spatial delivery by randall garrett _women on space station assignments shouldn't get pregnant. but there's a first time for everything. here's the story of such a time----and an historic situation._ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, october 1954. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] one thousand seventy-five miles above the wrinkled surface of earth, a woman was in pain. there, high in the emptiness of space, space station one swung in its orbit. once every two hours, the artificial satellite looped completely around the planet, watching what went on below. outside its bright steel hull was the silence of the interplanetary vacuum; inside, in the hospital ward, lieutenant alice britton clutched at the sheets of her bed in pain, then relaxed as it faded away. major banes looked at her and smiled a little. "how do you feel, lieutenant?" she smiled back; she knew the pain wouldn't return for a few minutes yet. "fine, doctor. it's no worse than i was expecting. how long will it before we can contact white sands?" the major looked nervously at his wristwatch. "nearly an hour. you'll be all right." "certainly," she agreed, running a hand through her brown hair, "i'll be okay. just you be on tap when i call." the major's grin broadened. "you don't think i'd miss a historical event like this, do you? you take it easy. we're over eastern europe now, but as soon as we get within radio range of new mexico, i'll beam a call in." he paused, then repeated, "you just take it easy. call the nurse if anything happens." then he turned and walked out of the room. alice britton closed her eyes. major banes was all smiles and cheer now, but he hadn't been that way five months ago. she chuckled softly to herself as she thought of his blistering speech. "lieutenant britton, you're either careless or brainless; i don't know which! your husband may be the finest rocket jockey in the space service, but that doesn't give him the right to come blasting up here on a supply rocket just to get you pregnant!" alice had said: "i'm sure the thought never entered his mind, doctor. i know it never entered mine." "but that was two and a half months ago! why didn't you come to me before this? of all the tom-fool--" his voice had died off in suppressed anger. "i didn't know," she had said stolidly. "you know my medical record." "i know. i know." a puzzled frown had come over his face then, a frown which almost hid the green eyes that contrasted so startlingly with the flaming red of his hair. "the question is: what do we do next? we're not equipped for obstetrics up here." "send me back down to earth, of course." and he had looked up at her scathingly. "lieutenant britton, it is my personal opinion that you need your head examined, and not by a general practitioner, either! why, i wouldn't let you get into an airplane, much less land on earth in a rocket! if you think i'd permit you to subject yourself to eight gravities of acceleration in a rocket landing, you're daffy!" she hadn't thought of it before, but the major was right. the terrible pressure of a rocket landing would increase her effective body weight to nearly half a ton; an adult human being couldn't take that sort of punishment for long, much less the tiny life that was growing within her. so she had stayed on in the space station, doing her job as always. as chief radar technician, she was important in the operation of the station. her pregnancy had never made her uncomfortable; the slow rotation of the wheel-shaped station about its axis gave an effective gravity at the rim only half that of earth's surface, and the closer to the hub she went, the less her weight became. according to the major, the baby was due sometime around the first of september. "two hundred and eighty days," he had said. "luckily, we can pinpoint it almost exactly. and at a maximum of half of earth gravity, you shouldn't weigh more than seventy pounds then. you're to report to me at least once a week, lieutenant." as the words went through her mind, another spasm of pain hit her, and she clenched her fists tightly on the sheets again. it went away, and she took a deep breath. everything had been fine until today. and then, only half an hour ago, a meteor had hit the radar room. it had been only a tiny bit of rock, no bigger than a twenty-two bullet, and it hadn't been traveling more than ten miles per second, but it had managed to punch its way through the shielding of the station. the self-sealing walls had closed the tiny hole quickly, but even in that short time, a lot of air had gone whistling out into the vacuum of space. the depressurization hadn't hurt her too much, but the shock had been enough to start labor. the baby was going to come two months early. she relaxed a little more, waiting for the next pain. there was nothing to worry about; she had absolute faith in the red-haired major. the major himself was not so sure. he sat in his office, massaging his fingertips and looking worriedly at the clock on the wall. the chief nurse at a nearby desk took off her glasses and looked at him speculatively. "something wrong, doctor?" "incubator," he said, without taking his eyes off the clock. "i beg your pardon?" "incubator. we can't deliver a seven-month preemie without an incubator." the nurse's eyes widened. "good lord! i never thought of that! what are you going to do?" "right now, i can't do anything. i can't beam a radio message through to the earth. but as soon as we get within radio range of white sands, i'll ask them to send up an emergency rocket with an incubator. but--" "but what?" "will we have time? the pains are coming pretty fast now. it will be at least three hours before they can get a ship up here. if they miss us on the next time around, it'll be five hours. she can't hold out that long." the chief nurse turned her eyes to the slowly moving second hand of the wall clock. she could feel a lump in her throat. major banes was in the communications center a full five minutes before the coastline of california appeared on the curved horizon of the globe beneath them. he had spent the hour typing out a complete report of what had happened to alice britton and a list of what he needed. he handed it to the teletype operator and paced the floor impatiently as he waited for the answer. when the receiver teletype began clacking softly, he leaned over the page, waiting anxiously for every word. white sands rocket base 4 july 1984 0913 hrs urgent to: maj peter banes (mc) 0-266118 ss-1 medical officer from: gen david barrett 0-199515 commanding wsrb rocket. orbit now being computed for rendezvous with ss-1 as of next passage above usa. capt. james britton piloting. medics loading ship twelve with incubator and other supplies. base obstetrician lt col gates also coming to assist in delivery. hang on. over. banes nodded and turned to the operator. "i want a direct open telephone line to my office in case i have to get another message to the base before we get out of range again." he turned and left through the heavy door. each room of the space station was protected by airtight doors and individual heating units; if some accident, such as a really large meteor hit, should release the air from one room, nearby rooms would be safe. banes' next stop was the hospital ward. alice britton was resting quietly, but there were lines of strain around her eyes which hadn't been there an hour before. "how's it coming, lieutenant?" she smiled, but another spasm hit her before she could answer. after a time, she said: "i'm doing fine, but you look as if you'd been through the mill. what's eating you?" he forced a nervous smile. "nothing but the responsibility. you're going to be a very famous woman, you know. you'll be the mother of the first child born in space. and it's my job to see to it that you're both all right." she grinned. "another dr. dafoe?" "something on that order, i suppose. but it won't be all my glory. colonel gates, the o.b. man, was supposed to come up for the delivery in september, so when white sands contacted us, they said he was coming immediately." he paused, and a genuine smile crossed his face. "your husband is bringing him up." "jim! coming up here? wonderful! but i'm afraid the colonel will be too late. this isn't going to last that long." banes had to fight hard to keep his face smiling when she said that, but he managed an easy nod. "we'll see. don't hurry it, though. let nature take its course. i'm not such a glory hog that i'd not let gates have part of it--or all of it, for that matter. relax and take it easy." he went on talking, trying to keep the conversation light, but his eyes kept wandering to his wristwatch, timing alice's pain intervals. they were coming too close together to suit him. there was a faint rap, and the heavy airtight door swung open to admit the chief nurse. "there's a message for you in your office, doctor. i'll send a nurse in to be with her." he nodded, then turned back to alice. "stiff uppah lip, and all that sort of rot," he said in a phony british accent. "oh, raw_ther_, old chap," she grinned. back in his office, banes picked up the teletype flimsy. white sands rocket base 4 july 1984 0928 hrs urgent to: maj peter banes (mc) 0-266118 ss-1 medical officer from: gen david barrett 0-199515 commanding wsrb rocket. orbit computed for rendezvous at 1134 hrs mst. capt britton sends personal to lt britton as follows: hold the fort, baby, the whole world is praying for you. out. * * * * * banes sat on the edge of his desk, pounding a fist into the palm of his left hand. "two hours. it isn't soon enough. she'll never hold out that long. and we don't have an incubator." his voice was a clipped monotone, timed with the rhythmic slamming of his fist. the chief nurse said: "can't we build something that will do until the rocket gets here?" banes looked at her, his face expressionless. "what would we build it out of? there's not a spare piece of equipment in the station. it costs money to ship material up here, you know. anything not essential is left on the ground." the phone rang. banes picked it up and identified himself. the voice at the other end said: "this is communications, major. i tape recorded all the monitor pickups from the earth radio stations, and it looks as though the space service has released the information to the public. lieutenant britton's husband was right when he said the whole world's praying for her. do you want to hear the tapes?" "not now, but thanks for the information." he hung up and looked into the chief nurse's eyes. "they've released the news to the public." she frowned. "that really puts you on the spot. if the baby dies, they'll blame you." banes slammed his fist to the desk. "do you think i give a tinker's dam about that? i'm interested in saving a life, not in worrying about what people may think!" "yes, sir. i just thought--" "well, think about something useful! think about how we're going to save that baby!" he paused as he saw her eyes. "i'm sorry, lieutenant. my nerves are all raw, i guess. but, dammit, my field is space medicine. i can handle depressurization, space sickness, and things like that, but i don't know anything about babies! i know what i read in medical school, and i watched a delivery once, but that's all i know. i don't even have any references up here; people aren't supposed to go around having babies on a space station!" "it's all right, doctor. shall i prepare the delivery room?" his laugh was hard and short. "delivery room! i wish to heaven we had one! prepare the ward room next to the one she's in now, i guess. it's the best we have. "so help me hannah, i'm going to see some changes made in regulations! a situation like this won't happen again!" the nurse left quietly. she knew banes wasn't really angry at the brittons; it was simply his way of letting off steam to ease the tension within him. the slow, monotonous rotation of the second hand on the wall clock seemed to drag time grudgingly along with it. banes wished he could smoke to calm his raw nerves, but it was strictly against regulations. air was too precious to be used up by smoking. every bit of air on board had had to be carried up in rockets when the station was built in space. the air purifiers in the hydroponics section could keep the air fresh enough for breathing, but fire of any kind would overtax the system, leaving too little oxygen in the atmosphere. it was a few minutes of ten when he decided he'd better get back to alice britton. she was trying to read a book between spasms, but she wasn't getting much read. she dropped it to the floor when he came in. "am i glad to see you! it won't be long now." she looked at him analytically. "say! just what _is_ eating you? you look more haggard than i do!" again he tried to force a smile, but it didn't come off too well. "nothing serious. i just want to make sure everything comes out all right." she smiled. "it will. you're all set. you ordered the instruments months ago. or did you forget something?" that hit home, but he just grinned feebly. "i forgot to get somebody to boil water." "whatever for?" "coffee, of course. didn't you know that? papa always heats up the water; that keeps him out of the way, and the doctor has coffee afterwards." alice's hands grasped the sheet again, and banes glanced at his watch. ninety seconds! it was long and hard. when the pain had ebbed away, he said: "we've got the delivery room all ready. it won't be much longer now." "i'll say it won't! how about the incubator?" there was a long pause. finally, he said softly: "there isn't any incubator. i didn't take the possibility of a premature delivery into account. it's my fault. i've done what i could, though; the ship is bringing one up. i--i think we'll be able to keep the child alive until--" he stopped. alice was bubbling up with laughter. "lieutenant! lieutenant britton! alice! this is no time to get hysterical! stop it!" her laughter slowed to a chuckle. "_me_ get hysterical! that's a good one! what about you? you're so nervous you couldn't sip water out of a bathtub without spilling it!" he blinked. "what do you mean?" another pain came, and he had to wait until it was over before he got her answer. "doctor," she said, "i thought you would have figured it out. ask yourself just one question. ask yourself, 'why is a space station like an incubator?'" * * * * * space ship twelve docked at space station one at exactly eleven thirty-four, and two men in spacesuits pushed a large, bulky package through the airlock. major peter banes, haggard but smiling, met captain britton in the corridor as he and the colonel entered the hospital ward. banes nodded to colonel gates, then turned to britton. "i don't know whether to congratulate you or take a poke at you, captain, but i suppose congratulations come first. your son, james edward britton ii, is doing fine, thank you." "you mean--_already_?" the colonel said nothing, but he raised an eyebrow. "over an hour ago," said banes. "but--but--the incubator--" banes' grin widened. "we'll put the baby in it, now that we've got it, but it really isn't necessary. your wife figured that one out. a space station is a kind of incubator itself, you see. it protects us poor, weak humans from the terrible conditions of space. so all we had to do was close up one of the airtight rooms, sterilize it, warm it up, and put in extra oxygen from the emergency tanks. young james is perfectly comfortable." "excellent, major!" said the colonel. "don't thank me. it was captain britton's wife who--" but captain britton wasn't listening any more. he was headed toward his wife's room at top speed. satellite passage by theodore l. thomas _it had to come sooner or later--the perilous moment when our satellite crossed the orbit of theirs...._ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, october 1958. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] the three men bent over the chart and once again computed the orbit. it was quiet in the satellite, a busy quiet broken by the click of seeking microswitches and the gentle purr of smooth-running motors. the deep pulsing throb of the air conditioner had stopped: the satellite was in the earth's shadow and there was no need for cooling the interior. "well," said morgan, "it checks. we'll pass within fifty feet of the other satellite. too close. think we ought to move?" kaufman looked at him and did not speak. mcnary glanced up and snorted. morgan nodded. he said, "that's right. if there's any moving to be done, let them do it." he felt a curious nascent emotion, a blend of anger and exhilaration--very faint now, just strong enough to be recognizable. the pencil snapped in his fingers, and he stared at it, and smiled. kaufman said, "any way we can reline this a little? fifty feet cuts it kind of close." they were silent, and the murmuring of machinery filled the cramped room. "how's this?" said mcnary. "wait till we see the other satellite, take a couple of readings on it, and compute the orbit again. we'd have about five minutes to make the calculations. morgan here can do it in less than that. then we'd know if we're on a collision course." morgan nodded. "we could do it that way." he studied the chart in front of him. "the only thing, those boys on the other satellite will see what we're doing. they'll know we're afraid of a collision. they'll radio it down to earth, and--you know the russian mind--we'll lose face." "that so bad?" asked kaufman. morgan stared at the chart. he answered softly, "yes, i think it is. the russians will milk it dry if we make any move to get our satellite out of the way of theirs. we can't do that to our people." mcnary nodded. kaufman said, "agree. just wanted to throw it out. we stay put. we hit, we hit." the other two looked at kaufman. the abrupt dismissal of a serious problem was characteristic of the little astronomer; kaufman wasted no time with second guesses. a decision made was a fact accomplished; it was over. morgan glanced at mcnary to see how he was taking it. mcnary, now, big as he was, was a worrier. he stood ready to change his mind at any time, whenever some new alternative looked better. only the soundness of his judgment prevented his being putty in any strong hands. he was a meteorologist, and a good one. "you know," said mcnary, "i still can't quite believe it. two satellites, one pole-to-pole, the other equatorial, both having apogees and perigees of different elevations--yet they wind up on what amounts to a collision course." morgan said, "that's what regression will do for you. but we haven't got any time for that; we've got to think this out. let's see, they'll be coming up from below us at passage. can we make anything of that?" there was silence while the three men considered it. morgan's mind was focussed on the thing that was about to happen; but wisps of memory intruded. faintly he could hear the waves, smell the bite in the salt sea air. a man who had sailed a thirty-two-foot ketch alone into every corner of the globe never thereafter quite lost the sound of the sea in his ear. and the struggle, the duel, the strain of outguessing the implacable elements, there was a test of a man.... "better be outside in any case," said kaufman. "suited up and outside. they'll see us, and know we intend to do nothing to avoid collision. also, we'll be in a better position to cope with anything that comes along, if we're in the suits." morgan and mcnary nodded, and again there was talk. they discussed the desirability of radio communication with the other satellite, and decided against it. to keep their own conversations private, they agreed to use telephone communication instead of radio. when the discussion trailed off, kaufman said, "be some picture, if we have the course computed right. we stand there and wave at 'em as they go by." morgan tried to see it in his mind: three men standing on a long, slim tube, and waving at three men on another. the first rocket passage, and men waving. and then morgan remembered something, and the image changed. he saw the flimsy, awkward planes sputtering past each other on the morning's mission. the pilots, detached observers, non-combatants really, waved at each other as the rickety planes passed. kindred souls they were, high above the walks of normal men. so they waved ... for a while. morgan said, "do you suppose they'll try anything?" "like what?" said kaufman. "like knocking us out of orbit if they can. like shooting at us if they have a gun. like throwing something at us, if they've got nothing better to do." "my god," said mcnary, "you think they might have brought a gun up here?" morgan began examining the interior of the tiny cabin. slowly he turned his head, looking at one piece of equipment after another, visualizing what was packed away under it and behind it. to the right of the radio was the spacesuit locker, and his glance lingered there. he reached over, opened the door and slipped a hand under the suits packed in the locker. for a moment he fumbled and then he sat back holding an oxygen flask in his hand. he hefted the small steel flask and looked at kaufman. "can you think of anything better than this for throwing?" kaufman took it and hefted it in his turn, and passed it to mcnary. mcnary did the same and then carefully held it in front of him and took his hand away. the flask remained poised in mid-air, motionless. kaufman shook his head and said. "i can't think of anything better. it's got good mass, fits the hand well. it'll do." morgan said, "another thing. we clip extra flasks to our belts and they look like part of the standard equipment. it won't be obvious that we're carrying something we can throw." mcnary gently pushed the flask toward morgan, who caught it and replaced it. mcnary said, "i used to throw a hot pass at berkeley. i wonder how the old arm is." the discussion went on. at one point the radio came to life and kaufman had a lengthy conversation with one of the control points on the surface of the planet below. they talked in code. it was agreed that the american satellite should not move to make room for the other, and this information was carefully leaked so the russians would be aware of the decision. the only difficulty was that the russians also leaked the information that their satellite would not move, either. a final check of the two orbits revealed no change. kaufman switched off the set. "that," he said, "is the whole of it." "they're leaving us pretty much on our own," said mcnary. "couldn't be any other way," morgan answered. "we're the ones at the scene. besides--" he smiled his tight smile--"they trust us." kaufman snorted. "ought to. they went to enough trouble to pick us." mcnary looked at the chronometer and said, "three quarters of an hour to passage. we'd better suit up." * * * * * morgan nodded and reached again into the suit locker. the top suit was mcnary's, and as he worked his way into it, morgan and kaufman pressed against the walls to give him room. kaufman was next, and then morgan. they sat out the helmets, and while kaufman and mcnary made a final check of the equipment, morgan took several sights to verify their position. "luck," said kaufman, and dropped his helmet over his head. the others followed and they all went through the air-sealing check-off. they passed the telephone wire around, and tested the circuit. morgan handed out extra oxygen flasks, three for each. kaufman waved, squeezed into the air lock and pulled the hatch closed behind him. mcnary went next, then morgan. morgan carefully pulled himself erect alongside the outer hatch and plugged the telephone jack into his helmet. as he straightened, he saw the earth directly in front of him. it loomed large, visible as a great mass of blackness cutting off the harsh white starshine. the blackness was smudged with irregular patches of orangish light that marked the cities of earth. morgan became aware that mcnary, beside him, was pointing toward the center of the earth. following the line of his finger morgan could see a slight flicker of light against the blackness; it was so faint that he had to look above it to see it. "storm," said mcnary. "just below the equator. it must be a pip if we can see the lightning through the clouds from here. i've been watching it develop for the last two days." morgan stared, and nodded to himself. he knew what it was like down there. the familiar feeling was building up, stronger now as the time to passage drew closer. first the waiting. the sea, restless in expectancy as the waves tossed their hoary manes. the gathering majesty of the elements, reaching, searching, striving.... and if at the height of the contest the screaming wind snatched up and smothered a defiant roar from a mortal throat, there was none to tell of it. then the time came when the forces waned. a slight let-up at first, then another. soon the toothed and jagged edge of the waves subsided, the hard side-driven spray and rain assumed a more normal direction. the man looked after the departing storm, and there was pain in his eyes, longing. almost, the words rose to his lips, "come back, i am still here, do not leave me, come back." but the silent supplication went unanswered, and the man was left with a taste of glory gone, with an emptiness that drained the soul. the encounter had ended, the man had won. but the winning was bitter. the hard fight was not hard enough. somewhere there must be a test sufficient to try the mettle of this man. somewhere there was a crucible hot enough to float any dross. but where? the man searched and searched, but could not find it. morgan turned his head away from the storm and saw that kaufman and mcnary had walked to the top of the satellite. carefully he turned his body and began placing one foot in front of the other to join them. yes, he thought, men must always be on top, even if the top is only a state of mind. here on the outer surface of the satellite, clinging to the metallic skin with shoes of magnetized alloy, there was no top. one direction was the same as another, as with a fly walking on a chandelier. yet some primordial impulse drove a man to that position which he considered the top, drove him to stand with his feet pointed toward the earth and his head toward the outer reaches where the stars moved. walking under these conditions was difficult, so morgan moved with care. the feet could easily tread ahead of the man without his knowing it, or they could lag behind. a slight unthinking motion could detach the shoes from the satellite, leaving the man floating free, unable to return. so morgan moved with care, keeping the telephone line clear with one hand. when he reached the others, morgan stopped and looked around. the sight always gave him pause. it was not pretty; rather, it was harsh and garish like the raucous illumination of a honkytonk saloon. the black was too black, and the stars burned too white. everything appeared sharp and hard, with none of the softness seen from the earth. morgan stared, and his lips curled back over his teeth. the anticipation inside him grew greater. no sound and fury here; the menace was of a different sort. looming, quietly foreboding, it was everywhere. morgan leaned back to look overhead, and his lips curled further. this was where it might come, this was the place. raw space, where a man moved and breathed in momentary peril, where cosmic debris formed arrow-swift reefs on which to founder, where star-born particles traveled at unthinkable speeds out of the macrocosm seeking some fragile microcosm to shatter. "sun." kaufman's voice echoed tinnily inside the helmet. morgan brought his head down. there, ahead, a tinge of deep red edged a narrow segment of the black earth. the red brightened rapidly, and broadened. morgan reached to one side of his helmet and dropped a filter into place; he continued to stare at the sun. * * * * * mcnary said, "ten minutes to passage." morgan unhooked one of the oxygen cylinders at his belt and said, "we need some practice. we'd better try throwing one of these now; not much time left." he turned sideways and made several throwing motions with his right hand without releasing the cylinder. "better lean into it more than you would down below. well, here goes." he pushed the telephone line clear of his right side and leaned back, raising his right arm. he began to lean forward. when it seemed that he must topple, he snapped his arm down and threw the cylinder. the recoil straightened him neatly, and he stood securely upright. the cylinder shot out and down in a straight line and was quickly lost to sight. "very nice," said mcnary. "good timing. i'll keep mine low too. no sense cluttering the orbits up here with any more junk." carefully mcnary leaned back, leaned forward, and threw. the second cylinder followed the first, and mcnary kept his footing. without speaking kaufman went through the preliminaries and launched his cylinder. morgan and mcnary watched it speed into the distance. "shooting stars on earth tonight," said mcnary. "quick! i'm off." it was kaufman. [illustration: "quick! i'm off!"] morgan and mcnary turned to see kaufman floating several feet above the satellite, and slowly receding. morgan stepped toward him and scooped up the telephone wire that ran to kaufman's helmet. kaufman swung an arm in a circle so that it became entangled in the wire. morgan carefully drew the wire taut and checked kaufman's outward motion. gently, so as not to snap the wire, he slowly reeled him in. mcnary grasped kaufman's shoulders and turned him so that his feet touched the metal shell of the satellite. mcnary chuckled and said, "why didn't you ride an oxygen cylinder down?" kaufman grunted and said, "oh, sure. i'll leave that to the idiots in the movies; that's the only place a man can ride a cylinder in space." he turned to morgan. "thanks. do as much for you some day." "hope you don't have to," morgan answered. "look, any throwing to be done, you better leave it to mac and me. we can't be fishing anyone back if things get hot." "right," said kaufman. "i'll do what i can to fend off anything they throw at us." he sniffed. "be simpler if we have a collision." morgan was staring to the left. he lifted a hand and pointed. "that it?" the others squinted in that direction. after a moment they saw the spot of light moving swiftly up and across the black backdrop of the naked sky. "must be," said kaufman. "right time, right place. must be." morgan promptly turned his back on the sun and closed his eyes; he would need his best vision shortly now, and he wanted his pupils dilated as much as possible. "make anything out yet?" he said. "no. little brighter." morgan stood without moving. he could feel the heat on his back as his suit seized the radiant energy from the sun and converted it to heat. he grew warm at the back, yet his front remained cold. the sensation was familiar, and morgan sought to place it. yes, that was it--a fireplace. he felt as does a man who stands in a cold room with his back toward a roaring fire. one side toasted, the other side frigid. funny, the homey sensations, even here. "damn face plate." it was kaufman. he had scraped the front of his helmet against the outside hatch a week ago. since then the scratches distracted him every time he wore the helmet. morgan waited, and the exultation seethed and bubbled and fumed. "anything?" he said. "it's brighter," said mcnary. "but--wait a minute, i can make it out. they're outside, the three of them. i can just see them." it was time. morgan turned to face the approaching satellite. he raised a hand to shield his face plate from the sun and carefully opened his eyes. he shifted his hand into the proper position and studied the other satellite. it was like their own, even to the three men standing on it, except that the three were spaced further apart. "any sign of a rifle or gun?" asked mcnary. "not that i see," said morgan. "they're not close enough to tell." he watched the other satellite grow larger and he tried to judge its course, but it was too far away. although his eyes were on the satellite, his side vision noted the bright-lit earth below and the stars beyond. a small part of his mind was amused by his own stubborn egocentricity. knowing well that he was moving and moving fast, he still felt that he stood motionless while the rest of the universe revolved around him. the great globe seemed to be majestically turning under his rooted feet. the harsh brilliances that were the stars seemed to sweep by overhead. and that oncoming satellite, it seemed not to move so much as merely swell in size as he watched. one of the tiny figures on the other satellite shifted its position toward the others. sensitive to the smallest detail, morgan said, "he didn't clear a line when he walked. no telephone. they're on radio. see if we can find the frequency. mac, take the low. shorty, the medium. i'll take the high." morgan reached to his helmet and began turning the channel selector, hunting for the frequency the russians were using. kaufman found it. he said, "got it, i think. one twenty-eight point nine." morgan set his selector, heard nothing at first. then hard in his ear burst an unintelligible sentence with the characteristic fruity diphthongs of russian. "i think that's it," he said. he watched, and the satellite increased in size. "no rifle or any other weapon that i see," said morgan. "but they _are_ carrying a lot of extra oxygen bottles." kaufman grunted. mcnary asked, "can you tell if it's a collision course yet? i can't." morgan stared at the satellite through narrowed eyes, frowning in concentration. "i think not. i think it'll cross our bow twenty or thirty feet out; close but no collision." mcnary's breath sounded loud in the helmet. "good. then we've nothing but the men to worry about. i wonder how those boys pitch." another burst of russian came over the radio, and with it morgan felt himself slip into the relaxed state he knew so well. no longer was the anticipation rising. he was ready now, in a state of calm, a deadly and efficient calm--ready for the test. this was how it always was with him when the time came, and the time was now. morgan watched as the other satellite approached. his feet were apart and his head turned sideways over his left shoulder. at a thousand yards, he heard a mutter in russian and saw the man at the stern start moving rapidly toward the bow. his steps were long. too long. morgan saw the gap appear between the man and the surface of the other ship, saw the legs kicking in a futile attempt to establish contact again. the radio was alive with quick, short sentences, and the two men turned and began to work their way swiftly toward the bit of human jetsam that floated near them. "i'll be damned," said kaufman. "they'll never make it." morgan had seen that this was true. the gap between floating man and ship widened faster than the gap between men and floating man diminished. without conscious thought or plan, morgan leaned forward and pulled the jack on the telephone line from mcnary's helmet. he leaned back and did the same to kaufman, straightened and removed his own. he threw a quick knot and gathered the line, forming a coil in his left hand and one in his right, and leaving a large loop floating near the ship in front of him. he stepped forward to clear kaufman, and twisted his body far around to the right. there he waited, eyes fixed on the other satellite. he crouched slightly and began to lean forward, far forward. at the proper moment he snapped both his arms around to throw the line, the left hand throwing high, the right low. all his sailor's skill went into that heave. as the other satellite swept past, the line flew true to meet it. the floating man saw it coming and grabbed it and wrapped it around his hand and shouted into the radio. the call was not needed; the lower portion of the line struck one of the walking men. he turned and pulled the line into his arms and hauled it tight. the satellite was barely past when the bit of human jetsam was returning to its metallic haven. the two men became three again, and they turned to face the american satellite. as one man the three raised both arms and waved. still without thinking, morgan found himself raising an arm with kaufman and mcnary and waving back. he dropped his arm and watched the satellite shrink in size. the calmness left him, replaced by a small spot of emptiness that grew inside him, and grew and swelled and threatened to engulf him. passage was ended, but the taste in his mouth was of ashes and not of glory. the floater by kenneth o'hara _barton was unique--an absolutely self-sufficient human being. the biggest problem he had in space was holding on to his sanity. and he solved it by altering time itself to suit his needs...._ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, february 1957. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] as a watchman in a man-made kind of observational meteor floating millions of miles from nowhere out among the planets, barton had two main duties. to keep his sanity and to keep the watch. the second was simple. the gadgets all took care of themselves. all barton did was send in a report in case an alarm went off indicating something was wrong with some gadget or other. staying sane was supposed to be a watcher's big problem. barton couldn't figure out why they were so concerned, especially the neuropsychologist or whatever he was, von ulrich, who was always coming around in his clinical space boat, studying barton, asking him questions, giving him all kinds of tests. once something glinted like a mote in sunlight past the observation port and von ulrich said, "that's collins out there. collins was here only a week and he put on a pressure suit and jumped into space. he's still rotating round and round out there." "poor devil," barton said. "most of them don't even last a week out here, barton. six months is the maximum. you've been here almost a year and you're liable to start cracking any minute. i don't like the way things look." "i feel fine, sir." several months later, von ulrich dropped by again. "how are things going, barton?" "great, sir. just swell." "you feel comfortable, no anxiety?" "i feel fine." "you've done a fine job, barton--so far." "thank you, sir." "you manage to keep occupied?" "i just take it easy, sir." "i see." a few months later, von ulrich was back, watching barton moulding something out of clay, a sort of human shape without a face. there were other self-amusement gimmicks, wood-working, soap-carving, movies and the like, but barton preferred moulding things haphazardly out of clay, and sometimes reading one of the books he wasn't supposed to have brought along because books were no longer popular. "what were you thinking about when you moulded this thing?" von ulrich asked. "nothing much, sir." "you must have been thinking of something?" "i guess i was thinking of a man sleeping beside a river in green grass with nobody for miles around. something like that." "you weren't by any chance thinking about a dead man?" "i don't like death much." * * * * * later on sometime, von ulrich dropped around again on his therapeutic tour of basketballs, and martian bases, and other bases even more remote. barton wondered how anyone could find the basketball drifting in all that blackness. just a little ragged spheroid like a piece of dead slag, something like a cork bobbing in a black ocean too big even to bother thinking about. if no one ever found the basketball barton would have been happier, because the basketball was self-sustaining and could go on and on for years without supplies or any human contact. "getting a little lonely maybe?" von ulrich asked. "no sir." "don't miss having people around. your wife, your son?" barton wanted to laugh. "well, i'll be back to see you, barton. i may be gone a year this time." "happy new year," barton said. but it didn't seem like a year when von ulrich came back in his sleek little space-hopping clinic. it didn't seem like much of anything. "you don't find the absence of women irritating, barton?" "i can take them or leave them, sir." "not here. there simply aren't any at all." "i like something, but then if it isn't there, i don't miss it." "all right, barton," von ulrich would say after giving barton more brain-wave tests, word-association tests and making him look at ink-blots until his eyes turned red. "see you in a few months." "see you, sir," barton said. and sure enough, as though he had never really been away, von ulrich would show up again, with his testing devices, his cages of mice and guinea pigs, and his intense searching eyes. he had a folder of pictures and after ink-blot tests, he had barton look at the pictures, like the one of a man in deep shadow standing over a sleeping kid. "what do you see there, barton?" "a guy standing over a kid." "what's he doing there?" "i haven't any idea." "is the child sleeping?" "maybe it's just pretending." "pretending what?" "or maybe it's dead." von ulrich's thin face frowned intensely. "is the child pretending to be asleep, or is it dead?" "maybe it isn't a real kid. maybe it's a dummy." von ulrich's face reddened. "what's the man thinking?" "how should i know, sir." "you don't care?" "no, why should i give a damn what he's thinking?" "you tell me. why shouldn't you?" "because it's none of my business." * * * * * then there was another time, during some visit or other, when von ulrich pulled another word association test. "love." "it makes the world go round." "blackness." "sleep." "alone." "quiet." it went on for hours. von ulrich always seemed to be angrier because barton didn't crack up, or because he insisted on turning in a perfect service record in the basketball. "barton, for god's sake, don't you realize how important this watch is? this valuable information gathered by these recorders. think what it would mean if that data fell into the hands of the asians! what if you missed an alarm, or fouled up in some way, and one of these recorders destroyed all the data?" "haven't i been alert all the time, sir?" "yes! but you've been out here now for three years! three years. no one can possibly stand it longer than six months. and the fact that you've been here for three years only means some absolutely catastrophic crack-up is being prolonged, built up inside." "i don't feel a bit different, sir." "there are subtle ways of cracking up." "you _want_ me to have some sort of symptom or something?" "don't be ridiculous." * * * * * it must have been at least another year before von ulrich came back to barton's basketball, triumphantly equipped with new devices, and waving a spacegram in barton's sleepy face. barton read it, shrugged, and let it drift to the floor. von ulrich tried to control a look almost of fear. "as soon as the minimum time allowed, she married again," von ulrich said. "and you pretend it means nothing?" "she never did mean much of anything, sir. i mean, she was an interfering kind of woman. she wouldn't let a man live." "all right, barton. what about this? she was committing adulterous acts with this fellow, this major general woods. she was having an affair with him for two years before you volunteered for duty in the basketball." "i figured she was playing around." "you what?" "it figured." "you still pretend it meant nothing, that it means nothing now?" "i don't know what it means. what's it got to do with me now? it was all right, i guess. i could have gone on with it. but this is better." he dimly remembered jean bitching all the time of an evening because barton kept forgetting to take his officer's exam, and how she had to skimp along on an nco's lousy salary, and so on and so forth. very much the nagging kind. she wouldn't let him read either. he would tell her he was just sort of stupid, and had always been a drifter anyway, and just sort of fell into marriage and that he never had had any ambition particularly, and anyway big brass got ulcers and heart conditions. and then she would drag little joey, the big-headed little brat into it, and talk about how little joey didn't have the right kind of idealized image to assure him a respectable future, and little joey would stand there and nod his oversized head. "what about little joey's future?" jean would say. "you want him to be just another stupid nco? and what about his teeth? he's got to have his teeth straightened. they tease him at school, call him the squirrel." "yeah, dad. you want me to be personable and saleable and high on the success potential scale? what about my teeth protruding?" and when barton went into the bathroom and came back out, jean was throwing all those books he'd had such a hard time finding into the incinerator. barton volunteered the next day for basketball duty. it didn't even seem long ago to barton. it was oddly like a dream that might have been in the past, or the future, or never at all. von ulrich grabbed up the spacegram and walked stiffly erect out of the basketball. at some time in the future, von ulrich showed up again with even more complicated tests and questions. barton wasn't sure, but it seemed longer than usual that von ulrich was away these days. time didn't mean much. it didn't have any particular use to barton now. "yes, yes, you have a perfect service record, barton. never have missed turning in an alarm with alacrity. and we're so damned short of men capable of taking this kind of duty that i can't pull you out of here until you make an error--or crack up. just the same you're not fooling me much longer, and you won't be able to fool yourself either." sometime later there was the business about barton's mother. von ulrich had files on barton going clear back to pre-natal, and maybe even before that. "all right, barton, you were an only child, and you lived with your mother for 10 years after your father died. then you married. what about the fact that jean was a replacement for your mother?" "if she was, it never seemed that way to me." "you expected your wife to take care of you the way your mother did. and not demand anything of you. you expected to escape all responsibility and--barton, do you consider this basketball to be your mother?" "what's that, sir?" "deafness can be psychosomatic too, don't forget that. i said--but you heard me, answer me." "doctor von ulrich, maybe i'm not normal, but--" "then you admit the regression. that this basketball floating in space is a substitute for your mother's womb. you admit it!" "why, sir, i didn't--" "but you know it's true don't you?" "i didn't say anything about it. you said it." "i said it because it's a summation of years of careful diagnosis. look at the etiology. a man who never matured, never was able to accept responsibility as a mature adult. always just drifting along, into one job, out of it, into another job, out of that, never establishing roots anywhere, always floating about. unable to accept any responsibility for your marriage, wanting to escape it. never able to get close, get involved with others, only wanting to receive, never give. what does it add up to? a fix, a freeze in the pre-natal stage where you were floating free and completely irresponsible in your mother's amniotic fluid. that's why you're here in the basketball." von ulrich's intense eyes seemed to reach out like arms to enfold barton, then recoiled as barton shrugged and said: "so, it's like my ma's womb. what difference does it make what you call it as long as i'm happy in it and do my job?" von ulrich's lips moved soundlessly and then he pointed a finger into barton's nose. "it makes a helluva lot of difference what you call it. you may be doing an efficient job here, but for the wrong reasons. i wish i could recommend, on the basis of my diagnosis, that you agree to a month's checkup in the martian clinic but--" barton interrupted. "i'm glad you can't. i wouldn't like that as much as this. maybe your reports won't cut much ice as long as i keep up the perfect service record." von ulrich's jaws were ridged. "damn the military system! damn a system that says a man has to stay up here till he's dead or crazy or makes a mistake!" "but doc, i like it. i'm happier here, i think. maybe i wasn't normal on earth. maybe i'm not normal here, or maybe being abnormal on earth makes me normal here. i'm happy and i do my work." von ulrich backed away a few steps, then turned and ran out and slammed the sliding panel. he didn't say goodbye to barton this time, or that he would be back. but barton took no hope from von ulrich's lack of ceremony. von ulrich did come back, several times. barton was sleeping a great deal now. he didn't putter with the gimmicks much, not even the clay, and he'd about read the books out. he slept a lot and yet there was a funny heavy feeling as though he never did quite sleep or never quite woke up either. but it was a good feeling because when a man was too sound asleep he didn't enjoy it because he didn't know anything about it. this was sort of in-between, and barton loved it. sometimes he would blink his eyes and see von ulrich standing there, probably with some new testing device, or with a notebook open, or with a helmet with wires to attach to barton's skull to record something. another time he thought some stranger was there and then he realized that von ulrich's face was sagging and wrinkled and that his hair was thinner and gray. "why not have groups of watchers if you're so worried about one being alone?" "we tried that, it was worse, barton. they killed one another." "well, sir, my being alone is a good thing then, in that respect." "have you ever thought that you would kill yourself?" "why no, sir. why should i?" "because you hate yourself. in a society, people can externalize their self-hate. they can hate society, other people. you can only turn your hate inward, on yourself." "but i don't hate anything, sir." "you do!" "but, sir, i don't." "barton, i said you hate yourself. it's in all the charts, everything. we all hate ourselves to some extent, why should you be different from everybody else?" "why not, sir?" von ulrich pressed his hand over his eyes, and walked out. * * * * * it was like a dream with a shadow drifting in and out and in again, and it was von ulrich, looking so much older this time. "it's been almost fifteen years, barton. fifteen years." "so? fifteen years earth time. what does that mean here to me, sir?" barton smiled, closed his eyes. "what does time matter in your mother's womb?" "you've developed a definite measurable syndrome, barton. excessive lethargy and a sleeping compulsion. eventually it will destroy your efficiency as a watcher if it hasn't already." von ulrich set off an alarm and in less than four seconds barton was over there sending a report out to the authorities, a report von ulrich immediately canceled as being false. von ulrich seemed to dissolve in a haze of fading light. "is that you, von ulrich, sir?" "i'm afraid so, barton. back again." von ulrich sat down in the contour chair and filled a pipe. "remember, barton when you took your test for basketball duty? the dead man's float?" "i sort of remember it, sir. it was fun." von ulrich flinched. "fun? i've gone over that report on your test, barton. it doesn't make sense. what the hell are you anyway? a damned freak, a mutation, an alien in disguise?" the dead man's float had been pleasant for barton, that was all he could remember about it. they had taken off all barton's clothes so that nothing touched barton's body but a blacked-out head-mask through which to get air. he had been put in a tank of water at body temperature upside down and floated there. there was no sensation. it had been one of the happiest times of his life. like floating on air. hearing nothing, seeing nothing, feeling nothing except his own existence. not even able to tell which was right side up, or right side down, cross-wise or whatnot. he had been told to keep still, but nobody had needed to tell him to do that. "the first two or three hours of that dead man's float is a good test for basketball duty, barton. it's a kind of final isolation of the human organism. normal human beings can take a couple of hours of it usually. they like it. every human being to some extent likes to return to the womb. but after a couple of hours most human beings start going to pieces, short-circuiting. the reason is the deprivation of any outside stimuli. something has to feed in through some source--some reception source--the skin, ears, nose, the eyes. these things feeding in, they orient a person, tells him when he's thinking, feeling, gives him stimuli for additional thinking. with all these turned off, a person is simply left with a closed circuit. this begins to go round and round and distorts and magnifies and ruptures the whole thinking process. the floater becomes anxious, then very anxious, then he begins having hallucinations, finally becomes completely disoriented. all this happens to a normal human being inside, at the most, three or four hours. no human being should be able to remain sane after four hours of the dead man's float, barton. but remember how long you lay there in that tank?" "i didn't care how long it was." "three days," von ulrich said. "the neurophysiologist in charge there kept checking your reaction and finally he had to take you out of the tank, not because you were short-circuiting, but because he was. the impression was that you would have been delighted with the prospect of doing the dead man's float forever." "i don't remember it being any special time. it was like a dream, sir, you know." "i don't know, but i'm trying to find out." von ulrich sighed and looked through the spaceport at blackness. "out here i sometimes find myself wondering what normalcy really is. things sometimes veer toward the dangerously relativistic." he sat there in the pure one hundred percent silence of the basketball while it accumulated. "there's one thing we've always insisted no human being could tolerate, barton. isolation. sullivan said that a single minute of complete isolation would kill a human being. and you've been in a dead man's float for almost twenty-two years." "twenty-two years, sir?" "doesn't mean a thing to you does it?" "well, sir, it doesn't seem to have had any time in it. i was just here." * * * * * there was another time, like all the other times, except that von ulrich seemed much older, his hair thinner and now all of it gray. there seemed to be something tired about him, except for the brightness coming from behind his intense questioning eyes. suddenly he asked, "barton, what time is it?" barton glanced at the chrono. "quarter of four, sir." "keep looking." after a while barton said, "still quarter of four." "that chrono hasn't been working for three years. i stopped it three years ago. you haven't even noticed it, have you?" "i guess not, sir." "take a long look out there, barton. nothing to see but blackness. no feeling of distance. imagine your mind going out there, exploring, trying to fit in somewhere. you look out there, you project your thoughts out there, nothing comes back. so what time is it? where are you in all this? there was nothing out here until you came along, not even any meaningful kind of time out here. _but there has to be some feeling of time, barton!_" barton felt a tinge of uneasiness. he looked out. it looked cold. "what time is it, barton?" "what difference does it make?" "your body has to know. your body works on a timetable doesn't it? your lungs, expanding, contracting regularly. your heart beating so many times regularly--_every minute_. your blood circulating regularly. look here, barton. you're a product of a specific environment, on a big scale, call it earth, the solar system. you claim it means nothing, time means nothing. but your heart beats regularly so many times every minute and that's why you're alive. where did the arbitrary rhythm of that beat come from, barton? you were born with it. it isn't anything you control, or had anything to do with developing, is it? what's a minute? on earth, it has meaning. sixty seconds part of a minute. sixty minutes make up an hour. what's an hour but a segment of a 24 hour day. where does that figure come from? the earth, barton. it rotates on its axis approximately every 24 hours. 24 hours make a day, seven days a week, so many weeks in a month, twelve months make up a year. a year, barton, the earth rotates around the sun once a year." for the first time in the basketball, barton began to feel some discomfort. he closed his eyes and while they were closed he became acutely aware of his heart beating, and the expanding and contracting of his lungs. "you claim there is no earth any more, barton. no earth rotating on its axis, no earth rotating around the sun. no sun, no moon, no time. why should your heart go on beating regularly so many times a minute--when there's nothing out here that gives a minute any meaning? has time stopped here? is there any time here, barton, when there's nothing here to turn time into measurable segments? how can your heart beat so many times a minute, a year, a lifetime if there's no such thing here any more?" barton slowly opened his eyes. his hands felt wet. "this basketball doesn't rotate, barton. doesn't move toward, away from, or around anything. it's moving with the galaxy but that can't mean anything to you can it? listen, barton, your body operates largely on an unconscious level, but what if unconsciously your heart, your lungs, your bodily functions start to lose their conditioned memory of the earth's rotation, the regularity of its movement on its axis and around the sun that gave your birth? what will happen then, barton? what happens to your heart-beat if your heart begins to forget how long a minute is?" von ulrich leaned down close to barton's damp face. "what time is it, barton?" barton started to look out the spaceport again, but jerked his head in the other direction. he didn't want to look out. von ulrich waited, but barton didn't say anything. finally, with a tight smile on his face, von ulrich got up and went to the door. "i'll see you again, barton. some time." barton started. "wait--don't go," he started to say. but something constricted in his throat and he hardly even moved his lips, and no sound came out at all. he saw the cold streak flash past the view port. it was von ulrich's clinic. quickly he looked toward the wall. the chrono was gone. von ulrich had taken it with him. there was a watch, a wrist watch. barton ran around looking for the wrist watch, but he couldn't find it. when he lay down again and closed his eyes, he couldn't rest. he couldn't sleep. his heart beat got louder, and after a while that was all he could hear, and when he tried to figure out how many times a minute his heart was, or was not, beating, he couldn't. what time was it? * * * * * the war in which all of earth's outposts were involved, lasted thirty years. the basketballs were forgotten for a long time, and when they were remembered again, a special search was rewarded by finding only two of them. in the first basketball there was no trace of the watchman who had been abandoned in it almost half a century before, and no indication of what had happened to him. in the second one, von ulrich found barton still lying peacefully on the couch, looking hardly any different than when von ulrich had walked out and left him there. von ulrich, who had been retired for a long time and who was unable to get about except in a wheel-chair, had requested inclusion among the search boat's personnel. no one had figured out why because even if they found any basketballs, it was certain that no one would be alive on any of them, let alone anyone needing von ulrich's specialized talents. von ulrich had hoped that barton's basketball would be found and when it was found, he insisted on being carried through the interconnecting airlock into the spheroid that looked on the outside like a dead piece of slag. the ship's medical officer, a man young and rather stiff, was shocked at first to see barton lying there, but he had a ready explanation as he used his stethescope. "must have sprung a leak and let in preserving frigidity." "but then how did the leak repair itself and the temperature return to normal?" von ulrich asked as he studied barton's smooth, unaged face. "dead," the medical officer said, and he dropped the stethescope back into his case. von ulrich gripped the husks of his hands together to keep them from rattling, and he smiled slowly. "barton didn't like death much." zeiger the medical officer looked puzzled. "you know this man?" "a little. i tried to know him better but a war intervened. his name is harry barton and he was assigned to duty in this basketball fifty-three years and about four months ago." zeiger turned away as though to hide an embarrassed reaction. "you think i speak out of some mental senility, zeiger? you know this man isn't dead." "he has to be dead." "not barton. he would hardly approve of your diagnosis. he never cared much for diagnosis anyway. this is harry barton, and i've preserved--for personal reasons--his file. i have it with me. you want to check his fingerprints? you'll find it's the same man who was assigned to duty here fifty-three years ago." "there's no heart-beat," zeiger insisted, but not very enthusiastically. "better give barton a more thorough check," von ulrich said. * * * * * barton's heart was beating all right. once every thirty-seven hours and fourteen seconds. regularly, strongly, very slowly, but without a tremor. the electroencephalograph registered brain waves of regular rhythm, but of quite low amplitude. but with a frequency slowed to a point so far below normalcy that it took a week to establish recognizable delta, theta, alpha and higher frequency wave-forms. using the electronic stroboscope to induce changes in brain-wave reaction by flicker got results. but the frequency didn't change. when they forced barton's eyes open and used the stroboscope, a slight change in theta rhythm signified some irritation, but it was mild. "barton never hated anybody," von ulrich said. it was slow work though, testing barton's reactions. it was five days after the stroboscopic stimulation before the termination of the brain reactive crescendo. another week before theta rhythm returned to normal. "... so i finally decided," von ulrich told zeiger, "that barton was unique--he was the impossible. the absolutely self-sufficient human being, needing nothing but himself. i was getting older and i figured there was a chance i might not get back and the war threat and so forth. i was worried about leaving barton. but only for one reason." von ulrich explained his concern about what might have happened if barton's autonomic nervous system had lost its identification with the time factor that had conditioned it. "i figured barton was absolutely self-sufficient, except for the time factor. he had to have something outside himself relatively to which his organs could function in a necessary regularity." zeiger poured himself another shot of rum and drank it quickly. "so he's still here," zeiger said. "we'll have to take him to the martian base for observation." "why not leave him here? barton has a perfect service record. he's never missed an alarm." "but in this condition--" "let's see." von ulrich set off an alarm. barton moved, but it took him almost a week to move a few inches. "that's too slow," zeiger insisted. von ulrich said, "i'll turn in a complete report on barton. if the authorities want to have him removed, all right. but maybe they won't. maybe they'll decide they have a laboratory here for the study of a human being that's more important than whatever's being absorbed by those recorders. barton is the thing to watch. i call him the 'adaptable,' because i believe he can adapt to anything, fit himself into any situation, any kind of environmental circumstance, if he's not interfered with too much, if he's given even a slight chance. you see he altered his metabolism in order to relate to a different, highly personalized time. and he hasn't aged much either. god knows how long he will live, zeiger, with such a slowed metabolism. and not only that--who knows what unique kind of personalized time he's developing there inside himself? who knows if we can even make a human comparison?" "but how did he set this new arbitrary time of his? the heart beating every thirty-seven hours and fourteen seconds?" von ulrich looked through the spaceport, and then pointed when the pressure suit drifted past with the long-dead collins perfectly preserved in it and still looking out through the face plate. "that way," von ulrich said. "collins is our little human satellite out there, and he rotates around the basketball once every thirty-seven hours and fourteen seconds." "well i'll be damned," zeiger said. "of our time, that is," von ulrich said. "but our time doesn't mean anything to barton now." slow burn by henry still _the problems of space were multiple enough without the opinions and treachery of senator mckelvie--who really put the "fat into the fire". all kevin had to do was get it out...._ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, october 1955. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] "tell 'em to look sharp, bert. this pickup's got to be good." kevin morrow gulped the last of his coffee and felt its bitter acid gurgle around his stomach. he stared moodily through the plastic port where the spangled skirt of stars glittered against the black satin of endless night and a familiar curve of the space station swung ponderously around its hub. four space-suited tugmen floated languidly outside the rim. beyond them the gleaming black and white moonship tugged gently at her mooring lines, as though anxious to be off. bert alexander radioed quiet instructions to the tugmen. "why the hell couldn't he stay down there and mind his own business?" kevin growled. "mckelvie's been after our hide ever since we got the appropriation, and now this." he slapped the flimsy radio-gram. he looked up as the control room hatch opened. jones came in from the astronomy section. "morning, commander," he said. "you guys had breakfast yet? mess closes in 30 minutes." kevin shook his head. "we're not hungry," bert filled in. "you think you've got nerves?" jones chuckled. "i just looked in on mark. he's sleeping like a baby. you wouldn't think the biggest day of his life is three hours away." "mckelvie's coming up to kibitz," morrow said. "mckelvie!" "the one and only," bert said. "here, read all about it." he handed over the morning facsimile torn off the machine when the station hurtled over new england at 18,000 miles an hour. the upper half of the sheet bore a picture of the white-maned senator. clearly etched on his face were the lines of too many half-rigged elections, too many compromises. beneath the picture were quotes from his speech the night before. "as chairman of your congressional watchdog committee," the senator had said, "i'll see that there's no more waste and corruption on this space project. for three years they've been building a rocket--the moon rocket, they call it--out there at the space station. "i haven't seen that rocket," the senator had continued. "all i've seen is five billion of your tax dollars flying into the vacuum of space. they tell me a man named mark kramer is going to fly out in that rocket and circle the moon. "but he will fail," mckelvie had promised. "if god had intended man to fly to the moon, he would have given us wings to do it. tomorrow i shall fly out to this space station, even at the risk of my life. i'll report the waste and corruption out there, and i'll report the failure of the moon rocket." jones crumpled the paper and aimed at the waste basket. "pardon me while i vomit," he said. "we've been there," kevin sighed deeply. "i suppose max gordon will be happy." "he'll wear a hole in his tongue on mckelvie's boots," bert said bitterly. "is it that bad?" "how else would he get a first class spaceman's badge?" morrow said. "he can't add two and two. but if stool pigeons had wings, he'd fly like a jet. we can't move up here without mckelvie knowing and howling about it. "don't worry," jones said, "if the moon rocket makes it, public opinion will take care of the senator." "if he doesn't take care of us first," kevin said darkly. "he'll be aboard in 15 minutes." * * * * * dawn touched the high sierras as the station whirled in from the pacific, 500 miles high. "bert. get me a radar fix on white sands." morrow huddled over the small computer, feeding in radar information as it came from his assistant. "rocket away!" blared a radio speaker on the bulkhead. the same message carried to the four space-suited tugmen floating beyond the rim of the wheel, linked with life-lines. jones watched interestedly out the port. "there she is!" he yelled. sunlight caught the ascending rocket, held it in a splash of light. the intercept technique was routine now, a matter of timing, but for a moment kevin succumbed to the frightening optical illusion that the rocket was approaching apex far below the station. then, slowly, the slender cylinder matched velocity and pulled into the orbit, crept to its destination. with deceptive ease, the four human tugs attached magnetic shoes and guided the projectile into the space station hub with short, expert blasts of heavy rocket pistols. "take over bert," morrow directed, "i guess i'm the official greeter." he hurried out of the control room, through a short connecting tube and emerged floating in the central space surrounding the hub where artificial gravity fell to zero. air pressure was normal to transfer passengers without space suits. the connecting lock clanked open. the rocket pilot stepped out. "he got sick," the pilot whispered to kevin. "i swabbed him off, but he's hoppin' mad." the senator's mop of white hair appeared in the port. kevin braced to absorb a tirade, but mckelvie's deep scowl changed to an expression of bliss as he floated weightless into the tiny room. "why, this is wonderful!" he sputtered. he waved his arms like a bird and kicked experimentally with a foot. "grab him!" kevin shouted. "he's gone happy with it." the pilot was too late. mckelvie's body sailed gracefully through the air and his head smacked the bulkhead. his eyes glazed in a frozen expression of carefree happiness. kevin swore. "now he'll accuse us of a plot against his life. help me get him to sick bay." the two men guided the weightless form into a tube connecting with the outer ring. as they pushed outward, mckelvie's weight increased until they carried him the last 50 feet into the dispensary compartment. max gordon burst wild-eyed into the room. "what have you done to the senator?" he shouted. "why didn't you tell me he was coming up?" morrow made sure mckelvie was receiving full medical attention before he turned to the junior officer. "he went space happy and bumped his head," kevin said curtly, "and there was no more reason to notify you than the rest of the crew." he walked away. gordon bent solicitously over his unconscious patron. kevin found anderson in the passageway. "i ordered them to start fueling moonbeam," bert said. "good. is mark awake?" "eating breakfast. the psycho's giving him a clinical chat." "i wish it were over." morrow brushed back his hair. "you've really got the jitters, huh chief?" morrow turned angrily and then tried to laugh. "i'd sell my job for a nickel right now, bert. this will be touch and go, without having the worst enemy of space flight aboard. if this ship fails, it's more than a rocket or the death of a man. it'll set the whole program back 50 years." "i know," bert answered, "but he'll make it." footsteps sounded in the tube outside the cabin. mark kramer walked in. "hi, chief," he grinned, "moonbeam ready to go?" "the techs are out now and fuel's aboard. how about you? shouldn't you get some rest?" "that's all i've had since they shipped me out here." kramer laughed. "it'll be a snap. after all, i'll never make over two gees and pick up 7000 mph to leave you guys behind. then i play ring around the rosy, take a look at luna's off side and come home. just like that." "just like that," kevin whispered meditatively. the moon rocket, floating there outside the station's rim was ugly, designed never to touch a planet's atmosphere, but it was the most beautiful thing man had ever built, assembled in space from individual fragments boosted laboriously from the earth's surface. another clatter of footsteps approached the hatch. max gordon entered and stood at attention as senator mckelvie made a dignified entrance. the senator wore an adhesive patch on his high forehead. he turned to kramer. "young man," he rumbled, "are you the fool risking your life in that--that thing out there? you must know it'll never reach the moon. i know it'll never--" kramer's face paled slightly and he moved swiftly between the two men. without using force, he backed the senator and gordon through the hatch and slammed it behind him. anger was a knot of green snakes in his belly. "i want to talk to that pilot," mckelvie said belligerently. "i'm sorry, senator. the best psychiatrists on earth worked eight months to condition kramer for this flight. he must not be emotionally disturbed. you can't talk to him." "you forbid...?" mckelvie exploded, but morrow intercepted smoothly. "gordon. i'm sure the senator would like a tour of the station. will you escort him?" mckelvie's face reddened and max opened his mouth to object. "gordon!" morrow said sharply. max closed his mouth and guided the grumbling congressman up the tube. * * * * * "twenty minutes to blastoff," bert reported. "right," kevin acknowledged absently. he studied taped data moving in by radio facsimile from the mammoth electronic computer on earth. "our orbit's true," he said with satisfaction and wiped a sweaty palm on his trousers. "get the time check, bert." beeps from the naval observatory synchronized with the space station chronometer. "alert kramer." "he's leaving the airlock now," bert said. from the intercom, morrow listened to periodic reports from crew members as mckelvie and gordon progressed in their tour. "mr. morrow?" "right." "this is adams in section m. the senator and gordon have been in the line chamber for 10 minutes." "boot 'em out," kevin said crisply. "blastoff in 15 minutes." "that machinery controls the safety lines," bert said. kevin looked up with a puzzled frown, but turned back to watch kramer creeping along a mooring line to the moon ship. a group of tugmen helped the space-suited figure into the rocket, dogged shut the hatch and cleared back to the station rim. "station to kramer," on the radio, "are you ready?" "all set," came the steady voice, "give me the word." "all right. five minutes." kevin turned to the intercom. "release safety lines." in the weightlessness of space the cables retained their normal rigid line from the rim of the station to the rocket. they had been under no strain. their shape would not change until they were reeled in. "two minutes," morrow warned. tension grew as anderson began the slow second count. the hatch opened. mckelvie and gordon entered the control room. no one noticed it. "five ... four ... three ... two ... one ..." a gout of white fire jabbed from the stern of the rocket. slowly the ship moved forward. morrow watched tensely, hands gripping a safety rail. then his face froze in a mask of disbelief and horror. "the lines!" he shouted. "the safety lines fouled!" he fell sprawling as the space station lurched heavily, tipped upward like a giant platter under the inexorable pull of the moon rocket. kevin scrambled back to the viewport, the shriek of tortured metal in his ears. horror-stricken, he saw the taut cables that had failed to release. then a huge section of nylon, aluminum and rubber ripped out of the station wall, was visible a second in the rocket glare, and vanished. escaping air whistled through the crippled structure. pressure dropped alarmingly before the series of automatic airlocks clattered reassuringly shut. kevin's hand was bleeding. he staggered with the frightening new motion of the space station. gordon and the senator had collapsed against a bulkhead. mckelvie's pale face twisted with fear and amazement. blood streaked down the pink curve of his forehead. individual station reports trickled through the intercom. miraculously, the bulk of the station had escaped damage. "line chamber's gone," adams reported. "other bulkheads holding, but something must have jammed the line machines. they ripped right out." "get repair crews in to patch leaks," morrow shouted. he turned frantically to the radio. "station to moonbeam. kramer! are you all right?" he waited an agonizing minute, then a scratchy voice came through. "kramer, here. what the hell happened? something gave me a terrific yaw, but the gyro pulled me back on course. fuel consumption high. otherwise i'm okay." "you ripped out part of the station," kevin yelled. "you're towing extra mass. release the safety lines if you can." the faint answer came back, garbled by static. another disaster halted a new try to reach him. with a howling rumble, the massive gyroscope case in the bulkhead split open. the heavy wheel, spinning at 20,000 revolutions per minute, slowly and majestically crawled out of its gimbals; the gyroscope that stabilized the entire structure remained in its plane of revolution, but ripped out of its moorings when the station was forcibly tilted. spinning like a giant top, the gyro walked slowly across the deck. mckelvie and gordon scrambled out of its way. "it'll go through!" bert shouted. kevin leaped to a chest of emergency patches. the wheel ripped through the magnesium shell like a knife in soft cheese. a gaping rent opened to the raw emptiness of space, but morrow was there with the patch. before decompression could explode the four creatures of blood and bone, the patch slapped in place, sealed by the remaining air pressure. trembling violently, kevin staggered to a chair and collapsed. silence rang in his ears. anderson gripped the edge of a table to keep from falling. kevin turned slowly to mckelvie and gordon. "come here," he said tonelessly. "now see here, young man--" the senator blustered. "i said come here!" the two men obeyed. the commander's voice held a new edge of steel. "you were the last to leave the line control room," he said. "_did you touch that machinery?_" gordon's face was the color of paste. his mouth worked like a suffocating fish. mckelvie recovered his bluster. "i'm a united states senator," he stuttered, "i'll not be threatened...." "i'm not threatening you," kevin said, "but if you fouled that machinery to assure your prediction about the rocket, i'll see that you hang. do you realize that gyroscope was the only control we had over the motion of this space station? whatever it does now is the result of the moon rocket's pull. we may not live to see that rocket again." as though verifying morrow's words, the lights dimmed momentarily and returned to normal brilliance. a frightened voice came from the squawkbox. "hey, chief! this is power control. we've lost the sun!" anderson looked out the port, studied the slowly wheeling stars. "mother of god," he breathed. "we're flopping ... like a flapjack over a stove." and the power mirrors were on only one face of the space station, mirrors that collected the sun's radiation and converted it to power. now they were collecting nothing but the twinkling of the stars. the vital light would return as the station continued its new, awkward rotation, but would the intermittent exposure be sufficient to sustain power? "shut down everything but emergency equipment," morrow directed. "when we get back on the sun, soak every bit of juice you can into those batteries." he turned to gordon and mckelvie. "won't it be interesting if we freeze to death, or suffocate when the air machines stop?" worry replaced anger as he turned abruptly away from them. "we've got a lot of work to do, bert," he said crisply. "see if you can get white sands." "it's over the horizon, i'll try south africa." anderson worked with the voice radio but static obliterated reception. "here comes a morse transmission," he said at last. morrow read slowly as tape fed out of the translator: "radar shows moon rocket in proper trajectory. where are you?" the first impulse was to dash to the viewport and peer out. but that would be no help in determining position. "radar, bert," he whispered. anderson verniered in the scope, measuring true distance to earth's surface. he read the figure, swore violently, and readjusted the instrument. "it can't be," he muttered at last. "this says we're 865 miles out." "365 miles outside our orbit?" morrow said calmly. "i was afraid of that. that tug from the moonbeam not only cart-wheeled us, it yanked us out." he snatched a sheet of graph paper out of a desk drawer and penciled a point. "give me a reading every 10 seconds." points began to connect in a curve. and the curve was something new. "get jones from astronomy," kevin said at last. "he can help us plot and maybe predict." when the astronomer arrived minutes later, the space station was 1700 miles above the earth, still shearing into space on an ascending curve. "get a quick look at this, jones," kevin spoke rapidly. "see if you can tell where it will be two hours from now." the astronomer studied the curve intently as it continued to grow under kevin's pencil. "it may be an outward spiral," he said haltingly, "or it could be a ... parabola." "no!" bert protested. "that would throw us into space. we couldn't--" "we couldn't get back," kevin finished grimly. "there'd better be an alternative." "it could be an ellipse," jones said. "it must be an ellipse," bert said eagerly. "the moonbeam couldn't have given us 7000 mph velocity." abruptly the lights went out. the radar scope faded from green to black. morrow swore a string of violent oaths, realizing in the same instant that anger was useless when the power mirrors lost the sun. he bellowed into the intercom, but the speaker was dead. already bert was racing down the tube to the power compartment. minutes later, the intercom dial flickered red. morrow yelled again. "you've got to keep power to this radar set for the next half-hour. everything else can stop, even the air machines, but _we've got to find out where we're going_." the space station turned again. power resumed and kevin picked up the plot. "we're 6000 miles out!" he breathed. "but it's flattening," jones cried. "the curve's flattening!" bert loped back into the control room. jones snatched the pencil from his superior. "here," he said quickly, "i can see it now. here's the curve. it's an ellipse all right." "it'll carry us out 9600 miles," bert gasped. "no one's ever been out that far." "all right," morrow said. "that crisis is past. the next question is where are we when we come back on nadir. bert, tell the crew what's going on. jones, you can help me. we've got to pick up white sands and get a fuel rocket up here to push." "good lord, look at that!" jones breathed. he stared out the port. the earth, a dazzling huge globe filling most of the heavens, swam slowly past the plastic window. it was the first time they had been able to see more than a convex segment of oceans and continents. kevin looked, soberly, and turned to the radio. the power did not fail in the next crazy rotation of the station. "there's the west coast." kevin pointed. "in a few minutes i can get white sands, i hope." jones had taken over the radar plot. at last his pencil reached a peak and the curve started down. the station had reached the limit of its wild plunge into space. "good," kevin muttered. "see if you can extrapolate that curve and get us an approximation where we'll cut in over the other side." the astronomer figured rapidly and abstractedly. "may i remind you young man," mckelvie's voice boomed, "you have a united states senator aboard. if anything happens--" "if anything happens, it happens to all of us," kevin answered coldly. "when you're ready to tell me what _did_ happen, i'm ready to listen." silence. "white sands, this is station i. come in please." kevin tried to keep his voice calm, but the lives of 90 men rode on it, on his ability to project his words through the crazy hash of static lacing this part of space from the multitude of radio stars. a power rocket with extra fuel was the only instrument that could return the space station to its normal orbit. that rocket must come from white sands. white sands did not answer. he tried again, turned as an exclamation of dismay burst from the astronomer. morrow bent to look at the plotting board. jones had sketched a circle of the earth, placing it in the heart of the ellipse the space station was drawing around it. from 9600 miles out, the line curved down and down, and down.... but it did not meet the point where the station had departed from its orbit 500 miles above earth's surface. the line came down and around to kiss the earth--almost. "i hope it's wrong," jones said huskily. "if i'm right, we'll come in 87 miles above the surface." "it can't!" morrow shouted in frustration. "we'll hit stratosphere. it'll burn us--just long enough so we'll feel the agony before we die." jones rechecked his figures and shook his head. the line was still the same. each 10 seconds it was supported by a new radar range. the astronomer's lightning fingers worked out a new problem. "we have about 75 minutes to do something about it," he said. "we'll be over the atlantic or england when it happens." "station i, this is...." the beautiful, wonderful voice burst loud and clear from the radio and then vanished in a blurb of static. "oh god!" kevin breathed. it was a prayer. "we hear you," he shouted, procedure gone with the desperate need to communicate with home. "come in white sands. please come in!" faintly now the voice blurred in and out, lost altogether for vital moments: "... your plot. altiac computer ... your orbit ... rocket on standby ... as you pass." "yes!" kevin shouted, gripping the short wave set with white fingers, trying to project his words into the microphone, across the dwindling thousands of miles of space. "yes. send the rocket!" "can they do it?" jones asked. "the rocket, i mean." "i don't know," kevin said. "they're all pre-set, mass produced now, and fuel is adjusted to come into the old orbit. they can be rigged, i think, if there's enough time." * * * * * the coast of california loomed below them now, a brown fringe holding back the dazzling flood of the pacific. they were 3000 miles above the earth, dropping sharply on the down leg of the ellipse. at their present speed, the station appeared to be plunging directly at the earth. the globe was frighteningly larger each time it wobbled across the viewport. "shall i call away the tugmen?" bert asked tensely. "i can't ask them to do it," kevin said. "with this crazy orbit, it's too dangerous. i'm going out." he slipped into his space gear. "i'm going with you," bert said. kevin smiled his gratitude. in the airlock the men armed themselves with three heavy rocket pistols each. morrow ordered other tugmen into suits for standby. "i wish i could do this alone, bert," he said soberly. "but i'm glad you're coming along. if we miss, there won't be a second chance." they knew approximately when they would pass over the rocket launching base, but this time it would be different. the space station would pass at 750 miles altitude and with a new velocity. no one could be sure the feeder rocket would make it. unless maximum fuel had been adjusted carefully, it might orbit out of reach below them. rescue fuel would take the place of a pilot. * * * * * anderson and morrow floated clear of the huge wheel, turning lazily in the deceptive luxury of zero gravity. the familiar sensation of exhilaration threatened to wipe out the urgency they must bring to bear on their lone chance for survival. they could see the jagged hole where the moonbeam had yanked out a section of the structure. an unintelligible buzz of voice murmured in the radios. unconsciously kevin tried to squeeze the earphones against his ears, but his heavily-gloved hands met only the rigid globe of his helmet. "you get it, bert?" "no." "this is jones," a new voice loud and clear. "earth says 15 seconds to blastoff." "rocket away!" like a tiny, clear bell the words emerged from static. bert and kevin gyrated their bodies so they could stare directly at the passing panorama of earth below. they had seen it hundreds of times, but now 250 more miles of altitude gave the illusion they were studying a familiar landmark through the small end of a telescope. "there it is!" bert shouted. a pinpoint of flame, that was it, with no apparent motion as it rose almost vertically toward them. then a black dot in an infinitesimal circle of flame--the rocket silhouetted against its own fire ... as big as a dime ... as big as a dollar.... ... as big as a basketball, the circle of flame soared up toward them. "it's still firing!" kevin yelled. "it'll overshoot us." as he spoke, the fire died, but the tiny bar of the rocket, black against the luminous surface of earth, crawled rapidly up into their sector of starlit blackness. then it was above earth's horizon, nearly to the space station's orbit, crawling slowly along, almost to them--a beautiful long cylinder of metal, symbol of home and a civilization sending power to help them to safety. hope flashed through kevin's mind that he was wrong, that the giant computer and the careful hands of technicians had matched the ship to their orbit after all. but he was right. it passed them, angling slowly upward not 50 yards away. instantly the two men rode the rocket blast of their pistols to the nose of the huge projectile. but it carried velocity imparted by rockets that had fired a fraction of a minute too long. clinging to the metal with magnetic shoes, morrow and anderson pressed the triggers of the pistols, held them down, trying to push the cylinder down and back. bert's heavy breathing rasped in the radio as he unconsciously used the futile force of his muscles in the agonizing effort to move the ship. their pistols gave out almost simultaneously. both reached for another. thin streams of propulsive gas altered the course of the rocket, slightly, but the space station was smaller now, angling imperceptibly away and down as the rocket pressed outward into a new, higher orbit. the rocket pistols were not enough. "get the hell back here!" jones' voice blared in their ears. "you can't do it. you're 20 miles away now and angling up. don't be dead heroes!" the last words were high and frantic. "we've got to!" morrow answered. "there's no other way." "we can't do the impossible, chief," bert gasped. a group of tiny figures broke away from the rim of the space station. the tugmen were coming to help. then kevin grasped the hideous truth. there were not enough rocket pistols to bring the men to the full ship and return _with any reserve to guide the projectile_. "get back!" he shouted. "save the pistols. we're coming in." behind them their only chance for life continued serenely upward into a new orbit. there, 900 miles above the earth, it would revolve forever with more fuel in its tanks than it needed. fuel that would have saved the lives of 90 desperate men. by leaving it, morrow and anderson had bought perhaps 30 more minutes of life before the space station became a huge meteor riding its fiery path to death in the the upper reaches of the atmosphere. both suffered the guilt of enormous betrayal. the fact that they could have done no more did not erase it. frantically, kevin flipped over in his mind the possible tools that still could be brought to bear to lift the space station above its flaming destruction. but his tools were the stone axe of a primitive man trying to hack his way out of a forest fire. * * * * * eager hands pulled them back into the station. for a moment there were the reassuring sounds as their helmets were unscrewed. then the familiar smells and shape of the structure that had been home for so long. now that haven was about to destroy itself. then morrow remembered the earth rocket that had brought senator mckelvie to the great white sausage in space. that rocket still contained a small quantity of fuel. if fired at the precise moment, that fuel, anchored with the rocket in the hub socket, might be enough to lift the entire station. he shouted instructions and men raced to obey. kevin, himself, raced into the nearest tube. there was no sound, but ahead of him the hatch was open to the discharge chamber. he leaped into the zero gravity room. mckelvie was crawling through the connecting port into the feeder rocket. kevin sprawled headlong into gordon. the recoil threw them apart, but gordon recovered balance first. he had a gun. "get back," he snarled. "we're going down." he laughed sharply, near hysteria. "we're going down to tell the world how you fried--through error and mismanagement." "you messed up those lines," kevin said. it didn't matter now. he only hoped to hold gordon long enough for diversionary help to come out of the tube. "yes," gordon leered. "we fixed the lines. the senator wasn't sure we should, but i helped him over his squeamishness, and now we'll crack the whip when we get back home." "you won't make it," kevin said. "we're still more than 600 miles high. the glide pattern in that rocket is built to take you down from 500 miles." mckelvie's head appeared in the hatch. he was desperately afraid. "you said you could fly this thing, gordon. can you?" max nodded his head rapidly, like a schoolboy asked to recite a lesson he has not studied. kevin was against the bulkhead. now he pushed himself slowly forward. "stay back or i'll shoot?" gordon screamed. instead, he leaped backward through the hatch. hampered by his original slow motion, kevin could not move faster until he reached another solid surface. the hatch slammed shut before his grasping fingers touched it. a wrenching tug jostled the space station structure. the rocket was gone, and with it the power that might have saved all of them. morrow ran again. he had not stopped running since the beginning of this nightmare. he tumbled over bert and jones in the tube. they scrambled after him back to the control room. the three men watched through the port. "if he doesn't hit the atmosphere too quick, too hard ..." kevin whispered. his fists were clenched. he felt no malice at this moment. he did not wish them death. there was no sound in the radio. the plummeting projectile was a tiny black dot, vanishing below and behind them. when the end came, it was a mote of orange red, then a dazzling smear of white fire as the rocket ripped into the atmosphere at nearly 20,000 miles an hour. "they're dead!" jones voice choked with disbelief. kevin nodded, but it was a flashing thing that lost meaning for him in the same instant. he knew that unless a miracle happened, ninety men in his command would meet the same fate. * * * * * like a perpetual motion machine, his brain kept reaching for something that could save his space station, his own people, the iron-nerved spacemen who knew they were near death but kept their vital posts, waiting for him to find a way. stories do not end unhappily--that thought kept cluttering his brain--a muddy optimism blanking out vital things that might be done. "what's the altitude jones?" "520 now. leveling a bit." "enough?" it was a stupid question and kevin knew it. jones shook his head. "we might be lucky," he said. "we'll hit it about 97 miles up. the top isn't a smooth surface, it billows and dips. but," he added, almost a whisper, "we'll penetrate to about 80 miles before...." "how much time?" kevin asked sharply. a tiny chain of hope linked feebly. "about 22 minutes." "bert, order all hands into space suits--emergency!" while the order was being carried out, kevin summoned the tugmen. "how many loaded pistols do we have?" "six," the chief answered. "all right. get this quick. anchor yourselves inside the hub. aim those pistols at the earth and fire until they're exhausted." the chief stared incredulously. "i know it's crazy," kevin snapped. "it's not enough, but if it alters our orbit 50 feet, it'll help." the tugmen ran out. bert, kevin and jones scrambled into space suits. morrow called for reports. "all hands," he intoned steadily, "open all ports. repeat. open all ports. do not question. follow directions closely." ten seconds later, a whoosh of escaping air signaled obedience. "now!" kevin shouted, "grab every loose object within reach. throw it at the earth. desks, books, tools, anything. throw them down with every ounce of strength you've got!" it was insane. everything was insane. it couldn't possibly be enough.... but space around the hurtling station blossomed with every conceivable flying object that man has ever taken with him to a lonely outpost. a pair of shoes went tumbling into darkness, and behind it the plastic framed photograph of someone's wife and children. jones knew his superior had not gone berserk. he bent anxiously over the radar scope. it was not a matter of jettisoning weight. every action has an equal reaction, and the force each man gave to a thrown object was as effective in its diminuitive way as the exhaust from a rocket. "read it!" morrow shouted. "read it!" "265 miles," jones cried. "i need more readings to tell if it helped." there was no sound in the radio circuit, save that of 90 men breathing, waiting to hear 90 death sentences. jones' heavily-gloved hands moved the pencil clumsily over the graph paper. he drew a tangent to a new curve. "it helped," he said tonelessly, "we'll go in at 100 miles, penetrate to 90...." "not enough," kevin said. "close all ports. repeat. close all ports!" an unheard sigh breathed through the mammoth, complex doughnut as automatic machinery gave new breath to airless spaces. it might never be needed again to sustain human life. but the presence of air delivered one final hope to morrow's frantic brain. "two three oh miles," jones said. "air control," kevin barked into the mike, "how much pressure can you get in 15 minutes?" "air control, aye," came the answer, and a pause while the chief calculated. "about 50 pounds with everything on the line." "get it on! and hang on to your hats," kevin yelled. the station dropped another 30 miles, slanting in sharply toward the planet's envelope of gas that could sustain life--or take it away. morrow turned to anderson. "bert. there are four tubes leading into the hub. get men and open the outer airlocks. then standby the four inner locks. when i give the signal, open those locks, fast. you may have to pull to help the machinery--you'll be fighting three times normal air pressure." bert ran out. nothing now but to wait. five minutes passed. ten. "we're at 135 miles," jones said. far below the earth wheeled by, its apparent motion exaggerated as the space station swooped lower. "120 miles." kevin's throat was parched, his lips dry. increasing air pressure squeezed the space suits tighter around his flesh. a horror of claustrophobia gripped him and he knew every man was suffering the same torture. "110 miles." "almost there," bert breathed, unaware that his words were audible. then a new force gripped them, at first the touch of a caressing finger tip dragging back, ever so slightly. kevin staggered as inertia tugged him forward. "we're in the air!" he shouted. "bert. standby the airlocks!" "airlocks ready!" the finger was a hand, now, a huge hand of tenuous gases, pressing, pressing, but the station still ripped through its death medium at a staggering 20,000 miles an hour. jones pointed. morrow's eyes followed his indicating finger to the thermocouple dial. the dial said 100â° f. while he watched it moved to 105, quickly to 110â°. * * * * * five seconds more. a blinding pain of tension stabbed kevin behind the eyes. but through the flashing colors of agony, he counted, slowly, deliberately.... "now!" he shouted. "open airlocks, bert. now!" air rushed out through the converging spokes of the great wheel, poured out under tremendous pressure, into the open cup of the space station hub, and there the force of three atmospheres spurted into space through the mammoth improvised rocket nozzle. kevin felt the motion. every man of the crew felt the surge as the intricate mass of metal and nylon leaped upward. that was all. morrow watched the temperature gauge. it climbed to 135â°, to 140â° ... 