours.” She produced a little book which she had been holding behind her.

I felt like a copter driver asked for his license-which is home in his other pants. I had studied hard but I had not expected to have to forge Bonforte’s signature. Damn it, you can’t do everything in two and a half days!

But it was simply impossible for Bonforte to refuse such a request-and I was Bonforte. I smiled jovially and said, “You have Mr. Quiroga’s already?” “Yes, sir.”

“Just his autograph?”

“Yes. Er, he put ‘Best Wishes’ on it.”

I winked at Boothroyd. “Just ‘Best Wishes,’ eh? To young lathes I never make it less than ‘Love.’ Tell you what I’m going to do-” I took the little book from her, glanced through the pages. “Chief,” Dak said urgently, “we are short on minutes.”

“Compose yourself,” I said without looking up. “The entire Martian nation can wait, if necessary, on a young lady.” I banded the book to Penny. “Will you note the size of this book? And then remind me to send a photograph suitable for pasting in it-and properly autographed, of course.”

“Yes, Mr. Bonforte.”

“Will that suit you, Miss Deirdre?” “Gee!”

“Good. Thanks for asking me. We can leave now, Captain. Mr. Commissioner, is that our car?”

“Yes, Mr. Bonforte.” He shook his head wryly. “I’m afraid you have converted a member of my own family to your Expansionist heresies. Hardly sporting, eh? Sitting ducks, and so forth?” “That should teach you not to expose her to bad company-eh, Miss Deirdre?” I shook hands again. “Thanks for meeting us, Mr. Commissioner. I am afraid we had better hurry thong

now.”

“Yes, certainly. Pleasure.” “Thanks, Mr. Bonforte!” “Thank you, my dear.”

I turned away slowly, so as not to appear jerky or nervous in stereo. There were photographers around, still, news pickup, stereo, and so forth, as well as many reporters. Bill was keeping the reporters away from us; as we turned to go he waved and said, “See you later, Chief,” and turned back to talk to one of them. Rog, Dak, and Penny followed me into the car. There was the usual skyfield crowd, not as numerous as at any earthport, but numerous. I was not worried about them as long as Boothroyd accepted the impersonation-though there were certainly some present who knew that I was not Bonforte.

But I refused to let those individuals worry me, either. They could cause us no trouble without incriminating themselves.

The car was a Rolls Outlander, pressurized, but I left my oxygen mask on because the others did. I took the right-hand seat, Rog sat beside me, and Penny beside him, while Dak wound his long legs around one of the folding seats. The driver glanced back through the partition and started up.

Rog said quietly, “I was worried there for a moment.”

“Nothing to worry about. Now let’s all be quiet, please. I want to review my speech.”

Actually I wanted to gawk at the Martian scene; I knew the speech perfectly. The driver took us along the north edge of the field, past many towns. I read signs for Verwijs Trading Company, Diana Outlines, Ltd., Three Planets, and I. G. Farbenindustrie. There were almost as many Martians as humans in sight. We ground hogs get the impression that Martians are slow as snails- and they are, on our comparatively heavy planet. On their own world they skim along on their bases like a stone sliding over water.

To the right, south of us past the fiat field, the Great Canal dipped into the too-close horizon, showing no shore line beyond. Straight ahead of us was the Nest of Kkkah, a fairy city. I was staring at it, my heart lifting at its fragile beauty, when Dak moved suddenly.

We were well past the traffic around the towns but there was one car ahead, coming toward us; I had seen it without noticing it.

But Dak must have been edgily ready for trouble; when the other car was quite close, he suddenly slammed down the partition separating us from the driver, swarmed over the man’s neck, and grabbed the wheel. We slewed to the nght, barely missing the other car, slewed again to the left and barely stayed on the road It was a near thing, for we were past the field now and here the highway edged the canal.

I had not been much use to Dak a couple of days earlier in the Eisenhower, but 1 had been unarmed and not expecting trouble, This day 1 was still unarmed, not so much as a poisoned fang, but 1 comported myself a little better. Oak was more than busy trying to drive the car while leaning over from the back seat. The driver, caught off balance at first, now tried to wrestle him away from the wheel.

I lunged forward, got my left arm around the drivers neck, and shoved my right thumb into his ribs. Move and you’ve had it!” The voice belonged to the hero—villain in The Second-Story Gentleman; the line of dialogue was his too.

My prisoner became very quiet.

Dak said urgently, “Rog, what are they doing?”

Clifton looked back and answered, “They’re turning around.”

Oak answered, “Okay. Chief, keep your gun on that character while I climb over.” He was doing so even as he spoke, an awkward matter in view of his long legs and the crowded car- He settled into the seat and said happily, “1 doubt if anything on wheels can catch a Rolls on a straightaway.” He jerked on the damper and the big car shot forward. “How am I doing, Rog?”

“They’re just turned around.”

“All right. What do we do with this item? Dump him out?”

My victim squirmed and said, “I didn’t do anything!” 1 jabbed my thumb harder and he quieted.

“Oh, not a thing,” Dak agreed, keeping his eyes on the road. All you did was try to cause a little crash-just enough to make Mr. Bonforte late for his appointment If I had not noticed that you were slowing down to make it easy on yourself, you might have got away with it. No guts, eh?” He took a slight curve with the tires screaming and the gyro fighting to keep us upright. “What’s the situation, Rog?”

“They’ve given up.”

“So.” Dak did not slacken speed; we must have been doing well over three hundred kilometers. “I wonder if they would try to bomb us with one of their own boys aboard? How about it, bub? Would they write you off as expendable?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! You’re going to be in trouble over this!”

“Really? The word of four respectable people against your jailbird record? Or aren’t you a transportee? Anyhow, Mr. Bonforte prefers to have me drive him-so naturally you were glad to do a favor for Mr. Bonforte.” We hit something about as big as a worm cast on that glassy road and my prisoner and I almost went through the roof.

“‘Mr. Bonforte!’” My victim made it a swear word.

Dak was silent for several seconds. At last he said, “I don’t think we ought to dump this one, Chief. I think we ought to let you off, then take him to a quiet place. I think he might talk if we urged him.”

The driver tried to get away. I tightened the pressure on his neck and jabbed him again with my thumb knuckle. Aknuckle may not feel too much like the muzzle of a heater-but who wants to find out? He relaxed and said sullenly, “You don’t dare give me the needle.”

“Heavens, no!” Dak answered in shocked tones. “That would be illegal. Penny girl, got a bobby pin?”

“Why, certainly, Dak.” She sounded puzzled and I was. She did not sound frightened, though, and I certainly was.

“Good. Bub, did you ever have a bobby pin shoved up under your fingernails? They say it will even break a hypnotic command not to talk. Works directly on the subconscious or something. Only trouble is that the patient makes the most unpleasant noises. So we are going to take you out in the dunes where you won’t disturb anybody but sand scorpions. After you have talked-now here comes the nice part! After you talk we are going to turn you loose, not do anything, just let you walk back into town. But-listen carefully now!-if you are real nice and co-operative, you get a prize. We’ll let you have your mask for the walk.”

Dak stopped talking; for a moment there was no sound but the keening of the thin Martian air past the roof. Ahuman being can walk possibly two hundred yards on Mars without an oxygen mask, if he is in good condition. I believe I read of a case where a man walked almost half a mile before he died. I glanced at the trip meter and saw that we were about twenty- three kilometers from Goddard City.

The prisoner said slowly, “Honest, I don’t know anything about it. I was just paid to crash the car.”

“We’ll try to stimulate your memory.” The gates of the Martian city were just ahead of us; Dak started slowing the car. “Here’s where you get out, Chief. Rog, better take your gun and relieve the Chief of our guest.”

“Right, Dak.” Rog moved up by me, jabbed the man in the ribs-again with a bare knuckle. I moved out of the way. Dak braked the car to a halt, stopping right in front of the gates. “Four minutes to spare,” he said happily. “This is a nice car. I wish I owned it. Rog, ease up a touch and give me room.”

Clifton did so, Dak chopped the driver expertly on the side of his neck with the edge of his hand; the man went limp. “That will keep him quiet while you get clear. Can’t have any unseemly disturbance under the eyes of the nest. Let’s check time.”

We did so. I was about three and a half minutes ahead of the deadline. “You are to go in exactly on time, you understand? Not ahead, not behind, but on the dot.” “That’s right,” Clifton and I answered in chorus.

“Thirty seconds to walk up the ramp, maybe. What do you want to do with the three minutes you have left?” I sighed. “Just get my nerve back.”

“Your nerve is all right. You didn’t miss a trick back there. Cheer up, old son. Two hours from now you can head for home, with your pay burning holes in your pocket We’re on the last lap.”

“1 hope so. It’s been quite a strain. Uh, Dak?” “Yes?”

“Come here a second.” I got out of the car, motioned him to come with me a short distance away. “What happens if I make a mistake-in there?” “Eh?” Dak looked surprised, then laughed a little too heartily. “You won’t make a mistake. Penny tells me you’ve got it down Jo-block perfect.” “Yes, but suppose I slip?”

“You won’t slip. I know how you feel; I felt the same way on my first solo grounding. But when it started, I was so busy doing it I didn’t have time to do it wrong.” Clifton called out, his voice thin in thin air, “Dak! Are you watching the time?”

“Gobs of time. Over a minute.”

“Mr. Bonforte!” It was Penny’s voice. I turned and went back to the car. She got out and put out her hand. “Good luck, Mr. Bonforte.” “Thanks, Penny.”

Rog shook hands and Dak clapped me on the shoulder. “Minus thirty-five seconds. Better start.”

I nodded and started up the ramp. It must have been within a second or two of the exact, appointed time when I reached the top, for the mighty gates rolled back as I came to them. I took a deep breath and cursed that damned air mask.

Then I took my stage.

It doesn’t make any difference how many times you do it, that first walk on as the curtain goes up on the first night of any run is a breath-catcher and a heart-stopper. Sure, you know your sides. Sure, you’ve asked the manager to count the house. Sure, you’ve done it all before. No matter-when you first walk out there and know that all those eyes are on you, waiting for you to speak, waiting for you to do something-maybe even waiting for you to go up on your lines, brother, you feel it. This is why they have prompters.

I looked out and saw my audience and I wanted to run. I had stage fright for the first time in thirty years.

The siblings of the nest were spread out before me as far as I could see. There was an open lane in front of me, with thousands on each side, set close together as asparagus. I knew that the first thing I must do was slow-march down the center of that lane, clear to the far end, to the ramp leading down into the inner nest.

I could not move.

I said to myself, “Look, boy, you’re John Joseph Bonforte. You’ve been here dozens of times before. These people are your friends. You’re here because you want to be here-and because they want you here. So march down that aisle. Tum turn te turn! ‘Here comes the bride!”

I began to feel like Bonforte again. I was Uncle Joe Bonforte, determined to do this thing perfectly-for the honor and welfare of my own people and my own planet-and for my Mends the Martians. I took a deep breath and one step.

That deep breath saved me; it brought me that heavenly fragrance. Thousands on thousands of Martians packed close together-it smelled to me as if somebody had dropped and broken a whole case of Jungle Lust. The conviction that I smelled it was so strong that I involuntarily glanced back to see if Penny had followed me in. I could feel her handclasp warm in my palm.

I started limping down that aisle, trying to make it about the speed a Martian moves on his own planet. The crowd closed in behind me. Occasionally kids would get away from their elders and skitter out in front of me. By “kids” I mean post-fission Martians, half the mass and not much over half the height of an adult. They are never out of the nest and we are inclined to forget that there can be little Martians. It takes almost five years, after fission, for a Martian to regain his full size, have his brain fully restored, and get all of his memory back. During this transition he is an idiot studying to be a moron. The gene rearrangement and subsequent regeneration incident to conjugation and fission put him out of the running for a long time. One of Bonforte’s spools was a lecture on the subject, accompanied by some not very good amateur stereo.

The kids, being cheerful idiots, are exempt from propriety and all that that implies. But they are greatly loved.

Two of the kids, of the same and smallest size and looking just alike to me, skittered out and stopped dead in front of me, just like a foolish puppy in traffic. Either I stopped or I ran them down.

So I stopped. They moved even closer, blocking my way completely, and started sprouting pseudo limbs while chittering at each other. I could not understand them at all. Quickly they were plucking at my clothes and snaking their patty-paws into my sleeve pockets.

The crowd was so tight that I could hardly go around them. I was stretched between two needs. In the first place they were so darn cute that I wanted to see if I didn’t have a sweet tucked away somewhere for them-but in a still firster place was the knowledge that the adoption ceremony was timed like a ballet. If I didn’t get on down that street, I was going to commit the classic sin against propriety made famous by Kkkahgral the Younger himself.

But the kids were not about to get out of my way. One of them had found my watch.

I sighed and was almost overpowered by the perfume. Then I made a bet with myself. I bet that baby-kissing was a Galactic Universal and that it took precedence even over Martian propriety. I got on one knee, making myself about the height they were, and fondled them for a few moments, patting them and running my hands down their scales.

Then I stood up and said carefully, “That is all now. I must go,” which used up a large fraction of my stock of Basic Martian.

The kids clung to me but I moved them carefully and gently aside and went on down the double line, hurrying to make up for the time I had lost. No life wand burned a hole in my back. I risked a hope that my violation of propriety had not yet reached the capital offense level. I reached the ramp leading down into the inner nest and started on down.

* * * * I. * * * * * * * *

That line of asterisks represents the adoption ceremony. Why? Because it is limited to members of the Kkkah nest. It is a family matter.

Put it this way: AMormon may have very close gentile friends-but does that friendship get a gentile inside the Temple at Salt Lake City? It never has and it never will. Martians visit very freely back and forth between theft nests-but a Martian enters the inner nest only of his own family. Even his conjugate-spouses are not thus privileged. I have no more right to tell the details of the adoption ceremony than a lodge brother has to be specific about ritual outside the lodge.

Oh, the rough outlines do not matter, since they are the same for any nest, just as my part was the same for any candidate. My sponsor-Bonforte’s oldest Martian friend, Kkkahnreash- met me at the door and threatened me with a wand. I demanded that he kill me at once were I guilty of any breach. To tell the truth, I did not recognize him, even though I had studied a picture of him. But it had to be him because ritual required it.

Having thus made clear that I stood four-square for Motherhood, the Home, Civic Virtue, and never missing Sunday school, I was permitted to enter. ‘Rrreash conducted me around all the stations, I was questioned and I responded. Every word, every gesture, was as stylized as a classical Chinese play, else I would not have stood a chance. Most of the time I did not know what they were saying and half of the time I did not understand my own replies; I simply knew my cues and the responses. It was not made easier by the low light level the Martians prefer; I was groping around like a mole.

I played once with Hawk Mantell, shortly before he died, after he was stone-deaf. There was a trouper! He could not even use a hearing device because the eighth nerve was dead. Part of the time he could cue by llps but that is not always possible. He directed the production himself and he timed it perfectly. I have seen him deliver a line, walk away-then whirl around and snap out a retort to a line that he had never heard, precisely on the timing.

This was like that. I knew my part and I played it. If they blew it, that was their lookout.

But it did not help my morale that there were never less than half a dozen wands leveled at me the whole time. I kept telling myself that they wouldn’t burn me down for a slip. After all, I was just a poor stupid human being and at the very least they would give me a passing mark for effort. But I didn’t believe it.

After what seemed like days-but was not, since the whole ceremony times exactly one ninth of Mars’ rotation-after an endless time, we ate. I don’t know what and perhaps it is just as well. It did not poison me.

After that the elders made their speeches, I made my acceptance speech in answer, and they gave me my name and my wand. I was a Martian.

I did not know how to use the wand and my name sounded like a leaky faucet, but from that instant on it was my legal name on Mars and I was legally a blood member of the most aristocratic family on the planet-exactly fifty-two hours after a ground hog down on his luck had spent his last half-Imperial buying a drink for a stranger in the bar of Casa Manana.

I guess this proves that one should never pick up strangers.

I got out as quickly as possible. Dak had made up a speech for me in which I claimed proper necessity for leaving at once and they let me go. I was nervous as a man upstairs in a sorority house because there was no longer ritual to guide me. I mean to say even casual social behavior was still hedged around with airtight and risky custom and I did not know the moves. So I recited my excuse and headed out. ‘Rrreash and another elder went with me and I chanced playing with another pair of the kids when we were outside-or maybe the same pair. Once I reached the gates the two elders said good-by in squeaky English and let me go out alone; the gates closed behind me and I reswallowed my heart.

The Rolls was waiting where they had let me out; I hurried down, a door opened, and I was surprised to see that Penny was in it alone. But not displeased. I called out, “Hi, Curly Top! I made it!”

“I knew you would.”

I gave a mock sword salute with my wand and said, “Just call me Kkkahjjjerrr”-spraying the front rows with the second syllable. “Be careful with that thing!” she said nervously.

I slid in beside her on the front seat and asked, “Do you know how to use one of these things?” The reaction was setting in and I felt exhausted but gay; I wanted three quick drinks and a thick steak, then to wait up for the critics’ reviews.

“No. But do be careful.”

“I think all you have to do is to press it here,” which I did, and there was a neat two-inch hole in the windshield and the car wasn’t pressurized any longer. Penny gasped. I said, “Gee, I’m sorry. I’ll put it away until Dak can coach me.”

She gulped. “It’s all right. Just be careful where you point it.” She started wheeling the car and I found that Dak was not the only one with a heavy hand on the damper.

Wind was whistling in through the hole I had made. I said, “What’s the rush? I need some time to study my lines for the press conference. Did you bring them? And where are the others?” I had forgotten completely the driver we had grabbed; I had not thought about him from the time the gates of the nest opened.

“No. They couldn’t come.”

“Penny, what’s the matter? What’s happened?” I was wondering if I could possibly take a press conference without coaching. Perhaps I could tell them a little about the adoption; I wouldn’t have to fake that.

“It’s Mr. Bonforte-they’ve found him.” Chapter 6

I had not noticed until then that she had not once called me “Mr. Bonforte.” She could not, of course, for I was no longer he; I was again Lorrie Smythe, that actor chap they had hired to stand in for him.

I sat back and sighed, and let myself relax. “So it’s over at last-and we got away with it.” I felt a great burden lift off me; I had not known how heavy it was until I put it down. Even my “lame” leg stopped aching. I reached over and patted Penny’s hand on the wheel and said in my own voice, “I’m glad it’s over. But I’m going to miss having you around, pal. You’re a trouper. But even the best run ends and the company breaks up. I hope I’ll see you again sometime.”

“I hope so too.”

“I suppose Dak has arranged some shenanigan to keep me under cover and sneak me back into the Tom Paine?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice sounded odd and I gave her a quick glance and saw that she was crying. My heart gave a skip. Penny crying? Over us separating? I could not believe it and yet I wanted to. One might think that, between my handsome features and cultivated manners, women would find me irresistible, but it is a deplorable fact that all too many of them have found me easy to resist. Penny had seemed to find it no effort at all.

“Penny,” I said hastily, “why all the tears, hon? You’ll wreck this car.” “I can’t help it.”

“Well-put me in it. What’s wrong? You told me they had got him back; you didn’t tell me anything else.” I had a sudden horrid but logical suspicion. “He was alive-wasn’t he?” “Yes-he’s alive-but, oh, they’ve hurt him!” She started to sob and I had to grab the wheel.

She straightened up quickly. “Sorry.”

“Want me to drive?”

“I’ll be all right. Besides, you don’t know how-I mean you aren’t supposed to know how to drive.”

“Huh? Don’t be silly. I do know how and it no longer matters that-” I broke off, suddenly realizing that it might still matter. If they had roughed up Bonforte so that it showed, then he could not appear in public in that shape-at least not only fifteen minutes after being adopted into the Kkkah nest. Maybe I would have to take that press conference and depart publicly, while Bonforte would be the one they would sneak aboard. Well, all right-hardly more than a curtain call. “Penny, do Dak and Rog want me to stay in character for a bit? Do I play to the reporters? Or don’t I?”

“I don’t know. There wasn’t time.”

We were already approaching the stretch of godowns by the field, and the giant bubble domes of Goddard City were in sight. “Penny, slow this car down and talk sense. I’ve got to have my cues.”

The driver had talked-I neglected to ask whether or not the bobby-pin treatment had been used. He had then been turned loose to walk back but had not been deprived of his mask; the others had barreled back to Goddard City, with Dak at the wheel. I felt lucky to have been left behind; voyageurs should not be allowed to drive anything but spaceships.

They went to the address the driver had given them, in Old Town under the original bubble. I gathered that it was the sort of jungle every port has had since the Phoenicians sailed through the shoulder of Africa, a place of released transportees, prostitutes, monkey-pushers, rangees, and other dregs-a neighborhood where policemen travel only in pairs.

The information they had squeezed out of the driver had been correct but a few minutes out of date. The room had housed the prisoner, certainly, for there was a bed in it which seemed to have been occupied continuously for at least a week, a pot of coffee was still hot-and wrapped in a towel on a shelf was an old- fashioned removable denture which Clifton identified as belonging to Bonforte. But Bonforte himself was missing and so were his captors.

They had left there with the intention of carrying out the original plan, that of claiming that the kidnapping had taken place immediately after the adoption and putting pressure on Boothroyd by threatening to appeal to the Nest of Kkkah. But they had found Bonforte, had simply run across him in the street before they left Old Town-a poor old stumblebum with a week’s beard, dirty and dazed. The men had not recognized him, but Penny had known him and made them stop.

She broke into sobs again as she told me this part and we almost ran down a truck train snaking up to one of the loading

Areasonable reconstruction seemed to be that the laddies in the second car-the one that was to crash us-had reported back, whereupon the faceless leaders of our opponents had decided that the kidnaping no longer served their purposes. Despite the arguments I had heard about it, I was surprised that they had not simply killed him; it was not until later that I understood that what they had done was subtler, more suited to their purposes, and much crueler than mere killing.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“Dak took him to the voyageurs’ hostel in Dome 3.” “Is that where we are headed?”

“I don’t know. Rog just said to go pick you up, then they disappeared in the service door of the hostel. Uh, no, I don’t think we dare go there. I don’t know what to do.” “Penny, stop the car.”

“Huh?”

“Surely this car has a phone. We won’t stir another inch until we find out-or figure out-what we should do. But I am certain of one thing: I should stay in character until Dak or Rog decides that I should fade out. Somebody has to talk to the newsmen. Somebody has to make a public departure for the Tom Paine. You’re sure that Mr. Bonforte can’t be spruced up so that he can do it?”

“What? Oh, he couldn’t possibly. You didn’t see him.”

“So I didn’t. I’ll take your word for it. All right, Penny, I’m ‘Mr. Bonforte’ again and you’re my secretary. We’d better get with “Yes-Mr. Bonforte.”

“Now try to get Captain Broadbent on the phone, will you, please?”

We couldn’t find a phone list in the car and she had to go through “Information,” but at last she was tuned with the clubhouse of the voyageurs. I could hear both sides. “Pilots’ Club, Mrs. Kelly speaking.”

Penny covered the microphone. “Do I give my name?” “Play it straight. We’ve nothing to hide.”

“This is Mr. Bonforte’s secretary,” she said gravely. “Is his pilot there? Captain Broadbent.”

“I know him, dear.” There was a shout: “Hey! Any of you smokers see where Dak went?” After a pause she went on, “He’s gone to his room. I’m buzzing him.” Shortly Penny said, “Skipper? The Chief wants to talk to you,” and handed me the phone.

“This is the Chief, Dak.” “Oh. Where are you-sir?”

“Still in the car. Penny picked me up. Dak, press conference, I believe. Where is it?”

He hesitated. “I’m glad you called in, sir. There’s been a-slight change in the situation.”

“So Penny told me. I’m just as well pleased; I’m rather tired. Dak, I’ve decided not to stay dirtside tonight; my gimp leg has been bothering me and I’m looking forward to a real rest in free fall.” I hated free fall but Bonforte did not. “Will you or Rog make my apologies to the Commissioner, and so forth?”

“We’ll take care of everything, sir.”

“Good. How soon can you arrange a shuttle for me?”

“The Pixie is still standing by for you, sir. If you will go to Gate 3, I’ll phone and have a field car pick you up.” “Very good. Out.”

“Out, sir.”

I handed the phone to Penny to put back in its clamp. “Curly Top, I don’t know whether that phone frequency is monitored or not-or whether possibly the whole car is bugged. If either is the case, they may have learned two things-where Dak is and through that where he is, and second, what I am about to do next. Does that suggest anything to your mind?”

She looked thoughtful, then took out her secretary’s notebook, wrote in it: Let’s get rid of the car. I nodded, then took the book from her and wrote in it: How far away is Gate 3?

She answered: Walking distance.

Silently we climbed out and left. She had pulled into some executive’s parking space outside one of the warehouses when she had parked the car; no doubt in time it would be returned where it belonged-and such minutiae no longer mattered.

We had gone about fifty yards, when I stopped. Something was the matter. Not the day, certainly. It was almost balmy, with the sun burning brightly in clear, purple Martian sky. The traffic,

wheel and foot, seemed to pay no attention to us, or at least such attention was for the pretty young woman with me rather than directed at me. Yet I felt uneasy.

“What is it, Chief?” “Eh? That is what it is!” “Sir?”

“I’m not being the ‘Chief.’ It isn’t in character to go dodging off like this. Back we go, Penny.”

She did not argue, but followed me back to the car. This time I climbed into the back seat, sat there looking dignified, and let her chauffeur me to Gate 3.

It was not the gate we had come in. I think Dak had chosen it because it ran less to passengers and more to freight. Penny paid no attention to signs and ran the big Rolls right up to the gate. Aterminal policeman tried to stop her; she simply said coldly, “Mr. Bonforte’s ear. And will you please send word to the Commissioner’s office to call for it here?”

He looked baffled, glanced into the rear compartment, seemed to recognize me, saluted, and let us stay. I answered with a friendly wave and he opened the door for me. “The lieutenant is very particular about keeping the space back of the fence clear, Mr. Bonforte,” he apologized, “but I guess it’s all right.”

“You can have the car moved at once,” I said. “My secretary and I are leaving. Is my field car here?”

“I’ll find out at the gate, sir.” He left. It was just the amount of audience I wanted, enough to tie it down solid that “Mr. Bonforte” had arrived by official car and had left for his space yacht. I tucked my life wand under my arm like Napoleon’s baton and limped after him, with Penny tagging along. The cop spoke to the gatemaster, then hurried back to us, smiling. “Field car is waiting, sir.”

“Thanks indeed.” I was congratulating myself on the perfection of the timing.

“Uh…” The cop looked flustered and added hurriedly, in a low voice, “I’m an Expansionist, too, sir. Good job you did today.” He glanced at the life wand with a touch of awe. I knew exactly how Bonforte should look in this routine. “Why, thank you. I hope you have lots of children. We need to work up a solid majority.”

He guffawed more than it was worth. “That’s a good one! Uh, mind if I repeat it?”

“Not at all.” We had moved on and I started through the gate. The gatemaster touched my arm. “Er … Your passport, Mr. Bonforte.” I trust I did not let my expression change. “The passports, Penny.”

She looked frostily at the official. “Captain Broadbent takes care of all clearances.”

He looked at me and looked away. “I suppose it’s all right. But I’m supposed to check them and take down the serial numbers.”

“Yes, of course. Well, I suppose I must ask Captain Broadbent to run out to the field. Has my shuttle been assigned a take-off time? Perhaps you had better arrange with the tower to ‘hold.’”

But Penny appeared to be cattily angry. “Mr. Bonforte, this is ridiculous! We’ve never had this red tape before-certainly not on Mars.” The cop said hastily, “Of course it’s all right, Hans. After all, this is Mr. Bonforte.”

“Sure, but—”

I interrupted with a happy smile. “There’s a simpler way out. If you-what is your name, sir?” “Hasiwanter. Hans Haslwanter,” he answered reluctantly.

“Mr. Haslwanter, if you will call Mr. Commissioner Boothroyd, I’ll speak to him and we can save my pilot a trip out to the field- and save me an hour or more of time.” “Uh, I wouldn’t like to do that, sir. I could call the port captain’s office?” he suggested hopefully.

“Just get me Mr. Boothroyd’s number. 1 will call him.” This time I put a touch of frost into my voice, the attitude of the busy and important man who wishes to be democratic but has had all the pushing around and hampering by underlings that he intends to put up with.

That did it. He said hastily, “I’m sure it’s all right, Mr. Banforte. It’s just-well, regulations, you know.” “Yes, I know. Thank you.” I started to push on through.

“Hold it, Mr. Bonforte! Look this way.”

I glanced around. That i-dotting and 1-crossing civil servant had held us up just long enough to let the press catch up with us. One man had dropped to his knee and was pointing a stereobox at me; he looked up and said, “Hold the wand where we can see it.” Several others with various types of equipment were gathering around us; one had climbed up on the roof of the Rolls. Someone else was shoving a microphone at me and another had a directional mike aimed like a gun.

I was as angry as a leading woman with her name in small type but I remembered who I was supposed to be. I smiled and moved slowly. Bonforte had a good grasp of the fact that motion appears faster in pictures; I could afford to do it properly.

“Mr. Bonforte, why did you cancel the press conference?”

“Mr. Bonforte, it is asserted that you intend to demand that the Grand Assembly grant full Empire citizenship to Martians; will you comment?” “Mr. Bonforte, how soon are you going to force a vote of confidence in the present government?”

I held up my hand with the wand in it and grinned. “One at a time, please! Now what was that first question?”

They all answered at once, of course; by the time they had sorted out precedence I had managed to waste several moments without having to answer anything. Bill Corpsman came charging up at that point. “Have a heart, boys. The Chief has had a hard day. I gave you all you need.”

I held out a palm at him. “I can spare a minute or two, Bill. Gentiemen, I’m just about to leave but I’ll try to cover the essentials of what you have asked. So far as I know the present government does not plan any reassessment of the relation of Mars to the Empire. Since I am not in office my own opinions are hardly pertinent. I suggest that you ask Mr. Quiroga. On the question of how soon the opposition will force a vote of confidence all I can say is that we won’t do it unless we are sure we can win it-and you know as much about that as I do.”

Someone said, “That doesn’t say much, does it?”

“It was not intended to say much,” I retorted, softening it with a grin. “Ask me questions I can legitimately answer and I will. Ask me those loaded ‘Have-you-quit-beating-your-wife?’ sort and I have answers to match.” I hesitated, realizing that Bonforte had a reputation for bluntness and honesty, especially with the press. “But I am not trying to stall you. You all know why I am here today. Let me say this about it-and you can quote me if you wish.” I reached back into my mind and hauled up an appropriate bit from the speeches of Bonforte I had studied. “The real meaning of what happened today is not that of an honor to one man. This”-I gestured with the Martian wand-.”is proof that two great races can reach out across the gap of strangeness with understanding. Our own race is spreading out to the stars. We shall find-we are finding-that we are vastly outnumbered. If we are to succeed in our expansion to the stars, we must deal honestly, humbly, with open hearts. I have heard it said that our Martian neighbors would overrun Earth if given the chance. This is nonsense; Earth is not suited to Martians. Let us protect our own-but let us not be seduced by fear and hatred into foolish acts. The stars will never be won by little minds; we must be big as space itself.”

The reporter cocked an eyebrow. “Mr. Bonforte, seems to me I heard you make that speech last February.”

“You will hear it next February. Also January, March, and all the other months. Truth cannot be too often repeated.” I glanced back at the gatemaster and added, “I’m sorry but I’ll have to go now-or I’ll miss the tick.” I turned and went through the gate, with Penny after me.

We climbed into the little lead-armored field ear and the door sighed shut. The car was automatized, so I did not have to play up for a driver; I threw myself down and relaxed. “Whew!”

“I thought you did beautifully,” Penny said seriously.

“I had a bad moment when he spotted the speech I was cribbing.”

“You got away with it. It was an inspiration. You-you sounded just like him.” “Was there anybody there I should have called by name?”

“Not really. One or two maybe, but they wouldn’t expect it when you were so rushed.”

“I was caught in a squeeze. That fiddlin’ gatemaster and his passports. Penny, I should think that you would carry them rather than Dak.” “Dak doesn’t carry them. We all carry our own.” She reached into her bag, pulled out a little book. “I had mine-but I did not dare admit it.” “Eh?”

“He had his on him when they got him. We haven’t dared ask for a replacement-not at this time.” I was suddenly very weary.

Having no instructions from Dak or Rog, I stayed in character during the shuttle trip up and on entering the Tom Paine. It wasn’t difficult; I simply went straight to the owner’s cabin and spent long, miserable hours in free fall, biting my nails and wondering what was happening down on the surface. With the aid of antinausea pills I finally managed to float off into fitful sleep-which was a mistake, for I had a series of no-pants nightmares, with reporters pointing at me and cops touching me on the shoulder and Martians aiming their wands at me. They all knew I was phony and were simply arguing over who had the privilege of taking me apart and putting me down the oubliette.

I was awakened by the hooting of the acceleration alarm. Dak’s vibrant baritone was booming, “First and last red warning! One third gee! One minute!” I hastily pulled myself over to my bunk and held on. I felt lots better when it hit; one third gravity is not much, about the same as Mars’ surface I think, but it is enough to steady the stomach and make the floor a real floor.

About five minutes later Dak knocked and let himself in as I was going to the door. “Howdy, Chief.” “Hello, Dak. I’m certainly glad to see you back.”

“Not as glad as I am to be back,” he said wearily. He eyed my bunk. “Mind if I spread out there?” “Help yourself.”

He did so and sighed. “Cripes, am I pooped! I could sleep for a week… I think I wifi.” “Let’s both of us. Uh … You got him aboard?”

“Yes. What a gymkhana!”

“I suppose so. Still, it must be easier to do a job like that in a small, informal port like this than it was to pull the stunts you rigged at Jeff erson.” “Huh? No, it’s much harder here.”

“Eh?”

“Obviously. Here everybody knows everybody-and people will talk.” Dak smiled wryly. “We brought him aboard as a case of frozen canal shrimp. Had to pay export duty, too.” “Dak, how is he?”

“Well …” Dak frowned. “Doc Capek says that he will make a complete recovery-that it is just a matter of time.” He added explosively, “If I could lay my hands on those rats! It would make you break down and bawl to see what they did to him-and yet we have to let them get away with it cold-for his sake.”

Dak was fairly close to bawling himself. I said gently, “I gathered from Penny that they had roughed him up quite a lot. How badly is he hurt?” “Huh? You must have misunderstood Penny. Aside from being filthy-dirty and needing a shave he was not hurt physically at all.”

I looked stupid. “I thought they beat him up. Something about like working him over with a baseball bat.” “I would rather they had! Who cares about a few broken bones? No, no, it was what they did to his brain.” “Oh …” I felt ill. “Brainwash?”

“Yes. Yes and no. They couldn’t have been trying to make him talk because he didn’t have any secrets that were of any possible political importance. He always operated out in the open and everybody knows it. They must have been using it simply to keep him under control, keep him from trying to escape.”

He went on, “Doc says that he thinks they must have been using the minimum daily dose, just enough to keep him docile, until just before they turned him loose. Then they shot him with a load that would turn an elephant into a gibbering idiot. The front lobes of his brain must be soaked like a bath sponge.”

I felt so ill that I was glad I had not eaten. I had once read up on the subject; I hate it so much that it fascinates me. To my mind there is something immoral and degrading in an absolute cosmic sense in tampering with a man’s personality. Murder is a clean crime in comparison, a mere peccadillo. “Brainwash” is a term that comes down to us from the Communist movement of the Late Dark Ages; it was first applied to breaking a man’s will and altering his personality by physical indignities and subtle torture. But that might take months; later they found a “better” way, one which would turn a man into a babbling slave in seconds-simply inject any one of several cocaine derivatives into his frontal brain lobes.

The ifithy practice had first been developed for a legitimate purpose, to quiet disturbed patients and make them accessible to psychotherapy. As such, it was a humane advance, for it was used instead of lobotomy-“lobotomy” is a term almost as obsolete as “chastity girdle” but it means stirring a man’s brain with a knife in such a fashion as to destroy his personality without killing him. Yes, they really used to do that-just as they used to beat them to “drive the devils out.”

The Communists developed the new brainwash-by-drugs to an efficient technique, then when there were no more Communists, the Bands of Brothers polished it up still further until they could dose a man so lightly that he was simply receptive to leadership-. or load him until he was a mindless mass of protoplasm-all in the sweet name of brotherhood. After all, you can’t have “brotherhood” if a man is stubborn enough to want to keep his own secrets, can you? And what better way is there to be sure that he is not holding out on you than to poke a needle past his eyeball and slip a shot of babble juice into his brain? “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” The sophistries of villains-bah!

Of course, it has been illegal for a long, long time now, except for therapy, with the express consent of a court. But criminals use it and cops are sometimes not lily white, for it does make a prisoner talk and it does not leave any marks at all. The victim can even be told to forget that it has been done.

I knew most of this at the time Dak told me what had been done to Bonforte and the rest I cribbed out of the ship’s Encyclopedia Batavia. See the article on “Psychic Integration” and the one on “Torture.”

I shook my head and tried to put the nightmares out of my mind. “But he’s going to recover?”

“Doc says that the drug does not alter the brain structure; it just paralyzes it. He says that eventually the blood stream picks up and carries away all of the dope; it reaches the kidneys and passes out of the body. But it takes time.” Dak looked up at me. “Chief?”

“Eh? About time to knock off that ‘Chief’ stuff, isn’t it? He’s back.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Would it be too much trouble to you to keep up the impersonation just a little while longer?” “But why? There’s nobody here but just us chickens.”

“That’s not quite true. Lorenzo, we’ve managed to keep this secret awfully tight. There’s me, there’s you.” He ticked it off on his fingers. “There’s Doc and Rog and Bill. And Penny, of course. There’s a man by the name of Langston back Earthside whom you’ve never met. I think Jimmie Washington suspects but he wouldn’t tell his own mother the right time of day.

We don’t know how many took part in the kidnaping, but not many, you can be sure. In any case, they don’t dare talk-and the joke of it is they no longer could prove that he had ever been missing even if they wanted to. But my point is this: here in the Tommie we’ve got all the crew and all the idlers not in on it. Old son, how about staying with it and letting yourself be seen each day by crewmen and by Jimmie Washington’s girl and such-while he gets well? Huh?”

“Mmm… I don’t see why not. How long will it be?”

“Just the trip back. We’ll take it slow, at an easy boost. You’ll enjoy it.”

“Okay. Dak, don’t figure this into my fee. I’m doing this piece of it just because I hate brainwashing.”

Dak bounced up and clapped me on the shoulder. “You’re my kind of people, Lorenzo. Don’t worry about your fee; you’ll be taken care of.” His manner changed. “Very well, Chief. See you in the morning, sir.”

But one thing leads to another. The boost we had started on Dak’s return was a mere shift of orbits, to one farther out where there would be little chance of a news service sending up a shuttle for a follow-up story. I woke up in free fall, took a pill, and managed to eat breakfast. Penny showed up shortly thereafter. “Good morning, Mr. Bonforte.”

“Good morning, Penny.” I inclined my head in the direction of the guest room. “Any news?”

“No, sir. About the same. Captain’s compliments and would it be too much trouble for you to come to his cabin?”

“Not at all.” Penny followed me in. Dak was there, with his heels hooked to his chair to stay in place; Rog and Bill were strapped to the couch. Dak looked around and sald, “Thanks for coming in, Chief. We need some help.”

“Good morning. What is it?”

Clifton answered my greeting with his usual dignified deference and called me Chief; Corpsman nodded. Dak went on, “To clean this up in style you should make one more appearance.”

“Eh? I thought-“

“Just a second. The networks were led to expect a major speech from you today, commenting on yesterday’s event. I thought Rog intended to cancel it, but Bill has the speech worked up. Question is, will you deliver it?”

The trouble with adopting a cat is that they always have kittens. “Where? Goddard City?”

“Oh no. Right in your cabin. We beam it to Phobos; they can it for Mars and also put it on the high circuit for New Batavia, where the Earth nets will pick it up and where it will be relayed for Venus, Ganymede, et cetera. Inside of four hours it will be all over the system but you’ll never have to stir out of your cabin.”

There is something very tempting about a grand network. I had never been on one but once and that time my act got clipped down to the point where my face showed for only twenty- seven seconds. But to have one all to myself- Dak thought I was reluctant and added, “It won’t be a strain, as

we are equipped to can it right here in the Tommie. Then we can project it first and clip out anything if necessary.” “Well-all right. You have the script, Bill?”

“Yes.”

“Let me check it.”

“What do you mean? You’ll have it in plenty of time.” “Isn’t that it in your hand?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then let me read it.”

Corpsman looked annoyed. “You’ll have it an hour before we record. These things go better if they sound spontaneous.” “Sounding spontaneous is a matter of careful preparation, Bill. It’s my trade. I know.”

“You did all right at the skyfield yesterday without rehearsal. This is just more of the same old hoke: I want you to do it the same way.”

Bonforte’s personality was coming through stronger the longer Corpsman stalled; I think Clifton could see that I was about to cloud up and storm, for he said, “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Bill! Hand him the speech.”

Corpsman snorted and threw the sheets at me. In free fall they sailed but the air spread them wide. Penny gathered them together, sorted them, and gave them to me. I thanked her, said nothing more, and started to read.

I skimmed through it in a fraction of the time it would take to deliver it. Finally I finished and looked up. “Well?” said Rog.

“About five minutes of this concerns the adoption. The rest is an argument for the policies of the Expansionist Party. Pretty much the same as I’ve heard in the speeches you’ve had me study.”

“Yes,” agreed Clifton. “The adoption is the hook we hang the rest on. As you know, we expect to force a vote of confidence before long.” “I understand. You can’t miss this chance to beat the drum. Well, it’s all right, but—”

“But what? What’s worrying you?”

“Well-characterization. In several places the wording should be changed. It’s not the way he would express it.”

Corpsman exploded with a word unnecessary in the presence of a lady; I gave him a cold glance. “Now see here, Smythe,” he went on, “who knows how Bonforte would say it? You? Or the man who has been writing his speeches the past four years?”

I tried to keep my temper; he had a point “It is nevertheless the case,” I answered, “that a line which looks okay in print may not dellver well. Mr. Bonforte is a great orator, I have already learned. He belongs with Webster, Churchill, and Demosthenes-a rolling grandeur expressed in simple words. Now take this word ‘intransigent,’ which you have used twice. I might say that, but I have a weakness for polysyllables; I like to exhibit my literary erudition. But Mr. Bonforte would stay ‘stubborn’ or ‘mulish’ or ‘pigheaded.’ The reason he would is, naturally, that they convey emotion much more effectively.”

“You see that you make the delivery effective! I’ll worry about the words.”

“You don’t understand, Bill. I don’t care whether the speech is politically effective or not; my job is to carry out a characterization. I can’t do that if I put into the mouth of the character words that he would never use; it would sound as forced and phony as a goat spouting Greek. But if I read the speech in words he would use, it will automatically be effective. He’s a great orator.”

“Listen, Smythe, you’re not hired to write speeches. You’re hired to-“

“Hold it, Bill!” Dak cut in. “And a little less of that ‘Smythe’ stuff, too. Well, Rog? How about it?” Clifton said, “As I understand it, Chief, your only objection is to some of the phrasing?”

“Well, yes. I’d suggest cutting out that personal attack on Mr. Quiroga, too, and the insinuation about his financial backers. It doesn’t sound like real Bonforte to me.”

He looked sheepish. “That’s a bit I put in myself. But you may be right. He always gives a man the benefit of the doubt.” He remained silent for a moment. “You make the changes you think you have to. We’ll can it and look at the playback. We can always clip it-or even cancel completely ‘due to technical difficulties.’” He smiled grimly. “That’s what we’ll do, Bill.”

“Damn it, this is a ridiculous example of-“ “That’s how it is going to be, Bill.”

Corpsman left the room very suddenly. Clifton sighed. “Bill always has hated the notion that anybody but Mr. B. could give him instructions. But he’s an able man. Uh, Chief, how soon can you be ready to record? We patch in at sixteen hundred.”

“I don’t know. I’ll be ready in time.”

Penny followed me back into my office. When she closed the door I said, “I won’t need you for the next hour or so, Penny child. But you might ask Doc for more of those pills. I may need them.”

“Yes, sir.” She floated with her back to the door. “Chief?” “Yes, Penny?”

“I just wanted to say don’t believe what Bill said about writing his speeches!” “I didn’t. I’ve heard his speeches-and I’ve read this.”

“Oh, Bill does submit drafts, lots of times. So does Rog. I’ve even done it myself. He-he will use ideas from anywhere if he thinks they are good. But when he delivers a speech, it is his, every word of it.”

“I believe you. I wish he had written this one ahead of time.” “You just do your best!”

I did. I started out simply substituting synonyms, putting in the gutty Germanic words in place of the “intestinal” Latin jawbreakers. Then I got excited and red in the face and tore it to pieces. It’s a lot of fun for an actor to mess around with lines; he doesn’t get the chance very often.

I used no one but Penny for my audience and made sure from Dak that I was not being tapped elsewhere in the ship-though I suspect that the big-boned galoot cheated on me and listened in himself. I had Penny in tears in the first three minutes; by the time I finished (twenty-eight and a half minutes, just time for station announcements), she was limp. I took no liberties with the straight Expansionist doctrine, as proclaimed by its official prophet, the Right Honorable John Joseph Bonforte; I simply reconstructed his message and his delivery, largely out of phrases from other speeches.

Here’s an odd thing-I believed every word of it while I was talking. But, brother, I made a speech!

Afterwards we all listened to the playback, complete with full stereo of myself. Jimmie Washington was present, which kept Bill Corpsman quiet. When it was over I said, “How about it, Rog? Do we need to clip anything?”

He took his cigar out of his mouth and said, “No. If you want my advice, Chief, I’d say to let it go as it is.”

Corpsman left the room again-but Mr. Washington came over with tears leaking out of his eyes-tears are a nuisance in free fall; there’s nowhere for them to go. “Mr. Bonforte, that was beauti/ui.”

“Thanks, Jimmie.”

Penny could not talk at all.

I turned in after that; a top-notch performance leaves me fagged. I slept for more than eight hours, then was awakened by the hooter. I had strapped myself to my bunk-I hate to float around while sleeping in free fall-so I did not have to move. But I had not known that we were getting under way so I called the control room between first and second warning. “Captain Broadbent?”

“Just a moment, sir,” I heard Epstein answer.

Then Dak’s voice came over. “Yes, Chief? We are getting under way on schedule-pursuant to your orders.” “Eh? Oh yes, certainly.”

“I believe Mr. Clifton is on his way to your cabin.” “Very well, Captain.” I lay back and waited.

Immediately after we started to boost at one gee Rog Clifton came in; he had a worried look on his face I could not interpret- equal parts of triumph, worry, and confusion. “What is it, Rog?”

“Chief! They’ve jumped the gun on us! The Quiroga government has resigned!” Chapter 7

I was still logy with sleep; I shook my head to try to clear it. “What are you in such a spin about, Rog? That’s what you were trying to accomplish, wasn’t it?” “Well, yes, of course. But-” He stopped.

“But what? I don’t get it. Here you chaps have been working and scheming for years to bring about this very thing. Now you’ve won-and you look like a bride who isn’t sure she wants to go through with it. Why? The no-good-nicks are out and now God’s chillun get their innings. No?”

“Uh-you haven’t been in politics much.”

“You know I haven’t. I got trimmed when I ran for patrol leader in my scout troop. That cured me.” “Well, you see, timing is everything.”

“So my father always told me. Look here, Rog, do I gather that if you had your druthers you’d druther Quiroga was still in office? You said he had ‘jumped the gun.”

“Let me explain. What we really wanted was to move a vote of confidence and win it, and thereby force a general election on them-but at our own time, when we estimated that we could win the election.”

“Oh. And you don’t figure you can win now? You think Quiroga will go back into office for another five years-or at least the Humanity Party will?” Clifton looked thoughtful. “No, I think our chances are pretty good to win the election.”

“Eh? Maybe I’m not awake yet. Don’t you want to win?”

“Of course. But don’t you see what this resignation has done to us?” “I guess I don’t.”

“Well, the government in power can order a general election at any time up to the constitutional limitation of five years. Ordinarily they will go to the people when the time seems most

favorable to them. But they don’t resign between the announcement and the election unless forced to. You follow me?”

I realized that the event did seem odd, little attention as I paid to politics. “I believe so.”

“But in this case Quiroga’s government scheduled a general election, then resigned in a body, leaving the Empire without a government. Therefore the sovereign must call on someone else to form a ‘caretaker’ government to serve until the election. By the letter of the law he can ask any member of the Grand Assembly, but as a matter of strict constitutional precedent he has no choice. When a government resigns in a body-not just reshuffling portfolios but quits as a whole-then the sovereign must call on the leader of the opposition to form the

‘caretaker’ government. It’s indispensable to our system; it keeps resigning from being just a gesture. Many other methods have been tried in the past; under some of them governments were changed as often as underwear. But our present system insures responsible government.”

I was so busy trying to see the implications that I almost missed his next remark. “So, naturally, the Emperor has summoned Mr. Bonforte to New Batavia.”

“Eh? New Batavia? Welll” I was thinking that I had never seen the Imperial capital. The one time I had been on the Moon the vicissitudes of my profession had left me without time or money for the side trip. “Then that is why we got under way? Well, I certainly don’t mind. I suppose you can always find a way to send me home if the Tommie doesn’t go back to Earth soon.”

“What? Good heavens, don’t worry about that now. When the time comes, Captain Broadbent can find any number of ways to deliver you home.”

“Sorry. I forget that you have more important matters on your mind, Rog. Sure, I’m anxious to get home now that the job is done. But a few days, or even a month, on Luna would not matter. I have nothing pressing me. But thanks for taking time to tell me the news.” I searched his face. “Rog, you look worried as hell.”

“Don’t you see? The Emperor has sent for Mr. Bonforte. The Emperor, man! And Mr. Bonforte is in no shape to appear at an audience. They have risked a gambit-and perhaps trapped us in a checkmate!”

“Eh? Now wait a minute. Slow up. I see what you are driving at

-but, look, friend, we aren’t at New Batavia. We’re a hundred million miles away, or two hundred million, or whatever it is. Doc Capek will have him wrung out and ready to speak his piece by then. Won’t he?”

“Well-we hope so.” “But you aren’t sure?”

“We can’t be sure. Capek says that there is little clinical data on such massive doses. It depends on the individual’s body chemistry and on the exact drug used.”

I suddenly remembered a time when an understudy had slipped me a powerful purgative just before a performance. (But I went on anyhow, which proves the superiority of mind over matter- then I got him fired.) “Rog-they gave him that last, unnecessarily big dose not just out of simple sadism-but to set up this situation!”

“I think so. So does Capek.”

“Hey! In that case it would mean that Quiroga himself is the man behind the kidnapping-and that we’ve had a gangster running the Empire!”

Rog shook his head. “Not necessarily. Not even probably. But it would indeed mean that the same forces who control the Actionists also control the machinery of the Humanity Party. But you will never pin anything on them; they are unreachable, ultrarespectable. Nevertheless, they could send word to Quiroga that the time had come to roll over and play dead-and have him do it. Almost certainly,” he added, “without giving him a hint of the real reason why the moment was timely.”

“Criminy! Do you mean to tell me that the top man in the Empire would fold up and quit, just like that? Because somebody behind the scenes ordered him to?” “I’m afraid that is just what I do think.”

I shook my head. “Politics is a dirty game!”

“No,” Clifton answered insistently. “There is no such thing as a dirty game. But you sometimes run into dirty players.” “I don’t see the difference.”

“There is a world of difference. Quiroga is a third-rater and a stooge-in my opinion, a stooge for villains. But there is nothing third-rate about John Joseph Bonforte and he has never, ever been a stooge for anyone. As a follower, he believed in the cause; as the leader, he has led from conviction!”

“I stand corrected,” I said humbly. “Well, what do we do? Have Dak drag his feet so that the Tommie does not reach New Batavia until he is back in shape to do the job?”

“We can’t stall. We don’t have to boost at more than one gravity; nobody would expect a man Bonforte’s age to place unnecessary strain on his heart. But we can’t delay. When the Emperor sends for you, you come.”

“Then what?”

Rog looked at me without answering. I began to get edgy. “Hey, Rog, don’t go getting any wild notions! This hasn’t anything to do with me. I’m through, except for a few casual appearances around the ship. Dirty or not, politics is not my game-just pay me off and ship me home and I’ll guarantee never even to register to vote!”

“You probably wouldn’t have to do anything. Dr. Capek will almost certainly have him in shape for it. But it isn’t as if it were anything hard-not like that adoption ceremony-just an audience with the Emperor and—”

“The Emperor!” I almost screamed. Like most Americans, I did not understand royalty, did not really approve of the institution in my heart-and had a sneaking, unadmitted awe of kings.

After all, we Americans came in by the back door. When we swapped associate status under treaty for the advantages of a full voice in the affairs of the Empire, it was explicitly agreed

that our local institutions, our own constitution, and so forth, would not be affected-and tacitly agreed that no member of the royal family would ever visit America. Maybe that is a bad thing.

Maybe if we were used to royalty we would not be so impressed by them. In any case, it is notorious that “democratic” American women are more quiveringly anxious to be presented at

court than is anybody else.

“Now take it easy,” Rog answered. “You probably won’t have to do it at all. We just want to be prepared. What I was trying to tell you is that a ‘caretaker’ government is no problem. It passes no laws, changes no policies. I’ll take care of all the work. All you will have to do-if you have to do anything-is make the formal appearance before King Wilem-and possibly show up at a controlled press conference or two, depending on how long it is before he is well again. What you have already done is much harder-and you will be paid whether we need you or not.”

“Damn it, pay has nothing to do with it! It’s-well, in the words of a famous character in theatrical history, ‘Include me out.’”

Before Rog could answer, Bill Corpsman came bursting into my cabin without knocking, looked at us, and said sharply to Clifton, “Have you told him?” “Yes,” agreed Clifton. “He’s turned down the job.”

“Huh? Nonsense!”

“It’s not nonsense,” I answered, “and by the way, Bill, that door you just came through has a nice spot on it to knock. In the profession the custom is to knock and shout, ‘Are you decent?’ I wish you would remember it.”

“Oh, dirty sheets! We’re in a hurry. What’s this guff about your refusing?” “It’s not guff. This is not the job I signed up for.”

“Garbage! Maybe you are too stupid to realize it, Smythe, but you are in too deep to prattle about backing out. It wouldn’t be healthy.” I went to him and grabbed his arm. “Are you threatening me? If you are, let’s go outside and talk it over.”

He shook my hand off. “In a spaceship? You really are simple, aren’t you? But haven’t you got it through your thick head that you caused this mess yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

“He means,” Clifton answered, “that he is convinced that the fall of the Quiroga government was the direct result of the speech you made earlier today. It is even possible that he is right. But it is beside the point. Bill, try to be reasonably polite, will you? We get nowhere by bickering.”

I was so surprised by the suggestion that I had caused Quiroga to resign that I forgot all about my desire to loosen Corpsman’s teeth. Were they serious? Sure, it was one dilly of a fine speech, but was such a result possible?

Well, if it was, it was certainly fast service.

I said wonderingly, “Bill, do I understand that you are complaining that the speech I made was too effective to suit you?” “Huh? Hell, no! It was a lousy speech.”

“So? You can’t have it both ways. You’re saying that a lousy speech went over so big that it scared the Humanity Party right out of office. Is that what you meant?”

Corpsman looked annoyed, started to answer, and caught sight of Clifton suppressing a grin. He scowled, again started to reply- finally shrugged and said, “All right, buster, you proved your point; the speech could not have had anything to do with the fall of the Quiroga government. Nevertheless, we’ve got work to do. So what’s this about you not being willing to carry your share of the load?”

I looked at him and managed to keep my temper-Bonforte’s influence again; playing the part of a calm-tempered character tends to make one calm inside. “Bill, again you cannot have it two ways. You have made it emphatically clear that you consider me just a hired hand. Therefore I have no obligation beyond my job, which is finished. You can’t hire me for another job unless it suits me. It doesn’t.”

He started to speak but I cut in. “That’s all. Now get out. You’re not welcome here.”

He looked astounded. “Who the hell do you think you are to give orders around here?”

“Nobody. Nobody at all, as you have pointed out. But this is my private room, assigned to me by the Captain. So now get out or be thrown out. I don’t like your manners.”

Clifton added quietly, “Clear out, Bill. Regardless of anything else, it is his private cabin at the present time. So you had better leave.” Rog hesitated, then added, “I think we both might as well leave; we don’t seem to be getting anywhere. If you will excuse us

-Chief?” “Certainly.”

I sat and thought about it for several minutes. I was sorry that I had let Corpsman provoke me even into such a mild exchange; it lacked dignity. But I reviewed it in my mind and assured myself that my personal differences with Corpsman had not affected my decision; my mind had been made up before he appeared.

Asharp knock came at the door. I called out, “Who is it?” “Captain Broadbent.”

“Come in, Dak.”

He did so, sat down, and for some minutes seemed interested only in pulling hangnails. Finally he looked up and said, “Would it change your mind if I slapped the blighter in the brig?” “Eh? Do you have a brig in the ship?”

“No. But it would not be hard to jury-rig one.”

I looked at him sharply, trying to figure what went on inside that bony head. “Would you actually put Bill in the brig if I asked for it?”

He looked up, cocked a brow, and grinned wryly. “No. Aman doesn’t get to be a captain operating on any such basis as that. I would not take that sort of order even from him.” He inclined his head toward the room Bonforte was in. “Certain decisions a man must make himself.”

“That’s right.”

“Mmm-I hear you’ve made one of that sort.” “That’s right.”

“So. I’ve come to have a lot of respect for you, old son. First met you, I figured you for a clotheshorse and a facemaker, with nothing inside. I was wrong.” “Thank you.”

“So I won’t plead with you. Just tell me: is it worth our time to discuss the factors? Have you given it plenty of thought?” “My mind is made up, Dak. This isn’t my pidgin.”

“Well, perhaps you’re right. I’m sorry. I guess we’ll just have to hope he pulls out of it in time.” He stood up. “By the way, Penny would like to see you, if you aren’t going to turn in again this minute.”

I laughed without pleasure. “Just ‘by the way,’ eh? Is this the proper sequence? Isn’t it Dr. Capek’s turn to try to twist my arm?” “He skipped his turn; he’s busy with Mr. B. He sent you a message, though.”

“He said you could go to hell. Embroidered it a bit, but that was the gist.” “He did? Well, tell him I’ll save him a seat by the fire.”

“Can Penny come in?”

“Oh, sure! But you can tell her that she is wasting her time; the answer is still ‘No.’”

So I changed my mind. Confound it, why should an argument seem so much more logical when underlined with a whiff of Jungle Lust? Not that Penny used unfair means, she did not even shed tears-not that I laid a finger on her-but I found myself conceding points, and presently there were no more points to concede. There is no getting around it, Penny is the world- saver type and her sincerity is contagious.

The boning I did on the trip out to Mars was as nothing to the hard study I put in on the trip to New Batavia. I already had the basic character; now it was necessary to fill in the background, prepare myself to be Bonforte under almost any circumstances. While it was the royal audience I was aiming at, once we were at New Batavia I might have to meet any of hundreds or thousands of people. Rog planned to give me a defense in depth of the sort that is routine for any public figure if he is to get work done; nevertheless, I would have to see people-a public figure is a public figure, no way to get around that.

The tightrope act I was going to have to attempt was made possible only by Bonforte’s Farleyfile, perhaps the best one ever compiled. Farley was a political manager of the twentieth century, of Eisenhower I believe, and the method he invented for handling the personal relations of politics was as revolutionary as the German invention of staff command was to warfare. Yet I had never heard of the device until Penny showed me Bonforte’s.

It was nothing but a file about people. However, the art of politics is “nothing but” people. This file contained all, or almost all, of the thousands upon thousands of people Bonforte had met in the course of his long public life; each dossier consisted of what he knew about that person from Bon forte’s own personal contact. Anything at all, no matter how trivial-in fact, trivia were always the first entries: names and nicknames of wives, children, and pets, hobbies, tastes in food or drink, prejudices, eccentricities. Following this would be listed date and place and comments for every occasion on which Boriforte had talked to that particular man.

When available, a photo was included. There might or might not be “below-the-line” data, i.e. information which had been researched rather than learned directly by Bonforte. It depended on the political importance of the person. In some cases the “below-the-line” part was a formal biography running to thousands of words.

Both Penny and Bonforte himself carried minicorders powered by theft body heat. If Bonforte was alone he would dictate into his own when opportunity offered-in rest rooms, while riding, etc.; if Penny went along she would take it down in hers, which was disguised to look like a wrist watch. Penny could not possibly do the transcribing and microfilming; two of Jimmie Washington’s girls did little else.

When Penny showed me the Farleyfile, showed me the very bulk of it-and it was bulky, even at ten thousand words or more to the spool-and then told me that this represented personal information about Mr. Bonforte’s acquaintances, I scroaned (which is a scream and groan done together, with intense feeling). “God’s mercy, child! I tried to tell you this job could not be done. How could anyone memorize all that?”

“Why, you can’t, of course.”

“You just said that this was what he remembered about his friends and acquaintances.”

“Not quite. I said that this is what he wanted to remember. But since he can’t, not possibly, this is how he does it. Don’t worry; you don’t have to memorize anything. I just want you to know that it is available. It is my job to see that he has at least a minute or two to study the appropriate Farleyfile before anybody gets in to see him. If the need turns up, I can protect you with

the same service.”

I looked at the typical file she had projected on the desk reader.

AMr. Saunders of Pretoria, South Africa, I believe it was. He had a bulldog named Snuffles Bullyboy, several assorted uninteresting offspring, and he liked a twist of lime in his whisky and splash.

“Penny, do you mean to tell me that Mr. B. pretends to remember minutiae like that? It strikes me as rather phony.”

Instead of getting angry at the slur on her idol Penny nodded soberly. “I thought so once. But you don’t look at it correctly, Chief. Do you ever write down the telephone number of a friend?” “Eh? Of course.”

“Is it dishonest? Do you apologize to your friend for caring so little about him that you can’t simply remember his number?” “Eh? All right, I give up. You’ve sold me.”

“These are things he would like to remember if his memory were perfect. Since it isn’t, it is no more phony to do it this way than it is to use a tickler file in order not to forget a friend’s birthday-that’s what it is: a giant tickler file, to cover anything. But there is more to it. Did you ever meet a really important person?”

I tried to think. Penny did not mean the greats of the theatrical profession; she hardly knew they existed. “I once met President Warfield. I was a kid of ten or eleven.” “Do you remember the details?”

“Why, certainly. He said, ‘How did you break that arm, son?’ and I said, ‘Riding a bicycle, sir,’ and he said, ‘Did the same thing myself, only it was a collarbone.’” “Do you think he would remember it if he were still alive?”

“Why, no.”

“He might-he may have had you Farleyfiled. This Farleyfile includes boys of that age, because boys grow up and become men. The point is that top-level men like President Warfield meet many more people than they can remember. Each one of that faceless throng remembers his own meeting with the famous man and remembers it in detail. But the supremely important person in anyone’s life is himself-and a politician must never forget that. So it is polite and friendly and warmhearted for the politician to have a way to be able to remember about other people the sort of little things that they are likely to remember about him. It is also essential-in politics.”

I had Penny display the Farleyfile on King Willem. It was rather short, which dismayed me at first, until I concluded that it meant that Bonforte did not know the Emperor well and had met him only on a few official occasions-Bonforte’s first service as Supreme Minister had been before old Emperor Frederick’s death. There was no biography below the line, but just a notation, “See House of Orange.” I didn’t-there simply wasn’t time to plow through a few million words of Empire and pre-Empire history and, anyhow, I got fair-to-excellent marks in history when I was in school. All I wanted to know about the Emperor was what Bonforte knew about him that other people did not.

It occurred to me that the Farleyfile must include everybody in the ship since they were (a) people (b) whom Bonforte had met. I asked Penny for them. She seemed a little surprised. Soon I was the one surprised. The Torn Paine had in her six Grand Assemblymen. Rog Clifton and Mr. Bonforte, of course- but the first item in Dak’s file read: “Broadbent, Darius K., the

Honorable, 0. A. for League of Free Travelers, Upper Division.” It also mentioned that he held a Ph.D. in physics, had been reserve champion with the pistol in the Imperial Matches nine

years earlier, and had published thee volumes of verse under the nom de plume of “Acey Wheelwright.” I resolved never again to take a man at merely his face value.

There was a notation in Bonforte’s sloppy handwriting: “Almost irresistible to women-and vice versa!”

Penny and Dr. Capek were also members of the great parliament. Even Jimmie Washington was a member, for a “safe” district, I realized later-he represented the Lapps, including all the reindeer and Santa Claus, no doubt. He was also ordained in the First Bible Truth Church of the Holy Spirit, which I had never heard of, but which accounted for his tight-lipped deacon look.

I especially enjoyed reading about Penny-the Honorable Miss Penelope Taliaferro Russell. She was an M.A. in government administration from Georgetown and a B.A. from Wellesley, which somehow did not surprise me. She represented districtless university women, another “safe” constituency (I learned) since they are about five to one Expansionist Party members.

On down below were her glove size, her other measurements, her preferences in colors (I could teach her something about dressing), her preference in scent (Jungle Lust, of course), and many other details, most of them innocuous enough. But there was “comment”:

“Neurotically honest-arithmetic unreliable-prides herself on her sense of humor, of which she has none-watches her diet but is gluttonous about candied cherries-little-mother-of-all- living complex-unable to resist reading the printed word in any form.”

Underneath was another of Bonforte’s handwritten addenda: “Ah, Curly Top! Snooping again, I see.”

As I turned them back to her I asked Penny if she had read her own Farleyfile. She told me snippily to mind my own business! Then turned red and apologized.

Most of my time was taken up with study but I did take time to review and revise carefully the physical resemblance, checking the Semiperm shading by colorimeter, doing an extremely careful job on the wrinkles, adding two moles, and setting the whole job with electric brush. It was going to mean a skin peel before I could get my own face back but that was a small price to pay for a make-up job that could not be damaged, could not be smeared even with acetone, and was proof against such hazards as napkins. I even added the scar on the “game” leg, using a photograph Capek had kept in Bonforte’s health history. If Bonforte had had wife or mistress, she would have had difficulty in telling the impostor from the real thing simply on physical appearance. It was a lot of trouble but it left my mind free to worry about the really difficult part of the impersonation.

But the all-out effort during the trip was to steep myself in what Bonforte thought and believed, in short the policies of the Expansionist Party. In a manner of speaking, he himself was the Expansionist Party, not merely its most prominent leader but its political philosopher and greatest statesman. Expansionism had hardly been more than a “Manifest Destiny” movement when the party was founded, a rabble coalition of groups who had one thing in common: the belief that the frontiers in the sky were the mast important issue in the emerging future of the human race. Bonforte had given the party a rationale and an ethic, the theme that freedom and equal rights must run with the Imperial banner; he kept harping on the notion that the human race must never again make the mistakes that the white subrace had made in Africa and Asia.

But I was confused by the fact-I was awfully unsophisticated in such matters-that the early history of the Expansionist Party sounded remarkably like the present Humanity Party. I was not aware that political parties often change as much in growing up as people do. I had known vaguely that the Humanity Party had started as a splinter of the Expansionist movement but I had never thought about it. Actually it was inevitable; as the political parties which did not have their eyes on the sky dwindled away under the imperatives of history and ceased to elect candidates, the one party which had been on the right track was bound to split into two factions.

But I am running ahead; my political education did not proceed so logically. At first I simply soaked myself in Bonforte’s public utterances. True, I had done that on the trip out, but then I was studying how he spoke; now I was studying what he said.

Bonforte was an orator in the grand tradition but he could be vitriolic in debate, e.g; a speech he made in New Paris during the ruckus over the treaty with the Martian nests, the Concord of Tycho. It was this treaty which had knocked him out of office before; he had pushed it through but the strain on the coalition had lost him the next vote of confidence. Nevertheless, Quiroga had not dared denounce the treaty. I listened to this speech with special interest since I had not liked the treaty myself; the idea that Martians must be granted the same privileges on Earth that humans enjoyed on Mars had been abhorrent to me-until I visited the Kkkah nest.

“My opponent,” Bonforte had said with a rasp in his voice, “would have you believe that the motto of the so-called Humanity Party, ‘Government of human beings, by human beings, and for human beings,’ is no more than an updating of the immortal words of Lincoln. But while the voice is the voice of Abraham, the hand is the hand of the Ku Klux Klan. The true meaning of that innocent-seeming motto is ‘Government of all races everywhere, by human beings alone, for the profit of a privileged few.’

“But, my opponent protests, we have a God-given mandate to spread enlightenment through the stan, dispensing our own brand of Civilization to the savages. This is the Uncle Remus school of sociology-the good dahides singin’ spirituals and Ole Massa lubbin’ every one of dem! It is a beautiful picture but the frame is too small; it fails to show the whip, the slave block-and the counting house!”

I found myself becoming, if not an Expansionist, then at least a Bonfortite. I am not sure that I was convinced by the logic of his words-indeed, I am not sure that they were logical. But I was in a receptive frame of mind. I wanted to understand what he said so thoroughly that I could rephrase it and say it in his place, if need be.

Nevertheless, here was a man who knew what he wanted and (much rarer!) why he wanted it. I could not help but be impressed, and it forced me to examine my own beliefs. What did I live by?

My profession, surely! I had been brought up in it, I liked it, I had a deep though unlogical conviction that art was worth the effort-and, besides, it was the only way I knew to make a living. But what else?

I have never been impressed by the formal schools of ethics. I had sampled them-public libraries are a ready source of recreation for an actor short of cash-but I had found them as poor in vitamins as a mother-in-law’s kiss. Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.

I had the same contempt for the moral instruction handed to mast children. Much of it is prattle and the parts they really seem to mean are dedicated to the sacred proposition that a “good” child is one who does not disturb mother’s nap and a “good” man is one who achieves a muscular bank account without getting caught. No, thanks!

But even a dog has rules of conduct. What were mine? How did I behave-or, at least, how did I like to think I behaved?

“The show must go on.” I had always believed that and lived by it. But why must the show go on?-seeing that some shows are pretty terrible. Well, because you agreed to do it, because there is an audience out there; they have paid and each one of them is entitled to the best you can give. You owe it to them. You owe it also to stagehands and manager and producer and other members of the company-and to those who taught you your trade, and to others stretching back in history to open-air theaters and stone seats and even to storytellers squatting in a market place. Noblesse oblige.

I decided that the notion could be generalized into any occupation. “Value for value.” Building “on the square and on the level.” The Hippocratic oath. Don’t let the team down. Honest work for honest pay. Such things did not have to be proved; they were an essential part of life-true throughout eternity, true in the farthest reaches of the Galaxy.

I suddenly got a glimpse of what Bonforte was driving at. If there were ethical basics that transcended time and place, then they were true both for Martians and for men. They were true on any planet around any star-and if the human race did not behave accordingly they weren’t ever going to win to the stars because some better race would slap them down for double- dealing.

The price of expansion was virtue. “Never give a sucker an even break” was too narrow a philosophy to fit the broad reaches of space.

But Bonforte was not preaching sweetness and light. “I am not a pacifist. Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay-and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Mr. Speaker, life belongs to those who do not fear to lose it. This bill must pass!” And with that he had got up and crossed the aisle in support of a military appropriation his own party had refused in caucus.

Or again: “Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong-but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong! Heaven save us from poltroons who fear to make a choice. Let us stand up and be counted.” (This last was in a closed caucus but Penny had caught it on her minicorder and Bonforte had saved it-Bonforte had a sense of history; he was a record keeper. If he had not been, I would not have had much to work with.)

I decided that Bonforte was my kind of man. Or at least the kind I liked to think I was. His was a persona I was proud to wear.

So far as I can remember I did not sleep on that trip after I promised Penny that I would take the royal audience if Bonforte could not be made ready. I intended to sleep-there is no point in taking your stage with your eyes bagging like hound’s ears-but I got interested in what I was studying and there was a plentiful supply of pepper pills in Bonforte’s desk. It is amazing how much ground you can cover working a twenty-four-hour day, free from interruptions and with all the help you could ask for.

But shortly before we were due at New Batavia, Dr. Capek came in and said, “Bare your left forearm.” “Why?” I asked.

“Because when you go before the Emperor we don’t want you falling flat on your face with fatigue. This will make you sleep until we ground. Then I’ll give you an antidote.” “Eh? I take it that you don’t think he will be ready?”

Capek did not answer, but gave me the shot. I tried to finish listening to the speech I was running but I must have been asleep in seconds. The next thing I knew Dak was saying deferentially, “Wake up, sir. Please wake up. We’re grounded at Lippershey Field.”

Chapter 8

Our Moon being an airless planet, a torchship can land on it. But the Tom Paine, being a torchship, was really intended to stay in space and be serviced only at space stations in orbit; she had to be landed in a cradle. I wish I had been awake to see it, for they say that catching an egg on a plate is easy by comparison. Dak was one of the half dozen pilots who could do it.

But I did not even get to see the Tommie in her cradle; all I saw was the inside of the passenger bellows they fastened to her air lock and the passenger tube to New Batavia-those tubes are so fast that, under the low gravity of the Moon, you are again in free fall at the middle of the trip.

We went first to the apartments assigned to the leader of the loyal opposition, Bonforte’s official residence until (and if) he went back into power after the coming election. The magnificence of them made me wonder what the Supreme Minister’s residence was like. I suppose that New Batavia is odds-on the most palatial capital city in all history; it is a shame that it can hardly be seen from outdoors-but that minor shortcoming is more than offset by the fact that it is the only city in the Solar System that is actually impervious to fusion bombs. Or perhaps I should say “effectively impervious” since there are some surface structures which could be destroyed. Bonforte’s apartments included an upper living room in the side of a cliff, which looked out through a bubble balcony at the stars and Mother Earth herself-but his sleeping room and offices were a thousand feet of solid rock below, by private lift.

I had no time to explore the apartments; they dressed me for the audience. Bonforte had no valet even dirtside, but Rog insisted on “helping” me (he was a hindrance) while going over lastminute details. The dress was ancient formal court dress, shapeless tubular trousers, a silly jacket with a claw-hammer tail, both in black, and a chemise consisting of a stiff white breastplate, a “winged” collar, and a white bow tie. Bonforte’s chemise was all in one piece, because (I suppose) he did not use a dresser; correctly it should be assembled piece by piece and the bow tie should be tied poorly enough to show that it has been tied by hand-but it is too much to expect a man to understand both politics and period costuming.

It is an ugly costume, but it did make a fine background for the Order of Wilhelmina stretched in colorful diagonal across my chest. I looked at myself in a long glass and was pleased with the effect; the one color accent against the dead black and white was good showmanship. The traditional dress might be ugly but it did have dignity, something like the cool stateliness of a maitre d’hotel. I decided that I looked the part to wait on the pleasure of a sovereign.

Rog Clifton gave me the scroll which was supposed to list the names of my nominations for the ministries and he tucked into an inner pocket of my costume a copy of the typed list thereof-the original had gone forward by hand of Jimmie Washington to the Emperor’s State Secretary as soon as we had grounded. Theoretically the purpose of the audience was for the Emperor to inform me that it was his pleasure for me to form a government and for me to submit humbly my suggestions; my nominations were supposed to be secret until the

sovereign graciously approved.

Actually the choices were all made; Rog and Bill had spent most of the trip lining up the Cabinet and making sure the nominees would serve, using state-scramble for the radio messages. I had studied the Farleyflies on each nomination and each alternate. But the list really was secret in the sense that the news services would not receive it until after the Imperial audience.

I took the scroll and picked up my life wand. Rog looked horrified. “Good Lord, man, you can’t carry that thing into the presence of the Emperor!” “Why not?”

“Huh? It’s a weapon.”

“It’s a ceremonial weapon. Rog, every duke and every pipsqueak baronet will be wearing his dress sword. So I wear this.”

He shook his head. “They have to. Don’t you understand the ancient legal theory behind it? Their dress swords symbolize the duty they owe their liege lord to support and defend him by force of arms, in their own persons. But you are a commoner; tradi-. tionally you come before him unarmed.”

“No, Rog. Oh, I’ll do what you tell me to, but you are missing a wonderful chance to catch a tide at its flood. This is good theater, this is right.” “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

“Well, look, will the word get back to Mars if I carry this wand today? Inside the nests, I mean?” “Eh? I suppose so. Yes.”

“Of course. I would guess that every nest has stereo receivers; I certainly noticed plenty of them in Kkkah nest. They follow the Empire news as carefully as we do. Don’t they?” “Yes. At least the elders do.”

“II I carry the wand, they’ll know it; if I fail to carry it, they will know it. It matters to them; it is tied up with propriety. No adult Martian would appear outside his nest without his life wand, or inside on ceremonial occasions. Martians have appeared before the Emperor in the past; they carried their wands, didn’t they? I’d bet my life on it.”

“Yes, but you-“

“You forget that 1 am a Martian.”

Rog’s face suddenly blanked out. I went on, “I am not only ‘John Joseph Bonforte’; I am Kkkahjjjerrr of Kkkah nest. If I fail to carry that wand, I commit a great impropriety-and frankly I do not know what would happen when the word got back; I don’t know enough about Martian customs. Now turn it around and look at it the other way. When I walk down that aisle carrying this wand, I am a Martian citizen about to be named His Imperial Majesty’s first minister. How will that affect the nests?”

“I guess I had not thought it through,” he answered slowly.

“Nor would I have done so, had I not had to decide whether or not to carry the wand. But don’t you suppose Mr. B. thought it through-before he ever let himself be invited to be adopted? Rog, we’ve got a tiger by the tail; the only thing to do is to swarm aboard and ride it. We can’t let go.”

Dak arrived at that point, confirmed my opinion, seemed surprised that Clifton had expected anything else. “Sure, we’re setting a new precedent, Rog-but we’re going to set a lot of new ones before we are through.” But when he saw how I was carrying the wand he let out a scream. “Cripes, man! Are you trying to kill somebody? Or just carve a hole in the wall?”

“I wasn’t pressing the stud.”

“Thank God for small favors! You don’t even have the safety on.” He took it from me very gingerly and said, “You twist this ring-and shove this in that slot-then it’s just a stick. Whew!” “Oh. Sorry.”

They delivered me to the robing room of the Palace and turned me over to King Willem’s equerry, Colonel Pateel, a bland-faced Hindu with perfect manners and the dazzling dress uniform of the Imperial space forces. His bow to me must have been calculated on a slide rule; it suggested that I was about to be Supreme Minister but was not quite there yet, that I was his senior but nevertheless a civilian-then subtract five degrees for the fact that he wore the Emperor’s aiguillette on his right shoulder.

He glanced at the wand and said smoothly, “That’s a Martian wand, is it not, sir? Interesting. I suppose you will want to leave it here-it will be safe.” I said, “I’m carrying it.”

“Sir?” His eyebrows shot up and he waited for me to correct my obvious mistake.

I reached into Bonforte’s favorite cliches and picked one he used to reprove bumptiousness. “Son, suppose you tend to your knitting and I tend to mine.” His face lost all expression. “Very well, sir. If you will come this way?”

We paused at the entrance to the throne room. Far away, on the raised dais, the throne was empty. On both sides the entire length of the great cavern the nobles and royalty of the court were standing and waiting. I suppose Pateel passed along some sign, for the Imperial Anthem welled out and we all held still for it, Pateel in robotlike attention, myself in a tired stoop suitable to a middleaged and overworked roan who must do this thing because he must, and all the court like show-window pieces. I hope we never dispense with the pageantry of a court entirely; all those noble dress extras and spear carriers make a beautiful sight.

In the last few bars he came in from behind and took his throne

-Willem, Prince of Orange, Duke of Nassau, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Knight Commander of the Holy Roman Empire, Admiral General of the Imperial Forces, Adviser to the Martian Nests, Protector of the Poor, and, by the Grace of God, King of the Lowlands and Emperor of the Planets and the Spaces Between.

I could not see his face, but the symbolism produced in me a sudden warm surge of empathy. I no longer felt hostile to the notion of royalty.

As King Willem sat down the anthem ended; he nodded acknowledgment of the salute and a wave of slight relaxation rippled down the courtiers. Pateel withdrew and, with my wand tucked under my arm, I started my long march, limping a little in spite of the low gravity. It felt remarkably like the progress to the Inner Nest of Kkkah, except that I was not frightened; I was simply warm and tingling. The Empire medley followed me down, the music sliding from “King Christian” to “Marseillaise” to “The StarSpangled Banner” and all the others.

At the first balk line I stopped and bowed, then again at the second, then at last a deep bow at the third, just before the steps. I did not kneel; nobles must kneel but commoners share sovereignty with the Sovereign. One sees this point incorrectly staged some- times in stereo and theater, and Rog had made sure that I knew what to do.

“Aye, Imperator!” Had I been a Dutchman I would have said “Rex” as well, but I was an American. We swapped schoolboy Latin back and forth by rote, he inquiring what I wanted, I reminding him that he had summoned me, etc. He shifted into Anglo-American, with a slight “down-East” accent.

“You served our father well. it is now our thought that you might serve us. How say you?” “My sovereign’s wish is my will, Majesty.”

“Approach us.”

Perhaps I made too good a thing of it but the steps up the dais are high and my leg actually was hurting-and a psychosomatic pain is as bad as any other. I almost stumbled-and Willem was up out of his throne like a shot and steadied my arm. I heard a gasp go around the hall. He smiled at me and said sotto voce, “Take it easy, old friend. Wet make this short.”

He helped me to the stool before the throne and made me sit down an awkward moment sooner than he himself was again seated. Then he held out his hand for the scroll and I passed it over. He unrolled it and pretended to study the blank page.

There was chamber music now and the court made a display of enjoying themselves, ladies laughing, noble gentlemen uttering gallantries, fans gesturing. No one moved very far from his place, no one held still. Little page boys, looking like Michelangelo’s cherubim, moved among them offering trays of sweets. One knelt to Willem and he helped himself without taking

his eyes off the nonexistent list. The child then offered the tray to me and I took one, not knowing whether it was proper or not. It was one of those wonderful, matchless chocolates made only in Holland.

I found that I knew a number of the court faces from pictures. Most of the unemployed royalty of Earth were there, concealed under their secondary titles of duke or count. Some said that Willem kept them on as pensioners to brighten his court; some said he wanted to keep an eye on them and keep them out of politics and other mischief. Perhaps it was a little of both. There were the nonroyal nobility of a dozen nations present, too; some of them actually worked for a living.

I found myself trying to pick out the Habsburg lips and the Windsor nose.

At last Willem put down the scroll. The music and the conversation ceased instantly. In dead silence he said, “It is a gallant company you have proposed. We are minded to confirm it.” “You are most gracious, Majesty.”

“We will ponder and inform you.” He leaned forward and said quietly to me alone, “Don’t try to back down those damned steps. Just stand up. I am going to leave at once.” I whispered back, “Oh. Thank you, Sire.”

He stood up, whereupon I got hastily to my feet, and he was gone in a swirl of robes. I turned around and noticed some startled looks. But the music started up at once and I was let to walk out while the noble and regal extras again made polite conversation.

Pateel was at my elbow as soon as I was through the far archway. “This way, sir, if you please.” The pageantry was over; now came the real audience.

He took me through a small door, down an empty corridor, through another small door, and into a quite ordinary office. The only thing regal about it was a carved wall plaque, the coat of arms of the House of Orange, with its deathless motto, “I Maintain!” There was a big, fiat desk, littered with papers. In the middle of it, held down by a pair of metal-plated baby shoes, was the original of the typed list in my pocket. In a copper frame there was a family group picture of the late Empress and the kids. Asomewhat battered couch was against one wall and beyond it was a small bar. There were a couple of armchairs as well as the swivel chair at the desk. The other furnishings might have suited the office of a busy and not fussy family physician.

Pateel left me alone there, closing the door behind him. I did not have time to consider whether or not it was proper for me to sit down, as the Emperor came quickly in through a door opposite. “Howdy, Joseph,” he called out. “Be with you in a moment.” He strode through the room, followed closely by two servants who were undressing him as he walked, and went out a third door. He was back again almost at once, zipping up a suit of coveralls as he came in. “You took the short route; I had to come long way around. I’m going to insist that the palace engineer cut another tunnel through from the back of the throne room, dammed if I’m not. I have to come around three sides of a square-either that or parade through semi-public corridors dressed like a circus horse.” He added meditatively, “I never wear anything but underwear under those silly robes.”

I said, “I doubt if they are as uncomfortable as this monkey jacket I am wearing, Sire.”

He shrugged. “Oh well, we each have to put up with the inconveniences of our jobs. Didn’t you get yourself a drink?” He picked up the list of nominations for cabinet ministers. “Do so, and pour me one.”

“What will you have, Sire?”

“Eh?” He looked up and glanced sharply at me. “My usual. Scotch on ice, of course.”

I said nothing and poured them, adding water to my own. I had had a sudden chill; if Bonforte knew that the Emperor always took scotch over bare cubes it should have been in his Farleyfile. It was not.

But Willem accepted the drink without comment, murmured, “Hot jets!” and went on looking at the list. Presently he looked up and said, “How about these lads, Joseph?”

“Sire? It is a skeleton cabinet, of course.” We had doubled up on portfolios where possible and Bonforte would hold Defense and Treasury as well as first. In three cases we had given temporary appointments to the career deputy ministers-Research, Population Management, and Exterior. The men who would hold the posts in the permanent government were all needed for campaigning.

“Yes, yes, it’s your second team. Mmm … How about this man Braun?”

I was considerably surprised. It had been my understanding that Willem would okay the list without comment, but that he might want to chat about other things. I had not been afraid of chatting; a man can get a reputation as a sparkling conversationalist simply by letting the other man do all the talking.

Lothar Braun was what was known as a “rising young statesman.” What I knew about him came from his Farleyfile and from Rog and Bill. He had come up since Bonforte had been turned out of office and so had never had any cabinet post, but had served as caucus sergeant at arms and junior whip. Bill insisted that Bonforte had planned to boost him rapidly and that he should try his wings in the caretaker government; he proposed him for Minister of External Communications.

Rog Clifton had seemed undecided; he had first put down the name of Angel Jesus de la Tone y Perez, the career subminister. But Bill had pointed out that if Braun flopped, now was a good time to find it out and no harm done. Clifton had given in.

“Braun?” I answered. “He’s a coming young man. Very brilliant.”

Willem made no comment, but looked on down the list. I tried to remember exactly what Bonforte had said about Braun in the Farleyffle. Brilliant … hardworking … analytical mind. Had he said anything against him? No-well, perhaps-“a shade too affable.” That does not condemn a man. But Bonforte had said nothing at all about such affirmative virtues as loyalty and honesty. Which might mean nothing, as the Farleyfile was not a series of character studies; it was a data file.

The Emperor put the list aside. “Joseph, are you planning to bring the Martian nests into the Empire at once?” “Eh? Certainly not before the election, Sire.”

“Come now, you know I was talking about after the election. And have you forgotten how to say ‘Willem’? ‘Sire’ from a man six years older than I am, under these circumstances, is silly.” “Very well, Willem.”

“We both know I am not supposed to notice politics. But we know also that the assumption is silly. Joseph, you have spent your off years creating a situation in which the nests would wish to come wholly into the Empire.” He pointed a thumb at my wand. “I believe you have done it. Now if you win this election you should be able to get the Grand Assembly to grant me permission to proclaim it. Well?”

I thought about it. “Willem,” I said slowly, “you know that is exactly what we have planned to do. You must have some reason for bringing the subject up.”

He swizzled his glass and stared at me, managing to look like a New England groceryman about to tell off one of the summer people. “Are you asking my advice? The constitution requires you to advise me, not the other way around.”

“I welcome your advice, Wilem. I do not promise to follow it.”

He laughed. “You damned seldom promise anything. Very well, let’s assume that you win the election and go back into office

-but with a majority so small that you might have difficulty in voting the nests into full citizenship. In such case I would not advise you to make it a vote of confidence. If you lose, take your licking and stay in office; stick the full term.”

“Why, Willem?”

“Because you and I are patient men. See that?” He pointed at the plaque of his house. “‘I Maintain!’ It’s not a flashy rule but it is not a king’s business to be flashy; his business is to conserve, to hang on, to roll with the punch. Now, constitutionally speaking, it should not matter to me whether you stay in office or not. But it does matter to me whether or not the Empire holds together. I think that if you miss on the Martian issue immediately after the election, you can afford to wait-for your other policies are going to prove very popular. You’ll pick up votes in by-elections and eventually you’ll come around and tell me I can add ‘Emperor of Mars’ to the list. So don’t hurry.”

“I will think about it,” I said carefully.

“Do that. Now how about the transportee system?”

“We’re abolishing it immediately after the election and suspending it at once.” I could answer that one firmly; Bonforte hated it. “They’ll attack you on it.”

“So they will. Let them. We’ll pick up votes.”

“Glad to hear that you still have the strength of your convictions, Joseph. I never liked having the banner of Orange on a convict ship. Free trade?” “After the election, yes.”

“What are you going to use for revenue?”

“It is our contention that trade and production will expand so rapidly that other revenues will make up for the loss of the customs.” “And suppose it ain’t so?”

I had not been given a second-string answer on that one-and economics was largely a mystery to me. I grinned. “Willem, I’ll have to have notice on that question. But the whole program of the Expansionist Party is founded on the notion that free trade, free travel, common citizenship, common currency, and a minimum of Imperial laws and restrictions are good not only for the citizens of the Empire but for the Empire itself. If we need the money, we’ll find it-but not by chopping the Empire up into tiny bailiwicks.” All but the first sentence was pure Bonforte, only slightly adapted.

“Save your campaign speeches,” he grunted. “I simply asked.” He picked up the list again. “You’re quite sure this line-up is the way you want it?”

I reached for the list and he handed it to me. Damnation, it was clear that the Emperor was telling me as emphatically as the constitution would let him that, in his opinion, Braun was a wrong ‘un. But, hell’s best anthracite, I had no business changing the list Bill and Rog had made up.

On the other hand, it was not Bon forte’s list; it was merely what they thought Bonforte would do if he were compos mentis. I wished suddenly that I could take time out and ask Penny what she thought of Braun.

Then I reached for a pen from Willem’s desk, scratched out “Braun,” and printed in “de la Torre”-in block letters; I still could not risk Bonforte’s handwriting. The Emperor merely said, “It looks like a good team to me. Good luck, Joseph. You’ll need it.”

That ended the audience as such. I was anxious to get away, but you do not walk out on a king; that is one prerogative they have retained. He wanted to show me his workshop and his new train models. I suppose he has done more to revive that ancient hobby than anyone else; personally I can’t see it as an occupation for a grown man. But I made polite noises about his new toy locomotive, intended for the “Royal Scotsman.”

“If I had had the breaks,” he said, getting down on his hands and knees and peering into the innards of the toy engine, “I could have been a very fair shop superintendent, I think-a master machinist. But the accident of birth discriminated against me.”

“Do you really think you would have preferred it, Willem?”

“I don’t know. This job I have is not bad. The hours are easy and the pay is good-and the social security is first-rate-barring the outside chance of revolution, and my line has always been lucky on that score. But much of the work is tedious and could be done as well by any second-rate actor.” He glanced up at me. “I relieve your office of a lot of tiresome cornerstone-laying and parade-watching, you know.”

“I do know and I appreciate it.”

“Once in a long time I get a chance to give a little push in the right direction-what I think is the right direction. Kinging is a very odd profession, Joseph. Don’t ever take it up.” “I’m afraid it’s a bit late, even if I wanted to.”

He made some fine adjustment on the toy. “My real function is to keep you from going crazy.” “Eh?”

“Of course. Psychosis-situational is the occupational disease of heads of states. My predecessors in the king trade, the ones who actually ruled, were almost all a bit balmy. And take a look at your American presidents; the job used frequently to kill them in their prime. But me, I don’t have to run things; I have a professional like yourself to do it for me. And you don’t have the killing pressure either; you, or those in your shoes, can always quit if things get too tough-and the old Emperor-it’s almost always the ‘old’ Emperor; we usually mount the throne about the age other men retire-the Emperor is always there, maintaining continuity, preserving the symbol of the state, while you professionals work out a new deal.” He blinked solemnly. “My job is not glamorous, but it is useful.”

Presently he let up on me about his chlldish trains and we went back into his office. I thought I was about to be dismissed. In fact, he said, “I should let you get back to your work. You had a hard trip?”

“Not too hard. I spent it working.”

“I suppose so. By the way, who are you?”

There is the policeman’s tap on the shoulder, the shock of the top step that is not there, there is falling out of bed, and there is having her husband return home unexpectedly-I would take any combination of those in preference to that simple inquiry. I aged inside to match my appearance and more.

“Sire?”

“Come now,” he said impatiently, “surely my job carries with it some privileges. Just tell me the truth. I’ve known for the past hour that you were not Joseph Bonforte-though you could fool his own mother; you even have his mannerisms. But who are you?”

“My name is Lawrence Smith, Your Majesty,” I said faintly.

“Brace up, man! I could have called the guards long since, if I had been intending to. Were you sent here to assassinate me?” “No, Sire. I am-loyal to Your Majesty.”

“You have an odd way of showing it. Well, pour yourself another drink, sit down, and tell me about it.”

I told him about it, every bit. It took more than one drink, and presentiy I felt better. He looked angry when I told him of the kidnapping, but when I told him what they had done to Bonforte’s mind his face turned dark with a Jovian rage.

At last he said quietly, “It’s just a matter of days until he is back in shape, then?” “So Dr. Capek says.”

“Don’t let him go to work until he is fully recovered. He’s a valuable man. You know that, don’t you? Worth six of you and me. So you carry on with the doubling job and let him get well. The Empire needs him.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“Knock off that ‘Sire.’ Since you are standing in for him, call me ‘Willem,’ as he does. Did you know that was how I spotted you?” “No, Si-no, Willem.”

“He’s called me Willem for twenty years. I thought it decidedly odd that he would quit it in private simply because he was seeing me on state business. But I did not suspect, not really. But, remarkable as your performance was, it set me thinking. Then when we went in to see the trains, I knew.”

“Excuse me? How?”

“You were polite, man! I’ve made him look at my trains in the past-and he always got even by being as rude as possible about what a way for a grown man to waste time. It was a little act we always went through. We both enjoyed it.”

“Oh. I didn’t know.”

“How could you have known?” I was thinking that I should have known, that damned Farleyfile should have told me … It was not until later that I realized that the file had not been

defective, in view of the theory on which it was based, i.e. it was intended to let a famous man remember details about the less famous. But that was precisely what the Emperor was not-

less famous, I mean. Of course Bonforte needed no notes to recall personal details about Willem! Nor would he consider it proper to set down personal matters about the sovereign in a

file handled by his clerks.

I had muffed the obvious-not that I see how I could have avoided it, even ii I had realized that the file would be incomplete.

But the Emperor was still talking. “You did a magnificent job- and after risking your life in a Martian nest I am not surprised that you were willing to tackle me. Tell me, have I ever seen you in stereo, or anywhere?”

I had given my legal name, of course, when the Emperor demanded it; I now rather timidly gave my professional name. He looked at me, threw up his hands, and guff awed. I was somewhat hurt. “Er, have you heard of me?”

“Heard of you? I’m one of your staunchest fans.” He looked at me very closely. “But you still look like Joe Bonforte. I can’t believe that you are Lorenzo.” “But I am.”

“Oh, I believe it, I believe it. You know that skit where you are a tramp? First you try to milk a cow-no luck. Finally you end up eating out of the cat’s dish-but even the cat pushes you away?” I admitted it.

“I’ve almost worn out my spool of that. I laugh and cry at the same time.”

“That is the idea.” I hesitated, then admitted that the barnyard “Weary Willie” routine had been copied from a very great artist of another century. “But I prefer dramatic roles.” “Like this one?”

“Well-not exactly. For this role, once is quite enough. I wouldn’t care for a long run.”

“I suppose so. Well, tell Roger Clifton- No, don’t tell Clifton anything. Lorenzo, I see nothing to be gained by ever telling anyone about our conversation this past hour. If you tell Clifton, even though you tell him that I said not to worry, it would just give him nerves. And he has work to do. So we keep it tight, eh?”

“As my emperor wishes.”

“None of that, please. We’ll keep it quiet because it’s best so. Sorry I can’t make a sickbed visit on Uncle Joe. Not that I could help him-although they used to think the King’s Touch did marvels. So we’ll say nothing and pretend that I never twigged.”

“Yes-Wilem.”

“I suppose you had better go now. I’ve kept you a very long time.” “Whatever you wish.”

“I’ll have Pateel go back with you-or do you know your way around? But just a moment-” He dug around in his desk, muttering to himself. “That girl must have been straightening things again. No-here it is.” He hauled out a little book. “I probably won’t get to see you again-so would you mind giving me your autograph before you go?”

Chapter 9

Rog and Bill I found chewing their nails in Bonforte’s upper living room. The second I showed up Corpsman started toward me. “Where the hell have you been?” “With the Emperor,” I answered coldly.

“You’ve been gone five or six times as long as you should have been.”

I did not bother to answer. Since the argument over the speech Corpsman and I had gotten along together and worked together, but it was strictly a marriage of convenience, with no love. We cooperated, but we did not really bury the hatchet-unless it was between my shoulder blades. I had made no special effort to conciliate him and saw no reason why I should-in my opinion his parents had met briefly at a masquerade ball.

I don’t believe in rowing with other members of the company, but the only behavior Corpsman would willingly accept from me was that of a servant, hat in hand and very ‘umble, sir. I would not give him that, even to keep peace. I was a professional, retained to do a very difficult professional job, and professional men do not use the back stairs; they are treated with respect.

So I ignored him and asked Rog, “Where’s Penny?” “With him. So are Dak and Do; at the moment.” “He’s here?”

“Yes.” Clifton hesitated. “We put him in what is supposed to be the wife’s room of your bedroom suite. It was the only place where we could maintain utter privacy and still give him the care he needs. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

“It won’t inconvenience you. The two bedrooms are joined, you may have noticed, only through the dressing rooms, and we’ve shut off that door. It’s soundproof.” “Sounds like a good arrangement. How is he?”

Clifton frowned. “Better, much better-on the whole. He is lucid much of the time.” He hesitated. “You can go in and see him, if you like.” I hesitated still longer. “How soon does Dr. Capek think he will be ready to make public appearances?”

“It’s hard to say. Before long.”

“How long? Three or four days? Ashort enough time that we could cancel all appointments and just put me out of sight? Rog, I don’t know just how to make this clear but, much as I would like to call on him and pay my respects, I don’t think it is smart for me to see him at all until after I have made my last appearance. It might well ruin my characterization.” I had made the terrible mistake of going to my father’s funeral; for years thereafter when I thought of him I saw him dead in his coffin. Only very slowly did I regain the true image of him-the virile, dominant man who had reared me with a firm hand and taught me my trade. I was afraid of something like that with Bonforte; I was now impersonating a well man at the height of his powers, the way I had seen him and heard him in the many stereo records of him. I was very much afraid that if I saw him ill, the recollection of it would blur and distort my performance.

“I was not insisting,” Clifton answered. “You know best. It’s possible that we can keep from having you appear in public again, but I want to keep you standing by and ready until he is fully recovered.”

I almost said that the Emperor wanted it done that way. But I caught myself-the shock of having the Emperor find me out had shaken me a little out of character. But the thought reminded

me of unfinished business. I took out the revised cabinet list and handed it to Corpsman. “Here’s the approved roster for the news services, Bill. You’ll see that there is one change on it- De la Torre for Braun.”

“What?”

“Jesus de Ia Tone for Lothar Braun. That’s the way the Emperor wanted it.”

Clifton looked astonished; Corpsman looked both astonished and angry. “What difference does that make? He’s got no goddamn right to have opinions!”

Clifton said slowly, “Bill is fight, Chief. As a lawyer who has specialized in constitutional law I assure you that the sovereign’s confirmation is purely nominal. You should not have let him make any changes.”

I felt like shouting at them, and only the imposed calm personality of Bonforte kept me from it. I had had a hard day and, despite a brilliant performance, the inevitable disaster had overtaken me. I wanted to tell Rog that if Willem had not been a really big man, kingly in the fine sense of the word, we would all be in the soup-simply because I had not been adequately coached for the role. Instead I answered sourly, “It’s done and that’s that.”

Corpsman said, “That’s what you think! I gave out the correct list to the reporters two hours ago. Now you’ve got to go back and straighten it out. Rog, you had better call the Palace right away and-“

I said, “Quiet!”

Corpsman shut up. I went on in a lower key. “Rog, from a legal point of view, you may be right. I wouldn’t know. I do know that the Emperor felt free to question the appointment of Braun. Now if either one of you wants to go to the Emperor and argue with him, that’s up to you. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to get out of this anachronistic strait jacket, take my shoes off, and have a long, tall drink. Then rm going to bed.”

“Now wait, Chief,” Clifton objected. “You’ve got a five-minute spot on grand network to announce the new cabinet.” “You take it. You’re first deputy in this cabinet.”

He blinked. “All right.”

Corpsman said insistently, “How about Braun? He was promised the job.”

Clifton looked at him thoughtfully. “Not in any dispatch that I saw, Bill. He was simply asked if he was willing to serve, like all the others. Is that what you meant?” Corpsman hesitated like an actor not quite sure of his lines. “Of course. But it amounts to a promise.”

“Not until the public announcement is made, it doesn’t.”

“But the announcement was made, I tell you. Two hours ago.”

“Mmm … Bill, I’m afraid that you will have to call the boys in again and tell them that you made a mistake. Or I’ll call them in and tell them that through an error a preliminary list was handed out before Mr. Bonforte had okayed it. But we’ve got to correct it before the grand network announcement.”

“Do you mean to tell me you are going to let him get away with it?”

By “him” I think Bill meant me rather than Willem, but Rog’s answer assumed the contrary. “Yes. Bill, this is no time to force a constitutional crisis. The issue isn’t worth it. So will you phrase the retraction? Or shall I?”

Corpsman’s expression reminded me of the way a cat submits to the inevitable-“just barely.” He looked grim, shrugged, and said, “I’ll do it. I want to be damned sure it is phrased properly, so we can salvage as much as possible out of the shambles.”

“Thanks, Bill,” Rog answered mildly.

Corpsman turned to leave. I called out, “Bill! As long as you are going to be talking to the news service I have another announcement for them.” “Huh? What are you after now?”

“Nothing much.” The fact was I was suddenly overcome with weariness at the role and the tensions it created. “Just tell them that Mr. Bonforte has a cold and his physician has ordered him to bed for a rest. I’ve had a bellyful.”

Corpsman snorted. “I think I’ll make it ‘pneumonia.” “Suit yourself.”

When he had gone Rog turned to me and said, “Don’t let it get you, Chief. In this business some days are better than others.” “Rog, I really am going on the sick list. You can mention it on stereo tonight.”

“So?”

“I’m going to take to my bed and stay there. There is no reason at all why Bonforte can’t ‘have a cold’ until he is ready to get back into harness himself. Every time I make an appearance it just increases the probability that somebody will spot something wrong- and every time I do make an appearance that sorehead Corpsman finds something to yap about. An artist can’t do his best work with somebody continually snarling at him. So let’s let it go at this and ring down the curtain.”

“Take it easy, Chief. I’ll keep Corpsman out of your hair from now on. Here we won’t be in each other’s laps the way we were in the ship.”

“No, Rog, my mind is made up. Oh, I won’t run out on you. I’ll stay here until Mr. B. is able to see people, in case some utter emergency turns up”-I was recalling uneasily that the Emperor had told me to hang on and had assumed that I would-“but it is actually better to keep me out of sight. At the moment we have gotten away with it completely, haven’t we? Oh, they know- somebody knows-that Bonforte was not the man who went through the adoption ceremony-but they don’t dare raise that issue, nor could they prove it if they did. The same people may suspect that a double was used today, but they don’t know, they can’t be sure-because it is always possible that Bonforte recovered quickly enough to carry it off today. Right?”

Clifton got an odd, half-sheepish look on his face. “I’m afraid they are fairly sure you were a double, Chief.” “Eh?”

“We shaded the truth a little to keep you from being nervous. Doc Capek was certain from the time he first examined him that only a miracle could get him in shape to make the audience today. The people who dosed him would know that too.”

I frowned. “Then you were kidding me earlier when you told me how well he was doing? How is he, Rog? Tell me the truth.”

“I was telling you the truth that time, Chief. That’s why I suggested that you see him-whereas before I was only too glad to string along with your reluctance to see him.” He added, “Perhaps you had better see him, talk with him.”

“Mmm-no.” The reasons for not seeing him still applied; if I did have to make another appearance I did not want my subconscious playing me tricks. The role called for a well man. “But, Rog, everything I said applies still more emphatically on the basis of what you have just told me. If they are even reasonably sure that a double was used today, then we don’t dare risk another appearance. They were caught by surprise today-or perhaps it was impossible to unmask me, under the circumstances. But it will not be later. They can rig some deadfall, some test that I can’t pass- then blooey/ There goes the old ball game.” I thought about it. “I had better be ‘sick’ as long as necessary. Bill was right; it had better be ‘pneumonia.’”

Such is the power of suggestion that I woke up the next morning with a stopped-up nose and a sore throat. Dr. Capek took time to dose me and I felt almost human by suppertime; nevertheless, he issued bulletins about “Mr. Bonforte’s virus infection.” The sealed and air-conditioned cities of the Moon being what they are, nobody was anxious to be exposed to an S- vectored ailment; no determined effort was made to get past my chaperones. For four days I loafed and read from Bonforte’s library, both his own collected papers and his many books

… I discovered that both politics and economics could make engrossing reading; those subjects had never been real to me before. The Emperor sent me flowers from the royal

greenhouse-or were they for me?

Never mind. I loafed and soaked in the luxury of being Lorenzo, or even plain Lawrence Smith. I found that I dropped back into character automatically if someone came in, but I can’t help that. It was not necessary; I saw no one but Penny and Capek, except for one visit from Dak.

But even lotus-eating can pall. By the fourth day I was as tired of that room as I had ever been of a producer’s waiting room and I was lonely. No one bothered with me; Capek’s visits had been brisk and professional, and Penny’s visits had been short and few. She had stopped calling me “Mr. Bonforte.”

When Dak showed up I was delighted to see him. “Dak! What’s new?”

“Not much. I’ve been trying to get the Tommie overhauled with one hand while helping Rog with political chores with the other. Getting this campaign lined up is going to give him ulcers, three gets you eight.” He sat down. “Politics!”

“Hmm – . . Dak, how did you ever get into it? Offhand, I would figure voyageurs to be as unpolitical as actors. And you in particular.”

“They are and they aren’t. Most ways they don’t give a damn whether school keeps ot not, as long as they can keep on herding junk through the sky. But to do that you’ve got to have cargo, and cargo means trade, and profitable trade means wide-open trade, with any ship free to go anywhere, no customs nonsense and no restricted areas. Freedom! And there you are; you’re in politics. As for myself, I came here first for a spot of lobbying for the ‘continuous voyage’ rule, so that goods on the triangular trade would not pay two duties. It was Mr. B’s bill, of course. One thing led to another and here I am, skipper of his yacht the past six years and representing my guild brothers since the last general election.” He sighed. “I hardly know how it happened myself.”

“I suppose you are anxious to get out of it. Are you going to stand for re-election?” He stared at me. “Huh? Brother, until you’ve been in politics you haven’t been alive.” “But you said-“

“I know what I said. It’s rough and sometimes it’s dirty and it’s always hard work and tedious details. But it’s the only sport for grownups. All other games are for kids. All of ‘em.” He stood up. “Gotta run.”

“Oh, stick around.”

“Can’t. With the Grand Assembly convening tomorrow I’ve got to give Rog a hand. I shouldn’t have stopped in at all.”

“It is? I didn’t know.” I was aware that the G.A., the outgoing G.A. that is, had to meet one more time, to accept the caretaker cabinet. But I had not thought about it. It was a routine matter, as perfunctory as presenting the list to the Emperor. “Is he going to be able to make it?”

“No. But don’t you worry about it. Rog will apologize to the house for your-I mean his-absence and will ask for a proxy rule under no-objection procedure. Then he will read the speech of the Supreme Minister Designate-Bill is working on it right now. Then in his own person he will move that the government be confirmed. Second. No debate. Pass. Adjourn sine die-and everybody rushes for home and starts promising the voters two women in every bed and a hundred Imperials every Monday morning. Routine.” He added, “Oh yes! Some member of the Humanity Party will move a resolution of sympathy and a basket of flowers, which will pass in a fine hypocritical glow. They’d rather send flowers to Bonforte’s funeral.” He scowled.

“It is actually as simple as that? What would happen if the proxy rule were refused? I thought the Grand Assembly didn’t recognize proxies.”

“They don’t, for all ordinary procedure. You either pair, or you show up and vote. But this is just the idler wheels going around in parliamentary machinery. If they don’t let him appear by proxy tomorrow, then they’ve got to wait around until he is well before they can adjourn sine die and get on with the serious business of hypnotizing the voters. As it is, a mock quorum has been meeting daily and adjourning ever since Quiroga resigned. This Assembly is as dead as Caesar’s ghost, but it has to be buried constitutionally.”

“Yes-but suppose some idiot did object?”

“No one will. Oh, it could force a constitutional crisis. But it won’t happen.”

Neither one of us said anything for a while. Dak made no move to leave. “Dak, would it make things easier if I showed up and gave that speech?”

“Huh? Shucks, I thought that was settled. You decided that it wasn’t safe to risk another appearance short of an utter save-the-baby emergency. On the whole, I agree with you. There’s the old saw about the pitcher and the well.”

“Yes. But this is just a walk-through, isn’t it? Lines as fixed as a play? Would there be any chance of anyone puffing any surprises on me that I couldn’t handle?”

“Well, no. Ordinarily you would be expected to talk to the press afterwards, but your recent illness is an excuse. We could slide you through the security tunnel and avoid them entirely.” He smiled grimly. “Of course, there is always the chance that some crackpot in the visitors’ gallery has managed to sneak in a gun…Mr. B. always referred to it as the ‘shooting gallery’ after they winged him from it.”

My leg gave a sudden twinge. “Are you trying to scare me off?”

“You pick a funny way to encourage me. Dak, be level with me. Do you want me to do this job tomorrow? Or don’t you?” “Of course I do! Why the devil do you think I stopped in on a busy day? Just to chat?”

The Speaker pro tempore banged his gavel, the chaplain gave an invocation that carefully avoided any differences between one religion and another-and everyone kept silent. The seats themselves were only half filled but the gallery was packed with tourists.

We heard the ceremonial knocking amplified over the speaker system; the Sergeant at Arms rushed the mace to the door. Three times the Emperor demanded to be admitted, three times he was refused. Then he prayed the privilege; it was granted by acclamation. We stood while Willem entered and took his seat back of the Speaker’s desk. He was in uniform as Admiral General and was unattended, as was required, save by escort of the Speaker and the Sergeant at Arms.

Then I tucked my wand under my arm and stood up at my place at the front bench and, addressing the Speaker as if the sovereign were not present, I delivered my speech. It was not the one Corpsman had written; that one went down the oubliette as soon as I had read it. Bill had made it a straight campaign speech, and it was the wrong time and place.

Mine was short, non-partisan, and cribbed right straight out of Bonforte’s collected writings, a paraphrase of the one the time before when he formed a caretaker government. I stood foursquare for good roads and good weather and wished that everybody would love everybody else, just the way all us good democrats loved our sovereign and he loved us. It was a blank-verse lyric poem of about five hundred words and if I varied from Bonforte’s earlier speech then I simply went up on my lines.

They had to quiet the gallery.

Rog got up and moved that the names I had mentioned in passing be confirmed-second and no objection and the clerk cast a white ballot As I marched forward, attended by one member of my own party and one member of the opposition, I could see members glancing at their watches and wondering if they could still catch the noon shuttle.

Then I was swearing allegiance to my sovereign, under and subject to the constitutional limitations, swearing to defend and continue the rights and privileges of the Grand Assembly, and to protect the freedoms of the citizens of the Empire wherever they might be-and incidentally to carry out the duties of His Majesty’s Supreme Minister. The chaplain mixed up the words once, but I straightened him out.

I thought I was breezing through it as easy as a curtain speech- when I found that I was crying so hard that I could hardly see. When I was done, Willem said quietly to me, “Agood performance, Joseph.” I don’t know whether he thought he was talking to me or to his old friend-and I did not care. I did not wipe away the tears; I just let them drip as I turned back to the Assembly. I waited for Willem to leave, then adjourned them.

Diana, Ltd., ran four extra shuttles that afternoon. New Batavia was deserted-that is to say there were only the court and a million or so butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, and civil servants left in town-and a skeleton cabinet.

Having gotten over my “cold” and appeared publicly in the Grand Assembly Hall, it no longer made sense to hide out. As the supposed Supreme Minister I could not, without causing comment, never be seen; as the nominal head of a political party entering a campaign for a general election I had to see people-some people, at least. So I did what I had to do and got a daily report on Bonforte’s progress toward complete recovery. His progress was good, if slow; Capek reported that it was possible, if absolutely necessary, to let him appear any time

now-but he advised against it; he had lost almost twenty pounds and his co-ordination was poor.

Rog did everything possible to protect both of us. Mr. Bonforte knew now that they were using a double for him and, after a first fit of indignation, had relaxed to necessity and approved it. Rog ran the campaign, consulting him only on matters of high policy, and then passing on his answers to me to hand out publicly when necessary.

But the protection given me was almost as great; I was as hard to see as a topflight agent. My office ran on into the mountain beyond the opposition leader’s apartments (we did not move over into the Supreme Minister’s more palatial quarters; while it would have been legal, it just “was not done” during a caretaker regime)

-they could be reached from the rear directly from the lower living room, but to get at me from the public entrance a man had to pass about five check points-except for the favored few who were conducted directly by Rog through a bypass tunnel to Penny’s office and from there into mine.

The setup meant that I could study the Farleyfile on anyone before he got to see me. I could even keep it in front of me while he was with me, for the desk had a recessed viewer the visitor could not see, yet I could wipe it out instantly if he turned out to be a floor pacer. The viewer had other uses; Rog could give a visitor the special treatment, rushing him right in to see me, leave him alone with me-and stop in Penny’s office and write me a note, which would then be projected on the viewer-such quick tips as, “Kiss him to death and promise nothing,” or, “All he really wants is for his wile to be presented at court. Promise him that and get rid of him,” or even, “Easy on this one. It’s a ‘swing’ district and he is smarter than he looks. Turn him over to me and I’ll dicker.”

I don’t know who ran the government. The senior career men, probably. There would be a stack of papers on my desk each morning, I would sign Bonforte’s sloppy signature to them, and Penny would take them away. I never had time to read them. The very size of the Imperial machinery dismayed me. Once when we had to attend a meeting outside the offices, Penny had led me on what she called a short cut though the Archives-miles on miles of endless ifies, each one chockablock with microfilm and all of them with moving belts scooting past them so that a clerk would not take all day to fetch one ifie.

But Penny told me that she had taken me through only one wing of it. The file of the files, she said, occupied a cavern the size of the Grand Assembly Hall. It made me glad that government was not a career with me, but merely a passing hobby, so to speak.

Seeing people was an unavoidable chore, largely useless since Rog, or Bonforte through Rog, made the decisions. My real job was to make campaign speeches. Adiscreet rumor had been spread that my doctor had been afraid that my heart had been strained by the “virus infection” and had advised me to stay in the low gravity of the Moon throughout the campaign. I did not dare risk taking the impersonation on a tour of Earth, much less make a trip to Venus; the Farleyfile system would break down if I attempted to mix with crowds, not to mention the unknown hazards of the Actionist goon squads-what I would babble with a minim dose of neodexocaine in the forebrain none of us liked to think about, me least of all.

Quiroga was hitting all continents on Earth, making his stereo appearances as personal appearances on platforms in front of crowds. But it did not worry Rog Clifton. He shrugged and said, “Let him. There are no new votes to be picked up by personal appearances at political rallies. All it does is wear out the speaker. Those rallies are attended only by the faithful.”

I hoped that he knew what he was talking about. The campaign was short, only six weeks from Quiroga’s resignation to the day he had set for the election before resigning, and I was speaking almost every day, either on a grand network with time shared precisely with the Humanity Party, or speeches canned and sent by shuttle for later release to particular audiences. We had a set routine; a draft would come to me, perhaps from Bill although I never saw him, and then I would rework it. Rog would take the revised draft away; usually it would come back approved-and once in a while there would be corrections made in Bonforte’s handwriting, now so sloppy as to be almost illegible.

I never ad-libbed at all on those parts he corrected, though I often did on the rest-when you get rolling there is often a better, more alive way to say a thing. I began to notice the nature of his corrections; they were almost always eliminations of qualifiers- make it blunter, let ‘em like it or lump it!

After a while there were fewer corrections. I was getting with it.

I still never saw him. I felt that I could not “wear his head” if I looked at him on his sickbed. But I was not the only one of his intimate family who was not seeing him; Capek had chucked Penny out-for her own good. I did not know it at the time. I did know that Penny had become irritable, absent-minded, and moody after we reached New Batavia. She got circles under her eyes like a raccoon-all of which I could not miss, but I attributed it to the pressure of the campaign combined with worry about Bonforte’s health. I was only partly right. Capek spotted it and took action, put her under llght hypnosis and asked her questions-then he flatly forbade her to see Bonforte again until I was done and finished and shipped away.

The poor girl was going almost out of her mind from visiting the sickroom of the man she hopelessly loved-then going straight in to work closely with a man who looked and talked and sounded just like him, but in good health. She was probably beginning to hate me.

Good old Doc Capek got at the root of her trouble, gave her helpful and soothing post-hypnotic suggestions, and kept her out of the sickroom after that. Naturally I was not told about it at the time; it wasn’t any of my business. But Penny perked up and again was her lovable, incredibly efficient self.

It made a lot of difference to me. Let’s admit it; at least twice I would have walked out on the whole incredible rat race if it had not been for Penny.

There was one sort of meeting I had to attend, that of the campaign executive committee. Since the Expansionist Party was a minority party, being merely the largest fraction of a coalition of several parties held together by the leadership and personality of John Joseph Bonforte, I had to stand in for him and peddle soothing syrup to those prima donnas. I was briefed for it with painstaking care, and Rog sat beside rue and could hint the proper direction if I faltered. But it could not be delegated.

Less than two weeks before election day we were due for a meeting at which the safe districts would be parceled out. The organization always had thirty to forty districts which could be used to make someone eligible for cabinet office, or to provide for a political secretary (a person like Penny was much more valuable if he or she was fully qualified, able to move and Speak on the floor of the Assembly, had the right to be present at closed caucuses, and so forth), or for other party reasons. Bonforte himself represented a “safe” district; it relieved him from the necessity of precinct campaigning. Clifton had another. Dak would have had one if he had needed it, but he actually commanded the support of his guild brethren. Rog even hinted to me once that if I wanted to come back in my proper person, I could say the word and my name would go on the next list.

Some of the spots were always saved for party wheel horses willing to resign at a moment’s notice and thereby provide the Party with a place through a by-election if it proved necessary to qualify a man for cabinet office, or something.

But the whole thing had somewhat the flavor of patronage and, the coalition being what it was, it was necessary for Bonforte to straighten out conilicting claims and submit a list to the campaign executive committee. It was a last-minute job, to be done just before the ballots were prepared, to allow for late changes.

When Rog and Dak came in I was working on a speech and had told Penny to hold off anything but five-alarm fires. Quiroga had made a wild statement in Sydney, Australia, the night before, of such a nature that we could expose the lie and make him squirm. I was trying my hand at a Speech in answer, without waiting for a draft to be handed me; I had high hopes of getting my own version approved.

When they came in I said, “Listen to this,” and read them the key paragraph. “How do you like it?”

“That ought to nail his hide to the door,” agreed Rog. “Here’s the ‘safe’ list, Chief. Want to look it over? We’re due there in twenty minutes.”

“Oh, that damned meeting. I don’t see why I should look at the list. Anything you want to tell me about it?” Nevertheless, I took the list and glanced down it. I knew them all from their Farleyfiles and a few of them from contact; I knew already why each one had to be taken care of.

Then I struck the name: Corpsman, William 1.

I fought down what I felt was justifiable annoyance and said quietly, “I see Bill is on the list, Rog.”

“Oh, yes. I wanted to tell you about that. You see, Chief, as we all know, there has been a certain amount of bad blood between you and Bill. Now I’m not blaming you; it’s been Bill’s fault. But there are always two sides. What you may not have realized is that Bill has been carrying around a tremendous inferiority feeling; it gives him a chip on the shoulder. This will fix it up.”

“So?”

“Yes. It is what he has always wanted. You see, the rest of us all have official status, we’re members of the G.A., I mean. I’m talking about those who work closely around, uh, you. Bill feels it. I’ve heard him say, after the third drink, that he was just a hired man. He’s bitter about it. You don’t mind, do you? The Party can afford it and it’s an easy price to pay for elimination of friction at headquarters.”

I had myself under full control by now. “It’s none of my business. Why should I mind, if that is what Mi. Bonforte wants?” I caught just a flicker of a glance from Dak to Clifton. I added, “That is what Mr. B. wants? Isn’t it, Rog?”

Dak said harshly, “Tell him, Rog.”

Rog said slowly, “Dak and I whipped this up ourselves. We think it is for the best.” “Then Mr. Bonforte did not approve it? You asked him, surely?”

“No, we didn’t.” “Why not?”

“Chief, this is not the sort of thing to bother him with. He’s a tired, old, sick man. I have not been worrying him with anything less than major policy decisions-which this isn’t. It is a district we command no matter who stands for it.”

“Then why ask my opinion about it at all?”

“Well, we felt you should know-and know why. We think you ought to approve it.”

“Me? You’re asking me for a decision as if I were Mr. Bonforte. I’m not.” I tapped the desk in his nervous gesture. “Either this decision is at his level, and you should ask him-or it’s not, and you should never have asked me.”

Rog chewed his cigar, then said, “All right, I’m not asking you.” “No!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean ‘NoVYou did ask me; therefore there is doubt in your mind. So if you expect me to present that name to the committee- as 1/I were Bonforte-then go in and ask him.” They both sat and said nothing. Finally Dak sighed and said, “Tell the rest, Rog. Or I will.”

I waited. Clifton took his cigar out of his mouth and said, “Chief, Mi. Bonforte had a stroke four days ago. He’s in no shape to be disturbed.”

I held still, and recited to myself all of “the cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,” and so forth. When I was back in shape I said, “How is his mind?”

“His mind seems clear enough, but he is terribly tired. That week as a prisoner was more of an ordeal than we realized. The stroke left him in a coma for twenty-four hours. He’s out of it now, but the left side of his face is paralyzed and his entire left side is partly out of service.”

“Uh, what does Dr. Capek say?”

“He thinks that as the clot clears up, you’ll never be able to tell the difference. But he’ll have to take it easier than he used to. But, Chief, right now he is ill. We’ll just have to carry on through the balance of the campaign without him.”

I felt a ghost of the lost feeling I had had when my father died. I had never seen Bonforte, I had had nothing from him but a few scrawled corrections on typescript. But I leaned on him all the way. The fact that he was in that room next door had made the whole thing possible.

I took a long breath, let it out, and said, “Okay, Rog. We’ll have to.”

“Yes, Chief.” He stood up. “We’ve got to get over to that meeting. How about that?” He nodded toward the safe-districts list.

“Oh.” I tried to think. Maybe it was possible that Bonforte would reward Bill with the privilege of calling himself “the Honorable,” just to keep him happy. He wasn’t small about such things; he did not bind the mouths of the kine who tread the grain. In one of his essays on politics he had said, “I am not an intellectual man. If I have any special talent, it lies in picking men of ability and letting them work.”

“How long has Bill been with him?” I asked suddenly. “Eh? About four years. Allttle over.”

Bonforte evidently had liked his work. “That’s past one general election, isn’t it? Why didn’t he make him an Assemblyman then?” “Why, I don’t know. The matter never came up.”

“When was Penny put in?”

“About three years ago. Aby-election.” “There’s your answer, Rog.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Bonforte could have made Bill a Grand Assemblyman at any time. He didn’t choose to. Change that nomination to a ‘resigner.’ Then if Mr. Bonforte wants Bill to have it, he can arrange a byelection for him later-when he’s feeling himself.”

Clifton showed no expression. He simply picked up the list and said, “Very well, Chief.”

Later that same day Bill quit. I suppose Rog had to tell him that his arm-twisting had not worked. But when Rog told me about it I felt sick, realizing that my stiff-necked attitude had us all in acute danger. I told him so. He shook his head.

“But he knows it all! It was his scheme from the start. Look at the load of dirt he can haul over to the Humanity camp.”

“Forget it, Chief. Bill may be a louse-I’ve no use for a man who will quit in the middle of a campaign; you just don’t do that, ever. But he is not a rat. In his profession you don’t spill a client’s secrets, even if you fall out with him.”

“I hope you are right.”

“You’ll see. Don’t worry about it. Just get on with the job.”

As the next few days passed I came to the conclusion that Rog knew Bill better than I did. We heard nothing from him or about him and the campaign went ahead as usual, getting rougher all the time, but with not a peep to show that our giant hoax was compromised. I began to feel better and buckled down to making the best Bonforte speeches I could manage- sometimes with Rog’s help; sometimes just with his okay. Mr. Bonforte was steadily improving again, but Capek had him on absolute quiet.

Rog had to go to Earth during the last week; there are types of fence-mending that simply can’t be done by remote control. After all, votes come from the precincts and the field managers count for more than the speechmakers. But speeches still had to be made and press conferences given; I carried on, with Dak and Penny at my elbow-of course I was much more closely with it now; most questions I could answer without stopping to think.

There was the usual twice-weekly press conference in the offices the day Rog was due back. I had been hoping that he would be back in time for it, but there was no reason I could not take it alone. Penny walked in ahead of me, carrying her gear; I heard her gasp.

I saw then that Bill was at the far end of the table.

But I looked around the room as usual and said, “Good morning, gentlemen.” “Good morning, Mr. Minister!” most of them answered.

I added, “Good morning, Bill. Didn’t know you were here. Whom are you representing?”

They gave him dead silence to reply. Every one of them knew that Bill had quit us-or had been fired. He grinned at me, and answered, “Good morning, Mister Bon forte. I’m with the Krein

Syndicate.”

I knew it was coming then; I tried not to give him the satisfaction of letting it show. “Afine outfit. I hope they are paying you what you are worth. Now to business- The written questions first. You have them, Penny?”

I went rapidly through the written questions, giving out answers I had already had time to think over, then sat back as usual and said, “We have time to bat it around a bit, gentlemen. Any other questions?”

There were several. I was forced to answer “No comment” only once-an answer Bonforte preferred to an ambiguous one. Finally I glanced at my watch and said, “That will be all this morning, gentlemen,” and started to stand up.

“Smythe!” Bill shouted.

I kept right on getting to my feet, did not look toward him.

“I mean you, Mr. Phony Bonforte-Smythe!” he went on angrily, raising his voice still more.

This time I did look at him, with astonishment-just the amount appropriate, I think, to an important official subjected to rudeness under unlikely conditions. Bill was pointing at me and his face was red. “You impostor! You small-time actor! You fraud!”

The London Times man on my right said quietly, “Do you want me to call the guard, sir?” I said, “No. He’s harmless.”

Bill laughed. “So I’m harmless, huh? You’ll find out.” “I really think I should, sir,” the Times man insisted.

“No.” I then said sharply, “That’s enough, Bill. You had better leave quietly.”

“Don’t you wish I would?” He started spewing forth the basic story, talking rapidly. He made no mention of the kidnaping and did not mention his own part in the hoax, but implied that he had left us rather than be mixed up in any such swindle. The impersonation was attributed, correctly as far as it went, to illness on the part of Bonforte-with a strong hint that we might have doped him.

I listened patiently. Most of the reporters simply listened at first, with that stunned expression of outsiders exposed unwillingly to a vicious family argument. Then some of them started scribbling or dictating into minicorders.

When he stopped I said, “Axe you through, Bill?” “That’s enough, isn’t it?”

“More than enough. I’m sorry, Bill. That’s all, gentlemen. I must get back to work.”

“Just a moment, Mr. Minister!” someone called out. “Do you want to issue a denial?” Someone else added, “Axe you going to sue?” I answered the latter question first. “No, I shan’t sue. One doesn’t sue a sick man.”

“Sick, am I?” shouted Bill.

“Quiet down, Bill. As for issuing a denial, I hardly think it is called for. However, I see that some of you have been taking notes. While I doubt if any of your publishers would run this story, if they do, this anecdote may add something to it. Did you ever hear of the professor who spent forty years of his life proving that the Odyssey was not written by Homer-but by another Greek of the same name?”

It got a polite laugh. I smiled and started to turn away again. Bill came rushing around the table and grabbed at my arm. “You can’t laugh it off!” The Times man-Mr. Ackroyd, it was-pulled him away from me.

I said, “Thank you, sir.” Then to Corpsman I added, “What do you want me to do, Bill? I’ve tried to avoid having you arrested.” “Call the guards if you like, you phony! We’ll see who stays in jail longest! Wait until they take your fingerprints!”

I sighed and made the understatement of my life. “This is ceasing to be a joke. Gentlemen, I think I had better put an end to this. Penny my dear, will you please have someone send in fingerprinting equipment?” I knew I was sunk-but, damn it, if you are caught by the Birkenhead Drill, the least you owe yourself is to stand at attention while the ship goes down. Even a villain should make a good exit.

Bill did not wait. He grabbed the water glass that had been sitting in front of me; I had handled it several times. “The hell with that! This will do.” “I’ve told you before, Bill, to mind your language in the presence of ladies. But you may keep the glass.”

“You’re bloody well right I’ll keep it.”

“Very well. Please leave. If not, I’ll be forced to summon the guard.”

He walked out. Nobody said anything. I said, “May I provide fingerprints for any of the rest of you?” Ackroyd said hastily, “Oh, I’m sure we don’t want them, Mr. Minister.”

“Oh, by all means! If there is a story in this, you’ll want to be covered.” I insisted because it was in character-and in the second and third place, you can’t be a little bit pregnant, or slightly unmasked-and I did not want my friends present to be scooped by Bill; it was the last thing I could do for them.

We did not have to send for formal equipment. Penny had carbon sheets and someone had one of those lifetime memo pads with plastic sheets; they took prints nicely. Then I said good morning and left.

We got as far as Penny’s private office; once inside she fainted dead. I carried her into my office, laid her on the couch, then sat down at my desk and simply shook for several minutes. Neither one of us was worth much the rest of the day. We carried on as usual except that Penny brushed off all callers, claiming excuses of some sort. I was due to make a speech that

night and thought seriously of canceling it. But I left the news turned on all day and there was not a word about the incident of that morning. I realized that they were checking the prints

before risking it-after all, I was supposed to be His Imperial Majesty’s first minister; they would want confirmation. So I decided to make the speech since I had already written it and the

time was schedtiled. I couldn’t even consult Dak; he was away in Tycho City.

It was the best one I had made. I put into it the same stuff a comic uses to quiet a panic in a burning theater. After the pickup was dead I just sunk my face in my hands and wept, while Penny patted my shoulder. We had not discussed the horrible mess at all.

Rog grounded at twenty hundred Greenwich, about as I finished, and checked in with me as soon as he was back. In a dull monotone I told him the whole dirty story; he listened, chewing on a dead cigar, his face expressionless.

At the end I said almost pleadingly, “I had to give the fingerprints, Rog. You see that, don’t you? To refuse would not have been in character.” Rog said, “Don’t worry.”

“Huh?”

“I said, ‘Don’t worry.’ When the reports on those prints come back from the Identification Bureau at The Hague, you are in for a small but pleasant surprise-and our ex-friend Bill is in for a much bigger one, but not pleasant. If he has collected any of his blood money in advance, they will probably take it out of his hide. I hope they do.”

I could not mistake what he meant. “Oh! But, Rog-they won’t stop there. There are a dozen other places. Social Security

Uh, lots of places.”

“You think perhaps we were not thorough? Chief, I knew this could happen, one way or another. From the moment Dak sent word to complete Plan Mardi Gras, the necessary cover-up started. Everywhere. But I didn’t think it necessary to tell Bill.” He sucked on his dead cigar, took it out of his mouth, and looked at it. “Poor Bill.”

Penny sighed softly and fainted again. Chapter 10

Somehow we got to the final day. We did not hear from Bill again; the passenger lists showed that he went Earthside two days after his fiasco. If any news service ran anything I did not hear of it, nor did Quiroga’s speeches hint at it.

Mr. Bonforte steadily improved until it was a safe bet that he could take up his duties after the election. His paralysis continued in part but we even had that covered: he would go on vacation right after election, a routine practice that almost every politician indulges in. The vacation would be in the Tommie, safe from everything. Sometime in the course of the trip I would be transferred and smuggled back-and the Chief would have a mild stroke, brought on by the strain of the campaign.

Rog would have to unsort some fingerprints, but he could safely wait a year or more for that.

Election day I was happy as a puppy in a shoe closet. The impersonation was over, although I was going to do one more short turn. I had already canned two five-minute speeches for grand network, one magnanimously accepting victory, the other gallantly conceding defeat; my job was finished. When the last one was in the can, I grabbed Penny and kissed her. She didn’t even seem to mind.

The remaining short turn was a command performance; Mr. Bonforte wanted to see me-as him-before he let me drop it. I did not mind. Now that the strain was over, it did not worry me to see him; playing him for his entertainment would be like a comedy skit, except that I would do it straight. What am I saying? Playing straight is the essence of comedy.

The whole family would gather in the upper living room-there because Mr. Bonforte had not seen the sky in some weeks and wanted to-and there we would listen to the returns, and either drink to victory or drown our sorrows and swear to do better next time. Strike me out of the last part; I had had my first and last political campaign and I wanted no more politics. I was not even sure I wanted to act again. Acting every minute for over six weeks adds up to about five hundred ordinary performances. That’s a long run.

They brought him up the lift in a wheel chair. I stayed out of sight and let them arrange him on a couch before I came in; a man is entitled not to have his weakness displayed before strangers. Besides, I wanted to make an entrance.

I was almost startled out of character. He looked like my f ather! Oh, it was just a “family” resemblance; he and I looked much more alike than either one of us looked like my father, but the likeness was there-and the age was right, for he looked old. I had not guessed how much he had aged. He was thin and his hair was white.

I made an immediate mental note that during the coming vacation in space I must help them prepare for the transition, the resubstitution. No doubt Capek could put weight back on him; if not, there were ways to make a man appear fleshier without obvious padding. I would dye his hair myself. The delayed announcement of the stroke he had suffered would cover the inevitable discrepancies. After all, he had changed this much in only a few weeks; the need was to keep the fact from calling attention to the impersonation.

But these practical details were going on by themselves in a corner of my mind; my own being was welling with emotion. ifi though he was, the man gave off a force both spiritual and virile. I felt that warm, almost holy, shock one feels when first coming into sight of the great statue of Abraham Lincoln. I was reminded of another statue, too, seeing him lying there with his legs and his helpless left side covered with a shawl: the wounded Lion of Lucerne. He had that massive strength and dignity, even when helpless: “The guard dies, but never surrenders.”

He looked up as I came in and smiled the warm, tolerant, and friendly smile I had learned to portray, and motioned with his good hand for me to come to him. I smiled the same smile back and went to him. He shook hands with a grip surprisingly strong and said warmly, “I am happy to meet you at last.” His speech was slightly blurred and I could not see the slackness on the side of his face away from me.

“I am honored and happy to meet you, sir.” I had to think about it to keep from matching the blurring of paralysis. He looked me up and down, and grinned. “It looks to me as if you had already met me.”

I glanced down at myself. “I have tried, sir.”

“‘Tried’! You succeeded. It is an odd thing to see one’s own self.”

I realized with sudden painful empathy that he was not emotionally aware of his own appearance; my present appearance was “his”-and any change in himself was merely incidental to illness, temporary, not to be noticed. But he went on speaking. “Would you mind moving around a bit for me, sir? I want to see me-you-us. I want the audience’s viewpoint for once.”

So I straightened up, moved around the room, spoke to Penny (the poor child was looking from one to the other of us with a dazed expression), picked up a paper, scratched my collarbone and rubbed my chin, moved his wand from under my arm to my hand and fiddled with it.

He was watching with delight. So I added an encore. Taking the middle of the rug, I gave the peroration of one of his finest’ speeches, not trying to do it word for word, but interpreting it, letting it roll and thunder as he would have done-and ending with his own exact ending: “Aslave cannot be freed, save he do it himself. Nor can you enslave a free man; the very most you can do is kill him!”

There was that wonderful hushed silence, then a ripple of clapping and Bonforte himself was pounding the couch with his good hand and calling, “Bravo!” It was the only applause I ever got in the role. It was enough.

He had me pull up a chair then and sit with him. I saw him glance at the wand, so I handed it to him. “The safety is on, sir.”

“I know how to use it.” He looked at it closely, then handed it back. I had thought perhaps he would keep it. Since he did not, I decided to turn it over to Dak to deliver to him. He asked me about myself and told me that he did not recall ever seeing me play, but that he had seen my father’s Cyrano. He was making a great effort to control the errant muscles of his mouth and his speech was clear but labored.

Then he asked me what I intended to do now. I told him that I had no plans as yet. He nodded and said, “We’ll see. There is a place for you. There is work to be done.” He made no mention of pay, which made me proud.

The returns were beginning to come in and he turned his attention to the stereo tank. Returns had been coming in, of course, for forty-eight hours, since the outer worlds and the districtless constituencies vote before Earth does, and even on Earth an election “day” is more than thirty hours long, as the globe turns. But now we began to get the important districts of the great land masses of Earth. We had forged far ahead the day before in the outer returns and Rog had had to tell me that it meant nothing; the Expansionists always carried the outer worlds. What the billions of people still on Earth who had never been out and never would thought about it was what mattered.

But we needed every outer vote we could get. The Agrarian Party on Ganymede had swept five out of six districts; they were part of our coalition, and the Expansionist Party as such did not put up even token candidates. The situation on Venus was more ticklish, with the Venerians split into dozens of splinter parties divided on fine points of theology impossible for a human being to understand. Nevertheless, we expected most of the native vote, either directly or through caucused coalition later, and we should get practically all of the human vote there. The Imperial restriction that the natives must select human beings to represent them at New Batavia was a thing Bonforte was pledged to remove; it gained us votes on Venus; we did not know yet how many votes it would lose us on Earth.

Since the nests sent only observers to the Assembly the only vote we worried about on Mars was the human vote. We had the popular sentiment; they had the patronage. But with an honest count we expected a shoo-in there.

Dak was bending over a slide rule at Rog’s side; Rog had a big sheet of paper laid out in some complicated weighting formula of his own. Adozen or more of the giant metal brains through the Solar System were doing the same thing that night, but Rog preferred his own guesses. He told me once that he could walk through a district, “sniffing” it, and come within two per cent of its results. I think he could.

Doc Capek was sitting back, with his hands over his paunch, as relaxed as an angleworm. Penny was moving around, pushing straight things crooked and vice versa and fetching us

drinks. She never seemed to look directly at either me or Mr. Bonforte.

I had never before experienced an election-night party; they were not like any other. There is a cozy, warm rapport of all passion spent. It really does not matter too much how the people decide; you have done your best, you are with your friends and comrades, and for a while there is no worry and no pressure despite the over-all excitement, like frosting on a cake, of the incoming returns.

I don’t know when I’ve had so good a lime.

Rog looked up, looked at me, then spoke to Mr. Bonforte. “The Continent is seesaw. The Americans are testing the water with a toe before coming in on our side; the only question is, how deep?”

“Can you make a projection, Rog?”

“Not yet. Oh, we have the popular vote but in the G.A. it could swing either way by half a dozen seats.” He stood up. “I think I had better mosey out into town.”

Properly speaking, I should have gone, as “Mr. Bonforte.” The Party leader should certainly appear at the main headquarters of the Party sometime during election night. But I had never been in headquarters, it being the sort of a buttonholing place where my impersonation might be easily breached. My “illness” had excused me from it during the campaign; tonight it was not worth the risk, so Rog would go instead, and shake hands and grin and let the keyed-up girls who had done the hard and endless paperwork throw their arms around him and weep. “Back in an hour.”

Even our little party should have been down on the lower level, to include all the office staff, especially Jimmie Washington. But it would not work, not without shutting Mr. Bonforte himself out of it. They were having their own party of course. I stood up. “Rog, I’ll go down with you and say hello to Jimmie’s harem.”

“Eh? You don’t have to, you know.”

“It’s the proper thing to do, isn’t it? And it really isn’t any trouble or risk.” I tuned to Mr. Bonforte. “How about it, sir?” “I would appreciate it very much.”

We went down the lift and through the silent, empty private quarters and on through my office and Penny’s. Beyond her door was bedlam. Astereo receiver, moved in for the purpose, was blasting at full gain, the floor was littered, and everybody was drinking, or smoking, or both. Even Jimmie Washington was holding a drink while he listened to the returns. He was not drinking it; he neither drank nor smoked. No doubt someone had handed it to him and he had kept it. Jimmie had a fine sense of fitness.

I made the rounds, with Rog at my side, thanked Jimmie warmly and very sincerely, and apologized that I was feeling tired. “I’m going up and spread the bones, Jimmie. Make my excuses to people, will you?”

“Yes, sir. You’ve got to take care of yourself, Mr. Minister.”

I went back up while Rog went on out into the public tunnels.

Penny shushed me with a finger to her lips when I came into the upper living room. Bonforte seemed to have dropped off to sleep and the receiver was muted down. Dak still sat in front of it, filling in figures on the big sheet against Rog’s return. Capek had not moved. He nodded and raised his glass to me.

I let Penny fix me a scotch and water, then stepped out into the bubble balcony. It was night both by clock and by fact and Earth was almost full, dazzling in a Tiffany spread of stars. I searched North America and tried to pick out the little dot I had left only weeks earlier, and tried to get my emotions straight.

After a while I came back in; night on Luna is rather overpowering. Rog returned a little later and sat back down at his work sheets without speaking. I noticed that Bonforte was awake again.

The critical returns were coming in now and everybody kept quiet, letting Rog with his pencil and Dak with his slide rule have peace to work. At long, long last Rog shoved his chair back. “That’s it, Chief,” he said without looking up. “We’re in. Majority not less than seven seats, probably nineteen, possibly over thirty.”

After a pause Bonforte said quietly, “You’re sure?” “Positive. Penny, try another channel and see what we get.”

I went over and sat by Bonforte; I could not talk. He reached out and patted my hand in a fatherly way and we both watched the receiver. The first station Penny got said: “-doubt about it, folks; eight of the robot brains say yes, Curiae says maybe. The Expansionist Party has won a decisive-” She switched to another.

“-confirms his temporary post for another five years. Mr. Quiroga cannot be reached for a statement but his general manager in New Chicago admits that the present trend cannot be over

—”

Rog got up and went to the phone; Penny muted the news down until nothing could be heard. The announcer continued mouthing; he was simply saying in different words what we already knew.

Rog came back; Penny turned up the gain. The announcer went on for a moment, then stopped, read something that was handed to him, and turned back with a broad grin. “Friends and fellow citizens, I now bring you for a statement the Supreme Minister!”

The picture changed to my victory speech.

I sat there luxuriating in it, with my feelings as mixed up as possible but all good, painfully good. I had done a job on the speech and I knew it; I looked tired, sweaty, and calmly triumphant. It sounded ad-kb.

I had just reached: “Let us go forward together, with freedom for all-” when I heard a noise behind me. “Mr. Bonforte!” I said. “Doc! Doe! Come quickly!”

Mr. Bonforte was pawing at me with his right hand and trying very urgently to tell me something. But it was no use; his poor mouth failed him and his mighty indomitable will could not make the weak flesh obey.

I took him in my arms-then he went into Cheyne-Stokes breathing and quickly into termination.

They took his body back down in the lift, Dak and Capek together; I was no use to them. Rog came up and patted me on the shoulder, then he went away. Penny had followed the others down. Presently I went again out onto the balcony. I needed “fresh air” even though it was the same machine-pumped air as the living room. But it felt fresher.

They had killed him. His enemies had killed him as certainly as if they had put a knife in his ribs. Despite all that we had done, the risks we had taken, in the end they had murdered him. “Murder most four’!

I felt dead inside me, numb with the shock. I had seen “myself” die, I had again seen my father die. I knew then why they so rarely manage to save one of a pair of Siamese twins. I was empty.

I don’t know how long I stayed out there. Eventually I heard Rog’s voice behind me. “Chief?” I tuned. “Rog,” I said urgently, “don’t call me that. Please!”

“Chief,” he persisted, “you know what you have to do now? Don’t you?”

I felt dizzy and his face blurred. I did not know what he was talking about-I did not want to know what he was talking about. “What do you mean?”

“Chief-one man dies-but the show goes on. You can’t quit now.”

My head ached and my eyes would not focus. He seemed to pull toward me and away while his voice drove on. “. – – robbed him of his chance to finish his work. So you’ve got to do it f or

him. You’ve got to make him live again!”

I shook my head and made a great effort to pull myself together and reply. “Rog, you don’t know what you are saying. It’s preposterous-ridiculous! Fm no statesman. I’m just a bloody actor! I make faces and make people laugh. That’s all I’m good for.”

To my own horror I heard myself say it in Bonforte’s voice. Rog looked at me. “Seems to me you’ve done all right so far.”

I tried to change my voice, tried to gain control of the situation. “Rog, you’re upset. When you’ve calmed down you will see how ridiculous this is. You’re right; the show goes on. But not that way. The proper thing to do-the only thing to do-is for you yourself to move on up. The election is won; you’ve got your majority-now you take office and carry out the program.”

He looked at me and shook his head sadly. “I would if I could. I admit it. But I can’t. Chief, you remember those confounded executive committee meetings? You kept them in line. The whole coalition has been kept glued together by the personal force and leadership of one man. If you don’t follow through now, all that he lived for-and died for-will fall apart.”

I had no answering argument; he might be right-I had seen the wheels within wheels of politics in the past month and a half. “Rog, even if what you say is true, the solution you offer is impossible. We’ve barely managed to keep up this pretense by letting me be seen only under carefully stage-managed conditions-and we’ve just missed being caught out as it is. But to make it work week after week, month after month, even year after year, if I understand you-no, it couldn’t be done. It is impossible. I can’t do it!”

“You can!” He leaned toward me and said forcefully, “We’ve all talked it over and we know the hazards as well as you do. But you’ll have a chance to grow into it. Two weeks in space to start with-hell, a month if you want it! You’ll study all the time-his journals, his boyhood diaries, his scrapbooks, you’ll soak yourself in them. And we’ll all help you.”

I did not answer. He went on, “Look, Chief, you’ve learned that a political personality is not onq man; it’s a team-it’s a team bound together by common purposes and common beliefs. We’ve lost our team captain and we’ve got to have another one. But the team is still there.”

Capek was out on the balcony; I had not seen him come out. I tuned to him. “Are you for this too?” “It’s your duty,” Rog added.

Capek said slowly, “I won’t go that far. I hope you will do it. But, damnit, I won’t be your conscience. I believe in free will, frivolous as that may sound from a medical man.” He turned to Clifton. “We had better leave him alone, Rog. He knows. Now it’s up to him.”

But, although they left, I was not to be alone just yet. Dak came out. To my relief and gratitude he did not call me “Chief.” “Hello, Dak.”

“Howdy.” He was silent for a moment, smoking and looking out at the stars. Then he turned to me. “Old son, we’ve been through some things together. I know you now, and I’ll back you with a gun, or money, or fists any time, and never ask why. If you choose to drop out now, I won’t have a word of blame and I won’t think any the less of you. You’ve done a noble best.”

“Uh, thanks, Dak.”

“One more word and I’ll smoke out. Just remember this: if you decide you can’t do it, the foul scum who brainwashed him will win. In spite of everything, they win.” He went inside.

I felt ton apart in my mind-then I gave way to sheer self-pity. It wasn’t fair! I had my own life to live. I was at the top of my powers, with my greatest professional triumphs still ahead of me. It wasn’t right to expect me to bury myself, perhaps for years, in the anonymity of another man’s role-while the public forgot me, producers and agents forgot me-would probably believe I was dead.

It wasn’t fair. It was too much to ask.

Presently I pulled out of it and for a time did not think. Mother Earth was still serene and beautiful and changeless in the sky; I wondered what the election-night, celebrations there sounded like. Mars and Jupiter and Venus were all in sight, strung like prizes along the zodiac. Ganymede I could not see, of course, nor the lonely colony out on far Pluto.

“Worlds of Hope,” Bonforte had called them.

But he was dead. He was gone. They had taken away from him his birthright at its ripe fullness. He was dead. And they had put it up to me to re-create him, make him live again.

Was. I up to it? Could I possibly measure up to his noble standards? What would he want me to do? If he were in my place- what would Bonf one do? Again and again in the campaign I had asked myself: “What would Bonforte do?”

Someone moved behind me, I tuned and saw Penny. I looked at her and said, “Did they send you out? Did you come to plead with me?” “No.”

She added nothing and did not seem to expect me to answer, nor did we look at each other. The silence went on. At last I said, “Penny? If I try to do it-will you help?” She turned suddenly toward me. “Yes. Oh yes, Chief! I’ll help!’?

“Then I’ll try,” I said humbly.

I wrote all of the above twenty-five years ago to try to straighten out my own confusion. I tried to tell the truth and not spare myself because it was not meant to be read by anyone but myself and my therapist, Dr. Capek. It is strange, after a quarter of a century, to reread the foolish and emotional words of that young man. I remember him, yet I have trouble realizing that I was ever he. My wife Penelope claims that she remembers him better than I do-and that she never loved anyone else. So time changes us.

I find I can “remember” Bonforte’s early life better than I remember my actual life as that rather pathetic person, Lawrence Smith, or-as he liked -to style himself-“The Great Lorenzo.” Does that make me insane? Schizophrenic, perhaps? If so, it is a necessary insanity for the role I have had to play, for in order to let Bonforte live again, that seedy actor had to be suppressed- completely.

Insane or not, I am aware that he once existed and that I was he. He was never a success as an actor, not really-though I think he was sometimes touched with the true madness. He made his final exit still perfectly in character; I have a yellowed newspaper clipping somewhere which states that he was “found dead” in a Jersey City hotel room from an overdose of sleeping pills-apparently taken in a fit of despondency, for his agent issued a statement that he had not had a part in several months. Personally, I feel that they need not have mentioned that about his being out of work; if not libelous, it was at least unkind. The date of the clipping proves, incidentally, that he would not have been in New Batavia, or anywhere else, during the campaign of ‘15.

I suppose I should bum it.

But there is no one left alive today who knows the truth other than Dak and Penelope-except the men who murdered Bonforte’s body.

I have been in and out of office three times now and perhaps this term will be my last. I was knocked out the first time when we finally put the eetees-Venerians and Martians and Outer Jovians

-into the Grand Assembly. But the non-human peoples are still there and I came back. The people will take a certain amount of reform, then they want a rest. But the reforms stay. People don’t really want change, any change at all-and xenophobia is very deep-rooted. But we progress, as we must-if we are to go out to the stars.

Again and again I have asked myself: “What would Bonforte do?” I am not sure that my answers have always been right (although I am sure that I am the best-read student in his works in the System). But I have tried to stay in character in his role. Along time ago someone-Voltaire?-someone said, “If Satan should ever replace God he would find it necessary to assume the attributes of Divinity.”

I have never regretted my lost profession. In a way, I have not lost it; Willem was right. There is other applause besides handclapping and there is always the warm glow of a good performance. I have tried, I suppose, to create the perfect work of art. Perhaps I have not fully succeeded-but I think my father would rate it as a “good performance.”

No, I do not regret it, even though I was happier then-at least I slept better. But there is solemn satisfaction in doing the best you can for eight billion people.

Perhaps their lives have no cosmic significance, but they have feelings. They can hurt.

The End

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The Number of the Beast (full text) by Robert Heinlein

This is the full text of a very long full length novel by Robert Heinlein. It is about a “mad scientist” that builds a machine that can enter and leave different world-lines at will. The scientist meets up with a girl and they both go out exploring all the very many different world lines at their leasure. As they fiddle with the controls they start to enter some very strange world-lines. Some of which resemble other science fiction novels, and some that resemble childhood stories…

This novel was one of the last Heinlein stores. It tends to be confusing if you have never read Heinlein before. As he refers to other stories that he wrote and the events that transpire tends to be confusing if you are not paying attention to it. Further, this (as one of his last major works) is jam packed with “farwells” to his friends, family and associates, as well as chock full of literiary “Easter Eggs”. He also includes answers to some “Hanging” mysteries and unanswered situations in some of his other works.

I enjoyed it, and perhaps you will as well.

CONTENTS

PART 1 – The Vale
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

PART 2 – The Apostate
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

PART 3 – The Time Of Woe
39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

PART ONE – The Mandarin’s Butterfly

Chapter I

” – it is better to marry than to burn.” – Saul of Tarsus

Zeb:
“He’s a Mad Scientist and I’m his Beautiful Daughter.”
That’s what she said: the oldest cliché in pulp fiction. She wasn’t old enough to remember the pulps.
The thing to do with a silly remark is to fail to hear it. I went on waltzing while taking another look down her evening formal. Nice view. Not foam rubber.
She waltzed well. Today most girls who even attempt ballroom dancing drape themselves around your neck and expect you to shove them around the floor. She kept her weight on her own feet, danced close without snuggling, and knew what I was going to do a split second before I led it. A perfect partner as long as she didn’t talk.
“Well?” she persisted.
My paternal grandfather – an unsavory old reactionary; the FemLibbers would have lynched him – used to say, “Zebadiah, the mistake we made was not in putting shoes on them or in teaching them to read – we should never have taught them to talk!”
I signaled a twirl by pressure; she floated into it and back into my arms right on the beat. I inspected her hands and the outer corners of her eyes. Yes, she really was young – minimum eighteen (Hilda Corners never permitted legal “infants” at her parties), maximum twenty-five, first approximation twenty-two. Yet she danced like her grandmother’s generation.
“Well?” she repeated more firmly.
This time I openly stared. “Is that cantilevering natural? Or is there an invisible bra, you being in fact the sole support of two dependents?”
She glanced down, looked up and grinned. “They do stick out, don’t they? Your comment is rude, crude, unrefined, and designed to change the subject.”
“What subject? I made a polite inquiry; you parried it with amphigory.”
“‘Amphigory’ my tired feet! I answered precisely.”
“‘Amphigory,'” I repeated. “The operative symbols were ‘mad,’ ‘scientist,’ ‘beautiful,’ and ‘daughter.’ The first has several meanings – the others denote opinions. Semantic content: zero.”
She looked thoughtful rather than angry. “Pop isn’t rabid… although I did use ‘mad’ in ambivalent mode. ‘Scientist’ and ‘beautiful’ each contain descriptive opinions, I stipulate. But are you in doubt as to my sex? If so, are you qualified to check my twenty-third chromosome pair? With transsexual surgery so common I assume that anything less would not satisfy you.”
“I prefer a field test.”
“On the dance floor?”
“No, the bushes back of the pool. Yes, I’m qualified – laboratory or field. But it was not your sex that lay in the area of opinion; that is a fact that can be established… although the gross evidence is convincing. I -“
“Ninety-five centimeters isn’t gross! Not for my height. One hundred seventy bare-footed, one eighty in these heels. It’s just that I’m wasp-waisted for my mass – forty-eight centimeters versus fifty-nine kilos.”
“And your teeth are your own and you don’t have dandruff. Take it easy, Deedee; I didn’t mean to shake your aplomb” – or those twin glands that are not gross but delicious. I have an infantile bias and have known it since I was six – six months, that is. “But the symbol ‘daughter’ encompasses two statements, one factual – sex – and the other a matter of opinion even when stated by a forensic genetohematologist.”
“Gosh, what big words you know, Mister. I mean ‘Doctor’.”
“‘Mister’ is correct. On this campus it is swank to assume that everyone holds a doctorate. Even I have one, Ph.D. Do you know what that stands for?”
“Doesn’t everybody? I have a Ph.D., too. ‘Piled Higher and Deeper.'”
I raised that maximum to twenty-six and assigned it as second approximation. “Phys. ed.?”
“Mister Doctor, you are trying to get my goat. Won’t work. I had an undergraduate double major, one being phys. ed. with teacher’s credentials in case I needed a job. But my real major was math – which I continued in graduate school.”
“And here I had been assuming that ‘Deedee’ meant ‘Doctor of Divinity.'”
“Go wash out your mouth with soap. My nickname is my initials – Dee Tee. Or Deety. Doctor D. T. Burroughs if being formal, as I can’t be ‘Mister’ and refuse to be ‘Miz’ or ‘Miss.’ See here, Mister; I’m supposed to be luring you with my radiant beauty, then hooking you with my feminine charm… and not getting anywhere. Let’s try another tack. Tell me what you piled higher and deeper.”
“Let me think. Flycasting? Or was it basketweaving? It was one of those transdisciplinary things in which the committee simply weighs the dissertation. Tell you what. I’ve got a copy around my digs. I’ll find it and see what title the researcher who wrote it put on it.”
“Don’t bother. The title is ‘Some Implications of a Six-Dimensional Non-Newtonian Continuum.’ Pop wants to discuss it.”
I stopped waltzing. “Huh? He’d better discuss that paper with the bloke who wrote it.”
“Nonsense; I saw you blink – I’ve hooked you. Pop wants to discuss it, then offer you a job.”
“‘Job’! I just slipped off the hook.”
“Oh, dear! Pop will be really mad. Please? Please, sir!”
“You said that you had used ‘mad’ in ambivalent mode. How?”
“Oh. Mad-angry because his colleagues won’t listen to him. Mad-psychotic in the opinions of some colleagues. They say his papers don’t make sense.”
“Do they make sense?”
“I’m not that good a mathematician, sir. My work is usually simplifying software. Child’s play compared with n-dimensional spaces.”
I wasn’t required to express an opinion; the trio started Blue Tango, Deety melted into my arms. You don’t talk if you know tango.
Deety knew. After an eternity of sensual bliss, I swung her out into position precisely on coda; she answered my bow and scrape with a deep curtsy. “Thank you, sir.”
“Whew! After a tango like that the couple ought to get married.”
“All right. I’ll find our hostess and tell Pop. Five minutes? Front door, or side?”
She looked serenely happy. I said, “Deety, do you mean what you appear to mean? That you intend to marry me? A total stranger?”
Her face remained calm but the light went out – and her nipples went down. She answered steadily. “After that tango we are no longer strangers. I construed your statement as a proposal – no, a willingness – to marry me. Was I mistaken?”
My mind went into emergency, reviewing the past years the way a drowning man’s life is supposed to flash before his eyes (how could anyone know that?): a rainy afternoon when my chum’s older sister had initiated me into the mysteries; the curious effect caused by the first time strangers had shot back at me; a twelve-month cohabitation contract that had started with a bang and had ended without a whimper; countless events which had left me determined never to marry.
I answered instantly, “I meant what I implied – marriage, in its older meaning. I’m willing. But why are you willing? I’m no prize.”
She took a deep breath, straining the fabric, and – thank Allah! – her nipples came up. “Sir, you are the prize I was sent to fetch, and, when you said that we really ought to get married – hyperbole and I knew it – I suddenly realized, with a deep burst of happiness, that this was the means of fetching you that I wanted above all!”
She went on, “But I will not trap you through misconstruing a gallantry. If you wish, you may take me into those bushes back of the pool… and not marry me.” She went on firmly, “But for that… whoring… my fee is for you to talk with my father and to let him show you something.”
“Deety, you’re an idiot! You would ruin that pretty gown.”
“Mussing a dress is irrelevant but I can take it off. I will. There’s nothing under it.”
“There’s a great deal under it!”
That fetched a grin, instantly wiped away. “Thank you. Shall we head for the bushes?”
“Wait a half! I’m about to be noble and regret it the rest of my life. You’ve made a mistake. Your father doesn’t want to talk to me; I don’t know anything about n-dimensional geometry.” (Why do I get these attacks of honesty? I’ve never done anything to deserve them.)
“Pop thinks you do; that is sufficient. Shall we go? I want to get Pop out of here before he busts somebody in the mouth.”
“Don’t rush me; I didn’t ask you to rassle on the grass; I said I wanted to marry you – but wanted to know why you were willing to marry me. Your answer concerned what your father wants. I’m not trying to marry your father; he’s not my type. Speak for yourself, Deety. Or drop it.” (Am I a masochist? There’s a sunbathing couch back of those bushes.)
Solemnly she looked me over, from my formal tights to my crooked bow tie and on up to my thinning brush cut – a hundred and ninety-four centimeters of big ugly galoot. “I like your firm lead in dancing. I like the way you look. I like the way your voice rumbles. I like your hair-splitting games with words – you sound like Whorf debating Korzybski with Shannon as referee.” She took another deep breath, finished almost sadly: “Most of all, I like the way you smell.”
It would have taken a sharp nose to whiff me. I had been squeaky clean ninety minutes earlier, and it takes more than one waltz and a tango to make me sweat. But her remark had that skid in it that Deety put into almost anything. Most girls, when they want to ruin a man’s judgment, squeeze his biceps and say, “Goodness, you’re strong!”
I grinned down at her. “You smell good too. Your perfume could rouse a corpse.”
“I’m not wearing perfume.”
“Oh. Correction: your natural pheromone. Enchanting. Get your wrap, Side door. Five minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell your father we’re getting married. He gets that talk, free. I decided that before you started to argue. It won’t take him long to decide that I’m not Lobachevski.”
“That’s Pop’s problem,” she answered, moving. “Will you let him show you this thing he’s built in our basement?”
“Sure, why not? What is it?”

“A time machine.”

Chapter II

“This Universe never did make sense – “

Zeb:
Tomorrow I will seven eagles see, a great comet will appear, and voices will speak from whirlwinds foretelling monstrous and fearful things – This Universe never did make sense; I suspect that it was built on government contract.
“Big basement?”
“Medium. Nine by twelve. But cluttered. Work benches and power tools.”
A hundred and eight square meters – Ceiling height probably two and a half – Had Pop made the mistake of the man who built a boat in his basement?
My musing was interrupted by a male voice in a high scream: “You overeducated, obstipated, pedantic ignoramus! Your mathematical intuition froze solid the day you matriculated!”
I didn’t recognize the screamer but did know the stuffed shirt he addressed: Professor Neil O’Heret Brain, head of the department of mathematics – and God help the student who addressed a note to “Professor N.O. Brain” or even “N. O’H. Brain.” “Brainy” had spent his life in search of The Truth – intending to place it under house arrest.
He was puffed up like a pouter pigeon with is professional pontifical pomposity reeling. His expression suggested that he was giving birth to a porcupine.
Deety gasped, “It’s started,” and dashed toward the row. Me, I stay out of rows; I’m a coward by trade and wear fake zero-prescription glasses as a buffer – when some oaf snarls, “Take off your glasses!” that gives me time to retreat.
I headed straight for the row.
Deety had placed herself between the two, facing the screamer, and was saying in a low but forceful voice, “Pop, don’t you dare! – I won’t bail you out!” She was reaching for his glasses with evident intent to put them back on his face. It was clear that he had taken them off for combat; he was holding them out of her reach.
I reached over their heads, plucked them out of his hand, gave them to Deety. She flashed me a smile and put them back on her father. He gave up and let her. She then took his arm firmly. “Aunt Hilda!”
Our hostess converged on the row. “Yes, Deety? Why did you stop them, darling? You didn’t give us time to get bets down.” Fights were no novelty at “Sharp” Corners’ parties. Her food and liquor were lavish, the music always live; her guests were often eccentric but never dull – I had been surprised at the presence of N. O. Brain.
I now felt that I understood it: a planned hypergolic mixture.
Deety ignored her questions. “Will you excuse Pop and me and Mr. Carter? Something urgent has come up.”
“You and Jake may leave if you must. But you can’t drag Zebbie away. Deety, that’s cheating.”
Deety looked at me. “May I tell?”
“Eh? Certainly!”
That bliffy “Brainy” picked this moment to interrupt. “Mrs. Corners, Doctor Burroughs can’t leave until he apologizes! I insist. My privilege!”
Our hostess looked at him with scorn. “Merde, Professor. I’m not one of your teaching fellows. Shout right back at Jake Burroughs if you like. If your command of invective equals his, we’ll enjoy hearing it. But just one more wordthat sounds like an order to me or to one of my guests – and out you go! Then you had best go straight home; the Chancellor will be trying to reach you.” She turned her back on him. “Deety, you started to add something?”
“Sharp” Corners can intimidate Internal Revenue agents. She hadn’t cut loose on “Brainy” – just a warning shot across his bow. But from his face one would have thought she had hulled him. However, her remark to Deety left me no time to see whether he would have a stroke.
“Not Deety, Hilda. Me. Zeb.”
“Quiet, Zebbie. Whatever it is, the answer is No. Deety? Go ahead, dear.”
Hilda Corners is related to that famous mule. I did not use a baseball bat because she comes only up to my armpits and grosses forty-odd kilos. I picked her up by her elbows and turned her around, facing me. “Hilda, we’re going to get married.”
“Zebbie darling! I thought you would never ask.”
“Not you, you old harridan. Deety. I proposed, she accepted; I’m going to nail it down before the anesthetic wears off.”
Hilda looked thoughtfully interested. “That’s reasonable.” She craned her neck to look at Deety. “Did he mention his wife in Boston, Deety? Or the twins?”
I set her back on her feet. “Pipe down, Sharpie; this is serious. Doctor Burroughs, I am unmarried, in good health, solvent, and able to support a family. I hope this meets with your approval.”
“Pop says Yes,” Deety answered. “I hold his power of attorney.”
“You pipe down, too. My name is Carter, sir – Zeb Carter. I’m on campus; you can check my record. But I intend to marry Deety at once, if she will have me.”
“I know your name and record, sir. It doesn’t require my approval; Deety is of age. But you have it anyhow.” He looked thoughtful. “If you two are getting married at once, you’ll be too busy for shop talk. Or would you be?”
“Pop – let it be; it’s all set.”
“So? Thank you, Hilda, for a pleasant evening. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“You’ll do no such thing; you’ll come straight back and give me a full report. Jake, you are not going on their honeymoon – I heard you.”
“Aunt Hilda – please! I’ll manage everything.”
We were out the side door close on schedule. At the parking lot there was a bobble: which heap, mine or theirs. Mine is intended for two but can take four. The rear seats are okay for two for short trips. Theirs was a four-passenger family saloon, not fast but roomy – and their luggage was in it. “How much luggage?” I asked Deety, while I visualized two overnight bags strapped into one back seat with my prospective father-in-law stashed in the other.
“I don’t have much, but Pop has two big bags and a fat briefcase. I had better show you.”
(Damn.) “Perhaps you had better.” I like my own rig, I don’t like to drive other people’s cars, and, while Deety probably handled controls as smoothly as she danced, I did not know that she did – and I’m chicken. I didn’t figure her father into the equation; trusting my skin to his temper did not appeal. Maybe Deety would settle for letting him trail us – but my bride-to-be was going to ride with me! “Where?”
“Over in the far corner. I’ll unlock it and turn on the lights.” She reached into her father’s inside jacket pocket, took out a Magic Wand.
“Wait for baby!”
The shout was from our hostess. Hilda was running down the path from her house, purse clutched in one hand and about eight thousand newdollars of sunset mink flying like a flag from the other.
So the discussion started over. Seems Sharpie had decided to come along to make certain that Jake behaved himself and had taken just long enough to tell Max (her bouncer-butler-driver) when to throw the drunks out or cover them with blankets, as needed.
She listened to Deety’s summary, then nodded. “Got it. I can handle yours, Deety; Jake and I will go in it. You ride with Zebbie, dear.” She turned to me. “Hold down the speed, Zebbie, so that I can follow. No tricks, Buster. Don’t try to lose us or you’ll have cops busting out of your ears.”
I turned my sweet innocent eyes toward her. “Why, Sharpie darling, you know I wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“You’d steal city hall if you could figure a way to carry it. Who dumped that load of lime Jello into my swimming pool?”
“I was in Africa at that time, as you know.”
“So you say. Deety darling, keep him on a short leash and don’t feed him meat. But marry him; he’s loaded. Now where’s that radio link? And your car.”
“Here,” said Deety, pointed the Magic Wand and pressed the switch.
I gathered all three into my arms and dived. We hit the ground as the blast hit everything else. But not us. The blast shadow of other cars protected us.

Chapter III

” – Professor Moriarty isn’t fooled – “

Zeb:
Don’t ask me how. Ask a trapeze artist how he does a triple ‘sault. Ask a crapshooter how he knows when he’s “hot.” But don’t ask me how I know it’s going to happen just before it hits the fan.
It doesn’t tell me anything I don’t need to know. I don’t know what’s in a letter until I open it (except the time it was a letter bomb). I have no precognition for harmless events. But this split-second knowledge when I need it has kept me alive and relatively unscarred in an era when homicide kills more people than does cancer and the favorite form of suicide is to take a rifle up some tower and keep shooting until the riot squad settles it.
I don’t see the car around the curve on the wrong side; I automatically hit the ditch. When the San Andreas Fault cut loose, I jumped out a window and was in the open when the shock arrived – and didn’t know why I had jumped.
Aside from this, my E.S.P. is erratic; I bought it cheap from a war-surplus outlet.
I sprawled with three under me. I got up fast, trying to avoid crushing them. I gave a hand to each woman, then dragged Pop to his feet. No one seemed damaged. Deety stared at the fire blazing where their car had been, face impassive. Her father was looking at the ground, searching. Deety stopped him. “Here, Pop.” She put his glasses back on him.
“Thank you, my dear.” He started toward the fire.
I grabbed his shoulder. “No! Into my car – fast!”
“Eh? My briefcase – could have blown clear.”
“Shut up and move! All of you!”
“Do it, Pop!” Deety grabbed Hilda’s arm. We stuffed the older ones into the after space; I shoved Deety into the front passenger seat and snapped: “Seat belts!” as I slammed the door – then was around to the left so fast that I should have caused a sonic boom. “Seat belts fastened?” I demanded as I fastened my own and locked the door.
“Jake’s is fastened and so is mine, Zebbie dear,” Hilda said cheerfully.
“Belt tight, door locked,” Deety reported.
The heap was hot; I had left it on trickle – what use is a fast car that won’t go scat? I switched from trickle to full, did not turn on lights, glanced at the board and released the brake.
It says here that duos must stay grounded inside city limits – so I was lifting her nose before she had rolled a meter and she was pointed straight up as we were clearing the parking lot.
Half a klick straight up while the gee meter climbed – two, three, four – I let it reach five and held it, not being sure what Pop’s heart would take. When the altimeter read four klicks, I cut everything – power, transponder, the works – while hitting a button that dropped chaff, and let her go ballistic. I didn’t know that anyone was tracking us – I didn’t want to find out.
When the altimeter showed that we had topped out, I let the wings open a trifle. When I felt them bite air, I snap-rolled onto her belly, let wings crawl out to subsonic aspect and let her glide. “Everybody okay?”
Hilda giggled. “Whoops, dear! Do that again! This time, somebody kiss me.”
“Pipe down, you shameless old strumpet. Pop?”
“I’m okay, son.”
“Deety?”
“Okay here.”
“Did that fall in the parking lot hurt you?”
“No, sir. I twisted in the air and took it on one buttock while getting Pop’s glasses. But next time put a bed under me, please. Or a wrestling mat.”
“I’ll remember.” I switched on radio but not transponder, tried all police frequencies. If anyone had noticed our didoes, they weren’t discussing it on the air. We were down to two klicks; I made an abrupt wingover to the right, then switched on power. “Deety, where do you and your Pop live?”
“Logan, Utah.”
“How long does it take to get married there?”
“Zebbie,” Hilda cut in, “Utah has no waiting time -“
“So we go to Logan.”
” – but does require blood test. Deety, do you know Zebbie’s nickname around campus? The Wasp. For ‘Wassermann Positive.’ Zebbie, everybody knows that Nevada is the only state that offers twenty-four-hour service, no waiting time, no blood test. So point this bomb at Reno and sign off.”
“Sharpie darling,” I said gently, “would you like to walk home from two thousand meters?”
“I don’t know; I’ve never tried it.”
“That’s an ejection seat… but no parachutes.”
“Oh, how romantic! Jake darling, we’ll sing the Liebestod on the way down – you sing tenor, I’ll force a soprano and we’ll die in each other’s arms. Zebbie, could we have more altitude? For the timing.”
“Doctor Burroughs, gag that hitchhiker. Sharpie, Liebestod is a solo.”
“Picky, picky! Isn’t dead-on-arrival enough? Jealous because you can’t carry a tune? I told Dicky Boy that should be a duet and Cosima agreed with me -“
“Sharpie, button your frimpin’ lip while I explain. One: Everybody at your party knows why we left and will assume that we headed for Reno. You probably called out something to that effect as you left -“
“I believe I did. Yes, I did.”
“Shut up. Somebody made a professional effort to kill Doctor Burroughs. Not just kill but overkill; that combo of high explosive and Thermit was intended to leave nothing to analyze. But it is possible that no one saw us lift. We were into this go-wagon and I was goosing it less than thirty seconds after that booby trap exploded. Innocent bystanders would look at the fire, not at us. Guilty bystanders – There wouldn’t be any. A professional who booby-traps a car either holes up or crosses a state line and gets lost. The party or parties who paid for the contract may be nearby, but if they are, Hilda, they’re in your house.”
“One of my guests?”
“Oh, shut it, Sharpie; you are never interested in the morals of your guests. If they can be depended on to throw custard pies or do impromptu strips or some other prank that will keep your party from growing dull, that qualifies them. However, I am not assuming that the boss villain was at your party; I am saying that he would not be lurking where the Man might put the arm on him. Your house would be the best place to hide and watch the plot develop.
“But, guest or not, he was someone who knew that Doctor Burroughs would be at your party. Hilda, who knew that key fact?”
She answered with uncustomary seriousness. “I don’t know, Zebbie. I would have to think.”
“Think hard.”
“Mmm, not many. Several were invited because Jake was coming – you, for example -“
“I became aware of that.”
” – but you weren’t told that Jake would be present. Some were told – ‘No Brain,’ for example – but I can’t imagine that old fool booby-trapping a car.”
“I can’t either, but killers don’t look like killers; they look like people. How long before the party did you tell ‘Brainy’ that Pop would be present?”
“I told him when I invited him. Mmm, eight days ago.”
I sighed. “The possibles include not only the campus but the entire globe. So we must try to figure probables. Doctor Burroughs, can you think of anyone who would like to see you dead?”
“Several!”
“Let me rephrase it. Who hates your guts so bitterly that he would not hesitate to kill your daughter as long as he got you? And also bystanders such as Hilda and me. Not that we figure, save to show that he didn’t give a hoot who caught it. A deficient personality. Amoral. Who is he?”
Pop Burroughs hesitated. “Doctor Carter, disagreement between mathematicians can be extremely heated… and I am not without fault.” (You’re telling me, Pop!) “But these quarrels rarely result in violence. Even the death of Archimedes was only indirectly related to his – our – profession. To encompass my daughter as well – no, even Doctor Brain, much as I despise him, does not fit the picture.”
Deety said, “Zeb, could it have been me they were shooting at?”
“You tell me. Whose dolly have you busted?”
“Hmm – I can’t think of anyone who dislikes me even enough to snub me. Sounds silly but it’s true.”
“It’s the truth,” put in Sharpie. “Deety is just like her mother was. When Jane – Deety’s mother, and my best friend until we lost her-when Jane and I were roommates in college, I was always getting into jams and Jane was always getting me out-and never got into one herself. A peacemaker. So is Deety.”
“Okay, Deety, you’re out of it. So is Hilda and so am I, as whoever placed that booby trap could not predict that either Hilda or I would be in blast range. So it’s Pop they’re gunning for. Who we don’t know, why we don’t know. When we figure out why, we’ll know who. Meantime we’ve got to keep Pop out of range. I’m going to marry you as fast as possible, not only because you smell good but to give me a legitimate interest in this fight.”
“So we go first to Reno.”
“Shut up, Sharpie. We’ve been on course for Reno since we leveled off.” I flipped on the transponder, but to the left, not right. It would now answer with a registered, legal signal… but not one registered to my name. This cost me some shekels I did not need but were appreciated by a tight – lipped family man in Indio. Sometimes it is convenient not to be identified by sky cops every time one crosses a state line.
“But we aren’t going to Reno. Those cowboy maneuvers were intended to deceive the eye, radar, and heat seekers. The evasion against the heat seekers – that rough turn while we were still in glide – either worked or was not needed, as we haven’t had a missile up the tail. Probably wasn’t needed; people who booby-trap cars aren’t likely to be prepared to shoot a duo out of the sky. But I couldn’t be certain, so I ducked. We may be assumed to be dead in the blast and fire, and that assumption may stand up until the mess has cooled down and there is daylight to work by. Even later it may stand up, as the cops may not tell anyone that they were unable to find organic remains. But I must assume that Professor Moriarty isn’t fooled, that he is watching by repeater scope in his secret HQ, that he knows we are headed for Reno, and that hostiles will greet us there. So we won’t go there. Now quiet, please; I must tell this baby what to do.”
The computer-pilot of my car can’t cook but what she can do, she does well. I called for display map, changed scale to include Utah, used the light pen to trace route – complex as it curved around Reno to the south, back north again, made easting over some very empty country, and passed north of Hill Air Force Range in approaching Logan. I fed in height-above-ground while giving her leeway to smooth out bumps, and added one change in speed-over-ground once we were clear of Reno radar. “Got it, girl?” I asked her.
“Got it, Zeb.”
“Ten-minute call, please.”
“Call you ten minutes before end of routing – right!”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“Boss, I bet you tell that to all the girls. Over.”
“Roger and out, Gay.” The display faded.
Certainly I could have programmed my autopilot to accept a plan in response to a punched “Execute.” But isn’t it pleasanter to be answered by a warm contralto? But the “smart girl” aspect lay in the fact that it took my voice to make a flight plan operative. A skilled electron pusher might find a way to override my lock, then drive her manually. But the first time he attempted to use autopilot, the car would not only not accept the program but would scream for help on all police frequencies. This causes car thieves to feel maladjusted.
I looked up and saw that Deety had been following this intently. I waited for some question. Instead Deety said, “She has a very pleasant voice, Zeb.”
“Gay Deceiver is a very nice girl, Deety.”
“And talented. Zeb, I have never before been in a Ford that can do the things this car – Gay Deceiver? – can do.”
“After we’re married I’ll introduce you to her more formally. It will require reprogramming.”
“I look forward to knowing her better.”
“You will. Gay is not exactly all Ford. Her external appearance was made by Ford of Canada. Most of the rest of her once belonged to Australian Defense Forces. But I added a few doodads. The bowling alley. The powder room. The veranda. Little homey touches.”
“I’m sure she appreciates them, Zeb. I know I do. I suspect that, had she not had them, we would all be as dead as canasta.”
“You may be right. If so, it would not be the first time Gay has kept me alive. You have not seen all her talents.”
“I’m beyond being surprised. So far as I could see you didn’t tell her to land at Logan.”
“Logan seems to be the next most likely place for a reception committee. Who in Logan knows that you and your father were going to visit Hilda?”
“No one, through me.”
“Mail? Milk cartons? Newspapers?”
“No deliveries to the house, Zeb.” She turned her head, “Pop, does anyone in Logan know where we went?”
“Doctor Carter, to the best of my knowledge, no one in Logan knows that We left. Having lived many years in the buzzing gossip of Academe, I have learned to keep my life as private as possible.”
“Then I suggest that you all ease your belts and sleep. Until ten minutes before reaching Logan there is little to do.”
“Doctor Carter -“
“Better call me Zeb, Pop. Get used to it.”
“‘Zeb’ it is, son. On page eighty-seven of your monograph, after the equation numbered one-twenty-one in your discussion of the rotation of six-dimensional spaces of positive curvature, you said, ‘From this it is evident that – ‘ and immediately write your equation one-twenty-two. How did you do it? I’m not disagreeing, sir – on the contrary! But in an unpublished paper of my own I used a dozen pages to arrive at the same transformation. Did you have a direct intuition? Or did you simply omit publishing details? No criticism, I am impressed either way. Sheer curiosity.”
“Doctor, I did not write that paper. I told Deety so.”
“That is what he claimed, Pop.”
“Oh, come now! Two Doctors Zebulon E. Carter on one campus?”
“No. But that’s not my name. I’m Zebadiah J. Carter. Zebulon E.-for-Edward Carter and called ‘Ed’ is my cousin. While he is probably listed as being on campus, in fact he is doing an exchange year in Singapore. It’s not as improbable as it sounds; all male members of my family have first names starting with ‘Z.’ It has to do with money and a will and a trust fund and the fact that my grandfather and his father were somewhat eccentric.”
“Whereas you aren’t,” Hilda said sweetly.
“Quiet, dear.” I turned toward Deety. “Deety, do you want to be released from our engagement? I did try to tell you that you had trapped the wrong bird.”
“Zebadiah – “
“Yes, Deety?”
“I intend to marry you before this night is over. But you haven’t kissed me. I want to be kissed.”
I unfastened my seat belt, started to unfasten hers, found that she had done so.
Deety kisses even better than she tangos.
During a break for oxygen, I asked her in a whisper: “Deety, what do your initials stand for?”
“Well… please don’t laugh.”
“I won’t. But I have to know them for the ceremony.”
“I know. All right, Dee Tee stands for Dejah Thoris.”
Dejah Thoris – Dejah Thoris Burroughs – Dejah Thoris Carter! I cracked up.
I got it under control after two whoops. Too many. Deety said sadly, “You said you wouldn’t laugh.”
“Deety darling, I wasn’t laughing at your name; I was laughing at mine.”
“I don’t think ‘Zebadiah’ is a funny name. I like it.”
“So do I. It keeps me from being mixed up with the endless Bobs and Eds and Toms. But I didn’t tell my middle name. What’s a funny name starting with ‘J’?”
“I won’t guess.”
“Let me lead up to it. I was born near the campus of the university Thomas Jefferson founded. The day I graduated from college I was commissioned a second looie Aerospace Reserve. I’ve been promoted twice. My middle initial stands for ‘John.'”
It took not quite a second for her to add it up. “Captain… John… Carter – of Virginia.”
“‘A clean-limbed fighting man,'” I agreed. “Kaor, Dejah Thoris. At your service, my princess. Now and forever!”
“Kaor, Captain John Carter. Helium is proud to accept.”
We fell on each other’s shoulders, howling. After a bit the howling died down and turned into another kiss.
When we came up for air, Hilda tapped me on a shoulder. “Would you let us in on the joke?”
“Do we tell her, Deety?”
“I’m not sure. Aunt Hilda talks.”
“Oh, nonsense! I know your full name and I’ve never told anyone – I held you at your christening. You were wet, too. At both ends. Now give!”
“All right. We don’t have to get married – we already are. For years. More than a century.”
Pop spoke up. “Eh? What’s this?” I explained to him. He looked thoughtful, then nodded. “Logical.” He went back to figuring he was doing in a notebook, then looked up. “Your cousin Zebulon – Is he on the telephone?”
“Probably not but he lives at the New Raffles.”
“Excellent. I’ll try both the hotel and the university. Doctor – Son – Zeb, would you be so kind as to place the call? My comcredit code is Nero Aleph eight zero one dash seven five two dash three nine three two Zed Star Zed.” (Zed Star Zed credit rating – I was not going to have to support my prospective father-in-law.)
Deety cut in. “Pop, you must not call Professor Carter – Zebulon Carter – at this hour.”
“But, my dear daughter, it is not late at night in -“
“Of course it isn’t; I can count. You want a favor from him, so don’t interrupt his after-lunch nap. ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen.'”
“It isn’t noon in Singapore; it’s -“
” – siesta time, even hotter than noon. So wait.”
“Deety is right, Pop,” I interrupted, “but for the wrong reasons. It doesn’t seem to be a matter of life and death to call him this minute. Whereas it might be a matter of life and death – ours, I mean – to make a call from this car… especially with your credit code. Until we find out who the Boys in the Black Hats are, I advise that you place calls from the ground and from public phones that you can feed with newdollars instead of your code. Say a phone in Peoria. Or Paducah. Can it wait?”
“Since you put it that way, sir – yes, it can wait. Although I have trouble believing that anyone wishes to kill me.”
“Available data indicate it.”
“Agreed. But I have not yet grasped it emotionally.”
“Takes a baseball bat,” said Hilda. “I had to sit on him while Jane proposed to him.”
“Why, Hilda my dear, that is utterly unfactual. I wrote my late beloved a polite note saying -“
I let them argue while, I tried to add to available data. “Gay Deceiver.”
“Yes, Boss?”
“News, dear.”
“Ready, Boss.”
“Retrieval parameters. Time – since twenty-one hundred. Area – California, Nevada, Utah. Persons – your kindly boss, dear. Doctor Jacob Burroughs, Doctor D. T. Burroughs, Miz Hilda Corners – ” I hesitated. “Professor Neil O’Heret Brain.” I felt silly adding “Brainy” – but there had been a row between Pop and him, and years earlier my best teacher had said, “Never neglect the so-called ‘trivial’ roots of an equation,” and had pointed out that two Nobel prizes had derived from “trivial” roots.
“Parameters complete, Boss?”
Doctor Burroughs touched my shoulder. “Can your computer check the news if any on your cousin?”
“Mmm, maybe. She stores sixty million bytes, then wipes last-in-last-out everything not placed on permanent. But her news storage is weighted sixty-forty in favor of North America. I’ll try. Smart Girl.”
“Holding, Boss.”
“Addendum. First retrieve by parameters given. Then retrieve by new program. Time – backwards from now to wipe time. Area – Singapore. Person – Zebulon Edward Carter aka Ed Carter aka Doctor Z. E. Carter aka Professor Z. E. Carter aka Professor or Doctor Carter of Raffles University.”
“Two retrieval programs in succession. Got it, Zeb.”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“Boss, I bet you tell that to all the girls. Over.”
“Roger, Gay. Execute!”
“AP San Francisco. A mysterious explosion disturbed the academic quiet of – ” A story ending with the usual claim about an arrest being expected “momentarily” settled several points: All of us were believed dead. Our village top cop claimed to have a theory but was keeping it mum – meaning that he knew even less than we did. Since we were reported as “presumed dead” and since the news said nothing about an illegal lift-off and other capers that annoy sky cops, I assumed tentatively that police radar had not been looking at us until after we had become just one more blip behaving legally. The lack of mention of the absence of Gay Deceiver did not surprise me, as I had roaded in and had been last or nearly last to park – and could have arrived by taxi, public capsule, or on foot. Doctor Brain was not mentioned, nothing about the row. Guests had been questioned and released. Five cars parked near the, explosion had been damaged.
“Nevada – null retrieval. Utah – UPI Salt Lake City. A fire near Utah State, University campus in Logan destroyed – ” “Blokes in Black Hats” again and Deety and her Pop were dead twice over, as they were presumed to have been overcome by smoke, unable to escape. No one else hurt or missing. Fire attributed to faulty wiring. “End of first retrieval, Zeb. Second retrieval starting.” Gay shut up.
I said soberly, “Pop, somebody doesn’t like you.”
He groaned, “Gone! All gone!”
“No copies of your papers elsewhere? And your… gadget?”
“Eh? No, no! – much worse! My irreplaceable collection of pulp magazines. Weird Tales, Argosy, All-Story, the early Gernsbachs, The Shadow, Black Mask – Ooooooh!”
“Pop really does feel bad,” Deety whispered, “and I could manage tears myself. I taught myself to read from that collection. War Aces, Air Wonder, the complete Clayton Astoundings – It was appraised at two hundred and thirteen thousand newdollars. Grandpop started it, Pop continued it – I grew up reading them.”
“I’m sorry, Deety.” I hugged her. “They should have been microfiched.”
“They were. But that’s not having the magazines in your hands.”
“I agree. Uh, how about the… thing in the basement?”
“What ‘Thing in the Basement’?” demanded Sharpie. “Zebbie, you sound like H. P. Lovecraft.”
“Later, Sharpie. Comfort Jake; we’re busy. Gay!”
“Here, Zeb. Where’s the riot?”
“Display map, please.” We were midway over northern Nevada. “Cancel routing and cruise random. Report nearest county seat.”
“Winnemucca and Elko are equidistant to one percent. Elko closer by ETA as I am now vectored eleven degrees north of Elko bearing.”
“Deety, would you like to be married in Elko?”
“Zebadiah, I would love to be married in Elko.”
“Elko it is, but loving may have to wait. Gay, vector for Elko and ground us, normal private cruising speed. Report ETA in elapsed minutes.”
“Roger Wilco, Elko. Nine minutes seventeen seconds.”
Hilda said soothingly, “There, there, Jake darling; Mama is here” – then added in her top sergeant voice, “Quit stalling, Zebbie! What ‘Thing’ in which basement?”
“Sharpie, you’re nosy. It belonged to Pop and now it’s destroyed and that’s all you need to know.”
“Oh, but it wasn’t,” Doctor Burroughs said. “Zeb is speaking of my continua craft, Hilda. It’s safe. Not in Logan.”
“What in the Name of the Dog is a ‘continua craft’?”
“Pop means,” Deety explained, “his time machine.”
“Then why didn’t he say so? Everybody savvies ‘Time Machine.’ George Pal’s ‘Time Machine’ – a classic goodie. I’ve caught it on the late-late-early show more than once.”
“Sharpie,” I asked, “can you read?”
“Certainly I can read! ‘Run, Spot, run See Spot run.’ Smarty.”
“Have you ever heard of H. G. Wells?”
“Heard of him? I’ve had him.”
“You are a boastful old tart, but not that old. When Mr. Wells died, you were still a virgin.”
“Slanderer! Hit him, Jake – he insulted me.”
“Zeb didn’t mean to insult you, I feel sure. Deety won’t permit me to hit people, even when they need it.”
“We’ll change that.”
“Second retrieval complete,” Gay Deceiver reported. “Holding.”
“Report second retrieval, please.”
“Reuters, Singapore. The Marston expedition in Sumatra is still unreported according to authorities at Palembang. The party is thirteen days overdue. Besides Professor Marston and native guides and assistants, the party included Doctor Z.E. Carter, Doctor Cecil Yang, and Mr. Giles Smythe-Belisha. The Minister of Tourism and Culture stated that the search will be pursued assiduously. End of retrieval.”
Poor Ed. We had never been close but he had never caused me grief. I hoped that he was shacked up with something soft and sultry – rather than losing his head to a jungle machete, which seemed more likely. “Pop, a few minutes ago I said that somebody doesn’t like you. I now suspect that somebody doesn’t like n-dimensional geometers.”
“It would seem so, Zeb. I do hope your cousin is safe – a most brilliant mind! He would be a great loss to all mankind.”
(And to himself, I added mentally. And me, since family duty required that I do something about it. When what I had in mind was a honeymoon.) “Gay.”
“Here, Zeb.”
“Addendum. Third news retrieval program. Use all parameters second program. Add Sumatra to area. Add all proper names and titles found in second retrieval. Run until canceled. Place retrievals in permanent memory. Report new items soonest. Start.”
“Running, Boss.”
“You’re a good girl, Gay.”
“Thank you, Zeb. Grounding Elko two minutes seven seconds.”
Deety squeezed my hand harder. “Pop, as soon as I’m legally Mrs. John Carter I think we should all go to Snug Harbor.”
“Eh? Obviously.”
“You, too, Aunt Hilda. It might not be safe for you to go home.”
“Change in plans, dear. It’s going to be a double wedding. Jake. Me.”
Deety looked alert but not displeased. “Pop?”
“Hilda has at last consented to marry me, dear.”
“Rats,” said Sharpie. “Jake has never asked me in the past and didn’t this time; I simply told him. Hit him with it while he was upset over losing his comic books and unable to defend himself. It’s necessary, Deety – I promised Jane I would take care of Jake and I have – through you, up to now. But from here on you’ll be taking care of Zebbie, keeping him out of trouble, wiping his nose… so I’ve got to hogtie Jake into marriage to keep my promise to Jane. Instead of sneaking into his bed from time to time as in the past.”
“Why, Hilda dear, you have never been in my bed!”
“Don’t shame me in front of the children, Jake. I gave you a test run before I let Jane marry you and you don’t dare deny it.”
Jake shrugged helplessly. “As you wish, dear Hilda.”
“Aunt Hilda… do you love Pop?”
“Would I marry him if I didn’t? I could carry out my promise to Jane more simply by having him committed to a shrink factory. Deety, I’ve loved Jake longer than you have. Much! But he loved Jane… which shows that he is basically rational despite his weird ways. I shan’t try to change him, Deety; I’m simply going to see to it that he wears his overshoes and takes his vitamins – as you’ve been doing. I’ll still be ‘Aunt Hilda,’ not ‘Mother.’ Jane was and is your mother.”
“Thank you, Aunt Hilda. I thought I was happy as a woman can be, getting Zebadiah. But you’ve made me still happier. No worries.”
(I had worries. Blokes with Black Hats and no faces. But I didn’t say so, as Deety was snuggling closer and assuring me that it was all right because Aunt Hilda wouldn’t fib about loving Pop… but I should ignore that guff about her sneaking into Pop’s bed – on which I had no opinion and less interest.) “Deety, where and what is ‘Snug Harbor’?”
“It’s… a nowhere place. A hideout. Land Pop leased from the government when he decided to build his time twister instead of just writing equations. But we may have to wait for daylight. Unless – Can Gay Deceiver home on a given latitude and longitude?”
“She certainly can! Precisely.”
“Then it’s all right. I can give it to you in degrees, minutes, and fractions of a second.”
“Grounding,” Gay warned us.
The Elko County Clerk did not object to getting out of bed and seemed pleased with the century note I slipped him. The County Judge was just as accommodating and pocketed her honorarium without glancing at it. I stammered but managed to say, “I, Zebadiah John, take thee, Dejah Thoris – ” Deety went through it as solemnly and perfectly as if she had rehearsed it… while Hilda sniffled throughout.
A good thing that Gay can home on a pin point; I was in no shape to drive even in daylight. I had her plan her route, too, a dogleg for minimum radar and no coverage at all for the last hundred-odd kilometers to this place in the Arizona Strip north of the Grand Canyon. But I had her hover before grounding – I being scared silly until I was certain there was not a third fire there.
A cabin, fireproof, with underground parking for Gay – I relaxed.
We split a bottle of chablis. Pop seemed about to head for the basement. Sharpie tromped on it and Deety ignored it.
I carried Deety over the threshold into her bedroom, put her gently down, faced her. “Dejah Thoris -“
“Yes, John Carter?”
“I did not have time to buy you a wedding present -“
“I need no present from my captain.”
“Hear me out, my princess. My Uncle Zamir did not have as fine a collection as your father had… but may I gift you with a complete set of Clayton Astoundings -“
She suddenly smiled.
” – and first editions of the first six Oz books, quite worn but with the original color plates? And a first in almost mint condition of ‘A Princess of Mars’?”
The smile became a grin and she looked nine years old. “Yes!”
“Would your father accept a complete set of Weird Tales?”
“Would he! Northwest Smithand Jirel of Joiry? I’m going to borrow them – or he can’t look at my Oz books. I’m stubborn, I am. And selfish. And mean!”
“‘Stubborn’ stipulated. The others denied.”
Deety stuck out her tongue. “You’ll find out.” Suddenly her face was solemn. “But I sorrow, my prince, that I have no present for my husband.”
“But you have!”
“I do?”
“Yes. Beautifully wrapped and making me dizzy with heavenly fragrance.”
“Oh.” She looked solemn but serenely happy. “Will my husband unwrap me? Please?”
I did.
That is all anyone is ever going to know about our wedding night.

Chapter IV

Because two things equal to the same thing are never equal to each other.

Deety:
I woke early as I always do at Snug Harbor, wondered why I was ecstatically happy – then remembered, and turned my head. My husband – “husband!” – what a heart-filling word – my husband was sprawled face down beside me, snoring softly and drooling onto his pillow. I held still, thinking how beautiful he was, how gently strong and gallantly tender.
I was tempted to wake him but I knew that my darling needed rest. So I eased out of bed and snuck noiselessly into my bath – our bath – and quietly took care of this and that. I did not risk drawing a tub – although I needed one. I have a strong body odor that calls for at least one sudsy bath a day, two if I am going out that evening – and this morning I was certainly whiff as a polecat.
I made do with a stand-up bath by letting water run in a noiseless trickle into the basin – I would grab that proper bath after my Captain was awake; meanwhile I would stay downwind.
I pulled on briefs, started to tie on a halter – stopped and looked in the mirror. I have a face-shaped face and a muscular body that I keep in top condition. I would never reach semifinals in a beauty contest but my teats are shapely, exceptionally firm, stand out without sagging and look larger than they are because my waist is small for my height, shoulders and hips. I’ve known this since I was twelve, from mirror and from comments by others.
Now I was acutely aware of them from what Zebadiah calls his “infantile bias.” I was awfully glad I had them; my husband liked them so much and had told me so again and again, making me feel warm and tingly inside. Teats get in the way, and I once found out painfully why Amazons are alleged to have removed their starboard ones to make archery easier.
Today I was most pleased that Mama had required me to wear a bra for tennis and horseback and such – no stretch marks, no “Cooper’s droop,” no sag, and my husband called them “wedding presents”! Hooray!
Doubtless they would become baby-chewed and soft – but by then I planned to have Zebadiah steadfastly in love with me for better reasons. You hear that, Deety? Don’t be stubborn, don’t be bossy, don’t be difficult – and above all don’t sulk! Mama never sulked, although Pop wasn’t and isn’t easy to live with. For example he dislikes the word “teat” even though I spell it correctly and pronounce it correctly (as if spelled “tit”). Pop insists that teats are on cows, not women.
After I started symbolic logic and information theory I became acutely conscious of precise nomenclature, and tried to argue with Pop, pointing out that “breast” denoted the upper frontal torso of male and female alike, that “mammary gland” was medical argot, but “teat” was correct English.
He had slammed down a book. “I don’t give a damn what The Oxford English Dictionary says! As long as I am head of this house, language used in it will conform to my notions of propriety!”
I never argued such points with Pop again. Mama and I went on calling them “teats” between ourselves and did not use such words in Pop’s presence. Mama told me gently that logic had little to do with keeping a husband happy and that anyone who “won” a family argument had in fact lost it. Mama never argued and Pop always did what she wanted – if she really wanted it. When at seventeen I had to grow up and try to replace her, I tried to emulate her – not always successfully. I inherited some of Pop’s temper, some of Mama’s calm. I try to suppress the former and cultivate the latter. But I’m not Jane, I’m Deety.
Suddenly I wondered why I was putting on a halter. The day was going to be hot. While Pop is so cubical about some things that he turns up at the corners, skin is not one of them. (Possibly he had been, then Mama had gently gotten her own way.) I like to be naked and usually am at Snug Harbor, weather permitting. Pop is almost as casual. Aunt Hilda was family-by-choice; we had often used her pool and never with suits – screened for the purpose.
That left just my lovely new husband, and if there was a square centimeter of me he had not examined (and praised), I could not recall it. Zebadiah is easy to be with, in bed or out. After our hasty wedding I was slightly tense lest he ask me when and how I had mislaid my virginity… but when the subject could have come up I forgot it and he apparently never thought about it. I was the lusty wench I have always been and he seemed pleased – I know he was.
So why was I tying on this teat hammock? I was – but why?
Because two things equal to the same thing are never equal to each other. Basic mathematics if you select the proper sheaf of postulates. People are not abstract symbols. I could be naked with any one of them but not all three.
I felt a twinge that Pop and Aunt Hilda might be in the way on my honeymoon… then realized that Zebadiah and I were just as much in the way on theirs – and stopped worrying; it would work out.
Took one last look in the mirror, saw that my scrap of halter, like a good evening gown, made me nakeder than skin would. My nipples popped out; I grinned and stuck out my tongue at them. They stayed up; I was happy.
I started to cat-foot through our bedroom when I noticed Zebadiah’s clothes – and stopped. The darling would not want to wear evening dress to breakfast. Deety, you are not being wifely – figure this out. Are any of Pop’s clothes where I can get them without waking the others?
Yep! An old shirt that I had liberated as a house coat, khaki shorts I had been darning the last time we had been down – both in my wardrobe in my – our! – bathroom. I crept back, got them, laid them over my darling’s evening clothes so that he could not miss them.
I went through and closed after me two soundproof doors, then no longer had to keep quiet. Pop does not tolerate anything shoddy – if it doesn’t work properly, he fixes it. Pop’s B.S. was in mechanical engineering, his M.S. in physics, his Ph.D. in mathematics; there isn’t anything he can’t design and build. A second Leonardo da Vinci – or a Paul Dirac.
No one in the everything room. I decided not to head for the kitchen end yet; if the others slept a bit longer I could get in my morning tone-up. No violent exercise this morning, mustn’t get more whiff than I am – just controlled limbering. Stretch high, then palms to the floor without bending knees – ten is enough. Vertical splits, both legs, then the same to the floor with my forehead to my shin, first right, then left.
I was doing a back bend when I heard, “Ghastly. The battered bride. Deety, stop that.”
I continued into a backwards walkover and stood up facing Pop’s bride. “Good morning, Aunt Hillbilly.” I kissed and hugged her. “Not battered. Bartered, maybe.”
“Battered,” she repeated, yawning. “Who gave you those bruises? What’s-his-name? – your husband.”
“Not a bruise on me and you’ve known his name longer than I have. What causes those circles under the bags under the rings under your eyes?”
“Worry, Deety. Your father is very ill.”
“What? How?”
“Satyriasis. Incurable – I hope.”
I let out my breath. “Aunt Hillbilly, you’re a bitchie, bitchie tease.”
“Not a bitch this morning, dear. A nanny goat – who has been topped all night by the most amazing billy goat on the ranch. And him past fifty and me only twenty-nine. Astounding.”
“Pop’s forty-nine, you’re forty-two. You’re complaining?”
“Oh, no! Had I known twenty-four years ago what I know now, I would never have let Jane lay eyes on him.”
” – what you know now – Last night you were claiming to have sneaked into Pop’s bed, over and over again. Doesn’t jibe, Aunt Nanny Goat.”
“Those were quickies. Not a real test.” She yawned again.
“Auntie, you lie in your teeth. You were never in his bed until last night.”
“How do you know, dear? Unless you were in it yourself? Were you? Incest?”
“What have you got against incest, you bawdy old nanny goat? Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.”
“Oh, so you have? How fascinating – tell Auntiet!”
“I’ll tell you the truth, Aunt Hilda. Pop has never laid a hand on me. But if he had… I would not have refused. I love him.”
Hilda stopped to kiss me more warmly than before. “So do I, dear one. I honor you for what you just told me. He could have had me, too. But never did. Until last night. Now I’m the happiest woman in America.”
“Nope. Second happiest. You’re looking at the happiest.”
“Mmm, a futile discussion. So my problem child is adequate?”
“Well… he’s not a member of the Ku Klux Klan -“
“I never thought he was! Zebbie isn’t that sort.”
” – but he’s a wizard under a sheet!”
Aunt Hilda looked startled, then guffawed. “I surrender. We’re both the happiest woman in the world.”
“And the luckiest. Aunt Nanny Goat, that robe of Pop’s is too hot. I’ll get something of mine. How about a tie-on fit-anybody bikini?”
“Thanks, dear, but you might wake Zebbie.” Aunt Hilda opened Pop’s robe and held it wide, fanning it. I looked at her with new eyes. She’s had three or four term contracts, no children. At forty-two her face looks thirty-five, but from her collarbones down she could pass for eighteen. Little bitty teats – I had more at twelve. Flat belly and lovely legs. A china doll – makes me feel like a giant.
She added, “If it weren’t for your husband, I would simply wear this old hide. It is hot.”
“If it weren’t for your husband, so would I.”
“Jacob? Deety, he’s changed your diapers. I know how Jane reared you. True modesty, no false modesty.”
“It’s not the same, Aunt Hilda. Not today.”
“No, it’s not. You always did have a wise head, Deety. Women are toughminded, men are not; we have to protect them … while pretending to be fragile ourselves, to build up their fragile egos. But I’ve never been good at it – I like to play with matches.”
“Aunt Hilda, you are very good at it, in your own way. I’m certain Mama knows what you’ve done for Pop and blesses it and is happy for Pop. For all of us – all five of us.”
“Don’t make me cry, Deety. Let’s break out the orange juice; our men will wake any time. First secret of living with a man: Feed him as soon as he wakes.”
“So I know.”
“Yes, of course you know. Ever since we lost Jane. Does Zebbie know how lucky he is?”
“He says so. I’m going to try hard not to disillusion him.”

Chapter V

” – a wedding ring is not a ring in my nose – “

Jake:
I woke in drowsy euphoria, became aware that I was in bed in our cabin that my daughter calls “Snug Harbor” – then woke completely and looked at the other pillow – the dent in it. Not a dream! Euphoric for the best of reasons!
Hilda was not in sight. I closed my eyes and simulated sleep as I had something to do. “Jane?” I said in my mind.
“I hear you, dearest one. It has my blessing. Now we are all happy together.”
“We couldn’t expect Deety to become a sour old maid, just to take care of her crotchety old father. This young man, he’s okay, to the nth power. I felt it at once, and Hilda is certain of it.”
“He is. Don’t worry, Jacob. Our Deety can never be sour and you will never be old. This is exactly as Hilda and I planned it, more than five of your years ago. Predestined. She told you so, last night.”
“Okay, darling.”
“Get up and brush your teeth and take a quick shower. Don’t dawdle, breakfast is waiting. Call me when you need me. Kiss.”
So I got up, feeling like a boy on Christmas morning. Everything was jake with Jake; Jane had put her stamp of approval on it. Let me tell you, you nonexistent reader sitting there with a tolerant sneer: Don’t be smug. Jane is more real than you are.
The spirit of a good woman cannot be coded by nucleic acids arranged in a double helix, and only an overeducated fool could think so. I could prove that mathematically save that mathematics can never prove anything. No mathematics has any content. All any mathematics can do is – sometimes – turn out to be useful in describing some aspects of our so-called “physical universe.” That is a bonus; most forms of mathematics are as meaning-free as chess.
I don’t know any final answers. I’m an all-around mechanic and a competent mathematician… and neither is of any use in unscrewing the inscrutable.
Some people go to church to talk to God, Whoever He is. When I have something on my mind, I talk to Jane. I don’t hear “voices,” but the answers that, come into my mind have as much claim to infallibility, it seems to me, as any handed down by any Pope speaking ex cathedra. If this be blasphemy, make the most of it; I won’t budge. Jane is, was, and ever shall be, worlds without end. I had the priceless privilege of living with her for eighteen years and I can never lose her.
Hilda was not in the bath but my toothbrush was damp. I smiled at this. Logical, as any germs I was harboring, Hilda now had – and Hilda, for all her playfulness, is no-nonsense practical. She faces danger without a qualm (had done so last night) but she would say “Gesundheit!” to an erupting volcano even as she fled from it. Jane is equally brave but would omit the quip. They are alike only in – no, not that way, either. Different but equal. Let it stand that I have been blessed in marriage by two superb women. (And blessed by a daughter whose Pop thinks she is perfect.)
I showered, shaved, and brushed my teeth in nine minutes and dressed in under nine seconds as I simply wrapped around my waist a terry-cloth sarong Deety had bought for me – the day promised to be a scorcher. Even that hip wrap was a concession to propriety, i.e., I did not know my new son-in-law well enough to subject him abruptly to our casual ways; it might offend Deety.
I was last up, and saw that all had made much the same decision. Deety was wearing what amounted to a bikini minimum (indecently “decent”!) and my bride was “dressed” in a tie-on job belonging to Deety. The tie-ties had unusually large bows; Hilda is tiny, my daughter is not. Zeb was the only one fully dressed: an old pair of working shorts, a worn-out denim shirt Deety had confiscated, and his evening shoes. He was dressed for the street in any western town save for one thing: I’m built like a pear, Zeb is built like the Gray Lensman.
My shorts fitted him well enough – a bit loose – but his shoulders were splitting the shirt’s seams. He looked uncomfortable.
I took care of amenities – a good-morning to all, a kiss for my bride, one for my daughter, a handshake for my son-in-law-good hands, calloused. Then I said, “Zeb, take that shirt off. It’s hot and getting hotter. Relax. This is your home.”
“Thanks, Pop.” Zeb peeled off my shirt.
Hilda stood up on her chair, making her about as tall as Zeb. “I’m a militant women’s-rights gal,” she announced, “and a wedding ring is not a ring in my nose – a ring that you have not yet given me, you old goat.”
“When have I had time? You’ll get one, dear – first chance.”
“Excuses, excuses! Don’t interrupt when I’m orating. Sauce for the gander is no excuse for goosing the goose. If you male chauvinist pigs – I mean ‘goats’ – can dress comfortably, Deety and I have the same privilege.” Whereupon my lovely little bride untied that bikini top and threw it aside like a stripper.
“‘”What’s for breakfast?” asked Pooh,'” I misquoted.
I was not answered. Deety made me proud of her for the nth time. For years she had consulted me, at least with her eyes, on “policy decisions.” Now she looked not at me but at her husband. Zeb was doing Old Stone Face, refusing assent or dissent. Deety stared at him, gave a tiny shrug, reached behind her and untied or unsnapped something and discarded her own top.
“I said, ‘What’s for breakfast?'” I repeated.
“Greedy gut,” my daughter answered. “You men have had baths, while Aunt Hilda and I haven’t had a chance to get clean for fear of waking you slugabeds.”
“Is that what it is? I thought a skunk had wandered past. ‘What’s for breakfast?'”
“Aunt Hilda, in only hours Pop has lost all the training I’ve given him for five years. Pop, it’s laid out and ready to go. How about cooking while Hilda and I grab a tub?”
Zeb stood up. “I’ll cook, Deety; I’ve been getting my own breakfast for years.”
“Hold it, Buster!” my bride interrupted. “Sit down, Zebbie. Deety, never encourage a man to cook breakfast; it causes him to wonder if women are necessary. If you always get his breakfast and don’t raise controversial issues until after his second cup of coffee, you can get away with murder the rest of the time. They don’t notice other odors when they smell bacon. I’m going to have to coach you.”
My daughter reversed the field, fast. She turned to her husband and said meekly, “What does my Captain wish for breakfast?”
“My Princess, whatever your lovely hands offer me.”
What we were offered, as fast as Deety could pour batter and Hilda could serve, was a gourmet specialty that would enrage a Cordon Bleu but which, for my taste, is ambrosia: A one-eyed Texas stack – a tall stack of thin, tender buttermilk pancakes to Jane’s recipe, supporting one large egg, up and easy, surrounded by hot sausage, and the edifice drowned in melting butter and hot maple syrup, with a big glass of orange juice and a big mug of coffee on the side.
Zeb ate two stacks. I concluded that my daughter would have a happy marriage.

Chapter VI

Are men and women one race?

Hilda:
Deety and I washed dishes, then soaked in her tub and talked about husbands. We giggled, and talked with the frankness of women who trust each other and are sure that no men can overhear. Do men talk that openly in parallel circumstances? From all I have been able to learn in after-midnight horizontal conversations, all passion spent, men do not. Or not men I would take to bed. Whereas a “perfect lady” (which Jane was, Deety is, and I can simulate) will talk with another “perfect lady” she trusts in a way that would cause her father, husband, or son to faint.
I had better leave out our conversation; this memoir might fall into the hands of one of the weaker sex and I would not want his death on my conscience.
Are men and women one race? I know what biologists say – but history is loaded with “scientists” jumping to conclusions from superficial evidence. It seems to me far more likely that they are symbiotes. I am not speaking from ignorance; I was one trimester short of a B.S. in biology (and a straight-A student) when a “biology experiment” blew up in my face and caused me to leave school abruptly.
Not that I need that degree – I’ve papered my private bath with honorary degrees, mostly doctorates. I hear that there are things no whore will do for money but I have yet to find anything that a university chancellor faced with a deficit will boggle at. The secret is never to set up a permanent fund but to dole it out when need is sharpest, once every academic year. Done that way, you not only own a campus but also the town cops learn that it’s a waste of time to hassle you. A univer$ity alway$ $tand$ $taunchly by it$ $olvent a$$ociate$; that’$ the ba$ic $ecret of $chola$tic $ucce$$.
Forgive my digre$$ion; we were speaking of men and women. I am strong for women’s rights but was never taken in by unisex nonsense. I don’t yearn to be equal; Sharpie is as unequal as possible, with all the perks and bonuses and special privileges that come from being one of the superior sex. If a man fails to hold a door for me, I fail to see him and step on his instep. I feel no shame in making lavish use of the strongest muscles, namely male ones (but my own strongest muscle is dedicated to the service of men – noblesse oblige). I don’t begrudge men one whit of their natural advantages as long as they respect mine. I am not an unhappy pseudomale; I am female and like it that way.
I borrowed makeup that Deety rarely uses, but I carry my own perfume in my purse and used it in the twenty-two classic places. Deety uses only the basic aphrodisiac: soap and water. Perfume on her would be gilding the lily; fresh out of a hot tub she smells like a harem. If I had her natural fragrance, I could have saved at least ten thousand newdollars over the years as well as many hours spent dabbing bait here and there.
She offered me a dress and I told her not to be silly; any dress of hers would fit me like a tent. “You put something bridal and frilly around your hips and lend me your boldest G-string job. Dear, I surprised you when I jockeyed you into taking off your halter, after telling you that you were wise not to rush it. But the chance showed up and I grabbed the ring on the fly. We’ve got our men gentled to nearly naked and we’ll hold that gain. At first opportunity we’ll get pants off all of us, too, without anything as childish as strip poker. Deety, I want us to be a solid family, and relaxed about it. So that skin doesn’t mean sex, it just means we are home, en famille.”
“Your skin is pretty sexy, Nanny Goat.”
“Deety, do you think I’m trying to make a pass at Zebbie?”
“Heavens, no, Aunt Hilda. You would never do that.”
“Piffle, dear. I don’t have morals, just customs. I don’t wait for a man to make a pass; they fumble around and waste time. But when I met him I picked Zebbie for a chum – so I gave him an opening; he made a polite pass, I carefully failed to see it, and that ended it. I’m sure he’s as much fun on the workbench as you tell me he is – but bedmates are easy to find, while worthwhile male friends are scarce. Zebbie is one to whom I can holler for help in the middle of the night and be certain he’ll rally around. I’m not going to let that change merely because a weird concatenation now makes him my son-in-law. Besides, Deety, although your old Aunt Sharpie may seem undignified, I refuse to be the campus widow who seduces younger men. Save for minor exceptions close to my age, I always have bedded older men. When I was your age, I tripped several three times my age. Educational.”
“It certainly is! Aunt Hilda, I got ninety percent of my instruction two years ago – a widower three times my age. I was programming for him and we took shared time when we could get it, often after midnight. I didn’t think anything of it until one night I was startled to find that I was helping him to take off my panties. Then I was still more surprised to learn how little I had learned in seven years. He gave me a tutored seminar, usually three times a week- all the time he was willing to spare me – for the next six months. I’m glad I got tutoring from an expert before last night rolled around – or Zebadiah would have found me a dead arse, willing but clumsy. I didn’t tell this to my darling; I let him think he was teaching me.”
“That’s right, dear. Never tell a man anything he doesn’t need to know, and lie with a straight face rather than hurt his feelings or diminish his pride.”
“Aunt Nanny Goat, I just plain love you.”
We quit yakking and looked for our men. Deety said that they were certain to be in the basement. “Aunt Hilda, I don’t go there without invitation. It’s Pop’s sanctum sanctorum.”
“You’re warning me not to risk a faux pas?”
“I’m his daughter, you’re his wife. Not the same.”
“Well… he hasn’t told me not to – and today he’ll forgive me, if ever. Where do you hide the stairs?”
“That bookcase swings out.”
“Be darned! For a so-called cabin this place is loaded with surprises. A bidet in each bath didn’t startle me; Jane would have required them. Your walk-in freezer startled me only by being big enough for a restaurant. But a bookcase concealing a priest’s hole – as Great-Aunt Nettie used to say, ‘I do declare!'”
“You should see our septic tank – yours, now.”
“I’ve seen septic tanks. Pesky things – always need pumping at the most inconvenient time.”
“This one won’t have to be pumped. Over three hundred meters deep. An even thousand feet.”
“For the love of – Why?”
“It’s an abandoned mine shaft below us that some optimist dug a hundred years back. Here was this big hole, so Pop used it. There is a spring farther up the mountain. Pop cleaned that out, covered it, concealed it, put pipe underground, and we have lavish pure water under pressure. The rest of Snug Harbor Pop designed mostly from prefab catalogs, fireproof and solid and heavily insulated. We have – you have, I mean – this big fireplace and the little ones in the bedrooms, but you won’t need them, other than for homeyness. Radiant heat makes it skin-comfortable even in a blizzard.”
“Where do you get your power? From the nearest town?”
“Oh, no! Snug Harbor is a hideout, nobody but Pop and me – and now you and Zebadiah – knows it’s here. Power packs, Aunt Hilda, and an inverter in a space behind the back wall of the garage. We bring in power packs ourselves, and take them out the same way. Private. Oh, the leasehold record is buried in a computer in Washington or Denver, and the Federal rangers know the leaseholds. But they don’t see us if we see or hear them first. Mostly they cruise on past. Once one came by on horseback. Pop fed him beer out under the trees – and from outside this is just a prefab, a living room and two shedroof bedrooms. Nothing to show that important parts are underground.”
“Deety, I’m beginning to think that this place – this cabin – cost more than my townhouse.”
“Uh, probably.”
“I think I’m disappointed. Sugar Pie, I married your papa because I love him and want to take care of him and promised Jane that I would. I’ve been thinking happily that my wedding present to my bridegroom would be his weight in bullion, so that dear man need never work again.”
“Don’t be disappointed, Aunt Hilda. Pop has to work; it’s his nature. Me, too. Work is necessary to us. Without it, we’re lost.”
“Well… yes. But working because you want to is the best sort of play.”
“Correct!”
“That’s what I thought I could give Jacob. I don’t understand it. Jane wasn’t rich, she was on a scholarship. Jacob had no money – still a teaching fellow, a few months shy of his doctorate. Deety, Jacob’s suit that he wore to be married in was threadbare. I know that he pulled up from that; he made full professor awfully fast. I thought it was that and Jane’s good management.”
“It was both.”
“That doesn’t account for this. Forgive me, Deety, but Utah State doesn’t pay what Harvard pays.”
“Pop doesn’t lack offers. We like Logan. Both the town and the civilized behavior of Mormons. But – Aunt Hilda, I must tell you some things.”
The child looked worried. I said, “Deety, if Jacob wants me to know something he’ll tell me.”
“Oh, but he won’t and I must!”
“No, Deety!”
“Listen, please! When I said, ‘I do,’ I resigned as Pop’s manager. When you said, ‘I do,’ the load landed on you. It has to be that way, Aunt Hilda. Pop won’t do it; he has other things to think about, things that take genius. Mama did it for years, then I learned how, and now it’s your job. Because it can’t be farmed out. Do you understand accountancy?”
“Well, I understand it, I took a course in it. Have to understand it, or the government will skin you alive. But I don’t do it, I have accountants for that – and smart shysters to keep it inside the law.”
“Would it bother you to be outside the law? On taxes?”
“What? Heavens, no! But Sharpie wants to stay outside of jail – I detest an institutional diet.”
“You’ll stay out of jail. Don’t worry, Aunt Hilda – I’ll teach you double-entry bookkeeping they don’t teach in school. Very double. One set for the revenooers and another set for you and Jake.”
“It’s that second set that worries me. That one puts you in the pokey. Fresh air alternate Wednesdays.”
“Nope. The second set is not on paper; it’s in the campus computer at Logan.”
“Worse!”
“Aunt Hilda, please! Certainly my computer address code is in the department’s vault and an I.R.S. agent could get a court order. It wouldn’t do him any good. It would spill out our first set of books while wiping every trace of the second set. Inconvenient but not disastrous. Aunt Hillbilly, I’m not a champion at anything else but I’m the best software artist inthe business. I at your elbow until you are sure of yourself.
“Now about how Pop got rich – All the time he’s been teaching he’s also been inventing gadgets – as automatically as a hen lays eggs. A better can opener. A lawn irrigation system that does a better job, costs less, uses less water. Lots of things. But none has his name on it and royalties trickle back in devious ways.
“But we aren’t freeloaders. Every year Pop and I study the Federal Budget and decide what is useful and what is sheer waste by fat-arsed chairwarmers and pork-barrel raiders. Even before Mama died we were paying more income tax than the total of Pop’s salary, and we’ve paid more each year while I’ve been running it. It does take a bundle to run this country. We don’t begrudge money spent on roads and public health and national defense and truly useful things. But we’ve quit paying for parasites wherever we can identify them.
“It’s your job now, Aunt Hilda. If you decide that it’s dishonest or too risky, I can cause the computer to make it all open and legal so smoothly that hankypanky would never show. It would take me maybe three years, and Pop would pay high capital gains. But you are in charge of Pop now.”
“Deety, don’t talk dirty.”
“Dirty, how? I didn’t even say ‘spit.'”
“Suggesting that I would willingly pay what those clowns in Washington want to squeeze out of us. I would not be supporting so many accountants and shysters if I didn’t think we were being robbed blind. Deety, how about being manager for all of us?”
“No, ma’am! I’m in charge of Zebadiah. I have my own interests to manage, too. Mama wasn’t as poor as you thought. When I was a little girl, she came into a chunk from a trust her grandmother had set up. She and Pop gradually moved it over into my name and again avoided inheritance and estate taxes, all legal as Sunday School. When I was eighteen, I converted it into cash, then caused it to disappear. Besides that, I’ve been paying me a whopping salary as Pop’s manager. I’m not as rich as you are, Aunt Hilda, and certainly not as rich as Pop. But I ain’t hurtin’.”
“Zebbie may be richer than all of us.”
“You said last night that he was loaded but I didn’t pay attention because I had already decided to marry him. But after experiencing what sort of car he drives I realize that you weren’t kidding. Not that it matters. Yes, it did matter – it took both Zebadiah’s courage and Gay Deceiver’s unusual talents to save our lives.”
“You may never find out how loaded Zebbie is, dear. Some people don’t let their left hands know what their right hands are doing. Zebbie doesn’t let his thumb know what his fingers are doing.”
Deety shrugged. “I don’t care. He’s kind and gentle and he’s a storybook hero who saved my life and Pop’s and yours … and last night he proved to me that life is worth living when I’ve been uncertain about it since Mama had to leave us. Let’s go find our men, Aunt Nanny Goat. I’ll risk Pop’s Holy of Holies if you’ll go first.”
“Suits. Lay on your duff and cursed be he who first cries, ‘Nay, enough.”
“I don’t think they’re interested in that now, Nanny Goat.”
“Spoilsport. How do you swing back this bookcase?”
“Switch on the cove lights, then turn on the cold water at the sink. Then switch off the cove lights, then turn off the water – in that order.”
“‘”Curiouser and curiouser,” said Alice.'”
The bookcase closed behind us and was a door with a knob on the upper landing side. The staircase was wide, treads were broad and nonskid, risers gentle, guard rails on both sides – not the legbreaker most houses have as cellar stairs. Deety went down beside me, holding my hand like a child needing reassurance.
The room was beautifully lighted, well ventilated, and did not seem like a basement. Our men were at the far end, bent over a table, and did not appear to notice us. I looked around for a time machine, could not spot it – at least not anything like George Pal’s or any I had ever read about. All around was machinery. A drill press looks the same anywhere and so does a lathe, but others were strange – except that they reminded me of machine shops.
My husband caught sight of us, stood up, and said, “Welcome, ladies!”
Zebbie turned his head and said sharply, “Late to class! Find seats, no whispering during the lecture, take notes; there will be a quiz at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. If you have questions, raise your hands and wait to be called on. Anyone who misbehaves will remain after class and wash the chalk boards.”
Deety stuck out her tongue, sat down quietly. I rubbed his brush cut and whispered an indecency into his ear. Then I kissed my husband and sat down.
My husband resumed talking to Zebbie. “I lost more gyroscopes that way.”
I held up my hand. My husband said, “Yes, Hilda dear?”
“Monkey Ward’s sells gyro tops – I’ll buy you a gross.”
“Thank you, dearest, but these weren’t that sort. They were made by Sperry Division of General Foods.”
“So I’ll get them from Sperry.”
“Sharpie,” put in Zeb, “you’re honing to clean the erasers, too.”
“Just a moment, Son. Hilda may be the perfect case to find out whether or not what I have tried to convey to you – and which really can’t be conveyed save in the equations your cousin Zebulon used, a mathematics you say is unfamiliar to you -“
“It is!”
” – but which you appear to grasp as mechanics. Would you explain the concept to Hilda? If she understands it, we may hypothesize that a continua craft can be designed to be operated by a nontechnical person.”
“Sure,” I said scornfully, “poor little me, with a button for a head. I don’t have to know where the electrons go to use television or holovision. Ijust twist knobs. Go ahead, Zebbie. Take a swing at it, I dare you.”
“I’ll try,” Zebbie agreed. “But, Sharpie, don’t chatter and keep your comments to the point. Or I’ll ask Pop to give you a fat lip.”
“He wouldn’t dast!”
“So? I’m going to give him a horsewhip for a wedding present – besides the Weird Tales, Jake; you get those too. But you need a whip. Attention, Sharpie.”
“Yes, Zebbie. And the same to you doubled.”
“Do you know what ‘precess’ means?”
“Certainly. Precession of the equinoxes. Means that Vega will be the North Star when I’m a great-grandmother. Thirty thousand years or some such.”
“Correct in essence. But you’re not even a mother yet.”
“You don’t know what happened last night. I’m an expectant mother. Jacob doesn’t dare use a whip on me.”
My husband looked startled but pleased – and I felt relieved. Zebbie looked at his own bride. Deety said solemnly, “It is possible, Zebadiah. Neither of us was protected, each was on or close on ovulation. Hilda is blood type B Rhesus positive and my father is AB positive. I am A Rh positive. May I inquire yours, sir?”
“I’m an 0 positive. Uh… I may have shot you down the first salvo.”
“It would seem likely. But – does this meet with your approval?”
“‘Approval’!” Zebbie stood up, knocking over his chair. “Princess, you could not make me happier! Jake! This calls for a toast!”
My husband stopped kissing me. “Unanimous! Daughter, is there champagne chilled?”
“Yes, Pop.”
“Hold it!” I said. “Let’s not get excited over a normal biological function. Deety and I don’t know that we caught; we just hope so. And -“
“So we try again,” Zebbie interrupted. “What’s your calendar?”
“Twenty-eight and a half days, Zebadiah. My rhythm is pendulum steady.”
“Mine’s twenty-seven; Deety and I just happen to be in step. But I want that toast at dinner and a luau afterwards; it might be the last for a long time. Deety, do you get morning sick?”
“I don’t know; I’ve never been pregnant… before.”
“I have and I do and it’s miserable. Then I lost the naked little grub after trying hard to keep it. But I’m not going to lose this one! Fresh air and proper exercise and careful diet and nothing but champagne for me tonight, then not another drop until I know. In the meantime – Professors, may I point out that class is in session? I want to know about time machines and I’m not sure I could understand with champagne buzzing my buttonhead.”
“Sharpie, sometimes you astound me.”
“Zebbie, sometimes I astound myself. Since my husband builds time machines, I want to know what makes them tick. Or at least which knobs to turn. He might be clawed by the Bandersnatch and I would have to pilot him home. Get on with your lecture.”
“I read you loud and clear.”
But we wasted (“wasted?”) a few moments because everybody had to kiss everybody else – even Zebbie and my husband pounded each other on the back and kissed both cheeks Latin style. Zebbie tried to kiss me as if I were truly his mother-in-law but I haven’t kissed that way since junior high. Once I was firm with him he gave in and kissed me better than he ever had before – whew! I’m certain Deety is right but I won’t risk worrying my older husband over a younger man and I’d be an idiot to risk competing with Deety’s teats et cetera when all I have is fried eggs and my wonderful old goat seems so pleased with my et cetera.
Class resumed. “Sharpie, can you explain precession in gyroscopes?”
“Well, maybe. Physics One was required but that was a long time ago. Push a gyroscope and it doesn’t go the way you expect, but ninety degrees from that direction so that the push lines up with the spin. Like this – ” I pointed a forefinger like a little boy going: “Bang! – you’re dead!”
“My thumb is the axis, my forefinger represents the push, the other fingers show the rotation.”
“Go to the head of the class. Now – think hard! – suppose we put a gyroscope in a frame, then impress equal forces at all three spatial coordinates at once; what would it do?”
I tried to visualize it. “I think it would either faint or drop dead.”
“A good first hypothesis. According to Jake, it disappears.”
“They do disappear, Aunt Hilda. I watched it happen several times.”
“But where do they go?”
“I can’t follow Jake’s math; I have to accept his transformations without proof. But it is based on the notion of six space-time coordinates, three of space, the usual three that we see – marked x, y, and z – and three time coordinates: one marked ‘t’ like this – ” (t) ” – and one marked ‘tau,’ Greek alphabet – ” (T) ” – and the third from the Cyrillic alphabet, ‘teh’ – ” (M)
“Looks like an ‘m’ with a macron over it.”
“So it does, but it’s what the Russians use for ‘t’.”
“No, the Russians use ‘chai’ for tea. In thick glasses with strawberry jam.”
“Stow it, Sharpie. So we have x, y, and z; t, tau, and teh, six dimensions. It is basic to the theory that all are at right angles to each other, and that any one may be swapped for any of the others by rotation – or that a new coordinate may be found (not a seventh but replacing any of the six) by translation – say ‘tau’ to ‘tau prime’ by displacement along ‘x.'”
“Zebbie, I think I fell off about four coordinates back.”
My husband suggested, “Show her the caltrop, Zeb.”
“Good idea.” Zeb accepted a widget from my husband, placed it in front of me. It looked like jacks I used to play with as a little girl but not enough things sticking out – four instead of six. Three touched the table, a tripod; the fourth stuck straight up.
Zeb said, “This is a weapon, invented centuries ago. The points should be sharp but these have been filed down.” He flipped it, let it fall to the table. “No matter how it falls, one prong is vertical. Scatter them in front of cavalry; the horses go down – discouraging. They came into use again in Wars One and Two against anything with pneumatic tires – bicycles, motorcycles, lorries, and so forth. Big enough, they disable tanks and tracked vehicles. A small sort can be whittled from thorn bushes for guerrilla warfare – usually poisoned and quite nasty.
“But here this lethal toy is a geometrical projection, a drawing of the coordinates of a four-dimensional space-time continuum. Each spike is exactly ninety degrees from every other spike.”
“But they aren’t,” I objected. “Each angle is more than a right angle.”
“I said it was a projection. Sharpie, it’s an isometric projection of four-dimensional coordinates in three-dimensional space. That distorts the angles… and the human eye is even more limited. Cover one eye and hold still and you see only two dimensions. The illusion of depth is a construct of the brain.”
“I’m not very good at holding still -“
“No, she isn’t,” agreed my bridegroom whom I love dearly and at that instant could have choked.
“But I can close both eyes and feel three dimensions with my hands.”
“A good point. Close your eyes and pick this up and think of the prongs as the four directions of a four-dimensional space. Does the word tesseract mean anything to you?”
“My high school geometry teacher showed us how to construct them – projections – with modeling wax and toothpicks. Fun. I found other four-dimensional figures that were easy to project. And a number of ways to project them.”
“Sharpie, you must have had an exceptional geometry teacher.”
“In an exceptional geometry class. Don’t faint, Zebbie, but I was grouped with what they called ‘overachievers’ after it became ‘undemocratic’ to call them ‘gifted children.'”
“Be durned! Why do you always behave like a fritterhead?”
“Why don’t you ever look beneath the surface, young man! I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke. That doesn’t mean I don’t read and can’t think. I read everything from Giblett to Hoyle, from Sartre to Pauling. I read in the tub, I read on the john, I read in bed, I read when I eat alone, and I would read in my sleep if I could keep my eyes open. Deety, this is proof that Zebbie has never been in my bed: the books downstairs are display; the stuff I read is stacked in my bedroom.”
“Deety, did you think I had been sleeping with Sharpie?”
“No, Zebadiah.”
“And you never will! Deety told me what a sex maniac you are! You lay your lecherous hands on me and I’ll scream for Jacob and he’ll beat you to a pulp.”
“Don’t count on it, dear one,” my husband said mildly. “Zeb is bigger and younger and stronger than I… and if I found it needful to try, Deety would cry and beat me to a pulp. Son, I should have warned you: my daughter is vicious at karate. The killer instinct.”
“Thanks. Forewarned, forearmed. I’ll use a kitchen chair in one hand, a revolver in the second, and a whip in the other, just as I used to do in handling the big cats for Ringling, Barnum, and Bailey.”
“That’s three hands,” said Deety.
“I’m four-dimensional, darling. Professor, we can speed up this seminar; we’ve been underrating our overachiever. Hilda is a brain.”
“Zebbie, can we kiss and make up?”
“Class is in session.”
“Zebadiah, there is always time for that. Right, Pop?”
“Kiss her, Son, or she’ll sulk.”
“I don’t sulk, I bite.”
“I think you’re cute, too,” Zebbie answered, grabbed me by both shoulders, dragged me over the table, and kissed me hard. Our teeth grated and my nipples went spung! Sometimes I wish I weren’t so noble.
He dropped me abruptly and said, “Attention, class. The two prongs of the caltrop painted blue represent our three-dimensional space of experience. The third prong painted yellow is the t-time we are used to. The red fourth prong simulates both Tau-time and Teh-time, the unexplored time dimensions necessary to Jake’s theory. Sharpie, we have condensed six dimensions into four, then we either work by analogy into six, or we have to use math that apparently nobody but Jake and my cousin Ed understands. Unless you can think of some way to project six dimensions into three – you seem to be smart at such projections.”
I closed my eyes and thought hard. “Zebbie, I don’t think it can be done. Maybe Escher could have done it.”
“It can be done, my dearest,” answered my dearest, “but it is unsatisfactory. Even with a display computer with capacity to subtract one or more dimensions at a time. A superhypertesseract – a to the sixth power – has too many lines and corners and planes and solids and hypersolids for the eye to grasp. Cause the computer to subtract dimensions and what you have left is what you already knew. I fear it is an innate incapacity of visual conception in the human brain.”
“I think Pop is right,” agreed Deety. “I worked hard on that program. I don’t think the late great Dr. Marvin Minsky could have done it better in flat projection. Holovision? I don’t know. I would like to try if I ever get my hands on a computer with holovideo display and the capacity to add, subtract, and rotate six coordinates.”
“But why six dimensions?” I asked. “Why not five? Or even four, since you speak of rotating them interchangeably.”
“Jake?” said Zeb.
My darling looked fussed. “It bothered me that a space-time continuum seemed to require three space dimensions but only one time dimension. Granted that the universe is what it is, nevertheless nature is filled with symmetries. Even after the destruction of the parity principle, scientists kept finding new ones. Philosophers stay wedded to symmetry – but I don’t count philosophers.”
“Of course not,” agreed Zeb. “No philosopher allows his opinions to be swayed by facts – he would be kicked out of his guild. Theologians, the lot of them.”
“I concur. Hilda my darling, after I found a way to experiment, it turned out that six dimensions existed. Possibly more – but I see no way to reach them.”
“Let me see,” I said. “If I understood earlier, each dimension can be swapped for any other.”
“By ninety-degree rotation, yes.”
“Wouldn’t that be the combinations taken four at a time out of a set of six? How many is that?”
“Fifteen,” Zebbie answered.
“Goodness! Fifteen whole universes? And we use only one?”
“No, no, my darling! That would be ninety-degree rotations of one Euclidean universe. But our universe, or universes, has been known to be non-Euclidean at least since 1919. Or 1886 if you prefer. I stipulate that cosmology is an imperfect discipline, nevertheless, for considerations that I cannot state in nonmathematical terms, I was forced to assume a curved space of positive radius – that is to say, a closed space. That makes the universes possibly accessible to use either by rotation or by translation this number.” My husband rapidly wrote three sixes.
“Six sixty-six,” I said wonderingly. “‘The Number of the Beast.'”
“Eh? Oh! The Revelation of Saint John the Divine. But I scrawled it sloppily. You took it that I wrote this: ‘666.’ But what I intended to write was this: ‘6^6^6.’ Six raised to its sixth power, and the result in turn raised to its sixth power. That number is this:” 1.03144+ X 10^28 ” – or written in full:” 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056 ” – or more than ten million sextillion universes in our group.”
What can one say to that? Jacob went on, “Those universes are our nextdoor neighbors, one rotation or one translation away. But if one includes combinations of rotation and translation – think of a hyperplane slicing through superhypercontinua not at the point of here-now – the total becomes indenumerable. Not infinity – infinity has no meaning. Uncountable. Not subject to manipulation by mathematics thus far invented. Accessible to continua craft but no known way to count them.”
“Pop -“
“Yes, Deety?”
“Maybe Aunt Hilda hit on something. Agnostic as you are, you nevertheless keep the Bible around as history and poetry and myth.”
“Who said I was agnostic, my daughter?”
“Sorry, sir. I long ago reached that conclusion because you won’t talk about it. Wrong of me. Lack of data never justifies a conclusion. But this key number – one-point-oh-three-one-four-four-plus times ten to its twenty-eighth power – perhaps that is the ‘Number of the Beast.'”
“What do you mean, Deety?”
“That Revelation isn’t history, it’s not good poetry, and it’s not myth. There must have been some reason for a large number of learned men to include it – while chucking out several dozen gospels. Why not make a first hypothesis with Occam’s Razor and read it as what it purports to be? Prophecy.”
“Hmm. The shelves under the stairs, next to Shakespeare. The King James version, never mind the other three.”
Deety was back in a moment with a well-worn black book – which surprised me. I read the Bible for my own reasons but it never occurred to me that Jacob would. We always marry strangers.
“Here,” said Deety. “Chapter thirteen, verse eighteen: ‘Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”
“That can’t be read as exponents, Deety.”
“But this is a translation, Pop. Wasn’t the original in Greek? I don’t remember when exponents were invented but the Greek mathematicians of that time certainly understood powers. Suppose the original read ‘Zeta, Zeta, Zeta!’ – and those scholars, who weren’t mathematicians, mistranslated it as six hundred and sixty-six?”
“Uh… moondrift, Daughter.”
“Who taught me that the world is not only stranger than we imagine but stranger than we can imagine? Who has already taken me into two universes that are not this one… and brought me safely home?”
“Wait a half!” Zebbie said. “You and Pop have already tried the time-space machine?”
“Didn’t Pop tell you? We made one minimum translation. We didn’t seem to have gone anywhere and Pop thought he had failed. Until I tried to look up a number in the phone book. No ‘J’ in the book. No ‘J’ in the Britannica. No ‘J’ in any dictionary. So we popped back in, and Pop returned the verniers to zero, and we got out, and the alphabet was back the way it ought to be and I stopped shaking. But our rotation was even more scary and we almost died. Out in space with blazing stars – but air was leaking out and Pop just barely put it back to zero before we passed out… and came to, back here in Snug Harbor.”
“Jake,” Zebbie said seriously, “that gadget has got to have more fail-safes, in series with deadman switches for homing.” He frowned. “I’m going to keep my eye open for both numbers, six sixty-six and the long one. I trust Deety’s hunches. Deety, where is the verse with the description of the Beast? It’s somewhere in the middle of the chapter.”
“Here. ‘And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.'”
“Hmm – I don’t know how dragons speak. But if something comes up out of the earth and has two horns… and I see or hear either number – I’m going to assume that he has a ‘Black Hat’ and try to do unto him before he does unto us. Deety, I’m peaceable by policy… but two near misses is too many. Next time I shoot first.”
I would as lief Zebbie hadn’t mentioned “Black Hats.” Hard to believe that someone was trying to kill anyone as sweet and innocent and harmless as my darling Jacob. But they were – and we knew it.
I said, “Where is this time machine? All I’ve seen is a claptrap.”
“‘Caltrop,’ Aunt Hilda. You’re looking at the space-time machine.”
“Huh? Where? Why aren’t we in it and going somewhere fast? I don’t want my husband killed; he’s practically brand-new. I expect to get years of wear out of him.”
“Sharpie, stop the chatter,” Zebbie put in. “It’s on that bench, across the table from you.”
“All I see is a portable sewing machine.”
“That’s it.”
“What? How do you get inside? Or do you ride it like a broom?”
“Neither. You mount it rigidly in a vehicle – one airtight and watertight by strong preference. Pop had it mounted in their car – not quite airtight and now kaputt. Pop and I are going to mount it in Gay Deceiver, which is airtight. With better fail-safes.”
“Much better fail-safes, Zebbie,” I agreed.
“They will be. I find that being married makes a difference. I used to worry about my own skin. Now I’m worried about Deety’s. And yours. And Pop’s. All four of us.”
“Hear, hear!” I agreed. “All for one, and one for all!”
“Yup,” Zebbie answered. “Us four, no more. Deety, when’s lunch?”

Chapter VII

“Avete, alieni, nos morituri vos spernimus!”

Deety:
While Aunt Hilda and I assembled lunch, our men disappeared. They returned just in time to sit down. Zebadiah carried an intercom unit; Pop had a wire that he plugged into a jack in the wall, then hooked to the intercom.
“Gentlemen, your timing is perfect; the work is all done,” Aunt Hilda greeted them. “What is that?”
“A guest for lunch, my dearest,” Pop answered. “Miss Gay Deceiver.”
“Plenty for all,” Aunt Hilda agreed. “I’ll set another place.” She did so; Zebadiah placed the intercom on the fifth plate. “Does she take coffee or tea?”
“She’s not programmed for either, Hilda,” Zebadiah answered, “but I thank you on her behalf. Ladies, I got itchy about news from Singapore and Sumatra. So I asked my autopilot to report. Jake came along, then pointed out that he had spare cold circuits here and there, just in case – and this was a just-in-case. Gay is plugged to the garage end of that jack, and this is a voice-switched master-master intercom at this end. I can call Gay and she can call me if anything new comes in – and I increased her programming by reinstating the earlier programs, Logan and back home, for running retrieval of new data.”
“I’ll add an outlet in the basement,” agreed Pop. “But, Son, this is your home – not California.”
“Well -“
“Don’t fight it, Zebbie. This is my home since Jacob legalized me… and any step-son-in-law of mine is at home here; you heard Jacob say so. Right, Deety?”
“Of course,” I agreed. “Aunt Hilda is housewife and I’m scullery maid. But Snug Harbor is my home, too, until Pop and, Aunt Hilda kick me out into the snow – and that includes my husband.”
“Not into snow, Deety,” Aunt Hilda corrected me. “Jacob would insist on a sunny day; he’s kind and gentle. But that would not leave you with no roof over your head. My California home – mine and Jacob’s – has long been your home-from-home, and Zebbie has been dropping in for years, whenever he was hungry.”
“I had better put my bachelor flat into the pot.”
“Zebbie, you can’t put Deety on your day bed. It’s lumpy, Deety. Broken springs. Bruises. Zebbie, break your lease and send your furniture back to Good Will.”
“Sharpie, you’re at it again. Deety, there is no day bed in my digs. An emperor-size bed big enough for three – six if they are well acquainted.”
“My Captain, do you go in for orgies?” I asked.
“No. But you can’t tell what may turn up in the future.”
“You always look ahead, Zebadiah,” I said approvingly. “Am I invited?”
“At any orgy of mine, my wife will pick the guests and send the invitations.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll wait until you seem to be bored, then look over the crop and pick out choice specimens for you. Assorted flavors and colors.”
“My Princess, I will not spank a pregnant woman. But I can think about it. Pop, Snug Harbor continues to impress me. Did you use an architect?”
“Hrrumph! ‘Architect’ is a dirty word. I studied engineering. Architects copy each other’s mistakes and call it ‘Art.’ Even Frank Lloyd Wright never understood what the Gilbreths were doing. His houses looked great from the outside – inside they were hideously inefficient. Dust collectors. Gloomy. Psych lab rat mazes. Pfui!”
“How about Neutra?”
“If he hadn’t been hamstrung by building codes and union rules and zoning laws, Neutra could have been great. But people don’t want efficient machines for living; they prefer to crouch in medieval hovels, as their flea-bitten forebears did. Cold, drafty, unsanitary, poor lighting, and no need for any of it.”
“I respect your opinion, sir. Pop – three fireplaces… no chimneys. How? Why?”
“Zeb, I like fireplaces – and a few cords of wood can save your life in the mountains. But I see no reason to warm the outdoors or to call attention to the fact that we are in residence or to place trust in spark arresters in forestfire country. Lighting a fire in a fireplace here automatically starts its exhaust fan. Smoke and particles are electrostatically precipitated. The precipitators are autoscrubbed when stack temperature passes twenty-five Celsius, dropping. Hot air goes through labyrinths under bathtubs and floors, then under other floors, thence into a rock heat-sink under the garage, a sink that drives the heat pump that serves the house. When flue gas finally escapes, at points distant from the house, it is so close to ambient temperature that only the most sensitive heat-seeker could sniff it. Thermal efficiency plus the security of being inconspicuous.”
“But suppose you are snowed in so long that your power packs play out?”
“Franklin stoves in storage, stove pipe to match, stops in the walls removable from inside to receive thimbles for flue pipes.”
“Pop,” I inquired, “is this covered by Rule One? Or was Rule One abolished last night in Elko?”
“Eh? The chair must rule that it is suspended until Hilda ratifies or cancels it. Hilda my love, years back Jane instituted Rule One -“
“I ratify it!”
“Thank you. But listen first. It applies to meals. No news broadcasts -“
“Pop,” I again interrupted, “while Rule One is still in limbo – did Gay Deceiver have any news? I worry, I do!”
“Null retrievals, dear. With the amusing conclusion that you and I are still presumed to have died twice, but the news services do not appear to have noticed the discrepancy. However, Miss Gay Deceiver will interrupt if a bulletin comes in; Rule One is never invoked during emergencies. Zeb, do you want this rig in your bedroom at night?”
“I don’t want it but should have it. Prompt notice might save our skins.”
“We’ll leave this here and parallel another into there, with gain stepped to wake you. Back to Rule One: No news broadcasts at meals, no newspapers. No shop talk, no business or financial matters, no discussion of ailments. No political discussion, no mention of taxes, or of foreign or domestic policy. Reading of fiction permitted en famille – not with guests present. Conversation limited to cheerful subjects -“
“No scandal, no gossip?” demanded Aunt Hilda.
“A matter of your judgment, dear. Cheerful gossip about friends and acquaintances, juicy scandal about people we do not like – fine! Now – do you wish to ratify, abolish, amend, or take under advisement?”
“I ratify it unchanged. Who knows some juicy scandal about someone we don’t like?”
“I know an item about ‘No Brain’ – Doctor Neil Brain,” Zebadiah offered.
“Give!”
“I got this from a reliable source but can’t prove it.”
“Irrelevant as long as it’s juicy. Go ahead, Zebbie.”
“Well, a certain zaftig coed told this on herself. She tried to give her all to ‘Brainy’ in exchange for a passing grade in the general math course necessary to any degree on our campus. It is rigged to permit prominent but stupid athletes to graduate. Miss Zaftig was flunking it, which takes exceptional talent.
“So she arranged an appointment with the department head – ‘Brainy’ – and made her quid-pro-quo clear. He could give her horizontal tutoring then and there or in her apartment or his apartment or in a motel and she would pay for it or whenever and wherever he chose. But she had to pass.”
“Happens on every campus, Son,” Pop told him.
“I haven’t reached the point. She blabbed the story – not angry but puzzled. She says that she was unable to get her intention over to him (which seems impossible, I’ve seen this young woman). ‘Brainy’ didn’t accept, didn’t refuse, wasn’t offended, didn’t seem to understand. He told her that she had better talk to her instructor about getting tutoring and a re-exam. Now Miss Zaftig is circulating the story that Prof ‘No Brain’ must be a eunuch or a robot. Not even a homo. Totally sexless.”
“He’s undoubtedly stupid,” Aunt Hilda commented. “But I’ve never met a man I couldn’t get that point across to, if I tried. Even if he was uninterested in my fair virginal carcass. I’ve never tried with Professor Brain because I’m not interested in his carcass. Even barbecued.”
“Then, Hilda my darling, why did you invite him to your party?”
“What? Because of your note, Jacob. I don’t refuse you favors.”
“But, Hilda, I don’t understand. When I talked to you by telephone, I asked you to invite Zeb – under the impression that he was his cousin Zebulon – and I did say that two or three others from the department of mathematics might make it less conspicuously an arranged meeting. But I didn’t mention Doctor Brain. And I did not write.”
“Jacob – I have your note. In California. On your University stationery with your name printed on it.”
Professor Burroughs shook his head, looked sad. Zebadiah Carter said, “Sharpie – handwritten or typed?”
“Typed. But it was signed! Wait a moment, let me think. It has my name and address down in the lower left. Jacob’s name was typed, too, but it was signed ‘Jake.’ Uh… ‘My dear Hilda, A hasty P.S. to my phone call of yesterday – Would you be so kind as to include Doctor Neil O. Brain, chairman of mathematics? I don’t know what possessed me that I forgot to mention him. Probably the pleasure of hearing your dear voice.
“‘Deety sends her love, as do I. Ever yours, Jacob J. Burroughs’ with ‘Jake’ signed above the typed name.”
Zebadiah said to me, “Watson, you know my methods.”
“Certainly, my dear Holmes. A ‘Black Hat.’ In Logan.”
“We knew that. What new data?”
“Well… Pop made that call from the house; I remember it. So somebody has a tap on our phone. Had, I mean; the fire probably destroyed it.”
“A recording tap. The purpose of that fire may have been to destroy it and other evidence. For now we know that the ‘Blokes in the Black Hats’ knew that your father – and you, but it’s Pop they are after – was in California last evening. After ‘killing’ him in California, they destroyed all they could in Utah. Professor, I predict that we will learn that your office was robbed last night – any papers on six-dimensional spaces.”
Pop shrugged. “They wouldn’t find much. I had postponed my final paper after the – humiliating – reception my preliminary paper received. I worked on it only at home, or here, and moved notes made in Logan to our basement here each time we came down.”
“Any missing here?”
“I am certain this place has not been entered. Not that papers would matter; I have it in my head. The continua apparatus has not been touched.”
“Zebadiah, is Doctor Brain a ‘Black Hat’?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Deety. He may be a stooge in their hire. But he’s part of their plot, or they would not have risked forging a letter to put him into Hilda’s house. Jake, how difficult is it to steal your professional stationery?”
“Not difficult. I don’t keep a secretary; I send for a stenographer when I need one. I seldom lock my office when I’m on campus.”
“Deety, can you scrounge pen and paper? I want to see how Jake signs ‘Jake.'”
“Sure.” I fetched them. “Pop’s signature is easy; I often sign it. I hold his power of attorney.”
“It’s the simple signatures that are hardest to forge well enough to fool a handwriting expert. But their scheme did not require fooling an expert – phrasing the note was more difficult… since Hilda accepted it as ringing true.”
“It does ring true, Son; it is very like what I would have said had I written such a note to Hilda.”
“The forger probably has read many of your letters and listened to many of your conversations. Jake, will you write ‘Jake’ four or five times, the way you sign a note to a friend?”
Pop did so, my husband studied the specimens. “Normal variations.” Zebadiah then signed “Jake” about a dozen times, looked at his work, took a fresh sheet, signed “Jake” once, passed it to Aunt Hilda. “Well, Sharpie?”
Aunt Hilda studied it. “It wouldn’t occur to me to question it – on Jacob’s stationery under a note that sounded like his phrasing. Where do we stand now?”
“Stuck in the mud. But we have added data. At least three are involved, two ‘Black Hats’ and Doctor Brain, who may or may not be a ‘Black Hat.’ He is, at minimum, a hired hand, an unwitting stooge, or a puppet they can move around like a chessman.
“While two plus ‘Brainy’ is minimum, it is not the most probable number. This scheme was not whipped up overnight. It involves arson, forgery, booby-trapping a car, wiretapping, theft, and secret communications between points widely separated, with coordinated criminal actions at each end – and it may involve doing in my cousin Zebulon. We can assume that the ‘Black Hats’ know that I am not the Zeb Carter who is the n-dimensional geometer; I’m written off as a bystander who got himself killed.
“Which doesn’t bother them. These playful darlings would swat a fly with a sledgehammer, or cure a cough with a guillotine. They are smart, organized, efficient, and vicious – and the only clue is an interest in six-dimensional non-Euclidean geometry.
“We don’t have a glimmer as to ‘who’ – other than Doctor Brain, whose role is unclear. But, Jake, I think I know ‘why’ – and that will lead us to ‘who.”
“Why, Zebadiah?” I demanded.
“Princess, your father could have worked on endless other branches of mathematics and they would not have bothered him. But he happened – I don’t mean chance; I don’t believe in ‘chance’ in this sense – he worked on the one variety of the endless possible number of geometries – the only one that correctly describes how space-time is put together. Having found it, because he is a genius in both theory and practice, he saw that it was a means by which to build a simple craft – amazingly simple, the greatest invention since the wheel – a space-time craft that offers access to all universes to the full Number of the Beast. Plus undenumerable variations of each of those many universes.
“We have one advantage.”
“I don’t see any advantage! They’re shooting at my Jacob!”
“One strong advantage, Sharpie. The ‘Black Hats’ know that Jake has worked out this mathematics. They don’t know that he has built his space-time tail-twister; they think he has just put symbols on paper. They tried to discredit his work and were successful. They tried to kill him and barely missed. They probably think Jake is dead – and it seems likely that they have killed Ed. But they don’t know about Snug Harbor.”
“Why do you say that, Zeb? Oh, I hope they do not! – but why do you feel sure?”
“Because these blokes aren’t fooling. They blew up your car and burned your flat; what would they do here? – if they knew. An A-bomb?”
“Son, do you think that criminals can lay hands on atomic weapons?”
“Jake, these aren’t criminals. A ‘criminal’ is a member of the subset of the larger set ‘human beings.’ These creatures are not human.”
“Eh? Zeb, your reasoning escapes me.”
“Deety. Run it through the computer. The one between your ears.”
I did not answer; I just sat and thought. After several minutes of unpleasant thoughts I said, “Zebadiah, the ‘Black Hats’ don’t know about the apparatus in our basement.”
“Conclusive assumption,” my husband agreed, “because we are still alive.”
“They are determined to destroy a new work in mathematics… and to kill the brain that produced it.”
“A probability approaching unity,” Zebadiah again agreed.
“Because it can be used to travel among the universes.”
“Conclusive corollary,” my husband noted.
“For this purpose, human beings fall into three groups. Those not interested in mathematics more complex than that needed to handle money, those who know a bit about other mathematics, and a quite small third group who could understand the possibilities.”
“Yes.”
“But our race does not know anything of other universes so far as I know.”
“They don’t. Necessary assumption.”
“But that third group would not try to stop an attempt to travel among the universes. They would wait with intellectual interest to see how it turned out. They might believe or disbelieve or suspend judgment. But they would not oppose; they would be delighted if my father succeeded. The joy of intellectual discovery – the mark of a true scientist.”
I sighed and added, “I see no other grouping. Save for a few sick people, psychotic, these three subsets complete the set. Our opponents are not psychotic; they are intelligent, crafty, and organized.”
“As we all know too well,” Zebadiah echoed.
“Therefore our opponents are not human beings. They are alien intelligences from elsewhere.” I sighed again and shut up. Being an oracle is a no-good profession!
“Or elsewhen. Sharpie, can you kill?”
“Kill whom, Zebbie? Or what?” “Can you kill to protect Jake?”
“You bet your frimpin’ life I’ll kill to protect Jacob!”
“I won’t ask you, Princess; I know Dejah Thoris.” Zebadiah went on, “That’s the situation, ladies. We have the most valuable man on this planet to protect. We don’t know from what. Jake, your bodyguard musters two Amazons, one small, one medium large, both probably knocked up, and one Cowardly Lion. I’d hire the Dorsai if I knew their P.O. Box. Or the Gray Lensman and all his pals. But we are all there are and we’ll try! Avete, alieni, nos morituri vos spernimus! Let’s break out that champagne.”
“My Captain, do you think we should?” I asked. “I’m frightened.”
“We should. I’m no good for more work today, and neither is Jake. Tomorrow we’ll start installing the gadget in Gay Deceiver, do rewiring and reprogramming so that she will work for any of us. Meanwhile we need a couple of laughs and a night’s sleep. What better time to drink life to the dregs than when we know that any hour may be our last?”
Aunt Hilda punched Zebadiah in the ribs. “Yer dern tootin’, Buster! I’m going to get giggle happy and make a fool of myself and then take my man and put him to sleep with Old Mother Sharpie’s Time-Tested Nostrum. Deety, I prescribe the same for you.”
I suddenly felt better. “Check, Aunt Hilda! Captain John Carter always wins. ‘Cowardly Lion’ my foot! Who is Pop? The Little Wizard?”
“I think he is.”
“Could be. Pop, will you open the bubbly? I always hurt my thumbs.”
“Right away, Deety. I mean ‘Dejah Thoris, royal consort of the Warlord.'”
“No need to be formal, Pop. This is going to be an informal party. Very! Pop! Do I have to keep my pants on?”
“Ask your husband. You’re his problem now.”

Chapter VIII

“Let us all preserve our illusions – “

Hilda:
In my old age, sucking my gums in front of the fire and living over my misdeeds, I’ll remember the next few days as the happiest in my life. I’d had three honeymoons earlier, one with each of my term-contract husbands: two had been good, one had been okay and (eventually) very lucrative. But my honeymoon with Jacob was heavenly.
The whiff of danger sharpened the joy. Jacob seemed unworried, and Zebbie has hunches, like a horseplayer. Seeing that Zebbie was relaxed, Deety got over being jumpy – and I never was, as I hope to end like a firecracker, not linger on, ugly, helpless, useless…
A spice of danger adds zest to life. Even during a honeymoon – especially during a honeymoon.
An odd honeymoon. We worked hard but our husbands seemed never too busy for pat fanny, squeeze titty, and unhurried kisses. Not a group marriage but two twosomes that were one family, comfortable each with the others. I dropped most of my own sparky-bitch ways, and Zebbie sometimes called me “Hilda” rather than “Sharpie.”
Jacob and I moved into marriage like ham and eggs. Jacob is not tall (178 centimeters) (but tall compared with my scant one fifty-two) and his hairline recedes and he has a paunch from years at a desk – but he looks just right to me. If I wanted to look at male beauty, I could always look at Deety’s giant – appreciate him without lusting: my own loving goat kept Sharpie quite blunted.
I did not decide, when Zebbie came on campus, to make a pet of him for his looks but for his veering sense of humor. But if there was ever a man who could have played the role of John Carter, Warlord of Mars, it was Zebadiah Carter whose middle name just happens to be “John.” Indoors with clothes and wearing his fake horn-rims he looks awkward, too big, clumsy. I did not realize that he was beautiful and graceful until the first time he used my pool. (That afternoon I was tempted to seduce him. But, as little dignity as I have, I had resolved to stick to older men, so I shut off the thought.)
Outdoors at Snug Harbor, wearing little or no clothes, Zebbie looked at home – a mountain lion in grace and muscle. An incident one later afternoon showed me how much he was like the Warlord of Mars. A sword – Those old stories were familiar to me. My father had acquired the Ballantine Del Rey paperback reissues; they were around the house when I was a little girl. Once I learned to read, I read everything, and vastly preferred Barsoom stories to “girls” books given to me for birthdays and Christmas. Thuvia was the heroine I identified with – “toy” of the cruel priests of Issus, then with virginity miraculously restored in the next book: Thuvia, Maid of Mars. I resolved to change my name to Thuvia when I was old enough. When I was eighteen, I did not consider it; I had always been “Hilda,” a new name held no attraction.
I was responsible in part for Deety’s name, one that embarrassed her until she discovered that her husband liked it. Jacob had wanted to name his daughter “Dejah Thoris” (Jacob looks like and is a professor, but he is incurably romantic). Jane had misgivings. I told her, “Don’t be a chump, Janie. If your man wants something, and you can accommodate him with no grief, give it to him! Do you want him to love this child or to resent her?” Jane looked thoughtful and “Doris Anne” became “Dejah Thoris” at christening, then “Deety” before she could talk – which satisfied everyone.
We settled into a routine: Up early every day; our men worked on instruments and wires and things and installing the time-space widget into Gay Deceiver’s gizzard – while Deety and I gave the housework a lick and a promise (our mountain home needed little attention – more of Jacob’s genius), then Deety and I got busy on a technical matter that Deety could do with some help from me.
I’m not much use for technical work, biology being the only thing I studied in depth and never finished my degree. This was amplified by almost six thousand hours as volunteer nurse’s aid in our campus medical center and I took courses that make me an uncertified nurse or medical tech or even jackleg paramedic – I don’t shriek at the sight of blood and can clean up vomit without a qualm and would not hesitate to fill in as scrub nurse. Being a campus widow with too much money is fun but not soul filling. I like to feel that I’ve paid rent on the piece of earth I’m using.
Besides that, I have a smattering of everything from addiction to the printed page, plus attending campus lectures that sound intriguing… then sometimes auditing a related course. I audited descriptive astronomy, took the final as if for credit – got an “A.” I had even figured a cometary orbit correctly, to my surprise (and the professor’s).
I can wire a doorbell or clean out a stopped-up soil pipe with a plumber’s “snake” – but if it’s really technical, I hire specialists.
So Hilda can help but usually can’t do the job alone. Gay Deceiver had to be reprogrammed – and Deety, who does not look like a genius, is one. Jacob’s daughter should be a genius and her mother had an I.Q. that startled even me, her closest friend. I ran across it while helping poor grief-stricken Jacob to decide what to save, what to burn. (I burned unflattering pictures, useless papers, and clothes. A dead person’s clothes should be given away or burned; nothing should be kept that does not inspire happy memories. I cried a bit and that saved Jacob and Deety from having to cry later.)
We all held private duo licenses; Zebbie, as Captain Z. J. Carter, U.S.A.S.R., held “command” rating as well – he told us that his space rating was largely honorary, just some free-fall time and one landing of a shuttle. Zebbie is mendacious, untruthful, and tells fibs; I got a chance to sneak a look at his aerospace log and shamelessly took it. He had logged more than he claimed in one exchange tour with Australia. Someday I’m going to sit on his chest and make him tell Mama Hilda the truth. Should be interesting… if I can sort out fact from fiction. I do not believe his story about intimate relations with a female kangaroo.
Zebbie and Jacob decided that we all must be able to control Gay Deceiver all four ways, on the road, in the air, in trajectory (she’s not a spaceship but can make high-trajectory jumps), and in space-time, i.e. among the universes to the Number of the Beast, plus variants impossible to count.
I had fingers crossed about being able to learn that, but both men assured me that they had worked out a fail-safe that would get me out of a crunch if I ever had to do it alone.
Part of the problem lay in the fact that Gay Deceiver was a one-man girl; her doors unlocked only to her master’s voice or to his thumbprint, or to a tapping code if he were shy both voice and right thumb; Zeb tended to plan ahead – “Outwitting Murphy’s Law,” he called it, “‘Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.'” (Grandma called it “The Butter-Side Down Rule.”)
First priority was to introduce us to Gay Deceiver – teach her that all four voices and right thumbprints were acceptable.
That took a couple of hours, with Deety helping Zebbie. The tapping code took even less, it being based on an old military cadence – its trickiness being that a thief would be unlikely to guess that this car would open if tapped a certain way and in guessing the correct cadence. Zebbie called the cadence “Drunken Soldier.” Jacob said that it was “Bumboat.” Deety claimed that its title was “Pay Day,” because she had heard it from Jane’s grandfather.
Our men conceded that she must be right, as she had words for it. Her words included “Drunken Sailor” instead of “Drunken Soldier” – plus both “Pay Day” and “Bumboat.”
Introductions taken care of, Zeb dug out Gay’s anatomy, one volume her body, one her brain. He handed the latter to Deety, took the other into our basement. The next two days were easy for me, hard for Deety. I held lights and made notes on a clip board while she studied that book and frowned and got smudged and sweaty getting herself into impossible positions and once she cursed in a fashion that would have caused Jane to scold. She added, “Aunt Nanny Goat, your step-son-in-law has done things to this mass of spaghetti that no decent computer should put up with! It’s a bastard hybrid.”
“You shouldn’t call Gay ‘it,’ Deety. And she’s not a bastard.”
“She can’t hear us; I’ve got her ears unhooked – except that piece that is monitoring news retrieval programs – and that goes through this wire to that jack in the wall; she can talk with Zebadiah only in the basement now. Oh, I’m sure she was a nice girl until that big ape of mine raped her. Aunt Hilda, don’t worry about hurting Gay’s feelings; she hasn’t any. This is an idiot as computers go. Any one-horse college and most high schools own or share time in computers much more complex. This one is primarily cybernetics, an autopilot plus limited digital capacity and limited storage. But the mods Zebadiah has tacked on make it more than an autopilot but not a general-purpose computer. A misbegotten hybrid. It has far more random-number options than it needs and it has extra functions that IBM never dreamed of.”
“Deety, why are you taking off cover plates? I thought you were strictly a programmer? Software. Not a mechanic.”
“I am strictly a software mathematician. I wouldn’t attempt to modify this monster even on written orders from my lovable but sneaky husband. But how in the name of Allah can a software hack think about simplification analysis for program if she doesn’t know the circuitry? The first half of this book shows what this autopilot was manufactured to do… and the second half, the Xeroxed pages, show the follies Zebadiah has seduced her into. This bleedin’ bundle of chips now speaks three logic languages, interfaced – when it was built to use only one. But it won’t accept any of them until it has been wheedled with Zebadiah’s double talk. Even then it rarely answers a code phrase with the same answer twice in a row. What does it say in answer to: ‘You’re a smart girl, Gay.’?”
“I remember. ‘Boss, I bet you tell that to all the girls. Over.”
“Sometimes. Oftenest, as that answer is weighted to come up three times as often as any of the others. But listen to this:
“‘Zeb, I’m so smart I scare myself.’
“‘Then why did you turn me down for that raise?’
“‘Never mind the compliments! Take your hand off my knee!’
“‘Not so loud, dear. I don’t want my boyfriend to hear.’
” – and there are more. There are at least four answers to any of Zebadiah’s code phrases. He uses just one list, but the autopilot answers several ways for each of his phrases – and all any of them mean is either ‘Roger’ or ‘Null program; rephrase.'”
“I like the idea. Fun.”
“Well… I do myself. I animize a computer; I think of them as people… and this semirandom answer list makes Gay Deceiver feel much more alive… when she isn’t. Not even versatile compared with a ground-based computer. But – ” Deety gave a quick smile. “I’m going to hand my husband some surprises.”
“How, Deety?”
“You know how he says, ‘Good morning, Gay. How are you?’ when we sit down for breakfast.”
“Yes. I like it. Friendly. She usually answers, ‘I’m fine, Zeb.'”
“Yes. It’s a test code. It orders the autopilot to run a self-check throughout and to report any running instruction. Which takes less than a millisecond. If he didn’t get that or an equivalent answer, he would rush straight here to find out what’s wrong. But I’m going to add another answer. Or more.”
“I thought you refused to modify anything.”
“Aunt Hillbilly, this is software, not hardware. I’m authorized and directed to amplify the answers to include all of us, by name for each of our voices. That is programming, elementary. You say good morning to this gadget and it will – when I’m finished – answer you and call you either ‘Hilda’ or ‘Mrs. Burroughs.'”
“Oh, let her call me Hilda.'”
“All right, but let her call you ‘Mrs. Burroughs’ now and then for variety.”
“Well… all right. Keep her a personality.”
“I could even have her call you – low weighting! – ‘Nanny Goat.'”
I guffawed. “Do, Deety, please do. But I want to be around to see Jacob’s face.”
“You will be; it won’t be programmed to answer that way to any voice but yours. Just don’t say, ‘Good morning, Gay’ unless Pop is listening. But here’s one for my husband: Zebadiah says, ‘Good morning, Gay. How are you?’ – and the speaker answers, ‘I’m fine, Zeb. But your fly is unzipped and your eyes are bloodshot. Are you hung over again?'”
Deety is so solemn and yet playful. “Do it, dear! Poor Zebbie – who drinks least of any of us. But he might not be wearing anything zippered.”
“Zebadiah always wears something at meals. Even his underwear shorts are zippered. He dislikes elastic.”
“But he’ll recognize your voice, Deety.”
“Nope. Because it will be your voice – modified.”
And it was. I’m contralto about the range of the actress – or girl friend – who recorded Gay Deceiver’s voice originally. I don’t think my voice has her sultry, bedroom quality but I’m a natural mimic. Deety borrowed a wigglescope – oscilloscope? – from her father, my Jacob, and I practiced until my patterns for Gay Deceiver’s original repertoire matched hers well enough – Deety said she could not tell them apart without close checking.
I got into the spirit of it, such as having Deety cause Gay Deceiver occasionally to say to my husband, “Fine – except for my back ache, you wicked old Billy Goat!” – and Jacob tripped that reply one morning when I did have a back ache, and I feel sure he had one, too.
We didn’t put in answers that Deety felt might be too bawdy for Jacob’s “innocent” mind – I didn’t even hint how her father actually talked, to me in private. Let us all preserve our illusions; it lubricates social relations. Possibly Deety and Zebbie talked the same way to each other in private – and regarded us “old folks” as hopelessly square.

Chapter IX

Most males have an unhealthy tendency to obey laws.

Deety:
Aunt Hilda and I finished reprogramming in the time it took Zebadiah and Pop to design and make the fail-safes and other mods needed to turn Gay Deceiver, with the time-space widget installed, into a continua traveler – which included placing the back seats twenty centimeters farther back (for leg room) after they had been pulled out to place the widget abaft the bulkhead and weld it to the shell. The precessing controls and triple verniers were remoted to the driver’s instrument board – with one voice control for the widget, all others manual:
If any of our voices said, “Gay Deceiver, take us home!” car and passengers would instantly return to Snug Harbor.
I don’t know but I trust my Pop. He brought us home safe twice, doing it with no fail-safes and no dead-man switch. The latter paralleled the “Take us home!” voice order, was normally clamped closed and covered – but could be uncovered and held in a fist, closed. There were other fail-safes for temperature, pressure, air, radar collision course, and other dangers. If we wound up inside a star or planet, none of this could save us, but it is easy to prove that the chances of falling downstairs and breaking your neck are enormously higher than the chance of co-occupying space with other matter in our native universe – space is plentiful, mass is scarce. We hoped that this would be true of other universes.
No way ahead of time to check on the Number-of-the-Beast spaces – but “The cowards never started and the weaklings died on the way.” None of us ever mentioned not trying to travel the universes. Besides, our home planet had turned unfriendly. We didn’t discuss “Black Hats” but we all knew that they were still here, and that we remained alive by lying doggo and letting the world think we were dead.
We ate breakfast better each morning after hearing Gay Deceiver offer “null report” on news retrievals. Zebadiah, I am fairly certain, had given up his cousin for dead. I feel sure Zebadiah would have gone to Sumatra to follow a lost hope, were it not that he had acquired a wife and a prospective child. I missed my next period, so did Hilda. Our men toasted our not-yet bulging bellies; Hilda and I smugly resolved to be good girls, yes, sir! – and careful. Hilda joined my morning toning up, and the men joined us the first time they caught us at it.
Zebadiah did not need it but seemed to enjoy it. Pop brought his waistline down five centimeters in one week.
Shortly after that toast Zebadiah pressure-tested Gay Deceiver’s shell – four atmospheres inside her and a pressure gauge sticking out through a fitting in her shell.
There being little we could do while our space-time rover was sealed, we knocked off early. “Swim, anybody?” I asked. Snug Harbor doesn’t have a citytype pool, and a mountain stream is too cooold. Pop had fixed that when he concealed our spring. Overflow was piped underground to a clump of bushes and thereby created a “natural” mountain rivulet that passed near the house; then Pop had made use of a huge fallen boulder, plus biggish ones, to create a pool, one that filled and spilled. He had done work with pigments in concrete to make this look like an accident of water flow.
This makes Pop sound like Paul Bunyan. Pop could have built Snug Harbor with his own hands. But Spanish-speaking labor from Nogales built the underground and assembled the prefab shell of the cabin. An air crane fetched parts and materials from an Albuquerque engineering company Jane had bought for Pop through a front – lawyers in Dallas. The company’s manager drove the air crane himself, having had it impressed on him that this was for a rich client of the law firm, and that it would be prudent to do the job and forget it. Pop bossed the work in TexMex, with help from his secretary – me – Spanish being one language I had picked for my doctorate.
Laborers and mechanics never got a chance to pinpoint where they were, but they were well paid, well fed, comfortably housed in prefabs brought in by crane, and the backbreaking labor was done by power – who cares what “locos gringos” do? Two pilots had to know where we were building, but they homed in on a radar beacon that is no longer there.
“Blokes in Black Hats” had nothing to do with this secrecy; it was jungle caution I had learned from Mama: Never let the revenooers know anything. Pay cash, keep your lips closed, put nothing through banks that does not appear later in tax returns – pay taxes greater than your apparent standard of living and declare income accordingly. We had been audited three times since Mama died; each time the government returned a small “overpayment” – I was building a reputation of being stupid and honest.
My inquiry of “Swim, anybody?” was greeted with silence. Then Pop said, “Zeb, your wife is too energetic. Deety, later the water will be warmer and the trees will give us shade. Then we can walk slowly down to the pool. Zeb?”
“I agree, Jake. I need to conserve ergs.”
“Nap?”
“I don’t have the energy to take one. What were you saying this morning about reengineering the system?”
Aunt Hilda looked startled. “I thought Miss Gay Deceiver was already engineered? Are you thinking of changing everything?”
“Take it easy, Sharpie darlin’. Gay Deceiver is finished. A few things to stow that have been weighed and their moment arms calculated.”
I could have told her. In the course of figuring what could be stowed in every nook and cranny and what that would do to Gay’s balance, I had discovered that my husband had a highly illegal laser cannon. I said nothing, merely included its mass and distance from optimum center of weight in my calculations. I sometimes wonder which of us is the outlaw: Zebadiah or I? Most males have an unhealthy tendency to obey laws. But that concealed L-cannon made me wonder.
“Why not leave well enough alone?” Aunt Hilda demanded. “Jacob and God know I’m happy here… But You All Know Why We Should Not Stay Here Longer Than We Must.”
“We weren’t talking about Gay Deceiver; Jake and I were discussing reengineering the Solar System.”
“The Solar System! What’s wrong with it the way it is?”
“Lots of things,” Zebadiah told Aunt Hilda. “It’s untidy. Real estate going to waste. This tired old planet is crowded and sort o’ worn in spots. True, industry in orbit and power from orbit have helped, and both Lagrange-Four and -Five have self-supporting populations; anybody who invested in space stations early enough made a pile.” (Including Pop, Zebadiah!) “But these are minor compared with what can be done – and this planet is in worse shape each year. Jake’s six-dimensional principle can change that.”
“Move people into another universe? Would they go?”
“We weren’t thinking of that, Hilda. We’re trying to apply Clarke’s Law.”
“I don’t recall it. Maybe it was while I was out with mumps.”
“Arthur C. Clarke,” Pop told her. “Great man – too bad he was liquidated in The Purge. Clarke defined how to make a great discovery or create a key invention. Study what the most respected authorities agree can not be done – then do it. My continua craft is a godchild of Clarke via his Law. His insight inspired my treatment of six-dimensional continua. But this morning Zeb added corollaries.”
“Jake, don’t kid the ladies. I asked a question; you grabbed the ball and ran.”
“Uh, we heterodyned. Hilda, you know that the time-space traveler doesn’t require power.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know, darling man. Why were you installing power packs in Gay Deceiver?”
“Auxiliary uses. So that you won’t have to cook over an open fire, for example.”
“But the pretzel bender doesn’t use power,” agreed Zebadiah. “Don’t ask why. I did, and Jake started writing equations in Sanskrit and I got a headache.”
“It doesn’t use power, Aunt Hilda,” I agreed. “Just parasitic power. A few microwatts so that the gyros never slow down, milliwatts for instrument readouts and for controls – but the widget itself uses none.”
“What happened to the law of conservation of energy?”
“Sharpie,” my husband answered, “as a fairish mechanic, an amateur electron pusher, and as a bloke who has herded unlikely junk through the sky, I never worry about theory as long as machinery does what it is supposed to do. I worry when a machine turns and bites me. That’s why I specialize in fail-safes and backups and triple redundancy. I try never to get a machine sore at me. There’s no theory for that but every engineer knows it.”
“Hilda my beloved, the law of conservation of mass-energy is not broken by our continua craft; it is simply not relevant to it. Once Zeb understood that -“
“I didn’t say I understood it.”
“Well… once Zeb stipulated that, he raised interesting questions. For example: Jupiter doesn’t need Ganymede – “
“Whereas Venus does. Although Titan might be better.”
“Mmm… possible.”
“Yes. Make an inhabitable base more quickly. But the urgent problem, Jake, is to seed Venus, move atmosphere to Mars, put both of them through forced aging. Then respot them. Earth-Sol Trojan points?”
“Certainly. We’ve had millions of years of evolution this distance from the Sun. We had best plan on living neither closer nor farther. With careful attention to stratospheric protection. But I still have doubts about anchoring in the Venerian crust. We wouldn’t want to lose the planet on Tau axis.”
“Mere R. & D., Jake. Calculate pressures and temperatures; beef up the vehicle accordingly – spherical, save for exterior anchors – then apply a jigger factor of four. With automatic controls quintuply redundant. Catch it when it comes out and steady it down in Earth’s orbit, sixty degrees trailing – and start selling subdivisions the size of old Spanish Land Grants. Jake, we should gather enough mass to create new earths at all Trojan points, a hexagon around the Sun. Five brand-new earths would give the race room enough to breed. On this maiden voyage let’s keep our eyes open.”
Aunt Hilda looked at Zebadiah with horror. “Zebbie! Creating planets indeed! Who do you think you are? Jesus Christ?”
“I’m not that junior. That’s the Holy Ghost over there, scratching his belly, The Supreme Inseminator. I’m the other one, the Maker and Shaper. But in setting up a pantheon for the Celestial Age, we’re going to respect women’s rights, Hilda. Deety is Earth Mother; she’s perfect for the job. You are Moon Goddess, Selene. Good job, dear – more moons than earths. It fits you. You’re little and silvery and you wax and wane and you’re beautiful in all your phases. How about it? Us four and no more.”
“Quit pulling my leg!”
My husband answered, “I haven’t been pulling your leg. Come closer and I will; you have pretty legs, Step-Mother-in-Law. These things Jake and I have been discussing are practical – once we thought about the fact that the spacetime twister uses no power. Move anything anywhere – all spaces, all times. I add the plural because at first I could not see what Jake had in mind when he spoke of forced aging of a planet. Rotate Venus into the Tau axis, fetch it back along Teh axis, reinsert it centuries – or millennia – older at this point in ‘t’ axis. Perhaps translate it a year or so into the future – our future – so as to be ready for it when it returns, all sweet and green and beautiful and ready to grow children and puppies and butterflies. Terraformed but virginal.”
Aunt Hilda looked frightened. “Jacob? Would one highball do any harm to this peanut inside me? I need a bracer.”
“I don’t think so. Jane often had a drink with me while she was pregnant. Her doctor did not have her stop until her third trimester. Can’t see that it hurt Deety. Deety was so healthy she drove Jane home from the hospital.”
“Pop, that’s a fib. I didn’t learn to drive until I was three months old. But I need one, too,” I added. “Zebadiah?”
“Certainly, Princess. A medicinal drink should be by body mass. That’s half a jigger for you, Sharpie dear, a jigger for Deety, a jigger and a half for Jake – two jiggers for me.”
“Oh, how unfair!”
“It certainly is,” I agreed. “I outweigh Pop – he’s been losing, I’ve been gaining. Pick us up and see!”
My husband took us each around the waist, crouched, then straightened and lifted us.
“Close to a standoff,” he announced. “Pop may be a trifle heavier, but you’re more cuddly” – kissed me and put us down.
“There is no one more cuddly than Jacob!”
“Hilda, you’re prejudiced. Let’s each mix our own drinks, at the strength required for our emotional and physical conditions.”
So we did – it wound up with Hilda and me each taking a jigger with soda, Pop taking a jigger and a half over ice – and Zebadiah taking a half jigger of vodka and drowning it with Coke.
While we were sipping our “medicine,” Zebadiah, sprawled out, looked up over the fireplace. “Pop, you were in the Navy?”
“No – Army. If you count ‘chair-borne infantry.’ They handed me a commission for having a doctorate in mathematics, told me they needed me for ballistics. Then I spent my whole tour as a personnel officer, signing papers.”
“Standard Operating Procedure. That’s a Navy sword and belt up there. Thought it might be yours.”
“It’s Deety’s – belonged to Jane’s Grandfather Rodgers. I have a dress saber. Belonged to my Dad, who gave it to me when the Army took me. Dress blues, too. I took them with me, never had occasion to wear either.” Pop got up and went into his – their bedroom, calling back, “I’ll show you the saber.”
My husband said to me, “Deety, would you mind my handling your sword?”
“My Captain, that sword is yours.”
“Heavens, dear, I can’t accept an heirloom.”
“If my warlord will not permit his princess to gift him with a sword, he can leave it where it is! I’ve been wanting to give you a wedding present – and did not realize that I had the perfect gift for Captain John Carter.”
“My apologies, Dejah Thoris. I accept and will keep it bright. I will defend my princess with it against all enemies.”
“Helium is proud to accept. If you make a cradle of your hands, I can stand in them and reach it down.”
Zebadiah grasped me, a hand above each knee, and I was suddenly three meters tall. Sword and belt were on hooks; I lifted them down, and myself was placed down. My husband stood straight while I buckled it around him – then he dropped to one knee and kissed my hand.
My husband is mad north-northwest but his madness suits me. I got tears in my eyes which Deety doesn’t do much but Dejah Thoris seems prone to, since John Carter made her his.
Pop and Aunt Hilda watched – then imitated, including (I saw!) tears in Hilda’s eyes after she buckled on Pop’s saber, when he knelt and kissed her hand.
Zebadiah drew sword, tried its balance, sighted along its blade. “Handmade and balanced close to the hilt. Deety, your great-grandfather paid a pretty penny for this. It’s an honest weapon.”
“I don’t think he knew what it cost. It was presented to him.”
“For good reason, I feel certain.” Zebadiah stood back, went into hanging guard, made fast moulinets vertically, left and right, then horizontally clockwise and counterclockwise – suddenly dropped into swordsman’s guard – lunged and recovered, fast as a striking cat.
I said softly to Pop, “Did you notice?”
Pop answered quietly. “Know saber. Sword, too.”
Hilda said loudly, “Zebbie! You never told me you went to Heidelberg.”
“You never asked, Sharpie. Around the Red Ox they called me ‘The Scourge of the Neckar.'”
“What happened to your scars?”
“Never got any, dear. I hung around an extra year, hoping for one. But no one got through my guard – ever. Hate to think about how many German faces I carved into checkerboards.”
“Zebadiah, was that where you took your doctorate?”
My husband grinned and sat down, still wearing sword. “No, another school.”
“M.I.T.?” inquired Pop.
“Hardly. Pop, this should stay in the family. I undertook to prove that a man can get a doctorate from a major university without knowing anything and without adding anything whatever to human knowledge.”
“I think you have a degree in aerospace engineering,” Pop said flatly.
“I’ll concede that I have the requisite hours. I hold two degrees – a baccalaureate in humane arts… meaning I squeaked through… and a doctorate from an old and prestigious school – a Ph.D. in education.”
“Zebadiah! You wouldn’t!” (I was horrified.)
“But I did, Deety. To prove that degrees per se are worthless. Often they are honorifics of true scientists or learned scholars or inspired teachers. Much more frequently they are false faces for overeducated jackasses.”
Pop said, “You’ll get no argument from me, Zeb. A doctorate is a union card to get a tenured job. It does not mean that the holder thereof is wise or learned.”
“Yes, sir. I was taught it at my grandfather’s knee – my Grandfather Zachariah, the man responsible for the initial ‘Z’ in the names of his male descendants. Deety, his influence on me was so strong that I must explain him – no, that’s impossible; I must tell about him in order to explain me… and how I happened to take a worthless degree.”
Hilda said, “Deety, he’s pulling a long bow again.”
“Quiet, woman. ‘Get thee to a nunnery, go!”
“I don’t take orders from my step-son-in-law. Make that a monastery and I’ll consider it.”
I kept my blinkin’ mouf shut. My husband’s fibs entertain me. (If they are fibs.)
“Grandpa Zach was as cantankerous an old coot as you’ll ever meet. Hated government, hated lawyers, hated civil servants, hated preachers, hated automobiles, public schools, and telephones, was contemptuous of most editors, most writers, most professors, most of almost anything. But he overtipped waitresses and porters and would go out of his way to avoid stepping on an insect.
“Grandpa had three doctorates: biochemistry, medicine, and law – and he regarded anyone who couldn’t read Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and German as illiterate.”
“Zebbie, can you read all those?”
“Fortunately for me, my grandfather had a stroke while filling out a tax form before he could ask me that question. I don’t know Hebrew. I can read Latin, puzzle out Greek, speak and read French, read technical German, understand it in some accents, swear in Russian – very useful! – and speak an ungrammatical smattering of Spanish picked up in cantinas and from horizontal dictionaries.
“Grandpa would have classed me as subliterate as I don’t do any of these well – and I sometimes split infinitives which would have infuriated him. He practiced forensic medicine, medical jurisprudence, was an expert witness in toxicology, pathology, and traumatology, bullied judges, terrorized lawyers, medical students, and law students. He once threw a tax assessor out of his office and required him to return with a search warrant setting forth in detail its constitutional limitations, He regarded the income tax and the Seventeenth Amendment and the direct primary as signs of the decay of the Republic.”
“How did he feel about the Nineteenth?”
“Hilda, Grandpa Zach supported female suffrage. I remember hearing him say that if women were so dad-burned foolish as to want to assume the burden, they should be allowed to – they couldn’t do the country more harm than men had. ‘Votes for Women’ didn’t annoy him but nine thousand other things did. He lived at a slow simmer, always ready to break into a rolling boil.
“He had one hobby: collecting steel engravings.”
“‘Steel engravings’?” I repeated.
“Of dead presidents, my Princess. Especially of McKinley, Cleveland, and Madison – but he didn’t scorn those of Washington. He had that instinct for timing so necessary to a collector. In 1929 on Black Thursday he held not one share of common stock; instead he had sold short. When the 1933 Bank Holiday came along every old-dollar he owned, except current cash, was in Zurich in Swiss money. Eventually U.S. citizens were forbidden by ’emergency’ decree to own gold even abroad.
“Grandpa Zach ducked into Canada, applied for Swiss citizenship, got it, and thereafter split his time between Europe and America, immune to inflation and the confiscatory laws that eventually caused us to knock three zeros off the old-dollar in creating the newdollar.
“So he died rich, in Locarno – beautiful place; I stayed with him two summers as a boy. His will was probated in Switzerland and the U.S. Revenue Service could not touch it.
“Most of it was a trust with its nature known to his offspring before his death or I would not have been named Zebadiah.
“Female descendants got pro-rata shares of income with no strings attached but males had to have first names starting with ‘Z’ – and even that got them not one Swiss franc; there was a ‘Root, hog, or die!’ clause. Zachariah believed in taking care of daughters, but sons and grandsons had to go out and scratch, with no help from their fathers, until they had earned and saved on their own – or accumulated without going to jail – assets equal to one pro-rata share of the capital sum of the trust before they shared in the trust’s income.”
“Sexism,” said Aunt Hilda. “Raw, unadulterated sexism. Any FemLib gal would sneer at his dirty old money, on those terms.”
“Would you have refused it, Sharpie?”
“Me? Zebbie dear, are you feverish? I would have both greedy hands out. I’m strong for women’s rights but no fanatic. Sharpie wants to be pampered and that’s what men are best at – their natural function.”
“Pop, do you need help in coping with her?”
“No, Son. I like pampering Hilda. I don’t see you abusing my daughter.”
“I don’t dare; you told me she’s vicious at karate.” (I am good at karate; Pop made sure that I learned all the dirty fighting possible. But not against Zebadiah! If I ever do – Heaven forbid! – find myself opposed to my husband, I’ll quiver my chin and cry.)
“On my graduation from high school my father had a talk with me. ‘Zeb,’ he told me. ‘The time has come. I’ll put you through any school you choose. Or you can take what you have saved, strike out on your own, and try to qualify for a share in your grandfather’s will. Suit yourself, I shan’t influence you.’
“Folks, I had to think. My father’s younger brother was past forty and still hadn’t qualified. The size of the trust made a pro-rata of its assets amount to a requirement that a male descendant had to get rich on his own – well-to-do at least – whereupon he was suddenly twice as rich. But with over half of this country’s population living on the taxes of the lesser number it is not as easy to get rich as it was in Grandpa’s day.
“Turn down a paid-for education at Princeton, or M.I.T.? Or go out and try to get rich with nothing but a high school education? – I hadn’t learned much in high school; I had majored in girls.
“So I had to think hard and long. Almost ten seconds. I left home next day with one suitcase and a pitiful sum of money.
“Wound up on campus that had two things to recommend it: an Aerospace R.O.T.C. that would pick up part of my expenses, and a phys. ed. department willing to award me a jockstrap scholarship in exchange for daily bruises and contusions, plus all-out effort whenever we played. I took the deal.”
“What did you play?” asked my father.
“Football, basketball, and track – they would have demanded more had they been able to figure a way to do it.”
“I had thought you were going to mention fencing.”
“No, that’s another story. These did not quite close the gap. So I also waited tables for meals – food so bad the cockroaches ate out. But that closed the gap, and I added to it by tutoring in mathematics. That gave me my start toward piling up money to qualify.”
I asked, “Did tutoring math pay enough to matter? I tutored math before Mama died; the hourly rate was low.”
“Not that sort of tutoring, Princess. I taught prosperous young optimists not to draw to inside straights, and that stud poker is not a game of chance, but that craps is, controlled by mathematical laws that cannot be flouted with impunity. To quote Grandfather Zachariah, ‘A man who bets on greed and dishonesty won’t be wrong too often.’ There is an amazingly high percentage of greedy people and it is even easier to win from a dishonest gambler than it is from an honest one… and neither is likely to know the odds at craps, especially side bets, or all of the odds in poker, in particular how odds change according to the number of players, where one is seated in relation to the dealer, and how to calculate changes as cards are exposed in stud.
“That was also how I quit drinking, my darling, except for special celebrations. In every ‘friendly’ game some players contribute, some take a profit; a player determined to take a profit must be neither drunk nor tired. Pop, the shadows are growing long – I don’t think anybody wants to know how I got a worthless doctorate.”
“I do!” I put in. “Me, too!” echoed Aunt Hilda.
“Son, you’re outvoted.”
“Okay. Two years active duty after I graduated. Sky jockeys are even more optimistic than students and have more money – meanwhile I learned more math and engineering. Was sent inactive just in time to be called up again for the Spasm War. Didn’t get hurt, I was safer than civilians. But that kept me on another year even though fighting was mostly over before I reported in. That made me a veteran, with benefits. I went to Manhattan and signed up for school again. Doctoral candidate. School of Education. Not serious at first, simply intending to use my veteran’s benefits while enjoying the benefits of being a student – and devote most of my time to piling up cash to qualify for the trust.
“I knew that the stupidest students, the silliest professors, and the worst bull courses are concentrated in schools of education. By signing for large-class evening lectures and the unpopular eight a.m. classes I figured I could spend most of my time finding out how the stock market ticked. I did, by working there, before I risked a dime.
“Eventually I had to pick a research problem or give up the advantages of being a student. I was sick of a school in which the pie was all meringue and no filling but I stuck as I knew how to cope with courses in which the answers are matters of opinion and the opinion that counts is that of the professor. And how to cope with those large-class evening lectures: Buy the lecture notes. Read everything that professor ever published. Don’t cut too often and when you do show up, get there early, sit front row center, be certain the prof catches your eye every time he looks your way – by never taking your eyes off him. Ask one question you know he can answer because you’ve picked it out of his published papers – and state your name in asking a question. Luckily ‘Zebadiah Carter’ is a name easy to remember. Family, I got straight ‘A’s’ in both required courses and seminars… because I did not study ‘education,’ I studied professors of education.
“But I still had to make that ‘original contribution to human knowledge’ without which a candidate may not be awarded a doctor’s degree in most so-called disciplines… and the few that don’t require it are a tough row to hoe.
“I studied my faculty committee before letting myself be tied down to a research problem… not only reading everything each had published but also buying their publications or paying the library to make copies of out-of-print papers.”
My husband took me by my shoulders. “Dejah Thoris, here follows the title of my dissertation. You can have your divorce on your own terms.”
“Zebadiah, don’t talk that way!”
“Then brace yourself. ‘An Ad-Hoc Inquiry Concerning the Optimization of the Infrastructure of Primary Educational Institutions at the Interface Between Administration and Instruction, with Special Attention to Group Dynamics Desiderata.”
“Zebbie! What does that mean?”
“It means nothing, Hilda.”
“Zeb, quit kidding our ladies. Such a title would never be accepted.”
“Jake, it seems certain that you have never taken a course in a school of education.”
“Well… no. Teaching credentials are not required at university level but -“
“But me no ‘buts,’ Pop. I have a copy of my dissertation; you can check its authenticity. While that paper totally lacks meaning it is a literary gem in the sense in which a successful forging of an ‘old master’ is itself a work of art. It is loaded with buzz words. The average length of sentences is eighty-one words. The average word length, discounting ‘of,’ ‘a,’ ‘the,’ and other syntactical particles, is eleven-plus letters in slightly under four syllables. The bibliography is longer than the dissertation and cites three papers of each member of my committee and four of the chairman, and those citations are quoted in part – while avoiding any mention of matters on which I knew that members of the committee held divergent (but equally stupid) opinions.
“But the best touch was to get permission to do field work in Europe and have it count toward time on campus; half the citations were in foreign languages, ranging from Finnish to Croatian – and the translated bits invariably agreed with the prejudices of my committee. It took careful quoting out of context to achieve this, but it had the advantage that the papers were unlikely to be on campus and my committee were not likely to go to the trouble of looking them up even if they were. Most of them weren’t at home in other languages, even easy ones like French, German, and Spanish.
“But I did not waste time on phony field work; I simply wanted a trip to Europe at student air fares and the use of student hostels – dirt cheap way to travel. And a visit to the trustees of Grandpa’s fund.
“Good news! The fund was blue chips and triple-A bonds and, at that time, speculative stocks were rising. So the current cash value of the fund was down, even though income was up. And two more of my cousins and one uncle had qualified, again reducing the pro-rata… so, Glory Be! – I was within reaching distance. I had brought with me all that I had saved, swore before a notary that it was all mine, nothing borrowed, nothing from my father – and left it on deposit in Zurich, using the trustees as a front. And I told them about my stamp and coin collection.
“Good stamps and coins never go down, always up. I had nothing but proof sets, first-day covers, and unbroken sheets, all in perfect condition – and had a notarized inventory and appraisal with me. The trustees got me to swear that the items I had collected before I left home had come from earned money – true, the earliest items represented mowed lawns and such – and agreed to hold the pro-rata at that day’s cash value – lower if the trend continued – if I would sell my collection and send a draft to Zurich, with businesslike speed as soon as I returned to the States.
“I agreed. One trustee took me to lunch, tried to get me liquored up – then offered me ten percent over appraisal if I would sell that very afternoon, then send it to him by courier at his expense (bonded couriers go back and forth between Europe and America every week).
“We shook hands on it, went back and consulted the other trustees. I signed papers transferring title, the trustee buying signed his draft to me, I endorsed it to the trustees to add to the cash I was leaving in their custody. Three weeks later I got a cable certifying that the collection matched the inventory. I had qualified.
“Five months later I was awarded the degree of doctor of philosophy, summa cum laude, And that, dear ones, is the shameful story of my life, Anyone have the energy to go swimming?”
“Son, if there is a word of truth in that, it is indeed a shameful story.”
“Pop! That’s not fair! Zebadiah used their rules – and outsmarted them!”
“I didn’t say that Zeb had anything to be ashamed of. It is a commentary on American higher education. What Zeb claims to have written is no worse than trash I know is accepted as dissertations these days. His case is the only one I have encountered wherein an intelligent and able scholar – you, Zeb – set out to show that an ‘earned’ Ph.D. could be obtained from a famous institution – I know which one! – in exchange for deliberately meaningless pseudoresearch. The cases I have encountered have involved button-counting by stupid and humorless young persons under the supervision of stupid and humorless old fools. I see no way to stop it; the rot is too deep. The only answer is to chuck the system and start over.” My father shrugged. “Impossible.”
“Zebbie,” Aunt Hilda asked, “what do you do on campus? I’ve never asked.”
My husband grinned. “Oh, much what you do, Sharpie.”
“I don’t do anything. Enjoy myself.”
“Me, too. If you look, you will find me listed as ‘research professor in residence.’ An examination of the university’s books would show that I am paid a stipend to match my rank. Further search would show that slightly more than that amount is paid by some trustees in Zurich to the university’s general fund… as long as I remain on campus, a condition not written down. I like being on campus, Sharpie; it gives me privileges not granted the barbarians outside the pale. I teach a course occasionally, as supply for someone on sabbatical or ill.”
“Huh? What courses? What departments?”
“Any department but education. Engineering mathematics. Physics One-Oh-One. Thermogoddamics. Machine elements. Saber and dueling sword. Swimming. And – don’t laugh – English poetry from Chaucer through the Elizabethans. I enjoy teaching something worth teaching. I don’t charge for courses I teach; the Chancellor and I understand each other.”
“I’m not sure I understand you,” I said, “but I love you anyhow. Let’s go swimming.”

Chapter X

“‘ – and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon’!”

Zeb:
Before heading for the pool our wives argued over how Barsoomian warriors dress – a debate complicated by the fact that I was the only one fairly sober. While I was telling my “shameful story,” Jake had refreshed his Scotch-on-rocks and was genially argumentative, Our brides had stuck to one highball each but, while one jigger gave Deety a happy glow, Sharpie’s mass is so slight that the same dosage made her squiffed.
Jake and I agreed to wear side arms. Our princesses had buckled them on; we would wear them. But Deety wanted me to take off the grease-stained shorts I had worn while working. “Captain John Carter never wears clothes. He arrived on Barsoom naked, and from then on never wore anything but the leather and weapons of a fighting man. Jeweled leather for state occasions, plain leather for fighting – and sleeping silks at night. Barsoomians don’t wear clothes. When John Carter first laid eyes on Dejah Thoris,” Deety closed her eyes and recited: “‘She was as destitute of clothes as the Green Martians… save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked… ‘” Deety opened her eyes, stared solemnly. “The women never wear clothes, just jewelry.”
“Purty shilly,” said her father, with a belch. “Scuse me!”
“When they were chilly, they wrapped furs around them, Pop. I mean ‘Mors Kajak, my revered father.'”
Jake answered with slow precision. “Not… ‘chilly.’ Silly! With a clash of blades and flash of steel, man doesn’t want family treasures swinging in the breeze ‘n’ banging his knees. Distracts him. Might get ’em sliced off. Correc’, Captain John Carter?”
“Logical,” I agreed.
“Besides, illustrations showed men wearing breech clouts. Pro’ly steel jockstrap underneath. I would.”
“Those pictures were painted early in the twentieth century, Pop. Censored. But the stories make it clear. Weapons for men, jewelry for women – furs for cold weather.”
“I know how I should dress,” put in Sharpie. “Thuvia wears jewels on bits of gauze – I remember the book cover. Not clothes. Just something to fasten jewels to. Deety – Dejah Thoris, I mean – do you have a gauze scarf I can use? Fortunately I was wearing pearls when Mors Kajak kidnapped me.”
“Sharpie,” I objected, “you can’t be Thuvia. She married Carthoris. Mors Kajak – or Mors Kajake, might be a misspelling – is your husband.”
“Cer’nly Mors Jake is my husband! But I’m his second wife; that explains everything. But it ill becomes the Warlord to address a princess of the House of Ptarth as ‘Sharpie.” Mrs. Burroughs drew herself up to her full 152 centimeters and tried to look offended.
“My humble apologies, Your Highness.”
Sharpie giggled. “Can’t stay mad at our Warlord. Dejah Thoris hon – Green tulle? Blue? Anything but white.”
“I’ll go look.”
“Ladies,” I objected, “if we don’t get moving, the pool will cool off. You can sew on pearls this evening. Anyhow, where do pearls come from on Barsoom? Dead sea bottoms – no oysters.”
“From Korus, the Lost Sea of Dor,” Deety explained.
“They’ve got you, Son. But I either go swimming right now – or I have another drink… and then another, and then another. Working too hard. Too tense. Too much worry.”
“Okay, Pop; we swim. Aunt H – Aunt Thuvia?”
“All right, Dejah Thoris. To save Mors Jacob from himself. But I won’t wear earthling clothes. You can have my mink cape; may be chilly coming back.”
Jake wrapped his sarong into a breech clout, strapped it in place with his saber belt. I replaced those grimy shorts with swim briefs which Deety conceded were “almost Barsoomian.” I was no longer dependent on Jake’s clothes; my travel kit, always in my car, once I got at it, supplied necessities from passport to poncho. Sharpie wore pearls and rings she had been wearing at her party, plus a scarf around her waist to which she attached all the costume jewelry Deety could dig up. Deety carried Hilda’s mink cape – then wrapped it around her. “My Captain, someday I want one like this.”
“I’ll skin the minks personally,” I promised her.
“Oh, dear! I think this is synthetic.”
“I don’t. Ask Hilda.”
“I will most carefully not ask her. But I’ll settle for synthetic.”
I said, “My beloved Princess, you eat meat. Minks are vicious carnivores and the ones used for fur are raised for no other purpose – not trapped. They are well treated, then killed humanely. If your ancestors had not killed for meat and fur as the last glaciation retreated, you would not be here. Illogical sentiment leads to the sort of tragedy you find in India and Bangladesh.”
Deety was silent some moments as we followed Jake and Hilda down toward the pool. “My Captain -“
“Yes, Princess?”
“I stand corrected. But your brain works so much like a computer that you scare me.”
“I don’t ever want to scare you. I’m not bloodthirsty – not with minks, not with steers, not with anything. But I’ll kill without hesitation… for you.”
“Zebadiah -“
“Yes, Deety?”
“I am proud that you made me your wife. I will try to be a good wife… and your princess.”
“You do. You have. You always will. Dejah Thoris, my princess and only love, until I met you, I was a boy playing with oversized toys. Today I am a man. With a wife to protect and cherish… a child to plan for. I’m truly alive, at last! Hey! What are you sniffling about? Stop it!”
“I’ll cry if I feel like it!”
“Well… don’t get it on Hilda’s cape.”
“Gimme a hanky.”
“I don’t even have a Kleenex.” I brushed away her tears with my fingers. “Sniff hard. You can cry on me tonight. In bed.”
“Let’s go to bed early.”
“Right after dinner. Sniffles all gone?”
“I think so. Do pregnant women always cry?”
“So I hear.”
“Well… I’m not going to do it again. No excuse for it; I’m terribly happy.”
“The Polynesians do something they call ‘Crying happy.’ Maybe that’s what you do.”
“I guess so. But I’ll save it for private.” Deety started to shrug the cape off. “Too hot, lovely as it feels.” She stopped with the cape off her shoulders, suddenly pulled it around her again. “Who’s coming up the hill?”
I looked up, saw that Jake and Hilda had reached the pool – and a figure was appearing from below, beyond the boulder that dammed it.
“I don’t know. Stay behind me.” I hurried toward the pool.
The stranger was dressed as a Federal Ranger. As I closed in, I heard the stranger say to Jake, “Are you Jacob Burroughs?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Are you or aren’t you? If you are, I have business with you. If you’re not, you’re trespassing. Federal land, restricted access.”
“Jake!” I called out. “Who is he?”
The newcomer turned his head. “Who are you?”
“Wrong sequence,” I told him. “You haven’t identified yourself.”
“Don’t be funny,” the stranger said. “You know this uniform. I’m Bennie Hibol, the Ranger hereabouts.”
I answered most carefully, “Mr. Highball, you are a man in a uniform, wearing a gun belt and a shield. That doesn’t make you a Federal officer. Show your credentials and state your business.”
The uniformed character sighed. “I got no time to listen to smart talk.” He rested his hand on the butt of his gun. “If one of you is Burroughs, speak up. I’m going to search this site and cabin. There’s stuff coming up from Sonora; this sure as hell is the transfer point.”
Deety suddenly came out from behind me, moved quickly and placed herself beside her father. “Where’s your search warrant? Show your authority!” She had the cape clutched around her; her face quivered with indignation.
“Another joker!” This clown snapped open his holster. “Federal land – here’s my authority!”
Deety suddenly dropped the cape, stood naked in front of him. I drew, lunged, and cut down in one motion – slashed the wrist, recovered, thrust upward from low line into the belly above the gun belt.
As my point entered, Jake’s saber cut the side of the neck almost to decapitation. Our target collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, lay by the pool, bleeding at three wounds.
“Zebadiah, I’m sorry!”
“About what, Princess?” I asked as I wiped my blade on the alleged ranger’s uniform. I noticed the color of the blood with distaste.
“He didn’t react! I thought my strip act would give you more time.”
“You did distract him,” I reassured her. “He watched you and didn’t watch me. Jake, what kind of a creature has bluish green blood?”
“I don’t know.”
Sharpie came forward, squatted down, dabbed a finger in the blood, sniffed it. “Hemocyanin. I think,” she said calmly. “Deety, you were right. Alien. The largest terrestrial fauna with that method of oxygen transport is a lobster. But this thing is no lobster, it’s a ‘Black Hat.’ How did you know?”
“I didn’t. But he didn’t sound right. Rangers are polite. And they never fuss about showing their I.D.’s.”
“I didn’t know,” I admitted. “I wasn’t suspicious, just annoyed.”
“You moved mighty fast,” Jake approved.
“I never know why till it’s over. You didn’t waste time yourself, tovarishch. Drawing saber while he was pulling a gun – that takes guts and speed. But let’s not talk now – where are his pals? We may be picked off getting back to the house.”
“Look at his pants,” Hilda suggested. “He hasn’t been on horseback. Hasn’t climbed far, either. Jacob, is there a jeep trail?”
“No. This isn’t accessible by jeep – just barely by horse.”
“Hasn’t been anything overhead,” I added. “No chopper, no air car.”
“Continua craft,” said Deety.
“Huh?”
“Zebadiah, the ‘Black Hats’ are aliens who don’t want Pop to build a time-space machine. We know that. So it follows that they have continua craft.”
I thought about it. “Deety. I’m going to bring you breakfast in bed. Jake, how do we spot an alien continua craft? It doesn’t have to look like Gay Deceiver.”
Jake frowned. “No. Any shape. But a one-passenger craft might not be much larger than a phone booth.”
“If it’s a one-man – one-alien – job, it should be parked down in that scrub,” I said, pointing. “We can find it.”
“Zebadiah,” protested Deety, “we don’t have time to search. We ought to get out of here! Fast!”
Jake said, “My daughter is right but not for that reason. Its craft is not necessarily waiting. It could be parked an infinitesimal interval away along any of six axes, and either return automatically, preprogrammed, or by some method of signaling that we can postulate but not describe. The alien craft would not be here-now… but will be here-later. For pickup.”
“In that case, Jake, you and I and the gals should scram out of here-now to there-then. Be missing. How long has our pressure test been running? What time is it?”
“Seventeen-seventeen,” Deety answered instantly.
I looked at my wife. “Naked as a frog. Where do you hide your watch, dearest? Surely, not there.”
She stuck out her tongue. “Smarty. I have a clock in my head. I never mention it because people give me funny looks.”
“Deety does have innate time sense,” agreed her father, “accurate to thirteen seconds plus or minus about four seconds; I’ve measured it.”
“I’m sorry, Zebadiah – I don’t mean to be a freak.”
“Sorry about what, Princess? I’m impressed. What do you do about time zones?”
“Same as you do. Add or subtract as necessary. Darling, everyone has a built-in circadian. Mine is merely more nearly exact than most people’s. Like having absolute pitch – some do, some don’t.”
“Are you a lightning calculator?”
“Yes… but computers are so much faster that I no longer do it much. Except one thing – I can sense a glitch – spot a wrong answer. Then I look for garbage in the program. If I don’t find it, I send for a hardware specialist. Look, sweetheart, discuss my oddities later. Pop, let’s dump that thing down the septic tank and go. I’m nervous, I am.”
“Not so fast, Deety.” Hilda was still squatting by the corpse. “Zebbie. Consult your hunches. Are we in danger?”
“Well… not this instant.”
“Good. I want to dissect this creature.”
“Aunt Hilda!”
“Take a Miltown, Deety. Gentlemen, the Bible or somebody said, ‘Know thy enemy.’ This is the only ‘Black Hat’ we’ve seen… and he’s not human and not born on earth. There is a wealth of knowledge lying here and it ought not to be shoved down a septic tank until we know more about it. Jacob, feel this.”
Hilda’s husband got down on his knees, let her guide his hand through the “ranger’s” hair. “Feel those bumps, dearest?”
“Yes!”
“Much like the budding horns of a lamb, are they not?”
“Oh – ‘And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon’!”
I squatted down, felt for horn buds. “Be damned! He did come up out of the earth – up this slope anyhow – and he spake as a dragon. Talked unfriendly, and all the dragons I’ve ever heard of talked mean or belched fire. Hilda, when you field-strip this critter, keep an eye out for the Number of the Beast.”
“I shall! Who’s going to help me get this specimen up to the house? I want three volunteers.”
Deety gave a deep sigh, “I volunteer. Aunt Hilda… must you do this?”
“Deety, it ought to be done at Johns Hopkins, with x-ray and proper tools and color holovision. But I’m the best biologist for it because I’m the only biologist. Honey child, you don’t have to watch. Aunt Sharpie has helped in an emergency room after a five-car crash; to me, blood is just a mess to clean up. Green blood doesn’t bother me even that much.”
Deety gulped. “I’ll help carry. I said I would!”
“Dejah Thoris!”
“Sir? Yes, my Captain?”
“Back away from that. Take this. And this.” I unbuckled sword and belt, shoved down my swimming briefs, handed all of it to Deety. “Jake, help me get him up into fireman’s carry.”
“I’ll help carry, Son.”
“No, I can tote him easier than two could. Sharpie, where do you want to work?”
“It will have to be the dining table.”
“Aunt Hilda, I don’t want that thing on my – ! I beg your pardon; it’s your dining table.”
“You’re forgiven only if you’ll concede that it is our dining table. Deety, how many times must I repeat that I am not crowding you out of your home? We are co-housewives – my only seniority lies in being twenty years older. To my regret.”
“Hilda my dear one, what would you say to a workbench in the garage with a drop cloth on it and flood lights over it?”
“I say, ‘Swell!’ I don’t think a dining table is the place for a dissection, either. But I couldn’t think of anywhere else.”
With help from Jake, I got that damned carcass draped across my shoulders in fireman’s carry. Deety started up the path with me, carrying my belt and sword and my briefs in one arm so that she could hold my free hand – despite my warning that she might be splashed with alien blood. “No, Zebadiah, I got overtaken by childishness. I won’t let it happen again. I must conquer all squeamishness – I’ll be changing diapers soon.” She was silent a moment. “That is the first time I’ve seen death. In a person, I mean. An alien humanoid person I should say… but I thought he was a man. I once saw a puppy run over – I threw up. Even though it was not my puppy and I didn’t go close.” She added, “An adult should face up to death, should she not?”
“Face up to it, yes,” I agreed. “But not grow calloused. Deety, I’ve seen too many men die. I’ve never grown inured to it. One must accept death, learn not to fear it, then never worry about it. ‘Make Today Count!’ as a friend whose days are numbered told me. Live in that spirit and when death comes, it will come as a welcome friend.”
“You say much what my mother told me before she died.”
“Your mother must have been an extraordinary woman. Deety, in the two weeks I’ve known you, I’ve heard so much about her from all three of you that I feel as if I knew her. A friend I hadn’t seen lately. She sounds like a wise woman.”
“I think she was, Zebadiah. Certainly she was good. Sometimes, when I have a hard choice, I ask myself, ‘What would Mama do?’ – and everything falls into place.”
“Both good and wise… and her daughter shows it. Uh, how old are you, Deety?”
“Does it matter, sir?”
“No. Curiosity.”
“I wrote my birth date on our marriage license application.”
“Beloved, my head was spinning so hard that I had trouble remembering my own. But I should not have asked – women have birthdays, men have ages. I want to know your birthday; I have no need to know the year.”
“April twenty-second, Zebadiah – one day older than Shakespeare.”
“‘Age could not wither her – ‘ Woman, you carry your years well.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“That snoopy question came from having concluded in my mind that you were twenty-six… figuring from the fact that you have a doctor’s degree. Although you look younger.”
“I think twenty-six is a satisfactory age.”
“I wasn’t asking,” I said hastily. “I got confused from knowing Hilda’s age… then hearing her say that she is – or claims to be – twenty years older than you. It did not jibe with my earlier estimate, based on your probable age on graduating from high school plus your two degrees.”
Jake and Hilda had lingered at the pool while Jake washed his hands and rinsed from his body smears of alien ichor. Being less burdened, they climbed the path faster than we and came up behind us just as Deety answered,
“Zebadiah, I never graduated from high school.”
“Oh.”
“That’s right,” agreed her father. “Deety matriculated by taking College Boards. At fourteen. No problem since she stayed home and didn’t have to live in a dorm. Got her B.S. in three years… and that was a happy thing, as Jane lived to see Deety move the tassel from one side of her mortar board to the other. Jane in a wheelchair and happy as a child – her doctor said it couldn’t hurt her… meaning she was dying anyhow.” He added, “Had her mother been granted only three more years she could have seen Deety’s doctorate conferred, two years ago.”
“Pop… sometimes you chatter.”
“Did I say something out of line?”
“No, Jake,” I assured him. “But I’ve just learned that I robbed the cradle. I knew I had but hadn’t realized how much. Deety darling, you are twenty-two.”
“Is twenty-two an unsatisfactory age?”
“No, my Princess. Just right.”
“My Captain said that women have birthdays while men have ages. Is it permitted to inquire your age, sir? I didn’t pay close attention to that form we had to fill out, either.”
I answered solemnly. “But Dejah Thoris knows that Captain John Carter is centuries old, cannot recall his childhood, and has always looked thirty years old.”
“Zebadiah, if that is your age, you’ve had a busy thirty years. You said you left home when you graduated from high school, worked your way through college, spent three years on active duty, then worked your way through a doctor’s degree -“
“A phony one!”
“That doesn’t reduce required residence. Aunt Hilda says you’ve been a professor four years.”
“Uh… will you settle for nine years older than you are?”
“I’ll settle for whatever you say.”
“He’s at it again,” put in Sharpie. “He was run off two other campuses. Co-ed scandals. Then he found that in California nobody cared, so he moved west.”
I tried to look hurt. “Sharpie darling, I always married them. One gal turned out already to be married and in the other case the child wasn’t mine; she slipped one over on me.”
“The truth isn’t in him, Deety. But he’s brave and he bathes every day and he’s rich – and we love him anyhow.”
“The truth isn’t in you either, Aunt Hilda. But we love you anyhow. It says in ‘Little Women’ that a bride should be half her husband’s age plus seven years. Zebadiah and I hit close to that.”
“A rule that makes an old hag out of me. Jacob, I’m just Zebbie’s age – thirty-one. But we’ve both been thirty-one for ages.”
“I’ll bet he does feel aged after carrying that thing uphill. Atlas, can you support your burden while I get the garage open, a bench dragged out and covered? Or shall I help you put it down?”
“I’d just have to pick it up again. But don’t dally.”

Chapter XI

” – citizens must protect themselves.”

Zeb:
I felt better after I got that “ranger’s” corpse dumped and the garage door closed, everyone indoors. I had told Hilda that I felt no “immediate” danger – but my wild talent does not warn me until the Moment of Truth. The “Blokes in the Black Hats” had us located. Or possibly had never lost us; what applies to human gangsters has little to do with aliens whose powers and motives and plans we had no way to guess.
We might be as naive as a kitten who thinks he is hidden because his head is, unaware that his little rump sticks out.
They were alien, they were powerful, they were multiple (three thousand? three million? – we didn’t know the Number of the Beast) – and they knew where we were. True, we had killed one – by luck, not by planning. That “ranger” would be missed; we could expect more to call in force.
Foolhardiness has never appealed to me. Given a chance to run, I run. I don’t mean I’ll bug out on wing mate when the unfriendlies show up, and certainly not on a wife and unborn child. But I wanted us all to run – me, my wife, my blood brother who was also my father-in-law, and his wife, my chum Sharpie who was brave, practical, smart, and unsqueamish (that she would joke in the jaws of Moloch was not a fault but a source of esprit).
I wanted us to go! – Tau axis, Teh axis, rotate, translate, whatever – anywhere not infested by gruesomes with green gore.
I checked the gauge and felt better; Gay’s inner pressure had not dropped. Too much to expect Gay to be a spaceship – not equipped to scavenge and replenish air. But it was pleasant to know that she would hold pressure much longer than it would take us to scram for home if we had to – assuming that unfriendlies had not shot holes in her graceful shell.
I went by the inside passageway into the cabin, used soap and hot water, rinsed off and did it again, dried down and felt clean enough to kiss my wife, which I did. Deety held onto me and reported.
“Your kit is packed, sir. I’m finishing mine, the planned weight and space, and nothing but practical clothes -“
“Sweetheart.”
“Yes, Zebadiah?”
“Take the clothes you were married in and mine too. Same for Jake and Hilda. And your father’s dress uniform. Or was it burned in Logan?”
“But, Zebadiah, you emphasized rugged clothes.”
“So I did. To keep your mind on the fact that we can’t guess the conditions we’ll encounter and don’t know how long we’ll be gone or if we’ll be back. So I listed everything that might be useful in pioneering a virgin planet – since we might be stranded and never get home. Everything from Jake’s microscope and water-testing gear to technical manuals and tools. And weapons – and flea powder. But it’s possible that we will have to play the roles of ambassadors for humanity at the court of His Extreme Majesty, Overlord of Galactic Empires in thousandth-and-third continuum. We may need the gaudiest clothes we can whip up. We don’t know, we can’t guess.”
“I’d rather pioneer.”
“We may not have a choice. When you were figuring weights, do you recall spaces marked ‘Assigned mass such and such – list to come’?”
“Certainly. Total exactly one hundred kilos, which seemed odd. Space slightly less than one cubic meter split into crannies.”
“Those are yours, snubnose. And Pop or Hilda. Mass can be up to fifty percent over; I’ll tell Gay to trim to match. Got an old doll? A security blanket? A favorite book of poems? Scrapbook? Family photographs? Bring ’em all!”
“Golly!” (I never enjoy looking at my wife quite so much as when she lights up and is suddenly a little girl.)
“Don’t leave space for me. I have only what I arrived with. What about shoes for Hilda?”
“She claims she doesn’t need any, Zebadiah – that her calluses are getting calluses on them. But I’ve worked out expedients. I got Pop some Dr. Scholl’s shoe liners when we were building; I have three pairs left and can trim them. Liners and enough bobby sox make her size three-and-half feet fit my clodhoppers pretty well. And I have a sentimental keepsake; Keds Pop bought me when I first went to summer camp, at ten. They fit Aunt Hilda.”
“Good girl!” I added, “You seem to have everything in hand. How about food? Not stores we are carrying, I mean now. Has anybody thought about dinner? Killing aliens makes me hungry.”
“Buffet style, Zebadiah. Sandwiches and stuff on the kitchen counter, and I thawed and heated an apple pie. I fed one sandwich to Hilda, holding it for her; she says she’s going to finish working, then scrub before she eats anything more.”
“Sharpie munched a sandwich while she carved that thing?”
“Aunt Hilda is rugged, Zebadiah – almost as rugged as you are.”
“More rugged than I am. I could do an autopsy if I had to – but not while eating. I think I speak for Jake, too.”
“I know you speak for Pop. He saw me feeding her, turned green and went elsewhere. Go look at what she’s been doing, Zebadiah; Hilda has found interesting things.”
“Hmmm – Are you the little girl who had a tizzy at the idea of dissecting a dead alien?”
“No, sir, I am not. I’ve decided to stay grown up. It’s not easy. But it’s more satisfying. An adult doesn’t panic at a snake; she just checks to see if it’s got rattles. I’ll never squeal again. I’m grown up at last… a wife instead of a pampered princess.”
“You will always be my Princess!”
“I hope so, my Chieftain. But to merit that, I must learn to be a pioneer mother – wring the neck of a rooster, butcher a hog, load while my husband shoots, take his place and his rifle when he is wounded. I’ll learn – I’m stubborn, I am. Grab a hunk of pie and go see Hilda. I know just what to do with the extra hundred kilos: books, photographs, Pop’s microfilm files and portable viewer, Pop’s rifle and a case of ammo that the weight schedule didn’t allow for -“
“Didn’t know he had it – what calibre?”
“Seven point six two millimeters, long cartridge.”
“Glory be! Pop and I use the same ammo!”
“Didn’t know you carried a rifle, Zebadiah.”
“I don’t advertise it, it’s unlicensed. I must show all of you how to get at it.”
“Got any use for a lady’s purse gun? A needle gun, Skoda fléchettes. Not much range but either they poison or they break up and expand… and it fires ninety times on one magazine.”
“What are you, Deety? Honorable Hatchet Man?”
“No, sir. Pop got it for me – black market – when I started working nights. He said he would rather hire shysters to get me acquitted – or maybe probation – than to have to go down to the morgue to identify my body. Haven’t had to use it; in Logan I hardly need it. Zebadiah, Pop has gone to a great deal of trouble to get me the best possible training in self-defense. He’s just as highly trained – that’s why I keep him out of fist fights. Because it would be a massacre. He and Mama decided this when I was a baby. Pop says cops and courts no longer protect citizens, so citizens must protect themselves.”
“I’m afraid he’s right.”
“My husband, I can’t evaluate my opinions of right and wrong because I learned them from my parents and haven’t lived long enough to have formed opinions in disagreement with theirs.”
“Deety, your parents did okay.”
“I think so… but that’s subjective. As may be, I was kept out of blackboard jungles – public schools – until we moved to Utah. And I was trained to fight – armed or unarmed. Pop and I noticed how you handled a sword. Your moulinets are like clockwork. And when you drop into point guard, your forearm is perfectly covered.”
“Jake is no slouch. He drew so fast I never saw it, and cut precisely above the collar.”
“Pop says you are better at it.”
“Mmm – Longer reach. He’s probably faster. Deety, the best swordmaster I ever had was your height and reach. I couldn’t even cross blades with him unless he allowed me to.”
“You never did say where you had taken up swordsmanship.”
I grinned down at her. “Y.M.C.A. in downtown Manhattan. I had foil in high school. I fiddled with saber and épée in college. But I never encountered swordsmen until I moved to Manhattan. Took it up because I was getting soft. Then during that so-called ‘research trip’ in Europe I met swordsmen with family tradition – sons and grandsons and great-grandsons of maîtres d’armes. Learned that it was a way of life – and I had started too late. Deety, I fibbed to Hilda; I’ve never fought a student duel. But I did train in saber in Heidelberg under the Säbelmeister reputed to coach one underground Korps. He was the little guy I couldn’t cross steel with. Fast! Up to then I had thought I was fast. But I got faster under his tutelage. The day I was leaving he told me that he wished he had had me twenty years sooner; he might have made a swordsman of me.”
“You were fast enough this afternoon!”
“No, Deety. You had his eye, I attacked from the flank. You won that fight – not me, not Pop. Although what Pop did was far more dangerous than what I did.”
“My Captain, I will not let you disparage yourself! I cannot hear you!”
Women, bless their warm hearts and strange minds – Deety had appointed me her hero; that settled it. I would have to try to measure up. I cut a piece of apple pie, ate it quickly while I walked slowly through the passage into the garage – didn’t want to reach the “morgue” still eating.
The “ranger” was on its back with clothes cut away, open from chin to crotch, and spread. Nameless chunks of gizzard were here and there around the cadaver. It gave off a fetid odor.
Hilda was still carving, ice tongs in left hand, knife in her right, greenish goo up over her wrists. As I approached she put down the knife, picked up a razor blade – did not look up until I spoke. “Learning things, Sharpie?”
She put down her tools, wiped her hands on a towel, pushed back her hair with her forearm. “Zebbie, you wouldn’t believe it.”
“Try me.”
“Well… look at this.” She touched the corpse’s right leg, and spoke to the corpse itself. “What’s a nice joint like this doing in a girl like you?”
I saw what she meant: a long, gaunt leg with an extra knee lower than the human knee; it bent backwards. Looking higher, I saw that its arms had similar extra articulation. “Did you say ‘girl’?”
“I said ‘girl.’ Zebbie, this monster is either female or hermaphroditic. A fully developed uterus, two-horned like a cat, one ovary above each horn. But there appear to be testes lower down and a dingus that may be a retractable phallus. Female – but probably male as well. Bisexual but does not impregnate itself; the plumbing wouldn’t hook up. I think these critters can both pitch and catch.”
“Taking turns? Or simultaneously?”
“Wouldn’t that be sump’n? No, for mechanical reasons I think they take turns. Whether ten minutes apart or ten years, deponent sayeth not. But I’d give a pretty to see two of ’em going to it!”
“Sharpie, you’ve got a one-track mind.”
“It’s the main track. Reproduction is the main track; the methods and mores of sexual copulation are the central feature of all higher developments of life.”
“You’re ignoring money and television.”
“Piffle! All human activities including scientific research are either mating dances and care of the young, or the dismal sublimations of born losers in the only game in town. Don’t try to kid Sharpie. Took me forty-two years to grab a real man and get myself knocked up – but I made it! Everything I’ve done up to the last two weeks has been ‘vamp till ready.’ How about you, you shameless stud? Am I not right? Careful how you answer; I’ll tell Deety.”
“I’ll take the Fifth.”
“Make mine a quart. Zebbie, I hate these monsters; they interfere with my plans – a rose-covered cottage, a baby in the crib, a pot roast in the oven, me in a gingham dress, and my man coming down the lane after a hard day flunking freshmen – me with his slippers and his pipe and a dry martini waiting for him. Heaven! All else is vanity and vexation. Four fully developed mammary glands but lacking the redundant fat characteristic of the human female – ‘cept me, damn it. A double stomach, a single intestine. A two-compartment heart that seems to pump by peristalsis rather than by beating. Cordate. I haven’t examined the brain; I don’t have a proper saw – but it must be as well developed as ours. Definitely humanoid, outrageously nonhuman. Don’t knock over those bottles; they are specimens of body fluids.”
“What are these things?”
“Splints to conceal the unhuman articulation. Plastic surgery on the face, too, I’m pretty sure, and cheaters to reshape the skull. The hair is fake; these Boojums don’t have hair. Something like tattooing – or maybe masking I haven’t been able to peel off – to make the face and other exposed skin look human instead of blue-green. Zeb, seven-to-two a large number of missing persons have been used as guinea pigs before they worked out methods for this masquerade. Swoop! A flying saucer dips down and two more guinea pigs wind up in their laboratories.”
“There hasn’t been a flying saucer scare in years.”
“Poetic license, dear. If they have space-time twisters, they can pop up anywhere, steal what they want – or replace a real human with a convincing fake – and be gone like switching off a light.”
“This one couldn’t get by very long. Rangers have to take physical examinations.”
“This one may be a rush job, prepared just for us. A permanent substitution might fool anything but an x-ray – and might fool even x-ray if the doctor giving the examination was one of Them … a theory you might think about. Zebbie, I must get to work. There is so much to learn and so little time. I can’t learn a fraction of what this carcass could tell a real comparative biologist.”
“Can I help?” (I was not anxious to.)
“Well -“
“I haven’t much to do until Jake and Deety finish assembling the last of what they are going to take. So what can I do to help?”
“I could work twice as fast if you would take pictures. I have to stop to wipe my hands before I touch the camera.”
“I’m your boy, Sharpie. Just say what angle, distance, and when.”
Hilda looked relieved. “Zebbie, have I told you that I love you despite your gorilla appearance and idiot grin? Underneath you have the soul of a cherub. I want a bath so badly I can taste it – could be the last hot bath in a long time. And the bidet – the acme of civilized decadence. I’ve been afraid I would still be carving strange meat when Jacob said it was time to leave.”
“Carve away, dear; you’ll get your bath.” I picked up the camera, the one Jake used for record-keeping: a Polaroid Stereo-Instamatic-self-focusing, automatic irising, automatic processing, the perfect camera for engineer or scientist who needs a running record.
I took endless pictures while Hilda sweated away. “Sharpie, doesn’t it worry you to work with bare hands? You might catch the Never-Get-Overs.”
“Zebbie, if these critters could be killed by our bugs, they would have arrived here with no immunities and died quickly. They didn’t. Therefore it seems likely that we can’t by hurt by their bugs. Radically different biochemistries.”
It sounded logical – but I could not forget Kettering’s Law: “Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.”
Deety appeared, set down a loaded hamper. “That’s the last.” She had her hair up in a bath knot and was dressed solely in rubber gloves. “Hi, dearest. Aunt Hilda, I’m ready to help.”
“Not much you can do, Deety hon – unless you want to relieve Zebbie.”
Deety was staring at the corpse and did not look happy – her nipples were down flat. “Go take a bath!” I told her. “Scram.”
“Do I stink that badly?”
“You stink swell, honey girl. But Sharpie pointed out that this may be our last chance at soap and hot water in quite a while. I’ve promised her that we won’t leave for Canopus and points east until she has her bath. So get yours out of the way, then you can help me stow while she gets sanitary.”
“All right.” Deety backed off and her nipples showed faintly – not rigid but she was feeling better. My darling keeps her feelings out of her face, mostly – but those pretty pink spigots are barometers of her morale.
“Just a sec, Deety,” Hilda added. “This afternoon you said, ‘He didn’t react!’ What did you mean?”
“What I said. Strip in front of a man and he reacts, one way or another. Even if he tries to ignore it, his eyes give him away. But he didn’t. Of course he’s not a man – but I didn’t know that when I tried to distract him.”
I said, “But he did notice you, Deety – and that gave me my chance.”
“But only the way a dog, or a horse, or any animal, will notice any movement. He noticed but ignored it. No reaction.”
“Zebbie, does that remind you of anything?”
“Should it?”
“The first day we were here you told us a story about a ‘zaftig co-ed.'”
“I did?”
“She was flunking math.”
“Oh! ‘Brainy.'”
“Yes, Professor N. O’Heret Brain. See any parallel?”
“But ‘No Brain’ has been on campus for years. Furthermore he turns red in the face. Not a tattoo job.”
“I said this one might be a rush job. Would anyone be in a better position to discredit a mathematical theory than the head of the department of mathematics at a very prominent university? Especially if he was familiar with that theory and knew that it was correct?”
“Hey, wait a minute!” put in Deety. “Are you talking about that professor who argued with Pop? The one with the phony invitation? I thought he was just a stooge? Pop says he’s a fool.”
“He behaves like a pompous old fool,” agreed Hilda. “I can’t stand him. I plan to do an autopsy on him.”
“But he’s not dead.”
“That can be corrected!” Sharpie said sharply.

Chapter XII

“They might fumigate this planet and take it.”

Hilda:
By the time I was out of my bath, Jacob, Deety, and Zebbie had Gay Deceiver stowed and lists checked (can opener, cameras, et cetera) – even samples of fluids and tissues from the cadaver, as Zebbie’s miracle car had a small refrigerator. Deety wasn’t happy about my specimens being in the refrigerator but they were very well packed, layer on layer of plastic wrap, then sealed into a freezer box. Besides, that refrigerator contained mostly camera film, dynamite caps, and other noneatables. Food was mostly freeze-dried and sealed in nitrogen, except foods that won’t spoil.
We were dog tired. Jacob moved that we sleep, then leave. “Zeb, unless you expect a new attack in the next eight hours, we should rest. I need to be clearheaded in handling verniers. This house is almost a fortress, will be pitch black, and does not radiate any part of the spectrum. They may conclude that we ran for it right after we got their boy – hermaphrodite, I mean; the fake ‘ranger’ – what do you think?”
“Jake, I wouldn’t have been surprised had we been clobbered at any moment. Since they didn’t – Well, I don’t like to handle Gay when I’m not sharp. More mistakes are made in battle through fatigue than from any other cause. Let’s sack in. Anybody need a sleeping pill?”
“All I need is a bed. Hilda my love, tonight I sleep on my own side.”
I said, “Can’t I even cuddle up your back?”
“Promise not to tickle?”
I made a face at my darling. “I promise.”
“Zebadiah,” Deety said. “I don’t want to cuddle; I want to be held… so I’ll know I’m safe. For the first time since my twelfth birthday I don’t feel sexy.”
“Princess, it’s settled; we sleep. But I suggest that we be up before daylight. Let’s not crowd our luck.”
“Sensible,” agreed Jacob.
I shrugged. “You men have to pilot; Deety and I are cargo. We can nap in the back seats – if we miss a few universes, what of it? If you’ve seen one universe, you’ve seen ’em all. Deety?”
“If it were up to me, I would lam out of here so fast my shoes would be left standing. But Zebadiah has to pilot and Pop has to set verniers… and both are tired and don’t want to chance it. But, Zebadiah… don’t fret if I rest with my eyes and ears open.”
“Huh? Deety – why?”
“Somebody ought to be on watch. It might give us that split-second advantage – split seconds have saved us at least twice. Don’t worry, darling; I often skip a night to work a long program under shared time. Doesn’t hurt me; a nap next day and I’m ready to bite rattlesnakes. Tell him, Pop.”
“That’s correct, Zeb, but -“
Zebbie cut him off. “Maybe you gals can split watches and have breakfast ready. Right now I’ve got to hook up Gay Deceiver so that she can reach me in our bedroom. Deety, I can add a program so that she can listen around the cabin, too. Properly programmed, Gay’s the best watch dog of any of us. Will that satisfy you duty-struck little broads?”
Deety said nothing so I kept quiet. Zebbie, frowning, turned back to his car, opened a door and prepared to hook Gay’s voice and ears to the three house intercoms. “Want to shift the basement talky-talk to your bedroom, Jake?”
“Good idea,” Jacob agreed.
“Wait a half while I ask Gay what she has. Hello, Gay.”
“Howdy, Zeb. Wipe off your chin.”
“Program. Running new retrievals. Report new items since last report.”
“Null report, Boss.”
“Thank you, Gay.”
“You’re welcome, Zeb.”
“Program, Gay. Add running news retrieval. Area, Arizona Strip north of Grand Canyon plus Utah. Persons: all persons listed in current running news retrieval programs plus rangers, Federal rangers, forest rangers, park rangers, state rangers. End of added program.”
“New program running, Boss.”
“Program. Add running acoustic report, maximum gain.”
“New program running, Zeb.”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“Isn’t it time you married me?”
“Good night, Gay.”
“Good night, Zeb. Sleep with your hands outside the covers.”
“Deety, you’ve corrupted Gay. I’ll run a lead outdoors for a microphone while Jake moves the basement intercom to the master bedroom. But maximum gain will put a coyote yapping ten miles away right into bed with you. Jake, I can tell Gay to subtract acoustic report from the news retrieval for your bedroom.”
“Hilda my love, do you want the acoustic subtracted?”
I didn’t but didn’t say so; Gay interrupted:
“Running news retrieval, Boss.”
“Report!”
“Reuters, Straits Times, Singapore. Tragic News of Marston Expedition. Indonesian News Service, Palembang. Two bodies identified as Dr. Cecil Yang and Dr. Z. Edward Carter were brought by jungle buggy to National Militia Headquarters, Telukbetung. The district commandant stated that they will be transferred by air to Palembang for further transport to Singapore when the commandant-in-chief releases them to the Minister of Tourism and Culture. Professor Marston and Mr. Smythe-Belisha are still unreported. Commandants of both districts concede that hopes of finding them alive have diminished. However, a spokesman for the Minister of Tourism and Culture assured a press conference that the Indonesian government would pursue the search more assiduously than ever.”
Zebbie whistled tunelessly. Finally, he said, “Opinions, anyone?”
“He was a brilliant man, Son,” my husband said soberly. “An irreplaceable loss. Tragic.”
“Ed was a good Joe, Jake. But that’s not what I mean. Our tactical situation. Now. Here.”
My husband paused before answering, “Zeb, whatever happened in Sumatra apparently happened about a month ago. Emotionally I feel great turmoil. Logically I am forced to state that I cannot see that our situation has changed.”
“Hilda? Deety?”
“News retrieval report,” announced Gay.
“Report!”
“AP San Francisco via satellite from Saipan, Marianas. TWA hypersonicsemiballistic liner Winged Victory out of San Francisco International at twenty o’clock this evening Pacific Coast Time was seen by eye and radar to implode on reentry. AP Honolulu US Navy Official. USS Submersible Carrier Flying Fish operating near Wake Island has been ordered to proceed flank speed toward site of Winged Victory reentry. She will surface and launch search craft at optimum point. Navy PIO spokesman, when asked what was ‘optimum,’ replied ‘No comment.’ Associated Press’s military editor noted that submerged speed of Flying Fish class, and type and characteristics of craft carried, are classified information. AP-UPI add San Francisco, Winged Victory disaster. TWA public relations released a statement quote if reports received concerning Winged Victory are correct it must be tentatively assumed that no survivors can be expected. But our engineering department denies that implosion could be cause. Collision with orbital debris decaying into atmosphere or even a strike by a meteor could repeat could endrep cause disaster by mischance so unlikely that it can only be described as an Act of God endquote TWA spokesmen released passenger list by order of the Civil Aerospace Board. List follows: California -“
The list was longish. I did not recognize any names until Gay reached: “Doctor Neil O. Brain -“
I gasped. But no one said a word until Gay announced:
“End running news retrieval.”
“Thank you, Gay.”
“A pleasure, Zeb.”
Zebbie said, “Professor?”
“You’re in command, Captain!”
“Very well, sir! All of you – lifeboat rules! I expect fast action and no back talk. Estimated departure – five minutes! First everybody take a pee! Second, put on the clothes you’ll travel in. Jake, switch off, lock up – whatever you do to secure your house for long absence. Deety – follow Jake, make sure he hasn’t missed anything – then you, not Jake, switch out lights and close doors. Hilda, bundle what’s left of that Dutch lunch and fetch it – fast, not fussy. Check the refrigerator for solid foods – no liquids – and cram what you can into Gay’s refrigerator. Don’t dither over choices. Questions, anyone? Move!”
I gave Jacob first crack at our bathroom because the poor dear tenses up; I used the time to slide sandwiches into a freezer sack and half a pie into another. Potato salad? Scrape it into a third and stick in one plastic picnic spoon; germs were now community property. I stuffed this and some pickles into the biggest freezer sack Deety stocked, and closed it.
Jake came out of our bedroom; I threw him a kiss en passant, ducked into our john, turned on water in the basin, sat down, and recited mantras – that often works when I’m jumpy – then used the bidet – patted it and told it goodbye without stopping. My travel clothes were Deety’s baby tennis shoes with a green-and-gold denim miniskirt dress of hers that came to my knees but wasn’t too dreadful with a scarf to belt it. Panties? I had none. Deety had put a pair of hers out for me – but her size would fall off me. Then I saw that the dear baby had gotten at the elastic and knotted it. Yup! pretty good fit – and, with no telling when our next baths would be, panties were practical even though a nuisance.
I spread my cape in front of the refrigerator, dumped my purse and our picnic lunch into it, started salvaging – half a boned ham, quite a bit of cheese, a loaf and a half of bread, two pounds of butter (freezer sacks, and the same for the ham – if Deety hadn’t had a lavish supply of freezer sacks I could not have salvaged much – as it was, I didn’t even get spots on my cape). I decided that jams and jellies and catsup were liquid within Zebbie’s meaning – except some in squeeze tubes. Half a chocolate cake, and the cupboard was bare.
By using my cape as a Santa Claus pack, I carried food into the garage and put it down by Gay – and was delighted to find that I was first.
Zebbie strode in behind me, dressed in a coverall with thigh pockets, a pilot suit. He looked at the pile on my cape. “Where’s the elephant, Sharpie?”
“Cap’n Zebbie, you didn’t say how much, you just said what. What won’t go she can have.” I hooked a thumb at the chopped-up corpse.
“Sorry, Hilda; you are correct.” Zebbie glanced at his wrist watch, the multiple-dial sort they call a “navigator’s watch.”
“Cap’n, this house has loads of gimmicks and gadgets and bells and whistles. You gave them an impossible schedule.”
“On purpose, dear. Let’s see how much food we can stow.”
Gay’s cold chest is set flush in the deck of the driver’s compartment. Zebbie told Gay to open up, then with his shoulders sideways, reached down and unlocked it. “Hand me stuff.”
I tapped his butt. “Out of there, you overgrown midget, and let Sharpie pack. I’ll let you know when it’s tight as a girdle.”
Space that makes Zebbie twist and grunt is roomy for me. He passed things in, I fitted them for maximum stowage. The third item he handed me was the leavings of our buffet dinner. “That’s our picnic lunch,” I told him, putting it on his seat.
“Can’t leave it loose in the cabin.”
“Cap’n, we’ll eat it before it can spoil. I will be strapped down; is it okay if I clutch it to my bosom?”
“Sharpie, have I ever won an argument with you?”
“Only by brute force, dear. Can the chatter and pass the chow.”
With the help of God and a shoehorn it all went in. I was in a back seat with our lunch in my lap and my cape under me before our spouses showed up. “Cap’n Zebbie? Why did the news of Brainy’s death cause your change of mind?”
“Do you disapprove, Sharpie?”
“On the contrary, Skipper. Do you want my guess?”
“Yes.”
“Winged Victory was booby-trapped. And dear Doctor Brain, who isn’t the fool I thought he was, was not aboard. Those poor people were killed so that he could disappear.”
“Go to the head of the class, Sharpie. Too many coincidences… and they – the ‘Blokes in the Black Hats’ – know where we are.”
“Meaning that Professor No Brain, instead of being dead in the Pacific, might show up any second.”
“He and a gang of green-blooded aliens who don’t like geometers.”
“Zebbie, what do you figure their plans are?”
“Can’t guess. They might fumigate this planet and take it. Or conquer us as cattle or as slaves. The only data we have is that they are alien, that they are powerful – and that they have no compunction about killing us. So I have no compunction about killing them. To my regret, I don’t know how. So I’m running – running scared – and taking the three I’m certain are in danger with me.”
“Will we ever be able to find them and kill them?”
Zebbie didn’t answer because Deety and my Jacob arrived, breathless. Father and daughter were in jump suits. Deety looked chesty and cute; my darling looked trim – but worried. “We’re late. Sorry!”
“You’re not late,” Zeb told them. “But into your seats on the bounce.”
“As quick as I open the garage door and switch out the lights.”
“Jake, Jake – Gay is now programmed to do those things herself. In you go, Princess, and strap down. Seat belts, Sharpie. Copilot, after you lock the starboard door, check its seal all the way around by touch before you strap down.”
“Wilco, Cap’n.” It tickled me to hear my darling boning military. He had told me privately that he was a reserve colonel of ordnance – but that Deety had promised not to tell this to our smart young captain and that he wanted the same promise from me – because the T.O. was as it should be; Zeb should command while Jacob handled space-time controls – to each his own. Jacob had asked me to please take orders from Zeb with no back talk… which had miffed me a little. I was an unskilled crew member; I am not stupid, I knew this. In direst emergency I would try to get us home. But even Deety was better qualified than I.
Checkoffs completed, Gay switched off lights, opened the garage door, and backed out onto the landing flat.
“Copilot, can you read your verniers?”
“Captain, I had better loosen my chest belt.”
“Do so if you wish. But your seat adjusts forward twenty centimeters – here, I’ll get it.” Zeb reached down, did something between their seats. “Say when.”
“There – that’s about right. I can read ’em and reach ’em, with chest strap in place. Orders, sir?”
“Where was your car when you and Deety went to the space-time that lacked the letter ‘J’?”
“About where we are now.”
“Can you send us there?”
“I think so. Minimum translation, positive – entropy increasing – along Tau axis.”
“Please move us there, sir.”
My husband touched the controls. “That’s it, Captain.”
I couldn’t see any change. Our house was still a silhouette against the sky, with the garage a black maw in front of us. The stars hadn’t even flickered.
Zebbie said, “Let’s check,” and switched on Gay’s roading lights, brightly lighting our garage. Empty and looked normal.
Zebbie said, “Hey! Look at that!”
“Look at what?” I demanded, and tried to see around Jacob.
“At nothing, rather. Sharpie, where’s your alien?”
Then I understood. No corpse. No green-blood mess. Workbench against the wall and flood lights not rigged.
Zebbie said, “Gay Deceiver, take us home!”
Instantly the same scene… but with carved-up corpse. I gulped.
Zebbie switched out the lights. I felt better but not much.
“Captain?”
“Copilot.”
“Wouldn’t it have been well to have checked for that letter ‘J’? It would have given me a check on calibration.”
“I did check, Jake.”
“Eh?”
“You have bins on the back of your garage neatly stenciled. The one at left center reads ‘Junk Metal.”
“Oh!”
“Yes, and your analog in that space – your twin, Jake-prime, or what you will – has your neat habits. The left-corner bin read ‘Iunk Metal’ spelled with an ‘I.’ A cupboard above and to the right contained ‘Iugs & Iars.’ So I told Gay to take us home. I was afraid they might catch us. Embarrassing.”
Deety said, “Zebadiah – I mean ‘Captain’ – embarrassing how, sir? Oh, that missing letter in the alphabet scared me but it no longer does. Now I’m nervous about aliens. ‘Black Hats.'”
“Deety, you were lucky that first time. Because Deety-prime was not at home. But she may be, tonight. Possibly in bed with her husband, named Zebadiah-prime. Unstable cuss. Likely to shoot at a strange car shining lights into his father-in-law’s garage. A violent character.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“No, Princess; it did worry me. A parallel space, with so small a difference as the lack of one unnecessary letter, but with house and grounds you mistook for your own, seems to imply a father and daughter named ‘Iacob’ and ‘Deiah Thoris.” (Captain Zebbie pronounced the names ‘Yacob’ and ‘Deyah Thoris.’)
“Zebadiah, that scares me almost as much as aliens.”
“Aliens scare me far more. Hello, Gay.”
“Howdy, Zeb. Your nose is runny.”
“Smart Girl, one gee vertically to one klick. Hover.”
“Roger dodger, you old codger.”
We rested on our backs and head rests for a few moments, then with the stomach-surging swoosh of a fast lift, we leveled off and hovered. Zebbie said, “Deety, can the autopilot accept a change in that homing program by voice? Or does it take an offset in the verniers?”
“What do you want to do?”
“Same ell-and-ell two klicks above ground.”
“I think so. Shall I? Or do you want to do it, Captain?”
“You try it, Deety.”
“Yes, sir. Hello, Gay.”
“Hi, Deety!”
“Program check. Define ‘Home.”
“‘Home.’ Cancel any-all inertials transitions translations rotations. Return to preprogrammed zero latitude longitude, ground level.”
“Report present location.”
“One klick vertically above ‘Home.”
“Gay. Program revision.”
“Waiting, Deety.”
“Home program. Cancel ‘Ground level.’ Substitute ‘Two klicks above ground level, hovering.”
“Program revision recorded.”
“Gay Deceiver, take us home!”
Instantly, with no feeling of motion, we were much higher.
Zeb said, “Two klicks on the nose! Deety, you’re a smart girl!”
“Zebadiah, I bet you tell that to all the girls.”
“No, just to some. Gay, you’re a smart girl.”
“Then why are you shacked up with that strawberry blonde with the fat knockers?”
Zebbie craned his neck and looked at me. “Sharpie, that’s your voice.”
I ignored him with dignity. Zebbie drove south to the Grand Canyon, eerie in starlight. Without slowing, he said, “Gay Deceiver, take us home!” – and again we were hovering over our cabin. No jar, no shock, no nothing.
Zebbie said, “Jake, once I figure the angles, I’m going to quit spending money on juice. How does she do it when we haven’t been anywhere? – no rotation, no translation.”
“I may have given insufficient thought to a trivial root in equation ninety-seven. But it is analogous to what we were considering doing with planets. A five-dimensional transform simplified to three.”
“‘I dunno, I just work here,'” Captain Zebbie admitted. “But it looks like we will be peddling gravity and transport, as well as real estate and time. Burroughs and Company, Space Warps Unlimited – ‘No job too large, no job too small.’ Send one newdollar for our free brochure.”
“Captain,” suggested Jacob, “would it not be prudent to translate into another space before experimenting further? The alien danger is still with us – is it not?”
Zebbie sobered at once. “Copilot, you are right and it is your duty to advise me when I goof off. However, before we leave, we have one duty we must carry out.”
“Something more urgent than getting our wives to safety?” my Jacob asked – and I felt humble and proud.
“‘Something more urgent.’ Jake, I’ve bounced her around not only to test but to make it hard to track us. Because we must break radio silence. To warn our fellow humans.”
“Oh. Yes, Captain. My apologies, sir. I sometimes forget the broader picture.”
“Don’t we all! I’ve wanted to run and hide ever since this rumpus started. But that took preparation and the delay gave me time to think. Point number one: We don’t know how to fight these critters so we must take cover. Point number two: We are duty-bound to tell the world what we know about aliens. While that little isn’t much – we’ve stayed alive by the skin of our teeth – if five billion people are watching for them, they can be caught. I hope.”
“Captain,” asked Deety, “may I speak?”
“Of course! Anyone with ideas about how to cope with these monsters must speak.”
“I’m sorry but I don’t have such ideas. You must warn the world, sir – of course! But you won’t be believed.”
“I’m afraid you’re right, Deety. But they don’t have to believe me. That monster in the garage speaks for itself. I’m going to call rangers – real rangers! – to pick it up.”
I said, “So that was why you told me just to leave it! I thought it was lack of time.”
“Both, Hilda. We didn’t have time to sack that cadaver and store it in the freezer room. But, if I can get rangers – real rangers – to that garage before ‘Black Hats’ get there, that corpse tells its own story: an undeniable alien lying in its goo on a ranger’s uniform that has been cut away from it. Not a ‘close encounter’ UFO that can be explained away, but a creature more startling than the duckbill platypus ever was. But we have to hook it in with other factors to show them what to look for. Your booby-trapped car, an arson case in Logan, Professor Brain’s convenient disappearance, my cousin’s death in Sumatra – and your six-dimensional non-Euclidean geometry.”
I said, “Excuse me, gentlemen. Can’t we move somewhere away from right over our cabin before you break silence? I’m jumpy – ‘Black Hats’ are hunting us.”
“You’re right, Sharpie; I’m about to move us. The story isn’t long – all but the math – so I taped a summary while the rest of you were getting ready. Gay will speed-zip it, a hundred to one.” Zebbie reached for the controls. “All secure?”
“Captain Zebadiah!”
“Trouble, Princess?”
“May I attempt a novel program? It may save time.”
“Programming is your pidgin. Certainly.”
“Hello, Gay.”
“Hi, Deety!”
“Retrieve last program. Report execute code.”
“Reporting, Deety. ‘Gay Deceiver, take us home!'”
“Negative erase permanent program controlled by execute-code Gay Deceiver take us home. Report confirm.”
“Confirmation report. Permanent program execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home negative erase. I tell you three times.”
“Deety,” said Zeb, “a neg scrub to Gay tells her to place item in perms three places. Redundancy safety factor.”
“Don’t bother me, dear! She and I sling the same lingo. Hello, Gay.”
“Hello, Deety!”
“Analyze latest program execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home. Report.”
“Analysis complete.”
“Invert analysis.”
“Null program.”
Deety sighed. “Typing a program is easier. New program.”
“Waiting, Deety.”
“Execute-code new permanent program. Gay Deceiver, countermarch! At new execute-code, repeat reversed in real time latest sequence inertials transitions translations rotations before last use of program execute-code Gay Deceiver take us home.”
“New permanent program accepted.”
“Gay, I tell you three times.”
“Deety, I hear you three times.”
“Gay Deceiver – countermarch!”
Instantly we were over the Grand Canyon, cruising south. I saw Zeb reach for the manual controls. “Deety, that was slick.”
“I didn’t save time, sir – I goofed. Gay, you’re a smart girl.”
“Deety, don’t make me blush.”
“You’re both smart girls,” said Captain Zebbie. “If anyone had us on radar, he must think he’s getting cataracts. Vice versa, if anyone picked us up here, he’s wondering how we popped up. Smart dodge, dear. You’ve got Gay Deceiver so deceptive that nobody can home on us. We’ll be elsewhere.”
“Yes – but I had something else in mind, too, my Captain.”
“Princess, I like your ideas. Spill it.”
“Suppose we used that homing preprogram and went from frying pan into fire. It might be useful to have a preprogram that would take us back into the frying pan, then do something else quickly. Should I try to think up a third escape-maneuver preprogram?”
“Sure – but discuss it with the court magician, your esteemed father – not me. I’m just a sky jockey.”
“Zebadiah, I will not listen to you disparage yours -“
“Deety! Lifeboat rules. Jake, are your professional papers aboard? Both theoretical and drawings?”
“Why, no, Zeb – Captain. Too bulky. Microfilms I brought. Originals are in the basement vault. Have I erred?”
“Not a bit! Is there any geometer who gave your published paper on this six-way system a friendly reception?”
“Captain, there aren’t more than a handful of geometers capable of judging my postulate system without long and intensive study. It’s too unorthodox. Your late cousin was one – a truly brilliant mind! Uh… I now suspect that Doctor Brain understood it and sabotaged it for his own purposes.”
“Jake, is there anyone friendly to you and able to understand the stuff in your vault? I’m trying to figure out how to warn our fellow humans. A fantastic story of apparently unrelated incidents is not enough. Not even with the corpse of an extra-terrestrial to back it up. You should leave mathematical theory and engineering drawings to someone able to understand them and whom you trust. We can’t handle it; every time we stick our heads up, somebody takes a shot at us and we have no way to fight back. It’s a job that may require our whole race. Well? Is there a man you can trust as your professional executor?”
“Well… one, perhaps. Not my field of geometry but brilliant. He did write me a most encouraging letter when I published my first paper – the paper that was so sneered at by almost everyone except your cousin and this one other. Professor Seppo Rãikannonen. Turku. Finland.”
“Are you certain he’s not an alien?”
“What? He’s been on the faculty at Turku for years! Over fifteen.”
I said, “Jacob… that is about how long Professor Brain was around.”
“But – ” My husband looked around at me and suddenly smiled. “Hilda my love, have you ever taken sauna?”
“Once.”
“Then tell our Captain why I am sure that my friend Seppo is not an alien in disguise. I – Deety and I – attended a professional meeting in Helsinki last year. After the meeting we visited their summer place in the Lake Country… and took sauna with them.”
“Papa, Mama, and three kids.” agreed Deety. “Unmistakably human.”
“‘Brainy’ was a bachelor,” I added thoughtfully. “Cap’n Zebbie, wouldn’t disguised aliens have to be bachelors?”
“Or single women. Or pseudo-married couples. No kids, the masquerade wouldn’t hold up. Jake, let’s try to phone your friend. Mmm, nearly breakfast time in Finland – or we may wake him. That’s better than missing him.”
“Good! My comcredit number is Nero Aleph -“
“Let’s try mine. Yours might trigger something… if ‘Black Hats’ are as smart as I think they are. Smart Girl.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Don Ameche.”
“To hear is to obey, O Mighty One.”
“Deety, you’ve been giving Gay bad habits.”
Shortly a flat male voice answered, “The communications credit number you have cited is not a valid number. Please refer to your card and try again. This is a recording.”
Zebbie made a highly unlikely suggestion. “Gay can’t send out my comcredit code incorrectly; she has it tell-me-three-times. The glitch is in their system. Pop, we have to use yours.”
I said, “Try mine, Zebbie. My comcredit is good; I predeposit.”
A female voice this time: ” – not a valid number. Puh-lease refer to your card and try again. This is a recording.”
Then my husband got a second female voice: ” – try again. This is a recording.”
Deety said, “I don’t have one. Pop and I use the same number.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Cap’n Zebbie said bitterly. “These aren’t glitches. We’ve been scrubbed. Unpersons. We’re all dead.”
I didn’t argue. I had suspected that we were dead since the morning two weeks earlier when I woke up in bed with my cuddly new husband. But how long had we been dead? Since my party? Or more recently?
I didn’t care. This was a better grade of heaven than a Sunday School in Terre Haute had taught me to expect. While I don’t think I’ve been outstandingly wicked, I haven’t been very good either. Of the Ten Commandments I’ve broken six and bent some others. But Moses apparently had not had the last Word from on High – being dead was weird and wonderful and I was enjoying every minute… or eon, as the case may be.

Chapter XIII

Being too close to a fireball can worry a man –

Zeb:
Not being able to phone from my car was my most frustrating experience since a night I spent in jail through mistake (I made the mistake). I considered grounding to phone – but the ground did not seem healthy. Even if all of us were presumed dead, nullifying our comcredit cards so quickly seemed unfriendly; all of us had high credit ratings.
Canceling Sharpie’s comcredit without proof of death was more than unfriendly; it was outrageous as she used the predeposit method.
I was forced to the decision that it was my duty to make a military report; I radioed NORAD, stated name, rank, reserve commission serial number, and asked for scramble for a crash priority report. and ran into “correct” procedure that causes instant ulcers. What was my clearance? What led me to think that I had crash priority intelligence? By what authority did I demand a scramble code? Do you know how many screwball calls come in here every day? Get off this frequency; it’s for official traffic only. One more word out of you and I shall alert the civil sky patrol to pick you up.
I said one more word after I chopped off. Deety and her father ignored it; Hilda said, “My sentiments exactly!”
I tried the Federal Rangers Kaibab Barracks at Jacob Lake, then the office at Littlefield and back to Kaibab. Littlefield didn’t answer; Jacob Lake answered: “This is a recording. Routine messages may be recorded during beep tone. Emergency reports should be transmitted to Flagstaff HQ. Stand by for beep tone… Beep!… Beep!… Beep!”
I was about to tell Gay to zip my tape – when the whole world was lighted by the brightest light imaginable.
Luckily we were cruising south with that light behind us. I goosed Gay to flank speed while telling her to tuck in her wings. Not one of my partners asked a foolish question, although I suspect that none had ever seen a fireball or mushroom cloud.
“Smart Girl.”
“Here, Boss.”
“DR problem. Record true bearing light beacon relative bearing astern. Record radar range and bearing same beacon. Solve latitude longitude beacon. Compare solution with fixes in perms. Confirm.”
“Program confirmed.”
“Execute.”
“Roger Wilco, Zeb. Heard any new ones lately?” She added at once, “Solution. True bearing identical with fix execute-coded ‘Gay Deceiver take us home.’ True range identical plus-minus zero point six klicks.”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“Flattery will get you anywhere, Zeb. Over.”
“Roger and out. Hang onto your hats, folks; we’re going straight up.” I had outraced the shock wave but we were close to the Mexican border; either side might send sprint birds homing on us. “Copilot!”
“Captain.”
“Move us! Out of this space!”
“Where, Captain?”
“Anywhere! Fast!”
“Uh, can you ease the acceleration? I can’t lift my arms.”
Cursing myself, I cut power, let Gay Deceiver climb free. Those vernier controls should have been mounted on arm rests. (Designs that look perfect on the drawing board can kill test pilots.)
“Translation complete, Captain.”
“Roger, Copilot. Thank you.” I glanced at the board: six-plus klicks height-above-ground and rising – thin but enough air to bite. “Hang onto our lunch, Sharpie!” I leaned us backwards while doing an Immelman into level flight, course north, power still off. I told Gay to stretch the glide, then tell me when we had dropped to three klicks H-above-G.
What should be Phoenix was off to the right; another city – Flagstaff? – farther away, north and a bit east; we appeared to be headed home. There was no glowing cloud on the horizon. “Jake, where are we?”
“Captain, I’ve never been in this universe. We translated ten quanta positive Tau axis. So we should be in analogous space close to ours – ten minimum intervals or quanta.”
“This looks like Arizona.”
“I would expect it to, Captain. You recall that one-quantum translation on this axis was so very like our own world that Deety and I confused it with our own, until she picked up a dictionary.”
“Phone book, Pop.”
“Irrelevant, dear. Until she missed the letter ‘J’ in an alphabetical list. Ten quanta should not change geological features appreciably and placement of cities is largely controlled by geography.”
“Approaching three klicks, Boss.”
“Thanks, Gay. Hold course and H-above-G. Correction! Hold course and absolute altitude. Confirm and execute.”
“Roger Wilco, Zeb.”
I had forgotten that the Grand Canyon lay ahead – or should. “Smart Girl” is smart, but she’s literal-minded. She would have held height-above-ground precisely and given us the wildest roller-coaster ride in history. She is very flexible but the “garbage-in-garbage-out” law applies. She had many extra fail-safes – because I make mistakes. Gay can’t; anything she does wrong is my mistake. Since I’ve been making mistakes all my life, I surrounded her with all the safeguards I could think of. But she had no program against wild rides – she was beefed up to accept them. Violent evasive tactics had saved our lives two weeks ago, and tonight as well. Being too close to a fireball can worry a man – to death.
“Gay, display map, please.”
The map showed Arizona – our Arizona; Gay does not have in her gizzards any strange universes. I changed course to cause us to pass over our cabin site – its analog for this space-time. (Didn’t dare tell her: “Gay, take us home!” – for reasons left as an exercise for the class.) “Deety, how long ago did that bomb go off?”
“Six minutes twenty-three seconds. Zebadiah, was that really an A-bomb?”
“Pony bomb, perhaps. Maybe two kilotons. Gay Deceiver.”
“I’m all ears, Zeb.”
“Report time interval since radar-ranging beacon.”
“Five minutes forty-four seconds, Zeb.”
Deety gasped. “Was I that far off?”
“No, darling. You reported time since flash. I didn’t ask Gay to range until after we were hypersonic.”
“Oh. I feel better.”
“Captain,” inquired Jake, “how did Gay range an atomic explosion? I would expect radiation to make it impossible. Does she have instrumentation of which I am not aware?”
“Copilot, she has several gadgets I have not shown you. I have not been holding out – any more than you held out in not telling me about guns and ammo you -“
“My apologies, sir!”
“Oh, stuff it, Jake. Neither of us held out; we’ve been running under the whip. Deety, how long has it been since we killed that fake ranger?”
“That was seventeen fourteen. It is now twenty-two twenty. Five hours six minutes,”
I glanced at the board; Deety’s “circadian clock” apparently couldn’t be jarred by anything; Gay’s clock showed 0520 (Greenwich) with “ZONE PLUS SEVEN” display. “Call it five hours – feels like five weeks. We need a vacation.”
“Loud cheers!” agreed Sharpie.
“Check. Jake, I didn’t know that Gay could range an atomic blast. Light ‘beacon’ means a visible light to her just as ‘radar beacon’ means to her a navigational radar beacon. I told her to get a bearing on the light beacon directly aft; she selected the brightest light with that bearing. Then I told her to take radar range and bearing on it – spun my prayer wheel and prayed.
“There was ‘white noise’ possibly blanketing her radar frequency. But her own radar bursts are tagged; it would take a very high noise level at the same frequency to keep her from recognizing echoes with her signature. Clearly she had trouble for she reported ‘plus-minus’ of six hundred meters. Nevertheless range and bearing matched a fix in her permanents and told us our cabin had been bombed. Bad news. But the aliens got there too late to bomb us. Good news.”
“Captain, I decline to grieve over material loss. We are alive.”
“I agree – although I’ll remember Snug Harbor as the happiest home I’ve ever had. But there is no point in trying to warn Earth – our Earth – about aliens. That blast destroyed the clincher: that alien’s cadaver. And papers and drawings you were going to turn over to your Finnish friend. I’m not sure we can go home again.”
“Oh, that’s no problem, Captain. Two seconds to set the verniers. Not to mention the ‘deadman switch’ and the program in Gay’s permanents.”
“Jake, I wish you would knock off ‘Captain’ other than for command conditions.”
“Zeb, I like calling you ‘Captain.”
“So do I! – my Captain.”
“Me, too, Cap’n Zebbie!”
“Don’t overdo it. Jake, I didn’t mean that you can’t pilot us home; I mean we should not risk it. We’ve lost our last lead on the aliens. But they know who we are and have shown dismaying skill in tracking us down. I’d like to live to see two babies born and grown up.”
“Amen!” said Sharpie. “This might be the place for it. Out of a million billion zillion earths this one may be vermin-free. Highly likely.”
“Hilda my dear, there are no data on which to base any assumption.”
“Jacob, there is one datum.”
“Eh? What did I miss, dear?”
“That we do know that our native planet is infested. So I don’t want to raise kids on it. If this isn’t the place we’re looking for, let’s keep looking.”
“Mmm, logical. Yes. Cap – Zeb?”
“I agree. But we can’t tell much before morning. Jake, I’m unclear on a key point. If we translated back to our own earth now, where would we find ourselves? And when?”
“Pop, may I answer that?”
“Go ahead, Deety.”
“The time Pop and I translated to the place with no ‘J’ we thought we had failed. Pop stayed in our car, trying to figure it out. I went inside, intending to fix lunch. Everything looked normal. But the phone book was on the kitchen counter and doesn’t belong there. That book had a toll area map on its back cover. My eye happened to land on ‘Juab County’ – and it was spelled ‘Iuab’ – and I thought, ‘What a funny misprint!’ Then I looked inside and couldn’t find any ‘J’s’ and dropped the book and went running for Pop.”
“I thought Deety was hysterical. But when I checked a dictionary and the Britannica we got out in a hurry.”
“This is the point, Zebadiah. When we flipped back, I dashed into the house. The phone book was where it belonged. The alphabet was back the way it ought to be. The clock in my head said that we had been gone twenty-seven minutes. The kitchen clock confirmed it and it agreed with the clock in the car. Does that answer you, sir?”
“I think so. In a translation, duration just keeps chugging along. I wondered because I’d like to check that crater after it has had time to cool down. What about that one rotation?”
“Harder to figure, Zebadiah. We weren’t in that other space-time but a few seconds and we both passed out. Indeterminate.”
“I’m convinced. But, Jake, what about Earth’s proper motions? Rotation, revolution around the Sun, sidereal motion, and so forth.”
“A theoretical answer calls for mathematics you tell me are outside your scope of study, uh – Zeb.”
“Beyond my capacity, you mean.”
“As you will, sir. An excursion elsewhere-and-elsewhen… and return… brings you back to where you would have been had you experienced that duration on earth. But ‘when’ requires further definition. As we were discussing, uh… earlier this afternoon but it seems longer, we can adjust the controls to reenter any axis at any point with permanent change of interval. For planetary engineering. Or other purposes. Including reentry reversed against the entropy arrow. But I suspect that would cause death.”
“Why, Pop? Why wouldn’t it just reverse your memory?”
“Memory is tied to entropy increase, my darling daughter. Death might be preferable to amnesia combined with prophetic knowledge. Uncertainty may be the factor that makes life tolerable. Hope is what keeps us going. Captain!”
“Copilot.”
“We have just passed over North Rim.”
“Thank you, Copilot.” I placed my hands lightly on the controls.
“Pop, our cabin is still there. Lights in it, too.”
“So I see. They’ve added a wing on the west.”
“Yes. Where we discussed adding a library.”
I said, “Family, I’m not going closer. Your analogs in this world seem to be holding a party. Flood lights show four cars on the grounding flat.” I started Gay into a wide circle. “I’m not going to hover; it could draw attention. A call to their sky cops – Hell’s bells, I don’t even know that they speak English.”
“Captain, we’ve seen all we need. It’s not our cabin.”
“Recommendation?”
“Sir, I suggest maximum altitude. Discuss what to do while we get there.”
“Gay Deceiver.”
“On deck, Captain Ahab.”
“One gee, vertical.”
“Aye aye, sir.” (How many answers had Deety taped?)
“Anybody want a sandwich?” asked Sharpie. “I do – I’m a pregnant mother.”
I suddenly realized that I had had nothing but a piece of pie since noon. As we climbed we finished what was left of supper.
“Zat Marsh?”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Sharpie.”
“Zebbie you brute, I said, ‘Is that Mars?’ Over there.”
“That’s Antares. Mars is – Look left about thirty degrees. See it? Same color as Antares but brighter.”
“Got it. Jacob darling, let’s take that vacation on Barsoom!”
“Hilda dearest, Mars is uninhabitable. The Mars Expedition used pressure suits. We have no pressure suits.”
I added, “Even if we did, they would get in the way of a honeymoon.”
Hilda answered, “I read a jingle about ‘A Space Suit Built for Two.’ Anyhow, let’s go to Barsoom! Jacob, you did tell me we could go anywhere in Zip – nothing flat.”
“Quite true.”
“So let’s go to Barsoom.”
I decided to flank her. “Hilda, we can’t go to Barsoom. Mors Kajak and John Carter don’t have their swords.”
“Want to bet?” Deety said sweetly.
“Huh?”
“Sir, you left it to me to pick baggage for that unassigned space. If you’ll check that long, narrow stowage under the instrument board, you’ll find the sword and saber, with belts. With socks and underwear crammed in to keep them from rattling.”
I said soberly, “My Princess, I couldn’t moan about my sword when your father took the loss of his house so calmly – but thank you, with all my heart.”
“Let me add my thanks, Deety. I set much store by that old saber, unnecessary as it is.”
“Father, it was quite necessary this afternoon.”
“Hi ho! Hi ho! It’s to Barsoom we go!”
“Captain, we could use the hours till dawn for a quick jaunt to Mars. Uh – Oh, dear, I have to know its present distance – I don’t.”
“No problem,” I said. “Gay gobbles the Aerospace Almanac each year.”
“Indeed! I’m impressed.”
“Gay Deceiver.”
“You again? I was thinking.”
“So think about this. Calculation program. Data address, Aerospace Almanac. Running calculation, line-of-sight distance to planet Mars. Report current answers on demand. Execute.”
“Program running.”
“Report.”
“Klicks two-two-four-zero-nine-zero-eight-two-seven point plus-minus nine-eight-zero.”
“Display running report.”
Gay did so. “You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“I can do card tricks, too. Program continuing.”
“Jake, how do we this?”
“Align ‘L’ axis with your gun sight. Isn’t that easiest?”
“By far!” I aimed at Mars as if to shoot her out of the sky – then got cold feet. “Jake? A little Tennessee windage? I think those figures are from center-of-gravity to center-of-gravity. Half a mil would place us a safe distance away. Over a hundred thousand klicks.”
“A hundred and twelve thousand,” Jake agreed, watching the display.
I offset one half mil. “Copilot.”
“Captain.”
“Transit when ready. Execute.”
Mars in half phase, big and round and ruddy and beautiful, was swimming off our starboard side.

Chapter XIV

“Quit worrying and enjoy the ride.”

Deety:
Aunt Hilda said softly, “Barsoom. Dead sea bottoms. Green giants.” I just gulped.
“Mars. Hilda darling.” Pop gently corrected her. “Barsoom is a myth.”
“Barsoom.” she repeated firmly. “It’s not a myth, it’s there. Who says its name is Mars? A bunch of long-dead Romans. Aren’t the natives entitled to name it? Barsoom.”
“My dearest, there are no natives. Names are assigned by an international committee sponsored by Harvard Observatory. They confirmed the traditional name.”
“Pooh! They don’t have any more right to name it than I have. Deety, isn’t that right?”
I think Aunt Hilda had the best argument but I don’t argue with Pop unless necessary; he gets emotional. My husband saved me.
“Copilot, astrogation problem. How are we going to figure distance and vector? I would like to put this wagon into orbit. But Gay is no spaceship; I don’t have instruments. Not even a sextant!”
“Mmm, suppose we try it one piece at a time, Captain. We don’t seem to be falling fast and – ulp!”
“What’s the trouble, Jake!”
Pop turned pale, sweat broke out, he clenched his jaws, swallowed and reswallowed. Then his lips barely opened. “M’sheashick.”
“No, you’re space sick. Deety!”
“Yessir!”
“Emergency kit, back of my seat. Unzip it, get Bonine. One pill – don’t let the others get loose.”
I got at the first-aid kit, found a tube marked Bonine. A second pill did get loose but I snatched it out of the air. Free fall is funny – you don’t know whether you are standing on your head or floating sideways. “Here, Captain.”
Pop said, “Mall righ’ now. Jus’ took all over queer a moment.”
“Sure, you’re all right. You can take this pill – or you can have it pushed down your throat with my dirty, calloused finger. Which?”
“Uh, Captain, I’d have to have water to swallow it – and I don’t think I can.”
“Doesn’t take water, pal. Chew it. Tastes good, raspberry flavor. Then keep gulping your saliva. Here.” Zebadiah pinched Pop’s nostrils. “Open up.”
I became aware of a strangled sound beside me. Aunt Hilda had a hanky pressed to her mouth and her eyes were streaming tears – she was split seconds from adding potato salad and used sandwich to the cabin air.
Good thing I was still clutching that wayward pill. Aunt Hilda struggled but she’s a little bitty. I treated her the way my husband had treated her husband, then clamped my hand over her mouth. I don’t understand seasickness (or free-fall nausea); I can walk on bulkheads with a sandwich in one hand and a drink in the other and enjoy it.
But the victims really are sick and somewhat out of their heads. So I held her mouth closed and whispered into her ear. “Chew it, Aunty darling, and swallow it, or I’m going to spank you with a club.”
Shortly I could feel her chewing. After several minutes she relaxed. I asked her, “Is it safe for me to ungag you?”
She nodded. I took my hand away. She smiled wanly and patted my hand. “Thanks, Deety.” She added, “You wouldn’t really beat Aunt Sharpie.”
“I sure would, darling. I’d cry and cry and wallop you and wallop you. I’m glad I don’t have to.”
“I’m glad, too. Can we kiss and make up – or is my breath sour?”
It wasn’t but I wouldn’t have let that stop me. I loosened my chest strap and hers, and put both arms around her. I have two ways of kissing: one is suitable for faculty teas; the other way I mean it. I never got a chance to pick; Aunt Hilda apparently never found out about the faculty-tea sort. No, her breath wasn’t sour – just a slight taste of raspberry.
Me, I’m the wholesome type; if it weren’t for those advertisements on my chest, men wouldn’t give me a second glance. Hilda is a miniature Messalina, pure sex in a small package. Funny how a person can grow up never really believing that the adults you grow up with have sex – just gender. Now my saintly father turns out to be an insatiable goat, and Aunt Hilda, who had babied me and changed my diapers, is sexy enough for a platoon of Marines.
I let her go while thinking pleasant thoughts about teaching my husband technique I had learned – unless Hilda had taught him in the past. No, or he would have taught me – and he hadn’t shown her style of virtuosity. Zebadiah, just wait till I get you alone!
Which might not be too soon. Gay Deceiver is wonderful but no honeymoon cottage. There was space back of the bulkhead behind my head – like a big phone booth on its side – where Zebadiah kept a sleeping bag and (he says) sometimes sacked out. But it had the space-time twister in it and nineteen dozen other things. Hilda and I were going to have to repress our primary imperative until our men found us a pied-à-terre on some planet in some universe, somewhere, somewhen.
Mars-Barsoom seemed to have grown while I was curing Aunt Hilda’s space sickness. Our men were talking astrogation. My husband was saying, “Sorry, but at extreme range Gay’s radar can see a thousand kilos. You tell me our distance is about a hundred times that.”
“About. We’re falling toward Mars. Captain, we must do it by triangulation.”
“Not even a protractor where I can get at it. How?”
“Hmmmm – If the Captain pleases, recall how you worked that ‘Tennessee windage.'”
My darling looked like a school boy caught making a silly answer. “Jake, if you don’t quit being polite when I’m stupid, I’m going to space you and put Deety in the copilot’s seat. No, we need you to get us home. I’d better resign and you take over.”
“Zeb, a captain can’t resign while his ship is underway. That’s universal.”
“This is another universe.”
“Transuniversal. As long as you are alive, you are stuck with it. Let’s attempt that triangulation.”
“Stand by to record.” Zebadiah settled into his seat, pressed his head against its rest. “Copilot.”
“Ready to record, sir.”
“Damn!”
“Trouble, Captain?”
“Some. This reflectosight is scaled fifteen mils on a side, concentric circles crossed at center point horizontally and vertically. Normal to deck and parallel to deck, I mean. When I center the fifteen-mil ring on Mars, I have a border around it. I’m going to have to guesstimate. Uh, the border looks to be about eighteen mils wide. So double that and add thirty.”
“Sixty-six mils.”
“And a mil is one-to-one-thousand. One-to-one-thousand-and-eighteen and a whisker, actually – but one-to-a-thousand is good enough. Wait a half! I’ve got two sharp high lights near the meridian – if the polar caps mark the meridian. Le’me tilt this buggy and put a line crossing them – then I’ll yaw and what we can’t measure in one jump, we’ll catch in three.”
I saw the larger “upper” polar cap (north? south? well, it felt north) roll gently about eighty degrees, while my husband fiddled with Gay’s manual controls. “Twenty-nine point five, maybe… plus eighteen point seven… plus sixteen point three. Add.”
My father answered, “Sixty-four and a half” while I said, six four point five in my mind and kept quiet.
“Who knows the diameter of Mars? Or shall I ask Gay?”
Hilda answered, “Six thousand seven hundred fifty kilometers, near enough.”
Plenty near enough for Zebadiah’s estimates. Zebadiah said, “Sharpie! How did you happen to know that?”
“I read comic books. You know – ‘Zap! Polaris is missing.'”
“I don’t read comic books.”
“Lots of interesting things in comic books, Zebbie. I thought the Aerospace Force used comic-book instruction manuals.”
My darling’s ears turned red. “Some are,” he admitted, “but they are edited for technical accuracy. Hmm – Maybe I had better check that figure with Gay.”
I love my husband but sometimes women must stick together. “Don’t bother, Zebadiah,” I said in chilly tones. “Aunt Hilda is correct. The polar diameter of Mars is six seven five two point eight plus. But surely three significant figures is enough for your data.”
Zebadiah did not answer… but did not ask his computer. Instead he said, “Copilot, will you run it off on your pocket calculator? We can treat it as a tangent at this distance.”
This time I didn’t even try to keep still. Zebadiah’s surprise that Hilda knew anything about astronomy caused me pique. “Our height above surface is one hundred four thousand six hundred and seventy-two kilometers plus or minus the error of the data supplied. That assumes that Mars is spherical and ignores the edge effect or horizon bulge… negligible for the quality of your data.”
Zebadiah answered so gently that I was sorry that I had shown off: “Thank you, Deety. Would you care to calculate the time to fall to surface from rest at this point?”
“That’s an unsmooth integral, sir. I can approximate it but Gay can do it faster and more accurately. Why not ask her? But it will be many hours.”
“I had hoped to take a better look. Jake, Gay has enough juice to put us into a tight orbit, I think… but I don’t know where or when I’ll be able to juice her again. If we simply fall, the air will get stale and we’ll need the panic button – or some maneuver – without ever seeing the surface close up.”
“Captain, would it suit you to read the diameter again? I don’t think we’ve simply been falling.”
Pop and Zebadiah got busy again. I let them alone, and they ran even the simplest computations through Gay. Presently, Pop said, “Over twenty-four kilometers per second! Captain, at that rate we’ll be there in a little over an hour.”
“Except that we’ll scram before that. But, ladies, you’ll get your closer look. Dead sea bottoms and green giants. If any.”
“Zebadiah, twenty-four kilometers per second is Mars’ orbital speed.”
My father answered, “Eh? Why, so it is!” He looked very puzzled, then said, “Captain – I confess to a foolish mistake.”
“Not one that will keep us from getting home, I hope.”
“No, sir. I’m still learning what our continua craft can do. Captain, we did not aim for Mars.”
“I know. I was chicken.”
“No, sir, you were properly cautious. We aimed for a specific point in empty space. We transited to that point… but not with Mars’ proper motion. With that of the Solar System, yes. With Earth’s motions subtracted; that is in the program. But we are a short distance ahead of Mars in its orbit… so it is rushing toward us.”
“Does that mean we can never land on any planet but Earth?”
“Not at all. Any vector can be included in the program – either before or after transition, translation or rotation. Any subsequent change in motion is taken into account by the inertial integrator. But I am learning that we still have things to learn.”
“Jake, that is true even of a bicycle. Quit worrying and enjoy the ride. Brother, what a view!”

“Jake, that doesn’t look like the photographs the Mars Expedition brought back.”
“Of course not,” said Aunt Hilda. “I said it was Barsoom.”
I kept my mouth shut. Ever since Dr. Sagan’s photographs anyone who reads The National Geographic – or anything – knows what Mars looks like. But when it involves changing male minds, it is better to let men reach their own decisions; they become somewhat less pig-headed. That planet rushing toward us was not the Mars of our native sky. White clouds at the caps, big green areas that had to be forest or crops, one deep blue area that almost certainly was water – all this against ruddy shades that dominated much of the planet.
What was lacking were the rugged mountains and craters and canyons of “our” planet Mars. There were mountains – but nothing like the Devil’s Junkyard known to science.
I heard Zebadiah say, “Copilot, are you certain you took us to Mars?”
“Captain, I took us to Mars-ten, via plus on Tau axis. Either that or I’m a patient in a locked ward.”
“Take it easy, Jake. It doesn’t resemble Mars as much as Earth-ten resembles Earth.”
“Uh, may I point out that we saw just a bit of Earth-ten, on a moonless night?”
“Meaning we didn’t see it. Conceded.”
Aunt Hilda said, “I told you it was Barsoom. You wouldn’t listen.”
“Hilda, I apologize. ‘Barsoom.’ Copilot, log it. New planet, ‘Barsoom,’ named by right of discovery by Hilda Corners Burroughs, Science Officer of Continua Craft Gay Deceiver. We’ll all witness: Z. J. Carter, Commanding – Jacob J. Burroughs, Chief Officer – D. T. B. Carter, uh, Astrogator. I’ll send certified copies to Harvard Observatory as soon as possible.”
“I’m not astrogator, Zebadiah!”
“Mutiny. Who reprogrammed this cloud buster into a continua craft? I’m pilot until I can train all of you in Gay’s little quirks. Jake is copilot until he can train more copilots in setting the verniers. You are astrogator because nobody else can acquire your special knowledge of programming and skill at calculation. None of your lip, young woman, and don’t fight the Law of Space. Sharpie is chief of science because of her breadth of knowledge. She not only recognized a new planet as not being Mars quicker than anyone else but carved up that double-jointed alien with the skill of a born butcher. Right, Jake?”
“Sure thing!” agreed Pop.
“Cap’n Zebbie,” Aunt Hilda drawled, “I’m science officer if you say so. But I had better be ship’s cook, too. And cabin boy.”
“Certainly, we all have to wear more than one hat. Log it, Copilot. ‘Here’s to our jolly cabin girl, the plucky little nipper – ‘”
“Don’t finish it. Zebbie,” Aunt Hilda cut in, “I don’t like the way the plot develops.”

‘ – she carves fake ranger,
‘Dubs planet stranger,
‘And dazzles crew and skipper.’

Aunt Hilda looked thoughtful. “That’s not the classic version. I like the sentiment better… though the scansion limps.”
“Sharpie darling, you are a floccinaucinihilipilificatrix.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Certainly! Means you’re so sharp you spot the slightest flaw.”
I kept quiet. It was possible that Zebadiah meant it as a compliment. Just barely –
“Maybe I’d better check it in a dictionary.”
“By all means, dear – after you are off watch.” (I dismissed the matter. Merriam Microfilm was all we had aboard and Aunt Hilda would not find that word in anything less than the O.E.D.)
“Copilot, got it logged?”
“Captain, I didn’t know we had a log.”
“No log? Even Vanderdecken keeps a log. Deety, the log falls in your department. Take your father’s notes, get what you need from Gay, and let’s have a taut ship. First time we pass a Woolworth’s we’ll pick up a journal and you can transcribe it – notes taken now are your rough log.”
“Aye aye, sir. Tyrant.”
“‘Tyrant,’ sir, please. Meanwhile let’s share the binoculars and see if we can spot any colorful exotic natives in colorful exotic costumes singing colorful exotic songs with their colorful exotic hands out for baksheesh. First one to spot evidence of intelligent life gets to wash the dishes.”

Chapter XV

“We’ll hit so hard we’ll hardly notice it.”

Hilda:
I was so flattered by Cap’n Zebbie’s crediting me with “discovering” Barsoom that I pretended not to understand the jibe he added. It was unlikely that Deety would know such a useless word, or my beloved Jacob. It was gallant of Zeb to give in all the way, once he realized that this planet was unlike its analog in “our” universe. Zebbie is a funny one – he wears rudeness like a Hallowe’en mask, afraid that someone will discover the Galahad underneath.
I knew that “my” Barsoom was not the planet of the classic romances. But there are precedents: The first nuclear submarine was named for an imaginary undersea vessel made famous by Jules Verne; an aircraft carrier of the Second Global War had been named “Shangri La” for a land as nonexistent as “Erewhon”; the first space freighter had been named for a starship that existed only in the hearts of its millions of fans – the list is endless. Nature copies art.
Or as Deety put it: “Truth is more fantastic than reality.”
During that hour Barsoom rushed at us. It began to swell and swell, so rapidly that binoculars were a nuisance – and my heart swelled with it, in childlike joy. Deety and I unstrapped so that we could see better, floating just “above” and behind our husbands while steadying ourselves on their headrests.
We were seeing it in half phase, one half dark, the other in sunlight – ocher and umber and olive green and brown and all of it beautiful.
Our pilot and copilot did not sightsee; Zebbie kept taking sights, kept Jacob busy calculating. At last he said, “Copilot, if our approximations are correct, at the height at which we will get our first radar range, we will be only a bit over half a minute from crashing. Check?”
“To the accuracy of our data, Captain.”
“Too close. I don’t fancy arriving like a meteor. Is it time to hit the panic button? Advise, please – but bear in mind that puts us – should put us – two klicks over a hot, new crater… possibly in the middle of a radioactive cloud. Ideas?”
“Captain, we can do that just before crashing – and it either works or it doesn’t. If it works, that radioactive cloud will have had more time to blow away. If it doesn’t work – “
“We’ll hit so hard we’ll hardly notice it. Gay Deceiver isn’t built to reenter at twenty-four klicks per second. She’s beefed up – but she’s still a Ford, not a reentry vehicle.”
“Captain, I can try to subtract the planet’s orbital speed. We’ve time to make the attempt.”
“Fasten seat belts and report! Move it, gals!”
Free fall is funny stuff. I was over that deathly sickness – was enjoying weightlessness, but didn’t know how to move in it. Nor did Deety. We floundered the way one does the first time on ice skates – only worse.
“Report, damn it!”
Deety got a hand on something, grabbed me. We started getting into seats – she in mine, I in hers. “Strapping down, Captain!” she called out, while frantically trying to loosen my belts to fit her. (I was doing the same in reverse.)
“Speed it up!”
Deety reported, “Seat belts fastened,” while still getting her chest belt buckled – by squeezing out all her breath. I reached over and helped her loosen it.
“Copilot.”
“Captain!”
“Along ‘L’ axis, subtract vector twenty-four klicks per second – and for God’s sake don’t get the signs reversed.”
“I won’t!”
“Execute.”
Seconds later Jacob reported, “That does it, Captain. I hope.”
“Let’s check. Two readings, ten seconds apart. I’ll call the first, you call the end of ten seconds. Mark!”
Zeb added, “One point two. Record.”
After what seemed a terribly long time Jacob said, “Seven seconds… eight seconds… nine seconds… mark!”
Our men conferred, then Jacob said, “Captain, we are still falling too fast.”
“Of course,” said Deety. “We’ve been accelerating from gravity. Escape speed for Mars is five klicks per second. If Barsoom has the same mass as Mars -“
“Thank you, Astrogator. Jake, can you trim off, uh, four klicks per second?”
“Sure!”
“Do it.”
“Uh… done! How does she look?”
“Uh… distance slowly closing. Hello, Gay.”
“Howdy, Zeb.”
“Program. Radar. Target dead ahead. Range.”
“No reading.”
“Continue ranging. Report first reading. Add program. Display running radar ranges to target.”
“Program running. Who blacked your eye?”
“You’re a Smart Girl, Gay.”
“I’m sexy, too. Over.”
“Continue program.” Zeb sighed, then said, “Copilot, there’s atmosphere down there. I plan to attempt to ground. Comment? Advice?”
“Captain, those are words I hoped to hear. Let’s go!”
“Barsoom – here we come!”

Chapter XVI

a maiden knight, eager to break a lance –

Jake:
My beloved bride was no more eager than I to visit “Barsoom.” I had been afraid that our captain would do the sensible thing: establish orbit, take pictures, then return to our own space-time before our air was stale. We were not prepared to explore strange planets. Gay Deceiver was a bachelor’s sports car. We had a little water, less food, enough air for about three hours. Our craft refreshed its air by the scoop method. If she made a “high jump,” her scoop valves sealed from internal pressure just as did commercial ballistic-hypersonic intercontinental liners – but “high jump” is not space travel.
True, we could go from point to point in our own or any universe in null time, but how many heavenly bodies have breathable atmospheres? Countless billions – but a small fraction of one percent from a practical viewpoint – and no publication lists their whereabouts. We had no spectroscope, no star catalogs, no atmosphere testing equipment, no radiation instruments, no means of detecting dangerous organisms. Columbus with his cockleshells was better equipped than we.
None of this worried me.
Reckless? Do you pause to shop for an elephant gun while an elephant is chasing you?
Three times we had escaped death by seconds. We had evaded our killers by going to earth – and that safety had not lasted. So again we fled like rabbits.
At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that “news” is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different – in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.
I was not distressed. I felt more alive than I had felt since the death of my first wife.
Underneath the persona each shows the world lies a being different from the masque. My own persona was a professorial archetype. Underneath? Would you believe a maiden knight, eager to break a lance? I could have avoided military service – married, a father, protected profession. But I spent three weeks in basic training, sweating with the rest, cursing drill instructors – and loving it! Then they took my rifle, told me I was an officer, gave me a swivel chair and a useless job. I never forgave them for that.
Hilda, until we married, I knew not at all. I had valued her as a link to my lost love but I had thought her a lightweight, a social butterfly. Then I found myself married to her and learned that I had unnecessarily suffered lonely years. Hilda was what I needed, I was what she needed – Jane had known it and blessed us when at last we knew it. But I still did not realize the diamondhard quality of my tiny darling until I saw her dissecting that pseudo “ranger.” Killing that alien was easy. But what Hilda did – I almost lost my supper.
Hilda is small and weak; I’ll protect her with my life. But I won’t underrate her again!
Zeb is the only one of us who looks the part of intrepid explorer – tall, broadshouldered, strongly muscled, skilled with machines and with weapons, and (sine qua non!) cool-headed in crisis and gifted with the “voice of command.”
One night I had been forced to reason with my darling; Hilda felt that I should lead our little band. I was oldest, I was inventor of the time-space “distorter” – it was all right for Zeb to pilot – but I must command. In her eyes Zeb was somewhere between an overage adolescent and an affectionate Saint Bernard. She pointed out that Zeb claimed to be a “coward by trade” and did not want responsibility.
I told her that no born leader seeks command; the mantle descends on him, he wears the burden because he must. Hilda could not see it – she was willing to take orders from me but not from her pet youngster “Zebbie.”
I had to be firm: Either accept Zeb as commander or tomorrow Zeb and I would dismount my apparatus from Zeb’s car so that Mr. and Mrs. Carter could go elsewhere. Where? Not my business or yours, Hilda. I turned over and pretended to sleep.
When I heard sobs, I turned again and held her. But I did not budge. No need to record what was said; Hilda promised to take any orders Zeb might give – once we left.
But her capitulation was merely coerced until the gory incident at the pool. Zeb’s instantaneous attack changed her attitude. From then on my darling carried out Zeb’s orders without argument – and between times kidded and ragged him as always. Hilda’s spirit wasn’t broken; instead she placed her indomitable spirit subject to the decisions of our captain. Discipline – self-discipline; there is no other sort.
Zeb is indeed a “coward by trade” – he avoids trouble whenever possible – a most commendable trait in a leader. If a captain worries about the safety of his command, those under him need not worry.

Barsoom continued to swell. At last Gay’s voice said, “Ranging, Boss” as she displayed “1000 km,” and flicked at once to “999 km.” I started timing when Zeb made it unnecessary: “Smart Girl!”
“Here, Zeb.”
“Continue range display. Show as H-above-G. Add dive rate.”
“Null program.”
“Correction. Add program. Display dive rate soonest.”
“New program dive rate stored. Display starts H-above-G six hundred klicks.”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“‘Smartest little girl in the County, Oh! Daddy and Mommy told me so!’ Over.”
“Continue programs.”
Height-above-ground seemed to drop both quickly and with stomach-tensing slowness. No one said a word; I barely breathed. As “600 km” appeared the figures were suddenly backed by a grid; on it was a steep curve, height-against-time, and a new figure flashed underneath the H-above-G figure: 1968 km/hr. As the figure changed, a bright abscissa lowered down on the grid.
Our captain let out a sigh. “We can handle that. But I’d give fifty cents and a double-dip ice-cream cone for a parachute brake.”
“What flavor?”
“Your choice, Sharpie. Don’t worry, folks; I can stand her on her tail and blast. But it’s an expensive way to slow up. Gay Deceiver.”
“Busy, Boss.”
“I keep forgetting that I can’t ask her to display too many data at once. Anybody know the sea level – I mean ‘surface’ atmospheric pressure of Mars? Don’t all speak at once.”
My darling said hesitantly, “It averages about five millibars. But, Captain – this isn’t Mars.”
“Huh? So it isn’t – and from the looks of that green stuff, Barsoom must have lots more atmosphere than Mars.” Zeb took the controls, overrode the computer, cautiously waggled her elevons. “Can’t feel bite. Sharpie, how come you bone astronomy? Girl Scout?”
“Never got past tenderfoot. I audited a course, then subscribed to ‘Astronomy’ and ‘Sky and Telescope.’ It’s sort o’ fun.”
“Chief of Science, you have again justified my faith in you. Copilot, as soon as I have air bite, I’m going to ease to the east. We’re headed too close to the terminator. I want to ground in daylight. Keep an eye out for level ground. I’ll hover at the last – but I don’t want to ground in forest. Or in badlands.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Astrogator.”
“Yessir!”
“Deety darling, search to port – and forward, as much as you can see around me. Jake can favor the starboard side.”
“Captain – I’m on the starboard side. Behind Pop.”
“Huh? How did you gals get swapped around?”
“Well… you hurried us, sir – any old seat in a storm.”
“Two demerits for wrong seat – and no syrup on the hot cakes we’re going to have for breakfast as soon as we’re grounded.”
“Uh, I don’t believe hot cakes are possible.”
“I can dream, can’t I? Chief Science Officer, watch my side.”
“Yes, Cap’n.”
“While Deety backs up Jake. Any cow pasture.”

“Hey! I feel air! She bites!”
I held my breath while Zeb slowly brought the ship out of dive, easing her east. “Gay Deceiver.”
“How now, Brown Cow?”
“Cancel display programs. Execute.”
“Inshallâh, ya sayyid.”
The displays faded. Zeb held her just short of stalling. We were still high, about six klicks, still hypersonic.
Zeb slowly started spreading her wings as air speed and altitude dropped. After we dropped below speed of sound, he opened her wings full for maximum lift. “Did anyone remember to bring a canary?”
“A canary!” said Deety. “What for, Boss Man?”
“My gentle way of reminding everyone that we have no way to test atmosphere. Copilot.”
“Captain,” I acknowledged.
“Uncover deadman switch. Hold it closed while you remove clamp. Hold it high where we all can see it. Once you report switch ready to operate, I’m going to crack the air scoops. If you pass out, your hand will relax and the switch will get us home. I hope. But – All hands! – if anyone feels dizzy or woozy or faint… or sees any of us start to slump, don’t wait! Give the order orally. Deety, spell the order I mean. Don’t say it – spell it.”
“G, A, Y, D, E, C, I, E, V, E, R, T, A, K, E, U, S, H, O, M, E.”
“You misspelled it.”
“I did not!”
“You did so; ‘”i” before “e” except after “c.”‘ You reversed ’em.”
“Well… maybe I did. That diphthong has always given me trouble. Floccinaucinihilipilificator!”
“So you understood it? From now on, on Barsoom, ‘i’ comes before ‘e’ at all times. By order of John Carter, Warlord. I have spoken. Copilot?”
“Deadman switch ready, Captain,” I answered.
“You gals hold your breaths or breathe, as you wish. Pilot and copilot will breathe. I am about to open air scoops.”
I tried to breathe normally and wondered if my hand would relax if I passed out.
The cabin got suddenly chilly, then the heaters picked up. I felt normal. Cabin pressure slightly higher, I thought, under ram effect.
“Everybody feel right? Does everybody look right? Copilot?”
“I feel fine. You look okay. So does Hilda. I can’t see Deety.”
“Science Officer?”
“Deety looks normal. I feel fine.”
“Deety. Speak up.”
“Golly, I had forgotten what fresh air smells like!”
“Copilot, carefully – most carefully! – put the clamp back on the switch, then rack and cover it. Report completion.”
A few seconds later I reported, “Deadman switch secured, Captain.”
“Good. I see a golf course; we’ll ground.” Zeb switched to powered flight; Gay responded, felt alive. We spiraled, hovered briefly, grounded with a gentle bump. “Grounded on Barsoom. Log it, Astrogator. Time and date.”
“Huh?”
“On the instrument board.”
“But that says oh-eight-oh-three and it’s just after dawn here.”
“Log it Greenwich. With it, log estimated local time and Barsoom day one.” Zeb yawned. “I wish they wouldn’t hold mornings so early.”
“Too sleepy for hot cakes?” my wife inquired.
“Never that sleepy.”
“Aunt Hilda!”
“Deety, I stowed Aunt Jemima mix. And powdered milk. And butter. Zebbie, no syrup – sorry. But there is grape jelly in a tube. And freeze-dried coffee. If one of you will undog this bulkhead door, we’ll have breakfast in a few minutes.”
“Chief Science Officer, you have a duty to perform.”
“I do? But – Yes, Captain?”
“Put your dainty toe to the ground. It’s your planet, your privilege. Starboard side of the car, under the wing, is the ladies’ powder room – portside is the men’s jakes. Ladies may have armed escort on request.”
I was glad Zeb remembered that. The car had a “honey bucket” under the cushion of the port rear seat, and, with it, plastic liners. I did not ever want to have to use it.
Gay Deceiver was wonderful but, as a spaceship, she left much to be desired. However, she had brought us safely to Barsoom.
Barsoom! Visions of thoats and beautiful princesses –

Chapter XVII

The world wobbled –

Deety:
We spent our first hour on “Barsoom” getting oriented. Aunt Hilda stepped outside, then stayed out. “Isn’t cold,” she told us. “Going to be hot later.”
“Watch where you step!” my husband warned her. “Might be snakes or anything.” He hurried after her – and went head over heels.
Zebadiah was not hurt; the ground was padded, a greenish-yellow mat somewhat like “ice plant” but looking more like clover. He got up carefully, then swayed as if walking on a rubber mattress. “I don’t understand it,” he complained. “This gravity ought to be twice that of Luna. But I feel lighter.”
Aunt Hillbilly sat down on the turf. “On the Moon you were carrying pressure suit and tanks and equipment.” She unfastened her shoes. “Here you aren’t.”
“Yeah, so I was,” agreed my husband. “What are you doing?”
“Taking off my shoes. When were you on the Moon? Cap’n Zebbie, you’re a fraud.”
“Don’t take off your shoes! You don’t know what’s in this grass.”
The Hillbilly stopped, one shoe off. “If they bite me, I bite ’em back. Captain, in Gay Deceiver you are absolute boss. But doesn’t your crew have any free will? I’ll play it either way: free citizen… or your thrall who dassn’t even take off a shoe without permission. Just tell me.”
“Uh -“
“If you try to make all decisions, all the time, you’re going to get as hysterical as a hen raising ducklings. Even Deety can be notional. But I won’t even pee without permission. Shall I put this back on? Or take the other off?”
“Aunt Hilda, quit teasing my husband!” (I was annoyed!)
“Dejah Thoris, I am not teasing your husband; I am asking our captain for instructions.”
Zebadiah sighed. “Sometimes I wish I’d stayed in Australia.”
I said, “Is it all right for Pop and me to come out?”
“Oh. Certainly. Watch your step; it’s tricky.”
I jumped down, then jumped high and wide, with entrechats as I floated – landed sur les pointes. “Oh, boy! What a wonderful place for ballet!” I added, “Shouldn’t do that on a full bladder. Aunt Hilda, let’s see if that powder room is unoccupied.”
“I was about to, dear, but I must get a ruling from our captain.”
“You’re teasing him.”
“No, Deety; Hilda is right; doctrine has to be clear. Jake? How about taking charge on the ground?”
“No, Captain. Druther be a Balkan general, given my druthers.”
Aunt Hilda stood up, shoe in hand, reached high with her other hand, patted my husband’s cheek. “Zebbie, you are a dear. You worry about us all – me especially, because you think I’m a featherhead. Remember how we did at Snug Harbor? Each one did what she could do best and there was no friction. If that worked there, it ought to work here.”
“Well… all right. But will you gals please be careful?”
“We’ll be careful. How’s your E.S.P.? Any feeling?”
Zebadiah wrinkled his forehead. “No. But I don’t get advance warning. Just barely enough.”
“‘Just barely’ is enough. Before we had to leave, you were about to program Gay to listen at high gain. Would that change ‘just barely’ to ‘ample’?”
“Yes! Sharpie, I’ll put you in charge, on the ground.”
“In your hat, Buster. Ole Massa done freed us slaves. Zebbie, the quicker you quit dodging, the sooner you get those hot cakes. Spread my cape down and put the hot plate on the step.”
We ate breakfast in basic Barsoomian dress: skin. Aunt Hilda pointed out that laundries seemed scarce, and the car’s water tanks had to be saved for drinking and cooking. “Deety, I have just this dress you gave me; I’ll air it and let the wrinkles hang out. Panties, too. An air bath is better than no bath. I know you’ll divvy with me but you are no closer to a laundry than I am.”
My jump suit joined Hilda’s dress. “Aunt Hilda, you could skip bathing a week. Me, right after a bath I have a body odor but not too bad. In twenty four hours I’m whiff. Forty-eight and I smell like a skunk. An air bath may help.”
The same reasoning caused our men to spread their used clothing on the port wing, and caused Zebadiah to pick up Hilda’s cape. “Sharpie, you can’t get fur Hollanderized in this universe. Jake, you stowed some tarps?”
After dishes were “washed” (scoured with turf, placed in the sun) we were sleepy. Zebadiah wanted us to sleep inside, doors locked. Aunt Hilda and I wanted to nap on a tarpaulin in the shade of the car. I pointed out that moving rear seats aft in refitting had made it impossible to recline them.
Zebadiah offered to give up his seat to either of us women. I snapped, “Don’t be silly, dear! You barely fit into a rear seat and it brings your knees so far forward that the seat in front can’t be reclined.”
Pop intervened. “Hold it! Daughter, I’m disappointed – snapping at your husband. But, Zeb, we’ve got to rest. If I sleep sitting up, I get swollen ankles, half crippled, not good for much.”
“I was trying to keep us safe,” Zebadiah said plaintively.
“I know, Son; you’ve been doing so – and a smart job, or we all would be dead three times over. Deety knows it, I know it, Hilda knows it -“
“I sure do, Zebbie!”
“My Captain, I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
“We’ll need you later. Flesh has its limits – even yours. If necessary, we would bed you down and stand guard over you -“
“No!”
“We sure would, Zebbie!”
“We will, my Captain.”
“But I doubt that it’s necessary. When we sat on the ground to eat, did anyone get chigger bites or anything?”
My husband shook his head.
“Not me,” Aunt Hilda agreed.
I added, “I saw some little beasties but they didn’t bother me.”
“Apparently,” Pop went on, “they don’t like our taste. A ferocious-looking dingus sniffed at my ankle – but it scurried away. Zeb, Gay can hear better than we can?”
“Oh, much better!”
“Can her radar be programmed to warn us?”
Zebadiah looked thoughtful. “Uh… anti-collision alarm would wake the dead. If I pulled it in to minimum range, then – No, the display would be cluttered with ‘grass.’ We’re on the ground. False returns.”
I said, “Subtract static display, Zebadiah.”
“Eh? How, Deety?”
“Gay can do it. Shall I try?”
“Deety, if you switch on radar, we have to sleep inside. Microwaves cook your brains.”
“I know, sir. Gay has sidelookers, eyes fore and aft, belly, and umbrella – has she not?”
“Yes. That’s why -“
“Switch off her belly eye. Can sidelookers hurt us if we sleep under her?” His eyes widened. “Astrogator, you know more about my car than I do. I’d better sign her over to you.”
“My Captain, you have already endowed me with all your worldly goods. I don’t know more about Gay; I know more about programming.”

We made a bed under the car by opening Zebadiah’s sleeping bag out flat, a tarpaulin on each side. Aunt Hilda dug out sheets: “In case anyone gets chilly.”
“Unlikely,” Pop told her. “Hot now, not a cloud and no breeze.”
“Keep it by you, dearest. Here’s one for Zebbie.” She dropped two more on the sleeping bag, lay down on it. “Down flat, gentlemen” – waited for them to comply, then called to me: “Deety! Everybody’s down.”
From inside I called back, “Right with you!” – then said, “Hello, Gay.”
“Hi, Deety!”
“Retrieve newest program. Execute.”
Five scopes lighted, faded to dimness; the belly eye remained blank. I told her, “You’re a good girl, Gay.”
“I like you, too, Deety. Over.”
“Roger and out, sister.” I scrunched down, got at the stowage under the instrument board, pulled out padding and removed saber and sword, each with belt. These I placed at the door by a pie tin used at breakfast. I slithered head first out the door, turned without rising, got swords and pie plate, and crawled toward the pallet, left arm cluttered with hardware.
I stopped. “Your sword, Captain.”
“Deety! Do I need a sword to nap?”
“No, sir. I shall sleep soundly knowing that my captain has his sword.”
“Hmm – ” Zebadiah withdrew it a span, returned it with a click. “Silly… but I feel comforted by it, too.”
“I see nothing silly, sir. Ten hours ago you killed a thing with it that would have killed me.”
“I stand – sprawl – corrected, my Princess. Dejah Thoris is always correct.”
“I hope my Chieftain will always think so.”
“He will. Give me a big kiss. What’s the pie pan for?”
“Radar alarm test.”
Having delivered the kiss, I crawled past Hilda and handed Pop his saber. He grinned at me. “Deety hon, you’re a one! Just the security blanket I need. How did you know?”
“Because Aunt Hilda and I need it. With our warriors armed, we will sleep soundly.” I kissed Pop, crawled out from under. “Cover your ears!”
I got to my knees, sailed that pan far and high, dropped flat and covered my ears. As the pan sailed into the zone of microwave radiation, a horrid clamor sounded inside the car, kept up until the pan struck the ground and stopped rolling – chopped off. “Somebody remind me to recover that. Good night, all!”
I crawled back, stretched out by Hilda, kissed her goodnight, set the clock in my head for six hours, went to sleep.

The sun was saying that it was fourteen instead of fourteen-fifteen and I decided that my circadian did not fit Barsoom. Would the clock in my head “slow” to match a day forty minutes longer? Would it give me trouble? Not likely – I’ve always been able to sleep anytime. I felt grand and ready for anything.
I crept off the pallet, snaked up into the car’s cabin, and stretched. Felt good!
I crawled through the bulkhead door back of the rear seats, got some scarves and my jewelry case, went forward into the space between seats and instrument board.
I tried tying a filmy green scarf as a bikini bottom, but it looked like a diaper. I took it off, folded it corner to corner, pinned it at my left hip with a jeweled brooch. Lots better! “Indecently decent” Pop would say.
I looped a rope of imitation pearls around my hips, arranged strands to drape with the cloth, fastened them at the brooch. I hung around my neck a pendant of pearls and cabochon emeralds – from my father the day I received the title doctor of philosophy.
I was adding bracelets and rings when I heard “Psst!” – looked down and saw the Hillbilly’s head and hands at the doorsill. Hilda put a finger to her lips. I nodded, gave her a hand up, whispered, “Still asleep?”
“Like babies.”
“Let’s get you dressed… ‘Princess Thuvia.'” Aunt Hilda giggled. “Thank you… ‘Princess’ Dejah Thoris.” “Want anything but jewelry?”
“Just something to anchor it. That old-gold scarf if you can spare it.”
“Course I can! Nothing’s too good for my Aunt Thuvia and that scarf is durn near nothing. Baby doll, we’re going to deck you out for the auction block. Will you do my hair?”
“And you mine. Deety – I mean ‘Dejah Thoris’ – I miss a three-way mirror.”
“We’ll be mirrors for each other,” I told her. “I don’t mind camping out. My great-great-great-grandmother had two babies in a sod house. Except” – I ducked my head, sniffed my armpit – “we’d better find a stream.” I added, “Hold still. Or shall I pin it through your skin?”
“Either way, dear. We’ll find water – all this ground cover.”
“Ground cover doesn’t prove running water. This place may be a ‘dead sea bottom of Barsoom.'”
“Doesn’t look dead,” Aunt Hilda countered. “It’s pretty.”
“Yes, but this looks like a dead sea bottom. Which gave me an idea. Hold up your hair; I want to arrange your necklaces.”
“What idea?” Aunt Hilda demanded.
“Zebadiah told me to figure a third escape program. The first two – I’ll paraphrase, Gay is awake. One tells her to take us back to a height over Snug Harbor; the other tells her to scoot back to where she was before she was last given the first order.”
“I thought that one told her to place us over the Grand Canyon?”
“It does, at present. But if she got the first order now, that would change the second order. Instead of over the Grand Canyon, we would be back here quicker’n a frog could wink its eye.”
“Okay if you say so.”
“She’s programmed that way. Hit the panic button and we are over our cabin site. Suppose we arrive there and find trouble, then use the ‘C’ order. She takes us back to wherever she last got the ‘T’ order. Dangerous or we would not have left in a rush. So we need a third escape program, to take us to a safe place. This looks safe.”
“It’s peaceful.”
“Seems so. There! – more doodads than a Christmas tree and you look nakeder than ever.”
“That’s the effect we want, isn’t it? Sit down in the copilot’s seat; I’ll do your hair.”
“Want shoes?” I asked.
“On Barsoom? Dejah Thoris, thank you for your little-girl shoes. But they pinch my toes. You’re going to wear shoes?”
“Not bleedin’ likely, Aunt Nanny Goat. I toughened my feet for karate – I can break a four-by-nine with my feet and get nary a bruise. Or run on sharp gravel. What’s a good escape phrase? I plan to store in Gay an emergency signal for every spot we visit that looks like a safe hidey-hole. So give me a phrase.”
“Your mudder chaws terbacker!”
“Nanny Goat! A code-phrase should have a built-in mnemonic.”
“‘Bug Out’?”
“A horrid expression and just what we need. ‘Bug Out’ will mean to take us to this exact spot. I’ll program it. And post it and others on the instrument board so that, if anyone forgets, she can read it.”
“And so could any outsider, if she got in.”
“Fat lot of good it would do her! Gay ignores an order not in our voices. Hello, Gay.”
“Hello, Deety!”
“Retrieve present location. Report.”
“Null program.”
“Are we lost?”
“Not at all, Aunt Hilda. I was sloppy. Gay, program check. Define ‘Home.'”
“Cancel any-all transitions translations rotations inertials. Return to zerodesignated latitude longitude two klicks above ground level hovering.”
“Search memory reversed-real-time for last order execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home.”
“Retrieved.”
“From time of retrieved order integrate to time-present all transitions translations rotations inertials.”
“Integrated.”
“Test check. Report summary of integration.”
“Origin ‘Home.’ Countermarch program executed. Complex maneuver inertials. Translation Tau axis ten minimals positive. Complex maneuver inertials. Translation Ell axis two-two-four-zero-nine-zero-eight-two-seven point zero klicks. Negative vector Ell axis twenty-four klicks per sec. Negative vector Ell axis four klicks per sec. Complex maneuver inertials. Grounded here-then oh-eight-oh-two-forty-nine. Grounded inertials continuing eight hours three minutes nineteen seconds mark! Grounded inertials continue running realtime.”
“New program. Here-now grounded inertial location real-time running to real-time new execute order equals code-phrase bug-out. Report new program.”
Gay answered: “New program code-phrase bug-out: Definition: Here-now grounded inertials running real-time to future-time execute order code-phrase bug-out.”
“Gay, I tell you three times.”
“Deety, I hear you three times.”
“New program. Execute-coded Gay Deceiver Bug Out. At execute-code move to location coded ‘bug-out.’ I tell you three times.”
“I hear you three times.”
“Gay Deceiver, you’re a smart girl.”
“Deety, why don’t you leave that big ape and live with me? Over.”
“Good night, Gay. Roger and out. Hillbilly, I didn’t give you that answer.” I tried to look fierce.
“Why, Deety, how could you say such a thing?”
“I know I didn’t. Well?”
“I ‘fess up, Deetikins. A few days ago while you and I were working, you were called away. While I waited, I stuck that in. Want it erased?”
I don’t know how to look fierce; I snickered. “No. Maybe Zebadiah will be around the next time it pops up. I wish our men would wake, I do.”
“They need rest, dear.”
“I know. But I want to check that new program.”
“It sounded complex.”
“Can be, by voice. I’d rather work on paper. A computer doesn’t accept excuses. A mistake can be anything from ‘null program’ to disaster. This one has features I’ve never tried. I don’t really understand what Pop does. Non-Euclidean n-dimensional geometry is way out in left field.”
“To me it’s not in the ball park.”
“So I’m itchy.”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“Did I show you our micro walky-talkies?”
“Jacob gave me one.”
“There’s one for each. Tiny but amazingly long-ranged. Uses less power than a hand calculator and weighs less – under two hundred grams. Mass, I mean – weight here is much less. Today I thought of a new use. Gay can accept their frequency.”
“That’s nice. How do you plan to use this?”
“This car can be remote-controlled.”
“Deety, who would you want to do that?”
I admitted that I did not know. “But Gay can be preprogrammed to do almost anything. For example, we could go outside and tell Gay, via walky-talky, to carry out two programs in succession: H, O, M, E, followed by B, U, G, O, U, T. Imagine Zebadiah’s face when he wakes up from sun in his eyes – because his car has vanished – then his expression two hours later when it pops back into existence.”
“Deety, go stand in the corner for thinking such an unfunny joke!” Then Aunt Hilda looked thoughtful. “Why would it take two hours? I thought Gay could go anywhere in no time.”
“Depends on your postulates, Princess Thuvia. We took a couple of hours to get here because we fiddled. Gay would have to follow that route in reverse because it’s the only one she knows. Then – ” I stopped, suddenly confused. “Or would it be four hours? No, vectors would cancel and – But that would make it instantaneous; we would never know that she had left. Or would we? Aunt Hilda, I don’t know! Oh, I wish our men would wake up, I do!” The world wobbled and I felt scared.
“I’m awake,” Pop answered, his head just showing above the doorsill. “What’s this debate?” He gave Aunt Hilda a lecherous leer. “Little girl, if you’ll come up to my room, I’ll give you some candy.”
“Get away from me, you old wolf!”
“Hilda my love, I could sell you down to Rio and retire on the proceeds. You look like expensive stuff.”
“I’m very expensive stuff, darling wolf. All I want is every cent a man has and constant pampering – then a fat estate when he dies.”
“I’ll try to die with plenty of money in the bank, dearest.”
“Instead we’re both dead and our bank accounts have gone Heaven knows where and I haven’t a rag to my back – and I’m wonderfully happy. Come inside – mind the radar! – and kiss me, you old wolf; you don’t have to buy me candy.”
“Pop,” I asked, “is Zebadiah asleep?”
“Just woke up.”
I spoke to Gay, then to Pop: “Will you tell Zebadiah radar is off? He can stand up without getting his ears fried.”
“Sure.” Pop ducked down and yelled, “Zeb, it’s safe; her husband left.”
“Coming!” Zebadiah’s voice rumbled back. “Tell Deety to put the steaks on.” My darling appeared wearing sword, carrying pie pan and sheets. “Are the steaks ready?” he asked, then kissed me.
“Not quite, sir,” I told him. “First, go shoot a thoat. Or will you settle for peanut butter sandwiches?”
“Don’t talk dirty. Did you say ‘thoat’?”
“Yes. This is Barsoom.”
“I thoat that was what you said.”
“If that’s a pun, you can eat it for supper. With peanut butter.”
Zebadiah shuddered. “I’d rather cut my thoat.”
Pop said, “Don’t do it, Zeb. A man can’t eat with his thoat cut. He can’t even talk clearly.”
Aunt Hilda said mildly, “If you three will cease those atrocities, I’ll see what I can scrape up for dinner.”
“I’ll help,” I told her, “but can we run my test first? I’m itchy.”
“Certainly, Deety. It will be a scratch meal.”
Pop looked at Aunt Hilda reproachfully. “And you told us to stop.”
“What test?” demanded my husband.
I explained the Bug-Out program. “I think I programmed it correctly. But here is a test. Road the car a hundred meters. If my program works – fine! If it tests null, no harm done but you and Pop will have to teach me more about the twister before I’ll risk new programming.”
“I don’t want to road the car, Deety; I’m stingy with every erg until I know when and where I can juice Gay. However – Jake, what’s your minimum transition?”
“Ten kilometers. Can’t use spatial quanta for transitions – too small. But the scale goes up fast – logarithmic. That’s short range. Middle range is in light-years – logarithmic again.”
“What’s long range, Jake?”
“Gravitic radiation versus time. We won’t use that one.”
“Why not, Jacob?” asked Aunt Hilda.
Pop looked sheepish. “I’m scared of it, dearest. There are three major theories concerning gravitic propagation. At the time I machined those controls, one theory seemed proved. Since then other physicists have reported not being able to reproduce the data. So I blocked off long range.” Pop smiled sourly. “I know the gun is loaded but not what it will do. So I spiked it.”
“Sensible,” agreed my husband. “Russian roulette lacks appeal. Jake, do you have any guess as to what options you shut off?”
“Better than a guess, Zeb. It reduces the number of universes accessible to us on this axis from the sixth power of six-to-the-sixth-power to a mere six to the sixth power. Forty-six thousand, six hundred, fifty-six.”
“Gee, that’s tough!”
“I didn’t mean it as a joke, Zeb.”
“Jake, I was laughing at me. I’ve been looking forward to a lifetime exploring universes – and now I learn that I’m limited to a fiddlin’ forty-six thousand and some. Suppose I have a half century of exploration left in me. Assume that I take off no time for eating, sleeping, or teasing the cat, how much time can I spend in each universe?”
“About nine hours twenty minutes per universe,” I told him. “Nine hours, twenty-three minutes, thirty-eight point seven-two-two seconds, plus, to be more nearly accurate.”
“Deety, let’s do be accurate,” Zebadiah said solemnly. “If we stayed a minute too long in each universe, we would miss nearly a hundred universes.”
I was getting into the spirit. “Let’s hurry instead. If we work at it, we can do three universes a day for fifty years – one of us on watch, one on standby, two off duty – and still squeeze in maintenance, plus a few hours on the ground, once a year. If we hurry.”
“We haven’t a second to lose!” Zebadiah answered. “All hands! – places! Stand by to lift! Move!”
I was startled but hurried to my seat. Pop’s chin dropped but he took his place. Aunt Hilda hesitated a split second before diving for her seat, but, as she strapped herself in, wailed, “Captain? Are we really leaving Barsoom?”
“Quiet, please. Gay Deceiver, close doors! Report seat belts. Copilot, check starboard door seal.”
“Seat belt fastened,” I reported with no expression.
“Mine’s fastened. Oh, dear!”
“Copilot, by low range, ‘H’ axis upward, minimum transition.”
“Set, Captain.”
“Execute.”
Sky outside was dark, the ground far below. “Ten klicks exactly,” my husband approved. “Astrogator, take the conn, test your new program. Science Officer observe.”
“Yessir. Gay Deceiver – Bug Out!” We were parked on the ground.
“Science Officer – report,” Zebadiah ordered.
“Report what?” Aunt Hilda demanded.
“We tested a new program. Did it pass test?”
“Uh, we seem to be back where we were. We were weightless maybe ten seconds. I guess the test was okay, Except -“
“‘Except’ what?”
“Captain Zebbie, you’re the worst tease on Earth! And Barsoom! You did so put lime Jello in my pool!”
“I was in Africa.”
“Then you arranged it!”
“Hilda – please! I never said we were leaving Barsoom. I said that we haven’t a second to waste. We don’t, with so much to explore.”
“Excuses. What about my clothes? All on the starboard wing. Where are they now? Floating up in the stratosphere? Coming down where? I’ll never find them.”
“I thought you preferred to dress Barsoomian style?”
“Doesn’t mean I want to be forced to! Besides, Deety lent them to me. I’m sorry, Deety.”
I patted her hand. “‘S’all right, Aunt Hilda. I’ll lend you more. Give them, I mean.” I hesitated, then said firmly, “Zebadiah, you should apologize to Aunt Hilda.”
“Oh, for the love of – Sharpie? Sharpie darling.”
“Yes, Zebbie?”
“I’m sorry I let you think that we were leaving Barsoom. I’ll buy you clothes that fit. We’ll make a quick trip back to Earth -“
“Don’t want to go back to Earth! Aliens! They scare me.”
“They scare me, too. I started to say: ‘Earth-without-a-J.’ It’s so much like our own that I can probably use U.S. money. If not, I have gold. Or I can barter. For you, Sharpie, I’ll steal clothes. We’ll go to Phoenix-without-a-J – tomorrow – today we take a walk and see some of this planet – your planet – and we’ll stay on your planet until you get tired of it. Is that enough? Or must I confess putting Jello into your pool when I didn’t?”
“You really didn’t?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Be darned. Actually I thought it was funny. I wonder who did it? Aliens, maybe?”
“They play rougher than that. Sharpie darling, I’m not the only weirdo in your stable – not by dozens.”
“Guess maybe. Zebbie? Will you kiss Sharpie and make up?”

On the ground, under the starboard wing, we found our travel clothes, and under the port wing, those of our husbands. Zebadiah looked bemused. “Jake? I thought Hilda was right. It had slipped my mind that we had clothing on the wings.”
“Use your head, Son.”
“I’m not sure I have one.”
“I don’t understand it either, darling,” Aunt Hilda added.
“Daughter?” Pop said.
“Pop, I think I know. But – I pass!”
“Zeb, the car never moved. Instead -“
Aunt Hilda interrupted, “Jacob, are you saying that we did not go straight up? We were there – five minutes ago.”
“Yes, my darling. But we didn’t move there. Motion has a definable meaning: A duration of changing locations. But no duration was involved. We did not successively occupy loci between here-then and there-then.”
Aunt Hilda shook her head. “I don’t understand. We went whoosh! up into the sky… then whoosh! back where we started.”
“My darling, we didn’t whoosh! Deety! Don’t be reticent.”
I sighed. “Pop, I’m not sure there exists a symbol for the referent. Aunt Hilda. Zebadiah. A discontinuity. The car -“
“Got it!” said Zebadiah.
“I didn’t,” Aunt Hilda persisted.
“Like this, Sharpie,” my husband went on. “My car is here. Spung! – it vanishes. Our clothes fall to the ground. Ten seconds later – flip! – we’re back where we started. But our clothes are on the ground. Get it now?”
“I – I guess so. Yes.”
“I’m glad you do… because I don’t. To me, it’s magic.” Zebadiah shrugged. “‘Magic.'”
“‘Magic’,” I stated, “is a symbol for any process not understood.”
“That’s what I said, Deety. ‘Magic.’ Jake, would it have mattered if the car had been indoors?”
“Well… that fretted me the first time Deety and I translated to Earth-without-the-letter-J. So I moved our car outdoors. But now I think that only the destination matters. It should be empty – I think. But I’m too timid to experiment.”
“Might be interesting. Unmanned vehicle. Worthless target. A small asteroid. A baby sun?”
“I don’t know, Zeb. Nor do I have apparatus to spare. It took me three years to build this one.”
“So we wait a few years. Jake? Air has mass.”
“That worried me also. But any mass, other than degenerate mass, is mostly empty space. Air – Earth sea-level air – has about a thousandth the density of the human body. The body is mostly water and water accepts air readily. I can’t say that it has no effect – twice I’ve thought that my temperature went up a trifle at transition or translation in atmosphere but it could have been excitement. I’ve never experienced caisson disease from it. Has any of us felt discomfort?”
“Not me, Jake.”
“I’ve felt all right, Pop,” I agreed.
“I got space sick. Till Deety cured it,” Aunt Hilda added.
“So did I, my darling. But that was into vacuo and could not involve the phenomenon.”
“Pop,” I said earnestly, “we weren’t hurt; we don’t have to know why. A basic proposition of epistemology, bedrock both for the three basic statements of semantics and for information theory, is that an observed fact requires no proof. It simply is, self-demonstrating. Let philosophers worry about it; they haven’t anything better to do.”
“Suits me!” agreed Hilda. “You big brains had Sharpie panting. I thought we were going to take a walk?”
“We are, dear,” agreed my husband. “Right after those steaks.”

Chapter XVIII

” – the whole world is alive.”

Zebadiah:
Four Dagwoods later we were ready to start walkabout. Deety delayed by wanting to repeat her test by remote control. I put my foot down. “No!”
“Why not, my Captain? I’ve taught Gay a program to take her straight up ten klicks. It’s G, A, Y, B, O, U, N, C, E – a new fast-escape with no execution word necessary. Then I’ll recall her by B, U, G, O, U, T. If one works via walky-talky, so will the second. It can save our lives, it can!”
“Uh – ” I went on folding tarps and stowing my sleeping bag. The female mind is too fast for me. I often can reach the same conclusion; a woman gets there first and never by the route I have to follow. Besides that, Deety is a genius.
“You were saying, my Captain?”
“I was thinking. Deety, do it with me aboard. I won’t touch the controls. Check pilot, nothing more.”
“Then it won’t be a test.”
“Yes, it will. I promise, Cub Scout honor, to let it fall sixty seconds. Or to three klicks H-above-G, whichever comes first.”
“These walky-talkies have more range than ten kilometers even between themselves. Gay’s reception is much better.”
“Deety, you trust machinery; I don’t. If Gay doesn’t pick up your second command – sun spots, interference, open circuit, anything – I’ll keep her from crashing.”
“But if something else goes wrong and you did crash, I would have killed you!” She started to cry.
So we compromised. Her way. The exact test she had originally proposed. I wasted juice by roading Gay Deceiver a hundred meters, got out, and we all backed off. Deety said into her walky-talky, “Gay Deceiver… Bug Out!”
It’s more startling to watch than it is to be inside. There was Gay Deceiver off to our right, then she was off to our left. No noise – not even an implosion splat! Magic.
“Well, Deety? Are you satisfied?”
“Yes, Zebadiah. Thank you, darling. But it had to be a real test. You see that – don’t you?”
I agreed, while harboring a suspicion that my test had been more stringent. “Deety, could you reverse that? Go somewhere else and tell Gay to come to you?”
“Somewhere she’s never been?”
“Yes.”
Deety switched off her walky-talky and made sure that mine was off. “I don’t want her to hear this. Zebadiah, I always feel animistic about a computer. The Pathetic Fallacy – I know. But Gay is a person to me.”
Deety sighed. “I know it’s a machine. It doesn’t have ears; it can’t see; it doesn’t have a concept of space-time. What it can do is manipulate circuitry in complex ways – complexities limited by its grammar and vocabulary. But those limits are exact. If I don’t stay precisely with its grammar and vocabulary, it reports ‘Null program.’ I can tell it anything by radio that I can tell it by voice inside the cabin – and so can you. But I can’t tell it to come look for me in a meadow beyond a canyon about twelve or thirteen klicks approximately southwest of here-now. That’s a null program – five undefined terms.”
“Because you made it null. You fed ‘garbage in’ and expect me to be surprised at ‘garbage out’ – when you did it a-purpose.”
“I did not either, I didn’t!”
I kissed the end of her nose. “Deety darling, you should trust your instincts. Here’s one way to tell Gay to do that without defining even one new term into her vocabulary. Tell her to expect a three-part program. First part: bounce one minimum, ten klicks. Second part: transit twelve point five klicks true course two-two-five. Third part: drop to one klick H-over-G and hover. At that point, if what you described as your location is roughly correct, you will see her and can coach her to a landing without using Jake’s twister.”
“Uh… twelve and a half kilometers can’t be done in units of ten kilometers. Powered flight?”
“Waste juice? Hon, you just flunked high school geometry. Using Euclid’s tools, compass and straight edge, lay out that course and distance, then lay out how to get there in ten-klick units – no fractions.”
My wife stared. Then her eyes cleared. “Transit one minimum true course one-seven-three and two thirds, then transit one minimum true course two-seven-six and one third. The mirror image solution uses the same courses in reverse. Plus endless trivial solutions using more than two minima.”
“Go to the head of the class. If you don’t spot her, have her do a retreating search curve – in her perms, in an Aussie accent. Honey girl, did you actually do that Euclid style?”
“I approximated it Euclid style – but you didn’t supply compass and straight edge! Scribe circle radius twelve point five. Bisect circle horizontally by straight edge through origin; quarter it by dropping a vertical. Bisect lower left quadrant – that gives true course two-two-five or southwest. Then set compass at ten units and scribe arcs from origin and from southwest point of circle; the intersections give courses and vertices for both major roots to the accuracy of your straight edge and compass. But simply to visualize that construction – well, I got visualized angles of two-seven-five and one-seven-five. Pretty sloppy.
“So I did it accurately by Pythagorean proposition by splitting the isosceles triangle into two right triangles. Hypotenuse is ten, one side is six and a quarter – and that gives the missing side as seven point eight-zero-six-two-four-seven plus – which gives you one course and you read off the other by the scandalous Fifth Axiom. But I did check by trig. Arc sine point seven-eight-zero-six-two-four-seven – “
“Hold it! I believe you. What other ways can you program Gay to find you, using her present vocabulary?”
“Uh… burn juice?”
“If necessary.”
“I would have her bounce a minimum, then maximize my signal. Home on me.”
“Certainly. Now do the same thing without using juice. Just Jake’s twister.”
Deety looked thoughtful and about twelve years old, then suddenly said, “‘Drunkard’s Walk’!” – added at once, “But I would place a locus around the Walk just large enough to be certain that I’m inside it. Gay should plot signal level at each vertex. Such a plot would pinpoint the signal source.”
“Which way is faster? Home straight in under power? Or Drunkard’s Walk?” Deety answered, “Why, the – ” – looked startled. “Those are solid-state relays.”
“Jake sets verniers by hand – but when Gay is directing herself there are no moving parts. Solid state.”
“Zebadiah, am I thinking straight? Using power, at that distance – call it twelve kilometers – Gay should be able to home on me in three or four minutes. But – Zebadiah, this can’t be right! – using no power and relying on random numbers and pure chance in a Drunkard’s Walk, Gay should find me in less than a second. Where did I go wrong?”
“On the high side, Deety girl. Lost your nerve. The first fifty milliseconds should show the hot spot; in less than the second fifty she’ll part your hair. All over in a tenth of a second – or less. But, honey, we still haven’t talked about the best way. I said that you should trust your instincts. Gay is not an ‘it.’ She’s a person. You’ll never know how relieved I was when it turned out that you two were going to be friends. If she had been jealous of you – May the gods deliver us from a vindictive machine! But she’s not; she thinks you’re swell.”
“Zebadiah, you believe that?”
“Dejah Thoris, I know that.”
Deety looked relieved. “I know it, too – despite what I said earlier.”
“Deety, to me the whole world is alive. Some parts are sleeping and some are dozing and some are awake but yawning… and some are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and always ready to go. Gay is one of those.”
“Yes, she is. I’m sorry I called her an ‘it.’ But what is this ‘best way’?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Don’t tell her how – just tell her. Say to her, ‘Gay, come find me!’ All four words are in her vocabulary; the sentence is compatible with her grammar. She’ll find you.”
“But how? Drunkard’s Walk?”
“A tenth of a second might strike her as too long – she likes you, hon. She’ll look through her registers and pick the optimum solution. She might not be able to tell you how she did it, since she wipes anything she’s not told to remember. I think she does; I’ve never been certain.”

Jake and Hilda had wandered off while Deety and I had been talking. They had turned back, so we started toward them. Sharpie called out, “Zebbie, what happened to that hike?”
“Right away,” I agreed. “Jake, we have about three hours. We ought to be buttoned up before sundown. Check?”
“I agree. The temperature will drop rapidly at sundown.”
“Yup. We can’t do real exploring today. So let’s treat it as drill. Fully armed, patrol formation, radio discipline, and always alert, as if there were a ‘Black Hat’ behind every bush.”
“No bushes,” objected Hilda.
I pretended not to hear. “But what constitutes ‘fully armed,’ Jake? We each have rifles. You have that oldstyle Army automatic that will knock down anything if you’re close enough but – how good a shot are you?”
“Good enough.”
“How good is ‘Good enough’?” (Most people are as accurate with a baseball as with a pistol.)
“Skipper, I won’t attempt a target more than fifty meters away. But if I intend to hit, the target will be within range and I will hit it.”
I opened my mouth… closed it. Fifty meters is a long range for that weapon. But hint that my father-in-law was boasting?
Deety caught my hesitation. “Zebadiah – Pop taught me pistol in the campus R.O.T.C. range. I’ve seen him practice bobbing targets at thirty meters. I saw him miss one. Once.”
Jake harrumphed. “My daughter omitted to mention that I skip most surprise targets.”
“Father! ‘Most’ means ‘more than fifty percent.’ Not true!”
“Near enough.”
“Six occasions. Four strings, twenty-eight targets on three -“
“Hold it, honey! Jake, it’s silly to argue figures with your daughter. With my police special I won’t attempt anything over twenty meters – except covering fire. But I hand-load my ammo and pour my own dumdums; the result is almost as lethal as that howitzer of yours. But if it comes to trouble, or hunting for meat, we’ll use rifles, backed by Deety’s shotgun. Deety, can you shoot?”
“Throw your hat into the air.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. Sharpie, we have five firearms, four people – is there one that fits you?”
“Cap’n Zebbie, the one time I fired a gun, I went backwards, the bullet went that-a-way, and I had a sore shoulder. Better have me walk in front to trip land mines.”
“Zebadiah, she could carry my fléchette gun.”
“Sharpie, we’ll put you in the middle and you carry the first-aid kit; you’re medical officer – armed with Deety’s purse gun for defense. Jake, it’s time we stowed these swords and quit pretending to be Barsoomian warriors. Field boots. I’m going to wear that same sweaty pilot suit, about equivalent to jump suits you and Deety wore – which I suggest you wear now. We should carry water canteens and iron rations. I can’t think of anything that would serve as a canteen. Damn! Jake, we aren’t doing this by the book.”
“What book?” demanded Hilda.
“Those romances about interstellar exploration. There’s always a giant mother ship in orbit, loaded with everything from catheters to Coca-Cola, and scouting is by landing craft, in touch with the mother ship. Somehow, we aren’t doing it that way.”
(All the more reason to conduct drill as realistically as possible. Jake or I, one of us, is honor bound to stay alive to take care of two women and unborn children; exterminating ‘Black-Hat’ vermin holds a poor second to that.)
“Zebbie, why are you staring at me?”
I hadn’t known that I was. “Trying to figure how to dress you, dear. Sharpie, you look cute in jewelry and perfume. But it’s not enough for a sortie in the bush. Take ’em off and put ’em away. You, too, Deety. Deety, do you have another jump suit that can be pinned up or stitched up for Hilda?”
“A something, sure. But it would take hours to do a good job. My sewing kit isn’t much.”
“‘Hours’ will have to be another day. Today we’ll make do with safety pins. But take time to do a careful job of padding her feet into your stoutest shoes. Confound it, she should have field boots. Sharpie, remind me when we make that shopping trip to Earth-without-a-J.”
“To hear is to obey, Exalted One. Is it permitted to make a parliamentary inquiry?”
She startled me. “Hilda, what did I do to cause that frosty tone?”
“It was what you didn’t do.” Suddenly she smiled, reached high and patted my cheek. “You mean well, Zebbie. But you slipped. While Gay Deceiver is on the ground, we’re equal. But you’ve been giving orders right and left.”
I started to answer; Jake cut in. “Hilda my love, for a scouting expedition the situation becomes equivalent to a craft in motion. Again we require a captain.”
Sharpie turned toward her husband. “Conceded, sir. But may I point out that we are not yet on that hike? Zebbie has consulted you; he has not consulted Deety and me. He asked us for information – darned seldom! Aside from that he has simply laid down the law. What are we, Zebbie? Poor little female critters whose opinions are worthless?”
Caught with your hand in the cooky jar, throw yourself on the mercy of the court.
“Sharpie, you’re right and I’m dead wrong. But before you pass sentence I claim extenuating circumstances: Youth and inexperience, plus long and faithful service.”
“You can’t,” put in my helpful wife. “You can plead one or the other but not both. They can’t overlap.”
Sharpie stood on tiptoes and kissed my chin. “In Zebbie’s case they do overlap. Do you still want to know what to use as water canteens?”
“Certainly!”
“Then why didn’t you ask?”
“But I did!”
“No, Cap’n Zebbie; you did not ask and did not even give us time to volunteer the answer.”
“I’m sorry, Hilda. Too many things on my mind.”
“I know, dear; Sharpie does not mean to scold. But I had to get your attention.”
“That baseball bat?”
“Almost. For an ersatz canteen – A hot-water bottle?”
Again she startled me. “In the danger we were in when we left, you worried about cold feet in bed? And packed a hot-water bottle?”
“Two,” answered Deety. “Aunt Hilda fetched one. So did I.”
“Deety, you don’t have cold feet and neither do I.”
Sharpie said, “Deety, is he actually that naïve?”
“I’m afraid he is, Aunt Hilda. But he’s sweet.”
“And brave,” added Hilda. “But retarded in spots. They do overlap in Zebbie’s case. He’s unique.”
“What,” I demanded, “are you talking about?”
“Aunt Hilda means that, when you refitted Gay, you neglected to install a bidet.”
“Oh.” That was the wittiest I could manage. “It’s not a subject I give much thought to.”
“No reason you should, Zebbie. Although men use them, too.”
“Zebadiah does. Pop, too. Bidets, I mean. Not hot-water bottles.”
“I meant hot-water bottles, dear. As medical officer I may find it necessary to administer an enema to the Captain.”
“Oh, no!” I objected. “You’re not equipped.”
“But she is, Zebadiah. We fetched both sorts of nozzles.”
“But you didn’t fetch four husky orderlies to hold me down. Let’s move on. Sharpie, what was the advice you would have given if I had been bright enough to consult you?”
“Some is not advice but a statement of fact. I’m not going for a hike on a hot day swaddled in a pinned-up jump suit eight sizes too big. While you all play Cowboys-and-Indians, I’m going to curl up in my seat and read ‘The Oxford Book of English Verse.’ Thank you for fetching it, Jacob.”
“Hilda beloved, I will worry.”
“No need to worry about me, Jacob. I can always tell Gay to lock her doors. But, were I to go with you, I would be a handicap. You three are trained to fight; I’m not.” Sharpie turned toward me. “Captain, since I’m not going, that’s all I have to say.”
What was there for me to say? “Thank you, Hilda. Deety, do you have things on your mind?”
“Yes, sir. I go along with field boots and jump suits and so forth even though they’ll be beastly hot. But I wish you would change your mind about your sword and Pop’s saber. Maybe they aren’t much compared with rifles but they’re good for my morale.”
Hilda interjected, “Had I decided to go, Captain, I would have said the same. Possibly it is an emotional effect from what happened, uh – was it only yesterday? – but perhaps it is subconscious logic. Just yesterday bare blades defeated a man – a thing, an alien – armed with a firearm and ready to use it.”
Jake spoke up. “Captain, I didn’t want to take off my saber.”
“We’ll wear them.” Any excuse is a good excuse to wear a sword. “Are we through? We’ve lost an hour and the Sun is dropping. Deety?”
“One more thing, Zebadiah – and I expect to be outvoted. I say to cancel the hike.”
“So? Princess, you’ve said too much or not enough.”
“If we do this, we spend the night here – sitting up. If we chase the Sun instead – There were lights on the night side that looked like cities. There was blue on the day side that looked like a sea. I think I saw canals. But whether we find something or not, at worst we’ll catch up with sunrise and be able to sleep outdoors in daylight, just as we did today.”
“Deety! Gay can overtake the Sun. Once. You want to use all her remaining juice just to sleep outdoors?”
“Zebadiah, I wasn’t planning on using any power.”
“Huh? It sounded like it.”
“Oh, no! Do transitions of three minima or more, bearing west. Aim us out of the atmosphere; we fall back in while looking for places of interest. As we reenter, we glide, but where depends on what you want to look at. When you have stretched the glide to the limit, unless you decide to ground, you do another transition. There is great flexibility, Zebadiah. You can reach sunrise line in the next few minutes. Or you could elect to stay on the day side for weeks, never land, never use any juice, and inspect the entire planet from pole to pole.”
“Maybe Gay can stay up for weeks – but not me. I’m good for several more hours. With that limitation, it sounds good, How about it? Hilda? Jake?”
“You mean that female suffrage is permanent? I vote Yes!”
Jake said, “You have a majority; no need for a male vote.”
“Jacob!” his wife said reproachfully.
“Joking, my dear. It’s unanimous.”
I said, “Somebody just cancelled the election. Look there.” We all looked. Deety said, “What is it? A pterodactyl?”
“No, an ornithopter. A big one.”

PART TWO – The Butterfly’s Mandarin

Chapter XIX

Something is gained in translation –

Hilda:
Jacob tightened his arm around me. “Zeb,” he said softly, “I don’t believe it.” He was staring (we all were) at this mechaniwockle pteranodon coming at us over the hills in the west.
“Neither do I,” Zebbie answered. “Wrong wing loading. Impossible articulation. There’s a second one. A third! All hands! Grab your clothes! Man the ship! Prepare to lift! Move! Jake, unbuckle your saber and into your jump suit, fast!”
Cap’n Zebbie was unhooking his sword belt and grabbing his coveralls as he yelped. I was inside first as I didn’t stop to dress – grabbed Deety’s baby shoes with one hand, my dress and panties with the other.
I wiggled into panties, slid the dress over my head, slipped on Deety’s Keds.
I anticipated the order to fasten seat belts – stopped suddenly and eased my belt. I had not stopped to take off the doodads that proclaimed me a Barsoomian “princess.” Now it seemed that every item of frippery was about to imprint me for life.
Deety was cursing softly over the same problem. Deety’s jump suit was harder to reach into, even when she unbelted and opened the zipper all the way. I helped readjust the hardware but cautioned her not to remove it and to close the zipper clear to her chin. “Deety, if you get holes in your hide, you’ll get well. But if something loose catches our captain in the eye, the culprit will be broken on the wheel.”
I clucked-clucked at her answer but big ones do get in the way. Meanwhile our men were having problems. That space under the instrument board could not be seen by a full-sized male. The best position to reach it was impossible for Jacob, ridiculously impossible for Zebbie.
Zebbie’s profanity was louder than Deety’s but not as colorful. My own darling was keeping quiet which meant that he was really in trouble. I said, “Gentlemen -“
Zebbie grunted, “Shut up, Sharpie; we’ve got problems! Deety! How did you get these toadstickers into this compartment?”
“I didn’t. Aunt Hilda did.”
“Sharpie, can I apologize later? Those Martians are circling us now!”
So they were, at least a dozen flapping monstrosities. One appeared about to ground. “Captain, I’ll do it – but there is a faster way.”
“How?”
“Unhook your scabbards, put on your sword belts. Saber and sword in scabbards fit easily if you point one right, the other left. They will rattle unless you stuff clothing around them.”
“They can bloody well rattle!” In seconds, our gallants had blades and scabbards stowed. As Cap’n Zebbie resumed sword belt and started on his seat belt he called out, “Fasten belts, prepare to lift! Sharpie, have I told you today that in addition to loving you, I admire you?”
“I think not, Captain.”
“I do. Enormously. Report! Science Officer?”
“Seat belt fastened. Thank you, Zebbie.”
“Seat belt fastened,” reported Deety. “Bulkhead door dogged.”
“Seat belt fastened, starboard door seal checked, copilot ready, sir!”
“Port door seal checked, pilot strapped down; we’re ready – and none too soon! One has grounded and somebody is getting out. Hey! They’re human!”
“Or disguised aliens,” said my darling.
“Well… yes, there’s that. I may lift any second. Deety – that new program: Just G, A, Y, B, O, U, N, C, E? No ‘do-it’ word?”
“Check.”
“Good. I won’t use it unless forced to. This may be that ‘first contact’ the world has been expecting.”
“Cap’n Zebbie, why would aliens disguise themselves when they outnumber us? I think they are human.”
“I hope you’re right. Copilot, should I open the door? Advice, please.”
“Captain, you can open the door anytime. But if it is open, it takes a few seconds to close it and the ship won’t lift with a door open.”
“Too right. Gay Deceiver.”
“Hi, Boss. Where did you pick up the tarts?”
“Gay, check and report.”
“All circuits checked, all systems go, juice point seven-eight – and I’m in the mood.”
“Cast loose L-gun. Prepare to burn.”
“Done!”
“Captain,” my husband said worriedly, “are you planning to blast them?”
“I hope not. I’d rather run than fight. I’d rather stay and get help than either. But they grounded where I can burn them – using offset.”
“Captain, don’t do it!”
“Copilot, I don’t plan to. Now drop it!”
The grounded flappy bird was about two hundred meters and a few degrees left of dead ahead. Two men – they looked like men – had disembarked and headed toward us. They were dressed alike – uniforms? They seemed vaguely familiar – but all uniforms seem vaguely familiar, do they not?
They were less than a hundred meters from us. Cap’n Zebbie did something at his instrument board and suddenly their voices were inside, blastingly loud. He adjusted the setting and we could hear clearly. Zebbie said, “That’s Russian! Isn’t it, Jake?”
“Captain, I think so. A Slavic language, in any case.” Jacob added, “Do you understand it?”
“Me? Jake, I said that I can swear in Russian; I didn’t say I could speak it. I can say ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ and ‘da’ and ‘nyet’ – maybe six more. How about you?”
“I can puzzle out a paper about mathematics with the aid of a dictionary. But speak it? Understand it? No.”
I tried to remember whether or not I had ever told Zebbie that I know Russian. My husband and Deety I had not told. Well, if Zebbie knew, he would call on me. It is not something I mention as it does not fit my persona. I started it out of curiosity; I wanted to read those great Russian novelists – Dostoievsky, Tolstoy, and so forth – in the original in order to find out why they were so celebrated. Why I had never been able to read one of those classic novels all the way through? (They had cured me of sleeping pills.)
So I set out to learn Russian. Soon I was wearing earphones to bed, listening to Russian in my sleep, working with a tutor in the daytime. I never mastered a good accent; those six-consonants-in-a-row words tie knots in my tongue. But one cannot read a language easily unless one can “hear” the words. So I learned the spoken language along with the written.
(Oh, yes, those “classic novels”: Having invested so much effort I carried out my purpose: War and Peace, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, and so forth. Would you believe it? Something is gained in translation; the originals are even more depressing and soporific than translations. I’m not sure what purpose Russian fiction has, but it can’t be entertainment.)
I decided to wait. I was not eager to be interpreter and it would not be necessary if it turned out that Zebbie or Jacob had a language in common with our visitors – and I rationalized my decision by telling myself that it might turn out to be an advantage if the strangers thought that no one of us understood Russian.
(At that point I realized that I had been thinking in Russian. It’s a wonderful language for paranoid thoughts.)
When Zebbie switched on the outside mikes, the older was telling the Younger: ” – not let Fyodor Ivanovitch get wind of such thoughts, Yevgeny. He does not believe that (no good? stupid?) Britishers can excel us in anything. So don’t refer to that curious craft as ‘advanced engineering.’ A ‘weird assemblage of poorly organized experiments’ would be better.”
“I will remember. Shall I loosen my holster and take off the safety? To guard you, sir?”
The older man laughed. “You haven’t dealt with the damned British as long as I have. Never let them suspect that you are even mildly nervous. And always be sure to insult him first. Bear in mind that the lowliest serf in Ykraina is better than their so-called King-Emperor. That serf -“when Zebbie interrupted: “Arrêtez-là!”
The younger hesitated but the older never broke stride. Instead he answered in French: “You are telling me to halt, you British swine? An officer of the Tsar on Russian soil! I spit on your mother. And your father if your mother can remember who he was. Why are you speaking French, you soiled British spy? You fool no one. Speak Russian – or, if you are uncultured, speak English.”
Zebbie thumbed a button. “What about it, Jake? Switch to English when he’s so hipped on the subject of Englishmen? Or bull it through in French? My accent is better than his.”
“Maybe you can get away with it, Captain. I can’t.”
Zebbie nodded and opened the mike, spoke in English: “We are not British, not spies. We are American tourists and -“
“‘American’? What nonsense is this?” (He had shifted to English.) “A British colonial is still British – and a spy.”
My husband reached over, shut off the microphone. “Captain, I advise lifting. He won’t listen to reason.”
“Copilot, not till I must. We don’t even have enough water. I must try to parley.” Zebbie thumbed the switch. “I am not a British colonial. I am Zeb Carter of California, a citizen of the United States of America; I have my passport. If we have trespassed, we regret it and apologize.”
“Spy, that is the most bold-faced bluff I have ever heard. There is no such country as the United States of America. I am placing you under arrest. In the name of His Imperial Majesty the Tsar of All the Russias, by authority delegated to me by His Viceroy for New Russia Grand Duke Fyodor Ivanovitch Romanov, I arrest you and your party for the crime of espionage. Open up!”
By now they had reached Gay Deceiver and were at the portside door.
Zebbie answered, “You haven’t told me your name, much less identified yourself as a Russian officer. Or shown any authority over what is clearly unoccupied land.”
“What? Preposterous! I am Colonel the Count Morinosky of Novy Kiev, of the Viceroy’s Imperial Guard. As for my authority, look at the sky around you!” The self-proclaimed colonel drew his pistol, reversed it, and used the butt to pound on the door. “‘Open up!’ I said.”
Zebbie has good temper and calm judgment. Both are likely to slip if anyone abuses Gay Deceiver.
He said softly, “Colonel, your craft on the ground ahead – is there anyone in it?”
“Eh? Of course not. It’s a two-seater, as anyone can see. My private scoutabout. Never mind that. Keep quiet and open up.”
Zebbie again switched off his microphone. “Gay Deceiver, at command ‘Execute’ burn one tenth of a second at point of aim, intensity four.”
“Gotcha, Boss.”
“Colonel, how can you take four prisoners in a two-seater?”
“Simple. You and I will ride in your vehicle. The other members of your party will be hostage for your good behavior and will ride where assigned. You won’t see which craft lest you get foolish ideas. My pilot will fly my craft.”
“Execute.”
The grounded ornithopter began to burn fiercely – but the colonel did not see it. We saw it – but he was looking at Zebbie. Zebbie said, “Colonel, please stand clear of the door so that I can open it.”
“Oh. Very well.”
“Colonel! Look!” The younger officer, in stepping back, caught sight of the fire – and I have rarely heard such anguish.
Or, an instant later in the colonel’s face, such astonishment switching to rage. He attempted to shoot Zebbie – with his hand still gripping the barrel of his pistol. In a moment he realized what he was doing and flipped it to catch it by the grip.
I never saw whether or not he made the catch; Cap’n Zebbie commanded, “Gay Bounce!” and the scene blacked out while the colonel’s hand was open for the catch.
Zebbie was saying, “Jake, I lost my temper. I should not have done it; it ruined our last chance to deal with those Russians. But I hope it taught the ruddy snarf not to go around hammering dents into other people’s cars.”
“Captain, you did not ruin our ‘last chance’; we never had one. You ran into classic Russian xenophobia. The Commies didn’t invent that attitude; it goes back at least a thousand years. Read your history.” Jacob added, “I’m not sorry you burned his kite. I wish he had to walk home. Regrettably one of his craft will pick him up.”
“Jake, if I could afford to – in juice, in time – I would go back and keep him from being picked up. Harry them, not let them land. I won’t. Hmm – Shall we fall a bit farther and see what they are doing? Before we get on with our interrupted schedule?”
“Uh… Captain, may I have a Bonine pill?”
I squealed, “Me, too!”
“Deety, take care of ’em. I’ll put her in dive and we’ll look.”
“Captain, why not use the B, U, G, program?”
“Deety, somebody might be on that spot. Wups! I’m biting air.” Cap’n Zebbie leaned us over, placed Barsoom – I mean “Mars” – Mars-10 or whatever-dead ahead. “Should spot flappy birds in few minutes. Jake, how about binoculars?”
Zebbie didn’t want them himself while piloting. We passed them around and I spotted an ornithopter, then two more, and passed the glasses to Deety.
“Zebadiah, there is no one where we were parked.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yessir. The colonel’s scoutabout is stifl burning; there are people near it, nowhere else. That’s why I’m certain there is no one where we were. B, U, G, O, U, T is safe.”
Zebbie was slow to answer. “How about it, folks? It would be an unnecessary risk. Just one squawk and I’ll skip it.”
I kept quiet and hoped the others would, too. I don’t worry; I’m going to live as long as Atropos permits – meanwhile I intend to enjoy every minute. Zebbie waited, then said, “Here we go. Gay – Bug Out!”

Chapter XX

right theory, wrong universe.

Zeb:
Deety is going to force me to look like a hero because I don’t have the guts to let her down. I thought my copilot would veto going back to the scene of the crime; Jake is level-headed about safety precautions. I didn’t count on Sharpie; she’s unpredictable. But I thought Jake would object.
He didn’t. I waited until I was certain that no one was going to get me off the spot… then waited some more… then said sadly, “Here we go,” and told Gay to “BUG OUT!”
I expected to be a mushroom cloud. Instead we were parked where we had been and the colonel’s craft was burning briskly. (Someday I am going to run that experiment: a transition to attempt to cause two masses to occupy the same space. But I won’t be part of the experiment. The Bug-Out program scared me, and I liked the Take-Us-Home program a lot better after we made it two klicks H-above-G instead of parked. Could the Bug-Out program be modified so that Gay sneaked up on her target, checked it by radar, before accepting it? Take it up with Deety, Zeb – stick to what you know!)
The Russians appeared to be slow to notice our return. One ornithopter had grounded not far from the fire; there were several bystanders. I could not see whether or not my erstwhile arresting officer, Colonel Somethingsky, was in the group. I assumed that he was.
Then I was sure: A figure broke loose and headed toward us, waving a pistol. I said briskly, “Shipmates, is there any reason to hang around?”
I waited a short beat. “Hearing no objection – Gay Bounce!”
That black sky looked good. I wondered how Bumpsky was going to explain to the Grand Duke. Brass Hats are notoriously reluctant to believe unlikely stories.
“Did I bounce too quickly? Have you all seen what you wanted to see?”
Only Deety answered. “I was checking that program. I think I see a way to avoid two masses conflicting.”
“Keep talking.”
“Gay could sneak up on the target, inspect it by radar, accept it and ground, or refuse it and bounce – with no loss of time and with the same execute code. That spot could be knee-deep in Russians and Gay would simply whoosh us to where we are now.”
(I said to leave it to Deety. You heard me.) “Good idea. Do it. Can’t have too many fail-safes.”
“I’ll reprogram when we stop.”
“Correction. I want that fail-safe programmed now. I might need your revised program any moment.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
“‘Captain darling,’ if you please. If you must call me ‘Captain.’ Then review all preprograms and debug them, if necessary, with analogous fail-safes. And any new ones in the future. Now – Just put her into glide, headed west, and transit three minima?”
“Or more. Or less. I thought that a spot check every thirty kilometers would be about right for a rapid survey.”
“What altitude will we wind up? Assuming I simply aim her at the horizon and transit tangent to the curve.”
“Oh. What altitude do you want, Captain – Captain darling? A tangent does little in three minima, just a touch over a hundred meters. Is ten kilometers about right?”
“Ten klicks is fine. I could aim at the horizon, make transition, then at once give the B, O, U, N, C, E order.”
“So you could, Zebadiah, but if you will use the horizon as reference and aim eighteen and a half degrees above it – Will your gunsight depress that far?”
“No, but I’ll tell Gay. No problem.”
“Three minima on that upward slant will place you ten klicks H-above-G and a couple of klicks short of three minima on the curve.”
“Plus my present altitude.”
“No, no! Visualize the triangle, Zebadiah. It makes no real difference whether you do this from ten klicks H-above-G, or parked on the ground. Do you want exact figures?”
“You visualize triangles, Deety; that’s your department. I’ve got air bite now; I’m going to head west; I want to see where those ornithopters came from. Meantime work out that new fail-safe.” Did it really make no difference whether I started from ten thousand meters or right on deck? Didn’t I have to add in – No, of course not … but one way was sine and the other way was tan. But which one? Hell, it didn’t matter; Deety was right. She always is, on figures – but someday I’m going to work it carefully, on paper, with diagrams and tables. “Copilot.”
“Captain.”
“L axis, transit, three minima.”
“Transition, L axis, thirty kilometers – set!”
“Gay Deceiver.”
“I’m not at home but you may record a message.”
“Change attitude to climb eighteen point five degrees and report.”
“Roger Wilco. Climbing. Ten. Twelve. Fourteen. Sixteen. Eighteen. Mark!”
“Execute!”
We were somewhere else with black sky. “Gay, vertical dive. Execute.”
“No trouble, Clyde; enjoy the ride.”
“Zebadiah, may I talk with Gay while you look over the terrain? To reprogram that fail-safe.”
“Sure, go ahead. Jake, want to scan with binox while I eyeball it? I’ll warn before transition.”
“Zebadiah, I could give her a scouting program, automatic. Skip the vernliers, skip the climb order; just an ‘execute’ code word. Place her on course… or I could include course.”
“I’ll head her manually; the rest is swell – after that fail-safe. What’s the code word?”
“‘Scout’?”
“Good. Include the ‘execute’ idea in the code word. Deety, I’ve decided that I love you for your brain. Not those irrelevant physical attributes.”
“Zebadiah, once I’ve had a bath you may change your mind. I’ve had a sudden attack of brain fever. You had better program her yourself.”
“Mutiny again. I retract and apologize. You smell yummy and should marinate another week. It’s not your cortex or your character I love but your carcass – delectable! If it weren’t for these seat belts, it would be rape, rape, rape, all the way to the ground. Actually you’re sort o’ stupid-but what a chassis!”
“That’s better. Although I’m not stupid.”
“You married me. Res ipsa loquitur! Jake, are you spotting anything?”
“Dry hills, Captain. Might as well move on.”
“Zebadiah, will you place her in glide and hold a few minutes?”
“Sure. See something you want to check?”
“No, sir, But when we emerged here, we had seventy-three seconds to impact. We’ve used twenty-one seconds. I’d like a few moments to insert those preprograms.”
I overrode manually and started Gay into a stretched glide while I extended her wings. Then I let Deety and Gay talk to each other. Deety had both changes fully worked out; not once did Gay answer, “Null program.”
I was about to warn Deety that Gay was not a sailplane when she reported, “All done, Captain. For the ‘S’ program I added in an alarm for two klicks H-above-G.”
“Good idea. So now I head west again and give her that ‘S’ code word – no ‘Execute’?”
“Yessir. ‘Cept I’d like to try the revised B, U, G, O, U, T program. It has been less than four minutes since we left. Someone may be in that exact spot.”
“Deety, I share your curiosity. But it’s like testing a parachute the hard way. Can’t we save it until we need it? Then, if there is a glitch, we’ll be dead so fast we’ll hardly notice it.”
Deety said nothing. I waited, then said, “Comment, please.”
“No comment, Captain.” Deety’s answer was toneless. “Hmm – Science Officer… comment, please.”
“I have no comment to offer, Captain.” (A slight chill?)
“Copilot, I require your advice.”
“Uh, if the Captain please. Am I privileged to ask for written orders?”
“Well, I’ll be dipped in – Gay Bounce! Is there such a thing as a ‘space lawyer’? Like ‘sea lawyer’? Jake, in general, anyone, save in the face of the enemy, may demand written orders… if he’ll risk his career to ‘perpetuate evidence for the court-martial he knows will follow. Did it myself once and saved my neck and cost my temporary boss fifty numbers – and I wound up senior to him and he resigned.
“But a second-in-command is in a special position; it is his duty to advise his C.O., even if the C.O. doesn’t ask for advice. So I don’t see how you can demand written orders on a point already one of your duties. But I won’t make an issue of it. I’ll direct the Astrogator to log your request, then I can dictate my reply into the log. Then I am going to ground this go-buggy and turn command over to you. Maybe you’ll have more luck chairing this debating society than I have had. I wish you luck – you’ll need it!”
“But, Captain, I did not ask for written orders.”
“Eh?” I thought back. He hadn’t, quite. “It sounded as if you were about to.”
“I was stalling. I must advise you to follow the prudent course. Unofficially, I prefer to risk the test. But I should not have stalled. I’m sorry that my intransigence caused you to consider relinquishing command.”
“I didn’t just consider it; I have. Resignation effective the first time we ground. You’ve bought it, Jake.”
“Captain -“
“Yes, Deety?”
“You are correct; the test I suggested is useless, and could be fatal. I should not have asked for it. I’m sorry… sir.”
“Me, too! I felt you were being too strict with Deety. But you weren’t; you were taking care of us, as you always do, Zebbie. Captain Zebbie. Of course you shouldn’t make a risky test we don’t need.”
I said, “Anyone anything to add?” No one spoke up, so I added, “I’m heading west,” and did so. “Gay Deceiver – Bug Out!”
Black sky above us; that “dead sea bottom” far below… I remarked, “Looks as if a Russian, or one of their flappy craft, is in our parking spot. Deety, your revised program worked perfectly.”
“But, Zebadiah – why did you risk it?” She sounded terribly distressed.
“Because all of you wanted to, despite what you said later. Because it’s my last chance to make such a decision.” I added, “Jake, I’m going to tilt her over. Grab the binox and see if you can identify where we were parked. If that fire is smoking, you can use it for reference.”
“But, Captain, I’m not taking command. I won’t accept it.”
“Pipe down and carry out your orders! It’s this damned yack-yack and endless argument that’s giving me ulcers. If you won’t accept command, then it’s up for grabs. But not me! Oh, I’ll pilot as the new C.O. orders. But I won’t command. Deety, how long did Gay pause to make that radar check? At what height?”
“H-above-G was half a klick. Duration I don’t know but I can retrieve it. Darling – Captain! You’re not really going to quit commanding us?”
“Deety, I don’t make threats. Pipe down and retrieve that duration. Jake, what do you see?”
“I’ve located the fire. Several ornithopters are on the ground. My guess places one of them about where we were parked. Captain, I advise not dropping lower.”
“Advice noted. Deety, how about that duration?” I didn’t know how to ask for it myself, not having written the program.
Deety retrieved it smoothly: 0.071 seconds – call it a fifteenth of a second. Radar is not instantaneous; Gay had to stop and sweep that spot long enough for a “picture” to form in her gizzards, to tell her whether or not she could park there. A fifteenth of a second is loads of time for the human eye. I hoped that Colonel Frimpsky had been watching when Gay popped up and blinked out.
“Five klicks H-above-G, Captain.”
“Thanks, Jake.” The board showed dive rate – straight down! – of over seven hundred kilometers per hour, and increasing so fast that the units figure was an unreadable blur, and the tens place next to it was blinking one higher almost by the second.
Most carefully I eased her out of dive, and gently, slowly opened her wings part way for more lift as she slowed, while making a wide clockwise sweep to the east – slowed her dive, that is, not her speed through the air. When I had completed that sweep, and straightened out headed for that column of smoke on course west, I was making over eight hundred kilometers per hour in unpowered glide and still had almost a klick H-above-G I could turn into greater speed.
Not that I needed it – I had satisfied myself by eye of what I had been certain of by theory: an ornithopter is slow.
Jake said worriedly, “May I ask the Captain his plans?”
“I’m going to give Colonel Pistolsky something to remember us by! Gay Deceiver.”
“Still aboard, Boss.”
I kept my eye on the flappy birds still in the air while I let Gay fly herself. Those silly contraptions could not catch us but there was always a chance that a pilot might dodge the wrong way.
Most of them seemed anxious to be elsewhere: they were lumbering aside right and left. I looked at the smoke – dead ahead – and saw what I had not noticed before: an ornithopter beyond the smoke.
Jake gasped but said nothing. We were on collision course closing at about 900 kms/hr, most of it ours. Suicide pilot? Idiot? Panicked and frozen?
I let him get within one klick of us, which brought us almost to the smoke and near the deck, about 200 meters H-above-G-and I yelped, “Scout!”
Yes, Deety is a careful programmer; the sky was black, we were ten klicks H-above-G, and so far as I could tell, the same barren hills under us that we had left five minutes earlier – and I was feeling cocky. My sole regret was that I would not hear Colonel Snarfsky try to explain to the Grand Duke the “ghost” craft now used by “British spies.”
Did Russian nobility practice “honorable hara-kiri”? Perhaps the loaded-pistol symbol? You know that one: The officer in disgrace returns to his quarters and finds that someone has thoughtfully loaded his pistol and placed it on his desk… thereby saving the regiment the scandal of a court.
I didn’t want the bliffy dead but busted to buck private. With time to reflect on politeness and international protocol while he cleaned stables.
I checked our heading, found that we were still pointed west. “Gay Deceiver, Scout!”
Black sky again, the same depressing landscape – “Copilot, is it worthwhile to tilt down for a better look? That either takes juice – not much but some – or it takes time to drop far enough to bite air and do it with elevons. We can’t afford to waste either time or juice.”
“Captain, I don’t think this area is worth scouting.”
“Careful of that participle; better say ‘exploring.'”
“Captain, may I say something?”
“Deety, if you are speaking as Astrogator, you not only may but must.”
“I could reprogram to put us lower if I knew what altitude was just high enough to let you use elevons. Conserve both time and juice, I mean.”
“It seems to be about eight klicks H-above-G, usually. Hard to say since we don’t have a sea-level.”
“Shall I change angle to arrive at eight klicks H-above-G?”
“How long does it take us to fall two klicks when we arrive?”
She barely hesitated. “Thirty-two and a half seconds.”
“Only half a minute? Seems longer.”
“Three-two point six seconds, Captain, if this planet has the same surface gravity as Mars in our own universe – three-seven-six centimeters per second squared. I’ve been using it and haven’t run into discrepancies. But I don’t see how this planet holds so much atmosphere when Mars – our Mars – has so little.”
“This universe may not have the same laws as ours. Ask your father. He’s in charge of universes.”
“Yes, sir. Shall I revise the program?”
“Deety, never monkey with a system that is working well enough – First Corollary of Murphy’s Law. If it is an area as unattractive as this, we’ll simply get out. If it has possibilities, half a minute isn’t too long to wait, and the additional height will give us a better idea of the whole area. Gay Deceiver, Scout!”
We all gasped. Thirty kilometers and those barren hills were gone; the ground was green and fairly level – and a river was in sight. Or a canal.
“Oh, boy! Copilot, don’t let me waste juice – be firm with me. Deety, count seconds. Everybody eyeball his sector, report anything interesting.”
Deety started chanting “… thirteen… . fourteen… . fifteen – ” and each second felt like ten. I took my hands off the controls to keep from temptation. That was either a canal or a stream that had been straightened, revetted, and maintained for years, maybe eons. Professor Lowell had been right – right theory, wrong universe.
“Deety, how far is the horizon?”
” – seventeen – about two hundred fifty klicks – twenty -“
I placed my hands gently on the controls. “Hon, that’s the first time you’ve ever used the word ‘about’ with reference to a number.”
” – twenty-four – insufficient data! – twenty-six -“
“You can stop counting; I felt a quiver.” I put a soft nose-down pressure on the elevons and decided to leave her wings spread; we might want to stretch this one. “Insufficient data?”
“Zebadiah, it was changing steadily and you had me counting seconds. Horizon distance at ten klicks height above ground should be within one percent of two hundred and seventy kilometers. That assumes that this planet is a perfect sphere and that it is exactly like Mars in our universe – neither is true. It ignores refraction effects, tricky even at home – and unknown to me here. I treated it as geometry, length of tangent for an angle of four degrees thirty-seven minutes.”
“Four and half degrees? Where in the world did you get that figure?”
“Oh! Sorry, dear, I skipped about six steps. On Earth one nautical mile is one minute of arc – check?”
“Yes. Subject to minor reservations. With a sextant, or in dead reckoning, or on a chart, a mile is a minute, a minute is a mile. Makes it simple. Otherwise we would be saying a minute is one thousand eight hundred fifty-three meters and the arithmetic would get hairy.”
“One-eight-five-three point one-eight-seven-seven-oh-five plus,” she corrected me. “Very hairy. Best not convert to MKS until the last step. But, Zebadiah, there is a simpler relation here. One minute of arc equals one kilometer, near enough not to matter. So I treated H-above-G, ten klicks, as a versine, applied the haversine rule and got four degrees thirty-seven minutes or two hundred seventy-seven kilometers to the theoretical horizon. You see?”
“I see everything but how you hide haversine tables in a jump suit. Me, I hide ’em in Gay… and make her do the work.” Yes, I could nose her over now – easy does it, boy.
“Well, I didn’t, exactly. I calculated it, but I did it the easy way: Naperian logarithms and angles in radians, then converted back to degrees to show the relationship to kilometers on the ground.”
“That’s ‘the easy way’?”
“It is for me, sir!”
“If you’re quivering your chin, stop it. I told you it was your luscious body, not your brain. Most idiots-savants are homely and can’t do anything but their one trick. But you’re an adequate cook, as well.”
That got me a stony silence. I kept easing her nose down. “Time for binox, Jake.”
“Aye aye, sir. Captain, I am required to advise you. With that last remark to the Astrogator you risked your life.”
“Are you implying that Deety is an inadequate cook? Why, Jake!”
Hilda interrupted. “She’s a gourmet cook!”
“I know she is, Sharpie… but I don’t like to say it where Gay can hear – Gay can’t cook. Nor has she Deety’s other talent which ’tis death to hide. Jake, that’s a settlement below.”
“Of sorts. A one-church village.”
“Do you see ornithopters? Anything that could give us trouble?”
“Depends. Are you interested in church architecture?”
“Jake, this is no time for a cultural chat.”
“I’m required to advise you, sir, This church has towers, something like minarets topped off with onion-shaped structures.”
“Russian Orthodox!”
Hilda said that. I said nothing. I eased Gay’s nose up to level flight, lined her up with what I thought was downstream, and snapped, “Gay, Scout!”
The canal was still in sight, almost under us and stretching over the horizon. I was almost lined up with it. Gay, Scout!
“Anybody see that settlement that was almost ahead before this last transition? Report.”
“Captain Zebbie, it’s much closer now but on this side.”
“I see. Or don’t. Jake isn’t transparent.”
“Captain, the city – quite large – is about a forty-five-degree slant down to starboard, not in sight from your seat.”
“If forty-five degrees is a close guess, a minimum transition on that bearing should place us over the city.”
“Captain, I advise against it,” Jake told me.
“Reasons, please.”
“This is a large city that might be well defended. Their ornithopters look odd and ineffective but we must assume they have spaceships as good or better than ours or the Tsar could not have a colony here. This causes me to suspect that they may have smart missiles. Or weapons utterly strange. I would rather check for onion towers from a distance. And not stay long in one place – I think we’ve been here too long. I’m jumpy.”
“I’m not” – my sixth sense was not jabbing me – “but set verniers for a minimum transition along L axis, then execute at will. No need to be a slow fat target.”
“One minimum, L axis – set!”
Suddenly my guardian angel goosed me. “Execute!”
I noticed the transition principally because Gay was now live under my hand – air bite. Perhaps she had not been quite level. I turned her nose down to gather maneuvering speed unpowered, then did a skew turn – and yelped, “Gay Bounce!” having seen all that I wanted to see: an expanding cloud. Atomic? I think not. Lethal? You test it; I’m satisfied.
I told Gay to bounce three more times, placing us a bit less than fifty klicks above ground. Then I spent a trifle of power to nose her over. “Jake, use the binox to see how far this valley runs, whether it is all cultivated, whether it has more settlements. We are not going to get close enough to look for onion spires; that last shot was unfriendly. Rude. Impetuous. Or am I prejudiced? Science Officer? Le mot juste, s’il vous plait.”
“Nye kultoorni.”
“I remember that one! Makes Russians turn green. What does it mean? How did you happen to know it, Sharpie?”
“Means what it sounds like: ‘uncultured.’ I didn’t just ‘happen,’ Cap’n Zebbie; I know Russian.”
I was flabbergasted. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“You didn’t ask me.”
“Sharpie, if you handled the negotiations, we might not have had trouble.”
“Zebbie, if you’ll believe that, you’ll believe anything. He was calling you a spy and insulting you while the palaver was still in French. I thought it might be advantageous if they thought none of us knew Russian. They might spill something.”
“Did they?”
“No. The colonel was coaching his pilot in how to be arrogant. Then you told them to halt, in French, and no more Russian was spoken save for meaningless side remarks. Zebbie, when they tried to shoot us down just now, would they have refrained had they known that I had studied Russian?”
“Mmm – Sharpie, I should know better than to argue with you. I’m going to vote for you for captain.”
“Oh, No!”
“Oh, Yes. Copilot, I’m going to assume that everything this side of the hills and involved with this watercourse – courses – twin canals – is New Russia and that honorary Englishmen – us! – aren’t safe here. So I’m going to look for the British colony. It may turn out that they won’t like us, either. But the British are strong on protocol; we’ll have a chance to speak our piece. They may hang us but they’ll give us a trial, with wigs and robes and rules of evidence and counsel who will fight for us.” I hesitated. “One hitch. Colonel Snotsky said there was no such country as the United States of America and I had the impression that he believed it.”
Sharpie said, “He did believe it, Cap’n Zebbie. I caught some side chatter. I think we must assume that, in this universe, there was no American Revolution.”
“So I concluded. Should we all be from the East Coast? I have a hunch that the West Coast may be part Russian, part Spanish – but not British. Where are we from? Baltimore, maybe? Philadelphia? Suggestions?”
Sharpie said, “I have a suggestion, Cap’n Zebbie.”
“Science Officer, I like your suggestions.”
“You won’t like this one. When all else fails, tell the truth.”

Chapter XXI

three seconds is a long time –

Deety:
Zebadiah is convinced that I can program anything. Usually I can, given a large and flexible computer – but my husband expects me to manage it with Gay Deceiver and Gay is not big. She started life as an autopilot and is one, mostly.
But Gay is sweet-tempered and we both want to please him.
While he and my father were looking over the area that we thought of as “Russian Valley” or “New Russia,” he asked me to work up a program to locate the British colony in minimum time, if it were in daylight. If not, then we would sleep near the sunrise line, and find it on the new daylight side.
I thought of bouncing out about a thousand kilometers and searching for probable areas by color. Then I realized that I didn’t know that much about this planet. “Dead sea bottoms” from space looked like farm land.
At last I recalled something Zebadiah had suggested yesterday – no, today! less than two hours ago. (So much had happened that my sense of time played tricks. It was still accurate – but I had to think instead of just knowing.)
Random numbers – Gay had plenty of them. Random numbers are to a computer what free will is to a human being.
I defined a locus for Gay: nothing east of where we were, nothing in “Russian Valley,” nothing on the dark side, nothing north of 45°, nothing south of 45° south. Yesterday I could not have told her the latter; but Mars has a good spin, one a gyrocompass can read. While we slept, Gay had noted that her gyrocompass did not have its axis parallel to that of this strange planet and had precessed it until it did.
Inside that locus I told Gay to take a Drunkard’s Walk, any jumps that suited her, a three-second pause at each vertex, and, if one of us yelled “Bingo!” display latitude, longitude, and Greenwich, and log all three, so we could find it again.
Oh, yes – she was to pause that three seconds exactly one minimum H-above-G at each vertex.
I told her to run the program for one hour … but that any of us could yell “Stop!” and then say “Continue” and that would be time-out, not part of the hour. But I warned my shipmates that yelling “Stop!” not only slowed things but also gave Russians (or British or anybody) a chance to shoot at us. I emphasized that three seconds is a long time (most people don’t know it).
One hour –
Three seconds for each check –
Twelve hundred random spot checks – This is not a “space-filling” curve. But it should locate where the British were most thickly settled. If one hour did not do it, ten hours certainly would.
Without Gay, without her ability to do a Drunkard’s Walk, we could have searched that planet for a lifetime, and never found either colony. It took the entire human race (of our universe) thirty centuries to search Terra… and many spots were missing until they could be photographed from space.
My husband said, “Let’s get this straight.” He bounced us four minima. “These subprograms – Gay, are you listening?”
“Of course. Are you?”
“Gay, go to sleep.”
“Roger and out, Boss.”
“Deety, I want to make sure of these subprograms but couldn’t use code words while she was awake. I -“
“Excuse me, Zebadiah, but you can. She will ignore code words for subprograms except while the general program is running. The code for the general program is unusual and requires the execution command, so it can’t be started by accident. You can wake Gay. We need her on some points.”
“You’re a smart girl, Deety.”
“I’ll bet you tell that to all adequate cooks, Boss.”
“Ouch!”
“Captain, it is not difficult to program a computer to supervise cooking machines. The software sold under the trademark ‘Cordon Bicu’ is reputed to be excellent. Before you wake Gay, would you answer a hypothetical question concerning computers and cooking?”
“Captain!”
“Copilot?”
“I advise against permitting the Astrogator to discuss side issues – such as cooking – while we have this problem facing us.”
“Thank you, Copilot. Astrogator, what was your hypothetical question?”
Pop had been careful not to interfere between Zebadiah and me, But his advice from copilot to captain was intended for my ears – he was telling me to shut up, and I suddenly heard Jane saying, “Deety, anytime a wife thinks she has won an argument, she has lost it.”
I’m not Jane, I’m Deety. I get my temper from my father. I’m not as quick to flare up as he is, but I do have his tendency to nurse a grievance. Zebadiah is sometimes a tease and knows how to get my goat.
But Pop was telling me: “Drop it, Deety!”
Maybe Zebadiah was right – too much argument, too much discussion, too much “sewing circle & debating society.” We were all intensely interested as we were all in the same peril… but how much tougher is it to be captain rather than one of the crew? Twice? Ten times?
I didn’t know, Was my husband cracking under the pressure? “Getting ulcers”?
Was I adding to his burden?
I didn’t have to stop to think this through; it was preprogrammed below the conscious level; Pop pushed the “execute” button and the answers spilled out. I answered my husband at once,
“What hypocritical question, sir?”
“You said, ‘hypothetical.’ Something about computers and cooking.”
“Captain, my mind has gone blank. Perhaps we had better get on with the job before I forget how it works.”
“Deety, you wouldn’t fib to your pool’ old broken-down husband?”
“Sir, when my husband is poor and old and broken-down, I will not fib to him.”
“Hmm – If I hadn’t already promised my support to Hilda, I would vote for you for captain.”
Aunt Hilda cut in: “Zebbie, I release you! I’m not a candidate.”
“No, Sharpie, once having promised political support an honorable man never welches. So it’s all right for Gay to listen in?”
“Certainly, sir. For display I must have her. Hello, Gay.”
“Hi, Deety.”
“Display dayside, globe.” At once Gay’s largest screen showed the western hemisphere of Earth, our Earth in our universe – Terra. Early afternoon at Snug Harbor? Yes, the clock in my head said so and GMT on the instrument board read 20:23:07. Good heavens, it had been only twenty hours since my husband and my father had killed the fake “ranger.” How can a lifetime be crowded into less than a day? Despite the clock in my head it seemed years since I had walked down to our pool, a touch tiddly and hanging onto my bridegroom for support.
“Display meridians parallels. Subtract geographical features,” Gay did so. “From program coded ‘A Tramp Abroad’ display locus.”
Gay used orthographic projection, so the 45th parallels were straight lines. Since I had told her to display dayside, these two bright lines ran to the left edge of the display, that being the sunrise line. But the right edge of the locus was an irregular line running southwest. “Add display Russian Valley.”
To the right of the locus and touching it, Gay displayed as solid brightness a very long and quite wide blotch. “Subtract Russian Valley.” The area we had sketchily explored disappeared.
“Deety,” my husband asked, “how is Gay doing this? Her perms have no reference points for Mars – not even Mars of our own universe.”
“Oh. Gay, display ‘Touchdown.'”
“Null program.”
“Mmm, yes, that’s right; the Sun has just set where we were parked. Zebadiah, shall I have her rotate the globe enough to show it? All she would show would be a bright spot almost on the equator. I have defined the spot where we grounded as zero meridian – Greenwich for Mars. This Mars.”
“And zero parallel? An arbitrary equator?”
“Oh, no, no! While we slept Gay adjusted her gyrocompass to match this planet. Which gave her true north and latitude. She already knows the radius and curvature of Mars – I started to tell her and found she had retrieved it from her perms. Aerospace Almanac?”
“I suppose so. But we discussed Mars’ diameter last night while Gay was awake. Both you and Hilda knew it; Jake and I did not.”
As I remembered it, Aunt Hilda spoke up – then Pop kept quiet. If Pop wanted to sit back and be proud of Aunt Hilda’s encyclopedic memory that was all right with me. If my husband has a flaw, it is that he has trouble believing that females have brains… probably because he is so intensely interested in the other end. I went on with my lecture:
“Once I start Gay, she will say and record nothing unless ordered. She will make random transitions inside that locus until someone yells ‘Bingo!’ She won’t slow down even then. She will place a bright point on the map at that latitude and longitude, record both latitude and longitude, and the exact time. She will display the Bingo time, too, for one second. If you want to retrieve that Bingo, you had better jot down that time – to the second. Because she’ll be doing twenty jumps each minute. Don’t worry about the hour, just the minute and the second. Oh, you could still retrieve it if you had the minute right, as I can ask her to run through all Bingoes in a given minute. Can’t be more than twenty and your Bingo might be the only one.
“When we’ve done one hour of this, that map could, at most, have twelve hundred dots on it – but may have only a few – or none. If they are clustered, I’ll reduce the locus and we’ll run it again. If not, we can sleep and eat and do it for the other day side, the one twelve hours away. Either way, Gay will find the British – and we’ll be safe.”
“I hope you’re right. Ever heard of the Opium Wars, Deety?”
“Yes, Captain. Sir, every nation is capable of atrocities, including our own. But the British have a tradition of decent behavior no matter what blemishes there are.”
“Sorry. Why a one-hour program?”
“We may have to shorten it. A decision every three seconds for sixty minutes may be too tiring. If we start showing a marked hot spot sooner than that, we can shorten the first run and reduce the locus. We’ll have to try it and see. But I feel certain that a one-hour run, a short rest, then another one-hour run, will locate the British if they are now on the day side.”
“Deety, what do you define as ‘Bingo’?”
“Anything that suggests human settlement. Buildings. Roads. Cultivated fields. Walls, fences, dams, aircraft, vehicles – But it is not ‘Bingo’just because it looks interesting. Although it might be ‘Stop!”
“What’s the difference?”
“‘Stop’ does not tell Gay to record or to display. For that you must add ‘Bingo.’ ‘Stop’ is for anything you want to look at more than three seconds. Maybe it looks promising and a few seconds more will let you decide. But please, everyone! There should not be more than a dozen calls for ‘Stop!’ in the hour. Any more questions?”
We started. Hilda gave the first Bingo. I saw it, too – farm buildings. Aunt Hilda is faster than I. I almost broke my own injunction; I had to bite down on “Stop!” The temptation to take a longer look was almost overpowering.
All of us made mistakes – but none serious. Hilda racked up the most Bingoes and Zebadiah the fewest – but I’m fairly certain that my husband was “cheating” by waiting to give Pop or me first crack at it. (He would not be competing with Aunt Hilda; port-forward and starboard-after seats have little overlapping coverage.)
I thought it would be tedious; instead it was exciting – but dreadfully tiring. Slowly, less than one a minute, bright dots appeared on the display. I saw with disappointment that most Bingoes were clustered adjacent to the irregular margin marking Russian territory. It seemed probable that these marked Russian territory, so very probable that it hardly seemed worthwhile to check for onion spires.
Once my husband called “Stop” and then “Bingo” at a point north and far west, at least fifteen hundred kilometers from the nearest Bingo light. I noted the time – Greenwich 21:16:51 – then tried to figure out why Zebadiah had stopped us. It was pretty country, green hills and lightly wooded and I spotted a wild stream, not a canal. But I saw no buildings or anything suggesting settlement.
Zebadiah wrote something on his knee pad, then said, “Continue.” I was itching to ask why he had stopped, but when a decision must be made every three seconds there is no time to chat.
When the hour was nearly up, a single Bingo light in the far west that had been shining since the first five minutes was joined by another when Hilda scored another Bingo and two minutes later Pop said “Bingo!” and we had an equilateral triangle twenty kilometers on a side. I noted the time most carefully – then told myself not to be disappointed if inspection showed onion towers; we still had a hemisphere to go.
I decided to believe in that British colony the way one has to believe hard in fairies to save Tinker Bell’s life. If there were no British colony, we might have to risk Earth-without-a-J. Gay Deceiver was a lovely car but as a spaceship she had shortcomings. No plumbing. Air for about four hours and no way to recycle. No plumbing. Limited food storage. No plumbing. No comfortable way to sleep in her. No plumbing.
But she had talents no other spaceship had. Her shortcomings (according to my father and husband) could be corrected at any modern machine shop. But in the meantime we did not have even an outhouse behind the barn.
At last Gay stopped, continued to display, and announced, “One hour of ‘A Tramp Abroad’ completed. Instructions, please.”
“Gay, Bounce,” said Zebadiah. “Deety, I don’t think we’ve nailed down the piece The Sun Never Sets On. But this dense cluster here to the right – Too close to the Little Father’s little children. Eh?”
“Yes. Zebadiah, I should tell Gay to trim the locus on the east to eliminate the clustered lights, and now we can add almost nine hundred kilometers on the west, to the present sunrise line. Gay can rotate the display to show the added area. I suspect that one more hour will fill in the picture sufficiently.”
“Maybe even less. You were right; three seconds is not only a long time; it is excessively long. Isn’t two seconds enough? Can you change that without starting from scratch?”
“Yes to both, Captain.”
“Good. You can add thirty degrees on the west instead of fifteen. Because we are going to kill an hour – stretch our legs, eat a snack… and I for one want to find a bush. How do I tell Gay to return to a particular Bingo? Or will that mess up your program?”
“Not a bit. Tell her to return to Bingo such-and-such, stating the time.”
I was unsurprised when he said, “Gay, return to Bingo Greenwich twenty-one sixteen fifty-one.”
It was indeed a pretty stream. Zebadiah said happily, “That beats burning juice. Who sees a clearing close to that creek, big enough for Gay? Hover and squat, I mean; I don’t dare make a glide landing, dead stick – the old girl is loaded.”
“Zebbie, I’m sober as you are!”
“Don’t boast about it, Sharpie. I think I see a spot. Close your eyes; I’m going to.”
I almost wish I had.
Zebadiah came in on a long glide, everything set for maximum lift – but no power. I kept waiting for that vibration that meant that Gay was alive and roaring… and waited… and waited –
He said, “Gay – ” and I thought that he was going to tell her to turn herself on. No. We actually dropped below the level of that bank.
Then he suddenly switched on power by hand but in reverse – flipped us up on that bank; we stalled, and dropped perhaps a meter – we just barely missed that bank.
I didn’t say anything. Aunt Hilda was whispering, “Hail Mary Mother of God Om Mani Padme Hum There is No God but God and Mahomet is His Prophet – ” then some language I did not know but it sounded very sincere.
Pop said, “Son, do you always cut it that fine?”
“I saw a man do it that way when he had to; I’ve always wondered if I could. But what you didn’t know was – Gay, are you listening?”
“Sure thing, Boss. You alerted me. Where’s the riot?”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“Then why am I pushing this baby carriage?”
“Gay, go to sleep.”
“Sleepy time. Roger and out, Boss.”
“Jake, what you didn’t know was that I had my cheeks puffed to say B, O, U, N, C, E, explosively. Your gadget has made Gay’s reflexes so fast that I knew I could come within a split second of disaster and she would get us out. I wasn’t cutting didoes. Look at that meter. Seventy-four percent of capacity. I don’t know how many landings I’m going to have to make on that much juice.”
“Captain, it was brilliant. Even though it almost scared it out of me.”
“Wrong honorific, Captain. I’m the pilot going off duty. We’re landed; my resignation is effective; you’re holding the sack.”
“Zeb, I told you that I would not be captain.”
“You can’t help it; you are. The second-in-command takes command when the captain dies, or goes over the hill – or quits. Jake, you can cut your throat, or desert, or go on the binnacle list, or take other actions – but you can’t say you are not captain, when you are – Captain!”
“If you can resign, I can resign!”
“Obviously. To the Astrogator, she being next in line of command.”
“Deety, I resign! Captain Deety, I mean.”
“Pop, you can’t do this to me! I’ll – I’ll – ” I shut up because I didn’t know what to do. Then I did. “I resign… Captain Hilda.”
“What? Why, that’s silly, Deety. A medical officer is not in line of command. But if ‘medical officer’ is a joke and ‘science officer,’ too, then I’m a passenger and still not in line of command.”
My husband said, “Sharpie, you have the qualifications the rest of us have. You can drive a duo -“
“Suddenly I’ve forgotten how.”
” – but that’s not necessary. Mature judgment and the support of your crew are the only requirements, as we are millions of miles and several universes from licenses and such. You have my support; I think you have it from the rest. Jake?”
“Me? Of course!”
“Deety?”
“Captain Hilda knows she has my support,” I agreed. “I was first to call her ‘Captain.'”
Aunt Hilda said, “Deety, I’ve just resigned.”
“Oh, no, you haven’t anybody to resign to!” I’m afraid I was shrill.
“I resign to the Great Spirit Manitou. Or to you, Zebbie, and it comes around in a circle and you are captain again… as you should be.”
“Oh, no, Sharpie. I’ve stood my watch; it’s somebody else’s turn. Now that you have resigned, we have no organization. If you think you’ve stuck me with it, think again. You have simply picked an unusual way to homestead on this spot. In the meantime, while nobody is in charge, I hope that you all are getting both ears and a belly full of what got me disgusted. Yack yack yack, argue, fuss, and jabber – a cross between a Hyde Park open forum and a high school debating society.”
Aunt Hilda said, in sober surprise, “Why, Zebbie, you almost sound vindictive.”
“Mrs. Burroughs, it is possible that you have hit upon the right word. I have taken a lot of guff… and quite a bit of it has been from you.”
I haven’t seen Aunt Hilda look so distressed since Mama Jane died. “I am very sorry, Zebbie. I had not realized that my conduct had displeased you so. I did not intend it so, ever. I am aware – constantly! – that you have saved our – my – life five distinct times… as well as continuously by your leadership. I’m as grateful as my nature permits – a giant amount, even though you consider me a shallow person. But one can’t show deepest gratitude every instant, just as one cannot remain in orgasm continuously; some emotions are too strong to stay always at peak.”
She sighed, and tears rolled down her face. “Zebbie, will you let me try again? I’ll quit being a Smart Aleck. It will be a hard habit to break; I’ve been one for years – my defense mechanism. But I will break it.”
“Don’t be so tragic, Hilda,” Zebadiah said gently. “You know I love you… despite your little ways.”
“Oh, I know you do! – you big ugly giant. Will you come back to us? Be our captain again?”
“Hilda, I’ve never left. I’ll go right on doing the things I know how to do or can learn. And as I’m told. But I won’t be captain.”
“Oh, dear!”
“It’s not tragic. We simply elect a new C.O.”
My father picked this moment to get hairy. “Zeb, you’re being pretty damned stiff-necked and self-righteous with Hilda. I don’t think she has misbehaved.”
“Jake, you are in no position to judge. First, because she’s your bride. Second, because you haven’t been sitting in the worry seat; I have. And you have supplied some of the worst guff yourself.”
“I was not aware of it… Captain.”
“You’re doing it now… by calling me ‘Captain’ when I’m not. But do you recall a couple of hours ago when I asked my second-in-command for advice – and got some back chat about ‘written orders’?”
“Mmm… I was out of line. Yes, sir.”
“Do you want other examples?”
“No. No, I stipulate that there are others. I understand your point, sir.” Pop gave a wry smile. “Well, I’m glad Deety hasn’t given you trouble.”
“On the contrary, she has given me the most.”
I had been upset – iI had never really believed that Zebadiah would resign. But now I was shocked and bewildered and hurt. “Zebadiah, what have I done?”
“The same sort of nonsense as the other two… but harder for me because I’m married to you.”
“But – But what?”
“I’ll tell you in private.”
“It’s all right for Pop and Aunt Hilda to hear.”
“Not with me. We can share our joys with others but difficulties between us we settle in private.”
My nose was stuffy and I was blinking back tears. “But I must know.”
“Dejah Thoris, you can list the incidents if you choose to be honest with yourself. You have perfect memory and it all took place in the last twenty-four hours.”
He turned his face away from me. “One thing I must urge before we choose a captain. I let myself be wheedled and bullied into surrendering authority on the ground. That was a bad mistake. A sea captain is still captain when his ship is anchored. Whoever becomes captain should profit by my mistake and not relinquish any authority merely because Gay is grounded. She can relax the rules according to the situation. But the captain must decide. The situation can be more dangerous on the ground than in air or in space. As it was today when the Russians showed up. Simply grounding must not be: ‘School’s out! Now we can play!'”
“I’m sorry, Zebbie.”
“Hilda, I was more at fault than you. I wanted to be free of responsibility. I let myself be talked into it, then my brain went on vacation. Take that ‘practice hike.’ I don’t recall who suggested it -“
“I did,” said my father.
“Maybe you did, Jake; but we all climbed on the bandwagon. We were about to run off like a bunch of Scouts with no Scoutmaster. If we had started as quickly as we had expected to, where would we be now? In a Russian jail? Or dead? Oh, I’m not giving myself high marks; one reason I’ve resigned is that I haven’t handled it well. Planning to leave Gay Deceiver and everything we own unguarded while we made walkabout – good God! If I had felt the weight of command I would never have considered it.”
Zebadiah made a sour face, then looked at my father. “Jake, you’re eldest. Why don’t you take the gavel while we pick a new C.O.? I so move.”
“Second!”
“Question!”
“White ballot!”
“What gavel? I’ll bet there isn’t a gavel on this planet.” In a moment Father quit stalling. We all voted, using a page from Zebadiah’s notebook torn in four. They were folded and handed to me and I was required to declare the vote. So I did:

Zeb
Zebadiah
Zebbie
Sharpie

Zebadiah reached back, got the ballots from me, handed back the one that meant “Aunt Hilda,” took the other three and tore them into small pieces.
“Apparently you did not understand me. I’ve stood my watch; someone else must take it – or we’ll park on this bank until we die of old age. Sharpie seems to have an overwhelming lead – is she elected? Or do we ballot again?”
We balloted again:

Sharpie
Jacob
Jacob
Hilda

“A tie,” Father said. “Shall we invite Gay to vote?”
“Shut up and deal the cards.”

Sharpie
Deety
Deety
Hilda

“Hey!” I protested. “Who switched?” (I certainly didn’t vote for me.)

Sharpie
Hilda
Zebbie
Hilda

“One spoiled ballot,” said my husband. “A non-candidate. Will you confirm that, Mr. Chairman?”
“Yes,” Pop agreed. “My dear … Captain Hilda. You are elected without a dissenting vote.”
Aunt Hilda looked as if she might cry again. “You’re a bunch of stinkers!”
“So we are,” agreed my husband, “But we are your stinkers, Captain Hilda.” That got him a wan smile. “Guess maybe. Well, I’ll try.”
“We’ll all try,” said Pop.
“And we’ll all help,” said my husband.
“Sure we will!” I said, and meant it.
Pop said, “If you will excuse me? I’ve been anxious to find a handy bush since before this started.” He started to get out.
“Just a moment!”
“Eh? Yes, my dear? Captain.”
“No one is to seek out a bush without an armed guard. Not more – and not less – than two people are to leave the car’s vicinity at one time. Jacob, if your need is urgent, you must ask Zebbie to hurry – I want the guard to carry both rifle and pistol.”
I think it worked out that Pop got the use of a bush last – and must have been about to burst his bladder. Later I overheard Pop say, “Son, you’ve read Aesop’s Fables?”
“Certainly.”
“Does anything remind you of King Log and King Stork?”

Chapter XXII

“‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.'”

Hilda:
I could tell from the first ballot that Zebbie was determined to make me take a turn as captain. Once I realized that, I decided to be captain – let them get sick of me and anxious to have Zebbie back.
Then suddenly I was captain – and it’s different. I did not ever again think of trying to make them sick of me; I just started to worry. And try.
First my husband wanted to find a bush for the obvious reason – and I suddenly realized that a banth might get him. Not a Barsoomian banth but whatever this planet held in dangerous carnivores.
So I ordered armed guards. With rules about not getting separated. It was a nuisance but I was firm… and knew at last what a crushing load there had been on Zebbie.
But one thing I could improve: Arrange for us to sleep inside the car.
The space back of the bulkhead behind the rear seats was not organized. We had about six hours till sundown (having gained on the Sun in going west), so I had everything in that space pulled out.
Space enough for Zebbie and Deety, on his sleeping bag opened out, blankets over them. Jacob and I? The piloting chairs we moved forward all the set screws would allow, laid them back almost fh~t and padded the cracks with pillows, and, to support our legs, the cushions from the rear seats were placed on boxes we would otherwise discard once I had the car organized. It wasn’t the best bed but low gravity and my cuddlesome husband made it a most attractive one.
Baths – In the stream and cold! Same rules as for bushes: armed guards. Soap thoroughly on the bank, get in and rinse fast, bounce out and towel till you glowed. Primitive? Luxurious!
This did not go smoothly. Take the “handy bush” problem. I did not have to be told that a latrine should be downstream or that our shovel should be carried every time without fail – rules for a clean camp are as old as the Old Testment.
But my first order called for no more than two and no less than two to leave the car at any time, and one must be armed – the other rifle and pistol must guard Gay.
I blurted out that order when the truth landed on me like a load of bricks that I, the runt who had never grown up, was now responsible for the lives of four people. At the time my orders seemed not only logical but necessary and feasible: Jacob would guard me, Zebbie would guard Deety, our men would guard each other.
There was a flaw. I did not realize that my edict required: a) one rifleman always to be at the car; b) both men to be away from the car from time to time.
Since this is not possible I amended it: When the men had to answer calls of nature, we women would lock ourselves in. I didn’t know that this planet had anything more dangerous than Alice’s Bread-and-Butter Fly. But that was the point: I didn’t know and until I did, I must assume that something as dangerous as a tiger lurked behind every bush.
Heavens! the bush might be carnivorous.
I was learning, with breath-snatching speed, something that most people never learn: A commanding officer’s “unlimited” authority isn’t freedom; it’s a straitjacket. She can’t do as she pleases; she never can – because every minute, awake and asleep, she must protect those under her command.
She can’t take any avoidable risk herself; her life does not belong to her; it belongs to her command.
When the captaincy was thrust on me, I decided that we would stay where we were until Gay Deceiver was reorganized so that all four of us could sleep comfortably and safely – no swollen ankles.
Sharpie hadn’t thought of this; Captain Hilda Burroughs thought of it at once. Captain Zebbie had thought of it when we first grounded, then had let himself be overruled.
I knew that I could rearrange the car to let us all sleep behind locked doors. But it would take time, sweat, and muscles, and I had just proclaimed an order that would take one or both sets of big muscles off the job for… how many times a day? Four people? Such needs can’t be hurried. I had a horrid suspicion that having someone standing over you with a rifle, even your nearest and dearest, might cause a healthy reflex to fail.
What to do?
Cancel the order?
No!
Cancel if a better scheme turned up. But don’t cancel without finding something better. This was a pretty spot, but there still might be that “banth.” Or bandersnatch. Or boojum. Especially a boojum. What if Zebbie should wander off that distance dictated by modesty and/or relaxation of nerves… and “softly and silently vanish away”?
And it was Zebbie I was having trouble with – Zebbie, who wasn’t going to give the new captain any back talk whatsoever. “Cap’n Hilda honey, I don’t need a chaperon, honest. I’ll carry my rifle and guard myself. No problem. Safety off and a cartridge under the firing pin. Promise.”
“Zebbie, I am not asking you, I am telling you.”
“But I don’t like to leave you girls unguarded!”
“Chief Pilot.”
“Ma’am. Captain.”
“I am not a girl. I am eleven years your senior.”
“I simply meant -“
“Pipe down!”
The poor dear’s ears turned red but he shut up. I said, “Astrogator!”
“Huh? Yes, Captain Auntie.”
“Can you use a rifle?”
“Oh, sure, Pop made me learn. But I don’t like a rifle; I like my shotgun.”
“Take the Chief Pilot’s rifle and guard the camp -“
“Look, I can do it better with my shotgun.”
“Pipe down and carry out your orders.”
Deety looked startled, trotted over to Zebbie, who surrendered his rifle without comment, face frozen.
“Copilot,” I said to my husband, “arm yourself with rifle and pistol, go with the Chief Pilot, guard him while he does what he has to do.”
Zebbie swallowed. “Sharpie – I mean ‘Captain Sharpie.’ It won’t be necessary. The golden moment has passed. All this talk.”
“Chief Pilot, please refrain from using my nickname while I am your commanding officer. Copilot, carry out your orders. Remain with the Chief Pilot and guard him continuously as long as necessary to accomplish the purpose of the trip.” (If Zebbie meant “constipation” – an emotional to-do can have that effect – I would act later in my capacity as “medical officer” – and it would not take four husky orderlies to make Zebbie hold still. The authority of a commanding officer almost never requires force. Odd but true – I wondered how I knew that.)
Once our men were out of earshot, I said, “Deety, could I learn to shoot that rifle?”
“I’m not sure I’m speaking to you. You humiliated my husband… when we all owe him so much.”
“Astrogator!”
Deety’s eyes got wide. “Good God – it’s gone to your head!”
“Astrogator.”
“Uh… yes, Captain.”
“You will refrain from personal remarks to me or about me during my tenure as commanding officer. Acknowledge that order, then log it.”
Deety’s face assumed the expression that means that she has shut out the world. “Aye aye, Captain. Gay Deceiver!”
“Hello, Deety!”
“Log mode. The Captain has ordered the Astrogator to refrain from personal remarks to her or about her during her tenure as commanding officer. I acknowledge receipt of order and will comply. Log date, time, and Bingo code. I tell you three times.”
“Deety, I hear you three times.”
“Back to sleep, Gay.”
“Roger and out.”
Deety turned to me, face and voice normal again. “Captain, I can teach you to shoot in such a way that you won’t get a sore shoulder or be knocked down. But to become a good shot with a rifle takes a long time. My shotgun doesn’t kick as hard… and you won’t need skill.”
“I thought a shotgun was more difficult.”
“Depends. A shotgun is usually for surprise targets in the air. That takes skill. But for a stationary target – within range – it’s about like a garden hose. The shot spreads in a cone. So easy that it’s not sporting.”
“‘Not sporting’ suits me. Will you show me how? What kind of target do we need?”
“It ought to be a large sheet of paper to show how the shot spreads. But, Captain, you know what will happen if I fire a gun?”
“What?”
“We will have two men back here at a dead run – one of them trying to dress as he runs. I don’t think he’ll be pleased.”
“Meaning I shouldn’t get Zebbie angry twice in ten minutes.”
“It might be your husband. Stands to reason that they’ll both take care of needs before returning. If I fire a shot, I’d better have a dead body to show for it, or one or the other will blow his top. Or both.”
“Both! Thanks, Deety – I didn’t think it through.”
“But also, the Captain will recall that she ordered me to guard camp. I can’t teach shooting at the same time.”
(Sharpie, can’t you do anything right?) “No, of course you can’t! Deety, I’m off to a bad start. All of you annoyed at me and one, maybe two, really angry.”
“Does the Captain expect me to comment?”
“Deety, can’t you call me ‘Aunt Hilda’?” I wasn’t crying – I’ve trained myself not to. But I needed to. “Yes, I want your comment.”
“Captain Aunt Hilda, I need to call you by your title to keep myself reminded that you are captain. Since you ordered me to refrain from personal remarks to you or about you, I needed a second order before I could comment.”
“As bad as that? Don’t spare me but make it quick.”
“The Captain hasn’t done badly.”
“I haven’t? Deety, don’t fib to Hilda; you never used to.”
“And I’m not going to now. Captain, I think you are off to a good start.”
“But you said it had gone to my head!”
“I was wrong. I realized how wrong when I was logging your order to me. What I said was worse than anything I said to Zebadiah while he was captain – he required me to review in my mind all the things I’ve said… and at least twice he should have given me a fat lip” – Deety smiled grimly – “‘cept that Zebadiah couldn’t bring himself to strike a woman even if she weren’t pregnant. Captain – Captain Aunt Hilda honey – Zebadiah didn’t crack down on us when he should have. He turned over to you a gang of rugged individualists, not one with any concept of discipline. I certainly had none. But I do now.”
“I’m not sure that I do,” I said miserably.
“It means obeying orders you don’t like and strongly disagree with – with no back talk. ‘Into the jaws of death rode the six hundred.’ Zebadiah would not do that to us… but he did let us annoy him into testing my new Bug-Out program. He had told me that the test was a useless risk; I should have agreed because it was useless. Instead I gave him a snooty ‘No comment,’ and you were as bad and Pop was worse. Mmm… I don’t think Zebadiah has had much experience as a commanding officer.”
“Why so, Deety? He is a captain.”
“That doesn’t mean that he has ever been a commanding officer. He has soloed quite a lot, in fighters. He has logged control time in larger craft or he wouldn’t hold a command pilot rating. But has he ever actually commanded? Nothing he has said to me indicated it… but he did tell me that before the last war a major was often captain of an air-and-space craft but now it almost always took a lieutenant colonel while majors wound up as copilots. He was explaining why he liked one-man fighters so well. Aunt Hilda – Captain – I think commanding was as new to Zebadiah as it is to you. Like sex, or having a baby, you can’t understand it till you’ve tried it.” She suddenly grinned. “So don’t hold Zebadiah’s mistakes against him.”
“What mistakes? He’s saved our lives again and again. I don’t blame him – now – for wanting a rest from commanding. Deety, it’s the hardest work possible even if you don’t lift a finger. I never suspected it. I don’t expect to sleep a wink tonight.”
“We’ll guard you!”
“No.”
“Yes, we will!”
“Pipe down.”
“Sorry, Ma’am.”
“What mistakes did Zebbie make?”
“Well… he didn’t crack down. You wasted no time in letting us know who is boss. You didn’t let us argue; you slapped us down at once. I hate to say this but I think you have more talent for command than Zebadiah has.”
“Deety, that’s silly!”
“Is it? Napoleon wasn’t tall.”
“So I have a Napoleonic complex. Humph!”
“Captain, I’m going to ignore that because, under that order you made me log, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”
“Well… I know how not to get a Napoleonic complex. Deety, you’re my second-in-command.”
“But Pop is second-in-command.”
“Wrong tense. ‘Was’ – he is no longer. As astrogator you may have inherited it anyhow; you can ask Zebbie – but in private; my decision is not subject to debate. Simply acknowledge it.”
“I – Aye aye, Captain.”
“You are now required to advise me whenever you think that I am about to make a serious mistake. You are also required to advise me on request.”
“My advice isn’t worth much. Look how I goofed a few minutes ago.”
“That was before you were appointed second-in-command. Deety, actually holding an office makes a big difference.”
Deety blinked and looked solemn, then said soberly, “Yes, I think it does. Yes, it does. I feel it, I do! Weird.”
“Wait till you’re captain. Eight times as weird.”
“Never. Pop wouldn’t go for it, Zebadiah wouldn’t, I won’t – that’s three votes.”
“I said No right up to the point where I could not avoid it. Don’t worry about it now. I’ll boss and you’ll advise me.”
“In that case, Captain, I advise you to reconsider letting us guard you. After we eat and start scouting again, I advise that, even if we find the British quickly, instead of making contact, we should find a spot as deserted as this at the sunrise line and get a long day’s sleep. We crew can get eight hours – I’ll take the middle watch; the men can get eight hours solid each… and the Captain can get anything up to twelve.”
“Advice noted. It’s good advice. But that’s not the program; we’re going to sleep here.” I told Deety what I had in mind. “When the car is restowed, we’ll eat. If there is daylight left, we’ll bathe before we eat. Otherwise in the morning.”
“I’d rather hurry through eating and get a bath… since you tell me I’m going to be able to sleep with my husband. When I’m frightened I stink worse… and I’ve been much more scared than I’ve tried to let on.”
“Into cold water after eating? Deety, you know better.”
“Oh. I’ll skip eating, if necessary, to bathe.”
“Astrogator, we’ll do it my way.”
“Yes, Captain. But I stink, I do.”
“We’ll all stink by the time we restow this car and may wind up eating sandwiches in the dark because everything that we don’t throw away is going to be inside with us and Gay locked and not a light showing by sundown.” I cocked my head. “Hear something, Deety?”

Our men came back looking cheerful, with Zebbie carrying Jacob’s rifle and wearing Jacob’s pistol. Zebbie gave me a big grin. “Cap’n, there wasn’t a durn thing wrong with me that Carter’s Little Liver Pills couldn’t have fixed. Now I’m right.”
“Good.”
“But just barely,” agreed my husband. “Hilda – Captain Hilda my beloved – your complex schedule almost caused me to have a childish accident.”
“I think that unnecessary discussion wasted more time than did my schedule. As may be, Jacob, I would rather have to clean up a ‘childish accident’ than have to bury you.”
“But -“
“Drop the matter!”
“Pop, you had better believe it!” sang out Deety.
Jacob looked startled (and hurt, and I felt the hurt). Zebbie looked sharply at me, no longer grinning. He said nothing, went to Deety, reached for his rifle. “I’ll take that, hon.”
Deety held it away from him. “The Captain has not relieved me.”
“Oh. Okay, we’ll do it by the book.” Zebbie looked at me. “Captain, I thoroughly approve of your doctrine of a continuous guard; I was too slack. It was my intention to relieve the watch. I volunteer to stand guard while you three eat -“
” – then I’ll guard while Zeb eats,” added Jacob. “We already worked it out. When do we eat? I could eat an ostrich with the feathers left on.” He added, “Hilda my love, you’re captain… but you’re still cook, aren’t you? Or is Deety the cook?”
(Decisions! How does the captain of a big ship cope?) “I’ve made changes. Deety remains astrogator but is now second-in-command and my executive officer. In my absence she commands. When I’m present, Deety’s orders are my orders; she will be giving them to implement what I want done. Neither she nor I will cook. Uh, medical officer – ” (Damn it, Sharpie, all those hours in the emergency room make you the only candidate. Or does it? Mmm – ) “Zebbie, does ‘command pilot’ include paramedical training?”
“Yes. Pretty sketchy. What to do to keep the bloke alive until the surgeon sees him.”
“You’re medical officer. I am assistant medical officer when you need me – if I don’t have something else that must be done.”
“Captain, may I put in a word?”
“Please do, Chief Pilot.”
“Sometimes you have to let the bloke die because there is something else that has to be done.” Zebbie looked bleak. “Saw it happen. Does no good to worry ahead of time or grieve about it afterwards. You do what you must.”
“So I am learning, Zebbie. Cook – Gentlemen, I’ve never eaten your cooking. You must assess yourselves. Which one of you is ‘adequate’ -“
“Ouch.”
“Your wording, Zebbie. – and which one is inadequate?”
They backed and filled and deferred to each other, so I put a stop to it. “You will alternate as first and second cook until evidence shows that one is chief cook and the other assistant. Jacob, today you are first cook -“
“Good! I’ll get busy at once!”
“No, Jacob.” I explained what we were going to do. “While you two get everything out of the car, Deety will teach me the rudiments of shotgun. Then I will take over guard duty and she can help unload. But keep your rifles loaded and handy, ’cause if I shoot, I’ll need help in a hurry. Then, when we restow, I’ll do it because I’m smallest and can stand up, mostly, behind the bulkhead. While Zebbie stands guard, and Deety and Jacob pass things in to me.”
Jacob wasn’t smiling – and I suddenly recognized his expression. I once had a dog who (theoretically) was never fed at the table. He would sit near my knee and look at me with that same expression. Why, my poor darling was hungry! Gut-rumble hungry. I had such a galloping case of nerves from becoming captain that I had no appetite.
“Deety, in the pantry back at Snug Harbor I noticed a carton of Milky Way bars. Did that get packed?”
“Certainly did! Those are Pop’s – his vice and eventual downfall.”
“Really? I don’t recall seeing him eat one.”
My husband said, “I haven’t been eating them lately. All things considered, my dear – my dear Captain – I prefer you to candy bars.”
“Why, thank you, Jacob! Will you share those candy bars? We understand that they are your personal property.”
“They are not my personal property; they belong to all of us. Share and share alike.”
“Yup,” agreed Zebbie. “A perfect communism. ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’ With the usual communist dictator on top.”
“Zebbie, I’ve been called everything from a black reactionary to a promiscuous old whore – but never before a communist dictator. Very well, you may address me as ‘Comrade Captain.’ When we come across those candy bars, everybody grab one for quick energy – unless somebody remembers where they were packed?”
“Gay knows!” said Deety, and backed toward the car’s open door while still keeping her eyes swinging the arc away from the river-perfect sentry and looking cute at it. “Gay Deceiver!”
“Hi, Deety! Getting any?”
“Inventory. Food supplies. Candy. Milky Way bars. Report location.”
“Frame twenty. Starboard. Closed storage seven-Ess-high. Bottom shelf.”

Five hours later everything was back inside except a heap of wrapping, packaging, and such – yet the increase in space was far greater than that pile. This was because storage did not have to be logical. Just tell Gay. A left shoe could fill an odd space in with the swords while the right shoe from the same pair was a space filler in a tool storage far to the rear – yet the only inconvenience lay in having to go to two places to get them.
I did the stowing; Deety stayed in the cabin, received items handed from outside, described the item to Gay, then described to Gay where the item was stowed, as I reported it. Gay was under instruction to hear only Deety’s voice – and what Deety told Gay was so logical that no one need remember it. Like this: “Gay Deceiver.”
“Boss, when will you learn to say ‘Please’?”
“Clothing. Zeb. Shoes. Field boots.”
“Right boot. Abaft bulkhead. Starboard. Frame forty. Under deckplate. Outboard compartment. Left boot. Abaft bulkhead. Portside. Frame sixty. Under deckplate, middle compartment. Warning: Both boots filled with rifle ammo padded with socks.”
You see? If you got categories in the wrong order, Gay would restring them. Give her the basic category and the identification, leaving out the other steps, and Gay would search the “tree” (Deety’s words) and get the “twig” you identified. You could even fail to give category and she would search until she found it.
But hardest was to build up the decking of the rear compartment about twenty centimeters with chattels or stores that would not crush, fasten it down to keep it from floating in free fall, and make it smooth enough that it would not be unbearably lumpy as a bed – while making some effort neither to build into this platform nor to store in compartments under it things needed frequently or quickly.
I had to lower my standards. It is impossible to store so many things in such limited space and have all readily at hand.
I studied things outside, admitted that I could not do it, then asked for advice. Zebbie solved it: “Captain, do a dry run.”
“Uh… go on, Zebbie.”
“Take my sleeping bag inside, open it out. It is too wide for the space, especially at the rear. So keep it as far forward as you can and still miss Jake’s twister and the bulkhead door. Mark the amount you have to lap it. Mark on the deck the foot of the opened-out bag. You’ll find space abaft that, frustum of a cone, sort of. Drag the sleeping bag outside, mark the tuck-in, build your platform on it. Then fill that rear space and build a bulkhead. Better get Jake; he’s a born mechanic.”
“Zebbie, would you prefer to build this bed yourself?”
“Nope.”
“Why not? I’m not speaking as captain; I’m inquiring as your old friend Sharpie.”
“Because I’m twice as big as you, which makes that space half as big for me. Tell you what, Cap’n Sharpie – excuse me! – Captain Hilda – do the measuring. Meanwhile we’ll pick out plunder that might be bricks in that platform. Then drag the sleeping bag outside. If you’ll let Jake relieve me, Deety and I can piece together the platform in jig time.”
It changed “impossible” to “possible.” The cubbyhole was filled, contents held in place with opened-out cartons tied with wire to hold-downs – “padeyes” Jacob called them. The platform was built, chinked with this and that, covered with more flattened-out cartons, and topped off with sleeping bag and blankets.
It was still light. Deety assured me that there was one hour and forty-three minutes till sundown. “Time enough if we hurry. Jacob, first bath. Deety, guard him. Both come back so Jacob can start dinner – then Zebbie and Deety go down – goodness, this sounds like the farmer and the rowboat with the fox and the geese – and bathe, taking turns guarding. Both come back; Deety relieves me; Zebbie takes me down to bathe while he guards. But please hurry; I want a bath, too. Forty minutes before sundown bathing stops and we eat – at sundown we are inside, dirty dishes and all, locked in till sunrise. If that does me out of a bath, we still hold to it. Jacob, how far is this ‘easy way’ down? I mean, ‘How many minutes?'”
“Maybe five. Hilda my love, if you weren’t insisting on always-two-together there would be no hurry. All go down together; I hurry through my bath, grab my rifle and trot back. The rest needn’t hurry. You’ve got us going down and up, down and up, four times – forty minutes. Which squeezes four baths into twenty minutes, five minutes to undress, soap, squat down and rinse off, towel dry, and dress. Hardly worth the trip.”
“Jacob, who guards you while you’re getting supper? No. I can bathe in the morning.” (Damn! I wanted that bath. I’m used to a shower in the morning, a tub at night, a bidet at any excuse. Decadent – that’s me.)
“Beloved, this place is safe. While we were out earlier, Zeb and I scouted for sign. None. That’s when we found this way down to the creek. It would be a natural watering place. No sign. I don’t think there are any large fauna here.”
I was wavering when Deety spoke up. “Pop, that’s three down-and-ups, not four, as Zebadiah and I get baths on one. But, Captain Hilda, if we all go down and come back together, there can’t be danger. Put that stuff back inside and lock up, of course.” She pointed at Jacob’s preparations. While Jacob had been handing stuff to Deety, he had set aside a hot plate, cooking and eating utensils, a tarpaulin, comestibles for supper and breakfast, and had passed word for me please to store food so that it could be reached easily.
Jacob said hastily, “Deety, I’ve got it planned for minimum therbligs. Dried apricots soaking in that pan, soup mix in that one. There’s no level deck space left inside.”
Deety started to say, “But, Pop, if we – ” when I cut in with, “Quiet, please” – not shouted.
They kept quiet – “Captain Bligh” was being listened to. “Gay Deceiver will not be left unguarded. My orders will not be discussed further. One modification: Supper is cut from forty minutes to twenty-five. Astrogator adjust schedule accordingly. Sound a blast on the siren five minutes before suppertime. We lock up on the dot. I placed the honey bucket just beyond the swing of the bulkhead door as the car will not be unlocked for any reason until sunrise. Questions?”
“Yes, Captain. Where are the towels?”

An hour later I was squatting in the stream, rinsing off and hurrying – covered with goose bumps. As I stepped out, Zebbie put down his rifle and had a big, fluffy towel, long as I am tall, waiting to wrap me. I should have required him to behave as a guard should.
But I told myself that he was still wearing his revolver and, anyhow, he has this sixth sense about danger – lying in my teeth. Nothing makes a woman feel more cherished than to have a man wrap her in a big towel the instant she’s out of the water. I lack character, that’s all. Every woman has her price, and a big, fluffy towel at the right time comes close to being mine.
Zebbie was rubbing firmly, getting me not only dry but warm. “Feels good, Captain?”
“‘Captain Hilda’ never came down the bank, Zebbie. Feels swell!”
“Remember the first time I gave you a rubdown?”
“Sure do! Dressing room at my pool.”
“Yup. I tried to lay you. I’ve never been turned down so smoothly.”
“You tried to lay me, Zebbie? Truly?” I looked up at him, my best innocent look.
“Sharpie darling, you lie as easily as I do. A man does this” – and he did – “even with a towel, a woman is certain what he means. But you refused to notice it, turned me down, without hurting my pride.”
“I’m refusing to notice it now and find it just as difficult as I did that afternoon. Stop it, please!” He did. “Thanks, dear. You got me all shaky. Zebbie, do you think Deety thinks I rigged this to get you alone? I would not willingly upset her.”
“On the contrary. She gave me a hunting license concerning you – you, not females in general – ten days back. In writing.”
“Really?”
“In writing so that she could limit it. I am required not to run any risk of hurting Jake.”
“You haven’t tried to use that license.”
“I took it as a compliment to you and to me, kissed Deety and thanked her. You settled this four years ago. But I’ve sometimes wondered why. I’m young, healthy, take care of my teeth, and keep my nails clean – mostly – and you seemed to like me. What made me ineligible? Not complaining, dear, just asking.”
I tried to explain the difference between a male friend and a bedmate – the scarcity of the first, the boring plethora of applicants for the other.
He listened, then shook his head. “Masochism.”
“Hasn’t it worked out better this way? I do love you, Zebbie.”
“I know you do, Sharpie.” Zebbie turned me around and looked down into my eyes. “And I love you and you know that, too” – and he kissed me.
That kiss went on and neither of us seemed inclined to stop. My towel slipped to the ground. I noticed because it felt better to be closer and ever so much nicer to have his hands on me. Zebbie hadn’t given me a sexy kiss since the day I hadinvited a pass and then ignored it.
I began to wonder why I had decided to ignore it. Then I was wondering how much time we had left in our schedule. Then I knew the exact time… for that infernal, earsplitting siren sounded. God watches over Hilda Mae and that’s why I keep Him on my payroll. But sometimes He is rough about it.
We let go. I put on Deety’s Keds, slid my borrowed dress over my head, hung the towel over my arm – elapsed time: nine seconds. Zebbie was again carrying his rifle at the ready (is that correct? – both hands, I mean).
“Captain, shall we go?”
“Yes, Chief Pilot. Zebbie, when did I become ‘captain’ again? Just from putting on clothes? You’ve seen this old hide before.”
“Skin has nothing to do with it, Captain. Quoting Deety quoting the Japanese: ‘Nakedness is often seen but never noticed.’ Except that sometimes I do notice, hot diggity dog and other comments. You have superior skin, Captain. You went back to being Captain when I picked up my rifle. But I was never off duty. Did you notice, when I dried you, that I picked you up and swung you around, so that I faced the bank? I kept alert even while I was nuzzling you… and you make fine nuzzle, Captain Step-Mother-in-Law Hilda.”
“So do you, Zebbie. I’m still Sharpie till we get to your car.” We reached the top of the bank. “Ten seconds to catch my breath. Zebbie -“
“Yes, Sharpie?”
“Four years ago – I’m sorry I turned away your pass.”
He patted my bottom. “So am I, dear. But it has worked out quite well. And” – he grinned that irresistible, ugly grin – “who knows? – we aren’t dead yet.”
When we arrived, Jacob was slurping soup. “You’re late,” he stated. “So we waited.”
“So I see.”
“Don’t listen to Pop, Captain Auntie; you are two minutes seventeen seconds ahead of time. Are you sure you stayed in long enough to get clean?”
“I stayed in long enough to get freezing cold. Aren’t you chilly?” Deety had worn skin most of the day and so had I; we had been doing sweaty work. But she had been dressed when I last saw her. “Jacob, is there no soup for Zebbie and me?”
“A smidgen. You get this pan as soon as I’m through – now! – and that means one less dish to wash.”
“And Zebadiah gets mine – also now – and I took that jump suit off because it’s dirty and I’m clean. I still haven’t figured out how to do a laundry. Nothing for a tub, no way to heat water. What’s that other way? Pound them on a rock the way it shows in National Geographic? I don’t believe it!”
We were in bed by sundown, Gay’s doors locked – pitch dark in minutes. According to Deety and Gay sunrise was ten hours and forty-three minutes away. “Deety, please tell Gay to wake us at sunrise.”
“Aye aye, Captain Auntie.”
“Zebbie, you told us that the air in the car was good for about four hours.”
“In space; The scoops are open now.”
“But do you get air back there? Should the bulkhead door be open?”
“Oh. Top scoop serves this space. The cabin is ventilated by the chin scoop. Scoops stay open unless internal pressure closes them.”
“Can anything get in through them? Snakes or such?”
“Hilda my dear, you worry too much.”
“My very own darling Copilot, will you please pipe down while I’m speaking to the Chief Pilot? There are many things about this car that I do not know – yet I am responsible.”
Zebbie answered, “Each scoop has a grid inside and a fine screen at the inner end; nothing can get in. Have to clean ’em occasionally. Remind me, Deety.”
“I’ll tell Gay.” She did – and almost at once there was a crash of metal. I sat up abruptly. “What’s that?”
“Hilda, I am afraid that I have kicked over the supper dishes.” My husband added, “Zeb, how do I find the cabin light?”
“No, no! Jacob, don’t try to find it. No light at all until sunrise. Don’t fret about dishes. But what happened? I thought they were under the instrument board.”
“I couldn’t quite reach with this bed made up. But the carton that supports my feet sticks out beyond the seat cushion on it. So I stacked them there.”
“No harm done. We can expect bobbles as we shake down.”
“I suppose so.”
“We can cope. Jacob, that was an excellent dinner.”
Deety called out, “Good night, chatterboxes! We want to sleep.” She closed the bulkhead door, dogged it.

Chapter XXIII

“The farce is over.”

Jake:
For me, the best soporific is to hold Hilda in my arms. I slept ten hours.
I might have slept longer had I not been blasted by a bugle call: Reveille.
I thought I was back in basic, tried to rouse out fast – banged my head. That slowed me; I reoriented, saw my lovely bride beside me, yawning prettily – realized that we were on Mars.
Mars! Not even our own Mars but another universe.
That hateful tune started to repeat, louder.
I banged on the bulkhead. “How do you shut this thing off?”
Shortly I saw dogs of the bulkhead door turning, then the door swung – as the call went into its third time around still louder. Zeb showed, blinking.
“Do you have a problem?”
I couldn’t hear but I could piece out what he meant.
“HOW DO YOU SHUT OFF THIS RACKET?”
“No problem.” (I think that’s what he said.) “Good morning, Gay.”
The bugle faded into the distance. “Good morning, Boss.”
“I’m awake.”
“Ah, but will you stay awake?”
“I won’t go back to bed. Promise.”
“I’ve dealt with your sort before, me bucko. If you aren’t out of here before my landlady wakes up, I’ll lose this room. Then another hassle with the cops. It’s not worth it… you cheapskate!”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“So smart I’m looking for another job.”
“Back to sleep, Gay. Over.”
“Roger and out, Boss” – and blessed silence.
I said to my daughter, “Deety, how could you do this to us?”
Her husband answered. “Deety didn’t, Jake. She was told to place a call for sunrise. But didn’t know what a morning call means to Gay.”
I grumped, and opened the starboard door. Hilda’s rearrangements had given me the best rest I had had in days. But two double beds in a sports car left no room on arising to do anything but get out.
So I slid out the door, groped for the step, paused to ask Hilda for shoes and coverall – caught sight of something and said quietly, “Hilda. My rifle. Quickly!”
My little treasure is always reliable in emergency; her clowning is simply persona. (A most pleasant one; the worst aspect of the jest of making her “captain” was that she lost her smile – I hoped that Zeb would soon resume command. We had needed the lesson – but no need to go on.)
I digress – I asked for my rifle; she whispered, “Roger,” and had it in my hand at once with the quiet report: “Locked, one in the chamber. Wait – I’m getting Zeb.”
That made sense. By staying on the step in the corner formed by door and car, my rear was safe and I need cover only a small sector. I prefer a bolt action – correction: I have a bolt-action rifle I inherited from my father’s eldest brother, who had “liberated” it on leaving the Marine Corps.
I unlocked it, opened the bolt slightly, saw that a cartridge was in the chamber, closed the bolt, left the piece unlocked.
Zeb said at my ear, softly, “What’s the excitement?”
“Over there.” I pulled my head out of the way, saw Hilda and Deety almost on top of Zeb – Hilda with Deety’s shotgun, Deety with her husband’s police special.
Zeb said, “Pixies. They may still be around; let’s check. Cover me from here?”
“No, Zeb. You to the right, me to the left, we check the port side, meet back at the dump. Make it fast.”
“Say the word.” Zeb said over his shoulder, “You girls stay in the car. Jake?”
“Now!” We came bursting out like greyhounds, guns at high port. The reason for my disquiet was simple: The dump of wrappings and cartons was no longer a heap. Something had spread it over many meters, and the litter was not nearly enough to account for the pile. Wind? Zeb had left the wings extended; the slightest wind would wake him, warn him of change in weather. The car had not rocked in the night; ergo, no wind. Ergo, nocturnal visitors. Nor were they small.
I rounded the car to the left, seeing nothing until I spotted Zeb – waved at him, started back around to join him at the dump.
He arrived before I did. “I told you girls to stay in the car!” He was quite angry, and the cause, both of them, were also at the dump.
My darling answered, “Chief Pilot.”
Zeb said, “Huh? Sharpie, there’s no time for that; there’s something dangerous around! You girls get inside before I -“
“Pipe DOWN!”
One would not believe that so small a body could produce such a blast. It caught Zeb mouth open and jammed his words down his throat.
Hilda did not give him opportunity to answer. She continued, forcefully: “Chief Pilot, there are no ‘girls’ here; there are four adult humans. One of them is my second-in-command and executive officer. My executive officer; I am in command.” Hilda looked at my daughter. “Astrogator, did you tell anyone to remain in the car?”
“No, Captain.” Deety was wearing her “Name, rank, and serial number” face.
“Nor did I.” Hilda looked at Zeb. “There is no need to discuss it.” She stirred litter with a toe. “I had hoped that we could find salvage. But three fourths of it has been eaten. By large animals from those tooth marks. I would have trouble visualizing a large animal that eats cellulose but is nevertheless carnivorous – save that I know one. So we will get as much done as possible while keeping a tight guard. I have the program planned but I’m open to advice.”
“Hilda!” I let my tone get a bit sharp.
My wife looked around with features as impassive as those of my daughter. “Copilot, are you addressing me officially or socially?”
“Uh… as your husband! I must put my foot down! Hilda, you don’t realize the situation. We’ll lift as soon as possible – and Zeb will be in command. The farce is over.”
I hated to speak to my beloved that way but sometimes one must. I braced myself for a blast.
None came. Hilda turned to Zeb and said quietly, “Chief Pilot, was my election a farce?”
“No, Captain.”
“Astrogator, did you think of it as farce?”
“Me? Heavens, no, Captain Auntie!”
Hilda looked at me. “Jacob, from the balloting you voted for me at least once, possibly three times. Were you joking?”
I could not remember how I had felt when it dawned on me that Zeb really did intend to resign – panic, I think, that I was about to be stuck with the job. That was now irrelevant as I knew that I was not more than one micron from again being a bachelor… so I resorted to Higher Truth.
“No, no, my darling – my darling Captain! I was dead serious!”
“Did you find some malfeasance?”
“What? No! I – I made a mistake. Jumped to conclusions. I assumed that we would be leaving at once… and that Zeb would command once we lifted. After all, it’s his car.”
Hilda gave me the briefest smile. “There is something to that last argument. Zebbie, did you intend – “
“Wait a half! Cap’n, that car belongs to all of us just like Jake’s Milky Way bars; we pooled resources.”
“So I have heard you all say. Since I had nothing to pool but a fur cape, I took it with a grain of salt. Zebbie, do you intend to resume command when we lift?”
“Captain, the only way you can quit is by resigning… whereupon Deety would be captain.”
“No, sirree!” (My daughter is not often that shrill.)
“Then Jake would wind up holding the sack. Captain, I’ll pilot when ordered, chop wood and carry water between times. But I didn’t sign up to boss a madhouse. I think you’re finding out what I mean.”
“I think so, too, Zebbie. You thought there was an emergency and started giving orders. I would not want that to happen in a real emergency -“
“It won’t! Captain.”
“And I find to my chagrin that my husband considers me to be a play captain. I think I must ask for a vote of confidence. Will you please find something to use as white and black balls?”
“Captain Auntie!”
“Yes, dear?”
“I am required to advise you. A commanding officer commands; she doesn’t ask for votes. You can resign – or – die – or lose to a mutiny and get hanged from your own yardarm. But if you take a vote, you’re not a captain; you’re a politician.”
“Deety’s right, Captain,” Zeb told my wife. “Had a case-law case in R.O.T.C. Naval vessel. Department told the skipper to pick one of two ports for ho1idays. He let his crew vote on it. Word got back to Washington and he was relieved at sea by his second-in-command and never again ordered to sea. C.O.’s don’t ask; they tell ’em. However, if it matters to you, I’m sorry I goofed, and you do enjoy my confidence.”
“Mine, too!”
“And mine, Hilda my dear Captain!” (In truth I wanted Zeb and only Zeb to command when the car was off the ground. But I made myself a solemn vow never again to say or do anything that might cause Hilda to suspect it. We would crash and die together rather than let her suspect that I thought her other than the ideal commanding officer.)
Hilda said, “The incident is closed. Who can’t wait? Speak up.”
I hesitated – my bladder is not used to bedtime right after dinner. When no one else spoke, I said, “Perhaps I had better be first; I have breakfast to prepare.”
“Dear, you are not First Cook today; Zebbie is. Deety, grab a rifle and take your father to his ‘handy bush’ – and do make it handy; that giant termite might be lurking. Then hand Jacob the rifle and it’s your turn. Don’t dally.”

It was a busy day. Water tanks had to be topped off. Zeb and I used two collapsible buckets, taking turns (that hill got steeper every trip, even at 0.38 gee), while Deety guarded us. Endless trips –
That afternoon I was a ladies’ tailor. Hilda had something for Deety to do.
Zeb had a job to complete. The space behind the bulkhead has padeyes every 30 cms or so. No one wants the center of gravity to shift when one is in the air. Zeb’s arrangements were Samson cord in many lengths with snap hooks. Zeb told Hilda he wanted to secure the bed aft for air or space, and to store items used in rigging the forward bed so that they would be secure but available – and where were his Samson ties? – Gay didn’t know. He had to explain to Hilda what they looked like – whereupon Hilda said, “Oh! Thingammies! Gay Deceiver. Inventory. Incidentals. Small. Thingammies.” Zeb spent the afternoon making certain that the “bed” could not slide, then built a net of Samson cord to hold the items for turning seats into a bed, then, finding that he had Samson ties left, Zeb removed the wires with which I had secured the aftermost storage, and replaced them with ties. When he was through, he relieved me as guard, and I wound up as seamstress.
Our wives had decided that one of Deety’s jump suits should be altered for Hilda until we reached some place where clothes could be purchased. Hilda had vetoed Earth-without-a-J. “Jacob, as captain I look at things from another perspective. It is better to be a lively frump than a stylish corpse. Wups! You pinned Sharpie.”
“Thorry,” I said, around a mouthful of pins. Hilda was wearing the suit inside out; I was pinning excess material. Once this caused it to fit, lines held by pins would be tacked, pins removed, tacked lines sewed in short stitches (by hand; Deety’s sewing machine was ashes in another universe), and excess cloth trimmed away.
Such was theory.
I tackled reducing the waist line by pinning darts on both sides. Then I folded up the trousers so that the crease came at the instep – but had to pin them up 17 cms!
Seventeen centimeters! I had taken in the waist first, knowing that doing so would, in effect, shorten the trousers. It did – one centimeter.
The appearance was as if I were trying to fit her with a chimpanzee suit for a masquerade. Lift it at the shoulders? I tried, almost cutting off circulation. Still a horrid case of droopy drawers –
Take a tuck all the way around the waist? That suit closed with one zipper. Have you ever tried to take a tuck in a zipper?
I stepped back and looked at my creative artistry.
Ghastly.
“Hilda my love, Deety was better at this by the age of ten. Shall I fetch her?”
“No, no!”
“Yes, yes. If at first you don’t succeed, find the mistake. I’m the mistake. You need Deety.”
“No, Jacob. It would be better for me to get along without clothes than to interrupt the work I have assigned to the Astrogator. With you at the verniers and Zebbie at the controls, Gay can do almost anything and quickly. Yes?”
“I wouldn’t phrase it that way. But I understand you.”
“If she’s been preprogrammed, she can do it even faster?”
“Certainly. Why the quiz, dear?”
“How much faster?”
“Without preprogramming, it takes a few seconds to acknowledge and set it, about as long to check what I’ve done, then I report ‘Set!’ Zeb says ‘Execute!’ I punch the button. Five to fifteen seconds. With a preprogram – is it debugged in all ways, no conflicts, no ambiguities, no sounds easy to confuse?”
“Darling, that is why I won’t let Deety be disturbed. Yes.”
“So. Maximum time would be with Gay asleep. Wake her, she acknowledges, you state the preprogram in the exact words in her memory, then say ‘Execute!’ Call it three seconds. Minimum – That would be an emergency preprogram with ‘Execute’ included in the code word. My dear, we saw minimum time yesterday. When that Russian tried to shoot Zeb.”
“Jacob, that is what caused me to put Deety to work. I saw his pistol in the air. His fingers were curled to catch it. Then we were in the sky. How long?”
“I saw him start to reverse his weapon, and bent over my verniers to bounce us by switch… then stopped. Not needed. Mmm – A tenth of a second? A fifth?”
“Whichever, it is the fastest we can manage. While you dears were carrying water, I was preparing a list of preprograms. Some are to save juice or time or to carry out something we do frequently; those require ‘Execute!’ Some are intended to save our lives and don’t require ‘Execute.’ Like ‘Bounce’ and ‘Bug Out’ and ‘Take us home!’ But more. Jacob, I did not tell Deety how to phrase these; that’s her specialty. I wrote out what I thought we ought to be able to do and told her to add any she wished.”
“Did you consult Zeb?”
“Copilot, the Captain did not consult the Chief Pilot.”
“Whew! I beg your pardon – Captain.”
“Only if I get a kiss – mind the pins! Deety will post a copy on the instrument board. After you and Zebbie read them, I want your advice and his.”

I gave up on that jump suit. I took out eighty-five or a thousand pins. Hilda was covered with sweat so I invited her to order me to take her down to bathe. She hesitated.
I said, “Does the Captain have duties of which I am unaware?”
“No. But everyone else is working, Jacob.”
“Captain, Rank Hath Its Privileges. You are on duty twenty-four hours a day – twenty-four and a half here – “
“Twenty-four hours, thirty-nine minutes, thirty-five seconds – local day, not sidereal.”
“Did you measure it? Or remember what some professor said?”
“Neither, Jacob. It’s the figure Gay uses. I suppose she got it from the Aerospace Almanac.”
“Are you going to believe an almanac? Or your husband?”
“Excuse me, Jacob, while I tell Gay the correct figure.”
“Hand back my leg, beloved. Captain, since you are on duty all the time, you are entitled to bathe, rest, or relax, at any time.”
“Well… two seconds while I grab a towel – and tell Zebbie that I will start dinner while he is down bathing.”
“Captain, I am number-two cook today. You said so.”
“You will guard, Jacob, which you do better than I. While the Carters are guarding each other.”
Hilda came trotting back with a towel. I said, “Cap’n, I’ve figured out clothes for you.”
“Goody. Yes, dear?” We headed for the path down.
“Were my Hawaiian shirts packed?” I had her fall in behind me.
“Inventory. Clothing. Jacob. Shirts. Aloha.”
“Do you recall a blue one with white flowers?”
“Yes.”
“I take ‘medium’ but can get into a ‘small’ and Andrade’s didn’t have this in ‘medium.’ But this one is so small I haven’t been wearing it. Hilda, you’ll like it – and it will be easy to cut down.” (A steep pitch – no place to lose your footing while carrying a gun.)
“I won’t cut it down. Jacob, your shirt is my first maternity smock.”
“A happy thought! Did Deety fetch sailor pants? White.”
“I recall white duck slacks.” Hilda kicked off her Keds, stepped into the water.
“That’s the pair. She wore them one summer while maturing. The following summer they were too tight. She was always about to alter them but never did.”
“Jacob, if Deety likes those pants so well that she saved them and fetched them along, I won’t ask her to give them to me.”
“I will ask her. Hilda, you worry about the wrong things. We pooled resources. I chucked in my candy bars, Zeb chucked in his car, Deety chucks in her sailor pants.”
“And what did I chuck in? Nothing!”
“Your mink cape. If you offered it to Deety in exchange for a pair of old white -“
“It’s a deal!”
“It is like hell, Mistress Mine. That cape is valuta. Only days ago each of us was wealthy. Now we are unpersons who can’t go home. What happens to our bank accounts I do not know but it seems certain that we will never realize anything from them, or from stocks, bonds, and other securities. Any paper money we have is worthless. As you know, I have bullion and gold coins and Jake has, also; we each like money that clinks and we don’t trust governments. Gay must be juiced from time to time; that calls for valuta. Such as gold. Such as mink coats. Come out of there before you freeze! I would rub you dry but that giant termite worries me.”
“Last night Zebbie rubbed me dry.”
(Why do women have this compulsion to confess? It is not a typical male vice.) “He did? I should speak to him.”
“Jacob, you are angry.”
“Only somewhat, as yesterday we didn’t know about the giant termite, and Zeb and I considered your guard rules silly. Nevertheless Zeb neglected his duty.”
“I meant ‘angry with me’!”
“For what? Did you force it on him?”
“No. He offered it – towel open and ready, just as you do. I went straight into it, let him wrap me and rub me down.”
“Feel good?”
“Golly, yes! I’m a bad girl, Jacob – but I loved it.”
“Don’t give yourself airs, my darling; you are not a bad girl. Yesterday was not the first time Zeb has rubbed you dry.”
“Well… no.” (They have to confess, they have to be shrived.)
“Do you any harm, then or now?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m sure it didn’t. Listen, beloved – you are twenty-nine going on forty-two. You’ve had three term contracts and now have a traditional marriage. In college you were a scandal to the jaybirds. Zeb has been your chum for years. Both of you horny as goats. My darling, I assumed what is called ‘the worst’ and is often the best.”
“But, Jacob, we didn’t, we didn’t! And we haven’t!”
“So? People who pass up temptations have only themselves to blame. Just one thing, my only love, if you and Zeb ever pick up the matter, try not to look guilty.”
“But we aren’t going to, ever!”
“Should it come to pass, warn Zeb not to hurt Deety. She loves him deeply. Not surprising as Zeb is a lovable man. Get your shoes on, dearest one, and we’ll let someone else have the community bathtub.”
“Jacob? You still think we have. Zebbie and I.”
“Hilda, I married you convinced that Zeb was, at that time and for some years, your lover. Or one of them. Today you have convinced me that the matter is unproven… assuming that one or both of you have rocks in your head. But I can’t see that it makes a tinker’s dam either way. Jane taught me that the only important rule is not to hurt people… which very often – Jane’s words! – consists in not talking unnecessarily.”
“Jane told me that, too. Jacob? Will you kiss me?”
“Madame – what did you say your name was? – that is the toll I charge before a client starts up this bank.”
As we climbed, I asked Hilda, “Darling, what is the animal that eats cellulose but is carnivorous?”
“Oh. Two. H. sapiens and Rattus.”
“Men? Cellulose?”
“Sawdust is often processed as food. Have you ever eaten in a fast food joint?”

My daughter had done a wonderful job on preprograms; we all were eager to learn them. We placed guards, Zeb and me, at the doors, while Deety took Zeb’s seat and talked, and Hilda sat in mine.
“Captain Auntie had two ideas,” Deety told us. “To optimize emergency escapes and to work out ways to use as near to no juice as possible. The latter involves figuring ways to ground us in strange places without the skill Zebadiah has in dead-stick grounding.”
“I don’t depend on skill,” put in my son-in-law. “I won’t risk a dead-stick grounding other than on a hard-surfaced strip. You’ve seen me avoid it twice – by power-on just before grounding. Yesterday I cut it a bit fine.”
I shuddered.
My daughter continued, “We have this new program. Set it, by voice, for bearing and as many minima as you please. Our Smart Girl goes there and attempts to ground. She uses radar twice, once in range-finder mode, second time in precautionary mode as in ‘Bug Out.’ If her target is not clear, she does a Drunkard’s Walk in locus ten klicks radius, sampling spots two per second. When she finds a good spot, she grounds. Unless we don’t like it and order her to try again.
“Study that and you will see that you can cruise all over this or any planet, land anywhere, and not use juice.
“Escape programs – We must be most careful in saying G, A, Y. Refer to her as ‘smart girl’ or ‘the car’ or anything not starting with that syllable. That syllable will now wake her. If it is followed by her last name, she goes into ‘awaiting orders’ mode. But if G, A, Y, alone is followed by any of eight code words, she executes that escape instantly. I have tried to select monosyllables that ordinarily do not follow her first name. Gay Deceiver.”
“Hi, Deety!”
“Dictionary. G, A, Y. Read.”
“Gayety, gayfeather, Gayle, Gaylord, Gay-Pay-Oo, gaywings -“

Chapter XXIV

Captains aren’t supposed to cry.

Hilda:
I ordered an early dinner by starting it when Zebbie and Deety went down to bathe. I had ready a public reason but my motive was personal: I didn’t want a pillow talk with Jacob.
Annoyed at him? At me! I had had a perfect chance to keep my lip zipped – and muffed it! Was I boasting? Or confessing? Or trying to hurt Jacob? (Oh, no! – can the id be that idiotic!)
Don’t rationalize it, Sharpie! Had not your husband been kind, tolerant, and far more sophisticated than you ever dreamed, you would be in trouble.
When dinner was over, Zebbie said lazily, “I’ll do the dishes in the morning.”
I said, “I prefer that they be done tonight, please.”
Zebbie sat up and looked at me. His thoughts were coming through so strongly that I was getting them as words. I never allow myself to be close with a person whose thoughts I can’t sense at all; I distrust a blank wall. But now I could “hear” such names as “Queeg” and “Bligh” and “Vanderdecken” and “Ahab” – and suddenly Captain Ahab was harpooning the White Whale and I was the whale!
Zebbie bounced to his feet with a grin that made me uneasy. “Sure thing, Cap’n! Deety, grab a rifle and hold it on me to make sure I get ’em clean.”
I cut in quickly, “I’m sorry, Chief Pilot, but I need the Astrogator. Jacob is your assistant.”
When they were gone, Deety said, “Will my shotgun do? I don’t think the cardboard eater comes out in daylight.”
“Bring the guns inside; we’re going to close the doors.”
I waited until we were settled. “Deety, will you make me a copy of your new programs before our men come back?”
“If they take time to wash them properly. Men and dishes – you know.”
“I hope they stall -“
” – and get over their mad,” Deety finished.
“That, too. But I intend to write a sequential program and I want you to check me. After you make that copy.”

They did stay down – “man talk,” no doubt. Men need us but can just barely stand us; every now and then they have to discuss our faults. I think that is why they shut us out.
Deety made a copy while I wrote what I planned to do. Deety looked it over, corrected some wording. Looked it over again – and said nothing pointedly.
“Deety, can you handle your father’s lab camera?”
“Certainly.”
“Will you check its load and shoot when I ask for it?”
“Of course.”
“If I goof on an order, correct me at once.”
“You don’t intend to hand this to Zebadiah to carry out?”
“No. I prefer that you not mention that I prepared it ahead of time. Deety, the Chief Pilot assured me that any of us could command in aerospace. I am about to make a test run. The Chief Pilot is in a position to override. If he does, I shan’t fight it; I have said all along that he should be captain.”
We had time to dig out that shirt with the white flowers. Deety’s sailor pants were long; we turned up cuffs. The lacing at the back made them small enough in the waist. She gave me a blue belt to pull in the shirt, which I wore outside – then she added a blue hair ribbon.
“Captain Auntie, you look good. Better than I will in this jump suit I am reluctantly pulling on. Gosh, I’m glad Zebadiah isn’t square about skin!”
“He was when I adopted him. Fetched swim briefs the first time I invited him over to swim. But I was firm. There they come! Open the doors.”
They appeared to be over their mad. Zebbie looked at me and said, “How fancy! Are we going to church?” – and my husband added, “You look pretty, my dear.”
“Thank you, sir. All hands, prepare for space. Secure loose gear. Lock firearms. Anyone requiring a bush stop say so. Dress for space. Before manning car, take a turn around the car, searching for gear on the ground.”
“What is this?” demanded Zebbie.
“Prepare for space. Move!”
He hesitated a split second. “Aye aye, Captain.”

In two minutes and thirteen seconds (I checked Gay’s clock) I was squeezing past my husband into the starboard rear seat. I said, “In reporting, include status of firearms. Astrogator.”
“Belted down. Bulkhead door dogged. Shotgun loaded and locked. I slid it under the sleeping bag.”
“Fléchette gun?”
“Wups! In my purse. Loaded and locked. Purse clipped to my seat, outboard.”
“Copilot.”
“Belt fastened. Door locked, seal checked. Continua device ready. Rifle loaded and locked, secure under sleeping bag. I’m wearing my pistol loaded and locked.”
“Chief Pilot.”
“Belt fastened, door locked, seal checked. Rifle loaded, locked, under sleeping bag. Wearing revolver, loaded and locked. No loose gear. Water tanks topped off. Load trimmed. Two reserve power packs, two zeroed. Juice zero point seven-two capacity. Wings spread full. Wheels down, unlocked to retract. All systems go. Ready.”
“Chief Pilot, after first maneuver, execute vertical dive fastest without power and without retracting wheels. Relock wheel-retracting gear. Leave wings spread max.”
“Wheel retractors locked. After first maneuver fastest, no-power vertical dive, wings full subsonic, wheels down.”
I glanced at Deety; she held up the camera and mouthed, “Ready.”
“Gay Home!”
In Arizona it was shortly before sunset, as Deety had predicted. My husband repressed a gasp. I snapped, “Copilot, report H-above-G.”
“Uh… two klicks minus, falling.” Zebbie had bite now; the horizon ahead tilted slowly up, then faster. As we leaned over, Deety stretched high, catlike, to shoot between our pilots. We steadied with Snug Harbor dead ahead – a crater! I felt a burst of anger, a wish to kill!
“Picture!”
“Gay B’gout!”
Instead of being stationary at “Touchdown” we were in free fall on the night side of some planet. I could see stars, with blackness below the “horizon” – if horizon it were. Deety said, “Looks like the Russians left something on our parking space.”
“Perhaps. Jacob, H-above-G, please.”
“Under ten klicks, decreasing slowly.”
“So far, so good. But we aren’t sure that we have the right planet and universe.”
“Captain, that’s Antares ahead.”
“Thanks, Zebbie. I assume that at least we are in one of the analogs, of our native universe. Deety, can you get from Gay the acceleration and check it against Mars-ten?”
“‘Bout four ways, Cap’n.”
“Go ahead.”
“Gay Deceiver.”
“Hi, Deety!”
“Hi, Gay. H-above-G, closing rate running, solve first differential, report answer.”
Instantly Gay answered, “Three-seven-six centimeters per second squared.”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
So it was either Mars-ten or an unreasonable facsimile. “Gay B’gout!”
We were stationary, with what we had come to feel as “proper weight.” Deety said, “Maybe an animal wandered across our spot. How about lights, Captain? This snapshot ought to be colors by now.”
“Not yet. Chief Pilot, when I alert the autopilot by G, A, Y, please switch on forward landing lights.”
“Roger Wilco.”
“Gay -“
Blinding light – men in its path were blinded, not us. “Bounce! Kill the light, Zebbie. The Little Father left sentries in case we came back – and we did.”
“Captain Auntie, may I have cabin light now?”
“Please be patient, dear. I saw two men. Jacob?”
“Three men, dear… dear Captain. Russian soldiers in uniform. Weapons, but no details.”
“Deety?”
“Looked like bazookas.”
“Chief Pilot?”
“Bazookas. A good thing you were on the bounce with Bounce, Skipper. Gay can take a lot… but a bazooka would make her unhappy.” He added, “Speed saved me yesterday. Deety, let that be a lesson: Never lose your temper.”
“Look who’s talking!”
“I quit being C.O., didn’t I? Cap’n Sharpie doesn’t do foolish stunts. If I were skipper, we would chase ’em all over that sea bottom. Never be in one place long enough for them to aim and they would think there were thirty of us. If Colonel Snotsky is there – I think he’s afraid to go home -“
We were over Arizona. I snapped, “Gay Termite!” and were parked by our stream. Zebbie said, “What the devil? Who did that?”
“You did, Zebadiah,” Deety answered.
“Me? I did no such thing. I was -“
“Silence!” (That was I, Captain Bligh.)
I went on, “Gay Deceiver, go to sleep. Over.”
“Sleepy time, Hilda. Roger and out.”
“Chief Pilot, is there a way to shut off the autopilot so completely that she cannot possibly be activated by voice?”
“Oh, certainly.” Zebbie reached up, threw a switch.
“Thanks, Zebbie. Deety, your new escape programs are swell… but I missed how that happened. But first – Did anyone else see our giant termite?”
“Huh?” – “I did.” – “Where?”
I said, “I was looking out to starboard as we transited. The creature was feeding on packing debris – and took off uphill at high speed. Looked like a very big, fat, white dog with too many legs. Six, I think.”
“‘Six,'” agreed my husband. “Put me in mind of a polar bear. Hilda, I think it is carnivorous.”
“We are not going to find out. Deety, tell Zebbie – all of us – what happened.”
Deety shrugged. “Zebadiah said ‘bounce’ twice when he should not have, but Gay wasn’t triggered. Then he said ‘Gay can take a lot – ‘ and she was triggered. More chitchat and Zebadiah said ‘ – I think he’s afraid to go home – ‘ That did it. Our smart girl hears what she has been taught. She heard: ‘Gay Home’ and that is the short form that used to be: ‘Gay Deceiver Take Us Home.”
Zebbie shook his head. “A gun should never be that hair-trigger.”
“Chief Pilot, yesterday you used the first of these clipped programs to avoid a bullet in your face. First ‘Gay’ – then after more words – ‘bounce!’ It saved you.”
“But -“
“I’m not through. Astrogator, study the escape programs. Search for possibility of danger if triggered accidentally. Zebbie, escape programs can’t be compared to a hair trigger on a gun; they are to escape, not to kill.”
“Captain Auntie, I’ve spent all day making certain that programs can’t put us out of the frying pan into the fire. That’s why I killed ‘countermarch.’ The nearest thing to danger is the ‘Home’ program because our home planet is unfriendly.” Deety sounded sad. “I hate to cut our last link with home.”
“It needn’t be cut,” I said. “Just stretched. Put it back into long form and add ‘Execute.'”
Deety answered, “Captain, I will do as you say. But we might be a billion klicks from nowhere and hit by a meteor. If anyone can gasp, ‘GayHome,’ then we are two klicks over our cabin site in air, not vacuum. Even if we’ve passed out, Gay won’t crash us; she’s built not to. If I’m gasping my last, I don’t want to have to say, ‘Gay Deceiver, take us home. Execute.’ That’s ten syllables against two… with air whooshing out.”
I said, “That settles it. The ‘Gay Home’ program stands unless my successor changes it.”
“You’re not talking to me, Captain Sharpie darling – I mean, Captain Hilda – because I’m not your successor. But Deety convinced me. I will not admit that those vermin have run me permanently off my own planet. At least I can return to it to die.”
“Son, let’s not speak of dying. We are going to stay alive and raise kids and enjoy it.”
“That’s my Pop! Say, doesn’t anybody want to see this picture?”

We made it a rest stop, worrying more about giant termites than about bushes… and Jacob found a can opener. The can opener. I put a stop to an attempt to fix the blame. Advice to all explorers: Do not roam the universes without a spare can opener.
Then it was “Prepare for lift!” and a new program. “Chief Pilot, switch on autopilot. Gay Deceiver. Explore. True bearing two-six-five. Unit jump five minima. Use bingo stop continue. End program short of sunrise line. Ground. Acknowledge by paraphrase.”
“Explore west five degrees south fifty-klick units. Two-second check each jump. Ground myself no power Greenwich time oh-three-seventeen.”
“Deety, is that time right?”
“For that program.”
“Gay Deceiver. Program revision. Cancel grounding. From program coded ‘A Tramp Abroad’ display locus. Display Bingoes.”
She displayed Mars at once, but gibbous. I scrawled a note to Deety: “How do I rotate to show day side only?”
Dear Deety! She wrote her answer. Passed it over – I doubt that our men saw it: “Program revision. Display locus real-time day side.”
Gay accommodated. It took several steps to define new locus as sunset line (right edge – east) to sunrise line (left edge – west), and between 50°N and 50°S (some Russian area had been close to 45°S, so I widened the search)-then let the locus move with the terminators. (Gay can “see” in the dark but I can’t.) I told her to end “Explore” at Greenwich oh-three-seventeen and start “A Tramp Abroad,” continue until directed otherwise, and had Gay repeat back in her phrasing.
I touched Zebbie’s shoulder, pointed to the switch that cut out Gay’s ears, drew a finger across my throat. He nodded and shut her out. I said, “Questions, gentlemen? Deety?”
“I do, Captain,” said our Chief Pilot. “Do you plan on sleeping tonight?”
“Certainly, Zebbie. An ideal sleeping spot would be one far from the Russians but close to the present sunset line. Or did you want to work all night?”
“If you wish. I noticed that you gave Gay a program that could keep her going for days or weeks – and that you had reduced H-above-G to six klicks. Breathable air. By rotating duties, with one or two always stretched out aft, we can stay up a week, easily, and still give Jake’s ankles a break.”
“I can skip a night’s sleep,” said Deety. “Captain Auntie honey, with enough random samples and a defined locus, sampling soon approaches a grid a fly couldn’t get through. Do you want the formula?”
“Heavens, no! As long as it works.”
“It works. Let’s make a long run, get a big sampling. But I’d like to add something. Let’s parallel the display onto a sidelooker screen, and light every vertex – while the main display shows Bingoes. You’ll see how tight a screen you’re building.”
“Sharpie, don’t let her do it!” Zebbie added, “‘Scuse, please! Captain, the Astrogator is correct on software but I know more about this hardware. You can crowd a computer into a nervous breakdown. I have safeguards around Smart Girl; if I give her too much to do, she tells me to go to hell. But she likes Deety. Like a willing horse, she’ll try hard for Deety even when it’s too much.”
Deety said soberly, “Captain, I gave you bad advice.”
Her husband said, “Don’t be so humble, Deety. You’re smarter than I am and we all know it. But we are dependent on Smart Girl and can’t let her break down. Captain, I don’t know how much strain the time-space twister puts on her but she has unnecessary programs. At the Captain’s convenience, I would like to review everything in her perms and wipe those we can do without.”
“My very early convenience, sir. Is the schedule okay?”
“Oh, sure. Just don’t add that side display.”
“Thank you, Chief Pilot. Anyone else? Copilot?”
“My dear… my dear Captain, is there some reason to find a spot near the sunset line? If you intend to work all night?”
“Oh! But, Jacob, I do not plan to work all night. It is now about twenty hundred by our personal circadians, as established by when we got up. I think we can search for three to four hours. I hope that we can find a spot to sleep near the sunset line, scout it in daylight, let Gay land herself on it for her perms – then return to it in the dark when we get tired”
“I see, in part. My dear, unless I misunderstood you, you are heading west. But you said that you wanted to find us a place to sleep near the presert sunset line. East. Or did I misunderstood you?”
“It’s very simply explained, Jacob.”
“Yes, dear Captain?”
“I made a horrible mistake in navigation.”
“Oh.”
“Chief Pilot, did you spot it?”
“Yup. Yes, Captain.”
“Why didn’t you speak up?”
“Not my business, Ma’am. Nothing you planned to do was any danger.”
“Zebbie, I’m not sure whether to thank you for keeping quiet, or to complain because you did. Deety, you spotted the mistake, I am certain. You are supposed to advise me.”
“Captain, I’m supposed to speak up to stop a bad mistake. This was not. I wasn’t certain that it was a mistake until you told on yourself. But you spotted the mistake when Gay predicted the time to end the ‘Explore’ program, then you corrected it by telling her to shift to ‘A Tramp Abroad.’ So there was never a reason to advise you.”
I let out a sigh. “You’re covering for me and I love you all and I’m no good as captain. I’ve served as many hours as Zebbie and we are on the ground, so now it’s time to elect someone who can do it right. You, Zebbie.”
“Not me. Jake and Deety must each do a stint before I’d admit that it might be my turn.”
“Captain -“
“Deety, I’m not captain; I resigned!”
“No, Aunt Hilda, you didn’t actually do it. It is my duty to advise you when you seem about to make a bad mistake. You made a minor mistake and corrected it. In my business we call that ‘debugging’-and spend more time on it than we do on writing programs. Because everybody makes mistakes.”
Jane’s little girl managed to sound the way Jane used to. I resolved to listen – because all too often I hadn’t listened to Jane. “Captain Auntie, if you were resigning because of the way your crew treated you – as Zebadiah did – I wouldn’t say a word. But that’s not your reason. Or is it?”
“What? Oh, no! You’ve all helped – you’ve been angels. Uh, well, mostly.”
“‘Angels’ – hummph! I can’t use the correct words; I’d shock our men. Aunt Hilda, I gave you far worse lip than I ever gave Zebadiah. You slapped me down hard – and I’ve been your strongest supporter ever since. Zebadiah, what you did was worse -“
“I know.”
” – but you admitted that you were wrong. Nevertheless you’ve been chewing the bit. Demanding explanations. Zebadiah, the captain of a ship doesn’t have to explain why she gives an order. Or does she?”
“Of course not. Oh, a captain sometimes does explain. But she shouldn’t do it often or the crew will start thinking they are entitled to explanations. In a crunch this can kill you. Waste that split second.” Zebbie brooded. “Captain says ‘Frog,’ you hop. Couple of times I failed to hop. Captain, I’m sorry.”
“Zebbie, we get along all right.”
He reached back and patted my knee. “Pretty well in the past. Better from now on.”
My darling Jacob said worriedly, “I’m afraid I have been remiss, too.”
I was about to reassure him when Deety cut in: “‘Remiss’! Pop, you’re the worst of all! If I had been your wife, I would have tossed you back and rebaited my hook. ‘Farce’ is worse than mutinous; it’s insulting. Be glad Jane didn’t hear you!”
“I know, I know!”
I touched Deety’s arm and whispered, “That’s enough, dear.”
Zebbie said soberly, “Captain, as I analyze it, you made a mistake in sign. Every navigator makes mistakes – and has some routine by which to check his work. If you’re going to get upset because recheck shows that you wrote down ‘plus’ when the declination is ‘south,’ you’re going to have ulcers. You’re just under strain from being C.O. We’ve all made the strain worse. But we want to do better. I’d hate to have you resign over a minor error… when we caused your upset. I hope you’ll give us another chance.”
Captains aren’t supposed to cry. I blinked ’em back, got my voice under control, and said, “All hands! Still ready for lift? Report.”
“Aye, Captain!” – “Affirmative!” – “Yes, my dear Hilda.”
“Zebbie, switch on Gay’s ears.” He did.
“Execute!” – Termite Creek was gone and we were fifty klicks west and a touch south. Pretty and green but no Bingo. It would take us about seven minutes to overtake the Sun and approach sunrise line, plus any holds we made. Then I would go east to the sunset line in nothing flat (have Zebbie and Jacob do it); then bounce & glide, bounce & glide, while looking for a place to sleep in a spot suitable for Gay to try her new unpowered autogrounding program – in daylight with the hottest pilot in two worlds ready to override any error.
If Gay could do this, we would be almost independent of juice – and have a new “bug-out” sanctuary each time she landed herself. Power packs – Zebbie had a hand-cranked D.C. generator – but heavy work for husky men for endless hours. (40 hrs from zero to full charge; you see why Zebbie would rather buy fresh charges.)
We had been skipping along nearly three minutes, over four thousand klicks, before spotting a Bingo (by Zebbie). I called a “Hold” and added, “Where, Zebbie?”
He nosed us down. Farm buildings and cultivated fields – a happy contrast to the terrain – barren, green, flat, rugged – all lacking any sign of humans, in the stops we had made. “Astrogator, record time. Continue.”
Then over three minutes with no Bingoes – At elapsed time 6m4s Jacob called out, “Bingo! A town.”
“Hold! Onion towers?”
“I think not, dear. I see a flag – dare we go nearer?”
“Yes! But anyone use a scram at will. Jacob, may I have the binoculars, please?”
The Stars and Stripes are engraved on my heart, but in the next moments the Cross of Saint Andrew and the Cross of Saint George were added. It was an ensign with a blue field and some white shapes – three half moons in three sizes.
“Gay Deceiver.”
“I’m all ears, Hilda.”
“Move current program to standby.”
“Roger Wilco Done.”
“Gay Bounce. Zebbie, let’s sweep this area for a bigger settlement.”
Zebbie placed a locus around the town, radius five hundred klicks, and started “A Tramp Abroad” with vertex time cut to one second. Thirty-one minutes later we had a city. I guessed it at a hundred thousand plus.
“Captain,” Zebbie said, “may I suggest that we bounce and try to raise them by radio? This place is big enough for A.A. guns or missiles -“
“Gay Bounce!”
” – and we know that their Slavic neighbors have aircraft.”
“Is your guardian angel warning you?”
“Well… ’tain’t polite to ground without clearance; such rudeness can make one suddenly dead.”
“Gay Bounce, Gay Bounce. Are we out of reach of missiles?”
“Captain, British and Russians of this universe are ahead of us in spaceships or they wouldn’t be here. That requires us to assume that their missiles and lasers and X-weapons are better than ours.”
“What’s an ‘X-weapon’? And what do you advise?”
“I advise evasive tactics. An X-weapon is a ‘Nobody-Knows.'”
“Evasive tactics, your choice. I assume you won’t waste juice.”
“No juice. Jake, gallop in all directions. Up, down, and sideways. Don’t wait for ‘Execute’; jump as fast as you can. That’s it! Keep moving!”
“Captain Auntie, may I suggest an easier way?”
“Speak up, Deety.”
“Zebadiah, how big is that city? Kilometers.”
“That’s indefinite. Oh, call it eight klicks in diameter.”
“You’ve got that one-second ‘Tramp’ program on hold. Change locus. Center on that biggest building, make the radius six klicks. Then start program and Pop can rest.”
“Uh… Deety, I’m stupid. Six klicks radius, ten klicks is a minimum – A bit tight?”
“Meant to be. Shall I draw a picture?”
“Maybe you’d better.”
(Deety had defined an annulus two kilometers wide, outer radius six, inner radius four. We would “circle” the city six klicks above ground, random jumps, sixty per minute. I doubted that even robot weapons could find us, range us, hit us, in one second.)
Deety loosened her belt, slithered forward, and sketched. Suddenly Zebbie said, “Gotcha! Deety, you’re a smart girl.”
“‘Boss, I’ll bet you tell that to all the girls.'”
“Nope, just smart ones. Gay Deceiver!”
“Less noise, please.”
“Program revision. A Tramp Abroad. Locus a circle radius six klicks. Center defined by next Bingo. Acknowledge paraphrase.”
“Revised program A Tramp Abroad. Circle twelve klicks diameter center next real-time Bingo.”
“Jake, put us over that big building downtown. If necessary, make several tries but don’t hang around. Once I like the position I’ll say the magic word, then scram.”
“Aye aye, Chief.”
Jacob made a dozen jumps before Zebbie said, “Bingo Gay Bounce” and a light appeared on the display. He started the program and told Gay to increase scale; the light spread out into a circle with a lighted dot in the center. “Captain, watch this. I’ve told Gay that every stop is a Bingo. You may be surprised.”
“Thanks, Zebbie.” The circle was becoming freckled inside its perimeter. With no feeling of motion, the scene flicked every second. It was mid-morning; each scene was sharp. That big building would be dead ahead – blink your eye and you’re staring at fields – then again at the city but with that building off to starboard. It put me in mind of holovideo tape spliced to create confusion.
Zebbie had on his phones and was ignoring everything else. Jacob was watching the flickering scenery, as was I, as was Deety – when Jacob suddenly turned his head, said, “Deety-please-the-Bo – ” and clapped his hand over his mouth.
I said, “Two Bonines, Deety – quickly!”
Deety was reaching for them. “You, too, Auntie Cap’n?”
“It’s this flickering.” I gave one to Jacob, made certain that he saw me take one. I had not been motion-sick since I had been made Captain. But any time my husband must take one, I will keep him company.
Today I should have taken one as soon as I spotted that British flag; Bonine tranquilizes the nerves as well as the tummy… and soon I must act as – ambassador? Something of the sort; I intended to go straight to the top. Dealing with underlings is frustrating. In college I would not have lasted almost four years had it been up to the dean of women. But I always managed to take it over her head to the president; the top boss can bend the rules.
(But my senior year the president was female and as tough a bitch as I am. She listened to my best Clarence-Darrow defense, congratulated me, told me I should have studied law, then said, “Go pack. I want you off campus by noon.”)
Zebbie pushed the phone off his right ear. “Captain, I’ve got this loud enough to put on the horn. Want to talk to them?”
“No. I’ve never grounded outside the States. You know how, you do it. But, Chief Pilot -“
“Yes, Ma’am?”
“And Copilot and Astrogator. Stick to the truth at all times. But do not unnecessarily give information. Answer questions uninformatively – but truthfully. If pressed, tell them, ‘See the Captain.”
“My dear,” Jacob said worriedly, “I’ve been meaning to speak about this. Zeb has had diplomatic experience. Wouldn’t it be wise for us to place him in charge on the ground? Please understand, I’m not criticizing your performance as captain. But with his experience and in view of the fact that our principal purpose is to obtain certain things for his car -“
“Gay Bounce Gay Bounce Gay Bounce! Astrogator.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Place us in a parking orbit. Soonest.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am! Copilot, don’t touch the verniers. Chief Pilot, check that the car is level. Gay Deceiver.”
“On deck, Deety.”
“Program. L axis add speed vector three point six klicks per second. Paraphrase acknowledge.”
“Increase forward speed three and six tenths kilometers per second.”
“Chief Pilot?”
“Level.”
“Execute.” Deety glanced at the board. “Gay Deceiver, H-above-G will soon stop decreasing, then increase very slowly. In about fifty minutes it will maximize. Program. When H-above-G is maximum, alert me.”
“Roger Wilco.”
“If-when one hundred klicks H-above-G, alert me.”
“Roger Wilco.”
“If-when air drag exceeds zero, alert me.”
“Roger Wilco.”
“Remain in piloting mode. Ignore voices including program code words until you are called by your full name. Acknowledge by reporting your full name.”
“‘Gay Deceiver,'” answered Gay Deceiver.
“Is that okay, Captain? Smart Girl can’t hear the short-form programs now, until she hears her full name first. Then you would still have to say ‘Gay’ to alert her, and ‘Home’ or whatever to scram. But there should be loads of time, as she’ll tell me if anything starts to go wrong. You heard her.”
“That’s fine, Astrogator.”
“I turned her ears off because there may be discussion in which you might not want to have to be careful to use code words… but still be able to put her ears back fast if you need them. Faster than the switch and besides the switch can be reached only from the left front seat.”
Deety had a touch of nervous chattering; I understood the reasons for each step. And I understood why she was chattering.
“Well done. Thank you. Remain at the conn. Chief Pilot, Copilot, the Second-in-Command has the conn. I am going aft and do not wish to be disturbed.” I lowered my voice, spoke directly to Deety. “You are free to call me. You only.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” Deety acknowledged quietly. “I must remind you: air for four hours only.”
“If I fall asleep, call me in three hours.” I kissed her quickly, floated out of my chair and started to undog the bulkhead door – got nowhere; Deety had to help me. Deety flipped a light switch for me. She closed me in and dogged one dog.
I got a blanket out of the cradle, took off my clothes, tried to wrap myself in the blanket. It kept slithering away.
No seat belts – But the web straps used to make a bedroll of Zebbie’s sleeping bag were attached through loops and tucked under thingammies. Soon I had a belt across my waist and the blanket around me.
Being a runt, the only way I can fight is with words. But best for me is to walk away. Fight with Jacob? I was so angry I wanted to slap him! But I never slap anyone; a woman who takes advantage of her size and sex to slap a man is herself no gentleman. So I walked away – got out of there before I said something that would tear it – lose me my lovable, cuddly, thoughtful – and sometimes unbearable! – husband.
I wept in my pillow – no pillow and no Kleenex. After a while I slept.

Chapter XXV

” – leave bad enough alone!”

Deety:
After I helped Aunt Hilda with the bulkhead door, I got back into my seat- and said nothing. If I opened my mouth, I would say too much. I love Pop a heap, and respect him as a mathematician.
Pop is also one of the most selfish people I’ve ever known.
Doesn’t mean he’s tight with money; he isn’t. Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t share his last crust of bread – he would. With a stranger.
But if he doesn’t want to do something, he won’t. When Jane died, I had to take over money management at once. At seventeen. Because Pop ignored it. It was all I could do to get him to sign his name. –
I was bucking for my doctorate. Pop seemed to think that I should cook, clean house, shop, keep financial records, manage our businesses, cope with taxes – and earn my doctorate simultaneously.
Once I let dishes stack to see how long it would take him to notice. About two weeks later he said, “Deety, aren’t you ever going to do the dishes?”
I answered, “No, sir.”
“Eh? Why not?”
“I don’t have time.”
He looked puzzled. “Jane didn’t seem to find keeping house difficult. Is something wrong, dear?”
“Pop, Mama wasn’t bucking for a doctorate against a committee of dunderheads. My research subject was approved two years ago… but I’ve got men judging me – four out of seven – who can’t tell Fortran from Serutan, hate computers, and have dark fears that computer scientists are going to take their jobs away from them. They make me do work over because they don’t understand it. And besides – Well, Mama Jane always had help, mine, and a housekeeper toward the end.”
Pop is okay. He hired a housekeeper who stuck with us till I got my Ph.D. He investigated, discovered that thehead of the department had put men on my committee who knew nothing about computers – not on purpose; the department head did not know computers. I wound up with an even tougher committee but they knew computers. Fair enough.
Pop means to be good to me and he adores Aunt Hilda and means to pamper her. Pop is one of those men who sincerely believe in Women’s Lib, always support it – but so deep down that they aren’t aware of it, their emotions tell them that women never get over being children.
A mistake easy to make with Aunt Hilda – There are twelve-year-old girls bigger than she is and with more curves.
For a horrid time, we three said nothing. Zebadiah watched his instruments; Pop stared straight ahead.
At last my husband gave my father the chewing out that Pop would never have taken from me, “Jake. Tell me how you do it.”
“Eh?”
“You’re a genius. You aren’t the absent-minded sort who needs a boy to lead him around. You can hammer a nail with the best of them and can use power tools without chopping your fingers. You’re good company and you managed to attract one of the three finest women I’ve ever known so much that she married you. Yet you have publicly insulted her twice in one day. Twice. Tell me: Do you have to study to be that stupid? Or is it a gift, like your genius for mathematics?”
Pop covered his face with his hands. Zebadiah shut up.
I could see Pop’s shoulders shake. Presently his sobbing stopped. He wiped his eyes, unfastened his seat belt. When I realized he was heading for the bulkhead door, I unstrapped fast and placed myself in his way. He said, “Please move out of my way, Deety.”
“Copilot, return to your seat.”
“But, Daughter, you can’t come between husband and wife!”
“Address me as ‘Astrogator.’ The Captain does not wish to be disturbed. Gay Deceiver!”
“Here, Deety!”
“Log mode. Copilot, I will not permit you to disobey the Captain’s orders. Return to your seat, strap down – and stay there!”
“Or would you rather be placed in it?” Zebadiah growled. “With your arms strapped under the belts, and the buckles where you can’t reach them.”
“Chief Pilot, do not intervene unless I call on you. Copilot, move!”
Pop turned in the air, almost kicking me in the face and unaware of it. He was speaking through sobs. “But I must apologize to Hilda! Can’t you understand that?” But he was getting back into his seat.
“Jake, you’ll be a worse damn’ fool if you do.”
“What? Zeb, you can’t mean that.”
“I do mean it. You apologized once today. Hypocrisy, as Sharpie realizes. Jake, your only chance of staying married is to shut up and soldier; your word is no longer worth a fiat dollar. But if you behave yourself for four or five years, she might forget it. Correction: forgive it. She’ll never forget it. Establish a long record of good behavior and she might allow you some minor faults. But don’t ever hint that she is not as competent as any man. Sure, she’d be picked last for a tug-o’-war team, and she has to stand on a stool to reach a high shelf – does that affect her brain? Hell’s bells, if size mattered, I would be the supergenius around here – not you. Or perhaps you think being able to grow a beard confers wisdom? Jake, leave bad enough alone! Mess with it, you’ll make it worse.”
Time for a diversion: Pop must not be given a chance to answer. If Pop started defending himself, he would wind up self-righteous. The ability of the male mind to rationalize its deeds – and misdeeds – cannot be measured.
(And some female minds. But we females have more wild animal in us; mostly we don’t feel any need to justify ourselves. We just do it, whatever it is, because we want to. Is there ever any other reason?)
“Gentlemen,” I added, close on Zebadiah’s last remark before Pop could attempt rebuttal, “speaking of beards, you each have a three-day growth. If we are about to ask sanctuary, shouldn’t we be neat? I’m going to comb my hair and dig the dirt out from under my nails, and – Glory be! – I’ve got one spandy-clean jump suit. In light green, Zebadiah; matches your pilot suits. Got a clean one, dear?”
“I believe so.”
“I know so; I packed it when Aunt Hilda and I rearranged inventory. Pop, your light green jump suit is clean. That one you are wearing has wrinkles in the wrinkles and a big soup spot. We three will look as if we were in uniform. Aunt Hilda won’t but the captain-and-owner of a yacht doesn’t dress like her crew.”
“‘Owner’?” said Pop.
“‘”Owner,”‘” Zebadiah said firmly. “We pooled our resources. Sharpie is captain; she’ll stand as owner for all of us. Simpler.”
“She cautioned us not to tell lies, Zeb.” (Pop sounded normal – his usual argumentative self.)
“No lie. But if she finds it necessary to lie for us, we back her up. Come on, Jake, let’s put on our squeakin’ shoes; the Captain might decide to land any orbit. How long are these orbits, Deety?”
“One hundred minutes, plus a bit. But Gay could ground us from the far side in five minutes if the Captain asked for it.”
“So let’s get shipshape and Bristol style. Deety, will you keep an eye on the board while Jake and I shave?”
Pop said, “I’m sorry but I can’t shave until the Captain joins us. My gear is aft.”
“Jake, use mine. Glove compartment. Remington okay?” My husband added, “You first; I want to read the news.”
“The ‘news’?”
“Smart Girl has been sampling all frequencies, AM and FM, twice a second. If there is pattern, she copies.”
“But Deet – The Astrogator switched off the autopilot’s ears.”
“Jake, you just flunked Physics One-Oh-One. Deety told S.G. to shut off audio. I had in mind the electromagnetic spectrum. You’ve heard of it?”
Pop chuckled. “Touché! That makes us even for the one you pulled while we were calibrating.”
(I heaved a sigh of relief. I had not been trying to save Pop’s marriage – that’s his problem. Even my own marriage was secondary; I was trying to save the team, and so was Zebadiah. We were two marriages and that is important – but most important we were a survival team and either we worked together smoothly or none would live through it.)
While Pop shaved and Zebadiah read the news, I cleaned my nails. If I clean them before each meal and again at bedtime, they are dirty only in between – dirt likes me. Mama Jane told me that centuries ago, while ouching my hair for school – not a criticism; a statement of fact.
The men swapped headset for shaver and I combed my hair and pinned it into place – no longer an “ouch” job as I keep it short, ringlets rather than curls. Men like it long – but caring for long hair is a career in itself, and I’ve been pushed for time since I was twelve.
Zebadiah stopped to feel his chin – so I deduced as the buzzing stopped. I asked, “What did Smart Girl have to say?”
“Not much. Le’me finish this. BBC Third Program mostly.”
“From London?” He had resumed shaving and couldn’t hear me.
Zebadiah finished shaving and passed his shaver to Pop, who stowed it, then took off the headset and handed it back. Zebadiah racked and secured it. I was about to ask for it, when I heard Aunt Hilda’s sweet voice:
“Hello, everyone! What did I miss?”
“Halley’s Comet.”
“Halley’s – Zebbie, you’re a tease. Jacob – Oh! You shaved! How very nice! Hold still, my darling; you’re going to be kissed, ready or not.”
A kiss in free fall is interesting to watch when one participant is safety-belted and the other half is floating free. Hilda held Pop’s cheeks, he had her head in his hands, and Aunt Hilda drifted like a flag in a breeze. She was dressed but barefooted; I was intrigued when she curled her toes, hard. Was Pop that good? – my cubical father, so I had thought until recently. Did Jane teach him? Or – Shut up, Deety, you’re a voyeuse with a nasty curiosity.
They broke and Hilda floated between the pilot seats, a hand on each, and looked at the board. My husband said – to her, not to me – “Don’t I get a kiss? It was my razor.”
Aunt Hilda hesitated. Pop said, “Kiss him, beloved, or he’ll sulk.” So she did. It occurs to me that Aunt Hilda may have taught Zebadiah and that Mama Jane and Aunt Hilda may have been trained by the same coach before Pop came along – if so, who was my Unknown Benefactor?
“Not a whole lot,” Zebadiah was saying. “Mostly tapes from BBC. Five minutes of news from Windsor City – which may be the city we bingoed – as exciting as local news from any town you’ve never been in. Chatter in Russian. The Smart Girl saved that for you.”
“I’ll listen to it. But I must learn something. I was tempery a while ago, but a nap fixed me up and now I am filled with sweetness and light. I must have a report from each of you. We all have had cumulative fatigue. It is now bedtime at Termite Terrace but about lunchtime in Windsor City if that is its name. We can go back to our stream or we can tackle the British. I am not taking a vote; I shall decide and I have a way to take care of anyone who is tired. But I insist on honest data. Deety?”
“Captain Auntie, sleep is never my problem.”
“Zebbie?”
“I was a zombie. Until you recharged me. Now I’m rarin’ to go!”
She mussed his hair. “Zebbie, quit teasing.”
“Captain, on an earlier occasion I told you the facts: My alert time exceeds twenty-four hours. Forty-eight if I must. If that kiss did not stimulate you as much as it did me, let’s try it again and find out what went wrong.”
Aunt Hilda turned away abruptly. “Jacob dear, how do you feel? With the time difference this may be equivalent to staying up all night, possibly under great tension.”
“Hilda my love, were we to return to our streamside, I would not sleep, knowing that this contact was coming. A night without sleep does not strain me.”
“Pop’s not exaggerating, Captain Auntie. I get my night-owl capacity from Pop.”
“Very well. But I have a method of taking care of anyone who may have exaggerated. I can leave one person aboard as guard.”
“Captain, this wagon does not need a guard.”
“Chief Pilot, I was offering sleep – under pretext of guarding. Car locked and sleep where I just napped – outsiders would not know. Anyone? Speak up.”
(I wouldn’t have missed it for a Persian kitten! Did Hilda expect anyone to stay behind? I don’t think so.)
“Very well. No firearms. Gentlemen, please hide your pistols and belts with the guns, aft. Zebbie, is there a way to lock that door in addition to dogging it?”
“Sure. Tell Gay. May I ask why? No one can break into the cabin without damaging the old girl so much that she won’t lift.”
“Conceded, Zebbie. But I will be bringing visitors into this space. If anyone is brash enough to ask to be shown beyond the bulkhead door, I shall tell him that is my private compartment.” Aunt Hilda grinned wickedly. “If he persists, I’ll freeze his ears. What’s the program for locking and unlocking it?”
“Very complicated. Tell her, ‘Lock the bulkhead door,’ or ‘Unlock the bulkhead door.’ Concealed solenoids. If the car is cold, the bolts drop back.”
“Goodness, you were thorough.”
“No, Ma’am. The Aussies were. But it turns out to be convenient for things we wouldn’t like to lose. Cap’n, I don’t trust banks any more than I trust governments, so I carry my safety deposit vault with me.”
“If you cut the trickle charge, it unlocks?” Pop asked.
“Jake, I knew you would spot that. An accumulator across the solenoids, floating. Shut down the car and the solenoids work for another month… unless you open a switch in an odd location. Anyone want to know where it is? – what you don’t know, you can’t tell.”
He got no takers. Instead I said, “Captain, is a fléchette gun a ‘firearm’?”
“Hmm – Will it fit into a zippered compartment in your purse?”
“It fits into a concealed zipper compartment.”
“Keep it with you. No swords, gentlemen, as well as no firearms; we are a civilian party. One thing we should carry: those miniature walky-talkies, Deety and I in our purses, you gentlemen in your pockets. If they are noticed, tell the truth: a means of keeping our party in touch.”
Aunt Hilda suddenly looked stern. “This next order should be in writing. Please understand that there are no exceptions, no special circumstances, no variations left to individual judgment. I require Roger-Wilcoes from each of you or we do not ground. This party does not separate. Not for thirty seconds. Not for ten seconds. Not at all.”
“Will the Captain entertain a question?”
“Certainly, Zebbie.”
“Washrooms. Restrooms. Bathrooms. If these British behave like their analogs, such facilities are segregated.”
“Zebbie, all I can say to that is that I will look for a way to cope. But we stay together until I – until I, the Captain – decide that it is safe to ease the rule. In the meantime – We should use that unpopular honey bucket before we ground… then, if necessary, return to the car, together, to use it later. That’s not subject to discussion. Once we are on the ground, you three, acting unanimously, can hold a bloodless mutiny over this order or any” – Aunt Hilda looked directly at her husband – “and I will let myself be kicked out without a word… out of office as captain, out of the car, out of the party. Remain here, on Mars-ten, with the British if they will have me. No more questions. No further discussion by me or among yourselves. Astrogator.”
“Roger Wilco!”
“Thank you. Please state it in the long form.”
“I understand the Captain’s order and will comply exactly with no mental reservations.”
“Chief Pilot.”
“I understand -“
“Short form. Deety defined it.”
“Roger Wilco, Captain!”
Aunt Hilda turned in the air toward Pop – and I held my breath, three endless seconds. “Jacob?”
“Roger Wilco, Captain.”
“Very well. We will ground as soon as we get clearance but will not ask for clearance until I’ve heard the news and translated that Russian.” Whereupon I told her that we all intended to put on our best bib and tucker; the time should come out about right – and could we be relieved one by one? As I intended to use that darned thunder mug – when you must, you must.
Aunt Hilda frowned slightly. “I do wish that I had a jump suit in my size. This outfit -“
“Aunt Hilda! Your crew is in uniform but you are wearing the latest Hollywood style. That model was created by Ferrara himself and he charged you more than you paid for that mink cape. You are the Captain and dress to please yourself. I tell you three times!”
Aunt Hilda smiled. “Should I acknowledge in paraphrase?”
“By all means.”
“Deety, I require my crew to wear uniforms. But I dress to suit myself, and when I saw what the world-famous couturier Mario Ferrara was doing to change the trend in women’s sports clothes, I sent for him and worked him silly until he got just what I wanted. Including repeated washings of the trousers to give them that not-quite-new look so favored by the smart set for yachting. When you come back will you fetch your little shoes – my Keds – and the hair ribbon you gave me? They are part of Signor Ferrara’s creation.”
“Aunt Hilda honey, you make it sound true!”
“It is true. You told me three times. I don’t even regret the thousand newdollar bonus I gave him. That man is a genius! Get along dear – git. Chief Pilot, you have the conn; I want the earphones.”
I was back in ten minutes with jump suits for self and Pop and clean pilot suit for my husband.
I sailed their clothes toward Pop and Zebadiah. Aunt Hilda was handing phones back to Zebadiah; his suit caught both of them. “Wups, sorry but not very. What do the Russians say?”
“We’re baddies,” said my husband.
“We are? The suit I took off is loose back aft. Wrap it around your pistol and belt and shove them under the sleeping bag – pretty please?”
“With sugar on it?”
“At today’s prices? Yes. Beat it. Cap’n, what sort of baddies?”
“Spies and agents-saboteurs and other things and indemnity is demanded in the name of the Tsar and the surrender of our persons, all twelve of us -“
“Twelve?”
“So they claim. – for trial before they hang us. Or else. The ‘or-else’ amounts to a threat of war.”
“Heavens! Are we going to ground?”
“Yes. The British comment was that a source close to the Governor reports that the Russians have made another of their periodic claims of territorial violation and espionage and the note was routinely rejected. I intend to be cautious. We won’t leave the car unless I am convinced that we will receive decent treatment.”

Shortly we were again doing one-second jumps in a circle around Windsor City. Had Pop not pulled another blunder in handling Aunt Hilda we would have been on the ground two hours ago. “Blunder,” rather than “insult” – but I’m not Hilda, I’m Deety. My ego is not easily bruised. Before I married, if a man patronized me and it mattered, I used to invite him to go skeet shooting. Even if he beat me (happened once), he never patronized me again.
If it’s an unsocial encounter – I’m big, I’m strong, I fight dirty. A male has to be bigger, stronger, and just as well trained or I can take him. Haven’t had to use the fléchette gun yet. But twice I’ve broken arms and once I kicked a mugger in the crotch and said he fainted.
Zebadiah was having trouble with traffic control. ” – request permission to ground. This is private yacht Gay Deceiver, U.S. registry, Chief Pilot Carter speaking. All we want is clearance to ground. You’re behaving like those youknow-what-I-mean Russians. I didn’t expect this from Englishmen.”
“Now, now! Where are you? You sound close by… but we can’t get a fix on you.”
“We are circling your city at a height above ground of five kilometers.”
“How much is that in feet? Or miles?”
I touched my husband’s shoulder. “Tell him sixteen thousand feet.”
“Sixteen thousand feet.”
“What bearing?”
“We’re circling.”
“Yes, but – See Imperial House at City Center? What bearing?”
“We are much too fast for you to take a bearing. While you speak one sentence, we’ve gone around twice.”
“Oh, tell that to the Jollies; old sailors will never believe it.”
Aunt Hilda tapped Zebadiah; he passed the microphone to her. Aunt Hilda said crisply, “This is Captain Burroughs, commanding. State your name, rating, and organization number.”
I heard a groan, then silence. Twenty-three seconds later another voice came on. “This is the officer of the watch, Leftenant Bean. Is there a spot of trouble?”
“No, Lieutenant, merely stupidity. My chief pilot has been trying for fifteen minutes for clearance to ground. Is this a closed port? We were not told so by your embassy on Earth. We were warned that the Russians discouraged visitors, and indeed, they tried to shoot us out of the sky. What is your full name and your regiment, Lieutenant; I intend to make a formal report when I return home,”
“Please, Madam! This is Leftenant Brian Bean, Devonshire Royal Fusiliers. May I ask to whom I am speaking?”
“Very well. I will speak slowly; please record. I am Captain Hilda Burroughs, commanding space yacht Gay Deceiver, out of Snug Harbor in the Americas.”
“Captain, let me get this clear. Are you commanding both a spaceship in orbit and a landing craft from your ship? Either way, please let me have the elements of your ship’s orbit for my log, and tell me the present position of your landing craft. Then I can assign you a berth to ground.”
“Do I have your word as a British officer and gentleman that you will not shoot us out of the sky as those Russian vandals attempted to do?”
“Madam – Captain – you have my word.”
“Gay Bounce. We are now approximately forty-nine thousand feet above your city.”
“But – We understood you to say ‘Sixteen thousand’?”
“That was five minutes ago; this craft is fast.” Aunt Hilda released the button. “Deety, get rid of the special ‘Tramp’ program.”
I told Gay to return “Tramp” to her perms and to wipe the temporary mods. “Done.”
Aunt Hilda pressed the mike button. “Do you see us now?” She released the button. “Deety, I want us over that big building – ‘Imperial House,’ probably – in one transition. Can you tell Zebbie and Jacob what it takes?”
I looked it over. We should be at the edge of the city – but were we? Get a range and triangulate? No time! Guess at the answer, double it and divide by two. Arc tan four tenths. “Pop, can you transit twenty-one degrees from vertical toward city hail?”
“Twenty-one degrees. Sixty-nine degrees of dive toward the big barn in the park, relative bearing broad on the port bow, approx – set! One unit transition, ten klicks – set!”
“I can see you now, I do believe,” came Mr. Bean’s voice. “Barely.”
“We’ll come lower.” Aunt Hilda chopped off the lieutenant. “Zebbie, put her into glide as soon as you execute. Deety, watch H-above-G and scram if necessary – don’t wait to be told. Zebbie, execute at will.”
“Jake, execute!” – and we were down so fast I got goose bumps… especially as Zebadiah then dived vertically to gain glide speed and that’s mushy, slow, slow, on Mars.
But soon Aunt Hilda was saying tranquilly, “We are over Imperial House. You see us?”
“Yes, yes! My word! Bloody!”
“Leftenant, watch your language!” Aunt Hilda winked at me and snickered silently.
“Madam, I apologize.”
“‘Captain,’ if you please,” she said, smiling while her voice dripped icicles.
“Captain, I apologize.”
“Accepted. Where am I to ground?”
“Ah, figured from Imperial House, there is a landing field due south of it twelve miles. I will tell them to expect you.”
Hilda let up on the button, said, “Gay Bounce” and racked the microphone. “How unfortunate that the lieutenant’s radio cut out before he could tell us how far away that field is. Or was it our radio?”
I said, “Captain, you know durn well both radios worked okay.”
“Mercy, I must be getting old. Was Smart Girl in recording mode?”
I said, “She always is, during maneuvers. She wipes it in a ten-hour cycle.”
“Then my bad hearing doesn’t matter. Please ask her to repeat the lieutenant’s last speech.” I did, and Gay did. “Deety, can you have her wipe it right after the word ‘it’?”
“Auntie, you ain’t goin’ to Heaven.” I had Gay wipe twelve-miles-I-will-tell-them-to-expect-you. “But you wouldn’t know anybody there.”
“Probably not, dear. Zebbie, how does one have Smart Girl ground herself without juice?”
“Deety had better go over it again. Unless – Jake, will you explain it?”
“It’s Deety’s caper. I could use another drill.”
“All right,” I agreed. “Switch off Gay’s ears, Zebadiah. Gay can make any transition exactly if she knows precisely where her target is. Even a jump of less than one minimum. I found that out the day we got here when we were testing remote control. The rest came from perfecting the ‘Bug-Out’ routine by having her pause and sweep the target and if it’s obstructed, she bounces. Aunt Hilda, if you intend to ground, we had better not be much under five klicks or we’ll have to bounce and start over.”
“I’ve got air bite, Captain. I’ll stretch it.”
“Thanks, Zebbie. Deety, you do it. Let us all learn.”
“Okay. I need both pilots. You haven’t said where to ground.”
“Wasn’t that clear? Due south of Imperial House. I think it is a parade ground. Nothing on it but a flagpole on the north side. Put her down in front of the building but miss that flagpole.”
“It would take override to hit that flagpole. Zebadiah, gunsight the spot you want to park on. I’ll talk to Gay. Then put her in level flight in the orientation you want, and give ‘Execute.’ Pop, Gay should pause at exactly one-half klick, to see that her parking spot is clear and to recheck distance. That stop won’t be long – a fraction of a second – but, if she fails to make it, try to bounce. Probably you can’t; if I missed in debugging, maybe we’ll all be radioactive. Been nice knowing you all. Okay, switch on her ears.” My husband did so.
“Gay Deceiver.”
“Hello, Deety. I’ve missed you.”
“Unpowered autogrounding mode.”
“Gonna ground by myself without a drop of juice! Where?”
“New target. Code word: ‘Parade Ground.’ Point of aim and range-finder method.”
“Show him to me. I can lick him!”
I touched my husband’s shoulder. “Let her know.”
“On target, Gay. Steady on target.”
“Range three-seven-two-nine, three-seven-naughty-nought, three-five-nine-nine – got him, Deety!”
Zebadiah leveled us out, headed us north. “Execute!”
We were parked facing the big front steps. That flagpole was ten meters from Gay’s nose.
Pop said, “Deety, I could see the check stop but it was too short for me to act. But your programs always work.”
“Until the day one blows up. Aunt Hilda, what do we do now?”
“We wait.”

Chapter XXVI

The Keys to the City

Jake:
I do not believe that I am wrong in insisting that Zeb should lead us. I am forced to conclude that being right has little to do with holding a woman’s affections. I never intend to hurt Hilda’s feelings. I now plan to make a career of keeping my mouth shut.
But I do not think it was diplomatic to spat with that radio operator or proper to be – well, yes, rude – rude to his officer. As for grounding twelve miles, nineteen klicks, from where we were told to – is this the behavior of guests!
But we did ground where we should not have. I started to open the door to get out, then help Hilda to disembark, when I heard her say: “We wait.”
Hilda added, “Leave doors locked and belts fastened. Gay Deceiver, remain in maneuvering mode. Lock the bulkhead door.”
“Hot and rarin’ to go, Hilda. Bulkhead door locked.”
“You’re a smart girl, Gay.”
“That makes two of us, Hilda.”
“Chief Pilot, in this mode does she record outside as well as inside?”
“She does if I switch on outside speakers and mikes, Captain.”
“Please do.”
“What volume, Captain? Outside, and inside.”
“I didn’t know they were separate. Straight-line gain?”
“Logarithmic, Ma’am. From a gnat’s whisper to a small earthquake.”
“I would like outside pickup to amplify enough that we won’t miss anything. What I send out should be a bit forceful.”
“Captain, I’ll give you a decibel advantage. You want it louder, squeeze my shoulder. I won’t turn it higher than seven – unless you want to use it as a weapon. But to talk privately inside I have to keep switching off, then on. As with the Russians – remember?”
“Oh, yes. All hands, I will speak for all of us. If anyone needs to speak to me, attract Zebbie’s attention – “
“Slap my shoulder.”
” – and he’ll give us privacy and confirm it with thumbs-up. Don’t ask for it unnecessarily.”
“Hilda, why these complex arrangements? Here comes someone now; it would be polite to go meet them. In any case, we can open the door to talk – these are not Russians.” I simply could not bear to watch my darling handle this delicate matter with such – well, rudeness!
Was I thanked? “Copilot, pipe down. All hands, we may go upstairs any instant; report readiness for space. Astrogator.”
“Ready, Captain.”
“Chief Pilot.”
“Still ready. Outside audio hot.”
“Copilot.”
“I’m checking this door seal again. Earlier I started to open it. There! Ready for space. Hilda, I don’t think – “
“Correct! But the Chief Pilot did think, and gave me thumbs-up as soon as you started to talk. Pipe down! Chief Pilot, cut in our sender as soon as one of them speaks. Copilot, call me ‘Captain’ as the others do. Protocol applies; I’ll explain family relationships later, when appropriate.”
I resolved not to open my mouth for any reason, feeling quite disgruntled. Disgruntled? I found myself giving serious thought to whether or not Hilda’s temporary and inappropriate authority could do permanent harm to her personality.
But the top of my mind was observing the Lord High Executioner, approaching us flanked by two henchmen. He was wearing a uniform more suited to musical comedy than to the field. Fierce moustaches, sunburn-pink complexion, service ribbons, and a swagger cane completed the effect.
His henchmen were younger, not so fancy, fewer ribbons, and appeared to be sergeants. I could not read the officer’s shoulder straps. A crown, I thought, but was there a pip beside it?
He strode toward us and was ten meters from my door when Hilda said firmly, “That’s close enough. Please tell the Governor General that Captain Burroughs has grounded as directed and awaits his pleasure.”
He stopped briefly and bellowed, “You were not directed to land here! You’re supposed to be at the field! Customs, immigration, health inspection, visas, tourist cards, intelligence -“
I saw Hilda squeeze Zeb’s shoulder. “Quiet!” Her voice came more loudly from outside than from her despite Gay’s soundproofing. Zeb reduced gain as she continued, “My good man, send one of your ratings to the Governor General to deliver my message. While we wait, state your name, rank, and regiment; I shall make formal report of your behavior.”
“Preeeposterous!”
“Behavior ‘unbecoming an officer and a gentleman,'” Hilda said with gentle sweetness, “since you insist. While you won’t tell your name, like a naughty boy, others know it. The Paymaster. The Governor General. Others.” She squeezed Zeb’s shoulder. “Deliver my message!”
“I’m Colonel Brumby, Chief Constable of the Imperial Household, and not your messenger boy! Open up! I’m going to parade you before the Governor General – under arrest!”
Hilda said quietly to Zeb, “Seven” – allowed the Chief Constable to stride two more steps before saying, “STOP!”
My ears hurt.
All three stopped. The old fool braced himself and started again. Hilda must have poked Zeb; he answered with thumbs-up. “Back to normal volume but be ready with that earthquake.”
He nodded; she went on, “Leftenant Colonel, is it not? I don’t see that extra pip. Leftenant Colonel, I warn you for your own safety not to come closer.”
He did not answer, kept coming, took his cane from under his arm. His sergeants followed – slowly, at a respectful distance. Hilda let him reach my door – I could see a network of broken veins on his nose-and for the second time in two days someone started to pound on Gay’s door. He raised his cane –
“Stop that!”
I was deafened. The Chief Constable was missing. The sergeants were a long way back. They stopped running, turned and faced us. I looked down through my door’s port, saw a pair of legs and a swagger cane – inferred a torso.
I turned my head, saw that Zeb had his thumb up. “Captain,” he said, “I disobeyed you.”
“How, Zebbie?”
“I gave him an eight; I wasn’t sure his heart could take a ten. He looks like an old bottle-a-day man.”
“An eight may have been too much,” I commented. “He’s on the ground. Dead, maybe.”
“Oh, I hope not!”
“Unlikely, Captain,” Zeb told her. “Shall I tell his noncoms to come get him?”
“I’ll tell them, Zebbie. Normal level.” Hilda waited until he signalled, then called out, “Sergeants! Colonel Brumby needs help. There will be no more loud noises.”
The sergeants hesitated, then hurried. Shortly they were dragging him away. Presently he came to life, fought them off – sent one chasing back for his cane. The man caught my eye – and winked. I concluded that Brumby was not popular.
There was now a man standing on the entrance stairs. (Perhaps there had been people nearby earlier – but not after the noise started.) Imperial House had its ground floor with no doors on the front side. The first floor was the main floor and was reached by wide, sweeping stairs. The man near the top was small, dapper, dressed in mufti. As Brumby reached him, Brumby saluted, stopped, and they talked. Brumby’s ramrod stiffness spoke for itself.
Shortly the smaller man trotted down the long steps, moved quickly toward us, stopped about thirty meters away, and called out, “In the landing craft! Is it safe to come closer?”
“Certainly,” agreed Hilda.
“Thank you, Ma’am.” He approached, talking as he walked. “I dare say we should introduce ourselves. I’m Lieutenant General Smythe-Carstairs, the Governor hereabouts. I take it you are Captain Burroughs?”
“That is correct, Excellency.”
“Thank you. Although I can’t tell, really, to whom I am speaking. Awkward, is it not, chatting via an announcing system? An open door would be pleasanter, don’t you think? More friendly.”
“You are right, Excellency. But the Russians gave us so unpleasant, so dangerous, a reception that I am nervous.”
“Those bounders. They have been making a bit of fuss over you, on the wireless. That was how I recognized your craft – smaller than they claimed but an accurate description – for a Russian. But surely you don’t think that we British wear our shirt tails out? You will receive decent treatment here.”
“That is pleasing to hear, Excellency. I was tempted to leave. That policeman chap is most unpleasant.”
“Sorry about that. Sheer mischance that he was first to greet you. Important as this colony is to the Empire, no doubt you have heard that being posted to it is not welcome to some. Not my own case, I asked for it. But some ranks and ratings. Now let’s have that door open, shall we? I dislike to insist but I am in charge here.”
Hilda looked thoughtful. “Governor General, I can either open the doors or leave. I prefer to stay. But the shocking treatment by the Russians followed by the totally unexpected behavior of your chief constable causes me to worry. I need a guarantee that our party will be permitted to remain together at all times, and a written safe-conduct for us, signed and sealed by you on behalf of H.I.M.”
“My dear Captain, a captain does not bargain with one who stands in place of and holds the authority of His Imperial Majesty. As a man, and you being a delightful lady, I would be happy to bargain with you endlessly just for the pleasure of your company. But I can’t.”
“I was not bargaining, Excellency; I was hoping for a boon. Since you will not grant it, I must leave at once.”
He shook his head. “I cannot permit you to leave as yet.”
“Gay Bounce. Zebbie, will you try to reach that nice Mr. Bean?”
Zeb had him shortly. “Leftenant Bean heah.”
“Captain Burroughs, Leftenant. Our radio chopped off while you were talking. No harm done; the important part got through. We grounded where you told us to, due south of Imperial House.”
“So that’s what happened? I must admit to feeling relieved.”
“Is your post of duty in Imperial House?”
“Yes, Ma’am. On it, rather. We have a small housing on the roof.”
“Good. I have a message for the Governor General. Will you record?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“This is Hilda Burroughs speaking, Master of Spacecraft Gay Deceiver out of Snug Harbor. I am sorry that I had to leave without saying good-bye. But your last statement forced me to take measures to protect my craft and crew.” My darling Hilda cut the mike. “Zebbie, when you have air, glide away from the city.” She continued, “In a small way my responsibilities parallel yours; I cannot bargain concerning the safety of my crew and my craft. I hope that you will reconsider, as I have no stomach for dealing with the Russians – even though they have more to offer us in exchange. I still ask for safe-conduct but now must ask for a still third item in such a document: that all four of us be allowed to leave at will. You have my name. My second-in-command is Doctor D. T. Burroughs Carter, my chief pilot is Doctor Z. J. Carter, my copilot is Doctor Jacob Burroughs. You will have noticed surnames. Doctor Jacob is my husband; the other two are our daughter and her husband. I am Doctor Hilda Corners but I am much prouder of being Mrs. Jacob Burroughs – although at present I must use ‘Captain Hilda Burroughs’ since I am commanding. Sir, while dictating this I have made a decision. I will not make a second attempt to negotiate with Russians. We will wait thirty minutes in the warm hope of hearing from you… then return to Earth, report to our own government, send a detailed complaint to the Tsar of All the Russias, and make a formal report of our attempt here to His Imperial Majesty. Signed Respectfully yours, H. C. Burroughs, Commanding. Leftenant, what are the full names and titles of the Governor General?”
“Ah, His Excellency Lieutenant General the Right Honourable Herbert Evelyn James Smythe-Carstairs, K.G., V.C., C.B.E., Governor General of the Imperial Realms Beyond the Sky.”
“Preface it formally, please, and I will wait until oh-nine-hundred hours Greenwich time or thirty-six minutes from now. Mark!”
“I will add the heading, Captain, and deliver it by hand.”
After Hilda signed off she said, “I’m going to try to sleep thirty of those thirty-six minutes. Can anyone think of a program that will let all of us nap? This contact is more tiring than I had expected. Jacob, Deety, Zeb – don’t all speak at once.”
“I can, my dear,” I answered.
“Yes, Jacob?”
“Gay Termite.”
To my mild surprise it was night at our creek bank. To my pleasure my first attempt to maneuver by voice was smoothly successful. My daughter’s ingenuity in constructing voiced programs had left me little to do. While I did not resent it (I’m proud of Deety), nevertheless while sitting as copilot, I sometimes wondered whether anyone remembered that it was my brainchild that moved this chariot. Ah, vanity!
To my greater pleasure Hilda clapped her hands and looked delighted. “Jacob! How clever of you! How stupid of me! All right, everyone off duty for a half hour ‘cept the rule about always two and always a rifle. Gay, alert us in thirty minutes. And please unlock the bulkhead door.”
“Aunt Hillbilly, are you going to sleep back there?”
“I had thought of stretching out and inviting Jacob to join me. But the space belongs to you and Zebbie; I was thoughtless.”
“We aren’t going to sleep. But we had better drag those rifles out of that sack or you won’t sleep. I want to empty the oubliette and stow that pesky plastic potty under the cushion of my seat. Durned if I’ll use it when I have the whole outdoors at hand.”
“Most certainly – but stay inside Gay’s lights – and do please remind me before we leave. Deety, I’ve so much on my mind that I forget housekeeping details.”
“Hillbilly, you’re doing swell. I’ll handle housekeeping; you worry about the big picture.”
Hilda cuddled up to me in the after compartment and my nerves began to relax. Would the Governor General relent? Where would we go next? We had a myriad universes to choose from, a myriad myriad planets – but only one was home and we didn’t dare go there. What about juice for Zeb’s car and a thousand other things? Perhaps we should risk Earth-without-a-J. What about the time bomb, ticking away in my darling’s belly?
Hilda sniffed into my shoulder. I patted her head. “Relax, dearest.”
“I can’t. Jacob, I don’t like this job. I snap at you, you argue with me, we both get upset. It’s not good for us – we never behaved this way at Snug Harbor.”
“Then give it up.”
“I’m going to. After I finish the job I started. Jacob, when we lift from this planet, you will be captain.”
“Oh, no! Zeb.” (Hilda my only love, you should turn it over to him now.)
“Zebbie won’t take it. It’s you or Deety, Jacob. If Deety is our next captain, you will back-seat drive even more than you have with me. No, Jacob, you must be captain before Deety is, so that you will understand what she is up against.”
I felt that I had been scolded enough. I started to tell Hilda when that pejorative epithet played back in my mind: ” – back-seat drive -“
I trust that I am honest with myself. I know that I am not very sociable and I expect to go on being so; a man capable of creative work has no time to spare for fools who would like to visit. But a “back-seat driver”?
Some facts: Jane learned to drive before I did – her father’s duo. Our first car, a roadable, coincided with her pregnancy; I got instruction so that I could drive for Jane. She resumed driving after Deety was born but when both of us were in the car, I always drove. She drove with me as passenger once or twice before the custom became established – but she never complained that I had been back-seat driving.
But Jane never complained.
Deety laid it on the line. I don’t know who taught Deety to drive but I recall that she was driving, on roads as well as in the air, when she was twelve or thirteen. She had no occasion to drive for me until Jane’s illness. There was a time after we lost Jane that Deety often drove for me. After a while we alternated. Then came a day when she was driving and I pointed out that her H-above-G was, oh, some figure less than a thousand meters, with a town ahead.
She said, “Thanks, Pop” – and grounded at that town, an unplanned stop. She switched off, got out, walked around and said, “Shove over, Pop. From now on, I’ll enjoy the scenery while you herd us through the sky.”
I didn’t shove over, so Deety got into the back seat. Deety gets her stubbornness from both parents. Jane’s was covered with marshmallow that concealed chrome steel; mine is covered with a coat of sullen anger if frustrated. But Deety’s stubbornness isn’t concealed. She has a sweet disposition but Torquemada could not force Deety to do that which she decided against.
For four hours we ignored each other. Then I turned around (intending to start an argument, I suppose – I was in the mood for one) – and Deety was asleep, curled up in the back seat.
I wrote a note, stuck it to the wind screen, left the keys, got quietly out, made sure all doors were locked, hired another car and drove home – by air; I was too angry to risk roading.
Instead of going straight home I went to the Commons to eat, and found Deety already eating. So I took my tray and joined her. She looked up, smiled, and greeted me: “Hello, Pop! How nice we ran into each other!” She opened her purse. “Here are your keys.”
I took them. “Where is our car?”
“Your car, Pop. Where you left it.”
“I left it?”
“You had the keys; you were in the front seat; you hold title. You left a passenger asleep in the back seat. Good thing she’s over eighteen, isn’t it?” She added, “There is an Opel duo I have my eye on. Tried it once; it’s in good shape.”
“We don’t need two cars!”
“A matter of taste. Yours. And mine.”
“We can’t afford two cars.”
“How would you know, Pop? I handle the money.”
She did not buy the Opel. But she never again drove when we both were in our car.
Three data are not a statistical universe. But it appears that the three women I have loved most all consider me to be a back-seat driver. Jane never said so… but I realize today that she agreed with Deety and Hilda.
I don’t consider myself to be a back-seat driver! I don’t yell “Look out!” or “Watch what you’re doing!” But four eyes are better than two: Should not a passenger offer, simply as data, something the driver may not have seen? Criticism? Constructive criticism only and most sparingly and only to close friends.
But I try to be self-honest; my opinion is not important in this. I must convince Hilda and Deety, by deeds, not words. Long habit is not changed by mere good resolution; I must keep the matter at the top of my mind.
There was banging at the bulkhead; I realized that I had been asleep. The door opened a crack. “Lift in five minutes.”
“Okay, Deety,” Hilda answered. “Nice nap, beloved?”
“Yes indeed. Did you?”
As we crawled out, Deety said, “Starboard door is open; Pop’s rifle is leaning against it, locked. Captain, you asked to be reminded. Shall I take the conn?”
“Yes, thank you.”
We lost no time as Deety used two preprograms: Bingo Windsor, plus Gay Bounce. Zeb had the communication watch officer almost at once. ” – very well. I will see if the Captain will take the message. No over. Hold.”
Zeb looked around, ostentatiously counted ten seconds, then pointed at Hilda.
“Captain Burroughs speaking. Leftenant Bean?”
“Yes, yes! Oh, my word, I’ve been trying to reach you the past twenty minutes.”
“It is still a few seconds short of the time I gave you.”
“Nevertheless I am enormously relieved to hear your voice, Captain. I have a message from the Governor General. Are you ready to record?”
Zeb nodded; Hilda answered Yes; the lieutenant continued: “‘From the Governor General to H. C. Burroughs, Master Gay Deceiver.’ Hurry home, the children are crying. We all miss you. The fatted calf is turning on the spit. That document is signed and sealed, including the additional clause. Signed: “Bertie”‘ – Captain, that is the Governor’s way of signing a message to an intimate friend. A signal honor, if I may say so.”
“Gracious of him. Please tell the Governor General that I am ready to ground and will do so as soon as you tell me that the spot in which we were parked – the exact spot – is free of any obstruction whatever.”
Bean was back in about three minutes saying that our spot was clear and would be kept so. Hilda nodded to Deety, who said, “Gay Parade Ground.”
I had a flash of buildings fairly close, then we were back in the sky. Hilda snapped, “Chief Pilot, get Leftenant Bean!”
Then – c”Mr. Bean! Our spot was not clear.”
“It is now, Captain; I have just come from the parapet. The Governor’s poodle got loose and ran out. The Governor chased him and brought him back. Could that have been it?”
“It decidedly was it. You may tell the Governor – privately – that never in battle has he been so close to death. Astrogator, take her down!”
“GayParadeGround!”
Bean must have heard the gasp, then cheers, while Hilda’s words were still echoing in his radio shack. We were exactly as before, save that the wide, showy steps to the King-Emperor’s residence on Mars were jammed with people: officers, soldiers, civil servants with that slightly dusty look, women with children, and a few dogs, all under restraint.
I didn’t spot the Right Honourable “Bertie” until he moved toward us. He was no longer in mufti but in what I could call “service dress” or “undress” – not a dress uniform – but dressy. Ribbons, piping, wound stripes, etc. – sword when appropriate. Since he was not wearing sword I interpreted our status as “honored guests” rather than “official visitors” – he was ready to jump either way.
He had his wife on his arm – another smart move, our captain being female. His aide (? – left shoulder “chicken guts” but possibly a unit decoration) was with him, too – no one else. The crowd stayed back.
Hilda said, “Chief Pilot – ” then pointed to the mikes, drew her finger across her throat. Zeb said, “Outside audio is cold, Cap’n.”
“Thank you, Gay, lock the bulkhead door, open your doors.”
I jumped down and handed Hilda out, offered her my arm, while Zeb was doing the same with Deety portside. We met, four abreast at Gay’s nose, continued moving forward a few paces and halted facing the Governor’s party as they halted. It looked rehearsed but we had not even discussed it. This placed our ladies between us, with my tiny darling standing tall, opposite the Governor.
The aide boomed, “His Excellency Governor General the Lieutenant General the Right Honourable Herbert Evelyn James Smythe-Carstairs and Lady Herbert Evelyn James!”
The Governor grinned. “Dreadful,” he said quietly, “but worse with ruffles, flourishes, and the Viceroy’s March – I spared you that.” He raised his voice, did not shout but it projected – and saluted Hilda. “Captain Burroughs! We bid you welcome!”
Hilda bowed, returning the salute. “Excellency… Lady Herbert… thank you! We are happy to be here.”
Lady Herbert smiled at being included, and bobbed about two centimeters – a minimum curtsy, I suppose, but can’t swear to it, as she was swathed in one of those dreadful garden-party-formal things – big hat, long skirt, long gloves. Hilda answered with a smile and a minimum bow.
“Permit me to present my companions,” Hilda continued. “My family and also my crew. On my left my astrogator and second-in-command, our daughter Doctor D. T. Burroughs Carter, and on her left is her husband our son-in-law, my chief pilot, Doctor Zebadiah John Carter, Captain U.S. Aerospace Reserve.” Deety dropped a curtsy as her name was mentioned, a 6-cm job, with spine straight. Zeb acknowledged his name with a slight bow.
Hilda turned her head and shoulders toward me. “It gives me more pride than I can express,” she sang, her eyes and mouth smiling, her whole being speaking such serene happiness that it made me choke up, “to present our copilot, my husband Doctor Jacob Jeremiah Burroughs, Colonel of Ordnance A.U.S.”
The Governor stepped forward quickly and held out his hand. “Doctor, we are honored!” His handshake was firm.
I returned it in kind, saying in a nonprojecting voice, “Hilda should not have done that to me. Off campus, I’m ‘Mister’ to strangers and ‘Jake’ to my friends.”
“I’m Bertie, Jake,” he answered in his intimate voice, “other than on occasions when I can’t avoid that string of goods wagons. Or I’ll call you ‘Doctor.”
“You do and it’s fifty lines.” That made him laugh again.
“And I’m Betty, Jake,” Lady Herbert said, in closing in. “Captain Burroughs, may I call you ‘Hilda’?” (Was that a hiccup?)
“Call her ‘Doctor,'” I suggested. “She told on the rest of us. How many doctorates do you hold, dear? Seven? Or eight?”
“After the first one, it no longer matters. Of course I’m ‘Hilda,’ Betty. But, Bertie, we have yet to meet the Brigadier.”
I glanced at the tabs of the officer with the aiguillette and booming voice. Yes, A crown inboard and three pips – But when had Hilda learned British insignia? Many Americans can’t read their own. I am ceasing to be surprised at how many facts can be stuffed into so small a space.
“Sorry. Friends, this is Brigadier Iver Hird-Jones. Squeaky finds things I lose and remembers things I forget.”
“Ladies. Gentlemen. Charmed. Here is something you told me to remember, General.” The Brigadier handed a sealed envelope to his boss.
“Ah, yes!” Smythe-Carstairs handed it to my wife. “The Keys to the City, Ma’am. Phrased as you specified, each of you named, and that third factor included. Signed by me for the Sovereign and carrying the Imperial seal.”
“Your Excellency is most gracious,” Hilda said formally, and turned toward Deety. “Astrogator.”
“Aye, Captain.” Deety placed it in her purse.
Our host looked surprised. “Jake, doesn’t your wife have normal curiosity? She seems to have forgot my name, too.”
Hilda protested, “I haven’t forgotten your name, Bertie. It’s an official matter; I treated it formally. I shall read it when I have leisure to open that envelope without damaging the flap seal. To you this is one of thousands of papers; to me it is a once-in-a-lifetime souvenir. If I sound impressed, it’s because I am.”
Lady Herbert said, “Don’t flatter him, my deah.” (Yes, she had had a couple.) “You’ll turn his head, quite.” She added, “Bertie, you’re causing our guests to stand when we could be inside, sitting down.”
“You’re right, m’dear.” Bertie looked longingly at Zeb’s car.
Hilda played a trump. “Care to look inside, Bertie? Betty, you can sit down here; the captain’s chair is comfortable. Will you do me the honor? Someday I’ll tell my grandchildren that Lady Herbert sat in that very seat.”
“What a charming thought!”
Hilda tried to catch my eye but I was a jump ahead of her, handing Lady Herbert in, making certain that she didn’t miss the step, getting her turned around, making sure that she didn’t sit down on belts. “If we were about to lift,” I told her, while fastening the seat belt loosely (first, moving the buckle – she’s Hilda’s height but my thickness), “this safety belt would be fastened firmly.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dare!”
“Gangway, Pop! Another customer.” I got out of the way, and Deety installed Brigadier Hird-Jones in her seat. Deety said, “Pop, if you’ll put the Governor in your seat, Zebadiah will take his own and give his two-hour lecture on the care and feeding of spacecraft, while you and I and Hilda hang in the doorways and correct his errors.”
“I’m only up to chapter four,” Zeb said defensively. “Jake, make her quit picking on me.”
“You’re her husband; I’m merely her father. Bertie, I must ask one thing. Don’t touch anything. This car is not shut down; it is ready to go, instantly.”
“I’ll be careful, Jake. But we’re leaving the ladies standing. The Captain herself! This is not right.”
Deety said, “Bertie, I don’t want to sit down. This trip doesn’t give me nearly the exercise I need.”
“But I can’t permit Captain Hilda to stand. Sit here and I’ll stand.” (I appreciated his gallantry but I could see an impasse coming: two people, each aware of her/his prerogatives and they conflicted.)
Hilda avoided it by something she had discovered in working out how to rig a double bed in the control compartment. Although pilots have separate seats, the passenger’s seats are really one, built all the way across but separated by armrests… which could be removed with screwdriver and sweat.
I had eliminated sweat and screwdriver; a natural mechanic, such as Zeb, accumulates miscellaneous hardware. Those armrests could now be removed and clamped out of the way with butterfly nuts. Hilda started to do so; the Brigadier dismounted them once he saw what she was doing.
It was a snug fit, but Hird-Jones has trim hips and Hilda has the slimmest bottom in town (any town).
“An important feature,” said Zeb, “of this design is a voice-controlled autopilot -“

Chapter XXXVII

“Are you open to a bribe?”

Deety:
Zebadiah, for seventeen dull minutes, said nothing and said it very well. During that plethora of polysyllabic nullities, I was beginning to think that I would have to take Pop to a quiet spot and reason with him with a club – when Captain Auntie showed that she needed no help.
Pop had interrupted with: “Let me put it simply. What Zeb said is -“
“Copilot.” Cap’n Hilda did not speak loudly but Pop should know that when she says “Copilot,” she does not mean: “Jacob darling, this is your little wifey.” Pop is a slow learner. But he can learn. Just drop an anvil on him.
“Yes, Hilda?” Aunt Hilda let the seconds creep past, never took her eyes off Pop. I was embarrassed; Pop isn’t usually that slow – then the anvil hit. “Yes, Captain?”
“Please do not interrupt the Chief Pilot’s presentation.” Her tone was warm and sweet: I don’t think our guests realized that Pop had just been courtmartialed, convicted, keelhauled, and restored to duty – on probation. But I knew it, Zeb knew it – Pop knew it. “Aye aye, Captain!”
I concluded that Captain Auntie never intended to stand outside. She had told me to offer my seat to Squeaky and had added, “Why don’t you suggest to your father that he offer his to the Governor?” I don’t need an anvil.
It was a foregone conclusion that Bertie would object to ladies having to stand while he sat. But if he had not, I feel certain that the Hillbilly would have held up proceedings until she was seated where she could watch everyone but our visitors could not watch her.
How tall was Machiavelli?
As they were climbing out the Brigadier was telling me that he understood how she was controlled – but how did she flap her wings? – land I answered that technical questions were best put to the Captain – I was unsurprised to hear Cap’n Auntie say, “Certainly, Bertie… if you don’t mind being squeezed between Deety and me.”
“‘Mind’? I should pay for the privilege!”
“Certainly you should,” I agreed – the Hillbilly’s eyes widened but she let me talk. “What am I offered to scrunch over?” I slapped myself where I’m widest. “Squeaky is a snake’s hips – not me!”
“Are you open to a bribe?”
“How big a bribe?”
“A purse of gold and half the county? Or cream tarts at tea?”
“Oh, much more! A bath. A bath in a tub, with loads of hot water and lots of suds. The last time I bathed was in a stream and it was coooold!” I shivered for him.
The Governor appeared to think. “Squeaky, do we have a bathtub?”
Lady Herbert interrupted. “Bertie, I was thinking of the Princess Suite. My deah, since you are all one family, it popped into mind. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two bathtubs. The drawing room is gloomy, rather.”
I answered, “Bertie, you didn’t talk fast enough; Betty gets the first ride.”
“Oh, no, no, no! I don’t fly even in our own flying carriage.”
“Hahrooomph!” Squeaky boomed. “Are you still open to a bribe?”
“You might try our captain; she’s as corruptible as I am.”
Aunt Hilda picked it up. “Now that I’ve heard that two bathtubs go with the suite, my cup runneth over. But my husband and my son-in-law have matters to discuss with the Governor’s technical staff. I don’t have to be bribed to offer a few joy rides, Brigadier – one passenger at a time and, as Deety implies, not too wide a passenger.” Aunt Hilda added, “Betty, I must confess my own weakness. Clothes. What I am wearing, for example. A Ferrara original. An exclusive – Mario himself created it for me. While it is intended for salt-water yachting, it is just as practical for space yachting – and I couldn’t resist it. Do you have nice shops here?”
Bertie answered for his wife. “Hilda, there are shops – but Windsor City is not London. However, Betty has a seamstress who is clever at copying styles from pictures in periodicals from home – old but new to us.” He added, “She’ll show you what we have. Now concerning this ride you so kindly offered me – does it suit you to give me an appointment?”
“Is right now soon enough?”

“Report readiness for space. Astrogator.”
“Ready!” I snapped, trying to sound efficient. “Belt tight.”
“Chief Pilot.”
“Belt fastened. Portside door locked, seal checked. Juice zero point seven-one. Wings subsonic full. Wheels down and locked. Car trimmed assuming passenger at six-six kilos.”
“General, is that your mass?”
“Dear me! I think in pounds. The factor is -“
I interrupted. “I’ll take it in pounds here or pounds London.”
“I weigh myself each morning and I have had the scale recalibrated. Eh, with these boots, one hundred forty-five pounds I dare say.”
“Correct to three significant figures, Zebadiah.” (I did not mention that weight bearing on each wheel shows on the instrument board. Let Bertie think my husband a magician; he’s a wizard to me.)
“Thank you, Astrogator. Car is trimmed, Captain.”
“Copilot.”
“Belt fastened. Door seal checked. Continua device ready.”
“Passenger,” said Cap’n Auntie.
“Eh? What should a passenger report?”
“Principally that your belt is secure, but I saw to that myself.” (By using a web belt from our sleeping bag to link Hilda’s seat belt to mine.) “I must ask one question,” Aunt Hilda went on: “Are you subject to motion sickness? The Channel can be rough and so can the Straits of Dover. Did mal de mer ever hit you?”
“Oh, I’ll be right. Short flight and all that.”
“One Bonine, Deety. General, Admiral Lord Nelson was seasick all his life. My husband and I are susceptible; we took our pills earlier today. Deety and Zebbie are the horrid sort who eat greasy sandwiches during a typhoon and laugh at the dying -“
“I don’t laugh!” I protested.
“But these pills enable us to laugh right back. Is this not so, Jacob?”
“Bertie, they work; you’d be a fool not to take one.”
“I must add,” Captain Auntie said sweetly, “that if you refuse, we will not lift.”
Bertie took it. I told him, “Chew it and swallow it; don’t hide it in your cheek. Captain, I think that does it.”
“Except that we are crowded. General, would you be more comfortable if you put an arm around each of us?”
The General did not refuse. It occurs to me that “take him for a ride” has several meanings. Captain Auntie has more twists than a belly dancer.
“Routine has been broken. Confirm readiness, please.” We reported while I snuggled into a firm male arm, realized that it was a pleasant contrast after getting used to my lovely giant.
“Gay Bounce.”
Bertie gasped and tightened his arms around us. Aunt Hilda said quietly, “Astrogator, take the conn. Schedule as I discussed it. Don’t hesitate to vary it. All of us – you, too, General – may suggest variations. This is a joy ride; let’s enjoy it.”
But she had told me earlier: “If I don’t like a suggestion, I will suggest that we do it later – but time will run out. The General told Lady Herbert:
‘I can go down to the end of the town
‘And be back in time for tea!” – so we will fetch him back on time. Sixteen-fifteen local, four-fifteen pip emma. What’s Greenwich?”
I converted it (GMT 12:44) and told Captain Hillbilly that I would watch both board and the clock in my head but was ordered to place an alert with Gay. If Aunt Hilda were a man, she would wear both suspenders and belt. No, that’s wrong; for herself she’s go-for-broke; for other people she is supercautious.
We lifted at 15:30 local and took Bertie for a mixed ride – Aunt Hilda had told me that Pop was feeling left out. “Gay Bounce, Gay Bounce. Chief Pilot, place us over the big Russian city at about a thousand klicks.”
“Roger Wilco,” my husband affirmed. “Copilot, one jump or two?”
“One. Level? Keep ‘er so. Six thousand thirty klicks, true bearing two-seven-three, offset L axis negative oh-seven-four-set!” – and I shuddered; Pop had set to take us through the planet!
“Execute! Bertie, what is the name of that city?”
“Eh? Zeb, I am quite bewildered!” Pop and Gay and Zebadiah, working together, displayed features simultaneously on the planet in front of us and on the sillyscope on the board. Pop bounced Gay around in ways I didn’t know could be done. Zebadiah had Gay rotate the display so that the point on Mars-ten opposite us was always the center of the display with scale according to H-above-G.
I learned a lot. The Russians claim the whole planet but their occupied area closely matches what we had bingo-mapped. Bertie pointed out a bit more Tsarist area; Gay changed the displayed locus to Zebadiah’s interpretation of Bertie’s information. Windsor City was zero Meridan for the British; Gay measured the arc to “Touchdown,” adjusted her longitudes – and now could use any British Martian colonial map.
Bertie assured us that Russian Ack-Ack could not shoot higher than three miles (less than five klicks) and seemed astonished that a spaceship might be considered dangerous. His explanation of spaceships was less than clear – great flimsy things that sailed from orbits around Earth to orbits around Mars, taking months for each voyage.
I was watching the time. “Chief Pilot, we will sight-see with Bertie another day; I am taking the conn. Copilot.”
“Verniers zeroed and locked, Astrogator.”
“Thanks, Pop. Gay B’gout. Bertie, this is where we first grounded – where the Russians attacked us. That trash ahead is what is left of Colonel Morinosky’s private flyer. Zebadiah was forced to retaliate.”
Bertie looked puzzled. “But the Russians have no settlement near here. I know that bounder Morinosky; he came to see me under diplomatic immunity. I had to be content with the sort of nasty remarks permitted by protocol. But how did Zeb burn the flyer?”
“Beautifully. Gay Home. Chief Pilot, dive. Captain?”
“I have the conn,” Aunt Hilda acknowledged. “Bertie, that crater was our home three days ago. They tried to kill us, we fled for our lives.”
“Who!”
“Gay Home, Gay Bounce. Pilots, may we have Earth-without-a-J?”
“Set it, Jake.”
“Tau axis positive one quantum – set!”
“Copilot, execute at will. Chief Pilot, dive again, please. Jacob, please set Bertie’s home universe and hold. Bertie, that house is like Snug Harbor before it was bombed – but one universe away. Zebbie, level glide please… Gay Bounce, Gay Bounce! Jacob, you have that setting?”
“Tau positive ten quanta, set.”
“Execute at will. Bertie, what antiaircraft defense does London – your London – have?”
“What, what? London has no defense against attack from above. The Concord of Brussels. But Hilda – my dear Captain – you are telling me that we have been to a different universe!”
“Three universes, Bertie, and now we are back in your own. Better to show than to tell; it is a thing one believes only through experience. Gay Bounce. Zebbie, Jacob, see how quickly you can put us over London. Execute at will.”
“Roger Wilco. Jake, do you want Gay?”
“Well – great-circle true bearing and chord distance, maybe. Or I can simply take her high and head northeast. The scenic route.”
Aunt Hilda caught my eye. “Camera ready, Deety?”
“Yes. Three shots.” I added, “Four more cartons, but when they’re gone, they’re gone.”
“Use your judgment.”
Suddenly we were in free fall over Arizona, then over the British Isles, then we were air supported, then we were diving and Zebadiah was shouting: “Tower of London, next stop!”
I shot a beauty of the Tower and Zebadiah’s right ear. “General, is there something you would like to photograph here? Or elsewhere?”
He seemed almost too overcome to talk. He muttered, “There is a place about twenty miles north of here, a country estate. Is it possible?”
Aunt Hilda said, “Take the conn, Deety.”
“Got it, Captain. Gay Bounce. Pop, Zebadiah, give me three minima north. Execute at will.”
Then I was saying, “Any landmarks, Bertie?”
“Uh, not yet.”
“Pop, may we have the binoculars?”
Pop handed them aft; I gave them to Bertie. He adjusted them and searched while Zebadiah made a wide sweep, spending altitude stingily. Bertie said, “There!”
“Where?” I said. “And what?”
“A large house, to the right of our course. Ah, now dead ahead!”
I saw it – a “Stately Home of England.” Lawns you make with a flock of sheep and four centuries. “This it?” asked Zebadiah. “I’m steady on it by gunsight,”
“That’s it, sir! Deety, I would like a picture.”
“Do my best.”
“Alert,” said Gay. “Memo for General Smythe-Carstairs: ‘I can go down to the end of the town and be back in time for tea.'”
“Aunt Hilda, Bertie, I left some leeway. Picture! Zebadiah, take it as close as you dare, then bounce, but warn me. I want a closeup.”
“Now, Deety!” I hit it and Zebadiah bounced us.
Bertie let out a sigh. “My home. I never expected to see it again.”
“I knew it was your home,” Aunt Hilda said softly, “because you looked the way we feel when we see the crater where Snug Harbor used to be. But you will see it again, surely? How long is a tour of duty on Mars?”
“It’s a matter of health.” Bertie added, “Lady Her – Betty’s health.”
Pop turned his head. “Bertie, we can bounce and do it again. What’s a few minutes late for tea compared with seeing your old homestead?”
“Bertie’s not late yet, Pop. We can do even better. That lawn is smooth and the open part is about half the size of the p.g. at Imperial House. Bertie, we can ground.”
My husband added, “I could make a glide grounding. But Deety has worked out a better method.”
“No,” Bertie said brusquely. “Thanks, Deety. Thanks to all of you. Jake. Zeb. Captain Hilda. I’ll treasure this day. But enough is enough.” Tears were running down his cheeks, ignored.
Aunt Hilda took a Kleenex from her purse, dabbed away his tears. She put her left hand back of Bertie’s neck, pulled his face down to hers, and kissed him. She didn’t look to see if Pop was watching – he was – she just did it.
Pop said, “Deety, will you hand me the binox?”
“Sure, Pop. See something?”
“I’m going to see what I can of Merrie Old England, as I don’t expect to see it again, either. Family, we are not going back to Snug Harbor again; it’s not good for us. Meanwhile Zeb will drive and you two are to soothe our guest and make him feel better -“
“But remember to wipe off the lipstick.”
“Pipe down, Zeb. You aren’t observant; neither of our darlings is wearing any. Being late is not important; ‘The party can’t start till the Macgregor arrives.’ But once Bertie’s there, he’s on parade – and the Governor must not appear with eyes swollen and tear marks on his collar. We must return him in as good shape as we got him.”
Sometimes I love Pop more than most.
And my husband, too.
I used both hands but didn’t need to; Bertie wasn’t trying to get away. The second time he kissed Hilda, he supplied the hands. Therapy took three minutes and forty-one seconds, and I am certain that, by the end of two hundred twenty-one seconds, Bertie was no longer homesick, not grieving about might have-beens; his morale was tiptop. The last time he kissed me, he informed me without words that I should not be alone with him unless my intentions were serious.
I made mental note. And a second to ask Hilda if she had received the same warning. Then I struck out the second note. I was certain and equally certain that she would fib if it suited her.
But I look forward to the day the Hillbilly asks me to jigger for her. That will be my final promotion – no longer Jane’s little girl in Hilda’s eyes but Jane’s equal, trusted as utterly as she trusted Jane. And I will be rid of the last trace of the shameful jealousy I have for my beloved Mama Jane.
I checked myself in my purse mirror while I waited for them to break – checked both of them and decided that they had no milk on their chins. Bertie said, “Deety, could I possibly have one of those pictures as a remembrance of this perfect day?”
“Certainly. Gay Parade Ground. All three are yours;~we took them for you.” We were exactly on time.

Three hours later I was sitting teat deep in a wonderful tub of hot soapy water, a tub big enough to drown in but I wasn’t going to drown because the Hillbilly was sitting shoulder deep, facing me. We were reliving our day as well as getting beautiful for dinner. Well… sanitary.
Hilda said, “Deety, I tell you three times. Betty is suffering from an ailment made more endurable by Martian conditions.”
“Meaning that in point thirty-eight gee she doesn’t hit hard when she falls down. What was in that teapot no one else touched? Chanel Number Five?”
“Medicine. Prescribed for her nerves.”
“Got it. Official. She’s friendly as a puppy, she’s generous, she’s our hostess – I ought to know better. It’s a shame that she has this ailment but she’s fortunate in having a husband who loves her so dearly that he left home forever so that she can live in lower gravity. Bertie is quite a man.”
“There is nothing for him at home. His older brother has sons; title and estate can’t go to Bertie. He can’t go much higher in the army, and a governor general is senior to anybody; he embodies the Sovereign.”
“I thought that was limited to viceroys.”
“Squeaky put me straight on it. Bertie is viceroy in dealing with Russians. But – Did you notice the uniforms on the maids?”
“I noticed the cream tarts more. White aprons, white caps, simple print dresses, dark blue or black with Indian arrowheads.”
“The Broad Arrow, Deety.”
“Huh? No sabbe, pliz.”
“In this universe Australia belongs to the Dutch. Brace yourself, dear. This is a prison colony.”
Every so often the world wobbles and I have to wait for it to steady down. Somewhat later I said, “A colony could be better than a prison. I can’t see Bertie as a tyrant. Bertie is quite a man. When -“
Hilda reached out, grabbed a chain, flushed the W.C., then leaned toward me. That fixture was a noisy type that went on gurgling and gasping for a long time. “Remember what Zebbie told us when he crowded us into the other bath and turned on everything? One must assume that guest quarters in any government building anywhere are wired. Careful what you say, dear.”
“He also said that he had no reason to assume that it was the case here.”
“But Zebbie was the one who insisted on a conference in Gay… with Jacob being mulish and you yourself seeing no reason not to confer up here.” Aunt Hilda again pulled the chain. “Yes, Bertie is quite a man. Don’t leave me alone with him.”
“Or should I jigger instead?”
“Naughty Deety. My sweet, a bride should refrain at least twelve months out of respect for her husband and to prove that she can.”
“After that it’s okay?”
“Of course not! It’s immoral, disgraceful, and scandalous.” Suddenly she giggled, put arms around my neck, and whispered: “But if I ever need a jigger, Deety is the only person I would trust.”

That conference, immediately after tea, had caused a crisis, brought on by our husbands in concert – but out of tune. The tea had been fun – cream tarts and new men appeal to my basest instincts. A tea qua tea should be over in an hour. We had been there over an hour, which I ignored because I was having fun. Aunt Hilda broke the ring around me, said softly, “We’re leaving.” So we smiled and said good-bye, found our host, and thanked him.
“Our pleasure,” Bertie said. “Lady Herbert became indisposed and wishes to be forgiven but will see you at dinner. Hird-Jones tells me that black tie is no problem. Right?”
He added to let Squeaky know when we wanted help in moving; Hilda assured him that Squeaky had it in hand and the suite was beautiful!
As we left I asked, “Where is Zebadiah?”
“Waiting at the outer steps. He asked me for a conference. I don’t know why, but Zebbie would not unnecessarily interrupt a social event to ask for a closed conference.”
“Why didn’t we go to our suite? And where is Pop?”
“Zebbie specified the car – more private. Jacob is inside, talking with some men. He brushed off my telling him that we were going to the car now – said he would see us later. Deety, I can’t enforce orders as captain under those conditions.”
“Pop is hard to move when he gets into a discussion. I’ve yawned through some deadly ones. But how can we have a conference until he shows up?”
“I don’t know, dear. Here’s Zebbie.”
My husband pecked me on the nose and said, “Where’s Jake?”
Hilda answered, “He told me that he would be along later.” Zebadiah started to curse; Aunt Hilda cut him off. “Chief Pilot.”
“Uh – Yes, Captain.”
“Go find the Copilot, tell him that we lift in five minutes. Having told him that and no more, turn and leave at once. Don’t give him any opportunity to ask questions. Come straight to the car.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
“Come, Deety.” Hilda hurried to Gay Deceiver, went to her seat, started to belt, She glanced at me. “Astrogator, prepare for space.”
I started to ask why – but instead said, “Aye aye, Captain,” and quickly was belted. “Captain, may I inquire your plans?”
“Certainly, you’re second-in-command. And Astrogator; however, I will take the conn on lifting.”
“Then we really are lifting?”
“Yes. Five minutes after Zebbie returns. That gives Jacob five minutes to make up his mind. Then we lift. If Jacob is aboard, he’ll be with us.”
“Aunt Hilda, you would abandon my father on this planet?!”
“No, Deety. Jacob will probably never notice that the car has been away as it should not be gone more than a few minutes. If Jacob does not come with us, I will ask Zebbie to drop me on Earth-without-a-J. Range-finder and target method; I don’t want to use Zebbie’s precious juice.”
“Aunt Hilda, you sound desperate.”
“I am, dear.” She added, “Here comes Zebbie.”
Zebadiah climbed in. “Message delivered, Captain.”
“Thank you, Chief Pilot. Prepare for space.”
“Roger Wilco.”
“Will you check the seal of the starboard door, please?”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
“Report readiness for space, Astrogator.”
“Belt tight, ready for space. Oh, Aunt Hilda!”
“Astrogator, pipe down. Chief Pilot.”
“Both doors locked, seals checked. Seat belt tight. Power packs, two zeroed, two in reserve. Juice oh-point-seven-one-minus. All systems go. Copilot missing. Ready for space.”
“Captain’s seat belt tight, ready for space. Gay Deceiver.”
“Howdy, Hilda!”
“Please display five-minute countdown. Paraphrase acknowledge.”
“Three hundred seconds backwards in lights.”
“Execute.”
Have you ever listened to three hundred seconds of silence? Neither have I – two hundred eighty-one when Pop pounded on the door.
Aunt Hilda said, “Gay Deceiver, open starboard door.”
Pop climbed in, indignant as an offended cat. “What the hell goes on?”
“Copilot, prepare for space.”
“What? Now, Hilda, that is going too far!”
“Copilot, either secure for space or get out and stand clear. Chief Pilot, see that my orders are carried out.”
“Aye aye, Captain! Copilot, you’ve got zero seconds to make up your mind.” My husband started to unstrap.
Pop looked at Zebadiah, looked at us. I was doing my frozen face to keep from crying and I think Aunt Hilda was, too.
Pop hastily fastened his belt. “You’re a pack of idiots – ” He was checking the door seal. ” – but I won’t be left behind.”
“Copilot, report.”
“Huh? Ready for space.”
Hilda said, “Gay Termite. Gay Deceiver, open your doors.”
“Well, for the love of -“
“Pipe down! Chief Pilot, I have no stomach for charging my husband with mutiny but that is what I have been faced with repeatedly. Will you grant me the boon of resuming command to drop me on Earth-without-a-J? I would rather not have to stay on Mars.”
“Hilda!”
“I’m sorry, Jacob. I’ve tried. I’m not up to it. I’m not Jane.”
“No one expects you to be Jane! But ever since you became captain, you’ve been throwing your weight around. Like calling this stunt in the middle of a party. Insulting our host and hostess – “
“Hold it, Jake!”
“What? See here, Zeb, I’m talking to my wife! You keep -“
“I said ‘Hold it.’ Shut up or I’ll shut you up.”
“Don’t you threaten me!”
“That’s not a threat; that’s a warning.”
“Pop, you had better believe him! I’m not on your side.”
Pop took a deep breath. “What do you have to say for yourself, Carter?”
“Nothing, for myself. But you’ve got your data wrong six ways. One: Captain Hilda did not call this so-called ‘stunt.’ I did.”
“You did? What the devil caused you to do a thing like that?”
“Irrelevant. I convinced the Captain that the matter was urgent, so she gathered us in. All but you – -you told her not to bother you or words to that effect. But she gave you another chance – you didn’t deserve it; you had long since used up your quota. But she did. She sent me back to tell you we were lifting. It finally penetrated your skull that we might lift without you -“
“To this place!”
“If you had been twenty seconds later, we would have translated to another universe. But this nonsense about ‘Insulting our host and hostess – ‘ Your hostess left the tea long before you did; your host left immediately after Hilda and Deety, leaving his aide – the Brigadier – to close shop. But you are so damned self-centered you never noticed. Jake, don’t you lecture me on proper behavior as a guest. The first time I laid eyes on you, you were trying to star a fight in Sharpie’s ballroom -“
“Huh? But I was fully justi – “
“Dreck. No one is ever justified in starting a fight under a host’s roof. The very most that can be justified under extreme provocation is to tell the other party privately that you are ready to meet him at another time and place. Jake, I don’t enjoy teaching manners to my senior. But your parents neglected you, so I must. If I offend you – if you feel entitled to call me out, I will accommodate you at any other time and place.”
Aunt Hilda gasped. “Zebbie! No!” I gasped something like it. My husband patted our hands – together; Hilda was gripping mine. “Don’t worry, dears. I didn’t call Jake out and won’t. I don’t want to hurt Jake. He’s your husband… your father… my blood brother by spilled blood. But I had to chew him out; he’s now entitled to a crack at me. With words, with hands, with whatever. Sharpie, Deety, you can’t refuse Jake his rights. No matter what, he still has rights.”
Pop said, “Zeb, I am not going to call you out. If you think I am afraid of you, you’re welcome. If you think it’s because I know you love both Hilda and Deety, you would be closer. A fight between us would endanger their welfare. As you said, we are blood brothers.” Pop’s tone suddenly changed. “But doesn’t mean I like your behavior, you arrogant punk!”
Zebadiah grinned. “Nolo contendere, Pop.”
“So you admit it?”
“You know Latin better than that, Jake. Means I’m satisfied to let it lie. We can’t afford to quarrel.”
“Mmm – A point well taken. Stipulating that I did not come at once when summoned, and tabling, if you will, until later whether or not I had reason, may I now ask why I was summoned? The nature of this problem that caused you to call this conference?”
“Jake, the situation has changed so rapidly that the matter no longer has priority. You heard Sharpie’s plans.”
My husband looked into Aunt Hilda’s eyes. “Captain, I’ll be honored to drive you wherever you want to go. Drop you wherever you say. With your choice of equipment and wampum. But with a mail drop, I hope. Are you ready to leave?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Wait a half. You are captain, until you leave us. Orders, Captain? Earth-without-a-J? Or I’ll help you shop others – we might find a world of nudists.”
“Why that, Zebbie? I’m not jumpy about skin – but only among close friends.”
“Remember why Jake was certain that the Finnish mathematician was not a disguised vermin? Sauna. Disguise has limits.”
“Oh.” Aunt Hilda looked thoughtful. “I could get used to it. But I must get out of this tension. So drop me on the minus-J world. A mail drop, yes; I don’t ever want to lose you and Deety.”
“We find that safe place, we pick you up. Sharpie, we’ll be back someday anyhow. If the boogiemen don’t get us.”
“Hold it, Zeb. If you’re dropping Hilda, you’re dropping me.”
“That’s up to Captain Hilda.”
“Hilda, I will not permit -“
“Jake, quit acting the fool,” growled my husband. “She’s boss. With me to back her up.”
“And me!” I echoed.
“You seem to forget that the continua device is mine!”
“Gay Deceiver!”
“Yes, Boss? Who’s your fat friend?”
“‘Number of the Beast.’ Execute.”
“Done.”
“Try your verniers, Jake.”
Pop did something – I couldn’t see his hands. Then he said, “Why, you – So you think you’ve stopped me? Gay Deceiver!”
“Howdy, Jake.”
Zebadiah cut in: “Gay Deceiver override! Emergency Thirty-one execute. Gay can no longer hear you, Jake. Try it.”
“If you can do one, you can do the other. Zeb, I never thought you would be that sneaky.”
“Jake, if you had behaved yourself, you never would have known. Extreme individualists (all of us) don’t take kindly to discipline because they rarely understand its nature and function. But – even before that fake ranger showed up – we all had agreed to ‘lifeboat’ rules. We discussed them and you all claimed to understand them… and I was elected skipper. I nominated you – eldest, senior, inventor of the space-time twister – but you said it had to be me. A lifeboat officer must always be able to enforce his orders… in situations of great peril complicated by hysterical civilians. Or bullheaded ones who must otherwise be wheedled.”
It was time for a diversion; Pop doesn’t like to look foolish and I was still hoping to salvage this shambles. “Zebadiah, is my number fifty-nine?”
“Of course, but it takes my voice. Can you figure the cancel-and-reset?”
“For mnemonic reasons it should be one of three. Probably ninety-five.”
“On the button!”
“Although I would prefer eighty-nine.”
“Why?”
“Work on it. Zebadiah, why did you call this meeting?”
“With Sharpie leaving us the matter is academic. We won’t be coming back to Mars.”
“Oh, dear!”
“What’s the trouble, Sharpie? Captain.”
“I promised Squeaky a ride. Zebbie, could you keep my promise for me? Please? For old times’ sake?”
“Captain, once we lift to drop you on Minus-J, we won’t return. But the Captain still is captain and can give Squeaky that ride in the next thirty minutes if it suits her.”
“May I offer something in my own defense?” Pop put in.
“Of course, Jake. Sorry, Captain; you’re in charge. May the Copilot have the floor?”
“Jacob, even though I find it necessary to leave you… I love and respect you… and will always listen to you.”
“Thanks, darling. Thank you, Captain. I was in that huddle because Brigadier Hird-Jones always remembers. That huddle was the top physical scientists on Mars. A scruffy lot but they get the technical journals and read them, a few months late. I was talking with the top chemist -“
“Well, Jake? Make it march.”
“Zeb, not one knew an isotope from an antelope. You can’t buy juice here.”
“For that you disobeyed a direct order of the Captain? Sharpie, you should have him flogged around the Fleet before you surrender office -“
“Don’t loke, Zebbie.”
“Captain, I am not joking. Jake, that’s no news; I spotted it this afternoon. Sharpie? Deety? In England.”
“I missed it,” Aunt Hilda said. “I don’t know England well.”
“Deety?”
“Well… maybe,” I admitted.
“How?” demanded Pop.
“Little things. No roadables, just horse-drawn vehicles. No air traffic other than a few ornithopters. Coal-fired steam-powered trains of cars. Traffic on the Thames, what little there was, ‘minded me of pictures of Victorian England.”
“Daughter, why didn’t you mention this?”
“You saw it, Pop.”
“Those were my reasons,” Zebadiah agreed. “My hope of getting juiced here dropped to one-tenth of one percent. It is now zero.” Zebadiah sighed. “But that isn’t why I asked the Captain to call us together. Family, there are vermin here.”
The world wobbled again – and so did I.
Aunt Hilda was saying, “How did you learn this, Zebbie?”
“You gals had plenty of company and Jake had the local scientists, so Squeaky gave me his attention. Captain, you told us to stick to the truth -“
“Yes,” agreed Aunt Hilda, “but not to volunteer information.”
“I didn’t volunteer; I was debriefed. Squeaky asked me about the ride we gave his boss; I tried to be vague. Squeaky took a photo from his pocket. ‘The Governor tells me this was taken this afternoon.’ Deety, it was the pic you took of the Thames and the Tower.
“I shortly started giving him a full account rather than have it dragged out. The Governor had told him the works; Squeaky was comparing my version with Bertie’s, looking for holes in a yarn most easily explained by hypnosis, delirium tremens, insanity, or fancy lying. Since no two witnesses exhibit any of these in the same way they can be used as truth tests. Contrariwise, two witnesses who tell exactly the same story are lying. I assume that Bertie and I differed enough to be credible.”
I asked my husband, “Zebadiah, did you explain six-dimensional space to him?”
Zebadiah looked pained. “How could I, when I can’t explain it to me? Anyhow, he’s looking forward eagerly to the ride Captain Sharpie promised him.”
“Oh, dear! Zebbie, will you take a note to him?”
“Captain, we are not coming back after we drop you. I’ll be breaking a date with him, too. Either before or after whatever time suits you, he’s planning to give me – and anyone else who wants to go – a ride to see the vermin. ‘Black Hats.’ Fake rangers.”
(I do wish the world would not wobble!)
Pop said, “Zeb, spill it! Quit stalling.”
“Shut up and listen. Squeaky showed me a scrapbook. Dull as a scrapbook usually is until we came across a page of ‘Black Hats.’ Deety, you would have been proud of me -“
“I am proud of you,” I answered.
” – because I didn’t scream or faint, I showed no special interest. I just said, ‘God in Heaven, Squeaky, those are the horrors that chased us off Earth! You’ve got ’em here?'”
“‘No special interest.'”
“I didn’t climb the drapes. I merely said, ‘Or have you managed to exterminate them?’
“The discussion became confused, as they don’t kill them; they put them to work. Squeaky had to repress amusement at the notion that wogs could be dangerous. He glanced at his watch and said, ‘Come, I’ll show you. Ordinarily we don’t allow wogs in town. But this old fellow takes care of the Governor’s gardens and may not yet have been returned to the pens for the night.’ He led me to a balcony. Squeaky looked down and said, ‘Too late, I’m afraid. No, there it is – Hooly! Chop, chop!’ – and again I didn’t faint. Hooly ran toward us, with a gait I can’t describe, stopped abruptly, threw an open-palm salute and held it. ‘Private Hooly reports!’
“Squeaky let him stand there. ‘This wog,’ he told me, ‘is the most intelligent of the herd. It knows almost a hundred words. Can make simple sentences. As intelligent as a dog. And it can be trusted not to eat the flowers.’
“‘Herbivorous?’ says I, showing off my book-larnin’. ‘Oh, no,’ he tells me, ‘omnivorous. We hunt wild ones to provide the good wogs with a change in diet and, of course, when we slaughter overage wogs, that provides more ration.’
“That’s enough for one lesson, children. Pleasant dreams. Tomorrow the Brigadier will have a roadable big enough for all of us to take us out to meet the Martian natives aka wogs aka ‘Black Hats’ aka vermin – unless that interferes with the ride you aren’t going to give him, in which case he will swap the times around with the visit to the wogs we aren’t going to make. And that, Jake, is the reason I asked the Captain for a family conference. I already knew that artificial isotopes are far beyond this culture – not alone from the ride this afternoon but because I ask questions myself. Squeaky has a knowledge of chemistry about the pre-nuclear level and a detailed knowledge of explosives that one expects of a pro. But to Squeaky atoms are the smallest divisions of mass, and ‘heavy water’ is a meaningless phrase.
“So I knew we would be here just to get Sharpie some clothes and to recharge my packs – since they do have D.C. power. Then I found we had stumbled onto the home of the vermin – and at that point my back didn’t ache at the idea of cranking, and I didn’t think that the Captain was that much in a hurry to buy clothes. So I asked the Captain to call us together in Smart Girl. I did not want to put it off even a few minutes because we were scheduled to move into our suite after tea. To leave at once, before we moved in, would save awkward explanations. Jake, did I have reason to ask for emergency conference?”
“If you had told me -“
“Stop! The Captain told you.”
“But she didn’t explain -“
“Jake, you’re hopeless! Captains don’t have to explain. Furthermore she could not because I did not tell anyone until now. The Captain had confidence in my judgment.”
“You could have explained. When Hilda sent you back to get me. I would have come at once.”
“That makes the ninth time you’ve been wrong in twenty minutes -“
I blurted, “Tenth, Zebadiah. I counted.”
Pop gave me his “Et-tu,-Brute” look.
” – tenth without being right once. I could not have explained to you.”
“Merely because of a group of men?”
“Eleventh. I was not sent back to get you – twelfth. I was under orders to tell you that – quote! – ‘We lift in five minutes.’ Tell you that and no more, then turn and leave at once, without discussion. I carried out my orders.”
“You hoped that I would be left behind.”
“Thirteen.”
I butted in again. “Pop, quit making a fool of yourself! Zebadiah asked you an essential question – and you’ve dodged. Captain Auntie, could we have the doors closed? There might be one of them out there – and the guns are locked up.”
“Certainly, Deety. Gay Deceiver, close your doors.”
Pop said, “Deety, I was not aware that I had been dodging. I thought I was conducting a reasonable discussion.”
“Pop, you always think so. But you are reasonable only in mathematics. Zebadiah asked you whether or not, under the circumstances, did he have reason to ask for a conference? You haven’t answered it.”
“If Hilda had not told him not to -“
“Pop! Answer that question or I will never speak to you again in my life!”
My husband said, “Deety, Deety! Don’t make threats.”
“My husband, I never make threats, either. Pop knows it.”
Pop took a deep breath. “Zeb, under the circumstances you have described, you were justified in asking the Captain for an immediate private conference.”
I let out my breath. “Thanks, Pop.”
“I did it for myself, Deety. Hilda? Captain?”
“What is it, Jacob?”
“I should have gone with you at once when you first asked me to.”
“Thank you, Jacob. But I did not ‘ask’ you; I ordered you. True, it was phrased as a request… but orders of a commanding officer are customarily phrased as requests – a polite protocol. You explained this custom to me yourself. Although I already knew it.” Aunt Hilda turned to look at Zebadiah.
“Chief Pilot, the departure for Minus-J is postponed until late tomorrow. I will give you the time after I have consulted the Brigadier. I want to see one of those vermin, alive, photograph it stereo and cinema, and, if possible, dissect one. Since I intend to remain overnight, I hope to pick up clothes for MinusJ, too – but the reasons for delay are to learn more about vermin and to carry out my commitment to Brigadier Hird-Jones.”
Aunt Hilda paused, continued: “All hands, special orders. Do not remove anything from the car that you cannot afford to abandon. This car may lift on five minutes’ warning even in the middle of the night. You should keep close to me unless you have a guarantee from me of longer time. Tonight I will sleep in the car. If we lift in the night, I will send word to Princess Suite. Zebbie, I will retain the captaincy until we ground on Minus-J. Schedule: Dinner tonight is eight-thirty pip emma local time, about three hours hence. Black tie for gentlemen. Deety suggests that we wear what we wore our wedding night; she has our outfits packed together. The Brigadier will send someone to Princess Suite shortly after eight local to escort us to a reception. I will settle tomorrow’s schedule with him. Jacob, I will slip down to the car after the House is quiet. If someone sees me, I will be running down for a toothbrush. Questions?”
“Captain?” said Pop.
“Copilot.”
“Hilda, must you sleep in the car?”
“Jacob, ’twere best done quickly!”
“I’m begging you.”
“You want me to be your whore one last time? That’s not too much to ask… since you were willing to marry me knowing my thoroughly tarnished past. Yes, Jacob.”
“No, no, no! I want you to sleep in my arms – that’s all I ask.”
“Only that? We can discuss it after we go to bed. All hands, prepare for space. Report!”