145 ... 150.... "the temperature is at 150 degrees," he announced huskily over the radio circuit. "if it goes higher, there's nothing we can do." the needle quivered at 151, moved to 152, and held.... two minutes, three.... the needle stepped back, one degree. "we're moving out," kevin whispered. "we're moving out!" the cheer, then, was a ringing, deafening roar in the earphones. jones thumped kevin madly on the back and leaped in a grotesque dance of joy. * * * * * morrow leaned back in the control chair, pressed tired fingers to his temples. he could not remember when he had slept. the first rocket from white sands had brought power to adjust the orbit. this one was on the mark. the next three brought the senate investigating committee. but that didn't matter, really. kevin was happy, and he was waiting. the control room door banged open. mark kramer's grin was like a flash of warm sunlight. "hi, commander," he said, "wait'll you see the marvelous pictures i got." outside the moonbeam rode gently at anchor, tethered with new safety lines. citadel of lost ships by leigh brackett it was a gypsy world, built of space flotsam, peopled with the few free races of the solar system. roy campbell, outcast prey of the coalition, entered its depths to seek haven for the kraylens of venus--only to find that it had become a slave trap from which there was no escape. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories march 1943. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] roy campbell woke painfully. his body made a blind, instinctive lunge for the control panel, and it was only when his hands struck the smooth, hard mud of the wall that he realized he wasn't in his ship any longer, and that the spaceguard wasn't chasing him, their guns hammering death. he leaned against the wall, the perspiration thick on his heavy chest, his eyes wide and remembering. he could feel again, as though the running fight were still happening, the bucking of his sleek fitz-sothern beneath the calm control of his hands. he could remember the pencil rays lashing through the night, searching for him, seeking his life. he could recall the tiny prayer that lingered in his memory, as he fought so skillfully, so dangerously, to evade the relentless pursuer. then there was a hazy period, when a blasting cannon had twisted his ship like a wind-tossed leaf, and his head had smashed cruelly against the control panel. and then the slinking minutes when he had raced for safety--and then the sodden hours when sleep was the only thing in the universe that he craved. he sank back on the hide-frame cot with something between a laugh and a curse. he was sweating, and his wiry body twitched. he found a cigarette, lit it on the second try and sat still, listening to his heartbeats slow down. he began to wonder, then, what had wakened him. it was night, the deep indigo night of venus. beyond the open hut door, campbell could see the _liha_-trees swaying a little in the hot, slow breeze. it seemed as though the whole night swayed, like a dark blue veil. for a long time he didn't hear anything but the far-off screaming of some swamp-beast on the kill. then, sharp and cruel against the blue silence, a drum began to beat. it made campbell's heart jerk. the sound wasn't loud, but it had a tight, hard quality of savagery, something as primal as the swamp and as alien, no matter how long a man lived with it. the drumming stopped. the second, perhaps the third, ritual prelude. the first must have wakened him. campbell stared with narrow dark eyes at the doorway. he'd been with the kraylens only two days this time, and he'd slept most of that. now he realized, that in spite of his exhaustion, he had sensed something wrong in the village. something was wrong, very wrong, when the drum beat that way in the sticky night. he pulled on his short, black spaceman's boots and went out of the hut. no one moved in the village. thatch rustled softly in the slow wind, and that was the only sign of life. campbell turned into a path under the whispering _liha_-trees. he wore nothing but the tight black pants of his space garb, and the hot wind lay on his skin like soft hands. he filled his lungs with it. it smelled of warm still water and green, growing things, and.... freedom. above all, _freedom_. this was one place where a man could still stand on his legs and feel human. the drumming started again, like a man's angry heart beating out of the indigo night. this time it didn't stop. campbell shivered. the trees parted presently, showing a round dark hummock. it was lit by the hot flare of burning _liha_ pods. sweet oily smoke curled up into the branches. there was a sullen glint of water through the trees, but there were closer glints, brighter, fiercer, more deadly. the glinting eyes of men, silent men, standing in a circle around the hummock. there was a little man crouched on the mound in the center. his skin had the blue-whiteness of skim milk. he wore a kilt of iridescent scales. his face was subtly reptilian, broad across the cheek-bones and pointed below. a crest of brilliant feathers--they weren't really feathers, but that was as close as campbell could get--started just above his brow ridges and ran clean down his spine to the waist. they were standing erect now, glowing in the firelight. he nursed a drum between his knees. it stopped being just a drum when he touched it. it was his own heart, singing and throbbing with the hate in it. campbell stopped short of the circle. his nerves, still tight from his near-fatal brush with the spaceguard, stung with little flaring pains. he'd never seen anything like this before. the little man rocked slightly, looking up into the smoke. his eyes were half closed. the drum was part of him and part of the indigo night. it was part of campbell, beating in his blood. it was the heart of the swamp, sobbing with hate and a towering anger that was as naked and simple as adam on the morning of creation. * * * * * campbell must have made some involuntary motion, because a man standing at the edge of the hummock turned his head and saw him. he was tall and slender, and his crest was pure white, a sign of age. he turned and came to campbell, looking at him with opalescent eyes. the firelight laid the earthman's dark face in sharp relief, the lean hard angles, the high-bridged nose that had been broken and not set straight, the bitter mouth. campbell said, in pure liquid venusian, "what is it, father?" the kraylen's eyes dropped to the earthman's naked breast. there was black hair on it, and underneath the hair ran twisting, intricate lines of silver and deep blue, tattooed with exquisite skill. the old man's white crest nodded. campbell turned and went back down the path. the wind and the _liha_-trees, the hot blue night beat with the anger and the hate of the little man with the drum. neither spoke until they were back in the hut. campbell lit a smoky lamp. the old kraylen drew a long, slow breath. "my almost-son," he said, "this is the last time i can give you refuge. when you are able, you must go and return no more." campbell stared at him. "but, father! why?" the old man spread long blue-white hands. his voice was heavy. "because we, the kraylens, shall have ceased to be." campbell didn't say anything for a minute. he sat down on the hide-frame cot and ran his fingers through his black hair. "tell me, father," he said quietly, grimly. the kraylen's white crest rippled in the lamplight. "it is not your fight." campbell got up. "look. you've saved my neck more times than i can count. you've accepted me as one of your own. i've been happier here than any--well, skip that. but don't say it isn't my fight." the pale, triangular old face smiled. but the white crest shook. "no. there is really no fight. only death. we're a dying tribe, a mere scrap of old venus. what matter if we die now--or later?" campbell lit a cigarette with quick, sharp motions. his voice was hard. "tell me, father. all, and quick." opalescent eyes met his. "it is better not." "i said, 'tell me'!" "very well." the old man sighed. "you would hear, after all. you remember the frontier town of lhi?" "remember it!" campbell's white teeth flashed. "every dirty stone in it, from the pumping conduits on up. best place on three planets to fence the hot stuff." he broke off, suddenly embarrassed. the kraylen said gently, "that is your affair, my son. you've been away a long time. lhi has changed. the terra-venusian coalition government has taken it for the administration center of tehara province." campbell's eyes, at mention of the coalition government, acquired a hot, hard brightness. he said, "go on." the old man's face was cut from marble, his voice stiff and distant. "there have been men in the swamps. now word has been sent us. it seems there is coal here, and oil, and certain minerals that men prize. they will drain the swamps for many miles, and work them." campbell let smoke out of his lungs, very slowly. "yeah? and what becomes of you?" the kraylen turned away and stood framed in the indigo square of the doorway. the distant drum sobbed and shouted. it was hot, and yet the sweat turned cold on campbell's body. the old man's voice was distant and throbbing and full of anger, like the drum. campbell had to strain to hear it. "they will take us and place us in camps in the great cities. small groups of us, so that we are divided and split. many people will pay to see us, the strange remnants of old venus. they will pay for our skills in the curing of _leshen_-skins and the writing of quaint music, and tattooing. we will grow rich." campbell dropped the cigarette and ground it on the dirt floor. knotted veins stood out on his forehead, and his face was cruel. the old man whispered: "_we will die first._" * * * * * it was a long time since anyone had spoken. the drumming had stopped, but the echo of it throbbed in campbell's pulses. he looked at his spread, sinewy hands on his knees and swallowed because the veins of his neck were swollen and hurting. presently he said, "couldn't you go further back into the swamps?" the old kraylen spoke without moving. he still stood in the doorway, watching the trees sway in the slow wind. "the nahali live there. besides, there is no clean water and no earth for crops. we are not lizard eaters." "i've seen it happen," said campbell somberly. "on earth, and mars, and mercury, and the moons of jupiter and saturn. little people driven from their homes, robbed of their way of life, exploited and for the gaping idiots in the trade centers. little people who didn't care about progress, and making money. little people who only wanted to live, and breathe, and be let alone." he got up in a swift savage rush and hurled a gourd of water crashing into a corner and sat down again. he was shivering. the old kraylen turned. "little people like you, my son?" campbell shrugged. "maybe. we'd worked our farm for three hundred years. my father didn't want to sell. they condemned it anyhow. it's under water now, and the dam runs a hell of a big bunch of factories." "i'm sorry." campbell looked up, and his face softened. "i've never understood," he said. "you people are the most law-abiding citizens i ever met. you don't like strangers. and yet i blunder in here, hot on the lam and ugly as a swamp-dragon, and you...." he stopped. it was probably the excitement that was making his throat knot up like that. the smoke from the lamp stung his eyes. he blinked and bent to trim it. "you were wounded, my son, and in trouble. your quarrel with the police was none of ours. we would have helped anyone. and then, while you had fever and your guard was down, you showed that more than your body needed help. we gave you what we could." "yeah," said campbell huskily. he didn't say it, but he knew well enough that what the kraylens had given him had kept him from blowing his top completely. now the kraylens were going the way of the others, straws swept before the great broom of progress. nothing could stop it. earth's empire surged out across the planets, building, bartering, crashing across time and custom and race to make money and the shining steel cage of efficiency. a cage wherein a sheep could live happily enough, well-fed and opulent. but campbell wasn't a sheep. he'd tried it, and he couldn't bleat in tune. so he was a wolf, now, alone and worrying the flock. soon there wasn't going to be a place in the solar system where a man could stand on his own feet and breathe. he felt stifled. he got up and stood in the doorway, watching the trees stir in the hot indigo gloom. the trees would go. wells and mines, slag and soot and clattering machinery, and men in sweat-stained shirts laboring night and day to get, to grow, to produce. campbell's mouth twisted, bitter and sardonic. he said softly: "god help the unconstructive!" the old kraylen murmured, "what happened to those others, my son?" campbell's lean shoulders twitched. "some of them died. some of them submitted. the rest...." he turned, so suddenly that the old man flinched. campbell's dark eyes had a hot light in them, and his face was sharply alive. "the rest," he said evenly, "went to romany." * * * * * he talked, then. urgently, pacing the hut in nervous catlike strides, trying to remember things he had heard and not been very much interested in at the time. when he was through, the kraylen said: "it would be better. infinitely better. but--" he spread his long pale hands, and his white crest drooped. "but there is no time. government men will come within three days to take us--that was the time set. and since we will not go...." campbell thought of the things that had happened to other rebellious tribes. he felt sick. but he made his voice steady. "we'll hope it's time, father. romany is in an orbit around venus now--i nearly crashed it coming in. i'm going to try, anyhow. if i don't--well, stall as long as you can." remembering the drum and the way the men had looked, he didn't think that would be long. he pulled on a loose shirt of green spider-silk, slung the belt of his heavy needle-gun over one shoulder, and picked up his black tunic. he put his hand on the kraylen's shoulder and smiled. "we'll take care of it, father." the old man's opalescent eyes were shadowed. "i wish i could stop you. it's hopeless for us, and you are--_hot_ is that the word?" campbell grinned. "hot," he said, "is the word. blistering! the coalition gets awfully mad when someone pulls their own hi-jacking stunt on them. but i'm used to it." it was beginning to get light outside. the old man said quietly, "the gods go with you, my son." campbell went out, thinking he'd need them. it was full day when he reached his hidden ship--a sleek, souped-up fitts-sothern that had the legs of almost anything in space. he paused briefly by the airlock, looking at the sultry green of _liha_-trees under a pearl-grey sky, the white mist lapping around his narrow waist. he spent a long time over his charts, feeding numbers to the calculators. when he got a set-up that suited him, he took the fitts-sothern up on purring 'copters, angling out over the deep swamps. he felt better, with the ship under his hands. the planetary patrol blanket was thin over the deep swamps, but it was vigilant. campbell's nerves were tight. they got tighter as he came closer to the place where he was going to have to begin his loop over to the night side. he was just reaching for the rocket switch when the little red light started to flash on the indicator panel. somebody had a detector beam on him. and he was morally certain that the somebody was flying a patrol boat. ii there was one thing about the venusian atmosphere. you couldn't see through it, even with infra-beams, at very long range. the intensity needle showed the patrol ship still far off, probably not suspicious yet, although stray craft were rare over the swamps. in a minute the copper would be calling for information, with his mass-detectors giving the fitts-sothern a massage. campbell didn't think he'd wait. he slammed in the drive rockets, holding them down till the tubes warmed. even held down, they had plenty. the fitts-sothern climbed in a whipping spiral. the red light wavered, died, glowed again. the copper was pretty good with his beam. campbell fed in more juice. the red light died again. but the patrol boat had all its beams out now, spread like a fish net. the fitts-sothern struck another, lost it, struck again, and this time she didn't break out. campbell felt the sudden racking jar all through him. "tractor beams," he said. "you think so, buddy?" the drive jets were really warming now. he shot it to them. the fitts-sothern hung for a fractional instant, her triple-braced hull shuddering so that campbell's teeth rang together. then she broke, blasting up right through the netted beams. campbell jockeyed his port and starboard steering jets. the ship leaped and skittered wildly. the copper didn't have time to focus full power on her anywhere, and low power to the fitts-sothern was a nuisance and nothing more. campbell went up over the patrol ship, veered off in the opposite direction from the one he intended to follow, hung in a tight spiral until he was sure he was clean, and then dived again. the patrol boat wasn't expecting him to come back. the pilot was concentrating on where campbell had gone, not where he had been. campbell grinned, opened full throttle, and went skittering over the curve of the planet to meet the night shadow rushing toward him. he didn't meet any more ships. he was way off the trade lanes, and moving so fast that only blind luck could tag him. he hoped the patrol was hunting for him in force, back where they'd lost him. he hoped they'd hunt a long time. presently he climbed, on slowed and muffled jets, out of the atmosphere. his black ship melted indistinguishably into the black shadow of the planet. he slowed still more, just balancing the venus-drag, and crawled out toward a spot marked on his astrogation chart. an outer patrol boat went by, too far off to bother about. campbell lit a cigarette with nervous hands. it was only a quarter smoked when the object he'd been waiting for loomed up in space. his infra-beam showed it clearly. a round, plate-shaped mass about a mile in diameter, built of three tiers of spaceships. hulks, ancient, rusty, pitted things that had died and not been decently buried, welded together in a solid mass by lengths of pipe let into their carcasses. before, when he had seen it, campbell had been in too much of a hurry to do more than curse it for getting in his way. now he thought it was the most desolate, godforsaken mass of junk that had ever made him wonder why people bothered to live at all. he touched the throttle, tempted to go back to the swamps. then he thought of what was going to happen back there, and took his hand away. "hell!" he said. "i might as well look inside." he didn't know anything about the internal set-up of romany--what made it tick, and how. he knew romany didn't love the coalition, but whether they would run to harboring criminals was another thing. it wouldn't be strange if they had been given pictures of roy campbell and told to watch for him. thinking of the size of the reward for him, campbell wished he were not quite so famous. romany reminded him of an old-fashioned circular mouse-trap. once inside, it wouldn't be easy to get out. "of all the platinum-plated saps!" he snarled suddenly. "why am i sticking my neck out for a bunch of semi-human swamp-crawlers, anyhow?" he didn't answer that. the leading edge of romany knifed toward him. there were lights in some of the hulks, mostly in the top layer. campbell reached for the radio. he had to contact the big shots. no one else could give him what he needed. to do that, he had to walk right up to the front door and announce himself. after that.... the manual listed the wave-length he wanted. he juggled the dials and verniers, wishing his hands wouldn't sweat. "spaceship _black star_ calling romany. calling romany...." his screen flashed, flickered, and cleared. "romany acknowledging. who are you and what do you want?" * * * * * campbell's screen showed him a youngish man--a taxil, he thought, from some mercurian backwater. he was ebony-black and handsome, and he looked as though the sight of campbell affected him like stale beer. campbell said, "cordial guy, aren't you? i'm thomas black, trader out of terra, and i want to come aboard." "that requires permission." "yeah? okay. connect me with the boss." the taxil now looked as though he smelled something that had been dead a long time. "possibly you mean eran mak, the chief councillor?" "possibly," admitted campbell, "i do." if the rest of the gypsies were anything like this one, they sure had a hate on for outsiders. well, he didn't blame them. the screen blurred. it stayed that way while campbell smoked three cigarettes and exhausted his excellent vocabulary. then it cleared abruptly. eran mak sounded martian, but the man pictured on the screen was no martian. he was an earthman, with a face like a wedge of granite and a frame that was all gaunt bones and thrusting angles. his hair was thin, pale-red and fuzzy. his mouth was thin. even his eyes were thin, close slits of pale blue with no lashes. campbell disliked him instantly. "i'm tredrick," said the earthman. his voice was thin, with a sound in it like someone walking on cold gravel. "terran overchief. why do you wish to land, mister black?" "i bring a message from the kraylen people of venus. they need help." tredrick's eyes became, if possible, thinner and more pale. "_help?_" "yes. help." campbell was struck by a sudden suspicion, something he caught flickering across tredrick's granite features when he said "kraylen." he went on, slowly, "the coalition is moving in on them. i understand you people of romany help in cases like that." there was a small, tight silence. "i'm sorry," said tredrick. "there is nothing we can do." campbell's dark face tightened. "why not? you helped the shenyat people on ganymede and the drylanders on mars. that's what romany is, isn't it--a refuge for people like that?" "as a _latnik_, there's a lot you don't know. at this time, we cannot help anyone. sorry, black. please clear ship." the screen went dead. campbell stared at it with sultry eyes. sorry. the hell you're sorry. what gives here, anyway? he thrust out an angry hand to the transmitter. and then, quite suddenly, the taxil was looking at him out of the screen. the hostile look was gone. anger replaced it, but not anger at campbell. the taxil said, in a low, rapid voice: "you're not lying about coming from the kraylens?" "no. no, i'm not lying." he opened his shirt to show the tattoo. "the dirty scut! mister black, clear ship, and then make contact with one of the outer hulks on the lowest tier. you'll find emergency hatchways in some of the pipes. come inside, and wait." his dark eyes had a savage glitter. "there are some of us, mister black, who still consider romany a refuge!" * * * * * campbell cleared ship. his nerves were singing in little tight jerks. he'd stepped into something here. something big and ugly. there had been a certain ring in the taxil's voice. the thin, gravelly mr. tredrick had something on his mind, too. something important, about kraylens. why kraylens, of all the unimportant people on venus? trouble on romany. romany the gypsy world, the solar system's stepchild. strictly a family affair. what business did a public enemy with a low number and a high valuation have mixing into that? then he thought of the drum beating in the indigo night, and an old man watching _liha_-trees stir in a slow, hot wind. roy campbell called himself a short, bitter name, and sighed, and reached lean brown hands for the controls. presently, in the infra-field, he made out an ancient krub freighter on the edge of the lowest level, connected to companion wrecks by sections of twelve-foot pipe. there was a hatch in one of the pipes, with a hand-wheel. the fitts-sothern glided with exquisite daintiness to the pipe, touched it gently, threw out her magnetic grapples and suction flanges, and hung there. the airlock exactly covered the hatchway. campbell got up. he was sweating and as edgy as a tomcat on the prowl. with great care he buckled his heavy gun around his narrow hips. then he went into the airlock. he checked grapples and flanges with inordinate thoroughness. the hatch-wheel jutted inside. he picked up a spanner and turned it, not touching the frigid metal. there was a crude barrel-lock beyond. campbell ran his tongue once over dry lips, shrugged, and climbed in. he got through into a space that was black as the coalsack. the air was thin and bitingly cold. campbell shivered in his silk shirt. he laid his hand on his gun butt and took two cautious steps away from the bulge of the lock, wishing to hell he were some place else. cold green light exploded out of nowhere behind him. he half turned, his gun blurring into his palm. but he had no chance to fire it. something whipped down across the nerve-center in the side of his neck. his body simply faded out of existence. he fell on his face and lay there, struggling with all his might to move and achieving only a faint twitching of the muscles. he knew vaguely that someone rolled him over. he blinked up into the green light, and heard a man's deep, soft voice say from the darkness behind it: "what made you think you could get away with it?" campbell tried three times before he could speak. "with what?" "spying. does tredrick think we're children?" "i wouldn't know." it was easier to speak this time. his body was beginning to fade in again, like something on a television screen. he tried to close his hand. it didn't work very well, but it didn't matter. his gun was gone. something moved across the light. a man's body, a huge, supple, muscular thing the color of dark bronze. it knelt with a terrible tigerish ease beside campbell, the bosses on its leather kilt making a clinking noise. there was a jeweled gorget of reddish metal around the base of its throat. the stones had a wicked glitter. the deep, soft voice said, "who are you?" campbell tried to force the returning life faster through his body. the man's face was in shadow. campbell looked up with sultry, furious eyes and achieved a definite motion toward getting up. the kneeling giant put out his right arm. the green light burned on it. campbell's eyes followed it down toward his throat. his face became a harsh, irregular mask cut from dark wood. the arm was heavily, beautifully muscled. but where the hand should have been there was a leather harness and a hook of polished martian bronze. * * * * * campbell knew what had struck him. the thin, hard curve of that hook, more potent than the edge of any hand. the point pricked his throat, just over the pulse on the left side. the man said softly: "lie still, little man, and answer." campbell lay still. there was nothing else to do. he said, "i'm thomas black, if that helps. who are you?" "what did tredrick tell you to do?" "to get the hell out. what gives with you?" if that taxil was spreading the word about him, he'd better hurry. campbell decided to take a chance. the guy with the hook didn't seem to love tredrick. "the black boy in the radio room told me to come aboard and wait. seems he's sore at tredrick, too. so am i. that makes us all pals, doesn't it?" "you lie, little man." the deep voice was quietly certain. "you were sent to spy. answer!" the point of the hook put the exclamation point on that word. campbell winced away. he wished the lug wouldn't call him "little man." he wouldn't remember ever having felt more hopelessly scared. he said, "damn your eyes, i'm not lying. check with the taxil. he'll tell you." "and betray him to tredrick? you're clumsy, little man." the hook bit deeper. campbell's neck began to bleed. he felt all right again otherwise. he wondered whether he'd have a chance of kicking the man in the stomach before his throat was torn out. he tried to draw farther away, but the pipe wall wouldn't give. a woman's voice spoke then, quite suddenly, from beyond the green light. campbell jumped. he hadn't even thought about anyone else being there. now it was obvious that someone was holding the light. the voice said, "wait, marah. zard is calling me now." it was a clear, low voice. it had music in it. campbell would have loved it if it had croaked, but as it was it made his nerves prick with sheer ecstasy. the hook lifted out of the hole it had made, but it didn't go away. campbell raised his head a little. the lower edge of the green light spilled across a pair of sandalled feet. the bare white legs above them were as beautiful as the voice, in the same strong clear way. there was a long silence. marah, the man with the hook, turned his face partly into the light. it was oblong and scarred and hard as beaten bronze. the eyes in it were smoky ember, set aslant under a tumbled crest of tawny hair. after a long time the woman spoke again. her voice was different this time. it was angry, and the anger made it sing and throb like the kraylen's drum. "the earthman is telling the truth, marah. zard sent him. he's here about the kraylens." the big man--a martian drylander, campbell thought, from somewhere around kesh--got up, fast. "the kraylens!" "he asked for help, and tredrick sent him away." the light moved closer. "but that's not all, marah. tredrick has found out about--us. old ekla talked. they're waiting for us at the ship!" iii marah turned. his eyes had a greenish, feral glint like those of a lion on the kill. he said, "i'm sorry, little man." campbell was on his feet, now, and reasonably steady. "think nothing of it," he said dourly. "a natural mistake." he looked at the hook and mopped the blood from his neck, and felt sick. he added, "the name's black. thomas black." "it wouldn't be campbell?" asked the woman's voice. "roy campbell?" he squinted into the light, not saying anything. the woman said, "you are roy campbell. the spaceguard was here not long ago, hunting for you. they left your picture." he shrugged. "all right. i'm roy campbell." "that," said marah softly, "helps a lot!" he could have meant it any way. his hook made a small, savage flash in the green light. "there's trouble here on romany. civil war. men are going to be killed before it's over--perhaps now. where's your place in it?" "how do i know? the coalition is moving in on the kraylens. i owe them something. so i came here for help. help! yeah." "you'll get it," said the woman. "you'll get it, somehow, if any of us live." campbell raised his dark brows. "what goes on here, anyhow?" the woman's low voice sang and throbbed against the pipe walls. "a long time ago there were a few ships. old ships, crowded with people who had no homes. little, drifting people who made a living selling their odd handicrafts in the spaceports, who were cursed as a menace to navigation and distrusted as thieves. perhaps they were thieves. they were also cold, and hungry, and resentful. "after a while the ships began to band together. it was easier that way--they could share food and fuel, and talk, and exchange ideas. space wasn't so lonely. more and more ships drifted in. pretty soon there were a lot of them. a new world, almost. "they called it romany, after the wandering people of earth, because they were gypsies, too, in their own way. "they clung to their own ways of life. they traded with the noisy, trampling people on the planets they had been driven away from because they had to. but they hated them, and were hated, just as gypsies always are. "it wasn't an easy life, but they were free in it. they could stand anything, as long as they were free. and always, anywhere in the solar system, wherever some little lost tribe was being swallowed up and needed help, ships from romany went to help them." her voice dropped. campbell thought again of the kraylen's drum, singing its anger in the indigo night. "that was the creed of romany," she whispered. "always to help, always to be a refuge for the little people who couldn't adjust themselves to progress, who only wanted to die in dignity and peace. and now...." "and now," said marah somberly, "there is civil war." * * * * * campbell drew a long, unsteady breath. the woman's voice throbbed in him, and his throat was tight. he said "_tredrick?_" marah nodded. "tredrick. but it's more than that. if it were only tredrick, it wouldn't be so bad." he ran the curve of his hook over his scarred chin, and his eyes burned like candle flames. "romany is growing old, and soft. that's the real trouble. decay. otherwise, tredrick would have been kicked into space long ago. there are old men in the council, campbell. they think more of comfort than they do of--well...." "yeah. i know. what's tredrick's angle?" "i don't know. he's a strange man--you can't get a grip on him. sometimes i think he's working for the coalition." campbell scowled. "could be. you gypsies have a lot of wild talents and some unique skills--i've met some of 'em. the man that controlled them would be sitting pretty. the coalition would like it, too." the woman said bitterly, "and they could always exhibit us. tours, at so much a head. so quaint--a cross-section of a lost world!" "tredrick's the strong man," marah went on. "eran mak is chief councillor, but he does as tredrick tells him. the idea is that if romany settled down and stops getting into trouble with the planetary coalitions, we can have regular orbits, regular trade, and so on." "in other words," said campbell dryly, "stop being romany." "you understand. a pet freak, a tourist attraction, a fat source of revenue." again the savage flash of the hook. "a damned circus!" "and tredrick, i take it, has decided that you're endangering the future of romany by rebellion, and put the finger on you." "exactly." marah's yellow eyes were bright and hard, meeting campbell's. campbell thought about the fitts-sothern outside, and all the lonely reaches of space where he could go. there were lots of coalition ships to rob, a few plague-spots left to spend the loot in. all he had to do was walk out. but there was a woman's voice, with a note in it like a singing, angry drum. there was an old man's voice, murmuring, "little people like you, my son?" it was funny, how a guy could be alone and not know he minded it, and then suddenly walk in on perfect strangers and not be alone any more--alone inside, that is--and know that he _had_ minded it like hell. it had been that way with the kraylens. it was that way now. campbell shrugged. "i'll stick around." he added irritably, "sister, will you for pete's sake get that light out of my eyes?" she moved it, shining it down. "the name's moore. stella moore." he grinned. "sorry. so you do have a face, after all." it wasn't beautiful. it was pale and heart-shaped, framed in a mass of unruly red-gold hair. there were long, grey eyes under dark-gold brows that had never been plucked, and a red, sullen mouth. her teeth were white and uneven, when she smiled. he liked them. the red of her sullen lips was their own. she wore a short tunic the color of tokay grapes, and the body under it was long and clean-cut. her arms and throat had the whiteness of pearl. marah said quietly, "contact zard. tell him to throw the pa system wide open and say we're taking the ship, now, to get the kraylens!" * * * * * stella stood absolutely still. her grey eyes took on an eerie, remote look, and campbell shivered slightly. he'd seen telepathy often enough in the system's backwaters, but it never seemed normal. presently she said, "it's done," and became human again. the green light went out. "power," she explained. "besides, we don't need it. give me your hand, mister campbell." he did, with absolutely no aversion. "my friends," he said, "generally call me roy." she laughed, and they started off, moving with quick sureness in the black, icy darkness. the ship, it seemed, was up on the second level, on the edge of the living quarters. down here was all the machinery that kept romany alive--heat, light, water, air, and cooling systems--and a lot of storage hulks. the third tier was a vast hydroponic farm, growing the grain and fruit and vegetables that fed the romany thousands. stumbling through pipes and dismantled hulks that smelled of sacking and dried vegetables and oil, campbell filled in the gaps. the leaders of the rebel element had held a meeting down here, in secret. marah and the girl had been coming from it when campbell blundered into them. the decision had been to rescue the kraylens no matter what happened. they'd known about the kraylens long before campbell had. gypsies trading in lhi had brought word. now the kraylens were a symbol over which two points of view were clashing in deadly earnest. remembering tredrick's thin, harsh face, campbell wondered uneasily how many of them _would_ live to take that ship away. he became aware gradually of a broken, rhythmic tap and clank transmitted along the metal walls. "hammers," said stella softly. "hammers and riveters and welders, fighting rust and age to keep romany alive. there's no scrap of this world that wasn't discarded as junk, and reclaimed by us." her voice dropped. "including the people." campbell said, "they're scrapping some beautiful things these days." she knew what he meant. she even laughed a little. "i was born on romany. there are a lot of earth people who have no place at home." "i know." campbell remembered his father's farm, with blue cold water over the fields instead of sky. "and tredrick?" "he was born here, too. but the taint is in him...." she caught her breath in a sudden sharp cry. "marah! marah, _it's zard_!" they stopped. a pulse began to beat under campbell's jaw. stella whispered, "he's gone. i felt him call, and now he's gone. he was trying to warn us." marah said grimly, "tredrick's got him, then. probably knocked him out while he was trying to escape from the radio room." "he was frightened," said stella quietly. "tredrick has done something. he wanted to warn us." marah grunted. "have your gun ready, campbell. we go up, now." * * * * * they went up a wooden ladder. it was suddenly getting hot. campbell guessed that romany was in the sun again. the martian opened a door at the top, very, very slowly. a young, vibrant voice sang out, "all clear!" they piled out of the doorway. four or five husky young paniki barbarians from venus stood grinning beside two bound and slumbering earthmen. campbell stared past them. the air was still and hot, hung with veils of steamy mist. there was mossy earth dotted with warm pools. there were _liha_-trees, sultry green under a pearly light that was still brightening out of indigo gloom. a slow, hot breath of wind stirred the mist and _liha_-trees. it smelt of warm still water and growing things, and--freedom. campbell drew a long breath. his eyes stung and the veins in his neck hurt. he knew it was a dead hulk, with an iron sky above the pearl-grey mist. but it smelt of freedom. he said, "what are we waiting for?" marah laughed, and the young venusian laughed. barbarians, going to fight and laughing about it. stella's grey eyes held a sultry flame, and her lips were blood-orange and trembling. campbell kissed them. he laughed, too, softly, and said, "okay, gypsy. let's go." they went, through the seven hulks of the venusian quarter. because of the kraylens, most of the venusians were with the rebels, but even so there were angry voices raised, and fists, and a few weapons, and some blood got spilled. more tow-headed young men joined them, and squat little upland nomads who could talk to animals, and three four-armed, serpentine crawlers from the lohari swamps. they came presently to a huge dismantled hoyt freighter on the edge of the venusian quarter. there were piles of goods waiting lading through the row of airlocks into smaller trading ships. marah stopped, his gorget shooting wicked jeweled sparks in the sunlight that seared in through half-shuttered ports, and the others flowed in behind him. they were on a narrow gallery about halfway up the inner wall. campbell looked down. there were people on the ladders and the two balcony levels below. a sullen, ugly mob of people from earth, from venus, from mars and mercury and the moons of jupiter and saturn. men and near-men and sheer monstrosities, silent and watching in the hot light. here a crest of scarlet antennae burning, there the sinuous flash of a scaled back, and beyond that the slow ominous weaving of light-black tentacles. a creature like a huge blue spider with a child's face let out a shrill unearthly scream. "traitor! traitor!" the whole packed mass on the ladders and the galleries stirred like a weird tapestry caught in a gust of wind. the rushing whisper of their movement, their breathing, and their anger sang across campbell's nerves in points of fire. anger. anger in the kraylen's drum and stella's voice and marah's yellow eyes. anger like the sunlight, hot and primal. the anger of little men flogged into greatness. a voice spoke from across the deck below, cold, clear, without the faintest tremor. "we want no trouble. return to your quarters quietly." "_the kraylens!_" the name came thundering out of all those angry throats, beating down against the gaunt, erect figure standing in the forefront of a circle of earthmen guarding the locks with ready guns. tredrick's thin, red head never stirred from its poised erectness. "the kraylens are out of your hands, now. they harbored a dangerous criminal, and they are now being imprisoned in lhi to answer for it." roy campbell gripped the iron railing in front of him. it seemed to him that he could see, across all that space, the cold, bright flame of satisfaction in tredrick's eyes. the thin, calm voice slid across his eardrums with the cruel impersonality of a surgeon's knife. "that criminal, roy campbell, is now on romany. the spaceguard is on its way here now. for the sake of the safety of your families, for the future of romany, i advise no one to hide him or help him escape." iv campbell stood still, not moving or speaking, his hard, dark face lined and dead, like old wood. from a great distance he heard marah's smothered, furious curse, the quick catch of stella's breath, the sullen breathing and stirring of the mob that was no longer sure what it wanted to do. but all he could see was the pale, kind face of an old man smiling in the warm, blue night, and the dirty, sordid stones of lhi. a voice spoke, from beside the circle of armed men. campbell heard it with some part of his brain. an old voice, dry and rustling, possessed of great dignity and great pain. "my children," it said. "have patience. have faith that we, your leaders, have the good of romany at heart." campbell looked with dead, dark eyes at the speaker, standing beside tredrick. a small man in a robe of white fur. a martian from one of the polar cities, frail, black-eyed grave, and gently strong. "remember the cold, the hunger, the uncertainty we have endured. we have a chance now for security and peace. let there be no trouble, now or when the spaceguard comes. return to your quarters quietly." "trouble!" marah's voice roared out across the hot, still air. every face down there below turned up toward the balcony. campbell saw tredrick start, and speak to one of the guards. the guard went out, not too fast. campbell swore under his breath, and his brain began to tick over again, swift and hard. marah thundered on, a bronze titan in the sultry glare. his gorget, his yellow eyes, the bosses on his kilt held points of angry flame. "you, eran mak, a martian! have you forgotten kesh, and balakar, and the wells of tamboina? can you crawl to the coalition like a _sindar_ for the sake of the bones they throw you? you, tredrick! you've sold us out. since when have _latniks_ been called to meddle in romany's affairs?" tredrick's cold voice was quite steady. "the kraylens are beyond reach, marah. a revolt will get you nothing. do you want blood on your hands?" "my hand," said marah softly. his hook made a burning, vicious arc in the hot light. "if there's blood on this, the coalition spilled it when their frontier marshal lopped my sword-hand for raising it against him." the mob stirred and muttered. and campbell said swiftly, "tredrick's right. but there's still a chance, if you want to take it." stella moore put a hand on marah's arm. "how?" tredrick was still pretending he hadn't seen campbell, pretending there weren't men crawling through dark tunnels to trap him. "it'll mean trouble. it may mean death or imprisonment. it's a million-to-one shot. you'd better give me up and forget it." the point of marah's hook pricked under his jaw. "speak quickly, little man!" "okay. tell 'em to behave. then get me out of here, fast!" * * * * * tredrick's men knew their way around. a lot of gypsies, moreover, who weren't with tredrick, joined the hunt for the _latnik_. they didn't want trouble with the spaceguard. campbell stumbled through a maze of dark and stifling passages, holding stella's hand and thinking of the spaceguard ships sweeping closer. they were almost caught a dozen times, trying to get across romany to the fitts-sothern. the hunt seemed to be an outlet for the pent feelings of romany. campbell decided he would never go hunting again. and then, just above where his ship lay, they stepped into a trap. they were in the saturnian quarter, in the hulk devoted to refugees from titan. there were coolers working here. there was snow on the barren rocks, glimmering in weird light like a dark rainbow. "the caves," said stella moore. "the baraki." there was an echoing clamor of voices all around them, footsteps clattering over metal and icy rock. they ran, breathing hard. there were some low cliffs, and a ledge, and then caves with queer blue-violet fires burning in them. creatures sat at the cave mouths. they were small, vaguely anthropoid, dead white, and unpleasantly rubbery. they were quite naked, and their single eyes were phosphorescent. marah knelt. "little fathers, we ask shelter in the name of freedom." the shouts and the footsteps were closer. there was sweat on campbell's forehead. one of the white things nodded slightly. "no disturbance," it whispered. "we will have no disturbance of our thoughts. you may shelter, to stop this ugly noise." "thank you, little father." marah plunged into the cave, with the others on his heels. campbell snarled, "they'll come and take us!" stella's sullen lips smiled wolfishly. "no. watch." the cave, the violet fire were suddenly gone. there was a queer darkness, a small electric shiver across campbell's skin. he started, and the girl whispered: "telekinesis. they've built a wall of force around us. on the outside it seems to be rock like the cave wall." marah moved, the bosses on his kilt clinking slightly. "when the swine are gone, there's a trap in this hulk leading down to the pipe where your ship is. now tell us your plan." campbell made a short, bitter laugh. "plan, hell. it's a gamble on a fixed wheel, and you're fools if you play it." "and if we don't?" "i'm going anyway. the kraylens--well, i owe them something." "tell us the plan." he did, in rapid nervous sentences, crouched behind the shielding wall of thought from those alien brains. marah laughed softly. "by the gods, little man, you should have been a keshi!" "i can think of a lot of things i should have been," said campbell dourly. "hey, there goes our wall." it hadn't been more than four minutes. long enough for them to look and go away again. there might still be time, before the spaceguard came. there was, just. the getaway couldn't have been more perfectly timed. campbell grinned, feeding power into his jets with exquisite skill. he didn't have a chinaman's chance. he thought probably the gypsies had less than that of coming through. but the kraylens weren't going to rot in the slave-pens of lhi because of roy campbell. not while roy campbell was alive to think about it. and that, of course, might not be long. he sent the fitts-sothern shooting toward the night side of venus, in full view and still throttled down. the spaceguard ships, nine fast patrol boats, took out after him, giving romany the go-by. no use stopping there. no mistaking that lean, black ship, or whose hands were on the controls. campbell stroked the firing keys, and the fitts-sothern purred under him like a cat. just for a second he couldn't see clearly. "i'm sorry, old girl," he said. "but that's how it has to be." * * * * * it was a beautiful chase. the guard ships pulled every trick they knew, and they knew plenty. campbell hunched over the keys, sweating, his dark face set in a grin that held no mirth. only his hands moved, with nervous, delicate speed. it was the ship that did it. they slapped tractors on her, and she broke them. they tried to encircle her, and she walked away from them. that slight edge of power, that narrow margin of speed, pulled roy campbell away from what looked like instant, easy capture. he got into the shadow, and then the spaceguard began to get scared as well as angry. they stopped trying to capture him. they unlimbered their blasters and went to work. campbell was breathing hard now, through his teeth. his dark skin was oiled with sweat, pulled tight over the bones and the ridges of muscle and the knotted veins. deliberately, he slowed a little. a bolt flamed past the starboard ports. he slowed still more, and veered the slightest bit. the fitts-sothern was alive under his hands. he didn't speak when the next bolt struck her. not even to curse. he didn't know he was crying until he tasted the salt on his lips. he got up out of the pilot's seat, and then he said one word: "_judas!_" the follow-up of the first shot blasted the control panel. it knocked him back across the cockpit, seared and scorched from the fusing metal. he got up, somehow, and down the passage to the lock compartment. there was a lot of blood running from his cheek, but he didn't care. he could feel the ship dying under him. the timers were shot. she was running away in a crazy, blind spiral, racking her plates apart. he climbed into his vac-suit. it was a special one, black even to the helmet, with a super-powerful harness-rocket with a jet illegally baffled. he hoped his hands weren't too badly burned. the ship checked brutally, flinging him hard into the bulkhead. tractors! he clawed toward the lock, an animal whimper in his throat. he hoped he wasn't going to be sick inside the helmet. the panel opened. air blasted him out, into jet-black space. the tiny spearing flame of the harness-rocket flickered briefly and died, unnoticed among the trailing fires of the derelict. campbell lay quite still in the blackened suit. the spaceguard ships flared by, playing the fitts-sothern like a tarpon on the lines of their tractor beams. campbell closed his eyes and cursed them, slowly and without expression, until the tightness in his throat choked him off. he let them get a long way off. then he pressed the plunger of the rocket, heading down for the night-shrouded swamps of tehara province. he retained no very clear memory of the trip. once, when he was quite low, a spaceship blazed by over him, heading toward lhi. there were still about eight hours' darkness over the swamps. he landed, eventually, in a clearing he was pretty sure only he knew about. he'd used it before when he'd had stuff to fence in lhi and wasn't sure who owned the town at the time. he'd learned to be careful about those things. there was a ship there now, a smallish trader of the inter-lunar type. he stared at it, not really believing it was there. then, just in time, he got the helmet off. when the world stopped turning over, he was lying with his head in stella moore's lap. she had changed her tunic for plain spaceman's black, and it made her face look whiter and lovelier in its frame of black hair. her lips were still sullen, and still red. campbell sat up and kissed them. he felt much better. not good, but he thought he'd live. stella laughed and said, "well! you're recovering." he said, "sister, you're good medicine for anything." a hand which he recognized as marah's materialized out of the indigo gloom. it had a flask in it. campbell accepted it gladly. presently the icy deadness around his stomach thawed out and he could see things better. he got up, rather unsteadily, and fumbled for a cigarette. his shirt had been mostly blown and charred off of him and his hands hurt like hell. stella gave him a smoke and a light. he sucked it in gratefully and said: "okay, kids. are we all ready?" they were. * * * * * campbell led off. he drained the flask and was pleased to find himself firing on all jets again. he felt empty and relaxed and ready for anything. he hoped the liquor wouldn't wear off too soon. there was a path threaded through the hammocks, the bogs and potholes and reeds and _liha_-trees. only campbell, who had made it, could have followed it. remembering his blind stumbling in the mazes of romany, he felt pleased about that. he said, rather smugly: "be careful not to slip. how'd you fix the getaway?" marah made a grim little laugh. "romany was a madhouse, hunting for you. some of the hot-headed boys started minor wars over policy on top of that. tredrick had to use most of his men to keep order. besides, of course, he thought we were beaten on the kraylen question." "there were only four men guarding the locks," said stella. "marah and a couple of the paniki boys took care of them." campbell remembered the spaceship flashing toward lhi. he told them about it. "could be tredrick, coming to supervise our defeat in person." defeat! it was because he was a little tight, of course, but he didn't think anyone could defeat him this night. he laughed. something rippled out of the indigo night to answer his laughter. something so infinitely sweet and soft that it made him want to cry, and then shocked him with the deep and iron power in it. campbell looked back over his shoulder. he thought: "me, hell. these are the guys who'll do it, if it's done." stella was behind him. beyond her was a thin, small man with four arms. he wore no clothing but his own white fur and his head was crowned with feathery antennae. even in the blue night the antennae and the man's eyes burned living scarlet. he came from callisto and he carried in his four hands a thing vaguely like a harp, only the strings were double banked. it was the harp that had spoken. campbell hoped it would never speak against him. marah brought up the rear, swinging along with no regard for the burden he bore. over his naked shoulder, campbell could see the still white face of the baraki from titan, the little father who had saved them from the hunters. there were tentacles around marah's big body like white ropes. four gypsies and a public enemy. five little people against the terro-venusian coalition. it didn't make sense. a hot, slow wind stirred the _liha_-trees. campbell breathed it in, and grinned. "what does?" he wondered, and stooped to part a tangle of branches. there was a stone-lined tunnel beyond. "here we go, children. join hands and make like little mousies." he took stella's hand in his left. because it was stella's he didn't mind the way it hurt. in his right, he held his gun. v he led them, quickly and quietly, along the disused branch of an old drainage system that he had used so often as a private entrance. presently they dropped to a lower level and the conduit system proper. when the rains were on, the drains would be running full. now they were only pumping seepage. they waded in pitch darkness, by-passed a pumping station through a side tunnel once used for cold storage by one of lhi's cautious business men, and then found steep, slippery steps going up. "careful," whispered campbell. he stopped them on a narrow ledge and stood listening. the callistan murmured, with faint amusement: "there is no one beyond." antennae over ears. campbell grinned and found a hidden spring. "lhi is full of these things," he said. "the boys used to keep their little wars going just for fun, and every smart guy had several bolt holes. maps used to sell high." they emerged in a very deep, very dark cellar. it was utterly still. campbell felt a little sad. he could remember when martian mak's was the busiest thieves' market in lhi, and a man could hear the fighting even here. he smiled bitterly and led the way upstairs. presently they looked down on the main gate, the main square, and the slave pens of lhi. the surrounding streets were empty, the buildings mostly dark. the coalition had certainly cleaned up when it took over the town. it was horribly depressing. campbell pointed. "reception committee. tredrick radioed, anyway. one'll get you twenty he followed it up in person." the gate was floodlighted over a wide area and there were a lot of tough-looking men with heavy-duty needle guns. in this day of anaesthetic charges you could do a lot of effective shooting without doing permanent damage. there were more lights and more men by the slave pens. campbell couldn't see much over the high stone walls of the pens. vague movement, the occasional flash of a brilliant crest. he had known the kraylens would be there. it was the only place in lhi where you could imprison a lot of people and be sure of keeping them. campbell's dark face was cruel. "okay," he said. "let's go." * * * * * down the stone steps to the entrance. stella's quick breathing in the hot darkness, the rhythmic clink of the bosses on marah's kilt. campbell saw the eyes of the callistan harper, glowing red and angry. he realized he was sweating. he had forgotten his burns. stella opened the heavy steel-sheathed door. quietly, slowly. the baraki whispered, "put me down." marah set him gently on the stone floor. he folded in upon himself, tentacles around white, rubbery flesh. his single eye burned with a cold phosphorescence. he whispered, "now." the callistan harper went to the door. reflected light painted him briefly, white fur and scarlet crest and outlandish harp, and the glowing, angry eyes. he vanished. out of nowhere the harp began to sing. through the partly opened door campbell had a clear view of the square and the gate. in all that glare of light on empty stone nothing moved. and yet the music rippled out. the guards. campbell could see the startled glitter of their eyeballs in the light. there was nothing to shoot at. the harping was part of the night, as all-enveloping and intangible. campbell shivered. a pulse beat like a trip-hammer under his jaw. stella's voice came to him, a faint breath out of the darkness. "the baraki is shielding him with thought. a wall of force that turns the light." the edge of the faint light touched her cheek, the blackness of her hair. marah crouched beyond her, motionless. his hook glinted dully, curved and cruel. they were getting only the feeble backwash of the harping. the callistan was aiming his music outward. campbell felt it sweep and tremble, blend with the hot slow wind and the indigo sky. it was some trick of vibrations, some diabolical thrusting of notes against the brain like fingers, to press and control. something about the double-banked strings thrumming against each other under the cunning of four skilled hands. but it was like witchcraft. "the harp of dagda," whispered stella moore, and the irish music in her voice was older than time. the scot in campbell answered it. somewhere outside a man cursed, thickly, like one drugged with sleep and afraid of it. a gun went off with a sharp slapping sound. some of the guards had fallen down. the harp sang louder, throbbing along the grey stones. it was the slow wind, the heat, the deep blue night. it was sleep. the floodlights blazed on empty stone, and the guards slept. the baraki sighed and shivered and closed his eye. campbell saw the callistan harper standing in the middle of the square, his scarlet crest erect, striking the last thrumming note. campbell straightened, catching his breath in a ragged sob. marah picked up the baraki. he was limp, like a tired child. stella's eyes were glistening and strange. campbell went out ahead of them. it was a long way across the square, in the silence and the glaring lights. campbell thought the harp was a nice weapon. it didn't attract attention because everyone who heard it slept. he flung back the three heavy bars of the slave gate. the pain of his burned hands jarred him out of the queer mood the harping and his celtic blood had put on him. he began to think again. "hurry!" he snarled at the kraylens. "hurry up!" they came pouring out of the gate. men, women with babies, little children. their crests burned in the sullen glare. campbell pointed to marah. "follow him." they recognized him, tried to speak, but he cursed them on. and then an old man said, "my son." campbell looked at him, and then down at the stones. "for god's sake, father, hurry." a hand touched his shoulder gently. he looked up again, and grinned. he couldn't see anything. "get the hell on, will you?" somebody found the switch and the nearer lights went out. the hand pressed his shoulder, and was gone. he shook his head savagely. the kraylens were running now, toward the house. and then, suddenly, marah yelled. men were running into the square. eight or ten of them, probably the bodyguard of the burly grey-haired man who led them. beside the grey-haired man was tredrick, overchief of the terran quarter of romany. * * * * * they were startled. they hadn't been expecting this. campbell's battle-trained eye saw that. probably they had been making a routine tour of inspection and just stumbled onto the crash-out. [illustration: _campbell swung about, blasted shots at tredrick and his men, while stella pressed the kraylens to greater speed in escaping._] campbell fired, from the hip. anaesthetic needles sprayed into the close-packed group. two of them went down. the rest scattered, dropping flat. campbell wished there had been time to kill the gate lights. at least, the shadows made shooting tricky. he bent over and began to run, guarding the rear of the kraylen's line. stella, in the cover of the doorway, was laying down a methodical wall of needles. campbell grinned. some of the kraylens caught it and had to be carried. that slowed things down. campbell's gun clicked empty. he shoved in another clip, cursing his burned fingers. a charge sang by him, close enough to stir his hair. he fired again, blanketing the whole sector where the men lay. he wished he could blow tredrick's head off. the kraylens were vanishing into the house. marah and the callistan had gone ahead, leading them. campbell groaned. speed was what they needed. speed. a child, separated from his mother in the rush, knelt on the stones and shrieked. campbell picked him up and ran on. enemy fire was slackening. stella was doing all right. the last of the kraylens shoved through the door. campbell bounded up the steps. stella got up off her belly and smiled at him. her eyes shone. they were halfway through the door when the cold voice said behind them, "there are lethal needles in my gun. you had better stop." campbell turned slowly. his face was wooden. tredrick stood at the bottom of the steps. he must have crawled around the edge of the square, where the shadows were thick under the walls. "drop your gun, campbell. and you, stella moore." campbell dropped it. tredrick might be bluffing about those needles. but a mickey at this stage of the game would be just as fatal. stella's gun clattered beside him. she didn't say anything, but her face was coldly murderous. tredrick said evenly, "you might as well call them back, campbell. you led them in, but you're not going to lead them out." it was funny, campbell thought, how a man's voice could be so cold when his eyes had fire in them. he said sullenly, "okay, tredrick. you win. but what's the big idea behind this?" tredrick's face might have been cut from granite, except for the feral eyes. "i was born on romany. i froze and starved in those rotten hulks. i hated it. i hated the darkness, the loneliness, the uncertainty. but when i said i hated it, i got a beating. "everybody else thought it was worth it. i didn't. they talked about freedom, but romany was a prison to me. i wanted to grow, and i was stifled inside it. then i got an idea. "if i could rule romany and make a treaty with the coalition, i'd have money and power. and i could fix it so no more kids would be brought up that way, cold and hungry and scared. "marah opposed me, and then the kraylens became an issue." tredrick smiled, but there was no mirth or softness in it. "it's a good thing. the coalition can take of marah and you others who were mixed up in this. my way is clear." stella moore said softly between her teeth, "they'll never forgive you for turning romany people over to the _latniks_. there'll be war." tredrick nodded soberly. "no great change is made without bloodshed. i'm sorry for that. but romany will be happier." "we don't ask to be happy. we only ask to be free." campbell said wearily, "stella, take the kid, will you?" he held out the little kraylen, droopy and quiet now. she looked at him in quick alarm. his feet were spread but not steady, his head sunk forward. she took the child. campbell's knees sagged. one seared arm in a tattered green sleeve came up to cover his face. the other groped blindly along the wall. he dropped, rather slowly, to his knees. the groping hand fell across the gun by stella's foot. in one quick sweep of motion campbell got it, threw it, and followed it with his own body. * * * * * the gun missed, but it came close enough to tredrick's face to make him move his head. the involuntary muscular contraction of his whole body spoiled his aim. the charge went past campbell into the wall. they crashed down together on the stones. campbell gripped tredrick's wrist, knew he couldn't hold it, let go with one hand and slashed backward with his elbow at tredrick's face. the gun let off again, harmlessly, tredrick groaned. his arm was weaker. campbell thrashed over and got his knee on it. tredrick's other fist was savaging his already tortured body. campbell brought his fist down into tredrick's face. he did it twice, and wept and cursed because he was suddenly too weak to lift his arm again. tredrick was bleeding, but far from out. his gun was coming up again. he didn't have much play, but enough. campbell set his teeth. he couldn't even see tredrick, but he swung again. he never knew whether he connected or not. something thrummed past his head. he couldn't say he heard it. it was more like feeling. but it was something deadly, and strange. tredrick didn't make a sound. campbell knew suddenly that he was dead. he got up, very slow, shaking and cold. the callistan harper stood in the doorway. he was lowering his hands, and his eyes were living coals. he didn't say anything. neither did stella. but she laughed, and the child stirred and whimpered in her arms. campbell went to her. she looked at him with queer eyes and whispered, "i called him with my mind. i knew he'd kill." he took her face in his two hands. "listen, stella. you've got to lead them back. you've got to touch my mind with yours and let me guide you that way, back to the ship." her eyes widened sharply. "but you can come. he's dead. you're free now." "no." he could feel her throat quiver under his hands. her blood was beating. so was his. he said harshly, "you fool, do you think they'll let you get away with this? you're tackling the coalition. they can't afford to look silly. they've got to have a scapegoat, something to save face! "romany, so far, is beyond planetary control. slap your tractors on her, tow her out. clear out to saturn if you have to. nobody saw the callistan. nobody saw anybody but me and the kraylens and an unidentifiable somebody up here on the porch. nobody, that is, but tredrick, and he won't talk. do you understand?" she did, but she was still rebellious. her sullen lips were angry, her eyes bright with tears and challenging. "but you, roy!" he took his hands away. "damn you, woman! if i hide out on romany i bring you into spaceguard jurisdiction. i'll be trapped, and romany's last chance to stay free will be gone." she said stubbornly, "but you can get away. there are ships." "oh, sure. but the kraylens are there. you can't hide them. the coalition will search romany. they'll ask questions. i tell you they've got to have a goat!" he was really weak, now. he hoped he could hold out. he hoped he wouldn't do anything disgraceful. he turned away from her, looking out at the square. some of the guards were beginning to stir. "will you go?" he said. "will you get to hell out?" she put her hand on him. "roy...." he jerked away. his dark face was set and cruel. "do you have to make it harder? do you think i want to rot on phobos in their stinking mines, with shackles on my feet?" he swung around, challenging her with savage eyes. "how else do you think romany is going to stay free? you can't go on playing cat and mouse with the big shots this way. they're getting sick of it. they'll pass laws and tie you down. somebody's got to spread romany all over the solar system. somebody's got to pull a publicity campaign that'll make the great dumb public sit up and think. if public opinion's with you, you're safe." he smiled. "i'm big news, sister. i'm roy campbell. i can splash your lousy little mess of tin cans all over with glamour, so the great dumb public won't let a hair of your little head be hurt. if you want to, you can raise a statue to me in the council hall. "and now will you for god's sake go?" * * * * * she wasn't crying. her gray eyes had lights in them. "you're wonderful, roy. i didn't realize how wonderful." he was ashamed, then. "nuts. in my racket you don't expect to get away with it forever. besides, i'm an old dog. i know my way around. i have a little dough saved up. i won't be in for long." "i hope not," she said. "oh, roy, it's so stupid! why do earthmen have to change everything they lay their hands on?" he looked at tredrick, lying on the stones. his voice came slow and sombre. "they're building, stella. when they're finished they'll have a big, strong, prosperous world extending all across the planets, and the people who belong to that world will be happy. "but before you can build you have to grade and level, destroy the things that get in your way. we're the things--the tree--stumps and the rocks that grew one way and can't be changed. "they're building, stella. they're growing. you can't stop that. in the end, it'll be a good thing, i suppose. but right now, for us...." he broke off. he thrust her roughly inside and locked the steel-sheathed door. "you've got to go now." it was dark, and hot. the kraylen child whimpered. he could feel stella close to him. he found her lips and kissed them. he said, "so long, kid. and about that statue. you'd better wait till i come back to pose for it." his voice became a longing whisper. "_and i'll be back!_" he promised. minions of the crystal sphere by albert de pina like a monster flashing jewel, plastica hovered over neptune. and burning at its heart like the malignant sparkle of a gem was the blazing hate of millions of slaves, ready to flare into raging battle at the ringing tocsin of vyrl guerlan, the man without a country. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories summer 1944. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] the vast globe of transparent plastic, infinitely stronger than the most powerful columbium steel, hung suspended in space, ablaze in brilliant pyrotechnics of light. and as cold and impersonal as the laws of the empire it ruled. within it was the city of the inner circle. patterned after the city of plastica itself, it rose within the globe in graduated tiers, but unlike plastica, there were no graduations of caste--they were all protectors, these scientists of the inner circle, and above them ruled the legendary figure of _his benevolence_, the "protector in chief." six thousand feet below, the turbulent ocean tossed restlessly as if resentful of the awful pressure of the stupendous anti-gravity beams that kept the glittering sphere in space--sacred, inviolate, invulnerable. above the ocean's shoreline, set amidst low hills, rose plastica, entirely enclosed in a shell of the same transparent plastic, and rising tier on tier--each one a small world unto itself, and each barred from communication with other tiers. here the millions toiled and loved and died ... and entered the portals of blessed sleep. in the vast reaches of neptune, only this continent--adamic, was livable, thanks to immense volcanic valleys where constant volcanic activity of titanic proportions maintained a temperate atmosphere in contrast to the frigid, desolate continents to the north and west. and dotting the valley of plastica like transparent beehives, the twelve jewels of the diadem--twelve cities where five million human beings dwelt in each, formed the empire of sixty million descendants of the original immigrants who chose to follow the council in their flight from venus. there was no other sign of man, except among the virgin forests of the volcanic valleys, where the irreconcilables who fled the rigid laws of the protectors, carried on a precarious existence, assailed by fierce wild beasts of prey, and hunted for sport with lances and long-swords by the members of the inner circle, and the scientists of the first order. burdened by the awful gravity of the great planet, and without adequate arms to defend themselves, they were doomed quarry. within the capital, plastica, and in each of the twelve cities, each individual life had a definite pattern known only to the members of the inner circle. any deviation from that pattern brought instant retribution. there was no appeal, for each judgment was based on cold, inexorable law. ever since the great exodus from earth, when the original council had fled terra, and forced colonies on mars and venus, and later after their disastrous war with europa, the council itself had been given the alternative of leaving the inner planets or being executed, the members of the council had colonized neptune with millions who unable to live without the "controls" had chosen to accompany them into space. as the centuries passed and a new ruler of the council had been elected, changes had occurred in the laws, methods had been perfected, until now, all neptune was ruled by the city in the flaming sphere, and to the millions in plastica and the other great cities, the protectors (as they now styled themselves), had become legendary figures. the law was supreme. and behind the law, was the "blessed sleep." * * * * * in the fabulous hall of the palace, where the reeling torches in relief threw faces of ink and of gold, there was a sudden silence as an unearthly voice rose limpid, supernally lovely, in a single ululating note. it was as if a gargoyle were singing with the voice of an angel. but the bizarre assemblage of jaded, pleasure-sated "protectors" of the _inner circle_ had no eyes for the cadaverous minister of justice, whose distorted features seemed uglier as he directed a stream of modulated notes upward toward the gigantic doors at the top of jewelled stairs. all eyes peering through the slits of black and golden masks that completely hid their faces, were directed at the great red doors, shining like gigantic, square cut rubies under the primitive light of resinous torches. every detail of the masquerade was perfection itself, copying faithfully the conditions of primitive ages thousands of years past. the magnificent costumes of the guests harked back to pirates and slave-dealers, to vanished kings and oriental potentates. back to an era when humanity was young, as if these scientists who had the command of miracles at their finger-tips, had wearied of their scientific perfection. bejamel, minister of justice, had conceived the idea, and his benevolence had approved. from the current "favorite" of his benevolence, to the newest neophyte of the inner circle, the masquerade had immediately become a command performance. only one thing they had no need to imitate, one thing that harked back to the darkest annals of terra and surpassed anything that planet had ever known--their utterly ruthless intrigues for the favor of his benevolence. assassinations were a commonplace, besides it provided a constant incentive to the scientists of the first order, for from them were chosen the fortunate ones who filled the vacancies of the inner circle. the audience gave a vast sigh, like a susurrating breeze, as the ponderous doors began to open under the exact tonal vibration of bejamel's voice, for bejamel, minister of state, was the only one who could open those doors, aside from the "protector in chief" himself. within the inner chamber nothing was discernible as the doors opened--nothing but a vast radiance intolerable to their eyes. as if a command had been given, all of them kneeled with bowed heads. at last, bejamel's ululating chant ceased and when they looked again, the jewelled door had closed, but on the dais at the top of the stairs immediately above them reclined a figure--a monstrous figure of man, whose sharp, pale-yellow eyes gazed at them with bored contempt from amid folds of bulging flesh. "benevolence!" the roar of thousands of voices rose in servile tribute, and left hands were flung upwards, fingers extended in salute. his benevolence looked them over with cold, cruel eyes that seemed to miss no detail, and a little smile extended the bulbous lips. languidly he waved a massive hand to the masqueraders, noting that none had achieved the bejewelled opulence of his mandarin's costume, and instantly the revelry burst into tumult. the corps of exquisite dancers until now frozen in motionless attitudes, began a series of provocative movements, while barbaric drums and percussion instruments wove a theme of madness and desire. over all, the shrill _passionata_ of the reeds and strings winged insistently to combine in a diabolic pattern that plucked at raw nerves and bared hidden jealousies and hates and bared the instincts of the jungle, red in tooth and claw. a group of dancers weaving and undulating in the suggestive rhythms of the venusian "_vuda_" passed like an uncoiling serpent before the august dais and burst into bacchanalian frenzy before the sardonic yellow eyes of his benevolence. the fantastic splendor of the scene was heightened by the young, supple bodies of the most beautiful girls in the empire, the virgins of the sacred flame, chosen yearly for that sacred trust. * * * * * "well," an impassive voice inquired of a tall, dark-haired _guest_ who stood in the side-lines, stiff and uncertain, his conventional black mask too small to hide the firm, square-cut mouth, his blue-black mane of shoulder-length hair betraying him as a newcomer lacking as it did the curled and perfumed artistry of the other guests. "i suppose it's superfluous to ask your reactions to your first visit to the mysteries of our city." the faint laughter that accompanied the words brought a flush to the cheeks of the newcomer, fortunately covered by the mask. "how did you know i was a newcomer?" the youth inquired in turn. "simple," the cold, impassive voice replied. "you have no jewels save that ring of a scientist of the first order you're trying to conceal. your costume's far too simple.... when do you begin your probationary period for the inner circle?" the speaker was below medium height, slender as a sheathed rapier, and dressed in a single garment of tight-fitting silk literally emblazoned in diamonds of the first water. his square-cut mane of red-gold hair was starred with myriad blue and red and yellow flashing stones, but the face was thoroughly hidden by the golden mask. "tomorrow!" the words were spoken with a vast regret. "i'm afraid i don't quite understand.... i hadn't expected this. why i thought sacred city was a heaven of achievement of ..." he stopped as if words failed him. "go on!" the sexless voice had a hint of mockery in its depths now. "this is merely a preamble." he waved a marvelously slender hand in the direction of the revellers. "later ... but then, i always manage to slip away before the real feast commences. if you wish, you may come with me." "but who are you? i might as well tell you who am i," the youth began, but his unknown acquaintance waved his words aside with a gesture. "i know who you are--scientist of the first order guerlan, as for me, it does not matter who i am--you will see me again ... soon." he turned to leave. "wait!" guerlan exclaimed. "take me with you out of this ... this welter of vice and ..." words failed him in his disgust. "traitor ... blasphemer!" a hoarse cry of rage rose above the music and tumult. the swirling dancers split asunder as if a giant's hand had flung them back. in the center of the cleared space, guerlan found himself facing a stocky, powerful figure of a man, costumed in the ancient garments of a pirate, eyes gleaming through the slits of his golden mask. in his hand he hefted a long columbium sword with bejewelled hilt. "draw, vermin!" he taunted the dazed youth. "draw before i spit you on my sword like a spider!" on the dais, still reclining as he gulped superb white grapes, his benevolence had begun to show signs of interest for the first time. the veil of boredom had left his yellow eyes, an expectant grin split his lips hungrily. here was an unscheduled diversion of the first order. guerlan wore a long, thin rapier for a weapon, it had come with the costume, or he'd never have thought of wearing it--nothing like this fantastic nightmare could possibly have occurred to him. "why did they have to choose me!" he groaned inwardly. but with a swift movement he drew the blade and stood _en garde_. he sensed dimly that it was a true weapon, flexible and needle-sharp, not a costume-toy. and once he had it in his hand, all his relentless, austere training in fencing and sword-play came flooding in his mind. it was not considered sportsmanlike to hunt irreconcilables with atmo-pistols, only swords and spears were used--but the end was the same for the defenseless rebels. dimly guerlan was aware of the dispassionate voice whispering in his ear, "watch out for tricks ... and win! the penalty will be far less severe." guerlan wondered if his unknown acquaintance of the frigid voice meant that his rebellious words had reached the awesome figure on the dais, and that by winning he might be shown mercy. but he had no more time to think irrelevant thoughts, for with a cry of drunken fury, his accuser struck without preamble, slashing downward in a mighty blow calculated to have cloven anything in two. but guerlan smiled contemptuously at the transparent maneuver; he merely shifted sideways and flicked his rapier, and the sword slid harmlessly along the shining columbium steel rapier. but the pseudo-pirate had no intentions of giving up the initiative, he whirled the saber over his head and again brought it down in a glancing blow that would have sheared through guerlan, and the young scientist again parried it with such precision that the razor-sharp blade slid off singing to one side. * * * * * it was a superb struggle, and his benevolence had directed his palace minions to clear space for his unobstructed view. he now held a gigantic uncut, but polished diamond to one eye, which he alternated with an emerald and then a ruby, watching the battle through various colors. an immense golden platter of viands and fruits slowly disappeared down his capable maw. suddenly guerlan closed in. his rapier flashed with vertiginous speed, flicking in and out, so rapidly that it barely seemed to touch the brawny forearm of his attacker, but when it came away it left a flowing gash from elbow to wrist. with a bellow of humiliation and rage, the pirate-costumed scientist lunged with a tremendous slash, but his sword-point speared the air and before he could recover his balance, guerlan drove his rapier deep into the fleshy shoulder. his attacker was silent now, an ominous rage contorted the brutal face from which he'd torn the golden mask. he had but one single idea, to kill and kill quickly. laughter and jeering shouts rose around him. as did the acrid odor of blood mingling with the exotic fragrances that cloyed the atmosphere ... his own blood! his reaction to the audible scorn of the other inner circle scientists was instantaneous. he came in whirling his saber until it was like a silver vortex, then he brought it down in a savage slash to shear guerlan's head off his shoulders. but the youth leaped back, engaging the pirate's sword at the same time and with a strange flicking motion accomplished faster than the eye could catch, he twisted suddenly at a precise instant and sent his attacker's sword flying through the silent hall. it was an all but forgotten, ancient italian trick whose origins were lost. but the scientist of the inner circle, sweating under his gaudy pirate's costume knew nothing about italian fencing tricks--he only knew that one moment he'd thought to shear his opponent's head off his shoulders and the next he was disarmed. a look of sheer horror came into his blood-flecked eyes and next an uncontrollable scream escaped his lips. that sealed his doom. guerlan saluted and made no motion to finish him. but from the fabulous dais where the jeweled stairs were like a flowing stream of fire, a mocking, infinitely sardonic laugh chilled every scientist present in that room. "our unfortunate brother is afraid, he is tired, is he not bejamel? after such an ordeal he deserves sleep ... soothing 'blessed sleep!'" again that demoniac, perversely cruel cachinnation that travestied laughter, while the scientist, grovelling now, babbled in a frenzy of appeals for a mercy that didn't exist. he was led screaming to a side door and then once more there was silence in the hall. "bring the rebel!" once more it was the voice of his benevolence, purring now, silky, filled with anticipatory pleasure. but guerlan needed no one to bring him before the dreaded presence. he walked calm and erect to what he sensed would be his death. he knew that from this soulless being he could expect no justice--nothing but death. but there was to be a surprise in store for him. his benevolence was an adept at ringing the changes of torture on a human soul, and this was a magnificent occasion. "we have heard you disapprove of us?" his benevolence's voice was light, cheerful, there was no hint of danger in the silky tones. but guerlan knew. that partly developed extra-sensory perception that was a part of his heritage was prenaturally alert now. he was not fooled. "i expressed a misunderstanding, your benevolence," guerlan bowed and slowly took off his mask. above the wide-spaced deep-green eyes, flashing like tourmalines, a tiny tattooed six-pointed star seemed to tremble with the pulsing of a vein. "you see, bejamel? i told you that 'perceptives' would never do, yet you so persuasively sold me the idea of how useful they could be if their extra-sensory perceptive powers were developed." he sighed. "it's that genius of yours for intrigue.... but it has failed. we can allow no dissidents to enter the mysteries of the inner circle, bejamel!" "i kneel before your benevolence," bejamel's gargoyle features were painfully contorted as he tried to grovel. "in my zeal for service to your magnificence, i have failed, but there's always the blessed sleep for this blasphemer, o symbol of charity!" he finished ominously and pondered what a jewel of a victim he would make. * * * * * but his benevolence gave bejamel a look of such cold, devastating evil, that _he_ should dare to offer a solution, that the cadaverous minister of justice seemed to shrink, pale and desperate, against the wall of scientists who watched avidly the _miseen scã¨ne_. "no mercy, no finesse." his benevolence again was wearing the mask of merciful forgiveness. "no bejamel--not the chamber of blessed sleep, just ..." and he held up two fingers weighted with jewels. then he turned to guerlan. "my son!" guerlan flinched. "having been offered the sacred honor of entering the inner circle, you failed to understand your first test of the lesser mysteries ... all this ... this pitiful show of human frailty and weakness, this odious travesty on the sins of the flesh, was staged to test you. and you." a world of sadness seemed to darken his benevolence's voice, "and you condemned us! instead of seeing it as a mere test, and valuing it for what it was worth, you believed that we were such monsters of hypocrisy as to entertain such lives." he wagged his head from side to side in inexpressible disappointment and grief. "i would pardon you from the depths of my heart, but the law is inexorable--i can but soften the harshness of your retribution. "and so, my son," he held up two fingers again, "you not only are barred from entering the sacred inner circle, but are demoted from scientist of the first, to that of the second order. there is one plastic center where a problem has not been solved. achieve its solution and you will be promoted to your original place, and perhaps ... perhaps as you grow older, you may again be considered for the priceless boon, the blessed destiny you have lost tonight." a brooding sadness mantled the obese face, lending it dignity and a transitory greatness. the soft echoes of the august voice ceased, and guerlan found himself being led by members of the inner circle guard back to the atomo-plane that had brought him here from plastica. he was too dazed to think, a vast, anguished feeling of defeat and shame filled his mind, the words of his benevolence whom he had dared to doubt, were etched in acid in his brain. but, deep in the recesses of his consciousness, something mocking, something not quite articulate, struggled to plant in his chaotic thoughts, the swiftly growing seeds of doubt. behind him, had he only been there to see and hear, a cataract of laughter had engulfed the great hall, and his benevolence, surrounded by his favorites and the most magnificently beautiful girls of the empire, shook in paroxysms of mocking laughter. but guerlan knew nothing of this. his muscles ached from the battle and his brain was awhirl. once out in space again, he noted that a great storm was in progress. hurtling under guard through the stormy reaches of space, he idly watched through the plane's transparent dome how lightning danced a drunken saraband. but although guerlan strove to re-direct his thoughts, the echoes of his benevolence's voice were like a sunset gun in his brain--final, incontestable, a sentence to the obscurity of the second order, and problems ... he had mentioned a specific problem. and guerlan remembered with chill apprehension the sentence for failure to solve problems in the second order. three failures brought a warning, five a probation and the sixth ... final judgment. the upper air of the first level, reserved for the scientists of the first order, had the exhilarating quality of burgundy. as far as guerlan's eyes could reach, the opaline and prismatic domes of the first level's exquisite structures extended in every direction. the light was soft and caressing, thanks to the illumination and climate conditioning of the mammoth weather stations. a soft, lilting melody reminiscent of the ancient ballets of another age of centuries past, was like a ripple of melodic laughter, enhancing a background of ineffable peace. but guerlan knew how illusory all this was for him. only enough time--a few hours to arrange his affairs and move to the second level had been granted him. a profound pang of regret was like a dull ache in his heart. he had been trained from childhood to be a scientist of the first order, his mental coordinates had warranted it. so he had never seen any other level but the first. vaguely he had heard of that second level where spartan simplicity was a virtue, luxury-less, where toil was constant, and thinking--a dangerous luxury, except where work-problems were concerned. and the columbium steel band around his young heart seemed to constrict more and more. quickly he finished packing his personal possessions. nothing else was allowed him--a sentence of demotion entailed complete personal loss. ii "in twenty-seven seconds," an impassive voice vaguely reminiscent, predicted from the inter-connecting catwalk above, "the vat will burst, flooding the safety moat with acid." the marvelous tonal quality was startling, for in its depths there was no emotional content--almost as if it were a sexless voice prophesying the most natural thing in the world. with a swift movement that sent the muscles rippling along a leander-like torso, vyrl guerlan abandoned the precision tool with which he had tackled a gigantic refractory coupling. gleaming with perspiration, his square-cut mouth compressed into a line of fury, he gazed up at the speaker and wondered where he'd heard that voice before. above him rose the titanic vat of processing acid, that treated the materials and converted them into gelatinous masses in the first process. "i was a first order scientist, i'm now an analyst," guerlan said brusquely. "nothing in my tests indicates such an accident." but the whining crescendo of the vat's machinery was threnody in major and minor warning of sudden, devastating trouble, as its originally smooth purr changed to a cacophony of sound. "twelve seconds!" came the placid voice in reply. "care to test _my_ prediction?" for an answer guerlan scrambled up the hetero-plastic ladder to the upper catwalk with the agility of dread, his mane of blue-black hair tangled and dishevelled, his face white and strained. guerlan towered beside the fragile figure of the scientist, whose wasp-like waist and marvelously slender hands gave him an elfin quality in comparison with vyrl's streamlined strength. for an instant guerlan felt an overpowering desire to seize the delicate body in his own great hands and break it in two. but the luminous violet eyes on the abnormally lovely face, appraising him now as if he were a particularly obnoxious specimen, held him in check with their utterly calm detachment. it was then he remembered where he'd last heard those impersonal tones, that sexless voice that seemed devoid of all emotion. "why ... you're the scientist of the golden mask when i was at the ..." but a cool hand was suddenly pressed against his lips. a vague fragrance as of venusian jasmines was in guerlan's nostrils and before he could say any more, a livid crack appeared down the length of the vat, growing swiftly until the vat where guerlan had been working on the defective coupling, split into two halves with a prodigious hiss, like an apple cloven in two. a cataract of spuming acid flooded into the safety moat, while hundreds of analysts and technicians came scrambling up the opaque hetero-plastic ladders that surpassed columbium steel in tensile strength and cycle-endurance for unlike metal, there was no fatigue factor. a babel of voices rose above the broken hum of the machinery and the swirling hiss of the released acid. intolerable fumes taxing the conditioners in the safety towers, burned the membranes of their nostrils and mouths as they gasped for air. and, above the hum of the machinery, the growing turmoil of panic-stricken technicians and tumult of excited voices, rose the crystalline tones of the slender scientist once more: "_vat 66 explodes in twelve minutes!