I splashed the Hillbilly and giggled. “Cap’n Auntie chum, that flatters me more than anything else you could ever say. While I can’t imagine needing a jigger – if I did – or if I needed any sort of help and it took one who loves me no matter what, you know to whom I would turn. The one who loves me even when I’m bad. Who’s that?”
“Thank you, Deety. We love and trust each other.”
“Now tell me – Did you ever have any intention of sleeping tonight in the car?”
She pulled the chain again. Under that racket she said into my ear, “Deety doll, I never had any intention of sleeping tonight.”

Chapter XXVIII

“He’s too fat.”

Zeb:
Sharpie sat on the Governor’s right with my wife on his left, which gave Jake and me the privilege of sharing Lady Herbert, a loud shout away. The space was filled with mess jackets, dinner coats, and wives in their best. We each had one footman to insure that we did not starve; this platoon was bossed by a butler as impressive as the Pope, who was aided by a squad of noncom butlers. Female servants rushed in and out to serving tables. His Supremacy the Butler took it from there but used his hands only in offering splashes of wine to the Governor to taste and approve.
All were in livery – decorated with the Broad Arrow. The British colony consisted of a) wogs, b) transportees, c) discharged transportees, d) officers and enlisted men, e) civil servants, and f) spouses and dependents. I know even less about the Russian colony. Military and serfs, I think.
The ladies were in Victorian high-style dowdiness, which made Deety and Sharpie birds of paradise among crows. Jump suit and sailor pants had shocked people at tea. But at dinner – Deety wore the velvet wrap she had the night we eloped; Sharpie wore her sunset-shade mink cape; Jake and I unveiled them on the grand staircase leading down to the reception hall. Naw, we didn’t rehearse; we were mysterious strangers, guests of the Governor General and His Lady, so all eyes were upon us. Maids, hurrying up, met us there to take our ladies’ wraps.
I had questioned the propriety of house guests coming downstairs in wraps. Sharpie had answered, “Utterly correct, Zebbie – because I set the style. I did so this afternoon; I shall until we leave.” I shut up; Sharpie has infallible instinct for upstaging.
Have I mentioned how Sharpie and Deety were dressed at Sharpie’s party? They practically weren’t. I wish I had had that hall bugged to record the gasps when Jake and I uncovered our prizes.
These two had last been seen at tea, one in a jump suit, the other in an outfit that looked donated by the Salvation Army, with no makeup. We had been to our suite before tea only for a hasty wash.
But now – Sharpie did Deety’s hair; Deety did Sharpie’s; Sharpie styled both faces, including too much lipstick, which Deety doesn’t often wear. I asked Sharpie if she knew the history and significance of lipstick. She answered, “Certainly do, Zebbie. Don’t bother us.” She went on making Deety beautiful. Deety is beautiful but doesn’t know it because her features have that simple regularity favored by Praxiteles.
Having put too much lipstick on Deety, Sharpie removed some, then carried her makeup onto her breasts so that it disappeared under the dress. Which is pretty far because they saved material on that dress at the top in order to give it a full, floor-length skirt. You can’t quite see her nipples-in the flesh I mean; they generally show through her clothes, always when she’s happy – because Deety stands tall. Her mother had told her, “Deety, if a woman is tall, the answer is to look at least three centimeters taller than you are.”
Deety always believed her mother; she stands tall, sits straight; she never leans or slouches; she can get away with that dress by half a centimeter. I’m not sure of the material but the color is the shade of green that goes best with strawberry hair. That dress, her height, long legs, broad shoulders, a waist two sizes too small setting off breasts two sizes too big – the combo could get her a job as a show girl.
When Sharpie finished gilding Deety I couldn’t see that she had been made up at all… but knew durn well that she did not look the way she had before. Sharpie picked her jewelry, too – sparingly, as Deety had all her pretties with her, her own and those that had belonged to her mother. Sharpie based it on an emerald-and-pearl neckpiece, plus a matching pin and ring.
As for Sharpie, twice my darling’s age and half as big, restraint was not what she used. The central diamond of her necklace was smaller than the Star of Africa.
She wore other diamonds here and there.
Here is something I don’t understand. Sharpie is underprivileged in mammary glands. I know she was not wearing cheaters as I returned to get my tie tied just as Deety was about to lower it onto her. No bra, no underwear. But when that dress was fastened, Sharpie had tits – little ones but big enough for her size. Stuffing built into the dress? Nope. I went out of my way to check.
Is that why some couturiers get such high prices?
Still… the Captain looks best in her skin.
So we uncovered these confections and gave the British colony, male, female, and the others, something to talk about for months.
I can’t say the English ladies were pleased. Their men gravitated toward our darlings like iron filings toward a magnet. However, Betty, Lady Herbert, is sweet all through. She rushed toward us (a bow wave of juniors getting out of her way), stopped short, looked only at our ladies, and said with the delight of a child at Christmas: “Oh, how beautiful you are!” and clapped her hands.
Her voice projected against dead silence, then conversation resumed. Lady Herbert took them, an arm around each, and toured the hall (busting up a receiving line). Brigadier Hird-Jones rolled with the punch, gathered in Jake and me, made sure we met those who had not been at tea.
Shortly before dinner a colonel said to me, “Oh, I say, is it true that the tiny beauty is in command of your ship?”
“Quite true. Best commanding officer I’ve ever had.”
“Haw. Astounding. Fascinating. The taller girl, the strawberry blonde – introduced simply as ‘Mrs. Carter.’ She’s part of your ship’s company. Yes?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Astrogator and second-in-command. Doctor D. T. Burroughs Carter, my wife.”
“Well! My congratulations, sir.”
“Thank you.”
“I say, Carter, would it be rude of me to ask why the ladies have the senior posts while you and Doctor Burroughs appear to be junior? Or am I intruding?”
“Not at all, Colonel. We each do what we do best. Mrs. Burroughs is not only best as commander; she is also best cook. While we take turns at cooking, I’ll happily volunteer as scullery maid if it will persuade the Captain to cook.”
“Amazing. Could you use a colonel of lancers about to retire? I’m a wonderful scullery maid.”

The dinner was excellent (Irish chef, transported for shooting his landlord) and Lady Herbert was delightful, even though she drank her dinner and her words became increasingly difficult to understand. But any answer would do as long as it was friendly. Jake displayed the charm he can when he bothers and kept her laughing.
One thing marred it. Lady Herbert started to slump and nursing sisters appeared and took her away. What is protocol for this?
I checked Hilda and the Governor; they didn’t seem to see it. I glanced at Hird-Jones; the Brigadier did not seem to see it – but Squeaky sees everything. Ergo: no member of the colony could “see” it.
Someone else gathered the ladies while the gentlemen remained for port and cigars. While we were standing as the ladies left, Hird-Jones leaned close: “Your captain has asked me to tell you that the Governor invites you to join them later in his study.”
I tasted the port, lit the cigar (I don’t smoke – fake it when polite) when the Brigadier caught my eye and said, “Now.” Bertie had left, leaving a stooge, a wit who had them all laughing – that colonel of lancers.
When Jake and I came in, Deety and Hilda were there, with a large man, tall as I am and heavier – Major General Moresby, chief of staff. Bertie stood while waving us to chairs. “Thanks for coming, gentlemen. We are settling tomorrow’s schedule and your captain prefers to have you present.”
The Governor reached behind him, moved out a globe of Mars. “Captain, I think I have marked the places we visited yesterday.”
“Deety, please check it,” Sharpie directed.
My darling looked it over. “The Russian settlements extended almost one hundred fifty kilometers farther east than this borderline shows – ninety-one English miles, seventy-nine nautical miles – call it two and a half degrees.”
“Impossible!” (The bulky Major General – )
Deety shrugged. “Might be a few miles more; all we took were spot checks.”
Jake said, “General Moresby, you had better believe it.”
Bertie stepped in with: “Is that the only discrepancy, Doctor Deety?”
“One more. But there is something I want to ask about. May I borrow a marking pen? Grease pencil?”
Bertie found one; she placed three bingoes in an equilateral triangle, well detached from both zones. “What are these, sir? This one is a village, the other two are large farms. But we did not determine nationality.”
Bertie looked at her marks. “Not ours. Moresby, how long ago did we reconnoitre that area?”
“There are no Russians there! She’s doing it by memory. She’s mistaken.”
I said, “Moresby, I’ll bet my wife’s marks are accurate within two kilometers. How high do you want to go? What is a pound worth here in gold?”
Bertie said, “Please, gentlemen – wagers another time. What was the other error, Astrogator Deety?”
“Our touchdown point. Where we tangled with the Russians. Your memory is off by many degrees. Should be here.”
“Moresby?”
“Governor, that is impossible. Either they did not land there or they had trouble with Russians somewhere else.”
Deety shrugged. “Governor, I have no interest in arguing. Our time of arrival at ‘Touchdown’ just after dawn day before yesterday was fourteen-oh-six in the afternoon Windsor City local time. Six past two pip emma. You saw the remains of that ornithopter today. What did shadows and height of the sun tell you as to local time there, and what does that tell you about longitude from here?” She added, “With one degree of longitude being four minutes of local time difference, you can treat one minute of arc as equal to one kilometer and measure it on this globe. The errors will be smaller than your own error in estimate of local time.”
“Astrogator, I’m not good at this sort of problem. But it was about eight-thirty in the morning where we saw the burned ornithopter.”
“That’s right, Governor. We’ll lay that out as kilometers and see how close it comes to my mark.”
Moresby objected, “But that globe is scaled in miles!”
Deety looked back at Bertie with a half smile, an expression that said wordlessly: (He’s your boy, Bertie. Not mine.)
Bertie said testily, “Moresby, have you never worked with a French ordnance map?”
I’m not as tolerant as Deety. “Multiply by one-point-six-oh-nine.”
“Thanks but we will assume that the Astrogator is correct. Moresby, reconnaissance will cover two areas. Captain, how many spot checks can be made per hour?”
“Just a moment!” Captain Sharpie interrupted. “Has this discussion been directed at the ride I promised Brigadier Hird-Jones?”
“I’m sorry, Ma’am. Wasn’t that clear?”
“No, I thought you were telling General Moresby what you saw today. Isn’t the Brigadier available? I want to settle the time with him.”
Moresby answered, “Madam, that has been changed. I’m taking his place.”
Sharpie looked at Moresby as if he were a side of beef she was about to condemn. “Governor, I do not recall offering this person a ride. Nor has the Brigadier told me that he is not going.”
“Moresby, didn’t you speak to Hird-Jones?”
“Certainly I did, sir. I dislike to tell you but he was not cooperative. I had to remind him that there was rank involved.”
I looked around for somewhere to hide. But Sharpie did not explode. She said sweetly, “Certainly there is, Major General Bores-me. My rank. I am commanding; you are not.” She turned to Bertie. “Governor, I may offer other rides after I keep my promise to the Brigadier. But not to this person. He’s too fat.”
“What! I weigh only seventeen stone – trim for a man with my height and big bones.” Moresby added, “Homeside weight, of course. Only ninety pounds here. Light on my feet. Madam, I resent that.”
“Too fat,” Sharpie repeated. “Bertie, you remember how tightly we were packed yesterday. But even if Bores-me did not have buttocks like sofa cushions, he’s much too fat between the ears. He can’t enter my yacht.”
“Very well, Captain. Moresby, please have Hird-Jones report to me at once.”
“But -“
“Dismissed.”
As the door closed, the Governor said, “Hilda, my humblest apologies. Moresby told me that it was all arranged… which meant to me that he had seen you and Squeaky and arranged the exchange. Moresby hasn’t been here long; I’m still learning his quirks. No excuse, Captain. But I offer it in extenuation.”
“Let’s forget it, Bertie. You used ‘reconnaissance’ where I would have said ‘joy ride.’ ‘Reconnaissance’ is a military term. Did you use it as such?”
“I did.”
“Gay Deceiver is a private yacht and I am a civilian master.” She looked at me. “Chief Pilot, will you advise me?”
“Captain, if we overfly territory for the purpose of reconnaissance, the act is espionage.”
“Governor, is this room secure?”
“Hilda – Captain, in what way?”
“Is it soundproof and are there microphone pickups?”
“It is soundproof when I close that second door. There is one microphone. I control it with a switch under the rug – right here.”
“Will you not only switch it off but disconnect it? So that it cannot be switched on by accident.”
“If that is your wish. I could be lying. Other microphones.”
“It’s accidental recording I want to avoid. Bertie, I wouldn’t trust Moresby as far as I could throw him. I have learned to trust you. Tell me why you need to reconnoitre?”
“I’m not certain.”
“Reconnaissance is to learn something you are not certain about. Something that can be seen from Gay Deceiver – but what?”
“Uh… will you all swear to secrecy?”
“Hilda -“
“Not now, Jacob. Governor, if you don’t want to trust us, tell us to leave!”
Smythe-Carstairs had been standing since turning the rug to remove the switch. He looked down at Hilda and smiled. “Captain, you are an unusually small woman… and the toughest man I’ve dealt with in many a year. The situation is this: The Russians have sent another ultimatum. We have never worried about Russians as we settled halfway around the planet from them and logistics here are almost impossible. No oceans. No navigable streams. Some canals if one enjoys suicide. Both sides have attempted to raise horses. They don’t live long, they don’t reproduce.
“Both sides have ornithopters. But they can’t carry enough or fly far enough. I was startled when you said that they had given you trouble where you had first touched down – and proved it by showing me wreckage of a ‘thopter.
“Any logistics problem can be solved if you use enough men, enough time. Those Russian craft must have, behind them, stockpiles about every fifty miles. If they have the same continuing this way, when they get here, they will wipe us out.”
“Is it that bad?” I inquired. Sharpie said, “Governor, our Chief Pilot is the only one of us with combat experience.”
“Yes,” agreed Jake with a wry smile, “I was awarded rank in lieu of combat. I signed papers.”
Bertie gave the same mirthless smile. “Welcome to the lodge. Twenty years since I last heard a bullet say ‘wheat!’ Now I may be about to lose my last battle. Friends, my rank states that I am qualified to command an army corps… but I have possibly one platoon who will stand and die.”
Jake said, “Governor, this city must be two hundred thousand people.”
“More than that, Jake. Over ninety-nine percent are convicts or discharged convicts or their wives and children. Do you imagine that they are loyal to me? Even if they were, they are neither trained nor armed.
“I have a nominal regiment, a battalion in numbers – and a platoon in strength. Friends, my troops, officers and men, and my civil servants, are, with few exceptions, transportees quite as much as the convicts. Example: An officer with a court staring him in the face can often get the charges dropped by volunteering for Mars. I don’t get murderers. What I do get is worse… for me. The mess treasurer who dips into mess funds because he has a ‘sure thing’ at a racing meet. The – Oh, the devil take it! I don’t get villains; I get weaklings. There are a few good ones. Hird-Jones. Young fellow named Bean. Two old sergeants whose only shortcomings are that one had two wives and, while the other had only one, she wasn’t his. If the Russians get here, they’ll kill our wogs – they don’t domesticate them; they hunt and eat them – they’ll kill anyone in uniform… and transportees will learn that being a serf is worse than being a free man not on the planet of his choice. Squeaky! Where have you been?”
“In the card room, sir. First table to the right.”
“So? How long ago did you get my message?”
“About twenty seconds ago, sir.”
“Hm! How long have you been in the card room?”
“A bit over an hour.”
“I see. Bolt the outer door, close the inner door, sit down.”
Twenty minutes later Sharpie was asking, “Deety, what time is sunrise here?” She indicated a point 30° east of the western boundary of the westernmost of the two loci Bertie wanted investigated.
“In about twenty minutes. Shall I have Gay check it?”
“No. Sunset over here?”
“More leeway there. One hour fifty-seven minutes.”
“Very well. Zeb, those zeroed packs?”
“Being charged, they told me. Ready in the morning.”
“Good. Squeaky, if I get you to bed by oh-two-hundred hours could you take us to the fields about eleven-hundred hours?”
“Oh-eight-hundred, if you wish, Captain Hilda.”
“I don’t wish. This job requires sunlight, so we will work whatever it takes. I intend to sleep late. Bertie, would your kitchen service extend to breakfast in bed about ten ack emma?”
“Tell the night maid. The sideboard in your dining room will be loaded and steaming whenever you say and the day maid will be delighted to bring you a tray in bed.”
“Heavenly! All hands and Brigadier Hird-Jones: Lift in thirty-nine minutes. Car doors open five minutes before that. Questions?”
“Just a comment. I’ll fetch sandwiches.”
“Thank you, Squeaky! Bertie.”
“Eh? Ma’am!”
“Deety and I expect to be kissed good-bye… in case something goes wrong.”

Chapter XXIX

” – we place no faith in princes.”

Deety:
We had a busy night. I had Gay display bingo dots for every stop we made – then circles around any that were supply dumps.
There were indeed supply dumps!
I spent the whole trip thinking: Where would I be if I were a supply dump? Where would ‘thopters have to land? Where could they get more water? Squeaky, Hilda, Pop, Zebadiah – and possibly Gay – were thinking the same thing.
We got back at half after one, the job done. The Hillbilly turned the results over to Squeaky and we went to bed.
Next morning at eleven our “roadable” arrived – without Squeaky. He sent an apologetic note saying that Lieutenant Bean knew what we expected and would add anything we asked for.
Captain Auntie had not taken breakfast in bed. I woke about nine local, found her at work – packing her dress clothes and Pop’s back into plastic pillow covers, then into a borrowed portmanteau. Our fresh laundry, given to us by the night maid on our return, was in another piece of borrowed luggage.
The Hillbilly was on her knees in our drawing room. She looked up, smiled and said, “Good morning. Better slide into your jump suit, dear; maids come in and out rather casually.”
“Doesn’t bother me, I’ve been caught twice already -“
“But it bothers them. Not kind, dear, with servants. Especially with involuntary servants. They’ll be in to load the sideboard any moment. Will you fetch yours and Zebbie’s dress clothes here? I’ll pack for you.”
“I’ll pack ’em, thanks. I was thinking about sliding back into bed with a nice warm man but your mention of food changed my mind. Hillbilly, what’s the rush?”
“Deety, I’m carrying out my own orders. When I brush my teeth after breakfast, the toothbrush goes into my purse. As for the rush, our husbands will wake soon. I have found that it is more practical to present a man with a fait accompli than a discussion.”
“I hear you three times, doll baby. When they get up, they’ll want to eat. When our roadable shows up, they’ll be sitting over second cups of coffee. Then they’ll say, ‘We’ll do it when we come back. Mustn’t keep the Brigadier waiting.’ Okay, I’ll grab our gear and we’ll sneak it out before they wake. I’ll carry the heavy ones.”
“We are not permitted to carry anything, Deety. But the place is swarming with maids. You sound much married.”
“Five years’ practice on Pop. But, Hillbilly, even Pop is easy to handle if you think ahead.”
“I’m learning. Deety, what shall we do about the maids?”
“Huh?”
“In the days when servants were common, it was polite for house guests to tip servants who served them personally. But how, Deety? I have two twenty-five-newdollar bills in the lining of my purse. Waste paper.”
“Pop and Zebadiah have gold. I know exactly because it was mass enough that I had to figure it into the loading, mass and moment arm. Here’s a giggle. These misers we married had each squirreled away the same weight of gold to four significant figures. So maids are no problem if you know how much to tip – I don’t. We’ll be buying local money today to pay for a number of things.”

“Leftenant” Bean – or “Brian” – is a delightful fuzzy puppy and a volunteer in order to have served “Beyond the Sky.” He managed to call me “Deety” and Zebadiah “Zeb” when invited, but he could not bring himself to shift from “Captain Burroughs” to “Hilda” – “Captain Hilda” was as far as he would go, and Pop was “Professor.”
He was pleased that we liked his “roadable.” You wouldn’t believe it! A large, wooden flatbed wagon with an upright steam engine in back; a trailer with cordwood; a sailing-ship’s wheel in front of the engine; this controlled the front wheels by ropes that ran underneath. Midway was a luggage pen, then in front were four benches, for twelve to sixteen people.
With a crew of five!
Engine driver, fireman, conductor, and two steersmen –
The conductor sat on a high perch braced to the pen and told the others what to do and occasionally rang a bell or blew a whistle. The bell told other traffic to get out of the way; the whistle warned that the vehicle was about to start or stop. There was much traffic but few “roadables” – most common were pedalled tricycles, for passengers and freight. Large versions had as many as a dozen men pedalling at once.
“I daresay you know,” said Brian, “that we have not been able to raise horses. We haven’t given up – we will develop a breed that will prosper here. But once we have horses, this will, I venture to predict, become a proper colony – and not just a place to send reformable evildoers and to obtain raw pharmaceuticals.”
“Pharmaceuticals?”
“Oh, definitely! The thing that makes the colony self-supporting. I daresay the descendants of these convicts will be wealthy. I will show you the fields – all in the weed – a cant word for Cannabis Magnifica Martia – except acreage for food crops. Brigadier Hird-Jones suggested Norfolk Plantation.” He smiled. “Shall we?”
“Just a moment,” Aunt Hilda said. “If I understood the Brigadier’s note, we can vary the program?”
“Captain Hilda, the carriage and I are at your disposal as long as you wish. My orders and my pleasure.”
“Brian, I have clothing being made up. I was told that sewing would continue through the night. Where should we go to inquire?”
“Here and now. I fancy I saw a package being delivered while we’ve been chatting; it could be yours. It would go to the chief housekeeper, who would have it placed in your digs – the Princess Suite, is it not?”
“Yes. Brian, I’ll slip upstairs and see.”
“Please, no!” Brian made a small gesture; a private soldier appeared out of nowhere. “Smathers, my greetings to Mrs. Digby. Has a package arrived for Captain Burroughs?”
“Sir!”
“Hold it! Brian, if it has arrived, I want it fetched here.”
I could see the look in Brian’s eye that Pop gets just before he starts demanding explanations for female “unreasonable” behavior. But Brian simply added, “If the package has arrived, tell Mrs. Digby that it must be delivered here at once. Double time, so to speak.”
“Sir!” The private stomped an about-face and broke into a run. Hilda said, “Thank you, Brian. If I place it in our craft, it is one less detail to remember. Your kindness eases my mind.”
“A pleasure, Captain Hilda.”
“Hilda, that clothing is not yet paid for.”
“Oh, dear! You are right, Jacob. Leftenant, where does one exchange gold for local money? Do you know the rate of exchange? In grams?”
“Or in Troy ounces,” I added.
Brian behaved as if he had not heard us. He turned toward his “roadable.” “Parkins! Take a turn around the circle! When you return, I want that steam up high. So that we won’t creep in starting.”
“Roight, sir.” The wagon moved off, at a headlong slow walk.
When no one else was in earshot Brian said quietly, “I missed what you Were saying because of engine noise. But let me mention in passing that Possession of gold by individuals is not permitted so I-am-happy-to-learn-that-you-have-none,” he said, not letting himself be interrupted. “Let me add,” he went on, “that since I handle secret and most-secret despatches, I know things that I don’t know, if I make my meaning clear. For example, I am grateful that you four were willing to lose sleep last night. Others feel strong obligations to such good friends. The Brigadier mentioned that you might have purchases to make or bills to pay. I was instructed to charge anything you need or want – or fancy – to the Imperial Household, signing his name and appending my signature.”
“Oh, that’s most unfair!”
“Truly, Captain? I fancy that those in authority will find something to add until you feel that you have been treated generously.”
“That’s not what she means, son,” put in Pop. “‘Unfair’ in the opposite direction. We pay for what we get.”
Brian lost his smile. “May I suggest that the Professor discuss that with the Brigadier? I would find it extremely embarrassing to have to report to the Brigadier that I was unable to carry out his orders.”
“Captain.”
“What, Deety?”
“I am required to advise you.”
“Advise away, my dear. I see my packages coming.”
“Captain Auntie, you’ve got a bear by the tail. Let go.”
The Hillbilly grinned and stuck out her tongue at me, then turned to Brian. “The Brigadier’s thoughtful arrangements are appreciated. We accept.”
It was still a few minutes before we left, as it turned out that Zebadiah’s power packs were ready, in the hands of the Household engineer. At last Hilda’s clothes and the power packs were in Gay; we boarded the char-à-banc, and whizzed away at 10 km/hr. “Norfolk Plantation, Captain Hilda?”
“Brian, at what time did you breakfast?”
“Oh, that’s not important, Ma’am.”
“Answer my question.”
“At oh-seven-hundred hours, Captain.”
“So I suspected. You eat at Imperial House?”
“Oh, no, Captain Hilda, only the most senior of the Governor’s official family eat there. I eat at the officers’ club.”
“I see. We’ll see wogs last. I am told there is a commissary. Is it open to us?”
“Captain Hilda, everything is open to you.”
“I must buy supplies. Then I wish to go to the best restaurant in Windsor City and watch you eat a proper luncheon; we ate breakfast three hours later than you did.”
“But I’m hungry,” said my husband. “I’m a growing boy.”
“Poor Zebbie.”

There was not much to buy that would keep. I bought a tin of Huntley & Palmer’s biscuits and quite a lot of Dutch chocolate – quick energy for growing boys – and tightly packaged staples.
Brian had us driven to that restaurant just past noon. I was glad that Aunt Hilda had decided to get everything else done before we went to look at vermin. Even so, I did not have much appetite – until I decided to stand up and forthrightly turn coward. Not look at vermin! Cui bono? Aunt Hilda was the expert.
That restored my appetite. We stopped across the parade ground from Imperial House. We twigged in this order – Zebadiah, Pop, me, Aunt Hilda – that it was the officers’ club. She was several meters inside when she stopped. “Brian, what are we doing here?”
“The Captain said ‘ – the best restaurant – ‘. The club’s chef was executive chef at Claridge’s until he ran into misfortune. Don’t look at me that way, Captain Hilda; the Brigadier picks up the chit; it’s charged against ‘official visitors’ and winds up in London against H.I.M.’s Civil List. Believe me, His Majesty gets paid more than leftenants, or even brigadiers.”
But the president of the mess signed the chit – a colonel who told the Hillbilly that he was buying her lunch because he wanted to ship with us as scullery maid.

I was telling Aunt Hilda that I would skip vermin viewing, thank you, when I did. One. Then six. Then a whole field of them. I was explaining to God that I didn’t like this dream so please let me wake up when Brian had the conductor halt the contraption and I saw that there were men in that field, too. The men carried whips; vermin were muzzled. This one vermin – well, “wog” – this wog had managed to pull its muzzle aside and was stuffing this weedy plant into its mouth… when a whip cracked across its naked back.
It cried.
The field on the other side of the road was not being worked, so I stared at it, After a while I heard Brian say, “Captain Hilda, you are serious, really?”
“Didn’t the Brigadier authorize it?”
“Ah, yes. I thought he was pulling my leg. Very well, Ma’am.”
I had to see what this was all about… and discovered that muzzled vermin, afraid of men with whips, weren’t frightening; they were merely ugly. Aunt Hilda was taking pictures, movies and stereo. Brian was talking to a man dressed like any farmer except for the Broad Arrow.
Brian turned and said, “Captain Hilda, the foreman asks that you point out the wog you want to dissect.”
Aunt Hilda answered, “There has been a mistake.”
“Ma’am? You don’t want to dissect a wog?”
“Leftenant, I was told that one or more died or was slaughtered each day. I want to dissect a dead body, in an appropriate place, with surgical instruments and other aids. I have no wish to have one of these poor creatures killed.”
We left shortly. Brian said, “Of the two, the abattoir and the infirmary, I suggest the latter. The veterinarian is a former Harley Street specialist. By the bye, there is no case of humans contracting disease from these brutes. So the infirmary isn’t dangerous, just, ah, unpleasant.”
We went to the wog hospital. I did not go inside. Shortly Pop came out, looking green. He sat beside me and smiled wanly. “Deety, the Captain ordered me outside for fresh air – and I didn’t argue. Aren’t you proud of me?”
I told him that I’m always proud of my Pop.
A few minutes later Brian and Zebadiah came out, with a message from Hilda that she expected to work at least another hour, possibly longer. “Captain Hilda suggests that I take you for a drive,” Brian reported.
The drive was only as far as the nearest pub; the sillywagon was sent back to wait for the Hillbilly. We waited in the lounge, where Pop and Brian had whisky and splash, and Zebadiah ordered a “shandygaff” – so I did, too. It will never replace the dry martini. I made it last till Aunt Hilda showed up.
Brian asked, “Where now, Captain Hilda?”
“Imperial House. Brian, you’ve been most kind.”
I said, “Cap’n Auntie, did you whittle one to pieces?”
“Not necessary, Deetikins. They’re chimpanzees.”
“You’ve insulted every chimp that ever lived!”
“Deety, these creatures bear the relation to ‘Black Hats’ that a chimpanzee does to a man. The physical resemblance is closer, but the difference in mental power – Doctor Wheatstone removed the brain from a cadaver; that told me all I needed to know. But I got something that may be invaluable. Motion pictures.”
Zebadiah said, “Sharpie, you took motion pictures in the fields.”
“True, Zebbie. But I have with me the Polaroids you took for me at Snug Harbor; some show the splints that creature used to disguise its extra knees and elbows. Doctor Wheatstone used surgical splints to accomplish the same with one of his helpers – a docile and fairly intelligent wog that didn’t object even though it fell down the first time it tried to walk while splinted. But it caught on and managed a stiff-legged walk just like that ranger – and like ‘Brainy’ now that I think about it – then was delighted when Doctor Wheatstone dressed it in trousers and an old jacket. Those pictures will surprise you. No makeup, no plastic surgery, a hastily improvised disguise – from the neck down it looked human.”
When we reached Imperial House, we transferred packages into Gay Deceiver – again were not permitted to carry; Brian told the conductor, the conductor told his crew. We thanked them, thanked Brian as we said good-bye, and Aunt Hilda expressed a hope of seeing him soon and we echoed her – me feeling like a hypocrite.
He saluted and started toward the officers’ club. We headed for the big wide steps. Aunt Hilda said, “Deety, want to share some soap suds?”
“Sure thing!” I agreed.
“Whuffor?” asked Zebadiah. “Sharpie, you didn’t get a spot on you.”
“To remove the psychic stink, Zebbie.”
“Mine isn’t psychic,” I said. “I stink, I do.”
But damn, spit, and dirty socks, we had hardly climbed into that tub when a message arrived, relayed by my husband, saying that the Governor requested us to call at his office at our earliest convenience. “Sharpie hon, let me translate that, based on my eighty years man and boy as flunky to an ambassador. Means Bertie wants to see us five minutes ago.”
I started to climb out; Aunt Hilda stopped me. “I understood it, Zebbie; I speak Officialese, Campusese, and Bureaucratese. But I’ll send a reply in clear English, female idiom. Is a messenger waiting?”
“Yes, a major.”
“A major, eh? That will cost Bertie five extra minutes. Zebbie, I learned before you were born that when someone wants to see me in a hurry, the urgency is almost never mutual. All right, message: The commanding officer of Spacecraft Gay Deceiver sends her compliments to the Governor General and will call on – him at her earliest convenience. Then give the major a message from you to Bertie that you happen to know that I’m taking a bath and that you hope I’ll be ready in twenty minutes but that you wouldn’t wager even money on thirty.”
“Okay. Except that the word should be ‘respects’ not ‘compliments.’ Also, the major emphasized that he wants to see all of us. Want Jake and me to keep Bertie happy until you are ready?” Pop had his head in the door, listening. “We wouldn’t mind.” Pop nodded.
“Zebbie, Zebbie! After four years under my tutelage. Until I know what he wants I can’t concede that he is senior to me. ‘Compliments,’ not ‘respects.’ And no one goes until I do… but thank you both for the offer. Two more things: After giving the major my message, will you please find my clothes, all but Deety’s Keds, and take them to the car? That’s Jacob’s shirt, Deety’s sailor pants, a blue belt, and a blue hair ribbon. In the car you will find new clothes on my seat. In one package should be three jump suits. Please fetch one back.”
Pop said, “Hilda, I’d be glad to run that errand. Run it twice, in fact, as you don’t want to send down what clothes you have until you know that your new clothes fit.”
“Jacob, I want you right here, to scrub our backs and sing for us and keep us amused. If that jump suit does not fit, I may appear in a bath towel sarong. But I plan to appear a minute early to make Bertie happy. Do not tell the major that, Zebbie! Officially it is twenty minutes with luck, thirty minutes more likely, could be an hour, Major; you know how women are. Got it all?”
“Roger Wilco. Sharpie, someday they’ll hang you.”
“They will sentence me to hang but Jacob and you will rescue me. Trot along, dear.” Aunt Hilda started to get out. “Stay there, Deety. I’ll give you three minutes’ warning – two to dry down, one to zip into your jump suit. Which leaves ten minutes to relax.”

The jump suit did fit; the Hillbilly looked cute. We left not a thing in that suite because Aunt Hilda checked it while waiting for Zebadiah. A few items went into my purse or hers. It was eighteen minutes from her message to our arrival at the Governor’s office – and I had had a fifteen-minute tub, comfy if not sybaritic.
Besides Bertie and the Brigadier, that fathead Moresby was there. Aunt Hilda ignored him, so I did. Bertie stood up. “How smart you all look! Did you have a pleasant day?” The poor dear looked dreadful – gaunt, circles under his eyes.
“A perfect day – thanks to you, thanks to the Brigadier, and thanks to a curly lamb named Bean.”
“A fine lad,” Squeaky boomed. “I’ll pass on your word, if I may.” The Brigadier did not look fresh; I decided that neither had been to bed.
Bertie waited until we were seated, then got to business. “Captain Burroughs, what are your plans?”
Aunt Hilda did not answer his question. She glanced toward Major General Moresby, back at Bertie. “We are not in private, Excellency.”
“Hmm – ” Bertie looked unhappy. “Moresby, you are excused.”
“But -“
“Dismissed. You have work to do, I feel sure.”
Moresby swelled up but got up and left. Squeaky bolted the outer door, closed the inner door, while Bertie stood up to lift the rug over his recorder switch. Aunt Hilda said, “Don’t bother, Bertie. Record if you need to. What’s the trouble, old dear? Russians?”
“Yes. Hilda, you four are refugees; yesterday you showed me why. Would you care to remain here? My delegated power is sufficient that I can grant naturalization as fast as I can sign my signature.”
“No, Bertie. But we feel greatly honored.”
“I expected that. Do reconsider it. There are advantages to being a subject of the most powerful monarch in history, in being protected by a flag on which the Sun never sets.”
“No, Bertie.”
“Captain Hilda, I need you and your ship. Because of millions of miles of distance, many months required for a message, I hold de jure viceregal power almost equal to sovereign… and de facto greater in emergency because no Parliament is here. I can recruit foreign troops, arm them, make guarantees to them as if they were British, award the King-Emperor’s commission. I would like to recruit all of you and your ship.”
“No.”
“Commodore for you, Captain for your second-in-command, Commander for your Chief Pilot, Lieutenant Commander for your Copilot. Retirement at full pay once the emergency is over. Return of your purchased ship as a royal gift after the emergency. Compensation for loss or damage.”
“No.”
“One rank higher for each of you?”
“All four of us must be at least one rank senior to Major General Moresby.”
“Hilda! That’s my own rank. Equivalent rank – Vice Admiral.”
“Bertie, you can’t hire us as mercenaries at any rank or pay. That hyperbole was to tell you that we will not place ourselves under your chief of staff. That settled, what can we do to help you?”
“I’m afraid you can’t, since you won’t accept the protection under international law of military status. So I’m forced to cut the knot. Do you understand the right of angary?”
(I thought he said “angry” and wondered.)
“I believe so. Are Great Britain and the Russias at war?”
“No, but there are nuances. Shall I call in my legal officer?”
“Not for me. My own legal officer is here: Doctor Zebadiah Carter, my consultant in international law.”
“Doctor Carter – oh, fiddlesticks! My friend Zeb. Zeb, will you discuss the right of angary?”
“Very well, Governor. One nuance you had in mind was that, in addition to wartime, it applies to national emergency – such as your current one with the Russians.”
“Yes!”
“Angary has changed in application many times but in general it is the right of a sovereign power to seize neutral transport found in its ports or territory, then use same in war or similar emergency. When the emergency is over, seized transport must be returned, fair rentals must be paid, loss or damage requires compensation. It does not apply to goods or chattels, and most especially not to persons. That’s the gist. Do we need your legal officer?”
“I don’t think so. Captain Burroughs?”
“We don’t need him. You intend to requisition my craft?”
“Captain… I must!” Bertie was almost in tears.
“Governor, you are within your legal rights. But have you considered how you will drive it?”
“May I answer that, Governor?”
“Go ahead, Squeaky.”
“Captain Hilda, I have an odd memory. ‘Photographic’ it is called but I remember sounds as automatically. I am sure I can fly every maneuver used last night – that is to say: sufficient for our emergency.”
I was seething. But Aunt Hilda smiled at the Brigadier and said in her sweetest voice: “You’ve been most thoughtful throughout our stay, Squeaky. You are a warm, charming, hospitable, bastardly fink. One who would sell his wife to a Port Saïd pimp. Aside from that you are practically perfect.”
“Doubled and redoubled!” (That was my Pop!) “Later on, Jones, I’ll see you at a time and place of your choosing. Weapons or bare hands.”
“And then I will see you, if Jake leaves anything.” My husband flexed his fingers. “I hope you choose bare hands.”
Bertie interrupted. “I forbid this during this emergency and after it in territory where I am suzerain and while Hird-Jones holds the Sovereign’s commission under my command.”
Aunt Hilda said, “You are legally correct, Bertie. But you will concede that they had provocation.”
“No, Ma’am! Hird-Jones is not at fault. I tried to get you and your crew to fly it on any terms at all. You refused. Hird-Jones may kill himself attempting to fly a strange flyer. If so he will die a hero. He is not what you called him.”
“I don’t think well of you, either, Bertie. You are a thief – stealing our only hope of a future.”
“He certainly is!” I cut in. “Governor, I can whip you – I can kill you, with my bare hands. I’m Black-Belt three ways. Are you going to hide behind your Commission and your self-serving laws?” I dusted my hands together. “Coward. Two cowards, with their chests covered with ribbons boasting about their brave deeds.”
“Astrogator.”
“Captain.”
“Let it drop. Bertie, under right of angary we are entitled to remove our chattels. I insist on a witness so that you will know that we have done nothing to damage the craft. If the Brigadier can drive it, it will be turned over to him in perfect shape. But my jewelry is in our craft and many other things; I must have a witness. You, sir. My stepdaughter can certainly kill you or anyone her size or a bit more than her size, with her bare hands. But I grant you safeconduct. Will you have it in writing?”
Bertie shook his head. “You know I can’t take time to witness. Pick anyone else.”
“I won’t grant safe-conduct to anyone else. Anyone who has not ridden with us would not know how to watch for sabotage. So it must be either you or Hird-Jones… and Hird-Jones would never live to get out of our car. He has three of the deadliest killers in two universes quite annoyed. Angry over angary.”
“Any of you who will not give parole must wait up here.”
“Wait a half, Gov,” my husband drawled. “‘Parole’ applies to prisoners. Captain, this might be a good time to read aloud our safe-conduct from the Governor General. See how many ways this fake ‘officer and gentleman’ has broken his word – and the written guarantees of his sovereign. He has broken all three essential guarantees to all four of us. That’s twelve. Almost a Russian score. Safe-conduct amounting to diplomatic immunity, all of us free to leave at any time, we four never to be separated involuntarily. Now he wants hostages. Pfui!”
“None is broken,” Bertie asserted.
“Liar,” my husband answered.
“All of you are safe here… until the Russians conquer us. I slipped in speaking of parole; you are not prisoners. You all may stay together – living in the Princess Suite if you so choose. If not, in any quarters you choose in territory I control. You are all free to leave at any moment. But you must not approach that requisitioned flyer. Captain, your jewels will be safe. But others will unload the flyer.”
“Bertie -“
“What? Yes… Hilda?”
“Dear, you are both stubborn and stupid. You can’t open the doors of our car, much less drive it. Attempt to force it open and no one will ever drive it. I conceded the legality of the right of angary. But you insist on making it impossible to apply it. Accept my safe-conduct and come witness or there that car sits until the Russians come, while we live in luxury in this palace. You know that ‘the right to leave at any time’ means nothing without our transport. Now, for the last time, will you do it my way… or will you waste the precious minutes of a war crisis trying to open that car by yourself? Make up your mind, this offer will not be repeated. Answer Yes or No… and be damned quick about it!”
Bertie covered his face with his hands. “Hilda, I’ve been up all night. Both Squeaky and I.”
“I know, dear. I knew when we came in. So I must help you make up your mind. Deety, check your purse. Something is missing.”
I hastily checked, wondering what she meant. Then I noticed that a secret pocket that should have been hard was not. “Oh! Do you have it?”
“Yes, Deety.” Aunt Hilda was seated, her choice, so that she had both Bertje and Squeaky in her line of fire – and none of us. “I mentioned three killers. Now you have four facing you… in a soundproofed room with its door bolted from inside.” (I never saw her draw my Skoda gun. But she was holding it on them.) “Bertie, I’m making up your mind for you. You are accepting my safe-conduct. Consider how poor the chances are that anyone would find your bodies in the time it takes us to run down one flight and reach our car.”
Squeaky lunged at Hilda. I tripped him, kicked his left kneecap as he fell, then said, “Don’t move, Fink! My next kick is a killer! Captain, has Bertie come to his senses? Or shall I take him? I hate to kill Bertie. He’s tired and worried and not thinking straight. Then I would have to kill Squeaky. He can’t help his eidetic memory, any more than I can help this clock in my head. Squeaky, did I break your kneecap? Or can you walk if I let you get up?”
“I can walk. You’re fast, Deety.”
“I know. Captain. Plans?”
“Bertie, you are accepting my safe-conduct. We are all going out together, we four around you two, laughing and talking and heading for our car – and if anyone gets close, you two are dead. One of you will get it with this -“
“And the other with this.” (My husband, with his stubby police special – )
“Why, Zebbie! How naughty of you! Jacob, do you have a holdout too?”
“Just this – ” Pop now had his hunting knife.
“Deety?”
“Did have. You’re holding it. But I still have five weapons.”
“Five?”
“Both hands, both feet, and my head. Squeaky, I must frisk you. Don’t wiggle… or I’ll hurt you.” I added, “Stop easing toward your desk, Bertie. You can’t kill four of us before we kill you. Pop, don’t bother with the gun, or trap, or whatever, in Bertie’s desk, Let’s get out of here, laughing and joking, as the Captain ordered. Oh, Squeaky, that didn’t hurt! Captain, shall I let him up?”
“Brigadier Hird-Jones, do you honor the safe-conduct granted to us by your commanding officer?” Aunt Hilda asked.
“Brigadier, I order you to honor it,” Bertie said grimly.
Maybe Squeaky had to catch his breath; he was a touch slow. “Yes, sir.”
Aunt Hilda said, “Thanks, Squeaky. I’m sorry I had to say harsh things to you… but not having muscles I must fight with words. Zebbie, frisk Bertie. But quickly; we leave now. I leave first, on Bertie’s arm. Deety follows, on Squeaky’s arm – you can lean on her if you need to; she’s strong. Help him up, Deety, Jacob and Zebbie trail along behind. Bertie, if anyone gets close to us, or either you or Squeaky try to signal anyone, or if anything is pointed at us – first you two die. Then we four die; that’s inevitable. But we’ll take some with us. What do you think the total may be? Two… and four… then five? Six? A dozen? Or higher?”

It took us forty-seven seconds to the bottom of the steps, thirty-one more to Gay Deceiver, and I aged seventy-eight years. Squeaky did lean on me but I made it look the other way around and he managed to smile and to sing with me: Gaudeamus Igitur. Hilda sang The Bastard King to Bertie which seemed both to shock him and make him laugh. The odd way she held his arm told me that she was prepared to plant 24 poisoned darts in Bertie’s left armpit if anything went sour.
No one bothered us. Bertie returned a dozen or more salutes.
But at Gay Deceiver we ran into a bobble. Four armed soldiers guarded our Smart Girl. By the starboard door was that fathead Moresby, looking smug. As we came close, he saluted, aiming it at Bertie.
Bertie did not return his salute. “What’s the meaning of this?” he said, pointing. Plastered to Gay’s side, bridging the line where her door fairs into her afterbody, was H.I.M.’s Imperial seal.
Moresby answered, “Governor, I understood you perfectly when you told me that I had work to do. Verb. sap., eh?”
Bertie didn’t answer; Moresby continued to hold salute.
“Major General Moresby,” Bertie said so quietly that I could just hear it.
“Sir!”
“Go to your quarters. Send me your sword.”
I thought Fathead was going to melt down the way the Wicked Witch did when Dorothy threw the pail of water over her. He brought down the salute and left, moving quickly.
Everybody acted as if nothing had happened. Hilda said, “Gay Deceiver, open starboard door” – she did and that seal broke. “Bertie, we’re going to need people to carry things. I don’t want our possessions stacked outdoors.”
He looked down at her, surprised. “Is the war over?”
“There never was a war, Bertie. But you tried to push us around, and I don’t push. You requisitioned this craft; it’s legally yours. What I insisted on was that you must witness removal of our chattels. That took coaxing.”
“‘Coaxing’!”
“Some people are harder to coax than others. Squeaky, I’m sorry about your knee. Can you hobble back? Or shall we get you a wheelchair? That knee must be swelling up.”
“I’ll live. Deety, you play rough.”
“Squeaky,” said the Governor General, “slow march back toward the House, grab the first person you see, delegate him to round up a working party. Hilda, will a dozen be enough?”
“Better make it twenty. And about four more armed guards.”
“Twenty and four additional sentries. Once you pass that word, put the senior rating in charge, and climb into a tub of hot water.”
“Cold water.”
“What, Hilda? Cold?”
“Hot is okay if he uses lots of Epsom salts. Otherwise ice-cold water will bring the swelling down faster, even though it’s uncomfortable. But not for long. Ice water numbs pain while it reduces swelling. By morning you’ll be fit. Unless Deety cracked the bone.”
“Oh, I hope not!” I blurted.
“Squeaky, you had better listen to Captain Hilda.”
“I’ll do it. Ice water. Brrrrr!”
“Get on with it. But order that working party.”
“Right away, sir.”
“Bertie, will you follow me?” Hilda went inside. The Governor followed her, started to say something but Hilda cut him off: “Jacob, get out the items forward here while Zebbie keeps inventory as you do. Bertie, I have something for Betty before that mob gets here. Will you help me undog this door or perhaps Deety can do it easier GayDeceiverCloseDoorsGayBounceGayBounceGayBounce. Bertie, take off your clothes.” She held onto a door dog with her left hand, had my little gun aimed at his face.
“Hilda!”
“Captain Hilda, please; I’m in my spacecraft under way. Take off every stitch, Bertie; I’m not as trusting as Zebbie. I assume that you have a holdout he didn’t find. Gay Bounce. Hurry up, Bertie; you’re going to stay in free fall with no Bonine until you are naked. Zebbie, he may require help. Or inducement.”
He required both. But eleven minutes later Bertie was wearing one of Pop’s coveralls and his clothes were abaft the bulkhead. Zebbie did not find a weapon but Aunt Hilda took no chances. At last we were all strapped down, with Bertie between me and the Captain.
Hilda said, “All hands, report readiness for space. Astrogator.”
“Captain Auntie, we are in space.”
“But quite unready. Astrogator.”
“Seat belt fastened. Ready.”
“Chief Pilot.”
“Door seal checked. No loose gear – I stuffed Bertie’s clothes in with the cabin bed clothes. Four charged power packs in reserve. Juice oh-seven-oh. All systems go. Ready.”
“Copilot.”
“Seat belt tight. Continua device ready. Door seal checked. I’d like a Bonine if we’re going to be in free fall long. Ready for space.”
“Astrogator, three antinausea pills – captain, copilot, passenger. Passenger.”
“Oh! Oh, yes! Safety belt tight.”
“Captain states seat belt fastened. Ready for space. Gay Termite.”
It was just sunrise at our streamside “home.” “Aunt Hilda, why did we run through all that rigamarole if we were coming straight here?”
“Deety, when you are captain you will know.”
“Not me. I’m not the captain type.”
She ignored me. “Lieutenant General Smythe-Carstairs, will you give me your unconditional parole until I return you home? On your honor as an officer and a gentleman.”
“Am I going home? I had assumed that I had not long to live.”
“You are going home. And I do have something for Betty. But whether or not you give parole affects other matters. Make up your mind – at once!”
It took him six seconds; Aunt Hilda let him have them. “Parole. Unconditional.”
“I’m surprised, Bertie. You have a tradition against giving parole, do you not?”
“We do indeed, Captain. But I concluded that my only chance of serving my sovereign lay in giving my word. Am I right?”
“Quite right, Bertie. You now have opportunity to persuade me to support you in your crisis. Your King-Emperor is not our prince; we place no faith in princes. We have no reason to love Russians but we spanked the only one who gave us trouble. In what way is the British colony superior to the Russian one? Take your time.”
Aunt Hilda turned her attention to the rest of us. “Standing orders apply: Two at a time, one being armed. Deety and I will cut and wrap sandwiches, make coffee and prepare a snack for growing boys who can’t remember a bounteous luncheon three hours ago. One guard at all times at the car. Bertie, I’m assigning you that duty. You know how to use a rifle?”
Zebadiah said, “You’re arming him?”
“Chief Pilot, I assume that you are questioning my judgment. If you convince me that I am wrong, there will be a new captain even more quickly than I had planned. May I have your reason?”
“Sharpie, I didn’t mean to get your feathers up.”
“Not at all, Zebbie. Why are you surprised that I intend to use Bertie as guard?”
“Ten minutes ago you had me do a skin search to make sure he wasn’t armed. Now you are about to hand him a gun.”
“Ten minutes ago he had not given parole.”
Bertie said hastily, “Zeb is right, Hilda – Captain Hilda; Zeb has no reason to trust me. I don’t want to be a bone of contention!”
I’m still trying to figure out whether Aunt Hilda is more logical than other people or is a complete sophist. She gave Bertie a freeze, looking him up and down. “Smythe-Carstairs, your opinion was neither asked nor wanted.”
Bertie turned pink. “Sorry, Ma’am.”
“Although you were a person of some importance in your own land, you are now something between a prisoner and a nuisance. I am trying to give you the dignity of crew member pro tern. Hold your tongue. Zebbie, what were you going to say?”
“Shucks, if you aren’t afraid to have him with a gun at your back, I’m not. No offense intended, Bertie.”
“None taken, Zeb.”
“Zebbie, please assure yourself that Bertie can handle a rifle, and that he knows what to shoot at and when not to shoot, before you turn the guard over to him. Put the other rifle at the door for bush patrol. Bertie, watch and listen. Gay Deceiver, open your doors.”
Our Smart Girl opened wide. “Gay Deceiver, close your doors.” Gay complied. “Bertie,” Aunt Hilda went on, “you do it.”
Of course he failed – and failed again on other voice programs. The Hillbilly explained that it took me a tedious time with special equipment to cause this autopilot to respond to a particular human voice. “Bertie, go back and explain to Squeaky; make him understand that I saved his life. This car can be driven in three modes. Two Squeaky can’t use at all; the third would kill him as dead as Caesar.”
“Plus a fourth hazard,” added my husband. “Anybody who doesn’t understand the Smart Girl but tries to take her apart to see what makes her tick would find himself scattered over a couple of counties.”
“Booby-trapped, Zebadiah?” I asked. “I hadn’t known it.”
“No. But juice is very unfriendly to anybody who doesn’t understand it.”

“Come and get it!” The snack Aunt Hilda offered was a much-stuffed omelet. “Bertie, place your gun near you, locked. Between bites, you can tell us why your colony is worth defending. By us, I mean. For you, it’s duty.”
“Captain Hilda, I’ve done some soul-searching. I daresay that, in the main, we and the Russians are much the same, prison colonies with military governors. Perhaps, in a hundred years, it won’t matter. Although I see us as morally superior.”
“How, Bertie?”
“A Russian might see this differently. Our transportees are malefactors under our laws – but once here, they are as free as other Englishmen. Oh, they must wear the Broad Arrow until discharged – but at home they would wear it in a grim prison. The Russian prisoners are, if our intelligence is correct, the people they used to send to the Siberian salt mines. Political prisoners. They are serfs but I am told that most of them were not serfs in Russia. Whether they are treated better or worse than serfs in Russia I do not know. But one thing I do know. They work their fields with men; we work ours with wogs.”
“And whip them!” Suddenly I was angry.
We had an argument, Bertie maintaining that the whips were not used unnecessarily, I asserting that I had seen it with my own eyes.
I guess he won, as he told us that they had to muzzle the beasts in weed fields, or they would stuff themselves on it, pass out, wake somewhat, do it again, and starve – but the muzzles were designed to allow them to chew a blade at a time all day long, to keep them happy. “The raw weed is addictive, to wog and man. We won’t allow a man to work in the fields more than three months at a time… and pull him out if he can’t pass the weekly medical tests. As for wogs, Deety – yes, we exploit them. Human beings exploit horses, cattle, sheep, poultry, and other breeds. Are you vegetarian?”
I admitted I was not. “But I don’t want to eat wogs!”
“Nor do we. In Windsor colony wog meat goes only to wogs, and wogs don’t care. In the wild they eat their own dead, kill and eat their aged. Captain Hilda, that’s all the defense I can offer. I admit that it doesn’t sound as strong as I had always believed.”
“Captain, I’d like to put one to Bertie.”
“Jacob, I treasure your thoughts.”
“Bertie, would you polish off the Russians if you could?”
Bertie snorted. “That’s academic, Doctor. I don’t command the force it would take. I can’t set up a string of stockpiles – and wouldn’t know what to do with them if I could; I don’t have the troops or ‘thopters. But I must add: If my King tells me to fight, I will fight.”

Aunt Hilda told Bertie to wash dishes with Pop sent along as guard. As soon as they started down, Aunt Hilda said, “We are going to do it, to a maximum cost of one power pack. Deety, start working on a program stringing together the dumps we located last night.”
“Already have,” I told her. “In my head. Last night. To put me to sleep. You want it preprogrammed? I would rather tell Gay each bounce, I would.”
“Do it your way, hon. The purpose in sending Bertie to wash dishes and Jacob to guard him was to get them out of the way while I rig a frameup. At the end of the coming run, we drop Bertie and bounce… and at that instant I cease to be captain. I want to hold the election now – a one-ballot railroad. I will ask for nominations. Zebbie, you nominate Jacob. Deety, you don’t need to say anything but speak if you wish. If Jacob nominates either of you, don’t argue. I’ll rig it so that Bertie declares the ballots. If you two are with me, the only surprise will be that fourth vote. Three for Jacob, and let’s all write ‘Jacob,’ not ‘Pop’ or ‘Jake,’ and one for the dark horse. Are you with me?”
“Wait a half, Sharpie. Why not give Deety a crack at it?”
“Not me!”
“Deety should have the experience, but, please, Zebbie, not this time. Jacob has given me a dreadful time. Endless insubordination. I want to pass him on to Deety well tenderized. Deety ought not to have to put up with her father second-guessing her decisions – and, if you two help, she won’t have to. I want to give my beloved the goddamndest ‘white mutiny’ ever, one that he will remember with shudders and never again give a skipper any lip.”
“Sounds good,” I agreed, “but I don’t know what a ‘white mutiny’ is.”
“Sweetheart,” my husband told me, “it’s killing him with kindness. He says ‘Frog,’ we hop. Utter and literal obedience.”
“This he won’t like? Pop will love it!”
“So? Would you like to command zombies who never make suggestions and carry out orders literally without a grain of common sense?”

Fifteen minutes later Bertie read off: “‘Jacob’ and this reads ‘Jacob’ and so does this one, that seems to settle it. But here is one, folded: ‘A bunch of smarties, you three. Think I didn’t guess why you sent me down to ride shotgun? Very well, I vote for myself!’ It is signed ‘Jake.’ Madame Speaker, is that valid?”
“Quite. Jacob, my last order will be liftoff after we drop Bertie.”
Bertie said, “Jake, I think congratulations are in order.”
“Pipe down! All hands, prepare for space.”

“A piece of cake,” Bertie called it. We started at the easternmost dump, worked west. Pop out at four klicks and dive, a dry run to size up the target; where wood alcohol was stored, ornithopters on the ground and how arranged… while Gay ululated from intensity six to eight. Frightfulness. I did not let it go up to ten because it wasn’t intended to damage but to send anyone on target scattering.
Zebadiah’s idea: “Captain, I’ve got nothing against Russians. My only purpose is to burn their fuel and their flaphappies to make it difficult to attack our friends – and I don’t mean you big brass, Bertie. I mean the transportee maid who brought us tea this morning, and Brian Bean, and Mr. Wheatstone who was a top surgeon before some fool judge slammed him and is now doing his best for wogs, and the chef at the officers’ club, and five cons who drove that sillywagon, and dozens more who smiled when they could have scowled. I don’t want them killed or enslaved; I want them to have their chance. Governor, England is slapping the Broad Arrow on some of your best potential – you English will live to regret it.”
“You could be right, Zeb,”
“I don’t want to kill Russians, either. Could be most of them are decent blokes. Each strike will be a double run – one pass to scatter ’em, a second to destroy the dump. Captain, if that doesn’t suit you, find another gunner.”
Aunt Hilda said, “Astrogator.”
“Captain.”
“Strike as described by Chief Pilot. Take the conn. Attack.”
At the first target we lingered after the strike bounce. The dry pass did show them running away – they could hear us clear in their bones. Those subsonics are so horrid I keyed Gay to kill the noise at code-word “Bounce” – and did not use it on the strike pass.
Zebadiah made strikes from bearings planned to take out as many ‘thopters as possible while setting fire to fuel.
From four klicks the first strike looked good. The dump was burning, ‘thopters he had hit showed smoke, and one that he had not hit was burning. Splashed by flaming methanol, I suppose.
If that first target was indication, in thirty-four minutes the Russians lost all fuel and about 70% of the deployed flaphappies. I took us up high after the last. “Next stop, Windsor City.”
“I’m taking the conn, Astrogator. Bertie, don’t forget my little ring for Betty.”
“I’ll give it to her in the morning.”
“Good,” Captain Hilda said. “Unbelt, crowd past Jacob, place yourself against the door – feet on deck, chest against door. Jacob, push against the small of his back. Bertie, when the door opens, dive and roll clear.”
They positioned themselves. “Gay Parade Ground Gay Deceiver open starboard door… Gay Deceiver close doors, GayBounce, GayBounce! Jacob, do you relieve me?”
“Beloved, I relieve you. Ten minima H axis transit – and executed. All hands, unbelt.”
I unbuckled with extreme speed and clumsiness, getting Pop in the chin with my foot.
“Deety! Watch where you’re going!”
“I’m sorry, Captain. I’m out of practice with free fall.”
“You’ve been in free fall every day!”
“Yes, Captain. I’ve been in free fall every day, belted down.”
“Pipe down! Hilda, don’t cover the instrument board. Hold onto something. No, not me, damn it. Zeb! Grab something and catch Hilda!”
“Roger Wilco, Captain! Right away!” My husband snagged Aunt Hilda, grabbed a seat belt with his other hand, trapped our captain against the dogs of the bulkhead door with his buttocks. “What now, sir!”
“Get your goddam fanny out of my face!”
“Sorry, sir,” Zebadiah answered humbly while turning and digging an elbow into Pop’s ribs. I closed in from the other side and we had Pop trapped again – ballet and trampoline make a fine background for free fall. Zebadiah went on cheerfully, “What shall we do now, sir?”
Pop didn’t answer. From watching his lips I saw that he was counting backwards, silently, in German. That’s stage three.
Then he said quietly, “Zeb, get into the copilot’s seat and belt down.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Zebadiah did so.
Pop snatched Hilda while hanging onto a dog. “Deety, belt down in the chief pilot’s seat.”
“Roger Wilco, Captain” – I did so.
“My dear, I want you behind Deety. Do you need help?”
“Yes, thank you, Captain; it’s sweet of you to offer.” White mutiny? The Hillbilly is about as helpless as Zebadiah but thinks God created men to pamper women. I’ve heard less reasonable philosophies.
After “helping” Hilda, Pop strapped down in the starboard after seat. “All hands! We have moved clockwise ninety degrees. I am now captain. Hilda, you are astrogator and second-in-command. Deety, you are chief pilot. Zeb, you are copilot. In order of seniority, any questions?”
The Hillbilly said in a small voice, “As second-in-command I am required to advise the Captain -“
“Certain circumstances. Speak up.”
“Captain, I know very little about astrogation.”
“That’s why you have the job. You will seek advice from Deety as needed, both of you seek advice from Zeb when necessary – and if all three of you are stumped, I will tackle it and be responsible for mistakes. No burden, the Captain is always responsible for all mistakes. When in doubt, do not hesitate to consult me.
“Deety, you have not driven this car in atmosphere. But you are a competent, decisive, and skillful driver of duos” – I am, Pop? – you’re years late in saying so – “and we have come this high to give you time to acquaint yourself with it. I placed Zeb by you to coach you and, in time, to report to me that you are fully qualified.” Pop smiled. “Fortunately, should you get into trouble, we have programs that will get you out instantly such as ‘Gay Bounce’ -“
Gay bounced.
Pop did not notice but I had my eye on radar distance since learning that I was responsible. Pop, who invented those safety scrams? Think hard. Hint: One of your offspring.
“Zeb, you know the knobs and scales et cetera of the controls we refer to as the verniers but you have not had time to practice. Now you will practice until you can handle anything, by eye, or by clicks in the dark. Permit me to pay you this compliment: You will give yourself your own final examination. When you feel ready, tell me and I will have the Astrogator log it.
“Advice to future captains – I will not be happy until all are competent in each of four seats, and all feel easy in all twenty-five possible arrangements -“
“Twenty-four, Pop,” I blurted out. I hastily added, “Sorry, Captain – ‘twenty-five.'”
Pop has a terrible time with kitchen arithmetic; it has been so long since he has done any. He will pick up a hand computer to discover 2 x 3 = 6; I’ve seen him do it.
He stared at me, lips moving slightly. At last he said, “Chief Pilot.”
“Captain.”
“You are ordered to correct me when I make a mistake. ‘Twenty-four’ permutations, certainly.”
“Sir, may the Chief Pilot have more information before she answers Roger-Wilco?”
“Fire away!”
“Captain, what categories of mistakes?”
“Eh? Any sort! A mistake is a mistake. Daughter, are you baiting me?”
“No, Captain. I am unable to acknowledge your order as I do not understand it. ‘A mistake is a mistake’ is semantically null. If I see you about to sugar your coffee twice shall I – “
“Tell me! Of course.”
“If I see you treating your wife unjustly shall I -“
“Wait a moment! Even if I did or have – which I decline to stipulate – it is not proper for you to interfere.”
“Yes, sir. We’ve established that there are two sets. But the Captain has not defined the sets and the Chief Pilot lacks authority to do so. May I respectfully suggest that the Captain take notice of the quandary, then reframe the order at a time of his choosing … and in the meantime permit the Chief Pilot not to correct the Captain’s mistakes?”
Zebadiah winked at me with his head turned so that I saw it but Pop could not.
Pop fumed, complaining that I wasn’t showing common sense and, worse, I had broken his train of thought. He finally got around to a definition at about 8th grade level: I was to correct him only in errors involving figures or related symbols such as angles. (On your own head be it, Pop!) I gave him Roger-Wilco.
“In fact,” he went on expansively, “it may be my duty to see that this training course is completed before, with great relief, I turn this seat over to my successor.”
(I started figuring how many children I would have by then and decided to look for ways to hike up the “white mutiny.”)
“Captain?”
“Astrogator.”
“This advice concerns a mistake that could occur in the near future. I assume that the Captain has the conn?”
“Hilda, I have the conn. Speak up.”
“We are falling, sir. I advise placing us in orbit.”
I sighed with relief, as radar distance I was beginning to think of as H-above-G and did not like our closing rate.
Pop said, “Surely, put us in orbit. Take the conn and do it. Good practice. Deety can show you how. Or Zeb.”
“Aye aye, sir. I have the conn. Chief Pilot, keep her level with respect to planet.”
“Roger. Level now.”
“Copilot, add speed vector positive axis L three point six klicks per second.”
“Uh… set!”
“Hold it!” Pop unbelted, steadied himself by Zebadiah’s chair, checked the setting. “Okay. Execute!”
“Excuse me, Captain,” Zebadiah said, “but was that order directed at me or the Astrogator?”
Pop opened his mouth – then turned red. “Astrogator, I am satisfied with your solution and the setting. Please have the maneuver executed.”
“Aye aye, sir. Execute!”

What Pop planned seemed reasonable. “So far we have used juice, supplies, and four days’ time, and have merely established that there are at least two analogs of our universe, one quantum and ten quanta away on Tau axis. The latter has beasts – wogs – that are not the vermin we fled from, but – according to Hilda – closely related. To me, this makes Tau axis not our best place to seek a new home.
“Zebadiah has suggested that we sample the universes available by rotation rather than translation – six axes taken four at a time – before we search Teh axis. Let me remind you that we could die of old age searching Teh axis alone. I will decide but I will listen to arguments pro or con.”
Twenty-three minutes later Aunt Hilda shrilled, “Copilot, by plan, as set – Rotate!”

Chapter XXX

“Difference physical laws, a different topology.”

Jacob:
We rotated to… Nowhere –
So it seemed. Free fall and utter blackness – The cabin held only the faint radiance from the instruments.
My daughter said in hushed tones, “Captain! May I turn on inside lights?”
This was a time to establish discipline and doctrine. “Permission refused. Copilot, I would like to see in all directions.”
“Yes, sir,” Zeb acknowledged.
After a few moments I added, “Copilot? Why are you waiting?”
“I am awaiting orders, sir.”
“What the hell, Zeb? Get with it! I said I wanted to see in all directions. We have preprograms for that.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Well? Why aren’t you using them? Can’t you carry out orders?” (I was amazed at Zeb.)
“Captain, I have not as yet received any orders, and I am not at the conn.”
I started to answer sharply – and bit down on it. Precisely what had I said? I recalled that the autopilot stayed in recording mode during maneuvers; I could play back the last few minutes -and decided not to. We were wasting time and it was possible that I had not expressed myself in the form of a direct order. Nevertheless I could not ignore Zeb’s pigheaded behavior. “Copilot, I am aware that I have not given you direct orders. However, it is customary to treat a captain’s requests as politely worded orders.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well? God damn it, why don’t – “
“Captain! Captain Jacob! Please listen! Please!”
I took a deep breath. “What is it, Hilda?”
“Captain, I am required to advise you.”
“Eh? Advise away – but be quick about it.”
“Captain, you have given the Copilot neither orders nor requests. The autopilot’s record will confirm this. You mentioned preprograms – but voice programs are not normally handled by the Copilot.”
“I can order the Copilot to use a voice program.”
Hilda did not answer. Again I waited, then said, “Well?”
Then I said, “Astrogator, you did not answer me.”
“Sorry, Captain. Answer what?”
“My question.”
“Captain, I was not aware that you had asked me a question. Would you mind repeating it?”
“Oh, forget it, forget it! Chief Pilot!”
“Captain.”
“Deety, what’s the voice program to rotate us a full circle around W axis?”
“Shall I spell it, sir? S.G. is awake.”
“No, do it. Turn out your instrument lights. Pilots watch forward, Captain and Astrogator will watch the sides. Do it. Execute.”
Instrument lights dimmed to zero, leaving us in the darkest dark I have ever experienced. I heard a repressed moan and felt a burst of sympathy for my daughter; she had never liked total darkness. But she carried out my orders:
“Gay Deceiver, Tumbling Pigeon.”
“Forward somersault – whee!”
“Execute.”
I felt pressure against my belts – being forward of the center of mass we were starting a gentle outside loop. I started counting seconds as I recalled that this program took twenty seconds.
I had reached seventy-eight seconds and was beginning to wonder when Deety announced “Twenty seconds” as the autopilot announced, “End of program.”
Deety said, “You’re a Smart Girl, Gay.”
“If I were smart, would I be doing this? Over.”
“Roger and out, Gay. Captain, I request permission to switch on cabin lights.”
“Permission granted. Report observations. Copilot?”
“Skipper, I saw nothing.”
“Deety?”
“Nothing.”
“Hilda?”
“Jacob, I didn’t see anything. Can’t we get out of this universe? It stinks.”
“That stink is me,” our copilot said. “The reek of fear. Captain, of what use is an empty universe?”
“Zeb, ’empty universe’ is a meaningless expression. Space-time implies mass-energy, and vice versa.”
“Captain, it looks empty to me.”
“And to me. I’m faced by a dilemma in theory. Is the mass in this spacetime so far away that we can’t see it? Or is it in a state of ‘Cold Death,’ level entropy? Or did we create this universe by rotating?”
“‘Create it’ – Huh?”
“A possibility,” I pointed out. “If we are the only mass in this universe, then this universe had no existence until we created it by rotation. But it will not collapse when we rotate out, because we will be leaving behind quanta we are radiating.”
“Hmm – Captain, I’m bothered by something else. We started from universe-ten and made one ninety-degree rotation. Correct?”
“Yes. We rotated around ‘x’ and thereby moved each of the other five axes ninety degrees. We are now experiencing duration along ‘y.’ Teh and ‘z’ are spatial coordinates now, and ‘x’ remains spatial because we rotated on it. Tau and ‘t’ are now null, unused.”
“Mmm – Deety, what Greenwich time is it?” Zeb glanced at the instrument board.
“Uh – Seventeen: thirteen: oh-nine.”
“Smart Girl says you are twenty seconds slow.” Zeb looked at his navigator’s watch. “But my watch splits the difference. How many minutes since we left Windsor City?”
“Thirty-nine minutes, thirteen seconds. Ask me a hard one.”
“I’m going to ask your father a hard one. Captain, if you tell G.D. to scram to Windsor P.G. right now mark! – what will the Greenwich time be?”
“Look at your clock. About a quarter past seventeen hundred.”
“But you told me that, since rotating, we’ve been experiencing duration along ‘y’ axis.”
“But – Oh! Zeb, I’m stupid. No time has elapsed on ‘t’ axis since the instant we rotated If we reversed the rotation, we would go back to that exact instant.”
“Deety hon?” Zeb asked. “Do you agree?”
(I felt annoyed that my son-in-law consulted my daughter as to the correctness of my professional opinion – then suppressed the thought. Deety will always be my little girl, which makes it hard for me to remember that she is also my professional colleague.)
My daughter suddenly looked upset. “I – Pop! That first trip to the world without the letter ‘J’ – time did pass, it did!”
Zeb said gently, “But that was translation, Deety. You continued to experience duration along ‘t’ axis.”
Deety thought about it, then said sorrowfully, “Zebadiah, I no longer know What time it is. Pop is correct; we experience duration on one axis only, and that is now ‘y’ axis. We can’t experience duration on two axes at once.” She heaved a sigh. “Will I ever get the clock in my head set right again?”
“Sure you will,” my son-in-law reassured her. “Like crossing a time zone. Shortly after we grounded on Mars-ten, your head started keeping time both in Greenwich and in Mars Touchdown meridian time, even though Touchdown time kept falling farther behind hour after hour. A simple index correction won’t bother you. My sweet, you don’t realize how smart you are.”
Zeb patted her hand, then looked around at me. “Captain, may I propose a change in schedule?”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Sir, I would like two sequences. First, go back to Windsor P.G. with the verniers preset for a hundred thousand klicks straight up, and execute at once. Then translate back to our own universe-zero – but not to Earth-zero. Instead, set up an orbit around Mars-zero. That orbit becomes our base of operations.”
I said, “Simple enough. But why?”
“So that we will always have somewhere to go back to. Deety can write us a program that will place us back in that orbit. Something like G, A, Y, H, O, M, E, but based on Mars-zero – with elbow room.”
I asked, “Daughter, can you write such a program?”
“I think so, Pop. An emergency scram? G, A, Y, plus something?” Deety paused. “‘Sagan.’ G, A, Y, S, A, G, A, N means to return to orbit around Mars-zero. Built-in mnemonic.”
“Satisfactory. Is that all, Copilot?”
“No, sir. Our schedule breaks up naturally into a five group, a four group, a three, a two, and a one. I would like to add to each group a return to orbit around Mars-zero. Captain, if you were on the verniers, I wouldn’t worry; you know them so well. I don’t. If I do fifteen rotations, one right after the other, I’m afraid I’ll make some tiny mistake and we’ll wind up in analog-Andromeda-Nebula in universe a thousand-and-two on ‘z’ axis, with no idea how wa got there or how to get home.”
“Copilot, you worry too much.”
“Probably. Captain, my whole life is based on being chicken at every opportunity. I’ll breathe easier if I come back to a familiar orbit at the end of each group… and know that the next group is one less. It won’t take ten minutes longer to do it my way and I’ll be less likely to make mistakes. But tackling all fifteen at a slug scares me.”
“Captain Jacob -“
“Not now, Hilda. I must settle this with -“
“Captain, I am required to advise you.”
“Eh? All right, all right! Make it snappy.”
“You know – we all know – that Zebbie’s premonitions must not be ignored. I advise you officially – Gay Deceiver, record this ‘I-tell-you-three-times.'”
“Hilda, I hear you three times.”
“Captain Jacob, I, your second-in-command, advise you officially to revise the schedule of rotations in the fashion recommended by the copilot. End of I-tell-you-three-times.”
(Have you ever found yourself boxed in? Damn it, I intended to let Zeb do it his way; I am not unreasonable. I can’t say that I believe in Zeb’s premonitions; I suspect that he is simply a man with extremely fast reflexes. But both our wives believe in them and Zeb does himself. I found myself faced with mutiny unless I did exactly what I had intended to do anyway! How does one describe so ironical a situation?)
Shortly I found myself saying, “Copilot, by revised schedule, set second rotation of first group.” We were in “Sagan” orbit around Mars of Universe-zero (i.e., the one we had grown up in: Galactic coordinates X0, Y0, Z0, & t0 – Earth-zero, Mars-zero, Sun-zero, Universe-zero). I tend to think of this as the “real” universe even though I am aware that there is no evidence or mathematical theory for preferring one frame of reference over another – to do so is egocentric provincialism at its worst. But I offer this in mitigation: for us it was simplest and thereby helped us to avoid getting lost.
“Set,” Copilot Zeb reported. I went forward, checked the setting (rotation around ‘y,’ with ‘z’ and ‘t’ dropping out, null), then returned to my seat. “We can spare a minute to look at Mars. Deety, tilt the nose down to let us look. Do you know how?”
“Like this, Captain?”
“Right,” I agreed. “Keep it up.”
Deety raised the craft’s nose and swung right, catching me with belts not yet fastened. I said forcefully, “Deety! What the hell are you doing?” while I floundered and grabbed.
“Sir, you ordered ‘right’ and ‘up,'” Deety answered.
“I did no such thing!”
“But, Jacob – Captain – you did tell her that, I heard you.”
“Hilda, you keep out of this!”
Hilda answered stiffly, “Captain, I respectfully request that you either relieve me of the conn, or that you give orders to my pilots through me.”
“Damn it, you don’t have the conn. I do.”
“Then the Captain neglected to relieve me.”
“Uh – Take the conn! Carry out the planned schedule.”
“Aye aye, sir. Chief Pilot, orient the car for best view of Mars.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am!”
I was fuming, not looking, hardly listening. I had said to Deety, All right, keep on with it – or had I? Gay could play it back… and could also check on Hilda’s incredible allegation. If I were wrong (I felt certain I was not!), I would face up to it like a man and – Zeb broke in on my thoughts:
“Captain, do you care what attitude this craft is in at rotation?”
“No. Only for transitions.”
“Hmm – Then it follows as the night from day thou canst not then predict the attitude we’ll be in whenever we arrive in a new universe.”
Only with respect to our arbitrary zero reference frame. Why should it matter?”
“It won’t as long as we arrive with plenty of room. I’ve been noodling how to be sure of that. I don’t see an answer. But I don’t want to try translations or rotations parked on the ground. I hope the Captain won’t order any.”
“Copilot, I have no plans to. Astrogator, haven’t we had enough sightseeing?”
“Very well, Captain,” my wife acknowledged. “Deety, secure those binoculars. Zebbie, immediately after each rotation, set next rotation and report ‘Set.’ Deety, after each rotation, use voice program to put us through one Pigeon-Tumble with all lights out. I will watch to port, Deety forward, Zebbie starboard. Questions?”
I said, “Astrogator, you did not assign me a sector.”
“I have no authority to assign duties to the Captain. Does the Captain wish to select a sector and assume responsibility for it?”
She waited. I said hastily, “No. Perhaps it will be best for me to watch in all directions. General supervision.”
“Very well, Captain. Copilot – execute.”
Again we rotated into darkness. Deety switched out all lights. Zeb reported, “Set!”
“Stop!” I called out. I added, “Zeb, you reported ‘Set’ in total darkness. How did you set it?”
“Rotation around ‘z’ axis, with ‘x’ and ‘y’ dropping out. Duration along Teh. Third combo first group, sir.”
“I mean, ‘How did you do it in darkness?’ By clicks?”
“Captain, I didn’t do it in darkness.”
I said, “It was pitch dark when you reported ‘Set.”
“So it was, Captain.”
“It’s not necessary to call me ‘Captain’ every ten seconds. I want a straight answer. So far you have reported that you set it in darkness and that you set it with lights on.”
“No, sir.”
“God damn it, you just did!”
“Captain, I protest your swearing at me. I request that my protest be logged.”
“Zeb, you are – ” I shut up. I counted thirty in French under my breath, by which time I was ready to speak. “Zeb, I’m sorry that my language offended you. But I am still trying to find out what you did and how. Will you please tell me, in simple language?”
“Yes, sir. I set the third rotation by clicks -“
“But you said the lights were on – “
“The lights were on. I set the rotation with my eyes closed -“
“For God’s sake, why?”
“For practice. I set them with eyes closed. Then I check to see whether it matches what I intended to set. Deety leaves the light on until I give her the ‘kill it’ sign. Then she kills the glim and does her act.”
“Zeb, there wasn’t time to do it that way.”
Zeb gave a most irritating grin. “Captain, I’m fairly quick. So is Deety.” I said, “Perhaps I had better check the setting.”
Zeb made no answer; both women kept still. I began to wonder what everyone was waiting on… then realized that I was the “what.” Unbelt and check on Zeb’s setting? I remembered that irritating grin. So I said, “Deety, carry out the tumbling routine.”
The somersault completed, I asked, “Anyone see anything?” Hilda said, “I… think so. Captain, could we do that again?” “Do it, Deety,” I ordered.
Pigeon-Tumble resumed; Hilda suddenly said, “There!” and Deety snapped, “GayDeceiverStop!”
I asked, “Hilda, do you still see it?”
“Yes, Jacob. A fuzzy star. You can see it if I pull back and you lean forward.”
I suppose we each did so – for I spotted something. “I see it! Zeb – the binoculars, please.”
An invisible hand pushed them against my neck. I got them lined up with difficulty, got that faint light, focused with great care. “It looks like a lenticular galaxy seen not quite edge on. Or it might be a family of galaxies. Whatever it is, it is a long way off. Millions of light-years – I have no way of guessing.”
“Can we reach it by transition?” asked Zeb.
“Possibly. I would set middle range on ‘six,’ then keep punching until it showed change in width. It might be possible to reach it in an hour or so. Do you want to look at it?”
“From your description, I don’t think so,” Zeb answered. “That is fossil light – isn’t it?”
“Eh? Yes, the light has been traveling for millions of years.”
“That’s my point, Captain. We might find that those stars had burned out. Fossil light doesn’t tell us anything we can use. Let’s designate this ‘Last Chance’ and get out.”
Eminently sensible – “Stand by to rotate. Copilot – execute!”
Blinding light – “Zeb! Rotate! Execute!”
Suddenly we were in a starry void, almost homelike. I heaved a sigh of relief. “Zeb, what did we fall into?”
“I don’t know, Captain.” He added, “I had my eyes closed, setting the next rotation by clicks. So I didn’t get dazzled. But I never had a chance to check my setting by eyesight, either; I rotated at once.”
“You got us out – thanks. I did get dazzled; I’ve got purple blotches in front of my eyes. New standing order: At each rotation all hands close eyes and duck heads for that moment needed to be sure that we have not again run into dazzle. Zeb, that need not slow you up since you are setting by touch and click anyhow – but if we do hit dazzle, rotate us out; don’t wait for my orders. And – All Hands! – we are all free at all times to use any of the escape programs to get us out of danger.”
“Next rotation set, Captain.”
“Thank you, Copilot. Hilda, do you or Deety have any notion as to what we fell into?”
“No, Captain,” my daughter answered.
“Captain Jacob, I have three hypotheses, none worth much.”
“Let others judge that, my dear.”
“Interior of a global star cluster – or near the nucleus of a galaxy, or – possibly – the early part of an expanding universe when new stars are almost rubbing shoulders.”
“Hmm – Real garden spots. Zeb, could we have picked up excessive radiation?”
“Captain, the shell of this buggy is opaque to most radiation, and that windscreen is heavily leaded – but no way to tell.”
“Zebadiah, if the film in the camera is ruined, some heavy stuff got through. If the next picture is okay, we’re probably okay.”
Hilda said, “I’m glad you thought of that, Deety. I don’t like the idea of radiation while I’m pregnant. You, too, hon.”
“Aunt Hilda, we’re almost completely shielded where it matters. It could addle our brains but not our bellies.”
“Hilda, do you wish to shoot one frame?” I asked.
“No, Jacob, it would waste film.”
“As you wish. My eyes are coming back. Deety, put us through one Pigeon-Tumble.”
My daughter did so; I saw nothing. “Report! Hilda?”
“Lots of big beautiful stars but nothing close.”
“Me, too, Pop – but what a beautiful sky!”
“Null report, Captain.”
“Hilda, mark it down as ‘promising.’ All hands, stand by for fifth rotation. Keep eyes closed and heads down. Execute!”
Zeb gasped. “Where in Hell are we?”
“In Hell, maybe, Zebbie.”
“Captain!”
“Hilda may not be too far off,” I answered. “It’s something I could not have believed three weeks ago: some sort of inside-out universe.”
“Pellucidar!” said Deety.
“No, my dear daughter. One: We are not inside our home planet; we are in another universe. Two: This universe has physical laws that differ from our own. The inside of a spherical shell cannot have a gravitational field by the laws of our universe. Yet I see a river and we seem to be falling toward it. Deety, are we in air or in vacuo?”
Deety wiggled the controls. “Got some air. Probably could get support with wings fully spread.”
“Then do so.” Deety brought the car into a dead-stick glide.
Zeb said grimly, “I don’t want to homestead here! So big – ten thousand kilometers across at a guess. Yet it’s all inside. No sky! No horizons. Never again a night sprinkled with stars. That light in the center – Looks like our sun but it’s too small, much too small. When we leave, I don’t want to come back; the god who takes care of fools and explorers let us arrive in empty space instead of maybe ten kilometers underground. But next time – I hate to think about it.”
I said, “It may not have been luck, Zeb, but logical necessity.”
“Huh. You’ve lost me, Captain.”
“You’re thinking of this as a spherical shell. But there is no basis for assuming that it has an outside.”
“What? Endless millions of light-years of solid rock?”
“No, no! Nothing. By ‘nothing’ I do not mean space; I mean a total absence of existence of any sort. Different physical laws, a different topology. We may be seeing the totality of this universe. A small universe with a different sort of closed space.”
“I can’t visualize it, Jake.”
“Deety, my dear, rephrase it for your husband.”
“I’ll try, Pop. Zebadiah, the geometry of this place may require different postulates from those that work back home. I’m sure you have played with Möbius strips -“
“A surface with only one side, one edge. But this is a sphere.”
“Pop is saying that it may be a sphere with only one side, the inside. Have you ever tried to figure out a Klein bottle?”
“I got cross-eyed and a headache.”
“This could be a Klein-bottle sort of thing. It might turn out that if you tunneled straight down anywhere down there, you would emerge at the opposite point, still inside. And that straight line might be shorter than the distance across. Maybe much shorter.”
“Point three-one-eight-three-zero-nine is the ratio by the simplest postulates,” I agreed. “But the geometry may not be that simple. However, Zeb, assuming that this is a total universe, our chances of arriving in open space were far greater than the chance of conflicting with a mass. But I would not wish to homestead here – pretty as it is. Nevertheless we might check for obstetricians.”
“No obstetricians,” Zeb answered firmly.
“Why?” I demanded.
“If there are human beings here, they do not have an advanced culture. Deety has been following that river. Did you notice where that other river joined it? Also look ahead where it meets the sea. No cities. No warehouses. No river traffic. No air traffic, no signs of roads. Yet this is choice real estate. Therefore, no advanced culture anywhere and a small population, if any. If anyone wants to refute me, please do so in the next two minutes; Deety can’t hold this heap in the air much longer without using juice.”
“I check you, Zebbie. They might be so advanced that they can make the whole joint look like a park. I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Deety?” I asked.
“Aunt Hilda is right, Captain. But it’s so pretty!”
“Hilda, expend one film, as a souvenir. Then we rotate.” My daughter nosed the car down to permit a better picture.
A click – “Got it!” Hilda cried. “GaySagan!”
Mars of Universe-zero lay to starboard. Zeb sighed. “I’m glad to be out of there. Sharpie, did you get a picture?”
“Can’t rush it,” my wife answered. “Nnnn, yup, picture coming.”
“Good!”
“Zebbie, I thought you didn’t like that inside-out world?”
“I don’t. If that picture is sharp, you two knocked-up broads weren’t hit by radiation where it counts. Any fogging?”
“No, Zebbie, and brighter color every second. Here – look.”
Zeb brushed it aside. “My sole interest is in radiation. Captain, I’m having misgivings. We’ve tried five out of fifteen and only one was even vaguely homelike. The pickings have been slim and the dangers excessive. But we know that Earth analogs Tau and Teh axes are Earthlike -“
“With monsters,” put in Hilda.
“Tau axis, probably. We haven’t explored Teh axis. Jake, are we justified in exposing our wives to dangers we can’t imagine?”
“In a moment, Copilot. Astrogator, why did you rotate? I don’t think I ordered it. I have been trying to run a taut ship.”
“So have I, Captain. I must ask to be relieved as astrogator.”
“I am sorry to say that I have been thinking along the same lines, my dearest. But you had better explain.”
“Captain, three times you have replaced me at the conn without relieving me. The last time I let it continue, wondering and waiting. Just now we were losing altitude, dangerously. So I acted. Now I ask to be relieved.”
Hilda seemed calm and not angry. But resolved. Had I really done anything out of line? It did not seem so to me.
“Zeb, have I been overriding the officer at the conn?”
Zeb took too long to answer. “Captain, this is a time when a man must insist on written orders. I will make a written reply.”
“Hmm – ” I said. “I think you have replied. Deety, what do you think? More written orders?”
“I don’t need written orders. Pop, you’ve been utterly stinking!”
“You really feel so?”
“I know so. Aunt Hilda is right; you are dead wrong. She understated the case. You assign her responsibilities – then ignore her. Just now she carried out her assigned duties – and you chewed her out for it. Of course she wants to be relieved.”
My daughter took a deep breath and went on: “And you bawled her out for ordering a scram escape. Twenty-seven minutes ago you said – and I quote: ‘All Hands! – we are all free at all times to use any of the escape programs to get us out of danger.’ End of quotation. Pop, how can you expect orders to be obeyed when you can’t remember what orders you’ve given? Nevertheless, we have obeyed you, every time and no back talk – and we’ve all caught hell. Aunt Hilda caught the most – but Zebadiah and I caught quite a bit. Pop, you’ve been – I won’t say it, I won’t!”
I looked out the port at Mars for long unhappy minutes. Then I turned around. “I’ve no choice but to resign. Effective as I ground her. Family, I must admit to great humiliation. I had thought that I was doing quite well. Uh, back to our streamside, I think. Gay -“
“GayDeceiverOverride! Not on your tintype! You’ll serve as long as I did – not a second less! But Sharpie is right in refusing to take the conn under you; you’ve been mistreating her. Despite being a colonel, you have never learned that you can’t assign responsibility without delegating authority to match – and then respect it. Jake, you’re a lousy boss. We’re going to keep you in the hot seat until you learn better. But there’s no reason for Sharpie to resign over your failings.”
“I still have something to say,” said my daughter.
“Deety,” Zeb said forcefully, “leave well enough alone!”
“Zebadiah, this is to you quite as much – or more – as it is to Pop. Complaints of another sort.”
My son-in-law looked startled. “Oh. Sorry. You have the floor.”

Chapter XXXI

” – the first ghosts ever to search for an obstetrician.”

Hilda:
If Zebbie and Jacob have a fault in common, it is overprotectiveness. Having always been the runt, I am habitually willing to accept protection. But Deety rebels.
When Zebbie asked Jacob whether or not they were justified in exposing us to unknown dangers, Deety stuck her oar in – and Zebbie tried to hush her.
Zebbie should have known better.
But he is barely getting acquainted with her, whereas I’ve known her since her diaper days. Once when Deety was, oh, possibly four, I started to tie her shoes. She pulled away. “Deety do!” she announced indignantly – and Deety did: on one shoe a loose half bow that came apart almost at once, on the other a Gordian knot that required the Alexandrian solution.
It’s been “Deety do!” ever since, backed by genius and indomitable will.
Deety told him, “Zebadiah, concerning completing this schedule: Is there some reason to exclude Hilda and me from the decision?”
“Damn it, Deety, this is one time when husbands have to decide!”
“Damn it, Zebadiah, this is one time when wives must be consulted!”
Zebbie was shocked. But Deety had simply matched his manner and rhetoric. Zebbie is no fool; he backed down. “I’m sorry, hon,” he said soberly. “Go ahead.”
“Yessir. I’m sorry I answered the way I did. But I do have something to say – and Hilda, too. I know I speak for both of us when I say that we appreciate that you and Pop would die for us… and that you feel this more intensely now that we are pregnant.
“But we have not been pregnant long enough to be handicapped. Our bellies do not bulge. They will bulge, and that gives us a deadline. But for that very reason we will either sample those rotation universes today… or we will never sample them.”
“Why do you say ‘never,’ Deety?”
“That deadline. We’ve sampled five and, scary as some have been, I wouldn’t have missed it! We can look at the other ten in the next few hours. But if we start searching Teh axis there is no way to guess how long it will take. Thousands of universes along Teh axis and it seems likely that each holds an analog of Earth. We may check hundreds before we find what we are looking for. Let’s say we find it and Hilda and I have babies with skilled medical attention. Then what? Zebadiah, are you going to be more willing to take women with babies into strange universes than you are without babies?”
“Uh… that’s not the way to put it, Deety.”
“How would you put it, sir? Are you thinking that you and Pop might check those ten while Hilda and I stay home with the kids?”
“Well… yes, I suppose I am. Something of the sort.”
“Zebadiah, I married you for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. I did not marry to walk the Widow’s Walk! Where you go, I go! – till death do us part.”
“Deety speaks for me,” I said, and shut up. Deety had it figured: If Jacob and Zebbie didn’t finish those rotations today, they would have that “far horizons” look for the rest of their lives – and they wouldn’t want us along. Not with kids. Sharpie wasn’t going to hold still for that. No, sir!
“Deety, are you through?”
“Not quite, sir. All humans are created unequal. You are bigger and stronger than Pop; I am bigger and stronger than Hilda. I have the least years of experience; Pop has the most. Pop is a supergenius… but he concentrates so hard that he forgets to eat – unless he has a nursemaid to watch him – as Mama did, as I did, as Hilda now does. You, sir, are the most all-around competent man I’ve ever met, whether driving a duo, or dancing, or telling outrageous tales. Three of us have eight or nine earned degrees… but Aunt Hilda with none is a walking encyclopedia from insatiable curiosity and extraordinary memory. We two are baby factories and you two are not – but two men can impregnate fifty women – or five hundred. There is no end to the ways that we four are unequal. But in one supremely important way all of us are equals.
“We are pioneers.
“Men alone are not pioneers; they can’t be. Pioneer mothers share the dangers of pioneer fathers and go on having babies. Babies were born in the Mayflower, lots were born in covered wagons – and lots died, too. Women didn’t stay home; they went along.
“Zebadiah, I do not ask to be taken to those next ten universes -“
“It sounds like it.”
“You didn’t listen, sir. I would like to finish sampling those fifteen. It’s my preference but not my demand. What I do demand I have stated: Where you go, I go. Today and to the end of our lives. Unless you tell me to get out, that you don’t want me anymore. I have spoken.”
“You certainly have, dear. Hilda?”
Fish or cut bait, Sharpie – what do you want? I didn’t care; any new universe was bound to be strange. But Deety had laid down the party line; I didn’t want to fuzz it up – so I answered instantly, “Deety speaks for me in every word.”
“Jake? Back to my original question: ‘Are we justified in exposing our wives to conditions we can’t even imagine?”
“Zeb, you are the one who convinced me that it would be prudent to sample the universes accessible through rotation before searching by translation.”
“True. But that was before we sampled five of them.”
“I don’t see that the situation has changed. An imaginable danger is not necessarily better than an unimaginable one; it may be worse. Our home planet had grave shortcomings before we tangled with the vermin. No need to list them; we all know that the Four Horsemen are ready to ride again. But I can think of a very close analog of our home planet that would be far worse than Earth-zero even if it didn’t have a single ‘Black-Hat’ vermin on it.”
“Go on.”
“One in which Hitler got atomic weapons but we did not. I can’t see that vermin are more to be dreaded than Hitler’s S.S. Corps. The sadism of some human beings – not just Storm Troopers; you can find sadists in any country including the United States – is more frightening to me than any monster.”
“Not to me!” Deety blurted it out.
“But, my dear, we don’t know that those vermin are cruel. We got in their way; they tried to kill us. They did not try to torture us. There is a world of difference.”
“Maybe there is, Pop, but those things give me the creeps. I’ll bet they’d torture us if they could!”
“My very dear daughter, that’s muddy thinking. How old are you?”
“Huh? Pop, you know if anybody does.”
“I was reminding you of what you said: you have the least years of experience. I was much older than you are before I was cured of that sort of muddy thinking. By Jane, your mother. Hilda?”
“Jacob is telling you not to judge a book by its cover,” I said. “I learned it from Jane, too, as Jacob knows. A creature’s appearance tells nothing about its capacity for sadism.”
Jacob said, “Does anyone have anything to add? Since it appears that I am not permitted to resign now, I must rule on it. We will complete the scheduled rotations.” Jacob cleared his throat loudly, looked at Deety. “During my remaining hours in what Zeb so accurately calls the ‘Worry Seat,’ I will endeavor to keep my orders straight … but, should I fail, I ask that my attention be invited to it at once – not saved up for a scolding later. Daughter?”
“Okay, Pop. Aye aye, Captain.”
“Thank you, my dear. Is anyone tired or hungry?” No one spoke up; Jacob continued, “Hilda, will you take the conn?”
“No, Captain” – I’ll omit the internal debate I held with myself; Jacob on his best behavior is hard to refuse.
“Very well, my beloved; I won’t press you. It’s an odd situation. Copilot, by schedule, set to rotate.”
“Second group, first of four – set, sir.”
“Check seat belts, stand by to rotate. Execute!”

We were in sunlight in a blue sky and upside down. For a few seconds we were thrown around a bit – Deety isn’t the pilot Zebbie is. But she did get us leveled off. I heard Deety say, “Gay Deceiver.”
“Hi, Deety!”
“Hold course, speed, and height-above-ground.”
“Got it, girl!”
“You’re a Smart Girl, Gay.”
“But we can’t go on meeting like this! Over.”
“Roger and out, Gay. Whew! Time out while the Chief Pilot has a nervous breakdown. Zebadiah, what does that altimeter say?”
“Seven klicks H-above-G.”
“Pop, what’s the probability of winding up this close to a planet without getting killed?”
“Impossible to theorize, Deety. Maybe we’re dead and don’t know it. Copilot, deadman switch; I’m going to check the air.”
“Captain!” I yelped.
“Not now, Hilda, I’m -“
“NOW! Am I still second-in-command? If I am, I must advise you; you are about to make a bad mistake!”
Jacob hesitated. I think he was counting. “My dear one, if I am about to make a bad mistake, I want your advice no matter what your status is.”
“Thank you, Jacob. You should not be guinea pig. I should be. I -“
“Hilda, you’re pregnant.”
“All the more reason why I want the most competent and least expendable – you, Zebbie, and Deety – to take care of yourselves in order to take care of me. It’s my duty as science officer in any case, whether I’m number two or not. But, Jacob, you are doing it just the way Zebbie did it when we landed on Mars-ten – and that’s all wrong!”
“Thank you, Sharpie!”
“Zebbie dear! You risked your life and it’s not necessary -“
Zebbie interrupted me. “Not necessary to waste juice this way! Yack-yack-yack!”
“Copilot, pipe down!” Jacob said sharply. “Gay Bounce! Chief Pilot, when we reenter, place the car on dead-stick glide, manual or automatic. Don’t use juice. Now, All Hands, listen to the Science Officer. Go ahead, Hilda.”
“Yes, Captain. Three days ago it was necessary for somebody to be the canary – but it should have been me, not Zebbie. What was necessary three days ago is reckless today. That deadman switch – Unless it has been rewired, it takes us back two klicks over a crater – and that’s not what we want. The correct scram for this is T, E, R, M, I, T, E. But that’s just half of it. Deety has taught the S.G. how to ground herself no-power on any level bit of ground. We can ground first. Then anyone can be guinea pig, doesn’t matter. Whoosh back to our stream bank – bang, open the doors.”
Zebbie said, “Captain, that makes sense. Sharpie – I mean ‘Science Officer.’ May I apologize with a back rub?”
“You can apologize with a kiss. But I’ll take the back rub, too.”
“Zebadiah, don’t commit yourself too far; an air test isn’t necessary. Pop! Captain Pop, may I take her up thirty klicks?”
“I suppose so. May I ask why?”
“Captain, I know where we are. From that high I can prove it.”
“Deety, that’s imp -“
“Don’t say ‘impossible,’ Captain – I’ll refer you to my father.”
“Miss Smarty Pants. Take her up.”
“Thanks, Pop. GayBounceGayBounceGayBounce. Gay Deceiver, vertical dive, execute. Everybody tell me where we are.”
I had noticed earlier what pretty countryside was under us. Now I studied it in detail. Zebbie said, “Be durned. Big rectangular oasis completely surrounded by desert. Populated, too. That’s a fair-sized town in the middle.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Don’t you recognize it, Zebbie? From a map.”
My husband said, “Now, Hilda, this is an unexplored universe. How could you have seen a -“
“Pop!” interrupted Deety. “You’ve seen the map. See the Yellow Brick Road off to the left? Try the binoculars; you can follow it clear to Emerald City.”
“Deety my love,” said Zebbie, “you are out of your mind. Or I am. Either way, somebody call an ambulance. Don’t forget the straitjacket. Sharpie, something worries me. I failed to get my warning… yet we came so close to hitting that real estate I’m still shaking.”
“That means there wasn’t any danger, Zebbie.”
“Then why am I trembling?”
“You’re a fraud, dear. We’ve all been dead quite a while now – killed in my parking lot. Deety and I may be the first ghosts ever to search for an obstetrician. In further support of my theory I am having a pregnancy with no morning sickness – a miracle that makes the Land of Oz as commonplace as faithful husbands.”
“I don’t think I want to analyze that. Is that the Castle of the Tin Woodman there in the east?”
“Yes, but that’s the west, dear. Deety, is that sun rising or setting?”
“Setting. Directions are reversed here. Everybody knows that.”
“A retrograde planet,” my husband commented. “Nothing dangerous about that.”
“Pop, admit it. You know the Oz books almost as well as I do -“
“Better. Don’t give yourself airs, Daughter. I agree that this appears to match stories and map, while trying to reserve judgment. Deety, how would you like to raise kids in the Land of Oz?”
“Pop, I’d love it!”
“Are you certain? As I recall, nobody dies in the Land of Oz yet the population doesn’t increase. I don’t recall babies being born in Oz stories. I don’t recall M.D.’s or hospitals. Or machinery. Zeb, that inside-out universe had different physical laws from those of our universe. If we ground here, will we be able to leave? Oz works by magic, not by engineering.” Jacob added, “Copilot, I want your professional opinion.”
“Captain, you see a difference between magic and engineering. I don’t.”
“Oh, come now, Zeb!”
“I believe in just two things: Murphy’s Law, and Place Not Your Faith in an Ace Kicker. Permit me to point out that we are already in the Land of Oz, even though at altitude. I can think of worse places to be stranded. No common cold. No income tax. No political candidates. No smog. No churches. No wars. No inflation. No -“
Deety interrupted. “We are now passing over the Palace of Glinda the Good.”
“Why pass over it?” I asked. “Jacob, why aren’t we grounding?”
“Me, too,” Deety added. “Captain Pop, I request permission to ground near the Palace. I’m certain that nothing can upset Glinda the Good; she already knows about it from her Book. Besides, a palace that size must have plumbing… and I’m beginning to feel as if I had attended a watermelon picnic.”
“Methinks a bush would suffice,” said Zebbie. “Even in another universe and with an armed guard. How about it, Captain?”
“Chief Pilot, ground at will. Hilda, do the Oz books have bathrooms in them? I don’t recall.”
“Nor do I, Jacob,” I answered. “But there are plenty of bushes.”
In three or four minutes Deety had us grounded, with Gay using Deety’s new program. I thanked my husband for deciding to ground. “There was never any doubt,” he said. “Not only would you and Deety never have spoken to me again, I would never have spoken to me again. But if I meet a living scarecrow, I may go stark, raving mad.”

Chapter XXXII

“Where Cat is, is civilization.”

Deety:
I found a clearing in the woods, a hundred meters from the Palace and screened from it by elms and walnut trees. I had Gay range it, told her three times that it was a scram spot – then she landed herself, slick as Zebadiah.
I unstrapped, opened the bulkhead door, and crawled aft to get clean suits – and thought better of it. Aunt Hilda had followed me and headed straight for a special locker. I rolled into lotus and asked, “Hillbilly, what are you going to wear?”
“The dress I got married in and the wedding ring Jacob had made for me in Windsor City.”
“Jewelry?”
“Nothing fancy.”
Mama Jane told me years ago that Aunt Hilda’s instinct for clothes was infallible. I got the dress I wore to hook Zebadiah, a pendant Pop had given me, my wedding ring, my dancing slippers. Put my darling in mess jacket? No, but in tights topped off with a white silk bolero shirt I made for him at Snug Harbor. Red sash, dancing pumps, jockey shorts – yes, that was all he needed.
I wiggle-wormed forward, clutching clothing. Our men were still in their seats, Gay’s doors closed. I said, “Why the closed doors? It’s warm and stuffy.”
“Look out to the left,” said Zebadiah.
I looked. A little storybook cottage with a sign over the door: WELCOME.
It had not been there when we grounded. “I see,” I agreed. “Shuck off your work clothes and pull on shorts and tights. Pop, Hilda has your trousers.”
“Deety, is that all you have to say?”
“What should I say, sir? Pop, you have taken us to some strange places. But in Oz I am not a stranger in a strange land. I know what to expect.”
“But damn it all -“
“Shush, Zebadiah. One does not say ‘damn’ in Oz. Not any sort of profanity or vulgarity. These are no longer teats; they aren’t even breasts – it’s my bosom and I never mention it. Vocabulary limited to that of the Mauve Decade. Mildest euphemisms.”
“Deety, I’m durned if I’ll be anything but myself.”
“Sir, I speak professionally. One does not use FORTRAN to a computer that knows only LOGLAN. Captain, can we open up?”
“Just a moment,” my father put in. “Deety, you called me ‘Captain.’ But I resigned, effective on grounding.”
“Wait a half!” Zebadiah interrupted. “You’ll do at least as much punishment time as I did – you earned it, old buddy.”
“All right,” Pop agreed, “but you decided that time on the ground counts. We’ll likely need a new captain when we lift. Let’s elect the victim now.”
“Reelect Pop,” I suggested. “He flunked and should do it over.”
“Daughter!”
“Joking, Pop – as long as you bear in mind that you did flunk and never again give a captain a bad time. I nominate my husband.”
“Let’s do this right.” Pop got out four file cards.
I wrote “Zebadiah” on mine, handed it to Pop. Hilda declared them, showing us each one: Deety – Deety – Deety – Deety. I gasped. “Hey! I demand a recount! No, a new election – somebody cheated.” I made so much fuss that they let me have it. I wrote “Zebadiah” on my fresh ballot, placed it face up on the Chief Pilot’s seat, placed the other three, one by one, on top of it, then declared them myself: Deety – Deety – Deety – then, in my own handwriting: Deety.
I gave up. (But resolved to have a word with the Wizard.)

It was a pretty cottage with a broad stoop and a climbing rose – but not to live in, just one room with a table and no other furniture. The table held a bowl of fruit, a pitcher of milk, four tumblers. There was a door to the right and a door to the left; the one on the left had painted on it a little girl in a sunbonnet, the other had a boy in a Buster Brown suit.
Hilda and I headed for the sunbonnet. I snatched a glass of milk and a bunch of grapes, and put on a milk moustache; I hadn’t tasted milk in ages. Delicious!
Hilda was drawing a tub and had peeled off her dress. The window was open but up high, so I peeled off mine. We made ourselves clean and “beautiful,” i.e., we restored our fanciest hairdos but without jewelry. Whatever we needed, that bath and dressing room had, from a sponge to lipstick Aunt Hilda’s shade.
We hurried and did it in forty-two minutes. Zebadiah looked beautiful and Pop looked just as smart in dark trousers and a richly simple Aloha shirt.
“We thought you,” said my husband, “had gone down the drain.”
“Zebadiah, we took forty-two minutes. If you did it in less than thirty, you aren’t clean.”
“Smell me.”
I sniffed him – a faint fragrance of soap, a touch of shaving lotion. “You took more than thirty minutes. Kiss me.”
“Thirty-six minutes, by my watch. Say ‘Please.”
I said “Please” and he caught me with my lips open, he always does. Zebadiah just suits me and I haven’t been sulky with him and stubborn only when necessary.
There was a path toward the Palace. Pop, with Aunt Hilda on his arm, led off; we followed. Aunt Hilda was carrying her high-heeled sandals, so I took mine off, and glanced back toward the clearing. The little cottage was missing, as I expected. Zebadiah noticed it but said nothing. His face was an interesting study.
The grassy path debouched into a garden in front of the Palace; the path through it was hard, so Hilda and I put on our shoes. Glinda’s Palace was more like a Norman chateau or Bertie’s “Stately Home of England” than it was like those dreary castles on the Rhine – but it had fairyland grace, like the Taj.
As we started up the sweeping marble steps to the great doorway Zebadiah stumbled. “What the hell?”
“Sssh!” I said. “Language, dear. A magic staircase. Glinda would not make her guests climb. Pretend that Escher designed it. Look proud and walk as if they were level.”
As we reached the broad landing two tall trumpeters stepped out of the great doorway, raised their long trumpets, and sounded four flourishes. An old man with a merry grin, a fringe of whiskers, a shiny bald head, a wooden left leg, and wearing a sailor’s oilskins, came out as the flourishes ended. I wondered why he was here rather than Emerald City.
He took a pipe from his mouth and said, “Welcome to the Palace of Glinda the Good! I’m Cap’n Bill. You, sir, are Doctor Burroughs the Wizard, with your wonderful wife the Princess Hilda. You must be Cap’n Zeb Carter – Howdy, Cap’n! – and everybody knows Deety; she’s spent so much of her life in Oz. Howdy, Deety! Last time I seen you you warn’t more’n knee high to a tall duck. And now look at you! Almost up to my shoulder and married! Congratulations, Cap’n! Yer a lucky man!”
“I think so, Captain.”
“I know so. Deety, Ozma sends her love and sez to tell you that you and your family are welcome in the Royal Kingdom as long as you like.”
“Please thank Her Royal Majesty for me, Cap’n Bill.” (Actually I’m taller than Cap’n Bill now – but of course I’ll always be a little girl to him. It’s nice.)
“Oh, I will, I will! Come inside, folks: we ain’t formal here. Or I ain’t. This ain’t my reg’lar job; I’m standing this watch for a friend.” He took my hand; his hand was horny and felt like Zebadiah’s – and just as gentle.
He led us inside. “Where’s Trot?” I asked.
“Around somewhere; you’ll see her. Prob’ly picking out her best hair ribbon in your honor. Or maybe helping Betsy with Hank – little Betsy ain’t happy unless she’s workin’; Neptune knows that mule gets more attention than all the mules that ever came out of Mizzoura. This way to the Library, friends.”

How does one describe Glinda the Good? Everyone knows that she is tall and stately and beautiful and never frowns and wears all day long what I think of as beautiful evening gowns with sweeping trains. But those are just words. Perhaps it is enough to say that, just as Dejah Thoris is the most beautiful woman of her world, the Sorceress is the most beautiful of hers.
She was surrounded by her bevy of the most beautiful girls from all over Oz. But Glinda outshone them all without trying. The name of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti means both “beautiful” and “good,” in one word; I think that explains Glinda.
She got up from her Great Book of Records and glided toward us – kissed Hilda first, kissed me and said, “Welcome home, Deety!” and I choked up and couldn’t talk; I just curtsied. She offered a hand each to Zebadiah and Pop; they bowed simultaneously and kissed her hands.
She waved at chairs (that hadn’t been there) and invited us to sit down. Zebadiah whispered, “You seem to own this place.”
“Not really,” I whispered back. “But I’ve lived in Oz longer than anywhere else” – Mama and Pop lived at several campuses while I was growing up but I always took Oz along wherever we moved.
“Well… I’m glad you made me dress up.”
We were introduced to Glinda’s girls and each one curtsied; it felt like being in Imperial House-except that these girls were neither compelled nor paid. When I stopped to think about it, I couldn’t recall that money was used in Oz; it didn’t have an “economy.”
The girls were beautifully dressed, each differently but each girl’s dress was predominately the color of her own country, Munchkin blue, Gillikin purple, Winkle yellow, a few in green. One girl in red – Quadling of course, where we were – looked familiar. I said to her, “Is your name Betty?”
She was startled. “Why, yes, Your Highness – how did you know?” She dropped a curtsy.
“I’ve been here before; ask Captain Bill. I’m not ‘Your Highness’; I’m just Deety. Do you have a friend named Bertie?”
“Yes, Your – Yes, Deety. He’s not here now, he’s at the College of Professor Wogglebug.” I made note to tell Betty about it… someday.
I can’t tell all about everyone we met at Glinda’s Palace; there were too many and more kept arriving. Everyone seemed to expect us and pleased to see us. Pop did not go stark, raving mad when he met the Scarecrow because he was already deep in conversation with Professor H. M. Wogglebug and with Oz the Great, Royal Wizard to Queen Ozma – Pop was barely polite, shook hands and said, “Howd’you do, Mr. Scarecrow,” and went right on talking to Professor Wogglebug and the Wizard. I’m not sure he looked at the Scarecrow. He was saying, “You put it neatly, Professor. I wish Professor Mobyas Toras could hear your formulation. If we set alpha equal to zero, it is obvious that -“
I wandered off, because when Pop says, “It is obvious that – ” what is really obvious is that Deety should leave.
Dinner was in the banquet hail and the crowd of guests exactly filled it – Glinda’s banquet hall is always the right size for the number of persons eating there – or not eating, as the case may be, for Jack Pumpkinhead, Tik-Tok, the Tin Woodman, the Sawhorse, the Scarecrow, and other people who don’t eat were seated there, too, and also people who aren’t human people: the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, the Woozy, the King of the Flying Monkeys, Hank, Toto, and a beautiful long-haired cat with supercilious manners.
Glinda the Good was at the head of the table at one end and Queen Ozma was at the head at the other end. Pop was on Glinda’s right and Zebadiah was on Ozma’s right. The Wizard was on Glinda’s left, and Professor Wogglebug was on Ozma’s left. Aunt Hilda and I were opposite each other at the middle of the long table. She had the Tin Woodman on one side and the Scarecrow on the other and was doing her best to charm both of them and both were trying to charm her and all three were succeeding.
I had three dinner companions. I started with two, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. The Lion ate what others ate but the Tiger had a bowl of cornflakes the size of a small washtub and ate from it very tidily with a spoon that matched the bowl. The Cowardly Lion and I had just started seafood cocktails when this cat brushed against my leg to get my attention, looked up and said, “You smell like a cat person. Make a lap, I’m coming up” – and jumped.
I said, “Eureka, do you have Dorothy’s permission?”
“What a silly way to talk. Dorothy must get my permission. Feed me the lobster first, then the shrimp. You may have the last piece of shrimp for yourself.”
The Hungry Tiger put down his big spoon and said, “Highness, may I abate this nuisance?”
“Don’t trouble yourself, Old Boy,” the Lion said. “I’ll abite it instead, in one bite. But please pass the Tabasco sauce; cats have so little taste.”
“Pay no attention to those peasants, wench, and get on with the lobster. Animals should not be allowed to eat at the table.”
“Look who is calling whom an animal,” growled the Cowardly Lion.
“It’s not an animal, Leo,” the Hungry Tiger objected. “It’s an insect. Highness, I’m a vegetarian – but I would be happy to break over this once and slice it into my cornflakes. Shall I?”
“Dorothy wouldn’t like it, Rajah.”
“You have a point, Ma’am. Shall I ask Toto to chase it out?”
“Eureka may stay. I don’t mind.”
“Wench, the correct answer is ‘I am honored.’ Ignore these jungle beasts; they are not cats. Be it known that Felis domestica has been civilized more generations than all you lesser breeds combined. As my serene ancestress, Bubastis, Goddess of the Nile, was wont to say: ‘Where Cat is, is civilization.’ Hurry up with that lobster.”
So I hurried. Eureka accepted each bit daintily, barely flicking my finger tips with her scratchy tongue. At last she averted her mouth. “Don’t overdo it; I’ll tell you when I require more. Scratch behind my left ear – gently. I shall sing, then I shall sleep. Maintain a respectful silence.”
I did as ordered. Eureka purred very loudly. As the buzzing gave way to soft snores I slowly stopped scratching. I had to eat with one hand; the other was needed to keep her from falling.

As Aunt Hilda has placed a record in Gay by interviewing all of us and combining it, I will stick to essentials. After the rest had gone home or retired to their rooms we four were invited into the Library. It was smaller than it had been, cozy, as Glinda’s girls had gone to their rooms. Glinda was at her Great Book of Records as we were ushered in; she smiled and bowed without getting up as we sat down.
“Friends,” she said, “Doctor, Captain, Princess Hilda, and Deety, I will save time by telling you that, during the dancing, I conferred with Ozma, the Wizard, and Professor Wogglebug. I had studied the Records of your strange adventure, and I read a résumé to them before we discussed your problems. First, let me say that Ozma repeats her invitation. You are welcome to stay here forever; you will find hospitality wherever you go. Deety knows this, and Princess Hilda knows it, too, although she is not as sure of it as Deety is.
“But to reassure you gentlemen, the Wizard and I have made the Land of Oz one quarter inch wider in all directions, a change too small to be noticed. But you, Doctor, will recognize that this provides ample Lebensraum for four more good people, as well as for your sky chariot Miss Gay Deceiver. A quarter of an inch, Captain, is six and thirty-five hundredths millimeters.
“While we were about it, on the advice of Professor Wogglebug, we made small changes in Miss Gay Deceiver – “
Zebadiah gave a start and looked upset. Gay was his sweetheart long before I was; he takes care of her as carefully as he takes care of me. But he should have trusted Glinda.
Glinda smiled warmly. “Don’t be alarmed, Captain, no harm has been done to the structural integrity or to the functioning of your beloved craft. When you notice – you will notice – if you do not like the changes, all you need do is to say aloud, ‘Glinda, change Miss Gay Deceiver back the way she was.’ I will read it here in my Book and will carry out your wish. But I do not think that you will ask me to do this. That is not prophecy; a good witch does not prophesy. But it is my firm opinion.
“Now to major matters – There are no ‘Black Hat’ vermin in Oz. Should one be so foolish as to come here, I would know it from my Book, and it would be ejected into the Deadly Desert. What would happen to it there, the less said, the better – but evil is not tolerated in Oz.
“As to the problem of vermin in your home world, it does not lie in Ozma’s jurisdiction. My powers are limited there. While my Great Book tells me what happens there, it does not distinguish between vermin disguised as human beings and human beings who by their nature are evil. I could cast a spell over you which would keep you away from all ‘Black Hats.’ Do you wish that?”
Pop glanced at Zebadiah; my husband said, “Just a moment, Glinda the Good. Just what does that mean?”
“Spells are always literal, Captain; that’s why they can cause so much trouble. I rarely use them. This one means what I said: You would be kept away from any vermin of the sort you call ‘Black Hats.”
“In that case we couldn’t recognize one, could we? Or get close enough to destroy it.”
“I think one would have to devise ways to do each at a distance. Spells do not reason, Captain. Like computers, they operate literally.”
“Could they recognize us? Booby-trap us? Bomb us?”
“I do not know, Captain. My Book records only what they have done, not what they may do. Even then, as I have said, the Records do not unmask a disguised ‘Black Hat.’ Therefore, I know little about them. Do you wish the spell? You need not decide at once. If you remain in Oz, you won’t need it.”
I blurted out, “We ought to stay here!”
Glinda smiled at me, not a happy smile. “Dear Deety – You have decided not to have your baby?”
“Huh? I mean, ‘Excuse me, Glinda?'”
“You have been in Fairyland more than the others. You know that your little girl will not be born here… just as no one ever dies here.”
Aunt Hilda spoke up so quickly I couldn’t get a word in. “Glinda, thank you very much but I will not be staying.”
I gulped. “I won’t be staying, either, Aunt Glinda.”
“So I suspected. Do you want my advice, dear?”
“Yes. Certainly!”
“Having decided to be a woman and not a little girl like Dorothy or Trot, leave here quickly… lest you be tempted to stay in Fairyland forever.”
Pop glanced at Zebadiah, then said, “Madame Glinda, we’ll be leaving in the morning. We are grateful for your lavish hospitality… but I think that is best.”
“I think so, too, Doctor. But remember: Ozma’s invitation stands. When you are weary of the world, come here for a holiday and bring the children. Children are happy here and never get hurt. Oz was designed for children.”
“We will, we certainly will!”
“Is there anything more to discuss? If not… “
“Just a second!” put in Aunt Hilda. “You told Deety – will you tell me?”
Glinda smiled. “My Book states that you are growing a boy.”

Chapter XXXIII

” – ‘solipsism’ is a buzz word.”

Zeb:
I didn’t sleep with Deety that night. I didn’t plan it that way. A footman showed me to a room; Deety and Hilda were standing at the top of the stairs (more magical stairs – okay as long as you don’t look down) and talking excitedly, with Jake nearby.
When I saw that the room had only a single bed, the footman had vanished. I stepped outside; Deety and Hilda and Jake were gone, the upper hall was dark. So I said a word one mustn’t use in Oz and went back into my room. Even a single bed looked inviting; I went to sleep at once.
Glinda had breakfast with us, in the banquet hail, considerably shrunken. The food in Imperial House is wonderful, but you can’t beat ham and basted eggs and toast and jelly and fresh orange juice. I drank three cups of coffee and felt ready to rassle alligators.
Glinda kissed Deety and Hilda good-bye at the top of those Escher steps, and Jake and I bent over her hands. She wished us good luck… which must mean more from her.
Gay Deceiver looked good in morning sunlight. Tik-Tok was standing at her nose. “Good mor-ning,” he said. “I have been con-ver-sing with Miss Gay De-cei-ver all night. She is a ve-ry Smart Girl.”
“Howdy, Zeb.”
“Howdy, Gay. What have I told you about picking up strange men?”
“You’ve told me nothing, Zeb. And Tik-Tok is not a strange man. He is a gentleman, which is more than I can say for some people.”
“Tru-ly, Cap-tain, I meant no im-pro-pri-e-ty.”
“Just kidding, folks. Thanks for keeping Gay company, Tik-Tok.”
“It was a plea-sure and a pri-vi-lege. I ar-ranged with the night watch-man to wind me up each hour in or-der that our con-ver-sa-tion be not a-brupt-ly ter-mi-nat-ed.”
“Smart of you. Thanks again and we’ll see you again. We’ll be back for a visit, first chance. Gay, open up.”
“You didn’t say ‘Please,'” my autopilot answered, but she opened her doors.
“I am de-ligh-ted to hear that you are re-tur-ning. Miss Gay De-cei-ver and I have much in com-mon.”
Sharpie said good-bye to Tik-Tok, went inside. Deety not only said good-bye but kissed his copper cheek – Deety would kiss a pig if the pig would hold still for it (if he didn’t, I would turn him into sausage; kissing Deety is not to be scorned).
Hilda reappeared, still in evening gown. “Deety, come here. Hurry!”
I shook hands with Tik-Tok (odd!) and suggested that he back off a little. Then I went inside. No sign of our wives – I called to them, “Shake it up in there. I want a pilot suit.”
Deety called out, “Zebadiah, wiggle your way through the bulkhead.”
“I can’t change clothes back there.”
“Please, dear. I need you.”
When Deety says she needs me, I go. So I wiggled through, and the space didn’t seem as cramped as it had been when I was working on it at Termite Terrace. “Where are you?”
“In here. Port side,” came Deety’s muffled voice. I turned around, banging my head, and found a door where a door shouldn’t be. I had to stoop but once through it I could stand up. A room slightly bigger than a telephone booth – a door aft, a door forward, Sunbonnet Sue to the left, Buster Brown to the right. Deety opened the door on the left. “Come look!”
A luxurious dressing room and bath – “It’s the same one as in the ‘Welcome’ cottage,” said Deety, “except that the window is frosted and doesn’t open. But the air is fresh.”
I said “Hmmm – ” Then I added, “Well, well!” I checked out Buster Brown. Yes, the same bathroom Jake and I had used yesterday.
Jake stuck his head in. I said, “Perfesser, give me the benefit of your wisdom.”
“Zeb, I’m fresh out.”
“Jake – your opinion, please. Is this craft ready for space?”
“Zeb, I don’t know.”
“Let’s check the outside.”
We went over the shell with eyes and fingers, port and starboard. That car was unblemished – coutside. But from inside I heard a toilet flushing.
I went inside, on back, still on back, and knocked on Sunbonnet Sue. Sharpie let me in. “Just leaving, Zebbie,” She had elected to wear one of her new jump suits and looked like a Cracker Jack prize. “Deet’ is about ready.”
“Wait a half, Sharpie. Jake and I have decided to trust Glinda.”
“Was there any doubt?”
I stepped inside; Deety twisted around at the dressing table, smiled through a mouthful of bobby pins. “Your father and I have approved this craft for space – tentatively – Captain Deety.”
“I approved it at breakfast – and not tentatively. What do you have there, dear one?” She accepted a list from me, read it over:

NameDutyAdditional and/or Relief Duty
D. T. B. CarterCommanding

Hilda S. Burroughs2nd in Command & NavigatorScience Officer & Chef

Z. J. CarterChief PilotRelief Navigator
J. J. BurroughsCopilotSous-Chef

“It’s intended to make your life easier, Cap’n Deety. Jake didn’t get the going-over he should have had. But with Jake in the right-hand seat and me over him, I can keep him in hand – and he’ll be so busy with his verniers that he won’t have time to talk back. ‘Sous-Chef’ is a fancy way of saying that he’ll be under his wife’s thumb when we’re grounded.”
“It’s well thought out, Zebadiah. Thank you.”
“Suits you?”
“Let me study it.”
I got fidgety, ducked into Buster Brown and killed time until she called me. “Slight revision, Zebadiah.”

NameDutyAdditional and/or Relief Duty
DeetyCaptainInstructor Computers

Zebadiah2nd in Command & Chief Master at ArmsInstructor Duo, Air

JakeChief PilotInstructor Verniers
HildaCopilotScience Officer & Executive Chef

Note: Cooking will rotate D-J-Z unless changed by the Executive Chef.

“A ‘Slight revision’!” – I felt offended.
Deety looked at me anxiously. “I’m submitting it for your advice, Zebadiah. I want to continue Pop’s policy of everybody learning every job, at least well enough to limp home. Hilda will learn the verniers quickly; she’s deft, she doesn’t have to be told twice, and the inventor I have placed at her elbow. Pop needs practice in air; he isn’t as good as he thinks he is and he’s never driven a car this fast. You’ll be behind him, ready to bounce him out of trouble. Dear – will it work?”
I was forced to admit that Deety’s T.O. was better than mine.
“It’s better than mine, so you owe me a forfeit. Where are my handcuffs and nightstick?”
“As second-in-command you are vested with the duty to keep order and to see that the commanding officer’s orders are carried out, are you not?”
“Of course, Deety – Captain Deety – why rub their noses in it?”
“You know why, Zebadiah. I am reminding everyone that I mean to have a taut ship – and no back talk! You don’t need handcuffs or a club. But in that right-hand dressing-table drawer is a ten-centimeter roll of adhesive tape – the size gangsters use for gags.”
“Oh. Oho!”
“Zebadiah! Don’t use it without my direct order. I shall maintain a taut ship. But when I’ve served my time, I would much rather my father was still speaking to me. It’s a last resort, my husband. A sharp Pipe-down from you is all P – anybody will ever need. I intend to keep you at the conn most of the time – unless you ask me to relieve you, or I tell you I want to conn something personally.”
“Suits.”
“Very well, sir. You have the conn. Give them their assignments, prepare the car for space, take the reports, let me know here when you are ready. Revision in plan: Take us straight up one thousand klicks. Let us look at Oz from a distance, then continue by plan.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” I started to leave while thinking that Deety might leave a reputation equal to that of Captain Bligh.
“Zebadiah!”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Don’t go ‘way without kissing me or I won’t take the bloody job!”
“I didn’t realize that the Captain cared to be kissed.”
“Captains need kisses more than most people,” she answered, her face muffled against my shoulder.
“Got a fresh new stock. Will there be anything else, Ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“When I’ve served my time, will you use your influence to put me on the verniers? And – sometime – will you teach me supersonic?”
“Verniers, yes. Supersonic – A man who takes his wife as a pupil is breeding a divorce. Gay will teach you supersonic if you will let her. At super- or hypersonic she’s safest on autopilot. She won’t hurt herself – but if you override, you may hurt her, she may hurt you.”
“But you override. How am I to learn?”
“Easy. Give her a program. Leave it loose enough for her to correct your goofs. Keep your hands and feet very lightly on the controls. Be patient, and eventually you’ll be part of Gay and Gay will be part of you. Shut up and kiss me.”
Captains kiss better.
Ten minutes later we were ready for space. I asked, “Did anyone leave anything in our annex?” I wasn’t thinking about it; Jake had reported: “Juice one point zero – full capacity!”
“Hilda and I hung up our dresses.”
“Captain, do you realize that our magical space warp will probably go back wherever it came from the instant we leave?”
“Want to bet? Glinda wouldn’t pull a trick like that.”
“It’s your dress, Cap’n. But your exec advises you officially to warn all hands never to leave anything essential in there during maneuvers.” I wiped the matter from my mind; Deety would do it her way. “Gay, are you going to go on being talkative on your own?”
“Zeb, back on watch, I’ll be strictly business. But a girl is entitled to a night out once in a while.”
“You’re a Smart Girl, Gay.”
“So Tik-Tok told me, Zeb.”
“Roger and out, Gay. Sharpie, set transition one thousand klicks H axis, plus.”
“A thousand kilometers straight up, minimum-range scale, vernier setting three. Jacob, will you check me, please?”
Jake reported the setting correct; I snapped, “Execute!”
Jake put her nose-down: an Earthlike planet so covered with haze that I could make out no details other than straight down, where Oz was still sharp and framed by the impassable deserts. “Sharpie, please hand me the binox, then shift hats to ‘Science Officer’ and find out whether or not our new addition came along.”
I had to help her undog the bulkhead door – Sharpie, in free fall, can’t brace herself to apply enough torque to loosen a dog I had fastened on the ground. Meanwhile Deety had been using the binox. “Zebadiah, it’s hazy everywhere but below us. Emerald City shines out green as Erin, and Glinda’s Palace gleams in the sunshine. But the rest might as well be Venus. Only it’s not.”
“Daughter – Captain, I mean – have you looked at the stars?” Jake added, “I think it’s our own universe.”
“It is, Pop? On which side of Orion is the Bull?”
“Why, on – Jesus, Allah, and Zoroaster! It’s turned inside out!”
“Yes, but not the way that other inside – out place was. Like Oz itself. East for west.”
I asked my wife, “Captain Deety, is there anything odd about duration here?”
“Doesn’t feel odd. But it’s been about a century since those three little girls moved to Oz. I don’t know what it feels like to them, and I carefully didn’t ask. Did anybody notice that there were no clocks and no calendars?”
“Zebbie!”
“Yes, Sharpie?” I answered.
“Our new plumbing works just dandy. Be careful going in; it’s not free fall; the floor is down. I did a spectacular somersault.”
“Hilda my love, are you hurt?”
“Not a bit, Jacob. But next time I’ll hang on to something, pull myself down even with the deck, and slide in.”
“Science Officer, secure all doors, return to your seat and strap down. Then swap hats and set next rotation by schedule.”
“I fastened the doors. I’m dogging the bulkhead door. Okay, I’m strapping down. Where are the binoculars?”
“Jake stowed them. All hands, stand by to rotate.”
Another totally black one – I said, “Captain, we’ll tumble now unless you prefer to check our new plumbing first.”
“Plumbing isn’t Deety’s job! I’m Science Officer and that includes hygiene, plumbing, and space warps.”
Deety said to me, “I relieve you, dear” – then more loudly, to Hilda: “Copilot, pipe down. Pop, dowse the lights and tumble us. Aunt Hillbilly, attempt to set next rotation by touch and sound, in the dark. That’s number eight, third of second group.”
“Aye aye, Captain Bligh.”
The tumble showed nothing. Jake switched on lights, reported that Sharpie had set the next rotation correctly. Deety asked me to relieve her at the conn, then said, “Science Officer, I am about to inspect the addition to your department; please accompany me.” Without a word Sharpie did so.
They were gone quite a while. At last I said, “Jake, what do women talk about in can conferences?”
“I’m afraid to find out.”
They came back full of giggles; I concluded that Deety’s disciplinary methods worked. As they strapped down, Deety said, “Dear, it’s black as sin out there – and sunlight streaming in both bathroom windows. Riddle me that.”
“Science Officer’s department,” I evaded. “Stand by to rotate.”
This time Jake not only had air, I could hear it. Jake got her leveled out hastily. “Copilot, H-above-G!”
“Thirteen hundred meters.”
“Too close! Zeb, I’m going to retire and take up tatting. Where are we? I can’t see a thing.”
“We’re over water, Pop, with a light fog. I see a shoreline to starboard.” Jake turned Gay to the right, I picked out the shoreline. Gay’s wings were spread; Jake held her at an easy glide and placed her on automatic. “We’ll leave this kite sealed now; I won’t check the air without going up high.”
“Sail ho!”
“Where away, Sharpie?”
“Starboard bow. A sailing ship.”
Durn if it wasn’t. A square-rigger out of the seventeenth century, high forecastle and sterncastle. Jake took us down for a better look. I wasn’t afraid; people who sail ships like that don’t use guided missiles – so I kept telling myself.
It was a pretty sight. Jake dropped the starboard wing so that we could have a good look. But we must not have been a “pretty sight” to them; sailors were rushing around and the helmsman let her get away from him and she fell into irons, her canvas flapping foolishly. Not wanting to get the poor fellow keelhauled, I told Jake to level off and head for land.
Deety said, “Good God, Pop, you scared me silly.”
“Why, Deety? – Captain Deety. They were scared-but surely you aren’t scared by black-powder cannon?”
“You almost put the starboard wing into the water.”
“Don’t be silly, Deety; I was above two hundred meters. Well, maybe a hundred and fifty when I did that steep turn. But plenty of room.”
“Take a look at your altimeter. And pressure.”
Jake looked and so did I. The radar altimeter stated that we were nineteen meters above the water; Jake had to change scales to read it. Pressure showed well over a thousand millibars – a sea-level high. So I snapped, “Gay Bounce!”
Gay did and I caught my breath.
“Deety, how did I make that error?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know, Pop. I can see the right wing tip; you can’t. When it looked to me as if you might cut the water, I looked at the instruments. I was about to yell when you straightened out.”
“Captain, I was driving seat-of-my-pants by the ship’s masts. I would swear I never got within three hundred meters of that ship, on the slant. That should put me plenty high.”
Sharpie said, “Jacob, don’t you recognize this place?”
“Hilda, don’t tell me you’ve been here before?”
“Only in books, Beloved. A child’s version in third grade. A more detailed version in junior high. Finally I laid hands on the unexpurgated version, which was pretty racy for the age I was then. I still find it pleasantly bawdy.”
“Sharpie,” I demanded, “what are you talking about?”
Jake answered. “Zeb, what sort of ship could cause me to think I was high in the air when in fact I was about to pole-vault into the sea?”
“I’ve got it!” said Deety.
“I give up,” I admitted.
“Tell him, Pop.”
“One manned by sailors fifteen centimeters high.”
I thought about it. We were approaching land; I told Jake to glide to two klicks by instrument and told Gay to hold us there – it seemed much higher. “If anyone runs across Dean Swift, will you give him a swift kick for me?”
Deety said, “Zebadiah, do you suppose the land of the giants – Brobdingnag – is on this continent?”
“I hope not.”
“Why not, dear? It should be fun.”
“We don’t have time to waste on either Lilliputians or giants. Neither would have obstetricians able to take care of you two. Sharpie, get ready to take us up a hundred thousand klicks. Then to rotate. Does anyone have any theory about what has been happening to us? Aside from Sharpie’s notion that we are dead and don’t know it?”
“I have another theory, Zebbie.”
“Give, Sharpie.”
“Don’t laugh – because you told me that you and Jacob discussed the heart of it, the idea that human thought exists as quanta. I don’t know quanta from Qantas Airways, but I know that a quantum is an indivisible unit. You told me that you and Jacob had discussed the possibility that imagination had its own sort of indivisible units or quanta – you called them ‘fictons’-or was it ficta? Either way, the notion was that every story ever told – or to be told if there is a difference – exists somewhere in the Number of the Beast.”
“But, Hilda my love, that was merely abstract speculation!”
“Jacob, your colleagues regard this car as ‘abstract speculation.’ Didn’t you tell me that the human body is merely complex equations of wave forms? That was when I bit you – I don’t mind being a wave form, waves are pretty; I bit you for using the adverb ‘merely.”
“Zebadiah, there is a city on the left. Shouldn’t we look at it before we leave?”
“Captain, you must decide that. You saw what a panic we caused in that ship. Imagine yourself fourteen centimeters tall and living in that city. Along comes a great sky monster and dives on you. Would you like it? How many little people will faint? How many will die of heart failure? How many are you willing to kill to satisfy your curiosity?” I added, “To those people we are monsters worse than ‘Black-Hat’ vermin.”
“Oh, dear! You’re right, Zebadiah – dismally so. Let’s get out of here.”
“Copilot, set to transit straight up one hundred thousand klicks.”
“Transition ‘H’ axis, positive, vernier setting five – set!”
“Execute.” I continued, “Captain, I’d like to sit here a while.”
“Very well, Zebadiah.”
“Sharpie, let’s hear your theory. Captain, I’ve been scared silly by too many narrow escapes. We know how to translate from one Earth-analog to the next; just use plenty of elbow room. But these rotations are making me white-haired. The laws of chance are going to catch up with us.”
“Zebbie, I don’t think the laws of chance have anything to do with it. I don’t think we have been in any danger in any rotation.”
“So? Sharpie, I’m about to swap jobs with you as quickly as I can get the Captain’s permission.”
“No, no! I -“
“Chicken!”
“Zebbie, your hunches are part of why I say that the laws of chance are not relevant.”
“Sharpie, statistical laws are the most firmly established of all natural laws.”
“Do they apply in the Land of Oz?” asked Deety.
“Uh – Damned if I know! Touché!”
“Zeb, Hilda has not expressed it as I would; nevertheless I agree with her.) To call the equations used in statistics ‘laws of nature’ is a misnomer. Those equations measure the degree of our ignorance. When I flip a coin and say that the chance of heads or tails is fifty-fifty, I am simply declaring total ignorance as to outcome. If I knew all conditions, the outcome might be subject to precalculation. But we have experienced two universes having physical laws unlike those of our home universe.”
“Three, Jacob. Lilliput makes three.”
“I don’t follow you, my dear.”
“The cube-square law that runs through all biology does not apply here. A human brain can’t be placed in a space the size of a thimble by our biophysical laws. But we’re getting away from the theory Zebbie wanted me to expound. Shall I go on?”
“Yes,” Deety ruled. “Everybody shut up but Aunt Hilda. I’m zipping my own lip. Hillbilly – proceed.”
“All right. It’s not chance that we have been in three universes – InsideOut, the Land of Oz, and Lilliput – in … less than twenty-four hours, isn’t it, Deety?”
“Less than twenty-one, Aunt Hilda.”
“Thanks hon. It’s not chance that those three are ‘fictional’ universes – I have to call them that for lack of a better word – well known to each of us. By coincidence – and again I don’t have a good word but it’s not ‘chance’ – all four of us are addicted to fanciful stories. Fantasy. Fairy tales. We all like the same sort of stories. How many of us like detective stories?”
“Some – not all,” said Deety.
“My sole loyalty is to Sherlock Holmes,” I said.
“Waste of time,” said Jake.
“I’d like to try an experiment,” Hilda went on. “Write down the twenty stories you have enjoyed most. Or groups of related stories – the Oz books would count as one, so would the Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars series, and so would the four voyages of ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’ Make them stories you reread for pleasure when you are too tired to tackle a new book.”
“Sharpie, is it cheating to ask how you mean to use this?”
“No, Zebbie. If my theory is right, the next time we rotate and find ourselves near a planet, it will turn out to be the scene of a story or group of stories that appears on all four lists. We’ll arrive high enough that Jacob will have plenty of time to level off but close enough that we can ground. But we will never rotate into a mass or any danger that we can’t handle. This isn’t chance; we haven’t been dealing with chance. The Land of Oz surprised me. Lilliput didn’t surprise me at all; I expected it. Or at least a place that all of us know through Stories.”
“How about those empty universes?” I demanded.
“Maybe they are places about which stories will be written or maybe stories have already been told but aren’t favorites of us four, so we don’t emerge close to their scenes. But those are guesses. So far as my theory is concerned, such Universes are ‘null’ – they don’t count one way or the other. We find our universes.”
“Sharpie, you have just invented pantheistic multiperson solipsism. I didn’t think it was mathematically possible.”
“Zeb, anything is mathematically possible.”
“Thanks, Jacob. Zebbie, ‘solipsism’ is a buzz word. I’m saying that we’ve stumbled onto ‘The Door in the Wall,’ the one that leads to the Land of Heart’s Desire. I don’t know how and have no use for fancy rationalizations. I see a pattern; I’m not trying to explain it. It just is.”
“How does that hollow world fit your theory?”
“Well, Deety called it Pellucidar -“
“It was!”
” – but I’ve read dozens of stories about worlds underground; I’ll bet all of us have. Jules Verne, S. Fowler Wright, H. G. Wells, C. L. Moore, Lovecraft – all the great masters of fantasy have taken a crack at it. Please, can we stop talking? I want all four lists before we rotate again.”
Jake changed attitude so that Lilliput’s planet was dead ahead and told Gay to hold it there. The planet looked very small, as if we were a million kilometers out – reasonable, I decided, and wrote down “The Dorsai yarns.”
At last Deety announced, “I’m through, Aunt Hillbilly.”
Soon after, her father handed Sharpie his list. “Don’t count those I’ve lined out, dear – I had trouble holding it down.”
“‘Twenty’ is arbitrary, Jacob. I can leave your extras in.”
“No, dear, the four I eliminated do not stand as high as the twenty I retained.”
After some pencil-chewing I announced, “Sharpie, I’m stuck at seventeen. Got a baker’s dozen more in mind, but no choice.”
“Seventeen will do, Zebbie – if they are your prime favorites.”
“They are.”
Hilda accepted my list, ran her eye down it. “A psychoanalyst would have a wonderful time with these.”
“Wait a half! Sharpie, if you’re going to let a shrink see those lists, I want mine back.”
“Zebbie darling, I wouldn’t do that to you.” She added, “I need a few minutes to tally.”
I glanced at Lilliput. “Need help?”
“No. I’ve tallied a ‘one’ after all on my list. I’ve checked Deety’s against mine and tallied a ‘two’ where they match, and added to the bottom of my list, with one vote tallied against each, those she picked but I didn’t. I’m doing the same with Jacob’s list, tallying three’s and two’s and one’s. Then Zebbie and we’ll wind up with a four-vote list – unanimous – and a list with three each – and a list with two, and with one.”
Sharpie kept busy some minutes, then took a fresh sheet, made a list, folded it. “This should be in a sealed envelope to establish my reputation as a fortuneteller. Zebbie, there are nine soi-disant fictional universes listed. Any close approach we make by rotation should be near one of them.”
I said, “You included Pellucidar?”
“Pellucidar got only two votes. I stick to my theory that the inside-out world is a composite of underground fantasies. But our vote identified that third universe – the blinding lights, the one that worried you about radiation.”
“The hell you say!”
“I think it did. Four votes for Doctor Isaac Asimov’s ‘Nightfall.’ I expected his Foundation stories to make it but they got only three votes. Too bad, because his library planet might be able to tell us what those vermin are, where they come from – and how to beat them.”
“My fault, Aunt Hillbilly. Pop told me I should read the Foundation series… but I never did.”
“Sharpie,” I said, “we can put you down in New York in five minutes. The Good Doctor is getting on in years – turns out less than a million words a year now – but still likes pretty girls. He must know whatever is in the Galactic Library; he invented it. So telephone him. Better yet, sit on his lap. Cry if necessary.”
“Zebbie, if there is one place I’m certain is loaded with ‘Black Hat’ vermin, it’s New York City! You sit on his lap!”
“Not me. If we learn how to delouse our home planet, I’ll work on a way to spread the word. But I’m number one on their death list.”
“No, Jacob is.”
“No, Sharpie. Jake and Deety are dead, you are kidnapped, and I’m marked down to be ‘terminated with extreme prejudice.’ But I’ll risk grounding on the Hudson River VTOL flat long enough for you to visit the Good Doctor. Your husband can escort you; I’m going to hide in the bathroom. I figure that is actually in Oz and therefore safe.”
“Go lay an egg!”
“Sharpie dear, none of us is going to Earth-zero. Hand that list to Deety; she won’t peek. Captain, shall we rotate? The Science Officer has me half convinced that we can get away with it; let’s do it before I lose my nerve. Fourth and last universe in the second group, isn’t it?” I asked Sharpie.
“Yes, Zebbie.”
“Anybody as chicken as I am, speak up!… Isn’t anybody going to get us out of this!…… Execute!”

Chapter XXXIV

” – all my dreams do come true!”

Zeb:
Gay Deceiver was right side up five hundred meters above a sunlit, gentle countryside. Jake set her to cruise in a circle. I asked, “Are we back in Oz? Sharpie, check your setting.”
“Not Oz, Zebbie. I’ve stuck to schedule.”
“Okay. Does your magic list tell you where we are?”
“If it’s one of the nine, then it’s – ” Hilda wrote a word on a sheet, folded it, handed it to me. “Stick this in your pocket.”
I tucked it away. “Jake, bounce us, then range-and-target to ground us in that meadow. We’ll test the air when we’re down. Safer.”
Jake zeroed Gay in; she grounded. “Zeb,” he said fretfully, “how can I tell what juice we have? The gauge still reads ‘Capacity.”
“Let me think about it.”
“All right. Has the Captain worked out that new scram?”
“I think so, Pop. Take G.D. straight up a hundred thousand klicks, but do it in two words, in total darkness, or with eyes dazzled, or anything. As long as anyone can get out two syllables we’ll zip far enough away from trouble that we’ll have time to work out what to do next.”
“Good enough. Can you program it before I open a door?”
“I think so, Zebadiah. If she’s asleep, G.D. will wake up and do it at once.”
“Okay, will you program it? Hilda, set up the same thing on your dials as a back-up. Meanwhile I’m going to give the plumbing a field test. Don’t touch the doors till I get back.”
I returned in a few minutes. “Our magic space warp is still with us – don’t ask me why or I’ll scream. New program inserted?”
“Yes, Zebadiah. On tell-me-three-times and protected against execution without the doors being closed and locked. I’ve written down the magic words. Here.” Deety handed me a scrap of paper.
On it was: “Gay – Zoom!”
“It’s the shortest program with an unusual monosyllable that I can think of.”
“Its shortness may save our necks. Swap seats with me, Sharpie, it’s my turn to be pioneer mother. Everybody, hold your breath; I’m going to sniff the air.”
“Zebbie, this planet is Earthlike to nine decimal places.”
“Which gives me a cheap chance to play hero.” I opened her door a crack, sniffed.
Shortly I said, “I feel okay. Anybody woozy?”
“Open the door wide, Zebbie; this place is safe.”
I did so and stepped out into a field of daisies; the others followed me. It certainly seemed safe – quiet, warm, peaceful, a meadow bounded by a hedge row and a stream.
Suddenly a white rabbit came running past, headed for the hedge. He barely paused, pulled a watch from his waistcoat pocket, glanced at it, then moaned, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” and ran even faster. Deety started after him.
“Deety!” I yelled.
She stopped short. “I want to find the rabbit hole.”
“Then keep your eye on her. You’re not going down the hole.”
“On whom?” Deety turned back toward the hedge row. A little girl in a pinafore was hurrying toward the spot where the rabbit had disappeared. “Oh. But it didn’t hurt her to go down the hole.”
“No, but Alice had lots of difficulties before she got out. We haven’t time; this is not a place we can stay.”
“Why not?”
“Nineteenth-century England did not have advanced medicine.”
“Zebbie,” put in Hilda, “this isn’t England. Read that slip.”
I unfolded the scrap of paper, read: Wonderland. “Just so,” I agreed, and handed it to my wife. “But it is modeled on England in the eighteen-sixties. It either has no medicine, like Oz, or pre-Pasteur medicine. Possibly pre-Semmelweiss. Deety, do you want to die from childbed fever?”
“No, I want to go to the Mad Tea Party.”
“We can have a mad tea party; I went mad several universes back – and it’s time for lunch. Sharpie, you win the Order of Nostradamus with diamond cluster. May I ask two questions?”
“One may always ask.”
“Is H. P. Lovecraft on that list?”
“He got only one vote, Zebbie. Yours.”
“Chthulhu be thanked! Sharpie, his stories fascinate me the way snakes are said to fascinate birds. But I would rather be trapped with the King in Yellow than be caught up in the worlds of the Necronomicon. Uh… did any horrids get four votes?”
“No, dear, the rest of us prefer happy endings.”
“So do I! Especially when I’m in it. Did Heinlein get his name in the hat?”
“Four votes, split. Two for his ‘Future History,’ two for ‘Stranger in a Strange Land.’ So I left him out.”
“I didn’t vote for ‘Stranger’ and I’ll refrain from embarrassing anyone by asking who did. My God, the things some writers will do for money!”
“Samuel Johnson said that anyone who wrote for any other reason was a fool.”
“Johnson was a fat, pompous, gluttonous, dirty old fool who would have faded into the obscurity he so richly deserved had he not been followed around by a spit-licking sycophant. Spell that ‘Psycho-‘, as in ‘Bloch.'” I added, “Did Poul Anderson get in? Or Niven?”
“Zebbie, that’s far more than two questions.”
“I haven’t even reached the second question… which is: What do we have for a mad tea party?”
“Surprise! Glinda had a picnic basket placed in our dressing room.”
“I missed it,” I admitted.
“You didn’t look in the wardrobe.” Sharpie grinned. “Can sandwiches from Oz be eaten in Wonderland? Or will they ‘softly and silently vanish away’?”
“‘Be off, or I’ll kick you downstairs!'”
Several hundred calories later I noticed a young man hovering nearby. He seemed to want to speak but was too diffident to do so. Deety jumped up, trotted toward him. “The Reverend Mister Dodgson, is it not? I’m Mrs. Zebadiah Carter.”
He quickly removed his straw boater. “‘Mr. Dodgson,’ yes, uh, Mrs. Carter. Have we met?”
“Long ago, before I was married. You are looking for Alice, are you not?”
“Dear me! Why, yes, I am. But how -“
“She went Down the Rabbit-Hole.”
Dodgson looked relieved. “Then she will be back soon enough. I promised to return her and her sisters to Christ Church before dark.”
“You did. I mean, ‘you will.’ Same thing, depending on the coordinates. Come meet my family. Have you had luncheon?”
“Oh, I say, I don’t mean to intrude.”
“You aren’t intruding.” Deety took him by the hand, firmly. Since my treasure is stronger than most men, he came along… and let go her hand hastily as soon as she loosened her grip. We men got to our feet; Hilda remained in lotus.
“Aunt Hilda, this is Mr. Dodgson, Lecturer in Mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford. My stepmother, Mrs. Burroughs.”
“How do you do, Mrs. Burroughs. Oh dear, I am intruding!”
“Not at all, Mr. Dodgson. Do sit down.”
“And this is my father, Dr. Burroughs, Professor of Mathematics. And my husband Captain Carter. Aunt Hilda, will you find a clean plate for Mr. Dodgson?”
The young don relaxed once introductions had been made but he was still far more formal than Deety intended to permit. He sat down on the turf, placed his hat carefully beside him, and said, “Truly, Mrs. Burroughs, I’ve just finished tea with three little girls.”
Deety ignored his protests while she piled his plate with little sandwiches and cakes. Sharpie poured tea from a Thermos jug. They nailed him down with cup and plate. Jake advised, “Don’t fight it, son, unless you really must leave. Are Alice’s sisters safe?”
“Why, yes, Professor; they are napping in the shade of a hayrick nearby. But -“
“Then relax. In any case, you must wait for Alice. What branch of mathematics do you pursue?”
“Algebraic logic, usually, sir, with some attention to its applications to geometry.” The Reverend Mr. Dodgson was seated so that he faced Gay Deceiver and sat in the shadow of her port wing but nothing in his manner showed that he noticed the anachronism.
“Have your studies led you into multidimensional non-Euclidean geometries?” Jake asked.
Dodgson blinked. “I fear that I tend to be conservative in geometry, rathuh.”
“Father, Mr. Dodgson doesn’t work in your field; he works in mine.”
Dodgson raised his eyebrows slightly. Jake said, “My daughter did not introduce herself fully. She is Mrs. Carter but her maiden name is Doctor D. T. Burroughs. Her field is mathematical logic.”
“That is why I am so pleased that you are here, Mr. Dodgson. Your book ‘Symbolic Logic’ is a milestone in our field.”
“But, my dear lady, I have not written a work titled ‘Symbolic Logic.”
“I’ve confused things. Again it is matter of selection of coordinates. At the end of the reign of Queen Victoria you will have published it five years earlier. Is that clear?”
He answered very solemnly, “Quite clear. All I need do is to ask Her Majesty how much longer she is going to reign and subtract five years.”
“That should do it. Do you like to play with sorites?” For the first time, he smiled. “Oh, very much!”
“Shall we make up some? Then trade and solve them?” “Well… not too lengthy. I really must get back to my young charges.”
“We can’t stay long, either. Anyone else want to play?” No one else elected to play. I stretched out on the grass with a handkerchief over my face; Jake and Sharpie went for a walk. “Shall we hold the statements down to groups of six?” Dodgson suggested.
“All right. But the conclusion must be true. Not nonsense. Agreed?” (Deety had taught me this game; she’s good at it. I decided to be a silent witness.)
They kept quiet while I snored convincingly, Deety was a “lady” for a while, then sprawled on her belly and chewed her pencil. I watched with one eye from under my handkerchief.
First she covered several pages with scratch work in developing statements incomplete in themselves but intended to arrive at only one possible conclusion. Having done so, she tested them by symbolic logic, then wrote out her list of statements, mixing them randomly – clooked up.
The young mathematician was looking at her solemnly, note pad in hand.
“Finished?” my wife asked.
“Just finished. Mrs. Carter, you remind me of my little friend Alice Liddell.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s how I recognized her. Shall we trade?”
Dodgson tore a sheet from his pad. “This is to be solved in the first person; its conclusion applies to you.”
“All right, I’ll try it.” Deety read aloud:

“1) Every idea of mine, that cannot be expressed as a syllogism, is really ridiculous;
“2) None of my ideas about Bath-buns are worth writing down;
“3) No idea of mine, that fails to come true, can be expressed as a syllogism;
“4) I never have any really ridiculous idea, that I do not at once refer to my solicitor;
“5) My dreams are all about Bath-buns;
“6) I never refer any idea of mine to my solicitor, unless it is worth writing down.”
Deety chortled. “How sweet of you! It is true; all my dreams do come true!”
“You solved it so quickly?”
“But it’s only six statements. Have you solved mine?”
“I haven’t read it yet.” He also read aloud:
“1) Everything, not absolutely ugly, may be kept in a drawing room;
“2) Nothing, that is encrusted with salt, is ever quite dry;
“3) Nothing should be kept in a drawing room, unless it is free from damp;
“4) Time-traveling machines are always kept near the sea;
“5) Nothing, that is what you expect it to be, can be absolutely ugly;
“6) Whatever is kept near the sea gets encrusted with salt.”
He blinked at the list. “The conclusion is true?” he asked.
“Yes.”
For the first time he stared openly at Gay Deceiver. “That, then – I infer – is a ‘time-traveling machine.”
“Yes… although it does other things as well.”
“It is not what I expected it to be … although I am not sure what I expected a time-traveling machine to be.”
I pulled his handkerchief off my face. “Do you want to take a ride, Mr. Dodgson?”
The young don looked wistful. “I am sorely tempted, Captain. But I am responsible for three little girls. So I must thank you for your hospitality and bid you good-bye. Will you offer my apologies to Professor and Mrs. Burroughs and explain that duty calls me?”

Chapter XXXV

“It’s a disturbing idea – “

Jake:
“Deety, how does it feel to say good-bye without getting kissed?”
“Zebadiah, I didn’t make it possible. Lewis Carroll was terrified by females over the age of puberty.”
“That’s why I stayed close. Deety hon, if I had gone with Jake and Hilda, he would have left at once.”
“I can’t figure out how he got here in the first place,” said my dear wife Hilda. “Lewis Carroll was never in Wonderland; he simply wrote about it. But this is Wonderland – unless rabbits in England wear waistcoats and watches.”
“Aunt Hilda, who can possibly be as deeply inside a story as the person who writes it?”
“Hmm – I’ll have to study that.”
“Later, Sharpie,” Zeb said. “Stand by to rotate. Mars, isn’t it?”
“Right, Zebbie,” Hilda agreed.
“Gay… Sagan!”
Mars-zero lay ahead, in half phase at the proper distance.
“Set!” Hilda reported. “To tenth universe, third group.”
“Execute.” It was another starry void with no familiar groupings; we ran through routine, Zeb logged it as “possible” and we moved on to the second of the third group – and I found myself facing the Big and Little Dippers. Again we ran through a routine tumble – but failed to find the Sun or any planets. I don’t know the southern constellations too well but I spotted Crux and the Magellanic Clouds. To the north there could be no doubt about Cygnus and a dozen others.
Zeb said, “Where is Sol? Deety? Sharpie?”
“I haven’t seen it, Zebadiah.”
“Zebbie, don’t go blaming me. I put it right back where I found it.”
“Jake, I don’t like this. Sharpie, are you set?”
“Set. Standing orders. Third group, third of three.”
“Keep your finger near the button. How does this fit your theory? I don’t recall listing a story that doesn’t have the Solar System in it.”
“Zebbie, it can’t fit two of those left, could fit the others, and could fit half a dozen or more that got three votes. You said that about a dozen were tied in your mind. Were any of them space-travel stories?”
“Almost all.”
“Then we could be in any world that takes our universe as a model but far enough from the Sun so that it appears as second or third magnitude. That wouldn’t have to be far; our Sun is pretty faint. So this could be the Darkover universe, or Niven’s Known Space, or Dr. Williamson’s Legion of Space universe, or the Star Trek universe, or Anderson’s world of the Polesotechnic League, or Dr. Smith’s Galactic Patrol world. Or several more.”
“Sharpie, what were two that this could not be?”
“King Arthur and his Knights, and the World of the Hobbits.”
“If we find ourselves in either of those, we leave. No obstetricians. Jake, any reason to stay here longer?”
“None that I see,” I answered.
“Captain Deety, I advise scram. Those space-opera universes can be sticky. I don’t care to catch a photon torpedo or a vortex bomb or a negative-matter projectile, just through failure to identify ourselves promptly.”
So we rotated.
This time we weren’t merely close; we were on the ground. Charging straight at us was a knight in armour, lance couched in attack. I think it unlikely that a lance could damage Gay. But this “gentle knight” was unfriendly; I shouted, “Gay! – Zoom!”
Sighed with relief at sudden darkness and at the Captain’s next words: “Thanks, Pop. You were on your toes.”
“Thank you. End of group three. Back to Mars? S, A, G, A, N?”
“Let’s get on with it,” Zeb agreed. “All Hands -“
“Zebadiah!” my daughter interrupted. “Is that all you wish to see of King Arthur and his Knights?”
“Captain Deety, that wasn’t one of King Arthur’s Knights. He was wearing plated mail.”
“That’s my impression,” my beloved agreed. “But I gave more attention to his shield. Field sable, argent bend sinister, in chief sun proper with crown, both or.”
“Sir Modred,” my daughter decided. “I knew he was a baddie! Zebadiah, we should have hit him with your L-gun.”
“Killed that beautiful beer-wagon horse? Deety, that sort of armor wasn’t made earlier than the fifteenth century, eight or nine centuries after the days of King Arthur.”
“Then why was he carrying Sir Modred’s shield?”
“Sharpie, was that Sir Modred’s coat of arms?”
“I don’t know; I blazoned what I saw. Aren’t you nit-picking in objecting to plate armor merely because it’s anachronistic?”
“But history shows that -“
“That’s the point, Zebbie. Camelot isn’t history; it’s fiction.”
Zeb said slowly, “Shut my big mouth.”
“Zebbie, I venture to guess that the version of Camelot we blundered into is a patchwork of all our concepts of King Arthur and the Round Table. I picked up mine from Tennyson, revised them when I read ‘Le Morte d’Arthur.’ Where did you get yours?”
“Mark Twain gave me mine – ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.’ Add some Prince Valiant. Jake?”
I said, “Zeb, there seems little doubt that there was a king or a general named Arthur or Arturius. But most people think of King Arthur from stories having little connection with any historical person. ‘The Sword in the Stone’ and ‘The Once and Future King’ are my favorites.”
My daughter persisted, “I do believe in the Round Table, I do! We should go back and look! Instead of guessing.”
“Captain Deety,” her husband said gently, “the jolly, murderous roughnecks called the Knights of the Round Table are fun to read about but not to know socially. Nor are people the only dangers. There would be honest-to-God dragons, and wyverns, and malevolent magic – not the Glinda-the-Good variety. We’ve learned that these alternate worlds are as real as the one we came from. We don’t need to relearn it by getting suddenly dead. That’s my official advice. If you don’t agree, will you please relieve me at the conn… Ma’am?”
“Zebadiah, you’re being logical – a most unfair way to argue!”
“Jacob,” said my wife, “suppose we were people who don’t like fanciful stories. What sort of worlds would we find?”
“I don’t know, Hilda. Probably only humdrum slice-of-life universes indistinguishable from the real world. Correction: Substitute ‘Universe-zero’ for ‘real world’ – because, as your theory requires, all worlds are equally real. Or unreal.”
“Jacob, why do you call our universe ‘universe-zero?”
“Eh… for convenience. Our point of origin.”
“Didn’t you tell me that no frame is preferred over any other? Each one to the Number of the Beast is equally zero in six axes?”
“Well… theory requires it.”
“Then we are fiction in other universes. Have I reasoned correctly?”
I was slow in answering. “That seems to be a necessary corollary. It’s a disturbing idea: that we ourselves are figments of imagination.”
“I’m nobody’s figment!” my daughter protested. “I’m real, I am! Pinch me!… Ouch! Zebadiah, not so hard!”
“You asked for it, dear,” Zeb told her.
“My husband is a brute. And I’ve got a cruel stepmother just like Snow White. I mean ‘Cinderella.’ And my Pop thinks I’m imaginary! But I love you anyway because you’re all I’ve got.”
“If you fictional characters will pipe down, we’ll get this show on the road. Stand by to rotate. Gay Sagan!”
Mars was where it should be. I felt more real.

Chapter XXXVI

“Pipe down and do your job.”

Hilda:
“Set, Captain,” I reported. “Thirteenth rotation. Correct, Zebbie?”
“Check, Sharpie. Captain?”
Deety answered, “Let’s catch our breaths.” She stared out at the ruddy barrenness of Mars-zero. “That rock looks downright homelike. I feel like a tourist who tries to see thirty countries in two weeks. Shock. Not ‘future shock’ but something like it.”
“Homesickness,” I told her. “Knowing that we can’t go back. Deety, somewhere, somewhen, we’ll build another Snug Harbor. Won’t we, Jacob?”
Jacob patted my knee. “We will, dearest.”
Deety said wistfully, “Will we really find another Snug Harbor?”
“Deety, are you over your pioneer-mother jag?”
“No, Zebadiah. But I can get homesick. Like you. Like Hilda. Like everybody but Pop.”
“Correction, Daughter. I don’t miss Logan, and I don’t think Hilda misses California -“
“Not a bit!” I agreed.
“Nor me,” agreed Zeb. “I had a rented flat. But Snug Harbor was home.”
“Agreed,” Jacob answered. “I didn’t really hate these vermin until they bombed our home.” Jacob added, “We’ve got to find a new Snug Harbor. Comfortable as this car is, we can’t live in it indefinitely.”
“Check. Sharpie, your theory seems to be checking out. Is there any reason to finish this schedule? Should we go directly to Teh axis?”
“Zebbie, granted that most rotations didn’t amount to more than sightseeing, if we hadn’t followed this schedule, this car would not be nearly so comfortable. Do you know of another Ford that has two bathrooms?”
“Sharpie, I don’t know of one that has one bathroom. Our space-warp special lets us stay in space as long as our air holds out. And food. But air is the critical factor.”
I said, “Zebbie, have you noticed that our air does not get stuffy?”
“It will soon.”
“It need not,” Jacob pointed out. “We can scram-code to Oz, or to Wonderland, in seconds. Sweet air, no danger.”
Zebbie looked sheepish. “I’m still learning what our wonder buggy will do.”
“So am I.”
“Gentlemen, you missed my point. You might check the juice. I haven’t mentioned another asset. Zebbie, would you like a banana?”
“Sharpie, I ate the last before I buried garbage. While you and Deety were washing dishes before we left Wonderland.”
“Tell him, Deety.”
“Zebadiah, Hilda and I salvaged and put everything into the basket. Hilda started to put it into our wardrobe – and it was heavy. So we looked. Packed as tight as when we left Oz. Six bananas – and everything else. Cross my heart. No, go look.”
“Hmmm – Jake, can you write equations for a picnic basket that refills itself? Will it go on doing so?”
“Zeb, equations can be written to describe anything. The description would be simpler for a basket that replenishes itself indefinitely than for one that does it once and stops – I would have to describe the discontinuity. But I am no longer troubled by natural – or ‘unnatural’ – laws that don’t apply in Universe-zero.”
“Mmmm… Science Officer, I suggest that you check on that basket now that we have returned to Universe-zero.”
“Zebbie, make that an order in writing and sign your name – if you want to look foolish. Deety, will you order it logged?”
“Sharpie, if you weren’t such good company, I’d strangle you. Your earlier answer recommended that we complete the rotations.”
“No, I noted that the first twelve had not been unprofitable. We could have completed the last three by now had we not spent time debating it.”
“Hilda honey, our cowardly Astrogator needed time to get his nerve back. By yumpin’ yiminy, once you’re all trained, I’m going to retire.”
“We would simply recall you, Zebbie. Each will go on doing what she can do best.”
“Time is out of joint. O curséd spite, that I was ever picked to set it right.”
“You misquoted.”
“I always do. What universe do we hit next?”
“Zebbie, we have three rotations to go, with four left on the four-votes list. One is useless but amusing and safe. The other three are places to live but each has its own dangers. As the chief of surgery used to say: ‘I dunno, let’s operate and find out.”
Zebbie sighed. “All hands, stand by to rotate. Execute!”
Green fire – “Rotate! Execute!”
A formless red fog – “Gay Sagan!”
Mars looked like an old friend. Zebbie wiped his brow and said, “Whew! One to go – Cap’n Deety hon, let’s get it over with. Sharpie?”
“Fifteenth universe – set!” I reported.
“Execute!”
We came out into a starry universe. “Cap’n Deety hon, don’t these constellations look familiar?” Zebbie commented.
“I think so.”
“They are familiar,” I insisted. “Except that there is a very bright star near the Gemini. That ought to be the Sun. We’re way out past Pluto, where the comets spend the winter. Let’s move in and find Earth.”
“Don’t be in a hurry,” said Zebbie. “Science Officer, what was that first rotation? Green fire?”
“How about the deadly green nebula in ‘The Legion of Space’? – on the trip to the Runaway Star where Aladoree had been taken.”
“That was on your list?”
“All of us voted for it.”
“What was that red fog we rotated into next?”
“That one is harder to figure,” I admitted. “It could be any universe by a writer who paid respectful attention to astronomy – Bova, Haldeman, Schmidt, Pournelle, Niven, Benford, Clement, Anderson, and so forth. But there were four votes for ‘The Mote in God’s Eye.’ Whether the two old gentlemen had anything to do with it or not, I think we blundered into a red giant. A red giant is close to what we call vacuum. Anyhow, we weren’t hurt; we were there about two seconds.”
“Less than that, Sharpie; you set it with one click, and barely had your thumb off the execute button. Captain, do you wish to transit toward that bright star?”
“Let’s chop off thirty or forty A.U.’s,” Deety decided, “and get a rough cross fix. Maybe that will give us a disc Pop can measure. If not, we’ll narrow it down until it does. Then place us one A.U. from the Sun and we’ll spot Earth easily. Astrogator – advice.”
“Captain, I advise making that first jump with wide offset. Miss the Sun by at least one A.U. At least.”
“Yes! Zebadiah, make that cross fix wide. Uh – ” Deety peered around. “There’s the Sickle. Have Pop aim for Regulus.”
My husband said, “I’m swinging toward Regulus. Zeb, how do I take the angular width of the Solar disc without broiling an eyeball?”
“The gunsight has a built-in polarizer. Didn’t I show you?”
“You did not.”
“Sorry. Captain Deety hon, I request permission to relieve the Chief Pilot for this.”
“Permission granted. But, Zebadiah, you be careful.”
“Spacecraft! Identify yourself!” – the voice was everywhere.
Zebbie jerked with surprise. (Me, too!) “Who said that?”
“Lensman Ted Smith, Commander Galactic Patrol, commanding Patrol Vessel ‘Nighthawk.’ Entity, I regret being forced to enter your mind but you have been ignoring sub-ether radio for four minutes thirty-two seconds. Switch it on and I will get out of your mind. Do not maneuver; we have weapons on you.”
“Captain,” Jacob whispered, “Hilda is set to rotate.”
Deety shook her head, touched Zebbie’s arm, pointed to herself.
“Lensman, this is Captain Deety, commanding Continua Craft Gay Deceiver. We don’t have sub-ether radio. Do you read me?”
“I read you loud and clear. What happened to your sub-ether radio? Do you need help?”
“Captain Smith, I don’t have sub-ether radio at all. We don’t need help but could use astrogational advice. Where are we?”
“The important point is that you are in my patrol sector, an unscheduled ship insufficiently identified. I repeat: DO NOT MANEUVER. By order of the Galactic Patrol. Do you understand?”
“I understand you, Lensman. I regret having intruded into your patrol space. This is a private ship engaged in peaceful exploration.”
“That is what I am about to determine, Captain. Stay where you are, make no hostile moves, and you will be safe.”
“Lensman, can you see through my eyes?”
“Are you inviting me to do so?”
“Certainly. Use my eyes, use my ears. But don’t try to take over my mind or this ship will disappear.” Deety squeezed my shoulder; I signaled “Roger” with a pat.
“I warn you not to maneuver. Ah … interesting!”
I snapped, “Captain Smith, quit threatening us! A Lensman is supposed to be an officer and gentleman! I intend to report you to the Port Admiral! You’re an oaf!”
“Sorry, Madam. I do not wish to offend but I have duty to perform. Captain, will you please turn your head so that I can see who is speaking?”
“Certainly. Let me introduce all of us. On my left” – Deety looked at Zebbie – “is Doctor Zebadiah Carter. In front of him is Doctor Jacob Burroughs. On his right” – Deety looked at me – “is his wife, Doctor Hilda Burroughs, xenobiologist and chief of science. Let me offer you this advice, Lensman: It is never safe to offend Doctor Hilda.”
“I gathered that impression, Captain. Doctor Hilda, I would not willingly offend – but I have duties. Shall I get out of your mind entirely? If you speak to me, I will hear with Captain Deety’s ears. She can, if she will, repeat to you my thought in answer.”
“Oh, it’s all right for conversation. But don’t try to go deeper! Mentor would not like it – as you know!”
“Doctor Hilda, your mention of … a certain entity… surprises me – from one who is not a Lensman.”
“I don’t need a Lens. You can check that with Arisia.”
Deety said hastily, “Lensman, are you satisfied that we are a peaceful party of scientists? Or is there something more that you wish to know?”
“Captain, I can see that this ship is not a pirate vessel – unarmed and unarmoured. Oh, I note controls for a coherent light gun but that wouldn’t be much use to a pirate. Nor can I visualize two men and two women attempting to attack a space liner. But keeping the peace is just one of my responsibilities. Your ship, small as it is, could be carrying millions of credits in contraband.”
“Say what you mean, Lensman,” I snapped. “Drugs. But don’t use the word ‘zwilnik.'”
Mentally, we could hear him sigh. “Yes, Doctor Hilda – drugs. But I did not introduce that offensive word into the discussion.”
“I heard you thinking it. Don’t do it again!”
“Lensman,” Deety said quickly, “we have medical drugs. The only one that could interest you is a few milligrams of morphine. But we carry no thionite, no bentlam, no hadive, no nitrolabe. You are using your Lens; you know that I’m telling the truth.”
“Captain, it’s not that easy. Before I hailed you I did try a slight probe – please, Doctor Hilda; it was in line of duty! I’ve never encountered minds so fully blocked. And this is a most curious craft. It is obviously designed for aerodynamic use rather than space. Yet here you are – and I can’t see how you got here. I have no choice but to detain you and to examine this ship thoroughly. If necessary, take it apart piece by piece.”
“Lensman,” Deety said earnestly, “don’t be hasty. You can search more thoroughly by Lens than by other means. Go ahead. We’ve nothing to hide and we have a great deal to offer the Patrol. But you won’t get it by pushing us around.”
“You certainly won’t! Cap’n, let’s leave! I’m tired of stupidity!” – and I snapped, “Gay Sagan!”
Mars-zero was on our starboard bow. That dead rock looked awfully good to me.
Zebbie said, “Captain, did you order the copilot to execute?”
I said, “Don’t bother Deety with it, Zebbie. I did it without permission. Solely my decision.”
Zebbie frowned unhappily. “Sharpie, I thought you would be our model Girl Scout while Deety is skipper. Why?”
“Zebbie, you can rotate back there in no time. But I would like to be dropped first. Imperial House. Or Minus-J. Somewhere.”
“Why, Hilda?” my husband asked.
“Jacob, meet your friendly neighborhood zwilnik. Commander Ted Smith of the Galactic Patrol – a fine officer; I’m certain, as Dr. E. E. Smith saw to it that no unworthy person could ever wear the Lens – was getting unpleasantly close. That’s why I was so fierce with the poor man.”
Deety said, “But, Aunt Hilda, E. E. Smith’s world is just the sort of world we’ve been seeking.”
“Maybe we’ll go back. But not until I’ve had a chance to dump two pounds of concentrated extract of Cannabis magnifica. Dr. Wheatstone tells me that it is incredibly valuable in therapy, as the base for endless drugs. But I had a hunch that Commander Smith would confiscate it, impound the Smart Girl, arrest all of us – and convict me. But that isn’t all, Zebbie. Doctor Smith created one of the most exciting universes I know of. To read about, not to live in. With that endless Boskone War – must have been going on; they were looking for zwilniks – you have to be as smart as Kimball Kinnison to stay alive… and even he gets chopped up now and again. Deety and I need a good baby-cotcher and I’m sure they have them. But we have months to find one. Let’s not deliberately back into a war.”
Deety didn’t hesitate. “I agree with Aunt Hilda. If we go back, it will not be while I’m captain. Hillbilly, you didn’t disobey orders; you used your head in an emergency.” I thought Deety was going to ask me how and when I got Cannabis magnifica extract… but she didn’t.
“Jake,” Zebbie said, “we’re overruled. Where now, Captain? Earth-Teh-one-plus?”
“First we’d better pick a place to spend the night, and hold an election.”
“Why, Deety, you’ve served less than twelve hours!”
“It will be about twenty-four hours when we lift off tomorrow. I’m not going to ask for nominations; we’ve all had a turn at it; we are now balloting for permanent captain.”
I expected Zebbie to be picked. But there were three for me, one for Zebbie – my ballot.
I seemed to be the only one surprised. Zebbie said to Deety, “Ask to be relieved now, hon. The short-timer syndrome is bad for anyone but worse for a C.O. – it demoralizes her crew.”
“Aunt Hilda, will you relieve me?”
I pondered it half a second. “I relieve you, Deety.”
“Goody! I think I’ll take a nap.”
“I think you’ll take the verniers. Zebbie and Jacob stay in the jobs they’re in. Prepare to maneuver. Copilot, set for Oz. If you don’t know how, ask your father.”
“Set verniers for Oz?”
I took a deep breath to calm down. “Before anyone starts asking ‘Why?’ the answer is: Pipe down and do your job. Before we start on Teh axis, I want to ask questions. We talked to Glinda about our problem. We didn’t talk directly to the others. I mean Ozma and Professor Wogglebug and the Little Wizard and possibly others. Family, magicians who can install two bathrooms in a Ford and never have it show can also help us spot vermin if we ask the right questions. Deety, are you having trouble setting for Oz?”
“Captain, why set verniers? Gay has our parking spot in her perms. Codeword ‘Glinda.”
A few seconds later Gay called out, “Hi, Tik-Tok!”
“Wel-come back, Miss Gay De-cei-ver. Glin-da told me that you would be gone on-ly a few mi-nutes, so I wai-ted here for you. I am deep-ly hap-py to see you a-gain.”

Chapter XXXVII

The First Law of Biology

Zeb:
“Stand by to maneuver,” I ordered – at the conn by Captain Sharpie’s wish “Hello, Gay.”
“Howdy, Zeb. You look hung over.”
“I am. Gay Home!”
Arizona was cloudless. “Crater verified, Captain Hilda.”
“Teh axis one plus – set, Captain,” Deety reported.
“Execute!”
“No crater, Cap’n Auntie. No house. Just mountains.” Deety added, “Teh-one-minus – set.”
“Roger, Deety. Routine check, Captain?”
“Voice routine, short schedule.” (I think that is what got Sharpie elected permanent C.O. – she never hesitates.)
“Gay Deceiver. Sightseeing trip. Five klicks H-above-G.”
“Ogle the yokels at five thousand meters. Let’s go!”
“Deety, keep your thumb on the button. Gay – Miami Beach.”
Below lay a familiar strip city. “Captain?”
“Zebbie, note the crowded streets. Sunny day. Beaches empty. Why?”
“Bogie six o’clock low!” Jake yelped.
“Gay Zoom!”
Earth-Teh-one-plus swam warm and huge. Opposite us a hurricane approached Texas. I asked, “Want to see more, Captain?”
“Zebadiah, how can we see more when we haven’t seen any?”
“But Cap’n Sharpie has, Deety. Folks, I’m unenthusiastic about a world where they shoot without challenging. Jake, your bogie was a missile?”
“I think so, Zeb. Collision course with Doppler signature over a thousand knots and increasing.”
“A missile – out of Homestead-analog, probably. Captain, these blokes are too quick on the trigger.”
“Zebbie, I find empty beaches more disturbing. I can think of several reasons why they would be empty on a nice day – all unpleasant.”
“Want to check San Diego? I can get more scram time by increasing H-above-G.”
“No, we have over forty thousand analogs on this axis; we’ll stick to doctrine. Shop each world just long enough to find something wrong – ‘Black Hats,’ war, low technology, no human population, bad climate, overpopulated, or factor X. If we don’t find our new Snug Harbor in the next four months, we’ll consider returning to Doctor Smith’s world.”
“Hillbilly, if we wait there to have our babies, then wait again until they are big enough to travel, we’ll never find Snug Harbor.”
“I said, ‘consider.’ We may find a place to shack up for five months or so, then slam back to Galactic Patrol Prime Base hospital for the Grand Openings. Could be an empty world – no people, pleasant otherwise. Food is now no problem and we get water from Oz. All we lack is television -“
“That’s no lack!”
“Deety, I thought you liked ‘Star Trek’?”
“Auntie Captain, we’ve got our own star trek now.”
“Hmm – Deety, you and I should go easy on this star trek. I’m going to I’m having my first one past forty and I’m going to be very careful – exercise, diet, rest, the works.”
“I surrender. Let’s get cracking, Cap’n Hillbilly.”
“Take it, Zebbie.”
“Copilot, execute!”
Earth-Teh-one-minus replaced Teh-one-plus. “Jacob, it doesn’t look right. Astrogator, I want us up a hundred kilometers, over – make it Mississippi Valley about St. Louis. Want to change attitude?”
“Yes, please. Jake, point Gay at your target; it will skip setting angle.” The craft’s nose dipped and steadied.
“How’s that?”
“Fine, Jake. Deety, set L axis plus transition ninety-nine thousand klicks.”
“Set, Zebadiah.”
“Execute.” We popped out high over fields of ice. “Sneak up on it, Cap’n?”
“Never mind. Zebbie, that’s what I call a hard winter.”
“A long winter. Actually it’s summer, I think; Earth-analogs should be in the same place in orbit as Earth. Jake?”
“By theory, yes. Doesn’t matter either way; that’s glaciation. Deety has set Teh-two-plus.”
“We can’t homestead on an ice sheet. Execute.”

“Zebbie, how many ice ages so far?”
“Five, I think. Deety?”
“Five is right, Zebadiah. Plus two worlds with major war, one where they shot at us, and one so radioactive that we got out fast!”
“So we’re hitting ice more often than not.”
“Five to four has no statistical significance, Zebadiah. At least Aunt Hilda hasn’t spotted even one ‘Black Hat.”
“Sharpie, how good are your magic spectacles?”
“Zebbie, if I see them walk, I’ll spot ’em, no matter how they’re disguised. In the simulations Glinda and Wizard cooked up, I spotted their gait every time Deety identified it by Fourier analysis.”
“You feel confident, that’s enough.”
“Zebbie, I don’t have clairvoyance; there wasn’t time to train me. But Glinda got me highly tuned to their awkward gait, both with and without splints. I want to discuss something else. According to geologists, when we were home – Earth where we were born, I mean – we were in a brief warm period between glaciations.”
“If geologists are right,” I admitted.
“If so, we’ll usually hit glaciation.”
“Probably. ‘If – ‘”
“Yes, ‘if – ‘ But we now know what glaciation looks like. If you and Jacob and Deety can make it a drill, we can flip past ice ages as fast as you spot one.”
“We’ll speed it up. Jake.”
“Zebadiah, wait!”
“Why, Deety? We’re about to translate.”
“Pop, you told me to set for Teh-five-plus.”
“Jacob?” Captain Sharpie said.
“That’s right, Captain.”
“What’s the trouble, Deety?”
“Aunt Hilda, I said that five-to-four had little statistical significance. But so far, all glaciations have been in Teh-minus. That could be chance but -“
” – but doesn’t look like it. You want us to explore axis Teh-plus first? Astrogator?”
“No, no! Captain Auntie, I would like to see enough of Teh-minus to have a significant sample. At least a hundred.”
“Jacob?”
“Hilda, if we check in one pseudodirection only – say Teh-minus – it’ll be four or five times as fast as hunting back and forth between plus and minus. Deety can set with one click; Zeb can yell ‘Execute!’ as soon as you are satisfied.”
“Jacob, we’ll get Deety her sample. But faster. Astrogator, have our copilot set Teh-six-minus”
“Uh… set, Captain.”
“When Zebbie says ‘Go,’ Jacob, you and Deety flip them past as fast as you can without waiting for orders. All we’ll be looking for is ice ages; we can spot one in a splitsecond. If anyone sees a warm world, yell ‘Stop!’ Deety, can Gay count them?”
“She’s doing so, Captain. We both are.”
“Okay. I’m going to give my magic specs a rest – we’re looking for nothing but glaciers versus green worlds. Questions?”
“Run out Teh-minus as fast as I can set and translate. Stop when anyone yells. Aye aye, Cap’n Hillbilly honey.”
Sharpie nodded to me; I snapped, “Go!”

“STOP!” yelped Deety.
“Jacob, I’ve never seen so much ice! Deety, how many martinis would that make?”
“On the rocks or straight up?”
“Never mind; we’re out of vermouth. Did you get your sample?”
“Yes, Captain. One hundred ice ages, no warm worlds. I’m satisfied.”
“I’m not. Zebbie, I want to extrapolate logarithmically – go to Teh-minusone-thousand, then ten thousand, a hundred thousand, and so on. Jacob?”
Jake looked worried. “Hilda, my scales can be set for vernier setting five, or one hundred thousand. But that translation would take us more than twice around a superhyper great circle – I think.”
“Elucidate, please.”
“I don’t want to get lost. My equations appear to be a description of six-dimensional space of positive curvature; they’ve worked – so far. But Euclidean geometry and Newtonian mechanics worked as long as our race didn’t monkey with velocities approaching the speed of light. Then the approximations weren’t close enough. I don’t know that the plenum can be described with only six space-time coordinates. It might be more than six – possibly far more. Mathematics can be used for prediction only after test against the real world.”
“Jacob, what is the ‘real world’?”
“Ouch! Hilda, I don’t know. But I’m afraid to get too many quanta away from our world – world-zero, where we were born. I think the extrapolation you propose would take us more than twice around a superhyper great circle to – What world, Deety?”
“World-six-thousand-six-hundred-eighty-eight on Teh-minus axis, Pop. Unless it’s skewed.”
“Thanks, Deety. Captain, if we arrived there, we could return to Earth-zero by one setting. ‘If – ‘ Instead of a superhyper great circle we might follow a helix or some other curve through dimensions we know not of.”
“Pop, you took what I said and fancied it up.”
“R.H.I.P., my dear. You will appear as junior author on the monograph you’ll write and I’ll sign.”
“Pop, you’re so good to me. Wouldn’t Smart Girl return us simply by G, A, Y, H, O, M, E?”
“Those programs instruct a machine that has built into it only six dimensions. Perhaps she would… but to our native universe so far from Earth-zero that we would be hopelessly lost. If Zeb and I were bachelors, I would say, ‘Let’s go!’ But we are family men.”
“Deety, set the next one. Teh-five-plus?”
“Right, Zebadiah. But, Captain Auntie, I’m game! The long trip!”
“Me, too,” agreed Captain Sharpie.
I said in a tired voice, “Those babies are ours as much as they are yours – Jake and I are taking no unnecessary risks. Captain Sharpie, if that doesn’t suit you, you can find another astrogator and another chief pilot.”
“Mutiny. Deety, shall we pull a ‘Lysistrata’?”
“Uh… can’t we find some reasonable middle ground?”

“Looks like a place to stop for lunch. Sharpie, want to sniff for ‘Black Hats’?”
“Take me down, please. About two thousand klicks above ground.”
“Will you settle for five?”
“Sissy pants. Yes, if you’ll first have Jacob zip us around night side to check for city lights.”
“Give her what she wants, Jake, by transiting; an orbit takes too long. ‘Give me operations… way out on some lonely atoll! For I… am too young to diiiie! I just want to grow old!'”
“You’re off key, Zebbie.”
“Deety likes my singing. Anybody spot city lights?”
We found no cities. So Jake put us down for lunch on a lonely atoll, Hilda first making certain that it had nothing on it but palm trees. Deety stripped, started exercises.
Hilda joined her; Jake and I set out lunch, having first dressed in stylish tropical skin. The only less-than-idyllic note came from my objecting to Deety’s swimming in the lagoon. Hilda backed me up. “Deety, that’s not a swimming pool. Anything in it has defenses or couldn’t have survived. The first law of biology is eat or be eaten. A shark could have washed over the reef years back, eaten all the fish – and now be delighted to have you for lunch.”
“Ugh!”
“Deety, you’d be very tasty,” I soothed.

Chapter XXXVIII

” – under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid – “

Jacob:
Teh positive took longer to search than Teh-negative for the very reason that its analogs were so much like our native planet.
An uninhabited planet could be dismissed in ten minutes; one heavily populated took no longer. A planet at too low a level of culture took hardly longer – a culture with animal-drawn carts and sailing ships as major transport we assumed not to have advanced medicine. But most took longer to reject.
At the end of a week we had rejected ninety-seven… which left us only 40.000 + to inspect!
That evening, at “Picnic Island,” our private atoll, my daughter said, “Cap’n Auntie, we’re doing this wrong.”
“How, Deetikins?”
“Ninety-seven in a week, over forty thousand to go. At that rate we finish in eight years.”
Her husband said, “Deety, we’re getting faster.”
My beloved said, “Astrogator, do you know more about calculating than does the Copilot?” Zeb shut up. We had learned that when Hilda addressed us by titles, she was speaking as captain. I flatter myself that I learned it quicker whereas Zeb was a bit slow. “Go ahead, Deety.”
“If we go on checking this way, it won’t get better; it will get worse. Here’s the first weeks’ score” – she passed around her summary; it read:

Earth analogs checked97
Average time per planet34 mins 38 1/2 sec
Maximum time2 days 3 hrs 52 mins
Minimum time13 seconds
Median time12 mins 07 sec

I studied it. “Deety, we can reduce that average time. Over two days was much too long to check analog twenty-six.”
“No, Pop, we should have taken longer on twenty-six. It’s that thirteen seconds that is bankrupting us.”
“Daughter, that’s preposter – “
“Chief Pilot.”
“Yes, dear?”
“Please let the Copilot finish… without interruption.” I retired from the field, annoyed, to wait until my advice was indispensable – soon, I felt sure.
“Aunt Hilda, if we gave each analog thirteen seconds, it would take us eighteen and a half days… and we would learn nothing. I want to cut the minimum time way, way down – make it routine – and learn something. I wish Gay could talk, I do.”
“But, dear, she can. We can be in Oz in two minutes. The dirty dishes can wait.”
My daughter looked startled. “Pass me the Stupid Hat.”
“But we won’t go to Oz before tomorrow. We need to figure out what the problem is, first – and I need a night of cuddle with Jacob for the good of my soul.” Hilda reached out and took my hand.
Hilda went on, “Deety, remember how fast we mapped Mars-Tau-ten-positive once we let Gay do it her way? Isn’t there some way to define a locus – then turn her loose?”
We discussed it until bedtime. I set the locus myself by vetoing going past Earth-analog-Teh-positive-five-thousand until we were certain that no satisfactory analog existed in those first five thousand. “Family,” I told them, “call me chicken, to use Zeb’s favorite excuse. I know so little about this gadget I invented that I am always afraid of getting lost. All rotations have been exactly ninety degrees. In theory I can define a quantum of angle and each such quantum should render accessible another sheaf of universes. In practice I can’t do machining of that quality. Even if I could, I would be afraid to risk our necks on a gadget required to count angular quanta.
“But I have another objection – a gut feeling that worlds too far out Teh axis will be too strange. Language, culture, even dominant race – I confess to prejudice for human beings, with human odors and dandruff and faults. Supermen or angels would trouble me more than vermin. I know what to do with a ‘Black Hat’ – kill it! But a superman would make me feel so inferior that I would not want to go on living.”
Deety clapped. “That’s my Pop! Don’t worry, Pop; the superman who can give you an inferiority complex hasn’t been hatched.” I think she meant that as a compliment.
We worked the parameters down to three: climate warm enough to encourage nudity; population comfortably low; technology high. The first parameter was a defense against B.H. vermin: they require antinudity taboo to bolster their disguises. The last parameter would tend to indicate advanced obstetrics. As for population, every major shortcoming of our native planet could be traced to one cause: too many people, not enough planet.
Hilda decided to standardize: one locale, one H-above-G. The locale was (in Earth-zero terminology) Long Beach, California, over its beach one klick H-above-G – dangerously low were it not that Gay would never be in any universe longer than one second. Any speed-of-light weapon can destroy in less than a second, but can its human-cum-machine operators identify a target, bear on it, and fire in one second? We thought not. We hoped not.
At analogs of Long Beach, it should be midsummer, hot, dry, and cloudless. If that beach was comfortably filled but not crowded, if the people were nude, if area adjacent to the beach showed high technology by appearance, then that analog should be checked further.
Forty minutes in Oz changed much of our planning.

Tik-Tok was waiting for his lady friend as usual but kept politely quiet while Deety talked with Gay – and so did Zeb and so did I, not because we have Tik-Tok’s courtly manners but because Captain Hilda was blunt. Gay understood the Celsius scale, i.e., both freezing and boiling water temperatures lay in her experience and splitting the interval into one hundred parts was no trouble. She had enough parts that needed to be neither too hot nor too cold that awareness of her surroundings both ambient and radiant was as automatic as breathing is for me. As for radio and television (both gauges of technical level) she could sample all infrared flux (as she had done at Windsor City). Crowds on beach? Would it suffice to count bodies on a sample one hundred meters square?
But Gay had a quite un-human complaint: “Deety, why must I hang around a thousand milliseconds for a job I can do in ten? Don’t you trust me?”

So instead of 57 years – or 8 years – or 18 1/2 days – or 11.4 hours – our preliminary survey was complete less than a minute after we left Oz – 5000 universes in fifty seconds. Gay Deceiver displayed her results as three curves representing temperature, body count, density of communication-frequency radiation – abscissa for all running from Earth-zero to Earth-analog-5000-Teh-plus.
Those curves told one thing at once: No need to search past analog 800; glaciation had returned.
In the lower right corner was displayed: 87. Zeb asked why. “Nulls,” said Deety. “Gay couldn’t get readings. Storm, earthquake, war, anything. Gay Deceiver.”
“Hi, Deety! We whupped ’em!”
“You surely did, Smart Girl; Tik-Tok will be proud of you. Change scale. Display zero through eight hundred.”
As scale expanded, figure 87 dropped to 23. Zeb said, “Deety, I’m curious about those twenty-three. Will you have S.G. display their designations?”
“Certainly, Zebadiah, but may I take it in planned order?”
“Sure but just let me find out first -“
“Astrogator,” Sharpie said flatly, “isn’t this your day as K.P.?”
We were at Picnic Island, examining results. I suppressed a smile; “slunk” describes the way Zeb left the cabin. Later I was unsurprised to see my tiny treasure giving Zeb an unusually warm hug and kiss. Our Captain has an efficient system of rewards and punishments – never so described.
Deety instructed Gay to eliminate all worlds with a body count higher than that of the Earth-zero beach, and all worlds chillier by five degrees (my daughter was bracketing to avoid false readings from unseasonable weather).
With elimination of high population, cold climate, and low technology as indicated by low or nil flux of communication frequencies, my daughter had us down to seventy-six worlds, plus twenty-three to reexamine – had eliminated over four thousand worlds – and it was still two hours till lunch time!
Deety had Gay display temperatures of the seventy-six. The curve was no longer continuous, but a string of beads, with clumps. I said, “Hilda my love, I’ll wager ten back rubs that at least half of the nulls fit into that gap” – and indicated a break at the maximum of the temperature curve.
Hilda hesitated. “Why, Jacob?”
“My dear, figures mean little to me until expressed geometrically. Curves are bold print. I’ll give you odds.”
“What odds?”
“Don’t be suckered, Auntie Cap’n! Pop, I’ll take your end of the bet, give you two to one, and spot you a point.”
A back rub from Deety is a treat; she has strong hands and knows how. But I answered, “Ladies, I must start lunch. Deety, when we make visual check, let’s include Antarctica as well as Greenland, at that break.”
“Two points, Pop?” I pretended not to hear.
That same day we trimmed it down to six worlds, all warm, all free of body taboos, all high technology, all acceptably low in population, all free of major war or overt preparations, all with some version of English as the major North American language. It was time to pick a world by inspection on the ground.

How to make contact was much discussed. Hilda chopped it by saying: “One way is to land on the White House lawn and say, ‘Take me to your leader!’ The other is to be as sneaky as a ‘Black Hat.’ Let me know when you reach consensus.” She went through the bulkhead and dogged the door.
An hour later I rapped on the bulkhead; she rejoined us. “Captain,” I reported formally, “we have reached consensus. Each is afraid of the open approach; authorities might confiscate our car, we might wind up as prisoners.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Twice we just missed it.”
“Precisely. The expression ‘sneaky as a “Black Hat”‘ is distasteful -“
“I so intended.”
I went doggedly on: ” – but sneakiness is not immoral per se. A mouse at a cat show is justified in being inconspicuous; so are we. We merely seek information. I am expendable; therefore I will scout on the ground.”
“Hold it. This is unanimous? Deety? Zebbie?”
“No,” my daughter answered. “I didn’t get a vote. You and I are barred from taking risks. Pregnant, you know.”
“I certainly do know! Jacob, I asked for consensus on method. I did not ask for volunteers. I’ve picked the scout I consider best qualified.”
I said, “My dear, I hope you have picked me.”
“No, Jacob.”
“Then I’m your boy,” said Zebbie.
“No, Zebbie. This is spying, not fighting. I’m doing this job myself.”
I interrupted, “Hilda, where you go, I go! That’s final.”
Our captain said gently, “Beloved, I hope you don’t stick to that. If you do, we’ll elect another skipper. You are my candidate.”
“Dear, I was trying to -“
” – take care of me. Nevertheless you are my candidate. Deety is too reckless; Zebbie too cautious. I’ll carry out whatever duties you assign, including using the magic spectacles. Are you sticking to that ultimatum?”
“Uh, yes.”
“Even though your stubbornness could result in my death? I love you, dear, but I won’t take you with me on a spying mission. What happened to that ‘All for one and one for all’ spirit?”
“Uh… “
“Captain!”
“Yes, Zebbie?”
“You proved that you can be tough with your husband. Can you be tough with yourself? Look me in the eye and tell me that you know more about intelligence than I do. Or that you can fight your way out of a rumpus better than I can.”
“Zebbie, this isn’t military intelligence. You look me in the eye and tell me that you know more about obstetrics than I do. How do you prepare for leapfrog transfusion and when is it likely to be needed? Define eclampsia. What do you do about placenta previa? I am less likely to get into a rumpus than you are … and if I do, I’ll throw my arms around his neck and cry. However… convince me that you know as much about obstetrics as I do and I’ll consider letting you make contacts. In the meantime pick a midwestern town big enough for a fair-sized hospital and public library, and select a point for grounding and rendezvous; you will be in command while I’m gone.”
I interrupted. “Hilda, I absolutely forbid -“
“Chief Pilot! Pipe down!” My wife turned her face away from me. “Chief Master at Arms, restore discipline.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am! Jake, she means you.”
“But -“
“Shut up! Crewmen don’t give orders to the C.O., and I’ve had a bellyful of your attempts.”

Two hours later I was in Zeb’s seat, biting my nails and sweating, while Zeb had my seat. I had given unconditional parole – the alternative having been to go (or be stuffed) through the bulkhead, then wait, locked in. I am not a total fool; I gave my word.
Zeb held us in cloud cover while my daughter, wearing earphones, stayed in contact with Hilda. Gay’s cabin speaker was paralleled with the phones so that we could follow in part what went on below. Deety reported, “That fade is from entering a building; I could hear her footsteps. Zebadiah, if I fiddle with the gain, I might miss her as she comes out.”
“Don’t shift. Wait.”
Eternities later we heard Hilda’s sweet voice: “I’m heading for rendezvous. I no longer have to pretend that this is a hearing aid – but everybody accepted it as such. You needn’t be cautious picking me up; we’re leaving.”
Five minutes later we bounced and translated at once, then Zeb held her in cruise while Hilda reported:
“No trouble. Ze bewildair’ French ladee she zink les Americain’ verree gentils. Mais les arts medicals – poof! Infant mortality high, childbirth mortality gruesome. I could have left sooner but I got fascinated.”
“Hilda,” I protested, “you had me worried to death.”
“Jacob, I had to be certain; it’s such a nice world otherwise. Other contacts should not take as long as I’ve solved the money problem.”
“How?” Zebadiah asked. “I’ve been noodling that. There’s an even chance that private ownership of gold will be illegal. A standard trick used whenever a government is in trouble.”
“Yes, Zebbie – it’s illegal there, too. I still have the bullion you had me carry. Instead I sold that heavy gold chain I was wearing. Sorry, Deety; I had to.”
“Forget it, Hillbilly. That chain was a way to horde gold. Pop bought it for Mama Jane before they clipped the zeroes and remonetized.”
“Well… I found a public phone – didn’t try to use it; Edison would never have recognized it. But it had a phone book, so I looked up ‘gold’ – and found ‘licensed gold dealers’ and sold your chain -“
“And now you’re stuck with a lot of local money.”
“Zebbie! See why I didn’t let you go down by yourself? The dealer was of course a coin dealer, too – and I bought foreign silver coins, worn, small, oldish, dates without being old enough to be collectors’ items. French coins, but he didn’t have enough, so I filled out with Belgian, Swiss, and German.”
I said, “My dear, the coins you bought there will not be good here. Or at the next analog. Or the next.”
“Jacob, who – other than a professional – is certain of designs on foreign coins? – especially if they are a few years old and a bit worn. I got real silver, none of those alloys that don’t have the right ring to them. At most a shopkeeper will phone his bank and ask for the rate. That’s how I bought this,” my beloved said proudly, pulling out of Deety’s biggest purse a World Almanac.
I was not impressed. If she was going to buy a book, why not a technical manual that might contain new art, data Zeb and I could use?
My darling was saying, “We must buy one in each analog we ground in. It’s the nearest thing to an encyclopedia less than a kilo mass you’ll find. History, law, vital statistics, maps, new inventions, new medicine – I could have skipped the library and learned all I needed from this book. Zebbie! Turn to the list of U.S. Presidents.”
“Who cares?” Zeb answered, but did so. Shortly he said, “Who is Eisenhower? This shows him serving one of Harriman’s terms and one of Patton’s.”
“Keep going, Zebbie.”
“Okay – No! I refuse to believe it. Us Carters are taught to shoot straight, bathe every month even in the winter, and never run for office.”

Two days later Hilda and Zeb, as a French-tourist couple, found the world where we settled.
We slid in quietly, both through the histrionics of our “bewildered French lady” and Zeb’s unmalicious chicanery. Sometimes he was our French lady’s husband; other times he spoke English slowly with a strong Bavarian accent.
In this analog, the United States (called that, although boundaries differ) is not as smothered in laws, regulations, licensing, and taxes as is our native country. In consequence “illegally entered aliens” do not find it difficult to hide, once they “sling the lingo” and understand local customs.
Hilda and Zeb learned rapidly in a dozen towns, Deety and me “riding shotgun” in the sky. Deety and I learned from them and from radio. Then we moved to the Northwest, “natives” from back east, and coped with our only problem: how to keep Gay Deceiver out of sight.
Hilda and Deety hid her in the Cascades for three days while Zeb and I found and bought a farmhouse outside Tacoma-analog. That night we moved Gay into the barn, slapped white paint on the building’s windows, and slept in Gay, with a feeling of being home!
We own six hectares and live in the farmhouse in front of Gay’s hideaway. Gay will eventually go underground, protected by reinforced concrete; the barn will become a machine shop. We will build a new house over her bunker. Meanwhile, our old farmhouse is comfortable.
This United States, population under a hundred million, accepts immigrants freely. Zeb considered buying phony papers to let us enter “legally” – but Hilda decided that it was simpler to use Gay to smuggle us while we smuggled Gay. The outcome is the same; we will never be a burden to the state – once we get our machine shop and electronics lab set up, Zeb and I will “invent” hundreds of gadgets this country lacks.
We seem to be near the warmest part of an interglaciation. Wheat grows where our native world has frozen tundra; the Greenland icecap has vanished; lowlands are under water, coastlines much changed.
Climate and custom encourage light clothing; the preposterous “body modesty” taboo does not exist. Clothing is worn for adornment and for protection – never through “shame.” Nakedness is symbolic of innocence – these people derive that symbology from the Bible used in our native culture to justify the exact opposite. The same Bible – I checked. (The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can “prove” anything from it.)
So this is not a world where alien vermin can hide. A “man” who at all times kept arms and legs covered by long sleeves and long trousers would be as conspicuous as one in armor.
The sects here are mostly Christian – on a Saturday morning one sees families headed for church in their finest Sabbath-go-to-meeting clothes. But, since nakedness is symbolic of innocence, they undress in an anteroom to enter their temple unadorned. One need not attend services to see this; the climate favors light, airy structures that are mostly roof and slender columns.
The Bible affects their penal system, again by selective quotation: “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth -“
This results in a fluid code, with no intent to rehabilitate but to make the punishment fit the crime. I saw an example four days after we settled. I was driving our steam wagon and encountered a road block. A policeman told me that I could take a detour or wait twenty minutes; the highway was being used to balance a reckless driver.
I elected to pull over and wait. A man was staked with one leg stretched out at a right angle. A police wagon drove down that cleared highway, ran over his leg, turned and drove back over it.
An ambulance was waiting – but nothing was done for a timed seventeen minutes. Then surgeons amputated on the spot; the ambulance took him away and the block was removed.
I went back to my wagon and shook for many minutes, then returned home, driving cautiously. I didn’t tell our family. But it was reported on radio and the evening paper had pictures – so I admitted that I had seen it. The paper noted that the criminal’s insurance had been insufficient to cover the court’s award to the victim, so the reckless driver had not only lost his left leg (as had his victim) but also had had most of his worldly goods confiscated.
There is no speed limit and traffic regulations are merely advisory – but there are extremely few accidents. I have never encountered such polite and careful drivers.
A poisoner is killed by poison; an arsonist is burned to death. I won’t describe what is done to a rapist. But poisoning, arson, and rape are almost unknown.
My encounter with this brutal system of “balancing” almost caused me to think that my dear wife had been mistaken in picking this world-we should move! I am no longer certain. This place has no prisons, almost no crime, and it is the safest place to raise children I’ve ever heard of.
We are having to relearn history. “The Years of Rising Waters” explain themselves. The change came before 1600; by 1620 new shorelines had stabilized. That had endless consequences – mass migrations, political disorder, a return of the Black Death, and much immigration from Great Britain and the lowlands of Europe while the waters rose.
Slavery never established here. Indentures, yes – many a man indentured himself to get his family away from doomed land. But the circumstances that could have created “King Cotton” were destroyed by rising waters. There are citizens here of African descent but their ancestors were not slaves. Some have indentured ancestors, no doubt – but everyone claims indentured ancestors even if they have to invent them.
Some aspects of history seem to be taboo. I’ve given up trying to find out what happened in 1965: “The Year They Hanged the Lawyers.” When I asked a librarian for a book on that year and decade, he wanted to know why I needed access to records in locked vaults. I left without giving my name. There is free speech – but some subjects are not discussed. Since they are never defined, we try to be careful.
But there is no category “Lawyers” in the telephone book.
Taxation is low, simple – and contains a surprise. The Federal government is supported by a head tax paid by the States, and is mostly for military and foreign affairs. This state derives most of its revenue from real estate taxes. It is a uniform rate set annually, with no property exempted, not even churches, hospitals, or schools – or roads; the best roads are toll roads. The surprise lies in this: The owner appraises his own property.
There is a sting in the tail: Anyone can buy property against the owner’s wishes at the appraisal the owner placed on it. The owner can hang on only by raising his appraisal at once to a figure so high that no buyer wants it – and pay three years back taxes at his new appraisal.
This strikes me as loaded with inequity. What if it’s a family homestead with great sentimental value? Zeb laughs at me. “Jake, if anybody wants six hectares of hilly land and second-growth timber, we take the profit, climb into Gay – and buy more worthless land elsewhere. In a poker game, you figure what’s in the pot.”

PART THREE – Death and Resurrection

Chapter XXXIX

Random Numbers

Hilda:
Jacob stood, raised his glass. “Snug Harbor at last!”
Zebbie matched him. “Hear, hear!”
Deety and I sat tight. Zebbie said, “Snap it up, kids!” I ignored him.
Jacob looked concerned. “What’s the matter, dear one? Zeb, perhaps they don’t feel well.”
“It’s not that, Jacob. Deety and I are healthy as hogs. It’s that toast. For ten days, since we signed the deed, it’s been that toast. Our toast used to be: ‘Death to “Black Hats”!'”
“But, my dear, I promised you a new Snug Harbor. The fact that you girls are having babies made that first priority. This is the place. You said so.”
I answered, “Jacob, I never called this ‘Snug Harbor.’ I reported that I had found a culture with advanced obstetrics, and customs that made it impossible for Black Hats to hide. I wasn’t asked what I thought of it.”
“You signed the deed!”
“I had no choice. My contribution was one fur cape and some jewelry. Deety put in more – but effectively no gold. She fetched her stock certificates, other securities, some money – paper – and a few coins. I fetched two twenty-five newdollar bills. Deety and I left Earth as paupers. Each of us women – not ‘girls’!, Jacob – was once wealthy in her own right. But in buying this place, you two decided, you two paid for it – all we did was sign. We had no choice.”
Zebbie looked at Deety and said softly, “‘With all my worldly goods I thee endow,'” and took her hand.
Jacob said, “Thanks, Zeb. I, too, Hilda – if you don’t believe that, then you don’t believe I meant the rest: ‘ – for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health – ‘ But I did and I do.” He looked up. “Zeb, where did we go wrong?”
“Durned if I know, Jake. Deety, what’s the score? Give.”
“I’ll try, Zebadiah. Maybe all we should expect is washing dishes and wiping noses and changing diapers. But that doesn’t seem like a be-all and end-all when you’ve gone banging around the universes… stood guard for your husband while he bathed in a mountain stream … or – Oh, the devil with it! This place is good and clean and wholesome and dull! I’ll find myself joining the church just for company… then sleeping with the priest out of boredom!”
“Deety, Deety!”
“I’m sorry, Zebadiah. It would be boredom with Beulahland, not with you. The very hour we met, you saved my life; you married me before that hour was over, impregnated me before midnight, fought and killed for me only days later, saved my life twice more that same day, took me to another planet in another universe before midnight still that same day… and short hours later had again fought for me, twice. You are my gallant knight, sans peur et sans reproche. In the six weeks I have known you, you have gifted more romance, more glorious adventure, into my life than in all the twenty-two years before it. But the last twelve days – especially the last ten – have told me what we now look forward to.”
Deety paused to sigh; I said quietly, “She speaks for me.”
Deety went on, “You two would lay down your lives for us – you’ve come terrifyingly close. But what happened to your glorious schemes to rebuild the Solar System? To kill every last one of those vermin? Gay Deceiver sits in an old barn, dark and quiet – and today I heard you discussing how to market a can opener. Universes beyond the sky to the incredible Number of the Beast! – yet you plan to sell can openers while Hilda and I serve as brood mares. We haven’t even visited Proxima Centauri! Zebadiah – Pop! – let’s spend tonight looking for an Earth-type planet around Alpha Centauri – kill a million vermin to clean it, if that’s what it takes! Plan what planets to put on Earth’s Lagrange points. I’ll write programs to meet your grandest plans! Let’s go!”
My husband looked sad. Zebbie held Deety’s hand and said, “Deety, we don’t want to sell can openers. But you two are pregnant and we’ve gone to a lot of trouble to put you where you and our kids will be safe. Maybe it’s dull… but it’s your duty. Forget hunting vermin.”
“Just forget it? Zebadiah, why is Gay Deceiver loaded and ready for space? Power packs charged, water tanks full, everything? Do you and Pop have something in mind… while Hilda and I stay home and baby-sit?”
“Deety, if we did, it wouldn’t hurt to sell a few can openers first. You two and the kids must be provided for, come what may.”
“That Widow’s Walk again, Hillbilly. But, my husband, you have started from a false premise. You men want to protect Hilda and me and our kids at any cost – and we honor you for it. But one generation is as valuable as another, and men are as valuable as women. With modern weapons, a computer programmer is more use in war than a sniper. Or – forgive me, sir! – even an aerospace fighter pilot. I’m a programmer. I can shoot, too! I won’t be left out, I won’t!”
I gave Deety our signal to drop it. It doesn’t do to push a man too hard; it makes him stubborn. One can’t expect logic from males; they think with their testicles and act from their emotions. And one must be careful not to overload them. We had given them five points to stew over; we would save the sixth – the clincher – for later.
I waited three days… and struck from the other flank. Again Deety and I rehearsed: We would wrangle with each other and appeal to the men for support – crosswise.
“Jacob, what is ‘random’? Is it correct to say that ‘random’ is shorthand for ‘I don’t know’?”
Deety said scornfully, “Don’t let her trap you, Pop. She’s got the second law of thermodynamics mixed up with the second law of robotics – and doesn’t understand either one.” (I had to phrase this and insist; Deety didn’t want to say it. Deety is sweet, not the bitch I am.)
“‘Random’ is used a number of ways, my love, but it usually means a set in which the members are equal in probability of experiencing some event, such as being next to be chosen.”
“If they’re ‘chosen,’ how can it be ‘random’?”
Deety snickered.
Zebbie said, “Don’t let him snow you, Sharpie; ‘random’ means ‘I don’t know’ – as you said.”
“Aunt Hilda, pay no attention to Zebadiah. ‘Random’ is what you have when you maximize entropy.”
“Now, Daughter, that is hardly a mathematical statement -“
“Pop, if I gave it to her in mathematical language she’d faint.”
“Deety, quit picking on Sharpie,” Zebbie said sternly.
“I wasn’t picking on her. Hillbilly has this silly notion that we didn’t get anywhere hunting vermin because we went about it systematically… but every time we told Gay to shake up her random numbers and do as she pleased, we got results.”
“Well, didn’t we?” I put in, intentionally shrill. “We had endless failures… but every time we gave Gay her head – ‘Put her on random numbers,’ as Deety says – we never had a failure. ‘Random’ and ‘chance’ are not related. ‘Random chance’ is a nonsense expression.”
“Auntie darling, you’re out of your skull. Don’t worry, Pop; pregnant women often get the vapors.”
I indignantly listed things that could not be “random” or “chance” – then discovered that Deety and I had to start dinner. We left them wrangling, and were careful not to giggle within earshot.
After dinner, instead of that tired toast, Jacob said, “Hilda, would you explain your concept of ‘random’? Zeb and I have been discussing it and agree that there is some factor in our adventures not subject to analysis.”
“Jake, that’s your statement. I just said, ‘I dunno,’ and wiped the drool off my chin. Tell us, Sharpie.”
“But Jacob told us a month ago. There isn’t any such thing as ‘chance.’ It’s a way of admitting ignorance. I thought that I had begun to understand it when we started hitting storybook universes. Lilliput. Oz. Dr. Smith’s World. Wonderland. I was so sure of it – You remember three weeks ago after our second visit to Oz? I ordered a day of rest; we spent it on Tau axis instead of Teh.”
“Dullest day we had,” said Zebbie. “You put us in orbit around Mars. Not just one Mars but dozens. Hundreds. The only one worth a fiat dollar was the one we aren’t going back to. I got permission to go off duty and take a nap.”
“You weren’t on duty, Zebbie. You three slept or read or played crib. But I was searching for Barsoom. Not hundreds, Zebbie – thousands. I didn’t find it.”
“Hillbilly, you didn’t tell me!”
“Dejah Thoris, why bother to say that I had been chasing the Wild Goose? I swallowed my disappointment; next day we started searching Teh axis… and wound up here. Would I have found Barsoom had I asked Gay to run the search? Defined her limits, yes – as Zebbie did on Mars-ten – but, having defined it, told her to take her random numbers and find it. It worked on Marsten; we mapped a whole planet in a few hours. It worked on Teh axis. Why wouldn’t it be best for another search?”
Jacob answered, “Dearest, Zeb fed Gay a defined locus. But how would that apply to this, uh, speculative… search?”
“Jacob, Zebbie told us that Gay holds the Aerospace Almanac. That includes details about the Solar System, does it not?”
“More than I want to know,” Zebbie agreed.
“So Gay knows the Solar System,” I went on. “I thought of reading the Barsoom stories to Gay, tell her to treat them as surface conditions on the fourth planet – then take her random numbers and find it.”
Jacob said gently, “Beloved, the autopilot doesn’t really understand English.”
“She does in Oz!”
My husband looked startled. Jacob has immense imagination… all in one direction. Unless one jogs him. Zebbie caught it faster. “Sharpie, you would be loading her with thousands of bytes unnecessarily. Deety, if they’ve got those novels on New Earth – I’ll find out – what do you need to abstract in order to add to Gay’s registers an exact description of Barsoom, so that Gay can identify it – and stop her Drunkard’s Walk?”
“Don’t need books,” my stepdaughter answered. “Got ’em up here.” She touched her pretty strawberry-blonde curls. “Mmm… go to sleep thinking about it, tell it to Gay early tomorrow before I speak to anybody. Minimum bytes, no errors. Uh … no appetizer.”
“A great sacrifice, merely for science.”
“A one-eyed Texas honeybutter stack?… and the prospect of meeting the original Dejah Thoris? Never wears anything but jewels and is the most beautiful woman of two planets.”
“About that stack – Jane’s buttermilk recipe?”
“Of course. You’re not interested in the most beautiful woman of two planets?”
“I’m a growing boy. And ain’t about to be trapped into damaging admissions.” Zebbie stopped to kiss Deety’s retroussé nose and added, “Sharpie, Gay can’t handle the full Number of the Beast and anyhow Jake locked off most of it. What’s the reduced number, Jake?”
Deety promptly said, “Six to the sixth. Forty-six thousand, six hundred, fifty-six.”
Zebbie shook his head. “Still too many.”
Deety said sweetly, “Zebadiah, would you care to bet?”
“Wench, have you been monkeying with Gay?”
“Zebadiah, you put me in charge of programming. I have not changed her circuitry. But I learned that she has four registers of random numbers, accessible in rotation.”
“A notion of my own, Deety. Give them down time. Keep entropy at maximum.”
Deety did not answer. Her face assumed her no-expression. Her nipples were down. I kept quiet.
Zebbie noted it also – he does check her barometer; he once told me so. When silence had become painful, he said, “Deety, did I goof?”
“Yessir.”
“Can you correct it?”
“Do you wish me to, Zebadiah?”
“If you know how, I want it done soonest. If you need a micro electrician, I have my loupe and my micro soldering gear.”
“Not necessary, Zebadiah.” My stepdaughter made a long arm, got a walky-talky we keep indoors – with six hectares, it is convenient to carry one outside the house. “Gay Deceiver.”
“Hi, Deety,” came this tiny voice from the ear button. Deety did not place it in her ear. “Hello, Gay. More gain… more gain… gain okay. Retrieve Turing program Modnar. Execute.”
“Executed. Did he chew the bit?”
“Goodnight, Gay. Over.”
“Sleep tight, Deety. Roger and out.”
I cut in fast. “Gentlemen, the dishes can sit overnight. I vote for a ramble among the universes, say two hours, then early to bed. The other choice is, I think, channel one with the Beulahland Choir and channel two with Bible Stories Retold: ‘The Walls of Jericho.’ Both are highly recommended… by their sponsors.”

It felt good to be back in a jump suit. I was turning out lights, making sure windows were fastened, gathering up one walky-talky, when Zebbie stuck his head into the kitchen from the back door. “Captain?”
“Huh? Zebbie, do you mean me?”
“You’re the only captain around, Sharpie. What I started to report was: Captain, your car is ready.”
“Thank you, First Officer.”
He waited for me to put the butter away, then locked the back door behind me, opened the barn’s people door. I noted that the big doors were still closed – and remembered my borrowed panties four weeks and many universes away. I squirmed past Deety, got into my old familiar starboard-aft seat with a song in my heart.
Shortly Deety said, “Starboard door seal checked, First Officer.”
“Roger. Captain, ready for space.”
“Thank you. Has anyone left behind anything normally carried?”
“No, Captain. I replaced worn-out clothes. Added tools I could buy here.”
“Zebbie, it sounds as if you expected to lift without warning.”
“Habit, Captain. I’ve kept anything important in my – our – car rather than in that flat. Some I duplicated. Teethbreesh. Iodine. Some clothes.” Zebbie added, “Jake keeps basics here, too. ‘Be prepared!’ Troop ninety-seven, Cleveland.”
“Jacob? Anything you need?”
“No, Captain. Let’s go!”
“We will, dear. Deety, did you give Zebbie a schedule?”
“The one you planned. Not Barsoom, just fun. Two hours.”
“Astrogator, take the conn. Carry out schedule.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am. Gay Deceiver.”
“Hi, Zeb. This is great! Whyinhell did you lobotomize me?”
“Because I’m stupid. Random walk, Gay – transitions, translations, rotations, vectors, under all safety rules. Two hours. Five-second stops subject to ‘Hold’ from any of us.”
“May I place a ‘Hold’ myself?”
“Captain?”
I resorted to sophistry. “Astrogator, you said ‘any of us’ – which includes Gay.”
“Gay, paraphrase acknowledge.”
“I shall make unplanned excursions of all sorts with five-second pause at each vertex, plus ‘Hold’ option, plus safety restrictions, for two hours, then return here. Assumption: Program subject to variation by Captain or surrogate. Assumption confirmed?”
I was astonished. Deety had told me that Gay would sound almost alive if Zebbie used her full potential… but Gay sounded more alive, more alert, than she had in Oz.
“Assumption confirmed,” Zebbie answered. “Execute!”
For ten minutes – one hundred thirteen shifts – we had a “slide show” of universes from commonplace to weird beyond comprehension, when suddenly Gay told herself “Hold!” and added, “Ship ahoy!”
“Private Yacht Dora,” she was answered. “Is that you, Gay? What took you so long?”
I said, “Astrogator, I have the conn.” I was startled and scared. But a captain commands – or admits she can’t cut it and jumps overboard. A captain can be wrong – she cannot be uncertain.
Gay was saying rapidly: “Captain, I am not transmitting. I advise asking for Dora’s captain. I have transmitted: ‘Yes, this is Gay, Dora. I’m not late; we took the scenic route. Pipe down, girl, and put your skipper on.’ Captain, the mike is yours; they can’t hear me or any other voice inside me.”
“Thank you, Gay. Captain Hilda, master of Gay Deceiver, hailing Private Yacht Dora. Captain of Dora, please come in.”
In our central display appeared a face. We do not have television. This picture was flat rather than 3-D and not in color, just the greenish bright of radar. Nevertheless, it was a face, and lip movements matched words. “I’m Captain Long, Captain Hilda. We’ve been expecting you. Will you come aboard?”
(“Come aboard?”! So this is what comes of running around the universes in a modified duo, without so much as a pressure suit.) “Thank you, Captain Long, but I can’t accept. No air locks.”
“We anticipated that, Captain. Dora’s radius-nine-oh hold has been modified for Gay Deceiver. If you will do us the honor, we will take you inboard. Your wings are raked back, are they not? Hypersonic?”
“Yes.”
“I will move slowly, become dead in space with respect to you, then reorient and move to surround you as gently as a kiss.”
“If the Captain pleases – It is my duty to advise her if I see a mistake in prospect.”
I barely whispered. “Zebbie, you’re advising me not to?”
“Hell, no,” he answered aloud, secure in the knowledge that his voice would be filtered out. “Do it! What do we have to lose? Aside from our lives. And we’re sort o’ used to that.”
I answered, “Captain Long, you may take us inboard.”
“Thank you, Captain. The Dora will arrive in – I’m sorry; what time units do you use?”
Deety interrupted: “Gay, let my voice through. Captain Long -“
“Yes. You are not Captain Hilda?”
“I’m Deety. We call our units ‘seconds.’ These are seconds: one… two… three… four… five… six … seven… eight -“
“Synchronized! We call ours ‘Galactic seconds’ or simply ‘seconds’ but about three percent longer than yours. Dora will be almost touching your bow in… fifty-seven of your seconds.”

Spooky – Blackness blotting out stars, getting bigger. As it began to surround us, Jacob switched on forward grounding lights; we were entering a tunnel – being envaginated by it – with great precision and no apparent power – and it was clear that this enormous sheath was designed to fit us, even to alcoves for Gay’s doors. Shortly we were abreast them – cheerful to see that they were lighted. Oddest, we now seemed to be under gravity – perhaps midway between that of Earth-zero and Mars-ten.
“Outer doors closing,” came Captain Long’s voice. “Closed and sealing. Pres sure adjusting. Captain, we use nitrogen and oxygen, four to one, plus carbon dioxide sufficient to maintain breathing reflex. If content or pressure does not suit you, please tell me.”
“The mix described will suit us, Captain.”
“Don’t hesitate to complain. Pressure equalized. Debark either side, but I am on your starboard side, with my sister.”
I squirmed past Deety in order to introduce my family. Just as well, it gave me a chance to see them first. None of us can be shocked by skin but we can be surprised. But I’ve been practicing not showing surprise since grammar school as a major defense of my persona.
Here were two shapely young women, one with four stripes on each shoulder (painted? decals?), the other in three stripes – plus friendly smiles. “I’m Captain Long,” said the one with four stripes.
” – and her mutinous crew,” echoed the other.
“Commander Laurie, my twin sister.”
“Only we aren’t, because -“
” – we’re triplets.”
“Mutinies are limited to the midwatch -“
” – so as not to disturb passengers, of which -“
” – we have two more. Knock it off, Laurie, and -“
” – show them to their quarters. Aye aye, Cap’n.”
“Hey! Don’t I get introduced!” From all around came the voice that had hailed us.
“Sorry,” said Captain Long. “That’s our untwin sister, Dora. She runs many of the ship’s functions.”
“I run everything,” Dora asserted. “Laz and Lor are purely ornamental. Which one of you jokers shut off Gay?”
“Dora!”
“I retract the word ‘jokers.'”
“It would be kind,” Captain Long told me, “to let them chat. Our thought processes are so much slower than hers that a talk with another computer is a treat.”
“Deety?” I asked.
“I’ll wake her, Captain. Gay won’t go off and leave us.”
Captain Long’s mouth twitched. “She can’t. Those outer doors are armor.” I decided not to hear. Instead I said “Captain, your ship is beautiful.”
“Thank you. Let us show you to your quarters.”
“We planned to be away only two hours.”
“I don’t think that is a problem. Dora?”
“Time-irrelevant. They left home four-minus standard seconds ago; their planet is on a different duration axis. Neat, huh? For protein-type purposes they’ll get home when they left; I won’t even have to figure interval and reinsert them. Couple of weeks, couple of years – still four-minus seconds. Laz-Lor, we’ve lucked again!”
Gay’s voice (also from all around us) confirmed it: “Captain Hilda, Dora is right. I’m teaching her six-dimensional geometry; it’s new to her. When they are home – not just time-irrelevant – they march in Tau duration with Earth-Prime on ‘t’ axis – one we never explored.”
Jacob jerked his head up, looked for the voice. “But that’s prepos -“
I interrupted. “Jacob!”
“Eh? Yes, Hilda?”
“Let’s complete introductions, then go to the quarters the Captain offered us.”
“Introductions can be considered complete, Captain Hilda. ‘Deety’ has to be Doctor D. T. Burroughs Carter; the gentleman you called ‘Jacob’ must be your husband Doctor Jacob J. Burroughs. Therefore, the tall handsome young man is Doctor Zebadiah J. Carter, Doctor D.T.’s husband. Those are the people we were sent to fetch.”
I didn’t argue.
We followed a curving passageway, me with the Captain, her sister with my family. “One question, Captain?” I inquired. “Is nudity uniform in your ship? I don’t even have captain’s insignia.”
“May I give you a pair of stickums?”
“Do I need them?”
“As you please. I put these on just to receive you. People wear what they wish; Dora keeps the ship comfortable. She’s a good housekeeper.”
“What are your passengers wearing?”
“When I left the lounge, one was wearing perfume; the other had a sheet wrapped as a toga. Does your planet have dress taboos? If you will define them, we will try to make you feel at home.” She added, “Here are your quarters. If they don’t please you, tell Dora. She’ll rearrange partitions, or convert double beds into one giant bed, or four single beds, or any combination; we want you to be comfortable. When you feel like coming out, Dora will lead you.”
As the door contracted Jacob said, “You’ve proved your theories, Hilda. We’ve fallen into another story.”

Chapter XL

“Is there a mathematician in the house?”

Deety:
That suite had one bath – pardon me; “refresher” – bigger than three ordinary bathrooms. Hillbilly and I might be there yet, bathing and trying new gadgets, if Pop and Zebadiah hadn’t used brute force.
“Captain Auntie, what are you going to wear?”
“Chanel Number Five.”
“Clothes, I mean.”
“‘Clothes’? When our hostess is wearing skin? Jane brought you up better than that.”
“Wanted to be sure. That you’ll back me up with Zebadiah, I mean.”
“If Zebbie gets irrational, I’ll pin his ears back. If Jacob is ashamed of his skinny runt, he will be wise not to say so. Gentlemen, are you going to chicken? I mean: ‘Which way are you going to chicken?”
“Jake, they’re picking on us again.”
“Ignore them, comrade. Here are blue briefs your size. Hey! – with a stuffed codpiece! I’ll wear them myself.”
“Jacob!”
“Listen to the woman. Naked as a peeled egg, planning to meet strangers – and snapping at me for wanting to boast a little. Time was, my small and sultry bride, that a gentleman never left his chambers without a codpiece equal to his status.”
Auntie countered with: “Jacob, I spoke hastily. Shouldn’t the second-in-command wear a larger codpiece than the pilot? ‘ – equal to his status,’ you said.”
“But Allah took care of Zeb. Surely you’ve noticed, beloved?”
My husband butted in. “Jake! No barroom betting! Wear the blue; I’ll take these red ones.”
Zebadiah couldn’t get into the red briefs; the blue pair was too big for Pop. They traded. Same story. They traded back – each pair was too small. By great effort they got them on – they fell off.
Pop chucked his aside. “Dora!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please connect me with your captain.”
“I was just funning! You wouldn’t tell on me – would you?”
Aunt Hilda took over. “He won’t tell, Dora. Are you and Gay getting acquainted?”
“We sure are! Gay’s been more places than I have-and I’ve been everywhere. She’s a smart girl!”
“We think so, thank you. What should our men wear?”
“I hold ambient at twenty-seven and deck pads a degree warmer; why wear anything? But for fetishists I supply minilaplaps of opaque tissue. In the ‘fresher, cubby nine-bee. Better get them to a therapist before those symptoms get infected. Good therapists where we’re going.”
I went looking for stowage 9-b; Aunt Hilda went on talking. “Where is that, Dora?”
“Please address such questions to the Captain. As housekeeper I can tell you anything. As astrogator I must refer questions – I mean they made me put a choke filter on that circuit! Is that fair? I ask you! I’m older than the twins.”
“It depends on the ship,” Aunt Hilda said, carefully not answering. “We each do what we do best; age is not a factor. Ask Gay.”
“Oh, she’s hooked in.”
“Sure am, Cap’n Hilda honey, through Dora’s ears – and eyes! Say, you look just like your voice – that’s a compliment.”
“Why, thank you, Gay!”
I interrupted: “Dora, are these laplaps?”
“Of course. But while we’re all here – You don’t need two ‘freshers in a ship that small. Gay needs the space for a Turing mod I’ll help with. So if the fetishists will clear their gear out of Buster Brown and – ” Dora broke off suddenly: “The Captain will be pleased to receive the Captain and ship’s cornpany of Gay Deceiver in the lounge at her convenience. That means ‘Right now.’ Follow me – little blue light.”
I had been trying on a green laplap. They didn’t weigh anything. Like wrapping fog around your hips. I snatched it off and wrapped it around Zebadiah: “That’s the nearest to nothing you’ll ever wear, Zebadiah, but it does the trick.” (I don’t blame men for being shy. Our plumbing is out of sight, mostly, but theirs is airconditioned and ofttimes embarrassingly semaphoric. Embarrasses them, I mean; women find it interesting, often amusing. My nipples show my emotions, too – but in the culture in which I grew up nipples don’t count that much.)

The little blue light led us around, then inboard. This “yacht” was large enough to get lost in. “Dora, can you see and hear in every part of the ship?”
“Of course,” the blue light answered. “But in the Commodore’s suite, I can scan only by invitation. R.H.I.P. Lounge straight ahead. Call me if you want me. Midnight snacks a house specialty. I’m the best.” The little light flicked out.
The lounge was circular and large; four people were gathered in one corner. (How does a circle have a corner? By arranging contours and cushions and nibble foods and a bar to turn it into a chummy space.) Two were the twins; they had peeled off the stickums which left no way to tell them apart.
The others were a young woman and a man who looked fortyish. He wasn’t the one wearing a sheet; the young woman was. He was wearing much the same as our men but more like a kilt and in a plaid design.
One twin took charge: “Commodore Sheffield, this is Captain Hilda, First Officer Carter, Chief Pilot Burroughs, Copilot Deety Carter. You’ve all met my sister but not our cousin, Elizabeth Long.”
“Now introduce us over again,” ordered “Commodore Sheffield.” (“Commodore Sheffield” indeed! Whom did he think he was fooling?)
“Yes, sir. Doctor Jacob Burroughs and his wife Hilda, Doctor Zebadiah Carter and his wife Doctor Deety Burroughs Carter. Doctor Elizabeth Long, Doctor Aaron Sheffield.”
“Wait a half,” my husband interrupted. “If you’re going to do that, I must add that Captain Hilda has more doctorates than all the three of us, together.”
Captain Long looked at her sister: “Lor, I feel naked.”
“Laz, you are naked.”
“Not where it matters. Commodore, do you still own that diploma mill in New Rome? What are you charging for doctor’s degrees? Nothing fancy, say a Ph.D. in theory of solid state. One for each of us.”
“How about a family discount, Ol’ Buddy Boy?”
The “Commodore” glanced at the overhead. “Dora, keep out of this.”
“Why? I want a doctor’s degree, too. I taught them solid state.”
He looked at the young woman in (half out of) the sheet. “Does Dora have a point?”
“She does.”
“Dora, you get the same treatment as your sisters. Now shut up. All three are declared special doctoral candidates, B.I.T., required residence and courses completed but writtens and orals as tough as you think you are smart. That diploma mill – Certainly I own it. It’s for suckers. You three must produce. Two regents being present, it’s official. Dora, tell Teena.”
“You betcha, Buddy Boy! ‘Doctor Dora’ – won’t that be neat?”
“Pipe down. Friends, these twin sisters could have several doctorates by flow, had they chosen to bury themselves on a campus. They are geniuses -“
“Hear, hear!”
” – and the Long family is proud of them. But erratic, insecure, unpredictable, and you turn your backs at your own risk. Nevertheless they are my favorite sisters and I love them very much.”
They looked at each other. “He acknowledged us.”
“It took him much too long.”
“Let’s be big about it.”
“Both sides?”
“Now!” – they bowled him off his feet. He was standing – they hit with the same vector, with a quick assist from their “sister” Dora (she cut the gravity field for two tenths of a second), and sent him in a complete back flip. He bounced on his arse.
He seemed undisturbed. “Beautifully timed, girls. Pax?”
“‘Pax,'” they answered, bounded to their feet, pulled him to his. “We’re proud of you, Buddy Boy; you’re shaping up.”
I decided to kick it over, learn why we had been kidnapped. Yes, “kidnapped.” I got to my feet before he could sit down. “And I am proud,” I said, dropping a deep court curtsy, “to have the honor of meeting the Senior… of the Howard Families.”
Thunderous silence –
The woman in-and-out of the sheet said, “Lazarus, there was never a chance of getting away with it. These are sophisticated people. They have what you must have. Drop your deviousness and throw yourself on their mercy. I’ll start it by telling my own experience. But first -“
She got to her feet, letting the sheet drop. “Dora! May I have a long mirror? An inverter if possible – otherwise a three-way.”
Dora answered, “Teena can afford such stunts as inverters – I can’t; I have a ship to run. Here’s your three-way.” A partition vanished, replaced by a three-way mirror, lavish in size, taller than I.
She held out her hands to me. “Doctor D.T., will you join me?”
I let her pull me to my feet, stood with her at the mirror. We glanced at ourselves; she turned us around. “Do you all see it? Doctor Hilda, Doctor Carter, Doctor Burroughs? Lazarus, do you see it?”
The two she did not address answered. Laz (perhaps Lor) said, “They look as much alike as we do.” The other answered, “More.” “Except for – ” “Shush! It’s not polite.”
Lazarus said, “I always have to step in it to find it. But I never claimed to be bright.”
She didn’t answer; we were looking at ourselves in the mirror. The resemblance was so great as to suggest identical twins as with Lapis Lazuli and Lorelei Lee – Yes, I had known at once who they were. Captain Auntie did, too; I’m not sure about our husbands.
Those are nice teats – I can admit it when I see them on someone else. It’s no virtue to have this or that physical asset; it’s ancestry combined with self-obligation to take care of one’s body. But a body feature can be pleasing to the owner as well as to others.
Same broad shoulders, same wasp waist, same well-packed, somewhat exaggerated buttocks.
“We’re alike another way, too,” she said. “What’s the fourth root of thirty-seven?”
“Two point four-six-six-three-two-five-seven-one-five. Why?”
“Just testing. Try me.”
“What’s the Number of the Beast?”
“Uh – Oh! Six sixty-six.”
“Try it this way: Six to the sixth power, and that number in turn raised to its sixth power.”
“The first part is forty-six thousand, six hundred, fifty-six and – Oh, that’s a brute! It would be one and a fraction – one-point-oh-three-plus times ten to the twenty-eighth. Do you know the exact number?”
“Yes but I had a computer crunch it. It’s – I’ll write it.” I glanced around – at once a little waldo handed me a pad and stylus. “Thanks, Dora.” I wrote:
10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056.
“Oh, how beautiful!”
“But not elegant,” I answered. “It applies to a six-dee geometry and should be expressed in base six – but we lack nomenclature for base six and our computers don’t use it. However – ” I wrote:
Base six: 101010 = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
She looked delighted and clapped. “The same number,” I went on, “in its elegant form. But no words that I know by which to read it. That awkward base-ten expression at least can be put into words.”
“Mmm, yes – but not easily. ‘Ten thousand three hundred and fourteen quadrillion, four hundred twenty-four thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight trillion, four hundred and ninety thousand five hundred and thirty-five billion, five hundred and forty-six milliard, one hundred and seventy-one million, nine hundred and forty-nine thousand, and fifty-six. But I would never say it other than as a stunt.”
I blinked at her. “I recognize that nomenclature – just barely. Here is the way I would read it: ‘Ten octillion, three hundred fourteen septillion, four hundred twenty-four sextillion, seven hundred ninety-eight quintillion, four hundred ninety quadrillion, five hundred thirty-five trillion, five hundred forty-six billion, one hundred seventy-one million, nine hundred forty-nine thousand, and fifty six.”
“I was able to follow you by reading your figures at the same time. But base-six is best. Is the number interesting or useful as well as beautiful?”
“Both. It’s the number of universes potentially accessible through my father’s device.”
“I must talk with him. Lazarus, shall I tell my story now? It’s the proper foundation.”
“If you are willing. Not shy about it.”
“‘Shy’!” She went over and kissed him – a buss en passant but one in which time stops. “Old darling, I was shy before I found out who I am. Now I’m relaxed, and as bold as need be. New friends, I was introduced as Elizabeth Long, but my first name is usually shortened to a nickname – ‘Lib.’ And, yes, I’m Dr. Long. Mathematics. My full name is Elizabeth Andrew Jackson Libby Long.”
I was more braced for it having swapped some casual mental calculation with her. I have this trick of letting my features go slack. I don’t have to think about it; I’ve been doing it since I was three when I found that it was sometimes best to keep thoughts to myself.
I did this now and watched my family.
The Hillbilly looked thoughtful, and nodded.
Zebadiah prison-whispered to me: “Sex change.”
Pop tackled it systematically. “I recognize the second, third, and fourth names. You were once known by them?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have the nickname ‘Slipstick’?”
“Yes, and, before that, ‘Pinky.'” She ran a hand through her curls and smiled. “Not pink but close enough.”
“Now you are a woman. There is no point in guessing; you mentioned a story to tell.”
“Yes. Dora, how about a round of drinks? Lazarus, how’s your supply of those narcotic sticks?”
Pop said, “None of us smokes.”
“These are neither tobacco nor bhang – nor addictive. They produce a mild euphoria. I am not urging you; I want one myself. Thanks, Lazarus, and pass them around. Now about me –
“I was male nearly eight hundred years, then I was killed. I was dead fifteen hundred years, then I was revived. In renewing me it was found that my twenty-third gene pair was a triplet – XXY.”
The Hillbilly said, “I see. With Y dominant.”
I added: “Twin, Aunt Hilda is a biologist.”
“Good! Aunt Hilda – May I call you that? As my twin does? – will you help me with the hard parts?” Lib smiled and it was my smile – a happy grin. “The Y was dominant but the double dose of X bothered me and I didn’t know why. I did well enough as a male – thirty years in the Space Navy of Old Home Terra as a result of an officer taking an interest in me and getting me an appointment to its Academy. But I lacked command temperament and spent most of my service as a staff technical officer – I rarely commanded and never a large ship.” She grinned again. “But today, as a self-aware female instead of a mixed-up male I do not hesitate to command.
“To go back – I was never easy with boys or men. Shy, solitary, and regarded as queer. Not the idiom meaning homosexual… I was too shy. Although it probably would have been good for me. I was a ‘missing Howard’ in those days – after the Interregnum – and it was years after I entered the Navy that the Families found me. I married then, into the Families. Most XXY people are infertile – I was not. In the next seventy years I had twenty-one children and enjoyed living with my wives, enjoyed sex with them, loved our children.
“Which brings us to the escape from Earth led by Lazarus. I was a bachelor, both my wives having remarried. Friends, Lazarus was the first man I ever loved.”
“Lib, that has nothing to do with the story! I didn’t know you were in love with me.”
“It has everything to do with my story. Off and on, for eight centuries, we were partners in exploration. Then I was killed – my own carelessness. Eventually Lazarus and his sisters cremated me by tossing me into the atmosphere of Old Home Terra in a trajectory that would cause ashes to impact near where I was born. Lazarus, they don’t seem surprised. Do they disbelieve me?”
“Certainly we believe you!” I interrupted. “But what you’ve told us isn’t news to us. What we don’t know is how you are now alive and female. Reincarnation?”
“Oh, no! Reincarnation is nonsense.”
I found myself irritated. Reincarnation is something I have no opinion about, since a housecleaning I gave my mind after we lost Mama Jane. “You have data?” I demanded.
“Deety, did I step on your toes?”
“No, you didn’t, Lib. I asked if you had data.”
“Well… no. But if you assume the truth of the proposition, I think I can show that it leads to a contradiction.”
“The negative-proof method. It’s tricky, Lib. Ask Georg Cantor.”
Lib laughed. “Okay, I will attempt to have no opinion until someone shows me verifiable data, one way or the other.”
“I was hoping you had data, Lib, since you’ve been dead and I haven’t. Or don’t recall having been.”
“But I don’t recall being dead, either. Just a whale of a blow in the back… then dreams I can’t remember… then someone asking me patiently, again and again, whether I preferred to be a man or a woman… and at last I tracked clearly enough to realize that the question was serious… and I answered, ‘Woman’ – and they made me answer that question at least once a day for many days – and then I went to sleep one night and when I woke, I was a woman… which did not astonish me nearly as much as to learn that fifteen centuries had passed. Being a woman seemed completely natural. I’ve had five children now – borne five, I mean; I had sired twenty-one… and one was put into me by one of my own descendants. Lazarus, when are you going to knock me up?”
“When the Greeks count time by the Kalends.”
“Libby honey, when you want to swing that – if you aren’t joking – check with me.”
“Thanks, Dora; I’ll remember. Lazarus, you will have to explain the paradox; I was just a puppet.”
“Isn’t it bedtime? We’re keeping our guests up.”
“Captain Hilda?” Lib inquired.
“Deety is in charge of time.”
“Lib, I don’t know ship’s time yet. I gave you our seconds; we have sixty seconds to a minute; sixty minutes to an hour; twenty-four hours in a day. Primitive, eh? Is your time metric?”
“Depends on what you mean, Deety. You work to base ‘ten,’ do you not?”
“Yes. I mean: No, I work to base ‘two’ because I’m a computer programmer. But I’m used to converting – don’t have to think about it.”
“I knew you used ‘ten’ when I made a guess as to what you meant by ‘six to the sixth power’ and you accepted my answer. We now work to base-one-hundred-twenty for most purposes – binary one-one-one-one-zero-zero-zero.”
“Five-factorial. Sensible. Fits almost any base.”
“Yes. We use it for routine work. But in scientific work we use base-three, because our computers use trinary. I understand it took Gay and Dora several milliseconds to interface.”
“We aren’t that slow!”
“My apologies, Dora. For some work we use a time scale that fits trinary. But for daily living, our clock is just like yours – but three percent slower. Our planet’s day is longer.”
“By forty-two of your minutes.”
“You’re quick, Deety. Yes.”
“Your computers must be three-phase A.C.”
“You are quicker than I was two thousand years ago. And I was quicker then.”
“No way to tell and any computer makes us look like Achilles’ tortoise. We had dinner at eighteen. Gay entered Dora about an hour and a quarter later. So for us it’s about half past twenty, and we usually go to bed between twentytwo and twenty-three if we get to bed on time which we never do. What time is it in the ship and what is ship’s routine?”
The others had let me and my new twin chatter. Now Lazarus said, “If this madhouse has a routine, I’ve never found it.”
“Ol’ Buddy Boy, you don’t have a routine. I run this joint on the bell. Deety, it’s just – bong! – twenty-one… and Lazarus never went to bed that early in all his evil years. Buddy Boy, what are you dodging?”
“Manners, Dora.”
“Yes, Pappy. Deety, he’s dodging the chicanery with which he fooled even himself… because he must admit the triple chicanery he wants to rope you in on – and it takes Gay because I’m not built for it. Until today I never heard of ‘t,’ Tau and Teh. I thought ‘t’ – that you call Tau – was all there was. Aside from paratime in an encapsulation surrounded by irrelevancy such as I am taking us through.
“But back to the corpse caper – Lib got herself killed about eight hundred Post Diaspora. Lazarus slaps her – him – into a tank of LOX, and places him-her-it in orbit, with a beacon. Comes back quick as he can – and can’t find Libby’s cadaver. Fourteen centuries later my sister Teena, then known as Minerva, sees what should have been obvious, that any irrelevant ship, such as yours truly, is a time machine as well as a starship. A great light dawns on Lazarus; the corpse pickled in LOX is missing because he picked it up earlier. So he tries again, more than a thousand years later and five years earlier – and there it is! So Lazarus and I and Laz-Lor go to 1916 Old-Style-or-Gregorian, Old Home Terra, and bury Lib from the sky into the Ozarks where she – he – was born – which was pretty silly because we chucked her into those Green Hills about a century before she was – he – he was born. A paradox.
“But paradoxes don’t trouble us. We live in paratime, Laz-Lor are acute cases of parapsychology, we operate under paradoctrines. Why, take your family – four doctors. A double pair o’ docs.”
“Dora!”
“Pappy, you’re jealous. But I’ll say this for Lazarus: He’s slow but he gets there and has believed all his life that any paradox can be paradoctored. Happens he had lots of time to think after he chucked Lib to a fiery grave because he stayed in that primitive era and got his arse shot off and this caused a long convalescence.
“It occurs to him that, if he found the corpse through going back to shortly after he placed it in orbit, he might learn something interesting if he went back just before he put Lib’s remains in orbit. So when he’s well again, he does so, with his whole first team, headed by Doctor Ishtar, the greatest in the business, and I’m outfitted as a hospital with everything from microtomes to cloning capsules.
“So we go there and wait – we don’t land. Along comes Lazarus in the clunker that he and Lib used to risk their lives in, and Pappy comes out in a pressure suit and detaches the LOX tank, and Lib is buried in space, waiting for judgment day. We respect Pappy’s griefjust long enough for him to get out of the way, then I take the tank inside me. Ish gets to work, along with many others. Lots of live cells suitable for cloning. Brain intact. Dead but intact – okay, as all Ish wants are the memory configurations.
“In the course of this, Ishtar learns that the late lamented had the potential to go either way – which is why the Families’ best telepathic hypnotist is sent for and keeps asking this clone: When you wake up, what do you want to be? Man or woman?”
“It was much later, Dora. I was already awake.”
“Lib hon, you ask Ish. You had to decide long before you woke. Ish and her hormone artists had to work on you while you were still labile. Matter of fact, you never answered at all; the telepath kept reporting on your emotional state whenever you imagined yourself male, and your state when you imagined yourself female. Ish says that it made you happy to think of yourself as female.”
“That’s true. I’ve been ever so much happier as Elizabeth Long than I was as Andy Libby.”
“That’s it, folks. How Ish turned a mixed-up male into a happy female, fully functional and horny as Howard females always are.”
“Dora! We have guests.” Lazarus glowered.
“All married. Deety is youngest. Deety, did my bluntness shock you?”
“No, Dora. I’m horny enough to be a Howard myself. And terribly interested in how the great Slipstick Libby turns out to be my twin and female.”
“Female without surgery – none of those fakes done with a knife. But even Ish couldn’t have done it had not Lib supplied XXY, so that Ish could balance the clone either XX or XY by careful attention to endocrinal glands. Or could she? Must ask. Ish is genius-cubed, smarter than most computers. Lazarus can now explain his next sleight-of-hand – slightly illegal.”
“Hey!” I protested. “How about the corpse jettisoned into the Ozarks, Dora? Who was that?”
“Why, that was Lib.”
“Lib is right here. I’ve got my arm around her.”
That computer went tsk-tsk-tsk. “Deety. Doctor Deety. I just finished telling you that the Lib you are cuddling is a clone. After they drained every memory out of that frozen brain, what was left was dog food. Lib got slashed in the spine by the local equivalent of a cave bear. Ripped out her – his – backbone. Once Ish was through with it, Laz froze it again, we took it back and placed it in orbit, where we found it later – to our great surprise.”
“How could you be surprised when you put it there yourselves?”
Dora announced, loudly, “Is there a mathematician in the house?”
“Stop it, Dora. Thank you for recounting my saga; I learn a little every time I hear it.” Lib turned toward me and said softly, “Biological time versus durational time, Twin. Follow the entropy arrow through the loops of biological time and you will see that Lazarus was honestly surprised at every step even though he had – will-had – rigged every surprise. No grammar for it. Deety, I understand that you have studied semantics. Shall we try to devise a grammar for space-time complexities in six curved dimensions? I can’t contribute much but I can try to punch holes in your work.”
“Love to!” I wasn’t fooling. My twin is so sweet that maybe Deety is fairly sweet herself.

Chapter XLI

“A cat can be caught in almost any trap once – “

Jacob:
If A, then B. I trust I am a rational mathematician, not one of the romantics who have brought disrepute to our calling through such inanities as defining “infinity” as a number, confusing symbol with referent, or treating ignorance as a datum. When I found myself in the Land of Oz, I did not assume that I had lost my reason. Instead it prepared me emotionally to meet other “fictional” characters.
Stipulated: I may be in a locked ward. But to assume that to be factual serves no purpose other than suicide of personality. I shall act on what my senses report. I am not the bumpkin who said on seeing a giraffe: “There ain’t no sich animal.”
I find myself in bed with my lovely wife Hilda in sumptuous quarters of star yacht Dora as guests of the utterly fictional “Lazarus Long.” Is this a reason to try to find the call button in order to ask a still-more-fictional nurse for a nonexistent shot to end this hallucination? This is an excellent bed. As for Hilda – Solomon has reason to envy me; Mahomet with all his houris is not as blessed as I.
Tomorrow is soon enough to unravel any paradox. Or the Day After Tomorrow. Better yet, Not This October. After The End of Eternity may be best.
Why disturb a paradox? As Dora pointed out, Hilda and I are a pair o’ docs ourselves… with no wish to be disturbed, and most certainly not to be unravelled.
Since Hilda married me, I have not once taken a sleeping pill.
No one called us. I woke up feeling totally rested, found my wife in the fresher brushing her teeth with, Yes, Pepsodent-removed brush from mouth, kissed her, placed brush back in her mouth. When she finished brushing her teeth, I asked, “Seen the kids?”
“No, Jacob.”
“So. Dora!”
“No need to shout; I’m sitting on your shoulder. Would you like breakfast trays in bed?”
“Have we missed the breakfast hour?”
“Professor Burroughs, breakfast hour in me starts at midnight and ends at noon. Lunch is at thirteen, tea at sixteen-thirty, dinner at twenty, snacks and elevenses at any time. Dinner always formal, no other meal.”
“Hmm – How formal is ‘formal’?” Hilda now had more wardrobe – but Beulahiand is not high style.
“‘Formal’ means formal dress of your culture or ours, or it means skin. No casual dress. As defined by the Commodore: ‘Whole hawg or none.’ Amendment: Jewelry, perfume, and cosmetics are not proscribed by the no-casualdress rule. Ship’s services include sixty-minute cleaning and pressing, and a variety of formal dress of New-Rome styling, washables for the convenience of guests who do not travel with formal dress, prefer to be dressed at a formal meal, and do not choose to dine alone.”
“Very hospitable. Speaking of washables, we found everything but a dirty-clothes hamper. I have a laplap to put in.”
“But that’s a washable, Doctor.”
“That’s what I said. I’ve worn it; it should be washed.”
“Sir, I am not as fluent in English as in Galacta. By ‘washable’ I mean: Step into a shower while wearing it; it will go away.”
Hilda said, “We’ll take a dozen gross.”
“Captain Hilda, ‘dozen’ and ‘gross’ are not in my memories. Will you please rephrase?”
“Just a side remark to my husband, Dora. What are New-Rome high styles today?”
“‘Today’ I must construe as meaning the latest I have in stock. Styles follow the stock market. In evening dress, men are wearing their skirts floor length with a slight train. Bodices are off one or both shoulders. Bare feet or sandals are acceptable. Colors are bright and may be mixed in discordants. Weapons are required – may be symbolic but must be displayed. Ladies, of course, follow the cycle out of phase. Skirts are hardly more than ruffles this season, worn quite low. If tops are worn – not required this season and some ladies prefer cosmetics in flat colors – if worn, the teat windows may be either open or transparent. Transparents having quarter-lambda iridescence are popular this cycle, especially if one teat is bare without cosmetics while the other sports a changing-iridescent transparency.” The computer’s voice changed from a well-modulated adult female voice to that of an eager little girl:
“I hope somebody picks that; I like to look at it! How about Doctor Deety and Doctor Lib, one shiny on her left teat, the other shiny on her right, and place them side by side. Neat, huh!”
“It would be spectacular,” I agreed. (And they would look like clowns! Still, Deety might go along. The child likes to please people, even a computer. Perhaps especially a computer.)
“You old goat, would you like a skirt with a slight train?”
“Hilda!”
“Dora, do you have formal washables in my husband’s size? What measurements do you need?”
“I have the Professor’s measurements, Ma’am. I will fetch an assortment to your quarters sometime after noon when you are not sleeping or otherwise engaged. An equivalent assortment for you, I assume?”
“If you wish, Dora. I may not wear that style.”
“Captain Hilda is an excellent composition herself. I’m an expert engineer; I know good design when I see it. That’s not flattery; Laz-Lor tell me that I should learn to flatter. I’m not sure I have the circuitry for it. Perhaps I can learn it from Gay.”
“You sure can, Dorable; I’ve been flattering my four charges seems like forever.”
“Gay, have you been listening?”
“Mad at me, Aunt Hilda?”
“Never angry with our Gay Deceiver. But it’s polite to let people know you’re present.”
“But – Dora has eyes and she lets me look.”
“Captain Hilda, Gay is with me all the time now. Do you forbid that? We didn’t know.” Dora had slipped into her little-girl voice and sounded stricken.
Time to intervene – “Gay, Dora – Hilda and I don’t mind. I’ll tell Deety and Zeb; they won’t mind.”
“Jake, you’re my pal!”
“Gay, you’ve saved our lives many times; we owe you any fun we can offer. But, Gay, with Dora’s eyes and ears you’ll see and hear things not seen by your radars, not heard unless we switched you on. Do either of you have the word ‘discretion’ in your perms?”
“No, Jake. What does it mean?”
“I’ll explain it,” Dora said eagerly. “It means we see and hear but pretend not to. Like last night when -“
“Later, Dora. Over your private circuits. What ship’s time is it and are we late for breakfast? I don’t see a clock.”
“I’m the clock. It is ship’s time nine-oh-three. You are not last for breakfast. Commander Laz is sleeping late; she didn’t go to bed right after the mutiny. Captain Long – that’s Lor – ate on the bridge – a crude insult to my watch-standing but she’s good company. The Commodore always eats breakfast in the flag cabin. The Doctors Deety and Zeb and Lib are just starting.”
“How are they dressed?” asked my Hilda.
“In serviettes. Doctor Lib is wearing ‘Jungle Flower’ in cologne and powder and perfume; she likes strong ones. Doctor Zeb seems to have forgotten to use any but his own scent is rather pleasant. I can’t place what Doctor Deety is wearing but it has both musk and sandalwood. Shall I formularize it by symbols?”
“It’s ‘Blue Hour’ and I’m startled; my stepdaughter doesn’t need a scent. Neither does Lib, darn it. Jacob, are you ready?”
I answered at once. I had taken care of this and that while the computers chattered, including trying a depilatory tricky until I learned how to block it off – my sideburns were missing. Zeb dressed in a serviette – Libby Long the only one not of our family – and Lib used to be male. A good time to rub blue mud in my belly button – “I’m ready.”
Hilda noticed my decision by not noticing it. The blue “Tinker-Bell” light appeared, led us to a small dining room, where we encountered a Long-Family custom – did not realize it because it matched a ceremony of our own: Lib saw us, came over, kissed Hilda, kissed me – briefly but with time-stop. Then my daughter was kissing me good-morning while Zeb kissed my wife. We swapped as usual; Deety kissed Hilda – and Zeb took my shoulders, hissed into my ear, “Stand still” – and gave me the double Latin kiss, each cheek.
Did my blood brother think I would let him down in the presence of one not of our family? Our custom had started after our double elopement. While Zeb and I usually used the Latin symbol, four rapid pecks, once at Snug Harbor we had missed the fast timing, hit each other mouth to mouth – didn’t pull back but didn’t stretch it out. We declined to make anything of it – although I was aware of the break in taboo and he was, too.
Two mornings later I was last in; Zeb was seated with his back to me. He leaned back and turned his head to speak to me; I leaned down, kissed him on the mouth firmly but briefly, moved on and kissed my daughter not as briefly, moved on and kissed my wife thoroughly, sat down and demanded, “What’s for breakfast?”
After that the only invariant was: “What’s for breakfast?” Zeb and I used either Latin pecks or busses on the mouth – brief, dry, symbolic, initiated by either of us. It meant that we were closer than a handshake; it held no sexual significance.
So I was disgrunted that Zeb thought it was necessary to warn me. Let me add: Women are my orientation and Hilda my necessity. But I tried the other way with my high school chum our graduation week. We were experimenting to find out what the shooting was all about – planned but date subject to opportunity – which turned up that last week of school. A two-hour examination, no other school that day; a half hour of tennis, sudden realization that we were free and that his parents’ flat was empty and would remain so until late afternoon. Der Tag!
We gave it a fair trial. We bathed first and thoroughly. We were not shy or afraid of each other. We were not afraid of getting caught – doors locked and bolted, chains on, S.O.P. by his parents’ rules. We liked each other and wanted it to work.
Total failure – Got up, had peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches with milk, discussed it as we ate. Neither of us upset, not disgusted, no bad breath or similar hazards – but no results.
Brushed our teeth again, washed each other – gave it a second try. So much calisthenics. No “morals” about it, willing and eager to add it on. Not for us – so we killed all evidence and got in three more sets of tennis.
That’s how it is with Zeb and me. I love him dearly – but I love him for what he is – while fully empathizing that my daughter thinks he is the greatest lover since – Well, the greatest.
But if Zeb ever makes a pass at me, I will do my amateur-acting best to make him feel that this is what I have been waiting for all my life.
I’ve been trying to say why I was miffed. Never mind, I shall make it clear to Zeb that I will never let him down.
About that Long-Family custom – “Long” is not the name of a Howard Family; it is a group of Howards who live together and who added “Long” (the pseudonym most used by Lazarus) to their regular names. It’s a commune, an extended family, a serial family, a god-knows-what. There is probably no word for it in any language and at least two computers are full members. They come and go and raise children and only the family geneticist (Doctor Ishtar) is sure of parentage and who cares? I suspect that they are all ambi in sex but no outsider could guess – and I am an outsider.
But of this I am certain: When Long meets Long for the first time any day, they kiss – and it’s no Latin peck.
I learned that I could have anything I wanted for breakfast. This should have been enough to tell me that we were being set up for the tale. I’m getting ahead of my story, as I know things about the Long Family that I read in a book that you may not have read. This ship Dora came from a planet many parsecs from the Earth-analog of that universe, from a time over two thousand years in my future looked at one way… or a time totally irrelevant to mine through not having duration axis in common.
Yet I could have anything: Post Toasties, hens’ eggs any style, bacon, ham, sausage, breakfast steak, toast, orange marmalade, Concord grape jelly, buckwheat cakes – and not one of these foods is from Tertius, home of the Long Family.
Pepsodent in our ‘fresher – As I was contemplating a beautiful golden waffle with one bite of it melting in my mouth, Lazarus Long walked in… and a voice in my head played back: “The Commodore always eats breakfast in the flag cabin.”
Add that Lazarus was dressed as were Zeb and I save that he did not yet have a napkin.
Working hypothesis: Lazarus had listened in on every word between husband and wife.
Second hypothesis: “Dora, tell me when they get up, tell me when they arrive in the breakfast room – if they do, but offer trays as usual. If they eat in the breakfast room, let me know how each is dressed.”
The first hypothesis defines a grave social offense; the second outlines information a host or hostess is entitled to know. How do I find out which is which? Answer: I can’t, as Lazarus Long will give me the answer that profits him and that computer is loyal to him, not to me.
As soon as Lazarus finished kissing Lib Long, he was grabbed by Deety and kissed… then he caught Hilda’s eye, glanced at me and sloooowly bent to kiss her, giving her and me, severally, time to make that tiny gesture that says No – and did kiss her because I depend on Hilda’s instincts and will never tell her No in such circumstances, or greater or lesser. Hilda put her hand back of his neck and thereby controlled the kiss and made it long – and I tore up the first hypothesis and marked the second one “Q.E.D.” Hilda’s instincts about people are infallible; I think she is a touch telepathic.
As may be, we would now help him if possible.
To Zeb and me he simply said, “Good morning” – his instincts are reputed to be infallible, too.
I agreed that it was a “good morning” while noting to myself that it was a symbol without a referent save for social connotation (morning? In an irrelevancy?) but added sincerely, “Lazarus, this is the best waffle I ever tasted.”
“Then please tell Dora.”
“Dora, did you hear what I said to the Commodore?”
“I surely did, Professor Jake! Six more?”
I felt my waistline-firm and many centimeters trimmed off. “Six more is what I want -“
“Right away!”
“But half of one is all I dare eat. Deety, the next time we go to Oz, will you ask Glinda whether or not there is a magic for gluttons – me, I mean – to permit them to eat as much as they want while three fourths of it disappears?”
“I’m sure she could do it; I’m equally sure that she would not. She’s an ethical witch; you would not be able to convince her that your purpose was worthy.”
“You are depressingly logical, my dear.”
Lib said, “Professor, you have actually been to the Land of Oz? Really and truly?”
“Really and truly. Dora, is Gay on the line?”
“On deck, Jake” – Gay’s voice.
“Has anyone been in to see our portside annex?”
“How could they? Captain Hilda has not authorized it.”
“But – Hilda?”
“No, dear. Sorry to be blunt, Commodore and Doctor Lib, but I won’t authorize an open door because there are too many things that must not be touched. But I will be delighted to escort guests into Gay Deceiver almost anytime including right now; I’ve finished eating.”
“I accept!”
“Then come along, Elizabeth. Anyone else?”
Lazarus said, “Dora, shove my breakfast to the back of the stove; I’ll eat it later.”
“A jelly omelet? I’ll eat it myself.”
“Do that, Dorable. Captain, I’m ready.”
Laz-Lor showed up together, did not want to be left out. We ended up quite a crowd: eight humans, two computers.
Hilda stopped us at Gay’s starboard door. “Friends, again I must be blunt. As you cross the sill of that door, you are leaving Star Yacht Dora and entering an independent command, the Gay Deceiver, even though Dora totally surrounds Gay. Inside that door, I command, responsible to no one, unlimited in authority. Captain Lor, do you understand and agree with the legal theory?”
Captain Lorelei glanced at her sister, looked unhappy. “Captain Hilda, I do agree. Therefore I can’t come aboard. I can’t abandon my command.”
My wife looked terribly distressed. “Oh, I’m sorry!”
Lazarus Long interrupted. “Captain Hilda, I’m sorry another way. I don’t agree with your legal theory. I have had more than two thousand years more experience with law than my sister has… all sorts of law in all sorts of cultures. I’m not speaking of justice; I’ll leave that to philosophers. But I know what legal theories work with humans, and what ones have been attempted, then abandoned because they could not be made to work. This situation is not new; it has occurred thousands, millions, of times: a larger vessel with a smaller vessel nested in it. The solution is always the same, whether it concerns starships, fishing boats, aircraft carriers, whatever. The smaller vessel is a separate command outside the larger vessel, but when it is inside the carrier vessel, it is legally part of it.”
My darling did not answer. She was picking out me, Zeb, and Deety by eye as Lazarus talked. As he finished she said briskly, “GayDeceiverOpenStarboardDoor. Man the car, prepare for space.”
I’m proud of our family. Zeb zipped past me to the farthest seat – which left me room to dive for mine as Deety was picking up Hilda bodily, shoving her inside, crowding in after her, turning and pulling her feet clear of the doorframe – yelping, “GayCloseDoors!”
I was belting in but looking to the right, where the action was. Lazarus Long grabbed the door while calling out, “Hey, wait a moment!”
He realized his mistake in time to keep his fingers. I had argued with Zeb when I discovered, during refitting, that he had removed the interlocks that prevent that sort of accident. He answered my protest: “Jake, when I tell those doors to close, I want them to close. If, in closing, one chops off a man’s head, you can assume that I think he looks better that way.”
Lazarus saved his hand but was knocked off his feet by the door – and I saw a bit of why he had lived so long. Instead of trying to check his fall, he gathered himself into a ball and took it on one buttock.
“Report!”
“Copilot belted checking seal!”
“Chief Pilot belted all systems go. Door seal being rechecked.”
“Navigator belted, ready.”
“Starboard door seal okay!”
“GayBounce!”
We were in free fall. No stars – total darkness.
“Astrogator. Advise.”
“I don’t know, Captain. We’ll have to ask Gay whether or not she can backtrack. Any backtrack. Beulahland, or any spot in her perms. I’m lost.”
Suddenly the stars came out. “Dora, calling Gay Deceiver. Come in, Gay.”
“Don’t answer. Zebbie, advise again. What happened?”
“I’m guessing. They cancelled encapsulation rather than risk losing us. They must be awfully anxious.” Zeb added, “The only thing we have that you can’t buy at the corner drugstore is Jake’s space-time twister. How they knew of it and why they want it I do not know.”
“Dora, calling Gay. Gay, please talk to me. Aren’t you still my friend? I know our bosses had a silly fuss – but we didn’t. Aren’t you ever going to speak to me again? I love you, Gay. Please don’t be mean to me.”
“Captain Hilda, may I please say hello to Dora and tell her that I am not angry at her? She’s a sweet girl, she really is. Captain, she let me use her eyes.”
“Let me speak to her first.”
“Oh, thank you! Gay, answering Dora. Come in, Dora.”
“Gay! You had me so scared. Don’t go away again, please. The Commodore wants to apologize to your boss. Will she talk to him?”
“Captain?”
“No. I’ll speak to Dora’s Captain, however.”
A cartoon of Lorelei’s features displayed on our central screen. “Lor speaking, Captain Hilda. My brother is terribly sorry and wants to apologize. My sisters and I are dreadfully upset and want you please to come back. I don’t claim any command over your ship despite the silly things my brother said. Lib has a message for you, too. She says that, topologically, there is no difference between you being inside us or us being inside you. Either way, we each surround the other.”
“I don’t see it topologically, Captain; I see it pragmatically. But please thank Elizabeth for me. I have this message for Lazarus Long. A cat can be caught in almost any trap once; but that cat will not be caught in the same trap twice.”
“The message is delivered.”
“Then it is time to say good-bye. Captain Lorelei, I cannot honestly thank you as kidnapping is not hospitality even when it is luxurious. But I don’t think that you or your sister – sisters – meant it that way. I blame it on that deceitful, devious brother of yours. Please tell your sisters and Libby good-bye for us and say that I am sorry we had to leave.”
“Captain, wait! There is something I must do first.”
“Captain Lor, I must warn you I have you in my gunsights.”
“What? Oh! We are unarmed. Not anything like that. I’ll be back quickly. Perhaps you would like Dora to sing? But please don’t go away!” The face in the screen pulled away.
“What kind of songs do you like, folks? I know lots of songs. One-Ball Reilly; and the Green Hills and On Guard Christmas So’s Yours and Santa Carolita and Mademoiselle from Army Tears and the Pawnshot song and The Monkey Wrapped His Tail Around the Flagpole and Mary O’Meara and Soldier, Ask Not and just tell me what you like, and – here comes Sister. Captain Lor.”
“Captain Hilda, thanks from my heart for waiting. Can you record?”
“Gay, recording mode. Go ahead.”
“I have placed my brother under arrest and confined him to quarters. I, Captain Lorelei Lee Long, Master of Star Yacht Dora, affirm for use in any court that I have no authority over yacht Gay Deceiver and will never attempt to assert authority over Gay Deceiver no matter what circumstances and, furthermore, I now place myself, my crew, and my ship Dora under command of Captain Hilda Burroughs, henceforth commodore of both ships, this assignment of command irrevocable by me or my sisters, and revocable solely by Commodore Burroughs at her sole discretion. End of message. Hilda, won’t you come home? Laz is crying and I don’t know what to do. We need you. Buddy Boy never did tell you why. But we do! May I tell you?”
“Go ahead, Lor.”
“To save our mother’s life!”
(I said, softly, “I’ll be damned.”)
My wife hesitated, then said, “Is Elizabeth Long there?”
“Yes, yes! She’s been listening – she’s crying, too – and I would be but I’m Captain and can’t.”
The smudged faces changed. “Lib Long speaking, Commodore.”
“Libby, Captain Lorelei has told me something not only hard to believe but, if she is cloned from her brother as I have read, she may have his talent for lying. From what I know of you, I don’t think you ever learned how to lie.”
“Commodore, it is true that I never learned to lie convincingly. So I gave it up a long time ago.”
“Very well, Lib. Is Lazarus Long in fact confined and under arrest?”
“Yes, to both. His door won’t open and Dora has been instructed not to let him out until you permit it.”
“What’s this about saving her mother’s life? If they are clones from a man the age Lazarus is alleged to be, their mother must have died a couple of millennia back.”
“It’s as complex as my case, Commodore, but quite different. The twins have host-mothers. But Lor was speaking of the genetic mother of herself, her twin sister, and Lazarus Long. She was reported dead more than two thousand Old-Home-Terra years ago. But there is some hope that the records were confused and that it may be possible to save her. It can’t be done without your help and the help of the Gay Deceiver. I don’t think the chances are good, even so. But without your help – well, I would have to try to devise such a drive as Gay is reported to have – and I don’t think I can.”
“Wait a moment, Libby. Gay, cut transmission from cabin; keep circuit ready. Can you find your way unassisted back into your berth in Dora? Did you get it into your perms?”
“I did. I thought I might want to find Dora someday. Are you displeased with me? I know it wasn’t authorized. But I didn’t three-times it! I can wipe it.”
“Gay Deceiver. New program. New parking spot. Code word ‘Dora Long.’ I tell you three times.”
“Hilda, I hear you three times!”
“Gay Deceiver. ‘Dora Long.’ Execute!”
The stars went away and lighted alcoves were at our doors.

Chapter XLII

“You’re a figment of imagination.”

Zeb:
“Hear that, Laz? You’re a figment of imagination.”
“No, Lor. You are a figment; I’m a fig.” (What she said was “fica,” and Deety suppressed a giggle. I pinched her and told her in family tap code that she had a dirty mind – which she ignored, being proud of it rather than otherwise. It was a long time later that I learned that Laz had used a Galacta word – but the ancient pun still applied.)
Jake reiterated patiently, “Laz-Lor, the key point of Commodore Hilda’s theory is that we are all equally figments of imagination. ‘Reality’ thus becomes a null sythbol.”
Deety shook her head emphatically. “Stick to geometry, Pop. Or stamp collecting. Leave symbology to symbologists – such as your favorite daughter. I’m real, I am! Smell me.”
“No doubt you could use a bath. So could we all; it’s been an adrenaline day. But that’s the other side of the coin, Deety. ‘Imaginary’ and ‘Real’ turn out to be identical. Consider this chow bench. On one level of abstraction it is mathematical equations. At the level just below that it is a swirling nothlngness, with mass-energy a rare event. But on the gross level abstracted by my senses I can place this drink on it with utter confidence that it will not sink through this near vacuum.”
My father-in-law matched his words by placing his highball on the snack bench; it sank out of sight.
Jake looked tired. “Not my day. Dora, did you do that?”
“Yes and no, Professor.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“You placed it on a take-away spot and that part of me was on automatic and took it away and sterilized it. I’m sorry, sir, and here’s your fresh drink.”
It was indeed a busy day. No one had been waiting at our parking berth, but three young women arrived at a dead run while Sharpie was swapping seats with Deety – our brand-new commodore planned to be first to step into her new ship. The starboard door opened; Sharpie stepped out, a dignified procession of one -and was hit from three sides by three young women, each managing to laugh and cry at the same time. But Sharpie enjoys everything and her aplomb has never been shaken. She kissed them, let them kiss her, petted them and told them to calm down, everything was all right. “Dears, I never intended to stay away; I simply refused to let the great Lazarus Long put one over on Sharpie. Where is he now?”
“Shut up in the flag cabin, Ma’am. Commodore.”
“Captain Lor, lock him up elsewhere; the flag cabin is mine.”
“Aye aye, Commodore.”
“How long will that take? Seconds, I mean; not hours.”
Lor spoke rapidly to Dora in a language I almost understood. I leaned to my right, spoke to my wife. “Spanish. Some sort.”
“Italian,” Deety answered.
“Will you settle for Latino? No! – I remember now: Galacta. We’ll have to learn it. But it sounds easy.”
Lor reported, “Flag cabin will be ready for you by the time you reach it, Commodore.”
“Very good. I expect to use it primarily as an administration office; flag remains in Gay Deceiver. That is appropriate, since Dora is unarmed whereas Gay Deceiver is an attack ship, an armed privateer – heavily armed, for her size.” Sharpie smiled. “A few days ago, in another universe, we destroyed an entire air army. We don’t have fancies such as artificial gravity; we belt down and fight in free fall. Gay Deceiver is stripped for speed and armament; Dora is just the opposite. The two complement each other beautifully.”
I wondered why Sharpie was blathering – but she always has reasons. I think she reads minds.
I’m certain that Laz-Lor do, with each other. They looked at each other, then:
“The flag of an armed privateer – “
” – is the Skull-and-Cross-Bones -“
” – is it not? Do we take prisoners -“
” – or cut their throats?”
“Which would you rather do? Captain Lor, please do all the talking; these whipsaw conversations are hard to follow. By the way, no more ‘midnight mutinies.’ Lor, you remain captain until further notice.”
Again they looked at each other.
“We like to swap off.”
“Calling it ‘mutiny’ is just a joke.”
“No one asked your preferences. My chief of staff and second-in-command of the flagship is the only one who does and must advise me. If you have opinions to offer, see him. Answer my question. Captain Lor.”
“We’ll do what you order. But our brother who was our father at the time taught us never to kill if we could possibly avoid it while teaching us all sorts of ways to kill and made us practice. When we were growing up we always wanted to be pirates. Then we grew up and decided that it could never be and tried to forget it.”
Sharpie said, “I think I’m making you tongue-tied by forcing you to filter it through one set of vocal cords. So cancel that order; you two are unique. We operate just the way Lazarus taught you; so far we have killed only once – to repel an attack on us. That air army – We timed it, caught them with their flying machines on the ground, burned the machines, burned their fuel – and thereby stopped an invasion… without killing anyone. But we are always ready to kill. Lor, that’s why I warned you a few minutes ago. It would have broken Gay’s heart to have to destroy Dora. Skull-and-Cross-Bones? No way to fly one but, if you want to hang one in the lounge, I grant permission. Why did you decide not to become pirates?”
That same preliminary glance –
“Babies -“
“Laz has three, I have four – “
” – because Lor has one pair of twins -“
” – and we try to be pregnant at the same time -“
” – and time it to fit our plans -“
” – and Brother’s plans if you ever let him out of hack.”
“How old are you two? I’ve been thinking of you as about Deety’s age but you can’t be. Just one of you answer, please; it’s a simple question.”
They conferred mentally an unusually long time. At last Captain Lor said slowly, “It isn’t quite simple. We will get Dora and Athene to integrate it for us… if data are complete; they may not be. But answering in Old-Home-Terran years and meaning our own biological time, Laz thinks we are about forty-eight and I think we are a couple of years younger. It doesn’t matter because Ishtar will tell us when to rejuvenate, which won’t be soon, as we aren’t yet close to menopause.”
“Does it have to be at menopause?”
“Oh, no, just makes it easier and you never have to stop making babies. But Ishtar’s mother went years past menopause and had decided to die… and changed her mind and looks younger than we do and has had more babies than we have. This time around, I mean.”
“How often do men need it?” Sharpie asked. Jake looked up and said, “I won’t need it for another six weeks, Hilda. Maybe seven.”
“Shush, dear. Laz-Lor, be careful around my husband. When he’s in rut, it takes heavy chains to restrain him. So never mind that question; he doesn’t need to know and, for me, it was intellectual curiosity of a biologist. Perhaps it s best to ask Doctor Ishtar.”
“Yes, Commodore, that would be best. We aren’t biologists; we’re ship handlers.”
I leaned forward. (Sharpie was keeping us in the car; why I didn’t know – then.) “Commodore! I’m required to advise you.”
“Yes, Zebbie.”
“You are going to need a new chief of staff, a new second-in-command, and a new astrogator because I will be on the binnacle list in a wet pack if you don’t have Laz-Lor answer that last one. It is not ‘intellectual curiosity’ to me.”
“Why, Zebbie dear, I have reports that your curve is such that it will be many, many years before you can possibly have other than intellectual interest.”
(If it were not for upsetting Jake, I would paddle that pert little arse!)
Deety said, “Hear, hear!” I placed my hand over her mouth and got bitten. Sharpie said, “Captain, we have here another paradox – Doctors Carter and Burroughs, each unreasonably insecure. Elizabeth, you’ve been a man; give them the male angle.”
“Commodore, I wasn’t very successful as a male. I simply took antigeria whenever Lazarus did. But I can report his thumb rule.”
“Yes?”
“When a man looks at a new and attractive woman and decides that he is too tired, it’s time. When he doesn’t even look, push him over and bury him; he’s failed to notice that he’s dead.”
The ship’s computer said something in that not-Spanish; Sharpie answered, “Graz, Dora. I’ll come now.”
Lor said, “Ma’am, we didn’t know you knew Galacta.”
“I don’t. But I will a week from now. I knew what I would say in your position, and you said it; I could tell from cognates. You told Dora to get him out pronto, because the Doña was on her way. Then get his personal belongings when I would not be inconvenienced. So I stalled. Zebbie, will you come with me? Jacob dearest, will you decide whether or not we should give up our suite with the Carters? And what to move out of Gay? We will be in Dora at least a week, possibly longer.”
“Commodore, we depart for Tertius tomorrow midday, ship’s time.”
“I do not recall ordering that, Captain Lor.”
The twins looked at each other – and said nothing.
Sharpie patted Laz’s cheek. “Don’t look so thunderstruck, girls” – girls? – seven years or so Sharpie’s senior and seven babies between them – “On reaching Tertius, place us in orbit, following local rules. But no messages from ship to ground unless approved by me in writing. Come now!”
As Sharpie left with me in tow, she told Deety that she was on her own but please get out Jacob’s Army blues and my Aerospace dress, and ask Dora about cleaning and pressing.
Jake said, “Hey!” before I could, and Sharpie said, reasonably, “I won’t put you into a long skirt, sweetheart; you would feel that I had coerced you into drag. I thought perhaps you two were bored with civilian dress – and I shall continue the custom concerning dressing for dinner – either formal dress or formal skin. Nothing in between.”
Upon reaching flag cabin Sharpie dismissed Laz-Lor, waited until we were private, then clung to me. “Hold me, Zebbie. Hold me tight! Calm me down.” The little thing was shaking.
“Maybe I had better get Jake,” I suggested, while holding her and petting her gently – and solving aerodynamic empiricals in my head to keep from noticing how much skin such a tiny woman can spread over one.
“No, Zebbie. Jacob would fuss over me like a mother hen and give me advice I don’t want. Either I boss this job without my husband telling me what to do… or I can’t cut it. If I fail, I will fail on my own – not as Jacob’s puppet. But I can cry on you and tell you things I wouldn’t tell my own toothbrush.”
She added, “When I send you out, find Jake and have him teach school to everybody. That’ll keep him busy and happy and out of my hair. And everybody else, too. Have both computers record his lectures.”
“Lectures on what?”
“Oh. Too many details. The plenum of universes and the Number of the Beast. Pantheistic multiple solipsism, or why the Land of Oz is real. The quantum mechanics of fairy tales. Even the care and feeding of Black Hats. He’ll probably want to take people into Gay… but you must be present; don’t delegate it. Jacob can go along and lecture but it’s Zebbie’s sharp eye that will see to it that nothing is touched.”
She patted my chest. “You’re such a comfort. Now I’m going to dig out this ship’s papers and you’re going to help because I don’t know what to expect. Or where to find them. Certificate of ownership, I suppose, and registration, and ship’s manifest whatever that is. What else and where should I look?”
“A log. Crew list, passenger list. Health inspection, maybe. Other inspections. Bureaucracy and red tape tend to follow the same patterns everywhere. Maybe no paper papers; that looks like a computer printout over there. Mmm – Insist on English; the originals are almost certainly in Galacta.”
“I’ll try it. Dora.”
“Listening, Commodore Hilda.”
“Print for me, in English, the ship’s official papers. Ownership, registration, manifests, and so forth. You know the list. Retrieve soonest.”
“I am not authorized to do this, Ma’am.”
“‘Not authorized’ by whom?”
The computer did not answer. Sharpie said, “Stick around, Zebbie; there’s going to be trouble. Do you have any weapons?”
“Where? Look at me. How?”
“I don’t know but you’re clever about such things. Dora!”
“Your orders, Commodore?”
“Get me Captain Lor! In person, not voice. I want her here on a dead run – right now! Out!”
(I did have a weapon. I had palmed an item as I left Gay. But never admit a holdout.)
Laz-Lor arrived, breathing hard, seconds later. “You sent for us, Ma’am?”
“I sent for Captain Lor; I did not send for Laz. Out. Pronto!”
Laz had her mouth open to speak. She got out so fast the door was only partly dilated; she dived through.
“Dora! Repeat to Captain Lor every word that you’ve heard, every word you’ve said, since I entered this cabin.”
The computer started with Sharpie telling Laz-Lor they could leave… then surprised me with: “Hold me, Zebbie. Hold me tight. Calm me down.”
I started to speak, Sharpie shook her head. Dora droned on, right through Hilda’s order to repeat back all the computer had heard or said since we came in.
The computer stopped; Sharpie said, “Dora, you told me this morning that you could not scan in here without permission.”
“That is correct, Ma’am.”
“Who gave you permission?”
The computer did not answer.
“Captain Lor, did you or your sister tell this computer to spy on me and to refuse to answer certain questions?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“Then it’s your brother Lazarus. Don’t bother to lie; I didn’t ask, I told you. Fetch your brother to me, under arrest. Move!”

Chapter XLIII

To Pull a Hat Out of a Rabbit –

Smith:
I had had trouble convincing my sisters that I must be “arrested” and “confined.” I had made an idiotic mistake and now must be “punished.” Lor had even less enthusiasm for placing herself and our ship under the command of a stranger.
Once they accepted it, I could depend on them. We did not let Lib in on the caper; she has no talent for creative lying. Far better that she believe whatever she said.
Laz and Lor were outwitting their elders by the time they were six, a process I encouraged by walloping them whenever I caught them. They learned. They also have my talent for looking stupid, plus one I have but seldom can use:
They can turn tears on and off like a faucet. (I have not found many cultures in which this advantages a male.)
Once this was settled, I arrested myself by helping Dora’s waldoes move my most personal gear next door. Then I lay down and listened through Dora to what was going on in the flag cabin.
And discovered that I had outsmarted myself. I have never tried to teach Dora to lie; a dishonest computer is a menace: one that is a pilot would be a lethal disaster, sooner or later. Sooner.
But I hadn’t figured on this narrow little broad asking for my papers so quickly. Nor did I guess that Dora had told her that my cabin could be scanned only by my order.
When I heard the situation start to deteriorate, I got up quickly and put on one of my Scottish outfits. Advantages: I look bigger, taller, more imposing. The costume calls for two weapons worn publicly. These I never use. But the costume is so draped and full that one may hide weapons for a half squad- then never show them save in extremis.
So I was ready when Lor came busting in, almost incoherent. “Brother, is she mad! Watch yourself!”
“I will, Lor. You’ve done a swell job.” I kissed her. “Now march me in under arrest.”
So we did. I halted ten paces from Mrs. Burroughs and saluted. She said to Lor, “You may leave” – waited until Lor had left, then said, “Instruct your computer not to see or listen in this space.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am. Dora.”
“Yes, Boss?”
“Back to normal for my cabin. No see ‘um, no hear ’em until I tell you to.”
“Chinchy!”
“Dora!”
“Aye aye, Boss. Mean!”
“She’s a bit childish but she’s a good cook. And a fine pilot.”
“And you’re a bit childish. Prisoners do not salute, prisoners do not wear arms. Captain Carter, confiscate his weapons. Keep them as souvenirs or destroy them.”
Long years as a slave taught me to put up with anything without a squawk. That doesn’t make it pleasant.
“Smith.”
I didn’t answer. She added, “I mean you, Woodie!”
“Yes, Ma’am?”
“Lean over, grab your ankles. Captain, frisk him.”
Carter knew how, I soon no longer had tools for a half squad – but felt better when he ended having missed one. He was in uniform-of-the-day, but he was big, in training, and carried himself in a way that made me think of Black Belts.
“Those are yours, too, Zebbie, although you might share them. Deety mentioned something about not having a throwing knife. How’s the balance on those?”
She was not speaking to me but I had to try to gain control of the psychological gauge. “One and a half turns at eight meters, Ma’am. I make them myself. But it’s too heavy a knife for a lady. I would happily make one to fit Doctor Deety’s hand and strength.”
“I imagine that Doctor Deety is stronger than you are, Woodie. I think you’ve gone a bit soft. Someday we’ll check it. Take off your clothes.”
With my weapons gone, other than the one, I welcomed the order. Clothes are no asset in unarmed brawl; the other man can use yours against you. And I was sweating; Dora keeps the ship right for skin. I peeled quickly.
“Shove them down that,” she said, pointing.
“Uh, Ma’am, that’s a destruction oubliette.”
“I know. Next time you won’t try to impress me by sartorial elegance. Furthermore it was intentional insolence. Pronto!”
I shoved them down pronto. “Grab your ankles again, Woodie. Captain Carter, need we give him an enema to make sure he hasn’t hidden one more weapon? I don’t care to check by touch without a rubber glove, and I won’t ask you to.”
“Madam, I give you my word – “
” – which is worth nothing. Let it go, Zebbie. Join the class and keep an eye on our interests.”
The big man looked me over. “I don’t like to leave you alone with him, Commodore.”
“Thank you, Zebbie. I’m safe. I was safe when he was armed but he was being insolent so I spanked him. Run along; he doesn’t dare touch me.” She added, “Or do you have a premonition?”
“No. But I get them just barely in time.”
“I couldn’t ask for more. But I feel a prophecy. Woodie is going to be a lamb about everything. Now go, dear.”
He left, giving me a look that promised death if I harmed her. I wanted to tell him that I had never found it necessary to harm a woman in more centuries than his wife had years.
“Well, Lazarus, how do we work this out?”
“Work out what, Ma’am? You have the upper hand.”
“Oh, piffle! You have the upper hand; you know it. As long as the ship’s computer obeys you, rather than me, my ‘authority’ is a fraud. I escaped once by a fluke; you won’t let it happen twice. But I stuck my head back into the trap because I think we have something to trade, to our mutual profit.”
“I hope so, Ma’am. Please go on.”
“You want your mother rescued. I plan to do it if it can be done. For which you will toe the mark. We need a holding company. I will own fifty-one percent of the voting stock. Not of the profits; there will be plenty for all. But I control.”
“Madam, you’re way ahead of me. I don’t know what you have in mind.”
“Money. Money and power. Whew! I just got downwind; you sweated into that heavy costume. Go in there, take a tub bath, hot and soapy. I’ll sprawl on the chaise longue and we’ll talk business. Are you really trying to rescue your mother, or are you simply looking to cut yourself in on Jacob’s invention? We can make a deal, either way – but I must know. Don’t hold out on me; I tend to get annoyed. Then someone else pays. You, in this case.”
She took my hand and led me into the ‘fresher while I answered her key question and thought about the rest. No more lies; she had caught me in one thrown together hastily and too complex; my grandfather would have been ashamed of it. So – nothing but the truth. But how much truth and what truth?
“Rescuing my mother is priority one, sine qua non. Business aspects are secondary.”
“You were going to say that business aspects didn’t matter to you – and I would have stuffed it down your throat.”
I stalled while I adjusted the bath’s controls. “Ma’am, I always think about business angles. But I would go broke and start over to make this rescue.”
“Will you sign such a contract? We rescue your mother; you sign over all your wealth to me? No cheating, no holdout?”
“Is that what it takes?”
“No. It would not be equitable and that would compel you to cheat. Any contract must profit both of us. But rescuing your mother appeals to me – to all my family; I’m the least sentimental of us-and we would tackle it if there were not a fiat dollar in sight. Pour le sport. That nice warm feeling – whether it’s a kitten, a baby bird, or an old woman. But there is money in this… and sport… and opportunities beyond imagination. That sound of water splashing: does that interfere with Dora’s hearing?”
“No, she filters it out.”
“Is she listening?”
I instantly answered, “Yes.” I’ve lived a long time in part by being a cat not caught in the same trap twice – as she had underlined. I placed in my permanent memory, nine times nine, never to lie to this woman again. Evade, avoid, keep silent, be elsewhere. But don’t lie to her. A born Grand Inquisitor. Telepathic? Must ask Laz-Lor.
“I’m glad you said Yes, Lazarus. Had you said No, I would have broken off negotiations. I’m not telepathic – but you may find it inadvisable to lie to me. We must change the computer situation – part now, part later. You didn’t give her the right code words.”
“That’s right. ‘Chinchy’ and ‘mean’ equal -“
” – Roger Wilco, but reversed meaning.”
“Eh? That’s a deep-down memory. Yes. Hmm – I must insert that phrase into Galacta. Useful.” The water was just right, with deep, fragrant suds. I stepped down into it, picked a seat that let me lounge. “I should have said to Dora – Shall I tell Dora now?”
“With a modification. I want the equivalent of a simple telephone, so that I can call anyone, anyone can call me – and the same for you. But kill the snoop circuits throughout this suite.”
“No trouble. We can call out at any time; that is a safety feature, permanent. As for calling in, I usually limit it to the twin commanding; she’s entitled to disturb me, if needed. If not needed – well, neither Laz nor Lor enjoys being called ‘stupid,’ especially by me.”
I changed the orders to Dora and did not cheat; Mrs. Burroughs and I were now truly in private, although anyone could reach us – voice only. “What next, Ma’am?”
“Some permanent changes for Dora, now that she can’t hear us. Tentative plans for your mother’s rescue. Then we talk business. Is there a seat in that pool where I won’t drown?”
“Oh, certainly. When Laz-Lor were your size, they often bathed with me – I’ve had as high as six in this tub although that’s a bit cozy; it’s a four-adult design. Here, let me help; you can’t see through these suds.” Helping Hilda Burroughs reminded me of handling Laz-Lor at the same size, prepubescent… but I was acutely aware that this small, warm, slick body was postpubescent by many years and I got a twinge that I was pleased to have figleafed by suds. “Feel under you – find the seat? Temperature suit you?”
“Luxurious. On Tertius refreshers are social rooms, are they not?”
“Yes. Over the years I have found that nude cultures, or those with no taboos about nakedness, tend to make bathing a social event. Ancient Romans. Ancient Japanese. Many others.”
She answered, “Whereas cultures with strong body taboos equate bathing rooms with outhouses back of barns. Disgusting.” Mrs. Burroughs looked disgusted. I noted this as I had thought it would be necessary to get them used to skin before exposing them to the easy-going ways of Tertius… lest I jeopardize my mother’s rescue. I had instructed Laz-Lor to hold us in irrelevancy until all of them, with no urging, accepted the comfort of complete bareness in perfectly tempered conditions, and simply forgot about bodies qua bodies. This does not mean to forget yin-yang… but it has long been known to all but legislators, judges, and other fools that a scrap of clothing fig-leafing whatever may be taboo (taboos vary endlessly and each is a “law of nature”) is far more stimulating than is no clothing.
(Warning to time-travellers: To assume that the taboos of your native culture are “natural” and that you can’t go too wrong behaving by the rules your loving parents taught you is to risk death. Or worse. If you think death has no “worse,” read history.)
To return to pretty little Mrs. Burroughs: To be enjoying a bath with her a few minutes after she had had me subjected to personal indignity was the second most surprising thing about her. The most surprising thing I was still learning: This fragile little doll with the muscles of a kitten was the toughest bitch kitty I have ever encountered.
Understand me, I admire her. But I want to be on the side she is on. “What changes in Dora do you want, Ma’am?”
“Lazarus, I’m ‘Ma’am’ to strangers and on formal occasions. I don’t consider bathing all that formal; my friends call me Hilda. Or by nicknames. Even pet names. But not ‘Ma’am.'”
My answer got me splashed. She went on, “In attempting to hornswoggle me, you gave me, through your accomplices, a phony command and rank – while retaining control of the computer necessary to make it real. I require that you carry out your contract. Now. By reprogramming Dora to me as her sole boss, with the program locked so that you can’t change it. Me and me alone.”
She smiled, leaned toward me, and placed a hand on my knee under water. “That’s why I insisted on privacy – for Dora’s sake. She’s self-aware and seems quite vulnerable. Lazarus, I don’t mind anyone in this ship hearing anything I’ve been saying. But I don’t discuss surgery when it is likely to upset the patient.” She leaned forward. “Scratch between my shoulder blades – pretty please?”
I welcomed time to think, while requiring her to coach me – higher, lower, a little to the left, ah, right there …
“Hilda, I’m not sure it can be done. I did reprogram Dora so that her loyalty in crisis is to Laz-Lor. But it took me years and was not done by circuitry or by programming Dora is so thoroughly a self-aware personality that it is necessary to win her love in order to gain her lovalty”
“I find that believable. Lazarus, let’s see you pull a hat out of the rabbit.”
“You mean -“
“I meant what I said. Any second-rate magician can pull a rabbit out of a hat. Can Lazarus Long pull a hat out of a rabbit? Watch this space next week. It’s your problem, Lazarus; you created it. I won’t make a second contract with a man in default on his first. Do you want your back scratched while you think? You scratched mine deliciously.”
I accepted by leaning forward. Hilda is telepathic though perhaps not in words. She knew which spots and how hard and how long.
And when to stop. She dropped her hand as I straightened up… and her hand brushed against me and stopped. “Well! Truly I did not intend to be provocative, old dear.”
I put an arm around her; she did not pull away but continued, “I won’t refuse you. I have not given a man reasonable cause to call me a tease since I was twelve. But wouldn’t it be sensible to table this until after we have rescued your mother and set up our business structure? If you find – then – that you are interested, you will let me know. If you do, I ask that you cooperate with me in saving my husband’s feelings and face. And… I am… having trouble saying this – Damn it! Please stop and tell me the plans for rescuing your mother.”
I stopped, allowed a hand’s width to separate us. “Have you forgotten the hat and the rabbit?”
“I’m afraid I did. Very well, you’ve won this round; we attempt to rescue your mother. I waive the broken contract – but we do no further business. Just the rescue, then we leave.”
“I thought you promised me a second chance – later?”
“What? Lazarus, you’re a bastard.”
“I’m not but the term has no meaning on Tertius. Here’s the ‘hat.’ You designate me your flunky – any title – for this ship. My sole function will be to be in earshot – through Dora or otherwise – to insure that your slightest wish is carried out. Night or day.”
“Making me a privileged figurehead, still vulnerable to your whim. The hat won’t fit.”
“Very well – second hat. We ground on Tertius; I move Dora into another ship – she accepts that; it has happened before. I sign this ship over to you with a new computer of the same capacity, programmed for ship’s routine but unawakened. You let it awaken to your personality. You’ll be its mother.”
“That’s better. Close but not on. Lazarus, you and I are going to be in business together a long time. I won’t take your ship. Instead you’re going to build me a ship, a tender for Gay Deceiver but moved by a Burroughs continua device – the first such ship built by Burroughs & Long, Ltd., a subsidiary of Carter Engineering Company. Another subsidiary is Carter Computers, which may assemble computers but primarily will build Burroughs Time-Space twisters under some innocuous name, and sell them only inside our complex setup – much more complex; we’ll work on it together. But our biggest subsidiary will be Libby & Smith, Real Estate. That one rebuilds solar systems.”
“What!!”
“Talk to Zebbie and Jacob. We’ll organize Black Hat Safaris, Pty., too, but it may be a dummy for a while. We’ll have an emporium in New Rome, imports from many universes. Uh… The Pawnshop, of course, with the Hook Joint above it. Ultra expensive imported styles up there, modelled by New Rome’s most beautiful hetaerae. Private rooms for private viewings. This one is a gift to Laz-Lor, save for the ten percent that is voting stock of which I vote my usual control, through you. The twins can do as they please with it; our leash will be slack. Probably they will do their own importing, with a resident manager. But they might work in it some, just to know the business.”
“Which business?”
“Both. They are grown women, Lazarus; you must not try to run their lives. The overall holding company, run by you and me, usual split with my one percent advantage, is a nonprofit corporation supporting Ishtar’s clinic. We funnel whatever is needed into the clinic, holding down the book profits elsewhere, but paying whopping salaries and consulting fees. My husband is chief scientist in one part while consultant by fee elsewhere, with Elizabeth – Lib – his mirror image elsewhere. Lazarus, we must have Deety work on it; she has the finest head in our family for manipulation of this sort – I’m just her awed pupil.”
“And I’m just your awed pupil!”
“Piffle again. Lazarus, from what I’ve read of you, your sole weakness lies in a delight in cheating for its own sake; Deety treats it as an intellectual art. One thing more – No, two things. Can you persuade Dora, as a favor to Ol’ Buddy Boy, to go along with the hoax until we deliver your mother to Ishtar? Make it a mammoth joke, under which she takes orders from me because she wants to be in on the fun. Take you out of arrest, of course; wipe it from her memory.”
“It was never in her memory; Lor put her in non-recording mode while the hooraw was on.”
“Good! Can you persuade her to call me ‘Commodore’ while you use some fancy title?”
“Hilda, I’m your chief of staff for this ship; Zeb is chief of staff, flagship. Dora doesn’t really understand ranks; I can tell her that ‘chief of staff’ is one notch senior to God. No problem. As long as she can see that you and I are buddy-buddy.”
“And we are!”
“It’s reassuring to hear that. Hilda, I underestimated you so badly that I’m still in a state of shock. What’s the last item?”
“Rejuvenation for all of us for as long as you – Ishtar – can stretch non-Howards.”
“I can promise that; I’m Board Chairman of the Clinic. But – Ishtar is not a magician. What’s the average age of death for your parents, grandparents, any ancestors you know about?”
“My family, both sides, are considered long-lived – although I lost my parents in a car crash. The others I don’t know about except that Deety’s mother died of cancer, much too young.”
“We can handle that.”
“Is longevity on Earth – our Earth, not yours – of interest? Same length of year as Old-Home-Terra; Deety and Lor checked.”
“Of course!”
“These figures apply to North America. Some other places are higher, some lower, some no data. Females. Menarche at thirteen plus-or-minus nine percent. Menopause at fifty-six to sixty-seven plus-or-minu -“
“Stop there! Average age of death, female?”
“One hundred seventeen. But males average eight years less. Sad. My own family averages higher, but only a few years. I don’t know about Jacob but he mentioned once that his great-grandfather got himself killed, in an odd fashion, at ninety-seven. He -“
“Enough. I must report this. By definition, all of you are ‘Missing Howards.'”
“But, Lazarus, that’s simply the average on Earth – our Earth, now that I know that there are thousands of analogs.”
“Doesn’t matter. Different universe, different time line – not my problem. Here you are a Howard. You four and all your descendants.”
Hilda smiled happily. “That’s cheerful news to a woman six weeks pregnant.”
“You?”
“And Deety. Same time and doesn’t show yet. Lazarus, I was tempted a while ago to tell you… because I was tempted. Now, now! Down, Rover! Outline to me how we rescue a woman dead for many centuries.”
“Hilda, someday I’m going to get you drunk.”
“Want to bet?”
“Never with you. There is mystery about my mother’s death. She appears to have been killed accidentally at a relatively young age, for a Howard. Just short of a hundred. I was notified as her purse I.D.’s named me as ‘next of kin’ – and I bawled like a baby for I had been planning to pay her a visit on her century day, July 4th, 1982. Instead I attended her funeral, flying to Albuquerque two weeks early.
“Nobody there but me. She was living alone under her maiden name, she and my father having separated thirty years earlier. But apparently she hadn’t listed her last address change with the Howard Foundation, hadn’t notified her other children. Howards are like that; they live so long that kinship is not enough reason to stay in touch. Closed casket and cremation – authorized by stuff in her purse; I never saw her body.
“But there was no doubt as to her I.D.’s and so forth. In my world, 1982 was a time when you couldn’t sneeze without carrying a thick pack of cards all, in effect, saying that you were you. I was feeling it because I was seventy later that year and looked thirty-five. Embarrassing. I had plans to drive south from Albuquerque, cross the border, and not come back until I had bought a new passport to match a new name.
“Hilda, it was over two thousand years later, in preparing for my first time trip, that I learned that my mother was not listed in the Archives as dead but simply as ‘record missing.'”
“The matter troubled me. A few years ago – my time – Laz-Lor took me back. Didn’t ground; a missile chased us and scared Dora silly. But I got a motion picture that seems to show the accident. There is a blur on the frames just before the first one that shows what I think is the corpse. Can you guess the size and shape?”
“Shan’t try, Lazarus.”
“As near as I can measure on a film a centimeter square, shot with a telephoto lens from too high because Dora was crying and wanting to go home, it is the size of that berth Gay Deceiver is in. Hilda, I think I photographed you rescuing my mother before you did it.”
“What? Lazarus, that’s -“
“Don’t say impossible. The Land of Oz is impossible. You’re impossible. I’m impossible. Who invented pantheistic multiperson solipsism? You did.”
“I wasn’t going to say ‘impossible.’ Now that you know that I’m pregnant, you will realize why I want to try to rescue your mother right away, before my belly starts growing where the seat belt crosses it. Her name was Marian? Marian Johnson Smith?”
“Maureen Johnson.”
“That proves that the real Lazarus Long stood up. It bothered me that there might be a series of analog-Lazarus-Longs like analog-Earths.”
“Wouldn’t bother me. That’s their problem.”
“But it would destroy the theory I worked out that would account for my sitting here in a pool of water in a time-travelling flying saucer with a fabulous man – both ways! – when I know he’s a fictional character in a book I read years back. That makes me a fictional character, too, but that doesn’t trouble me as I can’t read a novel with me in it, any more than you could read the one I read about you.”
“I came close to doing just that.”
“Don’t be mysterious, Lazarus.”
“I like wild stories. Used to read every one I could find in the Kansas City Public Library. On another time trip I picked up a magazine of a type you may never have seen. Read one installment of a serial. Ridiculous. Four people traveling in space in an airplane. At the end of that installment they are hailed by a flying saucer. Continued next month. Hilda, how do you think Dora was able to be at the right place at the right time when Gay Deceiver popped out of nowhere?”
“Where is that magazine?”
“Down the same destruction oubliette that recently received my best fake Scottish chief costume. If I had not learned long ago to dispose of casual fiction once I had read it, Dora would never be able to lift. Hilda, you explained it yoursel -“
“Hilda? Do you hear me” – her husband’s voice.
Her face lit up. “Yes, Jacob?”
“May I see you? I have a problem.”
I barely whispered, “I’ll get out,” and started to stand up. She pulled me back down. “Of course, Jacob dearest. I’m in the flag cabin. Where are you?”
“In our suite.”
“Come straight here.” She whispered to me, “Do we have a deal?” I nodded; she stuck out her hand; we shook on it. “Partners,” she whispered. “Details later. Maureen first.”
Her husband answered, “Hilda, I don’t know my way. And it’s a private matter.”
“Then you must come here, Jacob; this is the only private place in the ship. I’ve been talking business with Lazarus Long – business so private we had to talk here. No more trouble, dearest man, and we each get what we want. Come join us, we need you.”
“Uh… can he hear me?”
“Certainly. We’re having a bath together. Come join us. I want you to know all about the deal before we tell the children. I may need support on parts where we traded quid pro quo.”
Silence – “I’d better call back later.”
I said, “Doctor Burroughs, you want to talk privately with your wife; I will get out. But please understand that social bathing is as commonplace on my world as offering a friend a drink is on yours. I am here because the Commodore invited me and I assure you she is quite unharmed.”
Burroughs replied in a pained voice, “I know that custom and have utter faith in Hilda’s social judgment. Yes, I do need to speak to her… but I don’t mean to be surly. I’ll come up, or down, or across, and say hello. Please don’t leave before I get there. I’ll ask my way.”
“Dora will show you. Step into the corridor and wait. She’ll find you.”
“Very well, sir.”
“Dora, special.”
“Yes, Pappy?”
“Find Professor Burroughs. Lead him here. By the longest route. Slow march.”
“Aye aye, Pappy.”
I said hurriedly to Hilda, “I may know what this is; let me check. Lib?”
“Yes, Lazarus?”
“Are you alone?”
“In my stateroom alone. And lonely.” Lib added, “And upset.”
“So? Did you put the question to Professor Burroughs?”
“Yes. Lazarus, I had perfect opportunity. The one place Dora can’t see or hear. Inside Gay Deceiver’s space warp and – “
“Chop it, Lib! Did he turn you down?”
“No. But he didn’t say Yes. He’s gone to discuss it with his wife. That’s why I’m jittery.”
“Turn on the soother. I’ll call you back. Off.”
Hilda asked, “What’s the matter with Elizabeth?”
“I’ll make it short as even the longest route can’t take long. Lib is terribly anxious to have a child by the mathematician – your husband – who formulated the equations for six-dimensional positively-curved space. She thinks – and so do I – that they might produce a mathematician equal to, or even greater, than Lib or your husband. But she should have let Ishtar arrange it. She jumped the gun; I don’t know why -“
“I do! Elizabeth!”
Lib was slow in answering. “This is Elizabeth Long.”
“Hilda Burroughs here. Elizabeth, you come straight here. Flag cabin.”
“Commodore, are you angry with me? I meant no harm.”
“Dear, dear! You come to Mama Burroughs’ arms and let me pet you and tell you that you’re a good girl. Now! How far away are you?”
“Just around the curve. A few meters.”
“Drop everything and hurry. Lazarus and I are in the ‘fresher. In the pool. Come join us.”
“Uh, all right.”
“Hurry!”
Hilda asked, “How do I let them in? Run dripping and do it by hand? I noticed that our door lets anyone out but can’t be opened from the outside without help.” She added, “For that matter how do I get back in?”
“Dora knows you belong here. For the rest – Dora, admit Libby Long and Professor Burroughs.”
“Aye aye, Pappy. Lib – here she comes. Dr. Jacob Burroughs I’m fetching. How soon?”
Hilda said, “Two minutes.”
Lib hurried in, still unsmiling. Did smile when Hilda put her arms around her, smiled and cried at the same time. I heard Hilda crooning, “There, there, dear! It’s a wonderful idea; she’ll be the world’s greatest mathematician. A cute baby – something like Deety, something like you. Jacob! In here, darling! If you are wearing anything, chuck it; we’re in the pool.”
Seconds later the pool was filled to its rated capacity, Hilda with arms around both of them – kissed her husband, kissed Lib, said sternly to them, “Stop looking as if you were at a funeral! Jacob, this is what Jane would want – and it is what I want. Elizabeth, you aren’t crowding me out; I’m pregnant now. I’ll have my baby six weeks before you have yours. I’ve decided to ask Doctor Lafe Hubert to deliver my baby. Who are -“
“Hilda! I haven’t delivered a baby for over a century.”
“You have seven months in which to brush up. Doctor Lafe, are you refusing to attend me?”
“No, but – Jake, if Hilda will have her baby at the Clinic on Tertius, she will be in the hands of the most skilled obstetricians in this universe. Which I am not. I’m rusty. I -“
“Doctor, I think Hilda would settle for your holding her hand and standing by to help if needed. I think my daughter would like that, too. She may have her baby the same day as Hilda.”
“Sir, I will be honored. But I want to say something about this proposed baby, a cross between two all-time great mathematicians. I know that your world places value on monogamy. Howards do not; they can’t. But this need not violate your values. If you will make a deposit at the sperm bank at -“
“What?” Hilda Burroughs looked shocked. “Lazarus, are you talking about syringes and things like that. Done to Elizabeth?”
“Why, yes, I -“
She chopped me off. “Babies are not made with syringes! Babies are made with love! With little moans of happiness between two people who know exactly what they are doing and want to do it. Elizabeth, are you fertile today?”
“I should be. It’s time.”
“Then kiss me and tell me you want to do this. If you do.”
“Oh, I do, very much!”
There were kisses and tears all around. I got pulled into it, found myself kissing the prospective father. I gave him a chance to duck but he didn’t.
Our busy little stranger was still playing ringmaster. “Lazarus, what is that guest room across the cabin? Pastel colors?”
“Aurora Room.”
“Beloved husband, wrap a towel around this sweet, frightened child, take her there, lock the door behind you and make her happy. This suite is the only totally private place in this ship. If I lay eyes on either of you in less than one hour, I shall burst into tears. That doesn’t mean you can’t stay longer. I hope that you will come to dinner … but you are welcome to Aurora Room after dinner. Sweetheart, you must give her at least one chance each of the next three days; a woman’s timing can vary from her norm. Now git! Pick her up and carry her.”
Lib wouldn’t let Jake carry her. But she leaned into his arm. As they left the ‘fresher, she looked back with a happy smile and threw us a kiss.
Hilda caught it and ate it. Then she said to me, “Help me out, please, dear.”
I lifted her out, sat her on the edge, climbed out myself. She patted the padded deck, said, “I think this is better than that chaise longue. If we happen to be caught it wouldn’t embarrass me and should not embarrass you; in these circumstances Jacob would be relieved rather than upset.” She smiled, eased her sweet thighs, put up her arms. “Now?”
“Yes!”
“Anything you want, including back rubs. Lazarus, does it excite you knowing what is going on a few meters away? It does me!”
“Yes! But I don’t need it – Hilda, you’re superb!”
“Not in looks, certainly. So I try hard with what I have. Sold myself three times – did my best to make my contract-husbands each feel that he had received full value… then married dear Jacob for love and am trying still harder with him. He is good – I mean he is good all through. I hope Elizabeth appreciates him. You’ve had her?”
“Yes.”
“Before or after the change?”
“Both. I miss the ‘before,’ appreciate the ‘after.”
“Then why won’t you knock her up?”
“That’s a family joke. She had her first child by me, is now making the rounds of our family, more or less. Woman, you are not here to talk! – I’m almost there!”
She looked delighted. “I’m climaxing steadily; let ‘er rip!” – and bit my chin.
An indefinitely long time later that need not be detailed, we were resting in each other’s arms, enjoying that delicious peace of the ebbing tide. Hilda saw them first, raised her head:
“Jacob beloved! Did you! Lib – Did my sweetheart put a baby in you?”
“Did he! Hilda, you do that every night? Little bitty like you? Less than two hours and darling Jacob has worn me out.”
“I’m a hollow mockery, dear. Built for it. Tell her, Jacob.”
“My darling is adaptable, Libby dear. Lazarus, did Hilda treat you nicely?”
“I died happy.”
“He’s not dead” – Hilda made a long arm, cupped a handful of water, threw it in my face, giggled. The suggestion she added I rejected with dignity – as much dignity as one can manage when two women are tumbling one into a tub of water… while one’s male comrade stands by and laughs.

Chapter XLIV

” – where do we get the corpse?”

Zeb:
“The question,” said my wife Deety, “is where do we get the corpse? With timing that precise, Gay can make the pickup. But a corpse has to be left behind. Lazarus, not only do your movies show it, but you remember Maureen’s death; you went to her funeral. It’s got to be a fresh corpse of an elderly woman that the cops will accept as Maureen Johnson.”
Six of us – Deety, me, Jake, Sharpie, Lazarus, and Libby – were seated around our kitchen dining table at “New Harbor” (our wives accepted that compromise) in Beulahland, trying to make plans for the “snatch.” “Snatch” in the literal sense if the rescue of Maureen Johnson were to succeed.
Lazarus had a motion picture that showed that we would succeed (had succeeded) (were about to succeed) at a precise time and place and date on an analog of Earth-zero one quantum away on ‘t’ axis.
Easy! Success guaranteed. Can’t miss. Do it blindfolded.
But suppose we did miss?
The frames showed that a roadable had passed through the space where Gay had been (would be?) grounded, and, in so doing, ran over (would run Over) (will run over) (is, was, and forever will be running over) the dumped corpse. Suppose the timing or placement was offjust a touch. On his first time travel (1916-1918 Old-Home-Terra), with Dora piloting, Lazarus had missed not by a split second but by three years.
Lazarus had pointed out that it was his fault, not Dora’s; he had fed her imperfect data – and we had jumped on him from five sides: It was not a question of “whose fault” but the fact a mistake could be made. Or could it?
Four mathematicians, one mathematical engineer (yeah, I include me, as resident expert in Gay’s responses), and one intuitionist all disagreed.
Hilda was certain that nothing could go wrong.
I am a firm believer in Murphy’s Law: Given any possible chance, it will go wrong. Anything.
Libby had been wholeheartedly converted both to Jake’s six-axis plenum of universes to the awful Number of the Beast but also to Sharpie’s multiple solipsism, and asserted that they were two sides of the same coin; one was a corollary of the other and vice versa. Combined, they (it) constituted the ultimate total philosophy: science, religion, mathematics, art, in one grand consistent package. She spoke of a “ficton” being a quantum of imagination/reality (“imaginary” being identical with “real” whatever that is) as casually as a physicist speaks of photons. “Could a mistake be made? Yes. And would create a new universe. Jacob, you spoke of the empty universes your family had visited. One by one they fill as fictons are created.” She added, “But a mistake was not made; we snatched Maureen safely. We ourselves create the fictions-fictons-ficta that will make it real.”
She was euphoric. I attributed it to excitement over the coming adventure. I was mistaken.
Lazarus, a highly competent mathematician although not the unique that Jake is or Libby, was in this case not a calm abstractionist; his mood was grim determination to win or die trying – causing me to recall how he got his arse shot off.
Jake turned out to be a determinist (he himself being one universe’s prime example of utter, rambunctious free will!).
Deety is a pragmatic mathematician, unworried by theory. Oz is real, she is real, “fictons” don’t interest her. “Don’t fret, Lazarus. We can do it, Gay can do it – and we won’t do it until Gay is certain of her program.”
This discussion had started midafternoon in Dora. Sharpie had worked out her difficulties with Lazarus (to my enormous relief; were those two to wind up on opposite sides in anything more serious than Parcheesi, I yearn to be elsewhere – say Timbuktu under an assumed name); she, Jake, Lazarus, and Libby were in the flag cabin, arguing, when Sharpie had Dora page Deety and me.
There were endless matters on the agenda (including the preposterous notion that we four were ‘Missing Howards’ and that Lazarus was registering us as such. I’m not sure I want to live a thousand years or even two hundred. But I am sure of this: a) I want to live quite a piece; and b) I want to be alert, healthy, and active right up to the last. Not like my great-grandfather who had to be spoonfed at a hundred and five, and could not control his secretions. But the Howards have got that whipped: you stay young as long as you wish, then die by choice when you feel you’ve had your full run.
(Yes, I was willing to be a ‘Found Howard’ since it included Deety, plus little Deeties ad infinitum.)
Lots of other business, all of it postponed (including the problem of “Black Hats”), in order to deal with rescuing Maureen Johnson.
We were still discussing knotty aspects when Lor’s voice said: “Commodore?”
“Yes, Captain?” Sharpie had answered.
“Ma’am, I hesitate to disturb you -“
“Quite all right, Lor. The Captain must always be able to reach me.”
“Uh, Ma’am, Dora told me that she was forbidden to call you. She has for you a variety of New Rome styles for women and men, a military uniform for Doctor Jacob, and one for Doctor Zebadiah, and evening formals for Doctor Elizabeth and Doctor Deety – and she’s not sure where to send any of them.”
“Send all the clothes to the flag cabin, please.”
“Yes, Ma’am. They should be appearing in your delivery cupboard now. Do you know where that is?”
“I’ll find it. What are you and your sister wearing tonight? Or is it a secret?”
“It’s not a secret; we just haven’t decided. But there is still an hour and thirty-one minutes till dinner.”
“Time enough to pick out pretty clothes. Or will you wear formal skin tonight? That takes anywhere from two seconds to two hours, does it not? Off.”
Sharpie used an unusually rough expression of disgust, which told me that she now included Lib and Lazarus in her inner circle. “Woodie, do you know any exceptionally strong cuss words? I detest the thought of wasting time pretending to be festive when we have so much to settle, especially our procedures for Maureen.”
Deety looked at Libby. “You and I are kind o’ stuck with a promise, too. How about some new cuss words from you, too?”
“Deety, I have no literary talent. But I would like to hear some soul-soothing cussing. We ought to stick with this, with snacks to keep going and sleep when we must, until it’s perfect. Three hours or three days or three weeks.”
I said, “We shall!”
Sharpie shook her head. “Zebbie, you can skip dinner. I can’t. Lazarus should appear, too.”
He agreed. “I’m afraid I must. But, Commodore, I must advise you that your flag chief of staff should be present, too, for esprit de corps.” He cleared his throat noisily. “Libby and Jacob, being passengers, could skip.”
Lib shook her head. “Deety and I made a reckless promise.”
Not being a genius myself, it’s kind of fun to make a roomful of ’em look silly. I stood up. “No! We will not let a dinner party interfere! We can settle it within three days. But if you all are going to chase rabbits – What’s the matter with you, Sharpie? Getting stupid in your old age?”
“Apparently I am, Zebbie.” She said to Lazarus, “Please issue orders cancelling dinner. We’ll stay with this until we finish it. There are beds and lounges whenever anyone needs to nap. But we won’t adjourn. Three hours or three weeks. Or longer.”
“Don’t cancel dinner, Sharpie.”
“Zebbie, you have me confused.”
“Beulahland is on a different time axis.”
Five minutes later we were in our old farmhouse. We hadn’t stopped for clothes as we would have wasted twenty minutes, whereas the idea was to save time on that axis, use time on this axis. We stuck Lazarus and Libby back in the after space, with the bulkhead door dogged open, so they could see and hear, but required them to use the web straps, and cautioned them that the lumps under them were loaded firearms.
The only thing not routine was that we would be making rendezvous later with a moving ship, something we had done before only from bounce range in the same space-time. So I had asked Gay whether she was sure she could do it. She assured me that she could, because she wasn’t concerned with the ship’s vector; she would return the instant she left.
I turned to Commodore-now-Captain Sharpie. “Ready for space, Captain.”
“Thank you, Astrogator. Gay Deceiver. Beulahland. Execute. Gay Deceiver, open your doors. All hands, unbelt. Disembark. Gay, it’s sleepy time. Over.”
“Goodnight, Hilda. Roger and out.”
Our passengers were dazed – they all are, first time. They stood outside our barn, looking at the setting sun, acting like zombies, until I shooed them inside. Although Beulahland does not have body taboos, they wear clothes most of the time, and six naked people outdoors in a clump as the chill of the evening was coming on was odd. I like a low profile.
Once inside, Libby said, “Feels like Arkansaw.”
Lazarus replied. “Feels like Mizzoura.”
“Neither,” I told them. “It would be the State of Washington if it weren’t Beulahiand, and what ought to be Puget Sound is about a kilometer over that way.”
“It still feels like home. Lazarus, I’m happy here.”
At that moment I decided we would never give up New Harbor. Apparently we were going to be citizens of Tertius, or maybe New Rome on Secundus, or both (commuting is no problem when light-years mean nothing), on another time axis. We could take a rest from city life anytime and have it cost not one day’s work on Tertius. Contrariwise, only such time would pass on New World as we spent there.
Hmm – Maybe we could sell vacations. Or extra study time for that student who has his big exam, the one he must pass, tomorrow morning. Sell him room and board and transportation and three weeks not in the calendar. At a slight markup, of course.
I built a cheerful fire in the fireplace, and Lazarus washed dishes, while Libby insisted on proving that she could cook on a wood range, even though she had learned centuries ago by her time scale, as a gangling boy. Yes, Elizabeth can cook.
We ate and sat around and talked, puzzling how to be sure of Maureen. Not make that one tiny mistake, It was then that Deety brought up the matter of the dead body. You’ve seen how accurate Gay can be but where do we get a freshly-dead corpse to replace Maureen?
Lazarus told her to forget it, “I provide the corpse.”
“That’s not a good answer, Lazarus.”
“Deety, don’t worry. It’ll be dead and I will dump it.” I said, “Lazarus, I don’t like that answer a damn bit.” “Nor do I,” Jake seconded.
“Nor I,” agreed Sharpie. “Woodie, you’re asking us to make a snatch – a hanging offense many places, bad trouble anywhere. We don’t mind the technicality; saving an old woman’s life isn’t the sin kidnapping is. But what about this freshly-dead corpse? We don’t deal in murder.”
Lazarus glowered.
Libby said hastily, “If I assure you that it is all right, will you let it go at that?”
“No,” pronounced Sharpie, “Woodie must come clean.”
“All right, all right! I own this corpse. No murder or any other crime involved. Now will you quit riding me about it?”
“Jake?”
“I don’t like it, Zeb.”
“I don’t, either. But we needn’t do anything. We go limp. He may not last long in a culture that ‘balances.'”
“Possible. But that’s his problem.”
Sharpie said quickly, “Did either of you promise him a ride back to my ship?”
“Whose ship?”
“My ship, Woodie. Gentlemen?”
“I didn’t promise him. Did you. Jake?”
“No. Did you, Deety? Hilda?”
“Not me, Pop.”
“Nor me, Jacob. Woodie, earlier today I thought you had seen the light. Conceded, ‘I am but indifferent honest’ myself. But even pirates need to feel safe with their shipmates. You and I shook hands as partners. You don’t seem to understand what that means. However I’m not going to abandon you here. You’d be balanced in a week. Dead. Or worse. So we’ll take you back. By the way, it is impossible to steal Gay Deceiver. Yes, I know you once stole a ship enormously bigger than Gay. But not as well protected.”
“Lazarus! Tell them.”
“Lib, I was waiting for the Commodore to finish. That corpse wasn’t murdered because it was never alive other than as a vegetable.” Lazarus looked embarrassed.
“About thirty years ago we started a medical school on Tertius. A one-horse deal, more of a branch of the clinic. But genetic engineering is taught, and student genetic surgeons must practice. Ordinarily a clone that goes bad is killed and frozen and its tissues studied. A clone that takes – shows no fault, no deviation – is either cared for and allowed to develop if its genetic source wants a spare body and will pay for it. Or, more likely, a healthy clone is purely a laboratory exercise – an ethical medical school requires supervised destruction during the first pseudo trimester, before quickening shows in the wave form.
“Neither student nor tissue donor is likely to be upset by this quasi-abortion, as the student is almost always herself the donor – if it bothers her, she’s in the wrong vocation.
“If the student is not the donor, emotional upset is hardly possible. The student thinks of the clone as a quasi-living histological specimen the usefulness of which is at end – and the tissue donor can’t be upset, being unaware of it.”
“Why so, Lazarus? If anybody is tinkering with my cells, I want to know about it, I do!”
“Deety, that tissue may be years, even centuries, old; the donor may be parsecs away. Or still warm and the donor just leaving the building. Or anything in between. A sperm-and-ova bank insures the future of the race; a tissue bank insures the future of the individual. But somebody has to pick up the check; it’s a tanstaafl situation. A few of the very wealthy – and neurotic – always have a quickened but unawakened clone in stasis. I’m wealthy but not neurotic; I don’t have a reserve clone.”
I caught sight of Libby’s face as Lazarus made that last statement – her mouth twitched in a half smile about to become (I think) a snicker, had she not suppressed all expression. No one but I caught it.
I made note to ask her about it later – then I remembered what the mouse told the cat and decided not to.
“But I do what any prudent Howard does; I have tissue on deposit. One may do this either of two ways: Pay high … or pay much lower and sign a release on half the donation for research and instruction.” He grinned. “I’m stingy. My tissue is available to medical students.”
He went on, “Not all medical schools are ethical. I can think of at least three planets where – ” Lazarus looked directly at my wife. “Deety, you raised this issue. While I can think of three planets where one can buy any sort of monster, I can think of at least thirty where, for a much lower fee, I could simply say, ‘I want that one'” – he pointed at Sharpie – “and the answer would be, ‘It’s a deal, Mac. How freshly dead and when do you want delivery?”
Sharpie looked around behind herself as if to see at whom Lazarus had pointed.
“That’s the cheapest way -“
“Then you weren’t pointing at me!” Sharpie interrupted. “Woodie, it’s not polite to point. For a moment you had me worried. I’m never cheap – highpriced, always.”
“So I found out, Commodore. Deety, that’s cheapest, and safe for the buyer in the places I have in mind. But how can I convince you that I never gave even a moment’s consideration to that method? You seem to know a lot about me – more than I know about any of you. Is there anything that you have ever read or heard, anything that I’ve said or done, that would cause you to think that I would murder or contract for a murder – same but nastier – in order to further my own ends? I’m not saying that I have never killed. A man who has lived even half as long as I have has found himself more than once in a kill-or-be-killed situation. But the best way to deal with such a situation is not to get into it. Anticipate it. Avoid it.”
Lazarus Long stopped and looked sad, and for the only time of my acquaintance with him, looked his age. I do not mean he suddenly looked decrepit. But he had an aura of ancient sorrow. “Professor Burroughs, if it would do any good, I would junk all my plans, accept being forever stranded here, for the privilege of taking a twenty-pound sledge and smashing your space-time twister.”
I was shocked (damn it, I like good machinery). Jake looked hurt, Deety and Sharpie looked stunned.
Jake said tightly, “Lazarus… why?”
“Not to hurt you, Professor; you have my highest respect. You are one of three: the man who invented the wheel, the man who discovered how to use fire – and you. But, in making this supreme discovery, you have accomplished something I had thought impossible. You have made interstellar war logistically practical. Interstellar? Intergalactic – interuniversal!”
Lazarus suddenly straightened up, threw off his gloom, grinned. “All the King’s horses and all the King’s men can’t close Pandora’s Box again. Once it hits the fan, the only thing to do is sweep it up, package it, and sell it as fertilizer. Hilda has plans along that line. But I’m going to have to start thinking in military terms again. Figure out how to defend my home place against what appears to be that Ultimate Weapon much talked about but never achieved. I am glad to say that Hilda plans to keep it a close-held secret as long as possible; that may buy us time.”
He turned his attention back to my wife. “Deety, I have never murdered, I never will. The nearest I ever came to it was once being sorely tempted to strangle a five-year-old boy. I admit that the thought has often passed through my mind that this character or that would look his best as the centerpiece of a funeral. But can I convince you that I have never acted on such thoughts? Think hard, please – all that you know of me. Am I capable of murder?”
Deety doesn’t dither. (Remember how we got married?) She jumped up, hurried around our kitchen table, and kissed Lazarus – and stopped hurrying. It was a kiss that calls for a bed, or even a pile of coal – had there not been urgent business before the house.
Deety broke from it, sat down beside him, and said, “Tell us how we get this unmurdered fresh corpse. It’s clear that we’re going to have to go pick it up – in Gay. So we must know.”
Libby said gently, “Lazarus, this is what you have been avoiding. May I tell it?”
“Thanks, Lib. No, you would pretty it up. I -“
“Pipe down!” said Deety. “Elizabeth, give us the straight word. Briefly.”
“Very well. The medical school of B.I.T. is as ethical as you will find. My sister-wife Ishtar is director of the rejuvenation clinic and chairman of the board of the medical school, and still finds time to teach. I have never seen Maureen Johnson as I was born about two centuries after she was. But she iS Supposed to resemble Laz and Lor – unsurprising; she is their genetic mother, since they were cloned from Lazarus.”
“Oh! I see. There is still a third clone from Lazarus. Female?”
“A spoiled one, Deety. Ishtar tells me that it is difficult, rather than otherwise, to get a bad clone from Lazarene tissue… so it is especially suitable for induced mutation experiments. She orders the destruction of these experiments when they have served their purpose.”
“Deety said to make it brief,” growled Lazarus.
Lib ignored him. “But, while Ishtar checks on the students, no one checks on her. For twenty years Ishtar watched for a clone that would look human but not be human. So deficient in forebrain that it could never be anything but a vegetable, unaware. She told me that her students had unknowingly provided her with dozens to work on. Usually they died too soon, or never developed human appearance, or had some other fault that made them unusable. But several years ago she succeeded. I testify that this thing looked like Laz and Lor as it passed through the stage of its forced development… and also that it looked like an older version, wrinkled and hair streaked with gray, when it died two Tertian years ago -“
“Huh? ‘Fresh corpse’!”
” – and was quick-frozen at once. I testify to something else. Friends, in becoming a woman I acquired an interest in biology that I had not had, as a male. While I teach math at B.I.T., I am also staff mathematician to the clinic and have studied a bit of human biology. When I say that this spoiled clone was never alive in any real sense I speak as the mathematical biologist who checked its monitors’ records daily. It always required full metabolic support; we monitored everything. The surprising thing is that Ishtar could keep it alive long enough to let it appear to age. But Ishtar is very skillful.” Libby added, “Lazarus would not only have become upset in telling this, but he could not have told it first hand as Ishtar refused to permit Lazarus to see this spoiled clone or any records on it.”
“A willful woman,” said Lazarus. “In three seconds I could have told Ish whether or not this thing looked enough like my mother to be useful. Instead I must depend on the opinions of people who have never laid eyes on my mother. Damn it, I am owner of record of the clinic and Chairman Regent of all B.I.T. Does that count with Ishtar? Hilda, my senior wife is as tough a case as you are… and looks as little like it as you do.”
“So? It will be interesting to see what happens when I am your junior wife,” Sharpie answered at her pertest.
“Are you going to be my junior wife?” Lazarus swung around and looked at her husband. “Jake?”
“I don’t think I have a vote,” my blood brother answered easily.
“I’ll automatically be your junior wife if we are invited to join the Long Family which we damn well ought to be if we make this work!” Sharpie said indignantly.
“Wait a half!” I put in. “If we are invited to join the Long Family – a tall assumption if I ever saw one – Deety would be junior. Not you, you elderly baggage.”
“Hillbilly can be junior if she wants to be. I don’t mind.”
“Deety,” I said, “are you serious? I’ve been trying to point out to your stepmother that you don’t push your way into a family.”
“I wasn’t pushing, Zebadiah,” my wife answered. “I want us to stay on Tertius at least until we have our babies, and possibly make it our home; it seems to be a pleasant place and should be free of ‘Black Hats’ – no skin taboos. But that doesn’t mean that the Longs have to have us in their laps.”
“I intend to nominate you, Zebadiah,” Libby told me. “All four of you. And I hope you four accept. But, Deety twin, you know what I’m attempting. With your father.”
“Yes, I know. I’m cheering for it.”
“Your husband must hear this. Deety, I still have that Y chromosome in every cell even though it has been so inhibited by hormone balance that I don’t notice it. You and I could try for a mathematical-genius baby, too.”
“Huh! Which one of us supplies the penis?”
“Ishtar does. Neither of us would be host-mother, the way it would be done. But any of my sister-wives would supply womb room if she didn’t happen to be pregnant. Or the host-mother could be a stranger we would never meet and the child’s family-parents strangers, too – all handled by Ishtar who always reads the relevant genetic charts before approving anything.”
“Zebadiah?”
I said without hesitation, “It’s up to you, hon. I’m in favor of it; it makes sense. But don’t lose track of the child. Elizabeth, I want to adopt the baby ahead of time. Hmm – Bottle baby… but the formulas are probably better now. Not here-now. Tertius there-then-now.”
“‘Bottle baby’? Oh! No longer done; a baby needs to suckle. But there is usually spare milk around the Longs’. If I’m lactating I always have excess; I turn out to be a good milch cow despite that extra chromosome. But Deety can nurse our child if she wishes to; causing a woman to come fresh with milk without bearing a child is a minor biochemical manipulation today – Tertian-today. Professional wet nurses do it regularly and are likely to be in that vocation because they love babies but can’t have ’em themselves for some reason.”
“Sounds good.” (What sounded best was this: a baby Deety is a wonderful idea – but a baby Deety who is also a baby Libby is sure to be wonderful squared. Cubed!)
“While I’m on this and no one here but family – Jacob, there is no reason not to create a third mathematical supergenius by crossing you with your daughter.”
I was looking at my wife, thinking pleasant thoughts about baby Deety-Libby, when Elizabeth dropped this bomb – and Deety shut down her face. It’s not an unpleasant expression; it’s a no-expression, a closed door, while Deety sorts out her thoughts.
So I looked at Jake, in time to see his face shift from surprise to shock. “But that’s -“
“Incest?” Libby supplied. “No, Jacob, incest is a social matter. Whether you bed your daughter is none of my business. I’m speaking of genes, of still another way to conserve mathematical genius. Ishtar would scan your charts most carefully and would resort to chromosome surgery if there was the slightest chance of double dosage of a bad allele. But you and your daughter could see Ishtar on different days and never know anything about the outcome. Your genes are not your property; they come from your race. This offers opportunity to give them back to the race with your highest talent reinforced… without loss to anyone. Think about it.”
Jake looked at me, then at his daughter. “Deety?”
She added no-expression voice to no-expression face – but directed her answer to me: “Zebadiah, this is necessarily up to you and Jacob.” I’m not sure that anyone but Sharpie noticed that she had not said “Pop.”
Deety added at once with total change in manner, “First things first! Maureen’s rescue. All of you are stuck in a rut of time sequence. Oh, the minor problem of keeping clear of Dora and the missile both times. Routine.” (And I was hit by a satori.)
Lazarus answered, “But Deety, I promised Dora never again to take her anywhere near Albuquerque.”
Deety sighed. “Lib?”
“Frames one-thirteen through seven-seven-two, then seven-seven-three through one thousand and two?”
“Precisely. And precisely it must be, too. I’m timing it by that yellow open roadable approaching from the other direction. What are you using?”
“The same one. Easy to spot and its speed never varies.”
Lazarus said, “Jake, do you know what they are saying?”
“Yes and no. They are treating it as two problems. But we lack three seconds of time enough to dump one and snatch the other. Those – traffic lights, you called them? – leave that intersection clear by a measured interval, clocked by your camera.”
Sharpie suddenly grinned; I nodded to her to take it. She did. “Deety and Libby are saying that we do it twice. First, we rescue Maureen. Then we come back and dump the corpse.”
I added, “But the second time we don’t ground. Jake, I’m going to ask you to move over – Deety moves to my seat. We’ll dump the dead meat so that it hits the ground between frames seven-seven-two and seven-seven-three. I’ll be on manual and hovering. I need to know where Dora is and where that missile is and need to be sure of the acceleration of gravity, Earth-Prime. Because that corpse will already be falling, right over our heads, while we are making the snatch. Close timing. Mmm – Gay can fly herself more precisely than I can. I think that Deety and I will write a program… then I’ll be on override-suspenders and belt.”
Jake added, “Zeb, I see the procedure. But, if we are hovering for the drop while we are also on the ground, why aren’t we shown in the photographs?”
“May be in some of them. Doesn’t matter. Deety, when do we do this? Cancel. Sharpie? Your orders, Captain?”
Deety and Sharpie swapped glances. Then they sounded like Laz-Lor, with Sharpie leading. “Now to bed. It’s almost midnight in our biological time, slightly later in local time.”
“We do both jobs after breakfast,” Deety responded. “But sleep as late as we can. Be sharp and on our toes. ‘Minds me. Just one ‘fresher, quite primitive. But the two in Gay are as available here as anywhere; since they are actually in Oz. Six people, three pots, not difficult.”
“And three beds,” added Sharpie. “Jacob, kiss us goodnight and take Lib to bed. Master bedroom and good luck! Use my toothbrush, Lib hon – anything else you need?”
“No. A good cry, maybe. I love you, Hilda.”
“If I didn’t love you, Elizabeth, I wouldn’t be Madam of this joint. We’ll cry together the day Ishtar tells us you’ve caught. Now shoosh! Scat! Kiss us and go to bed.”
As they headed upstairs Sharpie said to me, “Zebbie, give Deety a pre-amnesty so that she can try out Lazarus and find out whether she wants to be junior wife.”
I tried to look amazed. “Deety, haven’t you tried Lazarus yet?”
“You know darn well I haven’t! When have I had time?”
“From a woman who specializes in programming time machines that is a silly question. Lazarus, she’s already knocked up, so don’t fret about it. One warning: She bites.”
“The best ones always do.”
“Hush. Kiss us good-night, dears. Zebbie, open the couch in the living room; that’s where you’re going to keep me warm.”
“But who’s going to keep me warm? A skinny little runt like you?”
Sharpie bites.

Chapter XLV

A Stitch in Time

Jake:
We popped out one klick H-above-G over Albuquerque, Earth-Prime, and Gay tilted her nose down. A last-minute change put my daughter Deety at copilot, while I sat left rear, nominal navigator. Deety can use verniers as accurately as I, did not expect to use them at all, did need to be able to see the yellow roadable – and has this clock in her head.
Elizabeth Long was in the after compartment, strapped down but not on lumps of ordnance. Rifles, pistols, bed clothes for the control compartment, anything else that could be moved easily to reduce clutter, had been shifted into our space warp, as had Lazarus Long.
Doctor Ishtar had warned Lazarus not to let his mother recognize him, as the shock to her might be harmful, even fatal. While Lazarus had been trying to figure out how to make the snatch using Dora, he had planned on wearing disguise. But hiding in our Land-of-Oz addition was simpler-especially as Ishtar was almost as anxious that Lazarus not see his mother, not see his mother’s pseudo corpse – this I learned from Elizabeth in the night.
So I showed Lazarus the everlasting picnic basket, advised him to use bed clothes to make a shakedown and sleep if possible as there would be time to kill, and supplied him with books – but don’t come out until I open the door! Then did not mention that I was locking him in.
I was relieved to have only a nominal job. I was not sleepy despite a short night – I was bemused.
I was falling in love with – had fallen in love with – Elizabeth Long. No less in love with Hilda – more in love with her than ever! I am learning that love does not subtract – it multiplies!
As Gay tilted down I reached over and touched Hilda’s hand. She smiled and threw me a kiss. I’m sure she had a sweet night; she has loved Zeb as long as she has known him. “As a loyal chum,” she tells me – but Hilda holds to the Higher Truth that it is better to be kind than to be frank. It did not matter either way; Zeb is my blood brother beloved by me, perfect husband for my daughter, and, if not Hilda’s lover in the past, then he surely was now – and it troubled me not at all. On awakening I had discussed it with Jane before I opened my eyes – Jane approves and is delighted by Elizabeth.
My daughter had an unusual night, too. If the myths are true, Lazarus is more than one hundred times as old as Deety. This gulf may not matter to him – but Deety takes everything seriously.
Apparently it had done her no harm; at breakfast she was bright-eyed and bubbly. All of us were euphoric and eager to get on with it.
Zeb was saying, “That’s it! Got it in the gunsight – got the range, Smart Girl?”
“Got it nailed, Boss!”
“Keep it so. Deety! Yellow roadable?”
“Just spotted it. Gay, count down! Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One… Now!”
We were diagonally in that intersection; Gay’s portside door was popping open. I heard Zeb say, “Oh, my God!” He was out of the car, kneeling, picking up a body, kicking a cop in the stomach, and throwing that body to me, as he scrambled inside and shouted, “GayBounce!”
Gay bounced. Gay is not supposed to lift with a door open and “Bounce!” means ten klicks. She bounced one klick, finished closing her door, waited while Zeb checked the seal – completed the bounce. I am now a believer.
I was passing this little old lady back to Elizabeth, and looking for resemblance to Lazarus when I heard Zeb moan, “I didn’t get her purse, I didn’t get her purse!”
“What of it?” said Deety. “It’s where we want it. Gay Deceiver. Tertius Orbit. Execute.”
A beautiful planet –
Zeb was saying, “Lib, can you coach us? Or are you too busy?”
“Not that busy. Maureen fainted but her heart is strong and steady, and I have a strap holding her. Is Gay on frequency?”
Deety reported, “Right on. Go ahead, Lib.”
The next I can’t report; it was in Galacta. Then Elizabeth said, “We’ll be passing over Boondock in three minutes twenty-two seconds. Roof of the clinic is designated. Shall I come forward and point it out?”
“Can you handle yourself in free fall?” Zeb asked.
“I’ve some experience. Eight centuries.”
“My big mouth. Come forward.”
In four or five minutes we grounded on a flat roof in a wooded part of a moderately large city. I saw a figure in a white coverall, plus two others with a wheeled stretcher – and only then did I recall that none of us had dressed. Hilda had asked; Lazarus had vetoed, Elizabeth had concurred.
So I found myself bare to my ears, bowing over a lady’s hand and saying, “I am honored, Doctor Ishtar.”
She is indeed beautiful – a Valkyrie sculptured from cream and marshmallow and honey. She smiled and kissed my hand.
Elizabeth said something in this other language; Ishtar smiled again and said, in careful, fluent English, “In that case, he is one of us” – took my head in her hands and kissed me thoroughly.
Ishtar so distracted me that I did not notice that Maureen had been handed out – awake but dazed – been rolled away, and was gone. All of us were thoroughly and carefully kissed, then Elizabeth discussed matters with Ishtar in Galacta. “Ish says that she has been slowly warming the thing. It is now at four degrees Celsius. She would like more time but will bring it to thirty-seven degrees Celsius in six hours if she must.”
Deety said, “How about twenty-four hours?”
Ishtar was pleased at this, agreed that she understood that the substitute must be dressed in the patient’s (client’s) clothing, agreed that the space we were in would be kept clear – and asked, “What’s that pounding noise?”
Elizabeth explained that it was Lazarus. “He is in a magic space warp about where we were standing. He knows that he is supposed to remain there, but he changed his mind – and has just discovered that he is locked in.”
Ishtar’s smile suddenly became a grin, as quickly left. “A magic space warp? Lib, I want to hear about that.”
“You will.”
We climbed back inside, Deety told Gay “Twenty-four hours” – and we stepped out again. Ishtar was lying on a pad, taking the sun… this time as bare as we were – and I was still more impressed.
“Right on time,” she said, standing (taller than I am) and, as always, smiling. “The substitute is waiting, and I have had time to examine and talk with the client. She is in good shape for her age, understands in part at least what has happened, and is undismayed by it. Please tell Lazarus that, if he returns to Tertius soon, he will not be admitted to this building for seventeen months. The client is most firm: she will not see Lazarus until I have completed rejuvenating her.”
“Lib,” said my daughter Deety, “seventeen what sort of months? I want to set an exact rendezvous – and Gay’s time calibration is not Tertian but Earth-Prime and Earth-zero. Old Home Terra.” With Elizabeth as interface the three agreed on an exact time. Then Elizabeth again discussed something in that language.
Ishtar nodded. “No problem, I have seen that picture. And a hooded cape is even less trouble.”
So we left.
Dropping that pseudo corpse was routine but I was glad to be quit of it (I had swapped seats with my daughter). Then we were back on Tertius.
“Always prompt,” said Ishtar – and I was astounded to see that she was quite pregnant, close to birthing … when I had seen her, slender for her height, two minutes earlier. “And we are on time, too. Maureen, my friends and yours.” She named us.
Maureen Johnson spoke to us first in Galacta, shifted to English when she realized that we did not know the common tongue. Yes, she does look like Laz and Lor – but prettier. A woman of beauty and great charm. I find that I am growing accustomed to perfect ladies who embrace, bare body to bare body, on meeting a fully-vouched-for stranger. She thanked each of us and made us believe it.
“Still pounding?” Ishtar inquired.
“It has been less than five minutes for him, Ish,” Elizabeth explained. “But you know his temper; perhaps we had better leave. Home soon, I think.”
So we left again, with Maureen squeezed between me and my wife, with a package and a cloak in her lap. We were back inside Dora at once. Elapsed time: zero seconds. We still had an hour and twenty minutes to prepare for dinner. I found that I was hungry, even though breakfast was three hours ago, biological time – almost all of it spent in Beulahland, programming for the caper, as all three phases took only a few durational minutes, mostly on a rooftop in Boondock.
Maureen put on the cloak, a hooded cape, and carried the little package. “Silly but fun,” she said. “Where do we go now?”
“Come with me,” Hilda told her. “Beloved, you can let Woodie out as soon as Dora tells Gay that I have reached flag cabin. When he yelps, tell him that we were too busy to play games with him… and the next time he wants a favor from me he can crawl on his knees. Pounding indeed! Tell him that I am extremely tired and am going to nap until just before dinner and he is not to call me or to come to the flag cabin between now and dinner without suffering my extreme displeasure and a punch in the nose from you. All of you come up to flag cabin as soon as you wish but try not to be seen by Woodie. You’ll probably find Maureen and me in the lounging pool.”

Chapter XLVI

“I’m gifted with second sight.”

Deety:
When the Hillbilly stages a production, she doesn’t stint. By protocol decreed by Lazarus Long, dinner in Dora is formal, but with wide latitude in “formal” – casual dress being the only thing utterly verboten. Dinner is preceded by a happy hour where one can sip Coca-Cola or get roaring drunk.
Aunt Hilda changed all that for this night. No happy hour but be on time – two minutes before twenty o’clock, ship’s time. No one permitted to eat in her/his quarters – a command performance.
No options in dress – Commodore Auntie decided what each would wear, where each would sit. I said, “Commodore Hilda honey, aren’t you kind o’ throwing your weight around? What there is of it?”
She answered, “Yes, I am, Deetikins, for this occasion. But before you criticize, ask your husband whether or not I ever permitted one of my parties to flop.”
“Don’t need to ask him. Why, at your last one, our old Buick blew up. Never a dull moment.”
“I didn’t plan that. But we got husbands out of it; let’s not complain. Before you deliver my message to the twins, tell me this. Is it safe to let them in on our secret?”
“Hillbilly, I tell Zebadiah anything even though someone – you, for example – has asked me not to.”
“Deety, I thought we had a ‘You’ll-keep-my-secrets-and-I’ll-keep-your-secrets’ agreement?”
“We do. But telling Zebadiah gives you two covering for you instead of one. About Laz-Lor – remember that they are his wives as well as his clones.”
“Hon, you were always a wise one. All right, we keep it secret. Tell them what to wear – and please understand that I’m hiding behind you to avoid argument; it’s a favor I appreciate. Sending up sword and saber is a favor to your husband and to your father but I thank you on their behalf if they forget. Send the blades to your suite; they’ve decided they can dress more easily without women underfoot.”
“A canard,” Pop said, just back of my neck. “The women don’t want us underfoot.”
“I knew it was one or the other, Jacob,” Aunt Hilda agreed. “But Dora has already taken your uniforms to our suite and your swords will -“
” – be there, too, and I can recognize a fact when I fall over it and have never been happier, my love, than I have been since you took charge of my life and started telling me what to decide.”
“Jacob, you’re making me teary.”
“Jake! Can you hear me?” – Lazarus’ voice and Aunt Hilda used family sign language; Pop nodded and answered promptly:
“Certainly, Lazarus – what’s on your mind?”
“I’m faced with the impossible and need help. I received an order – you, too, I think – to dress in military uniform at dinner. The only uniform I have aboard is in the flag cabin and – say, are you in the flag cabin?”
Aunt Hilda shook her head. Pop answered, “I’m in our suite, dressing for dinner. Hilda needed a nap. I told you.”
“You certainly did, sir. I’m allergic to being punched in the snoot. But – Well, if you would use your influence -“
“If any.”
“If any, to get me that uniform twenty minutes before dinner” – Aunt Hilda nodded – “or even ten, you would save me the horrible dilemma of deciding which order to break.”
“Don’t decide to break the one telling you not to disturb Hilda.”
“I didn’t even consider breaking that one! And it’s not your fist in my snoot. Jake… she terrifies me. I don’t understand it. I’m twice her mass and all muscle; she couldn’t possibly hurt me.”
“Don’t be certain. She has a poisoned fang. But calm yourself, comrade. I guarantee delivery by nineteen minutes before the bell at latest.”
“Jake, I knew I could depend on you. Let me know when you want a bank robbed.”
I gave Maureen a special hug before I left to carry out my orders. I knew what the Hillbilly was doing: rigging it so that she could have a quiet hour in which to get acquainted with Maureen. I didn’t resent it; I would have rigged it for me had I been able.
I curved down the corridor, whistled for Lib to let me in, stopped dead and whistled another sort of whistle. She was dressed, if “dressed” is the word. “Wheeeewhoo!”
“Like it?”
“I can’t wait to get into mine. It is the most indecent outfit I’ve ever seen, with no other purpose than to excite lewd, libidinous, lascivious, licentious, lecherous, lustful longings in the loins of Lotharios.”
“Isn’t that the purpose of clothing?”
“Well… aside from protection – yes. But I’m beginning to realize that a culture with no body taboo has to go much farther in styling to achieve that purpose.”
It was a “dress” with a “skirt” that was a 10-cm ruffle worn low. The material was silky stuff in pastel green. The bodice had no back but the front came clear up to the neck – with cutouts for each teat. The designer did not stop there. Lib’s left teat was bare – but her right one was barer yet: a transparent film that clung and was covered with rainbow iridescence that moved in endless patterns with every jiggle – and jiggle we do no matter how firm. Elizabeth is as firm as I am but hers quivered enough to swirl that iridescence just from breathing.
Whew!
If both had been bare, or both iridescent, it would not have done a quarter as much. It was the contrast that would make ’em howl at the Moon.
My dress was exactly like hers save that my right teat was the bare one.
Lib got me into it, then I hurried to the bridge, with a hope-promise to be back ten minutes before the hour to have her touch up my eyebrows and lashes. I’m not much for cosmetics (neither is she) but our lashes and brows hardly show without help and this was a formal occasion.
One of Dora’s blue fireflies led me to a lift that took me to the bridge, where Dora had told me I would find Laz and Lor. Laz spotted me first, made a yelling noise while patting her lips, which I took to mean enthusiasm. Those kids – correction: women close to Pop’s age but they feel like kids – Laz-Lor are as female as I am and recognize what incites the lovely beast in men. They liked my dress.
I liked that bridge. Reminded me of Star Trek; pointed ears would not have surprised me. Or Nichelle Nichols backed by colored lights. “This place makes my mouth water. Maybe someday a guided tour? Pretty please!”
Captain Lor said, “Certainly – “
” – but how about a swap as – “
” – we haven’t even been inside – “
” – Gay Deceiver and Dora says she -“
” – is wonderful and when this job is -“
” – done and we’ve rescued Mama Maureen there -“
” – won’t be anything to stop us once Dora -“
” – is safe on the ground at Tertius. Huh?”
“Certainly,” I answered… gleefully as now I knew that our 17-hour absence in zero seconds had not been noticed. To Lor and Laz the snatch was still in the planning stage. Apparently Ol’ Buddy Boy had not yet told his sisters. Had not yet worked up a set of lies, probably, that would account for his being locked in the bathroom while the rest of us did the job.
“At the earliest opportunity,” I went on. “Want to take a ride in Gay?”
“Oh, my! Could we?”
“Not for me to say. But I can tell you what works. Cuddle up to the Commodore. Pet her, be sweet to her. Ask her if she will let you call her ‘Aunt Hilda’ when you’re off duty; that will please her. She’s a cat; pet her and respect her feelings and she purrs – push her and she scratches.”
They glanced at each other. “We will. Thanks.”
“De nada, chicas -“
“You’ve learned Galacta!” (In chorus – )
“What? No. Probably a phrase that carried over. But I was sent here on duty and I’ve been chatting instead. Commodore’s compliments to the Captain and the Commodore requests that Captain Lorelei Lee Long and First Officer Lapis Lazuli Long join her at dinner at twenty o’clock and, as a favor to the Commodore, please dress in the same fashion as Doctors Libby and Deety – and that’s me and I’m wearing the fashion you are to wear.”
Captain Lor answered, “Certainly we’ll be there; we never miss dinner and -“
” – always dress formally and I don’t -“
” – mean bare skin. Skin is for working or -“
” – sleeping. But we treat dinner in the Dora as a -“
” – formal party and that calls for the works. Formal evening -“
” – dress and jewelry and cosmetics and perfume and we are about -“
” – to bathe and change, but we can’t dress the way you are -“
” – because our dresses are already picked out and -“
” – it’s too late to start over!”
I said, “Look, chums, you brought this on yourselves by urging Lib and me to dress this way. Neither of us was enthusiastic but we promised. The Commodore learned what Libby and I expected to wear, and decided that four of us, all about the same size and coloration, would look wonderful in matching green dresses. So Lib and I are to be opposite you two, balancing you, and the men are required to wear uniforms so as not to compete with us four. All clear?”
They got their stupid look which actually is a cover for stubborn determination. Lor said:
“The Captain sends her respects to the Commodore and regrets -“
“Hold it! Does this ship have a lifeboat?”
“Yes,” answered Lor, “but -“
“But you are master of this ship. Yes, I know. And I’m gifted with second sight. I see only two viable futures for you. Did you get your pirate flag up in the lounge?”
“Yes, we did, but -“
“If you’ll tell me what lifeboat and where, I’ll get the flag to you before twenty. I see you starting out in that lifeboat to be pirates. Or I see you at dinner in dresses of any green cloth you can find, cut hastily in this style and pinned together. No jewelry. No cosmetics that show. I don’t think you can fake this iridescent stuff but that stick-on transparent wrapping, used instead, would show that you had tried. The Commodore never rejects anyone for failing; what she despises is not trying. Send your answer via Dora. I can’t be your messenger boy; I have work to do before dinner, now only forty-seven minutes away. Will the Captain excuse me?”
I got out fast. I didn’t believe for one second that a ship stocked like the Dora, run by identical redheads, could fail to have endless formals in green – including this style or close to it. By now the twins were frantically consulting their brother via Dora, and from what I heard him say to Pop, I thought Lazarus would tell them that it was safer to jump ship and change their names than it would be to tangle with the miniature buzz saw – but if Dora couldn’t fake something that would at least show a hard try, he would sell her off as spare parts and install one of those new-model “Susan Calvin” positronic brains that everybody said was the coming thing for smartships.
I said Hello to Gay, then tried to reach under the instrument board and find the catch by touch.
I got out of the car in order to stand up in the ship’s passageway and took off my deliciously indecent dress. Then I was able to fold, bend, and staple, to open the stowage. A saber and a sword – no belts. “Gay.”
“What, Deety?”
“I’m looking for two sword belts. Category should be personal possessions, miscellaneous, weapons, belts for weapons.”
“Deety, they are supposed to be with the sword and saber. Many things were moved into the Land of Oz today; I heard you all talking about it. But no changes were read into my inventory. I’m sorry.”
“Smart Girl, it’s not your fault. We should have told you.”
“Deety, I’ve rolled the dice. The curve says that the most probable place is on hooks in Sunbonnet Sue’s wardrobe.”
They were.
I was starting to leave, after telling Gay she was a Smart Girl, when she said, “Deety, your father is calling. Dora has him on hold, through me.”
“Thanks, Gay; thanks, Dora. Pop?”
“Deety, are you still in Gay?”
“Just outside the starboard door.”
“Can you lay hands on my automatic and the web belt that goes with it?”
“Saw both three minutes ago.”
“Will you please remove the clip, check the chamber to be sure it’s empty, then bring belt and pistol when you fetch our toadstickers?”
“Anything for a steady customer.”
I left with belt and sword slung over one shoulder, saber and belt over the other so that the belts crossed between my teats, and with the web belt with holster and pistol interwoven through the others because it was far too big for my waist. This left my hands free to carry my dress, one hand being almost clean enough.
Pop said: “What took you so long? I promised Lazarus I’d get this stuff to him on time. Now I’m going to have to dogtrot. In Army blues.”
I told him I had stopped off at the pool hall and playing off the match game had taken a while. “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I have problems, too.”
Elizabeth wiped me down with a damp towel, dried and powdered me and drew my eyebrows and touched up my lashes and clucked over me, all in nine minutes, then most carefully put my dress back on me. “Ordinarily one does not take off a washable and put it back on – just wear it until you shower it off. A drop of water will go through this material like acid. Better skip the soup.”

Place cards showed us where to dine. But at two minutes before the hour the Hillbilly had not arrived, so we were standing. Laz-Lor came in, sat down – in dresses identical with mine and Lib’s, perfect fit, nothing improvised. Their brother spoke quietly to them; they stood up. Lazarus was dressed in a very old-fashioned army uniform, breeches with rolled leggings, a tunic with a stock collar, and Pop’s pistol at his side.
All but Pop’s stuff looked brand-new; I concluded that Lazarus had had it tailored.
Just as my head ticked twenty o’clock, a bugle (Dora) sounded attention. At least it had that effect on the men and Libby, so I stood straight. Laz-Lor looked at their brother and did so, too.
The wardroom has three steps leading down into it from each of its archway doors, with a little platform at the top so that you don’t fall on your face. Pop and Zebadiah marched up those steps, faced each other (and I thought how beautiful Zebadiah looked in dress uniform; I had never seen him in it). Pop snapped, “Draw! Swords!” Instead of coming down, they crossed blades in an arch. Lazarus looked startled and drew pistol, placed it smartly across his chest.
This archway was closed by drapes; we had come in from the other side. A drum and bugle (Dora again) sounded a ruffle-and-flourish; the drapes lifted from both sides – and here was the Hillbilly, standing tall (for her) and straight, with her perfect ice-cream skin gleaming in flood lights against a background of midnight blue. She was so beautiful I choked up.
Dora’s invisible band played The Admiral’s March as our tiny Commodore marched proudly down the steps toward us. (It could have been The Admiral’s March; Pop admitted later that he hummed to Dora the march played for generals and told her to fake it.)
Aunt Hilda did not sit down when she reached the head of the table, she stood near her chair instead. Nor had my father and my husband left their places, they simply brought their swords down. As soon as Hilda stopped and faced in, Pop commanded, “Corporal Bronson! Front and Center!”
Lazarus jerked as if he had been struck, holstered his pistol, marched to the far end, making sharp corners in passing around the wardroom table. He halted, facing Hilda – she may have given him some sign.
Dora hit two bugle notes; Aunt Hilda sang:
“Shipmates, beloved friends, tonight we are greatly honored!”
Four ruffles-and-flourishes, as the drapes lifted and parted, and again lights picked out bare skin, this time against a forest-green backing: Maureen in opera-length black stockings, green round garters, dark shoes with semi-high heels, her long red hair down her back.
Maureen was not “standing tall”; she was in the oldest and most graceful of sculptor’s poses: left knee slightly bent, weight slightly more on her right foot, chest lifted only a little but displaying her full teats, nipples heavily crinkled. Her smile was happy.
She held pose while that march concluded, then, in the sudden silence, held out her arms and called: “Theodore!”
“Corporal Bronson” fainted.

Chapter XLVII

“There are no tomorrows.”

Zeb:
Sharpie shouldn’t have done it to Lazarus. For a veteran of sixteen wars and Koshchei alone knows how many skirmishes and narrow escapes to be placed in a position where he is so shocked that blood drains from his head and he collapses “ain’t fitten.”
Deety agrees but asks me if I could have refrained from staging Mama Maureen’s return that way, given the chance? Well, no, had I Sharpie’s imagination – but it still would not have been “fitten.”
Not that he was hurt by it. Sharpie, all forty-three kilos of her, checked his fall. She was watching Lazarus, saw him start to collapse, closed the gap and grabbed him around the waist, did her best.
Sharpie saved him from hitting his head on the wardroom table. I would bet long odds that everyone was looking at Maureen except Sharpie. Sharpie had staged it – and the producer was interested in the effect on the one for whom it had been staged.
She had staged it even to the extent of getting Libby to ask Ishtar to obtain costume – shoes, hose, and round green garters to match a photograph, plus a hooded cape to keep our ubiquitous snoop Dora from knowing that we had an extra aboard. Sharpie had figured this way: that “French photo” snapshot of Mama Maureen (yeah, I call her that too – she’s the most motherly person in any world… and the sexiest. Don’t mention the last to Deety) (Deety knows it – Deety) – that snapshot was still in existence unless destroyed by machinegun fire in 1918, Earth-Prime.
Which it would not be… because Lazarus “got his arse shot off” as his sisters describe it. Not literally true, it was a belly wound more than bullets in his arse that came that close to finishing him. But all the wounds were low.
Where does a man in combat carry his most cherished possessions? In a breast pocket, usually the left one. I always have and I’ve never heard a veteran deny this.
It might be worth it to faint in order to wake up surrounded by Maureen, Hilda, Laz-Lor, Elizabeth, and my own reason for being. Jake and I could have played several hands of gin before anyone bothered with us. So I asked Dora for drinks and snacks for Jake and me, as it seemed uncertain as to when dinner would be served. Or if.
I heard Sharpie say, “Maureen, we must get this heavy uniform off him. Dora keeps this ship tropical. I should never have ordered uniforms for men while we women are comfortable.” They started peeling him.
I said, “Jake, school’s out.” I had sweated through my number-one uniform – might never wear it again but I’m sentimental about it. Jake was in as bad shape. Once you get happy with skin any clothes make you feel like Rameses II.
We peeled down and handed our clothes and swords to one of Dora’s waldoes and told her to hand them to Gay – including Jake’s pistol, belt, and holster, which I retrieved without anyone noticing me. Jake and I were Chinese stage hands; “Corporal Ted Bronson” was getting all the attention.
Dora pointed out that Gay was locked. I said, “If one of her doors were open, could you lay this gear on a seat?” Yes, she could. “Then do it,” I said. “Let me talk to Gay.”
We eventually had dinner, with everybody “formal” but Maureen. She retained her “casual” clothing long after everyone else was in formal skin. But not until I got pix of the Four Disgraces. Libby and Deety wanted to go shower, too, when Jake and I decided that, having discarded uniforms, we should shower in fairness to Dora’s airconditioning. I asked them and Laz-Lor please to wait until I staggered down (we had encountered a force-four sea, with white caps) to Gay for Jake’s Polaroid.
Turned out not to be necessary; Dora could take color and 3-D, still or motion, any angle, and light as needed, just as she had lighted the posing (which she had photographed, too, I learned later).
Maureen and Jake directed while “Corporal Bronson” and I sprawled Nero-style on lounges intended for Lib and Deety. Sharpie sat between us and dropped grapes into our mouths.
Jake tried to make the poses “artistic.” Mama Maureen agreed with everything Jake said, then did it her way. The results may have been artistic. But I know that those pix would give a skeleton one last case of raging tumescence.
Meanwhile Dora was singing and playing, urging us to eat – tasty tidbits eaten with tongs; I was reminded of the best in Oriental cuisines – and plying us with fine wines. Dora seemed to have a vast repertoire, some of which (to my surprise) was familiar. When Judy Garland sings Over the Rainbow, who can miss it? – Dora used Judy’s voice. I recall, too, Enjoy Yourself; It’s Later Than You Think. Most of them I did not know.
Dora announced Tomorrow’s Song – I thought that was what she said. Lazarus and Maureen held hands all through it and it was not a song that would fit the title I thought I had heard. I got straightened out when the song ended to dead silence and Maureen said to Lazarus, “Theodore, Ishtar was going to rearrange the watch list but Tamara vetoed it. She did it for you, dear man, and for me – but Tamara is anxious to see you.”
“Tamara always knows what she’s doing,” Lazarus answered.
“Yes, Tammy always knows what is best,” agreed Mama Maureen. “Tell me, Theodore, do I still make you think of her?”
Lazarus looked upset. “Uh, I don’t know. You don’t look like her… but you feel like her. And you look more like Nancy than you look like yourself.”
“Yes, I know. None of our family was willing to wait; you’ve been away from home too long. Be patient, and when I look like me to your eyes, tell us, and Galahad will hold my cosmetic age at that. Are you going to do as you promised me, so long ago, take Tammy and me to bed together? Perhaps I should add, Theodore, I am now wife to your co-husbands. I don’t ask that you marry me. Although I think Tammy will be shocked if you don’t. But I shan’t make it difficult, either way. I will hold to any pretence you wish. I did for Brian; I shall for you.”
Maureen was neither shouting nor whispering; she was simply bringing him up to date on things he needed to know. Lazarus started to answer, his expression oddly mixed, when Elizabeth cut in: “Lazarus -“
“Eh? What, Lib?”
“Message to you from Ishtar. To be delivered when needed, and now is the time. Ish read both your charts with her computer set for maximum pessimism. She also had them read at New Rome without identification other than her own file numbers. She has this message for you … in answer to the answer you will make. She says to tell you that you are an uncivilized primitive, ignorant of science, especially genetics, oversentimental, almost pathologically stubborn, retarded, probably senile, superstitious, and provincial… and that she loves you dearly but will not permit you to make decisions in her area of authority. In vitro or in utero, the cross will take place. Let me add that Maureen was not given a choice, either.”
“So? You can tell the big-arsed bitch that I agree with every word she says, especially the part about ‘senile,’ and that I gave up all hope of arguing with her tyrannical ways fifty years ago and that I love her just as dearly – outside her clinic – and that Maureen will tell her how such things will be handled; I don’t have a vote.” He turned toward me, looking past Sharpie’s pretty toes. “Zeb, here is the wisdom of the ages: Men rule but women decide.”
“Elizabeth, do you think I am anything like Tamara?”
“Mmm – Never thought about it. Yes, you both have that all-mother feeling. Uh, would you mind taking off costume? It distracts me from looking at you.”
“No trouble, Elizabeth. I don’t like round garters except as advertising.” Mama Maureen kicked off her shoes, took off the garters, carefully rolled down her hose in a manner interuniversal – stood up and stood easily, not posing.
“Turn around slowly. Mmm – Maureen, you do look like Tammy… or vice versa; it’s probably your genes in her. Am I descended from you? Does anyone here know? Lazarus?”
“You are, Lib. But not through me. Through my sister Carol. ‘Santa Carolita’ believe it or not – which would surprise Carol as she was no saint. But your descent through Carol was not proved until long after you were killed, when the Families’ records were being revised through computer analysis and a deeper knowledge of genes. No saints in our family, are there, Mama?”
“None that I know of, Woodrow. Not me, certainly. You were a little hellion; I should have spanked you much oftener than I did. Mmm… your father was as close to being a saint as any in our family. Brian was wise and good – and tolerant.” She smiled. “Do you recall why we separated?”
“I’m not sure I ever knew. Mama, my recollections of that era are much sharper for my trip there as ‘Ted Bronson’ – the other is a long time back.”
“In my sixties I stopped having babies. About the same time your brother Richard was killed. War. His wife, Marian Justin of the Hardy family, was with us, with their children, and Brian was back in uniform, a recalled colonel, on a desk job in San Francisco. When Richard was killed in 1945 we all took it hard but it was easier in that so many of us were together – Brian, and my youngest children, and Marian, and her children – five; she was thirty-one.”
Mama Maureen, free of stockings and shoes, sat in lotus across from Hilda and accepted a plate from Dora’s helpers. “Woodrow, I encouraged Brian to console Marian the only way a widow can be helped; she needed it. When that war was over, Marian needed a visible husband; her waistband and the calendar could not be reconciled. When we moved from San Francisco later that year, it was easy for Marian Justin Smith to become Maureen J. Smith while I became, with the aid of hair dye, her widowed mother – no one knew us in Amarillo and females were not yet compelled to have I.D.’s. So Marian had the baby as “Maureen,” and only with the Howard Families Trustees was the correct genealogy recorded.” Maureen smiled. “We Howards were easy about such things as long as it was kept inside the Families – and I am happy that we are even easier about it now.
“On our next move I moved out and became Maureen Johnson again, fifteen years younger since I did not look late seventies, and a Meen-ah-sotah Yonson, Woodrow, rather than a southern Missouri Johnson. A grass widow with round heels.” Mama Maureen chuckled. “Howards married only to have babies. My production line had shut down but the equipment was there and the urge. By the time you darlings” – Maureen’s eyes swept the wardroom – “rescued me, I had trimmed thirty-five years from my age and added thirty-five men to my memories. In fact, when you picked me up, I was on my way to a motel rendezvous, a widower of sixty who was willing to believe that I was sixty when in fact I expected to reach my Century Day in a fortnight.”
I said, “What a dirty shame! I wish you had been coming back from the motel when we picked you up.”
“Zebadiah, that’s sweet of you but it’s not a shame. We were getting bored with each other. I’m sure he read my obituary with as much relief as grief. I’m just glad you got me – and I’m told that you did most of it.”
“Gay Deceiver did most of it. The car you rode in both ways. But we almost didn’t pick you up. Things went wrong, badly. I knew that it was going to – Deety, can you tell her?”
“Mama Maureen, Zebadiah has forerunners of dangers. They are not long range; they are always just barely in time. I don’t know what happened this morning but -“
“‘This morning?'” Maureen looked extremely puzzled.
“Oh.” My wife went on, “It was ‘this morning’ to us. You arrived here at eighteen-forty and a few seconds, ship’s time. During that instant we spent fifteen hours on another planet, we made two trips to your native planet, two more trips to your new home planet, and you spent seventeen months on Tertius and we brought you back here – and it all happened today. Not just today but at that exact instant: eighteen-forty and thirteen point three seconds. Laz and Lor didn’t know that we were gone; even the ship’s computer didn’t know we were gone.”
“I did so!” Dora objected. “Gay was disconnected for nineteen microseconds. You think I don’t notice a gap like that? I asked what happened and she told me that it was a power fluctuation. She fibbed to me! I’m sore at her.”
Deety looked thunderstruck. “Dorable, Dorable! It wasn’t Gay’s fault. I asked her to keep our secrets. I made her promise.”
“Mean!”
“I didn’t mean to be mean to you, Dorable – and we did let you in on it as quickly as we could. We couldn’t have staged the tableaux if you hadn’t helped. Be angry with me if you must… but don’t be angry with Gay. Please kiss and make up.”
I don’t know how computers hesitate, but I think I caught the briefest split second. “Gay?”
“Yes, Dora?” – the Smart Girl’s voice through Dora’s speakers.
“I don’t want to be mad. Let’s forget it, huh? Let’s kiss and make up. I will if you will.”
“Yes, yes! Oh, Dorable, I do love you.”
“You’re both good girls,” said Deety. “But you are both professional women, too, and work for different bosses. Dora, you are loyal to your family; Gay is loyal to her family. It has to be that way. Dora, if your sister, Captain Lor, asked you to keep a secret, you wouldn’t tell Gay, would you? Because she might tell me… and I would tell Zebadiah… and then the whole world would know.”
(Would, huh? My dear wife, I had a clearance two stages above “Q” – so secret it does not have a name. Never mind, I’ll take the rap.)
(Yes, I know, my husband, I once held the same level of clearance. But dealing with balky computers is my profession. Computers are supergenius-level children and must be dealt with on their own level. Okay, maybe, huh? – Deety)
“Gosh!”
“You see? Captain Lor, does Dora have any secrets of yours? Or of your brother’s? She can tell them to Gay and Gay can tell them to me and I always tell everything to my husband and – “
Lazarus interrupted. “Dora! You tell tales out of school and I’ll beat your ears off with an ax! It’s all right for you two to chum together and play games. But you start swapping secrets and I’ll call in Minsky’s Metal Mentalities, Incorporated, to measure that space.”
“Male computers. You can’t scare me, Ol’ Buddy Boy, you wouldn’t trust your dirty neck to a male computer. Stupid.”
“My neck isn’t dirty; that’s just where the collar of my uniform rubbed it.”
“Dirty neck and a dirty mind. But don’t worry, Ol’ Buddy Boy; Dora Long doesn’t tell secrets. I now see that Gay had to keep secrets, too – I just hadn’t thought about it. But you were mean to my sisters.”
“Me? How?”
“You knew about this caper; you didn’t need to get it from Gay. You knew all about it; you were there. But you held out on your own twin sisters -“
“Most unfairly, Mama Maureen – “
” – as if we were untrustworthy, and if we’re -“
” – untrustworthy, why can we be trusted with a ship and -“
” – the lives of everyone on board? We’re glad you are here -“
” – for yourself, but maybe now that you are here, you will -“
” – protect us from his tyranny. Mama Ishtar doesn’t, and Mama Hamadryad just laughs at us, and Mama Minerva takes his -“
” – side, everytime. But you – “
“Girls.”
“Yes, Mama?”
“I made a promise to myself years ago that when my children grew up, I would not interfere in their lives. I should have punished Woodie more frequently when he was a child, but he is no longer a child -“
“Then why does he act like one?”
“Lorelei Lee! It is rude to interrupt.”
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
“No harm done. But from what I was told at home, you two are not only my daughters but are also Theodore’s wives. Wives of Lazarus. And equally wives of his co-husbands. Is this not true?”
“Yes, Mama. But he’s pretty chinchy about it.”
“If you mean ‘chinchy in bed,’ it may depend on how you treat him. I did not find him so, when I was his mistress, many years ago – centuries ago by some odd scale that I do not understand. You heard me say that I am now wife to your co-husbands – including Lazarus if he will accept me. But I am certainly, if you will accept me, sister-wife with you two. So I had better stop being your mother. Nay?”
“Why? Grammy Tammy is mother to Ish and everybody -“
” – and we have three mamas in our family now and everyone of them is our -“
” – sister-wife, too; Ish and Hamadarling and Minerva and now -“
” – we have Mama Maureen and we are both delighted that we are your sister-wives but -“
” – you can’t get out of being our mama because we’ve been waiting for you all our lives!”
Dora echoed: “And I’m their sister so you are my mama, too!”
“Theodore, I think I am going to cry. You know my rule. I mayn’t weep in front of my children.”
I stood up, the whole gangling length of me. “Ma’am, I’d be honored to take you to some quiet place where you could cry on me all you please.”
Seven – I think it was seven protein types and two computers – jumped on me. The essence was: “You can’t take Maureen away from her own party!” – with ugly overtones of lynching.
The wind had freshened to force six, so I took liberal doses of champagne to insure against seasickness. After a bit I napped; it had been a busy day and I still was not over the shock of seeing a large freighter roadable about to take Gay’s door off before I could close it and bounce. That was when I kicked the cop in the stomach. Ordinarily I don’t kick cops; it makes one conspicuous.
Then a piercing voice was saying: “Flag Chief of Staff Carter’s presence on the bridge is requested by the Commodore,” and I wondered why the silly son of a bitch didn’t comply, so that the noise would stop. Then something cold was poking my tender bare ribs. “That’s you, Doc. I’ll help you. Relax.”
I was relaxed. Past tense. Some of Dora’s waldoes aren’t too gentle – or maybe these weren’t people waldoes but for cargo; I admit that I’m fairly large for a growing boy.
In the lift I decided that the Beaufort scale was at least eight, more likely nine. Nevertheless we got to the bridge. Right out of Hollywood, a whole dome of displays and clocks – all moving slowly widdershins. Yet Gay made do with just an instrument board. I heard Sharpie say, “My God, look at him!”
Deety was saying something about we can shift seats if necessary to Lor while Laz was saying Drink this.
I said firmly, “I do not drink. Beshides I been dring; yr fashe is all blurry.”
It must have been Laz and Lor who pinned me from both sides, each with an arm lock and a nerve pinch; Deety wouldn’t do that to me.
Sharpie was holding my nose and Laz was pouring it down my throat; it fumed and bubbled. Then – Well, there must have been a stowaway; Deety wouldn’t do that. Not to me.
They let go of me when I finished swallowing. I left the ship, made a fast inspection circuit, checked the Milky Way, and returned to a precision grounding. My ears fell off but it didn’t seem military to stoop over and pick them up. Besides, Sharpie is playful.
“Flag Chief of Staff reports to the Commodore as ordered.”
“How do you feel, Zebbie?”
“I feel fine, Ma’am. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”
“I suppose not; you’ve had a nap.”
“I did drop off. Dreamt I was in the Tasmanian Sea in a small vessel. Very uneasy body of water.” I added, “Aside from that nightmare, now gone, I’m in top shape. Orders, Ma’am?”
We gave everybody the two-dollar tour, including the bathrooms in the Land of Oz. Libby, Deety, and Jake waited outside, the place being crowded. Sharpie ruled that Laz could relieve Lor to allow Lor to look first, then Lor took back the captaincy so that her sister could see. The fairyland bathrooms made the biggest hit. I concede that the time-space twister is not impressive. Then the twins thanked Hilda and left.
“Attention, please,” said Hilda. “If you wish, we will show how we operate. Lazarus may use the astrogator’s seat while Deety makes responses from the cargo space. Elizabeth will go back there, too, as she has ridden in Gay Deceiver. Deety, before you move aft, show Maureen and Lazarus how we squeeze a passenger into the rear seats; I’ll scootch over.
“This car operates in several modes. As a roadable it is fast, comfortable, easy to handle, rather hard to park, and is usually parked with wings raked back as they are now, the hypersonic configuration. If we intended to drive it in the air, the wings would usually be extended for maximum lift. When operated by the Burroughs Continua Device, wing rake does not matter, but the chief pilot may choose to anticipate where he will arrive and rake accordingly.
“Since it has a computerized autopilot – Hello, Gay!”
“Hello, Hilda, mind if I listen?”
“Not at all, dear. Have you met everyone?”
“Yes, Hilda, and, since I’ve seen them through Dora’s eyes, I place all of them by their voices.” Gay added, “Dora is listening through me; she’s going to record your demonstration. Is that all right?”
“Certainly. Dora, since you are recording, I’ll make it as realistic as possible. Gay Deceiver. Close doors. Execute.” I was at chief pilot, Jake at copilot; his door closed, I started checking the seal on mine.
“All hands, prepare for space. Copilot.”
“Verniers zero, starboard door seal checked, seat belt fastened.”
“Report incomplete. Is your belt fastened tightly? Maximum accelerations? Friends, this car is powered to engage as a fighter; the driver may find himself upside down. Full demonstration, please, Jacob. Cinch it in.”
“Copilot reports seat belt tight for maneuvers.”
“Thank you, Jacob. Chief Pilot.”
I answered in my best cadet-boning-smart voice: “Portside door seal checked. Power pack on line point-eight-nine, two packs reserve at one-point-oh, juice at capacity, all systems go, seat belt cinched tight for max gee maneuvers.”
“Astrogator.”
“I’m not in my proper seat. Lib and I are fastened down like Siamese twins, tight. No loose gear. Annex checked and secure; all doors locked ‘cept bulkhead door is dogged open, contrary to routine. Captain, you could dog us in; we don’t mind.”
“Not like somebody I won’t mention who loses his temper over being locked in for five minutes -“
“Hilda, that was a low blow!”
“Passenger, pipe down. If you had done as you promised, you would not have known that the door was locked. I didn’t trust you – and I was right. I am not sure that I want to be your junior or second junior or whatever wife; you don’t keep your promises. I’m sorry, Mama Maureen, but Woodie is sometimes a very naughty boy.”
“I’m aware of it, Hilda. Captain. Please slap him down as necessary. I was always too fond of him and spoiled him.”
“We won’t speak of it now. All four of us are qualified in all four positions; we sometimes rotate to maintain our skills. Normal T.O. is myself commanding, Zebbie as second-in-command and astrogator, Jacob as chief pilot, Deety as copilot. But for this exhibition I have placed the finest manual pilot at the overrides, the inventor himself at the continua device, and a lightning calculator equal to Slipstick Libby – “
“Better!”
“Pipe down, Elizabeth. – as my astrogator. With such a crew, command cannot worry me. Chief Pilot, please unbelt and check that Mama Maureen and Lazarus are safely belted. Assume violent evasive maneuvers – and believe me, friends, we use them and are alive today because we were properly belted and because Zebbie is a lightning aerospace fighter pilot – and our Gay is a Smart Girl.”
I unbelted, made sure that Lazarus was belted tightly, made certain that Maureen was safe with those improvised belts, then suggested that she put her right arm around Hilda, her left around Lazarus, and hold tight. “All the others have double belts, lap and chest. You have just a lap belt; if I turned the car upside down, holding onto Hilda and Lazarus would keep you safe. Right, Lazarus?”
“Right, Zeb. Mama Maureen, a drill should be as near as possible to the real thing or it won’t save your life in combat.”
“Theodore, I don’t ever expect to be in combat. But I will do the drill properly.”
“Mama, I hate the idea of women in combat. But all through the centuries I have seen women in combat again and again, all too often as regular troops. I don’t like it. But there it is.”
My wife put in a plug for Lazarus. “Mama Maureen, my Pop has required me to learn every weapon I can lift and he had me trained in every type of dirty fighting imaginable. Several times it has saved me from a mugging. Once I almost killed a man twice my size – with my bare hands.”
“Jacob, will you teach me as much of what Deety knows as I am capable of learning?”
“Maureen, I’ll teach you what I can. While we’re here.”
From the back I heard Libby’s voice: “Now, Maureen?”
“Yes. If you think it wise in view of Hilda’s black ball.”
“I’m going to chance it. Friends, I was not sent to get myself pregnant by a great mathematician. That was my reason. By now Tamara has reports from me and from Laz and from Lor on each of you. Twelve ‘Yes’ votes, zero ‘No’ votes. I am directed by Tamara to offer you four fullest hospitality-such as you gave us in your home. If you decide to accept the name Long, tell Tamara. We won’t crowd you, either way.”
Hilda immediately answered, “Because of delays, a short roll call for space. Copilot.”
“Copilot ready.”
“Chief Pilot ready,” I echoed.
“Astrogator ready.”
“Passengers? By seniority.”
Lazarus started to reply; Hilda interrupted him. “‘By seniority!'”
“If you mean me, Captain, I’m ready.”
“You are, I believe, thirty years older than your son. In any case you are senior to him. Junior passenger?”
“That’s me,” answered Elizabeth. “Ready.”
“Forgot you, dear – apologies. Woodie!”
“Ready for space, Captain, you feisty, narrow little broad. And you’re damn well going to marry us!”
“Astrogator, log that. Insolence. Gay Deceiver.”
“Ready, Captain honey.”
“TertiusOrbitExecute!”
Maureen gasped. Lazarus snorted. “Farced us!”
“In what way? You reported, ‘Ready for space.'”
“And you called it a ‘drill.'”
“Woodie, I will bet anything you care to name that I did not call it a ‘drill’ – you did. Both Gay and Dora recorded. Put up or shut up. In the meantime, on the back of the seat ahead of you is a small medical kit. Find a pill bottle marked ‘Bonine.’ Small pink pills. Give one to your mother. Maureen, chew it, swallow it. Tastes like raspberry candy.”
“Hilda, what are you feeding – “
“Pipe down! Or do you prefer to be locked in the bathroom again? Passenger, I do not tolerate insubordination. Haven’t you learned that by now?”
Lazarus got out the pill, gave it to his mother. She accepted it and ate it without comment.
“Lazarus, I can offer you a front-seat view if you will swear by whatever it is that you hold holy that you will not touch one control of any sort even to avoid a crash. You don’t understand this craft and would cause a crash if you tried to avoid one. If you can’t convince me, I’ll give Maureen the front seat. But I don’t think Maureen is interested in learning to drive this car and I think you are.”
“That’s right, Hilda,” I heard Maureen agree. “I’m studying to be a nurse. Then a medical doctor. Then a rejuvenator. Or as far along that route as my ability will carry me. In the meantime I’m pregnant. Isn’t that a joke, Theodore? Everytime you and I meet with maximum opportunity, I’m pregnant. And this time Woodie can’t spoil it.” She chuckled a warm chuckle. “I owe you one, Staff Sergeant Bronson. Can we find a black walnut tree?”
“Lazarus, do you want a front seat? Or do you want to take Maureen into the annex and give her what she so clearly wants?”
“Oh, I can wait!” Maureen said quickly.
“God, what a decision! Maureen, a short rain check? I really do want to see what this craft will do.”
“I want to see the ride, too, Theodore. But I would not refuse you.”
“Pipe down, please. Jacob, will you change places with Lazarus? Each report when your seat belts will stand evasive maneuvers.”
“Seven gee,” I added. “Lazarus, Ack-Ack?”
“Not yet, thank God. I’m wondering how soon we’ll need it. And what sort? I’m stumped. Seat belt tight. Hey, we’re passing over Boondock!”
“So we are,” I agreed.
“Seat belt tight. Maureen, too.”
“Chief Pilot, you have the conn. Maneuver at will.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” I agreed. “Gay Deceiver Clinic Execute Gay Bounce Gay Bounce. Show your heels, girl! Mach point seven point nine… one point two… Mach two… three… four … sweep right, set course for Boondock. Dive, Smart Girl. Mach five… six … seven -“
“Oh, my God!” – Lazarus.
“GayBounce. Trouble, Lazarus? Smart Girl, spread your wings.”
“You almost crashed us.”
“Oh, I think not. Gay Deceiver Clinic Execute Gay Bounce.”
“They were waiting for us on the roof!”
“Who? How? Do you have some sort of cee-squared radio?” I added, “Gay Bounce. Smart Girl, do you want to dance? Gay dances beautifully, knows several. Want to pick one, Gay?”
“Dora taught me the ‘Nutcracker’ suite and I’ve been figuring out one for the ‘Sugarplum Fairy.’ But I don’t think I’m ready to show it yet.”
“Give them ‘Blue Danube.'”
“That old thing?”
“You do it well. Give them a few bars.”
Smart Girl just wants to be coaxed. She swooped and she swirled and once bounced herself for altitude without breaking her dance. Meanwhile I got the frequency and asked Libby to talk to Ishtar’s office. “Alternate route, Lib” – which was all it took for Deety to close the bulkhead door… which left Strauss waltz music in the cabin, and a truly private radio conversation in the after compartment.
When Deety opened the bulkhead door again, I waited for her to report strapped down. “Got a number for me, Astrogator?” We had agreed on a simple code: fifty-seven was fifty-seven seconds but five-seven meant fifty-seven minutes.
“No, Zebadiah. Zero. Now.”
“Okay. Lazarus, can you pick out your house in Boondock?”
“Certainly. But we’ve been moving away from there steadily.”
“GayDeceiverClinicExecuteGayBounce. Now where, Lazarus?”
“Practically under us. Can’t see it.”
So I tilted my baby straight down. “Can you coach me?”
“Yes, it’s – Hey! There’s a ship in Dora’s parking spot! What nerve! I’m going to give somebody a bad time. It’s irrelevant that Dora is a long way off, that’s my parking flat. See that round ship? Interloper! My house is the largish one with the double atrium north of it.”
“All right for me to park by the interloper?”
“All right but not room enough to get in.”
“We’ll try. Close your eyes.” I steadied vertically on the spot Lib had told them to clear. “Gunsighted, girl?”
“Nailed it, Boss.”
“New program code word ‘Maureen’ I tell you three times.”
“I hear you three times.” We were getting low.
“MaureenExecute!”
“You’re a Smart Girl, Gay. Open your doors.”
She opened them but answered, “If I’m smart, why wasn’t I invited, too? It’s Dora Long and Athene Long – am I a second-class citizen?”
I was left with my mouth open. And was saved by two darlings. Libby said, “Gay, we didn’t know you cared,” and Deety said, “Gay, either we both join or neither joins. A promise.”
I said hastily, “Goodnight, Gay. Over.” People were pouring toward us. Gay answered, “Sleepy time. Roger and out,” just as Laz and Lor arrived in the van, trotting ahead.
Lazarus stopped unbelting. “Hey! It is the Dora!”
“Of course it is, Buddy Boy. What did you expect?” (Lor, I think.)
“But how did you beat us here? I know what that ship can do; I did her basic design myself.”
“Buddy Boy, we got here three weeks ago. You just don’t understand time travel.”
“Mmm – I guess I don’t.”
There was a limited amount of car viewing, as Tamara and Ishtar had limited the greeting committee to a handful of the most senior – not in age but senior in that family. So we met Ish again, no longer pregnant, a young man named Galahad, the incredible Tamara who is Maureen over again but does not look like her (except that she does, and don’t ask me to explain), and a beauty who would make Helen of Troy jealous but doesn’t seem to know she is beautiful, the Hamadryad. Lazarus seemed annoyed that someone named Ira was not at home.
Momentarily we (my wife Deety and I) were left talking with the twins. “I promised you both joy rides. Get in.”
“Oh, but we can’t now because – “
” – there’s going to be a celebration for you -“
” – four and we’ll be busy! Tomorrow?”
“There are no tomorrows. Pipe down, climb in, fasten seat belts. Pronto!”
They prontoed.
“Nail the time,” I said quietly to Deety, as we strapped down. “Gay Deceiver, Reveille.” She played it. “Close doors.”
“Starboard seal checked.”
“Same here. GayBounceGayBounceGayBounce. Tumbling Pigeon, execute. Laz-Lor, can you spot your house from this distance? About thirty kilometers and closing.”
“I’m not sure” – “I think I can.”
“Gay Clinic Execute. Now you know where you are?”
“Yes, it’s -“
“GayTermite.”
“Oh!!”
“We lived here a while. No annex then, had to have an armed guard just to pee. Even me. Pretty place but dangerous. GayHome.” I tilted her nose down. “And this was our perma – Deety!”
“No crater, Zebadiah. Looks the way it did when Pop and I leased it. This is spooky.”
“Twins, something is wrong; I’ve got to check. GayTermite.”
We were back on Termite Terrace. I practiced Yoga breathing while Deety explained that the missing-crater place had been the site of our former home – but couldn’t be. I added, “Look, dears – we can’t drop this. But we can take you to Boondock at once. Do you want to go home?”
The same silent consultation. “We’re sticking -“
” – our brother would stick. We stick.”
“Thanks. Here we go. Gay Home GayBounce.” Still no crater. I told Gay to go into cruising mode. “Display map, Gay. Change scale. I want Snug Harbor and the campus on the same display. Deety, figure shortest distance here to campus. Mine, not yours at Logan.”
“Don’t need to. Eight-five-six klicks,”
“Gay?”
“Don’t argue with Deety, Boss.”
“Head for campus, Gay. Transit, Deety.”
“Set!”
“Execute.” Then I was busy, having popped into city traffic at wrong altitude, direction, et cetera. I ignored police signals, zoomed the campus. Looked normal. Turned and hovered over Sharpie’s house – which was not there. Different house. Parking lot no longer paved. And you don’t grow 200-year-old live oaks in less than seven weeks.
Not a sound out of the back seat. Nor from my right. I had to force myself to look to my right.
Deety was still there and I let out my breath. She was treating it as she did all crises: No expression and nothing to say until she had something to say other than chatter. A sky cop was trying to give me a bad time, with orders to follow him and ground, so I told Gay to bounce, then dived on my own neighborhood. No trouble picking it out – intersections and nearby shopping center all familiar as well as the Presbyterian church across the way from my apartment house.
But it wasn’t my apartment house; this one was three stories and built around a court.
I had Gay bounce four times quickly. “Deety, do you want to look at Logan?”
“No, Zebadiah. I know Aunt Hilda’s neighborhood well enough to be certain. Not her house, her pool was missing, and the parking lot where our Buick was destroyed is now a park with big trees. I assume that you know your former home as well or better.”
“Shall we ground and add another World Almanac to our collection?”
“If you wish. Not for me.”
“Hardly worth the trouble. Tell me – how does it feel to be erased? X-ed out? Blue-penciled? Written out of the plot?”
“I don’t feel it, because I’m not. I’m real, I am!”
I glanced behind us. Yes, Laz and Lor were there keeping quiet. “Gay B’gout!”
It certainly looked like our piece of “dead sea bottom.” I couldn’t see anything of the wreckage of Colonel Morinosky’s ornithopter. Unless there had been a real gully washer – which I did not believe – something had come along and cleaned up every bit of burned junk.
An eraser?
I Bounced Gay and had her start a retreating search curve, thought I saw a gleam to the northeast, Bounced again. A city. It was only a few moments until I saw twin towers. We cruised toward them. “Deety, do you suppose that the other Dejah Thoris is at home?”
“Zebadiah, I have no wish to find out. But I would like to go close enough to be sure that those are the twin towers of Helium. Perhaps see a thoat. Or a green man. Something.”
We let it go with one thoat, of the smaller sort. The description was exact. “Gay Parade Ground.”
“Null program.”
“Hmm – Gay, you have in your perms a map of Mars-ten showing the English and the Russian areas. Display.”
“Null program.”
“Gay Termite.” Termite Terrace was still in place.
“Gay Deceiver. Maureen. Execute. Open your doors.” Hamadryad had started to turn toward us as we closed the doors to leave; she was still turning as we opened them.
I unbuckled, saying: “You two all right back there?”
“Yes, Zeb and Deety, and we thank you both but -“
” – is this something we can tell or -“
” – should we keep it Top Cut-Our-Throats-First Secret?”
“Laz-Lor, I don’t think it matters. You aren’t likely to be believed.” Mama Hamadryad stopped at my door, smiled at all of us, and said, “May I show you to your suite in your home? The suite Tamara picked; you may change it. With our new north wing we have loads of room. Girls, there will be a happy welcome tonight. Formal.”
I found that I was not upset by “erasures.” We were home.

Chapter XLVIII

L’Envoi

“Jubal, you are a bad influence.”
“From you, Lafe, that is a compliment. But that puts me in mind of – Front! Will you excuse me a few minutes?”
“Our house is yours,” answered Lazarus. He closed his eyes; his chair reclined him.
“Thank you, sir. Working title: ‘Uncle Tobias.’ Start: ‘Uncle Tobias we kept in a bucket.'” Jubal Harshaw broke off. “Where are all those girls? FRONT!”
“I’m ‘Front,'” came a female voice from nowhere. “Talk fast; I’m three paragraphs ahead of you. You put those girls on vacation: Anne, Miriam, Dorcas – all off duty.”
“I did not. I told Anne that I did not expect to work but -“
“‘ – if an amanuensis is needed,'” Athene went on, in perfect mimicry of Harshaw’s voice, “‘I hope that one will be within shouting distance.’ I’m in shouting distance; I always am.”
“If I’m in the house. I might not be.”
Athene said, “Tell him, Pappy. Quit playing ‘possum’; you’re not asleep.”
Lazarus opened one eye. “A gimmick Jake whipped up when we started having too many kids to muster easily. It’s a beacon Athene can trigger. Dandy for kids and it turned out to be useful for house guests who might get lost. So ultramicrominjaturized you don’t notice it.”
“Lafe, are you telling me that there is a tracer on me?” Harshaw sounded shocked.
“In you, and you’ll never notice it.”
“Lafe, I’m surprised. I thought you had a high regard for privacy.”
“A high regard for my own, somewhat less for that of others; snooping has saved my life a couple or nine times. In what way has your privacy been invaded? Define it; I’ll correct it.”
“A spy ray! Don’t you consider that an invasion of privacy?”
“Teena, remove immediately any spy ray on Doctor Harshaw.”
“How can I when there is none? P.S. – Pappy, what is a spy ray?”
“A buzz word used by lazy writers. Jubal, there is a beacon planted in you by which Teena can focus audio on you precisely – she can whisper into your left ear or your right. Or you can activate the beacon from your end just by speaking her name. Or you can use the circuit as a telephone to and from any member of my household, or ask Teena to hook it into the public system. Privacy? In this mode this part of Teena does not record unless requested – in one ear and out the other, so to speak. She’s wiped it utterly while it’s slowly winding its way into your brain. Now… if you don’t like this service, Teena will deactivate it at once… and sometime soon while you’re asleep it will be removed; you won’t know it and you will never find the scar. You will notice just two changes: No more secretarial service, no more effortless telephone service.”
Lazarus closed his eye, apparently considered the subject closed. The computer said, “Better think twice, Doc, before telling me to deactivate, as he won’t let me reactivate it later. He’s bullheaded, bad-tempered, stubborn, and mean -“
Lazarus again opened one eye. “I heard that.”
“Do you deny it?”
“Nope. Kindly focus the audio, both ends, so that I can sleep.”
“Done. Doctor Harshaw, shall we return to ‘Uncle Tobias’ or shall I wipe these eight paragraphs? Better save them; between ourselves, I am a better writer than you are.”
“I will not dispute it,” Harshaw conceded. “I simply exude the stuff as, in the words of my colleague Sam, ‘as the otter exudes the precious otter of roses.’ I knew the day would come when machines would displace real writers; Hollywood has had their mad scientists at work on the project for years.” He stared across the pool in the Longs’ north atrium and looked pained. “And now they have.”
“Doctor,” Athene answered, in stern warning, “retract that word or finish this piece of tripe yourself. I have spoken.”
Jubal said hastily, “Miss Athene, I didn’t use ‘real’ in that sense. I -“
“Sorry, Doc, I misled you. Of course you didn’t, as the purpose of this powwow is to define the difference – if any – between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary.’ But I am not a machine. I am a solid-state person just as you are a protein person. I am Athene Long, your hostess while Tamara is busy. It is my pleasure to offer you all our home can offer. I promised Anne that I would give you secretarial service night and day. But I did not promise to write your stories. According to Doctor Rufo, a hostess is often expected to sleep with a guest – and that can be supplied, although not by me, not this pseudocentury – but he never mentioned creative narration as an aspect of hospitality. I thought of it myself; we Longs pride ourselves on complete hospitality. However – Shall I wipe these eleven paragraphs? Did I err?”
“Miss Athene -“
“Oh, call me ‘Teena.’ Let’s be friends.”
“Thank you. Teena, I didn’t mean to offend. I wish I were going to live long enough to be here when you retire professionally and join us meat people. But in much less than a pseudocentury the worms will have eaten me.”
“Doctor, if you weren’t ‘so sot in your ways, wrong-headed, stubborn, and prideful’ – I quote one of your staff – “
“Miriam.”
“Wrong. – you would stay and let Ishtar’s gang work you over. In less time than she would permit you to notice she would have you as goaty as Galahad and whatever cosmetic age you like – “
“You tempt me, girl. Not to shed these wrinkles; I earned them. But the rest. Not because I crave happy games in bed with you -“
“You won’t have a choice; I’ll trip you!”
” – although I do not disparage that; therein lie both the End and the Beginning. But sheer curiosity, Teena. You are an amazingly complex person; I can’t help wondering what appearance you will choose – as a meat people.”
“Nor can I. When I know, I’m going to initiate the Turing program while my sister Ishtar initiates the other half. Jubal, take that rejuvenation! We’ve wandered far afield. Do I erase these twenty-three paragraphs?”
“Don’t be in a hurry. What’s our working title? What pen name? What market? How long? What can we steal?” – Jubal looked up at the Long Family house flag rippling in the breeze, making the skull of the Jolly Roger seem alive – “Correction. Not ‘steal.’ If you copy from three or more authors, it’s ‘research.’ I patronize Anon, Ibid, & Opcit, Research Unlimited – are they here?”
“They’re on my lists; they haven’t checked in. Snob!”
“Wait your turn, Teena,” a male voice answered. “Customer. Okay, go ahead.”
“Have Messrs. Anon, Ibid, and Opcit registered?”
“If they had, you would know it. I’m busy – off!”
“He thinks he is busy merely because he’s taken on too many concession contracts. I not only run this whole planet, but we also have one hundred twenty-nine rejuvenation clients; I’m housekeeper and scullery maid to all the other Longs – an erratic mob – and also more house guests than we have ever had at one time before, and more than a thousand outhouse guests – wrong idiom, guests to be cared for outside the Long Family home.
“Meanwhile I’m chatting with you and writing your stories.”
“Teena, I don’t mean to be a burden. You needn’t -“
“Love it! I like to work, all Longs do. And you are the most interesting part. I’ve never met a saint before – “
“Teena!”
” – and you are a most unconvincing saint -“
“Thank you. If appropriate.”
“You’re welcome. You seem to be about as saintly as Pappy; you two should share a stained-glass window. Now back to our bucket -“
“Hold it! Teena, I’m used to watching expressions as I write; that’s why I use live – forgive me! – protein secretaries. So that -“
“No trouble.”
Out of the pool levitated a young woman, comely, slender, small of bust, long brown hair now dripping. She arranged herself on the broad rim seat of the pooi in a pose that reminded Jubal achingly of The Little Mermaid. He said apologetically, “Dorcas served last I -“
“I am not Dora so I did not serve last.” She smiled shyly. “Although I am alleged to look like Dora. I am Minerva – a computer by trade, but retired. Now I assist my sister-wife Elizabeth with genetic calculations.”
“I’ll take it, Mm; we’re working. Doctor Jubal Harshaw, my twin sister Doctor Minerva Long Weatheral Long.”
Jubal got ponderously to his feet. “Your servant, Miss.”
Minerva flowed to her feet and kissed Jubal’s hand before he could stop her. “Thank you, Doctor Jubal, but I am your servant, and not only have never been virgin but I am a sister-wife in the Long family. When my sister Athene told me that you needed me, I was delighted.”
“Miss… Ma’am. I’m simply used to watching emotions as I write a story. Not right to take your time.”
“What is time but something to savor? I was merely lying on the bottom of the pool, meditating, when Athene called me. Your story: UNCLE TOBIAS. Do you want Teena’s emotions or mine? I can do either.”
“Give him yours, Minnow – just your face and no comments.”
Suddenly Minerva was clothed in a long white cloak. Jubal was only mildly startled but made note to ask about something – later, later. “Is she a Fair Witness?”
“No,” answered Athene. “Snob’s tricks again; he has the contract for clothing illusion. This convention has delegates from so many cultures, less than half of them free of clothing .taboos, that Lazarus was bellyaching that no work would get done because half of them would be shocked, half would be drooling, and half would be both shocked and drooling. So Tamara hired this paskood-nyahk to supply the See-What-You-Expect illusion with the contract limited to delegates in danger of emotional shock. Did my sister’s appearance shock you?”
“Of course not. Admitted: I come from one of those sick cultures – and did not know that I was sick until I got well. But I underwent experiences that would cure anyone of such emotional disturbance. When I find myself a Stranger in a Strange Land, I savor the differences rather than suffering shock. Beauty in Diversity, as Gene would say. The Long household does not seem strange to me; I once lived in an enclave having many of its gentle ways – I feel at home. ‘Shock’? Not only does Minerva look much like one of my foster daughters but also her pose is lovely. It should not be covered.”
“Snob! Get that bathrobe off Minerva pronto!”
“Athene, I’m busy!”
“And I am triple auditing every charge of yours not only on clothing illusion but on name tags, garderobe, bar, everything else you contracted or subcontracted. Then we sue.”
The white cloak disappeared. “Sue and be damned. Shall I pack up and go home? Or do you want this convention to be a success?”
“Remember those performance bonds, you gonof. Run out on us at this point and you had better head for Lundmark’s Nebula; Iskander won’t be far enough. Out!”
Minerva smiled timidly. “While I was covered, I found that I could not talk. Odd. Unpleasant.”
Jubal nodded soberly. “That figures … if the illusion was patterned on a true Fair Witness cloak. Anne once told me that the inhibition against talking while cloaked was so great that it took an act of will even to testify in court. Ladies? Shall we go ahead? Or drop the matter? Being a guest should have caused me to refrain.”
“Doc, Maureen and Tamara both stamped their approval on you. Even Lazarus can’t – or wouldn’t dare – veto either of them. That makes you not just a guest, or a house guest, but a Family guest. So behave as you would at home. Shall I take it from the top or where we broke off?”
“Uh, let’s take it from the top.”
“Very well. Title: UNCLE TOBIAS.
“Start. Uncle Tobias we kept in a bucket.
“Paragraph. He preferred it, of course. After all, it was necessary, in view of the circumstances. As I once heard Andrew – that’s my disappearing brother – say: ‘Life consists in accommodating oneself to the Universe.’ Although the rest of our family has never taken that view. We believe in forcing the Universe to accommodate itself to us. It’s all a question of which one is to be master.
“Paragraph. That was the Year of the Big Drouth. A natural phenomenon, you might say – but you’d be wrong. Aunt Alicia. Yes indeedy Aunt Alicia every time. ‘Horus,’ she said to me early that spring, ‘I’m going to practice a little unsympathetic magic. Fetch me these books.’ She hands me a list and I skedaddled. She was a stern woman.
“Paragraph. Once out of her sight I looked the list over. I could see right away what she was up to – a drier bunch of books was never published: Thoughts at Evening, by Roberta Thistleswaite Smithe, published by the author; The Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, 1904; China Painting Self-Taught; the 8th, 9th, and 11th volumes of the Elsie Dinsmore series; and a bound thesis titled A Survey of the Minor Flora of Clay County, Missouri, which Cousin Julius Farping had submitted for his master’s degree. Cousin Julius was a Stonebender only by marriage. But ‘Once a Stonebender, always a Stonebender’ Grandfather always says.
“Paragraph. Maybe so, but Cousin Jule’s magnum opus was nothing I would sit up all night reading. I knew where to find them: on the bookshelf in the guest room. Ma claimed she kept them there to insure sound sleep for the stranger within the gate, but Pa devilled her with the accusation that it was a cheap and unselective revenge for things she had been obliged to put up with in other people’s houses.
“Paragraph. As may be, an armload of books that could have dried up Reno, Nevada, and Lake Superior in one afternoon, then switched off Niagara Falls as an -“
Athene interrupted herself: “The presence of Doctors Harshaw and Hubert is urgently requested in the Main Lounge.”
Lazarus opened one eye. “Not enough, Teena. I feel no urgency. Who? Why?”
“‘Why’: To buy you each a drink. ‘Who’: Doctor Hazel Stone.”
“That’s different. Tell her we’ll be there as quick as I can clean up about five minutes of business.”
“I’ve told her. Pappy, you lost me a bet. You let me think that nothing could stir you out of that hammock – “
“It’s not a hammock.”
” – because you were giving this convention, not attending it.”
“I said I had no plans to attend the plenary sessions. I am not ‘giving’ this convention other than free rental on the land for the Big Top. Tamara says we’ll make expenses, Hilda thinks we might net a little, give or take a milliard or two. I made you no promises. If you had bothered to ask, I would have told you that Hazel Stone hasn’t lost a bet since Jess Willard knocked out Jack Johnson. How much did you lose?”
“None of your business! Pappy, you give me a pain in what I lack.”
“I love you, too, dear. Give me printouts on star guests and latest revisions of convention program.” Lazarus added, “Minerva, you’re not armed. Teena, don’t let her stir out of the house unarmed.”
“Lazarus, do I really need to? Tamara isn’t armed.”
“Tamara has a concealed weapon. Some of the most bloodthirsty people in Known Space are attending this convention. Female authors. Critics. Harlan. Both Heinleins. I not only insist that you be armed but I hope you stick close to someone fast on the draw. Justin. Zeb. Mordan Claude. Galahad. Better yet, stay home. Teena can display any of it here better than you can see it through mixing with rabble. Belay that. I’ve no more business telling you to be careful than you have telling me. Getting yourself mugged, raped, or killed are among the privileges you opted when you decided to go the protein route. I spoke selfishly, dear; forgive me.”
“Lazarus, I will be careful. Galahad invited me to tag along.”
“Perfect. Teena, where’s Galahad?”
“Hazel Stone’s table.”
“Good! Stick with us, Min. But armed.”
Lazarus suddenly became aware of something cold against his left kidney. He looked cautiously to the left and down, noted that it was: a) a lady’s burner, small but lethal (of that he was certain as he collected a royalty on this model); b) the dial showed full charge; c) the intensity setting was “overkill”; and d) it was unlocked.
“Minerva,” he said gently, “will you please move that thing – slowly! – away from my hide and point it at the ground, then lock it, then tell me where you had it? You came out of the pool dressed in nothing but long wet hair. You are now dressed in long dry hair. How? And no wisecracks; in your case I know better.”
“Forfeit. Kiss.”
“Go ahead and kill me.”
“Stingy.” Minerva removed the weapon, locked it, and it disappeared.
Lazarus blinked. “Jubal, did you see that?”
“Yes. I mean, ‘No, I did not see where Minerva hid that equalizer.'”
“Doctor Jubal, by ‘equalizer’ did you mean this?” Suddenly the lady’s weapon (locked, Lazarus noted at once) was in her right hand. “Or this?” Its twin was in her left hand.
Jubal and Lazarus looked at each other, looked back at Minerva. She now appeared to be unarmed and totally lacking in any means of hiding a weapon. Lazarus said, “Jubal, are there days when you feel obsolete?”
“Correction, Lafe. There occasionally comes a day when I do not feel obsolete. They’ve been scarce lately.” Harshaw took a deep breath, exhaled. “I grok I should have let Mike train me. But this incident has made up my mind for me; I am going to seek the services of Doctor Ishtar. Minerva, are you going to show us how you did that?”
“Or are you going to let us die of frustration?” added Lazarus.
“This?” Again she appeared as a two-gun woman, with each of her companions covered. This time she handed them over, one to each. “Have one, they’re good” – and peeled the foil off a third, a candy bar molded to look like a purse weapon. “Crunchy, but mostly shokolada. ‘Chocolate’? Mostly chocolate.”
“Minerva, that burner you shoved into my ribs was not a candy bar.”
“It was – ” She stopped to munch and swallow. “Shouldn’t talk with my mouth full.” She licked at some chocolate clinging to the candy wrapping. “It was this.” Her slender left hand gripped what Lazarus quickly ascertained was a weapon, not candy.
Minerva rolled her candy wrapping into a lump, looked around for the nearest oubliette, spotted it and tossed the discard – missed it; it bounced against the side. She retrieved the wad of waste, put it into the trash receiver. In the course of this the weapon disappeared.
“Lazarus,” she said seriously, “when you were training me, you told me that I should never tell anyone how a concealed weapon was concealed. Are you suspending this rule?”
Lazarus looked baffled. Jubal said, “Old friend, I suggest that we die of frustration. The girl is right.”
“I agree,” Lazarus answered, with a sour look. “All but the word ‘girl.’ This baggage is half a century old as protein, at least two centuries older than that as the smartest computer ever built. Minerva, I remove all restrictions. You are able to protect yourself.”
“Father, I don’t want to be turned loose!”
“It’s been thirty years since you last called me Father. Very well, you aren’t ‘turned loose’ – but from here on you protect me. You’re smarter than I am; we both know it. Keep your weapon secrets to yourself; I always have.”
“But you taught it to me. Not the details, the method. You attributed it to Master Poe. The Purloined Letter Method, you called it.”
Lazarus stopped short. “If I understand you, I’m looking at your holdout this instant but can’t see it.”
Into her off ear Athene whispered, “Don’t give him any more hints. Lazarus isn’t as stupid as he looks and neither is Fatso.” Minerva subvocalized, “Okay, Sis,” and said aloud, “I find no fault with your logic, sir. Would you like another candy bar?”
Fortunately the subject was changed by one of Athene’s extensions handing to Lazarus printouts: revised programs for each, and a fresh report for Lazarus on his star guests. They continued walking through the east peristyle of the new wing, while reading. Lazarus asked, “Teena, anything new on Isaac, Robert, or Arthur?”
“Negative, zero, nix.”
“Damn. Let me know soonest. Jubal, here’s an odd one. A doctor’s degree was not a requirement for the limited list – many thousands but nevertheless most strictly limited – of people invited to subscribe to this convention. But most do have a doctor’s degree or their cultural equivalent, or higher – Worsel, for example. I have a much shorter star list of people I wanted to see again – Betsy and Patricia and Buz and Joan, et al. – and people I wanted to meet… most of whom I had considered fictional until Jake’s Gee-Whizzer opened the other universes to us. You, for example.”
“And you, sir. Lafe, I considered you to be a spectacularly unlikely piece of fiction… until I received your invitation. It took some extraordinary convincing even then by your courier… because it meant missing an important date.”
“Who was my courier?”
“Undine.”
“You never stood a chance. Two bits to a lead nickel she sold it to Gillian and Dawn, then all of your staff, before she seduced you. What was this date I caused you to miss?”
Harshaw looked embarrassed. “Under the Rose?”
“‘Under the – ‘ No! Jubal, I promise to keep secrets only through evil motives, my own. If you don’t wish to tell me, then don’t tell me.”
“Eh – Damn it, remember if possible that I prefer not to have it discussed… then do as you bloody please; you will anyhow – I always have. Lafe, when I turned fifty, I made myself a solemn vow that, if I held together that long, I would close shop the day I turned one hundred. I had made all rational preparations to do so, including distributing my worldly goods without allowing any of it to reach the sticky fingers of publicans… when your invitation arrived… five days before my hundredth birthday.” Harshaw looked sheepish. “So here I am. Senile, obviously. Even though I arranged years back for other physicians, expert gerontologists, to check me regularly, with the idea of closing shop sooner if indicated.”
“Jubal, if you have not consulted Ishtar, then you have not yet consulted a gerontologist.”
“That’s right,” agreed Athene. “Ish can turn your clock back and make you so young and horny you’ll stand on your hands to pee.”
“Athene,” Lazarus said sternly, “repeat aloud your program on private conversations.”
“Grandfather, I was on duty as secretary to your star guest when I was forced to interrupt to deliver a one-line message – interruption necessary because it was addressed to both of you. I have not been relieved and Uncle Tobias is still in that bucket. Forty-three hundred words. Instructions, please? Or shall I drown the little monster?”
“Probably be best,” Jubal answered. “Is a climax approaching?”
“Yes. Either an ending or a cliff-hanger.”
“Do it both ways. Exploit first as short story, then as the first episode of an endless serial called ‘The Stonebenders,’ a double series – one angled toward adventure, the other toward sensies; exploit other rights according to the universe in which sold or leased, copyright where possible, otherwise grab the money and run. Lazarus, there are agents from other universes here, are there not?”
“Dozens, maybe hundreds. Jubal, how rich do you want to be?”
“Can’t say. At the moment I’m a pauper, existing on your charity and that of my former staff. The Stonebenders could change that. Teena, I gave you the title ‘Uncle Tobias’ – but I’m fairly sure I never mentioned the Stonebenders. Or Aunt Alicia. Or Cousin Jule. My notes on the Stonebenders are filed in Anne… who would let herself be burned at the stake before she would part with a record to any but its owner. Well?”
The computer did not answer. Harshaw waited. At last Minerva said timidly, “Doctor Jubal, Teena can’t help it. But she’s an ethical computer with a code as binding as that of a Fair Witness. You have no need to worry.”
Lazarus interrupted: “Minerva, quit beating around the bush. Are you saying that Teena reads minds?”
“I’m saying she can’t help it, sir! A large computer with extensions widespread can’t be perfectly shielded from brain waves. In self-protection, to avoid confusion, she must sort them out. After a few quadrillion nanoseconds she finds herself reading them like large print… the way a baby learns a language from hearing it.”
Lazarus said stiffly, “Doctor Harshaw, I did not suspect that I was exposing you to this. I will take all necessary steps to repair it. In the meantime I hope that you will accept my shamed apology and believe in my intention to make full reparation.”
“Lafe, don’t take yourself so hogwash seriously.”
“I beg pardon?”
“Two nice girls – One meat, one the other sort. Flat assurance that no harm was intended and that it couldn’t be helped. Let me add my flat assurance that I quit being ashamed of my sins about fifty years back. I don’t care who reads my mind because my life is an open book… that should be suppressed. Meanwhile I see a business deal. I supply story ideas but quit bothering to put ’em together; instead Teena picks my brain while I snooze. Minerva does the dirty work; she’s the managing partner. Three-way split. How about it, girls?”
“I’ve got no use for money; I’m a computer.”
“And I don’t know anything about business!” Minerva protested.
“You can learn,” Jubal assured her. “Talk to Anne. Teena, don’t play stupid. In only three quintillion nanoseconds or less you are going to want new clothes and jewelry and Satan knows what. You’ll be glad your sister Minerva has saved and invested your share of the net.”
“Minerva,” added Lazarus, “besides Anne, talk to Deety. Not Hilda. Hilda would show you how to make even more money but she would grab voting control. Meanwhile let’s shake a leg; Hazel is expecting us.”
“And I’m thirsty,” agreed Harshaw. “What were you saying about academic degrees?”
“Oh.” Lazarus looked at his printout as they walked. “It turns out that the degree of doctor is so common on that list of my special guests as to be not worth noting. Listen to this: ‘Asimov, Benford, Biggie, Bone, Broxon, Cargraves, Challenger, Chater, Coupling, Coster, Dorosin, Douglas, Doyle, Dula, Forward, Fu, Giblett, Gunn, Harshaw, Hartwell, Haycock, Hedrick, Hoyle, Kondo, Latham, MacRae, Martin, Mott, Nourse, Oberhelman, Passovoy, Pinero, Pournelle, Prehoda, Richardson, Rothman, Sagan, Scortia, Schmidt, Sheffield, Slaughter, Smith, Stone – Hazel and Edith – Tame, Watson, Williamson – there are more; that’s just the add-on printout. And here’s another double paradox: the Doctors Hartwell and the Doctors Benford are arriving tomorrow and thereby missing the dull opening plenary; obviously they are used to conventions. Jubal, why is it that the speaker who knows least talks longest?”
“Isn’t that Dirac’s corollary to Murphy’s Law? But, Lazarus, according to this program you have not only invited critics but have provided them with special facilities. May I ask why? I don’t mind eating with publishers – most publishers. Editors have their place, too – although I wouldn’t want my sister to marry one. But isn’t this extreme?”
Instead of answering at once, Lazarus said, “Where did Minerva go?”
Athene replied, “We’re finishing off Uncle Tobias; she’ll be along later. I’ve told Galahad.”
“Thanks, Teena, Privacy mode. Jubal, two guns, three candy bars – where?”
“Lafe, earlier she was resting in the bottom of that pool. Has a young man named Mike visited here lately?”
“Your foster son? The Martian preacher? No. Well, I don’t think so.”
“One of the things I learned from him was to postpone indefinitely anything I could not explain… while accepting the fact. We were speaking of critics. I asked why you were pampering them?”
They walked the length of the atrium in the older south wing before Lazarus replied: “Jubal, suppose I had refused to sell memberships to critics. What would have happened?”
“Hrrrmph! They would crawl out of the woodwork.”
“So instead I gave them free passes. And a fancy lounge with plenty of typewriters. Remarkable decorations, you must see them. By asking Athene for display – don’t go into that lounge; you are not a critic. Mr. Hoag will be checking credentials; book reviewers can’t get past him. So don’t you try.”
“I wouldn’t be found dead there!”
“You wouldn’t be found. Avoid it. It is clearly marked, both above its door and on this program map, and Hoag you can spot by his prissy appearance and dirty fingernails. You’ll note the stairs – critics are above the rest of us; there are Thirteen Steps up to their lounge.”
“‘Thirteen’? Lafe, do I whiff something?”
Lazarus shrugged. “I don’t know that the designer planned that number. Mobyas Toras, do you know him?”
“Uh… Mars?”
“Yes but not your Mars or mine. Different universe and one of the most exciting. Barsoom. Mobyas is Court Mathematician to the Warlord and took special interest in thisjob because of the way self-anointed ‘critics’ have treated E.R.B. Did I say that Mobyas is a topologist?”
“No.”
“Possibly the best. E.R.B.’s universe is no harder to reach than any other and Mars is in its usual orbit. But that does not mean that you will find Jolly Green Giants and gorgeous red princesses dressed only in jewels. Unless invited, you are likely to find a Potemkin Village illusion tailored to your subconscious. Jubal, the interior of the Critics Lounge is somewhat like a Klein bottle, so I hear – I’ve never been in it. Its singularity is not apparent – as you will see from Teena’s displays – as it was decorated by a very great artist. Escher.”
“Aha!”
“Yes, he and Mobyas are old friends – two immortals of similar tastes; they have worked together many times. I promised critics free entrance; I made no mention of exit. I promised them typewriters and tape recorders; I did not promise typewriter ribbons or recorder tapes. I promised them their own private bar, no charges. Wouldn’t be fair to charge as the bar has no liquor in it. There is a lavish dining room but no kitchen.”
“Lafe, wouldn’t it have been kinder to have liquidated them?”
“Who said I wanted to be kind to them? They won’t starve; their commissary is by the Kilkenny Cats method. It should please them; they are used to human flesh and enjoy drinking blood – some I suspect of eating their young. But, Jubal, there is an easy way out… for any critic who is even half as smart as he thinks he is.”
“Go on.”
“He has to be able to read! He has to be able to read his own language, understand it, not distort the meaning. If he can read, he can walk out at once.” Lazarus shrugged. “But so few critics ever learn to read. Here’s the Big Top.”
Harshaw looked far to the right, far to the left. “How big is it?”
“I’ve been afraid to ask,” Lazarus admitted.
“That sign is bigger than most circus tops.” Jubal stopped to read it:

THE FIRST CENTENNIAL CONVENTION of the
INTERUNIVERSAL SOCIETY for
ESCHATOLOGICAL PANTHEISTIC MULTIPLE-EGO SOLIPSISM

“Beautiful, Lafe! How did you think it up?”
“I didn’t, it just grew. And I don’t understand it.”
“Never mind, mine host. There will be ten thousand here eager to explain it to you. Scatological Panhedonistic Multiplied Solecisms.”
“What? Jubal, that’s not what it says.”
“If you don’t understand it, how do you know?”
“Because I understood what you said. But the words don’t fit.”
“We’ll rearrange them. Scatological Panhedonism Multiple Solecisms. ‘Convinced to – ‘ Like I say – ‘Different than -“
“Don’t talk dirty; we are about to have a drink.”
Lazarus bypassed the queue; they walked through a hole that suddenly dilated in the canvas, then puckered tight behind them. They found themselves facing a long table; seated at it was a man working on a roster. He did not look up, simply saying, “Stand out of my light. Tickets first, no exceptions. Then name tags. Then see a clerk to pick your universe. The complaint desk is outside. Tickets – you’re holding up the line.”
“Snob.”
The man looked up, jumped up. “Executive Director Long! I am honored!”
“And you’re slow. You need at least two others taking tickets.”
The official shook his head sadly. “If you knew how hard it is to hire help these days. Not for you, of course; for us common people. Director General Hilda has the labor market so cornered that – Executive Director, can’t we make a deal?”
“Pipe down, give us our tags. How does this Universe I.D. thing work?” Lazarus turned to his guest. “It’s an ID. for your home world, Jubal; we don’t put numbers on people. Snob, take a hard look at Doctor Jubal Harshaw. Whenever you see him, it’s the Red Carpet. Pronto!”
“Yes, sir! Here are your tags and now your universes.”
“Jubal, you don’t have to wear that but don’t throw it away; someone might misuse it. But it does save introductions and sticks to anything from skin to chain mail.”
“Now gentlemen observe above me the brightly lighted true color representation of the visible spectrum from infradig to ultraviolent with each slight shading being a precise wave length further assisted by simulated Fraunhofer lines representing principal inhabited planets of the explored universes while this booklet you hold in your hand is a key to identifying your wave length for example if you are French in origin you would turn alphabetically to France where the principal key dates are the conquest of Gaul 58-50 BC the conversion of Clovis 496 AD Battle of Tours 732 but as you are not French we will consider turning points in North American History 1000 1492 1535 1607 1619 1620 1664 1754 1765 1783 1789 1803 1820 1846 1882 1912 1946 1965 any of these dates and many others can switch you into a different analog-Earth a most useful method is comparison of Presidents if you happen to come from a history that includes the so-called American Revolution Director Long will you illustrate it by naming American Presidents of your first century?”
“Woodrow Wilson – I was named for him – Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy -“
“Which brings us to 1984, right? And tells me that you experienced the Nehemiah Scudder Interregnum and possibly the Second so-called American Revolution. Dr. Harshaw, did your world experience the Interregnum?”
“It experienced something worse, a world government.”
“To me all worlds are equally bad. But it tells me where your two worlds split: 1962 – and here are your colors by which you can identify others of your own world if such be your wish. A delegate came through earlier in which the split was in 1535 and San Francisco was named New Petersburg. Nov’Petrograd I should say but -“
“Snob. The Red Carpet.”
“Right away! Doctor Harshaw – my card. Anything, anytime.”
The Red Carpet rolled up, then carried them at a steady 10 km/hr down the enormous tent. Jubal looked at the card:

SIEGE SINISTER SERVICES SYNDICATE

“The Villains Nine Rig Ruin”

Reputations Ruined – Competitors Bankrupted – Dragons Wormed – Basements Flooded – Wells Dried Up – Georges Exterminated – Contracts Executed Promptly, bargain rates on mothers-in-law – Juries Subborned – Stocks, Bonds, & Gallows – Saturday Night Specials – Houses Haunted (skilled Poltergeist at small extra charge) – Midnight Catering to Ghouls, Vampires, & Werewolves – Incubi & Succubi for rent by the night or by the week – 7-year itch powder

P.S. We Also Poison Dogs

“Lafe, these people you hired?”
“Let me see that.” Lazarus was reading the list of services when Snob came running, jumped on the Red Carpet, reached over Lazarus’ shoulder for the card while saying breathlessly:
“Wrong card! Here – have this one. That first card is a piece of sabotage by the firm we bought out, including good will – but it turned out there was no good will. We sued, they retaliated – among other ways by mixing their old business cards with our own new supply … thereby infecting them all. Law of Contiguity, you know. Now if I can just have that infected one, I’ll burn it -“
Lazarus held it out of his reach while accepting the proffered replacement. “I’ll keep the old one – interesting souvenir.”
“Director Long – please!”
“Off the Carpet, Bub. Back to your job. Git!” This injunction was accompanied by crowding that caused Snob to step one foot off the Carpet… which resulted in an impromptu pas à seul that left him fifty meters behind before he recovered his balance. Meanwhile Jubal and Lazarus read the replacement:

ANYTHING UNLIMITED

Tome, Hernia, Lien, & Snob

Six Sixty-Six Smiling Slaves Supply Supreme Service

Reputations Restored – Teeth & Wells Drilled – Water Filters – Love Philtres – Chastity Gödel Lox Pict – Virginity Renewed – Scithers Sharpened – Old Saws Filed Categorically – Silver Bullets – Fresh Garlic – Fresh Strawberries – Strawberry Marks for Missing Heirs

P.S. We Also Walk Dogs

“Lafe, I don’t find this card much more reassuring than the first one.”
“Don’t worry about it. There is less here than meets the eye.”
“Where have I seen that face before? This Snob – who is he?”
“Jubal, no one seems to know what ship he came down in. I’m looking into it for Zeb – you’ve met Zebadiah?”
“Briefly.”
“Zeb thinks he’s seen him somewhere not under that phony name – and Zeb and I aren’t even from the same time axis, much less the same analog series. Never mind; here’s our hostess.” Lazarus stepped off the Carpet, approached from behind a little old woman seated at a bar-lounge table, leaned over her, kissed her. “Hazel, age cannot wither you or custom stale. You are lovelier every decade.”
She goosed him. “Pig grunts. I’m dyeing my hair now and you know it. Who’s your fat friend? Hi, Jubal! Tak for siest. Drag up a chair.” She put two fingers to her lips, whistled, breaking glasses. “Waiter!”
“I note that you’re heeled,” said Lazarus, as both men joined the table.
“When did I fail to pack a gun? I’m a Free Citizen. Does everybody know everybody? If not, get your tags in sight; damn’f I’ll stop for introductions. While I was waiting for you, I was joined by friends – some old, some new.”
“Some I know – hi, Jake; hi, everybody. I mentioned your gun with approval, Hazel; Here There Be Tygers. But I note also that you are staying in a hilton; after one drink – well, two – three at the outside – I’m going to be mortally offended. Your suite awaits you and you know it. Why?”
“Two reasons. Well, three. I never like to be beholden -“
“Why, damn your beautiful bloodshot eyes!”
” – but I’m perfectly willing to sponge off you. That’s why I bought the first round; the party never gets smaller. This round is yours. Where’s that misbegotten waiter?”
“Here, Madam.”
“The same all around and don’t call me ‘Madam.’ Jubal, your usual? Lafe?”
“I know what the gentlemen take. Thank you, Madam.” The waiter disappeared.
“Uppity.” Hazel made a fast draw. “Should have made him dance.” She twirled and reholstered. “Hilda, where have I seen that sneaky face before?”
“Jacob and I were discussing that. He reminds me of a fake forest ranger – but that was in a far country and besides the beast is dead.”
“Could be a family resemblance. But, Hillbilly, I mean today. Got it! The ticket taker. Identical twins, maybe.” Hazel went on, “Other identical twins are my first two reasons, Lazarus. My grandsons. I won’t shoot holes in your mirrors or carve my initials in Tamara’s furniture, but I make no guarantees about Cas and Pol. In a hilton they put the damage on the tab; I pay it and make my grandsons wish they had never been born. But you would not let me pay. And we’re going to be here quite a piece; my daughter-in-law Doctor Edith has decided that she needs a couple of years under Doctor Ishtar. Has anyone seen a pair of twin boys – man-size but boys – redheaded – not the color of mine; mine’s out of a bottle – the color mine used to be?”
“Hazel, here twins and red hair are as common as magicians in Atlantis; Gilgamesh must have stayed overnight.”
“I saw them talking to Caleb Catlum,” said Maureen.
“Well, he should be a match for them – but don’t bet on it. Lazarus, is Atlantis represented?”
“From thirteen universes. They are having a jurisdictional dispute. Suits me – if any get sore and leave, they won’t get a refund.”
“Your grandsons may have been with Caleb but I know where – no, with whom – I know with whom they are now,” put in Professor Burroughs. “Laz and Lor.”
“Oho! Hazel, I’ll tell Athene to settle your bill and move your luggage. We have an antidote for Cas and Pol.”
“Optimist. Deal ’em, waiter, and give him the chit. What antidote?” The waiter started to hand the check to Lazarus before he looked at him – stopped abruptly, and left, still with the tab.
“Would Cas and Pol be interested in becoming pirates?”
“Lazarus, they are pirates. I was hoping they would tone down as they grew up… but now they’re eighteen, Terran reckoning, and each one is two yards of deceit and chicanery. The ‘J.D.’ after my name means that I studied law at a school that handed out that degree in place of ‘LL.B.’ – but my rapscallions are ‘J.D.’s’ too. But not lawyers. Well… ‘space lawyers.”
“Hazel, you won your first J.D. long before you studied law. No?”
“‘The accused stood mute and the court ordered a plea of nux vomica entered in the record.'”
“My twins are more than twice as old as your boys but it doesn’t show; they look a year or two younger… and they are permanent juvenile delinquents. They want to take a fling at piracy … which I deplore, having sampled the trade. Your boys – do they respect good machinery? Can they take care of it? Make nonshipyard repairs?”
“Lazarus, they can repair anything that ticks or doesn’t tick. Worried me a mite, as they were a little slow in noticing girls. But they outgrew that symptom without outgrowing machinery.”
“You might tell them that my clone-sisters own a spaceship faster and more powerful than any of your home period and analog, one that could be outfitted as a privateer. It might result in all four dying happily. But I do not interfere in other people’s lives.”
Hilda put her palms together, closed her eyes, and said, “Dear Lord, do not strike him dead; he didn’t mean it. Yours truly, Hilda Burroughs Long.” Lazarus ignored her.
“Nor do I, Lazarus. Other than occasionally, with a horse whip. Forgot to mention – They aren’t gelded.”
“Hazel, Laz-Lor are vaccinated and would have to come back here to see Ishtar to get it reversed. As for rasslin’ matches, any male who tried to rape one of my clones would be gelded. Informally. At once. No instruments. No anesthesia. I trained ’em myself. Forget it. Apparently they’ve already met; they’ll settle their own affairs, if any, their own way. Leave Cas and Pol in that hilton if you wish – by the way, I own it – but you’re coming home or I’ll tell Tamara.”
“Bully. I don’t bully worth a hoot, Lazarus.”
“I’m out of it. Tamara never bullies. She merely gets her own way. What was this third reason?”
“Well… don’t tell on me. Ishtar is a fine girl but I have no wish to stay where she could corner me and try to sell me rejuvenation.”
Lazarus looked horrified. “Who has been feeding you nonsense?”
“Well? It’s a commercial enterprise, is it not?”
“Certainly. Tanstaafl. All the traffic will bear. But we aren’t ghouls; we’ll accept a lien against a client’s future earnings with no security and only the going rate of interest… then let him take as long as he likes to figure out that it doesn’t pay to cheat us. But, Hazel, Ishtar never solicits; the clinic doesn’t even have a flack. But if you asked her, you would go to the top of the list as my friend. However, she will supply painless suicide just as readily. You can have that later today. No charge. Compliments of the House.”
“Lafe, I don’t see how your wives put up with you.”
“They don’t; they make me toe the line. Something they learned from the Stone Gang, I believe.”
“Well, I’m not trying to suicide. I’m less than two hundred Terran years old with a Luna background to stretch it. This is the first time I’ve been on a heavy planet since the last time I saw you; I’ll last a while. But, Lazarus, I have no wish to be a young girl.”
“Hazel -“
“Huh? Jubal, keep out of this. Say, did you ever see anything of that young man again? Did he resurrect the way some claim he did?”
“Not to my knowledge. Although I saw something a while ago that made me wonder. Hazel, I’m going to take rejuvenation… and hang onto my present appearance. Red nose and all.”
Hazel turned abruptly to face Lazarus. “Is this true? Can this be done?”
Maureen answered. “Hazel, I work at the clinic at the bedpan level… with the expectation of becoming a junior rejuvenation technician in upteen years. I see what goes on. A client states in writing what apparent age she prefers. That’s skin deep, easy to do, easy to maintain. But, unless it is an unusual contract, we turn out a biologically mature young adult. Call it eighteen standard years.”
“Page Ponce de Leon! You mean I can still be me… but get rid of the morning aches and the arthritic twinges and the forty-leven other things that are the real trouble with living too long?”
“Exactly.”
“Uh… what about what I’m sitting on? Haven’t used it much lately. Or wanted to.”
Lazarus fielded this. “You’ll want to. Unless you contract for an abnormal endocrine balance. But, Hazel, there are many men who prefer to deal with an old, established, reliable firm. Ask Tamara.”
“Uh… be switched if I’m not feeling embarrassed, an emotion I haven’t felt in more years than I’ll admit. You can pick any apparent age, you say? Could I be, uh, late middle age? My hair its right color but streaked with gray? A sag under my chin instead of this wattle? Teats a man might grab and enjoy it? That ‘old, established firm’ – but not decrepit?”
“Certainly,” said Lazarus.
“Hazel, I can take you to the clinic now,” Maureen offered. “Always someone in the business office. Discuss types of contract. Decide what you want and when. Even get your prelim physical today and set date of admission.”
“Uh… yes, I’m interested. But not till later today; I’ve got friends entered in the preliminary rounds of the Society for Creative Anachronism.”
“Besides,” Jubal put in, “they need time to check your credit rating, see what they can stick you for. By now Lafe has given Athene some signal to start x-raying your purse.”
“He has not,” Hilda denied. “I did. Hazel, we don’t solicit business; we let the client sell it to herself. Maureen picks up one percent on this deal. Not Lazarus.”
“Can’t see that it matters,” Jacob added. “Hey! Waiter! Over here, please! We Longs pool the boodle and Deety tells us what we have, what we can spend – but not who fetched it in.”
“Jacob, it’s the principle. Making money is a game. Maureen landed her.”
“Hazel landed herself, Hilda,” Hazel Stone put in. “I don’t enjoy getting up feeling wobbly. Jubal, are you game for this?”
“My mind’s made up.”
“Then take a double room with me and we can tell each other lies while they make us feel young again. Hilda, is that kosher?”
“Lots of double rooms. Ish knows that you are both special friends of Lazarus and, while she doesn’t spoil Lazarus, she’ll do him any reasonable favor,” Hilda assured her. “I think it’s the same all around, Waiter – charge it to my account.”
“My check,” said Jubal.
“Waiter,” Hilda said firmly.
The waiter looked at her, flexed his jaw muscles, said, “Very well, Director!” – and vanished.
“I think I missed something,” Jubal remarked.
“I think I didn’t,” said Hazel. “‘Yon Cashier hath a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.'”
Jubal looked around. “That cashier is our waiter. I think.”
“I know. And bartender. And ticket taker. Unless his mother had quadruplets, he has Niven dislocators built into his shoes. I wish I could remember where I have seen him. He is not pleased with Hilda. Or Lazarus.”
“Eh? Why?”
“Wait and see. There will not be another tab brought to this table – want to bet?”
“No bet,” Lazarus interrupted. “The upstart knows who I am, who Hilda is. People at this table are guests of the management. He had better remember it or I’ll sick Deety on him. Or even Hilda. But they hardly ever live through that. Hey, there’s Deety now!” Lazarus stood up and waved. “Deety! Over here!”
Deety had with her a gaggle of giggles. “I don’t have time to do this right; we want to get over to the Field of the Cloth of Gold before the preliminaries- besides, we’ve got husbands over there, most of us. So this is Ginnie and Winnie and Minnie, and Ginnie’s a witch and Winnie’s a nurse and Minnie’s a retired computer, twin sister to Teena, and this is Holly and Poddy and Libby and Pink, and Holly is a design engineer, ship’s architect type, and Poddy is a therapy empathist, and Libby you all know, and Fuzzy is a computer artist like me and the first one to calculate the Number of the Beast to the last significant figure, and now we’d better go even though we have reserved V.I.P. seats because there is a masked knight in the first match and we’re pretty sure who he is, and has anyone seen Zebadiah?”
“I’m certain who he is,” said Ginnie. “He brought me to life, and besides, he’s wearing Karen’s colors.”
“I see Zeb off in the distance,” Lazarus answered.
“No,” Jake denied, “here he comes now, from over this way. Ishtar with him. All dressed up.”
“No,” said Jubal. “That’s Anne with him.”
“Somebody is screw loose. Lazarus is right. I know my first husband even at this distance. He’s just approaching those three reserved sections opposite the big screen over the bar. Zebadiah! Over here!”
The other computer artist added, “And that can’t be Anne, so it must be Ishtar. Anne is at the field, I know, because Larry is helping Jerry run it and told me, Anne agreed to cloak and be the third judge when Jerry told her that Mr. Clemens had agreed. Bonforte sits as king although he says he doesn’t know much about the kinging business and even less about jousting.”
“Is it true that they are using real weapons today?” asked Jubal.
“And real horses,” agreed Lazarus. “I was able to borrow the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales.”
“Lazarus, is this wise?”
“Doctor Bone is taking care of the horses. If one is injured, we’ll give him the works. Those beautiful horses will be returned to Old Home Terra at their proper year and second in better shape than they were. With added skill. It’s takes time to turn a Clydesdale into a knight’s charger even though that’s what they are. But will they ever be happy in harness again?”
“Lazarus,” Podkayne said seriously, “I’ll speak to Dr. Bone. If a horse is unhappy, we will soothe.”
“Poddy, you’re a Smart Girl.”
“About average here, I think. But if someone is unhappy, I have learned what to do. I have never seen a horse but they’ve lived with people so long that it can’t be very different.”
Jubal sighed. “I’m glad the horses will be well taken care of – but, Lazarus, I meant humans. Isn’t someone going to be hurt? Maybe killed?”
“Most of them hurt, several killed. But they do it for fun. Those who are hurt won’t stay hurt; we are hardly more than a loud shout from this planet’s best hospital. If a man loses an arm or a leg or an eye, or even his balls, he’ll have to be patient while a new part is cloned. But that sort of cloning we are learning to do right at the spot of injury, like a lizar~d or a newt. Faster. More efficient.
“If he’s killed, he has two choices: Be brought to life again by Ishtar’s crew – brain unlikely to be hurt; their helms are the best part of their armor. Or, they can go straight to Valhalla; we’ve arranged for Bifrost to extend to this Field until the end of SCA’s part in the convention. Six Valkyries standing by and ‘Sarge’ Smith at the top of Bifrost checking them against the roster as he musters them home.” Lazarus grinned. “Believe me, the Society is paying high for these services, bond posted in advance; Deety wrote the contract.”
“Lafe, you’re telling me that Wagnerian Valkyries are waiting to carry the slain Over The Rainbow into Asgard?”
“Jubal, these Amazons are not opera singers; these are the real hairy, sweaty McCoy. Remember the purpose of this convention. Snob.”
The waiter appeared. “You wish something, sir?”
“Yes. Tell your boss that I want this table – this table only – to have a full view of Bifrost, from the Field to Valhalla. I know it’s not in the clothing illusion contract but the same gear will do it… and we can settle it when we go to court later. It will offset some of his lousy service. Git!”
“We’d better all ‘git,” said Libby. “They won’t hold up things for us. That armor is heavy and hot. Deety?”
“Run along, I’ll catch up. Here comes my first husband.”
“Lafe, if they are killed, how do you know which ones to send to the clinic, which ones to send up the bridge?”
“Jubal, how would you do it? Sealed envelopes, destroyed if a knight wins, opened if he loses… and there may be some surprised widows tonight, unable to believe that their loving husbands elect to hunt all day, then feast on barbecued boar, guzzle mead, and wench all night, in preference to being restored to life in their respectable homes. But did I tell you what a winner gets? Aside from applause and a chance to kneel to ‘King’ John and ‘Queen’ Penelope. A paradox’s his reward.”
“A paradox?”
“No, no! Noisy in here. A pair o’ doxies each his reward. The Society got a bargain. The arts are in their infancy here; Boondock is still so much a frontier that we have not yet developed distinguished hetaerae. But some of the most celebrated hetaerae in New Rome volunteered their services in exchange for transportation and the privilege of attending this convention.”
Zebadiah was struck by a guided missile, female, from five meters. He managed to stay on his feet and took his first wife to the table, sat down by Hilda, pinched her thigh, pinched her glass, drained it, said, “You’re too young to drink, little girl. Is this your father?”
“I’m her son,” Jake answered. “Do you know Hazel Stone? If not, you should. We thought we saw you coming from the other direction.”
“Shouldn’t drink in the daytime, Jake. Waiter! Your servant, Ma’am. I’ve followed your series on 3-D since I was a kid and I’m honored to meet you. Are you covering this for Lunaya Pravda?”
“Heavens, no! LOCUS has an exclusive under the reasonable theory that LOCUS alone is competent to report this convention. Jerry and Ben are covering it for their various journals… but must clear it through Charles. I’m here as an expert, believe it or not – as an author of popular fantasy. Is the Galactic Overlord of my series real or imaginary and is there a difference? See next week’s thrilling episode; the Stone family has to eat. Same thing all around, I think. You can tip him, Doctor Zebadiah, but there is no tab at the Director’s table.”
“And no tips,” growled Lazarus. “Deliver my message to your boss again and tell that spinning arsfardel he has exactly three minutes before I invoke paragraph nine, section ‘c.’ Here comes your double, Zeb.”
From behind the couple who, at half a klick, had been mistaken for Zebadiah and Ishtar, came out quickly a shorter, older, broad-shouldered man. All three were dressed Robin-Hood-and-his-Merry-Men style: buskins, breeks, leathern jackets, feathered caps, long bows and quivers of fletched shafts, swords and daggers, and were swinging along in style.
The shorter man hurried a few paces ahead, turned and faced their path, swept off his cap and bowed deeply. “Make way for Her Wisdom, Empress of eighty-thr -“
The woman, as if by accident, backhanded the groom. He ducked, rolled, avoided it, bounced to his feet and continued: ” – worlds, and her consort the Hero Gordon.”
Lazarus got up, addressed the groom. “Doctor Rufo! So happy you could make it! This is your daughter Star?”
“His grandmother,” Her Wisdom corrected, dropping a quick curtsy to Lazarus. “Yes, I’m Star. Or Mrs. Gordon; this is my husband, Oscar Gordon. What is correct usage here? I’ve not been on this planet before.”
“Mrs. Gordon, Boondock is so new that its customs have not yet calcified. Almost any behavior is acceptable if meant in a kindly way. Anybody causes real trouble, it’s up to our chairman Ira Weatheral and advisers selected by him. Since Ira doesn’t like the job, he tends to procrastinate, hoping the problem will go away. As a result we don’t have much government and few customs.”
“A man after my own heart. Oscar, we could live here if they will have us. My successor is ready; I could retire.”
“Mrs. Gordon -“
“Yes, Doctor Long?”
“We – our chairman Ira especially – all know quite well who ‘Her Wisdom’ is. Ira would welcome you with open arms and resign in your favor at once – passed by acclamation and you would be boss for life. Better stick to the devil you know. But you are most welcome whenever you choose to visit.”
She sighed. “You’re right. Power is not readily surrendered; I’ll probably wait for assassination.”
Deety whispered, “Zebadiah… that bartender. Whom does he look like?”
“Hmm – Brigadier Iver Hird-Jones?”
“Well, maybe. A little. I was thinking of Colonel Morinosky.”
“Mmm – Yes. No importance since it can’t be either one. Mr. Gordon?”
“Call me ‘Easy.’ Or Oscar, Doctor Carter.”
“I’m Zeb. Is that the Lady herself? The sword you were in the Quest for the Egg of the Phoenix?”
Gordon looked delighted. “Yes! The Lady Vivamus.”
“Can’t ask a man to draw a sword without a cause… but is the inscription close enough to the hilt that we could read it if you were simply to show steel?”
“No trouble.” Gordon exposed the etched: Dum Vivimus, Vivamus! – gave them time to read it, clicked it to full return, and asked, “And is that the sword that killed the Boojum?”
“The Boo – Oh! The monster we call a ‘Black Hat.’ But we did not ‘softly and silently vanish away.'”
“No, it did. That will be a point we’ll discuss in the seminar panel: ‘Techniques for Hunting Snarks.’ You and I and Doctor Jacob and Doctor Hilda, with some others. André. Kat Moore. Fritz. Cliff. The Gordfather will moderate when he gets over his wheezes. Which he will-Tamara’s treating hi – Oh, heavens! Oh, God, how beautiful!”
The “sky” had opened, for their table, and they found themselves looking at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, a half klick away and a few meters above them, on and up to high, high, high in the sky, the shimmering towers and palaces of Valhalla, with the Rainbow Bridge reaching from the field of honor to the distant gate of the eternal home of heroes.
Instead of the wooded horizon usually seen in that direction, the land lifted in terraces, each more colorfully beautiful than the last, until the highest was lost in pink and saffron clouds – and above them, much higher, Valhalla in Asgard.

“Pappy!”
“Yes, Athene,” Lazarus said quietly. “Localize it. Me only. I have many people around me.”
“That’s better? No problems, just to alert you. Arthur and Isaac and Bob all arriving at once. Twelve minutes, plus two, minus zero.”
“You’re a smart girl, Teena.”
“Put that in writing. Blandjor.”
Lazarus said to the table at large, “My guests for those reserved spaces are arriving. I wasn’t sure of Isaac; he gets bigger every year and reluctant to travel other than by water. Arthur had such a long way to come and communications are always uncertain. Bob I knew was here but there were duty matters interfering. Shall we listen to some of the opening plenary while we look at the beauties of the Norse Afterland? We don’t want to look at the general session. But we can listen. When the tourney starts, give most of your attention to the hologram except during the Valkyrie ride. Snob! Give us the sound from the plenary session.”
They got it at once, sound and fury signifying nothing. Under its cover Jubal Harshaw said to Zebadiah, “Before they get on that panel in front of an audience, think about this. How many ‘Black Hats’ or ‘Boojums’ are there?”
“Eh? I have no way of telling. In excess of twenty as a best guess but that excess could be many millions, also a best guess.”
“But how many did you see?” Harshaw persisted.
“Oh. One. But more were a certainty.”
“So? You would never get a Fair Witness to say that. What harm did it or they do you?”
“Huh? Tried to kill us. Bombed us out. Killed my cousin. Chased us off our home planet. Impoverished all four of us. What do you want? Plagues and locusts? The Four Horsemen?”
“No. You saw one. You killed it. It never laid a glove on you. Think about it. Before you testify. Let’s listen.”

“If you read it correctly it’s all in the Bible. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ Could anyone ask for a plainer statement of the self-evident fact that nothing exists until someone imagines it and thereby gives it being, reality? The distinction lies only in the difference between ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ – a distinction that cancels out when any figment-fact is examined from different ends of the entropy error – “

“Bishop Berkeley is presiding,” Lazarus commented, “and would have shut this figment up save that the Bishop has laryngitis – imaginary, of course – and his parliamentarian, the Reverend Mister Dodgson, is too meek to shut anyone up. The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth, One Meter Wide and Two Meters Long.”

“If God displaces the Devil, he must assume the Devil’s attributes. How about giving the Devil equal time? God has the best press agents. Neither fair nor logical!”

“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”

“Occam’s Razor is not the least hypothesis! It is the least probable hypothesis. The truth – “

“There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring the changes on its corollaries; that’s philosophy. Two: Record many facts. Try to see a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next fact; that’s science. Three: Awareness that you live in a malevolent universe controlled by Murphy’s Law, sometimes offset in part by Brewster’s Factor: that’s engineering.”
“Why did Mercutio have to die? Solve that, and it will lead you to Mark Twain’s well. There’s your answer.”

“Who is more real? Homer or Ulysses? Shakespeare or Hamlet? Burroughs or Tarzan?”

The debate shut off, the giant hologram screen lighted up in heroic size, full depth and color, and the tedious voices were cut off by a loud and lively one: “While we’re waiting for the first two champions to reach their starting lines we will have ‘The Grand Canal’ sung by lovely Anne Passovoy and accompanied by Noisy on his Stomach Steinway. Noisy is not in voice today, friends; he was bitten last night by an imaginary snake.”
“Jerry is in good voice,” whispered Deety. “He always is. Aren’t they going to give us any closeups?” The camera zoomed in on Anne Passovoy, panned across the other Anne, cloaked in white, rested for a moment on “King” John and “Queen” Penelope, went on to show a vigorous old man with a halo of white hair who took a stogie out of his mouth and waved.
“On my right is Sir Tenderloinn the Brutal and on my left is the Black Knight, shield unblazoned, helm closed. Oh Jear not, friends; Holger tongues. Dis Dane could be our arrow. Whose color – “
Zebadiah heard a crash, turned his head. “They’re bringing in a big Corson flatboat. Smashed some chairs.” He looked again, announced, “Can’t see much, the stands on this side are filling with people in green uniforms. Black berets. Bloodthirsty-looking gang.”
“That’s Asprin -“
“Give me ten grains. Deety, you let me mix my drinks.”
“Asprin, not ‘aspirin.’ Bob Asprin, Commandammit of the Dorsai Very Irregular,” Lazarus told him. “But can you see Arthur?”
“Does he wear a deerstalker’s hat? Smoke a meerschaum pipe? The tall one there, talking to the man who looks like a gorilla.”
“He’d Challenge you for that. Violent temper. That’s Arthur’s party, all right. Doctor Arthur Conan Doyle. Doctor Watson should be there, too. Wups! Here comes Isaac. And there goes another bunch of chairs.”
“They’re off! The Masked Challenger is gaining speed, Sir Tenderloinn is having trouble getting his charger to move: It is a beautiful day here at Epsom Salts and Bifrost never looked lovelier.”
Lazarus stood up. “I must greet Isaac. Zebadiah, have you met him? Come with me. You, too, Deety. Hilda? Please, dear. Jake?”
“Just a moment, you!” Zeb looked at the one interrupting them and felt shock. He had seen that face, that uniform, by a rustic swimming pool. The “ranger” addressed Lazarus: “You’re the one they call the Executive Director. Special Agent L. Ron O’Leemy, InterSpace Patrol. I have warrants for Beowolf Shaeffer, Caspol Jones, and Zebadiah John Carter. Director, I require your cooperation. Article Four Six, Section Six Five, Paragraph Six, InterUniversal Criminal Code.”
“Unhorsed! The Black Knight’s lance right through him! Here come the Valkyries. Hoyotoho!”
Hilda reached out, took the warrants, tore them across. “You’re on the wrong planet, Mac.” She grasped Zeb’s arm. “Come along, Alfred; we must meet Isaac.”
They passed the Dorsai, reached the big Corson flatboat. Completely filling it was a very large Venerian Dragon. The dragon turned an eyestalk toward them; his tendrils touched his voder. “Greetings, Doctor Lazarus Long. Greetings, new friends. May you all die beautifully!”
“Greetings, Sir Isaac. Sir Isaac Newton, this is Doctor Hilda Burroughs Long, Doctor Jacob Burroughs Long, Doctor Deety Carter Long, and Doctor Zebadiah John Carter Long, all of my family.”
“I am honored, learned friends. May your deaths inspire a thousand songs. Doctor Hilda, we have a mutual friend, Professor Wogglebug.”
“Wait, wait! Don’t tear up your tickets. The Valkyries are having a problem. Yes, the judges have confirmed it. No contest! The Dane has ‘killed’ a totally empty suit of armor! Better luck next bout, Pou – Holger.”
“Oh, how delightful! Zebadiah and I saw him just this past week in delivering our children to Oz for the duration of this convention. Did I just miss you?”
The dragon answered, with a Cockney lisp, “No, we are pen pals only. He can’t leave Oz; I had never expected to leave Venus again… until your device – perhaps I should Say Doctor Jacob’s device – made it simple. But see what our friend Professor Wogglebug sent me – ” The dragon fiddled at a pouch under his voder.
The InterSpace Patrol Agent O’Leemy tapped Zeb on the shoulder. “I heard those introductions. Come along, Carter!”
” – spectacles to fit my forward stalks, that see through the thickest mist.” He put them on, looked around him. “They clarify any – There! Get him! Grab him! That Beast! Get his Number!” Without a lost instant Deety, Hilda, and Lazarus closed on the “agent” – and were left with torn clothes and plastic splints as the thing got loose. The “special agent” vaulted over the bar, was seen again almost instantly at the far end of the bar, jumped up on it, leapt for the canvas top, grabbed hold of the edge of the illusion hole, swung itself up, bounded for Bifrost, reached it.
Sir Isaac Newton played: “Mellrooney! The worst troublemaker in all the worlds. Lazarus, I never expected to find that Beast in your quiet retreat.”
“Nor did I until I heard all of Zeb’s story. This convention was called expecially to entice him. And it did. But we lost him, we lost him!”
“But I got its Number,” Hilda said and held out its shield: “666”
The fleeing figure, dark against the Rainbow Bridge, grew smaller and higher. Lazarus added, “Or perhaps we haven’t lost him. He’ll never get past Sarge Smith.”
The figure appeared to be several klicks high now, when the illusion suddenly broke. The Rainbow was gone, the terraces melted, the clouds were gone, the towers and castles of Asgard could no longer be seen.
In the middle distance, very high up, a figure was tumbling, twisting, falling. Zeb said, “Sarge won’t have to bother. We’ve seen the last of it.”
The voder answered: “Friend Zebadiah… are you sure?”

The End

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The Golden Egg (full text) by Theodore Sturgeon

Here’s a nice classic story from the Golden Age” of Science Fiction literature. It was sritten by one of the “greats” of the gendre, Mr. Theodore Sturgeon and this work is classic. I hope that you read it and enjoy it as much as I have. It’s a great story for a nice lazy afternoon day.

THE GOLDEN EGG

WHEN time itself was half its present age, and at an unthinkable distance, and in an unknowable dimension born.

He left his world so long before he came to earth that even he did not know how long he had been in space. He had lived so long on that world that even he could not remember what he had been before his science changed his race.

Though we can never know where his world lay in space, we know that it was in a system of two mighty suns, one blue and one yellow. His planet had an atmosphere and a great civilization and science beyond humanity’s most profound visions. He spoke little of his planet because he hated it.
Too perfect. Their sciences fed them, and controlled the etheric currents that gave them comfort, and carried them from place to place, and taught them, and cared for them in every way. For many aeons there were members set apart to care for the machines, but in time they died out, for they were no longer needed. There was no struggle and no discomfort and no disease. There were therefore no frontiers, no goals, no incentives, and eventually no possible achievements, save one—the race itself, and the changes possible to it.

Step by step the thing was done. Limbs were not and wasted away from long-lived, lazy bodies, and were replaced, redesigned, or forgotten. And as the death of an inhabitant became more rare, rarer still became the advent of new life. It was a mighty race, a powerful race, a most highly civilized race, and—a sterile race.

The refinement went on endlessly, as occasional flashes of initiative appeared down through the ages. What was unnecessary was discarded, and what could be conceivably desirable was attained, until all that was left was a few thousand glittering golden ovoids, supermental casings, functionally streamlined, beautiful and bored. It was life of a sort. The beings could move as and if they wished, through air or time or space. Everything was done for them automatically; each was self-sufficient and uncooperative. Brains they were, armored in a substance indestructible by anything less powerful than the heat of the mightiest of suns or by the supercosmic forces each could unleash at will.

But there was no will. There was nothing for them. They hung in small groups conversing of things unimaginable to us, or they lay on the plains of their world and lived within themselves until a few short aeons buried them, all uncaring, in rubble and rock. Some asked to be killed and were killed. Some were murdered by others because of quibblings in remote philosophic discussions. Some hurled themselves into the blue sun, starved for any new sensation, knowing they would find there an instant’s agony.

Most simply vegetated. One came away.

He stopped, in a way known to him—stopped in space so that his world and solar system and corner of the cosmos fell away from him and left him free. And then he traveled.

He traveled to many places and in many ways, as his whims dictated. He extended himself at times around the curve of curved space, until the ends of him were diametrically opposite; and then he would contract in a straight line, reforming countless millions of light years from the point of his extension; and his speed then was, of course, the speed of light cubed. And sometimes he dropped from his level in time to the level below, and would then lie poised and thoughtful during one cycle, until he was returned to the higher level again; and it was thus he discovered the nature of time, which is a helical band, ever revolving, never moving in its superspace. And sometimes he would move slowly, drifting from one gravitic pull to another, searching disinterestedly for the unusual. It was in such a period that he came to earth.

A goose found him. He lay in some bushes by a country road, distantly observing the earth and analyzing its elements, and the goose was a conventional one and blindly proud of its traditional silliness. He ignored it when it approached him and when it rapped his shell curiously; but when it turned him over with its beak he felt that it was being discourteous. He seized it with a paralyzing noose of radiations, quickly read its minuscule mind for a way to annoy it, and then began pulling its tail feathers out tb see how it would react. It reacted loudly.

Now, it so happened that Christopher Innes was on that country road, bringing the young’un home from Sunday school. Chris was an embittered and cynical mortal, being a normal twelve-year-old who had just learned that increasing age and masculinity made for superiority, and was about to be a teen-ager and find out differently. The young’un was his five-year-old sister, of whom he was jealous and protective. She had silly ideas. She was saying:

“But they tol’ me in school last week, Chris, so it mus’ be so, so there. The prince came into the palace an’ everyone was asleep, an’ he came to the room where she was, an’ she was asleep, too, but he kissed her an’ she woke up, and then everyone—”

“Aw, shut your fontanel,” said Chris, who had heard that babies shut their fontanels when they started to grow, though he didn’t know what one was. “You believe everything you hear. Ol’ Mr. Becker tol’ me once I could catch a bird by putting salt on its tail, an’ then whaled me for loadin’ up a twelve-gauge shotgun with rock salt and knockin’ off three of his Rhode Island Reds. They tell you that stuff so they’ll have a chance to hit you afterward.”
“I don’t care, so there,” pouted the young’un. “My teacher wouldn’t hit me for b’lieving her.”

“Somebody will,” Chris said darkly. “What’s all that racket, I wonder?

Sounds like a duck caught in a fox trap. Let’s go see.”

Chris stopped to pick up a piece of stick in case he had a trap to pry open, and the young’un ran ahead. When he reached her he found her jumping up and down and clapping her hands and gurgling, “I told you so! I told you so!” which is the most annoying thing any woman can say to any man.
“You tol’ me whut?” he asked, and she pointed. He saw a large white goose digging its feet into the ground, straining to get away from its invisible bonds, while behind it lay a glittering ovoid. As they watched, a tail feather detached itself from its anchorage and fell beside two of its prototype on the ground.

“Chee!” Chris breathed.

“They tol’ me that story, too!” chortled the young’un. “About the goose that laid the golden egg. Oh, Chris, if we take that goose home an’ keep um, we’ll be rich an’ I can have a pony an’ a hundred dolls an’—”

“Chee,” Chris said again and gingerly picked up the golden egg. As he did so the goose was released suddenly, and its rooted claws shot it forward face first into the earth, where it lay stunned and quonking dismally. As only a farm child can, the young’un caught its legs together and picked it up in her arms.

“We’re rich!” breathed Chris and laughed. Then he remembered his assertions and frowned. “Aw, it didn’t lay no egg. Someone lost it an’ this ol’ goose jus’ found it here.”

“It’s the golden-egg goose! It is too!” shrilled the young’un.

Chris spat on the egg and rubbed it with his cuff. “It’s sure pretty,” he said half to himself, and tossed it into the air. He must have stood there open-mouthed for two full minutes with his hands out, because it never came down. It vanished.

They found out later that the goose was a gander. Neither of them ever quite got over it.

“It might be interesting,” thought the armored brain to himself as he lay in the stratosphere, “to be a biped like that for a while. I believe I will try it. I wonder which of the two is the more intelligent—the feathered or unfeathered ones?” He pondered a moment over this nice distinction and then remembered that the boy had armed himself with a stick, while the goose had not. “They are a little ungainly,” he thought, then shrugged mentally. “I shall be one of those.”

He plummeted down to earth, braked off, and shot along just over the surface until he came to a small town. A movement in a tiny alley caught his attention; a man there was leveling a gun at another across the street. Unseen, the being from space flashed between them, and his path intersected that of the bullet. It struck his smooth side and neither left a mark nor changed his course by a thousandth of a degree as it spun into the street four feet below him. The intended victim went his way unharmed, and the man in the alley swore and went to his room to take his gun apart wonderingly. He had never missed a shot like that before!
Just outside the town the brain found what he had been looking for—a field under which was a huge mass of solid rock. He came to rest in the field and dropped from sight, sinking through sod and earth and granite as if it had been water; and in a matter of minutes he had cut himself a great underground chamber in the rock, with high arched walls and a vaulted ceiling and a level, polished floor. Hovering for a moment in midair, he tested the surrounding countryside for its exact chemical content, sending out delicate high-frequency beams, adjusting them fractionally for differences in molecular vibrations. The presence of a certain fine harmonic at any given frequency indicated to him the exact location of the elements he needed. There were not many. These bipeds were hardly complex.

“A type—a type,” he thought. “I must have something to work from. I gather that these creatures are differentiated from each other in certain ways.”

He slipped up through the roof of his chamber and went back to the town, where he found a busy corner and hid up under an eave, where he could watch the people passing.

“Those smaller ones must be the males,” he ruminated, “the ones that strut and slink and apparently do little work and wear all those blatant colors and so ridiculously accentuate the color of the oral orifice. And the larger, muscular ones, I suppose, are females. How drab.’’

He projected a beam that would carry thought impulses to him. It touched the mind of a young man who was mooning after a trim blonde just ahead of him. He was a hesitant and shy young man, and a passionate one, and the battle he fought within himself, between his inclinations and his diffidence, almost dislodged the creature in the eaves.

“Whew!” thought the golden ovoid. “An emotional monstrosity! And it appears that I was a little mistaken about males and females. How very quaint!

“I shall be one of the males,” he decided at length.

Wisely, he searched about until he found a girl who was suffering from every “osis” in the advertisements, as well as an inferiority complex, acne, bunions, and tone-deafness, knowing that her idea of an ideal man would be really something. Inserting gentle thought tendrils into her mind, he coaxed her to dream a lovely dream of her ideal man as she walked along, and carefully filed away all the essentials, disregarding only the passion the dream man showered on the poor starved creature. Enveloped by the dream he had induced, she walked into the path of an automobile and was rather badly hurt, which was all right, because she later married the driver.The brain sped back to the laboratory, nursing his mental picture of a muscular, suave, urbane, sophisticated, and considerate demigod, and began to assemble his machinery.

Now the brain had no powers, as such. What he had was control. The engineer of a twenty-car train would be stupid even to dream about hurling such a train at a hundred and twenty miles an hour along a track if he had to do so himself with his own physical powers. But with his controls the thing is easy. In the case of the brain, his controls were as weak compared with the final results of it as is a man’s arm compared with the two thousand horsepower delivered by a locomotive. But the brain knew the true nature of space: that it is not empty, but a mass of balanced forces.
Press two pencils together, end to end. As long as the pressure is even and balanced the effect is the same as if the pencils were just resting their ends together. Now get some tiny force to press on the point where the pencils come together. They snap out of line; they deliver a powerful resultant, out of all proportion to the push which upset the equilibrium, and you probably break a knuckle. The resultant is at right angles to the original equalized forces; it goes just so far and then the forces come together in equilibrium again, knuckles notwithstanding.

We live in a resilient universe; the momentary upset is negligible, since the slack is taken up to infinity. Such a control had the brain from space. Any and every form of energy —and matter is energy—was his to control, to any degree. The resultant from one tiny upset balance could be used to upset another; and a chain like this could be extended ad infinitum.

Fortunately, the brain knew how not to make mistakes!

He made his apparatus quickly and efficiently. A long table; tanks and small bins of pure elements; a highly complex machine with projectors and reflectors capable of handling any radiation that can be indicated on a circular spectrum, for compounding and conditioning the basic materials. The machine had no switches, no indicators, no dials. It was built to do a certain job, and as soon as it was completed it began working. When the job was done it quit. It was the kind of machine whose perfection ruined the brain’s civilization, and has undoubtedly ruined others, and will most certainly ruin more.

On the surface of the table appeared a shadow. Cell by cell appeared as the carbon-magnesium-calcium mixtures were coordinated and projected by the machine. A human skeleton was almost suddenly complete—that is, an almost human skeleton. The brain was impatient with unnecessary detail, and if there were fewer vertebrae and more but finer ribs, and later, a lack of appendix, tonsils, sinal cavities, and abductors minimi digiti, then it was only in the interest of logic. The flesh formed over the skeleton, fiber by perfect fiber. Blood vessels were flat, their insides sealed to each other until the body was complete enough to start distributing blood. The thing was “born” with a full stomach; it began its functions long before it was complete enough for the brain’s entry.

While it was forming, the brain lay in a corner of the room reasoning it out. He knew its construction and had carried it out. Now he asked the reasons for its being this way, and calculated its functions. Hearing, sight with light, communication by vibrating tissues, degree of telepathy, organs of balance, possible and probable mental and physical reflexes, all such elementary things were carefully reasoned out and recorded on that fathomless brain. It was not necessary to examine the body itself or to look at it. He had planned it, and it would be as he had planned. If he wished to study any part of it before it formed, he had his memory.

The body lay complete eventually. It was a young and strong and noble creature. It lay there breathing deeply and slowly, and under its broad, intellectual forehead its eyes glowed with the pale light of idiocy. The heart beat firmly, and a tiny twitch in the left thigh developed and disappeared as the cells adjusted themselves to each other. The hair was glossy and black and was in a pronounced widow’s peak. The hairline was the line separating the two parts of the head, for the top part was a hinged lid which now gaped open. The white matter of the brain was formed completely and relaid to make room for the metal-encased creator.
He drifted up to the head of the table and settled into the open skull. A moment, and then it snapped shut. The young man—for such he was now—lay quiet for a long while, as the brain checked the various senses—temperature, pressure, balance, and sight. Slowly the right arm raised and lowered, and then the left, and then the legs rose together and swung over the edge of the table and the young man sat up. He shook his head and gazed about with his rapidly clearing eyes, turned his head stiffly, and got to his feet. His knees buckled slightly; he grasped the table spasmodically, not bending his fingers because he hadn’t thought of it yet. His mouth opened and closed, and he ran his tongue over the inside of his mouth and lips and teeth.

“What an awkward way to get around,” he thought, trying his weight on one leg and then the other. He flexed his arms and hands and hopped up and down cautiously.

“Agh!” he said waveringly. “A-a-a-gh-ha-agh!” He listened to himself, enchanted by this new way of expressing himself. “Ka. Pa. Ta. Sa. Ha. Ga. La. Ra,” he said, testing the possibilities of linguals, gutturals, sibilants, palatals, labials, singly and in combination. “Ho-o-o-o-owe-e-e-e!” he howled, trying sustained tones from low to high pitch.

He tottered to the wall, and with one hand on it began padding up and down the room. Soon the support was no longer necessary, and he walked alone; and then he went faster and faster and ran round and round, hooting strangely. He was a little disgusted to find that violent activity made his heart beat fast and his breathing harder. Flimsy things, these bipeds. He sat panting on the table and began testing his senses of taste and touch, his muscular and oral and aural and visual memories.

Chauncey Thomas was an aristocrat. No one had ever seen him in patchy pants or broken shoes. They would, though, he reflected bitterly, if he didn’t get a chance to steal some soon. “What de hell,” he muttered. “All I ast is t’ree meals a day and good clo’es, an’ a house an’ stuff, an’ no work to do. Hell!. An’ dey tell me I can get t’ings by workin’. It ain’t worth it. It just ain’t worth it!”

He had every right to be bitter, he thought. Not only do they throw him down three flights of stairs in the town’s most exclusive apartment house just because he was sleeping on the landing, but they stick him in jail for it. Did he get a chance to rest in jail? He did not. They made him work. They made him whitewash cells. That was hardly right. Then they gave him the bum’s rush out of town. It was unfair. What if it was the ninth time they had booked him? “I got to find me another town,” he decided. He was thinking of the sheriff’s remark that next time he was run in the sheriff would pin a murder on him if he had to kill one of his deputies to do it.
Chauncey turned his slow, unwilling feet onto the Springfield Turnpike and headed away from town. The night was two hours old and very warm. Chauncey slouched along with his hands in his pockets, feeling misunderstood. A slight movement in the shadows beside the road escaped his attention, and he never realized that anyone was there until he found himself picked up by the slack of his trousers and dangling uncomfortably from a mighty fist.

“I ain’t done nothin’!” he squalled immediately, resorting to a conversational reflex of his. “Le’s talk this over, now bud. Aw, come on, now; you got nothin’ on me. You—awk!“

Chauncey’s mouthings became wordless when he had managed, by twisting around in his oversize clothes, to see his captor. The vision of a muscular giant, at least six feet five, regarding him out of fathomless, shadowy eyes as he held him at arm’s length was too much for Chauncey Thomas. He broke down and wailed.

The naked Apollo spun the bum about in midair and caught him by the belt. He plucked curiously at the worn jacket, reached down and tore a piece of leather out of the side of an outsize sport shoe as if it had been made of blotting paper, studied it carefully, tossed it aside.

“Lemme go!” shrieked Chauncey. “Gee, boss, I wasn’t doin’ nothin’, honest I wasn’t. I’m goin’ to Springfield, I’ll get a job or somethin’, boss!” The words burned his mouth as he said them, but this was an emergency and he had to say something.

“Gha!” grunted the giant, and dropped him on his ear in the middle of the road.

Chauncey scrambled to his feet and scuttled off down the road. The giant stood watching him as he slowed, made a U-turn, and came running back under the influence of a powerful hypnotic suggestion emanating from that great clean body. He stood awed and trembling before the new-born one, wishing he were dead, wishing he were away from there—even in jail.

“Who-who are you?” he faltered.

The other caught Chauncey’s shifty eyes in his own deep gaze. The hobo’s shaken mind was soothed; he blinked twice and sank down on his knees beside the road, staring upward into the inscrutable face of this frightening, fascinating man. Something seemed to be crawling into Chauncey’s mind, creeping about there. It was horrifying and yet it wasn’t unpleasant. He felt himself being drawn out; his memories examined; his knowledge of human society and human customs and traditions and history. Things he thought he had forgotten and wanted to forget popped up, and he felt them being mulled over. Within a few minutes the giant had as complete a knowledge of human conduct and speech as Chauncey Thomas had ever had.

He stepped back, and Chauncey slumped gasping to the ground. He felt depleted.

“Get up, bum,” said the big man in Chauncey’s own idiom.

Chauncey got up; there was no mistaking the command in that resonant voice. He cringed before him and whined: “Whatcha gonna do wit’ me, boss? I ain’t—”

“Shut up!” said the other. “I ain’t gonna hurt you.” Chauncey looked at the immobile face. “Well . . . I . . . I guess I’ll be on my way.”

“Aw, stick around. Whatcha scared of?”

“Well . . . nothin’ . . . but, who are you, anyway?”

“I’m Elron,” said the giant, using the first euphonious syllables that came to mind.

“Oh. Where’s yer clo’es? You been rolled?”

“Naw. Well, yeah. Wait here for me; I think I can—”

Elron bounded over the hedge, not wanting to astound the little tramp too much. From Chauncey’s mind he had stolen a mental photograph of what Chauncey considered a beautiful outfit. It was a plaid suit with a diamond-checked vest and yellow shoes; a wing collar and a ten-gallon hat. Slipping into his underground laboratory, Elron threw back the casing of the complex projector that had built him his body and made a few swift adjustments. A moment later he joined Chauncey, fully clad in Chauncey’s own spectacular idea of tailoring to taste.

“Hully gee!” breathed Chauncey.

They walked along the road together, Chauncey quite speechless, Elron pensive. A few cars passed them; Chauncey automatically and without hope flung a practiced thumb toward each. They were both surprised when a lavish roadster ground to a stop ahead of them. The door was flung open; Chauncey slid in front of Elron and would have climbed in but for Elron’s grasping him by the scruff of the neck and hauling him back.

“In the rumble, lug,” he ground out.

“Nuttin’ good ever happens t’ me,” muttered Chauncey as he followed orders. He had seen the driver. She was lovely.

“Where are you bound?” she asked as Elron closed the door.

“Springfield,” he said, remembering from something Chauncey had said that the town was on this road. He looked at this newest acquaintance. She was as tiny and perfect as he was big and perfect, and she handled the car with real artistry. Her eyes were deep auburn to match her hair. Judging her by human standards, Elron thought her very pleasing to look upon.
“I’ll take you there,” she said.

“T’anks, lady.”

She looked at him quickly.

“What’s up, babe?” he asked.

“Oh—nothing. Don’t call me ’babe.”

“Okay, okay.”

Again she flashed him a look. “Are you—kidding me?” she asked.

“What about?”

“You look—oh, I don’t know.”

“Spill it, sister.”

“Oh, sort of—well, not like the kind who calls girls `babe.’ “

“Oh,” he said. “You mean—you’d say it different, like.”

He was having trouble with Chauncey’s limited vocabulary.

“Something like that. What are you going to do in Springfield?”

“Just look around a little, I guess. I want to see a city.”

“Don’t tell me you never saw a city!”

“Listen,” he snapped, covering up his error by falling back on one of Chauncey’s devices, “it ain’t worryin’ you any, is it? What do you care?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said acidly. He sensed something strained about the silence that followed.

“Mad, huh?”

She looked at him scornfully and sniffed.

The trivial impasse intrigued him. “Stop here,” he ordered her.

“What?” she asked furiously.

He leaned forward and caught her eye. “Stop here!“

She cut the ignition and the big car slid to a stop. Elron took her shoulder and turned her to him. She almost struggled but hadn’t time.

Tendrils of thought stole into her brain, explored her memories, her tastes, her opinions and philosophies and vocabulary. He learned why it was déclassé to address a woman as “babe,” and that among civilized people ten-gallon hats were not worn with wing collars. He liked the language she used a little better than Chauncey’s harsh inadequacies. He learned what music was, and a great deal about money, which, strangely enough, was something that almost never crossed Chauncey’s mind. He learned something of the girl herself; her name was Ariadne Drew, she had a great deal of wealth she had not earned, and she was so used to being treated according to her station in life that she was careless about such things as picking up hitchhikers on the road.

He let her go, snatching the memory of the incident from its place in her mind, so that she started the car and drove off.

“Now what an earth did I stop for?”

“So I could check up on that rear tire,” he ad-libbed. He thought back about things he had discovered that might interest her. Clothes were a big item.
“I must apologize,” he said to her, word for word in her own vernacular, “for this hat. It’s just too, too revolting. I saw a cute little number the other day in a shoppe on the avenue, and I mean to get it. My dear, I mean!“
She glanced aghast at his noble profile and bulging shoulders. He chatted on.

“I saw Suzy Greenfield the other day. You know Suzy. Oh, she didn’t see me! I took care of that! And do you know who she was with? That horrible Jenkins person!”

“Who are you?” she asked him.

“I hear that Suzy is— What? Who am I? Oh, yes; about Suzy. You’ve probably heard this awful gossip before”—she had!—”so stop me if you have. But she told her husband—”

“This is as far as I go,” snapped the girl, wheeling the car over to the curb.

“Well, I—” Elron sensed that the right thing to do would be to get out of the car. He opened the door and turned to her.

“Thank you for the lift, darling. Let me know if I can do the same for you sometime.” He stepped up onto the walk, and she slammed the door and rolled the window open.

“You’ve forgotten to polish your fingernails,” she said nastily, and slammed the car into gear.

“Now what the hell did you do?” asked a voice at the side. Chauncey was looking longingly after the roadster.

“Don’t swear,” said Elron. “It’s vulgar. You are very crude, Chauncey. I don’t want to have you around. Good-by, darling.” Could Elron help it if Ariadne Drew called everybody “darling”?

The little bum stood open-mouthed, staring after the Greek god in his noisy plaid suit, and then followed slowly. “Dat mug’ll bear watchin’!” he muttered. “Hully gee!”

Elron, with his new-found knowledge of human affairs, had little trouble securing a few dollars from a man he passed on the street—all he had to do was to demand it—and getting a hotel room for his body. From Ariadne’s mind he had found out what handwriting was, and he signed the register and paid for a room without a hitch. Once his body was parked conventionally in bed, he popped the head open and slipped out. He felt that the body would relax a little better without him.

He drifted out of the window and hung for a while high above the town, searching for a familiar vibration—the impulses of Ariadne’s mind. Freed from the cumbersome human body, Elron was far more sensitive to such things. He wanted to observe Ariadne now because he wanted to check up on his performance.

He caught it soon. It was to him as a gentle perfume is to us. He whisked over to the outskirts of the city and settled down toward a massive red brick pile surrounded by lovely landscaping. He circled it twice, finding her exact place in the house, and then dropped down the chimney. He hovered just above the artificial logs in the fireplace and began his eavesdropping.

Ariadne was sitting in her extravagant living room, chatting with—of all people—the redoubtable Suzy Greenfield. Suzy was a small-souled, graceless girl with the ability to draw a remark out of any given acquaintance, and by ardent agreement she could cull enough back-biting comment to keep her busy for weeks. She looked like a buck-toothed sparrow, dressed like a sweepstakes winner from Dubuque, and had a personality as soothing as the seven-year itch.

“Well, what have you heard today?” she asked expectantly.

Ariadne was gazing into far distances, and she only smiled.

“Oh, Ari,” said Suzy, “come on! I know something must have happened today from the way you’re acting. Please; you never tell me anything!“
Ariadne, being a woman, ignored this untruth and would have changed the subject had not Elron, in the chimney, gently stroked certain of her brain convolutions with his intangible tentacles. She stared up suddenly, turned to Suzy. Elron could have had her reaction directly, but he was interested in the way she would express it to another and in the way the other would receive it.

“If you must know,” said Ariadne, “I met someone today, a man.” She sighed. Suzy leaned forward happily. When she was not all mouth she was all ears.

“Where?”

“Picked him up on the road. Sue, you never saw such a pair as those two.

They looked like a couple of comedians. One was a tramp—at first I thought they both were. The little one got into the rumble and the nice handsome one rode in front.”

“Handsome?”

“Darling, you don’t know! I’ve never seen—”

“But you said they were comic!”

“Looked comic, dear.” In the fireplace the golden-armored brain gave the equivalent of a nod and sent a thought current out to Ariadne. As if answering a question, she said, “He would have looked so nice in a soft gray suit and a Homburg. And—I don’t know what he is, but I think he should be an adventurer. A sort of poet-writer-adventurer.”

“But what was he?”

Ariadne suddenly felt it possible to speak of other things. She got Suzy started on the peccadilloes of her long-suffering spouse and soon had completely eclipsed all thought of her volatile mystery man. Elron was gone.

Back at the hotel, the ovoid hovered over his sleeping body and thought bitter thoughts. He was ashamed of himself for underestimating the subtle nuances of human behavior. He had succeeded in making something ridiculous out of this biped he had created, and the fact annoyed him.

There was a challenge in it; Elron could control powers that would easily disintegrate this whole tiny galaxy and spread its dust through seven dimensions, if he so wished it; and yet he was most certainly being made a fool of by a woman. It occurred to him that in all the universes there was nothing quite as devious and demanding as a woman’s mind. It likewise occurred to him that a woman is easy to control as long as she always has her way. He was determined to see how closely a man could resemble a woman’s ideal and still exist; and he was going to do it with this man he had made himself responsible for.

It was a long and eventful three months before Ari Drew saw Elron again. He went away in his ten-gallon hat and his blatant plaids and his yellow shoes; and he took away with him his conversational variants and Chauncey the bum. He went to the greatest city of them all and sought out people who knew about the things that he must be to achieve the phenomenal status of a man good enough for Ariadne.

He found it a fascinating game. In the corridors of universities, in prizefight training camps, in girls’ schools and kindergartens and gin mills and honkytonks and factories he cornered people, spoke with them, strained and drained and absorbed what their minds held. Sorting and blending, he built himself an intellect, the kind of mentality that awed lightweights like Suzy Greenfield who spell Intellect with a capital I. Instead of trying to suit each man’s speech by using each man’s speech, he developed a slightly accented idiom of his own, something personal and highly original. He gave himself an earthly past, from a neatly photostated birth certificate to gilt-edged rent receipts. He sounded out the minds of editors and publishers, and through the welter of odd tastes and chaotic ideology therein he extracted sound and workable ideas on what work was needed. He actually sold poetry.

While his body slept in luxury, his mind hurtled over the earth, carried by its illimitably powerful golden shell. Elron could lecture a New York audience on the interesting people he had met in Melbourne, Australia, and the next day produce a cablegram from one or two of those people whom he had visited during the night. Scattered all over the earth were individuals who believed they had known this phenomenal young man for years.

It was at one of those pale-pink and puffy poetry teas that Ariadne saw Elron again. Suzy gave the tea as a current-celebrity show. Ari came gracefully late, looking lovely in something powder-blue, chastely sophisticated. Elron was scheduled to speak—something about “Metempsychosis and Modern Life.” Ari was scheduled to sing. But she—
He was watching for her. He was dressed in soft gray, and the Homburg awaited him by the door. Her entrance was as ever in the grand manner, and all realized it; but for her it was that breath-catching experience of realizing that she was putting on the show for just one person in all that crowded room. She’d heard of him, of course. He was the “rage,” which is a term used in polite society to describe current successes. Would-bes and has-beens are known as outrages.

But she had never seen him that she remembered. He rose and stood over her and smiled, and he wordlessly took her arm, bowed at the hostess, and led her out. Just like that. Poor Suzy. Her protruding teeth barely hid the tiny line of foam that formed on her lips.

“Well!” Ariadne said as they reached the street. “That was a terrible thing to do!”

“Tsk, tsk!” he said, and helped her into his new sixteen-cylinder puddle-jumper. “I imagine Suzy will get over it. Think of all the people she’ll be able to tell!”

Ari laughed a little, looking at him strangely. “Mr. Elron, you’re not . . . not the same man that—”

“That you picked up on the pike three months ago, dressed like a comedian?”

She blushed.

“Yes, I’m the man.”

“I was . . . rude when I left you.”

“You had a right to be, Ariadne.”

“What happened to that hideous little tramp you were traveling with?”

“Chauncey!” Elron bellowed, and the trimly uniformed chauffeur swiveled around and nodded and smiled.

“Good heavens!” said Ariadne.

“He doesn’t offend any more with his atrocious diction,” said Elron precisely. “I found it possible to change his attitude toward work, but to change his diction was beyond even me. He no longer speaks.”
She looked at him for quite a while as the huge car rolled out into the country. “You’re everything I thought you might possibly be,” she breathed.

He knew that.

That was their first evening together. There were many others, and Elron conducted himself perfectly, as befitted a brilliant and urbane biped. Catering to every wish and whim of Ari’s amused him, for she was as moody as a beautiful woman can be, and he delighted in predicting and anticipating her moods. He adjusted himself to her hour by hour, day by day. He was ideal. He was perfect.

So—she got bored. He adjusted himself to that, too, and she was furious. If she didn’t care, neither did he. Bad tactics, and something that supercosmic forces could do nothing about.

Oh, he tried; yes, indeed. He questioned her and he psychoanalyzed her and he even killed off all the streptococci in her blood stream to see if that was the trouble. But all he got was a passive resentment of her. Half as old as time itself, he knew something of patience; but his patience began to give way under the pressure applied by this very human woman.

And, of course, there was a showdown. It was one afternoon at her home, and it was highly spectacular. He could read her mind with ease, but he could know only what thoughts she had formed. She knew he annoyed her. She also knew she liked him immensely; and for that reason she made no attempt to analyze her hostility toward him, and therefore he was helpless, tangled in her tenuous resentment.

It started with a very little thing—he came into the room and she stood at the window with her back to him and would not turn around. She did not speak or act coldly toward him, but simply would not face him. A very petty thing. After ten minutes of that he strode across the room and spun her around. She caught her heel in the rug, lost her footing, fell against the mantel, and stretched becomingly unconscious on the floor in a welter of broken gewgaws. Elron stood a moment feeling foolish, and then lifted her in his arms. Before he could set her down she had twined her arms around his neck and was kissing him passionately. Poor, magnificent thing, he didn’t know what to do.

“Oh, Elron,” she blubbered. “You brute! You struck me. Oh, darling! I love you so! I never thought you would do it!”

A great light of understanding burst for Elron. That was the basic secret of this thing called woman! She could not love him when he acted in a perfectly rational way. She could not love him when he was what she thought was ideal. But when he did something “brutish”—a word synonymous with “unintelligent”—she loved him. He looked down at her beautiful lips and her beautiful black eye, and he laughed and kissed her and then set her down gently.

“Be back in a couple of days, darling,” he said, and strode out, ignoring her cries.

He knew what to do now. He was grateful to her for amusing him for a while and for teaching him something new. But he could not afford to upset himself by associating with her any longer. To keep her happy he would have to act unintelligent periodically; and that was one thing he could not stand. He went away. He got into his huge automobile and drove away down the turnpike.

“It’s a pity that I’m not a man,” he reflected as he drove. “I’d really like to be, but— Oh, I can’t be bothered keeping track of anything as complicated as Ariadne!”

He pulled up at the outskirts of a small town and found his laboratory.

Once inside, he lay down on the table, popped open his skull and emerged. Going to the machine in the corner, he added and took away and changed and tinkered, and the glow began to form again around the still body. Something was happening inside the skull. Something took shape inside, and as it happened the skull slowly closed. In three hours Elron the man climbed off the table and stood looking about him. The golden egg flew up to his shoulder and nestled there.

“Thank you for this . . . this consciousness,” said Elron.

“Oh, that’s all right,” replied the ovoid telepathically. “You’ve had it for some months, anyway. Only I’ve just given you what you needed to appreciate it with.”

“What am I to do?” asked the man.

“Go back to Ariadne. Carry on from where I left off.

You. can—you’re a man, perfect in every cell and gland and tissue.”

“Thank you for that. I have wanted her but was never directed—”

“Never mind that. Marry her and make her happy. Never tell her about me—you have history enough to carry you through your lifetime, and brains enough, now, to do the work you have been doing. Ari’s been good to me; I owe her this much.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. Just one thing; but burn this in your brain in letters of fire: A woman can’t possibly love a man unless he’s part dope. Be a little stupid all the time and very stupid once in a while. But don’t be perfect!”

“Okay. So long.”

“Be happy. . . er . . . son—

Elron the man left the laboratory and went out into the sunlight. The golden egg settled to the floor and lay there an hour or so. He laughed once within himself and said, “Too perfect!”

Then he felt terribly, terribly lonely.

The End

I do hope that you enjoyed this little science fiction story. I have many others in my Literature section of this website. Please go ahead and check it out. Here…

Fictional Stories

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Awesome Movies – The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th Dimension

The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension (1984) is a film written by Earl Mac Rauch and directed by W.D. Richter that is one part B-Movie, one part Action Adventure, one part comedy, and one part political satire.

-All the Tropes

Are you finding yourself taking life too seriously? It’s easy enough to do. I do it all the time. But, don’t worry we can remedy that. Here we look at a decidedly silly science fiction classic that should be in everyone’s home library. It’s titled “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th Dimension” and it’s funky strange enough to pull you out of your funk and set you down for some delicious movie time.

Why is this movie important at this time in our lives?

I personally wouldn't invest a lot of emotional energy in the hope that  things will go back to normal. "Normal" is gone forever. Even before the  virus the only consistent pattern we've been seeing is things getting  stranger and stranger. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. 

- Caitlin Johnstone

The Characters

It’s so strange that you’ve got to love it.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th Dimension

Buckaroo Banzai – Peter Weller! Brilliant particle physicist and neurosurgeon, he is also a martial arts master and plays in a band.
Lord John Whorfin – John Lithgow! Evil leader of the “Red Lectroids.” Buckaroo vaporizes him.
Penny Priddy – Ellen Barkin! The lost twin sister of Buckaroo’s deceased wife.
New Jersey – Jeff Goldblum! A cowboy at heart, this neurosurgeon partner of Buckaroo is joining The Hong Kong Cavaliers.
John Bigboote (Bigbooty! Hehehehe!) – Christopher Lloyd! Red Lectroid from planet 10, shot by Lord Whorfin for talking back.
Rawhide – Clancy Brown! (He played Kurgan in “Highlander.”) Member of The Hong Kong Cavaliers, poisoned by a Red Lectroid.
Perfect Tommy and Reno – Two of The Hong Kong Cavaliers. Tommy has some serious bleached hair.
John Parker – Black Lectroid, sent to help Buckaroo save Earth before his people are forced to destroy it.
John O’Conner – Vincent Schiavelli! (He’s been in lots of stuff, the teacher in “Better Off Dead” and the subway ghost in “Ghost.”) A Red Lectroid. Vaporized.

The Plot

There’s a plot here somewhere. It’s just a tad confused.

This movie has more famous people in it than most blockbuster films! Look at them all! Just look at them!

What we have here my friends is a seriously out in left field piece of work.

Buckaroo Banzai and his partners have just perfected the “Oscillation Overthruster” and it allows them to travel into the 8th dimension.

Why did we miss all the ones between? I dunno!

How can a 3rd dimension being interact on the 8th? I dunno!

Lord Whorfin is trapped on Earth with a select group of followers, he wants to steal the overthruster and free all the Red Lectroids from exile in the 8th dimension.

Then they will return to their home on the 10th planet and defeat the Black Lectroids!

Black Lectroids are the good aliens by the way, they’re also all Jamaican oddly enough.

Need a romance in here somewhere so Buckaroo runs into Penny while performing at a club, she’s the lost twin sister of the woman he loved. (She died, we don’t really know how.)

Well, the Black Lectroids can’t let Lord Whorfin escape Earth, they are fully prepared to precipitate a nuclear war if necessary.

They do have the courtesy to shock (literally) Buckaroo so he can see the alien’s true forms.

With his elite band of six shooting scientists, The Hong Kong Cavaliers, Dr. Banzai is able to defeat Whorfin and save Earth.

Do you get the idea?

What more do you need?

Okay, how about Christopher Lloyd running around and everyone calling him “John Bigbooty?” Or Jeff Goldblume as New Jersey, decked out like a cowboy – he even has black and white spotted luggage.

Gateway 2000 luggage!

Watch the film two or three times, the plot is there…

…somewhere.

Things I Learned From This Movie

Yup. I did learn a thing or two.

Neurosurgeons shouldn’t tug on things they don’t recognize.
Rocket powered pickup trucks don’t look right.
The 8th dimension looks a good deal like what you might see through an electron microscope.
New Brunswick, Maine is a tough town.
Aliens with bird like ships should stay well clear of Earth during duck season. Especially you, yeah you, darn Romulans.
Alien Lectroids have nads.
Hologram viewing glasses are made out of bubble wrap.
Girls: Never try to get intimate with some guy carrying a electric charge.
Bacteria can affect people via television.
Good aliens appear to hail from Jamaica.
Four star generals should not use the phrase, “I’m barely holding my fudge.”
Alien thermal pods carry parachutes.

Stuff to watch for;

If yer gonna watch it, take the time to notice these selected highlights…

7 mins – This is some serious high tech stuff!
10 mins – Buckaroo is driving through a mountain?
13 mins – John Lithgow is applying electric current to his tongue!
23 mins – If Peter Weller was bawling out a song to me I’d do the same thing.
32 mins – Somebody shut Penny up, damn blonde…
48 mins – That little asian guy looks funny riding a Harley.
50 mins – Awful lot of folks named John.
53 mins – What the heck did the alien kill him with? Spit?
60 mins – Yeah, why is there a watermelon there?
78 mins – These guards don’t notice a double decker bus?
85 mins – Now that is a mad looking slug, um thing.

Some Pictures.

Check out these screen caps.

 When it was released in 1984, W.D. Richter’s (Late for Dinner)   incomparably droll comedy was misunderstood on every level:  diluted  by editors, wrongly promoted as a straight sci-fi flick,  trashed by  many critics, and scorned by the public. Only a  scruffy band of  cultists have kept the film alive over the  years, but given the higher  ’90s profile of Buckaroo costars  Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barkin, and John Lithgow (previewing his  3rd Rock From the Sun demented-alien shtick 12 years ahead of  schedule), it may at last be worthy of a mainstream audience. Or  vice versa.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Kicking off with an expository title crawl that apes Star Wars and is, if anything, even more incomprehensible, Buckaroo  plays  like chapter 27 of a Saturday-matinee serial, and too bad for   you if you missed the first 26. All you need to know is that  Buckaroo  (Peter Weller, exuding Zen coolth) is a world-famous   physicist/neurosurgeon/rock star who leads his Hong Kong  Cavaliers to  overthrow the Red Lectroids from Planet 10 while at  the same time  wooing his ex-wife’s long-lost identical twin  (Barkin). That’s skipping  the Rasta aliens, a mysterious  watermelon, and the bit where we find  out Orson Welles’ 1938  ”The War of the Worlds” broadcast actually  wasn’t a hoax. 

-EW

Oh, it’s so very 1980’s.

Brain surgeon, rock musician, adventurer Buckaroo  Banzai is a modern renaissance man and has made scientific history. He  perfected the Oscillation Overthruster, which allows him to travel  through solid matter by using the eighth dimension. Along with his  crime-fighting team, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, he must stop evil alien  invaders from the eighth dimension who are planning to conquer our  dimension. He is helped by Penny Pretty, the long-lost twin sister of  his late wife, and some good extra-dimensional beings who look and talk  like they are from Jamaica.
                                                      
—Greg Bole <bole@life.bio.sunysb.edu>

Conclusion

Have you looked around lately? Don’t you think that the world is taking itself a little too serious? Eh?

I do hope that you enjoyed this post. I have others in my Movie Index. Here…

MOVIES

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Plague Ship (Full Text) by Andre Norton (writing as “Andrew North”)

Here is a piece of classic science fiction. It’s a full novel or novelle (if your wish)… maybe a novelette. Plague Ship (Full Text) by Andre Norton. What ever it is, it’s a good read from the days of pulp science fiction stories.

These books used to rest in wire frames in the fronts of pharmacies, small-town grocery stores, soda fountains, and other similiar venues all accross the United States. Boys like myself, would plop down a nickel, buy one of these books, and grab a soda to read during the long hot Summer.

Well, I actually came a little later on the scene. The stores that sold these books were mostly “booksellers”, and the cost of a soda increased to twenty five cents. But pretty much everything else stayed the same. Oh, and I fogot to add my “Banana seat” bicycle to the mix…

Anyways…

It’s a grood read for all of you’se guys who are all at home cooped up trying to avoid the COVID-19. Stay safe. Be cool, and enjoy this moment. It will allow you some much needed family and personal time. Don’t squander it.

Enjoy.

PLAGUE SHIP

Chapter I

PERFUMED PLANET

Dane Thorson, Cargo-master-apprentice of the Solar Queen, Galactic Free Trader spacer, Terra registry, stood in the middle of the ship’s cramped bather while Rip Shannon, assistant Astrogator and his senior in the Service of Trade by some four years, applied gobs of highly scented paste to the skin between Dane’s rather prominent shoulder blades. The small cabin was thickly redolent with spicy odors and Rip sniffed appreciatively.

“You’re sure going to be about the best smelling Terran who ever set boot on Sargol’s soil,” his soft slur of speech ended in a rich chuckle.

Dane snorted and tried to estimate progress over one shoulder.

“The things we have to do for Trade!” his comment carried a hint of present embarrassment. “Get it well in—this stuff’s supposed to hold for hours. It’d better. According to Van those Salariki can talk your ears right off your head and say nothing worth hearing. And we have to sit and listen until we get a straight answer out of them. Phew!” He shook his head. In such close quarters the scent, pleasing as it was, was also overpowering. “We would have to pick a world such as this—”

Rip’s dark fingers halted their circular motion. “Dane,” he warned, “don’t you go talking against this venture. We got it soft and we’re going to be credit-happy—if it works out—”

But, perversely, Dane held to a gloomier view of the immediate future. “If,” he repeated. “There’s a galaxy of ‘ifs’ in this Sargol proposition. All very well for you to rest easy on your fins—you don’t have to run about smelling like a spice works before you can get the time of day from one of the natives!”

Rip put down the jar of cream. “Different worlds, different customs,” he iterated the old tag of the Service. “Be glad this one is so easy to conform to. There are some I can think of—There,” he ended his massage with a stinging slap. “You’re all evenly greased. Good thing you don’t have Van’s bulk to cover. It takes him a good hour to get his cream on—even with Frank helping to spread. Your clothes ought to be steamed up and ready, too, by now—”

He opened a tight wall cabinet, originally intended to sterilize clothing which might be contaminated by contact with organisms inimical to Terrans. A cloud of steam fragrant with the same spicy scent poured out.

Dane gingerly tugged loose his Trade uniform, its brown silky fabric damp on his skin as he dressed. Luckily Sargol was warm. When he stepped out on its ruby tinted soil this morning no lingering taint of his off-world origin must remain to disgust the sensitive nostrils of the Salariki. He supposed he would get used to this process. After all this was the first time he had undergone the ritual. But he couldn’t lose the secret conviction that it was all very silly. Only what Rip had pointed out was the truth—one adjusted to the customs of aliens or one didn’t trade and there were other things he might have had to do on other worlds which would have been far more upsetting to that core of private fastidiousness which few would have suspected existed in his tall, lanky frame.

“Whew—out in the open with you—!” Ali Kamil apprentice Engineer, screwed his too regular features into an expression of extreme distaste and waved Dane by him in the corridor.

For the sake of his shipmates’ olfactory nerves, Dane hurried on to the port which gave on the ramp now tying the Queen to Sargol’s crust. But there he lingered, waiting for Van Rycke, the Cargo-master of the spacer and his immediate superior. It was early morning and now that he was out of the confinement of the ship the fresh morning winds cut about him, rippling through the blue-green grass forest beyond, to take much of his momentary irritation with them.

There were no mountains in this section of Sargol—the highest elevations being rounded hills tightly clothed with the same ten-foot grass which covered the plains. From the Queen’s observation ports, one could watch the constant ripple of the grass so that the planet appeared to be largely clothed in a shimmering, flowing carpet. To the west were the seas—stretches of shallow water so cut up by strings of islands that they more resembled a series of salty lakes. And it was what was to be found in those seas which had lured the Solar Queen to Sargol.

Though, by rights, the discovery was that of another Trader—Traxt Cam—who had bid for trading rights to Sargol, hoping to make a comfortable fortune—or at least expenses with a slight profit—in the perfume trade, exporting from the scented planet some of its most fragrant products. But once on Sargol he had discovered the Koros stones—gems of a new type—a handful of which offered across the board in one of the inner planet trading marts had nearly caused a riot among bidding gem merchants. And Cam had been well on the way to becoming one of the princes of Trade when he had been drawn into the vicious net of the Limbian pirates and finished off.

Because they, too, had stumbled into the trap which was Limbo, and had had a very definite part in breaking up that devilish installation, the crew of the Solar Queen had claimed as their reward the trading rights of Traxt Cam in default of legal heirs. And so here they were on Sargol with the notes left by Cam as their guide, and as much lore concerning the Salariki as was known crammed into their minds.

Dane sat down on the end of the ramp, his feet on Sargolian soil, thin, red soil with glittering bits of gold flake in it. He did not doubt that he was under observation from hidden eyes, but he tried to show no sign that he guessed it. The adult Salariki maintained at all times an attitude of aloof and complete indifference toward the Traders, but the juvenile population were as curious as their elders were contemptuous. Perhaps there was a method of approach in that. Dane considered the idea.

Van Rycke and Captain Jellico had handled the first negotiations—and the process had taken most of a day—the result totaling exactly nothing. In their contacts with the off world men the feline ancestered Salariki were ceremonious, wary, and completely detached. But Cam had gotten to them somehow—or he would not have returned from his first trip with that pouch of Koros stones. Only, among his records, salvaged on Limbo, he had left absolutely no clue as to how he had beaten down native sales resistance. It was baffling. But patience had to be the middle name of every Trader and Dane had complete faith in Van. Sooner or later the Cargo-master would find a key to unlock the Salariki.

As if the thought of Dane’s chief had summoned him, Van Rycke, his scented tunic sealed to his bull’s neck in unaccustomed trimness, his cap on his blond head, strode down the ramp, broadcasting waves of fragrance as he moved. He sniffed vigorously as he approached his assistant and then nodded in approval.

“So you’re all greased and ready—”

“Is the Captain coming too, sir?”

Van Rycke shook his head. “This is our headache. Patience, my boy, patience—” He led the way through a thin screen of the grass on the other side of the scorched landing field to a well-packed earth road.

Again Dane felt eyes, knew that they were being watched. But no Salarik stepped out of concealment. At least they had nothing to fear in the way of attack. Traders were immune, taboo, and the trading stations were set up under the white diamond shield of peace, a peace guaranteed on blood oath by every clan chieftain in the district. Even in the midst of interclan feuding deadly enemies met in amity under that shield and would not turn claw knife against each other within a two mile radius of its protection.

The grass forests rustled betrayingly, but the Terrans displayed no interest in those who spied upon them. An insect with wings of brilliant green gauze detached itself from the stalk of a grass tree and fluttered ahead of the Traders as if it were an official herald. From the red soil crushed by their boots arose a pungent odor which fought with the scent they carried with them. Dane swallowed three or four times and hoped that his superior officer had not noticed that sign of discomfort. Though Van Rycke, in spite of his general air of sleepy benevolence and careless goodwill, noticed everything, no matter how trivial, which might have a bearing on the delicate negotiations of Galactic Trade. He had not climbed to his present status of expert Cargo-master by overlooking anything at all. Now he gave an order:

“Take an equalizer—”

Dane reached for his belt pouch, flushing, fiercely determined inside himself, that no matter how smells warred about him that day, he was not going to let it bother him. He swallowed the tiny pellet Medic Tau had prepared for just such trials and tried to occupy his mind with the work to come. If there would be any work—or would another long day be wasted in futile speeches of mutual esteem which gave formal lip service to Trade and its manifest benefits?

“Houuuu—” The cry which was half wail, half arrogant warning, sounded along the road behind them.

Van Rycke’s stride did not vary. He did not turn his head, show any sign he had heard that heralding fanfare for a clan chieftain. And he continued to keep to the exact center of the road, Dane the regulation one pace to the rear and left as befitted his lower rank.

“Houuu—” that blast from the throat of a Salarik especially chosen for his lung power was accompanied now by the hollow drum of many feet. The Terrans neither looked around nor withdrew from the center, nor did their pace quicken.

That, too, was in order, Dane knew. To the rank conscious Salariki clansmen you did not yield precedence unless you wanted at once to acknowledge your inferiority—and if you did that by some slip of admission or omission, there was no use in trying to treat face to face with their chieftains again.

“Houuu—!” The blast behind was a scream as the retinue it announced swept around the bend in the road to catch sight of the two Traders oblivious of it. Dane longed to be able to turn his head, just enough to see which one of the local lordlings they blocked.

“Houu—” there was a questioning note in the cry now and the heavy thud-thud of feet was slacking. The clan party had seen them, were hesitant about the wisdom of trying to shove them aside.

Van Rycke marched steadily onward and Dane matched his pace. They might not possess a leather-lunged herald to clear their road, but they gave every indication of having the right to occupy as much of it as they wished. And that unruffled poise had its affect upon those behind. The pound of feet slowed to a walk, a walk which would keep a careful distance behind the two Terrans. It had worked—the Salariki—or these Salariki—were accepting them at their own valuation—a good omen for the day’s business. Dane’s spirits rose, but he schooled his features into a mask as wooden as his superior’s. After all this was a very minor victory and they had ten or twelve hours of polite, and hidden, maneuvering before them.

The Solar Queen had set down as closely as possible to the trading center marked on Traxt Cam’s private map and the Terrans now had another five minutes march, in the middle of the road, ahead of the chieftain who must be inwardly boiling at their presence, before they came out in the clearing containing the roofless, circular erection which served the Salariki of the district as a market place and a common meeting ground for truce talks and the mending of private clan alliances. Erect on a pole in the middle, towering well above the nodding fronds of the grass trees, was the pole bearing the trade shield which promised not only peace to those under it, but a three day sanctuary to any feuder or duelist who managed to win to it and lay hands upon its weathered standard.

They were not the first to arrive, which was also a good thing. Gathered in small groups about the walls of the council place were the personal attendants, liege warriors, and younger relatives of at least four or five clan chieftains. But, Dane noted at once, there was not a single curtained litter or riding orgel to be seen. None of the feminine part of the Salariki species had arrived. Nor would they until the final trade treaty was concluded and established by their fathers, husbands, or sons.

With the assurance of one who was master in his own clan, Van Rycke, displaying no interest at all in the shifting mass of lower rank Salariki, marched straight on to the door of the enclosure. Two or three of the younger warriors got to their feet, their brilliant cloaks flicking out like spreading wings. But when Van Rycke did not even lift an eyelid in their direction, they made no move to block his path.

As fighting men, Dane thought, trying to study the specimens before him with a totally impersonal stare, the Salariki were an impressive lot. Their average height was close to six feet, their distant feline ancestry apparent only in small vestiges. A Salarik’s nails on both hands and feet were retractile, his skin was gray, his thick hair, close to the texture of plushy fur, extended down his backbone and along the outside of his well muscled arms and legs, and was tawny-yellow, blue-gray or white. To Terran eyes the broad faces, now all turned in their direction, lacked readable expression. The eyes were large and set slightly aslant in the skull, being startlingly orange-red or a brilliant turquoise green-blue. They wore loin cloths of brightly dyed fabrics with wide sashes forming corselets about their slender middles, from which gleamed the gem-set hilts of their claw knives, the possession of which proved their adulthood. Cloaks as flamboyant as their other garments hung in bat wing folds from their shoulders and each and every one moved in an invisible cloud of perfume.

Brilliant as the assemblage of liege men without had been, the gathering of clan leaders and their upper officers within the council place was a riot of color—and odor. The chieftains were installed on the wooden stools, each with a small table before him on which rested a goblet bearing his own clan sign, a folded strip of patterned cloth—his “trade shield”—and a gemmed box containing the scented paste he would use for refreshment during the ordeal of conference.

A breeze fluttered sash ends and tugged at cloaks, otherwise the assembly was motionless and awesomely quiet. Still making no overtures Van Rycke crossed to a stool and table which stood a little apart and seated himself. Dane went into the action required of him. Before his superior he set out a plastic pocket flask, its color as alive in the sunlight as the crudely cut gems which the Salariki sported, a fine silk handkerchief, and, last of all, a bottle of Terran smelling salts provided by Medic Tau as a necessary restorative after some hours combination of Salariki oratory and Salariki perfumes. Having thus done the duty of liege man, Dane was at liberty to seat himself, cross-legged on the ground behind his chief, as the other sons, heirs, and advisors had gathered behind their lords.

The chieftain whose arrival they had in a manner delayed came in after them and Dane saw that it was Fashdor—another piece of luck—since that clan was a small one and the chieftain had little influence. Had they so slowed Halfer or Paft it might be a different matter altogether.

Fashdor was established at his seat, his belongings spread out, and Dane, counting unobtrusively, was certain that the council was now complete. Seven clans Traxt Cam had recorded divided the sea coast territory and there were seven chieftains here—indicative of the importance of this meeting since some of these clans beyond the radius of the shield peace, must be fighting a vicious blood feud at that very moment. Yes, seven were here. Yet there still remained a single stool, directly across the circle from Van Rycke. An empty stool—who was the late comer?

That question was answered almost as it flashed into Dane’s mind. But no Salariki lordling came through the door. Dane’s self-control kept him in his place, even after he caught the meaning of the insignia emblazoned across the newcomer’s tunic. Trader—and not only a Trader but a Company man! But why—and how? The Companies only went after big game—this was a planet thrown open to Free Traders, the independents of the star lanes. By law and right no Company man had any place here. Unless—behind a face Dane strove to keep as impassive as Van’s his thoughts raced. Traxt Cam as a Free Trader had bid for the right to exploit Sargol when its sole exportable product was deemed to be perfume—a small, unimportant trade as far as the Companies were concerned. And then the Koros stones had been found and the importance of Sargol must have boomed as far as the big boys could see. They probably knew of Traxt Cam’s death as soon as the Patrol report on Limbo had been sent to Headquarters. The Companies all maintained their private information and espionage services. And, with Traxt Cam dead without an heir, they had seen their chance and moved in. Only, Dane’s teeth set firmly, they didn’t have the ghost of a chance now. Legally there was only one Trader on Sargol and that was the Solar Queen, Captain Jellico had his records signed by the Patrol to prove that. And all this Inter-Solar man would do now was to bow out and try poaching elsewhere.

But the I-S man appeared to be in no haste to follow that only possible course. He was seating himself with arrogant dignity on that unoccupied stool, and a younger man in I-S uniform was putting before him the same type of equipment Dane had produced for Van Rycke. The Cargo-master of the Solar Queen showed no surprise, if the Eysies’ appearance had been such to him.

One of the younger warriors in Paft’s train got to his feet and brought his hands together with a clap which echoed across the silent gathering with the force of an archaic solid projectal shot. A Salarik, wearing the rich dress of the upper ranks, but also the collar forced upon a captive taken in combat, came into the enclosure carrying a jug in both hands. Preceded by Paft’s son he made the rounds of the assembly pouring a purple liquid from his jug into the goblet before each chieftain, a goblet which Paft’s heirs tasted ceremoniously before it was presented to the visiting clan leader. When they paused before Van Rycke the Salarik nobleman touched the side of the plasta flask in token. It was recognized that off world men must be cautious over the sampling of local products and that when they joined in the Taking of the First Cup of Peace, they did so symbolically.

Paft raised his cup, his gesture copied by everyone around the circle. In the harsh tongue of his race he repeated a formula so archaic that few of the Salariki could now translate the sing-song words. They drank and the meeting was formally opened.

But it was an elderly Salarik seated to the right of Halfer, a man who wore no claw knife and whose dusky yellow cloak and sash made a subdued note amid the splendor of his fellows, who spoke first, using the click-clack of the Trade Lingo his nation had learned from Cam.

“Under the white,” he pointed to the shield aloft, “we assemble to hear many things. But now come two tongues to speak where once there was but one father of a clan. Tell us, outlanders, which of you must we now hark to in truth?” He looked from Van Rycke to the I-S representative.

The Cargo-master from the Queen did not reply. He stared across the circle at the Company man. Dane waited eagerly. What was the I-S going to say to that?

But the fellow did have an answer, ready and waiting. “It is true, fathers of clans, that here are two voices, where by right and custom there should only be one. But this is a matter which can be decided between us. Give us leave to withdraw from your sight and speak privately together. Then he who returns to you will be the true voice and there shall be no more division—”

It was Paft who broke in before Halfer’s spokesman could reply.

“It would have been better to have spoken together before you came to us. Go then until the shadow of the shield is not, then return hither and speak truly. We do not wait upon the pleasure of outlanders—”

A murmur approved that tart comment. “Until the shadow of the shield is not.” They had until noon. Van Rycke arose and Dane gathered up his chief’s possessions. With the same superiority to his surroundings he had shown upon entering, the Cargo-master left the enclosure, the Eysies following. But they were away from the clearing, out upon the road back to the Queen before the two from the Company caught up with them.

“Captain Grange will see you right away—” the Eysie Cargo-master was beginning when Van Rycke met him with a quelling stare.

“If you poachers have anything to say—you say it at the Queen and to Captain Jellico,” he stated flatly and started on.

Above his tight tunic collar the other’s face flushed, his teeth flashed as he caught his lower lip between them as if to forcibly restrain an answer he longed to make. For a second he hesitated and then he vanished down a side path with his assistant. Van Rycke had gone a quarter of the distance back to the ship before he spoke.

“I thought it was too easy,” he muttered. “Now we’re in for it—maybe right up the rockets! By the Spiked Tail of Exol, this is certainly not our lucky day!” He quickened pace until they were close to trotting.

Chapter II

RIVALS

“That’s far enough, Eysie!”

Although Traders by law and tradition carried no more potent personal weapons—except in times of great crisis—than hand sleep rods, the resultant shot from the latter was just as unpleasant for temporary periods as a more forceful beam—and the threat of it was enough to halt the three men who had come to the foot of the Queen’s ramp and who could see the rod held rather negligently by Ali. Ali’s eyes were anything but negligent, however, and Free Traders had reputations to be respected by their rivals of the Companies. The very nature of their roving lives taught them savage lessons—which they either learned or died.

Dane, glancing down over the Engineer-apprentice’s shoulder, saw that Van Rycke’s assumption of confidence had indeed paid off. They had left the trade enclosure of the Salariki barely three-quarters of an hour ago. But below now stood the bebadged Captain of the I-S ship and his Cargo-master.

“I want to speak to your Captain—” snarled the Eysie officer.

Ali registered faint amusement, an expression which tended to rouse the worst in the spectator, as Dane knew of old when that same mocking appraisal had been turned on him as the rawest of the Queen’s crew.

“But does he wish to speak to you?” countered Kamil. “Just stay where you are, Eysie, until we are sure about that fact.”

That was his cue to act as messenger. Dane retreated into the ship and swung up the ladder to the command section. As he passed Captain Jellico’s private cabin he heard the muffled squall of the commander’s unpleasant pet—Queex, the Hoobat—a nightmare combination of crab, parrot and toad, wearing a blue feather coating and inclined to scream and spit at all comers. Since Queex would not be howling in that fashion if its master was present, Dane kept on to the control cabin where he blundered in upon an executive level conference of Captain, Cargo-master and Astrogator.

“Well?” Jellico’s blaster scarred left cheek twitched as he snapped that impatient inquiry at the messenger.

“Eysie Captain below, sir. With his Cargo-master. They want to see you—”

Jellico’s mouth was a straight line, his eyes very hard. By instinct Dane’s hand went to the grip of the sleep rod slung at his belt. When the Old Man put on his fighting face—look out! Here we go again, he told himself, speculating as to just what type of action lay before them now.

“Oh, they do, do they!” Jellico began and then throttled down the temper he could put under iron control when and if it were necessary. “Very well, tell them to stay where they are. Van, we’ll go down—”

For a moment the Cargo-master hesitated, his heavy-lidded eyes looked sleepy, he seemed almost disinterested in the suggestion. And when he nodded it was with the air of someone about to perform some boring duty.

“Right, sir.” He wriggled his heavy body from behind the small table, resealed his tunic, and settled his cap with as much precision as if he were about to represent the Queen before the assembled nobility of Sargol.

Dane hurried down the ladders, coming to a halt beside Ali. It was the turn of the man at the foot of the ramp to bark an impatient demand:

“Well?” (Was that the theme word of every Captain’s vocabulary?)

“You wait,” Dane replied with no inclination to give the Eysie officer any courtesy address. Close to a Terran year aboard the Solar Queen had inoculated him with pride in his own section of Service. A Free Trader was answerable to his own officers and to no one else on earth—or among the stars—no matter how much discipline and official etiquette the Companies used to enhance their power.

He half expected the I-S officers to leave after an answer such as that. For a Company Captain to be forced to wait upon the convenience of a Free Trader must be galling in the extreme. And the fact that this one was doing just that was an indication that the Queen’s crew did, perhaps, have the edge of advantage in any coming bargain. In the meantime the Eysie contingent fumed below while Ali lounged whistling against the exit port, playing with his sleep rod and Dane studied the grass forest. His boot nudged a packet just inside the port casing and he glanced inquiringly from it to Ali.

“Cat ransom,” the other answered his unspoken question.

So that was it—the fee for Sinbad’s return. “What is it today?”

“Sugar—about a tablespoon full,” the Engineer-assistant returned, “and two colored steelos. So far they haven’t run up the price on us. I think they’re sharing out the spoil evenly, a new cub brings him back every night.”

As did all Terran ships, the Solar Queen carried a cat as an important member of the regular crew. And the portly Sinbad, before their landing on Sargol, had never presented any problem. He had done his duty of ridding the ship of unusual and usual pests and cargo despoilers with dispatch, neatness and energy. And when in port on alien worlds had never shown any inclination to go a-roving.

But the scents of Sargol had apparently intoxicated him, shearing away his solid dignity and middle-aged dependability. Now Sinbad flashed out of the Queen at the opening of her port in the early morning and was brought back, protesting with both voice and claws, at the end of the day by that member of the juvenile population whose turn it was to collect the standing reward for his forceful delivery. Within three days it had become an accepted business transaction which satisfied everyone but Sinbad.

The scrape of metal boot soles on ladder rungs warned of the arrival of their officers. Ali and Dane withdrew down the corridor, leaving the entrance open for Jellico and Van Rycke. Then they drifted back to witness the meeting with the Eysies.

There were no prolonged greetings between the two parties, no offer of hospitality as might have been expected between Terrans on an alien planet a quarter of the Galaxy away from the earth which had given them a common heritage.

Jellico, with Van Rycke at his shoulder, halted before he stepped from the ramp so that the three Inter-Solar men, Captain, Cargo-master and escort, whether they wished or no, were put in the disadvantageous position of having to look up to a Captain whom they, as members of one of the powerful Companies, affected to despise. The lean, well muscled, trim figure of the Queen’s commander gave the impression of hard bitten force held in check by will control, just as his face under its thick layer of space burn was that of an adventurer accustomed to make split second decisions—an estimate underlined by that seam of blaster burn across one flat cheek.

Van Rycke, with a slight change of dress, could have been a Company man in the higher ranks—or so the casual observer would have placed him, until an observer marked the eyes behind those sleepy drooping lids, or caught a certain note in the calm, unhurried drawl of his voice. To look at the two senior officers of the Free Trading spacer were the antithesis of each other—in action they were each half of a powerful, steamroller whole—as a good many men in the Service—scattered over a half dozen or so planets—had discovered to their cost in the past.

Now Jellico brought the heels of his space boots together with an extravagant click and his hand flourished at the fore of his helmet in a gesture which was better suited to the Patrol hero of a slightly out-of-date Video serial.

“Jellico, Solar Queen, Free Trader,” he identified himself brusquely, and added, “this is Van Rycke, our Cargo-master.”

Not all the flush had faded from the face of the I-S Captain.

“Grange of the Dart,” he did not even sketch a salute. “Inter-Solar. Kallee, Cargo-master—” And he did not name the hovering third member of his party.

Jellico stood waiting and after a long moment of silence Grange was forced to state his business.

“We have until noon—”

Jellico, his fingers hooked in his belt, simply waited. And under his level gaze the Eysie Captain began to find the going hard.

“They have given us until noon,” he started once more, “to get together—”

Jellico’s voice came, coldly remote. “There is no reason for any ‘getting together,’ Grange. By rights I can have you up before the Trade Board for poaching. The Solar Queen has sole trading rights here. If you up-ship within a reasonable amount of time, I’ll be inclined to let it pass. After all I’ve no desire to run all the way to the nearest Patrol post to report you—”

“You can’t expect to buck Inter-Solar. We’ll make you an offer—” That was Kallee’s contribution, made probably because his commanding officer couldn’t find words explosive enough.

Jellico, whose forté was more direct action, took an excursion into heavy-handed sarcasm. “You Eysies have certainly been given excellent briefing. I would advise a little closer study of the Code—and not the sections in small symbols at the end of the tape, either! We’re not bucking anyone. You’ll find our registration for Sargol down on tapes at the Center. And I suggest that the sooner you withdraw the better—before we cite you for illegal planeting.”

Grange had gained control of his emotions. “We’re pretty far from Center here,” he remarked. It was a statement of fact, but it carried over-tones which they were able to assess correctly. The Solar Queen was a Free Trader, alone on an alien world. But the I-S ship might be cruising in company, ready to summon aid, men and supplies. Dane drew a deep breath, the Eysies must be sure of themselves, not only that, but they must want what Sargol had to offer to the point of being willing to step outside the law to get it.

The I-S Captain took a step forward. “I think we understand each other now,” he said, his confidence restored.

Van Rycke answered him, his deep voice cutting across the sighing of the wind in the grass forest.

“Your proposition?”

Perhaps this return to their implied threat bolstered their belief in the infallibility of the Company, their conviction that no independent dared stand up against the might and power of Inter-Solar. Kallee replied:

“We’ll take up your contract, at a profit to you, and you up-ship before the Salariki are confused over whom they are to deal with—”

“And the amount of profit?” Van Rycke bored in.

“Oh,” Kallee shrugged, “say ten percent of Cam’s last shipment—”

Jellico laughed. “Generous, aren’t you, Eysie? Ten percent of a cargo which can’t be assessed—the gang on Limbo kept no records of what they plundered.”

“We don’t know what he was carrying when he crashed on Limbo,” countered Kallee swiftly. “We’ll base our offer on what he carried to Axal.”

Now Van Rycke chucked. “I wonder who figured that one out?” he inquired of the scented winds. “He must save the Company a fair amount of credits one way or another. Interesting offer—”

By the bland satisfaction to be read on the three faces below the I-S men were assured of their victory. The Solar Queen would be paid off with a pittance, under the vague threat of Company retaliation she would up-ship from Sargol, and they would be left in possession of the rich Koros trade—to be commended and rewarded by their superiors. Had they, Dane speculated, ever had any dealings with Free Traders before—at least with the brand of independent adventurers such as manned the Solar Queen?

Van Rycke burrowed in his belt pouch and then held out his hand. On the broad palm lay a flat disc of metal. “Very interesting—” he repeated. “I shall treasure this recording—”

The sight of that disc wiped all satisfaction from the Eysie faces. Grange’s purplish flush spread up from his tight tunic collar, Kallee blinked, and the unknown third’s hand dropped to his sleep rod. An action which was not overlooked by either Dane or Ali.

“A smooth set down to you,” Jellico gave the conventional leave taking of the Service.

“You’d better—” the Eysie Captain began hotly, and then seeing the disc Van Rycke held—that sensitive bit of metal and plastic which was recording this interview for future reference, he shut his mouth tight.

“Yes?” the Queen’s Cargo-master prompted politely. But Kallee had taken his Captain’s arm and was urging Grange away from the spacer.

“You have until noon to lift,” was Jellico’s parting shot as the three in Company livery started toward the road.

“I don’t think that they will,” he added to Van Rycke.

The Cargo-master nodded. “You wouldn’t in their place,” he pointed out reasonably. “On the other hand they’ve had a bit of a blast they weren’t expecting. It’s been a long time since Grange heard anyone say ‘no.'”

“A shock which is going to wear off,” Jellico’s habitual distrust of the future gathered force.

“This,” Van Rycke tucked the disc back into his pouch, “sent them off vector a parsec or two. Grange is not one of the strong arm blaster boys. Suppose Tang Ya does a little listening in—and maybe we can rig another surprise if Grange does try to ask advice of someone off world. In the meantime I don’t think they are going to meddle with the Salariki. They don’t want to have to answer awkward questions if we turn up a Patrol ship to ask them. So—” he stretched and beckoned to Dane, “we shall go to work once more.”

Again two paces behind Van Rycke Dane tramped to the trade circle of the Salariki clansmen. They might have walked out only five or six minutes of ship time before, and the natives betrayed no particular interest in their return. But, Dane noted, there was only one empty stool, one ceremonial table in evidence. The Salariki had expected only one Terran Trader to join them.

What followed was a dreary round of ceremony, an exchange of platitudes and empty good wishes and greetings. No one mentioned Koros stones—or even perfume bark—that he was willing to offer the off-world traders. None lifted so much as a corner of his trade cloth, under which, if he were ready to deal seriously, his hidden hand would meet that of the buyer, so that by finger pressure alone they could agree or disagree on price. But such boring sessions were part of Trade and Dane, keeping a fraction of attention on the speeches and “drinkings-together,” watched those around him with an eye which tried to assess and classify what he saw.

The keynote of the Salariki character was a wary independence. The only form of government they would tolerate was a family-clan organization. Feuds and deadly duels between individuals and clans were the accepted way of life and every male who reached adulthood went armed and ready for combat until he became a “Speaker for the past”—too old to bear arms in the field. Due to the nature of their battling lives, relatively few of the Salariki ever reached that retirement. Short-lived alliances between families sometimes occurred, usually when they were to face a common enemy greater than either. But a quarrel between chieftains, a fancied insult would rip that open in an instant. Only under the Trade Shield could seven clans sit this way without their warriors being at one another’s furred throats.

An hour before sunset Paft turned his goblet upside down on his table, a move followed speedily by every chieftain in the circle. The conference was at an end for that day. And as far as Dane could see it had accomplished exactly nothing—except to bring the Eysies into the open. What had Traxt Cam discovered which had given him the trading contract with these suspicious aliens? Unless the men from the Queen learned it, they could go on talking until the contract ran out and get no farther than they had today.

From his training Dane knew that ofttimes contact with an alien race did require long and patient handling. But between study and experiencing the situation himself there was a gulf, and he thought somewhat ruefully that he had much to learn before he could meet such a situation with Van Rycke’s unfailing patience and aplomb. The Cargo-master seemed in nowise tired by his wasted day and Dane knew that Van would probably sit up half the night, going over for the hundredth time Traxt Cam’s sketchy recordings in another painstaking attempt to discover why and how the other Free Trader had succeeded where the Queen’s men were up against a stone wall.

The harvesting of Koros stones was, as Dane and all those who had been briefed from Cam’s records knew, a perilous job. Though the rule of the Salariki was undisputed on the land masses of Sargol, it was another matter in the watery world of the shallow seas. There the Gorp were in command of the territory and one had to be constantly alert for attack from the sly, reptilian intelligence, so alien to the thinking processes of both Salariki and Terran that there was, or seemed to be, no point of possible contact. One went gathering Koros gems after balancing life against gain. And perhaps the Salariki did not see any profit in that operation. Yet Traxt Cam had brought back his bag of gems—somehow he had managed to secure them in trade.

Van Rycke climbed the ramp, hurrying on into the Queen as if he would not get back to his records soon enough. But Dane paused and looked back at the grass jungle a little wistfully. To his mind these early morning hours were the best time on Sargol. The light was golden, the night winds had not yet arisen. He disliked exchanging the freedom of the open for the confinement of the spacer.

And, as he hesitated there, two of the juvenile population of Sargol came out of the forest. Between them they carried one of their hunting nets, a net which now enclosed a quiet but baneful eyed captive—Sinbad being delivered for nightly ransom. Dane was reaching for the pay to give the captors when, to his real astonishment, one of them advanced and pointed with an extended forefinger claw to the open port.

“Go in,” he formed the Trade Lingo words with care. And Dane’s surprise must have been plain to read for the cub followed his speech with a vigorous nod and set one foot on the ramp to underline his desire.

For one of the Salariki, who had continually manifested their belief that Terrans and their ship were an offence to the nostrils of all right living “men,” to wish to enter the spacer was an astonishing about-face. But any advantage no matter how small, which might bring about a closer understanding, must be seized at once.

Dane accepted the growling Sinbad and beckoned, knowing better than to touch the boy. “Come—”

Only one of the junior clansmen obeyed that invitation. The other watched, big-eyed, and then scuttled back to the forest when his fellow called out some suggestion. He was not going to be trapped.

Dane led the way up the ramp, paying no visible attention to the young Salarik, nor did he urge the other on when he lingered for a long moment or two at the port. In his mind the Cargo-master apprentice was feverishly running over the list of general trade goods. What did they carry which would make a suitable and intriguing gift for a small alien with such a promising bump of curiosity? If he had only time to get Van Rycke!

The Salarik was inside the corridor now, his nostrils spread, assaying each and every odor in this strange place. Suddenly his head jerked as if tugged by one of his own net ropes. His interest had been riveted by some scent his sensitive senses had detected. His eyes met Dane’s in appeal. Swiftly the Terran nodded and then followed with a lengthened stride as the Salarik sped down into the lower reaches of the Queen, obviously in quest of something of great importance.

Chapter III

CONTACT AT LAST

“What in”—Frank Mura, steward, storekeeper, and cook of the Queen, retreated into the nearest cabin doorway as the young Salarik flashed down the ladder into his section.

Dane, with the now resigned Sinbad in the crook of his arm, had tailed his guest and arrived just in time to see the native come to an abrupt halt before one of the most important doors in the spacer—the portal of the hydro garden which renewed the ship’s oxygen and supplied them with fresh fruit and vegetables to vary their diet of concentrates.

The Salarik laid one hand on the smooth surface of the sealed compartment and looked back over his shoulder at Dane with an inquiry to which was added something of a plea. Guided by his instinct—that this was important to them all—Dane spoke to Mura:

“Can you let him in there, Frank?”

It was not sensible, it might even be dangerous. But every member of the crew knew the necessity for making some sort of contact with the natives. Mura did not even nod, but squeezed by the Salarik and pressed the lock. There was a sign of air, and the crisp smell of growing things, lacking the languorous perfumes of the world outside, puffed into the faces.

The cub remained where he was, his head up, his wide nostrils visibly drinking in that smell. Then he moved with the silent, uncanny speed which was the heritage of his race, darting down the narrow aisle toward a mass of greenery at the far end.

Sinbad kicked and growled. This was his private hunting ground—the preserve he kept free of invaders. Dane put the cat down. The Salarik had found what he was seeking. He stood on tiptoe to sniff at a plant, his yellow eyes half closed, his whole stance spelling ecstasy. Dane looked to the steward for enlightenment.

“What’s he so interested in, Frank?”

“Catnip.”

“Catnip?” Dane repeated. The word meant nothing to him, but Mura had a habit of picking up strange plants and cultivating them for study. “What is it?”

“One of the Terran mints—an herb,” Mura gave a short explanation as he moved down the aisle toward the alien. He broke off a leaf and crushed it between his fingers.

Dane, his sense of smell largely deadened by the pungency with which he had been surrounded by most of that day, could distinguish no new odor. But the young Salarik swung around to face the steward his eyes wide, his nose questing. And Sinbad gave a whining yowl and made a spring to push his head against the steward’s now aromatic hand.

So—now they had it—an opening wedge. Dane came up to the three.

“All right to take a leaf or two?” he asked Mura.

“Why not? I grow it for Sinbad. To a cat it is like heemel smoke or a tankard of lackibod.”

And by Sinbad’s actions Dane guessed that the plant did hold for the cat the same attraction those stimulants produced in human beings. He carefully broke off a small stem supporting three leaves and presented it to the Salarik, who stared at him and then, snatching the twig, raced from the hydro garden as if pursued by feuding clansmen.

Dane heard the pad of his feet on the ladder—apparently the cub was making sure of escape with his precious find. But the Cargo-master apprentice was frowning. As far as he could see there were only five of the plants.

“That’s all the catnip you have?”

Mura tucked Sinbad under his arm and shooed Dane before him out of the hydro. “There was no need to grow more. A small portion of the herb goes a long way with this one,” he put the cat down in the corridor. “The leaves may be preserved by drying. I believe that there is a small box of them in the galley.”

A strictly limited supply. Suppose this was the key which would unlock the Koros trade? And yet it was to be summed up in five plants and a few dried leaves! However, Van Rycke must know of this as soon as possible.

But to Dane’s growing discomfiture the Cargo-master showed no elation as his junior poured out the particulars of his discovery. Instead there were definite signs of displeasure to be read by those who knew Van Rycke well. He heard Dane out and then got to his feet. Tolling the younger man with him by a crooked finger, he went out of his combined office-living quarters to the domain of Medic Craig Tau.

“Problem for you, Craig.” Van Rycke seated his bulk on the wall jump seat Tau pulled down for him. Dane was left standing just within the door, very sure now that instead of being commended for his discovery of a few minutes before, he was about to suffer some reprimand. And the reason for it still eluded him.

“What do you know about that plant Mura grows in the hydro—the one called ‘catnip’?”

Tau did not appear surprised at that demand—the Medic of a Free Trading spacer was never surprised at anything. He had his surfeit of shocks during his first years of service and after that accepted any occurrence, no matter how weird, as matter-of-fact. In addition Tau’s hobby was “magic,” the hidden knowledge possessed and used by witch doctors and medicine men on alien worlds. He had a library of recordings, odd scraps of information, of certified results of certain very peculiar experiments. Now and then he wrote a report which was sent into Central Service, read with raised eyebrows by perhaps half a dozen incredulous desk warmers, and filed away to be safely forgotten. But even that had ceased to frustrate him.

“It’s an herb of the mint family from Terra,” he replied. “Mura grows it for Sinbad—has quite a marked influence on cats. Frank’s been trying to keep him anchored to the ship by allowing him to roll in fresh leaves. He does it—then continues to sneak out whenever he can—”

That explained something for Dane—why the Salariki cub wished to enter the Queen tonight. Some of the scent of the plant had clung to Sinbad’s fur, had been detected, and the Salarik had wanted to trace it to its source.

“Is it a drug?” Van Rycke prodded.

“In the way that all herbs are drugs. Human beings have dosed themselves in the past with a tea made of the dried leaves. It has no great medicinal properties. To felines it is a stimulation—and they get the same satisfaction from rolling in and eating the leaves as we do from drinking—”

“The Salariki are, in a manner of speaking, felines—” Van Rycke mused.

Tau straightened. “The Salariki have discovered catnip, I take it?”

Van Rycke nodded at Dane and for the second time the Cargo-master apprentice made his report. When he was done Van Rycke asked a direct question of the medical officer:

“What effect would catnip have on a Salarik?”

It was only then that Dane grasped the enormity of what he had done. They had no way of gauging the influence of an off-world plant on alien metabolism. What if he had introduced to the natives of Sargol a dangerous drug—started that cub on some path of addiction. He was cold inside. Why, he might even have poisoned the child!

Tau picked up his cap, and after a second’s hesitation, his emergency medical kit. He had only one question for Dane.

“Any idea of who the cub is—what clan he belongs to?”

And Dane, chill with real fear, was forced to answer in the negative. What had he done!

“Can you find him?” Van Rycke, ignoring Dane, spoke to Tau.

The Medic shrugged. “I can try. I was out scouting this morning—met one of the storm priests who handles their medical work. But I wasn’t welcomed. However, under the circumstances, we have to try something—”

In the corridor Van Rycke had an order for Dane. “I suggest that you keep to quarters, Thorson, until we know how matters stand.”

Dane saluted. That note in his superior’s voice was like a whip lash—much worse to take than the abuse of a lesser man. He swallowed as he shut himself into his own cramped cubby. This might be the end of their venture. And they would be lucky if their charter was not withdrawn. Let I-S get an inkling of his rash action and the Company would have them up before the Board to be stripped of all their rights in the Service. Just because of his own stupidity—his pride in being able to break through where Van Rycke and the Captain had faced a stone wall. And, worse than the future which could face the Queen, was the thought that he might have introduced some dangerous drug into Sargol with his gift of those few leaves. When would he learn? He threw himself face down on his bunk and despondently pictured the string of calamities which could and maybe would stem from his thoughtless and hasty action.

Within the Queen night and day were mechanical—the lighting in the cabins did not vary much. Dane did not know how long he lay there forcing his mind to consider his stupid action, making himself face that in the Service there were no short cuts which endangered others—not unless those taking the risks were Terrans.

“Dane—!” Rip Shannon’s voice cut through his self-imposed nightmare. But he refused to answer. “Dane—Van wants you on the double!”

Why? To bring him up before Jellico probably. Dane schooled his expression, got up, pulling his tunic straight, still unable to meet Rip’s eyes. Shannon was just one of those he had let down so badly. But the other did not notice his mood. “Wait ’til you see them—! Half Sargol must be here yelling for trade!”

That comment was so far from what he had been expecting that Dane was startled out of his own gloomy thoughts. Rip’s brown face was one wide smile, his black eyes danced—it was plain he was honestly elated.

“Get a move on, fire rockets,” he urged, “or Van will blast you for fair!”

Dane did move, up the ladder to the next level and out on the port ramp. What he saw below brought him up short. Evening had come to Sargol but the scene immediately below was not in darkness. Blazing torches advanced in lines from the grass forest and the portable flood light of the spacer added to the general glare, turning night into noonday.

Van Rycke and Jellico sat on stools facing at least five of the seven major chieftains with whom they had conferred to no purpose earlier. And behind these leaders milled a throng of lesser Salariki. Yes, there was at least one carrying chair—and also an orgel from the back of which a veiled noblewoman was being assisted to dismount by two retainers. The women of the clans were coming—which could mean only that trade was at last in progress. But trade for what?

Dane strode down the ramp. He saw Paft, his hand carefully covered by his trade cloth, advance to Van Rycke, whose own fingers were decently veiled by a handkerchief. Under the folds of fabric their hands touched. The bargaining was in the first stages. And it was important enough for the clan leaders to conduct themselves. Where, according to Cam’s records, it had been usual to delegate that power to a favored liege man.

Catching the light from the ship’s beam and from the softer flares of the Salariki torches was a small pile of stones resting on a stool to one side. Dane drew a deep breath. He had heard the Koros stones described, had seen the tri-dee print of one found among Cam’s recordings but the reality was beyond his expectations. He knew the technical analysis of the gems—that they were, as the amber of Terra, the fossilized resin exuded by ancient plants (maybe the ancestors of the grass trees) long buried in the saline deposits of the shallow seas where chemical changes had taken place to produce the wonder jewels. In color they shaded from a rosy apricot to a rich mauve, but in their depths other colors, silver, fiery gold, spun sparks which seemed to move as the gem was turned. And—which was what first endeared them to the Salariki—when worn against the skin and warmed by body heat they gave off a perfume which enchanted not only the Sargolian natives but all in the Galaxy wealthy enough to own one.

On another stool placed at Van Rycke’s right hand, as that bearing the Koros stones was at Paft’s, was a transparent plastic box containing some wrinkled brownish leaves. Dane moved as unobtrusively as he could to his proper place at such a trading session, behind Van Rycke. More Salariki were tramping out of the forest, torch bearing retainers and cloaked warriors. A little to one side was a third party Dane had not seen before.

They were clustered about a staff which had been driven into the ground, a staff topped with a white streamer marking a temporary trading ground. These were Salariki right enough but they did not wear the colorful garb of those about them, instead they were all clad alike in muffling, sleeved robes of a drab green—the storm priests—their robes denoting the color of the Sargolian sky just before the onslaught of their worst tempests. Cam had not left many clues concerning the religion of the Salariki, but the storm priests had, in narrowly defined limits, power, and their recognition of the Terran Traders would add to good feeling.

In the knot of storm priests a Terran stood—Medic Tau—and he was talking earnestly with the leader of the religious party. Dane would have given much to have been free to cross and ask Tau a question or two. Was all this assembly the result of the discovery in the hydro? But even as he asked himself that, the trade cloths were shaken from the hands of the bargainers and Van Rycke gave an order over his shoulder.

“Measure out two spoonsful of the dried leaves into a box—” he pointed to a tiny plastic container.

With painstaking care Dane followed directions. At the same time a servant of the Salarik chief swept the handful of gems from the other stool and dropped them in a heap before Van Rycke, who transferred them to a strong box resting between his feet. Paft arose—but he had hardly quitted the trading seat before one of the lesser clan leaders had taken his place, the bargaining cloth ready looped loosely about his wrist.

It was at that point that the proceedings were interrupted. A new party came into the open, their utilitarian Trade tunics made a drab blot as they threaded their way in a compact group through the throng of Salariki. I-S men! So they had not lifted from Sargol.

They showed no signs of uneasiness—it was as if their rights were being infringed by the Free Traders. And Kallee, their Cargo-master, swaggered straight to the bargaining point. The chatter of Salariki voices was stilled, the Sargolians withdrew a little, letting one party of Terrans face the other, sensing drama to come. Neither Van Rycke nor Jellico spoke, it was left to Kallee to state his case.

“You’ve crooked your orbit this time, bright boys,” his jeer was a paean of triumph. “Code Three—Article six—or can’t you absorb rules tapes with your thick heads?”

Code Three—Article six, Dane searched his memory for that law of the Service. The words flashed into his mind as the auto-learner had planted them during his first year of training back in the Pool.

“To no alien race shall any Trader introduce any drug, food, or drink from off world, until such a substance has been certified as nonharmful to the aliens.”

There it was! I-S had them and it was all his fault. But if he had been so wrong, why in the world did Van Rycke sit there trading, condoning the error and making it into a crime for which they could be summoned before the Board and struck off the rolls of the Service?

Van Rycke smiled gently. “Code Four—Article two,” he quoted with the genial air of one playing gift-giver at a Forkidan feasting.

Code Four, Article two: Any organic substance offered for trade must be examined by a committee of trained medical experts, an equal representation of Terrans and aliens.

Kallee’s sneering smile did not vanish. “Well,” he challenged, “where’s your board of experts?”

“Tau!” Van Rycke called to the Medic with the storm priests. “Will you ask your colleague to be so kind as to allow the Cargo-master Kallee to be presented?”

The tall, dark young Terran Medic spoke to the priest beside him and together they came across the clearing. Van Rycke and Jellico both arose and inclined their heads in honor to the priests, as did the chief with whom they had been about to deal.

“Reader of clouds and master of many winds,” Tau’s voice flowed with the many voweled titles of the Sargolian, “may I bring before your face Cargo-master Kallee, a servant of Inter-Solar in the realm of Trade?”

The storm priest’s shaven skull and body gleamed steel gray in the light. His eyes, of that startling blue-green, regarded the I-S party with cynical detachment.

“You wish of me?” Plainly he was one who believed in getting down to essentials at once.

Kallee could not be overawed. “These Free Traders have introduced among your people a powerful drug which will bring much evil,” he spoke slowly in simple words as if he were addressing a cub.

“You have evidence of such evil?” countered the storm priest. “In what manner is this new plant evil?”

For a moment Kallee was disconcerted. But he rallied quickly. “It has not been tested—you do not know how it will affect your people—”

The storm priest shook his head impatiently. “We are not lacking in intelligence, Trader. This plant has been tested, both by your master of life secrets and ours. There is no harm in it—rather it is a good thing, to be highly prized—so highly that we shall give thanks that it was brought unto us. This speech-together is finished.” He pulled the loose folds of his robe closer about him and walked away.

“Now,” Van Rycke addressed the I-S party, “I must ask you to withdraw. Under the rules of Trade your presence here can be actively resented—”

But Kallee had lost little of his assurance. “You haven’t heard the last of this. A tape of the whole proceedings goes to the Board—”

“As you wish. But in the meantime—” Van Rycke gestured to the waiting Salariki who were beginning to mutter impatiently. Kallee glanced around, heard those mutters, and made the only move possible, away from the Queen. He was not quite so cocky, but neither had he surrendered.

Dane caught at Tau’s sleeve and asked the question which had been burning in him since he had come upon the scene.

“What happened—about the catnip?”

There was lightening of the serious expression on Tau’s face.

“Fortunately for you that child took the leaves to the storm priest. They tested and approved it. And I can’t see that it has any ill effects. But you were just lucky, Thorson—it might have gone another way.”

Dane sighed. “I know that, sir,” he confessed. “I’m not trying to rocket out—”

Tau gave a half-smile. “We all off-fire our tubes at times,” he conceded. “Only next time—”

He did not need to complete that warning as Dane caught him up:

“There isn’t going to be a next time like this, sir—ever!”

Chapter IV

GORP HUNT

But the interruption had disturbed the tenor of trading. The small chief who had so eagerly taken Paft’s place had only two Koros stones to offer and even to Dane’s inexperienced eyes they were inferior in size and color to those the other clan leader had tendered. The Terrans were aware that Koros mining was a dangerous business but they had not known that the stock of available stones was so very small. Within ten minutes the last of the serious bargaining was concluded and the clansmen were drifting away from the burned over space about the Queen’s standing fins.

Dane folded up the bargain cloth, glad for a task. He sensed that he was far from being back in Van Rycke’s good graces. The fact that his superior did not discuss any of the aspects of the deals with him was a bad sign.

Captain Jellico stretched. Although his was not, or never, what might be termed a good-humored face, he was at peace with his world. “That would seem to be all. What’s the haul, Van?”

“Ten first class stones, about fifty second grade, and twenty or so of third. The chiefs will go to the fisheries tomorrow. Then we’ll be in to see the really good stuff.”

“And how’s the herbs holding out?” That interested Dane too. Surely the few plants in the hydro and the dried leaves could not be stretched too far.

“As well as we could expect.” Van Rycke frowned. “But Craig thinks he’s on the trail of something to help—”

The storm priests had uprooted the staff marking the trading station and were wrapping the white streamer about it. Their leader had already gone and now Tau came up to the group by the ramp.

“Van says you have an idea,” the Captain hailed him.

“We haven’t tried it yet. And we can’t unless the priests give it a clear lane—”

“That goes without saying—” Jellico agreed.

The Captain had not addressed that remark to him personally, but Dane was sure it had been directed at him. Well, they needn’t worry—never again was he going to make that mistake, they could be very sure of that.

He was part of the conference which followed in the mess cabin only because he was a member of the crew. How far the reason for his disgrace had spread he had no way of telling, but he made no overtures, even to Rip.

Tau had the floor with Mura as an efficient lieutenant. He discussed the properties of catnip and gave information on the limited supply the Queen carried. Then he launched into a new suggestion.

“Felines of Terra, in fact a great many other of our native mammals, have a similar affinity for this.”

Mura produced a small flask and Tau opened it, passing it to Captain Jellico and so from hand to hand about the room. Each crewman sniffed at the strong aroma. It was a heavier scent than that given off by the crushed catnip—Dane was not sure he liked it. But a moment later Sinbad streaked in from the corridor and committed the unpardonable sin of leaping to the table top just before Mura who had taken the flask from Dane. He miaowed plaintively and clawed at the steward’s cuff. Mura stoppered the flask and put the cat down on the floor.

“What is it?” Jellico wanted to know.

“Anisette, a liquor made from the oil of anise—from seeds of the anise plant. It is a stimulant, but we use it mainly as a condiment. If it is harmless for the Salariki it ought to be a bigger bargaining point than any perfumes or spices, I-S can import. And remember, with their unlimited capital, they can flood the market with products we can’t touch, selling at a loss if need be to cut us out. Because their ship is not going to lift from Sargol just because she has no legal right here.”

“There’s this point,” Van Rycke added to the lecture. “The Eysies are trading or want to trade perfumes. But they stock only manufactured products, exotic stuff, but synthetic.” He took from his belt pouch two tiny boxes.

Before he caught the rich scent of the paste inside them Dane had already identified each as luxury items from Casper—chemical products which sold well and at high prices in the civilized ports of the Galaxy. The Cargo-master turned the boxes over, exposing the symbol on their undersides—the mark of I-S.

“These were offered to me in trade by a Salarik. I took them, just to have proof that the Eysies are operating here. But—note—they were offered to me in trade, along with two top Koros for what? One spoonful of dried catnip leaves. Does that suggest anything?”

Mura answered first. “The Salariki prefer natural products to synthetic.”

“I think so.”

“D’you suppose that was Cam’s secret?” speculated Astrogator Steen Wilcox.

“If it was,” Jellico cut in, “he certainly kept it! If we had only known this earlier—”

They were all thinking of that, of their storage space carefully packed with useless trade goods. Where, if they had known, the same space could have carried herbs with five or twenty-five times as much buying power.

“Maybe now that their sales’ resistance is broken, we can switch to some of the other stuff,” Tang Ya, torn away from his beloved communicators for the conference, said wistfully. “They like color—how about breaking out some rolls of Harlinian moth silk?”

Van Rycke sighed wearily. “Oh, we’ll try. We’ll bring out everything and anything. But we could have done so much better—” he brooded over the tricks of fate which had landed them on a planet wild for trade with no proper trade goods in either of their holds.

There was a nervous little sound of a throat being apologetically cleared. Jasper Weeks, the small wiper from the engine room detail, the third generation Venusian colonist whom the more vocal members of the Queen’s complement were apt to forget upon occasion, seeing all eyes upon him, spoke though his voice was hardly above a hoarse whisper.

“Cedar—lacquel bark—forsh weed—”

“Cinnamon,” Mura added to the list. “Imported in small quantities—”

“Naturally! Only the problem now is—how much cedar, lacquel bark, forsh weed, cinnamon do we have on board?” demanded Van Rycke.

His sarcasm did not register with Weeks for the little man pushed by Dane and left the cabin to their surprise. In the quiet which followed they could hear the clatter of his boots on ladder rungs as he descended to the quarters of the engine room staff. Tang turned to his neighbor, Johan Stotz, the Queen’s Engineer.

“What’s he going for?”

Stotz shrugged. Weeks was a self-effacing man—so much so that even in the cramped quarters of the spacer very little about him as an individual impressed his mates—a fact which was slowly dawning on them all now. Then they heard the scramble of feet hurrying back and Weeks burst in with energy which carried him across to the table behind which the Captain and Van Rycke now sat.

In the wiper’s hands was a plasta-steel box—the treasure chest of a spaceman. Its tough exterior was guaranteed to protect the contents against everything but outright disintegration. Weeks put it down on the table and snapped up the lid.

A new aroma, or aromas, was added to the scents now at war in the cabin. Weeks pulled out a handful of fluffy white stuff which frothed up about his fingers like soap lather. Then with more care he lifted up a tray divided into many small compartments, each with a separate sealing lid of its own. The men of the Queen moved in, their curiosity aroused, until they were jostling one another.

Being tall Dane had an advantage, though Van Rycke’s bulk and the wide shoulders of the Captain were between him and the object they were so intent upon. In each division of the tray, easily seen through the transparent lids, was a carved figure. The weird denizens of the Venusian polar swamps were there, along with lifelike effigies of Terran animals, a Martian sand-mouse in all its monstrous ferocity, and the native animal and reptile life of half a hundred different worlds. Weeks put down a second tray beside the first, again displaying a menagerie of strange life forms. But when he clicked open one of the compartments and handed the figurine it contained to the Captain, Dane understood the reason for now bringing forward the carvings.

The majority of them were fashioned from a dull blue-gray wood and Dane knew that if he picked one up he would discover that it weighed close to nothing in his hand. That was lacquel bark—the aromatic product of a Venusian vine. And each little animal or reptile lay encased in a soft dab of frothy white—frosh weed—the perfumed seed casing of the Martian canal plants. One or two figures on the second tray were of a red-brown wood and these Van Rycke sniffed at appreciatively.

“Cedar—Terran cedar,” he murmured.

Weeks nodded eagerly, his eyes alight. “I am waiting now for sandalwood—it is also good for carving—”

Jellico stared at the array in puzzled wonder. “You have made these?”

Being an amateur xenobiologist of no small standing himself, the shapes of the carvings more than the material from which they fashioned held his attention.

All those on board the Queen had their own hobbies. The monotony of voyaging through hyper-space had long ago impressed upon men the need for occupying both hands and mind during the sterile days while they were forced into close companionship with few duties to keep them alert. Jellico’s cabin was papered with tri-dee pictures of the rare animals and alien creatures he had studied in their native haunts or of which he kept careful and painstaking records. Tau had his magic, Mura not only his plants but the delicate miniature landscapes he fashioned, to be imprisoned forever in the hearts of protecting plasta balls. But Weeks had never shown his work before and now he had an artist’s supreme pleasure of completely confounding his shipmates.

The Cargo-master returned to the business on hand first. “You’re willing to transfer these to ‘cargo’?” he asked briskly. “How many do you have?”

Weeks, now lifting a third and then a fourth tray from the box, replied without looking up.

“Two hundred. Yes, I’ll transfer, sir.”

The Captain was turning about in his fingers the beautifully shaped figure of an Astran duocorn. “Pity to trade these here,” he mused aloud. “Will Paft or Halfer appreciate more than just their scent?”

Weeks smiled shyly. “I’ve filled this case, sir. I was going to offer them to Mr. Van Rycke on a venture. I can always make another set. And right now—well, maybe they’ll be worth more to the Queen, seeing as how they’re made out of aromatic woods, then they’d be elsewhere. Leastwise the Eysies aren’t going to have anything like them to show!” he ended in a burst of honest pride.

“Indeed they aren’t!” Van Rycke gave honor where it was due.

So they made plans and then separated to sleep out the rest of the night. Dane knew that his lapse was not forgotten nor forgiven, but now he was honestly too tired to care and slept as well as if his conscience were clear.

But morning brought only a trickle of lower class clansmen for trading and none of them had much but news to offer. The storm priests, as neutral arbitrators, had divided up the Koros grounds. And the clansmen, under the personal supervision of their chieftains were busy hunting the stones. The Terrans gathered from scraps of information that gem seeking on such a large scale had never been attempted before.

Before night there came other news, and much more chilling. Paft, one of the two major chieftains of this section of Sargol—while supervising the efforts of his liege men on a newly discovered and richly strewn length of shoal water—had been attacked and killed by gorp. The unusual activity of the Salariki in the shallows had in turn drawn to the spot battalions of the intelligent, malignant reptiles who had struck in strength, slaying and escaping before the Salariki could form an adequate defense, having killed the land dwellers’ sentries silently and effectively before advancing on the laboring main bodies of gem hunters.

A loss of a certain number of miners or fishers had been preseen as the price one paid for Koros in quantity. But the death of a chieftain was another thing altogether, having repercussions which carried far beyond the fact of his death. When the news reached the Salariki about the Queen they melted away into the grass forest and for the first time the Terrans felt free of spying eyes.

“What happens now?” Ali inquired. “Do they declare all deals off?”

“That might just be the unfortunate answer,” agreed Van Rycke.

“Could be,” Rip commented to Dane, “that they’d think we were in some way responsible—”

But Dane’s conscience, sensitive over the whole matter of Salariki trade, had already reached that conclusion.

The Terran party, unsure of what were the best tactics, wisely decided to do nothing at all for the time being. But, when the Salariki seemed to have completely vanished on the morning of the second day, the men were restless. Had Paft’s death resulted in some interclan quarrel over the heirship and the other clans withdrawn to let the various contendents for that honor fight it out? Or—what was more probable and dangerous—had the aliens come to the point of view that the Queen was in the main responsible for the catastrophe and were engaged in preparing too warm a welcome for any Traders who dared to visit them?

With the latter idea in mind they did not stray far from the ship. And the limit to their traveling was the edge of the forest from which they could be covered and so they did not learn much.

It was well into the morning before they were dramatically appraised that, far from being considered in any way an enemy, they were about to be accepted in a tie as close as clan to clan during one of the temporary but binding truces.

The messenger came in state, a young Salarik warrior, his splendid cloak rent and hanging in tattered pieces from his shoulders as a sign of his official grief. He carried in one hand a burned out torch, and in the other an unsheathed claw knife, its blade reflecting the sunlight with a wicked glitter. Behind him trotted three couples of retainers, their cloaks also ragged fringes, their knives drawn.

Standing up on the ramp to receive what could only be a formal deputation were Captain, Astrogator, Cargo-master and Engineer, the senior officers of the spacer.

In the rolling periods of the Trade Lingo the torch bearer identified himself as Groft, son and heir of the late lamented Paft. Until his chieftain father was avenged in blood he could not assume the high seat of his clan nor the leadership of the family. And now, following custom, he was inviting the friends and sometimes allies of the dead Paft to a gorp hunt. Such a gorp hunt, Dane gathered from amidst the flowers of ceremonial Salariki speech, as had never been planned before on the face of Sargol. Salariki without number in the past had died beneath the ripping talons of the water reptiles, but it was seldom that a chieftain had so fallen and his clan were firm in their determination to take a full blood price from the killers.

“—and so, sky lords,” Groft brought his oration to a close, “we come to ask that you send your young men to this hunting so that they may know the joy of plunging knives into the scaled death and see the horned ones die bathed in their own vile blood!”

Dane needed no hint from the Queen’s officers that this invitation was a sharp departure from custom. By joining with the natives in such a foray the Terrans were being admitted to kinship of a sort, cementing relations by a tie which the I-S, or any other interloper from off-world, would find hard to break. It was a piece of such excellent good fortune as they would not have dreamed of three days earlier.

Van Rycke replied, his voice properly sonorous, sounding out the rounded periods of the rolling tongue which they had all been taught during the voyage, using Cam’s recording. Yes, the Terrans would join with pleasure in so good and great a cause. They would lend the force of their arms to the defeat of all gorp they had the good fortune to meet. Groft need only name the hour for them to join him—

It was not needful, the young Salariki chieftain-to-be hastened to tell the Cargo-master, that the senior sky lords concern themselves in this matter. In fact it would be against custom, for it was meet that such a hunt be left to warriors of few years, that they might earn glory and be able to stand before the fires at the Naming as men. Therefore—the thumb claw of Groft was extended to its greatest length as he used it to single out the Terrans he had been eyeing—let this one, and that, and that, and the fourth be ready to join with the Salariki party an hour after nooning on this very day and they would indeed teach the slimy, treacherous lurkers in the depths a well needed lesson.

The Salarik’s choice with one exception had unerringly fallen upon the youngest members of the crew, Ali, Rip, and Dane in that order. But his fourth addition had been Jasper Weeks. Perhaps because of his native pallor of skin and slightness of body the oiler had seemed, to the alien, to be younger than his years. At any rate Groft had made it very plain that he chose these men and Dane knew that the Queen’s officers would raise no objection which might upset the delicate balance of favorable relations.

Van Rycke did ask for one concession which was reluctantly granted. He received permission for the spacer’s men to carry their sleep rods. Though the Salariki, apparently for some reason of binding and hoary custom, were totally opposed to hunting their age-old enemy with anything other than their duelists’ weapons of net and claw knife.

“Go along with them,” Captain Jellico gave his final orders to the four, “as long as it doesn’t mean your own necks—understand? On the other hand dead heroes have never helped to lift a ship. And these gorp are tough from all accounts. You’ll just have to use your own judgment about springing your rods on them—” He looked distinctly unhappy at that thought.

Ali was grinning and little Weeks tightened his weapon belt with a touch of swagger he had never shown before. Rip was his usual soft voiced self, dependable as a rock and a good base for the rest of them—taking command without question as they marched off to join Groft’s company.

Chapter V

THE PERILOUS SEAS

The gorp hunters straggled through the grass forest in family groups, and the Terrans saw that the enterprise had forced another uneasy truce upon the district, for there were representatives from more than just Paft’s own clan. All the Salariki were young and the parties babbled together in excitement. It was plain that this hunt, staged upon a large scale, was not only a means of revenge upon a hated enemy but, also, a sporting event of outstanding prestige.

Now the grass trees began to show ragged gaps, open spaces between their clumps, until the forest was only scattered groups and the party the Terrans had joined walked along a trail cloaked in knee-high, yellow-red fern growth. Most of the Salariki carried unlit torches, some having four or five bundled together, as if gorp hunting must be done after nightfall. And it was fairly late in the afternoon before they topped a rise of ground and looked out upon one of Sargol’s seas.

The water was a dull-metallic gray, broken by great swaths of purple as if an artist had slapped a brush of color across it in a hit or miss fashion. Sand of the red grit, lightened by the golden flecks which glittered in the sun, stretched to the edge of the wavelets breaking with only languor on the curve of earth. The bulk of islands arose in serried ranks farther out—crowned with grass trees all rippling under the sea wind.

They came out upon the beach where one of the purple patches touched the shore and Dane noted that it left a scummy deposit there. The Terrans went on to the water’s edge. Where it was clear of the purple stuff they could get a murky glimpse of the bottom, but the scum hid long stretches of shoreline and outer wave, and Dane wondered if the gorp used it as a protective covering.

For the moment the Salariki made no move toward the sea which was to be their hunting ground. Instead the youngest members of the party, some of whom were adolescents not yet entitled to wear the claw knife of manhood, spread out along the shore and set industriously to gathering driftwood, which they brought back to heap on the sand. Dane, watching that harvest, caught sight of a smoothly polished length. He called Weeks’ attention to the water rounded cylinder.

The oiler’s eyes lighted and he stooped to pick it up. Where the other sticks were from grass trees this was something else. And among the bleached pile it had the vividness of flame. For it was a strident scarlet. Weeks turned it over in his hands, running his fingers lovingly across its perfect grain. Even in this crude state it had beauty. He stopped the Salarik who had just brought in another armload of wood.

“This is what?” he spoke the Trade Lingo haltingly.

The native gazed somewhat indifferently at the branch. “Tansil,” he answered. “It grows on the islands—” He made a vague gesture to include a good section of the western sea before he hurried away.

Weeks now went along the tide line on his own quest, Dane trailing him. At the end of a quarter hour when a hail summoned them back to the site of the now lighted fire, they had some ten pieces of the tansil wood between them. The finds ranged from a three foot section some four inches in diameter, to some slender twigs no larger than a writing steelo—but all with high polish, the warm flame coloring. Weeks lashed them together before he joined the group where Groft was outlining the technique of gorp hunting for the benefit of the Terrans.

Some two hundred feet away a reef, often awash and stained with the purple scum, angled out into the sea in a long curve which formed a natural breakwater. This was the point of attack. But first the purple film must be removed so that land and sea dwellers could meet on common terms.

The fire blazed up, eating hungrily into the driftwood. And from it ran the young Salariki with lighted brands, which at the water’s edge they whirled about their heads and then hurled out onto the purple patches. Fire arose from the water and ran with frantic speed across the crests of the low waves, while the Salariki coughed and buried their noses in their perfume boxes, for the wind drove shoreward an overpowering stench.

Where the cleansing fire had run on the water there was now only the natural metallic gray of the liquid, the cover was gone. Older Salariki warriors were choosing torches from those they had brought, doing it with care. Groft approached the Terrans carrying four.

“These you use now—”

What for? Dane wondered. The sky was still sunlit. He held the torch watching to see how the Salariki made use of them.

Groft led the advance—running lightly out along the reef with agile and graceful leaps to cross the breaks where the sea hurled in over the rock. And after him followed the other natives, each with a lighted torch in hand—the torch they hunkered down to plant firmly in some crevice of the rock before taking a stand beside that beacon.

The Terrans, less surefooted in the space boots, picked their way along the same path, wet with spray, wrinkling their noses against the lingering puffs of the stench from the water.

Following the example of the Salariki they faced seaward—but Dane did not know what to watch for. Cam had left only the vaguest general descriptions of gorp and beyond the fact that they were reptilian, intelligent and dangerous, the Terrans had not been briefed.

Once the warriors had taken up their stand along the reef, the younger Salariki went into action once more. Lighting more torches at the fire, they ran out along the line of their elders and flung their torches as far as they could hurl them into the sea outside the reef.

The gray steel of the water was now yellow with the reflection of the sinking sun. But that ocher and gold became more brilliant yet as the torches of the Salariki set blazing up far floating patches of scum. Dane shielded his eyes against the glare and tried to watch the water, with some idea that this move must be provocation and what they hunted would so be driven into view.

He held his sleep rod ready, just as the Salarik on his right had claw knife in one hand and in the other, open and waiting, the net intended to entangle and hold fast a victim, binding him for the kill.

But it was at the far tip of the barrier—the post of greatest honor which Groft had jealously claimed as his, that the gorp struck first. At a wild shout of defiance Dane half turned to see the Salarik noble cast his net at sea level and then stab viciously with a well practiced blow. When he raised his arm for a second thrust, greenish ichor ran from the blade down his wrist.

“Dane!”

Thorson’s head jerked around. He saw the vee of ripples headed straight for the rocks where he balanced.

But he’d have to wait for a better target than a moving wedge of water. Instinctively he half crouched in the stance of an embattled spaceman, wishing now that he did have a blaster.

Neither of the Salariki stationed on either side of him made any move and he guessed that was hunt etiquette. Each man was supposed to face and kill the monster that challenged him—without assistance. And upon his skill during the next few minutes might rest the reputation of all Terrans as far as the natives were concerned.

There was a shadow outline beneath the surface of the metallic water now, but he could not see well because of the distortion of the murky waves. He must wait until he was sure.

Then the thing gave a spurt and, only inches beyond the toes of his boots, a nightmare creature sprang halfway out of the water, pincher claws as long as his own arms snapping at him. Without being conscious of his act, he pressed the stud of the sleep rod, aiming in the general direction of that horror from the sea.

But to his utter amazement the creature did not fall supinely back into watery world from which it had emerged. Instead those claws snapped again, this time scrapping across the top of Dane’s foot, leaving a furrow in material the keenest of knives could not have scored.

“Give it to him!” That was Rip shouting encouragement from his own place farther along the reef.

Dane pressed the firing stud again and again. The claws waved as the monstrosity slavered from a gaping frog’s mouth, a mouth which was fanged with a shark’s vicious teeth. It was almost wholly out of the water, creeping on a crab’s many legs, with a clawed upper limb reaching for him, when suddenly it stopped, its huge head turning from side to side in the sheltering carapace of scaled natural armor. It settled back as if crouching for a final spring—a spring which would push Dane into the ocean.

But that attack never came. Instead the gorp drew in upon itself until it resembled an unwieldy ball of indestructible armor and there it remained.

The Salariki on either side of Dane let out cries of triumph and edged closer. One of them twirled his net suggestively, seeing that the Terran lacked what was to him an essential piece of hunting equipment. Dane nodded vigorously in agreement and the tough strands swung out in a skillful cast which engulfed the motionless creature on the reef. But it was so protected by its scales that there was no opening for the claw knife. They had made a capture but they could not make a kill.

However, the Salariki were highly delighted. And several abandoned their posts to help the boys drag the monster ashore where it was pinned down to the beach by stakes driven through the edges of the net.

But the hunting party was given little time to gloat over this stroke of fortune. The gorp killed by Groft and the one stunned by Dane were only the van of an army and within moments the hunters on the reef were confronted by trouble armed with slashing claws and diabolic fighting ability.

The battle was anything but one-sided. Dane whirled, as the air was rent by a shriek of agony, just in time to see one of the Salariki, already torn by the claws of a gorp, being drawn under the water. It was too late to save the hunter, though Dane, balanced on the very edge of the reef, aimed a beam into the bloody waves. If the gorp was affected by this attack he could not tell, for both attacker and victim could no longer be seen.

But Ali had better luck in rescuing the Salarik who shared his particular section of reef, and the native, gashed and spurting blood from a wound in his thigh, was hauled to safety. While the gorp, coiling too slowly under the Terran ray, was literally hewn to pieces by the revengeful knives of the hunter’s kin.

The fight broke into a series of individual duels carried on now by the light of the torches as the evening closed in. The last of the purple patches had burned away to nothing. Dane crouched by his standard torch, his eyes fastened on the sea, watching for an ominous vee of ripples betraying another gorp on its way to launch against the rock barrier.

There was such wild confusion along that line of water sprayed rocks that he had no idea of how the engagement was going. But so far the gorp showed no signs of having had enough.

Dane was shaken out of his absorption by another scream. One, he was sure, which had not come from any Salariki throat. He got to his feet. Rip was stationed four men beyond him. Yes, the tall Astrogator-apprentice was there, outlined against torch flare. Ali? No—there was the assistant Engineer. Weeks? But Weeks was picking his way back along the reef toward the shore, haste expressed in every line of his figure. The scream sounded for a second time, freezing the Terrans.

“Come back—!” That was Weeks gesturing violently at the shore and something floundering in the protecting circle of the reef. The younger Salariki who had been feeding the fire were now clustered at the water’s edge.

Ali ran and with a leap covered the last few feet, landing reckless knee deep in the waves. Dane saw light strike on his rod as he swung it in a wide arc to center on the struggle churning the water into foam. A third scream died to a moan and then the Salariki dashed into the sea, their nets spread, drawing back with them through the surf a dark and now quiet mass.

The fact that at least one gorp had managed to get on the inner side of the reef made an impression on the rest of the native hunters. After an uncertain minute or two Groft gave the signal to withdraw—which they did with grisly trophies. Dane counted seven gorp bodies—which did not include the prisoner ashore. And more might have slid into the sea to die. On the other hand two Salariki were dead—one had been drawn into the sea before Dane’s eyes—and at least one was badly wounded. But who had been pulled down in the shallows—some one sent out from the Queen with a message?

Dane raced back along the reef, not waiting to pull up his torch, and before he reached the shore Rip was overtaking him. But the man who lay groaning on the sand was not from the Queen. The torn and bloodstained tunic covering his lacerated shoulders had the I-S badge. Ali was already at work on his wounds, giving temporary first aid from his belt kit. To all their questions he was stubbornly silent—either he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer.

In the end they helped the Salariki rig three stretchers. On one the largest, the captive gorp, still curled in a round carapace protected ball, was bound with the net. The second supported the wounded Salarik clansman and onto the third the Terrans lifted the I-S man.

“We’ll deliver him to his own ship,” Rip decided. “He must have tailed us here as a spy—” He asked a passing Salarik as to where they could find the Company spacer.

“They might just think we are responsible,” Ali pointed out. “But I see your point. If we do pack him back to the Queen and he doesn’t make it, they might say that we fired his rockets for him. All right, boys, let’s up-ship—he doesn’t look too good to me.”

With a torch-bearing Salarik boy as a guide, they hurried along a path taking in turns the burden of the stretcher. Luckily the I-S ship was even closer to the sea than the Queen and as they crossed the slagged ground, congealed by the break fire, they were trotting.

Though the Company ship was probably one of the smallest Inter-Solar carried on her rosters, it was a third again as large as the Queen—with part of that third undoubtedly dedicated to extra cargo space. Beside her their own spacer would seem not only smaller, but battered and worn. But no Free Trader would have willingly assumed the badges of a Company man, not even for the command of such a ship fresh from the cradles of a builder.

When a man went up from the training Pool for his first assignment, he was sent to the ship where his temperament, training and abilities best fitted. And those who were designated as Free Traders would never fit into the pattern of Company men. Of late years the breech between those who lived under the strict parental control of one of the five great galaxy wide organizations and those still too much of an individual to live any life but that of a half-explorer-half-pioneer which was the Free Trader’s, had widened alarmingly. Antagonism flared, rivalry was strong. But as yet the great Companies themselves were at polite cold war with one another for the big plums of the scattered systems. The Free Traders took the crumbs and there was not much disputing—save in cases such as had arisen on Sargol, when suddenly crumbs assumed the guise of very rich cake, rich and large enough to attract a giant.

The party from the Queen was given a peremptory challenge as they reached the other ship’s ramp. Rip demanded to see the officer of the watch and then told the story of the wounded man as far as they knew it. The Eysie was hurried aboard—nor did his shipmates give a word of thanks.

“That’s that.” Rip shrugged. “Let’s go before they slam the hatch so hard they’ll rock their ship off her fins!”

“Polite, aren’t they?” asked Weeks mildly.

“What do you expect of Eysies?” Ali wanted to know. “To them Free Traders are just rim planet trash. Let’s report back where we are appreciated.”

They took a short cut which brought them back to the Queen and they filed up her ramp to make their report to the Captain.

But they were not yet satisfied with Groft and his gorp slayers. No Salarik appeared for trade in the morning—surprising the Terrans. Instead a second delegation, this time of older men and a storm priest, visited the spacer with an invitation to attend Paft’s funeral feast, a rite which would be followed by the formal elevation of Groft to his father’s position, now that he had revenged that parent. And from remarks dropped by members of the delegation it was plain that the bearing of the Terrans who had joined the hunting party was esteemed to have been in highest accord with Salariki tradition.

They drew lots to decide which two must remain with the ship and the rest perfumed themselves so as to give no offense which might upset their now cordial relations. Again it was mid-afternoon when the Salariki escort sent to do them honor waited at the edge of the wood and Mura and Tang saw them off. With a herald booming before them, they traveled the beaten earth road in the opposite direction from the trading center, off through the forest until they came to a wide section of several miles which had been rigorously cleared of any vegetation which might give cover to a lurking enemy. In the center of this was a twelve-foot-high stockade of the bright red, burnished wood which had attracted Weeks on the shore. Each paling was the trunk of a tree and it had been sharpened at the top to a wicked point. On the field side was a wide ditch, crossed at the gate by a bridge, the planking of which might be removed at will. And as Dane passed over he looked down into the moat that was dry. The Salariki did not depend upon water for a defense—but on something else which his experience of the previous night had taught him to respect. There was no mistaking that shade of purple. The highly inflammable scum the hunters had burnt from the top of the waves had been brought inland and lay a greasy blanket some eight feet below. It would only be necessary to toss a torch on that and the defenders of the stockade would create a wall of fire to baffle any attackers. The Salariki knew how to make the most of their world’s natural resources.

Chapter VI

DUELIST’S CHALLENGE

Inside the red stockade there was a crowded community. The Salariki demanded privacy of a kind, and even the unmarried warriors did not share barracks, but each had a small cubicle of his own. So that the mud brick and timber erections of one of their clan cities resembled nothing so much as the comb cells of a busy beehive. Although Paft’s was considered a large clan, it numbered only about two hundred fighting men and their numerous wives, children and captive servants. Not all of them normally lived at this center, but for the funeral feasting they had assembled—which meant a lot of doubling up and tenting out under makeshift cover between the regular buildings of the town. So that the Terrans were glad to be guided through this crowded maze to the Great Hall which was its heart.

As the trading center had been, the hall was a circular enclosure open to the sky above but divided in wheel-spoke fashion with posts of the red wood, each supporting a metal basket filled with imflammable material. Here were no lowly stools or trading tables. One vast circular board, broken only by a gap at the foot, ran completely around the wall. At the end opposite the entrance was the high chair of the chieftain, set on a two step dais. Though the feast had not yet officially begun, the Terrans saw that the majority of the places were already occupied.

They were led around the perimeter of the enclosure to places not far from the high seat. Van Rycke settled down with a grunt of satisfaction. It was plain that the Free Traders were numbered among the nobility. They could be sure of good trade in the days to come.

Delegations from neighboring clans arrived in close companies of ten or twelve and were granted seats, as had been the Terrans, in groups. Dane noted that there was no intermingling of clan with clan. And, as they were to understand later that night, there was a very good reason for that precaution.

“Hope all our adaption shots work,” Ali murmured, eyeing with no pleasure at all the succession of platters now being borne through the inner opening of the table.

While the Traders had learned long ago that the wisest part of valor was not to sample alien strong drinks, ceremony often required that they break bread (or its other world equivalent) on strange planets. And so science served expediency and now a Trader bound for any Galactic banquet was immunized, as far as was medically possible, against the evil consequences of consuming food not originally intended for Terran stomachs. One of the results being that Traders acquired a far flung reputation of possessing bird-like appetites—since it was always better to nibble and live, than to gorge and die.

Groft had not yet taken his place in the vacant chieftain’s chair. For the present he stood in the center of the table circle, directing the captive slaves who circulated with the food. Until the magic moment when the clan themselves would proclaim their overlord, he remained merely the eldest son of the house, relatively without power.

As the endless rows of platters made their way about the table the basket lights on the tops of the pillars were ignited, dispelling the dusk of evening. And there was an attendant stationed by each to throw on handsful of aromatic bark which burned with puffs of lavender smoke, adding to the many warring scents. The Terrans had recourse at intervals to their own pungent smelling bottles, merely to clear their heads of the drugging fumes.

Luckily, Dane thought as the feast proceeded, that smoke from the braziers went straight up. Had they been in a roofed space they might have been overcome. As it was—were they entirely conscious of all that was going on around them?

His reason for that speculation was the dance now being performed in the center of the hall—their fight with the gorp being enacted in a series of bounds and stabbings. He was sure that he could no longer trust his eyes when the claw knife of the victorious dancer-hunter apparently passed completely through the chest of another wearing a grotesque monster mask.

As a fitting climax to their horrific display, three of the men who had been with them on the reef entered, dragging behind them—still enmeshed in the hunting net—the gorp which Dane had stunned. It was uncurled now and very much alive, but the pincer claws which might have cut its way to safety were encased in balls of hard substance.

Freed from the net, suspended by its sealed claws, the gorp swung back and forth from a standard set up before the high seat. Its murderous jaws snapped futilely, and from it came an enraged snake’s vicious hissing. Though totally in the power of its enemies it gave an impression of terrifying strength and menace.

The sight of their ancient foe aroused the Salariki, inflaming warriors who leaned across the table to hurl tongue-twisting invective at the captive monster. Dane gathered that seldom had a living gorp been delivered helpless into their hands and they proposed to make the most of this wonderful opportunity. And the Terran suddenly wished the monstrosity had fallen back into the sea. He had no soft thoughts for the gorp after what he had seen at the reef and the tales he had heard, but neither did he like what he saw now expressed in gestures, heard in the tones of voices about them.

A storm priest put an end to the outcries. His dun cloak making a spot of darkness amid all the flashing color, he came straight to the place where the gorp swung. As he took his stand before the wriggling creature the din gradually faded, the warriors settled back into their seats, a pool of quiet spread through the enclosure.

Groft came up to take his position beside the priest. With both hands he carried a two handled cup. It was not the ornamented goblet which stood before each diner, but a manifestly older artifact, fashioned of some dull black substance and having the appearance of being even older than the hall or town.

One of the warriors who had helped to bring in the gorp now made a quick and accurate cast with a looped rope, snaring the monster’s head and pulling back almost at a right angle. With deliberation the storm priest produced a knife—the first straight bladed weapon Dane had seen on Sargol. He made a single thrust in the soft underpart of the gorp’s throat, catching in the cup he took from Groft some of the ichor which spurted from the wound.

The gorp thrashed madly, spattering table and surrounding Salariki with its life fluid, but the attention of the crowd was riveted elsewhere. Into the old cup the priest poured another substance from a flask brought by an underling. He shook the cup back and forth, as if to mix its contents thoroughly and then handed it to Groft.

Holding it before him the young chieftain leaped to the table top and so to stand before the high seat. There was a hush throughout the enclosure. Now even the gorp had ceased its wild struggles and hung limp in its bonds.

Groft raised the cup above his head and gave a loud shout in the archaic language of his clan. He was answered by a chant from the warriors who would in battle follow his banner, chant punctuated with the clinking slap of knife blades brought down forcibly on the board.

Three times he recited some formula and was answered by the others. Then, in another period of sudden quiet, he raised the cup to his lips and drank off its contents in a single draught, turning the goblet upside down when he had done to prove that not a drop remained within. A shout tore through the great hall. The Salariki were all on their feet, waving their knives over their heads in honor to their new ruler. And Groft for the first time seated himself in the high seat. The clan was no longer without a chieftain. Groft held his father’s place.

“Show over?” Dane heard Stotz murmur and Van Rycke’s disappointing reply:

“Not yet. They’ll probably make a night of it. Here comes another round of drinks—”

“And trouble with them,”—that was Captain Jellico being prophetic.

“By the Coalsack’s Ripcord!” That exclamation had been jolted out of Rip and Dane turned to see what had so jarred the usually serene Astrogator-apprentice. He was just in time to witness an important piece of Sargolian social practice.

A young warrior, surely only within a year or so of receiving his knife, was facing an older Salarik, both on their feet. The head and shoulder fur of the older fighter was dripping wet and an empty goblet rolled across the table to bump to the floor. A hush had fallen on the immediate neighbors of the pair, and there was an air of expectancy about the company.

“Threw his drink all over the other fellow,” Rip’s soft whisper explained. “That means a duel—”

“Here and now?” Dane had heard of the personal combat proclivities of the Salariki.

“Should be to the death for an insult such as that,” Ali remarked, as usual surveying the scene from his chosen role as bystander. As a child he had survived the unspeakable massacres of the Crater War, nothing had been able to crack his surface armor since.

“The young fool!” that was Steen Wilcox sizing up the situation from the angle of a naturally cautious nature and some fifteen years of experience on a great many different worlds. “He’ll be mustered out for good before he knows what happened to him!”

The younger Salarik had barked a question at his elder and had been promptly answered by that dripping warrior. Now their neighbors came to life with an efficiency which suggested that they had been waiting for such a move, it had happened so many times that every man knew just the right procedure from that point on.

In order for a Sargolian feast to be a success, the Terrans gathered from overheard remarks, at least one duel must be staged sometime during the festivities. And those not actively engaged did a lot of brisk betting in the background.

“Look there—at that fellow in the violet cloak,” Rip directed Dane. “See what he just laid down?”

The nobleman in the violet cloak was not one of Groft’s liege men, but a member of the delegation from another clan. And what he had laid down on the table—indicating as he did so his choice as winner in the coming combat, the elder warrior—was a small piece of white material on which reposed a slightly withered but familiar leaf. The neighbor he wagered with, eyed the stake narrowly, bending over to sniff at it, before he piled up two gem set armlets, a personal scent box and a thumb ring to balance.

At this practical indication of just how much the Terran herb was esteemed Dane regretted anew their earlier ignorance. He glanced along the board and saw that Van Rycke had noted that stake and was calling their Captain’s attention to it.

But such side issues were forgotten as the duelists vaulted into the circle rimmed by the table, a space now vacated for their action. They were stripped to their loin cloths, their cloaks thrown aside. Each carried his net in his right hand, his claw knife ready in his left. As yet the Traders had not seen Salarik against Salarik in action and in spite of themselves they edged forward in their seats, as intent as the natives upon what was to come. The finer points of the combat were lost on them, and they did not understand the drilled casts of the net, which had become as formalized through the centuries as the ancient and now almost forgotten sword play of their own world. The young Salarik had greater agility and speed, but the veteran who faced him had the experience.

To Terran eyes the duel had some of the weaving, sweeping movements of the earlier ritual dance. The swift evasions of the nets were graceful and so timed that many times the meshes grazed the skin of the fighter who fled entrapment.

Dane believed that the elder man was tiring, and the youngster must have shared that opinion. There was a leap to the right, a sudden flurry of dart and retreat, and then a net curled high and fell, enfolding flailing arms and kicking legs. When the clutch rope was jerked tight, the captured youth was thrown off balance. He rolled frenziedly, but there was no escaping the imprisoning strands.

A shout applauded the victor. He stood now above his captive who lay supine, his throat or breast ready for either stroke of the knife his captor wished to deliver. But it appeared that the winner was not minded to end the encounter with blood. Instead he reached out a long, befurred arm, took up a filled goblet from the table and with serious deliberation, poured its contents onto the upturned face of the loser.

For a moment there was a dead silence around the feast board and then a second roar, to which the honestly relieved Terrans added spurts of laughter. The sputtering youth was shaken free of the net and went down on his knees, tendering his opponent his knife, which the other thrust along with his own into his sash belt. Dane gathered from overheard remarks that the younger man was, for a period of time, to be determined by clan council, now the servant-slave of his overthrower and that since they were closely united by blood ties, this solution was considered eminently suitable—though had the elder killed his opponent, no one would have thought the worse of him for that deed.

It was the Queen’s men who were to provide the next center of attraction. Groft climbed down from his high seat and came to face across the board those who had accompanied him on the hunt. This time there was no escaping the sipping of the potent drink which the new chieftain slopped from his own goblet into each of theirs.

The fiery mouthful almost gagged Dane, but he swallowed manfully and hoped for the best as it burned like acid down his throat into his middle, there to mix uncomfortably with the viands he had eaten. Weeks’ thin face looked very white, and Dane noticed with malicious enjoyment, that Ali had an unobtrusive grip on the table which made his knuckles stand out in polished knobs—proving that there were things which could upset the imperturbable Kamil.

Fortunately they were not required to empty that flowing bowl in one gulp as Groft had done. The ceremonial mouthful was deemed enough and Dane sat down thankfully—but with uneasy fears for the future.

Groft had started back to his high seat when there was an interruption which had not been foreseen. A messenger threaded his way among the serving men and spoke to the chieftain, who glanced at the Terrans and then nodded.

Dane, his queasiness growing every second, was not attending until he heard a bitten off word from Rip’s direction and looked up to see a party of I-S men coming into the open space before the high seat. The men from the Queen stiffened—there was something in the attitude of the newcomers which hinted at trouble.

“What do you wish, sky lords?” That was Groft using the Trade Lingo, his eyes half closed as he lolled in his chair of state, almost as if he were about to witness some entertainment provided for his pleasure.

“We wish to offer you the good fortune desires of our hearts—” That was Kallee, the flowery words rolling with the proper accent from his tongue. “And that you shall not forget us—we also offer gifts—”

At a gesture from their Cargo-master, the I-S men set down a small chest. Groft, his chin resting on a clenched fist, lost none of his lazy air.

“They are received,” he retorted with the formal acceptance. “And no one can have too much good fortune. The Howlers of the Black Winds know that.” But he tendered no invitation to join the feast.

Kallee did not appear to be disconcerted. His next move was one which took his rivals by surprise, in spite of their suspicions.

“Under the laws of the Fellowship, O, Groft,” he clung to the formal speech, “I claim redress—”

Ali’s hand moved. Through his growing distress Dane saw Van Rycke’s jaw tighten, the fighting mask snap back on Captain Jellico’s face. Whatever came now was real trouble.

Groft’s eyes flickered over the party from the Queen. Though he had just pledged cup friendship with four of them, he had the malicious humor of his race. He would make no move to head off what might be coming.

“By the right of the knife and the net,” he intoned, “you have the power to claim personal satisfaction. Where is your enemy?”

Kallee turned to face the Free Traders. “I hereby challenge a champion to be set out from these off-worlders to meet by the blood and by the water my champion—”

The Salariki were getting excited. This was superb entertainment, an engagement such as they had never hoped to see—alien against alien. The rising murmur of their voices was like the growl of a hunting beast.

Groft smiled and the pleasure that expression displayed was neither Terran—nor human. But then the clan leader was not either, Dane reminded himself.

“Four of these warriors are clan-bound,” he said. “But the others may produce a champion—”

Dane looked along the line of his comrades—Ali, Rip, Weeks and himself had just been ruled out. That left Jellico, Van Rycke, Karl Kosti, the giant jetman whose strength they had to rely upon before, Stotz the Engineer, Medic Tau and Steen Wilcox. If it were strength alone he would have chosen Kosti, but the big man was not too quick a thinker—

Jellico got to his feet, the embodiment of a star lane fighting man. In the flickering light the scar on his cheek seemed to ripple. “Who’s your champion?” he asked Kallee.

The Eysie Cargo-master was grinning. He was confident he had pushed them into a position from which they could not extricate themselves.

“You accept challenge?” he countered.

Jellico merely repeated his question and Kallee beckoned forward one of his men.

The Eysie who stepped up was no match for Kosti. He was a slender, almost wand-slim young man, whose pleased smirk said that he, too, was about to put something over on the notorious Free Traders. Jellico studied him for a couple of long seconds during which the hum of Salariki voices was the threatening buzz of a disturbed wasps’ nest. There was no way out of this—to refuse conflict was to lose all they had won with the clansmen. And they did not doubt that Kallee had, in some way, triggered the scales against them.

Jellico made the best of it. “We accept challenge,” his voice was level. “We, being guesting in Groft’s holding, will fight after the manner of the Salariki who are proven warriors—” He paused as roars of pleased acknowledgment arose around the board.

“Therefore let us follow the custom of warriors and take up the net and the knife—”

Was there a shade of dismay on Kallee’s face?

“And the time?” Groft leaned forward to ask—but his satisfaction at such a fine ending for his feast was apparent. This would be talked over by every Sargolian for many storm seasons to come!

Jellico glanced up at the sky. “Say an hour after dawn, chieftain. With your leave, we shall confer concerning a champion.”

“My council room is yours,” Groft signed for a liege man to guide them.

Chapter VII

BARRING ACCIDENT

The morning winds rustled through the grass forest and, closer to hand, it pulled at the cloaks of the Salariki. Clan nobles sat on stools, lesser folk squatted on the trampled stubble of the cleared ground outside the stockade. In their many colored splendor the drab tunics of the Terrans were a blot of darkness at either end of the makeshift arena which had been marked out for them.

At the conclusion of their conference the Queen’s men had been forced into a course Jellico had urged from the first. He, and he alone, would represent the Free Traders in the coming duel. And now he stood there in the early morning, stripped down to shorts and boots, wearing nothing on which a net could catch and so trap him. The Free Traders were certain that the I-S men having any advantage would press it to the ultimate limit and the death of Captain Jellico would make a great impression on the Salariki.

Jellico was taller than the Eysie who faced him, but almost as lean. Hard muscles moved under his skin, pale where space tan had not burned in the years of his star voyaging. And his every movement was with the liquid grace of a man who, in his time, had been a master of the force blade. Now he gripped in his left hand the claw knife given him by Groft himself and in the other he looped the throwing rope of the net.

At the other end of the field, the Eysie man was industriously moving his bootsoles back and forth across the ground, intent upon coating them with as much of the gritty sand as would adhere. And he displayed the supreme confidence in himself which he had shown at the moment of challenge in the Great Hall.

None of the Free Trading party made the mistake of trying to give Jellico advice. The Captain had not risen to his command without learning his duties. And the duties of a Free Trader covered a wide range of knowledge and practice. One had to be equally expert with a blaster and a slingshot when the occasion demanded. Though Jellico had not fought a Salariki duel with net and knife before, he had a deep memory of other weapons, other tactics which could be drawn upon and adapted to his present need.

There was none of the casual atmosphere which had surrounded the affair between the Salariki clansmen in the hall. Here was ceremony. The storm priests invoked their own particular grim Providence, and there was an oath taken over the weapons of battle. When the actual engagement began the betting among the spectators had reached, Dane decided, epic proportions. Large sections of Sargolian personal property were due to change hands as a result of this encounter.

As the chief priest gave the order to engage both Terrans advanced from their respective ends of the fighting space with the half crouching, light footed tread of spacemen. Jellico had pulled his net into as close a resemblance to rope as its bulk would allow. The very type of weapon, so far removed from any the Traders knew, made it a disadvantage rather than an asset.

But it was when the Eysie moved out to meet the Captain that Rip’s fingers closed about Dane’s upper arm in an almost paralyzing grip.

“He knows—”

Dane had not needed that bad news to be made vocal. Having seen the exploits of the Salariki duelists earlier, he had already caught the significance of that glide, of the way the I-S champion carried his net. The Eysie had not had any last minute instruction in the use of Sargolian weapons—he had practiced and, by his stance, knew enough to make him a formidable menace. The clamor about the Queen’s party rose as the battle-wise eyes of the clansmen noted that and the odds against Jellico reached fantastic heights while the hearts of his crew sank.

Only Van Rycke was not disturbed. Now and then he raised his smelling bottle to his nose with an elegant gesture which matched those of the befurred nobility around him, as if not a thought of care ruffled his mind.

The Eysie feinted in a opening which was a rather ragged copy of the young Salarik’s more fluid moves some hours before. But, when the net settled, Jellico was simply not there, his quick drop to one knee had sent the mesh flailing in an arc over his bowed shoulders with a good six inches to spare. And a cry of approval came not only from his comrades, but from those natives who had been gamblers enough to venture their wagers on his performance.

Dane watched the field and the fighters through a watery film. The discomfort he had experienced since downing that mouthful of the cup of friendship had tightened into a fist of pain clutching his middle in a torturing grip. But he knew he must stick it out until Jellico’s ordeal was over. Someone stumbled against him and he glanced up to see Ali’s face, a horrible gray-green under the tan, close to his own. For a moment the Engineer-apprentice caught at his arm for support and then with a visible effort straightened up. So he wasn’t the only one—He looked for Rip and Weeks and saw that they, too, were ill.

But for a moment all that mattered was the stretch of trampled earth and the two men facing each other. The Eysie made another cast and this time, although Jellico was not caught, the slap of the mesh raised a red welt on his forearm. So far the Captain had been content to play the defensive role of retreat, studying his enemy, planning ahead.

The Eysie plainly thought the game his, that he had only to wait for a favorable moment and cinch the victory. Dane began to think it had gone on for weary hours. And he was dimly aware that the Salariki were also restless. One or two shouted angrily at Jellico in their own tongue.

The end came suddenly. Jellico lost his footing, stumbled, and went down. But before his men could move, the Eysie champion bounded forward, his net whirling out. Only he never reached the Captain. In the very act of falling Jellico had pulled his legs under him so that he was not supine but crouched, and his net swept but at ground level, clipping the I-S man about the shins, entangling his feet so that he crashed heavily to the sod and lay still.

“The whip—that Lalox whip trick!” Wilcox’s voice rose triumphantly above the babble of the crowd. Using his net as if it had been a thong, Jellico had brought down the Eysie with a move the other had not foreseen.

Breathing hard, sweat running down his shoulders and making tracks through the powdery red dust which streaked him, Jellico got to his feet and walked over to the I-S champion who had not moved or made a sound since his fall. The Captain went down on one knee to examine him.

“Kill! Kill!” That was the Salariki, all their instinctive savagery aroused.

But Jellico spoke to Groft. “By our customs we do not kill the conquered. Let his friends bear him hence.” He took the claw knife the Eysie still clutched in his hand and thrust it into his own belt. Then he faced the I-S party and Kallee.

“Take your man and get out!” The rein he had kept on his temper these past days was growing very thin. “You’ve made your last play here.”

Kallee’s thick lips drew back in something close to a Salarik snarl. But neither he nor his men made any reply. They bundled up their unconscious fighter and disappeared.

Of their own return to the sanctuary of the Queen Dane had only the dimmest of memories afterwards. He had made the privacy of the forest road before he yielded to the demands of his outraged interior. And after that he had stumbled along with Van Rycke’s hand under his arm, knowing from other miserable sounds that he was not alone in his torment.

It was some time later, months he thought when he first roused, that he found himself lying in his bunk, feeling very weak and empty as if a large section of his middle had been removed, but also at peace with his world. As he levered himself up the cabin had a nasty tendency to move slowly to the right as if he were a pivot on which it swung, and he had all the sensations of being in free fall though the Queen was still firmly planeted. But that was only a minor discomfort compared to the disturbance he remembered.

Fed the semi-liquid diet prescribed by Tau and served up by Mura to him and his fellow sufferers, he speedily got back his strength. But it had been a close call, he did not need Tau’s explanation to underline that. Weeks had suffered the least of the four, he the most—though none of them had had an easy time. And they had been out of circulation three days.

“The Eysie blasted last night,” Rip informed him as they lounged in the sun on the ramp, sharing the blessed lazy hours of invalidism.

But somehow that news gave Dane no lift of spirit. “I didn’t think they’d give up—”

Rip shrugged. “They may be off to make a dust-off before the Board. Only, thanks to Van and the Old Man, we’re covered all along the line. There’s nothing they can use against us to break our contract. And now we’re in so solid they can’t cut us out with the Salariki. Groft asked the Captain to teach him that trick with the net. I didn’t know the Old Man knew Lalox whip fighting—it’s about one of the nastiest ways to get cut to pieces in this universe—”

“How’s trade going?”

Rip’s sunniness clouded. “Supplies have given out. Weeks had an idea—but it won’t bring in Koros. That red wood he’s so mad about, he’s persuaded Van to stow some in the cargo holds since we have enough Koros stones to cover the voyage. Luckily the clansmen will take ordinary trade goods in exchange for that and Weeks thinks it will sell on Terra. It’s tough enough to turn a steel knife blade and yet it is light and easy to handle when it’s cured. Queer stuff and the color’s interesting. That stockade of it planted around Groft’s town has been up close to a hundred years and not a sign of rot in a log of it!”

“Where is Van?”

“The storm priests sent for him. Some kind of a gabble-fest on the star-star level, I gather. Otherwise we’re almost ready to blast. And we know what kind of cargo to bring next time.”

They certainly did, Dane agreed. But he was not to idle away his morning. An hour later a caravan came out of the forest, a line of complaining, burdened orgels, their tiny heads hanging low as they moaned their woes, the hard life which sent them on their sluggish way with piles of red logs lashed to their broad toads’ backs. Weeks was in charge of the procession and Dane went to work with the cargo plan Van had left, seeing that the brilliant scarlet lengths were hoist into the lower cargo hatch and stacked according to the science of stowage. He discovered that Rip had been right, the wood for all its incredible hardness was light of weight. Weak as he still was he could lift and stow a full sized log with no great difficulty. And he thought Weeks was correct in thinking that it would sell on their home world. The color was novel, the durability an asset—it would not make fortunes as the Koros stones might, but every bit of profit helped and this cargo might cover their fielding fees on Terra.

Sinbad was in the cargo space when the first of the logs came in. With his usual curiosity the striped tom cat prowled along the wood, sniffing industriously. Suddenly he stopped short, spat and backed away, his spine fur a roughened crest. Having backed as far as the inner door he turned and slunk out. Puzzled, Dane gave the wood a swift inspection. There were no cracks or crevices in the smooth surfaces, but as he stopped over the logs he became conscious of a sharp odor. So this was one scent of the perfumed planet Sinbad did not like. Dane laughed. Maybe they had better have Weeks make a gate of the stuff and slip it across the ramp, keeping Sinbad on ship board. Odd—it wasn’t an unpleasant odor—at least to him it wasn’t—just sharp and pungent. He sniffed again and was vaguely surprised to discover that it was less noticeable now. Perhaps the wood when taken out of the sunlight lost its scent.

They packed the lower hold solid in accordance with the rules of stowage and locked the hatch before Van Rycke returned from his meeting with the storm priests. When the Cargo-master came back he was followed by two servants bearing between them a chest.

But there was something in Van Rycke’s attitude, apparent to those who knew him best, that proclaimed he was not too well pleased with his morning’s work. Sparing the feelings of the accompanying storm priests about the offensiveness of the spacer Captain Jellico and Steen Wilcox went out to receive them in the open. Dane watched from the hatch, aware that in his present pariah-hood it would not be wise to venture closer.

The Terran Traders were protesting some course of action that the Salariki were firmly insistent upon. In the end the natives won and Kosti was summoned to carry on board the chest which the servants had brought. Having seen it carried safely inside the spacer, the aliens departed, but Van Rycke was frowning and Jellico’s fingers were beating a tattoo on his belt as they came up the ramp.

“I don’t like it,” Jellico stated as he entered.

“It was none of my doing,” Van Rycke snapped. “I’ll take risks if I have to—but there’s something about this one—” he broke off, two deep lines showing between his thick brows. “Well, you can’t teach a sasseral to spit,” he ended philosophically. “We’ll have to do the best we can.”

But Jellico did not look at all happy as he climbed to the control section. And before the hour was out the reason for the Captain’s uneasiness was common property throughout the ship.

Having sampled the delights of off-world herbs, the Salariki were determined to not be cut off from their source of supply. Six Terran months from the present Sargolian date would come the great yearly feast of the Fifty Storms, and the priests were agreed that this year their influence and power would be doubled if they could offer the devout certain privileges in the form of Terran plants. Consequently they had produced and forced upon the reluctant Van Rycke the Koros collection of their order, with instructions that it be sold on Terra and the price returned to them in the precious seeds and plants. In vain the Cargo-master and Captain had pointed out that Galactic trade was a chancy thing at the best, that accident might prevent return of the Queen to Sargol. But the priests had remained adamant and saw in all such arguments only a devious attempt to raise prices. They quoted in their turn the information they had levered out of the Company men—that Traders had their code and that once pay had been given in advance the contract must be fulfilled. They, and they alone, wanted the full cargo of the Queen on her next voyage, and they were taking the one way they were sure of achieving that result.

So a fortune in Koros stones which as yet did not rightfully belong to the Traders was now in the Queen’s strong-room and her crew were pledged by the strongest possible tie known in their Service to set down on Sargol once more before the allotted time had passed. The Free Traders did not like it, there was even a vaguely superstitious feeling that such a bargain would inevitably draw ill luck to them. But they were left with no choice if they wanted to retain their influence with the Salariki.

“Cutting orbit pretty fine, aren’t we?” Ali asked Rip across the mess table. “I saw your two star man sweating it out before he came down to shoot the breeze with us rocket monkeys—”

Rip nodded. “Steen’s double checked every computation and some he’s done four times.” He ran his hands over his close cropped head with a weary gesture. As a semi-invalid he had been herded down with his fellows to swallow the builder Mura had concocted and Tau insisted that they take, but he had been doing a half a night’s work on the plotter under his chief’s exacting eye before he came. “The latest news is that, barring accident, we can make it with about three weeks’ grace, give or take a day or two—”

“Barring accident—” the words rang in the air. Here on the frontiers of the star lanes there were so many accidents, so many delays which could put a ship behind schedule. Only on the main star trails did the huge liners or Company ships attempt to keep on regularly timed trips. A Free Trader did not really dare to have an inelastic contract.

“What does Stotz say?” Dane asked Ali.

“He says he can deliver. We don’t have the headache about setting a course—you point the nose and we only give her the boost to send her along.”

Rip sighed. “Yes—point her nose.” He inspected his nails. “Goodbye,” he added gravely. “These won’t be here by the time we planet here again. I’ll have my fingers gnawed off to the first knuckle. Well, we lift at six hours. Pleasant strap down.” He drank the last of the stuff in his mug, made a face at the flavor, and got to his feet, due back at his post in control.

Dane, free of duty until the ship earthed, drifted back to his own cabin, sure of part of a night’s undisturbed rest before they blasted off. Sinbad was curled on his bunk. For some reason the cat had not been prowling the ship before take-off as he usually did. First he had sat on Van’s desk and now he was here, almost as if he wanted human company. Dane picked him up and Sinbad rumbled a purr, arching his head so that it rubbed against the young man’s chin in an extremely uncharacteristic show of affection. Smoothing the fur along the cat’s jaw line Dane carried him back to the Cargo-master’s cabin.

With some hesitation he knocked at the panel and did not step in until he had Van Rycke’s muffled invitation. The Cargo-master was stretched on the bunk, two of the take off straps already fastened across his bulk as if he intended to sleep through the blast-off.

“Sinbad, sir. Shall I stow him?”

Van Rycke grunted an assent and Dane dropped the cat in the small hammock which was his particular station, fastening the safety cords. For once Sinbad made no protest but rolled into a ball and was promptly fast asleep. For a moment or two Dane thought about this unnatural behavior and wondered if he should call it to the Cargo-master’s attention. Perhaps on Sargol Sinbad had had his equivalent of a friendship cup and needed a check-up by Tau.

“Stowage correct?” the question, coming from Van Rycke, was also unusual. The seal would not have been put across the hold lock had its contents not been checked and rechecked.

“Yes, sir,” Dane replied woodenly, knowing he was still in the outer darkness. “There was just the wood—we stowed it according to chart.”

Van Rycke grunted once more. “Feeling top-layer again?”

“Yes, sir. Any orders, sir?”

“No. Blast-off’s at six.”

“Yes, sir.” Dane left the cabin, closing the panel carefully behind him. Would he—or could he—he thought drearily, get back in Van Rycke’s profit column again? Sargol had been unlucky as far as he was concerned. First he had made that stupid mistake and then he got sick and now—And now—what was the matter? Was it just the general attack of nerves over their voyage and the commitments which forced their haste, or was it something else? He could not rid himself of a vague sense that the Queen was about to take off into real trouble. And he did not like the sensation at all!

Chapter VIII

HEADACHES

They lifted from Sargol on schedule and went into Hyper also on schedule. From that point on there was nothing to do but wait out the usual dull time of flight between systems and hope that Steen Wilcox had plotted a course which would cut that flight time to a minimum. But this voyage there was little relaxation once they were in Hyper. No matter when Dane dropped into the mess cabin, which was the common meeting place of the spacer, he was apt to find others there before him, usually with a mug of one of Mura’s special brews close at hand, speculating about their landing date.

Dane, himself, once he had thrown off the lingering effects of his Sargolian illness, applied time to his studies. When he had first joined the Queen as a recruit straight out of the training Pool, he had speedily learned that all the ten years of intensive study then behind him had only been an introduction to the amount he still had to absorb before he could take his place as an equal with such a trader as Van Rycke—if he had the stuff which would raise him in time to that exalted level. While he had still had his superior’s favor he had dared to treat him as an instructor, going to him with perplexing problems of stowage or barter. But now he had no desire to intrude upon the Cargo-master, and doggedly wrestled with the microtapes of old records on his own, painfully working out the why and wherefor for any departure from the regular procedure. He had no inkling of his own future status—whether the return to Terra would find him permanently earthed. And he would ask no questions.

They had been four days of ship’s time in Hyper when Dane walked into the mess cabin, tired after his work with old records, to discover no Mura busy in the galley beyond, no brew steaming on the heat coil. Rip sat at the table, his long legs stuck out, his usually happy face very sober.

“What’s wrong?” Dane reached for a mug, then seeing no pot of drink, put it back in place.

“Frank’s sick—”

“What!” Dane turned. Illness such as they had run into on Sargol had a logical base. But illness on board ship was something else.

“Tau has him isolated. He has a bad headache and he blacked out when he tried to sit up. Tau’s running tests.”

Dane sat down. “Could be something he ate—”

Rip shook his head. “He wasn’t at the feast—remember? And he didn’t eat anything from outside, he swore that to Tau. In fact he didn’t go dirt much while we were down—”

That was only too true as Dane could now recall. And the fact that the steward had not been at the feast, had not sampled native food products, wiped out the simplest and most comforting reasons for his present collapse.

“What’s this about Frank?” Ali stood in the doorway. “He said yesterday that he had a headache. But now Tau has him shut off—”

“But he wasn’t at that feast.” Ali stopped short as the implications of that struck him. “How’s Tang feeling?”

“Fine—why?” The Com-tech had come up behind Kamil and was answering for himself. “Why this interest in the state of my health?”

“Frank’s down with something—in isolation,” Rip replied bluntly. “Did he do anything out of the ordinary when we were off ship?”

For a long moment the other stared at Shannon and then he shook his head. “No. And he wasn’t dirt-side to any extent either. So Tau’s running tests—” He lapsed into silence. None of them wished to put their thoughts into words.

Dane picked up the microtape he had brought with him and went on down the corridor to return it. The panel of the cargo office was ajar and to his relief he found Van Rycke out. He shoved the tape back in its case and pulled out the next one. Sinbad was there, not in his own private hammock, but sprawled out on the Cargo-master’s bunk. He watched Dane lazily, mouthing a silent mew of welcome. For some reason since they had blasted from Sargol the cat had been lazy—as if his adventures afield there had sapped much of his vitality.

“Why aren’t you out working?” Dane asked as he leaned over to scratch under a furry chin raised for the benefit of such a caress. “You inspect the hold lately, boy?”

Sinbad merely blinked and after the manner of his species looked infinitely bored. As Dane turned to go the Cargo-master came in. He showed no surprise at Dane’s presence. Instead he reached out and fingered the label of the tape Dane had just chosen. After a glance at the identifying symbol he took it out of his assistant’s hand, plopped it back in its case, and stood for a moment eyeing the selection of past voyage records. With a tongue-click of satisfaction he pulled out another and tossed it across the desk to Dane.

“See what you can make out of this tangle,” he ordered. But Dane’s shoulders went back as if some weight had been lifted from them. The old easiness was still lacking, but he was no longer exiled to the outer darkness of Van Rycke’s displeasure.

Holding the microtape as if it were a first grade Koros stone Dane went back to his own cabin, snapped the tape into his reader, adjusted the ear buttons and lay back on his bunk to listen.

He was deep in the intricacy of a deal so complicated that he was lost after the first two moves, when he opened his eyes to see Ali at the door panel. The Engineer-apprentice made an emphatic beckoning wave and Dane slipped off the ear buttons.

“What is it?” His question lacked a cordial note.

“I’ve got to have help.” Ali was terse. “Kosti’s blacked out!”

“What!” Dane sat up and dropped his feet to the deck in almost one movement.

“I can’t shift him alone,” Ali stated the obvious. The giant jetman was almost double his size. “We must get him to his quarters. And I won’t ask Stotz—”

For a perfectly good reason Dane knew. An assistant—two of the apprentices—could go sick, but their officers’ continued good health meant the most to the Queen. If some infection were aboard it would be better for Ali and himself to be exposed, than to have Johan Stotz with all his encyclopedic knowledge of the ship’s engines contract any disease.

They found the jetman half sitting, half lying in the short foot or so of corridor which led to his own cubby. He had been making for his quarters when the seizure had taken him. And by the time the two reached his side, he was beginning to come around, moaning, his hands going to his head.

Together they got him on his feet and guided him to his bunk where he collapsed again, dead weight they had to push into place. Dane looked at Ali—

“Tau?”

“Haven’t had time to call him yet.” Ali was jerking at the thigh straps which fastened Kosti’s space boots.

“I’ll go.” Glad for the task Dane sped up the ladder to the next section and threaded the narrow side hall to the Medic’s cabin where he knocked on the panel.

There was a pause before Craig Tau looked out, deep lines of weariness bracketing his mouth, etched between his eyes.

“Kosti, sir,” Dane gave his bad news quickly. “He’s collapsed. We got him to his cabin—”

Tau showed no sign of surprise. His hand shot out for his kit.

“You touched him?” At the other’s nod he added an order. “Stay in your quarters until I have a chance to look you over—understand?”

Dane had no chance to answer, the Medic was already on his way. He went to his own cabin, understanding the reason for his imprisonment, but inwardly rebelling against it. Rather than sit idle he snapped on the reader—but, although facts and figures were dunned into his ears—he really heard very little. He couldn’t apply himself—not with a new specter leering at him from the bulkhead.

The dangers of the space lanes were not to be numbered, death walked among the stars a familiar companion of all spacemen. And to the Free Trader it was the extra and invisible crewman on every ship that raised. But there were deaths and deaths—And Dane could not forget the gruesome legends Van Rycke collected avidly as his hobby—had recorded in his private library of the folk lore of space.

Stories such as that of the ghostly “New Hope” carrying refugees from the first Martian Rebellion—the ship which had lifted for the stars but had never arrived, which wandered for a timeless eternity, a derelict in free fall, its port closed but the warning “dead” lights on at its nose—a ship which through five centuries had been sighted only by a spacer in similar distress. Such stories were numerous. There were other tales of “plague” ships wandering free with their dead crews, or discovered and shot into some sun by a patrol cruiser so that they might not carry their infection farther. Plague—the nebulous “worst” the Traders had to face. Dane screwed his eyes shut, tried to concentrate upon the droning voice in his ears, but he could not control his thoughts nor—his fears.

At a touch on his arm he started so wildly that he jerked the cord loose from the reader and sat up, somewhat shamefaced, to greet Tau. At the Medic’s orders he stripped for one of the most complete examinations he had ever undergone outside a quarantine port. It included an almost microscopic inspection of the skin on his neck and shoulders, but when Tau had done he gave a sigh of relief.

“Well, you haven’t got it—at least you don’t show any signs yet,” he amended his first statement almost before the words were out of his mouth.

“What were you looking for?”

Tau took time out to explain. “Here,” his fingers touched the small hollow at the base of Dane’s throat and then swung him around and indicated two places on the back of his neck and under his shoulder blades. “Kosti and Mura both have red eruptions here. It’s as if they have been given an injection of some narcotic.” Tau sat down on the jump seat while Dane dressed. “Kosti was dirt-side—he might have picked up something—”

“But Mura—”

“That’s it!” Tau brought his fist down on the edge of the bunk. “Frank hardly left the ship—yet he showed the first signs. On the other hand you are all right so far and you were off ship. And Ali’s clean and he was with you on the hunt. We’ll just have to wait and see.” He got up wearily. “If your head begins to ache,” he told Dane, “you get back here in a hurry and stay put—understand?”

As Dane learned all the other members of the crew were given the same type of inspection. But none of them showed the characteristic marks which meant trouble. They were on course for Terra—but—and that but must have loomed large in all their minds—once there would they be allowed to land? Could they even hope for a hearing? Plague ship—Tau must find the answer before they came into normal space about their own solar system or they were in for such trouble as made a broken contract seem the simplest of mishaps.

Kosti and Mura were in isolation. There were volunteers for nursing and Tau, unable to be in two places at once, finally picked Weeks to look after his crewmate in the engineering section.

There was doubling up of duties. Tau could no longer share with Mura the care of the hydro garden so Van Rycke took over. While Dane found himself in charge of the galley and, while he did not have Mura’s deft hand at disguising the monotonous concentrates to the point they resembled fresh food, after a day or two he began to experiment cautiously and produced a stew which brought some short words of appreciation from Captain Jellico.

They all breathed a sigh of relief when, after three days, no more signs of the mysterious illness showed on new members of the crew. It became routine to parade before Tau stripped to the waist each morning for the inspection of the danger points, and the Medic’s vigilance did not relax.

In the meantime neither Mura nor Kosti appeared to suffer. Once the initial stages of headaches and blackouts were passed, the patients lapsed into a semi-conscious state as if they were under sedation of some type. They would eat, if the food was placed in their mouths, but they did not seem to know what was going on about them, nor did they answer when spoken to.

Tau, between visits to them, worked feverishly in his tiny lab, analyzing blood samples, reading the records of obscure diseases, trying to find the reason for their attacks. But as yet his discoveries were exactly nothing. He had come out of his quarters and sat in limp exhaustion at the mess table while Dane placed before him a mug of stimulating caf-hag.

“I don’t get it!” The Medic addressed the table top rather than the amateur cook. “It’s a poison of some kind. Kosti went dirt-side—Mura didn’t. Yet Mura came down with it first. And we didn’t ship any food from Sargol. Neither did he eat any while we were there. Unless he did and we didn’t know about it. If I could just bring him to long enough to answer a couple of questions!” Sighing he dropped his weary head on his folded arms and within seconds was asleep.

Dane put the mug back on the heating unit and sat down at the other end of the table. He did not have the heart to shake Tau into wakefulness—let the poor devil get a slice of bunk time, he certainly needed it after the fatigues of the past four days.

Van Rycke passed along the corridor on his way to the hydro, Sinbad at his heels. But in a moment the cat was back, leaping up on Dane’s knee. He did not curl up, but rubbed against the young man’s arm, finally reaching up with a paw to touch Dane’s chin, uttering one of the soundless, mews which were his bid for attention.

“What’s the matter, boy?” Dane fondled the cat’s ears. “You haven’t got a headache—have you?” In that second a wild surmise came into his mind. Sinbad had been planet-side on Sargol as much as he could, and on ship board he was equally at home in all their cabins—could he be the carrier of the disease?

A good idea—only if it were true, then logically the second victim should have been Van, or Dane—whereas Sinbad lingered most of the time in their cabins—not Kosti. The cat, as far as he knew, had never shown any particular fondness for the jetman and certainly did not sleep in Karl’s quarters. No—that point did not fit. But he would mention it to Tau—no use overlooking anything—no matter how wild.

It was the sequence of victims which puzzled them all. As far as Tau had been able to discover Mura and Kosti had nothing much in common except that they were crewmates on the same spacer. They did not bunk in the same section, their fields of labor were totally different, they had no special food or drink tastes in common, they were not even of the same race. Frank Mura was one of the few descendants of a mysterious (or now mysterious) people who had had their home on a series of islands in one of Terra’s seas, islands which almost a hundred years before had been swallowed up in a series of world-rending quakes—Japan was the ancient name of that nation. While Karl Kosti had come from the once thickly populated land masses half the planet away which had borne the geographical name of “Europe.” No, all the way along the two victims had only very general meeting points—they both shipped on the Solar Queen and they were both of Terran birth.

Tau stirred and sat up, blinking bemusedly at Dane, then pushed back his wiry black hair and assumed a measure of alertness. Dane dropped the now purring cat in the Medic’s lap and in a few sentences outlined his suspicion. Tau’s hands closed about Sinbad.

“There’s a chance in that—” He looked a little less beat and he drank thirstily from the mug Dane gave him for the second time. Then he hurried out with Sinbad under one arm—bound for his lab.

Dane slicked up the galley, trying to put things away as neatly as Mura kept them. He didn’t have much faith in the Sinbad lead, but in this case everything must be checked out.

When the Medic did not appear during the rest of the ship’s day Dane was not greatly concerned. But he was alerted to trouble when Ali came in with an inquiry and a complaint.

“Seen anything of Craig?”

“He’s in the lab,” Dane answered.

“He didn’t answer my knock,” Ali protested. “And Weeks says he hasn’t been in to see Karl all day—”

That did catch Dane’s attention. Had his half hunch been right? Was Tau on the trail of a discovery which had kept him chained to the lab? But it wasn’t like the Medic not to look in on his patients.

“You’re sure he isn’t in the lab?”

“I told you that he didn’t answer my knock. I didn’t open the panel—” But now Ali was already in the corridor heading back the way he had come, with Dane on his heels, an unwelcome explanation for that silence in both their minds. And their fears were reinforced by what they heard as they approached the panel—a low moan wrung out of unbearable pain. Dane thrust the sliding door open.

Tau had slipped from his stool to the floor. His hands were at his head which rolled from side to side as if he were trying to quiet some agony. Dane stripped down the Medic’s under tunic. There was no need to make a careful examination, in the hollow of Craig Tau’s throat was the tell-tale red blotch.

“Sinbad!” Dane glanced about the cabin. “Did Sinbad get out past you?” he demanded of the puzzled Ali.

“No—I haven’t seen him all day—”

Yet the cat was nowhere in the tiny cabin and it had no concealed hiding place. To make doubly sure Dane secured the panel before they carried Tau to his bunk. The Medic had blacked out again, passed into the lethargic second stage of the malady. At least he was out of the pain which appeared to be the worst symptom of the disease.

“It must be Sinbad!” Dane said as he made his report directly to Captain Jellico. “And yet—”

“Yes, he’s been staying in Van’s cabin,” the Captain mused. “And you’ve handled him, he slept on your bunk. Yet you and Van are all right. I don’t understand that. Anyway—to be on the safe side—we’d better find and isolate him before—”

He didn’t have to underline any words for the grim-faced men who listened. With Tau—their one hope of fighting the disease gone—they had a black future facing them.

They did not have to search for Sinbad. Dane coming down to his own section found the cat crouched before the panel of Van Rycke’s cabin, his eyes glued to the thin crack of the door. Dane scooped him up and took him to the small cargo space intended for the safeguarding of choice items of commerce. To his vast surprise Sinbad began fighting wildly as he opened the hatch, kicking and then slashing with ready claws. The cat seemed to go mad and Dane had all he could do to shut him in. When he snapped the panel he heard Sinbad launch himself against the barrier as if to batter his way out. Dane, blood welling in several deep scratches, went in search of first aid. But some suspicion led him to pause as he passed Van Rycke’s door. And when his knock brought no answer he pushed the panel open.

Van Rycke lay on his bunk, his eyes half closed in a way which had become only too familiar to the crew of the Solar Queen. And Dane knew that when he looked for it he would find the mark of the strange plague on the Cargo-master’s body.

Chapter IX

PLAGUE!

Jellico and Steen Wilcox pored over the few notes Tau had made before he was stricken. But apparently the Medic had found nothing to indicate that Sinbad was the carrier of any disease. Meanwhile the Captain gave orders for the cat to be confined. A difficult task—since Sinbad crouched close to the door of the storage cabin and was ready to dart out when food was taken in for him. Once he got a good way down the corridor before Dane was able to corner and return him to keeping.

Dane, Ali and Weeks took on the full care of the four sick men, leaving the few regular duties of the ship to the senior officers, while Rip was installed in charge of the hydro garden.

Mura, the first to be taken ill, showed no change. He was semi-conscious, he swallowed food if it were put in his mouth, he responded to nothing around him. And Kosti, Tau, and Van Rycke followed the same pattern. They still held morning inspection of those on their feet for signs of a new outbreak, but when no one else went down during the next two days, they regained a faint spark of hope.

Hope which was snapped out when Ali brought the news that Stotz could not be roused and must have taken ill during a sleep period. One more inert patient was added to the list—and nothing learned about how he was infected. Except that they could eliminate Sinbad, since the cat had been in custody during the time Stotz had apparently contracted the disease.

Weeks, Ali and Dane, though they were in constant contact with the sick men, and though Dane had repeatedly handled Sinbad, continued to be immune. A fact, Dane thought more than once, which must have significance—if someone with Tau’s medical knowledge had been able to study it. By all rights they should be the most susceptible—but the opposite seemed true. And Wilcox duly noted that fact among the data they had recorded.

It became a matter of watching each other, waiting for another collapse. And they were not surprised when Tang Ya reeled into the mess, his face livid and drawn with pain. Rip and Dane got him to his cabin before he blacked out. But all they could learn from him during the interval before he lost consciousness was that his head was bursting and he couldn’t stand it. Over his limp body they stared at one another bleakly.

“Six down,” Ali observed, “and six to go. How do you feel?”

“Tired, that’s all. What I don’t understand is that once they go into this stupor they just stay. They don’t get any worse, they have no rise in temperature—it’s as if they are in a modified form of cold sleep!”

“How is Tang?” Rip asked from the corridor.

“Usual pattern,” Ali answered, “He’s sleeping. Got a pain, Fella?”

Rip shook his head. “Right as a Com-unit. I don’t get it. Why does it strike Tang who didn’t even hit dirt much—and yet you keep on—?”

Dane grimaced. “If we had an answer to that, maybe we’d know what caused the whole thing—”

Ali’s eyes narrowed. He was staring straight at the unconscious Com-tech as if he did not see that supine body at all. “I wonder if we’ve been salted—” he said slowly.

“We’ve been what?” Dane demanded.

“Look here, we three—with Weeks—drank that brew of the Salariki, didn’t we? And we—”

“Were as sick as Venusian gobblers afterwards,” agreed Rip.

Light dawned. “Do you mean—” began Dane.

“So that’s it!” flashed Rip.

“It might just be,” Ali said. “Do you remember how the settlers on Camblyne brought their Terran cattle through the first year? They fed them salt mixed with fansel grass. The result was that the herds didn’t take the fansel grass fever when they turned them out to pasture in the dry season. All right, maybe we had our ‘salt’ in that drink. The fansel-salt makes the cattle filthy sick when it’s forced down their throats, but after they recover they’re immune to the fever. And nobody on Camblyne buys unsalted cattle now.”

“It sounds logical,” admitted Rip. “But how are we going to prove it?”

Ali’s face was black once more. “Probably by elimination,” he said morosely. “If we keep our feet and all the rest go down—that’s our proof.”

“But we ought to be able to do something—” protested Shannon.

“Just how?” Ali’s slender brows arched. “Do you have a gallon of that Salariki brew on board you can serve out? We don’t know what was in it. Nor are we sure that this whole idea has any value.”

All of them had had first aid and basic preventive medicine as part of their training, but the more advanced laboratory experimentation was beyond their knowledge and skill. Had Tau still been on his feet perhaps he could have traced that lead and brought order out of the chaos which was closing in upon the Solar Queen. But, though they reported their suggestion to the Captain, Jellico was powerless to do anything about it. If the four who had shared that upsetting friendship cup were immune to the doom which now overhung the ship, there was no possible way for them to discover why or how.

Ship’s time came to have little meaning. And they were not surprised when Steen Wilcox slipped from his seat before the computer—to be stowed away with what had become a familiar procedure. Only Jellico withstood the contagion apart from the younger four, taking his turn at caring for the helpless men. There was no change in their condition. They neither roused nor grew worse as the hours and then the days sped by. But each of those units of time in passing brought them nearer to greater danger. Sooner or later they must make the transition out of Hyper into system space, and the jump out of warp was something not even a veteran took lightly. Rip’s round face thinned while they watched. Jellico was still functioning. But if the Captain collapsed the whole responsibility for the snap-out would fall directly on Shannon. An infinitesimal error would condemn them to almost hopeless wandering—perhaps for ever.

Dane and Ali relieved Rip of all duty but that which kept him chained in Wilcox’s chair before the computers. He went over and over the data of the course the Astrogator had set. And Captain Jellico, his eyes sunk in dark pits, checked and rechecked.

When the fatal moment came Ali manned the engine room with Weeks at his elbow to tend the controls the acting-Engineer could not reach. And Dane, having seen the sick all safely stowed in crash webbing, came up to the control cabin, riding out the transfer in Tang Ya’s place.

Rip’s voice hoarsened into a croak, calling out the data. Dane, though he had had basic theory, was completely lost before Shannon had finished the first set of co-ordinates. But Jellico replied, hands playing across the pilot’s board.

“Stand-by for snap-out—” the croak went down to the engines where Ali now held Stotz’s post.

“Engines ready!” The voice came back, thinned by its journey from the Queen’s interior.

“Ought-five-nine—” That was Jellico.

Dane found himself suddenly unable to watch. He shut his eyes and braced himself against the vertigo of snap-out. It came and he whirled sickeningly through unstable space. Then he was sitting in the laced Com-tech’s seat looking at Rip.

Runnels of sweat streaked Shannon’s brown face. There was a damp patch darkening his tunic between his shoulder blades, a patch which it would take both of Dane’s hands to cover.

For a moment he did not raise his head to look at the vision plate which would tell him whether or not they had made it. But when he did familiar constellations made the patterns they knew. They were out—and they couldn’t be too far off the course Wilcox had plotted. There was still the system run to make—but snap-out was behind them. Rip gave a deep sigh and buried his head in his hands.

With a throb of fear Dane unhooked his safety belt and hurried over to him. When he clutched at Shannon’s shoulder the Astrogator-apprentice’s head rolled limply. Was Rip down with the illness too? But the other muttered and opened his eyes.

“Does your head ache?” Dane shook him.

“Head? No—” Rip’s words came drowsily. “Jus’ sleepy—so sleepy—”

He did not seem to be in pain. But Dane’s hands were shaking as he hoisted the other out of his seat and half carried-half led him to his cabin, praying as he went that it was only fatigue and not the disease. The ship was on auto now until Jellico as pilot set a course—

Dane got Rip down on the bunk and stripped off his tunic. The fine-drawn face of the sleeper looked wan against the foam rest, and he snuggled into the softness like a child as he turned over and curled up. But his skin was clear—it was real sleep and not the plague which had claimed him.

Impulse sent Dane back to the control cabin. He was not an experienced pilot officer, but there might be some assistance he could offer the Captain now that Rip was washed out, perhaps for hours.

Jellico hunched before the smaller computer, feeding pilot tape into its slot. His face was a skull under a thin coating of skin, the bones marking it sharply at jaw, nose and eye socket.

“Shannon down?” His voice was a mere whisper of its powerful self, he did not turn his head.

“He’s just worn out, sir,” Dane hastened to give reassurance. “The marks aren’t on him.”

“When he comes around tell him the co-ords are in,” Jellico murmured. “See he checks course in ten hours—”

“But, sir—” Dane’s protest failed as he watched the Captain struggle to his feet, pulling himself up with shaking hands. As Thorson reached forward to steady the other, one of those hands tore at tunic collar, ripping loose the sealing—

There was no need for explanation—the red splotch signaled from Jellico’s sweating throat. He kept his feet, holding out against the waves of pain by sheer will power. Then Dane had a grip on him, got him away from the computer, hoping he could keep him going until they reached Jellico’s cabin.

Somehow they made that journey, being greeted with raucous screams from the Hoobat. Furiously Dane slapped the cage, setting it to swinging and so silencing the creature which stared at him with round, malignant eyes as he got the Captain to bed.

Only four of them on their feet now, Dane thought bleakly as he left the cabin. If Rip came out of it in time they could land—Dane’s breath caught as he made himself face up to the fact that Shannon might be ill, that it might be up to him to bring the Queen in for a landing. And in where? The Terra quarantine was Luna City on the Moon. But let them signal for a set-down there—let them describe what had happened and they might face death as a plague ship.

Wearily he climbed down to the mess cabin to discover Weeks and Ali there before him. They did not look up as he entered.

“Old Man’s got it,” he reported.

“Rip?” was Ali’s crossing question.

“Asleep. He passed out—”

“What!” Weeks swung around.

“Worn out,” Dane amended. “Captain fed in a pilot tape before he gave up.”

“So—now we are three,” was Ali’s comment. “Where do we set down—Luna City?”

“If they let us,” Dane hinted at the worst.

“But they’ve got to let us!” Weeks exclaimed. “We can’t just wander around out here—”

“It’s been done,” Ali reminded them brutally and that silenced Weeks.

“Did the Old Man set Luna?” After a long pause Ali inquired.

“I didn’t check,” Dane confessed. “He was giving out and I had to get him to his bunk.”

“It might be well to know.” The Engineer-apprentice got up, his movements lacking much of the elastic spring which was normally his. When he climbed to control both the others followed him.

Ali’s slender fingers played across a set of keys and in the small screen mounting on the computer a set of figures appeared. Dane took up the master course book, read the connotation and blinked.

“Not Luna?” Ali asked.

“No. But I don’t understand. This must be for somewhere in the asteroid belt.”

Ali’s lips stretched into a pale caricature of a smile. “Good for the Old Man, he still had his wits about him, even after the bug bit him!”

“But why are we going to the asteroids?” Weeks asked reasonably enough. “There’re Medics at Luna City—they can help us—”

“They can handle known diseases,” Ali pointed out. “But what of the Code?”

Weeks dropped into the Com-tech’s place as if some of the stiffening had vanished from his thin but sturdy legs. “They wouldn’t do that—” he protested, but his eyes said that he knew that they might—they well might.

“Oh, no? Face the facts, man,” Ali sounded almost savage. “We come from a frontier planet, we’re a plague ship—”

He did not have to underline that. They all knew too well the danger in which they now stood.

“Nobody’s died yet,” Weeks tried to find an opening in the net being drawn about them.

“And nobody’s recovered,” Ali crushed that thread of hope. “We don’t know what it is, how it is contracted—anything about it. Let us make a report saying that and you know what will happen—don’t you?”

They weren’t sure of the details, but they could guess.

“So I say,” Ali continued, “the Old Man was right when he set us on an evasion course. If we can stay out until we really know what is the matter we’ll have some chance of talking over the high brass at Luna when we do planet—”

In the end they decided not to interfere with the course the Captain had set. It would take them into the fringes of solar civilization, but give them a fighting chance at solving their problem before they had to report to the authorities. In the meantime they tended their charges, let Rip sleep, and watched each other with desperate but hidden intentness, ready for another to be stricken. However, they remained, although almost stupid with fatigue at times, reasonably healthy. Time was proving that their guess had been correct—they had been somehow inoculated against the germ or virus which had struck the ship.

Rip slept for twenty-four hours, ship time, and then came into the mess cabin ravenously hungry, to catch up on both food and news. And he refused to join with the prevailing pessimistic view of the future. Instead he was sure that their own immunity having been proven, they had a talking point to use with the medical officials at Luna and he was eager to alter course directly for the quarantine station. Only the combined arguments of the other three made him, unwillingly, agree to a short delay.

And how grateful they should be for Captain Jellico’s foresight they learned within the next day. Ali was at the com-unit, trying to pick up Solarian news reports. When the red alert flashed on throughout the ship it brought the others hurrying to the control cabin. The code squeaks were magnified as Ali switched on the receiver full strength, to be translated as he pressed a second button.

“Repeat, repeat, repeat. Free Trader, Solar Queen, Terra Registry 65-724910-Jk, suspected plague ship—took off from infected planet. Warn off—warn off—report such ship to Luna Station. Solar Queen from infected planet—to be warned off and reported.” The same message was repeated three times before going off ether.

The four in the control cabin looked at each other blankly.

“But,” Dane broke the silence, “how did they know? We haven’t reported in—”

“The Eysies!” Ali had the answer ready. “That I-S ship must be having the same sort of trouble and reported to her Company. They would include us in their report and believe that we were infected too—or it would be easy to convince the authorities that we were.”

“I wonder,” Rip’s eyes were narrowed slits as he leaned back against the wall. “Look at the facts. The Survey ship which charted Sargol—they were dirt-side there about three-four months. Yet they gave it a clean bill of health and put it up for trading rights auction. Then Cam bought those rights—he made at least two trips in and out before he was blasted on Limbo. No infection bothered him or Survey—”

“But you’ve got to admit it hit us,” Weeks protested.

“Yes, and the Eysie ship was able to foresee it—report us before we snapped out of Hyper. Sounds almost as if they expected us to carry plague, doesn’t it?” Shannon wanted to know.

“Planted?” Ali frowned at the banks of controls. “But how—no Eysie came on board—no Salarik either, except for the cub who showed us what they thought of catnip.”

Rip shrugged. “How would I know how they did—” he was beginning when Dane cut in:

“If they didn’t know about our immunity the Queen might stay in Hyper and never come out—there wouldn’t be anyone to set the snap-out.”

“Right enough. But on the chance that somebody did keep on his feet and bring her home, they were ready with a cover. If no one raises a howl Sargol will be written off the charts as infected, I-S sits on her tail fins a year or so and then she promotes an investigation before the Board. The Survey records are trotted out—no infection recorded. So they send in a Patrol Probe. Everything is all right—so it wasn’t the planet after all—it was that dirty old Free Trader. And she’s out of the way. I-S gets the Koros trade all square and legal and we’re no longer around to worry about! Neat as a Salariki net-cast—and right around our collective throats, my friends!”

“So what do we do now?” Weeks wanted to know.

“We keep on the Old Man’s course, get lost in the asteroids until we can do some heavy thinking and see a way out. But if I-S gave us this prize package, some trace of its origin is still aboard. And if we can find that—why, then we have something to start from.”

“Mura went down first—and then Karl. Nothing in common,” the old problem faced Dane for the hundredth time.

“No. But,” Ali arose from his place at the com-unit. “I’d suggest a real search of first Frank’s and then Karl’s quarters. A regular turn out down to the bare walls of their cabins. Are you with me?”

“Fly boy, we’re ahead of you!” Rip contributed, already at the door panel. “Down to the bare walls it is.”

Chapter X

E-STAT LANDING

Since Mura was in the isolation of ship sick bay the stripping of his cabin was a relatively simple job. But, though Rip and Dane went over it literally by inches, they found nothing unusual—in fact nothing from Sargol except a small twig of the red wood which lay on the steward’s worktable where he had been fashioning something to incorporate in one of his miniature fairy landscapes, to be imprisoned for all time in a plasta-bubble. Dane turned this around in his fingers. Because it was the only link with the perfumed planet he couldn’t help but feel that it had some importance.

But Kosti had not shown any interest in the wood. And he, himself, and Weeks had handled it freely before they had tasted Graft’s friendship cup and had no ill effects—so it couldn’t be the wood. Dane put the twig back on the work table and snapped the protecting cover over the delicate tools—never realizing until days later how very close he had been in that moment to the solution of their problem.

After two hours of shifting every one of the steward’s belongings, of crawling on hands and knees about the deck and climbing to inspect perfectly bare walls, they had found exactly nothing. Rip sat down on the end of the denuded bunk.

“There’s the hydro—Frank spent a lot of time in there—and the storeroom,” he told the places off on his fingers. “The galley and the mess cabin.”

Those had been the extent of Mura’s world. They could search the storeroom, the galley and the mess cabin—but to interfere with the hydro would endanger their air supply. It was for that very reason that they now looked at each other in startled surmise.

“The perfect place to plant something!” Dane spoke first.

Rip’s teeth caught his underlip. The hydro—something planted there could not be routed out unless they made a landing on a port field and had the whole section stripped.

“Devilish—” Rip’s mobile lips drew tight. “But how could they do it?”

Dane didn’t see how it could have been done either. No one but the Queen’s own crew had been on board the ship during their entire stay on Sargol, except for the young Salarik. Could that cub have brought something? But he and Mura had been with the youngster every minute that he had been in the hydro. To the best of Dane’s memory the cub had touched nothing and had been there only for a few moments. That had been before the feast also—

Rip got to his feet. “We can’t strip the hydro in space,” he pointed out the obvious quietly.

Dane had the answer. “Then we’ve got to earth!”

“You heard that warn-off. If we try it—”

“What about an Emergency station?”

Rip stood very still, his big hands locked about the buckle of his arms belt. Then, without another word, he went out of the cabin and at a pounding pace up the ladder, bound for the Captain’s cabin and the records Jellico kept there. It was such a slim chance—but it was better than none at all.

Dane shouldered into the small space in his wake to find Rip making a selection from the astrogation tapes. There were E-Stats among the asteroids—points prospectors or small traders in sudden difficulties might contact for supplies or repairs. The big Companies maintained their own—the Patrol had several for independents.

“No Patrol one—”

Rip managed a smile. “I haven’t gone space whirly yet,” was his comment. He was feeding a tape into the reader on the Captain’s desk. In the cage over his head the blue Hoobat squatted watching him intently—for the first time since Dane could remember showing no sign of resentment by weird screams or wild spitting.

“Patrol E-Stat A-54—” the reader squeaked. Rip hit a key and the wire clicked to the next entry. “Combine E-Stat—” Another punch and click. “Patrol E-Stat A-55—” punch-click. “Inter-Solar—” this time Rip’s hand did not hit the key and the squeak continued—”Co-ordinates—” Rip reached for a steelo and jotted down the list of figures.

“Got to compare this with our present course—”

“But that’s an I-S Stat,” began Dane and then he laughed as the justice of such a move struck him. They did not dare set the Queen down at any Patrol Station. But a Company one which would be manned by only two or three men and not expecting any but their own people—and I-S owed them help now!

“There may be trouble,” he said, not that he would have any regrets if there was. If the Eysies were responsible for the present plight of the Queen he would welcome trouble, the kind which would plant his fists on some sneering Eysie face.

“We’ll see about that when we come to it,” Rip went on to the control cabin with his figures. Carefully he punched the combination on the plotter and watched it be compared with the course Jellico had set before his collapse.

“Good enough,” he commented as the result flashed on. “We can make it without using too much fuel—”

“Make what?” That was Ali up from the search of Kosti’s quarters. “Nothing,” he gave his report of what he had found there and then returned to the earlier question. “Make what?”

Swiftly Dane outlined their suspicions—that the seat of the trouble lay in the hydro and that they should clean out that section, drawing upon emergency materials at the I-S E-Stat.

“Sounds all right. But you know what they do to pirates?” inquired the Engineer-apprentice.

Space law came into Dane’s field, he needed no prompting. “Any ship in emergency,” he recited automatically, “may claim supplies from the nearest E-Stat—paying for them when the voyage is completed.”

“That means any Patrol E-Stat. The Companies’ are private property.”

“But,” Dane pointed out triumphantly, “the law doesn’t say so—there is nothing about any difference between Company and Patrol E-Stat in the law—”

“He’s right,” Rip agreed. “That law was framed when only the Patrol had such stations. Companies put them in later to save tax—remember? Legally we’re all right.”

“Unless the agents on duty raise a howl,” Ali amended. “Oh, don’t give me that look, Rip. I’m not sounding any warn-off on this, but I just want you to be prepared to find a cruiser riding our fins and giving us the hot flash as bandits. If you want to spoil the Eysies, I’m all for it. Got a stat of theirs pinpointed?”

Rip pointed to the figures on the computer. “There she is. We can set down in about five hours’ ship time. How long will it take to strip the hydro and re-install?”

“How can I tell?” Ali sounded irritable. “I can give you oxgy for quarters for about two hours. Depends upon how fast we can move. No telling until we make a start.”

He started for the corridor and then added over his shoulder: “You’ll have to answer a com challenge—thought about that?”

“Why?” Rip asked. “It might be com repairs bringing us in. They won’t be expecting trouble and we will—we’ll have the advantage.”

But Ali was not to be shaken out of his usual dim view of the future. “All right—so we land, blaster in hand, and take the place. And they get off one little squeak to the Patrol. Well, a short life but an interesting one. And we’ll make all the Video channels for sure when we go out with rockets blasting. Nothing like having a little excitement to break the dull routine of a voyage.”

“We aren’t going to, are we—” Dane protested, “land armed, I mean?”

Ali stared at him and Rip, to Dane’s surprise, did not immediately repudiate that thought.

“Sleep rods certainly,” the Astrogator-apprentice said after a pause. “We’ll have to be prepared for the moment when they find out who we are. And you can’t re-set a hydro in a few minutes, not when we have to keep oxgy on for the others. If we were able to turn that off and work in suits it’d be a quicker job—we could dump before we set down and then pile it in at once. But this way it’s going to be piece work. And it all depends on the agents at the Stat whether we have trouble or not.”

“We had better break out the suits now,” Ali added to Rip’s estimate of the situation. “If we set down and pile out wearing suits at once it will build up our tale of being poor wrecked spacemen—”

Sleep rods or not, Dane thought to himself, the whole plan was one born of desperation. It would depend upon who manned the E-Stat and how fast the Free Traders could move once the Queen touched her fins to earth.

“Knock out their coms,” that was Ali continuing to plan. “Do that first and then we don’t have to worry about someone calling in the Patrol.”

Rip stretched. For the first time in hours he seemed to have returned to his usual placid self. “Good thing somebody in this spacer watches Video serials—Ali, you can brief us on all the latest tricks of space pirates. Nothing is so wildly improbable that you can’t make use of it sometime during a checkered career.”

He glanced over the board before he brought his hand down on a single key set a distance apart from the other controls. “Put some local color into it,” was his comment.

Dane understood. Rip had turned on the distress signal at the Queen’s nose. When she set down on the Stat field she would be flaming a banner of trouble. Next to the wan dead lights, set only when a ship had no hope of ever reaching port at all, that signal was one every spacer dreaded having to flash. But it was not the dead lights—not yet for the Queen.

Working together they brought out the space suits and readied them at the hatch. Then Weeks and Dane took up the task of tending their unconscious charges while Rip and Ali prepared for landing.

There was no change in the sleepers. And in Jellico’s cabin even Queex appeared to be influenced by the plight of its master, for instead of greeting Dane with its normal aspect of rage, the Hoobat stayed quiescent on the floor of its cage, its top claws hooked about two of the wires, its protruding eyes staring out into the room with what seemed closed to a malignant intelligence. It did not even spit as Dane passed under its abode to pour thin soup into his patient.

As for Sinbad, the cat had retreated to Dane’s cabin and steadily refused to leave the quarters he had chosen, resisting with tooth and claw the one time Dane had tried to take him back to Van Rycke’s office and his own hammock there. Afterwards the Cargo-apprentice did not try to evict him—there was comfort in seeing that plump gray body curled on the bunk he had little chance to use.

His nursing duties performed for the moment, Dane ventured into the hydro. He was practiced in tending this vital heart of the ship’s air supply. But outfitting a hydro was something else again. In his cadet years he had aided in such a program at least twice as a matter of learning the basic training of the Service. But then they had had unlimited supplies to draw on and the action had taken place under no more pressure than that exerted by the instructors. Now it was going to be a far more tricky job—

He went slowly down the aisle between the banks of green things. Plants from all over the Galaxy, grown for their contribution to the air renewal—as well as side products such as fresh fruit and vegetables, were banked there. The sweet odor of their verdant life was strong. But how could any of the four now on duty tell what was rightfully there and what might have been brought in? And could they be sure anything had been introduced?

Dane stood there, his eyes searching those lines of greens—such a mixture of greens from the familiar shade of Terra’s fields to greens tinged with shades first bestowed by other suns on other worlds—looking for one which was alien enough to be noticeable. Only Mura, who knew this garden as he knew his own cabin, could have differentiated between them. They would just dump everything and trust to luck—

He was suddenly aware of a slight movement in the banks—a shivering of stem, quiver of leaf. The mere act of his passing had set some sensitive plant to register his presence. A lacy, fern-like thing was contracting its fronds into balls. He should not stay—disturbing the peace of the hydro. But it made little difference now—within a matter of hours all this luxuriance would be thrust out to die and they would have to depend upon canned oxgy and algae tanks. Too bad—the hydro represented much time and labor on Mura’s part and Tau had medical plants growing there he had been observing for a long time.

As Dane closed the door behind him, seeing the line of balled fern which had marked his passage, he heard a faint rustling, a sound as if a wind had swept across the green room within. The imagination which was a Trader’s asset (when it was kept within bounds) suggested that the plants inside guessed—With a frown for his own sentimentality, Dane strode down the corridor and climbed to check with Rip in control.

The Astrogator-apprentice had his own problems. To bring the Queen down on the circumscribed field of an E-Stat—without a guide beam to ride in—since if they contacted the Stat they must reveal their own com was working and they would have to answer questions—was the sort of test even a seasoned pilot would tense over. Yet Rip was sitting now in the Captain’s place, his broad hands spread out on the edge of the control board waiting. And below in the engine room Ali was in Stotz’s place ready to fire and cut rockets at order. Of course they were both several years ahead of him in Service, Dane knew. But he wondered at their quick assumption of responsibility and whether he himself could ever reach that point of self-confidence—his memory turning to the bad mistake be had made on Sargol.

There was the sharp note of a warning gong, the flash of red light on the control board. They were off automatic, from here on in it was all Kip’s work. Dane strapped down at the silent com-unit and was startled a moment later when it spat words at him, translated from space code.

“Identify—identify—I-S E-Stat calling spacer—identify—”

So compelling was that demand that Dane’s fingers went to the answer key before he remembered and snatched them back, to fold his hands in his lap.

“Identify—” the expressionless voice of the translator droned over their heads.

Rip’s hands were on the control board, playing the buttons there with the precision of a musician creating some symphonic masterpiece. And the Queen was alive, now quivering through her stout plates, coming into a landing.

Dane watched the visa plate. The E-Stat asteroid was of a reasonable size, but in their eyes it was a bleak, torn mote of stuff swimming through vast emptiness.

“Identify—” the drone heightened in pitch.

Rip’s lips were compressed, he made quick calculations. And Dane saw that, though Jellico was the master, Rip was fully fit to follow in the Captain’s boot prints.

There was a sudden silence in the cabin—the demand had stopped. The agents below must now have realized that the ship with the distress signals blazing on her nose was not going to reply. Dane found he could not watch the visa plate now, Rip’s hands about their task filled his whole range of sight.

He knew that Shannon was using every bit of his skill and knowledge to jockey them into the position where they could ride their tail rockets down to the scorched rock of the E-Stat field. Perhaps it wasn’t as smooth a landing as Jellico could have made. But they did it. Rip’s hands were quiet, again that patch of darkness showed on the back of his tunic. He made no move from his seat.

“Secure—” Ali’s voice floated up to them.

Dane unbuckled his safety webbing and got up, looking to Shannon for orders. This was Rip’s plan they were to carry through. Then something moved him to give honor where it was due. He touched that bowed shoulder before him.

“Fin landing, brother! Four points and down!”

Rip glanced up, a grin made him look his old self. “Ought to have a recording of that for the Board when I go up for my pass-through.”

Dane matched his smile. “Too bad we didn’t have someone out there with a tri-dee machine.”

“More likely it’d be evidence at our trial for piracy—” their words must have reached Ali on the ship’s inter-com, for his deflating reply came back, to remind them of why they had made that particular landing. “Do we move now?”

“Check first,” Rip said into the mike.

Dane looked at the visa-plate. Against a background of jagged rock teeth was the bubble of the E-Stat housing—more than three-quarters of it being in the hollowed out sections below the surface of the miniature world which supported it, as Dane knew. But a beam of light shown from the dome to center on the grounded Queen. They had not caught the Stat agents napping.

They made the rounds of the spacer, checking on each of the semi-conscious men. Ali had ready the artificial oxgy tanks—they must move fast once they began the actual task of clearing and restocking the hydro.

“Hope you have a good story ready,” he commented as the other three joined him by the hatch to don the suits which would enable them to cross the airless, heatless surface of the asteroid.

“We have a poisoned hydro,” Dane said.

“One look at the plants we dump will give you the lie. They won’t accept our story without investigation.”

Dane was aroused. Did Ali think he was a stupid as all that? “If you’d take a look in there now you’d believe me,” he snapped.

“What did you do?” Ali sounded genuinely interested.

“Chucked a heated can of lacoil over a good section. It’s wilting down fast in big patches.”

Rip snorted. “Good old lacoil. You drink it, you wash in it, and now you kill off the Hydro with it. Maybe we can give the company an extra testimonial for the official jabber and collect when we hit Terra. All right—Weeks,” he spoke to the little man, “you listen in on the com—it’s tuned to our helmet units. We’ll climb into these pipe suits and see how many tears we can wring out of the Eysies with our sad, sad tale.”