_" a desperate look--the look of a trapped animal glazed guerlan's green eyes. if this was true, it was the end for him. "the organic acid vat!... but, it's impossible!" he gasped. yet, inwardly, even as he denied the possibility, he knew with soul-wrenching dread, and the certitude of a _perceptive_ that it was true. but he didn't have time to think, to plan a solution of the problem, for already the outpouring technicians were sweeping him onward in a desperate exodus toward the multiple conveyors that reached every section and floor of the titanic structure that was known as plastic no. 15. once as he was being pushed forward by the press of horrified analysts, synthetizers, selectors, graders and all the technical complement of the second order who actually transformed all foods, materials, minerals and in fact everything produced in neptune, he glimpsed the calm features of the scientist he had first seen at the feast of the jewels in the city of the sphere, and it seemed to him there was a hint of pity in the violet eyes. guerlan's face was white as _jadite_ as he roared orders in an effort to stem the maddened flood of men. he exhorted them to don their masks of crysto-plast and try to hold back the expected explosion, but no one paid any attention; it was doubtful if they even understood him in their growing horror of the dread, corrosive acid that converted organic matter into a secret formula that none but the scientists of the inner circle were permitted to know anything about. they never saw the final product under the penalty of death. * * * * * at last they debouched into the conveyors, and guerlan, among a group of others, was taken to the dispersors--platforms where the ultra-sensitive dispersal machines sensitized to the vibrations of their individual plastic wrist-band of rank, unerringly sent them to their proper levels. guerlan's generous mouth was compressed into a pale scimitar. his odd, slanting green eyes with long dark lashes, were almost black with rebellious fury. suddenly he was shunted into a special conveyor and a platform where the conveyors to the inner corridors revolved. "they already know!" he exclaimed bitterly. and he was not wrong. for presently a plastic arm the color and texture of aluminum, but incredibly stronger gathered him in and gently pushed him into an alcove that immediately became hermetically sealed the very moment he had entered. guerlan saw that he was in an efficiency cubicle where technicians were periodically tested. before him stood a towering neuro-graph entirely fashioned of several types of plastics including crystallite, as transparent as its namesake. it was an invention so complicated that it resembled nothing so much as a multiplication of tesseracts. presently it became activated by guerlan's mental frequency, and one of its slender rods moved forward silently. a magnetic current went through the analyst and held him rigid, while another rod clamped a plastic helmet over the young man's head. for several seconds the almost inaudible sighing of the complex machinery was the only thing that disturbed the silence. then, in precise, clipped tones an uncannily human voice began in sonorous tones to summarize his mental and physical coordinates: "efficiency totally neutralized by intense mental stress. subject suffering from psycho-atavistic retrogression. paranoiac tendencies with delusions of persecution. immediate fear of death ... intense." * * * * * there was a pause in which guerlan had time to remember how many times he had attended councils with other scientists of the first order, when the readings of the master neuro-graph on the first level from which he'd been ejected, had been tabulated from the readings of the various neuro-graphs in the plastic centers and transmitted to the council of the inner circle in the city of the sphere. guerlan, his eyes flaming, his face mutinous, awaited for the recommendation. it was not long in coming. "report to psychiatry iii for amnesiac treatment for removal of _superfluous_ knowledge. recommendation: _reclassify for level iii_." "damn them!" the desperate rebellion of a man condemned to worse than death rose from his heart as the magnetic rod freed him and the helmet was removed from his head. he began to circle the cubicle like a trapped animal. "level iii!" he wailed inwardly. the level of the automatons conditioned to slave-labor, dwelling in semi-darkness and squalor, on a diet restricted to barest essentials of energy units, until finally the blessed sleep claimed him--whatever that was, he shuddered. he'd had six failures in his section--plastic no. 15, and six meant the ultimate sentence. there was no trial, no jury, no opportunity even of explaining or seeking in a rational manner the reason for those ghastly explosions. inexorably, the law was final. but who was _the law_? from the high level of a first order scientist engaged in scientific work that had resulted in the miraculous array of plastics that had made their civilization a thing of undreamed-of power and wealth, he was cast without recourse to the level of darkness--memory-less, reflex-conditioned, practically mindless except for slavish toil and animal needs. little had he dreamed, even when a scientist of the first order, that there existed such stupendous extremes as the fantastic splendor of the city of the sphere, and the hellish misery of level iii. the neuro-graph was speaking again in the sonorous, purple period that made his hackles rise. "analyst guerlan," it intoned and paused impressively. "you have failed in your _allotment_. six accidents have destroyed enormous wealth and caused inexcusable damage. you had not less than five previous repetitions of the same type of accident to study and find a solution to the problem ... a problem given you because of your blasphemous attitude toward the inner circle. the sixth explosion was your epitaph. retribution _is_ the law. "you will be immediately conditioned for level iii. amnesiac treatment will be administered to save needless suffering--we are merciful--a robot-proctor will guide you henceforth through the various stages. a protector has spoken." the icy voice was silent. guerlan wondered which protector had passed sentence. the hum of the machine told of coordinators falling into place as his mental and psychic state was recorded, the amount of energy of his metabolism checked and the time potential of his servitude unerringly estimated. a livid glow enveloped the strange instrument, and then, silently, a part of the seemingly blank wall behind him slid aside for a robot-proctor's entrance. guerlan knew that the inexorable sentence had been transmitted by remote control through incredibly delicate processes to the machine before him. but who'd decided on the sentence, or why the reason for its harsh cruelty, he had no way of knowing. he doubted if the elephantine protector in chief had bothered to pass it. but guerlan had no time to dwell on this question, for the bery-plastic robot-proctor, its non-abradable crystallite eyes gleaming, had grasped him firmly by the elbow to lead him away. it was then that guerlan acted without preconceived plan. his magnificent chest arched as he sucked in air; then with a sinuous movement of vertiginous speed, he twisted free and swooping downwards at the same time he grasped the robot by its legs and then heaved with a muscle-wrenching effort, flinging the plastic man with shattering impact into the neuro-graph. a dry, staccato rattle followed the rending crash. part of the robot-proctor protruded from what had been the machine's crystallite dome and fragments of delicate mechanism and scintillating shards of priceless _jadite_ showered on the plastic floor. instantly the cubicle was illuminated by a vivid, crimson fluorescence, while the opening in the wall began rapidly to close. but vyrl guerlan was already speeding toward the closing aperture. instantly he was through, seconds later only a blank wall showed where an opening had been. a series of alarms in coordinated prismatic flashes flared in every direction, activating the safety machines. long, crane-like alumi-plastic arms extended from ramps and conveyor-heads to trap him; all efficiency cubicles became hermetically sealed cells, and over all, a shrill maddening whine rose in fiendish wail, insistent, nerve-shattering. guerlan knew death was at his heels. he dodged the gasping arms and magnetic traps, straining his extra-sensory perception to its fullest power without slowing down the killing pace he maintained. still he wondered how long he could last against the diabolical ingenuity of the inner circle. if he only had some human to go up against, with atomo-pistols, or the more devastating supernal fire of the electronic flash, forbidden to all but the inner circle scientist--or even the primitive swords and rapiers used to hunt irreconcilables in neptune's vast forests. but machines! soulless, cold plastic machines! his capable hands clenched and unclenched as he flung himself toward the ascending conveyor before him, his breath labored, his chest heaving. "no, idiot ... not that one!" there was an intense urgency in the crystalline voice that speared into his consciousness. even before he turned to locate the speaker, he recognized the voice. twice before in a moment of crisis he'd heard it. "you!" guerlan breathed explosively. he tensed himself to leap upon the fragile figure at the least movement. but once more the preternaturally calm gaze from the violet eyes held him in thrall. "that conveyor was purposely set in motion to trap you ... it leads to psychiatry iii where you would have been neutralized, guerlan. take the blue, lapiz-lazuli conveyor behind you to the right. hurry! we've only seconds before the chamber is gassed!" suiting action to his words, the slender scientist dashed to the gleaming plastic conveyor that imitated in all its sapphirine perfection the blue glory of lapiz-lazuli. in an instant guerlan was beside the scientist in a leap. he grasped the fragile shoulder with fingers that dug into rounded flesh. "if this is a trap, you die with me," he said briefly. "your fingers," the scientist remarked impassively, "are like columbium steel. suppose you await developments before indulging in atavistic impulses--besides, a real man offers no violence to a woman!" "a woman ... you?" guerlan's dazed expression was ludicrous. "i thought you were one of those repugnantly beautiful 'intermediates' the inner circle uses for intricate mental synthesis." "am i repugnantly beautiful?" the scientist asked in cold detachment, luminous violet eyes gazing inscrutably into the reddening features of the young analyst. * * * * * guerlan gazed at the exquisite face before him, and said laconically, "on the contrary." he was too confused for words just now. "my name is perlac," the girl scientist said without preamble. "listen carefully. this conveyor happens to be the only one that leads to the aero-dome. all the rest have no exit, for although you do not know it, every rest period you are directed to exit-conveyors by magnetic coordinators that act on impulses sent by selectors. these selectors are attuned to the mental wave-length of the individual. no scientist, analyst or technician may leave a plastic center without being tested and their fitness for even limited temporary freedom established ... _not even to rest_! that is why the direction of the conveyors is changed for every allotment period and no one is permitted to know which is the exit conveyor! had you remained in city of the sphere and joined the inner circle, you would have learned all this." guerlan stared at perlac in incredulity. "but ... where are the selectors? i've never seen them!" "is that strange? they're in the walls, imbedded in the flooring beneath your feet ... oh, in a thousand places! but we've no time for involved explanations just now. we're nearing the aero-dome. prepare for the worst; but if we can get to my plane, we'll be beyond capture." "in a slow, propulsion type craft?" guerlan asked unbelievingly. "we'll be captured in minutes, if not blasted out of the second level by robot-proctors!" * * * * * perlac turned and gazed into the young analyst's eyes; a gentle, slow smile illumined her features like a tardy dawn. suddenly they were at the vast platform that exited into the aero-dome, but where the great section of wall should have slid aside, it remained blank and hermetically closed. it was a definite dead end. far below them a greenish opalescence began to rise in tenuous, billowing clouds, and the faint odor of new-mown hay came almost imperceptibly to their nostrils. from the bowels of the gigantic plant, robot-proctors began to debouch onto the blue conveyor in serried ranks, impervious to death. guerlan gazed curiously at the girl scientist. "looks like your plan has failed, perlac. what i can't understand is why you've thrown your lot in with me. i'm condemned ... first it was to level ii, then for six failures to the living death of level iii, and now that i have rebelled, i have no end but death. you must have known there were _six failures_!" "yes, i knew ... that's why i'm here." the unearthly voice was barely a whisper. "ever since the night you were at the feast of the jewels and you were appalled at the debauchery of the inner circle, you have been chosen. and my plan has not failed!" there was a world of conviction in the exquisite voice, yet she said it softly, very softly indeed. slowly perlac raised her hand, and guerlan saw it held a tiny, slender instrument the butt of which was a round ball concealed in the palm of her hand. it was the dreadful electronic-flash, and she calmly aimed it at the blank wall, playing it up and down its length. the seemingly impenetrable wall of toughest bery-plastic parted from top to bottom under the supernal fire of the electronic-flash, as the electronic balance of the plastic's atomic structure was disrupted and literally dispersed into space. there was no flash, no explosion, nothing but a silent widening of the breach, until it was wide enough to permit guerlan's herculean shoulders to squeeze through. nothing seemed to have issued from the instrument in perlac's hand, no beam of force, no light--literally nothing, yet, the strongest material known to their civilization, surpassing even the heaviest columbium steel armor, had been riven in seconds. [illustration: _guerlan followed perlac through the gaping hole._] once out in the immense aero-dome, the platform was filled with ships of every description under robot-proctor guard, from tiny electro-copters with retractible vanes, to a large, powerful cruiser reserved for inspectors of the first order. the moment perlac and guerlan came into view, the robot-proctors aimed their electro-pistols and atomo-pistols, but perlac already had covered them with her electronic-flash and their plastic bodies disintegrated in seconds. "the cruiser!" guerlan was exultant. "that's what we need, it has the speed and endurance, and perhaps we can get by the robot-guard at the outer gates of the shell, and reach the forests!" "no," perlac shook her gold-red mane, "we'll take my ship, no time to argue now ... you'll see!" she was already running toward a blunt-looking four-seater of the electro-type usually reserved for scientists of the first order who were not inspectors. guerlan hesitated, exasperation written in his face. to disdain a powerful cruiser for this slow-going, vulnerable craft was beyond his comprehension. but perlac without slackening her stride made a peremptory motion with her slender hand and shouted: "follow me! i've been right thus far; trust me, you fool!" behind them, through the breach in the wall a phalanx of robot-proctors was emerging, and wisps of green gas were beginning to reach the aero-dome. in giant strides guerlan covered the distance to perlac's plane and entered its cabin. the die was cast, after all he owed her his life in a way. but for her he would be in psychiatry iii right now. * * * * * he had scarcely strapped himself, when the ordinary-looking craft shot forward in a dazzling burst of acceleration that pressed guerlan back against the mullioned seat with almost paralyzing force. but even then his trained faculties noted the sheath of columbium with which the plane was completely lined, and his ears detected the unmistakable hum of powerful atomic engines. one glance at the complex instrument panel told him that here was a craft that was far more than it seemed to be. but he'd scarcely time to begin to think order out of chaos, when a growing nausea born of the steadily increasing acceleration cleaved his tongue to his palate, and his lower jaw slowly twisted to one side. perlac, an immobile figurine of alabaster, eyes closed, seemed crushed against her seat. on and on the plane sped slanting upwards as if determined to crash the transparent barrier that separated them from the next level. and then as suddenly as it began, their terrific speed slackened and the plane levelled off. the intense agony guerlan had momentarily felt dwindled and disappeared. he saw the girl manipulate what was evidently a robot control, setting it for a new direction and rate of speed, then lock it in place. "look downwards, guerlan, there to our right," perlac whispered. an umbrella of atomo-planes in all the sleek glory of deadly interceptors, spread below them in battle formation; behind them the immense plastic pylons that supported the next tier, and the crenelated superstructure of level ii, combined with distance to dwarf them into toy-like dimensions. the semi-transparent roof of level ii was dangerously near, guerlan saw, and the forest of pylons dead ahead that marked the center of their level was another fatal hazard. but perlac manipulated the intricate controls with casual ease, leaving the rate of speed and general direction to the robot-control, she merely made minute adjustments. "we outdistanced them!" guerlan was awed. that anything in the possession of even an inner circle scientist could outdistance the pursuit fleet of the protector in chief was unimaginable. "this spacer's something his benevolence would give the diadem jewel for--or rather for the secret of its construction!" the girl laughed softly. "it's atomic, of course, but a variation based on a principle that goes beyond terran equations." guerlan gazed wonderingly at the exquisite features of the fragile girl-scientist, marveling at the incredible courage of this puzzling being who unaccountably had chosen to throw in her lot with his own. "perlac," guerlan spoke thoughtfully. "i'm afraid today has been something of a mystery. from what i've seen you do to that aero-dome wall, the inexplicable accidents of the acid vats were undoubtedly your doing. yet, you've saved my life and in so doing forfeited your own. why? what interest can you possibly have in a doomed life such as mine?" the girl smiled slowly, ineffably, in a mixture of melancholy sweetness and inexpressable sadness. she turned her golden head slightly and when she spoke her voice had sombre overtones rich with emotion. "do you know what is piped into the so-called organic vats, guerlan? no, you wouldn't know. plants, you thought, beasts and cattle and dead flesh.... dead, yes. the murdered bodies of human beings, such as _you_ would have been!" all guerlan's rigid training rose in protest at the charge against the protector in chief. it could not be! there could be no murder in plastica, duels yes, honorable combat between men ... but murder! he acknowledged that the laws of plastic, inc., were ruthless and harsh, and the inner circle had become lax in their supervision, until plastics, inc., had become an octopus. but to imply that his benevolence would countenance cold-blooded murder ... every fiber of his being revolted from such a charge. and then he remembered the feast of the jewels, and the travesty of justice in his case, and he was silenced. "his benevolence and the inner circle _are_ plastics, inc." perlac continued imperturbably as if reading his thoughts. "don't argue now, strap yourself in and prepare for an orbital fall, we'll wheel in direct ratio with the rotation of the planet then dive in a concentric spiral that will become tighter and tighter until we reach our objective. it is the only way we can elude the robot-proctor patrol.... look, they are climbing already. the plane's robot control is set and timed--it will take us there. no human being can possibly retain consciousness to guide the plane in such a maneuver," she explained, pale as alabaster. * * * * * before vyrl guerlan had time to do else but tighten the broad straps and lean back against the mullioned seat, the girl had touched a series of knobs. suddenly the craft began to wheel with meteoric speed, then dived with a violence that sent the landscape spinning into a fantastic pattern that quickly blurred. guerlan felt as if the very marrow in his bones had liquefied, an intolerable pain lanced at the back of his brain like an atomic needle, and his face was contorted into a spasmodic grimace he was unable to control. he tried to close his eyes but couldn't, tried to shout and suddenly plummeted into an abyss. they were diving downward into the outskirts of the immense city, down a secret inter-communicating passage that connected the various levels, past the third, fourth and finally into a yawning chasm where all was darkness. the hurtling craft sped on unerringly as if drawn by a magnetic beam. when guerlan finally awoke, he found himself in intense darkness. only his labored breath disturbed the silence. motionless, his body a living pain, he tried to adjust his thoughts and piece together the jig-saw puzzle of the last few hours. groping into his tunic he brought out an atomo-torch. by its discreet illumination, he saw that the girl was quivering like a being in torture. gently he massaged her temples and the base of her neck then her soft, white throat; with infinite care he opened her mouth and inserted a pellet of _alphaline_ to stimulate her heart, then stroked the gleaming red-gold hair back from her forehead until the girl showed signs of coming to. "have you any stimulants aboard?" he asked her, when perlac opened her eyes. "i feel drained, but that's nothing to what you must feel, perlac!" she gave him a pallid smile. "there," she pointed weakly, "to the left of the instrument panel." guerlan pressed the combination lock and found in the compartment a full kit of surgical instruments and bandages in a superb _jadite_ case. a priceless flask of _sapphirac_ filled with sterile water, and, to his intense surprise, a platino-plastic bottle, encrusted with tourmalines more brilliant than emeralds and filled with the utterly proscribed _sulfalixir_! "that ... that's it," perlac gasped and reached for the bottle in guerlan's hand. "but, it's deadly!" guerlan was aghast. "how can you risk addiction to that dreadful drug?" "you're a victim of conditioning." even as weak as she felt, perlac managed a low laugh, "_sulfalixir_ is a miracle drug--not what you've been taught to believe." she drank sparingly and offered him the bottle, but guerlan drew back in categorical refusal. "as you wish. now we must leave the plane." "but where in ten thousand hellacoriums are we?" guerlan's voice was mutinous. "i've been a pawn in a game ever since i went to the sphere and blasphemed, since you burst the acid vat and exploded organic 66! by neptune's moon i'll be dissolved if i stir another step without knowing what this is all about!" his green eyes were wide and gleaming, his handsome face set in rigid lines. "all right, atavism! you're on level five, and you're going to a meeting. i want you to appraise what the amnesiac treatment does to human beings, and how the condemned live on this level. the third level is sheer luxury compared to this. you scientists of the first level have no conception of what happens on the third, fourth and fifth levels, where life ceases to be even existence and becomes...." but words failed her, and she fell back against her mullioned seat breathing heavily. after a pause she asked: "will you come now?" "no," guerlan grinned. "i'll lead the way. it was an experience seeing you in a fury; blessed if i thought anything could disturb you!" he stood up and pressed the plane's dome release and the stale, fetid air of the nether regions of the city swept in. only the conditioners broke the silence with their constantly iterated and reiterated subconscious homily of simple, child-like thought-patterns for the amnesiacs. it was an eternal reiteration of the "conditioning controls" which no amnesiac could ever escape, except at intervals when the amnesiac counter-reaction set in as their metabolism building up a resistance to the administered drug rendered them impervious and they regained a measure of their former memories as consciousness returned. that was the period of danger, when they were at the verge of any madness, in their utter hopelessness. deliberately they invited death. but here in these vast catacombs, their end was but a detail, and the organic vats eventually received them. "listen!" it was perlac's voice indistinct with indignation, "listen to the 'conditioners,' guerlan!" "sleep ... sleep now. deep, dreamless sleep ... for the conservation of your energy is your noblest effort ... so you may conserve your strength for work ... work ... you must, you absolutely must _achieve_ ... so that you may fulfill your maximum allotment ... maximum ... and be rewarded.... sleep ... sleep...." endlessly the fiendish mosaic of lies and psychological half-truths went on and on, imbedding itself in the violated minds that slept in the stupor of the utterly exhausted. guerlan shivered. a malefic aura of death and torture seemed woven into the matrix of darkness that surrounded them. the very odor of death was in their nostrils as they left the atomo-plane by the light of his torch and faced the narrow, tortuous thoroughfare that wended its way from the wide circle where the plane had come to rest. perlac pressed close to him and her slender hand gripped his arm. there were no robot-proctors in sight, none were needed here where no amnesiac ever left alive. no victims were in sight, for the day workers rested and the nocturnal shift toiled in their prisoning workrooms. behind them, in front of them, from every side, the conditioners continued their endless chant: "loyalty ... obedience ... unquestioningly you must achieve ... for our glorious state." iii in the abysmal darkness their atomo-torch was a pool of light that advanced before them. but perlac unerringly went directly to a building whose front seemed to be an impenetrable, blank wall. she pressed a hidden mechanism near the far corner of the structure, and presently a door slid aside, revealing a passageway to the beam of the torch. once within, guerlan became aware it was some sort of dormitory, for stretched on rows of cots made of cheap plastic, the amnesiacs slept in their leaden tunics. these were the pitchblende workers who had but a brief life-period, due to the radiations. in another corridor slept the brown-tunics, the organic-matter workers, blood-stained from their gruesome labors, their stertorous breathing witness to their exhaustion. perlac kept on rapidly going from corridor to corridor until she stopped at a door leading to the cellar, opening it, she scrambled down a plastic ladder, followed by guerlan, and finally into a sub-cellar gallery that wound tortuously into the very bowels of neptune. here were the sightless wrecks who lived in eternal darkness and whose task was to tend the machinery that air-conditioned and kept reasonably warm the dreadful fifth level. some seemed strangely twisted and had the loathsome whiteness of fungi, others mindlessly tottered by like automatons. guerlan drew aside in a mixture of nausea and profound pity. a welling, terrible anger strove to rise within him at the sight of these horrors that went by like dantesque shadows of the damned. at last perlac stopped and made six curious rasping sounds at a heavy rocky section of the dripping wall. as if in a nightmare, guerlan saw part of the stone surface pivot silently inward, and before them was another passageway. but this one was immaculately clean, completely sheathed in neutral grey hetero-plastic, and the aura-lumes diffused a gentle light that was soft and yet perfectly measured. the murmur of voices reached them, and the air was fresh and exhilarating after the fetid, miasmic air of the fifth level and the sub-cellars. "we have arrived, guerlan!" perlac gazed at the young scientist, as if essaying to appraise his reactions to what he'd seen en route. "you're going to meet the leaders of the irreconcilables ... not those poor creatures of the forests and jungles, but the real 'underground' that has but one purpose--freedom from the protectors. now, do you understand why you were brought here?" guerlan nodded in silence. his face was impassive, but the odd, slanting green eyes were burning with lambent fires and his powerful hands were knotted. * * * * * within seconds the passageway led them to an immense cavern--on terra it would have been unthinkable, but in keeping with neptune's bulk, the cavern was a gargantuan retreat. stupendous stalactites pending from the ceiling defied adjectives, their bases lost in darkness. the walls as far as the eye could reach were sheathed in a gleaming plastic new to guerlan. the floor, too, was resilient plastic, smooth and perfectly laid, as if an army of workmen and machines had labored on its perfection, which indeed they had. buildings clustered at the far distant end, like a miniature city; and in the very center of the vast grotto, surrounded by an army of scientists and technicians, an atomo-spacer, super-armored and longer than any guerlan had ever seen, rested in its cradle in all its sleek, shining glory. testing and repair machines were scattered around the great subterranean chamber, driven by technicians and coordinators who worked feverishly, silently, as if engaged in a life-and-death race with time. toward the left, where the cavern extended into another vast grotto, an ordine-plastic building caught guerlan's eye because of the fact that it was ordine. that plastic was used only where need for the staunchest material existed. ordine, an adaptation of the plastic mineral principle, could withstand a siege--was practically indestructible, and guerlan wondered what it housed. perlac sensed his curiosity and gazed in turn at the great structure. her eyes brooding and dark with an emotion he could not fathom slowly filled with tears. "that's the psycho-clinic," she told him. "we try to neutralize the amnesiac treatment, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. under certain conditions, it can be neutralized, but remember the amnesiac treatment here on level five is an intensification of the treatment applied on levels three and four.... they're practically lost when they come here, but our work in the higher levels is too dangerous to be carried out in large numbers. care to go in and watch the therapy used?" "yes." guerlan's laconic reply was an index of his mental state. words came with difficulty in the face of this ghastly drama that had suddenly unfolded before his eyes. he wondered about the other cities, perdura, and telluria and semi-tropical columbia, with its warm springs and teeming soil where the most exquisite delicacies for the inner council, and to a lesser extent the first order were grown. wondered if they, too, were condemned to this inhuman rule of death and oppression. perlac made a signal to one of the technicians, and a two-seater "treader" with its revolving belt instead of wheels moved out from among the parked vehicles. but before guerlan and perlac could enter the swift surface car, a dull roar that seemed to shake the very foundations of the cavern paralyzed all movement, as if in a slow motion-picture of ancient days, a tremendous section of the cavern wall fell in a shower of rock and plastic, and through the gaping breach, rank upon serried rank of "intermediates" poured through. they wore the inner council's conventional plastic armor, vividly scarlet, with tight-fitting helmets of crysto-plast. silently they deployed with grim precision and aimed their atomo-rifles. but if they had expected to wreak havoc aided by the element of surprise, they were mistaken. technicians and scientists working on the super-spacer, instantly entered the armored ship, while the army of mechanics, graders, coordinators and workmen, who labored on treaders and tended the mechanical appliances and repair machines, took cover in and behind their charges. for a second guerlan had been frozen in his tracks. the thought that flashed into his mind was one of exultation instead of despair. here was an enemy he could really fight. all the pent-up fury, the terrible anger of a decent man who has had all his beliefs swept away in a matter of hours, who had seen depths of human degradation he had never dreamed possible, was like a bath of cold fire that left him calm, determined and with one desire ... to exterminate. as if she were a doll, guerlan swept perlac beside the armored "treader" and without preamble snatched the electro-flash the girl wore at her waist. "keep covered. let me do the fighting!" he exclaimed, impervious to her outraged stare. carefully he aimed at the foremost leader of the intermediates, and the obscenely beautiful, sexless warrior, crumpled as part of him instantly dissolved. a vast, coruscating sheet of blue, atomic fire swept forward from the deadly atomo-rifles of the invaders, and vehicles, technicians, and several machines, became a welter of smoking flesh and melting metal. it was then the super-spacer went into action with its two frontal atomo-guns, the thunderous echoes vibrated with tympani-shattering force, and guerlan saw a phalanx of intermediates vanish as if they were leaves in a wind. * * * * * unaware of doing so, guerlan was bellowing exultantly, as he played the electro-flash horizontally across another phalanx that had succeeded in gaining the proximity of the spacer. they had seen him now, and the survivors aimed their atomo-rifles at the treader that sheltered them from the blue fire. but before they could bring their fire into focus, the supernal fire of the electro-flash had decimated them. a few managed to direct the stream of atomic fire on the treader, however, and half of it was a molten mass while the rest was already cherry red and the heat becoming unendurable. electro-rifles, atomo-pistols, the guns from the giant spacer and a few electro-flash weapons were concentrated on the intermediates who by sheer force of numbers had gained the center of the cave. and then they were met by a wall of flesh. from the buildings at the further end and from every vehicle and machine a wall of humanity surged forward, firing ceaselessly, hacking with long-swords and poniards; and the carnage under the brilliant plastilumes was without quarter ... to the death. slowly, inch by inch, the intermediates were driven back. scores had died, and the losses among the defenders were appalling; it seemed as if a pyrrhic victory was to be the end. and then, like creatures from a nightmare, released from depths of living hell, a motley, ragged, maddened multitude came shrieking, shouting and hurling imprecations from the chaste building perlac had called the psycho-clinic. like avenging furies, they flung themselves at the hard-pressed intermediates. wounds did not stop them; atomic-fire left gaping holes in their ranks, around which the survivors raced on. impervious to pain, and welcoming death, these travesties of human beings fought with the savagery of madness. they were the amnesiacs. deprived of the hypnotic drug, partly in possession of their faculties and their memories, they remembered! and remembering, they paid back for the torture of a lifetime! assailed from every side, the crack inner circle battalion of intermediates split into two halves and strove to meet both fronts. but guerlan with a cry that would have done credit to a venusian _calamar_, snatched the sword from a fallen technician and raced to where the amnesiacs were tangled in a death struggle. with the electro-flash in his left hand, he stabbed and hacked at exposed limbs and through shattered crysto-plast. and the battle turned slowly, increasing in tempo until it was a rout that pressed the remaining intermediates into a demoralized race of life. but they were not to escape. out of all control, all semblance of humanity now, the remaining amnesiacs were a screaming horror that pursued the quarry and pulled it down like the giant _calamar_ of venus pulls down its prey in the virgin forests, until only the moaning wounded and the dead remained on the blood-drenched plastic flooring of the titanic grotto. guerlan never knew when the battle was finally over. his tunic was a crimson stain from top to bottom; a long slash across his ribs to the center of his powerful chest, had left a shallow gash that dripped a slow gout of blood. his shoulder was seared by a slanting atomic-blast that would have taken half of him had it come any nearer. he became aware of the ghastly silence only when perlac's marvelously slender hand was pressed to his cheek, and her melodious voice was repeating: "guerlan, guerlan, my dear!" he turned and saw her eyes were aswim with unshed tears. he took her hand in his powerful ones without a word, and held it caressingly, while all about them was a shambles of death and wreckage. "my initiation," he said slowly, huskily, with a hint of a smile in his long, green eyes. "i knew i was not wrong in choosing you," perlac replied and bravely essayed a smile, too; but she had reached the end of her physical resources and with a whispered, "oh, my dear," she wilted unconscious in his arms. guerlan lifted her fragile form as if she were a precious doll and walked toward the super-spacer; a group of scientists who had emerged from its interior, watched his approach with a hint of anxiety as they motioned for him to hurry. among them, a tall, elderly scientist of the second order, whose white mane was like an aureole about the pale, sharp-featured face, hurried forward as if unable to contain himself. "is perlac wounded?" he inquired with a world of worry in his voice. "tell me, man! hurry!" "peace," guerlan answered wearily. "she's not harmed, just fainted ... the miracle is that she's been able to stand as much as she has. have you restoratives?" "bring her into the plane, we have everything needed, stranger. praised be the ultimate power she has not been harmed!" then he drew himself erect as he and guerlan came abreast of each other, and said with quiet dignity: "i am paulan, ex-scientist of the first order, now leader of the underground. i saw you fight with us. welcome, my son." his eyes were as clear and as blue as a child's, but the fires of a profound intellect shone from their depths. * * * * * "the time," guerlan was speaking, "is now, not at some supposedly psychological moment logically thought by the board. i'm a new member, true, but it is evident the inner circle has been aware of your activities for some time, or they wouldn't have sent such a well-armed, ultra-trained battalion of intermediates. the time to strike is now! unless you want to await an attack in such force that this cavern will become a hecatomb." "we are already harassing them in every city," paulan said thoughtfully. "vats are exploding regularly, amnesiacs are being restored to usefulness and our forces are increasing day by day. what more would you propose, my son, an attack on the city of the sphere?" all eyes in the heavily guarded and armed board meeting room were upon the young scientist. at the head of the long, exquisite platino-plastic table sat paulan, the leader, and at his right sat perlac. all down the length of the great table, scientists of the first and second orders, analysts, technicians, and even members of the lower strata chosen for their value to the movement, sat to consider the crisis. their underground movement was in the open now, and they could expect nothing but extermination at the hands of the inner circle. "that would be madness at present," spoke a tiny venusian, not more than four and a half feet tall, wrapped in his long, scarlet wings that joined to the sides of his fragile body, reached from wrists to his ankles. "although," he grinned impishly, "i would like to take a crack at them in their holy of holies!" morluc, the martian, snorted. "mars will help, but we must have a share of the machinery and plastics of neptune ... a _preferred_ share," he emphasized gazing disdainfully at the venusian member. "equal shares!" the latter snapped dryly. "mars' help is still to be seen, as your excellence is aware!" the venusian drove his point home with emphatic gestures. "we've offered our fleet!" morluc, the martian member, said stiffly. "can any more be asked?" carladin, the venusian, shrugged his shoulders. "we don't offer, morluc, we've _delivered_ one hundred electro-flash pistols, and it took genius to analyze and copy the design and manufacture them secretly, not to speak of smuggling them here!" "peace!" paulan thundered. "scientist guerlan is unable to reply to my question!" both the martian and the venusian members were silent, although they still glared at each other across the table. the rivalry of venus and mars was legendary and had endured for centuries. little eddies of whispers and conversation, came to a standstill, and once more their eyes were turned expectantly toward guerlan who stood up from his seat toward the foot of the table. "i have a plan," he stated quietly. his bandaged shoulder and chest were living aches, and breathing was difficult, but a great enthusiasm transfigured his features until with eyes alight with the fire of a great purpose, he seemed boyish for all his magnificent height and musculature. "unless we divert the power of the inner circle.... i say _divert_, but decisively, we're doomed. any army we can muster would be met by the legions of fanatical intermediates who from pre-birth are conditioned and scientifically bred for battle. an intermediate's glandular structure has been modified to heighten unbelievably the combative instinct. if atomo-rifles and atomic fire don't crush us, they'll start using electro-flash. their fleet is legion, and they have at their command the scientists of the first order, as deluded as i was, not to speak of the neophytes of the inner circle. don't forget that the city of the sphere has two million scientists, not counting the women. "but, if we divert their intermediates, cut off their sources of supply, and breed revolt _on every tier, in every city_, their forces will be divided, and we will have a chance to win. when i was a child, i had access to the ancient records which were translated by my father for the inner circle. among them i came upon a parchment so ancient that it was ready to crumble into dust. after it had been treated for preservation, i read the translation made from that forgotten language by my father; it was about a great city that once ruled most of terra, and their motto was--divide and rule. and that," guerlan paused, "is my plan." he sat down a little abashed when he realized the vehemence with which he had been talking. his eyes sought perlac's, and a wave of color suffused his face as he saw the open admiration in the girl's eyes. "magnificent, if it works," carladin said with a satirical smile in that husky voice of his that seemed too big for so small a body. "but, my friend, who is going to 'muzzle the calamar'? in other words, who is going to breed revolt in every city and tier ... and, above all, just how?" "my son, you can't rouse emotions in amnesiacs--they haven't any, even in the higher levels where the treatment is mild. as for the scientists of the second order--they'd consider revolt blasphemy, not to speak of the first order. unless you have a complete, thought-out plan, i'm afraid you've been carried away by your own enthusiasm," paulan said very gently. "my plan _is_ complete, paulan. and i have work for both venus and mars. i'm sure they would like to share in our victory. listen!" iv it was not only a garden of vast dimensions, it was an eden riotous with the most exquisite blooms of venus, and myriad bright-plumaged birds that sang with a complete abandon that bespoke no instinct of fear, for they were sacred. in the near distance, the rose and white crysto-plast temple of the virgins of the sacred flame was a triumph in architecture, for here within the inviolate garden of his benevolence was the sacred shrine. a muted orchestra was playing, hidden in the foliage, and the incredible re-creation of sunlight drew an iridescent aureole from the alabaster fountain that constantly renewed a miniature lake in the center of the garden. rose-colored _garzas_ and sparkling, blue azurines searched for tid-bits in the shallows, while a flight of _albas_, the snowy-white nightingales of the volcanic valley, swept overhead in an ecstasy of song. it was idyllic, a spot instinct with peace under the soft hand of beauty. but near the shore of the small lake, idly moving his hand in the cool waters, while with the other he stuffed roasted doves into the red, cruel mouth, his benevolence listened in ominous silence as the chief of the intermediates made his report. standing behind the gargantuan corpulence of the 'protector in chief,' bejamel listened, too, and his gargoyle's features slowly registered a rising fear that whitened his repulsive face. it was incredible! had anyone else dared to make such a report, he would have instantly banished him or her to the 'blessed sleep.' but the intermediates, be they either of the warrior class, and trained to fight to the death, or of the scientist category, were cold, unemotional beings whose precision could not be questioned. as for their loyalty--that was under control, for their only _imperative_ was vanadol, reacting on them curiously instead of drugging them to sleep--compensating them for their sexlessness with an unearthly ecstasy. and vanadol was under absolute inner circle control ... under bejamel! "only three intermediates escaped alive from the caverns under the fifth level?" bejamel inquired incredulously in that magnificent voice that was a melody in itself. "silence!" there was nothing lovely in the harsh command of his benevolence. "bunglers! should condemn you and your strategists to the blessed sleep, but the quota of jewels is filled.... what do you plan doing now? or are you going to let those irreconcilables become a cancer on the side of the empire?" his voice became indistinct as he stuffed golden nectarines into his mouth. "magnificence! if your benevolence permits...." bejamel's attempt at a smile was a ludicrous failure. but the sulphuric stare he received for his pains, left him wordless and pale. "proceed!" his benevolence nodded at the intermediate. the pale yellow eyes were blazing. "our plans are to destroy the cavern immediately, and utilize our intermediate scientists to ferret out the dissenters for disposal at your effulgence's orders." the chief of the intermediates replied calmly, evenly, as if his life were not hanging by the thinnest thread. he bowed profoundly, and then stood erect, in all the glory of his golden tunic and platino-plastic helmet. "also, a flight of pursuit atomo-planes awaits disorders in every tier of every city, your benevolence!" "like over-fed blackbirds," his benevolence observed scornfully. "they didn't prevent guerlan and that unidentified companion of his from escaping! and that reminds me, bejamel," his voice changed to a silken purr. "i thought you had checked the safety coordination of the plastic centers. surely, with all the safeguards you reported installed, the machines supplied you by scientists, and the robot-proctor guard, not to speak of the selector-controlled tests of the workmen, i still fail to understand how guerlan escaped retribution." his lips parted in a smile of sadistic pleasure, as bejamel went green. * * * * * "and," his benevolence held up a hand that flashed with a vortex of prismatic fire from the many jewels, "what has become of your daughter, perlac? i seldom see her any more." "since your benevolence said that her hips were too narrow and her face too sharp, i banished her from your presence, effulgence!" "well, bring her back!" he snapped in fury. "sometimes i think you usurp my authority, bejamel." his eyes narrowed speculatively, and the enmity he felt for the minister of justice because of the latter's silent opposition to allowing his daughter to become a virgin of the sacred flame, smouldered within him. bejamel bowed profoundly, but a glint of savage rage shone in his eyes. "send the virgins ... let them sing!" his benevolence commanded, "and convey my forgiveness to estrella; she may enter the presence!" "your benevolence's favorite will rejoice at the magnanimous decision!" bejamel replied in a soft murmur that was sheer music. but the expression on his averted face belied his words. he hurried away through the foliage of the venusian jasmine trees and the tangles of fragrant maravillas, until he came to the pavillion of white _jadite_, so exquisitely planned that in its white simplicity it might have been an idealized greek temple. "estrella," he called the moment that he entered. "hurry, child!" and seeing her curled on a couch worth a respectable fortune, "_he_ will see you ... mind you, he's in a vile temper--as capricious as i've ever seen him. but evidently he has need of you. soothe him from this evil mood, or we'll all suffer!" he paused out of breath. estrella uncoiled languorously from the sapphirine couch and stood lightly swathed in filmiest draperies of spider silk, that revealed the distracting beauty of her limbs and full, firm breast. the large, brilliant dark eyes, shadowed by curling lashes were rebellious and scornful, and the flower-like red mouth mutinous. a cascade of pale gold hair tumbled curling about the marble shoulders, and sent gleaming tendrils to the satiny throat, encircled by a necklace of star-sapphires, rarest of all jewels because of the tremendous difficulties in creating the star in the depths of the jewel. "let _him_ wait ... i have had to wait too long!" she blazed. "sheesh! ... even the walls have ears, star of the evening! and remember his saying: 'a favorite in disfavor is a jewel that has crystallized'. he means that literally; i couldn't bear to see you as a ruby in his finger ring." estrella paled, shrugged her shoulders and dashed out of the pavillion. out in the garden, she was like a butterfly in the sunlight, a gorgeous creature that came to rest at his benevolence's feet. a choir of virgins sang softly and undulated with the rhythm of the music, while his benevolence fondled estrella with one hand and with the other ate. meanwhile, in the sumptuous audience chamber, a multitude of protectors of the inner circle, scientists of the first order, the directors of various cities, and even intermediate scientists moved restlessly, pacing up and down the imposing length of the chamber. their faces were pale and anxious; some seemed distraught, rehearsing silently, over and over in their minds what they had to say. but among themselves they barely spoke. a careless word, flung in a moment of anxiety, might be the beginning of a fatal intrigue. they were taking no chances. the dour, ascetic visaged marvalli, scientist of the inner circle and chief of columbia, seemed on the verge of nervous prostration. he wondered in anguish what would his benevolence say when he learned that the warehouses filled with exquisite tropical and semi-tropical delicacies for his table and that of the inner circle, had been destroyed by a raging holocaust that had left nothing but blackened cinders, and that the priceless machinery for the vibroponic farms, which speeded up the growth and maturity of exotic plants and fruits, and a multitude of legumes and vegetables, was a twisted, molten mass--he quaked inwardly and a cold sweat oozed out of his pores. vidal, chief of plastica had a harrowing report too. vat after vat of processing acid had split in halves and flooded moats and safety levels until the acrid fumes made the plastic centers of his city untenable. conveyors had been disrupted and even robot-proctors dissolved as if they'd been made of _papier-mache_. all his efforts at locating the source of these depredations were in vain. meanwhile, the plastic industry in plastica was paralyzed. that as bad as it was, however, could be remedied temporarily by the installation of more vats, but an amazing thing was that even the replacement vats had been found damaged beyond repair. * * * * * but of them all, weiman, "the butcher", as he was called, was the most distraught of all. never in all the history of perdura, his beloved perdura, where the neptunian _bagazo_ plant was processed into the drug for the amnesiac treatment, had such depredations been committed. a veritable nightmare of explosions had shattered the intricate machinery of the processors; the receiving vats of staunchest plastic had been found in shards and slivers, while the stores of the sacred drug had disappeared. an emergency order sent to the nurseries where the plants were grown obtained no response and investigation disclosed that the nurseries had been destroyed. it was then he had ordered a search party to go into the semi-tropical forests far up the valley in search of wild plants and they were met by a savage mob of irreconcilables! but not the gravity-burdened, frightened irreconcilables he had been used to hunt with lances and swords, but a grim, determined company of fighters armed with atomo-pistols and atomo-rifles who exterminated the searching party except one member, whom they sent back with the insolent warning: "stay out of our land!" the atmosphere of the audience chamber was electric. a wave of rebellion seemed to be sweeping the empire. when bejamel, minister of justice, entered the chamber, there was a concerted rush to meet him. "excellency, i request an audience!" and from another chief of a city. "nay, excellency.... mine cannot wait, it's a catastrophe!" "i crave a hearing...! your excellency!" pandemonium had broken loose in the chaste precincts of the audience hall. "peace!" bejamel shouted above the tumult, and strove to present a calm exterior. but an icy fear constricted his throat, and his usually commanding tones of unearthly beauty failed him. nevertheless he stemmed somewhat the rising confusion. "you, vidal!" bejamel singled out the inner circle scientist in charge of plastica. "your report." "i demand martial rule, and sufficient troops to insure order," vidal gasped. "plastica's paralyzed. most of the plastic-acid vats have been destroyed; conveyors in shambles and robot-proctors disintegrated. i know of only one weapon capable of shattering columbium-plastic and bery-plastic--and do it without a sound. these weapons are electro-flash, and assigned to the inner circle. when an inner circle scientist loses the one assigned to him, he is under penalty to report it immediately. i can't conceive how these weapons could have fallen into the hands of whoever these depredators are, and in sufficient numbers to wreak such havoc in such a short time!" "i didn't ask for a diagnosis, and least of all for a cure!" bejamel said frigidly. "i asked for symptoms. your report, vidal!" and vidal gave it, freed from the fear his benevolence's presence always inspired, he gave it bitterly, in complete detail. "and you marvalli?" bejamel's voice shook a little despite his efforts to control it. from marvalli's expression he feared the worst. "columbia has been unable to provide its quota of special foods for forty-eight hours, and all its reserves have been destroyed." in a voice filled with foreboding, he told his story, wringing his hands from time to time, unconscious of doing it. weiman was next. he gave a minute account of depredations in perdura. "and so," he finished in an anguished voice, "we not only have no bagazo for the amnesiac treatment ... we are unable to procure any, and even if we had it, the machinery is a shambles, excellency!" his voice ended in a wail. on and on the audience continued, each account adding to the seriousness of the situation. at last bejamel rose. his face was inscrutable. "what a gargantuan indigestion his benevolence is going to have today," he thought grimly. "remain!" he exclaimed peremptorily, and strode in the direction of the enchanted garden. * * * * * he didn't even pause to watch the gyrations and posturings of virgins of the sacred flame. brushing aside the tall intermediates that stood guard over the recumbent form of his benevolence, he bowed slightly, and in a cold, tight voice explained his mission. "your benevolence," his voice never had been lovelier, "the empire is in open revolt. we are not facing isolated cases of vandalism. nor the underground opposition of the irreconcilables. this is a fiendishly planned and perfectly executed strategy of destruction. unless we meet it with overwhelming force, we lose control of the empire!" "don't exaggerate, bejamel!" his benevolence snorted disdainfully. "a few vats have been shattered--others can be made. bagazo has been destroyed ... we'll get all we need from the forests, and later have our chemists synthesize the drug. just issue the necessary orders, i can't be bothered now." bejamel's smile was feline, and feral lights gleamed in the eyes that gave him such a gargoylish expression amidst his twisted features. "no, effulgence. this calls for a meeting of the inner circle. you may not know it, but hundreds of thousands of amnesiacs, now deprived of the drug, _remember_! death to them is a boon, and before they die they will be sure to take as many of us as possible. and _they are being armed_!" "let a few thousand die!" he exclaimed heartlessly. "they'll pave my new hall of rubies!" but he knew now that bejamel was not exaggerating. the great intellect of the evil ruler, had grasped the disastrous consequences of such a revolt, and instantly he acted. "very well, bejamel. call the council. hold all witnesses for the session. meanwhile, mobilize all the intermediates of the warrior order, and the scientists of the first and second orders. every inner circle scientist who is still worthy of his rank, and all inner circle neophytes to be in readiness. make a survey of robot-proctors, and coordinate all available defenses. we can at least be ready at a moment's notice. and, find out how long our present stores of food will last ... we should have enough for months! think you can remember all this?" he purred mockingly. "to hear your benevolence is to obey!" bejamel replied imperturbably. and left to carry out the orders. a little smile was at the corners of his mouth, and the feral light was still lambent in his strange green eyes. he could hear his benevolence's harsh tones as the latter told his virgins: "get out!" only estrella remained by the side of the obscene bulk. bejamel pitied her. * * * * * once back in the audience chamber, pandemonium broke loose, but with a peremptory wave of his hand and the words: "you will remain as witnesses for a full meeting of the council tonight," bejamel quelled them. he watched them file out with a speculative gaze. "when the sea's disturbed," he murmured softly, "creatures from the bottom rise to the top." then he walked slowly to his own chambers, singing softly to himself, and it was as if the voice of an angel were issuing from the throat of a gargoyle. only one thought worried him, and that was the protracted absence of perlac. she had been gone for days. perhaps he had missed her in his preoccupation with duties of state, he thought. bejamel shrugged his thin shoulders and sat down at a jewel-encrusted desk worthy of an inner circle scientist ransom. silently he began to write with an electro-stylus on a sheet of transparent plastic. nothing showed. it was to gualdamar, whom to give the full plenitude of his titles was chief guardian of the city of the flaming sphere, the leader of the intermediate warriors, chief strategist, and scientist of the inner circle. as bejamel wrote, he thought with part of his mind of the many minor revolts that had occurred when the amnesiac treatment failed because of the defense against the drug that human metabolism built periodically, but nothing like this had ever happened in the annals of the empire. plastic inc., as the inner circle taught the people to believe, was part of them, and they rose and fell together. it occurred to bejamel that he was very old, it was indecent to thrust such a crisis on his fading intellect. the thought made his smile acidly. there was nothing decadent about that machiavellian mind that enabled him to remain in power through decades of intrigues, pitfalls and traps, and lately, the growing enmity of his benevolence because he would not allow perlac to become a chattel of his obese effulgence in the temple of the sacred flame. he wondered if he would be able to weather this crisis. still he wrote swiftly, invisibly on the transparent plastic, and as he did so, the thought of venus, great in its first bloom of advanced civilization, of europa, transmuted into an eden by the courage of its terrans and the strange unearthly science of the panadurs. if all else failed, he could seek sanctuary on either one of these two planets. mars repelled him, none of that grim land for his weary bones. but if he had to flee, he meant to flee along with perlac, and he had a score to settle before he went. when he had finished, he pressed a button, and a robot-proctor entered noiselessly, received instruction and as quietly disappeared. bejamel knew that his robot would deliver the message in person, nothing could take that plastic message from him short of destruction. v "tonight we attack!" guerlan persisted uncompromisingly, but his eyes sought perlac's and found confirmation in her swift smile. "i offer the counsel of daring--all or nothing!" a roar of approval greeted his words, the echoes dwindling down the series of subterranean caverns that formed a continental link in the bowels of neptune and was used to shelter the army of scientists, technicians, analysts, coordinators, mechanics and workmen. they were now under columbia's fifth level, and rising to the crysto-plast dome, each tier was now under the domination of the irreconcilables. but paulan, the commander in chief, arose in all the dignity of his great age. he frowned in disapproval, sighing before he spoke. "i fear too great an army has been assembled against us, plastica, telluria, perdura, the eleven remaining cities will have to be conquered, and remember, since we captured columbia with comparative ease while the inner circle's army was engaged in destroying the caverns beneath plastica, all the other cities swarm with intermediates and the scientists of the first and second circle, not to speak of those fiends of the inner circle themselves. we have converted millions through the use of the ethero-magnum, thanks to our loyal perlac, who taught us to use it as the inner circle used it to condition the amnesiacs; we have paralyzed the plastic industry; destroyed the machinery for processing _bagazo_ into the amnesiac drug, and we control all the stores of _bagazo_. we have achieved the arming of thousands of our followers. surely, that is a great victory. i feel that should be enough for the present; besides, the inner circle will want to come to terms with us." and it was true. hunger and privation stalked the tiers of the great cities; chaos reigned. even the great plastic centers now had become a shambles of exploding acid vats; conveyors bore a welter of half-asphyxiated humanity, gaunt with hunger and the spasms lack of the amnesiac brought on; transportation was paralyzed, and everywhere the amnesiacs flared into madness as the effects of the drug wore off; and in a frenzy of remembrance and need of the drug, they attacked all in the ranks of scientists, destroying everything they could lay hands on. thousands died under the trained precision of the intermediates, and scientists of the first order, but the casualties they inflicted in the serried ranks of the chief protector were appalling. "a compromise is not enough!" guerlan was pitiless. "we have but one ether magnum here in columbia with which to carry our message to the second level of each city and the workmen of the third level. true we have close to a quarter of a million warriors, but in a war of attrition, they have the greater resources. besides," his voice was acid with scorn, "who wants a compromise? not i!" his great green eyes under the long dark lashes flashed fire and the generous, square-cut mouth was bitter. he pointed an accusing finger at the legion of men and women that filled to overflowing the immense central cavern. "you have asked for enough food to insure health in your children and have been told that synthetic-parturition will take care of your offspring, as indeed it does, and you never see them again! you who have asked but a measure of happiness and have been giving all you possess in energy, loyalty and obedience, and are given in return a brutalizing drug that robs you of the will to live! you who through the intrigues and machinations of the inner circle have been brutally thrust into the second, the third and even the fourth levels without a trial, without a hearing merely to satisfy the sadistic minds that rule us from the city of the sphere.... you, would you want a compromise?" the negative roar that rose in response, shook the lofty ceiling of the cavern and was like a whirlwind. when it had died down, paulan stood up again. "i resign," he said simply. "younger hands than mine will have to lead you. perhaps you're right, guerlan, if so, take my place as commander in chief, my son." for a moment there was silence, and then another multi-throated roar of approval. guerlan was silent before the majestic dignity of the old man, and something akin to pity welled out of his heart for the great patriarch; but perlac was on her feet, her sculptured arms flung above her head demanding attention from the great multitude. "i second the nomination!" her limpid tones carried far. "and i ... and i ... and i!" thousands of voices strove to be heard, down into the farthest reaches of the linked caverns, as those who could not see, heard through the inter-connecting teleradio. "then," guerlan spoke firmly, almost coldly, "the council of war is called to session, we will meet in the venusian spacer. all troops stand by for orders." "lead, commander!" exclaimed a rich baritone voice. it was carladin, winged, diminutive, proud that the first session of the council of war should be held in his magnificent atomo-plane, the one that had been repaired in the cavern beneath plastica. he was proud, too, of venus' inventive genius in converting the secret electronic formula of the electro-flash into a magnification of that weapon, to the size of a cannon, and raised to the sixth power, enough to practically blast an atomo-plane out of space. as for his special gift to the cause, that was an ironic touch that only a venusian mind was capable of conceiving, for although unbelievably kind, they never forgave. "poetic justice," carladin had called it, and insisted on the use of his special gift, even bringing a battalion of venusians to handle it. * * * * * "telluria reporting ... telluria ... fourth level cleared. entrance to third level forced.... fighting intense ... telluria...." the voice of the announcer faded and the magnified face in the telecast dissolved before their gaze. guerlan, perlac and carladin listened intently in the control cabin of the venusian spacer which hovered like a great bird in the darkness above columbia. the enormous ethero-magnum that occupied a large section of the control room, came to life again as an ascending whine warned them, it was perdura calling: "perdura calling ... perdura ... commander guerlan!" "come in, perdura!" guerlan exclaimed impatiently, his nerves taut from inaction, but plans had to be observed. "come in!" the shifting swirls of light on the telecast became steady and a young, pale-featured youth could be seen speaking with great intensity. "we're on the second level, commander. the defense has been terrific, they're bringing robots into the battle. one electro-flash cannon destroyed thus far, but we're pushing forward. no further news." it was disappointing. in a concerted attack in eleven cities, thousands of irreconcilables had emerged from the bowels of neptune, striking upwards from the fifth levels of the cities, aided by crazed amnesiacs who fought with tooth and nail when no weapons were available. but it was plastica that worried him most, for here was the strategic city they must capture at all costs. unable to control his impatience any longer, he asked perlac to contact plastica. the girl's slender fingers played over the banked keys, adjusting tiny levers and driving home the activating selectors. swirls of magnificent colors flooded the telecast screen, while the ascending whine of the complex instrument went beyond the auditory limits of the human ear; and presently scene after scene of ghastly destruction showed on the telecast, the fifth level came and went a shattered welter; the fourth where destruction was appalling showed great rents in the crysto-plast dome that separated it from the third. there was fighting still in the second level, as isolated parties strove to decimate the remaining, fleeing intermediates; the fallen forms of robot-proctors littered the conveyors and inter-connecting avenues, the carnage was incredible. but it was in the first level itself where the battle without quarter was now taking place. divisions of ordine-plastic robots charged great masses of irreconcilables, only to be shattered in great waves as the electro-flash cannon, gift of venus, disintegrated their electronic balance. thousands of lurid flashes from atomo-rifles and atomo-cannons, laboriously hauled to the first level by the attackers, belched destruction at buildings laden with intermediates and second level scientists; aero-tanks with treads instead of landing gear, were attempting to settle on the vast first level, their atomo-cannon slashing at the attackers with great scimitars of lurid blue light. it was a titanic holocaust that would long live in the annals of the universe, for venus, mars, mercury and europa had their tele-magnums trained on the fantastic struggle. and then the face of the commander of the irreconcilables attacking plastica, showed on the telecast, a great gash over an eye still oozing a gout of blood that trickled down the left side of his face. grim, with an awful determination in his young eyes, the commander spoke hoarsely. "commander guerlan, we need aircraft to engage the aero-tanks. plastica is surrounded without the crysto-plast dome, and thousands of inner circle scientists await the precise moment to enter in their treaders and annihilate us. in reaching the first level, our losses have been too great, commander!" he saluted and the face withdrew, as if having delivered his message there were nothing more to be said. "carladin," guerlan's voice was vibrant with pent-up emotion, "you've brought with you eight-hundred atomo-spacers better than anything the inner circle has, if the speed and strength of perlac's atomo-spacer is a sample. there is _your_ task!" * * * * * "not mine, commander!" there was an edge of keen delight in the superb baritone voice of the tiny, winged figure. "i also brought with me a great warrior of space to lead my fleet. i have another task i shall relish even more! in one of my spacers, the flag-ship, are the hounds of mother venus, with which we hunt in the great virgin forests. one to each member of a battalion of my people ... on a fragile leash! i shall communicate with my fleet immediately, may i take one of the emergency planes?" and as guerlan nodded assent, carladin was gone. guerlan wondered what the venusian had meant by the hounds of venus, but he was too preoccupied with the battle to care, all that mattered was that he was willing to use his fleet in accordance with the plan. "gloriana calling.... gloriana calling commander guerlan...." the monotonous iteration and reiteration of the announcer demanded attention. perlac touched a bank of jet black keys as guerlan said: "come in gloriana, report, we're listening!" "gloriana reports a stalemate. we have gained second level, almost took the first, but the fleet is above the first level, we can't combat it. all levels cleared but the first. gloriana sounding off." other reports came in, but still guerlan waited for the one thing that was imperative. and at last, through an eternity of waiting, columbia came on the ethero-magnum, then like bursting flowers of fire, the atomic flashes from the emerging atomo-spacers of venus as they launched themselves straight up into the heavens through the vertical funnel-like channel that rose from the caverns, straight up into the upper reaches of the first level. spacer after spacer soared aloft and disappeared in the direction of plastica. all but the last. it rose majestically upward and then, describing a parabola in midair, began to lose altitude, its atomic flashes like falling stars. and then began the most bizarre attack in the history of six planets, for as the fleet attacked the swarm of atomo-fighters and aero-tanks of the inner circle, the last venusian spacer had landed outside plastica, and a multitude of venusians each one leading a gigantic _calamar_, the dreaded, armored tiger of venus, launched themselves upon the besieging scientists of the inner circle that awaited the propitious moment to enter plastica during the battle and destroy the irreconcilables by an attack from their rear. the roar of the ravenous beasts was a crescendo that drowned the wild, agonized screams of the scientists as mammoth claws ripped through plastic-breast plates and venusian silks, and fangs found fat throats and steaming blood. overhead the clash of the two air armadas was a holocaust of fire, as the two armies beneath fought also for supremacy on the first level. what the outcome would be, was beyond prediction, for neither side entertained any doubt now but that it was a struggle to the death--there could be no quarter. if plastica fell, most of the empire went with it, for within it was the very life-blood of the nation--plastics, the beginning, the reason and the end of their existence. for plastics were clothing and shelter, and weapons and furniture, and even medicines and synthetic concentrates that went under the name of food. besides, they had columbia, where the sustenance of the city of the sphere and the first levels was grown and manufactured. slowly at first, imperceptibly, the battle turned in their favor, objectives that seemed unattainable were reached by the irreconcilables, and the defenders fell back. the invulnerable fleet, the much touted and dreaded air armada, as being decimated by the unearthly speed of the venusian spacers; and intermediates and robots alike fell before the supernal fire of the electro-flash cannon and electro-rifles. still, the battle wore on and on, with such an intensity that it was incredible that anything that lived could endure it. without plastica itself, a horror of carnage, blasted calamars and torn bodies, marked where the inner circle reserves had been, but caladin's spacer was nowhere in view. "the time," perlac said softly, "has come, my dear." * * * * * guerlan gazed at the exquisite features of perlac in misery. he was silent. but the girl laid a hand on his shoulder caressingly, and forced him to look into her eyes. "we must face it, guerlan, unless we do, this war may last for years, and oceans of blood will flow. it is the better way." "i know, i know perlac. but let me do it alone. i can't ... i just can't bear to have you risk your life, my dear." impulsively he crushed her to him in a fierce embrace and kissed the flower-like mouth. then he released her. "i will be in less danger than you; after all i am bejamel's daughter. and don't you think that i, too, could not bear to have you go alone? no, dear, we are in this together, for life or for death." as if the gods of war relished the appalling daring of their plan, suddenly the way was opened to them, for on the immense tele-magnum, the heavenly tones of bejamel's voice could be heard, as slowly, his gargoyle face came into view. hurriedly perlac threw the switch which prevented him at the palace on the sphere from seeing them. "commander guerlan! bejamel, minister of justice, speaks." there were rich undertones of irony, and bitterness, too, in the superlative voice of the speaker. "i have learned that my daughter is your prisoner. we have captured important prisoners, too. paulan, your ex-leader, and that misguided martian who has chosen to espouse your cause. but all this is of no moment, i am willing to ransom my daughter on your own terms, barbarian!" even in his grief, bejamel was unable to suppress the insulting epithet. "what do you offer, bejamel?" guerlan spoke calmly, although a seething maelstrom swirled within him. "but make your offer worth listening to, i have no time for barter." "a thousand prisoners of war, and a coffer of jewels, guerlan!" guerlan laughed shortly. "your fame for sagacity has been overrated, bejamel, the jewels ... we shall shortly make our own--the ultimate presence knows there will be enough dead when this is over. as for the prisoners," his voice became indifferent, "we'll take them, of course, but we have more men than we need, scientist. offer me something beyond my means and i'll send your daughter to you, unharmed!" "speak, dissenter, i am a man of reason!" bejamel's voice was filled with cunning. "speak!" "since you are the only one who can open his benevolence's doors, outside of the mechanism he can activate from within, destroy the mechanism. take away his invulnerable robe of force, and then ... then forget to sing! let him starve slowly in his enchanted garden, after he has devoured all his birds and pets." guerlan's laughter was mocking. but within he was tense with anxiety. would his strategy win, he wondered? one could not deal in a normal manner with bejamel. "agreed!" the celestial voice had risen to limpid heights. the fleets of atomo-spacers and aero-tanks stood poised, withdrawn, marking an invisible, aerial lane through which hurtled the slim, silver flash of an atomo-plane. the most powerful tele-magnum in the palace of his benevolence was focused on that ship, without pause, until every detail of its interior was exposed on the great tele-screen at the palace. but its interior revealed only the pale, haggard face of perlac, inexpressibly lovely in its sadness, and motionless beside her, the gigantic robot-proctor of bery-plastic, embossed with the insignia of the house of justice and bejamel's own intricate emblem. it had been sent to act as a guard and bring her unharmed to the palace. forming a perfect target, a trio of transports carrying a thousand irreconcilables, prisoners of war, came from the opposite direction, released from the city of the sphere, as per agreement. the vessels neared each other, crossed and passed en-route to their opposite destinations. at last, perlac's plane reached the outer air-locks of the sphere, where pressure was adjusted, and entering ships were guided to their berths at the base of the immense globe, where the machinery of the anti-gravity repulsor beams was housed also, and where the glittering tiers rose upward to end at the great hanging gardens of his benevolence, where the palace stood. and then the armistice was broken. hundreds of swift, deadly interceptor planes, atomo-powered, dived after the retreating transport; tremendous aero-tanks rushed in for the kill spewing a blaze of livid radiations. one of the transports managed to dive into the inter-connecting, ascending and descending chamber of the city, but the others, trapped, rather than be rayed like sheep, courageously turned and fought. but to no avail. outside the tropical city of columbia, they crashed in great flaming gouts, like miniature volcanoes. * * * * * ahead of perlac and her robot-proctor was the city of the sphere. majestically it blazed like a cosmic jewel against the impenetrably-black backdrop of space. it grew immense, fantastic, like a minor planet glowing in space, but suddenly, their speed slackened as the robot-control began to decelerate; and presently they slid with a vast hiss into the first airlock, where the synchronized magnetic fields instantly checked their speed. a terrific force jarred them until their bones seem to melt, then doors were opening, voices could be heard shouting orders, and the official pilot entered the ship and with an obsequious salute to the girl, he took seat at the controls and guided the ship into the second lock. the entire length of both the first and second locks were lined with the titanic coils of the synchronized, magnetic degravitation fields, which stopped the vessels in a graduating net of force. but the transparent sides of the sphere gave a curious sensation of lack of solidity, of fragility even, as if they had entered a vast hall of glass. only those who really knew the secret composition of the sphere, were aware of its near-invulnerability, even beyond that of the strongest known metal-alloys. at last the long, slim atomo-plane was berthed, and the tall, cadaverous figure of bejamel hove into view. he waited for perlac closely followed by her robot guard to approach him, in accordance with the etiquette of plastica. then, unable to suppress any longer the profound emotions that stirred his complex being, he opened his arms wide and rushed forward to enfold the only being he had ever loved, in the fragile embrace of his skeletal arms. a suspicious brilliance swam in the long green eyes, and the ordinarily limpid voice was husky, uncertain, as he exclaimed: "perlac, o my dear!" he could say no more. perlac was touched. she brushed her lips against his cheek, then she gently pushed him back, to gaze into the inscrutable green eyes of the minister of justice, who was also her father. behind her, looming unnoticed, as a piece of activated mechanism, was the robot-proctor, both servant and guard. "father," she said impulsively, "don't take me to the palace! i couldn't bear to enter the temple as one of the virgins ... rather would i prefer to be a prisoner of the irreconcilables." father and daughter gazed at each other in silence, surrounded by the deep, far-away hum of the throbbing generators as the incredible stream of atomic power fought the gravity of neptune. great opaque doors at the far end of the second lock led into the inner chambers where the robot-tended machinery never faltered for a second. bejamel smiled slowly, ironically, and shook his head. "we're not going there!" he waved an emaciated hand at the guard of honor that awaited his pleasure at a respectful distance, and instantly the intermediate officer in charge came forward. "command!" he said laconically. it was the same officer that had reported the defeat of the intermediate battalion in the caverns beneath plastica. his superbly beautiful face was impassive, but the brilliant eyes were restless, as if the creature's nerves were overwrought. "my atomocopter!" bejamel said as laconically, and then passed a small package to the intermediate. "for you and the entire palace guard," he said softly. "there will be no need of you and your men tonight. we have all but won ... celebrate." the light of hunger, of delight, of the nearest feeling akin to gratitude he could possibly feel, flashed like a flame into the intermediate's eyes. "i bow in thanks, o lord of justice," he replied formally. within seconds, they were speeding upwards in bejamel's private atomocopter, past tier after tier of the fabulous city of the sphere. vi every tier was a beehive of activity, as scientists of the inner circle, scurried in every direction engaged in a multitude of tasks. atomo-planes flashed through the inter-connecting levels on their way to the titanic battle below. thousands of the neophytes, aided by robots, supplied arms and concentrates to the departing vessels, while other thousands boarded them on their way to swell the ranks of the defenders, and take the place of their countless dead. at last they reached bejamel's private dwelling. he never called it a palace. in the tenebrous depths of his involved soul, there were flashes of genius, and one of them was to have and to rule without ever mentioning the fact. his dwelling was exquisite in proportions, the simplicity of its white _jadite_ facade, depending on the artistry of its composition and carved decors, not on opulence of mosaic-jewelling as was the case with the palace of his benevolence. a repugnance of rococco display was enough to deter him from bad taste. they went immediately into his private chambers, and here perlac had a great surprise, for reclining on a dais covered with silvery venusian furs and the priceless plumage of the martian kra, was the one person she would never have expected to see--estrella, favorite of his benevolence! once over her shock, perlac turned and favored her ancient father with a sly smile. "incredible!" she murmured. "can it be possible?" bejamel bridled. "why not?" he rose to his full, cadaverous height. "estrella and i are going to venus, child, i have yet many more years of life, and loneliness is not good for an active mind like mine. that's why i ransomed you from that barbarian guerlan, so that you may go with us. i am going to the palace now, i have one final errand to accomplish well, before we leave!" he smiled slowly, satirically, as if the most delicious thought in the universe had taken shape in his mind. "did you take care of his exalted benevolence's power-screen belt, my dear?" he inquired of estrella. "yes," the girl nodded, her eyes filling with hatred at the mention of the dreaded name. "it will never function again!" "then," bejamel said emphatically, in the tones he used when he had delivered the final word, "meet me at the emergency outer lock. my ship is there waiting, robot-manned, provisioned, containing fortunes in jewels and priceless things. we will go to venus, and to a new ... a greater life!" he exclaimed, his eyes shining on the reclining form of estrella. "i shall expect to see you, perlac, with estrella aboard my ship within one hour!" and to the silent robot-proctor. "guard the women," he said directing a tiny beam of force from the microscopic mechanism concealed in his ring of office at the forehead of the robot, which instantly sealed the order within the synthetic brain of the metal-plastic man. "guard them and bring them to my ship within one hour." the metalo-plastic robot seemed to stiffen, his great non-abradable crystal eyes gleamed and a powerful arm went up in acknowledgment of the peremptory order. satisfied, bejamel turned and left. it was then that perlac turned to the towering robot and said softly, "now!" and to estrella, who watched uncomprehendingly, "are you ready? throw something about you, and veil your face, estrella, we're going to the space ship!" "but we've still got a lot of time!" the favorite protested. "it's true that most of my things are on the spacer, but i want to arrange some personal matters before we go; wait a while!" a tremendous power was in perlac's voice as she replied: "we're leaving now!" yet she said it very softly. "you're dripping with jewels, are you taking those things with you?" "but of course! such a question, have you gone mad?" "you know what they are? each one represents a life ... they're made from organic-plastic, human beings executed by greed!" perlac reminded her. * * * * * but estrella shrugged her divine shoulders as she arose. "my not wearing them wouldn't help those slain ones now. besides, they're nearer to me in death, than they could ever have been in life!" she smiled with incredible vanity. she threw a robe of kra plumes about her, and allowed herself to be led to the atomocopter. within seconds they were speeding to the outer lock and bejamel's ship. it was there that the robot-proctor left them, and hurried to the lower chamber where the pulsing generators sang their eternal threnody of unlimited power. unnoticed he gained the great metalo-plastic doors that divided the vast chambers from the anti-gravity repulsor machinery. unhesitatingly, it directed a thin pencil of force at an orifice slightly above the center of the great doors, just as perlac had explained over and over, and the massive portals parted slowly, remaining open. robots of the lower grades worked among the maze of towering machinery, oiling, testing, doing a multitude of tasks. but the robot-proctor, without paying them any attention, seemed to suddenly open at the side and an electro-flash gun, of large size, magnified by the venusian scientists and raised to many times its normal power, came into view from the aperture. without making a sound, without even a beam of light, the fatal weapon was aimed at the very heart of the colossal motors and generators, wheel and pistons seemed to warp, shrink and disappear uncannily; the steady throbbing hum of the degravitator, lost its smooth rhythm and thereafter large sections of machinery disappeared under the relentless action of the supernal fire being directed at them. instantly the robots came to life, for a moment they milled wildly, as if this supreme emergency were something they were not able to cope with, and then they saw the new robot in their midst. their synthetic brains activated only to the repair and maintenance of the machines, and to their safeguard, focused on the attacker, and its removal was instantly their immediate task. they attacked _en masse_, but the robot-proctor eluded them among the mazes of metalo-plastic, of bery-plastic rods and generators, and the tremendous motors which were being eaten by an invisible leprosy. with a swift slash of the electro-flash gun, the robot-proctor caused havoc among the robots that pursued him, legs, arms, even heads wavered and disappeared as the electronic balance was completely disrupted by the flash. a tremor seemed to shake the gigantic sphere. by now, the great degravitator chamber was in shambles, and the remaining motors were unable to cope with the awful pressure of the gravity of the giant planet. with one final murderous sweep of the electro-flash, that seemed to shear like an invisible scimitar through machinery, robots and everything in its path, retreated as it had come, racing upwards towards the sphere's emergency locks. there was no apparent pursuit. only the vivid scarlet lights of imperative emergency, flooding what had been the degravitator chamber were witnesses to the destruction. in the coordinating offices of the maintenance scientists, the telesolidographs gave three-dimensional accounts of the wreckage. but even there, confusion, bred by a growing panic, caused a delay, losing them their chance of effecting repairs. suddenly, panic brooked no obstacles. the light of intelligence and logic was flung aside as men and women becoming aware of the ghastly fate that awaited them, poured out on the various levels in a frenzy to escape. the news of the destruction of vital machinery in the anti-gravity repulsor beam chamber was being relayed everywhere. already the colossal sphere was swaying gently and settling lower, dislocating the delicate balances that held it poised in space. the stresses on the plastic structures and pylons was tremendous. * * * * * as the robot arrived at bejamel's spacer, a dramatic scene unfolded before his huge non-abradable eyes. holding an electro-flash in her slender hand, her eyes brimming with tears, perlac seemed to have for the moment at least, control of the superb ship. she was saying: "we don't leave here until guerlan returns!" her lips were white, but the sheer determination written in her lovely face, held even bejamel who was taken aback. "guerlan! are you mad, perlac? that barbarian's below on the planet's surface!" "on the contrary," the robot-proctor spoke in a voice leaden with fatigue, "i'm here, bejamel." slowly he emerged from the enclosing plastic shell of what had been a robot, then let the huge, hollow plastic man fall clattering to the spacer's floor. silently he searched the ex-minister of justice, who seemed transfixed by a vast surprise. from under bejamel's arm-pit, guerlan took a hidden electro-flash, and a venom-tipped dagger concealed in a fold of his tunic. having drawn his fangs, he smiled. "we can blast off now ... but not for venus!" majestically, bejamel turned to perlac with an inscrutable smile. he gazed at the girl in a mixture of bitterness and admiration: "you're indeed _my_ daughter!" he said at last. then to guerlan: "what do you propose to do with me?" "keep you on neptune," guerlan replied bluntly. "utilize your vast knowledge of jurisprudence, and your personal and intimate knowledge of the thousands of scientists who are certain to surrender sooner or later. human beings have inalienable rights, rights that we propose to return to them. but unfortunately, it will not be easy to give freedom to those who have never known what freedom is. we will need all the science and power of mind available. so, bejamel, we must use you--under our supervision, of course. you see, even the venom of a cobra is eminently useful, if handled right!" they eyed each other, these two. both powerful, dominating intellects, both capable of profound emotions. it was the older man, who used to the devious ways of the sphere and his benevolence's court, yielded gracefully. bejamel glanced at estrella, and it occurred to him that whatever years of life remained to him would be sweet if she were at his side. at that instant, a vast tremor shook the gigantic city of the sphere, and bejamel's eyes went wide. seated at the controls, guerlan turned slightly to bejamel. "give your intermediates orders to open the lock and activate the catapult--we have minutes, perhaps only seconds, before the sphere gives under the gravity pull. make your choice, or i give the ship full power and crash through the airlock, bejamel!" guerlan's voice was cold, impassive. "i shall give the order," bejamel assented in a brittle voice. * * * * * from a vantage point in space, the scene that met their eyes had the memorable quality of those stupendous spectacles of nature that human eyes rarely if ever are privileged to see. the vast sphere was aflame with color, dazzling in the vivid coruscations of blue and orange and mauve and yellow lights. spinning slowly, it was a thing of unearthly beauty, a floating, starry globe that might have been a toy of the gods. it was being deserted by every type of craft imaginable; hundreds of planes, 'copters, electros ... every available type of ship that could evacuate the jostling, crying, screaming thousands who had jammed the outer air-locks and emergency exits. inexorably, the sphere sank lower and lower, as the remaining generators fought the awful gravity of neptune that held the doomed globe in its gigantic grip. enough power still remained to the incredible sphere to keep it from crashing headlong into the furious waters of the vast ocean below. but at last, as if the ultimate ounce of power were gone, the globe seemed to lurch in a glory of prismatic lights, then with terrific momentum it began the dizzy plunge through space, whirling like a falling meteor. perlac, bejamel, estrella--even guerlan himself, could not take their eyes from the tragic glory that was the sphere. suddenly they saw it illuminate the ocean for miles as it neared the surface of the waters, then with a vast splash that sent a tidal wave licking the shore's hills hungrily, it sank into the cold, green waters. "and there it will remain for all eternity!" guerlan said thoughtfully. "a tomb of evil, that men might live!" bejamel was silent. the gargoyle's face was softened by a profound sadness. he sighed like a man who has lived too much, and at last seeks rest. he turned his back to the scene below as if unable to bear it any more. "an epoch has passed," he said softly in the magnificent voice. but guerlan was at the tele-magnum, broadcasting offer of an armistice to the warring armadas below. "scientists of the inner circle and the first level," he said with infinite assurance. "your city of the sphere has plunged to its doom, and, with it went his infamous benevolence and hundreds of thousands of your henchmen. you no longer have a haven of refuge, no base in which to refuel or obtain supplies. when your present ammunition is gone, when repairs and food are necessary, and when the men who die must be replaced, there is no spot where you can return. yours is a certain doom--unless you unconditionally surrender. we offer a pardon to all who are willing to join our cause; lay down your arms and aid in the reconstruction--a far more glorious future is before us!" an immense weariness had etched lines about his mouth and eyes, and his shoulders slumped as if a great reaction had set in. but his eyes could still flame with joy, as he saw the deadly fleet of the inner circle abandon the struggle, as he saw the embattled armies cease their carnage. as he turned from the tele-magnum to go to the controls and guide the ship to their base in columbia, he suddenly felt soft arms entwine around his neck and a soft face that pressed close to his. he didn't even need to look, the fragrance of venusian jasmines was in his nostrils and a warm, flower-like mouth pressed close to his. it was then that bejamel turned to estrella and was eyeing him with critical eyes and said sardonically: "shall we make it unanimous?" transcriber's note: this etext was produced from analog science fact & fiction october and november 1963. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. "where i wasn't going" "the spaceman's lament" concerned a man who wound up where he wasn't going ... but the men on space station one knew they weren't going anywhere. until confusion set in.... walt and leigh richmond illustrated by john schoenherr [illustration] _i studied and worked and learned my trade i had the life of an earthman made; but i met a spaceman and got way-laid- i went where i wasn't going!_ the spaceman's lament * * * * * making his way from square to square of the big rope hairnet that served as guidelines on the outer surface of the big wheel, mike blackhawk completed his inspection of the gold-plated plastic hull, with its alternate dark and shiny squares. he had scanned every foot of the curved surface in this first inspection, familiarizing himself completely with that which other men had constructed from his drawings, and which he would now take over in the capacity of chief engineer. mike attached his safety line to a guideline leading to the south polar lock and kicked off, satisfied that the lab was ready for the job of turning on the spin with which he would begin his three months tour of duty aboard. the laws of radiation exposure set the three-month deadline to service aboard the lab, and he had timed his own tour aboard to start as the ship reached completion, and the delicate job of turning her was ready to begin. u.n. space lab one was man's largest project to date in space. it might not be tremendous in size by earth standards of construction, but the two hundred thirty-two foot wheel represented sixty-four million pounds of very careful engineering and assembly that had been raised from earth's surface to this thirty-six-hour orbit. many crews had come and gone in the eighteen months since the first payload had arrived at this orbit--but now the first of the scientists for whom the lab was built were aboard; and the pick of the crews selected for the construction job had been shuttled up for the final testing and spin-out. far off to mike's left and slightly below him a flicker of flame caught his eye, and he realized without even looking down that the retro-rockets of the shuttle on which he had arrived were slowly putting it out of orbit and tipping it over the edge of the long gravitic well back to earth. it would be two weeks before it returned. nearing the lock he grasped the cable with one hand, slowing himself, turned with the skill of an acrobat, and landed catlike, feet first, on the stat-magnetic walk around the lock. he had gone over, minutely, the inside of the satellite before coming to its surface. now there was only one more inspection job before he turned on the spin. around this south polar hub-lock, which would rotate with the wheel, was the stationary anchor ring on which rode free both the stat-walk and the anchor tubes for the smaller satellites that served as distant components of the mother ship. kept rigid by air pressure, any deviation corrected by pressure tanks in the stationary ring, the tubes served both to keep the smaller bodies from drifting too close to space lab one, and prevented their drifting off. the anchor tubes were just over one foot in diameter, weighing less than five ounces to the yard--gray plastic and fiber, air-rigid fingers pointing away into space--but they could take over two thousand pounds of compression or tension, far more than needed for their job, which was to cancel out the light drift motion caused by crews kicking in or out, or activities aboard. uncanceled, these motions might otherwise have caused the baby satellites to come nudging against the space lab; or to scatter to the stars. there had been talk of making them larger, so that they might also provide passageway for personnel without the necessity for suiting up; but as yet this had not been done. perhaps later they would become the forerunners of space corridors in the growing complex that would inevitably develop around such a center of man's activities as this laboratory in its thirty-six hour orbit. at the far end of the longest anchor tube, ten miles away and barely visible from here, was located the unshielded, remote-controlled power pile that supplied the necessary energy for the operation of the wheel. later, it was hoped, experimental research now in progress would make this massive device unnecessary. solar energy would make an ideal replacement; but as yet the research was not complete, and solar energy had not yet been successfully harnessed for the high power requirements of the lab. inside this anchor tube ran the thick coaxial cable that fed three-phase electric power from the atomic pile to the ship. at the far end of the second anchor tube, five miles off in space, was project hot rod, the latest in the long series of experiments by which man was attempting to convert the sun's radiant energy to useful power. at the end of the third anchor tube, and comparatively near the ship, was the dump--a conglomeration of equipment, used and unused booster rocket cases, oddments of all sorts, some to be installed aboard the wheel, others to be used as building components of other projects; and some oddments of materials that no one could have given a logical reason for keeping at all except that they "might be useful"--all held loosely together by short guidelines to an anchor ring at the tube's end. * * * * * carefully, mike checked the servo-motor that would maintain the stationary position of the ring with clocklike precision against the drag of bearing friction and the spin of the hub on which it was mounted; then briefly looked over the network of tubes before entering the air lock. inside, he stripped off the heavy, complicated armor of an articulated spacesuit, with its springs designed to compensate for the bourdon tube effect of internal air pressure against the vacuum of space, appearing in the comfortable shorts, t-shirt, and light, knit moccasins with their thin, plastic soles, that were standard wear for all personnel. he was ready to roll the wheel. feeling as elated as a schoolboy, mike dove down the central axial tube of the hub, past the passenger entrances from the rim, the entrances to the bridge and the gymnasium-shield area, to the engineering quarters just below the other passenger entrances from the rim, and the observatory that occupied the north polar section of the hub. the engineering quarters, like all the quarters of the hub, were thirty-two feet in diameter. ignoring the ladder up the flat wall, mike pushed out of the port in the central axis tunnel and dropped to the circular floor beside the power console. strapping himself down in the console seat, he flipped the switch that would connect him with systems control officer bessandra khamar at the console of the ship's big computer, acronymically known as sad cow. "aiee-yiee, bessie! it's me, chief blackhawk!" he said irreverently into the mike. "ready to swing this buffalo!" bessie's mike gave its preliminary hum of power, and he could almost feel her seeking out the words with which to reprimand him. then, instead, she laughed. "_varyjat!_ mike, haven't you learned yet how to talk over an intercom? blasting a girl's eardrums at this early hour. it's no way to maintain beautiful relationships and harmony. i'm still waiting for my second cup of coffee," she added. "wait an hour, and this cup of coffee you shall have in a cup instead of a baby bottle," mike told her cheerfully. "space one's checked out ready to roll. want to tell our preoccupied slipstick and test-tube boys in the rim before we roll her, or just wait and see what happens? they shouldn't get too badly scrambled at one-half rpm--that's about .009 gee on the rim-deck--and i sort of like surprises!" "no, you don't" bessie said severely. "no, you don't. they need an alert, and i need to finish the programming on sad cow to be sure this thing doesn't wobble enough to shake us all apart. even at a half rpm, your seams might not hold with a real wobble, and i don't like the idea of falling into a vacuum bottle as big as the one out there without a suit." "how much time do you need?" "on my mark, make it t minus thirty minutes. that ought to do it. o.k., here we go." there was a brief pause, then bessie's voice came formally over the all-stations annunciator system. "now hear this. now hear this. all personnel. on my mark it is t minus thirty minutes to spin-out check. according to program, acceleration will begin at zero, and the rim is expected to reach .009 gee at one-half revolutions per minute in the first sixty seconds of operation. we will hold that spin until balance is complete, when the spin will slowly be raised to two revolutions per minute, giving .15 gee on the rim deck. "all loose components and materials should be secured. all personnel are advised to suit up, strap down and hang on. we hope we won't shake anybody too much. mark and counting." almost immediately on the announcement came another voice over the com line. "hold, hold, hold. we've got eighteen hundred pounds of milling equipment going down number two shaft to the machine shop, and we can't get it mounted in less than twenty minutes. repeat, hold the countdown." "the man who dreamed up the countdown was a brain," bessie could hear mike muttering over his open intercom, "but the man who thought up the hold was a pure genius." "holding the countdown." it was bessie's official voice. "it is t minus thirty and holding. why are you goons moving that stuff ahead of schedule and without notifying balance control? what do you think this is, a rock-bound coast? think we're settled in to bedrock like new york city? i should have known," she muttered, forgetting to flip the switch off, "my horoscope said this would be a shaky sort of day." chad clark glanced up from his position at the communications console across the bridge from bessie, to where her shiny black hair, cut short, framed the pert eurasian features of the girl that seemed to be hanging from the ceiling above him. "is it really legal," he asked, "using such a tremendously complicated chunk of equipment as the sacred cow for casting horrible scopes? what's mine today, bessie? make it a good one, and i won't report you to u.n. budget control!" "offhand, i'd say today was your day to be cautious, quiet and respectful to your betters, namely me. however," she added in a conciliatory tone, "since you put it on a budget control basis, i'll ask the cow to give you a real, mathematicked-out, planets and houses properly aligned, reading. "hey, perk!" her finger flipped the observatory com line switch. "have you got the planets lined up in your scopes yet? where are they? the sacred cow wants to know if they're all where they ought to be." out in the observatory, designed to swing free on the north polar axis of the big wheel, dr. p. e. r. kimball, phd, fras, gave a startled glance at the intercom speaker. "i did not realize that you would wish additional observational data before the swing began. i am just getting my equipment lined up, in preparation for the beginnings of the swing, and will be unable to give you figures of any accuracy for some hours yet. any reading i could give you now would be accurate only to within two minutes of arc--relatively valueless." the voice was cheerful, but very precise. "anything within half an hour of arc right now would be o.k." bessie's voice hid a grin. "in that case, the astronomical almanac data in the computer's memory should be more than sufficiently precise for your needs." there was a dry chuckle. "horoscopes again?" * * * * * as bessie turned back to the control side of her console, she saw a hand reach past her to pick up a pad of paper and pencil from the console desk. she glanced around to find mike leaning over her shoulder, and grinned at him as she began extracting figures from the computer's innards for a "plus or minus thirty seconds of arc" accuracy. mike sketched rapidly as she worked, and she turned as she heard him mutter a disgusted curse. "these are angular readings from our present position," he said in an annoyed tone. "get the cow to rework them into a solar pattern." "yes, sir, chief blackhawk, sir. what did you think i was doing?" "you're getting them into the proper houses for a horoscope. i want a solar pattern. now tell that sacred cow that you ride herd on to give me a polar display pattern on one of the peepholes up there," he said, glancing at the thirty-six video screens above the console on which the computer could display practically any information that might be desired, including telescopic views, computational diagrams, or even the habitats of the fish swimming in the outer rim channels. the display appeared in seconds on the main screen, and mike growled as he saw it. "have the cow advance that pattern two days," he said furiously. then, as the new pattern emerged, "i should have known it. it looks like we're being set up for a solar flare. right when we're getting rolling. it might be a while, though. plenty of time to check out a few gee swings. but best you rehearse your slipstick jockeys in emergency procedures." "a flare, mike? are you sure?" "of course i'm not sure. but those planets sure make the conditions ripe. look." and he held his pencil across the screen as a straight line dividing the pattern neatly through the center. "look at the first six orbits, jupiter's right on the line. and mercury won't be leaving until jupe crosses that line." the "line" that mike had indicated with his pencil across the screen would have, in the first display shown all but one of the first six planets already on the same side of the sun and in the new display, two days later, it showed all six of the planets bunched in the 180° arc with earth only a few degrees from the center of that arc. "hadn't thought to check before," he said, "but that's about as predictable as anything the planets can tell you. we can expect a flare, and probably a dilly." "why, mike? if a solar flare were due, u.n. labs wouldn't have scheduled us this way. what makes you so sure that means there's a solar flare coming? i thought they weren't predictable?" "it's fairly new research--but fairly old superstition," mike said. "you play with horoscopes--but my people have been watching the stars and predicting for many moons. i remember what they used to say around the old tribal fires. "when the planets line up on one side of the sun, you get trouble from man and beast and nature. we weren't worried about radio propagation in those days, but we were worried about seasons, and how we felt, and when the buffalo would be restless. "more recently some of the radio propagation analysts have been worrying about the magnetic storms that blank out communications on earth occasionally when old sol opens up with a broadside of protons. surely plays hell with communications equipment. "yep, there's a flare coming. whether it's caused by gravitational pull, when you get the planets to one side of sol; or whether it's magnetism--i just don't know." "shucks," she said, "we had a five-planet line-up in 1961; and nothing happened; nothing at all. the seers--come to think of it, some of them were indians, but from india," she added, "not amerinds--the seers all predicted major catastrophes and the end of the world and all kinds of things, and nothing happened." "bessie," mike's voice was serious. "i remember 1961 as well as you do. you had several factors that were different then--but you had solar flares then. quite spectacular ones. you just weren't out here, where they make a difference of life or death. "don't let anybody hold us too long getting this station lined up and counted down and tested out. because we've got things building up out there, and we may get that flare, and it may not be two days coming," he finished. with that the amerind sprang catlike to a hand-hold on the edge of the central tunnel and vanished back towards the engineering station, from which he would control the test-spin of the big wheel. * * * * * bessandra khamar, educated in moscow, traced her ancestry back to one of the buryat tribes of southern siberia, a location that had become eventually, through the vast vagaries of history, known as the buryat autonomous soviet socialist republic. she was of a proud, clannish people, with mongolian ancestry and a buddhist background which had not been too deeply scarred by the political pressures from western russia. rebellious of nature, and of a race of people where women fought beside their men in case of necessity, she had first left her tribal area to seek education in the more advanced western provinces with a vague idea of returning to spread--not western ideologies amongst her people--but perhaps some of their know-how. this she had found to be a long and involved process; and more and more, with an increase of education, she had grown away from her people, the idea of return moving ever backwards and floundering under the impact of education. she had been an able student, though independent and quite argumentative, with a mind and will of her own that caused a shaking of heads amongst her fellow students. having sought knowledge in what, to her, were the western provinces of her own country, she had delved not only into the knowledge of things scientific, but into the wheres and whyfores of the political situations that made a delineation between the peoples of russia and the other peoples of the world. somehow she had been accepted as part of a trade mission to south america, and with that first trip out of her own country her horizons had broadened. carefully she had nurtured that which pleased others in such a way that she had been recommended to other, similar tasks. and eventually she had gone to the u.n. on an extended tour of duty. it was here for the first time that she had heard of the recruitment of a staff for the new u.n. space lab project, and here she had made a basic decision: to seek a career, not in her own country or back among the peoples of her own clan, but in the u.n. itself, where she could better satisfy the urge to know more of all people. [illustration] she had, of course, been educated in a time of change. as a child she had attended compulsory civilian survival classes, as had nearly every person in the vast complex of the soviet union. she had learned about atomic weapons; and that other peoples for unknown reasons as far as she could determine, might declare her very safety and life forfeit to causes she did not understand. later, as she had made her way westward seeking reasons and causes for these possible disasters, and more knowledge in general, her country had undergone what amounted to a revolutionary change. not only her country, but the entire world had moved during her lifetime from an armed camp or set of camps with divided interests and the ability for total annihilation, towards a seeking of common goals--towards a seeking of common understandings. the catastrophe that had threatened to engulf the entire world and claim the final conquest had occurred while she was a very junior student in moscow, when the two major nations that were leaders--or had thought themselves to be leaders, so far as atomic weaponry and such were concerned--had stood almost side by side in horror, and attempted to halt the conflagration that had been sparked by a single bomb landed on the mainland of china by formosa. while russia and the united states had stood forth in the u.n. and renounced any use of atomic weapons, the short and bitter struggle which reached its termination in a mere five days had brought the world staggering to the ultimate brink of atomic war, as the formosan chinese made their final bid for control of mainland china. the flare of atomic conflict had been brief and horrible. where the bombs had come from had been the subject of acrimonious accusations on the floor of the u.n. the united states had forsworn knowledge, and for a time no one had been able to say from whence they had come. later, shipping records had proven their source in the belgian congo as raw material, secretly prepared and assembled on formosa itself, and it became obvious to the entire world that an atomic weapon was not something that could be hidden in secrecy from the desires of desperate men. * * * * * the chinese mainland had responded with nuclear weapons of its own; weapons they, too, had not been known to possess, but had possessed. that the rest of the world had not been sucked into the holocaust was a credit to the statesmen of both sides. that disarmament was agreed to by all nations was a matter of days only from the parallel but unilateral decisions of both russia and the united states, that disarmament must be accomplished while there was yet time. under the political pressures backed by the human horror of all nations, the nuclear disarmament act of the u.n. had given to the u.n. the power of inspection of any country or any manufacturing complex anywhere in the world; inspection privileges that overrode national boundaries and considerations of national integrity, and a police force to back this up--a police force comprised of men from every nation, the u.n. security corps. the united nations, from a weak but hopeful beginning, had now stepped forth in its own right as an effective world government. there was no political unity at a lower echelon amongst the states or sub-governments of the world. to each its own problems. to each its own ideologies. to each, help according to its needs from the various bureaus of the u.n. and from each the necessary taxes for the support of the world organization. in russia the ideology of marx-lenin was still present. and in other countries other ideologies were freely supported. but the world could no longer afford an outright conflict of ideologies, and u.n. security was charged not only with the seeking out and destruction of possible hoards of atomic weapons, but also with the seeking out and muzzling of those who expressed an ideology at all costs, even the cost of the final suicide of war, to their neighbors. no hard and fast rules could be drawn to distinguish between a casual remark made in another country as to one's preference for one's own country, and an active subversion design to subvert another country to one's own ideology. but nevertheless, the activity of subversion had become an illegal act under the meaning of "security." and individual governments had recalled agents from their neighboring countries--not only agents, but simple tourists as well. for the stigma of having an agent arrested in another country and brought to trial at the u.n. was a stigma that no government felt it could afford. over the world settled a pall. the one place outside of one's own country, where one's ideology could be spoken of with impunity, was within the halls of the u.n. assembly itself, under the aegis of diplomatic immunity. here the ideologies could rant and rave against each other, seeking a rendering of a final decision in men's age-old arguments; but elsewhere such discussions were _verboten_, and subject to swift, stiff penalties. there were some who thought quietly to themselves that perhaps in the reaction to horror they had voted too much power to a small group of men known as security, but there were others, weary of the insecurity of world power-politics, who felt that security was a blessing, and would for all time protect all men in the freedom of their own beliefs. the pressures had been great, and the pendulum of political weight had swung far in an opposite direction. in fact, man had achieved that which he would deny--in a reach for freedom, he had made the first turn in the coil that would bind him--in the coil that would bind the mass of the many to the will of the very few. * * * * * in school in moscow, these things touched bessandra's life only remotely. the concepts, the talk, the propaganda from radio moscow, these she heard, but they were not her main interests. her main interests were two--one, the fascination which the giant computer at moscow university held for her; and two, the students around her. people, she had noted, had behavior patterns very similar to the complex computer; not as individual units, though as individual units they could also be as surprisingly obtuse as the literal-minded reaction of the computer; but in statistical numbers they had an even greater tendency to act as the computer did. the information fed them and their reactions to it had a logic all its own; not a logic of logic, but a logic of reaction. and the reaction could be controlled, she noted, in the same self-corrective manner that was applied to logic in the interior of the computer--the feedback system. it was obvious that with a statistical group of people, the net result of action could be effectively channeled by one person in an obscure position acting as a feedback mechanism to the group, and with selective properties applied to the feedback. at one point she had quietly, and for no other reason than to test this point to her own satisfaction, sat back and created a riot of the women students at the university, without once appearing either as the cause or the head or leader in the revolt. the revolt in itself had been absolutely senseless, but the result had been achieved with surprisingly little effort on the part of one individual. computers and people had from that day become her tools, whenever she decided to bend them to her will. even earlier in her career, she had managed to put her rebellious nature under strict control, never appearing to be a cause in herself; never appearing as a leader among the students; merely a quiet student intent upon the gain of knowledge and oblivious to her surroundings. later as she realized her abilities, she had sought council with herself and her buddhist ancestry, to determine what use her knowledge should serve. and to her there was but one answer: men were easily enslaved by their own shortcomings; but men who were free produced more desirable results; and if she were to use their shortcomings at all, it must be to bend them in the path of freedom that she might be surrounded by higher achievements rather than sheeplike activities which she found to be repugnant. gradually she had achieved skill in the manipulation of people; always towards the single self-interest of creating a better and more pleasant world in which she herself could live. * * * * * in rim sector a-9, dr. claude lavalle was having his troubles. free fall conditions that were merely inconvenient to him were proving near-disastrous to the animals in the cages around him. many and various were the difficulties that he had had with animals during his career, but never before such trifles that built _peu à peu_--into mountains. claude lavalle had originally planned to leave his stock of animals, which contained sets of a great many of the species of the small animals of earth, on their own gravity-bound planet until well after the spin supplied pseudo-gravity to the ship; but the schedule of the shuttles' loads had proved such as to make possible the trip either far in the future, or to put him aboard on this trip, with spin only a few hours away. the cages, with their loads of guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters and other live animals to be used in the sacrificial rites of biochemical research were, to put it mildly, a mess. provision had been made for feeding and watering the animals under free-fall conditions, but keeping them sanitary was proving a near-impossible task; and though the cages were sealed to confine the inevitable upset away from the remainder of the lab, it was good to hear that the problem was nearly over as the news of the imminent countdown came over the loud-speaker. meantime, dr. claude lavalle was having his difficulties, and he wished fervently that his assistants could have been sent up on the shuttle with him. * * * * * in rim-sector a-10, the farm (fluid agricultural recirculating method control lab, according to the u.n. acronym), dr. millie williams, her satiny brown skin contrasting to her white t-shirt and shorts, was also having her troubles. the trays of plants, in their beds of sponge plastic and hydroponic materials, were all sealed against free-fall conditions, but should be oriented properly for the pseudo-gravity as the great wheel was given its rotational spin. the vats of plankton and algae concentrates were not so important as to orientation, but should be fed into their rim-river homes as soon as possible, although this could not be done until the rim spin was well under control. the trays, the plants, the plankton, the algae--even a large proportion of the equipment in the lab, were all new, experimental projects, designed to check various features of the food and air cycles that would later be necessary if men were to send their ships soaring out through the system. the primary purpose of lab one was a check of the various survival systems and space ecology programs necessary to equip the future explorations under actual space conditions. her job on the farm would be very important to the future feeding and air restoration of spacemen; but more important, the efficient utilization of the wheel itself, since success in shipboard purification of air and production of food would free the shuttle to bring up other types of mass. at present, the ship's personnel were existing almost entirely on tanked air, but within two weeks one of the three air-restoration projects on the satellite--either hers, in which hydroponic plants and algae were the basic purifiers; or projects in the chem and physics labs--would have to be already functioning in the job, or extra shuttles would have to be devoted to air transportation until they were ready. the provision of good fresh vegetables and fresh, springlike air would almost certainly be up to her department. the other two labs, dr. carmencita schorlemmer in chemistry, and dr. chi tung in physics, were both working on the air-restoration problem by different means--electro-chemistry in the one case; gas dialysis membranes in the other. the work of the physics labs was operating on the differential ability of various gas molecules to "leak" through plastic membranes under pressure, causing separation of the various molecular constituents of the atmosphere; shunting carbon dioxide off in one direction, and returning oxygen and the inert nitrogen and other gases back to the surrounding atmosphere. this latter method had proved highly satisfactory back on earth, where it was separating out fissionable materials in large quantities and high purities from closely similar isotopes; and would now be tested for efficiency versus weight in some of the new problems being encountered in space. a fourth method, direct chemical absorption by soda lime, had been discarded early in the program, although it was still used in spacesuit air cleaners, and for the duration of the canned air program under which they were now operating. the lab was like that--no problem has a single solution. and it was the lab's job to evaluate as many solutions as possible so that the best, under different conditions, might be proved and ready for use in later programs. * * * * * paul chernov, ordinary spaceman--which meant that he had only a little more specialized training than the average college graduate--was working in the dump, surrounded by much of the equipment that remained to be placed aboard space lab one, and trying to identify the particular object he sought. looking down almost directly over the eastern bulge of the african coast, he sighted what was probably the ecm lathe he was after, and kicked towards it, simultaneously pulling his pistol-gripped rate of approach indicator from the socket in his suit. the rai gun, he sometimes felt, was the real reason he'd become a spaceman in these tame days. even if he couldn't be a space pirate, it gave him the feel. humming to himself, he aimed the search beam from the tiny gallium-arsenide laser crystal that was the heart of the gun at the bulky object, and read off the dial at the back of the "barrel" the two meter/second approach velocity and the twenty-eight meter distance. he could as easily have set the rai gun to read his velocity and distance in centimeters or kilometers, and it would have read as well his rate of retreat, if that had been the factor. paul's rai gun might be, to others, a highly refined, vastly superior great-grandson of the older radar that had required much more in the way of equipment than the tiny bulk of this device, but to him, alone in his spacesuit, the galaxy spread around him, it was the weapon with which he had conquered the stars. in the distance, off beyond the wheel in a trailing orbit, the huge spherical shape of project hot rod glowed its characteristic green--another application of the laser principle, but this one macroscopic in comparison to the tiny laser rate-of-approach gun. happily, paul burst into song. _"there's a sky-trail leading from here to there and another yonder showing; but i've a yen for gravity- this is where i wasn't going!"_ from the other side of the dump, tombu's voice bellowed into his ears over the intercom. "if you're going to audition for the stars, cut down the volume!" paul grinned and reached for the volume control. "o.k., m'numba, 's m'numba!--i'm a space-yodler from way out. heave a line over this way and let's get this ecm lathe aboard." tombu's "last name" m'numba had delighted paul from the moment he'd heard the story of its origin. by the customs of his own country, tombu had only a single name. however, when he had first enrolled as a student in england there had been a lack of comprehension between him and the rather flustered registrar and, when he had muttered something about "my number," the registrar had misunderstood and put him down as m'numba. tombu had let it stand. paul chernov, fine-boned, blond, with an ancestral background of the polish aristocracy, and his side-kick, tombu, black, muscular giant from the congo, were one of the strangest combinations of this international space lab crew. yet it was perhaps even stranger that the delicate-looking blond youth was a top machinist, a trade that he had plied throughout his student days in order to economically support an insatiable thirst for knowledge. a trade that had led him to this newest center of man's search for knowledge. but perhaps the combination was not so strange, for tombu, also, was of the aristocracy--an aristocracy that could perhaps be measured in terms of years extending far behind the comparable times for any european aristocracy. tombu was swahili, a minor king of a minor country which had never been recognized by the white man when he invaded africa and set up his vast protectorates that took no account of the peoples and their tribal traditions; protectorates that lumped together many hundreds of individual nations and tribes into something the white man looking at maps could label "congo." tombu himself, educated in the white man's schools to the white man's ways, and probing ever deeper into the white man's knowledge, was only vaguely aware of his ancestral origin. he counted his kingdom in negative terms, terms that were no longer applicable in a modern world. where national boundaries everywhere were melting further and further into disuse, it would seem to his mind foolish to lay claim to a kingship that had been nonexistent for more than one hundred years over a people that had been scattered to the four winds and ground together with other peoples in the belgian congo protectorate. odd the combination might be; but together the two machinists worked well, with a mutual respect for each other's abilities and a mutual understanding that is rare to find among members of different races. quickly they lashed and anchored the crate containing the lathe and hauled it in towards the main south lock of the big wheel. * * * * * these were not the only activities in and around the wheel, or other places in space. man already had a toehold in space, and that toehold was gradually growing into a real beachhead. swarms of satellites in their short, fast orbits down close to earth had been performing their tasks for many years. astronauts had come and gone, testing, checking, probing however briefly; bravely clawing their way up the sides of the long gravitic well that separated earth from space. the moon project that had originally been forecast for immediate accomplishment had met with delay. as yet there was no base on the moon, though men had been there, and this was bound to occur. but the lab was not here so much as a stepping stone to the moon as it was to provide information for the future manned trips out towards mars and the asteroids; and in towards venus and the sun. besides research, the big wheel would provide living quarters for men building other projects; would provide a permanent central for the network of communications beams that was gradually encompassing man's world and would eventually spread to the other planets as well. cooperating with this master communications central, other satellites, automatic so far, occupied the same orbit, leading and lagging by one hundred twenty degrees. a twenty-four hour orbit would have been more advantageous from the point of view of communications, except for the interference that would have been occasioned by the vast flood of electrons encircling earth in the outer van allen belt. these electrons, trapped by earth's magnetic field from the solar wind of charged particles escaping the sun, unfortunately occupied the twenty-four hour orbit, and, as their orbit expanded and contracted under the influence of the shifting magnetic field and solar flares, could produce tremendous havoc even in automatic equipment, so that it had been deemed economically impractical to set up the originally-postulated three satellites in stationary twenty-four orbits as communications terminals. as the next best choice, the thirty-six-hour orbit had been selected. it gave a slow rate of angular displacement, since the satellite itself moved ten degrees an hour, while earth moved 15°, for a differential rate of only five degrees an hour, making fairly easy tracking for the various earth terminals of the communications net; and making possible a leisurely view of more than ninety per cent of earth's surface every seventy-two hours. the other two power and communications stations which led and lagged space lab one by 120° each, would combine to command a complete view of earth, lacking only a circle within the arctic regions, so that they could provide power and communications for the entire world--a fact which had been the political carrot which had united earth in the effort to create the labs with their combined technologies. the danger of such powerful instruments as hot rod, concentrating megawatt beams of solar energy for relay to earth, and which could also be one of man's greatest weapons if it fell into unscrupulous hands, had been carefully played down, and also carefully countered in the screening by the security forces of u.n. of the personnel board. * * * * * t minus three and counting. on the zero signal mike in the engineer's quarters would change the now idly-bubbling air jets in the rim-rivers over to the fully-directional drive jets necessary to spin the fluid in counter-rotation through the rim tanks. the suiting-up and strapping down were probably unnecessary, mike thought, but in space you don't take chances. "t minus two and counting." bessie's voice rang over the com circuit in officially clipped clarity. from the physics lab came a rather oddly pitched echo. "allee allee in free fallee! hold it, please, as confusion would say! paul forgot to secure the electrolite for the ecm equipment. can't have these five-gallon bottles bouncing around!" "and we can't have you bouncing around either, dr. chi tung. get that soup under wraps quick. how much time do you need?" came the captain's voice from his console angled over bessie's head. clark's voice could be heard murmuring into his earth-contact phone. "t minus two. holding." less than two minutes later, dr. chi released the hold by announcing briefly, "machine shop and physics department secure." "t minus two and counting...." "t minus one and counting...." bessie continued officially. "fifty, forty, thirty, twenty...." the faint whine of high-speed centrifugal compressors could be heard through the ship. "ten...." the jets that had previously bubbled almost inaudibly took on the sound of a percolating coffee pot. "... four, three, two, one, mark." the bubbling became a hiss that settled into a soft susurrus of background noise, as the jets forced air through the river of water in the circular tanks of the rim. the water began to move. by reaction, the wheel took up a slow, circular motion in the opposite direction. then, gently, the wheel shook itself and settled into a complacently off-center motion that placed bessie somewhere near the actual center of rotation. "we're out of balance, mr. blackhawk," said the captain, one hand on the intercom switch. "bessie, ask the cow what's off balance." it was mike's voice from engineering control. "thought we had this thing trued up like a watch." but the computer had already taken over, and was controlling the flow of water to the hydrostatic balance tank system, rapidly orienting the axis of spin against the true axis of the wheel. the wobble became a wiggle; the wiggle became the slightest of sways; and under the computer's gentle ministrations, the sways disappeared and space lab one rolled true. slowly mike inched the jet power up, and the speed and "gravity" of the rim rose--from 0.009 to 0.039 to the pre-scheduled 0.15 of a gravity--two rpm--at which she would remain until a thorough test schedule over several days had been accomplished. later tests would put the rim through check-out tests to as high as 1.59 gee, but "normal" operation had been fixed at two rpm. in the background, the susurrus of the air jets rose slightly to the soft lullaby-sound that the wheel would always sing as she rolled. * * * * * new, experimental, her full complement of six hundred scientists and service personnel so far represented by only one hundred sixty-three aboard, the big wheel that was space lab one rotated majestically at her hydrodynamically controlled two revolutions per minute. she gave nearly half her mass to the water that spun her--huge rivers of water, pumped through the walls of the wheel's rim, forming a six-foot barrier between the laboratories within the rim and the cosmic and solar radiations of outer space. arguments on earth had raged for months over the necessities--or lack of them--for the huge mass of water aboard, but the fluid mass served many purposes better than anything else could serve those purposes. as a radiation shield, it provided sufficient safety against cosmic radiations of space and from solar radiations, except for solar flare conditions, to provide a margin of safety for the crew over the three months in which they would do their jobs before being rotated back to earth for the fifteen-month recovery period. the margin was nearly enough for permanent duty--and there were those who claimed it was sufficient--but the claim had not been substantiated, and the three months maximum for tour was mandatory. originally, shielding had not been considered of vital importance, but experience had proven the necessity. the first construction personnel had been driven back to earth after two weeks, dosimeters in the red. the third crew didn't make it. all five died of radiation exposure from a solar flare. an original two weeks' limit was raised as more shielding arrived--three weeks, four, five--now the shadowy edge of the theoretic ninety-day recovery rate from radiation damage and the ninety days required to get the maximum safe dosage overlapped--but safety procedures still dictated that a red dosimeter meant a quick return to earth whether the rate of recovery overlapped or not. [illustration] the question was still open whether more shielding would be brought up to make the overlap certain, or whether it would be best to maintain a personnel rotation policy indefinitely. some factions on earth seemed determined that rotation must remain not only a procedural but an actual requirement--their voices spoke plainly through the directives and edicts of u.n. budget control--but from what source behind this bureaucratic smokescreen it would have been difficult to say. as a heat sink, the water provided stability of temperature that would have been difficult to achieve without it. bathed in the tenuous solar atmosphere that extends well beyond the orbit of earth, and with a temperature over 100,000 c, maintenance of a livable temperature on board the big wheel was not the straight-forward balancing of radiation intercepted/radiation outgoing that had been originally anticipated by early writers on the subject. true, the percentage of energy received by convection was small compared to that received by radiation; but it was also wildly variable. as a biological cultural medium, the hydraulic system provided a basis for both air restoration and food supplies. when the proper balance of plankton and algae was achieved, the air jets that gave the ship its spin would also purify the ship's air, giving it back in a natural manner the oxygen it was now fed from tanks. as a method of controlling and changing the rate of rotation of the wheel, the rivers of water had already proven themselves; and as a method of static balancing to compensate for off-center weights, masses of it could be stopped and held in counterbalance tanks around the rim, thus assuring that the observatory, in its stationary position on the hub, would not suddenly take up an oscillatory pattern of motion as the balance within the wheel was shifted either by moving equipment or personnel. * * * * * in effect, the entire ship operated against a zero-m-i calculation which could be handled effectively only by the computer. the moment of inertia of the ship must be constantly calculated against the moment of inertia of the hydraulic mass flowing in the rim. and the individual counterbalance tanks must constantly shift their load according to the motions of the crew and their masses of equipment that were constantly being shifted during installation. for already the observatory was hard at work, and its time must not be stolen by inappropriate wobbles of the hub. a continuously operating feedback monitor system was capable of maintaining accuracy to better than .01% both in the mass inertial field of centrifugal force affecting the rim; and in overall balance that might otherwise cause wobbles in the hub. while such fine control would not be necessary to the individual comfort of the personnel aboard, it was very necessary to the accuracy of scientific observation, one major purpose of the lab; and even so, many of the experimenters would require continuous monitor observation from the computer to correct their observations against her instantaneous error curve. the mass of water in the rim formed a shell six feet through, surrounding the laboratories and living quarters--walls, floor and ceiling--since its first function was that of radiation shielding. but the bulk of this water was not a single unit. it was divided into separate streams, twenty in number, in each of which various biological reactions could be set up. while a few of the rivers were in a nearly chemically pure state, most of them were already filling with the plankton and algae that would form the base of the major ecological experiments, some with fresh water as their medium, others using sea water, complete with its normal micro-organisms supplemented from the tanks of concentrate that dr. millie williams had brought aboard. one or two of the rivers were operating on different cycles to convert human waste to usable forms so that it might reenter the cycles of food and air. several of the rivers were operating to provide fish and other marine delicacies as part of the experiment to determine the best way of converting algae to food in a palatable form. within, the rivers were lighted fluorescently--an apparent anomaly that was due to the fact that the problems of shielding marine life from direct sunlight in such a shallow medium had not yet been worked out; while the opaque plastic that walled the laboratories within the rivers was a concession to their strength, since the clear plastic that would have provided aquarium walls for the lab and complete inspection for a constant and overall check of the ecological experiments had been overruled by u.n. budget control. portholes at various spots made the seaquariums visible from any part of the rim, but in dr. millie's laboratory alone were the large panels of clear plastic that gave a real view into the rivers. this ecological maze of rivers and eddies and balance tanks; of air jets and current and micro-life; of spin-rate-control and shielding, were all keyed to servo-regulated interdependence that for this self-contained world replaced the stability achieved in larger ecologies through survival mechanisms. * * * * * within the maze, existing by it and contributing to it, were the laboratories concerned with other things, but surrounded by the waters that had made life's beginnings possible on earth, and the continuance of life possible in space. man might some day live in space almost totally without water, but for now they had brought a bit of the mother waters with them. sitting in complacent control of these overall complexities that must be met with automatic accuracy was the starrett analogue/digital computer, optical wave type 44-63, irreverently referred to by the acronymically-minded as sad cow, though more frequently as the sacred cow, or simply cow. most of the computer's intricate circuits were hidden behind the bulkhead in a large compartment between the control center and the south polar lock; but it was from this console in the control center that her operation was keyed. from this position, every function of the wheel was ordered. this was the bridge. spaced equally around its thirty-two-foot ring-shaped floor were the computer's console where bessie presided; the com center in charge of communications officer clark; and the command console where captain naylor andersen, commanding officer of space lab one had his formal, though seldom-occupied post. at the moment, nails andersen was present, black cigar clamped firmly between his teeth; hamlike norwegian hands maneuvering a pencil, he was making illegible notes on a scrap of paper--illegible to others because they were in his own form of shorthand that he had worked out over the years as he tried to make penciled notes as fast as his racing mind worked out their details. whether nails were politician or scientist would be hard to say. certainly his rise through the ranks of u.n. bureaus had been rapid; certainly in this rise he had been political, with the new brand of politics that men were learning--world, rather than national politics. certainly, also, he was a scientist; and certainly he had used his political abilities on the behalf of science, pushing and slashing at red-tape barriers. nails was more than most responsible for the very existence of u.n. space lab one, and project hot rod besides. he was also a sponsor of many other projects, both those that had been done and those that were yet to be done. the justification of a space project in these times was difficult indeed; for no longer could nations claim military superiority as a main reason for pushing forward across the barriers of the inner marches of space; for spending billions in taxes in experimental research. for a project to achieve reality now, it must have benefits, visible benefit, for the majority of mankind. it must have a _raison d'être_ that had nothing of a military flavor. and occasionally nails had been hard put to explain why, to people who did not understand; to explain his feeling that men must expand or die; that from a crowded planet there could be only one frontier, and that an expansion outward into space. of course there were, nails admitted to himself, other frontiers. the huge basin of the amazon had been by-passed and ignored by man, and quite possibly would be in the future as well. the oceans, covering seventy-five per cent of earth's surfaces also presented a challenge to man, and the possibility of a new frontier of conquest. but these did not present the limitless frontier for expansion offered by space. men must look upon them as only temporary challenges, and cherish them as remaining problems, never to be solved for fear of a loss of the problem itself. yet space was different. here man's explorations could touch upon infinities that were beyond comprehension, into that limitless void man could plunge ever outward for thousands of generations without ever reaching a final goal or solving a last problem. here was a frontier worthy of any man, against which the excess energies of a warrior spirit might be expended without harm to their fellows. to open a crack in this frontier was nails' supreme goal, because, once opened, men need never fight again amongst themselves for lack of a place to go or a thing to do. * * * * * space lab one had been in spin for two days. on earth, tv viewers no longer demanded twenty-four hours of lab newscasts, and were returning to their normal cycles of meet the press, the doctor's dilemma, and the lives of lucy, and other juicier items of the imagination that, now that their lab was a functioning reality, seemed far more exciting than the pictures of the interminably spinning wheel and the interviews with scientists aboard that had filled their screens during the spin-out trial period. on the wheel itself, life was settling into a pattern, with comments about being able to stand upright becoming old hat. in rim sector a-9, dr. claude lavalle's birds and beasts had adapted themselves to the light gravity; and their biological mentor had evolved feeding, watering, and cleaning methods that were rapidly becoming efficient. next door, dr. millie williams' farm had survived the "take-off" and the plants, grateful for their new, although partial gravity, were now stretching themselves towards the overhead fluorescents in a rather fantastic attempt to imitate the early growing stages of jack's famous beanstalk. in the machine shop, paul chernov carefully inspected the alignment of the numeric controlled laser microbeam milling and boring machine, brought it to a focus on a work piece, and pressed an activation switch that started the last pattern of tiny capillary holes in the quartz on which he was working. in moments the pattern was completed. gently removing the work piece from its mounting, he turned to the open double bulkhead that served as an air lock in emergencies and that separated his shop from the physics lab beyond, where dr. y. chi tung, popularly known as ishie, was busy over a haywire rig, chief engineer mike blackhawk and tombu beside him. reverently, dr. chi took the part from paul's hands. "a thousand ancestral blessings," he said. "confusion say the last piece is the most honored for its ability to complete the gadget, and this is it. "of course," he added, "confusion didn't say whether it would work or not." "what does the gadget do?" asked paul. "um-m-m. as the european counterpart of confusion, dr. heisenberg might have explained it, this is a device to confuse confusion by aligning certainties and creating uncertainties in the protons of this innocent block of plastic." the round, saffron-hued chinese face looked at paul solemnly. "as the good dr. heisenberg stated, there is a principle of confusion or uncertainty as to the exact whereabouts of things on the atomic level, which cannot be rendered more exact due to disturbance caused by the investigation of its whereabouts. my humble attempt is to secure a sufficiently statistical sample of aligned protons to obtain data on the distortion of the electron orbits caused by an external electrostatic field, thus rendering my own uncertainties more susceptible of analysis in a statistical manner." suddenly he grinned. "it's a take-off," he said, "from the original experiments in magnetic resonance back in '46. "the fields generated in these coils are strong enough to process all the protons so that their axis of spin is brought into alignment. at this point, the plastic could be thought of as representing a few billion tiny gyroscopes all lined up together. "matter of fact," he said in an aside, "if you want a better explanation of that effect, you might look up the maintenance manual on the proton gyroscopes that sad cow uses. or the manuals for the m.r. analyzer in the chem lab. or the magnetometer we use to keep a check on earth's magnetic field. "so far, about the same thing. "what i'm trying to do is place radio frequency fields and electrostatic fields in conjunction with the d.c. magnetic field, so as to check out the effect of stretching the electron orbits of the hydrogen atoms in predictable patterns. "i picked this place for it, because it was as far away from earth's field as i could get. and mike, when i get ready to test this thing, i'm going to pray to my ancestors and also ask you to turn off as many magnetic gadgets as you safely can." mike was squatting on his heels by the haywire rig, built into what looked suspiciously like a chassis extracted from one of the standard control consoles of the communication department. reaching gingerly in through the haywire mass of cables surrounding the central components, he pointed to one of the coils and exclaimed in the tones of a sherlock holmes, "ah-ha, my dear watson! i have just located the final clue to my missing magnaswedge. i suppose you know the duty cycle on those coils is only about 0.01?" "not after i finished with them!" ishie grinned unrepentant. "besides, i don't want to squash anything in the field. i just want a nice, steady field of a reasonable magnitude. as confusion would say, he who squashes small object may unbalance great powers." * * * * * while he talked, ishie had been busy inserting the carefully machined piece of quartz plate that chernov had brought, into a conglomeration of glassware that looked like a refugee from the chem lab, and flipped a switch that caused a glowing coil inside a pyrex boiler to heat a small quantity of water, which must escape through the carefully machined capillary holes in the plate he had just installed. each jet would pass through two grids, and on towards a condenser arrangement from which the water would be recirculated into the boiler by a small pump which was already beginning to churkle to itself. "o.k.," mike said. "i dig the magnetic resonance part. and how you're using the stolen coils. but what's this gadget?" and he pointed to the maze of glass and glass tubing. "oh. permit me to introduce dr. ishie's adaptation of a french invention of some years previous, which permits the development of high voltages by the application of heat to the evaporation of a fluid medium such as water--of which we have plenty aboard and you won't miss the little that i requisitioned--causing these molecules to separate and pass at high speed through these various grids, providing electrostatic potentials in their passage which can be added quite fantastically to produce the necessary d.c. field which...." as he spoke, mike's finger moved nearer a knob-headed bolt that seemed to be one of the two holding the glass device to its mounting board, and an inch and a half spark spat forth and interrupted the dissertation with a loud "yipe!" "confusion say," ishie continued as mike stuck his finger in his mouth, "he who point finger of suspicion should be careful of lurking dragons! "anyhow, that's what it does. there are two thousand separate little grids, each fed by its capillary jet, and each grid provides about ninety volts." tombu took the opportunity to inquire, "have you got that rf field-phase generator under control yet?" he pointed to still another section of the chassis. "oh, yes." the physicist nodded. "see, i have provided a feedback circuit to co-ordinate the pick-up signal with the three-phase rf output. the control must be precise. can't have it skipping around or we don't get a good alignment." there was a gurgling churkle from the innocent-looking maze as the "borrowed" aerator pump from the farm supplies began returning the condensate back to the boiler. * * * * * major steve elbertson stood on the magnetic stat-walk of the south polar loading lock, gazing along the anchor tube to project hot rod five miles away. "there are no experts in the ability to maneuver properly in free fall," he told himself, quieting his dissatisfaction with his own self-conscious efforts at maintaining the military dignity of the united nations security forces in a medium in which a man inevitably lost the stances that to him connotated that dignity. awkwardly, he attached the ten-pound electric device affectionately known to spacemen as the scuttlebug, to the flat ribbon-cable that would both power and guide him to hot rod. as the wheels of the scuttlebug clipped over the ribbon-cable, one above and two below, and made contact with the two electrically conductive surfaces, he saw the warning light change from green to red, indicating that the ribbon was now in use, and that no one else should use it until he had arrived at the far end. seeing that the safety light was now in his favor, he swung his legs over the seat--a t-bar at the bottom of the rod which swung down from the drive mechanism--grasped the rod, and pulled the starting trigger. the accelerative force of one gee, the maximum of which the scuttlebug was capable, provided quite a jolt, but settled down very quickly to almost zero as he picked up speed and reached the maximum of one hundred twenty miles per hour. a very undignified method of travel, he thought. yet for all that, the scuttlebugs were light and efficient, and reduced transit time between outlying projects and the big wheel to a very reasonable time, compared to that which it would take for a man to jump the distance under his own power--and, he thought, without wasting the precious mass that rockets would have required. the low voltage power supplied by the two flat sides of the ribbon was insufficient to have provided lethal contact, even if the person were there without the insulation of a spacesuit around him, a very unlikely occurrence. furthermore, the structure of the cable, with the flat, flexible insulation between its two conductive surfaces, made it practically impossible to short it out; and the flanged wheels of the scuttlebug clipped over it in such a fashion that, once locked, it was thought to be impossible that they could lose their grip without being unlocked. as steve gained speed along the ribbon, "his" project hot rod was in view before him--appearing to be a half moon which looked larger than the real moon in the background behind it; and seeming to stand in the vastness of space at a distance from the far end of the long anchor tube, a narrow band of bright green glowing near its terminator line. from the rounded half of the moon, extending sunward, four bright, narrow traceries seemed to outline a nose that ended in a pale, globular tracery at its tip, pointing to the sun. the narrow traceries were in actuality four anchor tubes, similar to the one beside which he rode; and mounted in their tip was the directing mirror that would aim hot rod's beam of energy. * * * * * project hot rod was actually a giant balloon eight thousand feet in diameter, one-half "silvered" with a greenish reflective surface inside that reflected only that light that could be utilized by the ruby rods at its long focal center; and that absorbed the remainder of the incident solar radiation, dumping it through to its black outside surface, and on into the vastness of space. this half of the big balloon was the spherical collector mirror, facing, through the clear plastic of its other half, the solar disk. well inside the balloon, at the tip of the ruby barrel that was its heart, were located the boiler tubes that activated the self-centering inertial orientation servos which must remain operational at all times. if the big mirror were ever to present its blackened rear surface to the sun for more than a few minutes, the rise in temperature would totally destroy the entire project. therefore, these servos had been designed as the ultimate in fail-safe, fool-proof control to maintain the orientation of the mirror always within one tenth of one degree of the center of sol. their action was simplicity itself. the black boiler tubes were shielded in such a way that so long as the aim was dead center on the sun they received no energy; but let the orientation shift by a fraction of a degree, and one of these blackened surfaces would begin to receive reflected energy from the mirror behind it; the liquid nitrogen within would boil, and escape under pressure through a jet in such manner as to re-orient the position to the center of the tracking alignment. [illustration] since the nitrogen gas escaped into the balloon, the automatic pressure regulator designed to maintain pressure within the balloon would extract an equal quantity of gas, put it back through the cooling system on the back side of the mirror, and return it as liquid to the boiler. these jets were so carefully and precisely balanced that there was virtually no "hunting" in the system. the balloon itself was attached to its anchor tube by a one hundred meter cable that gave free play to these orientation servos. the anchor point was the exact center of the black outside surface of the mirror-half of the balloon; and beside that anchor point was the air lock to the control center, to which steve was now going. from the control room, a column extended up through the axis of the balloon for thirty-five hundred feet--and most of the surface of this column was covered with the new type, high power ruby rods, thirty feet long and one-half inch in diameter, mounted in tubular trays of reflective material which took up sufficient space to make each rod occupy two inches of the circumference of the tube on which it was mounted. these ruby rods were the heart of the power system, converting the random wave fronts of noncoherent light received from the mirror into a tremendous beam of coherent infrared energy which could be bundled in such a pattern as to reach earth's surface in a focal point adjustable from here to be something between twenty-two feet in diameter to approximately one mile in diameter. [illustration] the banks of rods were so arranged that each of the one hundred sections comprising the three thousand feet of receptive surface at the focus of the mirror formed a concentric circle of energy beams; each circle becoming progressively smaller in diameter, so that the energy combined into one hundred concentric circles, one within the other, as it left the rods; but these circles were capable of the necessary focusing that could bring them all together into a single small point near earth's surface. * * * * * the beam leaving the rods represented three hundred seventy-five million watts of energy, tightly packaged for delivery to earth. but this was only a small fraction of the solar energy arriving at the big mirror. the remainder, the loss, must be dumped by the black surface at the back; and to account for the loss in the rods themselves, to prevent their instantaneous slagging into useless globules of aluminum oxide, their excess loss energy must also be dumped. a cooling bath of liquid nitrogen therefore circulated over each rod and brought the excess heat to the rear of the big lens, where it, too, could be dumped into the blackness of space beyond. for all its size and complexity, hot rod was only a trifle over six per cent efficient; but that six per cent of efficiency arriving on earth would be highly welcome to supplement the power sources that statistics said were being rapidly depleted. the spherical shape of the mirror itself, one of the easiest possible structures to erect in space, had dictated the placement of the rods through its center since there was no single focal point for the entire mirror surface. but it had also added a complication. from this position, the rods could have been designed to fire either straight forward or straight back. however, due to the hollow nature of the thirty-five hundred foot laser barrel; the necessity for access to the rods from inside that barrel; and the placement of the control booth at its outside end, the firing could only be forward, straight towards the sun on which the mirror was focused. but to be useful, the beam must be able to track an ever-moving target. this problem had been solved by one of the largest mirror surfaces that man had ever created--flat to a quarter of a wave-length of light, and two hundred fifty feet in diameter, the beam director, from this distance looking as though it were a carelessly tossed looking-glass from milady's handbag, anchored one diameter forward of the big power balloon. for all its size, this director mirror had very little mass. originally it had been planned to be made of glass in much the same manner as palomar's 200-inch eye. but this plan had been rejected on the basis of the weight involved. instead, its structure was a rigid honeycomb of plastic; surfaced by a layer of fluorocarbon plastic which had been brought to its final polish in space, and then carefully aluminized to provide a highly reflective, extremely flat surface. this mirror was also cooled by the liquid nitrogen supplied from the back side of the big mirror. necessarily so, since even its best reflectivity still absorbed a sufficient portion of the energy from the beam it deflected to have rapidly ruined it if it were not properly cooled. the several tons of ruby rods in the barrel, with their clear sapphire coatings, were far more valuable than any gems of any monarch that had ever lived on earth. synthetic though they were, steve elbertson, the project's military commander, knew they had been shipped here at fantastic cost and were expected to pay for themselves many thousands of times over in energy delivered. * * * * * as yet, the project had had no specific target; nor had it been fully operational as of midnight yesterday. but this "morning" for the first time the terrific energy of the laser beam would be brought to bear on the greenland ice cap--three hundred seventy-five million watts of infrared energy adjusted to a needle-point expected to be twenty-two feet in diameter at earth's surface, delivering one million watts per square foot, that should put a hole a good way through the several thousand feet of glacier there in its fifteen minutes of operation, possibly even exposing the bare rock beneath, and certainly releasing a mighty cloud of steam. focused to this needle sharpness, the rate of energy delivery was many orders of magnitude higher than that delivered by man's largest nuclear weapons only a few yards from ground zero. today's test was primarily scheduled as a test of control in aiming and energy concentration. careful co-ordination of the project by ground control was vital, so that no misalignment of the beam could possibly bring it to bear on any civilized portion of earth's surface. for, fantastic as this project hot rod might be as a source of power for earth, major elbertson knew that it was also the most dangerous weapon that man had ever devised. therefore, the scientists were never alone in the control booth, despite the mile-long security records of each. therefore, he and his men were in absolute control of the men who controlled the laser. therefore, too, steve told himself, as the time came when there would be a question of command between himself and captain nails andersen, science advisor to the u.n. and commander of space lab one, his own secret orders were that he was to take command--and the rank that would give him that command was already bestowed, ready for activation. nails andersen, steve reminded himself with amusement, had originated the laser project; had fought it through against the advice of more cautious souls; and had, through that project, attained command of the space lab, and the rank that made that command possible, all in the name of civilian science. but not command of the laser project, steve told himself. not of the most dangerous military weapon ever devised--dangerous and military for all that it was a civilian project, developed on the excuse that it would power earth, which was rapidly eating itself out of its power sources. not in command of that, steve told himself. nobody but a military man could properly protect--and if necessary, properly use--such power. those were his secret orders; and he had the papers--and the authority from earth--to back him up. and orders to shoot to kill without hesitation if those orders were questioned. meantime, today's peacetime experiment would bring forcibly to the attention of earth both the power for good and the power for destruction of the laser which he commanded. project hot rod was manned twenty-four hours a "day." the new shift of scientists--the ones who would turn on the powerful--or deadly--beam, would come aboard in about half an hour. the men who had put the finishing touches on the project during the past shift would remain for another hour. his own crew of security men shifted with the scientists--but he, himself, shifted at will. the immensity around him went unheeded as steve elbertson, eyes on project hot rod, savored the power of the beam that could control earth. * * * * * in the observatory, perk kimball and his assistant jerry wallace were having coffee as the various electronic adjuncts to the instruments of the observatory warmed up. transistors and other solid state components that made up the majority of the electronic equipment in the observatory required no "warm up" in the sense that the older electron tubes had--but when used in critical equipment, they were temperature sensitive, and he allowed for time to reach a stable operating temperature. then, too, the older electron tubes had not been entirely replaced. many of them were still in faithful service. the day would not be spent in the observation which was their main job there, because calibration of many of the instruments remained to be done, and the observatory was behind schedule, having had a good deal of its time taken up in the sightings required by the communications lab and project hot rod. both of the astronomers were heartily sick of spending so much of their observational time with recalcitrant equipment; and in making observations of the globe from which they had come. after all, why should an astronomer be interested in earth? though admittedly this was the first observatory in man's entire history that had had the opportunity for such a careful scrutiny. "this flare business, that our captive indian was predicting," jerry asked. "think there's anything to it? or am i just learning rumors about my profession from lay sources?" "a rather presumptuous prediction, though he may be right." perk's clipped tone was partly english, partly the hauteur of the professional. to him, solar phenomena were strictly sourced on the sun, and if they were to be understood at all, it would be in reference to the internal dynamics of the sun itself. "the torroidal magnetic fields dividing the slowly rotating polar regions from the more rapid rotation near the solar equator," he said slowly, rather pedantically, but as though talking to himself, "should have far more effective control over solar phenomena than the periodic unbalance created by the off-center gravitic fields when the inner planets bunch on the same side of their solar orbits. "to imply otherwise would be rather like saying that the grain of sand is responsible for the tides. "yet," he added honestly, "the records compiled by some of the communications interests that used to be greatly disturbed by the solar flares' influence on radio communications, seem to indicate that there is a connection. so there is the possibility, however remote, that our captive redskin might be right; or rather, that there is a force involved that makes the two coincidental." but even as he talked, an unnoticed needle on the board began an unusual, wiggling dance, far different from its ordinary, slow averaging reactions. twice, without being noticed, it swung rapidly towards the red line on its meter face; and then on its third approach the radiation counter swung over the red line and triggered an alarm. from only one source in their environment could they expect that level of x-ray intensity. without so much as a pause for thought, as the alarm screamed, barely glancing at the counter, perk reached for the intercom switch and intoned the chant that man had learned was the great emergency of space: "flare, flare, flare--take cover." simultaneously, he flipped three switches putting the observatory, the only completely unshielded area within the satellite, on automatic, to record as much as it could of the progress of the solar flare with its incomplete equipment, while he and jerry dove through the open air lock down the central well to the emergency shield room in the center of the hub. it was a poor system, perk thought, that hadn't devised sufficient shielding for the observatory so that they could watch this phenomenon more directly. "we'll have to work on that problem," he told himself and since his recommendations would carry much weight after this tour of duty, he could be sure that any such system that he could devise would be instrumented. * * * * * major steve elbertson, caught in mid-run between the lab and project hot rod, resisted the temptation to reverse the scuttlebug on the line and pull himself to a fast stop, as the flare warning from the observatory came to him over the emergency circuit of his suit, followed by bessie's clipped official voice saying: "a flare is in progress. any personnel outside the ship should get in as rapidly as possible. personnel in the rim have seven minutes in which to secure their posts and report to the flare-shield area in the hub. spin deceleration will take effect in three minutes; and we are counting on my mark towards deceleration. mark, three minutes." the security officer squeezed the trigger of the "bug" tighter in a vain effort to force it and himself forward at a higher speed. the lesser shielding of the hot rod control room would not provide a sufficient safety factor even for the x rays that he knew were already around him; but he must supervise the security of the shutdown; and he could only be very thankful that he was already nearly there and would not have to make the entire round trip under emergency conditions. the scuttlebug automatically reversed and began slowing for the end of its run--tripped by a block signal set in the ribbon cable. as it came to a stop at the end of the long anchor tube, steve dismounted and kicked over the short remaining distance, which was spanned only by a slack cable to permit the inertial orientation servos of hot rod unhindered freedom to maintain their constant tracking of the solar disk. passing through the air lock of the control room, he reflected that his exposure would probably be sufficient to give a touch of nausea in the first half hour. inside hot rod control there was little excitement. the equipment was being turned off in the standard approved safety procedures necessary to turn control over to the laser communication beam which would put the project under earth control at thule base, greenland, until the emergency was over. this separate, low-power control beam, focused on thule base nearly eighty miles away from the main focus of hot rod on its initial target, carried all of the communications and telemetry necessary for the close co-ordination between thule and the project. as elbertson entered, the hot rod communications officer was switching each of the control panels in turn to earth control, while dr. benjamin koblensky, project chief, stood directly behind him, supervising the process. elbertson took up his post beside dr. koblensky, replacing the security aide who had had the past shift. "suit up," he said to the man briefly. as the communications officer completed the turnover, and the other five scientists in the lab left their posts to suit up, the com officer glanced up, received a nod from dr. koblensky, and said into his microphone "all circuits have now been placed in telemetry security operation. on my mark it will be five seconds to control abandonment. mark," he said after another nod from dr. koblensky. "four, three, two, one, release." his hand on the master switch, he waited for the green light above it to assure him that the communications lag had been overcome, and as the green light came on, pushed the switch and rose from the console. major elbertson stepped behind him, scanned the switches, inserted his key into the security lock, and turned it with a final snap, forcing a bar home through the handles of all of the switches to prevent their unauthorized operation by anyone until the official security key should again release them. in the meantime, no function could be initiated within the laser system by anyone other than the security control officer at thule base on earth. hot rod was secured, and its crew were taking turns at the lock to make the life-saving run back to the flare-shield area in the hub of lab one. last man out, three minutes after the original alarm, steve glanced carefully around his beloved control booth, entered the now-empty air lock, and reaching the outside vacuum dove fast and hard toward the anchor terminal and the scuttlebug that would take him swiftly to the big wheel and its comparative safety. * * * * * in the gymnasium that served under emergency conditions as the flare-shield area of the hub, long since dubbed the "morgue," the circular nets of hammocks that made it possible to pack six hundred personnel into an area with a thirty-two foot diameter and a forty-five foot length, were lowered. they would hardly be packed this time, since less than one-third of the complement were yet aboard. even so, each person aboard had his assigned hammock space, two and a half feet wide; two and a half feet below the hammock above; and seven feet long; and each made his way toward his assigned slot. at one end of the morgue was the area where the cages of animals from dr. lavalle's labs were being stored on their assigned flare-shield shelves; and where dr. millie williams was supervising the arrangements of the trays and vats of plants that must be protected as thoroughly as the humans. at the other end of the morgue, the medics were setting up their emergency treatment area, while nearby the culinary crew pulled out and put in operating condition the emergency feeding equipment. the big wheel's soft, susurrus lullaby had already changed to a muted background roar as her huge pumps drew the shielding waters of the rim into the great tanks that gave the hub twenty-four feet of shielding from the expected storm of protons that would soon be raging in the vacuum outside. the ship was withdrawing the hydraulic mass from its rim much as a person in shock draws body fluids in from the outer limbs to the central body cavities. the analogy was apt, for until danger passed, the lab was knocked out, only its automatic functions proceeding as normal, while its consciousness hovered in interiorized, self-protective withdrawal. on the panel before bessie the computer's projection of expected events showed the wave-front of protons approaching the orbit of venus, and on the numerical panel directly below this display the negative count of minutes continued to march before her as the wave-front approached at half the speed of light. the expected diminishment of x rays had not yet occurred. normally, there would be a space of time between their diminishment and the arrival of the first wave of protons; but so far it had not happened. six minutes had passed, and the arriving personnel of project hot rod came in through the locks from the loading platform, diving through the central tunnel over bessie's head and on to the shielded tank beyond. seven minutes; and from biology lab came an excited voice. "i need some help! i've lost a rabbit. i came back for the one i'd been inoculating but he got away from me, and i can't corner him in this no-gravity!" bessie wasn't sure what to say, but captain andersen spoke into his intercom. "dr. lavalle," he said in a low voice, but with the force of command, "ninety per cent of your shielding has already been withdrawn. abandon the rabbit and report immediately to the hub!" the pumps were still laboring to bring in the last nine per cent of the water that would be brought. the remaining one per cent of the normal hydraulic mass of the rim had been diverted to a very small-diameter tube at the extreme inner portion of the rim, and was now being driven through this tube at frantically higher velocities to compensate for the removal of the major mass, and to maintain a small percentage of the original spin, so that the hub would not be totally in free fall, though the pseudo-gravity of centrifugal force had already fallen to a mere shadow of a shadow of itself, and some of the personnel were feeling the combined squeamishness of the coriolis effect near the center of the ship, and the lessening of the gravity, pseudo though it had been, that they had had with them in the rim. as the last tardy technician arrived, the medics were already selecting out the nearly ten per cent of the personnel who had been exposed to abnormally dangerous quantities of radiation during the withdrawal procedure, which included, of course, all the personnel that had been aboard project hot rod at the time of the flare. even as the medics went about injecting carefully controlled dosages of sulph-hydral anti-radiation drugs, the beginnings of nausea were evident among those who had been overexposed. however, only the dosimeters could be relied on to determine whether the nausea was more from the effects of radiation; the effects of the near-free-fall and coriolis experienced in the hub; or perhaps some of it was psychosomatic, and had no real basis other than the fear engendered by emergency conditions. major steve elbertson was already in such violent throes of nausea that his attending medic was having difficulty reading his dosimeter as he made use of the plastic bag attached to his hammock; and he was obviously, for the moment at least, one of the least dignified of the persons on board. displays of the various labs in the rim moved restlessly across most of the thirty-six channels of the computer's video displays, as bessie scanned about, searching for dangerously loose equipment or personnel that might somehow have been left behind. [illustration] in the biology lab, the white rabbit that had escaped was frantically struggling in the near-zero centrifugal field with literally huge bounds, seeking some haven wherein his disturbed senses might feel more at home, and eventually finding a place in an overturned wastebasket wedged between a chair and a desk, both suction-cupped to the floor. frightened and alone, with only his nose poking out of the burrow beneath the trash of the wastebasket, he blinked back at the silent camera through which bessie observed him, and elicited from her a murmur of pity. seven minutes and forty-five seconds. the digital readout at the bottom of bessie's console showed the computer's prediction of fifteen seconds remaining until the expected flood of protons began to arrive from the sun. as radiation monitors began to pick up the actual arrival of the wave front, the picture on her console changed to display a new wave front, only fractionally in advance of the one that the computer had been displaying as a prediction. * * * * * the storm of space had broken. captain andersen's voice came across the small area of the bridge that separated them. "check the rosters, please. are all personnel secured?" bessie glanced at the thirty-two minor display