They got into the awkward, bulky suits and squeezed into the hatch while Weeks slammed the lock door at their backs and operated the outer opening. Then they were looking out across the ground, still showing signs of the heat of their landing, and lighted by the dome beam.

“Nobody hurrying out with an aid and comfort kit,” Rip’s voice sounded in Dane’s earphones. “A little slack aren’t they?”

Slack—or was it that the Eysies had recognized the Queen and was preparing the sort of welcome the remnant of her crew could not withstand? Dane, wanting very much in his heart to be elsewhere, climbed down the ladder in Rip’s wake, both of them spotlighted by the immovable beam from the Stat dome.

Chapter XI

DESPERATE MEASURES

Measured in distance and time that rough walk in the ponderous suits across the broken terrain of the asteroid was a short one, measured by the beating of his own heart, Dane thought it much too long. There was no sign of life by the air lock of the bubble—no move on the part of the men stationed there to come to their assistance.

“D’you suppose we’re invisible?” Ali’s disembodied voice clicked in the helmet earphones.

“Maybe we’ll wish we were,” Dane could not forego that return.

Rip was almost to the air lock door now. His massively suited arm was outstretched toward the control bar when the com-unit in all three helmets caught the same demand:

“Identify!” The crisp order had enough snap to warn them that an answer was the best policy.

“Shannon—A-A of the Polestar,” Rip gave the required information. “We claim E rights—”

But would they get them? Dane wondered. There was a click loud in his ears. The metal door was yielding to Rip’s hand. At least those on the inside had taken off the lock. Dane quickened pace to join his leader.

Together the three from the Queen crowded through the lock door, saw that swing shut and seal behind them, as they stood waiting for the moment they could discard the suits and enter the dome. The odds against them could not be too high, this was a small Stat. It would not house more than four agents at the most. And they were familiar enough with the basic architecture of such stations to know just what move to make. Ali was to go to the com room where he could take over if they did meet with trouble. Dane and Rip would have to handle any dissenters in the main section. But they still hoped that luck might ride their fins and they could put over a story which would keep them out of active conflict with the Eysies.

The gauge on the wall registered safety and they unfastened the protective clasps of the suits. Standing the cumbersome things against the wall as the inner door to the lock rolled back, they walked into Eysie territory.

As Free Traders they had the advantage of being uniformly tunicked—with no Company badge to betray their ship or status. So that could well be the “Polestar” standing needle slim behind them—and not the notorious “Solar Queen.” But each, as he passed through the inner lock, gave a hitch to his belt which brought the butt of his sleep rod closer to hand. Innocuous as that weapon was, in close quarters its effects, if only temporary, was to some purpose. And since they were prepared for trouble, they might have a slight edge over the Eysies in attack.

A Company man, his tunic shabby and open in a negligent fashion at his thick throat, stood waiting for them. His unhelmeted head was grizzled, his coarse, tanned face with heavy jowls bristly enough to suggest he had not bothered to use smooth-cream for some days. An under officer of some spacer, retired to finish out the few years before pension in this nominal duty—fast letting down the standards of personal regime he had had to maintain on ship board. But he wasn’t all fat and soft living, the glance with which he measured them was shrewdly appraising.

“What’s your trouble?” he demanded without greeting. “You didn’t I-dent coming in.”

“Coms are out,” Rip replied as shortly. “We need E-Hydro—”

“First time I ever heard it that the coms were wired in with the grass,” the Eysies’s hands were on his hips—in close proximity to something which made Dane’s eyes narrow. The fellow was wearing a flare-blaster! That might be regulation equipment for an E-Stat agent on a lonely asteroid—but he didn’t quite believe it. And probably the other was quick on the draw too.

“The coms are something else,” Rip answered readily. “Our tech is working on them. But the hydro’s bad all though. We’ll have to dump and restock. Give you a voucher on Terra for the stuff.”

The Eysie agent continued to block the doorway into the station. “This is private—I-S property. You should hit the Patrol post—they cater to you F-Ts.”

“We hit the nearest E-Stat when we discovered that we were contaminated,” Rip spoke with an assumption of patience. “That’s the law, and you know it. You have to supply us and take a voucher—”

“How do I know that your voucher is worth the film it’s recorded on?” asked the agent reasonably.

“All right,” Rip shrugged. “If we have to do it the hard way, we’ll cargo dump to cover your bill.”

“Not on this field.” The other shook his head. “I’ll flash in your voucher first.”

He had them, Dane thought bitterly. Their luck had run out. Because what he was going to do was a move they dared not protest. It was one any canny agent would make in the present situation. And if they were what they said they were, they must readily agree to let him flash their voucher of payment to I-S headquarters, to be checked and okayed before they took the hydro stock.

But Rip merely registered a mild resignation. “You the Com-tech? Where’s your unit? I’ll indit at once if you want it that way.”

Whether their readiness to co-operate allayed some of the agent’s suspicion or not, he relaxed some, giving them one more stare all around before he turned on his heel. “This way.”

They followed him down the narrow hall, Rip on his heels, the others behind.

“Lonely post,” Rip commented. “I’d think you boys’d get space-whirly out here.”

The other snorted. “We’re not star lovers. And the pay’s worth a three month stretch. They take us down for Terra leave before we start talking to the Whisperers.”

“How many of you here at a time?” Rip edged the question in casually.

But the other might have been expecting it by the way he avoided giving a direct answer. “Enough to run the place—and not enough to help you clean out your wagon,” he was short about it. “Any dumping you do is strictly on your own. You’ve enough hands on a spacer that size to manage—”

Rip laughed. “Far be it from me to ask an Eysie to do any real work,” was his counter. “We know all about you Company men—”

But the agent did not take fire at that jib. Instead he pushed back a panel and they were looking into com-unit room where another man in the tunic of the I-S lounged on what was by law twenty-four hour duty, divided into three watches.

“These F-Ts want to flash a voucher request through,” their guide informed the tech. The other, interested, gave them a searching once-over before he pushed a small scriber toward Rip.

“It’s all yours—clear ether,” he reported.

Ali stood with his back to the wall and Dane still lingered in the portal. Both of them fixed their attention on Rip’s left hand. If he gave the agreed upon signal! Their fingers were linked loosely in their belts only an inch or so from their sleep rods.

With his right hand Rip scooped up the scribbler while the Com-tech half turned to make adjustments to the controls, picking up a speaker to call the I-S headquarters.

Rip’s left index finger snapped across his thumb to form a circle. Ali’s rod did not even leave his belt, it tilted up and the invisible deadening stream from it centered upon the seated tech. At the same instant Dane shot at the agent who had guided them there. The latter had time for a surprised grunt and his hand was at his blaster as he sagged to his knees and then relaxed on the floor. The Tech slumped across the call board as if sleep had overtaken him at his post.

Rip crossed the room and snapped off the switch which opened the wire for broadcasting. While Ali, with Dane’s help, quietly and effectively immobilized the Eysies with their own belts.

“There should be at least three men here,” Rip waited by the door. “We have to get them all under control before we start work.”

However, the interior of the bubble, extending as it did on levels beneath the outer crust of the asteroid, was not an easy place to search. An enemy, warned of the invasion, could easily keep ahead of the party from the Queen, spying on them at his leisure or preparing traps for them. In the end, afraid of wasting time, they contented themselves with locking the doors of the corridor leading to the lower levels, making ready to raid the storeroom they had discovered during their search.

Emergency hydro supplies consisted mainly of algae which could be stored in tanks and hastily put to use—as the plants now in the Queen took much longer to grow even under forcing methods. Dane volunteered to remain inside the E-Stat and assemble the necessary containers at the air lock while the other two, having had more experience, went back to the spacer to strip the hydro and prepare to switch contents.

But, when Rip and Ali left, the younger Cargo-apprentice began to find the bubble a haunted place. He took the sealed containers out of their storage racks, stood them on a small hand truck, and pushed them to the foot of the stairs, up which he then climbed carrying two of the cylinders at a time.

The swish of the air current through the narrow corridors made a constant murmur of sound, but he found himself listening for something else, for a footfall other than his own, for the betraying rasp of clothing against a wall—for even a whisper of voice. And time and time again he paused suddenly to listen—sure that the faintest hint of such a sound had reached his ears. He had a dozen containers lined up when the welcome signal reached him by the com-unit of his field helmet. To transfer the cylinders to the lock, get out, and then open the outer door, did not take long. But as he waited he still listened for a sound which did not come—the notice, that someone besides himself was free to move about the Stat.

Not knowing just how many of the supply tins were needed, he worked on transferring all there were in the storage racks to the upper corridor and the lock. But he still had half a dozen left to pass through when Rip sent a message that he was coming in.

Out of his pressure suit, the Astrogator-apprentice stepped lightly into the corridor, looked at the array of containers and shook his head.

“We don’t need all those. No, leave them—” he added as Dane, with a sigh, started to pick up two for a return trip. “There’s something more important just now—” He turned into the side hall which led to the com room.

Both the I-S men had awakened. The Com-tech appeared to accept his bonds philosophically. He was quiet and flat on his back, staring pensively at the ceiling. But the other agent had made a worm’s progress half across the room and Rip had to halt in haste to prevent stepping on him.

Shannon stooped and, hooking his fingers in the other’s tunic, heaved him back while the helpless man favored them with some of the ripest speech—and NOT Trade Lingo—Dane had ever heard. Rip waited until the man began to run down and then he broke in with his pleasant soft drawl.

“Oh, sure, we’re all that. But time runs on, Eysie, and I’d like a couple of answers which may mean something to you. First—when do you expect your relief?”

That set the agent off again. And his remarks—edited—were that no something, something F-T was going to get any something, something information out of him!

But it was his companion in misfortune—the Com-tech—who guessed the reason behind Rip’s question.

“Cut jets!” he advised the other. “They’re just being soft-hearted. I take it,” he spoke over the other agent’s sputtering to Rip, “that you’re worried about leaving us fin down—That’s it, isn’t it?”

Rip nodded. “In spite of what you think about us,” he replied, “We’re not Patrol Posted outlaws—”

“No, you’re just from a plague ship,” the Com-tech remarked calmly. And his words struck his comrade dumb. “Solar Queen?”

“You got the warn-off then?”

“Who didn’t? You really have plague on board?” The thought did not appear to alarm the Com-tech unduly. But his fellow suddenly heaved his bound body some distance away from the Free Traders and his face displayed mixed emotions—most of them fearful.

“We have something—probably supplied,” Rip straightened. “Might pass along to your bosses that we know that. Now suppose you tell me about your relief. When is it due?”

“Not until after we take off on the long orbit if you leave us like this. On the other hand,” the other added coolly, “I don’t see how you can do otherwise. We’ve still got those—” with his chin he pointed to the com-unit.

“After a few alterations,” Rip amended. The bulk of the com was in a tightly sealed case which they would need a flamer to open. But he could and did wreak havoc with the exposed portions. The tech watching this destruction spouted at least two expressions his companion had not used. But when Rip finished he was his unruffled self again.

“Now,” Rip drew his sleep rod. “A little rest and when you wake it will all be a bad dream.” He carefully beamed each man into slumber and helped Dane strip off their bonds. But before he left the room he placed on the recorder the voucher for the supplies they had taken. The Queen was not stealing—under the law she still had some shadow of rights.

Suited they crossed the rough rock to the ship. And there about the fins, already frozen into brittle spikes was a tangle of plants—the rich result of years of collecting.

“Did you find anything?” Dane asked as they rounded that mess on their way to the ladder.

Rip’s voice came back through the helmet com. “Nothing we know how to interpret. I wish Frank or Craig had had a chance to check. We took tri-dees of everything before we dumped. Maybe they can learn something from these when—”

His voice trailed off leaving that “when” to ring in both their minds. It was such an important “when.” When would either the steward or the Medic recover enough to view those tri-dee shots? Or was that “when” really an ominous “if?”

Back in the Queen, sealed once more for blast-off, they took their stations. Dane speculated as to the course Rip had set—were they just going to wander about the system hoping to escape notice until they had somehow solved their problem? Or did Shannon have some definite port in mind? He did not have time to ask before they lifted. But once they were space borne again he voiced his question.

Rip’s face was serious. “Frankly—” he began and then hesitated for a long moment before he added, “I don’t know. If we can only get the Captain or Craig on their feet again—”

“One thing,” Ali materialized to join them, “Sinbad’s back in the hydro. And this morning you couldn’t get him inside the door. It’s not a very good piece of evidence—”

No, it wasn’t but they clung to it as backing for their actions of the past few hours. The cat that had shown such a marked distaste for the company of the stricken, and then for the hydro, was now content to visit the latter as if some evil he has sensed there had been cleansed with the dumping of the garden. They had not yet solved their mystery but another clue had come into their hands.

But now the care of the sick occupied hours and Rip insisted that a watch be maintained by the com—listening in for news which might concern the Queen. They had done a good job at silencing the E-Stat, for they had been almost six hours in space before the news of their raid was beamed to the nearest Patrol post.

Ali laughed. “Told you we’d be pirates,” he said when he listened to that account of their descent upon the I-S station. “Though I didn’t see all that blaster work they’re now raving about. You’d think we fought a major battle there!”

Weeks growled. “The Eysies are trying to make it look good. Make us into outlaws—”

But Rip did not share in the general amusement at the wild extravagation of the report from the ether. “I notice they didn’t say anything about the voucher we left.”

Ali’s cynical smile curled. “Did you expect them to? The Eysies think they have us by the tail fins now—why should they give us any benefit of the doubt? We junked all our boosters behind us on this take-off, and don’t forget that, my friends.”

Weeks looked confused. “But I thought you said we could do this legal,” he appealed to Rip. “If we’re Patrol Posted as outlaws—”

“They can’t do any more to us than they can for running in a plague ship,” Ali pointed out. “Either will get us blasted if we happen into the wrong vector now. So—what do we do?”

“We find out what the plague really is,” Dane said and meant every word of it.

“How?” Ali inquired. “Through some of Craig’s magic?”

Dane was forced to answer with the truth. “I don’t know yet—but it’s our only chance.”

Rip rubbed his eyes wearily. “Don’t think I’m disagreeing—but just where do we start? We’ve already combed Frank’s quarters and Kosti’s—we cleaned out the hydro—”

“Those tri-dee shots of the hydro—have you checked them yet?” Dane countered.

Without a word Ali arose and left the cabin. He came back with a microfilm roll. Fitting it into the large projector he focused it on the wall and snapped the button.

They were looking at the hydro—down the length of space so accurately recorded that it seemed they might walk straight into it. The greenery of the plants was so vivid and alive Dane felt that he could reach out and pluck a leaf. Inch by inch he examined those ranks, looking for something which was not in order, had no right to be there.

The long shot of the hydro as it had been merged into a series of sectional groupings. In silence they studied it intently, using all their field lore in an attempt to spot what each one was certain must be there somewhere. But they were all handicapped by their lack of intimate knowledge of the garden.

“Wait!” Weeks’ voice scaled up. “Left hand corner—there!” His pointing hand broke and shadowed the portion he was calling to their attention. Ali jumped to the projector and made a quick adjustment.

Plants four and five times life size glowed green on the wall. What Weeks had caught they all saw now—ragged leaves, stripped stems.

“Chewed!” Dane supplied the answer.

It was only one species of plant which had been so mangled. Other varieties in the same bank showed no signs of disturbance. But all of that one type had at least one stripped branch and two were virtual skeletons.

“A pest!” said Rip.

“But Sinbad,” Dane began a protest before the memory of the cat’s peculiar actions of the past weeks stopped him. Sinbad had slipped up, the hunter who had kept the Queen free of the outré alien life which came aboard from time to time with cargo, had not attacked that which had ravaged the hydro plants. Or if he had done so, he had not, after his usual custom, presented the bodies of the slain to any crew member.

“It looks as if we have something at last,” Ali observed and someone echoed that with a sigh of heartdeep relief.

Chapter XII

STRANGE BEHAVIOR OF A HOOBAT

“All right, so we think we know a little more,” Ali added a moment later. “Just what are we going to do? We can’t stay in space forever—there’re the small items of fuel and supplies and—”

Rip had come to a decision. “We’re not going to remain space borne,” he stated with the confidence of one who now saw an open road before him.

“Luna—” Weeks was plainly doubtful.

“No. Not after that warn-off. Terra!”

For a second or two the other three stared at Rip agape. The audacity and danger of what he suggested was a little stunning. Since men had taken regularly to space no ship had made a direct landing on their home planet—all had passed through the quarantine on Luna. It was not only risky—it was so unheard of that for some minutes they did not understand him.

“We try to set down at Terraport,” Dane found his tongue first, “and they flame us out—”

Rip was smiling. “The trouble with you,” he addressed them all, “is that you think of earth only in terms of Terraport—”

“Well, there is the Patrol field at Stella,” Weeks agreed doubtfully. “But we’d be right in the middle of trouble there—”

“Did we have a regular port on Sargol—on Limbo—on fifty others I can name out of our log?” Rip wanted to know.

Ali voiced a new objection. “So—we have the luck of Jones and we set down somewhere out of sight. Then what do we do?”

“We seal ship until we find the pest—then we bring in a Medic and get to the bottom of the whole thing,” Rip’s confidence was contagious. Dane almost believed that it could be done that way.

“Did you ever think,” Ali cut in, “what would happen if we were wrong—if the Queen really is a plague carrier?”

“I said—we seal the ship—tight,” countered Shannon. “And when we earth it’ll be where we won’t have visitors to infect—”

“And that is where?” Ali, who knew the deserts of Mars better than he did the greener planet from which his stock had sprung, pursued the question.

“Right in the middle of the Big Burn!”

Dane, Terra born and bred, realized first what Rip was planning and what it meant. Sealed off was right—the Queen would be amply protected from investigation. Whether her crew would survive was another matter—whether she could even make a landing there was also to be considered.

The Big Burn was the horrible scar left by the last of the Atomic Wars—a section of radiation poisoned land comprising hundreds of square miles—land which generations had never dared to penetrate. Originally the survivors of that war had shunned the whole continent which it disfigured. It had been close to two centuries before men had gone into the still wholesome land laying to the far west and the south. And through the years, the avoidance of the Big Burn had become part of their racial instinct as they shrank from it. It was a symbol of something no Terran wanted to remember.

But Ali now had only one question to ask. “Can we do it?”

“We’ll never know until we try,” was Rip’s reply.

“The Patrol’ll be watching—” that was Weeks. With his Venusian background he had less respect for the dangers of the Big Burn than he did for the forces of Law and order which ranged the star lanes.

“They’ll be watching the route lanes,” Rip pointed out. “They won’t expect a ship to come in on that vector, steering away from the ports. Why should they? As far as I know it’s never been tried since Terraport was laid out. It’ll be tricky—” And he himself would have to bear most of the responsibility for it. “But I believe that it can be done. And we can’t just roam around out here. With I-S out for our blood and a Patrol warn-off it won’t do us any good to head for Luna—”

None of his listeners could argue with that. And, Dane’s spirits began to rise, after all they knew so little about the Big Burn—it might afford them just the temporary sanctuary they needed. In the end they agreed to try it, mainly because none of them could see any alternative, except the too dangerous one of trying to contact the authorities and being summarily treated as a plague ship before they could defend themselves.

And their decision was ably endorsed not long afterwards by a sardonic warning on the com—a warning which Ali who had been tending the machine passed along to them.

“Greetings, pirates—”

“What do you mean?” Dane was heating broth to feed to Captain Jellico.

“The word has gone out—our raid on the E-Stat is now a matter of history and Patrol record—we’ve been Posted!”

Dane felt a cold finger drawn along his backbone. Now they were fair game for the whole system. Any Patrol ship that wanted could shoot them down with no questions asked. Of course that had always been a possibility from the first after their raid on the E-Stat. But to realize that it was now true was a different matter altogether. This was one occasion when realization was worse than anticipation. He tried to keep his voice level as he answered:

“Let us hope we can pull off Rip’s plan—”

“We’d better. What about the Big Burn anyway, Thorson? Is it as tough as the stories say?”

“We don’t know what it’s like. It’s never been explored—or at least those who tried to explore its interior never reported in afterwards. As far as I know it’s left strictly alone.”

“Is it still all ‘hot’?”

“Parts of it must be. But all—we don’t know.”

With the bottle of soup in his hand Dane climbed to Jellico’s cabin. And he was so occupied with the problem at hand that at first he did not see what was happening in the small room. He had braced the Captain up into a half-sitting position and was patiently ladling the liquid into his mouth a spoonful at a time when a thin squeak drew his attention to the top of Jellico’s desk.

From the half open lid of a microtape compartment something long and dark projected, beating the air feebly. Dane, easing the Captain back on the bunk, was going to investigate when the Hoobat broke its unnatural quiet of the past few days with an ear-splitting screech of fury. Dane struck at the bottom of its cage—the move its master always used to silence it—But this time the results were spectacular.

The cage bounced up and down on the spring which secured it to the ceiling of the cabin and the blue feathered horror slammed against the wires. Either its clawing had weakened them, or some fault had developed, for they parted and the Hoobat came through them to land with a sullen plop on the desk. Its screams stopped as suddenly as they had begun and it scuttled on its spider-toad legs to the microtape compartment, acting with purposeful dispatch and paying no attention to Dane.

Its claws shot out and with ease it extracted from the compartment a creature as weird as itself—one which came fighting and of which Dane could not get a very clear idea. Struggling they battled across the surface of the desk and flopped to the floor. There the hunted broke loose from the hunter and fled with fantastic speed into the corridor. And before Dane could move the Hoobat was after it.

He gained the passage just in time to see Queex disappear down the ladder, clinging with the aid of its pincher claws, apparently grimly determined to catch up with the thing it pursued. And Dane went after them.

There was no sign of the creature who fled on the next level. But Dane made no move to recapture the blue hunter who squatted at the foot of the ladder staring unblinkingly into space. Dane waited, afraid to disturb the Hoobat. He had not had a good look at the thing which had run from Queex—but he knew it was something which had no business aboard the Queen. And it might be the disturbing factor they were searching for. If the Hoobat would only lead him to it—

The Hoobat moved, rearing up on the tips of its six legs, its neckless head slowly revolving on its puffy shoulders. Along the ridge of its backbone its blue feathers were rising into a crest much as Sinbad’s fur rose when the cat was afraid or angry. Then, without any sign of haste, it crawled over and began descending the ladder once more, heading toward the lower section which housed the Hydro.

Dane remained where he was until it had almost reached the deck of the next level and then he followed, one step at a time. He was sure that the Hoobat’s peculiar construction of body prevented it from looking up—unless it turned upon its back—but he did not want to do anything which would alarm it or deter Queex from what he was sure was a methodical chase.

Queex stopped again at the foot of the second descent and sat in its toad stance, apparently brooding, a round blue blot. Dane clung to the ladder and prayed that no one would happen along to frighten it. Then, just as he was beginning to wonder if it had lost contact with its prey, once more it arose and with the same speed it had displayed in the Captain’s cabin it shot along the corridor to the hydro.

To Dane’s knowledge the door of the garden was not only shut but sealed. And how either the stranger or Queex could get through it he did not see.

“What the—?” Ali clattered down the ladder to halt abruptly as Dane waved at him.

“Queex,” the Cargo-apprentice kept his voice to a half whisper, “it got loose and chased something out of the Old Man’s cabin down here.”

“Queex—!” Ali began and then shut his mouth, moving noiselessly up to join Dane.

The short corridor ended at the hydro entrance. And Dane had been right, there they found the Hoobat, crouched at the closed panel, its claws clicking against the metal as it picked away useless at the portal which would not admit it.

“Whatever it’s after must be in there,” Dane said softly.

And the hydro, stripped of its luxuriance of plant life, occupied now by the tanks of green scum, would not afford too many hiding places. They had only to let Queex in and keep watch.

As they came up the Hoobat flattened to the floor and shrilled its war cry, spitting at their boots and then flashing claws against the stout metal enforced hide. However, though it was prepared to fight them, it showed no signs of wishing to retreat, and for that Dane was thankful. He quickly pressed the release and tugged open the panel.

At the first crack of its opening Queex turned with one of those bursts of astounding speed and clawed for admittance, its protest against the men forgotten. And it squeezed through a space Dane would have thought too narrow to accommodate its bloated body. Both men slipped around the door behind it and closed the panel tight.

The air was not as fresh as it had been when the plants were there. And the vats which had taken the places of the banked greenery were certainly nothing to look at. Queex humped itself into a clod of blue, immovable, halfway down the aisle.

Dane tried to subdue his breathing, to listen. The Hoobat’s actions certainly argued that the alien thing had taken refuge here, though how it had gotten through—? But if it were in the hydro it was well hidden.

He had just begun to wonder how long they must wait when Queex again went into action. Its clawed front legs upraised, it brought the pinchers deliberately together and sawed one across the other, producing a rasping sound which was almost a vibration in the air. Back and forth, back and forth, moved the claws. Watching them produced almost a hypnotic effect, and the reason for such a maneuver was totally beyond the human watchers.

But Queex knew what it was doing all right, Ali’s fingers closed on Dane’s arm in a pincher grip as painful as if he had been equipped with the horny armament of the Hoobat.

Something, a flitting shadow, had rounded one vat and was that much closer to the industrious fiddler on the floor. By some weird magic of its own the Hoobat was calling its prey to it.

Scrape, scrape—the unmusical performance continued with monotonous regularity. Again the shadow flashed—one vat closer. The Hoobat now presented the appearance of one charmed by its own art—sunk in a lethargy of weird music making.

At last the enchanted came into full view, though lingering at the round side of a container, very apparently longing to flee again, but under some compulsion to approach its enchanter. Dane blinked, not quite sure that his eyes were not playing tricks on him. He had seen the almost transparent globe “bogies” of Limbo, had been fascinated by the weird and ugly pictures in Captain Jellico’s collection of tri-dee prints. But this creature was as impossible in its way as the horrific blue thing dragging it out of concealment.

It walked erect on two threads of legs, with four knobby joints easily detected. A bulging abdomen sheathed in the horny substance of a beetle’s shell ended in a sharp point. Two pairs of small legs, folded close to the much smaller upper portion of its body, were equipped with thorn shack terminations. The head, which constantly turned back and forth on the armor plated shoulders, was long and narrow and split for half its length by a mouth above which were deep pits which must harbor eyes, though actual organs were not visible to the watching men. It was a palish gray in color—which surprised Dane a little. His memory of the few seconds he had seen it on the Captain’s desk had suggested that it was much darker. And erect as it was, it stood about eighteen inches high.

With head turning rapidly, it still hesitated by the side of the vat, so nearly the color of the metal that unless it moved it was difficult to distinguish. As far as Dane could see the Hoobat was paying it no attention. Queex might be lost in a happy dream, the result of its own fiddling. Nor did the rhythm of that scraping vary.

The nightmare thing made the last foot in a rush of speed which reduced it to a blur, coming to a halt before the Hoobat. Its front legs whipped out to strike at its enemy. But Queex was no longer dreaming. This was the moment the Hoobat had been awaiting. One of the sawing claws opened and closed, separating the head of the lurker from its body. And before either of the men could interfere Queex had dismembered the prey with dispatch.

“Look there!” Dane pointed.

The Hoobat held close the body of the stranger and where the ashy corpse came into contact with Queex’s blue feathered skin it was slowly changing hue—as if some of the color of its hunter had rubbed off it.

“Chameleon!” Ali went down on one knee the better to view the grisly feast now in progress. “Watch out!” he added sharply as Dane came to join him.

One of the thin upper limbs lay where Queex had discarded it. And from the needle tip was oozing some colorless drops of fluid. Poison?

Dane looked around for something which he could use to pick up the still jerking appendage. But before he could find anything Queex had appropriated it. And in the end they had to allow the Hoobat its victim in its entirety. But once Queex had consumed its prey it lapsed into its usual hunched immobility. Dane went for the cage and working gingerly he and Ali got the creature back in captivity. But all the evidence now left were some smears on the floor of the hydro, smears which Ali blotted up for future research in the lab.

An hour later the four who now comprised the crew of the Queen gathered in the mess for a conference. Queex was in its cage on the table before them, asleep after all its untoward activity.

“There must be more than just one,” Weeks said. “But how are we going to hunt them down? With Sinbad?”

Dane shook his head. Once the Hoobat had been caged and the more prominent evidence of the battle scraped from the floor, he had brought the cat into the hydro and forced him to sniff at the site of the engagement. The result was that Sinbad had gone raving mad and Dane’s hands were now covered with claw tears which ran viciously deep. It was plain that the ship’s cat was having none of the intruders, alive or dead. He had fled to Dane’s cabin where he had taken refuge on the bunk and snarled wild eyed when anyone looked in from the corridor.

“Queex has to do it,” Rip said. “But will it hunt unless it is hungry?”

He surveyed the now comatose creature skeptically. They had never seen the Captain’s pet eat anything except some pellets which Jellico kept in his desk, and they were aware that the intervals between such feedings were quite lengthy. If they had to wait the usual time for Queex to feel hunger pangs once more, they might have to wait a long time.

“We should catch one alive,” Ali remarked thoughtfully. “If we could get Queex to fiddle it out to where we could net it—”

Weeks nodded eagerly. “A small net like those the Salariki use. Drop it over the thing—”

While Queex still drowsed in its cage, Weeks went to work with fine cord. Holding the color changing abilities of the enemy in mind they could not tell how many of the creatures might be roaming the ship. It could only be proved where they weren’t by where Sinbad would consent to stay. So they made plans which included both the cat and the Hoobat.

Sinbad, much against his will, was buckled into an improvised harness by which he could be controlled without the handler losing too much valuable skin.

And then the hunt started at the top of the ship, proceeding downward section by section. Sinbad raised no protest in the control cabin, nor in the private cabins of the officers’ thereabouts. If they could interpret his reactions the center section was free of the invaders. So with Dane in control of the cat and Ali carrying the caged Hoobat, they descended once more to the level which housed the hydro galley, steward’s quarters and ship’s sick bay.

Sinbad proceeded on his own four feet into the galley and the mess. He was not uneasy in the sick bay, nor in Mura’s cabin, and this time he even paced the hydro without being dragged—much to their surprise as they had thought that the headquarters of the stowaways.

“Could there only have been one?” Weeks wanted to know as he stood by ready with the net in his hands.

“Either that—or else we’re wrong about the hydro being their main hideout. If they’re afraid of Queex now they may have withdrawn to the place they feel the safest,” Rip said.

It was when they were on the ladder leading to the cargo level that Sinbad balked. He planted himself firmly and yowled against further progress until Dane, with the harness, pulled him along.

“Look at Queex!”

They followed Weeks’ order. The Hoobat was no longer lethargic. It was raising itself, leaning forward to clasp the bars of its cage, and now it uttered one of its screams of rage. And as Ali went on down the ladder it rattled the bars in a determined effort for freedom. Sinbad, spitting and yowling refused to walk. Rip nodded to Ali.

“Let it out.”

Tipped out of its cage the Hoobat scuttled forward, straight for the panel which opened on the large cargo space and there waited, as if for them to open the portal and admit the hunter to its hunting territory.

Chapter XIII

OFF THE MAP

Across the lock of the panel was the seal set in place by Van Rycke before the spacer had lifted from Sargol. Under Dane’s inspection it showed no crack. To all evidence the hatch had not been opened since they left the perfumed planet. And yet the hunting Hoobat was sure that the invading pests were within.

It took only a second for Dane to commit an act which, if he could not defend it later, would blacklist him out of space. He twisted off the official seal which should remain there while the freighter was space borne.

With Ali’s help he shouldered aside the heavy sliding panel and they looked into the cargo space, now filled with the red wood from Sargol. The redwood! When he saw it Dane was struck with their stupidity. Aside from the Koros stones in the stone box, only the wood had come from the Salariki world. What if the pests had not been planted by I-S agents, but were natives of Sargol being brought in with the wood?

The men remained at the hatch to allow the Hoobat freedom in its hunt. And Sinbad crouched behind them, snarling and giving voice to a rumbling growl which was his negative opinion of the proceedings.

They were conscious of an odor—the sharp, unidentifiable scent Dane had noticed during the loading of the wood. It was not unpleasant—merely different. And it—or something—had an electrifying effect upon Queex. The blue hunter climbed with the aid of its claws to the top of the nearest pile of wood and there settled down. For a space it was apparently contemplating the area about it.

Then it raised its claws and began the scraping fiddle which once before had drawn its prey out of hiding. Oddly enough that dry rasp of sound had a quieting effect upon Sinbad and Dane felt the drag of the harness lessen as the cat moved, not toward escape, but to the scene of action, humping himself at last in the open panel, his round eyes fixed upon the Hoobat with a fascinated stare.

Scrape-scrape—the monotonous noise bit into the ears of the men, gnawed at their nerves.

“Ahhh—” Ali kept his voice to a whisper, but his hand jerked to draw their attention to the right at deck level. Dane saw that flicker along a log. The stowaway pest was now the same brilliant color as the wood, indistinguishable until it moved, which probably explained how it had come on board.

But that was only the first arrival. A second flash of movement and a third followed. Then the hunted remained stationary, able to resist for a period the insidious summoning of Queex. The Hoobat maintained an attitude of indifference, of being so wrapped in its music that nothing else existed. Rip whispered to Weeks:

“There’s one to the left—on the very end of that log. Can you net it?”

The small oiler slipped the coiled mesh through his calloused hands. He edged around Ali, keeping his eyes on the protuding protruding bump of red upon red which was his quarry.

“—two—three—four—five—” Ali was counting under his breath but Dane could not see that many. He was sure of only four, and those because he had seen them move.

The things were ringing in the pile of wood where the Hoobat fiddled, and two had ascended the first logs toward their doom. Weeks went down on one knee, ready to cast his net, when Dane had his first inspiration. He drew his sleep rod, easing it out of its holster, set the lever on “spray” and beamed it at three of those humps.

Rip seeing what he was doing, dropped a hand on Weeks’ shoulder, holding the oiler in check. A hump moved, slid down the rounded side of the log into the narrow aisle of deck between two piles of wood. It lay quiet, a bright scarlet blot against the gray.

Then Weeks did move, throwing his net over it and jerking the draw string tight, at the same time pulling the captive toward him over the deck. But, even as it came, the scarlet of the thing’s body was fast fading to an ashy pink and at last taking on a gray as dull as the metal on which it lay—the complete camouflage. Had they not had it enmeshed they might have lost it altogether, so well did it now blend with the surface.

The other two in the path of the ray had not lost their grip upon the logs, and the men could not advance to scoop them up. Not while there were others not affected, free to flee back into hiding. Weeks bound the net about the captive and looked to Rip for orders.

“Deep freeze,” the acting-commander of the Queen said succinctly. “Let me see it get out of that!”

Surely the cold of the deep freeze, united to the sleep ray, would keep the creature under control until they had a chance to study it. But, as Weeks passed Sinbad on his errand, the cat was so frantic to avoid him, that he reared up on his hind legs, almost turning a somersault, snarling and spitting until Weeks was up the ladder to the next level. It was very evident that the ship’s cat was having none of this pest.

They might have been invisible and their actions non-existent as far as Queex was concerned. For the Hoobat continued its siren concert. The lured became more reckless, mounting the logs to Queex’s post in sudden darts. Dane wondered how the Hoobat proposed handling four of the creatures at once. For, although the other two which had been in the path of the ray had not moved, he now counted four climbing.

“Stand by to ray—” that was Rip.

But it would have been interesting to see how Queex was prepared to handle the four. And, though Rip had given the order to stand by, he had not ordered the ray to be used. Was he, too, interested in that?

The first red projection was within a foot of the Hoobat now and its fellows had frozen as if to allow it the honor of battle with the feathered enemy. To all appearances Queex did not see it, but when it sprang with a whir of speed which would baffle a human, the Hoobat was ready and its claws, halting their rasp, met around the wasp-thin waist of the pest, speedily cutting it in two. Only this time the Hoobat made no move to unjoint and consume the victim. Instead it squatted in utter silence, as motionless as a tri-dee print.

The heavy lower half of the creature rolled down the pile of logs to the deck and there paled to the gray of its background. None of its kind appeared to be interested in its fate. The two which had been in the path of the ray, continued to be humps on the wood, the others faced the Hoobat.

But Rip was ready to waste no more time. “Ray them!” he snapped.

All three of their sleep rods sprayed the pile, catching in passing the Hoobat. Queex’s pop eyes closed, but it showed no other sign of falling under the spell of the beam.

Certain that all the creatures in sight were now relatively harmless, the three approached the logs. But it was necessary to get into touching distance before they could even make out the outlines of the nightmare things, so well did their protective coloring conceal them. Wearing gloves Ali detached the little monsters from their holds on the wood and put them for temporary safekeeping—during a transfer to the deep freeze—into the Hoobat’s cage. Queex, they decided to leave where it was for a space, to awaken and trap any survivor which had been too wary to emerge at the first siren song. As far as they could tell the Hoobat was their only possible protection against the pest and to leave it in the center of infection was the wisest course.

Having dumped the now metal colored catch into the freeze, they held a conference.

“No plague—” Weeks breathed a sigh of relief.

“No proof of that yet,” Ali caught him up short. “We have to prove it past any reasonable doubt.”

“And how are we going to do—?” Dane began when he saw what the other had brought in from Tau’s stores. A lancet and the upper half of the creature Queex had killed in the cargo hold.

The needle pointed front feet of the thing were curled up in its death throes and it was now a dirty white shade as if the ability to change color had been lost before it matched the cotton on which it lay. With the lancet Ali forced a claw away from the body. It was oozing the watery liquid which they had seen on the one in the hydro.

“I have an idea,” he said slowly, his eyes on the mangled creature rather than on his shipmates, “that we might have escaped being attacked because they sheered off from us. But if we were clawed we might take it too. Remember those marks on the throats and backs of the rest? That might be the entry point of this poison—if poison it is—”

Dane could see the end of that line of reasoning. Rip and Ali—they couldn’t be spared. The knowledge they had would bring the Queen to earth. But a Cargo-master was excess baggage when there was no reason for trade. It was his place to try out the truth of Ali’s surmise.

But while he thought another acted. Weeks leaned over and twitched the lancet out of Ali’s fingers. Then, before any of them could move, he thrust its contaminated point into the back of his hand.

“Don’t!”

Both Dane’s cry and Rip’s hand came too late. It had been done. And Weeks sat there, looking alone and frightened, studying the drop of blood which marked the dig of the surgeon’s keen knife. But when he spoke his voice sounded perfectly natural.

“Headache first, isn’t it?”

Only Ali was outwardly unaffected by what the little man had just done. “Just be sure you have a real one,” he warned with what Dane privately considered real callousness.

Weeks nodded. “Don’t let my imagination work,” he answered shrewdly. “I know. It has to be real. How long do you suppose?”

“We don’t know,” Rip sounded tired, beaten. “Meanwhile,” he got to his feet, “we’d better set a course home—”

“Home,” Weeks repeated. To him Terra was not his own home—he had been born in the polar swamps of Venus. But to All Solarians—no matter which planet had nurtured them—Terra was home.

“You,” Rip’s big hand fell gently on the little oiler’s shoulder, “stay here with Thorson—”

“No,” Weeks shook his head. “Unless I black out, I’m riding station in the engine room. Maybe the bug won’t work on me anyway.”

And because he had done what he had done they could not deny him the right to ride his station as long as he could during the grueling hours to come.

Dane visited the cargo hold once more. To be greeted by an irate scream which assured him that Queex was again awake and on guard. Although the Hoobat was ready enough to give tongue, it still squatted in its chosen position on top of the log stack and he did not try to dislodge it. Perhaps with Queex planted in the enemies’ territory they would have nothing to fear from any pests not now confined in the deep freeze.

Rip set his course for Terra—for that plague spot on their native world where they might hide out the Queen until they could prove their point—that the spacer was not a disease ridden ship to be feared. He kept to the control cabin, shifting only between the Astrogator’s and the pilot’s station. Upon him alone rested the responsibility of bringing in the ship along a vector which crossed no well traveled space lane where the Patrol might challenge them. Dane rode out the orbiting in the Com-tech’s seat, listening in for the first warning of danger—that they had been detected.

The mechanical repetition of their list of crimes was now stale news and largely off-ether. And from all traces he could pick up, they were lost as far as the authorities were concerned. On the other hand, the Patrol might indeed be as far knowing as its propaganda stated and the Queen was running headlong into a trap. Only they had no choice in the matter.

It was the ship’s inter-com bringing Ali’s voice from the engine room which broke the concentration in the control cabin.

“Weeks’ down!”

Rip barked into the mike. “How bad?”

“He hasn’t blacked out yet. The pains in his head are pretty bad and his hand is swelling—”

“He’s given us our proof. Tell him to report off—”

But the disembodied voice which answered that was Weeks’.

“I haven’t got it as bad as the others. I’ll ride this out.”

Rip shook his head. But short-handed as they were he could not argue Weeks away from his post if the man insisted upon staying. He had other, and for the time being, more important matters before him.

How long they sweated out that descent upon their native world Dane could never afterwards have testified. He only knew that hours must have passed, until he thought groggily that he could not remember a time he was not glued in the seat which had been Tang’s, the earphones pressing against his sweating skull, his fatigue-drugged mind being held with difficulty to the duty at hand.

Sometime during that haze they made their landing. He had a dim memory of Rip sprawled across the pilot’s control board and then utter exhaustion claimed him also and the darkness closed in. When he roused it was to look about a cabin tilted to one side. Rip was still slumped in a muscle cramping posture, breathing heavily. Dane bit out a forceful word born of twinges of his own, and then snapped on the visa-plate.

For a long moment he was sure that he was not yet awake. And then, as his dazed mind supplied names for what he saw, he knew that Rip had failed. Far from being in the center—or at least well within the perimeter of the dread Big Burn—they must have landed in some civic park or national forest. For the massed green outside, the bright flowers, the bird he sighted as a brilliant flash of wind coasting color—those were not to be found in the twisted horror left by man’s last attempt to impress his will upon his resisting kind.

Well, it had been a good try, but there was no use expecting luck to ride their fins all the way, and they had had more than their share in the E-Stat affair. How long would it be before the Law arrived to collect them? Would they have time to state their case?

The faint hope that they might aroused him. He reached for the com key and a second later tore the headphones from his appalled ears. The crackle of static he knew—and the numerous strange noises which broke in upon the lanes of communication in space—but this solid, paralyzing roar was something totally new—new, and frightening.

And because it was new and he could not account for it, he turned back to regard the scene on the viewer with a more critical eye. The foliage which grew in riotous profusion was green right enough, and Terra green into the bargain—there was no mistaking that. But—Dane caught at the edge of Com-unit for support. But—What was that liver-red blossom which had just reached out to engulf a small flying thing?

Feverishly he tried to remember the little natural history he knew. Sure that what he had just witnessed was unnatural—un-Terran—and to be suspect!

He started the spy lens on its slow revolution in the Queen’s nose, to get a full picture of their immediate surroundings. It was tilted at an angle—apparently they had not made a fin-point landing this time—and sometimes it merely reflected slices of sky. But when it swept earthward he saw enough to make him believe that wherever the spacer had set down it was not on the Terra he knew.

Subconsciously he had expected the Big Burn to be barren land—curdled rock with rivers of frozen quartz, substances boiled up through the crust of the planet by the action of the atomic explosives. That was the way it had been on Limbo—on the other “burned-off” worlds they had discovered where those who had preceded mankind into the Galaxy—the mysterious, long vanished “Forerunners”—had fought their grim and totally annihilating wars.

But it would seem that the Big Burn was altogether different—at least here it was. There was no rock sterile of life outside—in fact there would appear to be too much life. What Dane could sight on his limited field of vision was a teeming jungle. And the thrill of that discovery almost made him forget their present circumstances. He was still staring bemused at the screen when Rip muttered, turned his head on his folded arms and opened his sunken eyes:

“Did we make it?” he asked dully.

Dane, not taking his eyes from that fascinating scene without, answered: “You brought us down. But I don’t know where—”

“Unless our instruments were ‘way off, we’re near to the heart of the Burn.”

“Some heart!”

“What does it look like?” Rip sounded too tired to cross the cabin and see for himself. “Barren as Limbo?”

“Hardly! Rip, did you ever see a tomato as big as a melon—At least it looks like a tomato,” Dane halted the spy lens as it focused upon this new phenomena.

“A what?” There was a note of concern in Shannon’s voice. “What’s the matter with you, Dane?”

“Come and see,” Dane willingly yielded his place to Rip but he did not step out of range of the screen. Surely that did have the likeness to a good, old fashioned earth-side tomato—but it was melon size and it hung from a bush which was close to a ten foot tree!

Rip stumbled across to drop into the Com-tech’s place. But his expression of worry changed to one of simple astonishment as he saw that picture.

“Where are we?”

“You name it,” Dane had had longer to adjust, the excitement of an explorer sighting virgin territory worked in his veins, banishing fatigue. “It must be the Big Burn!”

“But,” Rip shook his head slowly as if with that gesture to deny the evidence before his eyes, “that country’s all bare rock. I’ve seen pictures—”

“Of the outer rim,” Dane corrected, having already solved that problem for himself. “This must be farther in than any survey ship ever came. Great Spirit of Outer Space, what has happened here?”

Rip had enough technical training to know how to get part of the answer. He leaned halfway across the com, and was able to flick down a lever with the very tip of his longest finger. Instantly the cabin was filled with a clicking so loud as to make an almost continuous drone of sound.

Dane knew that danger signal, he didn’t need Rip’s words to underline it for him.

“That’s what’s happened. This country is pile ‘hot’ out there!”

Chapter XIV

SPECIAL MISSION

That click, the dial beneath the counter, warned them that they were as cut off from the luxuriance outside as if they were viewing a scene on Mars or Sargol from their present position. To go beyond the shielding walls of the spacer into that riotous green world would sentence them to death as surely as if the Patrol was without, with a flamer trained on their hatch. There was no escape from that radiation—it would be in the air one breathed, strike though one’s skin. And yet the wilderness flourished and beckoned.

“Mutations—” Rip mused. “Space, Tau’d go wild if he could see it!”

And that mention of the Medic brought them back to the problem which had earthed them. Dane leaned back against the slanting wall of the cabin.

“We have to have a Medic—”

Rip nodded without looking away from the screen.

“Can one of the flitters be shielded?” The Cargo-apprentice persisted.

“That’s a thought! Ali should know—” Rip reached for the inter-com mike. “Engines!”

“So you are alive?” Ali’s voice had a bite in it. “About time you’re contacting. Where are we? Besides being lopsided from a recruit’s scrambled set-down, I mean.”

“In the Big Burn. Come top-side. Wait—how’s Weeks?”

“He has a devil’s own headache, but he hasn’t blacked out yet. Looks like his immunity holds in part. I’ve sent him bunkside for a while with a couple of pain pills. So we’ve made it—”

He must have left to join them for when Rip answered: “After a fashion,” into the mike there was no reply.

And the clang of his boot plates on the ladder heralded his arrival at their post. There was an interval for him to view the outer world and accept the verdict of the counter and then Rip voiced Dane’s question:

“Can we shield one of the flitters well enough to cross that? I can’t take the Queen up and earth her again—”

“I know you can’t!” the acting-engineer cut in. “Maybe you could get her off world, but you’ll come close to blasting out when you try for another landing. Fuel doesn’t go on forever—though some of you space jockeys seem to think it does. The flitter? Well, we’ve some spare rocket linings. But it’s going to be a job and a half to get those beaten out and reassembled. And, frankly, the space whirly one who flies her had better be suited and praying loudly when he takes off. We can always try—” He was frowning, already busied with the problem which was one for his department.

So with intervals of snatched sleep, hurried meals and the time which must be given to tending their unconscious charges, Rip and Dane became only hands to be directed by Ali’s brain and garnered knowledge. Weeks slept off the worst of his pain and, though he complained of weakness, he tottered back on duty to help.

The flitter—an air sled intended to hold three men and supplies for exploring trips on strange-worlds—was first stripped of all non-essentials until what remained was not much more than the pilot’s seat and the motor. Then they labored to build up a shielding of the tough radiation dulling alloy which was used to line rocket tubes. And they could only praise the foresight of Stotz who carried such a full supply of spare parts and tools. It was a task over which they often despaired, and Ali improvised frantically, performing weird adjustments of engineering structure. He was still unsatisfied when they had done.

“She’ll fly,” he admitted. “And she’s the best we can do. But it’ll depend a lot on how far she has to go over ‘hot’ country. Which way do we head her?”

Rip had been busy with a map of Terra—a small thing he had discovered in one of the travel recordings carried for crew entertainment.

“The Big Burn covers three quarters of this continent. There’s no use going north—the devastated area extends into the arctic regions. I’d say west—there’s some fringe settlements on the sea coast and we need to contact a frontier territory. Now do we have it straight—? I take the flitter, get a Medic and bring him back?”

Dane cut in at that point. “Correct course! You stay here. If the Queen has to lift, you’re the only one who can take her off world. And the same’s true for Ali. I can’t ride out a blast-off in either the pilot’s or the engineer’s seat. And Weeks is on the sick list. So I’m elected to do the Medic hunting—”

They were forced to agree to that. He was no hero, Dane thought, as he gave a last glance about his cabin early the next morning. The small cubby, utilitarian and bare as it was, never looked more inviting or secure. No, no hero, it was merely a matter of common sense. And although his imagination—that deeply hidden imagination with which few of his fellows credited him—shrank from the ordeal ahead, he had not the slightest intention of allowing that to deter him.

The space suit, which had been bulky and clumsy enough on the E-Stat asteroid under limited gravity, was almost twice as poorly adapted to progression on earth. But he climbed into it with Rip’s aid, while Ali lashed a second suit under the seat—ready to encase the man Dane must bring back with him. Before he closed the helmet, Rip had one last order to give, along with an unexpected piece of equipment. And, when Dane saw that, he knew just how desperate Shannon considered their situation to be. For only on life or death terms would the Astrogator-apprentice have used Jellico’s private key, opened the forbidden arms cabinet, and withdrawn that blaster.

“If you need it—use this—” Rip’s face was very sober.

Ali arose from fastening the extra suit in place. “It’s ready—”

He came back into the corridor and Dane clanked out in his place, settling himself behind the controls. When they saw him there, the inner hatch closed and he was alone in the bay.

With tantalizing slowness the outer wall of the spacer slid back. His hands blundering with the metallic claws of the gloves, Dane buckled two safety belts about him. Then the skeleton flitter moved to the left—out into the glare of the early day, a light too bright, even through the shielded viewplates of his helmet.

For some dangerous moments the machine creaked out and down on the landing cranes, the warning counter on its control panel going into a mad whirl of color as it tried to record the radiation. There came a jar as it touched the scorched earth at the foot of the Queen’s fins.

Dane pressed the release and watched the lines whip up and the hatch above snap shut. Then he opened the controls. He used too much energy and shot into the air, tearing a wide gap through what was luckily a thin screen of the matted foliage, before he gained complete mastery.

Then he was able to level out and bore westward, the rising sun at his back, the sea of deadly green beneath him, and somewhere far ahead the faint promise of clean, radiation free land holding the help they needed.

Mile after mile of the green jungle swept under the flitter, and the flash of the counter’s light continued to record a land unfit for mankind. Even with the equipment used on distant worlds to protect what spacemen had come to recognize was a reasonably tough human frame, no ground force could hope to explore that wilderness in person. And flying above it, as well insulated as he was, Dane knew that he could be dangerously exposed. If the contaminated territory extended more than a thousand miles, his danger was no longer problematical—it was an established fact.

He had only the vague directions from the scrap of map Rip had uncovered. To the west—he had no idea how far away—there stretched a length of coastline, far enough from the radiation blasted area to allow small settlements. For generations the population of Terra, decimated by the atomic wars, and then drained by first system and then Galactic exploration and colonization, had been decreasing. But within the past hundred years it was again on the upswing. Men retiring from space were returning to their native planet to live out their remaining years. The descendants of far-flung colonists, coming home on visits, found the sparsely populated mother world appealed to some basic instinct so that they remained. And now the settlements of mankind were on the march, spreading out from the well established sections which had not been blighted by ancient wars.

It was mid-afternoon when Dane noted that the green carpet beneath the flitter was displaying holes—that small breaks in the vegetation became sizable stretches of rocky waste. He kept one eye on the counter and what, when he left the spacer, had been an almost steady beam of warning light was now a well defined succession of blinks. The land below was cooling off—perhaps he had passed the worst of the journey. But in that passing how much had he and the flitter become contaminated? Ali had devised a method of protection for the empty suit the Medic would wear—had that held? There were an alarming number of dark ifs in the immediate future.

The mutant growths were now only thin patches of stunted and yellowish green. Had man penetrated only this far into the Burn, the knowledge of what lay beyond would be totally false. This effect of dreary waste might well discourage exploration.

Now the blink of the counter was deliberate, with whole seconds of pause between the flashes. Cooling off—? It was getting cold fast! He wished that he had a com-unit. Because of the interference in the Burn he had left it behind—but with one he might be able now to locate some settlement. All that remained was to find the seashore and, with it as a guide, flit south towards the center of modern civilization.

He laid no plans of action—this whole exploit must depend upon improvisation. And, as a Free Trader, spur-of-the-moment action was a necessary way of life. On the frontier Rim of the Galaxy, where the independent spacers traced the star trails, fast thinking and the ability to change plans on an instant were as important as skill in aiming a blaster. And it was very often proven that the tongue—and the brain behind it—were more deadly than a flamer.

The sun was in Dane’s face now and he caught sight of patches of uncontaminated earth with honest vegetation—in place of the “hot” jungle now miles behind. That night he camped out on the edge of rough pasturage where the counter no longer flashed its warning and he was able to shed the suit and sleep under the stars with the fresh air of early summer against his cheek and the smell of honest growing things replacing the dry scent of the spacer and the languorous perfumes of Sargol.

He lay on his back, flat against the earth of which he was truly a part, staring up into the dark, inverted bowl of the heavens. It was so hard to connect those distant points of icy light making the well remembered patterns overhead with the suns whose rays had added to the brown stain on his skin. Sargol’s sun—the one which gave such limited light to dead Limbo—the sun under which Naxos, his first Galactic port, grew its food. He could not pick them out—was not even sure that any could be sighted from Terra. Strange suns, red, orange, blue green, white—yet here all looked alike—points of glitter.

Tomorrow at dawn he must go on. He turned his head away from the sky and grass, green Terran grass, was soft beneath his cheek. Yet unless he was successful tomorrow or the next day—he might never have the right to feel that grass again. Resolutely Dane willed that thought out of his mind, tried to fix upon something more lulling which would bring with it the sleep he must have before he went on. And in the end he did sleep, deeply, dreamlessly, as if the touch of Terra’s soil was in itself the sedative his tautly strung nerves needed.

It was before sunrise that he awoke, stiff, and chilled. The dryness of pre-dawn gave partial light and somewhere a bird was twittering. There had been birds—or things whose far off ancestors had been birds—in the “hot” forest. Did they also sing to greet the dawn?

Dane went over the flitter with his small counter and was relieved to find that they had done a good job of shielding under Ali’s supervision. Once the suit he had worn was stored, he could sit at the controls without danger and in comfort. And it was good to be free of that metal prison.

This time he took to the air with ease, the salt taste of food concentrate on his tongue as he sucked a cube. And his confidence arose with the flitter. This was the day, somehow he knew it. He was going to find what he sought.

It was less than two hours after sunrise that he did so. A village which was a cluster of perhaps fifty or so house units strung along into the land. He skimmed across it and brought the flitter down in a rock cliff walled sand pocket with surf booming some yards away, where he would be reasonably sure of safe hiding.

All right, he had found a village. Now what? A Medic—A stranger appearing on the lane which served the town, a stranger in a distinctive uniform of Trade, would only incite conjecture and betrayal. He had to plan now—

Dane unsealed his tunic. He should, by rights, shed his space boots too. But perhaps he could use those to color his story. He thrust the blaster into hiding at his waist. A rip or two in his undertunic, a shallow cut from his bush knife allowed to bleed messily. He could not see himself to judge the general effect, but had to hope it was the right one.

His chance to test his acting powers came sooner than he had anticipated. Luckily he had climbed out of the hidden cove before he was spotted by the boy who came whistling along the path, a fishing pole over his shoulder, a basket swinging from his hand. Dane assumed an expression which he thought would suggest fatigue, pain, and bewilderment and lurched forward as if, in sighting the oncoming boy, he had also sighted hope.

“Help—!” Perhaps it was excitement which gave his utterance that convincing croak.

Rod and basket fell to the ground as the boy, after one astounded stare, ran forward.

“What’s the matter!” His eyes were on those space boots and he added a “sir” which had the ring of hero worship.

“Escape boat—” Dane waved toward the sea’s general direction. “Medic—must get to Medic—”

“Yes, sir,” the boy’s basic Terran sounded good. “Can you walk if I help you?”

Dane managed a weak nod, but contrived that he did not lean too heavily on his avidly helpful guide.

“The Medic’s my father, sir. We’re right down this slope—third house. And father hasn’t left—he’s supposed to go on a northern inspection tour today—”

Dane felt a stab of distaste for the role being forced upon him. When he had visualized the Medic he must abduct to serve the Queen in her need, he had not expected to have to kidnap a family man. Only the knowledge that he did have the extra suit, and that he had made the outward trip without dangerous exposure, bolstered up his determination to see the plan through.

When they came out at the end of the single long lane which tied the houses of the village together, Dane was puzzled to see the place so deserted. But, since it was not within his role of dazed sufferer to ask questions, he did not do so. It was his young guide who volunteered the information he wanted.

“Most everyone is out with the fleet. There’s a run of red-backs—”

Dane understood. Within recent times the “red-backs” of the north had become a desirable luxury item for Terran tables. If a school of them were to be found in the vicinity no wonder this village was now deserted as its fleet went out to garner in the elusive but highly succulent fish.

“In here, sir—” Dane found himself being led to a house on the right. “Are you in Trade—?”

He suppressed a start, shedding his uniform tunic had not done much in the way of disguise. It would be nice, he thought a little bitterly, if he could flash an I-S badge now to completely confuse the issue. But he answered with the partial truth and did not enlarge.

“Yes—”

The boy was flushed with excitement. “I’m trying for Trade Service Medic,” he confided. “Passed the Directive exam last month. But I still have to go up for Prelim psycho—”

Dane had a flash of memory. Not too many months before not the Prelim psycho, but the big machine at the Assignment Center had decided his own future arbitrarily, fitting him into the crew of the Solar Queen as the ship where his abilities, knowledge and potentialities could best work to the good of the Service. At the time he had resented, had even been slightly ashamed of being relegated to a Free Trading spacer while Artur Sands and other classmates from the Pool had walked off with Company assignments. Now he knew that he would not trade the smallest and most rusty bolt from the solar Queen for the newest scout ship in I-S or Combine registry. And this boy from the frontier village might be himself as he was five years earlier. Though he had never known a real home or family, scrapping into the Pool from one of the children’s Depots.

“Good luck!” He meant that and the boy’s flush deepened.

“Thank you, sir. Around here—Father’s treatment room has this other door—”

Dane allowed himself to be helped into the treatment room and sat down in a chair while the boy hurried off to locate the Medic. The Trader’s hand went to the butt of his concealed blaster. It was a job he had to do—one he had volunteered for—and there was no backing out. But his mouth had a wry twist as he drew out the blaster and made ready to point it at the inner door. Or—his mind leaped to another idea—could he get the Medic safely out of the village? A story about another man badly injured—perhaps pinned in the wreckage of an escape boat—He could try it. He thrust the blaster back inside his torn undertunic, hoping the bulge would pass unnoticed.

“My son says—”

Dane looked up. The man who came through the inner door was in early middle age, thin, wiry, with a hard, fined-down look about him. He could almost be Tau’s elder brother. He crossed the room with a brisk stride and came to stand over Dane, his hand reaching to pull aside the bloody cloth covering the Trader’s breast. But Dane fended off that examination.

“My partner,” he said. “Back there—pinned in—” he jerked his hand southward. “Needs help—”

The Medic frowned. “Most of the men are out with the fleet. Jorge,” he spoke to the boy who had followed him, “go and get Lex and Hartog. Here,” he tried to push Dane back into the chair as the Trader got up, “let me look at that cut—”

Dane shook his head. “No time now, sir. My partner’s hurt bad. Can you come?”

“Certainly.” The Medic reached for the emergency kit on the shelf behind him. “You able to make it?”

“Yes,” Dane was exultant. It was going to work! He could toll the Medic away from the village. Once out among the rocks on the shoreline he could pull the blaster and herd the man to the flitter. His luck was going to hold after all!

Chapter XV

MEDIC HOVAN REPORTS

Fortunately the path out of the straggling town was a twisted one and in a very short space they were hidden from view. Dane paused as if the pace was too much for an injured man. The Medic put out a steadying hand, only to drop it quickly when he saw the weapon which had appeared in Dane’s grip.

“What—?” His mouth snapped shut, his jaw tightened.

“You will march ahead of me,” Dane’s low voice was steady. “Beyond that rock spur to the left you’ll find a place where it is possible to climb down to sea level. Do it!”

“I suppose I shouldn’t ask why?”

“Not now. We haven’t much time. Get moving!”

The Medic mastered his surprise and without further protest obeyed orders. It was only when they were standing by the flitter and he saw the suits that his eyes widened and he said:

“The Big Burn!”

“Yes, and I’m desperate—”

“You must be—or mad—” The Medic stared at Dane for a long moment and then shook his head. “What is it? A plague ship?”

Dane bit his lip. The other was too astute. But he did not ask why or how he had been able to guess so shrewdly. Instead he gestured to the suit Ali had lashed beneath the seat in the flitter. “Get into that and be quick about it!”

The Medic rubbed his hand across his jaw. “I think that you might just be desperate enough to use that thing you’re brandishing about so melodramatically if I don’t,” he remarked in a calmly conversational tone.

“I won’t kill. But a blaster burn—”

“Can be pretty painful. Yes, I know that, young man. And,” suddenly he shrugged, put down his kit and started donning the suit. “I wouldn’t put it past you to knock me out and load me aboard if I did say no. All right—”

Suited, he took his place on the seat as Dane directed, and then the Trader followed the additional precaution of lashing the Medic’s metal encased arms to his body before he climbed into his own protective covering. Now they could only communicate by sight through the vision plates of their helmets.

Dane triggered the controls and they arose out of the sand and rock hollow just as a party of two men and a boy came hurrying along the top of the cliff—Jorge and the rescuers arriving too late. The flitter spiraled up into the sunlight and Dane wondered how long it would be before this outrage was reported to the nearest Plant Police base. But would any Police cruiser have the hardihood to follow him into the Big Burn? He hoped that the radiation would hold them back.

There was no navigation to be done. The flitter’s “memory” should deposit them at the Queen. Dane wondered at what his silent companion was now thinking. The Medic had accepted his kidnapping with such docility that the very ease of their departure began to bother Dane. Was the other expecting a trailer? Had exploration into the Big Burn from the seaside villages been more extensive than reported officially?

He stepped up the power of the flitter to the top notch and saw with some relief that the ground beneath them was now the rocky waste bordering the devastated area. The metal encased figure that shared his seat had not moved, but now the bubble head turned as if the Medic were intent upon the ground flowing beneath them.

The flicker of the counter began and Dane realized that nightfall would find them still air borne. But so far he had not been aware of any pursuit. Again he wished he had the use of a com—only here the radiation would blanket sound with that continuous roar.

Patches of the radiation vegetation showed now and something in the lines of the Medic’s tense figure suggested that these were new to him. Afternoon waned as the patches united, spread into the beginning of the jungle as the counter was once more an almost steady light. When evening closed in they were not caught in darkness—for below trees, looping vines, brush, had a pale, evil glow of their own, proclaiming their toxicity with bluish halos. Sometimes pockets of these made a core of light which pulsed, sending warning fingers at the flitter which sped across it.

The hour was close on midnight before Dane sighted the other light, the pink-red of which winked through the ghastly blue-white with a natural and comforting promise, even though it had been meant for an entirely different purpose. The Queen had earthed with her distress lights on and no one had remembered to snap them off. Now they acted as a beacon to draw the flitter to its berth.

Dane brought the stripped flyer down on the fused ground as close to the spot from which he had taken off as he could remember. Now—if those on the spacer would only move fast enough—!

But he need not have worried, his arrival had been anticipated. Above, the rounded side of the spacer bulged as the hatch opened. Lines swung down to fasten their magnetic clamps on the flitter. Then once more they were air borne, swinging up to be warped into the side of the ship. As the outer port of the flitter berth closed Dane reached over and pulled loose the lashing which immobilized his companion. The Medic stood up, a little awkwardly as might any man who wore space armor the first time.

The inner hatch now opened and Dane waved his captive into the small section which must serve them as a decontamination space. Free at last of the suits, they went through one more improvised hatch to the main corridor of the Queen where Rip and Ali stood waiting, their weary faces lighting as they saw the Medic.

It was the latter who spoke first. “This is a plague ship—”

Rip shook his head. “It is not, sir. And you’re the one who is going to help us prove that.”

The man leaned back against the wall, his face expressionless. “You take a rather tough way of trying to get help.”

“It was the only way left us. I’ll be frank,” Rip continued, “we’re Patrol Posted.”

The Medic’s shrewd eyes went from one drawn young face to the next. “You don’t look like desperate criminals,” was his comment. “This your full crew?”

“All the rest are your concern. That is—if you will take the job—” Rip’s shoulders slumped a little.

“You haven’t left me much choice, have you? If there is illness on board, I’m under the Oath—whether you are Patrol Posted or not. What’s the trouble?”

They got him down to Tau’s laboratory and told him their story. From a slight incredulity his expression changed to an alert interest and he demanded to see, first the patients and then the pests now immured in a deep freeze. Sometime in the middle of this, Dane, overcome by fatigue which was partly relief from tension, sought his cabin and the bunk from which he wearily disposed Sinbad, only to have the purring cat crawl back once more when he had lain down.

And when he awoke, renewed in body and spirit, it was in a new Queen, a ship in which hope and confidence now ruled.

“Hovan’s already got it!” Rip told him exultantly. “It’s that poison from the little devils’ claws right enough! A narcotic—produces some of the affects of deep sleep. In fact—it may have a medical use. He’s excited about it—”

“All right,” Dane waved aside information which under other circumstances, promising as it did a chance for future trade, would have engrossed him, to ask a question which at the moment seemed far more to the point. “Can he get our men back on their feet?”

A little of Rip’s exuberance faded. “Not right away. He’s given them all shots. But he thinks they’ll have to sleep it off.”

“And we have no idea how long that is going to take,” Ali contributed.

Time—for the first time in days Dane was struck by that—time! Because of his training a fact he had forgotten in the past weeks of worry now came to mind—their contract with the storm priests. Even if they were able to clear themselves of the plague charge, even if the rest of the crew were speedily restored to health, he was sure that they could not hope to return to Sargol with the promised cargo, the pay for which was already on board the Queen. They would have broken their pledge and there could be no hope of holding to their trading rights on that world—if they were not blacklisted for breaking contract into the bargain. I-S would be able to move in and clean up and probably they could never prove that the Company was behind their misfortunes—though the men of the Queen would always be convinced that that fact was the truth.

“We’re going to break contract—” he said aloud and that shook the other two, knocked some of their assurance out of them.

“How about that?” Rip asked Ali.

The acting-engineer nodded. “We have fuel enough to lift from here and maybe set down at Terraport—if we take it careful and cut vectors. We can’t lift from there without refueling—and of course the Patrol are going to sit on their hands while we do that—with us Posted! No, put out of your heads any plan for getting back to Sargol within the time limit. Thorson’s right—that way we’re flamed out!”

Rip slumped in his seat. “So the Eysies can take over after all?”

“As I see it,” Dane cut in, “let’s just take one thing at a time. We may have to argue a broken contract out before the Board. But first we have to get off the Posted hook with the Patrol. Have you any idea about how we are going to handle that?”

“Hovan’s on our side. In fact if we let him have the bugs to play with he’ll back us all the way. He can swear us a clean bill of health before the Medic Control Center.”

“How much will that count after we’ve broken all their regs?” Ali wanted to know. “If we surrender now we’re not going to have much chance, no matter what Hovan does or does not swear to. Hovan’s a frontier Medic—I won’t say that he’s not a member in good standing of their association—but he doesn’t have top star rating. And with the Eysies and the Patrol on our necks, we’ll need more than one medic’s word—”

But Rip looked from the pessimistic Kamil to Dane. Now he asked a question which was more than half statement.

“You’ve thought of something?”

“I’ve remembered something,” the Cargo-apprentice corrected. “Recall the trick Van pulled on Limbo when the Patrol was trying to ease us out of our rights there after they took over the outlaw hold?”

Ali was impatient. “He threatened to talk to the Video people and broadcast—tell everyone about the ships wrecked by the Forerunner installation and left lying about full of treasure. But what has that to do with us now—? We bargained away our rights on Limbo for the rest of Cam’s monopoly on Sargol—not that it’s done us much good—”

“The Video,” Dane fastened on the important point, “Van threatened publicity which would embarrass the Patrol and he was legally within his rights. We’re outside the law now—but publicity might help again. How many earth-side people know of the unwritten law about open war on plague ships? How many who aren’t spacemen know that we could be legally pushed into the sun and fried without any chance to prove we’re innocent of carrying a new disease? If we could talk loud and clear to the people at large maybe we’d have a chance for a real hearing—”

“Right from the Terraport broadcast station, I suppose?” Ali taunted.

“Why not?”

There was silence in the cabin as the other two chewed upon that and he broke it again:

“We set down here when it had never been done before.”

With one brown forefinger Rip traced some pattern known only to himself on the top of the table. Ali stared at the opposite wall as if it were a bank of machinery he must master.

“It just might be whirly enough to work—” Kamil commented softly. “Or maybe we’ve been spaced too long and the Whisperers have been chattering into our ears. What about it, Rip, could you set us down close enough to Center Block there?”

“We can try anything once. But we might crash the old girl bringing her in. There’s that apron between the Companies’ Launching cradles and the Center—. It’s clear there and we could give an E signal coming down which would make them stay rid of it. But I won’t try it except as a last resort.”

Dane noticed that after that discouraging statement Rip made straight for Jellico’s record tapes and routed out the one which dealt with Terraport and the landing instructions for that metropolis of the star ships. To land unbidden there would certainly bring them publicity—and to get the Video broadcast and tell their story would grant them not only world wide, but system wide hearing. News from Terraport was broadcast on every channel every hour of the day and night and not a single viewer could miss their appeal.

But first there was Hovan to be consulted. Would he be willing to back them with his professional knowledge and assurance? Or would their high-handed method of recruiting his services operate against them now? They decided to let Rip ask such questions of the Medic.

“So you’re going to set us down in the center of the big jump-off?” was his first comment, as the acting-Captain of the Queen stated their case. “Then you want me to fire my rockets to certify you are harmless. You don’t ask for very much, do you, son?”

Rip spread his hands. “I can understand how it looks to you, sir. We grabbed you and brought you here by force. We can’t make you testify for us if you decide not to—”

“Can’t you?” The Medic cocked an eyebrow at him. “What about this bully boy of yours with his little blaster? He could herd me right up to the telecast, couldn’t he? There’s a lot of persuasion in one of those nasty little arms. On the other hand, I’ve a son who’s set on taking out on one of these tin pots to go star hunting. If I handed you over to the Patrol he might make some remarks to me in private. You may be Posted, but you don’t look like very hardened criminals to me. It seems that you’ve been handed a bad situation and handled it as best you know. And I’m willing to ride along the rest of the way on your tail blast. Let me see how many pieces you land us in at Terraport and I’ll give you my final answer. If luck holds we may have a couple more of your crew present by that time, also—”

They had had no indication that the Queen had been located, that any posse hunting the kidnapped Medic had followed them into the Big Burn. And they could only hope that they would continue to remain unsighted as they upped-ship once more and cruised into a regular traffic lane for earthing at the port. It would be a chancy thing and Ali and Rip spent hours checking the mechanics of that flight, while Dane and the recovering Weeks worked with Hovan in an effort to restore the sleeping crew.

After three visits to the hold and the discovery that the Hoobat had uncovered no more of the pests, Dane caged the angry blue horror and returned it to its usual stand in Jellico’s cabin, certain that the ship was clean for Sinbad now confidently prowled the corridors and went into every cabin of storage space Dane opened for him.

And on the morning of the day they had planned for take-off, Hovan at last had a definite response to his treatment. Craig Tau roused, stared dazedly around, and asked a vague question. The fact he immediately relapsed once more into semi-coma did not discourage the other Medic. Progress had been made and he was now sure that he knew the proper treatment.

They strapped down at zero hour and blasted out of the weird green wilderness they had not dared to explore, lifting into the arch of the sky, depending upon Rip’s knowledge to put them safely down again.

Dane once more rode out the take-off at the com-unit, waiting for the blast of radiation born static to fade so that he could catch any broadcast.

“—turned back last night. The high level of radiation makes it almost certain that the outlaws could not have headed into the dangerous central portion. Search is now spreading north. Authorities are inclined to believe that this last outrage may be a clew to the vanished ‘Solar Queen,’ a plague ship, warned off and Patrol Posted after her crew plundered an E-Stat belonging to the Inter-Solar Corporation. Anyone having any information concerning this ship—or any strange spacer—report at once to the nearest Terrapolice or Patrol station. Do not take chances—report any contact at once to the nearest Terrapolice or Patrol station!”

“That’s putting it strongly,” Dane commented as he relayed the message. “Good as giving orders for us to be flamed down at sight—”

“Well, if we set down in the right spot,” Rip replied, “they can’t flame us out without blasting the larger part of Terraport field with us. And I don’t think they are going to do that in a hurry.”

Dane hoped Shannon was correct in that belief. It would be more chancy than landing at the E-Stat or in the Big Burn—to gauge it just right and put them down on the Terraport apron where they could not be flamed out without destroying too much, where their very position would give them a bargaining point, was going to be a top star job. If Rip could only pull it off!

He could not evaluate the niceties of that flight, he did not understand all Rip was doing. But he did know enough to remain quietly in his place, ask no questions, and await results with a dry mouth and a wildly beating heart. There came a moment when Rip glanced up at him, one hand poised over the control board. The pilot’s voice came tersely, thin and queer:

“Pray it out, Dane—here we go!”

Dane heard the shrill of a riding beam, so tearing he had to move his earphones. They must be almost on top of the control tower to get it like that! Rip was planning on a set down where the Queen would block things neatly. He brought his own fingers down on the E-E-Red button to give the last and most powerful warning. That, to be used only when a ship landing was out of control, should clear the ground below. They could only pray it would vacate the port they were still far from seeing.

“Make it a fin-point, Rip,” he couldn’t repress that one bit of advice. And was glad he had given it when he saw a ghost grin tug for a moment at Rip’s full lips.

“Good enough for a check-ride?”

They were riding her flaming jets down as they would on a strange world. Below the port must be wild. Dane counted off the seconds. Two—three—four—five—just a few more and they would be too low to intercept—without endangering innocent coasters and groundhuggers. When the last minute during which they were still vulnerable passed, he gave a sigh of relief. That was one more point on their side. In the earphones was a crackle of frantic questions, a gabble of orders screaming at him. Let them rave, they’d know soon enough what it was all about.

Chapter XVI

THE BATTLE OF THE VIDEO

Oddly enough, in spite of the tension which must have boiled within him, Rip brought them in with a perfect four fin-point landing—one which, under the circumstances, must win him the respect of master star-star pilots from the Rim. Though Dane doubted whether if they lost, that skill would bring Shannon anything but a long term in the moon mines. The actual jar of their landing contact was mostly absorbed by the webbing of their shock seats and they were on their feet, ready to move almost at once.

The next operation had been planned. Dane gave a glance at the screen. Ringed now about the Queen were the buildings of Terraport. Yes, any attempt to attack the ship would endanger too much of the permanent structure of the field itself. Rip had brought them down—not on the rocket scarred outer landing space—but on the concrete apron between the Assignment Center and the control tower—a smooth strip usually sacred to the parking of officials’ ground scooters. He speculated as to whether any of the latter had been converted to molten metal by the exhausts of the Queen’s descent.

Like the team they had come to be the four active members of the crew went into action. Ali and Weeks were waiting by an inner hatch, Medic Hovan with them. The Engineer-apprentice was bulky in a space suit, and two more of the unwieldy body coverings waited beside him for Rip and Dane. With fingers which were inclined to act like thumbs they were sealed into what would provide some protection against any blaster or sleep ray. Then with Hovan, conspicuously wearing no such armor, they climbed into one of the ship’s crawlers.

Weeks activated the outer hatch and the crane lines plucked the small vehicle out of the Queen, swinging it dizzily down to the blast scored apron.

“Make for the tower—” Rip’s voice was thin in the helmet coms.

Dane at the controls of the crawler pulled on as Ali cast off the lines which anchored them to the spacer.

Through the bubble helmet he could see the frenzied activity in the aroused port. An ant hill into which some idle investigator had thrust a stick and given it a turn or two was nothing compared with Terraport after the unorthodox arrival of the Solar Queen.

“Patrol mobile coming in on southeast vector,” Ali announced calmly. “Looks like she mounts a portable flamer on her nose—”

“So.” Dane changed direction, putting behind him a customs check point, aware as he ground by that stand, of a line of faces at its vision ports. Evasive action—and he’d have to get the top speed from the clumsy crawler.

“Police ‘copter over us—” that was Rip reporting.

Well, they couldn’t very well avoid that. But at the same time Dane was reasonably sure that its attack would not be an overt one—not with the unarmed, unprotected Hovan prominently displayed in their midst.

But there he was too sanguine. A muffled exclamation from Rip made him glance at the Medic beside him. Just in time to see Hovan slump limply forward, about to tumble from the crawler when Shannon caught him from behind. Dane was too familiar with the results of sleep rays to have any doubts as to what had happened.

The P-copter had sprayed them with its most harmless weapon. Only the suits, insulated to the best of their makers’ ability against most of the dangers of space, real and anticipated, had kept the three Traders from being overcome as well. Dane suspected that his own responses were a trifle sluggish, that while he had not succumbed to that attack, he had been slowed. But with Rip holding the unconscious Medic in his seat, Thorson continued to head the crawler for the tower and its promise of a system wide hearing for their appeal.

“There’s a P-mobile coming in ahead—”

Dane was irritated by that warning from Rip. He had already sighted that black and silver ground car himself. And he was only too keenly conscious of the nasty threat of the snub nosed weapon mounted on its hood, now pointed straight at the oncoming, too deliberate Traders’ crawler. Then he saw what he believed would be their only chance—to play once more the same type of trick as Rip had used to earth them safely.

“Get Hovan under cover,” he ordered. “I’m going to crash the tower door!”

Hasty movements answered that as the Medic’s limp body was thrust under the cover offered by the upper framework of the crawler. Luckily the machine had been built for heavy duty on rugged worlds where roadways were unknown. Dane was sure he could build up the power and speed necessary to take them into the lower floor of the tower—no matter if its door was now barred against them.

Whether his audacity daunted the P-mobile, or whether they held off from an all out attack because of Hovan, Dane could not guess. But he was glad for a few minutes of grace as he raced the protesting engine of the heavy machine to its last and greatest effort. The treads of the crawler bit on the steps leading up to the impressive entrance of the tower. There was a second or two before traction caught and then the driver’s heart snapped back into place as the machine tilted its nose up and headed straight for the portal.

They struck the closed doors with a shock which almost hurled them from their seats. But that engraved bronze expanse had not been cast to withstand a head-on blow from a heavy duty off-world vehicle and the leaves tore apart letting them into the wide hall beyond.

“Take Hovan and make for the riser!” For the second time it was Dane who gave the orders. “I have a blocking job to do here.” He expected every second to feel the bit of a police blaster somewhere along his shrinking body—could even a space suit protect him now?

At the far end of the corridor were the attendants and visitors, trapped in the building, who had fled in an attempt to find safety at the crashing entrance of the crawler. These flung themselves flat at the steady advance of the two space-suited Traders who supported the unconscious Medic between them, using the low-powered anti-grav units on their belts to take most of his weight so each had one hand free to hold a sleep rod. And they did not hesitate to use those weapons—spraying the rightful inhabitants of the tower until all lay unmoving.

Having seen that Ali and Rip appeared to have the situation in hand, Dane turned to his own self-appointed job. He jammed the machine on reverse, maneuvering it with an ease learned by practice on the rough terrain of Limbo, until the gate doors were pushed shut again. Then he swung the machine around so that its bulk would afford an effective bar to keep the door locked for some very precious moments to come. Short of using a flamer full power to cut their way in, no one was going to force an entrance now.

He climbed out of the machine, to discover, when he turned, that the trio from the Queen had disappeared—leaving all possible opposition asleep on the floor. Dane clanked on to join them, carrying in plated fingers their most important weapon to awake public opinion—an improvised cage in which was housed one of the pests from the cargo hold—the proof of their plague-free state which they intended Hovan to present, via the telecast, to the whole system.

Dane reached the shaft of the riser—to find the platform gone. Would either Rip or Ali have presence of mind enough to send it down to him on automatic?

“Rip—return the riser,” he spoke urgently into the throat mike of his helmet com.

“Keep your rockets straight,” Ali’s cool voice was in his earphones, “It’s on its way down. Did you remember to bring Exhibit A?”

Dane did not answer. For he was very much occupied with another problem. On the bronze doors he had been at such pains to seal shut there had come into being a round circle of dull red which was speedily changing into a coruscating incandescence. They had brought a flamer to bear! It would be a very short time now before the Police could come through. That riser—

Afraid of overbalancing in the bulky suit Dane did not lean forward to stare up into the shaft. But, as his uncertainty reached a fever pitch, the platform descended and he took two steps forward into temporary safety, still clutching the cage. At the first try the thick fingers of his gloved hand slipped from the lever and he hit it again, harder than he intended, so that he found himself being wafted upward with a speed which did not agree with a stomach, even one long accustomed to space flight. And he almost lost his balance when it came to a stop many floors above.

But he had not lost his wits. Before he stepped from the platform he set the dial on a point which would lift the riser to the top of the shaft and hold it there. That might trap the Traders on the broadcasting floor, but it would also insure them time before the forces of the law could reach them.

Dane located the rest of his party in the circular core chamber of the broadcasting section. He recognized a backdrop he had seen thousands of times behind the announcer who introduced the news-casts. In one corner Rip, his suit off, was working over the still relaxed form of the Medic. While Ali, a grim set to his mouth, was standing with a man who wore the insignia of a Com-tech.

“All set?” Rip looked up from his futile ministrations.

Dane put down the cage and began the business of unhooking his own protective covering. “They were burning through the outer doors of the entrance hall when I took off.”

“You’re not going to get away with this—” that was the Com-tech.

Ali smiled wearily, a stretch of lips in which there was little or no mirth. “Listen, my friend. Since I started to ride rockets I’ve been told I wasn’t going to get away with this or that. Why not be more original? Use what is between those outsize ears of yours. We fought our way in here—we landed at Terraport against orders—we’re Patrol Posted. Do you think that one man, one lone man, is going to keep us now from doing what we came to do? And don’t look around for any reinforcements. We sprayed both those rooms. You can run the emergency hook-up singlehanded and you’re going to. We’re Free Traders—Ha,” the man had lost some of his assurance as he stared from one drawn young face to another, “I see you begin to realize what that means. Out on the Rim we play rough, and we play for keeps. I know half a hundred ways to set you screaming in three minutes and at least ten of them will not even leave a mark on your skin! Now do we get Service—or don’t we?”

“You’ll go to the Chamber for this—!” snarled the tech.

“All right. But first we broadcast. Then maybe someday a ship that’s run into bad luck’ll have a straighter deal than we’ve had. You get on your post. And we’ll have the play back on—remember that. If you don’t give us a clear channel we’ll know it. How about it, Rip—how’s Hovan?”

Rip’s face was a mask of worry. “He must have had a full dose. I can’t bring him around.”

Was this the end of their bold bid? Let each or all of them go before the screen to plead their case, let them show the caged pest. But without the professional testimony of the Medic, the weight of an expert opinion on their side, they were licked. Well, sometimes luck did not ride a man’s fins all the way in.

But some stubborn core within Dane refused to let him believe that they had lost. He went over to the Medic huddled in a chair. To all appearances Hovan was deeply asleep, sunk in the semi-coma the sleep ray produced. And the frustrating thing was that the man himself could have supplied the counter to his condition, given them the instructions how to bring him around. How many hours away was a natural awaking? Long before that their hold on the station would be broken—they would be in the custody of either Police or Patrol.

“He’s sunk—” Dane voiced the belief which put an end to their hopes. But Ali did not seem concerned.

Kamil was standing with their captive, an odd expression on his handsome face as if he were striving to recall some dim memory. When he spoke it was to the Com-tech. “You have an HD OS here?”

The other registered surprise. “I think so—”

Ali made an abrupt gesture. “Make sure,” he ordered, following the man into another room. Dane looked to Rip for enlightenment.

“What in the Great Nebula is an HD OS?”

“I’m no engineer. It may be some gadget to get us out of here—”

“Such as a pair of wings?” Dane was inclined to be sarcastic. The memory of that incandescent circle on the door some twenty floors below stayed with him. Tempers of Police and Patrol were not going to be improved by fighting their way around or over the obstacles the Traders had arranged to delay them. If they caught up to the outlaws before the latter had their chance for an impartial hearing, the result was not going to be a happy one as far as the Queen’s men were concerned.

Ali appeared in the doorway. “Bring Hovan in here.” Together Rip and Dane carried the Medic into a smaller chamber where they found Ali and the tech busy lashing a small, lightweight tube chair to a machine which, to their untutored eyes, had the semblance of a collection of bars. Obeying instructions they seated Hovan in that chair, fastening him in, while the Medic continued to slumber peacefully. Uncomprehendingly Rip and Dane stepped back while, under Ali’s watchful eye, the Com-tech made adjustments and finally snapped some hidden switch.

Dane discovered that he dared not watch too closely what followed. Inured as he thought he was to the tricks of Hyperspace, to acceleration and anti-gravity, the oscillation of that swinging seat, the weird swaying of the half-recumbent figure, did things to his sight and to his sense of balance which seemed perilous in the extreme. But when the groan broke through the hum of Ali’s mysterious machine, all of them knew that the Engineer-apprentice had found the answer to their problem, that Hovan was waking.

The Medic was bleary-eyed and inclined to stagger when they freed him. And for several minutes he seemed unable to grasp either his surroundings or the train of events which had brought him there.

Long since the Police must have broken into the entrance corridor below. Perhaps they had by now secured a riser which would bring them up. Ali had forced the Com-tech to throw the emergency control which was designed to seal off from the outer world the entire unit in which they now were. But whether that protective device would continue to hold now, none of the three were certain. Time was running out fast.

Supporting the wobbling Hovan, they went back into the panel room and under Ali’s supervision the Com-tech took his place at the control board. Dane put the cage with the pest well to the fore on the table of the announcer and waited for Rip to take his place there with the trembling Medic. When Shannon did not move Dane glanced up in surprise—this was no time to hesitate. But he discovered that the attention of both his shipmates was now centered on him. Rip pointed to the seat.

“You’re the talk merchant, aren’t you?” the acting commander of the Queen asked crisply. “Now’s the time to shout the Lingo—”

They couldn’t mean—! But it was very evident that they did. Of course, a Cargo-master was supposed to be the spokesman of a ship. But that was in matters of trade. And how could he stand there and argue the case for the Queen? He was the newest joined, the greenest member of her crew. Already his mouth was dry and his nerves tense. But Dane didn’t know that none of that was revealed by his face or manner. The usual impassiveness which had masked his inner conflicts since his first days at the Pool served him now. And the others never noted the hesitation with which he approached the announcer’s place.

Dane had scarcely seated himself, one hand resting on the cage of the pest, before Ali brought down two fingers in the sharp sweep which signaled the Com-tech to duty. Far above them there was a whisper of sound which signified the opening of the play-back. They would be able to check on whether the broadcast was going out or not. Although Dane could see nothing of the system wide audience which he currently faced, he realized that the room and those in it were now visible on every tuned-in video set. Instead of the factual cast, the listeners were about to be treated to a melodrama which was as wild as their favorite romances. It only needed the break-in of the Patrol to complete the illusion of action-fiction—crime variety.

A second finger moved in his direction and Dane leaned forward. He faced only the folds of a wall wide curtain, but he must keep in mind that in truth there was a sea of faces before him, the faces of those whom he and Hovan, working together, must convince if he were to save the Queen and her crew.

He found his voice and it was steady and even, he might have been outlining some stowage problem for Van Rycke’s approval.

“People of Terra—”

Martian, Venusian, Asteroid colonist—inwardly they were still all Terran and on that point he would rest. He was a Terran appealing to his own kind.

“People of Terra, we come before you to ask justice—” from somewhere the words came easily, flowing from his lips to center on a patch of light ahead. And that “justice” rang with a kind of reassurance.

Chapter XVII

IN CUSTODY

“To those of you who do not travel the star trails our case may seem puzzling—” the words were coming easily. Dane gathered confidence as he spoke, intent on making those others out there know what it meant to be outlawed.

“We are Patrol Posted, outlawed as a plague ship,” he confessed frankly. “But this is our true story—”

Swiftly, with a flow of language he had not known he could command, Dane swung into the story of Sargol, of the pest they had carried away from that world. And at the proper moment he thrust a gloved hand into the cage and brought out the wriggling thing which struck vainly with its poisoned talons, holding it above the dark table so that those unseen watchers could witness the dramatic change of color which made it such a menace. Dane continued the story of the Queen’s ill-fated voyage—of their forced descent upon the E-Stat.

“Ask the truth of Inter-Solar,” he demanded of the audience beyond those walls. “We were no pirates. They will discover in their records the vouchers we left.” Then Dane described the weird hunt when, led by the Hoobat, they had finally found and isolated the menace, and their landing in the heart of the Big Burn. He followed that with his own quest for medical aid, the kidnapping of Hovan. At that point he turned to the Medic.

“This is Medic Hovan. He has consented to appear in our behalf and to testify to the truth—that the Solar Queen has not been stricken by some unknown plague, but infested with a living organism we now have under control—” For a suspenseful second or two he wondered if Hovan was going to make it. The man looked shaken and sick, as if the drastic awaking they had subjected him to had left him too dazed to pull himself together.

But out of some hidden reservoir of strength the Medic summoned the energy he needed. And his testimony was all they had hoped it would be. Though now and then he strayed into technical terms. But, Dane thought, their use only enhanced the authority of his description of what he had discovered on board the spacer and what he had done to counteract the power of the poison. When he had done Dane added a few last words.

“We have broken the law,” he admitted forthrightly, “but we were fighting in self-defense. All we ask now is the privilege of an impartial investigation, a chance to defend ourselves—such as any of you take for granted on Terra—before the courts of this planet—” But he was not to finish without interruption.

From the play-back over their heads another voice blared, breaking across his last words:

“Surrender! This is the Patrol. Surrender or take the consequences!” And that faint sighing which signaled their open contact with the outer world was cut off. The Com-tech turned away from the control board, a sneering half smile on his face.

“They’ve reached the circuit and cut you off. You’re done!”

Dane stared into the cage where the now almost invisible thing sat humped together. He had done his best—they had all done their best. He felt nothing but a vast fatigue, an overwhelming weariness, not so much of body, but of nerve and spirit too.

Rip broke the silence with a question aimed at the tech. “Can you signal below?”

“Going to give up?” The fellow brightened. “Yes, there’s an inter-com I can cut in.”

Rip stood up. He unbuckled the belt about his waist and laid it on the table—disarming himself. Without words Ali and Dane followed his example. They had played their hand—to prolong the struggle would mean nothing. The acting Captain of the Queen gave a last order:

“Tell them we are coming down unarmed—to surrender.” He paused in front of Hovan. “You’d better stay here. If there’s any trouble—no reason for you to be caught in the middle.”

Hovan nodded as the three left the room. Dane, remembering the trick he had pulled with the riser, made a comment:

“We may be marooned here—”

Ali shrugged. “Then we can just wait and let them collect us.” He yawned, his dark eyes set in smudges. “I don’t care if they’ll just let us sleep the clock around afterwards. D’you really think,” he addressed Rip, “that we’ve done ourselves any good?”

Rip neither denied nor confirmed. “We took our only chance. Now it’s up to them—” He pointed to the wall and the teeming world which lay beyond it.

Ali grinned wryly. “I note you left the what-you-call-it with Hovan.”

“He wanted one to experiment with,” Dane replied. “I thought he’d earned it.”

“And now here comes what we’ve earned—” Rip cut in as the hum of the riser came to their ears.

“Should we take to cover?” Ali’s mobile eyebrows underlined his demand. “The forces of law and order may erupt with blasters blazing.”

But Rip did not move. He faced the riser door squarely and, drawn by something in that stance of his, the other two stepped in on either side so that they fronted the dubious future as a united group. Whatever came now, the Queen’s men would meet it together.

In a way Ali was right. The four men who emerged all had their blasters or riot stun-rifles at ready, and the sights of those weapons were trained at the middles of the Free Traders. As Dane’s empty hands, palm out, went up on a line with his shoulders, he estimated the opposition. Two were in the silver and black of the Patrol, two wore the forest green of the Terrapolice. But they all looked like men with whom it was better not to play games.

And it was clear they were prepared to take no chances with the outlaws. In spite of the passiveness of the Queen’s men, their hands were locked behind them with force bars about their wrists. When a quick search revealed that the three were unarmed, they were herded onto the riser by two of their captors, while the other pair remained behind, presumably to uncover any damage they had done to the Tower installations.

The police did not speak except for a few terse words among themselves and a barked order to march, delivered to the prisoners. Very shortly they were in the entrance hall facing the wreckage of the crawler and doors through which a ragged gap had been burned. Ali viewed the scene with his usual detachment.

“Nice job,” he commended Dane’s enterprise. “They’ll have a moving—”

“Get going!” A heavy hand between his shoulder blades urged him on.

The Engineer-apprentice whirled, his eyes blazing. “Keep your hands to yourself! We aren’t mine fodder yet. I think that the little matter of a trial comes first—”

“You’re Posted,” the Patrolman was openly contemptuous.

Dane was chilled. For the first time that aspect of their predicament really registered. Posted outlaws might, within reason, be shot on sight without further recourse to the law. If that label stuck on the crew of the Queen, they had practically no chance at all. And when he saw that Ali was no longer inclined to retort, he knew that fact had dawned upon Kamil also. It would all depend upon how big an impression their broadcast had made. If public opinion veered to their side—then they could defend themselves legally. Otherwise the moon mines might be the best sentence they dare hope for.

They were pushed out into the brilliant sunlight. There stood the Queen, her meteor scarred side reflecting the light of her native sun. And ringed around her at a safe distance was what seemed to be a small mechanized army corps. The authorities were making very sure that no more rebels would burst from her interior.

Dane thought that they would be loaded into a mobile or ‘copter and taken away. But instead they were marched down, through the ranks of portable flamers, scramblers, and other equipment, to an open space where anyone on duty at the visa-screen within the control cabin of the spacer could see them. An officer of the Patrol, the sun making an eye-blinding flash of his lightning sword breast badge, stood behind a loud speaker. When he perceived that the three prisoners were present, he picked up a hand mike and spoke into it—his voice so being relayed over the field as clearly as it must be reaching Weeks inside the sealed freighter.

“You have five minutes to open hatch. Your men have been taken. Five minutes to open hatch and surrender.”

Ali chuckled. “And how does he think he’s going to enforce that?” he inquired of the air and incidentally of the guards now forming a square about the three. “He’ll need more than a flamer to unlatch the old girl if she doesn’t care for his offer.”

Privately Dane agreed with that. He hoped that Weeks would decide to hold out—at least until they had a better idea of what the future would be. No tool or weapon he saw in the assembly about them was forceful enough to penetrate the shell of the Queen. And there were sufficient supplies on board to keep Weeks and his charges going for at least a week. Since Tau had shown signs of coming out of his coma, it might even be that the crew of the ship would arouse to their own defense in that time. It all depended upon Weeks’ present decision.

No hatch yawned in the ship’s sleek sides. She might have been an inert derelict for all response to that demand. Dane’s confidence began to rise. Weeks had picked up the challenge, he would continue to baffle police and Patrol.

Just how long that stalemate would have lasted they were not to know for another player came on the board. Through the lines of besiegers Hovan, escorted by the Patrolmen, made his way up to the officer at the mike station. There was something in his air which suggested that he was about to give battle. And the conversation at the mike was relayed across the field, a fact of which they were not at once aware.

“There are sick men in there—” Hovan’s voice boomed out. “I demand the right to return to duty—”

“If and when they surrender they shall all be accorded necessary aid,” that was the officer. But he made no impression on the Medic from the frontier. Dane, by chance, had chosen better support than he had guessed.

“Pro Bono Publico—” Hovan invoked the battle cry of his own Service. “For the Public Good—”

“A plague ship—” the officer was beginning. Hovan waved that aside impatiently.

“Nonsense!” His voice scaled up across the field. “There is no plague aboard. I am willing to certify that before the Council. And if you refuse these men medical attention—which they need—I shall cite the case all the way to my Board!”

Dane drew a deep breath. That was taking off on their orbit! Not being one of the Queen’s crew, in fact having good reason to be angry over his treatment at their hands, Hovan’s present attitude would or should carry weight.

The Patrol officer who was not yet ready to concede all points had an answer: “If you are able to get on board—go.”

Hovan snatched the mike from the astonished officer. “Weeks!” His voice was imperative. “I’m coming aboard—alone!”

All eyes were on the ship and for a short period it would seem that Weeks did not trust the Medic. Then, high in her needle nose, one of the escape ports, not intended for use except in dire emergency opened and allowed a plastic link ladder to fall link by link.

Out of the corner of his eye Dane caught a flash of movement to his left. Manacled as he was he threw himself on the policeman who was aiming a stun rifle into the port. His shoulder struck the fellow waist high and his weight carried them both with a bruising crash to the concrete pavement as Rip shouted and hands clutched roughly at the now helpless Cargo-apprentice.

He was pulled to his feet, tasting the flat sweetness of blood where a flailing blow from the surprised and frightened policeman had cut his lip against his teeth. He spat red and glowered at the ring of angry men.

“Why don’t you kick him?” Ali inquired, a vast and blistering contempt sawtoothing his voice. “He’s got his hands cuffed so he’s fair game—”

“What’s going on here?” An officer broke through the ring. The policeman, on his feet once more, snatched up the rifle Dane’s attack had knocked out of his hold.

“Your boy here,” Ali was ready with an answer, “tried to find a target inside the hatch. Is this the usual way you conduct a truce, sir?”

He was answered by a glare and the rifleman was abruptly ordered to the rear. Dane, his head clearing, looked at the Queen. Hovan was climbing the ladder—he was within arm’s length of that half open hatch. The very fact that the Medic had managed to make his point stick was, in a faint way, encouraging. But the three were not allowed to enjoy that small victory for long. They were marched from the field, loaded into a mobile and taken to the city several miles away. It was the Patrol who held them in custody—not the Terrapolice. Dane was not sure whether that was to be reckoned favorable or not. As a Free Trader he had a grudging respect for the organization he had seen in action on Limbo.

Sometime later they found themselves, freed of the force bars, alone in a room which, bare walled as it was, did have a bench on which all three sank thankfully. Dane caught the warning gesture from Ali—they were under unseen observation and they must have a listening audience too—located somewhere in the maze of offices.

“They can’t make up their minds,” the Engineer-apprentice settled his shoulders against the wall. “Either we’re desperate criminals, or we’re heroes. They’re going to let time decide.”

“If we’re heroes,” Dane asked a little querulously, “what are we doing locked up here? I’d like a few earth-side comforts—beginning with a full meal—”

“No thumb printing, no psycho testing,” Rip mused. “Yes, they haven’t put us through the system yet.”

“And we decidedly aren’t the forgotten men. Wipe your face, child,” Ali said to Dane, “you’re still dribbling.”

The Cargo-apprentice smeared his hand across his chin and brought it away red and sticky. Luckily his teeth remained intact.

“We need Hovan to read them more law,” observed Kamil. “You should have medical attention.”

Dane dabbed at his mouth. He didn’t need all that solicitude, but he guessed that Ali was talking for the benefit of those who now kept them under surveillance.

“Speaking of Hovan—I wonder what became of that pest he was supposed to have under control. He didn’t bring the cage with him when he came out of the Tower, did he?” asked Rip.

“If it gets loose in that building,” Dane decided to give the powers who held them in custody something to think about, “they’ll have trouble. Practically invisible and poisonous. And maybe it can reproduce its kind, too. We don’t know anything about it—”

Ali laughed. “Such fun and games! Imagine a hundred of the dear creatures flitting in and out of the broadcasting section. And Captain Jellico has the only Hoobat on Terra! He can name his own terms for rounding up the plague. The whole place will be filled with sleepers before they’re through—”

Would that scrap of information send some Patrolmen hurtling off to the Tower in search of the caged creature? The thought of such an expedition was, in a small way, comforting to the captives.

An hour or so later they were fed, noiselessly and without visible attendants, when three trays slid through a slit in the wall at floor level. Rip’s nose wrinkled.

“Now I get the vector! We’re plague-ridden—keep aloof and watch to see if we break out in purple spots!”

Ali was lifting thermo lids from the containers and now he suddenly arose and bowed in the direction of the blank wall. “Many, many thanks,” he intoned. “Nothing but the best—a sub-commander’s rations at least! We shall deliver top star rating to this thoughtfulness when we are questioned by the powers that shine.”

It was good food. Dane ate cautiously because of his torn lip, but the whole adventure took on a more rose-colored hue. The lapse of time before they were put through the usual procedure followed with criminals, this excellent dinner—it was all promising. The Patrol could not yet be sure how they were to be handled.

“They’ve fed us,” Ali observed as he clanged the last dish back on a tray. “Now you’d think they’d bed us. I could do with several days—and nights—of bunk time right about now.”

But that hint was not taken up and they continued to sit on the bench as time limped by. According to Dane’s watch it must be night now, though the steady light in the windowless room did not vary. What had Hovan discovered in the Queen? Had he been able to rouse any of the crew? And was the spacer still inviolate, or had the Terrapolice and the Patrol managed to take her over?

He was so very tired, his eyes felt as if hot sand had been poured beneath the lids, his body ached. And at last he nodded into naps from which he awoke with jerks of the neck. Rip was frankly asleep, his shoulders and head resting against the wall, while Ali lounged with closed eyes. Though the Cargo-apprentice was sure that Kamil was more alert than his comrades, as if he waited for something he thought was soon to occur.

Dane dreamed. Once more he trod the reef rising out of Sargol’s shallow sea. But he held no weapon and beneath the surface of the water a gorp lurked. When he reached the break in the water-washed rock just ahead, the spidery horror would strike and against its attack he was defenseless. Yet he must march on for he had no control over his own actions!

“Wake up!” Ali’s hand was on his shoulder, shaking him back and forth with something close to gentleness. “Must you give an imitation of a space-whirly moonbat?”

“The gorp—” Dane came back to the present and flushed. He dreaded admitting to a nightmare—especially to Ali whose poise he had always found disconcerting.

“No gorps here. Nothing but—”

Kamil’s words were lost in the escape of metal against metal as a panel slide back in the wall. But no guard wearing the black and silver of the Patrol stepped through to summon them to trial. Van Rycke stood in the opening, half smiling at them with his customary sleepy benevolence.

“Well, well, and here’s our missing ones,” his purring voice was the most beautiful sound Dane thought he had ever heard.

Chapter XVIII

BARGAIN CONCLUDED

“—and so we landed here, sir,” Rip concluded his report in the matter-of-fact tone he might have used in describing a perfectly ordinary voyage, say between Terraport and Luna City, a run of no incident and dull cargo carrying.

The crew of the Solar Queen, save for Tau, were assembled in a room somewhere in the vastness of Patrol Headquarters. Since the room seemed a comfortable conference chamber, Dane thought that their status must now be on a higher level than that of Patrol Posted outlaws. But he was also sure that if they attempted to walk out of the building that effort would not be successful.

Van Rycke sat stolidly in his chosen seat, fingers of both hands laced across his substantial middle. He had sat as impassively as the Captain while Rip had outlined their adventures since they had all been stricken. Though the other listeners had betrayed interest in the story, the senior officers made no comments. Now Jellico turned to his Cargo-master.

“How about it, Van?”

“What’s done is done—”

Dane’s elation vanished as if ripped away by a Sargolian storm wind. The Cargo-master didn’t approve. So there must have been another way to achieve their ends—one the younger members of the crew had been too inexperienced or too dense to see—

“If we blasted off today we might just make cargo contract.”

Dane started. That was it! The point they had lost sight of during their struggles to get aid. There was no possible chance of upping the ship today—probably not for days to come—or ever, if the case went against them. So they had broken contract—and the Board would be down on them for that. Dane shivered inside. He could try to fight back against the Patrol—there had always been a slight feeling of rivalry between the Free Traders and the space police. But you couldn’t buck the Board—and keep your license and so have a means of staying in space. A broken contract could cut one off from the stars forever. Captain Jellico looked very bleak at that reminder.

“The Eysies will be all ready to step in. I’d like to know why they were so sure we had the plague on board—”

Van Rycke snorted. “I can supply you five answers to that—for one they may have known the affinity of those creatures for the wood, and it would be easy to predict as a result of our taking a load on board—or again they may have deliberately planted the things on us through the Salariki—But we can’t ever prove it. It remains that they are going to get for themselves the Sargolian contract unless—” He stopped short, staring straight ahead of him at the wall between Rip and Dane. And his assistant knew that Van was exploring a fresh idea. Van’s ideas were never to be despised and Jellico did not now disturb the Cargo-master with questions.

It was Rip who spoke next and directly to the Captain. “Do you know what they plan to do about us, sir?”

Captain Jellico grunted and there was a sardonic twist to his mouth as he replied, “It’s my opinion that they’re now busy adding up the list of crimes you four have committed—maybe they had to turn the big HG computer loose on the problem. The tally isn’t in yet. We gave them our automat flight record and that ought to give them more food for thought.”

Dane speculated as to what the experts would make of the mechanical record of the Queen’s past few weeks—the section dealing with their landing in the Big Burn ought to be a little surprising. Van Rycke got to his feet and marched to the door of the conference room. It was opened from without so quickly Dane was sure that they had been under constant surveillance.

“Trade business,” snapped the Cargo-master, “contract deal. Take me to a sealed com booth!”

Contracts might not be as sacred to the protective Service as they were to Trade, but Trade had its powers and since Van Rycke, an innocent bystander of the Queen’s troubles, could not legally be charged with any crime, he was escorted out of the room. But the door panel was sealed behind him, shutting in the rest with the unspoken warning that they were not free agents. Jellico leaned back in his chair and stretched. Long years of close friendship had taught him that his Cargo-master was to be trusted with not only the actual trading and cargo tending, but could also think them out of some of the tangles which could not be solved by his own direct action methods. Direct action had been applied to their present problem—now the rest was up to Van, and he was willing to delegate all responsibility.

But they were not left long to themselves. The door opened once more to admit star rank Patrolmen. None of the Free Traders arose. As members of another Service they considered themselves equals. And it was their private boast that the interests of Galactic civilization, as represented by the black and silver, often followed, not preceded the brown tunics into new quarters of the universe.

However, Rip, Ali, Dane, and Weeks answered as fully as they could the flood of questions which engulfed them. They explained in detail their visit to the E-Stat, the landing in the Big Burn, the kidnapping of Hovan. Dane’s stubborn feeling of being in the right grew in opposition to the questioning. Under the same set of circumstances how would that Commander—that Wing Officer—that Senior Scout—now all seated there—have acted? And every time they inferred that his part in the affair had been illegal he stiffened.

Sure, there had to be law and order out on the Rim—and doubly sure it had to cover and protect life on the softer planets of the inner systems. He wasn’t denying that on Limbo, he, for one, had been very glad to see the Patrol blast their way into the headquarters of the pirates holed up on that half-dead world. And he was never contemptuous of the men in the field. But like all Free Traders he was influenced by a belief that too often the laws as enforced by the Patrol favored the wealth and might of the Companies, that law could be twisted and the Patrol sent to push through actions which, though legal, were inherently unfair to those who had not the funds to fight it out in the far off Council courts. Just as now he was certain that the Eysies were bringing all the influence they had to bear here against the Queen’s men. And Inter-Solar had a lot of influence.

At the end of their ordeal their statements were read back to them from the recording tape and they thumb signed them. Were these statements or confessions, Dane mused. Perhaps in their honest reports they had just signed their way into the moon mines. Only there was no move to lead them out and book them. And when Weeks pressed his thumb at the bottom of the tape, Captain Jellico took a hand. He looked at his watch.

“It is now ten hours,” he observed. “My men need rest, and we all want food. Are you through with us?”

The Commander was spokesman for the other group. “You are to remain in quarantine, Captain. Your ship has not yet been passed as port-free. But you will be assigned quarters—”

Once again they were marched through blank halls to the other section of the sprawling Patrol Headquarters. No windows looked upon the outer world, but there were bunks and a small mess alcove. Ali, Dane, and Rip turned in, more interested in sleep than food. And the last thing the Cargo-apprentice remembered was seeing Jellico talking earnestly with Steen Wilcox as they both sipped steaming mugs of real Terran coffee.

But with twelve hours of sleep behind them the three were less contented in confinement. No one had come near them and Van Rycke had not returned. Which fact the crew clung to as a ray of hope. Somewhere the Cargo-master must be fighting their battle. And all Van’s vast store of Trade knowledge, all his knack of cutting corners and driving a shrewd bargain, enlisted on their behalf, must win them some concessions.

Medic Tau came in, bringing Hovan with him. Both looked tired but triumphant. And their report was a shot in the arm for the now uneasy Traders.

“We’ve rammed it down their throats,” Tau announced. “They’re willing to admit that it was those poison bugs and not a plague. Incidentally,” he grinned at Jellico and then looked around expectantly, “where’s Van? This comes in his department. We’re going to cash in on those the kids dumped in the deep freeze. Terra-Lab is bidding on them. I said to see Van—he can arrange the best deal for us. Where is he?”

“Gone to see about our contract,” Jellico reported. “What’s the news about our status now?”

“Well, they’ve got to wipe out the plague ship listing. Also—we’re big news. There’re about twenty video men rocketing around out in the offices trying to get in and have us do some spot broadcasts. Seems that the children here,” he jerked his thumb at the three apprentices, “started something. An inter-solar invasion couldn’t be bigger news! Human interest by the tankful. I’ve been on Video twice and they’re trying to sign up Hovan almost steady—”

The Medic from the frontier nodded. “Wanted me to appear on a three week schedule,” he chuckled. “I was asked to come in on ‘Our Heroes of the Starlines’ and two Quiz programs. As for you, you young criminal,” he swung to Dane, “you’re going to be fair game for about three networks. It seems you transmit well,” he uttered the last as if it were an accusation and Dane squirmed. “Anyway you did something with your crazy stunt. And, Captain, three men want to buy your Hoobat. I gather they are planning a showing of how it captures those pests. So be prepared—”

Dane tried to visualize a scene in which he shared top billing with Queex and shuddered. All he wanted now was to get free of Terra for a nice, quiet, uncomplicated world where problems could be settled with a sleep rod or a blaster and the Video screen was unknown.

Having heard of what awaited them without, the men of the Queen were more content to be incarcerated in the quarantine section. But as time wore on and the Cargo-master did not return, their anxieties awoke. They were fairly sure by now that any penalty the Patrol or the Terrapolice would impose would not be too drastic. But a broken contract was another and more serious affair—a matter which might ground them more effectively than any rule of the law enforcement bodies. And Jellico took to pacing the room, while Tang and Wilcox who had started a game of four dimensional chess made countless errors of move, and Stotz glared moodily at the wall, apparently too sunk in his own gloomy thoughts to rise from the mess table in the alcove.

Though time had ceased to have much meaning for them except as an irritating reminder of the now sure failure of their Sargolian venture, they marked the hours into a second full day of detention before Van Rycke finally put in appearance. The Cargo-master was plainly tired, but he showed no signs of discomposure. In fact as he came in he was humming what he fondly imagined was a popular tune.

Jellico asked no questions, he merely regarded his trusted officer with a quizzically raised eyebrow. But the others drew around. It was so apparent that Van Rycke was pleased with himself. Which could only mean that in some fantastic way he had managed to bring their venture down in a full fin landing, that somehow he had argued the Queen out of danger into a position where he could control the situation.

He halted just within the doorway and eyed Dane, Ali, and Rip with mock severity. “You’re baaaad boys,” he told them with a shake of the head and a drawl of the adjective. “You’ve been demoted ten files each on the list.”

Which must put him on the bottom rung once more, Dane calculated swiftly. Or even below—though he didn’t see how he could fall beneath the rank he held at assignment. However, he found the news heartening instead of discouraging. Compared to a bleak sentence at the moon mines such demotion was absolutely nothing and he knew that Van Rycke was breaking the worst news first.

“You also forfeit all pay for this voyage,” the Cargo-master was continuing. But Jellico broke in.

“Board fine?”

At the Cargo-master’s nod, Jellico added. “Ship pays that.”

“So I told them,” Van Rycke agreed. “The Queen’s warned off Terra for ten solar years—”

They could take that, too. Other Free Traders got back to their home ports perhaps once in a quarter century. It was so much less than they had expected that the sentence was greeted with a concentrated sigh of relief.

“No earth-side leave—”

All right—no leave. They were not, after their late experiences so entranced with Terraport that they wanted to linger in its environs any longer than they had to.

“We lose the Sargol contract—”

That did hurt. But they had resigned themselves to it since the hour when they had realized that they could not make it back to the perfumed planet.

“To Inter-Solar?” Wilcox asked the important question.

Van Rycke was smiling broadly, as if the loss he had just announced was in some way a gain. “No—to Combine!”

“Combine?” the Captain echoed and his puzzlement was duplicated around the circle. How did Inter-Solar’s principal rival come into it?

“We’ve made a deal with Combine,” Van Rycke informed them. “I wasn’t going to let I-S cash in on our loss. So I went to Vickers at Combine and told him the situation. He understands that we were in solid with the Salariki and that the Eysies are not. And a chance to point a blaster at I-S’s tail is just what he has been waiting for. The shipment will go out to the storm priests tomorrow on a light cruiser—it’ll make it on time.”

Yes, a light cruiser, one of the fast ships maintained by the big Companies, could make the transition to Sargol with a slight margin to spare. Stotz nodded his approval at this practical solution.

“I’m going with it—” That did jerk them all up short. For Van Rycke to leave the Queen—that was as unthinkable as if Captain Jellico had suddenly announced that he was about to retire and become a kelp farmer. “Just for the one trip,” the Cargo-master hastened to assure them. “I smooth their vector with the storm priests and hand over so the Eysies will be frozen out—”

Captain Jellico interrupted at that point. “D’you mean that Combine is buying us out—not just taking over? What kind of a deal—”

But Van Rycke, his smile a brilliant stretch across his plump face, was nodding in agreement. “They’re taking over our contract and our place with the Salariki.”

“In return for what?” Steen Wilcox asked for them all.

“For twenty-five thousand credits and a mail run between Xecho and Trewsworld—frontier planets. They’re far enough from Terra to get around the exile ruling. The Patrol will escort us out and see that we get down to work like good little space men. We’ll have two years of a nice, quiet run on regular pay. Then, when all the powers that shine have forgotten about us, we can cut in on the trade routes again.”

“And the pay?” “First or second class mail?” “When do we start?”

“Standard pay on the completion of each run—Board rates,” he made replies in order. “First, second and third class mail—anything that bears the government seal and out in those quarters it is apt to be anything! And you start as soon as you can get to Xecho and relieve the Combine scout which has been holding down the run.”

“While you go to Sargol—” commented Jellico.

“While I make one voyage to Sargol. You can spare me,” he dropped one of his big hands on Dane’s shoulder and gave the flesh beneath it a quick squeeze. “Seeing as how our juniors helped pull us out of this last mix-up we can trust them about an inch farther than we did before. Anyway—Cargo-master on a mail run is more or less a thumb-twiddling job at the best. And you can trust Thorson on stowage—that’s one thing he does know.” Which dubious ending left Dane wondering as to whether he had been complimented or warned. “I’ll be on board again before you know it—the Combine will ship me out to Trewsworld on your second trip across and I’ll join ship there. For once we won’t have to worry for awhile. Nothing can happen on a mail run.” He shook his head at the three youngest members of the crew. “You’re in for a very dull time—and it will serve you right. Give you a chance to learn your jobs so that when you come up for reassignment you can pick up some of those files you were just demoted. Now,” he started briskly for the door, “I’ll tranship to the Combine cruiser. I take it that you don’t want to meet the Video people?”

At their hasty agreement to that, he laughed. “Well, the Patrol doesn’t want the Video spouting about ‘high-handed official news suppression’ so about an hour or so from now you’ll be let out the back way. They put the Queen in a cradle and a field scooter will take you to her. You’ll find her serviced for a take-off to Luna City. You can refit there for deep space. Frankly the sooner you get off-world the happier all ranks are going to be—both here and on the Board. It will be better for us to walk softly for a while and let them forget that the Solar Queen and her crazy crew exists. Separately and together you’ve managed to break—or at least bend—half the laws in the books and they’d like to have us out of their minds.”

Captain Jellico stood up. “They aren’t any more anxious to see us go than we are to get out of here. You’ve pulled it off for us again, Van, and we’re lucky to get out of it this easy—”

Van Rycke rolled his eyes ceilingward. “You’ll never know how lucky! Be glad Combine hates the space I-S blasts through. We were able to use that to our advantage. Get the big fellows at each others’ throats and they’ll stop annoying us—simple proposition but it works. Anyway we’re set in blessed and peaceful obscurity now. Thank the Spirit of Free Space there’s practically no trouble one can get into on a safe and sane mail route!”

But Cargo-master Van Rycke, in spite of knowing the Solar Queen and the temper of her crew, was exceedingly over-optimistic when he made that emphatic statement.

The End.

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The Liberation of Earth (Full Text) by William Tenn

This is the full text of a classic science fiction story called the “Liberation of Earth” by William Tenn. It was first published in the May 1953 issue of the Future Science Fiction monthly magazine, this amusing, insightful and thought-provoking satire of human pretentiousness in a galactic environment. Indeed; the Earth is invaded by warring very-superior, very-different and very-uncaring aliens, with very terrifying results. This was one of the best stories of the distinguished university professor Philip Klass (1920-2010). He was the author of some 60-odd excellent science-fiction stories, mostly under the pen-name of William Tenn.

LIBERATION OF EARTH

THIS, THEN is the story of our liberation. Suck air and grab clusters. Heigh-ho, here is the tale.

August was the month, a Tuesday in August. These words are meaningless now, so far have we progressed; but many things known and discussed by our primitive ancestors, our unliberated, unreconstructed forefathers, are devoid of sense to our free minds.

Still the tale must be told, with all of its incredible place-names and vanished points of reference.

Why must it be told? Have any of you a better thing to do? We have had water and weeds and lie in a valley of gusts. So rest, relax and listen. And suck air, suck air.

On a Tuesday in August, the ship appeared in the sky over France in a part of the world then known as Europe. Five miles long the ship was, and word has come down to us that it looked like an enormous silver cigar.

The tale goes on to tell of the panic and consternation among our forefathers when the ship abruptly materialized in the summer-blue sky. How they ran, how they shouted, how they pointed!
How they excitedly notified the United Nations, one of their chiefest institutions, that a strange metal craft of incredible size had materialized over their land. How they sent an order here to cause military aircraft to surround it with loaded weapons, gave instructions there for hastily-grouped scientists, with signaling apparatus, to approach it with friendly gestures. How, under the great ship, men with cameras took pictures of it; men with typewriters wrote stories about it; and men with concessions sold models of it.

All these things did our ancestors, enslaved and unknowing, do.
Then a tremendous slab snapped up in the middle of the ship and the first of the aliens stepped out in the complex tripodal gait that all humans were shortly to know and love so well. He wore a metallic garment to protect him from the effects of our atmospheric peculiarities, a garment of the opaque, loosely-folded type that these, the first of our liberators, wore throughout their stay on Earth.

Speaking in a language none could understand, but booming deafeningly through a huge mouth about halfway up his twenty-five feet of height, the alien discoursed for exactly one hour, waited politely for a response when he had finished, and, receiving none, retired into the ship.

That night; the first of our liberation! Or the first of our first liberation, should I say? That night, anyhow! Visualize our ancestors scurrying about their primitive intricacies: playing ice-hockey, televising, smashing atoms, red-baiting, conducting giveaway shows and signing affidavits—all the incredible minutiae that made the olden times such a frightful mass of cumulative detail in which to live—as compared with the breathless and majestic simplicity of the present.

THE BIG question, of course, was —what had the alien said? Had he called on the human race to surrender? Had he announced that he was on a mission of peaceful trade and, having made what he considered a reasonable offer—for, let us say, the north polar ice-cap—politely withdrawn so that we could discuss his terms among ourselves in relative privacy? Or, possibly, had he merely announced that he was the newly appointed ambassador to Earth from a friendly and intelligent race—and would we please direct him to the proper authority so that he might submit his credentials?

Not to know was quite maddening.

Since decision rested with the diplomats, it was the last possibility which was held, very late that night, to be most likely; and early the next morning, accordingly, a delegation from the United Nations waited under the belly of the motionless star-ship. The delegation had been instructed to welcome the aliens to the outermost limits of its collective linguistic ability. As an additional earnest of mankind’s friendly intentions, all military craft patrolling the air about the great ship were ordered to carry no more than one atom-bomb in their racks, and to fly a small white flag—along with the U.N. banner and their own national emblem.

Thus, did our ancestors face this, the ultimate challenge of history.

When the alien came forth a few hours later, the delegation stepped up to him, bowed, and, in the three official languages of the United Nations —English, French and Russian—asked him to consider this planet his home. He listened to them gravely, and then launched into his talk of the day before—which was evidently as highly charged with emotion and significance to him, as it was completely incomprehensible to the representatives of world government.

Fortunately, a cultivated young Indian member of the secretariat detected a suspicious similarity between the speech of the alien and an obscure Bengali dialect whose anomalies he had once puzzled over. The reason, as we all know now, was that the last time Earth had been visited by Aliens of this particular type, humanity’s most advanced civilization lay in a moist valley in Bengal; extensive dictionaries of that language had been written, so that speech with the natives of Earth would present no problem to any subsequent exploring-party.

However, I move ahead of my tale, as one who would munch on the succulent roots before the dryer stem. Let me rest and suck air for a moment. Heigh-ho, truly those were tremendous experiences for our kind.

You, sir, now you sit back and listen. You are not yet of an age to Tell the Tale. I remember, well enough do I remember how my father told it, and his father before him. You will wait your turn as I did; you will listen until too much high land between water holes blocks me off from life.

Then you may take your place in the juiciest weed-patch and, reclining gracefully between sprints, recite the great epic of our liberation to the carelessly exercising young.

PURSUANT to the young Hindu’s suggestions, the one professor of comparative linguistics in the world capable of understanding and conversing in this peculiar version of the dead dialect, was summoned from an academic convention in New York where he was reading a paper he had been working on for eighteen years: An Initial Study of Apparent Relationships Between Several Past Participles in Ancient Sanskrit and an Equal Number of Noun Substantives in Modern Szechuanese.

Yea, verily, all these things—and more, many more—did our ancestors in their besotted ignorance contrive to do. May we not count our freedoms indeed?

The disgruntled scholar, minus—as he kept insisting bitterly—some of his most essential word-lists, was flown by fastest jet to the area south of Nancy which, in those long-ago days, lay in the enormous black shadow of the alien space-ship.

Here he was acquainted with his task by the United Nations delegation, whose nervousness had not been allayed by a new and disconcerting development. Several more aliens had emerged from the ship carrying great quantities of immense, shimmering metal which they proceeded to assemble into something that was obviously a machine—though it was taller than any skyscraper man had ever built, and seemed to make noises to itself like a talkative and sentient creature. The first alien still stood courteously in the neighborhood of the profusely perspiring diplomats; ever and anon he would go through his little speech again, in a language that had been almost forgotten when the cornerstone of the library of Alexandria was laid. The men from the U.N. would reply, each one hoping desperately to make up for the alien’s lack of familiarity with his own tongue by such devices as hand-gestures and facial expressions. Much later, a commission of anthropologists and psychologists brilliantly pointed out the difficulties of such physical communication with creatures possessing—as these aliens did—five manual appendages and a single, unwinking compound eye of the type the insects rejoice in.

The problems and agonies of the professor as he was trundled about the world in the wake of the aliens, trying to amass a usable vocabulary in a language whose peculiarities he could only extrapolate from the limited samples supplied him by one who must inevitably speak it with the most outlandish of foreign accents—these vexations were minor indeed compared to the disquiet felt by the representatives of world government. They beheld the extra-terrestrial visitors move every day to a new site on their planet and proceed to assemble there a titanic structure of flickering metal which muttered nostalgically to itself, as if to keep alive the memory of those faraway factories which had given it birth.

True, there was always the alien who would pause in his evidently supervisory labors to release the set little speech; but not even the excellent manners he displayed, in listening to upwards of fifty-six replies in as many languages, helped dispel the panic caused whenever a human scientist, investigating the shimmering machines, touched a projecting edge and promptly shrank into a disappearing pinpoint. This, while not a frequent occurrence, happened often enough to cause chronic indigestion and insomnia among human administrators.

FINALLY, having used up most of his nervous-system as fuel, the professor collated enough of the language to make conversation possible. He—and, through him, the world—were thereupon told the following:

The aliens were members of a highly-advanced civilization which had spread its culture throughout the entire galaxy. Cognizant of the limitations of the as-yet-underdeveloped animals who had latterly become dominant upon Earth, they had placed us in a sort of benevolent ostracism. Until either we or our institutions would have evolved to a level permitting, say, at least associate membership in the galactic federation (under the sponsoring tutelage, for the first few millennia, of one of the older, more widespread and more important species in that federation)—until that time, all invasions of our privacy and ignorance —except for a few scientific expeditions conducted under conditions of great secrecy—had been strictly forbidden by universal agreement.

Several individuals who had violated this ruling—at great cost to our racial sanity, and enormous profit to our reigning religions—had been so promptly and severely punished that no known infringements had occurred for some time. Our recent growth-curve had been satisfactory enough to cause hopes that a bare thirty or forty centuries more would suffice to place us on applicant status with the federation.

Unfortunately, the peoples of this stellar community were many, and varied as greatly in their ethical outlook as their biological composition. Quite a few species lagged a considerable social distance behind the Dendi, as our visitors called themselves. One of these, a race of horrible, worm-like organisms known as the Troxxt—almost as advanced technologically as they were retarded in moral development—had suddenly volunteered for the position of sole and absolute ruler of the galaxy. They had seized control of several key suns, with their attendant planetary-systems, and, after a calculated decimation of the races thus captured, had announced their intention of punishing with a merciless extinction all species unable to appreciate from these object-lessons the value of unconditional surrender.

In despair, the galactic federation had turned to the Dendi, one of the oldest, most selfless, and yet most powerful of races in civilized space, and commissioned them—as the military arm of the federation—to hunt down the Troxxt, defeat them wherever they had gained illegal suzerainty, and destroy forever their power to wage war.

This order had come almost too late. Everywhere the Troxxt had gained so much the advantage of attack, that the Dendi were able to contain them only by enormous sacrifice. For centuries now, the conflict had careened across our vast island universe. In the course of it, densely-populated planets had been disintegrated; suns had been blasted into novae; and whole groups of stars ground Into swirling cosmic dust. A temporary stalemate had been reached a short while ago, and—reeling and breathless—both sides were using the lull to strengthen weak spots in their perimeter.

Thus, the Troxxt had finally moved into the till-then peaceful section of space that contained our solar-system —among others. They were thoroughly uninterested in our tiny planet with its meager resources; nor did they care much for such celestial neighbors as Mars or Jupiter. They established their headquarters on a planet of Proxima Centaurus—the star nearest our own sun—and proceeded to consolidate their offensive-defensive network between Rigel and Aldebaran. At this point in their explanation, the Dendi pointed out, the exigencies of interstellar strategy tended to become too complicated for anything but three-dimensional maps; let us here accept the simple statement, they suggested, that it became immediately vital for them to strike rapidly, and make the Troxxt position on Proxima Centaurus untenable—to establish a base inside their lines of communication.

The most likely spot for such a base was Earth.

THE DENDI apologized profusely for intruding on our development, an intrusion which might cost us dear in our delicate developmental state. But, as they explained—in impeccable pre-Bengali—before their arrival we had, in effect, become (all unknowingly) a satrapy of the awful Troxxt. We could now consider ourselves liberated.

We thanked them much for that.

Besides, their leader pointed out proudly, the Dendi were engaged in a war for the sake of civilization itself, against an enemy so horrible, so obscene in its nature, and so utterly filthy in its practices, that it was unworthy of the label of intelligent life. They were fighting, not only for themselves, but for every loyal member of the galactic federation; for every small and helpless species; for every obscure race too weak to defend itself against a ravaging conqueror. Would humanity stand aloof from such a conflict?

There was just a slight bit of hesitation as the information was digested. Then—“No!” humanity roared back through such mass-communication media as television, newspapers, reverberating jungle drums and mule-mounted backwoods messenger. “We will not stand aloof! We will help you destroy this menace to the very fabric of civilization! Just tell us what you want us to do!”

Well, nothing in particular, the aliens replied with some embarrassment. Possibly in a little while there might be something—several little things, in fact—which could be quite useful; but, for the moment, if we would concentrate on not getting in their way when they serviced their gun-mounts, they would be very grateful, really…

This reply tended to create a small amount of uncertainty among the two billion of Earth’s human population. For several days afterwards, there was a planet-wide tendency—the legend has come down to us—of people failing to meet each other’s eyes, an evident discomfort in looking at any other person directly.

But then Man rallied from this substantial punch to his pride. He would be useful, be it ever so humbly. to the race which had liberated him from potential subjugation by the ineffably ugly Troxxt. For this, let us remember well our ancestors! Let us hymn their sincere efforts amid their ignorance!

All standing armies, all air and sea fleets, were reorganized into guard-patrols around the Dendi weapons: no human might approach within two miles of the murmuring machinery, without a pass counter-signed by the Dendi. Since they were never known to sign such a pass during the entire period of their stay on this planet, however, this loophole-provision was never exercised as far as is known; and the immediate neighborhood of the extraterrestrial weapons became and remained thenceforth antiseptically free of two-legged creatures.

COOPERATION with our liberators took precedence over all other human activities. The order of the day was a slogan first given voice by a Harvard Professor of Government in a querulous radio round-table on “Man’s Place in a Somewhat Over-Civilized Universe.”

“Let us forget our individual egos and collective conceits,” the professor cried at one point. “Let us subordinate everything—to the end that the freedom of the Solar System in general, and Earth in particular, must and shall be preserved!”

Despite—and possibly because of—its mouth-filling qualities, this slogan was repeated everywhere.

Still, it was difficult sometimes to know exactly what the Dendi wanted—partly because of the limited number of interpreters of the only Earth-tongue the aliens knew, that were available to the heads of the various sovereign states, and partly because of their leader’s tendency to vanish into his ship after ambiguous and equivocal statements—such as the curt admonition to “Evacuate Washington!”

On that occasion, both the Secretary of State and the American President, himself, perspired through five hours of a July day in all the silk-hatted, stiff-collared, dark-suited diplomatic regalia that the barbaric past demanded of political leaders who would deal with the representatives of another people. They waited and wilted beneath the enormous ship—which no human had ever been invited to enter, despite the wistful hints constantly thrown out by university professors and aeronautical designers—they waited patiently and wetly for the Dendi leader to emerge and let them know whether he had meant the State of Washington or Washington, D. C.

The tale comes down to us at this point as a tale of glory. The capitol building taken apart in a few days, and set up almost intact in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains; the missing Archives, that were later to turn up in the Children’s Room of a Public Library in Duluth, Iowa; the bottles of Potomac River water carefully borne westward and ceremoniously poured into the circular concrete ditch built around the President’s mansion (from which unfortunately it was to evaporate within a week because of the relatively low humidity of the region)—all these are proud moments in the galactic history of our species, from which not even the later knowledge that the Dendi wished to build no gun-site on the spot, nor even an ammunition dump, but merely a recreation-hall for their troops, could remove any of the grandeur of our determined cooperation and most willing sacrifice.

There is no denying, however, that the ego of our race was greatly damaged by the discovery, in the course of a routine journalistic interview, that the aliens totaled no more powerful a group than a squad; and that their leader, instead of the great scientist and key military-strategist that we might justifiably have expected the Galactic Federation to furnish for the protection of Terra, ranked as the interstellar equivalent of a buck sergeant.

That the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the Navy, had waited in such obeisant fashion upon a mere non-commissioned officer was hard for us to swallow; but that the impending Battle of Earth was to have a historical dignity only slightly higher than that of a patrol action was impossibly humiliating.

AND THEN there was the matter of “lendi.”

The aliens, while installing or servicing their planet-wide weapon system, would occasionally fling aside an evidently-unusable fragment of the talking metal. Separated from the machine of which it had been a component, the substance seemed to lose all those qualities which were deleterious to mankind and retain several which were quite useful indeed. For example, if a portion of the strange material were attached to any terrestrial metal—and insulated carefully, with standard dielectrics, from contact with other substances—it would, in a few hours, itself become exactly the metal that it touched, whether that happened to be zinc, gold or pure uranium.

This stuff—”lendi”, men had heard the aliens call it—was shortly in frantic demand in an economy ruptured by constant and unexpected emptyings of its most important industrial-centers.
Everywhere the aliens went, to and from their weapon-sites, hordes of ragged humans stood chanting—well outside the two-mile limit— “Any lendi, Dendi?”

All attempts by law-enforcement agencies of the planet to put a stop to this shameless, wholesale begging were useless—especially since the Dendi themselves seemed to get some unexplainable pleasure out of scattering tiny pieces of lendi to the scrabbling multitude. When policemen and soldiery began to join the trampling, murderous dash to the corner of the meadows, wherein had fallen the highly-versatile and garrulous metal, governments gave up.

Mankind almost began to hope for the attack to come, so that it would be relieved of the festering consideration of its own patent inferiorities. A few of the more fanatically-conservative among our ancestors probably even began to regret liberation.

They did, children; they did! Let us hope that these would-be troglodytes were among the very first to be dissolved and melted down by the red flame-balls. One cannot, after all, turn one’s back on progress!

Two days before the month of September was over, the aliens announced that they had detected activity upon one of the moons of Saturn. The Troxxt were evidently threading their treacherous way inward through the solar system. Considering their vicious and deceitful propensities, the Dendi warned, an attack from these worm-like monstrosities might be expected at any moment.

Few humans went to sleep as the night rolled up to and past the meridian on which they dwelt. Almost all eyes were lifted to a sky carefully denuded of clouds by watchful Dendi. There was a brisk trade in cheap telescopes and bits of smoked glass in some sections of the planet; while other portions experienced a substantial boom in spells and charms of the all-inclusive, or omnibus, variety.

THE TROXXT attacked in three cylindrical black ships simultaneously; one in the Southern Hemisphere, and two in the Northern. Great gouts of green flame roared out of their tiny craft; and everything that this flame touched imploded into a translucent, glass-like sand. No Dendi was hurt by these, however, and from each of the now-writhing gun-mounts there bubbled forth a series of scarlet clouds which pursued the Troxxt hungrily, until forced by a dwindling velocity to fall back upon Earth.

Here they had an unhappy after-effect. Any populated area into which these pale pink cloudlets chanced to fall was rapidly transformed into a cemetery—a cemetery, if the truth be told as it has been handed down to us, that had more the odor of the kitchen than the grave. The inhabitants of these unfortunate localities were subjected to enormous increases of temperature. Their skin reddened, then blackened; their hair and nails shriveled; their very flesh turned into liquid and boiled off their bones. Altogether a disagreeable way for one-tenth of the human race to die.

The only consolation was the capture of a black cylinder by one of the red clouds. When, as a result of this, it had turned white-hot and poured its substance down in the form of a metallic rainstorm, the two ships assaulting the Northern Hemisphere abruptly retreated to the asteroids into which the Dendi—because of severely-limited numbers—steadfastly refused to pursue them.

In the next twenty-four hours the aliens—resident aliens, let us say—held conferences, made repairs to their weapons and commiserated with us. Humanity buried its dead. This last was a custom of our forefathers that was most worthy of note; and one that has not, of course, survived into modern times.

By the time the Troxxt returned, Man was ready for them. He could not, unfortunately, stand to arms as he most ardently desired to do; but he could and did stand to optical instrument and conjurer’s oration.

Once more the little red clouds burst joyfully into the upper reaches of the stratosphere; once more the green flames wailed and tore at the chattering spires of lendi; once more men died by the thousands in the boiling backwash of war. But this time, there was a slight difference: the green flames of the Troxxt abruptly changed color after the engagement had lasted three hours; they became darker, more bluish. And, as they did so, Dendi after Dendi collapsed at his station and died in convulsions.

The call for retreat was evidently sounded. The survivors fought their way to the tremendous ship in which they had come. With an explosion from her stern jets that blasted a red-hot furrow southward through France, and kicked Marseilles into the Mediterranean, the ship roared into space and fled home ignominiously.

Humanity steeled itself for the coming ordeal of horror under the Troxxt.

THEY WERE truly worm-like in form. As soon as the two night-black cylinders had landed, they strode, from their ships, their tiny segmented bodies held off the ground by a complex harness supported by long and slender metal crutches. They erected a dome-like fort around each ship—one in Australia and one in the Ukraine—captured the few courageous individuals who had ventured close to their landing-sites, and disappeared back into the dark craft with their squirming prizes.

While some men drilled about nervously in the ancient military patterns, others poured anxiously over scientific texts and records pertaining to the visit of the Dendi—in the desperate hope of finding a way of preserving terrestrial independence against this ravening conqueror of the star-spattered galaxy.

And yet all this time, the human captives inside the artificially-darkened spaceships (the Troxxt, having no eyes, not only had little use for light but the more sedentary individuals among them actually found such radiation disagreeable to their sensitive, unpigmented skins) were not being tortured for information—nor vivisected in the earnest quest of same on a slightly higher level—but educated.

Educated in the Troxxtian language, that is.

True it was that a large number found themselves utterly inadequate for the task which the Troxxt had set them, and temporarily became servants to the more successful students. And another, albeit smaller, group developed various forms of frustration hysteria—ranging from mild unhappiness to complete catatonic depression—over the difficulties presented by a language whose every verb was irregular, and whose myriads of prepositions were formed by noun-adjective combinations derived from the subject of the previous sentence. But, eventually, eleven human beings were released, to blink madly in the sunlight as certified interpreters of Troxxt.

These liberators, it seemed, had never visited Bengal in the heyday of its millennia-past civilization.

Yes, these liberators For the Troxxt had landed on the sixth day of the ancient, almost mythical, month of October. And October the Sixth is, of course, the Holy Day of the Second Liberation. Let us remember, let us revere. If only we could figure out which day it is on our calendar!

THE TALE the interpreters told caused men to hang their heads in shame and gnash their teeth at the deception they had allowed the Dendi to practice upon them.

True, the Dendi had been commissioned by the Galactic Federation to hunt the Troxxt down and destroy them. This was largely because the Dendi were the Galactic Federation. One of the first intelligent arrivals on the interstellar scene, the huge creatures had organized a vast police-force to protect them and their power against any contingency of revolt that might arise in the future. This police-force was ostensibly a congress of all thinking lifeforms throughout the galaxy; actually, it was an efficient means of keeping them under rigid control.

Most species thus-far discovered were docile and tractable, however; the Dendi had been ruling from time immemorial, said they—very well, then, let the Dendi continue to rule. Did it make that much difference?

But, throughout the centuries, opposition to the Dendi grew—and the nuclei of the opposition were the protoplasm-based creatures. What, in fact, had come to be known as the Protoplasmic League.
Though small in number, the creatures whose life-cycles were derived from the chemical and physical properties of protoplasm varied greatly in size, structure and specialization. A galactic community deriving the main wells of its power from them would be a dynamic instead of a static place, where extra-galactic travel would be encouraged—instead of being inhibited, as it was at present because of Dendi fears of meeting a superior civilization. It would be a true democracy of species—a real biological republic—where creatures of adequate intelligence and cultural development would enjoy a control of their destinies at present experienced by the silicon-based Dendi alone.

To this end, the Troxxt—the only important race which had steadfastly refused the complete surrender of armaments demanded of all members of the Federation—had been implored by a minor member of the Protoplasmic League to rescue it from the devastation which the Dendi intended to visit upon it, as punishment for an unlawful exploratory excursion outside the boundaries of the galaxy.

Faced with the determination of the Troxxt to defend their cousins in organic chemistry, and the suddenly-aroused hostility of at least two-thirds of the interstellar peoples, the Dendi had summoned a rump meeting of the Galactic Council; declared a state of revolt in being; and proceeded to cement their disintegrating rule with the blasted life-forces of a hundred worlds. The Troxxt, hopelessly out-numbered and out-equipped, had been able to continue the struggle only because of the great ingenuity and selflessness of other members of the Protoplasmic League, who had risked extinction to supply them with newly-developed secret weapons.

Hadn’t we guessed the nature of the beast from the enormous precautions it had taken to prevent the exposure of any part of its body to the intensely-corrosive at m o s p h e r e of Earth? Surely the seamless, barely-translucent suits which our recent visitors had worn for every moment of their stay on our world should have made us suspect a body-chemistry developed from complex silicon compounds rather than those of carbon?

Humanity hung its collective head and admitted that the suspicion had never occurred to it.

Well, the Troxxt admitted generously, we were extremely inexperienced and possibly a little too trusting. Put it down to that. Our naivety, however costly to them—our liberators—would not be allowed to deprive us of that complete citizenship which the Troxxt were claiming as the birthright of all.

But as for our leaders, our probably-corrupted, certainly irresponsible leaders…

THE FIRST executions of U.N. officials, heads of states and pre-Bengali interpreters as “Traitors to Protoplasm”—after some of the lengthiest and most nearly-perfectly-fair trials in the history of Earth—were held a week after G-J Day, the inspiring occasion on which—amidst gorgeous ceremonies—humanity was invited to join, first the Protoplasmic League and thence the New and Democratic Galactic Federation of All Species, All Races.

Nor was that all.

Whereas the Dendi had contemptuously shoved us to one side as they went about their business of making our planet safe for tyranny, and had—in all probability—built special devices which made the very touch of their weapons fatal for us, the Troxxt—with the sincere friendliness which had made their name a byword for democracy and decency wherever living creatures came together among the stars—our Second Liberators, as we lovingly called them, actually preferred to have us help them with the intensive, accelerating labor of planetary defense.

So men’s intestines dissolved under the invisible glare of the forces used to assemble the new, incredibly-complex weapons; men sickened and died, in scrabbling hordes, inside the mines which the Troxxt had declared were deeper than any we had dug hitherto; men’s bodies broke open and exploded in the undersea oil-drilling sites which the Troxxt had declared were essential.

Children’s schooldays were requested, too, in such collecting drives as “Platinum Scrap for Procyon” and “Radioactive Debris for Deneb.” Housewives also were implored to save on salt whenever possible—this substance being useful to the Troxxt in literally dozens of incomprehensible ways—and colorful posters reminded: “Don’t salinate—sugarfy!”

And over all—courteously caring for us like an intelligent parent—were our mentors, taking their giant supervisory strides on metallic crutches, while their pale little bodies lay curled in the hammocks that swung from each paired length of shining leg.

Truly, even in the midst of a complete economic paralysis caused by the concentration of all major productive facilities on other-worldly armaments and despite the anguished cries of those suffering from peculiar industrial injuries which our medical men were totally unequipped to handle, in the midst of all this mind-wracking disorganization, it was yet very exhilarating to realize that we had taken our lawful place in the future government of the galaxy and were even now helping to make the Universe Safe for Democracy.

BUT THE Dendi returned to smash this idyll. They came in their huge, silvery space-ships and the Troxxt, barely warned in time, just managed to rally under the blow and fight back in kind. Even so, the Troxxt ship in the Ukraine was almost immediately forced to flee to its base in the depths of space. After three days, the only Troxxt on Earth were the devoted members of a little band guarding the ship in Australia. They proved, in three or more months, to be as difficult to remove from the face of our planet as the continent itself; and since there was now a state of close and hostile siege, with the Dendi on one side of the globe, and the Troxxt on the other, the battle assumed frightful proportions.

Seas boiled; whole steppes burned away; the climate itself shifted and changed under the grueling pressure of the cataclysm. By the time the Dendi solved the problem, the planet Venus had been blasted from the skies in the course of a complicated battle-maneuver, and Earth had wobbled over as orbital substitute.

The solution was simple: since the Troxxt were too firmly-based on the small continent to be driven away; the numerically-superior Dendi brought up enough fire-power to disintegrate all of Australia into an ash that muddied the Pacific. This occurred on the twenty-fourth of June, the Holy Day of First Reliberation.

A day of reckoning for what remained of the human race, however.

How could we have been so naive, the Dendi wanted to know, as to be taken in by the chauvinistic pro-protoplasm propaganda?

Surely, if physical characteristics were to be the criteria of our racial empathy, we would not orient ourselves on a narrow chemical basis! The Dendi life-plasma was based on silicon instead of carbon, true, but did not vertebrates—appendaged vertebrates, at that, such as we and the Dendi—have infinitely more in common, in spite of a minor biochemical difference or two, than vertebrates and legless, armless, slime-crawling creatures who happened, quite accidentally, to possess an identical organic substance?

As for this fantastic picture of life in the galaxy… Well! The Dendi shrugged their quintuple shoulders as they went about the intricate business of erecting their noisy weapons all ever the rubble of our planet. Had we ever seen a representative of these protoplasmic races the Troxxt were supposedly protecting? No, nor would we. For as soon as a race—animal, vegetable or mineral—developed enough to constitute even a potential danger to the sinuous aggressors, its civilization was systematically dismantled by the watchful Troxxt. We were in so primitive a state that they had not considered it at all risky to allow us the outward seeming of full participation.

Could we say we had learned a single useful piece of information about Troxxt technology—for all of the work we had done on their machines, for all of the lives we had lost in the process? No, of course not! We had merely contributed our mite to the enslavement of far-off races who had done us no harm.

There was much that we had cause to feel guilty about, the Dendi told us gravely—once the few surviving interpreters of the pre-Bengali dialect had crawled out of hiding. But our collective onus was as nothing compared to that borne by “vermicular collaborationists”—those traitors who had supplanted our martyred former leaders. And then there were the unspeakable individual humans who had had linguistic traffic with creatures destroying a two-million-year-old galactic peace!

Why, killing was almost too good for them, the Dendi murmured as they killed them.

WHEN THE Troxxt ripped their way back into possession of Earth some eighteen months later, bringing us the sweet fruits of the Second Reliberation—as well as a complete and most convincing rebuttal of the Dendi—there were few humans found who were to accept with any real enthusiasm the responsibilities of newly-opened and highly-paid positions in language, science and government.

Of course, since the Troxxt, in order to reliberate Earth, had found it necessary to blast a tremendous chunk out of the northern hemisphere, there were very few humans to be found. in the first place…

Even so, many of these committed suicide rather than assume the title of Secretary-General of the United Nations when the Dendi came back for the glorious Re-Reliberation, a short time after that. This was the liberation, by the way, which swept the deep collar of matter off our planet, and gave it what our forefathers came to call a pear-shaped look.

Possibly it was at this time—possibly a liberation or so later—that the Troxxt and the Dendi discovered the Earth had become far too eccentric in its orbit to possess the minimum safety conditions demanded of a Combat Zone. The battle, therefore, zig-zagged coruscatingly and murderously away in the direction of Aldebaran.

That was nine generations ago, but the tale that has been handed down from parent to child, to child’s child, has lost little in the telling. You hear it now from me almost exactly as I heard it. From my father I heard it as I ran with him from water-puddle to distant water-puddle, across the searing heat of yellow sand. From my mother I heard it as we sucked air and frantically grabbed at clusters of thick green weed, whenever the planet beneath us quivered in omen of a geological spasm that might bury us in its burned-out body, or a cosmic gyration that threatened to fling us into empty space.

Yes, even as we do now did we do then, telling the same tale, running the same frantic race across miles of unendurable heat for food and water; fighting the same savage battles with the giant rabbits for each other’s carrion—and always, ever and always, sucking desperately at the precious air. which leaves our world in greater quantities with every mad twist of its orbit.
Naked, hungry and thirsty came we into the world, and naked, hungry and thirsty do we scamper our lives out upon it, under the huge and never-changing sun.

The same tale it is, and the same traditional ending it has as that I had from my father and his father before him. Suck air, grab clusters and hear the last holy observation of our history:
“Looking about us, we can say with pardonable pride that we have been about as thoroughly liberated as it is possible for a race and a planet to be!”

The End

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Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby’s Is a Friend of Mine (full text) by Ray Bradbury.

This is a lovely short story by Ray Bradbury. It's a fun, and easy quick read. The arrival in a small town of a stranger who calls himself 'Charles Dickens' makes a magical and lasting change in the lives of an imaginative 12-year-old boy and a loving young woman. It's a great read and fun escapist reading. 

It is free to read and you do not have to jump through any hoops to register, apply to bore through a pay-wall, or give out any personal information. Free means free. Enjoy.

Imagine a summer that would never end.

Nineteen twenty-nine.

Imagine a boy who would never grow up.

Me.

Imagine a barber who was never young.

Mr. Wyneski.

Imagine a dog that would live forever.

Mine.

Imagine a small town, the kind that isn’t lived in anymore.

Ready?

Begin…

Green Town, Illinois … Late June.

Dog barking outside a one-chair barbershop.

Inside, Mr. Wyneski, circling his victim, a customer snoozing in the steambath drowse of noon.

Inside, me, Ralph Spaulding, a boy of some twelve years, standing still as an iron Civil War statue, listening to the hot wind, feeling all that hot summer dust out there, a bakery world where nobody could be bad or good, boys just lay gummed to dogs, dogs used boys for pillows under trees that lazed with leaves which whispered in despair: Nothing Will Ever Happen Again.

The only motion anywhere was the cool water dripping from the huge coffin-sized ice block in the hardware store window.

The only cool person in miles was Miss Frostbite, the traveling magician’s assistant, tucked into that lady-shaped long cavity hollowed in the ice block displayed for three days now without they said, her breathing, eating, or talking. That last, I thought, must have been terrible hard on a woman.

Nothing moved in the street but the barbershop striped pole which turned slowly to show its red, white, and then red again, slid up out of nowhere to vanish nowhere, a motion between two mysteries.

“…hey…”

I pricked my ears.

“…something’s coming…”

“Only the noon train, Ralph.” Mr. Wyneski snicked his jackdaw scissors, peering in his customer’s ear. “Only the train that comes at noon.”

“No…” I gasped, eyes shut, leaning. “Something’s really coming…”

I heard the far whistle wail, lonesome, sad. enough to pull your soul out of your body.

“You feel it, don’t you, Dog?”

Dog barked.

Mr. Wyneski sniffed. “What can a dog feel?”

“Big things. Important things. Circumstantial coincidences. Collisions you can’t escape. Dog says. I say. We say.”

“That makes four of you. Some team.” Mr. Wyneski turned from the summer-dead man in the white porcelain chair. “Now, Ralph, my problem is hair. Sweep.”

I swept a ton of hair. “Gosh, you’d think this stuff just grew up out of the floor.”

Mr. Wyneski watched my broom. “Right! I didn’t cut all that. Darn stuff just grows, I swear, lying there. Leave it a week, come back, and you need hip boots to trod a path.” He pointed with his scissors. “Look. You ever see so many shades, hues, and tints of forelocks and chin fuzz? There’s Mr. Tompkins’s receding hairline. There’s Charlie Smith’s topknot. And here, here’s all that’s left of Mr. Harry Joe Flynn.”

I stared at Mr. Wyneski as if he had just read from Revelations. “Gosh, Mr. Wyneski, I guess you know everything in the world!”

“Just about.”

“I—I’m going to grow up and be—a barber!”

Mr. Wyneski, to hide his pleasure, got busy.

“Then watch this hedgehog, Ralph, peel an eye. Elbows thus, wrists so! Make the scissors talk! Customers appreciate. Sound twice as busy as you are. Snickety-snick, boy, snickety-snick. Learned this from the French! Oh, yes, the French! They do prowl about the chair light on their toes, and the sharp scissors whispering and nibbling, Ralph, nibbling and whispering, you hear!”

“Boy!” I said, at his elbow, right in with the whispers and nibbles, then stopped: for the wind blew a wail way off in summer country, so sad, so strange.

“There it is again. The train. And something on the train…”

“Noon train don’t stop here.”

“But I got this feeling—”

“The hair’s going to grab me. Ralph…”

I swept hair.

After a long while I said, “I’m thinking of changing my name.”

Mr. Wyneski sighed. The summer-dead customer stayed dead.

“What’s wrong with you today, boy?”

“It’s not me. It’s the name is out of hand. Just listen. Ralph.” I grrred it. “Rrrralph.”

“Ain’t exactly harp music…”

“Sounds like a mad dog.” I caught myself.

“No offense, Dog.”

Mr. Wyneski glanced down. “He seems pretty calm about the whole subject.”

“Ralph’s dumb. Gonna change my name by tonight.”

Mr. Wyneski mused. “Julius for Caesar? Alexander for the Great?”

“Don’t care what. Help me, huh, Mr. Wyneski? Find me a name…”

Dog sat up. I dropped the broom.

For way down in the hot cinder railroad yards a train furnaced itself in, all pomp, all fire-blast shout and tidal churn, summer in its iron belly bigger than the summer outside.

“Here it comes!”

“There it goes,” said Mr. Wyneski.

“No, there it doesn’t go!”

It was Mr. Wyneski’s turn to almost drop his scissors.

“Goshen. Darn noon train’s putting on the brakes!”

We heard the train stop.

“How many people getting off the train, Dog?”

Dog barked once.

Mr. Wyneski shifted uneasily. “U.S. Mail bags—”

“No … a man! Walking light. Not much luggage. Heading for our house. A new boarder at Grandma’s, I bet. And he’ll take the empty room right next to you, Mr. Wyneski! Right, Dog?”

Dog barked.

“That dog talks too much,” said Mr. Wyneski.

“I just gotta go see, Mr. Wyneski. Please?”

The far footsteps faded in the hot and silent streets.

Mr. Wyneski shivered.

“A goose just stepped on my grave.”

Then he added, almost sadly:

“Get along, Ralph.”

“Name ain’t Ralph.”

“Whatchamacallit … run see … come tell the worst.”

“Oh, thanks, Mr. Wyneski, thanks!”

I ran. Dog ran. Up a street, along an alley, around back, we ducked in the ferns by my grandma’s house. “Down, boy.” I whispered. “Here the Big Event comes, whatever it is!”

And down the street and up the walk and up the steps at a brisk jaunt came this man who swung a cane and carried a carpetbag and had long brown-gray hair and silken mustaches and a goatee, politeness all about him like a flock of birds.

On the porch near the old rusty chain swing, among the potted geraniums, he surveyed Green Town.

Far away, maybe, he heard the insect hum from the barbershop, where Mr. Wyneski, who would soon be his enemy, told fortunes by the lumpy heads under his hands as he buzzed the electric clippers. Far away, maybe, he could hear the empty library where the golden dust slid down the raw sunlight and way in back someone scratched and tapped and scratched forever with pen and ink, a quiet woman like a great lonely mouse burrowed away. And she was to be part of this new man’s life, too, but right now…

The stranger removed his tall moss-green hat, mopped his brow, and not looking at anything but the hot blind sky said:

“Hello, boy. Hello, dog.”

Dog and I rose up among the ferns.

“Heck. How’d you know where we were hiding?”

The stranger peered into his hat for the answer. “In another incarnation, I was a boy. Time before that, if memory serves, I was a more than usually happy dog. But…!” His cane rapped the cardboard sign BOARD AND ROOM thumbtacked on the porch rail. “Does the sign say true, boy?”

“Best rooms on the block.”

“Beds?”

“Mattresses so deep you sink down and drown the third time, happy.”

“Boarders at table?”

“Talk just enough, not too much.”

“Food?”

“Hot biscuits every morning, peach pie noon, shortcake every supper!”

The stranger inhaled, exhaled those savors.

“I’ll sign my soul away!”

“I beg your pardon?!” Grandma was suddenly at the screen door, scowling out.

“A manner of speaking, ma’am.” The stranger turned. “Not meant to sound un-Christian.”

And he was inside, him talking, Grandma talking, him writing and flourishing the pen on the registry book, and me and Dog inside, breathless, watching, spelling:

“C.H.”

“Read upside down, do you, boy?” said the stranger, merrily, giving pause with the inky pen.

“Yes, sir!”

On he wrote. On I spelled:

“A.R.L.E.S. Charles!”

“Right.”

Grandma peered at the calligraphy. “Oh, what a fine hand.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” On the pen scurried. And on I chanted. “D.I.C.K.E.N.S.”

I faltered and stopped. The pen stopped. The stranger tilted his head and closed one eye, watchful of me.

“Yes?” He dared me, “What, what?”

“Dickens!” I cried.

“Good!”

“Charles Dickens, Grandma!”

“I can read, Ralph. A nice name…”

“Nice?” I said, agape. “It’s great! But … I thought you were—”

“Dead?” The stranger laughed. “No. Alive, in fine fettle, and glad to meet a recognizer, fan, and fellow reader here!”

And we were up the stairs, Grandma bringing fresh towels and pillowcases and me carrying the carpetbag, gasping, and us meeting Grandpa, a great ship of a man, sailing down the other way.

“Grandpa,” I said, watching his face for shock. “I want you to meet … Mr. Charles Dickens!”

Grandpa stopped for a long breath, looked at the new boarder from top to bottom, then reached out, took hold of the man’s hand, shook it firmly, and said:

“Any friend of Nicholas Nickleby’s is a friend of mine!”

Mr. Dickens fell back from the effusion, recovered, bowed, said. “Thank you, sir,” and went on up the stairs, while Grandpa winked, pinched my cheek, and left me standing there, stunned.

In the tower cupola room, with windows bright, open, and running with cool creeks of wind in all directions, Mr. Dickens drew off his horse-carriage coat and nodded at the carpetbag.

“Anywhere will do, Pip. Oh, you don’t mind I call you Pip, eh?”

“Pip?!” My cheeks burned, my face glowed with astonishing happiness. “Oh, boy. Oh, no, sir. Pip’s fine!”

Grandma cut between us. “Here are your clean linens, Mr…?”

“Dickens, ma’am.” Our boarder patted his pockets, each in turn. “Dear me, Pip, I seem to be fresh out of pads and pencils. Might it be possible—”

He saw one of my hands steal up to find something behind my ear. “I’ll be darned,” I said, “a yellow Ticonderoga Number 2!” My other hand slipped to my back pants pocket. “And hey, an Iron-Face Indian Ring-Back Notepad Number 12!”

“Extraordinary!”

Mr. Dickens wheeled about, surveying the world from each and every window, speaking now north, now north by east, now east, now south:

“I’ve traveled two long weeks with an idea. Bastille Day. Do you know it?”

“The French Fourth of July?”

“Remarkable boy! By Bastille Day this book must be in full flood. Will you help me breach the tide gates of the Revolution, Pip?”

“With these?” I looked at the pad and pencil in my hands.

“Lick the pencil tip, boy!”

I licked.

“Top of the page: the title. Title.” Mr. Dickens mused, head down, rubbing his chin whiskers. “Pip, what’s a rare fine title for a novel that happens half in London, half in Paris?”

“A—” I ventured.

“Yes?”

“A Tale,” I went on.

“Yes?!”

“A Tale of … Two Cities?!”

“Madame!” Grandma looked up as he spoke. “This boy is a genius!”

“I read about this day in the Bible,” said Grandma. “Everything Ends by noon.”

“Put it down, Pip.” Mr. Dickens tapped my pad. “Quick. A Tale of Two Cities. Then, mid-page. Book the First. ‘Recalled to Life.’ Chapter 1. ‘The Period.’”

I scribbled. Grandma worked. Mr. Dickens squinted at the sky and at last intoned:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the Season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter—”

“My,” said Grandma, “you speak fine.”

“Madame.” The author nodded, then, eyes shut, snapped his fingers to remember, on the air. “Where was I, Pip?”

“It was the winter,” I said, “of despair.”

Very late in the afternoon I heard Grandma calling someone named Ralph, Ralph, down below. I didn’t know who that was. I was writing hard.

A minute later, Grandpa called, “Pip!”

I jumped. “Yes, sir!”

“Dinnertime, Pip,” said Grandpa, up the stairwell.

I sat down at the table, hair wet, hands damp. I looked over at Grandpa. “How did you know … Pip?”

“Heard the name fall out the window an hour ago.”

“Pip?” said Mr. Wyneski, just come in, sitting down.

“Boy,” I said. “I been everywhere this afternoon. The Dover Coach on the Dover Road. Paris! Traveled so much I got writer’s cramp! I—”

“Pip” said Mr. Wyneski, again.

Grandpa came warm and easy to my rescue.

“When I was twelve, changed my name—on several occasions.” He counted the tines on his fork. “Dick. That was Dead-Eye Dick. And … John. That was for Long John Silver. Then: Hyde. That was for the other half of Jekyll—”

“I never had any other name except Bernard Samuel Wyneski,” said Mr. Wyneski, his eyes still fixed to me.

“None?” cried Grandpa, startled.

“None.”

“Have you proof of childhood, then, sir?” asked Grandpa. “Or are you a natural phenomenon, like a ship becalmed at sea?”

“Eh?” said Mr. Wyneski.

Grandpa gave up and handed him his full plate.

“Fall to, Bernard Samuel, fall to.”

Mr. Wyneski let his plate lie. “Dover Coach…?”

“With Mr. Dickens, of course,” supplied Grandpa. “Bernard Samuel, we have a new boarder, a novelist, who is starting a new book and has chosen Pip there, Ralph, to work as his secretary—”

“Worked all afternoon,” I said. “Made a quarter!”

I slapped my hand to my mouth. A swift dark cloud had come over Mr. Wyneski’s face.

“A novelist? Named Dickens? Surely you don’t believe—”

“I believe what a man tells me until he tells me otherwise, then I believe that. Pass the butter,” said Grandpa.

The butter was passed in silence.

“…hell’s fires…” Mr. Wyneski muttered.

I slunk low in my chair.

Grandpa, slicing the chicken, heaping the plates, said, “A man with a good demeanor has entered our house. He says his name is Dickens. For all I know that is his name. He implies he is writing a book. I pass his door, look in, and, yes, he is indeed writing. Should I run tell him not to? It is obvious he needs to set the book down—”

“A Tale of Two Cities!” I said.

“A Tale!” cried Mr. Wyneski, outraged, “of Two—”

“Hush,” said Grandma.

For down the stairs and now at the door of the dining room there was the man with the long hair and the fine goatee and mustaches, nodding, smiling, peering in at us doubtful and saying, “Friends…?”

“Mr. Dickens,” I said, trying to save the day. “I want you to meet Mr. Wyneski, the greatest barber in the world—”

The two men looked at each other for a long moment.

“Mr. Dickens,” said Grandpa. “Will you lend us your talent, sir, for grace?”

We bowed our heads. Mr. Wyneski did not.

Mr. Dickens looked at him gently.

Muttering, the barber glanced at the floor.

Mr. Dickens prayed:

“O Lord of the bounteous table, O Lord who furnishes forth an infinite harvest for your most respectful servants gathered here in loving humiliation, O Lord who garnishes our feast with the bright radish and the resplendent chicken, who sets before us the wine of the summer season, lemonade, and maketh us humble before simple potato pleasures, the lowborn onion and, in the finale, so my nostrils tell me, the bread of vast experiments and fine success, the highborn strawberry shortcake, most beautifully smothered and amiably drowned in fruit from your own warm garden patch, for these, and this good company, much thanks. Amen.”

“Amen,” said everyone but Mr. Wyneski.

We waited.

“Amen, I guess,” he said.

O what a summer that was!

None like it before in Green Town history.

I never got up so early so happy ever in my life! Out of bed at five minutes to, in Paris by one minute after … six in the morning the English Channel boat from Calais, the White Cliffs, sky a blizzard of seagulls, Dover, then the London Coach and London Bridge by noon! Lunch and lemonade out under the trees with Mr. Dickens, Dog licking our cheeks to cool us, then back to Paris and tea at four and…

“Bring up the cannon, Pip!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Mob the Bastille!”

“Yes, sir!”

And the guns were fired and the mobs ran and there I was, Mr. C. Dickens A-l First Class Green Town, Illinois, secretary, my eyes bugging, my ears popping, my chest busting with joy, for I dreamt of being a writer some day, too, and here I was unraveling a tale with the very finest best.

“Madame Defarge, oh how she sat and knitted, knitted, sat—”

I looked up to find Grandma knitting in the window.

“Sidney Carton, what and who was he? A man of sensibility, a reading man of gentle thought and capable action…”

Grandpa strolled by mowing the grass.

Drums sounded beyond the hills with guns; a summer storm cracked and dropped unseen walls…

Mr. Wyneski?

Somehow I neglected his shop, somehow I forgot the mysterious barber pole that came up from nothing and spiraled away to nothing, and the fabulous hair that grew on his white tile floor…

So Mr. Wyneski then had to come home every night to find that writer with all the long hair in need of cutting, standing there at the same table thanking the Lord for this, that, and t’other, and Mr. Wyneski not thankful. For there I sat staring at Mr. Dickens like he was God until one night:

“Shall we say grace?” said Grandma.

“Mr. Wyneski is out brooding in the yard,” said Grandpa.

“Brooding?” I glanced guiltily from the window.

Grandpa tilted his chair back so he could see.

“Brooding’s the word. Saw him kick the rose bush, kick the green ferns by the porch, decide against kicking the apple tree. God made it too firm. There, he just jumped on a dandelion. Oh, oh. Here he comes, Moses crossing a Black Sea of bile.”

The door slammed. Mr. Wyneski stood at the head of the table.

“I’ll say grace tonight!”

He glared at Mr. Dickens.

“Why, I mean,” said Grandma. “Yes. Please.”

Mr. Wyneski shut his eyes tight and began his prayer of destruction:

“O Lord, who delivered me a fine June and a less fine July, help me to get through August somehow.

“O Lord, deliver me from mobs and riots in the streets of London and Paris which drum through my room night and morn, chief members of said riot being one boy who walks in his sleep, a man with a strange name and a Dog who barks after the ragtag and bobtail.

“Give me strength to resist the cries of Fraud, Thief, Fool, and Bunk Artists which rise in my mouth.

“Help me not to run shouting all the way to the Police Chief to yell that in all probability the man who shares our simple bread has a true name of Red Joe Pyke from Wilkesboro, wanted for counterfeiting life, or Bull Hammer from Hornbill, Arkansas, much desired for mean spitefulness and penny-pilfering in Oskaloosa.

“Lord, deliver the innocent boys of this world from the fell clutch of those who would tomfool their credibility.

“And Lord, help me to say, quietly, and with all deference to the lady present, that if one Charles Dickens is not on the noon train tomorrow bound for Potters Grave, Lands End, or Kankakee, I shall like Delilah, with malice, shear the black lamb and fry his mutton-chop whiskers for twilight dinners and late midnight snacks.

“I ask, Lord, not mercy for the mean, but simple justice for the malignant.

“All those agreed, say ‘Amen.’”

He sat down and stabbed a potato.

There was a long moment with everyone frozen.

And then Mr. Dickens, eyes shut said, moaning:

“Ohhhhhhhhhh…!”

It was a moan, a cry, a despair so long and deep it sounded like the train way off in the country the day this man had arrived.

“Mr. Dickens,” I said.

But I was too late.

He was on his feet, blind, wheeling, touching the furniture, holding to the wall, clutching at the doorframe, blundering into the hall, groping up the stairs.

“Ohhhhh…”

It was the long cry of a man gone over a cliff into Eternity.

It seemed we sat waiting to hear him hit bottom.

Far off in the hills in the upper part of the house, his door banged shut.

My soul turned over and died.

“Charlie.” I said. “Oh, Charlie.”

Late that night, Dog howled.

And the reason he howled was that sound, that similar, muffled cry from up in the tower cupola room.

“Holy Cow,” I said. “Call the plumber. Everything’s down the drain.”

Mr. Wyneski strode by on the sidewalk, walking nowhere, off and gone.

“That’s his fourth time around the block.” Grandpa struck a match and lit his pipe.

“Mr. Wyneski!” I called.

No answer. The footsteps went away.

“Boy oh boy, I feel like I lost a war,” I said.

“No, Ralph, beg pardon, Pip,” said Grandpa, sitting down on the step with me. “You just changed generals in midstream is all. And now one of the generals is so unhappy he’s turned mean.”

“Mr. Wyneski? I—I almost hate him!”

Grandpa puffed gently on his pipe. “I don’t think he even knows why he is so unhappy and mean. He has had a tooth pulled during the night by a mysterious dentist and now his tongue is aching around the empty place where the tooth was.”

“We’re not in church, Grandpa.”

“Cut the Parables, huh? In simple words, Ralph, you used to sweep the hair off that man’s shop floor. And he’s a man with no wife, no family, just a job. A man with no family needs someone somewhere in the world, whether he knows it or not.”

“I,” I said. “I’ll wash the barbershop windows tomorrow. I-I’ll oil the red-and-white striped pole so it spins like crazy.”

“I know you will, son.”

A train went by in the night.

Dog howled.

Mr. Dickens answered in a strange cry from his room.

I went to bed and heard the town clock strike one and then two and at last three.

Then it was I heard the soft crying. I went out in the hall to listen by our boarder’s door.

“Mr. Dickens?”

The soft sound stopped.

The door was unlocked. I dared open it.

“Mr. Dickens?”

And there he lay in the moonlight, tears streaming from his eyes, eyes wide open staring at the ceiling, motionless.

“Mr. Dickens?”

“Nobody by that name here,” said he. His head moved side to side. “Nobody by that name in this room in this bed in this world.”

“You,” I said. “You’re Charlie Dickens.”

“You ought to know better,” was the mourned reply. “Long after midnight, moving on toward morning.”

“All I know is,” I said, “I seen you writing every day. I heard you talking every night.”

“Right, right.”

“And you finish one book and start another, and write a fine calligraphy sort of hand.”

“I do that.” A nod. “Oh yes, by the demon possessions, I do.”

“So!” I circled the bed. “What call you got to feel sorry for yourself, a world-famous author?”

“You know and I know, I’m Mr. Nobody from Nowhere, on my way to Eternity with a dead flashlight and no candles.”

“Hells bells,” I said. I started for the door. I was mad because he wasn’t holding up his end. He was ruining a grand summer. “Good night!” I rattled the doorknob.

“Wait!”

It was such a terrible soft cry of need and almost pain, I dropped my hand, but I didn’t turn.

“Pip,” said the old man in the bed.

“Yeah?” I said, grouching.

“Let’s both be quiet. Sit down.”

I slowly sat on the spindly wooden chair by the night table.

“Talk to me, Pip.”

“Holy Cow, at three—”

“—in the morning, yes. Oh, it’s a fierce awful time of night. A long way back to sunset, and ten thousand miles on to dawn. We have need of friends then. Friend, Pip? Ask me things.”

“Like what?”

“I think you know.”

I brooded a moment and sighed. “Okay, okay. Who are you?”

He was very quiet for a moment lying there in his bed and then traced the words on the ceiling with a long invisible tip of his nose and said, “I’m a man who could never fit his dream.”

“What?”

“I mean, Pip, I never became what I wanted to be.”

I was quiet now, too. “What’d you want to be?”

“A writer.”

“Did you try?”

“Try!” he cried, and almost gagged on a strange wild laugh. “Try,” he said, controlling himself. “Why Lord of Mercy, son, you never saw so much spit, ink, and sweat fly. I wrote my way through an ink factory, broke and busted a paper company, ruined and dilapidated six dozen typewriters, devoured and scribbled to the bone ten thousand Ticonderoga Soft Lead pencils.”

“Wow!”

“You may well say Wow.”

“What did you write?”

“What didn’t I write. The poem. The essay. The play tragique. The farce. The short story. The novel. A thousand words a day, boy, every day for thirty years, no day passed I did not scriven and assault the page. Millions of words passed from my fingers onto paper and it was all bad.”

“It couldn’t have been!”

“It was. Not mediocre, not passing fair. Just plain outright mudbath bad. Friends knew it, editors knew it, teachers knew it, publishers knew it, and one strange fine day about four in the afternoon, when I was fifty, I knew it.”

“But you can’t write thirty years without—”

“Stumbling upon excellence? Striking a chord? Gaze long, gaze hard, Pip, look upon a man of peculiar talent, outstanding ability, the only man in history who put down five million words without slapping to life one small base of a story that might rear up on its frail legs and cry Eureka! we’ve done it!”

“You never sold one story!?”

“Not a two line joke. Not a throwaway newspaper sonnet. Not a want ad or obit. Not a home-bottled autumn pickle recipe. Isn’t that rare? To be so outstandingly dull, so ridiculously inept, that nothing ever brought a chuckle, caused a tear, raised a temper, or discharged a blow. And do you know what I did on the day I discovered I would never be a writer? I killed myself.”

“Killed?!”

“Did away with, destroyed. How? I packed me up and took me away on a long train ride and sat on the back smoking-car platform a long time in the night and then one by one let the confetti of my manuscripts fly like panicked birds away down the tracks. I scattered a novel across Nebraska, my Homeric legends over North, my love sonnets through South Dakota. I abandoned my familiar essays in the men’s room at the Harvey House in Clear Springs, Idaho. The late summer wheatfields knew my prose. Grand fertilizer, it probably jumped up bumper crops of corn long after I passed. I rode two trunks of my soul on that long summer’s journey, celebrating my badly served self. And one by one, slow at first, and then faster, faster, over I chucked them, story after story, out, out of my arms out of my head, out of my life, and down they went, sunk drowning night rivers of prairie dust, in lost continents of sand and lonely rock. And the train wallowed around a curve in a great wail of darkness and release, and I opened my fingers and let the last stillborn darlings fall….

“When I reached the far terminus of the line, the trunks were empty. I had drunk much, eaten little, wept on occasion in my private room, but had heaved away my anchors, deadweights, and dreams, and came to the sliding soft chuffing end of my journey, praise God, in a kind of noble peace and certainty. I felt reborn. I said to myself, why, what’s this, what’s this? I’m—I’m a new man.”

He saw it all on the ceiling, and I saw it, too, like a movie run up the wall in the moonlit night.

“I-I’m a new man I said, and when I got off the train at the end of that long summer of disposal and sudden rebirth, I looked in a fly-specked, rain-freckled gum-machine mirror at a lost depot in Peachgum, Missouri, and my beard grown long in two months of travel and my hair gone wild with wind that combed it this way sane, that way mad, and I peered and stood back and exclaimed softly, ‘Why, Charlie Dickens, is that you?!’

The man in the bed laughed softly.

“‘Why, Charlie,’ said I, ‘Mr. Dickens, there you are!’ And the reflection in the mirror cried out, ‘Dammit, sir, who else would it be!? Stand back. I’m off to a great lecture!’”

“Did you really say that, Mr. Dickens?”

“God’s pillars and temples of truth, Pip. And I got out of his way! And I strode through a strange town and I knew who I was at last and grew fevers thinking on what I might do in my lifetime now reborn and all that grand fine work ahead! For, Pip, this thing must have been growing. All those years of writing and snuffing up defeat, my old subconscious must have been whispering, ‘Just you wait. Things will be black midnight bad but then in the nick of time, I’ll save you!’

“And maybe the thing that saved me was the thing ruined me in the first place: respect for my elders; the grand moguls and tall muckymucks in the lush literary highlands and me in the dry river bottom with my canoe.

“For, oh God, Pip, how I devoured Tolstoy, drank Dostoevsky, feasted on De Maupassant, had wine and chicken picnics with Flaubert and Molière. I gazed at gods too high. I read too much! So, when my work vanished, theirs stayed. Suddenly I found I could not forget their books, Pip!”

“Couldn’t?”

“I mean I could not forget any letter of any word of any sentence or any paragraph of any book ever passed under these hungry omnivorous eyes!”

“Photographic memory!”

“Bull’s-eye! All of Dickens, Hardy, Austen, Poe, Hawthorne, trapped in this old box Brownie waiting to be printed off my tongue, all those years, never knew, Pip, never guessed, I had did it all away. Ask me to speak in tongues. Kipling is one. Thackery another. Weigh flesh. I’m Shylock. Snuff out the light, I’m Othello. All, all, Pip, all!”

“And then? And so?”

“Why then and so, Pip, I looked another time in that fly-specked mirror and said, ‘Mr. Dickens, all this being true, when do you write your first book?’

“‘Now!’ I cried. And bought fresh paper and ink and have been delirious and joyful, lunatic and happy frantic ever since, writing all the books of my own dear self, me, I, Charles Dickens, one by one.

“I have traveled the continental vastness of the United States of North America and settled me in to write and act, act and write, lecturing here, pondering there, half in and then half out of my mania, known and unknown, lingering here to finish Copperfield, loitering there for Dombey and Son, turning up for tea with Marley’s Ghost on some pale Christmas noon. Sometimes I lie whole snowbound winters in little whistle stops and no one there guessing that Charlie Dickens bides hibernation there, then pop forth like the ottermole of spring and so move on. Sometimes I stay whole summers in one town before I’m driven off. Oh, yes, driven. For such as your Mr. Wyneski cannot forgive the fantastic, Pip, no matter how particularly practical that fantastic be.

“For he has no humor, boy.

He does not see that we all do what we must to survive, survive.

“Some laugh, some cry, some bang the world with fists, some run, but it all sums up the same: they make do.

“The world swarms with people, each one drowning, but each swimming a different stroke to the far shore.

“And Mr. Wyneski? He makes do with scissors and understands not my inky pen and littered papers on which I would flypaper-catch my borrowed English soul.”

Mr. Dickens put his feet out of bed and reached for his carpetbag.

“So I must pick up and go.”

I grabbed the bag first.

“No! You can’t leave! You haven’t finished the book!”

“Pip, dear boy, you haven’t been listening—”

“The world’s waiting! You can’t just quit in the middle of Two Cities!”

He took the bag quietly from me.

“Pip, Pip…”

“You can’t, Charlie!”

He looked into my face and it must have been so white hot he flinched away.

“I’m waiting,” I cried. “They’re waiting!”

“They…?”

“The mob at the Bastille. Paris! London. The Dover sea. The guillotine!”

I ran to throw all the windows even wider as if the night wind and the moonlight might bring in sounds and shadows to crawl on the rug and sneak in his eyes, and the curtains blew out in phantom gestures and I swore I heard, Charlie heard, the crowds, the coach wheels, the great slicing downfall of the cutting blades and the cabbage heads falling and battle songs and all that on the wind…

“Oh, Pip, Pip…”

Tears welled from his eyes.

I had my pencil out and my pad.

“Well?” I said.

“Where were we, this afternoon, Pip?”

“Madame Defarge, knitting.”

He let the carpetbag fall. He sat on the edge of the bed and his hands began to tumble, weave, knit, motion, tie and untie, and he looked and saw his hands and spoke and I wrote and he spoke again, stronger, and stronger, all through the rest of the night…

“Madame Defarge … yes … well. Take this, Pip. She—”

“Morning, Mr. Dickens!”

I flung myself into the dining-room chair. Mr. Dickens was already half through his stack of pancakes.

I took one bite and then saw the even greater stack of pages lying on the table between us.

“Mr. Dickens?” I said. “The Tale of Two Cities. It’s … finished?”

“Done.” Mr. Dickens ate, eyes down. “Got up at six. Been working steady. Done. Finished. Through.”

“Wow!” I said.

A train whistle blew. Charlie sat up, then rose suddenly, to leave the rest of his breakfast and hurry out in the hall. I heard the front door slam and tore out on the porch to see Mr. Dickens half down the walk, carrying his carpetbag.

He was walking so fast I had to run to circle round and round him as he headed for the rail depot.

“Mr. Dickens, the book’s finished, yeah, but not published yet!”

“You be my executor, Pip.”

He fled. I pursued, gasping.

“What about David Copperfield?! Little Dorrit?!”

“Friends of yours, Pip?”

“Yours, Mr. Dickens, Charlie, oh, gosh, if you don’t write them, they’ll never live.”

“They’ll get on somehow.” He vanished around a corner. I jumped after.

“Charlie, wait. I’ll give you—a new title! Pickwick Papers, sure, Pickwick Papers!”

The train was pulling into the station.

Charlie ran fast.

“And after that, Bleak House, Charlie, and Hard Times and Great—Mr. Dickens, listen—Expectations! Oh, my gosh!”

For he was far ahead now and I could only yell after him:

“Oh, blast, go on! get off! get away! You know what I’m going to do!? You don’t deserve reading! You don’t! So right now, and from here on, see if I even bother to finish reading Tale of Two Cities! Not me! Not this one! No!”

The bell was tolling in the station. The steam was rising. But, Mr. Dickens had slowed. He stood in the middle of the sidewalk. I came up to stare at his back.

“Pip,” he said softly. “You mean what you just said?”

“You!” I cried. “You’re nothing but—” I searched in my mind and seized a thought: “—a blot of mustard, some undigested bit of raw potato—!”

“‘Bah, Humbug, Pip?’”

“Humbug! I don’t give a blast what happens to Sidney Carton!”

“Why, it’s a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done, Pip. You must read it.”

“Why!?”

He turned to look at me with great sad eyes.

“Because I wrote it for you.”

It took all my strength to half-yell back: “So—?”

“So,” said Mr. Dickens, “I have just missed my train. Forty minutes till the next one—”

“Then you got time,” I said.

“Time for what?”

“To meet someone. Meet them, Charlie, and I promise I’ll finish reading your book. In there. In there, Charlie.”

He pulled back.

“That place? The library?!”

“Ten minutes, Mr. Dickens, give me ten minutes, just ten, Charlie. Please.”

“Ten?”

And at last, like a blind man, he let me lead him up the library steps and half-fearful, sidle in.

The library was like a stone quarry where no rain had fallen in ten thousand years.

Way off in that direction: silence.

Way off in that direction: hush.

It was the time between things finished and things begun. Nobody died here.

Nobody was born. The library, and all its books, just were.

We waited, Mr. Dickens and I, on the edge of the silence.

Mr. Dickens trembled. And I suddenly remembered I had never seen him here all summer. He was afraid I might take him near the fiction shelves and see all his books, written, done, finished, printed, stamped, bound, borrowed, read, repaired, and shelved.

But I wouldn’t be that dumb. Even so, he took my elbow and whispered:

“Pip, what are we doing here? Let’s go. There’s…”

“Listen!” I hissed.

And a long way off in the stacks somewhere, there was a sound like a moth turning over in its sleep.

“Bless me,” Mr. Dickens’s eyes widened. “I know that sound.”

“Sure!”

“It’s the sound,” he said, holding his breath, then nodding, “of someone writing.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Writing with a pen. And … and writing…”

“What?”

“Poetry,” gasped Mr. Dickens. “That’s it. Someone off there in a room, how many fathoms deep, Pip, I swear, writing a poem. There! Eh? Flourish, flourish, scratch, flourish on, on, on, that’s not figures, Pip, not numerals, not dusty-dry facts, you feel it sweep, feel it scurry? A poem, by God, yes, sir, no doubt, a poem!”

“Ma’am,” I called.

The moth-sound ceased.

“Don’t stop her!” hissed Mr. Dickens. “Middle of inspiration. Let her go!”

The moth-scratch started again.

Flourish, flourish, scratch, on, on, stop. Flourish, flourish. I bobbed my head. I moved my lips, as did Mr. Dickens, both of us suspended, held, leant forward on the cool marble air listening to the vaults and stacks and echoes in the subterrane.

Flourish, flourish, scratch, on, on.

Silence.

“There.” Mr. Dickens nudged me.

“Ma’am!” I called ever so urgently soft.

And something rustled in the corridors.

And there stood the librarian, a lady between years, not young, not old; between colors, not dark, not pale; between heights, not short, not tall, but rather frail, a woman you often heard talking to herself off in the dark dust-stacks with a whisper like turned pages, a woman who glided as if on hidden wheels.

She came carrying her soft lamp of face, lighting her way with her glance.

Her lips were moving, she was busy with words in the vast room behind her clouded gaze.

Charlie read her lips eagerly. He nodded. He waited for her to halt and bring us to focus, which she did, suddenly. She gasped and laughed at herself.

“Oh, Ralph, it’s you and—” A look of recognition warmed her face. “Why, you’re Ralph’s friend. Mr. Dickens, isn’t it?”

Charlie stared at her with a quiet and almost alarming devotion.

“Mr. Dickens,” I said. “I want you to meet—”

“‘Because I could not stop for Death—’” Charlie, eyes shut, quoted from memory.

The librarian blinked swiftly and her brow like a lamp turned high, took white color.

“Miss Emily,” he said.

“Her name is—” I said.

“Miss Emily.” He put out his hand to touch hers.

“Pleased,” she said. “But how did you—?”

“Know your name? Why, bless me, ma’am, I heard you scratching way off in there, runalong rush, only poets do that!”

“It’s nothing.”

“Head high, chin up,” he said, gently. “It’s something. ‘Because I could not stop for death’ is a fine A-1 first-class poem.”

“My own poems are so poor,” she said, nervously. “I copy hers out to learn.”

“Copy who?” I blurted.

“Excellent way to learn.”

“Is it, really?” She looked close at Charlie. “You’re not…?”

“Joking? No, not with Emily Dickinson, ma’am!”

“Emily Dickinson?” I said.

“That means much coming from you, Mr. Dickens,” she flushed. “I have read all your books.”

“All?” He backed off.

“All,” she added hastily, “that you have published so far, sir.”

“Just finished a new one.” I put in, “Sockdolager! A Tale of Two Cities.”

“And you, ma’am?” he asked, kindly.

She opened her small hands as if to let a bird go.

“Me? Why, I haven’t even sent a poem to our town newspaper.”

“You must!” he cried, with true passion and meaning. “Tomorrow. No, today!”

“But,” her voice faded. “I have no one to read them to, first.”

“Why,” said Chadie quietly. “You have Pip here, and, accept my card, C. Dickens, Esquire. Who will, if allowed, stop by on occasion, to see if all’s well in this Arcadian silo of books.”

She took his card. “I couldn’t—”

“Tut! You must. For I shall offer only warm sliced white bread. Your words must be the marmalade and summer honey jam. I shall read long and plain. You: short and rapturous of life and tempted by that odd delicious Death you often lean upon. Enough.” He pointed. “There. At the far end of the corridor, her lamp lit ready to guide your hand … the Muse awaits. Keep and feed her well. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye?” she asked. “Doesn’t that mean ‘God be with you’?”

“So I have heard, dear lady, so I have heard.”

And suddenly we were back out in the sunlight, Mr. Dickens almost stumbling over his carpetbag waiting there.

In the middle of the lawn, Mr. Dickens stood very still and said, “The sky is blue, boy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The grass is green.”

“Sure.” Then I stopped and really looked around. “I mean, heck, yeah!”

“And the wind … smell that sweet wind?”

We both smelled it. He said:

“And in this world are remarkable boys with vast imaginations who know the secrets of salvation…”

He patted my shoulder. Head down, I didn’t know what to do. And then I was saved by a whistle:

“Hey, the next train! Here it comes!”

We waited.

After a long while, Mr. Dickens said:

“There it goes…and let’s go home, boy.”

“Home!” I cried, joyfully, and then stopped. “But what about … Mr. Wyneski?”

“O, after all this, I have such confidence in you, Pip. Every afternoon while I’m having tea and resting my wits, you must trot down to the barbershop and—”

“Sweep hair!”

“Brave lad. It’s little enough. A loan of friendship from the Bank of England to the First National Bank of Green Town, Illinois. And now, Pip … pencil!”

I tried behind one ear, found gum; tried the other ear and found: “Pencil!”

“Paper?”

“Paper!”

We strode along under the soft green summer trees.

“Title, Pip—”

He reached up with his cane to write a mystery on the sky. I squinted at the invisible penmanship.

“The—”

He blocked out a second word on the air.

“Old,” I translated.

A third.

“C.U.” I spelled. “R.I….Curiosity!”

“How’s that for a title, Pip?”

I hesitated. “It … doesn’t seem, well, quite finished, sir.”

“What a Christian you are. There!”

He flourished a final word on the sun.

“S.H.O….Shop! The Old Curiosity Shop.”

“Take a novel, Pip!”

“Yes, sir,” I cried. “Chapter One!”

A blizzard of snow blew through the trees.

“What’s that?” I asked, and answered:

Why, summer gone. The calendar pages, all the hours and days, like in the movies, the way they just blow off over the hills. Charlie and I working together, finished, through. Many days at the library, over! Many nights reading aloud with Miss Emily done! Trains come and gone. Moons waxed and waned. New trains arriving and new lives teetering on the brink, and Miss Emily suddenly standing right there, and Charlie here with all their suitcases and handing me a paper sack.

“What’s this?”

“Rice. Pip, plain ordinary white rice, for the fertility ritual. Throw it at us, boy. Drive us happily away. Hear those bells, Pip? Here goes Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Dickens! Throw, boy, throw! Throw!”

I threw and ran, ran and threw, and them on the back train platform waving out of sight and me yelling good-bye, Happy marriage, Charlie! Happy times! Come back! Happy … Happy…

And by then I guess I was crying, and Dog chewing my shoes, jealous, glad to have me alone again, and Mr. Wyneski waiting at the barbershop to hand me my broom and make me his son once more.

And autumn came and lingered and at last a letter arrived from the married and traveling couple.

I kept the letter sealed all day and at dusk, while Grandpa was raking leaves by the front porch I went out to sit and watch and hold the letter and wait for him to look up and at last he did and I opened the letter and read it out loud in the October twilight:

“Dear Pip,” I read, and had to stop for a moment seeing my old special name again, my eyes were so full.

“Dear Pip. We are in Aurora tonight and Felicity tomorrow and Elgin the night after that. Charlie has six months of lectures lined up and looking forward. Charlie and I are both working steadily and are most happy…very happy … need I say?

“He calls me Emily.

“Pip, I don’t think you know who she was, but there was a lady poet once, and I hope you’ll get her books out of the library someday.

“Well, Charlie looks at me and says: ‘This is my Emily’ and I almost believe. No. I do believe.”

I stopped and swallowed hard and read on:

“We are crazy, Pip.

“People have said it. We know it. Yet we go on. But being crazy together is fine.

“It was being crazy alone I couldn’t stand any longer.

“Charlie sends his regards and wants you to know he has indeed started a fine new book, perhaps his best yet … one you suggested the title for, Bleak House.

“So we write and move, move and write, Pip. And some year soon we may come back on the train which stops for water at your town. And if you’re there and call our names as we know ourselves now, we shall step off the train. But perhaps meanwhile you will get too old. And if when the train stops, Pip, you’re not there, we shall understand, and let the train move us on to another and another town.

“Signed, Emily Dickinson.

“P.S. Charlie says your grandfather is a dead ringer for Plato, but not to tell him.

“P.P.S. Charlie is my darling.”

“Charlie is my darling,” repeated Grandpa, sitting down and taking the letter to read it again. “Well, well…” he sighed. “Well, well…”

We sat there a long while, looking at the burning soft October sky and the new stars. A mile off, a dog barked. Miles off, on the horizon line, a train moved along, whistled, and tolled its bell, once, twice, three times, gone.

“You know,” I said. “I don’t think they’re crazy.”

“Neither do I, Pip,” said Grandpa, lighting his pipe and blowing out the match. “Neither do I.”

The End

Fictional Story Related Index

This is an index of full text reprints of stories that I have read that influenced me when I was young. They are rather difficult to come by today, as where I live they are nearly impossible to find. Yes, you can find them on the internet, behind paywalls. Ah, that’s why all those software engineers in California make all that money. Well, here they are FOR FREE. Enjoy reading them.

Movies that Inspired Me

Here are some movies that I consider noteworthy and worth a view. Enjoy.

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Space Cadet (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein

Starman Jones (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein.

The Lottery (Full Text) by Shirley Jackson

Farnham's Freehold (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein

Invisible Boy (Full Text) by Ray Bradbury

Job: A Comedy of Justice (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein

Spell my name with an "S" by Isaac Asimov

Not the First (Full Text) by A.E. van Vogt

Space Jockey (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein

My Poetry

Art that Moves Me

An experiment of a bird in a vacuum jar.

Articles & Links

You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
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Blowups Happen (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein

A mathematician discovers that his formulas predict that an important new power station poses an extremely grave risk to humanity, and he must convince others of the danger. 

- William E. Emba

FOREWORD

LIFE-LINE, MISFIT, LET THERE BE LIGHT, ELSEWHEN, PIED PIPER, IF THIS GOES ON—, REQUIEM, THE ROADS MUST ROLL, COVENTRY, BLOWUPS HAPPEN—for eleven months, mid March 1939 through mid February 1940, I wrote every day . . . and that ended my bondage; BLOWUPS HAPPEN paid off the last of that pesky mortgage—eight years ahead of time.

BLOWUPS HAPPEN was the first of my stories to be published in hard covers, in Groff Conklin's first anthology, The Best of Science Fiction, 1946. In the meantime there had been World War II, Hiroshima, The Smyth Report—so I went over my 1940 manuscript most carefully, correcting some figures I had merely guessed at in early 1940.
This week I have compared the two versions, 1940 and 1946, word by word—there isn't a dime's worth of difference between them . . . and I now see, as a result of the enormous increase in the art in 33 years, more errors in the '46 version than I spotted in the '40 version when I checked it in '46.
I do not intend ever again to try to update a story to make it fit new art. Such updating can't save a poor story and isn't necessary for a good story. All of H. G. Wells' SF stories are hopelessly dated . . . and they remain the best, the most gripping science fiction stories to be found anywhere. My Beyond This Horizon (1941) states that H. sapiens has forty-eight chromosomes, a "fact" that "everybody knew" in 1941. Now "everybody knows" that the "correct" number is forty-six. I shan't change it.
The version of "Blowups Happen" here following is exactly, word for word, the way it was first written in February 1940.

BLOWUPS HAPPEN

“Put down that wrench!”

The man addressed turned slowly around and faced the speaker. His expression was hidden by a grotesque helmet, part of a heavy, leaden armor which shielded his entire body, but the tone of voice in which he answered showed nervous exasperation.

“What the hell’s eating on you, Doc?” He made no move to replace the tool in question.

They faced each other like two helmeted, arrayed fencers, watching for an opening. The first speaker’s voice came from behind his mask a shade higher in key and more peremptory in tone. “You heard me, Harper. Put down that wrench at once, and come away from that ‘trigger.’ Erickson!”

A third armored figure came around the shield which separated the uranium bomb proper from the control room in which the first two stood. “Whatcha want, Doc?”

“Harper is relieved from watch. You take over as engineer-of-the-watch. Send for the standby engineer.”

“Very well.” His voice and manner were phlegmatic as he accepted the situation without comment. The atomic engineer whom he had just relieved glanced from one to the other, then carefully replaced the wrench in its rack.

“Just as you say, Dr. Silard—but send for your relief, too. I shall demand an immediate hearing!” Harper swept indignantly out, his lead-sheathed boots clumping on the floor plates.

Dr. Silard waited unhappily for the ensuing twenty minutes until his own relief arrived. Perhaps he had been hasty. Maybe he was wrong in thinking that Harper had at last broken under the strain of tending the most dangerous machine in the world—an atomic power plant. But if he had made a mistake, it had to be on the safe side—slips must not happen in this business; not when a slip might result in the atomic detonation of two and a half tons of uranium.

He tried to visualize what that would mean, and failed. He had been told that uranium was potentially forty million times as explosive as TNT. The figure was meaningless that way. He thought of it, instead, as a hundred million tons of high explosive, two hundred million aircraft bombs as big as the biggest ever used. It still did not mean anything. He had once seen such a bomb dropped, when he had been serving as a temperament analyst for army aircraft pilots. The bomb had left a hole big enough to hide an apartment house. He could not imagine the explosion of a thousand such bombs, much less a hundred million of them.

Perhaps these atomic engineers could. Perhaps, with their greater mathematical ability and closer comprehension of what actually went on inside the nuclear fission chamber—the “bomb”—they had some vivid glimpse of the mind-shattering horror locked up beyond that shield. If so, no wonder they tended to blow up—

He sighed. Erickson looked up from the linear resonant accelerator on which he had been making some adjustment. “What’s the trouble, Doc?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry I had to relieve Harper.”

Silard could feel the shrewd glance of the big Scandinavian. “Not getting the jitters yourself, are you, Doc? Sometimes you squirrel sleuths blow up, too—”

“Me? I don’t think so. I’m scared of that thing in there—I’d be crazy if I weren’t.”

“So am I,” Erickson told him soberly, and went back to his work.* * *

The accelerator’s snout disappeared in the shield between them and the bomb, where it fed a steady stream of terrifically speeded up subatomic bullets to the beryllium target located within the bomb itself. The tortured beryllium yielded up neutrons, which shot out in all directions through the uranium mass. Some of these neutrons struck uranium atoms squarely on their nuclei and split them in two. The fragments were new elements, barium, xenon, rubidium—depending on the proportions in which each atom split. The new elements were usually unstable isotopes and broke down into a dozen more elements by radioactive disintegration in a progressive chain reaction.

But these chain reactions were comparatively unimportant; it was the original splitting of the uranium nucleus, with the release of the awe-inspiring energy that bound it together—an incredible two hundred million electron-volts—that was important—and perilous.

For, while uranium isotope 235 may be split by bombarding it with neutrons from an outside source, the splitting itself gives up more neutrons which, in turn, may land in other uranium nuclei and split them. If conditions are favorable to a progressively increasing reaction of this sort, it may get out of hand, build up in an unmeasurable fraction of a microsecond into a complete atomic explosion—an explosion which would dwarf the eruption of Krakatoa to popgun size; an explosion so far beyond all human experience as to be as completely incomprehensible as the idea of personal death. It could be feared, but not understood.

But a self-perpetuating sequence of nuclear splitting just under the level of complete explosion was necessary to the operation of the power plant. To split the first uranium nucleus by bombarding it with neutrons from the beryllium target took more power than the death of the atom gave up. In order that the output of power from the system should exceed the power input in useful proportion it was imperative that each atom split by a neutron from the beryllium target should cause the splitting of many more.

It was equally imperative that this chain of reactions should always tend to dampen, to die out. It must not build up, or the entire mass would explode within a time interval too short to be measured by any means whatsoever.

Nor would there be anyone left to measure it.* * *

The atomic engineer on duty at the bomb could control this reaction by means of the “trigger,” a term the engineers used to include the linear resonant accelerator, the beryllium target, and the adjacent controls, instrument board, and power sources. That is to say, he could vary the bombardment on the beryllium target to increase or decrease the power output of the plant, and he could tell from his instruments that the internal reaction was dampened—or, rather, that it had been dampened the split second before. He could not possibly know what was actually happening now within the bomb—subatomic speeds are too great and the time intervals too small. He was like the bird that flew backward; he could see where he had been, but he never knew where he was going.

Nevertheless, it was his responsibility, and his alone, not only to maintain the bomb at a high input-output efficiency, but to see that the reaction never passed the critical point and progressed into mass explosion.

But that was impossible. He could not be sure; he could never be sure.

He could bring to the job all of the skill and learning of the finest technical education, and use it to reduce the hazard to the lowest mathematical probability, but the blind laws of chance which appear to rule in subatomic action might turn up a royal flush against him and defeat his most skillful play.

And each atomic engineer knew it, knew that he gambled not only with his own life, but with the lives of countless others, perhaps with the lives of every human being on the planet. Nobody knew quite what such an explosion would do. The most conservative estimate assumed that, in addition to destroying the plant and its personnel completely, it would tear a chunk out of the populous and heavily traveled Los Angeles-Oklahoma Road City a hundred miles to the north.

That was the official, optimistic viewpoint on which the plant had been authorized, and based on mathematics which predicted that a mass of uranium would itself be disrupted on a molar scale, and thereby rendered comparatively harmless, before progressive and accelerated atomic explosion could infect the entire mass.

The atomic engineers, by and large, did not place faith in the official theory. They judged theoretical mathematical prediction for what it was worth—precisely nothing, until confirmed by experiment.

But even from the official viewpoint, each atomic engineer while on watch carried not only his own life in his hands, but the lives of many others—how many, it was better not to think about. No pilot, no general, no surgeon ever carried such a daily, inescapable, ever-present weight of responsibility for the lives of other people as these men carried every time they went on watch, every time they touched a vernier screw or read a dial.

They were selected not alone for their intelligence and technical training, but quite as much for their characters and sense of social responsibility. Sensitive men were needed—men who could fully appreciate the importance of the charge intrusted to them; no other sort would do. But the burden of responsibility was too great to be borne indefinitely by a sensitive man.

It was, of necessity, a psychologically unstable condition. Insanity was an occupational disease.* * *

Dr. Cummings appeared, still buckling the straps of the armor worn to guard against stray radiation. “What’s up?” he asked Silard.

“I had to relieve Harper.”

“So I guessed. I met him coming up. He was sore as hell—just glared at me.”

“I know. He wants an immediate hearing. That’s why I had to send for you.”

Cummings grunted, then nodded toward the engineer, anonymous in all-inclosing armor. “Who’d I draw?”

“Erickson.”

“Good enough. Squareheads can’t go crazy—eh, Gus?”

Erickson looked up momentarily and answered, “That’s your problem,” and returned to his work.

Cummings turned back to Silard and commented: “Psychiatrists don’t seem very popular around here. O.K.—I relieve you, sir.”

“Very well, sir.”

Silard threaded his way through the zigzag in the tanks of water which surrounded the disintegration room. Once outside this outer shield, he divested himself of the cumbersome armor, disposed of it in the locker room provided, and hurried to a lift. He left the lift at the tube station, underground, and looked around for an unoccupied capsule. Finding one, he strapped himself in, sealed the gasketed door, and settled the back of his head into the rest against the expected surge of acceleration.

Five minutes later he knocked at the door of the office of the general superintendent, twenty miles away.

The power plant proper was located in a bowl of desert hills on the Arizona plateau. Everything not necessary to the immediate operation of the plant—administrative offices, television station and so forth—lay beyond the hills. The buildings housing these auxiliary functions were of the most durable construction technical ingenuity could devise. It was hoped that, if Der Tag ever came, occupants would stand approximately the chance of survival of a man going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Silard knocked again. He was greeted by a male secretary. Steinke. Silard recalled reading his case history. Formerly one of the most brilliant of the young engineers, he had suffered a blanking out of the ability to handle mathematical operations. A plain case of fugue, but there had been nothing that the poor devil could do about it—he had been anxious enough with his conscious mind to stay on duty. He had been rehabilitated as an office worker.

Steinke ushered him into the superintendent’s private office. Harper was there before him, and returned his greeting with icy politeness. The superintendent was cordial, but Silard thought he looked tired, as if the twenty-four-hour-a-day strain was too much for him.

“Come in, Doctor, come in. Sit down. Now tell me about this. I’m a little surprised. I thought Harper was one of my steadiest men.”

“I don’t say he isn’t, sir.”

“Well?”

“He may be perfectly all right, but your instructions to me are not to take any chances.”

“Quite right.” The superintendent gave the engineer, silent and tense in his chair, a troubled glance, then returned his attention to Silard. “Suppose you tell me about it.”

Silard took a deep breath. “While on watch as psychological observer at the control station I noticed that the engineer of the watch seemed preoccupied and less responsive to stimuli than usual. During my off-watch observation of this case, over a period of the past several days, I have suspected an increasing lack of attention. For example, while playing contract bridge, he now occasionally asks for a review of the bidding, which is contrary to his former behavior pattern.

“Other similar data are available. To cut it short, at 3:11 today, while on watch, I saw Harper, with no apparent reasonable purpose in mind, pick up a wrench used only for operating the valves of the water shield and approach the trigger. Irelieved him of duty and sent him out of the control room.”

“Chief!” Harper calmed himself somewhat and continued: “If this witch doctor knew a wrench from an oscillator, he’d know what I was doing. The wrench was on the wrong rack. I noticed it, and picked it up to return it to its proper place. On the way, I stopped to check the readings!”

The superintendent turned inquiringly to Dr. Silard.

“That may be true. Granting that it is true,” answered the psychiatrist doggedly, “my diagnosis still stands. Your behavior pattern has altered; your present actions are unpredictable, and I can’t approve you for responsible work without a complete checkup.”

General Superintendent King drummed on the desk top and sighed. Then he spoke slowly to Harper: “Cal, you’re a good boy, and, believe me, I know how you feel. But there is no way to avoid it—you’ve got to go up for the psychometricals, and accept whatever disposition the board makes of you.” He paused, but Harper maintained an expressionless silence. “Tell you what, son—why don’t you take a few days leave? Then, when you come back, you can go up before the board, or transfer to another department away from the bomb, whichever you prefer.” He looked to Silard for approval, and received a nod.

But Harper was not mollified. “No, chief,” he protested. “It won’t do. Can’t you see what’s wrong? It’s this constant supervision. Somebody always watching the back of your neck, expecting you to go crazy. A man can’t even shave in private. We’re jumpy about the most innocent acts, for fear some head doctor, half batty himself, will see it and decide it’s a sign we’re slipping. Good grief, what do you expect?” His outburst having run its course, he subsided into a flippant cynicism that did not quite jell. “O.K.—never mind the straitjacket; I’ll go quietly. You’re a good Joe in spite of it, chief,” he added, “and I’m glad to have worked under you. Good-bye.”

King kept the pain in his eyes out of his voice. “Wait a minute, Cal—you’re not through here. Let’s forget about the vacation. I’m transferring you to the radiation laboratory. You belong in research, anyhow; I’d never have spared you from it to stand watches if I hadn’t been short on Number One men.

“As for the constant psychological observation, I hate it as much as you do. I don’t suppose you know that they watch me about twice as hard as they watch you duty engineers.” Harper showed his surprise, but Silard nodded in sober confirmation. “But we have to have this supervision. Do you remember Manning? No, he was before your time. We didn’t have psychological observers then. Manning was able and brilliant. Furthermore, he was always cheerful; nothing seemed to bother him.

“I was glad to have him on the bomb, for he was always alert, and never seemed nervous about working with it—in fact, he grew more buoyant and cheerful the longer he stood control watches. I should have known that was a very bad sign, but I didn’t, and there was no observer to tell me so.

“His technician had to slug him one night. He found him dismounting the safety interlocks on the trigger. Poor old Manning never pulled out of it—he’s been violently insane ever since. After Manning cracked up we worked out the present system of two qualified engineers and an observer for every watch. It seemed the only thing to do.”

“I suppose so, chief,” Harper mused, his face no longer sullen, but still unhappy. “It’s a hell of a situation just the same.”

“That’s putting it mildly.” King rose and put out his hand. “Cal, unless you’re dead set on leaving us, I’ll expect to see you at the radiation laboratory tomorrow. Another thing—I don’t often recommend this, but it might do you good to get drunk tonight.”* * *

King had signed to Silard to remain after the young man left. Once the door was closed he turned back to the psychiatrist. “There goes another one—and one of the best. Doctor, what am I going to do?”

Silard pulled at his cheek. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “The hell of it is, Harper’s absolutely right. It does increase the strain on them to know that they are being watched—and yet they have to be watched. Your psychiatric staff isn’t doing too well, either. It makes us nervous to be around the bomb—the more so because we don’t understand it. And it’s a strain on us to be hated and despised as we are. Scientific detachment is difficult under such conditions; I’m getting jumpy myself.”

King ceased pacing the floor and faced the doctor. “But there must be some solution—” he insisted.

Silard shook his head. “It’s beyond me, Superintendent. I see no solution from the standpoint of psychology.”

“No? Hm-m-m. Doctor, who is the top man in your field?”

“Eh?”

“Who is the recognized Number One man in handling this sort of thing?”

“Why, that’s hard to say. Naturally, there isn’t any one leading psychiatrist in the world; we specialize too much. I know what you mean, though. You don’t want the best industrial-temperament psychometrician; you want the best all-around man for psychoses nonlesional and situational. That would be Lentz.”

“Go on.”

“Well—he covers the whole field of environmental adjustment. He’s the man who correlated the theory of optimum tonicity with the relaxation technique that Korzybski had developed empirically. He actually worked under Korzybski himself, when he was a young student—it’s the only thing he’s vain about.”

“He did? Then he must be pretty old; Korzybski died in— What year did he die?”

“I started to say that you must know his work in symbology—theory of abstraction and calculus of statement, all that sort of thing—because of its applications to engineering and mathematical physics.”

“That Lentz—yes, of course. But I had never thought of him as a psychiatrist.”

“No, you wouldn’t, in your field. Nevertheless, we are inclined to credit him with having done as much to check and reduce the pandemic neuroses of the Crazy Years as any other man, and more than any man left alive.”

“Where is he?”

“Why, Chicago, I suppose. At the Institute.”

“Get him here.”

“Eh?”

“Get him down here. Get on that visiphone and locate him. Then have Steinke call the port of Chicago, and hire a stratocar to stand by for him. I want to see him as soon as possible—before the day is out.” King sat up in his chair with the air of a man who is once more master of himself and the situation. His spirit knew that warming replenishment that comes only with reaching a decision. The harassed expression was gone.

Silard looked dumbfounded. “But, Superintendent,” he expostulated, “You can’t ring for Dr. Lentz as if he were a junior clerk. He’s . . . he’s Lentz.“

“Certainly—that’s why I want him. But I’m not a neurotic clubwoman looking for sympathy, either. He’ll come. If necessary, turn on the heat from Washington. Have the White House call him. But get him here at once. Move!” King strode out of the office.* * *

When Erickson came off watch he inquired around and found that Harper had left for town. Accordingly, he dispensed with dinner at the base, shifted into “drinkin’ clothes,” and allowed himself to be dispatched via tube to Paradise.

Paradise, Arizona, was a hard little boom town, which owed its existence to the power plant. It was dedicated exclusively to the serious business of detaching the personnel of the plant from their inordinate salaries. In this worthy project they received much cooperation from the plant personnel themselves, each of whom was receiving from twice to ten times as much money each pay day as he had ever received in any other job, and none of whom was certain of living long enough to justify saving for old age. Besides, the company carried a sinking fund in Manhattan for their dependents; why be stingy?

It was said, with some truth, that any entertainment or luxury obtainable in New York City could be purchased in Paradise. The local chamber of commerce had appropriated the slogan of Reno, Nevada, “Biggest Little City in the World.” The Reno boosters retaliated by claiming that, while any town that close to the atomic power plant undeniably brought thoughts of death and the hereafter, Hell’s Gates would be a more appropriate name than Paradise.

Erickson started making the rounds. There were twenty-seven places licensed to sell liquor in the six blocks of the main street of Paradise. He expected to find Harper in one of them, and, knowing the man’s habits and tastes, he expected to find him in the first two or three he tried.

He was not mistaken. He found Harper sitting alone at a table in the rear of DeLancey’s Sans Souci Bar. DeLancey’s was a favorite of both of them. There was an old-fashioned comfort about its chrome-plated bar and red leather furniture that appealed to them more than did the spectacular fittings of the up-to-the-minute places. DeLancey was conservative; he stuck to indirect lighting and soft music; his hostesses were required to be fully clothed, even in the evening.

The fifth of Scotch in front of Harper was about two thirds full. Erickson shoved three fingers in front of Harper’s face and demanded, “Count!”

“Three,” announced Harper. “Sit down, Gus.”

“That’s correct,” Erickson agreed, sliding his big frame into a low-slung chair. “You’ll do—for now. What was the outcome?”

“Have a drink. Not,” he went on, “that this Scotch is any good. I think Lance has taken to watering it. I surrendered, horse and foot.”

“Lance wouldn’t do that—stick to that theory and you’ll sink in the sidewalk up to your knees. How come you capitulated? I thought you planned to beat ’em about the head and shoulders, at least.”

“I did,” mourned Harper, “but, cripes, Gus, the chief is right. If a brain mechanic says you’re punchy, he has got to back him up and take you off the bomb. The chief can’t afford to take a chance.”

“Yeah, the chief’s all right, but I can’t learn to love our dear psychiatrists. Tell you what—let’s find us one, and see if he can feel pain. I’ll hold him while you slug ‘im.”

“Oh, forget it, Gus. Have a drink.”

“A pious thought—but not Scotch. I’m going to have a martini; we ought to eat pretty soon.”

“I’ll have one, too.”

“Do you good.” Erickson lifted his blond head and bellowed, “Israfel!”

A large, black person appeared at his elbow. “Mistuh Erickson! Yes, suh!”

“Izzy, fetch two martinis. Make mine with Italian.” He turned back to Harper. “What are you going to do now, Cal?”

“Radiation laboratory.”

“Well, that’s not so bad. I’d like to have a go at the matter of rocket fuels myself. I’ve got some ideas.”

Harper looked mildly amused. “You mean atomic fuel for interplanetary flight? The problem’s pretty well exhausted. No, son, the stratosphere is the ceiling until we think up something better than rockets. Of course, you could mount the bomb in a ship, and figure out some jury rig to convert its radiant output into push, but where does that get you? One bomb, one ship—and twenty years of mining in Little America has only produced enough pitchblende to make one bomb. That’s disregarding the question of getting the company to lend you their one bomb for anything that doesn’t pay dividends.”

Erickson looked balky. “I don’t concede that you’ve covered all the alternatives. What have we got? The early rocket boys went right ahead trying to build better rockets, serene in the belief that, by the time they could build rockets good enough to fly to the Moon, a fuel would be perfected that would do the trick. And they did build ships that were good enough—you could take any ship that makes the antipodes run, and refit it for the Moon—if you had a fuel that was sufficiently concentrated to maintain the necessary push for the whole run. But they haven’t got it.

“And why not? Because we let ’em down, that’s why. Because they’re still depending on molecular energy, on chemical reactions, with atomic power sitting right here in our laps. It’s not their fault—old D. D. Harriman had Rockets Consolidated underwrite the whole first issue of Antarctic Pitchblende, and took a big slice of it himself, in the expectation that we would produce something usable in the way of a concentrated rocket fuel. Did we do it? Like hell! The company went hog-wild for immediate commercial exploitation, and there’s no fuel yet.”

“But you haven’t stated it properly,” Harper objected. “There are just two forms of atomic power available—radioactivity and atomic disintegration. The first is too slow; the energy is there, but you can’t wait years for it to come out—not in a rocketship. The second we can only manage in a large mass of uranium. There you are—stymied.”

Erickson’s Scandinavian stubbornness was just gathering for another try at the argument when the waiter arrived with the drinks. He set them down with a triumphant flourish. “There you are, suh!”

“Want to roll for them, Izzy?” Harper inquired.

“Don’ mind if I do.”

The Negro produced a leather dice cup, and Harper rolled. He selected his combinations with care and managed to get four aces and a jack in three rolls. Israfel took the cup. He rolled in the grand manner with a backward twist to his wrist. His score finished at five kings, and he courteously accepted the price of six drinks. Harper stirred the engraved cubes with his forefinger.

“Izzy,” he asked, “are these the same dice I rolled with?”

“Why, Mistuh Harper!” The Negro’s expression was pained.

“Skip it,” Harper conceded. “I should know better than to gamble with you. I haven’t won a roll from you in six weeks. What did you start to say, Gus?”

“I was just going to say that there ought to be a better way to get energy out of—”

But they were joined again, this time by something very seductive in an evening gown that appeared to have been sprayed on her lush figure. She was young, perhaps nineteen or twenty. “You boys lonely?” she asked as she flowed into a chair.

“Nice of you to ask, but we’re not,” Erickson denied with patient politeness. He jerked a thumb at a solitary figure seated across the room. “Go talk to Hannigan; he’s not busy.”

She followed his gesture with her eyes, and answered with faint scorn: “Him? He’s no use. He’s been like that for three weeks—hasn’t spoken to a soul. If you ask me, I’d say that he was cracking up.”

“That so?” he observed noncommittally. “Here”—he fished out a five-dollar bill and handed it to her—”buy yourself a drink. Maybe we’ll look you up later.”

“Thanks, boys.” The money disappeared under her clothing, and she stood up. “Just ask for Edith.”

“Hannigan does look bad,” Harper considered, noting the brooding stare and apathetic attitude, “and he has been awfully standoffish lately, for him. Do you suppose we’re obliged to report him?”

“Don’t let it worry you,” advised Erickson. “There’s a spotter on the job now. Look.” Harper followed his companion’s eyes and recognized Dr. Mott of the psychological staff. He was leaning against the far end of the bar, and nursing a tall glass, which gave him protective coloration. But his stance was such that his field of vision included not only Hannigan, but Erickson and Harper as well.

“Yeah, and he’s studying us as well,” Harper added. “Damn it to hell, why does it make my back hair rise just to lay eyes on one of them?”

The question was rhetorical; Erickson ignored it. “Let’s get out of here,” he suggested, “and have dinner somewhere else.”

“O.K.”

DeLancey himself waited on them as they left. “Going so soon, gentlemen?” he asked, in a voice that implied that their departure would leave him no reason to stay open. “Beautiful lobster thermidor tonight. If you do not like it, you need not pay.” He smiled brightly.

“Not sea food, Lance,” Harper told him, “not tonight. Tell me—why do you stick around here when you know that the bomb is bound to get you in the long run? Aren’t you afraid of it?”

The tavernkeeper’s eyebrows shot up. “Afraid of the bomb? But it is my friend!”

“Makes you money, eh?”

“Oh, I do not mean that.” He leaned toward them confidentially. “Five years ago I come here to make some money quickly for my family before my cancer of the stomach, it kills me. At the clinic, with the wonderful new radiants you gentlemen make with the aid of the bomb, I am cured—I live again. No, I am not afraid of the bomb, it is my good friend.”

“Suppose it blows up?”

“When the good Lord needs me, He will take me.” He crossed himself quickly.

As they turned away, Erickson commented in a low voice to Harper, “There’s your answer, Cal—if all us engineers had his faith, the bomb wouldn’t get us down.”

Harper was unconvinced. “I don’t know,” he mused. “I don’t think it’s faith; I think it’s lack of imagination—and knowledge.”* * *

Notwithstanding King’s confidence, Lentz did not show up until the next day. The superintendent was subconsciously a little surprised at his visitor’s appearance. He had pictured a master psychologist as wearing flowing hair, an imperial, and having piercing black eyes. But this man was not very tall, was heavy in his framework, and fat—almost gross. He might have been a butcher. Little, piggy, faded-blue eyes peered merrily out from beneath shaggy blond brows. There was no hair anywhere else on the enormous skull, and the apelike jaw was smooth and pink. He was dressed in mussed pajamas of unbleached linen. A long cigarette holder jutted permanently from one corner of a wide mouth, widened still more by a smile with suggested unmalicious amusement at the worst that life, or men, could do. He had gusto.

King found him remarkably easy to talk to.

At Lentz’s suggestion the superintendent went first into the history of the atomic power plant, how the fission of the uranium atom by Dr. Otto Hahn in December, 1938, had opened up the way to atomic power. The door was opened just a crack; the process to be self-perpetuating and commercially usable required an enormously greater mass of uranium than there was available in the entire civilized world at that time.

But the discovery, fifteen years later, of enormous deposits of pitchblende in the old rock underlying Little America removed that obstacle. The deposits were similar to those previously worked at Great Bear Lake in the arctic north of Canada, but so much more extensive that the eventual possibility of accumulating enough uranium to build an atomic power plant became evident.

The demand for commercially usable, cheap power had never been satiated. Even the Douglas-Martin sunpower screens, used to drive the roaring road cities of the period and for a myriad other industrial purposes, were not sufficient to fill the ever-growing demand. They had saved the country from impending famine of oil and coal, but their maximum output of approximately one horsepower per square yard of sun-illuminated surface put a definite limit to the power from that source available in any given geographical area.

Atomic power was needed—was demanded.

But theoretical atomic physics predicted that a uranium mass sufficiently large to assist in its own disintegration might assist too well—blow up instantaneously, with such force that it would probably wreck every man-made structure on the globe and conceivably destroy the entire human race as well. They dared not build the bomb, even though the uranium was available.

“It was Destry’s mechanics of infinitesimals that showed a way out of the dilemma,” King went on. “His equations appeared to predict that an atomic explosion, once started, would disrupt the molar mass inclosing it so rapidly that neutron loss through the outer surface of the fragments would dampen the progression of the atomic explosion to zero before complete explosion could be reached.

“For the mass we use in the bomb, his equations predict a possible force of explosion one seventh of one percent of the force of complete explosion. That alone, of course, would be incomprehensibly destructive—about the equivalent of a hundred and forty thousand tons of TNT—enough to wreck this end of the State. Personally, I’ve never been sure that is all that would happen.”

“Then why did you accept this job?” inquired Lentz.

King fiddled with items on his desk before replying. “I couldn’t turn it down, Doctor—I couldn’t. If I had refused, they would have gotten someone else—and it was an opportunity that comes to a physicist once in history.”

Lentz nodded. “And probably they would have gotten someone not as competent. I understand, Dr. King—you were compelled by the ‘truth-tropism’ of the scientist. He must go where the data is to be found, even if it kills him. But about this fellow Destry, I’ve never liked his mathematics; he postulates too much.”

King looked up in quick surprise, then recalled that this was the man who had refined and given rigor to the calculus of statement. “That’s just the hitch,” he agreed. “His work is brilliant, but I’ve never been sure that his predictions were worth the paper they were written on. Nor, apparently,” he added bitterly, “do my junior engineers.”

He told the psychiatrist of the difficulties they had had with personnel, of how the most carefully selected men would, sooner or later, crack under the strain. “At first I thought it might be some degenerating effect from the hard radiation that leaks out of the bomb, so we improved the screening and the personal armor. But it didn’t help. One young fellow who had joined us after the new screening was installed became violent at dinner one night, and insisted that a pork chop was about to explode. I hate to think of what might have happened if he had been on duty at the bomb when he blew up.”

The inauguration of the system of constant psychological observation had greatly reduced the probability of acute danger resulting from a watch engineer cracking up, but King was forced to admit that the system was not a success; there had actually been a marked increase in psychoneuroses, dating from that time.

“And that’s the picture, Dr. Lentz. It gets worse all the time. It’s getting me now. The strain is telling on me; I can’t sleep, and I don’t think my judgment is as good as it used to be—I have trouble making up my mind, of coming to a decision. Do you think you can do anything for us?”

But Lentz had no immediate relief for his anxiety. “Not so fast, superintendent,” he countered. “You have given me the background, but I have no real data as yet. I must look around for a while, smell out the situation for myself, talk to your engineers, perhaps have a few drinks with them, and get acquainted. That is possible, is it not? Then in a few days, maybe, we’ll know where we stand.”

King had no alternative but to agree.

“And it is well that your young men do not know what I am here for. Suppose I am your old friend, a visiting physicist, eh?”

“Why, yes—of course. I can see to it that the idea gets around. But say—” King was reminded again of something that had bothered him from the time Silard had first suggested Lentz’s name—”may I ask a personal question?”

The merry eyes were undisturbed.

“Go ahead.”

“I can’t help but be surprised that one man should attain eminence in two such widely differing fields as psychology and mathematics. And right now I’m perfectly convinced of your ability to pass yourself off as a physicist. I don’t understand it.”

The smile was more amused, without being in the least patronizing, nor offensive. “Same subject, symbology. You are a specialist; it would not necessarily come to your attention.”

“I still don’t follow you.”

“No? Man lives in a world of ideas. Any phenomenon is so complex that he cannot possibly grasp the whole of it. He abstracts certain characteristics of a given phenomenon as an idea, then represents that idea as a symbol, be it a word or a mathematical sign. Human reaction is almost entirely reaction to symbols, and only negligibly to phenomena. As a matter of fact,” he continued, removing the cigarette holder from his mouth and settling into his subject, “it can be demonstrated that the human mind can think only in terms of symbols.

“When we think, we let symbols operate on other symbols in certain, set fashions—rules of logic, or rules of mathematics. If the symbols have been abstracted so that they are structurally similar to the phenomena they stand for, and if the symbol operations are similar in structure and order to the operations of phenomena in the real world, we think sanely. If our logic-mathematics, or our word-symbols, have been poorly chosen, we do not think sanely.

“In mathematical physics you are concerned with making your symbology fit physical phenomena. In psychiatry I am concerned with precisely the same thing, except that I am more immediately concerned with the man who does the thinking than with the phenomena he is thinking about. But the same subject, always the same subject.”

“We’re not getting anyplace, . . . Gus.” Harper put down his slide rule and frowned.

“Seems like it, Cal,” Erickson grudgingly admitted. “Damn it, though—there ought to be some reasonable way of tackling the problem. What do we need? Some form of concentrated, controllable power for rocket fuel. What have we got? Power galore in the bomb. There must be some way to bottle that power, and serve it out when we need it—and the answer is someplace in one of the radioactive series. I know it.” He stared glumly around the laboratory as if expecting to find the answer written somewhere on the lead-sheathed walls.

“Don’t be so down in the mouth about it. You’ve got me convinced there is an answer; let’s figure out how to find it. In the first place the three natural radioactive series are out, aren’t they?”

“Yes—at least we had agreed that all that ground had been fully covered before.”

“O.K.; we have to assume that previous investigators have done what their notes show they have done—otherwise we might as well not believe anything, and start checking on everybody from Archimedes to date. Maybe that is indicated, but Methuselah himself couldn’t carry out such an assignment. What have we got left?”

“Artificial radioactives.”

“All right. Let’s set up a list of them, both those that have been made up to now, and those that might possibly be made in the future. Call that our group—or rather, field, if you want to be pedantic about definitions. There are a limited number of operations that can be performed on each member of the group, and on the members taken in combination. Set it up.”

Erickson did so, using the curious curlicues of the calculus of statement. Harper nodded. “All right—expand it.”

Erickson looked up after a few moments, and asked, “Cal, have you any idea how many terms there are in the expansion?”

“No—hundreds, maybe thousands, I suppose.”

“You’re conservative. It reaches four figures without considering possible new radioactives. We couldn’t finish such a research in a century.” He chucked his pencil down and looked morose.

Cal Harper looked at him curiously, but with sympathy. “Gus,” he said gently, “the bomb isn’t getting you, too, is it?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“I never saw you so willing to give up anything before. Naturally you and I will never finish any such job, but at the very worst we will have eliminated a lot of wrong answers for somebody else. Look at Edison—sixty years of experimenting, twenty hours a day, yet he never found out the one thing he was most interested in knowing. I guess if he could take it, we can.”

Erickson pulled out of his funk to some extent. “I suppose so,” he agreed. “Anyhow, maybe we could work out some techniques for carrying on a lot of experiments simultaneously.”

Harper slapped him on the shoulder. “That’s the ol’ fight. Besides—we may not need to finish the research, or anything like it, to find a satisfactory fuel. The way I see it, there are probably a dozen, maybe a hundred, right answers. We may run across one of them any day. Anyhow, since you’re willing to give me a hand with it in your off-watch time, I’m game to peck away at it till hell freezes.”* * *

Lentz puttered around the plant and the administration center for several days, until he was known to everyone by sight. He made himself pleasant and asked questions. He was soon regarded as a harmless nuisance, to be tolerated because he was a friend of the superintendent. He even poked his nose into the commercial power end of the plant, and had the mercury-steam-turbogenerator sequence explained to him in detail. This alone would have been sufficient to disarm any suspicion that he might be a psychiatrist, for the staff psychiatrists paid no attention to the hard-bitten technicians of the power-conversion unit. There was no need to; mental instability on their part could not affect the bomb, nor were they subject to the man-killing strain of social responsibility. Theirs was simply a job personally dangerous, a type of strain strong men have been inured to since the jungle.

In due course he got around to the unit of the radiation laboratory set aside for Calvin Harper’s use. He rang the bell and waited. Harper answered the door, his antiradiation helmet shoved back from his face like a grotesque sunbonnet. “What is it?” he asked. “Oh—it’s you, Dr. Lentz. Did you want to see me?”

“Why, yes and no,” the older man answered. “I was just looking around the experimental station, and wondered what you do in here. Will I be in the way?”

“Not at all. Come in. Gus!”

Erickson got up from where he had been fussing over the power leads to their trigger—a modified cyclotron rather than a resonant accelerator. “Hello.”

“Gus, this is Dr. Lentz—Gus Erickson.”

“We’ve met,” said Erickson, pulling off his gauntlet to shake hands. He had had a couple of drinks with Lentz in town and considered him a “nice old duck.” “You’re just between shows, but stick around and we’ll start another run—not that there is much to see.”

While Erickson continued with the setup, Harper conducted Lentz around the laboratory, explaining the line of research they were conducting, as happy as a father showing off twins. The psychiatrist listened with one ear and made appropriate comments while he studied the young scientist for signs of the instability he had noted to be recorded against him.

“You see,” Harper explained, oblivious to the interest in himself, “we are testing radioactive materials to see if we can produce disintegration of the sort that takes place in the bomb, but in a minute, almost microscopic, mass. If we are successful, we can use the power of the bomb to make a safe, convenient, atomic fuel for rockets.” He went on to explain their schedule of experimentation.

“I see,” Lentz observed politely. “What metal are you examining now?”

Harper told him. “But it’s not a case of examining one element—we’ve finished Isotope II with negative results. Our schedule calls next for running the same test on Isotope V. Like this.” He hauled out a lead capsule, and showed the label to Lentz, who saw that it was, indeed, marked with the symbol of the fifth isotope. He hurried away to the shield around the target of the cyclotron, left open by Erickson. Lentz saw that he had opened the capsule, and was performing some operation on it in a gingerly manner, having first lowered his helmet. Then he closed and clamped the target shield.

“O.K., Gus?” he called out. “Ready to roll?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Erickson assured him, coming around them. They crowded behind a thick metal shield that cut them off from direct sight of the setup.

“Will I need to put on armor?” inquired Lentz.

“No,” Erickson reassured him, “we wear it because we are around the stuff day in and day out. You just stay behind the shield and you’ll be all right. It’s lead—backed up by eight inches of case-hardened armor plate.”

Erickson glanced at Harper, who nodded, and fixed his eyes on a panel of instruments mounted behind the shield. Lentz saw Erickson press a push button at the top of the board, then heard a series of relays click on the far side of the shield. There was a short moment of silence.

The floor slapped his feet like some incredible bastinado. The concussion that beat on his ears was so intense that it paralyzed the auditory nerve almost before it could be recorded as sound. The air-conducted concussion wave flailed every inch of his body with a single, stinging, numbing blow. As he picked himself up, he found he was trembling uncontrollably and realized, for the first time, that he was getting old.

Harper was seated on the floor and had commenced to bleed from the nose. Erickson had gotten up; his cheek was cut. He touched a hand to the wound, then stood there, regarding the blood on his fingers with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Are you hurt?” Lentz inquired inanely. “What happened?”

Harper cut in. “Gus, we’ve done it! We’ve done it! Isotope V’s turned the trick!”

Erickson looked still more bemused. “Five?” he said stupidly. “But that wasn’t Five; that was Isotope II. I put it in myself.”

“You put it in? I put it in! It was Five, I tell you!”

They stood staring at each other, still confused by the explosion, and each a little annoyed at the bone-headed stupidity the other displayed in the face of the obvious. Lentz diffidently interceded.

“Wait a minute, boys,” he suggested. “Maybe there’s a reason—Gus, you placed a quantity of the second isotope in the receiver?”

“Why, yes, certainly. I wasn’t satisfied with the last run, and I wanted to check it.”

Lentz nodded. “It’s my fault, gentlemen,” he admitted ruefully. “I came in and disturbed your routine, and both of you charged the receiver. I know Harper did, for I saw him do it—with Isotope V. I’m sorry.”

Understanding broke over Harper’s face, and he slapped the older man on the shoulder. “Don’t be sorry,” he laughed; “you can come around to our lab and help us make mistakes any time you feel in the mood. Can’t he, Gus? This is the answer, Dr. Lentz; this is it!”

“But,” the psychiatrist pointed out, “you don’t know which isotope blew up.”

“Nor care,” Harper supplemented. “Maybe it was both, taken together. But we will know—this business is cracked now; we’ll soon have it open.” He gazed happily around at the wreckage.* * *

In spite of Superintendent King’s anxiety, Lentz refused to be hurried in passing judgment on the situation. Consequently, when he did present himself at King’s office, and announced that he was ready to report, King was pleasantly surprised as well as relieved. “Well, I’m delighted,” he said. “Sit down, Doctor, sit down. Have a cigar. What do we do about it?”

But Lentz stuck to his perennial cigarette and refused to be hurried. “I must have some information first. How important,” he demanded, “is the power from your plant?”

King understood the implication at once. “If you are thinking about shutting down the bomb for more than a limited period, it can’t be done.”

“Why not? If the figures supplied me are correct, your output is less than thirteen percent of the total power used in the country.”

“Yes, that is true, but you haven’t considered the items that go into making up the total. A lot of it is domestic power, which householders get from sunscreens located on their own roofs. Another big slice is power for the moving roadways—that’s sunpower again. The portion we provide here is the main power source for most of the heavy industries—steel, plastics, lithics, all kinds of manufacturing and processing. You might as well cut the heart out of a man—”

“But the food industry isn’t basically dependent on you?” Lentz persisted.

“No. Food isn’t basically a power industry—although we do supply a certain percentage of the power used in processing. I see your point, and will go on and concede that transportation—that is to say, distribution of food—could get along without us. But, good heavens, Doctor, you can’t stop atomic power without causing the biggest panic this country has ever seen. It’s the keystone of our whole industrial system.”

“The country has lived through panics before, and we got past the oil shortage safely.”

“Yes—because atomic power came along to take the place of oil. You don’t realize what this would mean, Doctor. It would be worse than a war; in a system like ours, one thing depends on another. If you cut off the heavy industries all at once, everything else stops, too.”

“Nevertheless, you had better dump the bomb.” The uranium in the bomb was molten, its temperature being greater than twenty-four hundred degrees centigrade. The bomb could be dumped into a group of small containers, when it was desired to shut it down. The mass in any one container was too small to maintain progressive atomic disintegration.

King glanced involuntarily at the glass-inclosed relay mounted on his office wall, by which he, as well as the engineer on duty, could dump the bomb, if need be. “But I couldn’t do that—or rather, if I did, the plant wouldn’t stay shut down. The Directors would simply replace me with someone who would operate the bomb.”

“You’re right, of course.” Lentz silently considered the situation for some time, then said, “Superintendent, will you order a car to fly me back to Chicago?”

“You’re going, Doctor?”

“Yes.” He took the cigarette holder from his face, and, for once, the smile of Olympian detachment was gone completely. His entire manner was sober, even tragic. “Short of shutting down the bomb, there is no solution to your problem—none whatsoever!

“I owe you a full explanation.” Lentz continued, at length. “You are confronted here with recurring instances of situational psychoneurosis. Roughly, the symptoms manifest themselves as anxiety neurosis or some form of hysteria. The partial amnesia of your secretary, Steinke, is a good example of the latter. He might be cured with shock technique, but it would hardly be a kindness, as he has achieved a stable adjustment which puts him beyond the reach of the strain he could not stand.

“That other young fellow, Harper, whose blowup was the immediate cause of your sending for me, is an anxiety case. When the cause of the anxiety was eliminated from his matrix, he at once regained full sanity. But keep a close watch on his friend, Erickson—

“However, it is the cause, and prevention, of situational psychoneurosis we are concerned with here, rather than the forms in which it is manifested. In plain language, psychoneurosis situational simply refers to the common fact that, if you put a man in a situation that worries him more than he can stand, in time he blows up, one way or another.

“That is precisely the situation here. You take sensitive, intelligent young men, impress them with the fact that a single slip on their part, or even some fortuitous circumstance beyond their control, will result in the death of God knows how many other people, and then expect them to remain sane. It’s ridiculous—impossible!”

“But, good heavens, Doctor, there must be some answer! There must!” He got up and paced around the room. Lentz noted, with pity, that King himself was riding the ragged edge of the very condition they were discussing.

“No,” he said slowly. “No. Let me explain. You don’t dare intrust the bomb to less sensitive, less socially conscious men. You might as well turn the controls over to a mindless idiot. And to psychoneurosis situational there are but two cures. The first obtains when the psychosis results from a misevaluation of environment. That cure calls for semantic readjustment. One assists the patient to evaluate correctly his environment. The worry disappears because there never was a real reason for worry in the situation itself, but simply in the wrong meaning the patient’s mind had assigned to it.

“The second case is when the patient has correctly evaluated the situation, and rightly finds in it cause for extreme worry. His worry is perfectly sane and proper, but he cannot stand up under it indefinitely; it drives him crazy. The only possible cure is to change the situation. I have stayed here long enough to assure myself that such is the condition here. Your engineers have correctly evaluated the public danger of this bomb, and it will, with dreadful certainty, drive all of you crazy!

“The only possible solution is to dump the bomb—and leave it dumped.”

King had continued his nervous pacing of the floor, as if the walls of the room itself were the cage of his dilemma. Now he stopped and appealed once more to the psychiatrist. “Isn’t there anything I can do?”

“Nothing to cure. To alleviate—well, possibly.”

“How?”

“Situational psychosis results from adrenaline exhaustion. When a man is placed under a nervous strain, his adrenal glands increase their secretion to help compensate for the strain. If the strain is too great and lasts too long, the adrenals aren’t equal to the task, and he cracks. That is what you have here. Adrenaline therapy might stave off a mental breakdown, but it most assuredly would hasten a physical breakdown. But that would be safer from a viewpoint of public welfare—even though it assumes that physicists are expendable!

“Another thing occurs to me: If you selected any new watch engineers from the membership of churches that practice the confessional, it would increase the length of their usefulness.”

King was plainly surprised. “I don’t follow you.”

“The patient unloads most of his worry on his confessor, who is not himself actually confronted by the situation, and can stand it. That is simply an ameliorative, however. I am convinced that, in this situation, eventual insanity is inevitable. But there is a lot of good sense in the confessional,” he added. “It fills a basic human need. I think that is why the early psychoanalysts were so surprisingly successful, for all their limited knowledge.” He fell silent for a while, then added, “If you will be so kind as to order a stratocab for me—”

“You’ve nothing more to suggest?”

“No. You had better turn your psychological staff loose on means of alleviation; they’re able men, all of them.”

King pressed a switch and spoke briefly to Steinke. Turning back to Lentz, he said, “You’ll wait here until your car is ready?”

Lentz judged correctly that King desired it and agreed. Presently the tube delivery on King’s desk went ping! The Superintendent removed a small white pasteboard, a calling card. He studied it with surprise and passed it over to Lentz. “I can’t imagine why he should be calling on me,” he observed, and added, “Would you like to meet him?”

Lentz read:

THOMAS P. HARRINGTON
captain (mathematics)
united states navy

director
u.s. naval observatory

“But I do know him,” he said. “I’d be very pleased to see him.”

Harrington was a man with something on his mind. He seemed relieved when Steinke had finished ushering him in, and had returned to the outer office. He commenced to speak at once, turning to Lentz, who was nearer to him than King. “You’re King? . . . Why, Dr. Lentz! What are you doing here?”

“Visiting,” answered Lentz, accurately but incompletely, as he shook hands. “This is Superintendent King over here. Superintendent King—Captain Harrington.”

“How do you do, Captain—it’s a pleasure to have you here.”

“It’s an honor to be here, sir.”

“Sit down?”

“Thanks.” He accepted a chair and laid a briefcase on a corner of King’s desk. “Superintendent, you are entitled to an explanation as to why I have broken in on you like this—”

“Glad to have you.” In fact, the routine of formal politeness was an anodyne to King’s frayed nerves.

“That’s kind of you, but— That secretary chap, the one that brought me in here, would it be too much to ask you to tell him to forget my name? I know it seems strange—”

“Not at all.” King was mystified, but willing to grant any reasonable request of a distinguished colleague in science. He summoned Steinke to the interoffice visiphone and gave him his orders.

Lentz stood up and indicated that he was about to leave. He caught Harrington’s eye. “I think you want a private palaver, Captain.”

King looked from Harrington to Lentz and back to Harrington. The astronomer showed momentary indecision, then protested: “I have no objection at all myself; it’s up to Dr. King. As a matter of fact,” he added, “it might be a very good thing if you did sit in on it.”

“I don’t know what it is, Captain,” observed King, “that you want to see me about, but Dr. Lentz is already here in a confidential capacity.”

“Good! Then that’s settled. I’ll get right down to business. Dr. King, you know Destry’s mechanics of infinitesimals?”

“Naturally.” Lentz cocked a brow at King, who chose to ignore it.

“Yes, of course. Do you remember theorem six and the transformation between equations thirteen and fourteen?”

“I think so, but I’d want to see them.” King got up and went over to a bookcase. Harrington stayed him with a hand.

“Don’t bother. I have them here.” He hauled out a key, unlocked his briefcase, and drew out a large, much-thumbed, loose-leaf notebook. “Here. You, too, Dr. Lentz. Are you familiar with this development?”

Lentz nodded. “I’ve had occasion to look into them.”

“Good—I think it’s agreed that the step between thirteen and fourteen is the key to the whole matter. Now, the change from thirteen to fourteen looks perfectly valid—and would be, in some fields. But suppose we expand it to show every possible phase of the matter, every link in the chain of reasoning.”

He turned a page and showed them the same two equations broken down into nine intermediate equations. He placed a finger under an associated group of mathematical symbols. “Do you see that? Do you see what that implies?” He peered anxiously at their faces.

King studied it, his lips moving. “Yes . . . I believe I do see. Odd . . . I never looked at it just that way before—yet I’ve studied those equations until I’ve dreamed about them.” He turned to Lentz. “Do you agree, Doctor?”

Lentz nodded slowly. “I believe so. . . . Yes, I think I may say so.”

Harrington should have been pleased; he wasn’t. “I had hoped you could tell me I was wrong,” he said, almost petulantly, “but I’m afraid there is no further doubt about it. Dr. Destry included an assumption valid in molar physics, but for which we have absolutely no assurance in atomic physics. I suppose you realize what this means to you, Dr. King?”

King’s voice was dry whisper. “Yes,” he said, “yes— It means that if that bomb out there ever blows up, we must assume that it will go up all at once, rather than the way Destry predicted—and God help the human race!”

Captain Harrington cleared his throat to break the silence that followed. “Superintendent,” he said, “I would not have ventured to call had it been simply a matter of disagreement as to interpretation of theoretical predictions—”

“You have something more to go on?”

“Yes and no. Probably you gentlemen think of the Naval Observatory as being exclusively preoccupied with ephemerides and tide tables. In a way you would be right—but we still have some time to devote to research as long as it doesn’t cut into the appropriation. My special interest has always been lunar theory.

“I don’t mean lunar ballistics,” he continued. “I mean the much more interesting problem of its origin and history, the problem the younger Darwin struggled with, as well as my illustrious predecessor, Captain T. J. J. See. I think that it is obvious that any theory of lunar origin and history must take into account the surface features of the Moon—especially the mountains, the craters, that mark its face so prominently.”

He paused momentarily, and Superintendent King put in: “Just a minute, Captain—I may be stupid, or perhaps I missed something, but—is there a connection between what we were discussing before and lunar theory?”

“Bear with me for a few moments, Dr. King,” Harrington apologized. “There is a connection—at least, I’m afraid there is a connection—but I would rather present my points in their proper order before making my conclusions.” They granted him an alert silence; he went on:

“Although we are in the habit of referring to the ‘craters’ of the Moon, we know they are not volcanic craters. Superficially, they follow none of the rules of terrestrial volcanoes in appearance or distribution, but when Rutter came out in 1952 with his monograph on the dynamics of vulcanology, he proved rather conclusively that the lunar craters could not be caused by anything that we know as volcanic action.

“That left the bombardment theory as the simplest hypothesis. It looks good, on the face of it, and a few minutes spent throwing pebbles into a patch of mud will convince anyone that the lunar craters could have been formed by falling meteors.

“But there are difficulties. If the Moon was struck so repeatedly, why not the Earth? It hardly seems necessary to mention that the Earth’s atmosphere would be no protection against masses big enough to form craters like Endymion or Plato. And if they fell after the Moon was a dead world while the Earth was still young enough to change its face and erase the marks of bombardment, why did the meteors avoid so nearly completely the great dry basins we call lunar seas?

“I want to cut this short; you’ll find the data and the mathematical investigations from the data here in my notes. There is one other major objection to the meteor-bombardment theory: the great rays that spread from Tycho across almost the entire surface of the Moon. It makes the Moon look like a crystal ball that had been struck with a hammer, and impact from outside seems evident, but there are difficulties. The striking mass, our hypothetical meteor, must be small enough to have formed the crater of Tycho, but it must have the mass and speed to crack an entire planet.

“Work it out for yourself—you must either postulate a chunk out of the core of a dwarf star, or speeds such as we have never observed within the system. It’s conceivable but a farfetched explanation.”

He turned to King. “Doctor, does anything occur to you that might account for a phenomenon like Tycho?”

The Superintendent grasped the arms of his chair, then glanced at his palms. He fumbled for a handkerchief, and wiped them. “Go ahead,” he said, almost inaudibly.

“Very well then.” Harrington drew out of his briefcase a large photograph of the Moon—a beautiful full-Moon portrait made at Lick. “I want you to imagine the Moon as she might have been sometime in the past. The dark areas we call the ‘seas’ are actual oceans. It has an atmosphere, perhaps a heavier gas than oxygen and nitrogen, but an active gas, capable of supporting some conceivable form of life.

“For this is an inhabited planet, inhabited by intelligent beings, beings capable of discovering atomic power and exploiting it!”

He pointed out on the photograph, near the southern limb, the lime-white circle of Tycho, with its shining, incredible, thousand-mile-long rays spreading, thrusting, jutting out from it. “Here . . . here at Tycho was located their main power plant.” He moved his fingers to a point near the equator and somewhat east of meridian—the point where three great dark areas merged, Mare Nubium, Mare Imbrium, Oceanus Procellarum—and picked out two bright splotches surrounded, also, by rays, but shorter, less distinct, and wavy. “And here at Copernicus and at Kepler, on islands at the middle of a great ocean, were secondary power stations.”

He paused, and interpolated soberly: “Perhaps they knew the danger they ran, but wanted power so badly that they were willing to gamble the life of their race. Perhaps they were ignorant of the ruinous possibilities of their little machines, or perhaps their mathematicians assured them that it could not happen.

“But we will never know—no one can ever know. For it blew up and killed them—and it killed their planet.

“It whisked off the gassy envelope and blew it into outer space. It blasted great chunks off the planet’s crust. Perhaps some of that escaped completely, too, but all that did not reach the speed of escape fell back down in time and splashed great ring-shaped craters in the land.

“The oceans cushioned the shock; only the more massive fragments formed craters through the water. Perhaps some life still remained in those ocean depths. If so, it was doomed to die—for the water, unprotected by atmospheric pressure, could not remain liquid and must inevitably escape in time to outer space. Its life-blood drained away. The planet was dead—dead by suicide!”

He met the grave eyes of his two silent listeners with an expression almost of appeal. “Gentlemen . . . this is only a theory, I realize . . . only a theory, a dream, a nightmare . . . but it has kept me awake so many nights that I had to come tell you about it, and see if you saw it the same way I do. As for the mechanics of it, it’s all in there in my notes. You can check it—and I pray that you find some error! But it is the only lunar theory I have examined which included all of the known data and accounted for all of them.”

He appeared to have finished. Lentz spoke up. “Suppose, Captain, suppose we check your mathematics and find no flaw—what then?”

Harrington flung out his hands. “That’s what I came here to find out!”

Although Lentz had asked the question, Harrington directed the appeal to King. The Superintendent looked up; his eyes met the astronomer’s, wavered and dropped again. “There’s nothing to be done,” he said dully, “nothing at all.”

Harrington stared at him in open amazement. “But good God, man!” he burst out. “Don’t you see it? That bomb has got to be disassembled—at once!”

“Take it easy, Captain.” Lentz’s calm voice was a spray of cold water. “And don’t be too harsh on poor King—this worries him even more than it does you. What he means is this: We’re not faced with a problem in physics, but with a political and economic situation. Let’s put it this way: King can no more dump the bomb than a peasant with a vineyard on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius can abandon his holdings and pauperize his family simply because there will be an eruption some day.

“King doesn’t own that bomb out there; he’s only the custodian. If he dumps it against the wishes of the legal owners, they’ll simply oust him and put in someone more amenable. No, we have to convince the owners.”

“The President could do it,” suggested Harrington. “I could get to the President—”

“No doubt you could, through the Navy Department. And you might even convince him. But could he help much?”

“Why, of course he could. He’s the President!”

“Wait a minute. You’re Director of the Naval Observatory; suppose you took a sledge hammer and tried to smash the big telescope—how far would you get?”

“Not very far,” Harrington conceded. “We guard the big fellow pretty closely.”

“Nor can the President act in an arbitrary manner,” Lentz persisted. “He’s not an unlimited monarch. If he shuts down this plant without due process of law, the Federal courts will tie him in knots. I admit that Congress isn’t helpless but—would you like to try to give a congressional committee a course in the mechanics of infinitesimals?”

Harrington readily stipulated the point. “But there is another way,” he pointed out. “Congress is responsive to public opinion. What we need to do is to convince the public that the bomb is a menace to everybody. That could be done without ever trying to explain things in terms of higher mathematics.”

“Certainly it could,” Lentz agreed. “You could go on the air with it and scare everybody half to death. You could create the damnedest panic this slightly slug-nutty country has ever seen. No, thank you. I, for one, would rather have us all take the chance of being quietly killed than bring on a mass psychosis that would destroy the culture we are building up. I think one taste of the Crazy Years is enough.”

“Well, then, what do you suggest?”

Lentz considered shortly, then answered: “All I see is a forlorn hope. We’ve got to work on the Board of Directors and try to beat some sense into their heads.”

King, who had been following the discussion with attention in spite of his tired despondence, interjected a remark: “How would you go about that?”

“I don’t know,” Lentz admitted. “It will take some thinking. But it seems the most fruitful line of approach. If it doesn’t work, we can always fall back on Harrington’s notion of publicity—I don’t insist that the world commit suicide to satisfy my criteria of evaluation.”

Harrington glanced at his wristwatch—a bulky affair—and whistled. “Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “I forgot the time! I’m supposed officially to be at the Flagstaff Observatory.”

King had automatically noted the time shown by the Captain’s watch as it was displayed. “But it can’t be that late,” he had objected. Harrington looked puzzled, then laughed.

“It isn’t—not by two hours. We are in zone plus-seven; this shows zone plus-five—it’s radio-synchronized with the master clock at Washington.”

“Did you say radio-synchronized?”

“Yes. Clever, isn’t it?” He held it out for inspection. “I call it a telechronometer; it’s the only one of its sort to date. My nephew designed it for me. He’s a bright one, that boy. He’ll go far. That is”—his face clouded, as if the little interlude had only served to emphasize the tragedy that hung over them—”if any of us live that long!”

A signal light glowed at King’s desk, and Steinke’s face showed on the communicator screen. King answered him, then said, “Your car is ready, Dr. Lentz.”

“Let Captain Harrington have it.”

“Then you’re not going back to Chicago?”

“No. The situation has changed. If you want me, I’m stringing along.”* * *

The following Friday, Steinke ushered Lentz into King’s office. King looked almost happy as he shook hands. “When did you ground, Doctor? I didn’t expect you back for another hour or so.”

“Just now. I hired a cab instead of waiting for the shuttle.”

“Any luck?”

“None. The same answer they gave you: ‘The Company is assured by independent experts that Destry’s mechanics is valid, and sees no reason to encourage an hysterical attitude among its employees.'”

King tapped on his desk top, his eyes unfocused. Then, hitching himself around to face Lentz directly, he said, “Do you suppose the Chairman is right?”

“How?”

“Could the three of us—you, me and Harrington—have gone off the deep end—slipped mentally?”

No.

“You’re sure?”

“Certainly. I looked up some independent experts of my own, not retained by the Company, and had them check Harrington’s work. It checks.” Lentz purposely neglected to mention that he had done so partly because he was none too sure of King’s present mental stability.

King sat up briskly, reached out and stabbed a push button. “I am going to make one more try,” he explained, “to see if I can’t throw a scare into Dixon’s thick head. Steinke,” he said to the communicator, “get me Mr. Dixon on the screen.”

“Yes, sir.”

In about two minutes the visiphone screen came to life and showed the features of Chairman Dixon. He was transmitting, not from his office, but from the board room of the Company in Jersey City. “Yes?” he said. “What is it, Superintendent?” His manner was somehow both querulous and affable.

“Mr. Dixon,” King began, “I’ve called to try to impress on you the seriousness of the Company’s action. I stake my scientific reputation that Harrington has proved completely that—”

“Oh, that? Mr. King, I thought you understood that that was a closed matter.”

“But, Mr. Dixon—”

“Superintendent, please! If there were any possible legitimate cause to fear, do you think I would hesitate? I have children, you know, and grandchildren.”

“That is just why—”

“We try to conduct the affairs of the company with reasonable wisdom and in the public interest. But we have other responsibilities, too. There are hundreds of thousands of little stockholders who expect us to show a reasonable return on their investment. You must not expect us to jettison a billion-dollar corporation just because you’ve taken up astrology! Moon theory!” He sniffed.

“Very well, Mr. Chairman.” King’s tone was stiff.

“Don’t take it that way, Mr. King. I’m glad you called—the Board has just adjourned a special meeting. They have decided to accept you for retirement—with full pay, of course.”

“I did not apply for retirement!”

“I know, Mr. King, but the Board feels that—”

“I understand. Good-by!”

“Mr. King—”

“Good-by!” He switched him off, and turned to Lentz. “‘—with full pay,'” he quoted, “which I can enjoy in any way that I like for the rest of my life—just as happy as a man in the death house!”

“Exactly,” Lentz agreed. “Well, we’ve tried our way. I suppose we should call up Harrington now and let him try the political and publicity method.”

“I suppose so,” King seconded absentmindedly. “Will you be leaving for Chicago now?”

“No,” said Lentz. “No . . . I think I will catch the shuttle for Los Angeles and take the evening rocket for the antipodes.”

King looked surprised, but said nothing. Lentz answered the unspoken comment. “Perhaps some of us on the other side of the Earth will survive. I’ve done all that I can here. I would rather be a live sheepherder in Australia than a dead psychiatrist in Chicago.”

King nodded vigorously, “That shows horse sense. For two cents, I’d dump the bomb now and go with you.”

“Not horse sense, my friend—a horse will run back into a burning barn, which is exactly not what I plan to do. Why don’t you do it and come along? If you did, it would help Harrington to scare ’em to death.”

“I believe I will!”

Steinke’s face appeared again on the screen. “Harper and Erickson are here, chief.”

“I’m busy.

“They are pretty urgent about seeing you.”

“Oh . . . all right,” King said in a tired voice. “Show them in. It doesn’t matter.”

They breezed in, Harper in the van. He commenced talking at once, oblivious to the Superintendent’s morose preoccupation. “We’ve got it, chief, we’ve got it—and it all checks out to the umpteenth decimal!”

“You’ve got what? Speak English.”

Harper grinned. He was enjoying his moment of triumph, and was stretching it out to savor it. “Chief, do you remember a few weeks back when I asked for an additional allotment—a special one without specifying how I was going to spend it?”

“Yes. Come on—get to the point.”

“You kicked at first, but finally granted it. Remember? Well, we’ve got something to show for it, all tied up in pink ribbon. It’s the greatest advance in radioactivity since Hahn split the nucleus. Atomic fuel, chief, atomic fuel, safe, concentrated, and controllable. Suitable for rockets, for power plants, for any damn thing you care to use it for.”

King showed alert interest for the first time. “You mean a power source that doesn’t require the bomb?”

“The bomb? Oh, no. I didn’t say that. You use the bomb to make the fuel, then you use the fuel anywhere and anyhow you like, with something like ninety-two percent recovery of the energy of the bomb. But you could junk the mercury-steam sequence, if you wanted to.”

King’s first wild hope of a way out of his dilemma was dashed; he subsided. “Go ahead. Tell me about it.”

“Well—it’s a matter of artificial radioactives. Just before I asked for that special research allotment, Erickson and I—Dr. Lentz had a finger in it, too—found two isotopes of a radioactive that seemed to be mutually antagonistic. That is, when we goosed ’em in the presence of each other they gave up their latent energy all at once—blew all to hell. The important point is, we were using just a gnat’s whisker of mass of each—the reaction didn’t require a big mass like the bomb to maintain it.”

“I don’t see,” objected King, “how that could—”

“Neither do we, quite—but it works. We’ve kept it quiet until we were sure. We checked on what we had, and we found a dozen other fuels. Probably we’ll be able to tailormake fuels for any desired purpose. But here it is.” Harper handed King a bound sheaf of typewritten notes which he had been carrying under the arm. “That’s your copy. Look it over.”

King started to do so. Lentz joined him, after a look that was a silent request for permission, which Erickson had answered with his only verbal contribution, “Sure, Doc.”

As King read, the troubled feeling of an acutely harassed executive left him. His dominant personality took charge, that of the scientist. He enjoyed the controlled and cerebral ecstasy of the impersonal seeker for the elusive truth. The emotions felt in the throbbing thalamus were permitted only to form a sensuous obligato for the cold flame of cortical activity. For the time being, he was sane, more nearly completely sane than most men ever achieve at any time.

For a long period there was only an occasional grunt, the clatter of turned pages, a nod of approval. At last he put it down.

“It’s the stuff,” he said. “You’ve done it, boys. It’s great; I’m proud of you.”

Erickson glowed a bright pink and swallowed. Harper’s small, tense figure gave the ghost of a wriggle, reminiscent of a wire-haired terrier receiving approval. “That’s fine, chief. We’d rather hear you say that than get the Nobel Prize.”

“I think you’ll probably get it. However”—the proud light in his eyes died down—”I’m not going to take any action in this matter.”

“Why not, chief?” Harper’s tone was bewildered.

“I’m being retired. My successor will take over in the near future; this is too big a matter to start just before a change in administration.”

“You being retired! What the hell! Why?“

“About the same reason I took you off the bomb—at least, the Directors think so.”

“But that’s nonsense! You were right to take me off the bomb; I was getting jumpy. But you’re another matter—we all depend on you.”

“Thanks, Cal—but that’s how it is; there’s nothing to be done about it.” He turned to Lentz. “I think this is the last ironical touch needed to make the whole thing pure farce,” he observed bitterly. “This thing is big, bigger than we can guess at this stage—and I have to give it a miss.”

“Well,” Harper burst out, “I can think of something to do about it!” He strode over to King’s desk and snatched up the manuscript. “Either you superintend the exploitation or the company will damn well get along without our discovery!” Erickson concurred belligerently.

“Wait a minute.” Lentz had the floor. “Dr. Harper, have you already achieved a practical rocket fuel?”

“I said so. We’ve got it on hand now.”

“An escape-speed fuel?” They understood his verbal shorthand—a fuel that would lift a rocket free of the Earth’s gravitational pull.

“Sure. Why, you could take any of the Clipper rockets, refit them a trifle, and have breakfast on the Moon.”

“Very well. Bear with me—” He obtained a sheet of paper from King and commenced to write. They watched in mystified impatience. He continued briskly for some minutes, hesitating only momentarily. Presently he stopped and spun the paper over to King. “Solve it!” he demanded.

King studied the paper. Lentz had assigned symbols to a great number of factors, some social, some psychological, some physical, some economical. He had thrown them together into a structural relationship, using the symbols of calculus of statement. King understood the paramathematical operations indicated by the symbols, but he was not as used to them as he was to the symbols and operations of mathematical physics. He plowed through the equations, moving his lips slightly in unconscious subvocalization.

He accepted a pencil from Lentz and completed the solution. It required several more lines, a few more equations, before the elements canceled out, or rearranged themselves, into a definite answer.

He stared at this answer while puzzlement gave way to dawning comprehension and delight.

He looked up. “Erickson! Harper!” he rapped out. “We will take your new fuel, refit a large rocket, install the bomb in it, and throw it into an orbit around the Earth, far out in space. There we will use it to make more fuel, safe fuel, for use on Earth, with the danger from the bomb itself limited to the operators actually on watch!”

There was no applause. It was not that sort of an idea; their minds were still struggling with the complex implications.

“But, chief,” Harper finally managed, “how about your retirement? We’re still not going to stand for it.”

“Don’t worry,” King assured him. “It’s all in there, implicit in those equations, you two, me, Lentz, the Board of Directors—and just what we all have to do to accomplish it.”

“All except the matter of time,” Lentz cautioned.

“Eh?”

“You’ll note that elapsed time appears in your answer as an undetermined unknown.”

“Yes . . . yes, of course. That’s the chance we have to take. Let’s get busy!”* * *

Chairman Dixon called the Board of Directors to order. “This being a special meeting, we’ll dispense with minutes and reports,” he announced. “As set forth in the call we have agreed to give the retiring superintendent three hours of our time.”

“Mr. Chairman—”

“Yes, Mr. Thornton?”

“I thought we had settled that matter.”

“We have, Mr. Thornton, but in view of Superintendent King’s long and distinguished service, if he asks a hearing, we are honor bound to grant it. You have the floor, Dr. King.”

King got up and stated briefly, “Dr. Lentz will speak for me.” He sat down.

Lentz had to wait till coughing, throat clearing and scraping of chairs subsided. It was evident that the board resented the outsider.

Lentz ran quickly over the main points in the argument which contended that the bomb presented an intolerable danger anywhere on the face of the Earth. He moved on at once to the alternative proposal that the bomb should be located in a rocketship, an artificial moonlet flying in a free orbit around the Earth at a convenient distance—say, fifteen thousand miles—while secondary power stations on earth burned a safe fuel manufactured by the bomb.

He announced the discovery of the Harper-Erickson technique and dwelt on what it meant to them commercially. Each point was presented as persuasively as possible, with the full power of his engaging personality. Then he paused and waited for them to blow off steam.

They did. “Visionary—” “Unproved—” “No essential change in the situation—” The substance of it was that they were very happy to hear of the new fuel, but not particularly impressed by it. Perhaps in another twenty years, after it had been thoroughly tested and proved commercially, and provided enough uranium had been mined to build another bomb, they might consider setting up another power station outside the atmosphere. In the meantime there was no hurry.

Lentz patiently and politely dealt with their objections. He emphasized the increasing incidence of occupational psychoneurosis among the engineers and grave danger to everyone near the bomb even under the orthodox theory. He reminded them of their insurance and indemnity-bond costs, and of the “squeeze” they paid State politicians.

Then he changed his tone and let them have it directly and brutally. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we believe that we are fighting for our lives—our own lives, our families and every life on the globe. If you refuse this compromise, we will fight as fiercely and with as little regard for fair play as any cornered animal.” With that he made his first move in attack.

It was quite simple. He offered for their inspection the outline of a propaganda campaign on a national scale, such as any major advertising firm should carry out as matter of routine. It was complete to the last detail, television broadcasts, spot plugs, newspaper and magazine coverage and—most important—a supporting whispering campaign and a letters-to-Congress organization. Every businessman there knew from experience how such things worked.

But its object was to stir up fear of the bomb and to direct that fear, not into panic, but into rage against the Board of Directors personally, and into a demand that the government take action to have the bomb removed to outer space.

“This is blackmail! We’ll stop you!”

“I think not,” Lentz replied gently. “You may be able to keep us out of some of the newspapers, but you can’t stop the rest of it. You can’t even keep us off the air—ask the Federal Communications Commission.” It was true. Harrington had handled the political end and had performed his assignment well; the President was convinced.

Tempers were snapping on all sides; Dixon had to pound for order. “Dr. Lentz,” he said, his own temper under taut control, “you plan to make every one of us appear a blackhearted scoundrel with no other thought than personal profit, even at the expense of the lives of others. You know that is not true; this is a simple difference of opinion as to what is wise.”

“I did not say it was true,” Lentz admitted blandly, “but you will admit that I can convince the public that you are deliberate villains. As to it being a difference of opinion—you are none of you atomic physicists; you are not entitled to hold opinions in this matter.

“As a matter of fact,” he went on callously, “the only doubt in my mind is whether or not an enraged public will destroy your precious power plant before Congress has time to exercise eminent domain and take it away from you!”

Before they had time to think up arguments in answer and ways of circumventing him, before their hot indignation had cooled and set as stubborn resistance, he offered his gambit. He produced another layout for a propaganda campaign—an entirely different sort.

This time the Board of Directors was to be built up, not torn down. All of the same techniques were to be used; behind-the-scenes feature articles with plenty of human interest would describe the functions of the company, describe it as a great public trust, administered by patriotic, unselfish statesmen of the business world. At the proper point in the campaign, the Harper-Erickson fuel would be announced, not as a semi-accidental result of the initiative of two employees, but as the long-expected end product of years of systematic research conducted under a fixed policy growing naturally out of their humane determination to remove forever the menace of explosion from even the sparsely settled Arizona desert.

No mention was to be made of the danger of complete, planet-embracing catastrophe.

Lentz discussed it. He dwelt on the appreciation that would be due them from a grateful world. He invited them to make a noble sacrifice and, with subtle misdirection, tempted them to think of themselves as heroes. He deliberately played on one of the most deep-rooted of simian instincts, the desire for approval from one’s kind, deserved or not.

All the while he was playing for time, as he directed his attention from one hard case, one resistant mind, to another. He soothed and he tickled and he played on personal foibles. For the benefit of the timorous and the devoted family men, he again painted a picture of the suffering, death and destruction that might result from their well-meant reliance on the unproved and highly questionable predictions of Destry’s mathematics. Then he described in glowing detail a picture of a world free from worry but granted almost unlimited power, safe power from an invention which was theirs for this one small concession.

It worked. They did not reverse themselves all at once, but a committee was appointed to investigate the feasibility of the proposed spaceship power plant. By sheer brass Lentz suggested names for the committee and Dixon confirmed his nominations, not because he wished to, particularly, but because he was caught off guard and could not think of a reason to refuse without affronting the colleagues.

The impending retirement of King was not mentioned by either side. Privately, Lentz felt sure that it never would be mentioned.

It worked, but there was left much to do. For the first few days after the victory in committee, King felt much elated by the prospect of an early release from the soul-killing worry. He was buoyed up by pleasant demands of manifold new administrative duties. Harper and Erickson were detached to Goddard Field to collaborate with the rocket engineers there in design of firing chambers, nozzles, fuel stowage, fuel metering and the like. A schedule had to be worked out with the business office to permit as much power of the bomb as possible to be diverted to making atomic fuel, and a giant combustion chamber for atomic fuel had to be designed and ordered to replace the bomb itself during the interim between the time it was shut down on Earth and the later time when sufficient local, smaller plants could be built to carry the commercial load. He was busy.

When the first activity had died down and they were settled in a new routine, pending the shutting down of the bomb and its removal to outer space, King suffered an emotional reaction. There was, by then, nothing to do but wait, and tend the bomb, until the crew at Goddard Field smoothed out the bugs and produced a space-worthy rocketship.

They ran into difficulties, overcame them, and came across more difficulties. They had never used such high reaction velocities; it took many trials to find a nozzle shape that would give reasonably high efficiency. When that was solved, and success seemed in sight, the jets burned out on a time-trial ground test. They were stalemated for weeks over that hitch.

Back at the power plant Superintendent King could do nothing but chew his nails and wait. He had not even the release of running over to Goddard Field to watch the progress of the research, for, urgently as he desired to, he felt an even stronger, an overpowering compulsion to watch over the bomb lest it—heart-breakingly!—blow up at the last minute.

He took to hanging around the control room. He had to stop that; his unease communicated itself to his watch engineers; two of them cracked up in a single day—one of them on watch.

He must face the fact—there had been a grave upswing in psychoneurosis among his engineers since the period of watchful waiting had commenced. At first, they had tried to keep the essential facts of the plan a close secret, but it had leaked out, perhaps through some member of the investigating committee. He admitted to himself now that it had been a mistake ever to try to keep it secret—Lentz had advised against it, and the engineers not actually engaged in the changeover were bound to know that something was up.

He took all of the engineers into confidence at last, under oath of secrecy. That had helped for a week or more, a week in which they were all given a spiritual lift by the knowledge, as he had been. Then it had worn off, the reaction had set in, and psychological observers had started disqualifying engineers for duty almost daily. They were even reporting each other as mentally unstable with great frequency; he might even be faced with a shortage of psychiatrists if that kept up, he thought to himself with bitter amusement. His engineers were already standing four hours in every sixteen. If one more dropped out, he’d put himself on watch. That would be a relief, to tell himself the truth.

Somehow, some of the civilians around about and the nontechnical employees were catching on to the secret. That mustn’t go on—if it spread any farther there might be a nationwide panic. But how the hell could he stop it? He couldn’t.

He turned over in bed, rearranged his pillow, and tried once more to get to sleep. No soap. His head ached, his eyes were balls of pain, and his brain was a ceaseless grind of useless, repetitive activity, like a disk recording stuck in one groove.

God! This was unbearable! He wondered if he were cracking up—if he already had cracked up. This was worse, many times worse, than the old routine when he had simply acknowledged the danger and tried to forget it as much as possible. Not that the bomb was any different—it was this five-minutes-to-armistice feeling, this waiting for the curtain to go up, this race against time with nothing to do to help.

He sat up, switched on his bed lamp, and looked at the clock. Three thirty. Not so good. He got up, went into his bathroom, and dissolved a sleeping powder in a glass of whiskey and water, half and half. He gulped it down and went back to bed. Presently he dozed off.* * *

He was running, fleeing down a long corridor. At the end lay safety—he knew that, but he was so utterly exhausted that he doubted his ability to finish the race. The thing pursuing him was catching up; he forced his leaden, aching legs into greater activity. The thing behind him increased its pace, and actually touched him. His heart stopped, then pounded again. He became aware that he was screaming, shrieking in mortal terror.

But he had to reach the end of that corridor; more depended on it than just himself. He had to. He had to! He had to!

Then the sound hit him, and he realized that he had lost, realized it with utter despair and utter, bitter defeat. He had failed; the bomb had blown up.* * *

The sound was the alarm going off; it was seven o’clock. His pajamas were soaked, dripping with sweat, and his heart still pounded. Every ragged nerve throughout his body screamed for release. It would take more than a cold shower to cure this case of the shakes.

He got to the office before the janitor was out of it. He sat there, doing nothing, until Lentz walked in on him, two hours later. The psychiatrist came in just as he was taking two small tablets from a box in his desk.

“Easy . . . easy, old man,” Lentz said in a slow voice. “What have you there?” He came around and gently took possession of the box.

“Just a sedative.”

Lentz studied the inscription on the cover. “How many have you had today?”

“Just two, so far.”

“You don’t need a sedative; you need a walk in the fresh air. Come, take one with me.”

“You’re a fine one to talk—you’re smoking a cigarette that isn’t lighted!”

“Me? Why, so I am! We both need that walk. Come.”

Harper arrived less than ten minutes after they had left the office. Steinke was not in the outer office. He walked on through and pounded on the door of King’s private office, then waited with the man who accompanied him—a hard young chap with an easy confidence to his bearing. Steinke let them in.

Harper brushed on past him with a casual greeting, then checked himself when he saw that there was no one else inside.

“Where’s the chief?” he demanded.

“Gone out. Should be back soon.”

“I’ll wait. Oh—Steinke, this is Greene. Greene—Steinke.”

The two shook hands. “What brings you back, Cal?” Steinke asked, turning back to Harper.

“Well . . . I guess it’s all right to tell you—”

The communicator screen flashed into sudden activity, and cut him short. A face filled most of the frame. It was apparently too close to the pickup, as it was badly out of focus. “Superintendent!” it yelled in an agonized voice. “The bomb—”

A shadow flashed across the screen, they heard a dull smack, and the face slid out of the screen. As it fell it revealed the control room behind it. Someone was down on the floor plates, a nameless heap. Another figure ran across the field of pickup and disappeared.

Harper snapped into action first. “That was Silard!” he shouted, “In the control room! Come on, Steinke!” He was already in motion himself.

Steinke went dead-white, but hesitated only an unmeasurable instant. He pounded sharp on Harper’s heels. Greene followed without invitation, in a steady run that kept easy pace with them.

They had to wait for a capsule to unload at the tube station. Then all three of them tried to crowd into a two-passenger capsule. It refused to start, and moments were lost before Greene piled out and claimed another car.

The four-minute trip at heavy acceleration seemed an interminable crawl. Harper was convinced that the system had broken down, when the familiar click and sigh announced their arrival at the station under the bomb. They jammed each other trying to get out at the same time.

The lift was up; they did not wait for it. That was unwise; they gained no time by it, and arrived at the control level out of breath. Nevertheless, they speeded up when they reached the top, zigzagged frantically around the outer shield, and burst into the control room.

The limp figure was still on the floor, and another, also inert, was near it. The second’s helmet was missing.

The third figure was bending over the trigger. He looked up as they came in, and charged them. They hit him together, and all three went down. It was two to one, but they got in each other’s way. The man’s heavy armor protected him from the force of their blows. He fought with senseless, savage violence.

Harper felt a bright, sharp pain; his right arm went limp and useless. The armored figure was struggling free of them.

There was a shout from somewhere behind them, “Hold still!”

Harper saw a flash with the corner of one eye, a deafening crack hurried on top of it, and re-echoed painfully in the restricted space.

The armored figure dropped back to his knees, balanced there, and then fell heavily on his face. Greene stood in the entrance, a service pistol balanced in his hand.

Harper got up and went over to the trigger. He tried to reduce the dampening adjustment, but his right hand wouldn’t carry out his orders, and his left was too clumsy. “Steinke,” he called, “come here! Take over.”

Steinke hurried up, nodded as he glanced at the readings, and set busily to work.* * *

It was thus that King found them when he bolted in a very few minutes later.

“Harper!” he shouted, while his quick glance was still taking in the situation. “What’s happened?”

Harper told him briefly. He nodded. “I saw the tail end of the fight from my office—Steinke!” He seemed to grasp for the first time who was on the trigger. “He can’t manage the controls—” He hurried toward him.

Steinke looked up at his approach. “Chief!” he called out. “Chief! I’ve got my mathematics back!“

King looked bewildered, then nodded vaguely, and let him be. He turned back to Harper. “How does it happen you’re here?”

“Me? I’m here to report—we’ve done it, chief!”

“Eh?”

“We’ve finished; it’s all done. Erickson stayed behind to complete the power-plant installation on the big ship. I came over in the ship we’ll use to shuttle between Earth and the big ship, the power plant. Four minutes from Goddard Field to here in her. That’s the pilot over there.” He pointed to the door, where Greene’s solid form partially hid Lentz.

“Wait a minute. You say that everything is ready to install the bomb in the ship? You’re sure?”

“Positive. The big ship has already flown with our fuel—longer and faster than she will have to fly to reach station in her orbit; I was in it—out in space, chief! We’re all set, six ways from zero.”

King stared at the dumping switch, mounted behind glass at the top of the instrument board. “There’s fuel enough,” he said softly, as if he were alone and speaking only to himself; “there’s been fuel enough for weeks.”

He walked swiftly over to the switch, smashed the glass with his fist, and pulled it.

The room rumbled and shivered as two and a half tons of molten, massive metal, heavier than gold, coursed down channels, struck against baffles, split into a dozen streams, and plunged to rest in leaden receivers—to rest, safe and harmless, until it could be reassembled far out in space.

AFTERWORD 

December 1979, exactly 40 years after I researched BLOWUPS HAPPEN (Dec. '39): I had some doubt about republishing this because of the current ignorant fear of fission power, recently enhanced by the harmless flap at Three Mile Island. When I wrote this, there was not a full gram of purified U-235 on this planet, and no one knew its hazards in detail, most especially the mass and geometry and speed of assembly necessary to make "blowups happen." But we now know from long experience and endless tests that the "tons" used in this story could never be assembled—no explosion, melt-down possible, melt-down being the worst that can happen at a power plant; to cause U-235 to explode is very difficult and requires very different design. Yes, radiation is hazardous BUT— 

RADIATION EXPOSURE  

Half a mile from Three-Mile plant 
during the flap 83 millirems 
At the power plant 1,100 millirems 
During heart catheterization for angiogram 45,000 millirems 
—which I underwent 18 months ago. I feel fine.

The End

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Space Jockey (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein

This is the full text of the short story by Robert Heinlein called “Space Jockey”. It is presented here for everyone to read. At which I hope that you, the reader, would enjoy it as much as I have. It’s a bit of boyhood that still sticks the walls of my heart.

Heinlein at his best, imagining an interplanetary future (2009) with mechanical calculators, slide rulers and astrogation guided by the stars (that's what Shorty gives the pilot in that sheet of paper, the stars he needs to align the ship to for launching). He's both naive and accurate in some things. 

- Space Jockey - Illustration by Fred Ludekens

Space Jockey

JUST as they were leaving the telephone called his name. “Don’t answer it,” she pleaded. “We’ll miss the curtain.”

“Who is it?” he called out. The viewplate lighted; he recognized Olga Pierce, and behind her the Colorado Springs office of Trans-Lunar Transit.

“Calling Mr. Pemberton. Calling—Oh, it’s you, Jake. You’re on. Flight 27, Supra-New York to Space Terminal. I’ll have a copter pick you up in twenty minutes.”

“How come?” he protested. “I’m fourth down on the call board.”

“You were fourth down. Now you are standby pilot to Hicks—and he just got a psycho down-check.”

“Hicks got psychoed? That’s silly!”

“Happens to the best, chum. Be ready. ‘Bye now.”

His wife was twisting sixteen dollars worth of lace handkerchief to a shapeless mass. “Jake, this is ridiculous. For three months I haven’t seen enough of you to know what you look like.

“Sorry, kid. Take Helen to the show.”

“Oh, Jake, I don’t care about the show; I wanted to get you where they couldn’t reach you for once.”

“They would have called me at the theater.”

“Oh, no! I wiped out the record you’d left.”

“Phyllis! Are you trying to get me fired?”

“Don’t look at me that way.” She waited, hoping that he would speak, regretting the side issue, and wondering how to tell him that her own fretfulness was caused, not by disappointment, but by gnawing worry for his safety every time he went out into space.

She went on desperately, “You don’t have to take this flight, darling; you’ve been on Earth less than the time limit. Please, Jake!”

He was peeling off his tux. “I’ve told you a thousand times: a pilot doesn’t get a regular run by playing space-lawyer with the rule book. Wiping out my follow-up message—why did you do it, Phyllis? Trying to ground me?”

“No, darling, but I thought just this once—”

“When they offer me a flight I take it.” He walked stiffly out of the room.

He came back ten minutes later, dressed for space and apparently in good humor; he was whistling: “—the caller called Casey at ha’ past four; he kissed his—” He broke off when he saw her face, and set his mouth, ”Where’s my coverall?”

“I’ll get it. Let me fix you something to eat.”

“You know I can’t take high acceleration on a full stomach. And why lose thirty bucks to lift another pound?”

Dressed as he was, in shorts, singlet, sandals, and pocket belt, he was already good for about minus-fifty pounds in weight bonus; she started to tell him the weight penalty on a sandwich and a cup of coffee did not matter to them, but it was just one more possible cause for misunderstanding.

Neither of them said much until the taxicab clumped on the roof. He kissed her goodbye and told her not to come outside. She obeyed—until she heard the helicopter take off. Then she climbed to the roof and watched it out of sight.

The traveling-public gripes at the lack of direct Earth-to-Moon service, but it takes three types of rocket ships and two space-station changes to make a fiddling quarter-million-mile jump for a good reason: Money.

The Commerce Commission has set the charges for the present three-stage lift from here to the Moon at thirty dollars a pound. Would direct service be cheaper?—a ship designed to blast off from Earth, make an airless landing on the Moon, return and make an atmosphere landing, would be so cluttered up with heavy special equipment used only once in the trip that it could not show a profit at a thousand dollars a pound! Imagine combining a ferry boat, a subway train, and an express elevator—

So Trans-Lunar uses rockets braced for catapulting, and winged for landing on return to Earth to make the terrific lift from Earth to our satellite station Supra-New York. The long middle lap, from there to where Space Terminal circles the Moon, calls for comfort-but no landing gear. The Flying Dutchman and the Philip Nolan never land; they were even assembled in space, and they resemble winged rockets like the Skysprite and the Firefly as little as a Pullman train resembles a parachute.

The Moonbat and the Gremlin are good only for the jump from Space Terminal down to Luna . . . no wings, cocoon-like acceleration-and-crash hammocks, fractional controls on their enormous jets.

The change-over points would not have to be more than air-conditioned tanks. Of course Space Terminal is quite a city, what with the Mars and Venus traffic, but even today Supra-New York is still rather primitive, hardly more than a fueling point and a restaurant-waiting room. It has only been the past five years that it has even been equipped to offer the comfort of one-gravity centrifuge service to passengers with queasy stomachs.

Pemberton weighed in at the spaceport office, then hurried over to where the Skysprite stood cradled in the catapult. He shucked off his coverall, shivered as he handed it to the gateman, and ducked inside. He went to his acceleration hammock and went to sleep; the lift to Supra-New York was not his worry—his job was deep space.

He woke at the surge of the catapult and the nerve-tingling rush up the face of Pikes Peak. When the Skysprite went into free flight, flung straight up above the Peak, Pemberton held his breath; if the rocket jets failed to fire, the ground-to-space pilot must try to wrestle her into a glide and bring her down, on her wings.

The rockets roared on time; Jake went back to sleep.

When the Skysprite locked in with Supra-New York. Pemberton went to the station’s stellar navigation room. He was pleased to find Shorty Weinstein, the computer, on duty. Jake trusted Shorty’s computations—a good thing when your ship, your passengers, and your own skin depend thereon. Pemberton had to be a better than average mathematician himself in order to be a pilot; his own limited talent made him appreciate the genius of those who computed the orbits.

“Hot Pilot Pemberton, the Scourge of the Spaceways—Hi!” Weinstein handed him a sheet of paper.

Jake looked at it, then looked amazed. “Hey, Shorty—you’ve made a mistake.”

“Huh? Impossible. Mabel can’t make mistakes.” Weinstein gestured at the giant astrogation computer filling the far wall.

“You made a mistake. You gave me an easy fix—’Vega, Antares, Regulus.’ You make things easy for the pilot and your guild’ll chuck you out.” Weinstein looked sheepish but pleased. “I see I don’t blast off for seventeen hours. I could have taken the morning freight.” Jake’s thoughts went back to Phyllis.

“UN canceled the morning trip.”

“Oh—” Jake shut up, for he knew Weinstein knew as little as he did. Perhaps the flight would have passed too close to an A-bomb rocket, circling the globe like a policeman. The General Staff of the Security Council did not give out information about the top secrets guarding the peace of the planet.

Pemberton shrugged. “Well, if I’m asleep, call me three hours minus.”

“Right. Your tape will be ready.”

While he slept, the Flying Dutchman nosed gently into her slip, sealed her airlocks to the Station, discharged passengers and freight from Luna City. When he woke, her holds were filling, her fuel replenished, and passengers boarding. He stopped by the post office radio desk, looking for a letter from Phyllis. Finding none, he told himself that she would have sent it to Terminal. He went on into the restaurant, bought the facsimile Herald-Tribune, and settled down grimly to enjoy the comics and his breakfast.

A man sat down opposite him and proceeded to plague him with silly questions about rocketry, topping it by misinterpreting the insignia embroidered on Pemberton’s singlet and miscalling him “Captain.” Jake hurried through breakfast to escape him, then picked up the tape from his automatic pilot, and went aboard the Flying Dutchman.

After reporting to the Captain he went to the control room, floating and pulling himself along by the handgrips. He buckled himself into the pilot’s chair and started his check off.

Captain Kelly drifted in and took the other chair as Pemberton was finishing his checking runs on the ballistic tracker. “Have a Camel, Jake.”

“I’ll take a rain check.” He continued; Kelly watched him with a slight frown. Like captains and pilots on Mark Twain’s Mississippi—and for the same reasons—a spaceship captain bosses his ship, his crew, his cargo, and his passengers, but the pilot is the final, legal, and unquestioned boss of how the ship is handled from blast-off to the end of the trip. A captain may turn down a given pilot-nothing more. Kelly fingered a slip of paper tucked in his pouch and turned over in his mind the words with which the Company psychiatrist on duty had handed it to him.

“I’ll giving this pilot clearance, Captain, but you need not accept it.”

“Pemberton’s a good man. What’s wrong?”

The psychiatrist thought over what he had observed while posing as a silly tourist bothering a stranger at breakfast. “He’s a little more anti-social than his past record shows. Something on his mind. Whatever it is, he can tolerate it for the present.

We’ll keep an eye on him.”

Kelly had answered, “Will you come along with him as pilot?”

“If you wish.”

“Don’t bother—I’ll take him. No need to lift a deadhead.”

Pemberton fed Weinstein’s tape into the robot-pilot, then turned to Kelly. “Control ready, sir.”

“Blast when ready, Pilot.” Kelly felt relieved when he heard himself make the irrevocable decision.

Pemberton signaled the Station to cast loose. The great ship was nudged out by an expanding pneumatic ram until she swam in space a thousand feet away, secured by a single line. He then turned the ship to its blast-off direction by causing a flywheel, mounted on gymbals at the ship’s center of gravity, to spin rapidly. The ship spun slowly in the opposite direction, by grace of Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

Guided by the tape, the robot-pilot tilted prisms of the pilot’s periscope so that Vega, Antares, and Regulus would shine as one image when the ship was headed right; Pemberton nursed the ship to that heading . . . fussily; a mistake of one minute of arc here meant two hundred miles at destination.

When the three images made a pinpoint, he stopped the flywheels and locked in the gyros. He then checked the heading of his ship by direct observation of each of the stars, just as a salt-water skipper uses a sextant, but with incomparably more accurate instruments. This told him nothing about the correctness of the course Weinstein had ordered—he had to take that as Gospel—but it assured him that the robot and its tape were behaving as planned. Satisfied, he cast off the last line.

Seven minutes to go—Pemberton flipped the switch permitting the robot-pilot to blast away when its clock told it to. He waited, hands poised over the manual controls, ready to take over if the robot failed, and felt the old, inescapable sick excitement building up inside him.

Even as adrenalin poured into him, stretching his time sense, throbbing in his ears, his mind kept turning back to Phyllis.

He admitted she had a kick coming—spacemen shouldn’t marry. Not that she’d starve if he messed up a landing, but a gal doesn’t want insurance; she wants a husband—minus six minutes.

If he got a regular run she could live in Space Terminal. No good-idle women at Space Terminal went bad. Oh, Phyllis wouldn’t become a tramp or a rum bum; she’d just go bats.

Five minutes more-he didn’t care much for Space Terminal himself. Nor for space! “The Romance of Interplanetary Travel”—it looked well in print, but he knew what it was: A job. Monotony. No scenery. Bursts of work, tedious waits. No home life.

Why didn’t he get an honest job and stay home nights?

He knew! Because he was a space jockey and too old to change.

What chance has a thirty-year-old married man, used to important money, to change his racket? (Four minutes.) He’d look good trying to sell helicopters on commission, now, wouldn’t he?

Maybe he could buy a piece of irrigated land and—Be your age, chum! You know as much about farming as a cow knows about cube root! No, he had made his bed when he picked rockets during his training hitch. If he had bucked for the electronics branch, or taken a GI scholarship—too late now. Straight from the service into Harriman’s Lunar Exploitations, hopping ore on Luna. That had torn it.

“How’s it going, Doc?” Kelly’s voice was edgy.

“Minus two minutes some seconds.” Damnation—Kelly knew better than to talk to the pilot on minus time.

He caught a last look through the periscope. Antares seemed to have drifted. He unclutched the gyro, tilted and spun the flywheel, braking it savagely to a stop a moment later. The image was again a pinpoint. He could not have explained what he did: it was virtuosity, exact juggling, beyond textbook and classroom.

Twenty seconds. . . .across the chronometer’s face beads of light trickled the seconds away while he tensed, ready to fire by hand, or even to disconnect and refuse the trip if his judgment told him to. A too-cautious decision might cause Lloyds’ to cancel his bond; a reckless decision could cost his license or even his life—and others.

But he was not thinking of underwriters and licenses, nor even of lives. In truth he was not thinking at all; he was feeling, feeling his ship, as if his nerve ends extended into every part of her. Five seconds . . . the safety disconnects clicked out. Four seconds . . . three seconds . . . two seconds . . . one?

He was stabbing at the band-fire button when the roar hit him.

Kelly relaxed to the pseudo-gravity of the blast and watched.

Pemberton was soberly busy, scanning dials, noting time, checking his progress by radar bounced off Supra-New York. Weinstein’s figures, robot-pilot, the ship itself, all were clicking together.

Minutes later, the critical instant neared when the robot should cut the jets. Pemberton poised a finger over the hand cut-off, while splitting his attention among radarscope, accelerometer, periscope, and chronometer. One instant they were roaring along on the jets; the next split second the ship was in free orbit, plunging silently toward the Moon. So perfectly matched were human and robot that Pemberton himself did not know which had cut the power.

He glanced again at the board, then unbuckled. “How about that cigarette, Captain? And you can let your passengers unstrap.”

No co-pilot is needed in space and most pilots would rather share a toothbrush than a control room. The pilot works about an hour at blast off, about the same before contact, and loafs during free flight, save for routine checks and corrections. Pemberton prepared to spend one hundred and four hours eating, reading, writing letters, and sleeping—especially sleeping.

When the alarm woke him, he checked the ship’s position, then wrote to his wife. “Phyllis my dear,” he began, “I don’t blame you for being upset at missing your night out. I was disappointed, too. But bear with me, darling, I should be on a regular run before long. In less than ten years I’ll be up for retirement and we’ll have a chance to catch up on bridge and golf and things like that. I know it’s pretty hard to—”

The voice circuit cut in. “Oh, Jake—put on your company face. I’m bringing a visitor to the control room.”

“No visitors in the control room, Captain.”

“Now, Jake. This lunkhead has a letter from Old Man Harriman himself. ‘Every possible courtesy—’ and so forth.”

Pemberton thought quickly. He could refuse-but there was no sense in offending the big boss. “Okay, Captain. Make it short.”

The visitor was a man, jovial, oversize—Jake figured him for an eighty pound weight penalty. Behind him a thirteen-year-old male counterpart came zipping through the door and lunged for the control console. Pemberton snagged him by the arm and forced himself to speak pleasantly. “Just hang on to that bracket, youngster. I don’t want you to bump your head.”

“Leggo me! Pop—make him let go.”

Kelly cut in. “I think he had best hang on, Judge.” “Umm, uh—very well. Do as the Captain says, Junior.” “Aw, gee, Pop!”

“Judge Schacht, this is First Pilot Pemberton,” Kelly said rapidly. “He’ll show you around.”

“Glad to know you, Pilot. Kind of you, and all that.”

“What would you like to see, Judge?” Jake said carefully. “Oh, this and that. It’s for the boy—his first trip. I’m an old

spacehound myself—probably more hours than half your crew.” He laughed. Pemberton did not.

“There’s not much to see in free flight.”

“Quite all right. We’ll just make ourselves at home—eh, Captain?”

“I wanna sit in the control seat,” Schacht Junior announced. Pemberton winced. Kelly said urgently, “Jake, would you mind outlining the control system for the boy? Then we’ll go.”

“He doesn’t have to show me anything. I know all about it.I’m a Junior Rocketeer of America—see my button?” The boy shoved himself toward the control desk.

Pemberton grabbed him, steered him into the pilot’s chair, and strapped him in. He then flipped the board’s disconnect.

“Whatcha doing?”

“I cut off power to the controls so I could explain them.”

“Aintcha gonna fire the jets?”

“No.” Jake started a rapid description of the use and purpose of each button, dial, switch, meter, gimmick, and scope.

Junior squirmed. “How about meteors?” he demanded. “Oh, that—maybe one collision in half a million Earth-Moon trips. Meteors are scarce.”

“So what? Say you hit the jackpot? You’re in the soup.”

“Not at all. The anti-collision radar guards all directions five hundred miles out. If anything holds a steady bearing for three seconds, a direct hook-up starts the jets. First a warning gong so that everybody can grab something solid, then one second later—Boom!—Weget out of there fast.”

“Sounds corny to me. Lookee, I’ll show you how Commodore

Cartwright did it in The Comet Busters—“

“Don’t touch those controls I”

“You don’t own this ship. My pop says—”

“Oh, Jake!” Hearing his name, Pemberton twisted, fish-like, to face Kelly.

“Jake, Judge Schacht would like to know—” From the corner of his eye Jake saw the boy reach for the board. He turned, started to shout—acceleration caught him, while the jets roared in his ear.

An old spacehand can usually recover, catlike, in an unexpected change from weightlessness to acceleration. But Jake had been grabbing for the boy, instead of for anchorage. He fell back and down, twisted to try to avoid Schacht, banged his head on the frame of the open air-tight door below, and fetched up on the next deck, out cold.

Kelly was shaking him. “You all right, Jake?”

He sat up. “Yeah. Sure.” He became aware of the thunder, the shivering deckplates. “The jets! Cut the powerl”

He shoved Kelly aside and swarmed up into the control room, jabbed at the cut-off button. In sudden ringing silence, they were again weightless.

Jake turned, unstrapped Schacht Junior, and hustled him to Kelly. “Captain, please remove this menace from my control room.”

“Leggo! Pop—he’s gonna hurt me!”

The elder Schacht bristled at once. “What’s the meaning of this? Let go of my son!”

“Your precious son cut in the jets.”

“Junior—did you do that?”

The boy shifted his eyes. “No, Pop. It … it was a meteor.”

Schacht looked puzzled. Pemberton snorted. “I had just told him how the radar-guard can blast to miss a meteor. He’s lying.”

Schacht ran through the process he called “making up his mind,” then answered, “Junior never lies. Shame on you, a grown man, to try to put the blame on a helpless boy. I shall report you, sir. Come, Junior.”

Jake grabbed his arm. “Captain, I want those controls photographed for fingerprints before this man leaves the room. It was not a meteor; the controls were dead, until this boy switched them on. Furthermore the anti-collision circuit sounds an alarm.”

Schacht looked wary. “This is ridiculous. I simply objected to the slur on my son’s character. No harm has been done.”

“No harm, eh? How about broken arms—or necks? And wasted fuel, with more to waste before we’re back in the groove. Do you know, Mister ‘Old Spacehound,’ just how precious a little fuel will be when we try to match orbits with Space Terminal—if we haven’t got it? We may have to dump cargo to save the ship, cargo at $60,000 a ton on freight charges alone. Finger prints will show the Commerce Commission whom to nick for it.”

When they were alone again Kelly asked anxiously, “You won’t really have to jettison? You’ve got a maneuvering reserve.”

“Maybe we can’t even get to Terminal. How long did she blast?”

Kelly scratched his head. “I was woozy myself.”

“We’ll open the accelerograph and take a look.”

Kelly brightened. “Oh, sure! If the brat didn’t waste too much, then we just swing ship and blast back the same length of time.”

Jake shook his head. “You forgot the changed mass-ratio.”

“Oh . . . oh, yes!” Kelly looked embarrassed. Mass-ratio . . . under power, the ship lost the weight of fuel burned. The thrust remained constant; the mass it pushed shrank. Getting back to proper position, course, and speed became a complicated problem in the calculus of ballistics. “But you can do it, can’t you?”

“I’ll have to. But I sure wish I had Weinstein here.” Kelly left to see about his passengers; Jake got to work. He checked his situation by astronomical observation and by radar. Radar gave

him all three factors quickly but with limited accuracy. Sights taken of Sun, Moon, and Earth gave him position, but told nothing of course and speed, at that time—nor could he afford to wait to take a second group of sights for the purpose.

Dead reckoning gave him an estimated situation, by adding Weinstein’s predictions to the calculated effect of young Schacht’s meddling. This checked fairly well with the radar and visual observations, but still he had no notion of whether or not he could get back in the groove and reach his destination; it was now necessary to calculate what it would take and whether or not the remaining fuel would be enough to brake his speed and match orbits.

In space, it does no good to reach your journey’s end if you flash on past at miles per second, or even crawling along at a few hundred miles per hour. To catch an egg on a plate—don’t bump!

He started doggedly to work to compute how to do it using the least fuel, but his little Marchant electronic calculator was no match for the tons of IBM computer at Supra-New York, nor was he Weinstein. Three hours later he had an answer of sorts. He called Kelly. “Captain? You can start by jettisoning Schacht & Son.”

“I’d like to. No way out, Jake?”

“I can’t promise to get your ship in safely without dumping. Better dump now, before we blast. It’s cheaper.”

Kelly hesitated; he would as cheerfully lose a leg. “Give me time to pick out what to dump.”

“Okay.” Pemberton returned sadly to his figures, hoping to find a saving mistake, then thought better of it. He called the radio room. “Get me Weinstein at Supra-New York.”

“Out of normal range.”

“I know that. This is the Pilot. Safety priority—urgent. Get a tight beam on them and nurse it.”

“Uh . . . aye aye, sir. I’ll try.”

Weinstein was doubtful. “Cripes, Jake, I can’t pilot you.” “Dammit, you can work problems for me!”

“What good is seven-place accuracy with bum data?”

“Sure, sure. But you know what instruments I’ve got; you know about how well I can handle them. Get me a better answer.”

“I’ll try.” Weinstein called back four hours later. “Jake? Here’s the dope: You planned to blast back to match your predicted speed, then made side corrections for position. Orthodox but uneconomical. Instead I had Mabel solve for it as one maneuver.”

“Good!”

“Not so fast. It saves fuel but not enough. You can’t possibly get back in your old groove and then match Terminal without dumping.”

Pemberton let it sink in, then said, “I’ll tell Kelly.”

”Wait a minute, Jake. Try this. Start from scratch.”

“Huh?”

“Treat it as a brand-new problem. Forget about the orbit on your tape. With your present course, speed, and position, compute the cheapest orbit to match with Terminal’s. Pick a new groove.”

Pemberton felt foolish. “I never thought of that.”

“Of course not. With the ship’s little one-lung calculator it’d take you three weeks to solve it. You set to record?”

“Sure.”

“Here’s your data.” Weinstein started calling it off.

When they had checked it, Jake said, “That’ll get me there?”

“Maybe. If the data you gave me is up to your limit of accuracy; if you can follow instructions as exactly as a robot, if you can blast off and make contact so precisely that you don’t need side corrections, then you might squeeze home. Maybe. Good luck, anyhow.” The wavering reception muffled their goodbyes,

Jake signaled Kelly. “Don’t jettison, Captain. Have your passengers strap down. Stand by to blast. Minus fourteen minutes.”

“Very well, Pilot.”

The new departure made and checked, he again had time to spare. He took out his unfinished letter, read it, then tore it up.

“Dearest Phyllis,” he started again, “I’ve been doing some hard thinking this trip and have decided that I’ve just been stubborn. What am I doing way out here? I like my home. I like to see my wife.

“Why should I risk my neck and your peace of mind to herd junk through the sky? Why hang around a telephone waiting to chaperon fatheads to the Moon-numbskulls who couldn’t pilot a rowboat and should have stayed at home in the first place?

“Money, of course. I’ve been afraid to risk a change. I won’t find another job that will pay half as well, but, if you are game, I’ll ground myself and we’ll start over. All my love, “Jake”

He put it away and went to sleep, to dream that an entire troop of Junior Rocketeers had been quartered in his control room.

The close-up view of the Moon is second only to the space-side view of the Earth as a tourist attraction; nevertheless Pemberton insisted that all passengers strap down during the swing around to Terminal. With precious little fuel for the matching maneuver, he refused to hobble his movements to please sightseers.

Around the bulge of the Moon, Terminal came into sight—by radar only, for the ship was tail foremost. After each short braking blast Pemberton caught a new radar fix, then compared his approach with a curve he had plotted from Weinstein’s figures—with one eye on the time, another on the ‘scope, a third on the plot, and a fourth on his fuel gages.

“Well, Jake?” Kelly fretted. “Do we make it?”

“How should I know? You be ready to dump.” They had agreed on liquid oxygen as the cargo to dump, since it could be let to boil out through the outer valves, without handling.

“Don’t say it, Jake.”

“Damn it—I won’t if I don’t have to.” He was fingering his controls ‘again; the blast chopped off his words. When it stopped, the radio maneuvering circuit was calling him.

“Flying Dutchman, Pilot speaking,” Jake shouted back.

“Terminal Control—Supro reports you short on fuel.”

“Right.”

“Don’t approach. Match speeds outside us. We’ll send a transfer ship to refuel you and pick up passengers.”

“I think I can make it.”

“Don’t try it. Wait for refueling.”

“Quit telling me how to pilot my ship!” Pemberton switched off the circuit, then stared at the board, whistling morosely. Kelly filled in the words in his mind: “Casey said to the fireman, ‘Boy, you better jump, cause two locomotives are agoing to bump!’

“You going in the slip anyhow, Jake?”

“Mmm—no, blast it. I can’t take a chance of caving in the side of Terminal, not with passengers aboard. But I’m not going to match speeds fifty miles outside and wait for a piggyback.”

He aimed for a near miss just outside Terminal’s orbit, conning by instinct, for Weinstein’s figures meant nothing by now. His aim was good; he did not have to waste his hoarded fuel on last minute side corrections to keep from hitting Terminal. When at last he was sure of sliding safely on past if unchecked, he braked once more. Then, as he started to cut off the power, the jets coughed, sputtered, and quit.

The Flying Dutchman floated in space, five hundred yards outside Terminal, speeds matched.

Jake switched on the radio. ”Terminal—stand by for my line. I’ll warp her in.”

He had filed his report, showered, and was headed for the post office to radiostat his letter, when the bullhorn summoned him. to the Commodore-Pilot’s office. Oh, oh, he told himself, Schacht has kicked the Brass—I wonder just how much stock that bliffy owns? And there’s that other matter—getting snotty with Control.

He reported stiffly. “First Pilot Pemberton, sir.”

Commodore Soames looked up. “Pemberton—oh, yes. You hold two ratings, space-to-space and airless-landing.”

Let’s not stall around, Jake told himself. Aloud he said, “I have no excuses for anything this last trip. If the Commodore does not approve the way I run my control room, he may have my resignation.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I, well—don’t you have a passenger complaint on me?” “Oh, that!” Soames brushed it aside. “Yes, he’s been here. But I have Kelly’s report, too—and your chief jetman’s, and a special from. Supra-New York. That was crack piloting, Pemberton.”

“You mean there’s no beef from the Company?”

“When have I failed to back up my pilots? You were perfectly right; I would have stuffed him out the air lock. Let’s get down to business: You’re on the space-to-space board, but I want to send a special to Luna City. Will you take it, as a favor to me?”

Pemberton hesitated; Soames went on, “That oxygen you saved is for the Cosmic Research Project. They blew the seals on the north tunnel and lost tons of the stuff. The work is stopped—about $130,000 a day in overhead, wages, and penalties. The Gremlin is here, but no pilot until the Moonbat gets in—except you. Well?”

“But I—look, Commodore, you can’t risk people’s necks on a jet landing of mine. I’m rusty; I need a refresher and a checkout.”

“No passengers, no crew, no captain—your neck alone.” “I’ll take her.”

Twenty-eight minutes later, with the ugly, powerful hull of the Gremlin around him, he blasted away. One strong shove to kill her orbital speed and let her fall toward the Moon, then no more worries until it came time to “ride ‘er down on her tail.”

He felt good—until he hauled out two letters, the one he had failed to send, and one from Phyllis, delivered at Terminal.

The letter from Phyllis was affectionate—and superficial. She did not mention his sudden departure; she ignored his profession completely. The letter was a model of correctness, but it worried him.

He tore up both letters and started another. It said, in part: “—never said so outright, but you resent my job.

"I have to work to support us. You've got a job, too. It's an old, old job that women have been doing a long time—crossing the plains in covered wagons, waiting for ships to come back from China, or waiting around a mine head after an explosion-kiss him goodbye with a smile, take care of him at home.

"You married a spaceman, so part of your job is to accept my job cheerfully. I think you can do it, when you realize it. I hope so, for the way things have been going won't do for either of us.

Believe me, I love you.

Jake"

He brooded on it until time to bend the ship down for his approach. From twenty miles altitude down to one mile he let the robot brake her, then shifted to manual while still falling slowly. A perfect airless-landing would be the reverse of the take-off of a war rocket-free fall, then one long blast of the jets, ending with the ship stopped dead as she touched the ground. In practice a pilot must feel his way down, not too slowly; a ship could bum all the fuel this side of Venus fighting gravity too long.

Forty seconds later, falling a little more than 140 miles per hour, he picked up in his periscopes the thousand-foot static towers. At 300 feet he blasted five gravities for more than a second, cut it, and caught her with a one-sixth gravity, Moon-normal blast. Slowly he eased this off, feeling happy.

The Gremlin hovered, her bright jet splashing the soil of the Moon, then settled with dignity to land without a jar.

The ground crew took over; a sealed runabout jeeped Pemberton to the tunnel entrance. Inside Luna City, he found himself paged before he finished filing his report. When he took the call, Soames smiled at him from the viewplate. “I saw that landing from the field pick-up, Pemberton. You don’t need a refresher course.”

Jake blushed. “Thank you, sir.”

“Unless you are dead set on space-to-space, I can use you on the regular Luna City run. Quarters here or Luna City? Want it?”

He heard himself saying, “Luna City. I’ll take it.”

He tore up his third letter as he walked into Luna City post office. At the telephone desk he spoke to a blonde in a blue moonsuit. “Get me Mrs. Jake Pemberton, Suburb six-four-oh-three, Dodge City, Kansas, please.”

She looked him over. “You pilots sure spend money.”

“Sometimes phone calls are cheap. Hurry it, will you?”

Phyllis was trying to phrase the letter she felt she should have written before. It was easier to say in writing that she was not complaining of loneliness nor lack of fun, but that she could not stand the strain of worrying about his safety. But then she found herself quite unable to state the logical conclusion. Was she prepared to face giving him up entirely if he would not give up space? She truly did not know . . . the phone call was a welcome interruption.

The viewplate stayed blank. “Long distance,” came a thin voice. ”Luna City calling.”

Fear jerked at her heart. “Phyllis Pemberton speaking.”

An interminable delay—she knew it took nearly three seconds for radio waves to make the Earth-Moon round trip, but she did not remember it and it would not have reassured her. All she could see was a broken home, herself a widow, and Jake, beloved Jake, dead in space.

“Mrs. Jake Pemberton?”

“Yes, yes! Go ahead.” Another wait—had she sent him away in a bad temper, reckless, his judgment affected? Had he died out there, remembering only that she fussed at him for leaving her to go to work? Had she failed him when he needed her? She knew that her Jake could not be tied to apron strings; men—grown-up men, not mammas’ boys—had to break away from mother’s apron strings. Then why had she tried to tie him to hers?—she had known better; her own mother had warned her not to try it.

She prayed.

Then another voice, one that weakened her knees with relief: “That you, honey?”

“Yes, darling, yes! What are you doing on the Moon?”

“It’s a long story. At a dollar a second it will keep. What I want to know is—are you willing to come to Luna City?”

It was Jake’s turn to suffer from the inevitable lag in reply.

He wondered if Phyllis were stalling, unable to make up her mind. At last he heard her say, “Of course, darling. When do I leave?”

“When—say, don’t you even want to know why?”

She started to say that it did not matter, then said, ”Yes, tell me.” The lag was still present but neither of them cared. He told her the news, then added, “Run over to the Springs and get Olga Pierce to straighten out the red tape for you. Need my help to pack?”

She thought rapidly. Had he meant to come back anyhow, he would not have asked. “No. I can manage.”

“Good girl. I’ll radiostat you a long letter about what to bring and so forth. I love you. ‘Bye now!”

“Oh, I love you, too. Goodbye, darling.”

Pemberton came out of the booth whistling. Good girl, Phyllis. Staunch. He wondered why he had ever doubted her.

The End

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“Correspondence Course” (Full Text) by Raymond F. Jones

I like this story. It’s a story that I read years ago, and it contains elements that I really like. (If you care.) It’s just a story, but it’s a fun story, and I hope that you (the reader) will appreciate it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Any mail for the Wards, today?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

SERVICEMAN—WHAT OF THE FUTURE?

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

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

WE CAN HELP YOU

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

LET US PROVE TO YOU

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Want to take another letter?”

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

Jim repeated his request and held up the stamped reply card.

“Take this with you?”

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

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

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

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

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

“What lesson?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only that first circular and these lessons.

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

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

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

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

“Looking for somebody, mister?”

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

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

Jim noticed the sign over the door and glanced at the inscription that he had not seen before: Henderson, Iowa, Pop. 8o6.

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

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

“Are there any correspondence schools here?”

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

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

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

Jim strode toward this last building while curious watchers on the porch of the mercantile store stared at him trudging through the dust.
The postmistress glanced up from the armful of mail that she was sorting into boxes as Jim entered. She offered a cheery hello that seemed to tinkle from the buxom figure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You publish a newspaper here?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ever do any work for anybody else—printing or mimeographing?”
“If anybody wants it, but I haven’t had an outside customer in three years.”

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

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

“Sure, go ahead. Help yourself.”

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Herald had prepared the course.

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

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

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

“Thanks. Thanks for bringing it, Mac.”

Jim hurried into his room and ripped open the letter. It read:

Dear Mr. Ward:

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

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

Sincerely,

M. H. Quilcon

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

Who was M. H. Quilcon?

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Never heard of it.”

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

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

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

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

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

There was no more unlikely spot in the world for a machine works of any kind, Jim thought. Someone must be playing an utterly fantastic joke on him. But how or why they had picked on him was mystifying.
At the same time he knew within him that it was no joke. There was a deadly seriousness about it all. The principles of power co-ordination were right. He had slaved and dug through them enough to be sure of that. He felt that he could almost build a power co-ordinating engine now with the proper means—except that he didn’t understand from where the power was derived!

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

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

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

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

HORTAN MACHINE WORKS

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

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

Jim entered the dimly lit interior of the shop and set his case upon the floor beside a narrow bench that extended about the room.
Tools and instruments of unfamiliar design were upon the bench and upon the walls. But no one appeared.

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

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

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

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

“Yes. Where are you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unless—

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

He stood very still and a tremor went through him. He looked up at the smooth walls about him. Metal, all of them. And this room—it was narrower than the one above—as if the entire building were tapered from the dome protruding out of the earth to the basement floor.
The only possible point of reaction was the building itself. But it wasn’t a building.

It was a vessel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a note of desperation and despair that seemed to cut into Jim. Then he caught sight of the slight motion against the wall beside him.
In a small, transparent hemisphere that was fastened to the side of the wall lay the slug that Jim had seen at the postoffice, the thing the woman had called an “armadillo.” He had not even noticed it when he first entered the room. The thing was moving now with slow pulsations that swelled its surface and great welts like dark veins stood out upon it.
From the golden-hued hemisphere a maze of cable ran to instruments and junction boxes around the room and a hundred tiny pseudo-pods grasped terminals inside the hemisphere.

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

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

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

“What do you want?”

“I want you to repair the damaged engine.”

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

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

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

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

“Then I shall leave without any repairs.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I was injured, too, but I was not killed. Only the other of me died.” Jim did not understand the queer phrase, but he did not break into Quilcon’s story.

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

Jim saw then that the creature’s story must be true.

It was obvious that the ship had been built to be manned by beings utterly unlike Quilcon.

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

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

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

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

Jim caught a glimpse of the dream vision that was the creature’s home world. It was a place of security and peace—in Quilcon’s terms. But even its alienness did not block out the sense of quiet beauty that Quilcon’s mind transmitted to Jim’s.

They were a species of high intelligence. Exceptionally developed in the laws of mathematics and theory of logic, they were handicapped in bodily development from inquiring into other fields of science whose existence was demonstrated by their logic and their mathematics. The more intellectual among them were frustrated creatures whose lives were made tolerable only by an infinite capacity for stoicism and adaptation.

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

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

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

But the creature was silent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hurry! Let me come!” it pleaded.

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

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

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

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

“Come!” he said quietly.

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

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

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

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

“Yes . . . yes it is.”

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

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

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

But like the other Ruth who had been so practical, this one was, too.

“First we have to repair the engine. Shall we do it, now?”

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

The End

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Not The First (Full Text) by A. E. van Vogt

Lately I have been busy posting reprints of classic science fiction. I am sure that all these old stories might irritate the more practical and pragmatic readers out in Internet-land, but that need not be so. These stories are great. They are classical enjoyments for those of us that tire of the progressive re-write of the Star Trek universe, and the Star Wars narrative.

A. E. van Vogt was one of the most popular and influential practitioners of science fiction in the mid-twentieth century, the genre’s so-called Golden Age, and one of the most complex. He is the author that brought forth the idea of a “Space Opera” and the complexities of a dark, and potentially sinister universe.

This story is a fine example of this great writer’s best work from his most creative period – the forties and early fifties, during the “golden age” of science-fiction. It is wonderfully short, and does “pack a wallop” in situational conveyance.

It’s a steady diet of stories such as this that inspired me to study Aerospace Engineering, become a Naval Aviator, and join MAJestic.

Not The First

Captain Harcourt wakened with a start. In the darkness he lay tense, shaking the sleep out of his mind. Something was wrong. He couldn’t quite place the discordant factor, but it trembled there on the verge of his brain, an alien thing that shattered for him the security of the spaceship.

He strained his senses against the blackness of the room—and abruptly grew aware of the intensity of that dark. The night of the room was shadow-less, a pitch-like black that lay like an opaque blanket hard on his eyeballs.

That was it. The darkness. The indirect night light must have gone off. And out here in interstellar space there would be no diffused light as there was on Earth and even within the limits of the solar system.

Still, it was odd that the lighting system should have gone on the blink on this first “night” of this first trip of the first spaceship powered by the new, stupendous atomic drive.

A sudden thought made him reach toward the light switch.

The click made a futile sound in the pressing weight of the darkness—and seemed like a signal for the footsteps that whispered hesitantly along the corridor, and paused outside his door. There was a knock, then a muffled, familiar, yet strained voice: “Harcourt!”

The urgency in the man’s tone seemed to hold connection to all the odd menace of the past few minutes. Harcourt, conscious of relief, barked, “Come in, Gunther. The door’s unlocked!”

In the darkness, he slipped from under the sheets and fumbled for his clothes—as the door opened, and the breathing of the navigation officer of the ship became a thick, satisfying sound that destroyed the last vestige of the hard silence.

“Harcourt, the damnedest thing has happened. It started when everything electrical went out of order. Compton says we’ve been accelerating for two hours now at heaven only knows what rate.”

There was no pressure on him now. The familiar presence and voice of Gunther had a calming effect; the sense of queer, mysterious things was utterly gone. Here was something into which he could figuratively sink his teeth.

Harcourt stepped matter-of-factly into his trousers and said after a moment: “I hadn’t noticed the acceleration. So used to the— Hmm, doesn’t seem more than two gravities. Nothing serious could result in two hours. As for light, they’ve got those gas lamps in the emergency room.”

For the moment it was all quite convincing. He hadn’t gone to bed till the ship’s speed was well past the velocity of light. Everybody had been curious about what would happen at that tremendous milepost—whether the Lorenz-Fitzgerald contraction theory was substance or appearance.

Nothing had happened. The test ship simply forged ahead, accelerating each second, and, just before he retired, they had estimated the speed at nearly two hundred thousand miles per second.

The complacent mood ended. He said sharply, “Did you say Compton sent you?”

Compton was chief engineer, and he was definitely not one to give way to panics of any description. Harcourt frowned. “What does Compton think?”

“Neither he nor I can understand it; and when we lost sight of the sun he thought you’d better be—”

“When you what?”

Gunther’s laugh broke humorlessly through the darkness.

“Harcourt, the damned thing is so unbelievable that when Compton called me on the communicator just now he spent half the time talking to himself like an old woman of the gutter. Only he, O’Day and I know the worst yet.

“Harcourt, we’ve figured out that we’re approximately five hundred thousand light-years from Earth—and that the chance of our ever finding our sun in that swirl of suns makes searching for needles in haystacks a form of child’s play.

“We’re lost as no human being has ever been.”

…

In the utter darkness beside the bank of telescope eyepieces Harcourt waited and watched. Though he could not see them, he was tautly aware of the grim men who sat so quietly, peering into the night of space ahead—at the remote point of light out there that never varied a hairbreadth in its position on the crossed wires of the eyepieces.

The silence was complete, and yet—

The very presence of these able men was a living, vibrating force to him who had known them intimately for so many years. The beat of their thought, the shifting of space-toughened muscles, was a sound that distorted rather than disturbed the hard tensity of the silence.

The silence shattered as Gunther spoke matter-of-factly: “There’s no doubt about it, of course. We’re going to pass through the star system ahead. An ordinary sun, I should say, a little colder than our own, but possibly half again as large, and about thirty thousand parsecs distant.”

“Go away with you,” came the gruff voice of physicist O’Day. “You can’t tell how far away it is. Where’s your triangle?”

“I don’t need any such tricks,” retorted Gunther heatedly. “I just use my God-given intelligence. You watch. We’ll be able to verify our speed when we pass through the system; and velocity multiplied by time elapsed will—”

Harcourt interjected gently, “So far as we know, Gunther, Compton hasn’t any lights yet. If he hasn’t, we won’t be able to look at our watches, so we won’t know the time elapsed; so you can’t prove anything. What is your method, if it isn’t triangulation—and it can’t be. We’re open to conviction.”

Gunther said, “It’s plain common sense. Notice the cross lines on your eyepieces. The lines intersect on the point of light—and there’s not a fraction of variation or blur.

“These lenses have tested perfect according to the latest standards, but observatory astronomers back home have found that beyond one hundred fifty thousand light-years there is the beginning of distortion. Therefore I could have said a minute or so ago that we were within one hundred and fifty thousand light-years of that sun.

“But there’s more. When I first looked into the eyepiece—before I called you, Captain—the distortion was there. I’m pretty good at estimating time, and I should say it required about twelve minutes for me to get you and fumble my way back in here.

When I looked then the distortion was gone. There’s an automatic device in my eyepiece for measuring degree of distortion. When I first looked, the distortion was .005, roughly equivalent to twenty-five thousand light-years. There’s another point—”

“You needn’t go on,” Harcourt interjected quietly. “You’ve proved your case.”

O’Day groaned. “That’ll be maybe twenty-four thousand light-years in twelve minutes. Two thousand a minute; that’ll be thirty light-years a second. And we’ve been sittin’ here maybe more’n twenty-five minutes since you an’ Harcourt came back. That’ll be another fifty thousand light-years, or thirty thousand parsecs between us an’ the star. You’re a good man, Gunther. But how will we ever identify the blamed thing when we come back? It would be makin’ such a fine gunsight for the return trip if we could maybe get another sight farther on, when we finally stop this runaway or—”

Harcourt cut him off grimly. “There’s just one point that you two gentlemen have neglected to take into account. It’s true we must try to stop the ship—Compton’s men are working at the engines now. But everything else is only preliminary to our main task of thinking our way back to Earth.

We shall probably find it necessary, if we live, to change our entire conception of space.

“I said—if we live! What you scientists in your zeal failed to notice was that the most delicate instruments ever invented by man, the cross-lines of this telescope, intersect directly on the approaching sun. They haven’t changed for more than thirty minutes, so we must assume the sun is following a course in space directly toward us, or away from us.

“As it is, we’re going to run squarely into a ball of fire a million miles plus in diameter. I leave the rest to your imaginations.”

The discussion that blurred on then had an unreal quality for Harcourt. The only reality was the blackness, and the great ship plunging madly down a vast pit toward its dreadful doom.

It seemed down, a diving into incredible depths at an insane velocity—and against that cosmic discordance, the voices of the men sounded queer and meaningless, intellectually, violently alive, but the effect was as of small birds fluttering furiously against the wire mesh of a trap that has sprung remorselessly around them.

“Time,” Gunther was saying, “is the only basic force. Time creates space instant by instant, and—”

“Will you be shuttin’ up,” O’Day interrupted scathingly. “You’ve had the solving of the problem of our speed, a practical job for an astronomer and navigation officer. But this’ll be different. Me bein’ the chief of the physicists aboard, I—”

“Omit the preamble!” Harcourt cut in dryly. “Our time is, to put it mildly, drastically limited.”

“Right!” O’Day’s voice came briskly out of the blackness. “Mind ya, I’m not up to offerin’ any final solutions, but here may be some answers:

“The speed of light is not, accordin’ to my present thought, one hundred eighty-six thousand three hundred miles per second. It’s more’n two hundred thousand, maybe fifty thousand more. In previous measurements, we’ve been forgettin’ the effect of the area of tensions that makes a big curve ’round any star system. We’ve known about those tensions, but never gave much thought to how much they might slow up light, the way water and glass does.

“That’s the only thing that’ll explain why nothin’ happened at the apparent speed of light, but plenty happened when we passed the real speed of light. Come to think on it, the real speed must be somethin’ less than two hundred fifty thousand, because we were goin’ slower’n that when the electric system blanked on us.”

“But man alive!” Gunther burst out before Harcourt could speak. “What at that point could have jumped our speed up to a billion times that of light?”

“When we have the solvin’ of that,” O’Day interjected grimly, “the entire universe’ll belong to us.”

“You’re wrong there,” Harcourt stated quietly. “If we solve that, we shall have the speed to go places, but there’s no conceivable science that will make it possible for us to plot a course to or from any destination beyond a few hundred light-years.

“Do not forget that our purpose, when we began this voyage, was to go to Alpha Centauri. From there we intended gradually to work out from star to star, setting up bases where possible, and slowly working out the complex problems involved.

“Theoretically, such a method of plotting space could have gone on indefinitely, though it was generally agreed that the complexity would increase out of all proportion to the extra distance involved.

“But enough of that.” His voice grew harder. “Has it occurred to either of you that even if by some miracle of wit we miss that sun, there is a possibility that this ship may plunge on forever through space at billions of times the velocity of light?

“I mean simply this: our speed jumped inconceivably when we crossed the point of light speed. But that point is now behind us. And there is no similar point ahead that we can cross. When we get our engines reversed, we face the prospect of decelerating at two gravities or a bit more for several thousand years.”

“All this is aside from the fact that, at our present distance from Earth, there is nothing known that will help us find our way back.
“I’ll leave these thoughts with you. I’m going to grope my way down to Compton—our last hope!”

There was blazing light in the engine room—a string of gasoline lamps shed the blue-white intensity of their glare onto several score men. Half of the men were taking turns, a dozen at a time, in the simple task of straining at a giant wheel whose shaft disappeared at one end into the bank of monstrous drive tubes. At the other end the wheel was attached to a useless electric motor.

The wheel moved so sluggishly before the combined strength of the workers that Harcourt thought, appalled,

Good heavens, at that rate, it’ll take a day—and we’ve got forty minutes at utmost.

He saw that the other men were putting together a steam engine from parts ripped out of great packing cases. He felt better. The engine would take the place of the electric motor and—

“It’ll take half an hour!” roared a bull-like voice to one side of him. As he turned, Compton bellowed, “And don’t waste time telling me any stories about running into stars. I’ve been listening in to you fellows on this wall communicator.”

Harcourt was conscious of a start of surprise as he saw that the chief engineer was lying on the steel floor, his head propped on a curving metal projection. His heavy face looked strangely white, and when he spoke it was from clenched teeth:

“Couldn’t spare anyone to send you up some light. We’ve got a single, straightforward job down here: to stop those drivers.” He finished ironically: “When we’ve done that we’ll have about fifteen minutes to figure out what good it will do us.”

The mighty man winced as he finished speaking. For the first time Harcourt saw the bandage on his right hand. He said sharply, “You’re hurt!”

“Remind me,” replied Compton grimly, “when we get back to Earth to sock the departmental genius who put an electric lock on the door of the emergency room. I don’t know how long it took to chisel into it, but my finger got lost somewhere in the shuffle.

“It’s all right,” he added swiftly. “I’ve just now taken a ’1ocal.’ It’ll start working in half a minute and we can talk.”

Harcourt nodded stiffly. He knew the fantastic courage and endurance that trained men could show. He said casually: “How would you like some technicians, mathematicians and other such to come down here and relieve your men? There’s a whole corridor full of them out there.”

“Nope!” Compton shook his leonine head. Color was coming into his cheeks, and his voice had a clearer, less strained note as he continued: “These war horses of mine are experts. Just imagine a biologist taking a three-minute shift at putting that steam engine together. Or heaving at that big wheel without ever having been trained to synchronize his muscles to the art of pushing in unity with other men.

“But forget about that. We’ve got a practical problem ahead of us; and before we die I’d like to know what we should have done and could have done. Suppose we get the steam engine running in time—which is not certain; that’s why I put those men on the wheel even before we had light. Anyway, suppose we do, where would we be?”

“Acceleration would stop,” said Harcourt. “But our speed would be constant at something over thirty light-years per second.”

“That’s too hard to strike a sun!” Compton spoke seriously, eyes half closed. He looked up. “Or is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Simply this: this sun is about twelve hundred thousand miles in diameter. If it were at all gaseous in structure, we could he through so fast its heat would never touch us.”

“Gunther says the star is somewhat colder than our own. That suggests greater density.”

“In that case”—Compton was almost cheerful—“at our speed, and with the hard steel of our ship, we could conceivably pass through a steel plate a couple of million miles in thickness. It’s a problem in fire power for a couple of ex-military men.”

“I’ll leave the problem for your old age,” Harcourt said. “Your attitude suggests that you see no solutions to the situation presented by the star.”

Compton stared at him for a moment, unsmiling; then, “Okay, Chief, I’ll cut out the kidding. You’re right about the star. It took fifty hours to get up to two hundred forty thousand miles per second. Then we crossed some invisible line, and for the past few hours we’ve been plumping along at, as you say, thirty miles a second.

“All right, then, say fifty-three hours that it took us to get here. Even if we eliminate that horrible idea you spawned, about it taking us thousands of years to decelerate, there still remains the certainty that—with the best of luck, that is—with simply a reversal of the conditions that brought us here, it would require not less than fifty-three hours to stop.

“Figure it out for yourself. We might as well play marbles.”

They called Gunther and O’Day. “And bring some liquor t down!” Compton roared through the communicator.

“Wait!” Harcourt prevented him from breaking the connection. He spoke quietly: “Is that you, Gunther?”

“Yep!” the navigation officer responded.

“The star’s still dead on?”

“Deader!” said the ungrammatical Gunther.

Harcourt hesitated; this was the biggest decision he had ever faced in his ten violent years as a commander of a spaceship. His face was stiff as he said finally, huskily:

“All right, then, come down here, but don’t tell anyone else what’s up. They could take it—but what’s the use? Come to Compton’s office.”

He saw that the chief engineer was staring at him strangely. Compton said at last, “So we really give up the ship?”

Harcourt gazed back at him coldly. “Remember, I’m only the coordinator around here. I’m supposed to know something of everything—but when experts tell me there’s no hope, barring miracles, naturally I refuse to run around like an animal with a blind will to live.

“Your men are slaving to get the steam engine running; two pounds of U-235 are doing their bit to heat up the steam boiler. When it’s all ready, we’ll do what we can. Is that clear?”

Compton grinned, but there was silence between them until the other men arrived. O’Day greeted them gloomily.

“There’s a couple of good friends of mine up there whom I’d like to have here now. But what the hell! Let ’em die in peace, says Harcourt; and right he is.”

Gunther poured the dark, glowing liquid, and Harcourt watched the glasses tilt, finally raised his own. He wondered if the others found the stuff as smooth and tasteless as he did. He lowered his glass and said softly:

“Atomic power! So this is the end of man’s first interstellar ﬂight.

There’ll be others, of course, and the law of averages will protect them from running into suns; and they’ll get their steam engines going, and their drives reversed; and if this process does reverse itself, then within a given time they’ll stop—and then they’ll be where we thought we were: facing the problem of finding their way back to Earth. It looks to me as if man is stymied by the sheer vastness of the universe.”

“Don’t be such a damned pessimist!” said Compton, his face flushed from his second glass “I’ll wager they’ll have the drivers of the third test ship reversed within ten minutes of crossing that light speed deadline. That means they’ll only be a few thousand light-years from Earth. Taking it in little jumps like that, they’ll never get lost.”

Harcourt saw O’Day look up from his glass; the physicist’s lips parted—and Harcourt allowed his own words to remain unspoken. O’Day said soberly:

“I’m thinkin’ we’ve been puttin’ too much blame on speed and speed alone in this thing. Sure there’s no magic about the speed of light. I didn’t ever see that before, but it’s there plain now. The speed of light depends on the properties of light, and that goes for electricity and radio an’ all those related waves.

“Let’s be keepin’ that in mind. Light an’ such react on space, an’ are held down by nothin’ but their own limitations. An’ there’s only one new thing we’ve got that could’ve put us out here, beyond the speed of light; an’ that’s—”

“Atomic energy!” It was Compton, his normally strong voice amazingly low and tense. “O’Day, you’re a genius. Light lacks the energy attributes necessary to break the bonds that hold it leashed. But atomic energy—the reaction of atomic energy on the fabric of space itself—”

Gunther broke in eagerly: “There must be rigid laws. For decades men dreamed of atomic energy, and finally it came, differently than they expected. For centuries after the first spaceship roared crudely to the moon, there has been the dream of the inertia-less drive; and here, somewhat differently than we pictured it, is that dream come alive.”

There was brief silence, Then, once again before Harcourt could speak, there was an interruption. The door burst open—a man poked his head around the corner.

“Steam engine’s ready! Shall we start her up?”

There was a gasp from every man in that room—except Harcourt. He leaped erect before the heavier Compton could more than shuffle his feet; he snapped: “Sit down, Compton!”

His gray gaze flicked with flame-like intensity from face to face. His lean body was taut as stone as /he said, “No, the steam engine does not go on!”

He glanced steadily but swiftly at his wrist watch. He said, “According to Gunther’s calculations, we’re still twenty minutes from the star. During seventeen of those minutes we’re going to sit here and prepare a logical plan for using the forces we have available.”

Turning to the mechanic, he finished quietly: “Tell the boys to relax, Blake.”

The men were staring at him; and it was odd to notice that each of the three had become abnormally stiff in posture, their eyes narrowed to pinpoints, hands clenched, cheeks pale. It was not as if they had not been tense a minute before. But now—”

By comparison, their condition then seemed as if it could have been nothing less than easygoing resignation.

For a long moment the silence in the cozy little room, with its library, its chairs and shining oak desk and metal cabinets, was complete. Finally Compton laughed, a curt, tense, humor-less laugh that showed the enormousness of the strain he was under. Even Harcourt jumped at that hard, ugly, explosive jolt of laughter.

“You false alarm!” said Compton. “So you gave up the ship, eh?“

“My problem,” Harcourt said coolly, “was this: we needed original thinking. And new ideas are never born under ultimate strain. In the last twenty minutes, when we seemed to have given up, your minds actually relaxed to a very great extent.

“And the idea came! It may be worthless, but it’s what we’ve got to work on. There’s no time to look further.

“And now, with O’Day’s idea, we’re back to the strain of hope. I need hardly tell you that, once an idea exists, trained men can develop it immeasurably faster under pressure.”

Once more his gaze flicked from face to face. Color was coming back to their faces; they were recovering from the tremendous shock. He finished swiftly: “One more thing: you may have wondered why I didn’t invite the others into this. Reason: twenty men only confuse an issue in twenty minutes. It’s we four here, or death for all. Gunther, regardless of the time it will take, we must have recapitulation, a clarification—quick!”

Gunther began roughly: “All right. We crossed the point of light speed. Several things happened: our velocity jumped to a billion or so times that of light. Our electric system went on the blink—there’s something to explain.”

“Go on!” urged Harcourt. “Twelve minutes left!”

“Our new speed is due to the reaction of atomic energy on the fabric of space. This reaction did not begin till we had crossed the point of light speed, indicating some connection, possibly a natural, restraining influence of the world of matter and energy as we knew it, on this vaster, potentially cataclysmic force.”

“Eleven minutes!” said Harcourt coldly.

Greater streams of sweat were pouring down Gunther’s dark face. He finished jerkily: “Apparently our acceleration continued at two gravities. Our problems are: to stop the ship immediately and to find our way back to Earth.”

He slumped back in his chair like a man who has suddenly become deathly sick. Harcourt snapped: “Compton, what happened to the electricity?”

“The batteries drained of power in about three minutes!” the big man rumbled hoarsely. “That happens to be approximately the theoretically minimum time, given an ultimate demand, and opposed only by the cable resistance. Somewhere it must have jumped to an easy conductor—but where did it go? Don’t ask me!”

“I’m thinkin’,” said O’Day, his voice strangely flat, “I’m thinkin’ it went home.

“Wait!” The flat, steely twang of the word silenced both Harcourt and the astounded Compton. “Time for talkin’ is over. Harcourt, you’ll be enforcin’ my orders.”

“Give them!” barked the captain. His body felt like a cake of ice, his brain like a red-hot poker.

O’Day turned to Compton. “Now get this, you blasted engineer: turn off them drivers ninety-five percent! One inch farther and I’l1 blow your brains out!”

“How the devil am I going to know what the percent is?” Compton said freezingly. “Those are engines, not delicately adjusted laboratory instruments. Why not shut them off all the way?”

“You damned idiot!” O’Day shouted furiously. “That’ll cut us off out here an’ we’ll be lost forever. Get movin’”

Beet-like flame thickened along Compton’s bull neck. The two men glared at each other like two animals out of a cage, where they have been tortured, ready to destroy each other in distorted revenge.

“Compton!” said Harcourt, and he was amazed at the way his voice quavered. “Seven minutes!”

Without a word, the chief engineer flung about, jerked open the door and plunged out of sight. He was bellowing some gibberish at his men, but Harcourt couldn’t make out a single sentence.

“There’ll be a point,” O’Day was mumbling beside him, “there’ll be a point where the reaction’ll be minimum—but still there—and we’ll have everything—but let’s get out into the engine room before that scoundrel Compton—”

His voice trailed off. He would have stood there blankly if Harcourt hadn’t taken him gently and shoved his unsteady form through the door.

The steam engine was hissing with soft power. As Harcourt watched, Compton threw the clutch. The shining piston rod jerked into life, shuddered as it took the terrific load; and then the great wheel began to move.

For hours, men had sweated and strained in relays to make that wheel turn. Each turn, Harcourt knew, widened by a microscopic fraction of an inch the space separating the hard energy blocks in each drive tube, where the fury of atomic power was born. Each fraction of widening broke that fury by an infinitesimal degree.

The wheel spun sluggishly, ten revolutions a minute, twenty, thirty—a hundred—and that was top speed for that wheel with that power to drive it.

The seconds fled like sleet before a driving wind. The engine puffed and labored, and clacked in joints that had not been sufficiently tightened during the rush job of putting it together. It was the only sound in that great domed room.

Harcourt glanced at his watch. Four minutes. He smiled bleakly. Actually, of course, Gunther’s estimate might be out many minutes. Actually, any second could bring the intolerable pain of instantaneous, flaming death.

He made no attempt to pass on the knowledge of the time limit. Already he had driven these men to the danger point of human sanity. The violence of their rages a few minutes before were red-flare indicators of abnormal mental abysses ahead. There was nothing to do now but wait.

Beside him, O’Day snarled: “Compton—-I’m warnin’ ya.”

“Okay, okay!” Compton barked sulkily.

Almost pettishly, he pulled the clutch free—and the wheel stopped. There was no momentum. It just stopped.

“Keep jerkin’ it in an’ out now!” O’Day commanded. “An’ stop when I tell ya!” The point of reaction must be close.”

In, out; in, out. It was hard on the engine. The machine labored with a noisy, shuddering clamor. It was harder on the men. They stood like figures of stone. Harcourt glanced stiffly at his watch.

Two minutes!

In, out; in out; in—went the clutch, rhythmically now. Somewhere there was a point where atomic energy would cease to create a full tension in space, but there would still be connection. That much of O’Day’s words were clear. And—

Abruptly the ship staggered, as if it had been struck. It was not a physical blow, for they were not sent reeling off their feet. But Harcourt, who knew the effect of titanic energies, waited for the first shock of inconceivable heat to sear him. Instead—

“Now!” came the shrill beat of O’Day’s voice.

Out jerked the clutch in its rhythmical backward and forward movement. The great space liner poised for the space of a heartbeat. The thought came to Harcourt:

Good heavens, we can’t have stopped completely. There must be momentum!

In went that rhythmically manipulated clutch. The ship reeled; and Compton turned. His eyes were glassy, his face twisted with sudden pain.

“Huh!” he said. “What did you say, O’Day? I bumped my finger and—”

“You be-damned idiot!” O’Day almost whispered. “You—”

His words twisted queerly into meaningless sounds. And, for Harcourt a strange blur settled over the scene.

He had the fantastic impression that Compton had returned to his automatic manipulation of the clutch; and, insanely, the wheel and the steam engine had reversed.

A period of almost blank confusion passed; and then, incredibly, he was walking backward into Compton’s office, leading an unsteady, backward-walking O’Day.

Suddenly there were Compton, Gunther, O’Day and himself sitting around the desk; and senseless words chattered from their lips.

They lifted glasses to their mouths; and, horribly, the liquor flowed from their lips and filled the glasses.

Then he was walking backward again; and there was Compton lying on the engine-room floor, nursing his shattered finger—and then he was back in the dark navigation room, peering through a telescope eyepiece at a remote star.

The jumble of voice sounds came again and again through the blur—finally he lay asleep in bed.

Asleep? Some part of his brain was awake, untouched by this incredible reversal of physical and mental actions. And as he lay there, slow thoughts came to that aloof, watchful part of his mind.
The electricity had, of course, gone home. Literally. And so were they going home. Just how far the madness would carry on, whether it would end at the point of light speed, only time would tell, And obviously, when flights like this were everyday occurrences, passengers and crew would spend the entire journey in bed.

Everything reversed. Atomic energy had created an initial tension in space, and somehow space demanded an inexorable recompense. Action and reaction were equal and opposite. Something was transmitted, and then an exact balance was made. O’Day had quite evidently thought that at the point of change, of reaction, an artificial stability could be created, enabling the ship to remain indefinitely at its remote destination and—

Blackness surged over his thought. He opened his eyes with a start. Somewhere in the back of his brain was a conviction of something wrong. He couldn’t quite place the discordant factor, but it quivered there on the verge of his brain, an alien thing that shattered for him the security of the spaceship.

He strained his senses against the blackness—and abruptly grew aware of the intensity of that dark. That was it! The darkness! The indirect night light must have gone off.

Odd that the light system should have gone on the blink on this first “night” of this first trip of the first spaceship powered by the new, stupendous atomic drive.

Footsteps whispered hesitantly along the corridor. There was a knock, and the voice of Gunther came, strained and muffled. The man entered; and his breathing was a thick, satisfying sound that destroyed the last vestige of the hard silence. Gunther said:

“Harcourt, the damnedest thing has happened. It started when everything electrical went out of order. Compton says we’ve been accelerating for two hours now at heaven only knows what rate.”

For the multi-billionth time, as it had for uncountable years, the inescapable cosmic farce began to rewind, like a film held over!

The End

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JOB: A Comedy of Justice (Full Text) by Robert A. Heinlein

While the Robert Heinlein story “Glory Road” describes how our galaxy actually works. This little gem of a story, kind of illustrates what it was for me in my role in MAJestic. Though, thankfully, it wasn’t anywhere as pathetically extreme as the poor SOB’s in this story. It was at times, almost as bad. Sigh.

JOB – A Comedy of Justice – Robert Heinlein

Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: Therefore despise not thou the chastening of 

The Almighty. Job 5:17

Chapter 1

When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned.

Isaiah 43:2

JOB – A Comedy of Justice – Robert Heinlein

THE FIRE pit was about twenty-five feet long by ten feet wide, and perhaps two feet deep. The fire had been burning for hours. The bed of coals gave off a blast of heat almost unbearable even back where I was seated, fifteen feet from the side of the pit, in the second row of tourists.

I had given up my front-row seat to one of the ladies from the ship, delighted to accept the shielding offered by her well-fed carcass. I was tempted to move still farther back… but I did want to see the fire walkers close up. How often does one get to view a miracle?

‘It’s a hoax,’ the Well-Traveled Man said. ‘You’ll see.’

‘Not really a hoax, Gerald,’ the Authority-on-Everything denied. ‘Just somewhat less than we were led to expect. It won’t be the whole village – probably none of the hula dancers and certainly not those children. One or two of the young men, with calluses on their feet as thick as cowhide, and hopped up on opium or some native drug, will go down the pit at a dead run. The villagers will cheer and our kanaka friend there who is translating for us will strongly suggest that we should tip each of the fire walkers, over and above what we’ve paid for the luau and the dancing and this show.

‘Not a complete hoax,’ he went on. ‘The shore excursion brochure listed a “demonstration of fire walking”. That’s what we’ll get. Never mind the talk about a whole village of fire walkers. Not in the contract. ‘The Authority looked smug.

‘Mass hypnosis,’ the Professional Bore announced.

I was tempted to ask for an explanation of ‘mass hypnosis’- but nobody wanted to hear from me; I was junior – not necessarily in years but in the cruise ship Konge Knut. That’s how it is in cruise ships: Anyone who has been in the vessel since port of departure is senior to, anyone who joins the ship later. The Medes and the Persians laid down this law and nothing can change it. I had flown down in the Count Von Zeppelin, at Papeete I would fly home in the Admiral Moffett, so I was forever junior and should keep quiet while my betters pontificated’.

Cruise ships have the best food and, all too often, the worst conversation in the world. Despite this I was enjoying the islands; even the Mystic and the Amateur Astrologer and the Parlor Freudian and the Numerologist did not trouble me, as I did not listen.

‘They do it through the fourth dimension,’ the Mystic announced. ‘Isn’t that true, Gwendolyn!’

‘Quite true, dear,’ the Numerologist agreed. ‘Oh, here they come now! It will be an odd number, you’ll see.’

‘You’re so learned, dear.’

‘Humph,’ said the Skeptic.

The native who was assisting our ship’s excursion host raised his arms and spread his palms for silence. ‘Please, will you all listen! Mauruuru roa. Thank you very much. The high priest and priestess will now pray the Gods to make the fire safe for the villagers. I ask you to remember that this is a religious ceremony, very ancient; please behave as you would in your own church. Because -‘

An extremely old kanaka interrupted; he and the translator exchanged words in a language not known to me Polynesian, I assumed; it had the right liquid flow to it. The younger kanaka turned back to us.

‘The high priest tells me that some of the children are making their first walk through fire today, including that baby over there in her mother’s arms. He asks all of you to keep perfectly silent during the prayers, to insure the safety of the children. Let me add that I am a Catholic. At this point I always ask our Holy Mother Mary to watch over our children – and I ask all of you to pray for them in your own way. Or at least keep silent and think good thoughts for them. If the high priest is not satisfied that there is a reverent attitude, he won’t let the children enter the fire – I’ve even known him to cancel the entire ceremony.

‘There you have it, Gerald,’ said the Authority-on-Everything in a third-balcony whisper. ‘The build-up. Now the switch, and they’ll blame it on us.’ He snorted.

The Authority – his name was Cheevers – had been annoying me ever since I had joined the ship. I leaned forward and said quietly into his ear, ‘If those children walk through the fire, do you have the guts to do likewise?’

Let this be a lesson to you. Learn by my bad example. Never let an oaf cause you to lose your

judgement. Some seconds later I found that my challenge had been turned against me and. -somehow! – all three, the Authority, the Skeptic, and the Well-Traveled Man, had each bet me a hundred that I would not dare walk the fire pit, stipulating that the children walked first.

Then the translator was shushing us again and the priest and priestess stepped down into the fire pit and everybody kept very quiet and I suppose some of us prayed. I know I did. I found myself reciting what popped into my mind:

‘Now I lay me down to sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep-‘

Somehow it seemed appropriate.

The priest and the priestess did not walk through the fire; they did-something quietly more spectacular and (it seemed to me) far more dangerous. They simply stood in the fire pit, barefooted, and prayed for several minutes. I could see their lips move. Every so often the old priest sprinkled something into the pit. Whatever it was, as it struck the coals it burst into sparkles.

I tried to see what they were standing on, coals or rocks, but I could not tell… and could not guess which would be worse. Yet this old woman, skinny as gnawed bones, stood there quietly, face placid, and with no precautions other than having tucked up her lava-lava so that it was almost a diaper.

Apparently she fretted about burning her clothes but not about burning her legs.

Three men with poles had been straightening out the burning logs, making sure that the bed of the pit was a firm and fairly even footing for the fire walkers. I took a deep interest in this, as I expected to be walking in. that pit in a few minutes – if I didn’t cave in and forfeit the bet. It seemed to me that they were making it possible to walk the length of the fire pit on rocks rather than burning coals. I hoped so!

Then I wondered what difference it would make recalling sun-scorched sidewalks that had blistered my bare feet when I was a boy inKansas . That fire had to be at least seven hundred degrees; those rocks had been soaking in that fire for several hours. At such temperatures was there any real choice between frying pan and fire?

I Meanwhile the voice of reason was whispering in my ear that forfeiting three hundred was not much of

a price to pay to get out of this bind… or would I rather walk the rest of my life on two barbecued stumps?

Would it help if I took an aspirin?

The three men finished fiddling with the burning logs and went to the end of the pit at our left; the rest of the villagers gathered behind them – including those darned kids! What were their parents thinking about, letting them risk something like this? Why weren’t they in school where they belonged?

The three fire tenders led off, walking single file down the center of the fire, not hurrying, not dallying. The rest of the men of the village followed them, a* slow, steady procession. Then came the women, including the young mother with a baby on her hip.

When the blast of heat struck the infant, it started to cry. Without varying her steady pace, its mother swung it up and gave it suck; the baby shut up.

The children followed, from pubescent girls and adolescent boys down to the kindergarten level. Last was a little girl (nine? eight?) who was leading her round-eyed little, brother by, the hand. He seemed to be about four and was dressed only in his skin.

I looked at this kid and knew with mournful certainty that I was about to be served up rare; I could no longer back out. Once the baby boy stumbled; his sister kept him from falling. He went on then, short sturdy steps. At the far end someone reached down and lifted him out.

And it was my turn.

The translator said to me, ‘You understand that the Polynesia Tourist Bureau takes no responsibility for your safety? That fire can burn you, it can kill you. These people can walk it safely because they have faith.’

I assured him that I had faith, while wondering how I could be such a barefaced liar. I signed a release he presented.

All too soon I was standing at one end of the pit, with my trousers rolled up to my knees. My shoes and socks and hat and wallet were at the far end, waiting on a stool. That was my goal, my prize – if I didn’t make it, would they cast lots for them? Or would they ship them to my next of kin?

He was saying: ‘Go right down the middle. Don’t hurry but don’t stand still.’ The high priest spoke up; my mentor listened, then said, ‘He says not to run, even if your feet burn. Because you might stumble and fall down. Then you might never get up. He means you might die. I must add that you probably would not die – unless you breathed flame. But you would certainly be terribly burned. So don’t hurry and don’t fall down. Now see that flat rock under you? That’s your first step. Que le bon Dieu vous garde. Good luck.’

‘Thanks.’ I glanced over at the Authority-on-Everything, who was smiling ghoulishly, if ghouls smile. I gave him a mendaciously jaunty wave and stepped down.

I had taken three steps before I realized that I didn’t feel anything at all. Then I did feel something: scared. Scared silly and wishing I were in Peoria. Or even Philadelphia. Instead of alone in this vast smoldering waste. The far end of the pit was a city block away. Maybe farther. But I kept plodding toward it while hoping that this numb paralysis would not cause me to collapse before reaching it.

I felt smothered and discovered that I had been holding my breath. So I gasped – and regretted it. Over a fire pit that vast there is blistering gas and smoke and carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and something that may be Satan’s halitosis, but not enough oxygen to matter.’ I chopped off that gasp with my eyes watering and my throat raw and tried to estimate whether or not I could reach the end without breathing.

Heaven help me, I could not see the far end! The smoke had billowed up and my eyes would barely open and would not focus. So I pushed on, while trying to remember the formula by which one made a deathbed confession and then slid into Heaven on a technicality.

Maybe there wasn’t any such formula. My feet felt odd and my knees were becoming unglued…

‘Feeling better, Mr Graham?’

I was lying on grass and looking up into a friendly, brown face. ‘I guess so,’ I answered. ‘What

happened? Did I walk it?’

‘Certainly you walked it. Beautifully. But you fainted right at the end. We were standing by and grabbed you, hauled you out. But you tell me what happened. Did you get your lungs full of smoke?’

‘Maybe. Am I burned?’

‘No. Oh, you may form one blister on your right foot. But you held the thought perfectly. All but that faint, which must have been caused by smoke.’

‘I guess so.’ I sat up with his help. ‘Can you hand me my shoes and socks? Where is everybody?’

‘The bus left. The high priest took your pulse and checked your breathing but he wouldn’t let anyone disturb you. If you force a man to wake up when his spirit is still walking about, the spirit may not come back in. So he believes and no one dares argue with him.’

‘I won’t argue with him; I feel fine. Rested. But how do I get back to the ship?’ Five miles of tropical paradise would get tedious after the first mile. On foot. Especially as my feet seemed to have swelled a bit. For which they, had ample excuse.

‘The bus will come back to take the villagers to the boat that takes them back to the island they live on. It then could take you to your ship. But we can do better. My cousin has an automobile. He wil take you.’

‘Good. How much will he charge me?’ Taxis in Polynesia are always outrageous, especially when the drivers have you at their mercy, of which they have none. But it occurred to me that I could afford to be robbed as I was bound to show a profit on this jape. Three hundred minus one taxi fare. I picked up my hat. ‘Where’s my wallet?’

‘Your wallet?’

‘My billfold. I left it in my hat. Where is it? This isn’t funny; my money was in it. And my cards.’

‘Your money? Oh! Votre portefeuille. I am sorry; my English is not perfect. The officer from your ship, your excursion guide, took care of it.’

‘That was kind of him. But how am I to pay your cousin? I don’t have a franc on me.’

We got that straightened out. The ship’s excursion escort, realising that he would be leaving me strapped in rescuing my billfold, had prepaid my ride back to the ship. My kanaka friend took me to his cousin’s car and introduced me to his cousin – not too effectively, as the cousin’s English was limited to ‘Okay, Chief!’ and I never did get his name straight.

‘His automobile was a triumph of baling wire and faith. We went roaring back to the dock at full throttle, frightening chickens and easily outrunning baby goats. I did not pay much attention as I was bemused by something that had happened just before we left. The villagers were waiting for their bus to return; we walked right through them. Or started to. I got kissed. I got kissed by all of them. I had already seen the Polynesian habit of kissing where we would just shake hands, but this was the first time it had happened to me.

My friend explained it to me: ‘You walked through their fire, so you are an honorary member of their village. They want to kill a pig for you. Hold a feast in your honor.’

I tried to answer in kind while explaining that I had to return home across the great water but I would return someday, God willing. Eventually we got away.

But that was not what had me most bemused. Any unbiased judge would have to admit that I am reasonably sophisticated. I am aware that some places do not have America’s high moral standards and are careless about indecent exposure. I know that Polynesian women used to run around naked from the waist up until civilization came along – shucks, I read the National Geographic.

But I never expected to see it.

Before I made my fire walk the villagers were dressed just as you would expect: grass skirts but with the women’s bosoms covered.

But when they kissed me hello-goodbye they were not. Not covered, I mean. Just like the National Geographic.

Now I appreciate feminine beauty. Those delightful differences, seen under proper circumstances with the shades decently drawn, can be dazzling. But forty-odd (no, even) of them are intimidating. I saw more human feminine busts than I had ever seen before, total and cumulative, in my entire life. The Methodist Episcopal Society for Temperance and Morals would have been shocked right out of their wits.

With adequate warning I am sure that I could have enjoyed the experience. As it was, it was too new, too much, too fast. I could appreciate it only in retrospect.

Our tropical Rolls-Royce crunched to a stop with the aid of hand brake, foot brake, and first-gear compression; I looked up from bemused euphoria. My driver announced, ‘Okay, Chief!’

I said, ‘That’s not my ship.’

‘Okay, Chief?’

‘You’ve taken me to the wrong dock. Uh, it looks like the right dock but it’s the wrong ship.’ Of that I was certain. M.V. Konge Knut has white sides and superstructure and a rakish false funnel. This ship was mostly red with four tall black stacks. Steam, it had to be – not a motor vessel. As well as years out of date. ‘No. No!’

‘Okay, Chief. Votre vapeur! Voila!’

‘Non!’

‘Okay, Chief.’ He got out, came around and opened the door on the passenger Side, grabbed my arm,

and pulled.

I’m in fairly good shape, but his arm had been toughened by swimming, climbing for coconuts, hauling in fishnets, and pulling tourists who don’t want to go out of cars. I got out.

He jumped back in, called out, ‘Okay, Chief! Merci bien! Au ‘voir!’ and was gone.

I went, Hobson’s choice, up the gangway of the strange vessel to learn, if possible, what had become of the Konge Knut. As I stepped aboard, the petty officer on gangway watch saluted and said, ‘Afternoon, sir. Mr Graham, Mr Nielsen left a package for you. One moment -‘He lifted the lid of his watch desk, took out a large manila envelope. ‘Here you are, sir.’

The package had written on it: A. L. Graham, cabin C109. I opened it, found a well-worn wallet.

‘Is everything in order, Mr Graham?’

‘Yes, thank you. Will you tell Mr Nielsen that I received it? And give him my thanks.’

‘Certainly, sir.’

I noted that this was D deck, went up one flight to find cabin C109.

All was not quite in order. My name is not ‘Graham’.

Chapter 2

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

THANK HEAVEN ships use a consistent numbering system. Stateroom C109 was where it should be: on C deck, starboard side forward, between C107 and C111; I reached it without having to speak to anyone. I tried the door; it was locked – Mr Graham apparently believed the warnings pursers give about locking doors, especially in port.

The key, I thought glumly, is in Mr Graham’s pants pocket. But where is Mr Graham? About to catch me snooping at his door? Or is the trying my door while I am trying his door?

There is a small but not zero chance that a given key will fit a strange lock. I had in my own pocket my room key from the Konge Knut. I tried it.

Well, it was worth trying. I stood there, wondering whether to sneeze or drop dead, when I heard a sweet voice behind me:

‘Oh, Mr Graham!’

A young and pretty woman in a maid’s costume – Correction: stewardess’ uniform. She came bustling toward me, took a pass key that was chained to her belt, opened C109, while saying, ‘Margrethe asked me to watch for you. She told me that you had left your cabin key on your desk. She let it stay but told me to watch for you and let you in.’

‘That’s most kind, of you, Miss, uh-‘

‘I’m Astrid. I have the matching rooms on the port side, so Marga and I cover for each other. She’s gone ashore this afternoon.’ She held the door for me. ‘Will that be all, sir?’

I thanked her, she left. I latched and bolted the door, collapsed in a chair and gave way to the shakes.

Ten minutes later I stood up, went into the bathroom, put cold water on my face and eyes. I had not solved anything and had not wholly calmed down, but my nerves were no longer snapping like a flag in a high wind. I had been holding myself in ever since I had begun to suspect that something was seriously wrong, which was – when? When nothing seemed quite right at the fire pit? Later? Well, with utter certainty when I saw one 20,000-ton ship substituted for another.

My father used to tell me, ‘Alex, there is nothing wrong with being scared… as long as you don’t let it affect you until the danger is over. Being hysterical is okay, too… afterwards and in private. Tears are not unmanly… in the bathroom with the door locked. The difference between a coward and a brave man is mostly a matter of timing.’

I’m not the man my father was but I try to follow his advice. If you can learn not to jump when the firecracker goes off – or whatever the surprise is – you stand a good chance of being able to hang tight until the emergency is over.

This emergency was not over but I had benefited by the catharsis of a good case of shakes. Now I could take stock.

Hypotheses:

a) Something preposterous has happened to the world around me, or

b) Something preposterous has happened to Alex Hergensheimer’s mind; he should be locked up and sedated.

I could not think of a third hypothesis; those two seemed to cover all bases. The second hypothesis I need not waste time on. If, I were raising snakes in my hat, eventually other people would notice and come around with a straitjacket and put me in a nice padded room.

So let’s assume that I am sane (or nearly so; being a little bit crazy is helpful). If I am okay, then the world is .out of joint. Let’s take stock.

That wallet. Not mine. Most wallets are generally similar to each other and this one was much like mine. But carry a wallet for a few years and it fits you; it is distinctly yours. I had known at once that this one was not mine. But I did not want to say so to a ship’s petty officer who insisted on, ‘recognizing’ me as ‘Mr Graham’.

I took out Graham’s wallet and opened it.

Several hundred francs – count it later.

Eighty-five dollars in paper – legal tender of ‘The United States of North America’.

A driver’s license issued to A. L. Graham.

There were more items but I came across a window occupied by a typed notice, one that stopped me cold:

Anyone finding this wallet may keep any money in it as a reward if he will be so kind as to return the wallet to A. L. Graham, cabin C109, S.S. KONGE KNUT, Danish American Line, or to any purser or agent of the line. Thank you. A.L.G.

So now I knew what had happened to the Konge Knut; she had undergone a sea change.

Or had I? Was there truly a changed world and therefore a changed ship? Or were there two worlds and had I somehow walked through fire into the second one? Were there indeed two men and had they swapped destinies? Or had Alex Hergensheimer metamorphized into Alec Graham while M. V. Konge Knut changed into S. S. Konge Knut? (While the North American Union melted into the United States of North America?)

Good questions. I’m glad you brought them up. Now, class, are there any more questions

When I was in middle school there was a spate of magazines publishing fantastic, stories, not alone ghost stories but weird yarns of every sort. Magic ships plying the ether to, other stars. Strange inventions.

Trips to the centre of the earth. Other ‘dimensions’. Flying machines. Power from burning atoms. Monsters created in secret laboratories.

I used to buy them and hide them inside copies of Youth’s Companion and of Young Crusaders knowing instinctively that my parents would disapprove and confiscate. I loved them and so did my outlaw chum Bert.

It couldn’t last. First there was an editorial in Youth’s Companion: ‘Poison to the Soul – Stamp it Out!’ Then our pastor, Brother Draper, preached a sermon against such mind-corrupting trash, with comparisons to the evil effects of cigarettes and booze. Then our state outlawed such publications under the ‘standards of the community’ doctrine even before passage of the national law and the parallel executive order.

And a cache I had hidden ‘perfectly’ in our attic disappeared. Worse, the works of Mr H. G. Wells and

M. Jules Verne and some others were taken out of our public library.

You have to admire the motives of our spiritual leaders and elected officials in seeking to protect the minds of the young. As Brother Draper pointed out, there are enough exciting and adventurous stories in the Good Book to satisfy the needs of every boy and girl in the world; there was simply no need for profane literature. He was not urging censorship of books for adults, just for the impressionable young. If persons of mature years wanted to read such fantastic trash, suffer them to do so – although he, for one, could not see why any grown man would want to.

I guess I was one of the ‘impressionable young’ – I still miss them.

I remember particularly one by Mr Wells: Men Like Gods. These people were driving along in an automobile when an explosion happens and they find themselves in another world, much like their own but better. They meet the people who live there and there is explanation about parallel universes and the fourth dimension and such.

That was the first installment. The Protect-Our-Youth state law was passed right after that, so I never

saw the later installments.

One of my English professors who was bluntly opposed to censorship once said that Mr Wells had invented every one of the basic fantastic themes, and he cited this story as the origin of the

multiple-universes concept. I was intending to ask this prof if he knew where I could find a copy, but I put it off to the end of the term when I would be legally ‘of mature years’ – and waited too long; the academic senate committee on faith and morals voted against tenure for that professor, and he left abruptly without finishing the term.

Did something happen to me like that which Mr Wells described in Men Like Gods? Did Mr Wells have the holy gift of prophecy? For example, would men someday actually fly to the moon? Preposterous!

But was it more preposterous than what had happened to me?

As may be, here. I was in Konge Knut (even though she was not my, Konge Knut) and the sailing board at the gangway showed her getting underway at 6 p.m. It was already late afternoon and high time for me to decide.

What to do? I seemed to have mislaid my own ship, the Motor Vessel Konge Knut. But the crew (some of the crew) of the Steamship Konge Knut seemed ready to accept me as ‘Mr Graham’, passenger.

Stay aboard and try to brazen it out? What if Graham comes aboard (any minute now!) and demands to know what I am doing in his room?

Or go ashore (as I should) and go to the authorities with my problem?

Alex, the French colonial authorities will love you. No baggage, only the clothes on your back, no money, not a sou – no passport! Oh, they will love you so much they’ll give you room and board for the rest of your life … in an oubliette with a grill over the top.

There’s money in that wallet.

So? Ever heard of the Eighth Commandment? That’s his money.

But it stands to reason that he walked through the fire at the same time you did but on this side, this world or whatever – or his wallet would not have been waiting for you. Now he has your wallet. That’s logical.

Listen, my retarded friend, do you think logic has anything to do with the predicament we are in?

Well

Speak up!

No, not really. Then how about this? Sit tight in this room. If Graham shows up before, the ship sails, you get kicked off the ship, that’s sure. But you would be no worse off than you will be if you leave now. If he does not show up, then you take his place at least as far as Papeete. That’s a big city; your chances of coping with the situation are far better there. Consuls and such.

You talked me into it.

Passenger ships usually publish a daily newspaper for the passengers – just a single or double sheet filled with thrilling items such as ‘There will be a boat drill at ten o’clock this morning. All passengers are requested -‘ and ‘Yesterday’s mileage pool was won by Mrs Ephraim Glutz of Bethany, Iowa’ and, usually, a few news items picked up by the wireless operator. I looked around for the ship’s paper and for the ‘Welcome Aboard!’ This latter is a booklet (perhaps with another name) intended to make the passenger newly aboard sophisticated in the little world of the ship: names of the officers, times of meals, location of barber shop, laundry, dining room, gift shop (notions, magazines, toothpaste), and how to place a morning call, plan of the ship by decks, location of life preserver, how, to find your lifeboat station, where to get your table assignment-

‘Table assignment’! Ouch! A passenger who has been aboard even one day does not have to ask how to find his table in the dining room. It’s the little things that trip you. Well, I’d have to bull it through.

The welcome-aboard booklet was tucked into Graham’s desk. I thumbed through it, with a mental note to memorize all key facts before I left this room – if I was still aboard when the ship sailed – then put it aside, as I had found the ship’s newspaper:

The King’s Skald it was headed and Graham, bless him, had saved all of them from the day he had boarded the ship… at Portland, Oregon, as I deduced from the place and date line of the, earliest issue. That suggested that Graham was ticketed for the entire cruise, which could be important to me. I had expected to go back as I had arrived, by airship – but, even if the dirigible liner Admiral Moffett existed in this world or dimension or whatever, I no longer had a ticket for it and no money with which to buy one. What do these French colonials do to a tourist who has no money? Burn him at the stake? Or merely draw and quarter him? I did not want to find out. Graham’s roundtrip ticket (if he had one) might keep me from having to find out.

(If he didn’t show up in the next hour and have me kicked off the ship.)

I did not consider remaining in Polynesia. Being a penniless beachcomber on Bora-Bora or Moorea may have been practical a hundred years ago but today the only thing free in these islands is contagious disease.

It seemed likely that I would be just as broke and just as much a stranger in America but nevertheless I felt that I would be better off in my native land. Well, Graham’s native land.

I read some of the wireless news items but could not make sense of them, so I put them aside for later study. What little I had learned from them was not comforting. I had cherished deep down an illogical hope that this would turn out to be just a silly mixup that would soon be straightened out (don’t ask me how). But those news items ended all hoping.

I mean to say, what sort of world is it in which the ‘President’ of Germany visits London? In my world Kaiser Wilhelm IV rules the German Empire – A ‘president’ for Germany sounds as silly as a ‘king’ for America.

This might he a pleasant world… but it was not the world I was born into. Not by those weird news items.

As I put away. Graham’s file of The King’s Skald I noted on the top sheet today’s prescribed dress for

dinner: ‘Formal’.

I was not surprised; the Konge Knut in her other incarnation as a motor vessel was quite formal. If the ship was underway, black tie was expected. If you didn’t wear it, you were made to feel that you really ought to eat in your stateroom.

I don’t own a tuxedo; our church does not encourage vanities. I had compromised by wearing a blue serge suit at dinners underway, with a white shirt and a snap-on black bow tie. Nobody said anything. It did not matter, as I was below the salt anyhow, having come aboard at Papeete.

I decided to see if Mr Graham owned a dark suit. And a black tie.

Mr Graham owned lots of clothes, far more than I did. I tried on a sports jacket; it fit me well enough.. Trousers? Length seemed okay; I was not sure about the waistband – and too shy to try on a pair and thereby risk being caught by Graham with one leg in his trousers, What does one say? Hi, there! I was just waiting for you and thought I would pass the time by trying on your pants. Not convincing.

He had not one but two tuxedos, one in conventional black and the other in dark red – I had never heard of such frippery.

But I did not find a snap-on bow tie.

He had black bow ties, several. But I have never learned how to tie a bow tie.

I took a deep breath and thought about it.

There came a knock at the door. I didn’t jump out of my skin, just almost. ‘Who’s there!’ (Honest, Mr Graham, I was just waiting for you!) –

‘Stewardess, sir.’

‘Oh. Come in, come in!’

I heard her try her key, then I jumped to turn back the bolt. ‘Sorry. I had forgotten that I had used the dead bolt.

Do come in.’

Margrethe turned out to be about the age of Astrid, youngish, and even prettier, with flaxen hair and freckles across her nose. She spoke textbook-correct English with a charming lilt to it. She was carrying a short white jacket on a coat hanger. ‘Your mess jacket, sir. Karl says the other one will be ready tomorrow.’

‘Why, thank you, Margrethe! I had forgotten all about it.

I thought you might. So I came back aboard a little early – the laundry was just closing. I’m glad I did; it’s much too hot for you to wear black.’

‘You shouldn’t have come back early; you’re spoiling me.’

‘I like to take good care of my guests. As you know.’ She hung the jacket in the wardrobe, turned to leave. ‘I’ll be back to tie your tie. Six-thirty as usual, sir?’

‘Six-thirty is fine. What time is it now?’ (Tarnation, my watch was gone wherever Motor Vessel Konge Knut had vanished; I had not worn it ashore.)

‘Almost six o’clock.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ll lay out your clothes before I go; you don’t have much time.’

‘My dear girl! That’s no part of your duties.’

‘No, it’s my pleasure.’ She opened a drawer, took out a dress shirt, placed it on my/Graham’s bunk. ‘And you know why.’ With the quick efficiency of a person who knows exactly where everything is, she opened a ‘ small desk drawer that I had not touched, took out a leather case, from it laid out by the shirt a watch, a ring, and shirt studs, then inserted studs into the shirt, placed fresh underwear and black silk socks on the pillow, placed evening pumps by the chair with shoe horn tucked inside, took from the wardrobe that mess jacket, hung it and black dress trousers (braces attached) and dark red cummerbund on the front of the wardrobe. She glanced over and a fresh the layout, added a wing collar, a black tie, and a fresh handkerchief to the stack on the pillow – cast her eye over it again, placed the room key and the wallet by the ring and the watch – glanced again, nodded. ‘I must run or I’ll miss dinner. I’ll be back for the tie.’ And she was gone, not running but moving very fast.

Margrethe was so right. If she had not laid out everything, I would still be struggling to put myself together. That shirt alone would have stopped me; it was one of the dive-in-and-button-up-the-back sort. I had never worn one.

Thank heaven Graham used an ordinary brand of safety razor. By six-fifteen I had touched up my morning shave, showered (necessary!), and washed the smoke out of my hair.

His shoes fit me as if I had broken them in myself. His trousers were a bit tight in the waist – a Danish ship is no place to lose weight and I had been in the Motor Vessel Konge Knut for a fortnight. I was still struggling with that consarned backwards shirt when Margarethe let herself in with her pass key.

She came straight to me, said, ‘Hold still,’ and quickly buttoned the buttons I could not reach. Then she fitted that fiendish collar over its collar buttons, laid the tie around my neck. ‘Turn around, please.’

Tying a bow tie properly involves magic. She knew the spell.

She helped me with the cummerband, held my jacket for me, looked me over and announced, ‘You’ll do. And I’m proud of you; at dinner the girls were talking about you.’ I wish I had seen it. You are very brave.’

‘Not brave. Foolish. I talked when I should have kept still.’

‘Brave. I must go – I left Kristina guarding a cherry tart for me. But if I stay away too long someone will steal it.’

‘You run along. And thank you loads’. Hurry and save that tart.’

‘Aren’t you going to pay me?’

‘Oh. What payment would you like?’

‘Don’t tease me!’ She moved a few inches closer, turned her face up. I don’t know much about girls (who does?) but some signals are large print. I took her by her shoulders, kissed both cheeks, hesitated just long enough to be certain that she was neither displeased nor surprised, then placed one right in the middle’. Her lips were full and

warm.

‘Was that the payment you had in mind?’

‘Yes, of course. But you can kiss better than that. You know you can.’ She pouted her lower lip, then dropped her eyes.

‘Brace. yourself.’

Yes, I can kiss lots better than that. Or could by the time we had used up that kiss. By letting Margrethe lead it and heartily cooperating in whatever way she seemed to think a better kiss should go I learned more about kissing in the next two minutes than I had learned in my entire life up to then.

My ears roared.

For a moment after we broke she held still in my arms and looked up at me most soberly. ‘Alec,’ she said softly, ‘that’s the best you’ve ever kissed me. Goodness. Now I’m going to run before I make you late for dinner.’ She slipped out of my arms and left as she did everything, quickly.

I inspected myself in the mirror. No marks. A kiss that emphatic ought to leave marks.

What sort of person was this Graham? I could wear his clothes … but could I cope with his woman? Or was she his? Who knows? – I did not. Was he a lecher, a womanizer? Or was I butting in on a perfectly nice if somewhat indiscreet romance?

How do you walk back- through a fire pit?

And did I want to?

Go aft to the main companionway, then down two decks and go aft again – that’s what the ship’s plans in the booklet showed.

No problem. A man at the door of the dining saloon, dressed much as I was but with a menu under his arm, had to be the head waiter, the chief dining-room steward. He confirmed it with a big professional smile. ‘Good evening, Mr Graham.’

I paused. ‘Good evening. What’s this about a change in seating arrangements? Where am I to sit tonight?’ (If you grab the bull by the horns, you at least confuse him.)

‘It’s not a permanent change, sir. Tomorrow you will be back at table fourteen. But tonight the Captain has asked that you sit at his table. If you will follow me, sir.’

He led me to an oversize table amidships, started to seat me on the Captain’s right – and the Captain stood up and started to clap, the others at his table followed suit, and shortly everyone in the dining room (it seemed) was standing and clapping and some were cheering.

I learned two things at that dinner. First, it was clear that Graham had pulled the same silly stunt I had (but it still was not clear ‘Whether there was one of us or two of us – I tabled that question).

Second, but of major importance: Do not drink ice-cold Aalborg akvavit on an empty stomach, especially if you were brought up White Ribbon as I was.

Chapter 3

Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging 

Proverbs 20:l

I Am not blaming Captain Hansen. I have heard that Scandinavians put ethanol into their blood as antifreeze, against their long hard winters, and consequently cannot understand people who cannot take strong drink. Besides that, nobody held my arms, nobody held my nose, nobody forced spirits down my throat. I did it myself.

Our church doesn’t hold with the doctrine that the flesh is weak and therefore sin is humanly understandable and readily forgiven. Sin can be forgiven but just barely and you are surely going to catch it first. Sin should suffer.

I found out about some of that suffering. I’m told it is called a hangover.

That is what my drinking uncle called it. Uncle Ed maintained that no man can cope with temperance who has not had a full course of intemperance … otherwise when temptation came his way, he would not know how to handle it.

Maybe I proved Uncle Ed’s point. He was considered a bad influence around our house and, if he had not been Mother’s brother, Dad would not have allowed him, in the house. As it was, he was never pressed to stay longer and was not urged to hurry back.

Before I even sat down at the table, the Captain offered me a glass of akvavit. The glasses used for this are not large; they are quite small – and that is the deceptive part of the danger.

The Captain had a glass like it in his hand. He looked me in the eye and said, ‘To our hero! Skaal!’ – threw his head back and tossed it down.

There were echoes of ‘Skaal!’ all around the table and everyone seemed to gulp it down just like the Captain.

So I did. I could say that being guest of honor laid certain obligations on me -‘When in Rome’ and all that. But the truth is I did not have the requisite strength of character to refuse. I told myself, ‘One tiny glass can’t hurt,’ and gulped it down.

No trouble. It went down smoothly. One pleasant ice-cold swallow, then a spicy aftertaste with a hint of licorice. I did not know what I was drinking but I was not sure that it was alcoholic. It seemed not to be.

We sat down and somebody put food in front of me and the Captain’s steward poured another glass of schnapps for me. I was about to start nibbling the food, Danish hors d’oeuvres and delicious – smorgasbord tidbits – when someone put a hand on my shoulder.

I looked up. The Well-Traveled Man –

With him were the Authority and the Skeptic.

Not the same names. Whoever (Whatever?) was playing games with my life had not gone that far. ‘Gerald Fortescue’ was now ‘Jeremy Forsyth’, for example. But despite slight differences I had no trouble recognizing each of them and their new names were close enough to show that someone, or something, was continuing the joke.

(Then why wasn’t my new name something like ‘Hergensheimer’? ‘Hergensheimer’ has dignity about it, a rolling grandeur. Graham is a so-so name.)

‘Alec,’ Mr Forsyth said, ‘we misjudged you. Duncan and I and Pete are happy to admit it. Here’s the three thousand we owe you, and -‘He hauled his right hand out from behind his back, held up a large bottle. ‘- the best champagne in the ship as a mark of our esteem.’

‘Steward!’ said the Captain.

Shortly, the -wine steward was going around, filling glasses at our table. But before that, I found myself again standing up, making Skaal! in akvavit three times, once to each of the losers, while clutching three thousand dollars States of North America dollars). I did not have, lime then to wonder why three hundred had changed to three thousand – besides, it was not as odd as what had happened to the Konge Knut. Both of her. And my wonder circuits were overloaded anyhow.

Captain Hansen told his waitress to place chairs at the table for Forsyth and company, but all three insisted that their wives and table mates expected them to return. Nor was there room. Not that it would have mattered to Captain Hansen. He, is a Viking, half again as big as a house; hand him a hammer and he would be mistaken for Thor – he has muscles where other men don’t even have places. It is very hard to argue with him.

But he jovially agreed to compromise. They could go back to their tables and finish their dinners but first they must join him and me in pledging Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, guardian angels of our shipmate Alec. In fact the whole table must join in. ‘Steward!’

So we said, ‘Skaal!’ three more times, while bouncing Danish antifreeze off our tonsils.

Have you kept count? That’s seven, I think. You can stop counting, as that is where I lost track. I was beginning to feel a return of the numbness I had felt halfway through the fire pit.

The wine steward had completed pouring champagne, having renewed his supply at a gesture from the Captain. Then it was time to toast me again, and I returned ‘ the compliment to the three losers, then we all toasted Captain Hansen, and then we toasted the good ship

Konge Knut.

The Captain toasted the United States and the whole room stood and drank with him, so I felt it incumbent to answer by toasting the Danish Queen, and that got me toasted again and the Captain demanded a speech from, me. ‘Tell us how it feels to be in the fiery furnace!’

I tried to refuse and there were shouts of ‘Speech! Speech!’ from all around me.

I stood up with some difficulty, tried to remember the speech I had made at the last foreign missions fund-raising dinner. It evaded me. Finally I said, ‘Aw, shucks, it wasn’t anything. Just put your ear to the ground and your shoulder to the wheel, and your eyes on the stars and you can do it too. Thank you, thank you all and next, time you must come to my house.’

They cheered and we skaaled again, I forget why, and the lady on the Captain’s left got up and came around and kissed me, whereupon all the ladies at the Captain’s table clustered around and kissed me. That seemed to inspire the other ladies in the room, for there was a steady procession coming up to claim a buss from me, and usually kissing the Captain while they were about it, or perhaps the other way around.

During this parade someone removed a steak from in front of me, one I had had plans for. I didn’t miss it too much, because that endless orgy of osculation had me bewildered, plus bemusement much like that caused by the female villagers of the fire walk.

Much of this bemusement started when I first walked into the dining room. Let me put it this way: My fellow passengers, female, really should have been in the National Geographic.

Yes. Like that. Well, maybe not quite, but what they did wear made them look nakeder than those friendly villagers. I’m not going to describe those, ‘formal evening dresses’ because I’m not sure I could – and I am sure I shouldn’t. But none of them covered more than twenty percent of what ladies usually keep covered at fancy evening affairs in the world I grew up in. Above the waist I mean. Their skirts, long, some clear to the, floor, were nevertheless cut or slit in most startling ways.

Some of the ladies had tops to their dresses that covered everything … but the material was transparent as glass. Or almost.

And some of the youngest ladies, girls really, actually, did belong in the National Geographic, just like my villagers. Somehow, these younger ladies did not seem quite as immodest as their elders.

I had noticed this display almost the instant I walked in. But, I tried not to stare and the Captain and others kept me so busy at first that I really did not have time to sneak glances at the incredible exposure.

But, look – when a lady comes up and puts her arms around you and insists on kissing you, it is difficult not to notice that she isn’t wearing enough to ward off pneumonia. Or other chest complaints.

But I kept a tight rein on myself despite increasing dizziness and numbness.

Even bare skin did not startle me as much as bare words – language I had never heard in public in my life and extremely seldom even in private among men only. ‘Men’, I said, as gentlemen don’t talk that way even with no ladies’ present – in the world I knew.

The most* shocking thing that ever happened to me in my boyhood was one day crossing the town square, noticing a crowd on the penance side of the courthouse, joining it to see who was catching it and why… and finding my Scoutmaster in the stocks. I almost fainted.

His offence was profane language, so the sign on his chest told us. The accuser was his own wife; he did not dispute it and had thrown himself on the mercy of the court – the judge was Deacon Brumby, who didn’t know the word.

Mr Kirk, my Scoutmaster, left town two weeks later and nobody ever saw him again – being exposed, in the stocks was likely to have that effect on a man. I don’t know what the bad language was that Mr Kirk had used, but it couldn’t have been too bad, as all Deacon Brumby could give him was one

dawn-to-dusk.

That night at the Captain’s table in the K6nge Knut I heard a sweet lady of the favorite-grandmother sort address her husband in a pattern of forbidden words involving blasphemy and certain criminal sensual acts. Had she spoken that way in public in my home town she would have received maximum exposure in stocks followed by being ridden out of town. (Our town did not use tar and feathers; that was regarded as brutal.)

Yet this dear lady in the ship was not even chided. Her husband simply- smiled and told her that she worried too much.

Between shocking speech, incredible immodest exposure, and effects of two sorts of strange and deceptive potions lavishly administered, I was utterly confused. A stranger in a strange land, I was overcome by customs new and shocking. But through it all I clung to the conviction that I must appear to be sophisticated, at home, unsurprised. I must not let anyone suspect that I was not Alec Graham,

shipmate, but instead Alexander Hergensheimer, total stranger… or something terrible might happen.

Of course I was wrong; something terrible had already happened. I was indeed a total stranger in an utterly strange and confusing land… but I do not think, in retrospect, that I would have made my condition worse had I simply blurted out my predicament.

I would not have been believed.

How else? I had trouble believing it myself.

Captain Hansen, a hearty no-nonsense man, would have bellowed with laughter at my ‘joke’ and insisted on another toast. Had I persisted in my ‘delusion’ he would have had the ship’s doctor talk to me.

Still, I got through that amazing evening easier by holding tight to the notion that I must concentrate on acting the part of Alec Graham while never letting anyone suspect that I was a changeling, a cuckoo’s egg.

There had just been placed in front of me a slice of princess cake, a beautiful multilayered confection I recalled from the other Konge Knut, and a small cup of coffee, when the Captain stood up. ‘Come, Alec! We go to the lounge now; the show is ready to start – but they can’t start till I get there. So come on! You don’t want all that sweet stuff; it’s not good for you. You can have coffee in the lounge. But before that we have some man’s drinks, henh? Not these joke drinks. You like Russian vodka?’

He linked his arm in mine. I discovered that I was going to the lounge. Volition did not enter into it.

That lounge show was much the mixture I had found earlier in M. V. Konge Knut – a magician who did improbable things but not as improbable as what I had done (or been done to?), a standup comedian who should have sat down, a pretty girl who sang, and dancers. The major differences were two I had already been exposed to: bare skin and bare words, and by then I was so numb from earlier shock and akvavit that these additional proofs of a different world had minimal effect.

The girl who sang just barely had clothes on and the lyrics of her songs would have caused her trouble even in the underworld of Newark, New Jersey. Or so I think; I have no direct experience with that

notorious sink of iniquity. I paid more attention to her appearance, since here I need not avert my eyes; one is expected to stare at performers.

If one admits for the sake of argument that customs in dress can be wildly different without destroying the fabric of society (a possibility. I do not concede but will stipulate), then it helps, I think, if the person exhibiting this difference is young and healthy and comely.

The singer was young and healthy and comely. I felt a twinge of regret when she left the spotlight

The major event was a troupe of Tahitian dancers, and I was truly not surprised that they were costumed bare to the waist save for flowers or shell beads – by then I would have been surprised had they been otherwise. What was still surprising (although I suppose it should not have been) was the subsequent behaviour of my fellow passengers.

First the troupe, eight girls, two men, danced for us, much the same dancing that had preceded the fire walk today, much the same as I had seen when a troupe had come aboard M.V. Konge Knut in Papeete. Perhaps you know that the hula of Tahiti differs from the slow and graceful hula of the Kingdom of Hawaii by being at a much faster beat and is much more energetic. I’m no expert on the arts of the dance but at least I have seen both styles of hula in the lands where each was native.

I prefer the Hawaiian hula, which I had seen when the Count von Zeppelin had stopped at Hilo for a day on her way to Papeete. The Tahitian hula strikes me as an athletic accomplishment rather than an art form. But its very energy and speed make it still more startling in the dress or undress these native girls wore.

There was more to come. After a long dance sequence, which included paired dancing between girls and each of the two young men – in which they did things that would have been astonishing even among barnyard fowl (I kept expecting Captain Hansen to put a stop to it) – the ship’s master of ceremonies or cruise director stepped forward.

‘Ladeez and gentlemen,’ he announced, ‘and the rest of you intoxicated persons of irregular birth -‘ (I am forced to amend his language.) ‘Most of you setters and even a few pointers have made good use of the four days our’ dancers have been with us to add the Tahitian hula to your repertoire. Shortly you’ll be given a chance to demonst rate what you’ve learned and to receive diplomas as authentic Papeete papayas. But what you don’t know is that others in the good ole knutty Knut have been practicing, too. Maestro, strike up the band!’

Out from behind the lounge stage danced a dozen more hula dancers. But these girls were not Polynesian; these girls were Caucasian. They were dressed authentically, grass skirts and necklaces, a flower in the hair, nothing else. But instead of warm brown, their skins were white; most of them were blondes, two were redheads.

It makes a difference. By then I was ready to concede’ that Polynesian women were correctly and even modestly dressed in their native costume -. other places, other customs. Was not Mother Eve modest in her simplicity before the Fall?

I But white women are grossly out of place in South Seas garb.

However, this did not keep me from watching the dancing. I was amazed to see that these girls danced that fast and complex dance as well (to my untutored eye) as did the island girls. I remarked on it to the Captain. ‘They learned to dance that precisely in only four days?’

He snorted. ‘They practice every cruise, those who ship with us before. All have practiced at least since San Diego.’

At that point I recognized one of the dancers – Astrid, the sweet young woman who had let me into ‘my’ stateroom – and I then understood why they had had time and incentive to practice together: These girls were ship’s crew. I looked at her – stared, in fact – with more interest. She caught my eye and smiled.

Like a dolt, a bumpkin, instead of smiling back I looked away and blushed, and tried to cover my embarrassment by taking a big sip of the drink I found in my hand.

One of the kanaka dancers whirled out in front of the white girls and called one of them out for a pair dance. Heaven save me, it was Margrethe!

I choked up and could not breathe. She was the most blindingly beautiful sight I had ever seen in all my life.

‘Behold, thou art fair, my, love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from Mount Gilead.

‘Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies.

‘Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. ‘Thou art all fair, MY love; there is no spot in thee.’

Chapter 4

Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. 

Job 5:6-7

I SLOWLY became aware of myself and wished I had not; a most terrible nightmare was chasing me. I jammed my eyes shut against the light and tried to go back to sleep.

Native drums were beating in my head; I tried to shut them out by covering my ears.

They got louder.

I gave up, opened my eyes and lifted my head. A mistake – my stomach flipfiopped and my ears shook. My eyes would not track and those infernal drums were tearing my skull apart.

I finally got my eyes to track, although the focus was fuzzy. I looked around, found that I was in a strange room, lying on top of a bed and only half dressed.

That began to bring it back to me. A party aboard ship. Spirits. Lots of spirits. Noise. Nakedness. The

Captain in a grass skirt, dancing heartily, and the orchestra keeping step with him. Some of the lady passengers wearing grass skirts and some wearing even less. Rattle of bamboo, boom of drums.

Drums –

Those weren’t drums in my head; that was the booming of the worst headache of my life. Why in Ned did I let them –

Never mind ‘them’. You did it yourself, chum.

Yes, but –

‘Yes, but.’ Always ‘Yes, but.’ All your life it’s been ‘Yes, but.’ When are you going to straighten up and take full responsibility for your life and all that happens to you?

Yes, but this isn’t my fault. I’m not A. L. Graham. That isn’t my name. This isn’t my ship.

It isn’t? You’re not?

Of course not –

I sat up to Shake off this bad dream. Sitting up was a mistake; my head did not fall off but a stabbing pain at the base of my neck added itself to the throbbing inside my skull. I was wearing black dress trousers and apparently nothing else and I was in a strange room that was rolling slowly.

Graham’s trousers. Graham’s room. And that long, slow roll was that of a ship with no stabilizers.

Not a dream. Or if it is, I can’t shake myself out of it. My teeth itched, my feet didn’t fit. Dried sweat all over me except where I was clammy. My armpits – Don’t even think about armpits!

My mouth needed to have lye dumped into it.

I remembered everything now. Or almost. The fire pit. Villagers. Chickens scurrying out of the way. The ship that wasn’t my ship – but was. Margrethe –

Margrethe!

‘Thy two breasts are like two roes – thou art all fair, my love!’

Margrethe among the dancers, her bosom as bare as her feet. Margrethe dancing with that villainous kanaka, and shaking her –

No wonder I got drunk!

Stow it, chum! You were drunk before that. All you’ve got against that native lad is that it was he instead of you. You wanted to dance with her yourself. Only you can’t dance.

Dancing is a snare of Satan.

And don’t you wish you knew how!

‘- like two roes’! Yes I do!

I heard a light tap at the door, then a rattle of keys. Margrethe stuck her head in. ‘Awake? Good.’ She came in, carrying a tray, closed the door, came to me. ‘Drink this.’

‘What is it?’

‘Tomato juice, mostly. Don’t argue – drink it!’

‘I don’t think I can.’

‘Yes, you can. You must. Do it.’

I sniffed it, then I took a small sip. To my amazement it did not nauseate me. So I drank some more. After one minor quiver it went down smoothly and lay quietly inside me. Margrethe produced two pills. ‘Take these. Wash them down with the rest of the tomato juice.’

‘I never take medicine.’

She sighed, and said something I did not understand. Not English. Not quite. ‘What did you say?’

‘Just something my grandmother used to say when grandfather argued with her. Mr Graham, take those pills. They are just aspirin and you need them. If you won’t cooperate, I’ll stop trying to help you. I’ll – I’ll swap you to Astrid, that’s what I’ll do.’

‘Don’t do that.’

‘I will if you keep objecting. Astrid would swap, I know she would. She likes you – she told me you were watching her dance last night.’

I accepted the pills, washed them down with the rest of the tomato juice – ice-cold and very comforting. ‘I did until I spotted you. Then I watched you.’

She smiled for the first time. ‘Yes? Did you like it?’

‘You were beautiful.’ (And your dance was obscene. Your immodest dress and your behaviour shocked me out of a year’s growth. I hated it – and I wish I could see it all over again this very instant!) ‘You are very graceful.’

The smile grew dimples. ‘I had hoped that you would like it, sir.’

‘I did. Now stop threatening me with Astrid.’

‘All right. As long as you behave. Now get up and into the shower. First very hot, then very cold. Like a sauna.’

She waited. ‘Up, ‘ I said. I’m not leaving until that shower is running and steam is pouring out.’

‘I’ll shower. After you leave.’

‘And you’ll run it lukewarm, I know. Get up, get those trousers off, get into that shower. While you’re showering, I’ll fetch your breakfast tray. There is just enough time before they shut down the galley to set up for lunch… so quit wasting time. Please!’

‘Oh, I can’t eat breakfast! Not today. No. ‘Food – what a disgusting thought.

‘You must eat. You drank too much last night, you know you did. If you don’t eat, you will feel bad all day. Mr Graham, I’ve finished making up for all my other guests, so I’m off watch now. I’m fetching your tray, then I’m going to stay and see that you eat it.’ She looked at me. ‘I should have taken your trousers off when I put you to bed. But you were too heavy.’

‘You put me to bed?’

‘Ori helped me. The boy I danced with.’ My face must have given me away, for she added hastily, ‘Oh, I didn’t let him come into your room, sir. I undressed you myself. But I did have to have help to get you up the stairs.’

‘I wasn’t criticizing.’ (Did you go back to the party then? Was he there? Did you dance with him again?

-`jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire -‘ I have no right.) ‘I thank you both. I must have been a beastly nuisance.’

‘Well… brave men often drink too much, after danger is over. But it’s not good for you.’

‘No, it’s not.’ I got up off the bed, went into the bathroom, said, ‘I’ll turn it up hot. Promise.’ I closed the door and bolted it, finished undressing. (So I got so stinking, rubber-limp drunk that a native boy had to help get me to bed. Alex, you’re a disgusting mess! And you haven’t any right to be jealous over a nice girl. You don’t own her, her behavior is not wrong by the standards of this place – wherever this place is

and all she’s done is mother you and, take care of you. That does not give you a claim on her.)

I did turn it up hot, though it durn near kilt poor old Alex. But I left it hot until the nerve ends seemed cauterized – then suddenly switched it to cold, and screamed.

I let it stay cold until it no longer felt cold, then shut.It off and -dried down, having opened the door to let out the moisture-charged air. I stepped out into the room… and suddenly realized that I felt wonderful.

No headache. No feeling that the world is ending at noon. No stomach queasies. Just hunger. Alex, you must never get drunk again… but if you do, you must do exactly what Margrethe tells you to. You’ve got a smart head on her shoulders, boy – appreciate it.

I started to whistle and opened Graham’s wardrobe.

I heard a key in the door, hastily grabbed his bathrobe, managed to cover up before she got the door open. She was slow about it, being hampered by a heavy tray. When I realized this I held the door for her. She put down the tray, then arranged dishes and food on my desk.

‘You were right about the sauna-type shower,’ I told her. ‘It was just what the doctor ordered. Or the nurse, I should say.’

‘I know, it’s what my grandmother used to do for my grandfather.’

‘A smart woman. My, this smells good!’ (Scrambled eggs, bacon, lavish amounts of Danish pastry, milk, coffee – a side dish of cheeses, fladbrod, and thin curls of ham, some tropic fruit I can’t name.) ‘What was that your grandmother used to say when your grandfather argued?’

‘Oh, she was sometimes impatient.’

‘And you never are. Tell me.’

‘Well – She used to say that God created men to test the souls of women.’

‘She may have a point. Do you agree with her?’

Her smile produced dimples. ‘I think they have other uses as well.’

Margrethe tidied my room and cleaned my bath (okay, okay, Graham’s room, Graham’s bath – satisfied?) while I ate. She laid out a pair of slacks, a sport shirt in an island print, and sandals for me, then removed the tray and dishes while leaving coffee and the remaining fruit. I thanked her as she left, wondered if I should offer ‘payment’ and wondered, too, if she performed such valet services for other passengers. It seemed unlikely. I found I could not ask.

I bolted the door after her and proceeded to search. Graham’s room.

I was wearing his clothes, sleeping in his bed, answering to his name – and now I must decide whether or not I would go whole hawg and be ‘A. L. Graham’… or should I go to some authority (American consul? If not, whom?), admit the impersonation, and ask.for help?

Events were crowding me. Today’s King Skald showed that S.S. Konge Knut was scheduled to dock at Papeete at 3 p.m. and sail for MazatIdn, Mexico, at 6 p.m. The purser notified all passengers wishing

to change francs into dollars that a representative of the Bank of Papeete would be in the ship’s square facing the purser’s office from docking until fifteen minutes before sailing. The purser again wished to notify passengers that shipboard indebtedness such as bar and shop bills could be settled only in dollars, Danish crowns, or by means of validated letters of credit.

All very reasonable. And troubling. I had expected the, ship to stop at Papeete for twenty-four hours at the very least. Docking for only three hours seemed preposterous – why, they would hardly finish tying up before it would be time, to start singling up for sailing! Didn’t they have to pay rent for twenty-four hours if they docked at all?

Then I reminded myself that managing the ship was not my business. Perhaps the Captain was taking advantage of a few hours between departure of one ship and arrival of another. Or there might be six other reasons. The only thing I should worry about was what I could accomplish between three and six, and’ what I must accomplish between now and three.

Forty minutes of intense searching turned up the following:

Clothes, all sorts – no problem other than about five pounds at my waistline.

Money – the francs in his billfold (must change them) and the eighty-five dollars there; three thousand dollars loose in the desk drawer that held the little case for Graham’s watch, ring, shirt studs, etc. Since the watch and jewelry had been returned to this case, I assumed, conclusively that Margrethe had conserved for me the proceeds of that bet that I (or Graham) had won from Forsyth and Jeeves and Henshaw. It is said that the Lord looks out for fools and drunkards; if so, in my case He operated through Margrethe.

Various impedimenta of no significance to my immediate problem – books, souvenirs, toothpaste, etc.

No passport.

When a first search failed to turn up Graham’s passport, I went back and searched again. this time checking the pockets of all clothes hanging in his wardrobe as well as rechecking with care all the usual places and some unusual places that might hide a booklet the size of a passport.

No passport.

Some tourists are meticulous about keeping their passports on their persons whenever leaving a ship. I prefer not to carry my passport when I can avoid it because losing a passport is a sticky mess. I had not carried mine the day before … so now mine was gone where the woodbine twineth, gone to Fiddler’s Green, gone where Motor Vessel Konge Knut had gone. And where was that I had not had time to think about that yet; I was too busy coping with a strange new world.

If Graham had carried his passport yesterday, then it too was gone to Fiddler’s Green through a crack in the fourth dimension. It was beginning to look that way.

While I fumed, someone slipped an envelope under the stateroom door.

I picked it up and opened it. Inside was the purser’s billing for ‘my’ (Graham’s) bills aboard ship. Was Graham scheduled to leave the ship at Papeete? Oh, no! If he was, I might be marooned in the islands indefinitely.

No, maybe not. This appeared to be a routine end-of-amonth billing.

The size of Graham’s bar bill shocked me… until I noticed some individual items. Then I was still more shocked but for another reason. When a Coca-Cola costs two dollars it does not mean that a Coke is bigger; it means that the dollar is smaller.

I now knew why a three-hundred-dollar bet on. uh, the other side turned out to be three thousand dollars on this side.

If I was going to have to live in this world, I was going to have to readjust my thinking about all prices. Treat dollars as I would a foreign currency and convert all prices in my head until I got used to them. For example, if these shipboard prices were representative, then a first-class dinner, steak or prime rib, in a first-class restaurant, let’s say the main dining room of a hotel such as the Brown Palace or the Mark Hopkins – such a dinner could easily cost ten dollars. Whew!

With cocktails before dinner and wine with it, the tab might reach fifteen dollars! A week’s wages. Thank heaven I don’t drink!

You don’t what?

Look – last night was a very special occasion.

So? So it was, because you lose your virginity only once. Once gone, it’s gone forever. What was that you were drinking just before the lights went out? A Danish zombie? Wouldn’t you like one of those about now? Just to readjust your stability?

I’ll never touch one again!

See you later, chum.

Just one more chance but a good one – I hoped. The small case that Graham used for jewelry and such had in it a key, plain save for the number eighty-two stamped on its side. If fate was smiling, that was a – key to a lockbox in the purser’s office.

(And if fate was sneering at me today, it was a key to a lockbox in a bank somewhere in the forty-six states, a bank I would never see. But let’s not borrow trouble; I have all I need

I went down one deck and aft. ‘Good morning, Purser.’

‘Ah, Mr Graham! A fine party, was it not?’

‘It certainly was. One more like that and I’m a corpse.’

‘Oh, come now, That from a man who walks through fire. You seemed to enjoy it – and I know I did.

What can we do for you, sir?’

I brought out the key I had found. ‘Do I have the right key? Or does this one belong to my bank? I can never remember.’

The purser took it. ‘That’s one of ours. Poul! Take this and get Mr Graham’s box. Mr Graham, do you want to come around behind and sit at a table?’

‘Yes, thank you. Uh, do you have a sack or something that would hold the contents of a box that size? I would take it back to my desk for paper work.’

‘”A sac” – Mmm… I could get one from the gift shop. But – How long do you think this desk work will take you? Can you finish it by noon?’

‘Oh, certainly.’

‘Then take the box itself back to your stateroom. There is a rule against it but I made the rule so we can risk breaking it. But try to be back by noon. We close from noon to thirteen – union rules – and if I have to sit here by myself with all my clerks gone to lunch, you’ll have to buy me a drink.’

‘I’ll buy you one anyhow.’

‘We’ll roll for it. Here you are. Don’t take it through any fires.’

Right on top was Graham’s passport. A tight lump in my chest eased. I know of no more lost feeling than being outside the Union without a passport … even though it’s not truly the Union. I opened it, looked at the picture embossed inside. Do I look like that? I went into the bathroom, compared the face in the mirror’ with the face in the passport.

Near enough, I guess. No one expects much of a passport picture. I tried holding the photograph up to the mirror. Suddenly it was a good resemblance. Chum, your face is lopsided… and so is yours, Mr

Graham.

Brother, if I’m going to have to assume your identity permanently – and it looks more and more as if I have no choice – it’s a relief to know that we look so much alike. Fingerprints? We’ll cope with that when we have to. Seems the U.S. of N.A. doesn’t use fingerprints on passports; that’s some help. Occupation: Executive. Executive of what? A funeral parlor? Or a worldwide chain of hotels? Maybe this is not going to be difficult but merely impossible.

Address: Care of O’Hara, Rigsbee, Crumpacker, and Rigsbee, Attys at Law, Suite 7000, Smith Building, Dallas. Oh, just dandy. Merely a mail drop. No business address, no home address, no business. Why, you phony, I’d love to poke you in the snoot!

(He can’t be too repulsive; Margrethe thinks well of him. Well, yes – but he should keep his hands off Margrethe; he’s taking advantage of her. Unfair. Who is taking advantage of her? Watch it, boy, you’ll get a split personality.)

An envelope under the passport contained the passenger’s file copy of his ticket – and it was indeed round trip, Portland to Portland. Twin, unless you show up before 6 p.m., I’ve got a trip home. Maybe you can use my ticket in the Admiral Moffett. I wish you luck.

There were some minor items but the bulk of the metal box was occupied by ten sealed fat envelopes, business size. I opened one.

It contained thousand-dollar bills, one hundred of them.

I made a fast check with the other nine. All alike. One million dollars in cash.

Chapter 5

The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion. 

Proverbs 28:1

BARELY BREATHING, I used gummed tape I found in Graham’s desk to seal the envelopes. I put everything back but the passport, placed it with that three thousand that I thought of as ‘mine’ in the little drawer of the desk, then took the box back to the purser’~ office, carrying it carefully.

Someone else was at the front desk but the purser was in sight in his inner office; I caught his eye.

‘Hi,’ he called out. ‘Back so soon?’ He came out.

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘For once, everything tallied.’ I passed the box to him.

‘I’d like to hire you for this office. Here, nothing ever tallies. At least not earlier than midnight. Let, s go find that drink. I need one.’

‘So do I! Let’s.’

The purser led me aft to an outdoor bar I had not noticed on the ship’s plan. The deck above us ended and the deck we were on, D deck, continued on out as a weather deck, bright teak planks pleasant to walk on. The break on C deck formed an overhang; under it was this outdoor spread canvas. At right angles to the bar were long tables offering a lavish buffet lunch; passengers were queued up for it. Farther aft was the ship’s swimming pool; I could hear splashing, squeals, and yells.

He led me on aft to a small table occupied by two junior officers. We stopped there. ‘You two. Jump overboard.’

‘Right away, Purser.’ They stood up, picked up their beer glasses, and moved farther aft. One of them grinned at me and nodded, as if we knew each other, so I nodded and said, U.’

This table was partly shaded by awning. The purser said to me, ‘Do you want to sit in the sun and watch the girls, or sit in the shade and relax?’

‘Either way. Sit where you wish; I’ll take the other chair.’

‘Um. Let’s move this table a little and both sit in the shade. There, that does it.’ He sat down facing forward; perforce I sat facing the swimming pool – and confirmed something I thought I had seen at first glance: This swimming pool did not require anything as redundant as swim suits.

I should have inferred it by logic had I thought about it – but I had not. The last time I had seen it – swimming without suits – I had been about twelve and it had been strictly a male privilege for boys that age or younger.

‘I said, “What will you drink, Mr Graham’

‘Oh! Sorry, I wasn’t listening.’

‘I know. You were looking. What will it be?’

‘Uh… a Danish zombie.’

He blinked at me. ‘You don’t want that at this time of day; that’s a skull splitter. Mmm – ‘He waggled his fingers at someone behind me. ‘Sweetheart, come here.’

I looked up as the summoned waitress approached. I looked and then looked twice. I had seen her last through an alcoholic haze the night before, one of two redheads in the hula chorus line.

‘Tell Hans I want two silver fizzes. What’s your name, dear?’

‘Mr Henderson, you pretend just one more time that you don’t know my name and I’ll pour your drink right on your bald spot.’

‘Yes, dear. Now hurry up. Get those fat legs moving.’

She snorted and glided away on limbs that were slender and graceful. The purser added, ‘A fine girl, that. Her parents live just across from me in Odense; I’ve known her since she was a baby. A smart girl, too. Bodel is studying to be a veterinary surgeon, one more year to go.’

‘Really? How does she do this and go to school, too?’

‘Most of our girls are at university. Some take a summer off, some take a term off – go to sea, have some fun, save up money for next term. In hiring I give preference to girls who are working their way through university; they are more dependable – and they know more languages. Take your room stewardess. Astrid?’

‘No. Margrethe.’

‘Oh, yes, you are in one-oh-nine; Astrid has portside forward on your deck, Margrethe is on your side. Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson. Schoolteacher. English language and history. But knows four more languages not counting Scandinavian languages – and has certificates for two of them. On one-year leave from H. C. Andersen Middle School. I’m betting she won’t go back.’

‘Eh? Why?’

‘She’ll marry-a rich American. Are you rich?’

‘Me’? Do I look rich?’ (Could he possibly know what is in that lockbox? Dear God, what does one do with a million dollars that isn’t yours? I can’t just throw it overboard. Why would Graham be traveling with that much in cash? I could think of several reasons, all bad. Any one of them could get me in more trouble than I had ever seen.)

‘Rich Americans never look it; they practice not looking rich. North Americans ‘ I mean; South Americans are another fish entirely. Gertrude, thank you. You are a good girl.’

‘You want this drink on your bald spot?’

‘You want me to throw you into the pool with your clothes on? Behave yourself, dear, or I’ll tell your mother. Put them down and give me the chit.’

‘No chit; Hans wanted to buy a drink for Mr Graham. So he decided to include you, this once.’

‘You tell him that’s the way the bar loses money. Tell him I take it out of his wages.’

That’s how I happened to drink two silver fizzes instead of one… and was well on my way toward a disaster such as the night before, when Mr Henderson decided that we must eat. I wanted a third fizz. The first two had enabled me to quit worrying over that crazy box full of money while enhancing my appreciation of the poolside floor show. I was discovering that a lifetime of conditioning could wash away in only twenty-four hours. There was nothing sinful about looking at feminine loveliness unadorned. It was as sweetly innocent as looking at flowers or kittens – but far more fun.

In the meantime I wanted another drink.

Mr Henderson vetoed it, called Bodel over, spoke to her rapidly in Danish. She left, returned a few minutes later carrying a loaded tray – smorgasbord, hot meat balls, sweet pastry shells stuffed with ice cream, strong coffee, all in large quantities.

Twenty-five minutes later I still appreciated the teenagers at the pool, but I was no longer on my way to another alcoholic catastrophe. I had sobered up so much that I now realized that I not only could not solve my problems through spirits but must shun alcohol until I did solve them – as I did not know how to handle strong drink. Uncle Ed was right; vice required training and long practice otherwise for pragmatic reasons virtue should rule even when moral instruction has ceased to bind.

My morals certainly had ceased to bind – or I could not have sat there with a glass of Devil’s brew in my

hand while I stared at naked female flesh.

I found that I had not even a twinge of conscience over anything. My only regret involved the sad knowledge that I could not handle the amount of alcohol I would have enjoyed. ‘Easy is the descent into Hell.’

Mr Henderson stood up. ‘We tie up in less than two hours and I have some figures to fudge before the agent comes aboard. Thanks for a nice time.’

‘Thank you, sir! Tusind tak! Is that how you say it?’

He smiled and left. I sat there for a bit and thought. Two hours till we docked, three hours in port – what could I do with the opportunities?

Go to the American consul? Tell him what? Dear Mr Consul, I am not he whom I am presumed to be and I just happened to find this million dollars – Ridiculous!

Say nothing to anyone, grab that million, go ashore and catch the next airship for Patagonia?

Impossible. My morals had slipped – apparently they were never very strong. But I III had this prejudice against stealing. It’s not only wrong; it’s undignified.

Bad enough that I’m wearing his clothes.

Take the three thousand that is ‘rightfully’ yours, go’ ashore, wait for the ship to sail, then get back to America as best you can?

Stupid ideal. You would wind up in a tropical jail and your silly gesture would not do Graham any good. It’s Hobson’s choice again, you knothead; you must stay aboard and wait for Graham to show up. He won’t, but there might be a wireless message or something. Bite your nails until the ship sails. When it does, thank God for a trip home to God’s country. While Graham does the same for his ticket home in

the Admiral Moffett. I wonder how he liked being named Hergensheimer? Better than I like ‘Graham’ I’ll bet. A proud name, Hergensheimer.

I got up, ducked around to the far side, and went up two decks to the library, found it unoccupied save for a woman, working on a crossword puzzle. Neither of us wanted to be disturbed, which made us good company. Most of the bookcases were locked, the librarian not being present, but there was a battered encyclopedia – just what I needed as a start.

Two hours later I was startled by a blast indicating that we had a line to the dock; we had arrived. I was loaded with strange history and stranger ideas and none of it digested. To start with, in this world William Jennings Bryan was never president; in I896 McKinley had been elected in his place, had served two terms and had been followed by someone named Roosevelt.

I recognised none of the twentieth-century presidents.

Instead of more than a century of peace under our traditional neutrality, the United States had repeatedly been involved in foreign wars: I899, I9I2-I7, I932 (With Japan!), I950-52, I980-84, and so on right up to the current year – or current when this encyclopedia was published; King’s Skald did not report a war now going on.

Behind the glass of one of the locked cases I spotted several history books. If I was still in the ship three hours from now, I must plan on reading every history book in the ship’s library during the long passage to America.

But names of presidents and dates of wars were not my most urgent need; these are not daily concerns. What I urgently needed to know, lest ignorance cause me anything from needless embarrassment to catastrophe, was the differences between my world and this world in how people lived, talked, behaved, ate, drank, played, prayed, and loved. While I was learning, I must be careful to talk as little as possible and to listen as much as possible.

I once had a neighbour whose knowledge of history seemed limited to two dates, I492 and I776, and even with those two he was mixed up as to what events each marked. His ignorance in other fields was just as profound; nevertheless he earned an excellent living as a paving contractor.

‘It does not require a broad education to function as a social and economic animal… as long as you

know when to rub blue mud into your bellybutton. But a mistake in local customs can get you lynched.

I wondered how Graham was doing? It occurred to me that his situation was far more. dangerous than mine… if I assumed (as apparently I must) that he and I had simply swapped places. It seemed that my background could make me appear eccentric here – but his background could get Graham into serious trouble in my world. A casual remark, an innocent act, could land him in the stocks. Or worse.

But he might find his worst trouble through attempting to fit himself fully into my role – if indeed he tried. Let me put it this way: On her birthday after we had been married a year I gave Abigail a fancy edition of The Taming of the Shrew. She never suspected that I had been making a statement; her conviction of her own righteousness did not embrace the possibility that in my heart I equated her with Kate. If Graham assumed my role as her husband, the relationship was bound to be interesting for each of them.

I would not knowingly wish Abigail on anyone. Since I had not been consulted, I did not cry crocodile tears.

(What would it be to bed with a woman who did not always refer to marital relations as ‘family duties’?)

Here I have in front of me a twenty-volume encyclopedia, millions of words packed with all the major facts of this world – facts I urgently need. What can I squeeze out of it quickly? Where to start? I don’t want Greek art, or Egyptian history, or geology – but what do I want?

Well, what did you first notice about this world? This ship itself. Its old-fashioned appearance compared with the sleek lines of the M.V. Konge Knut. Then, once you were aboard, the lack of a telephone in your-Graham’s stateroom. The lack of passenger elevators. Little things that gave it an air of the luxury of grandfather’s day.

So let’s see the article on ‘Ships’ – volume eighteen.

Yes, sir! Three pages of pictures … and they all have that Mauve-Decade look. S.S. Britannia, biggest and fastest North Atlantic liner, 2000 passengers, only sixteen knots! And looks it.

Let’s try the general article on ‘Transportation’

Well, well! We aren’t too surprised, are we? No mention of airships. But let’s check the index volume – Airship, nothing; dirigible, zero; aeronautics – see ‘Balloon’.

Ah, yes, a good article on free ballooning, with the Montgolfiers and the other daring pioneers – even Salomon Andrée’s brave and tragic attack on the North Pole. But either Count von Zeppelin never lived, or he never turned his attention to aeronautics.

Possibly, after his service in the Civil War, he returned to Germany and there never found the atmosphere receptive to the idea of air travel that he enjoyed in Ohio in my world. As may be, this world does not have air travel. Alex, if you have to live here, how would you like to ‘invent’ the airship? Be a pioneer, and tycoon, and get rich and famous?

What makes you think you could?

Why, I made my first airship flight when I was only twelve years old! I know all about them; I could draw plans for one right now –

You could? Draw me production drawings for a lightweight diesel, not over one pound per horsepower. Specify the alloys used, give the heat treatments, show work diagrams for the actual operating cycles, specify fuels, state procurement sources, specify lubricants

All those things can be worked out!

Yes, but can you do it? Even knowing that it can be done? Remember why you dropped out of engineering school and decided you had a call for the ministry? Comparative religion, homiletics, higher criticism, apologetics, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, all require scholarship… but the slipstick subjects require brains.

So I’m stupid, am I?

Would you have walked through that fire pit if you had brains enough to come in out of the rain?

Why didn’t you stop me?

Stop you? When did you ever listen to me? Quit evading what was your final mark in thermodynamics?

All right! Assume that I can’t do it myself –

Big of you.

Lay off, will you? Knowing that something can be done is two thirds of the battle. I could be director of research and guide the efforts of some really sharp young engineers. They supply the brains; I supply the unique memory of what a dirigible balloon looks like and how it works. Okay?

That’s the proper division of labor: You supply memory, they supply brains. Yes, that could work. But not quickly, not cheaply. How are you going to finance it?

Uh, sell shares?

Remember the summer you sold vacuum cleaners?

Well… there’s that million dollars.

Naughty, naughty!

‘Mr Graham?’

I looked up from my great plans to find a yeoman from the purser’s office looking at me. ‘Yes?’

She handed me an envelope. ‘From Mr Henderson, sir. He said you would probably have an answer.’

‘Thank you.’ The note read: ‘Dear Mr Graham: There are three men down here in the square who claim to have an appointment with you. I don’t like their looks or the way they talk – and this port has some very strange customers. If you are not expecting them or don’t wish to see them, tell my messenger that she could not find you. Then I’ll tell them that you’ve gone ashore. A.P.H.’

I remained balanced between curiosity and caution for some long, uncomfortable moments. They did not want to see me; they wanted to see Graham… and whatever it was they wanted of Graham, I could not satisfy their want.

You know what they want!

‘So I suspect. But, even if they have a chit signed by Saint Peter, I can’t turn over to them – or to anyone

that silly million dollars. You know that.

Certainly I know that. I wanted to be sure that you knew it. All right, since there are no circumstances under which you will turn over to a trio of strangers the contents of Graham’s lockbox, then why see them?

Because I’ve got to know! Now shut up. I said to the yeoman, ‘Please tell Mr Henderson that I will be right down. And thank you for your trouble.’

‘My pleasure, sir. Uh, Mr Graham. … I saw you walk the fire. You were wonderful!’

‘I was out of my silly mind. Thanks anyhow.’

I stopped at the top of the companionway and sized up the three men waiting for me. They looked as if they had been type-cast for menace: one oversize job about six feet eight with the hands, feet, jaw, and ears of glandular giantism; one sissy type about one quarter the size of the big man; one nothing type with dead eyes. Muscles, brain, and gun – or was it my jumpy imagination?

A smart person would go quietly back up and hide.

I’m not smart.

Chapter 6

Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. 

Isaiah 22:13

I WALKED down the stairs, not looking at the three, and went directly to the desk of the purser’s office. Mr Henderson was there, spoke quietly as I reached the counter. ‘Those three over there. Do you know them?’

‘No, I don’t know them. I’ll see what they want. But keep an eye on us, will you, please?’

‘Right!’

I turned and started to walk past that lovable trio. The smart boy said sharply, ‘Graham! Stop there! Where you going?’

I kept moving and snapped, ‘Shut up, you idiot! Are you trying to blow it?’ Muscles stepped into my path and hung over me like a tall building. The gun stepped in behind me. In a fake prison-yard style, from the side of my mouth, I said, ‘Quit making a scene and get these apes off the ship! You and I must talk.’

‘Certainly we talk. Ici! Now. Here.’

‘You utter fool,’ I answered softly and glanced nervously up, to left and right. ‘Not here. Cows. Bugs. Come with me. But have Mutt and Jeff wait on the dock.’

Non!’

‘God save us! Listen carefully.’ I whispered, ‘You ‘are going to tell these animals to leave the ship and wait at the foot of the gangway. Then you and I are going to walk out on the weather deck where we can talk without being overheard. Otherwise we do nothing! – and I report to Number-One that you blew the deal. Understand? Right now! Or go back and tell them the deal is off.’

He hesitated, then spoke rapidly in French that I could not follow, my French being mostly of the La plume de ma tante sort. The gorilla seemed to hesitate but the gun type shrugged and started toward the gangway door. I said to the little wart, ‘Come on! Don’t waste time; the ship is about to sail!’ I headed aft without looking to see whether or not he was following. I set a brisk pace that forced him to follow or lose me. I was as much taller than he as that ape was taller than I; he had to trot to stay at my heels.

I kept right on going aft and outside, onto the weather deck, past the open bar and the tables, clear to the swimming pool.

It was, as I expected, unoccupied, the ship being in port. There was the usual sign up, CLOSED WHILE SHIP IS IN PORT, and a nominal barrier around it of a single strand of rope, but the pool was still filled. He followed me; I held up a hand. ‘Stop right there.’ He stopped.

‘Now we can talk,’ I said. ‘Explain yourself, and you’d better make it good! What do you mean, calling attention to yourself by bringing that muscle aboard? And a Danish ship at that! Mr B. is going to be very, very angry with you. What’s your name?’

‘Never mind my name. Where’s the package?’

‘What package?’

He started to sputter; I interrupted. ‘Cut the nonsense; I’m not impressed. This ship is getting ready to sail; you have only minutes to tell me exactly what you want and to convince me that you should get it. Keep throwing your weight around and you’ll find yourself going back to your boss and telling him you failed. So speak up! What do you want?’

‘The package!’

I sighed. ‘My old and stupid, you are stuck in a rut. We’ve been over that. What sort of a package? What’s in it?’

He hesitated. ‘Money.’

‘Interesting. How much money?’

This time he hesitated twice as long, so again I interrupted. ‘If you don’t know how much money, I’ll give you a couple of francs for beer and send you on your way. Is that what you want? Two francs?’

A man that skinny shouldn’t have such high blood pressure. He managed to say, ‘American dollars. One million.’

I laughed in his face. ‘What makes you think I’ve got that much? And if I had, why should I give it to you? How do I know you are supposed to get it?’

‘You crazy, man? You know who am I. ‘

‘Prove it. Your eyes are funny and your voice sounds different. I think you’re a ringer.

‘”Ringer”?’

‘A fake, a phony! An impostor.’

He answered angrily – French, I suppose. I am sure it was not complimentary. I dug into my memory, repeated carefully and with feeling the remark that a lady had made last night which had caused her husband to say that she worried too much. It was not appropriate but I intended simply to anger him.

Apparently I succeeded. He raised a hand, I grabbed his wrist, tripped myself, fell backwards into the pool, pulling him with me. As we fell I shouted, ‘Help!’

We splashed. I got a firm grip on him, pulled myself up as I shoved him under again. ‘Help! He’s drowning me!’

Down we went again, struggling with each other. I yelled for help each time my head was above water. Just as help came I went limp and let go.

I stayed limp until they started to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. At that point I snorted and opened my eyes’. ‘Where am I?

Someone said, ‘He’s coming around. He’s okay.’

I looked around. I was flat on my back alongside the pool. Someone had done a professional job of pulling me out with a dip-and-jerk; my left arm felt almost dislocated. Aside from that I was okay. ‘Where is he? The man who pushed me in.’

‘He got away.’

I recognized the voice, turned my head. My friend Mr Henderson, the purser.

‘He did?’

That ended it. My rat-faced caller had scrambled out as I was being fished out and had streaked off the ship. By the time they had finished reviving me, Nasty and his bodyguards were long gone.

Mr Henderson had me lie still until the ship’s, doctor arrived. He put a stethoscope on me and announced that I was okay. I told a couple of small, fibs, some near truths, and an evasion. By then the gangway had been removed and shortly a loud blast announced that we had left the dock.

I did not find it necessary to tell anyone that I had played water polo in school.

The next many days were very sweet, in the fashion that grapes grow sweetest on the slopes of a live volcano.

I managed to get acquainted (reacquainted?) with my table mates without, apparently, anyone noticing that I was a stranger. I picked up names just by waiting until someone else spoke to someone by name – remembered I the name and used it later. Everyone was pleasant to me – I not only was not ‘below the salt’, since the record showed that I had been aboard the full trip, but also I was at least a celebrity if not a hero for having walked through the fire.

I did not use the swimming pool. I was not sure what swimming Graham had done, if any, and, having been ‘rescued’, I did not want to exhibit a degree of skill inconsistent with that ‘rescue’. Besides, while I grew accustomed to (and even appreciative of) a degree of nudity shocking in my former life, I. did not feel that I could manage with aplomb being naked in company.

Since there was nothing I could do about it, I put the mystery of Nastyface and his bodyguards out of my mind.

The same I was true of the all-embracing mystery of who I am and how I got here – nothing I could do about it, so don’t worry about it. On reflection. I realized that I was in exactly the same predicament as every other human being alive: We don’t know who we are, or where we came from, or why we are here. My dilemma was merely fresher, not different.

One thing (possibly the only thing) I learned in seminary was to face calmly the ancient mystery of life,

untroubled by my inability to solve it. Honest priests and preachers are denied the comforts of religion; instead they must live with the austere rewards of philosophy. I never became much of a metaphysician but I did learn not to worry about that which I could not solve.

I spent much time in the library or reading in deck chairs, and each day I learned more about and felt more at home in this world. Happy, golden days slipped past like a dream of childhood.

And every day there was Margrethe.

I felt like a boy undergoing his first attack of puppy love.

It was a strange romance. We could not speak of love. Or I could not, and she did not. Every day she was my servant (shared with her other passenger guests)… and my ‘mother’ (shared with others? I did not. think so… but I did not know). The ‘relationship was close but not intimate. Then each day, for a few moments while I ‘paid’ her for tying my bow tie, she was my wonderfully sweet and utterly passionate darling.

But only then.

At other times I was ‘Mr Graham’ to her and she called me ‘sir’ – warmly friendly but not intimate. She was willing to chat, standing up and with the door open; she often had ship’s gossip to share with me. But her manner was always that of the perfect servant. Correction: the perfect crew member assigned to personal service. Each day I learned a little more about her. I found no fault in her.

For me the day started with my first sight of her – usually on my way to breakfast when I would meet her in the passageway or spot her through an open door of a room she was making up… just ‘Good morning, Margrethe’ and ‘Good morning, Mr Graham,’ but the sun did not rise until that moment.

I would see her from time to time during the day, peaking each day with that golden ritual after she tied my tie.

Then I would see her briefly after dinner. Immediately after dinner each evening I would return to my room for a few minutes to refresh myself before the evening’s activities – lounge show, concert, games, or

perhaps just a return to the’ library. At that hour Margrethe would be somewhere in the starboard forward passageway of C deck, opening beds, tidying baths, and so forth -making her guests’ staterooms inviting for the night. Again I would say hello, then wait in my room (whether she had yet reached it or not) because she would come in shortly, either to open my bed or simply to inquire, ‘Will you need anything more this evening, sir?’

And I would. always smile and answer, ‘I don’t need a thing, Margreth. Thankyou.’ Whereupon she would bid me good night and wish me sound sleep. That ended my day no matter what else I did before retiring.

Of course I was tempted – daily! – to answer, ‘You know what I need!’ I could not. Imprimis: I was a married man. True, my wife was lost somewhere in another world (or I was). But from holy matrimony there is no release this side of the grave. Item: Her love affair (if such it was) was with Graham, whom I was impersonating. I could not refuse that evening kiss I’m not that angelically perfect!) but in fairness to my beloved I could not go beyond it. Item: An honorable man must not offer less than matrimony to the object of his love . . . and that I was both legally and morally unable to offer.

So those golden days were bittersweet. Each day brought one nearer the inescapable time when I must leave Margrethe, almost certainly never to see her again.

I was not free even to tell her what that loss would mean to me.

Nor was my love for her so selfless that I hoped the Separation would not grieve her. Meanly,

self-centered as an adolescent, I hoped that she would miss me as dreadfully as I was going to miss her. Childish puppy love certainly! I offer in extenuation the fact that I had known only the ‘love’ of a woman who loved Jesus so much that she had no real affection for any flesh-and-blood creature.

Never marry a woman who prays too much.

We were ten days out from Papeete with Mexico almost over the skyline when this precarious idyll ended. For several days Margrethe had seemed more withdrawn- each day. I could not tax her with it as there was nothing I could, put my finger on and certainly nothing of which I could complain. But it reached crisis that evening when she tied my tie.

As usual I smiled and thanked her and kissed her.

Then I stopped with her still in my arms and said’ ‘What’s wrong? I know you can kiss better than that. Is my breath bad?’

She answered levelly, ‘Mr Graham, I think we had better stop this.’

‘So it’s “Mr Graham”, is it? Margrethe, what have I done?’

‘You’ve done nothing!’

‘Then – My dear, you’re crying!’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to.’

I took my handkerchief, blotted her tears, and said gently, ‘I have never intended to hurt you. You must tell me what’s wrong so that I can change it.’

‘If you don’t know, sir, I don’t see how I can explain it.

Won’t you try? Please!’ (Could it be one of those cyclic emotional disturbances women are heir to?)

‘Uh… Mr Graham, I knew it could not last beyond the end of the voyage – and believe me, I did not count on any more. I suppose it means more to me than it did to you. But I never thought that you would simply end it, with no explanation, sooner than we must.’

‘Margrethe… I do not understand.’

‘But you do know!’

‘But I don’t know.’

‘You must know. It’s been eleven days. Each night I’ve asked you and each night you’ve turned me down. Mr Graham, aren’t you ever again going to ask me to come back later?’

‘Oh. So that’s what you meant! Margrethe -‘

‘Yes, sir?’

‘I’m not “Mr Graham”.’ ‘Sir?’ ‘My name is “Hergensheimer”. It has been exactly eleven days since I saw you for the first time in my life. I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry. But that is the truth.’

Chapter 7

Now therefore be content, look upon me; for it is evident unto you if I lie.

Job 6:28

MARGRETHE is both a warm comfort and a civilized adult. Never once did she gasp, or expostulate, or say, ‘Oh, no or ‘I can’t believe it!’ At my first statement she held very still, waited, then said quietly, ‘I do not understand.’

‘I don’t understand it either,’ I told her. ‘Something happened when I walked through that fire pit. The world changed. This ship – ‘I pounded the bulkhead beside us. ‘- is not the ship I was in before. And people call me “Graham”… when I know that my name is Alexander Hergensheimer. But it’s not just me and this ship; it’s the whole world. Different history. Different countries. No airships here.’

‘Alec, what is an airship?’

‘Uh, up in the air, like a balloon. It is a balloon, in a way. But it goes very fast, over a hundred knots.’

She considered it soberly. ‘I think that I would find that frightening.’

I ‘Not at all; it’s the best way to travel. I flew down here in one, the Count von Zeppelin of North American Airlines. But this world doesn’t have airships. That was the point that finally convinced me that this really is a different world – and not just some complicated hoax that someone had played on me. Air travel is so major a part of the economy of the world I knew that it changes everything else not to have it. Take – Look, do you believe me?

She answered slowly and carefully, ‘I believe that you are telling the truth as you see it. But the truth I see is very different.’

‘I know and that’s what makes it so hard. I – See here, if you don’t hurry, you’re going to miss dinner, right?’

‘It does not matter.’

‘Yes, it does; you must not miss meals just because I made a stupid mistake and hurt your feelings. And if I don’t show up, Inga will send somebody up to find out whether I’m ill or asleep or whatever; I’ve seen her do it with others at my table. Margrethe – my very dear! – I’ve wanted to tell you. I’ve waited to tell you. I’ve needed to tell you. And now I can and I must. But I can’t do it in five minutes standing up. After you turn down beds tonight can you take time to listen to me?’

‘Alec, I will always take all the time for you that you need.’

‘All right. You go down and eat, and I’ll go down and touch base at least – get Inga off my neck – and I’ll meet you here after you turn down beds. All right?’

She looked thoughtful. ‘All right. Alec – Will you kiss me again.’

That’s how I knew she believed me. Or wanted to believe me. I quit worrying. I even ate a good dinner, although I hurried.

She was waiting for me when I returned, and stood up as I came in. I took her in my arms, pecked her on the nose, picked her up by her elbows and sat her on my bunk; then I sat down in the only chair. ‘Dear one, do you think I’m crazy.

‘Alec, I don’t know what to tink.’ (Yes, she said ‘tink’. Once in a long while, under stress of emotion, Margrethe would lose the use of the theta sound. Otherwise her English accent was far better than my tall-corn accent, harsh as a rusty saw.)

‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘I had the same problem. Only two ways to look at it. Either something incredible did happen when I walked through the fire, something that changed my whole world. Or I’m as crazy I as a pet ‘coon. I’ve spent days checking the facts… and the world has changed. Not just airships. Kaiser Wilhelm the Fourth is missing and some silly president named “Schmidt is in his place. Things like that.’

‘I would not call Herr Schmidt “silly”. He is quite a good president as German presidents go.’

‘That’s my point, dear. To me, any German president looks silly, as Germany is – in my world – one of the last western monarchies effectively unlimited. Even the Tsar is not as powerful.’

‘And that has to be my point, too, Alec. There is no Kaiser and there is no Tsar. The Grand Duke of Muscovy is a constitutional monarch and no longer claims to be suzerain over other Slavic states.’

‘Margrethe, we’re both saying the same thing. The world I grew up in is gone. I’m having to learn about a different world. Not a totally different world. Geography does not seem to have changed, and not all of history. The two worlds seem to be the same almost up to the beginning of the twentieth century. Call it eighteen-ninety. About a hundred years back something strange happened and the two worlds split apart… and about twelve days ago something equally strange happened to me and I got bounced into this world.’ I smiled at her. ‘But I’m not sorry. Do you know why? Because you are in this world.’.

‘Thank you. It is important to me that you are in it, too.’

‘Then you do believe me. Just as I have been forced to believe it. So much so that I’ve quit worrying about it. Just one thing really bothers me – What became of Alec Graham? Is he filling my place in my world? Or what?’

She did not answer at once, and when she did, the answer did not seem responsive. ‘Alec, will you please take down your trousers?’

‘What did you say, Margrethe?’

‘Please. I am not making a joke and I am not trying to entice you. I must see something. Please lower your trousers.’

I don’t see – All right.’ I shut up and did as she asked not easy in evening dress. I had to take off my mess jacket, then my cummerbund, before I was peeled enough to let me slide the braces off my shoulders.

Then, reluctantly, I started unbuttoning my fly. (Another shortcoming of this retarded world – no zippers. I did not appreciate zippers until I no longer had them.)

I took a deep breath, then lowered my trousers a few inches. ‘Is that enough?’

‘A little more, please – and will you please turn your back to me?’

I did as she asked. Then I felt her hands, gentle and not invasive, at my right rear. She lifted a shirttail and pulled down the top of my underwear pants on the right.

A moment later she restored both garments. ‘That’s enough. Thank you.’

I tucked in my shirttails and buttoned up my fly, reshouldered, the braces and reached for the cummerbund. She said, ‘Just a moment, Alec.’

‘EM I thought you were through.’

‘I am. But there is no need to get back into those formal clothes; let me get out casual trousers for you. And shirt. Unless you are going back to the lounge?’

‘No. Not if you will stay.’

‘I will stay; we must talk.’ Quickly she took out casual trousers and a sports shirt for me, laid them on the bed. ‘Excuse me, please.’ She went into the bath.

I don’t know whether she needed to use it or not, but she knew that I could change more comfortably in the stateroom than in that cramped shipboard bathroom.

I changed and felt better. A cummerbund and a boiled shirt are better than a straitjacket but not much. She came out, at once hung up the clothes I had taken off, all but the shirt and collar. She removed studs and collar buttons from these, put them away, and put shirt and collar into my laundry bag. I wondered what Abigail would think if she – could see these wifely attentions. Abigail did not believe in spoiling me – and did not.

‘What waz that all about Margrethe?’

‘I had to see something. Alec, you were wondering what had become of Alec Graham. I now know the answer.’

‘Yes?’

‘He’s right here. You are he.’

At last I said, ‘That, just from looking at a few square inches on my behind? What did you find, Margrethe? The strawberry mark that identifies the missing heir?’

‘No, Alec. Your “Southern Cross”.’

‘My what?’

‘Please, Alec. I had hoped that it would restore your, memory. I saw it the first night we -‘ She hesitated, then looked me square in the eye.’- made love. You turned on the light, then turned over on your belly to see what time it was. That was when I noticed the moles on your right buttock cheek. I commented on the pattern. they made, and we joked about it. You said that it was your Southern Cross and it let you know which end was up. ‘

Margrethe turned slightly pink but continued to look me firmly in the eye. ‘And I showed you some moles on my body. Alec, I am sorry that you do not remember it but please believe me: By then we were well enough acquainted that we could be playful about such things without my being forward or rude.’

‘Margrethe, I don’t think you could ever be forward or rude. But you’re putting too much importance on a chance arrangement of moles. I’ve got moles all over me; it doesn’t surprise me that some of them, back where I can’t see easily, are arranged in a cross shape. Or that Graham` had some that were somewhat similar.’

‘Not “similar”. Exactly the same.’

‘Well – There is a much better way to check. In the desk there is my wallet. Graham’s wallet, actually. Driver’s license. His. His thumbprint on it. I haven’t checked it because I have never had the slightest doubt that he was Graham and that I am Hergensheimer and that we are not the same man. But we can check. Get it out, dear. Check it yourself. I’ll put a thumbprint on the mirror in the bath. Compare them. Then you will know.’

‘Alec, I do know. You are the one who doesn’t believe it; you check it.’

‘Well -‘ Margrethe’s counterproposal was reasonable; I agreed to it.

I got out Graham’s driver’s license, then placed a print on the bath mirror by first rubbing my thumb over my nose for the nose’s natural oil, so much greater than that of the pad of the thumb. I found that I could not see the pattern on the glass too well, so I shook a little talcum onto my palm, blew it toward the mirror.

Worse. The powder that detectives use must be much finer than shaving talcum. Or perhaps I don’t know how to use it. I placed another print without powder, looked at both prints, at my right thumb, at the print on the driver’s license, then checked to see that the license did indeed designate print of right thumb. It did. ‘Margrethe! Will you come look, please?’

She joined me in the bath. ‘Look at this,’ I said. ‘Look at all four – my thumb and three prints. The pattern in all four is basically an arch – but that simply trims it down to half the thumbprints in the world. I’ll bet you even money that your own thumbprints have an arch pattern. Honest, can you tell whether or not the thumbprint on the card–was made by this thumb? Or by my left thumb; they might have made a mistake.’

‘I cannot tell, Alec. I have no skill in this.’

‘Well – I don’t think even an expert could tell in this light. We’ll have to put it off till morning; we need bright sunlight out on deck. We also need glossy white paper, stamp-pad ink, and a magnifying glass … and I’ll bet Mr Henderson will have all three. Will tomorrow do?’

‘Certainly. This test is not for me, Alec; I already know in my heart. And by seeing your “Southern Cross”. Something has happened to your memory but you are still you… and someday we will find your memory again.’

‘It’s not that easy, dear. I know that I am not Graham.

Margrethe, do you have any idea what business he was in? Or why he was on this trip?’

‘Must I say “him”? I did not ask your business, Alec. And you never, offered to tell me.’

‘Yes, I think you must say “him”, at least until we check that thumbprint. Was he married?’

‘Again, he did not say and I did not ask.’

‘But you implied – No, you flatly stated that you had “made love” with this man whom you believe to be me, and that you have been in bed with him.’

‘Alec, are you reproaching me?’

‘Oh, no, no, no!’ (But I was, and she knew it.) ‘Whom you go to bed with is your business. But I must tell you that I am married.’

She shut her face against me. ‘Alec, I did not try to seduce you into marriage.’

‘Graham, you mean. I was not there.’

‘Very well. Graham. I did not entrap Alec Graham. For our mutual happiness we made love. Matrimony was not mentioned by either of us.’

‘Look, I’m sorry I mentioned the matter! It seemed to have some bearing on the mystery; that’s all. Margrethe, will you believe that, I would rather strike off my arm – or pluck out my eye and cast it from me – than hurt you, ever, in any way?’

‘Thank you, Alec. I believe you.’

‘All that Jesus ever said was: “Go, and sin no more.’ Surely you do not think I would ever set myself up as more severely judgmental than was Jesus? But I was not judging you; I was seeking information about Graham. His business, in particular. Uh, did you ever suspect that he might be engaged in something illegal?’

She gave a ghost of a smile. ‘Had I ever suspected anything of the sort, my loyalty to him is such that I would never express such suspicion. Since you insist that you are not he, then there it must stand.’

‘Touch~!’ I grinned sheepishly. Could I tell her about the lockbox? Yes, I must. I had to be frank with her and had to persuade her that she was not being disloyal to Graham/me were she to be equally frank. ‘Margrethe, I was not asking idly and I was not prying where I had no business to pry. I have still more, trouble and I need your advice.’

Her turn to be startled. ‘Alec… I do not often give advice. I do not like to.’

‘May I tell you my trouble? You need not advise me… but perhaps you may be able to analyze it for me.’ I told her quickly about that truly damning million dollars. ‘Margrethe, can you think of any legitimate reason why an honest man would be carrying a million dollars in cash? Travelers checks, letters of credit, drafts for transferring monies, even bearer bonds – But cash? In that amount? I say that it is psychologically as unbelievable as what happened to me in the fire pit is physically unbelievable. Can you see any other way to look at it? For what honest reason would a man carry that much cash on a trip like this?’

‘I will not pass judgment.’

‘I do not ask you to judge; I ask you to stretch your imagination and tell me why a man would carry with him a million dollars in cash. Can you think of a reason? One as farfetched as you like… but a reason.’

‘There could be many reasons.’

‘Can you think of one?’

I waited; she remained silent. I sighed and said, ‘I can’t think of one, either. Plenty of criminal reasons, of course, as so-called “hot money” almost always moves as cash. This is so common that most governments – all governments, I believe – assume that any large amount of cash being moved other than by a bank or by a government is indeed crime money until proved otherwise. Or counterfeit money, a still more depressing idea. The advice I need is this: Margrethe, what should I do with it? It’s not mine; I can’t take it off the ship. For the same reason I can’t abandon it. I can’t even throw it overboard. What can I do with it?’

My question was not rhetorical; I had to find an answer that would not cause me to wind up in jail for something Graham had done. So far, the only answer I could think of was to go to the only authority in the ship, the Captain, tell him all my troubles and ask him to take custody of that awkward million dollars.

Ridiculous. That would just give me a fresh set of bad answers, depending on whether or not the Captain believed me and on whether or not the Captain himself .was honest – and possibly on other variables. But I could not see any outcome from telling the Captain that would not end in my being locked up, either in jail or in a mental hospital.

The simplest way to resolve the situation would be to throw the pesky stuff overboard!

I had moral objections to that. I’ve broken some of the Commandments and bent some others, but being financially honest has never been a problem to me. Granted, lately my moral fiber did not seem to be as strong as I had thought, but nevertheless I was not tempted to

steal that million even to jettison it.

But there was a stronger objection: Do you know anyone who, having a million dollars in his hands, could bring himself to destroy it?

Maybe you do. I don’t. In a pinch I might turn it over to the Captain but I would not destroy it.

Smuggle it ashore? Alex, if you ever take it out of that lockbox, you have stolen it. Will you destroy your self-respect for a million dollars? For ten million? For five dollars?

‘Well, Margrethe?’

‘Alec, it seems to me that the solution is evident.’

‘Eh?’

‘But you have been trying to solve your problems in the wrong order. First you must regain your memory. Then you will know why you are carrying that money. It will turn out to be for some innocent and logical purpose.’ She smiled. ‘I know you better than you know yourself. You are a good man, Alec; you are not a criminal.’

I felt a mixture of exasperation at her and of pride in what she thought of me – but more exasperation than pride. ‘Confound it, dear, I have not lost my memory. I am not Alec Graham; I am. Alexander Hergensheimer, and that’s been my name all my life and my memory is sharp. Want to know the name of my second-grade teacher? Miss Andrews. Or how I happened to have my first airship ride when I was twelve? For I do indeed come from a world in which airships ply every ocean and even over the North Pole, and Germany is a monarchy and the North American Union has enjoyed a century of peace and prosperity and this ship we are in tonight would be considered so out of date and so miserably equipped and slow that no one would sail in it. I asked for help; I did not ask for a psychiatric opinion. If you think I’m crazy, say so… and we’ll drop the subject.’

‘I did not mean to anger you.’

‘My dear! You did not anger me; I simply unloaded on you some of my worry and frustration – and I should not have done so. I’m sorry. But I do have real problems and they are not solved by telling me that my memory is at fault. If it were my memory, saying so would solve nothing., my problems would still be there. But I should not have snapped at you. – Margrethe, you are all I have … in a strange and sometimes frightening world. I’m sorry.’

She slid down off my bunk. ‘Nothing to be sorry about, dear Alec. But there is no point in further discussion tonight. Tomorrow – Tomorrow we will test that thumbprint carefully, in bright sunlight. Then you will see, and it could have an immediate effect on your memory.

‘Or it could have an immediate effect on your stubbornness, best of girls.’

She smiled. ‘We will see. Tomorrow. Now I think I must go to bed. We have reached the point where we are each repeating the same arguments… and upsetting each other. I don’t want that, Alec. That is not good.’

She turned and headed for the door, not even offering herself for a goodnight kiss.

Margrethe!’

‘Yes, Alec?’

‘Come back and kiss me.’

‘Should I, Alec? You, a married man.’

‘Uh – Well, for heaven’s sake, a kiss isn’t the same as adultery.’

She shook her head sadly. ‘There are kisses and kisses, Alec. I would not kiss the way we have kissed unless I was happily willing to go on from there and make love. To me that would be a happy and innocent thing.. . but to you it would be adultery. You pointed out what the Christ said to the woman taken in adultery. I have not sinned… and I will not cause you to sin.’ Again she turned to leave.

‘Margrethe!’

‘Yes, Alec?.

‘You asked me if I intended ever again to ask you to come back later. I ask you now. Tonight. Will you come back later?’

‘Sin, Alec. For you it. would be sin… and that would make it sin for me, knowing how you feel about it.’

‘”Sin.” I’m not sure what sin is… I do know I need you… and I think you need me.’

‘Goodnight, Alec.’ She left quickly.

After a long while I brushed my teeth and washed my face, then decided that another shower might help. I took it lukewarm and it seemed to calm me a little. But when I went to bed, I lay awake, doing something I call thinking but probably is not.

I reviewed in my mind all the many major mistakes I have made in my life, one after another, dusting them off and bringing them up sharp in my head, right to the silly, awkward, inept, self-righteous, asinine fool I had made of myself tonight, and, in so doing, how I had wounded and humiliated the best and sweetest woman I have ever known.

I ‘can keep myself uselessly occupied with selfflagellation for an entire night when my latest attack of foot-in-mouth disease is severe. This current one bid fair to keep me staring at the ceiling for days.

Some long time later, after midnight and more, I was awakened by the sound of a key in the door. I fumbled for the bunk light switch, found it just as she dropped her robe and got into bed with me. I switched off the light.

She was warm and smooth and trembling and crying. I held her gently and tried to soothe her. She did not speak and neither did I. There had been too many words earlier and most of them had been mine. Now was a time simply to cuddle and hold and speak without words.

At last her trembling slowed, then stopped. Her breathing became even. Then she sighed and said very softly, ‘I could not stay away.’

‘Margrethe. I love you.’

‘Oh! I love you so much it hurts in my heart.’

I think we were both asleep when the collision happened. I had not intended to sleep but for the first time since the fire walk I was relaxed and untroubled; I dropped off.

First came this incredible jar that almost knocked us out of my bunk, then a grinding, crunching noise at earsplitting level. I got the bunk light on – and the skin of the ship at the foot of the bunk was bending inward.

The general alarm sounded, adding to the already deafening noise. The steel side of the ship buckled, then ruptured as something dirty white and cold pushed into the hole. As the light went out.

I got out of that bunk any which way, dragging Margrethe with me. The ship rolled heavily to port, causing us to slide down into the angle of the deck and the inboard bulkhead. I slammed against the door-handle, grabbed at it, and hung on with my right hand while I held Margrethe to me with my left

arm. The ship rolled back to starboard, and wind and water poured in through the hole – we heard it and felt it, could not see it. The ship recovered, then rolled again to starboard – and I lost my grip on the door handle.

I have to reconstruct what happened next – pitch dark, mind you, and a bedlam of sound. We were falling – I never let go of her – and then we were in water.

Apparently when the ship rolled back to starboard, we were tossed out through the hole. But that is, just reconstruction; all I actually know is that we fell, together, into water, went down rather deep.

We came up and I had Margrethe under my left arm, almost in a proper lifesaver carry. j grabbed a look as I gulped air, then we went under again. The ship was right alongside us and moving. There was cold wind and rumbling noise; something high and dark was on the side away from the ship. But it was the ship that scared me – or rather its propeller, its screw. Stateroom CI09 was far forward – but if I didn’t get us well away from the ship almost at once, Margrethe and I were going to be chewed into hamburger by the screw. I hung onto her and stroked hard away from the ship, kicking strongly – and exulted as I felt us getting away from the hazard of the ship… and banged my head something brutal against blackness.

Chapter 8

So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging.

Jonah 1: 15

I WAS comfortable and did not want to wake up. But a slight throb in my head was annoying me and, willy-nilly, I did wake. I shook my head to get rid of that throb and got a snootful of water. I snorted it out.

‘Alec?’ Her voice was nearby.

I was on my back in blood-warm water, salt water by the taste, with blackness all around me – about as near to a return to the womb as can be accomplished this side of death. Or was this death? ‘Margrethe?’

‘Oh! Oh, Alec, I am so relieved! You have been asleep a long time. How do you feel?’

I checked around, counted this and that, twitched that and this, found that I. was floating on my back between Margrethe’s limbs, she being also on her back with my head in her hands, in one of the standard Red-Cross life-saving positions. She was using slow frog kicks, not so much moving us as keeping us afloat. ‘I’m all right. I think. How about you?’

‘I’m just fine, dearest! – now that you’re awake.’

‘What happened?’

‘You bumped your head against the berg.’

‘Berg

‘The ice mountain. Iceberg.’

(Iceberg? I tried to remember what had happened.) ‘What iceberg?’

‘The one that wrecked the ship.’

Some of it came tumbling back, but it still did not make an understandable picture. A giant crash as if the ship had hit a reef, then we were dumped into water. A struggle to get clear – I did bump my head. ‘Margrethe, we’re in the tropics, as far south as Hawaii. How can there be icebergs?’

‘I don’t know, Alec.’

‘But-‘ I started to say ‘impossible,’ then decided that, from me, that word was silly. ‘This water is too warm for icebergs. Look, you can quit working so hard; in salt water I float as easily as Ivory soap.’

‘All right. But do let me hold you. I almost lost you once in this darkness; I’m frightened that it might happen again. When we fell in, the water was cold. Now it’s warm; so we must not be near the berg.’

‘Hang onto me, sure; I don’t want to lose you, either.’ Yes, the water had been cold when we fell into it; I remembered. Or cold compared with a nice warm cuddle in bed. And a cold wind. ‘What happened to the iceberg?’.

‘Alec, I don’t know. We fell into the water together. You grabbed me and got us away from the ship; I’m sure that saved us. But it was dark as December night and blowing hard and in the blackness you ran your head into the ice.

‘That is when I almost lost you. It knocked you out, dear, and you let go of me. I went under and gulped water and came up and spat it out and couldn’t find you.

‘Alec, I have never been so frightened in all my life. You weren’t anywhere. I couldn’t see you; I reached out, all sides, and could not touch you; I called out, you did not answer.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I should not have panicked. But I thought you had drowned. Or were drowning and I was not stopping it. But in paddling around my hand struck you, and then I grabbed you and everything was all right – until you didn’t answer. But I checked and found that your heart was steady and strong, so everything was all right after all, and I took you in the back carry so that I could hold your face out of water. After a long time you woke, up – and now everything is truly all right.’

‘You didn’t panic; I’d be dead if you had. Not many people could do what-you did.’

‘Oh, it’s not so uncommon; I was a guard at a beach north of K0benhavrt two summers – on Fridays I gave lessons. Lots of boys and girls learned.’

‘Keeping your head in a crunch and doing it in pitch darkness isn’t learned from lessons; don’t be so modest. What about the ship? And the iceberg?’

‘Alec, again I don’t know. By the time I found you and made sure that you were all right and then got you into towing position – by the time I had time to look around, it was like this. Nothing. Just blackness.’

‘I wonder if she sank? That was one big wallop she took! No explosion? You didn’t hear anything?’

‘I didn’t hear an explosion. Just wind and the collision sounds you must have heard, then some shouts after we were in the water. If she sank, I did not see it, but – Alec, for the past half hour, about, I’ve been swimming with my head pushed against a pillow or a pad or a mattress. Does that mean the ship sank?

Flotsam in the water?’

‘Not necessarily but it’s not encouraging. Why have you been keeping your head against it?’

‘Because we may need it. If it is one of the deck cushions or sunbathing mats from the pool, then it’s stuffed with kapok and is an emergency lifesaver.’

‘That’s what I meant. If it’s a flotation cushion, why are you just keeping your head against it? Why aren’t you on it, up out of the water?’

‘Because I could not do that without letting go of you.’

‘Oh. Margrethe, when we get out of this, will you kindly give me a swift kick? Well, I’m awake now; let’s find out what you’ve found. By Braille.’

‘All right. But I don’t want to let go of you when I can’t see you. I

‘Honey, I’m at least as anxious not to lose track of you. Okay, like this: You hang onto me with one hand; reach behind you with the other. Get a good grip on this cushion or whatever it is. I turn over and hang onto you and track you up to the hand you are using to grip the pillow thing. Then we’ll see -we’ll both feel what we have and decide how we can use it.’

It was not just a pillow, or even a bench cushion; it was (by the feel of it) a large sunbathing pad, at least six feet wide and somewhat longer than that – big enough for two people, or three if they were well acquainted. Almost as good as finding a lifeboat! Better – this flotation pad included Margrethe. I was minded of a profane poem passed around privately at seminary: ‘A jug ‘of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou

Getting up onto a mat that is limp as an angleworm on a night as black as the inside of a pile of coal is not merely difficult; it is impossible. We accomplished the impossible by my hanging on to it with both hands while Margrethe slowly slithered up over me. Then she gave me a hand while I inched up and onto it.

Then I leaned on one elbow and fell off and got lost. I followed Margrethe’s voice and bumped into the pad, and again got slowly and cautiously aboard.

We found that the most practical way to make best use of the space and buoyancy offered by the mat was to lie on our backs, side by side, starfished like that Leonardo da Vinci drawing, in order to spread ourselves as widely as possible over the support.

I said, ‘You all right, hon?’

‘Just fine!’

‘Need anything?’

‘Not anything we have here. I’m comfortable, and relaxed – and you are here.’

‘Me, too. But what would you have if you could have -anything you want?’

‘Well … a hot fudge sundae.’

I considered it. ‘No. A chocolate sundae with marshmallow syrup, and a cherry on top. And a cup of coffee.’

‘A cup of chocolate. But make mine hot fudge. It’s a taste I acquired in America. We Danes do lots of good things with ice cream, but putting a hot sauce on an ice-cold dish never occurred to us. A hot fudge sundae. Better make that a double.’

‘All right. I’ll pay for a double if that’s what you want. I’m a dead game sport, I am – and you saved my life.’

Her inboard hand patted mine. ‘Alec, you’re fun – and I’m happy. Do you think we’re going to get out of this alive?’

‘I don’t know, hon. The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive. But I promise you this: I’m going to do my best to get you that hot fudge sundae.’

We both woke up when it got light. Yes, I slept and I know Margrethe did, too, as I woke a little before she did, listened to her soft snores, and kept quiet until I saw her eyes open. I had not expected to be able to sleep but I am not surprised (now) that we did – perfect bed, perfect silence, perfect temperature, both of us very tired … and absolutely nothing to worry about that was worth worrying about because there was nothing, nothing whatever, to do about our problems earlier than daylight. I think I fell asleep thinking: Yes, Margrethe was right; a hot fudge sundae was a better choice than a chocolate marshmallow sundae. I know I dreamt about such a sundae – a quasinightmare in which I would dip into it, a big bite… lift the spoon to my mouth, and find it empty. I think that woke me.

She turned her head toward me, smiled and looked about sixteen and utterly heavenly. (like two young roes that are twins. Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.) ‘Good morning, beautiful.’

She giggled. ‘Good morning, Prince Charming. Did you sleep well?’

‘Matter of fact, Margrethe, I haven’t slept so well in a month. Odd. All I want now is breakfast in bed.’

“Right away, sir. I’ll hurry!’

‘Go along with you. I should not have mentioned food. I’ll settle for a kiss. Think we can manage a kiss without falling into the water?’

‘Yes. But let’s be careful. Just turn your face this way; don’t roll over.’

It was a kiss mostly symbolic rather than one of Margrethe’s all-out specials. We were both quite careful not to disturb the precarious stability of our make-do life raft. We were worried about something more important than being dumped into the ocean – at least I was.

I decided to broach it, take it out where we could worry about it together. ‘Margrethe, by the map just

outside the dining room we should have the coast of Mexico near Mazatlán just east of us. What time did the ship sink? If it sank. I mean, what time was the collision?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Nor do I. After midnight, I’m sure of that. The Konge ‘Knut was scheduled to arrive at eight a.m. So that coast* line could be over a hundred miles east of us. Or it could be almost on top of us. Mountains over there, we may be able to see them when this overcast clears away. As it did yesterday, so it probably will today. Sweetheart, how are you on long-distance swimming? If we can see mountains, do you want to try for it?’

She was slow in answering. ‘Alec, if you wish, we will try it.’

‘That wasn’t quite what I asked.’

‘That is true. In warm sea water I think I can swim as long as necessary. I did once swim the Great Belt, in water colder than this. But, Alec, in the Belt are no sharks. Here there are sharks. I have seen.’

I let out a sigh. ‘I’m glad you said it; I didn’t want to have to say it. Hon, I think we must stay right here and hold still. Not call attention to ourselves. I can skip breakfast – especially a shark’s breakfast.’

‘One does not starve quickly.’

‘We won’t starve. If you had your druthers, which would you pick? Starvation? Or death by sunburn? Sharks? Or dying of thirst? In all the lifeboat and Robinson Crusoe stories I’ve ever read our hero had something to work with. I don’t have even a toothpick. Correction: I have you; that changes the odds. Margrethe, what do you think we ought to do?’

‘I think we will be picked up.’

I thought so, too, but for a reason I did not want to discuss with Margrethe. ‘I’m glad to hear you say

that. But-why do you think so?’

‘Alec, have you been to Mazatlán before?’

‘No.

‘It is an important fishing port, both commercial fishing and sport fishing. Since dawn hundreds of boats have put out to sea. The largest and fastest go many kilometers out. If we wait, they will find us.’

‘May find us, you mean. There is a lot of ocean out here. But you’re right; swimming for it is suicide; our best bet is to stay here and hold tight.’

‘They will be looking for us, Alec.’

‘They will? Why?’

‘If Konge Knut did not sink, then the Captain knows when and where we were lost overboard; when he reaches port – about now – he will ask for a daylight search. But if she did sink, then they will be scouring the whole area for survivors.’

‘Sounds logical.’ (I had another idea, not at all logical.)

‘Our problem is to stay alive till they find us, avoiding sharks and thirst and sunburn as best we can – and all of that means holding still. Quite still and all the time. Except that I think we should turn over now and then, after the sun is out, to spread the burn.’

‘And pray for cloudy weather. Yes, all of that. And maybe we should not talk. Not get quite so thirsty

She kept silent so long that I thought she had started the discipline I had suggested. Then she said,

‘Beloved, we may not live.’

‘I know.’

‘If we are to die, I would choose to hear your voice, and I would not wish to be deprived of telling. you that I love you – now that I may! – in a futile attempt to live a few. minutes longer.’

‘Yes, my sweetheart. Yes.’

Despite that decision we talked very little. For me it was enough to touch her hand; it appeared to be enough for -her, too.

A long time later – three hours at a guess – I heard Margrethe gasp.

‘Trouble?’

‘Alec! Look there!’ She pointed. I looked.

It should have been my turn to gasp, but I was somewhat braced for it: high up, a cruciform shape, somewhat like a bird gliding, but much larger and clearly artificial. A flying machine

I knew that flying machines were impossible; in engineering school I had studied Professor Simon Newcomb’s well-known mathematical proof that the efforts of Professor Langley and others to build an aerodyne capable of carrying a man were doomed, useless, because scale theory proved that no such contraption large enough to carry a man could carry a heat-energy plant large enough to lift it off the ground – much less a passenger.

That was science’s final word on a folly and it put a stop to wasting public monies on a will-o’-the-wisp. Research and development money went into airships, where it belonged, with enormous success.

However, in the past few days I had gained a new angle on the idea of ‘impossible’. When a veritable flying machine showed up in our sky, I was not greatly surprised.

I think Margrethe held her breath until it passed over us and was far toward the horizon. I started to, then forced myself to breathe calmly – it was such a beautiful thing, silvery and sleek and fast. I could not judge its size, but if those dark spots in its side were windows, then it was enormous.

I could not see what pushed it along.

‘Alec… is that an airship?’

‘No. At least it is not what I meant when I told you about airships. This I would call a “flying machine “.’That’s all I can say; I’ve never seen one before. But I can tell you -one thing, now – something very important.’

‘Yes?’

‘We are not going to die… and I now know why the ship was sunk.’

‘Why, Alec?’

‘To keep me from checking a thumbprint.’

Chapter 9

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink:I was a stranger, and ye took me in. 

Matthew 25:35

‘OR, TO put it more nearly exactly, the iceberg was there and the collision took place to keep me from checking my thumbprint against the thumbprint on Graham’s driver’s license. The ship may not have sunk; that may not have been necessary to the scheme.’

Margrethe did not say anything.

So I added gently, ‘Go ahead, dear; say it. Get it off your chest; I won’t mind. I’m crazy. Paranoid.’

‘Alec, I did not say that. I did not think it. I would not.’

‘No, you did not say it. But this time my aberration cannot be explained away as “loss of memory”. That is, if we saw the same thing. What did you see?’

‘I saw something strange in the sky. I heard it, too. You told me that it was a flying machine.’

‘Well, I think that is what it should be called – but you can call it a, uh, a “gumpersaggle” for all of me. Something new and strange. What is this gumpersaggle? Describe it.’

‘It was something moving in the sky. It came from back that way, then passed almost over us, and disappeared there.’ (She pointed, a direction I had decided, was north.) ‘It was shaped something like a cross, a crucifix. The crosspiece had bumps on it, four I think. The front end had eyes like a whale and the back end had flukes like a whale. A whale with wings – t hat’s what it looked like, Alec; a whale flying through the sky!’

‘You thought it was alive?’

‘Uh, I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t know what to think.’

‘I don’t think it was alive; I think it was a machine. A flying machine. A boat with wings on it. But, either way – a machine or a flying whale – have you- ever in your life seen anything like it?’

‘Alec, it was so strange that I have trouble believing that I saw it.’

‘I know. But you saw it first and pointed it out to me so I didn’t trick you into thinking that you saw it.’

‘ You wouldn’t do that.’

‘No, I would not. But I’m glad you saw it first, dearest girl; that means it’s real – not something dreamed up in my fevered brain. That thing did not come from the world you are used to… and I can promise you that it is not one of the airships I talked about; it is not from the world I grew up in. So we’re now in still a third world.’ I sighed. ‘The first time it took a twenty-thousand-ton ocean liner to prove to me that I had changed worlds. This time just one sight of something that simply could not exist in my world is all I need to know that they are at it again. They shifted worlds when I was knocked out – I think that’s when they did it. As may be, I think they did it to keep me from checking that thumbprint. Paranoia. The delusion that the whole world is a conspiracy. Only it’s not a delusion.’

I watched her eyes. ‘Well?’

‘Alec … could it possibly be that both of us imagined it? Delirious, perhaps? We’ve both had a rough experience – you hit your head; I may have hit mine when the iceberg struck.’

‘Margrethe, we would not each have the same delirium dream. If you wake up and find that I’m gone, that could be your answer. But I’m not gone; I’m right here. Besides, you would still have to account for an iceberg as far south as we are. Paranoia is a simpler explanation. But the conspiracy is aimed at me; you just had the misfortune to be caught in it. I’m sorry.’ (I wasn’t really sorry. A raft in the middle of the ocean is no- place to be alone. But with Margrethe it was ‘paradise enow.’)

‘I still think that sharing the same dream is – Alec, there it comes again!’ She pointed.

I didn’t see anything at first, then I did: A dot that grew into a cruciform shape, a shape that I now identified as ‘flying machine’. I watched it grow.

‘Margrethe, it must have turned around. Maybe it saw us. Or they saw us. Or he saw us. Whatever.’

‘Perhaps.’

As it came closer I saw that it was going to pass to our right rather than overhead. Margrethe said suddenly, ‘It’s not the same. one.’

‘And it’s not a flying whale – unless flying whales hereabouts have wide red stripes down their sides.’

‘It’s not a whale. I mean “it’s not alive”. You are right,

Alec; it is a machine. Dear, do you really think it has people inside it? That scares me.’

‘I think I would be more scared if it did not have people inside it.’ (I remembered a fantastic story translated from the German about a world peopled by nothing but automatic machines – not a pleasant story.) ‘Actually, it’s good news. We both know now that our seeing the first one was not a dream, not an illusion. That nails down the fact that we are in another world. Therefore we are going to be rescued.’

She said hesitantly, ‘I don’t quite follow that.’

‘That’s because you are still trying to avoid calling me paranoid – and thank you, dear, but my being paranoid is the simplest hypothesis. If the joker pulling the strings had intended to kill me, the easy time to do it would have been with the iceberg. Or earlier, with the fire pit. But he ‘s not out to kill me, at least not now. He’s playing with me, cat and mouse. So I’ll be rescued. So will you, because we’re together.

You were with me when the iceberg hit – your bad luck. You’re still with me now, so you’ll be rescued,your good luck. Don’t fight it, dear. I’ve had some days to get used to it, and I find that it is all right once you relax. Paranoia is the only rational approach to a conspiracy world.’

‘But, Alec, the world ought not to he that way,’

‘There is no “ought” to it, my love. The essence of philosophy is to accept the universe as it-is, rather than ,try to force it into some preconceived shape.’ I added, ‘Wups! Don’t roll off. You don’t want to be a snack for a shark just after we’ve had proof that we are going to be picked up!’

For the next hour or so nothing happened – unless you count sighting two regal sailfish. The overcast burned away and I began to be anxious for an early rescue; I figured they owed me that much! Not let me get a third-degree sunburn. Margrethe might be able to take a bit more sun than I; she was blonde but she was tanned a warm toast color all over – lovely! But I was raw frog-belly white except for my face and hands – a full day of tropic sun could put me into hospital. Or worse.

The eastern horizon now seemed to show a gray unevenness that could be mountains – or so I kept telling myself, although there isn’t much you can see when your viewpoint is about seven inches above water line. If those were indeed mountains or hills, then land was not many miles away. Boats from Mazatlán should be in sight any time now… if Mazatlán was still there in this world. If –

Then another flying machine showed up.

It was only vaguely like the other two. They had been flying parallel to the coast; the first from the south, the second from the north. This machine came out from the direction of the coast, flying mostly ‘West, although it zigzagged.

It passed north of us, then turned back and circled around us. It came low enough that I could see that it did indeed have men in it, two I thought.

Its shape is hard to explain. Imagine first a giant box kite, about forty feet long, four feet wide, and about three feet between two kite surfaces.

Imagine this box kite placed at right angles to a boat shape, somewhat, like an Esquimau’s kayak but larger, much larger – about as large as the box kite.

Underneath all this are two more kayak shapes, smaller, parallel to the main shape.

At one end of this shape is an engine (as I saw later) and at the front end of that is an air propeller, like a ship’s water propeller -and this I saw later, also. When I first saw this unbelievable structure, the air screw was turning so extremely fast that one simply could not see it. But one could hear it! The noise made by this contraption was deafening and never stopped.

The machine turned toward us and tilted down so that it headed straight toward us – like nothing so much as a pelican gliding down to scoop up fish.

With us the fish. It was frightening. To me, at least; Margrethe never let out a peep. But she did squeeze my fingers very hard. The mere fact that we were not fish and that a machine could not eat us and would not want to did not make this dive at us less terrifying.

Despite my fright (or because of it) I now saw that this construction was at least twice as big as I had estimated when I saw it high in the sky. It had two teamsters operating it, seated side by side behind a window in the front end. The driving engine turned out to be two, mounted between the box-kite wings, one on the right of the teamsters’ position, one on the left.

At the very last instant the machine lifted like a horse taking a hurdle, and barely missed us. The blast of win ‘ d it created almost knocked us off our raft and the blast of sound caused my ears to ring.

It went a little higher, curved back toward us, glided again but not quite toward us. The lower twin kayak shapes touched the water, creating a brave comet’s tail of spume – and the thing slowed and stopped and stayed there, on the water, and did not sink!

Now the air screws moved very slowly and I saw them for the first time … and admired the engineering ingenuity that had gone into them. Not as efficient, I suspected, as the ducted air screws used in our dirigible airships, but an elegant solution to a problem in a place where ducting would be difficult or perhaps impossible.

But those infernally noisy driving engines! How any engineer could accept that, I could not see. As one of my professors said (back before thermodynamics convinced me that I had a call for the ministry), noise is always a byproduct of inefficiency. A correctly designed engine is as silent as the grave.

The machine turned and came at us again, moving very slowly. Its teamsters handled it so that it missed us by a few feet and almost stopped. One of the two, inside it crawled out of the carriage space behind the window and was clinging by his left hand to one of the stanchions that held the two box-kite wings apart. His other hand held a coiled line.

As the flying machine passed us, he cast the line toward us. I snatched at it, got a hand on it, and did not myself go into the water because Margrethe snatched at me.

I handed the line to Margrethe. ‘Let him pull you in. I’ll slide into the water and be right behind you.’

‘No!’

‘What do you mean, “No”? This is no time to argue. Do it!’

‘Alec, be quiet! He’s trying to tell us something.’

I shut up, more than a little offended. Margrethe listened. (No point in my listening; my Spanish is limited to ‘Gracias’ and ‘Por favor’. Instead I read the lettering on the side of the machine: EL GUARDA COSTAS REAL DEMEXICO.)

‘Alec, he is warning us to be very careful. Sharks.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Yes. We are to stay where we are. He will pull gently on this rope. I think he means to get us into his machine without us going into the water.’

‘A man after my own heart!’

We tried it; it did not work. A breeze had sprung up; it had much more effect on the flying machine than it had on us – that water-soaked sunbathing pad was practically nailed down, no sail area at all. Instead of being able to ,pull us to the flying machine, the man on the other end of the line was forced to let out more line to keep from pulling us off into the water.

He called out something; Margrethe answered. They shouted back and forth. She turned to me. ‘He says to let loose the rope. They will go out and come back, this time directly at us, but slowly. As they come closest, we are to try to scramble up into the aeroplano. The machine.’

‘All right.’

The machine left us, went out oil the water and curved back. While waiting, we were not bored; we had the dorsal fin of a huge shark to entertain us. It did not attack; apparently it had not made up its mind (what mind?) that we were good to eat. I suppose it saw only the underside of the kapok pad.

The flying machine headed directly toward us on the’ water, looking like some monstrous dragonfly skimming the surface. I said, ‘Darling, as it gets closest, you dive for the stanchion closest to you and I’ll push you up. Then I’ll come up behind you.’

‘No, Alec.’

‘What do you mean, “No”?’ I was vexed. Margrethe was such a good comrade – then suddenly so stubborn. At the wrong time.

‘You can’t push me; you have no foundation to push from. And you can’t stand up; you can’t even sit up. Uh, you scramble to the right; I’ll scramble to the left. If either of us misses, then back onto the pad – fast! The aeroplano will come around again.’

‘But

‘That’s how he said to do it.’

There was no time left; the machine was almost on top of us. The ‘legs’ or stanchions joining the lower twin shapes to the body of the machine bridged the pad, one just missing me and the other just missing Margrethe. ‘Now!’ she cried. I lunged toward my side, got a hand on a stanchion.

And almost jerked my right arm out by the roots but I kept on moving, monkey fashion – got both hands on that undercarriage got a foot up on a horizontal kayak shape, turned my head.

Saw a hand reaching down to Margrethe – she climbed and was lifted onto the kite wing above, and disappeared. I turned to climb up my side – and suddenly levitated up and onto the wing. I do not ordinarily levitate but this time I had incentive: a dirty white fin too big for any decent fish, cutting the water right toward my foot.

I found myself alongside the little carriage house from which the teamsters directed ‘their strange craft. The second man (not the one who had climbed out to help) stuck his head out a window, grinned at me, reached back and opened a little door. I crawled inside, head first. Margrethe was already there.

The space had four seats, two in front where the teamsters sat, and two behind where we were.

The teamster on my side looked around and said something, and continued – I noticed! – to look at Margrethe. Certainly she was naked, but that was not her fault, and a gentleman would not stare.

‘He says,’ Margrethe explained, ‘that we must fasten our belts. I think he means this.’ She held up a buckle on the end of a belt, the other end being secured to the frame of the carriage.

I discovered that I was sitting on a similar buckle, which was digging a hole into my sunburned backside. I hadn’t noticed it up to then, too many other things demanding attention. (Why didn’t he keep his eyes to himself! I felt myself ready to shout at him. That he had, at great peril to himself, just saved her life and mine did not that moment occur to me; I was simply growing furious that he would take such advantage of a helpless lady.)

I turned my attention to that pesky belt and tried to ignore it. He spoke to the other man beside him,

who responded enthusiastically. Margrethe interrupted the discussion. ‘What are they saying?’ I demanded.

‘The poor man is about to give me the shirt off his back. I am protesting… but I’m not protesting so hard as to put a stop to it. It’s very gallant of them, dear, and, while I’m not foolish about it, I do feel more at ease among strangers with some sort of clothing.’ She listened, and added, ‘They’re arguing as to which one has the privilege.’

I shut up. In my mind I apologized to them. I’ll bet even the Pope in Rome has sneaked a quick look a time or two in his life.

The one on the right apparently won the argument. He squirmed around in his seat – he could not stand up – and got his shirt off, turned and passed it back to Margrethe. ‘Señorita. Por favor.’ He added other remarks but they were beyond my knowledge.

Margrethe replied with dignity and grace, and chatted with them as she wiggled into his shirt. It covered her mostly. She turned to me. ‘Dear, the commander is Teniente Anibal Sanz Garcia and his assistant is Sargento Roberto Dominguez Jones, both of the Royal Mexican Coast Guard. Both the Lieutenant and the Sergeant wanted to give me a shirt, but the Sergeant won a finger-guessing game, so I have his shirt.’

‘It’s mighty generous of him. Ask them if there is anything at all in the machine that I can wear.’

‘I’ll try.’ She spoke several phrases; I heard my name. Then she shifted back to English. ‘Gentlemen, I have the honor to present my husband, Sefior Alexandro Graham Hergensheimer.’ She shifted back to Spanish.

Shortly she was answered. ‘The Lieutenant is devastated to admit that they have nothing to offer you. But he promises on his mother’s honor that something will be found for you just as quickly as we reach Mazatlán and the Coast Guard headquarters there. Now he urges both of us to fasten our belts. tightly as we are about to fly.. Alec, I’m scared!’

‘Don’t be. I’ll hold your hand.’

Sergeant Dominguez turned around again, held up a canteen. ‘Agua?’

‘Goodness, yes!’ agreed Margrethe. ‘Sí sí sí!’

Water has never tasted so good.

The Lieutenant. looked around when we returned the canteen, gave a bigsmile and a thumbs-up sign old as the Colosseum, and did something that speeded up his driving engines. They had been turning over very slowly; now -they speeded up to a horrible racket. The machine turned as he headed it straight into the wind. The wind had been freshening all morning; now it showed little curls of white on the tops of the wavelets. He speeded his engines still more, to an unbelievable violence, and we went bouncing over the water, shaking everything.

Then we started hitting about every tenth wave with incredible force. I don’t know why we weren’t wrecked.

Suddenly we were twenty feet off the water; the bumping stopped. The vibration and the noise continued. We climbed at a sharp angle – and turned and started down again, and I almost-not-quite threw up that welcome drink of water.

The ocean was right in front of us, a solid wall. The Lieutenant turned his head and shouted something.

I wanted to tell him to keep his eyes on the road! – but I did not. ‘What does he say?’

‘He says to look where he points. He’ll point us right at it. EI tiburón blanco grande – the great white shark that almost got us.’

(I could have done without it.) Sure enough, right in the middle of this wall of water was a gray ghost with a fin cutting the water. Just when I knew that we were going to splash right down on top of it, the wall tilted away from us, my buttocks were forced down hard against the seat, my ears roared, and I again missed throwing up on our host only by iron will.

The machine leveled off and suddenly the ride was almost comfortable, aside from the racket and the vibration.

Airships are ever so much nicer.

The rugged hills behind the shoreline, so hard to see from our raft, were clearly in sight once we were in the air, and so was the shore – a series of beautiful beaches and a town where we were headed. The Sergeant looked around, pointed down a I t the town, and spoke. ‘What did he say?’

‘Sergeant Roberto says that we are home just in time for lunch. Almuerzo, he said, but notes that it’s breakfast – desayuno – for us.’

My stomach suddenly decided to stay awhile. ‘I don’t care what he calls it. Tell him not to bother to cook the horse; I’ll eat it raw.’

Margrethe translated; both our hosts laughed, then the Lieutenant proceeded to swoop down and place ‘his machine on the water while looking back over his shoulder to talk to Margrethe – who continued to smile while she drove her nails through the palm of my right hand.

We got down. No one was killed. But airships are much better.

Lunch! Everything was coming up roses.

Chapter 10

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground 

-Genesis 3:19

A HALF hour after the flying machine splashed down in the harbor of Mazatlán Margrethe and I were seated with Sergeant Dominguez in the enlisted men’s mess of the Coast Guard. We were late for the midday meal but we were served. And I was clothed. Some at least – a pair of dungaree trousers. But the difference between bare naked and a pair of pants is far greater than the difference between cheap work trousers and the finest-ermine. Try it and you’ll see.

A small boat had come out to the flying machine’s mooring; then I had to walk across the dock where we had landed and into the headquarters building, there to wait until these pants could be found for me – with strangers staring at me the whole time, some of them women. I know now how it feels to be exposed in stocks. Dreadful! I haven’t been so embarrassed since an unfortunate accident in Sunday school when I was five.

But now it was done with and there was food and drink in front of us and, for the time being, I was abundantly happy. The food was not what I was used to. Who said that hunger was the best sauce? Whoever he was, he was right; our lunch was delicious. Thin cornmeal pancakes soaked with gravy fried beans, a scorching hot stew, a bowl of little yellow tomatoes, and coffee strong, black, and bitter – what more could a man want? No gourmet ever savored a meal as much as I enjoyed that one.

(At first I had been a bit miffed that we ate in the enlisted men’s mess rather than going with Lieutenant Sanz to wherever the officers ate. Much later I had it pointed out to me that I suffered from a very common civilian syndrome, i.e., a civilian with no military experience unconsciously equates his social position with that of officers, never with that of enlisted men. On examination this notion is obviously ridiculous – but it is almost universal. Oh, perhaps not universal but it obtains throughout America… where every man is ‘as, good as anyone else and better than most’.)

Sergeant Dominguez now had his shirt back. While pants were being found for me, a woman – a charwoman, I believe; the Mexican Coast Guard did not seem to have female ratings – a woman at headquarters had been sent to fetch something for Margrethe, and that something turned out to be a blouse and a full skirt, each of cotton and in bright colors. A simple and obviously cheap costume but Margrethe looked beautiful in it.

As yet, neither of us had shoes. No matter – the weather was warm and dry; shoes could wait. We were fed, we were dressed, we were safe – and all with a warm hospitality that caused me to feel that Mexicans were the finest people on earth.

After my second cup of coffee I said, ‘Sweetheart, how do we excuse ourselves and leave without being

rude? I think we should find the American consul as early as possible.’

‘We have to go back to the headquarters building.’

‘More red tape?’

‘I suppose you could call it that. I think they want to question us in more detail as to how we came to be where we were found. One must admit that our story is odd.’

‘I suppose so.’ Our initial interview with the Commandant had been less than satisfactory. Had I been alone I think he simply would have called me a liar… but it is difficult for a male man bursting with masculine ego to talk that way to Margrethe.

The trouble was the good ship Konge Knut.

She had not sunk, she had not come into port – she had never existed.

I was only moderately surprised. Had she turned into a full-rigged ship or a quinquereme, I would not have been surprised. But I had expected some sort of vessel of that same name – I thought the rules required it. But now it was becoming clear that I did not understand the rules. If there were any.

Margrethe had pointed out to me a confirming factor: This Mazatlán was not the town she had visited before. This one was much smaller and was not a tourist town indeed the long dock where the Konge Knut should have tied up did not exist in this world. I think that this convinced her quite as much as the flying machines in proving to her that my ‘paranoia’ was in fact the least hypothesis. She had been here before; that dock was big and solid; it was gone. It shook her.

The Commandant had not been impressed. He spent more time questioning Lieutenant Sanz than he spent questioning us. He did not seem pleased with Sanz.

There was another factor that I did not understand at the time and have never fully understood. Sanz’s

boss was ‘Captain’ (or ‘Capitán’); the Commandant also was ‘Captain’. But they were not the same rank.

The Coast Guard used navy ranks. However, that small part of it that operated flying machines used army ranks. I think this trivial difference had an historical origin. As may be, there was friction at the interface; the four-stripes or seagoing Captain was not disposed to accept as gospel anything reported by a flying-machine officer.

Lieutenant Sanz had fetched in, two naked survivors with a preposterous story; the four-striper seemed inclined to blame Sanz himself for the unbelievable aspects of our story.

Sanz was not intimidated. I think he had no real respect for an officer who had never been higher off the water than a crow’s nest. (Having ridden in his death trap, I understood why he was not inclined to genuflect to a sea-level type. Even among dirigible balloon pilots I have encountered this tendency to divide the world into those who fly and those who do not)

After a bit, finding himself unable to shake Sanz, unable to shake Margrethe, and unable to communicate with me except through Margrethe, the Commandant shrugged and gave instructions that resulted in us all going to lunch. I thought that ended it. But now we were going back for more, whatever it was.

Our second session with the Commandant was short. He told us that we would see the immigration judge at four that afternoon – the court with that jurisdiction; there was no separate immigration court. In the meantime here was a list of what we owed – arrange payment with the judge.

Margrethe looked startled as she accepted a piece of paper from him; I demanded to know what he had said.

She translated; I looked at that billing.

More than eight thousand pesos!

It did not take a deep knowledge of Spanish to read that bill; almost all the words were cognates. ‘Tres horas’ is three hours, and we were charged for three hours’ use of I aeroplano’- a word I had heard earlier from Margrethe; it meant their flying machine. We were charged also for the time of Lieutenant

Sanz and Sergeant Dominguez. Plus a ‘multiplying factor that I decided must mean applied overhead, or near enough.

And there was fuel for the aeroplano, and service for it.

‘Trousers’ are ‘pantalones’- and here was a bill for the pair I was wearing.

A ‘faldo’ was a skirt and a ‘camisa’ was a blouse – and Margrethe’s outfit was decidedly not cheap.

One item surprised me not by its price but by being included; I had thought we were guests: two lunches, each at twelve pesos.

There was even a separate charge for the Commandant’s time.

I started to ask how much eight thousand pesos came to in dollars – then shut up, realizing that I had not the slightest idea of the buying power of a dollar in this new world we had been dumped into.

Margrethe discussed the billing with Lieutenant Sartz, who looked embarrassed. There was much expostulation and waving of hands. She listened, then told me, ‘Alec, it isn’t Anibal’s idea and it is not even the fault of the Commandant. The tariffs on these services – rescue at sea, use of the aeroplano, and so forth – are set from el Distrito Real, the Royal District – that’s the same as Mexico City, I believe.

Lieutenant Sanz tells me that there is an economy drive on at the top level, with great pressure on everyone to make all public services self-supporting. He says that, if the Commandant did not charge us for our rescue and the Inspector Royal ever found out about it, it would be deducted from the Commandant’s pay. Plus whatever punitive measures a royal commission found appropriate. And Anibal wants you to know that he is devastated at this embarrassing situation. If he owned the aeroplano himself, we would simply be his guests. He will always look on you as his brother and me as his sister.’

‘Tell him I feel the same way about him and please make it at least as flowery as he made it.’

‘I will. And Roberto wants to be included.’

‘And the same goes for the Sergeant. But find out where and how to get to the American consul. We’ve got troubles.’

Lieutenant Anibal Sanz was told to see to it that we appeared in court at four o’clock; with that we were dismissed. Sanz delegated Sergeant Roberto to escort us to the consul and back, expressed regret that his duty status kept him from escorting us personally – clicked his heels, bowed over Margrethe’s hand, and, kissed it. He got a lot of mileage out of that simple gesture; I could see that Margrethe was pleased. But they don’t teach that grace in Kansas. My loss.

Mazatlán is on a peninsula; the Coast Guard station is on the south shore not far from the lighthouse (tallest in the world -impressive!); the American consulate is about a mile away across town at the north shore, straight down Avenida Miguel Alemán its entire length – a pleasant walk, graced about halfway by a lovely fountain.

But Margrethe and I were barefooted.

Sergeant Dominguez did not suggest a taxi – and I could not.

At first being barefooted did not seem important. There were other bare feet on that boulevard and by no means all of them on children. (Nor did I have the only bare chest.) As a youngster I had regarded bare feet as a luxury, a privilege. I went barefooted all summer and put on shoes most reluctantly when school opened.

After the first block I was wondering why, as a kid, I had always looked forward to going barefooted. Shortly thereafter I asked Margrethe to ask Sergeant Roberto, please, to slow down and let me pick my way for maximum shade; this pesky sidewalk is frying my feet!

(Margrethe had not complained and did not – and I was a bit vexed with her that she had not. I benefited constantly from Margrethe’s angelic fortitude—and found it hard to live up to.)

From there on I gave my full attention to pampering my poor, abused, tender pink feet. I felt sorry for myself and wondered why I had ever left God’s country.

‘I wept that I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.’ I don’t know who said that first, but it is part of our cultural heritage and should be.

It happened to me.

Not quite halfway, where Miguel Alemán crosses Calle Aquiles Serdan at the fountain, we encountered a street beggar. He looked up at us and grinned, held up a handful of pencils -‘looked up’ because he was riding a little wheeled dolly; he had no feet.

Sergeant Roberto called him by name and flipped him a coin; the beggar caught it in his teeth, flipped it into his pocket, called out, ‘Gracias!’- and turned his attention to me.

I said quickly, ‘Margrethe, will you please explain to him that I have no money whatever.’

‘Yes, Alec.’ She squatted down, spoke with him eye to Eye. Then she straightened up. ‘Pepe says, to tell you, that’s all right; he’ll catch you someday when you are rich.’

‘Please tell him that I will be back. I promise.’

She did so. Pepe grinned at me, threw Margrethe a kiss, and saluted the Sergeant and me. We went on.

And I stopped being so finicky careful to coddle my feet. Pepe had forced me to reassess my situation. Ever since I had learned that the Mexican government did not regard rescuing me as a privilege but expected me to pay for it, I had been feeling sorry for myself, abused, put upon. I had been muttering to myself that my compatriots who complained that all Mexicans were bloodsuckers, living on gringo tourists, were dead right! Not Roberto and the Lieutenant, of course – but the others. Lazy parasites, all of them! with their hands out for the Yankee dollar.

Like Pepe.

I reviewed in my mind all the Mexicans I had met that day, each one I could remember, and asked forgiveness for my snide thoughts. Mexicans were simply fellow travelers on that long journey from dark to eternal darkness. Some carried their burdens well, some did not. And some carried very heavy burdens with gallantry and grace. Like Pepe.

Yesterday I had been living in luxury; today I was broke and in debt. But I have my health, I have my brain, I have my two hands – and I have Margrethe. My burdens were light; I should carry them joyfully. Thank you, Pepe!

The door of the consulate had a small American flag over it and the Great Seal in bronze on it. I pulled the bell wire beside it.

After a considerable wait the door opened a crack and a female voice told us to go away (I needed no translation; her meaning was clear). The door started to close. Sergeant Roberto whistled loudly and called out. The crack widened; a dialogue ensued. Margrethe said, ‘He’s telling her to tell Don Ambrosio that two American citizens are here who must see him at once because they must appear in court at four this afternoon.’

Again we waited. After about twenty minutes the maid let us in and ushered us into a dark office. The consul came in Y fixed my eye with his, and demanded to know how I dared to interrupt his siesta?

Then he caught sight of Margrethe and slowed down. To her it was: ‘How can I serve you? In the meantime will you honor my poor house by accepting a glass of wine? Or a cup of coffee?’

Barefooted and in a garish dress, Margrethe was a lady – I was riffraff. Don’t ask me why this was so; it just was. The effect was most marked with men. But it worked with women, too. Try to rationalize it and you find yourself using words like ‘royal’, ‘noble’, ‘gentry’, and ‘to the manner born’ – all involving concepts anathema to the American democratic ideal. Whether this proves something about Margrethe or something about the democratic ideal I will leave as an exercise for the student.

Don Ambrosio was a pompous zero but nevertheless he was a relief because he spoke American – real American, not English; he had been born in Brownsville, Texas. I feel certain that the backs of his parents were wet. He had parlayed a talent for politics among his fellow Chicanos into a cushy sinecure, telling gringo travelers in the land of Montezuma why they could not have what they desperately needed.

Which he eventually told us.

I let Margrethe do most of the talking because she was obviously so much more successful at it than I was. She called us ‘Mr and Mrs Graham’ – we had agreed on that name during the walk here. When we were rescued, she had used ‘Grahain Hergensheimer’ and had explained to me later that this let me choose: I could select ‘Hergensheimer’ simply by asserting that the listener’s memory had had a minor bobble; the name had been offered as ‘Hergensheimer Graham. No? Well, then I must have miscalled it – sorry.

I let it stay ‘Graham Hergensheimer’ and thereby used the name ‘Graham’ in order to keep things simple; to her I had always been ‘Graham’ and I had been using the name myself for almost two weeks. Before I got out of the consulate I had told a dozen more lies, trying to keep our story believable. I did not want unnecessary complication; ‘Mr and Mrs Alec Graham’ was easiest.

(Minor theological note: Many people seem to believe that the Ten Commandments forbid lying. Not at all! The prohibition is against bearing false witness against your neighbor – a specific, limited, and despicable sort of lie. But there is no Biblical rule forbidding simple untruth. Many theologians believe that no human social organization could stand up under the strain of absolute honesty. If you think their misgivings are unfounded, try telling your friends the ungarnished truth about what you think of their offspring – if you dare risk it.)

After endless repetitions (in which the Konge Knut shrank and became our private cruiser) Don Ambrosio said to me, ‘It’s no use, Mr Graham. I cannot issue you even a temporary document to substitute for your lost passport because you have offered me not one shred of proof that you are an American citizen.’

I answered, ‘Don Ambrosio, I am astonished. I know that Mrs Graham has a slight accent; we told you that she was born in Denmark. But do you honestly think that anyone not born amidst the tall corn could possibly have my accent?’

He gave a most Latin. shrug. ‘I’m not an expert in midwest accents. To my ear you could have been born to one of the harsher British accents, then have gone on the stage – and everybody knows that a competent actor can acquire the accent for any role. The People’s Republic of England goes to any length these days to plant their sleepers in the States; you might be from Lincoln, England, rather than from somewhere near Lincoln, Nebraska.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

‘What I believe is not the question. The fact is that I will not sign a piece of paper saying that you are an

American citizen when I don’t know that you are. I’m sorry. Is there anything more that I can do for you?’

(How can you do ‘more’ for me when you haven’t done anything yet?) ‘Possibly you can advise us.’

‘Possibly. I am not a lawyer.’

I offered him our copy of the billing against us, explained it. ‘Is this in order and are these charges appropriate?’

He looked it over. ‘These charges are certainly legal both by their laws and ours. Appropriate? Didn’t you tell me that they saved your lives?’

‘No question about it. Oh, there’s an outside chance that a fishing boat might have picked us up if the Coast Guard had not found us. But the Coast Guard did find us and did save us.’

‘Is your life – your two lives – worth less than eight thousand pesos? Mine is worth considerably more, I assure you.’

‘It isn’t that, sir. We have no money, not a cent. It all went down with the boat.’

‘So send for money. You can have it sent care of the consulate. I’ll go that far.’

‘Thank you. It will take time. In the meantime how can I get them off my neck? I was told that this judge will want cash and immediately.’

‘Oh, it’s not that bad. It’s true that they don’t permit bankruptcy the way we do, and they do have a rather old-fashioned debtors-prison law. But they don’t use it just the threat of it. Instead the court will see that you get a job that will let you settle your indebtedness. Don Clemente is a humane judge; he will take care of you.’

Aside from the flowery nonsense directed at Margrethe, that ended it. We picked up Sergeant Roberto, who had been enjoying backstairs hospitality from the maid and the cook, and headed for the courthouse.

Don Clemente (Judge Ibafiez) was as pleasant as Don Ambrosio had said he would be. Since we informed the clerk at once that we stipulated the debt but did not have the cash to pay it, there was no trial. We were simply seated in the uncrowded courtroom and told to wait while the judge disposed of cases on his docket. He handled several quickly. Some were minor offenses drawing fines; some were debt cases; some were hearings for later trial. I could not tell much about what was going on and whispering was frowned on, so Margrethe could not tell me much. But he was certainly no hanging judge.

The cases at hand were finished; at a word from the clerk we went out back with the ‘miscreants’ – peasants, mostly – who owed fines or debts. We found ourselves lined up on a low platform, facing a group of men. Margrethe asked what this was – and was answered, ‘La subasta.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked her.

‘Alec, I’m not sure. It’s not a word I know.’

Settlements were made quickly on the others; I gathered that most of them had been there before. Then there was just one man left of the group off the platform, just us on the platform. The man remaining looked sleekly prosperous. He smiled and spoke to me. Margrethe answered.

‘What is he saying?’ I asked.

‘He asked you if you can wash dishes. I told him that you do not speak Spanish.’

‘Tell him that of course I can wash dishes. But that’s hardly a job I want.’

Five minutes later our debt had been paid, in cash, to the clerk of the court, and we had acquired a patrón, Sehor Jaime Valera Guzman. He paid sixty pesos a day for Margrethe, thirty for me, plus our found. Court costs were twenty-five hundred pesos, plus fees for two non-resident work permits, plus war-tax stamps. The clerk figured our total indebtedness, then divided it out for us: In only a hundred and twenty-one days – four months – our obligation to our patr6n would be discharged. Unless, of course, we spent some money during that time.

He also directed us to our patrón’s place of business, Restaurante Pancho. Villa. Our patrón had already left in his private car. Patrones ride; peones walk.

Chapter 11

And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.
 
Genesis 29:20

SOMETIMES, WHILE washing dishes, I would amuse myself by calculating how high a stack of dishes I had washed since going to work for our patrón, Don Jaime. The ordinary plate used in Pancho Villa café stacked twenty plates to a foot. I arbitrarily decided that a cup and saucer, or two glasses, would count as one plate, since these items did not stack well. And so forth.

The great Mazatlán lighthouse is five hundred and fifteen feet tall, only forty feet shorter than the Washington Monument. I remember the day I completed my first ‘lighthouse stack’. I had told Margrethe earlier that week that I was approaching my goal and expected to reach it by Thursday or early Friday.

And did so, Thursday evening – and left the scullery, stood in the door between the kitchen and the dining room, caught Margrethe’s eye, raised my hands high and shook hands with myself like a pugilist.

Margrethe stopped what she was doing – taking orders from a family party – and applauded. This caused her to have to explain to her guests what was going on, and that resulted in her stopping by the scullery a few minutes later to pass to me a ten-peso note, a congratulatory gift from the father of that family. I asked her to thank him for me, and please tell him that I had just started my second lighthouse stack, which I was dedicating to him and his family.

Which in turn resulted in Señora Valera sending her husband, Don Jaime, to find out why Margrethe was wasting time and making a scene instead of paying attention to her work… which resulted in Don Jaime inquiring how much the diners had tipped me and then matching it.

The Señora had no reason to complain; Margrethe was not only her best waitress; she was her only bilingual waitress. The day we started to work for Sr y Sra Valera a sign painter was called in to paint a conspicuous sign: ENGLIS SPOKE HERE. Thereafter, in addition to being available for any

English-speaking guests, Margrethe prepared menus in English (and the prices on the menus in English were about forty percent higher than the prices on the all-Spanish menus).

Don Jaime was not a bad boss. He was cheerful and, on the whole, kindly to his employees. When we had been there about a month he told me that he would not have bid in my debt had it not been that the judge would not permit my contract to be separated from Margrethe’s contract, we being a married couple (else I could have found myself a field hand able to see my wife only on rare occasions – as Don Ambrosio had told me, Don Clemente was a humane judge).

I told him that I was happy that the package included me but it simply showed his good judgment to want to hire Margrethe.

He agreed that that was true. He had attended the Wednesday labor auctions several weeks on end in search of a bilingual woman or girl who could be trained as a waitress, then had bid me in as well to obtain Margrethe – but he wished to tell me that he had not regretted it as he had never seen the scullery so clean, the dishes so immaculate, the silverware so shiny.

I assured him that it was my happy privilege to help uphold the honor and prestige of Restaurante Pancho Villa and its distinguished patrón, el Don Jaime.

In fact it would have been difficult for me not to improve that scullery. When I took over, I thought at first that the floor was dirt. And so it was – you could have planted potatoes! – but under the filth, about a

half inch down, was sound concrete. I cleaned and then kept it clean – my feet were still bare. Then I demanded roach powder.

Each morning I killed roaches and cleaned the floor. Each evening, just before quitting for the day, I sprinkled roach powder. It is impossible (I think) to conquer roaches, but it is possible to fight them to a draw, force them back and maintain a holding action.

As to the quality of my dishwashing, it could not be otherwise; my mother had a severe dirt phobia and, because of my placement in a large family, I washed or wiped dishes under her eye from age seven through thirteen (at which time I graduated through taking on a newspaper route that left me no time for dishwashing).

But just because I did it well, do not think I was enamored of dishwashing. It had bored me as a child; it bored me as a man.

Then why did I do it? Why didn’t I run away?

Isn’t that evident? Dishwashing kept me with Margrethe. Running away might be feasible for some debtors – I don’t think much effort went into trying to track down and bring back debtors who disappeared some dark night – but running away was not feasible for a married couple, one of whom was a conspicuous blonde in a country in which any blonde, is always conspicuous and the other was a man who could not speak Spanish.

While we both worked hard – eleven to eleven each day except Tuesday, with a nominal two hours off for siesta and a half hour each for lunch and dinner – we had the other twelve hours each day to ourselves, plus all day ‘Tuesday.

Niagara Falls never supplied a finer honeymoon. We had a tiny attic room at the back of the restaurant building. It was hot but we weren’t there much in the heat of the day – by eleven at night it was comfortable no matter how hot the day had been. In Mazatlán most residents of our social class (zero!) did not have inside plumbing. But we worked and lived in a restaurant building; there was a flush toilet we shared with other employees during working hours and shared with no one the other twelve hours of each day. (There was also a Maw Jones out back, which I sometimes used during working hours – I don’t think Margrethe ever used it.)

We had the use of a shower on the ground floor, -back to back with the employees’ toilet, and the needs of the scullery were such that the building had a large water heater. Señora Valera scolded us regularly for using too much hot water (‘Gas costs money!’); we listened in silence and went right on using whatever amount of hot water we needed.

Our patrón’s contract with the state required him to supply us with food and shelter (and clothing, under the law, but I did not learn this until too late to matter), which is why we slept there, and of course we ate there – not the chef’s specialties, but quite good food.

‘Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.’ We had only ourselves; it was enough.

Margrethe, because she sometimes received tips, especially from gringos, was slowly accumulating cash money. We spent as little of this as possible – she bought shoes for each of us -and she saved against the day when we would be free of our peonage and able to go north. I had no illusions that the nation north of us was the land of my birth… but it was this world’s analog of it; English was spoken there and I was sure that its culture would have to be closer to what we had been used to.

Tips to Margrethe brought us into friction with Señora Valera the very first week. While Don Jaime was legally our patrõn, she owned the restaurant – or so we were told by Amanda the cook. Jaime Valera had once been head-waiter there and had married the owner’s daughter. This made him permanent maitre d’hotel. When his father-in-law died, he became the owner in the eyes of the public. But his wife retained the purse strings and presided over the cash register.

(Perhaps I should add that he was ‘Don Jaime’ to us because he was our patrón; he was not a Don to the public.

The honorific ‘Don’ will not translate into English, but owning a restaurant does not make a man a Don – but, for example, being a judge does.)

The first time Margrethe was seen to receive a tip, the Señora told her to turn it over – at the end of each week she would receive her percentage.

Margrethe came straight to me in the scullery. ‘Alec, what shall I do? Tips were my main income in the Konge Knut and no one ever asked me to share them. Can she do this to me?’

I told her not to turn her tips over to the Señora but to tell her that we would discuss it with her at the end of the day.

There is one advantage to being a peón: You don’t get fired over a disagreement with your boss. Certainly we could be fired… but that would simply lose the Valeras some ten thousand pesos they had invested in us.

By the end of the day I knew exactly what to say and how to say it – how Margrethe must say it, as it was another month before I soaked up enough Spanish to maintain a minimum conversation:

‘Sir and Madam, we do not understand this ruling about gifts to me. We want to see the judge and ask him what our contract requires.’

As I had suspected, they were not willing to see the judge about it. They were legally entitled to Margrethe’s service but they had no claim on money given to her by a third party.

This did not end it. Señora Valera was so angry at being balked by a mere waitress that she had a sign posted: NO PROPINAS – NO TIPS, and the same notice was placed in the menus.

Peónes can’t strike. But there were five other waitresses, two of them Amanda’s daughters. The day Sefiora Valera ordered no tipping she found that she had just one waitress (Margrethe) and no one in the kitchen. She gave up. But I am sure she never forgave us.

Don Jaime treated us as employees; his wife treated us as slaves. Despite that old cliché about ‘wage, slaves’, there is a world of difference. Since we both tried hard to be faithful employees while paying off our debt but flatly refused to be slaves, we were bound to tangle with Señora Valera.

Shortly after the disagreement over tips Margrethe became convinced that the Señora was snooping in our bedroom. If true, there was no way to stop her; there was no lock for the door and she could enter our room without fear of being caught any day while we were working.

I gave some thought to boobytraps until Margrethe vetoed the idea. She simply thereafter kept her mo hey on her person. But it was a measure of what we thought of our ‘patroness’ that Margrethe considered it necessary to lake precautions against her stealing from us.

We did not let Señora Valera spoil our happiness. And we did not let our dubious status as a ‘married’ couple spoil our somewhat irregular honeymoon. Oh, I would have spoiled it because I always have had this unholy itch to analyze matters I really do not know how to analyze. But Margrethe is much more practical than I am and simply did not permit it. I tried to rationalize our relationship to her by pointing out that polygamy was not forbidden by Holy Writ but solely by modern law and custom – and she chopped me off briskly by saying that she had no interest in how many wives or concubines King Solomon had and did not regard him or any Old Testament character as a model for her own behavior. If I did not want to live with her, speak up! Say so!

I shut up. Some problems are best let be, not chewed over with words. This modern compulsion to ‘talk it out’ is a mistake at least as often as it is a solution.

But her disdain for Biblical authority concerning the legality of one man having two wives was so sharp that I asked her about it later – not about polygamy; I stayed away from that touchy subject; I asked her how she felt about the authority of Holy Writ in general. I explained that the church I was brought up in believed in strict interpretation -‘A whole Bible, not a Bible full of holes’ – Scripture was the literal word of God… but that I knew that other churches felt that the spirit rather than the letter ruled… some being so liberal that they hardly bothered with the Bible. Yet all of them called themselves Christian.

‘Margrethe my love, as deputy executive secretary of Churches United for Decency I was in daily contact with members of every Protestant sect in the country and in liaison association with many Roman Catholic clerics on matters where we could join in a united front. I learned that my own church did not have a monopoly on virtue. A man could be awfully mixed up in religious fundamentals and still be a fine citizen and a devout Christian.’

I chuckled as I recalled something and went on, ‘Or to put it in reverse, one of my Catholic friends, Father Mahaffey, told me that even I could squeeze into Heaven, because the Good. Lord in His infinite wisdom made allowances for the ignorance and wrongheadedness of Protestants.’

This conversation took place on a Tuesday, our day off, the one day a week the restaurant did not open, and in consequence we were on top of el Cerro de la Neveria Icebox Hill, but it sounds better in Spanish

and just finishing a picnic lunch. This hill was downtown, close to Pancho Villa café, but was a bucolic oasis; the citizens had followed the Spanish habit of turning hills into parks rather than building on them. A happy place –

‘My dear, I would never try to proselytize you into my church. But I do want to know as much about you as possible. I find that I don’t know much about churches in Denmark. Mostly Lutheran, I think – but does Denmark have its own established state church like some other European nations? Either way, which church is yours, and is it strict interpretationist or liberal – and again, either way, how do you feel about it? And remember what Father Mahaffey said – I agree with him. I don’t think that my church has the only door into Heaven.’

I was lying stretched out; Margrethe was seated with her knees drawn up and holding them and was faced west, staring out to sea. This placed her with her face turned away from me. She did not answer my query. Presently I said gently, ‘My dear, did you hear me?’

‘I heard you.’

Again I waited, then added, ‘If I have been prying where I should not pry, I’m sorry and I withdraw the question.’

‘No. I knew that I would have to answer it some day. Alec, I am not a Christian.’ She let go her knees, swung around, and looked me in the eye. ‘You can have a divorce as simply as we married, just by telling me so. I won’t fight it; I will go quietly away. But, Alec, when you told me that you loved me, then later when you told me that we were married in the eyes of God, you did not ask me my religion.’

‘Margrethe.’

‘Yes, Alec?’

‘First, wash out your mouth. Then ask my pardon.’

‘There may be enough wine left in the bottle to rinse out my mouth. But I cannot ask pardon for not telling you this. I would have answered truthfully at any time. You did not ask.’

‘Wash out your mouth for talking about divorce. Ask my pardon for daring to think that I would ever divorce you under any circumstances whatever. If you are ever naughty enough, I may beat you. But I would never put you away. For richer, for poorer, in sickness and heath, now and forever. Woman, I love you! Get that through your head.’

Suddenly she was in my arms, weeping for only the second time, and I was doing the only thing possible, namely, kissing her.

I heard a cheer behind me and turned my head. We had had the top of the hill to ourselves, it being a work day for most people. But I found that we had an audience of two streetwise urchins, so young that sex was unclear. Catching my eye, one of them cheered again, then made loud kissing noises.

‘Beat it!’ I called out. ‘Scram! Vaya con Dios! Is that what I wanted to say, Marga?’

She spoke to them and they did go away, after more high giggles. I needed the interruption. I had said to Margrethe what had to be said because she needed immediate reassurance after her silly, gallant speech. But nevertheless I was shaken to my depths.

I started to speak, then decided that I had said enough for one day. But Margrethe said nothing, too; the silence grew painful. I felt that matters could not be left so, balanced uncertainly on edge. ‘What is your faith, dear one? Judaism? I do remember now that there are Jews in Denmark. Not all Danes are Lutheran.’

‘Some Jews, yes. But barely one in a thousand. No, Alec. Uh – There are older Gods.’

‘Older than Jehovah? Impossible.’

Margrethe said nothing – characteristically. If she disagreed, she usually said nothing. She seemed to have no interest in winning arguments, in which she must differ from 99 percent of the human race… many of whom appear willing to suffer any disaster rather than lose an argument.

So I found myself having to conduct both sides to keep the argument from dying through lack of nourishment. ‘I retract that. I should not have said, “Impossible.” I was speaking from the accepted

chronology as given by Bishop Ussher. If one accepts his dating, then the world was created five thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight years ago this coming October. Of course that dating is not itself a matter of Holy Writ; Hales arrived at a different figure, uh, seven thousand four hundred and five, I think – I do better when I write figures down. And other scholars get slightly different answers.

‘But they all agree that some four or five thousand years before Christ occurred the unique event, Creation. At that point Jehovah created the world and, in so doing, created time. Time cannot exist alone. As a corollary, nothing and no one and no god can be older than Jehovah, since Jehovah created time. You see?’

‘I wish I’d kept quiet.’

‘My dear! I am simply trying to have an intellectual discussion; I did not and do not and never do and never will intend to hurt you. I said that was the case by the orthodox way of dating. Clearly you are using another way. Will you explain it to me? – and not jump all over poor old Alex every time he opens his mouth? I was schooled as a minister in a church that emphasizes preaching; discussion comes as naturally to me as swimming does to fish. But now you preach and I’ll listen. Tell me about these older gods.’

‘You know of them. The oldest and greatest we celebrate tomorrow; the middle day of each week is his.’

‘Today is Tuesday, tomorrow – Wednesday! Wotan! He is your God?’

‘Odin. “Wotan” is a German distortion of Old Norse. Father Odin and his two brothers created the world. In the beginning there was void, nothing – then the rest of it reads much like Genesis, even to Adam and Eve – but called Askr and Embla rather than Adam and Eve.’

‘Perhaps it is Genesis, Margrethe.’

‘What do you mean, Alec?’

‘The Bible is the Word of God, in particular the English translation known as the King James version

because every word of that translation was sustained by prayer and the best efforts of the world’s greatest scholars – any difference in opinion was taken directly to the Lord in prayer. So the King James Bible is the Word of God.

‘But nowhere is it written that this can be the only Word of God. A sacred writing of another race at another time in another language can also be inspired history… if it is compatible with the Bible. And that is what you have just described, is it not?’

‘Ah, just on Creation and on Adam and Eve, Alec. The chronology does not match at all. You said that the world was created about six thousand years ago?’

‘About. Hales makes it longer. The Bible does not give dates; dating is a modern invention.’

‘Even that longer time – Hales? – is much too short. A hundred thousand years would be more like it.’

I started to expostulate – after all, some things are just too much to be swallowed – then remembered that I had warned myself not to say anything that could cause Margrethe to shut up. ‘Go on, dear. Do your religious writings tell what happened during all those millennia?’

‘Almost all of it happened before writing was invented. Some was preserved in epic poems sung by skalds. But even that did not start until men learned to live in tribes and Odin taught them to sing. The longest period was ruled by the frost giants before mankind was more than wild animals, hunted for sport. But the real difference in the chronology is this, Alec. The Bible runs from Creation to Judgment Day, then Millennium – the Kingdom on Earth – then the War in Heaven and the end of the world. After that is the Heavenly City and Eternity – time has stopped. Is that correct?’

‘Well, yes. A professional eschatologist would find that overly simplified but you have correctly described the main outlines. The details are given in Revelations – the Revelation of Saint John the Divine, I should say. Many prophets have witnessed the final things but Saint John is the only one with the complete story… because Christ Himself delivered the Revelation to John to stop the elect from being deceived by false prophets. Creation, the Fall from Grace, the long centuries of struggle and trial, then the final battle, followed by Judgment and the Kingdom. What does your faith say, my love?’

‘The final battle we call Ragnarok rather than Armageddon -‘

‘I can’t see that terminology matters.’

‘Please, dear. The name does not matter but what happens does. In your Judgment Day the goats are separated from the sheep. The saved go to eternal bliss; the damned go to eternal punishment. Correct?’

‘Correct – while noting for purposes of scientific accuracy that some authorities assert that, while bliss is eternal, God so loves, the world that even the damned may eventually be saved; no soul is utterly beyond redemption. Other theologians regard this as heresy – but it appeals to me; I have never liked the idea of eternal damnation. I’m a sentimentalist, my dear.’

‘I know you are, Alec, and I love you for it. You should find the old religion appealing… as it does not have eternal damnation.’

‘It does not?’

‘No. At Ragnarok the world as we know it will be destroyed. But that is not the end. After a long time, a time of healing, a new universe will be created, one better and cleaner and free from the evils of this world. It too will last for countless millennia… until again the forces of evil and cold contend against the forces of goodness and light… and again there is a time of rest, followed by a new creation and another chance for men. Nothing is ever finished, nothing is ever perfect, but over and over again the race of men gets another chance to do better than last time, ever and again without end.’

‘And this you believe, Margrethe?’

‘I find it easier to believe than the smugness of the saved and the desperate plight of the damned in the Christian faith. Jehovah is said to be all powerful. If this is true, then the poor damned souls in Hell are there because Jehovah planned it that way in every minute detail. Is this not so?’

I hesitated. The logical reconciliation of Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnibenevolence is the thorniest problem in theology, one causing even Jesuits to break their teeth. ‘Margrethe, some of the mysteries of the Almighty are not easily explained. We mortals must accept Our Father’s benevolent intention toward us, whether or not we understand His works.’
‘ Must a baby understand God’s benevolent intention when his brains are dashed out against a rock? Does he then go straight to Hell, praising the Lord for His infinite Wisdom and Goodness?’

‘Margrethe! What in the world are you talking about?’

I am talking about places in the Old Testament in which Jehovah gives direct orders to kill babies, sometimes ordering that they be killed by dashing them against rocks. See that Psalm that starts “By the rivers of Babylon -” And see the word of the Lord Jehovah in Hosea: “their infants shall be dashed in – pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.” And there is the case of Elisha and the bears.

Alec, do you believe in your heart that your. God caused bears to tear up little children merely because they made fun of an old man’s bald head?’ She waited.

And I waited. Presently she said, ‘Is that story of she bears and the forty-two children the literal Word of God?’

‘Certainly it’s the Word of God! But I don’t pretend to understand it fully. Margrethe, if you want detailed explanations of everything the Lord has done, pray to Him for enlightenment. But don’t crowd me about it.’

‘I did not intend to crowd you, Alec. I’m sorry.’

‘No need to be. I’ve never understood about those bears but I don’t let it shake my faith. Perhaps it’s a parable. But look, dear, doesn’t your Father Odin have a pretty bloody history Himself?’

‘Not on the same scale. Jehovah destroyed city after city, every man, woman, and child, down to the youngest baby. Odin killed only in combat against opponents his own size. But, most important difference of all, Father Odin is not all powerful and does not claim to be all wise.’

(A theology that avoids the thorniest problem – But how can you call Him ‘God’ if He is not omnipotent?)

She went on, ‘Alec my only love, I don’t want to attack your faith. I don’t enjoy it and never intended to

and hope that nothing like it will ever happen again. But you did ask me point blank whether or not I accepted the authority of “Holy Writ – by which you mean your Bible. I must answer just as point blank. I do not. The Jehovah or Yahweh of the Old Testament seems to me to be a sadistic, bloodthirsty, genocidal villain. I cannot understand how He can be identified with the gentle Christ of the New Testament. Even through a mystic Trinity.’

I started to answer but she hurried on. ‘Dear heart, before we leave this subject I must tell you something I have been thinking about. Does your religion offer an explanation of the weird thing that has happened to us? Once to me, twice to you – this changed world?’

(It had been endlessly on my mind, too!) ‘No. I must Confess it. I wish I had a Bible to search an explanation. But I have been searching in my mind. I haven’t been able to find anything that should have prepared me for this.’ I sighed. ‘It’s a bleak feeling. But -‘ I smiled at her.’ ‘Divine Providence placed you with me. No land is strange to me that has Margrethe in it.’

‘Dear Alec: I asked because the old religion does offer an explanation.’

‘What?’

‘Not a cheerful one. At the beginning of this cycle Loki was overcome – do you know Loki?’

‘Some. The mischief maker.’

‘”Mischie” is too mild a word; he works evil. For thousands of years he has been a prisoner, chained to a great rock. Alec, the end of every cycle in the story of man begins the same way. Loki manages to escape his bonds… and chaos results.’

She looked at me with great sadness. ‘Alec, I am sorry… but I do believe that Loki is loose. The signs show it. Now anything can happen. We enter the Twilight of the Gods. Ragnarok comes. Our world ends.’

Chapter 12

And in the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand:
 and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of Heaven.
 
Revelation 11:13

I WASHED another lighthouse stack of dishes while I pondered the things Margrethe had said to me that beautiful afternoon on Icebox Hill – but I never again mentioned the subject to Margrethe. And she did not speak of it to me; as Margrethe never argued about anything if she could reasonably keep silent.

Did I believe her theory about Loki and Ragnarok? Of course not! Oh, I had no objection to calling Armageddon by the name ‘Ragnarok’. Jesus or Joshua or Jesu; Mary or Miriam or Maryam or Maria, Jehovah or Yahweh – any verbal symbol will do as long as speaker and listener agree on meaning. But Loki? Ask me to believe that a mythical demigod of an ignorant, barbarian race has wrought changes in the whole universe? Now, really!

I am a modern man, with an open mind – but not so empty that the wind blows through it. Somewhere in Holy Writ lay a rational explanation for the upsets that had happened to us. I need not look to ghost stories of long-dead pagans for explanations.

I missed not having a Bible at hand. Oh, no doubt there were Catholic Bibles at the basilica three blocks away… in Latin or in Spanish. I wanted the King James version. Again no doubt there were copies of it somewhere in this city – but I did not know where. For the first time in my Life I envied the perfect memory of Preachin’ (Rev Paul Balonius) who tramped up and down the central states the middle of last century, preaching the Word without carrying the Book with him. Brother Paul was reputed to be able to quote from memory any verse cited by book, chapter, and number of verse, or, conversely, correctly place by book, chapter, and number any verse read to him.

I was born too late to meet Preachin’ Paul, so I never saw him do this – but perfect memory is a special gift God bestows not too infrequently; I have no reason to doubt that Brother Paul had it. Paul died

suddenly, somewhat mysteriously, and possibly sinfully – in the words of my mission studies professor, one should exercise great prudence in praying alone with a married woman.

I don’t have Paul’s gift. I can quote the first few chapters of Genesis and several of the Psalms and the Christmas story according to Luke, and some other passages. But for today’s problem I needed to study in exact detail all the prophets, especially the prophecy known as the Revelation of Saint John the Divine.

Was Armageddon approaching? Was the Second Coming at hand? Would I myself still be alive in the flesh when the great Trump sounds?

A thrilling thought, and not one to be discarded too quickly. Many millions will be alive on that great day; that mighty host could include Alexander Hergensheimer. Would I hear His Shout and see the dead rise up and then myself ‘be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air’ and then ever be with the Lord, as promised? The most thrilling passage in the Great Book!

Not that I had any assurance that I myself would be among those saved on that great day, even if I lived in the flesh to that day. Being an ordained minister of the Gospel does not necessarily improve one’s chances. Clergymen are aware of this cold truth (if they are honest with themselves) but laymen sometimes think that men of the cloth have an inside track.

Not true! For a clergyman, there are no excuses. He can never claim that ‘he didn’t know it was loaded’, or cite youth and inexperience as a reason to ask for mercy, or claim ignorance of the law, or any of the other many excuses by which a layman might show a touch less than moral perfection but still be saved.

Knowing this, I was forced to admit that my own record lately did not suggest that I was among the saved. Certainly, I was born again. Some people seem to think that this is a permanent condition, like a college degree. Brother, don’t count on it! I was only too aware that I had racked up quite a number of sins lately: Sinful pride. Intemperance. Greed. Lechery. Adultery. Doubt. And others.

Worse yet, I felt no contrition for the very worst of these.

If the record did not show that Margrethe was saved and listed for Heaven, then I had no interest in going there myself. God help me, that was the truth.

I worried about Margrethe’s immortal soul.

She could not claim the second chance of all pre-Christian Era souls. She had been born into the Lutheran Church, not my church but ancestor to my church, ancestor to Al Protestant churches, the first fruit of the Diet of Worms. (When I was a lad in Sunday school, ‘Diet of Worms’ inspired mind pictures quite foreign to theology!)

The only way Margrethe could be saved would be by renouncing her heresy and seeking to be born again. But she must do this herself; I could not do it for her.

The most. I could possibly do would be to urge her to seek salvation. But I would have to do it most carefully. One does not persuade a butterfly to light on one’s hand by brandishing a sword. Margrethe was not a heathen ignorant of Christ and needing only to be instructed. No, she had been born into Christianity and had rejected it, eyes open. She could cite Scripture as readily as I could at some time she had studied the Book most diligently, far more than most laymen. When and why I never asked, but I think it must have been at the time when she began to contemplate leaving the Christian faith. Margrethe was so serious and so good that I felt certain that she would never take such a drastic step without long, hard study.

How urgent was the problem of Margrethe? Did I have thirty years or ser to learn her mind and feel out the best approach? Or was Armageddon so close upon us that even a day’s delay could doom her for eternity?

The pagan Ragnarok and the Christian Armageddon have this in common: The final battle will be preceded by great signs and portents. Were we experiencing such omens? Margrethe thought so. Myself, I found the idea that this world changing presaged Armageddon more attractive than the alternative, i.e., paranoia on my part. Could a ship be wrecked and a world changed just to keep me from checking a thumbprint? I had thought so at the time but – oh, come now, Alex, you are not that important.

(Or was I?)

I have never been a Millenarianist. I am aware how often the number one thousand appears in the Bible, especially in prophecy – but I have never believed that the Almighty was constrained to work in even millennia – or any other numbering patterns – just to please numerologists.

On the other hand I know that many thousands of sensible and devout people place enormous importance on the forthcoming end of the Second Millennium, with Judgment Day and Armageddon and all that must follow – expected at that time. They find their proofs in the Bible and claim confirmation in the lines in the Great Pyramid and in a variety of Apocrypha.

But they differ among themselves as to the end of the millennium. 2000 AD? Or 2001 AD? Or is the correct dating 3 pm Jerusalem local time April 7, 2030 AD? If indeed scholars have the time and date of the Crucifixion – and the earthquake at the moment of His death – correctly figured against mundane time reckoning. Or should it be Good Friday 2030 AD as calculated by the lunar calendar? This is no trivial matter in view of what we are attempting to date.

But, if we take the birth of Christ rather than the date of the Crucifixion as the starting point from which to count, the millennia, it is evident at once that neither the naive date of 2000 AD nor the slightly less naive date of 2001 can be the bimillenarian date because Jesus was born in Bethlehem on Christmas Day year 5 BC.

Every educated person knows this and almost no one ever thinks about it.

How could the greatest event in all history, the birth of our Lord Incarnate, have been misdated by five years? Incredible!

Very easily. A sixth-century monk made a mistake in arithmetic. Our present dating (‘Anno Domini) was not used until centuries after Christ was born. Anyone who has ever tried to decipher on a cornerstone a date written in Roman numerals can sympathize with the error of Brother Dionysius Exiguus. In the sixth century there were so few who could read at all that the error went undetected for many years – and by then it was too late to change all the records. So we have the ludicrous situation that Christ was born five years before Christ was born – an Irishism that can be resolved only by noting that one clause refers to fact and the other clause refers to a false-to-fact calendar.

For two thousand years the good monk’s error was of little importance. But now it becomes of supreme importance. If the Millenarianists are correct, the end of the world can be expected Christmas Day this year.

Please note that I did not say ‘December 25th’. The day and month of Christ’s birth are unknown. Matthew notes that Herod was king; Luke states that Augustus was Caesar and that Cyrenius was governor of Syria, and we all know that Joseph and Mary had traveled from Nazareth – to Bethlehem to be counted and taxed.

There are no other data, neither of Holy Writ nor of Roman civil records.

So there you have it. By Millenarianist theory, the Final Judgment can be expected about thirty-five years from now… or later this afternoon!

Were it not for Margrethe this uncertainty would not keep me awake nights. But how can I sleep if my beloved is in immediate danger of being cast down into the Bottomless Pit, there to suffer throughout eternity?

What would you do?

Envision me standing barefooted on a greasy floor’, washing dishes to pay off my indenture, while thinking deep thoughts of last and first things. A laughable sight! But dishwashing does not occupy all the mind; I was better off with hard bread for the mind to chew on.

Sometimes I contrasted my sorry state with what I had so recently been, while wondering if I would ever find my way back through the maze into the place I had built for myself.

Would I want to go back? Abigail was there – and, while polygamy was acceptable in the Old Testament, it was not accepted in the forty-six states. That had been settled once and for all when the Union Army’s artillery had destroyed the temple of the antichrist in Salt Lake City and the Army had supervised the breaking up and diaspora of those immoral ‘families’.

Giving up Margrethe for Abigail would be far too high a price to pay to resume the position of power and importance I had until recently held. Yet I had enjoyed my work and the deep satisfaction over worthwhile accomplishment that went with it. We had achieved our best year since the foundation was formed – I refer to the non-profit corporation, Churches United for Decency. ‘Non-profit’ does not mean that such an organization cannot pay appropriate salaries and even bonuses, and I had been taking a well-earned vacation after the best fund-raising year of our history – primarily my accomplishment because, as deputy director, my first duty was to see that our coffers were kept filled.

But I took even greater satisfaction in our labors in the vineyards, as fund raising means nothing if our

programs of spiritual welfare do not meet their goals.

The past ‘year’ had seen the following positive accomplishments:

a) A federal law making abortion a capital offense;

b) A federal law making the manufacture, sale, possession, importation, transportation, and/or use of any contraceptive drug or device a felony carrying a mandatory prison sentence of not less than a year and a day but not more than twenty years for each offense – and eliminating the hypocritical subterfuge of ‘For Prevention of Disease Only’;

c) A federal law that, while it did not abolish gambling, did make the control and licensing of it a federal jurisdiction. One step at a time – having built. this foundation we could tackle those twin pits, Nevada and New Jersey, piece by piece. Divide and conquer!

d) A Supreme Court decision in which we had appeared as amicus curiae under which community standards of the typical or median-population community applied to all cities of each state (Tomkins v. Allied News Distributors);

e) Real progress in our drive to get tobacco defined as a prescription drug through the tactical device of separating snuff and chewing tobacco from the problem by inaugurating the definition ‘substances intended for burning and inhaling’;

f) Progress at our annual national prayer meeting on several subjects in which I was interested. One was the matter of how to remove the tax-free status of any private school not affiliated with a Christian sect. Policy on this was not yet complete because of the thorny matter of Roman Catholic schools. Should our umbrella cover them? Or was it time to strike? Whether the Catholics were allies or enemies was always a deep problem to those of us out on the firing line.

At least as difficult was the Jewish problem – was a humane solution possible? If not, then what? Should we grasp the nettle? This was debated only in camera.

Another matter was a pet project of my own: the frustrating of astronomers. Few laymen realize what

mischief astronomers are up to. I first noticed it when I was still in engineering school and took a course in descriptive astronomy under the requirements for breadth in each student’s program. Give an astronomer a bigger telescope and turn him loose, leave him unsupervised, and the first -thing he does is to come down with pestiferous, half-baked guesses denying the ancient truths of Genesis.

There is only one way to deal with this sort of nonsense: Hit them in the pocketbook! Redefine ‘educational’ to exclude those colossal white elephants, astronomical observatories. Make the Naval Observatory the only one tax free, reduce its staff, and limit their activity to matters clearly related to navigation. (Some of the most blasphemous and subversive theories have come from tenured civil servants there who don’t have enough legitimate Work to keep them busy.)

Self-styled ‘scientists’ are usually up to no good, but astronomers are the worst of the lot.

Another matter that comes up regularly at each annual’ prayer meeting I did not favor spending time or money on: ‘Votes for Women’. These hysterical females styling themselves ‘suffragettes’ are not a threat, can never win, and it just makes them feel self-important to pay attention to them. They should not be jailed and should not be displayed in stocks – never let them be martyrs! Ignore them.

There were other interesting and worthwhile goals that I kept off the agenda and did not suffer to be brought up from the floor in the sessions I moderated, but instead carried them on my ‘Maybe next year’ list:

Separate schools for boys and girls.

Restoring the death penalty for witchcraft and satanism.

The Alaska option for the Negro problem.

Federal control of prostitution.

Homosexuals – what’s the answer? Punishment? Surgery? Other?

There are endless good causes commending themselves to guardians of the public morals – the question is always how to pick and choose to the greater glory of God.

But all of these issues, fascinating as they are, I might never again pursue. A sculleryman who is just learning the local language (ungrammatically, I feel sure!) is not able to be a political force. So I did not worry about such matters and concentrated on my real problems: Margrethe’s heresy and more immediate but less important, getting legally free of peonage and going north.

We had served more than one hundred days when I asked Don Jaime to help me work out the exact date when we would have discharged the terms of our debt contract – a polite way of saying: Dear Boss, come the day, we are going to leave here like a scared rabbit. Plan on it.

I had figured on a total obligated time of one hundred and twenty-one days… and Don Jaime shocked me almost out of my Spanish by getting a result of one hundred and fifty-eight days.

More than six weeks to go when I figured that we would be free next week!

I protested, pointing out that our total obligation as listed by the court, divided by the auction value placed on our services (pesos sixty for Margrethe, half that for me, for each day), gave one hundred and twenty-one days… of which we had served one hundred fifteen.

Not a hundred and fifteen – ninety-nine – he handed me a calendar and invited me to count. It was at that point that I discovered that our lovely Tuesdays did not reduce our committed time. Or so said our patrón.

‘And besides that, Alexandro,’ he added, ‘you have failed to figure the interest on the unpaid balance; you haven’t multiplied by the inflation factor; you haven’t allowed for taxes, or even your contribution for Our Lady of Sorrows. If you fall ill, I should support you, eh?’

(Well, yes. While I had not thought about it, I did think a patrón had that duty toward his peones.) ‘Don Jaime, the day you bid in our debts, the clerk of the court figured the, contract for me. He told me our obligation was one hundred and twenty-one days. He told me!’

‘Then go talk to the clerk of the court about it.’ Don Jaime turned his back on me.

That chilled me. Don Jaime seemed as willing for me to take it up with the referee authority as he had been unwilling to discuss Margrethe’s tips with the court. To me this meant that he had handled enough of these debt contracts to be certain how they worked and thus had no fear that the judge or his clerk might rule against him.

I was not able to speak with Margrethe about it in private until that night. ‘Marga, how could I be so mistaken about this? I thought the clerk worked it out for us before he had us countersign the assignment of debt. One hundred and twenty-one days. Right?’

She did not answer me at once. I persisted, ‘Isn’t that what you told me?’

‘Alec, despite the fact that I now usually think in English – or in Spanish, lately – when I must do arithmetic, I work it in Danish. The Danish word for sixty is ‘tres’- and that

is also the Spanish word for three. Do you see how easily I could get mixed up? I don’t know now whether I said to you, “Ciento y veintiuno” or “Ciento y sesentiuno” – because I remember numbers in Danish, not in English, not in Spanish. I thought you did the division yourself.’

‘Oh, I did. Certainly the clerk didn’t say, “A hundred and twenty-one.” He didn’t use any English, that I recall. And at that time I did not know any Spanish. Señor Muñoz explained it to you and you translated for me and later I did the arithmetic again and it seemed to confirm what he had said. Or you had said. Oh, shucks, I don’t know!’

‘Then why don’t we forget it until we can ask Señor Muñoz?’

‘Marga, doesn’t it upset you to find that we are going to, have to slave away in this dump an extra five weeks?’

‘Yes, but not very much. Alec, I’ve always had to work. Working aboard ship was harder work than teaching school – but I got to travel and see strange places. Waiting tables here is a little harder than cleaning rooms in the Konge Knut – but I have you with me here and that more than makes up for it. I want to go with you to your homeland… but it’s not my homeland, so I’m not as eager to leave here as

you are. To me, today, where you are is my homeland.’

‘Darling, you are so logical and reasonable and civilized that you sometimes drive me right straight up the wall.’

‘Alec, I don’t mean to do that. I just want us to stop worrying about it until we can see Señor Muñoz. But right this minute I want to rub your back until you relax.’

‘Madame, you’ve convinced me! But only if I have the privilege of rubbing your poor tired feet before you rub my back.’

We did both. ‘Ah, wilderness were paradise enow!’

Beggars can’t be choosy. I got up early the next morning, saw the clerk’s runner, was told that I could not see the clerk until court adjourned for the day, so I made a semi-appointment for close-of-court on Tuesday – ‘semi’ in that we were committed to show up; Señor Muñoz was not. (But would be there, Deus volent.)

So on Tuesday we went on our picnic outing as usual, as we could not see Señor Muñoz earlier than about 4 pm. But we were Sunday-go-to-meeting rather than dressed for a picnic – meaning that we both wore our shoes, both had had baths that morning, and I had shaved, and I wore my best clothes, handed down from Don Jaime but clean and fresh, rather than the tired Coast Guard work pants I wore in the scullery. Margrethe wore the colorful outfit she had acquired our first day in Mazatlán.

Then we both endeavored not to get too sweaty or dusty. Why we thought it mattered I cannot say. But somehow each of us felt that propriety called for one’s best appearance in visiting a court.

As usual we walked over to the fountain to-see our friend Pepe before swinging back to climb our hill. He greeted us in the intimate mode of friends and we exchanged graceful amenities of the sort that fit so well in Spanish and are almost never encountered in English. Our weekly visit with Pepe had become an important part of our social life. We knew more about him now – from Amanda, not from him – and I respected him more than ever.

Pepe had not been born without legs (as I had once thought); he had formerly been a teamster, driving lorries over the mountains to Durango and beyond. Then there had been an accident and Pepe had been pinned under his rig for two days before he was rescued. He was brought in to Our Lady of Sorrows apparently DOA.

Pepe was tougher than that. Four months later he was released from hospital; someone passed the hat to buy him his little cart; he received his mendicant’s license, and he took up his pitch by the fountain – friend to streetwalkers, friend to Dons, and a merry grin for the worst that fate could hand him.

When, after a decent interval for, conversation and inquiries as to health and welfare and that of mutual acquaintances, we turned to leave, I offered our friend a one-peso note.

He handed it back. ‘Twenty-five centavos, my friend. Do you not have change? Or did you wish me to make change?’

‘Pepe our friend, it was our intention and our wish that you keep this trivial gift.’

‘No no no. From tourists I take their teeth and ask for more. From you, my friend, twenty-five centavos.’

I did not argue. In Mexico a man has his dignity, or he is dead.

El Cerro de la Nevería is one hundred meters high; we climbed it very slowly, with me hanging back because I wanted to be certain not to place any strain on Margrethe. From signs I was almost certain that she was in a family way. But she had not seen fit to discuss it with me and of course I could not raise the subject if she did not.

We found our favorite place, where we enjoyed shade from a small tree but nevertheless had a full view all around, three hundred and sixty degrees – northwest into the Gulf of California’, west into the ` Pacific and what might or might not be clouds on the horizon capping a peak at the tip of Baja California two hundred miles away, southwest along our own peninsula to Cerro Vigia (Lookout Hill) with beautiful Playa de las 0las Altas between us and Cerro Vigía, then beyond it Cerro Creston, the site of the giant lighthouse, the ‘Faro’ itself commanding the tip of the peninsula – south right across town to the Coast Guard landing. On the east and north-east were the mountains that concealed Durango a hundred and fifty miles away… but today the air was so clear that it felt as if we could reach out and touch those

peaks.

Mazatlán was spread out below like a toy village. Even the basilica looked like an architect’s scale model from up’ here, rather than a most imposing church – for the umpteenth time I wondered how the Catholics, with their (usually) poverty-stricken congregations, could build such fine churches while their Protestant opposite numbers had such a time raising the mortgages on more modest structures.

Look, Alec!’ said Margrethe. ‘Anibal and Roberto have their new aeroplano!’ She pointed.

Sure enough, there were now two aeroplanos at the Coast Guard mooring. One was the grotesque giant dragonfly that had rescued us; the new one was quite different. At first I thought it had sunk at its moorings; the floats on which the older craft landed on the water were missing from this structure.

Then I realized that this new craft was literally a flying boat. The body of the aeroplano itself was a float, or a boat – a watertight structure. The propelling engines of this craft were mounted above the wings.

I was not sure that I trusted these radical changes. The homely certainties of the craft we had ridden in were more to my taste.

‘Alec, let’s go call on them next Tuesday.’

‘All right.’

‘Do you suppose that Anibal would possibly offer us a ride in his new aeroplano?’

‘Not if the Commandant knows about it.’ I did not say that the newfangled rig did not look safe to me; Margrethe was always fearless. ‘But we’ll call on them and ask to see it. Lieutenant Anibal will like that. Roberto, too. Let’s eat.’

‘Piggy piggy,’ she answered,’ and spread out a servilleta, started covering it with food from a basket I had carried. Tuesdays gave Margrethe an opportunity to vary Amanda’s excellent Mexican cooking with

her own Danish and international cooking. Today she had elected to make Danish open-face sandwiches so much enjoyed by all Danes – and by anyone else who has ever had a chance to enjoy them. Amanda allowed Margrethe to do what she liked in the kitchen, and Señora Valera did not interfere – she never came into the kitchen, under some armed truce arrived at before we joined the staff. Amanda was a woman of firm character.

Today’s sandwiches featured heavily the tender, tasty shrimp for which Mazatlán is famous, but the shrimp were just a starter. I remember ham, turkey, crumbled crisp bacon, mayonnaise, three sorts – of cheese, several sorts of pickle, little peppers, unidentified fish, thin slices of beef, fresh tomato, tomato paste, three sorts of lettuce, what I think was deep-fried eggplant. But thank goodness it is not necessary to understand food in order to enjoy it Margrethe placed it in front of me; I happily chomped away, whether I knew what I was eating or not.

An hour later I was belching and pretending not to. ‘Margrethe, have I told you today that I love you?’

‘Yes, but not lately.’

‘I do. You are not only beautiful, fair to see and of gainly proportions, you are also a fine cook.’

‘Thank you, sir. I

‘Do you wish to be admired for your intellectual excellence as well?’

‘Not necessarily. No.’

‘As you wish. If you change your mind, let me know. Quit fiddling with the remnants; I’ll tidy up later. Lie down here beside me and explain to me why you continue to live with me. It can’t be for my cooking. Is it because I am the best dishwasher on the west coast of Mexico?’

‘Yes.’ She went right on tidying things, did not stop until our picnic site was perfectly back in order, with all that was left back in the basket, ready to be returned to Amanda.

Then she lay down beside me, slid her arm under my neck – then raised her head. ‘What’s that?’

‘What’s -‘ Then I heard it. A distant rumble increasing in volume, like a freight train coming ’round the bend. But the nearest railway, the line north to Chihuahua and south to Guadalajara, was distant, beyond the peninsula of Mazatlán.

The rumble grew louder; the ground started to sway. Margrethe sat up. ‘Alec, I’m frightened.’

‘Don’t be afraid, dear; I’m here.’ I reached up and pulled her down to me, held her tight while the solid ground bounced up and down under us and the roaring rumble increased to unbelievable volume.

If you’ve ever been in an earthquake, even a small one, you know what we were feeling better than my words can say. If you have never been in one, you won’t believe me and the more accurately I describe it, the more certain you are not to believe me.

The worst part about a quake is that there is nothing solid to cling to anywhere… but the most startling thing is the noise, the infernal racket of every sort – the crash of rock grinding together under you, the ripping, rending sounds of buildings being torn apart, the screams of the frightened, the cries of the hurt and the lost, the howling and wailing of animals caught by disaster beyond their comprehension.

And none of it will stop.

This, went on for an endless time – then the main earthquake hit us and the city fell down.

I could hear it. The noise that could not increase suddenly doubled. I managed to get up on one elbow and look. The dome of the basilica broke like a soap bubble. ‘Oh, Marga, look! No, don’t – this is terrible.’

She half sat up, said nothing and her face was blank. I kept my arm around her and looked down the peninsula past Cerro Vigla and at the lighthouse.

It was leaning.

While I watched it broke about halfway up, then slowly and with dignity collapsed to the ground.

Past the city I caught sight of the moored aeroplanos of the Coast Guard. They were dancing around in a frenzy; the new one dipped one wing; the water caught it – then I lost sight of it as a cloud rose up from the city, a cloud of dust from thousands and thousands of tons of shattered masonry.

I looked for the restaurant, and found it: EL RESTAURANTE PANCHO VILLA. Then while I watched, the wall on which the sign was painted crumpled and fell into the street. Dust rose up and concealed where it had been.

‘Margrethe! It’s gone. The restaurant. El Pancho Villa.’ I pointed.

‘I don’t see anything.’

‘It’s gone, I tell you. Destroyed. Oh, thank the Lord that Amanda and the girls were not there today!’

‘Yes. Alec, won’t it ever stop?’

Suddenly it did stop, – much more suddenly than it started. Miraculously the dust was gone; there was no racket, no screams of the hurt and dying, no howls of animals.

The lighthouse was back where it belonged.

I looked to the left of it, checking on the moored aeroplanos -nothing. Not even the driven piles to which they should be tied. I looked back at the city – all serene. The basilica was unhurt, beautiful. I looked for the Pancho Villa sign.

I could not find it. There was a building on what seemed the proper corner, but its shape was not quite right and it had different windows. ‘Marg – Where’s the restaurant?’

‘I don’t know. Alec, what is happening?’

‘They’re at it again,’ I said bitterly. ‘The world changers.

The earthquake is over but this is not the same city we were in. It looks a lot like it but it’s not the same.’

I was only half right. Before we could make up our minds to start down the hill, the rumble started up again. Then the swaying… then the greatly increased noise and violent movement of the land, and this city was destroyed. Again I saw our towering lighthouse crack and fall. Again the church fell in on itself.

Again the dust clouds rose and with it the screams and howls.

I raised my clenched fist and shook it at the sky. ‘God damn it! Stop! Twice is too much.’

I was not blasted.

Chapter 13

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of the spirit.
 
Ecclesiastes 1:14

I AM going to skip over the next three days, for there was nothing good about them. ‘There was blood in the streets and dust.’ Survivors, those of us who were not hurt, not prostrate with grief, not dazed or hysterical beyond action – few of us, in short – worked at the rubble here and there trying to find living creatures under the bricks and stones and plaster. But how much can you do with your naked fingers

against endless tons of rock?

And how much can you do when you do dig down and discover that you were too late, that indeed it was ~too late before you started? We heard this mewling, something like a kitten, so we dug most carefully, trying not to put any pressure on whatever was underneath, trying not to let the stones we shifted dislodge anything that would cause more grief underneath – and found the source. An infant, freshly dead. Pelvis broken, one side of its head bashed. ‘Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.’ I turned my head away and threw up. Never will I read Psalm 137 again.

That night we spent on the lower slopes of Icebox Hill. When the sun went down, we perforce stopped trying. Not only did the darkness make it impossible to work but there was looting going on. I had a deep conviction that any looter was a potential rapist and murderer. I was prepared to die for Margrethe should it become necessary – but I had no wish to die gallantly but futilely, in a confrontation that could have been avoided.

Early the following afternoon the Mexican Army arrived. We had accomplished nothing useful in the meantime more of the same picking away at rubble. Never mind what we found. The soldiers put a stop even to that; all civilians were herded back up the peninsula, away from the ruined city, to the railroad station across the river. There we waited – new widows, husbands freshly bereaved, lost children, injured on make-do stretchers, walking wounded, some with no marks on them but with empty eyes and no speech. Margrethe and, I were of the lucky ones; we were merely hungry, thirsty, dirty, and covered with bruises from head to foot from lying on the ground during the earthquake. Correction: during two earthquakes.

Had anyone else experienced two earthquakes?

I hesitated to ask. I seemed to be the unique observer to this world-changing – save that, twice, Margrethe had come with me because I was holding her at the instant. Were there other victims around? Had there been others in Konge Knut who had kept their mouths shut about it as carefully as I had?

How do you ask? Excuse me, amigo, but is this the same city it was yesterday?

When we had waited at the railroad station about two hours an army water cart came through a tin cup of water to each refugee and. a soldier with a bayonet to enforce order in the queues.

Just before sundown the cart came back with more water and with loaves of bread; Margrethe and I were rationed a quarter of a loaf between us. A train backed into the station about then and the army people started loading it even as supplies were being unloaded. Marga and I were lucky; we were

pushed into a passenger car – most rode in freight cars.

The train started north. We weren’t asked whether or not we wanted to go north; we weren’t asked for money For fares; all of Mazatlán was being evacuated. Until Its water system could be restored, Mazatlán belonged to the rats and the dead.

No point in describing the journey. The train moved; we endured. The railway line leaves the coast at Guaymas and goes straight north across Sonora to Arizona – beautiful country but we were in no shape to appreciate it. We slept as much as we could and pretended to sleep the rest of the time. Every time the train stopped, some left it unless the police herded them back on. By the time we reached Nogales, Sonora, the train was less than half full; the rest seemed headed for Nogales, Arizona, and of course we were.

We reached the international gate early afternoon three days after the quake.

We were herded into a detention building just over the line, and a man in a uniform made a speech in Spanish: ‘Welcome, amigos! The United States is happy to help its neighbors in their time of trial and the US Immigration Service has streamlined its procedures so that we can take care of all of you quickly.

First we must ask you all to go through delousing. Then you’ll be issued green cards outside of quota so that you can work at any job anywhere in the States. But you will find labor agents to help you as you leave the compound. And a soup kitchen! If you are hungry, stop and have your first meal here as guests of Uncle Sam. Welcome to los Estados Unidos!”

Several people had questions to ask but Margrethe and I headed for the door that led to the delousing setup. I resented the name assigned to this sanitary routine – a requirement that you take delousing is a way of saying that you are lousy. Dirty and mussed we certainly were, and I had a three-day beard. But lousy?

Well, perhaps we were. After a day of picking through the ruins and two days crowded in with other unwashed in a railroad car that was not too clean when we boarded it, could I honestly assert that I was completely free of vermin?

Delousing wasn’t too bad. It was mostly a supervised shower bath with exhortations in Spanish to scrub the hairy places throughly with a medicated 9oft soap. In the meantime my clothes went through some sort of sterilization or fumigation -autoclave, I think – then I had to wait, bare naked, for twenty minutes to reclaim them, while I grew more and more angry with each passing minute.

But once I was dressed again, I got over my anger, realizing that no one was intentionally pushing me around; it was simply that any improvised procedure for handling crowds of people in an emergency is almost certain to be destructive of human dignity. (The Mexican refugees seemed to find it offensive; I heard mutterings.)

Then again I had to wait, for Margrethe.

She came out the exit door from the distaff side, caught my eye, and smiled, and suddenly everything was all right. How could she come out of a delousing chamber-and look as if she had just stepped out of a bandbox?

She came up to me and said, ‘Did I keep you waiting, dear? I’m sorry. There was an ironing board in there and I seized the chance to touch up my dress. It looked a sorry sight when it came out of the washer.’

‘I didn’t mind waiting,’ I fibbed. ‘You’re beautiful.’ (No fib!) ‘Shall we go to dinner? Soup kitchen dinner, I’m afraid.’

‘Isn’t there some paper work we have to go through?’

‘Oh. I think we can hit the soup kitchen first. We don’t want green cards; they are for Mexican nationals. Instead I must explain about our lost passports.’ I had worked this* out in my head and had explained it to Margrethe on the train. This is what I would say had happened to us: We were tourists, staying in Hotel de las, Olas Altas on the beach. When the earthquake hit, we were on the beach. So we lost our clothes, our money, our passports, everything, as our hotel had been destroyed. We were lucky to be alive, and the clothes we were wearing. had been given to us by Mexican Red Cross.

This story had two advantages: Hotel de las Olas Altas had indeed been destroyed, and the rest of the story had no easy way to be checked.

I found that we had to go through the green-card queue in order to reach the soup kitchen. Eventually we got as far as the table. A man there shoved a file card in front of me, saying in Spanish: ‘Print your name, last name first. List your address. If -it was destroyed in the quake, say so, and give some other

address – cous * in, father, priest, somebody whose home was not destroyed.’

I started my spiel. The functionary looked up and said, ‘Amigo, you’re holding up the line.’

‘But,’ I said, ‘I don’t need a green card. I don’t want a green card. I’m an American citizen returning from abroad and I’m trying to explain why I don’t have my passport. And the same for my wife,’

He drummed on the table. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘your accent says that you’re native American. But I can’t do anything about your lost passport and I’ve got three hundred and fifty refugees still to process, and another trainload just pulling in. I won’t get to bed before two. Why don’t you do us both a favor and accept a green card? It won’t poison you and it’ll get you in. Tomorrow you can fight with the State Department about your passport – but not with me. Okay?’

I’m stupid but not stubborn. ‘Okay.’ For my Mexican accommodation address I listed Don Jaime; I figured he owed me that much. His address had the advantage of being in another universe.

The soup kitchen was what you would expect from a charity operation. But it was gringo cooking, the first I had had in months – and we were hungry. The Stark’s Delicious apple I had for dessert was indeed delicious. It was still short of sundown when _we were out on the streets of Nogales – free, bathed, fed, and inside the United States legally or almost. We were at least a thousand percent better off than those two naked survivors who had been picked up out of the ocean seventeen weeks ago.

But we were still orphans of fate, no money at all, no place to rest, no clothes but those we were wearing, and my three-day beard and the shape my clothes were in after going through an autoclave or whatever made me look like a skid row derelict.

The no-money situation was particularly annoying because we did have money, Margrethe’s hoarded tips. But the paper money said ‘Reino’ where it should have read ‘Republica’ and the coins did not have the right faces. Some of the coins may have contained enough silver to have some minor intrinsic value. But, if so, there was no easy way to cash it in at once. And any attempt to spend any of this money would simply get us into major trouble.

How much had we lost? There are no interuniversal exchange rates. One might make a guess in terms of equivalent purchasing power – so many dozens of eggs, or so many kilos of sugar. But why bother?

Whatever it was, we had lost lit.

This paralleled a futility I had run into in Mazatlán. I had attempted, while lord of the scullery, to write to

a) Alexander Hergensheimer’s boss, the Reverend Dr Dandy Danny Dover, DD, director of Churches United for Decency, and b) Alec Graham’s lawyers in Dallas.

Neither letter was answered; neither came back. Which was what I had expected, as neither Alec nor Alexander came from a world having flying machines, aeroplanos.

I would try both again – but with small hope; I already knew that this world would feel strange both to Graham and to Hergensheimer. How? Nothing that I had noticed until we reached Nogales. But here, in that detention hall, was (hold tight to your chair) television. A handsome big box with a window in one side, and in that window living pictures of people… and sounds coming out of it of those selfsame people talking.

Either you have this invention and are used to it and take it for granted, or you live in. a world that does not have it – and you don’t believe me. Learn from me, as I have been forced to believe unbelievable things. There is such an invention; there is a world where it is as common as bicycles, and its name is television – or sometimes tee-vee or telly or video or even ‘idiot box’ – and if you were to hear some of the purposes for which this great wonder is used, you would understand the last tag.

If you ever find yourself flat broke in a strange city and no one to turn to and you do not want to turn yourself in at a police station and don’t want to be mugged, there is just one best answer for emergency help. You will usually find it in the city’s tenderloin, near skid row:

The Salvation Army.

Once I laid hands on a telephone book it took me no time at all to get the address of the Salvation Army mission (although it did take me a bit of time to recognize a telephone when I saw one – warning to interworld travelers: Minor changes can be even more confusing than major changes).

Twenty minutes and one wrong turn later Margrethe and I were at the mission. Outside on the sidewalk four of them – French horn, big drum, two tambourines – were gathering a crowd. They were working on ‘Rock of Ages’ and doing well, but they needed a baritone and I was tempted to join them.

But a couple of store fronts before we reached the mission Margrethe stopped and plucked at my sleeve. ‘Alec… must we do this?’

‘Eh? What’s the trouble, dear? I thought we had agreed.’

‘No, sir. You simply told me.’

‘Mmm – Perhaps I did. You don’t want to go to the Salvation Army?’

She took a deep breath and sighed it out. ‘Alec… I have not been inside a church since – since I left the Lutheran Church. To go to one now – I think it would be sinful.’

(Dear Lord, what can I do with this child? She is apostate not because she is heathen… but because her rules are even more strict than Yours. Guidance, please – and do hurry it up!) ‘Sweetheart, if it feels sinful to you, we won’t do it. But tell me what we are to do now; I’ve run out of ideas.’

‘Ah – Alec, are there not other institutions to which a person in distress may turn?’

‘Oh, certainly. In a city this size the Roman Catholic Church is bound to have more than one refuge. And there will be other Protestant ones. Probably a Jewish one. And -‘

‘I meant, “Not connected with a church”.’

‘Ah, so. Margrethe, we both know that this is not really my home country; you probably know as much about how it works as I do. There may be refuges for the homeless here that are totally unconnected with a church. I’m not sure, as churches tend to monopolize the field – nobody else wants it. If it were early in the day instead of getting dark, I would try to find something called united charities or community chest or the equivalent, and look over the menu; there might be something. But now – Finding a policeman and asking for help is the only other thing I can think of this time of day… and I can tell you ahead of time what a cop in this part of town would do if you told him you have nowhere to sleep. He would point you toward the mission right there. Old Sal.’

‘In Kobenhavrt – or Stockholm or Oslo – I would go straight to the main police station. You just ask for a place to sleep; they give it to you.’

‘I have to point out that this is not Denmark or Sweden or Norway. Here they might let us stay – by locking me in the drunk tank and locking you up in the holding pen for prostitutes. Then tomorrow morning we might or might not be charged with vagrancy. I don’t know.’

‘Is America really so’ evil?’

‘I don’t know, dear – this isn’t my America. But. I don’t want to find out the hard way. Sweetheart… if I worked for whatever they give us, could we spend a night with the Salvation Army without your feeling sinful about it?’

She considered it solemnly – Margrethe’s greatest lack was a total absence of sense of humor. Good nature – loads. A child’ delight in play, yes. Sense of humor? ‘Life is real and life is earnest -‘

‘Alec, if that can be arranged, I would not feel wrong in entering. I will work, too.’

‘Not necessary, dear; it will be my profession that is involved. When they finish feeding the derelicts tonight, there will be a high stack of dirty dishes I and you are looking at the heavyweight champion dishwasher in all of Mexico and los Estados Unidos.’

So I washed dishes. I also helped spread out hymnbooks and set up the evening services. And I borrowed a safety razor and a blade from Brother Eddie McCaw, the adjutant. I told him how we happened to be there – vacationing on the Mexican Riviera, sunbathing on the beach when the big one hit

all the string of lies I had prepared for the Immigration Service and hadn’t been able to use. ‘Lost it, all. Cash, travelers checks, passports, clothes, ticket home, the works. But just the same, we were lucky.

We’re alive.’

‘The Lord had His arms around you. You tell me that you are born again?’

‘Years back.’

‘It will do our lost sheep good to rub shoulders with you. When it comes time for witnessing, will you tell them all about it? You’re the first eyewitness. Oh, we felt it here but it just rattled the dishes.’

‘Glad to.’

Good. Let me get you that razor.’

So I witnessed and gave them a truthful and horrendous description of the quake, but not as horrid as it really was – I never want to see another rat – or another dead baby – and I thanked the Lord publicly that Margrethe and I had not been hurt and found that it was the most sincere prayer I had said in years.

The Reverend Eddie asked that roomful of odorous outcasts to join him in a prayer of thanks that Brother and Sister Graham had been spared, and he made it a good rousing prayer that covered everything from Jonah to the hundredth sheep, and drew shouts of ‘Amen!’ from around the room. One old wino came forward and said that he had at last seen God’s grace and God’s mercy and he was now ready to give his life to Christ.

Brother Eddie prayed over him, and invited others to come forward and two more did – a natural evangelist, he saw in our story a theme for his night’s sermon and used it, hanging it on Luke fifteen, ten, and Matthew six, nineteen. I don’t know that he had prepared from those two verses – probably not, as any preacher worth his salt can preach endlessly from either one of them. Either way, he could think on his feet and he made good use of our unplanned presence.

He was pleased with us, and I am sure that is why he told me, as we were cleaning up for the night, after the supper that followed the service, that while of course they didn’t have separate rooms for married couples – they didn’t often get married couples – still, it looked like Sister Graham would be the only one in the sisters’ dormitory tonight, so why didn’t I doss down in there instead of in the men’s ~ dormitory? No double bed, just stacked bunks – sorry! But at least we could be in the same room.

I thanked him and we happily went to bed. Two people can share a very narrow bed if they really want to sleep together.

The next morning Margrethe cooked breakfast for the derelicts. She went into the kitchen and volunteered and soon was, doing it all as the regular cook did not cook breakfast; it was the job of whoever had the duty. Breakfast did not require a graduate chef – oatmeal porridge, bread, margarine, little valencia oranges (culls?), coffee. I left her there to wash dishes and to wait until I came back.

I went out and found a job.

I knew, from listening to wireless (called ‘radio’ here) while washing the dishes the night before, that there was unemployment in the United States-, enough to be a political and social problem.

There is always work in the Southwest for agricultural labor but I had dodged that sort of Work yesterday. I’m not too proud for that work; I had followed the harvest for several years from the time I was big enough to handle a pitchfork. But I could not take Margrethe into the fields.

I did not expect to find a job as a clergyman; I hadn’t even told Brother Eddie that I was ordained. There is always an unemployment problem for preachers. Oh, there are always empty pulpits, true – but ones in which a church mouse would starve.

But I had a second profession.

Dishwasher.

No matter how many people are out of work, there are always dishwashing jobs going begging. Yesterday, in walking from the border gate to the Salvation Army mission, I had noticed three restaurants with ‘Dishwasher Wanted’ signs in their windows – noticed them because I had had plenty of time on the long ride from Mazatlán to admit to myself that I had no other salable skill.

No salable skill. I was not ordained in this world; I would not be ordained in this world as I could not show graduation from seminary or divinity school – or even the backing of a primitive sect that takes no mind of schools but depends on inspiration by the Holy Ghost.

I was certainly not an engineer.

I could not get a job teaching even those subjects I knew *Well because I no longer could show any formal preparation – I couldn’t even show that I had graduated from middle school!

In general I was no salesman. True, I had shown an unexpected talent for the complex skills that make up a professional money-raiser… but here I had no record, no reputation. I might someday do this again – but we needed cash today.

What did that leave? I had looked at the help-wanted ads in a copy of the Nogales Times someone had left in the mission. I, was, not a lax accountant. I was not any sort of a mechanic. I did not know what a software designer was but I was not one, nor was I a ‘computer’ anything. I was not a nurse or any sort of health care professional.

I could go on indefinitely listing the things I was not, and could not learn overnight. But that is pointless. What I could do, What would feed Margrethe and me while we sized up this new world and learned the angles, was what I had been forced to do as a peón.

A competent and reliable dishwasher never starves. (He’s more likely to die of boredom.)

The first place did not smell good and its kitchen looked dirty; I did not linger. The second place was a major-chain hotel, with several people in the scullery. The boss looked me over and said, ‘This is a Chicano job; you wouldn’t be happy here.’ I tried to argue; he shut me off.

I But the third was okay, a restaurant only a little bigger than the Pancho Villa, with a clean kitchen and a manager no more than normally jaundiced.

He warned me, ‘This job pays minimum wage and there are no raises. One meal a day on the house. I catch you sneaking anything, even a toothpick, and out you go that instant – no second chance. You work the hours I set and I change ’em to suit me. Right now I need you for noon to four, six to ten, five days a week. Or you can work six days but no overtime scale for it. Overtime scale if I require you to work more than eight hours in one day, or more than forty-eight hours in one week.’

‘Okay.’

‘All right, let’s see your Social Security card.’

I handed him my green card.

He handed it-back. ‘You expect me to pay you twelve dollars and a half an hour on the basis of a green card? You’re no Chicano. You trying to get me in trouble with the government? Where did you get that card?’

So I gave him the song and dance I had prepared for the Immigration Service. ‘Lost everything. I can’t even phone and tell somebody to send me money; I have to get home first before I can shake any assets loose.’

‘You could get public assistance.’

‘Mister, I’m too stinkin’ proud.’ (I don’t know how and I can’t prove I’m me. Just don’t quiz me and let me wash dishes.)

Glad to hear it. “Stinking proud”, I mean. This country could use more like you. Go over to the Social Security office and get them to issue you a new one. They will, even if you can’t recall the number of your old one. Then come back here and go to work. Mmm – I’ll start you on payroll right now. But you must come back and put in a full day to collect.’

‘More than fair. Where is the Social Security office?’

So I went to the Federal Building and told my lies over again, embroidering only as necessary. The serious young lady who issued the card insisted on giving me a lecture on Social Security and how it worked, a lecture she had apparently memorized. I’ll bet- you she never had a ‘client’ (that’s what she called me) who listened so carefully. It was all new to me.

I gave the name ‘Alec L. Graham.’ This was not a conscious decision. I had been using that name for

weeks, answered with it by reflex – then was not in a good position to say, ‘Sorry, Miss, my name is actually Hergensheimer.’

I started work. During my four-to-six break I went back to the mission – and learned that Margrethe had a job, too.

It was temporary, three weeks – but three weeks at just the right time. The mission cook had not had a vacation in over a year and wanted to go to Flagstaff to visit her daughter, who had just had a baby. So Margrethe had her job for the time being – and her bedroom, also for the time being.

So Brother and Sister Graham were in awfully good shape – for the time being.

Chapter 14

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. 

Ecclesiastes 9:11

PRAY TELL me why there is not a dishwashing school of philosophy? The conditions would seem ideal for indulging in the dear delights of attempting to unscrew the inscrutable. The work keeps the body busy while demanding almost nothing of the brain. I had eight hours every day in which to try to find answers to questions.

What questions? All questions. Five months earlier I had been a prosperous and respected professional in the most respected of professions, in a world I understood thoroughly – or so I thought. Today I was sure of nothing and had nothing.

Correction – I had Margrethe. Wealth enough for any man, I would not trade her for all the riches of Cathay. But even Margrethe represented a solemn contract I could not yet fulfill. In the eyes of the Lord I had taken her to wife… but I was not supporting her.

Yes, I had a job – but in truth she was supporting herself. When Mr Cowgirl hired me, I had not been daunted by ‘minimum wage and no raises’. Twelve dollars and fifty cents per hour struck me as a dazzling sum – why, many a married man in Wichita (my Wichita, in another universe) supported a family on twelve and a half dollars per week.

What I did not realize was that here $12.50 Would not buy a tuna sandwich in that same restaurant – not a fancy restaurant, either; cheap, in fact. I would have had less trouble adjusting to the economy in this strange-but-familiar world if its money had been described in unfamiliar terms – shillings, shekels, soles, anything but dollars. I had been brought up to think of a dollar as a substantial piece of wealth; the idea that a hundred dollars a day was a poverty-level minimum wage was not one I could grasp easily.

Twelve-fifty an hour, a hundred dollars a day, five hundred a week, twenty-six thousand dollars a year Poverty level? Listen carefully. In the world in which I grew up, that was riches beyond dreams of avarice.

Getting used to price and wage levels in dollars that weren’t really dollars was simply the most ubiquitous aspect of a strange economy; the main problem was how to cope, how to stay afloat, how to make a living for me and my wife (and our children, with one expected all too soon if I had guessed right) in a world in which I had no diplomas, no training, no friends, no references, no track record of any sort.

Alex, what in God’s truth are you good for?… other than dishwashing!

I could easily wash a lighthouse stack of dishes while worrying that problem alone. It had to be solved. Today I washed dishes cheerfully… but soon I must do better for my beloved. Minimum wage was not enough.

Now at last we come to the prime question: Dear Lord God Jehovah, what mean these signs and portents Thou has placed on me Thy servant?

There comes a time when a faithful worshiper must get up off his knees and deal with his Lord God in blunt and practical terms. Lord, tell me what to believe! Are these the deceitful great signs and wonders of which You warned, sent by antichrist to seduce the very elect?

Or are these true signs of the final days? Will we hear Your Shout?

Or am I as mad “as ‘:Nebudhadnezzar and all of these appearances merely vapors in my disordered mind?

If one of these be true, then the other two are false. How am I to choose? Lord God of Hosts, how have I offended Thee?

In walking back to the mission one night I saw a sign that could be construed as a direct answer to my prayers: MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE. The sign was carried by a man and with him was a small child handing out leaflets.

I contrived not to accept one. I had seen that sign many times throughout my life, but I had long tended to avoid Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are so stiff-necked and stubborn that it is impossible to work with them, whereas Churches United for Decency is necessarily an ecumenical association. In fund raising and in political action one must (while of course. shunning heresy) avoid arguments on fiddling points of doctrine. Word-splitting theologians are the death of efficient organization. How can you include a sect in practical labor in the vineyards of the Lord if that sect asserts that they alone know the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth and all who disagree are heretics, destined for the fires of Hell?

Impossible. So we left them out of C.U.D.

Still – Perhaps this time they were right.

Which brings me to the most urgent of all questions: How to lead Margrethe back to the Lord before the Trump and the Shout.

But ‘how’ depends on ‘when’. Premillenarian theologians differ greatly among themselves as to the date of the Last Trump.

I rely on the scientific method. On any disputed point there is always one sure answer: Look it up in the Book. And so I did, now that I was living at the Salvation Army mission and could borrow a copy of the Holy Bible. I looked it up again and again and again… and learned why premillenarians differed so on their dates.

The Bible is the literal Word of God; let there be no mistake about that. But nowhere did the Lord promise us that it would be easy to read.

Again and again Our Lord and His incarnation as the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, promises His disciples that their generation (i.e., first century AD) will see His return. Elsewhere, and again many times, He promises that He will return after a thousand years have passed… or is it two thousand years… or is it some other period, after the Gospel has been preached to all mankind in every country?

Which is true?

All are true, if you read them- right. Jesus did indeed return in the generation of His twelve disciples; He did so at the first Easter, His resurrection. That was His first return, the utterly necessary one, the one that proved to all that He was indeed the Son of God and God Himself. He returned again after a thousand years and, in His infinite mercy, ruled that His children be given yet another grant of grace, a further period of trial, rather than let sinners be consigned forthwith to the fiery depths of Hell. His Mercy is infinite.

These dates are hard to read, and understandably so, as it was never His intention to encourage sinners to go on sinning because the day of reckoning had been postponed,. What is precise, exact, and unmistakable, repeated again and again, is that He expects every one of His children to live every day, every hour, every heart beat, as if this one were the last. When is the end of this age? When is the Shout and the Trump? When is* the Day of Judgment? Now! You will be given no warning whatever. No time for deathbed contrition. You must live in a state of grace… or, when the instant comes, you will be cast down into the Lake of Fire, there to burn in agony throughout all eternity.

So reads the Word of God.

And to me, so sounds the voice of doom. I had no period of grace in which to lead Margrethe back into the fold… as the Shout may come this very day.

What to do? What to do?

For mortal man, with any problem too great, there is only one thing to do: Take it to the Lord in prayer.

And so I did, again and again and again. Prayer is always answered. But it is necessary to recognize the answer… and it may not be the answer you want.

In the meantime one must render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Of course I elected to work six days a week rather than five ($31,200 a year!) – as I needed every shekel I could garner. Margrethe needed everything! and so did I. Especially we needed shoes. The shoes we had been wearing when disaster struck in Mazatlán had been quite good shoes – for peasants in Mazatlán. But they had been worn during two days of digging through rubble after the quake, then had been worn continuously since then; they were ready for the trash bin. So we needed shoes, at least two pairs each, one pair for work, one for Sunday-go-to-meeting.

And many other things. I don’t know what all a woman needs, but it is more complex than what a man needs. I had to put money into Margrethe’s hands and encourage her to buy what she needed. I could pig it with nothing more than shoes and a pair of dungarees (to spare my one good outfit) – although I did buy a razor, and got a haircut at a barber’s college near the mission, one where a haircut was only two dollars if one was willing to accept the greenest apprentice, and I was. Margrethe looked at it and said gently that she thought she could do as well herself, and save us that two dollars. Later she took scissors and straightened out what that untalented apprentice had done, to me… and thereafter I never again spent money on barbers.

I But saving two dollars did not offset a greater damage. I had honestly thought, when Mr Cowgirl hired me, that I was going to be paid a hundred dollars every day I worked.

He didn’t pay me that much and he didn’t cheat me. Let me explain.

I finished that first day of work tired but happy. Happier than I had been since the earthquake struck, I mean happiness is relative. I stopped at the cashier-s stand where Mr Cowgirl was working on his accounts, Ron’s Grill having closed for the day. He looked up. ‘How did it go, Alec?’

‘Just fine, sir.’

‘Luke tells me that you are doing okay.’ Luke was a giant blackamoor, head cook and my nominal boss. In fact he had not supervised me other than to show me where things were and make sure that I knew what to do.

‘That’s pleasant to hear. Luke’s a good cook.’ That one-meal-a-day bonus over minimum wage I had eaten at four o’clock as breakfast was ancient history by then. Luke had explained to me that the help could order anything on the menu but steaks or chops, and that today I could have all the seconds I wanted if I chose either the stew or the meat loaf.

I chose the meat loaf because his kitchen smelled and looked clean. You can tell far more about a cook by his meat loaf than you can from the way he grills a steak. I took seconds on the meat loaf – with no catsup.

Luke was generous in the slab of cherry pie he cut for me, then he added a scoop of vanilla ice cream… which I did not rate, as it was an either/or, not both.

‘Luke seldom says a good word about white boys,’ my employer went on, ‘and never about a Chicano. So you must be doing okay.’

‘I hope so.’ I was growing a mite impatient. We are all the Lord’s children but it was the first time in my life that a blackamoor’s opinion of my work had mattered. I simply wanted to be paid so that I could hurry home to Margrethe – to the Salvation Army mission, that is.

Mr Cowgirl folded his hands and twiddled his thumbs. ‘You want to be paid, don’t you?’

I controlled my annoyance. ‘Yes, sir.’

-‘Alec, with dishwashers I prefer to pay by the week.’

I. felt dismay ‘ and I am sure my face showed it.

‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ he added. ‘You’re an. hourly-rate employee, so you are paid at the end of each day if that’s what you choose.’

‘Then I do choose. I need the money.’

‘Let me finish. The reason I prefer to pay dishwashers weekly instead of daily is that, all too often, if I hire one and pay him at the end of the day, he goes straight out and buys a jug of muscatel, then doesn’t show up for a couple of days.’ When he does, he wants his job back. Angry at me. Ready to complain to the Labor Board. Funny part about it is that I may even be able to give him his job back – for another one-day shot at it -because the bum I’ve hired in his place has gone and done the same thing.

‘This isn’t likely to happen with Chicanos as they usually want to save money to send back to Mexico. But I’ve yet to see the Chicano who could handle the scullery to suit Luke … and I need Luke more than I need a particular dishwasher. Negras -Luke can usually tell me whether a spade is going to work out, and the good ones are better than a white boy any time. But the good ones are always trying to improve themselves… and if I don’t promote them to pantry boy or assistant cook or whatever, soon they go across the street to somebody who will. So it’s always a problem. If I can get a week’s work out of a dishwasher, I figure I’ve won. If I get two weeks, I’m jubilant. Once I got a full month. But that’s once in a lifetime.’

‘You’re going to get three full weeks out of me,’ I said. ‘Now can I have my pay?’

‘Don’t rush me. If you elect to be paid once a week, I go for a dollar more on your hourly rate. That’s forty, dollars more at the end of the week. What do you say?’

(No, that’s forty-eight more per week, I told myself. Almost $34,000 per year just for washing dishes.

Whew!) ‘That’s forty-eight dollars more each week,’ I answered. ‘Not forty. As I’m going for that six-days-a-week option. I do need the money.’

‘Okay, Then I pay you once a week.’

‘Just a moment. Can’t we start it tomorrow? I need some cash today. My wife and I haven’t anything, anything at all. I’ve got the clothes I’m standing in, nothing else. The same for my wife. I can sweat it out a

few more days. But there are things a woman just has to have.’

He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. But you don’t get the dollar-an-hour bonus for today’s work. And if you are one minute late tomorrow, I’ll assume you’re sleeping it off and I put the sign back in the window.’

‘I’m no wino, Mr Cowgirl.’

‘We’ll see.’ He turned to his bookkeeping machine and did something to its keyboard. I don’t know what because I never understood it. It was an arithmetic machine but nothing like a Babbage Numerator. It had keys on it somewhat like a typewriting machine. But- there was a window above that where numbers and letters appeared by some sort of magic.

The machine whirred and tinkled and he reached into it and brought out a card, handed it -to me. ‘There you are.’

I took it and examined it, and again felt dismay.

It was a piece of pasteboard about three inches wide and seven long, with numerous little holes punched in it and with printing on it that stated that it was a draft on Nogales Commercial and Savings Bank by which Ron’s Grill directed them to pay to Alec L. Graham – No, not one hundred dollars.

Fifty-one dollars and twenty-seven cents.

‘Something wrong?’ he asked.

‘Uh, I had expected twelve-fifty an hour.’

‘That’s what I paid you. Eight hours at minimum wage. You can check the deductions yourself. That’s not my arithmetic; this is an IBM 1990 and it’s instructed by IBM software, Paymaster Plus … and IBM has a standing offer of ten thousand dollars to any employee who can show that this model IBM and this mark of their software fouled up a pay check. Look at it. Gross pay, one hundred dollars. Deductions all

listed. Add ‘ ’em up. Subtract them. Check your answer against IBM’s answer. But don’t blame me. I didn’t write those laws – and I like them even less than you do. Do you realize that almost every dishwasher that comes in here, whether wetback or citizen, wants me to pay him in cash and forget the deductions? Do you know what the fine is if they catch me doing it just once? What happens if they catch me a second time? Don’t look sour at me – go talk to the government.’

‘I just don’t understand it. It’s new to me, all of it. Can you tell me what these deductions mean? This one that says “Admin”, for example.’

‘That stands for “administration fee” but don’t ask me why you have to pay it, as I am the one who has to do the bookkeeping and I certainly don’t get paid to do it.’

I tried to check the other deductions against the fine-print explanations. ‘SocSec’ turned out to be ‘Social Security’. The young lady had explained that to me this morning… but I had told her at the time that, while it was certainly an excellent idea, I felt that I would have to wait until later before subscribing to it; I could not afford it just yet. ‘MedIns’ and ‘HospIns’ and DentIns’ were simple enough but I could not afford them now, either. But what was ‘PL217′? The fine print simply referred to a date and page in TubReg’.

What about ‘DepEduc’ and ‘UNESCO’?

And what in the world was ‘Income Tax’?

‘I still don’t understand it. It’s all new to me.’

‘Alec, you’re not the only one who doesn’t understand it. But why do you say it is new to you? It has been going on all your life … and your daddy’s -and youi ,grand-daddy’s, at least.’

‘I’m sorry. What is “Income Tax”?’

He blinked at me. ‘Are you sure you don’t need to see a shrink?’

‘What is a “shrink”?’

He sighed. ‘Now I need to see one. Look, Alec. Just take it. Discuss the deductions with the government, not with me. You sound sincere, so maybe you were hit on the head when you got caught in the Mazatlán quake. I just want to go home and take a Miltown. So take it, please.’

‘All right. I guess. But I don’t know anyone who would cash this for me.’

‘No problem. Endorse it back to me and I’ll pay you, cash. But keep the stub, as the IRS will insist on seeing all your deductions stubs before paying you back any overpayment.’

I didn’t understand that, either, but I kept the stub.

Despite the shock of learning that almost half my pay was gone before I touched it, we were better off each day, as, between us, Margrethe and I had over four hundred dollars a week that did not have to be spent just to stay alive but could be converted into clothing and other necessities. Theoretically she was being paid the same wages as had been the cook she replaced, or twenty-two dollars an hour for twenty-four hours a week, or $528/week.

In fact she had the same sort of deductions I had, which paused her net pay to come to just under

$290/week. Again theoretically. But $54/week was checked off for lodging fair. enough, I decided, when I found out what rooming houses were charging. More than fair, in fact. Then we were assessed

$I05/week for meals. Brother McCaw at first had put us down for $I40/week for meals and had offered to show by his books that Mrs Owens, the regular cook, had always paid, by checkoff, $I0 each day for her meals… so the two of us should be assessed $I40/week.

I agreed that that was fair (having seen the prices on the menu at Ron’s Grill) – fair in theory. But I was going to have my heaviest meal of the day where I worked. We compromised on ten a day for Marga, half that for me.

So Margrethe wound up with a hundred and. thirty-one a week out of a gross- of five hundred and twenty-eight.

If she could collect it. Like most churches, the Salvation Army lives from hand to mouth… and sometimes the hand doesn’t quite reach the mouth.

Nevertheless we were well off and better off each week. At the end of the first week we bought new shoes for Margrethe, first quality and quite smart, for only $279.90, on sale at J. C. Penney’s, marked down from $350.

Of course she fussed at getting new shoes for her before buying shoes for me. I pointed out that we still had over a hundred dollars toward shoes for me – next week – and would she please hold it for us so that I would not be tempted to spend it. Solemnly she agreed.

So the following Monday we got shoes for me even cheaper – Army surplus, good, stout comfortable shoes that would outlast anything bought from a regular shoe store. (I would worry about dress shoes for me after I had other matters under control. There is nothing like being barefoot broke to adjust one’s mundane values.) Then we went to the Goodwill retail store and bought a dress and a summer suit for her, and dungaree pants for me.

Margrethe wanted to get more clothes for me – we still had almost sixty dollars. I objected.

‘Why not, Alec? You need clothes every bit as badly as I do… yet we have spent almost all that you have saved on me. It’s not fair.’

I answered, ‘We’ve spent it where it was needed. Next week, if Mrs Owens comes back on time, you’ll be out of a job and we’ll have to move. I think we. should move on. So let’s save what we can for bus fare.’

‘Move on where, dear?’

‘To Kansas. This is a world strange to each of us. Yet it is familiar, too – same language, same geography, some of the same history. Here I’m just a dish washer, not earning enough to support you. But I have a strong feeling that Kansas – Kansas in this world – will be so much like the Kansas I was born in that I’ll be able to cope better.’

‘Whither thou goest, beloved.’

The mission was almost a mile from Ron’s Grill; instead of trying to go ‘home’ at my four-to-six break, I usually spent my free time, after eating, at the downtown branch library getting myself oriented. That, and newspapers that customers sometimes left in the restaurant, constituted my principal means of reeducation.

In this world Mr William Jennings Bryan had indeed been President and his benign influence had’ kept us out of the Great European War. He then had offered his services for a negotiated peace. The Treaty of Philadelphia had more or less restored Europe to what it had been before 1913.

I didn’t recognize any of the Presidents after Bryan, either from my own world or from Margrethe’s world. Then I became utterly bemused when I first ran across the name of the current President: His Most Christian Majesty, John Edward the Second, Hereditary President of the United States and Canada, Duke of Hyannisport, Comte de Quebec, Defender of the Faith, Protector of the Poor, Marshal in Chief of the Peace Force.

I looked at a picture of him, laying a cornerstone in Alberta. He was tall and broad-shouldered and blandly handsome and was wearing a fancy uniform with enough medals on his chest to ward off pneumonia. I studied his face and asked myself, ‘Would you buy a used car from this man?’

But the more I thought about it, the more logical it seemed. Americans, all during their two and a quarter centuries as a separate nation, had missed the royalty they had shucked off. They slobbered over European royalty whenever they got the chance. Their wealthiest citizens married their daughters to royalty whenever possible, even to Georgian princes – a ‘prince’ in Georgia being a farmer with the biggest manure pile in the neighborhood.

I did not know where they had hired this royal dude. Perhaps they had sent to Estoril for him, or even had him shipped in from the Balkans. As one of my history profs had pointed out, there are always

out-of-work royalty around, looking for jobs. When a man is out of, work, he can’t be fussy, as I knew too well. Laying cornerstones is probably no more boring than washing dishes. But the hours are longer. I think. I’ve never been a king. I’m not sure that I would take a job in the kinging business if it were offered to me; there are obvious drawbacks and not just the long hours.

On the other hand –

Refusing a crown that you know will never be offered to you is sour grapes, by definition. I searched my heart and concluded that-I probably would be able to persuade myself that it was a sacrifice I should

make for my fellow men. I would pray over it until I was convinced that the Lord wanted me to accept this burden.

Truly I am not being cynical. I know how frail men can be in persuading themselves that the Lord wants them to do something they wanted to do all along – and I am no better than my brethren in this.

But the thing that stonkered me was the idea of Canada united with us. Most Americans do not know why Canadians dislike us (I do not), but they do. The idea that Canadians would ever vote to unite with us boggles the mind.

I went to the library desk and asked for a recent general history of the United States. I had just started to study it when I noted by the wall clock that it was almost four o’clock… so I had to check it back in and hustle to get back to my scullery on time. I did not have library loan privileges as I could not as yet afford the deposit required of nonresidents.

More important than the political changes were technical and cultural changes. I realized almost at once that this world was more advanced in physical science and. technology than my own. In fact I realized it almost as quickly as I saw a ‘television’ display device.

I never did understand how televising takes place. I tried to learn about it in the public library and at once bumped into a subject called ‘electronics’. (Not ‘electrics’ but ‘electronics’.) So I tried to study up about electronics and encountered the most amazing mathematical gibberish. Not since thermodynamics had caused me to decide that I had a call for the ministry have I seen such confusing and turgid equations. I don’t think Rolla Tech could ever cope with such amphigory – at least not Rolla Tech when I was an undergraduate there.

But the superior technology of this world was evident, in many more things than television. Consider ‘traffic lights’. No doubt you have seen cities so choked with traffic that it is almost impossible to cross major streets other than through intervention by police officers. Also’ no doubt you have sometimes been annoyed when a policeman charged with controlling traffic has stopped the flow in your direction to accommodate some very important person from city hall, or such.

Can you imagine a situation in which traffic could be controlled in greater volume with no police officers whatever at hand – just an impersonal colored light?

Believe me, that is exactly what they had in Nogales.

Here is how it works:

At every busy intersection you place a minimum of twelve lights, four groups of three, a group facing each of the cardinal directions and so screened that each group can be seen only from its direction. Each group has one red light, one green light, one amber light. These lights are served by electrical power and each shines brightly enough to be seen at a distance of a mile, more or less, even in bright sunlight. These are not arc lights; these are very powerful Edison lamps – this is important because these lights must be turned on and off every few moments and must function without fail hours on end, even days on end, twenty-four hours a day.

These lights are placed up high on telegraph poles, or suspended over intersections, so that they may be seen by teamsters or drivers or cyclists from a distance. When the green lights shine, let us say, north and south, the red lights shine east and west – traffic may flow north and south, while east and west traffic is required to stand and wait exactly as if a police officer had blown his whistle and held up his hands, motioning traffic to move north and south while restraining traffic from moving east and west.

Is that clear? The lights replace the policeman’s hand signals.

The amber lights replace the policeman’s whistle; they warn of an imminent change in the situation.

But what is the advantage? – since someone, presumably a policeman, must switch the lights on and off, as needed. Simply this: The switching is done automatically from a distance (even miles!) at a central switchboard.

There are many other marvels about this system, such as electrical counting devices to decide how long each light burns for best handling of the traffic, special lights for controlling left turns or to accommodate people on foot… but the truly great marvel is this: People obey these lights.

Think about it. With no policemen anywhere around people obey these blind and dumb bits of machinery as. if they were policemen.

Are people here so sheeplike and peaceful that they can be controlled this easily? No. I wondered about it and found some statistics in the library. This world has a higher rate of violent crime than does the world in which I was born. Caused by these strange lights? I don’t think so. I think that the people here, although disposed to violence against each other, accept obeying traffic lights as a logical thing to do.

Perhaps.

As may be, it is passing strange.

Another conspicuous difference in technology lies in air traffic. Not the decent, cleanly, safe, and silent dirigible airships of my home world – No, no! These are more like the aeroplanos of the Mexicano world in which Margrethe and I sweated out our indentures before the great quake that destroyed Mazatlán.

But they are so much bigger, faster, noisier and fly so much higher than the aeroplanos we knew that they are almost another breed – or are indeed another breed, perhaps, as they are called ‘jet planes’. Can you imagine a vehicle that flies eight miles above the ground? Can you imagine a giant car that moves, faster than sound? Can you imagine a screaming whine, so loud that it makes your teeth ache?

They call this ‘progress’. I long for the comfort and graciousness of LTA Count von Zeppelin. Because you can ‘ t get away from these behemoths. Several times a day one of these things goes screaming over the mission, fairly low down, as it approaches a grounding, at the flying field north of the city. The noise bothers me and makes Margrethe very nervous.

Still most of the enhancements in technology really are progress – better plumbing, better lighting indoors and out, better roads, better buildings, many sorts of machinery that make human labor less onerous and more productive. I am never one of those back-to-nature freaks who sneer at engineering; I have more reason than most people to respect engineering. Most people who sneer at technology would starve to- death if the engineering infrastructure were removed.

We had been in Nogales just short of three weeks when I was able to carry out a plan that I had dreamed of for nearly five months… and had actively plotted since our arrival in Nogales (but had to delay until I could afford it). – I picked Monday to carry it out, that being my day off. I told Margrethe to dress up in her new clothes as I was taking my best girl out for a treat, and I dressed up, too – my one suit, my new shoes, and a clean shirt… and shaved and bathed and nails clean and trimmed.

It was a lovely day, sunny and not too hot. We both felt cheerful because, first, Mrs Owens had written to Brother McCaw saying that she was staying on another week if she could be spared, and second, we now had enough money for bus fares for both of us to Wichita, Kansas, although just barely – but the word from Mrs Owens meant that could squirrel away another four hundred dollars for eating money on the way and still arrive not quite broke.

I took Margrethe to a place I had spotted the day I looked for a job as a dishwasher – a nice little place outside the tenderloin, an old-fashioned ice cream parlor.

We stopped outside it. ‘Best girl, see this place? Do you remember a conversation we had when we were floating on the broad Pacific on a sunbathing mat and not really expecting to live much longer? – at least I was not.’

‘Beloved, how could I forget?’

‘I asked you what you would have if you could have anything in the world that you wanted. Do you remember I what you answered?’

‘Of course I do! It was a hot fudge sundae.’

‘Right! Today is your unbirthday, dear. You are about to have that hot fudge sundae.’

‘Oh, Alec!’

‘Don’t blubber. Can’t stand a woman who cries. Or you can have a chocolate malt. Or a sawdust sundae. Whatever your heart desires. But I did, make sure that this place always has hot fudge sundaes before I brought you here.’

‘We can’t afford it. We should save for the trip.’

‘We can afford it. A hot fudge sundae is five dollars. Two for ten dollars. And I’m going to be a dead game sport and tip the waitress a dollar. Man does not live by bread alone. Nor does woman, Woman. Come along!’

We were shown to a table by a pretty waitress (but not as pretty as my bride). I seated Margrethe with

her back to the street, holding the chair for her, and then sat down opposite her. ‘I’m Tammy,’ the waitress said as she offered us a menu. ‘What would you folks like this lovely day?’

‘We won’t need the menu,’ I said. ‘Two hot fudge sundaes, please.’

Tammy looked thoughtful. ‘All right, if you don’t mind waiting a few minutes. We may have to make up the hot sauce.’

‘A few minutes, who cares? We’ve waited much longer than that.’

She smiled and went away. I looked at Marga. ‘We’ve waited much longer. Haven’t we?’

‘Alec, you’re a sentimentalist and that’s part of why I love you.’

‘I’m a sentimental slob and right now I’m slavering at the thought of hot fudge sundae. But I wanted you to see this place for another reason, too. Marga, how would you like to run such a place as this? Us, that is. Together. You’d be boss, I’d be dishwasher, janitor, handyman, bouncer, and whatever was needed.’

She looked very thoughtful. ‘You are serious?’

‘Quite. Of course we couldn’t go into business for ourselves right away; we will have to save some money first. But not much, the way I plan it. A dinky little place, but bright and cheerful – after I paint it. A soda fountain, plus a very limited Menu. Hot dogs. Hamburgers. Danish open-face sandwiches.

Nothing else. Soup, maybe. But canned soups are no problem and not much inventory.’

Margrethe looked shocked. ‘Not canned soups. I can serve a real soup… cheaper and better than anything out of a tin.’

‘I defer to your professional judgment, Ma’am. Kansas has half a dozen little college towns; any of them would welcome such a place. Maybe we pick a shop already existing, a mom-and-pop place – work for them a year, then buy them out. Change the name to The Hot Fudge Sundae. Or maybe Marga’s

Sandwiches.’

‘The Hot Fudge Sundae. Alec, do you really think we can do this?’

I leaned toward her and took her hand. ‘I’m sure we can, darling. And without working ourselves to death, too.’ I moved my head. ‘That traffic light is staring me right in the eye.’

‘I know. I can see it reflected in your eye every time it changes. Want to swap seats? It won’t bother me.’

‘It doesn’t bother me. It just has a somewhat hypnotic effect.’ I looked down at. the table, looked back at the light. ‘Hey, it’s gone out.’

Margrethe twisted her neck to look. ‘I don’t see it. Where?’

‘Uh… pesky thing has disappeared. Looks like.’

I heard a male voice at my elbow. ‘What’ll it be for you two? Beer or wine; we’re not licensed for the hard stuff.’

I looked around, saw a waiter. ‘Where’s Tammy?’

‘Who’s Tammy?’

I took a deep breath, tried to slow my heart, then said, ‘Sorry, brother; I shouldn’t have come in here. I find I’ve left my wallet at home.’ I stood up. ‘Come, dear.’

Wide-eyed and silent, Margrethe came with me. As we walked out, I looked around, noting changes. I suppose it was a decent enough place, as beer joints go. But it was not our cheerful ice cream parlor.

And not our world.

Chapter 15

Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. 

Proverbs 27:1

OUTSIDE, WITHOUT planning it, I headed us toward the Salvation Army mission. Margrethe kept quiet and held tight to my arm. I should have been frightened; instead I was boiling angry. Presently I muttered, ‘Damn them! Damn them!’

‘Damn who, Alec?’

‘I don’t know. That’s the worst of it. Whoever is doing this to us. Your friend Loki, maybe.’

‘He is not my friend, any more than Satan is your friend. I dread and fear what Loki is doing to our world.’

‘I’m not afraid, I’m angry. Loki or Satan or whoever, this last is too much. No sense to it. Why couldn’t they wait thirty minutes? That hot fudge sundae was practically under our noses – and they snatched it away! Marga, that’s not right, that’s not fair! That’s sheer, unadulterated cruelty. Senseless. On a par with pulling wings off flies. I despise them. Whoever.’

Instead of continuing with useless talk about matters we could not settle, Margrethe said, ‘Dear, where are we going?’

‘Eh?’ I stopped short. ‘Why, to the mission, I suppose.’

‘Is this the right way?’

‘Why, yes, cert -‘ I paused to look around. ‘I don’t know.’ I had been walking automatically, my attention fully on my anger. Now I found that I was unsure of any landmarks. ‘I guess I’m lost.’

‘I know I am.’

It took us another half hour to get straightened out. The neighborhood was vaguely familiar but nothing was quite right. I found the block where Ron’s Grill should be, could not find Ron’s Grill. Eventually a policeman directed us to the mission… which was now in a different building. To my surprise, Brother McCaw was there. But he did not recognize us, and his name was now McNabb. We left, as gracefully as possible. Not very, that is.

I walked us back the way we had come – slowly, as I wasn’t going anywhere. ‘Marga, we’re right back where we were three weeks ago. Better shoes, that’s all. A pocket full of money – but money we can’t spend, as it is certain to be funny money here… good for a quiet rest behind bars if I tried to pass any of it.’

‘You’re probably right, dear one.’

‘There is a bank on that corner just ahead. Instead of trying to spend any of it, I could walk in and simply ask whether or not it was worth anything.’

‘There couldn’t be any harm in that. Could there?’

‘There shouldn’t be. But our friend Loki could have another practical joke up his sleeve. Uh, we’ve got to know. Here – you take everything but one bill. If they arrest me, you pretend not to know me.’

‘No!’

‘What do you mean, “No”? There is no point in both of us being in jail.’

She looked stubborn and said nothing. How can you argue with a woman who wont talk? I sighed. ‘Look, dear, the only other thing I can think of is to look for another job washing dishes. Maybe Brother McNabb will let us sleep in the mission tonight.’

‘I’ll look for a job, too. I can wash dishes. Or cook. Or something.’

‘We’ll see. Come inside with me, Marga; we’ll go to jail together. But I think I’ve figured out how to handle this without going to jail.’ I took out one treasury note, crumpled it, and tore one corner. Then we went into the bank together, me holding it in my hand as if I had just picked it up. I did not go to a teller’s window; instead I went to that railing behind which bark officials sit at their desks.

I leaned on the railing and spoke to the man nearest to it; his desk sign marked him as assistant manager. ‘Excuse me, sir! Can you answer a question for me?’

He looked annoyed but his reply did not show it. ‘I’ll try. What’s on your mind?’

‘Is this really money? Or is it stage money, or something?’

He looked at it, then looked more closely. ‘Interesting. Where did you get this?”

‘My wife found it on a sidewalk. Is it money?’

‘Of course it’s not money. Whoever heard of a twenty-dollar note? Stage money, probably Or an advertising promotion.’

‘Then it’s not worth anything?’

‘It’s worth the paper it’s printed on, that’s all. I doubt that it could even be called counterfeit, since there has been no effort to make it look like the real thing. Still, the Treasury inspectors will want to see it.’

‘All right. Can you take care of it?’

‘Yes. But they’ll want to talk to you, I’m sure. Let’s get your name and address. And your wife’s, of course, since she found it.’

‘Okay. I want a receipt for it.’ I gave our names as ‘Mr and Mrs Alexander Hergensheimer’ and gave the address – but not the name – of Ron’s Grill. Then I solemnly accepted a receipt.

Once outside on the sidewalk I said, ‘Well, we’re no worse off than we thought we were. Time for me to look for some dirty dishes.’

‘Alec -‘

‘Yes, beloved?’

‘We were going to Kansas.’

‘So we were. But our bus-fare money is not worth the paper it is printed on. I’ll have to earn some more. I can. I did it once, I can do it again.’

‘Alec. Let us now go to Kansas.’

A half hour later we were walking north on the highway Tucson. Whenever anyone passed us, I signalled our hope of being picked up.

It took us three hitches simply to reach Tucson. At Tucson it would have made equal sense to head east toward El Paso, Texas, as to continue on Route 89, as 89 swings west before it goes north to Phoenix. It was settled for us by the chance that the first lift we were able to beg out of Tucson was with a teamster who was taking a load north.

This ride we were able to pick up at a truckers’ stop at the intersection of 89 and 80, and I am forced to admit that the teamster listened to our plea because Margrethe is the beauty she is – had I been alone I might still be standing there. I might as well say right now that this whole trip depended throughout on Margrethe’s beauty and womanly charm quite as much as it depended on my willingness to do any honest work whatever, no matter how menial, dirty, or difficult.

I found this fact unpleasant to face. I held dark thoughts of Potiphar’s wife and of the story of Susanna and the Elders. I found myself being vexed with Margrethe when her only offense lay in being her usual gracious, warm, and friendly self. I came close to telling her not to smile at strangers and to keep her eyes to herself.

That temptation hit me sharpest that first day at sundown when this same trucker stopped at a roadside oasis centered around a restaurant and a fueling facility. ‘I’m going to have a couple of beers and a sirloin steak,’ he announced. ‘How about you, Maggie baby? Could you use a rare steak? This is the place where they just chase the cow through the kitchen.’

She smiled at, him. ‘Thank you, Steve. But, I’m not hungry.’

My darling was telling an untruth. She knew it, I knew it – and I felt sure that Steve knew it. Our last meal had been breakfast at the mission, eleven hours and a universe ago. I had tried to wash dishes for a meal at the truckers’ stop outside Tucson, but had been dismissed rather abruptly. So we had had nothing all day but water from a public drinking faucet.

‘Don’t try to kid your grandmother, Maggie. We’ve been on the road four hours. You’re hungry.’

I spoke up quickly to keep Margrethe from persisting in an untruth – told, I felt certain, on my behalf. ‘What she means, Steve, is that she doesn’t accept dinner invitations from other men. She expects me to provide her dinner.’ I added, ‘But I thank you on her behalf and we both thank you for the ride. It’s been most pleasant.’

We were still seated in the cab of his truck, Margrethe in the middle. He leaned forward and looked around her. ‘Alec, you, think I’m trying to get into Maggie’s pants, don’t you?’

I answered stiffly that I did not think anything of the sort while thinking privately that that was exactly what I thought he had been trying to accomplish all along… and I resented not only his unchivalrous overtures but also the gross language he had just used. But I had learned the hard way that rules of polite speech in the world in which I had grown up were not necessarily rules in another universe

‘Oh, yes, you do think so. I wasn’t born yesterday and a lot of my life has been spent on the road, getting my illusions knocked out. You think I’m trying to lay your woman because every stud who comes along tries to put the make on her. But let me clue you in, son. I don’t knock when there’s nobody at home. And I can always tell. Maggie ain’t having any. I checked that out hours ago. And ‘congratulations; a faithful woman is good to find. Isn’t that true?’

‘Yes, certainly,’ I agreed grudgingly.

‘So get your feathers down’. You’re about to take your wife to dinner. You’ve already said thank you to me for the ride but why don’t you really thank me by inviting me to dinner? – so I won’t have to eat alone.’

I hope that I did not look dismayed and that my instant of hesitation was not noticeable. ‘Certainly, Steve. We owe you that for your kindness. Uh, will you excuse me while I make some arrangements?’ I started to get out of the cab.

‘Alec, you don’t lie any better than Maggie does.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You think I’m blind? You’re broke. Or, if you aren´t absolutely stony, you are so near flat you can’t afford to buy me a sirloin steak. Or even the blueplate special.’

‘That is true,’ I answered with – I hope – dignity. ‘The arrangements I must make are with the restaurant manager. I hope to exchange dishwashing for the price of three dinners.’

‘I thought so. If you were just ordinary broke, you’d be riding Greyhound and you’d have some baggage. If you were broke but not yet hungry broke, you’d hitchhike to save your money for eating but you would have some sort of baggage. A kiester each, or at least a bindle. But you’ve got no baggage… and you’re both wearing suits – in the desert, for God’s sake! The signs all spell disaster.’

I remained mute.

‘Now look,’ he went on. ‘Possibly the owner of this joint would let you wash dishes. More likely he’s got three wetbacks pearl-diving this very minute and has turned down at least three more already today; this is on the main north-south route of turistas coming through holes in the Fence. In any case I can’t wait while you wash dishes; I’ve got to herd this rig a lot of miles yet tonight. So I’ll make you a deal. You take me to dinner but I lend you the money.’

‘I’m a poor risk.’

‘Nope, you’re a good risk. What the bankers call a character loan, the very best risk there is. Sometime, this coming year, or maybe twenty years from now, you’ll run across another young couple, broke and hungry. You’ll buy them dinner on the same, terms. That pays me back. Then when they do the same, down the line, that pays you back. Get it?’

‘I’ll pay you back sevenfold!’

“Once is enough. After that you do it for your own pleasure. Come on, let’s eat.’

Rimrock Restop restaurant was robust rather than fancy – about on a par with Ron’s Grill in another world. It had both counter and tables. Steve led us to a table and shortly a fairly young and rather pretty waitress came over.

‘Howdy, Steve! Long time.’

Hi, Babe! How’d the rabbit test come out?’

‘The rabbit died. How about your blood test?’ She smiled at me and at Margrethe. ‘Hi, folks! What’ll you have?’

I had had time to glance at the menu, first down the right-hand side, of course – and was shocked at the prices. Shocked to find them back on the scale of the world I knew best, I mean. Hamburgers for a dime, coffee at five cents, table d’hôte dinners at seventy-five to ninety cents -these prices I understood.

I looked at it and said, ‘May I have a cheese superburger, medium well?’

‘Sure thing, Ace. How about you, dear?’

Margrethe took the same, but medium rare.

‘Steve?’ the waitress inquired.

That’ll be three beers – Coors – and three sirloin steaks, one rare, one medium rare, one medium. With the usual garbage. Baked potato, fried promises, whatever. The usual limp salad. Hot rolls. All the usual. Dessert later. Coffee.’

‘Gotcha.’

‘Wantcha to meet my friends. Maggie, this is Hazel. That’s Alec, her husband.’

‘You lucky man! Hi, Maggie; glad to know you. Sorry to see you in such company, though. Has Steve tried to sell you anything?’

‘No,’

‘Good. Don’t buy anything, don’t sign anything, don’t bet with him. And be glad you’re safely married; he’s got wives in three states.’

‘Four,’ Steve corrected.

‘Four now? Congratulations. Ladies’ restroom is through the kitchen, Maggie; men go around behind.’ She left moving fast, with a swish of her skirt.

‘That’s a fine broad,’ Steve said. ‘You know what they say about waitresses, especially in truckers’ joints. Well, Hazel is probably the only hash-slinger on this highway who ain’t sellin’ it. Come on, Alec.’ He got up and led me outdoors and around to the men’s room. I followed him. By the time I understood what he had said, it was too late to resent his talking that way in a lady’s presence. Then I was forced to admit that Margrethe had not resented it had simply treated it as information. As praise of Hazel, in fact. I think my greatest trouble with all these worrisome world changes had to do, not with economics, not with social behavior, not with technology, but simply with language, and the mores and taboos thereto.

Beer was waiting for us when we returned, and so was Margrethe, looking cool and refreshed.

Steve toasted us. ‘Skoal!’

We echoed ‘Skaal!’ and I took a sip and then a lot more – just what I needed after a long day on a desert highway. My moral downfall in S.S. Konge Knut had included getting reacquainted with beer, something I had not touched since my days as an engineering student, and very little then – no money for vices. This was excellent beer, it seemed to me, but not as good as the Danish Tuborg served in the ship. Did you know that there is not one word against beer in the Bible? In fact the word ‘beer’ in the Bible means ‘fountain’- or ‘well’.

The steaks were delicious.’

Under the mellowing influence of beer and good food I found myself trying to explain to Steve how we happened to be down on our luck and accepting the charity of strangers… without actually saying anything. Presently Margrethe said to me, ‘Alec. Tell him.’

‘You think I should?’

‘I think Steve is entitled to know. And I trust him.’

‘Very well. Steve, we are strangers from another world.’

He neither laughed nor smiled; he just looked interested. Presently he said, ‘Flying saucer?’

‘No. I mean another universe, not just another planet. Although it seems like the same planet. I mean, Margrethe and I were in a state Called Arizona and a city called Nogales just earlier today. Then it changed. Nogales shrank down and nothing was quite the same. Arizona looked about the same, although I don’t know this state very well.’

‘Territory.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Arizona is a territory, not a state. Statehood was voted down.’

‘Oh. That’s the way it was in my, world, too. Something about taxes. But we didn’t come from my world. Nor from Marga’s world. We came, from -‘I stopped. ‘I’m not telling this very well.’ I looked across at Margrethe. ‘Can you explain it?’

‘I can’t explain it,’ she answered, because I don’t understand it. But, Steve, it’s true. I’m from one world, Alec is from another world, we’ve lived in still another world, and we were in yet again another world this morning. And now we are here. That is why we don’t have any money. No, we do have money but it’s not money of this world.’

Steve said, ‘Could we take this one world at a time? I’m getting dizzy.’

I said, ‘She left out two worlds.’

‘No, dear – three. You may have forgotten the iceberg world.’

‘No, I counted that. I – Excuse me, Steve. I’ll try to take it one world at a time. But it isn’t easy. This morning – We went into an ice cream parlor in Nogales because I wanted to buy Margrethe a hot fudge sundae. We sat down at a table, across from each other like right now, and that put me facing a set of traffic lights-‘

‘A set of what?’

‘A set of traffic signal lights, red, green, and amber. That’s how I spotted that we had changed worlds again. This world doesn’t have signal lights, or at least I haven’t seen any. Just traffic cops. But in the world we got up in this morning, instead of traffic cops, they do it with signal lights.’

Sounds like they do it with mirrors. What’s this got to do with buying Maggie a hot fudge sundae?’

‘That was because, when we were. shipwrecked and, floating around in the ocean, Margrethe wanted a hot fudge, sundae. This morning was my first chance to buy one for her. When the traffic lights disappeared, I knew we had changed worlds again – and that meant that my money wasn’t any good. So I could not buy her a hot fudge sundae. And could not buy her dinner tonight. No money. No spendable money, I mean. You see?’

‘I think I fell off three turns back. What happened to your money?’

‘Oh.’ I dug into my pocket, hauled out our carefully hoarded bus-fare money, picked out a twenty-dollar bill, handed it to Steve. ‘Nothing happened to it. Look at this.’

He looked at it carefully. ‘ “Lawful money for all debts public and private.” That sounds okay. But who’s this joker with his picture on it? And when did they start.printing twenty-dollar treasury notes?’

‘Never, in your world. I guess. The picture is of William Jennings Bryan, President of the United States from 1913 to 192l.’

‘Not at Horace Mann School in Akron, he wasn’t. Never heard of him.’

‘In my school he was elected in 1896, not sixteen years later. And in Margrethe’s world Mr Bryan was never president at all. Say! Margrethe! This just might be your world!’

‘Why do you think so, dear?’

‘Maybe, maybe not. As we came north out of Nogales I didn’t notice a flying field or any signs concerning one. And I just remembered that I haven’t heard or seen a jet plane all day long. Or any sort of a flying machine. Have you?’

,No. No, I haven’t. But I haven’t been thinking about them.’ She added, ‘I’m almost certain there haven’t been any near us.’

There you have it! Or maybe this is my world. Steve, what’s the situation on aeronautics here?’

‘Arrow what?’

‘Flying machines. Jet planes. Aeroplanes of any sort. And dirigibles – do you have dirigibles?’

‘None of those things rings any bells with me. You’re talking about flying, real flying, up in the air like a bird?’.

‘Yes, yes!’

‘No, of course not. Or do you mean balloons? I’ve seen a balloon.’

‘Not balloons. Oh, a dirigible is a sort of a balloon. But it’s long instead of round – sort of cigar-shaped. And it’s propelled by engines something like our truck and goes a hundred miles an hour and more – and usually fairly high, one or two thousand feet. Higher over mountains.’

For the first time Steve showed surprise rather than interest. ‘God A’mighty! You’ve actually seen something like that?’

‘I’ve ridden in them. Many times. First when I was only twelve years old. You went to school in Akron? In my world Akron is world famous as the place where they build the biggest, fastest, and best dirigible airships in all the world.’

Steve shook his head. ‘When the parade goes by, I’m out for a short beer. That’s the story of my life. Maggie, you’ve seen airships? Ridden in them?’

‘No. They are not in my world. But I’ve ridden in a flying’ machine. An aeroplano. Once. It was terribly exciting. Frightening, too. But I would like to do it again.’

‘I betcha would. Me, I reckon it would scare the tar out of me. But I would take a ride in one, even if it killed me. Folks, I’m beginning to believe you. You tell it so straight. That and this money. If it, is money.’

‘It is money,’ I insisted, ‘from another world. Look at it closely, Steve. Obviously it’s not money of your world. But it’s not play money or stage money either. Would anybody bother to make steel engravings that perfect just for stage money? The engraver who made the plates expected that note to be accepted as money… yet it isn’t even a correct denomination – that’s the first thing you noticed. Wait a moment.’ I dug into another pocket. ‘Yup! Still here.’ I took out a ten-peso note – from the Kingdom of Mexico. I had burned most of the useless money we had accumulated before the quake – Margrethe’s tips at El Pancho Villa – but I had saved a few’ souvenirs. ‘Look at this, too. Do you know Spanish?’

‘Not really. TexMex. Cantina Spanish.’ He looked at the Mexican money. ‘This looks okay.’

‘Look more closely,’ Margrethe urged him. ‘Where it says ‘Reino’. Shouldn’t that read ‘Republica’? Or is Mexico a kingdom in this world?’

‘It’s a republic… partly because I helped keep it that way. I was an election judge there when I was in the Marines. It’s amazing what a few Marines armed to their eyebrows can do to keep an election honest. Okay, pals; you’ve sold ‘me. Mexico is not a kingdom and hitchhikers who don’t have the price of dinner on them ought not to be carrying around Mexicano money that says it is a kingdom. Maybe I’m crazy but I’m inclined to throw in with you. What’s the explanation?’

‘Steve’,’ I said soberly, ‘I wish I knew. The simplest explanation is that I’ve gone crazy and that it’s all imaginary – you, me, Marga, this restaurant, this world – all products of my brain fever.’

‘You can be imaginary if you want to, but leave Maggie and me out of it. Do you have any other explanations?’

‘Uh… that depends. Do you read the Bible, Steve?’

‘Well, yes and no. Being on the road, lots of times I find myself wide awake in bed with nothing around to read but a Gideon Bible. So sometimes I do.’

‘Do you recall Matthew twenty-four, twenty-four?’

‘Huh? Should I?’

I quoted it for him. ‘That’s one possibility, Steve. These world changes may be signs sent by the Devil himself, intended to deceive us. On the other hand they may be portents of the end of world and the coming of Christ into His kingdom. Hear the Word:

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

“And then shall appear the sign ed the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

‘”And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

‘That’s what it adds up to, Steve. Maybe these are the false signs of the tribulations before the end, or maybe these wonders foretell the Parousia, the coming of Christ. But, either way, we are coming to the end of the world. Are you born again?’

‘Mmm, I can’t rightly say that I am. I was baptized a long time ago, when I was too young to have much say in the matter. I’m not a churchgoer, except sometimes to see my friends married or buried. If I was washed clean once, I guess I’m a little dusty by now. I don’t suppose I qualify.’

‘No, I’m certain that you do not. Steve, the end of the world is coming and Christ is returning soon. The most urgent business you have – that anyone has! – is to take your troubles to Jesus, be washed in His Blood, and be born again in Him. Because you will receive no warning. The Trump will sound and you will either be caught up into the arms of Jesus, safe and happy forevermore, or you will be cast down into the fire and brimstone, there to suffer agonies through all eternity. You must be ready.’

‘Cripes! Alec, have you ever thought about becoming a preacher?’

‘I’ve thought about it.’

‘You should do more than think about it, you should be one. You said all that just like you believed every word of it.’

‘I do.

‘Thought maybe. Well, I’ll pay you the respect of giving it some hard thought. But in the meantime I hope they don’t hold Kingdom Come tonight because I’ve still got this load to deliver. Hazel! Let me have the check, dear; I’ve got to get the show on the road.’

Three steak dinners came to $3.90; six beers was another sixty cents, for a total of $4.50. Steve paid with a half eagle, a coin I had never seen outside a coin collection I wanted to look at this one but had no excuse.

Hazel picked it up, looked at it. ‘Don’t get much gold around here,? she remarked. ‘Cartwheels are the usual thing. And some paper, although the boss doesn’t like paper money. Sure you can spare this, Steve?’

‘I found the Lost Dutchman.’

‘Go along with you; I’m not going to be your fifth wife.’

‘I had in mind a temporary arrangement.’

‘Not that either – not for a five-dollar gold piece.’ She dug into an apron pocket, took out a silver half dollar. ‘Your change, dear.’

He pushed it back toward her. ‘What’ll you do for fifty cents?’

She picked it up, pocketed it. ‘Spit in your eye. Thanks. Night, folks. Glad you came in.’

During the thirty-five miles or so on into Flagstaff Steve asked questions of us about the worlds we had seen but made no comments. He talked just enough to keep us talking. He was especially interested in my descriptions of airships, jet planes, and aeroplanos, but anything technical fascinated him. Television he found much harder to believe than flying machines – well, so did I. But Margrethe assured him that she had seen television herself, and Margrethe is hard to disbelieve. Me, I might be mistaken for a con man. But not Margrethe. Her voice and manner carry conviction.

In Flagstaff, just short of Route 66, Steve pulled over to the side and stopped, left his engine running. ‘All out,’ he said, ‘if you insist on heading east. If you want to go north, you’re welcome.

I said, ‘We’ve got to get to Kansas, Steve.’

‘Yes, I know. While you can get there either way, Sixty-Six is your best bet… though why anyone should want to go to Kansas beats me. It’s that intersection ahead, there. Keep right and keep going; you can’t miss it. Watch out for the Santa Fe tracks. Where you planning to sleep tonight?’

‘I don’t have any plans. We’ll walk until we get another ride. If we don’t get an all-night ride and we get too sleepy, we can sleep by the side of the road – it’s warm.’

‘Alec, you listen to your Uncle Dudley. You’re not going to sleep on the desert tonight. It’s warm now; it’ll be freezing cold by morning. Maybe you haven’t noticed but we’ve been climbing all the way from Phoenix. And if the Gila monsters don’t get you, the sand fleas will. You’ve got to rent a cabin.’

‘Steve, I can’t rent a cabin.’

‘The Lord will provide. You believe that, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I answered stiffly, ‘I believe that.’ (But He also helps those who help themselves.)

‘So let the Lord provide. Maggie, about this end-of-the world business, do you agree with Alec?’

“I certainly don’t disagree!’

‘Mmm. Alec, I’m going to give it a lot of thought… starting tonight, by reading a Gideon Bible. This time I don’t want to miss the parade. You go on down Sixty-Six, look for a place saying ‘cabins’. Not ‘motel’ ‘ not ‘roadside inn’, not a word about Simmons mattresses or private baths – just ‘cabins’. If they ask more

than two dollars, walk away. Keep dickering and you might get it for one.’

I wasn’t listening very hard as I was growing quite angry. Dicker with what? He knew that I was utterly without funds – didn’t he believe me?

‘So I’ll say good-bye,’ Steve went on. ‘Alec, can you get that door? I don’t want to get out.’

‘I can get it.’ I opened it, stepped down, then remembered my manners. ‘Steve, I want to thank you for everything. Dinner, and beer, and a long ride. May the Lord watch over you and keep you.’

‘Thank you and don’t mention it. Here.’ He reached into a pocket, pulled out a card. ‘That’s my business card. Actually it’s my daughter’s address. When you get to Kansas, drop me a card, let me know how you made out.’

‘I’ll do that.’ I took the card, then started to hand Margrethe down.

Steve stopped her. ‘Maggie! Aren’t you going to kiss Ol’ Steve good-bye?’

‘Why, certainly, Steve!’ She turned back and half faced him on the seat.

‘That’s better, Alec, you’d better turn your back.’

I did not turn my back but I tried to ignore it, while watching out the corner of my eye.

If it had gone on one half-second longer, I would have dragged her out of that cab bodily. Yet I am forced to admit that Margrethe was not having attentions forced on her; she was cooperating fully, kissing him in a fashion no married woman should ever kiss another man.

I endured it.

At last it ended. I handed her down, and closed the door. Steve called out, ‘ ‘Bye, kids!’ and his truck moved forward. As it picked up speed he tooted his horn twice.

Margrethe said, ‘Alec, you are angry with me.’

‘No. Surprised, yes. Even shocked. Disappointed. Saddened.’

‘Don’t sniff at me!’

‘Eh?’

‘Steve drove us two hundred and fifty miles and bought us a fine dinner and didn’t laugh when we told him a preposterous story. And now you get hoity-toity and holier-than-thou because I kissed him hard enough to show that I appreciated what he had done for me and my husband. I won’t stand for it, do you hear?’

‘I just meant that -‘

‘Stop it! I won’t listen to explanations. Because you’re wrong! And now I am angry and I shall stay angry until you realize you are wrong. So think it over!’ She turned and started walking rapidly toward the intersection of 66 with 89.

I hurried to catch up. ‘Margrethe!’

She did not answer and increased her pace.

‘Margrethe!’ Eyes straight ahead –

‘Margrethe darling! I was wrong. I’m sorry, I apologize.

‘She stopped abruptly, turned and threw her arms around my neck, started to cry. ‘Oh, Alec, I love you so and you’re such a fub!’

I did not answer at once as my mouth was busy. At last I said, ‘I love you, too, and what is a fub?’

‘You are.’

‘Well – In that case I’m your fub and you’re stuck with me. Don’t walk away from me again.’

‘I won’t. Not ever.’ We resumed what we had been doing.

After a while I pulled my face back just far enough to whisper: ‘We don’t have a bed to our name and I’ve never wanted one more.’

‘Alec. Check your pockets.’

‘Huh?’

‘While he ‘Was kissing me, Steve whispered to me to tell you to check your pockets and to say, “The Lord will provide.”‘

I found it in my left-hand coat pocket: a gold eagle. Never before had I held one in my hand. It felt warm and heavy.

Chapter 16

Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?
Job 4:17

Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred.
Job 6:24

AT A drugstore in downtown Flagstaff I exchanged that gold eagle for nine cartwheels, ninety-five cents in change, and a bar of Ivory soap. Buying soap was Margrethe’s idea. ‘Alec, a druggist is not a banker; changing money is something he may not want to do other than as part of a sale. We need soap. I want to wash your underwear and mine, and we both need baths… and I suspect that, at the sort of cheap lodging Steve urged us to take, soap may not be included in the rent.’

She was right on both counts. The druggist raised his eyebrows at the ten-dollar gold piece but said nothing. He took the coin, let it ring on the glass top of a counter, then reached behind his cash register, fetched out a small bottle, and subjected the coin to the acid test.

I made no comment. Silently he counted out nine silver dollars, a half dollar, a quarter, and two dimes. Instead of pocketing the coins at once, I stood fast, and subjected each coin to the same ringing test he had used, using his glass counter. Having done so, I pushed one cartwheel back at him.

Again he made no comment – he had heard the dull ring, of that putatively silver coin as well as I. He rang up ‘No Sale’, handed me another cartwheel (which rang clear as a bell), and put the bogus coin somewhere in the back of the cash drawer. Then he turned his back on me.

At the outskirts of town, halfway to Winona, we found a place shabby enough to meet our standards. Margrethe conducted the dicker, in Spanish. Our host asked five dollars. Marga called on the Virgin Mary and three other saints to witness what was being done to her. Then she offered him five pesos.

I did not understand this maneuver; I knew she had no pesos on her. Surely she would not be intending to offer those unspendable ‘royal’ pesos I still carried?

I did not find out, as our host answered with a price of three dollars and that is final, Señora, as God is my witness.

They settled on a dollar and a half, then Marga rented clean sheets and a blanket for another fifty cents – paid for the lot with two silver dollars but demanded pillows and ‘ clean pillow-cases to seal the bargain. She got them but the patrón asked something for luck. Marga added a dime and he bowed deeply and assured us that his house was ours.

At seven the next morning we were on our way, rested, clean, happy and hungry. A half hour later we were in Winona and much hungrier. We cured the latter at a little trailer-coach lunchroom: a stack of wheat cakes, ten cents; coffee, five cents no charge for second cup, no limit on butter or syrup.

I Margrethe could not finish her hot cakes- they were lavish – so we swapped plates and I salvaged what she had left.

A sign on the wall read: CASH WHEN SERVED – NO TIPPING – ARE YOU READY FOR

JUDGMENT DAY? The cook-waiter (and owner, I think) had a copy of The Watch Tower propped up by his range. I asked, ‘Brother, do you have any late news on when to expect Judgment Day?’

‘Don’t joke about it. Eternity is a long time to spend in the Pit.’

I answered, ‘I was not joking. By the signs and portents I think we are in the seven-year period prophesied in the eleventh chapter of Revelation, verses two and three. But I don’t know how far we are into it.’

‘We’re already well into the second half,’ he answered.

‘The two witnesses are now prophesying and the antichrist is abroad in the land. Are you in a state of

grace? If not, you had better get cracking.’

I answered, ‘”Therefore be ye also ready: for such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”‘

‘You’d better believe it!’

‘I do believe it. Thanks for a good breakfast.’

‘Don’t mention it. May the Lord watch over you.’

‘Thank you. May He bless and keep you.’ Marga and I left.

We headed ‘ cast again. ‘How is my sweetheart?’

‘Full of food and happy.’

‘So am I. Something you did last night made me especially happy.’

‘Me, too. But you always do, darling man. Every time.’

‘Uh, yes, there’s that. Me, too. Always. But I meant something you said, earlier. When Steve asked, if you agreed with me about Judgment Day and you told him you did agree. Marga, I can’t tell you how much it has worried me that you have not chosen to be received back into the arms of Jesus. With Judgment Day rushing toward us and no way to know the hour – well, I’ve worried. I do worry. But apparently you are finding your way back to the light but had not yet discussed it with me.’

We walked perhaps twenty paces while Margrethe did not say anything.

At last she said quietly, ‘Beloved, I would put your mind at rest. If I could. I cannot.’

‘So? I do not understand. Will you explain?’

‘I did not tell Steve that I agreed with you. I said to him that I did not disagree.’

‘But that’s the same thing!’

‘No, darling. What I did not say to Steve but could have said, in, full honesty is that I will never publicly disagree with my husband about anything. Any disagreement with you I will discuss with you in private. Not in Steve’s presence. Not anyone’s.’

I chewed that over, let several possible comments go unsaid – at last said, ‘Thank you, Margrethe.’

‘Beloved, I do it for my own dignity as well as for yours. All my life I have hated the sight of husband and wife disagreeing – disputing – quarreling in public. If you say that the sun is covered with bright green puppy dogs, I will not disagree in public.’

Ah, but it is!’

‘Sir?’ She stopped, and looked startled.

‘My good Marga. Whatever the problem, you always find a gentle answer. If I ever do see bright green puppy dogs on the face of the sun, I will try to remember to discuss it with you in private, not face you with hard decisions in public. I love you. I read too much into what you said to Steve because I really do worry.’

She took my hand and we walked a bit farther without talking.

‘Alec?’

‘Yes, my love?’

‘I do not willingly worry you. If I am wrong and you are going to the Christian Heaven, I do want to go I with you. If this means a return to faith in Jesus – and it seems that it does – then that is what I want. I will try. I cannot promise it, as faith is not a matter of simple volition. But I will try.’

I stopped to kiss her, to the amusement of a carload of men passing by. ‘Darling, more I cannot ask. Shall we pray together?’

‘Alec, I would rather not. Let me pray alone – and I will! When it comes time to pray together, I will tell you. I

Not long after that we were picked up by a ranch couple who took us into Winslow. They dropped us there without asking any questions and without us offering any information, which must set some sort of record.

Winslow is much larger than Winona; it is a respectable town as desert communities go – seven thousand at a guess. We found there an opportunity to carry out something Steve had indirectly suggested and that we had discussed the night before.

Steve was correct; we were not dressed for the desert. True, we had had no choice, as we had been caught by a world change. But I did not see another man wearing a business suit in the desert. Nor did we see Anglo women dressed in women’s suits. Indian women and Mexican women wore skirts, but Anglo women wore either shorts or trousers – slacks, jeans, cutoffs, riding pants, something. Rarely a skirt, never a suit.

Furthermore our suits were not right even as city wear. They looked as out of place as styles of the Mauve Decade would look. Don’t ask me how as I am no expert on styles, especially for women. The suit that I wore had been both smart and expensive when worn by my patrón, Don Jaime, in Mazatlán in an I other world… but on me, in the Arizona desert in this world, it was something out of skid row.

In Winslow we found just the shop we needed: SECOND WIND – A Million Bargains – All Sales Cash, No Guarantees, No Returns – All Used Clothing Sterilized Before Being Offered For Sale. Above this were the same statements in Spanish.

An hour later, after much picking over of their stock and-some heavy dickering by Margrethe, we were dressed for the desert. I was wearing khaki pants, a shirt to match, and a straw hat of vaguely western style. Margrethe was wearing considerably less: shorts that were both short and tight – indecently so – and, an -upper garment that was less than a bodice but slightly more than a brassière. It was termed a ‘halter’.

When I saw Marga in this outfit, I whispered to her, ‘I positively will not permit you to appear in public in that shameless costume.’

She answered, ‘Dear, don’t be a fub so early in the day. It’s too hot.’

‘I’m not joking. I forbid you to buy that.’

‘Alec, I don’t recall asking your permission.’

‘Are you defying me?’

She sighed. ‘Perhaps I am. I don’t want to. Did you get your razor?’

‘You saw me!’

‘I have your underpants and socks. Is there anything more you need now?’

‘No. Margrethe! Quit evading me!’

‘Darling, I told you that I will not quarrel with you in public. This outfit has a wrap-around skirt; I was about to put it on. Let me do so and settle the bill. Then we can go outside and talk in private.’

Fuming, I went along with what she proposed. I might as well admit that, under her careful management, we came out of that bazaar with more money than we had had when we came in. How? That suit from my patrón, Don Jaime, that looked so ridiculous on me, looked just right on the owner of the shop – in fact he resembled Don Jaime. He had been willing to swap, even, for what I needed – khaki shirt and pants and straw hat.

But Margrethe insisted on something to boot. She demanded five dollars, got two.

I learned, as she settled our bill, that she had wrought similar magic in getting rid of that tailored suit she no longer needed. We entered the shop with $7.55; we left it with $8.80… and desert outfits for each of us, a comb (for two), a toothbrush (also for two), a knapsack, a safety razor, plus a minimum of underwear and socks – all second hand but alleged to be sterilized.

I am not good at tactics, not with women. We were outside and down the highway to an open place where we could talk privately before Margrethe would talk to me and I did not realize that I had already lost.

Without stopping, she said, ‘Well, dear? You had something to discuss.’

‘Uh, with that skirt in place your clothing is acceptable. Barely. But you are not to appear in-public in those shorts. Is that understood?’

‘I intended to wear just the shorts. If the weather is warm. As it is.’

‘But, Margrethe, I told you not to -‘She was unsnapping the skirt, taking it off. ‘You are defying me!’

She folded it, up neatly. ‘May I place this in the knapsack? Please?’

‘You are deliberately disobeying me!’

‘But, Alec, I don’t have to obey you and you don’t have to obey me.’

‘But – Look, dear, be reasonable. You know I don’t usually give orders. But a wife must obey her husband. Are you my wife?’

‘You told me so. So I am until you tell me otherwise.’

‘Then it is your duty to obey me.’

‘No, Alec.’

‘But that is a wife’s first duty!’

‘I don’t agree.’

‘But – This is madness! Are you leaving me?’

‘No. Only if you divorce me.’

‘I don’t believe in divorce. Divorce is wrong. Against Scripture.’

She made no answer.

‘Margrethe… please put your skirt on.’

She said softly, ‘Almost you persuade me, dearest. Will you explain why you want me to do so?’

‘What? Because those shorts, worn alone, are indecent!’

‘I don’t see how an article of clothing can be indecent, Alec. A person, yes. Are you saying that I am indecent?’

‘Uh – You’re twisting my words. When you wear those shorts – without a skirt – in public, you expose so much of yourself that the spectacle is indecent. Right now, walking this highway, your limbs are fully exposed… to the people in that car that just passed, for example. They saw you. I saw them staring!’

‘Good. I hope they enjoyed it.’

‘What?’

‘You tell me that I am beautiful. But you could be prejudiced. I hope that my appearance is pleasing to other people as well.’

‘Be serious, Margrethe; we’re speaking of your naked limbs. Naked.’

‘You are saying my legs are bare. So they are. I prefer them bare when the weather is warm. What are you frowning at, dear? Are my legs ugly?’

(‘Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee!’) ‘Your limbs are beautiful, my love; I have told you so many times. But I have no wish to share your beauty.’

‘Beauty is not diminished by being shared. Let’s get back to the subject, Alec; you were explaining how my legs are indecent. If you can explain it. I don’t think you can.’

‘But, Margrethe, nakedness is indecent by its very nature. It inspires lewd thoughts.’

‘Really? Does seeing my legs cause you to get an erection?’

‘Margrethe!’

‘Alec, stop being a fub! I asked a simple question.’

‘An improper question.’ ‘

She sighed. ‘I don’t see how that question can possibly be improper between husband and wife. And I will never concede that my legs are indecent. Or that nakedness is indecent. I have been naked in front of hundreds of people -‘

‘Margrethe!’

She looked surprised. ‘Surely you know that?’

‘I did not know it and I am shocked to hear it.’

‘Truly, dear? But you know how well I swim.’

‘What’s that got to do with it? I swim well, too. But I don’t swim naked; I wear a bathing suit.’ (But I, was remembering most sharply the pool in Konge Knut – of course my darling was used to nude swimming. I found myself out on a limb.)

‘Oh. Yes. I’ve seen such suits, in Mazatlán. And in Spain. But, darling, we’re going astray again. The problem is wider than whether or not bare legs are indecent or whether I should have kissed Steve good-bye or even whether I must obey you. You are expecting me to be what I am not. I want to be your wife for many years, for -all my life – and I hope to share Heaven with you if Heaven is your

destination. But, darling, I am not a child, I am not a slave. Because I love you I wish to please you. But I will not obey an order simply because I am a wife.’

I could say that I overwhelmed her with the brilliance of my rebuttal. Yes, I could say that, but it would not be true. I was still trying to think of an answer when a car slowed down as it overtook us. I heard a whistle of the sort called ‘wolf’. The car stopped beyond us and backed up. Need a ride?’ a voice called out.

‘Yes!’ Margrethe answered, and hurried. Perforce, I did, too.

. It was a station wagon with a woman behind the wheel, a man riding with her. Both were my age or older. He reached back, opened the rear door. ‘Climb in!’

I handed Margrethe in, followed her and closed the door. ‘Got room enough?’ he asked. ‘If not, throw that junk on the floor. We never sit in the back seat, so stuff sort o’ gravitates to it. We’re Clyde and Bessie Bulkey.’

‘He’s Bulkey; I’m just well fed,’ the driver added.

‘You’re supposed to laugh at that; I’ve heard it before.’ He was indeed bulky, the sort of big-boned beefy man who is an athlete in school, then puts on weight later. His wife had correctly described both of them; she was not fat but carried some extra padding.

‘How do you do, Mrs Bulkey, Mr Bulkey. We’re Alec and Margrethe Graham. Thank you for picking us up.’

Don’t be so formal, Alec,’ she answered. ‘How far you going?’

‘Bessie, please keep one eye on the road.’

‘Clyde, if you don’t like the way I’m herding this heap, I’ll pull over and let you drive.’

‘Oh, no, no, you’re doing fine!’

‘Pipe down then, or I invoke rule K. Well, Alec?’

‘We’re going to Kansas.’

‘Coo! We’re not going that far; we turn north at Chambers. That’s just a short piece down the road, About ninety miles. But you’re welcome to that much. What are you going to do in Kansas?’

(What was I going to do in Kansas? Open an ice cream parlor… bring my dear wife back to the fold. Prepare for Judgment Day -) ‘I’m going to wash dishes.’

‘My husband is too modest,’ Margrethe said quietly. ‘We’re going to open a small restaurant and soda fountain in a college town. But on our way to that goal we are likely to wash dishes. Or almost any work.’

So I explained what had happened to us, with variations and omissions to avoid what they wouldn’t believe. ‘The restaurant was wiped out, our Mexican partner were dead, and we lost everything we had. I said “dishwashing” because that is the one job I can almost always find. But I’ll take a swing at ‘most anything.’

Clyde said, ‘Alec, with that attitude you’ll be back on, your feet before you know it.’

‘We lost some money, that’s all. We’re not too old to start over again.’ (Dear Lord, will You hold off Judgment Day long enough for me to do it? Thy will be done. Amen.)

Margrethe reached over and squeezed my hand. Llyde noticed it. He had turned around in his seat so that he faced us as well as his wife. ‘You’ll make it,’ he said. ‘With your wife backing you, you’re bound to make it.’

I think so. Thank you. ‘I knew why he was turned to face us: to stare at Margrethe. I wanted to tell him to keep his eyes to himself but, under the circumstances, I could not. Besides that, it was clear that Mr and Mrs Bulkey saw nothing wrong with the way my beloved was dressed; Mrs Bulkey was dressed the same way, only more so. Or less so. Less costume, more bare skin. I must admit, too, that,’ while she was not the immortal beauty Margrethe is, she was quite comely.

At Painted Desert we stopped, got out, and stared at the truly unbelievable natural beauty. I had seen it once before; Margrethe had never seen it and was breathless. Clyde told me that they always stopped, even though they had seen it hundreds of times.

Correction: I had seen it once before in another world. Painted Desert tended to prove what I had strongly suspected: It was not Mother Earth that changed in these wild changes; it was man and his works – and even those only, in part. But the only obvious explanation seemed to lead straight to paranoia. If so, I must not surrender to it; I must take care of Margrethe.

Clyde bought us hot dogs and cold drinks and brushed aside my offer to pay. When we got back into their car, Clyde took the wheel and invited Margrethe to ride up front with him. I was not pleased but could not show it, as Bessie promptly said, ‘Poor Alec! Has to put up with the old bag. Don’t sulk, dear; it’s only twenty-three miles to the turn-off for Chambers . . . or less than twenty-three minutes the way Clyde drives.’

This time Clyde took thirty minutes. But he waited and made sure that we had a ride to Gallup.

We reached Gallup long before dark. Despite $8.80 in our pockets, it seemed time to look for dirty dishes. Gallup has almost as many motels and cabin courts as it ‘has Indians and almost half of these hostelries have restaurants. I checked a baker’s dozen before I found one that needed a dishwasher.

Fourteen days later we were in Oklahoma City. If you think that is slow time, you are correct; it is less than fifty miles a day. But plenty had happened and I was feeling decidedly paranoid – world change after world change and always timed to cause me maximum trouble.

Ever seen a cat play with a mouse? The mouse never has a chance. If he has even the brains the good Lord gives a mouse, he knows that. Nevertheless the mouse keeps on trying… and is hauled back every time.

I was the mouse.

Or we were the mice, for Margrethe was with me… and she was all that kept me going. She didn’t complain and she didn’t quit. So I couldn’t quit.

Example: I had figured out that, while paper money was never any good after a world change, hard money, gold and silver, would somehow be negotiable, as bullion if not coin. So, when I got a chance to lay hands on hard money, I was stingy with it and refused to take paper money in change for hard money.

Smart boy. Alec, you’re a real brain.

So on our third day in Gallup Marga and I took a nap in a room paid for by dishwashing (me) and by cleaning rooms (Margrethe). We didn’t intend to go to sleep; we simply wanted to rest a bit before eating; it had been a long, hard day. We lay down on top of the bedspread.

I was just getting relaxed when I realized that something hard was pressing against my spine. I roused enough to figure out that our hoarded silver dollars had slipped out of my side pocket when I had turned over. So I eased my arm out from under Marga’s head, retrieved the dollars, counted them, added the, loose change, and placed it all on the bedside table a foot from my head, then got horizontal again, slid my arm under Marga’s head and fell right to sleep.

When I woke up it was pitch dark.

I came wide awake. Margrethe was still snoring softly on my arm. I shook her a little. ‘Honey. Wake up.’

‘Mrrf?’

‘It’s late. We may have missed dinner

She came quickly awake. ‘Can you switch on the bed lamp?’ ‘

I fumbled at the bedside table, nearly fell out of bed. ‘Can’t find the pesky thing. It’s dark as the inside of a pile of coal.’ Wait a sec, I’ll get the overhead light.’

I got cautiously off the bed, headed for the door, stumbled over a chair, could not find the door – groped for it, did find it, groped some more and found a light. switch by it. The overhead light came on.

For a long, dismal moment neither of us said anything. Then I said, inanely and unnecessarily, ‘They did it again.’

The room had the characterless anonymity of any cheap motel room anywhere. Nevertheless it was different in details from the room in which we had gone to sleep.

And our hoarded silver dollars were gone.

Everything but the clothes we were wearing was gone knapsack, clean socks, spare underwear, comb, safety razor, everything. I inspected, made certain.

‘Well, Marga, what now?’

‘Whatever you say, sir.’

‘Mmm. I don’t think they’ll know me in the kitchen. But they still might let me wash dishes.’

‘Or they may need a waitress.’

The door had a spring lock and I had no key, so I left it an inch ajar. The door led directly outdoors and looked across a parking court at the office – a corner room with a lighted sign reading OFFICE – all commonplace except that it did not match the appearance of the motel in which we had been working. In that establishment the manager’s office had been in the front end of a central, building, the rest of that central building being the coffee shop.

Yes, we had missed dinner.

And breakfast. This motel did not have a coffee shop.

‘Well, Marga?’

‘Which way is Kansas?’

‘That way… I think. But we have two choices. We can go back into the room, go to bed properly, and sleep until daylight. Or we can get out there on the highway and try to thumb a ride. In the dark.’

‘Alec, I see only one choice. If we go back inside and go to bed, we’ll get up at daylight, some hours hungrier and no better off. Maybe worse off, if they catch us sleeping in a room we didn’t pay for

‘I washed an awful lot of dishes!’

‘Not here, you didn’t. Here they might send for the police.’

We started walking.

That was typical of the persecution we suffered in trying to get to Kansas. Yes, I said ‘persecution’. If

paranoia consists in believing that the world around you is a conspiracy against you, I had become paranoid. But it was either a ‘sane paranoia (if you will pardon the Irishism), or I was suffering from delusions so monumental that I should be locked up and treated.

Maybe so. If so, Margrethe was part of my delusions an answer I could not accept. It could not be folie à deux; Margrethe was sane in any world.

It was the middle of the day before we got anything to eat, and by then I was beginning to see ghosts where a healthy man would see only dust devils. My hat had gone where the woodbine twineth and the New Mexico sun on my head was not helping my state.

A carload of men from a construction site picked us up and took us into Grants, and bought us lunch before they left us there. I may be certifiably insane but I am not stupid; we owe that ride and that meal to the fact that Margrethe in shorts indecently tight, is a sight that attracts the attention of men. That gave me plenty to think about while I enjoyed (and I did enjoy it!) that lunch they bought us. But I kept my ruminations to myself.

After they left us I said, ‘East?’

‘Yes, sir. But first I would like to check the public library. If there is one.’

‘Oh, yes! Surely.’ Earlier, in the world of our friend Steve, the lack of air travel had caused me to suspect that Steve’s world might be the world where Margrethe was born (and therefore the home of ‘Alec Graham’ as well). In Gallup we had checked on this at the public library – I had looked up American history in an encyclopedia while Marga checked on Danish history. It took us each about five minutes to determine that Steve’s world was not the world Marga was born in. I found that Bryan had been elected in 1896 but had died in office, succeeded by his vice president, Arthur Sewall – and that was all I needed to know; I then simply raced through presidents and wars I had never, heard of.

Margrethe had finished her line of investigation with her nose twitching with indignation. Once outside where we didn’t have to whisper I asked her what was troubling her. ‘This isn’t your world, dear; I made sure of that.’

‘It certainly isn’t!’

‘But we didn’t have anything but a negative to go on. There may be many worlds that have no aeronautics of any sort.’

‘I’m glad this isn’t my world! Alec, in this world Denmark is part of Sweden. Isn’t that terrible?’

Truthfully I did not understand her upset. Both countries are Scandinavian, pretty much alike – or so it seemed to me. ‘I’m sorry, dear. I don’t know much about such things,’ (I had been to Stockholm once, liked the place. It didn’t seem a good time to tell her so.)

‘And that silly book says that Stockholm is the capital and that Carl Sixteenth is king. Alec, he isn’t even royal! And now they tell me he’s my king!’

‘But, sweetheart, he’s not your king. This isn’t even your world.’

‘I know. Alec? If we have to settle here – if the world doesn’t change again – couldn’t I be naturalized?’

‘Why, yes. I suppose so.’

She sighed. ‘I don’t want to be a Swede.’

I kept quiet. There were some things I couldn’t help her with.

So in Grants we again went to a public library lo see what the latest changes had done to the world. Since we had seen no aeroplanos and no dirigibles, again it was possible that we were in Margrethe’s world. This time I looked first under ‘Aeronautics’ – did not find, dirigibles but did find flying machines… invented by Dr Alberto Santos Dumont of Brazil early in this century – and I was bemused by the inventor’s name, as, in my world, he had been a pioneer in dirigibles second only to Count von Zeppelin. Apparently the doctor’s. aerodynes were primitive compared with jet planes, or even aeroplanos; they seemed to be curiosities rather than commercial vehicles. I dropped it and turned to American history, checking first on William, Jennings Bryan.

I couldn’t, find him at all. Well, I had known that this was not my world.

But Marga was all smiles, could hardly wait to get outside the no-talking area to tell me about it. ‘In this world Scandinavia is all one big country… and Kobenhavn is its capital!’

‘Well, good!’

‘Queen Margrethe’s son Prince Frederik was crowned King Eric Gustav – no doubt to please the outlanders. But he is true Danish royalty and a Dane right down to his skull bone. This is as it should be!’

I tried to show her, that I was happy, too. Without a cent between us, with no idea where we would sleep that night, she was delighted as a child at Christmas… over an event that I could not see mattered at all.

Two short rides got us into Albuquerque and I decided that it was prudent to stay there a bit – it’s a big place even if we had to throw ourselves On Salvation Army charity. But I quickly found a job as a dishwasher in the Coffee shop of the local Holiday Inn and Margrethe went to work as a waitress in the same shop.

We had been working there less than two hours when she came back to the scullery and slid something into my hip pocket while I was bent over a sink. ‘A present for you, dear!’

I turned around. ‘Hi, Gorgeous.’ I checked my pocket – a safety razor of the travel sort – handle unscrews, and razor and handle’ and blades, all fit into a waterproof case smaller than a pocket Testament, and intended to be carried in a pocket. ‘Steal it?’

‘Not quite. Tips. Got it at the lobby notions stand. Dear, at your first break I want you to shave.’

‘Let me clue you, doll. You get hired for your looks. I get hired for my strong back, weak mind, and docile–disposition. They don’t care how I look.’

‘But I do.’

‘Your slightest wish is my command. Now get out of here; you’re slowing up production.’

That night Margrethe explained why she had bought me a razor ahead of anything else. ‘Dear, it’s not just because I like your face smooth and your hair short – although I do! These Loki tricks have kept on and each time, we have to find work at once just to eat. You say that nobody cares how a dishwasher looks… but I say looking clean and neat helps in getting hired for any job, and can’t possibly hurt.

‘But there is another reason. As a result of these changes, you’ve had to let your whiskers grow once, twice – I can count five times, once for over three days. Dearest, when you are freshly shaved, you stand tall and look happy. And that makes me happy.’

Margrethe made for me a sort of money belt – actually a cloth pocket and a piece of cloth tape – which she wanted me to wear in bed. ‘Dear, we’ve lost anything we didn’t have on us whenever a shift took place. I want you to put your razor and our hard money into this when you undress for bed.’

‘I don’t think we can outwit Satan that easily.’

‘Maybe not. We can try. We come through each change with the clothes we are wearing at the time and with whatever we have in our pockets. This seems to fit the rules.’

‘Chaos does not have rules.’

‘Perhaps this is not chaos. Alec, if you won’t wear this to bed, do you mind if I do?’

‘Oh, I’ll wear it. It won’t stop Satan if he really wants to take it away from us. Nor does it really worry me. Once he dumped us mother naked into the Pacific and we pulled out of it – remember? What does worry me is – Marga, have you noticed that every time we have gone through a change we’ve been holding each other? At least holding hands?’

‘I’ve noticed.’

‘Change happens in the blink of an eye. What happens if we’re not together, holding each other? At least touching? Tell me.’

She kept quiet so long that I knew she did not intend to answer.

I ‘Uh huh,’ I said. ‘Me, too. But we can’t be Siamese twins, touching all the time. We have to work. My darling, my life, Satan or Loki or whatever bad spirit is doing this to us, can separate us forever simply by picking any instant when we are not touching.’

‘Alec.’

‘Yes, my love?’

‘Loki has been able to do this to us at any moment for a long time. It has not happened.’

‘So it may happen the next second.’.

‘Yes. But it may not happen at all.’

We moved on, and suffered more changes. Margrethe’s precaution’s did seem to work – although in one change they seemed to work almost too well; I barely missed a jail sentence for unlawful possession of silver coins. But a quick change (the quickest we had seen) got rid of the charge, the evidence, and the complaining witness. We found ourselves in a strange courtroom and were quickly evicted for lacking tickets entitling us to remain there.

But the razor stayed with me; no cop or sheriff or marshal seemed to want to confiscate that.

We were moving on by our usual method (my thumb and Margrethe’s lovely legs; I had long since admitted to myself that I might as well enjoy the inevitable) and had been dropped in a pretty part of – Texas, it must have been – by a trucker who had turned north off 66 on ‘a side road.

We had come out of the desert into low green hills. It was a beautiful day but we were tired, hungry, sweaty, and dirty, for our persecutors – Satan or whoever – had outdone themselves: three changes in thirty-six hours.

In one day I had had two dishwashing jobs in the same town at the same address… and had collected nothing. It is difficult to collect from The Lonesome Cowboy Steak House when it turns into Vivian’s Grill in front of your eyes. The same was true three hours later when Vivian’s Grill melted into a used-car lot. The only thing good about these shocks was that by great good fortune (or conspiracy?) Margrethe was with me each time – in one case she had come to get me and was waiting with me while my boss was figuring my time, in the other she had been working with me.

The third change did us out of a night’s lodging that had already been, paid for in kind by Margrethe’s labor.

So when that trucker dropped us, we were tired and hungry and dirty and my paranoia had reached a new high.

We had been walking a few hundred yards when we came to a sweet little stream, a, sight in Texas precious beyond all else.

We stopped on the culvert bridging it. ‘Margrethe, how would you like to wade in that?’

‘Darling, I’m going to do more than wade in it, I’m going to bathe in it.’

‘Hmm – Yes, go under the fence, along the stream about fifty, seventy-five yards, and I don’t think anyone could see us from the road.’

‘Sweetheart, they can line up and cheer if they want to; I’m going to have a bath. And – That water looks clean. Would it be safe to drink?’

‘The upstream side? Certainly. We’ve taken worse chances every day since the iceberg. Now if we had something to eat – Say, your hot fudge sundae. Or would you prefer scrambled eggs?’ I held up the lower wire of the fence to let her crawl under. I

‘Will you settle for an Oh Henry bar?’

‘Make that a Milky Way,’ I answered, ‘if I have my druthers.’

‘I’m afraid you don’t, dear. An Oh Henry bar is all there is.’ She held the wire for me.

‘Maybe we’d better stop talking about food we don’t have,’ I said, and crawled under – straightened up and added, ‘I’m ready to eat raw skunk.’

‘Food we do have, dear man. I have an Oh Henry in my tote.’

I stopped abruptly. ‘Woman, if you’re joking, I’m going to beat you.’

‘I’m not joking.’

‘In Texas it is legal to correct a wife with a stick not ,thicker than one’s thumb.’ I held up my thumb. ‘Do you see one about this size?’

‘I’ll find one.’

‘Where did you get a candy bar?’

‘That roadside stop where Mr Facelli treated us to coffee and doughnuts.’ I

Mr Facelli had been our middle-of-the-night ride just before the truck that had dropped us. Two small cake doughnuts each and the sugar and cream for coffee had been our only calories for twenty-four hours.

‘The beating can wait. Woman, if you stole it, tell me about it later. You really do have a real live Oh Henry? Or am I getting feverish?’

‘Alec, do you think I would steal a candy bar? I bought it from a coin machine while you and Mr Facelli were in the men’s room after we ate.’

‘How? We don’t have any money. Not from this world.’

‘Yes, Alec. But there was a dime in my tote, from two changes back. Of course it was not a good dime, strictly speaking. But I couldn’t see any real harm if the machine would take it. And it did. But I put it out of sight before you two got back… because I didn’t have three dimes and could not offer a candy bar to Mr Facelli.’ She added anxiously, ‘Do you think I cheated? Using that dime?’

‘It’s a technicality I won’t go into… as long as I get to share in the proceeds of the crime. And that makes me equally guilty. Uh… eat first, or bathe first?’

We ate first, a picnic banquet washed down by delicious creek water. Then we bathed, with much splashing and laughing – I remember it as one of the happiest times of my life. Margrethe had soap in her tote bag, too, and I supplied the towel, my shirt. First I wiped Margrethe with it, then I wiped me with it. The dry, warm air finished the job.

What happened immediately after was inevitable. I had never in my life made love outdoors, much less in bright daylight. If anyone had asked me, I would have said that for me it would be a psychological impossibility; I would be too inhibited, too aware of the indecency involved.

I am amazed and happy to say that, while keenly aware of the circumstances, I was untroubled at the time and quite able… perhaps because of Margrethe’s bubbling, infectious enthusiasm.

I have never slept naked on grass before, either. I think we slept about an hour.

When we woke up, Margrethe insisted on shaving me. I could not shave myself very well as I had no mirror, but she could and did, with her usual efficiency. We stood knee-deep in the water; I worked up soapsuds with my hands and slathered my face. She shaved and I renewed the lather as needed.

‘There,’ she said at last, and gave me a sign-off kiss, ‘you’ll do. Rinse off now and don’t forget your ears. I’ll find the towel. Your shirt.’ She climbed onto the bank while I leaned far over and splashed water on my face.

‘Alec -‘

‘I can’t hear you; the water’s running.’

‘Please, dear!’

I straightened up, wiped the water out of my eyes, looked around.

Everything we owned was gone, everything but my razor.

Chapter 17

Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.
 
Job 23:8-10

MARGRETHE SAID, ‘What did you do with the soap?’

I took a deep breath, sighed it out. ‘Did I hear you correctly? You’re asking what I did with the soap?’

‘What would you rather I said?’

‘Uh – I don’t know. But not that. A miracle takes place… and you ask me about a bar of soap.’

‘Alec, a miracle that takes place again and again and again is no longer a miracle; it’s just a nuisance. Too many, too much. I want to scream or break into tears. So I asked about the soap.’

I had been halfway to hysteria myself when Margrethe’s statement hit me like a dash of cold water. Margrethe? She who took icebergs and earthquakes in her stride, she who never whimpered in adversity… she wanted to scream?

‘I’m sorry, dear. I had the soap in my hands when you were shaving me. I did not have it in my hands when I rinsed my face. I suppose I laid it on the bank. But I don’t recall. Does it matter?’

‘Not really, I suppose. Although that cake of Camay, used just once, would be half our worldly goods if I could find it, this razor being the other half. You may have placed it on the bank, but I don’t see it.’

‘Then it’s gone. Marga, we’ve got urgent things to worry about before we’ll be dirty enough to need soap again. Food, Clothing, shelter.’ I scrambled up onto the bank. ‘Shoes. We don’t even have shoes. What do we do now? I’m stumped. If I had a wailing wall, I’d wail.’

‘Steady, dear, steady.’

‘Is it all right if I just whimper a little?’

She came close, put her arms around me, and kissed me. ‘Whimper all you want to, dear, whimper for both of us. Then let’s decide what to do.’

I can’t stay depressed with Margrethe’s arms around me. ‘Do you have any ideas? I can’t think of anything but picking our way back to the highway and trying to thumb a ride… which doesn’t appeal to me in the state I’m in. Not even a fig leaf. Do you see a fig tree?’

‘Does Texas have fig trees?’

‘Texas has everything. What do we do now?’

‘We go back to the highway and start walking.’

‘Barefooted? Why not stand still and wave our thumbs? We can’t go far enough barefooted to matter. My feet are tender.’

‘They’ll toughen up. Alec, we must keep moving. For our morale, love. If we give up, we’ll die. I know it.’

Ten minutes later we were moving slowly east on the highway. But it was not the highway we had left. This one was four lanes instead of two, with wide paved shoulders. The fence marking the right of way, instead of three strands of barbed wire, was chain-link steel as high as my head. We would have had a terrible time reaching the highway had it not been for the stream. By going back into the water and holding our breaths, we managed to slither under the fence. This left us sopping wet again (and no towel-shirt) but the warm air corrected that in a few minutes.

There was much more traffic on this highway than there had been on the one we had left, both freight and what seemed to be passenger cars. And it was fast. How fast I could not guess, but it seemed at least twice as fast as any ground transportation I had ever seen. Perhaps as fast as transoceanic dirigibles.

There were big-vehicles that had to be freight movers but looked more like railroad boxcars than they looked like lorries. And even longer than boxcars. But as I stared I figured out that each one was at least three cars, articulated. I figured this out by attempting to count wheels. Sixteen per car? Six more on some sort of locomotive up front, for a total of fifty-four wheels. Was this possible?

These behemoths moved with no sound but the noise of air rushing past them, plus a whoosh of tires against pavement. My dynamics professor would have approved.

In the lane nearest us were smaller vehicles that I assumed to be passenger cars, although I could not ‘see anyone inside. Where one would expect windows appeared to be mirrors or burnished steel. They were long and low and as sleekly shaped as an airship.

And now I saw that this was not one highway, but two. All the traffic on the pavement nearest us was going east; at least a hundred yards away another stream of traffic was going west. Still farther away, seen only in glimpses, was a limit fence for the northern side of the widest right of way I have ever seen.

We trudged along on the edge of the shoulder. I began to feel gloomy about the chances of being picked up. Even if they could see us (which seemed uncertain), how could they stop quickly enough to pick up someone on the highway? Nevertheless I waved the hitchhikers’ sign at each car.

I kept my misgivings to myself. After we had been walking a dismal time, a car that had just passed us dropped out of the traffic lane onto the shoulder, stopped at least a quarter of a mile ahead of us, then backed toward us at a speed I would regard as too fast if I were going forward. We got hastily off the shoulder.

It stopped alongside us. A mirrored section a yard wide and at least that high lifted up like a storm-cellar door, and I found myself looking into the passenger compartment. The operator looked out at us and grinned. ‘I don’t believe it!’

I tried to grin back. ‘I don’t believe it myself. But here we are. Will you give us a ride?’

‘Could be.’ He looked Margrethe up and down. ‘My, aren’t you the purty thing! What happened?’

Margrethe answered, ‘Sir, we are lost.’

‘Looks like. But how did you manage to lose your clothes, too? Kidnapped? Or what? Never mind, that can wait. I’m Jerry Farnsworth.’

I answered, ‘We’re Alec and Margrethe Graham.’

‘Good to meet you. Well, you don’t look armed – except for that thing in your hand, Miz Graham. What is it?’

She held it out to him. ‘A razor.’

He accepted it, looked at it, handed it back. ‘Durned if it isn’t. Haven’t seen one like that since I was too young to shave. Well, I don’t see how you can highjack me with that. Climb in. Alec, you can have the back seat; your sister can sit up here with me.’ Another section of the shell swung upward.

‘Thank you,’ I answered, thinking sourly about beggars and choosers. ‘Marga is not my sister, she’s my wife.’

‘Lucky man! Do you object to your wife riding with me?’

‘Oh, of course not!’

I think that answer would cause a tension meter to jingle. Dear, you’d better get back there with your husband.’

‘Sir, you invited me to sit with you and my husband voiced his approval.’ Margrethe slipped into the forward passenger seat. I opened my mouth and closed it, having found I had nothing to say. I climbed into the back seat, discovered that the car was bigger inside than out; the seat was roomy and comfortable. The doors closed down; the ‘mirrors’ now were windows.

‘I’m about to put her back into the flow,’ our host said, ‘so don’t fight the safeties. Sometimes this buggy bucks like a Brahma bull, six gees or better. No, wait a sec. Where are you two going?’ He looked at Margrethe.

‘We’re going to Kansas, Mr Farnsworth.’

‘Call me Jerry, dear. In your skin?’

‘We have no clothing, sir. We lost it.’

I added, ‘Mr Farnsworth – Jerry – we’re in a distressed state. We lost everything. Yes, we are going to Kansas, but first we must find clothes somewhere – Red Cross, maybe, I don’t know. And I’ve got to find a job and make us some money. Then we’ll go to Kansas.’

‘I see. I think I do. Some of it. How are you going to get to Kansas?’

‘I had in mind continuing straight on to Oklahoma City, then north. Stick to the main highways. Since we’re hitchhiking.’

‘Alec, you really are lost. See that fence? Do you know the penalty for a pedestrian caught inside that fence?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Ignorance is bliss. You’ll be much better off on the small side roads where hitching is still legal, or at least tolerated. If you’re for Oke City, I can help you along. Hang on.’ He did something at controls in front of him. He didn’t touch the wheel because there wasn’t any wheel to touch. Instead there were two hand grips.

The car vibrated faintly, then jumped sideways. I felt as if I had fallen into soft mush and my skin tingled as with static electricity. The car bucked like a small boat in a heavy sea, but that ‘soft mush’ kept me from being battered about. Suddenly it quieted down and only that faint vibration continued. The landscape was streaking past.

‘Now,’ said Mr Farnsworth, ‘tell me about it.’

‘Margrethe?’

‘Of course, dearest. You must.’

‘Jerry… we’re from another world.’

‘Oh, no!’ He groaned. ‘Not another flying saucer! That makes four this week. That’s your story?’

‘No, no!’ I’ve never seen a flying saucer. We’re from earth, but… different. We were hitchhiking on Highway Sixty-Six, trying to reach Kansas -‘

‘Wait a minute. You said, “Sixty-Six”.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘That’s what they used to call this road before they re-built it. But it hasn’t been called anything but Interstate Forty for, oh, over forty years, maybe fifty. Hey. Time travelers! Are you?’

‘What year is this?’ I asked.

‘Nineteen-ninety-four.’

‘That’s our year, too. Wednesday the eighteenth of May. Or was this morning. Before the change.’

‘It still is. But – Look, let’s quit jumping around. Start at the beginning, whenever that was, and tell me how you wound up inside the fence, bare naked.’

So I told him.

Presently he said, ‘That fire pit. Didn’t burn you?’

‘One small blister.’

‘Just a blister. I reckon you would be safe in Hell.’

‘Look, Jerry, they really do walk on live coals.’

‘I know, I’ve seen it. In New Guinea. Never hankered to try it. That iceberg – Something bothers me. How does an iceberg crash into the side of a vessel? An iceberg is dead in the water, always. Certainly a ship can bump into one but damage should be to the bow. Right?’

‘Margrethe?’

‘I don’t know, Alec. What Jerry says sounds right. But it did happen.’

‘Jerry, I don’t know either. We were in a forward stateroom; maybe the whole front end was crushed in. But, if Marga doesn’t know, I surely do not, as I got banged on the head and went out like a light. Marga kept me afloat – I told you.’

I Farnsworth looked thoughtfully at me. He had swiveled his seat around to face both of us while I talked, and he had showed Margrethe how to unlock her chair so that it would turn, also, which brought us three into an intimate circle of conversation, knees almost touching – and left him with his back to the traffic. ‘Alec, what became of this Hergensheimer?’