panels, checking visually, even as her fingers fed the question to the computer. the display of the labs, now that the rabbit was settled into place, showed no dangerously loose equipment other than a few minor items of insufficient mass to present a hazard, and no personnel, she noted, as the cow displayed a final check-set of figures, indicating that all personnel were at their assigned, protected stations in the morgue, in the engineering quarters, and on the bridge. "all secure," she told the captain. "evacuation is complete." "well handled," he said to her, then over the intercom: "this is your captain. our evacuation to the flare-shield area is complete. the ship and personnel are secured for emergency conditions, and were secured well within the time available. may i congratulate you. "the proton storm is now raging outside. you will be confined to your posts in the shield area for somewhere between sixteen and forty-eight hours. "as soon as it is possible to predict the time limit more accurately, the information will be given to you." as he switched out of the ship's annunciator system, captain nails andersen leaned back in his chair and stretched in relief, closing his eyes and running briefly over the details of the evacuation. when he opened them again, he found a pinch bottle of coffee at his elbow, and tasting it, found it sugared and creamed to his preference. his eyes went across the bridge to the computer console, and lingered a moment on the slender, dark figure there. amazing, he thought. the dossier, the personal history, her own and all the others aboard, he had studied carefully before making a selection of the people who would be in his command for this time. not that the decision had been totally his, but his influence had counted heavily. this one he had almost missed. only by asking for an extra survey of information had he caught that bit about the riot at moscow university that had raged around her ears, apparently without touching or being influenced by or influencing her own quiet program. that they didn't think alike was evident. that this was a competent sociologist, and not just a computer technician had not at first been evident. but nails was well pleased with his decision in the selection of this particular unit of his command. things would go well in her presence, he felt. details he might have struggled with would iron out or disappear, and scarcely come to his attention at all. very competent, he thought. and attractive, too. * * * * * in the engineering compartment, mike was adjusting the power output from the pile ten miles away, down from the full emergency power that had been required to pump the more than five hundred thousand cubic feet of water from the rim to the hub in seven minutes, to a level more in keeping with the moderate requirements of the lab as it waited out the storm. as he threw the last switch, he became aware of a soft scuffling sound behind him, and turned to see tiny dr. y chi tung, single-handedly manhandling through the double bulkhead the bulky magnetic resonance device on which he had been working when the flare alarm sounded, and having the utmost difficulty even though the near free-fall conditions made his problem package next to weightless. the monkeylike form of the erudite physicist, dwarfed by the big chassis, gave the appearance of a small boy trying to hide an outsize treasure; but the nonchalant humor that normally poked constant fun at both his profession as a physicist and the traditions of his chinese ancestors, was lacking. dr. ishie was both breathless and worried. "mike," he gasped. "i was afraid to leave it, unshielded. it might pick up some residual activity. radiation, that is. from those hydrogen hordes outside." he let the object rest for a moment, mopping his head while he talked. "can you hide it in here? i'm not really anxious to have budget control know where some of this stuff went--even though i have honorable intentions of returning the components later--and the good captain down there on the bridge might not consider its shielding important, either, if he knew i'd sabotaged his beautiful evacuation plan to bring my pet along!" the tone of ishie's voice indicated his uncertainty as to mike's reception. the idea of dr. y chi tung worrying about any components he might have "requisitioned" seemed almost irreverent to mike. budget control would gladly have given that eminent physicist a good half of the entire space station, if he had expressed his needs through the proper channels--as a matter of fact, anything on board that wasn't actually essential to the lives of those on the satellite. * * * * * but ishie seemed genuinely unaware of his true status, and the high regard in which he was held. besides, mike suspected in him a constitutional inability to deal through channels. recognizing the true sensitivity that underlay ishie's constant humor and ridicule of himself, mike kept himself from laughing aloud at the stealth of the man who could have commanded the assistance of the captain himself in shielding whatever he thought it necessary to shield. instead, he carefully kept his face solemn while he commented: "it ought to fit in that rack over there." he pointed to a group of half-filled racks. "we can slip a fake panel on it. nobody will be able to tell it from any of the other control circuits." ishie heaved a deep sigh of relief and grinned his normal grin. "confusion say," he declared, "that ninety-six pound weakling who struggle down shaft with six hundred pound object, even in free fall, should have stood in bed." it took the two of them the better part of half an hour to get the unit into place; to disguise its presence; and to make proper power connections. ishie had objected at first to connecting it up, and mike explained his insistence by saying that "if it looks like something that works, nobody will look at it twice. but if it looks like something dead, one of my boys is apt to take it apart to see what it's supposed to be doing." he didn't mention his real reason--a heady desire to run a few tests on the instrument himself. the job done, the two sat back on their heels, admiring their handiwork like bad boys. "coffee?" asked mike. "snarl. honorable ancestor confusion doesn't even need to tell me what to do now. my toy is safe. i am going to bed. i have worked without stopping for two days and now the flare has stopped me. "confusion decide to relent. he tell me now: 'he who drive self like slave for forty-eight hours is nuts and should be sent to bed.' i hope," he added, "that the hammocks are soft; but i don't think i shall notice. i know just where to go for i checked in once to fool the sacred cow before i went to get my beautiful. now i go back again." and without so much as a thank-you, he staggered out, grasping for hand-holds to guide himself in a most unspacemanlike manner. * * * * * mike craftily sat back, still on his heels beside the object, and watched until ishie had disappeared, and then turned his full interest to the playtoy that fortune had placed in his shop. without hesitation he removed the false front they had so carefully put in place. he still had a long tour of duty ahead, and it was very unlikely that he would be interrupted, or, if interrupted, that anyone would question the object on which he worked. it would be assumed that this was just another piece of equipment normally under his care. carefully he looked over the circuits, checking in his mind the function of each. then he went to his racks and began selecting test equipment designed to fit in the empty racks around it. oscilloscope, signal generator, volt meters and such soon formed a bank around the original piece of equipment, in positions of maximum access. gingerly he began applying power to the individual circuits, checking carefully his understanding of each component. the magnetic field effect, ishie had explained; but this three-phase rf generator--that puzzled him for a while. then he remembered some theory. brute strength alone would not cause the protons to tip. much as a top, spinning off-center on its point, will swing slowly around that point instead of tipping over, the spinning protons in the magnetic field would precess, but would not tip and line up without the application of a rotating secondary magnetic field at radio frequencies which would make the feat of lining them up easy. there, then, were two of the components that ishie had built into his device. a strong magnetic field supplied by the magnaswedge coils--stolen magnaswedge coils if you please--and a rotating rf field supplied by the generator below the chassis. but this third effect? the dc electric field? that one was new to him. in his mind he pictured the tiny gyroscopes all brought into alignment by the interplay of magnetic forces; and around each proton the tiny, planetary electrons. yet it was very well to think of the proton nucleus of the hydrogen atom as a simple top, he reminded himself; but they were more complex than that. each orbiting electron must also contribute something to the effect. at that point, mike remembered, the electron itself would be spinning, a lighter-weight gyroscope, much as earth has a lighter weight than the sun. the electron, too, had a magnetic field; more powerful than the proton's field because of its higher rate of spin, despite its lighter mass. the electron could also be lined up. somewhere in the back of his mind, mike remembered having read of another effect. the electron's resonance. electron para-magnetic resonance. it, too, could be controlled by radio frequencies in a magnetic field--but the frequencies were different, far up in the microwave region; about three centimeters as mike recalled--and he went back to his supply cabinet to get another piece of equipment, a spare klystron that actually belonged to the radar department but that was "stored" in his shop. at these frequencies, the three centimeter band of the electromagnetic spectrum, energy does not flow on wires as it does in the lower frequency regions. here plumbing is required. but mike, amongst other things, was an expert rf plumber. even experts take time to set up klystrons, and it was three hours later before mike was ready with the additional piece of haywire equipment which carefully piped rf energy into the plastic block. this refinement by itself had been done before; but some of the others that mike applied during his investigation probably hadn't--at least not to any such tortured piece of plastic as now existed between the pole faces of the device. to have produced the complete alignment of both the protons and the electrons within a mass might have been attempted before. to have applied an electrostatic field in addition to this had perhaps been attempted before. to have done all three, at the same time to the same piece of plastic, and then to have added the additional tortures that mike thought up as he went along, was perhaps a chance combination, repeatable once in a million tries, one of those experimental accidents that sometimes provide more insight into the nature of matter than all of the careful research devised by multi-million-dollar-powered teams of classical researchers. when the contraption was in full operation, he simply sat on his heels and watched, studying out in his mind the circuits and their effects. the interruption of the magnetic resonance by the electrostatic field--by the dc--with the rf plumbing--twisted by--each time the concept came towards the surface, it sank back as he tried to pull it into consciousness. churkling to itself, the device continued applying its alternate fields and warps and strains. "it's a confusor out of confusion by ishie, who is probably as great a creator of confusion as you could ask," mike told himself, forgetting his own part in the matter, watching intently, waiting for the concept to come clear in his mind. presently he went over to his console, to his pads of paper and pencils, and began sketching rapidly, drawing the interlocking and repulsing fields, the alignments, mathing out the stresses--in an attempt to visualize just what it was that the confusor would now be doing.... * * * * * in the confusor itself, a tiny chunk of plastic, four by four inches square and one-half inch thick, resting in the middle of the machine between the carefully aligned pole-faces of the magnet, was subjected to the cumulatively devised stresses, a weird distortion of its own stresses and of the inertia that was its existence. each proton and electron within the plastic felt an urge to be where it wasn't--felt a pseudo-memory, imposed by the outside stresses, of having been traveling at a high velocity towards the north star, on which the machine chanced to be oriented; felt the new inertia of that velocity.... each proton and electron fitted itself more snugly against the north pole face and pushed with the entire force of its newly-imposed inertial pattern. forty pounds to the square inch six hundred forty pounds over the surface of the block, the plastic did its best to assume the motion that the warped laws of its existence said that it already had. it was only one times ten to the minus five of a gravity that the four by four by half inch piece of carefully machined plastic presented to the sixty-four million pound mass of space lab one. but the force was presented almost exactly along the north-south axis of the hub of the ship, and in space a thrust is cumulative and momentum derives per second per second. the confusor churkled quietly as the piece of plastic exerted its tiny mass in a six hundred forty pound attempt to take off towards the north star. and, since the piece itself was rigidly mounted to its frame, and the frame to the ship, the giant bulk of five million cubic feet of water, thirty-two million pounds of mass; and the matching mass-bulk of the ship itself, responded to the full mosquito-sized strength of the six hundred forty pound thrust, and was moved--a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a centimeter in the first second; a fraction of a fraction in the second; a fraction.... * * * * * on the bridge, the com officer had completed transmitting the captain's detailed report of the evacuation to the hub-shield area caused by the solar flare. on another line, under bessie's ministrations, the computer was feeding the data obtained by the incomplete equipment in the observatory in its automatic operation. the captain himself was finishing a plastic-bottle of coffee, while he wrote up his log. it was exactly nine minutes since the confusor had come into full operation. the fractions of fractions of centimeters had added on the square of the number of seconds; and the sixty-four million pounds of mass of space lab one has moved over thirteen meters. trailing the wheel ten miles off, was the atomic pile, directly attached to its anchor tube. tightening, each with a whanging snap too tiny to be remarked within the mass of the ship, were the cables that attached the various items of the dump to their anchor finger. but still free on the loose one hundred meter cable that attached it to its anchor, and which had had fifteen meters of slack when the ship first began its infinitesimal movement, was project hot rod. nine minutes and twenty-three seconds. the velocity of the wheel with its increasing mass of trailing items, was five point four six centimeters per second. the nearly four million pound mass of hot rod was slowly being left behind. the cable tautened the final fraction of a centimeter. its tug was not fast, but was unfortunately applied very close to the center of gravity of the entire device, since most of hot rod's weight was concentrated in and around the control room. five point four six centimeters per second. four million pounds of mass. if the shock had been direct, it would have equaled two point eight million ergs of energy, created by the fractional movement of the mighty mass of the ship against hot rod. but the shock was transmitted through the short end of a long lever. the motion at the beam director mirror, a full diameter out from the eight thousand foot diameter balloon that was hot rod, was multiplied nearly sixteen thousand times. hot rod rolled on its center of gravity, and its beam-director mirror swung in a huge arc. sixteen thousand centimeters per centimeter of original motion. eight hundred and seventy-three meters in the first second, before the tracking servos took over and began to fight back. * * * * * hot rod fought at the end of its tether like a mighty jellyfish hooked on the end of a line. gradually the swings decreased. four hundred meters; two hundred meters; one hundred meters; fifty meters; twenty-five meters--and it had come back to a nearly stable focus on the sun. but the beam director had also been displaced, and vibrated. internally, the communications beam to thule base had been interrupted; and the fail-safe had not failed-safely. the mighty beam had lashed out. the vibrations of the directing mirror began placing gigantic spots and sweeps of unresistible energy across the ice cap of greenland, in an ever-diminishing lissajous pattern. by the time the servos refocused the communications beam on thule, there was no thule; only a burnt-out crater where it had been. slowly, but surely, the giant balloon settled itself to the task of burning a hole through the greenland ice cap at a spot eighty miles north of that now-burnt-out thule base that had originally been planned as a test of its accuracy; and to the simple task of holding that focus in spite of the now steady, though infinitesimal acceleration under which it joined the procession headed by lab one. now that the waves of action and reaction from the shock energy of its sudden start had subsided, hot rod's accuracy was proving great indeed; and its beam focus was proving as small as had been predicted. but the instruments that would have measured those facts no longer existed. in the engineering control center of space lab one, the confusor churkled quietly and continued to pit its mosquito might against its now nearly seventy-eight million pound antagonist, as the protons and electrons of the plastic that was center to its forces did their inertial best to occupy that position in space towards the north star in which the warped fields around them forced them to belong--the mosquito strained its six hundred forty pound thrust against its giant in the per second per second acceleration that was effective only in the fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a centimeter in the first second, but that compounded its fractions per second. * * * * * on the quiet bridge, the captain looked up as the com officer said, "thule base, sir," and switched on his mike. "hot rod has been sabotaged," a frantic voice on the other end of the beam shouted in his ear without formalities. "she's running wild. kill her! repeat, hot rod is wild! kill hot rod! kill--" the mike went dead as captain andersen switched to the morgue intercom. "hot rod crew," he said briefly. "report to the bridge on the double. repeat. hot rod crew. the bridge. on the double." as he switched off the intercom, the communications officer spoke urgently. "captain. i've lost contact with thule base." "keep trying to raise them," captain andersen said. he turned to bessie. "give me a display of the hellmaker," he said; then, almost to himself, "there's still a flare in progress out there. we've got to kill it without sending men into that--" he cut himself off in midsentence, as the computer displayed both hot rod, swaying gently as she fought out the battle of the focus through its final moments, and a telescopic view of greenland, a tiny, glowing coal of red showing at the center of her focus. through the door nearly catapulted the first of the project hot rodders, followed almost on his heels by twelve more. "where is major elbertson?" "in sick bay, sir. he got a big radiation dose--" the captain flipped the intercom key. "calling major elbertson in sick bay. report to the bridge on the double, no matter what your condition. this is the captain speaking." the intercom came alive at far end. "this is dr. green, captain andersen. major elbertson is unconscious. he cannot report for duty. he was extremely ill from exposure to radiation and we have administered sulph-hydral, antispasmodic, and sedative." nails andersen turned to the project crew. "which of you are security officers?" three men stepped forward. "are all the project members here?" "no, sir," said one. "eight of our men are in sick bay." "very well," said the captain. "now hear this, all of you. there is a saboteur--maybe more than one, we do not know--among you. there is no time to find out which of you it is. however, he has managed to leave project hot rod operational while unattended. you are to turn it off, and to prevent the saboteur from stopping you. do you understand?" a voice in back--a rather high voice--spoke up. "of course it's operational," it said. "we left it operational." "you ... what?" "we left it operational. it's under earth control. the control center at thule is in charge, sir." "who are you?" the captain asked. "hot rod communications officer, sir. i turned it over last thing before we shut down. under the instructions of dr. koblensky. that's the shutdown procedure." "where's dr. koblensky?" "out. out like a light," said another voice. "he got a good dose. of radiation. the medics put him out." "who's senior officer here?" "i'm dr. johnston." it was a man in front. rather small, pedantic-looking. "i'm dr. koblensky's ... well, assistant." the word came hard as though the fact of an assistantship were at the least distasteful. "who's senior in security?" "i, sir. chauvenseer." "very well. dr. johnston and chauvens ... sor? ... are in charge. now shut down that ruby hellmaker as fast as it can be done." "but, captain," dr. johnston spoke, "we can't turn it off. we haven't the authority. we haven't the security key. and the radiation won't let up for hours." "i have just given you the authority. as for the radiation, that's a hazard you'll have to take. what's this about a security key?" the captain's voice was not gentle. "major elbertson has the key. he has the only key. without it, the station cannot be removed from earth control. earth _is_ in control. they can turn it off, captain." dr. johnston's voice took on as firm a tone of authority as that of the captain. "chau ... chau ... you!" barked the captain. "get that key!" he waited until the security officer had disappeared through the door, then turned to the scientist. * * * * * "dr. johnston, earth is not in control. i do not know why, and there is no way of finding out. hot rod is wild, and _that_," he pointed at the enlarging red spot that centered the computer display, "is what your ruby is doing to earth. "you will turn off the project, at gunpoint if necessary," he continued in a grim voice. "if you turn it off volitionally, you will be treated for radiation. if you refuse, you will not live to be treated for anything. do you understand? how many men do you need to help you ... and i do mean _you_ ... with the job?" he asked. [illustration] dr. johnston hesitated only fractionally, and nails andersen mentally put him down on the plus side of the personnel for the shortness of his com lag. then he said, "the job will require only two men for the fastest accomplishment. you realize, captain that you are probably signing our death warrants--the two of us. but," he added, glancing only casually at the display on the console, "i can understand the need to sign that warrant, and i shall not quibble." the intercom spoke. "this is dr. green, captain. there is no key on the person of major elbertson. we have searched thoroughly, sir. i understand the need is of an emergency nature. the key is not on his person. we have taken every possible measure to arouse him, as well, and have been unsuccessful." andersen flipped his switch. "let me speak to the hot rod security officer," he said briefly. "chauvenseer speaking, sir," the man's voice came on. "do you know what the key looks like?" "yes, sir. it looks somewhat like a common yale key, sir. but i've never seen another just like it." "there is only the one?" "yes, sir." "where would he keep it, if not on his person?" "i don't know, sir. we came straight to the morgue--the shield area, from the air lock. i don't believe he stopped off anywhere he could have put it." the captain turned to the second security officer. "search elbertson's spacesuit," he said. then to the intercom, "search his hammock. search every spot he went near. that key must be found in minutes. commandeer as many men as can help in the search without getting in the way." he paused a moment, then flipped another intercom key. "mr. blackhawk," he said. the intercom warmed at the far end. "yes sir?" mike's voice was relaxed. "is there any way to turn off hot rod without the security key?" "why sure, captain." mike's voice held a grin. "i could pull the power switch." "pull it. fast. hot rod's out of control." mike's hand flashed to a master switch controlling the power that fed hot rod, and blessing as he did it the fallacy of engineering that had required external power to power the mighty energy collector. in the big balloon now happily following the wheel at the end of its tether, the still-undamaged power-off fail-safe went into operation. the mirror surface behind each ruby rod rotated into its shielding position, dispersing the energy that the huge mirror directed towards the rods, back into space. hot rod was secure. * * * * * mike received only one further communication from the captain. "mr. blackhawk," he was asked over the intercom, "is there any way that you secure the hot rod power switch so that it cannot be turned on without my personal authorization?" "sure, captain, i can--" the captain interrupted. "mr. blackhawk, i should prefer that you not tell me or anyone else aboard the method you will use; and that you make your method as difficult as possible to discover. this i shall leave," he added dryly, "to your rather ... fertile ... imagination. "there is reason to believe that project hot rod was turned on by a saboteur. your method must be proof against him, and if he exists, he will not be stupid." the captain switched off. mike turned to the control panel, and after a few minutes thought busied himself for some time. then he headed for the bridge where dr. johnston, chauvenseer, and the captain had dismissed the others and were utilizing every check that dr. johnston could dream up to assure themselves that hot rod was actually turned off and would remain secure at least for the duration of the flare; and trying as well to find out just what form the sabotage had taken. without interrupting the others, mike seated himself at the subsidiary post at the computer's console on bessie's right, and got her to brief him while he examined the close-up display of hot rod. after a few minutes he reached over and increased the magnification to its maximum, showing only a small portion of the balloon, then moved the focus to display the control room entrance as well as part of the anchor tube and the cable between the two. "i think i've found your saboteur, sir," he said. the captain was at his side almost instantly. "where is he?" he asked briefly. "not he, sir. it. and i'm not sure just where--but look. hot rod's cable is taut. there's thrust on the balloon. that probably means a puncture and escaping nitrogen. "i think," he said, "that the saboteur may have been a meteor that punctured the balloon, and the nitrogen escaping through the hole it made is now producing enough thrust to keep that cable taut. though," he added thoughtfully, "i don't see why the servos couldn't maintain the beam to thule--though obviously, they couldn't." "how dangerous is such a puncture?" asked the captain. "how seriously would hot rod be damaged? how soon must it be repaired?" "the puncture itself shouldn't be too dangerous. even if all the nitrogen's gone, the balloon's in a vacuum and won't collapse--and that's about the only serious effect a puncture would have. just a moment. we'll estimate its size by the thrust it's giving the ship," he added, and turned to bessie. "ask the cow whether we're getting thrust on the ship; and if so, how much. wait a minute," he added, "if you ask for thrust on the ship, she'll say there isn't any because hot rod would be pulling us, not pushing. and if you ask her for the thrust on hot rod, she hasn't got any sensors out there. "hm-m-m. ask her if we have added any off-orbit velocity; and if so how much." * * * * * the computer displayed the answer almost as soon as she received the question. "well," said mike, "that's not too large a hole. ask her how ... let's see ... how many pounds of thrust that velocity represents. that way we don't confuse her with whether it's push or pull." the cow displayed the answer, six hundred forty pounds of thrust. "o.k.," said mike. "thanks." then to the captain and the scientist and security officer who were waiting beside him: "the puncture is obviously small enough to serve as a jet, rather than to have let the nitrogen out in one _whoosh_, since that would have given you far more than six hundred forty pounds of thrust. therefore, it will probably be quite simple to patch the hole. "nitrogen is obviously escaping, but it wouldn't be worth a man's life to send him out into that flare-storm to patch it. we may even have enough nitrogen aboard to replace what we lose. "the best i can figure," he said, "is that the meteor must have hit the orientation servos and thrown them off for a bit. we'll have to wait till after the flare to make more than an educated guess, though. "we shouldn't be too far off-orbit by the time the flare's over, either, even with that jet constant. it'll take quite a bit of work, but we should be able to get her back into position with not too many hours of lost worktime. "except for thule, i'd say we got off fairly light. "yes," he added grimly, "it looks like that's what your saboteur was. rather an effective saboteur, but you'll have a hard time putting him up against a firing wall." having satisfied himself as to existing conditions, mike excused himself shortly and went back to the engineering quarters, but his mind was no longer on ishie's strange device. he glanced rapidly at the instruments regulating the power flow to the wheel, then stretched out comfortably on the acceleration couch and in minutes was asleep. the captain, dr. johnston and chauvenseer remained on the bridge another hour, convincing themselves that mike's analysis was correct, and dictating a report to earth, before the captain called in an aide to take over the bridge, and the three retired. in the morgue, dr. y chi tung, who still slept peacefully as he had since the moment he reached his hammock, muttered quietly in his sleep, "confusion--" * * * * * mike snapped awake and glanced guiltily at the clock. six hours had passed. a situation report from the cow was the first thing on his agenda any time that he had been out of contact for any length of time, flare or not. it was not his job to be in constant contact with the complete situation of the ship and its vast complexities; he was not the captain. nor was it in the manuals that he should have access to the computer's huge memory banks and abilities other than through "channels"--i.e., bessie. but the book definition of the information he needed for his job, and his own criteria, were somewhat different, and he had built on earth and installed shortly after he came aboard, a subcontrol link which put him in direct contact with the placid-cow. his original intention in rigging the link had been to use the calculator for that occasional math problem which might be more quickly resolved with her help; but then the criteria of needed information, curiosity, or both, had got the better of him, and the secret panel hidden in the legitimate control panels of an engineer's console was actually quite a complete link, covering all of the cow's multiple functions without interfering in any was with bessie's control links, or revealing its existence. this linkage gave mike the only direct access to the computer's store of information and abilities other than that of the operator at the control console. and mike's secret pride was the vocoder circuit with which he had terminated his link, originated because a teletype system similar to that used at the control console would have been too obvious; and his nimble fingers got all tangled up on a keyboard anyhow. bessie might speak to the cow through the teletype link and switches of her control console, but only mike had the distinction of being able to speak directly to the big computer, and get the complacent, somewhat mooing answers; and only mike knew of the existence of the vocoder aboard. it had taken some care to get used to the literal-minded conversation that resulted; but eventually mike felt he had worked out a satisfactory communications ability with the overly obvious "cow." what he wanted now was a situation report. if he simply asked for that, however, he'd have received such miles of data that he'd have been listening for hours. so instead he broke his question down into the facets that he needed. in a few minutes he had elicited the information that the solar flare was now predicted to be terminated and the major part of the flare protons past their solar orbital position within another ten hours; that earth co-ordinates had shifted, indicating their own orbital shift to be a trifle over thirty-seven kilometers north in the past eight hours. north? he thought. hot rod's pull on a taut cable would be to the south. no. lab one could be re-oriented to trail the thrusting balloon. but the lab's servos should have prevented that re-orientation unless the thrust were really heavy. "what is our velocity?" he asked. temporarily he was baffled by the placid cow's literal translation of his request as one for any actual velocity, since she had replied with a figure very close to their original orbital speed. "what is our velocity at right angles to original course?" he inquired. and the cow's reply came: "two-o-o hundred and fifty-seven point seven six ce-entimeters per se-econd." that should be about right for six hundred forty pounds of thrust for, say, six and a half hours; and the distance of the orbit shift was about right. but the direction? "is hot rod pulling us north?" he asked. "no-o-o," came the placid reply. "if it's pulling us south, then why--" he stopped himself. any "why" required inductive reasoning, and of that the cow was not capable. instead of asking why they were moving north with a south thrust, mike broke his question into parts. he'd have to answer the "why" himself, he knew. "is hot rod pulling us south?" he asked. "no-o-oo," came the answer. this time he was more careful. "in which direction is the thrust on hot rod oriented?" he asked. "no-oorth." "then hot rod is--" quickly he stopped and rephrased the statement which would have had a question in its tone but not its semantics, into a question that would read semantically. "is hot rod pulling us north?" "no-o-oo," came the reply. carefully. "is hot rod pulling us?" "no-o-oo." mike was stumped. then he figured a literalness in his phrasing. "is hot rod pushing or in any other way giving motion to space lab one?" he asked. "no-o-oo," came the answer. now mike _was_ stumped. "is space lab one under acceleration?" he asked. "ye-es," said the cow. "then where in hell is that acceleration coming from?" mike was exasperated. "we a-are uunder no-o-o acceleration fro-om he-ell," the literal mind told him. * * * * * mike laughed ruefully. no acceleration from hell--well, that was debatable. but no thrust from the hellmaker was not a debatable point. the cow wasn't likely to be wrong, though her appalling literalness was such that an improperly phrased question might make her seem to be. computers, he thought, would eventually be the salvation of the human race, whetting their inventors' brains to higher and higher efforts towards the understanding of communications. very carefully now he rephrased his question. "from what, and from what point is the acceleration of space lab one originating?" "from the co-ontinu-ous thrust o-originating at a po-oint thirteen fe-et from the a-axial center of the whe-el, in hu-ub section five no-orth, one hundred twelve degrees fro-om reference ze-ero of the engine-eering lo-ongitude references sta-ation assigned in the con-struction ma-anual dealing with relative po-ositions o-of ma-asses lo-ocated o-on spa-ace la-ab o-one." mike glanced up at the tube overhead, which represented the axial passageway down the hub of the wheel. thirteen feet from the imaginary center of that tube, and in his own engineering compartment. then his gaze traveled on around the oddly built, circular room with its thirty-two-foot diameter. the reference to hub section five north meant this compartment. the degrees reference referred to the balancing co-ordinates by which the cow kept the big wheel statically balanced during rotation. there was a bright stripe of red paint across the floor which indicated zero degrees; and degrees were counted counterclockwise from the north pole of the wheel. his eyes strayed across the various panels and racks and came to rest in the one hundred twelve degree area. a number of vacant racks, some holding the testing equipment he had moved there not too many hours before--and churkling quietly in its rack near the floor, ishie's confusor of confusion. mike contemplated the device with awed respect, then phrased another question for the cow. "exactly how much thrust is being exerted on that point?" he asked. the computer reeled off a string of numbers so fast that he missed them, and was still going into the far decimal places when mike said: "whoa! approximate number of pounds, please." "a-approximately six hundred forty. you-u didn't specify the limits o-of a-accuracy tha-at you-u wanted." the burred tone was still complacent. "just what acceleration has that given us?" asked mike, still looking at the confusor. "approximately," he added quickly. "present a-acceleration is a-approximately eight point nine five ti-imes te-en to the mi-inus third ce-entimeters per se-econd per se-econd. i ca-an ca-arry that to-o-o several mo-ore de-ecimal pla-aces if you-u wi-ish." "no, thanks, i think you've told me enough." mike stood up. this, he thought, needs ishie. and coffee, he told himself as a second thought. and then as a third thought, he turned back to his secret vocoder panel, and said: "the information you have just given me is to be regarded as top secret and not to be discussed except over this channel and by my direct order. absolutely nothing that would give any one a clue to the fact that there is a method of acceleration aboard. understood?" "ye-es, mah-ike." "o.k." mike switched off the vocoder, flipped his intercom to the temporary galley in the morgue, and ordered two breakfasts readied. then he set off for the morgue. [illustration] [illustration] mike blackhawk located dr. y. chi tung's hammock, and nudged the scientist unceremoniously. the small physicist awoke and attempted to sit up in one gesture; bumped his head on the hammock above, and laid back down just as suddenly. "come on down to engineering will you ishie?" the request was spoken softly. "hokey, dokey," said ishie and crawled out of the narrow aperture with the agility of a monkey. gesturing to the other to follow him, mike led the way to the galley first, where the two picked up the readied breakfast and took them to mike's quarters. the "cups" of coffee were squeeze bottles; the trays were soft plastic packages, similar to the boil-in-the-bag containers of frozen food that had been common on earth for some time. mike hesitated at the entrance to his engineering quarters, considering whether to shut the bulkhead, but discarded the idea as being more of an attention-getter than a seal for secrecy. he gestured ishie to the bunk, and parked himself at his console. "we're in trouble," he said. "you and i together are responsible for the first space attack on earth." he stopped and waited, owl-eyed, but the small physicist simply tackled his breakfast with no further comment than a raised eyebrow. "we," said mike solemnly, "wiped out thule base last night." "as confusion would say, there's no thule like a dead thule. what are you getting at mike? you sound serious." "you mean you slept through ... you didn't know we ... you didn't hear the ... yes, i guess you slept! well...." rapidly mike sketched the events of the past nine hours, bringing his story completely up to date, including the information he'd gleaned from the cow, but making no reference to his access to the computer's knowledge. instead, he attributed the conclusions to himself. the physicist sat so still when he had finished that mike became seriously concerned. "thule...." he began, but ishie started to speak. "mike, it did? it couldn't ... but ... of course, it must have ... the fields ... six hundred forty pounds of thrust! only six hundred forty, yet ... yes, it could, if the thrust were exactly aligned ... thrust ... mike, thrust! _mike, thrust!_ real thrust! mike do you know what this means?" his eyes were alight. his voice was reverent. he sprang from the bunk and knelt before the rack that held the churkling confusor. "my pretty," he said. "my delicate pretty. what you have done! mike, we've got a space drive!" "ishie. don't you realize? we wiped out thule!" "thule, schmule--mike, we've got a space drive!" mike grinned to himself. he needn't have worried. not about ishie, any how. but now ishie was gesturing him over. "mike," he said, "you must show me in detail. in exact detail. what did you do? what was your procedure?" mike came over and casually reached towards the churkling device, saying "why, i--" but ishie reacted with catlike swiftness, blocking the man before he could even touch the rack. "no, don't touch it! just _tell_ me what you did!" carefully now, mike began outlining in detail his inspection of the device and each step he had taken as he added to its complexities. when he had finished, the two sat back on their heels thinking. finally, mike spoke. "ishie, will you please tell me just how does this thing ... this confusor ... _get_ that thrust? just exactly what is involved here?" ishie took his time answering, and when he did his words come slowly. "ah, yes. confusor it is. i was attempting to confound heisenberg's statement; but instead i think between us we have confused the issue. "heisenberg said that there was no certainty in our measurement of the exact orbit of an electron. that the instrument used to measure the position of the electron must inevitably move the electron; and the greater the attempt at precise measurements, the greater the error produced by the measurements. "it was my hope," he went on, "to provide greater accuracy of measurement, by use of statistics over the vast number of electrons in orbit around the hydrogen atoms within the test mass. but this, apparently, will not be. "now to see what it is we have done. "first, let us make a re-expression of the laws of math-physics. you understand that i am feeling my way here, for what we have done and what i thought i was doing are quite different, and i am looking with hindsight now at math-physics from the point of reality of this thrust. "as i understand it, there's a mutual exclusiveness of particles, generally expressed by the statement that two particles may not occupy the same space at the same time. "but as i would put it, this means each particle owns its own place. now, inertia says that each particle not only owns its own place, but owns its own temporal memory of where it's going to be unless something interferes with it. "now let me not confuse you with semantics. when i say 'memory' and 'knowing' i am not implying a sentient condition. i am speaking of the type of memory and knowing that is a strain in the structure of the proton or atom. this is ... well, anyhow, not sentient. you will have to translate for yourself. "so to continue, inertia, the way i would put it, says that each particle not only owns its own place, but owns its own temporal memory of where it is going unless it is interfered with. "in other words, the particle arriving here, now, got here by remembering in this other sense that it was going from there to there to there with some inherent sort of memory. this memory can't be classified as being in relation to anything but the particle itself. no matter how you move the things around it, as long as the things around it don't exert an influence on the particle, the particle's memory of where it's been and where it's going form a continuous straight line through space and must, therefore, have spatial co-ordinates against which to form a 'memory' pattern of former and future action. "now as i understand gravity, it's simply the statement that all particles in space are covetous, in this same non-sentient sense, of the position in space of all their neighboring particles. in other words, it's a contravention or the attempted contravention of the statement that two particles may not be in the same place at the same time. it seems that all particles have an urge to try to be in each other's space. and this desire is modified by the distance that separates them. "this adds up to three rules: "1. no two particles may occupy the same space at the same time. "2. even though they can't, they try. "3. they all know where they're going, and where they've been without relation to anything but the spatial co-ordinates around them. "that third statement seems to me to knock something of a hole in einstein's relativity theory. unless you wish to grant all these particles some method of determining their relationship to particles that are not near them. "communication between particles by any means is apparently limited by the speed of light, which is a relationship between space and time, but apparently, from what we know of inertia, if the universe contained only a single particle, and that particle was in motion, it would continue to move regardless of the fact that its motion could not be checked upon in relation to other particles. "this indicates to me that the particle has an existence in space because it is created out of space, and that space must, therefore, have some very real properties of its own regardless of what is or is not in it. the very fact that there is a limiting speed to light and particle motion introduces the concept that space has physical properties. "in order to have an electromagnetic wave, one must have a medium in which an electric field or a magnetic field may exist. in order to have matter, which i believe to be a form of electromagnetic field in stasis, one must have special properties which make the existence of matter possible. in order to have inertia, one must also have spatial properties which make the existence of inertia possible. "people are fond of pointing out that there's nothing to get hold of in free space in order to climb the ladder of gravity, or in order to move between the planets, and that the only possibility of motion of a vehicle in space is to throw something away, or, in other words, lose mass in order to gain speed by reaction. which is simply a statement that as far as we can tell a force can only be exerted relative to two points--or between two points or masses. "but this does not account for the continuance of motion once started. "inertia says a body will move once started, but it doesn't say why or how. how does that particle once started gain the knowledge to continue without some direct control over its spatial framework? that it will continue, we know. that in the presence of a gravitic field or a magnetic field or other attractive force at right angles to its motion, we can create an acceleration which will maintain it in an exactly circular path called an orbit. but how does it remember, as soon as that field ceases to exist, where it was going before it was last influenced? that it will continue in a straight line indefinitely, without such an influence, we know. that it can be influenced over a distance by various field effects, we also know. but what is the mechanism of influence whereby it influences itself to continue in a straight line? and what handle did we get hold of to convert that influence of self to our own advantage in moving this ship?" * * * * * mike stared at ishie with vast respect. "i thought you physics boys did it all with math," he said softly, "and here you've outlined the facts of space that an indian can feel in his bones--and you've done it in good, solid english that makes some sense. "in other words," mike was almost talking to himself as he tried to reword ishie's theorizing into his own type of thinking, "the particle in motion creates a strain in the fabric--the field--of space; and that fabric must attempt to relieve itself of the strain. a particle in motion makes it possible for the fabric of space to smooth itself out behind the particle; and the fabric attempts to smooth itself on through the area occupied by the particle while it is moving, and so the fabric of space smoothing itself is a constant thrust behind the particle's motion, continuing that motion and making the particle scat to where he wasn't going. "when that same particle is stopped," mike was visualizing the process to himself, "the force of the attempt to smooth itself out by the fabric of space exists equally around the particle on all sides; so that the particle will be held stopped by the attempt of the fabric to smooth itself until set into motion again by a force greater than that of inertia--for inertia, then, is the attempt of the fabric of space to smooth itself. "quite possibly," mike was speaking very slowly now as he mocked up and watched the forces of this inertia, "matter itself is created out of the fabric of space, and in its creation, in the stasis condition that keeps it existing as a particle rather than dissolving back into the original fabric, it creates the strain in the fabric--in space--that will then seek to smooth itself so long as the particle shall exist. "thus this, then, is inertia--the attempt of the fabric of space to smooth itself; to get rid of the strain of the particle that has been created from itself." ishie shook his head. "not quite," he said, "but you're getting close." mike shook himself like a dog coming out of water. "oh, well," he said. "anyway, we've got a space drive--flea sized. now the question before the board becomes, just what are we going to do with it? turn it over to the captain?" "confusion say," said ishie, "he who has very little is often most generous. but he who has huge fortune is very cautious about dispersing it. let's first be sure what we've got," he grinned slyly at mike, "before we become overgenerous with information." mike heaved a huge sigh of relief. he had been afraid he would have to argue ishie into this point of view. "speaking of math, mike, you're no slouch at it yourself, if you figured out all those orbit co-ordinates in your head, and arrived at an exact figure on the amount of thrust. it would be very nice for our future investigations if we had some method of putting the cow to work on this." the little physicist sat back, grinned knowingly, and continued: "where's your secret panel, mike? we've got to keep this information from going to anybody else." [illustration] "oh, i already--" mike stopped. "i mean," he floundered, "uh ... how did you know?" a foolish grin spread over his face. "it's right behind you," he said. "and i've got it by voice," he said. "just push the switch in the corner and talk to it." * * * * * ishie turned, glanced at the panel, and went over to the switch, pushing it. "i wondered how you were concealing the teletype," he said. "you mean you really talk to it?" the sacred cow's voice came back. "reference not understoo-od. ple-ease explai-ain." "oy!" said ishie. "it even sounds like a cow!" "ye-es, si-ir," said the cow. "a cow is an he-erbivorous ma-ammal, usua-ally do-omesticated, and fou-ound in mo-ost of the cou-ountries of ea-arth. wha-at specific da-ata did you-u wi-ish? the mi-ilk su-upply--" "hold it," mike said, forestalling a long dissertation on the dairy industry. catching on quickly to the literal-mindedness of the placid computer, ishie fired a direct question. "what is our current position in relation to the equatorial orbit that we should be following?" he asked. there was a sput from the speaker, very much as though someone had been caught off guard and almost said something, and then the placid reply came back. "that information is top secret. please identify yourself as mike and i will answer you." ishie groaned, depressed the cutoff switch and turned to mike. "you fixed it," he said. "if a simple question like that gets an answer like that, how long do you think it will take the captain to find out something's wrong with the cow?" mike lunged for the switch, but ishie held him back. "hold it, boy. you've made enough electronic mistakes for one day. this takes some thinking over." "we better think fast," said mike. "the captain'll ask that question any second now, or a question like it." "all right," said ishie. "first we've got to withdraw your original order--and you'd better not trust your own memory as to what it was. you ask the cow to tell you what order you gave her making certain information top secret. then when she tells you exactly what you said, you tell her to cancel _that_ order." mike did as he was told. "why," said ishie, "did you give such an order in the first place? never mind answering that question," he added, "but it's lucky she hasn't been refusing to give people the time of day, and referring them to you. as a matter of fact"--glancing up at the clock on the wall--"it looks like she has. that clock hasn't moved since i got here." even as he spoke, the clock whirred, jumped forty-five minutes, and settled down to its steady, second-by-second spin. "ishie," said mike, "we figured out a space drive, and that was great. but if we can figure out how to communicate an idea to a computer, we're _real_ geniuses." ishie turned on the vocoder. "please supply us," he told the cow, "with a complete recording of your latest conversation with mike." and as the computer started back over the dialogue that has just occurred between herself and mike, ishie interrupted. "not that," he said, "i mean the last previous conversation." then he sat back as the cow unreeled a fifteen minute monologue which repeated both sides of the conversation including the order to make everything top secret. having listened through this, ishie said: "at the point where mike asks you about acceleration, you will now erase the rest of the conversation and substitute this comment from yourself: 'the lab is being accelerated by an external magneto-ionic effect.' this will be your only explanation of acceleration applied to the ship. now please repeat your conversation with mike." then he sat back to listen through the recording again. this time when it came to the part about acceleration, without hesitation, the cow referred blithely to the external magneto-ionic effect that was causing acceleration. when ishie asked the computer: "how could this effect be canceled?" and listened to a long syllogistic outline which, if condensed to a single, understandable sentence meant simply "by reversing the field in respect to the lab with a magnet on board the lab." ishie heaved a great sigh of relief, and said, "now, mike, we can go to work. for of course," he added, "we must have authority to install our magnetic coils, and what better authority is there than the cow? "confusion say it is better to have the voice of authority speak with your words than to be the voice of authority. "now," he said, "let us see what we have really got here." * * * * * as they worked, time progressed. the empty racks around the confusor slowly filled with more test instruments both borrowed and devised; and the formerly unoccupied corner of the section of panels took on more and more the look of a complete installation, in the center of which the confusor still churkled quietly, pitting its strength against the mighty monster to which it was so firmly tied. two hours were spent in testing circuits, each one exhaustively. then ishie turned to mike. "we need still yet another test that we have not provided. a strain gauge to find out how much thrust a mosquito puts out. there's one in the physics lab. i'll run get it." "you will _not_," said mike. "genius you may be, but proton-proof you're not. we can rig that right here." walking over to the spare parts locker, mike brought back a complete readout display panel, a spare from one of the cow's bridge consoles; and quickly connected it in to the data link on which the vocoder operated. then, carefully instructing the computer as to the required display, he settled back. "that'll do it," he said. "the cow can tell us all we need to know right on that panel--about acceleration, lack of it, or change of it that we may cause by changing the parameters of our experiment. those racks were checked out to stand up under eighty gees," he added. "typical overspecification. they never said what would happen to the personnel under those conditions." ishie turned the confusor off and then back on, and watched the display gauge rise to the six hundred forty mark, and then show the fraction above it .12128. then carefully, ever so infinitesimally, he adjusted a knob on the device. the readout sank back towards zero, coming to rest reading 441.3971. "we'll have to put a vernier control on this phase circuit," ishie said to himself. "it jumped thirty per-cent, and i scarcely breathed on it." after a few more checks on the operation of the phase control, he turned to the power control for the magnetic field. carefully, ishie lowered the field strength, eye on the readout panel. as the field strength lowered, the reading increased. the indication was that by lowering the field strength only ten per cent, he had increased the thrust to sixteen hundred pounds--which, he felt, was close to the tolerance of the machine structure. carefully he increased the field strength again. faithfully the reading followed it down the scale. then he had another thought. running the field strength down and the pressure up, and again arriving at sixteen hundred pounds, he turned off the confusor, waited a few moments, and turned it back on. the reading remained zero. apparently, then a decrease in field strength would cause an increase in thrust; but the original field strength was necessary in order to initiate the thrust field. carefully he nudged the field strength back up, and suddenly there were seven hundred ten pounds indicated thrust. thrust could apparently be initiated by a field strength a few per cent lower, but not much lower, than the original operating point. * * * * * captain naylor andersen arrived on the bridge with an accusing air, but feeling refreshed. he had slept longer than he intended--and though he had asked bessie to call him when she came back on duty two hours earlier, he had not been called. "you needed the sleep, captain," she told him unrepentant. "i checked with the cow. the flare's predicted to continue for another eight hours. we're simply in standby." however, various observatories on earth had not been asleep. within fifteen minutes of the time he reached the bridge, a message from u.n. headquarters chattered in over the teletype. "tracking stations report your orbital discontinuity too great to have been achieved by jet action of nitrogen escaping from hot rod. hot rod pressures insufficient to achieve your present apparent acceleration. please explain discrepancy between these reports and your own summation of ten hours previous. suggest close and continual observation of project hot rod. suspect, repeat strongly suspect, possibility of sabotage. end message." nails andersen stared at the sheet that the com officer had placed in his hands. then he pressed the intercom to the morgue. "dr. kimball. please report to the bridge. dr. p.e.r. kimball. please report to the bridge immediately." then he turned to bessie. "ask the cow for an orbit computation from the time of the ... er ... meteor last night." under bessie's practiced, computer-minded fingers, the answer wanted came quickly--a displayed string of figures, each to three decimal places, accompanied by a second display on the captain's console showing the old equatorial orbit across a grid projection of the earth's surface to a point of departure over the mid-atlantic where it began curving ever farther north, up across the tip of south america, very slightly off course. the captain glanced at the display of hot rod and its taut-cable, and realized with a sickening sense of unreality that no jet action on hot rod could have caused it to lead the station in this northerly direction; and that instead it was placidly trailing behind. it was now farther south of the space lab than its original position; but their orbit had been displaced to the north. perk appeared beside the console, but the captain ignored the astronomer for a moment longer, while he leaned back thinking. what could be the answer? a leak in the space lab itself? that would give acceleration; minor, not to have triggered an alarm--it should have triggered an alarm--but acceleration. sufficient for the off-orbit shown? he did a brief calculation in his head. it wouldn't take much. very little, for the time that had passed--very well, then. he put down a leak in his mind as a possibility. now, water or air? it could be either, if his reasoning this far were correct. he looked up. "have the cow display barometric readings for each section of the rim and for each compartment in the central hub," he said briefly to bessie; and to the astronomer, "dr. kimball, take that side seat at the computer console and check our progress on this orbital deviation," and he gestured at the display on his screen. perk moved to the post with only a nod. * * * * * the barometric displays held constant, with only fractional deviations that might have been imposed by the spin of the big wheel, or error in the instruments themselves. balanced against temperature readings, they worked out to possible fractions of gain or loss so small as to be insignificant, indicating only the inaccuracies of measurement that inevitably occur in comparing the readings of a number of instruments. the captain had hardly digested the readings displayed by the computer when perk looked up with a puzzled frown. "the computer records a continuous acceleration over the past eleven hours and forty-three minutes," he said, "and attributes it," he looked even more puzzled, "to a magneto-ionic effect?" there was a definite question in his voice. "it's only about six hundred forty pounds," he added. "it must be an external effect caused by the flare." "please investigate the effect as thoroughly as possible," the captain told perk, then dictated a message to the com officer. "'to u.n. headquarters, earth, from captain naylor andersen, commanding space lab one. original assumption that disaster was attributable to meteoric impact on project hot rod appears mistaken. investigation indicates we are under acceleration from an external magneto-ionic effect which is exerting about--'" he called to perk. "did you say six hundred forty pounds?" the astronomer nodded, and the captain continued, "'which is exerting about six hundred forty pound pressure against this satellite. we are now working out corrective measures and will inform you immediately they are prepared. if your observatories can give us any advice, please message at once. end.'" then the captain depressed his intercom switch to the morgue. "dr. chi. please report to the bridge. repeat. dr. chi tung. please report to the bridge at once." his own intercom hummed, and a voice came on. "dr. chi tung is not in the morgue. he left with mr. blackhawk some time ago." the captain frowned, but pushed the engineering room intercom. "is dr. chi with you, mr. blackhawk?" he asked, and when mike's voice answered, "yes, sir," he said, "will you both report to the bridge at once, please?" when the two arrived, only a little tardily, on the bridge, the captain addressed ishie. "you heard of the disaster last night?" the physicist nodded. "we assumed then," the captain told him, "that a meteor had caused the disturbance. that it had gone through the balloon making a hole through which the balloon's nitrogen was escaping, making a jet action and accelerating the ship. "it seems, however, that we are under acceleration, and that the acceleration is too great to be such jet action, since hot rod does not have sufficient pressure. "the computer reports that the acceleration is derived from an external magneto-ionic effect. would such an effect be a result of a flare?" he asked. "i believe it could, captain. i should have to do a bit of math, but...." "we will assume, then, that the computer is correct," the captain told him. "could such an effect have a sufficiently great effect on this ship to give it as much as six hundred forty pounds of thrust?" "again, i should have to check the math, captain, but i would assume so." "mr. blackhawk," the captain turned to his engineer, "could such a thrust throw hot rod off her communications beam and cause last night's disaster?" "i guess i'd have to check by math, too, captain...." mike appeared to debate the question. "it would be a very small acceleration at first, of course," he said, "from six hundred forty pounds of thrust. but hot rod's cable is slack, and the velocity needn't be great to give it quite a jolt when the slack was taken up. yes, i feel sure that could happen, captain." [illustration] the captain relaxed a little, and a half-smile played near the corner of his mouth as he said to mike, "i believe, then, we may have found the _real_ saboteur, mr. blackhawk." then to ishie. "doctor, i believe that your field is the one in which the most experience lies towards finding a means for counteracting the effect that is now influencing our orbit. i am putting you in charge of the problem. the pull, according to the computer, is as i said, six hundred forty pounds. do you think you can work out a method for counteraction?" "i think ... possibly, yes, captain. let me say, probably yes." "then please do so, and report the method to me. i will then submit it to the other scientists aboard that may have some selective knowledge in the field, and to earth. you may, of course, call on any of the personnel of the ship for assistance, and possibly mr. blackhawk may be of assistance to you. he is familiar with the equipment aboard. "you probably recognize the urgency of the problem so i shall not attempt to underline that urgency further, other than to say that it is of the utmost importance," he ended. * * * * * five minutes later the two conspirators were back in the engineering quarters, grinning like cheshire cats, and mentally rolling up their sleeves to go to work. they had, to all intents and purposes, carte blanche to work out the construction of the device they would need for an enlarged confusor with a real thrust, even though they would have to appear to co-operate with a multitude of other interested parties. mike and ishie were both becoming adept students of the mythical dr. confusion, and neither doubted their combined ability to handle that part of the problem. "now," said ishie, "confusion say he who can fly on wings of mosquito fly better on wings of eagle. how much thrust do we want, mike?" "what are our limits?" asked the practical engineer. "limits, schlimits. we got _power_. of course," he added, "we _are_ limited by the acceptable stress limits on the wheel, and ... yes ... by the stress limits on our plastic, too." "the wheel was designed to stand upwards of 1.5 gee maximum spin--but that's only radial strength," mike began figuring. "don't think anybody ever calculated the stress of pulling the hub loose, endwise. no reason to, you know, and it wasn't expected to land or anything. and really, nobody expected it to stand in service more than a 1.5 gee spin on the rim. they computed these racks to take all kinds of shock, but the overall structure is rather flimsily built." he paused for thought. "we could maybe put a tenth of a gee on the axis, but i better check some of the stress figures against the structural pattern with the cow first. we'll have to give some thought to strengthening things later, if we really want to go into the fantastic possibility of landing this monster anywhere." consulted, the sacred cow computed a potential maximum stress-safety at the hub of something over two-tenths of a gee, and the two finally settled on one-tenth as well within the limits. "now the other limit," said ishie. "this little piece of plastic will only stand a pressure approaching the point at which it begins to distort and run out of the field. this stuff is quoted to have a compression-yield strength of one hundred ten pounds to the square inch. we probably shouldn't exceed ... hm-m-m ... ninety pounds. let's get the cow to tell us how big a chunk of surface area that represents." the answer was discouraging. mike rapidly converted the figure in centimeters to feet, and came up with nearly an eighty-three foot diameter for a circular surface. "looks like we'll have to put it out on the spokes," he muttered in disgust, but ishie shook his head quickly. "no need, mike. later on we'll need a few thrust points out on the rim for good aiming, but we don't have to have all this surface area in one unit or even in one place. also, we do not need to consider only the surface of an homogeneous piece of plastic material. "this plastic can be cast. very easily. in it, we can insert structures that will absorb the strain from many surfaces within, rather than only on a front surface. "i expect some of the glass thread with which the hull of the ship was made could be inserted with no trouble. each thread, then, would take up the strain, and a mass of them distributed through the plastic could deliver a greatly increased amount of thrust from a volume of plastic rather than from a surface area." * * * * * mike started to object. "to get an absolutely parallel magnetic field, the gap between the pole faces can't be very wide." "perhaps i wasn't considering pole faces," ishie answered. "our investigation has already shown that once initiated the thrust-effect works best in a very low magnetic field. "such a low, parallel magnetic field would quite probably be found inside of a simple solenoid coil." "o.k.," mike answered, "but you have also found that a very high magnetic field is required to initiate the action. how do you get that inside a solenoid without an iron core?" "as you say, a strong field must _initiate_ the action. let us try another experiment, mike." ishie turned the confusor off, selected a piece of wire from mike's supplies, and wound a ten-turn coil over the large magnetic coils of the experimental device. the leads from this he ran to a pulse-generator that could be accurately adjusted to supply pulses of anything from a tenth microsecond to a tenth second. selecting the shortest possible duration, he then set the magnetic field adjustment on the experimental device to a point just below that point on which it had turned on previously. "now we see." turning on the device, he glanced at the display panel which still showed zero thrust. then he triggered a single one-microsecond pulse into the additional ten turns of winding. the readout display showed zero thrust. he triggered a ten microsecond pulse. nothing happened. one hundred microseconds. nothing. one thousand microseconds--the display changed, dropping so quickly into position that the pulse thrust itself was not recorded--but the figure turned up seven hundred thirty pounds thrust on the display panel. "so," said ishie, "we can initiate thrust with a one thousand microsecond pulse. can you design a power supply that would achieve that field for that time in a solenoid having ... say ... one per cent as high a field strength as the one we are using here?" "o.k.," said mike. "i get you. sounds to me like this thing is going to look like a barrel when we get through with it. "i wish," he added, "that we could get one point one gee. and land this thing on earth. and have a big parade, with space lab one hovering just overhead to the cheers and the blaring bands and the--" "confusion say, he who would poke hole in hornets nest had best be prepared with long legs." ishie grinned. "you don't think anybody would really appreciate our doing that, do you mike? outside of the people themselves, that is, that aren't directly concerned with man's _welfare_? we haven't done this in the proper manner of team research and billions spent in experiments and planned predicted achievements made with the proper madison avenue bow to the financier that made it possible. you know what they do to wild-haired individualists down there, don't you?" mike shrugged. "oh, well," he said, "you're right of course. but it was a beautiful dream. how do you suppose we can build these and still keep all the scientists aboard and on earth happy that they're just innocent magneto-ionic effect cancelers? boy, that was a beauty, ishie!" "best we have two sets of drawings. the ones for us can be sketchy, and need not have too much exactitude of design. we know what we're doing--at least, i hope we do. "but let us make a second set of drawings that is somewhat different, though of a simpler shape and design, on which other scientists aboard can speculate, and which can be sent to earth to confuse the confusion." * * * * * the two went to work with a will, and as the two sets of drawings emerged, they were indeed different. the set from which they would actually work was only mildly described as sketchy. the papers looked like the notations a man makes for himself to get the figures he will set into a formalized pattern as it takes shape, before throwing his penciled figurings into the wastebasket. the second set was exact; created with drawing instruments on mike's drafting board, and each of the component circuits would have created an effect that would have interlocked in the whole, but it would take the most erudite of persons to figure each into its effect, and its effect into the whole, and the effect of the whole was somewhat that somebody might someday figure out--but would possibly cancel a magneto-ionic effect if such existed. the drawings looked extremely impressive. as the second set of drawings neared completion, ishie glanced at the clock, then turned to the cow's vocoder. "how soon will space lab one reach the northernmost point of her present orbit and begin a swing to the south?" he asked. mike looked puzzled, but the cow answered, "in ten minutes, thirty-seven seconds. at precisely 05:27:53 ship time." "i think," said ishie, "we'd best put a switch on our magnetic field so that we can reverse the field and the thrust." "why?" asked mike. "because," ishie explained, "when we reach the top of our course northward, then the thrust of the confusor and earth's gravity come into conflict, moving our entire orbit off-center and bringing us closer to the pole. in not too many orbits, that eccentricity in our orbit might pull us into the van allen belt. we can't afford that. now, if we reverse the thrust at the right time, our orbit will be enlarged and we stay out of troubled spaces." mike was still puzzled. "i don't see how that works," he said. "why wouldn't we just go off in a spiral on our present thrust?" "the acceleration of earth is a much greater influence," ishie tried to make it clear, "than our little mosquito here. as long as they work together, things go well. but when earth dictates that we will now swing south, be it ever so few degrees south, our mosquito is overpowered and can only drag us clear to earth-center on a closing spiral, which would eventually lead us to crash somewhere in the southern hemisphere, a good many orbits from now. "i hope," he said, "reversing the magnetic field will indeed reverse our little mosquito's thrust." he moved toward the confusor. "hold it," said mike. "the displacement in orbit won't be very much, at least on the first few go-arounds, will it? and if we switch it now, somebody'll start getting suspicious of this magneto-ionic effect. the effect that's doing all this. a sudden reversal might not be in its character, if it had a character. and anyhow, we don't want to give another jerk on hot rod. we might jerk something loose this time. we've already wiped out thule base--and there's no use adding scalps to an already full belt." "o.k.," said ishie. "then now, i think it is time that we presented our formal drawings to the captain; and i think that when we present them we will suggest that we start work immediately on construction, even while he is checking out our drawings through his experts, so that the project will not be delayed." * * * * * on the bridge, the captain received the drawings with relief. "thank you, gentlemen. if these prove out, you may have saved the satellite by the rapidity of your work. dr. kimball calculated that our present acceleration will take us dangerously close to the van allen belt in about three orbits, and i need not tell you what that would mean." ishie spoke up immediately. "in that case, captain, perhaps mr. blackhawk and i had better start construction on this device immediately, without waiting for you to complete the check-out. that may save us invaluable time." "of course," said the captain. "what assistance will you need?" "of the greatest priority," replied ishie gravely, "is access to the machine shop. the solar flare should be about wearing itself out." "oh ... of course. it may be." the captain's face was slightly red as he realized he had not thought to check this point. "bessie, ask the computer...." "yes, sir," she answered quickly, and returned shortly. "the computer says the radiation count is down to ten m.r. above normal." "it's a fairly low reading, even if it is above the cow's normal-safe mark. that reading could go on for hours, which we may not have," commented ishie. "perhaps we could disregard so narrow a differential...." "in your opinion, doctor," the captain asked, "would it be safe to return the personnel to the rim? of course, i would have to return the entire ship to normal conditions in order to give the machine shop or any other part of the rim its normal six-foot shielding," he added, "so please consider your answer carefully." "i think you would be quite safe to do so, captain. considering the fact that otherwise we may go into the van allen belt, i think it should be done without question." to himself, mike chortled gleefully. this grave, pedantic physicist was about as unlike the co-conspirator with whom he had worked for the past nearly ten hours as was possible. "the guy's a genius at a lot of things," he thought to himself. "puts on the social mock-up expected of him like you'd put on a suit of clothes--and takes it off just as completely," he added as an afterthought. * * * * * the return to the rim was slower than had been the evacuation--but it was complete within twenty minutes of the decision to return the satellite to normal. in the machine shop, paul and tombu, with ishie and mike, were gathering the materials they'd need for the odd construction--paul singing to himself as he worked. _"i got in the shuttle, thought it went to the base;_ _i'd learned my trade; there i'd take my place_ _safely on earth; but i found me in space--_ _i'd went where i wasn't going!"_ "what's that song?" asked ishie of the spaceman. "oh, that's just 'the spaceman's lament.' you make it up as you go along." his voice grew louder, taking the minor, wailing key at a volume the others could hear. _"i got on the wheel, thought i'd stay for the ride--_ _i'd found a funny suit in which to hide--_ _but i went through a closet--and i was outside!_ _i'd went where i wasn't going!"_ tombu and mike joined happily in the chorus, bawling it out at the top of their lungs as they began the work that would make the big confusor. _"oh ... there's a sky-trail leading from here to there_ _and another yonder showing--_ _but when i get to the end of the run_ _it'll be where i wasn't going!"_ meanwhile, facsimile copies of the official drawings had been made for the other interested scientists aboard, and also sent by transfax to u.n. headquarters for distribution among earth's top-level scientists. they were innocent enough in concept, and sufficiently complex in design to require a great deal of study by these conservative individuals who would never risk a hasty guess as to the consequences of even so simple an action as sneezing at the wrong time. * * * * * major steve elbertson awoke with a start, to see a medic's eyes inches from his own. for a moment, fearing himself under physical attack, he struck out convulsively, and then as the face withdrew he sat up slowly. he was slightly nauseous; very dizzy; and his instincts told him that he needed a gallon of coffee as soon as he could get it. then the medic's voice penetrated. "please, sir, you must rest. no excitement." almost, he was persuaded. it would be so easy to relax; to give someone else the responsibility. but the concept of responsibility brought him struggling up again. hot rod was a dangerous weapon. he could not act irresponsibly. "how long was i out?" he muttered. the medic glanced at the clock. "just over nineteen hours, sir." "wha-at? you dared to keep me off duty that long? i must report for duty at once." "please, sir. no excitement. you must rest. just a moment and i'll call dr. green." with that the medic turned and fled. as dr. green approached, steve elbertson was already on his feet, swaying dizzily, white as a sheet, but perhaps the latter was more from anger than from anything else. "major elbertson. you received a severe dose of radiation. you are under my personal supervision and will return to bed at once." "is the flare over?" elbertson asked the question, although already vaguely aware that the ship was again spinning, that he was standing on the floor fairly firmly, and that, therefore, the emergency must be over. "yes." "in that case, sir, my duty is to my post on hot rod." "hot rod's out of commission and so are you. i cannot be responsible for the consequences if you do not follow my orders." "explain that, please. about hot rod, i mean." "why, it was struck by a meteor shortly after the flare last night. i think i heard someone say that it burned out thule base before they managed to turn it off." without waiting for more, elbertson brushed past the doctor and headed for the bridge. the captain was startled by the mad-looking, unshaven scarecrow of an officer that approached him, demanding in a near-scream, "what happened? what have you done? what did you do to project hot rod? no one should have tampered with it without my direct order! captain, if that mechanism has been ruined, i'll have them nail your hide to the door!" "major!" the captain stood. "this may be a civilian post, but you are still an officer and i am your superior. return to your quarters and clean up. then report to me properly!" for a moment there was seething rebellion on elbertson's already wild features. then, automatonlike, he turned and walked stiffly away without saluting. but the stiffness left him as he passed through the door. momentarily he sagged against a wall for support, far weaker than he thought possible for a man of his youth and what he thought of as his condition. making his way almost blindly to security's quarters in rim-section b-5, he staggered through the door and on towards the latrine, shouting at chauvenseer to "get out of that sack and give me a detailed report on events since the flare. oh, and send somebody for coffee--lots of coffee." * * * * * on the bridge the captain flipped the intercom to dr. green's station. "is major elbertson under the influence of any unusual drugs, doctor?" he asked when he'd reached the medical staff chief. "anything that might make his behavior erratic?" "only sedatives, captain. and, oh yes, those new sulph-hydral anti-radiation shots. we're not too familiar with what they do, though the reports indicate the worst effect is a mild anoxemia, which generally results in something of a headache. of course, that's if the quantity of the drug was precisely calibrated. they can be fatal," he added as an afterthought. "would anoxemia cause a change in character, doctor?" "it might. it might make one behave either stupidly or irrationally--temporarily or permanently, depending on the severity of the effect." "did major elbertson seem normal to you when you discharged him from hospital?" "i did not discharge him, captain. i ordered him to remain under my care. but he seemed greatly upset, and short of force i could not have kept him from leaving." "i see." the captain paused, then asked: "doctor, please consider carefully. would you consider major elbertson's condition serious enough to warrant confining him to bed by force?" "probably not. he should come out of it in a few hours. exercise may possibly be good for him, though i doubt if he's capable of much of it." the doctor chuckled as though at a private joke with himself, then added, "he's really quite weak physically, you know, even without the after effects of radiation and drugs." "thank you, doctor." * * * * * back in his quarters, elbertson was refusing to admit to himself the fact of his own weakness. he had been quite ill in the shower, had managed to slash himself rather badly with the razor while shaving, but was now smartly attired in a clean pair of the regulation coveralls, with the insignia of his rank properly in place--and so weak he could hardly move. the coffee hadn't helped much. the briefing had helped even less. the major knew himself guilty of negligence while on duty. inadvertently, but as though by his very hand, certainly through the agency of some saboteur he had failed to spot, his weapon had been turned on his own troops at thule, key post in the plan. it was possible that the entire plan had been sabotaged, though that seemed quite unlikely. its ramifications were too great. so long as hot rod still existed, was still within their reach, the plan was operational. the nonsense about a magneto-ionic effect he discarded without hesitation. obviously it was sabotage, possibly by someone with a plan of his own, more probably by someone in the pay of one of the big power companies that would like to see the operation at least postponed. obviously--he gave up. nothing would be obvious until he knew in exact detail what had occurred, what the plans of the enemy would be, where next they would strike--and who was the enemy. but that last, at least, was almost obvious. who else, but the man who had carried the political battle, against all odds, that hot rod be created? who else but captain naylor andersen could possibly have delivered this sneaking, underhanded attack against himself and his comrades? who else, he thought, but a man so callous as to order _him_, sick as he was, as though he were a mere cadet, to leave the bridge. major elbertson's mind was made up as to the identity of the enemy. but he would have to proceed with care, or he would key the plan before the time was ripe. there must be no great shake-up in personnel, or undue attention from earth to the potentials of project hot rod. perhaps the saboteur's cover-story of a magneto-ionic effect would serve his ends as well--at least until his comrades on earth signaled that the time was ripe. yet now that hot rod had proved its power, the time was ripe. it was that proof on which the plan had waited. and perhaps this very sabotage would prove to be the "incident" on which the plan hinged.... even as he fought to clear his normally organized mind of the weariness of his body that now sapped at its strength, the call came. chauvenseer appeared at his side, saluting smartly. "com officer clark, sir, reports a message from earth. _the_ message, sir. 