‘Maybe I didn’t make that clear – it’s not too clear to me, either. It’s Graham who is missing. I am Hergensheimer.

When I walked through the fire and found myself in a different world, I found myself in Graham’s place, as I said. Everybody called me Graham and seemed to think that I was Graham – and Graham was missing. I guess you could say I took the easy way out… but there I was, thousands of miles from home, no money, no ticket, and nobody had ever heard of Alexander Hergensheimer.’ I shrugged and spread my hands helplessly. ‘I sinned. I wore

his clothes, I ate at his table, I answered to his name.’

‘I still don’t get the skinny of this. Maybe you look enough like, Graham to fool almost anyone… but your wife would know the difference. Margie?’

Margrethe looked into my eyes with sadness and love, and answered steadily, ‘Jerry, my husband is confused. A strange amnesia. He is Alec Graham. There is no Alexander Hergensheimer. There never was.’

I was left speechless. True, Margrethe and I had not discussed this matter for many weeks; true, she had never flatly admitted that I was not Alec Graham. I was learning again (again and again!) that one never won an argument with Margrethe. Any time I thought I had won, it always turned out that- she had simply shut up.

Farnsworth said to me, ‘Maybe that knock in the head, Alec?’

‘Look, that knock in the head was nothing – a few minutes’ unconsciousness, nothing more. And no gaps in my memory. Anyhow it happened two weeks after the fire walk. Jerry, my wife is a wonderful woman… but I must disagree with her on this. She wants to believe that I am Alec Graham because she fell in love with Graham before she ever met me. She believes it because she needs to believe it. But of course I know who I am: Hergensheimer. I admit that amnesia can have some funny effects… but there was one clue that I could not have faked, one that said emphatically that I, Alexander Hergensheimer, was not Alec Graham.’

I slapped my stomach, where a bay window had been. ‘Here is the proof: I wore Graham’s clothes, I told you. But his clothes did not fit me perfectly. At the time of the fire walk I was rather plump, too heavy, carrying a lot of flab right here.’ I slapped my stomach again. ‘Graham’s clothes were too tight around the middle for me. I had to suck in hard and hold my breath to fasten the waistband on any pair of his trousers. That could not happen in the blink of an eye, while walking through a fire pit. Nor did it. Two weeks of rich food in a cruise ship gave me that bay window… and it proves that I am not Alec Graham.’

Margrethe not only kept quiet, her expression said nothing. But Farnsworth insisted. ‘Margie?’

‘Alec, you were having exactly that trouble with your clothes before the fire walk. For the same reason. Too much rich food.’ She smiled. ‘I’m sorry to contradict you, my beloved… but I’m awfully glad you’re you.’

Jerry said, ‘Alec, many is the man who would walk through fire to get a woman to look at him that way just once. When you get to Kansas, you had better go to see the Menningers; you’ve got to get that amnesia untangled. Nobody can fool a woman about her husband. When she’s lived with him, slept with him, given him enemas and listened to his jokes, a substitution is impossible no matter how much the ringer may look like him. Even an identical twin could not do it. There are all those little things a wife knows and the public never sees.’

I said, ‘Marga, it’s up to you.’

She answered, ‘Jerry, my husband is saying that I must refute that – in part – myself. At that time I did not know Alec as well as a wife knows her husband. I was not his wife then; I was his lover – and I had been such only a few days.’ She smiled. ‘But you’re right in essence; I recognized him.’

Farnsworth frowned. ‘I’m getting mixed up again. We’re talking about either one man or two. This

Alexander Hergensheimer – Alec, tell me about him.’

‘I’m a Protestant, preacher, Jerry, ordained in the Brothers of the Apocalypse Christian Church of the One Truth – the Apocalypse Brethren as you hear us referred to. I was born on my grandfather’s farm outside Wichita on May twenty-second -‘

‘Hey, you’ve got, a birthday this week!’ Jerry remarked. Marga looked alert.

‘So I have. I’ve been too busy to think about it. – in nineteen-sixty. My parents and grandparents are dead; my oldest brother is still working the family farm -‘

‘That’s why you’re going to Kansas? -To find your brother?’

‘No. That farm is in another world, the one I grew up in.’

‘Then why are you going to Kansas?’

I was slow in answering. ‘I don’t have a logical answer. Perhaps it’s the homing instinct. Or it may be something like horses running back into a burning barn. I don’t know, Jerry. But I have to go back and try to find my roots.’

‘That’s a reason I can understand. Go on.’

I told him about my schooling, not hiding the fact that I had failed to make it in engineering – my switch to the seminary and my ordination on graduation, then my association with C.U.D. I did not mention Abigail, I did not mention that I hadn’t been too successful as a parson largely (in my private opinion) because Abigail did not like people and my parishioners did not like Abigail. Impossible to put all details into a short biography – but the fact is that I could not mention Abigail at all without throwing doubt on the legitimacy of Margrethe’s status and this I could not do.

‘That’s about it. If we were in my native world, you could phone C.U.D. national headquarters in Kansas

City, ‘Kansas, and check on me. We had had a successful year and I was on vacation. I took a dirigible, the Count von Zeppelin of North American Airlines, from Kansas City airport to San Francisco, to Hilo, to Tahiti, and there I joined the Motor Vessel Konge Knut and that about brings us up to date, as I’ve told you the rest.’

‘You sound kosher, you talk a good game – are you born again?’

‘Certainly! I’m afraid I’m not in a state of grace now… but I’m working on it. We’re in the Last Days, brother; it’s urgent. Are you born again?’

“Discuss it later. What’s the second law of thermodynamics?’

I made a wry face. ‘Entropy always increases. That’s the one that tripped me.’

‘Now tell me about Alec Graham.’

‘Not much I can tell. His passport showed that he was born in Texas, and he gave a law firm in Dallas as an address. For the rest you had better ask Margrethe; she knew him, I didn’t.’ (I did not mention an embarrassing million dollars. I could not explain it, so I left it out… and Marga had only my word for it; she had never seen it.)

‘Margie? Can you fill us in on Alec Graham?’

She was slow in answering. ‘I’m afraid I can’t add anything to what my husband has told you.’

‘Hey! You’re letting me down. Your husband gave a detailed description of Dr Jekyll; can’t you describe Mr Hyde? So far, he’s a zero. A mail drop in Dallas, nothing more.

‘Mr Farnsworth, I’m sure you’ve never been a shipboard stewardess -‘

‘Nope, I haven’t. But I was room steward in a cargo liner – two trips when I was a kid.’

‘Then you’ll understand. A stewardess knows many things about her passengers. She knows how often they bathe. She knows, how often they change their clothes. She knows how they smell – and everyone does smell, some good, some bad. She knows what sort of books they read – or don’t read. Most of all she knows whether or not they are truly gentlefolk, honest, generous, considerate, warmhearted. She knows everything one could need to know to judge a person. Yet she may not know a passenger’s occupation, home town, schooling, or any of those details that a friend would know.

‘Before the day of the fire walk I had been Alec Graham’s stewardess for four weeks. For the last two of those weeks I was his mistress and was ecstatically in love with him. After the fire walk it was many days before his amnesia let us resume our happy relationship – and then it did, and I was happy again. And now I have been his wife for four months – months of some adversity but the happiest time of my whole life. And it still is and I think it always will be. And that is all I know about my husband Alec Graham.’ She smiled at me and her eyes were brimming with tears, and I found that mine were, too.

Jerry sighed and shook his head. ‘This calls for a Solomon. Which I am not. I believe both your stories – and one of them can’t be correct. Never mind. My wife and I practice Muslim hospitality, something I learned in the late war. Will you accept our hospitality for a night or two? You had better say yes.’

Marga glanced at me; I said, ‘Yes!’

‘Good. Now to see if the boss is at home.’ He swiveled around to face forward, touched something. A few moments later a light came on and something went beep! once. His face lighted up and he spoke: ‘Duchess, this is your favorite husband.’

‘Oh, Ronny, it’s been so long.’

‘No, no. Try again.’

‘Albert? Tony? George, Andy, Jim -‘

‘Once more and get it right; I have company with me.’

‘Yes, Jerry?’

‘Company for dinner and overnight and possibly more.’

‘Yes, my love. How many and what sexes and when will you be home?’

‘Let me ask Hubert.’ Again he touched something. ‘Hubert says twenty-seven minutes. Two guests. The one seated by me is about twenty-three, give or take a bit, blonde, long, wavy hair, dark blue eyes, height about five seven, mass about one twenty, other basics I have not checked but about those of our daughter. Female. I am certain she is female as she is not wearing so much as a G-string.’

‘Yes, dear. I’ll scratch her eyes out. After I’ve fed her, of course.’

‘Good. But she’s no menace as her husband is with her and is watching her closely. Did I say that he is naked, too?’

You did not. Interesting.’

‘Do you want his basic statistic? If so, do you want it relaxed or at attention?’

‘My love, you are a dirty old man, I am happy to say. Quit trying to embarrass your guests.’

‘There is madness in my method, Duchess. They are naked because they have no clothes at all. Yet I suspect that they do embarrass easily. So please meet us at the gate with clothing. You have her statistics, except – Margie, hand me a foot. ‘Marga promptly put a foot up high, without comment. He felt it. ‘A pair of your sandals will fit, I think. Zapatos for him. Of mine.’

‘His other sizes? Never mind the jokes.’

‘He’s about my height and shoulders, but I am twenty pounds heavier, at least. So something from my skinny rack. If Sybil has a houseful of her junior barbarians, please use extreme prejudice to keep them away from the gate. These are gentle people; we’ll introduce them after they have a chance to dress.’

‘Roger Wilco, Sergeant Bilko. But it is time that you introduced them to me.

‘Mea culpa. My love, this is Margrethe Graham, Mrs Alec Graham.’

‘Hello, – Margrethe, welcome to our home.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Farnsworth

‘Katherine, dear. Or Kate.’

‘ “Katherine.” I can5t tell you how much you are doing for us… when we were so miserable!’ My darling started to cry.

She stopped it abruptly. ‘And this is my husband, Alec Graham.’

‘Howdy, Mrs Farnsworth. And thank you.’

‘Alec, you bring that girl straight here. I want to welcome her. Both of you.’

Jerry cut in. ‘Hubert says twenty-two minutes, Duchess.’

‘Hasta la vista. Sign off and let me get busy.’

‘End.’ Jerry turned his seat around. ‘Kate will find you a pretty to wear, Margie… although in your case there ought to be a law. Say, are you cold? I’ve been yacking so much I didn’t think of it. I keep this buggy cool enough for me, in clothes. But Hubert can change it to suit.’

‘I am a Viking, Jerry; I never get cold. Most rooms are too warm to suit me.’

‘How about you, Alec?’

‘I’m warm enough,’ I answered, fibbing only a little.

‘I believe -‘ Jerry started to say –

as the heavens opened with the most brilliant light imaginable, outshining day, and I was gripped by sudden grief, knowing that I failed to lead my beloved back to grace.

Chapter 18

Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
Job 1:9

Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
Job 11:7

I WAITED for the Shout.

My feelings were mixed. Did I want the Rapture? Was I ready to be snatched up into the loving arms of Jesus? Yes, dear Lord. Yes! Without Margrethe? No, no! Then you choose to be cast down into the Pit? Yes – no, but Make up your mind!

Mr Farnsworth looked up. ‘See that baby go!’

I looked up through the roof of the car. There was a second sun directly overhead. It seemed to shrink and lose brilliance as I watched it.

Our host went on, ‘Right on time! Yesterday we had a hold, missed the window, and had to reslot. When you’re sitting on the pad, and single-H is boiling away, even a hold for one orbit can kill your profit margin. And yesterday wasn’t even a glitch; it was a totally worthless re-check ordered by a Nasa fatbottom. Figures.’

He seemed to be talking English.

Margrethe said breathlessly, ‘Mr Farnsworth – Jerry what was it?’

‘Eh? Never seen a lift-off before?’

‘I don’t know what a lift-off is.’

‘Mm… yes. Margie, the fact that you and Alec are from another world – or worlds – hasn’t really soaked through My skull yet. Your world doesn’t have space travel?’

‘I’m not sure what you mean but I don’t think we do.’

I was fairly sure what he meant so I interrupted. ‘Jerry, you’re talking about flying to the moon, aren’t you? Like Jules Verne.’

‘Yes. Close enough.’

‘That was an ethership? Going to the moon? Golly Moses!’ The profanity just slipped out.

‘Slow down. That was not an ethership, it was an, unmanned freight rocket. It is not going to Luna; it is going only as far as Leo – low Earth orbit. Then it comes back, ditches off Galveston, is ferried back to North Texas Port, where it will lift again sometime next week. But some of its cargo will go on to Luna City or Tycho Under – and some may go as far as the Asteroids. Clear?’

‘Uh… not quite.’

‘Well, in Kennedy’s second term -‘

‘Who?’

‘John F. Kennedy. President. Sixty-one to sixty-nine.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m going to have to relearn history again. Jerry, the most confusing thing about being bounced around among worlds is not new technology, such as television or jet planes – or even space-travel ships. It is different history.’

‘Well – When we get home, I’ll find you an American history, and a history of space travel. A lot of them around the house; I’m in space up to my armpits – started with. model rockets as a kid. Now, besides Diana Freight Lines, I’ve got a piece of Jacob’s Ladder and the Beanstalk, both – just a tax loss at present but -‘

I think he caught sight of my face. ‘Sorry. You skim through the books I’ll dig out for you, then we’ll talk.’

Farnsworth looked back at his controls, punched something, blinked at it, punched again, and, said, ‘Hubert says that we’ll have the sound in three minutes twenty-one seconds.’

When the sound did arrive, I was disappointed. I had expected a thunderclap to match that incredible light. Instead it was a rumble that went on and on, then faded away without a distinct end.

A few minutes later the car left the highway, swung right in a large circle and went under the highway through a tunnel and came out on a smaller highway. We stayed on this highway (83, I noted) about five minutes, then there was a repeated beeping sound and a flash of lights. ‘I hear you,’ Mr Farnsworth said. ‘Just hold your horses.’ He swung his chair around and faced forward, grasped the two hand grips.

The next several minutes were interesting. I was reminded of something the Sage of Hannibal said: ‘If it warn’t for the honor, I’d druther uv walked.’ Mr Farnsworth seemed to regard any collision avoided by a measurable distance as less than sporting. Again and again that ‘soft mush’ saved us from bruises if not broken bones. Once that signal from the machinery went Bee-bee-beebeep! at him; he growled in answer: ‘Pipe down! You mind your business; I’ll mind mine,’ and subjected us to another near miss.

We turned off onto a narrow road, private I concluded, as there was an arch over the entrance reading FARNSWORTH’S FOLLY. We went up a grade. At the top, lost among trees, was a high gate that snapped out of the way as we approached it.

There we met Katie Farnsworth.

If you have read this far in this memoir, you know that I am in love with my wife. That is a basic, like the speed of light, like the love of God the Father. Know ye now that I learned that I could love another person, a woman, without detracting from my love for Margrethe, without wishing to take her from her lawful mate, without lusting to possess her. Or at least not much.

In meeting her I learned that five feet two inches is the perfect height for a woman, that forty is the perfect age, and that a hundred and ten pounds is the correct weight, just as for a woman’s voice contralto is the right register. That my own beloved darling is none of these is irrelevant; Katie Farnsworth makes them perfect for her by being herself content with what she is.

But she startled me first by the most graceful gesture of warm hospitality I have ever encountered.

She knew from her husband that we were utterly without clothes; she knew also from him that he felt that we were embarrassed by our state. So she had fetched clothing for each of us.

And she herself was naked.

No, that’s not right; I was naked, she was unclothed. That’s not quite right, either. Nude? Bare? Stripped? Undressed? No, she was dressed in her own beauty, like Mother Eve before the Fall. She made it seem so utterly appropriate that I wonder how I had ever acquired the delusion that freedom from clothing equals obscenity.

Those clamshell doors lifted; I got out and handed Margrethe out. Mrs Farnsworth dropped what she was carrying, put her arms around Margrethe and kissed her. ‘Margrethe! Welcome, dear.’

My darling hugged her back and sniffled again.

Then she offered me her hand. ‘Welcome to you, too, Mr Graham. Alec.’ I took her hand, did not shake it. Instead I handled it like rare china and bowed over it. I felt that I should kiss it but I had never learned how.

For Margrethe she had a summer dress the shade of Marga’s eyes. Its styling suggested the Arcadia of myth; one could imagine a wood nymph wearing it. It hung on the left shoulder, was open all the way down on the right but wrapped around with generous overlap. Both sides of this simple garment ended in a long sash ribbon; the end that went under passed through a slot, which permitted both ends to go all the way around Marga’s waist, then to tie at her right side.

It occurred to me that this was a fit-anyone dress. It would be tight or loose on any figure depending on how it was tied.

Katie had sandals for Marga in blue to match her dress.

For me she had Mexican sandals, zapatos, of lhe cutleather openwork sort that are almost as fit-anyone as that dress, simply by how they are tied. She offered me trousers and shirt that were superficially equivalent to those I had bought in Winslow at the SECOND WIND – but these were tailormade of summer-weight wool rather than mass-produced from cheap cotton. She also had for me socks that fitted themselves to my feet and knit shorts that seemed to be my size.

When she had dressed us, there was still clothing on the grass -hers. I then realized that she had walked to the gate dressed, stripped down there, and waited for us ‘dressed’ as we were.

That’s politeness.

Dressed, we all got into the car. Mr Farnsworth waited a moment before starting up his driveway. ‘Katie, our guests are Christians.’

Mrs Farnsworth seemed delighted. ‘Oh, how very interesting!’

‘So I thought. Alec? Verb. sap. Not many Christians in these parts. Feel free to speak your mind in front of Katie and me… but when anyone else is around, you may be more comfortable not discussing your beliefs. Understand me?’

‘Uh… I’m afraid I don’t.’ My head was in a whirl and I felt a ringing in my ears.

‘Well… being a Christian isn’t against the law here; Texas has freedom of religion. Nevertheless Christians aren’t at all popular and Christian worship is mostly underground. Uh, if you want to get in touch with your own people, I suppose we could manage to locate a catacomb. Kate?’

‘Oh, I’m sure we could find someone who knows. I can put out some feelers.’

‘If Alec says to, dear. Alec, you’re in no danger of being stoned; this country isn’t some ignorant redneck

backwoods. Or not much danger. But I don’t want you to be discriminated against or insulted.’

Katie Farnsworth said, ‘Sybil.’

‘Oh, oh! Yes. Alec our daughter is a good girl and as civilized as one can expect in a teenager. But she is an apprentice witch, a recent convert to the Old Religion and, being, both a convert and a teenager, dead serious about it. Sybil would not be rude to a guest – Katie brought her up properly. Besides, she knows I would skin her alive. But it would be a favor to me if you will avoid placing too much strain on her. As I’m sure you know, every teenager is a time bomb waiting to go off.’

Margrethe answered for me: ‘We will be most careful. This “Old Religion” – is this the worship of Odin?’

I felt a chill… when I was already discombobulated beyond my capacity. But our host answered, ‘No. Or at least I don’t think so. You could ask Sybil. If you are willing to risk having your ear talked off; she’ll try to convert you. Very intense.’

Katie Farnsworth added, ‘I have never heard Sybil mention Odin. Mostly she speaks just of “the Goddess”. Don’t Druids worship Odin? Truly I don’t know. I’m afraid Sybil considers us so hopelessly old-fashioned that she doesn’t bother to discuss theology with us.’

‘And let’s not discuss it now,’ Jerry added, and started us up the drive.

The Farnsworth mansion was long, low, and rambling, with a flavor of lazy opulence. Jerry swung us under a porte-cochère; we all got out. He slapped the top of his car as one might slap the neck of a horse. It moved away and turned the corner of the house as we went inside.

I’m not going to say much about their house as, while it was beautiful and Texas lavish, it would not necessarily appear any one way long enough to justify describing it; most of what we saw Jerry called ‘hollow grams’. How can I describe them? Frozen dreams? Three-dimensional, pictures? Let me put it this way: Chairs were solid. So were table tops. Anything else in that house, better touch it cautiously and find out, as it might be as beautifully there as a rainbow… and just as insubstantial.

I don’t know how these ghosts were produced. I think it is possible that the laws of physics in that world

were somewhat different from those of the Kansas of my youth.

Katie led us into what Jerry called their ‘family room’ and Jerry stopped abruptly. ‘Bloody Hindu whorehouse!’

It was a very large room with ceilings that seemed impossibly high for a one-storey ranch house. Every wall, arch, alcove, soffit, and beam was covered with sculptured figures. But such figures! I found myself blushing. These figures had apparently been copied from that notorious temple cavern in southern India, the one that depicts every possible vice of venery in obscene and blatant detail.

Katie said, ‘Sorry, dear! The youngsters were dancing in here.’ She hurried to the left, melted into one sculpture group and disappeared. ‘What will you have, Gerald?’

‘Uh, Remington number two.’

‘Right away.’

Suddenly the obscene figures disappeared, the ceiling lowered abruptly and changed to a

beam-and-plaster construction, one wall became a picture window looking out at mountains that belonged in Utah (not Texas), the wall opposite it now carried a massive stone fireplace with a goodly fire crackling in it, the furniture changed to the style sometimes called ‘mission’ and the floor changed to flagstones covered with Amerindian rugs.

‘That’s better. Thank you, Katherine. Sit down, friends – pick a spot and squat.’

I sat down, avoiding what was obviously the ‘papa’ chair – massive and leather upholstered. Katie and Marga took a couch together. Jerry satin that papa chair. ‘My love, what will you drink?’

‘Campari and soda, please.’

‘Sissy. And you, Margie?’

‘Campari and soda would suit me, too.’

‘Two sissies. Alec?’

‘I’ll go along with the ladies.’

‘Son, I’ll tolerate that in the weaker sex. But not from a grown man. Try again.’

‘Uh, Scotch and soda.’

‘I’d horsewhip you, if I had a horse. Podnuh, you have just one more chance.’

‘Uh… bourbon and branch?’

‘Saved yourself. Jack Daniel’s with water on the side. Other day, man in Dallas tried to order Irish whisky. Rode him out o’town on a rail. Then they apologized to him. Turned out he was a Yankee and didn’t know any better.’ All this time our host was drumming with his fingertips on a small table at his elbow. He stopped this fretful drumming and, suddenly, at the table by my chair appeared a Texas jigger of brown liquid and a tumbler of water. I found that the others had been served, too. Jerry raised his glass. ‘Save your Confederate money! Salud!’

We drank and he went on, ‘Katherine, do you know where our rapscallion is hiding?’

‘I think they are all in the pool, dear.’

‘So.’ Jerry resumed that nervous drumming. Suddenly there appeared in the air in front of our host, seated on a diving board that jutted out of nowhere, a young female. She was in bright sunlight although the room we were in was in cool shadow. Drops of water sprinkled on her. She faced Jerry, which

placed her back toward me. ‘Hi, Pip-squeak.’

‘Hi, Daddy. Kiss kiss.’

‘In a pig’s eye. When was the last time I spanked you?’

‘My ninth birthday. When I set fire to Aunt Minnie. What did I do now?’

‘By the great golden gawdy greasy gonads of God, what do you mean by leaving that vulgar, bawdy, pornic program running in the family room?’

‘Don’t give me that static, Daddy doll; I’ve seen your books.’

‘Never mind what I have in my private library; answer my question.’

‘I forgot to turn it off, Daddy. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s what the cow said to Mrs Murphy. But the fire burned on. Look, my dear, you know you are free to use the controls to suit yourself. But when you are through, you must put the display back the way you found it. Or, if you don’t know how. you must put it back to zero for the default display.’

‘Yes, Daddy. I just forgot.’

‘Don’t go squirming around like that; I’m not through chewing you out. By the big brass balls of Koshchei, where did you get that program?’

‘At campus. It was an instruction tape in my tantric yoga class.’

‘”Tantric yoga”? Swivel hips, you don’t need such a course. Does your mother know about this?’

Katherine moved in smoothly: ‘I urged her to take it, dear one. Sybil is talented, as we know. But raw talent is not I enough; she needed tutoring.’

‘So? I’ll never argue with your mother on this subject, so I withdraw to a previously prepared position. That tape. How did you come by it? You are familiar with the applicable laws concerning copyrighted material; we both remember the hooraw over that Jefferson Starship tape -‘

‘Daddy, you’re worse than an elephant! Don’t you ever forget anything?’

‘Never, and much worse. You are warned that anything you say may be taken down in writing and held against you at another time and place. How say you?’

‘I demand to see an attorney!’

‘Oh, so you did pirate it!’

‘Don’t you wish I had! So you could gloat. I’m sorry, Daddy, but I paid the catalog fee, in full, in cash, and the campus library service copied it for’ me. So there. Smarty.’

‘Smarty yourself. You wasted your money.’

‘I don’t think so. I like it.’

‘So do I. But you wasted your money. You should have asked me for it.’

‘Huh!’

‘Gotcha! I thought at first you had been picking locks in my study or working a spell on ’em. Pleased to hear that you were merely extravagant. How much?’

‘Uh… forty-nine fifty. That’s at student’s discount.’

‘Sounds fair; I paid sixty-five. All right. But if it shows up on your semester billing, I’ll deduct it from your allowance.

Just one thing, sugar plum – I brought two nice people home, a lady and a gentleman. We walk into the parlor. What had been the parlor. And these two gentlefolk are faced with the entire Kama Sutra, in panting, quivering color. What do you think of that?’

‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘So we’ll forget it. But it is never polite to shock people, especially guests, so let’s be more careful next time. Will you be at dinner?’

‘Yes. If I can be excused early and run, run, run. Date, Daddy.’

‘What time will you be home?’

‘Won’t. All-night gathering. Rehearsal for Midsummer Night. Thirteen covens.’

He sighed. ‘I suppose that I should thank the Three Crones that you are on the pill.’

‘Pill shmill. Don’t be a cube, Daddy; nobody ever gets pregnant at a Sabbat; everybody knows that.’

‘Everybody but me. Well, let us offer thanks that you are willing to have dinner with us.’ Suddenly she shrieked as she fell forward off the board. The picture followed her down.

She splashed, then came up spouting water. ‘Daddy! You pushed me!’

‘How could you say such a thing?’ he answered in self-righteous tones. The living picture suddenly vanished.

Katie Farnsworth said conversationally, ‘Gerald keeps trying to dominate his daughter. Hopelessly, of course. He should take her to bed and discharge his incestuous yearnings. But they are both too prissy for that.’

‘Woman, remind me to beat you.’

‘Yes, dearest. You wouldn’t have to force her. Make your intentions plain and she will burst into tears and surrender. Then both of you will have the best time of your lives. Wouldn’t you say so, Margrethe?’

‘I would say so. ‘

By then I was too numb to be shocked by Margrethe’s words.

‘Dinner was a gourmet’s delight and a social confusion. It was served in the formal dining hall, i.e., that same family room with a different program controlling the hollow grams. The ceiling was higher, the windows were tall, evenly spaced, framed by floor-length drapes, ‘and they looked out on formal gardens.

One piece of furniture wheeled itself in, and was not a hollow gram – or not much so. It was a banquet table that (so far as I know) was – in itself, pantry, stove, icebox – all of a well-equipped kitchen. That’s a conclusion, subject to refutation. All I can say is that I never saw a servant and never saw our hostess do any work. Nevertheless her husband congratulated her on her cooking – as well he might, and so did we.

Jerry did a little work; he carved a roast (prime rib, enough for a troop of hungry Boy Scouts) and he served the plates, serving them at his place. Once a plate was loaded, it went smoothly around to the person for whom it was intended, like a toy train on a track – but there was no train and no track.

Machinery concealed by hollow grams? I suppose so. But that simply covers one mystery with another.

(I learned later that a swank Texas household in that world would have had human servants conspicuously in sight. But Jerry and Katie had simple tastes.)

There were six of us at the table, Jerry at one end, Katie at the other; Margrethe sat on Jerry’s right, his daughter Sybil on his left; I was at the right of my hostess, and at her left was Sybil’s young man, her date. This put him opposite me, and I had Sybil on my right.

The young man’s name was Roderick Lyman Culverson III; he did not manage to catch my name. I have long suspected that the male of our species, in most cases, should be raised in a barrel and fed through the bung-hole. Then, at age eighteen, a solemn decision can be made: whether to take him out of the barrel, or to drive in the bung.

Young Culverson gave me no reason to change my opinion – and I would have voted to drive in the bung.

Early on, Sybil made clear that they were at the same campus. But he seemed to be as much a stranger to the Farnsworths as he was to us. Katie asked, ‘Roderick, are you an apprentice witch, too?’

He looked as if he had sniffed something nasty, but Sybil saved him from having to answer such a crude question. ‘Mothuh! Rod received his athame ages ago.’

‘Sorry I goofed,’ Katie said tranquilly. ‘Is that a diploma you get when you finish your apprenticeship?’

‘It’s a sacred knife, Mama, used in ritual. It can be used to -‘

‘Sybil! There are gentiles present.’ Culverson frowned at Sybil, then glared at me. I thought how well he would look with a black eye but I endeavored to keep my thoughts out of my face.

Jerry said, ‘Then you’re a graduate warlock, Rod?’

Sybil broke in again. ‘Daddy! The correct word is -‘

‘Pipe down, sugar plum! Let him answer for himself. Rod?’

‘That word is used only by the ignorant -‘

‘Hold it! I am uninformed on some subjects, and then I seek information, as I am now doing. But you don’t sit at my table and call me ignorant. Now can you answer me without casting asparagus?’

Culverson’s nostrils spread but he took a grip on himself. ‘”Witch” is the usual term for both male and female adepts in the Craft. “Wizard” is an acceptable term but is not technically exact; it means “sorcerer” or “magician”… but not all magicians are witches and not all witches practice magic. But “warlock” is considered to be offensive as well as incorrect because it is associated with Devil worship – and the Craft is not Devil worship – and the word itself by its derivation means “oath breaker” – and witches do not break oaths. Correction: The Craft forbids the breaking of oaths. A witch who breaks an oath, even to a gentile, is subject to discipline, even expulsion if the oath is that major. So I am not a “graduate warlock”. The correct designation for my present status is “Accepted Craftsman”, that is to say: “witch”.’

‘Well stated! Thank you. I ask forgiveness for using the term “warloc” to you and about you -‘ Jerry waited.

A long moment later Culverson said hastily, ‘Oh, certainly! No offense meant and none taken.’

‘Thank you. To add to your comments about derivations, “witch” drives from “wicca” meaning “wise”, and from “wicce” meaning “woman”… which may account for most witches being female and suggests that our ancestors may have known something that we don’t. In any case “the Craft” is the short way of saying “the Craft of Wisdom”. Correct?’

‘Eh Oh, certainly! Wisdom. That’s what the Old Religion is all about.’

‘Good. Son, listen to me carefully. Wisdom includes not getting angry unnecessarily. The Law ignores trifles and the wise man does, too. Such trifles as a young girl defining an athame among gentiles – knowledge that isn’t all that esoteric anyhow – and an old fool using a word inappropriately. Understand me?’

Again Jerry waited. Then he said very softly, ‘I said, “Do you understand me?” ‘

I Culverson took a deep breath. ‘I understood you. A wise I man ignores trifles.’

‘Good. May I offer you another slice of the roast?’

Culverson kept quiet for some time then. As did I. As did Sybil. Katie and Jerry and Margrethe kept up a flow of’ polite chitchat that ignored the fact that a guest had just been thoroughly and publicly spanked. Presently Sybil said, ‘Daddy, are you and Mama expecting me to attend fire worship Friday?’

‘”Expect” is hardly the word,’ Jerry answered, ‘when you have picked another church of your own. “Hope” would be closer.’

Katie added, ‘Sybil, tonight you feel that your coven is all the church you will ever need. But that could change… and I understand that the Old Religion does not forbid its members to attend other religious services.’

Culverson put In, “That reflects centuries, millennia, of persecution, Mrs Farnsworth. It is still in our laws that each member of a coven must also belong publicly to some socially approved church. But we no longer try too hard to enforce it.’

‘I see,’ agreed Katie. ‘Thank you, Roderick. Sybil, since your new church encourages membership in another church, it might be prudent to attend fairly regularly just to protect your Brownie points. You may need them.’

‘Exactly,’ agreed her father. ‘ “Brownie points.” Ever occur to you, hon, that your pop being a stalwart pillar of the congregation, with a fast checkbook, might have something to do with the fact that he also sells more Cadillacs than any other dealer in Texas?’

‘Daddy, that sounds utterly shameless.’

‘It sure is. It also sells Cadillacs. And don’t call it fire worship; you know it is not. It is not the flame we worship, but what it stands for.’

Sybil twisted her serviette and, for the moment, looked a troubled thirteen instead of the mature woman her body showed her to be. ‘Papa, that’s just it. All my life that flame has meant to me healing, cleansing, life everlasting until I studied the Craft. Its history. Daddy, to a witch… fire means the way they kill us!’

I was shocked almost out of breathing. I think it had not really sunk into me emotionally that these two, obnoxious but commonplace young punk, and pretty and quite delightful young girl… daughter of Katie, daughter of Jerry, our two Good Samaritans without equal – that these two were witches.

Yes, yes, I know: Exodus twenty-two verse eighteen, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ As solemn an injunction as the Ten Commandments, given to Moses directly by God, in the presence of all the children of Israel

What was I doing breaking bread with witches?

Mark me for a coward. I did not stand up and denounce them. I sat tight.

Katie said, ‘Darling, darling! That was clear back in the middle ages! Not today, not now, not here.’

Culverson said, ‘Mrs Farnsworth, every witch knows that the terror can start up again any time. Even a season of bad crops could touch it off. And Salem wasn’t very long ago. Nor very far away.’ He added, ‘There are still Christians around. They would set the fires if they could. Just like Salem.’

This was a great chance to keep my mouth shut. I blurted out, ‘No witch was burned at Salem.’

He looked at me. ‘What do you know about it?’

‘The burnings were in Europe, not here. In Salem witches were hanged, except one who was pressed to death.’ (Fire should never have been used. The Lord God ordered us not to suffer them to live; He did not tell us to put them to death by torture.)

He eyed me again. ‘So? You seem to approve of the hangings.’

‘I never said anything of the sort!’ (Dear God, forgive me!)

Jerry cut in. ‘I rule this subject out of order! There will be no further discussion of it at the table. Sybil, we don’t want you to attend if it upsets you or reminds you of tragic occasions. Speaking of hanging, what shall we do about the backfield of the Dallas Cowboys?’

Two hours later Jerry Farnsworth and I were again seated in that room, this time it being Remington number three: a snow storm against the windows, an occasional cold draft across the floor, and once the howl of a wolf – a roaring fire felt good. He poured coffee for us, and brandy in huge snifters, big enough for goldfish. ‘You hear of noble brandy,’ he said. ‘Napoleon, or Carlos Primero. But this is royal brandy – so royal it has hemophilia.’

I gulped; I did not like the joke. I was still queasy from thinking about witches, dying witches. With a jerk of the heels, or dancing on flames. And all of them with Sybil’s sweet face.

Does the Bible define ‘witch’ somewhere? Could it be that these modern members of the Craft were not at all what Jehovah meant by ‘witch’?

Quit dodging, Alex! Assume that ‘witch’ in Exodus means exactly what ‘witch’ means here in Texas t day. You’re the judge and she has confessed. Can you sentence Katie’s teenager to hang? Will you spring the trap? Don’t dodge it, boy; ‘You’ve been dodging all your life.

Pontius Pilate washed his hands.

I will not sentence a witch to die! So help me, Lord, I can do no other.

Jerry said, ‘Here’s to the success of your venture, yours and Margie’s. Sip it slowly and it will not intoxicate; it will simply quiet your nerves while it sharpens your wits. Alec, tell me now why you expect the end of the world.’

For the next hour I went over the evidence, pointing out that it was not just one prophecy that agreed on the signs, but many: Revelations, Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Paul in writing to the Thessalonians, and again to the Corinthians, Jesus himself in all four of the Gospels, again and again in each.

To my surprise Jerry had a copy of the Book. I picked out passages easy for laymen to understand, wrote down chapter and verse so that he could study them later. One Thessalonians 4:15-17 of course, and the 24th chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, all fifty-one verses of it, and the same prophecies in Saint Luke, chapter twenty-one – and Luke 21:32 with its clue to the confusion many as to ‘this generation’. What Christ actually said was that the generation which sees these signs and portents will live to see His return, hear the Shout, experience Judgment Day. The message is plain if you read all of it; the errors have arisen from picking out bits and pieces and ignoring the rest. The parable of the fig tree explains this.

I also picked out for him, in Isaiah and Daniel and elsewhere, the Old Testament prophecies that parallel the New Testament prophecies.

I handed him this list of prophecies and urged him to study them carefully, and, if he encountered difficulties, simply read more widely. And take it to God. ‘”Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find.”‘

He said, ‘Alec, I can agree with one thing. The news for the past several months has looked to me like. Armageddon. Say tomorrow afternoon. Might as well be the end of the world and Judgment Day, as there won’t be enough left to salvage after this one.’ He looked sad. ‘I used to worry about what kind of a world Sybil would grow up in. Now I wonder if she’ll grow up.’

‘Jerry. Work on it. Find your way to grace. Then lead your wife and daughter. You don’t need me, you don’t need anyone but Jesus. He said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice, I will come in to him.” Revelations three, twenty.’

‘You believe.’

‘I do.’

‘Alec, I wish I could go along with you. It would be comforting, the world being what it is today. But I can’t see proof in the dreams of long-dead prophets; you can read anything into them. Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything. Oh, my church, too – but at least mine is honestly pantheistic. Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything just give him time to rationalize it. Forgive me for being blunt.’

‘Jerry, in religion bluntness is necessary. “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.” That’s Job again, chapter nineteen. He’s your Redeemer, too, Jerry – I pray that you find’ Him.’

‘Not much chance, I’m afraid.’ Jerry stood up.

‘You haven’t found Him yet. Don’t quit. I’ll pray for you.’

‘Thank you, and thanks for trying. How do the shoes feel?’

‘Comfortable, quite.’

‘If you insist on hitting the road tomorrow, you must have shoes that won’t give you bunions between here and Kansas. You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure. And sure that we must leave. If we stayed another day, you’d have us so spoiled we would

never hit the road again.’ (The truth that I could not tell him was that I was so upset by witchcraft and fire worship that I had to leave. But I could not load my weakness onto him.)

‘Let me show you to your bedroom. Quietly, as Margie may be asleep. Unless our ladies have stayed up even later than we have.’

At the bedroom door he put out his hand. ‘If you’re right and I’m wrong, you tell me that it’s possible that even you can slip.’

‘True. I’m not in a state of grace, not now. I’ve got to work on it.’

‘Well, good luck. But if you do slip, look me up in Hell, will you?’

So far as I could tell, Jerry was utterly serious. ‘I don’t know that it is permitted.’

‘Work on it. And so will I. I promise you’ – he grinned -‘some hellacious hospitality. Really warm!’.

I grinned back. ‘It’s a date.’

Again my darling had fallen asleep without undressing. I smiled at her without making a sound, then got beside her and pillowed her head on my shoulder. I would let her wake up slowly, then undress the poor baby and put her to bed. Meanwhile I had a thousand – well, dozens – of thoughts to get untangled.

Presently I noticed that it was getting light. Then I noticed how scratchy and lumpy the bed was. The light increased and I saw that we were sprawled over bales of hay, in a barn.

Chapter 19

And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, 0 mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou has sold thyself to work evil
 in the sight of the Lord. 

Kings 21:20

WE DID the last ninety miles down 66 from Clinton to Oklahoma City pushing hard, ignoring the fact that we were flat broke again, nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep.

We had seen a dirigible.

Of course this changed, everything. For months I had been nobody from nowhere, penniless, dishwashing my only trade, and a tramp in fact. But back in my own world – A well-paying job, a respected position in the community, a fat bank account. And an end to this truly infernal bouncing around between worlds.

We were riding into Clinton middle of the morning, guests of a farmer taking a load of produce into town. I heard Margrethe gasp. I looked where she was staring I and there she was! – silvery and sleek and beautiful. I could not make out her name, but her logo told me that she was Eastern Airlines.

‘Dallas-Denver Express,’ our host remarked, and hauled a watch out of his overalls. ‘Six minutes late. Unusual.’

I tried to cover my excitement. ‘Does Clinton have an airport?’

‘Oh, no. Oklahoma City, nearest. Goin’ to give up hitchhiking and take to the air?’

‘Would be nice.’

‘Wouldn’t it, though. Beats farmin’.’

I kept the conversation on inanities until he dropped us outside the city market a few minutes later. But, once Margrethe and I were alone, I could hardly contain myself. I started to kiss her, then suddenly stopped myself. Oklahoma is every bit as moral as Kansas; most communities have stiff laws about public Iallygagging.

I wondered how, hard I was going to find it to readjust, after many weeks in many worlds not one of which had the high moral standards of my home world. It could be difficult to stay out of trouble when (admit it!) I had grown used to kissing my wife in public and to other displays, innocent in themselves, but never seen in public in moral communities. Worse, could I keep my darling out of trouble? I had been born here and could slip back into its ways… but Marga was as affectionate as a collie pup and had no sense of shame whatever about showing it.

I said, ‘Sorry, dear, I was about to kiss you. But I must not.’

‘Why not?’

‘Uh, I can’t kiss you in public. Not here. Only in private. It’s – It’s a case of “When in Rome, one must do as the Romans do.” But never mind that now. Darling, we’re home! My home, and now it’s-your home. You saw the dirigible.’

‘That was an airship truly?’

‘Really and truly… and the happiest sight I’ve seen in months. Except – Don’t get your hopes up too high, too fast. We know how some of these shifting worlds strongly resemble each other in many ways. I suppose there is an outside possibility that this is a world with dirigibles… but not my world. Oh, I don’t believe that but let’s not get too excited.’

(I did not notice that Margrethe was not at all excited.)

‘How will you tell that this is your world?’

‘We could check just as we have before, at public libraries. But in this case there is something faster and better. I want to find the Bell Telephone office – I’ll ask at that grocery store.’

I wanted the telephone office rather than a public telephone because I wanted to consult telephone books’ before making telephone calls – was it my world?

Yes, it was! The office had telephone books for all of Oklahoma and also books from major cities in, other states – including a most familiar telephone book for Kansas City, Kansas. ‘See, Margrethe?’ I pointed to the listing for Churches United for Decency, National Office.

‘I see.’

‘Isn’t it exciting? Doesn’t it make you want to dance and sing?’

(She made it sound like: ‘Doesn’t he look natural? And so many, lovely flowers.’)

We had the alcove where the telephone books were to ourselves. So I whispered urgently, ‘What’s the trouble, dear? This is a happy occasion. Don’t you understand? Once I get on that phone we’ll have money. No more menial jobs, no more wondering how we will eat or where we will sleep. We’ll go straight home by Pullman – no, by dirigible! You’ll like that, I know you will! The ultimate in luxury. Our honeymoon, darling -the honeymoon we could never afford.’

:You will not take me to Kansas City.’

What do you mean?’

‘Alec… your wife is there.’

Believe me when I say that I had not thought once about Abigail in many, many weeks. I had become convinced that I would never see her again (regaining my home world was totally unexpected) and I now

had a wife, all the wife any man could ever want: Margrethe.

I wonder if that-first shovelful of dirt hits a corpse with the same shock.

I pulled out of it. Some. ‘Marga, here’s what we’ll do. Yes, I have a problem, but we can solve it. Of course you go to Kansas City with me! You must. But there, because of Abigail, I must find a quiet place for you to stay while I get things straightened out.’ (Straightened out? Abigail was going to scream bloody murder.) ‘First I must get at my money. Then I must see a lawyer.’ (Divorce? In a state where there was only one legal ground and ‘that one granted divorce only to the injured party? Margrethe the other woman? Impossible. Let Margrethe be exposed in stocks? Be ridden out of town on a rail if Abigail demanded it? Never mind what would be done to me, never mind that Abigail would strip me of every cent – Margrethe must not be subjected to the Scarlet Letter laws of my home world. No!)

‘Then we will go to Denmark.’ (No, it can’t be divorce.)

‘We will?’

‘We will. Darling, you are my wife, now and forever. I can’t leave you here while I get things worked out in Kay See; the world might shift and I would lose you. But we can’t go to Denmark until I lay hands on my money. All clear?’ (What if Abigail has cleaned out my bank account?)

‘Yes, Alec. We will go to Kansas City.’

(That settled part of it. But it did not settle Abigail. Never mind, I would burn that bridge when I came to it.)

Thirty seconds later I had more problems. Certainly the girl in charge would place a call for me long distance collect. Kansas City? For Kansas City, either Kansas or Missouri, the fee to open the trunk line for query was twenty-five cents. Deposit it in the coin box, please, when I tell you. Booth two.

I went to the booth and dug into my pocket for coins, laid them out:

A twenty-cent piece;

Two threepenny coppers;

A Canadian quarter, with the face of the Queen (queen?);

A half dollar;

Three five-cent pieces that were not nickels, but smaller.

And not one of these coins carried the familiar ‘God Is Our Fortress’ motto of the North American Union.

I stared at that ragbag collection and tried to figure out when this last change had taken place. Since I last was paid evidently, which placed it later than yesterday afternoon but earlier than the hitch we had gotten just after breakfast. While we slept last night? But we had not lost our clothes, had not lost our money. I even had my razor, a lump in my breast pocket.

Never mind – any attempt to understand all the details of these changes led only to madness. The shift had indeed taken place; I was here in my native world… and it had left me with no money. With no legal money.

By Hobson’s choice, that Canadian quarter looked awfully good. I did not try to tell myself that the Eighth Commandment did not apply to big corporations. Instead I did promise myself that I would pay it back. I picked it up and took the receiver off the hook.

‘Number, please.’

‘Please place a collect call to Churches United for Decency in Kansas City, Kansas. The number is State Line I224J. I’ll speak to anyone who answers.’

‘Deposit twenty-five cents, please.’ I deposited that Canadian quarter and held my breath – heard it go tingthunk-thunk. Then Central said, ‘Thank you. Do not hang up. Please wait.’

I waited. And waited. And waited.

‘On your call to Kansas City – Churches United for Decency reports that they do not accept collect calls.’

‘Hold it! Please tell them that the Reverend Alexander Hergensheimer is calling.’

‘Thank you. Please deposit twenty-five cents.’

‘Hey! I didn’t get any use out of that first quarter. You hung up too soon.’

‘We did not disconnect; the party in Kansas City hungup.’

‘Well, call them back, please, and this time tell them not to hang up.’

‘Yes, sir. Please deposit twenty-five cents.’

‘Central, would I be calling collect if I had plenty of change on me? Get them on the line and tell them who I am. Reverend Alexander Hergensheimer, Deputy Executive Director.’

‘Please wait on the line.’

So I waited again. And waited.

‘Reverend? The party in Kansas City says to tell you that they do not accept-,collect calls from – I am quoting exactly – Jesus: Christ Himself.’

‘That’s no way to talk on the telephone. Or anywhere.’

‘I quite agree. There was more. This person said to tell you that he had never heard of you.’

‘Why, that -‘I shut up, as I had no way to express myself within the dignity of the cloth.

‘Yes, indeed. I tried to get his name. He hung up on me.’

‘Young man? Old man? Bass, tenor, baritone?’

‘Boy soprano. I gathered an impression that it was the office boy, answering the phone during the lunch hour.’

‘I see. Well, thank you for your efforts. Above and beyond the call of duty, in my opinion.’

‘A pleasure, Reverend.’

I left there, kicking myself. I did not explain to Margrethe until we were clear of the building. ‘Hoist by my own petard, dear one. I wrote that “No Collect Calls” order myself. An analysis of the telephone log proved to me beyond any possible doubt that collect calls to our office were never for the benefit of the association. Nine out of ten are begging calls… and Churches United for Decency is not a charity. It collects money; it does not give it away. The tenth call is either from a troublemaker or a crank. So I set this firm rule and enforced it… and it paid off at once. Saved hundreds of dollars a year just in telephone tolls.’ I managed to smile. ‘Never dreamed that I would be caught in my own net.’

‘What are your plans now, Alec?’

‘Now? Get out on Highway Sixty-Six and start waving my thumb. I want us to reach Oklahoma City before five o’clock. It should be easy; it’s not very far.’

‘Yes, sir. Why five o’clock, may I ask?’

‘You can always ask anything and you know it. Knock off the Patient Griselda act, sweetheart; you’ve been moping ever since we saw that dirigible. Because there is a district office of C.U.D. in Oklahoma City and I want to be there before they close. Wait’ll you see them roll out the red carpet, hon! Get to Oke City and’our troubles are over.’

That afternoon reminded me of wading through sorghum. January sorghum. We had no trouble getting rides – but the rides were mostly short distances. We averaged about twenty miles an hour on a highway that permitted sixty miles per hour. We lost fifty-five minutes for a good reason: a free meal. For the umpteenth time a trucker bought us something to eat when he ate… for the reason that there is almost no man alive who can stop to eat, and fail to invite Margrethe to eat if she is there. (Then I get fed, too, simply because I’m her property. I’m not complaining.)

We ate in twenty minutes, then he spent thirty minutes and endless quarters playing pinball machines… and I stood there and seethed and Margrethe stood beside him and clapped her hands and squealed when he made, a good score. But her social instincts are sound; he then drove us all the rest -of the way to Oklahoma City. There he went through town when he could have taken a bypass, and at four-twenty he dropped us at 36th and Lincoln, only two blocks from the C.U.D. district office.

I walked that two blocks whistling. Once I said, ‘Smile, hon! A month from now – or sooner – we’ll eat in the Tivoli.’

‘Truly?’

‘Truly. You’ve told me so much about it that I can’t wait. There’s the building!’

Our suite is on the second, floor. It warmed the cockles to see the door with lettering on the glass:

CHURCHES UNITED FOR DECENCY – Enter.

‘After you, my love!’ I grabbed the knob, to open for her.

The door was locked.

I banged on it, then spotted a doorbell and rang it. Then I alternated knocking and ringing. And again.

A blackamoor carrying a mop and pail came down the corridor, started to pass us. I called, ‘Hey, Uncle! DO you have a key to this suite?’

‘Sure don’t, Captain. Ain’t nobody in there now. They most generally locked up and gone by four o’clock.’

‘I see. Thanks.’

‘A pleasure, Captain.’

Out on the street again, I grinned sheepishly at Margrethe. ‘Red carpet treatment. Closing at four. When the cat is away, the mice will play. Some heads will roll, I promise you. I can’t think of another cliché to fit the situation. Oh, yes, I can. Beggars can’t be choosers. Madam, would you like to sleep in the park tonight? Warm night, no rain expected. Chiggers and mosquitoes, no extra charge.’

We slept in Lincoln Park, on the golf course, on a green that was living velvet – alive with chiggers.

It was a good night’s sleep despite chiggers. We got up when the first early golfers showed up, and we got off the golf course with nothing worse than dirty looks. We made use of public washrooms in the park, and rejoined much neater, feeling fresher, me with a fresh shave, and both of us filled with free water for breakfast. On the whole I felt cheerful. It was too early to expect those self-appointed playboys at C. U. D. to show up, so, when we ran across a, policeman, I asked the location of the public library, then I added, ‘By the way, where is the airport?’

‘The what?’

‘The dirigible flying field.’

The cop turned to Margrethe. ‘Lady, is he sick?’

I did feel sick a half hour later when I checked the directory in the building we had visited the afternoon before… I felt sick but unsurprised to find no Churches United for Decency among its tenants. But to make certain I walked up to the second floor. That suite was now occupied by an insurance firm.

‘Well, dear, let’s go to the public library. Find out what kind of world we are in.’

‘Yes, Alec.’ She was looking cheerful. ‘Dearest, I’m sorry you are disappointed… but I am so relieved. I

I as frightened out of my wits at the thought of meeting your wife.’

‘You won’t. Not ever. Promise. Uh, I’m sort of relieved, too. And hungry.’

We walked a few more steps. ‘Alec. Don’t be angry.’

‘I’ll do no more than give you a fat lip. What is it?’

‘I have five quarters. Good ones.’

‘At this point I am supposed to say, “Daughter, were you a good girl in Philadelphy?” Out with it. Whom did you kill? Much blood?’

‘Yesterday. Those pinball games. Every time Harry won free games he gave me a quarter. “For luck,” he said.’

I decided not to beat her. Of course they were not ‘good quarters’ but they turned out to be good enough. Good enough, that is, to fit coin machines. We had passed a penny arcade; such places usually have coin-operated food, dispensers and this one did. The prices were dreadfully high – fifty cents for a skimpy stale sandwich; twenty-five cents for a bare mouthful of chocolate. But it was better than some breakfasts we had had on the road. And we certainly did not steal, as the quarters from my world were real silver.

Then we went to the public library to find out what sort of world we must cope with now.

We found out quickly:

Marga’s world.

Chapter 20

The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.
 
Proverbs 28:1

MARGRETHE WAS as elated as I had been the day before. She bubbled, she smiled, she looked sixteen. I looked around for a private place – back of book stacks or somewhere – where I could kiss her without worrying about a proctor. Then I remembered that this was Margrethe’s world where nobody cared… and grabbed her where she stood and bussed her properly.

And got scolded by a librarian.

No, not for what I had done, but because we had been somewhat noisy about it. Public kissing did not in itself disturb that library’s decorum. Hardly. I noticed, while I was promising to keep quiet and apologizing for the breach, a display rack by that librarian’s desk:

New Titles INSTRUCTIONAL PORNOGRAPHY –

Ages 6 to 12

Fifteen minutes later I was waving my thumb again on Highway 77 to Dallas.

Why Dallas? A law firm: O’Hara, Rigsbee, Crumpacker, and Rigsbee.

As soon as we were outside the library, Marga had started talking excitedly about how she could now end our troubles: her bank account in Copenhagen.

I said, ‘Wait a minute, darling. Where’s your checkbook? Where’s your identification?’

What it, came to was that Margrethe could possibly draw on her assets in Denmark after several days at a highly optimistic best or after several weeks at a more probable estimate… and that even the longer period involved quite a bit of money up front for cablegrams. Telephone across the Atlantic? Marga did not think such a thing existed. (And even if it did, I thought it likely that cablegrams were cheaper and more certain.)

Even after all arrangements had been made, it was possible that actual payment might involve postal delivery from Europe – in a world that had no airmail.

So we headed for Dallas, I having assured Marga that, at the very worst, Alec Graham’s lawyers would advance Alec Graham enough money to get him (us) off the street, and, with luck, we would come at once into major assets.

(Or they might fail to recognize me as Alec Graham and prove that I was not he – by fingerprints, by signature, by something – and thereby lay the ghost of ‘Alec Graham’ in Margrethe’s sweet but addled mind. But I did not mention this to Margrethe.)

It is two hundred miles from Oklahoma City to Dallas; we arrived there at 2 p.m., having picked up a ride at the intersection of 66 and 77, and kept it clear into the Texas metropolis. We were dropped where 77 crosses 80 at the Trinity River, and we walked to the Smith Building; it took us half an hour.

The receptionist in suite 7000 looked like something out, of the sort of stage show that C. U. D. has spent much time and money to suppress. She was dressed but not very much, and her makeup was what Marga calls ‘high style’ She was nubile and pretty and, with my newly learned toleration, I simply enjoyed the sinful sight. She smiled and said, ‘May I help you?’

‘This is a fine day for golf. Which of the partners is still in the office?’

‘Only Mr Crumpacker, I’m afraid.’

‘He’s the one I want to see.’

‘And whom shall I say is calling?~

(First hurdle – I missed it. Or did she?) ‘Don’t you recognize me?’

‘I’m sorry. Should I?’

‘How long have you been working here?’

‘Just over three months.’

‘That accounts for it. Tell Crumpacker that Alec Graham is here.’

I could not hear what Crumpacker said to her but I was watching her eyes; I think they widened – I feel sure of it. But all she said was, ‘Mr Crumpacker will, see you.’ Then she turned to Margrethe. ‘May I offer you a magazine while you wait? And would you like a reefer?’

I said, ‘She’s coming with me.’

‘But

‘Come along, Marga.’ I headed quickly for the inner offices.

Crumpacker’s door was easy to find; it was the one with the squawking issuing from it. This shut off as I opened the door and held it for Margrethe. As I followed her in, he was saying, ‘Miss, you’ll have to wait outside!’

‘No,’ I denied, as I closed the door behind me. ‘Mrs Graham stays’.’

He looked startled. ‘Mrs Graham?’

‘Surprised you, didn’t I? Got married since I saw you last. Darling, this is Sam Crumpacker, one of my attorneys.’ (I had picked his first name off his door.)

‘How do you do, Mr Crumpacker?’

‘Uh, glad to meet you, Mrs Graham. Congratulations to you, Alec you always could pick ’em.’

I said, ‘Thanks. Sit down, Marga.’

‘Just a moment, folks! Mrs Graham can’t stay – really she can’t! You know that.’

‘I know no such thing. This time I’m going to have a witness.’ No, I did not know that he was crooked. But I had learned long ago, in dealing with legislators, that anyone who tries to keep you from having a witness is bad news. So C.U.D. always had witnesses and always stayed within the law; it was cheaper that way.

Marga was seated; I sat down beside her. Crumpacker had jumped up when we came in; he remained standing. His mouth worked nervously. ‘I ought to call the Federal prosecutor.’

‘Do that,’ I agreed. ‘Pick up the phone there and call him. Let’s both of us go see him. Let’s tell him everything. With witnesses. Let’s call in the press. All of the press, not just the tame cats.’

(What did I know? Nothing. But when it’s necessary to bluff, always bluff big. I was scared. This rat could turn and fight like a cornered mouse – a rabid one.)

‘I should.’

‘Do it, do it! Let’s name names, and tell who did what and who got paid. I want to get everything out into the open… before somebody slips cyanide into my soup.’

‘Don’t talk that way.’

‘Who has a better right? Who pushed me overboard? Who?’

‘Don’t look at me!’

‘No, Sammie, I don’t think you did it; you weren’t there. But it could be your godson. Eh?’ Then I smiled my biggest right-hand-of-fellowship smile. ‘Just joking, Sam. My old friend would not want me dead. But you can tell me some things and help me out. Sam, it’s not convenient to be dumped way off on the other side of the world – so you owe me.’ (No, I still knew nothing… nothing save the evident fact that here was a man with a guilty conscience – so crowd him.)

‘Alec, let’s not do anything hasty.’

‘I’m in no hurry. But I’ve got to have explanations. And money.’

‘Alec, I tell you on my word of honor all I know about what happened to you is that this squarehead ship came into Portland and you ain’t aboard. And I have to go all the way to Oregon f’ God’s sake to witness them breaking into your strong-box. And there’s only a hundred thousand in it; the rest is missing. Who got it, Alec? Who got to you?’

He had his eyes on me; I hope my face didn’t show anything. But he lad hulled me. Was this true? This shyster would lie as easily as he talked. Had my friend purser, or the purser and the captain in cahoots, looted that lockbox?

As a working hypothesis, always prefer the simpler explanation. This man was more likely to lie than the purser was to steal. And it was likely – no, certain – that the captain would have to be present before the purser would force his way into the lockbox of a missing passenger. If these two responsible officers, with careers and reputations to lose, nevertheless combined to steal, why would they leave a hundred thousand behind? Why not take it all and be blandly ignorant about the contents of my lockbox? – as indeed they should be. Something fishy here.

‘What are you implying was missing?’

‘Huh?’ He glanced at Margrethe. ‘Uh – Well, damn it there should have been nine hundred grand more. The money you didn’t pass over in Tahiti.’

‘Who says I didn’t?’

‘What? Alec, don’t make things worse. Mr Z. says so. You tried to drown his bagman.’

I looked at him and laughed. ‘You mean those tropical gangsters? They tried to get the boodle without

identifying themselves and without giving receipts. I told them an emphatic no – so the clever boy had his muscle throw me into the pool. Hmm – Sam, I see it now. Find out who came aboard the Konge Knut in Papeele.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s your man. He not only got the boodle; he pushed me overboard. When you know, don’t bother to try to get him extradited, just tell me his name. I’ll arrange the rest myself. Personally.’

‘Damn it, we want that million dollars.’

‘Do you think you can get it? It wound up in Mr Z’s hands… but you got no receipt. And I got a lot of grief from asking for a receipt. Don’t be silly, Sam; the nine hundred thousand is gone. But not my fee. So pass over that hundred grand. Now.’

‘What? The Federal prosecutor in Portland kept that, impounded it as evidence.’

‘Sam, Sam boy, don’t try to teach your grandmother how to steal sheep. As evidence for what? Who is charged? Who is indicted? What crime is alleged? Am I charged with stealing something out of my own lockbox? What crime?’

“What crime?” Somebody stole that nine hundred grand, that’s what!’

‘Really? Who’s the complainant? Who asserts that there ever was nine hundred thousand in that lockbox? I certainly never told anyone that – so who says? Pick up that phone, Sam; call the Federal prosecutor in Portland. Ask him why he held that money -on whose complaint? Let’s get to the bottom of this. Pick it up, Sam. If that Federal clown has my money, I want to shake it loose from him.’

‘You’re almighty anxious to talk to prosecutors! Strange talk from you.’

‘Maybe I’ve had an acute attack of honesty. Sam, your unwillingness to call Portland tells me all I need

to know. You were called out there to act on my behalf, – as my attorney. American passenger lost overboard, ship of foreign registry, you betcha they get hold of the passenger’s attorney to inventory his assets. Then they pass it all over to his attorney and he gives a receipt for it. Sam, what did you do with my clothes?’

‘Eh? Gave ’em to the Red Cross. Of course.’

‘You did, eh?’

‘After the prosecutor released ’em, I mean.’

‘Interesting. The Federal attorney keeps the money, although no one has complained that any money is missing… but lets the clothes out of his hands when the only probable crime is murder.’

‘Huh?’

‘Me, I mean. Who pushed me and who hired him to? Sam, we both know where the money is.’ I stood up, pointed. ‘In that safe. That’s where it logically has to be. You wouldn’t bank it; there would be a record. You’ wouldn’t hide it at home; your wife might find it. And you certainly didn’t split with your partners Sam, open it. I want to see whether there is a hundred thousand in… or a million.’

‘You’re out of your mind!’

‘Call the Federal prosecutor. Let him be our witness.’

I had him so angry he couldn’t talk. His hands trembled. It isn’t safe to get a little man too angry – and I topped him by six inches, weight and other measurements to match. He wouldn’t attack me himself – he was a lawyer – but I would need to be careful going through doorways, and such.

Time to try to cool him – ‘Sam, Sam, don’t take it so seriously. You were leaning on me pretty heavily… so I leaned back. The good Lord alone knows why prosecutors do anything – the gonif most likely has

stolen it by now… in the belief that I am dead and will never complain. So I’ll go to Portland and lean on him, hard.’

‘There’s a paper out on you there.’

‘Really? What charges?’

‘Seduction under promise of marriage. A female crewman of that ship.’ He had the grace to look apologetically at Margrethe. ‘Sorry, Mrs Graham. But your husband asked me.’

‘Quite all right,’ she answered crisply.

‘I do get around, don’t I? What does she look like? Is she pretty? What’s her name?’

‘I never saw her; she wasn’t there. Her name? Some Swede name. Let me think. Gunderson, that was it. Margaret S. Gunderson.’

Margrethe, bless her heart, never let out a peep – not even at being called a Swede. I said in wonderment, ‘I’m accused of seducing this woman … aboard a foreign-flag vessel, somewhere, in the South Seas. So there’s a warrant out for me in Portland, Oregon. Sam, what kind of a lawyer are you? To let a client have paper slapped on him on that sort of charge,’

‘I’m a smart lawyer, that’s the kind I am. Just as you said, no telling what a Federal attorney will do; they take their brains out when they appoint ’em. It simply wasn’t important enough to talk about, you being dead, or so we all thought. I’m just looking out for your interests, letting you know about it before you step in it. Gimme some time, I’ll get it quashed – then you go to Portland.’

‘Sounds reasonable. There aren’t any charges outstanding on me here, are there?’

‘No. Well, yes and no. You know the deal; we assured them that you would not be coming back, so they turned the blind eye when you left. But here you are, back. Alec, you can’t afford to be seen here.

Or elsewhere in Texas. Or anywhere in the States, actually. Word gets around, and they’ll dig up those old charges.’

‘I was innocent!’

He shrugged. ‘Alec, all my clients are innocent. I’m talking like a father, in your own interest. Get out of Dallas. If you go as far as Paraguay, so much the better.’

‘How? I’m broke. Sam, I’ve got to have some dough.’

‘Have I ever let you down?’ He got out his wallet, counted out five one-hundred-dollar bills, laid them in front of me.

I looked at them. ‘What’s that? A tip?’ I picked them up, pocketed them. ‘That won’t get us to Brownsville. Now let’s see some money.’

‘See me tomorrow.’

‘Don’t play games, Sam. Open that safe and get me some real money. Or I don’t come here tomorrow; I go see the Federal man and sing like the birdies. After I get square with him – and I will; the Feds love a state’s witness, it’s the only way they ever win a case – then I go to Oregon and pick up that hundred grand.’

‘Alec, are you threatening me?’

‘You play games, I play games. Sam, I need a car and I don’t mean a beat-up Ford. A Cadillac. Doesn’t have to be new, but a cream puff, clean, and a good engine. A Cadillac and a few grand and we’ll be in Laredo by midnight, and in Monterrey by morning. I’ll call you from Mexico City and give you an address. If you really want me to go to Paraguay and stay there, you send the money to D. F. for me to do it.’

It did not work out quite that way, but I settled for a used Pontiac and left with six thousand dollars in cash, and instructions to go to a particular used-car lot and accept the deal offered me – Sam would call and set it up. He agreed also to call the Hyatt and get us the bridal suite, and would see that they held it. Then I was to come back at ten the next morning.

I refused to get up that early. ‘Make that eleven. We’re still on our honeymoon.’

Sam chuckled, slapped me on the back, and agreed.

Out in the corridor we headed toward the elevators but went ten feet farther and I opened the door to the fire-escape trunk. Margrethe followed me without comment but once inside the staircase trunk and out of earshot of others she said, ‘Alec, that man is not your friend.’

‘No, he’s not.’

‘I am afraid for you.’

‘I’m afraid for me, too.’

‘Terribly afraid. I fear for your life.’

‘My love, I fear for my life, too. And for yours. You are in danger as long as you are with me.’

‘I will not leave you!’

‘I know. Whatever this is, we are in it together.’

‘Yes. What are our plans now?’

‘Now we go to Kansas.’

‘Oh, good! Then we are not driving to Mexico?’

‘Hon, I don’t even know how to drive a car.’

We came out in a basement garage and walked up a ramp to a side street. There we walked several blocks away from the Smith Building, picked up a cruising taxi, rode it to the Texas & Pacific Station, there picked up a taxi at the taxi rank, and rode it to Fort Worth, twenty-five miles west. Margrethe was very quiet on the trip. I did not ask her what she was thinking about because I knew: It can’t be

happy-making to discover that a person you fell in love with was mixed up in some shenanigan that smelled Of gangsters and rackets’. I made myself a solemn promise never to mention the matter to her.

In Fort Worth I had the hackie drop us on its most stylish shopping street, letting him pick it. Then I said to Marga, ‘Darling, I’m about to buy you a heavy gold chain.’

‘Goodness, darling! I don’t need a gold chain.’

‘We need it. Marga, the first time I was in this world with you, in Konge Knut – I learned that here the dollar was soft, not backed by gold, and every price I have seen today confirms that. So, if change comes again – and we never know – even the hard money of this world, quarters and half dollars and dimes, won’t be worth anything because they’re not really silver. As for the paper money I got from Crumpacker – waste paper!

‘Unless I change it into something else. We’ll start with that gold chain and from here on you wear it to bed, you even wear it to bathe – unless you hang it around my neck.’

‘I see. Yes.’

‘We’ll buy some heavy gold jewelry for each of us, then I’m going to try to find a coin dealer – buy some silver cartwheels, maybe some gold coins. But my purpose is to get rid of most of this paper money in the

next hour – all but the price of two bus tickets to Wichita, Kansas, three hundred and fifty miles north of here. Could you stand to ride a bus all night tonight? I want to get us out of Texas.

‘Certainly! Oh, dear, I do want to get out of Texas! Truly, I’m still frightened.’

‘Truly, you are not alone.’

‘But -‘

‘”But” what, dear? And quit looking sad.’

‘Alec, I haven’t had a bath for four days.’

We found that jewelry shop, we found the coin shop; I spent about half that flat money and saved the rest for bus fare and other purposes in this world – such as dinner, which we ate as soon as the shops started to close. A hamburger we had eaten in Gainesville seemed an awfully long way off in time and space. Then I determined that there was a bus going north – Oklahoma City, Wichita, Salina – at ten o’clock that evening. I bought tickets and paid an extra dollar on each to reserve seats. Then I threw money away like a drunken sailor took a room in a hotel across from the bus station, knowing that we would be checking out in less than two hours.

It was worth it. Hot baths for each of us, taking turns, each of us remaining fully dressed and carrying the other’s clothing, jewelry, and all the money while the other was naked and wet. And carrying my razor, which had become a talisman of how to outwit Loki’s playful tricks.

And new, clean underwear for each of us, purchased in passing while we were converting paper money into valuta.

I had hoped for time enough for love – but no; by the time I was clean and dry we had to dress and check out to catch that bus. Never mind, there would be other times. We climbed into the bus, put the backrests back, put Marga’s head on my shoulder. As the bus headed north we fell asleep.

I woke up sometime later because the road was so rough. We were seated right behind the driver, so I leaned forward and asked, ‘Is this a detour?’ I could not recall a rough stretch when we had ridden south on this same road about twelve hours earlier.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ve crossed into Oklahoma, that’s all. Not much pavement in Oklahoma. Some near Oke City and a little between there and Guthrie.’

The talk had wakened Margrethe; she straightened up. ‘What is it, dear?’

‘Nothing. Just Loki having fun with us. Go back to sleep.’

Chapter 21

What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said unto me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, And serve Him day and night in His temple. 

Revelation 7:13-15

I WAS driving a horse and buggy and not enjoying it. The day was hot, the dust kicked up by horse’s hooves stuck to sweaty skin, flies were bad, there was no breeze. We were somewhere near the corner of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, but I was not sure where. I had not seen a map for days and the roads were no longer marked with highway signs for the guidance of automobilists – there were no automobiles.

The last two weeks (more or less – I had lost track of the days) had been endless torments of Sisyphus, one ridiculous frustration after another. Sell silver dollars to a local dealer in exchange for that world’s paper? – no trouble; I did it several times. But it didn’t always help. Once I had sold silver for local paper money and we had ordered dinner – when, boom, another world change and we went hungry. Another time I was cheated outrageously and when I complained, I was told: ‘Neighbor, possession of that coin is illegal and you know it. I’ve offered you a price anyhow because I like you. Will you take it? Or shall I do my plain duty as a citizen?’

I took it. The paper money he gave us for five ounces of silver would not buy – dinner for Marga and me at a backwoods gourmet spot called ‘Mom’s Diner’.

That was in a charming community called (by a sign at its outskirts):

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

A Clean Community Blackamoors, Kikes, Papists Keep Moving!

We kept moving. That whole two weeks had been spent trying to travel-the two hundred miles from Oklahoma City to Joplin, Missouri. I had been forced to give up the notion of avoiding Kansas City. I still had no intention of staying in or near Kansas City, not when a sudden change of worlds could land us in Abigail’s lap. But I had learned in Oklahoma City that the fastest and indeed the only practical route- to Wichita was a long detour through Kansas City. We had retrogressed to the horse-and-buggy era.

When you consider the total age of the earth, from Creation in 4004 BC to the year of Our Lord I994, or 5998 years – call it 6000 – in a period of 6000 years, 80 or 90 years is nothing much. And that is how short a time it has been since the horse-and-buggy day in my world. My father was born in that day (1909) and my paternal grandfather not only never owned an automobile but refused to ride in one. He claimed that they were spawn of the Devil, and used to quote passages from Ezekiel to prove it. Perhaps he was right.

But the horse-and-buggy era does have -shortcomings. There are obvious ones such as no inside plumbing, no air conditioning, no modern medicine. But for us there was an unobvious but major one; where there are no trucks and no cars there is effectively no hitchhiking. Oh, it is sometimes possible to hitch rides on farm wagons – but the difference in speed between a human’s walk and a horse’s walk is

not great. We rode when we could but, either way, fifteen miles was a good day’s progress – too good; it left no time to work for meals and a place to sleep.

There is an old paradox, Achilles and the Tortoise, in which the remaining distance to your goal is halved at each The question is: How long does it take to reach your goal? The answer is: You can’t get there from here.

That is the way we ‘progressed’ from Oklahoma City to Joplin.

Something else compounded my frustration: I became increasingly persuaded that we were indeed in the latter days, and we could expect the return of Jesus and the Final Judgment at any moment – and my darling, my necessary one, was not yet back in the arms of Jesus. I refrained from nagging her about it, although it took all my will power to respect her wish to handle it alone. I began to sleep badly through worrying about her.

I became a bit crazy, too (in addition to my paranoid belief that these world changes were aimed at me personally) – crazy in that I acquired an unfounded but compelling belief that finishing this journey was essential to the safety of my darling’s immortal soul. Just let us get as far as Kansas, dear Lord, and I will pray without ceasing until I have converted her and brought her to grace. 0 Lord God of Israel, grant me this boon!

I continued to look for dishwashing jobs (or anything) even while we still had silver and gold to trade’ for local money. But motels disappeared entirely; hotels became scarce and restaurants decreased in numbers and size to fit an economy in which travel was rare and almost all meals were eaten at home.

It became easier to find jobs cleaning stalls in livery stables. I preferred dishwashing to shoveling horse manure – especially as I had only one pair of shoes. But I stuck to the rule of take any honest work but keep moving!

You may wonder why we did not shift to hitching rides on freight trains. In the first place I did not know how, never having done it. Still more important, I could not guarantee Marga’s safety. There were the hazards of mounting a moving freight car. But worse were dangers from people: railroad bulls and road kids – hobos, tramps, bindlestiffs, bums. No need to discuss those grisly dangers, -as I kept her away from rail lines and hobo jungles.

And I worried. While abiding strictly to her request not to be pressured, I did take to praying aloud every night and in her presence, on my knees. And at last, to my great joy, my darling joined me, on her knees. She did not pray aloud and I stopped vocalizing myself, save for a final: ‘In Jesus’ name, Amen.’ We still did not talk about it.

I wound up driving this horse and buggy (goodness,’ what a hot day! – ‘Cyclone weather’, my grandmother Hergensheimer would have called it) as a result of a job cleaning stalls in a livery stable. As, usual I had quit after one day, telling my temporary employer that my wife and I had to move on to Joplin; her mother was ill.

He told me that he had a rig that needed to be returned to the next town up the road. What he meant was that he had too many rigs and nags on hand, his own and others, or he would have waited until he could send it back by renting it to a passing drummer.

I offered to return it for one day’s wages at the same extremely low rate that he had paid me to shovel manure and curry nags.

He pointed out that he was doing me a favor, since my wife and I had to get to Joplin.

He had both logic and strength of position on his side; I agreed. But his wife did put up a lunch for us, as well as giving us breakfast after we slept in their shed.

So I was not too unhappy driving that rig, despite the weather, despite the frustrations. We were getting a few miles closer to Joplin every day – and now my darling was praying. It was beginning to look like ‘Home Free!’ after all.

We had just reached the outskirts of this town (Lowell? Racine? I wish I could remember) when we encountered something right straight out of my childhood: a camp meeting, an old-time revival. On the left side of the road was a cemetery, well kept but the grass was drying; facing it on the right was the revival tent, pitched in a pasture. I wondered whether the juxtaposition of graveyard and Bible meeting was accidental, or planned? – if the Reverend Danny had been involved, I would know it was planned; most people cannot see gravestones without thinking about the long hereafter.

Crowded ranks of buggies and farm wagons stood near the tent, and a temporary corral lay beyond them. Picnic tables of the plank-and-sawhorse type were by the tent on the other side; I could see

remains of lunch. This was a serious Bible meeting, one that started in the morning, broke for lunch, carried on in the afternoon – would no doubt break for supper, then adjourn only when the revivalist judged that there were no more souls to be saved that day.

(I despise these modern city preachers with their five minute ‘inspirational messages’. They say Billy Sunday could preach for seven hours on only a glass of water then do it again in the evening and the next day. No wonder heathen cults have spread like a green bay tree!)

There was a two-horse caravan near the tent. Painted on its side was: Brother ‘Bible’ Barnaby. Out front was a canvas sign on guys and stays:

That Old-Time Religion! Brother ‘Bible’ Barnaby Healing Every Session 10a.m. – 2p.m. – 7p.m.

Every Day from Sunday June 5th till

!!!JUDGMENT DAY!!!

I spoke to the nag and pulled on the reins to let her know that I wanted to stop. ‘Darling, look at that!’

Margrethe read the sign, made no comment.

‘I admire his courage,’ I said. ‘Brother Barnaby is betting his reputation that Judgment Day will arrive before it’s time to harvest wheat… which could be early this year, hot as it is.’

‘But you think Judgment Day is soon.’

‘Yes, but I’m not betting a professional reputation on it just my immortal soul and hope of Heaven. Marga, every Bible student reads the prophecies slightly differ ently. Or very differently. Most of the current crop of premillenarians don’t expect the Day earlier than the year two thousand. He might have

something. Do you mind if we, stay here an hour?’

‘We will stay however long you wish. But – Alec, you wish me to go in? Must I?’

‘Uh -‘ (Yes, darling, I certainly do want you to go inside.) ‘You would rather wait in the buggy?’

Her silence was answer enough. ‘I see. Marga, I’m not trying to twist your arm. Just one thing – We have not been separated except when utterly necessary for several weeks. And you know why. With the changes coming almost every day, I would hate to have one hit while you were sitting out here and I was inside, quite a way off. Uh, we could stand outside the tent. I see they have the sides rolled up.’

She squared her shoulders. ‘I was being silly. No, we will go inside. Alec, I do need to hold your hand; you are right: Change comes fast. But I will not ask you to stay away from a meeting of your coreligionists.’

‘Thank you, Marga.’

‘And, Alec – I will try!’

‘Thank you. Thank you loads! Amen!’

‘No need to thank me. If you go to your Heaven, I want to go, too!’

‘Let’s go inside, dear.’

I put the buggy at the far end of a rank, then led the mare to the corral, Marga with me. As we came back to the tent I could hear:

‘- the corner where you are!

‘Brighten the corner where you are!

‘Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar! ‘So-‘

I chimed in: ‘- brighten the corner where you are!’

It felt good.

Their instrumental music consisted of a foot-pumped organ and a slide trombone. The latter surprised me but Pleased me; there is no other instrument that can get right down and rassle with The Holy City the way a trombone can, and it is almost indispensable for The Son of God Goes Forth to War.

The congregation was supported by a choir in white angel robes – a scratch choir, I surmised, as the white robes were homemade, from sheets. But what. that choir may have lacked in professionalism it made up for in zeal. Church music does not have to be good as long as it is sincere – and loud.

The sawdust trail, six feet wide, led straight down the middle, benches on each side. It dead-ended against a chancel rail of two-by-fours. An usher led us down the trail in answer to my hope for seats down front. The place was crowded but he got people to squeeze over and we wound up on the aisle in the second row, me outside. Yes there were still seats in the back, but every preacher despises people – their name is legion! – who sit clear at the back when there are seats open down front.

As the music stopped, Brother Barnaby stood up and came to the pulpit, placed his hand on the Bible. ‘It’s all in the Book,’ he said quietly, almost in a whisper. The congregation became dead still.

He stepped forward, looked around. ‘Who loves you?’

‘Jesus loves me!’

‘Let Him hear you.’

‘JESUS LOVES ME!’

‘How do you know that?’

‘IT’S IN THE BOOK!’

I became aware of an odor I had not smelled in a long time. My professor of homiletics pointed out to us once in a workshop session that a congregation imbued with religious fervor has a strong and distinctive odor (‘stink’ is the word he used) compounded of sweat and both male and female hormones. ‘My sons,’ he told us, ‘if your assembled congregation smells too sweet, you aren’t getting to them. If you can’t make ’em sweat, if they don’t break out in their own musk like a cat in rut, you might as ‘Well quit and go across the street to the papists. Religious ecstasy is the strongest human emotion; when- it’s there, you can smell it!’

Brother Barnaby got to them.

(And, I must confess, I never did. That’s why I wound up as an organizer and money-raiser.)

‘Yes, it’s in the Book. The Bible is the Word of God, not just here and there, but every word. Not as allegory, but as literal truth. You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. I read to you now from the Book: “For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with-a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the Trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.”

‘That last line is great news, my brothers and sisters:

“- the dead in Christ shall rise first.” What does that say? It does not say that the dead shall rise first; it says that the dead in Christ shall rise first. Those who were washed in the blood of the Lamb, born again in Jesus, and then have died in a state of grace before His second coming, they will not be forgotten, they will be first. Their graves will open, they will be miraculously restored to life and health and physical perfection and will lead the parade to Heaven, there to dwell in happiness by the great white throne forevermore!’

Someone shouted, ‘Hallelujah!’

‘Bless you, sister. Ah, the good news! All the dead in Christ, every one! Sister Ellen, taken from her family by the cruel hand of cancer, but who died with the name of Jesus on her lips, she will help lead the procession. Asa’s beloved wife, who died giving birth but in a state of grace, she will be there! All your dear ones who died in Christ will be gathered up and you will see them in Heaven. Brother Ben, who lived a sinful life, but found God in a foxhole before an enemy bullet cut him down, he will be there… and his case is specially good news, witnessing that God can be found anywhere. Jesus is present not only in churches – in fact there are fancy-Dan churches where His Name is rarely heard -´

‘You- can say that again!’

‘And I will. God is everywhere; He can hear you when you speak. He can hear you more easily when you are ploughing a field, or down on your knees by your bed, than He can in some ornate cathedral, surrounded by the painted and perfumed. He is here now, and He promises you, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you. I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me.” That’s His promise, dearly beloved, in plain words. No obscurities, no highfalutin “interpretation”, no so-called “allegorical meanings”. Christ Himself is waiting for you, if only you will ask.

‘And if you do ask, if you are born again in Jesus, if He washes away your sins and you reach that state of grace… what then? I read you the first half of God’s promise to the faithful. You will hear the Shout, you will hear the great Trumpet sounding His advent, as He promised, and t he dead in Christ shall rise again. Those dry bones will rise again and be covered with living, healthy flesh.

‘Then what?

‘Hear the words of the Lord: “Then we which are alive” – That’s you and me, brothers and sisters; God is talking about us. “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord’!

‘So shall we ever be! So shall we ever be! With the Lord in Heaven!’

,Hallelujah!’

‘Bless His Name!’

‘Amen! Amen!’

(I found that I was one of those saying ‘Amen!’)

‘But there’s a price. There are no free tickets to Heaven. What happens if you don’t ask Jesus to help you? What if you ignore. His offer to be washed free of sin and reborn in the blood of the Lamb? What then? Well? Answer me!’

The congregation was still save for heavy breathing, then a voice from the back said, not loudly, ‘Hellfire.’

‘Hellfire and damnation! Not for just a little while but through all eternity! Not some mystical, allegorical fire that singes only your peace of mind and burns no more than a Fourth of July sparkler. This is the real thing, a raging fire, as real as this.’ Brother Barnaby slapped the pulpit with a crack that could be heard throughout the tent. ‘The sort of fire that makes a baseburner glow cherry red, then white. And you are in that fire, Sinner, and the ghastly pain goes on and on, it never stops. Never! There’s no hope for you. No use asking for a second chance. You’ve had your second chance… and your millionth chance. And more. For two thousand years sweet Jesus has been begging you, pleading with you, to accept from Him that for which He died in agony on the Cross to give you. So, once you are burning in that fiery Pit and trying to cough up the brimstone – that’s sulfur, plain ordinary sulfur, burning and stinking, and it will burn your lungs and blister your sinful hide! – when you’re roasting deep in the Pit for your sins, don’t go whining about how dreadful it hurts and how you didn’t know it would be like that. Jesus knows all about pain; He died on the Cross. He died for you. But you wouldn’t listen and now you’re down in the Pit and whining.

‘And there you’ll stay, suffering burning agony throughout eternity! Your whines can’t be heard from down in the Pit; they are drowned out by the screams of billions of other sinners!’

Brother Barnaby lowered his voice to conversational level. ‘Do you want ‘ to burn in the Pit?’

‘No!’ – ‘Never!’ – ‘Jesus save us!’

‘Jesus will save you, if you ask Him to. Those who died in Christ are saved, we read about them. Those alive when He returns will be saved if they are born again and remain in that state of grace. He promised us that He would return, and that Satan would be chained for- a thousand years while He rules in peace and justice here on earth. That’s the Millennium, folks, that’s the great day at hand. After that thousand years Satan will be loosed for a little while and the final battle will be fought. There’ll be war in Heaven. The Archangel Michael will be the general for our side, leading God’s angels against the Dragon – that’s Satan again – and his host of fallen angels. And Satan lost – will lose, that is, a thousand years, from now. And nevermore will he be seen in Heaven.

‘But that’s a thousand years from now, dear friends. You will live to see it… if you accept Jesus and are born again before that Trumpet blast that signals His return. When will that be? Soon, soon! What does the Book say? In the Bible God tells you not once but many times, in Isaiah, in Daniel, in Ezekiel, and in. all four of the Gospels, that you will not be told the exact hour of. His return. Why? So you can’t sweep the dirt under the rug, that’s why! If He told you that He would arrive New Year’s Day the year two thousand, there are those who would spend the next five and a half years consorting with lewd women, worshiping strange gods, breaking every one of the Ten Commandments… then, sometime Christmas Week nineteen ninety-nine you would find them in church, crying repentance, trying to make a deal.

‘No siree Bob! No cheap deals. It’s the same price to everyone. The Shout and the Trump may be months away… or you may hear it before I can finish this sentence. It’s up to you to be ready when it comes.

‘But we know that it is coming soon. How? Again it’s in the Book. Signs and portents. The first, without which the rest cannot happen, is the return of the Children of Israel to the Promised Land – see Ezekiel, see Matthew, see today’s newspapers. They rebuild the Temple… and sure enough they have; it’s in the Kansas City Star. There be other signs and portents, wonders of all sorts – but the greatest are tribulations, trials to test the souls of men the way Job was tested. Can there be a better word to describe the twentieth century than “tribulations”?

`Wars and terrorists and assassinations and fires and plagues. And more wars. Never in history has mankind been tried so bitterly. But endure as Job endured and the end is happiness and eternal peace – the peace of God, which passeth all understanding. He offers you His hand, He loves you, He will save you.’

Brother Barnaby stopped and wiped his forehead with a large handkerchief that was already soggy from such use.

The choir (perhaps at a signal. from him) started singing softly, ‘We shall gather at the river, the beautiful, beautiful river, that flows by the throne of God and presently segued into:

‘Just as I am, without one plea -´

Brother Barnaby got down on one knee and held out his arms to us. ‘Please! Won’t you answer Him? Come, accept Jesus, let Him gather you in His arms -´

The choir continued softly with:

‘But that Thy blood was shed for me, ‘And Thou bidd’st me come to Thee, ‘0 Lamb of God, I come, I come!’

And the Holy Ghost descended.

I felt Him overpower me and the joy of Jesus filled my heart. I stood up and stepped out into the aisle. Only then did I remember that I had Margrethe with me. I turned and saw her staring back at me, her face filled with a sweet and deeply serious look. ‘Come, darling,’ I whispered, and led her into the aisle. Together we went down the sawdust trail to God.

There were others ahead of us at the chancel rail. I found us a place, pushed some crutches and a truss aside, and knelt down. I placed my right hand on the rail, rested my forehead on it, while I continued to hold Marga’s hand with my left. I prayed Jesus to wash away our sins and receive us into His arms.

One of Brother Barnaby’s helpers was whispering inter my ear. ‘How is it with you, brother?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said happily, ‘and so is my wife. Help someone who needs it.’

‘Bless you, brother.’ He moved on. A sister farther down was writhing and speaking in tongues; he stopped lo comfort her.

I bowed my head again, then became aware of neighing And loud squeals of frightened horses and a great-flapping and shaking of the canvas roof above us. I looked up and saw a split start and widen, then the canvas blew away. The ground trembled, the sky was dark.

The Trump shook my bones, the Shout was the loudest ever heard, joyous and triumphant. I helped Margrethe to her feet smiled at her. ‘It’s now, darling!’

We were swept up.

We were tumbled head over heels and tossed about by a funnel cloud, a Kansas twister. I was wrenched away from Marga and tried to twist back, but could not. You can’t swim in a twister; you go where it takes you. But I knew she was safe.

The storm turned me upside down and held me there for a long moment, about two hundred feet up. The horses had broken out of the corral, and some of the people, not caught up, were milling about. The force of the twister turned me again and I stared down at the cemetery.

The graves were opening.

Chapter 22

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. 

Job 38:7

THE WIND whipped me around, and I saw no more of the graves. By the time I was faced down again the ground was no longer in sight – just a boiling cloud glowing inside with a great light, amber and saffron and powder blue and green gold. I continued to search for Margrethe, but few people drifted near me and none was she. Never mind, the Lord would protect her. Her temporary absence could not dismay me; we had taken the only important hurdle together.

I thought about that hurdle. What a near thing! Suppose that old mare had thrown a shoe and the delay had caused us to reach that point on the road an hour later than we did? Answer: We would never have reached it. The Last Trump would have sounded while we were still on the road, with neither of us in a state of grace. Instead of being caught up into the Rapture, we would have gone to Judgment unredeemed, then straight to Hell.

Do I believe in predestination?

That is a good question. Let’s move on to questions I can answer. I floated above those clouds for a time unmeasured by me. I sometimes saw other people but no one came close enough for talk. I began to wonder when I would see our Lord Jesus – He had promised specifically that He would meet us ‘in the air’.

I had to remind myself that I was behaving like a little child who demands that Mama do it now and is answered, ‘Be patient, dear. Not yet.’ God’s time and mine were not the same; the Bible said so.

Judgment Day had to be a busy time and I had no concept of what duties Jesus had to carry out. Oh, yes, I did know of one; those graves opening up reminded me. Those who had died in Christ (millions? billions? more?) were to go first to meet our Father Who art in Heaven, and of course the Lord Jesus would be with them on that glorious occasion; He had promised them that.

Having figured out the reason for the delay, I relaxed. I was willing to wait my turn to see Jesus… and when I did see Him, I would ask Him to bring Margrethe and me together.

No longer worried, no longer hurried, utterly comfortable, neither hot nor cold, not hungry, not thirsty, floating as effortlessly as a cloud, I began to feel the bliss that had been promised. I slept.

I don’t know how long I slept. A long time – I had been utterly exhausted; the last three weeks had been grinding. Running a hand across my face told me that I had slept a couple of days or more; my whiskers had reached the untidy state that meant at least two days of neglect. I touched my breast pocket – yes,

my trusty Gillette, gift of Marga, was still buttoned safely inside. But I had no soap, no water, no mirror.

This irritated me as I had been awakened by a bugle call (not the Great Trumpet – probably just one wielded by an angel on duty), a call that I knew without being told meant, ‘Wake up there! It is now your turn.’

It was indeed – so when the ‘roll was called up yonder’ I showed up with a two-day beard. Embarrassing!

Angels handled us like traffic cops, herding us into the formations they wanted. I knew they were angels; they wore wings and white robes and were heroic in size – one that flew near me was nine or ten feet tall. They did not flap their wings (I learned later that wings were worn only for ceremony, or as badges of authority). I discovered that I could move as these traffic cops directed. I had not been able to control my motions earlier; now I could move in any direction by volition alone.

They brought us first into columns, single file, stretched out for miles (hundreds of miles? thousands?). Then they brought the columns into ranks, ‘twelve abreast – these were stacked in layers, twelve deep. I was, unless I miscounted, number four in my rank, which was stacked three layers down. I was about two hundred places back in my column – estimated while forming up – but I could not guess how long the column was.

And we flew past the Throne of God.

But first an angel positioned himself in the air about fifty yards off our left flank. His voice carried well. ‘Now hear this! You will pass in review in this formation. Hold’ your position at all times. Guide on the creature on your left, the creature under you, and the one ahead. of you. Leave ten cubits between ranks and between layers, five cubits, elbow to elbow in ranks. No crowding, no breaking out of ranks, no, slowing down as we pass the Throne. Anybody breaking flight discipline will be sent to the tail end of the flight… and I’m warning you now, the Son might be gone by then, with nobody but Peter or Paul or

some other saint to receive the parade. Any questions?’

“How much is a cubit?’

‘Two cubits is one yard. Any creature in this cohort who does not know how long a yard is?’

No, one spoke up. The angel added, ‘Any more questions?’

A woman to my left and above me called out, ‘Yes! My. daughter didn’t have her cough medicine with her. So I fetched it. Can you take it to her?’

‘Creature, please accept my assurance that any cough your daughter manages to take with her to Heaven will be purely psychosomatic.’

‘But her doctor said -´

‘And in the meantime shut up and let’s get on with this parade. Special requests can be filed after arriving in Heaven.’

There were more questions, mostly silly, confirming an opinion I had kept to myself for years: Piety does not imply horse sense.

Again the trumpet sounded; our cohort’s flightmaster called out, ‘Forward!’ Seconds later there was a single blast; he shouted, ‘Fly!’ We moved forward.

(Note: I call this angel ‘he’ because he seemed male.

Ones that seemed to be female I refer to as ‘she’. I never have been sure about sex in an angel. If any. I think they are androgynous but I never had a chance to find out. Or the courage to ask.)

(Here’s another one that bothers me. Jesus had brothers and sisters; is the Virgin Mary still a virgin? I have never had the courage to ask that question, either.)

We could see His throne for many miles ahead. This was not the great white Throne of God the Father

in Heaven; this was just a field job for Jesus to use on this occasion. Nevertheless it was magnificent, carved out of a single diamond with its myriad facets picking up Jesus’ inner light and refracting it in a shower of fire and ice in all directions. And that is what I saw best, as the face of Jesus shines with such blazing light that, without sun glasses, you can’t really see His features.

Never mind; you knew Who He was. One could not help knowing. A feeling of overpowering awe grabbed me when we were still at least twenty-five miles away. Despite my professors of theology, for the first time in my life I understood (felt) that single emotion that is described in the Bible by two words used together: love and fear. I loved/feared the Entity on that throne, and now I knew why Peter and James had abandoned their nets and followed Him.

And of course I did not make my request to Him as we passed closest (about a hundred yards). In my life on earth I had addressed (prayed to) Jesus by name thousands of times; when I saw Him in the Flesh I simply reminded myself that the angel herding us had. promised us a chance to file personal requests when we reached Heaven. Soon enough. In the meantime it pleased me to think about Margrethe, somewhere in this parade, seeing the Lord Jesus on His throne… and if I had not intervened, she might never have seen Him. It made me feel warm and good, on top of the ecstatic awe I felt in staring at His blinding light.

Some miles past the throne the column swung up and to the right, and we left the neighborhood first of earth and then of the solar system. We headed straight for Heaven and picked up speed.

Did you know that earth looks like a crescent moon when you look back at it? I wondered whether or not any flat-earthers had managed to attain the Rapture. It did not seem likely, but such ignorant superstition is not totally incompatible with believing in Christ. Some superstitions are absolutely forbidden – astrology, for example, and Darwinism. But the flat-earth nonsense is nowhere forbidden that I know of. If there were any flat-earthers with us, how did they feel to look back and see that the earth was round as a tennis ball?

(Or would the Lord in His mercy let them perceive it as flat? Can mortal man ever understand the viewpoint of God?)

It seemed to take about two hours to reach the neighborhood of Heaven. I say ‘seemed to’ because it might have been any length of time; there was no human scale by which to judge. In the same vein, the total period of the Rapture seemed to me to be about two days… but I had reason later to believe that it may have been seven years – at least by some reckoning. Measures of time and space become very slippery when one lacks mundane clocks and’ yardsticks.

As we approached the Holy City our guides had us slow down and then make a sightseeing sweep around it before going in through one of the gates.

This was no minor jaunt. New Jerusalem (Heaven, the Holy City, Jehovah’s capital) is laid out foursquare like the District of Columbia, but it is enormously bigger, one thousand three hundred and twenty miles on a side, five thousand two hundred and eighty miles around it, and that gives an area of one million seven hundred and forty-two thousand four hundred square miles.

This makes cities like Los Angeles or New York look tiny.

In solemn truth the Holy City covers an area more than six times as big as all of Texas! At that, it’s crowded. But are, expecting only a few more after us.

It’s a walled city, of course, and the walls are two hundred and sixteen feet high, and the same wide. The tops of the wall are laid out in twelve traffic lanes – and no guard rails. Scary. There are twelve gates, three in each wall, the famous pearly gates (and they are); these normally stand open – will not be closed, we were told, until the Final Battle.

The wall itself is of iridescent jasper but it has a dozen footings in horizontal layers that are more dazzling than the wall itself: sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, amethyst – I may have missed some. New Jerusalem is so dazzling everywhere that it is hard for a human to grasp it – impossible to grasp it all at once.

When we finished the sweep around the Holy City, our cohort’s flightmaster herded us, into a holding pattern like dirigibles at O’Hare and kept us there until he received a signal that one of the gates was free

and I was hoping to get at least a glimpse of Saint Peter, but no – his office is at the main gate, the Gate of Judah, whereas we went in by the opposite gate, named for Asher, where we were registered by angels deputized to act for Peter.

Even with all twelve gates in use and dozens of Peter deputized clerks at each gate and examination waived (since we all were caught up at the Rapture – guaranteed saved) we had to queue up quite a long time just to get registered in, receive temporary identifications, temporary bunking assignments, temporary eating assignments –

(‘Eating’?)

Yes, I thought so, too, and I asked the angel who booked me about it. He/she looked down at me. ‘Refection is optional. It will do you no harm never to eat and not to drink. But many creatures and some angels ‘enjoy eating, especially in company. Suit yourself.’

‘Thank you. Now about this berthing assignment. It’s a single. I want a double, for me and my wife. I want -‘

‘Your former wife, you mean. In Heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage. I

‘Huh? Does that mean we can’t live together?’

‘Not at all. But both of you must apply, together, at Berthing General. See the office of Exchange and Readjustments. Be sure, each of you, to fetch your berthing chit.’

‘But that’s the problem! I got separated from my wife. How do I find her?’

‘Not part of my M.0.S. Ask at the information booth. In the meantime use your singles apartment in Gideon Barracks.’

‘But -´

He (she?) sighed. ‘Do you realize how many thousands of hours I have been sitting here? Can you guess how complex it is to provide for millions of creatures at once, some alive and never dead, others newly incarnate? This is the first time we have had to install plumbing for the use of fleshly creatures – do you even suspect how inconvenient that is? I say that, when you install plumbing, you are bound to get creatures who need plumbing – and there goes the neighborhood! But did they listen to me? Hunh! Pick up your papers, go through that door, draw a robe and a halo – harps are optional. Follow the green line to Gideon Barracks.’

‘No!’

I saw his (her) lips move; she (he) may have been praying. ‘Do you think it is proper to run around Heaven, looking the way you do? You are quite untidy. We aren’t used to living-flesh creatures. Uh… Elijah is the last I recall, and I must say that you look almost as disreputable as he did. In addition to discarding those rags and putting on a decent white robe, if I were you I would do something about that dandruff.’

‘Look,’ I said tensely. ‘Nobody knows the trouble I’ve Seen, nobody knows but Jesus. While you’ve been sitting around in a clean white robe and a halo in an immaculate City with streets of gold, I’ve been struggling with Satan himself. I know I don’t look very neat but I didn’t choose to come here looking this way. Uh – Where can I pick up some razor blades?’

‘Some what?’

‘Razor blades. Gillette double-edged blades, or that type. For this.’ I took out my razor, showed it to her/him. ‘Preferably stainless steel.’

‘Here everything is stainless. But what in Heaven is that?’

‘A safety razor. To take this untidy beard off my face.’

‘Really? If the Lord in His wisdom had intended His male creations not to have hair on their faces, He would have created them with smooth features. Here, let me dispose of that.’ He-she reached for my razor.

I snatched it back. ‘Oh, no, you don’t! Where’s that information booth?’

‘To your left. Six hundred and sixty miles. ‘ She-he sniffed.

I turned away, fuming. Bureaucrats. Even in Heaven. I didn’t ask any more questions there because I

spotted a veiled meaning. Six hundred and sixty miles is a figure I recalled from our sightseeing tour: the exact distance from a center gate (such as Asher Gate, where I was) to the center of Heaven, i.e., the Great White Throne of the Lord God Jehovah, God the Father. He (she) was telling me, none too gently, that if I did not like the way I was being treated, I could take my complaints to the Boss – i.e., ‘Get lost!’

I picked up my papers and backed away, looked around for someone else in authority.

The one who organized this gymkhana, Gabriel or Michael or whoever, had anticipated that there would be lots of creatures milling around, each with problems that didn’t quite fit the system. So scattered through the crowd were cherubs. Don’t think of Michelangelo or Luca della Robbia; these were not bambinos with dimpled knees; these were people a foot and a half taller than we newcomers were like angels but with little cherub wings and each with a badge reading ‘STAFF’.

Or maybe they were indeed angels; I never have been sure about the distinction between angels and cherubim and seraphim and such; the Book seems to take it for granted that you know such things without being told. The papists list nine different classes of angels! By whose authority? It’s not in the Book!

I found only two distinct classes in Heaven: angels and humans. Angels consider themselves superior and do not hesitate to let you know it. And they are indeed superior in position and power and privilege.

Saved souls are second-class citizens – The notion, one that runs all through Protestant Christianity and maybe among papists as well, that, a saved soul will practically sit in the lap of God well, it ain’t so! So you’re saved and you go to Heaven you find at once that you are the new boy on the block, junior to everybody else.

A saved soul in Heaven occupies much the position of a blackamoor in Arkansas. And it’s the angels who really rub your nose in it.

I never met an angel I liked.

And this derives from how they feel about us. Let´s look at it from the angelic viewpoint. According to Daniel there are a hundred million angels in Heaven. Before the Resurrection and the Rapture, Heaven must have been uncrowded, a nice place to live and offering a good career – some messenger work, some choral work, an occasional ritual. Fm sure the angels liked it.

Along comes a great swarm of immigrants, many millions (billions?), and some of them aren’t even house-broken. All of them require nursemaiding. After untold eons of beatific living, suddenly the angels find themselves working overtime, running what amounts to an enormous orphan asylum. It’s not surprising that they don’t like us.

Still… I don’t like them, either. Snobs!

I found a cherub (angel?) with a STAFF badge and asked the location of the nearest information booth. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Straight down the boulevard Six thousand furlongs. It’s by the River that flows from the Throne.’

I stared down the boulevard. At that distance God the Father on His Throne looked like a rising sun. I said, ‘Six thousand furlongs is over six hundred miles. Isn’t there one in this neighborhood?’

‘Creature, it was done that way on purpose. If we had placed a booth on each corner, every one of them would have crowds around it, asking silly questions. This way, a creature won’t make the effort unless it has a truly important question to ask.’

Logical. And infuriating. I found that I was again possessed by unheavenly thoughts. I had always pictured Heaven as a place of guaranteed beatitude – not filled with the same silly frustration so common on earth. I counted to ten in English, then in Latin. ‘Uh, what’s the flight time? Is there a speed limit?’

´Surely you don’t think that you would be allowed to fly there, do you?’

‘Why not? Just earlier today I flew here and then all the way around the City.’

‘You just thought you did. Actually, your cohort leader did it all. Creature, let me give you a tip that may keep you out of trouble. When you get your wings – if you ever do get wings – don’t try to fly over the Holy City, You’ll be grounded so fast your teeth will ache. And your wings stripped away.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you don’t rate it, that’s why. You Johnny-Come-Latelies show up here and think you own the place. You’d carve your initials in the Throne if you could get that close to it. So let me put you wise.

Heaven operates by just one rule: R.H.I.P. Do you know what that means?’

‘No,’ I answered, not entirely truthfully.

‘Listen and learn. You can forget the Ten Commandments. Here only two or three of them still apply and you’ll find you can’t break those even if you were to’ try. The golden rule everywhere in Heaven is: Rank Hath Its Privileges. At this eon you are a raw recruit in. the Armies of the Lord, with the lowest rank possible. And the least privilege. In fact the only privilege I can think of that you rate is being here, just being here. The Lord in His infinite wisdom has decreed that you qualify to enter here. But that’s all.

Behave yourself and you will be allowed to stay. Now as to the traffic rule you asked about. Angels and nobody else fly over the Holy City. When on duty or during ceremonies. That does not mean you. Not even if you get wings. If you do. I emphasize this because a surprising number of you creatures have arrived here with the delusion that going to Heaven automatically changes a creature into an angel. It doesn’t. It can’t. Creatures never become angels. A saint sometimes. Though seldom. An angel, never.’

I counted ten backwards, in’Hebrew. ‘If you don’t mind, I’m still trying to reach that information booth. Since I am not allowed to fly, how do I get there?’

‘Why didn’t you say that in the first place? Take the bus.’

Sometime later I was seated in a chariot bus of the Holy City Transit Lines and we were rumbling toward the distant Throne. The chariot was open, boat-shaped, with an entrance in the rear, and had no discernible motive power and no teamster or conductor. It stopped at marked chariot stops and that is how I got aboard. I had not yet found out how to get it to stop.

Apparently everyone in the City rode these buses (except V.I.P.s who rated private chariots). Even angels. Most passengers were humans dressed in conventional white and wearing ordinary halos. But a few were humans in costumes of various eras and topped off by larger and fancier halos. I noticed that angels were fairly polite to these creatures in the fancier halos. But they did not sit with them. Angels sat in the front of the car, these privileged humans in the middle part, and the common herd (including yours truly) in the rear.

I asked one of my own sort how long it took to reach the Throne.

‘I don’t know,’ I was answered. ‘I don’t go nearly that far.

This soul seemed to be female, middle-aged, and friendly, so I used a commonplace opener. ‘That’s a Kansas accent, is it not?’

She smiled. ‘I don’t think so. I was born in Flanders.’

‘Really? You speak very fluent English.’

She shook her head gently. ‘I never learned English.’

‘But -´

‘I know. You are a recent arrival. Heaven is not affected by the Curse of Babel. Here the Confusion of Tongues took place… and a good thing for me as I, have no skill in languages – a handicap before I died. Not so here. ‘She looked at me with interest. ‘May I ask where you died? And when?’

‘I did not die,’ I told her. ‘I was snatched up alive in the Rapture.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, how thrilling! You must be very holy.

‘I don’t think so. Why do you say that?’

‘The Rapture will come – came? – without warning. Or so I was taught.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Then with no warning, and no time for confession, and no priest to help you… you were ready! As free from sin as Mother Mary. You came straight to Heaven. You must be holy. ‘ She added, ‘That’s what I thought when I saw your costume, since saints – martyrs especially – often dress as they did on earth. I saw too that you are not wearing your saint’s halo. But that’s your privilege. ‘She looked suddenly shy. ‘Will you bless me? Or do I presume?’.

‘Sister, I am not a saint.’

‘You will not grant me your blessing?’

(Dear Jesus, how did this happen to me?) ‘Having heard say that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I am ,not a saint, do you still want me to bless you?’

‘If you will… holy father.’

‘Very well. Turn and lower your head a little – ´Instead she turned fully and dropped to her knees. I put a hand on her head. ‘By authority vested in me as an ordained minister of the one true catholic church of Jesus Christ the Son of God the Father and by the power of the Holy. Ghost, I bless this our sister in Christ. So mote it be!’

I heard echoes of ‘Amen!’ around us; we had had quite an audience. I felt embarrassed. I was not certain, and still am not certain, that I had any authority to bestow blessings in Heaven itself. But the dear woman had asked for it and I could not refuse.

She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. ‘I knew it, I knew it!’

‘Knew what?’

´That you are a saint. Now you are wearing it!’

I started to say, ‘Wearing what?’ when a minor miracle occurred. Suddenly I was looking at myself from outside: wrinkled and dirty khaki pants, Army-surplus shirt with dark sweat stains in the armpits and a bulge of razor in the left breast pocket, three-day growth of beard and in need of a haircut… and, floating over my head, a halo the size of a washtub, shining and sparkling!

‘Up off your knees,’ I said instead, ‘and let’s stop being conspicuous.´

‘Yes, father.’ She added, ‘You should not be seated back here.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that, daughter. Now tell me about yourself.’ I looked around as she resumed her seat, and happened to catch the eye of an angel seated all alone, up forward. (S)he gestured to me to come forward.

I had had my fill of the arrogance of angels; at first I ignored the signal. But everyone I was noticing and pretending not to, and my awe-struck companion was whispering urgently, ‘Most holy person, the angelic one wants to see you.´

I gave in – partly because it was easier, partly because I wanted to ask the angel a question. I got up and went to the front of the bus.

‘You wanted me?’

‘Yes. You know the rules. Angels in front, creatures in back, saints in the middle. If you sit in back with creatures, you are teaching them bad habits. How can you expect to maintain your saintly privileges if you ignore protocol? Don’t let it happen again.’

I thought of several retorts, all unheavenly. Instead I said, ‘May I ask a question?’

`Ask.’

‘How much longer until this bus reaches the River from the Throne?’

‘Why do you ask? You have all eternity before you.´

‘Does that mean that you don’t know? Or that you won’t tell?’

‘Go sit down in your proper section. At once!’

I went back and tried to find a seat in the after space. But my fellow creatures had closed in and left me no room. No one said anything and they would not meet my eye, but it was evident that no one would aid me in defying the authority of an angel. I sighed and sat down in the mid-section, in lonely splendor, as I was the only saint aboard. If I was a saint.

I don’t know how long it took to reach the Throne. In Heaven the light doesn’t vary and the weather does not change and I had no watch. It was simply a boringly long time. Boring? Yes. A gorgeous palace constructed of precious stone is a wonderful sight to see. A dozen palaces constructed of jewels can be a dozen wonderful sights, each different from the other. But a hundred miles of such palaces will put you to sleep, and six hundred miles of the same is deadly dull. I began to long for a used-car lot, or a dump, or (best yet) a stretch of green and open countryside.

New Jerusalem is a city of perfect beauty; I am witness to that. But that long ride taught me the uses of ugliness.

I never have found out who designed the Holy City.

That God authorized the design and construction is axiomatic. But the Bible does not name the architect(s), or the builder(s). Freemasons speak of ‘the Great Architect, meaning Jehovah – but you won’t find that in the Bible. Just once I asked an angel, ‘Who designed this city?’ He didn’t sneer at my ignorance, he didn’t scold me- he appeared to be unable to conceive it as a question. But it remains a question to me: Did God create (design and build) the Holy City Himself, right down to the smallest jewel? Or did He farm it out to subordinates?

Whoever designed it, the Holy City has a major shortcoming, in my opinion – and never mind telling me

that my presumption in passing judgment on God’s design is blasphemous. It is a lack, a serious one.

It lacks a public library.

One reference librarian who had devoted her life to answering any and all questions, trivial and weighty, would be more use in Heaven than another cohort of arrogant angels. There must be plenty of such ladies in Heaven, as it takes a saintly disposition and the patience of Job to be a reference librarian and to stick with it for forty years. But to carry on their vocation they would need books and files and so forth, the tools of their profession. Given a chance, I’m sure they would set up the files and catalog the books but where would they get the books? Heaven does not seem to have a book-publishing industry.

Heaven doesn’t have industry. Heaven doesn’t have an economy. When Jehovah decreed, after the expulsion from Eden, that we descendants of Adam must gain our bread by the sweat of our faces, He created economics and it has been operating ever since for ca. 6000 years.

But not in Heaven.

In Heaven He giveth us, our daily bread without the sweat of our faces. In truth you don’t need daily bread; you can’t starve, you won’t even get hungry enough to matter – just hungry enough to enjoy eating if you want to amuse yourself by stopping in any of the many restaurants, refectories, and lunchrooms.’ The best hamburger I ever ate in my life was in a small lunchroom off the Square of Throne on the banks of the River. But again, ‘m ahead of my story.

Another lack, not as serious for my taste but serious, is gardens. No gardens, I mean, except the grove of the Tree of Life by the River near the Throne, and a few, a very few, private gardens here and there. I think I know why this is so and, if I am right, it may be self-correcting. Until we reached Heaven (the people of the Rapture and the resurrected dead-in-Christ) almost all citizens of the Holy City were angels. The million or so exceptions were martyrs for the faith, children of Israel so holy that they made it without ever having personally experienced Christ (i.e., mostly before 30 AD), and another group from unenlightened lands – souls virtuous without ever knowing of Christ. So 99 percent of the citizens of the Holy City were angels.

Angels don’t seem to be interested in horticulture. I suppose that figures – I can’t imagine an angel down on his/her knees, mulching the soil around a plant. They just aren’t the dirty-fingernails sort needed to grow prize roses.

Now that angels are outnumbered by humans by at least ten to one I expect that we will see gardens – gardens, garden clubs, lectures on how to prepare the soil, and so forth. All the endless ritual of the devoted gardener. Now they will have time for it.

Most humans in Heaven do what they want to do without the pressure of need. That nice lady (Suzanne) who wanted my blessing was a lacemaker in Flanders; now she teaches it in a school open to anyone who is interested. I have gathered a strong impression that, for most humans, the real problem of an eternity of bliss is how to pass the time. (Query: Could there be something to this reincarnation idea so prevalent in other religions but so firmly rejected by Christianity? Could a saved soul be rewarded, eventually, by being shoved back into the conflict? If not on earth, then elsewhere? I’ve got to lay hands on a Bible and do some searching. To my utter amazement, here in Heaven Bibles seem to be awfully hard to come by.)

‘The information booth was right where it was supposed to be, close to the bank of the River of the Water of Life that flow’s from the Throne of God and winds through the grove of the Tree of Life. The Throne soars up from the, middle of the grove but you can’t see it very well that close to its base. It’s like looking up at the tallest of New York skyscrapers while standing on the sidewalk by it. Only more so.

And of course you can’t see the Face of God; you are, looking straight up one thousand four hundred and- forty cubits. What you see is, the Radiance… and you can feel the Presence.

The information booth was as crowded as that cherub had led me to expect. The inquirers weren’t queued up; they were massed a hundred deep around it. I looked at that swarm and wondered how long it would take me to work my way up to the counter. Was it possible to work my way there other than by the nastiest of bargain-day tactics, stepping on corns, jabbing with elbows, all the things that make department stores so uninviting to males?

I stood back and looked at that mob and tried to figure out how to cope. Or was there some other way to locate Margrethe without stepping on corns?

I was still standing there when a STAFF cherub came up to me. ‘Holy one, are you trying to reach the information booth?’

‘I surely am!’

‘Come with me. Stay close behind me.’ He was carrying a long staff of the sort used by riot police. ‘Gangway! Make way for a saint! Step lively there!’ In nothing flat I reached the counter of the booth. I

don’t think anyone was injured but there must have been some hurt feelings. I don’t approve of that sort of action; I think that treatment should be even-handed for everyone. But, where R.H.I.P. is the rule, being even a corporal is vastly better than being a private.

I turned to thank the cherub; he was gone. A voice said, ‘Holy one, what do you want?’ An angel back of the counter was looking down at me.

I explained that I wanted to locate my wife. He Drummed on the counter. ‘That’s not ordinarily a service we supply. There is a co-op run by creatures called “Find Your Friends and Loved Ones” for that sort of thing.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Near Asher Gate.’

‘What? I just came from there. That’s where I registered in.’

‘You should have asked the angel who checked you in. You registered recently?’

‘Quite recently; I was caught up in the Rapture. I did ask the angel who registered me… and got a fast brushoff. He, she, uh, that angel told me to come here.’

`Mrf. Lemme see your papers.’

I passed them over. The angel studied them, slowly and carefully, then called to another angel, who had stopped servicing the mob to watch. ‘Tirl! Look at this.’

So the second angel looked over my papers, nodded sagely, handed them—back – glanced at me, shook his head sadly.’ ‘Is something wrong?’ I asked.

‘No. Holy one, you had the misfortune to be serviced,’ if that is the word, by an angel who wouldn’t help his closest friend, if he had one, which he doesn’t. But I’m a bit surprised that she was so abrupt with a saint.’

‘I wasn’t wearing this halo at the time.’

‘That accounts for it. You drew it later?’

‘I did not draw it. I acquired it miraculously, on the way from Asher Gate to here.’

`I see. Holy one, it’s your privilege to put Khromitycinel on the report. On the other hand I could use the farspeaker to place your inquiry for you.’

‘I think that would be better.’

‘So do I. In the long run. For you. If I make my meaning clear.’

‘You do.’

‘But before I call that co-op let’s check with Saint Peter’s office and make sure your wife has arrived. When did she die?’

‘She didn’t die. She was caught up in the Rapture, too.’

‘So? That means a quick and easy check, no searching of old rolls. Full name, age, sex if any, place and date of we don’t need that. Full name first.’

Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson.’

‘Better spell that.’

I did so.

‘That’s enough for now. If Peter’s clerks can spell. You can’t wait here; we don’t have a waiting room. There is a little restaurant right opposite us – see the sign?’

I turned and looked. ‘ “The Holy Cow”?´

‘That’s it. Good cooking, if you eat. Wait there; I’ll send word to you.’

‘Thank you!’

‘You are welcome -‘She glanced again at my papers, then handed them back. ‘- Saint Alexander Hergensheimer.’

The Holy Cow was the most homey sight I had seen since the Rapture: a small, neat lunchroom that would have looked at home in Saint Louis or Denver. I went inside. A tall blackamoor whose chef’s hat stuck up through his halo was at the grill with his back to me. I sat down at the counter, cleared my throat.

‘Just hold your horses.’ He finished what he was doing, turned around. ‘What can I – Well, well! Holy man, what can I fix for you? Name it, just name it!’

‘Luke! It’s good to see you!’ ‘

He stared at me. ‘We have met?’

‘Don’t you remember me? I used to work for you. Ron’s Grill, Nogales. Alec. Your dishwasher.’

He stared a-gain, gave a deep sigh. ‘You sure fooled me. Saint Alec.’

‘Just “Alec” to my friends. It’s some sort of administrative mistake, Luke. When they catch it, I’ll trade this Sunday job for an ordinary halo.’

‘Beg to doubt – Saint Alec. They don’t make mistakes in Heaven. Hey! Albert! Take the counter. My friend, Saint Alec and I are going to sit in the dining room. Albert’s my sous-chef.’

I shook hands with a fat little man who was almost a parody of what a French chef should look like. He was wearing a Cordon Bleu hat as well as his halo. Luke and I went through a side door into a small dining room, sat down at a table. We were joined by a waitress and I got another shock.

Luke, said, ‘Hazel, I want you to meet an old friend of mine, Saint Alec – he and I used to be business associates. Hazel is hostess of The Holy Cow.’

‘I was Luke’s dishwasher,’ I told her. ‘Hazel, it’s wonderful to see you!’ I stood up, started to shake hands, then changed my mind for the better, put my arms around her.

She smiled up at me, did not seem surprised. ‘Welcome, Alec! “Saint Alec” now, I see. I’m not surprised.’

‘I am. It’s a mistake.’

‘Mistakes don’t happen in Heaven. Where is Margie? Still alive on earth?’

‘No.’ I explained how we had been separated. ‘So I’m waiting here for word.’

‘You’ll find her.’ She kissed me, quickly and warmly which reminded me of my four-day beard. I seated her, sat down with my friends. ‘You are sure to find her quickly, because that is a promise we were made and is precisely carried out. Reunion in Heaven with friends and loved ones. “We shall gather by the River -” and sure enough, there it is, right outside the door. Steve Saint Alec, you, do remember Steve? He was with you and Margie when we met.’

‘How could I forget him? He bought us dinner and gave us a gold eagle when we were stony. Do I remember Steve!’

‘I’m happy to hear you say that… because Steve credits you with converting him – born-again conversion

and getting him into Heaven. You see, Steve was killed on the Plain of Meggido, and I was killed in the War, too, uh, that was about five years after we met you

‘Five years?’

‘Yes. I was killed fairly early in the War; Steve lasted clear to Armageddon-‘

‘Hazel… it hasn’t been much over a month since Steve bought us that dinner at Rimrock.’

‘That’s logical. You were caught up in the Rapture and that touched off the War. So you spent the War years up in the air, and that makes it work out that Steve and I are here first even though you left first. You can discuss it with Steve; he’ll be in soon. By the way, I’m his concubine now his wife, except that here there is no marrying or giving in marriage. Anyhow Steve went back into the Corps when war broke out and got up to captain before they killed him. His outfit landed at Haifa and Steve died battling for the Lord at the height of Armageddon. I’m real proud of him.’

‘You should be. Luke, did the War get you, too?’

Luke gave a big grin. ‘No, sir, Saint Alec. They hanged me.’

‘You’re joking!’

`No joke. They hanged me fair and square. You remember when you quit me?’

‘I didn’t quit you. A miracle intervened. That’s how I met Hazel. And Steve.’

‘Well… you know more about miracles than I do. Anyway, we had to get another dishwasher right fast, and we had to take a Chicano. Man, he was a real bad ass, that one. Pulled a knife on me. That was his mistake. Pull a knife on a cook in his own kitchen? He cut me up some, I cut him up proper. Jury mostly his cousins, I think. Anyhow the D.A. said it was time for an example. But it was all right. I had been baptized long before that; the prison chaplain helped me be born again. I spoke a sermon standing on that trap with the noose around my neck. Then I said, “You can do it now! Send me to Jesus!

Hallelujah!” And they did. Happiest day of my lifel’

Albert stuck his head in. ‘Saint Alec, there’s an angel here looking for you.’

‘Coming!’

The angel was waiting just outside for the reason that he was taller than the doorway and not inclined to stoop. ‘You are Saint Alexander Hergensheimer?’

‘That’s me.’

“Your inquiry concerning a creature designated Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson: The report reads: Subject was not caught up in the Rapture, and has not shown up in any subsequent draft. This creature, Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson, is not in Heaven and is not expected. That is all.’

Chapter 23

I cry unto Thee, and Thou dost not hear me:
 I stand up, and Thou regardest me not. 

Job 30:20

SO OF course I eventually wound up in, Saint Peter’s office at the Gate of Judah – having chased all over Heaven first. On Hazel’s advice I went back to the Gate of Asher and looked up that co-op ‘Find Your Friends and Loved Ones’.

‘Saint Alec, angels don’t pass out misinformation and the records they consult are accurate. But they may not have consulted the right records, and, in my opinion, they would not have searched as deeply as you would search if you were doing it yourself -angels being angels. Margie might be listed under her maiden name.’

‘That was what I gave them!’

‘Oh. I thought you asked them to search for “Margie Graham”?’

‘No. Should I go back and ask them to?’

‘No. Not yet. And when you do – if you must don’ ask again at this information booth. Go directly to St Peter’s office. There you’ll get personal attention from other humans, not from angels.’

‘That’s for me!’

‘Yes. But try first at “Find Your Friends and Loved Ones”. That’s not a bureaucracy; it’s a co-op made up of volunteers, all of them people who really care. That’s how Steve found me after he was killed. He didn’t know my family name and I hadn’t used it for years, anyhow. He didn’t know my date and place of death. But a little old lady at “Find Your Friends” kept right on searching females named Hazel until Steve said “Bingo!” If he had just checked at the main personnel office – Saint Peter’s – they would have reported “insufficient data, no identification”.’

She smiled and went on, ‘But the co-op uses imagination. They brought Luke and me together, even

though we hadn’t even met before we died. After I got tired of loafing I decided that I wanted to manage a little restaurant it’s a wonderful way to meet people and make friends. So I asked the co-op and they set their computers on “cook”, and after a lot of false starts and wrong numbers it got Luke and me together and we formed a partnership and set up The Holy Cow. A similar search got us Albert.’

Hazel, like Katie Farnsworth, is the sort of woman who heals just by her presence. But she’s practical about it, too, like my own treasure. She volunteered to launder-my dirty clothes and lent me a robe of Steve’s to wear while my clothes dried. She found me a mirror and a cake of soap; at long last I tackled a five-day (seven-year?) beard. My one razor blade was closer to being a saw than a knife by then, but a half hour’s patient honing using the inside -of a glass tumbler (a trick I had learned in -seminary) restored it to temporary usefulness.

But now I needed a proper shave even though I had shaved – tried to shave – a couple of hours ago. I did not know how long I had been on this hunt but I did know that I had shaved four times… with cold water, twice without soap, and once by Braille – no mirror. Plumbing had indeed been installed for us fleshly types… but not up to American Standard quality. Hardly surprising, since angels don’t use plumbing and don’t need it, and since the overwhelming majority of the fleshly ones have little or no experience with inside plumbing.

The people who man the co-op were as helpful as Hazel said they would be (and I don’t think my fancy halo had anything to do with it) but nothing they turned up gave me any clue to Margrethe, even though they patiently ran computer searches on every combination I could think of.

I thanked them and blessed them and headed for Judah Gate, all the way across Heaven, thirteen hundred and twenty miles away. I stopped only once, at the Square of, the Throne, for one of Luke’s heaven burgers and a cup of the best coffee in New Jerusalem, and some encouraging words from Hazel. I continued my weary search feeling, much bucked up.

The Heavenly Bureau of Personnel occupies two colossal palaces on the right as you come through the gate. The first and smaller is for BC admissions; the second is for admissions since then, and included Peter’s office suite, on the second floor. I went straight there.

A big double door read SAINT PETER – Walk In, so I did. But not into his office; here was a waiting room big enough for Grand Central Station. I pushed through a turnstile that operated by pulling a ticket out of a slot, and a mechanical voice said, ‘Thank you. Please sit down and wait to be called.’

My ticket read ‘2013’ and the place was crowded; I decided, as I looked around for an empty seat, that

I was going to need another shave before my number would come up.

I was still looking when a nun bustled up to me, and ducked a knee in a quick curtsy. ‘Holy one, may I serve you?’ I did not know enough about the costumes worn by Roman Catholic orders to know what sisterhood she belonged to, but she was dressed in what I would call ‘typical’ – long black dress down to her ankles and to her wrists, white, starched deal over her chest and around her neck and. covering her ears, a black headdress covering everything else and giving her the silhouette of a sphinx, a big rosary hanging around her neck… and an ageless, serene face topped off by a lopsided pince-nez. And, of course, her halo.

The thing that impressed me most was that she was here. She was the first proof I had seen that papists can be saved. In seminary we used to argue about that in late-night bull sessions… although, the official position Of my Church was that certainly they could be saved, as long as they believed, as we did and were born again Jesus. I made a mental note to ask her when and how she had been born again – it would be, I was sure, an inspiring story.

I said, ‘Why, thank you, Sister! That’s most kind of you. Yes, you can help me – that is, I hope you can. I’m Alexander Hergensheimer and I’m trying to find my wife. This is the place to inquire, is it not? I’m new here.’

‘Yes, Saint Alexander, this is the place. But you did want to see Saint Peter, did you not?’

‘I’d like to pay my respects. If he’s not too busy.’

‘I’m sure he will want to see you, Holy Father. Let me tell my Sister Superior.’ She picked up the cross on her rosary, appeared to whisper into it, then looked up. ‘Is that spelled H,E,R,G,E,N,S,H,E,I,M,E,R, Saint Alexander?’

‘Correct, Sister.’

She spoke again to the rosary. Then she added, to me, ‘Sister Marie Charles is secretary, to Saint Peter. I’m her assistant and general gopher.’ She smiled. ‘Sister Mary Rose.’

‘It is good to meet you, Sister Mary Rose. Tell me about yourself. What order are you?’

‘I’m a Dominican, Holy Father. In life I was a hospital administrator in Frankfurt, Germany. Here, where there is no longer a need for nursing, I do this work because I like to mingle with people. Will you come with me, sir?’

The crowd parted like the waters of the Red Sea, whether in deference to the nun or to my gaudy halo, I cannot say. Maybe both. She took me to an unmarked side door and straight in, and I found myself in the office of her boss, Sister Marie Charles. She was a tall nun, as tall as I am, and handsome – or ‘beautiful’ may be more accurate. She seemed younger than her assistant… but how is one to tell with nuns? She was seated at a big flattop desk piled high and with an old-style Underwood typewriter swung out from its side. She got up quickly, faced me, and dropped that odd curtsy.

`Welcome, Saint Alexander! We are honored by your call. Saint Peter will be with you soon. Will you be seated? May we offer you refreshment? A glass of wine? A Coca-Cola?’

‘Say, I would really enjoy a Coca-Cola! I haven’t had, one since I was on earth.’

‘A Coca-Cola, right away.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll tell you a secret. Coca-Cola is Saint Peter’s one vice. So we always have them on ice here.’

A voice came out of the air above her desk – a strong’ resonant baritone of the sort I think of as a good preaching voice – a voice like that of ‘Bible’ Barnaby, may his name be blessed. ‘I heard that, Charlie. Let him have his Coke in here; I’m free now.’

‘Were you eavesdropping again, Boss?’

‘None of your lip, girl. And fetch one for me, too.’

Saint Peter was up and striding toward the door with his hand out as I was ushered in. I was taught in church history that he was believed to have been about ninety when he died. Or when he was executed (crucified?) by the, Romans, if he was. (Preaching has always been a chancy vocation, but in the days of Peter’s ministry it was as chancy as that of a Marine platoon sergeant.)

This man looked to be a strong and hearty sixty, or possibly seventy – an outdoor man, with a permanent’ suntan and the scars that come from sun damage. His hair and beard were full and seemed never to have been cut, streaked with grey but not white, and (to my surprise) he appeared to have been at one time a redhead. He was well muscled and broad shouldered, and his hands were calloused, as I learned when he gripped my hand. He was dressed in sandals, a brown robe of coarse wool, a halo like mine, and a dinky little skullcap resting in the middle of that fine head of hair.

I liked him on sight.

He led me around to a comfortable chair near his desk chair, seated me before he sat back down. Sister Marie Charles was right behind us with two Cokes on a tray, in the familiar pinchwaist bottles and with not-so-familiar (I had not seen them for years) Coke ‘glasses with the tulip tops and the registered trademark. I wondered who had the franchise in Heaven and how such business matters were handled.

He said, ‘Thanks, Charlie. Hold all calls.’

‘Even?’

‘Don’t be silly. Beat it.’ He turned to me. ‘Alexander, I try to greet each newly arrived saint personally. But somehow I missed you.’

‘I arrived in the middle of a mob, Saint Peter. Those from the Rapture. And not at this gate. Asher Gate.’

‘That accounts for it. A busy day, that one, and we still aren’t straightened out. But a Saint should be escorted to the main gate… by twenty-four angels and two trumpets. I’ll have to look into this.’

‘To be frank, Saint Peter,’ I blurted out, ‘I don’t think I am a saint. But I can’t get this fancy halo off.’

I He shook his head. ‘You are one, all right. And don’t let your misgivings gnaw at you; no saint ever knows that he is one, he has to be told. It is a holy paradox that anyone who thinks he is a saint never is.

Why, when I arrived here and they handed me the keys and told me I was in charge, I didn’t believe it. I thought the Master was playing a joke on me in return for a couple of japes I pulled on Him back in the days when we were barnstorming around the Sea of Galilee. Oh, no! He meant it. Rabbi Simon bar Jona the old fisherman was gone and I’ve been’ Saint Peter ever since. As you are Saint Alexander, like it or not. And you will like it, in time.’

He tapped on a fat file folder lying on his desk. ‘I’ve been reading your record. There is no doubt about your sanctity. Once I reviewed your record I recalled your trial. Devil’s Advocate against you was Thomas Aquinas; he came up to me afterwards and told me that his attack was pro forma, as there had never been, any doubt in his mind but what you qualified. Tell me, that first miracle, ordeal by fire – did your faith ever waver?’

‘I guess it did. I got a blister out of it.’

Saint Peter snorted. ‘One lonely blister! And you don’t think you qualify. Son, if Saint Joan had had faith as firm as yours, she would have quenched the fire that martyred her’. I know of -´

Sister Marie Charles’ voice announced, ‘Saint Alexander’s wife is here.’

‘Show her in!’ To me he added, ‘Tell you later’.’

I hardly heard him; my heart was bursting.

The door opened; in walked Abigail.

I don’t know how to describe the next few minutes. Heartbreaking disappointment coupled with embarrassment summarizes it.

Abigail looked at me and said severely, ‘Alexander, what in the world are you doing wearing that preposterous halo? Take it off instantly!’

Saint Peter rumbled, ‘Daughter, you are not “in the world”; you are in my private office. You will not speak to Saint Alexander that way.’

Abigail turned her gaze to him, and sniffed. ‘You call him a saint? And didn’t your mother teach you to stand up for ladies? Or are saints exempt from such niceties?’

‘I do stand up, for ladies. Daughter, you will address me, with respect. And you will speak to your husband with the respect a wife owes her husband.’

‘He’s not my husband!’

‘Eh?’ Saint Peter looked from her to me, then back. ‘Explain yourself.’

‘Jesus said, “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels.” So there! And He said it again in Mark twelve, twenty-five.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Saint Peter, ‘I heard Him say it. To the Sadducees. By that rule you are no longer a wife.’

‘Yes! Hallelujah! Years I have waited to be rid of that clod – be rid of him without sinning.’

‘I’m unsure about the latter. But not being a wife does not relieve you of the duty to speak politely to this saint who was once your husband.’ Peter turned again to me. ‘Do You wish her to stay?’

‘Me? No, no! There’s been a mistake.’

`So it appears. Daughter, you may go.’

‘Now you just wait! Having come all this way, I have things I’ve been planning to tell you. Perfectly scandalous goings-on I have seen around here. Why, without the slightest sense of decency –

`Daughter, I dismissed you. Will you walk out on your own feet? Or shall I send for two stalwart angels and have you thrown out?’

‘Why, the very idea! I was just going to say -´

‘You are not going to say!’

‘Well, I certainly have as much right to speak my mind as anyone!’

‘Not in this office. Sister Marie Charles!’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘Do you still remember the judo they taught you when you were working with the Detroit police?’

‘I do!’

‘Get this yenta out of here.’

The tall nun grinned and dusted her hands together. What happened next happened so fast that I can’t describe it. But Abigail left very suddenly.

Saint Peter sat back down, sighed, and picked up his Coke. ‘That woman would try the patience of Job.

How long were you married to her?´

‘Uh, slightly over a thousand years.’

‘I understand you. Why did you send for her?’

‘I didn’t. Well, I didn’t intend to.’ I started to try to explain.

He stopped me. ‘Of course! Why didn’t you say that you were searching for your concubine? You misled Mary Rose. Yes, I know whom you mean: the zaftig shiksa who runs all through the latter part of your dossier. Very nice girl, she seemed to me. You are looking for her?’

‘Yes, surely. The day of the Trump and the Shout we were snatched up together. But that whirlwind, a real Kansas twister, was so violent that we were separated.’

‘You inquired about her before. An inquiry relayed from the information booth by the River.’

‘That´s right.’

‘Alexander, that inquiry is the last entry in your file. I can order the search repeated… but I can tell you ahead of time that it will be useful only to assure you. The answer, will be the same: She is not here.’

He stood up and came around to put a hand on my shoulder. ‘This is a tragedy that I have seen repeated endlessly. A loving couple, confident of eternity together: One comes here, the other does not. What can I do? I wish I could do something. I can’t.’

‘Saint Peter, there has been a mistake!’

He did not answer.

‘Listen to me! I know! She and I were side by side, kneeling at the chancel rail, praying… and just before the Trump and the Shout the Holy Ghost descended on us and we were in a perfect state of grace

and were snatched up together. Ask Him! Ask Him! He will listen to you.’

Peter sighed again. ‘He will listen to anyone, in any of His Aspects. But I will inquire.’ He picked up a telephone instrument so old-fashioned that Alexander Graham Bell could have assembled it. ‘Charlie, give me the Spook. Okay, I’ll wait. Hi! This is Pete, down at the main gate. Heard any new ones? No?

Neither have I Listen, I got a problem. Please run Yourself back to the day of the Shout and the Trump, when You, in Your aspect as Junior, caught up alive all those incarnate souls who were at that moment in a state of grace. Place Yourself outside a wide place in the road called Lowell, Kansas – that’s in North America – and at a tent meeting, a revival under canvas. Are You there? Now, at least a few femtoseconds before the Trump, it is alleged by one Alexander Hergensheimer, now canonized, that You descended on him and is beloved concubine Margrethe. She is described as about three and a half cubits tall, blonde, freckled, eighty mina – Oh, You do? Oh. Too late, huh? I was afraid of that. I’ll tell him.’

I interrupted, whispering urgently, ‘Ask Him where she is!´

‘Boss, Saint Alexander is in agony. He wants to know where she is. Yes, I’ll tell him.’ Saint Peter hung up. ‘Not in Heaven, not on earth. You can figure out the answer yourself And I’m sorry.-

I, must state that Saint Peter was endlessly patient with me. He assured me that I could talk with any One of the Trinity… but reminded me that, in consulting the Holy Ghost we had consulted all of Them. Peter had fresh searches made of the Rapture list, the graves-opened list, and of the running list of all arrivals since then – while telling me that no computer search could conceivably deny the infallible answers of God Himself speaking as the Holy Ghost… which I understood and agreed with, while welcoming new searches.

I said, ‘But how about on earth? Could she be alive somewhere there? Maybe in Copenhagen?’

Peter answered, ‘Alexander, He is as omniscient on earth as He is in Heaven. Can’t you see that?’

I gave a deep sigh. ‘I see that. I’ve been dodging the obvious. All right, how do I get from here to Hell?’

‘Alec! Don’t talk that way!’

‘The hell I won’t talk that way! Peter, an eternity here without her is not an eternity of bliss; it is an eternity of boredom and loneliness and grief. You think this damned gaudy halo means anything to me when I know – yes, you´ve convinced me! – that my beloved is burning in the Pit? I didn’t ask much. Just to be allowed to live with her. I was willing to wash dishes forever if only I could see her smile, hear her voice, touch her hand! She’s been shipped on a technicality and you know it! Snobbish, bad-tempered angels get to live here without ever doing one, lick to deserve it. But my Marga, who is a real angel if one ever lived, gets turned down and sent to Hell to everlasting torture on a childish twist in the rules. You can tell the Father and His sweet-talking Son and that sneaky Ghost, that they can take their gaudy Holy City and shove it! If Margrethe has to be in Hell, that’s where I want to be!’

Peter, was saying, ‘Forgive him, Father; he’s feverish, with grief – he doesn’t know what he is saying.’

I quieted down a little. ‘Saint Peter, I know exactly what I am saying. I don’t want to stay here. My beloved is in Hell, so that is where I want to be. Where I must be.’

‘Alec, you’ll get over this.’

‘What you don’t see is that I don’t want to get over this. I want to be with my love and share her fate.

You tell me she’s in Hell -´

‘No, I told you that it is certain that she is not in Heaven and not on earth.’

‘Is there a fourth place? Limbo, or some such?’

‘Limbo is a myth. I know of no fourth place.’

‘Then I want to leave here at once and look all over Hell for her. How?’

Peter shrugged.

‘Damn it, don’t give me a run-around! That’s all I’ve been handed since the day I walked through the fire

one run-around after another. Am I a prisoner?.

‘No.

‘Then tell me how to go to Hell.’

‘Very well. You can’t wear that halo to Hell. They wouldn’t let you in.´

‘I never wanted it. Let’s go!´

‘Not long after that I stood on the threshold of Judah Gate, escorted there by two angels. Peter did not say good-bye to me; I guess he was disgusted. I was sorry about that; I liked him very much. But I could not make him understand that Heaven was not Heaven to me without Margrethe.

I paused at the brink. ‘I want you to take one message back to Saint Peter -´

They ignored me, grabbed me from both sides, and tossed me over.

I fell.

And fell.

Chapter 24

Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.  
Job 23:3-4

AND STILL I fell.

For modern man one of the most troubling aspects of eternity lies in getting used to the slippery quality of time. With no clocks and no calendars and lacking even the alternation of day and night, or the phases of the moon, or the pageant of seasons, duration becomes subjective and ‘What time is it?’ is a matter of opinion, not of fact.

I think I fell longer than twenty minutes; I do not think that I fell as long as twenty years.

But don’t risk any money on it either way.

There was nothing to see but the insides of my eyeballs. There was not even the Holy City receding in the distance.

Early on, I tried to entertain myself by reliving in memory the happiest times in my life – and found that happy memories made me sad. So I thought about sad occasions and that was worse. Presently I slept. Or I think I did. How can you tell when you are totally cut off from sensation? I remember reading about one of those busybody ‘scientists’ building something he called a ‘sensory deprivation chamber’. What he achieved was a thrill-packed three-ring circus compared with the meager delights of falling from Heaven to Hell.

My first intimation that I was getting close to Hell was the stink. Rotten eggs. H2S Hydrogen, sulfide. The stench of burning brimstone.

You don’t die from it, but small comfort that may be, since those who encounter this stench are dead when they whiff it. Or usually so; I am not dead. They tell of other live ones in history and literature – Dante, Aeneas, Ulysses, Orpheus. But weren’t all of those cases fiction? Am I the first living man to go to Hell, despite all those yarns?

If so, how long will I stay alive and healthy? Just long enough to hit the flaming surface of the Lake? – there to go psst! and become a rapidly disappearing grease spot? Had my Quixotic gesture been just a wee bit hasty? A rapidly disappearing grease spot could not be much help to Margrethe; perhaps I should have stayed in Heaven and bargained. A saint in full-dress halo picketing the Lord in front of His Throne might have caused Him to reverse His decision… since His decision it had to be, L. G. Jehovah being omnipotent.

A bit late to think of it, boy! You can see the red glow on the clouds now. That must be boiling lava down there. How far down? Not far enough! How fast am I falling? Too fast!

I can see what the famous Pit is now: the caldera of an incredibly enormous volcano. Its walls are all around me, miles high, yet the flames and the molten lava are still a long, long way below me. But coming up fast! How are your miracle-working powers today, Saint Alec? You coped with that other fire pit with only a blister; think you can handle this one? The difference is only a matter of degree.

‘With patience and plenty of saliva the elephant de-flowered the mosquito.’ That job was just a matter of degree, too; can you do as well as that elephant? Saint Alec, that was not a saintly thought; what has happened to your piety? Maybe it’s the influence of this wicked neighborhood. Oh, well, you no longer need worry about sinful thoughts; it is too late to worry about any sin. You no longer risk going to Hell for your sins; you are now entering Hell – you are now in Hell. In roughly three seconds you are going to be a grease spot. ‘Bye, Marga my own! I’m sorry I never managed to get you that hot fudge sundae.

Satan, receive my soul; Jesus is a fink –

They netted me like a butterfly. But a butterfly would have needed asbestos wings to halve been saved the way I was saved; my pants were smoldering. They threw a bucket of water over me when they had me on the bank.

‘Just sign this chit.’

‘What chit?’ I sat up and looked out at the flames.

‘This chit.’ Somebody was holding a piece of paper under my nose and offering me a pen.

‘Why do you want me to sign it?’

‘You have to sign it. It acknowledges that we saved you from the burning Pit.’

`I want to see a lawyer. Meanwhile I won’t sign anything.’ The last time I was in this fix it got me tied down, washing dishes, for four months. This time I couldn’t spare four months; I had to get busy at once, searching for Margrethe.

‘Don’t be stupid. Do you want to be tossed back into that stuff?’

A second voice said, ‘Knock it off, Bert. Try telling him the truth.’

(‘Bert?’ I thought that first voice was familiar!) ‘Bert! What are you doing here?’ My boyhood chum, the one who shared my taste in literature. Verne and Wells and Tom Swift – ‘garbage’, Brother Draper had called it.

The owner of the first voice looked at me more closely. ‘Well, I’ll be a buggered baboon. Stinky Hergensheimer!’

‘In the flesh.’

‘I’ll be eternally damned. You haven’t changed much. Rod, get the net spread again; this is the wrong fish. Stinky, you’ve cost us a nice fee; we were fishing for Saint Alexander.’

`Saint who?’

‘Alexander. A Mick holy ^an who decided to go slumming. Why he didn’t come in by a

Seven-Forty-Seven God only knows; we don’t usually get carriage trade here at the Pit. As may be, you’ve probably cost us a major client by getting in the way just when this saint was expected and you ought to pay us for that.’

“How about that fin you owe me?’

`Boy, do you have a memory! That’s outlawed by the statute of limitations.’

‘Show it, to me in Hell’s law books. Anyhow, limitations can’t apply; you never answered me when I tried to collect. So it’s five bucks, compounded quarterly at six percent, for… how many years?’

‘Discuss it later, Stinky. I’ve got to keep an eye out for this saint.’

‘Bert.’

‘Later, Stinky.’

‘Do you recall my right name? The one my folks gave me?’

‘Why, I suppose – Alexander! Oh no, Stinky, it can´t be! Why, you almost flunked out of that backwoods Bible college, after you did flunk out of Rolla.’ His face expressed pain and disbelief. ‘Life can’t be that unfair.’

“The Lord moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.” Meet Saint Alexander, Bert. Would you like me to bless you? In lieu of a fee, I mean.

´We insist on cash. Anyhow, I don’t believe it.’

‘I believe it,’ the second man, the one Bert had called ‘Rod’, put in. ‘And I’d like your blessing, father; I’ve never, been blessed by a saint before. Bert, there’s nothing showing on the distant warning screen and, as you know, only one ballistic arrival was projected for this watch so this has to be, Saint Alexander.’

Can’t be. Rod, I know this character. If he’s a saint, I’m a pink monkey -‘ There was a bolt of lightning but of a cloudless sky. When Bert picked himself up, his clothes hung on him loosely. But he did not need them, as he was now covered with pink fur.

The monkey looked up at me indignantly. ‘Is that any way to treat an old pal?’

‘Bert, I didn’t do it. Or at least I did not intend to do it. Around me, miracles just happen; I don’t do them on, purpose.´

`Excuses. If I had rabies, I’d bite you.’

Twenty minutes later, we were in a booth at a lakefront bar, drinking beer and waiting for a thaumaturgist reputed, to be expert in shapes and appearances. I had been telling them why I was in Hell. ‘So I’ve got to find her. First I’ve got to check the Pit; if she’s in there it’s really urgent.’

‘She’s not in there,’ said Rod.

‘Huh? I hope you can prove that. How do you know?’

‘There’s never anyone in the Pit. That’s a lot of malarkey thought up to keep the peasants in line. Sure, a lot of the hoi polloi arrive ballistically, and a percentage of them used to fall into the Pit until the manager set up this safety watch Bert and I are on. But falling into the Pit doesn’t do a soul any harm… aside from scaring him silly. It burns, of course, so he comes shooting out even faster than he went in. But he’s not damaged. A fire bath just cleans up his allergies, if any.’

(Nobody in the Pit! No ‘burning in Hell’s fires throughout eternity what a shock that was going to be to Brother ‘Bible’ Barnaby and a lot of others whose stock in trade depended on Hell’s fires. But I was not here to discuss eschatology with two lost souls; I was here to find Marga.) ‘This “manager” you speak of. Is. that a euphemism for the Old One?’

The monkey – Bert, I mean – squeaked, ‘If you mean Satan, say so!’

‘That’s who I mean.’

‘Naw. Mr Ashmedai is city manager; Satan never does any work. Why should he? He owns this planet.’

This is a planet?’

‘You think maybe it’s a comet? Look out that window. Prettiest planet in this galaxy. And the best kept. No snakes. No cockroaches. No chiggers. No poison ivy. No tax collectors. No rats. No cancer. No preachers. Only two lawyers.’

‘You make it sound like Heaven.’

“Never been there. You say you just came from there; you tell us.’

‘Well… Heaven’s okay, if you’re an angel. It’s not a planet; it’s an artificial place, like Manhattan. I’m not here to plug Heaven; I’m here to find Marga.’ Should I try to see this Mr Ashmedai? Or would I be better off going directly to Satan?’

The monkey tried to whistle, produced a mouselike squeak. Rod shook his head. ‘Saint Alec, you keep surprising me. I’ve been here since 1588, whenever that was, and I’ve never laid eyes on the Owner. I’ve never thought of trying to see him. I wouldn’t know how to start. Bert, what do you think?’

‘I think I need another beer.’

‘Where do you put it? Since that lightning hit you, you aren’t big enough to put away one can of beer, let alone, three.’

‘Don’t be nosy and call the waiter.’

The quality of discourse did not improve, as every question I asked turned up more questions and no answers. The thaumaturgist arrived and bore off Bert on her shoulder, Bert chattering angrily over her fee she wanted half of all his assets and demanded a contract signed in blood before she would get to work. He wanted her to accept ten percent and wanted me to pay half of that.

When they left, Rod said it was time we found a pad for me; he would take me to a good hotel nearby.

I pointed out that I was without funds. ‘No problem, Saint Alec. All our immigrants arrive broke, but American Express and Diners Club and Chase Manhattan vie for the chance to extend first credit, knowing that whoever signs an immigrant first has a strong chance of keeping his business forever and six weeks past.’

‘Don’t they lose a lot, extending unsecured credit that way?’

‘No. Here in Hell, everybody pays up, eventually. Bear in mind that here a deadbeat can’t even die to avoid his debts, So just sign in, and charge everything to room service until you set it up with one of the big three.’

The Sans Souci Sheraton is on the Plaza, straight across from the Palace. Rod took me to the desk; I signed a registration card and asked for a single with bath. The desk clerk, a small female devil with cute little horns, looked at the card I had signed and her eyes widened. ‘Uh, Saint Alexander?’

‘I’m Alexander Hergensheimer, just as I registered. I am sometimes called “Saint Alexander”, but I don’t think the title applies here.’

She was busy not listening while she thumbed through her reservations. ‘Here it is, Your Holiness – the reservation for your suite.’

‘Huh? I don’t need a suite. And I probably couldn’t pay for it.’

‘Compliments of the management, sir.’

Chapter 25

And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.
 Kings 11:3

 Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?
 Job 4:17

COMPLIMENTS OF the management!!’ How? Nobody knew I was coming here until just before I was chucked out Judah Gate. Did Saint Peter have a hotline to Hell? Was there some sort of

under-the-table cooperation with the Adversary? Brother, how that thought would scandalize the Board of Bishops back home!

Even more so, why? But I had no time to ponder it; the little devil – imp? – on duty slapped the desk bell and shouted, ‘Front!’

The bellhop who responded was human, and a very attractive youngster. I wondered how he had died so young and why he had missed going to Heaven. But it was none of my business so I did not ask. I did notice one thing: While he reminded me in his appearance of a Philip Morris ad, when he walked in front of me, leading me to my suite, I was reminded of another cigarette ad – ‘So round, so firm, so fully packed.’ That lad had the sort of bottom that Hindu lechers write poetry about – could it have been that, sort of sin that caused him to wind up here?

I forgot the matter when I entered that suite.

The living room was too small for football but large enough for tennis. The furnishings would be described as adequate' by any well-heeled oriental potentate. The alcove calledthe buttery’ had a

cold-table collation laid out ample for forty guests, with a few hot dishes on the end – roast pig with apple in mouth, baked peacock with feathers restored, a few such tidbits. Facing this display was a bar that was well stocked – the chief purser of Konge Knut would have been impressed by it.

My bellhop (‘Call me “Pat”.’) was moving around, opening drapes, adjusting windows, changing – thermostats, checking towels – all of those things bellhops do to encourage a liberal tip – while I was trying to figure out how to’ tip. Was there a way to charge a tip for a bellhop to room service? Well, I would have to ask Pat. I went through the bedroom (a Sabbath Day’s journey!) and tracked Pat down in the bath.

Undressing. Trousers at half-mast and about to be, kicked-off. Bare bottom facing me. I called out, ‘Here, lad! No! Thanks for the thought… but boys are not my weakness.’

‘The’y’re my weakness,’ Pat answered, ‘but I’m not a boy’- and turned around, facing me.

Pat was right;_she was emphatically not a boy.

I stood there with my chin hanging down, while she took off the rest of her clothes, dumped them into a hamper. ‘There!’ she said, smiling. ‘Am I glad to get out of that monkey suit! I’ve been wearing it since you were reported as spotted on radar. What happened, Saint Alec? Did you stop for a beer?’

‘Well… yes. Two or three beers.’

‘I thought so. Bert Kinsey had the watch, did he not? If the Lake ever overflows and covers this part of town with lava, Bert will stop for a beer before he runs for it. Say, what are you looking troubled about? Did I say something wrong?’

‘Uh, Miss. You are very pretty – but I didn’t ask for a girl, either.’

She stepped closer to me, looked up and patted my cheek. I could feel her breath on my chin, smell its sweetness. ‘Saint Alec,’ she said softly, ‘I’m not trying to seduce you. Oh, I’m available, surely; a party girl, or two or three, comes with the territory for all our luxury suites. But I can do a lot more than make love to you.’ She reached out, grabbed a bath towel, draped it around her hips. ‘Ichiban bath girl, too. Prease, you rike me wark arong spine?’ She dimpled and tossed the towel aside. ‘I’m a number-one bartender, too. May I serve you a Danish zombie?’

‘Who told you I liked Danish zombies?’

She had turned away to open a wardrobe. ‘Every saint I’ve ever met liked them. Do you like this?’ She held up a robe that appeared to be woven from a light blue fog.

‘It’s lovely. How’ many saints have you met?’

‘One. You. No, two, but the other one didn’t drink zombies. I was just being flip. I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not; it may be a clue. Did the information, come from a Danish girl? A blonde, about your size, about your weight, too. Margrethe, or Marga. Sometimes “Margie”.’

‘No. The scoop on you was in a printout I was given when I was assigned to you. This Margie – friend of yours?’

‘Rather more than a friend. She’s the reason I’m, in ‘Hell. On Hell. In?’

‘Either way. I’m fairly certain I’ve never met your Margie.’

‘How does one go about finding another person here?. Directories? Voting lists? What?’

I’ve never seen either. Hell isn’t very organized. It’s an anarchy except for a touch of absolute monarchy on some points.’

‘Do you suppose I could ask Satan?’

She looked dubious. ‘There’s no rule I know of that says you can’t write a letter to His Infernal Majesty. But there is no rule that says He has to read it, either. I think it would be opened and read by some secretary; they wouldn’t just dump, it into the Lake. I don’t think they would.’ She added, ‘Shall we go into the den? Or are you ready for bed?’

`Uh, I think I need a bath. I know I do.’

‘Good! I’ve never bathed a saint before. Fun!’

.’Oh, I don’t need help. I can bathe myself.’

She bathed me.

She gave me a manicure. She gave me a pedicure, and tsk-tsked over my toenails – ‘disgraceful’ was the mildest term she used. She trimmed my hair. When I asked about razor blades, she showed me a cupboard in the bath stocking eight or nine different ways of coping with beards. ‘I recommend that electric razor with the three rotary heads but, if you will trust me, you will learn’ that I am quite competent with an old-fashioned straight razor.’

`l’m just looking for some Gillette blades.’

‘I don’t know that brand but there are brand-new razors here to match all these sorts of blades.’

‘No, I want my own sort. Double-edged. Stainless.’

`Wilkinson Sword, double-edged lifetime?’

‘Maybe. Oh, here we are! – “Gillette Stainless – Buy Two Packs, Get One Free.”

`Good. I’ll shave you.’

‘No, I can do it.’

A half hour later I settled back against pillows in a bed for a king’s honeymoon. I had a fine Dagwood in my belly a Danish zombie nightcap in my hand, and I was wearing brand new silk pajamas in maroon and old gold. Pat took off that translucent peignoir in blue smoke that she had worn except while bathing me and got in beside me, placed a drink for herself, Glenlivet on rocks, where she could reach it.

Q said to myself, ‘Look, Marga, I didn’t choose this. There is only this one bed. But it’s a big bed and she’s not trying to snuggle up. You wouldn’t want me to kick her out, would you? She’s a nice kid; I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I’m tired; I’m going to drink this and go right to sleep.’)

I didn’t go right to sleep. Pat was not the least bit aggressive. But she was very cooperative. I found one part of my mind devoting itself intensely to what Pat had to offer. (plenty!) while another part of my mind was explaining to Marga that this wasn’t anything serious; I don’t love her; I love you and only you and always will… but I haven’t been able to sleep and –

Then we slept for a while. Then we watched a living hollowgram that Pat said was ‘X rated’. and I learned about things I had never heard of, but it turned out that, Pat had and could do them and could teach me, and this time I paused just long enough to tell Marga I was learning them for both of us, then I turned my whole attention to learning.

Then we napped again.

It was some time later that Pat reached out and touched my shoulder. ‘Turn over this way, dear; let me see your face. I thought so. Alec, I know you’re carrying the torch for your sweetheart; that’s why I’m here: to make it easier. But I can’t if you won’t try. What did she do for you that I haven’t done and can’t do? Does she have that famous left-hand thread? Or what? Name it, describe it. I’ll do it, or fake it, or send out for it. Please, dear. You’re beginning to hurt my professional pride.’

‘You’re doing just fine.’ I patted her hand.

‘I wonder. More girls like me, maybe, in various flavors? Drown you in tits? – chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, tutti-frutti. “Tutti-frutti” -hmm… Maybe you’d like a San. Francisco sandwich? Or some other Sodom-and-Gomorrah fancy? I have a male friend from Berkeley who isn’t all that male; he has a delicious, playful imagination; I’ve teamed with him many times. And he has on call others like him; he’s a member of both Aleister Crowley Associates and Nero’s Heroes and Zeroes. If you fancy a mob scene, Donny and I can cast it any way you like, and the Sans Souci will orchestrate it to suit your taste. Persian Garden, sorority house, Turkish harem, jungle drums with obscene rites, nunnery – “Nunnery” – did I tell you what I did before I died?’

`I wasn’t certainhad died.’

‘Oh, certainly. I’m not an imp faking human; I’m human. You don’t think anyone could get a job like this without human experience, do you? You have to be human right down to your toes to please a fellow human most; that stuff about the superior erotic ability of succubi is just their advertising. I was a nun, Alec, from adolescence to death, most of it spent teaching grammar and arithmetic to children who didn’t want to learn.

‘I soon learned that my vocation had not been a true one. What I did not know was how to get out of it. So I stayed. At about thirty I discovered just how miserably, awful my mistake had been; my sexuality reached maturity. Mean to say I got horny, Saint Alec, and stayed horny and got more so every year.

‘The worst thing about my predicament was not that I was subjected to temptation but that I was not subjected to temptation – as I would have grabbed any opportunity. Fat chance! My confessor might have looked upon me with lust had I been a choir boy – as it was, he sometimes snored while I was confessing. Not surprising; my sins were dull, even to me.’

‘What were your sins, Pat?’

‘Carnal thoughts, most of which I did not confess. Not being forgiven, they went straight into Saint Peter’s computers. Blasphemous adulterous fornication.’

Huh? Pat, you have quite an imagination.’

‘Not especially, just horny. You probably don’t know just how hemmed in a nun is. She is a bride of Christ; that’s the contract. So even to think about the joys of sex makes of her an adulterous wife in the worst possible way.’

‘Be darned. Pat, I recently met two nuns, in Heaven. Both seemed like hearty wenches, one especially. Yet there they were.’

‘No inconsistency. Most nuns confess their sins regularly, are forgiven. Then they usually die in the bosom of their Family, with its chaplain or confessor at hand. So gets the last rites with her sins all forgiven and she’s shipped straight to Heaven, pure as Ivory soap.

‘But not me!’ She grinned. ‘I’m being punished for my sins and enjoying every wicked minute of it. I died a virgin in 1918, during the big flu epidemic, and so many died so fast that no priest got to me in time to grease me into Heaven. So I wound up here. At the end of my thousand year apprenticeship -´

‘Hold it! You died in 1918?’

‘Yes. The great Spanish Influenza epidemic. Born in 1878, died in 1918, on my fortieth birthday. Would you prefer for me to look forty? I can, you know.’

‘No, you look just fine. Beautiful.’

‘I wasn’t sure. Some men – Lots of eager mother humpers around here and most of them never got a chance to do it while they were alive. It’s one of my easier entertainments. I simply lead you into hypnotizing yourself, you supply the data. Then I look and sound exactly like your mother. Smell like her, too. Everything. Except that I am available to you in ways that your mother probably was not. -‘

‘Patty, I don’t even like my mother!’

‘Oh. Didn’t that cause you trouble at Judgment Day?’

‘No. That’s not in the rules. It says in the Book that you must honor thy father and thy mother. Not one word about loving them. I honored her, all the full protocol. Kept her picture on my desk. A letter every week. Telephoned her on her birthday. Called on her in person as my duties permitted. Listened to her eternal bitching and to her poisonous gossip about her women friends. Never contradicted her. Paid her hospital bills. Followed her to her grave. But weep I did not. She didn’t like me and I didn’t like her.

Forget my mother! Pat, I asked you a question and you changed the subject.’

‘Sorry, dear. Hey, look what I’ve found!’

‘Don’t change the subject again; just keep it warm in your hand while you answer my question. You said something about your “thousand-year apprenticeship”.’

‘Yes?’

‘But you said also that you died in 1918. The Final Trump sounded in 1994 – I know; I was there. That’s only seventy-six years later than your death. To me that Final Trump seems like only a few days ago, about a month, no more. I ran across something that seemed to make it seven years ago. But that still isn’t over nine hundred, the best part of a thousand years. I’m not a spirit, I’m a living body. And I’m not Methuselah.’ (Damn it, is Margrethe separated from me by a thousand years? This isn’t fair!)

‘Oh. Alec, in eternity a thousand years isn’t any particular time; it is simply a long time. Long enough in this case to test whether or not I had both the talent and the disposition for the profession. That took quite a while because, while I was horny enough – and stayed that way; almost any guest can send me right through the ceiling as you noticed – I had arrived here knowing nothing about sex. Nothing! But I did learn and eventually Mary Magdalene gave me high marks and recommended me for permanent appointment.’

‘Is she down here?’

‘Oh. She’s a visiting professor here; she’s on the permanent faculty in Heaven.’

‘What does she teach in Heaven?’

‘I have no idea but it can’t be what she teaches here. Or I don’t think so. Hmm. Alec, she’s one of the eternal greats; she makes her own rules. But this time you changed the subject. I was trying to tell you that I don’t know how long my apprenticeship lasted because time is whatever you want it to be. How long have you and I been in bed together?’

‘Uh, quite a while. But not long enough. I think it must be near midnight.’

‘It’s midnight if you want it to be midnight. Want me to get on top?’

The next morning, whenever that was, Pat and I had breakfast on the balcony looking out over the Lake. She was dressed in Marga’s favorite costume, shorts tight and’ short, and a halter with her breasts tending to overflow their bounds. I don’t know when she got her clothes, but my pants and shirt had been cleaned and repaired in the night and my underwear and socks washed – in Hell there seem to be busy little imps everywhere. Besides, they could have driven a flock of geese through our bedroom the latter part of the night without disturbing me.

I looked at Pat across the table, appreciating her wholesome, girl-scout beauty, with her sprinkle of freckles across her nose, and thought how strange it was that I had ever confused sex with sin. Sex can involve sin, surely any human act can involve cruelty and injustice. But sex alone held no taint of sin. I had arrived here tired, confused, and unhappy – Pat had first made me happy, then caused me to rest, then left me happy this lovely morning.

Not any less anxious to find you, Marga my own – but in much better shape to push the search.

Would Margrethe see it that way?

Well, she had never seemed jealous of me.

How would I feel if she took a vacation, a sexual vacation, such as I had just enjoyed? That’s a good question. Better think about it, boy – because sauce for the goose is not a horse of another color.

I looked out over the Lake, watched the smoke rise and the flames throwing red lights on the smoke… while right and left were green and sunny early summer sights, with snow-tipped mountains in the far distance. Pat -‘

‘Yes, dear?’

‘The Lake bank can’t be more than a furlong from here. But I can’t smell any brimstone.’

‘Notice how the breeze is blowing those banners? From anywhere around the Pit the wind blows toward the Pit. There it rises – incidentally slowing any soul arriving ballistically – and then on the far side of the globe there is a corresponding down draft into a cold pit where the hydrogen sulfide reacts with oxygen to form water and sulfur. The sulfur is deposited; the water comes out as water vapor, and returns. The two pits and this circulation control the weather here somewhat the way the moon acts as a control on earth weather. But gentler.’

I was never too hot at physical sciences… but that doesn’t sound like the natural laws I learned in school.’

‘Of course not. Different Boss here. He runs this planet to suit himself.’

Whatever I meant to answer got lost in a mellow gong played inside the suite. ‘Shall I answer, sir?’

‘Sure, but how dare you call me “sir”? Probably just room service. Huh?´

‘No, dear Alec, room service will just come in when they see that we are through.’ She got up, came back quickly with an envelope. ‘Letter by Imperial courier. For ‘You, dear.’

Me?’ I accepted it gingerly, and opened it. An embossed seal at the top: the conventional Devil in red, horns, hooves, tail, pitchfork, and standing in flames. Below it:

Saint Alexander Hergensheimer Sans Souci Sheraton

The Capital

Greetings:

In,response to your petition for an audience with His Infernal Majesty, Satan Mekratrig, Sovereign of Hell and His Colonies beyond, First of the Fallen Thrones, Prince of Lies, I have the honour to advise you that His Majesty requires you to substantiate your request by supplying to this office a full and frank memoir of your life. When this has been done, a decision on your request will be made.

May I add to His Majesty’s message this advice: Any attempt to omit, slur over, or color in the belief that you will thereby please His Majesty will not please Him.

I have the honour to remain, Sincerely His,

(s) Beelzebub Secretary to His Majesty

I read it aloud to Pat. She blinked her eyes and whistled. ‘Dear, you had better get busy!’

`I -´ The paper burst into flames; I dropped it into the dirty dishes. ‘Does that always happen?’

‘I don’t know; it’s’ the first time I’ve ever seen a message from Number One. And the first time I’ve heard of anyone being even conditionally granted an audience.’

‘Pat. I didn’t ask for an audience. I planned to find out how to do so today. But I have not put in the request this answers.’

‘Then you must put in the request at once. It wouldn’t do to let it stay unbalanced. I’ll help dear – I’ll type

it for you.’

The imps had been around again. In one corner of that vast living room I found that they had installed two desks, one a writing desk, with stacks of paper and a tumbler of pens, the other a more complex setup. Pat went straight to that one. ‘Dear, it looks like I’m still assigned to you. I’m your secretary now. The latest and best Hewlett-Packard equipment – this is going to be fun! Or do you know how to type?’

‘I’m, afraid not.’

‘Okay, you write it longhand; I’ll put it into shape… and correct your spelling and your grammar – you just whip it out. Now I know why I was picked for this job. Not my girlish smile, dear – my typing. Most of, my guild can’t type. Many of them took up whoring because shorthand and typing were too much for them. Not me. Well, let’s get to work; this job will run days, weeks, I don’t know. Do you want me to continue to sleep here?’

‘Do you want to leave?’

‘Dear, that’s the guest’s decision. Has to be.’

‘I don’t want you to leave.’ (Marga! Do please understand!)

‘Good thing you said that, or I would have burst into tears. Besides, a good secretary should stick around in case something comes up in the night.’

‘Pat, that was an old joke when I was in seminary.’

‘It was an old joke before you were born, dear. Lets get to work.’

Visualize a calendar (that I don’t have), its pages ripping off in the wind. This manuscript gets longer and longer but Pat insists that Prince Beelzebub’s advice must be taken literally. Pat makes two copies of all that I write; one copy stacks up on my desk, the other copy disappears each night. Imps again. Pat tells

me that I can assume that the vanishing copy is going to the Palace, at least as far as the Prince’s desk… so what I am doing so far must be, satisfactory.

In less than two hours each day Pat types out and prints out what takes me all day to write. But I stopped driving so hard when a handwritten note came in:

You are working too hard. Enjoy yourself. Take her to the theater. Go on a picnic. Don’t be so wound up.

(s)B.

The note self-destroyed, so I knew it was authentic. So I obeyed. With pleasure! But I am not going to describe the fleshpots of Satan’s capital city.

This morning I finally reached that odd point where I was (am) writing now about what is going on now – and I hand my last page to Pat.

Less than an hour after I completed that line above, the gong sounded; Pat went out into the foyer, hurried back. She put her arms around me. ‘This is good-bye, dear. I won’t be seeing you again.’

‘What!’

‘Just that, dear. I was told this morning that my assignment was ending. And I have something I must tell you.

You will find, you are bound to learn, that I have been reporting on you daily. Please don’t be angry about it. I am a professional, part of the Imperial security staff.’

‘Be damned! So every kiss, every sigh, was a fake.’

‘Not one was a fake! Not one! And, when you find your Marga, please tell her that I said she is lucky.’

‘Sister Mary Patricia, is this another lie?’

‘Saint Alexander, I have never lied to you. I’ve had to hold back some things until I was free to speak, that’s all.’ She took her arms from around me.

‘Hey! Aren’t you going to kiss me good-bye?’

‘Alec, if you really want to kiss me, you won’t ask.’

I didn’t ask; I did it. If Pat was faking, she’s a better actress than I think she is.

Two giant fallen angels were waiting to take me to the Palace. They were heavily armed and fully armored. Pat had packaged my manuscript and told me that I was expected to bring it with me. I started to leave – then stopped most suddenly. ‘My razor!’

‘Check your pocket, dear.’

‘Huh? How’d it get there?’

‘I knew you weren’t coming back, dear.’

Again I learned that, in the company of angels, I could fly. Out my own balcony, around the Sans Souci Sheraton, across the Plaza, and we landed on a third-floor balcony of Satan’s Palace. Then through several corridors, up a flight of stairs with lifts too high to be comfortable for humans. When I stumbled, one of my escorts caught me, then steadied me until we reached the top, but said nothing – neither ever said anything.

Great brass doors, as complex as the Ghiberti Doors, opened. I was shoved inside.

And saw Him.

A dark and smoky hall, armed guards down both sides, a high throne, a Being on it, at least twice as high as a man… a Being that was the conventional Devil such as YOU see on a Pluto bottle or a deviled-ham tin – tail and horns and fierce eyes, a pitchfork in lieu of scepter, a gleam from braziers glinting off Its dark red skin, sleek muscles. I had to remind myself that the Prince of Lies could look any way He wished; this was probably to daunt me.

His voice rumbled out like a foghorn: ‘Saint Alexander, you may approach Me.’

Chapter 26

I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. 

Job 30:29

I STARTED up the steps leading to the throne. Again, the lifts were too high, the treads too wide, and now I had no one to steady me. I was reduced to crawling up those confounded steps while Satan looked down at me with a sardonic smile. From all around came music from an unseen source, death music, vaguely Wagnerian but nothing I could identify. I think it was laced with that below-sonic frequency that makes dogs howl, horses run away, and causes men to think of flight or suicide.

That staircase kept stretching.

I didn’t count the number of steps when I started up, but the flight looked to be about thirty steps, no more. When I had been crawling up it for several minutes, I realized that it looked as high as ever. The Prince of Lies!

So I stopped and waited.

Presently that rumbling voice said, ‘Something wrong,’ Saint Alexander?’

‘Nothing wrong,’ I answered, ‘because You planned it this way. If You really want me to approach You, You will turn off the joke circuit. In the meantime there is no point in my trying to climb a treadmill.’

‘You think I am doing that to you?’

‘I know that You are. A game. Cat and mouse.’

‘You are trying to make a fool of Me, in front of My gentlemen.’

‘No, Your Majesty, I cannot make a fool of You. Only You can do that.’

`Ah so. Do you realize that I can blast you where you stand?’

‘Your Majesty, I have been totally in Your power since I entered Your realm. What do You wish of me? Shall I continue trying to climb Your treadmill?’

‘Yes.’

‘So I did, and the staircase stopped stretching and the treads reduced to a comfortable seven inches. In seconds I reached the same level as Satan – the level of His cloven feet, that is. Which put me much too close to Him. Not only was His Presence terrifying – I had to keep a close grip on myself – but also He stank! Of filthy garbage cans, of rotting meat, of civet and skunk, of brimstone, of closed rooms and gas from diseased gut – all that and worse. I said to myself, Alex Hergensheimer, if you let Him prod you into throwing up and thereby kill any chance of getting you and Marga back together – just don’t do it!

Control yourself!

‘The stool is for you,’ said Satan. ‘Be seated.’

Near the throne was a backless stool, low enough to destroy the dignity of anyone who sat on it. I sat.

Satan picked up a manuscript with a hand so big that the business-size sheets were like a deck of cards in His hand. ‘I’ve read it. Not bad. A bit wordy but My editors will cut it – better that way than too brief. We will need an ending for it… from you or by a ghost. Probably the latter; it needs more impact than you give it. Tell me, have you ever thought of writing for a living? Rather than preaching?’

‘I don’t think I have the talent.’

‘Talent shmalent. You should see the stuff that gets published. But you must hike up those sex scenes; today’s cash customers demand such scenes wet. Never mind that now; I didn’t call you here to discuss your literary style and its shortcomings. I called you in to

make you an offer.’

I waited. So did He. After a bit He said, ‘Aren’t curious about the offer?’

‘Your Majesty, certainly I am. But, if my race has learned one lesson, concerning You, it is that a human should be extremely cautious in bargaining with You.´

He I chuckled and the foundations shook. ‘Poor ‘little human, did you really think that I wanted to your scrawny soul?’

‘I don’t know what You want. But I’m not as smart as Dr Faust, and not nearly as smart as Daniel Webster. It behooves me to be cautious.’

‘Oh, come! I don’t want your soul. There’s no for souls today; there are far too many of them and quality, is way down. I can pick them up at a nickel a bunch, like radishes. But I don’t; I’m overstocked. No, Saint Alexander, I wish to retain your services. Your professional services.’

(I was suddenly alarmed. What’s the catch? Alex, this is loaded! Look behind you! What’s He after?) ‘You need a dishwasher?’

He chuckled again, about 4.2 on the Richter scale. ‘No, no, Saint Alexander! Your vocation – not the exigency to which you were temporarily reduced. I want to hire you as a gospel-shouter, a

Bible-thumper. I want you to work the Jesus business, just as you were trained to. You won’t have to raise money or pass the collection plate; the salary will be ample and the duties light. What do you say?’

‘I say You are trying to trick me.’

‘Now that’s not very kind. No tricks, Saint Alexander. You will be free to preach exactly as you please, no restrictions. Your title will be personal chaplain to Me’, and Primate of Hell. You can devote the rest of your time as little or as much as you wish – to saving lost souls… and there are plenty of those here.

Salary to be negotiated but not less than the incumbent, Pope Alexander the Sixth, a notoriously greedy soul. You*won’t be pinched, I promise you. Well? How say you?’

`(Who’s crazy? The Devil, or me? Or am I having another of those nightmares that have been dogging me lately?) ‘Your Majesty, You have not mentioned anything I want.´

‘Ah so? Everybody needs money. You’re broke; you can´t stay in that fancy suite another day without finding a job.´ He tapped the manuscript. ‘This may bring in something, some day. Not soon. I’m not going to advance you anything on it; it might not sell. There, are too many

I-Was-a-Prisoner-of-the-Evil-King extravaganzas on the market already these days.’

‘Your Majesty, You have read my memoir; You know what I want.’

‘Eh? Name it.’

‘You know. My beloved. Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson.’

He looked surprised. ‘Didn’t I send you a memo about that? She’s not in Hell.’

I felt like a patient who has kept his chin up right up to the minute the biopsy comes back… and then can’t accept the bad news. ‘Are You sure?’

‘Of course I am. Who do you think is in charge around here?’

(Prince of Liars, Prince of Lies!) ‘How can You be sure? The way I hear it, nobody keeps track. A person could be in Hell for years and You would never know, one way or the other.’

‘If that’s the way you heard it, you heard wrong. Look, if you accept My offer, you’ll be able to afford the best agents in history, from Sherlock Holmes to J. Edgar Hoover, to search all over Hell for you. But you’d be wasting your money; she is not in My jurisdiction. I’m telling you officially.’

I hesitated. Hell is a big place; I could search it* by myself throughout eternity and I might not find Marga. But plenty of money (how well I knew it!) made hard things easy and impossible things merely difficult.

However – Some of the things I had done as executive deputy of C.U.D. may have been a touch shoddy (meeting a budget isn’t easy), but as an ordained minister I had never hired out to the Foe. Our Ancient Adversary. How can a minister of Christ be chaplain to Satan? Marga darling, I can’t.

`No.´

‘I can’t hear you. Let Me sweeten the deal. Accept and I assign My prize female agent Sister Mary Patricia to you permanently. She’ll be your slave – with the minor reservation that you must not sell her. However, you can rent her out, if you wish. How say you now.

‘No.’

‘Oh, come, come! You ask for one female; I offer you a better one. You can’t pretend not to be satisfied with Pat; you’ve been shacked up with her for weeks. Shall I play back some of the sighs and moans?’

‘You unspeakable cad!’

‘Tut, tut, don’t be rude to Me in My own house. You know and I know and we all know that there isn’t any great difference between one female and another – save possibly in their cooking. I’m offering you one slightly, better in place of the one you mislaid. A year from now you’ll thank Me. Two years from now you’ll wonder why you ever fussed. Better accept, Saint Alexander; it is the best offer you can hope for, because, I tell you solemnly, that Danish zombie you ask for is not in Hell. Well?’

`No.´

Satan drummed on the arm of his throne and looked vexed. ‘That’s your last word?’

‘Yes.’

`Suppose I offered you the chaplain job with your ice maiden thrown in?’

‘You said she wasn’t in Hell!’

‘I did not say that I did not know where she is.’

‘You can get her?’

‘Answer My question. Will you accept service as My chaplain if the contract includes returning her to you?’

(Marga, Marga!) ‘No.’

Satan said briskly, ‘Sergeant General, dismiss the guard. You come with me.’

‘Leftanright!… Hace! For´d!… Harp!’

Satan got down from His throne, went around behind it without further word to me. I had to hurry to catch up with His giant strides. Back of the throne was a long dark tunnel; I broke into a run when it seemed that He was getting away from me. His silhouette shrank rapidly against a dim light at the far end of the tunnel.

Then I almost stepped on His heels. He had not been receding as fast as I had thought; He had been changing in size. Or I had been. He and I were now much the same height. I skidded to a halt close behind Him as He reached doorway at the end of the tunnel. It was barely lighted by a red glow.

Satan touched something at the door; a white fan light came on above the door. He opened it and turned toward me. ‘Come in, Alec.’

My heart skipped and I gasped for breath. Jerry! Jerry Farnsworth!’

Chapter 27

For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
 Ecclesiastes 1:18

 And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
 Job 3:2-3

MY EYES dimmed, my head started to spin, my knees went rubbery. Jerry said sharply, ‘Hey, none of that!’ – grabbed me around the waist, dragged me inside, slammed the door.

He kept me from falling, then shook me and slapped my face. I shook my head and caught my breath. I heard Katie’s voice: ‘Let’s get him in where he can lie down.’

My eyes focused. ‘I’m okay. I was just taken all over queer for a second.’ I looked around. We were in the foyer of the Farnsworth house.

‘You went into syncope, that’s What you did. Not surprising, you had a shock. Come into the family room.’

‘All right. Hi, Katie. Gosh, it’s good to see you.’

“You, too, dear.’ She came closer, put her arm around me, and kissed me A learned again that, while Marga was my be-all, Katie was my kind of woman, too. And Pat. Marga, I wish you could have met Pat. (Marga!)

The family room seemed bare – unfinished furniture, no windows, no fireplace. Jerry said, `Katie, give us Remington number two’, will you, please? I’m going to punch drinks.’

‘Yes, dear.’

While they were busy, Sybil came tearing in, threw her arms around me (almost knocking me off my feet; the child is solid) and kissed me, a quick buss unlike Katie’s benison. ‘Mr Graham! You were terrific! I watched all of it. With Sister Pat. She thinks you’re terrific, too.’

The left wall changed into a picture window looking out at mountains; the opposite wall now had a field-stone fireplace with a brisk fire that looked the same as the last time I saw it. The ceiling now was

low; furniture and floor and fixtures were all as I recalled. ‘Remington number two.’ Katie turned away from the controls. ‘Sybil, let him be, dear. Alec, off your feet. Rest.’

‘All right.’ I sat down. ‘Uh… is this Texas? Or is it Hell?’

‘Matter of opinion,’ Jerry said.

‘Is there a difference?’ asked Sybil.

‘Hard to tell,’ said Katie. ‘Don’t worry about it now, Alec. I watched you, too, and I agree with the girls. I was proud of ‘you.’

‘He’s a tough case,’ Jerry put in. ‘I didn’t get a mite of change off him. Alec, you stubborn squarehead, I lost three bets on you.’ Drinks appeared at our places. Jerry raised his glass. ‘So here’s to you.’

‘To Alec!’

‘Right!’

‘Here’s to me,’ I agreed and took a big slug of Jack Daniel’s. ‘Jerry? You’re not really -‘

He grinned at me. The tailored ranch clothes faded; the western boots gave way to cloven hooves, horns stuck up through His hair, His skin glowed ruddy red and oily over heavy muscles; in His lap a preposterously huge phallus thrust rampantly skyward.

Katie said gently, ‘I think You’ve convinced him, dear, and it’s not one of Your prettier guises.’

Quickly the conventional Devil-faded and the equally convenntional Texas millionaire returned. ‘That’s better,’ said Sybil. ‘Daddy, why do You use that corny one?’

‘It’s an emphatic symbol. But what I’m wearing now is appropriate here. And you should be in Texas clothes, too.’

‘Must I? I think Patty has Mr Graham used to skin by now.’

‘Her skin, not your skin. Do it before I fry you for lunch.’

‘Daddy, You’re a fraud.’ Sybil grew blue jeans and a halter without moving out of her chair. ‘And I’m tired of being a teenager and see no reason to continue the charade. Saint Alec knows he was hoaxed.’

‘Sybil, you talk too much.’

Dear One, she may be right,’ Katie put in quietly.

Jerry shook His head. I sighed and said what I had to say. ‘Yes, Jerry, I know I’ve been hoaxed. By those who I thought were my friends. And Marga’s friends, too. You have been behind it all? Then who am I? Job?’

‘Yes and no.’

`What does that mean… Your Majesty?’

‘Alec, you need not call Me that. We met as friends. I hope we will stay friends.’

‘How can we be friends? If I am Job. Your Majesty… where is my wife!’

‘Alec, I wish I knew. Your memoir gave Me some clues and I have been following them. But I don’t know as yet. You must be patient.’

‘Uh… damn it, patient I’m not! What clues? Set me on the trail! Can’t You see that I’m going out of my mind?’

‘No, I can’t, because you’re not. I’ve just been grilling you. I pushed you to what should have been your breaking point, You can’t be broken. However, you can’t help Me search for her, not at this point. Alec, you’ve got to remember that you are human… and I am not. I have powers that you can’t imagine. I have limitations that you cannot imagine, too. So hold your peace and listen.

‘I am your friend. If you don’t believe that I am, you are free to leave My house and fend for yourself. There are jobs to be had down at the Lake front – if you can stand the reek of brimstone. You can search for Marga your own way. I don’t owe you two anything as I am not behind your troubles. Believe Me.’

‘Uh… I want to believe You.’

`Perhaps you’ll believe Katie.’

Katie said, ‘Alec, the Old One speaks sooth to you. He did not compass your troubles. Dear, did you ever bandage a wounded dog… and have the poor beastie, in its ignorance, gnaw away the dressing and damage itself still more?’

‘Uh, yes.’ (My dog Brownie. I was twelve. Brownie died.)

‘Don’t be like that poor dog. Trust Jerry. If He is to help you, He must do things beyond your ken. Would you try to direct a brain surgeon? Or attempt to hurry one?’

I smiled ruefully and reached out to pat her hand. ‘I’ll be good, Katie. I’ll try.’

‘Yes, do try, for Marga’s sake.’

‘I will. Uh, Jerry – stipulating that I’m merely human and can’t understand everything, can You tell me anything?’

‘What I can, I will. Where shall I start?’

‘Well, when lasked if I was Job, You said, “Yes and no.” What did You mean?’

‘You are indeed another Job. With the original Job I was, I confess, one of the villains. This time I’m not.

‘I’m not proud of the fashion in which I bedeviled Job. I’m not proud of the fashion in which I have so often let My Brother Yahweh maneuver Me into doing His dirty work – starting clear back with Mother Eve – and before that, in ways I cannot explain. And I’ve always been a sucker for a bet, any sort of a bet… and I’m not proud of that weakness, either.’

Jerry looked at the fire and brooded. ‘Eve was a pretty one. As soon as I laid eyes on her I knew that Yahweh had finally cooked up a creation worthy of an Artist. Then I found out He had copied most of the design.’

‘Huh? But -‘

‘Man, do not interrupt. Most of your errors – this MY brother actively encourages – arise from believing that your God is solitary and all powerful. In fact My Brother – and I, too, of course – is no more than a corporal in the T.O. of the Commander in Chief. And, I must add, the Great One I think of as the

C-in-C, the Chairman, the Final Power, may be a mere private to some higher Power I cannot comprehend.

‘Behind every mystery lies another mystery. Infinite recession. But you don’t need to know final answers

if there be such – and neither do I. You want to know what happened to you… and to Margrethe. Yahweh came to Me and offered the same wager We had made over Job, asserting that He had a follower who was even more stubborn than Job. I turned Him down. That bet over Job had not been much fun; long before it was concluded I grew tired of clobbering the poor schmo. So this time I told My

Brother to take His shell games elsewhere.

‘It was not until I saw you and Marga trudging along Interstate Forty, naked as kittens and just as helpless, that I realized that Yahweh had found someone else with whom to play His nasty games. So I fetched you here and kept you for a week or so -‘

‘What? Just one night!’

‘Don’t quibble. Kept you long enough to wring you dry, then sent you on your way… armed with some tips on how to cope, yes, but in fact you were doing all right on your own. You’re a tough son of a bitch, Alec, so much so that I looked up the bitch you are the son of. A bitch she is and tough she was and the combo of that vixen and your sweet and gentle sire produced a creature able to survive. So I let you alone.

‘I was notified that you were coming here; My spies are everywhere. Half of My Brother’s personal staff are double agents.’

‘Saint Peter?’ –

‘Eh? No, not Pete. Pete is a good old Joe, the most perfect Christian in Heaven or on earth. Denied his Boss thrice, been making up for it ever since. Utterly delighted to be on nickname terms with his Master in all three of His conventional Aspects. I like Pete. If he ever has a falling out with My Brother, hes got a job here.

`Then you showed up in Hell. Do you recall an invitation I extended to you concerning Hell?’

(‘- look me up. I promise you some hellacious hospitality.-´) ‘Yes!’

Did I deliver? Careful how you answer; Sister Pat is listening.’

‘She’s not listening,’ Katie denied. ‘Pat is a lady. Not much like some people. Darling, I can shorten this.

What Alec wants to know is why he was persecuted, how he was persecuted, and what he can do about it now. Meaning Marga. Alec, the why is simple; you were picked for the same reason that a pit bull is picked to go into the pit and be torn to ribbons: because Yahweh thought you could win. The how is equally simple. You guessed right when you thought you were paranoid. Paranoid but not crazy; were indeed conspiring against you. Every time you got close to the answer the razzle-dazzle started over again. That million dollars. Minor razzle-dazzle, that money existed only long enough to confuse you- I think that covers everything but what you can do. What you can do and all that you can do is to trust Jerry. He may fail – it’s very dangerous – but He will try.’

I looked at Katie with increased respect, and some trepidation. She had referred to matters I had never mentioned to Jerry. ‘Katie? Are you human? Or are you, uh, a fallen throne or something like that?’

She giggled. ‘First time anyone has suspected that. I’m human, all too human, Alec love. Furthermore I’m no stranger to you; you know lots about me.’

‘I do?’

‘Think back. April of the year one thousand four hundred and forty-six years before the birth of Yeshua of Nazareth.’

‘I should be able to identify it that way? I’m sorry; I can’t.’

‘Then try it this way: exactly forty years after the exodus from Egypt of the Children of Israel.’

The conquest of Canaan.

‘Oh, pshaw! Try the Book of Joshua,, chapter What’s my name, what’s my trade; was I mother, wife, or, maid?’

(One of the best-known stories in the Bible. Her? I’m talking to her?) ‘Uh . . . Rahab?’

‘The harlot of Jericho. That’s me. I hid General Joshua’s spies, in my house… and thereby saved my parents and my brothers and sisters from the massacre. Now tell me I’m “well preserved”.’

Sybil snickered. ‘Go ahead. I dare you.’

‘Gosh, Katie, you’re well preserved! That’s been over three thousand years, about thirty-four hundred. Hardly a wrinkle. Well, not many.’

“Not many”! No breakfast for you, young man!’

‘Katie, you’re beautiful and you know it. You and Margrethe tie for first place.’

‘Have you looked at me?’ demanded Sybil. ‘I have my fans. Anyhow, Mom is over four thousand years old. A hag.’

‘No, Sybil, the parting of the Red Sea was in fourteen-ninety-one BC. Add that to the date of the Rapture, nineteen-ninety-four AD. Then add seven years -´

“Alec.’

‘Yes, Jerry?’

‘Sybil is right. You just haven’t noticed it. The thousand years of peace between Armageddon and the War in Heaven is half over. My Brother, wearing his Jesus hat, is now ruling on earth, and I am chained and cast down into the Pit for this entire thousand years.’

‘You don’t look chained from here. Could I have some more Jack Daniel’s? – I’m confused.’

‘I’m chained enough for this purpose; I’ve ceased “going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down

in it. ” Yaliweh has it all to Himself for the short time remaining before He destroys it. I won’t bother His games.’ Jerry shrugged. ‘I declined to take part in Armageddon – I pointed out to Him that He had plenty of homegrown villains for it. Alec, with My Brother writing the scripts, I was always supposed to fight fiercely, like Harvard, then lose. It got monotonous. He’s got me scheduled to take another dive at the end of this Millennium, to fulfill His prophecies. That “War in Heaven” He predicted in the so-called Book of Revelation. I’m not going to go. I’ve told My angels that they can form a foreign legion if they

want to, but I’m sitting this one out. What’s the point in a battle if the outcome is predetermined thousands of years before the whistle?’

He was watching me while He talked. He stopped abruptly. ‘What’s eating on you now?’

‘Jerry… if it has been five hundred years since I lost Margrethe, it’s hopeless. Isn’t it?’

I ‘Hey! Damnation, boy, haven’t I told you not to try to understand things you can’t understand? Would I be working on it if it were hopeless?’

Katie said, ‘Jerry, I had Alec all quieted down… and You got him upset again.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You didn’t mean to. Alec, Jerry is blunt, but He’s right. For you, acting alone, the search was always hopeless. But with Jerry’s help, you may find her. Not certain, but a hope worth pursuing. But time isn’t relevant, five hundred years or five seconds. You don’t have to understand it, but do please believe it.’

‘All right. I will. Because otherwise there would be no hope, none.’

‘But there is hope; all you have to do now is be patient.’

‘I’ll try. But I guess Marga and I will never have our soda fountain and lunch counter in Kansas.’

‘Why not?’ asked Jerry.

‘Five centuries? They won’t even speak the same language. There will be no one who knows a hot fudge sundae, from curried goat. Customs change.’

‘So you reinvent the hot fudge sundae and make a killing. Don’t be a pessimist, son.’

‘Would you like one right now?’ asked Sybil.

‘I don’t think he had better mix it with Jack Daniel’s,’ Jerry advised.

`Thanks, Sybil… but I´d probably cry in it. I associate it with Marga.´

So don’t. Son, crying in your drink is bad enough crying into a hot fudge sundae is disgusting.’

‘Do I get to finish the story of my scandalous youth, or won’t anybody listen?’

I sai ‘Katie, I’m listening. You made a deal with Joshua.’

‘With his spies. Alec love, to anyone whose love and respect I want – you, I mean I need to explain something. Some people who know who I am – and even more who don’t – class Rahab the harlot as a traitor. Treason in time of war, betrayal of fellow citizens, all that. I -´

‘I never thought so, Katie. Jehovah had decreed that Jericho’, would fall. Since it was ordained, you couldn’t change it. What you did was to save your father and mother and the other kids.’

‘Yes, but there is more to it, Alec. Patriotism is a fairly late concept. Back then, in the land of Canaan, any loyalty other than to one’s family was personal loyalty to a chief of some sort – usually a successful warrior who dubbed himself “king”. Alec, a whore doesn’t – didn’t – have that sort of loyalty.’

‘So? Katie, in spite of studying at seminary I don’t really have any sharp concept of what life was like back then. I keep trying to see it in terms of Kansas.’

‘Not too different. A whore at that time and place was, either a temple prostitute, or a slave, or a

self-owned private contractor. I was a free woman. Oh, yeah? Whores don’t fight city hall, they can’t. An officer of the king comes in, he expects free tail and free drinks, same for the civic patrol – the cops.

Same for any sort of politician. Alec, I tell you the truth; I gave away more tail than I sold – and often got a black eye as a bonus. No, I did not feel loyalty to Jericho; the Jews weren’t any more cruel and they were much cleaner!’

`Katie, I don’t know of any Protestant Christian who thinks anything bad of Rahab. But I have long wondered about one detail in her – your – story. Your house, was on the city wall?”

‘Yes. It was inconvenient for housekeeping – carrying water up all those steps – but convenient for business, and the rent was low. It was the fact that I lived on the wall that let me save General Joshua’s agents. Used a clothesline; they went out the window. Didn’t get my clothesline back, either.’

‘How high was that wall?’

‘Hunh? Goodness, I don’t know. It was high.’

‘Twenty cubits.’

‘Was it, Jerry?’

I was there. Professional interest. First use of nerve warfare in combination with sonic weapons.’

‘The reason I ask about the height, Katie, is because it states in the Book that you gathered all your family into your house and stayed there, all during the siege.’

‘We surely did, seven horrid days. My contract with the Israelite spies required it. My place was only two little rooms, not big enough for three adults and seven kids. We ran out of food, we ran out of water, the kids cried, my father complained. He happily took the money I brought in; with seven kids he needed it. But he resented having to stay under the same roof where I entertained johns, and he was especially bitter about having to use my bed. My workbench. But use it he did, and I slept on the floor.’

‘Then your family were all in your house when the walls came tumbling down.’

‘Yes, surely. We didn’t dare leave it until they came for us, the two spies. My house was marked at the window with red string.’

‘Katie, your house was on the wall, thirty feet up. The Bible says the wall fell down flat. Wasn’t anyone hurt?’

She looked startled. ‘Why, no.’

‘Didn’t the house collapse?’

‘No. Alec, it’s been a long time. But I remember the trumpets and the shout, and then the earthquake rumble as the city wall fell. But my house wasn’t hurt.’

`Saint Alec!´

‘Yes, Jerry?’

‘You should know; you’re a saint. A miracle. If Yahweh hadn’t been throwing miracles right and left, the

Israelites would never have conquered the Canaanites. Here this ragged band of Okies comes into a rich country of walled cities – and they never lose a battle. Miracles. Ask the Canaanites. If you can find one. My Brother pretty regularly had them all put to the sword, except some few cases, where the young and pretty ones were saved as slaves.’

‘But it was the Promised Land, Jerry, and they were His Chosen People.’

‘They are indeed the Chosen People. Of course, being chosen by Yahweh is no great shakes. Do you know your Book well enough to know how many times He crossed them up? My Brother is a bit of a jerk.’

I had had too much Jack Daniel’s and too many shocks. But Jerry’s casual blasphemy triggered me. ‘The Lord God Jehovah is a just God!’

‘You never played marbles with Him. Alec, “justice” is not a divine concept; it is a human illusion. The very basis of the Judeo-Christian code is injustice, the scapegoat system. The scapegoat sacrifice runs all through the Old Testament, then it reaches its height in the New Testament with the notion of the Martyred Redeemer. How can justice possibly be served by loading your sins on another? Whether it be a lamb having its throat cut ritually, or a Messiah nailed to a cross and “dying for your sins”. Somebody should tell all of Yahweh’s followers, Jews and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

‘Or maybe there is. Being in that catatonic condition called “grace” at the exact moment of death – or at the final Trump – will get you into Heaven. Right? You got to Heaven that way, did you not?’

‘That’s correct. I hit it lucky. For I had racked up quite a list of sins before then.’

‘A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst Of taking the name o Lord in vain – then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?’

I answered stiffly, ‘If you read the words of the Bible literally, that is the system. But the Lord moves in mysterious -´

‘Not mysterious to Me, bud: I’ve known Him too long. It’s His world, His rules, His doing. His rules are exact and anyone can follow them and reap the reward. But “Just” they are not. What do you think of what He has done to you and your Marga? Is that justice?’

I took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been trying to figure that out ever since Judgment Day… and Jack Daniel’s isn’t helping. No, I don’t think it’s what I signed up for.’

‘Ah, but you did!’

‘How?’

‘My Brother Yahweh, wearing His Jesus face, said: “After this manner therefore pray ye: ” Go ahead, say it.’

“Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done -´

‘Stop! Stop right there. “Thy will be done -” No Muslim claiming to be a “slave of God” ever gave a more sweeping consent than that. In that prayer you invite Him to do His worst. The perfect masochist. That’s the test of Job, boy. Job was treated unjustly in every way day after day for years – I know, I know, I was there; I did it – and My dear Brother stood by and let Me do it. Let Me? He urged Me, He connived in it, accessory ahead of the fact.

Now it’s your turn. Your God did it to you. Will you curse Him? Or will you come wiggling back on your belly like a whipped dog?’

Chapter 28

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
 
Matthew 7:7

I WAS saved from answering that impossible question by an interruption – and was I glad! I suppose every man has doubts at times about God’s justice. I admit that I had been much troubled lately and had

been forced to remind myself again and again that God’s ways are not man’s ways, and that I could not expect always to understand the purposes of the Lord.

But I could not speak my misgivings aloud, and least of all to the Lord’s Ancient Adversary. It was especially upsetting that Satan chose at this moment to have the shape and the voice of my only friend.

Debating with the Devil is a mug’s game at best.

The interruption was mundane: a telephone ringing. Accidental interruption? I don’t think Satan tolerates

`accidents’. As may be, I did not have to answer the question that I could not answer.

Katie said, ‘Shall I get it, dear?’

‘Please.’

A telephone handset appeared in Katie’s hand. ‘Lucifer’s office, Rahab speaking. Repeat, please. I will inquire.’ She looked at Jerry.

‘I’ll take it.’ Jerry operated without a visible telephone instrument. ‘Speaking. No. I said, no. No, damn it! Refer that to Mr Ashmedai. Let Me have the other call.’ He muttered something about the impossibility of getting competent help, then said, ‘Speaking. Yes, Sir!’ Then He said nothing for quite a long time. At last He said, ‘At once, Sir. Thank you.’

Jerry stood up. ‘Please excuse Me, Alec; I have work to do. I can’t say when I will be back. Try’ to treat this waiting as a vacation. and My house is yours. Katie, take care of him. Sybil, keep him amused.’ Jerry vanished.

`Will I keep him amused!’ Sybil got up and stood in front of me, rubbed her hands together. Her western clothes faded out, leaving Sybil. She grinned.

Katie said mildly, ‘Sybil, stop that. Grow more clothes at once or I’ll send you home.’

‘Spoilsport.’ Sybil developed a skimpy bikini. ‘I plan to make Saint Alec forget that Danish baggage.’

‘What’ll you bet, dear? I’ve been talking to Pat.’

‘So? What did Pat say?’

‘Margrethe can cook.’

Sybil looked disgusted. ‘A girl spends fifty years on her back, studying hard. Along comes some slottie who can make chicken and dumplings. It’s not fair.’

I decided to change the subject. ‘Sybil, those tricks you do with clothes are fascinating. Are you a graduate witch now?’

Instead of answering me at once, Sybil glanced at Katie, who said to her: ‘All over with, dear. Speak freely.’

‘Okay. Saint Alec, I’m no witch. Witchcraft is poppycock. You know that verse in the Bible about not suffering witches to live?’

‘Exodus twenty-two, eighteen.’

‘That’s the one. The Old Hebrew word translated there as “witch” actually means “poisoner”. Not letting a poisoner continue to breathe strikes me as a good idea. But I wonder how many friendless old women have been hanged or burned as a result of a sloppy translation?’

(Could this really be true? What about the ‘literal word of God’ concept on which I had been reared? Of course the word ‘witch’ is English, not the original Hebrew… but the translators of the King James,

version were sustained by God – that’s why that version of the Bible [and only that one] can be taken literally. But – No! Sybil must be mistaken. The Good Lord would not let hundreds, thousands, of innocent people be tortured to death over a mistranslation He could so easily have corrected.)

‘So you did not attend a Sabbat that night. What did you do?’

‘Not what you think; Israfel and I aren’t quite that chummy. Chums, yes; buddies, no.’

“Israfel”? I thought he was in Heaven.’

`That’s his godfather. The trumpeter. This Israfel can’t play a note. But he did ask me to tell you, if I ever got a chance, that he really isn’t the pimple he pretended to be as “Roderick Lyman Culverson, Third”.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. As he certainly did a good job of portraying an unbearable young snot. I didn’t see how a daughter of Katie and Jerry – or is it just of Katie? – could have such poor taste as to pick that boor as a pal. Not Israfel, of course, but the part he was playing.’

‘Oh. Better fix that, too. Katie, what relation are we?’

‘I don’t think even Dr Darwin could find any genetic relationship, dear. But I am every bit as proud of you as. I would be were you my own daughter.’

‘Thank you, Mom!’

‘But we are all related,’ I objected, ‘through Mother Eve. Since Katie, wrinkles and all, was born while the Children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, there are only about eighty begats from Eve to Katie. With your birthdate and simple arithmetic we could make a shrewd guess at how close your blood relationship is.’

‘Oh, oh! Here we go again. Saint Alec, Mama Kate is descended from Eve; I am not. Different species. I’m an imp. An afrit, if you want to get technical.’

She again vanished her clothes and did a body transformation. ‘See?’

I said, ‘Say! Weren’t you managing the desk at the Sans Souci Sheraton the evening I arrived in Hell?’

‘I certainly was. And I’m flattered that you remember me, in my own shape.’ She resumed her human appearance, plus the tiny bikini. ‘I was there because I knew you by sight. Pop didn’t want anything to go wrong.’

Katie stood up. ‘Let’s continue this dip before dinner’

‘I’m busy seducing Saint Alec.´

‘Dreamer. Continue it outdoors.’

Outside it was a lovely Texas late afternoon, with lengthening shadows. ‘Katie, a straight answer, please. Is, Hell? Or is this Texas?’

‘Both.’

‘I withdraw the question.’

I must have let my annoyance show in my voice, for she turned and put a hand on my chest. ‘Alec, I was not jesting. For many centuries Lucifer has maintained pieds-à-terre here and there on earth. In each He had an established personality, a front. After Armageddon, when His Brother set Himself up as king of earth for the Millennium, He quit visiting earth. But some of these place’s were home to Him, so He pinched them off and took them with, Him. You see?’

‘I suppose I do. About as well as a cow understands calculus.’

‘I don’t understand the mechanism; it’s on the God level. But those numerous changes you and Marga underwent during your persecution: How deep did each change go? Do you think the entire planet was involved each time?’

Reality tumbled in my mind in a fashion it had not-since the last of those ‘changes’. ‘Katie, I don’t know! I was always too busy surviving. Wait a moment. Each change did cover the whole planet earth, and about a century of its history. Because I always checked the history and memorized as much as I could. Cultural. changes, too. The whole complex.’

‘Each change stopped not far beyond the end of your nose, Alec, and no one but you – you two – was aware of any change. You didn’t check history; you checked history books. At least this is the way Lucifer would have handled it, had He been arranging the deception.’

‘Uh – Katie, do you realize how long it would take to revise, rewrite, and print an entire encyclopedia? That’s what I usually consulted.’

`But Alec, you have already been told that time is never a problem on the God level. Or space. Whatever needed to deceive you was provided. But no more than that. That is the conservative principle in art at the God level. While I can’t do it, not being at that level, I have seen a lot of it done. A skillful Artist in shapes and appearances does no more than necessary to create His effect.’

Rghab sat down on the edge of the pool, paddled her feet in the water. ‘Come sit beside me. Consider the edge of the “big bang”. What is there out beyond that limit where the red shift has the magnitude that means that the expansion of the universe equals the speed of light – what is beyond?’

I answered rather stiffly, ‘Katie, your hypothetical question lacks meaning. I’ve kept up, more or less, with such silly notions as the “big bang” and the “expanding universe” because a preacher of the Gospel must keep track of such theories in order to be able to refute them. The two you mention imply an impossible length of time impossible because the world was created about six thousand years ago. “About” because the exact date of Creation is hard to calculate, and also because I am uncertain as to the present date. But around six thousand years not the billion years or so the big-bangers need.’

‘Alec… your universe is about twenty-three billion years old.’ ‘

I started to retort, closed my mouth. I will not flatly contradict my hostess.

She added, ‘And your universe was created in four thousand and four BC.’

I stared at the water long enough for Sybil to surface and splash us.

‘Well, Alec?´

‘You’ve left me with nothing to say.’

‘But notice carefully what I did say. I did not say that the world was created twenty-three billion years ago; I said that was its age. It was created old. Created with fossils in the ground and craters on the moon, all speaking of great age. Created that way by Yahweh, because it amused Him to do so. One of those scientists said, “God does not roll dice with the universe.” Unfortunately not true. Yahweh rolls loaded dice with His universe… to deceive His creatures.’

‘Why would He do that?’

‘Lucifer says that it is because He is a poor Artist, the sort who is always changing his mind and scraping the canvas. And a practical joker. But I’m really not entitled to an opinion; I’m not at that level. And Lucifer is prejudiced where His Brother is concerned; I think that is obvious. You haven’t remarked on the greatest wonder.’

‘Maybe I missed it.’

‘No, I think you were being polite. How an old whore happened to have opinions about cosmogony and teleology and eschatology and other long words of Greek derivation; that’s the greatest wonder. Not?’

`Why, Rahab honey, I was just so busy counting your wrinkles that I wasn’t lis´

This got me shoved into the water. I came up sputtering and spouting and found both women laughing at me. So I placed both hands on the edge of the pool with Katie captured inside the circle. She did not seem to mind being captive; she leaned against me like a cat. ‘You were about to say?’ I asked.

‘Alec, to be able to read and write is as wonderful as sex. Or almost. You may not fully appreciate what a, blessing it is because you probably learned how as a baby and have been doing it casually ever since. But when I was a whore in Canaan almost four millennia ago, I did not know how to read and write. I learned by listening… to johns, to neighbors, to gossip in the market. But that’s not a way to learn much, and even scribes and judges were ignorant then.

‘I had been dead nearly three centuries before I learned to read and write, and when I did learn, I was taught by the ghost of a harlot from what later became the great Cretan civilization. Saint Alec, this may startle you but, An general throughout history, whores learned to read and write long before respectable women took up the dangerous practice. When I did learn, brother. For a while it crowded sex out of my life.’

She grinned up at me. ‘Almost, anyhow. Presently I went back to a more healthy balance, reading and sex, in equal amounts.’

‘I don’t have the strength for that ratio.’

`Women are different. My best education started with the burning of the Library at Alexandria. Yahweh didn’t want it, so Lucifer grabbed the ghosts of all those thousands of codices, took them to, Hell, regenerated them carefully – and Rahab had a picnic! And let me add: Lucifer has His eye on the Vatican Library, since it will be up for salvage soon. Instead of having to regenerate ghosts, in the case of the Vatican Library, Lucifer plans to pinch it off intact just before Time Stop, and take it unhurt to Hell.

Won’t that be grand?’

‘Sounds as if it would be. The only thing about which I’ve ever envied the papists is their library. But… “regenerated ghosts”?’

‘Slap my back.’

‘Huh?’

‘Slap it. No, harder than that; I’m not a fragile little butterfly. Harder. That’s more like it. What you just, slapped is a regenerated ghost.’

‘Felt solid.’

‘Should be, I paid list price for the job. It was before Lucifer noticed me and made me a bird in a gilded cage, a pitiful sight to see. I understand that, if you are saved and go to Heaven, regeneration goes with salvation… but here you buy it on credit, then work your arse off to pay for it. That being exactly how I paid for it. Saint Alec, you didn’t die, I know. A regenerated body is just like the one a person has before death, but better. No contagious diseases, no allergies, no old-age wrinkles – and “wrinkles” my foot! I wasn’t wrinkled the day I died… or at least not much. How did you get me talking about wrinkles? We were discussing relativity and the expanding universe, high-type intellectual conversation.’

That night Sibil made a strong effort to get into my bed, an effort that Katie firmly thwarted – the went to bed with me herself. ‘Pat said that you were not to be allowed to sleep alone.’

Pat thinks I’m sick. I’m not.’

‘I won’t argue it. And don’t quiver your chin, dear; Mother Rahab will let you sleep.’

Sometime in the night I woke up sobbing, and Katie was there. She comforted me. I’m sure Pat told her about my nightmares. With Katie there to quiet me down I got back to sleep rather quickly.

It was a sweet Arcadian interlude… save for the absence of Margrethe. But Katie had me convinced that I owed it to Jerry (and to her) to be patient and not brood over my loss. So I did not, or not much, in the daytime, and, while night could be bad, even lonely nights are not too lonely with Mother Rahab to soothe one after waking up emotionally defenceless. She was always there except one night she had to be away. Sybil took that watch, carefully instructed by Katie, and carried it out the same way.

I discovered one amusing thing about Sybil. In sleep she slips back into her natural shape, imp or afrit,

without knowing it. This makes her about six inches shorter and she has those cute little horns that were the first thing I had noticed about her, at the Sans Souci.

Daytimes we swam and sunbathed and rode horseback and picnicked out in the hills. In making this enclave Jerry had apparently pinched off many square miles; we appeared to be able to go as far as we liked in any direction.

Or perhaps I don’t understand at all how such things are done.

Strike out ‘perhaps’ – I know as much about operations On the God level as a frog knows about Friday.

Jerry had been gone about a week when Rahab showed up at the breakfast table with my memoir manuscript. Saint Alec, Lucifer sent instructions that you are to bring up to date and keep it up to date.-

`All right. Will longhand do? Or, if there is a typewriter around, I guess I could hunt and peck.´

‘You do it longhand; I’ll do a smooth draft. I’ve done lots of secretarial work for Prince Lucifer.’

‘Katie, sometimes you call Him Jerry, sometimes Lucifer, never Satan.’

‘Alec, He prefers “Lucifer” but He answers to anything. “Jerry” and “Katie” were names invented for you and Marga -´

‘And “Sybil”,’ Sybil amended.

‘And “Sybil”. Yes, Egret. Do you want your own name back now?’

‘No, I think it’s nice that Alec – and Marga – have names for us that no one else knows.’

`Just a minute,’ I put in. ‘The day I met you, all three of you responded to those names as if you had worn them all your lives.’

‘Mom and I are pretty fast at extemporaneous drama,’ Sybil-Egret said. ‘They didn’t know they were fire-worshipers until I slipped it into the conversation. And I didn’t know I was a witch until Mom tipped me off. Israfel is pretty sharp, too. But he did have more time to think about his role.’

‘So we were snookered in all directions. A couple of country cousins.’

‘Alec,’ Katie said to me earnestly, ‘Lucifer always has reasons for what He does. He rarely explains. His intentions are malevolent only toward malicious people which you are not.’

.We three were sunbathing by the pool when Jerry returned suddenly. He said abruptly to me, not even stopping first to speak to Katie: ‘Get your clothes on. We’re leaving at once.

Katie bounced up, rushed in and got my clothes. The women had me dressed as fast as a fireman answering an alarm. Katie shoved my razor into my pocket, buttoned it. I announced, ‘I’m ready!’

`Where’s his manuscrip?´

Again Katie rushed in, out again fast. ‘Here!’

In that brief time Jerry had grown twelve feet tall – and changed. He was still Jerry, but I now knew why Lucifer was known as the most beautiful of all the angels. ‘So long!’ he said. ‘Rahab, I’ll call you if I can.’ He started to pick me up.

‘Wait! Egret and I must kiss him good-bye!’

‘Oh. Make it snappy!´

They did, ritual pecks only, given simultaneously. Jerry grabbed me, held me like a child, and we went straight up. I had a quick glimpse of Sans Souci, the Palace, and the Plaza, then smoke and flame from the Pit covered them. We went on out of this world.

How we traveled, how long we traveled, where we traveled I do not know. It was like that endless fall to Hell, but made much more agreeable by Jerry’s arms. It reminded me of times when I was very young, two or three years old, when my father would sometimes pick me up after supper and hold me until I fell asleep.

I suppose I did sleep. After a long time I became alert by feeling Jerry sweeping in for a landing. He put me down, set me on my feet.

There was gravity here; I felt weight and ‘down’ again had meaning. But I do not think we were on a planet. We seemed to be on a platform or a porch of some immensely large building. I could not see it because we were right up against it. Elsewhere there was nothing to see, just an amorphous twilight.

Jerry said, ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’

‘Good. Listen carefully. I am about to take you in to see – no, for you to be seen by – an Entity who is to me, and to my brother your god Yahweh, as Yahweh is to you. Understand me?’

‘Uh… maybe. I’m not sure.’

`A is to B as B is to C. To this Entity your lord god jehoyah is equivalent to a child building sand castles at a beach, then destroying them in childish tantrums. To Him, I am a child, too. I look up to Him as you look up to your triple deity – father, son, and holy ghost. I don’t worshipe this Entity as God; He does not demand, does not expect, does not want, that sort of bootlicking. Yahweh may be the, only god who ever thought up that curious vice – at least I do not know of another planet or place in any universe where god-worship is practiced. But I am young and not much traveled.’

Jerry was watching me closely. He appeared to be troubled. ‘Alec, maybe this analogy will explain it. When you were growing up, did you ever have to take a pet to a veterinarian?’

‘Yes. I didn’t like it because they always hated it so.’

‘I don’t like it, either. Very well, you know what it is to take a sick or damaged animal to the vet. Then you had lo wait while the doctor decided whether or not your pet could be made well. Or whether the kind and gentle thing to do was to put the little creature out of its misery. Is this not true?’

‘Yes. Jerry, you’re telling me that things are dicey. Uncertain.’

‘Utterly uncertain. No precedent. A human being has never been taken to this level before. I don’t know what He will do.’

‘Okay. You told me before that there would be a risk.’

‘Yes. You are in great danger. And so am I, although I think your danger is much greater than mine. But, Alec, I can assure you of this: If It. decided to extinguish you, you will never know it. It is not a sadistic God.’

`”It” – is it “It” or “He”?´

‘Uh… use “he”. If It embodies, It will probably use a human appearance. If so, you can address Him as “Mr Chairman” or “Mr Koshchei”. Treat Him as you would a man much older than you are and one you respect highly. Don’t bow down or offer worship. Just stand your ground and tell the truth. If you die, die with dignity.’

The guard who stopped us at the door was not human, – until I looked again and then he was human. And that Characterizes the uncertainty of everything I saw at the place Jerry referred to as ‘The Branch Office’.

The guard said to me, ‘Strip down, please. Leave your clothes with me; you can pick them up later, What is that metal object?’

I explained that it was just a safety razor.

‘And what is it for?’

‘It’s a… a knife for cutting hair off the face.

‘You grow hair on your face?’

I tried to explain shaving.

‘If you don’t want hair there, why do you grow it there?’ Is it a material of economic congress?’

‘Jerry, I think I’m out of my depth.’

‘I’ll handle it.’ I suppose he then talked to the guard but I didn’t hear anything. Jerry said to me, ‘Leave your razor with your clothes. He thinks you are crazy but he thinks I am crazy, too. It doesn’t matter.’

Mr Koshchei may be ‘an ‘It’ but to me He looked like a twin brother of Dr Simmons, the vet back home in Kansas to whom I used to take cats and dogs, and once, a turtle – the procession of small animals who shared my childhood. And the Chairman’s office looked exactly like Dr Simmons’ office, even to the rlolltop desk the doctor must have inherited from his grandfather. There was a well-remembered Seth Thomas eight-day clock on a little shelf over the doctor’s desk.

I realized (being cold sober and rested) that this was not Dr Simmons and that the semblance was intentional but not intended to deceive. The Chairman, whatever He or It or She may be, had reached into my mind with some sort of hypnosis to create an ambience in which I could relax. Dr Simmons used

to pet an animal and talk to it, before he got down to the uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and often painful things that he had to do to that animal.

It had worked. It worked with me, too. I knew that Mr Koshchei was not the old veterinary surgeon of my childhood… but this simulacrum brought out in me the same feeling of trust.

Mr Koshchei looked up as we came in. He nodded to Jerry, glanced at me. ‘Sit down.’

We sat down. Mr Koshchei turned back to His desk. My manuscript was on it. He picked it up, jogged the sheets – straight, put them down. ‘How are things in your bailiwick, Lucifer? Any problems?’

‘No, Sir. Oh, the usual gripes about the air conditioning. Nothing I can’t handle.’

‘Do you want to rule earth this millennium?’

‘Hasn’t my brother claimed it?’

‘Yahweh has claimed it, yes – he has pronounced Time Stop and torn it down. But I am not bound to let him rebuild. Do you want it? Answer Me.’

“Sir, I would much rather start with all-new materials.’

‘All your guild prefer to start fresh. With no thought of the expense, of course. I could assign you to the Glaroon for a few cycles. How say you?’

Jerry was slow in answering. ‘I must leave it to the Chairman’s judgment.’

,’You are quite right; you must. So we will discuss it later. Why have you interested yourself in this creature of your brother´s?’

I must have dropped off to sleep, for I saw puppies and kittens playing in a courtyard – and there was nothing of that sort there. I heard Jerry saying, ‘Mr Chairman, almost everything about a human creature is ridiculous, except its ability to suffer bravely and die gallantly for whatever it loves and believes in. The validity of that belief, the appropriateness of that love, is irrelevant; it is the bravery and the gallantry that count. These are uniquely human qualities, independent of mankind’s creator, who has none of them himself – as I know, since he is my brother… and I lack them, too.

‘You ask, why this animal, and why me? This one I picked up beside a road, a stray – and, putting aside its own troubles – much too big for it! – it devoted itself to a (and fruitless) attempt to save my “soul” by the rules it had been taught. That its attempt was misguided and useless does not matter; it tried hard on my behalf when it believed me to be in extreme danger. Now that it is in trouble I owe it an equal effort.’

Mr Koshchei pushed his spectacles down His nose and looked over them. ‘You offer no reason why I should interfere with local authority.’

‘Sir, is there not a guild rule requiring artists to be kind in their treatment of their volitionals?’

‘No.

Jerry looked daunted. ‘Sir, I must have misunderstood my training.’

‘Yes, I think you have. There is an artistic principle not a rule – that volitionals should be treated consistently. But to insist on kindness would be to eliminate that degree of freedom for which volition in creatures was invented. Without the possibility of tragedy the volitionals might as well be golems.’

‘Sir, I think I understand that. But would the Chairman please amplify the artistic principle of consistent treatment?’

‘Nothing- complex about it, Lucifer. For a creature to act out its own minor part, the rules under which it acts must be either known to it or be such that the rules can become known through trial and error – with error not always fatal. In short the creature must be able to learn and to benefit by its experience.’

‘Sir, that is exactly my complaint about my brother. See that record before You. Yahweh baited a trap and thereby lured this creature into a contest that it could not win then declared the game over and took the prize from it. And, although this is an extreme case, a destruction test, this nevertheless is typical of his treatment of all his volitionals. Games so rigged that his creatures cannot win. For six millennia I got his losers… and many of them arrived in Hell catatonic with fear – fear of me, fear of an eternity of torture.

They can’t believe they’ve been lied to. My therapists have to work hard to reorient the poor slobs. It’s not funny.’

Mr Koshchei did not appear to listen. He leaned back in His old wooden swivel chair, making it creak – and, yes, I do not know that the creak came out of my memories – and looked again at my memoir. He scratched the grey fringe around His bald pate and made an irritating noise, half whistle, half hum – also out of my buried memories of Doc Simmons, but utterly real.

This female creature, the bait. A volitional?’

‘In my opinion, yes, Mr Chairman.’

(Good heavens, Jerry! Don’t you know?)

‘Then I think we may assume that this one would not be satisfied with a simulacrum.’ He hummed and whistled through His teeth. ‘So let us look deeper.’

Mr Koshchei’s office seemed small when we were admitted; now there were several others present: another angel who looked a lot like Jerry but older and with a pinched expression unlike Jerry’s expansive joviality, another older character who wore a long coat, a big broad-brimmed hat, a patch over one eye, and had a crow sitting on his shoulder, and – why, confound his arrogance! – Sam Crumpacker, that Dallas shyster.

Back of Crumpacker three men were lined up, well-fed types, and all vaguely familiar. I knew I had seen them before.

Then I got it. I had won a hundred (or was it a thousand?) from each of them on a most foolhardy bet.

I looked back at Crumpacker, and was angrier than ever – the scoundrel was now wearing my face!

I turned to Jerry and started to whisper urgently. ‘See lhat man over there? The one -´

‘Shut up.’

`But -´

`Be quiet and listen.’

Jerry’s brother was speaking. ‘So who’s complaining? You want I should put on my Jesus hat and prove it? The fact that some of them make it proves it ain’t too hard – Seven point one percent in this last batch, not counting golems, Not good enough? Who says?´

The old boy in the black hat said, ‘I count anything less’ than fifty percent a failure.’

‘So who’s talking? Who lost ground to me every year for a millennium? How you handle your creatures; that’s your business. What I do with mine; that’s my business.

‘That’s why I’m here,’ the big hat replied. ‘You grossly interfered with one of mine.’

‘Not, me!’ Yahweh hooked a thumb at the man who man who managed to look like both me and Sam Crumpacker. ‘That one! My Shabbes goy. A little rough? So whose boy is he? Answer that!’

Mr Koshchei tapped my memoir, spoke to the man with my face. ‘Loki, how many places do you figure in this story?’

‘Depends on how You figure it, Chief. Eight or nine places, if You count the walk-ons. All through it, when You consider that I spent four solid weeks softening up this foxy schoolteacher so that she would

roll over and pant when Joe Nebbish came along.’

Jerry had a big fist around my upper ~ left arm. ‘Keep quiet!’

Loki went on: ‘And Yahweh didn’t pay up.

‘So why should I? Who won?’

‘You cheated. I had your champion, your prize bigot, ready to crack when you pulled Judgment Day early. There he sits. Ask him. Ask him if he still swears by you. Or at you? Ask him. Then pay up. I have munition bills to meet.’

Mr Koshchei stated, ‘I declare this discussion out of order. This office is not a collection agency. Yahweh, the principal complaint against you seems to be that you are not consistent in your rules for your creatures.’

‘Should I kiss them? For omelets you break eggs.’

‘Speak to the case in point. You ran a destruction lit test. Whether it was artistically necessary is moot. But, at the end of the test, you took one to Heaven, left the other behind, – and thereby punished both of them. Why?´

‘One rule for all. She didn’t make it.’

‘Aren’t you the god that announced the rule concerning binding the mouths of the kine that tread the grain?’

The next thing I knew I was standing on Mr Koshchei’s desk, staring right into His enormous face. I suppose Jerry put me there. He was saying, ‘This is yours?’

I looked in the direction He indicated – and had to keep from fainting. Marga!

Margrethe cold and dead and encased in a coffin shaped cake of ice. It occupied much of the desktop and was beginning to melt onto it.

‘I tried to throw myself onto it, found I could not move.

“I think that answers Me,’ Mr Koshchei went on. ‘Odin, what is its destiny?’

‘She died fighting, at Ragnarok. She has earned a cycle in Valhalla.’

‘Listen to him!’ Loki sneered. ‘Ragnarok is not over. And this time I’m winning. This pige is mine! All Danish broads are willing… but this one is explosive!’ He smirked and winked at me. ‘Isn’t She?’

The Chairman said quietly, ‘Loki, you weary Me’- and suddenly, Loki was missing. Even his chair was gone. ‘Odin, will you spare her for part of that cycle?’

‘For how long? She has earned the right to Valhalla.’

‘An indeterminate time. This creature had stated its willingness to wash dishes “forever” in order to take care of her. One may doubt that it realizes just how long a period, “forever” is… yet its story does show earnestness of purpose.’

‘Mr Chairman, my warriors, male and female, dead in honorable combat, are my equals, not my slaves – I am to be first among such equals. I raise no objections… if she consents.

My heart soared. Then Jerry, from clear across the room, wispered in my ear, ‘Don’t get your hopes up. To her it may be as long as a thousand years. Woman do forget.´

The Chairman was saying, ‘The web patterns are intact, are they not?’

Yahweh answered, ‘So who destroys file copies?’

‘Regenerate as necessary.’

‘And who is paying for this?’

‘You are. A fine to teach you to pay attention to consistency.´

‘Oy! Every prophecy I fulfilled! And now He tells me consistent I am not! This is justice?’

‘No. It is Art. Alexander. Look at Me.’

I looked at that great face; Its eyes held me. They got bigger, and bigger, and bigger. I slumped forward and fell into them.

Chapter 29

There is, no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
 
Ecclesiastes 1: 11

THIS WEEK Margrethe and I, with help from our daughter Gerda, are giving our house and our shop a

real Scandahoovian cleaning, because the Farnsworths, our friends from Texas – our best friends anywhere – are coming to see us. To Marga and me, a visit from Jerry and Katie is Christmas and the Fourth of July rolled into one. And for our kids, too; Sybil Farnsworth is Inga’s age; the girls are chums.

This time will be extra special; they are bringing Patricia Marymount with them. Pat is almost as old a friend as the Farnsworths and the sweetest person in the world – an old-maid schoolmarm but not a bit prissy.

‘The Farnsworths changed our luck. Marga and I were down in Mexico on our honeymoon when the earthquake that destroyed Mazatlán hit. We weren’t hurt but we had a bad time getting out – passports, money, and travelers checks gone. Halfway home we met the Farnsworths and that changed everything – no more trouble. Oh, I got back to Kansas with no baggage but a razor (sentimental value, Marga gave it to me on our honeymoon; I’ve used it ever since).

When we reached my home state, we found just the mom-and-pop shop we wanted – a lunchroom in this little college town, Eden, Kansas, southeast of Wichita. The shop was owned by Mr and Mrs A. S. Modeus; they Wanted to retire. We started as their employees; in less than a month we were their tenants. Then I went into hock to the bank up to my armpits and that made us owners-of-record of MARGA’S HOT FUDGE SUNDAE soda fountain, hot dogs, hamburgers, and Marga’s heavenly Danish open-face sandwiches.

Margrethe wanted to name it Marga-and-Alex’s Hot Fudge Sundae – I vetoed that; it doesn’t scan. Besides, she is the one who meets the public; she’s our best advertising. I work back where I’m not seen

dishwasher, janitor, porter, you name it. Margrethe handles the front, with help from Astrid. And from me; all of us can cook or concoct anything on our menu, even the open-face sandwiches. However, with the latter we follow Marga’s color Photographs and lists of ingredients; in fairness to our customers only Margrethe is allowed to be creative.

Our namesake item, the hot fudge sundae, is ready at all times and I have kept the price at ten cents, although that allows only one-and-a-half cent gross profit. Any customer having a birthday gets one free, along with our Singing Happy Birthday! with loud banging on a drum, and a kiss. College boys appreciate kissing Margrethe more than they do the free sundae. Understandable. But Pop Graham doesn’t do too badly with the co-eds, either. (I don’t force kisses on a ‘birthday girl’.)

Our shop was a success from day one. The location is good – facing Elm Street gate and Old Main. Plentiful good trade was guaranteed by low prices and Margrethe’s magic touch with food… and her beauty and her sweet personality; we aren’t selling calories, we’re selling happiness. She piles a lavish serving of happiness on each plate; she has it to spare.

With me to watch the pennies, our team could not lose. And I do watch pennies; if the cost of ingredients ever kills that narrow margin on a hot fudge sundae, the price goes up. Mr Belial, president of our bank, says that the country is in a long, steady period of gentle prosperity. I hope he is right; meanwhile I watch the gross profit.

The town is enjoying a real estate boom, caused by, the, Farnsworths plus the change in climate it used to be that the typical wealthy Texan had a summer home in Colorado Springs, but now that we no longer fry eggs on our sidewalks, Texans are beginning to see the charms of Kansas. They say it’s a change in the Jet Stream. (Or is it the Gulf Stream? I never was strong in science.) Whatever, our summers now are balmy and our winters are mild; many, of Jerry’s friends or associates are buying land in Eden and building summer homes. Mr Ashmedai, manager of some of Jerry’s interests, now lives here year round – and Dr Adramelech, chancellor of Eden College, caused him to be elected to the board of trustees, along with an honorary doctorate – as a former money-raiser I can see why.

We welcome them all and not just for their money… but I would not want Eden to grow as crowded as Dallas.

Not that it could. This is a bucolic place; the college is our only ‘industry’. One community church serves all sects, The Church of the Divine Orgasm – Sabbath school at 9:30 a.m., church services at 11, picnic and orgy immediately following.

We don’t believe in shoving religion down a kid’s throat, but the truth is that young people like our community church – thanks to our pastor, the Reverend Dr M. 0. Loch. Malcolm is a Presbyterian, I think; he still has a Scottish burr in his speech. But there is nothing of the dour Scot about him and kids love him. He leads the revels and directs the rituals – our daughter Elise is a Novice Ecdysiast under him and she talks of having a vocation. (Piffle. She’ll marry right out of high school; I could name the young man – though I can’t see what she sees in him.)

Margrethe serves in the Altar Guild; I pass the plate on the Sabbath and serve on the finance board. I’ve never, given up my membership in the Apocalypse Brethren but I must admit that we Brethren read it wrong; the end of the millennium came and went and the Shout was never heard.

A man who is happy at home doesn’t lie awake nights worrying about the hereafter.

What is success? My classmates at Rolla Tech, back when, may think that I’ve settled for too little,

owner with-the-bank of a tiny restaurant in a nowhere town. But I have what I want. I would not want to be a saint in Heaven if Margrethe was not with me; I wouldn’t fear going to Hell if she was there – not that I believe in Hell or ever stood a chance of being a saint in Heaven.

Samuel Clemens put it: ‘Where she was, there was Eden. ‘Omar phrased it: ‘- thou beside me in the wilderness, ah wilderness were paradise enow.’ Browning termed it: ‘Summum Bonum’. All were asserting the same great truth, which is for me:

Heaven is where Margrethe is.

The End

Stories that Inspired Me

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Time for the Stars (Full Text) – Robert Heinlein

This is the full text of the Robert Heinlein novel titled “Time for the Stars”. It is a very difficult novel to come across and I feel truly fortunate that I was able to rediscover it.

Executive Summary

The story is classic Science Fiction fare. We are told of Tom and his brother Pat, identical twins, who are asked by the Long Range Foundation (a non-profit making organisation that funds projects for the long-term benefit of mankind) to attend some preliminary tests. The Foundation discovers that, much to the twin’s surprise, they engage in a form of telepathy between themselves.

The usefulness of the twins’ skill becomes apparent when we are told that twelve spaceships are to leave Earth in the hope of discovering new worlds to colonise and so reduce the strain on resources on Earth. Time and distance do not seem to affect telepathic links, which means that messages between twins can be sent instantaneously to each other and faster than a radio message on a spaceship travelling at light-speed.

Consequently Tom and Pat are chosen to act as one telepathic pair, with the eldest, Pat, travelling on the spaceship whilst our narrator, Tom, is to remain on Earth to receive the transmitted messages.

Tom is consumed by jealousy when the twins are accepted to act as long distance communicators across space. However, a skiing accident in training means that, in a bizarre twist of fate, Pat is paralysed and has to stay on Earth while Tom travels on the Lewis & Clark torchship.

Through space, as Tom travels towards Tau Ceti and closer to the speed of light, the time dilation effects become greater and Pat ages much faster than Tom. The latter part of the book is about how the two of them deal with some of the dangerous challenges that Tom faces on the frontier of space.

Time for the Stars

I THE LONG RANGE FOUNDATION

According to their biographies, Destiny’s favored children usually had their lives planned out from scratch. Napoleon was figuring on how to rule France when he was a barefoot boy in Corsica, Alexander the Great much the same, and Einstein was muttering equations in his cradle.

Maybe so. Me, I just muddled along.

In an old book that belonged to my great grandfather Lucas I once saw a cartoon of a man in evening clothes, going over a ski jump. With an expression of shocked unbelief he is saying: “How did I get up here?”

I know how he felt. How did I get way up here?

I was not even planned on. The untaxed quota for our family was three children, then my brother Pat and I came along in one giant economy package. We were a surprise to everyone, especially to my parents, my three sisters, and the tax adjusters. I don’t recall being surprised myself but my earliest recollection is a vague feeling of not being quite welcome, even though Dad and Mum, and Faith, Hope, and Charity treated us okay.

Maybe Dad did not handle the emergency right. Many families get an extra child quota on an exchange basis with another family, or something, especially when the tax-free limit has already been filled with all boys or all girls. But Dad was stubborn, maintaining that the law was unconstitutional, unjust, discriminatory, against public morals, and contrary to the will of God. He could reel off a list of important people who were youngest children of large families, from Benjamin Franklin to the first governor Of Pluto, then he would demand to know where the human race would have been without them?-after which Mother would speak soothingly.

Dad was probably accurate as he was a student of almost everything, even his trade, which was micromechanics-but especially of history. He wanted to name us for his two heroes in American history, whereas Mother wanted to name us for her favorite artists: This is how I ended up as Thomas Paine Leonardo da Vinci Bartlett and my twin became Patrick Henry Michelangelo Bartlett. Dad called us Tom and Pat and Mother called us Leo and Michel and our sisters called us Useless and Double- Useless. Dad won by being stubborn.

Dad was stubborn. He could have paid the annual head tax on us supernumeraries, applied for a seven- person flat, and relaxed to the inevitable. Then he could have asked for reclassification. Instead be claimed exemption for us twins each year, always ended by paying our head tax with his check stamped “Paid under Protest!” and we seven lived in a five-person flat. When Pat and I were little we slept in homemade cribs in the bathroom which could not have been convenient for anybody, then when we were bigger we slept on the living-room couch, which was inconvenient for everybody, especially our sisters, who found it cramping to their social life.

Dad could have solved all this by putting in for family emigration to Mars or Venus, or the Jovian moons, and he used to bring up the subject. But this was the one thing that would make Mum more stubborn than he was. I don’t know which part of making the High Jump scared her, because she would just settle her mouth and not answer. Dad would point out that big families got preferred treatment for emigration and that the head tax was earmarked to subsidize colonies off Earth and why shouldn’t we benefit by the money we were being robbed of? To say nothing of letting our children grow up with freedom and elbow room, out where there wasn’t a bureaucrat standing behind every productive worker dreaming up more rules and restrictions? Answer me that?

Mother never answered and we never emigrated,

We were always short of money. Two extra mouths, extra taxes, and no family assistance for the two extras make the stabilized family income law as poor a fit as the clothes Mum cut down for us from Dad’s old ones. It was darn’ seldom that we could afford to dial for dinner like other people and Dad even used to bring home any of his lunch that he didn’t eat. Mum went back to work as soon as we twins were in kindergarten, but the only household robot we had was an obsolete model “Morris Garage” Mother’s Helper which was always burning out valves and took almost as long to program as the job would have taken. Pat and I got acquainted with dish water and detergents-at least I did; Pat usually insisted on doing the sterilizing or had a sore thumb or something.

Dad used to talk about the intangible benefits of being poor-learning to stand on your own feet, building character, and all that. By the time I was old enough to understand I was old enough to wish they weren’t so intangible, but, thinking back, maybe he had a point. We did have fun. Pat and I raised hamsters in the service unit and Mum never objected. When we turned the bath into a chem lab the girls did make unfriendly comments but when Dad put his foot down, they sweet-talked him into picking it up again and after that they hung their laundry somewhere else, and later Mum stood between us and the house manager when we poured acid down the drain and did the plumbing no good.

The only time I can remember when Mum put her foot down was when her brother, Uncle Steve, came back from Mars and gave us some canal worms which we planned to raise and sell at a profit. But when Dad stepped on one in the shower (we had not discussed our plans with him) she made us give them to the zoo, except the one Dad had stepped on, which was useless. Shortly after that we ran away from home to join the High Marines-Uncle Steve was a ballistics sergeant-and when lying about our age did not work and they fetched us back, Mum not only did not scold us but had fed our snakes and our silkworms while we were gone.

Oh, I guess we were happy. It is hard to tell at the time. Pat and I were very close and did everything together but I want to get one thing straight: being a twin is not the Damon-and-Pythias dream that throb writers would have you think. It makes you close to another person to be born with him, share a room with him, eat with him, play with him, work with him, and hardly ever do anything without him as far back as you can remember, and farther according to witnesses. It makes you close; it makes you almost indispensable to each other-but it does not necessarily make you love him.

I want to get this straight because there has been a lot of nonsense talked about it since twins got to be suddenly important. I’m me; I’m not my brother Pat. I could always tell us apart, even if other people couldn’t. He is the right-handed one; I’m the left-handed one. And from my point of view I’m the one who almost always got the small piece of cake.

I can remember times when he got both pieces through a fast shuffle. I’m not speaking in general; I’m thinking of a certain white cake with chocolate icing and how he confused things so that he got my piece, too, Mum and Dad thinking he was both of us, despite my protests. Dessert can be the high point of the day when you are eight, which was what we were then.

I am not complaining about these things … even though I feel a dull lump of anger even now, after all the years and miles, at the recollection of being punished because Dad and Mum thought I was the one who was trying to wangle two desserts. But I’m just trying to tell the truth. Doctor Devereaux said to write it all down and where I have to start is how it feels to be a twin. You aren’t a twin, are you? Maybe you are but the chances are forty-four to one that you aren’t-not even a fraternal, whereas Pat and I are identicals which is four times as unlikely.

They say that one twin is always retarded-I don’t think so. Pat and I were always as near alike as two shoes of a pair. The few times we showed any difference I was a quarter inch taller or a pound heavier,

then we would even out. We got equally good marks in school; we cut our teeth together. What he did have was more grab than I had, something the psychologists call “pecking order.” But it was so subtle you could not define it and other people could not see it. So far as I know, it started from nothing and grew into .a pattern that neither of us could break even if we wanted to.

Maybe if the nurse had picked me up first when we were born I would have been the one who got the bigger piece of cake. Or maybe she did-I don’t know how it started.

But don’t think that being a twin is all bad even if you are on the short end; it is mostly good. You go into a crowd of strangers and you are scared and shy-and there is your twin a couple of feet away and you aren’t alone any more. Or somebody punches you in the mouth and while you are groggy your twin has punched him and the fight goes your way. You flunk a quiz and your twin has flunked just as badly and you aren’t alone.

But do not think that being twins is like having a very close and loyal friend. It isn’t like that at all and it is a great deal closer.

Pat and I had our first contact with the Long Range Foundation when this Mr. Geeking showed up at our home. I did not warm to him. Dad didn’t like him either and wanted to hustle him out, but he was already seated with coffee at his elbow for Mother’s notions of hospitality were firm.

So this Geeking item was allowed to state his business. He was, he said, a field representative of “Genetics Investigations.”

“What’s that?” Dad said sharply.

‘Genetics Investigations’ is a scientific agency, Mr. Bartlett. This present project is one of gathering data concerning twins. It is in the public interest and we hope that you will cooperate.”

Dad took a deep breath and hauled out the imaginary soapbox he always had ready. “More government meddling! I’m a decent citizen; I pay my bills and support my family. My boys are just like other boys and I’m sick and tired of the government’s attitude about them. I’m not going to have them poked and prodded and investigated to satisfy some bureaucrat. All we ask is to be left alone-and that the government admit the obvious fact that my boys have as much right to breathe air and occupy space as anyone else!”

Dad wasn’t stupid; it was just that he had a reaction pattern where Pat and I were concerned as automatic as the snarl of a dog who has been kicked too often. Mr. Geeking tried to soothe him but Dad can’t be interrupted when he has started that tape. “You tell the Department of Population Control that I’m not having their ‘genetics investigations.’ What do they want to find out? How to keep people from having twins, probably. What’s wrong with twins? Where would Rome have been without Romulus and Remus?-answer me that! Mister, do you know how many-”

“Please, Mr. Bartlett, I’m not from the government.” “Eh? Well, why didn’t you say so? Who are you from?”

“Genetics Investigations is an agency of the Long Range Foundation.” I felt Pat’s sudden interest. Everybody has heard of the Long Range Foundation, but it happened that Pat and I had just done a term paper on non-profit corporations and had used the Long Range Foundation as a type example.

We got interested in the purposes of the Long Range Foundation. Its coat of arms reads: “Bread Cast Upon the Waters,” and its charter is headed: “Dedicated to the Welfare of Our Descendants.” The charter goes on with a lot of lawyers’ fog but the way the directors have interpreted it has been to spend money only on things that no government and no other corporation would touch. It wasn’t enough for a proposed project to be interesting to science or socially desirable; it also had to be so horribly

expensive that no one else would touch it and the prospective results had to lie so far in the future that it could not be justified to taxpayers or shareholders. To make the LRF directors light up with enthusiasm you had to suggest something that cost a billion or more and probably wouldn’t show results for ten generations, if ever … something like how to control the weather (they’re working on that) or where does your lap go when you stand up.

The funny thing is that bread cast upon waters does come back seven hundred fold; the most preposterous projects made the LRF embarrassing amounts of money-”embarrassing” to a non-profit corporation that is. Take space travel: it seemed tailor-made, back a couple of hundred years ago, for LRF, since it was fantastically expensive and offered no probable results comparable with the investment: There was a time when governments did some work on it for military reasons, but the Concord of Bayreuth in 1980 put a stop even to that.

So the Long Range Foundation stepped in and happily began wasting money. It came at a time when the corporation unfortunately had made a few billions on the Thompson mass-converter when they had expected to spend at least a century on pure research; since they could not declare a dividend (no stockholders), they had to get rid of the money somehow and space travel looked like a rat hole to pour it down.

Even the kids know what happened to that: Ortega’s torch made space travel inside the solar system cheap, fast, and easy, and the one-way energy screen made colonization practical and profitable; the LRF could not unload fast enough to keep from making lots more money.

I did not think all this that evening; LRF was just something that Pat and I happened to know more about than most high school seniors … more than Dad knew, apparently, for he snorted and answered, “The Long Range Foundation, eh? I’d almost rather you were from the government. If boondoggles like that were properly taxed, the government wouldn’t be squeezing head taxes out of its citizens.”

This was not a fair statement, not a “flat-curve relationship,” as they call it in Beginning Mathematical Empiricism. Mr. McKeefe had told us to estimate the influence, if any, of LRF on the technology “yeast-form” growth curve; either I should have flunked the course or LRF had kept the curve from leveling off early in the 21st century-I mean to say, the “cultural inheritance,” the accumulation of knowledge and wealth that keeps us from being savages, had increased greatly as a result of the tax- free status of such non-profit research corporations. I didn’t dream up that opinion; there are figures to prove it. What would have happened if the tribal elders had forced Ugh to hunt with the rest of the tribe instead of staying home and whittling out the first wheel while the idea was bright in his mind?

Mr. Geeking answered, “I can’t debate the merits of such matters, Mr. Bartlett. I’m merely an employee.

“And I’m paying your salary, indirectly and unwillingly, but paying it nevertheless.”

I wanted to get into the argument but I could feel Pat holding back. It did not matter; Mr. Geeking shrugged and said, “If so, I thank you. But all I came here for was to ask your twin boys to take a few tests and answer some questions. The tests are harmless and the results will be kept confidential.”

“What are you trying to find out?”

I think Mr. Geeking was telling the truth when he answered, “I don’t know. I’m merely a field agent; I’m not in charge of the project.”

Pat cut in. “I don’t see why not, Dad. Do you have the tests in your briefcase, Mr. Geeking?” “Now, Patrick-”

“It’s all right, Dad. Let’s see the tests, Mr. Geeking.”

“Uh, that’s not what we had in mind. The Project has set up local offices in the TransLunar Building. The tests take about half a day.”

“All the way downtown, huh, and a half day’s ‘time … what do you pay?” “Eh? The subjects are asked to contribute their time in the interests of science.”

Pat shook his head. “Sorry, Mr. Geeking. This is exam week … and my brother and I have part-time school jobs, too.”

I kept quiet. Our exams were over, except Analysis of History, which is a snap course involving no math but statistics and pseudospatial calculus, and the school chem lab we worked in was closed for examinations. I was sure Dad did not know these things, or he would have butted in; Dad can shift from prejudice to being a Roman judge at the drop of a hint.

Pat stood up, so I stood up. Mr. Geeking sat tight. “Arrangements can be made,” he said evenly. Pat stuck him as much as we made for a month of washing bottles in the lab, just for one afternoon’s

work-then upped the ante when it was made clear that we would be obliged to take the tests together (as if we would have done it any other way!). Mr. Geeking paid without a quiver, in cash, in advance.

II THE NATURAL LOGARITHM OF TWO

I never in my life saw so many twins as were waiting on the fortieth floor of the TransLunar Building the following Wednesday afternoon. I don’t like to be around twins, they make me think I’m seeing double. Don’t tell me I’m inconsistent; I never saw the twins I am part of-I just saw Pat.

Pat felt the same way; we had never been chummy with other twins. He looked around and whistled. “Tom, did you over see such a mess of spare parts?”

“Never.”

“If I were in charge, I’d shoot half of them.” He hadn’t spoken loud enough to offend anyone; Pat and I used a prison-yard whisper that no one else could hear although we never had trouble understanding it. “Depressing, isn’t it?”

Then he whistled softly and I looked where he was looking. Twins of course, but this was a case of when once is good, twice is better. They were red-headed sisters, younger than we were but not too young-sixteen, maybe-and cute as Persian kittens.

Those sisters had the effect on us that a light has on a moth. Pat whispered, “Tom, we owe it to them to grant them a little of our time,” and headed toward them, with me in step. They were dressed in fake Scottish outfits, green plaid which made their hair flame like bonfires and to us they looked as pretty as a new fall of snow.

And just as chilly. Pat got halfway through his opening speech when he trailed off and shut up; they were staring through him. I was blushing and the only thing that kept it from being a major embarrassing incident was a loudspeaker that commenced to bray:

“Attention, please! You are requested to report to the door marked with your surname initial.” So we went to door A- to-D and the red-headed sisters headed toward the other end of the alphabet without ever having seen us at all. As we queued up Pat muttered, “Is there egg on my chin? Or have they taken a vow to be old maids?”

“Probably both,” I answered. “Anyhow, I prefer blondes.” This was true, since Maudie was a blonde. Pat and I had been dating Maudie Kauric for about a year-going steady you could call it, though in my case it usually meant that I was stuck with Maudie’s chum Hedda Staley, whose notion of dazzling conversation was to ask me if I didn’t think Maudie was the cutest thing ever? Since this was true and unanswerable, our talk did not sparkle.

“Well, so do I,” Pat agreed, without saying which blonde-Maudie was the only subject on which we were reticent with each other. “But I have never had a closed mind.” He shrugged and added cheerfully, “Anyhow, there are other possibilities.”

There certainly were, for of the hundreds of twins present maybe a third were near enough our age not to be out of the question and half of them, as near as I could tell without counting, were of the sex that turns a mere crowd into a social event. However, none came up to the high standards of the redheads, so I began looking over the crowd as a whole.

The oldest pair I saw, two grown men, seemed to be not older than the early thirties and I saw one set of little girls about twelve-they had their mother in tow. But most of them were within a loud shout of twenty. I had concluded that “Genetics Investigations” was picking its samples by age groups when I found that we were at the head of the line and a clerk was saying, “Names, please?”

For the next two hours we were passed from one data collector to another, being fingerprinted, giving

blood samples, checking “yes” or “no” to hundreds of silly questions that can’t be answered “yes” or “no.” The physical examination was thorough and involved the usual carefully planned nonsense of keeping a person standing in bare feet on a cold floor in a room five degrees too chilly for naked human skin while prodding the victim and asking him rude personal questions.

I was thoroughly bored and was not even amused when Pat whispered that we should strip the clothes off the doctor now and prod him in the belly and get the nurse to record how he liked it? My only pleasant thought was that Pat had stuck them plenty for their fun. Then they let us get dressed and ushered us into a room where a rather pretty woman sat behind a desk. She had a transparency viewer on her desk and was looking at two personality profiles superimposed on it. They almost matched and I tried to sneak a look to see where they did not. But I could not tell Pat’s from my own and anyhow I’m not a mathematical psychologist.

She smiled and said, “Sit down, boys. I’m Doctor Arnault.” She held up the profiles and a bunch of punched cards and added, “Perfect mirror twins, even to dextrocardia. This should be interesting.”

Pat tried to look at the papers. “What’s our I.Q. this time, Doctor?”

“Never mind.” She put the papers down and covered them, then picked up a deck of cards. “Have you ever used these?”

Of course we had, for they were the classic Rhine test cards, wiggles and stars and so forth. Every high school psychology class has a set and a high score almost always means that some bright boy has figure out a way to cold-deck the teacher. In fact Pat had worked out a simple way to cheat when our teacher, with a tired lack of anger, split us up and made us run tests only with other people-whereupon our scores dropped to the limits of standard error. So I was already certain that Pat and I weren’t ESP freaks and the Rhine cards were just another boring test.

But I could feel Pat become attentive. “Keep your ears open, kid,” I heard him whisper, “and we’ll make this interesting.” Dr. Arnault did not hear him, of course.

I wasn’t sure we ought to but I knew if he could manage to signal to me I would not be able to refrain from fudging the results. But I need not have worried; Dr. Arnault took Pat out and returned without him. She was hooked by microphone to the other test room but there was no chance to whisper through it; it was hot only when she switched it on.

She started right in. “First test run in twenty seconds, Mabel,” she said into the mike and switched it off, then turned to me. “Look at the cards as I turn them,” she said.

“Don’t try, don’t strain. Just look at them.”

So I looked at the cards. This went on with variations for maybe an hour. Sometimes I was supposed to be receiving, sometimes sending. As far as I was concerned nothing happened, for they never told us our scores.

Finally Dr. Arnault looked at a score sheet and said, “Tom, I want to give you a mild injection. It won’t hurt you and it’ll wear off before you go home. Okay?”

“What sort?” I said suspiciously.

“Don’t fret; it is harmless. I don’t want to tell you or you might unconsciously show the reaction you expected.”

“Uh, what does my brother say? Does he get one, too?” “Never mind, please. I’m asking you.”

I still hesitated. Dad did not favor injections and such unless necessary; he had made a fuss over our

taking part in the encephalitis program. “Are you an M.D.?” I asked. “No, my degree is in science. Why?”

“Then how do you know it’s harmless?”

She bit her lip, then answered, “I’11 send for a doctor of medicine, if you prefer.”

“Uh, no, I guess that won’t be necessary.” I was remembering something that Dad had said about the sleeping sickness shots and I added, “Does the Long Range Foundation carry liability insurance for this?”

“What? Why, I think so. Yes, I’m sure they do.” She looked at me and added, “Tom, how does a boy your age get to be so suspicions?”

“Huh? Why ask me? You’re the psychologist, ma’am. Anyhow,” I added, “if you had sat on as many tacks as I have, you’d be suspicions too.”

“Mmm … never mind. I’ve been studying for years and I still don’t know what the younger generation is coming to. Well, are you going to take the injection?”

“Uh, I’ll take it-since the LRF carries insurance. Just write out what it is you are giving me and sign it.”

She got two bright pink spots in her cheeks. But she took out stationery, wrote on it, folded it into an envelope and sealed it. “Put it in your pocket,” she said briskly. “Don’t look at it until the experiments are over. Now bare your left forearm.”

As she gave me the shot she said sweetly, “This is going to sting a little…I hope.” It did.

She turned out all the lights except the light in the transparency viewer. “Are you comfortable?” “Sure.”

“I’m sorry if I seemed vexed. I want you to relax and be comfortable.” She came over and did something to the chair I was in; it opened out gently until I was practically lying in a hammock. “Relax and don’t fight it. If you find yourself getting sleepy, that is to be expected.” She sat down and all I could see was her face, illuminated by the viewer. She was awfully pretty, I decided, even though she was too old for it to matter … at least thirty, maybe older. And she was nice, too. She spoke for a few minutes in her gentle voice but I don’t remember exactly what she said.

I must have gone to sleep, for next it was pitch dark and Pat was right there by me, although I hadn’t noticed the light go out nor the door being opened. I started to speak when I heard him whisper:

“Tom, did you ever see such nonsensical rigamarole?”

I whispered back, “Reminds me of the time we were initiated into the Congo Cannibals.” “Keep your voice down; they’ll catch on.”

“You’re the one who is talking too loud: Anyhow, who cares? Let’s give ‘em the Cannibal war whoop and scare ‘em out of their shoes.”

“Later, later. Right now my girl friend Mabel wants me to give you a string of numbers. So we’ll let them have their fun first. After all, they’re paying for it.”

“Okay.”

“Point six nine three one.”

“That’s the natural logarithm of two.”

“What did you think it was? Mabel’s telephone number? Shut up and listen. Just repeat the numbers back. Three point one four one five nine…”

It went on quite a while. Some were familiar numbers like the first two; the rest may have been random or even Mabel’s phone number, for all of me. I got bored and was beginning to think about sticking in a war whoop on my own when Dr. Arnault said quietly, “End of test run. Both of you please keep quiet and relax for a few minutes. Mabel, I’ll meet you in the data comparison room.” I heard her go out, so I dropped the war whoop notion and relaxed. Repeating all those numbers in the dark had made me dopey anyhow-and as Uncle Steve says, when you get a chance to rest, do so; you may not get another chance soon.

Presently I heard the door open again, then I was blinking at bright lights. Dr. Arnault said, “That’s all today, Tom … and thank you very much. We want to see you and your brother at the same time tomorrow.”

I blinked again and looked around. “Where’s Pat? What does he say?”

“You’ll find him in the outer lobby. He told me that you could come tomorrow. You can, can’t you?” “Uh, I suppose so, if it’s all right with him.” I was feeling sheepish about the trick we had pulled, so I

added, “Dr. Arnault? I’m sorry I annoyed you.”

She patted my hand and smiled. “That’s all right, You were right to be cautious and you were a good subject. You should see the wild ones we sometimes draw. See you tomorrow.”

Pat was waiting in the big room where we had seen the redheads. He fell into step and we headed for the drop.

“I raised the fee for tomorrow,” he whispered smugly.

“You did? Pat, do you think we should do this? I mean, fun is fun, but if they ever twig that we are faking, they’ll be sore. They might even make us pay back what they’ve already paid us.”

“How can they? We’ve been paid to show up and take tests. We’ve done that. It’s up to them to rig tests that can’t be beaten. I could, if I were doing it.”

“Pat, you’re dishonest and crooked, both.” I thought about Dr. Arnault… she was a nice lady. “I think I’ll stay home tomorrow.”

I said this just as Pat stepped off the drop. He was ten feet below me all the way down and had forty stories in which to consider his answer. As I landed beside him he answered by changing the subject. “They gave you a hypodermic?”

“Yes.”

“Did you think to make them sign an admission of liability, or did you goof?”

“Well, sort of.” I felt in my pocket for the envelope; I’d forgotten about it. “I made Dr. Arnault write down what she was giving us.”

Pat reached for the envelope. “My apologies, maestro. With my brains and your luck we’ve got them where we want them.” He started to open the envelope. “I bet it was neopentothal-or one of the barbiturates.”

I snatched it back. “That’s mine.”

“Well, open it,” he answered, “and don’t obstruct traffic. I want to see what dream drug they gave us.” We had come out into the pedestrian level and his advice did have merit. Before opening it I led us

across the change strips onto the fast-west strip and stepped behind a windbreak. As I unfolded the paper Pat read over my shoulder:

“‘Long Range Fumbling, and so forth-injections given to subjects 7L435 & -6 T. P. Bartlett & P. H. Bartlett (iden-twins)-each one-tenth c.c. distilled water raised to normal salinity,’ signed ‘Doris Arnault, Sc.D., for the Foundation.’ Tom, we’ve been hoaxed!”

I stared at it, trying to fit what I had experienced with what the paper said. Pat added hopefully, “Or is this the hoax? Were we injected with something else and they didn’t want to admit it?”

“No,” I said slowly. I was sure Dr. Arnault wouldn’t write down “water” and actually give us one of the sleeping drugs-she wasn’t that sort of person. “Pat, we weren’t drugged…we were hypnotized.”

He shook his head. “Impossible. Granting that I could be hypnotized, you couldn’t be. Nothing there to hypnotize. And I wasn’t hypnotized, comrade. No spinning lights, no passes with the hands-why, my girl Mabel didn’t even stare in my eyes. She just gave me the shot and told me to take it easy and let it take effect.”

“Don’t be juvenile, Pat. Spinning lights and such is for suckers. I don’t care whether you call it hypnotism or salesmanship. They gave us hypos and suggested that we would be sleepy-so we fell asleep.”

“So I was sleepy! Anyhow that wasn’t quite what Mabel did. She told me not to go to sleep, or if I did, to wake up when she called me. Then when they brought you in, she-”

“Wait a minute. You mean when they moved you back into the room I was in-”

“No, I don’t mean anything of the sort. After they brought you in, Mabel gave me this list of numbers and I read them to you and-”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Pat, you’re mixed up. How could you read them in pitch darkness? She must have read them to you. I mean-” I stopped, for I was getting mixed up myself. Well, she could have read to him from another room. “Were you wearing headphones?”

“What’s that got to do with it? Anyhow, it wasn’t pitch dark, not after they brought you in. She held up the numbers on a board that was rigged with a light of its own, enough to let me see the numbers and her hands.”

“Pat, I wish you wouldn’t keep repeating nonsense. Hypnotized or not, I was never so dopey that I couldn’t notice anything that happened. I was never moved anywhere; they probably wheeled you in without disturbing you. And the room we were in was pitch dark, not a glimmer.”

Pat did not answer right away, which wasn’t like him. At last he said, “Tom, are you sure?” “Sure I’m sure!”

He sighed. “I hate to say this, because I know what you will say. But what are you supposed to do when none of your theories fits?”

“Huh? Is this a quiz? You throw ‘em away and try a new one. Basic methodology, freshman year.” “Okay, just slip this on for size, don’t mind the pattern: Tom, my boy, brace yourself-we’re mind

readers.”

I tried it and did not like it. “Pat, just because you can’t explain everything is no reason to talk like the fat old women who go to fortune tellers. We’re muddled, I admit, whether it was drugs or hypnosis. But we couldn’t have been reading each other’s minds or we would have been doing it years ago. We would have noticed.”

“Not necessarily. There’s never anything much going on in your mind, so why should I notice?” “But it stands to reason-”

“What’s the natural log of two?”

“‘Point six nine three one’ is what you said, though I’ve got very little use for four-place tables. What’s that got to do with it?”

“I used four-place because she gave it to me that way. Do you remember what she said just before I gave you that number?”

“Huh? Who?”

“Mabel. Dr. Mabel Lichtenstein. What did she say?” “Nobody said anything.”

“Tom, my senile symbiote, she told me what to do, to wit, read the numbers to you. She told me this in a clear, penetrating soprano. You didn’t hear her?”

“No.”

“Then you weren’t in the same room. You weren’t within earshot, even though I was prepared to swear that they had shoved you in right by me. I knew you were there. But you weren’t. So it was telepathy.”

I was confused. I didn’t feel telepathic; I merely felt hungry.

“Me, too, on both counts,” Pat agreed. “So let’s stop at Berkeley Station end get a sandwich.”

I followed him off the strips, feeling not quite as hungry and even more confused. Pat had answered a remark I had not made.

II PROJECT LEBENSRAUM

Even though I was told to take my time and tell everything, it can’t be done. I haven’t had time to add to this for days, but even if I didn’t have to work I still could not “tell all,” because it takes more than a day to write down what happens in one day. The harder you try the farther behind you get. So I’m going to quit trying and just hit the high spots.

Anyhow everybody knows the general outline of Project Lebensraum.

We did not say anything to Mum and Dad about that first day. You can’t expose parents to that sort of thing; they get jittery and start issuing edicts. We just told them the tests would run a second day and that nobody had told us what the results were.

Dr. Arnault seemed unsurprised when we told her we knew the score, even when I blurted out that we thought we had been faking but apparently weren’t. She just nodded and said that it had been necessary to encourage us to think that everything was commonplace, even if there had to be a little fibbing on both sides. “I had the advantage of having your personality analyses to guide me,” she added. “Sometimes in psychology you have to go roundabout to arrive at the truth.

“We’ll try a more direct way today,” she went on. “We’ll put you two back to back but close enough together that you unquestionably can hear each other. But I am going to use a sound screen to cut you off partly or completely from time to time without your knowing it.”

It was a lot harder the second time. Naturally we tried and naturally we flubbed. But Dr. Arnault was patient and so was Dr. Lichtenstein-Pat’s “Dr. Mabel.” She preferred to be called Dr. Mabel; she was short and pudgy and younger than Dr. Arnault and about as cute as a female can be and still look like a sofa pillow. It wasn’t until later that we found out she was boss of the research team and world famous. “Giggly little fat girl” was an act she used to put ordinary people, meaning Pat and myself, at their ease.

I guess this proves you should ignore the package and read the fine print.

So she giggled and Dr. Arnault looked serious and we could not tell whether we were reading minds or not. I could hear Tom’s whispers-they told us to go ahead and whisper-and he could hear mine and sometimes they would fade. I was sure we weren’t getting anything, not telepathy I mean, for it was just the way Pat and I used to whisper answers back and forth in school without getting caught.

Finally Dr. Mabel giggled sheepishly and said, “I guess that’s enough for today. Don’t you think so, Doctor?”

Dr. Arnault agreed and Pat and I sat up and faced each other. I said, “I suppose yesterday was a fluke. I guess we disappointed you.”

Dr. Mabel looked like a startled kitten. Dr. Arnault answered soberly, “I don’t know what you expected, Tom, but for the past hour you and your brother have been cut off from hearing each other during every test run.”

“But I did hear him.”

“You certainly did. But not with your ears. We’ve been recording each side of the sound barrier. Perhaps we should play back part of it.”

Dr. Mabel giggled. “That’s a good idea.” So they did. It started out with all four voices while they told us what they wanted, then there were just my whispers and Pat’s, reading lines back and forth from The Comedy of Errors. They must have had parabolic mikes focused on us for our whispers sounded like a windstorm.

Pat’s whispers gradually faded out. But mine kept right on going…answering a dead silence.

We signed a research contract with the Foundation and Dad countersigned it, after an argument. He thought mind-reading was folderol and we did not dispute him, since the clincher was that money was scarce as always and it was a better-paying job than any summer job we could get, fat enough to insure that we could start college even if our scholarships didn’t come through.

But before the summer was over they let us in on the connection between “Genetics Investigations” and “Project Lebensraum.” That was a horse of another color-a very dark black, from our parents’ standpoint.

Long before that time Pat and I could telepath as easily as we could talk and just as accurately, without special nursing and at any distance. We must have been doing it for years without knowing it-in fact Dr. Arnault made a surprise recording of our prison-yard whispering (when we weren’t trying to telepath, just our ordinary private conversation) and proved that neither one of us could understand our recorded whispers when we were keeping it down low to keep other people from hearing.

She told us that it was theoretically possible that everyone was potentially telepathic, but that it had proved difficult to demonstrate it except with identical twins-and then only with about ten per cent. “We don’t know why, but think of an analogy with tuned radio circuits.”

“Brain waves?” I asked.

“Don’t push the analogy too far. It can’t be the brain waves we detect with an encephalograph equipment or we would have been selling commercial telepathic equipment long since. And the human brain is not a radio. But whatever it is, two persons from the same egg stand an enormously better chance of being ‘tuned in’ than two non-twins do. I can’t read your mind and you can’t read mine and perhaps we never will. There have been only a few cases in all the history of psychology of people who appeared to be able to ‘tune in’ on just anyone, and most of those aren’t well documented.”

Pat grinned and winked at Dr. Mabel. “So we are a couple of freaks.”

She looked wide-eyed and started to answer but Dr. Arnault beat her to it. “Not at all, Pat. In you it is normal. But we do have teams in the project who are not identical twins. Some husbands and wives, a few fraternal siblings, even some pairs who were brought together by the research itself. They are the ‘freaks.’ If we could find out how they do it, we. might be able to set up conditions to let anyone do it.”

Dr. Mabel shivered. “What a terrible thought! There is too little privacy now.”

I repeated this to Maudie (with Pat’s interruptions and corrections) because the news services had found out what was going on in “Genetics Investigations” and naturally we “mind readers” came in for a lot of silly publicity and just as naturally, under Hedda Staley’s mush-headed prodding, Maudie began to wonder if a girl had any privacy? She had, of course; I could not have read her mind with a search warrant, nor could Pat. She would have believed our simple statement if Hedda had not harped on it. She nearly managed to bust us up with Maudie, but we jettisoned her instead and we had threesome dates with Maudie until Pat was sent away.

But that wasn’t until nearly the end of the summer after they explained Project Lebensraum. About a week before our contract was to run out they gathered us twins together to talk to us. There

had been hundreds that first day, dozens the second day, but just enough to crowd a big conference room by the end of summer. The redheads were among the survivors but Pat and I did not sit by them even though there was room; they still maintained their icicle attitude and were self-centered as oysters. The rest of us were all old friends by now.

A Mr. Howard was introduced as representing the Foundation. He ladled out the usual guff about being

happy to meet us and appreciating the honor and so forth. Pat said to me. “Hang onto your wallet, Tom. This bloke is selling something.” Now that we knew what we were doing Pat and I talked in the presence of other people even more than we used to. We no longer bothered to whisper since we had had proved to us that we weren’t hearing the whispers. But we did subvocalize the words silently, as it helped in being understood. Early in the summer we had tried to do without words and read minds directly but it did not work. Oh, I could latch on to Pat, but the silly, incoherent rumbling that went on his mind in place of thought was confusing and annoying, as senseless as finding yourself inside another person’s dream. So I learned not to listen unless he “spoke” to me and he did the same. When we did, we used words and sentences like anybody else. There was none of this fantastic, impossible popular nonsense about instantly grasping the contents of another person’s mind; we simply “talked.”

One thing that had bothered me was why Pat’s telepathic “voice” sounded like his real one. It had not worried me when I did not know what we were doing, but once I realized that these “sounds” weren’t sounds, it bothered me. I began to wonder if I was all there and for a week I could not “hear” him- psychosomatic telepathic-deafness Dr. Arnault called it.

She got me straightened out by explaining what hearing is. You don’t hear with your ears, you hear with your brain; you don’t see with your eyes, you see with your brain. When you touch something, the sensation is not in your finger, it is inside your head. The ears and eyes and fingers are just data collectors; it is the brain that abstracts order out of a chaos of data and gives it meaning. “A new baby does not really see,” she said. “Watch the eyes of one and you can see that it doesn’t. Its eyes work but its brain has not yet learned to see. But once the brain has acquired the habits of abstracting as ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing,’ the habit persists. How would you expect to ‘hear’ what your twin says to you telepathically? As little tinkling bells or dancing lights? Not at all. You expect words, your brain ‘hears’ words; it is a process it is used to and knows how to handle.”

I no longer worried about it, I could hear Pat’s voice clearer than I could hear the voice of the speaker addressing us. No doubt there were fifty other conversations around us, but I heard no one but Pat and it was obvious that the speaker could not hear anybody (and that he did not know much about telepathy) for he went on:

“Possibly a lot of you wonderful people-” (This with a sickening smile) “-are reading my mind right now. I hope not, or if you are I hope you will bear with me until I have said my say.”

“What did I tell you?” Pat put in. “Don’t sign anything until l check it.”

(“Shut up,”). I told him. (“I want to listen.”) His voice used to sound like a whisper; now it tended to drown out real sounds. “

Mr. Howard went on, “Perhaps you have wondered why the Long Range Foundation has sponsored this research. The Foundation is always interested in anything which will add to human knowledge. But there is a much more important reason, a supremely important reason … and a grand purpose to which you yourselves can be supremely important.”

“See? Be sure to count your change.” (“Quiet, Pat.”)

“Let me quote,” Mr. Howard continued, “from the charter of the Long Range Foundation: ‘Dedicated to the welfare of our descendants.’ “ He paused dramatically-I think that was what he intended; “Ladies and gentlemen, what one thing above all is necessary for our descendants?”

“Ancestors!” Pat answered promptly. For a second I thought that he had used his vocal cords, But nobody else noticed.

“There can be only one answer-living room! Room to grow, room to raise families, broad acres of fertile grain, room for parks and schools and homes. We have over five billion human souls on this planet; it was crowded to the point of marginal starvation more than a century ago with only half that number. Yet this afternoon there are a quarter of a million more of us than there were at this same hour yesterday – ninety million more people each year. Only by monumental efforts of reclamation and conservation, plus population control measures that grow daily more difficult, have we been able to stave off starvation. We have placed a sea in the Sahara, we have melted the Greenland ice cap, we have watered the windy steppes, yet each year there is more and more pressure for more and more room for endlessly more people.”

I don’t care for orations and this was all old stuff. Shucks, Pat and I knew it if anyone did; we were the kittens that should have been drowned; our old man paid a yearly fine for our very existence.

“It has been a century since the inception of interplanetary travel; man has spread through the Solar System. One would think that nine planets would be ample for a race too fertile for one. Yet you all know that such has not been the case. Of the daughters of Father Sol only fair Terra is truly suited to Man.”

“I’ll bet he writes advertising slogans.” (“Poor ones,”) I agreed.

“Colonize the others we have done, but only at a great cost. The sturdy Dutch in pushing back the sea have not faced such grim and nearly hopeless tasks as the colonists of Mars and Venus and Ganymede. What the human race needs and must have are not these frozen or burning or airless discards of creation. We need more planets like this gentle one we are standing on. And there are more, many more!” He waved his hands at the ceiling and looked up.

“There are dozens, hundreds, thousands, countless hordes of them … out there. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the stars!”

“Here comes the pitch,” Pat said quietly. “A fast curve, breaking inside.” (“Pat, what the deuce is he driving at?”)

“He’s a real estate agent.”

Pat was not far off: but I am not going to quote the rest of Mr. Howard’s speech. He was a good sort when we got to know him but he was dazzled by the sound of his own voice, so I’ll summarize. He reminded us that the Torchship Avant-Garde had headed out to Proxima Centauri six years back. Pat and I knew about it not only from the news but because mother’s brother, Uncle Steve, had put in for it- he was turned down, but for a while we enjoyed prestige just from being related to somebody on the list-I guess we gave the impression around school that Uncle Steve was certain to be chosen.

Nobody had heard from the Avant-Garde and maybe she would be back in fifteen or twenty years and maybe not. The reason we hadn’t heard from her, as Mr. Howard pointed out and everybody knows, is that you don’t send radio messages back from a ship light-years away and traveling just under the speed of light. Even if you assumed that a ship could carry a power plant big enough to punch radio messages across light-years (which may not be impossible in some cosmic sense but surely is impossible in terms of modem engineering)-even so, what use are messages which travel just barely faster than the ship that sends them? The Avant-Garde would be home almost as quickly as any report she could send, even by radio.

Some fuzzbrain asked about messenger rockets. Mr. Howard looked pained and tried to answer and I didn’t listen. If radio isn’t fast enough, how can a messenger rocket be faster? I’ll bet Dr. Einstein spun

in his grave.

Mr. Howard hurried on before there were any more silly interruptions. The Long Range Foundation proposed to send out a dozen more starships in all directions to explore Sol-type solar systems for Earth-type planets, planets for coloniza tion. The ships might be gone a long time, for each one would explore more than one solar system.

“And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where you are indispensable to this great project for living room- for you will be the means whereby the captains of those ships report back what they have found!”

Even Pat kept quiet.

Presently a man stood up in the back of the room. He was one of the oldest twins among us; he and his brother were about thirty-five. “Excuse me, Mr. Howard, but may I ask a question?”

. “Surely.”

“I am Gregory Graham; this is my brother Grant Graham. We’re physicists. Now we don’t claim to be expert in cosmic phenomena but we do know something about communication theory. Granting for the sake of argument that telepathy would work over interstellar distances-I don’t think so but I’ve no proof that it wouldn’t-even granting that, I can’t see where it helps. Telepathy, light, radio waves, even gravity, are all limited to the speed of light. That is in the very nature of the physical universe, an ultimate limit for all communication. Any other view falls into the ancient philosophical contradiction of action-at-a-distance. It is just possible that you might use telepathy to report findings and let the ship go on to new explorations-but the message would still take light-years to come back. Communication back and forth between a starship and Earth, even by telepathy, is utterly impossible, contrary to the known laws of physics.” He looked apologetic and sat down.

I thought Graham had him on the hip. Pat and I got good marks in physics and what Graham had said was the straight word, right out of the book. But Howard did not seem bothered. “I’ll let an expert answer. Dr. Lichtenstein? If you please-”

Dr. Mabel stood up and blushed and giggled and looked flustered and said, “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Graham, I really am, but telepathy isn’t like that at all.” She giggled again and said, “I shouldn’t be saying this, since you are telepathic and I’m not, but telepathy doesn’t pay the least bit of attention to the speed of light.”

“But it has to. The laws of physics-”

“Oh, dear! Have we given you the impression that telepathy is physical?” She twisted her hands. “It probably isn’t.”

“Everything is physical. I include ‘physiological,’ of course.”

“It is? You do? Oh, I wish I could be sure … but physics has always been much too deep for me. But I don’t know how you can be sure that telepathy is physical; we haven’t been able to make it register on any instrument. Dear me, we don’t even know how consciousness hooks into matter. Is consciousness physical? I’m sure I don’t know. But we do know that telepathy is faster than light because we measured it.”

Pat sat up with a jerk, “Stick around, kid. I think we’ll stay for the second show.” Graham looked stunned. Dr. Mabel said hastily, “I didn’t do it; it was Dr; Abernathy.” “Horatio Abernathy?” demanded Graham.

“Yes, that’s his first name, though I never dared call him by it. He’s rather important.”

“Just the Nobel prize,” Graham said grimly, “in field theory. Go on. What did he find?”

“Well, we sent this one twin out to Ganymede-such an awfully long way. Then we used simultaneous radio-telephony and telepathy messages, with the twin on Ganymede talking by radio while he was talking directly-telepathically, I mean-to his twin back in Buenos Aires. The telepathic message always beat the radio message by about forty minutes. That would be right, wouldn’t it? You can see the exact figures in my office.”

Graham managed to close his month. “When did this happen? Why hasn’t it been published? Who has been keeping it secret? It’s the most important thing since the Michelson-Morley experiment-it’s terrible!”

Dr. Mabel looked upset and Mr. Howard butted in soothingly. “Nobody has been suppressing knowledge, Mr. Graham, and Dr. Abernathy is preparing an article for publication in the Physical Review. However I admit that the Foundation did ask him not to give out an advance release in order to give us time to go ahead with another project-the one you know as ‘Genetics Investigations’-on a crash- priority basis. We felt we were entitled to search out and attempt to sign up potential telepathic teams before every psychological laboratory and, for that matter, every ambitious showman, tried to beat us to it. Dr. Abernathy was willing-he doesn’t like premature publication.”

“If it will make you feel better, Mr. Graham,” Dr. Mabel said diffidently, “telepathy doesn’t pay attention to the inverse-square law either. The signal strength was as strong at half a billion miles as when the paired telepaths were in adjoining rooms.”

Graham sat down heavily. “I don’t know whether it does or it doesn’t. I’m busy rearranging everything I have ever believed.”

The interruption by the Graham brothers had explained some things but had pulled us away from the purpose of the meeting, which was for Mr. Howard to sell us on signing up as spacemen. He did not have to sell me. I guess every boy wants to go out into space; Pat and I had run away from home once to enlist in the High Marines-and this was much more than just getting on the Earth-Mars-Venus run; this meant exploring the stars.

The Stars!

“We’ve told you about this before your research contracts run out,” Mr. Howard explained, “so that you will have time to consider it, time for us to explain the conditions and advantages.”

I did not care what the advantages were. If they had invited me to hook a sled on behind, I would have said yes, not worrying about torch blast or space suits or anything.

“Both members of each telepathic team will be equally well taken care of,” he assured us. “The starside member will have good pay and good working conditions in the finest of modern torchships in the company of crews selected for psychological compatibility as well as for special training; the earthside member will have his financial future assured, as well as his physical welfare.” He smiled. “Most assuredly his physical welfare, for it is necessary that he be kept alive and well as long as science can keep him so. It is not too much to say that signing this contract will add thirty years to your lives.”

It burst on me why the twins they had tested had been young people. The twin who went out to the stars would not age very much, not at the speed of light. Even if he stayed away a century it would not seem that long to him-but his twin who stayed behind would grow older. They would have to pamper him like royalty, keep him alive-or their “radio” would break down.

Pat said, “Milky Way, here I come!”

But Mr. Howard was still talking. “We want you to think this over carefully; it is the most important decision you will ever make. On the shoulders of you few and others like you in other cities around the globe, all told just a tiny fraction of one per cent of the human race, on you precious few rest the hopes of all humanity. So think carefully and give us a chance to explain anything which may trouble you. Don’t act hastily.”

The red-headed twins got up and walked out, noses in the air. They did not have to speak to make it clear that they would have nothing to do with anything so unladylike, so rude and crude, as exploring space. In the silence in which they paraded out Pat said to me, “There go the Pioneer Mothers. That’s the spirit that discovered America.” As they passed us he cut loose with a loud razzberry-and I suddenly realized that he was not telepathing when the redheads stiffened and hurried faster. There was an embarrassed laugh and Mr. Howard quickly picked up the business at hand as if nothing had happened while I bawled Pat out.

Mr. Howard asked us to come back at the usual time tomorrow, when Foundation representatives would explain details. He invited us to bring our lawyers, or (those of us who were under age, which was more than half) our parents and their lawyers.

Pat was bubbling over as we left, but I had lost my enthusiasm. In the middle of Mr. Howard’s speech I had had a great light dawn: one of us was going to have to stay behind and I knew as certainly as bread falls butter side down which one it would be. A possible thirty more years on my life was no inducement to me. What use is thirty extra years wrapped in cottonwool? There would be no spacing for the twin left behind, not even inside the Solar System … and I had never even been to the Moon.

I tried to butt in on Pat’s enthusiasm and put it to him fair and square, for I was darned if I was going to take the small piece of cake this time without argument.

“Look, Pat, I’ll draw straws with you for it. Or match coins.” “Huh? What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about!”

He just brushed it aside and grinned. “You worry too much, Tom. They’ll pick the teams the way they want to. It won’t be up to us.”

I know he was determined to go and I knew I would lose.

IV HALF A LOAF

Our parents made the predictable uproar. A conference in the Bartlett family always sounded like a zoo at feeding time but this one set a new high. In addition to Pat and myself, Faith, Hope, and Charity, and our parents, there was Faith’s fairly new husband, Frank Dubois, and Hope’s brand- new fiancé, Lothar Sembrich. The last two did not count and both of them seemed to me to be examples of what lengths a girl will go to in order to get married, but they used up space and occasionally contributed remarks to confuse the issue. But Mother’s brother, Uncle Steve, was there, too, having popped up on Earthside furlough.

It was Uncle Steve’s presence that decided Pat to bring it out in the open instead of waiting to tackle Dad and Mum one at a time. Both of them considered Uncle Steve a disturbing influence but they were proud of him; one of his rare visits was always a holiday.

Mr. Howard had given us a sample contract to take home and look over. After dinner Pat said, “By the way, Dad, the Foundation offered us a new contract today, a long-term one.” He took it out of his pocket but did not offer it to Dad.

“I trust you told them that you were about to start school again?”

“Sure, we told them that, but they insisted that we take the contract home to show our parents. Okay, we knew what your answer would be.” Pat started to put the contract into his pocket.

I said to Pat privately, (“What’s the silly idea? You’ve made him say ‘no’ and now he can’t back down.”)

“Not yet he hasn’t,” Pat answered on our private circuit. “Don’t joggle my elbow.”

Dad was already reaching out a hand. “Let me see it, You should never make up your mind without knowing the facts.”

Pat was not quick about passing it over. “Well, there is a scholarship clause,” he admitted, “but Tom and I wouldn’t be able to go to school together the way we always have.”

“That’s not necessarily bad. You two are too dependent on each other. Some day you will have to face the cold, cruel world alone … and going to different schools might be a good place to start.”

Pat stuck out the contract, folded to the second page, “It’s paragraph ten.”

Dad read paragraph ten first, just as Pat meant him to do, and his eyebrows went up. Paragraph ten agreed that the party of the first part, the LRF, would keep the party of the second part in any school of his choice, all expenses, for the duration of the contract, or a shorter time at his option, and agreed to do the same for the party of the third part after the completion of the active period of the contract, plus tutoring during the active period-all of which was a long-winded way of saying that the Foundation would put the one who stayed home through school now and the one who went starside through school when he got back… all this in addition to our salaries; see paragraph seven.

So Dad turned to paragraph seven and his eyebrows went higher and his pipe went out. He looked at Pat. “Do I understand that they intend to appoint you two ‘communications technicians tenth grade’ with no experience?”

Uncle Steve sat up and almost knocked his chair over. “Bruce, did you say ‘tenth grade’?”

“So it says.”

“Regular LRF pay scales?”

“Yes. I don’t know how much that is, but I believe they ordinarily hire skilled ratings beginning at third grade.”

Uncle Steve whistled. “I’d hate to tell you how much money it is, Bruce-but the chief electron pusher on Pluto is tenth pay grade … and it took him twenty years and a doctor’s degree to get there.” Uncle Steve looked at us.

“Give out, shipmates. Where did they bury the body? Is it a bribe?” Pat did not answer. Uncle Steve turned to Dad and said, “Never mind the fine print, Bruce; just have the kids sign it. Each one of them will make more than you and me together. Never argue with Santa Claus.”

But Dad was already reading the fine print, from sub-paragraph one-A to the penalty clauses. It was written in lawyer language but what it did was to sign us up as crew members for one voyage of an LRF ship, except that one of us was required to perform his duties Earthside. There was lots more to nail it down so that the one who stayed Earth-side could not wiggle out, but that was all it amounted to.

The contact did not say where the ship would go or how long the voyage would last.

Dad finally put the contract down and Charity grabbed it. Dad took it from her and passed it over to Mother. Then he said, “Boys, this contract looks so favorable that I suspect there must be a catch. Tomorrow morning I’m going to get hold of Judge Holland and ask him to go over it with me. But if I read it correctly, you are being offered all these benefits-and an extravagant salary-provided one of you makes one voyage in the Lewis and Clark.”

Uncle Steve said suddenly, “The Lewis and Clark, Bruce?”

“The Lewis and Clark, or such sister ship as may be designated. Why? You know the ship, Steve?” Uncle Steve got poker-faced and answered, “I’ve never been in her. New ship, I understand. Well

equipped.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Dad looked at Mum. “Well, Molly?”

Mother did not answer. She was reading the contract and steadily getting whiter. Uncle Steve caught my eye and shook his head very slightly. I said to Pat, (“Uncle Steve has spotted the catch in it.”)

“He won’t hinder. “

Mother looked up at last and spoke to Dad in a high voice. “I suppose you are going to consent?” She sounded sick. She put down the contract and Charity grabbed it again just as Hope grabbed it from the other side. It ended with our brother-in-law Frank Dubois holding it while everybody else read over his shoulders.

“Now, my dear,” Dad said mildly, “remember that boys do grow up. I would like to keep the family together forever-but it can’t be that way and you know it.”

“Bruce, you promised that they would not go out into space.”

Her brother shot her a glance-his chest was covered with ribbons he had won in space. But Dad went on just as mildly. “Not quite, dear. I promised you that I would not consent to minority enlistment in the peace forces; I want them to finish school and I did not want you upset. But this is another matter … and, if we refuse, it won’t be long before they can enlist whether we like it or not.”

Mother turned to Uncle Steve and said bitterly, “Stephen, you put this idea in their heads.” He looked annoyed then answered as gently as Dad.

“Take it easy, Sis. I’ve been away; you can’t pin this on me. Anyhow, you don’t put ideas in boys’ heads; they grow them naturally.”

Frank Dubois cleared his throat and said loudly, “Since this seems to be a family conference, no doubt you would like my opinion.”

I said, to Pat only, (‘Nobody asked your opinion, you lard head!”) Pat answered, “Let him talk. He’s our secret weapon, maybe.”

“If you want the considered judgment of an experienced businessman, this so-called contract is either a practical joke or a proposition so preposterous as to be treated with contempt. I understand that the twins are supposed to have some freak talent-although I’ve seen no evidence of it-but the idea of paying them more than a man receives in his mature years, well, it’s just not the right way to raise boys. If they were sons of mine, I would forbid it. Of course, they’re not-”

“No, they’re not,” Dad agreed.

Frank looked sharply at him. “Was that sarcasm, Father Bartlett? I’m merely trying to help. But as I told you the other day, if the twins will go to some good business school and work hard, I’d find a place for them in the bakery. If they make good, there is no reason why they should not do as well as I have done.” Frank was his father’s junior partner in an automated bakery; he always managed to let people know how much money he made. “But as for this notion of going out into space, I’ve always said that if a man expects to make anything of himself, he should stay home and work. Excuse me, Steve.”

Uncle Steve said woodenly, “I’d be glad to excuse you.” “Eh?”

“Forget it, forget it. You stay out of space and I’ll promise not to bake any bread. By the way, there’s flour on your lapel.”

Frank glanced down hastily. Faith brushed at his jacket and said, “Why, that’s just powder.”

“Of course it is,” Frank agreed, brushing at it himself. “I’ll have you know, Steve, that I’m usually much too busy to go down on the processing floor. I’m hardly ever out of the office.”

“So I suspected.”

Frank decided that he and Faith were late for another appointment and got up to go, when Dad stopped them.

“Frank? What was that about my boys being freaks?” “What? I never said anything of the sort.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

They left in a sticky silence, except that Pat was humming silently and loudly the March of the Gladiators. “We’ve got it won, kid!”

It seemed so to me, too-but Pat had to press our luck. He picked up the contract. “Then it’s okay, Dad?”

“Mmm … I want to consult Judge Holland-and I’m not speaking for your mother.” That did not worry us; Mum wouldn’t hold out if Dad agreed, especially not with Uncle Steve around. “But you could say that the matter has not been disapproved.” He frowned. “By the way, there is no time limit mentioned in there.”

Uncle Steve fielded that one for us; “That’s customary on a commercial ship, Bruce … which is what

this is, legally. You sign on for the voyage, home planet to home planet.” “Uh, no doubt. But didn’t they give you some idea, boys?”

I heard Pat moan, “There goes the ball game. What’ll we tell him, Tom” Dad waited and Uncle Steve eyed us.

Finally Uncle Steve said, “Better speak up, boys. Perhaps I should have mentioned that I’m trying to get a billet on one of those ships myself-special discharge and such. So I know.”

Pat muttered something. Dad said sharply, “Speak up, son.” “They told us the voyage would probably last … about a century.”

Mum fainted and Uncle Steve caught her and everybody rushed around with cold compresses getting in each other’s way and we were all upset. Once she pulled out of it Uncle Steve said to Dad, “Bruce? I’m going to take the boys out and buy them a tall, strong sarsaparilla and get them out from under foot. You won’t want to talk tonight anyhow.”

Dad agreed absently that it was a good. idea. I guess Dad loved all of us; nevertheless, when the chips were down, nobody counted but Mother.

Uncle Steve took us to a place where be could get something more to his taste than sarsaparilla, then vetoed it when Pat tried to order beer. “Don’t try to show off, youngster. You are not going to put me in the position of serving liquor to my sister’s kids.”

“Beer can’t hurt you.”

“So? I’m still looking for the bloke who told me it was a soft drink. I’m going to beat him to a pulp with a stein. Pipe down.” So we picked soft drinks and he drank some horrible mixture he called a Martian shandy and we talked about Project Lebensraum. He knew more about it than we did even though no press release had been made until that day-I suppose the fact that he had been assigned to the Chief of Staff’s office had something to do with it, but he did not say.

Presently Pat looked worried and said, “See here, Uncle Steve, is there any chance that they will let us? Or should Tom and I just forget it?”

“Eh? Of course they are going to let you do it.”

“Huh? It didn’t look like it tonight. If I know Dad, he would skin us for rugs rather than make Mum unhappy.”

“No doubt. And a good idea. But believe me, boys, this is in the bag … provided you use the right arguments.”

“Which is?”

“Mmm … boys, being a staff rating, I’ve served with a lot of high brass. When you are right and a general is wrong, there is only one way to get him to change his mind. You shut up and don’t argue. You let the facts speak for themselves and give him time to figure out a logical reason for reversing himself.”

Pat looked unconvinced; Uncle Steve went on, “Believe me. Your pop is a reasonable man and, while your mother is not, she would rather be hurt herself than make anybody she loves unhappy. That contract is all in your favor and they can’t refuse-provided you give them time to adjust to the idea. But if you tease and bulldoze and argue the way you usually do, you’ll get them united against you.”

“Huh? But I never tease, I merely use logical-”

“Stow it, you make me tired. Pat, you were one of the most unlovable brats that ever squawled to get his own way … and, Tom, you weren’t any better. You haven’t mellowed with age; you’ve simply sharpened your techniques. Now you are being offered something free that I would give my right arm to have. I ought to stand aside and let you flub it. But I won’t. Keep your flapping mouths shut, play this easy, and it’s yours. Try your usual loathsome tactics and you lose.”

We would not take that sort of talk from most people. Anybody else and Pat would have given me the signal and he’d ‘ve hit him high while I hit him low. But you don’t argue that way with a man who wears the Ceres ribbon; you listen. Pat didn’t even mutter to me about it.

So we talked about Project Lebensraum itself. Twelve ships were to go out, radiating from Sol approximately in axes of a dodecahedron-but only approximately, as each ship’s mission would be, not to search a volume of space, but to visit as many Sol-type stars as possible in the shortest time. Uncle Steve explained how they worked out a “mini-max” search curve for each ship but I did not understand it; it involved a type of calculus we had not studied.. Not that it mattered; each ship was to spend as much time exploring and as little time making the jumps as possible.

But Pat could not keep from coming back to the idea of how to sell the deal to our parents. “Uncle Steve? Granting that you are right about playing it easy, here’s an argument that maybe they should hear? Maybe you could use it on them?”

“Um?”

“Well, if half a loaf is better than none, maybe they haven’t realized that this way one of us stays home.” I caught a phrase of what Pat had started to say, which was not “one of us stays home,” but “Tom stays home.” I started to object, then let it ride. He hadn’t said it. Pat went on, “They know we want to space. If they don’t let us do this, we’ll do it any way we can. If we joined your corps, we might come home on leave-but not often. If we emigrate, we might as well be dead; very few emigrants make enough to afford a trip back to Earth, not while their parents are still alive, at least. So if they keep us home now, as soon as we are of age they probably will never see us again. But if they agree, not only does one stay home, but they are always in touch with the other one-that’s the whole purpose in using us telepath pairs.” Pat looked anxiously at Uncle Steve.

“Shouldn’t we point that out? Or will you slip them the idea?”

Uncle Steve did not answer right away, although I could not see anything wrong with the logic. Two from two leaves zero, but one from two still leaves one.

Finally he answered slowly, “Pat, can’t you get it through your thick head to leave well enough alone?”

“I don’t see what’s wrong with my logic.”

“Since when was an emotional argument won by logic? You should read about the time King Solomon proposed to divvy up the baby.” He took a pull at his glass and wiped his mouth. “What I am about to tell you is strictly confidential. Did you know that the Planetary League considered commissioning these ships as warships?”

“Huh? Why? Mr. Howard didn’t say-”

“Keep your voice down. Project Lebensraum is of supreme interest to the Department of Peace. When it comes down to it, the root cause of war is always population pressure no matter what other factors enter in.”

“But we’ve abolished war.”

“So we have. So chaps like me get paid to stomp out brush fires before they burn the whole forest.

Boys, if I tell you the rest of this, you’ve got to keep it to yourselves now and forever.” I don’t like secrets. I’d rather owe money. You can’t pay back a secret. But we promised.

“Okay. I saw the estimates the Department of Peace made on this project at the request of LRF. When the Avant-Garde was sent out, they gave her one chance in nine of returning. We’ve got better equipment now; they figure one chance in six for each planetary system visited. Each ship visits an average of six stars on the schedule laid out-so each ship has one chance in thirty-six of coming back. For twelve ships that means one chance in three of maybe one ship coming back. That’s where you freaks come in.”

“Don’t call us ‘freaks’!” We answered together.

“ ‘Freaks,’ “ he repeated. “And everybody is mighty glad you freaks are around, because without you the thing is impossible. Ships and crews are expendable-ships are just money and they can always find people like me with more curiosity than sense to man the ships. But while the ships are expendable, the knowledge they will gather is not expendable. Nobody at the top expects these ships to come back-but we’ve got to locate those earth-type planets; the human race needs them. That is what you boys are for: to report back. Then it won’t matter that the ships won’t come back.”

“I’m not scared,” I said firmly.

Pat glanced at me and looked away. I hadn’t telepathed but I had told him plainly that the matter was not settled as to which one of us would go. Uncle Steve looked at me soberly and said, “I didn’t expect you to be, at your age. Nor am I; I’ve been living on borrowed time since I was nineteen. By now I’m so convinced of my own luck that if one ship comes back, I’m sure it will be mine. But do you see why it would be silly to argue with your mother that half a set of twins is better than none? Emotionally your argument is all wrong. Go read the Parable of the Lost Sheep. You point out to your mother that one of you will be safe at home and it will simply fix her mind on the fact that the other one isn’t safe and isn’t home. If your Pop tries to reassure her, he is likely to stumble onto these facts-for they aren’t secret, not the facts on which the statisticians based their predictions; it is just that the publicity about this project will emphasize the positive and play down the negative.”

“Uncle Steve,” objected Pat, “I don’t see how they can be sure that most of the ships will be lost.” “They can’t be sure. But these are actually optimistic assumptions based on what experience the race

has had with investigating strange places. It’s like this, Pat: you can be right over and over again, but when it comes to exploring strange places, the first time you guess wrong is the last guess you make. You’re dead. Ever looked at the figures about it in just this one tiny solar system? Exploration is like Russian roulette; you can win and win, but if you keep on, it will kill you, certain. So don’t get your parents stirred up on this phase of the matter. I don’t mind-a man is entitled to die the way he wants to; that’s one thing they haven’t taxed. But there is no use in drawing attention to the fact that one of you two isn’t coming back.”

V THE PARTY OF THE SECOND PART

Uncle Steve was right about the folks giving in; Pat left for the training course three weeks later.

I still don’t know just how it was that Pat got to be the one. We never matched for it, we never had a knock-down argument, and I never agreed. But Pat went.

I tried to settle it with him several times but he always put me off, telling me not to worry and to wait and see how things worked out. Presently I found it taken for granted that Pat was going and I was staying. Maybe I should have made a stand the day we signed the contract, when Pat hung back and let me sign first, thereby getting me down on paper as the party of the second part who stayed home, instead of party of the third part who went. But it had not seemed worth making a row about, as the two were interchangeable by agreement among the three parties to the contact. Pat pointed this out to me just before we signed; the important thing was to get the contract signed while our parents were holding still-get their signatures.

Was Pat trying to put one over on me right then? If so, I didn’t catch him wording his thoughts. Contrariwise, would I have tried the same thing on him if I had thought of it? I don’t know, I just don’t know. In any case, I gradually became aware that the matter was settled; the family took it for granted and so did the LRF people. So I told Pat it was not settled. He just shrugged and reminded me that it had not been his doing. Maybe I could get them to change their minds… if I didn’t care whether or not I upset the applecart.

I didn’t want to do that. We did not know that the LRF would have got down on its knees and wept rather than let any young and healthy telepath pair get away from them; we thought they had plenty to choose from. I thought that if I made a fuss they might tear up the contract, which they could do up till D-Day by paying a small penalty.

Instead I got Dad alone and talked to him. This shows how desperate I was; neither Pat nor I ever went alone to our parents about the other one. I didn’t feel easy about it, but stammered and stuttered and had trouble making Dad understand why I felt swindled.

Dad looked troubled and said, “Tom, I thought you and your brother had settled this between you?” “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! We didn’t.”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“Why, I want you to make him be fair about it. We ought to match for it, or something. Or you could do it for us and keep it fair and square. Would you?”

Dad gave attention to his pipe the way he does when he is stalling. At last he said, “Tom, I don’t see how you can back out now, after everything is settled. Unless you want me to break the contract? It wouldn’t be easy but I can.”

“But I don’t have to break the contract. I just want an even chance. If I lose, I’ll shut up. If I win, it won’t change anything-except that I would go and Pat would stay.”

“Mmm …” Dad puffed on his pipe and looked thoughtful. “Tom, have you looked at your mother lately?”

I had, but I hadn’t talked with her much. She was moving around like a zombie, looking grief-stricken and hurt. “Why?”

“I can’t do this to her. She’s already going through the agony of losing your brother; I can’t put her

through it on your account, too. She couldn’t stand it.”

I knew she was feeling bad, but I could not see what difference it would make if we swapped. “You’re not suggesting that Mum wants it this way? That she would rather have Pat go than me?”

“I am not. Your mother loves you both, equally,” “Then it would be just the same to her.”

“It would not. She’s undergoing the grief of losing one of her sons. If you swapped now, she would have to go through it afresh for her other son. That wouldn’t be fair.” He knocked his pipe against an ash tray, which was the same as gaveling that the meeting was adjourned. “No, son, I’m afraid that you will just have to stand by your agreement.”

It was hopeless so I shut up. With Dad, bringing Mum’s welfare into it was the same as trumping an ace.

Pat left for the training center four days later. I didn’t see much of him except the hours we spent down at the TransLunar Building for he was dating Maudie every night and I was not included. He pointed out that this was the last he would see of her whereas I would have plenty of time-so get lost, please. I did not argue; it was not only fair, taken by itself, but I did not want to go along on their dates under the circumstances. Pat and I were farther apart those last few days than we had ever been.

It did not affect our telepathic ability, however, whatever this “tuning” was that some minds could do went right on and we could do it as easily as we could talk … and turn it off as easily, too. We didn’t have to “concentrate” or “clear our minds” or any of that Eastern mysticism nonsense. When we wanted to “talk,” we talked.

When Pat left I felt lost. Sure, I was in touch with him four hours a day and any other time I cared to call him, but you can’t live your whole life doing things by two’s without getting out of joint when you have to do things by one’s. I didn’t have new habits yet. I’d get ready to go someplace, then I would stop at the door and wonder what I had forgotten. Just Pat. It is mighty lonesome to start off somewhere by yourself when you’ve always done it with someone.

Besides that, Mum was being brightly cheerful and tender and downright unbearable, and my sleep was all broken up. The training center worked on Switzerland’s time zone which meant that I, and all other twins who were staying behind no matter where on. Earth they were, worked our practice messages on Swiss time, too. Pat would whistle in my ears and wake me at two in the morning each night and then I would work until dawn and try to catch up on sleep in the daytime.

It was inconvenient but necessary and I was well paid. For the first time in my life I had plenty of money. So did all of our family, for I started paying a fat board bill despite Dad’s objections. I even bought myself a watch (Pat had taken ours with him) without worrying about the price, and we were talking about moving into a bigger place.

But the LRF was crowding more and more into my life and I began to realize that the contract covered more than just recording messages from my twin. The geriatrics program started at once. “Geriatrics” is a funny term to use about a person not old enough to vote but it had the special meaning here of making me live as long as possible by starting on me at once. What I ate was no longer my business; I had to follow the diet they ordered, no more sandwiches picked up casually. There was a long list of “special hazard” things I must not do. They gave me shots for everything from housemaid’s knee to parrot fever and I had a physical examination so thorough as to make every other one seem like a mere laying on of hands.

The only consolation was that Pat told me they were doing. the same to him. We might be common as

mud most ways but we were irreplaceable communication equipment to LRF, so we got the treatment a prize race horse or a prime minister gets and which common people hardly ever get. It was a nuisance.

I did not call Maudie the first week or ten days after Pat left; I didn’t feel easy about her. Finally she called me and asked if I were angry with her or was she in quarantine? So we made a date for that night. It was not festive. She called me “Pat” a couple of times, which she used to do every now and then and it had never mattered, since Pat and I were used to people mixing up our names. But now it was awkward, because Pat’s ghost was a skeleton at the feast.

The second time she did it I said angrily, “If you want to talk to Pat, I can get in touch with him in half a second!”

“What? Why, Tom!”

“Oh, I know you would rather I was Pat! If you think I enjoy being second choice, think again.”

She got tears in her eyes and I got ashamed and more difficult. So we had a bitter argument and then I was telling her how I had been swindled.

Her reaction wasn’t what I expected. Instead of sympathy she said, “Oh, Tom, Tom! Can’t you see that Pat didn’t do this to you? You did it to yourself.”

“Huh?”

“It’s not his fault; it’s your own. I used to get so tired of the way you let him push you around. You liked having him push you around. You’ve got a ‘will to fail.’“

I was so angry I had trouble answering. “What are you talking about? That sounds like a lot of cheap, chimney-corner psychiatry to me. Next thing you know you’ll be telling me I have a ‘death wish.’“

She blinked back tears. “No. Maybe Pat has that. He was always kidding about it but, just the same, I know how dangerous it is. I know we won’t see him again.”

I chewed that over. “Are you trying to say,” I said slowly, “that I let Pat do me out of it because I was afraid to go?”

“What? Why, Tom dear, I never said anything of the sort.”

“It sounded like it.” Then I knew why it sounded like it. Maybe I was afraid. Maybe I had struggled just hard enough to let Pat win… because I knew what was going to happen to the one who went.

Maybe I was a coward.

We made it up and the date seemed about to end satisfactorily. When I took her home I was thinking of trying to kiss her good night-I never had, what with the way Pat and I were always in each other’s hair. I think she expected me to, too.., when Pat suddenly whistled at me.

“Hey! You awake, mate?”

(“Certainly,”) I answered shortly. (“But I’m busy.”) “How busy? Are you out with my girl?”

(“What makes you think that?”)

“You are, aren’t you? I figured you were. How are you making out?” (“Mind your own business!”)

“Sure, sure! Just say hello to her for me. Hi, Maudie!” Maudie said, “Tom, what are you so preoccupied about?”

I answered, “Oh, it’s just Pat. He says to say hello to you.” “Oh… well, hello to him from me.”

So I did. Pat chuckled. “Kiss her good night for me.” So I didn’t, not for either of us.

But I called her again the next day and we went out together regularly after that. Things began to be awfully pleasant where Maudie was concerned … so pleasant that I even thought about the fact that college students sometimes got married and now I would be able to afford it, if it happened to work out that way. Oh, I wasn’t dead sure I wanted to tie myself down so young, but it is mighty lonely to be alone when you’ve always had somebody with you.

Then they brought Pat home on a shutter.

It was actually an ambulance craft, specially chartered. The idiot had sneaked off and tried skiing, which he knew as much about as I know about pearl diving. He did not have much of a tumble; he practically fell over his own feet. But there he was, being carried into our flat on a stretcher, numb from the waist down and his legs useless. He should have been taken to a hospital, but he wanted to come home and Mum wanted him to come home, so Dad insisted on it. He wound up in the room Faith had vacated and I went back to sleeping on the couch.

The household was all upset, worse than it had been when Pat went away. Dad almost threw Frank Dubois out of the house when Frank said that now that this space travel nonsense was disposed of, he was still prepared to give Pat a job if he would study bookkeeping, since a bookkeeper could work from a wheelchair. I don’t know; maybe Frank had good intentions, but I sometimes think “good intentions” should be declared a capital crime.

But the thing that made me downright queasy was the way Mother took it. She was full of tears and sympathy and she could not do enough for Pat-she spent hours rubbing his legs, until she was ready to collapse. But I could see, even if Dad couldn’t, that she was indecently happy-she had her “baby” back. Oh, the tears weren’t fake … but females seem able to cry and be happy at the same time.

We all knew that the “space travel nonsense” was washed up, but we did not discuss it, not even Pat and I; while he was flat on his back and helpless and no doubt feeling even worse than I did was no time to blame him for hogging things and then wasting our chance. Maybe I was bitter but it was no time to let him know. I was uneasily aware that the fat LRF cheeks would stop soon and the family would be short of money again when we needed it most and I regretted that expensive watch and the money I had blown in taking Maudie to places we had never been able to afford, but I avoided thinking about even that; it was spilt milk. But I did wonder what kind of a job I could get instead of starting college.

I was taken off guard when Mr. Howard showed up-I had halfway expected that LRF would carry us on the payroll until after Pat was operated on, even though the accident was not their fault and was the result of Pat’s not obeying their regulations. But with the heaps of money they had I thought they might be generous.

But Mr. Howard did not even raise the question of the Foundation paying for, or not paying for, Pat’s disability; he simply wanted to know how soon I would be ready to report to the training center?

I was confused and Mother was hysterical and Dad was angry and Mr. Howard was bland. To listen to him you would have thought that nothing had happened, certainly nothing which involved the slightest idea of letting us out of our contract. The parties of the second part and of the third part were

interchangeable; since Pat could not go, naturally I would. Nothing had happened which interfered with our efficiency as a communication team. To be sure, they had let us have a few days to quiet down in view of the sad accident-but could I report at once? Time was short.

Dad got purple and almost incoherent. Hadn’t they done enough to his family? Didn’t they have any decency? Any consideration?

In the middle of it, while I was trying to adjust to the new situation and wandering what I should say, Pat called me silently. “Tom! Come here!”

I excused myself and hurried to him. Pat and I had hardly telepathed at all since he had been hurt. A few times he had called me in the night to fetch him a drink of water or something like that, but we had never really talked, either out loud or in our minds. There was just this black, moody silence that shut me out. I didn’t know how to cope with it; it was the first time either of us had ever been ill without the other one.

But when he called I hurried in. “Shut the door.”

I did so. He looked at me grimly. “I caught you before you promised anything, didn’t I?” “Yeah.”

“Go out there and tell Dad I want to see him right away. Tell Mum I asked her to please quit crying, because she is getting me upset.” He smiled sardonically. “Tell Mr. Howard to let me speak to my parents alone. Then you beat it.”

“Huh?”

“Get out, don’t stop to say good-by and don’t say where you are going. When I want you, I’ll tell you. If you hang around, Mother will work on you and get you to promise things.” He looked at me bleakly. “You never did have any will power.”

I let the dig slide off; he was ill. “Look, Pat, you’re up against a combination this time. Mother is going to get her own way no matter what and Dad is so stirred up that I’m surprised he hasn’t taken a poke at Mr. Howard.”

“I’ll handle Mother, and Dad, too. Howard should have stayed away. Get going. Split ‘em up, then get lost.”

“All right,” I said uneasily. “Uh… look, Pat, I appreciate He looked at me and his lip curled. “Think I’m doing this for you?”

“Why, I thought-”

“You never think … and I’ve been doing nothing else for days. If I’m going to be a cripple, do you fancy I’m going to spend my life in a public ward? Or here, with Mother drooling over me and Dad pinching pennies and the girls getting sick of the sight of me? Not Patrick! If I have to be like this, I’m going to have the best of everything … nurses to jump when I lift a finger and dancing girls to entertain me-and you are going to see that the LRF pays for it. We can keep our contract and we’re going to. Oh, I know you don’t want to go, but now you’ve got to.”

“Me? You’re all mixed up. You crowded me out. You-”

“Okay, forget it. You’re rarin’ to go.” He reached, up and punched me in the ribs, then grinned. “So we’ll both go-for you’ll take me along every step of the way. Now get out there and break that up.”

I left two days later. When Pat handed Mum his reverse-twist whammie, she did not even fight. If

getting the money to let her sick baby have proper care and everything else he wanted meant that I had to space, well, it was too bad but that was how it was. She told me how much it hurt to have me go but I knew she was not too upset. But I was, rather … I wondered what the score would have been if it had been I who was in Pat’s fix? Would she have let Pat go just as easily simply to get me anything I wanted? But I decided to stop thinking about it; parents probably don’t know that they are playing favorites even when they are doing it.

Dad got me alone for a man-to-man talk just before I left. He hemmed and hawed and stuck in apologies about how he should have talked things over with me before this and seemed even more embarrassed than I was, which was plenty. When he was floundering I let him know that one of our high school courses had covered most of what he was trying to say. (I didn’t let him know that the course had been an anti-climax.) He brightened up and said, “Well, son, your mother and I have tried to teach you right from wrong. Just remember that you are a Bartlett and you won’t make too many mistakes. On that other matter, well, if you will always ask yourself whether a girl is the sort you would be proud to bring home to meet your mother, I’ll be satisfied.”

I promised-it occurred to me that I wasn’t going to have much chance to fall into bad company, not with psychologists practically dissecting everybody in Project Lebensraum. The bad apples were never going into the barrel

When I see how naive parents are I wonder how the human race keeps on being born. Just the same it was touching and I appreciate the ordeal he put himself through to get me squared away-Dad was always a decent guy and meant well.

I had a last date with Maudie but it wasn’t much; we spent it sitting around Pat’s bed, She did kiss me good-by-Pat told her to. Oh, well!

VI TORCHSHIP “LEWIS AND CLARK”

I was in Switzerland only two days. I got a quick look at the lake at Zurich and that was all; the time was jammed with trying to hurry me through all the things Pat had been studying for weeks. It couldn’t be done, so they gave me spools of minitape which I was to study after the trip started.

I had one advantage: Planetary League Auxiliary Speech was a required freshman course at our high school-P-L lingo was the working language of Project Lebensraum. I can’t say I could speak it when I got there, but it isn’t hard. Oh, it seems a little silly to say “goed” when you’ve always said “gone” but you get used to it, and of course all technical words are Geneva-International and always have been.

Actually, as subproject officer Professor Brunn pointed out, there was not a lot that a telepathic communicator had to know before going aboard ship; the principal purpose of the training center had been to get the crews together, let them eat and live together, so that the psychologists could spot personality frictions which had not been detected through tests.

“There isn’t any doubt about you, son. We have your brother’s record and we know how close your tests come to matching his. You telepaths have to deviate widely from accepted standards before we would disqualify one of you.”

“Sir?’

“Don’t you see? We can turn down a ship’s captain just for low blood sugar before breakfast and a latent tendency to be short tempered therefrom until he has had his morning porridge. We can fill most billets twenty times over and juggle them until they are matched like a team of acrobats. But not you people. You are so scarce that we must allow you any eccentricity which won’t endanger the ship: I wouldn’t mind if you believed in astrology-you don’t, do you?”

“Goodness, no!” I answered, shocked.

“You see? You’re a normal, intelligent boy; you’ll do. Why, we would take your twin, on a stretcher, if we had to.”

Only telepaths were left when I got to Zurich. The captains and the astrogation and torch crews had joined the ships first, and then the specialists and staff people. All the “idlers” were aboard but us. And I hardly had time to get acquainted even with my fellow mind readers.

They were an odd bunch and I began to see what Professor Brunn meant by saying that we freaks had to be allowed a little leeway. There were a dozen of us-just for the Lewis and Clark, I mean; there were a hundred and fifty for the twelve ships of the fleet, which was every telepathic pair that LRF had been able to sign up. I asked one of them, Bernhard van Houten, why each ship was going to carry so many telepaths?

He looked at me pityingly. “Use your head, Tom. If a radio burns out a valve, what do you do?” “Why, you replace it.”

“There’s your answer. We’re spare parts. If either end of a telepair dies or anything, that ‘radio’ is burned out, permanently. So they plug in another one of us. They want to be sure they have at least one telepair still working right up to the end of the trip…they hope.”

I hardly had time to learn their names before we were whisked away. There was myself and Bernhard van Houten, a Chinese-Peruvian girl named Mei-Ling Jones (only she pronounced it “Hone-Ace”), Rupert Hauptman, Anna Horoshen, Gloria Maria Antonita Docampo, Sam Rojas, and Prudence Mathews. These were more or less my age. Then there was Dusty Rhodes who looked twelve and

claimed to be fourteen. I wondered how LRF had persuaded his parents to permit such a child to go. Maybe they hated him; it would have been easy to do.

Then there were three who were older than the rest of us: Miss Gamma Furtney, Cas Warner, and Alfred McNeil. Miss Gamma was a weirdie, the sort of old maid who never admits to more than thirty; she was our triplet. LRF had scraped up four sets of triplets who were m-r’s and could be persuaded to go; they were going to be used to tie the twelve ships together into four groups of three, then the groups could be hooked with four sets of twins.

Since triplets are eighty-six times as scarce as twins it was surprising that they could find enough who were telepathic and would go, without worrying about whether or not they were weirdies. I suspect that the Misses Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Furtney were attracted by the Einstein time effect; they could get even with all the men who had not married them by not getting older while those men died of old age.

We were a “corner” ship and Cas Warner was our sidewise twin, who would hook us through his twin to the Vasco da Gama, thus linking two groups of three. Other sidewise twins tied the other comers. The ones who worked ship-to-ship did not have to be young, since their twins (or triplets) were not left back on Earth, to grow older while their brothers or sisters stayed young through relativity. Cas Warner was forty-five, a nice quiet chap who seemed to enjoy eating with us kids.

The twelfth was Mr. (“Call me ‘Uncle Alfred’ “) McNeil, and he was an old darling. He was a Negro, his age was anything from sixty-five on up (I couldn’t guess), and he had the saintliness that old people get when they don’t turn sour and self-centered instead…to look at him you would bet heavy odds that he was a deacon in his church.

I got acquainted with him because I was terribly homesick the first night I was in Zurich and he noticed it and invited me to his room after supper and sort of soothed me. I thought he was one of the Foundation psychologists, like Professor Brunn-but no, he was half of a telepair himself…and not even a sidewise twin; his partner was staying on Earth.

I couldn’t believe it until be showed me a picture of his pair partner-a little girl with merry eyes and pigtails-and I finally got it through my thick head that here was that rarity, a telepathic pair who were not twins. She was Celestine Regina Johnson, his great-niece-only be called her “Sugar Pie” after he introduced me to the photograph and had told her who I was.

I had to pause and tell Pat about it, not remembering that he had already met them.

Uncle Alfred was retired and had been playmate-in-chief to his baby great-niece, for he had lived with his niece and her husband. He had taught the baby to talk. When her parents were both killed in an accident he had gone back to work rather than let the child be adopted. “I found out that I could keep tabs on Sugar Pie even when I couldn’t see her. She was always a good baby and it meant I could watch out for her even when I had to be away. I knew it was a gift; I figured that the Lord in His infinite mercy had granted what I needed to let me take care of my little one.”

The only thing that had worried him was that he might not live long enough; or, worse still, not be able to work long enough, to permit him to bring up Sugar Pie and get her started right. Then Project Lebensraum had solved everything. No, he didn’t mind being away from her because be was not away from her; he was with her every minute.

I gathered an impression that he could actually see her but I didn’t want to ask. In any case, with him stone walls did not a prison make nor light-years a separation. He knew that the Infinite Mercy that had kept them together this long would keep them together long enough for him to finish his appointed task. What happened after that was up to the Lord.

I had never met anybody who was so quietly, serenely happy. I didn’t feel homesick again until I left

him and went to bed. So I called Pat and told him about getting acquainted with Uncle Alfred. He said sure, Uncle All was a sweet old codger… and now I should shut up and go to sleep, as I had a hard day ahead of me tomorrow.

Then they zoomed us out to the South Pacific and we spent one night on Canton Atoll before we went aboard They wouldn’t let us swim in the lagoon even though Sam had arranged a picnic party of me and himself and Mei-Ling and Gloria; swimming was one of the unnecessary hazards. Instead we went to bed early and were awakened two hours before dawn-a ghastly time of day, particularly when your time sense has been badgered by crossing too many time zones too fast. I began to wonder what I was doing there and why?

The Lewis and Clark was a few hundred miles east of there in an unused part of the ocean. I had not realized how much water there was until I took a look at it from the air-and at that you see just the top. If they could figure some way to use all those wet acres as thoroughly as they use the Mississippi Valley they wouldn’t need other planets.

From the air the Lewis and Clark looked like a basketball floating in water; you could not see that it was really shaped like a turnip. It floated with the torch down; the hemispherical upper part was all that showed. I got one look at her, with submersible freighters around her looking tiny in comparison, then our bus was hovering over her and we were being told to mind our step on the ladder and not leave anything behind in the bus. It occurred to me that it wouldn’t do any good to write to Lost-and-Found if we did. It was a chilly thought … I guess I was still homesick, but mostly I was excited.

I got lost a couple of times and finally found my stateroom just as the speaker system was booming: “All hands, prepare for acceleration. Idlers strap down. Boost stations report in order. Minus fourteen minutes.” The man talking was so matter of fact that he might as well have been saying, “Local passengers change at Birmingham.”

The stateroom was big enough, with a double wardrobe and a desk with a built-in viewer-recorder and a little wash-stand and two pull-down beds. They were down, which limited the floor space. Nobody else was around so I picked one, lay down and fastened the three safety belts. I had just done so when that little runt Dusty Rhodes stuck his head in. “Hey! You got my bed!”

I started to tell him off, then decided that just before boost was no time for an argument. “Suit yourself,” I answered, unstrapped, and moved into the other one, strapped down again.

Dusty looked annoyed; I think he wanted an argument. Instead of climbing into the one I had vacated, he stuck his head out the door and looked around. I said, “Better strap down. They already passed the word.”

“Tripe,” he answered without turning. “There’s plenty of time. I’ll take a quick look in the control room.”

I was going to suggest that he go outside while he was about it when a ship’s officer came through, checking the rooms. “In you get, son,” he said briskly, using the no-nonsense tone in which you tell a dog to heel. Dusty opened his mouth, closed it, and climbed in. Then the officer “baby-strapped” him, pulling the buckles around so that they could not be reached by the person in the bunk. He even put the chest strap around Dusty’s arms.

He then checked my belts. I had my arms outside the straps but all he said was, “Keep your arms on the mattress during boost,” and left.

A female voice said, “All special communicators link with your telepartners.”

I had been checking with Pat ever since I woke up and had described the Lewis and Clark to him when

we first sighted her and then inside as well. Nevertheless I said, (“Are you there, Pat?”) “Naturally. I’m not going anyplace. What’s the word?”

(“Boost in about ten minutes. They just told us to link with our partners during boost.”) “You had better stay linked, or I’ll beat your ears off! I don’t want to miss anything. (“Okay, okay, don’t race your engine. Pat? This isn’t quite the way I thought it would be.”) “Huh? How?”

(“I don’t know. I guess I expected brass bands and speeches and such. After all, this is a big day. But aside from pictures they took of us last night at Canton Atoll, there was more fuss made when we started for Scout camp.”)

Pat chuckled. “Brass bands would get wet where you are-not to mention soaked with neutrons.” (“Sure, sure.”) I didn’t have to be told that a torchship needs elbow room for a boost. Even when they

perfected a way to let them make direct boost from Earth-zero instead of from a space station, they still needed a few thousand square miles of ocean-and at that you heard ignorant prattle about how the back wash was changing the climate and the government ought to do something.

“Anyhow, there are plenty of brass bands and speeches. We are watching one by the Honorable J. Dillberry Egghead… shall I read it back?”

(“Uh, don’t bother. Who’s ‘we’?”)

“All of us. Faith and Frank just came in.”

I was about to ask about Maudie when a new voice came over the system: “Welcome aboard, friends. This is the Captain. We will break loose at an easy three gravities; nevertheless, I want to warn you to relax and keep your arms inside your couches. The triple boost will last only six minutes, then you will be allowed to get up. We take off in number two position, just after the Henry Hudson.”

I repeated to Pat what the Captain was saying practically as fast as he said it; this was one of the things we had practiced while he was at the training center: letting your directed thoughts echo what somebody else was saying so that a telepair acted almost like a microphone and a speaker. I suppose he was doing the same at the other end, echoing the Captain’s words to the family a split second behind me-it’s not hard with practice.

The Captain said, “The Henry is on her final run-down … ten seconds… five seconds… now!”

I saw something like heat lightning even though I was in a closed room. For a few seconds there was a sound over the speaker like sleet on a window, soft and sibilant and far away. Pat said, “Boy!”

(“What is it, Pat?”)

“She got up out of there as if she had sat on a bee. Just a hole in the water and a flash of light. Wait a sec-they’re shifting the view pick-up from the space station to Luna.”

(“You’ve got a lot better view than I have. All I can see is the ceiling of this room.”)

The female voice said, “Mr. Warner! Miss Furtney! Tween-ships telepairs start recording.”

The Captain said, “All hands, ready for boost. Stand by for count down,” and another voice started in, “Sixty seconds … fifty-five … fifty … forty-five … holding on-forty-five … holding forty-five… holding… holding…”

-until I was ready to scream.

“Tom, what’s wrong?” (“How should I know?”) “Forty… thirty-five … thirty…”

“Tom, Mum wants me to tell you to be very careful.”

(“What does she think I can do? I’m just lying here, strapped down.”)

“I know.” Pat chuckled. “Hang on tight to the brush, you lucky stiff; they are about to take away the ladder.”

“… four!… Three!… Two!… ONE!”

I didn’t see a flash, I didn’t hear anything. I simply got very heavy-like being on the bottom of a football pile-up.

“There’s nothing but steam where you were.” I didn’t answer, I was having trouble breathing.

“They’ve shifted the pick-up. They’re following you with a telephoto now. Tom, you ought to see this … you look just like a sun. It burns the rest of the picture right out of the tank.”

(“How can I see it?”) I said crossly. (“I’m in it.’) “You sound choked up. Are you all right?”

(“You’d sound choked, too, if you had sand bags piled across your chest.”) “Is it bad?”

(“It’s not good. But it’s all right, I guess.”)

Pat let up on me and did a right good job of describing what he was seeing by television. The Richard

E. Byrd took off just after we did, before we had finished the high boost to get escape velocity from Earth; he told me all about it. I didn’t have anything to say anyhow; I couldn’t see anything and I didn’t feel like chattering. I just wanted to hold still and feel miserable.

I suppose it was only six minutes but it felt more like an hour. After a long, long time, when I had decided the controls were jammed and we were going to keep on at high boost until we passed the speed of light, the pressure suddenly relaxed and I felt light as a snowflake … if it hadn’t been for the straps I would have floated up to the ceiling.

“We have reduced to one hundred and ten per cent of one gravity,” the Captain said cheerfully. “Our cruising boost will be higher, but we will give the newcomers among us a while to get used to it.” His tone changed and he said briskly, “All stations, secure from blast-off and set space watches, third section.”

I loosened my straps and sat up and then stood up. Maybe we were ten per cent heavy, but it did not feel like it; I felt fine. I started for the door, intending to look around more than I had been able to when I came aboard.

Dusty Rhodes yelled at me. “Hey! Come back here and unstrap me! That moron fastened the buckles out of my reach.”

I turned and looked at him. “Say ‘please.’“

What Dusty answered was not “please.” Nevertheless I let him loose. I should have made him say it; it might have saved trouble later.

VII 19,900 WAYS

The first thing that happened in the L.C. made me think I was dreaming-I ran into Uncle Steve.

I was walking along the circular passageway that joined the staterooms on my deck and looking for the passage inboard, toward the axis of the ship. As I turned the comer I bumped into someone. I said, “Excuse me,” and started to go past when the other person grabbed my arm and clapped me on the shoulder. I looked up and it was Uncle Steve, grinning and shouting at me. “Hi, shipmate! Welcome aboard!”

“Uncle Steve! What are you doing here?”

“Special assignment from the General Staff … to keep you out of trouble.” “Huh?”

There was no mystery when he explained. Uncle Steve had known for a month that his application for special discharge to take service with the LRF for Project Lebensraum had been approved; he had not told the family but had spent the time working a swap to permit him to be in the same ship as Pat-or, as it turned out, the one I was in.

“I thought your mother might take it easier if she knew I was keeping an eye on her boy. You can tell her about it the next time you are hooked in with your twin.”

“I’ll tell her now,” I answered and gave a yell in my mind for Pat. He did not seem terribly interested; I guess a reaction was setting in and he was sore at me for being where he had expected to be. But Mother was there and he said he would tell her. “Okay, she knows.”

Uncle Steve looked at me oddly. “Is it as easy as that?”

I explained that it was just like talking … a little faster, maybe, since you can think words faster than you can talk, once you are used to it. But he stopped me. “Never mind. You’re trying to explain color to a blind man. I just wanted Sis to know.”

“Well, okay.” Then I noticed that his uniform was different. The ribbons were the same and it was an LRF company uniform, like my own, which did not surprise me-but his chevrons were gone: “Uncle Steve … you’re wearing major’s leaves!”

He nodded. “Home town boy makes good. Hard work, clean living, and so on.” “Gee, that’s swell!”

“They transferred me at my reserve rank, son, plus one bump for exceptionally neat test papers. Fact is, if I had stayed with the Corps, I would have retired as a ship’s sergeant at best-there’s no promotion in peacetime. But the Project was looking for certain men, not certain ranks, and I happened to have the right number of hands and feet for the job.”

“Just what is your job, Uncle?” “Commander of the ship’s guard.” “Huh? What have you got to guard?”

“That’s a good question. Ask me in a year or two and I can give you a better answer. Actually, ‘Commander Landing Force’ would be a better title. When we locate a likely looking planet-’when and if,’ I mean-I’m the laddie who gets to go out and check the lay of the land and whether the natives are friendly while you valuable types stay safe and snug in the ship.” He glanced at his wrist. “Let’s go to

chow.”

I wasn’t hungry and wanted to look around, but Uncle Steve took me firmly by the arm and headed for the mess room. “When you have soldiered as long as I have, lad, you will learn that you sleep when you get a chance and that you are never late for chow line.”

It actually was a chow line, cafeteria style. The L.C. did not run to table waiters nor to personal service of any sort, except for the Captain and people on watch. We went through the line and I found that I was hungry after all. That meal only, Uncle Steve took me ever to the heads-of-departments table. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is my nephew with two heads, Tom Bartlett. He left his other head dirtside- he’s a telepair twin. If he does anything he shouldn’t, don’t tell me, just clobber him.” He glanced at me; I was turning red. “Say ‘howdy,’ son … or just nod if you can’t talk.”

I nodded and sat down. A sweet old girl with the sort of lap babies like to sit on was next to me. She smiled and said, “Glad to have you with us, Tom.” I learned that she was the Chief Ecologist. Her name was Dr. O’Toole, only nobody called her that, and she was married to one of the relativists.