'begin operation ripe peach.'" major elbertson pulled himself to a military stance, returning his aide's salute with complete precision. briefly he considered gathering all his men, all the security personnel, and storming the bridge. no, obviously the enemy was organized--an unforeseen circumstance. obviously the captain was not alone. obviously _his_ men included at least some of these slipstick boys--and he would command the loyalty of them all, since he was somewhat of their ilk himself. no, an officer must seek the most advantageous position from which to deliver his ultimatum. he must use hot rod itself to control them. if hot rod itself were actually sabotaged, then the plan must wait until he could have it repaired. he doubted it was hurt. the flare had thrown off all original sequences--but perhaps that was to his advantage. to chauvenseer he snapped: "this is the detail of our immediate operation. get four of our best men besides yourself. have each of them come separately and unobtrusively to the south polar lock, where i will meet them. i will bring smith with me. "have each of the others take his assigned post for operation ripe peach--but order them to take no action other than to prevent anyone on board from doing anything unusual that might be an enemy operation--until i alert them that operation ripe peach is operational. "their orders will, of course, come on our personal radios, security band 2z21. "execute!" he ended, saluting smartly. * * * * * as the security squad moved, with individual secrecy, towards their various posts, captain andersen was considering that elbertson would probably snap out of it as soon as he had had coffee and a shave. the man had probably been severely affected by the drugs he had been given. he would make no further reference to the incident of erratic behavior, unless it continued. [illustration] bessie, having at the moment nothing else to do, was busily plying the sacred cow not only for her own horoscope for the day, but also those of the several persons of whom she was most fond, while carefully keeping a shielding bunch of paper work in a place to make it appear that she was officially busy. the captain's horoscope, she recognized, didn't look much worse than the rest of them, but was definitely the worst. one of those mathematical jumbles that somehow didn't interpret clearly. none of them looked very good today. out on the rim, things were getting back to normal. the labs were functioning again, most of them according to their assigned, routine procedures; but in some, heads were drawn together over the absorbing diagrams supplied by mike and ishie. mike and ishie themselves had already put in twelve hours almost without a break. working under stress, neither of them had remembered to eat. there was a cough at the entrance to the machine shop, and dr. millie williams' soft voice said "may i come in?" the two looked up as the slender figure of the dark-skinned biologist entered the lab, balancing "trays" with plastic bottles atop. "if i know you, dr. ishie; and you, too, mike--you haven't eaten," she said with a smile. "now, have you?" "millie," said mike, "you've just reminded me that i'm as hollow as a deserted bee-stump after the bears get through with it!" "little millie," said ishie, looking up at the figure nearly as tiny as his own, "you must be telepathic as well as beautiful. confusion say 'gee, i'm hungry!'" "i'm told that the fate of the satellite depends on you two," millie smiled. "i thought i'd just give our fate a little extra chance. now drop what you're doing and light into this. "after that, if you've got a job for a mere biologist, i've got my lab readied up where it can last till i get back and--i'm not bad with a soldering iron. meantime, why don't you let paul and tombu go eat while you eat?" "good idea," said mike. "you two. you heard the lady. we gotta give our fate the benefit of victuals. scat." * * * * * as soon as the physicist and the engineer were settled to the plastic containers of food and coffee she had brought, wolfing them down hungrily, millie opened up. "while we're alone, i'm going to speak my piece," she said. "you two will do me the honor of not taking offense if i say that you have the most brains and the least consciences aboard--and i happen to share the latter characteristic." the two looked up guiltily and waited. "now don't stop eating, for i'm not through talking," she said. "that magneto-ionic effect canceler you dreamed up would probably cancel the six hundred forty pound magneto-ionic effect pull you dreamed up--if such a thing existed. "what i want to know ... don't stop eating until you've decided whether you're going to let me in on your game or not ... is what really does exist? i might be of some help, you know." "but--" mike and ishie simultaneously choked over their food, looked at each other, and then mike blurted out, "but how could _she_ know?" "don't worry," said millie. "i'm probably the only one. it takes a person with little conscience and much imagination--takes a thief to catch a thief, i mean--yes, i think i mean that quite literally. besides, i can help with some of that glassware that disappeared out of my supplies several days ago. oh yes, i knew it was gone and where it went--but i figured any purpose you had was a good one, ishie. "but for how i personally canceled the idea of your magneto-ionic effect from the flare--it just happens that last night i was curious while everybody was asleep. when bessie first came on duty this morning, i offered to relieve her while she had a cup of coffee, and i got a half-hour all by myself with the cow. the captain wasn't up yet. her console's so simple anyone with a basic knowledge of computers and cybernetics could figure her out. "practically the first question i asked--something about our orbit--the cow told me that the information was top secret, and to get it i must go to the proper channel and identify myself as mike. i started to intercom you, mike, to tell you that your machinations were showing, but bessie came back about then. i hung around to see what would happen, and pretty soon bessie asked the cow about the same question--but instead of getting the same answer, the cow told her that an external magneto-ionic field was pulling us out of line. "so i went up to your engineering place. i rather thought you'd like to know what the cow had told me--but dr. ishie was there, and so instead i went about my own business until i could figure things out. "now i couldn't figure things out. but i could figure there's a monkey wrench somewhere--and since the two of you have been sticking together like siamese twins, i know it will be perfectly all right to ask you in front of ishie. "now," she finished, "do i get my girlish curiosity satisfied? you don't have to tell me. i'll just keep on being puzzled quietly and without indicating the slightest magneto-ionic dubiousness, if you'd rather. but i might be helpful; and i _would_ like to know." "confusion say," ishie declared through the side of his mouth, "that he who inadvertently puts big foot in mouth is apt to get teeth kicked loose. we are very lucky, mike, that it was millie who asked the question of the cow at that time. besides, we've got to tell somebody sooner or later. we can't just run off by ourselves. "yes, millie, i think you have a job," he said. "your help here will be appreciated, of course. but what we really need is a way of bridging the gap between ourselves and the rest of the personnel before it gets too wide. how's your p.r. these days?" "that's something i learned in a hard school, public relations," she answered nonchalantly. "de-segregation was just beginning when i was a girl back in georgia. but maybe i'd better know what the gap is." * * * * * the two began to talk, interrupting each other, incoherently outlining the confusor and the various forces it exerted, and the--what mike kept calling the inertial fish hook. finally mike took over. "to put it simply," he said, "our pet didn't do at all what we expected--it hooked in on inertia and it took us off. a confusing little confusor--but millie--it's a space drive! a real, honest-to-gosh space drive!" millie gulped. it was far, far more than she had expected. perhaps this was another form of disguise like the magneto-ionic.... "are you sure?" then she answered her own doubts. "of course you're telling the truth now. that's not something you two would play games about." then in awe--"you've really got it!" "but why, then," she said, uncomprehending, "are you hiding it?" but before they could answer, she answered her own question again. "you'd have to. of course. otherwise it'll be strangled in red tape. otherwise nobody'll let you work on it any more, except as head of a research team stuck off somewhere. otherwise, budget control would take it over and make a fifteen-year project out of it--and the two of you will probably have it in practical operation...." she looked at the molds and wiring taking form all across the machine shop. "oh, no! you'll have it in operation--soon!" "yes, soon--and we hope soon enough." ishie sighed, then grinned impudently. "there is," he said, "the little matter of the fact that--in all innocence but nevertheless quite actually--we wiped out thule base. "if we don't get the big confusor in operation very soon, it may be that we shall spend a good deal of time in earth's courts proving our innocence while someone else botches most thoroughly the job of creating a confusor that could take us to the stars. and that," he added mournfully, "neither of us would enjoy. we might not even be able to prove our innocence, for there would be many very anxious to prove us sufficiently guilty to keep us out of the way for many years. "so you see," he said, "you have a very real p.r. problem. our assistants here could work better if they knew what they were doing. the people aboard the wheel would be most excited by a space drive, and would give us every aid. "but what the law says, it says--and the captain would have no choice but to put us in irons if he heard, though i think our captain is such that he would not want to do it. "we must tell everyone what we have, for where the wheel takes us, they will go. but we can't tell them, for if we tell anyone, it will get back to earth--and we murdered thule, according to the law of earth. "it is a very neat problem," he said. * * * * * major steve elbertson arrived first at project hot rod, and trailing behind him on their scuttlebugs, the other six men. as he slipped through the lock and out of his spacesuit, he reached down the neck of his coveralls and carefully extracted the security key in its flat, plastiskin packet, from between his shoulder blades. at least the villainous captain had not gotten his hands on this, he thought, and whatever damage had been done to hot rod probably could be quickly repaired. he had heard of the hunt for the key, and been silently amused, though he had volunteered no information to his briefing officer, chauvenseer. stepping forward as briskly as a sick rag doll, he fitted the key into the security lock and snapped open the bar that prevented hot rod's use. as the others entered, he turned to them. supporting himself against the edge of the console and managing to look perfectly erect and capable despite his weakness, he said: "i have instructed each of you to learn as much as you could of the operation of this device. it is now necessary that the civilian scientists," he pronounced the "civilian" as though it were a dirty word, "be relieved of their rule over this weapon, and that the military take its proper place, as the masters of the situation. i trust each of you has learned his lessons carefully, because it is now too late for mistakes--although we have with us assistance far superior to that of the civilians. "gentlemen," he said, and his voice took on power as he talked, "it is a pleasure to re-introduce to you a companion whom you have known as lathe smith. "this, gentlemen," he said formally, gesturing one of the men forward, "is the herr doktor heinrich schmidt, of whom you would have heard were you familiar with the more erudite of the developments of space physics. "dr. schmidt," he added, "it is a pleasure to be able to again accord you the courtesies and respect that are your due. "now for myself," he continued, "it may surprise you to know that i, too, have a somewhat more advanced rank than you have suspected." deliberately he unpinned the major's insignia that he wore, and brought out a sealed packet, opened it, and pinned on four stars. "gentlemen," he finished, "may i introduce myself? general steve elbertson, commanding officer of all space forces of the united nations security forces. "now," he said briskly to his astounded men, his voice crackling with authority, "take stations. "dr. schmidt will key in the number one laser bank only. you will select as your target area that area through which the passenger spokes of the wheel pass. these will each in turn be your targets if it becomes necessary to fire. "dr. schmidt has advised me that, should it become necessary to fire on the hub, the resultant explosion of the shielding water will wreck the big wheel. "if we should miss and hit the rim, the resultant explosion would inevitably wreck both the big wheel and project hot rod. "therefore, gentlemen, i caution the most accurate possible aim. "and dr. schmidt, will you connect the storage power supply you have readied, please?" quickly then, he slid into the communications officer's seat, as the security officers assumed each of the four major posts of the project, while chauvenseer took up a stance at his general's right hand, ready to respond as directed. * * * * * on the bridge, captain nails had been annoyed. too many queries from people who really didn't have authority over his satellite. too many directives and counter-directives were flooding at him from various officials on earth. some one down there even had the temerity to suggest that security take over--not officially, just sort of take over. if that didn't take the cake, he thought. trying to put that crumb security officer into command, _real_ command, of a scientist? over his people? never! and just because somebody had a wild idea about sabotage--after all, the whole thing must be some sort of effect or accident. why couldn't they leave people alone long enough to find out what was really going on? and where was elbertson, anyhow? the man had had plenty of time to freshen up. possibly he had caved in some place. the medic had said he was sick. but even so, i'd best check, he thought. reaching for the intercom switch that would give him a private line to security quarters in the rim, his gaze happened to fall on the panel that still displayed hot rod on its taut cable---and seven figures riding the end of the cable to the air lock. elbertson, of course, he thought furiously. and taking his men out when the proton level was still too high to go beyond the rim shielding.... then the captain stopped in mid-thought. this was no idle act of a man feeling the effects of drugs. he switched the intercom quickly to the hot rod crew's quarters on the rim. "dr. koblensky!" he almost shouted into the mike. "just a minute, sir," came the answer, and seconds that seemed like eternities passed before the doctor's calm voice answered, "dr. koblensky speaking." "did you know that seven men were going out to hot rod?" "of course not. they mustn't...." the captain switched off and changed to the intercom for the machine shop. "dr. ishie. mr. blackhawk. to the bridge on the double. _fast_," he said. it might not be the saboteur, he thought, but the chances looked grimly real that earth was right--that the whole thing was sabotage, and those were the seven saboteurs. while he waited, he checked the security quarters for elbertson. the major was not there, nor was he in the hospital. elbertson, he thought. i've been blind. he decreased the magnification of hot rod so that the entire project showed. mike arrived first, almost skidding to a stop at the captain's console, ishie right behind him. "the saboteur--seven men that i believe to be saboteurs--are aboard hot rod," the captain told him crisply. "can they activate it?" "captain, there's no saboteur...." mike began, but the captain interrupted. "gentlemen, i'm not asking you to be the judge of that. if they are saboteurs, is there any way that they can activate hot rod?" "oh, they could have storage batteries aboard, i suppose." mike didn't even pretend to be excited. "then we will assume they have, mr. blackhawk." the tone of the captain's voice told mike he'd better darned well believe in those saboteurs or tell the captain the truth--and that quickly. "now, assuming hot rod can be activated, we will also assume that their first aim will be to control the wheel. they would, therefore, aim at the hub and issue an ultimatum." "they might aim at a target on earth, and issue an ultimatum to us." mike would play the game. "no. we would refuse such an ultimatum. they would aim at us. can you prevent that?" mike thought hard. he'd better come up with an answer to that one, saboteurs or no. "if they shot through the hub, they'd hit our shielding water and explode the hub-hull. that would wreck the wheel, and they'd need the wheel. the only place they could safely shoot us would be the passenger spokes, and that would take some pretty fine target shooting--with only one laser bank. they could do it though," he said thoughtfully. "assume, mr. blackhawk, that if they couldn't hit the passenger spokes, they'd be willing to destroy the wheel in order to gain control. is there any way to prevent that?" mike stood completely silent for almost a minute. then he grinned. "sure," he said. "if we turned the rim towards hot rod, they couldn't fire into the rim without hitting that shielding--and that would create an explosion, even from their smallest possible shot, that would almost inevitably take hod rod with it. if we turn the lab so that only the rim is towards hot rod, it's suicide to shoot us." "you will swing the rim of the wheel into that alignment as rapidly as it can possibly be done." the captain's voice practically lifted the two men off the bridge, and they were on their way to the engineering quarters with every appearance of the urgency they should have felt if they had not known who--or rather what--was the real saboteur. * * * * * then mike heard ishie's soft voice from behind him, slightly breathless. "at that, you'd better swing the rim and swing her fast, mike. the captain sure 'nuff believes in his saboteurs, and it's just possible they're real." o.k., thought mike, and really moving now he reached the engineering quarters a good ten strides ahead of his companion. as he entered the open bulkhead lock he saw a man that he recognized as one of the security personnel, and brushing on past him said, "if you want to see me, come back later. i'm going to be very busy here for a while." mike headed for the panel that controlled the air jets and other devices that spun the wheel. the security man didn't hesitate. seeing the ship's engineer about to make important--and possibly subversive--adjustments, he drew his needle gun and aimed it squarely at mike's back. "halt--in the name of security!" he barked. slowly mike swung around, eying the man coldly, and began a question. but there was no need. dr. chi tung, having seen what was going on through the lock before he entered, had held back just long enough for the security man to turn fully towards mike. now he launched himself through the lock like a small but well-guided missile, and arriving on the security guard's back, had his gun-arm down and half broken before the man knew what was happening. had he been alone, it is possible that the larger man might have won. but mike had never been fond of people who pulled guns on him, even if they were only sleepy guns. between the two of them, the security guard was lucky not to lose his life in the first two seconds of battle. the conflict ended almost before it had begun, with a meaty slap of mike's fist connecting with the man's jaw, right below the ear. it hadn't been a clean punch, mike thought, but then he wasn't really used to fighting in this gravity. anyhow, the man was out. and now came the question of what to do with him, but mike left that to ish. he turned back to the precession panel a bit more convinced that perhaps the captain had been right--perhaps there were enemies aboard. the precession controls, though operational, had not to date been required. carefully, mike switched the sequence that would put them into active condition but not operate. that was left to the cow. turning to the vocoder panel, he directed the cow to take over control of the now active precession equipment; to use the sun as a referrant for the axis of precession, and to move the pole ninety degrees in a clockwise direction around that axis of precession. under these directions, the big wheel began to turn, not as it had been turning, but sideways. the operation would take ten minutes, and the axis of this new turn would be aligned directly on sol by the computer. the cow's help in such a maneuver was required, because the precession could only be accomplished by switching valves between the tanks of the rim in such a manner that water was switched north on one side of the wheel, and south on the opposite side of the wheel, and the points of this switching between the tanks must remain in a stable position relative to the spin of the wheel. the valves that accomplished this, seventy-two of them, were spaced at intervals of five degrees around the rim, but only two out of the seventy-two could be active at any time; and these must be selected by the computer's controls so that always the precessive force was properly aligned to produce the required precession. when the precession was finished, the rim of the wheel would be aligned, still with the sun, but also with project hot rod which had been to their south. as a third thought, mike switched off the confuser. having set up the necessary factors, mike turned back to the problem of the security guard, or saboteur, whichever he might be, but found this problem had already been well taken care of. not satisfied with simply tying the man up, ishie had bound him with wire to somewhat the resemblance of an egyptian mummy, and then for added good measure, given him two sleepy shots with his own needle gun; put electrician tape across his mouth; and taken from him everything he could possibly use either as a method of communication or as a weapon. at least, mike thought, ishie is a thorough workman when he sets his mind to it. having parked the security man in a nearby tool locker, with the feeling that he would keep for a while there, ishie turned back to mike with a grin. "confusion say those who play with firearms should be cautious! mike, this convinces me. i've heard snatches of what's going on on earth, and it looks like somebody is putting over a fast one down there. seems like maybe our own security boys are part of it. they would be the ones the captain saw going out to hot rod. and that means they've got a purpose out there. is good to know they can't shoot us now, at least in a few minutes now, without getting themselves shot back. but they can shoot at earth. any ideas?" "well ... i thought some time ago that there was a little fallacy involved in that project when i saw how they hung the beam-director way out in front on those little old balloon-poles. they've got 'em bent, and if any one or two of 'em should happen to get punctured, the other two would move the mirror complete out of the laser beam focus. then the only thing they could shoot would be the sun--and i don't think it'd care. "ishie, you stay here just to keep the home fires burning and make sure that nobody fiddles with anything we don't want 'em to. all of the bulkheads leading into this section can be locked from the inside--a feature i haven't seen fit to point out to other people who really don't need to know." * * * * * walking around the floor, mike carefully secured the four bulkheads, two leading back to the morgue; two leading forward to the north pole end of the hub. and then, jumping catlike upward and grasping the access ladder to the central axis tube, he carefully bolted that one, too. [illustration] dropping back to the floor he stepped over to the intercom and switched in captain nails' circuit. "mission accomplished, sir. and you were quite right. one of our _security_ servos is off balance. i'm attending to the matter." "thank you, mr. blackhawk." the captain's voice was calm, quite unlike the voice he'd used to them on the bridge. "you would do well to listen for the ... sound ... of those servos." the captain's voice stopped but the intercom continued to hum, alive from his end. "ishie," said mike, "the captain's in trouble, and he's asking us to listen in on what goes on the bridge. he's left his intercom open. "now i've got a mission to accomplish; and you can't leave here, because this post's got to be operational. but you can listen and do whatever the captain tells you. "and, ishie--if anybody takes the bridge away from the captain, you tell the cow not to obey any orders or answer any questions unless they come from here." with that, mike leaned over, loosened an inspection plate in the floor, and climbed down a ladder through the inspection tube that led through the six feet of normal-shield water directly beneath the floor into the seventeen-foot flare-shielding chamber beyond. this was the tank which surrounded the hub and held all of the waters of the rim during flare conditions; but was now holding only the air supply which, during a flare, was pumped to the rim. making his way back towards the center of the hub, mike considered his luck in being one of the people most familiar with the entire structure of the ship. it would be unlikely that enemies operating aboard would think to cut off the air and water passages, or even keep them under surveillance. nevertheless, he would be cautious. he must now get to the machine shop, and enter it without triggering any more of those--he laughed quietly to himself--security servos. the particular tank he was in he had selected carefully. of the twenty-one possible combinations, this one he knew would bring him into the water under the north hall that circled the outer rim. in a few strides he reached the three-foot-diameter spoke tube through which the flood of water would pour during a draw-in action such as that they had had during the flare; let himself over the side head first, let go and began falling down the seventy-nine foot length of the tube, accelerated by the light pseudo-gravity of the spin. even so, he spread his legs and arms against the walls of the tube to act as a brake, so as not to arrive with too much impact at the bottom of the tube. as he hit the water at the bottom, the tube swung around the circumference of the rim to the point at its far side at which it entered its particular river. the course of his dive carried mike to the bottom of the curve, and he started crawling up its far side to where the tunnel entered the rim-river. there the motion of the fluorescent-lighted water caught him, and he was swirled quickly to his target, twenty-five feet along, inspection plate b-36. he grabbed the hand-hold by the plate before he swirled past, loosened the plate, lifted it only enough to be sure that the room was empty, and then pushed it off, pulled himself through, and emerged into the whining dimness of compressor room 9, next to the machine shop. the low whine assaulting his ears was that created by the air compressors that fed the jets that drove the waters through the rim. stepping over to the wall locker, mike took out a dry pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and moccasins, kept there for the purpose of making changes after such swimming inspections of the rim tanks. * * * * * before entering the machine shop, mike spotted the security man through the open bulkhead--just standing there while paul and tombu grimly worked on; and millie sat idle, watching. mike entered the machine shop casually, as though intent on business, brushed past the security man, and stepped over to the tape-controlled, laser-activated milling machine as though to inspect its progress. then, as though finding an error, he halted its operation and swung the laser-head back away from the work piece. the head swung free in his hand, attached to the machine but nevertheless free. casually, without even looking at the security man, he had somehow centered the laser directly on him. just as casually, he stepped to one side. "the beam from this machine is quite capable of milling the hardest materials," he said, still casually, as though to himself. "even a diamond can't withstand it." now he looked directly at the security guard. "it's capable," he said in an even tone, "of milling a hole right through your guts if you even to much as breathe too deep." then to chernov, "move around behind him, out of range of this beam, and secure the man please. millie, is there any thing in your department that will make sure he won't talk for while?" "yes, mike, but i don't think i'd better go there right now. there aren't many of them, but these boys seem to be spread out all over." chernov had the gun now; and the personal communicator from the security man as well. "o.k.," said mike. "i don't think he can give us much trouble in there," pointing at the air-lock bulkhead through which he had just entered. "we can go in and out through the physics lab," he said. "best we shut that off now before some more of these boys wander along." when both the lab and the security man were under control, paul chernov turned to mike. "that milling-laser," he said. "it's got a focus of about six inches maximum. how did you fix it so it could burn the guard at that distance?" "i didn't," said mike briefly. "he already knows that lasers can reach from here to earth. why should i bother to tell him any different?" turning to tombu he handed him the security man's radio. "see if you can rig this," he said, "to broadcast everything they say over the general intercom channel. it's about time we let people know what's happening." * * * * * it took tombu only minutes to hook in the radio. as he turned it on, elbertson's voice came over the loud-speaker system. a roll call of security men was apparently being completed. the last three man responded as called. the elbertson's voice, crisp but somewhat labored, came over the security beam, booming throughout the ship. "it is obvious that the renegade scientists and engineer of the wheel have replaced the men guarding their sectors. "as we were informed, the captain had put them in charge. since they struck the first blow, it is now up to security to converge on them and eliminate them. "jones, nackolai and stanziale are detailed to the dr. chi mission. nilson, bernard and cossairt are detailed to get the indian. the rest of you will take over where you are posted, and secure all personnel to their quarters. "clark. drop your cover and take over control of the bridge. "i expect to have hot rod operational within five minutes. and clark. instruct the computer to discontinue precession operations that have been initiated. "take whatever measures are necessary to carry out these instructions. "this is no longer an undercover operation, gentlemen. security is taking control. "this is war." * * * * * as the last sentence came over the loud-speaker, mike sprang to the intercom. he quickly keyed the direct line to engineering. "ishie," he said, "i gather you're safe?" "yes, mike. situation here very secure. i heard announcement of conflict. you need not tell me to put the cow under our control. it is done. she will obey no one else until further instructed from here. i didn't instruct her to obey only instructions by me, mike, because we are all expendable now." as he finished speaking, the intercom went dead. obviously the communications officer, as his first act, had turned off the central intercom power system under his control. * * * * * on the bridge, from the time that mike and ishie had left, the picture of what was occurring had grown more ominous by the minute. more than the vague, official messages had been flooding in from earth. at the captain's command, the communications officer had opened up a channel for news broadcasts, and put it on the speaker so they could all hear. the news round-ups indicated that various elements and factions in the world below had had their say--each more vicious than the last. from an original rumor of a minor space disaster, it had become a tremendous accident that had wiped out thule base and left a smoking ruins of greenland. from this it had become--possible sabotage. from this, a direct, unprovoked attack by the scientists on earth itself. suddenly statesmen were standing forth in the u.n., condemning the actions of country after country that had made possible the great wheel; and just as suddenly, word had been announced: earth would be protected. the u.n. would act. the u.n., it suddenly was found, controlled the majority of all weapons on earth; controlled the majority of all armies, navies, and all stockpiles of ships and planes and ammunition that it had so boastingly told everyone that it had scrapped. the honeyed phrases of a few years before that there would always be peace on earth, and that the u.n. had taken the bite out of war, changed; and the individual nations were now forgotten. now the u.n. itself was the military power; and now it would be u.n. telling others what to do. mobilization would be declared. a war footing for the economy. everyone must fight back against the insane scientists above with their inhuman weapon. with appalling swiftness, where apparently nothing had been before, a military force stepped forth in full armor to grind man's hopes for freedom under an iron heel while waving its fist at the stars. at first there had been voices crying out against this monstrous action, this unbelievable birth, in the u.n. assembly. but the voices had become fewer and fewer, weaker and weaker, and in a matter of hours had been drowned out. amazingly, even now, there were one or two who stood up in an attempt to stem the tide; but they were ignored, and a ninety-eight per cent favorable vote was cast. the u.n. security forces had been granted dictatorial powers. for the "duration of the emergency." the die was cast, and the yoke fitted, ever so snugly but firmly, across mankind's back, while he cheered the fitting. captain nails andersen sat stunned at his console. the communications officer sat back, paying little attention to the board before him, a light smirk on his face. but the smirk dropped from his face suddenly. rising over the background chatter of the radio announcements from u.n. headquarters, came loudly over the ship general intercom the voice of major steve elbertson, counting down through the list of security personnel. he, too, sat stunned until, as the voice ended "this is war," he came to, stood up needle gun in hand, pointed at the captain. "i don't know how your slipstick boys cracked our code and picked that message up," he said, "and i don't really care. as you heard, the major has ordered me to take command of the bridge. i hereby do so." coming through the bulkhead were two more security men, each with a needle gun. his gun unwaveringly pointed at the captain, com officer clark reached down and flipped the red switch that turned off the power to all of the ship intercoms. * * * * * on board hot rod, the security crew was working against an accelerated time-schedule now. the aiming controls of hot rod's big mirror were infinitely precise--and correspondingly slow. as soon as the storage power supply had been wired into the big weapon--a precise operation, requiring both skill and time--the factors had been keyed in that would bring the mirror in an arc, turning it to bear precisely on that area of space through which the passenger spokes of the wheel turned; but the motion of the mirror was infinitesimally slow. as the crew of hot rod strove to get it into position to fire; and the computer on the wheel strove to precess the wheel to a position where firing would be fatal to the firer, it became a race between giant snails. but already the rim of the big wheel had inched slightly ahead in the race; and the main part of the hub was disappearing behind it. in spite of elbertson's orders, the big wheel continued to turn its rim directly towards the giant balloon with its bulbous nose. it was a curious sensation, seeing the big wheel from this angle. much the same sensation as that of an ant, staring at the oncoming wheel of a huge truck. * * * * * in the machine shop, mike was rummaging around in one of the tool lockers. "any sort of a small telescope," he muttered, almost to himself. then "paul, is there a theodolite or anything like that left lying around in here?" "yes," said paul, moving off to a cabinet in another part of the room. "we needed them when we were putting the wheel together." "o.k." mike turned back to the laser milling machine. "now can we take the focusing lens off of this, and rig something to give me a focus at about 4.5 miles? or would it need focusing at all? shooting at that distance?" "depends on what you shoot, mike. the unfocused beam can make a black surface very hot very quick. but from a mirror surface, it would just bounce, unless it's carefully focused." "it ought to take care of the plastic at least, then." "go right through it. you gonna laser hot rod?" "no. just the anchor tubes that hold the mirror; and maybe a slash through the nitrogen tank at the back. here, make me a bracket to fit these two things together, so i can see what i'm aiming at." he handed the theodolite telescope and the laser milling-head to paul. "how much of the machine do i have to take to power that milling-head?" he asked tombu. "oh, most of it's just control circuits. this box on the back is the power supply. plugs right in to ship's power." "hey!" mike called over to paul now busy constructing a bracket. "make that bracket to hold this power supply, too. oh, and round me up about sixty feet of extension cord, tombu." "but, mike, how are you going to get out there?" millie's voice was concerned. "they've probably got men all over the place out here on the rim. if you try to go through the corridor towards an emergency lock, they'll have you sure with their needle guns. you heard elbertson delegate three men to kill you!" "i expect i can find a place where they aren't." and picking up the security radio from the intercom bench, he turned it on and spoke into it. "elbertson, this is mike blackhawk. you now have twenty minutes to surrender," and he cut off. mike turned to tombu. "get me some plastic wrapping material. preferably a plastic bag. i've got to make this stuff waterproof." when the power supply, telescope, milling head and extension cord were rigged and carefully wrapped in plastic to make a waterproof package, he attached them with a shoulder rope. "too bad we didn't make a lock in the wall right here," he muttered. "but i don't suppose the security guards will be guarding those empty labs over in the r-12 sector. guess i'm going for a swim now." and with that, mike reached down and carefully removed the inspection plate from one of the floor tanks, and lowered himself over the edge into the racing waters. hanging there with one hand, he carefully pulled his plastic bag into position beside and slightly behind his body, and let go. instantly he was sucked away into the subdued blue fluorescent-lighted glow of the waters of the rim. "glad they figured these planktons need light," he thought to himself. "i'd have a time finding where i'm going in the dark." forty-five seconds later, he reached up and snatched at a passing hand-hold, next to a plate marked with the numbers of the lab he sought. wrenching the handle of the inspection plate and pushing it free, he climbed out into the deserted lab; made his way out into the corridor, his unwieldy package hanging to his shoulder and runlets of water making a trail behind him--and stepped into the nearby emergency lock. in the lock he quickly donned one of the emergency spacesuits that hung there, gathered up his bundle again, and stepped out on the catwalk of the inner part of the rim, under the brilliant night sky at the moment, but turning towards its "sunrise." he opened his plastic package. "major elbertson," he said, turning on the security radio, "you now have five minutes to surrender." attaching his suit to the guideline nearby, part of the rim's "hairnet," he crept out over the inside edge of the rim. from this position he had a full view of the glowing bubble that was hot rod for the few seconds until the movement of the rim took him past the "sunrise" point and turned him sunwards. last time mike had been out on the rim, the wheel had not been turning. there'd been no reference of up and down, other than the rim itself as an oddly curved floor. now he felt disoriented. the wheel was spinning, the hub, therefore, seemed "up." and from the edge of the rim where he clung to its hairnet, all directions were down. * * * * * the stars seemed to sweep beneath his feet and over his head; and though it was a slow pattern, only twice as fast as the crawl of a second hand around the face of a clock, it was, nevertheless, disorienting. bracing himself carefully into the net, with his back wedged firmly against the rim, he adjusted his bizarre "gun" to rest on his knees so that he could sight in the direction that was, to his body's senses, straight down. not at all, he thought, like trying to shoot fish in a barrel. more like being the fish and trying to shoot the people outside the barrel. back in the shadow again. not really shadow where he sat, but the rim around him, below him, and curving away from him, had disappeared in its brief nightside, and there came hot rod again. carefully he tracked it; then putting his eye to the scope he focused briefly on one of the high-pressure supporting tubes that formed the rigid structure from which the aiming mirror was held in place. and fired. the tube burst, noiselessly but quite spectacularly. and the mirror itself shuddered shook, as the tube's gases escaped. now he was in bright sunlight again, quickly closing his eyes as the sun itself looked full into his vision, and slowly passed to be following by earth, to be followed by a blank stretch of starry space, and here again was hot rod. carefully he tracked another of the supporting tubes. and fired. and again a spectacular, writhing collapse--and this time, the mirror fell free, supported by only two tubes, and permanently out of focus, incapable of aiming the monster beam. this time, hot rod was definitely secure from the misapplication of security. "three minutes," he spoke into the radio. "your weapon is dead. my next shot will be through the nitrogen tank at your air-lock. i wouldn't advise you to be there." the wheel turned once more, as the radio came alive from the other end. "mr. blackhawk, do you realize that what you are doing constitutes mutiny in space and will be dealt with accordingly on earth? i have officially taken control of hot rod at the command of my superiors in the new u.n. security control command." mike didn't bother to answer. as the wheel turned him towards hot rod again, he said into the radio, "two minutes." elbertson's voice came again. "with this new weapon we control earth. don't you realize that you can't stand up against the new people's government of earth?" the wheel came around. mike replied: "one minute." the lock on the hot rod control room opened. frantic tiny figures burst forth, activated scuttlebugs, and started on the five-mile trek back towards the big wheel. mike worked his way back through the clinging net to the catwalk, failing completely to see the tiny figure that dodged beneath the rim as he approached. glancing around he carefully scanned over the entire inner rim before stepping out into the sunlight of the catwalk itself. nothing. then a blink caught his eye, and he glanced up toward the observatory. there. in the observatory. he thought for a minute it was someone signaling, but it was only a touch of sunlight on the shiny surface of the automatic tracking telescope, which was poked out of the open shutters of the airless observatory, still doing its automatic job of recording solar phenomena in the absence of the astronomers. * * * * * instead of re-entering the lock as he had intended, mike linked his safety line to one of the service lines that lay along the nearest spoke, and kicked up it. on earth, he could have jumped maybe four feet with that motion. but here, it carried him the full distance to the outer wall of the hub-shielding tank, where he grasped another line, quickly transferred his safety line, and began working his way toward the observatory. as the intersection of the rim where mike had been passed into darkness, another figure moved and jumped up the same line he had taken. but this mike did not notice. reaching the bulge at the end of the shielding tank and crawling up over it, mike made his way up, at an odd reversed angle, through the netting; and into the observatory dome through its open shutter. making his way about in the open vacuum in free-fall conditions of the observatory, mike carefully checked the lock at the main axis to make sure that he could get into it without arousing an alarm for any guards that might be nearby. the lock showed vacant, and empty. just as he was about to enter it, he saw another figure in a spacesuit come drifting through the open shutter where he had entered. mike stepped into the lock, closed the door behind him as though he had not noticed, and cycled the lock. but he did not remove his suit and did not leave. as the lock showed clear, the observatory door opened again, and the two spacesuited figures stood face to face. mike with needle gun raised checked himself in surprise. then he motioned the other figure into the lock. "and just what are you doing here?" he inquired as the air around them became sufficient to carry his voice. "you might have needed help," answered dr. millie williams in a small, scared voice as she took off her helmet and shook out her long hair. "and just _what_," mike inquired, "were you planning to do about it besides having me shoot you by mistake?" millie held up an oversize pair of calipers. "the security people," she said, "are not the only ones with weapons. i borrowed this from the machine shop." mike stared down at the odd-looking "weapon." "it's hard," millie continued, "to look at more than one thing at a time through a spacesuit helmet. i could've got 'em in the air hose while you held their attention." mike's chuckle was just a trifle ragged, and his mutter about blood-thirsty panthers didn't really go unheard as he began shucking his spacesuit. this was the most dangerous point, mike knew. the axis tube went from the observatory straight through to the south polar lock, with nothing to block sight or sound from traveling its length. they'd have to simply chance it. the spacesuits shucked, he opened the lock. their luck held. no security man was stationed opposite the mouth of the axis tube at the south polar lock. halfway to the engineering quarters, mike stopped, used a special key to open an inspection plate, and they dropped lightly into the huge shielding tank that now held only air. from there the pair back-tracked mike's original path to the inspection plate in the engineering quarters, and so into his own bailiwick, where they found ishie standing on catlike guard, a wrench in one hand, waiting for whatever might come up. "confusion say," the grinning chinese physicist declared, "two for one is good luck." * * * * * general steve elbertson made his way wearily in through the south lock and on to the bridge where he found the communications officer in complete charge with two security men for assistants. the captain and bessie were effectively bound, and placed in spare console seats. general elbertson made his way to the captain's console and seated himself. hot rod was dead, but their control was by no means lessened. that he himself had not been shot dead on the way from hot rod was, to him, a confirmation of the weakness of his enemies. the satellite was under his control. the scientists would repair hot rod--and well he knew how to see to it that they did so. u.n. security forces were in complete, dictatorial command of earth. he had only to eliminate the renegade indian, and long before the security scuttlebug, now on its way from earth loaded with crack troops, should arrive, security would be in complete command not only of the space lab, but of the weapon, which would by then be in repair. as a final test of its operation, it would be amusing to use the indian, blackhawk, as a target; and perhaps the captain as well, though he might have to use them as examples sooner--the captain and some others. the fortuitous accident that had put hot rod in operation ahead of schedule had also stepped many plans months ahead. no violence had actually been planned until the weapon had been thoroughly tested; but now things looked to be working in orderly fashion; working with the well-oiled precision of a master-plan, properly designed and properly executed in the proper military manner. only one small difficulty marred the current smoothness of the operation. the security men were attempting to instruct the computer to precess the wheel back to its original position. in reply, for every figure of any type sent over the keyboard, the cow sent back a half-yard of confused, rambling figures and would do nothing else. general elbertson snapped a single command. "turn the thing off. we'll get to that later." busily the men switched the keys to the "off" position. just as busily the cow continued to pour out figures, interspersed with rambling pages of physics covering such odd subjects as the yak population of the andes, the number of buffalo that were purported to be able to dance on the rim of the grand canyon--a fantastic figure--some confused statement about the birth rate in indo-china, and an equally confused statement about the learning rate in schools in haddock. eventually, if one cared to sort it out, the cow might produce the entire encyclopedia britannica for the year 1911; and then again, possibly for the year 33,310. actually, it only depended on what you wished to select. it was a vast mass of material that was being happily upchucked into the lap of the confused communications officer and his two, unhelpful assistants. [illustration] not a single one of the view panels, either those at the computer's console or the ones at the captain's console, were presenting a readable picture. hodgepodges and flickerings, yes. scraps of star-lit sky--perhaps. or vaguely wavy electronic patterns that would have been familiar to anyone who ever looked at a broken tv set. the cow was really wild. leaning back in the captain's chair, watching the screen casually, general elbertson chuckled. he didn't, he noticed, feel nearly so weary. the position actually was good, even if those idiots didn't know what they were doing with the computer. that could be straightened out. somewhere, he was sure, there was cause for great pride in his actions. the peaceful glow of victory seemed to settle about him. he had won. he was in the captain's chair of the only space station that man had ever put in orbit. his worst enemy was tied to a chair only a few feet away. at times like this a man could glow, could feel expansive even towards his enemies. naylor wasn't such a bad chap. if he hadn't thrown in with the scientists he might even now be a fellow officer, entitled to full respect and honor. general elbertson did not consider it odd that his face was suddenly flushed with triumph. there was a glow of energy. why, he could even get up and dance a jig--and this he proceeded to do. around him, the two security men joined in, followed by the communications officer--and then, realizing that their friends couldn't dance with them, they undid the ropes and invited the captain and bessie to join them. soon they were all whirling giddily, though there was hardly the space for it. maybe they should go next door, into the large clear area that was the ship's gymnasium when not being used as a morgue. surprisingly, amidst these dancing figures, a head emerged from the floor. all of them leaned over to laugh at it; and even the needle gun failed to frighten them. * * * * * bessie had a hangover. she groaned and stretched. there certainly must have been lots of vodka at that party last night. party? what party? it was difficult to separate various concepts and orient herself to a present where and when. slowly the soft susurrus background song of the big wheel penetrated consciousness, and another, closer roar. millie taking a shower, she realized. suddenly she came out of the vagueness wide awake, the hangover cleared magically, evaporating much too quickly to have been caused by alcohol. but she had been tied up to a chair on the bridge beside nails, prisoner of the security men, only minutes ago. what was going on? millie stepped out of the shower into the compartment the two girls occupied, and smiled. "how're you doing? about to come out of it?" "da, da eta--" with an effort bessie switched to english. "explosion? what happened?" "oh, mike just had to get the security men off guard. something to do with the air supply. he asked me to apologize to you if you don't feel so good. but after all, we got the lab back and that's the main thing." "security. oh! i've got to get to nails right away. they've taken over earth, too, you know. we've got to make sure they don't get control of the projects. we'll be shot of course. but their ambitions rest on having control of hot rod and the wheel. probably secret control--" "but--" "nails has got to figure out how to destroy the project without too many casualties. maybe he can get some of our men back to earth, though of course we're all expendable. we can't let these monsters have the wheel and hot rod! that's what they need for power--" "bessie--" "of course, we can stand and fight for as long as possible, but we're sitting ducks, and even with hot rod there's not much we can do--we can't fire on earth, we'd hit friend as well as enemy. so i think we've just got to stand and fight a bit, and then destroy both hot rod and the wheel. anyhow, that's nails' decision, and i've got to get to nails--" "whoa!" millie finally managed to stem the flow. "we're not stuck--not just stuck here in orbit any longer, waiting to see what's going on on earth," she said softly, "or what they're going to do about us 'mad scientists.' mike and ishie started this whole thing when one of their experiments turned out to be a space drive, and the boys are working real hard on getting a drive unit set up capable of taking our whole complex out into space. but they need somebody to tell the captain ... uh ... properly ... as soon as he's awake that is ... uh ... you know what i mean." "whoa, yourself, girl. what's this--space drive?" "well, they didn't find out themselves until after it had wiped out thule base--nearly ten hours after that, in fact. that magneto-ionic thing the sacred cow's been talking about--they invented that real quick to cover up. you see ... oh, it's too complicated. "look, we've got a real _space_ drive. we can go to the moon or mars--or pluto if we want to. and we've got to let nails know real quick that he can get us out of here--and without making him mad that we wrecked thule base. but really, after the way those security goons acted, maybe he won't be mad if you handle it right. how about it?" the hangover was disappearing magically. but this flow of information was nearly as bad. a space drive? bessie knew she couldn't evaluate one way or the other on that. that would be nails' problem. but they were in a pickle, and it would be up to her to see that nails didn't waste too much time evaluating things. those security men had been prepared to play real rough, and more of them were on their way up. "where is nails?" "the boys put him to bed. in his quarters. he got a dose of the same stuff that put you out. he ought to be coming to almost any time now. and probably mad about the whole thing." instantly, bessie was on her feet, flinging on clothes, and out down the corridor toward nails' private stateroom. * * * * * it had been thirty-two hours since major--general--whatever it was elbertson--had been defeated on the bridge for the final time. he and his men were now securely locked in one of the empty labs. the paralysis effect of the needle gun had probably worn off. mike hadn't checked to find out. bessie and her relief operators were watching the prisoners through a video display on the sacred cow's console, and would report anything unusual that went on to captain andersen. mike, ishie, millie, paul and tombu had completed the new confusor drive units, and they were nearly installed. more time would be taken arranging the engineering quarters so that the installation of her control panel and the units themselves would be completed. this part, mike didn't like too well. it meant re-arranging his already carefully arranged units, and considerable re-wiring without interfering with any of the basic functions of the wheel. the new units had turned out to look very little like the original. fourteen feet long by eighteen inches outside diameter, they looked very much like a group of stove-pipes arranged in a circular pattern around the engineering quarters, braced from wall to wall. the control console itself, even though made rapidly, had the look of a carefully planned and well-made unit; something that might have turned up in one of earth's better r&d labs, as part of a multi-million dollar project. all together, the drive rods would provide something better than a tenth of a gee thrust for the combined mass of the wheel, hot rod, the pile and the other subsidiary units around them. a tenth of a gee. not enough to land on earth; but with things down there the way they were now, who wanted to? with these units, the whole storehouse of the solar system was at their disposal. with these units they could reach the asteroids. with these units, they could range as far out as pluto without fear of consequences--without, mike added to himself, even the fear of radiation that was a constant threat to them here, for the farther from the sun they went, the less radiation they would have to endure. the three months would be extended. for those who needed it, better shielding could be found. the system was theirs. possibly, also the stars beyond. that, he reminded himself, if they could get these units installed before the scuttlebug arrived. undoubtedly, earth security had sent arms as well as men. where they were, not strictly on course, but still in a satellite-type orbit, they remained sitting ducks for any number of countermeasures that earth might throw against them. once gone from this orbit, there was not sufficient rocket-power on earth to track them down. if they took hot rod with them, there was no single weapon at man's command that could stop them. and take hot rod with them they would. in his address to the ship's personnel this morning, captain nails had made it quite clear that they wanted no part of the plots and counterplots of earth; that theirs was the job of scientists, not soldiers; that a path was open to them that they would follow. later, they could return. later, with the supplies that were free to be taken from space, they could build strength. they could return quietly, one by one, two by two, at times and places of their own choosing. then, and only then, they could lend aid to those on earth who would always fight for freedom. but not now. they were yet weak; the path of escape and the path of promise lay before them. the only help they could be would be to follow that path. it might not be that the path led where they wanted to go--or where they thought they were going--but nevertheless the path was there, and follow it they must. * * * * * quite a speech, mike thought. there had been much more, but that, and the declaration of the freedom of space, were the parts that had stayed with him. that last they had broadcast back to earth, thrown, as it were, into the screaming teeth of the new dictatorial leaders. mike leaned back from what he was doing and caught ishie's eye. he chuckled, and said "that was quite a mass of stuff that the cow upchucked on your command. why didn't you just freeze her like i thought you were going to do?" "confusion say," quoth ishie blandly, "he who would play poker with dishonest men should never put all cards on table too soon. or in other words, confusion is the better part of valor. the garbage made them think that the cow had sprung a cog somewhere, without ever guessing that we had control. "and by the way, mike, that was quite a trick you pulled with the air supply. having the cow boost up the oxygen on the bridge until those idiots got so drunk they were climbing the walls." "you don't happen to have any education as a psychologist, do you ishie? or perhaps a brain surgeon?" mike inquired. "it seems a shame to drag those security apes along with us. we can't just dump them overboard, but it would be nice if we could just confuse them or something." "sorry, mike. techniques of brainwashing are a bit out of my line. beside, confusion say those who run from wolf pack have better chance if they leave some meat behind for the wolves to fight over. i've already spoken to captain nails about it. we _intend_ to dump them overboard--just twenty minutes before the scuttlebug arrives. in suits, of course," he added. "then we'll take off and see whether security takes care of its own." there was a possibility, mike felt grimly, that perhaps security wouldn't take care of its own. but then, he asked himself, did he really care? and found it very difficult to come up with an answer. but he realized with vast respect that the master of confusion was not himself confused as to the issues involved before them. "it's lucky for us," mike said, "that you happened to pick this time to be aboard. your work would have gone more smoothly if you'd waited until the next go-round." ishie grinned, for once slightly embarrassed. "confusion say," he said, "luck is for those who make it. i expected that with hot rod coming into operation, some such play would be attempted. i've met security before." millie laid down her soldering iron, and disappeared through the bulkhead, returning shortly with a tray of sandwiches and coffee. coffee in real cups, for there was spin on the satellite, things were working well, and those bottles--ugh. "relax, boys, we've still got three hours," she told them. "radar hasn't spotted the scuttlebug yet. but our new communications officer, lal, has them on the line. he's apparently convinced them of his honorable intentions and gotten an exact prediction of arrival time. they think major ... uh, general elbertson has the situation well in hand. they even think hot rod's operational!" the crew relaxed around the circular room, squatting wherever convenient, and sipping luxuriously at the cups of coffee, munching sandwiches, and for the moment content. hot rod had been secured to the ship with extra acceleration cables, and as soon as practicable a remote-controlled confusor would be placed aboard to assist in any fast maneuvers that they might have to make; but for now there was no acceleration, and the group composed of the wheel, the big laser, the dump and the pile moved peacefully in orbit under free-fall conditions. millie began to hum a soft tune. someone else brought forth a harmonica that had been smuggled aboard, and suddenly paul chernov burst into song, his deep baritone, perhaps inspired by the captain's speech earlier in the day, lending the wailing "the spaceman's lament," an extra folk beat: _"the captain spoke of stars and bars of far-off places like maybe mars but the slipsticks slip on this ship of ours- and we'll get where i wasn't going!"_ mike looked over at millie as she drank her coffee, a slender, dark figure--able with a soldering iron; able as a defending panther; able as a spaceman's mate. he was glad the captain of the ship was a proper marrying officer, for he had an idea the feeling he felt was mutual, as he joined with the crew in the chorus: _"there's a sky-trail leading from here to there and another yonder showing- but when we get to the end of the run it'll be where i wasn't going...."_ * * * * * space station 1 by frank belknap long ace books a division of a. a. wyn, inc. 23 west 47th street, new york 36, n. y. space station 1 copyright 1957, by a. a. wyn, inc. all rights reserved printed in u. s. a. [transcriber's note: extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] intrigue in earth's outer orbit tremendous and glittering, the space station floated up out of the big dark. lieutenant corriston had come to see its marvels, but he soon found himself entrapped in its unsuspected terrors. for the grim reality was that some deadly outer-space power had usurped control of the great artificial moon. a lovely woman had disappeared; passengers were being fleeced and enslaved; and, using fantastic disguises, imposters were using the station for their own mysterious ends. pursued by unearthly monsters and hunted with super-scientific cunning, corriston struggles to unmask the mystery. for upon his success depended his life, his love and the future of earth itself. cast of characters corriston he saw all the sights of the space station ... in fact, he saw too much.... hayes his decision would mean the beginning or the end for a world. clakey this bodyguard needed special protection himself. clement sometimes it seemed as if he were leading a double life. henley with him for a friend one didn't need an enemy. helen ramsey her father had made her a virtual prisoner. 1 it was a life-and-death struggle--cruel, remorseless, one-sided. corriston was breathing heavily. he was in total darkness, dodging the blows of a killer. his adversary was as lithe as a cat, muscular and dangerous. he had a knife and he was using it, slashing at corriston when corriston came close, then leaping back and lashing out with a hard-knuckled fist. corriston could hear the swish of the man's heels as he pivoted, could judge almost with split-second timing when the next blow would come. he was bleeding from a cut on his right shoulder, and there was a tumultuous throbbing at his temples, an ache in his groin. the fact that he had no weapon put him at a terrifying disadvantage. he had been close to death before, but never in so confined a space or in such close proximity to a man who had certainly killed once and would not hesitate to kill again. his determination to survive was pitted against what appeared to be sheer brute strength fortified by cunning and a far-above-average agility. he began slowly to retreat, backing away until a massive steel girder stopped him. he was battling dizziness now and his heart had begun a furious pounding. he found himself slipping sideways along the girder, running his hands over its smooth, cold surface. to his sweating palms the surface seemed as chill as the lid of a coffin, but he refused to believe that it could trap him irretrievably. the girder had to end somewhere. the killer was coming close again, his shoes making a scraping sound in the darkness, his breathing just barely audible. corriston edged still further along the girder. inch by inch he moved parallel to it, fighting off his dizziness, making a desperate effort to keep from falling. the wetness on his shoulder was unnerving, the absence of pain incredible. how seriously could a man be stabbed without feeling any pain at all? he didn't know. but at least his shoulder wasn't paralyzed. he could move his arm freely, flex the muscles of his back. how unbelievably cruel it was that a ship could move through space with the stability of a completely stationary object. how unbelievably cruel at this moment, when the slightest lurch might have saved him. the girder was stationary and immense, and in his tormented inward vision he saw it as a strand in a gigantic steel cobweb, symbolizing the grandeur of what man could accomplish by routine compulsion alone. in frozen helplessness corriston tried to bring his thoughts into closer accord with reality, to view his peril in a saner light. but what was happening to him was as hard to relate to immediate reality as a line half remembered from a play. _see how the blood of caesar followed it, as if rushing out of doors to be resolved if brutus so unkindly knocked or no...._ but the killer wasn't brutus. he was unknown and invisible and if there had been any brutuslike nobility in him, it hardly seemed likely that he would have chosen for his first victim a wealthy girl's too talkative bodyguard and for his second corriston himself. the killer was within arm's reach again when the barrier that had trapped corriston fell away abruptly. he reeled back, swayed dizzily, and experienced such wild elation that he cried out in unreasoning triumph. swiftly he retreated backwards, not fully realizing that no real respite had been granted him. he was free only to recoil a few steps, to crouch and weave about. almost instantly the killer was closing in again, and this time there was no escape. another metal girder stopped corriston in midretreat, cutting across his shoulders like a sharp-angled priming rod, jolting and sobering him. for an eternity now he could do nothing but wait. an eternity as brief as a dropped heartbeat and as long as the cycle of renewal and rebirth of worlds in the flaming vastness of space. everything became impersonal suddenly: the darkness of the ships' between-deck storage compartment; the space station toward which the ship was traveling; the martian deserts he had dreamed about as a boy. the killer spoke then, for the first time. his voice rang out in the darkness, harsh with contempt and rage. it was in some respects a surprising voice, the voice of an educated man. but it was also a voice that had in it an accent that corriston had heard before in verbal documentaries and hundreds of newsreels; in clinical case histories, microfilm recorded, in penal institutions, on governing bodies, and wherever men were in a position to destroy others--or perhaps themselves. it was the voice of an unloved, unwanted man. the voice said: "you're done for, my friend. i don't know what the ramsey girl told you, but you came looking for me, and it's too late now for any kind of compromise." "i wasn't looking for a deal," corriston said. "if it's any satisfaction to you, miss ramsey told me nothing. but i saw a man killed; and i couldn't find her afterwards. i think you know what happened to her. knife me, if you can. i'll go down fighting." "that's easy to say. maybe you _didn't_ come looking for me. but you know too much now to go on living. unless you--wait a minute! you mentioned a deal. if you're lying about the ramsey girl and will tell me where she is, i might not kill you." "i wasn't lying," corriston said. "hell ... you're really asking for it." "i'm afraid i am." "it won't be a pleasant way to die." "any way is unpleasant. but i'm not dead yet. killing me may not be as easy as you think." "it will be easy enough. this time you won't get past me." corriston knew that the conversation was about to end unless something unexpected happened. and he didn't think there was much chance of that. had he been clasping a metal tool, he would have swung hard enough to kill with it. but he wasn't clasping anything. he was crouching low, and suddenly he leapt straight forward into the darkness. his head collided with a bony knee and his hands went swiftly out and around invisible ankles. he tightened his grip, half expecting the knife to descend and bury itself in his back. but it didn't. the other had been taken so completely by surprise that he simply went backwards, suddenly, and with a strangled oath. instantly corriston was on top of him. he shifted his grip, releasing both of the struggling man's ankles and remorselessly seizing his wrists. he raised his right knee and brought it savagely downward, again and again and again. a cry of pain echoed through the darkness. the killer, crying out in torment, tried to twist free. for an instant the outcome remained uncertain, a see-saw contest of strength. then corriston had the knife and the struggle was over. corriston made a mistake then of relaxing a little. instantly, the killer rolled sideways, broke corriston's grip, and was on his feet. he did not attempt to retaliate in any way. he simply disappeared into the darkness, breathing so loudly that corriston could tell when the distance between them had dwindled to the vanishing point. corriston sat very still in the darkness, holding on tightly to the knife. his triumph had been unexpected and complete. it had been close to miraculous. strange that he should be aware of that and yet feel only a dark horror growing in his mind. strange that he should remember so quickly again the horror of a man gasping out his life with a thorned barb protruding from his side. it had begun a half-hour earlier in the general passenger cabin. it had begun with a wonder and a rejoicing. tremendous and glittering, the space station had come floating up out of the big dark like a golden bubble on an onrushing tidal wave. it had hovered for an instant in the precise center of the viewscreen, its steep, climbing trail shedding radiance in all directions. then it had descended vertically until it almost filled the lower half of the screen, and finally was lost to view in a wilderness of space. when it appeared for the second time, it was larger still and its shadow was a swiftly widening crescent blotting out the nearer stars. "there it is!" someone whispered. it had been unreasonably quiet in the general passenger cabin, and for a moment no other sound was audible. then the whisper was caught up and amplified by a dozen awestruck voices. it became a murmur of amazement and of wonder, and as it increased in volume, the screen seemed to glow with an almost unbelievable brightness. everyone was aware of the brightness. but how much of it was subjective no one knew or cared. to a man in the larger darkness of space, a dead sea bottom on mars, or a moon-landing ship wrapped in eternal darkness on a lonely peak in the lunar apennines may glow with a noonday splendor. "they said a space station that size could never be built," david corriston said, leaning abruptly forward in his chair. "they quoted reams of statistics: height above the center of the earth in kilometers, orbital velocity, relation of mass to maneuverability. the experts had a field day. they went far out on a limb to convince anyone who would listen that a station weighing thousands of tons would never get past the blueprint stage. but the men who built it had enough pride and confidence in human skill to achieve the impossible." the girl at corriston's side looked startled for an instant, as though the ironclad assurance of so young a man was as much of a surprise as his unexpected nearness, and somehow even more disquieting older. she was certainly somewhat older than he was--about three or four years. she was an exceptionally pretty girl, her fair hair fluffed out from under a blue beret, her ship's lounge jacket a youth-accentuating miracle of casual tailoring that would have looked well on a woman of any age. she had the kind of eyes corriston liked best of all in a woman: longlashed, observant, and bright with glints of humor. she had the kind of mouth he liked too--a mouth which suggested that she could be, by turns, capricious, level-headed, and audaciously friendly with strangers without in any way inviting familiarity. there was a certain paradoxical timidity in her gaze too. it was manifesting itself now in an obvious reluctance to be startled too abruptly by space engineering talk from a young man who had taken her companionability for granted and who was obviously given to snap judgments. she brushed back the hair on her right temple, her brown eyes upraised to study corriston more closely. he hoped that she would realize upon reflection that she was behaving foolishly. he had taken a certain liberty in talking to her as he would have talked to an old acquaintance in a long-awaited meeting of minds. on the big screen a space station that couldn't be built was sweeping in toward the ship with eighty-five years of unparallelled scientific progress behind it. first had come the earth satellites, eight of them in their neat little orbits. they had used low-energy fuels, had kept close to the earth, and no one had seriously expected them to do more than record weather information and relay radio signals. for fifteen years they could be seen with small telescopes and even with the unaided eye on bright, cloudless nights in both hemispheres. first had come these small, relatively unimportant artificial moons and then, on a night in october 1972, the first space platform had been launched. soon the sky above the earth was swarming with radar warning platforms, a dozen men to operate them, and carrier-based jets equipped with formidable atomic warheads. nevertheless, how could anyone have known that in another twenty years interplanetary space flight would become a war-averting reality? how could anyone have known that by the year 2007 there would be human settlements on mars and by the year 2022 the actual transportation to mars of city-building materials? 2 corriston was beginning to feel uncomfortable. he wished that the girl would say something instead of just continuing to stare at him. she seemed to be interested in his uniform. she appeared to be gazing at him interrogatively, as if she wanted to know more about him before promising anything. he wondered what her unconscious purpose was. did she see in him the quiet, determined type who was all set to accomplish something important. or was she regretting he wasn't the hard-living, cynical type who had been everywhere and done everything? well, one way to find out was to be himself: a man average in every way, but with a hard core of idealism in his nature, a creative mind and enough independence and self-assurance to give a good account of himself in any struggle which brought his central beliefs under fire or placed them in long-range jeopardy. and so corriston suddenly found himself talking about the station again. "not many people have grasped the importance of it yet," he said. "one station will service our needs, instead of fifty-seven, one tremendous central terminal and re-fueling depot for _all_ of the ships. do you realize what that could mean?" abruptly there was a startling warmth in the girl's eyes, an unmistakable look of interest and encouragement. "just what could it mean?" she asked. "any kind of steady growth across the years leads to centralization, to bigness. and that bigness becomes time-hallowed and magnified out of all proportion to its original significance. the space station is no exception. it started with the primitive earth satellites and branched out into fifty-seven larger stations. now it's tremendous, a single central station that can impose its influence in ship clearance matters with an almost unanswerable finality." a shadow had come into the girl's eyes. "but not completely without checks and balances. the earth federation can challenge its supremacy at any point." "yes, and i'm glad that the challenge remains a factor to be reckoned with. as matters stand now the station's prestige can't be implemented with what might well become the iron hand of an intolerable tyranny. as matters stand, the station is actually a big step forward. people once talked of centralization as if it were some kind of indecent human bogey. it isn't at all. it's simply a fluid means to an end, a necessary commitment if a society is to achieve greatness. if the authority behind the station respects scientific truth and human dignity--if it remains empirically minded--i shall serve it to the best of my ability. no one knows for sure whether what is good outbalances what is bad in any human institution, or any human being. a man can only give the best of himself to what he believes in." "sorry to interrupt," an amused voice said, "but the captain wants you to join him in a last-minute celebration: a toast, a press photograph--that sort of nonsense. a six hour trip, and he hasn't even been introduced to you. but if you don't appear at his table in ten minutes he'll throw the book at me." corriston looked up in surprise at the big man confronting them. he had approached so unobtrusively that for an instant corriston was angry; but only for an instant. when he took careful stock of the fellow his resentment evaporated. there was a cordiality about him which could not have been counterfeited. it reached from the breadth of his smile to his gray eyes puckered in amusement. he was really big physically, in a wholly genial and relaxed way, and his voice was that of a man who could walk up to a bar, pay a bill and leave an everlasting impression of hearty good nature behind him. "well, young lady?" he asked. "i'm not particularly keen about the idea, jim, but if the captain has actually iced the champagne, it would be a shame to disappoint him." corriston was aware that his companion was getting to her feet. the interruption had been unexpected, but much to his surprise he found himself accepting it without rancor. if he lost her for a few moments he could quickly enough find her again; and somehow he felt convinced that the big man was not a torch-carrying admirer. "i'll have to stop off in the ladies' lounge first," she said. she had opened her vanity case and was making a swift inventory of its contents. "two shades of lipstick, but no powder! oh, well." she smiled at the big man and then at corriston, gesturing slightly as she did so. "we've just been discussing the station," she said. "this gentleman hasn't told me his name--" "lieutenant david corriston," corriston said quickly. "my interest in the station is tied in with my job. i've just been assigned to it in the very modest capacity of ship's inspection officer, recruit status." the big man stared at corriston more intently, his eyes kindling with a sudden increase of interest. "say, i wonder if you could spare me a few minutes. when my friends ask me i'd like to be able to talk intelligently about the terrific headaches the research people must have experienced right from the start. the expenditure of fuel alone...." "see you in the captain's cabin, jim," the girl said. she moved out from her chair, her expression slightly constrained. was it just imagination, or had the big man's immoderate expansiveness grated on her and brought a look of displeasure to her young face? corriston couldn't be sure, and his brow remained furrowed as he watched her cross the passenger cabin and disappear into the ladies' lounge. "i'm jim clakey," the big man said. corriston reseated himself, a troubled indecision still apparent in his stare. then gradually he found himself relaxing. he nodded up at the big man. "sit down, mr. clakey," he said. "ask me anything you want. security imposes some pretty rigid restrictions, but i'll let you know when you start treading on classified ground." clakey sat down and crossed his long legs. he was silent for a moment. then he said: "you know who she is, of course." corriston shook his head. "i'm afraid i haven't the slightest idea." "she isn't traveling under her real name only because her father is a very sensible and cautious man. you'd be cautious too, perhaps, if you were stephen ramsey." clakey's gaze had traveled to the ladies' lounge, and for an instant he seemed unaware of corriston's incredulous stare. "you mean i've actually been sitting here talking to stephen ramsey's daughter?" "that's right," clakey said, turning to grin amiably at corriston. "and now you're talking to her personal bodyguard. i'm not surprised you didn't recognize her, though; very few people do. she doesn't like to have her picture taken. her dad wouldn't object to that kind of publicity particularly, but she's even more cautious than he is." the door of the ladies' lounge opened and two young women came out. they were laughing and talking with great animation and were quickly lost to view as other passengers changed their position in front of the viewscreen. the door remained visible, however--a rectangle of shining whiteness only slightly encroached upon by dark blue drapes. corriston found himself staring at it as his mind dwelt on the startling implications of clakey's almost unbelievable statement. "biggest man on mars," clakey was saying. "cornered uranium; froze out the original settlers. they're threatening violence, but their hands are tied. everything was done legally. ramsey lives in a garrisoned fortress and they can't get within twenty miles of him. he's a damned scoundrel with tremendous vision and foresight." corriston suddenly realized that he had made a serious psychological blunder in sizing up clakey. the man was a blabbermouth. true, corriston's uniform was a character recommendation which might have justified candor to a moderate extent. but clakey was talking outrageously out of turn. he was becoming confidential about matters he had no right to discuss with anyone on such short acquaintance. corriston suddenly realized that clakey was slightly drunk. "look here," corriston said. "you're talking like a fool. do you know what you're saying?" "sure i know. miss ramsey is a golden girl. and i'm her bodyguard ... important trust ... sop to a man's egoism." an astonishing thing happened then. clakey fell silent and remained uncommunicative for five full minutes. corriston had no desire to start him talking again. he was appalled and incredulous. he was debating the advisability of getting up with a frozen stare and a firm determination to take himself elsewhere when the crazy, loose-tongued fool leapt unexpectedly to his feet. "she's taking too long!" he exclaimed. "it just isn't like her. she'd never keep the captain waiting." as he spoke, another woman came out of the ladies' lounge. she was small, dark, very pretty, and she seemed a little embarrassed when she saw how intently clakey was staring at her. then a middle-aged woman came out, with a finely-modeled face, and a second, younger woman with haggard eyes and a sallow complexion who was in all respects the opposite of attractive. "she's been in there for fifteen minutes," clakey said, starting toward the lounge. "it takes a good many women twice that long to apply makeup properly," corriston pointed out. "i just don't see--" "you don't know her," clakey said, impatiently. "i may have to ask one of those women to go in after her." "but why? you can't seriously believe she's in any danger. we both saw her go into the lounge. she made the decision on the spur of the moment and no one could have known about it in advance. no one followed her in. you were sitting right here watching the door." but clakey was already advancing across the cabin. he was reeling a little, and a dull flush had mounted to his cheekbones. he seemed genuinely alarmed. corriston was about to follow him when something bright flashed through the air with a faint swishing sound. a startled cry burst from clakey's lips. he clutched at his side, staggered, and half-swung about, a look of incredulous horror in his eyes. corriston's mouth went dry. he stood very still, watching clakey lose all control over his legs. the change in the stricken man's expression was ghastly. his cheeks had gone dead white, and now, as corriston stared, a spasm convulsed his features, twisting them into a horrible, unnatural caricature of a human face--a rigidly contorted mask with a blanched, wide-angled mouth and bulging eyes. a passenger saw him and screamed. his knees had given way and his huge frame seemed to be coming apart at the joints. he straightened out on the deck, jerking his head spasmodically, propelling himself backwards by his elbows. almost as if with conscious intent, his body arched itself, sank level with the floor, then arched itself again. it was as though all of his muscles and nerves were protesting the violence that had been done to him, and were seeking by muscular contractions alone to dislodge the stiff, thorned horror protruding from his flesh. he went limp and the barbed shaft ceased to quiver. corriston had a nerve-shattering glimpse of a swiftly spreading redness just above clakey's right hipbone. the entire barb turned red, as if its feathery spines had acquired a sudden, unnatural affinity for human blood. corriston started forward, then changed his mind. several passengers had moved quickly to clakey's side and were bending above him. someone called out: "get a doctor!" corriston turned abruptly and strode toward the ladies' lounge. brushing aside such scruples as he ordinarily would have entertained, he threw open the door and went inside. he called out: "miss ramsey?" when he received no answer he searched the lounge thoroughly. there was no one there. he was thinking fast now, desperately fast. he hadn't seen her come out and neither had clakey. he'd seen four women come out: three young women and an elderly one. none of them faintly resembled the girl he'd been talking to. the first young woman had emerged almost immediately. he remembered how intently clakey had been watching the door. clakey had sat down to discuss the station with him, and in less than two minutes the first young lady had emerged. then neither of them had taken their eyes from the door for five or six minutes. the second young lady had apparently known someone in the crowd. she had seemed annoyed by clakey's persistent stare and had disappeared quickly. the elderly woman had looked her age. her walk, her carriage, the lines of her face had borne the unmistakable stamp of genteel aging, and the dignity inseparable from it. the last woman had been the drab creature. corriston had a poor memory for faces and he knew that he couldn't count on recognizing any of them--except perhaps the elderly woman--if he saw them again. it was good that he could smile, even at his own inanities. it relieved tension. almost instantly the smile vanished. his aspect became that of a man in deadly danger on the brink of a hundred foot precipice, a man completely in the dark and yet grimly determined not to go over the edge or take a single step in the wrong direction. where, he asked himself, do women ordinarily go when they vanish into thin air? wasn't it pretty well established that ghosts were likely to follow the path of least resistance and fulfill obligations entered into in the flesh? the captain's cabin! the captain would be disappointed if she failed to appear at least briefly at his table; and she had promised to do so. it was a wild, premeditated assault on the rational, but putting the irrational aspect of it aside, it was also realistic and reasonable. if by some incredible miracle she had eluded clakey's vigilance and actually slipped from the lounge, she would almost certainly have gone straight to the captain's cabin. 3 corriston left the ladies' lounge faster than he had entered it. he shut the door firmly and stood for an instant staring at the passengers who had gathered in an even tighter knot around clakey and were making it difficult for an alarmed young ship's doctor to get to him. he was quite sure in his own mind that clakey would not need the assistance of a doctor. then he turned and headed for the captain's cabin. anyone could have gotten in. the door was ajar and there was no one guarding it. he threw the door wide and everything was just as he'd expected to find it: it was completely empty. no guests at all to welcome corriston to the big, empty cabin. then he saw that there was another door opposite. corriston was getting scared, really scared. there was an odd, detached, whimsical feeling at the surface of his mind, but it cloaked something distinctly sinister. he had more than half-expected the captain to be absent from his cabin. but something about the silence and the emptiness chilled him to the core of his being. with an effort he shook the feeling off. he didn't know where the inner door led to. he hesitated for an instant, realizing that the mere existence of a second door could complicate his search to the point of futility. if it led to a second cabin--well and good. but if it didn't.... he strained his ears to catch the sound of voices. there were no voices. he could have simply crossed to the door and looked beyond it. but the state of his nerves, and an odd habit he had of being precise and cautious under tension, made him explore the other possibilities first. the door might conceivably be a trap. a trap does not have to be contrived in advance with some clearly defined purpose in mind. circumstances can take a door or a window and turn it into a trap. a glove or a weapon left lying about can be picked up by an innocent man and snare him most damnably by seeming to point up his guilt. what purpose did the inner door serve? did it open on a corridor leading back to the general passenger cabin? if it did, it wouldn't be a trap; it would simply have "blind alley" stamped all over it. corriston suddenly realized that he was succumbing to a crazy kind of inaction. the door could lead almost anywhere, and if he had any sense at all he'd go through it fast. go through it he did, in six long strides. he'd been right about one thing--the blind alley part. he found himself, in not quite total darkness, in what was unquestionably an intership passageway. there was just light enough for him to make out the shadowy walls on both sides of him. rather they were like metal bulkheads that gave off just enough reflected light for him to see by. he wouldn't have considered ten or twelve seconds spent with a pocket flash a waste of time. but he had no pocket flash. the best he could do was stretch out both of his arms to determine just how far apart the bulkheads were. they were less than six feet apart. well, no sense in measuring the walls. a girl he'd talked to and liked instantly had vanished in a dark world, and he knew now that there was more than mere liking in the way he felt about her. he didn't dare ask himself how much more, not in so confined a space and with his chances of finding her again dwindling with every second that passed. the passageway ended in a blank wall, less than forty feet from its beginning. corriston saw the wall and was advancing toward it when he suddenly realized that the deck itself wasn't continuous. in his path, and almost directly underfoot, a companionway entrance yawned, so unexpectedly close that another short step would have sent him plunging into it. he saw the faint light reflected on its circumference and halted just in time to avoid a possibly fatal fall. he knelt and stared down into a spiraling web of darkness. he could see a faint glimmer of light on metal and knew that he was bending above either a circular staircase or a companionway ladder. it turned out to be a staircase. down it he went, moving cautiously, holding on to the supporting guide rail as he descended deeper and deeper into the darkness. the darkness became almost absolute when the stairs ended. for a moment, at least, what appeared to be utter blackness engulfed him. then gradually his vision became more effective. he could make out the faint outlines of stationary objects, of depths beyond depths, of crisscrossing lines and angles. in utter darkness the glint of metal often seemed to draw the eyes like a magnet, to make itself known even without illumination. but there seemed to be a faint glow far off somewhere. he couldn't be sure, but light there should have been if--as he more than half-suspected--he was in one of the ship's below-deck ballast or storage compartments. the deck beneath his feet was straight and level and cluttered with no impediments. he moved forward warily, testing every step until a wall of metal stopped him. he halted abruptly, felt along the barrier and became aware that it was studded with small bolts and was just a little corrugated. exhibit a: one supporting metal beam, rough and slightly uneven in texture. abruptly he reached the end of it and found himself underway again, still moving cautiously to avoid unseen pitfalls. he had not progressed more than a dozen feet when he heard the scrape of footsteps other than his own, and someone moved up close to him and blocked his way in the darkness. for an instant the wild thought went through his mind that the someone was the captain. but he had seen and talked with the captain and that self-contained, blunt-spoken man wasn't nearly as big physically as the path-blocker seemed to be. the someone did not speak. but corriston could sense the enmity flowing from him, the utter refusal to budge an inch, the determination to make his nearness a deadly threat in itself. then the someone moved back a step. the far-off light could hardly have been an illusion, because for the barest instant corriston could dimly make out the huge bulk of the man and the glint of the knife in his hand. two big men in the space of half an hour! the first had ceased to draw breath and the second was his killer. corriston was suddenly sure of it. he knew it instinctively. then began the struggle which had almost robbed corriston of his life, the cruel, one-sided, impossible-to-win struggle in total darkness. and corriston had won it. * * * * * now almost in disbelief, corriston looked down at the knife he had taken from the loser, telling himself that it was impossible that so much could have happened in so short a time and that he could still be alive at the end of it. the wound in his shoulder was no longer painless, but it had ceased to bleed profusely, and his exploring fingers convinced him that the knife had severed no more than a superficial ligament. he strained his ears in the sudden quiet, listening for a possible return of his adversary. he did not think that the defeated man would attempt a second attack. but there was no telling what he might or might not do. probably he'd ascended the companionway by now and was mingling with the other passengers. the final link in corriston's search had snapped. even while battling for his life, he had felt close to the vanished girl. the man who had killed clakey had been at least a link, a link that, short of corriston's total defeat, might have been seized upon with physical violence and made to yield up its secret. now corriston found himself wondering if the defeated man had been telling the truth. had the link been non-existent from the first? was the killer as completely in the dark as he was as to the whereabouts of ramsey's daughter? it was difficult to believe that the man had been lying. despite his hatred and denials he _had_ offered corriston a deal: "_tell me where the girl is and i may not kill you._" the deal part had been a lie, of course. he would have gone on and attempted to kill corriston anyway. but his plea for information, that tentative, cunning feeler in the dark had seemed genuine. what had been the man's purpose in killing clakey? why had clakey been murdered in the general passenger cabin, in plain view of the other passengers? because the killer had seen the girl go into the lounge and thought she was still there? and because he wanted free and instant access to her, with clakey out of the way? it was the only answer that made sense. the killer must have known that clakey was in ramsey's employ and had been guarding ramsey's daughter. why then had he been unable to take advantage of his crime in any way? apparently neither he nor a possible confederate had succeeded in what almost certainly had been a pattern of violence directed at ramsey through his daughter--a plan obviously worked out in advance, ready to be put into operation the instant a promising opportunity presented itself. into corriston's mind flashed an ugly picture of the girl pinioned by strong arms and with a handkerchief pressed to her face. she had ceased to struggle and was being spirited quickly away. the picture became even more intolerable when he saw her held captive in a cabin difficult to locate, at the mercy of men without compassion. but for some reason he'd never cease to be thankful for, it hadn't happened that way. something had gone wrong with the plan, and the killer didn't even know when and why and how she had vanished. sharing corriston's frustration, he had been struggling simply to save himself, to keep corriston from identifying and exposing him. the fury he'd displayed was not difficult to understand. corriston found himself becoming more confident again, less dominated by despair. the change in his mood surprised him but he seized upon it gratefully and started building on it. there was only one logical next move. he must find the captain quickly and enlist his help. he must take the master of the ship fully into his confidence. with every gift of persuasion at his command, he must make the captain see how the danger of ramsey's daughter was mounting and would continue to mount with every minute that she remained unfound. he still felt dizzy, and his head was aching a little, but he moved quickly through the darkness, his faculties heightened by an intensity of purpose which enabled him to find the companionway without colliding with obstacles or taking a wrong turn. up the stairway he climbed, still clutching the knife, prepared for a possible second encounter with its original owner. an attempt to regain the knife by trickery and stealth would not have surprised him. in fact, it was not at all difficult for him to picture a silent form flattened against the stair-rail, waiting for just the right moment to come hurtling toward him out of the darkness. for a moment, as he ascended, the strain became almost unendurable. then the darkness dissolved above him, and he was advancing toward the captain's cabin through the narrow passageway which he had spanned with his arms spread wide. he did not stop to span it this time. he emerged into the cabin and stood for an instant blinking in the sudden light. the cabin was still deserted. it was anybody's guess where the captain had gone or when he would be returning, and corriston decided not to wait. he walked to the door, opened it and stepped out into the general passenger cabin. no one saw him immediately. there were several passengers fairly close to him, but they were being attentive for the moment to the words and gestures of a tall, dignified looking man with observant brown eyes, a ruddy complexion, and gold braid on his shoulders. the tall man was captain john sanders. "i'd be a hypocrite and a liar if i said there was no justification for alarm," sanders was saying, in a voice loud enough to carry to where corriston was standing. "strict regulations prescribe that sort of thing. but it's no way for a captain to keep the respect of his passengers." corriston felt himself stepping forward before he even thought about it. but he halted abruptly when the captain said: "there's a murderer on the loose aboard this ship. you may as well accept that fact right now. each of you has to be on his guard. it's only right and proper that you should keep your eyes and ears open, and _stay_ worried. if you do, our chances of catching up with him before the ship berths should be reasonably good." the captain paused, then went on quickly: "we'll get him eventually. you can be sure of that. he'll never get past the inspection each of you will have to undergo when we reach the station. but if we catch him before we reach the station, you'll be spared an investigative ordeal distinctly on the rugged side." corriston was suddenly aware that he was being stared at. everyone was staring at him. "my god!" the captain cried out, staring the hardest of all. "where did you get that wound? who attacked you? and what were you doing in my cabin?" corriston walked up to the captain and said in a voice that trembled a little. "may i talk to you privately, sir? what i have to say won't take long." "why not?" sanders demanded. "that uniform you're wearing makes it mandatory. all right, come back into my cabin." they went back into the cabin. the captain shut the door and turned to face corriston with a shocked concern in his stare. "you've had it rough, lieutenant. i can see that." "plenty rough," corriston conceded. "but it's not myself i'm worried about." "did you know that a man has just been murdered?" "i know," corriston said. "with a poisoned barb. a martian barb. it's a plant found only on mars. we have him stretched out on a table in the sick bay now. but he isn't sick; he's a corpse. tell me something, lieutenant, did you just tangle with the man who did it?" "i think so," corriston said. "in fact, i'd stake my commission on it." "i see. well, you'd better tell me about it. tell me everything." corriston told him. the captain was silent for a long moment. then he said, "but we've no miss ramsey on the passenger list. and i certainly didn't invite her to drink a toast with me in my cabin. are you sure of your facts, lieutenant?" corriston's jaw fell open. he stared at the captain in stunned disbelief. "of course i'm sure. why should i lie to you?" "how should i know? it's unfair to ask me that. if ramsey's daughter was on this ship, you can rest assured i'd have known about it. after all, lieutenant--" "but she _was_ on board and you _didn't_ know. isn't that obvious? look, she was traveling incognito. the trip to the station takes only five hours. perhaps in so short a trip--" "no 'perhaps' about it. i'd have known." "but she _is_ on board, i tell you. i talked to her. i talked to clakey. don't make me go over the whole thing again. we've got to find her. ramsey's enemies would stop at nothing. i'm afraid to think of what they might do to his daughter!" "nothing will happen to his daughter. she's on earth right this minute in her father's house, as safe as any girl that wealthy can ever be. lieutenant, listen to me. i've got a great deal of respect for that uniform you're wearing. don't make me lose it. when you come to me with a story like that--" "all right. you don't believe me. will you check the passenger list, just to be sure?" "i'll do more than that, lieutenant. i'll assemble all of the passengers and check them off personally. i'll give you an opportunity to look them over while i'm doing it. later you can ask them as many questions as you wish. there'll be a murderer among them, but that shouldn't disturb you too much. you've already met. perhaps you can identify him for us. ask each of the men who made a non-existent miss ramsey disappear and the one who turns pale will be our man." suddenly the captain reddened. "i'm sorry, lieutenant, i didn't mean to be sarcastic. but a murder on my ship naturally upsets me. i'll be completely frank with you. there's a very remote possibility that miss ramsey actually _is_ on board without my knowledge. she hasn't had much publicity. i believe i've only seen one photograph of her, one taken several years ago. but you've got to remember that a captain is usually the first to get wind of such things. it comes to him by a kind of grapevine. she's a golden girl--actually the goldenest golden girl on earth." 4 now corriston was in a steel-walled cell and the captain's voice seemed only a far-off echo sympathizing with him. and it was an echo, for the captain was gone and he would probably never see him again. it was all very simple--that part of it--all very clear. the captain had faithfully kept his word. the captain hadn't let him down. but any man can end up a prisoner when everyone disbelieves him and he has no way of proving that he is telling the truth. it was hard to believe that a day and a night had passed, and that the captain _had_ kept his word and gone ahead with the roll call. it was even harder to believe that he, corriston, was no longer on the ship, but in a sanity cell on the space station, and that the ship was traveling back toward earth. he shut his eyes, and the events of the past thirty hours unrolled before him with a nightmare clarity, and yet with all of the monstrous distortions which a nightmare must of necessity evoke. darkness and time and space. and closer at hand the frowns of forthright, honest men appalled by mental abnormality in a new recruit, an officer with a steel-lock determination to keep the truth securely guarded and safe from all distortion. there had come the tap on his shoulder and a stern voice saying: "you'd better come with us, lieutenant." he had just told the captain the whole horrible story. he had not been believed. "tell me about it," said the recruit in the bunk opposite corriston. "it will help you to talk. remember, we're not prisoners. we mustn't think of ourselves as prisoners. we can go out and exercise. we can walk around the station for a half-hour or so. we've only got to promise we'll come back and lock ourselves in. they trust us. it could happen to anyone. "space-shock. not a fancy word at all. i'm getting over it; you've a certain distance to go. or so they say. but we're still in very much the same boat and talking always helps. talk to me, lieutenant, the way you did last night." corriston looked at the pale youth opposite him. he had close-cropped hair and friendly blue eyes, and he seemed a likeable enough lad. he was corriston's junior by several years. but there was an aura of neuroticism about him that made corriston uneasy. but hell, why shouldn't he get it off his chest. talking just _might_ help. "it's true," corriston said. "every word of it." "i believe you, lieutenant. but quite obviously _they_ didn't. why not strike a compromise. say i'm one-tenth wrong in believing you and they're nine-tenths right in not believing you. that means there may be some little quirk in what happened to you that doesn't quite fit into the normal pattern. put that down to space-shock--a mild case of it. i'm not saying you have it, but you could have it." the kid was grinning now, and corriston had to like him. "okay," he said. "you can believe this or not. the captain lined all of the passengers up and checked them off by their cabin numbers. i _didn't_ see her. do you understand? she just wasn't there! i thought i recognized two of the women who had come out of the ladies' lounge, but i couldn't even be sure of that. one of the two denied ever having stepped inside the lounge, and the other was vague about it." "i see." "the captain really sailed into me for a moment, lost his temper completely. 'a fine officer you are, lieutenant. it's painful to be on the same ship with the kind of officers the training schools turn out when the station finds itself short of personnel. is the station planning to trust ships' clearance to hallucinated personnel? "'all right, you talked to a girl--some girl. she didn't even tell you she was ramsey's daughter; clakey told you. and he's dead. not only is he dead, he wasn't listed on the passenger list as clakey at all. his name was henry ewers. i don't know what you believed, lieutenant. i don't care what you think you saw. you tangled with someone and he stabbed you. _he_ was real enough ... obviously the man who killed ewers. but you let him get away, so even that isn't too much to your credit.'" "if i had been you," the kid said, "i've had knocked him down." "no." for the first time corriston smiled. "to tell you the truth, the captain is a good guy. he's one of those blunt, moody, terribly human individuals you encounter occasionally, men who speak their minds on all occasions and are instantly sorry they did. you have to like them even when they seem to insult you." "he made up for it then?" "i'll say he did. he knew that when we landed the officials would be breathing right down my neck. he wanted to give me every chance. so he kept the officials away from me until i'd convinced myself ramsey's daughter just couldn't be on board. "he let me look at every piece of luggage that was taken off the ship. he had some cargo to unload and he let me inspect that too, every crate. most of the crates were too small to conceal a drugged and unconscious girl--or any girl for that matter. the ones that weren't, he opened for me and let me look inside. "he let me watch every passenger leave the ship. then, when all of the passengers had left, he stationed officers in the three main passageways and i went through the ship from bow to stern. i went into every stateroom and into every intership compartment. no one could have kept just a little ahead of me or behind me, dodging back into a compartment the instant i'd vacated it. they would have been instantly spotted by one of the officers. "the captain wasn't to blame at all for what happened later ... when i tried to convince the commanding officers here that i was completely sane." "i see. he must have really liked you." "i guess he did. and i liked him." the kid nodded. "and the murderer's still at large. that makes it rough for the sixty odd passengers they're holding in quarantine. how long do you think they'll hold them in the big cage?" "as long as they can. they'll keep them under close guard and increase their vigilance every time there's a suspicious move in the cage. they'll be screened perhaps a dozen times. but most of them are influential people. most of them have booked passage on the mars' run liner that's due here next week. they can't hold them forever. they'd start pulling wires on earth by short wave and there'd be a legislative uproar. "suppose they refuse to let them send messages?" "they won't refuse. i'm sure of that." the kid was thoughtful for a moment. then he said: "tell me more about ramsey. just what do you think is happening on mars?" "no one knows exactly what is happening," corriston said. "but to the best of my knowledge the overall picture is pretty ugly. the original settlers have their backs to the wall with a vengeance. now there are armed guards at their throats. ramsey has taken over. he has resorted to legal trickery to freeze them out. "there are perhaps fifty important uranium claims on mars and ramsey has consolidated all of the holdings into a single major enterprise. to say that he's cornered the market in uranium would be understating the case. he has taken possession by right of seizure, and the colonists can't get to him. they're living a hand-to-mouth existence while he lives in a heavily guarded stronghold behind three miles of electrified defenses." the kid nodded again. "yes, that's the picture when you unscramble it, i guess. but most of it is kept hidden from the general run of tourists." "naturally. ramsey has the power to keep it under wraps." "do you think the colonists had anything to do with clakey's murder and miss ramsey's disappearance? or i guess i should say henry ewers' murder." "clakey, ewers--his name doesn't matter. i'm convinced that he was miss ramsey's bodyguard." "but you haven't answered my question." "i can't answer it with any certainty. did the colonists hire a killer and book passage for him on the ship? it's difficult to believe that the kind of men who colonized mars would resort to murder." "but there are a few scoundrels in every large group of men. and what if they became so desperate they felt they had to fight fire with fire?" "yes, i'd thought of that. it may be the answer." 5 a half-hour later the kid was taken away and corriston found himself completely alone. there are few events in human life more unnerving than the totally unexpected removal of a sympathetic listener when dark thoughts have taken possession of a man. the kid wasn't forcibly removed from the cell. he left without protesting and no rough hands were laid on him, no physical violence employed. but he was not at all eager to leave, and if the guards who came for him had eyed him less severely, his attitude might have been the opposite of complacent. "sorry, kid," one of them said. "your discharge has been postponed. somebody on the psycho-staff wants to give you another test. i guess you didn't interpret the ink blots right." he looked at corriston and shook his head sympathetically. "it's tough, i know. once you're here waiting to be released can wear you down. i shouldn't be saying this, but it stands to reason it might even slow up your recovery a bit. it's easy to blame the docs, but you've got to try to understand their side of it. they have to make sure." when the door clanged shut behind the kid, corriston crossed to his cot, sat down, and cradled his head in his arms. the fact that he was still free to go outside and walk around the station was no comfort at all. that kind of freedom could be worse than total confinement. he could never hope to escape from observation. the guards were under orders to watch him, and wherever he turned there'd be eyes boring into the back of his neck. on earth a man under surveillance could duck quickly into a side street, run and weave about, and emerge on a broad avenue in the midst of a crowd. he could walk calmly then for a block or two, and turn in at a bar. he could drown his troubles in drink. there were bars on the station, of course. but corriston knew that if he tried to mingle with officers of his own rank on the upper levels, he'd quickly enough find himself drinking alone. he could picture the off-duty personnel edging quickly and resentfully away from him, as though he'd suddenly appeared in their midst with a big, yawning hole in his skull. suddenly utter weariness overcame corriston. he loosened his belt, elevated his legs, and relaxed on the cot. he was asleep almost before he could close his eyes. how long he slept he had no way of knowing. he only knew that he was awakened by a sound--the strangest sound a man could hear in space. it was as if a gnat or a mosquito had developed a sudden, avaricious liking for his blood-type and was determined to gorge itself to bursting at his expense. the buzzing seemed to go on interminably as he hovered between sleeping and waking. on and on and on, with absolutely no letup. then, abruptly, it ceased. there was a faint swishing sound and something solid thudded into the hardwood directly above him. with a startled cry corriston leapt from the cot, caught the iron edge of the bed-guard to keep from falling, and stared up in horror at the shining expanse of wall space overhead. the cell was in almost total darkness. but from the barred window opposite, a faint glimmer of light penetrated in a diffuse arc, just enough light to enable him to make out the quivering stem of the barb. it _was_ a barb. this was so beyond any possibility of doubt. it had lodged in the hardwood scarcely a foot above his cot and it was still quivering. cold sweat broke out on corriston's palms as he realized how close death had come, and how almost miraculous had been his escape. had he raised himself to slap at the "mosquito" the barb could just as easily have buried itself in his skull. corriston hesitated for an instant, his eyes on the barred window and the faint glow beyond. then his gaze passed to the wall switch. he decided against switching on the light immediately. he stooped low and moved quickly to the window, taking care to keep his head well below the sill. for a moment he listened, his every nerve alert. there was no stir of movement in the darkness beyond the sill, nothing at all to indicate that someone was crouching there. finally, with an almost foolhardy recklessness, he raised his head and stared out between the bars. he could see right across to the wall opposite. the wall was less than eight feet away, and the space between the wall and his cell appeared to be unoccupied. this did not surprise him. it was utterly silly to think that a man intent on willful murder would have lingered for any great length of time in so narrow a space. after having shot his bolt, his immediate concern would have been to get away as quickly as possible. no, definitely, the man was gone, and if he had more barbs to release he would choose another time and place. even then corriston did not switch on the light. he had no particular desire to examine the wood-embedded barb in a bright light. he could see it clearly enough from where he stood. it was exactly like the barb which had sealed the lips of that blabbermouth clakey. corriston went back to his cot and sat down. he told himself it would be highly dangerous to leave the cell and give the killer another chance. he had saved himself by refusing to slap a non-existent mosquito. but in the shadows of the station there would be no mosquitoes--non-existent or otherwise. the killer would simply crouch in shadows, await his chance, and take careful aim. what he had to do was find miss ramsey, and prove his sanity. if he stayed in the cell, the shadows would continue to deepen about him, would become intolerable, and perhaps even drive him to the verge of actual madness. he had to convince the killer that he couldn't be silenced easily and perhaps not at all. corriston stood up. he ran his hands down his body, taking pride in its muscular solidity, its remarkable integrity under strain. he still felt lithe and confident; his physical vitality was unimpaired. he had really known all along that he would be leaving the cell. on earth you could dodge into a narrow alley between tall buildings or lean on a stroller platform and be carried underground so fast that your pursuers would be left blank-faced. if he stayed alert he could do the same thing on the station, even though there were no moving pavements to leap upon. quite possibly he could even slip out unnoticed. they might not even be watching the cell door because he had behaved himself so well up to now. psycho-cases were permitted to roam, but if they stayed in their cells precautions would naturally be relaxed in their favor. corriston now was about to develop a sudden, unanticipated impulse to roam. the fact that he was completely sane gave him an edge over the space-shocked recruits. there is nothing quite so terrifying to a man who doubts his own sanity than the thought that unseen eyes are keeping tabs on him. he feels guilty and acts guilty and almost invariably his caution deserts him. corriston was quite sure that he could carry it off, even if he felt eyes boring into his back the instant he left the cell. he'd simply bide his time and seize the first opportunity which presented itself. actually, it was easier than he'd imagined it could be. he simply opened the cell door, walked out; and there was no one in sight to observe him. so far, so good. the corridor outside was completely deserted, and when he reached the end of it there was still no one. he turned left into a large, square reception room and crossed it without hurrying, his shoulders held straight. photoelectric eyes? yes, possibly, but he had no intention of letting the thought worry him. if he were being watched mechanically, there was nothing he could do about it and somehow he didn't think that he had crossed any photoelectric beams. certainly no doors had swung open or closed behind him, and photoelectric alarm system without visible manifestations could be dismissed as a not too likely possibility. when corriston emerged in the glass-encased, wide-view observation promenade on the station's second level, he was no longer alone. on all sides men and women jostled him, walking singly and in pairs, in uniform and in civilian clothes, or hurrying off in dun-gray, space-mechanic anonymity. the promenade was crowded almost to capacity and yet the men and women seemed mere walking dots scattered at random beneath the immense structures of steel and glass which walled them in. a feeling of unreality came upon corriston as he stared upward. he deliberately moderated his stride, as if fearful that a too rapid movement in any one direction might send him spinning out into space with a glass-shattering impetus which he would be powerless to control. it was an illogical fear and yet he could not entirely throw it off, and he did not seriously try. it was not nearly as important as the possibility that he might be being followed. there was no one behind him who looked in the least suspicious, and no one in front of him either. but how could he be completely sure? the answer was that he couldn't. he had to trust his instincts, and so far they had given him every assurance that he was moving in a free, independent orbit of his own, completely unobserved. and then, quite suddenly, he ceased to move at all. something quite startling was taking place throughout the length and breadth of the observation promenade. the men in uniform were exchanging alarmed glances and departing in haste. the civilians were crowding closer to the panes. they were collecting in awestruck groups of blinding light crisscrossed high above their heads. they were all looking in one direction, but a few of them had been taken so completely by surprise that they stood motionless in the middle of the promenade. corriston was one of the motionless ones, but his eyes were quick to seek out the nearest viewpane. at first he thought that a gigantic meteor had appeared suddenly out of the stellar dark and was rushing straight toward the station with a velocity so great as to be almost unimaginable. then he realized that it wasn't a meteor. it was a spaceship. and it wasn't rushing straight toward the station. it had either bypassed or encircled the station and passed beyond it, for it was now heading out into space again. he could see the long, bright trail left by its rocket jets, the diffuse incandescence in its wake. 6 an officer with two stripes on his shoulder was standing almost at corriston's elbow. he hadn't turned to depart, and for some reason he seemed reluctant to do so. the space-ship's erratic course seemed to absorb him to the exclusion of all else. he started swearing under his breath. then he saw corriston and a strange look came into his face. he looked at corriston steadily for a moment, then looked quickly away. corriston edged slowly away from him and joined the nearest group of civilians. they were all talking at once and it was hard to understand precisely what they were saying. but after a moment a few enlightening fragments of information greatly lessened his bewilderment. "_that freighter was preparing to land at the station, but for some reason it couldn't make contact. it never even began to decelerate._" "_how do you know?_" "_i asked one of the officers--that gray-haired man over there. he was plenty worried. i guess that's why he talked so freely. he'd had some kind of dispute with the captain, apparently. he told me that trouble developed aboard that freighter when it was eight or ten thousand miles away. an emergency message came through, but for some reason the captain kept it pretty much to himself._" watching the freighter's hull blaze with friction as it went into a narrow orbit about earth, corriston tried hard to make himself believe that the particular manner of a spaceman's departure was simply one, tragic aspect of a calculated risk, that men who lived dangerously could hardly expect to die peacefully in their beds. but it was a rationalization without substance. in an immediate and very real sense he was inside the freighter, enduring an eternity of torment, sharing the agonizing fate that was about to overtake the crew. nearer and nearer to earth the freighter swept, completely encircling the planet like a runaway moon with an orbital velocity so great the eye could hardly follow it. "it will blast out a meteor pit as wide as the grand canyon if it explodes on land," someone at corriston's elbow said. "i wouldn't care to be within a hundred miles of it." "neither would i. it could wipe out a city, all right--any city within a radius of thirty miles. this is _really_ something to watch!" the freighter had encircled earth twice and was now so close to its blue-green oceans and the dun-colored immensity of its continental land masses that it had almost disappeared from view. it had dwindled to a tiny, glowing pinpoint of radiance crossing the face of the planet, an erratically weaving firefly that had abandoned all hope of guiding itself by a light that was about to flare up with explosive violence and put an end to its life. the freighter was invisible when the end came. it was invisible when it struck and rebounded and channeled a deep pit in a green valley on earth. but the explosion which followed was seen by every man and woman on the station's wide-view promenade. there were three tremendous flares, each opening and spreading outward like the sides of a funnel, each a livid burst of incandescence spiraling outward into space. as seen from the station the flares were not, of course, so tragically spectacular. they resembled more successive flashes of almost instantaneous brightness, flashes such as had many times been produced by the tilting of a heliograph on the rust-red plains of mars under conditions of maximum visibility. it takes an experienced eye to interpret such phenomena correctly, and among the spectators on the promenade there were a few, no doubt, who were not even quite sure that the freighter _had_ exploded. but corriston had no doubts at all on that score. the full extent of the tragedy would be revealed later by radio communication from earth. there was a long silence before anyone spoke. the group around corriston seemed paralyzed by shock, unable to express in words how blindly hopeful they had dared to be, or how fatalistic from the first. there were a few moist eyes among the women, an awkward, almost reverent shuffling of feet. then the young man at corriston's elbow cleared his throat and said in a barely audible whisper: "it didn't come down in the sea." "i know," corriston said. "it came down in north america, close to the canadian border." "in the united states?" "yes, i think so. we can't be sure. it's too much to hope there was no destruction of human life after an explosion of that magnitude." corriston suddenly realized that he was behaving like a man who had taken complete leave of his wits. he was drawing more and more attention to himself when he should have been bending all of his efforts toward making himself as inconspicuous as possible. fortunately the agitation of everyone on the promenade was helping to remedy his blunder. his wisest course now was simply to recede as an individual, to move silently to the perimeter of the group and just as silently vanish. he was confident that he could accomplish it. he began elbowing his way backwards until there were a dozen men and women in front of him. he let himself be observed briefly as a grim-lipped spectator who had taken such an emotional pounding that he could endure no more. suddenly he saw his chance and took it. there was another small group of civilians close to the group he had joined, and he ducked quickly behind them, using their turned-away backs as a shield. he edged toward a paneled door on his right, his only concern for the moment being a comparatively simple one. he must get away from the crowded promenade as swiftly as possible. he reached the door, swung the panel wide, and stepped into the long, brightly-lighted compartment beyond without a backward glance. almost immediately he perceived that he had committed an act of folly. the compartment was a promenade cafeteria and it was crowded with an overflow of agitated men and women discussing the tragedy in heated terms. _keep cool now. none of these people are interested in you. keep cool and keep on walking. there's another door and you can be through it in less than a minute_, corriston told himself. there was a pretty waitress behind the long counter, and as he came abreast of her she smiled at him. for an instant he hesitated, eyed the stool opposite her, and fought off an incongruous but almost irresistible impulse to sit down. quick warmth and sudden sympathy. yes, he could do with a bit of both, corriston thought. it was sheer insanity, but he _did_ sit down. he eased himself into the stool and ordered a cup of coffee. "something with it?" the waitress asked. "a sandwich, or--" "no, no, i don't think so," corriston said quickly. "just the coffee." the waitress seemed in no hurry to depart. "it was pretty terrible what happened. wasn't it?" "did you see it?" corriston asked. "i saw most of it. i saw the ship go past the station and start to explode. i saw that black wing, or whatever it was, drop off. then someone started shouting in here and i came back. they say it crashed on earth." "that's right," corriston said, telling himself that he was a damned fool for wanting to look at her hair and hear her friendly woman's voice when every passing second was adding to his danger. "you saw it crash?" corriston nodded. "i just came from the promenade." "that was a crazy thing to ask you. how excited can you get? i saw you come through that door. you looked kind of pale." "i still feel that way," corriston said. the waitress then said a surprising thing: "i wonder what it is about some men. you just have to look at them once and you know they're the sort you'd like to be with when something terrible happens. you know what i mean?" "sure," corriston said. "any port in a storm." the waitress smiled again. "i don't mean that, exactly. please don't think i'm handing you a line. there's just something ... comfortable about you. you go all pale when something bad happens to other people. that's good; i like that. it means you can feel for other people. you're a gentle sort of guy, but i bet you can take care of yourself and anyone you care about. i just bet you can." the waitress flushed a little, as if afraid that she had said too much. she turned and walked slowly toward the coffee percolator at the far end of the counter. he was glad now that he had ordered the coffee. the coffee would help too. he suddenly felt that he was under observation, that hostile eyes were watching him. but it was no more than just a feeling; and coffee and sympathy might drive it away. _how blindly, stupidly foolish could a guy be?_ corriston thought. _if he had any sense at all he wouldn't wait for the coffee. he'd get up quickly and head for the door at the other end of the cafeteria. he'd either do that, or swing about abruptly and attempt to catch the silent watcher by surprise._ corriston decided to wait for the coffee. the waitress looked at him strangely when she returned. she set the coffee down before him and started to turn away, her eyes troubled. then, suddenly, she seemed to change her mind. she leaned close to him and whispered: "you'd better leave by the promenade door. that man over there has been watching you. i know him very well. he's a security guard." corriston nodded and stared at her gratefully for a moment. he was more relieved than alarmed. it was far better to have a security guard watching him than a killer with a poisoned barb. he wasn't exactly happy about it, but he was confident he could elude the agent. the waitress' eyes were suddenly warm and friendly again. "space-shock?" she asked. "so they claim," corriston said. "i happen to think they're mistaken." he started sipping the coffee. it was hot but not steaming hot. he could have tossed it off like a jigger of rye but he had some quick thinking to do. "tell me," he said. "just where is that guard sitting?" "at the other end of the counter," the waitress replied, the anxiety coming back into her eyes. "he's close to the door. you'd have to go past him. maybe i'm wrong, but i think you want to get away from him. so you'd better go the way you came--by the promenade door." "that's not too good an idea, i'm afraid," corriston said. "he'd follow me and get assistance on the promenade. what's beyond the other door? where does it lead to?" "it opens on a corridor," the waitress said quickly. "if you can get past him you might have a better chance that way. there's nothing but a corridor with two side doors. one opens on an emergency stairway that goes down to the master sequence selector compartments." she seemed to take pride in her knowledge. due to a space-shocked guy's difficulties, the master sequence selector had become an important secret shared between them. corriston wondered if she knew that the selector functioned on thirty-two separate kinds of automatic controls. if he ever got the chance, he'd come back and tell her exactly how grateful he was. right at the moment one consideration alone dominated his thinking. if he could get past the guard he could hide out in an intricate maze of machinery. even if they sent a dozen guards down to look for him it would take them some time to locate him. he could hide-out and gain a breathing spell. the waitress had a very small hand. abruptly corriston clasped it and held it for an instant, his fingers exerting a firm, steady pressure. "thanks," he said. corriston swung about without glancing toward the end of the counter. he'd pass the guard quickly enough; there was no sense in alerting the man in advance. as for recognizing him, that would be no problem at all. you couldn't mistake a security guard no matter what kind of clothes he wore. corriston took his time. he walked slowly, refusing to hurry. a man under surveillance should never hurry. he should be casual, completely at his ease, for there is no better way of keeping an observer guessing. he kept parallel with the long counter, his shoulders swaying a little with the assurance of a man who knows exactly where he is going. presently the entire length of the counter was behind him, and he was less than a yard from the door. he hadn't glanced once at the counter. he didn't intend to now. one quick leap would carry him through the door and beyond it, and to hell with recognizing the guard. when it was touch and go and odd man out, you altered your plan as you went along. he'd seen a girl disappear when everyone said it didn't happen. confined to a psycho-ward, he had simply walked out, eluded a killer, and watched a ship explode on the green hills of earth. he'd survived all that, so how could one lone security guard stop him now? he was preparing to leap, when something got in his way--a shadow--a shadow for an instant between himself and the door, and then a dark bulk stepping right into the shoes of the shadow and filling it out. the security guard was not at all the kind of person he'd expected him to be. he was not a big ape, not even a muscular-looking man. he had simply seemed big for the instant he took to fill the place of his shadow. he was a man of average height, average build. he blocked the doorway without bluster, looking very calm and relaxed. only his eyes were cold and accusing and dangerously narrowed as he surveyed corriston from head to foot. "i'm afraid you'll have to go back to the ward now," he said. "you picked a bad time to take a turn about the station. ordinarily you'd be privileged to do so. that's part of the therapy. but you picked a _very_ bad time." "i'm beginning to realize that," corriston said. "i couldn't help it, though. i had no way of knowing that freighter was out of control. i'm afraid you've made a mistake, too, though. i'm not going back to the cell." corriston had been watching the man's right arm. suddenly it went back and his fist started rising, started coming up fast at an angle that could have sent it crashing against corriston's jaw. corriston had no intention of letting that happen. he side-stepped quickly and delivered a smashing blow to the pit of the guard's stomach. the blow was so solid that it doubled the guard up. his knees buckled and he started to fold. corriston didn't take the folding for granted. a second blow caught the man squarely on the jaw and a third thudded into his rib section. for an instant he looked so dazed that corriston felt sorry for him. he was still half-doubled up when he sank to the floor and straightened out. he straightened out on his side first, and then rolled over on his back and stopped moving. his lips hung slackly, his eyes were wide and staring. the look on his face gave corriston a jolt. it was a very strange look. the fact that his features had become slack was not startling in itself, but there was something unnatural, unbelievable, about the way that muscular relaxation had overspread his entire countenance. his features were putty-gray and they seemed to have no clearly defined boundaries. his nose, eyes, and forehead looked as if the ligaments which held them together had snapped from overstrain or had been severed by a surgeon's scalpel ... severed and allowed to go their separate ways without interference. in fact, there was no real expression on the man's face at all--no recognizably human expression--not even the stuporous look of a man knocked suddenly unconscious. there was agitation now in the cafeteria, a hum of angry voices, a rising murmur that was coming dangerously close. corriston shut his mind to it. he knelt at the guard's side and swiftly unbuttoned the unconscious man's heavy service jacket. he felt around under the jacket until he was satisfied that he could move on through the doorway with a clear conscience. the guard's heart was beating firmly and steadily. there was a reassuring warmth under the jacket as well, a complete absence of clamminess. suddenly the guard groaned and started to roll over on his side again. corriston didn't wait for him to complete the movement. he arose quickly and was through the door in four long strides. he preferred not to run. he was not so much fleeing as seeking a security he was entitled to, a reasonably safe port in a storm that was threatening to take away his freedom by blanketing him in a dark cloud of unjust suspicion and utter tyranny. the corridor was as deserted as he'd hoped it would be. with no one to get in his way or sound an alarm, he had no difficulty at all in locating the emergency passageway which descended in a rail-guarded spiral to the master sequence selector. he kept his right hand on the safety rail as he moved downward into the darkness. for the first time he felt extremely tired. 7 the drone of machinery in a high-vaulted, metal-walled compartment awakened corriston. it was for the most part a steady, low, continuous sound. but occasionally it ceased to be a drone, in a strict sense, and became high-pitched. it became a shrill, almost intolerable whine, impinging unpleasantly on his eardrums and preventing him from going to sleep again. for interminable minutes he lay stretched out at full length in the lidded, coffinlike rag bin into which he had crawled, a lethargic weariness enveloping him like a shroud. above his head steel-blue surfaces crisscrossed, vibrating planes of metal and wire intricately folded back upon themselves. after a moment, when the steady drone was well in the ascendency again, he sat up and stared about him. he had a throbbing headache and there was a dryness in his throat which made swallowing difficult. he was certainly not an exceptional man in regard to such matters. during moments of crises he could remain fairly calm and self-possessed but the aftermath could be killing. he felt now as if all of his nerves had been squeezed together in a vise. he looked at his wrist watch and was amazed to discover that he had slept for eight hours. if a search had been made for him, he had no reason to complain about his luck. he hadn't even closed the lid of the bin. but perhaps the oil-stained waste he had drawn over himself had given them the idea that he was just more waste underneath. perhaps the guards didn't give a damn whether they found him or not. it was quite possible. on a low official level a cynical desire for self-comfort could dominate the thinking of a man. it was quite possible that the guards who had been sent down to search for him--or one of the guards, at least--had been angry at his superiors. just a quick look and to hell with it--that must have been his attitude. it made sense in another way. they wouldn't suspect the bin because the bin was so conspicuous and obvious a hiding place. the purloined letter sort of thing. crawl into an empty coffin at a funeral and no one will give you a second glance. all dead men look alike. the master sequence selector compartment was a coffin, too--a big, all-metal coffin arching above him and hemming him in. if he hoped to get out of it alive, he'd have to do more than just beat on the lid with his fists. almost instantly he was ashamed of his thoughts. he had been extremely lucky so far. the funeral was over, the sod firmly in place. they would not be likely to dig him up on suspicion, and he could stay buried until he starved to death. the worst would be over when they found him. the thirst torment would be the worst, but if it became unbearable he would still have the choice of surrendering himself. quite possibly he _would_ die of thirst. quite possibly he could shout his lungs out and still remain trapped. if a search had been made and they had failed to find him, sullen anger might have tempted them to do an unthinkable thing. they might have locked the door of the compartment so that the corpse would have no opportunity of escaping prematurely and making them look like fools. corriston was just starting to climb out of the bin to investigate the truth or falseness of that utterly demoralizing possibility when he heard the sound. it was a very peculiar sound, three or four times repeated, and he heard it clearly above the low drone of the selector's automatic controls. he stood up in the bin, straining his ears. it came again, louder this time. it was only a short distance away and it was a voice sound, unmistakably a voice sound. he climbed out of the bin, grasped a metal rod that projected from one of the cross-beams, and descended cautiously to the base of the selector. the droning increased for an instant, rising to a whine so high-pitched that he could no longer hear the voice. he started moving around the edge of the selector, keeping well within its shadow, watching shafts of dull light move backwards and forwards across the floor. he hardly expected anyone to leap out at him. the voice had not seemed quite that near; in fact, he was by no means sure that it had come from the compartment at all. but if not from the compartment, where? he found out quickly enough. there was a square, windowlike grate a few feet from the selector's automatic control panel, set high up on the wall. a faint, steady glow came from it. corriston paused for an instant directly below the glow, measuring the distance from the floor to the aperture with his eyes. he strained his ears again, waiting for the whine to subside. it continued shrill, but suddenly he heard the voice again, heard it above the whine. there was stark terror in the voice. it was despairing and desperate in its pleading, and it seemed to corriston that he would remember it until he died. he thought he recognized the voice, but he couldn't be sure. it was perhaps merciful that he couldn't, for the grate was at least ten feet above the floor and had he known beyond the faintest shadow of doubt that it was helen ramsey's voice, his inability to reach her would have been fiendish torment. he hoped only one thing--that he had to reach that voice in time. first of all he had to stay calm. even a calm man could not hope to scale a ten-foot wall with his bare hands, but an agitated man would have no chance at all. something to stand on! a box--anything! a box would help, a ladder would be better. but what were his chances of finding a ladder in the selector compartment? not good at all. still, he could search for a ladder. quickly now. no time to waste, but don't lose your head. take thirty seconds, a good long thirty seconds to look around for a metal ladder. there just might be one standing somewhere against the wall. there was! not one ladder, but two, leaning against the wall directly opposite the glimmering front section of the selector. it was amazing how desperation could change a man. in the great moments of danger and desperation small, neurotic concerns ceased to matter. he was sure now. he had recognized the voice beyond any possibility of doubt. the ladder scraped against the wall and swayed a little, and for an instant he feared it might slide out from under him. he paused to make sure, and then went swiftly on up until his head was level with the grate. he grasped the heavy grillwork with both hands and raised himself higher. he could see clearly through the grill into the compartment beyond now. the entire compartment was visible from where he stood. it was small and square and dimly lighted by an overhead lamp, and there was a paneled door leading into it. close to the door a man was standing. corriston couldn't see his face. he was half-turned away from the wall opposite him, and the girl who was struggling to escape from him was more than two-thirds concealed by his massive shoulders. he was holding her in a tight, merciless grip. he had locked one hand on her wrist and was preventing her from moving either backwards or forwards. it was costing him no effort. he simply stood very straight and still while she struggled vainly to free herself. immense strength seemed to emanate from him, complete assurance and a coldly calculating kind of brutality which appeared to be slowly undermining her will to resist. her struggles became less frantic second by slow second, and that she was about to stop struggling altogether was evident from the way her right arm had begun to dangle and her body to sag. the man was holding her by the left wrist in a left-handed grip. he was cruelly twisting her wrist and suddenly she cried out again in pain and despairing helplessness. the blood started mounting to corriston's temples. he began tugging at the grate with both hands, exerting all his strength in a desperate effort to dislodge it. it began to move a little, to become less firmly attached to the wall. he could feel it moving under his hands, rasping and creaking as it loosened inch by inch. he was covered with sweat. already in his mind he had killed the man, and helen ramsey was tight in his arms, happy and alive. the man did not seem to hear the rasp of the grate coming loose. he neither turned nor raised his head. his free hand had gone out and across the girl's face. but if he had struck her on the face, she gave no sign. she did not recoil as if from a blow and there was something strange about the movement. it was as if the man had reached out to tear something from the girl's face--a veil or a mask. his hand whipped back empty but his fingers were oddly twisted, as if he had clawed at something that had failed to come free. corriston pulled back his shoulders and his posture on the ladder grew more erect. he knew that his exertions might send the ladder toppling but it was a risk he had to take. the grate was freely movable now. he could move it backwards and forwards, six or eight inches each way; but he still could not rip it completely free. he kept on tugging, his neck cords bulging, the ladder swaying dangerously. the grate could be moved upward now, just a little. no, it was finally coming completely loose. he could move it in all directions and even push it outward at right angles to its base. twice he heard helen ramsey cry out again, and her screams became a goad that turned his wrists to steel. with a sudden, convulsive wrench he twisted the grate sideways. it came loose in his hands. it was so surprisingly light that an incongruous rage surged up in him. it was cruelly perverse, intolerable, that he should have been so long delayed by a thin sheet of metal that hardly seemed to have any weight at all. he swung about on the ladder and let the grate drop. it struck the floor a few feet from the selector and rebounded with a clang loud enough to wake the dead. the ladder swayed again, and he had to grab the edge of the aperture quickly and with both hands to keep himself from toppling. he pulled himself forward through the aperture on his stomach, taking care not to dislodge the ladder. his temples were pounding and his palms sticky with sweat. he did not look down until he was completely through, dreading what he might see. he passed a hand over his eyes. it was unbelievable, but he had to believe it. the man was gone and the girl was now alone in the compartment. had the man fled in sudden fear, knowing that corriston would be consumed with a killing rage that would make him a more than dangerous adversary? corriston didn't think so. the man had looked quite capable of putting up a furious struggle. more likely he had disappeared to keep himself from being recognized, or because he had accomplished his purpose. blind, embittered anger again boiled up in corriston. had the man waited, he would have rejoiced and been less angry. he would have taken a calm, deep breath and slowly set about the almost pleasant task of killing him. he felt cheated, outraged. then his concern for helen ramsey made him forget his rage. had she been felled with a blow, or had she simply fainted? he started down, then hesitated. the ladder first. before he descended it was necessary to make sure that the ladder would be in the same compartment with him, set firmly against the wall, directly under the aperture. if he were prevented from leaving the compartment by the corridor door, he might find himself needing the ladder. without it he might be descending into a trap that could close with a clang and abruptly imprison him. getting down into the compartment was the worst part, just putting the ladder into place and not knowing how badly hurt she was. _what if she's dead?_ he thought. _what if he killed her with a single blow? he looked strong enough. he could have killed her. god, don't let me think of that. i mustn't think it._ his feet touched the floor. he let out his breath slowly, turned and crossed the floor to where she was lying. he went down on his knees and lifted her into his arms. she lay relaxed in his arms, face up, quiet, her lips slightly parted. he looked down into her face, and for a moment his mind went numb, became still, so that there was no longer a whirling inside his head--only a chilling horror. she seemed to have two faces. one was shrunken and almost torn away, a shredded fragment of a face. but enough of it remained for him to see the shriveled flesh of the cheeks, the puckered mouth, the white hair clinging to the temples. it was the face of an old woman but so fragmentary that it could not even have been called a half-face. and even though it had been almost ripped away, it seemed still to adhere firmly to the face to which it had been attached, and to blend with it, so that the features of both faces intermingled in a quite unnatural way. not quite, though; helen ramsey's face was sharper, more distinct--all of the features stood out more clearly. and when corriston's stunned mind began to function normally again, he realized that the old woman's face was--had to be--a plastic mask. it took him only an instant to remove the ghastly thing from features which he could not bear to see defaced. he had to pry it loose, but he did so very gently, exactly as a sculptor might have pried loose a life mask from the face of a recumbent model. he held it in his hand and looked at it, and a little of the horror crept back into his mind. it was the merest fragment, as he had thought. thin, flexible, a tissue-structure of incomplete, aged features, and with an inner surface that was very rough and uneven, as if something had been torn from it. he could have crumpled it up in his hand, but he did not do so. with a lack of foresight which he was later to regret--a lack which was to prove tragic--he simply flung it from him, as though its ugliness had unnerved him so that he could no longer endure the sight of it. helen ramsey was a dead weight in his arms, and for a moment he feared that she had stopped breathing. so great was his fear, so paralyzing, that his hand on her pulse became rigid, and for a moment he could neither move nor think. then he felt the slow beat of her pulse and a great thankfulness came upon him. he knew then that he must get help as quickly as possible. he eased her gently to the floor, walked to the door and locked it securely. then he returned to her and took her into his arms again. he spent several minutes trying to revive her. but when she did not open her eyes, did not even stir in his arms, he knew that he could not wait any longer. 8 an inexorable kind of determination enabled corriston to get to the station's central control compartment, and confront the commander, when the latter, absorbed by matters of the utmost urgency, had triple-guarded his privacy by stationing executive officers outside the door. commander clement was a small man physically, with a strangely bland, almost cherubic face. but his face was dark with anger now--or possibly it was shock that he was experiencing--and the heightened color seemed to add to his dignity, making him look not merely forcibly determined, but almost formidable. his white uniform and the seven gold bars on each epaulet helped a good deal too. it was impossible to determine at a glance just how great was his inner strength, but corriston knew that he could not have gotten where he was had he not possessed unalloyed resoluteness. he was standing by a visual reference mechanism which looked almost exactly like a black stovepipe spiraling up from the deck. there was a speaking tube in his hand, and he was talking into it. he seemed completely unaware that he was no longer alone. had corriston been less agitated he would have felt a little sorry for the officer who had admitted him. the officer had been so impressed by corriston's gravity and the earnestness with which he had pleaded his case that he had stepped forward and opened the door without question, assuming, no doubt, that clement would look up instantly and see corriston standing just inside the doorway. now the door had closed again, clement hadn't looked up, and the officer was going to be in trouble. but corriston had no time and very little inclination to worry about that. what commander clement was saying into the speaking tube had a far stronger claim on his attention. "it's the worst thing that could have happened," clement was saying. "we can't just brazen it out. it's going to mean trouble, serious trouble. what's that? how should i know what happened? when you're carrying a certain kind of cargo a thousand things can go wrong. the ship went out of control, that's all. the first radio message didn't tell me anything. the captain was trying to cover up to save himself. he didn't even want _me_ to know. "you bet it can happen again. we've got to be prepared for that, too. but right now--" commander clement saw corriston then. his expression didn't change, but it seemed to corriston that he paled slightly. "that's all for now," he said, and returned the speaking tube to its cradle. he looked steadily at corriston for a moment. a glint of anger appeared in his eyes, and suddenly they were blazing. "what do you mean by coming in here unannounced, lieutenant?" he demanded. "i gave strict orders that no one was to be admitted. if i didn't know you were suffering from severe space-shock...." "i'm sorry, sir," corriston said quickly. "it's very urgent. i think i can convince you that i am _not_ suffering from space-shock. i've found miss ramsey. she's been badly hurt and needs immediate medical attention." the commander looked as if a man he had thought sane was standing before him with a gun in his hand. not corriston, but some other, more violent man. for a moment longer he remained rigid and then his hand went out and tightened on corriston's arm. "by heaven, if you're lying to me!" "i would have no reason to lie, sir. it proves i'm not a space-shock case. but that's unimportant now. she's safe for the moment. no one can get to her. i bolted the door on the inside. unless--" corriston went pale. "no, there's no danger. i drew the ladder up and returned it to the selector compartment. then i threw the lock on the emergency door." "start at the beginning," clement said. "if she's in danger well get to her. take it easy now, and tell me exactly what happened." corriston went over it fast. he said nothing about the mask. let clement find that out for himself. commander clement walked to the door, threw it open and spoke to the executive officer who was stationed outside. the officer came into the control room. "stay with lieutenant corriston until i get back," clement said. "he's not to leave. he understands that." he turned back to corriston. "i'm afraid you'll have to consider yourself still under guard, lieutenant. i have only your word that you found miss ramsey. i believe you, but there are some regulations even i can't waive." "it's all right," corriston said. "i won't attempt to leave. but please hurry, sir." commander clement hesitated, then said with a smile: "i knew about the guard you knocked out, lieutenant. you're a very hot-headed young man. that's _really_ a court-martial offense, but perhaps we can smooth it over if you're telling the truth now. you were in the position of a man imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. if he can prove his innocence, the law is very lenient. he can escape and still get a full pardon, even a pardon with apologies. it's a different matter, of course if he _kills_ a guard to escape. you didn't." corriston was tempted to say, "i think perhaps i tried to, sir," but thought better of it. he'd ask clement later why the guards who had been sent down into the selector compartment had failed to find him. it wasn't important enough now to waste a second thought on, but just out of curiosity he would ask. he didn't have to. after clement had departed the executive officer told him. "they made a pretty thorough search for you," he said. "or so they claimed. but they had been drinking heavily--every one of them. maintaining discipline can be a terrible headache at times. there's a lot of objectivity about the commander and he doesn't try to crack down too hard. he knows what it means to be out here for months with nothing to break the monotony. hell, if we could send for our wives more often it wouldn't be so bad." corriston's palms were cold. he stood very still, wondering how long it would take the commander to return with the news he wanted to hear. "the question is whether life is really worth living without a woman to talk to," the executive officer went on. "just to lie relaxed and watch a pretty girl move slowly around a room. it does something for you." corriston wished the man would keep quiet. under ordinary circumstances he could have sympathized heartily. he couldn't now. there was only one girl he wanted to see walk around a room, and she might just as well have been at the opposite end of space. she wasn't walking around a room now. she was lying helplessly sprawled out, waiting for rescue to come. it had to come soon, it had to. the commander wouldn't just go down alone after her. he'd be accompanied by a half-dozen executive officers who would know exactly how to bundle her into a stretcher and carry her to the sick bay. but what if a killer just happened to be crouching in one of the corridors, waiting for the stretcher to pass? a killer with a poisoned barb.... corriston couldn't stand still. he walked back and forth across the control room while the executive officer continued to talk. he paid no heed at all. corriston heard a footfall as he paced. he turned and saw that commander clement had returned. he was standing in the doorway with a strange look on his face. corriston felt bewildered, unable to quite believe that clement was really back. it was like a dream that had suddenly turned real, a looking glass reversal with a strange quality of distortion about it. it was real enough. clement entered and shut the door behind him, very firmly and carefully, as if he wanted to make sure that corriston would not attempt to escape. he walked slowly forward, looking at the executive officer as if corriston had no place at all in his thoughts. "everything he told me was a lie," clement said. "everything. there was no girl. the compartment was locked; so was the emergency door leading down to the selector. the ladder was standing against the wall in the selector compartment. miss ramsey could not have been in the compartment--not at any time. there was nothing to indicate it. she just wasn't there." corriston moved toward him, his face white. "that's a lie and you know it. what have you done with her? you'd better tell me. you can have me court-martialed, but you can't stop me from talking. i can prove she was there. the grate--" "the grate? what are you talking about? there was no ripped-out grate. the grate was in place. i feel very sorry for you, lieutenant. but i can't let sympathy stand in the way of my duty. in some respects you're very rational. you can think logically and clearly ... up to a point. but the shock weakness is there. it's very serious when you start having actual hallucinations." the executive officer had drawn his gun. he was holding it rather loosely in his hand now, triggered and ready for any dangerous or suspicious move on corriston's part. there was nothing in clement's gaze as he swung about to refute the dark mistrust that had come into the executive officer's eyes. he seemed intent only on bolstering that mistrust by driving even deeper nails into corriston's coffin. "i'm afraid we'll have to continue to regard lieutenant corriston as dangerously unstable," he said. "keep your gun on him when you take him back to the ward. don't relax your vigilance for an instant." "i won't," the executive officer promised. "good. you're not going to make any further trouble for us, are you, lieutenant?" the question seemed to call for no answer and corriston made none. he turned slowly and walked toward the door, despairingly aware that a man he had rather liked had fallen into step behind him and would shoot him dead if he so much as wavered. just as he reached the door clement spoke again, giving the executive officer final instructions. "he must not be permitted to leave his cell. make sure of that, simms. post a permanent guard at the door. he must be kept under constant surveillance. if he's the self-destructive type, and i'm by no means sure he isn't, he may attempt to kill himself." 9 _may attempt to kill himself. may attempt.... may attempt.... may attempt to kill himself._ corriston sat up on his cot, his mouth dry, his temples pounding. had clement implanted the suggestion in his mind deliberately, with infinite cruelty and cunning? was clement really hoping that he _would_ commit suicide? if he took his own life clement would stand to gain a great deal. but could clement be that much of a scoundrel? was he, in fact, a scoundrel at all? corriston knew that he could not afford to succumb to panic. only by staying calm, by trying to reason it out logically, could he hope to get anywhere. not at the truth, perhaps, but anywhere at all. start off with a supposition: the commander was everything that he pretended to be, an honest man with immense responsibilities which he could not delegate to anyone else. a forthright, hot-tempered, but completely sincere man. a little secretive, yes, but only because he took his responsibilities so seriously. start off by assuming that clement was that kind of a man. what would he stand to gain if corriston killed himself? the removal of one responsibility, at the very least. it was bad for morale if an officer had hallucinations that vitally concerned the station itself. but a hallucination about the wealthiest girl on earth wasn't just run-of-the-mill. it could not only disturb every officer and enlisted man on the station; it could have political repercussions on earth. clement was already in trouble because of the freighter. the chances were a congressional investigating committee would be coming out. they'd be sure to hear about corriston. his story would be all over the station, on everyone's lips. if corriston took his own life the commander would be spared all that. he'd have nothing to answer for. the entire affair could be hushed up. or could it? wait a minute, better give the whole problem another twirl. even if the commander was a completely honest man, he wouldn't stand to gain too much. he might even find himself in more serious trouble. and look at it in another way: it was hard to believe that a hallucination concerning helen ramsey could be much more than a gadfly irritation. if the full truth came out, clement could clear himself of all blame. would a man of integrity suggest that a fellow-officer take his own life solely to remove a gadfly irritation? or _any_ irritation, for that matter? it was inconceivable on the face of it. the first supposition was a contradiction in terms. it did not remain valid under close scrutiny and therefore it had to be rejected. supposition number two: clement was in all respects the exact opposite of an honest man. clement had something dark and damaging to conceal, was in more serious trouble than he'd allowed anyone to suspect. clement had some reason for not wanting the truth about ramsey's daughter to come out. what would he stand to gain if corriston took himself out of the world? unfortunately there were wide areas where any kind of speculation had to penetrate an almost absolute vacuum to get anywhere at all. the situation on mars? was there some as yet undemonstratable link between ramsey's uranium holdings and the station itself? was clement involved with ramsey in some way? and was ramsey's daughter a vital link in the chain? had the accident to the freighter put an additional strain on the chain, a strain so great that clement had been forced to take immediate, drastic action to protect himself? corriston tried to remember exactly what the commander had said over the speaking tube. he had tried to listen intently, but he had been too agitated to make much sense out of the few brief sentences which he had overheard. clement had been speaking in anger and not too coherently, and it had been a one-way conversation, with the replying voice completely silent, or, at the very least, inaudible. but one thing about the conversation _had_ made a strong impression on him. clement had not sounded like an honest man with nothing to conceal. on the contrary, he had sounded like a worried and guilty man. corriston shut his eyes and relaxed for a moment on his cot. it was an uneasy, tormenting kind of relaxation, because another thought had occurred to him. what if clement had not deliberately tried to plant a suicide suggestion in his mind at all? what if he had simply spoken with the malice of a not too kindly man appalled and enraged by a space-shock victim who had not only lied to him, but had given every evidence of being dangerously difficult to control. it certainly made sense. there was nothing in the cell which might have enabled corriston to take his own life, even had he been so inclined. would not clement have taken care to introduce into the cell some convenient, readily available weapon--a steel file, perhaps or even a small spool of wire? a cold dream had begun to take possession of corriston. was it true then, could it possibly be true? was he hallucinating? he had seen helen ramsey go into a ladies' lounge and disappear. he had seen her a second time, and she had worn a mask. the mask was so strange that it would have made four men out of five question their own sanity. but he had knelt beside her and lifted her into his arms. he had felt the pulse at her wrist. well? if after that she had disappeared again, was it not more of a black mark against him than if he had failed to touch her at all? all hallucinations seem real to the insane. the realer they seem the more likely they are to be inescapably damning. could a warped mind hope to escape from such a dilemma? was there any possible way of making sure? no, not if he had actually cracked up. but supposing he hadn't. suppose he had just passed for an instant over the borderline, as a result of strain, of abnormal circumstances, and was now completely rational again. in that case, proof would help. proof could convince him that at least a part of what had happened had been real, that he had not been hallucinating continuously for days. if he could prove conclusively that he had not been hallucinating when he had climbed through the grate, helen ramsey's presence beyond the grate would be pretty well established. even an insane man does not abandon all logic when he performs a complicated act. he is not likely to ascend a ten foot wall and climb through a grate in pursuit of a complete illusion. oh, it _could_ happen.... possibly it had happened many times in hospitals for the incurably insane. but somehow he could not believe that it had happened in his case. right at this moment he was certainly not in an abnormal state of mind. how could he be when he was able to think so logically and consistently? being sane now, or at least having the firm conviction that he was sane, would enable him to retrace what had happened step by step. what he were to retrace it in reality ... until he came to the grate? if the grate had been ripped out, the torment and uncertainty in his mind would vanish. he would be free then to move against clement, to unmask and expose him for the scoundrel he was. free? the very thought was a mockery. he was free for twenty feet in either direction, free to shout and summon the guard. but beyond that.... corriston sat up straight. free to summon the guard. free to summon a man he had dropped to the floor with two quick, decisive and totally unexpected blows. but if he did summon the guard, what then? could he be doubled up with cramps--the old prisoners' dodge? "get me to a doctor. i think i'm dying." hell no, not that. it was mildewed even on the face of it. the guard wouldn't be that much of a fool. he'd whip out a gun, and slash downward with it at the first suspicious move on the part of a man he hated. was there any other way? perhaps there was ... a quite simple way. why couldn't he simply ask the guard to step into the cell and request permission to talk to him? he would plead urgency, but do it very casually, arouse the man's curiosity without antagonizing him too much. no need to be crafty, await some unlikely opportunity, or anything of the sort. simply overpower the man--straight off, without any fuss. it had happened before, but that very fact would make the guard contemptuous, more than ever convinced that the first time he hadn't really been taken by surprise at all. his pride would make him want to believe that. he was the kind of man who could rationalize a humiliating defeat and blot it completely from his memory. it not only worked, it worked better than he could have dared hope. when he spoke a few words through the door, the guard became instantly curious. he unlocked the cell and came in, his eyes narrowed in anger ... anger, but not suspicion. his gun remained on his hip as he walked up to corriston and stood directly facing him, well within grappling range. "well, what do you want to talk to me about?" he demanded. "better make it brief. i'm not supposed to talk to you at all." "i'm sorry to hear that," corriston said. "you've got no idea how depressing it is to be locked up in a narrow cell with absolutely no one to talk to." "you don't like it, eh? well, you brought it on yourself." corriston caught the man about the waist and brought his right fist down three times on his curving back. each blow was a powerful one, slanting downward toward the kidney. then corriston hit the guard directly in the small of the back, with an even more punishing blow. the cumulative effect was instantaneous. the guard collapsed and sank down like a suddenly deflated balloon, the breath whistling from between his teeth. corriston watched him sink to the floor and straighten out. forewarned as he was, he was still appalled by the almost instant, shocking change in the man's expression. for the second time the guard's features began to come apart. the entire upper portion of his face seemed to sink inward and broaden out, and the flowing began, the incredible refusal of his forehead and nose to remain in close proximity to his mouth. one eye closed completely; the other remained open in a wide and almost pupilless stare. the chin receded and the lips became a puckered gray orifice that looked like some monstrous fungus growth sprouting from the middle of a gargoyle face. the individual features became paler and paler as they spread, and suddenly there seemed to be no color left in the face at all. it had turned completely waxen. it was a horrifying thing to watch. corriston knelt, opened the man's shirt and stared intently at the exposed throat, something he had not done the first time in the cafeteria. the first time he had simply knelt and searched under the shirt with his hand for a heartbeat which had surprised him by its steadiness. he was quite sure now that the heart was beating firmly and steadily. even the peculiar appearance of the throat did not alarm him. but it most certainly did interest him. far down on the security guard's throat, just above his breastbone, were a row of small hooks partly embedded in his flesh. the hooks were very tiny indeed, and their brightness was obscured by a thin film of sweat. corriston removed the moisture with a quick flick of his thumb and continued to stare, as if he could not quite believe his eyes. finally he wedged his fingers under the base of the mask, and ripped it from the guard's face. under the mask, the face had a perfectly natural look. the features were relaxed and vacuous, but there was no flowing, no unnatural distortion at all. and it was quite a different face--the face of a man who had worn a disguise and was now so completely a stranger to corriston that he might just as well have been any one of the station's thirty-seven security guards. corriston could see where the hook attachments had gone into the flesh in at least thirty places on the man's face: on his brow, his cheekbones, on both sides of his face clear down to the base of his neck. the tiny punctures made by the hooks were faintly rimmed with blood, perhaps because corriston had torn the mask away too abruptly. undoubtedly the skin had been anaesthetized, the hooks inserted skillfully by someone familiar with just what should be done to prevent scarring. he hoped that the guard would not carry tiny scars on his face for the rest of his natural life. he arose and examined the mask. he had a complete false face. the thing was ingenious beyond belief. it was no mere halloween assemblage of papier-machã© flimflammery, but an elaborate and flexible mask of very thin plastic, or possibly metal. a prosthetic mask--if one could use that term in connection with a mask. it was certainly more complex in structure than any prosthetic leg or arm he had ever seen on a handicapped man, or would ever be likely to see. he had a pretty good idea as to how it worked. a general idea. apparently when the hooks were attached to the muscular structure of the human face underneath, every aspect of the wearer's face would be instantly controlled and altered to conform to the configuration of the false face. in that sense the mask could be said to actually mold itself to the wearer's face and transform it into a completely new and different face. and yet, in some subtle way, the emotions felt by the owner of the real face would be conveyed to the mask, so that it would express with different features very much the same kinds of emotion. ingenious was scarcely the word for it. it was a miracle of technological science, almost beyond belief. but he could not doubt the reality of what he saw, for he held the evidence in his hand. no hallucination could possibly be _that_ real. the way the mask's surface coloration could change when the wearer's emotions changed was perhaps the most amazing miracle of all. he had seen the guard's color come and go, had watched him redden with anger and then grow pale. it could only mean that there was some mechanically symbiotic, emotion-sensitive electronic coating or skin surface, or series of tubes on the inner surface of the mask, which could simulate actual blood flow much like a network of tiny heat regulators. this network would be so responsive to the slightest change in body temperature that the mask would alter its color the instant the wearer experienced fright or grew uncontrollably angry. what made it seem logical and even likely was the fact that caloric changes do occur in just such a fashion in the human body with every shift from anger to grief or from pain to shock. there was nothing simple about the inner surface of the mask. it was a maze of complicated gadgetry concentrated in less than eight inches of space, perhaps thirty or forty separate mechanisms in all, some as tiny as the head of a pin, and others about one inch in width. when the wearer became unconscious, the mask seemingly lost its integrity. the gadgets either stopped functioning or ceased to function properly and the false face became a dissolving, hideous caricature; that bore little or no resemblance to the human countenance in repose, or even to the human countenance convulsed with sudden shock. how incredibly blind he had been in failing to suspect the existence of a mask when the guard's face had grown unnatural and ghastly in the cafeteria. he had taken it for granted that it was the man himself who had changed. fortunately he was spared now from making the same mistake twice, and he took full advantage of the fact. he knelt again and began the by no means easy task of removing the uniform. he had to lift him up and turn him over twice and each time the man groaned and stirred a little. he seemed on the verge of coming to, but corriston shut his mind to the possibility until the last of the man's garments had been tossed in a pile on the floor. he quickly took off his own uniform then, and carefully and methodically arrayed himself as a guard, taking care to leave the coat unbuttoned at the throat and even going so far as to draw on the heavy woolen socks and attach to his wrist the guard's metal identification disk. an audacious thought occurred to him, but he dismissed it at once. he could not attach the mask to his own face. it would have required the administrations of an expert, or, at the very least, someone familiar with the thing who knew exactly how it was supposed to be hooked into place. he had no way of knowing and he recoiled instinctively from the thought of hooks, however tiny, marring the skin on his face. no, he'd have to get along without the mask. no one on the lower levels knew him by sight, with the one ugly exception of a killer he'd never seen clearly enough to recognize in return. and in the guard's uniform he might even succeed in deceiving the killer if he moved quickly enough to give the man only a brief glimpse of him as he crossed the wide-view promenade. 10 corriston stared down at the still unconscious guard, lying stretched out unclothed on the floor of the cell, then he turned, patting the guard's gun which now nestled in its transferred holster on his angular, bony hip. well, there were perhaps even worse ways of ending up, and it was certainly a destiny almost universally shared. he walked out through the open door of the cell without a backward glance. he had changed his plans completely now. the complicated structure of the mask between his hands had so completely reassured him as to his complete sanity, that he was no longer under a compulsion to return to the selector compartment for additional proof. all of the pieces were coming together and melting into a pattern that remained obscure only because there was still so much about it that he did not understand. he knew there was a killer loose on the station, the same one who had been loose on the ship that had taken him to the station. he knew about a poisoned barb that had killed one man and had barely missed killing corriston himself. dismiss the killer for the moment. there was helen ramsey, the wealthiest girl on earth. think about ramsey himself and what his wealth had done to mars. think about the colonists on mars, men who had endured unimaginable hardships and privation to stake out uranium claims which ramsey did not want them to have. think about the freighter that had gone out of control. think about clement. think very _hard_ about clement. the tragedy had shaken him, had given him the look of a very guilty man. he had not wanted it to happen. he had been alarmed, appalled. yes, think about clement--that very secretive man. the killer? you can't get rid of him, can you? he keeps coming back into your mind. the killer had not tried to spare helen ramsey. he had killed her bodyguard and ripped a mask from her face. no attempt at protection there. but clement could not have known about that. he had evidently been searching for helen ramsey himself. the news that she had been found had startled him, had given him a visible jolt. corriston did not think that the pattern would dissolve. a few of its features were becoming too clear now, the implications too inescapable. there was something going on that was ugly at the core of it, and the coming of the killer had simply brought it out into the open. not too much into the open as yet perhaps, but the handwriting on the wall had at least become almost readable. perhaps the accident to the freighter had also helped to bring it into the open. in some obscure way everything seemed to dovetail: ramsey; the situation on mars; clement and the freighter; a twice disappearing helen ramsey; and an accusation of space-shock which was completely false and unjustified. each seemed to hover just above the center of a very definite pattern. and so did the masks! the masks in particular. think, think hard about the masks and what the very existence of such masks on the station implied. the masks could only have been designed to cover the darkest deceit, to cover the most terrifying treachery. how many officers and enlisted men on the station were wearing masks? how many? and why? was _every_ officer on the station wearing one? if the masks were thought necessary, if their employment had been made mandatory, there could be only one explanation. every officer and every enlisted man was masquerading. the station was officered and manned by--a word he'd never liked from a dictionary of obsolete american slang came unbidden into his mind--_phonies!