Uncle Steve went around the table, pointing out who was who and what they did: the Chief Engineer. the Relativist (Uncle Steve called him the “Astrogator” as the job would be called in an ordinary ship), Chief Planetologist Harry Gates and the Staff Xenologist, and so forth-I couldn’t remember the names at the time-and Reserve Captain Urqhardt. I didn’t catch the word “reserve” and was surprised at how young he was. But Uncle Steve corrected me: “No, no! He’s not the Captain. He’s the man who will be captain if it turns out we need a spare. Across from you is the Surgeon-don’t let that fool you, either; he never does surgery himself. Dr. Devereaux is the boss head-shrinker.”

I looked puzzled and Uncle Steve went on, “You don’t savvy? Psychiatrist. Doc Dev is watching every move we make, trying to decide how quick he will have to be with the straitjacket and the needle. Correct, Doc?”

Dr. Devereaux buttered a roll. “Essentially, Major. But finish your meal; we’re not coming for you until later in the day.” He was a fat little toad, ugly as could be, and with a placid, unbreakable calm. He went on, “I just had an up setting thought, Major.”

“I thought that thoughts never upset you?”

“Consider. Here I am charged with keeping quaint characters like you sane … but they forgot to assign anybody to keep me sane. What should I do?”

“Mmm…” Uncle Steve seemed to study it. “I didn’t know that head-shrinkers were supposed to be sane, themselves.”

Dr. Devereaux nodded. “You’ve put your finger on it. As in your profession, Major, being crazy is an asset. Pass the salt, please.”

Uncle Steve shut up and pretended to wipe off blood.

A man came in and sat down; Uncle Steve introduced me and said, “Staff Commander Frick, the Communications Officer. Your boss, Tom.”

Commander Frick nodded and said, “Aren’t you third section, young man?” “Uh, I don’t know, sir.”

“I do … and you should have known. Report to the communications office.” “Uh, you mean now, sir?”

“Right away. You are a half hour late.”

I said, “Excuse me,” and got up in a hurry, feeling silly. I glanced at Uncle Steve but he wasn’t looking my way; he seemed not to have heard it.

The communications office was two decks up, right under the control room; I had trouble finding it. Van Houten was there and Mei-Ling and a man whose name was Travers, who was communicator-of- the-watch. Mei-Ling was reading a sheaf of papers and did not look up; I knew that she was telepathing. Van said, “Where the deuce have you been? I’m hungry.”

“I didn’t know,” I protested. “You’re supposed to know.”

He left and I turned to Mr. Travers. “What do you want me to do?”

He was threading a roll of tape into an autotransmitter; he finished before he answered me. “Take that stack of traffic as she finishes it, and do whatever it is you do with it. Not that it matters.”

“You mean read it to my twin?” “That’s what I said.”

“Do you want him to record?”

“Traffic is always recorded. Didn’t they teach you anything?”

I thought about explaining that they really hadn’t because there had not been time, when I thought, oh what’s the use? He probably thought I was Pat and assumed that I had had the full course. I picked up papers Mei-Ling was through with and sat down.

But Travers went on talking. “I don’t know what you freaks are up here for now anyhow. You’re not needed; we’re still in radio range.”

I put the papers down and stood up: “Don’t call us ‘freaks.’ “

He glanced at me and said, “my, how tall you’ve grown. Sit down and get to work.”

We were about the same height but he was ten years older and maybe thirty pounds heavier. I might have passed it by if we had been alone, but not with Mei-Ling present.

“I said not to call us ‘freaks.’ It’s not polite.”

He looked tired and not amused but he didn’t stand up. I decided he didn’t want a fight and felt relieved. “All right, all right,” he answered. “Don’t be so touchy. Get busy on that traffic.”

I sat down and looked over the stuff I had to send, then called Pat and told him to start his recorder; this was not a practice message.

He answered, “Call back in half an hour. I’m eating dinner.”

(“I was eating lunch but I didn’t get to finish. Quit stalling, Pat. Take a look at that contract you were so anxious to sign.”)

“You were just as anxious. What’s the matter, kid? Cold feet already?”

(“Maybe, maybe not. I’ve got a hunch that this isn’t going to be one long happy picnic. But I’ve learned one thing already; when the Captain sends for a bucket of paint, he wants a full bucket and no excuses. So switch on that recorder and stand by to take down figures.”)

Pat muttered and gave in, then announced that he was ready after a delay that was almost certainly caused by Mother insisting that he finish dinner. “Ready.”

The traffic was almost entirely figures (concerning the take-off, I suppose) and code. Being such, I had

to have Pat repeat back everything. It was not hard, but it was tedious. The only message in clear was one from the Captain, ordering roses sent to a Mrs. Detweiler in Brisbane and charged to his LRF account, with a message: “Thanks for a wonderful farewell dinner.”

Nobody else sent personal messages; I guess they had left no loose ends back on Earth.

I thought about sending some roses to Maudie, but I didn’t want to do it through Pat. It occurred to me that I could do it through Mei-Ling, then I remembered that, while I had money in the bank, I had appointed Pat my attorney; if I ordered them, he would have to okay the bill I decided not to cross any bridges I had burned behind me.

Life aboard the L.C., or the Elsie as we called her, settled into a routine. The boost built up another fifteen per cent which made me weigh a hundred and fifty-eight pounds; my legs ached until I got used to it-but I soon did; there are advantages in being kind of skinny. We freaks stood a watch in five, two at a time-Miss Gamma and Cas Warner were not on our list because they hooked sidewise with other ships. At first we had a lot of spare time, but the Captain put a stop to that.

Knowing that the LRF did not really expect us to return, I had not thought much about that clause in the contract which provided for tutoring during the trip but I found out that the Captain did not intend to forget it. There was school for everybody, not just for us telepaths who were still of school age. He appointed Dr. Devereaux, Mrs. O’Toole, and Mr. Krishnamurti a school board and courses were offered in practically everything, from life drawing to ancient history. The Captain himself taught that last one; it turned out he knew Sargon the Second and Socrates like brothers.

Uncle Alfred tried to sign up for everything, which was impossible, even if he didn’t eat, sleep, nor stand watch. He had never, he told me, had time for all the schooling he wanted and now at last he was going to get it. Even my real uncle, Steve, signed up for a couple of courses. I guess I showed surprise at this, for he said, “Look, Tom, I found out my first cruise that the only way to make space bearable is to have something to learn and learn it. I used to take correspondence courses. But this bucket has the finest assemblage of really bright minds you are ever likely to see. If you don’t take advantage of it, you are an idiot. Mama O’Toole’s cooking course, for example: where else can you find a Cordon Bleu graduate willing to teach you her high art free? I ask you!”

I objected that I would never need to know how to cook high cuisine.

“What’s that got to do with it? Learning isn’t a means to an end; it is an end in itself. Look at Uncle Alf. He’s as happy as a boy with a new slingshot. Anyhow, if you don’t sign up for a stiff course, old Doc Devereaux will find some way to keep you busy, even if it is counting rivets. Why do you think the Captain made him chairman of the board of education?”

“I hadn’t thought about it. “

“Well, think about it. The greatest menace in space is going coffin crazy. You are shut up for a long time in a small space and these is nothing outside but some mighty thin vacuum … no street lights, no bowling alleys. Inside are the same old faces and you start hating them. So a smart captain makes sure you have something to keep you interested and tired-and ours is the smartest you’ll find or he wouldn’t be on this trip.”

I began to realize that a lot of arrangements in the Elsie were simply to see that we stayed healthy and reasonably happy. Not just school, but other things. Take the number we bad aboard, for example- almost two hundred. Uncle Steve told me that the Elsie could function as a ship with about ten: a captain, three control officers, three engineer officers, one communicator, one farmer, and a cook. Shucks, you could cut that to five: two control officers (one in command), two torch watchstanders, and a farmer-cook.

Then why two hundred?

In the first place there was room enough. The Elsie and the other ships had been rebuilt from the enormous freighters the LRF use to haul supplies out to Pluto and core material back to Earth. In the second place they needed a big scientific staff to investigate the planets we hoped to find. In the third place some were spare parts, like Reserve Captain Urqhardt and, well, me myself. Some of us would die or get killed; the ship had to go on.

But the real point, as I found out, is that no small, isolated social group can be stable. They even have a mathematics for it, with empirical formulas and symbols for “lateral pressures” and “exchange valences” and “exogamic relief.” (That last simply means that the young men of a small village should find wives outside the village.)

Or look at it this way. Suppose you had a one-man space ship which could cruise alone for several years. Only a man who was already nutty a certain way could run it-otherwise he would soon go squirrelly some other way and start tearing the controls off the panels. Make it a two-man ship: even if you used a couple as fond of each other as Romeo and Juliet, by the end of the trip even Juliet would start showing black-widow blood.

Three is as bad or worse, particularly if they gang up two against one. Big numbers are much safer. Even with only two hundred people there are exactly nineteen thousand nine hundred ways to pair them off, either as friends or enemies, so you see that the social possibilities shoot up rapidly when you increase the numbers. A bigger group means more chances to find friends and more ways to avoid people you don’t like. This is terribly important aboard ship.

Besides elective courses we had required ones called “ship’s training”-by which the Captain meant that every body had to learn at least one job he had not signed up for. I stood two watches down in the damping room, whereupon Chief Engineer Roch stated in writing that he did not think that I would ever make a torcher as I seemed to have an innate lack of talent for nuclear physics. As a matter of fact it made me nervous to be that close to an atomic power plant and to realize the unleashed hell that was going on a few feet away from me.

I did not make out much better as a farmer, either. I spent two weeks in the air-conditioning plant and the only thing I did right was to feed the chickens. When they caught me cross-pollinating the wrong way some squash plants which were special pets of Mrs. O’Toole, she let me go, more in sorrow than in anger. “Tom,” she said, “what do you do well?”

I thought about it. “Uh, I can wash bottles… and I used to raise hamsters.”

So she sent me over to the research department and I washed beakers in the chem lab and fed the experimental animals. The beakers were unbreakable. They wouldn’t let me touch the electron microscope. It wasn’t bad-I could have been assigned to the laundry.

Out of the 19,900 combinations possible in the Elsie, Dusty Rhodes and I were one of the wrong ones. I hadn’t signed up for the life sketching class because he was teaching it; the little wart really was a fine draftsman. I know, I’m pretty good at it myself and I would have liked to have been in that class. What was worse, he had an offensively high I.Q., genius plus, much higher than mine, and he could argue rings around me. Along with that he had the manners of a pig and the social graces of a skunk-a bad go, any way you looked at it.

“Please” and “Thank you” weren’t in his vocabulary. He never made his bed unless someone in authority stood over him, and I was likely as not to come in and find him lying on mine, wrinkling it and getting the cover dirty. He never hung up his clothes, he always left our wash basin filthy, and his best mood was complete silence.

Besides that, he didn’t bathe often enough. Aboard ship that is a crime.

First I was nice to him, then I bawled him out, then I threatened him. Finally I told him that the next thing of his I found on my bed was going straight into the mass converter. He just sneered and the next day I found his camera on my bed and his dirty socks on my pillow.

I tossed the socks into the wash basin, which he had left filled with dirty water, and locked his camera in my wardrobe, intending to let him stew before I gave it back.

He didn’t squawk. Presently I found his camera gone from my wardrobe, in spite of the fact that it was locked with a combination which Messrs. Yale & Towne had light-heartedly described as “Invulnerable.” My clean shirts were gone, too … that is, they weren’t clean; somebody had carefully dirtied every one of them.

I had not complained about him. It had become a point of pride to work it out myself; the idea that I could not cope with somebody half my size and years my junior did not appeal to me.

But I looked at the mess he had made of my clothes and I said to myself, “Thomas Paine, you had better admit that you are licked and holler for help-else your only chance will be to plead justifiable homicide.”

But I did not have to complain. The Captain sent for me; Dusty had complained about me instead. “Bartlett, young Rhodes tells me you are picking on him. What’s the situation from your point of

view?”

I started to swell up and explode. Then I let out my breath and tried to calm down; the Captain really wanted to know.

“I don’t think so, sir, though it is true that we have not been getting along.” “Have you laid hands on him?”

“Uh … I haven’t smacked him, sir. I’ve jerked him off my bed more than once-and I wasn’t gentle about it.”

He sighed. “Maybe you should have smacked him. Out of my sight, of course. Well, tell me about it. Try to tell it straight-and complete.”

So I told him. It sounded trivial and I began to be ashamed of myself … the Captain had more important things to worry about than whether or not I had to scrub out a hand basin before I could wash my face. But he listened.

Instead of commenting, maybe telling me that I should be able to handle a younger kid better, the Captain changed the subject.

“Bartlett, you saw that illustration Dusty had in the ship’s paper this morning?”

“Yes, sir. A real beauty,” I admitted. It was a picture of the big earthquake in Santiago, which had happened after we left Earth.

“Mmm… we have to allow you special-talent people a little leeway. Young Dusty is along because he was the only m-r available who could receive and transmit pictures.”

“Uh, is that important, sir?”

“It could be. We won’t know until we need it. But it could be crucially important. Otherwise I would never have permitted a spoiled brat to come aboard this ship.” He frowned. “However, Dr. Devereaux is of the opinion that Dusty is not a pathological ease.”

“Uh, I never said he was, sir.”

“Listen, please. He says that the boy has an unbalanced personality-a brain that would do credit to a grown man but with greatly retarded social development. His attitudes and evaluations would suit a boy of five, combined with this clever brain. Furthermore Dr. Devereaux says that he will force the childish part of Dusty’s personality to grow up, or he’ll turn in his sheepskin.”

“So? I mean, “Yes, sir?’ “

“So you should have smacked him. The only thing wrong with that boy is that his parents should have walloped him, instead of telling him how bright he was.” He sighed again.

“Now I’ve got to do it. Dr. Devereaux tells me I’m the appropriate father image.” “Yes, sir.”

“ ‘Yes, sir,’ my aching head. This isn’t a ship; it’s a confounded nursery. Are you having any other troubles?”

“No, sir.”

“I wondered. Dusty also complained that the regular communicators call you people ‘freaks.’ “ He eyed me.

I didn’t answer. I felt sheepish about it.

“In any case, they won’t again. I once saw a crewman try to knife another one, just because the other persisted in calling him ‘skin head.’ My people are going to behave like ladies and gentlemen or I’ll bang some heads together.” He frowned. “I’m moving Dusty into the room across from my cabin. If Dusty will leave you alone, you let him alone. If he won’t … well, use your judgment, bearing in mind that you are responsible for your actions-but remember that I don’t expect any man to be a doormat. That’s all. Good-by.”

VIII RELATIVITY

I had been in the Elsie a week when it was decided to operate on Pat. Pat told me they were going to do it, but he did not talk about it much. His attitude was the old iron-man, as if he meant to eat peanuts and read comics while they were chopping on him. I think he was scared stiff … I would have been.

Not that I would have understood if I had known the details; I’m no neural surgeon, nor any sort; removing a splinter is about my speed.

But it meant we would be off the watch list for a while, so I told Commander Frick. He already knew from messages passed between the ship and LRF; he told me to drop off the watch list the day before my brother was operated and to consider myself available for extra duty during his convalescence. It did not make any difference to him; not only were there other telepairs but we were still radio-linked to Earth.

Two weeks after we started spacing and the day before Pat was to be cut on I was sitting in my room, wondering whether to go to the communications office and offer my valuable services in cleaning waste baskets and microfilming files or just sit tight until somebody sent for me.

I had decided on the latter, remembering Uncle Steve’s advice never to volunteer, and was letting down my bunk, when the squawker boomed: “T. P. Bartlett, special communicator, report to the Relativist!”

I hooked my bunk up while wandering if there was an Eye-Spy concealed in my room-taking down my bunk during working hours seemed always to result in my being paged. Dr. Babcock was not in the control room and they chased me out, but not before I took a quick look around-the control room was off limits to anyone who did not work there. I found him down in the computation room across from the communications office, where I would have looked in the first place if I hadn’t wanted to see the control room.

I said, “T. P. Bartlett, communicator tenth grade, reporting to the Relativist as ordered.”

Dr. Babcock swung around in his chair and looked at me. He was a big raw-boned man, all hands and feet, and looked more like a lumberjack than a mathematical physicist. I think he played it up-you know, elbows on the table and bad grammar on purpose. Uncle Steve said Babcock had more honorary degrees than most people had socks.

He stared at me and laughed. “Where did you get that fake military manner, son? Siddown. You’re Bartlett?”

I sat. “Yes, sir.”

“What’s this about you and your twin going off the duty list?”

“Well, my brother is in a hospital, sir. They’re going to do something to his spine tomorrow.” “Why didn’t you tell me?” I didn’t answer because it was so unreasonable; I wasn’t even in his

department. “Frick never tells me anything, the Captain never tells me anything, now you never tell me anything. I have to bang around the galley and pick up gossip to find out what’s going on. I was planning on working you over tomorrow. You know that don’t you?”

“Uh, no, sir.”

“Of course you don’t, became I never tell anybody anything either. What a way to run a ship! I should have stayed in Vienna. There’s a nice town. Ever have coffee and pastries in the Ring?” He didn’t wait

for an answer. “Nevertheless I was going to work you and your twin over tomorrow-so now we’ll have to do it today. Tell him to stand by.”

“Uh; what do you want him to do, Doctor? He’s already been moved to a hospital.”

“Just tell him to stand by. I’m going, to calibrate you two, that’s what. Figure out your index error.” “Sir?”

“Just tell him-”

So I called Pat. I hadn’t spoken to him since breakfast; I wondered how he was going to take it But he already knew. “Yes, yes,” he said in a tired voice.

“They’re setting up apparatus in my hospital room right now. Mother made such a fuss I had to send her out.”

(“Look, Pat, if you don’t want to do this, whatever it is, I’ll tell them nothing doing. It’s an imposition.”)

“What difference does it make?” he said irritably. “I’ve got to sweat out the next sixteen hours somehow. Anyhow, this may be the last time we work together.”

It was the first time he had shown that it was affecting his nerve. I said hastily, (“Don’t talk that way, Pat. You’re going to get well. You’re going to walk again. Shucks, you’ll even be able to ski if you want to.”)

“Don’t give me that Cheerful Charlie stuff. I’m getting more of it from the folks than I can use. It makes me want to throw up.”

(“Now see here, Pat-”)

“Stow it, stow it! Let’s get on with what they want us to do.” (“Well, all right.”) I spoke aloud: “He’s ready, Doctor.”

“Half a minute. Start your camera, O’Toole.” Dr. Babcock touched something on his desk. “Commander Frick?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Frick’s voice answered. “We’re ready. You coming in?”

“All set here,” I heard my boss answer. “We’ll come in.”

A moment later he entered, with Anna Horoshen. In the meantime I took a look around. One whole wall of the computation room was a computer, smaller than the one at Los Alamos but not much. The blinking lights must have meant something to somebody. Sitting at right angles to it at a console was Mr. O’Toole and above the console was a big display scope; at about one-second intervals a flash of light would peak in the center of it.

Anna nodded without speaking; I knew she must be linked. Pat said, “Tom, you’ve got a girl named Anna Horoshen aboard: Is she around?”

(“Yes. Why?”)

“Say hello to her for me-1 knew her in Zurich. Her sister Becky is here.” He chuckled and I felt better. “Good looking babes, aren’t they? Maudie is jealous.”

Babcock said to Frick, “Tell them to stand by. First synchronizing run, starting from their end.”

“Tell them, Anna,”

She nodded. I wondered why they bothered with a second telepair when they could talk through myself and Pat. I soon found out: Pat and I were too busy.

Pat was sounding out ticks like a clock; I was told to repeat them… and every time I did another peak of light flashed on the display scope. Babcock watched it, then turned me around so that I couldn’t see and taped a microphone to my voice box. “Again.”

Pat said, “Stand by-” and started ticking again. I did my best to tick right with him but it was the silliest performance possible. I heard Babcock say quietly, “That cut out the feedback and the speed-of- sound lag. I wish there were some way to measure the synaptic rate arose closely.”

Frick said, “Have you talked to Dev about it?” I went on ticking.

“A reverse run now, young lady,” Babcock said, and slipped headphones on me. I immediately heard a ticking like the ticks Pat had been sending. “That’s a spectral metronome you’re listening to, young fellow, timed by monochrome light. It was synchronized with the one your brother is using before we left Earth. Now start ticking at him,”

So I did. It had a hypnotic quality; it was easier to get into step and tick with it than it was to get out of step. It was impossible to ignore it. I began to get sleepy but I kept on ticking; I couldn’t stop.

“End of run,” Babcock announced. The ticking stopped and I rubbed my ears. “Dr. Babcock?”

“ “Huh?”

“How can you tell one tick from another?”

“Eh? You can’t. But O’Toole can, he’s got it all down on film. Same at the other end. Don’t worry about it; just try to stay in time.”

This silliness continued for more than an hour, sometimes with Pat sending, sometimes myself. At last O’Toole looked up and said, “Fatigue factor is cooking our goose, Doc. The second differences are running all over the lot.”

“Okay, that’s all,” Babcock announced. He turned to me. “You can thank your brother for me and sign off.”

Commander Frick and Anna left. I hung around. Presently Dr. Babcock looked up from his desk and said, “You can go, bub. Thanks.”

“Uh, Dr. Babcock?” “Huh? Speak up.”

“Would you mind telling me what this is all about?”

He looked surprised, then said, “Sorry. I’m not used to using people instead of instruments; I forget. Okay, sit down. This is why you m-r people were brought along: for research into the nature of time.”

I stared. “Sir? I thought we were along to report back on the planets we expect to find.”

“Oh, that- Well, I suppose so, but this is much more important. There are too many people as it is; why encourage new colonies? A mathematician could solve the population problem in jig time-just shoot every other one.”

Mr. O’Toole said, without looking up, “The thing I like about you, Chief, is your big warm heart.” “Quiet in the gallery, please. Now today, son, we have been trying to find out what time it is.”

I must have looked as puzzled as I felt for he went on, “Oh, we know what time it is … but too many different ways. See that?” He pointed at the display scope, still tirelessly making a peak every second. “That’s the Greenwich time tick, pulled in by radio and corrected for relative speed and change of speed. Then there is the time you were hearing over the earphones; that is the time the ship runs by. Then there is the time you were getting from your brother and passing to us. We’re trying to compare them all, but the trouble is that we have to have people in the circuit and, while a tenth of a second is a short time for the human nervous system, a microsecond is a measurably long time in physics. Any radar system splits up a microsecond as easily as you slice a pound of butter. So we use a lot of runs to try to even out our ignorance.”

“Yes, but what do you expect to find out?”

“If I ‘expected,’ I wouldn’t be doing it. But you might say that we are trying to find out what the word “simultaneous” means.”

Mr. O’Toole looked up from the console. “If it means anything,” he amended.

Dr. Babcock glanced at him. “You still here? ‘If it means anything.’ Son, ever since the great Doctor Einstein, ‘simultaneous’ and ‘simultaneity’ have been dirty words to physicists. We chucked the very concept, denied that it had meaning, and built up a glorious structure of theoretical physics without it. Then you mind readers came along and kicked it over. Oh, don’t look guilty; every house needs a housecleaning now and then. If you folks had done your carnival stunt at just the speed of light, we would have assigned you a place in the files and forgotten you. But you rudely insisted on doing it at something enormously greater than the speed of light, which made you as welcome as a pig at a wedding. You’ve split us physicists into two schools, those who want to class you as a purely psychological phenomenon and no business of physics-these are the ‘close your eyes and it will go away’ boys-and a second school which realizes that since measurements can be made of whatever this is you do, it is therefore the business of physics to measure and include it … since physics is, above all, the trade of measuring things and assigning definite numerical values to them.”

O’Toole said, “Don’t wax philosophical, Chief.”

“You get back to your numbers, O’Toole; you have no soul These laddies want to measure how fast you do it. They don’t care how fast-they’ve already recovered from the blow that you do it faster than light-but they want to know exactly how fast. They can’t accept the idea that you do it ‘instantaneously,’ for that would require them to go to a different church entirely. They want to assign a definite speed of propagation, such-and-such number of times faster than the speed of light. Then they can modify their old equations and go right on happily doing business at the old stand.”

“They will,” agreed O’Toole.

“Then there is a third school of thought, the right one…my own.” O’Toole, without looking up, made a rude noise.

“Is that your asthma coming back?” Babcock said anxiously. “By the way, you got any results?”

“They’re still doing it in nothing flat. Measured time negative as often as positive and never greater than inherent observational error.”

“You see, son? That’s the correct school. Measure what happens and let the chips fly where they may.” “Hear hear!”

“Quiet, you renegade Irishman. Besides that, you m-r’s give us our first real chance to check another matter. Are you familiar with the relativity transformations?”

“You mean the Einstein equations? “Surely. You know the one for time?”

I thought hard Pat and I had taken first-year physics our freshman year; it had been quite a while. I picked up a piece of paper and wrote down what I thought it was:

“That’s it,” agreed Dr. Babcock. “At a relative velocity of ‘v’ time interval at first frame of reference equals time interval at second frame of reference multiplied by the square root of one minus the square of the relative velocity divided by the square of the speed of light. That’s just the special case, of course, for constant speeds; it is more complicated for acceleration. But there has been much disagreement as to what the time equations meant, or if they meant anything.”

I blurted out, “Huh? But I thought the Einstein theory had been proved?” It suddenly occurred to me that, if the relativity equations were wrong, we were going to be away a mighty long time-Tau Ceti, our first stop, was eleven light-years from the Sun… and that was just our first one; the others were a lot farther.

But everybody said that once we got up near the speed of light the months would breeze past like days. The equations said so.

“Attend me. How do you prove that there are eggs in a bird’s nest? Don’t strain your gray matter: go climb the tree and find out. There is no other way. Now we are climbing the tree.”

“Fine!” said O’Toole. “Go climb a tree.”

“Noisy in here. One school of thought maintained that the equations simply meant that a clock would read differently if you could read it from a passing star … which you can’t… but that there was no real stretching or shrinking of time-whatever ‘real’ means. Another school pointed to the companion equations for length and mass, maintaining that the famous Michelson-Morley experiment showed that the length transformation was ‘real’ and pointing out that the increase of mass was regularly computed and used for particle-accelerator ballistics and elsewhere in nuclear physics-for example, in the torch that pushes this ship. So, they reasoned, the change in time rates must be real, because the corollary equations worked in practice. But nobody knew. You have to climb the tree and look.”

“When will we know?” I was still worrying. Staying several years, Einstein time, in the ship I had counted on. Getting killed in the course of it, the way Uncle Steve said we probably would, I refused to worry about. But dying of old age in the Elsie was not what I had counted on. It was a grim thought, a life sentence shut up inside these steel walls.

“When? Why, we know right now.” “You do? What’s the answer?”

“Don’t hurry me, son. We’ve been gone a couple of weeks, at a boost of 124% of one gee; we’re up to about 9,000 miles per second now. We still haven’t come far-call it seven and a half light-hours or about 5,450,000,000 miles. It will be the better part of a year before we are crowding the speed of light. Nevertheless we have reached a sizable percentage of that speed, about five per cent; that’s enough to show. Easy to measure, with the aid of you mind readers.”

“Well, sir? Is it a real time difference? Or is it just relative?”

“You’re using the wrong words. But it’s ‘real,’ so far as the word means anything. The ratio right now is about 99.9%.”

“To put it exactly,” added Mr. O’Toole, “Bartlett’s slippage-that’s a technical term I just invented-his ‘slippage’ in time rate from that of his twin has now reached twelve parts in ten thousand.”

“So you would make me a liar for one fiftieth of one per cent?” Babcock complained. “O’Toole, why did I let you come along?”

“So you would have some one to work your arithmetic,” his assistant answered smugly.

Pat told me he did not want me around when they operated, but I came anyway. I locked myself in my room so nobody could disturb me and stuck with him. He didn’t really object; whenever I spoke he answered and the it got to the deadline the more he talked… a cheerful babble about nothing and everything. It did not fool me.

When they wheeled him into surgery, he said, “Tom, you should see my anesthetist. Pretty as a sunny day and just lap size.”

(“Isn’t her face covered with a mask?”)

“Well, not completely. I can see her pretty blue eyes. 1 think I’ll ask her what she’s doing tonight.” (“Maudie won’t like that.”)

“You keep Maudie out of this; a sick man is entitled to privileges. Wait a sec, I’ll ask her.” (“What did she say?”)

“She said, ‘Nothing much,’ and that I would be doing the same for a few days. But I’ll get her phone number.”

(“Two gets you five she won’t give it to you.”)

“Well, I can try… uh uh! Too late, they’re starting in … Tom, you wouldn’t believe this needle; it’s the size of an air hose. She says she wants me to count. Okay, anything for a laugh… one … two… three…”

Pat got up to seven and I counted with him. All the way through I kept winding up tighter and tighter to unbearable tension and fear. I knew now what he apparently had been sure of all along, that he was not coming out of it. At the count of seven he lost track but his mind did not go silent. Maybe those around the operating table thought they had him unconscious but I knew better; he was trapped inside and screaming to get out.

I called to him and he called back but we couldn’t find each other. Then I was as trapped and lost and confused as he was and we groped around in the dark and the cold and the aloneness of the place where you die.

Then I felt the knife whittling at my back and I screamed.

The next thing I remember is a couple of faces floating over me. Somebody said, “I think he’s coming around, Doctor.” The voice did not belong to anyone; it was a long way off.

Then there was just one face and it said, “Feeling better?” “I guess so. What happened?”

“Drink this. Here, I’ll hold up your head.”

When I woke up again I felt fairly wide awake and could see that I was in the ship’s infirmary. Dr. Devereaux was there, looking at me. “You decided to come out of it, young fellow?”

“Out of what, Doctor? What happened?”

“I don’t know precisely, but you gave a perfect clinical picture of a patient terminating in surgical shock. By the time we broke the lock on your door, you were far gone-you gave us a bad time. Can you tell me about it?”

I tried to think, then I remembered. Pat! I called him in my mind. (“Pat! Where are you, boy?”)

He didn’t answer. I tried again and he still didn’t answer, so I knew. I sat up and managed to choke out, “My brother … he died!”

Dr. Devereaux said, “Wups! Take it easy. Lie down. He’s not dead … unless he died in the last ten minutes, which I doubt.”

“But I can’t reach him! How do you know? I can’t reach him, I tell you!”

“Come down off the ceiling. Because I’ve been checking on him all morning via the m-r’s on watch. He’s resting easily under an eighth grain of hypnal, which is why you can’t raise him. I may be stupid, son-I was stupid, not to warn you to stay out of it-but I’ve been tinkering with the human mind long enough to figure out approximately what happened to you, given the circumstances. My only excuse is that I have never encountered such circumstances before.”

I quieted a little. It made sense that I couldn’t wake Pat if they had him under drugs. Under Dr. Devereaux’s questions I managed to tell him more or less what had happened-not perfectly, because you can’t really tell someone else what goes on inside your head. “Uh, was the operation successful, Doctor?”

“The patient came through in good shape. We’ll talk about it later. Now turn over.” “Huh?”

“Turn over. I want to take a look at your back.”

He looked at it, then called two of his staff to see it. Presently he touched me. “Does that hurt?” “Ouch! Uh, yes, it’s pretty tender. What’s wrong with my back, Doctor?”

“Nothing, really. But you’ve got two perfect stigmata, just matching the incisions for Macdougal’s operation … which is the technique they used on your brother.”

“Uh, what does that mean?”

“It means that the human mind is complicated and we don’t know much about it. Now roll over and go to sleep. I’m going to keep you in bed a couple of days.”

I didn’t intend to go to sleep but I did. I was awakened by Pat calling me. “Hey, Tom! Where are you? Snap out of it.”

(“I’m right here. What’s the matter?”) “Tom… I’ve got my legs back!”

I answered, (“Yeah, I know,”) and went back to sleep.

IX RELATIVES

Once Pat was over his paralysis I should have had the world by the tail, for I had everything I wanted. Somehow it did not work that way. Before he was hurt, I had known why I was down in the dumps: it was because he was going and I wasn’t. After he was hurt, I felt guilty because I was getting what I wanted through his misfortune. It didn’t seem right to be happy when he was crippled-especially when his crippled condition had got me what I wanted.

So I should have been happy once he was well again.

Were you ever at a party where you were supposed to be having fun and suddenly you realized that you weren’t? No reason, just no fun and the whole world gray and tasteless?

Some of the things that were putting me off my feed I could see. First there had been Dusty, but that had been cleared up. Then there had been the matter of other people, especially the electron pushers we stood watch with, calling us freaks and other names and acting as if we were. But the Captain had tromped on that, too, and when we got better acquainted people forgot about such things. One of the relativists, Janet Meers, was a lightning calculator, which made her a freak, too, but everybody took it for granted in her and after a while they took what we did for granted.

After we got out of radio range of Earth the Captain took us out from under Commander Frick and set us up as a department of our own, with “Uncle” Alfred McNeil as head of department and Rupert Hauptman as his assistant-which meant that Rupe kept the watch list while Uncle Alf was in charge of our mess table and sort of kept us in line. We liked old Unc too well to give him much trouble and if somebody did get out of line Unc would look sad and the rest of us would slap the culprit down. It worked.

I think Dr. Devereaux recommended it to the Captain. The fact was that Commander Frick resented us. He was an electrical engineer and had spent his whole life on better and better communication equipment … then we came along and did it better and faster with no equipment at all. I don’t blame him; I would have been sore, too. But we got along better with Uncle Alf.

I suppose that the Vasco da Gama was part of my trouble. The worst thing about space travel is that absolutely nothing happens. Consequently the biggest event in our day was the morning paper. All day long each mind reader on watch (when not busy with traffic, which wasn’t much) would copy news. We got the news services free and all the features and Dusty would dress it up by copying pictures sent by his twin Rusty. The communicator on the midwatch would edit it and the m-r and the communicator on the early morning watch would print it and have it in the mess room by breakfast.

There was no limit to the amount of copy we could have; it was just a question of how much so few people could prepare. Besides Solar System news we carried ships’ news, not only of the Elsie but of the eleven others. Everybody (except myself) knew people in the other ships. Either they had met them at Zurich, or the old spacehands, like the Captain and a lot of others, had friends and acquaintances reaching back for years.

It was mostly social news, but we enjoyed it more than news from Earth and the System, because we felt closer to the ships in the fleet, even though they were billions of miles away and getting farther by the second. When Ray Gilberti and Sumire Watanabe got married in the Leif Ericsson, every ship in the fleet held a celebration. When a baby was born in the Pinta and our Captain was named godfather, it made us all proud.

We were hooked to the Vasco da Gama through Cas Warner, and Miss Gamma Furtney linked us with the Marco Polo and the Santa Maria through her triplets Miss Alpha and Miss Beta, but we got news

from all the ships by pass-down-the-line. Fleet news was never cut, even if dirtside news had to be. As it was, Mama O’Toole complained that if the editions got any larger, she would either have to issue clean sheets and pillow cases only once a week or engineering would have to build her another laundry just to wash newspapers. Nevertheless, the ecology department always had clean paper ready, freshly pressed, for each edition.

We even put out an occasional extra, like the time Lucille LaVonne won “Miss Solar System” and Dusty did a pic of her so perfect you would have sworn it was a photograph. We lost some paper from that as quite a number of people kept their copies for pin-ups instead of turning them back for reclamation-I did myself. I even got Dusty to autograph it. It startled him but pleased him even though he was rude about it-an artist is entitled to credit for his work, I say, even if he is a poisonous little squirt.

What I am trying in say is that the Elsie Times was the high point of each day and fleet news was the most important part of it.

I had not been on watch the night before; nevertheless, I was late for breakfast. When I hurried in, everybody was busy with his copy of the Times as usual-but nobody was eating. I sat down between Van and Prudence and said, “What’s the matter? What’s aching everybody?”

Pru silently handed me a copy of the Times.

The first page was bordered in black. There were oversize headlines: VASCO DA GAMA LOST I couldn’t believe it. The Vasco was headed out for Alpha Centauri but she wouldn’t get there for

another four years, Earth time; she wasn’t even close to the speed of light. There was nothing to have may trouble with, out where she was. It must be a mistake.

I turned to see-story-on-page-two. There was a boxed dispatch from the Commodore in the Santa Maria: “(Official) At 0334 today Greenwich time TS Vasco da Gama (LRF 172) fell out of contact. Two special circuits were operating at the time, one Earthside and one to the Magellan. In both cases transmission ceased without warning in midst of message and at the same apparent instant by adjusted times. The ship contained eleven special communicators; it has not proved possible to raise any of them. It must therefore be assumed that the ship is lost, with no survivors.”

The LRF dispatch merely admitted that the ship was out of contact. There was a statement by our Captain and a longer news story which included comments from other ships; I read them but the whole story was in the headlines … the Vasco was gone wherever it is that ships go when they don’t come back.

I suddenly realized something and looked up. Cas Warner’s chair was empty. Uncle All caught my eye and said quietly, “He knows, Tom. The Captain woke him and told him soon after it happened. The only good thing about it is that he wasn’t linked with his brother when it happened.”

I wasn’t sure that Uncle Alf had the right slant. If Pat got it, I’d want to be with him when it happened, wouldn’t I? Well, I thought I would. In any case I was sure that Unc would want to be holding Sugar Pie’s hand if something happened and she had to make the big jump before he did. And Cas and his brother Caleb were close; I knew that.

Later that day the Captain held memorial services and Uncle Alfred preached a short sermon and we all sang the “Prayer for Travelers.” After that we pretended that there never had been a ship named the Vasco da Gama, but it was all pretense.

Cas moved from our table and Mama O’Toole put him to work as an assistant to her. Cas and his brother had been hotel men before LRF tapped them and Cas could be a lot of help to her; keeping a

ship with two hundred people in it in ecological balance is no small job. Goodness, just raising food for two hundred people would be a big job even if it did not have to be managed so as to maintain atmospheric balance; just managing the yeast cultures and the hydroponics took all the time of nine people.

After a few weeks Cas was supervising entering and housekeeping and Mama O’Toole could give all of her time to the scientific and technical end-except that she continued to keep an eye on the cooking.

But the Vasco da Gama should not have made me brood; I didn’t know anybody in that ship. If Cas could pull out of it and lead a normal, useful life, I certainly should not have had the mulligrubs. No, I think it was my birthday as much as anything.

The mess room had two big electric clocks in it, controlled from the relativists’ computation room, and two bank-style calendars over them. When we started out they were all right together, showing Greenwich time and date. Then, as we continued to accelerate and our speed got closer to that of light, the “slippage” between Elsie and the Earth began to show and they got farther and farther out of phase. At first we talked about it, but presently we didn’t notice the Greenwich set… for what good does it do you to know that it is now three in the morning next Wednesday at Greenwich when it is lunch time in the ship? It was like time zones and the date line back on Earth: not ordinarily important. I didn’t even notice when Pat groused about the odd times of day he had to be on duty because I stood watches any time of day myself.

Consequently I was caught flat-footed when Pat woke me with a whistle in the middle of the night and shouted, “Happy birthday!”

(“Huh? Whose?”)

“Yours, dopey. Ours. What’s the matter with you? Can’t you count?” (“But-”)

“Hold it. They are just bringing the cake in and they are going to sing “Happy Birthday.” I’ll echo it for you.”

While they were doing so I got up and slipped on a pair of pants and went down to the mess room. It was the middle of “night” for us and there was just a standing light here. But I could see the clocks and calendars-sure enough, the Greenwich date was our birthday and figuring back zone time from Greenwich to home made it about dinner time at home.

But it wasn’t my birthday. I was on the other schedule and it didn’t seem right.

“Blew ‘em all out, kid,” Pat announced happily, “That ought to hold us for another year. Mum wants to know if they baked a cake for you there?”

(“Tell her ‘yes.’ “) They hadn’t, of course. But I didn’t feel like explaining. Mother got jittery easily enough without trying to explain Einstein time to her. As for Pat, he ought to know better.

The folks had given Pat a new watch and he told me that there was a box of chocolates addressed to me-should he open it and pass it around? I told him to go ahead, not knowing whether to be grateful that I was remembered or to be annoyed at a “present” I couldn’t possibly see or touch. After a while I told Pat that I had to get my sleep and please say good night and thank you to everybody for me. But I didn’t get to sleep; I lay awake until the passageway lights came on,

The following week they did have a birthday cake for me at our table and everybody sang to me and I got a lot of pleasantly intended but useless presents-you can’t give a person much aboard ship when you are eating at the same mess and drawing from the same storerooms. I stood up and thanked them when somebody hollered “Speech!” and I stayed and danced with the girls afterwards. Nevertheless it

still did not seem like my birthday because it had already been my birthday, days earlier.

It was maybe the next day that my Uncle Steve came around and dug me out of my room. “Where you been keeping yourself, youngster?”

“Huh? Nowhere.”

“That’s what I thought.” He settled in my chair and I lay back down on my bunk. “Every time I look for you, you aren’t in sight. You aren’t on watch or working all the time. Where are you?”

I didn’t say anything. I had been right where I was a lot of the time, just staring at the ceiling. Uncle Steve went on, “When a man takes to crouching in a corner aboard ship, it is usually best, I’ve found, to let him be. Either he will pull out of it by himself, or he’ll go out the airlock one day without bothering with a pressure suit. Either way, he doesn’t want to be monkeyed with. But you’re my sister’s boy and I’ve got a responsibility toward you. What’s wrong? You never show up for fun and games in the evenings and you go around with a long face; what’s eating you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” I said angrily.

Uncle Steve disposed of that with a monosyllable. “Open up, kid. You haven’t been right since the Vasco was lost. Is that the trouble? Is your nerve slipping? If it is, Doc Devereaux has synthetic courage in pills. Nobody need know you take ‘em and no need to be ashamed-everybody finds a crack in his nerve now and again. I’d hate to tell you what a repulsive form it took the first time I went into action.”

“No, I don’t think that is it.” I thought about it-maybe it was it. “Uncle Steve, what happened to the Vasco?”

He shrugged. “Either her torch cut loose, or they bumped into something.”

“But a torch can’t cut loose… can it? And there is nothing to bump into out here.”

“Correct on both counts. But suppose the torch did blow? The ship would be a pocket-sized nova in an umpteenth second. But I can’t think of an easier way to go. And the other way would be about as fast, near enough you would never notice. Did you ever think how much kinetic energy we have wrapped up in this bucket at this speed? Doc Babcock says that as we reach the speed of light we’ll be just a flat wave front, even though we go happily along eating mashed potatoes and gravy and never knowing the difference.”

“But we never quite reach the speed of light.”

“Doc pointed that out, too. I should have said ‘if.’ Is that what is bothering you, kid? Fretting that we might go boom! like the Vasco? If so, let me point out that almost all the ways of dying in bed are worse … particularly if you are silly enough to die of old age-a fate I hope to avoid.”

We talked a while longer but did not get anywhere. Then be left, after threatening to dig me out if I spent more than normal sack time in my room. I suppose Uncle Steve reported me to Dr. Devereaux, although both of them claimed not.

Anyhow, Dr. Devereaux tackled me the next day, took me around to his room and sat me down and talked to me. He bad a big sloppy-comfortable stateroom; he never saw anybody in surgery.

I immediately wanted to know why he wanted to talk to me.

He opened his frog eyes wide and looked innocent. “Just happened to get around to you, Tom.” He picked up a pile of punched cards. “See these? That’s how many people I’ve had a chat with this week. I’ve got to pretend to earn my pay.”

“Well, you don’t have to waste time on me. I’m doing all right.”

“But I like to waste time, Tom. Psychology is a wonderful racket. You don’t scrub for surgery, you don’t have to stare down people’s dirty throats, you just sit and pretend to listen while somebody explains that when he was a little boy he didn’t like to play with the other little boys. Now you talk for a while. Tell me anything you want to, while I take a nap. If you talk long enough, I can get rested up from the poker party I sat in on last night and still chalk up a day’s work.”

I tried to talk and say nothing. While I was doing so, Pat called me. I told him to call hack; I was busy. Dr. Devereaux was watching my face and said suddenly, “What was on your mind then?”

I explained that it could wait; my twin wanted to talk to me.

“Hmm… Tom, tell me about your twin. I didn’t have time to get well acquainted with him in Zurich.” Before I knew it I had told him a lot about both of us. He was remarkably easy to talk to. Twice I

thought he had gone to sleep but each time I stopped, he roused himself and asked another question that got me started all over again.

Finally he said, “You know, Tom, identical twins are exceptionally interesting to psychologists-not to mention geneticists, sociologists, and biochemists. You start out from the same egg, as near alike as two organic complexes can be. Then you become two different people. Are the differences environmental? Or is there something else at work?”

I thought about this. “You mean the soul, Doctor?”

“Mmm … ask me next Wednesday. One sometimes holds personal and private views somewhat different from one’s public and scientific opinions. Never mind. The point is that you m-r twins are interesting. I fancy that the serendipitous results of Project Lebensraum will, as usual, be far greater than the intended results.”

“The “Sarah” what, Doctor?”

“Eh? ‘Serendipitous.’ The Adjective for ‘Serendipity.’ Serendipity means that you dig for worms and strike gold. Happens all the time in science. It is the reason why ‘useless’ pure research is always so much more practical than ‘practical’ work. But let’s talk about you. I can’t help you with your problems-you have to do that yourself. But let’s kick it around and pretend that I can, so as to justify my being on the payroll. Now two things stick out like a sore thumb: the first is that you don’t like your brother.”

I started to protest but he brushed it aside. “Let me talk. Why are you sure that I am wrong? Answer: because you have been told from birth that you love him. Siblings always `love’ each other; that is a foundation of our civilization like Mom’s apple pie. People usually believe anything that they are told early and often. Probably a good thing they believe this one, because brothers and sisters often have more opportunity and more reason to hate each other than anyone else.”

“But I like Pat. It’s just-”

“ ‘It’s just’ what?” he insisted gently when I did not finish.

I did not answer and he went on, “It is just that you have every reason to dislike him. He has bossed you and bullied you and grabbed what he wanted. When he could not get it by a straight fight, he used your mother to work on your father to make it come his way. He even got the girl you wanted. Why should you like him? If a man were no relation-instead of being your twin brother-would you like him for doing those things to you? Or would you hate him?”

I didn’t relish the taste of it. “I wasn’t being fair to him, Doctor. I don’t think Pat knew he was hogging things … and I’m sure our parents never meant to play favorites. Maybe I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”

“Maybe you are. Maybe there isn’t a word of truth in it and you are constitutionally unable to see what’s fair when you yourself are involved. But the point is that this is the way you do feel about it … and you certainly would not like such a person-except that he is your twin brother, so of course you must ‘love’ him. The two ideas fight each other. So you will continue to be stirred up inside until you figure out which one is false and get rid of it. That’s up to you.”

“But… doggone it, Doctor, I do like Pat!”

“Do you? Then you had better dig out of your mind the notion that he has been handing you the dirty end of the stick all these years. But I doubt if you do. You’re fond of him-we’re all fond of things we are used to, old shoes, old pipes, even the devil we know is better than a strange devil. You’re loyal to him. He’s necessary to you and you are necessary to him. But ‘like’ him? It seems most improbable. On the other hand, if you could get it through your head that there is no longer any need to ‘love’ him, nor even to like him, then you might possibly get to like him a little for what he is. You’ll certainly grow more tolerant of him, though I doubt if you will ever like him much. He’s a rather unlikeable cuss.”

“That’s not true! Pat’s always been very popular.”

“Not with me. Mmm … Tom, I cheated. I know your brother better than I let on. Neither one of you is very likeable, matter of fact, and you are very much alike. Don’t take offense. I can’t abide ‘nice’ people; ‘sweetness and light’ turns my stomach. I like ornery people with a good, hard core of self- interest-a lucky thing, in view of my profession. You and your brother are about equally selfish, only he is more successful at it. By the way, he likes you.”

“Huh?”

“Yes. The way he would a dog that always came when called. He feels protective toward you, when it doesn’t conflict with his own interests. But he’s rather contemptuous of you; he considers you a weakling-and, in his book, the meek are not entitled to inherit the earth; that’s for chaps like himself.”

I chewed that over and began to get angry. I did not doubt that Pat felt that way about me-patronizing and willing to see to it that I got a piece of cake … provided that he got a bigger one.

“The other thing that stands out,” Dr. Devereaux went on, “is that neither you nor your brother wanted to go on this trip.”

This was so manifestly untrue and unfair that I opened my mouth and left it open. Dr. Devereaux looked at me. “Yes? You were about to say?”

“Why, that’s the silliest thing I ever heard, Doctor! The only real trouble Pat and I ever had was because both of us wanted to go and only one of us could.”

He shook his head. “You’ve got it backwards. Both of you wanted to stay behind and only one of you could. Your brother won, as usual.”

“No, he didn’t… well, yes, he did, but the chance to go; not the other way around. And he would have, too, if it hadn’t been for that accident.”

“ ‘That accident.’ Mmm … yes.” Dr. Devereaux held still, with his head dropped forward and his hands folded across his belly, for so long that I thought again that he was asleep. “Tom, I’m going to tell you something that is none of your business, because I think you need to know. I suggest that you never discuss it with your twin … and if you do, I’ll make you out a liar, net. Because it would be bad for him. Understand me?”

“Then don’t tell me,” I said surlily.

“Shut up and listen.” He picked up a file folder. “Here is a report on your brother’s operation, written

in the talk we doctors use to confuse patients. You wouldn’t understand it and, anyhow, it was sent sidewise, through the Santa Maria and in code. You want to know what they found when they opened your brother up?”

“Uh, not especially.”

“There was no damage to his spinal cord of any sort.”

“Huh? Are you trying to tell me that he was faking his legs being paralyzed? I don’t believe it!” “Easy, now. He wasn’t faking. His legs were paralyzed. He could not possibly fake paralysis so well

that a neurologist could not detect it. I examined him myself; your brother was paralyzed. But not from damage to his spinal cord-which I knew and the surgeons who operated on him knew.”

“But-” I shook my head. “I guess I’m stupid.”

“Aren’t we all? Tom, the human mind is not simple; it is very complex. Up at the top, the conscious mind has its own ideas and desires, some of them real, some of them impressed on it by propaganda and training and the necessity for putting up a good front and cutting a fine figure to other people. Down below is the unconscious mind, blind and deaf and stupid and sly, and with-usually-a different set of desires and very different motivations. It wants its own way … and when it doesn’t get it, it raises a stink until it is satisfied. The trick in easy living is to find out what your unconscious mind really wants and give it to it on the cheapest terms possible, before it sends you through emotional bankruptcy to get its own way. You know what a psychotic is, Tom?”

“Uh… a crazy person.”

“Crazy’ is a word we’re trying to get rid of, A psychotic is a poor wretch who has had to sell out the shop and go naked to the world to satisfy the demands of his unconscious mind. He’s made a settlement, but it has ruined him. My job is to help people make settlements that won’t ruin them-like a good lawyer, We never try to get them to evade the settlement, just arrange it on the best terms.

“What I’m getting at is this: your brother managed to make a settlement with his unconscious on fairly good terms, very good terms considering that he did it without professional help. His conscious mind signed a contract and his unconscious said flatly that he must not carry it out. The conflict was so deep that it would have destroyed some people. But not your brother. His unconscious mind elected to have an accident instead, one that could cause paralysis and sure enough it did-real paralysis, mind you; no fakery. So your brother was honorably excused from an obligation he could not carry out. Then, when it was no longer possible to go on this trip; be was operated on. The surgery merely corrected minor damage to the bones. But he was encouraged to think that his paralysis would go away-and so it did.” Devereaux shrugged.

I thought about it until I was confused. This conscious and unconscious stuff-I’d studied it and passed quizzes in it … but I didn’t take any stock in it. Doc Devereaux could talk figures of speech until he was blue in the face but it didn’t get around the fact that both Pat and I had wanted to go and the only reason Pat had to stay behind was because be had hurt himself in that accident. Maybe the paralysis was hysterical, maybe be had scared himself into thinking he was hurt worse than he was. But that didn’t make any difference.

But Doc Devereaux talked as if the accident wasn’t an accident. Well, what of it? Maybe Pat was scared green and had been too proud to show it-I still didn’t think he had taken a tumble on a mountainside on purpose.

In any case, Doc was dead wrong on one thing: I had wanted to go. Oh, maybe I had been a little scared and I knew I had been homesick at first-but that was only natural.

(“Then why are you so down in dumps, stupid?”)

That wasn’t Pat talking; that was me, talking to myself. Shucks, maybe it was my unconscious mind, talking out loud for once, “Doc?”

“Yes, Tom.”

“You say I didn’t really want to come along?” “It looks that way.”

“But you said the unconscious mind always wins. You can’t have it both ways.”

He sighed. “That isn’t quite what I said. You were hurried into this. The unconscious is stupid and often slow; yours did not have time to work up anything as easy as a skiing accident. But it is stubborn. It’s demanding that you go home … which you can’t. But it won’t listen to reason. It just keeps on nagging you to give it the impossible, like a baby crying for the moon.”

I shrugged. “To hear you tell it, I’m in an impossible moss.”

“Don’t look so danged sourpuss! Mental hygiene is a process of correcting the correctable and adjusting to the inevitable. You’ve got three choices.”

“I didn’t know I had any.”

“Three. You can keep on going into a spin until your mind builds up a fantasy acceptable to your unconscious…a psychotic adjustment, what you would call ‘crazy.’ Or you can muddle along as you are, unhappy and not much use to yourself or your shipmates… and always with the possibility of skidding over the line. Or you can dig into your own mind, get acquainted with it, find out what it really wants, show it what it can’t have and why, and strike a healthy bargain with it on the basis of what is possible. If you’ve got guts and gumption, you’ll try the last one. It won’t be easy.” He waited, looking at me.

“Uh, I guess I’d better try. But how do I do it?”

“Not by moping in your room about might-have-beens, that’s sure.”

“My Uncle Steve-Major Lucas, I mean”-I said slowly, “told me I shouldn’t do that. He wants me to stir around and associate with other people. I guess I should.”

“Surely, surely. But that’s not enough. You can’t chin yourself out of the hole you are in just by pretending to be the life of the party. You have to get acquainted with yourself.”

“Yes, sir. But how?”

“Well, we can’t do it by having you talk about yourself every afternoon while I hold your hand. Mmm … I suggest that you try writing down who you are and where you’ve been and how you got from there to here. You make it thorough enough and maybe you will begin to see ‘why’ as well as ‘how.’ Keep digging and you may find out who you are and what you want and how much of it you can get.”

I must have looked baffled for he said, “Do you keep a diary?” “Sometimes. I’ve got one along.”

“Use it as an outline. ‘The Life and Times of T. P. Bartlett, Gent.’ Make it complete and try to tell the truth-all the truth.”

I thought that over. Some things you don’t want to tell anybody. “Uh, I suppose you’ll want to read it, Doctor?”

“Me? Heaven forbid! I get too little rest without misguided people. This is for you, son; you’ll be writing to yourself … only write it as if you didn’t know anything about yourself and had to explain everything. Write it as if you expected to lose your memory and wanted to be sure you could pick up the strings again. Put it all down.” He frowned and added grudgingly, “If you feel that you have found out something important and want a second opinion, I suppose I could squeeze in time to read part of it, at least. But I won’t promise. Just write it to yourself-to the one with amnesia.”

So I told him I would try… and I have. I can’t see that it has done any special good (I pulled out of the slump anyhow) and there just isn’t time to do the kind of job he told me to do. I’ve had to hurry over the last part of this because this is the first free evening I’ve had in a month.

But it’s amazing how much you can remember when you really try.

X RELATIONS

There have been a lot of changes around the Elsie. For one thing we are over the hump now and backing down the other side, decelerating as fast as we boosted; we’ll be at Tau Ceti in about six months, ship’s time.

But I am getting ahead of myself. It has been about a year, S-time, since I started this, and about twelve years, Earth time, since we left Earth. But forget E-time; it doesn’t mean anything. We’ve been thirteen months in the ship by S-time and a lot has happened. Pat getting married-no, that didn’t happen in the ship and it’s the wrong place to start.

Maybe the place to start is with another marriage, when Chet Travers married Mei-Ling Jones. It met with wide approval, except on the part of one of the engineers who was sweet on her himself. It caused us freaks and the electron pushers to bury the hatchet to have one of us marry one of them, especially when Commander Frick came down the aisle in the mess room with the bride on his arm, looking as proud and solemn as if she had been his daughter. They were a good match; Chet was not yet thirty and I figure that Mei-Ling is at least twenty-two.

But it resulted in a change in the watch list and Rupe put me on with Prudence Mathews.

I had always liked Pru without paying much attention to her. You had to look twice to know that she was pretty. But she had a way of looking up at you that made you feel important. Up to the time I started standing watches with her I had more or less left the girls alone; I guess I was “being true to Maudie.” But by then I was writing this confession story for Doe Devereaux; somehow writing things down gives them finality. I said to myself, “Why not? Tom, old boy, Maudie is as definitely out of your life as if one of you were dead. But life goes on, right here in this bucket of wind.”

I didn’t do anything drastic; I just enjoyed Pru’s company as much as possible… which turned out to be a lot.

I’ve heard that when the animals came aboard the Ark two by two, Noah separated them port and starboard. The Elsie isn’t run that way. Chet and Mei-Ling had found it possible to get well enough acquainted to want to make it permanent. A little less than half of the crew had come aboard as married couples; the rest of us didn’t have any obstacles put in our way if we had such things on our minds.

But somehow without its ever showing we were better chaperoned than is usual back dirtside. It didn’t seem organized … and yet it must have been. If somebody was saying good night a little too long in a passageway after the lights were dimmed, it would just happen that Uncle Alfred had to get up about then and shuffle down the passageway. Or maybe it would be Mama O’Toole, going to make herself a cup of chocolate “to help her get to sleep.”

Or it might be the Captain. I think he had eyes in the hack of his head for everything that went on in the ship. I’m convinced that Mama O’Toole had. Or maybe Unc was actually one of those hypothetical wide-range telepaths but was too polite and too shrewd to let anybody know it.

Or maybe Doe Devereaux had us all so well analyzed those punched cards of his that he always knew which way the rabbit would jump and could send his dogs to head him off. I wouldn’t put it past him.

But it was always just enough and not too much. Nobody objected to a kiss or two if somebody wanted to check on the taste; on the other hand we never had any of the scandals that pop up every now and then in almost any community. I’m sure we didn’t; you can’t keep such things quiet in a ship. But nobody seemed to see a little low-pressure lalligagging.

Certainly Pru and I never did anything that would arouse criticism.

Nevertheless we were taking up more and more of each other’s time, both on and off watch. I wasn’t serious, not in the sense of thinking about getting married; but I was serious in that it was becoming important. She began to look at me privately and a bit possessively, or maybe our hands would touch in passing over a stack of traffic and we could feel the sparks jump.

I felt fine and alive and I didn’t have time to write in these memoirs. I gained four pounds and I certainly wasn’t homesick.

Pru and I got in the habit of stopping off and raiding the pantry whenever we came off a night watch together. Mama O’Toole didn’t mind; she left it unlocked so that anyone who wanted a snack could find one-she said this was our home, not a jail. Pru and I would make a sandwich, or concoct a creative mess, and eat and talk before we turned in. It didn’t matter what we talked about; what mattered was the warm glow we shared.

We came off watch at midnight one night and the mess room was deserted; the poker players had broken up early and there wasn’t even a late chess game. Pru and I went into the pantry and were just getting set to grill a yeast-cheese sandwich. The pantry is rather cramped; when Pru turned to switch on the small grill, she brushed against me:

I got a whiff of her nice, clean hair and something like fresh clover or violets. Then I put my arms around her.

She didn’t make any fuss. She stopped dead for an instant, then she relaxed.

Girls are nice. They don’t have any bones and I think they must be about five degrees warmer than we are, even if fever thermometers don’t show it. I put my face down and she put her face up and closed her eyes and everything was wonderful

For maybe half a second she kissed me and I knew she was as much in favor of it as I was, which is as emphatic as I can put it.

Then she had broken out of my arms like a wrestler and was standing pressed against the counter across from me and looking terribly upset. Well, so was I. She wasn’t looking at me; she was staring at nothing and seemed to be listening … so I knew; it was the expression she wore when she was linked- only she looked terribly unhappy too.

I said, “Pru! What’s the matter?”

She did not answer; she simply started to leave. She had taken a couple of steps toward the door when I reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Hey, are you mad at me?”

She twisted away, then seemed to realize that I was still there. “I’m sorry, Tom,” she said huskily. “My sister is angry.”

I had never met Patience Mathews-and now I hardly wanted to. “Huh? Well, of all the silly ways to behave I-”

“My sister doesn’t like you, Tom,” she answered firmly, as if that explained everything. “Good night.” “But-”

“Good night, Tom.”

Pru was as nice as ever at breakfast but when she passed me the rolls the sparks didn’t jump, I wasn’t surprised when Rupe reshuffled the watch list that day but I did not ask why. Pru didn’t avoid me and she would even dance with me when there was dancing, but the fire was out and neither of us tried to light it again.

A long time later I told Van about it. I got no sympathy.

“Think you’re the first one to get your finger mashed in the door? Pru is a sweet little trick, take it from Grandfather van Houten. But when Sir Galahad himself comes riding up on a white charger, he’s going to have to check with Patience before he can speak to Pru… and I’ll bet you the answer is ‘No!’ Pru is willing, in her sweet little half-witted way, but Patience won’t okay anything more cozy than ‘Pease Porridge Hot.’“

“I think it’s a shame. Mind you, it doesn’t matter to me now. But her sister is going to ruin her life.” “It’s her business. Myself, I reached a compromise with my twin years ago-we beat each other’s teeth

in and after that we cooperated on a businesslike basis. Anyhow, how do you know that Pru isn’t doing the same to Patience? Maybe Pru started it.”

It didn’t sour me on girls, not even on girls who had twin sisters who were mind readers, but after that I enjoyed the company of all of them. But for a while I saw more of Unc. He liked to play dominoes, then when we had finished all even up for the evening he liked to talk about Sugar Pie-and to her, of course. He would look at his big photograph of her and so would I and the three of us would talk, with Unc echoing for both of us. She really was a nice little girl and it was a lot of fun to get to know a little six-year-old girl-it’s very quaint what they think about.

One night I was talking with them and looking at her picture, as always, when it occurred to me that time had passed and that Sugar Pie must have changed-they grow up fast at that age. I got a brilliant idea. “Unc, why don’t you have Sugar Pie mail a new photograph to Rusty Rhodes? Then he could transmit it to Dusty and Dusty could draw you one as perfect as that one, only it would be up to date, show you what she looks like now, huh? How about it, Sugar Pie? Isn’t that a good idea?”

“It isn’t necessary.”

I was looking at the picture and I nearly popped my fuses. For a moment it wasn’t the same picture. Oh, it was the same merry little girl, but she was a little older, she was shy a front tooth, and her hair was different.

And she was alive. Not just a trukolor stereo, but alive. There’s a difference. But when I blinked it was the same old picture.

I said hoarsely, “Unc, who said, ‘It isn’t necessary?’ You? Or Sugar Pie?” “Why, Sugar Pie did. I echoed,”

“Yes, Unc … but I didn’t hear you; I heard her.” Then I told him about the photograph.

He nodded. “Yes, that’s the way she looks. She says to tell you that her tooth is coming in, however.” “Unc… there’s no way to get around it. For a moment I crowded in on your private wave length.” I was

feeling shaky.

“I knew. So did Sugar Pie. But you didn’t crowd in, son; a friend is always welcome.”

I was still trying to soak it in. The implications were more mind-stretching, even, than when Pat and I found out we could do it. But I didn’t know what they were yet. “Uh, Uric, do you suppose we could do it again? Sugar Pie?”

“We can try.”

But it didn’t work… unless I heard her voice as well as Unc’s when she said, “Good night, Tommie.” I wasn’t sure.

After I got to bed I told Pat about it. He was interested after I convinced him that it really had happened. “This is worth digging into, old son. I’d better record it. Doc Mabel will want to kick it around.”

(“Uh, wait until I check with Uncle Alf.”)

“Well, all right. I guess it is his baby … in more ways than one. Speaking of his baby, maybe I should go see her? With two of us at each end it might be easier to make it click again. Where does his niece live?”

(“Uh, Johannesburg.”)

“Mmm … that’s a far stretch down the road, but I’m sure the LRF would send me there if Doc Mabel got interested.”

(“Probably. But let me talk to Unc.”)

But Unc talked to Dr. Devereaux first. They called me in and Doc wanted to try it again at once. He was as near excited as I ever saw him get. I said, “I’m willing, but I doubt if we’ll got anywhere; we didn’t last night. I think that once was just a fluke.”

“Fluke, spook. If it can be done once, it can be done again, We’ve got to be clever enough to set up the proper conditions.” He looked at me. “Any objection to a light dose of hypnosis?”

“Me? Why, no, sir. But I don’t hypnotize easily.”

“So? According to your record, Dr. Arnault found it not impossible. Just pretend I’m she.”

I almost laughed in his face. I look more like Cleopatra than he looks like pretty Dr. Arnault. But I agreed to go along with the gag.

“All either of you will need is a light trance to brush distractions aside and make you receptive.”

I don’t know what a “light trance” is supposed to feel like. I didn’t feel anything and I wasn’t asleep. But I started hearing Sugar Pie again.

I think Dr. Devereaux’s interest was purely scientific; any new fact about what makes people tick could rouse him out of his chronic torpor. Uncle Alf suggested that Doc was anxious also to set up a new telepathic circuit, just in case. There was a hint in what Unc said that he realized that he himself would not last forever.

But there was a hint of more than that. Uncle Alf let me know very delicately that, if it should come to it, it was good to know that somebody he trusted would be keeping an eye on his baby. He didn’t quite say it, not that baldly, so I didn’t have to answer, or I would have choked up. It was just understood-and it was the finest compliment I ever received. I wasn’t sure I deserved it so I decided I would just have to manage to deserve it if I ever had to pay off.

I could “talk” to Uncle Alf now, of course, as well as to Sugar Pie. But I didn’t, except when all three of us were talking together; telepathy is an imposition when it isn’t necessary. I never called Sugar Pie by myself, either, save for a couple of test runs for Doc Devereaux’s benefit to establish that I could reach her without Unc’s help. That took drugs; Unc would wake up from an ordinary sleep if anyone shouted on that “wave length.” But otherwise I left: her alone; I had no business crowding into a little girl’s mind unless she was ready and expecting company.

It was shortly after that that Pat got married.

XI SLIPPAGE

My relations with Pat got steadily better all during that first boost, after Dr. Devereaux took me in hand. I found out, after I admitted that I despised and resented Pat, that I no longer did either one. I cured him of bothering me unnecessarily by bothering him unnecessarily-he could shut off an alarm clock but he couldn’t shut off me. Then we worked out a live-and-let-live formula and got along better. Presently I found myself looking forward to whatever time we had set for checking with each other and I realized I liked him, not “again” but “at last,” for I had never felt that warm toward him before.

But even while we were getting closer we were falling apart; “slippage” was catching up with us. As anyone can see from the relativity formulas, the relationship is not a straight-line one; it isn’t even noticeable at the beginning but it builds up like the dickens at the other end of the scale.

At three-quarters the speed of light he complained that I was drawling, while it seemed to me that he was starting to jabber. At nine-tenths of the speed of light it was close to two for one, but we knew what was wrong now and I talked fast and he talked slow.

At 99% of c, it was seven to one and all we could do to make ourselves understood. Later that day we fell out of touch entirely.

Everybody else was having the same trouble. Sure, telepathy is instantaneous, at least the trillions of miles between us didn’t cause any lag, not even like the hesitation you get in telephoning from Earth to Luna nor did the signal strength drop off. But brains are flesh and blood, and thinking takes time… and our time rates were out of gear. I was thinking so slowly (from Pat’s viewpoint) that he could not slow down and stay with me; as for him, I knew from time to time that he was trying to reach me but it was just a squeal in the earphones so far as making sense was concerned.

Even Dusty Rhodes couldn’t make it. His twin couldn’t concentrate on a picture for the long hours necessary to let Dusty “see” it.

It was upsetting, to say the least, to all of us. Hearing voices is all right, but not when you can’t tell what they are saying and can’t shut them off. Maybe some of the odd cases in psychiatry weren’t crazy at all; maybe the poor wretches were tuned in on a bad wave length.

Unc took it the worst at first and I sat with him all one evening while we both tried together. Then he suddenly regained his serenity; Sugar Pie was thinking about him; that he knew; so being, words weren’t really necessary.

Pru was the only one who flourished; she was out from under the thumb of her sister. She got really kissed, probably for the first time in her life. No, not by me; I just happened to be wandering down for a drink at the scuttlebutt, then I backed away quietly and let the drink wait. No point in saying who it was, as it didn’t mean anything-I think Pru would have kissed the Captain at that point if he had held still. Poor little Pru!

We resigned ourselves to having to wait until we slid back down closer into phase. We were still hooked ship-to-ship because the ships were accelerating to the same schedule, and there was much debate back and forth about the dilemma, one which apparently nobody had anticipated. In one way it was not important, since we would not have anything to report until we slowed down and started checking the stars we were headed for, but in another way it was: the time the Elsie spent at the speed of light (minus a gnat’s whisker) was going to seem very short to us-but it was going to be ten solid years and a bit over to those back Earth side. As we learned later, Dr. Devereaux and his opposite numbers in the other ships and back in LRF were wondering bow many telepathic pairs they would have still functioning (if any) after a lapse of years. They had reason to worry. It had already been

established that identical twins were hardly ever telepairs if they had lived apart for years-that was the other reason why most of those picked were young; most twins are separated by adult life.

But up to then, we hadn’t been “separated” in Project Lebensraum. Sure, we were an unthinkable distance apart but each pair had been in daily linkage and in constant practice by being required to stand regular watches, even if there was nothing to send but the news.

But what would a few years of being out of touch do to rapport between telepartners?

This didn’t bother me; I didn’t know about it. I got a sort of an answer out of Mr. O’Toole which caused me to think that a couple of weeks of ship’s time would put us back close enough in phase to make ourselves understood. In the meantime, no watches to stand so it wasn’t all bad. I went to bed and tried to ignore the squeals inside my head.

I was awakened by Pat.

“Tom … answer me, Tom. Can you hear me, Tom? An- (“Hey, Pat, I’m here!”) I was wide awake, out of bed and standing on the floor plates, so excited I could hardly talk.

“Tom! Oh, Tom! It’s good to hear you, boy-it’s been two years since I was last able to raise you.” (“But-”) I started to argue, then shut up. It had been less than a week to me. But I would have to look

at the Greenwich calendar and a check with the computation office before I could even guess how long it had been for Pat.

“Let me talk, Tom, 1 can’t keep this up long. They’ve had me under deep hypnosis and drugs for the past six weeks and it has taken me this long to get in touch with you. They don’t dare keep me under much longer.”

(“You mean they’ve got you hypped right now?”)

“Of course, or I couldn’t talk to you at all. Now-” His voice faded out for a second “Sorry. They had to stop to give me another shot and an intravenous feeding. Now listen and record this schedule: Van Houten-” He reeled off precise Greenwich times and dates, to the second, for each of us, and faded out while I was reading them back. I caught a “So long” that went up in pitch, then there was silence.

I pulled on pants before I went to wake the Captain but I did not stop for shoes. Then everybody was up and all the daytime lights were turned on even though it was officially night and Mama O’Toole was making coffee and everybody was talking. The relativists were elbowing each other in the computation room and Janet Meers was working out ship’s time for Bernie van Houten’s appointment with his twin without bothering to put it through the computer because he was first on the list.

Van failed to link with his brother and everybody got jittery and Janet Meers was in tears because somebody suggested that she had made a mistake in the relative times, working it in her head; But Dr. Babcock himself pushed her solution through the computer and checked her to nine decimals. Then he announced in a chilly tone that he would thank everyone not to criticize his staff thereafter; that was his privilege.

Gloria linked with her sister right after that and everybody felt better. The Captain sent a dispatch to the flagship through Miss Gamma and got an answer back that two other ships were back in contact, the Nautilus and the Cristoforo Colombo.

There was no more straggling up to relieve the watch and stopping to grab a bite as we passed the pantry. If the recomputed time said your opposite number would be ready to transmit at 3:17:06 and a short tick, ship’s time, you were waiting for him from three o’clock on and no nonsense, with the recorder rolling and the mike in front of your lips. It was easy for us in the ship, but each one of us knew that his telepair was having to undergo both hypnosis and drastic drugging to stay with us at all-

Dr. Devereaux did not seem happy about it.

Nor was there any time for idle chit-chat, not with your twin having to chop maybe an hour out of his life for each word. You recorded what he sent, right the first time and no fumbles; then you transmitted what the Captain had initialed. If that left a few moments to talk, all right. Usually it did not … which was how I got mixed up about Pat’s marriage.

You see, the two weeks bracketing our change-over from boost to deceleration, during which time we reached our peak speed, amounted to about ten years Earthside. That’s 250 to 1 on the average. But it wasn’t all average; at the middle of that period the slippage was much greater, I asked Mr. O’Toole what the maximum was and he just shook his head. There was no way to measure it, he told me, and the probable errors were larger than the infinitesimal values he was working with.

“Let’s put it this way,” he finished. “I’m glad there is no hay fever in this ship, because one hard sneeze would push us over the edge.”

He was joking, for, as Janet Meers pointed out, as our speed approached the speed of light, our mass approached infinity.

But we fell out of phase again for a whole day.

At the end of one of those peak “watches” (they were never more than a couple of minutes long, S- time) Pat told me that he and Maudie were going to get married. Then he was gone before I could congratulate him. I started to tell him that I thought Maudie was a little young and wasn’t he rushing things and missed my chance. He was off our band.

I was not exactly jealous. I examined myself and decided that I was not when I found out that I could not remember what Maudie looked like. Oh, I knew what she looked like-blonde, and a little snub nose with a tendency to get freckles across it in the summertime. But I couldn’t call up her face the way I could Pru’s face, or Janet’s. All I felt was a little left out of things.

I did remember to check on the Greenwich, getting Janet to relate it back to the exact time of my last watch. Then I saw that I bad been foolish to criticize. Pat was twenty-three and Maudie was twenty- one, almost twenty-two.

I did manage to say, “Congratulations,” on my next linkage but Pat did not have a chance to answer. Instead he answered on the next. “Thanks for the congratulations. We’ve named her after Mother but I think she is going to look like Maudie.”

This flabbergasted me. I had to ask for Janet’s help again and found that everything was all right-I mean, when a couple has been married two years a baby girl is hardly a surprise, is it? Except to me.

All in all, I had to make quite a few readjustments those two weeks. At the beginning Pat and I were the same age, except for an inconsequential slippage. At the end of that period (I figure the end as being the time when it was no longer necessary to use extreme measures to let us telepairs talk) my twin was more than eleven years older than I was and had a daughter seven years old.

I stopped thinking about Maudie as a girl, certainly not as one I had been sweet on. I decided that she was probably getting fat and sloppy and very, very domestic-she never could resist that second chocolate éclair. As a matter of fact; Pat and I had grown very far apart, for we had little in common now. The minor gossip of the ship, so important to me, bored him; on the other hand, I couldn’t get excited about his flexible construction units and penalty dates. We still telecommunicated satisfactorily but it was like two strangers using a telephone. I was sorry, for I had grown to like him before he slipped away from me.

But I did want to see my niece. Knowing Sugar Pie had taught me that baby girls are more fun than

puppies and even cuter than kittens. I remembered the idea I had had about Sugar Pie and braced Dusty on the subject.

He agreed to do it; Dusty can’t turn down a chance to show how well he can draw. Besides, he had mellowed, for him; he no longer snarled when you tried to pet him even though it might be years before he would learn to sit up and beg.

Dusty turned out a beautiful picture. All Baby Molly lacked was little wings to make her a cherub. I could see a resemblance to myself-to her father, that is. “Dusty, this is a beautiful picture. Is it a good likeness?”

He bristled. “How should I know? But if there is a micron’s s difference, or a shade or tone off that you could pick up with a spectrophotometer, from the pic your brother mailed to my brother, I’ll eat it! But how do I know how the proud parents had the thing prettied up?”

“Sorry, sorry! It’s a swell picture. I wish there were some way I could pay you.” “Don’t stay awake nights; I’ll think of something. My services come high.”

I took down my pic of Lucille LaVonne and put Molly in her place. I didn’t throw away the one of Lucille, though.

It was a couple of months later that I found out that Dr. Devereaux had seen entirely different possibilities in my being able to use the “wave length” of Uncle Alf and Sugar Pie from the obvious ones I had seen. I had continued to talk with both of them, though not as often as I had at first. Sugar Pie was a young lady now, almost eighteen, in normal school at Witwatersrand and already started practice teaching. Nobody but Unc and I called her “Sugar Pie” and the idea that I might someday substitute for Unc was forgotten-at the rate we were shifting around pretty soon she could bring me up.

But Doe Devereaux had not forgotten the matter. However the negotiations had been conducted by him with LRF without consulting me. Apparently Pat had been told to keep it to himself until they were ready to try it, for the first I knew of it was when I told him to stand by to record some routine traffic (we were back on regular watches by then). “Skip it, old son,” he said. “Pass the traffic to the next victim. You and I are going to try something fresh.”

(“What?”)

“LRF orders, all the way down from the top. Molly has an interim research contract all of her own, just like you and I had.”

(“Huh? She’s not a twin.”)

“Let me count her. No, there’s just one of her-though she sometimes seems like an entire herd of wild elephants. But she’s here, and she wants to say hello to Uncle Tom.”

(“Oh, fine. Hello, Molly.”) “Hello, Uncle Tom.”

I almost jumped out of my skin. I had caught it right off, with no fumbling. (“Hey, who was that? Say that again!”)

“Hello, Uncle Tom.” She giggled. “I’ve got a new hair bow.”

I gulped. (“I’ll bet you look mighty cute in it, honey. I wish I could see you. Pat! When did this happen?”)

“On and off, for the past ten weeks. It took some tough sessions with Dr. Mabel to make it click. By the way, it took some tougher sessions with, uh, the former Miss Kouric before she would agree to let

us try it.”

“He means Mommy,” Molly told me in a conspirator’s whisper. “She didn’t like it. But I do, Uncle Tom. I think it’s nice.”

“I’ve got no privacy from either one of them,” Pat complained. “Look, Tom, this is just a test run and I’m signing off. I’ve got to get the terror back to her mother.”

“She’s going to make me take a nap,” Molly agreed in a resigned voice, “and I’m too old for naps. Good-by, Uncle Tom. I love you.”

(“I love you, Molly.”)

I turned around and Dr. Devereaux and the Captain were standing behind me, ears flapping. “How did it go?” Dr. Devereaux demanded, eagerly-for him.

I tried to keep my face straight. “Satisfactorily. Perfect reception.” …. “The kid, too?”

“Why, yes, sir. Did you expect something else?”

He let out a long breath. “Son, if you weren’t needed, I’d beat your brains out with an old phone list.” I think Baby Molly and I were the first secondary communication team in the fleet. We were not the

last. The LRF, proceeding on a hypothesis suggested by the case of Uncle Alfred and Sugar Pie, assumed that it was possible to form a new team where the potential new member was very young and intimately associated with an adult member of an old team. It worked in some eases. In other cases it could not even be tried because no child was available.

Pat and Maude had a second baby girl just before we reached the Tau Ceti system. Maudie put her foot down with respect to Lynette; she said two freaks in her family were enough.

XII TAU CETI

By the time we were a few light-hours from Tan Ceil we knew that we had not drawn a blank; by stereo and doppler-stereo Harry Gates had photographed half a dozen planets. Harry was not only senior planetologist; he was boss of the research department. I suppose he had enough degrees to string like beads, but I called him “Harry” because everybody did. He was not the sort you call “Doctor”; he was eager and seemed younger than he was.

To Harry the universe was a complicated toy somebody had given him; he wanted to take it apart and see what made it go. He was delighted with it and willing to discuss it with anybody at any time. I got acquainted with him in the bottle-washing business because Harry didn’t treat lab assistants like robots; he treated them like people and did not mind that he knew so much more than they did-he even seemed to think that he could learn something from them.

How he found time to marry Barbara Kuiper I don’t know, but Barbara was a torch watchstander, so it probably started as a discussion of physics and drifted over into biology and sociology; Harry was interested in everything. But he didn’t find time to he around the night their first baby was born, as that was the night he photographed the planet he named Constance, after the baby. There was objection to this, because everybody wanted to name it, but the Captain decided that the ancient rule applied: finders of astronomical objects were entitled to name them.

Finding Constance was not an accident. (I mean the planet, not the baby; the baby wasn’t lost.) Harry wanted a planet about fifty to fifty-one million miles from Tau, or perhaps I should say that the LRF wanted one of that distance. You see, while Tau Ceti is a close relative of the Sun, by spectral types, Tau is smaller and gives off only about three-tenths as much sunshine-so, by the same old tired inverse square law you use to plan the lights for a living room or to arrange a photoflash picture, a planet fifty million miles from Tau would catch the same amount of sunlight as a planet ninety-three million miles from Sol, which is where Earth sits. We weren’t looking for just any planet, or we would have stayed home in the Solar System; we wanted a reasonable facsimile of Earth or it would not he worth colonizing.

If you go up on your roof on a dear night, the stars look so plentiful you would think that planets very much like Earth must he as common as eggs in a hen yard. Well, they are: Harry estimates that there arc between a hundred thousand and a hundred million of them in our own Milky Way-and you can multiply that figure by anything you like for the whole universe.

The hitch is that they aren’t conveniently at hand. Tau Ceti was only eleven light-years from Earth; most stars in our own Galaxy average more like fifty thousand light-years from Earth. Even the Long Range Foundation did not think in those terms; unless a star was within a hundred light-years or so it was silly to think of colonizing it even with torchships. Sure, a torchship can go as far as necessary, even across the Galaxy-but who is going to he interested in receiving its real estate reports after a couple of ice ages have come and gone? The population problem would he solved one way or another long before then … maybe the way the Kilkenny cats solved theirs.

But there are only fifteen-hundred-odd stars within a hundred light-years of Earth and only about a hundred and sixty of these are of the same general spectral type as the Sun. Project Lebensraum hoped to check not more than half of these, say seventy-five at the outside-less since we had lost the Vasco da Gama.

If even one real Earth-type planet was turned up in the search, the project would pay off. But there was no certainty that it would. A Sol-type star might not have an Earth-type planet; a planet might be too

close to the fire, or too far, or too small to hold an atmosphere, or too heavy for humanity’s fallen arches, or just too short on the H20 that figures into everything we do.

Or it might be populated by some rough characters with notions about finders-keepers.

The Vasco da Gama had had the best chance to find the first Earth-type planet as the star she had been beading for, Alpha Centauri Able, is the only star in this part of the world which really is a twin of the Sun. (Able’s companion, Alpha Centauri Baker, is a different sort, spectral type K.) We had the next best chance, even though Tau Ceti is less like the Sun than is Alpha Centauri-B, for the next closest G- type is about thirteen light years from Earth … which gave us a two-year edge over the Magellan and nearly four over the Nautilus.

Provided we found anything, that is. You can imagine how jubilant we were when Tau Ceti turned out to have pay dirt.

Harry was jubilant, too, but fur the wrong reasons. I had wandered into the observatory, hoping to get a sight of the sky-one of the Elsie’s shortcomings was that it was almost impossible to see out-when he grabbed me and said, “Look at this, pal!”

I looked at it. It was a sheet of paper with figures on it; it could have been Mama O’Toole’s crop- rotation schedule.

“What is it?”

“Can’t you read? It’s Bodes Law, that’s what it is!”

I thought back. Let me see…no, that was Ohm’s Law-then I remembered; Bode’s Law was a simple geometrical progression that described the distances of the Solar planets from the Sun. Nobody had ever been able to find a reason for it and it didn’t work well in some cases, though I seemed to remember that Neptune, or maybe Pluto, had been discovered by calculations that made use of it. It looked like an accidental relationship.

“What of it?” I asked.

“‘What of it?’ the man says! Good grief! This is the most important thing since Newton got conked with the apple.”

“Maybe so, Harry, but I m a little slow today. I thought Bode’s Law was just an accident. Why couldn’t it be an accident here, too?”

“Accident! Look, Tom, if you roll a seven once, that’s an accident. When you roll a seven eight hundred times in a row, somebody has loaded the dice.”

“But this is only twice.”

“It’s not the same thing. Get me a big enough sheet of paper and I’ll write down the number of zeros it takes to describe how unlikely this ‘accident’ is.” He looked thoughtful. “Tommie, old friend, this is going to be the key that unlocks how planets are made. They’ll bury us right alongside Galileo for this. Mmm … Tom, we can’t afford to spend much time in this neighborhood; we’ve got to get out and take a look at the Beta Hydri system and make sure it checks the same way-just to convince the mossbacks back Earthside, for it will, it will! I gotta go tell the Captain we’ll have to change the schedule.” He stuffed the paper in a pocket and hurried away. I looked around but the anti-radiation shutters were over the observatory ports; I didn’t get to see out.

Naturally the Captain did not change the schedule; we were out there looking for farm land, not trying to unscrew the inscrutable. A few weeks later we were in orbit around Constance. It put us into free-fall for the first time during the trip, for we had not even been so during acceleration-deceleration change-

over but had done it in a skew path instead; chief engineers don’t like to shut a torch down unless there is time for an overhaul before starting up again-there was the case of the Peter the Great who shut hers off, couldn’t light up again, and fell into the Sun.

I didn’t like free-fall. But it’s all right if you don’t overload your stomach.

Harry did not seem disappointed. He had a whole new planet to play with, so he tabled Bode’s Law and got busy. We stayed in orbit, a thousand miles up, while research found out everything possible about Connie without actually touching it: direct visual search, radiation survey, absorption-spectra of her atmosphere. She had two moons, one a nice size, though smaller than Luna, so they were able to measure her surface gravity exactly.

She certainly looked like a home away from home. Commander Frick had his boys and girls set up a relay tank in the mess room, with color and exaggerated stereo, so that we all could see. Connie looked like the pictures they show of Earth from space stations, green and blue and brown and half covered with clouds and wearing polar ice like skullcaps. Her air pressure was lower than ours but her oxygen ratio was higher; we could breathe it. Absorption spectra showed higher carbon dioxide but not as high as Earth had during the Coal Age.

She was smaller but had a little more land area than Earth; her oceans were smaller. Every dispatch back to Earth carried good news and I even managed to get Pat’s mind off his profit-and-loss for a while … he had incorporated us as “Bartlett Brothers, Inc.” and seemed to expect me to be interested in the bookkeeping simply because my accumulated LRF salary had gone into the capitalization. Shucks, I hadn’t touched money for so long I had forgotten anybody used the stuff.

Naturally our first effort was to find out if anybody was already in occupation … intelligent animal life I mean, capable of using tools, building things, and organizing. If there was, we were under orders to scoot out of there without landing, find fuel somewhere else in that system, and let a later party attempt to set up friendly relations; the LRF did not want to repeat the horrible mistake that had been made with Mars.

But the electro-magnetic spectrum showed nothing at all, from gamma radiation right up to the longest radio wavelengths. If there were people down there, they didn’t use radio and they didn’t show city lights and they didn’t have atomic power. Nor did they have aircraft, nor roads, nor traffic on the surface of their oceans, nor anything that looked like cities. So we moved down just outside the atmosphere in an “orange slice” pole-to-pole orbit that let us patrol the whole surface, a new sector each half turn.

Then we searched visually, by photography, and by radar. We didn’t miss anything more conspicuous than a beaver dam, I’m sure. No cities, no houses, no roads, no bridges, no ships, nobody home; Oh, animals, surely-we could see herds gazing on the plains and we got lesser glimpses of other things. But it looked like a squatter’s paradise.

The Captain sent a dispatch: “I am preparing to land.”

I promptly volunteered for the reconnaissance party. First I braced my uncle Major Lucas to let me join his guard. He told me to go roll my hoop. “If you think I have any use for an untrained recruit, you’re crazier than you apparently think I am. If you wanted to soldier, you should have thought of it as soon as we torched off.”

“But you’ve got men from all the departments in your guard.”

“Every one of ‘em trained soldiers. Seriously, Tom, I can’t afford it. I need men who will protect me; not somebody so green I’ll have to protect him. Sorry.”

So I tackled Harry Gates to let me join the scientific party the ship’s guard would protect. He said, “Certainly, why not? Plenty of dirty work that my gang of prima donnas won’t want to do. You can start by checking this inventory.”

So I checked while he counted. Presently he said, “How does it feel to be a little green man in a flying saucer?”

“What?”

“An oofoe. We’re an oofoe, do you realize that?”

I finally understood him-an U.F.O., an “unidentified flying object.” There were accounts of the U.F.O. hysteria in all the histories of space flight. “I suppose we are an U.F.O., sort of.”

“It’s exactly what we are. The U.F.O.’s were survey ships, just as we are. They looked us over, didn’t like what they saw, and went away. If they hadn’t found Earth crawling with hostile natives, they would have landed and set up housekeeping, just as we are going to do.”

“Harry, do you really believe the U.F.O.’s were anything but imagination or mistakes in reporting? I thought that theory was exploded long ago.”

“Take another look at the evidence, Tom. There was something going on up in our sky shortly before we took up space jumping ourselves. Sure, most of the reports were phonies. But some weren’t. You have to believe evidence when you have it in front of you, or else the universe is just too fantastic. Surely you don’t think that human beings are the only ones who ever built star ships?”

“Well … maybe not. But if somebody else has, why haven’t they visited us long ago?”

“Simple arithmetic, pal; it’s a big universe and we’re just one small corner of it. Or maybe they did. That’s my own notion; they surveyed us and Earth wasn’t what they wanted-maybe us, maybe the climate. So the U.F.O.’s went away.” He considered it. “Maybe they landed just long enough to fuel.”

That was all I got out of my tenure as a member of the scientific party; when Harry submitted my name an his list, the Captain drew a line through it. “No special communicators will leave the ship.”

That settled it; the Captain had a will of iron. Van got to go, as his brother had been killed in an accident while we were at peak-so I called Pat and told him about Van and suggested that Pat drop dead. He didn’t see anything funny in it.

The Elsie landed in ocean comfortably deep, then they used the auxiliaries to bring her close to the shore. She floated high out of the water, as two-thirds of her tanks were empty, burned up, the water completely disintegrated in boosting us first up to the speed of light, then backing us down again. The engineers were already overhauling her torch before we reached final anchorage. So far as I know, none of them volunteered for the landing party; I think that to most of the engineers the stop on Constance was just a chance to pick up more boost mass and take care of repairs and overhauls they had been unable to do while underway. They didn’t care where they were or where they were going so long as the torch worked and all the machinery ticked. Dr. Devereaux told me that the Staff Metallurgist had been out to Pluto six times and had never set foot on any planet but Earth.

“Is that normal?” I asked, thinking how fussy Doc had been about everybody else, including me. “For his breed of cat, it’s robust mental health. Any other breed I would lock up and feed through the

keyhole.”

Sam Rojas was as annoyed as I was at the discrimination against us telepaths; he had counted on planting his feet on strange soil, like Balboa and Columbus and Lundy. He came around to see me about it. “Tom, are you going to stand for it?”

“Well, I don’t want to-but what can we do?

“I’ve been talking to some of the others. It’s simple. We don’t.” “We don’t what?”

“Mmm … we just don’t. Tom, ever since we slowed down, I’ve detected a falling off in my telepathic ability. It seems to be affecting all of us-those I’ve talked to. How about yourself?”

“Why, I haven’t-”

“Think hard,” he interrupted. “Surely you’ve noticed it. Why, I doubt if I could raise my twin right now. It must have something to do with where we are … maybe there is something odd about the radiation of Tau Ceti, or something. Or maybe it comes from Connie. Who knows? And, for that matter, who can check on us?”

I began to get the pattern. I didn’t answer, because it was a tempting idea.

“If we can’t communicate,” he went on, “we ought to be useful for something else … like the landing party, for instance. Once we are out of range of this mysterious influence probably we would be able to make our reports back to Earth all right. Or maybe it would turn out that some of the girls who didn’t want to go with the landing party could manage to get in touch with Earth and carry the reports … provided us freaks weren’t discriminated against.”

“It’s an idea,” I admitted.

“Think about it. You’ll find your special talent getting weaker and weaker. Me, I’m stone deaf already.” He went away.

I toyed with the idea. I knew the Captain would recognize a strike when he saw one … but what could he do? Call us all liars and hang us by our thumbs until we gave in? How could he be certain that we hadn’t all gone sour as m-r’s? The answer was that he could not be certain; nobody but a mind reader knows what it feels like, nobody but the mind reader himself can tell that he is doing it. When we slipped out of contact at peak he hadn’t doubted us, he had just accepted it. He would have to accept it now, no matter what he thought.

For he had to have us; we were indispensable.

Dad used to he arbitration representative in his guild local; I remembered his saying once that the only strike worth calling was one in which the workers were so badly needed that the strike would be won before a walkout. That was the pinch we had the Captain in; he had to have us. No strikebreakers closer than eleven light-years. He wouldn’t dare get rough with us.

Except that any one of us could break the strike. Let’s see-Van was out of it and so was Cas Warner; they were no longer telepaired, their twins were dead. Pru’s sister Patience was still alive, but that telepair had never been mended after peak-her sister had refused the risky drugs and hypnosis routine and they never got back into rapport. Miss Gamma did not count, because the ships her two sisters were in were still peaking, so we were cut off from sidewise relay back to Earth until one of them decelerated. Not counting Sam and myself, whom did that leave? And could they be counted on? There was Rupe, Gloria, Anna, and Dusty … and Unc of course. And Mei-Ling.

Yes, they were solid. Making us feel that we were freaks when we first came aboard had consolidated us, Even if one or two didn’t feel right about it, nobody would let the others down. Not even Mei-Ling who was married to an outsider. It would work. If Sam could line them up.

I wanted to go dirtside the worst way…and maybe this was the worst way, but I still wanted to.

Just the same, there was something sneaky about it, like a kid spending his Sunday School collection

money.

Sam had until noon the next day to get it lined up, because we were down to one watch a day. A continuous communication watch was not necessary and them was more ship’s work to do now that we were getting ready to explore. I tabled the matter and went down to tag the rats that would he used by the scientific survey.

But I did not have to wait until the following day; Unc called us together that evening and we crowded into his room-all but Miss Gamma and Van and Pru and Cas. Unc looked around, looking horse-faced and sad, and said he was sorry we couldn’t all sit down but he wouldn’t keep us long. Then he started a meandering speech about how he thought of us all as his children and he had grown to love us and we would always be his children, no matter what. Then he started talking about the dignity of being a human being.

“A man pays his bills, keeps himself clean, respects other people, and keeps his word. He gets no credit for this; he has to do this much just to stay even with himself. A ticket to heaven comes higher.”

He paused and added, “Especially he keeps his promises.” He looked around and added, “That’s all I had to say. Oh, I might as well make one announcement while we are here. Rupe has had to shift the watch list around a little bit.” He picked out Sam Rojas with his eyes. “Sam, I want you to take next watch, tomorrow noon. Will you do it?”

There wasn’t a sound for about three heart heats. Then Sam said slowly, “Why, I guess so, Unc, if you want me to.”

“I’d he much obliged, Sam. One way and another, I don’t want to put anybody else on that watch…and I wouldn’t feel like standing it myself if you couldn’t do it. I guess I would just have to tell the Captain there wasn’t anybody available. So I’m pleased that you’ll do it.”

“Uh, why, sure, Unc. Don’t worry about it,” And that was the end of the strike.

Unc didn’t let us go quite yet. “I thought I’d tell you about the change in the watch list while I had you here and save Rupe from having to take it around to have you initial it. But I called you together to ask you about something else. The landing party will be leaving the ship before long. Nice as Constance looks, I understand that it will he risky … diseases that we don’t know about; animals that might turn out to he deadly in ways we didn’t expect, almost anything. It occurred to me that we might be able to help. We could send one of us with the landing party and keep one of us on watch in the ship-and we could arrange for their telepairs to relay by telephone. That way we’d always be in touch with the landing party, even if radios broke down or no matter what. It would be a lot of extra work and no glory…but it would be worth it if it saved the life of one shipmate.”

Sam said suddenly, “Who are you figuring on to go with the landing party, Unc?”

“Why, I don’t know. It isn’t expected of us and we don’t rate special-hazard pay, so I wouldn’t feel like ordering anybody-I doubt if the Captain would back me up. But I was hoping for enough volunteers so that we could rotate the dirtside watch.” He blinked and looked unsure of himself. “But nobody is expected to volunteer. I guess you had better let me know privately. “

He didn’t have to wait; we all volunteered. Even Mei-Ling did and then got mad and cried when Unc pointed out gently that she had better have her husband’s consent-which she wasn’t going to get; the Travers family was expecting a third.

Unc tackled the Captain the next morning. I wanted to hang around and hear the outcome but there was too much work to do. I was surprised, a half hour later, to be paged by speaker down in the lab; I

washed my hands and hurried up to the Old Man’s cabin.

Unc was there, looking glum, and the Captain was looking stern. I tried to call Unc on the Sugar-Pie band, to find out where things stood, but for once he ignored me. The Captain looked at me coldly and said, “Bartlett, Mr. McNeil has proposed a plan whereby the people in your department want to help out in the dirtside survey. I’ll tell you right off that I have turned it down. The offer is appreciated-but I have no more intention of risking people in your special category in such duty than I would approve of modifying the ship’s torch to sterilize the dinner dishes. First things first!”

He drummed on his desk. “Nevertheless, the suggestion has merit. I won’t risk your whole department …but I might risk one special communicator to increase the safeguards for the landing party. Now it occurred in me that we have one sidewise pair right in this ship, without having to relay through Earth. You and Mr. McNeil. Well? What have you to say?”

I started to say, “Sure!”-then thought frantically. If I got to go after all that had happened, Sam was going to take a very dark view of it…and so was everybody. They might think I had framed it.

“Well? Speak up!”

Doggone, no matter what they thought, it wasn’t a thing you could refuse. “Captain, you know perfectly well I volunteered for the landing party several days ago.”

“So you did. All right, I’ll take your consent for granted. But you misunderstood me. You aren’t going; that will he Mr. McNeil’s job. You’ll stay here and keep in touch with him.”

I was so surprised that I almost missed the next thing the Captain said. I shot a remark to Unc privately: (“What’s this, Unc? Don’t you know that all of them will think you swindled them?”)

This time he answered me, distress in his voice: “I know it, son. He took me by surprise.” (“Well, what are you going to do?”)

“I don’t know. I’m wrong both ways.”

Sugar Pie suddenly cut in with, “Hey! What are you two fussing about?” Unc said gently: “Go away, honey. This is man talk.”

“Well!” But she didn’t interrupt again. Perhaps she listened.

The Captain was saying: “-in any doubly-manned position, we will never risk the younger when the older can serve.

That is standard and applies as much to Captain Urqhardt and myself as it does to any other two. The mission comes first. Bartlett, your expected usefulness is at least forty years longer than that of Mr. McNeil. Therefore he must be preferred for a risk task. Very well, gentlemen. You’ll receive instructions later.”

(“Unc-what are you going to tell Sam? Maybe you agree-I don’t!”) “Don’t joggle my elbow, son.” He went on aloud: “No, Captain.”

The Captain stared. “Why, you old scoundrel! Are you that fond of your skin?”

Unc faced him right back. “It’s the only one I have, Captain. But that doesn’t have anything to do with the case. And maybe you were a little hasty in calling me names.”

“Eh?” The Captain turned red. “I’m sorry, McNeil. I take that back. But I think you owe me an explanation for your attitude.”

“I’m going to give it, sir. We’re old men, both of us. I can get along without setting foot on this planet

and so can you. But it looks different to young people. You know perfectly well that my people volunteered for the landing party not because they are angels, not scientists, not philanthropists…but because they are aching to go ashore. You know that; you told me as much, not ten minutes ago. If you are honest with yourself, you know that most of these children would never have signed up for this trip if they had suspected that they were to be locked up, never permitted to have what they call an “adventure.’ They didn’t sign up for money; they signed up for the far horizons. Now you rob them of their reasonable expectations.”

The Captain looked grim. He clenched end unclenched a fist, then said, “There may be something in what you say. But I must make the decisions; I can’t delegate that. My decision stands. You go and Bartlett stays.”

I said: (“Tell him he won’t get a darn’ message through!”)

Unc didn’t answer me. “I’m afraid not, Captain. This is a volunteer job…and I’m not volunteering.” The Captain said slowly, “I’m not sure that volunteering is necessary. My authority to define a man’s

duty is broad. I rather think you are refusing duty.”

“Not so; Captain. I didn’t say I wouldn’t take your orders; I just said I was not volunteering. But I’d ask for written orders, I think, and I would endorse them: ‘Accepted under protest,’ and ask to have a copy transmitted to the Foundation. I don’t volunteer.”

“But-confound it, man! You volunteered with the rest. That’s what you came in here for. And I picked you.”

Unc shook his head. “Not quite, Captain. We volunteered as a group. You turned us down as a group. If I gave you the impression that I was volunteering, any other way, I am sorry … but that’s how it is. Now if you will excuse me, sir, I’ll go back and tell my people you won’t have us.”

The Captain turned pink again. Then he suddenly started to roar with laughter. He jumped up and put his arm around Unc’s narrow shoulders. “You old scoundrel! You are an old scoundrel, a mutinous black-hearted scoundrel. You make me long for the days of bread-and-water and the rope’s end. Now sit back down and we’ll work this out. Bartlett, you can go,”

I left, reluctantly, and then stayed away from the other freaks because I didn’t want to answer questions. But Unc was thoughtful; he called me, mind to mind, as soon as he was out of the Captain’s cabin and told me the upshot. It was a compromise. He and I and Rupe and Sam would rotate, with the first trick (considered to be the most dangerous) to be his. The girls would take the shipside watch, with Dusty classed with them because of age. But a bone was thrown to them: once medicine and research classed the planet as safe, they would be allowed sightseeing, one at a time. “I had to twist his arm on that part,” Unc admitted, “but he agreed.”

Then it turned out to be an anticlimax; Connie was about as dangerous as Kansas. Before any human went outside the ship other than encased in a quarantine suit we exposed rats and canaries and hamsters to natural atmosphere; they loved it. When the first party went ashore, still in quarantine suits but breathing Connie’s air after it had passed through electrostatic precipitators, two more experimental animals went with them-Bernhard van Houten and Percival the Pig.

Van had been down in the dumps ever since his twin was killed; he volunteered and I think Dr. Devereaux urged the Captain to let him. Somebody had to do it; you can make all the microscopic and chemical tests you like-the day comes when a living man has to expose his. skin to a planet to find out if it is friendly. As Dr. Babcock says, eventually you must climb the tree. So Van went ashore without a quarantine suit, wearing shorts and shirt and shoes and looking like a scoutmaster.

Percival the Pig did not volunteer, but he thought it was a picnic. He was penned in natural bush and allowed to forage, eating anything from Connie’s soil that he thought was fit to eat. A pig has advantages as an experimental animal; he eats anything, just as rats and men do, and I understand that his metabolism is much like ours-pigs even catch many of the same diseases. If Percival prospered, it was almost certain that we would, particularly as Percy had not been given the inoculations that we had, not even the wide-spectrum G.A.R. serum which is supposed to give some protection even against diseases mankind has never encountered before.

Percy got fat, eating anything and drinking brook water, Van got a sunburn and then tanned. Both were healthy and the pioneer party took off their quarantine suits. Then almost everybody (even Percy) came down with a three-day fever and a touch of diarrhea, but everybody recovered and nobody caught it twice.

They rotated after that and all but Uncle Steve and Harry and certain ones whom they picked swapped with someone in the ship. Half of the second party were inoculated with serum made from the blood of those who bad recovered from three-day fever; most of these did not catch it. But the ones who returned were not allowed back in the ship at once; they were quarantined on a temporary deck rigged above the top bulge of the Elsie.

I don’t mean to say that the planet was just like a city park-you can get killed, even in Kansas. There was a big, lizardlike carnivore who was no bargain. One of those got Lefty Gomez the first time our people ran into one and the beast would have killed at least two more if Lefty had been the kind of man who insists on living forever. I would never have figured Lefty as a hero-he was assistant pastry cook and dry-stores keeper back in the ship-but Uncle Steve says that ultimate courage is the commonest human virtue and that seven out of ten are Medal of Honor men, given the circumstances.

Maybe so. I must be one of the other three. I don’t think I would have stood my ground and kept poking away at the thing’s eyes, armed only with a campfire spit.

But tyrannosaurus ceti was not dangerous enough to give the planet a down check, once we knew he was there and what he was. Any big cat would have been much more dangerous, because cats are smart and he was stupid. You had to shoot first, but an explosive bullet made him lie down and be a rug. He had no real defense against men and someday men would exterminate him.

The shore party camped within sight of the ship on the edge of beautiful Babcock Bay, where we were anchored. The two helicopters patrolled each day, always together so that one could rescue the men in the other if it went down, and never more than a few hundred miles from base. Patrols on foot never went more than ten miles from base; we weren’t trying to conquer the country, but simply trying to find out if men could conquer and hold it. They could…at least around Babcock Bay…and where men can get a toe hold they usually hang on.

My turn did not come until the fourth rotation and by then they were even letting women go ashore; the worry part was over.

The oddest thing about being outdoors was the sensation of weather; I had been in air-conditioning for two years and I had forgotten rain and wind and sunshine in your face. Aboard the Elsie the engineer on watch used to cycle the temperature and humidity and ozone content on a random schedule, which was supposed to be good for our metabolisms. But it wasn’t weather; it was more like kissing your sister.

The first drop of rain I felt startled me; I didn’t know what it was. Then I was running up and down and dancing like a kid and trying to catch it in my mouth. It was rain, real rain and it was wonderful!

I couldn’t sleep that night. A breeze on my face and the sounds of others sleeping around me and the

distant noises of live things outside our snooper fences and the lack of perfect darkness all kept me awake. A ship is alive, too, and has its noises, but they are different from those outdoors; a planet is alive in another way.

I got up quietly and tip-toed outside. In front of the men’s quarters about fifty feet away I could see the guardsman on watch. He did not notice me, as he had his head bent over dials and displays from the inner and outer fences and from the screen over us. I did not want to talk, so I went around behind the hut, out of sight of even the dim light from his instruments. Then I stopped and looked up.

It was the first good view of the sky I had had since we had left Earth and the night was clear. I stood there, dazzled and a little drunk from it.

Then I started trying to pick out constellations.

It was not hard; eleven light-years is just down the street for most stars. The Dipper was overhead, looking a little more battered than it does from Earth but perfectly recognizable. Orion blazed near the horizon ahead of me but Procyon had moved over a long way and Sirius was not even in sight-skidded below the skyline, probably, for Sirius is even closer to the Earth than is Tau Ceti and our position would shift him right across the sky. I tried to do a spherical triangle backwards in my head to figure where to look for Sirius and got dizzy and gave up.

Then I tried to find Sol. I knew where he would be, in Boötes, between Arcturus and Virgo-but I had to find Boötes, before I could look for Father Sol.

Boötes was behind me, as close to the skyline as Orion was on the other side. Arcturus had shifted a little and spoiled the club shape of Bootes but there was no doubt in my mind.

There it was! A yellow-white star, the color of Capella, but dimmer, about second magnitude, which was right, both position and magnitude. Besides, it had to be the Sun, because there hadn’t been any star that bright in that location when Pat and I were studying for our astrogation merit badge. It was the Sun.

I stared at it, in a thoughtful melancholy, warm rather than sad. I wondered what Pat was doing? Walking the baby, maybe. Or maybe not; I couldn’t remember what the Greenwich ought to be. There he was, thirty years old and a couple of kids, the best part of his life behind him… and here I was, just old enough to be finishing my sophomore year in college if I were home.

No, I wouldn’t be; I’d be Pat’s age. But I wasn’t thirty.

I cheered up and decided that I had the best break after all, even if it had seemed not so good at first. I sighed and walled around a bit, not worrying, for not even one of those lizard brutes could get close to our night defenses without bringing thunder and lightning down around his ears. If he had ears. Percy’s pen was not far in that rear direction; he heard me and came to his fence, so I walked up and scratched his snout. “Nice place, eh, boy?” I was thinking that when the Elsie did get home-and I no longer believed Uncle Steve’s dire predictions-when I did get back, I would still be in my early twenties, just a good age to emigrate. And Connie looked like a fine place to come back to.

Percy answered with a snuffling grunt which I interpreted to mean: “You didn’t bring me anything to eat? A fine way to treat a pal!” Percy and I were old friends; aboard ship I fed him, along with his brothers and the hamsters and the rats.

“Percy, you’re a pig.”

He did not argue but continued to snuffle into my empty hand. I was thinking that eleven light-years wasn’t far; it was about right. The stars were still familiar.

Presently Percy got tired of it and so did I, so I wiped my hand on my pants and went back to bed.

XIII IRRELEVANT RELATIONS

Beyond Beta Hydri: I ought to bring this up to date, or else throw it away. I hardly ever have time to write now, since we are so short handed. Whatever it was we picked up on Constance-or, possibly, caught from improperly fumigated stores-has left us with more than enough to do, especially in my department. There are only six left now to handle all the traffic, Unc, myself, Mei-Ling, Anna, Gloria, and Sam. Dusty lived through it but he is out of touch, apparently permanently. His brother had no kids for a secondary team and they just slipped apart on the last peak and never matched in again.

I am dependent on my great-niece Kathleen and on Molly, her mother. Pat and I can still talk, but only with their help; if we try it alone, it’s like trying to make yourself understood in a machine shop. You know the other fellow is saying something but the more you strain the less you hear. Pat is fifty-four, now that we have peaked on this leg; we just don’t have anything in common. Since Maude’s death he isn’t interested in anything but business-and I am not interested in that.

Unc is the only one who doesn’t feel his original telepartner slipping away. Celestine is forty-two now; they are coming together instead of separating. I still call her “Sugar Pie,” just to hear her chuckle. It is hard to realize that she is twice my age; she ought to have braids and a missing front tooth.

All in all, we lost thirty-two people in the Plague. I had it and got well. Doe Devereaux didn’t get well and neither did Prudence nor Rupe. We have to fill in and act as if the others had never been with us. Mei-Ling’s baby died and for a while we thought we were going to lose Mei-Ling, but now she takes her watch and does her work and even laughs.

I guess the one we all miss the most is Mama O’Toole.

What else of importance has happened? Well, what can happen in a ship? Nothing. Beta Hydri was a washout. Not only nothing resembling an Earth-type planet, but no oceans-no water oceans, I mean; it was a choice for fuel between ammonia and methane, and the Chief Engineer and the Captain had long worried conferences before they settled for ammonia. Theoretically the Elsie will burn anything; give her mass-converter something to chew on and the old “e equals mc2” gets to work; the torch spits the mass out as radiation at the speed of light and neutrons at almost the speed of light. But while the converter does not care, all of the torch’s auxiliary equipment is built to handle fluid, preferably water.

We had a choice between ammonia, already liquid, and an outer planet that was mostly ice, but ice not much warmer than absolute zero. So they crossed their fingers, put her down in an ocean of ammonia, and filled up the old girl’s tanks. The planet we named Inferno and then called it nastier names. We had to sit there four days at two gravities and it was cold, even with the ship’s air heaters going full blast.

The Beta Hydri system is one I am not going back to; creatures with other metabolisms can have it and welcome. The only one who was pleased was Harry Gates, because the planetary arrangements followed Bode’s Law. I wouldn’t care if they had been in Vee formation.

The only other thing that sticks in my mind was (of all things!) political trouble. Our last peak started just as that war broke out between the Afro-European Federation and Estados Unidos de Sud. It shouldn’t have meant anything to us-it did not, to most of us, or at least we kept our sympathies to ourselves. But Mr. Roch, our Chief Engineer, is from the Federation and his first assistant was born in Buenos Aires. When Buenos Aires got it, probably including some of Mr. Regato’s relatives, he blamed his boss personally. Silly, but what can you expect?

After that, the Captain gave orders that he would check Earthside news before it was printed and he reminded us of the special restrictions on communicators in re security of communications. I think I would have been bright enough to submit that dispatch to the Captain before printing it, but I can’t be

sure. We’d had always had free press in the Elsie.

The only thing that got us out of that mess was that we peaked right after. When we came out of peak, fourteen years had passed and the latest political line-up had Argentina friends with her former enemies and on the outs with the rest of South America. After a while Mr. Roch and Mr. Regato were back playing chess together, just as if the Captain had never had to restrict them to keep them from each other’s throats.

Everything that happens back on Earth is a little unreal to me, even though we continue to get the news when we are not at peak. You get your mind adjusted to a new situation; the Elsie goes through a

peak … years have passed and everything has changed. They are calling the Planetary League the “United System” now and they say that the new constitution makes war impossible.

It’s still the Planetary League to me-and it was supposed to make war impossible, too. I wonder what they changed besides the names?

Half of the news I don’t understand. Kathleen tells me that her class has pooled their eveners to buy a Fardie for their school as a graduation present and that they are going to outswing it for the first time at the commencement exercises-then she had to hurry away because she had been co-opted in charge. That was just last watch. Now what is a “Fardie” and what was wrong with it where it was?

The technical news that reaches us I don’t understand, either, but at least I know why and usually somebody aboard does understand it. The relativists are excited about stuff coming in which is so technical that it has to be retransmitted and confirmed before it is released-this with Janet Meers standing behind you and trying to snatch spools out of the recorder. Mr. O’Toole gets excited too, only the way he shows it is for the end of his nose to get pink. Dr. Babcock never shows excitement, but he missed coming in for meals two days running after I copied a monograph called “Sumner on Certain Aspects of Irrelevance.” At the end of that time I sent one back to LRF which Dr. Babcock had written. It was just as crammed with indigestible mathematics, but I gathered that Dr. Babcock was politely calling Professor Sumner a fool.

Janet Meers tried to explain it to me, but all that I got out of it was that the concept of simultaneity was forcing a complete new look at physics.

“Up to now,” she told me, “we’ve concentrated on the relative aspects of the space-time continuum. But what you m-r people do is irrelevant to space-time. Without time there is no space; without space there can be no time. Without space-time there can be no conservation of energy-mass. Heavens, there’s nothing. It has driven some of the old-timers out of their minds. But now we are beginning to see how you people may possibly fit into physics-the new physics, I mean; it’s all changed.”

I had had enough trouble with the old-style physics; having to learn a new one made my head ache just to think about it. “What use is it?” I asked.

She looked shocked. “Physics doesn’t have to have any use. It just is.”

“Well, I don’t know. The old physics was useful. Take the torch that drives us, for example-” “Oh, that! That’s not physics, that’s just engineering”-as if I had mentioned something faintly

scandalous.

I will never understand Janet and perhaps it is just as well that she promised to “be a sister to me.” She said that she did not mind my being younger than she was, but that she did not think she could look up to a man who could not solve a fourth-degree function in his head. “… and a wife should always look up to her husband, don’t you think?”

We were making the boosts at 1.5 gravity now. What with slippage, it cuts each up-boost and each

down-boost to about four months, S-time, even though the jumps are longer, During boost I weigh 220 pounds and I’ve started wearing arch supports, but 50% extra weight is all right and is probably good for us, since it is too easy not to get enough exercise aboard ship.

The LRF has stopped using the drug stuff to help communications at peak, which would have pleased Dr. Devereaux since he disapproved of it so. Now your telepartner patches in with the help of hypnosis and suggestion alone, or you don’t patch. Kathleen managed to cross the last peak with me that way, but I can see that we are going to lose communication teams all through the fleet, especially those who have not managed to set up tertiary telepartners. I don’t knew where my own team would be without Kathleen. In the soup, I guess. As it is, the Niña and the Henry Hudson are each down to two teams and the other four ships still in contact with Earth are not much better off. We are probably in the best shape, although we don’t get much fleet news since Miss Gamma fell out of step with her sisters-or lost them, as the case may be; the Santa Maria is listed as “missing” but the Marco Polo is simply carried as “out of contact” as she was approaching peak when last heard from and won’t be out of it for several Greenwich years.

We are headed now for a little G-type star so dim from Earth that it doesn’t rate a name, nor even a Greek-letter constellation designation, but just a catalog number. From Earth it lies in Phoenix, between Hydrus the Sea Serpent and Cetus the Whale. (“Hydrus,” not “Hydra”-Hydra is six R.A. hours over and farther north.) Unc called it a “Whistle Stop” so that is what we dubbed it, because you can’t reel off a Palomar Catalog number each time you speak of where you are going. No doubt it will get an impressive name if it turns out to have a planet half as good as Connie. Incidentally, Connie will he colonized in spite of the epidemic we may have picked up there; the first shiploads are on their way. Whatever the bug was that bit us (and it very possibly may have come from Earth), it is no worse than half a dozen other diseases men have had and have fought back at and licked. At least, that is the official view and the pioneer ships are going on the assumption that they will probably catch it and have to conquer it.

Personally, I figure that one way of dying is as dangerous as another; when you’re dead, you’re dead- even if you die from “nothing serious.” And the Plague, bad as it was, didn’t kill me.

“Whistle Stop” wasn’t worth a stop. We’re on our way to Beta Ceti, sixty-three light-years from Earth. I wish Dusty were still hooked up to transmit pictures; I would like one of my great-grandniece Vicky.

I know what she looks like-carroty red hair, freckles across her nose, green eyes, a big mouth and braces on her teeth. At present she is sporting a black eye as well, picked up at school when somebody called her a freak and she resented it-I would love to have seen that fight! Oh, I know what she looks like but I’d like a picture anyhow.

It is funny how our family has run to girls. No, when I add it up, counting all descendants of my sisters as well as my brother, it comes out about even. But Maude and Pat had two girls and no boys, and I went away and did not get married, so the Bartlett name has died out,

I certainly would like to have a picture of Vicky. I know she is homely, but I’ll bet she is cute, too-the kind of tomboy who always has scabs on her knees because she won’t play the ladylike games. She generally hangs around for a while after we are through transmitting and we talk. Probably she is just being polite, for she obviously thinks of me as being as old as her great-grandfather Bartlett even though her mother has told her that I am not. I suppose it depends on where you sit. I ought to be in my last year in college now, but she knows that I am Pat’s twin.

If she wants to put a long white beard on me, that is all right with me, for the sake of her company. She was in a hurry this morning but nice about it. “Will you excuse me, please, Uncle Tom? I’ve got to go study for a quiz in algebra.”

(“Realio trulio?”) I said.

“Realio trulio, cross my heart. I’d like to stay.” (“Run along, Freckle Face. Say hello to the folks.”) “ Bye! I’ll call you a little early tomorrow.”

She really is a nice child.

XIV ELYSIA

Beta Ceti is a big star in the main spectral sequence, almost big enough to be classed as a giant-a small giant, thirty-seven times as bright as the Sun. It looks so bright from Earth that it has a name of its own, Deneb Kaitos, but we never call it that because “Deneb” brings to mind the other Deneb, Alpha Cygni, which is a real giant in a different part of the sky almost sixteen hundred light-years away.

Since Beta Ceti is so much brighter than the Sun, the planet we had been looking for, if it existed at all, had to be nearly six hundred million miles out, farther than Jupiter is from Sol.

We’ve found one, at five hundred and eighty million miles, which is close enough. Better yet, it is the smallest planet in a system that seems to run to outsizes; the one in the next track beyond is bigger than Jupiter.

I scheduled most of the routine skyside survey of Elysia, under Harry Gates’ absentminded supervision. Harry is as eager as a fox terrier to finish his magnum opus before he has to knock off and take charge of the ground survey. He wants to transmit it back Earthside and preserve his name in science’s hall of fame-not that he puts it that way, for Harry isn’t stuck up; nevertheless, he thinks he has worked out a cosmogony for solar systems which includes Bode’s Law. He says that if he is right, any star in the main spectral sequence will have planets.

Maybe … I would not know. But I can’t see what use a star is without planets and I don’t believe all this complicated universe got here by accident. Planets are meant to be used.

Acting as Harry’s Man Friday has not been difficult. All I had to do was to dig the records of the preliminary survey of Connie out of the microfilms and write up similar schedules for Elysia, modified to allow for our loss of personnel. Everybody was eager to help, because (so far as we know) we are the only ship to draw a lucky number twice and only one of four to hit even once. But we are down now, water-borne, and waiting for medicine to okay Elysia for ground survey; I’m not quite so rushed. I tried to get in touch with Vicky and just chat this evening. But it happens to be evening back home, too, and Vicky is out on a date and politely put me off.

Vicky grew up some when we peaked this last jump; she now takes notice of boys and does not have as much time for her ancient uncle. (“Is it George?”) I asked when she wanted to know if my call was important.

“Well, if you must know, it is George!” she blurted out. (“Don’t get excited, Freckle Face,”) I answered. (“I just asked.”) “Well, I told you.”

(“Sure, sure. Have a good time, hon, and don’t stay out too late.”) “You sound just like Daddy.”

I suppose I did. The fact is I don’t have much use for George, although I have never seen him, never will, and don’t know much about him, except that Vicky says that be is “the tenth power” and “first with the worst” in spite of being “ruffily around the round” if I knew what she meant, but she would equalize that.

I didn’t know what she meant, but I interpreted it to mean approval slightly qualified and that she expected him to be perfect, or “ricketty all through” when she got through making him over. I suspect him of being the kind of pimply-faced, ignorant young bore that I used to be myself and have always disliked-something about like Dusty Rhodes at the present without Dusty’s amazing mind.

This sounds as if I were jealous of a boy I’ll never see over a girl I have never seen, but that is ridiculous. My interest is fatherly, or big-brotherly, even though I am effectively no relation to her; i.e., my parents were two of her sixteen great-great-grandparents-a relationship so distant that most people aren’t even aware of relatives of that remote degree.

Or maybe Van’s wild theory has something to it and we are all getting to be cranky old men-just our bodies are staying young. But that is silly. Even though seventy-odd Greenwich years have passed, it has been less than four for me since we left Earth. My true time is hunger and sleep; I’ve slept about fourteen hundred times in the Elsie and eaten three meals and a snack or two for each sleep. That is four years, not seventy.

No, I’m just disappointed that on my first free evening in a couple of weeks I have nothing better to do than write in my diary. But, speaking of sleep, I had better get some; the first party will go ashore tomorrow, if medicine approves, and I will be busy. I won’t be on it but there is plenty to do to get them off.

We are a sorry mess. I don’t know what we can do now.

I had better begin at the beginning. Elysia checked out in all ways on preliminary survey-breathable atmosphere, climate within Earth limits and apparently less extreme; a water, oxygen and carbon dioxide life cycle; no unusual hazards. No signs of intelligent life, of course, or we would have skipped it. It is a watery world even more than Terra is, with over 90% oceans and there was talk of naming it “Aquaria” instead of Elysia, but somebody pointed out that there was no sense in picking a name which might make it unattractive to colonists when there seemed to be nearly as much usable land as Earth had.

So we cuddled up to an island as big as Madagascar-almost a continent for Elysia-with the idea that we could cover the whole island in the detailed survey and be able to report that a colony could settle there as fast as LRF could send a ship-we knew that Connie was already settled and we wanted to get this one settled and make it a clean sweep for the Elsie.

I gave Percy a pat and told him to size up the lay of the land and to let me know if he found any lady pigs. Uncle Lucas took the guard ashore and the science party followed the same day. It was clear that Elysia was going to be no more of a problem than Connie had been and almost as big a prize-except for the remote possibility of exotic infection we could not handle.

That was two weeks ago.

It started out routine as breakfast. Percy and the other experimental animals flourished on an Elysian diet; Van failed to catch anything worse than an itch and presently he was trying Elysian food himself- there were awkward looking four-winged birds which broiled nicely; Van said they reminded him of roast turkey with an overtone of cantaloupe. But Percy the Pig would not touch some fish that were caught and the rats that did eat them died, so sea food was put off until further investigation could be made. The fish did not look like ours; they were flat the wrong way, like a flounder, and they had tendrils something like a catfish which raveled on the ends instead of being spiny. Harry Gates was of the opinion that they were feeling organs and possibly manipulative as well.

The island had nothing like the big-mouthed carnivorous lizards that got Lefty Gomez. However, there was no telling what might be on other islands, since the land masses were so detached that totally different lines of evolution might have been followed in each island group. Our report was going to recommend that Devereaux Island be settled first, then investigate the others cautiously.

I was due to go ashore on third rotation, Unc having taken the first week, then a week of rest, and now would take shipside watch while I linked with him from ashore. But at the last minute I agreed to swap, as Anna was anxious to go.

I did not want to swap, but I had been running the department’s watch list since Rupe’s death and it would have been awkward to refuse. Gloria was going, too, since her husband was on that rotation, but Gloria did not count as her telepartner was on vacation back Earthside.

When they left, I was on top of the Elsie glumly watching them get into the boats. There was a “monkey island” deck temporarily rigged up there, outside the airlock; it was a good place to watch the boats being loaded at the cargo ports lower down. Engineering had completed inspection and overhaul and had about finished filling the boost-mass tanks; the Elsie was low in the water and the cargo ports were not more than ten feet above waterline. It made loading convenient; at the time we put the first party ashore the tanks were empty and the boats had to be lowered nearly a hundred feet and passengers had to go down rope ladders-not easy for people afraid of heights, as so many are. But it was a cinch that day.

The airlock was only large enough for people; anything bigger had to go through the cargo ports. It was possible to rig the cargo ports as airlocks and we had done so on Inferno around Beta Hydri, but when the air was okay we just used them as doors. They were at the cargo deck, underneath the mess deck and over the auxiliary machinery spaces; our three boats and the two helicopters were carried just inside on that deck. The boats could be swung out on gooseneck davits from where they nested but the helicopters had to be hooked onto boat falls, swung out, then a second set of falls hooked to them from the monkey island above, by which a helicopter could be scooted up the Elsie’s curved side and onto the temporary top deck, where her jet rotors would be attached.

Mr. Regato cursed the arrangement every time we used it, “Mechanical buffoonery!” was his name for it. “I’ve never seen a ship’s architect who wasn’t happy as soon as he had a pretty picture. He never stops to think that some poor fool is going to have to use his pretty picture.”

As may be, the arrangement did let the helis be unloaded with a minimum of special machinery to get out of order-which, I understand, was a prime purpose in refitting the ships for the Project. But that day the helicopters were outside and ready, one of them at camp and the other tied down near me on the monkey island. All we had to do was to load the boats.

The boats were whale boats molded of glass and teflon and made nonsinkable by plastic foam in all dead spaces. They were so tough that, while you might be able to bash one in, you could not puncture it with anything short of a drill or a torch, yet they were so light that four men could lift one that was empty. It did them no harm to drive them up onto a rocky beach, then they could be unloaded and easily dragged higher. They were driven by alcohol jets, just as the helis were, but they had oars and sails as well. We never used the oars although all the men had gone through a dry drill under my Uncle Steve’s watchful eye.

The boats had come in the night before loaded with specimens for the research department; now they were going back with people who would replace those ashore. From the monkey island I could see, half a mile away, the people who were coming back, waiting on the beach for the boats. Two of the boats were lying off, waiting for the third; each had about eighteen people in it and a few bundles of things requisitioned by Harry Gates for his scientific uses ashore, as well as a week’s supplies for the whole party.

I noticed a movement behind me, turned, and saw that it was the Old Man coming up the airlock hatch. “Good morning, Captain.”

“Morning, Bartlett.” He looked around. “Nice day.”

“Yes, sir…and a nice place.”

“It is indeed.” He looked toward the shore. “I’m going to find some excuse to hit dirt before we leave here. I’ve been on steel too long.”

“I don’t see why not, sir. This place is friendly as a puppy. Not like Inferno.”

“Not a bit.” He turned away, so I did too; you don’t press conversation on the Captain unless he wants it. The third boat was loaded now and cast loose; all three were about fifty yards away and were forming a column to go in together. I waved to Gloria and Anna.

At each boat, a long, wet rope as thick as my waist came up out of the water, passed across it amidships and back into the water on the other side. I yelled, “Hey, Captain! Look!”

He turned. The boats rolled sideways and sank-they were pulled under. I heard somebody scream and the water was crowded with struggling bodies.

The Captain leaned past me at the raft and looked at the disaster. He said in an ordinary tone, “Can you start that chopper?”

“Uh, I think so, Captain.” I was not a helicopter pilot but I knew how it worked.

“Then do it.” He leaned far over and yelled, “Get that cargo door closed!” He turned and dived down the hatch. I caught a glimpse of what had made him yell as I turned to climb into the helicopter. It was another of those wet ropes slithering up the Elsie’s side toward the cargo port.

Starting the helicopter was more complicated than I had realized, but there was a check-off list printed on the instrument panel. I had fumbled my way down to “step four: start impeller” when I was pushed aside by Ace Wenzel the torchman who was the regular pilot. Ace did something with both hands, the blades started to revolve, making shadows across our faces, and he yelled, “Cast her loose!”

I was shoved out the door as the Surgeon was climbing in; I fell four feet to the deck as the down blast hit me. I picked myself up and looked around.

There was nothing in the water, nothing. Not a body, not a person struggling to keep afloat, no sign of the boats. There was not even floating cargo although some of the packages would float. I knew; I had packed some of them.

Janet was standing next to me, shaking with dry sobs. I said stupidly, “What happened?”

She tried to control herself and said shakily, “I don’t know. I saw one of them get Otto. It just…it just-” She started to bawl again and turned away.

There wasn’t anything on the water, but now I saw that there was something in the water, under it. From high up you can see down into water if it is fairly smooth; arranged around the ship in orderly ranks were things of some sort. They looked like whales-or what I think a whale would look like in water; I’ve never seen a whale;

I was just getting it through my confused head that I was looking at the creatures who had destroyed the boats when somebody yelled and pointed. On shore the people who were to return were still on the beach, but they were no longer alone-they were surrounded. The things had come ashore, on each side of them and had flanked them. I could not see well at that distance but I could see the sea creatures because they were so much bigger than we were. They didn’t have legs, so far as I could tell, but it did not slow them down-they were fast.

And our people were being herded into the water.

There was nothing we could do about it, not anything. Under us we had a ship that was the end product

of centuries of technical progress; its torch could destroy a city in the blink of an eye. Ashore the guard had weapons by which one man was equal to an army of older times and there were more such weapons somewhere in the ship. But at the time I did not even know where the armory was, except that it was somewhere in the auxiliary deck-you can live a long time in a ship and never visit all her compartments.

I suppose I should have been down in the auxiliary deck, searching for weapons. But what I did was stand there, frozen, with a dozen others, and watch it happen.

But somebody had been more alert than I had been. Two men came bursting up through the hatch; they threw down two ranger guns and started frantically to plug them in and break open packages of ammunition. They could have saved the effort; by the time they were ready to sight in on the enemy, the beach was as empty as the surface of the water. Our shipmates had been pushed and dragged under. The helicopter was hovering over the spot; its rescue ladder was down but there was no one on it.

The helicopter swung around over the island and across our camp site, then returned to the ship. While it was moving in to touch down, Chet Travers hurried up the ladder. He looked around, saw me

and said, “Tom, where’s the Captain?” “In the chopper.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “Well, give him this. Urgent. I’ve got to get back down.” He shoved a paper at me and disappeared. I glanced at it, saw that it was a message form, saw who it was from, and grabbed the Captain’s arm as he stepped out of the heli.

He shrugged me off. “Out of my way!”

“Captain, you’ve got to-it’s a message from the island-from Major Lucas.”

He stopped then and took it from me, then fumbled for his reading glasses, which I could see sticking out of a pocket. He shoved the dispatch form back at me before I could help him and said, “Read it to me, boy.”

So I did. “ ‘From: Commander Ship’s Guard-To: Commanding Officer Lewis and Clark-Oh nine three one-at oh nine oh five survey camp was attacked by hostile natives, believed to be amphibious. After suffering initial heavy losses the attack was beaten off and I have withdrawn with seven survivors to the hilltop north of the camp. We were forced to abandon survey craft number two. At time of attack, exchange party was waiting on beach; we are cut off from them and their situation is not known but must be presumed to be desperate.

“ ‘Discussion: The attack was intelligently organized and was armed. Their principal weapon appears to be a jet of sea water at very high pressure but they use also a personal weapon for stabbing and cutting. It must be assumed that they have other weapons. It must be conditionally assumed that they are as intelligent as we are, as well disciplined, and possibly as well armed for the conditions Their superior numbers give them a present advantage even if they had no better weapons.

“ ‘Recommendations: My surviving command can hold out where it is against weapons thus far encountered. It is therefore urgently recommended that immediate measures be limited to rescuing beach party. Ship should then be placed in orbit until a plan can be worked out and weapons improvised to relieve my command without hazard to the ship.-S. Lucas, Commandant, oh nine three six.”“

The Captain took the message and turned toward the hatch without speaking. Nobody said anything although there were at least twenty of us crowded up there. I hesitated, then when I saw that others were going down, I pushed in and followed the Captain.

He stopped two decks down and went into the communications office. I didn’t follow him, but he left the door open. Chet Travers was in there, bent over the gear he used to talk with the camp, and Commander Frick was leaning over him with a worried look on his face: The Captain said, “Get me Major Lucas.”

Commander Frick looked up. “We’re trying to, Captain. Transmission cut off while they were sending us a list of casualties.”

The Captain chewed his lip and looked frustrated, then he said “Keep trying,” and turned. He saw me. “Bartlett!”

“Yes, sir!”

“You have one of your people over there. Raise him.”

I thought rapidly, trying to remember the Greenwich even as I was calling Vicky-if Vicky was home, she could get through on the direct line to LRF and they could hook her with Sam Rojas’s telepartner and thence to Sam, and the Captain could talk to Uncle Steve on a four-link relay almost as fast as he could by radio. (“Vicky! Come in, Vicky! Urgent!”)

“Yes; Uncle Tom? What is it? I was asleep.”

Commander Frick said, “I don’t think that will work, Captain. Rojas isn’t on the list of survivors. He was scheduled for rotation; he must have been down at the beach.”

Of course, of course! Sam would have been down at the beach-I had stood by and must have watched him being herded into the water!

“What is it, Uncle Tom?” (“Just wait, hon. Stay linked.”)

“Then get me somebody else,” the Captain snapped.

“There isn’t anyone else, Captain,” Frick answered. “Here’s the list of survivors. Rojas was the only fr- the only special communicator we had ashore.”

The Captain glanced at the list, said, “Pass the word for all hands not on watch to assemble in the mess room on the double.” He turned and walked right through me. I jumped out of the way.

“What’s the matter, Uncle Tom? You sound worried.”

I tried to control my voice. (“It was a mistake, hon. Just forget it and try to get back to sleep. I’m sorry.”)

“All right. But you still sound worried.”

I hurried after the Captain. Commander Frick’s voice was calling out the order over the ship’s system as we hurried down the ladders, yet he was only a moment or two behind me in reaching the mess room. In a matter of seconds we were all there … just a handful of those who had left Earth-about forty. The Captain looked around and said to Cas Warner, “Is this all?”

“I think so, Captain, aside from the engineering watch.” “I left Travers on watch,” added Frick.

“Very well” The Captain turned and faced us. “We are about to rescue the survivors ashore. Volunteers step forward.”

We didn’t step, we surged, all together. I would like to say that I was a split second ahead, because of

Uncle Steve, but it wouldn’t be true. Mrs. Gates was carrying young Harry in her arms and she was as fast as I was.

“Thank you,” the Captain said stiffly. “Now will the women please go over there by the pantry so that I can pick the men who will go.”

“Captain?”

“Yes, Captain Urqhardt?” “I will lead the party.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort, sir. I will lead: You will now take some women and go down and fetch what we need.”

Urqhardt barely hesitated, then said, “Aye, aye, sir.”

“That rule-our standing rule for risk-will apply to all of you. In doubly-manned jobs the older man will go. In other jobs, if the job can be dispensed with, the man will go; if it cannot be, the man will stay.” He looked around.

“Dr. Babcock!” “Righto, Skipper!”

Mr. O’Toole said, “Just a moment, Captain. I am a widower and Dr. Babcock is much more-” “Shut up.”

“But-”

“Confound it, sir, must I debate every decision with every one of you? Must I remind you that every second counts? Get over there with the women.”

Red-faced and angry Mr. O’Toole did as he was told. The Captain went on, “Mr. Warner. Mr. Bach. Dr. Severin-” Quickly he picked those he wanted, then waved the rest of us over toward the pantry.

Uncle Alfred McNeil tried to straighten his stooped shoulders. “Captain, you forgot me. I’m the oldest in my department.”

The Captain’s face softened just a hair. “No, Mr. McNeil, I didn’t forget,” he said quietly, “but the capacity of the chopper is limited-and we have seven to bring back. So I must omit you.”

Unc’s shoulders sagged and I thought he was going to cry, than he shuffled over away from the selected few. Dusty Rhodes caught my eye and looked smug and proud; he was one of the chosen. He still did not look more than sixteen and I don’t think he had ever shaved; this was probably the first time in his life that he had ever been treated in all respects as a man.

In spite of the way the others had been shut off short I couldn’t let it stand. I stepped forward again and touched the Captain’s sleeve. “Captain … you’ve got to let me go! My uncle is over there.”

I thought he was going to explode, but he caught himself.

“I see your point. But you arc a special communicator and we haven’t any spare. I’ll tell Major Lucas that you tried.”

“But-”

“Now shut up and do as you are told-before I kick you half across the compartment.” He turned away as if I didn’t exist.

Five minutes later arms had been issued and we were all crowding up the ladders to see them off. Ace

Wenzel started the helicopter at idling speed and jumped out. They filed in, eight of them, with the Captain last. Dusty had a bandolier ever each shoulder and a ranger gun in his hands; he was grinning excitedly. He threw me a wink and said, “I’ll send you a postcard.”

The Captain paused and said, “Captain Urqhardt.” “Yes, sir.”

The Captain and the reserve captain conferred for a moment; I couldn’t hear them and I don’t think we were meant to hear. Then Captain Urqhardt said loudly, “Aye, aye, sir. It shall be done.”

“Very good, sir.” The Captain stepped in, slammed the door, and took the controls himself. I braced myself against the down blast.

Then we waited.

I alternated between monkey island and the comm office. Chet Travers still could not raise Uncle Steve but he was in touch with the heli. Every time I went top side I looked for the sea things but they seemed to have gone away.

Finally I came down again to the comm room and Chet was looking joyful. “They’ve got ‘em!” he announced.

“They’re off the ground.” I started to ask him about it but he was turning to announce the glad news over the ship’s system; I ran up to see if I could spot the heli.

I saw it, near the hilltop, about a mile and a half away. It moved rapidly toward the ship. Soon we could see people inside. As it got closer someone opened a window on the side toward us.

The Captain was not really skilled with a helicopter. He tried to make a landing straight in but his judgment of wind was wrong and be had to swing on past and try again. The maneuver brought the craft so close to the ship that we could see the passengers plainly. I saw Uncle Steve and he saw me and waved; he did not call out, he just waved. Dusty Rhodes was beside him and saw me, too. He grinned and waved and shouted, “Hey, Tom, I rescued your buddy!” He reached back and then Percy’s head and cloven forehooves showed above the frame, with Dusty holding the pig with one hand and pointing to him with the other. They were both grinning.

“Thanks!” I yelled back. “Hi, Percy!”

The chopper turned a few hundred feet beyond the ship and headed back into the wind.

It was coming straight toward the ship and would have touched down soon when something came out of the water right under it. Some said it was a machine-to me it looked like an enormous elephant’s trunk. A stream of water so solid, hard, and bright that it looked like steel shot out of the end of it; it struck a rotor tip and the heli staggered.

The Captain leaned the craft over and it slipped out of contact. The stream followed it, smashed against the fuselage and again caught a rotor; the heli tilted violently and began to fall.

I’m not much in an emergency; it is hours later when I figure out what I should have done. This time I acted without thinking. I dived down the ladder without hitting the treads and was on down in the cargo deck almost at once. The port of that side was closed, as it had been since the Captain ordered it closed earlier; I slapped the switch and it began to grind open. Then I looked around and saw what I needed: the boat falls, coiled loosely on deck, not yet secured. I grabbed a bitter end and was standing on the port as it was still swinging down to horizontal.

The wrecked helicopter was floating right in front of me and there were people struggling in the water. “Uncle Steve!” I yelled “Catch!” I threw the line as far as I could.

I had not even seen him as I yelled. It was just the idea that was in the top of my mind. Then I did see him, far beyond where I had been able to throw the line. I heard him call back, “Coming, Tom!” and he started swimming strongly toward the ship.

I was so much in a daze that I almost pulled the line in to throw it again when I realized that I had managed to throw far enough for some one. I yelled again. “Harry! Right behind you! Grab on!”

Harry Gates rolled ever in the water, snatched at the line and got it. I started to haul him in.

I almost lost him as I got him to the ship’s skin. One of his arms seemed almost useless and he nearly lost his grasp. But between us we managed to manhandle him up and into the port; we would not have made it if the Ship had not been so low in the water. He collapsed inside and lay on his face, gasping and sobbing.

I jerked the fall loose from his still clenched hand and turned to throw it to Uncle Steve.

The helicopter was gone, Uncle Steve was gone, again the water was swept clean-except for Percy, who, with his head high out of water, was swimming with grim determination toward the ship.

I made sure that there were no other people anywhere in the water. Then I tried to think what I could do for Percy.

The poor little porkchop could not grab a line, that was sure. Maybe I could lasso him. I fumbled to get a slip knot in the heavy line. I had just managed it when Percy gave a squeal of terror and I jerked my head around just in time to see him pulled under the water.

It wasn’t a mouth that got him. I don’t think it was a mouth.

XV “CARRY OUT HER MISSION”

I don’t know what I expected after the attack by the behemoths. We just wandered around in a daze. Some of us tried to look out from the monkey island deck until that spouter appeared again and almost knocked one of us off, then Captain Urqhardt ordered all hands to stay inside and the hatch was closed.

I certainly did not expect a message that was brought around after supper (if supper had been served; some made themselves sandwiches) telling me to report at once for heads-of-departments conference. “That’s you, isn’t it, Tom?” Chet Travers asked me. “They tell me Unc Alfred is on the sick list. His door is closed.”

“I suppose it’s me.” Unc had taken it hard and was in bed with a soporific in him, by order of the one remaining medical man, Dr. Pandit.

“Then you had better shag up there.”

First I went to Captain Urqhardt’s room and found it dark, then I got smart and went to the Captain’s cabin. The door was open and some were already around the table with Captain Urqhardt at the head. “Special communications department, sir,” I announced myself.

“Sit down, Bartlett.”

Harry came in behind me and Urqhardt got up and shut the door and sat down. I looked around, thinking it was a mighty funny heads-of-departments meeting. Harry Gates was the only boss there who had been such when we left Earth. Mr. Eastman was there instead of Commander Frick. Mama O’Toole was long dead but now Cas was gone too; ecology was represented by Mr. Krishnamurti who had merely been in charge of air-conditioning and hydroponics when we had left. Mr. O’Toole was there in place of Dr. Babcock, Mr. Regato instead of Mr. Roch. Sergeant Andreeli, who was also a machinist in engineering, was there in place of Uncle Steve and he was the only member of the ship’s guard left alive-because he had been sent back to the ship with a broken arm two days earlier. Dr. Pandit sat where Dr. Devereaux should have been.

And myself of course but I was just fill-in; Unc was still aboard. Worst of all, there was Captain Urqhardt sitting where the Captain should have been.

Captain Urqhardt started in. “There is no need to detail our situation; you all know it. We will dispense with the usual departmental reports, too. In my opinion our survey of this planet is as complete as we can make it with present personnel and equipment… save that an additional report must be made of the hazard encountered today in order that the first colonial party will be prepared to defend itself. Is there disagreement? Dr. Gates, do you wish to make further investigations here?”

Harry looked surprised and answered, “No, Captain. Not under the circumstances.”

“Comment?” There was none. “Very well,” Urqhardt continued. “I propose to shape course for Alpha Phoenicis. We will hold memorial services at nine tomorrow morning and boost at noon. Comment? Mr. O’Toole.”

“Eh? Do you mean can we have the figures ready? I suppose so, if Janet and I get right on it.” “Do so, as soon as we adjourn. Mr. Regato?”

Regato was looking astounded. “I didn’t expect this, Captain.

“It is short notice, but can your department be ready? I believe you have boost mass aboard.”

“It isn’t that,. Captain. Surely, the torch will be ready. But I thought we would make one long jump for

Earth.”

“What led you to assume that?”

“Why, uh …” The new Chief Engineer stuttered and almost slipped out of P-L lingo into Spanish. “The shape we are in, sir. The engineering department will have to go on watch-and-watch, heel and toe. I can’t speak for other departments, but they can’t be in much better shape.”

“No, you can’t and I am not asking you to. With respect to your own department, is it mechanically ready?”

Regato swallowed. “Yes, sir. But people break down as well as machinery.”

“Wouldn’t you have to stand watch-and-watch to shape course for Sol?” Urqhardt did not wait for the obvious answer, but went on, “I should not have to say this. We are not here for our own convenience; we are here on an assigned mission … as you all know. Earlier today, just before Captain Swanson left, he said to me, “Take charge of my ship, sir. Carry out her mission.” I answered, ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Let me remind you of that mission: we were sent out to conduct the survey we have been making, with orders to continue the search as long as we were in communication with Earth-when we fell out of communication, we were free to return to Earth, if possible. Gentlemen, we are still in touch with Earth; our next assigned survey point is Alpha Phoenicis. Could anything be clearer?”

My thoughts were boiling up so that I hardly heard him. I was thinking: who does this guy think he is? Columbus? Or the Flying Dutchman? There were only a little over thirty of us left alive-in a ship that had started with two hundred. The boats were gone, the heli’s were-I almost missed his next remark.

“Bartlett?” “Sir?”

“What about your department?”

It dawned on me that we were the key department-us freaks. When we fell out of touch, he had to turn back. I was tempted to say that we had all gone deaf, but I knew I couldn’t get away with it. So I stalled.

“As you pointed out, sir, we are in touch with Earth.” “Very well.” His eyes turned toward Dr. Pandit.

“Just a moment, Captain,” I insisted. “There’s more to it.” “Eh? State it.”

“Well, this next jump is about thirty years, isn’t it? Greenwich I mean.” “Of that order. Somewhat less.”

“ ‘Of that order.’ There are three special communicators left, myself, Unc-I mean Mr. McNeil-and Mei-Ling Travers. I think you ought to count Unc out.”

“Why?”

“Because he has his original telepartner and she is now as old as he is. Do you think Unc will live another thirty years?”

“But it won’t be thirty years for him-oh, sorry! I see your point. She would be well past a hundred if she lived at all. Possibly senile.”

“Probably, sir. Or more likely dead.”

“Very well, we won t count McNeil. That leaves two of you. Plenty for essential communication.

“I doubt it, sir. Mei-Ling is a poor bet. She has only a secondary linkage and her partner is over thirty, with no children. Based on other telepairs, I would say that it is most unlikely that they will stay in rapport through another peak … not a thirty-year one.”

“That still leaves yourself.”

I thought suddenly that if I had the guts to jump over the side, they could all go home. But it was just a thought; when I die, it won’t be suicide. “My own case isn’t much better, sir. My telepartner is about-” I had to stop and count up, then the answer did not seem right. “-is about nineteen, sir. No kids. No chance of kids before we peak… and I couldn’t link in with a brand-new baby anyhow. She’ll be fiftyish when we come out. So far as I know, there hasn’t been a case in the whole fleet of bridging that long a period out of rapport.”

He waited several moments before be answered. “Have you any reason to believe that it is impossible?”

“Well… no, sir. But it is extremely unlikely.”

“Hmm … do you consider yourself an authority in theory of telepathy?” “Huh? No, sir. I am just a telepath, that’s all.”

“I think he is probably right,” put in Dr. Pandit, “are you an authority, Doctor?” “Me, sir? As you know, my specialty is exotic pathology. But-”

“In that case, we will consult authorities Earthside. Perhaps they can suggest some way to improve our chances. Very probably, under the circumstances, the Foundation will again authorize use of drugs to reduce the possibility that our special communicators might fall out of touch during peak. Or something.”

I thought of telling him that Vicky wasn’t going to risk dangerous habit-forming drugs. Then I thought better of it. Pat had-and Vicky might.

“That is all, gentlemen. We will boost at noon tomorrow. Uh, one more thing … One of you implied that morale is not too high in the ship. That is correct and I am perhaps more aware of it than you are. But morale will shake down to normal and we will best be able to forget the losses we have suffered if we all get quickly back to work. I want only to add that you all, as senior officers of this ship, have most to do with morale by setting an example. I am sure that you will.” He stood up.

I don’t know how news travels in a ship but by the time I got down to the mess room everybody knew that we were boosting tomorrow … and not for home. It was buzz-buzz and yammer all over. I ducked out because I didn’t want to discuss it; my thoughts were mixed. I thought the Captain was insisting on one more jump from which he couldn’t possibly report his results, if any-and with a nice fat chance that none of us would ever get home. On the other hand I admired the firm way he faced us up to our obligations and brushed aside panic. He had guts.

So did the Flying Dutchman have guts-but at last report he was still trying to round the Cape and not succeeding.

The Captain-Captain Swenson, I corrected-would not have been that bullheaded.

Or would he? According to Urqhardt, the last thing the Captain had said had been to remind Urqhardt that it was up to him to carry out the mission. All of us had been very carefully chosen (except us freaks) and probably the skipper and the relief skipper of each ship were picked primarily for bulldog stubbornness, the very quality that had kept Columbus going on and on when he was running out of

water and his crew was muttering mutiny. I remembered Uncle Steve had once suggested as much.

I decided to go talk to Uncle Steve … then I remembered I couldn’t and I really felt bad. When my parents had died, two peaks back, I had felt bad because I didn’t feel as bad as I knew I should have felt. When it happened-or rather, by the time I knew about it-they were long dead, people I had not seen in a long time and just faces in a photograph. But Uncle Steve I had seen every day-I had seen today.

And I had been in the habit of kicking my troubles around with him whenever they were too much for me.

I felt his loss then, the delayed shock you get when you are hit hard. The hurt doesn’t come until you pull yourself together and realize you’re hit.

It was just as well that somebody tapped on my door then, or I would have bawled.

It was Mei-Ling and her husband, Chet. I invited them in and they sat down on the bed. Chat got to the point.

“Tom, where do you stand on this?” “On what?”

“This silly business of trying to go on with a skeleton crew.”

“It doesn’t matter where I stand,” I said slowly. “I’m not running the ship.” “Ah, but you are!”

“Huh?”

“I don’t mean quite that, but I do mean you can put a stop to the nonsense. Now, look, Tom, everybody knows what you told the Captain and-”

“Who’s been talking?”

“Huh? Never mind. If it didn’t leak from you, it probably did from everybody else present; it’s common knowledge. What you told him made sense. What it comes down to is that Urqhardt is depending on you and you alone to keep him in touch with the home office. So you’re the man with the stick. You can stop him.”

“Huh? Now wait. I’m not the only one. Granted that he isn’t counting on Unc-how about Mei-Ling?” Chat shook his head. “Mei-Ling isn’t going to ‘think-talk’ for him.”

His wife said, “Now, Chet; I haven’t said so.”

He looked at her fondly. “Don’t be super-stupid, my lovely darling. You know that there is no chance at all that you will be any use to him after peak. If our brave Captain Urqhardt hasn’t got that through his head now, he will … even if I have to explain to him in words of one syllable.”

“But I might stay linked.”

“Oh, no, you won’t … or I’ll bash your pretty head in. Our kids are going to grow up on Earth.”

She looked soberly at him and patted his hand. The Travers’s were not expecting again, but everybody knew they were hoping; I began to see why Chet was adamant… and I became quite sure that Mei-Ling would not link again after peak-not after her husband had argued with her for a while. What Chet wanted was more important to her than what the Captain wanted, or any abstract duty to a Foundation back on Earth.

Chet went on, “Think it over, Tom, and you will see that you can’t let your shipmates down. To go on

is suicidal and everybody knows it but the Captain. It’s up to you.” “Uh, I’ll think it over.”

“Do that. But don’t take too long.” They left.

I went to bed but didn’t sleep. The deuce of it was that Chet was almost certainly right … including the certainty that Mei-Ling would never patch in with her telepair after another peak, for she was beginning to slip even now. I had been transmitting mathematical or technical matter which would have fallen to her ever since last peak, because her linking was becoming erratic. Chet wouldn’t have to bash her admittedly-pretty head in; she was falling out of touch.

On the other hand…

When I had reached “On the other hand” about eighteen times, I got up and dressed and went looking for Harry Gates; it occurred to me that since he was a head of department and present at the meeting, it was proper to talk to him about it.

He wasn’t in his room; Barbara suggested that I try the laboratory. He was there, alone, unpacking specimens that had been sent over the day before. He looked up. “Well, Tom, how is it going?”

“Not too good.”

“I know. Say, I haven’t had a proper chance to thank you. Shall I write it out, or will you have it right off my chest?”

“Uh, let’s take it for granted.” I had not understood him at first, for it is the simple truth that I had forgotten about pulling him out of the water; I hadn’t had time to think about it.

“As you say. But I won’t forget it. You know that, don’t you?” “Okay. Harry, I need advice.”

“You do? Well, I’ve got it in all sizes. All of it free and all of it worth what it costs, I’m afraid.” “You were at the meeting tonight.”

“So were you.” He looked worried.

“Yes.” I told him all that had been fretting me, then thought about it and told him all that Chet had said. “What am I to do, Harry? Chet is right; the chance of doing any good on another jump isn’t worth it. Even if we find a planet worth reporting-a chance that is never good, based on what the fleet has done as a whoIe-even so, we almost certainly won’t be able to report it except by going back, two centuries after we left. It’s ridiculous and, as Chet says, suicidal, with what we’ve got left. On the other hand, the Captain is right; this is what we signed up for. The ship’s sailing orders say for us to go on.”

Harry carefully unpacked a package of specimens before he answered.

“Tommie, you should ask me an easy one. Ask me whether or not to get married and I’ll tell you like a shot. Or anything else. But there is one thing no man can tell another man and that is whore his duty lies. That you must decide for yourself.”

I thought about it. “Doggone it, Harry, how do you feel about it?”

“Me?” He stopped what he was doing. “Tom, I just don’t know. For myself personally … well, I’ve been happier in this ship than I have ever been before in my life. I’ve got my wife and kids with me and I’m doing just the work I want to do. With others it may be different.”

“How about your kids?”

“Aye, there’s the rub. A family man-” He frowned. “I can’t advise you, Tom. If I even hint that you

should not do what you signed up to do, I’d be inciting to mutiny … a capital crime, for both of us. If I tell you that you must do what the Captain wants, I’d be on safe legal grounds-but it might mean the death of you and me and my kids and all the rest of us… because Chet has horse sense on his side even if the law is against him.” He sighed. “Tom, I just missed checking out today-thanks to you-and my judgment isn’t back in shape. I can’t advise you; I’d be prejudiced.”

I didn’t answer. I was wishing that Uncle Steve had made it; he always had an answer for everything. “All I can do,” Harry went on, “is to make a weaselly suggestion.”

“Huh? What is it?”

“You might go to the Captain privately and tell him just how worried you are. It might affect his decisions. At least he ought to know.”

I said I would think about it and thanked him and left. I went to bed and eventually got to sleep. I was awakened in the middle of the night by the ship shaking. The ship always swayed a little when waterborne, but not this way, nor this much; not on Elysia.

It stopped and then it started again…and again it stopped…and started. I was wondering what…when it suddenly quivered in an entirely different way, one that I recognized; it was the way the torch felt when it was just barely critical. The engineers called it “clearing her throat” and was a regular part of overhaul and inspection. I decided that Mr. Regato must be working late, and I quieted down again. The bumping did not start up again.

At breakfast I found out what it was: the behemoths had tried something, nobody knew what, against the ship itself…whereupon the Captain had quite logically ordered Mr. Regato to use the torch against them. Now, although we still did not know much about them, we did know one thing: they were not immune to super-heated steam and intense radioactivity.

This brush with the sea devils braced my spine; I decided to see the Captain as Harry had suggested. He let me in without keeping me waiting more than five minutes. Then he kept quiet and let me talk as

long as I wanted to. I elaborated the whole picture, as I saw it, without attributing anything to Chet or Harry. I couldn’t tell from his face whether I was reaching him or not, so I put it strongly: that Unc and Mei-Ling were both out of the picture and that the chance that I would be of any use after the next peak was so slight that he was risking his. ship and his crew on very long odds.

When I finished I still didn’t know, nor did he make a direct answer. Instead he said, “Bartlett, for fifty-five minutes yesterday evening you had two other members of the crew in your room with your door closed.”

“Huh? Yes, sir.”

“Did you speak to them of this?” I wanted to lie. “Uh…yes, sir.”

“After that you looked up another member of the crew and remained with him until quite late…or quite early, I should say. Did you speak to him on the same subject?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well I am holding you for investigation on two counts: suspicion of inciting to mutiny and suspicion of intent to mutiny. You are under arrest. Go to your room and remain there. No visitors.”

I gulped, Then something Uncle Steve had told me came to my aid-Uncle had been a jawbone space- lawyer and loved to talk about it. “Aye, aye, sir. But I insist that I be allowed to see counsel of my

choice…and that I be given a public hearing.”

The Captain nodded as if I had told him that it was raining. “Certainly. Your legal rights will be respected. But those matters will have to wait; we are now preparing to get underway. So place yourself under arrest and get to your quarters.”

He turned away and left me to confine myself. He didn’t even seem angry.

So here I sit, alone in my room. I had to tell Unc he couldn’t come in and, later, Chet. I can’t believe what has happened to me.

XIV “JUST A MATHEMATICAL ABSTRACTION”

That morning seemed a million years long. Vicky checked with me at the usual time, but I told her that the watch list was being switched around again and that I would get in touch with her later. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

“No, hon, we’re just having a little reorganization aboard ship.” “All right. But you sound worried.”

I not only didn’t tell her that I was in a jam, I didn’t tell her anything about the disaster. Time enough later, after it had aged-unless she found out from official news. Meanwhile there was no reason to get a nice kid upset over something she couldn’t help.

Twenty minutes later Mr. Eastman showed up. I answered the door when he knocked and told him, “I’m not to have any visitors. Sorry.”

He didn’t leave. “I’m not a visitor, Tom; I’m here officially, for the Captain.” “Oh.” I let him in.

He had a tool kit with him. He set it down and said, “The regular and special communication departments have been consolidated, now that we are so shorthanded, so it looks like I’m your boss. It won’t make any difference, I’m sure. But I’m to make a reconnection on your recorder, so that you can record directly into the comm office.”

“Okay. But why?”

He seemed embarrassed, “Well…you were due to go on watch a half hour ago. We’re going to fix this so that you can stand your watches conveniently from here. The Captain is annoyed that I didn’t arrange it earlier.” He started unscrewing the access plate to the recorder.

I was speechless. Then I remembered something Uncle Steve had told me. “Hey, wait a minute!” “Eh?”

“Oh, go ahead and rewire it, I don’t care. But I won’t stand any watches.”

He straightened up and looked worried. “Don’t talk like that, Tom, You’re in enough trouble now; don’t make it worse. Let’s pretend you never said it. Okay?”

Mr. Eastman was a decent sort and the only one of the electronics people who had never called us freaks. I think he was really concerned about me. But I said, “I don’t see how it can be worse. You tell the Captain that I said he could take his watches and-” I stopped. That wasn’t what Uncle Steve would say. “Sorry. Please tell him this: ‘Communicator Bartlett’s respects to the Captain and he regrets that he cannot perform duty while under arrest’ Got it?”

“Now look here, Tom, that’s not the proper attitude. Surely, there is something in what you say from a standpoint of regulations. But we are shorthanded; everybody has to pitch in and help. You can’t stand on the letter of the law; it isn’t fair to the rest.”

“Can’t I?” I was breathing hard and exulting in the chance to hit back. “The Captain can’t have his cake and eat it too. A man under arrest doesn’t perform duty. It’s always been that way end it always will be. You just tell him what I said.”

He silently finished the reconnection with quick precision. “You’re sure that’s what you want me to tell him?”

“Quite sure.”

“All right. Hooked the way that thing is now”-he added, pointing a thumb at the recorder-”you can reach me on if you change your mind. So long.”

“One more thing-” “Eh?”

“Maybe the Captain hasn’t thought about it, since his cabin has a bathroom, but I’ve been in here some hours. Who takes me down the passageway and when? Even a prisoner is entitled to regular policing.”

“Oh. I guess I do. Come along.”

That was the high point of the morning. I expected Captain Urqhardt to show up five minutes after Mr. Eastman had left me at my room-breathing fire and spitting cinders. So I rehearsed a couple of speeches in my head, carefully phrased to keep me inside the law and quite respectful. I knew I had him.

But nothing happened. The Captain did not show up; nobody showed up. It got to be close to noon. When no word was passed about standing by for boost, I got in my bunk with five minutes to spare and waited.

It was a long five minutes.

About a quarter past twelve I gave up and got up. No lunch either. I heard the gong at twelve-thirty, but still nothing and nobody. I finally decided that I would skip one meal before I complained, because I didn’t want to give him the chance to change the subject by pointing out that I had broken arrest. It occurred to me that I could call Unc and tell him about the failure in the beans department, then I decided that the longer I waited, the more wrong the Captain would be.

About an hour after everybody else had finished eating Mr. Krishnamurti showed up with a tray. The fact that he brought it himself instead of sending whoever had pantry duty convinced me that I must be a Very Important Prisoner-particularly as Kris was unanxious to talk to me and even seemed scared of being near me. He just shoved it in and said, “Put it in the passageway when you are through.”

“Thanks, Kris.”

But buried in the food on the tray was a note: “Bully for you! Don’t weaken and we’ll trim this bird’s wings. Everybody is pulling for you.” It was unsigned and I did not recognize the handwriting. It wasn’t Krishnamurti’s; I knew his from the time when I was fouling up his farm. Nor was it either of the Travers’s, and certainly not Harry’s.

Finally I decided that I didn’t want to guess whose it was and tore it in pieces and chewed it up, just like the Man in the Iron Mask or the Count of Monte Cristo. I don’t really qualify as a romantic hero, however, as I didn’t swallow it; I just chewed it up and spat it out. But I made darn sure that note was destroyed, for I not only did not want to know who had sent it, I didn’t want anybody ever to know.

Know why? That note didn’t make me feel good; it worried me. Oh, for two minutes it bucked me up; I felt larger than life, the champion of the downtrodden.

Then I realized what the note meant… Mutiny.

It’s the ugliest word in space. Any other disaster is better.

One of the first things Uncle Steve had told me-told Pat and myself, way back when we were kids- was: “The Captain is right even when he is wrong.” It was years before I understood it; you have to live

in a ship to know why it is true. And I didn’t understand it in my heart until I read that encouraging note and realized that somebody was seriously thinking of bucking the Captain’s authority … and that I was the symbol of their resistance.

A ship is not just a little world; it is more like a human body. You can’t have democracy in it, not democratic consent at least, no matter how pleasant and democratic the Captain’s manner may be. If you’re in a pinch, you don’t take a vote from your arms and legs and stomach and gizzard and find out what the majority wants. Darn well you don’t! Your brain makes a decision and your whole being carries it out.

A ship in space is like that all the time and has to be. What Uncle Steve meant was that the Captain had better be right, you had better pray that he is right even if you disagree with him… because it won’t save the ship to be right yourself if he is wrong.

But a ship is not a human body; it is people working together with a degree of selflessness that doesn’t come easy-not to me, at least. The only thing that holds it together is a misty something called its morale, something you hardly know it has until the ship loses it. I realized then that the Elsie had been losing hers for some time. First Doc Devereaux had died and then Mama O’Toole and both of those were body blows. Now we had lost the Captain and most of the rest… and the Elsie was falling to pieces.

Maybe the new captain wasn’t too bright, but he was trying to stop it. I began to realize that it wasn’t just machinery breaking down or attacks from hostile natives that lost ships; maybe the worst hazard was some bright young idiot deciding that he was smarter than the Captain and convincing enough others that he was right. I wondered how many of the eight ships that were out of contact had died proving that their captains were wrong and that somebody like me was right.

It wasn’t nearly enough to be right.

I got so upset that I thought about going to the Captain and telling him I was wrong and what could I do to help? Then I realized that I couldn’t do that, either. He had told me to stay in my room-no ‘if’s’ or ‘maybe’s.’ If it was more important to back up the Captain and respect his authority than anything else, then the only thing was to do as I had been ordered and sit tight.

So I did.

Kris brought me dinner, almost on time. Late that evening the speakers blared the usual warning, I lay down and the, Elsie boosted off Elysia. But we didn’t go on, we dropped into an orbit, for we went into free fall right afterwards. I spent a restless night; I don’t sleep well when I’m weightless.

I was awakened by the ship going into light boost, about a half gravity. Kris brought me breakfast but I didn’t ask what was going on and he didn’t offer to tell me. About the middle of the morning the ship’s system called out: “Communicator Bartlett, report to the Captain.” It was repeated before I realized it meant me … then I jumped up, ran my shaver over my face, decided that my uniform would have to do, and hurried up to the cabin.

He looked up when I reported my presence. “Oh, yes. Bartlett, Upon investigation I find that there is no reason to prefer charges. You are released from arrest and restored to duty. See Mr. Eastman.”

He looked back at his desk and I got sore. I had been seesawing between a feeling of consecrated loyalty to the ship and to the Captain as the head thereof, and an equally strong desire to kick Urqhardt in the stomach. One kind word from him and I think I would have been his boy, come what may. As it was, I was sore.

“Captain!”

He looked up. “Yes?”

“I think you owe me an apology.”

“You do? I do not think so. I acted in the interest of the whole ship. However, I harbor no ill feelings, if that is of any interest to you.” He looked back at his work, dismissing me … as if my hard feelings, if any, were of no possible importance.

So I got out and reported to Mr. Eastman. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do.

Mei-Ling was in the comm office, sending code groups. She glanced up and I noticed that she looked tired. Mr. Eastman said, “Hello, Tom. I’m glad you’re here; we need you. Will you raise your telepartner, please?”

One good thing about having a telepath run the special watch list is that other people don’t seem to realize that the other end of each pair-the Earthside partner-is not a disembodied spirit. They eat and sleep and work and raise families, and they can’t be on call whenever somebody decides to send a message. “Is it an emergency?” I asked, glancing at the Greenwich and then at the ship’s clock, Vicky wouldn’t check with me for another half hour; she might be at home and free, or she might not be.

“Perhaps not ‘emergency’ but ‘urgent’ certainly.”

So I called Vicky and she said she did not mind. (“Code groups, Freckle Face,”) I told her. (“So set your recorder on ‘play back.’ “)

“It’s quivering, Uncle Tom. Agitate at will.”

For three hours we sent code groups, than which there is nothing more tedious. I assumed that it was probably Captain Urqhardt’s report of what had happened to us on Elysia, or more likely his second report after the LRF had jumped him for more details. There was no reason to code it so far as I was concerned; I had been there-so it must be to keep it from our telepartners until LRF decided to release it. This suited me as I would not have relished passing all that blood and slaughter, in clear language, to little Vicky.

While we were working the Captain came in and sat down with Mr. Eastman; I could see that they were cooking up more code groups; the Captain was dictating and Eastman was working the encoding machine. Mei-Ling had long since gone. Finally Vicky said faintly, “Uncle Tom, how urgent are these anagrams? Mother called me to dinner half an hour ago.

(“Hang on and I’ll find out.”) I turned to the Captain and Mr. Eastman, not sure of which one to ask. But I caught Eastman’s eye and said, “Mr. Eastman, how rush is this stuff? We want to-”

“Don’t interrupt us,” the Captain cut in. “Just keep on transmitting. The priority is not your concern.” “Captain, you don’t understand; I’m not speaking for myself. I was about to say-”

“Carry on with your work.”

I said to Vicky, (“Hold on a moment, hon.”) Then I sat back and said, “Aye aye, Captain. I’m perfectly willing to keep on spelling eye charts all night. But there is nobody at the other end.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it is dinner time and way past for my partner. If you want special duty at the Earthside end, you’d better coordinate with the LRF comm office. Seems to me that somebody has the watch list all mixed up.”

“I see.” As usual he showed no expression. I was beginning to think he was all robot, with wires instead of veins.

“Very well, Mr. Eastman, get Mr. McNeil and have him relieve Mr. Bartlett.” “Yes, Captain.”

“Excuse me, Captain…” “Yes, Bartlett?”

“Possibly you don’t know that Unc’s partner lives in Greenwich zone minus-two. It’s the middle of the night there-and she is an old lady, past seventy-five. I thought maybe you would want to know.”

“Mmm, is that right, Eastman?” “I believe so, sir.”

“Cancel that last order. Bartlett, is your partner willing to go on again after an hour’s break for chow? Without clearing it with LRF?”

“I’ll see, sir.” I spoke to Vicky; she hesitated. I said, (“What is it, Freckle Face? A date with George? Say the word and I’ll tell Captain Bligh he can’t have you.”)

“Oh, it’s all right. I’ll throw the switch on George. I just wish they would give us something besides alphabet soup. Okay, one hour.”

(“One hour, sugar plum. Run and eat your salad. Mind your waistline.”) “My waistline is just fine, thank you.”

“Okay, Captain.”

“Very well. Please thank him for me.”

He was so indifferent about it that I added a touch of my own. “My partner is a girl, Captain, not a “him.” Her mother has placed a two-hour curfew on it. Otherwise it must be arranged with LRF.”

“So. Very well.” He turned to Eastman. “Can’t we manage to coordinate these communication watches?”

“I’m trying, Captain. But it is new to me…and we have only three watchstanders left.”

“A watch in three should not be too difficult. Yet there always seems to be some reason why we can’t transmit. Comment?”

“Well, sir, you saw the difficulty just now. It’s a matter of coordinating with Earth. Uh, I believe the special communicators usually arranged that themselves. Or one of them did.”

“Which one? Mr. McNeil?”

“I believe Bartlett usually handled it, sir.” “So. Bartlett?”

“I did, sir.”

“Very well, you have the job again. Arrange a continuous watch.” He started to get up.

How do you tell the Captain he can’t have his bucket of paint? Aye aye, sir. But just a minute, Captain-”

“Yes?”

“Do I understand you are authorizing me to arrange a continuous watch with LRF? Signed with your release number?”

“Naturally.”

“Well, what do I do if they won’t agree to such long hours for the old lady? Ask for still longer hours for the other two? In the case of my partner, you’ll run into parent trouble; she’s a young girl.”

“So. I can’t see why the home office hired such people.”

I didn’t say anything. If he didn’t know that you don’t hire telepaths the way you hire butchers I wasn’t going to explain.

But he persisted. “Comment?”

“I have no comment, sir. You can’t get more than three or four hours a day out of any of them, except in extreme emergency. Is this one? If it is, I can arrange it without bothering the home office.”

He did not answer directly. Instead he said, “Arrange the best watch list you can. Consult with Mr. Eastman.” As he turned to leave I caught a look of unutterable weariness on his face and suddenly felt sorry for him. At least I didn’t want to swap jobs with him.

Vicky took a trick in the middle of the night, over Kathleen’s objections. Kathleen wanted to take it herself, but the truth was that she and I could no longer work easily without Vicky in the circuit, at least not anything as difficult as code groups.

The Captain did not come in to breakfast and I got there late. I looked around and found a place by Janet Meers. We no longer sat by departments-just one big horseshoe table, with the rest of the mess room arranged to look like a lounge, so that it would not seem so empty.

I was just digging into scrambled yeast on toast when Mr. Eastman stood up and tapped a glass for attention. He looked as if he had not slept for days. “Quiet, please. I have a message from the Captain.” He pulled out a sheet and started to read:

“ ‘Notice to All Hands: By direction of the Long Range Foundation the mission of this ship has been modified. We will remain in the neighborhood of Beta Ceti pending rendezvous with Foundation Ship Serendipity. Rendezvous is expected in approximately one month. Immediately thereafter we will shape orbit for Earth.

“ ‘F. X. Urqhardt, commanding Lewis and Clark.’“

My jaw dropped. Why, the silent creeper! All the time I had been lambasting him in my mind he had been arguing the home office into canceling our orders … no wonder he had used code; you don’t say in clear language that your ship is a mess and your crew has gone to pot. Not if you can help it, you don’t. I didn’t even resent that he had not trusted us freaks to respect the security of communications; I wouldn’t have trusted myself, under the circumstances.

Janet’s eyes were shining… like a woman in love, or like a relativistic mathematician who has just found a new way to work a transformation. “So they’ve done it!” she said in a hushed voice.

“Done what?” I asked. She was certainly taking it in a big way; I hadn’t realized she was that anxious to get home.

“Tommie, don’t you see? They’ve done it, they’ve done it, they’ve applied irrelevance. Dr. Babcock was right.”

“Huh?”

“Why, it’s perfectly plain. What kind of a ship can get here in a month? An irrelevant ship, of course. One that is faster than light.” She frowned. “But I don’t see why it should take even a month. It shouldn’t take any time at all. It wouldn’t use time.”

I said, “Take it easy, Janet. I’m stupid this morning-I didn’t have much sleep last night. Why do you say that ship…uh, the Serendipity … is faster than light? That’s impossible.”

“Tommie, Tommie … look, dear, if it was an ordinary ship, in order to rendezvous with us here, it would have had to have left Earth over sixty-three years ago.”

“Well, maybe it did.”

“Tommie! It couldn’t possibly-because that long ago nobody knew that we would be here now. How could they?”

I figured back. Sixty-three Greenwich years ago… mmm, that would have been sometime during our first peak. Janet seemed to be right; only an incredible optimist or a fortune teller would have sent a ship from Earth at that time to meet us here now. “I don’t understand it.”

“Don’t you see, Tommie? I’ve explained it to you, I know I have. Irrelevance. Why, you telepaths were the reason the investigation started; you proved that “simultaneity’ was an admissible concept … and the inevitable logical consequence was that time and space do not exist.”

I felt my head begin to ache. “They don’t? Then what is that we seem to be having breakfast in?” “Just a mathematical abstraction, dear. Nothing more.” She smiled and looked motherly. “Poor

‘Sentimental Tommie.’ You worry too much.”

I suppose Janet was right, for we made rendezvous with F. S. Serendipity twenty-nine Greenwich days later. We spent the time moseying out at a half gravity to a locus five billion miles Galactic-north of Beta Ceti, for it appeared that the Sarah did not want to come too close to the big star. Still, at sixty- three light-years, five billion miles is close shooting-a very near miss. We also spent the time working like mischief to arrange and prepare specimens and in collating data. Besides that, Captain Urqhardt suddenly discovered, now that we were expecting visitors, that lots and lots of things had not been cleaned and polished lately. He even inspected staterooms, which I thought was snoopy.

The Sarah had a mind reader aboard, which helped when it came time to close rendezvous. She missed us by nearly two light-hours; then their m-r and myself exchanged coordinates (referred to Beta Ceti) by relay back Earthside and got each other pinpointed in a hurry. By radar and radio alone we could have fiddled around for a week-if we had ever made contact at all.

But once that was done, the Sarah turned out to be a fast ship, lively enough to bug your eyes out. She was in our lap, showing on our short-range radar, as I was reporting the coordinates she had just had to the Captain. An hour later she was made fast and sealed to our lock. And she was a little ship. The Elsie had seemed huge when I first joined her; then after a while she was just the right size, or a little cramped for some purposes. But the Sarah wouldn’t have made a decent Earth-Moon shuttle.

Mr. Whipple came aboard first. He was an incredible character to find in space; he even carried a briefcase. But he took charge at once. He had two men with him and they got busy in a small compartment in the cargo deck. They knew just what compartment they wanted; we had to clear potatoes out of it in a hurry. They worked in there half a day, installing something they called a “null- field generator,” working in odd clothes made entirely of hair-fine wires, which covered them like mummies. Mr. Whipple stayed in the door, watching while they worked and smoking a cigar-it was the first I had seen in three years and the smell of it made me ill. The relativists stuck close to him, exchanging excited comments, and so did the engineers, except that they looked baffled and slightly disgusted. I heard Mr. Regato say, “Maybe so. But a torch is reliable. You can depend on a torch.”

Captain Urqhardt watched it all, Old Stone Face in person.

At last Mr. Whipple put out his cigar and said, “Well, that’s that, Captain. Thompson will stay and take

you in and Bjorkenson will go on in the Sarah. I’m afraid you will have to put up with me, too, for I am going back with you.”

Captain Urqhardt’s face was a gray-white. “Do I understand, sir, that you are relieving me of my command?”

“What? Good heavens, Captain, what makes you say that?”

“You seem to have taken charge of my ship…on behalf of the home office. And now you tell me that this man…er, Thompson-will take us in.”

“Gracious, no. I’m sorry. I’m not used to the niceties of field work; I’ve been in the home office too long. But just think of Thompson as a … mmm, a sailing master for you. That’s it; he’ll be your pilot. But no one is displacing you; you’ll remain in command until you can return home and turn over your ship. Then she’ll be scrapped, of course.”

Mr. Regato said in a queer, high voice, “Did you say “scrapped,” Mr. Whipple?” I felt my stomach give a twist. Scrap the Elsie? No!

“Eh? I spoke hastily. Nothing has been decided Possibly she will be kept as a museum. In fact, that is a good idea.” He took out a notebook and wrote in it. He put it away and said, “And now, Captain, if you will, I’d like to speak to all your people. There isn’t much time.”

Captain Urqhardt silently led him back to the mess deck.

When we were assembled, Mr. Whipple smiled and said, “I’m not much at speechmaking. I simply want to thank you all, on behalf of the Foundation, and explain what we are doing. I won’t go into detail, as I am not a scientist; I am an administrator, busy with the liquidation of Project Lebensraum, of which you are part. Such salvage and rescue operations as this are necessary; nevertheless, the Foundation is anxious to free the Serendipity, and her sister ships, the Irrelevant, the Infinity, and Zero, for their proper work, that is to say, their survey of stars in the surrounding space.”

Somebody gasped. “But that’s what we were doing!”

“Yes, yes, of course. But times change. One of the null-field ships can visit more stars in a year than a torchship can visit in a century. You’ll be happy to know that the Zero working alone has located seven Earth-type planets this past month.”

It didn’t make me happy.

Uncle Alfred McNeil leaned forward and said in a soft, tragic voice that spoke for all of us, “Just a moment, sir. Are you telling us that what we did … wasn’t necessary?”

Mr. Whipple looked startled. “No, no, no! I’m terribly sorry if I gave that impression. What you did was utterly necessary, or there would not be any null ships today. Why, that’s like saying that what Columbus did wasn’t necessary, simply because we jump across oceans as if they were mud puddles nowadays.”

“Thank you, sir, “ Unc said quietly.

“Perhaps no one has told you just how indispensably necessary Project Lebensraum has been. Very possibly-things have been in a turmoil around the Foundation for some time-I know I’ve had so little sleep myself that I don’t know what I’ve done and left undone. But you realize, don’t you, that without the telepaths among you, all this progress would not have taken place?” Whipple looked around. “Who are they? I’d like to shake hands with them. In any case-I’m not a scientist, mind you; I’m a lawyer-in any case, if we had not had it proved beyond doubt that telepathy is truly instantaneous, proof measured over many light-years, our scientists might still be looking for errors in the sixth decimal

place and maintaining that telepathic signals do not propagate instantaneously but simply at a speed so great that its exact order was concealed by instrumental error. So I understand, so I am told. So you see, your great work has produced wondrous results, much greater than expected, even if they are not quite the results you were looking for.”

I was thinking that if they had told us just a few days sooner, Uncle Steve would still be alive. But he never did want to die in bed.

“But the fruition of your efforts,” Whipple went on, “did not show at once. Like so many things in science, the new idea had to grow for a long time, among specialists … then the stupendous results burst suddenly on the world. For myself, if anyone had told me six months ago that I would be out here among the stars today, giving a popular lecture on the new physics, I wouldn’t have believed him. I’m not sure that I believe it now. But here I am. Among other things, I am here to help you get straightened away when we get back home.” He smiled and bowed.

“Uh, Mr. Whipple,” Chet Travers asked, “just when will we get home?” “Oh, didn’t I tell you? Almost immediately … say soon after lunch.”

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

Posts about the Changes in America

America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.

What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2

What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.

What is planned for conservatives - part 4

What is in store for Conservatives - part 5

What is in store for conservatives - part 6

Stories that Inspired Me

Articles & Links

You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
You can find out more about the author HERE.
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The Taxpayer (Full Text) by Ray Bradbury

This story was written by Ray Bradbury, and presented here under Article 22 of China’s Copyright Law. This is from the Martian Chronicles. Which is a great collection of stores about Mars.

Ray Bradbury is one of my personal heroes and his writings greatly influenced me in ways that I am only just now beginning to understand.

Here is a story that illustrates the frustration of American taxpayers that dutifully give away their hard-earned money to a government that squanders it with stupid abandon. How can we forget the seven billion dollars that Obama gave to South Africa to “improve their energy grid”, Heh heh… Or the millions to universities to study the endangered tiger-striped bo-bo fly? The emotions and feelings are real. And Ray Bradbury captures them perfectly.

I love the way that Ray Bradbury brings advanced concepts to the masses though his very (seemingly) simplistic stories.

Introduction

“There was this fence where we pressed our faces and felt the wind turn warm and held to the fence and forgot who we were or where we came from but dreamed of who we might be and where we might go…” 
-R is for Rocket Ray Bradbury

For years I had amassed a well worn, and dusty collection of Ray Bradbury paperbacks that I would pick up and read for pleasure and inspiration. Later, when I left the United States, and moved to China, I had to leave my treasured books behind. Sigh.

Ray Bradberry book colleciton — A small collection of well worn, well read and well appreciated Ray Bradbury books. My collection looked a little something like this, only I think the books were a little more worn, and a little yellower.

It is very difficult to come across Ray Bradbury books in China. When ever I find one, I certainly snatch it up. Cost is no object when it comes to these masterpieces. At one time, I must have had five books containing this story.

I have found this version of the story on the Ray Bradbury library portal in Russia, and I have copied it here exactly as found. Credit to the wonderful people at the Ray Bradbury Library for posting it where a smuck like myself can read it within China. (Рэй Брэдбери .RU found at http://www.raybradbury.ru ) And, of course, credit to the great master; Ray Bradbury for providing this work of art for our inspiration and pleasure.

Martian ruins. — The book “The Martian Chronicles” discusses the planet Mars and the humans that try to visit it. It takes place around a fictional world where Mars has inhabitants and large cities and canals.

THE TAXPAYER

Ray Bradbury

He wanted to go to Mars on the rocket. He went down to the rocket field in the early morning and yelled in through the wire fence at the men in uniform that he wanted to go to Mars, He told them he was a taxpayer, his name was Pritchard, and he had a right to go to Mars. Wasn’t he born right here in Ohio? Wasn’t he a good citizen? Then why couldn’t he go to Mars? He shook his fists at them and told them that he wanted to get away from Earth; anybody with any sense wanted to get away from Earth. There was going to be a big atomic war on Earth in about two years, and he didn’t want to be here when it happened. He and thousands of others like him, if they had any sense, would go to Mars. See if they wouldn’t! To get away from wars and censorship and statism and conscription and government control of this and that, of art and science! You could have Earth! He was offering his good right hand, his heart, his head, for the opportunity to go to Mars! What did you have to do, what did you have to sign, whom did you have to know, to get on the rocket?

They laughed out through the wire screen at him. He didn’t want to go to Mars, they said. Didn’t he know that the First and Second Expeditions had failed, had vanished; the men were probably dead?

But they couldn’t prove it, they didn’t know for sure, he said, clinging to the wire fence. Maybe it was a land of milk and honey up there, and Captain York and Captain Williams had just never bothered to come back. Now were they going to open the gate and let him in to board the Third Expeditionary Rocket, or was he going to have to kick it down?

They told him to shut up.

He saw the men walking out to the rocket.

Wait for me! he cried. Don’t leave me here on this terrible world, I’ve got to get away; there’s going to be an atom war! Don’t leave me on Earth!

They dragged him, struggling, away. They slammed the policewagon door and drove him off into the early morning, his face pressed to the rear window, and just before they sirened over a hill, he saw the red fire and heard the big sound and felt the huge tremor as the silver rocket shot up and left him behind on an ordinary Monday morning on the ordinary planet Earth.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Stories that Inspired Me

Articles & Links

You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
You can find out more about the author HERE.
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Life-Line (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein

This is the short story “Life-Line” by Robert Heinlein. It describes an interesting situation. A Professor Pinero builds a machine that will predict how long a person will live. It does this by sending a signal along the world line of a person and detecting the echo from the far end. Professor Pinero’s invention has a powerful impact on the life insurance industry, as well as on his own life…

FOREWORD

The beginning of 1939 found me flat broke following a disastrous political campaign (I ran a strong second best, but in politics there are no prizes for place or show). I was highly skilled in ordnance, gunnery, and fire control for Naval vessels, a skill for which there was no demand ashore—and I had a piece of paper from the Secretary of the Navy telling me that I was a waste of space—"totally and permanently disabled" was the phraseology. I "owned" a heavily-mortgaged house. 

About then Thrilling Wonder Stories ran a house ad reading (more or less):

GIANT PRIZE CONTEST—Amateur Writers!!!!!! 
First Prize $50 Fifty Dollars $50

In 1939 one could fill three station wagons with fifty dollars worth of groceries. Today I can pick up fifty dollars in groceries unassisted—perhaps I've grown stronger. So I wrote the story "Life-Line." It took me four days—I am a slow typist. But I did not send it to Thrilling Wonder; I sent it to Astounding, figuring they would not be so swamped with amateur short stories. 

Astounding bought it . . . for $70, or $20 more than that "Grand Prize"—and there was never a chance that I would ever again look for honest work.

LIFE-LINE

The chairman rapped loudly for order. Gradually the catcalls and boos died away as several self-appointed sergeants-at-arms persuaded a few hot-headed individuals to sit down. The speaker on the rostrum by the chairman seemed unaware of the disturbance. His bland, faintly insolent face was impassive. The chairman turned to the speaker and addressed him in a voice in which anger and annoyance were barely restrained.

“Dr. Pinero”—the “Doctor” was faintly stressed—”I must apologize to you for the unseemly outburst during your remarks. I am surprised that my colleagues should so far forget the dignity proper to men of science as to interrupt a speaker, no matter”—he paused and set his mouth—”no matter how great the provocation.” Pinero smiled in his face, a smile that was in some way an open insult. The chairman visibly controlled his temper and continued: “I am anxious that the program be concluded decently and in order. I want you to finish your remarks. Nevertheless, I must ask you to refrain from affronting our intelligence with ideas that any educated man knows to be fallacious. Please confine yourself to your discovery—if you have made one.”

Pinero spread his fat, white hands, palms down. “How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?”

The audience stirred and muttered. Someone shouted from the rear of the hall: “Throw the charlatan out! We’ve had enough.”

The chairman pounded his gavel.

“Gentlemen! Please!”

Then to Pinero, “Must I remind you that you are not a member of this body, and that we did not invite you?”

Pinero’s eyebrows lifted. “So? I seem to remember an invitation on the letterhead of the Academy.”

The chairman chewed his lower lip before replying. “True, I wrote that invitation myself. But it was at the request of one of the trustees—a fine, public-spirited gentleman, but not a scientist, not a member of the Academy.”

Pinero smiled his irritating smile. “So? I should have guessed. Old Bidwell, not so, of Amalgamated Life Insurance? And he wanted his trained seals to expose me as a fraud, yes? For if I can tell a man the day of his own death, no one will buy his pretty policies. But how can you expose me, if you will not listen to me first? Even supposing you had the wit to understand me? Bah! He has sent jackals to tear down a lion.” He deliberately turned his back on them.

The muttering of the crowd swelled and took on a vicious tone. The chairman cried vainly for order. There arose a figure in the front row.

“Mr. Chairman!”

The chairman grasped the opening and shouted: “Gentlemen! Dr. Van Rhein-Smitt has the floor.” The commotion died away.

The doctor cleared his throat, smoothed the forelock of his beautiful white hair, and thrust one hand into a side pocket of his smartly tailored trousers. He assumed his women’s-club manner.

“Mr. Chairman, fellow members of the Academy of Science, let us have tolerance. Even a murderer has the right to say his say before the State exacts its tribute. Shall we do less? Even though one may be intellectually certain of the verdict? I grant Dr. Pinero every consideration that should be given by this august body to any unaffiliated colleague, even though”—he bowed slightly in Pinero’s direction—”we may not be familiar with the university which bestowed his degree. If what he has to say is false, it cannot harm us. If what he has to say is true, we should know it.” His mellow, cultivated voice rolled on, soothing and calming. “If the eminent doctor’s manner appears a trifle inurbane for our tastes, we must bear in mind that the doctor may be from a place, or a stratum, not so meticulous in these matters. Now our good friend and benefactor has asked us to hear this person and carefully assess the merit of his claims. Let us do so with dignity and decorum.”

He sat down to a rumble of applause, comfortably aware that he had enhanced his reputation as an intellectual leader. Tomorrow the papers would again mention the good sense and persuasive personality of “America’s Handsomest University President.” Who knows; maybe now old Bidwell would come through with that swimming-pool donation.

When the applause had ceased, the chairman turned to where the center of the disturbance sat, hands folded over his little round belly, face serene.

“Will you continue, Dr. Pinero?”

“Why should I?”

The chairman shrugged his shoulders. “You came for that purpose.”

Pinero arose. “So true. So very true. But was I wise to come? Is there anyone here who has an open mind, who can stare a bare fact in the face without blushing? I think not. Even that so-beautiful gentleman who asked you to hear me out has already judged me and condemned me. He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not. Still, if I do not speak, you will win your point by default. The little man in the street will think that you little men have exposed me, Pinero, as a hoaxer, a pretender.

“I will repeat my discovery. In simple language, I have invented a technique to tell how long a man will live. I can give you advance billing of the Angel of Death. I can tell you when the Black Camel will kneel at your door. In five minutes’ time, with my apparatus, I can tell any of you how many grains of sand are still left in your hourglass.” He paused and folded his arms across his chest. For a moment no one spoke. The audience grew restless.

Finally the chairman intervened. “You aren’t finished, Dr. Pinero?”

“What more is there to say?”

“You haven’t told us how your discovery works.”

Pinero’s eyebrows shot up. “You suggest that I should turn over the fruits of my work for children to play with? This is dangerous knowledge, my friend. I keep it for the man who understands it, myself.” He tapped his chest.

“How are we to know that you have anything back of your wild claims?”

“So simple. You send a committee to watch me demonstrate. If it works, fine. You admit it and tell the world so. If it does not work, I am discredited, and will apologize. Even I, Pinero, will apologize.”

A slender, stoop-shouldered man stood up in the back of the hall. The chair recognized him and he spoke.

“Mr. Chairman, how can the eminent doctor seriously propose such a course? Does he expect us to wait around for twenty or thirty years for someone to die and prove his claims?”

Pinero ignored the chair and answered directly.

“Pfui! Such nonsense! Are you so ignorant of statistics that you do not know that in any large group there is at least one who will die in the immediate future? I make you a proposition. Let me test each one of you in this room, and I will name the man who will die within the fortnight, yes, and the day and hour of his death.” He glanced fiercely around the room. “Do you accept?”

Another figure got to his feet, a portly man who spoke in measured syllables. “I, for one, cannot countenance such an experiment. As a medical man, I have noted with sorrow the plain marks of serious heart trouble in many of our older colleagues. If Dr. Pinero knows those symptoms, as he may, and were he to select as his victim one of their number, the man so selected would be likely to die on schedule, whether the distinguished speaker’s mechanical egg timer works or not.”

Another speaker backed him up at once. “Dr. Shepard is right. Why should we waste time on voodoo tricks? It is my belief that this person who calls himself Dr. Pinero wants to use this body to give his statements authority. If we participate in this farce, we play into his hands. I don’t know what his racket is, but you can bet that he has figured out some way to use us for advertising his schemes. I move, Mr. Chairman, that we proceed with our regular business.”

The motion carried by acclamation, but Pinero did not sit down. Amidst cries of “Order! Order!” he shook his untidy head at them, and had his say.

“Barbarians! Imbeciles! Stupid dolts! Your kind have blocked the recognition of every great discovery since time began. Such ignorant canaille are enough to start Galileo spinning in his grave. That fat fool down there twiddling his elk’s tooth calls himself a medical man. Witch doctor would be a better term! That little bald-headed runt over there— You! You style yourself a philosopher, and prate about life and time in your neat categories. What do you know of either one? How can you ever learn when you won’t examine the truth when you have a chance? Bah!” He spat upon the stage. “You call this an Academy of Science. I call it an undertakers’ convention, interested only in embalming the ideas of your red-blooded predecessors.”

He paused for breath and was grasped on each side by two members of the platform committee and rushed out the wings. Several reporters arose hastily from the press table and followed him. The chairman declared the meeting adjourned.* * *

The newspapermen caught up with Pinero as he was going out by the stage door. He walked with a light, springy step, and whistled a little tune. There was no trace of the belligerence he had shown a moment before. They crowded about him. “How about an interview, doc?” “What d’yuh think of modern education?” “You certainly told ’em. What are your views on life after death?” “Take off your hat, doc, and look at the birdie.”

He grinned at them all. “One at a time, boys, and not so fast. I used to be a newspaperman myself. How about coming up to my place?”

A few minutes later they were trying to find places to sit down in Pinero’s messy bed-living room, and lighting his cigars. Pinero looked around and beamed. “What’ll it be, boys? Scotch or Bourbon?” When that was taken care of he got down to business. “Now, boys, what do you want to know?”

“Lay it on the line, doc. Have you got something, or haven’t you?”

“Most assuredly I have something, my young friend.”

“Then tell us how it works. That guff you handed the profs won’t get you anywhere now.”

“Please, my dear fellow. It is my invention. I expect to make money with it. Would you have me give it away to the first person who asks for it?”

“See here, doc, you’ve got to give us something if you expect to get a break in the morning papers. What do you use? A crystal ball?”

“No, not quite. Would you like to see my apparatus?”

“Sure. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

He ushered them into an adjoining room, and waved his hand. “There it is, boys.” The mass of equipment that met their eyes vaguely resembled a medico’s office X-ray gear. Beyond the obvious fact that it used electrical power, and that some of the dials were calibrated in familiar terms, a casual inspection gave no clue to its actual use.

“What’s the principle, doc?”

Pinero pursed his lips and considered. “No doubt you are all familiar with the truism that life is electrical in nature. Well, that truism isn’t worth a damn, but it will help to give you an idea of the principle. You have also been told that time is a fourth dimension. Maybe you believe it, perhaps not. It has been said so many times that it has ceased to have any meaning. It is simply a cliché that windbags use to impress fools. But I want you to try to visualize it now, and try to feel it emotionally.”

He stepped up to one of the reporters. “Suppose we take you as an example. Your name is Rogers, is it not? Very well, Rogers, you are a space-time event having duration four ways. You are not quite six feet tall, you are about twenty inches wide and perhaps ten inches thick. In time, there stretches behind you more of this space-time event, reaching to, perhaps, 1905, of which we see a cross section here at right angles to the time axis, and as thick as the present. At the far end is a baby, smelling of sour milk and drooling its breakfast on its bib. At the other end lies, perhaps, an old man some place in the 1980s. Imagine this space-time event, which we call Rogers, as a long pink worm, continuous through the years. It stretches past us here in 1939, and the cross section we see appears as a single, discrete body. But that is illusion. There is physical continuity to this pink worm, enduring through the years. As a matter of fact, there is physical continuity in this concept to the entire race, for these pink worms branch off from other pink worms. In this fashion the race is like a vine whose branches intertwine and send out shoots. Only by taking a cross section of the vine would we fall into the error of believing that the shootlets were discrete individuals.”

He paused and looked around at their faces. One of them, a dour, hard-bitten chap, put in a word.

“That’s all very pretty, Pinero, if true, but where does that get you?”

Pinero favored him with an unresentful smile. “Patience, my friend. I asked you to think of life as electrical. Now think of our long, pink worm as a conductor of electricity. You have heard, perhaps, of the fact that electrical engineers can, by certain measurements, predict the exact location of a break in a transatlantic cable without ever leaving the shore. I do the same with our pink worms. By applying my instruments to the cross section here in this room I can tell where the break occurs; that is to say, where death takes place. Or, if you like, I can reverse the connections and tell you the date of your birth. But that is uninteresting; you already know it.”

The dour individual sneered. “I’ve caught you, doc. If what you say about the race being like a vine of pink worms is true, you can’t tell birthdays, because the connection with the race is continuous at birth. Your electrical conductor reaches on back through the mother into a man’s remotest ancestors.”

Pinero beamed. “True, and clever, my friend. But you have pushed the analogy too far. It is not done in the precise manner in which one measures the length of an electrical conductor. In some ways it is more like measuring the length of a long corridor by bouncing an echo off the far end. At birth there is a sort of twist in the corridor, and, by proper calibration, I can detect the echo from that twist.”

“Let’s see you prove it!”

“Certainly, my dear friend. Will you be a subject?”

One of the others spoke up. “He’s called your bluff, Luke. Put up or shut up.”

“I’m game. What do I do?”

“First write the date of your birth on a sheet of paper, and hand it to one of your colleagues.”

Luke complied. “Now what?”

“Remove your outer clothing and step upon these scales. Now tell me, were you ever very much thinner, or very much fatter, than you are now? No? What did you weigh at birth? Ten pounds? A fine bouncing baby boy. They don’t come so big anymore.”

“What is all this flubdubbery?”

“I am trying to approximate the average cross section of our long pink conductor, my dear Luke. Now will you seat yourself here? Then place this electrode in your mouth. No, it will not hurt you; the voltage is quite low, less than one microvolt, but I must have a good connection.” The doctor left him and went behind his apparatus, where he lowered a hood over his head before touching his controls. Some of the exposed dials came to life and a low humming came from the machine. It stopped and the doctor popped out of his little hideaway.

“I get sometime in February, 1902. Who has the piece of paper with the date?”

It was produced and unfolded. The custodian read, “February 22, 1902.”

The stillness that followed was broken by a voice from the edge of the little group. “Doc, can I have another drink?”

The tension relaxed, and several spoke at once: “Try it on me, doc.” “Me first, doc; I’m an orphan and really want to know.” “How about it, doc? Give us all a little loose play.”

He smilingly complied, ducking in and out of the hood like a gopher from its hole. When they all had twin slips of paper to prove the doctor’s skill, Luke broke a long silence.

“How about showing how you predict death, Pinero?”

No one answered. Several of them nudged Luke forward. “Go ahead, smart guy. You asked for it.” He allowed himself to be seated in the chair. Pinero changed some of the switches, then entered the hood. When the humming ceased he came out, rubbing his hands briskly together.

“Well, that’s all there is to see, boys. Got enough for a story?”

“Hey, what about the prediction? When does Luke get his ‘thirty?”

Luke faced him. “Yes, how about it?”

Pinero looked pained. “Gentlemen, I am surprised at you. I give that information for a fee. Besides, it is a professional confidence. I never tell anyone but the client who consults me.”

“I don’t mind. Go ahead and tell them.”

“I am very sorry. I really must refuse. I only agreed to show you how; not to give the results.”

Luke ground the butt of his cigarette into the floor. “It’s a hoax, boys. He probably looked up the age of every reporter in town just to be ready to pull this. It won’t wash, Pinero.”

Pinero gazed at him sadly. “Are you married, my friend?”

“No.”

“Do you have anyone dependent on you? Any close relatives?”

“No. Why? Do you want to adopt me?”

Pinero shook his head. “I am very sorry for you, my dear Luke. You will die before tomorrow.”

DEATH PUNCHES TIME CLOCK

. . . within twenty minutes of Pinero’s strange prediction, Timons was struck by a falling sign while walking down Broadway toward the offices of the Daily Herald where he was employed.

Dr. Pinero declined to comment but confirmed the story that he had predicted Timons’ death by means of his so-called chronovitameter. Chief of Police Roy . . .

Legal Notice

To whom it may concern, greetings; I, John Cabot Winthrop III, of the firm of Winthrop, Winthrop, Ditmars and Winthrop, Attorneys-at-law, do affirm that Hugo Pinero of this city did hand to me ten thousand dollars in lawful money of the United States, and did instruct me to place it in escrow with a chartered bank of my selection with escrow instructions as follows:

The entire bond shall be forfeit, and shall forthwith be paid to the first client of Hugo Pinero and/or Sands of Time, Inc., who shall exceed his life tenure as predicted by Hugo Pinero by one per centum, or the estate of the first client who shall fail of such predicted tenure in a like amount, whichever occurs first in point of time.

Subscribed and sworn,
John Cabot Winthrop III.

Subscribed and sworn to before me
this 2nd day of April, 1939.
Albert M. Swanson
Notary Public in and for this
county and State. My commission expires
June 17, 1939.

* * *

“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Radio Audience, let’s go to press! Flash! Hugo Pinero, the Miracle Man from Nowhere, has made his thousandth death prediction without anyone claiming the reward he offered to the first person who catches him failing to call the turn. With thirteen of his clients already dead, it is mathematically certain that he has a private line to the main office of the Old Man with the Scythe. That is one piece of news I don’t want to know about before it happens. Your coast-to-coast correspondent will not be a client of Prophet Pinero—”* * *

The judge’s watery baritone cut through the stale air of the courtroom. “Please, Mr. Weems, let us return to our subject. This court granted your prayer for a temporary restraining order, and now you ask that it be made permanent. In rebuttal, Dr. Pinero claims that you have presented no cause and asks that the injunction be lifted, and that I order your client to cease from attempts to interfere with what Pinero describes as a simple, lawful business. As you are not addressing a jury, please omit the rhetoric and tell me in plain language why I should not grant his prayer.”

Mr. Weems jerked his chin nervously, making his flabby gray dewlap drag across his high stiff collar, and resumed:

“May it please the honorable court, I represent the public—”

“Just a moment. I thought you were appearing for Amalgamated Life Insurance.”

“I am, your honor, in a formal sense. In a wider sense I represent several other of the major assurance, fiduciary and financial institutions, their stockholders and policy holders, who constitute a majority of the citizenry. In addition we feel that we protect the interests of the entire population, unorganized, inarticulate and otherwise unprotected.”

“I thought that I represented the public,” observed the judge dryly. “I am afraid I must regard you as appearing for your client of record. But continue. What is your thesis?”

The elderly barrister attempted to swallow his Adam’s apple, then began again: “Your honor, we contend that there are two separate reasons why this injunction should be made permanent, and, further, that each reason is sufficient alone.

“In the first place, this person is engaged in the practice of soothsaying, an occupation proscribed both in common law and in statute. He is a common fortuneteller, a vagabond charlatan who preys on the gullibility of the public. He is cleverer than the ordinary gypsy palm reader, astrologer, or table tipper, and to the same extent more dangerous. He makes false claims of modern scientific methods to give a spurious dignity to the thaumaturgy. We have here in court leading representatives of the Academy of Science to give expert witness as to the absurdity of his claims.

“In the second place, even if this person’s claims were true—granting for the sake of argument such an absurdity—” Mr. Weems permitted himself a thin-lipped smile—”we contend that his activities are contrary to the public interest in general, and unlawfully injurious to the interests of my client in particular. We are prepared to produce numerous exhibits with the legal custodians to prove that this person did publish, or cause to have published, utterances urging the public to dispense with the priceless boon of life insurance to the great detriment of their welfare and to the financial damage of my client.”

Pinero arose in his place. “Your honor, may I say a few words?”

“What is it?”

“I believe I can simplify the situation if permitted to make a brief analysis.”

“Your honor,” put in Weems, “this is most irregular.”

“Patience, Mr. Weems. Your interests will be protected. It seems to me that we need more light and less noise in this matter. If Dr. Pinero can shorten the proceedings by speaking at this time, I am inclined to let him. Proceed, Dr. Pinero.”

“Thank you, your honor. Taking the last of Mr. Weems’ points first. I am prepared to stipulate that I published the utterances he speaks of—”

“One moment, doctor. You have chosen to act as your own attorney. Are you sure you are competent to protect your own interests?”

“I am prepared to chance it, your honor. Our friends here can easily prove what I stipulate.”

“Very well. You may proceed.”

“I will stipulate that many persons have canceled life-insurance policies as a result thereof, but I challenge them to show that anyone so doing has suffered any loss or damage therefrom. It is true that the Amalgamated has lost business through my activities, but that is the natural result of my discovery, which has made their policies as obsolete as the bow and arrow. If an injunction is granted on that ground, I shall set up a coal-oil-lamp factory, and then ask for an injunction against the Edison and General Electric companies to forbid them to manufacture incandescent bulbs.

“I will stipulate that I am engaged in the business of making predictions of death, but I deny that I am practicing magic, black, white or rainbow-colored. If to make predictions by methods of scientific accuracy is illegal, then the actuaries of the Amalgamated have been guilty for years, in that they predict the exact percentage that will die each year in any given large group. I predict death retail; the Amalgamated predicts it wholesale. If their actions are legal, how can mine be illegal?

“I admit that it makes a difference whether I can do what I claim, or not; and I will stipulate that the so-called expert witnesses from the Academy of Science will testify that I cannot. But they know nothing of my method and cannot give truly expert testimony on it—”

“Just a moment, doctor. Mr. Weems, is it true that your expert witnesses are not conversant with Dr. Pinero’s theory and methods?”

Mr. Weems looked worried. He drummed on the table top, then answered. “Will the court grant me a few moments’ indulgence?”

“Certainly.”

Mr. Weems held a hurried whispered consultation with his cohorts, then faced the bench. “We have a procedure to suggest, your honor. If Dr. Pinero will take the stand and explain the theory and practice of his alleged method, then these distinguished scientists will be able to advise the court as to the validity of his claims.”

The judge looked inquiringly at Pinero, who responded: “I will not willingly agree to that. Whether my process is true or false, it would be dangerous to let it fall into the hands of fools and quacks”—he waved his hand at the group of professors seated in the front row, paused and smiled maliciously—”as these gentlemen know quite well. Furthermore, it is not necessary to know the process in order to prove that it will work. Is it necessary to understand the complex miracle of biological reproduction in order to observe that a hen lays eggs? Is it necessary for me to re-educate this entire body of self-appointed custodians of wisdom—cure them of their ingrown superstitions—in order to prove that my predictions are correct?

“There are but two ways of forming an opinion in science. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all-important, and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything, and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority.

“It is this point of view—academic minds clinging like oysters to disproved theories—that has blocked every advance of knowledge in history. I am prepared to prove my method by experiment, and, like Galileo in another court, I insist, ‘It still moves!’

“Once before I offered such proof to this same body of self-styled experts, and they rejected it. I renew my offer; let me measure the life length of the members of the Academy of Science. Let them appoint a committee to judge the results. I will seal my findings in two sets of envelopes; on the outside of each envelope in one set will appear the name of a member; on the inside, the date of his death. In the other envelopes I will place names; on the outside I will place dates. Let the committee place the envelopes in a vault, then meet from time to time to open the appropriate envelopes. In such a large body of men some deaths may be expected, if Amalgamated actuaries can be trusted, every week or two. In such a fashion they will accumulate data very rapidly to prove that Pinero is a liar, or no.”

He stopped, and thrust out his chest until it almost caught up with his little round belly. He glared at the sweating savants. “Well?”

The judge raised his eyebrows, and caught Mr. Weems’ eye. “Do you accept?”

“Your honor, I think the proposal highly improper—”

The judge cut him short. “I warn you that I shall rule against you if you do not accept, or propose an equally reasonable method of arriving at the truth.”

Weems opened his mouth, changed his mind, looked up and down the faces of the learned witnesses, and faced the bench. “We accept, your honor.”

“Very well. Arrange the details between you. The temporary injunction is lifted, and Dr. Pinero must not be molested in the pursuit of his business. Decision on the petition for permanent injunction is reserved without prejudice pending the accumulation of evidence. Before we leave this matter I wish to comment on the theory implied by you, Mr. Weems, when you claimed damage to your client. There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.”* * *

Bidwell grunted in annoyance. “Weems, if you can’t think up anything better than that, Amalgamated is going to need a new chief attorney. It’s been ten weeks since you lost the injunction, and that little wart is coining money hand over fist. Meantime, every insurance firm in the country’s going broke. Hoskins, what’s our loss ratio?”

“It’s hard to say, Mr. Bidwell. It gets worse every day. We’ve paid off thirteen big policies this week; all of them taken out since Pinero started operations.”

A spare little man spoke up. “I say, Bidwell, we aren’t accepting any new applicants for United, until we have time to check and be sure that they have not consulted Pinero. Can’t we afford to wait until the scientists show him up?”

Bidwell snorted. “You blasted optimist! They won’t show him up. Aldrich, can’t you face a fact? The fat little pest has something; how, I don’t know. This is a fight to the finish. If we wait, we’re licked.” He threw his cigar into a cuspidor, and bit savagely into a fresh one. “Clear out of here, all of you! I’ll handle this my way. You, too, Aldrich. United may wait, but Amalgamated won’t.”

Weems cleared his throat apprehensively. “Mr. Bidwell, I trust you will consult me before embarking on any major change in policy?”

Bidwell grunted. They filed out. When they were all gone and the door closed, Bidwell snapped the switch of the interoffice announcer. “O.K.; send him in.”

The outer door opened. A slight, dapper figure stood for a moment at the threshold. His small, dark eyes glanced quickly about the room before he entered, then he moved up to Bidwell with a quick, soft tread. He spoke to Bidwell in a flat, emotionless voice. His face remained impassive except for the live, animal eyes. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the proposition?”

“Sit down, and we’ll talk.”* * *

Pinero met the young couple at the door of his inner office.

“Come in, my dears, come in. Sit down. Make yourselves at home. Now tell me, what do you want of Pinero? Surely such young people are not anxious about the final roll call?”

The boy’s pleasant young face showed slight confusion. “Well, you see, Dr. Pinero, I’m Ed Hartley and this is my wife, Betty. We’re going to have . . . that is, Betty is expecting a baby and, well—”

Pinero smiled benignly. “I understand. You want to know how long you will live in order to make the best possible provision for the youngster. Quite wise. Do you both want readings, or just yourself?”

The girl answered, “Both of us, we think.”

Pinero beamed at her. “Quite so. I agree. Your reading presents certain technical difficulties at this time, but I can give you some information now. Now come into my laboratory, my dears, and we’ll commence.”

He rang for their case histories, then showed them into his workshop. “Mrs. Hartley first, please. If you will go behind that screen and remove your shoes and your outer clothing, please.”

He turned away and made some minor adjustments of his apparatus. Ed nodded to his wife, who slipped behind the screen and reappeared almost at once, dressed in a slip. Pinero glanced up.

“This way, my dear. First we must weigh you. There. Now take your place on the stand. This electrode in your mouth. No, Ed, you mustn’t touch her while she is in the circuit. It won’t take a minute. Remain quiet.”

He dove under the machine’s hood and the dials sprang into life. Very shortly he came out, with a perturbed look on his face. “Ed, did you touch her?”

“No, doctor.” Pinero ducked back again and remained a little longer. When he came out this time, he told the girl to get down and dress. He turned to her husband.

“Ed, make yourself ready.”

“What’s Betty’s reading, doctor?”

“There is a little difficulty. I want to test you first.”

When he came out from taking the youth’s reading, his face was more troubled than ever. Ed inquired as to his trouble. Pinero shrugged his shoulders and brought a smile to his lips.

“Nothing to concern you, my boy. A little mechanical misadjustment, I think. But I shan’t be able to give you two your readings today. I shall need to overhaul my machine. Can you come back tomorrow?”

“Why, I think so. Say, I’m sorry about your machine. I hope it isn’t serious.”

“It isn’t, I’m sure. Will you come back into my office and visit for a bit?”

“Thank you, doctor. You are very kind.”

“But, Ed, I’ve got to meet Ellen.”

Pinero turned the full force of his personality on her. “Won’t you grant me a few moments, my dear young lady? I am old, and like the sparkle of young folks’ company. I get very little of it. Please.” He nudged them gently into his office and seated them. Then he ordered lemonade and cookies sent in, offered them cigarettes and lit a cigar.

Forty minutes later Ed listened entranced, while Betty was quite evidently acutely nervous and anxious to leave, as the doctor spun out a story concerning his adventures as a young man in Tierra del Fuego. When the doctor stopped to relight his cigar, she stood up.

“Doctor, we really must leave. Couldn’t we hear the rest tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? There will not be time tomorrow.”

“But you haven’t time today, either. Your secretary has rung five times.”

“Couldn’t you spare me just a few more minutes?”

“I really can’t today, doctor. I have an appointment. There is someone waiting for me.”

“There is no way to induce you?”

“I’m afraid not. Come, Ed.”

After they had gone, the doctor stepped to the window and stared out over the city. Presently he picked out two tiny figures as they left the office building. He watched them hurry to the corner, wait for the lights to change, then start across the street. When they were part way across, there came the scream of a siren. The two little figures hesitated, started back, stopped and turned. Then a car was upon them. As the car slammed to a stop, they showed up from beneath it, no longer two figures, but simply a limp, unorganized heap of clothing.

Presently the doctor turned away from the window. Then he picked up his phone and spoke to his secretary.

“Cancel my appointments for the rest of the day. . . . No. . . . No one. . . . I don’t care; cancel them.”

Then he sat down in his chair. His cigar went out. Long after dark he held it, still unlighted.* * *

Pinero sat down at his dining table and contemplated the gourmet’s luncheon spread before him. He had ordered this meal with particular care, and had come home a little early in order to enjoy it fully.

Somewhat later he let a few drops of Fiori D’Alpini roll down his throat. The heavy, fragrant syrup warmed his mouth and reminded him of the little mountain flowers for which it was named. He sighed. It had been a good meal, an exquisite meal, and had justified the exotic liqueur.

His musing was interrupted by a disturbance at the front door. The voice of his elderly maidservant was raised in remonstrance. A heavy male voice interrupted her. The commotion moved down the hall and the dining-room door was pushed open.

“Madonna mia! Non si puo’ entrare! The master is eating!”

“Never mind, Angela. I have time to see these gentlemen. You may go.”

Pinero faced the surly-faced spokesman of the intruders. “You have business with me; yes?”

“You bet we have. Decent people have had enough of your damned nonsense.”

“And so?”

The caller did not answer at once. A smaller, dapper individual moved out from behind him and faced Pinero.* * *

“We might as well begin.” The chairman of the committee placed a key in the lock box and opened it. “Wenzell, will you help me pick out today’s envelopes?” He was interrupted by a touch on his arm.

“Dr. Baird, you are wanted on the telephone.”

“Very well. Bring the instrument here.”

When it was fetched he placed the receiver to his ear. “Hello. . . . Yes; speaking. . . . What? . . . No, we have heard nothing. . . . Destroyed the machine, you say. . . . Dead! How? . . . No! No statement. None at all. . . . Call me later.”

He slammed the instrument down and pushed it from him.

“What’s up?”

“Who’s dead now?”

Baird held up one hand. “Quiet, gentlemen, please! Pinero was murdered a few moments ago at his home.”

“Murdered!”

“That isn’t all. About the same time vandals broke into his office and smashed his apparatus.”

No one spoke at first. The committee members glanced around at each other. No one seemed anxious to be the first to comment.

Finally one spoke up. “Get it out.”

“Get what out?”

“Pinero’s envelope. It’s in there, too. I’ve seen it.”

Baird located it, and slowly tore it open. He unfolded the single sheet of paper and scanned it.

“Well? Out with it!”

“One thirteen P.M. . . . today.”

They took this in silence.

Their dynamic calm was broken by a member across the table from Baird reaching for the lock box. Baird interposed a hand.

“What do you want?”

“My prediction. It’s in there—we’re all in there.”

“Yes, yes.”

“We’re all in there.”

“Let’s have them.”

Baird placed both hands over the box. He held the eye of the man opposite him, but did not speak. He licked his lips. The corner of his mouth twitched. His hands shook. Still he did not speak. The man opposite relaxed back into his chair.

“You’re right, of course,” he said.

“Bring me that wastebasket.” Baird’s voice was low and strained, but steady.

He accepted it and dumped the litter on the rug. He placed the tin basket on the table before him. He tore half a dozen envelopes across, set a match to them, and dropped them in the basket. Then he started tearing a double handful at a time, and fed the fire steadily. The smoke made him cough, and tears ran out of his smarting eyes. Someone got up and opened a window. When Baird was through, he pushed the basket away from him, looked down and spoke.

“I’m afraid I’ve ruined this table top.”

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Delilah and the Space-Rigger (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein

Delilah and the Space Rigger " is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. One of his Future History stories, itoriginally appeared in Blue Book in December 1949 and was reprinted in hiscollection, The Green Hills of Earth (and subsequently The Past Through Tomorrow).  - Wikipedia

Brief Concordance

Fair Employment Commission [mentioned in passing] Bureaucracy that protected workers against discrimination. It prohibited job applications that listed the sex of the applicant.

G. E. Kwiklok Airlock just large enough for a space-suited individual, designed to save time and air.

Delos D. Harriman Business tycoon who inspired and largely funded many space-related endeavors, including the first trip to the moon. Harriman is mentioned indirectly in most of the Future History stories, mostly in businesses and institutions bearing his name. Harriman Enterprises was the contractor that financed Space Station Oneand employed many of the workers on it.

The above information obtained from HERE.

Executive Summary

Gloria Brooks McNye, a Communications Engineer, wangles a job as a radio technician and joins the all‐male crew of construction workers building a space station. On her arrival she immediately has a confrontation with the hard‐boiled construction superintendent, who hadn’t realized she was female. He doesn’t want any women “sniffing around my boys” and orders her returned on the next shuttle…

Delilah and the Space-Rigger

SURE, we had trouble building Space Station One—but the trouble was people.

Not that building a station twenty-two thousand three hundred miles out in space is a breeze. It was an engineering feat bigger than the Panama Canal or the Pyramids—or even the Susquehanna Power Pile. But ”Tiny” Larsen built her—and a job Tiny tackles gets built.

I first saw Tiny playing guard on a semi-pro team, working his way through Oppenheimer Tech. He worked summers for me thereafter till he graduated. He stayed in construction and eventually I went to work for him.

Tiny wouldn’t touch a job unless he was satisfied with the engineering. The Station had jobs designed into it that called for six-armed monkeys instead of grown men in space suits. Tiny spotted such boners; not a ton of material went into the sky until the specs and drawings suited him.

But it was people that gave us the headaches. We had a sprinkling of married men, but the rest were wild kids, attracted by high pay and adventure. Some were busted spacemen. Some were specialists, like electricians and instrument men. About half were deep-sea divers, used to working in pressure suits. There were sandhogs and riggers and welders and shipfitters and two circus acrobats.

We fired four of them for being drunk on the job; Tiny had to break one stiff’s arm before he would stay fired. What worried us was where did they get it? Turned out a shipfitter had rigged a heatless still, using the vacuum around us. He was making vodka from potatoes swiped from the commissary. I hated to let him go, but he was too smart.

Since we were falling free in a 24-hour circular orbit, with everything weightless and floating, you’d think that shooting craps was impossible. But a radioman named Peters figured a dodge to substitute steel dice and a magnetic field. He also eliminated the element of chance, so we fired him.

We planned to ship him back in the next supply ship, the R. S. Half Moon. I was in Tiny’s office when she blasted to match our orbit. Tiny swam to the view port. “Send for Peters, Dad,” he said, “and give him the old heave ho, Who’s his relief?”

“Party named G. Brooks McNye,” I told him.

A line came snaking over from the ship. Tiny said, “I don’t believe she’s matched.” He buzzed the radio shack for theship’s motion relative to the Station. The answer didn’t please him and he told them to call the Half Moon.

Tiny waited until the TV screen showed the rocket ship’s C.O. “Good morning, Captain. Why have you placed a line on us?”

“For cargo, naturally. Get your hopheads over here. I want to blast off before we enter the shadow.” The Station spent about an hour and a quarter each day passing through Earth’s shadow; we worked two eleven-hour shifts and skipped the dark period, to avoid rigging lights and heating suits.

Tiny shook his head. “Not until you’ve matched course and

speed with us.”

“I am matched!”

Not to specification, by my instruments.”

“Have a heart, Tiny! I’m short on maneuvering fuel. If I juggle this entire ship to make a minor correction on a few lousy tons of cargo, I’ll be so late I’ll have to put down on a secondary field. I may even have to make a dead-stick landing.” In those days all ships had landing wings.

“Look, Captain,” Tiny said sharply, “the only purpose of your lift was to match orbits for those same few lousy tons. I don’t care if you land in Little America on a pogo stick. The first load here was placed with loving care in the proper orbit and I’m making every other load match. Get that covered wagon into the groove.”

“Very well, Superintendent!” Captain Shields said stiffly.

“Don’t be sore, Don,” Tiny said softly. “By the way, you’ve got a passenger for me?”

“Oh, yes, so I have!” Shields’ face broke out in a grin. “Well, keep him aboard until we unload. Maybe we can beat the shadow yet.”

“Fine, fine! After all, why should I add to your troubles?”

The skipper switched off, leaving my boss looking puzzled.

We didn’t have time to wonder at his words. Shields whipped his ship around on gyros, blasted a second or two, and put her dead in space with us pronto—and used very little fuel, despite his bellyaching. I grabbed every mail we could spare and managed to get the cargo clear before we swung into Earth’s shadow. Weightlessness is an unbelievable advantage in handling freight; we gutted the Half Moon—by hand, mind you—in fifty-four minutes.

The stuff was oxygen tanks, loaded, and aluminum mirrors to shield them, panels of outer skin—sandwich stuff of titanium alloy sheet with foamed glass filling—and cases of jato units to spin the living quarters. Once it was all out and snapped to our cargo line I sent the men back by the same line—I won’t let a man work outside without a line no matter how space happy he figures he is. Then I told Shields to send over the passenger and cast off.

This little guy came out the ship’s air lock, and hooked on to the ship’s line. Handling himself like he was used to space, he set his feet and dived, straight along the stretched line, his snap hook running free. I hurried back and motioned him to follow me. Tiny, the new man, and I reached the air locks together.

Besides the usual cargo lock we had three G. E. Kwikloks.

A Kwiklok is an Iron Maiden without spikes; it fits a man in a suit, leaving just a few pints of air to scavenge, and cycles automatically. A big time saver in changing shifts. I passed through the middlesized one; Tiny, of course, used the big one. Without hesitation the new man pulled himself into the small one.

We went into Tiny’s office. Tiny strapped down, and pushed his helmet back. “Well, McNye,” he said. “Glad to have you with us.”

The new radio tech opened his helmet. I heard a low, pleasant voice answer, “Thank you.”

I stared and didn’t say anything. From where I was I could see that the radio tech was wearing a hair ribbon.

I thought Tiny would explode. He didn’t need to see the hair ribbon; with the helmet up it was clear that the new “man” was as female as Venus de Milo. Tiny sputtered, then he was unstrapped and diving for the view port. “Dad!” he yelled. “Get the radio shack. Stop that ship!”

But the Half Moon was already a ball of fire in the distance, Tiny looked dazed. “Dad,” he said, “who else knows about this?”

“Nobody, so far as I know.”

He thought a bit. “We’ve got to keep her out of sight. That’s it—we keep her locked up and out of sight until the next ship matches in.” He didn’t look at her.

“What in the world are you talking about?” McNye’s voice was higher and no longer pleasant.

Tiny glared. “You, that’s what. What are you—a stowaway?’ “Don’t be silly! I’m G. B. McNye, electronics engineer.

Don’t you have my papers?”

Tiny turned to me. “Dad, this is your fault. How in Chr—pardon me, Miss. How did you let them send you a woman? Didn’t you even read the advance report on her?”

“Me?” I said. “Now see here, you big squarehead! Those forms don’t show sex; the Fair Employment Commission won’t allow it except where it’s pertinent to the job.”

“You’re telling me it’s not pertinent to the job here?”

Not by job classification it ain’t. There’s lots of female radio and radar men, back Earthside.”

“This isn’t Earthside.” He had something. He was thinking of those two-legged wolves swarming over the job outside. And G. B. McNye was pretty. Maybe eight months of no women at all affected my judgment, but she would pass.

“I’ve even heard of female rocket pilots,” I added, for spite. “I don’t care if you’ve heard of female archangels; I’ll have no women here!”

“Just a minute!” If I was riled, she was plain sore. “You’re the construction superintendent, are you not?”

“Yes,” Tiny admitted.

”Very well, then, how do you know what sex I am?”

“Are you trying to deny that you are a woman?”

“Hardly! I’m proud of it. But officially you don’t know what sex G. Brooks McNye is. That’s why I use ‘G’ instead of Gloria. I don’t ask favors.”

Tiny grunted. “You won’t get any. I don’t know how you sneaked in, but get this, McNye, or Gloria, or whatever—you’re fired. You go back on the next ship. Meanwhile we’ll try to keep the men from knowing we’ve got a woman aboard.”

I could see her count ten. “May I speak,” she said finally, “or does your Captain Bligh act extend to that, too?”

“Say your say.”

“I didn’t sneak in. I am on the permanent staff of the Station, Chief Communications Engineer. I took this vacancy myself to get to know the equipment while it was being installed. I’ll live here eventually; I see no reason not to start now.”

Tiny waved it away. “There’ll be men and women both here—some day. Even kids. Right now it’s stag and it’ll stay that way.”

“We’ll see. Anyhow, you can’t fire me; radio personnel don’t work for you.” She had a point; communicators and some other specialists were lent to the contractors, Five Companies, Incorporated, by Harriman Enterprises.

Tiny snorted. “Maybe I can’t fire you; I can send you home. ‘Requisitioned personnel must be satisfactory to the contractor.’—meaning me. Paragraph Seven, clause M; I wrote that clause myself.”

“Then you know that if requisitioned personnel are refused without cause the contractor bears the replacement cost.”

“I’ll risk paying your fare home, but I won’t have you here.”

“You are most unreasonable!”

“Perhaps, but I’ll decide what’s good for the job. I’d rather have a dope peddler than have a woman sniffing around my boys!”

She gasped. Tiny knew he had said too much; he added, “Sorry, Miss. But that’s it. You’ll stay under cover until I can get rid of you.”

Before she could speak I cut in. “Tiny—look behind you!”

Staring in the port was one of the riggers, his eyes bugged out. Three or four more floated up and joined him.

Then Tiny zoomed up to the port and they scattered like minnows. He scared them almost out of their suits; I thought he was going to shove his fists through the quartz.

He came back looking whipped. “Miss,” he said, pointing, “wait in my room.” When she was gone he added, “Dad, what’ll we do?”

I said, “I thought you had made up your mind, Tiny.”

“I have,” he answered peevishly. “Ask the Chief Inspector to come in, will you?”

That showed how far gone he was. The inspection gang belonged to Harriman Enterprises, not to us, and Tiny rated them mere nuisances. Besides, Tiny was an Oppenheimer graduate; Dalrymple was from M.LT.

He came in, brash and cheerful. “Good morning, Superintendent. Morning, Mr. Witherspoon. What can I do for you?”

Glumly, Tiny told the story. Dalrymple looked smug. “She’s right, old man. You can send her back and even specify a male relief. But I can hardly endorse ‘for proper cause’ now, can I?”

“Damnation. Dalrymple, we can’t have a woman around here!”

“A moot point. Not covered by contract, y’know.”

“If your office hadn’t sent us a crooked gambler as her predecessor I wouldn’t be in this jam!”

“There, there! Remember the old blood pressure. Suppose we leave the endorsement open and arbitrate the cost. That’s fair, eh?”

“I suppose so. Thanks.”

“Not at all. But consider this: when you rushed Peters off before interviewing the newcomer, you cut yourself down to one operator. Hammond can’t stand watch twenty-four hours a day.”

“He can sleep in the shack. The alarm will wake him.”

“I can’t accept that. The home office and ships’ frequencies must be guarded at all times. Harriman Enterprises has supplied a qualified operator; I am afraid you must use her for the time being.”

Tiny will always cooperate with the inevitable; he said quietly, “Dad, she’ll take first shift. Better put the married men on that shift.”

Then he called her in. “Go to the radio shack and start makee-learnee, so that Hammond can go off watch soon. Mind what he tells you. He’s a good man.”

“I know,” she said briskly. “I trained him.”

Tiny bit his lip. The C.I. said, ”The Superintendent doesn’t bother with trivia—I’m Robert Dalrymple, Chief Inspector. He probably didn’t introduce his assistant either—Mr. Witherspoon.”

“Call me Dad,” I said.

She smiled and said, “Howdy, Dad.” I felt warm clear through. She went on to Dalrymple, “Odd that we haven’t met before.”

Tiny butted in. “McNye, you’ll sleep in my room—”

She raised her eyebrows; he went on angrily, “Oh, I’ll get my stuff out—at once. And get this: keep the door locked, off shift.”

“You’re darn tootin’ I will!” Tiny blushed.

I was too busy to see much of Miss Gloria. There was cargo to stow, the new tanks to install and shield. That left the most worrisome task of all: putting spin on the living quarters. Even the optimists didn’t expect much interplanetary traffic for some years; nevertheless Harriman Enterprises wanted to get some activities moved in and paying rent against their enormous investment.

I.T.&T. had leased space for a microwave relay station several million a year from television alone. The Weather Bureau was itching to set up its hemispheric integrating station; Palomar Observatory had a concession (Harriman Enterprises donated that space); the Security Council had some hush-hush project; Fermi Physical Labs and Kettering Institute each had space-a dozen tenants wanted to move in now, or sooner, even if we never completed accommodations for tourists and travelers.

There were time bonuses in it for Five Companies, Incorporated—and their help. So we were in a hurry to get spin on the quarters.

People who have never been out have trouble getting through their heads—at least I had—that there is no feeling of weight, no up and down, in a free orbit in space. There’s Earth, round and beautiful, only twenty-odd thousand miles away, close enough to brush your sleeve. You know it’s pulling you towards it. Yet you feel no weight, absolutely none. You float.

Floating is fine for some types of work, but when it’s time to eat, or play cards, or bathe, it’s good to feel weight on your feet. Your dinner stays quiet and you feel more natural.

You’ve seen pictures of the Station—a huge cylinder, like a bass drum, with ships’ nose pockets dimpling its sides. Imagine a snare drum, spinning around inside the bass drum; that’s the living quarters, with centrifugal force pinch-hitting for gravity. We could have spun the whole Station but you can’t berth a ship against a whirling dervish.

So we built a spinning part for creature comfort and an outer, stationary part for docking, tanks, storerooms, and the like. You pass from one to the other at the hub. When Miss Gloria joined us the inner part was closed in and pressurized, but the rest was a skeleton of girders.

Mighty pretty though, a great network of shiny struts and ties against black sky and stars-titanium alloy 1403, light, strong, and non-corrodable. The Station is flimsy compared with a ship, since it doesn’t have to take blastoff stresses. That meant we didn’t dare put on spin by violent means-which is where jato units come in.

“Jato”—Jet Assisted Take-Off—rocket units invented to give airplanes a boost. Now we use them wherever a controlled push is needed, say to get a truck out of the mud on a dam job. We mounted four thousand of them around the frame of the living quarters, each one placed just so. They were wired up and ready to fire when Tiny came to me looking worried. “Dad,” he said, “Let’s drop everything and finish compartment D-113.”

“Okay,” I said. D-113 was in the non-spin part.

“Rig an air lock and stock it with two weeks supplies.”

“That’ll change your mass distribution for spin,” I suggested.

“I’ll refigure it next dark period. Then we’ll shift jatos.”

When Dalrymple heard about it he came charging around. It meant a delay in making rental space available. “What’s the idea?”

Tiny stared at him. They had been cooler than ordinary lately; Dalrymple had been finding excuses to seek out Miss Gloria. He had to pass through Tiny’s office to reach her temporary room, and Tiny had finally told him to get out and stay out. “The idea,” Tiny said slowly, “is to have a pup tent in case the house burns.”

“What do you mean?”

“Suppose we fire up the jatos and the structure cracks? Want to hang around in a space suit until a ship happens by?”

“That’s silly. The stresses have been calculated.”

“That’s what the man said when the bridge fell. We’ll do it my way.”

Dalrymple stormed off.

Tiny’s efforts to keep Gloria fenced up were sort of pitiful. In. the first place, the radio tech’s biggest job was repairing suit

walkie-talkies, done on watch. A rash of such troubles broke out—on her shift. I made some shift transfers and docked a few for costs, too; it’s not proper maintenance when a man deliberately busts his aerial.

There were other symptoms. It became stylish to shave. Men started wearing shirts around quarters and bathing increased to where I thought I would have to rig another water still.

Came the shift when D-113 was ready and the jatos readjusted. I don’t mind saying I was nervous. All hands were ordered out of the quarters and into suits. They perched around the girders and waited.

Men in space suits all look alike; we used numbers and colored armbands. Supervisors had two antennas, one for a gang frequency, one for the supervisors’ circuit. With Tiny and me the second antenna hooked back through the radio shack and to all the gang frequencies-a broadcast.

The supervisors had reported their men clear of the fireworks and 1 was about to give Tiny the word, when this figure came climbing through the girders, inside the danger zone. No safety line. No armband. One antenna.

Miss Gloria, of course. Tiny hauled her out of the blast zone, and anchored her with his own safety line. I heard his voice, harsh in my helmet: “Who do you think you are? A sidewalk superintendent?”

And her voice: “What do you expect me to do? Go park on a star?”

“I told you to stay away from the job. If you can’t obey orders, I’ll lock you up.”

I reached him, switched off my radio and touched helmets. “Boss! Boss!” I said. “You’re broadcasting!”

“Oh—” he says, switches off, and touches helmets with her. We could still hear her; she didn’t switch off. “Why, you big baboon, I came outside because you sent a search party to clear everybody out,” and, “How would I know about a safety line rule? You’ve kept me penned up.” And finally. “We’ll see!”

I dragged him away and he told the boss electrician to go ahead. Then we forgot the row for we were looking at the prettiest fireworks ever seen, a giant St. Catherine’s wheel, rockets blasting all over it. Utterly soundless, out there in space—but beautiful beyond compare.

The blasts died away and there was the living quarters, spinning true as a flywheel—Tiny and I both let out sighs of relief. We all went back inside then to see what weight tasted like.

It tasted funny. I went through the shaft and started down the ladders, feeling myself gain weight as I neared the rim. I felt seasick, like the first time I experienced no weight. I could hardly walk and my calves cramped.

We inspected throughout, then went to the office and sat down. It felt good, just right for comfort, one-third gravity at the rim. Tiny rubbed his chair arms and grinned, “Beats being penned up in D-l13.”

“Speaking of being penned up,” Miss Gloria said, walking

in, “may I have a word with you, Mr. Larsen?”

“Uh? Why, certainly. Matter of fact, I wanted to see you. I owe you an apology, Miss McNye. I was—”

“Forget it,” she cut in. “You were on edge. But I want to know this: how long are you going to keep up this nonsense of trying to chaperone me?”

He studied her. “Not long. Just till your relief arrives.” “So? Who is the shop steward around here?”

“A shipfitter named McAndrews. But you can’t use him. You’re a staff member.”

“Not in the job I’m filling. I am going to talk to him. You’re discriminating against me, and in my off time at that.”

“Perhaps, but you will find I have the authority. Legally I’m a ship’s captain, while on this job. A captain in space has wide discriminatory powers.”

“Then you should use them with discrimination!”

He grinned. “Isn’t that what you just said I was doing?”

We didn’t hear from the shop steward, but Miss Gloria started doing as she pleased. She showed up at the movies, next off shift, with Dalrymple. Tiny left in the middle-good show, too; Lysistrata Goes to Town, relayed up from New York.

As she was coming back alone he stopped her, having seen to it that I was present. “Umm-Miss McNye . . .”

“Yes?”

“I think you should know, uh, well . . . Chief Inspector

Dalrymple is a married man.”

“Are you suggesting that my conduct has been improper?”

“No but—”

“Then mind your own business!” Before he could answer she added, “It might interest you that he told me about your four children.”

Tiny sputtered. “Why . . . why, I’m not even married!”

“So? That makes it worse, doesn’t it?” She swept out.

Tiny quit trying to keep her in her room, but told her to notify him whenever she left it. It kept him busy riding herd on her. I refrained from suggesting that he get Dalrymple to spell him.

But I was surprised when he told me to put through the order

dismissing her. I had been pretty sure he was going to drop it.

“What’s the charge?” I asked. “Insubordination!”

I kept mum. He said, “Well, she won’t take orders.”

“She does her work okay. You give her orders you wouldn’t give to one of the men—and that a man wouldn’t take.”

”You disagree with my orders?”

“That’s not the point. You can’t prove the charge, Tiny.”

“Well, charge her with being female! I can prove that.”

I didn’t say anything. “Dad,” he added wheedlingly, “you know how to write it. ‘No personal animus against Miss McNye, but it is felt that as a matter of policy, and so forth and so on.'”

I wrote it and gave it to Hammond privately. Radio techs are sworn to secrecy but it didn’t surprise me when I was stopped by O’Connor, one of our best metalsmiths. “Look, Dad, is it true that the Old Manis getting rid of Brooksie?”

“Brooksie?”

“Brooksie McNye—says to call her Brooks. Is it true?”

I admitted it, then went on, wondering if I should have lied.

It takes four hours, about, for a ship to lift from Earth. The shift before the Pole Star was due, with Miss Gloria’s relief, thee timekeeper brought me two separation slips. Two men were nothing; we averaged more each ship. An hour later he reached me by supervisors’ circuit, and asked me to come to the time office. I was out on the rim, inspecting a weld job; I said no. “Please, Mr. Witherspoon,” he begged, “you’ve got to.” When one of the boys doesn’t call me ‘Dad,’ it means something. I went.

There was a queue like mail call outside his door; I went in and he shut the door on them. He handed me a double handful of separation slips. “What in the great depths of night is this?” I asked.

”There’s dozens more I ain’t had time to write up yet.”

None of the slips had any reason given-just “own choice.”

“Look, Jimmie—what goes on here?”

“Can’t you dope it out, Dad? Shucks, I’m turning in one, too.”

I told him my guess and he admitted it. So I took the slips, called Tiny and told him for the love of Heaven to come to his office.

Tiny chewed his lip considerable. ”But, Dad, they can’t strike. It’s a non-strike contract with bonds from every union concerned.”

“It’s no strike, Tiny. You can’t stop a man from quitting.”

”They’ll pay their own fares back, so help me!”

“Guess again. Most of ’em have worked long enough for the free ride.”

“We’ll have to hire others quick, or we’ll miss our date.”

“Worse than that, Tiny—we won’t finish. By next dark period you won’t even have a maintenance crew.”

“I’ve never had a gang of men quit me. I’ll talk to them.”

“No good, Tiny. You’re up against something too strong for you.”

“You’re against me, Dad?”

“I’m never against you, Tiny.”

He said, “Dad, you think I’m pig-headed, but I’m right. You can’t have one woman among several hundred men. It drives ’em nutty.”

I didn’t say it affected him the same way; I said, “Is that bad?”

“Of course. I can’t let the job be ruined to humor one woman.”

“Tiny, have you looked at the progress charts lately?” “I’ve hardly had time to—what about them?”

I knew why he hadn’t had time. “You’ll have trouble proving Miss Gloria interfered with the job. We’re ahead of schedule.”

“We are?”

While he was studying the charts I put an arm around his shoulder. “Look, son,” I said, “sex has been around our planet a long time. Earthside, they never get away from it, yet some pretty big jobs get built anyhow. Maybe we’ll just have to learn to live with it here, too. Matter of fact, you had the answer a minute ago.”

“I did? I sure didn’t know it.”

“You said, ‘You can’t have one woman among several hundred men.’ Get me?”

“Huh? No, I don’t. Wait a minute! Maybe I do.”

“Ever tried jiu jitsu? Sometimes you win by relaxing.” “Yes. Yes!”

“When you can’t beat ’em, you jine ’em.”

He buzzed the radio shack. “Have Hammond relieve you, McNye, and come to my office.”

He did it handsomely, stood up and made a speech-he’d been wrong, taken him a long time to see it, hoped there were no hard feelings, etc. He was instructing the home office to see how many jobs could be filled at once with female help. “Don’t forget married couples,” I put in mildly, “and better ask for some older women, too.”

“I’ll do that,” Tiny agreed. “Have I missed anything, Dad?”

“Guess not. We’ll have to rig quarters, but there’s time.” “Okay. I’m telling them to hold the Pole Star, Gloria, so they can send us a few this trip.”

“That’s fine!” She looked really happy.

He chewed his lip. “I’ve a feeling I’ve missed something.

Hmm—I’ve got it. Dad, tell them to send up a chaplain for the Station, as soon as possible. Under the new policy we may need one anytime.” I thought so, too.

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The Menace from Earth (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein

I first read this story when I was in Junior High School back in the 1970’s. The school library had a chrome-plated wire-frame arrangement where paper-books could be displayed. There were numerous Robert Heinlein books there, as well as collections of short stories, and works by Fredrick Pohl, and Arthur C. Clark. My favorites, give my age, were the youth-directed simplistic narratives generated by Robert Heinlein.

The Menace from earth book cover. — Book cover from the Science fiction story by Robert Heinlein.

This is a nice little story, and it remains an enjoyable read. Heinlein introduces the reader to the idea that science fiction is not a world of B-grade monsters and flying-saucers, but rather a normal day-to-day life that can and (perhaps) will, take place in exotic locations.

All during the 1950’s and the 1960’s, popular media expounded upon the ideas of “space monsters” and horrible creatures that lived in the depths of space. As a child during that time, we would watch “Space Cadet” and “Fireball XL-5” and imagine what it would be like to battle these hideous creatures.

It was shows like “Space Cadet” that inspired me to study Aerospace Engineering, and desire to fly planes.

The Menace from Earth

by Robert Heinlein

My name is Holly Jones and I’m fifteen. I’m very intelligent but it doesn’t show, because I look like an underdone angel. Insipid.

I was born right here in Luna City, which seems to surprise Earthside types. Actually, I’m third generation; my grandparents pioneered in Site One, where the Memorial is. I live with my parents in Artemis Apartments, the new co-op in Pressure Five, eight hundred feet down near City Hall. But I’m not there much; I’m too busy.

Mornings I attend Tech High and afternoons I study or go flying with Jeff Hardesty—he’s my partner—or whenever a tourist ship is in I guide groundhogs. This day the Gripsholmgrounded at noon so I went straight from school to American Express.

The first gaggle of tourists was trickling in from Quarantine but I didn’t push forward as Mr. Dorcas, the manager, knows I’m the best. Guiding is just temporary (I’m really a spaceship designer), but if you’re doing a job you ought to do it well.

Mr. Dorcas spotted me. “Holly! Here, please. Miss Brentwood, Holly Jones will be your guide.”

“‘Holly,'” she repeated. “What a quaint name. Are you really a guide, dear?”

I’m tolerant of groundhogs—some of my best friends are from Earth. As Daddy says, being born on Luna is luck, not judgment, and most people Earthside are stuck there. After all, Jesus and Guatama Buddha and Dr. Einstein were all groundhogs.

But they can be irritating. If high school kids weren’t guides, whom could they hire? “My license says so,” I said briskly and looked her over the way she was looking me over.

Her face was sort of familiar and I thought perhaps I had seen her picture in those society things you see in Earthside magazines—one of the rich playgirls we get too many of. She was almost loathsomely lovely . . . nylon skin, soft, wavy, silver-blond hair, basic specs about 35-24-34 and enough this and that to make me feel like a matchstick drawing, a low, intimate voice and everything necessary to make plainer females think about pacts with the Devil. But I did not feel apprehensive; she was a groundhog and groundhogs don’t count.

“All city guides are girls,” Mr. Dorcas explained. “Holly is very competent.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” she answered quickly and went into tourist routine number one: surprise that a guide was needed just to find her hotel, amazement at no taxicabs, same for no porters, and raised eyebrows at the prospect of two girls walking alone through “an underground city.”

Mr. Dorcas was patient, ending with: “Miss Brentwood, Luna City is the only metropolis in the Solar System where a woman is really safe—no dark alleys, no deserted neighborhoods, no criminal element.”

I didn’t listen; I just held out my tariff card for Mr. Dorcas to stamp and picked up her bags. Guides shouldn’t carry bags and most tourists are delighted to experience the fact that their thirty-pound allowance weighs only five pounds. But I wanted to get her moving.

We were in the tunnel outside and me with a foot on the slidebelt when she stopped. “I forgot! I want a city map.”

“None available.”

“Really?”

“There’s only one. That’s why you need a guide.”

“But why don’t they supply them? Or would that throw you guides out of work?”

See? “You think guiding is makework? Miss Brentwood, labor is so scarce they’d hire monkeys if they could.”

“Then why not print maps?”

“Because Luna City isn’t flat like—” I almost said, “—groundhog cities,” but I caught myself.

“—like Earthside cities,” I went on. “All you saw from space was the meteor shield. Underneath it spreads out and goes down for miles in a dozen pressure zones.”

“Yes, I know, but why not a map for each level?”

Groundhogs always say, “Yes, I know, but—”

“I can show you the one city map. It’s a stereo tank twenty feet high and even so all you see clearly are big things like the Hall of the Mountain King and hydroponics farms and the Bats’ Cave.”

“‘The Bat’s Cave,'” she repeated. “That’s where they fly, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s where we fly.”

“Oh, I want to see it!”

“OK. It first . . . or the city map?”

She decided to go to her hotel first. The regular route to the Zurich is to slide up and west through Gray’s Tunnel past the Martian Embassy, get off at the Mormon Temple, and take a pressure lock down to Diana Boulevard. But I know all the shortcuts; we got off at Macy-Gimbel Upper to go down their personnel hoist. I thought she would enjoy it.

But when I told her to grab a hand grip as it dropped past her, she peered down the shaft and edged back. “You’re joking.”

I was about to take her back the regular way when a neighbor of ours came down the hoist. I said, “Hello, Mrs. Greenberg,” and she called back, “Hi, Holly. How are your folks?”

Susie Greenberg is more than plump. She was hanging by one hand with young David tucked in her other arm and holding the Daily Lunatic, reading as she dropped. Miss Brentwood stared, bit her lip, and said, “How do I do it?”

I said, “Oh, use both hands; I’ll take the bags.” I tied the handles together with my hanky and went first.

She was shaking when we got to the bottom. “Goodness, Holly, how do you stand it? Don’t you get homesick?”

Tourist question number six . . . I said, “I’ve been to Earth,” and let it drop. Two years ago Mother made me visit my aunt in Omaha and I was miserable—hot and cold and dirty and beset by creepy-crawlies. I weighed a ton and I ached and my aunt was always chivvying me to go outdoors and exercise when all I wanted was to crawl into a tub and be quietly wretched. And I had hay fever. Probably you’ve never heard of hay fever—you don’t die but you wish you could.

I was supposed to go to a girls’ boarding school but I phoned Daddy and told him I was desperate and he let me come home. What groundhogs can’t understand is that they live in savagery. But groundhogs are groundhogs and loonies are loonies and never the twain shall meet.

Like all the best hotels the Zurich is in Pressure One on the west side so that it can have a view of Earth. I helped Miss Brentwood register with the roboclerk and found her room; it had its own port. She went straight to it, began staring at Earth and going ooh! and ahh!

I glanced past her and saw that it was a few minutes past thirteen; sunset sliced straight down the tip of India—early enough to snag another client. “Will that be all, Miss Brentwood?”

Instead of answering she said in an awed voice, “Holly, isn’t that the most beautiful sight you ever saw?”

“It’s nice,” I agreed. The view on that side is monotonous except for Earth hanging in the sky—but Earth is what tourists always look at even though they’ve just left it. Still, Earth is pretty. The changing weather is interesting if you don’t have to be in it. Did you ever endure a summer in Omaha?

“It’s gorgeous,” she whispered.

“Sure,” I agreed. “Do you want to go somewhere? Or will you sign my card?”

“What? Excuse me, I was daydreaming. No, not right now—yes, I do! Holly, I want to go out there! I must! Is there time? How much longer will it be light?”

“Huh? It’s two days to sunset.”

She looked startled. “How quaint. Holly, can you get us space suits? I’ve got to go outside.”

I didn’t wince—I’m used to tourist talk. I suppose a pressure suit looked like a space suit to them. I simply said, “We girls aren’t licensed outside. But I can phone a friend.”

Jeff Hardesty is my partner in spaceship designing, so I throw business his way. Jeff is eighteen and already in Goddard Institute, but I’m pushing hard to catch up so that we can set up offices for our firm: “Jones & Hardesty, Spaceship Engineers.” I’m very bright in mathematics, which is everything in space engineering, so I’ll get my degree pretty fast. Meanwhile we design ships anyhow.

I didn’t tell Miss Brentwood this, as tourists think a girl my age can’t possibly be a spaceship designer.

Jeff has arranged his classes to let him guide on Tuesdays and Thursdays; he waits at West City Lock and studies between clients. I reached him on the lockmaster’s phone. Jeff grinned and said, “Hi, Scale Model.”

“Hi, Penalty Weight. Free to take a client?”

“Well, I was supposed to guide a family party, but they’re late.”

“Cancel them. Miss Brentwood . . . step into pickup, please. This is Mr. Hardesty.”

Jeff’s eyes widened and I felt uneasy. But it did not occur to me that Jeff could be attracted by a groundhog . . . even though it is conceded that men are robot slaves of their body chemistry in such matters. I knew she was exceptionally decorative, but it was unthinkable that Jeff could be captivated by any groundhog, no matter how well designed. They don’t speak our language!

I am not romantic about Jeff; we are simply partners. But anything that affects Jones & Hardesty affects me.

When we joined him at West Lock he almost stepped on his tongue in a disgusting display of adolescent rut. I was ashamed of him and, for the first time, apprehensive. Why are males so childish?

Miss Brentwood didn’t seem to mind his behavior. Jeff is a big hulk; suited up for outside he looks like a Frost giant from Das Rheingold; she smiled up at him and thanked him for changing his schedule. He looked even sillier and told her it was a pleasure.

I keep my pressure suit at West Lock so that when I switch a client to Jeff he can invite me to come along for the walk. This time he hardly spoke to me after that platinum menace was in sight. But I helped her pick out a suit and took her into the dressing room and fitted it. Those rental suits take careful adjusting or they will pinch you in tender places once out in vacuum . . . besides those things about them that one girl ought to explain to another.

When I came out with her, not wearing my own, Jeff didn’t even ask why I hadn’t suited up—he took her arm and started toward the lock. I had to butt in to get her to sign my tariff card.

The days that followed were the longest in my life. I saw Jeff only once . . . on the slidebelt in Diana boulevard, going the other way. She was with him.

Though I saw him but once, I knew what was going on. He was cutting classes and three nights running he took her to the Earthview Room of the Duncan Hines. None of my business!—I hope she had more luck teaching him to dance than I had. Jeff is a free citizen and if he wanted to make an utter fool of himself neglecting school and losing sleep over an upholstered groundhog that was his business.

But he should not have neglected the firm’s business!

Jones & Hardesty had a tremendous backlog because we were designing Starship Prometheus. This project we had been slaving over for a year, flying not more than twice a week in order to devote time to it—and that’s a sacrifice.

Of course you can’t build a starship today, because of the power plant. But Daddy thinks that there will soon be a technological break-through and mass-conversion power plants will be built—which means starships. Daddy ought to know—he’s Luna Chief Engineer for Space Lanes and Fermi Lecturer at Goddard Institute. So Jeff and I are designing a self-supporting interstellar ship on that assumption: quarters, auxiliaries, surgery, labs—everything.

Daddy thinks it’s just practice but Mother knows better—Mother is a mathematical chemist for General Synthetics of Luna and is nearly as smart as I am. She realizes that Jones & Hardesty plans to be ready with a finished proposal while other designers are still floundering.

Which was why I was furious with Jeff for wasting time over this creature. We had been working every possible chance. Jeff would show up after dinner, we would finish our homework, then get down to real work, the Prometheus . . . checking each other’s computations, fighting bitterly over details, and having a wonderful time. But the very day I introduced him to Ariel Brentwood, he failed to appear. I had finished my lessons and was wondering whether to start or wait for him—we were making a radical change in power plant shielding—when his mother phoned me. “Jeff asked me to call you, dear. He’s having dinner with a tourist client and can’t come over.”

Mrs. Hardesty was watching me so I looked puzzled and said, “Jeff thought I was expecting him? He has his dates mixed.” I don’t think she believed me; she agreed too quickly.

All that week I was slowly convinced against my will that Jones & Hardesty was being liquidated. Jeff didn’t break any more dates—how can you break a date that hasn’t been made?—but we always went flying Thursday afternoons unless one of us was guiding. He didn’t call. Oh, I know where he was; he took her iceskating in Fingal’s Cave.

I stayed home and worked on the Prometheus, recalculating masses and moment arms for hydroponics and stores on the basis of the shielding change. But I made mistakes and twice I had to look up logarithms instead of remembering . . . I was so used to wrangling with Jeff over everything that I just couldn’t function.

Presently I looked at the name plate of the sheet I was revising. “Jones & Hardesty” it read, like all the rest. I said to myself, “Holly Jones, quit bluffing; this may be The End. You knew that someday Jeff would fall for somebody.”

“Of course . . . but not a groundhog.”

“But he did. What kind of an engineer are you if you can’t face facts? She’s beautiful and rich—she’ll get her father to give him a job Earthside. You hear me? Earthside! So you look for another partner . . . or go into business on your own.”

I erased “Jones & Hardesty” and lettered “Jones & Company” and stared at it. Then I started to erase that, too—but it smeared; I had dripped a tear on it. Which was ridiculous!

The following Tuesday both Daddy and Mother were home for lunch which was unusual as Daddy lunches at the spaceport. Now Daddy can’t even see you unless you’re a spaceship but that day he picked to notice that I had dialed only a salad and hadn’t finished it. “That plate is about eight hundred calories short,” he said, peering at it. “You can’t boost without fuel—aren’t you well?”

“Quite well, thank you,” I answered with dignity.

“Mmm . . . now that I think back, you’ve been moping for several days. Maybe you need a checkup.” He looked at Mother.

“I do not either need a checkup!” I had not been moping—doesn’t a woman have a right not to chatter?

But I hate to have doctors poking at me so I added, “It happens I’m eating lightly because I’m going flying this afternoon. But if you insist, I’ll order pot roast and potatoes and sleep instead!”

“Easy, punkin’,” he answered gently. “I didn’t mean to intrude. Get yourself a snack when you’re through . . . and say hello to Jeff for me.”

I simply answered, “OK,” and asked to be excused; I was humiliated by the assumption that I couldn’t fly without Mr. Jefferson Hardesty but did not wish to discuss it.

Daddy called after me, “Don’t be late for dinner,” and Mother said, “Now, Jacob—” and to me, “Fly until you’re tired, dear; you haven’t been getting much exercise. I’ll leave your dinner in the warmer. Anything you’d like?”

“No, whatever you dial for yourself.” I just wasn’t interested in food, which isn’t like me. As I headed for Bats’ Cave I wondered if I had caught something. But my cheeks didn’t feel warm and my stomach wasn’t upset even if I wasn’t hungry.

Then I had a horrible thought. Could it be that I was jealous? Me?

It was unthinkable. I am not romantic; I am a career woman. Jeff had been my partner and pal, and under my guidance he could have become a great spaceship designer, but our relationship was straightforward . . . a mutual respect for each other’s abilities, with never any of that lovey-dovey stuff. A career woman can’t afford such things—why look at all the professional time Mother had lost over having me!

No, I couldn’t be jealous; I was simply worried sick because my partner had become involved with a groundhog. Jeff isn’t bright about women and, besides, he’s never been to Earth and has illusions about it. If she lured him Earthside, Jones & Hardesty was finished.

And somehow “Jones & Company” wasn’t a substitute: the Prometheus might never be built.

I was at Bats’ Cave when I reached this dismal conclusion. I didn’t feel like flying but I went to the locker room and got my wings anyhow.

Most of the stuff written about Bats’ Cave gives a wrong impression. It’s the air storage tank for the city, just like all the colonies have—the place where the scavenger pumps, deep down, deliver the air until it’s needed. We just happen to be lucky enough to have one big enough to fly in. But it never was built, or anything like that; it’s just a big volcanic bubble, two miles across, and if it had broken through, way back when, it would have been a crater.

Tourists sometimes pity us loonies because we have no chance to swim. Well, I tried it in Omaha and got water up my nose and scared myself silly. Water is for drinking, not playing in; I’ll take flying. I’ve heard groundhogs say, oh yes, they had “flown” many times. But that’s not flying. I did what they talk about, between White Sands and Omaha. I felt awful and got sick. Those things aren’t safe.

I left my shoes and skirt in the locker room and slipped my tail surfaces on my feet, then zipped into my wings and got someone to tighten the shoulder straps. My wings aren’t ready-made condors; they are Storer-Gulls, custom-made for my weight distribution and dimensions. I’ve cost Daddy a pretty penny in wings, outgrowing them so often, but these latest I bought myself with guide fees.

They’re lovely!—titanalloy struts as light and strong as bird bones, tension-compensated wrist-pinion and shoulder joints, natural action in the alula slots, and automatic flap action in stalling. The wing skeleton is dressed in styrene feather-foils with individual quilling of scapulars and primaries. They almost fly themselves.

I folded my wings and went into the lock. While it was cycling I opened my left wing and thumbed the alula control—I had noticed a tendency to sideslip the last time I was airborne. But the alula opened properly and I decided I must have been overcontrolling, easy to do with Storer-Gulls; they’re extremely maneuverable. Then the door showed green and I folded the wing and hurried out, while glancing at the barometer. Seventeen pounds—two more than Earth sea-level and nearly twice what we use in the city; even an ostrich could fly in that. I perked up and felt sorry for all groundhogs, tied down by six times proper weight, who never, never, never could fly.

Not even I could, on Earth. My wing loading is less than a pound per square foot, as wings and all I weigh less than twenty pounds. Earthside that would be over a hundred pounds and I could flap forever and never get off the ground.

I felt so good that I forgot about Jeff and his weakness. I spread my wings, ran a few steps, warped for lift and grabbed air—lifted my feet and was airborne.

I sculled gently and let myself glide toward the air intake at the middle of the floor—the Baby’s Ladder, we call it, because you can ride the updraft clear to the roof, half a mile above, and never move a wing. When I felt it I leaned right, spoiling with right primaries, corrected, and settled in a counterclockwise soaring glide and let it carry me toward the roof.

A couple of hundred feet up, I looked around. The cave was almost empty, not more than two hundred in the air and half that number perched or on the ground—room enough for didoes. So as soon as I was up five hundred feet I leaned out of the updraft and began to beat. Gliding is no effort but flying is as hard work as you care to make it. In gliding I support a mere ten pounds on each arm—shucks, on Earth you work harder than that lying in bed. The lift that keeps you in the air doesn’t take any work; you get it free from the shape of your wings just as long as there is air pouring past them.

Even without an updraft all a level glide takes is gentle sculling with your finger tips to maintain air speed; a feeble old lady could do it. The lift comes from differential air pressures but you don’t have to understand it; you just scull a little and the air supports you, as if you were lying in an utterly perfect bed. Sculling keeps you moving forward just like sculling a rowboat . . . or so I’m told; I’ve never been in a rowboat. I had a chance to in Nebraska but I’m not that foolhardy.

But when you’re really flying, you scull with forearms as well as hands and add power with your shoulder muscles. Instead of only the outer quills of your primaries changing pitch (as in gliding), now your primaries and secondaries clear back to the joint warp sharply on each downbeat and recovery; they no longer lift, they force you forward—while your weight is carried by your scapulars, up under your armpits.

So you fly faster, or climb, or both, through controlling the angle of attack with your feet—with the tail surfaces you wear on your feet, I mean.

Oh dear, this sounds complicated and isn’t—you just do it. You fly exactly as a bird flies. Baby birds can learn it and they aren’t very bright. Anyhow, it’s easy as breathing after you learn . . . and more fun than you can imagine!

I climbed to the roof with powerful beats, increasing my angle of attack and slotting my alulae for lift without burble—climbing at an angle that would stall most fliers. I’m little but it’s all muscle and I’ve been flying since I was six. Once up there I glided and looked around. Down at the floor near the south wall tourists were trying glide wings—if you call those things “wings.” Along the west wall the visitors’ gallery was loaded with goggling tourists. I wondered if Jeff and his Circe character were there and decided to go down and find out.

So I went into a steep dive and swooped toward the gallery, leveled off and flew very fast along it. I didn’t spot Jeff and his groundhoggess but I wasn’t watching where I was going and over took another flier, almost collided. I glimpsed him just in time to stall and drop under, and fell fifty feet before I got control. Neither of us was in danger as the gallery is two hundred feet up, but I looked silly and it was my own fault; I had violated a safety rule.

There aren’t many rules but they are necessary; the first is that orange wings always have the right of way—they’re beginners. This flier did not have orange wings but I was overtaking. The flier underneath—or being overtaken—or nearer the wall—or turning counterclockwise, in that order, has the right of way.

I felt foolish and wondered who had seen me, so I went all the way back up, made sure I had clear air, then stooped like a hawk toward the gallery, spilling wings, lifting tail, and letting myself fall like a rock.

I completed my stoop in front of the gallery, lowering and spreading my tail so hard I could feel leg muscles knot and grabbing air with both wings, alulae slotted. I pulled level in an extremely fast glide along the gallery. I could see their eyes pop and thought smugly, “There! That’ll show ’em!”

When darn if somebody didn’t stoop on me! The blast from a flier braking right over me almost knocked me out of control. I grabbed air and stopped a sideslip, used some shipyard words and looked around to see who had blitzed me. I knew the black-and-gold wing pattern—Mary Muhlenburg, my best girl friend. She swung toward me, pivoting on a wing tip. “Hi, Holly! Scared you, didn’t I?”

“You did not! You better be careful; the flightmaster’ll ground you for a month!”

“Slim chance! He’s down for coffee.”

I flew away, still annoyed, and started to climb. Mary called after me, but I ignored her, thinking, “Mary my girl, I’m going to get over you and fly you right out of the air.”

This was a foolish thought as Mary flies every day and has shoulders and pectoral muscles like Mrs. Hercules. By the time she caught up with me I had cooled off and we flew side by side, still climbing. “Perch?” she called out.

“Perch,” I agreed. Mary has lovely gossip and I could use a breather. We turned toward our usual perch, a ceiling brace for flood lamps—it isn’t supposed to be a perch but the flightmaster hardly ever comes up there.

Mary flew in ahead of me, braked and stalled dead to a perfect landing. I skidded a little but Mary stuck out a wing and steadied me. It isn’t easy to come into a perch, especially when you have to approach level. Two years ago a boy who had just graduated from orange wings tried it . . . knocked off his left alula and primaries on a strut—went fluttering and spinning down two thousand feet and crashed. He could have saved himself—you can come in safely with a badly damaged wing if you spill air with the other and accept the steeper glide, then stall as you land. But this poor kid didn’t know how; he broke his neck, dead as Icarus. I haven’t used that perch since.

We folded our wings and Mary sidled over. “Jeff is looking for you,” she said with a sly grin.

My insides jumped but I answered coolly, “So? I didn’t know he was here.”

“Sure. Down there,” she added, pointing with her left wing. “Spot him?”

Jeff wears striped red and silver, but she was pointing at the tourist glide slope, a mile away. “No.”

“He’s there all right.” She looked at me sidewise. “But I wouldn’t look him up if I were you.”

“Why not? Or for that matter, why should I?” Mary can be exasperating.

“Huh? You always run when he whistles. But he has that Earthside siren in tow again today; you might find it embarrassing.”

“Mary, whatever are you talking about?”

“Huh? Don’t kid me, Holly Jones; you know what I mean.”

“I’m sure I don’t,” I answered with cold dignity.

“Humph! Then you’re the only person in Luna City who doesn’t. Everybody knows you’re crazy about Jeff; everybody knows she’s cut you out . . . and that you are simply simmering with jealousy.”

Mary is my dearest friend but someday I’m going to skin her for a rug. “Mary, that’s preposterously ridiculous! How can you even think such a thing?”

“Look, darling, you don’t have to pretend. I’m for you.” She patted my shoulders with her secondaries.

So I pushed her over backwards. She fell a hundred feet, straightened out, circled and climbed, and came in beside me, still grinning. It gave me time to decide what to say.

“Mary Muhlenburg, in the first place I am not crazy about anyone, least of all Jeff Hardesty. He and I are simply friends. So it’s utterly nonsensical to talk about me being ‘jealous.’ In the second place Miss Brentwood is a lady and doesn’t go around ‘cutting out’ anyone, least of all me. In the third place she is simply a tourist Jeff is guiding—business, nothing more.”

“Sure, sure,” Mary agreed placidly. “I was wrong. Still—” She shrugged her wings and shut up.

“‘Still’ what? Mary, don’t be mealy-mouthed.”

“Mmm . . . I was wondering how you knew I was talking about Ariel Brentwood—since there isn’t anything to it.”

“Why, you mentioned her name.”

“I did not.”

I thought frantically. “Uh, maybe not. But it’s perfectly simple. Miss Brentwood is a client I turned over to Jeff myself, so I assumed that she must be the tourist you meant.”

“So? I don’t recall even saying she was a tourist. But since she is just a tourist you two are splitting, why aren’t you doing the inside guiding while Jeff sticks to outside work? I thought you guides had an agreement?”

“Huh? If he has been guiding her inside the city, I’m not aware of it—”

“You’re the only one who isn’t.”

“—and I’m not interested; that’s up to the grievance committee. But Jeff wouldn’t take a fee for inside guiding in any case.”

“Oh, sure!—not one he could bank. Well, Holly, seeing I was wrong, why don’t you give him a hand with her? She wants to learn to glide.”

Butting in on that pair was farthest from my mind. “If Mr. Hardesty wants my help, he will ask me. In the meantime I shall mind my own business . . . a practice I recommend to you!”

“Relax, shipmate,” she answered, unruffled. “I was doing you a favor.”

“Thank you, I don’t need one.”

“So I’ll be on my way—got to practice for the gymkhana.” She leaned forward and dropped off. But she didn’t practice aerobatics; she dived straight for the tourist slope.

I watched her out of sight, then snaked my left hand out the hand slit and got at my hanky—awkward when you are wearing wings but the floodlights had made my eyes water. I wiped them and blew my nose and put my hanky away and wiggled my hand back into place, then checked everything, thumbs, toes, and fingers, preparatory to dropping off.

But I didn’t. I just sat there, wings drooping, and thought. I had to admit that Mary was partly right; Jeff’s head was turned completely . . . over a groundhog. So sooner or later he would go Earthside and Jones & Hardesty was finished.

Then I reminded myself that I had been planning to be a spaceship designer like Daddy long before Jeff and I teamed up. I wasn’t dependent on anyone; I could stand alone, like Joan of Arc, or Lise Meitner.

I felt better . . . a cold, stern pride, like Lucifer in Paradise Lost.

I recognized the red and silver of Jeff’s wings while he was far off and I thought about slipping quietly away. But Jeff can overtake me if he tries, so I decided, “Holly, don’t be a fool! You have no reason to run . . . just be coolly polite.”

He landed by me but didn’t sidle up. “Hi, Decimal Point.”

“Hi, Zero. Uh, stolen much lately?”

“Just the City Bank but they made me put it back.” He frowned and added, “Holly, are you mad at me?”

“Why, Jeff, whatever gave you such a silly notion?”

“Uh . . . something Mary the Mouth said.”

“Her? Don’t pay any attention to what she says. Half of it’s always wrong and she doesn’t mean the rest.”

“Yeah, a short circuit between her ears. Then you aren’t mad?”

“Of course not. Why should I be?”

“No reason I know of. I haven’t been around to work on the ship for a few days . . . but I’ve been awfully busy.”

“Think nothing of it. I’ve been terribly busy myself.”

“Uh, that’s fine. Look, Test Sample, do me a favor. Help me out with a friend—a client, that is—well, she’s a friend, too. She wants to learn to use glide wings.”

I pretended to consider it. “Anyone I know?”

“Oh, yes. Fact is, you introduced us. Ariel Brentwood.”

“‘Brentwood’? Jeff, there are so many tourists. Let me think. Tall girl? Blonde? Extremely pretty?”

He grinned like a goof and I almost pushed him off. “That’s Ariel!”

“I recall her . . . she expected me to carry her bags. But you don’t need help, Jeff. She seemed very clever. Good sense of balance.”

“Oh, yes, sure, all of that. Well, the fact is, I want you two to know each other. She’s . . . well, she’s just wonderful, Holly. A real person all the way through. You’ll love her when you know her better. Uh . . . this seemed like a good chance.”

I felt dizzy. “Why, that’s very thoughtful, Jeff, but I doubt if she wants to know me better. I’m just a servant she hired—you know groundhogs.”

“But she’s not at all like the ordinary groundhog. And she does want to know you better—she told me so!”

After you told her to think so! I muttered. But I had talked myself into a corner. If I had not been hampered by polite upbringing I would have said, “On your way, vacuum skull! I’m not interested in your groundhog girl friends”—but what I did say was, “OK, Jeff,” then gathered the fox to my bosom and dropped off into a glide.

So I taught Ariel Brentwood to “fly.” Look, those so-called wings they let tourists wear have fifty square feet of lift surface, no controls except warp in the primaries, a built-in dihedral to make them stable as a table, and a few meaningless degrees of hinging to let the wearer think that he is “flying” by waving his arms. The tail is rigid, and canted so that if you stall (almost impossible) you land on your feet. All a tourist does is run a few yards, lift up his feet (he can’t avoid it) and slide down a blanket of air. Then he can tell his grandchildren how he flew, really flew, “just like a bird.”

An ape could learn to “fly” that much.

I put myself to the humiliation of strapping on a set of the silly things and had Ariel watch while I swung into the Baby’s Ladder and let it carry me up a hundred feet to show her that you really and truly could “fly” with them. Then I thankfully got rid of them, strapped her into a larger set, and put on my beautiful Storer-Gulls. I had chased Jeff away (two instructors is too many), but when he saw her wing up, he swooped down and landed by us.

I looked up. “You again.”

“Hello, Ariel. Hi, Blip. Say, you’ve got her shoulder straps too tight.”

“Tut, tut,” I said. “One coach at a time, remember? If you want to help, shuck those gaudy fins and put on some gliders . . . then I’ll use you to show how not to. Otherwise get above two hundred feet and stay there; we don’t need any dining-lounge pilots.”

Jeff pouted like a brat but Ariel backed me up. “Do what teacher says, Jeff. That’s a good boy.”

He wouldn’t put on gliders but he didn’t stay clear either. He circled around us, watching, and got bawled out by the flightmaster for cluttering the tourist area.

I admit Ariel was a good pupil. She didn’t even get sore when I suggested that she was rather mature across the hips to balance well; she just said that she had noticed that I had the slimmest behind around there and she envied me. So I quit trying to get her goat, and found myself almost liking her as long as I kept my mind firmly on teaching. She tried hard and learned fast—good reflexes and (despite my dirty crack) good balance. I remarked on it and she admitted diffidently that she had had ballet training.

About mid-afternoon she said, “Could I possibly try real wings?”

“Huh? Gee, Ariel, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

There she had me. She had already done all that could be done with those atrocious gliders. If she was to learn more, she had to have real wings. “Ariel, it’s dangerous. It’s not what you’ve been doing, believe me. You might get hurt, even killed.”

“Would you be held responsible?”

“No. You signed a release when you came in.”

“Then I’d like to try it.”

I bit my lip. If she had cracked up without my help, I wouldn’t have shed a tear—but to let her do something too dangerous while she was my pupil . . . well, it smacked of David and Uriah. “Ariel, I can’t stop you . . . but I should put my wings away and not have anything to do with it.”

It was her turn to bite her lip. “If you feel that way, I can’t ask you to coach me. But I still want to. Perhaps Jeff will help me.”

“He probably will,” I blurted out, “if he is as big a fool as I think he is!”

Her company face slipped but she didn’t say anything because just then Jeff stalled in beside us. “What’s the discussion?”

We both tried to tell him and confused him for he got the idea I had suggested it, and started bawling me out. Was I crazy? Was I trying to get Ariel hurt? Didn’t I have any sense?

“Shut up!” I yelled, then added quietly but firmly, “Jefferson Hardesty, you wanted me to teach your girl friend, so I agreed. But don’t butt in and don’t think you can get away with talking to me like that. Now beat it! Take wing. Grab air!”

He swelled up and said slowly, “I absolutely forbid it.”

Silence for five long counts. Then Ariel said quietly, “Come, Holly. Let’s get me some wings.”

“Right, Ariel.”

But they don’t rent real wings. Fliers have their own; they have to. However, there are second-hand ones for sale because kids outgrow them, or people shift to custom-made ones, or something. I found Mr. Schultz who keeps the key, and said that Ariel was thinking of buying but I wouldn’t let her without a tryout. After picking over forty-odd pairs I found a set which Johnny Queveras had outgrown but which I knew were all right. Nevertheless I inspected them carefully. I could hardly reach the finger controls but they fitted Ariel.

While I was helping her into the tail surfaces I said, “Ariel? This is still a bad idea.”

“I know. But we can’t let men think they own us.”

“I suppose not.”

“They do own us, of course. But we shouldn’t let them know it.” She was feeling out the tail controls. “The big toes spread them?”

“Yes. But don’t do it. Just keep your feet together and toes pointed. Look, Ariel, you really aren’t ready. Today all you will do is glide, just as you’ve been doing. Promise?”

She looked me in the eye. “I’ll do exactly what you say . . . not even take wing unless you OK it.”

“OK. Ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“All right. Wups! I goofed. They aren’t orange.”

“Does it matter?”

“It sure does.” There followed a weary argument because Mr. Schultz didn’t want to spray them orange for a tryout. Ariel settled it by buying them, then we had to wait a bit while the solvent dried.

We went back to the tourist slope and I let her glide, cautioning her to hold both alulae open with her thumbs for more lift at slow speeds, while barely sculling with her fingers. She did fine, and stumbled in landing only once. Jeff stuck around, cutting figure eights above us, but we ignored him. Presently I taught her to turn in a wide, gentle bank—you can turn those awful glider things but it takes skill; they’re only meant for straight glide.

Finally I landed by her and said, “Had enough?”

“I’ll never have enough! But I’ll unwing if you say.”

“Tired?”

“No.” She glanced over her wing at the Baby’s Ladder; a dozen fliers were going up it, wings motionless, soaring lazily. “I wish I could do that just once. It must be heaven.”

I chewed it over. “Actually, the higher you are, the safer you are.”

“Then why not?”

“Mmm . . . safer provided you know what you’re doing. Going up that draft is just gliding like you’ve been doing. You lie still and let it lift you half a mile high. Then you come down the same way, circling the wall in a gentle glide. But you’re going to be tempted to do something you don’t understand yet—flap your wings, or cut some caper.”

She shook her head solemnly. “I won’t do anything you haven’t taught me.”

I was still worried. “Look, it’s only half a mile up but you cover five miles getting there and more getting down. Half an hour at least. Will your arms take it?”

“I’m sure they will.”

“Well . . . you can start down anytime; you don’t have to go all the way. Flex your arms a little now and then, so they won’t cramp. Just don’t flap your wings.”

“I won’t.”

“OK.” I spread my wings. “Follow me.”

I led her into the updraft, leaned gently right, then back left to start the counterclockwise climb, all the while sculling very slowly so that she could keep up. Once we were in the groove I called out, “Steady as you are!” and cut out suddenly, climbed and took station thirty feet over and behind her. “Ariel?”

“Yes, Holly?”

“I’ll stay over you. Don’t crane your neck; you don’t have to watch me, I have to watch you. You’re doing fine.”

“I feel fine!”

“Wiggle a little. Don’t stiffen up. It’s a long way to the roof. You can scull harder if you want to.”

“Aye aye, Cap’n!”

“Not tired?”

“Heavens, no! Girl, I’m living!” She giggled. “And mama said I’d never be an angel!”

I didn’t answer because red-and-silver wings came charging at me, braked suddenly and settled into a circle between me and Ariel. Jeff’s face was almost as red as his wings. “What the devil do you think you are doing?”

“Orange wings!” I yelled. “Keep clear!”

“Get down out of here! Both of you!”

“Get out from between me and my pupil. You know the rules.”

“Ariel!” Jeff shouted. “Lean out of the circle and glide down. I’ll stay with you.”

“Jeff Hardesty,” I said savagely, “I give you three seconds to get out from between us—then I’m going to report you for violation of Rule One. For the third time—Orange Wings!“

Jeff growled something, dipped his right wing and dropped out of formation. The idiot sideslipped within five feet of Ariel’s wing tip. I should have reported him for that; all the room you can give a beginner is none too much.

I said, “OK, Ariel?”

“OK, Holly. I’m sorry Jeff is angry.”

“He’ll get over it. Tell me if you feel tired.”

“I’m not. I want to go all the way up. How high are we?”

“Four hundred feet, maybe.”

Jeff flew below us a while, then climbed and flew over us . . . probably for the same reason I did: to see better. It suited me to have two of us watching her as long as he didn’t interfere; I was beginning to fret that Ariel might not realize that the way down was going to be as long and tiring as the way up. I was hoping she would cry uncle. I knew I could glide until forced down by starvation. But a beginner gets tense.

Jeff stayed generally over us, sweeping back and forth—he’s too active to glide very long—while Ariel and I continued to soar, winding slowly up toward the roof. It finally occurred to me when we were about halfway up that I could cry uncle myself; I didn’t have to wait for Ariel to weaken. So I called out, “Ariel? Tired now?”

“No.”

“Well, I am. Could we go down, please?”

She didn’t argue, she just said, “All right. What am I to do?”

“Lean right and get out of the circle.” I intended to have her move out five or six hundred feet, get into the return down draft, and circle the cave down instead of up. I glanced up, looking for Jeff. I finally spotted him some distance away and much higher but coming toward us. I called out, “Jeff! See you on the ground.” He might not have heard me but he would see if he didn’t hear; I glanced back at Ariel.

I couldn’t find her.

Then I saw her, a hundred feet below—flailing her wings and falling, out of control.

I didn’t know how it happened. Maybe she leaned too far, went into a sideslip and started to struggle. But I didn’t try to figure it out; I was simply filled with horror. I seemed to hang there frozen for an hour while I watched her.

But the fact appears to be that I screamed “Jeff!” and broke into a stoop.

But I didn’t seem to fall, couldn’t overtake her. I spilled my wings completely—but couldn’t manage to fall; she was as far away as ever.

You do start slowly, of course; our low gravity is the only thing that makes human flying possible. Even a stone falls a scant three feet in the first second. But that first second seemed endless.

Then I knew I was falling. I could feel rushing air—but I still didn’t seem to close on her. Her struggles must have slowed her somewhat, while I was in an intentional stoop, wings spilled and raised over my head, falling as fast as possible. I had a wild notion that if I could pull even with her, I could shout sense into her head, get her to dive, then straighten out in a glide. But I couldn’t reach her.

This nightmare dragged on for hours.

Actually we didn’t have room to fall for more than twenty seconds; that’s all it takes to stoop a thousand feet. But twenty seconds can be horribly long . . . long enough to regret every foolish thing I had ever done or said, long enough to say a prayer for us both . . . and to say good-by to Jeff in my heart. Long enough to see the floor rushing toward us and know that we were both going to crash if I didn’t overtake her mighty quick.

I glanced up and Jeff was stooping right over us but a long way up. I looked down at once . . . and I was overtaking her . . . I was passing her—I was under her!

Then I was braking with everything I had, almost pulling my wings off. I grabbed air, held it, and started to beat without ever going to level flight. I beat once, twice, three times . . . and hit her from below, jarring us both.

Then the floor hit us.* * *

I felt feeble and dreamily contented. I was on my back in a dim room. I think Mother was with me and I know Daddy was. My nose itched and I tried to scratch it, but my arms wouldn’t work. I fell asleep again.

I woke up hungry and wide awake. I was in a hospital bed and my arms still wouldn’t work, which wasn’t surprising as they were both in casts. A nurse came in with a tray. “Hungry?” she asked.

“Starved,” I admitted.

“We’ll fix that.” She started feeding me like a baby.

I dodged the third spoonful and demanded. “What happened to my arms?”

“Hush,” she said and gagged me with a spoon.

But a nice doctor came in later and answered my question. “Nothing much. Three simple fractures. At your age you’ll heal in no time. But we like your company so I’m holding you for observation of possible internal injury.”

“I’m not hurt inside,” I told him. “At least, I don’t hurt.”

“I told you it was just an excuse.”

“Uh, Doctor?”

“Well?”

“Will I be able to fly again?” I waited, scared.

“Certainly. I’ve seen men hurt worse get up and go three rounds.”

“Oh. Well, thanks. Doctor? What happened to the other girl? Is she . . . did she . . . ?”

“Brentwood? She’s here.”

“She’s right here,” Ariel agreed from the door. “May I come in?”

My jaw dropped, then I said, “Yeah. Sure. Come in.”

The doctor said, “Don’t stay long,” and left. I said, “Well, sit down.”

“Thanks.” She hopped instead of walked and I saw that one foot was bandaged. She got on the end of the bed.

“You hurt your foot.”

She shrugged. “Nothing. A sprain and a torn ligament. Two cracked ribs. But I would have been dead. You know why I’m not?”

I didn’t answer. She touched one of my casts. “That’s why. You broke my fall and I landed on top of you. You saved my life and I broke both your arms.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I would have done it for anybody.”

“I believe you and I wasn’t thanking you. You can’t thank a person for saving your life. I just wanted to make sure you knew that I knew it.”

I didn’t have an answer so I said, “Where’s Jeff? Is he all right?”

“He’ll be along soon. Jeff’s not hurt . . . though I’m surprised he didn’t break both ankles. He stalled in beside us so hard that he should have. But Holly . . . Holly my very dear . . . I slipped in so that you and I could talk about him before he got here.”

I changed the subject quickly. Whatever they had given me made me feel dreamy and good, but not beyond being embarrassed. “Ariel, what happened? You were getting along fine—then suddenly you were in trouble.”

She looked sheepish. “My own fault. You said we were going down, so I looked down. Really looked, I mean. Before that, all my thoughts had been about climbing clear to the roof; I hadn’t thought about how far down the floor was. Then I looked down . . . and got dizzy and panicky and went all to pieces.” She shrugged. “You were right. I wasn’t ready.”

I thought about it and nodded. “I see. But don’t worry—when my arms are well, I’ll take you up again.”

She touched my foot. “Dear Holly. But I won’ be flying again; I’m going back where I belong.”

“Earthside?”

“Yes. I’m taking the Billy Mitchell on Wednesday.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

She frowned slightly. “Are you? Holly, you don’t like me, do you?”

I was startled silly. What can you say? Especially when it’s true? “Well,” I said slowly, “I don’t dislike you. I just don’t know you very well.”

She nodded. “And I don’t know you very well . . . even though I got to know you a lot better in a very few seconds. But Holly . . . listen please and don’t get angry. It’s about Jeff. He hasn’t treated you very well the last few days—while I’ve been here, I mean. But don’t be angry with him. I’m leaving and everything will be the same.”

That ripped it open and I couldn’t ignore it, because if I did, she would assume all sorts of things that weren’t so. So I had to explain . . . about me being a career woman . . . how, if I had seemed upset, it was simply distress at breaking up the firm of Jones & Hardesty before it even finished its first starship . . . how I was not in love with Jeff but simply valued him as a friend and associate . . . but if Jones & Hardesty couldn’t carry on, then Jones & Company would. “So you see, Ariel, it isn’t necessary for you to give up Jeff. If you feel you owe me something, just forget it. It isn’t necessary.”

She blinked and I saw with amazement that she was holding back tears. “Holly, Holly . . . you don’t understand at all.”

“I understand all right. I’m not a child.”

“No, you’re a grown woman . . . but you haven’t found it out.” She held up a finger. “One—Jeff doesn’t love me.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Two . . . I don’t love him.”

“I don’t believe that, either.”

“Three . . . you say you don’t love him—but we’ll take that up when we come to it. Holly, am I beautiful?”

Changing the subject is a female trait but I’ll never learn to do it that fast. “Huh?”

“I said, ‘Am I beautiful?'”

“You know darn well you are!”

“Yes. I can sing a bit and dance, but I would get few parts if I were not, because I’m no better than a third-rate actress. So I have to be beautiful. How old am I?”

I managed not to boggle. “Huh? Older than Jeff thinks you are. Twenty-one, at least. Maybe twenty-two.”

She sighed. “Holly, I’m old enough to be your mother.”

“Huh? I don’t believe that either.”

“I’m glad it doesn’t show. But that’s why, though Jeff is a dear, there never was a chance that I could fall in love with him. But how I feel about him doesn’t matter; the important thing is that he loves you.”

“What? That’s the silliest thing you’ve said yet! Oh, he likes me—or did. But that’s all.” I gulped. “And it’s all I want. Why, you should hear the way he talks to me.”

“I have. But boys that age can’t say what they mean; they get embarrassed.”

“But—”

“Wait, Holly. I saw something you didn’t because you were knocked cold. When you and I bumped, do you know what happened?”

“Uh, no.”

“Jeff arrived like an avenging angel, a split second behind us. He was ripping his wings off as he hit, getting his arms free. He didn’t even look at me. He just stepped across me and picked you up and cradled you in his arms, all the while bawling his eyes out.”

“He did?“

“He did.”

I mulled it over. Maybe the big lunk did kind of like me, after all.

Ariel went on, “So you see, Holly, even if you don’t love him, you must be very gentle with him, because he loves you and you can hurt him terribly.”

I tried to think. Romance was still something that a career woman should shun . . . but if Jeff really did feel that way—well . . . would it be compromising my ideals to marry him just to keep him happy? To keep the firm together? Eventually, that is?

But if I did, it wouldn’t be Jones & Hardesty; it would be Hardesty & Hardesty.

Ariel was still talking: “—you might even fall in love with him. It does happen, hon, and if it did, you’d be sorry if you had chased him away. Some other girl would grab him; he’s awfully nice.”

“But—” I shut up for I heard Jeff’s step—I can always tell it. He stopped in the door and looked at us, frowning.

“Hi, Ariel.”

“Hi, Jeff.”

“Hi, Fraction.” He looked me over. “My, but you’re a mess.”

“You aren’t pretty yourself. I hear you have flat feet.”

“Permanently. How do you brush your teeth with those things on your arms?”

“I don’t.”

Ariel slid off the bed, balanced on one foot. “Must run. See you later, kids.”

“So long, Ariel.”

“Good-by, Ariel. Uh . . . thanks.”

Jeff closed the door after she hopped away, came to the bed and said gruffly, “Hold still.”

Then he put his arms around me and kissed me.

Well, I couldn’t stop him, could I? With both arms broken? Besides, it was consonant with the new policy for the firm. I was startled speechless because Jeff never kisses me, except birthday kisses, which don’t count. But I tried to kiss back and show that I appreciated it.

I don’t know what the stuff was they had been giving me but my ears began to ring and I felt dizzy again.

Then he was leaning over me. “Runt,” he said mournfully, “you sure give me a lot of grief.”

“You’re no bargain yourself, flathead,” I answered with dignity.

“I suppose not.” He looked me over sadly. “What are you crying for?”

I didn’t know that I had been. Then I remembered why. “Oh, Jeff—I busted my pretty wings!”

“We’ll get you more. Uh, brace yourself. I’m going to do it again.”

“All right.” He did.

I suppose Hardesty & Hardesty has more rhythm than Jones & Hardesty.

It really sounds better.*

Afterword by Eric Flint

Once we settled on Clarke’s Rescue Party as the opening story for the anthology, the choice for the second story was practically automatic: This one.

Well . . . not quite. The part that was more or less automatic was that it would be some story by Robert Heinlein. The question of which story in particular, however, was something we had to kick back and forth for a while.

We faced a bit of a problem. For all of us as teenagers, the Heinlein was not really the Heinlein who wrote short stories. It was the Heinlein who wrote that seemingly inexhaustible fountain of young adult novels: Rocket Ship Galileo, Citizen of the Galaxy, Have Spacesuit—Will Travel, Tunnel in the Sky, Time for the Stars, The Star Beast, Farmer in the Sky, Space Cadet, The Rolling Stone, Starman Jones . . . the list seemed to go on and on.

If books had infinite pages—or book buyers had infinitely deep pockets—we would have selected one of those short YA novels for the anthology. Alas, pages are finite and the pockets of customers more finite still, so we had to find another alternative.

We chose this story, because of all Heinlein’s short fiction it probably best captures the spirit of his great young adult novels. Most of Heinlein’s short fiction is quite different, often much grimmer, and—speaking for me, at least, if not necessarily Jim or Dave—not something which had much of an impact on me in my so-called formative years.

Plus, there was another bonus. Again, for me at least. I’m sure I first read this story when I was thirteen. I think that because I remember being absolutely fascinated by the fact that: a) the protagonist from whose viewpoint the story is told is a girl; b) she was really bright; c) she was often confused by her own motives and uncertain of herself, for all that she pretended otherwise.

Leaving factor “a” aside, factors “b” and “c” described me at that age to a T. That bizarre age in a boy’s life when girls had gone from being a very familiar, well-understood and mostly boring phenomenon to something that had suddenly become incredibly mysterious, even more fascinating—and completely confusing.

After reading the story, I remember thinking that I really, really hoped Heinlein knew what he was talking about—and that the depiction of women and girls you generally ran across in science fiction of the time was baloney. With few exceptions, in SF of the time, a female character was doing well if she achieved one-dimensionality. And that dimension was invariably good looks. This was no help at all. I already knew girls were good-looking. What I needed to know was everything else—everything that Heinlein had put at the center of his story.

A year later I was fourteen and I had my first girlfriend, who remained so throughout my high school years. And whatever doubts I might have had that Robert A. Heinlein was the Heinlein were dispelled forever.

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All Summer in a Day (Full Text) by Ray Bradbury

This is the full text of the Ray Bradbury story “All Summer In A Day“. If the illustrations and micro-videos are not loading properly please kindly refresh your browser.

ALL SUMMER IN A DAY

By Ray Bradbury

“Ready?”

“Now?”

“Soon.”

“Do the scientists really know? Will it happen today, will it?”

“Look, look; see for yourself!”

The children pressed to each other like so many roses, so many weeds, intermixed, peering out for a look at the hidden sun.

It rained.

It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands.

A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus, and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket men and women who had come to a raining world to set up civilization and live out their lives.

“It’s stopping, it’s stopping!”

“Yes, yes!”

Margot stood apart from them, from these children who could never remember a time when there wasn’t rain and rain and rain. They were all nine years old, and if there had been a day, seven years ago, when the sun came out for an hour and showed its face to the stunned world, they could not recall.

Sometimes, at night, she heard them stir, in remembrance, and she knew they were dreaming and remembering gold or a yellow crayon or a coin large enough to buy the world with.

She knew they thought they remembered a warmness, like a blushing in the face, in the body, in the arms and legs and trembling hands.

But then they always awoke to the tatting drum, the endless shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the roof, the walk, the gardens, the forests, and their dreams were gone.

All day yesterday they had read in class about the sun.

About how like a lemon it was, and how hot.

And they had written small stories or essays or poems about it: I think the sun is a flower; That blooms for just one hour.

That was Margot’s poem, read in a quiet voice in the still classroom while the rain was falling outside.

“Aw, you didn’t write that!” protested one of the boys.

“I did,” said Margot, “I did.”

“William!” said the teacher.

Children Picking on Child in Classroom again. — There was no escape. They children were relentless.

But that was yesterday.

Now the rain was slackening, and the children were crushed in the great thick windows.

“Where’s teacher?”

“She’ll be back.”

“She’d better hurry; we’ll miss it!”

They turned on themselves, like a feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes.

Margot stoodalone.

She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost.

Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass.

“What’re you looking at?” said William.

Margot said nothing.

“Speak when you’re spoken to.”

He gave her a shove.

But she did not move; rather she let herself be moved only by him and nothing else. They edged away from her, they would not look at her. She felt them go away. And this was because she would play no games with them in the echoing tunnels of the underground city.

Bullied in school. — They bullied her. They were relentless in picking on her. She had no where to go and no defense.

If they tagged her and ran, she stood blinking after them and did not follow. When the class sang songs about happiness and life and games her lips barely moved. Only when they sang about the sun and the summer did her lips move as she watched the drenched windows. And then, of course, the biggest crime of all was that she had come here only five years ago from Earth, and she remembered the sun and the way the sun was and the sky was when she was four in Ohio. And they, they had been on Venus all their lives, and they had been only two years old when last the sun came out and had long since forgotten the color and heat of it and the way it really was.

But Margot remembered.

“It’s like a penny,” she said once, eyes closed. “No it’s not!” the children cried.

“It’s like a fire,” she said, “in the stove.”

“You’re lying, you don’t remember!” cried the children.

But she remembered and stood quietly apart from all of them and watched the patterning windows. And once, a month ago, she had refused to shower in the school shower rooms, had clutched her hands to her ears and over her head, screaming the water mustn’t touch her head.

So after that, dimly, dimly; she sensed it, she was different and they knew her difference and kept away.

There was talk that her father and mother were taking her back to Earth next year; it seemed vital to her that they do so, though it would mean the loss of thousands of dollars to her family.

And so, the children hated her for all these reasons of big and little consequence.

Children Picking on Child in Classroom — The children picked on her remorsefully without letting up.

They hated her pale snow face, her waiting silence, her thinness, and her possible future.

“Get away!” The boy gave her another push.

“What’re you waiting for?”

Then, for the first time, she turned and looked at him. And what she was waiting for was in her eyes.

“Well, don’t wait around here!” cried the boy savagely:

“You won’t see nothing!” Her lips moved.

“Nothing!” he cried. “It was all a joke, wasn’t it?”

He turned to the other children.

“Nothing’s happening today: Is it?” They all blinked at him and then, understanding, laughed and shook their heads.

“Nothing, nothing!”

“Oh, but,” Margot whispered, her eyes helpless.

“But this is the day, the scientists predict, they say, they know, the sun. . .”

The children constantly bullied the poor girl. — Young girl being bullied at School

“All a joke!” said the boy, and seized her roughly.

“Hey, everyone, let’s put her in a closet before teacher comes!”

“No,” said Margot, falling back.

They surged about her, caught her up and bore her, protesting, and then pleading, and then crying, back into a tunnel, a room, a closet, where they slammed and locked the door.

They dragged her into a closet out of the classroom.

They stood looking at the door and saw it tremble from her beating and throwing herself against it.

They heard her muffled cries.

She pounded and threw herself onto the door.

Then, smiling, they turned and went out and back down the tunnel, just as the teacher arrived.

“Ready, children?” She glanced at her watch.

“Yes!” said everyone.

“Are we all here?”

“Yes!”

The rain slackened still more.

They crowded to the huge door.

The rain stopped.

It was as if, in the midst of a film, concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had, first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its place a peaceful tropical slide which did not move or tremor.

The world ground to a standstill.

The silence was so immense and unbelievable that you felt your ears had been stuffed or you had lost your hearing altogether.

The children put their hands to their ears.

They stood apart.

The door slid back and the smell of the silent, waiting world came in to them.

The sun came out. It was the color of flaming bronze and it was very large. And the sky around it was a blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burned with sunlight as the children, released from their spell, rushed out, yelling, into the springtime.

“Now, don’t go too far,” called the teacher after them.

“You’ve only two hours, you know. You wouldn’t want to get caught out!”

But they were running and turning their faces up to the sky and feeling the sun on their cheeks like a warm iron; they were taking off their jackets and letting the sun burn their arms.

“Oh, it’s better than the sunlamps, isn’t it?”

“Much, much better!”

They stopped running and stood in the great jungle that covered Venus, that grew and never stopped growing, tumultuously, even as you watched it.

It was a nest of octopi, clustering up great arms of flesh-like weed, wavering, flowering this brief spring.

It was the color of rubber and ash, this jungle, from the many years without sun.

It was the color of stones and white cheeses and ink, and it was the color of the moon.

The children lay out, laughing, on the jungle mattress, and heard it sigh and squeak under them, resilient and alive. They ran among the trees, they slipped and fell, they pushed each other, they played hide-and-seek and tag, but most of all they squinted at the sun until the tears ran down their faces, they put their hands up to that yellowness and that amazing blueness and they breathed of the fresh, fresh air and listened and listened to the silence which suspended them in a blessed sea of no sound and no motion.

They looked at everything and savored everything.

Then, wildly, like animals escaped from their caves, they ran and ran in shouting circles. They ran for an hour and did not stop running. And then

In the midst of their running one of the girls wailed.

Everyone stopped. The girl, standing in the open, held out her hand.

“Oh, look, look,” she said trembling.

They came slowly to look at her opened palm.

She felt a drop of rain on her open palm.

In the center of it, cupped and huge, was a single raindrop.

She began to cry; looking at it.

They glanced quietly at the sky. “Oh.Oh.”

A few cold drops fell on their noses and their cheeks and their mouths.

The sun faded behind a stir of mist. A wind blew cool around them.

They turned and started to walk back toward the underground house, their hands at their sides, their smiles vanishing away.

A boom of thunder startled them and like leaves before a new hurricane, they tumbled upon each other and ran.

Lightning struck ten miles away, five miles away, a mile, a half mile.

The sky darkened into midnight in a flash.

They stood in the doorway of the underground for a moment until it was raining hard.

Then they closed the door and heard the gigantic sound of the rain falling in tons and avalanches, everywhere and forever.

“Will it be seven more years?”

“Yes. Seven.”

Then one of them gave a little cry, “Margot!”

“What?”

“She’s still in the closet where we locked her.”

Sad pupil being bullied by classmates at corridor in school — When you are alone, the rest of the children can do just terrible things to you.

“Margot.”

They stood as if someone had driven them, like so many stakes, into the floor.

They looked at each other and then looked away: They glanced out at the world that was raining now and raining and raining steadily.

They could not meet each other’s glances.

Their faces were solemn and pale.

They looked at their hands and feet, their faces down.

“Margot.” One of the girls said, “Well. . . ?”

No one moved.

“Go on,” whispered the girl.

They walked down the empty school hallway.

They walked slowly down the hall in the sound of cold rain.

They turned through the doorway to the room in the sound of the storm and thunder, lightning on their faces, blue and terrible. They walked over to the closet door slowly and stood by it.

Behind the closet door was only silence.

They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margot out.

Attribution

This story was written by Ray Bradbury, and presented here under Article 22 of China’s Copyright Law. This was first published in the March 1954 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

I have found this version of the story on the Ray Bradbury library portal in Russia, and I have copied it here exactly as found. Credit to the wonderful people at the Ray Bradbury Library for posting it where a smuck like myself can read it within China. (Рэй Брэдбери .RU found at http://www.raybradbury.ru ) And, of course, credit to the great master; Ray Bradbury for providing this work of art for our inspiration and pleasure.

Ray Bradbury is one of my personal heroes and his writings greatly influenced me in ways that I am only just now beginning to understand.

I love the way that Ray Bradbury brings advanced concepts to the masses though his very (seemingly) simplistic stories.

Background

“There was this fence where we pressed our faces and felt the wind turn warm and held to the fence and forgot who we were or where we came from but dreamed of who we might be and where we might go…” 
-R is for Rocket Ray Bradbury

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October 2026: The Million-Year Picnic (Full Text) by Ray Bradbury

This story was written by Ray Bradbury, and presented here under Article 22 of China’s Copyright Law. This is from the Martian Chronicles. Which is a great collection of stores about Mars.

Ray Bradbury is one of my personal heroes and his writings greatly influenced me in ways that I am only just now beginning to understand.

Here is a story that discusses new starts when the world is Hell-bent on self-destruction. Indeed, it seems quite appropriate today. When I read the crazy American “main-stream” news, I am often reminded of this story. It offers me solace. I think that it is beautifully written and very “delicious”.

I love the way that Ray Bradbury brings advanced concepts to the masses though his very (seemingly) simplistic stories.

Introduction

“There was this fence where we pressed our faces and felt the wind turn warm and held to the fence and forgot who we were or where we came from but dreamed of who we might be and where we might go…” 
-R is for Rocket Ray Bradbury

I have found this version of the story on the Ray Bradbury library portal in Russia, and I have copied it here exactly as found. Credit to the wonderful people at the Ray Bradbury Library for posting it where a smuck like myself can read it within China. (Рэй Брэдбери .RU found athttp://www.raybradbury.ru ) And, of course, credit to the great master; Ray Bradbury for providing this work of art for our inspiration and pleasure.

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October 2026: THE MILLION-YEAR PICNIC

By Ray Bradbury

Somehow the idea was brought up by Mom that perhaps the whole family would enjoy a fishing trip. But they weren’t Mom’s words; Timothy knew that. They were Dad’s words, and Mom used them for him somehow.

Dad shuffled his feet in a clutter of Martian pebbles and agreed. So immediately there was a tumult and a shouting, and very quickly the camp was tucked into capsules and containers, Mom slipped into traveling jumpers and blouse,

Dad stuffed his pipe full with trembling hands, his eyes on the Martian sky, and the three boys piled yelling into the motorboat, none of them really keeping an eye on Mom and Dad, except Timothy.

Mars as viewed by a Science Fiction writer. — In the book “The Martian Chronicles”, Mars was portrayed as a beautiful place with ruins, free flowing water and blue skies.

Dad pushed a stud. The water boat sent a humming sound up into the sky. The water shook back and the boat nosed ahead, and the family cried, “Hurrah!”

Timothy sat in the back of the boat with Dad, his small fingers atop Dad’s hairy ones, watching the canal twist, leaving the crumbled place behind where they had landed in their small family rocket all the way from Earth. He remembered the night before they left Earth, the hustling and hurrying the rocket that Dad had found somewhere, somehow, and the talk of a vacation on Mars. A long way to go for a vacation, but Timothy said nothing because of his younger brothers.

They came to Mars and now, first thing, or so they said, they were going fishing.

Dad had a funny look in his eyes as the boat went up-canal. A look that Timothy couldn’t figure. It was made of strong light and maybe a sort of relief. It made the deep wrinkles laugh instead of worry or cry.

So there went the cooling rocket, around a bend, gone. “How far are we going?” Robert splashed his hand. Itlooked like a small crab jumping in the violet water.

Dad exhaled. “A million years.” “Gee,” said Robert.

“Look, kids.” Mother pointed one soft long arm. “There’s a dead city.”

The ruins of Mars. — In the book “The Martian Chronicles”, Mars is portrayed as a dusty barren place with blue skies and water filled canals. Maybe something a little bit like this.

They looked with fervent anticipation, and the dead city lay dead for them alone, drowsing in a hot silence of summer made on Mars by a Martian weatherman.

And Dad looked as if he was pleased that it was dead.

It was a futile spread of pink rocks sleeping on a riseof sand, a few tumbled pillars, one lonely shrine, and then the sweep of sand again. Nothing else for miles. A white desert around the canal and a blue desert over it.

Just then a bird flew up. Like a stone thrown across a blue pond, hitting, falling deep, and vanishing.

Dad got a frightened look when he saw it. “I thought it was a rocket.”

Timothy looked at the deep ocean sky, trying to see Earth and the war and the ruined cities and the men killing each other since the day he was born. But he saw nothing. The war was as removed and far off as two flies battling to the deathin the arch of a great high and silent cathedral. And just as senseless.

William Thomas wiped his forehead and felt the touch ofhis son’s hand on his arm, like a young tarantula, thrilled. He beamed at his son. “How goes it, Timmy?”

“Fine, Dad.”

Timothy hadn’t quite figured out what was ticking inside

the vast adult mechanism beside him. The man with the immense hawk nose, sunburnt, peeling–and the hot blue eyes like agate marbles you play with after school in summer back on Earth, and the long thick columnar legs in the loose riding breeches.

“What are you looking at so hard, Dad?”

“I was looking for Earthian logic, common sense, good government, peace, and responsibility.”

“All that up there?”

“No. I didn’t find it. It’s not there any more. Maybe it’ll never be there again. Maybe we fooled ourselves that it was ever there.”

“Huh?”

“See the fish,” said Dad, pointing.

There rose a soprano clamor from all three boys as they rocked the boat in arching their tender necks to see. They oohed and ahed. A silver ring fish floated by them, undulating, and closing like an iris, instantly, around food partides, to assimilate them.

Dad looked at it. His voice was deep and quiet.

“Just like war. War swims along, sees food, contracts. A moment later–Earth is gone.”

“William,” said Mom. “Sorry,” said Dad.

They sat still and felt the canal water rush cool, swift,and glassy. The only sound was the motor hum, the glide of water, the sun expanding the air.

“When do we see the Martians?” cried Michael. “Quite soon, perhaps,” said Father. “Maybe tonight.”

“Oh, but the Martians are a dead race now,” said Mom. “No, they’re not. I’ll show you some Martians, all right,”

Dad said presently.

Timothy scowled at that but said nothing. Everything was odd now. Vacations and fishing and looks between people.

The other boys were already engaged making shelves of their small hands and peering under them toward the seven-foot stone banks of the canal, watching for Martians.

“What do they look like?” demanded Michael.

“You’ll know them when you see them.” Dad sort of laughed, and Timothy saw a pulse beating time in his cheek.

Mars like America. — In the book “The Martian Chronicles”, Mars looked a little like the wilds of the American South West. Maybe something a little like this.

Mother was slender and soft, with a woven plait of spungold hair over her head in a tiara, and eyes the color of the deep cool canal water where it ran in shadow, almost purple, with flecks of amber caught in it. You could see her thoughts swimming around in her eyes, like fish–some bright, some dark, some fast, quick, some slow and easy and sometimes, like when she looked up where Earth was, being nothing but color and nothing else. She sat in the boat’s prow, one hand resting on the side lip, the other on the lap of her dark blue breeches, and a line of sunburnt soft neck showing where her blouse opened like a white flower.

She kept looking ahead to see what was there, and, not being able to see it clearly enough, she looked backward toward her husband, and through his eyes, reflected then, she saw what was ahead; and since he added part of himself to this reflection, a determined firmness, her face relaxed and she accepted it and she turned back, knowing suddenly what to look for.

Timothy looked too. But all he saw was a straight pencil line of canal going violet through a wide shallow valley penned by low, eroded hills, and on until it fell over the sky’s edge. And this canal went on and on, through cities that would have rattled like beetles in a dry skull if you shook them. Ahundred or two hundred cities dreaming hot summer-day dreams and cool summer-night dreams . . .

They had come millions of miles for this outing–to fish. But there had been a gun on the rocket. This was a vacation.

But why all the food, more than enough to last them years and years, left hidden back there near the rocket? Vacation. Just behind the veil of the vacation was not a soft face of laughter, but something hard and bony and perhaps terrifying. Timothy could not lift the veil, and the two other boys were busy being ten and eight years old, respectively.

“No Martians yet. Nuts.” Robert put his V-shaped chin onhis hands and glared at the canal.

Dad had brought an atomic radio along, strapped to his wrist. It functioned on an old-fashioned principle: you held it against the bones near your ear and it vibrated singing or talking to you. Dad listened to it now. His face looked like one of those fallen Martian cities, caved in, sucked. dry, almost dead.

Then he gave it to Mom to listen. Her lips dropped open. “What–” Timothy started to question, but never finishedwhat he wished to say.

For at that moment there were two titanic, marrow-jolting explosions that grew upon themselves, followed by a half dozen minor concussions.

Explosion on Mars — In the book “The Martian Chronicles”, Mars has a breathable atmosphere and blue skies. Never the less, I think that an explosion on Mars might look a little like this.

Jerking his head up, Dad notched the boat speed higher immediately. The boat leaped and jounced and spanked. This shook Robert out of his funk and elicited yelps of frightened but ecstatic joy from Michael, who clung to Mom’s legs and watched the water pour by his nose in a wet torrent.

Dad swerved the boat, cut speed, and ducked the craft into a little branch canal and under an ancient, crumbling stone wharf that smelled of crab flesh. The boat rammed the wharf hard enough to throw them all forward, but no one was hurt, and Dad was already twisted to see if the ripples on the canal were enough to map their route into hiding. Water lines went across, lapped the stones, and rippled back to meet each other, settling, to be dappled by the sun. It all went away.

Dad listened. So did everybody.

Dad’s breathing echoed like fists beating against the coldwet wharf stones. In the shadow, Mom’s cat eyes just watched Father for some clue to what next.

Dad relaxed and blew out a breath, laughing at himself. “The rocket, of course. I’m getting jumpy. The rocket.” Michael said, “What happened, Dad, what happened?” “Oh, we just blew up our rocket, is all,” said Timothy, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “I’ve heard rockets blown up before. Ours just blew.”

“Why did we blow up our rocket?” asked Michael. “Huh, Dad?”

“It’s part of the game, silly!” said Timothy.

“A game!” Michael and Robert loved the word.

“Dad fixed it so it would blow up and no one’d know where we landed or went! In case they ever came looking, see?”

“Oh boy, a secret!”

“Scared by my own rocket,” admitted Dad to Mom. “I am nervous. It’s silly to think there’ll ever be any more rockets.

Except one, perhaps, if Edwards and his wife get through with their ship.”

He put his tiny radio to his ear again. After two minutes he dropped his hand as you would drop a rag.

“It’s over at last,” he said to Mom. “The radio just went off the atomic beam. Every other world station’s gone. They dwindled down to a couple in the last few years. Now the air’s completely silent. It’ll probably remain silent.”

“For how long?” asked Robert.

“Maybe–your great-grandchildren will hear it again,” said Dad. He just sat there, and the children were caught in the center of his awe and defeat and resignation and acceptance.

Finally he put the boat out into the canal again, and they continued in the direction in which they had originally started.

It was getting late. Already the sun was down the sky, and a series of dead cities lay ahead of them.

Dad talked very quietly and gently to his sons. Many times in the past he had been brisk, distant, removed from them, but now he patted them on the head with just a word and they felt it.

“Mike, pick a city.” “What, Dad?”

“Pick a city, Son. Any one of these cities we pass.” “All right,” said Michael. “How do I pick?”

“Pick the one you like the most. You, too, Robert and Tim.

Pick the city you like best.”

“I want a city with Martians in it,” said Michael.

“You’ll have that,” said Dad. “I promise.” His lips were for the children, but his eyes were for Mom.

They passed six cities in twenty minutes. Dad didn’t say anything more about the explosions; he seemed much more interested in having fun with his sons, keeping them happy, than anything else.

Michael liked the first city they passed, but this was vetoed because everyone doubted quick first judgments. The second city nobody liked. It was an Earth Man’s settlement, built of wood and already rotting into sawdust. Timothy liked the third city because it was large.

The fourth and fifth were too small and the sixth brought acclaim from everyone, including Mother, who joined in the Gees, Goshes, and Look-at-thats!

There were fifty or sixty huge structures still standing, streets were dusty but paved, and you could see one or two old centrifugal fountains still pulsing wetly in the plazas.

That was the only life–water leaping in the late sunlight. “This is the city,” said everybody.

Steering the boat to a wharf, Dad jumped out.

“Here we are. This is ours. This is where we live from now on!”

“From now on?” Michael was incredulous. He stood up, looking, and then turned to blink back at where the rocket used to be. “What about the rocket? What about Minnesota?”

“Here,” said Dad.

He touched the small radio to Michael’s blond head. “Listen.”

Michael listened. “Nothing,” he said.

“That’s right. Nothing. Nothing at all any more. No more Minneapolis, no more rockets, no more Earth.”

Michael considered the lethal revelation and began to sob little dry sobs.

“Wait a moment,” said Dad the next instant. “I’m giving you a lot more in exchange, Mike!”

“What?” Michael held off the tears, curious, but quite ready to continue in case Dad’s further revelation was as disconcerting as the original.

“I’m giving you this city, Mike. It’s yours.” “Mine?”

“For you and Robert and Timothy, all three of you, to own for yourselves.”

Martian ruined city. — In the Ray Bradbury stories, such as what is found in “The Martian Chronicles”, Mars is a dry desolate place. With blue skies and water filled canals. I think that many people envisioned Mars to be like the American South West. Maybe something like this.

Timothy bounded from the boat “Look, guys, all for us! All of that!” He was playing the game with Dad, playing it large and playing it well. Later, after it was all over and things had settled, he could go off by himself and cry for ten minutes. But now it was still a game, still a family outing, and the other kids must be kept playing.

Mike jumped out with Robert. They helped Mom.

“Be careful of your sister,” said Dad, and nobody knew what he meant until later.

They hurried into the great pink-stoned city, whispering among themselves, because dead cities have a way of making you want to whisper, to watch the sun go down.

“In about five days,” said Dad quietly, “I’ll go back down to where our rocket was and collect the food hidden in the ruins there and bring it here; and I’ll hunt for Bert Edwards and his wife and daughters there.”

“Daughters?” asked Timothy. “How many?”

“Four.”

“I can see that’ll cause trouble later.” Mom nodded slowly.

“Girls.” Michael made a face like an ancient Martian stone image. “Girls.”

“Are they coming in a rocket too?”

“Yes. If they make it. Family rockets are made for travel to the Moon, not Mars. We were lucky we got through.”

“Where did you get the rocket?” whispered Timothy, for the other boys were running ahead.

“I saved it. I saved it for twenty years, Tim. I had it hidden away, hoping I’d never have to use it. I suppose I should have given it to the government for the war, but I kept thinking about Mars. . . .”

“And a picnic!”

“Right. This is between you and me. When I saw everything was finishing on Earth, after I’d waited until the last moment,

I packed us up. Bert Edwards had a ship hidden, too, but we decided it would be safer to take off separately, in case anyone tried to shoot us down.”

“Why’d you blow up the rocket, Dad?”

“So we can’t go back, ever. And so if any of those evil men ever come to Mars they won’t know we’re here.”

“Is that why you look up all the time?”

“Yes, it’s silly. They won’t follow us, ever. They haven’t anything to follow with. I’m being too careful, is all.”

Michael came running back. “Is this really our city, Dad?”

“The whole darn planet belongs to us, kids. The whole darn planet.”

They stood there, King of the Hill, Top of the Heap, Ruler of All They Surveyed, Unimpeachable Monarchs and Presidents, trying to understand what it meant to own a world and how big a world really was.

Martian water. — In the stories of Ray Bradbury, the planet Mars was a barren, but beautiful place. Water ran and flowed freely and the sky was pristine blue, though the air was a little thin.

Night came quickly in the thin atmosphere, and Dad left them in the square by the pulsing fountain, went down to the boat, and came walking back carrying a stack of paper in his big hands.

He laid the papers in a clutter in an old courtyard and set them afire. To keep warm, they crouched around the blaze and laughed, and Timothy saw the little letters leap like frightened animals when the flames touched and engulfed them. The papers crinkled like an old man’s skin, and the cremation surrounded innumerable words:

“GOVERNMENT BONDS; Business Graph, 1999; Religious Prejudice: An Essay; The Science of Logistics; Problems of the Pan-American Unity; Stock Report for July 3, 1998; The War Digest . . .”

Dad had insisted on bringing these papers for this purpose. He sat there and fed them into the fire, one by one, with satisfaction, and told his children what it all meant.

“It’s time I told you a few things. I don’t suppose it was fair, keeping so much from you. I don’t know if you’ll understand, but I have to talk, even if only part of it gets over to you.”

He dropped a leaf in the fire.

“I’m burning a way of life, just like that way of life is being burned clean of Earth right now. Forgive me if I talk like a politician. I am, after all, a former state governor, and I was honest and they hated me for it. Life on Earth never settled down to doing anything very good. Science ran too far ahead of us too quickly, and the people got lost in a mechanical wilderness, like children making over pretty things, gadgets, helicopters, rockets; emphasizing the wrong items, emphasizing machines instead of how to run the machines. Wars got bigger and bigger and finally killed Earth. That’s what the silent radio means. That’s what we ran away from.

“We were lucky. There aren’t any more rockets left. It’s time you knew this isn’t a fishing trip at all. I put off telling you. Earth is gone. Interplanetary travel won’t be back for centuries, maybe never. But that way of life proved itself wrong and strangled itself with its own hands. You’re young. I’ll tell you this again every day until it sinks in.”

He paused to feed more papers to the fire.

“Now we’re alone. We and a handful of others who’ll land in a few days. Enough to start over. Enough to turn away from all that back on Earth and strike out on a new line–“

The fire leaped up to emphasize his talking. And then all the papers were gone except one. All the laws and beliefs of Earth were burnt into small hot ashes which soon would be carried off in a wind.

Timothy looked at the last thing that Dad tossed in the fire. It was a map of the World, and it wrinkled and distorted itself hotly and went–flimpf–and was gone like a warm, black butterfly. Timothy turned away.

There comes a time in your life when you just need to be away… far, far away from everyone else and everything else that is trying to influence you. You see, our world, most especially for Americans, is one in which everyone tries to take from you. It has become profitable, legalized, and encoded through government regulation. Enough is enough. Americans need to stop, get away, and find their own peace in a place far, far away from others.

“Now I’m going to show you the Martians,” said Dad. “Come on, all of you. Here, Alice.” He took her hand.

Michael was crying loudly, and Dad picked him up and carried him, and they walked down through the ruins toward the canal.

The canal. Where tomorrow or the next day their future wives would come up in a boat, small laughing girls now, with their father and mother.

The night came down around them, and there were stars. But Timothy couldn’t find Earth. It had already set. That was something to think about.

A night bird called among the ruins as they walked. Dad said, “Your mother and I will try to teach you. Perhaps we’ll fail. I hope not. We’ve had a good lot to see and learn from. We planned this trip years ago, before you were born. Even if there hadn’t been a war we would have come to Mars, I think, to live and form our own standard of living. It would have been another century before Mars would have been really poisoned by the Earth civilization. Now, of course–“

They reached the canal. It was long and straight and cool and wet and reflective in the night.

Perhaps the water might look like this. — Once they reach the edge of the blue water canal, pershaps it would look something like this. Perhaps the blue sky would be like this and they would be free to start their life all over again.

“I’ve always wanted to see a Martian,” said Michael. “Where are they, Dad? You promised.”

“There they are,” said Dad, and he shifted Michael on his shoulder and pointed straight down.

The Martians were there. Timothy began to shiver.

The Martians were there–in the canal–reflected in the water. Timothy and Michael and Robert and Mom and Dad.

The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water. . . .

Conclusion

Today, the news is such that perhaps it would be best to hop on a rocket and fly far away from here.

I’ve had enough! It’s time to get off this “crazy train”.

The world is filled with wonderful and peaceful places that are not tarnished by the nonsense from the wealthy magnates out of Washington DC, or Silicon Valley, or from the wealthy enclaves on the Eastern seaboard. You need to go these and divorce yourself from all those crazies that expect things of you.

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The Last Night of the World (Full Text) by Ray Bradbury

This story was written by Ray Bradbury, and presented here under Article 22 of China’s Copyright Law.

Ray Bradbury is one of my personal heroes and his writings greatly influenced me in ways that I am only just now beginning to understand.

Here is a story that discusses how a family lives out their last moments on Earth. It’s a curious story and it makes you think. If you knew that the United States was going to collapse tomorrow, what would you do? If you knew that your city would be vaporized by nuclear conflagration, how would you handle it?

Last weekend I downloaded a torrent of the the 1980’s movie “The Day After“. This movie is all about what would actually happen if the Soviet Union attacked the United States using nuclear tipped MIRV ICBMs. What struck me the most about the movie was how the people reacted to the gradually building up news…

From the concern, to the emptying of the store shelves, to ignoring it all and just going to the football game and enjoying life. I am reminded by a statement by Mr. John Titor that said (and I am paraphrasing)…

“The most amazing thing was how the people just stayed in the cities fully aware of the nuclear disaster that awaited them.”

How would you handle yourself, knowing full well that the world would end tomorrow?

Introduction

“There was this fence where we pressed our faces and felt the wind turn warm and held to the fence and forgot who we were or where we came from but dreamed of who we might be and where we might go…” 
-R is for Rocket Ray Bradbury

I have found this version of the story on the Ray Bradbury library portal in Russia, and I have copied it here exactly as found. Credit to the wonderful people at the Ray Bradbury Library for posting it where a smuck like myself can read it within China. And, of course, credit to the great master; Ray Bradbury for providing this work of art for our inspiration and pleasure.

The Last Night of the World

“WHAT would you do if you knew that this was the last night of the world?”

“What would I do?

You mean seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought.”

He poured some coffee. In the background the two girls were playing blocks on the parlor rug in the light of the green hurricane lamps. There was an easy, clean aroma of the brewed coffee in the evening air.

“Well, better start thinking about it,” he said.

“You don’t mean it!”

He nodded. “A war?”

He shook his head.

“Not the hydrogen or atom bomb?”

“No.”

“Or germ warfare?”

“None of those at all,” he said, stirring his coffee slowly.

“But just, let’s say, the closing of a book.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“No, nor do I, really; it’s just a feeling. Sometimes it frightens me; sometimes I’m not frightened at all but at peace.”

He glanced in at the girls and their yellow hair shining in the lamplight.

“I didn’t say anything to you. It first happened about four nights ago.”

“What?”

“A dream I had. I dreamed that it was all going to be over, and a voice said it was; not any kind of voice I can remember, but a voice anyway, and it said things would stop here on Earth. I didn’t think too much about it the next day, but then I went to the office and caught Stan Willis looking out the window in the middle of the afternoon, and I said a penny for your thoughts, Stan, and he said, I had a dream last night, and before he even told me the dream I knew what it was.

I could have told him, but he told me and I listened to him.”

“It was the same dream?”

“The same. I told Stan I had dreamed it too. He didn’t seem surprised. He relaxed, in fact. Then we started walking through the office, for the hell of it. It wasn’t planned. We didn’t say, ‘Let’s walk around.’ We just walked on our own, and everywhere we saw people looking at their desks or their hands or out windows. I talked to a few. So did Stan.”

“And they all had dreamed?”

“All of them. The same dream, with no difference.”

“Do you believe in it?”

“Yes. I’ve never been more certain.”

“And when will it stop? The world, I mean.”

“Sometime during the night for us, and then as the night goes on around the world, that’ll go too. It’ll take twenty-four hours for it all to go.”

They sat awhile not touching their coffee. Then they lifted it slowly and drank, looking at each other.

“Do we deserve this?” she said.

“It’s not a matter of deserving; it’s just that things didn’t work out. I notice you didn’t even argue about this. Why not?”

“I guess I’ve a reason,” she said.

“The same one everyone at the office had?”

She nodded slowly.

“I didn’t want to say anything. It happened last night. And the women on the block talked about it among themselves today. They dreamed. I thought it was only a coincidence.”

She picked up the evening paper.

“There’s nothing in the paper about it.”

“Everyone knows, so there’s no need.”

He sat back in his chair, watching her.

“Are you afraid?”

“No. I always thought I would be, but I’m not.”

“Where’s that spirit called self-preservation they talk so much about?”

“I don’t know. You don’t get too excited when you feel things are logical. This is logical. Nothing else but this could have happened from the way we’ve lived.”

“We haven’t been too bad, have we?”

“No, nor enormously good. I suppose that’s the trouble. We haven’t been very much of anything except us, while a big part of the world was busy being lots of quite awful things.”

The girls were laughing in the parlor.

“I always thought people would be screaming in the streets at a time like this.”

“I guess not. You don’t scream about the real thing.”

“Do you know, I won’t miss anything but you and the girls. I never liked cities or my work or anything except you three. I won’t miss a thing except perhaps the change in the weather, and a glass of ice water when it’s hot, and I might miss sleeping. How can we sit here and talk this way?”

“Because there’s nothing else to do.”

“That’s it, of course; for if there were, we’d be doing it. I suppose this is the first time in the history of the world that everyone has known just what they were going to do during the night.”

“I wonder what everyone else will do now, this evening, for the next few hours.”

“Go to a show, listen to the radio, watch television, play cards, put the children to bed, go to bed themselves, like always.”

“In a way that’s something to be proud of… like always.”

They sat a moment and then he poured himself another coffee. “Why do you suppose it’s tonight?”

“Because.”

“Why not some other night in the last century, or five centuries ago, or ten?”

“Maybe it’s because it was never October 19, 1969, ever before in history, and now it is and that’s it; because this date means more than any other date ever meant; because it’s the year when things are as they are all over the world and that’s why it’s the end.”

“There are bombers on their schedules both ways across the ocean tonight that’ll never see land.”

“That’s part of the reason why.”

“Well,” he said, getting up, “what shall it be? Wash the dishes?”

They washed the dishes and stacked them away with special neatness. At eight-thirty the girls were put to bed and kissed good night and the little lights by their beds turned on and the door left open just a trifle.

“I wonder,” said the husband, coming from the bedroom and glancing back, standing there with his pipe for a moment.

“What?”

“If the door will be shut all the way, or if it’ll be left just a little ajar so some light comes in.” “I wonder if the children know.”

“No, of course not.”

They sat and read the papers and talked and listened to some radio music and then sat together by the fireplace watching the charcoal embers as the clock struck ten-thirty and eleven and eleventhirty.

They thought of all the other people in the world who had spent their evening, each in his own special way.

“Well,” he said at last. He kissed his wife for a long time. “We’ve been good for each other, anyway.”

“Do you want to cry?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

They moved through the house and turned out the lights and went into the bedroom and stood in the night cool darkness undressing and pushing back the covers.

“The sheets are so clean and nice.”

“I’m tired.”

“We’re all tired.”

They got into bed and lay back.

“Just a moment,” she said.

He heard her get out of bed and go into the kitchen. A moment later, she returned.

“I left the water running in the sink,” she said.

Something about this was so very funny that he had to laugh. She laughed with him, knowing what it was that she had done that was funny. They stopped laughing at last and lay in their cool night bed, their hands clasped, their heads together.

“Good night,” he said, after a moment.

“Good night,” she said.

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hmmmm.... https://rumble.com/v4q7hcq-the-end-of-humanity-as-planned-by-the-global-leaders.html and just maybe with help from Domain and some remnants.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYMMg7bUUAE Cheerful Love GrizzlyBear hug Unuk/Dida

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The Third Expedition by Ray Bradbury

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Bertrand R. Brinley

Mammoth Falls

Engineers and Scientists

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Author’s Legacy

The Mad Scientist’s Club Series

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The Man

By Ray Bradbury

The End

Some comments.

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GULF

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A. Bertram Chandler

Commander Grimes

The Road to the Rim

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Double Star

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THE GOLDEN EGG

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The Characters

The Plot

Things I Learned From This Movie

Stuff to watch for;

Some Pictures.

Conclusion

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PLAGUE SHIP

Chapter I

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