_ the thought staggered him. for a moment he rejected it as inconceivable, outside the bounds of reason. but it remained on the perimeter of his consciousness and would not be dislodged. it came back and set itself down where its dominance over his mind could not be contested. what else _could_ it mean? masks have only one purpose: to enable the wearer to avoid being recognized. quite obviously the phony officers could be wearing masks for only one reason: to conceal their real identities while they manned the stations, carrying on the tasks of the men they had displaced. carrying on the tasks of the rightful officers, but with a difference. and that difference would almost certainly be criminal activity on a wide and daring scale. the only question remaining to be answered was how high did that activity ascend? did it ascend to the very top, to commander clement himself? fortunately, the violence of space is a controlled violence, and determined men can slip through it with tools and building materials. they can base themselves on zero-gravity construction rafts and take refuge in pressurized crevices, go floating along steel girders five hundred feet in length until there has been assembled the greatest of all miracles--a manned space station a thousand feet in diameter encircling earth at a distance of fifteen hundred miles. the station had not been built in space, it had been built on earth section by section. however, the final task of putting it together had been left to the floating men in their fishbowl helmets, the suicide brigade with their incredible vacuum equipment and remote control welding arms. fifty-seven sections had been built on earth over a period of five years, thirty-four in the eastern united states, the rest in scattered localities from chicago to the gold coast. they had all been sent up by step rockets into the same narrow orbit around earth. they were fifty-seven sections "crash landing" in a total vacuum, weightless and yet with sufficient mass and inertia to keep them in close proximity until the great task could get under way. the assembled station was cone-shaped, and it had been a colossal undertaking to keep it from developing stress defects over a third of its bulk during the early constructional stages. under the guidance of experts, the problem had been solved, but at a tragic price. assembling the station had cost the lives of fifty-three men, for there is no easy way to bring together, join, seal and make safe tons of metal and plastic, intricate machinery and equipment, plus a thousand-and-one small, incidental contrivances fifteen hundred miles above the emergency-alert systems and hospital facilities of earth. some of the men who had lost their lives had been blown out of transport rocket tubes by mistake. some had missed their footing too close to a welding operation that had been halted too late. some had floated into capsules full of nitric oxygen gas under high pressure and had failed to veer away in time. still others had tugged too strenuously at heavy girders and the slow, but crushing inertia of an enormous, backward-swinging beam in free fall had ripped their space suits asunder and fractured their spines. there were five thousand ways of dying in space. but the sacrifice, the terror, the tragic toll seemed immeasurably remote now, for the roar of the incoming and outgoing ships made the station a gigantic reality so completely in the present that it seemed to have no past. spinning always on its axis, substituting centrifugal force for the gravity tug of earth, the station was a complete world, a self-contained macrocosm so immense that the magnetic-shod mechanics who inspected it in relays, the passenger-carrying shuttle rockets from earth that came and went, and even the thousand-foot ships that berthed for re-fueling and clearance seemed hardly to encroach at all on its vast central bulk. and yet, it was something quite apart from the station's bigness which came under worldwide scrutiny when the freighter crashed and was splintered into fragments, channeling a fiery crater in the earth and causing the most disastrous accidental death toll in united states history. the news was flashed to the four corners of the earth, and almost simultaneously a flight of united states military jets took off from the lake superior airport to explore the wreckage. the first message from the flight commander, lieutenant colonel hackett, came five hours later. it was tense, grim and it minced no words. "wreckage radioactive. main cargo uranium in a rough ore state. explosion and subsequent intense radioactivity apparently caused by an auxiliary cargo of highly unstable uranium isotopes. if the freighter had berthed at the station the dangerous character of its cargo could not have escaped detection. we have every reason to believe that it _intended_ to berth at the station. its signals to the station, before some undeterminable shipboard accident sent it out of control, confirm this. we must therefore assume complicity of a double nature: by the freighter's commanding officer, captain james summerfield, and by someone in a position of high command on the station." after that, there was no silencing the slow, relentless events on earth. a week after the tragedy, a u. s. marine corporal stationed at port forrestal, wisconsin, put through a late afternoon phono-view call to his wife. his face on the screen was haggard with strain, and he seemed not to want to meet his wife's gaze. "we've been ordered out into space," he said. "you mean they're sending you out to take over the station?" "they're sending out five thousand united states marines," the corporal said. "we all knew it was coming. we expected it when that governmental investigating committee was turned back." "but it doesn't make sense. i can't understand it. why should the commander of the station refuse to permit a governmental investigating committee to land?" "we don't know. he must have something to conceal, and you can be pretty sure it's an ugly something. when that freighter disaster got into every daily press conference of the high brass i knew this was coming. i felt it in my bones." "but what will happen if the commander refuses to let even the marines land? what will happen then?" "we may have to open fire on the station," the corporal said. "if the station is in criminal hands we'll have no alternative." "you talk as if you were in command." "i guess every soldier talks like that when his life is in jeopardy. but i'm glad i'm not a five-star general. if i had to make a decision like that--" * * * * * but it wasn't a general who made the crucial decision. it was admiral john hayes, commander of the eighth spatial naval division, acting on behalf of fifty-seven nations. he stood in the bridge room of a united states naval cruiser of massive tonnage, staring out through a wide-view observation port at the station's glimmering immensity. the cruiser and the station were moving at almost the same speed, fifteen thousand miles an hour. but now the cruiser was moving just a little faster than the station, and admiral hayes was growing impatient. maneuvering into an orbital position almost directly abreast of the station had been difficult. commander hayes' nerves were badly frayed; and he was not a man who could endure too much frustration. he had signaled the station twice and received no reply. during that time, both the station and the cruiser had completely encircled the earth at an interval of just a little under two hours. he turned suddenly from the viewport, his lips set in tight lines. he stared for an instant in silence at the young officer at his side, his mind groping for an argument which would completely justify what he had already decided he must do. but lieutenant commander kenneth archer spoke first, saying quietly: "you have no choice, sir." hayes' features relaxed a little. it was good to know that he had support from a man whose judgment he respected. for an instant the awful aloneness which went with supreme command weighed less heavily upon him. "it's absolute defiance, open rebellion," hayes said. "i'm forced to assume that the station is in criminal hands. we'll never know, probably, just _what_ happened on board that freighter. but we do know that accidents occur. for every thirty ships that berth securely, one meets with some kind of navigational mishap. the damage isn't always irreparable. more often than not, in fact, it's quite minor. usually it means only a delay in berthing, a navigational shift, a circling back for another try. but apparently that freighter really _had_ it. so it gave the show away. commander clement must be in league, hand in glove, with whoever is interested in smuggling unauthorized uranium shipments through to earth for his own personal profit. and to hasten his immediate profit that someone apparently found it to his advantage to trigger a little of the shipment into highly fissionable material on mars." "you know as well as i do who the someone is, sir," archer said. "i guess we both know. but right now my only concern is with the station. if they ignore my third order to stand by for boarding i'll have to open fire. the station's stolen property just as long as it remains in criminal hands. you can't get a desperate criminal to surrender your property unless you convince him his own life is in danger. i've got to try my best to convince commander clement i mean business without destroying the station." "you'll damage it to some extent, sir. how bad do you think it will be?" "i don't know. i don't intend to launch an atomic warhead. but i can't stop short of that if he stays stubborn. i've no way of knowing what his breaking point will be. but i do know that if he keeps control of the station he'll be in a position to wipe out new york or london." "but you'll make your intentions unmistakably clear before you open fire, sir?" "yes," hayes said, wearily. "yes ... of course i will." 11 corriston took a deep breath and let it out slowly. so far luck had favored him. now he felt as though he were walking through a deadly jungle where all the animals had suddenly turned friendly. the teeth they bared at him were smiling. the grins were their masks. but the commander didn't pretend at all ... whoever the commander really was! and then that single question began to gnaw at corriston like some rat feeding on his flesh: where was the real clement now? was he alive? was he accessible? or was he dead? corriston's mental processes were now governed by the most evanescent of impressions: the depth of the shadows on both sides of the corridor; his own shadow lengthening before him; the drone of machinery deep within the station; the muffled beating of his own heart. suddenly he was at the end of the corridor and approaching the main control room, his face as grim as death. violence he had determined upon, but it would be a very brief, a very effective kind of violence. it takes only a second to rip a mask from a man's face. something was happening just outside the main control room door. the three executive officers guarding the door had moved eight or ten paces down the corridor, and the door itself was standing ajar. the executive officers had their backs turned to corriston and were making no attempt to conceal their agitation. they were very pale, at least, one of them was. two had their backs completely turned, but corriston caught a brief glimpse of the third man's profile, and it seemed completely drained of color, as if the mask had stopped mirroring emotion artificially and had allowed the wearer's actual pallor to seep through. corriston glided quickly to the door, passed through it and shut it very quietly behind him. the commander had his back turned too. he was standing before the viewport, staring out into space. but the commander did seem dazed, did seem stunned. corriston could tell by his posture, by the way he held his shoulders, by the utter rigidity of his neck. then he saw it, the long cylindrical hull touched by a pale glimmer of starlight, the circular, glowing ports, the massive, atomic-projectile launching turrets at its base. he saw it through the viewport, saw it past the commander's stiffening shoulders--an american war cruiser of formidable tonnage and armed with sufficient fire power to shatter a small moon. all right, let the big dark contain it for a moment, poised out there, ready for any contingency. right at the moment a scoundrel must be unmasked in a very stark way. whatever trouble he had brought upon himself, he must be made to face it now without the mask. corriston unholstered his gun and walked toward the commander across the deck. he came up behind him and thrust the gun into the small of his back. "turn around," he ordered. "don't make any other move. just turn slowly and face me. i want to take a good look at your face." if the commander was startled, he didn't show it. perhaps the war cruiser had dealt him such a crushing blow that he was no longer capable of experiencing shock. or his control may have been extraordinary. corriston had no way of knowing and it didn't concern him too much. he was chiefly interested in the commander's eyes. he had never before seen eyes quite so piercing in their stare or narrowed in quite such an ugly way. the commander spoke almost instantly and his voice had a steel-cold rasp. "well?" he said. just a few words--just the shortest possible question he could have asked. corriston said: "you're wearing a mask, aren't you, commander?" the impostor's expression did not change, but his hand went instinctively to his throat. "remove your tie and unbutton your collar," corriston said. the man made another quick gesture with his hand in the direction of his throat. but it seemed involuntary, protective, for he did not touch his collar. corriston shifted his weapon a little, moving the barrel upward until it pressed very firmly against the commander's breastbone. he reached out and unbuttoned the commander's collar with his free hand, very quickly and expertly. he was staring at the tiny hooks at the base of the mask when something happened which made him regret that he had not followed his original intention of instantly ripping the mask from the man's face. the door opened and the three executive officers came into the control room. for an instant they seemed neither to see nor understand the situation. they must have seen corriston, but the fact that he was wearing a guard's uniform may have given them the idea that he had every right to be there. the gun was concealed from view and the commander was standing very quietly by the viewport and quite obviously incapable of making any move, simply because the slightest move would have endangered his life. so the executive officers went right on talking for an instant, half to themselves and half to the commander, just as if corriston had not been present at all. "if that cruiser lands, ramsey's goose is cooked and ours is too," a tall officer said. "the instant that freighter crashed i knew they'd find out quickly enough how the ships had been carrying smuggled uranium. i knew that under pressure, half of our captains would talk ... and the crews, too. all the government would have to do is check and they'd find out that we're ramsey's men, all of us. they might even now know about the masks." "why not about the masks?" another officer joined in. "ramsey paid for the research that went into them, didn't he? big tycoon ... fingers in a dozen pies. when the secret's out, and he puts them on the market, he'll make important money out of it. but we'll be in prison with just our own faces staring back at us from a steel wall." "don't worry about that. ramsey won't profit from the manufacture of masks. he won't even profit from the false uranium clearance we gave him. if that cruiser is allowed to land he'll be in prison with us." "better think that over, commander. you refused to let the governmental investigating committee land. if a single soldier sets foot on the station we're done for. it's not too late to do something about it. that cruiser can only berth by overtaking us. if we change our orbit fast and start blasting at them with our rear adjusting rockets they'll have to keep their distance?" "aren't you forgetting something? a single atomic warhead could blow the station apart." "we've got to risk that. they'll think a long time before they'll go that far. the station's not expendible. if we change our orbit we can still make contact with the mars ship that's due to berth in an hour. we've got to get back to mars and whatever protection ramsey can give us. we'll have his daughter with us. he'll be so glad to see her he'll go out on a limb to protect us." "he'd go out on a limb anyway; he'd have to in order to save himself. but sure, we'll take the girl. no harm in that. he knows she's here and will be expecting her. he'll thank us for taking things so quickly in hand. if that crazy lieutenant had made his story public that cruiser would have been out there anyway--perhaps even sooner. they'd have wanted to know on earth why anyone would want to harm ramsey's daughter, something we don't know ourselves." corriston decided then that he'd kept silent long enough. he returned his gun to its holster, and walked up to the three executive officers, completely ignoring the commander. he heard the commander threaten him in a low tone, heard him say words which would have caused some men to pause in fear. but corriston did not turn. there was stunned disbelief in the eyes of the three men facing him. he spoke quickly, knowing that he had only a moment before the commander would see that he was seized and restrained. he had to make sure that the three would hear him out, that the commander would not be instantly obeyed. perhaps he couldn't make sure, but at least he could try. "i'll make a bargain with you," he said. "i've done reckless things but i'm not a complete fool. you're going to prevent that cruiser from berthing and i won't be able to interfere. i'm just one man against several hundred. all three of you are armed. if i started shooting i'd get perhaps two of you--no more. then you'd kill me. i haven't even the advantage of surprise. i gave that up because i can't believe you're complete fools either. "first, i want to see helen ramsey. i want you to let me talk to her. and when the mars' ship berths, i want to go to mars with her. i've something to offer in return." one of the officers stared at him, tightened his lips and stared harder. "good god!" he muttered. "good god! a bargain. you must be out of your mind. what could you possibly offer? if you had a gun trained on us--" "a witness in your defense," corriston said. "a witness who will stand up in court and swear that you did try to protect helen ramsey, that you saved her from a very great danger. you may think that you do not need a witness now, but before the year is out ramsey will be on trial for his life. his wealth won't save him. they know too much about him now. that freighter explosion killed too many people. the public outcry will be too great. "if you stay on mars you'll be hunted down like wild animals. they'll get you in the end and you know it. you'll be brought back to earth; you'll stand trial." corriston paused for the barest instant, knowing that the commander too was listening, knowing from the absence of sound and movement behind him that his words were being weighed. "i think you know that i would not break my word. i'll stand up in court and defend you under oath. i'll be speaking the simple truth. you _did_ save helen ramsey from a very great danger; you probably saved her life. that is sure to weigh in your favor with any impartial judge and jury. you won't get the death penalty; i can promise you that." it was the commander who spoke first. he said, very quietly. "he's right, of course. completely right." one of the officers nodded. "there's no reason why we shouldn't let him talk to the girl. we can decide later whether we like his offer." "we're going to like it," the commander said, coming around in front of corriston. "he has more sense than i would have given him credit for." "so have you, commander," corriston said, and meant it. the commander's eyes were still hostile, unfriendly, but the cold rage had gone out of them. "all right," he said. "let him see the girl now. make sure a guard is stationed at the door. keeping that cruiser from berthing won't be easy. they'll keep the station under fire with small projectiles, even if they don't attack us with atomic warheads. they'll risk some damage just to throw a scare into us." the officer next to corriston nudged his arm. "all right," he said. "but remember this when you talk to her. she doesn't know the truth about us. she doesn't even know we're wearing masks. we'd like it better if you didn't say anything about it." "whether she knows it or not isn't too important," corriston said. "i suppose you wouldn't care to tell me what you've done with commander clement and the other officers." "no, we wouldn't care to tell you. anything more?" "i guess not," corriston said. "take me to her." 12 he was staring at her across a shadowed room, with the pale glimmer of a cabin viewport above her right shoulder, a very small port that looked like a full moon glimmering high in the sky through a sea of mist. her face was very white and she was staring back at him as if he had come suddenly out of nowhere. she hesitated only an instant and then walked straight toward him, walked right up to him and touched him gently on the face. "i'm so glad," she said. she drew back then and looked at him and smiled. "i was afraid you were in trouble because of me," she said, "some terrible kind of trouble, and i couldn't help you at all. i kept blaming myself for everything foolish that i had ever done, going way back to the day when i broke my first doll, deliberately and spitefully, because i was a very headstrong little girl." "i'm afraid i've always been pretty headstrong myself," corriston said. "but being a boy, i naturally couldn't break dolls. i just wrecked the family's peace of mind." "we all go through life with a great deal of foolish luggage," she said. "and sometimes you have an impulse to just drop everything--and run away." "i can understand that," corriston said. "but did you have to run away quite so fast? it's hard to believe it was for anybody's good, including your own." "it might have been," she said. "it might have been for my good and then later, partly for your good. please don't judge me too harshly before i've had a chance to tell you exactly what happened." he reached out for her and kissed her even as she came into his arms. he had expected her to be angry, to withdraw, but instead she encircled his strong back with a surprising fierceness. when he released her, her eyes were shining. "i'm glad you did that ... darling! very glad. but we're still in trouble." "i know that. but we're in love, too. and you just promised to tell me what happened." "well, i guess i just ... just regressed." "you what?" "regressed. you know, like when i was a headstrong little brat of a child. we all do that at times. you'll have to admit there was some excuse for me. you weren't born in a house with a hundred rooms, with servants always coming and going, and outside gardens with big red and yellow flowers where you couldn't even run and hide without being smothered, without being searched for and brought screaming and kicking back inside. "you don't know what it means to know you haven't a father, only a stern, cold, black-coated man standing away off in the darkness somewhere and watching people bow down before him. "you don't know what it means to be told: 'you're stephen ramsey's daughter. _behave. behave. behave!_'" "i scarcely ever saw my father. and when i did see him he was as cold as one of the slabs in the big mausoleum he took so much pride in, the big family mausoleum which only a ramsey was permitted to visit. and yet i think he loved me in his own cold way. i think he still does." she fell silent for a moment and then an overpowering need to tell corriston more seemed to come upon her. "i was never allowed to see young men, not even to go for a ride in the park. anyone of them might be a fortune seeker, because no young man, even if he is madly in love with a girl, can quite shut his eyes to wealth as one additional reason for loving her. "so i never saw any young men. i wasn't permitted to even go to a dance, or walk in the moonlight on a balcony. i wanted to go to dances, wanted at least one young man to kiss me damned hard." "sure you did," corriston said. "i understand." "i'm going to stop right there, darling. i could tell you what it means to be free to travel, anywhere, anywhere in the world and to see all of the white and shining cities, and to be intoxicated by beauty, and to know at the same time that you are not free, can never hope to be free as other people are free." "and that's why you ran away." "yes, darling, yes, and because that bodyguard was a complete fool. he was just one of thirty bodyguards my father had hired to protect me, year after year. but he was the biggest fool of all. he drank too much and he talked too much. finally i made up my mind that i would be better off if i went on to mars alone. my father had told me i could come, the trip had been carefully planned down to the smallest detail. i was to travel incognito. i was to keep to myself until i arrived at the station and no one was supposed to know i was even on the ship, not even the captain. i'm quite sure he didn't know. i think the invitation to his cabin was a complete fabrication. in fact, i'm sure it was. i think clakey--his real name was ewers--was just drunk enough to make up a crazy story like that to get me away from you. "but i didn't want to get away from you, darling. i wanted to get away from him. i wanted to have a few days of complete freedom before i arrived on mars, and perhaps after that for a day in the colony before i joined my father. i didn't care how angry he'd be when he saw me without a bodyguard, alone, wonderfully, gloriously alone and free for the first time in my life. i didn't want to be helen ramsey at all. i wanted to be somebody else and be completely free. "so i went into the ladies room, darling, and i put on the strangest kind of mask." "yes," corriston said. "i know." "you know about the mask?" "please go on," corriston said. "i'd rather you didn't ask me how i know that your father can take pride in at least one constructive achievement. the masks are extraordinary. i've seen one." "but how? where? i can't believe it. i--" "please," corriston said. "it isn't too important. i made a necessary promise that i wouldn't tell you, not immediately. i'm asking you to trust me and go on." "well, i secured one of those very unusual masks. from the gresham-ramsey laboratories, before we left earth. i could go there anytime i wanted to. all of the research technicians there are quite old. one of them, thomas webb, is really quite handsome. i might have fallen in love with him if he had been forty years younger. he showed me just how to adjust the mask. but when i went into the ladies' lounge i had more than just a mask. i had a complete thin plastic change of clothing concealed under my dress. i didn't remove my dress, only reversed my clothing so that the plastic dress covered the one i'd been wearing." corriston said, "it was a very courageous thing for you to do." "i'm glad you think so, darling. because when i came out of the lounge and saw ewers killed, i wasn't courageous at all. i became panic-stricken, terrified, beside myself with fear. i knew that my father had many dangerous enemies. i knew that i was in immediate, deadly danger. i _had_ to go on with the disguise then. i had to go right on being somebody else. i couldn't tell anyone. i couldn't even tell you. i had to let you think that in some strange, bewildering way i had gone into the lounge and disappeared. "i knew you wouldn't really believe that, not for a moment. but i didn't know what you'd think. i _could_ have told you, i suppose, but i was afraid it would only make the danger greater, might transfer some of the danger to you. and i didn't know you'd go straight to the captain and get yourself into trouble. there were rumors on the station that you'd been confined, put under guard. but they were only rumors. i felt i had to see you, talk to you. i was half out of my mind with anxiety. i bribed one of the guards to let me out of the quarantine cage and went in search of you. "i searched everywhere, followed passageways at random, got lost in a maze of machinery." "and someone followed you," corriston said. "he followed you and tore the mask from your face." she looked at him with wide, startled eyes. "how did you know?" "i was there," corriston said. "you fainted and i took you into my arms--for the very first time. you didn't know that, did you?" "how could i have known? if what you say is true, i--" helen ramsey did not complete what she had started to say. had she done so she might not have been thrown so abruptly off-balance by the suddenly lurching deck; she would have moved closer to corriston and could have seized hold of his shoulders for support. she did not fall, but she nearly did, and the lurch sent her tottering all the way to the opposite wall. corriston saw her collide with the wall and sink to her knees. at the same instant his own knees collapsed. he was lying sprawled out on the deck, too startled and shaken to go immediately to her aid, when the second lurch came. it spun him about, and then he was sliding. he couldn't seem to stop the sliding. he went all the way to the opposite wall too. for a brief instant they were together again, locked in a desperate embrace, their legs higher than their heads. then the deck righted itself and the bombardment began. it was a terrifying thing to have to listen to, and corriston preferred to listen to it on his feet. slowly he arose and helped his companion up, holding her in so tight a grip that it seemed to them that they had been welded together and could never part. he was glad that he could be completely sure of one thing. it wasn't a nuclear bombardment--not yet. the cruiser was merely shelling the station. when the cruiser launched an atomic warhead he'd know about it--rather, he wouldn't know. the fact that he was still alive and aware of what was going on told him a great deal about the nature of the bombardment. "what is it?" helen ramsey whispered. "do you know?" "we're the catspaw in a naval attack," corriston said. "the commander took a very great risk." it was incredible, but right at the moment he felt himself to be in the scoundrel's corner. he didn't want the station to be blown apart in the great empty spaces between the planets any more than the commander did. when corriston reached the viewport and stared out, the cruiser was following the station far off to the side, in an obvious effort to outmaneuver it by maintaining a parallel rather than a directly pursuing course. but it was not escaping the swiftly turning station's stern rocket jets. blinding bursts of incandescence spiraled toward it through the void, and once or twice scored direct hits. he saw the cruiser shudder throughout its length, and then draw back, almost as if it were endowed with life and had nerves and arteries that could be ripped apart. there _were_ mechanical arteries that could easily enough be ripped. for an instant corriston stared with a strange kind of detachment, freed from the terrible tension and uncertainty by his absolute absorption in the battle itself, freed from the almost mind-numbing sense of participating in a struggle that could end in utter disaster for station and cruiser alike. he knew that if the cruiser maneuvered in too close, the puffs of flame from the station's jets could turn into superheated gases roaring through space, destroying everything in their path. the station, too, was only a pulsebeat from fiery annihilation. and a pulsebeat could be terrifyingly brief. but the decision had been made and there could be no turning back. aboard the cruiser the decision had certainly come from very high up. corriston turned the thought slowly over in his mind, still in the grip of his strange detachment. just what did "very high up" mean? it meant--it had to mean--a conflict of personalities, the hot-headedness or stubbornness or glory-seeking that went with every decision made by strong-willed men. aboard the cruiser someone had acted. after consultation? on just an impulse? in blind rage because the station had ignored a warning that had been repeated twice? there was no way of knowing. but on the cruiser men were dying. that was important too. just how reckless had the decision been? in space, military science has never been an exact science. sonic echoes alone can kill, and in a pressurized compartment blowups happen. jet-supports can be placed at the best of all possible angles and still fly off into space. compressed air shot out of pressure vents can turn bone and flesh into soft oozing jelly. the cruiser was changing its course again. it had failed, in a maneuver, twice repeated, to draw close at almost right angles to the station, and had taken terrible punishment from below, above and straight ahead. but the cruiser was still firing. and corriston not only saw the bursts of flame, he felt the blasts in his eardrums, his brain and the soles of his feet. and suddenly he saw flames darting out directly beneath him, and knew that the station was on fire. corriston knew that at any moment he could be smashed back against a bone-crushing wall of metal; he could be pulverized, asphyxiated, driven mad. and the fear in him--the fear that he wouldn't be able to control--would be a two-edged sword. there was no pain more ghastly than the final burst of agony that came with a burst open nervous system. it was the most horrible way to die. but even dying that way wouldn't be half as bad as watching the woman he loved die. almost as if aware of his thoughts, helen spoke to him for the first time since he had crossed to the viewport. "it's very strange, darling. i'm calmer now than i have ever been. i guess it can happen if you love a man so very much that you know your life would have no meaning if anything should happen to him. it's like facing up squarely to the fact that you no longer have any existence apart from him. i've done that, darling, and i'm not afraid." there was silence in the cabin for an instant. then another shell exploded, and another, and another. corriston felt light and dangerously dizzy. it was amazing that he had not been hurled to the floor, still more amazing that he could have remained for so long motionless in just one spot. then, abruptly, the bombardment ceased. there was no sound at all in the cabin, just a silence so absolute that the roaring in corriston's ears was like the sound made by an angry sea beating against vast stone cliffs in a world that had ceased to exist. there were no longer any exploding white stars coming from the cruiser. it was dwindling into the blackness of space, giving up the battle, conceding defeat. it became thinner and thinner. suddenly only the reef remained. where the cruiser had been there stretched only empty space. corriston turned from the viewport. he crossed the cabin to the cot, swaying a little, but only from dizziness, and sat down and drew the girl on the cot close to him. he held her tightly, saying nothing. 13 corriston was still sitting on the cot when the door opened and the commander and two executive officers came into the cabin. he was not too surprised, for it had been somehow almost impossible for him to believe that the commander could have been killed. a scoundrel's luck and a drunkard's luck were often very much the same thing. if the commander had succeeded in quickly putting out the fire he rated a medal, he was a man for all of that. and apparently the commander _had_ succeeded in putting out the fire, or he would not now be facing corriston with a grimly urgent look on his mask. helen ramsey was staring at him almost as if she were seeing him as he really was for the first time. did she know that he was wearing a mask? there was no possible way she could know, he told himself, except by intuition. the masks were good. having worn one herself she ought to know how good they were. she ought not even to suspect the commander unless-corriston had no time to finish the thought. "get up, both of you," the commander said, gesturing with his braided right arm. "the mars ship has just berthed. we've got to go aboard before there's any question as to the obedience of the crew. the captain has been taken off, but we're keeping some of the crew." "you--you put out the fire, commander?" "naturally. i'm not quite the incompetent you think me, lieutenant." "i'm quite sure of that, commander," corriston said. "do we take anything with us?" "you'll get all the extras you need on mars," the commander said. "stephen ramsey isn't likely to want to see his daughter go about in rags." corriston decided that the wisest thing he could do was to take the commander at his word in every important respect; for the moment, at any rate. there was the little matter of a killer still at large somewhere on the station, and the quicker they were in space the safer ramsey's daughter would be. not just in space as the station was in space, but much further out in the big dark. "all right, commander," he said. "let's get started." getting started took very little time. a great thankfulness came upon corriston when he saw the smooth dark hull of the mars ship looming high above him, a thousand foot long cylinder of inky blackness against a glimmering wilderness of stars. the ship was berthed securely beneath a towering network of telemetric aerials, on a completely circular launching platform that was like a saucer in reverse, with a contractable metal ramp leading up to the wide-open, brightly lighted boarding port at its base. there were steps on the ramp, but corriston knew that when the structure was drawn back into the ship it would collapse like a house of cards, folded back upon itself. helen ramsey ascended first. corriston made certain that she would by getting in the commander's way with a convincing show of accidental clumsiness. he pretended to stumble as he began the ascent, to be all hands and feet. the commander swore softly and corriston was quite sure that he had not been deceived. but there was very little that he could do about it under the circumstances. he had to let ramsey's daughter climb the ramp first and she was almost at the top before corriston started up. corriston was halfway to the top, and the commander and the impatient, tight-lipped executive officers were just starting up, when three tall figures emerged from the darkness at the base of the ramp. the attack took place so quickly that it was over almost before it started. the commander and the executive officers didn't have a chance. one of the emerging men had a gun, and he shot the commander in the stomach with it at almost point-blank range. the commander sank down, clutching at his stomach, bent nearly double. even from where corriston was standing, he could see the blood trickling down his right leg. the terrible dark wetness directly over the wound was of course invisible, completely concealed by the commander's tightly laced arms. the startled, badly frightened officers turned and tried to get away. but they didn't get far. the man who had shot the commander picked them off like clay pigeons, one by one, as they fled. his two companions did not even seem to be armed. they just stood quietly watching the executive officers die. they died on the launching platform and on the smooth deck beyond, two of them simply dropping in their tracks, a third sprawling grotesquely, and the last staggering on for a few paces. there were four executive officers, and not one escaped. it was butchery, pure and simple, cruel, savage beyond belief. helen ramsey was already on the ship, and there was no possible way for him to get her off. the thought that he was himself in the deadliest kind of danger never even crossed his mind. the killer returned his gun to its holster very slowly and deliberately, and then he took it out again. it was a very strange gesture, when every passing second must have been of vital importance to him, but it revealed something very unusual about the man. he evidently liked to feel that he had completed one job and packaged it to his entire satisfaction, before going on to another. it was that more than anything else which jolted corriston into complete awareness, and made it impossible for him to doubt the reality, the utter horror, of what had taken place. the killer had gestured to his companions, and he was coming up the ramp. he came slowly up the ramp, and for the first time corriston saw his face. it was not a face that he would ever forget or ever want to forget. it was the face of the man he had grappled with in the dark and seen once in the light. but now his features were turned away. it was exactly the kind of face which corriston had pictured him as having, except that it was just a little uglier looking. the slant of the cheekbones even crueler, harsher, the eyes more venomously narrowed, the mouth an uglier gash. "all right, lieutenant," he said, gesturing with the gun. "go on ahead. go on board. we're going to need you to help pilot this ship to mars." 14 the silence in the chart room was like the hush that comes over a desert when hurricane winds have died down, or like the stillness of a rocky coast when waves have ceased to pound, and dangerous rocks stand out with all of their saw-edged teeth exposed. it was extraordinary how, at the point of a gun, a man could think and act almost automatically, and postpone making any decision at all. it wasn't cowardice; corriston was quite sure of that. he felt only anger, deep, relentless, all-consuming. sweat oozed in droplets from his brow, but it was the heat and the tension which made his skin stream with moisture. there was no immediate fear in him at all. he'd kept fear at bay by refusing to let his mind leap ahead. only the gun at his back mattered, and just why it should have mattered so much was the only thing that puzzled him. it did not occur to him that what some men dread most is the fear of dying too abruptly, without foreknowledge and with just a second's glimpse of something cold and deadly before the final blackout. a gun had that kind of power. the man with the gun had asked corriston a great many questions, urgently practical questions that dealt with cold statistics concerning zero-gravity, solar radiation, space drift and the length of time it would take to reach mars if a single pilot took full advantage of the automatic controls and never allowed himself to become reckless. corriston had replied to the best of his ability and knowledge, and the other had accepted his answers with a quiet grunt of satisfaction. it was only after that, when the silence had lengthened almost unendurably between them, that the more personal questions came. the killer jabbed the gun more firmly against corriston's spine and asked in a cold, flat voice: "do you know who i am, corriston? have you any idea?" corriston stared out the viewport for a moment without replying, his face deathly pale. "i don't know your name," he said. "probably that's not too important. i do know that you're a cold-blooded murderer, and that killing gives you pleasure. i am very tired. i wish you wouldn't question me any more." "do you think you can pilot this ship to mars, tired as you are?" corriston nodded. the pressure of the gun barrel diminished. "i am very glad--for your sake. i suppose i might as well tell you my name. it's henley, richard henley. we'll be seeing a lot of each other before this trip is ended, but you'll find that i'm not a particularly talkative man. when i have something important to say, though, i won't leave you in any doubt as to what i want done. right now i must warn you that i would just as soon kill you as not." "you're lying," corriston said. "if you killed me now you'd never get to mars. you need me and you know it." "corriston." "yes." "don't assume too much. there are practical advantages in keeping you alive but a wrong move on your part could outweigh them. i'd have a fair chance of getting to mars without your help. i know more than you think about spatial navigation. and the automatic controls are far from unreliable. without them it would take at least five men to pilot a ship this size to mars. with their aid a single experienced pilot should be able to accomplish it. i'm pretty sure you've had enough officer training school to qualify as a pilot. a ship's inspection officer has to be able to navigate a ship; i've checked on that. but you're certainly no expert, and if you force my hand i'll take my chance with the auto-controls and my own limited knowledge." "you'll be taking a chance, all right," corriston said. "what would you do if the observation glass started showing small pits in the hull from a very large shower of micro-meteorites? can the auto-controls stop those pits from spreading? i've seen a ship stippled all over in less than ten minutes. the meteor guards won't deflect micro-meteorites, and you've got to alter your velocity and angle of drive and a lot of other things fast. and what happens when your instruments start showing light spectra peculiarities that can't be measured in angstroms? just a little oddity like that can force you to change your course, but the auto-pilot won't know a thing about it. "and when you hit the martian atmosphere and start firing against the direction of motion, how much good do you think limited knowledge will do you? remember, nearly all of the journey will have been made in free fall, and in free fall the auto-controls are fairly efficient. but the instant you hit the atmosphere the slightest miscalculation in the utilization of your fuel reserves can lead to absolute disaster. i don't know what makes you tick, of course. you may get a distorted kind of pleasure from thinking of yourself as a man marked for death, the same kind of pleasure you get from killing people." there was silence for a moment. then henley drew in his breath sharply and said: "are you threatening me, corriston?" "just warning you," corriston said. "i don't take kindly to warnings, corriston. if you're not careful i'll put a bullet right through you." "do the men who hired you know how you operate, henley?" it was a stab in the dark, but it brought a quick, enraged reply. "how i operate is my own business. and i don't like the word 'hire.' i'd advise you not to use it again. ramsey's uranium steal made every miner on mars decide straight off that i was the right man to lead them. they're all in back of me, but they don't control me. i take orders from no one." "maybe they wouldn't be in back of you if they knew what a scoundrel you are," corriston said. "you may think whatever you please. i don't mind your calling me a scoundrel if it will ease your mind. just don't use the word 'hire.'" "i don't see why you should object to it," corriston went on recklessly. "it protects you, in a way. it's a good word to hide behind. if the colonists knew the truth about you, i don't think you'd last very long." "i'll last long enough to help you dig your own grave, corriston, if you keep on with that line of talk. you're the real lucky one. i missed killing you on the station because my aim was bad. you were an unexpected complication and you were keeping me upset. i didn't like it at all." "go ahead. i knew too much. was that it?" "partly. i didn't know how much you knew or how much you'd guessed. but you were in a position to start a lot of high-powered stuff that could have interfered with my plans in a dozen ways. now i happen to need you--to a limited extent. but i'm warning you again. don't trade on your luck. don't force me to kill you, corriston." "perhaps i won't. perhaps we can strike a compromise. as i see it, there's no need for immediate violence. suppose you take me just a little more fully into your confidence. it can do you no harm now; and there are a few things i'm still curious about." "all right, corriston. what is it you'd like to know?" "how did you manage to stay concealed on the station when ramsey's officers were in full command? you had considerable freedom of movement, apparently, even if you had to move with caution." "we had everything planned in advance," henley said. "we got to one of ramsey's men with bribe money the miners raised, an executive officer named stockton. we made it worth his while. we had a carefully worked out plan for smuggling helen ramsey off the shuttle ship and keeping her hidden until the mars ship arrived. stockton had everything prepared: a concealed compartment, food, made our problem more complicated. stockton helped us get out of the quarantine cage and kept right on protecting us until we no longer needed him." "then you must have known about the masks. you must have known before you arrived that ramsey's men were in complete control of the station." "sure we knew, long before earth found out. we know exactly what had taken place. you'd be surprised what a few carefully placed bribes can do. we knew that ramsey had laid himself wide open by substituting his own men for the station's commanding officers. we knew exactly how vulnerable he was." "i see," corriston said. "ramsey was so vulnerable that any determined attack made upon him would have had a fair chance of succeeding. but you worked out a plan for striking at him in a wholly criminal way, through his daughter. did the miners know that, henley? or did they just give you their backing in a general way? you probably seemed to them the kind of man who would go after ramsey hammer and tongs." "suppose we just say they knew i'd find a way to make ramsey meet all of our demands." henley smiled thinly. "the details they left to me." he paused an instant, then went on: "right after helen ramsey disappeared, i did some hard thinking. it occurred to me that she might be wearing a mask too. so i watched all of the women in the quarantine cage and when one of them slipped out i followed her." "as simple as that!" "it wasn't simple. the girl's disappearance on the shuttle ship had me completely baffled at first. it wasn't until we reached the station that the mask possibility occurred to me." "we talked about that once before, remember?" "you were lucky then, corriston. i tried very hard to kill you, simply because i thought you knew more about helen ramsey's disappearance than you actually did. in that dark cargo compartment, with time running out on me, i couldn't think very clearly. anything more you'd like to know?" "yes. how many men did ramsey succeed in substituting for the rightful officers? how many, beside the commander?" "eight, including the commander. his real name was henry hervet. five were executive officers, two were security guards. they're all dead now." corriston's mouth went dry. "including the one who sold out and helped you?" "yes, stockton was the first to die. he was dead before the others tried to board this ship. i made sure of that. he was too greedy for his own good." "you got back the money you gave him, i suppose." "naturally. money is of very little value to a dead man." corriston had gone very pale. there was dread in his eyes when he asked: "and the real commander clement? what happened to him? where is he now?" "stockton told me that after a mask was made of his face he was imprisoned somewhere on the station," henley said. "clement and seven others. ramsey gave hervet strict orders not to kill them. i don't know where clement is now, but i can make a pretty good guess. he has probably been released and is in full command of the station again." henley stood very still for a moment, very straight and still, and corriston could feel the gun nudging the small of his back again. "i may as well tell you now that i'm going to have to lock you in, corriston," henley said. "when i turn the key on this room your sole responsibility will be right here with the controls. you'll have to sleep and eat here, and i don't intend to bring you any fancy meals. you'll hear a knock on the door three times a day. you'll get a tray with some food on it. "you'll have to decide for yourself how much sleep you can afford to take. and remember this: i'll be keeping a careful check on every navigational move you make. not a too accurate check, perhaps, but i'll know enough. if you throw the ship off course i'll find out about it, and i'll want to know why. be ready with your answers and make sure they carry weight. any more questions, corriston?" corriston shook his head. "no. the quicker you get out of here the better i'll feel." "all right, i'll leave you now. it's naturally to my benefit to try to see things from your point of view. and just in case you're worrying about helen ramsey--don't. nothing is going to happen to her, provided you stay in line. if you want me don't hesitate to buzz. that's what the intercom is for." corriston looked around once when henley was on his way to the door. the man hadn't turned away from him. he was backing toward the door, his lips tight, his eyes mocking, coldly derisive. "did you think i'd give you a chance to catch me with my guard down, corriston? if you did, you're a bigger fool than i thought you. this gun stays with me, and it's going to be centered on you every time i open this door. remember that, lieutenant." the journey to mars was a long wait. it was a standing and a waiting, with a hundred corrective power maneuvers to be checked at every hour of the day and night. it was sleep without rest and rest without sleep, and it was a battle against dizziness and the despair which can come to a pilot when a panel starts flickering a red danger signal in the utter loneliness of interplanetary space. the ship was never too hot, never too cold, for the temperature was kept stable by thermostat-controlled radiation shutters and the air was kept pure with the aid of carbon filters. but to corriston the air conditioning system with all of its elaborate controls seemed only to point up and emphasize the lack of stability elsewhere, both inside and outside the ship. there were so many things that could go wrong--tragically, dangerously, fatally wrong. for no reason at all, for instance, a recently inspected filter or gasket could go completely bad, and a "no juice" blow up threaten. or a magnetic guidance tape could jam and stop recording, and the ship could deviate a hair's breadth from its prescribed path and forget to swing completely back again. eventually a correction might be made, but if you failed to correct it in time, that one tiny deviation could spell disaster. with every day out there were more details to check, while obstacles mounted and it was impossible ever to quite catch up with what you had to do, and go on with complete confidence to the next task. worst of all, corriston was denied all opportunity to see or speak to the woman he loved. * * * * * the trip to mars took fourteen days. and in all that time corriston did not once see helen ramsey. he saw only henley, heard only the deep drone of the engines, and at times, when he was close to despair, the dull, steady beating of his own heart. the door to his prison would open and a tray of food would be pushed forward into the compartment. then the door would close quietly again, and he would be alone. in some respects he was imprisoned in a way that was almost too unbelievable for the human mind to grasp. the walls of his cell were the constellations, the barriers to his freedom space itself. the chartroom was a cell too, but it had no real confining power over him. he could walk out of the chart room simply by unlocking the viewport and swinging it wide open. he could walk out into the larger prison of space--and die in five seconds with his lungs on fire. on the thirteenth day mars loomed out of the inscrutable darkness ahead like some great accusing eye that had fastened itself on the ship with a malignance all its own. it filled one-fifth of the viewport, rust-red over most of its surface, but also pale blue in patches, a blue which shaded off into a kaleidoscope of colors that seemed to hover chiefly like the shifting, almost hueless cloudiness of a hot summer haze. on the morning of the fifteenth day, the ship, decelerating under sidethrusts from its powerful retardation rockets, cut off its engines and, free-coasting through a landing ellipse of seventy degrees, landed safely on mars. it landed in the open desert, twenty miles from ramsey's citadel, and eighty-seven miles from the first martian colony. but corriston received no praise at all for his navigational skill. five minutes after the engines ceased to throb a blow on the head felled him, a brutal blow from behind. "tie him up," henley said. "we're not killing him, not just yet." "but i don't see why--" a cold voice started to protest. "damn you, stone, i know what i'm doing. keep your thoughts to yourself." 15 corriston sat very straight and still in the darkness, his back against cold metal, his eyes on the distant glow of the heating lamp. he could see the lamp through a wide panel opening in the bulkhead directly opposite him. wherever his eyes fell there was the glimmer of light on metal. but the warmth of the lamp would have left him close to freezing had it not been supplemented by the heating units inside his heavy clothing. he didn't know how he was going to free himself. his hands were securely handcuffed and the sharp metal was biting into his flesh. turning and twisting about did him no good at all. he didn't know how he was going to free himself, but he refused to give up hope. there had to be a way. you could begin on one of your captors, on a human being with a great deal to lose or gain. you could try to penetrate his armor, sound out his human weaknesses. or you could set to work on the handcuffs at your wrists, struggling in an almost hopeless attempt to draw your hands through them in some way or get them unlocked without a key. he decided to try the first way. he raised his voice. "stone?" he called out. "can you hear me?" there ensued a silence. then stone's voice came back loud and clear. "sure, i can hear you. what do you want?" "i'd like to talk to you," corriston said. "about what?" "about you. what are you getting out of this? you've nothing to lose by being frank with me. henley would never believe anything i might say." "you're right about that," stone said. "but why should i talk to you? i'll tell you something that may surprise you. keeping you alive was henley's idea. he figured we might need you. he figured that if ramsey wouldn't listen to us he might listen to you--a space station officer. he figured we might need you to convince ramsey we're not bluffing. someone who _knows_ we're not bluffing. someone who knows we'd kill his daughter before we gave him a third chance to make up his mind and hand over the dough." "a _third_ chance? i thought--" "you think too much, corriston. i'll spell it out for you. henley is on his way now to give ramsey his first chance. he may succeed or he may not. if he doesn't succeed he'll come back and take you to the fortress with him. that will be ramsey's second chance. he won't get a third." "i see," corriston said. "but i asked you a question you didn't answer. how much do you stand to get out of this? what is your split, your percentage? don't tell me; i'll guess. henley is promising you fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. but how much ransom do you think he'll get from ramsey? two million, at least. possibly twenty million. does that kind of split satisfy you, stone? remember, when that ransom is paid, every law enforcement agency on earth goes into operation. it starts off in a quiet suite of offices, with just one owl-faced little guy shuffling some papers. "it starts off that way, but in the space of one hour you're a man marked for destruction. the military goes into action. from earth to mars your photograph is televised. ten thousand trained experts are thrown into the operation. you've suddenly become important, an accessory to the kidnapping of the wealthiest girl on earth. "how does that set with you, stone? they'll get you in the end. no, i'll qualify that. they'll get you unless ramsey gives you a split of at least a million dollars. with a million dollars you'd have a one in five chance of covering your tracks, of hiding out indefinitely. but ramsey won't give you anything like that kind of a split. you know that as well as i do. he'll have to cover his own tracks and he'll need all of the two million--or twenty million--for himself. or most of it. "i'm not telling you anything you don't know. your real interest lies in preventing that kidnapping before it's too late. he's getting ready to double-cross you, stone. it was in the back of his mind all the time. he's looking out only for himself." "i don't think so," stone said. "my split, since you brought the matter up, is half a million. he's demanding six million in ransom. that's twelve times what i'm getting and what jim saddler is getting. but i've no complaints. he organized and planned everything. "i'll be honest with you. that doesn't mean a damn thing to me. i'm no good when it comes to taking a risk like that, but does that mean he's better than i am? do you think i'd string along with him if i believed that for a moment? "hell, no. i'm using him, don't you see? i'm letting him take the big gamble, and i stay in the background ... doing practically nothing. so if i clear a half million, what have i to complain about?" "nothing, i suppose," corriston said. "you're damned right. but i don't think i like the way you said that. there's something in your voice that i don't like." "that's too bad," corriston said. "maybe you think i don't mean what i said. is that it?" corriston tightened his lips. he could hear stone's footsteps coming toward him through the darkness. they were heavy steps, advancing slowly, with a slight shuffling sound. they paused twice and then came on again, and the silence between pauses seemed almost crushingly thick. corriston suddenly realized that he knew almost nothing about stone. he had taken the man pretty much for granted, a killer's accomplice without much personality, a sullen-faced scoundrel who was good at obeying orders and standing ready to silence anyone henley disliked with a well-placed kick in the head. but what if he did have personality after all? suppose there were hidden depths in him, a hidden reservoir of malice which he kept concealed until he felt a mad impulse to start laughing or bragging or proving to someone he disliked that he was as potentially dangerous as henley--perhaps even more dangerous. and suppose he decided to back up his boasting with a quick knife thrust or a gun blast at almost point-blank range? it wasn't a pleasant thought, and the flicker of a match between stone's cupped hands did nothing to dispel corriston's uneasiness. the small, bright flame brought stone's features into sharp relief for an instant. the lips had an ugly set to them, and the eyes were slitted, gleaming. he was making no effort to keep his hate from showing, and the instant the match went out he lit another. he seemed to be advancing slowly on purpose, as if aware that his stealth and deliberation had begun to un-nerve corriston. corriston felt himself stiffening, moving more closely back against the wall. breathing quickly, he told himself that he hadn't much time, that he must be careful not to overreach himself. there was another moment of silence, of stillness, while the shuffling ceased. then stone was very close in the darkness, his hands cupped about a third match, a mocking smile on his lips. it was a blunder on his part. before he could move again corriston was upon him. there are times when a handcuffed man is at a disadvantage in a furiously waged and uncertain struggle, but corriston suffered no disadvantage. for ten minutes he had been reminding himself that a blow along the side of the neck, just under the jaw, could paralyze and even kill if it were delivered with sufficient force. a sharp, flat-of-the-hand blow could do it. but handcuffs were better, and corriston lashed out now with his manacled wrists upraised, so that the handcuffs grazed stone's neck twice lightly and then almost splintered his jawbone with a rotor-blade violence. the blow not only stunned stone, it lifted him clear of the deck. he staggered forward and fell heavily, his breath leaving his lungs in an agonizing sob. corriston leaned back against the wall again for an instant, breathing heavily. then he knelt beside stone and went through his pockets until he found the handcuff key. it was difficult. he had to do a lot of awkward fumbling with his fingers, and even with the key in his possession, getting the cuffs off was far from easy. but somehow he managed it, perhaps because he had unusually flexible fingers and knew that if he failed, stone would see to it that he got no second chance this side of eternity. he stood very straight and still in the darkness, his eyes focused on stone's white face. there was no need for him to strike a match. he had taken from stone not only the key, but a small pocket flashlight which stone had apparently preferred not to use. there was something else he had taken from stone--his gun. he held the weapon now, very firmly centered on stone, while he waited for him to come to. ordinarily he wouldn't have cared if stone had never opened his eyes again; but now he had to wait and see. the ship was so large that to explore it compartment by compartment until he found the one in which helen ramsey was being held prisoner would be dangerously time-consuming. so, if stone recovered consciousness within fifteen or twenty minutes and could tell him, so much the better. if not, better wait and see. he waited, shifting his gun only a little from weariness as the minutes dragged on, wondering if he had not made a mistake in waiting at all. finally stone stirred and groaned. corriston bent and shook him by the shoulders. he took firm hold of his shoulders and shook him vigorously, feeling no pity for him at all. he got the truth out of him by threatening him with violence, by threatening to kill him if he kept anything back. stone kept nothing back. just remembering the blow that had felled him, loosened his tongue. but the gun helped too, the gun wedged so closely against his ribs under his heart that he feared that if he breathed too heavily he would breathe his last. "i won't lie to you," he said desperately, pleadingly. "you haven't a chance. there's a photoelectric alarm system outside the compartment, and jim saddler is sitting just inside the door. he has a gun trained on her. his orders are to shoot her dead if anyone so much as attempts to get inside that door." "meaning me?" "it means you, lieutenant. i'm not lying; i swear it. you won't stand a chance. henley will be coming back in a few hours now. you'd better get out while you're still in one piece." corriston was tempted to hurl stone back against the wall and shout at him: "it doesn't matter whether i go out of here in one piece or dead on a stretcher. she's the only thing i care about." but he caught himself just in time. stone thought in the most primitive imaginable terms. you couldn't go to a stone age man and say: "my own skin doesn't mean a goddam thing to me. i'm in love. if she dies i die. can't you understand that? if she dies, my life will be over." he said instead: "all right. i guess it means i've got to get help." "you'll never get help," stone said, summoning from some defiant depths within himself a little courage. "the colony is eighty-seven miles from here. you couldn't cross the desert on foot. no one could cross it on foot, not when the temperature drops at night to fifty below. but you'd better not stay. he'd better head for ramsey's citadel. that's your only chance. it's only twenty miles from here." _let him think that_, a voice within corriston warned. let him think that i'll head for the citadel. otherwise he may attempt to get word to ramsey somehow. i can tie him up and leave him in a state of shock, but if he thinks i'm heading for the colony, even a state of shock may not stop him. saddler may come down here looking for him. once he's freed, if he thinks i'm heading for the colony.... corriston said: "damn you, stone, i ought to kill you. i ought to put a bullet through your heart right now. i don't know why i can't. it's a weakness in me." "i'd kill _you_, corriston, if _i_ had the chance. but i'm glad you have that kind of a weakness." corriston stared at him incredulously. "you're certainly outspoken. you were pleading for your life a moment ago--going soft, as you'd put it. now you're talking realistically, analyzing your own motivations and mine." "i'm not quite as dumb as you think me, corriston." "all right. let's say you're not dumb. few people are, when it comes to a matter of life or death. that's beside the point right now. i've got to tie you up. where can i find some rope?" "it would be much simpler to lock me in a vacant compartment." "all right. then i'll lock you in one of the compartments. you can pick your own compartment. i'd advise you not to waste my time. pick your own compartment and i'll slide the bolt fast on the outside." stone showed no disposition to put up an argument. corriston kept the gun pressed into the small of his back and he seemed to realize that his life hung by a thread. they found a compartment that was small and dark, and into it stone walked at gunpoint, offering no protest, and answering the questions corriston put to him readily enough. "you'll find all the equipment you need at the end of this passageway," stone said. "activate the third door on your left. anything else you'd like to know?" corriston shook his head. he walked out of the compartment backwards, keeping his gun trained on stone until he was in the corridor. then he swung the door shut and shot the bolt home. he had no trouble at all in finding the equipment he knew he'd need, thanks to stone's generosity. stone could afford to be generous, he reflected bitterly. the henley combine still held all of the trump cards. he cursed the time it took him to equip himself for a near-suicidal crossing of eighty-seven miles of martian desert. he would travel on foot, after nightfall, and in freezing cold. the compartment in which he labored was a basal compartment, and set in the massive bulkhead, against which he leaned with his bootstraps still unlaced, was an airlock opening directly on the martian plain. he collected the smaller articles first, setting them down in a row on a long metal bench directly opposite the airlock: three compasses, each weighing perhaps twenty ounces; a cathode ray compass; a non-magnetic compass and a sun compass. the sun compass would perhaps prove the most valuable until darkness fell. the sun, shining down with brilliance from the clear martian sky, could throw a directional kind of shadow, enabling a man on foot to take fairly accurate bearings without the use of sighting and viewing instruments. to the compasses on the bench he added five map coordinates and a lambert conformal projection chart. food concentrates came next: four shining aluminum cubes, four inches by four inches, which would go into the knapsack on his back. then a canteen, already filled with sterilized water from the ship's central water supply system. next, he took from the locker the right kind of clothing: a tubeflex inner suit with a warm lining and a heavy outer suit equipped with heat lamps. oxygen masks next--oxy-respirators, to be exact. one to attach to the face and one to hold in reserve as a spare. they covered only a third of the face, but that third had everything to do with a man's staying alive and vigorous in the thin air of mars. when night fell, and the cold descended, oxy-respirators were not enough. then you had to pull down the entire front of your helmet and stagger on with your sight impaired, for in a cold that was almost beyond endurance, helmets had a way of clouding over from time to time. the clouding over of the vision plate was not too important. it could be constantly wiped clean. but if his brain started "clouding over" too.... he dismissed the possibility from his mind. he was clothed now, fully clothed, and ready to depart. he started moving toward the airlock, feeling and looking like a giant beetle of the tropics, feeling awkward, cumbersome and insecure. his boots were weighted, and the bulge of the oxygen tank on his shoulder made him look almost hunchbacked in the cold light glimmer that turned the bulkhead into a mirroring surface as he advanced. he manipulated the airlock and it opened with a slow, steady droning and then he was passing through it, still moving awkwardly.... at last! he was out on the martian desert in bright sunlight, staring up at the clear blue sky. the first few miles were not difficult at all. he walked away from the ship with his shoulders held straight, the cumbersome feeling dissipated by the lightness of his stride in the incredibly light gravity. the air pressure about him was less than seventy millimeters of mercury. the thought sprouted in his mind that he was the god mercury striding along with winged shoes, and for the first five miles his weighted boots did seem to develop wings. then the temperature began slowly to drop. the sun sank lower. its brightness diminished, and his cheeks began to tingle with the cold. there was a slight wind blowing over the desert, raising dust flurries on the summits of the tallest dunes, causing the gray patches of crust lichen, which were scattered widely over the plain, to change color as their threadlike surfaces were ruffled by the breeze. far in the distance he could see a "canal," one of those strange blue-green declivities in the terrain which looked from the air like an actual waterway, and had deceived--or bewildered--three generations of men. despite the increasing cold, corriston did not moderate his stride. he let his thoughts dwell on the most imaginative of the canal speculations. it had been proven completely false, but its originality fascinated him. long ago, the theory held, there had been volcanic activity on mars. great faults or fissures had opened up in the planet's crust, and when the coming of spring thawed the polar ice caps, curtains of fog swirled equatorward, filling those natural crevices with swirling rivers of mist. corriston stopped walking for a moment, shifting the weight of his equipment slightly, easing a too heavy drag on his right shoulder. he made sure that the thin flexible tube which connected his oxygen mask with the small tank on his back was securely clipped into place at both ends, tested the harness buckle which supported supplies which were as necessary to him as breathing, and took a turn up and down the sand, stamping, shaking himself, to make absolutely certain that nothing vital had been jarred loose. then he was under way again, moving along at a steady pace over the rust-red desert, the ship now lost to view far behind him, his mind leaping ahead to the very great dangers which he was determined to face and overcome so long as one slender thread of hope remained. 16 it might have been almost any sleepy little town on earth, picked at random from a train window--a dust bowl town with a prairie name: hawk's valley, buzzard's gulch, and the like. it might have been, but it wasn't. the buildings were thinner, of more precarious construction, and each had been built to house three or more families. they were at unusual angles on sloping ledges where the soil was firm enough to resist overnight erosion from winds of hurricane force, and in many places their prefabricated metal foundations were pierced and supported by shafts of solid rock. without modern technology at its most advanced, the town could never have been built. yet in the streets of the town there was a village rudeness of construction which no pioneering effort could quite efface: a wide main street that gleamed red in the sunlight on which three caterpillar tractors stood stalled, their guard rails caked with yellow mud; a pool of stagnant black water with a wooden plank thrown haphazardly across it; a discarded fuel container upended against a half-rusted away metal cable, and the remnants of an hydraulic actuator overgrown with hardy lichens that had colored it yellow and ash gray. and here and there, projecting from the tumbled sand, were spiny cactus-like growths. yet it was not too small a town. its inhabitants numbered eight thousand, two-thirds of them men. there were ninety-seven children. it was not too small a town, and now, in each of the houses, a new day was beginning. at least thirty men and a few women had collected about the haggard-eyed desert straggler. every one of them hung on his words. every one of these people had been ruined by ramsey's rapacious greed. their past accomplishments were destroyed; their futures were non-existent. they lived in a terrorized state, from hand-to-mouth, indifferent now to any more wrongdoing that could be visited upon them. the fires of their hatred for ramsey gave them the basic energy to go on existing. out of grinding desperation they had turned to henley, had given him a free hand, even when most, in their heart-of-hearts, knew he was a scoundrel. the fact was that he was the only man among them not so cowed as to be actively enraged against ramsey. he promised that the mines would be given back to the people. and, having nothing, they believed everything. they came from everywhere in the colony, and from every trade and profession. who was this man? and was he friend or foe? the crowd grew slowly. despite the shouts and the sudden stir of excitement which had greeted the speaker on his arrival, there was no headlong rush to surround him. the colonists emerged from their lodgings and converged calmly upon the square, some having the look of tradesfolk concerned with a possible interruption of business, and others seemingly intent only on what the stranger might have to say. it was unusually warm for so early an hour, the temperature well up in the mid-forties, and there was no need for the heat-generating inner garments, only for oxygen masks and heavy outdoor clothing and the careful avoidance of too much muscular exertion in the absence of weighted shoes. this is madness, corriston told himself. i am in no condition to convince these people, to make them understand. i should have rested first. three hours' sleep would have helped. i should have asked for food. corriston felt suddenly tongue-tied. words were failing him when he needed them most. his speech became halting and confused. he had been talking for twenty minutes--twenty minutes at least--but suddenly he was quite sure that he hadn't succeeded in convincing anyone that he was speaking only the simple truth. he looked at the faces before him a little more intently and saw what he had not noticed before: everyone was waiting for him to go on; everyone seemed to be hanging on his words. had he misjudged them after all? or had he misjudged his own capacity to be persuasive, to talk with conviction when his very life hung in the balance? there could be no doubt on that score. his life did hang in the balance. they'd make short shift of him if they thought he was on ramsey's side. "it isn't ramsey i'm concerned about," he heard himself saying. "i'm pleading with you to face up to the truth about yourselves. you trusted henley because you were desperate. you couldn't put your trust in a weak or indecisive man. you needed a tool with a cutting edge. that i can understand. but you picked the wrong man. henley doesn't want to see justice done. he doesn't want to help you at all. he wants to help himself at your expense, to help himself in a vicious, brutal way." "that's a lie," someone in the crowd said. "henley's a good man." corriston freed himself from his dust-caked coat. he shrugged it off and let it drop to the sand. then he straightened his oxygen mask and went on: "it's not a lie. it's the simple truth." he wondered why he had shrugged off his warmest garment. it was cold, he was shivering, and it had been a ridiculous thing to do. had he intended it as a challenge? in a crazy, confused, subconscious way, was he offering to fight anyone who disagreed with him. he suddenly realized that he was a little drunk. not on alcohol, but on a slight excess of oxygen. he fingered the gauge on his mask, cutting down the tank inflow, cursing himself for his delay in doing so. had he convinced anyone? he looked at the faces about him and was astonished by their impassivity. few of the men or women before him seemed either angry or disturbed. they just seemed to be quietly listening. suddenly he realized that he was completely in error. they were convinced, persuaded, almost completely on his side. their silence was in itself revealing, just as the hush which precedes an avalanche can be convincing, or the stillness which precedes a storm at sea. they were waiting for him to go on. he talked for thirty more minutes and then there was a long silence, punctuated only by the harsh breathing of a few men who seemed to disagree. 17 corriston knew that the few who disagreed were prepared to make trouble, but he was not prepared for the violence which ensued. fights broke out in the crowd, singly and in groups. the colonists with strong convictions took issue with the few who disagreed. and the few who disagreed had strong convictions, too. two men about the same in height were suddenly down on the ground raining fisticuffs at each other. "damn you, reeves, i'll break your jaw. from the first minute i saw henley i knew he was a scoundrel." "yeah, and who else but a scoundrel could hold his own with a rat like ramsey. we can call the turn on him if he goes too far." there was an explosion of cursing and corriston could see five more men fighting, moving backwards as they exchanged blows toward the periphery of the crowd. there was nothing he could do to stop the fighting. he was close to exhaustion, hardly able to stand. he desperately needed food and rest--a long rest flat on his back. suddenly he realized that he had victory within his grasp. most things worthwhile in life called for a decisive effort of will. he decided suddenly that he couldn't just let the fighting go on. he had to take a firm stand himself, had to convince everyone that he was prepared to fight for his convictions. he moved forward into the crowd. he grabbed one doubter by the shoulder, held fast to him for an instant, and then sent his fist crashing into the astonished man's jaw. the doubter folded in complete silence. corriston stepped back from him and said in a voice loud enough to carry to the rim of the crowd: "i don't care how many of you i have to take on. every word i've said is the truth. if you can only settle it by killing me, you may as well start trying." there was a silence then. even the sound of the breeze rustling the garments of the colonists, stirring little flurries of sand along the main street, seemed to become muted. far off between the houses a clock struck the time. it seemed very loud in the stillness. it amazed corriston a little, even in his exhausted state, how determinedly a challenge like that could be accepted at face value. he was quite sure that he had won a victory; that nine-tenths of the colonists were on his side. but everyone remained silent, everyone drew back in tight-lipped silence while the issue was put to the test. a tall man with a lean, lantern-jawed face approached corriston and said: "i'm going to tell you exactly what i think. henley isn't an easy man to understand. he keeps his thoughts to himself and he may have had his own special reasons for pulling the wool over your eyes. he's looking out for our best interests; i'm sure of that. but what good would it do me to knock you down to prove it?" "no good at all," corriston said. "but try knocking me down if you want to." "i'm not going to try," the lantern-jawed man said. "i think you're lying. that's all i have to say." corriston watched him disappear in the crowd and shook his head. he felt like a man with a fly swatter in his hand. he had won a victory and yet if he failed to swat a few flies no one would believe that he was telling the truth. finally he got his chance. a thickset, dark-browed man with a trouble-seeking aspect came up and hurled insults at him in a markedly offensive way. corriston hit him three times. the first blow doubled him up, the second dropped him to his knees; the third flattened him out on the sand. corriston stepped back and surveyed the crowd. their response now was overwhelmingly favorable. it wasn't a complete victory. there were still doubters, still arguments going on, still a hatred for ramsey that overflowed and made a mockery of the few voices raised in his defense. and corriston was glad that not too many voices were raised in ramsey's defense. he had not come to plead ramsey's cause, and he wanted all of the colonists to know that. he only asked that a truce be declared, an end to the fierce, immediate hatreds, while a scoundrel was attacked by men who had been lied to, cheated and betrayed. he moved still further forward into the crowd, prepared to fight again if he had to, prepared to back up his arguments with the simple, primitive and direct use of his fists. he swayed suddenly and realized that he was at the end of his endurance, and now would in all probability make a complete fool of himself. he would commit the unforgivable folly of issuing a challenge that he couldn't back up. he shook his head violently, trying to clear it, but his dizziness increased. the landscape about him began to pinwheel and he saw the streets of the colony through a wavering yellow mist. the store fronts danced, the rusting and discarded machinery on a side street began to move and come to life, to clatter and waltz about. a woman moving toward him seemed to grow in height, her oxygen mask widening out, overspreading her face. for a moment she seemed like an impossible ballet figure in a _danse macabre_, pivoting about on her toes as a caterpillar tractor came rushing toward her through the thin air of mars. then two colonists were supporting him, holding him tightly by the elbows, refusing to let him collapse. it was outrageous, because he _wanted_ to collapse. he wanted to sink down, to let sleep wash over him, to forget all of his troubles in merciful oblivion. but the two colonists were very stubborn. they refused to let him collapse. he only wanted to go to sleep, to forget all of his troubles, but the two colonists were like doctors in a hospital, very stern, very patient, and seemingly determined to keep him on his feet. somehow they must have failed. they must have failed because when he became fully conscious again he was lying between cool white sheets, and a woman in a white nurse's uniform was bending over him. by straining his eyes he could see two men who looked like doctors standing just beyond her. the two men appeared to be discussing him, but when he struggled to a sitting position and stared hard at them they came toward him with reassuring smiles, and one of them said: "take it easy, now. you're going to be all right." "i ... i must have passed out," he stammered. "i was ready to pass out before i started talking. is this a hospital? i guess it is. i should have come here immediately. forty hours in the desert and i arrive half-delirious and make a fool of myself." "take it easy," one of the doctors said. "you didn't make a fool of yourself. quite the contrary." oh, brother, he thought. they're lying to me to spare me, or something. "i have a vague recollection of not being able to stand, of talking my head off and then collapsing and making a complete fool of myself, of accomplishing nothing at all. i swung hard at two or three people. i knocked one man down, flat on his back. but that was a crazy thing to do. it's no way to win the confidence or respect of anyone." "look," one of the doctors said, taking firm hold of his shoulder and shaking him gently. "don't go reproaching yourself. you've got nine-tenths of the colony behind you." "you mean--" "sure, you convinced almost everyone. and that was a miracle in itself, considering how close to collapse you were. you were running a high fever. you were dehydrated. your skin was as dry as a parched lichen. yet you stood there and convinced them. that's the gospel truth." "they've chosen you as their leader," the second doctor said. "they're going after henley before it's too late. they feel exactly as you do about ramsey's daughter. not about ramsey perhaps--but about the kidnapping of a helpless girl. none of them have any liking for henley now." 18 corriston walked out into the central square and stood there. for a moment no one said a word. one of the doctors was there with him. he'd had a sandwich and coffee before leaving the hospital and his nerves felt steady and his voice was pitched low. "i don't know a single one of these men, dr. tomlinson," he said. "i spent a week in the colony four years ago, but i just don't see anyone i recognize. i'm afraid you'll have to introduce me around." it took a full hour to really get acquainted, to plan what had to be done, to check over the tractors, the ammunition supplies, the equipment of each and every man. they had to cross eighty-seven miles of desert to a heavily guarded cave and then move on perhaps to ramsey's fortress. they had to be prepared for any eventuality. the morale was good. corriston could sense the grim determination in every man, the faith in their mission, the anger. it cheered him. he walked around between the tractors, listening to stray bits of talk, getting better acquainted with everyone as the minutes sped by. he took out his watch and looked at it and decided that time was running short. give each and every man twenty minutes, he thought. then we get rolling. thirty caterpillar tractors and two hundred and ten men. and in the ship are two men holed up--possibly three now--with all the portable fighting equipment of a two thousand ton spaceship at their disposal. and if henley has returned-suddenly corriston found himself sweating in the silence, despite the cold, despite the hoar frost that was beginning to collect on the rim of his oxygen mask. there was a split second of shouting from one of the tractors and then it started up, with a coughing and spitting that drowned out the human voices. all along the wide, rust-red street other tractors came to life. in the thin air of mars, in the pale sky, a single blue cloud hung suspended. it was wispy thin, incredibly thin, a hollow mockery of a cloud. but the scene below would have been less remarkable had the sky remained cloudless, for then mars would have seemed completely unlike earth and the human drama less compelling. there was something tremendous in the forward march of the tractors, in the clatter and the rising dust, the shouts of the men at the controls and the women who ran swift-footed along the sand to urge them to greater fortitude. the women knew that endurance would be needed, for twenty-first century weapons of warfare could destroy a hundred tractors and spatter the desert with blood before retaliation could become complete and justice be fully satisfied. so the women did not weep or lament. they ran parallel with the tractors, urging their men onward, stifling their own inner fears in the greatness of the moment. corriston waited for the last tractor to come abreast of him before he leapt aboard it. there was the smell of acrid grease in the air, a smell of burning. the mechanical parts set up a dull rumbling, and as corriston swung himself aboard, a voice said: "i'm stanley gregor. if i had any sense i wouldn't take part in this. i came to mars with the second expedition. i'm sixty-two years old but somehow today i feel young. there's no longer any doubt in my mind that henley is a scoundrel. why we trusted him i don't know. i'm here to do my part in rectifying an error." "sure," corriston said, settling down at the side of a big, awkward-looking man with red hair. "sure, i understand. take it easy. we're all in this together." "we've got eighty-seven miles of desert to cross. it's going to be tough. have you seen the fortress ramsey built to protect himself?" "no," corriston said. "there are twenty-five square miles of fortified defenses--photoelectric eye installations. they spot you when you're a half-mile away. try to storm those installations even with a dozen armed tractors, and you'll be pulverized into dust. try to storm them on foot with the most formidable of energy weapons, and you'll be electrocuted. you'll hang suspended on barbed wire. think that over, lieutenant." "i've thought it over," corriston said. "we won't have to storm the fortress unless they've taken ramsey's daughter there, or if ramsey himself is in danger. and if he is in danger, he'll welcome our help. we're going to the ship first and there are only two men on the ship." "but they've got plenty of ammunition, haven't they? they've got the ship's military installations. anyway you slice it, it's a dangerous gamble." "i never thought it was anything else," corriston said. 19 corriston woke up to the hum of human voices, the soft whisper of the wind, the gentle stirring of sand. he awoke to coldness and brightness, to sunlight that dazzled him with its brightness. corriston remembered then. not everything at once, but just the first thing. there were no guideposts. that was always the first thing to remember when you woke up from a brief, twenty-minute sleep on mars. in islands scoured by trade winds and bright with blown sea spray a man does not talk of traveling east or west, and even familiar streets are no longer given names or marked by intersections. a man talks instead of walking into the wind, of setting his course by the north star, of moving straight into the teeth of the gale or huddling for shelter beneath a high chalk cliff where all directions converge in a hollow drumming that has neither beginning nor end. it was that way on mars. it would always be that way, it could never change. just lie very still and listen, listen to the voices of men who are risking their lives to help you. listen and be grateful; listen and be proud. all at once corriston realized that an amazing discussion was going on. they were discussing an eleven-year-old boy who had done an absolutely crazy thing. he had followed his father into the desert by concealing himself in one of the tractors, behind a liquid-fuel cylinder, and was now a member of the 210 man rescue team. "mars is no place for a kid. dr. drever ought to be ashamed of himself. if a man has children--well, mars is simply no place for children." "that's right. a boy of eleven needs companions his own age to help him over the growingpain hurdles. he needs a backyard to play in. when i was a kid i had a bike of my own, a bull terrier pup, a collection of butterflies, a stamp collection and a simply amazing talent for roughing up my clothes. "mars is the worst of all possible worlds for a kid like freddy. we're buoyed up by the bigness and the newness and the strangeness of everything. the mile-high granite cliffs don't really belong to a planet smaller than earth. but they're here and we accept them. we pit our technical brilliance--or lack of it--against the rugged grandeur of the mountains and the plains and we can take even the sandstorms in our stride. but to bring a kid here--" "drever is a widower. he quite naturally didn't want to put his son in an orphanage. besides, there are thirteen other young kids in the colony." "that doesn't excuse it. there are plenty of childless single men." "how many of them could step into drever's shoes and grow to his stature as the first really great medical specialist on mars? you're forgetting the hell he had to go through just to pass the preliminary screening. it's rugged for a man of his attainments. they not only insist that he be good; they want him to be the best." "that's true enough, i suppose. and now that he's here he probably couldn't be replaced. experience of a very special sort does things for a man. and _to_ a man, if you like." "i'm simply stressing that mars is simply not a place for a kid of freddy's age. when he goes roaming he gets his lungs choked with dust. he couldn't ride a bike on mars--if he had a bike. worst of all, he has no kids of his own age to play with. and now he comes on a trip like this. does he hope to rescue the ramsey girl all by himself?" corriston got up then. the three men who had been discussing dr. drever's son stood by the smoldering embers of a burnt out campfire. they were kindly looking men but a certain narrow-mindedness was stamped on the faces of at least two of them. corriston shrugged off his weariness and walked up to them. "nonsense!" he said. a startled look came into the eyes of the oldest, a grizzled scarecrow of a man whose beard descended almost to his waist. he was a martian geologist, and a good one. "eh, lieutenant. i was just going to ask you. shouldn't we get started?" "we should and we will," corriston said. "but a good many men collapsed from the cold this morning. if we don't arrive at that ship in force, we may live to regret it. where's freddy? have you seen him?" the grizzled man raised his arm and pointed: "over there," he said. "his coming along was just about the craziest thing i ever heard of." corriston walked across the churned up sand to where freddy sat perched like a disconsolate gnome on a metal-rimmed food container shaped like an old-fashioned water barrel. dr. drever's son was almost twelve, but he was small for his age and corriston had seen boys of nine who were much huskier looking. corriston had no way of knowing that on earth, shoulder to shoulder with other schoolboys, freddy had never thought of himself as particularly small. it was only on mars, all alone with his father and other grownups, that he had felt even smaller than he actually was. he had felt like a dwarf child. "why did you do it, freddy?" corriston asked. "your father is very upset and worried." freddy looked up quickly and just as quickly lowered his eyes again. "i had to come," he said. "i had to." "but why?" "i don't know." "i see." corriston stared at him for a long moment in silence. then he said: "i think perhaps i understand, freddy. just suppose we say you succumbed to an impulse to roam. the exploring urge can be overwhelming in a boy of your age. it usually is. if you were on earth right now you'd be dreaming about exploring the headwaters of the amazon. you'd be dreaming about birds with bright, tropical plumage and butterflies as big as dinner plates." freddy looked up again, not quite so quickly this time. there was wonder and admiration in his stare. "how did you know?" he gasped. "i guess i was pretty much like you, freddy--once," corriston said. "gee, thanks," freddy said. "thanks for what?" "thanks for understanding me, lieutenant corriston." corriston walked out between the tractors and raised his voice so that everyone within earshot could hear him. "we're starting again in ten minutes," he said. "better have another cup of coffee all around." 20 the sand had been blowing for forty minutes. it was a flying avalanche, a flailing mace. even inside the tractors it set up an almost intolerable roaring in the eardrums, and when it struck the wind-guards head on the battered vehicles shook. for five or six seconds they would rumble on and then come to a jolting halt. often they would start up again almost immediately but equally often they would remain stalled for several minutes, and at times there were more stalled tractors than moving ones across the entire line of advance. the pelting never ceased, never let up even for a moment. minute after minute the sand came sweeping down in red fury, tons upon tons of it, in great circular waves from high overhead and in jet velocity flurries close to the ground. in that assault of billions upon billions of spinning particles the brightly colored lichens which covered the martian plains were uprooted, lifted high in the air, and carried for dozens of miles, flying carpets so small they scarcely could have supported the tiniest of elves. for three hours the sandstorm continued to rage in fury, and then, abruptly, the wind died down, the last flurry subsided, and the colonists got under way again. and just for a change a few of them descended from the tractors and advanced on foot, keeping a little ahead of the swaying vehicles. dr. drever, a tall, stooped man with graying temples but surprisingly youthful eyes accelerated his stride a little and fell in with the scarecrow geologist who was walking at corriston's side. "we can't be far from the ship now," he said. "i wish there was some way i could send freddy back. if i thought you could spare a tractor and one man to accompany him...." "freddy will be all right," corriston said. "you don't know what it means to a kid like freddy to ride through a sandstorm in the company of grownups. he had to prove something to himself, and i think he's done it." the stillness was almost unnatural now, and corriston could see that most of the men were becoming uneasy about it. the desert seemed too bright and far too quiet. it was one of those mysterious, brooding silences that are a menace to start with. you think of unsuspected pitfalls, hidden traps. imagination leaps ahead of reality and leaves an insidious kind of demoralization in its wake. "i'm not surprised that all the animal life on mars went underground," the scarecrow geologist said, and it seemed a strange thing for him to have mentioned at that moment, when the stillness was so absolute and the thoughts of everyone should have been on the ship, which had to be very near now. "yes, and what a vicious, horrible kind of animal life it is," drever said, as if he too welcomed the opportunity to talk irrelevantly, perhaps to relieve his inner tension. "they're a very primitive form of life, really," the geologist said. "they look like large gray snakes, but they're actually more like worms. worms with sucker disks instead of mouths. when once they've' attached themselves it's almost impossible to dislodge them. you've seen marine worms on earth often enough, i'm sure. they come in all shapes, sizes and colors, but there are one or two species that look quite a bit like lamprenes in miniature. lamprenes are usually about three feet in length. but some of the very old ones grow to eight feet or longer. their natural prey is a small running lizard--the galaka--as you know." "all right," corriston said, a little of his raw-nerve exasperation returning. "now i suppose you're going to tell us exactly how they kill their prey." "i don't have to tell you how they kill men," macklin said. "you know as much about that as i do. you've been on mars before. you've seen at least a few of the victims. you know exactly how they come up under a man when he's asleep, puncture his clothes and attach themselves. he doesn't just get nipped; the lamprene can seldom be pulled off that quickly. and when two or three of them attack you, it can be pretty horrible. they're more than just vampires; they sting. the poison is as deadly as aconite. it works a little slower, but almost immediately the victim starts to degenerate, his nerves first, and, then...." "all right, now i've heard an expert confirm it. i'd be grateful if you'll just shut up." "lieutenant, i told you--" "never mind, doctor. i'm asking him to shut up." in silence they continued on, the tension between them increasing almost intolerably, their nerves becoming more and more frayed. and then, finally, it seemed to them that they could see the ship, and the great cliff wall surrounding it through the slight haziness left by the sandstorm and the vaguer haziness which distance imposes, could see the tumbled, flat slabs of rock that radiated out from it in all directions across the desert. but it was hard to be sure it was really the ship. it was perhaps only one of the many desert mirages which were far more common on mars than they were on earth. a man who has once looked at the bright, scarred face of a cliff wall in the martian sunlight will remember it even in his dreams and no mirages are really necessary. he is certain to see it a second and a third time, like an after-image so indelibly imprinted on the retina of the human eye that its recurrence becomes inevitable. and yet, the running man could not have been a mirage. he was much nearer than the ship appeared to be, and he was falling and getting up and falling again in so frenzied a way that his movements bore the unmistakable stamp of reality. corriston came to an abrupt halt. for an instant he simply stared, watching the distant figure fall to the sand for the fourth time and drag himself forward over the sand, his shoulders heaving convulsively. for an instant corriston could not have moved if he had wanted to. the scarecrow and drever were standing too close to him, so that the shoulders of the three men formed a compact unit, and their arms were in each other's way to such an extent that no real freedom of movement was possible. corriston had almost to disentangle himself by sheer physical effort. disentangle himself he finally did, turning completely about and shouting to the colonists behind him. "get to that man as quickly as possible!" he ordered. "there's no time to be lost. try to tear the lamprenes off him, but watch out for your hands. don't let them coil around you, watch out for the disks. get them off if you can. if you can't, bring him here. carry him slung between you." two men left the line of march and started off across the desert, walking very rapidly but not breaking into a run. corriston had forgotten to warn them that running with their weighted shoes would be difficult, and would only delay them, and he was glad that they had thought of it themselves. he turned back to the scarecrow, who was staring in white-lipped horror at what must have seemed to him an unbelievable occurrence--a man attacked by lamprenes when he had been talking about lamprenes only an instant before. but corriston knew that it was a common enough occurrence, not to be in any way coincidental. no one who slept in the desert for any length of time could hope to avoid an attack if he failed to take the necessary precautions. and even with precautions the death toll was high; almost as high, perhaps, as cobra fatalities in india. corriston turned abruptly, his lips white. "if a man is attacked by just one lamprene, and it's pulled off quickly, how much chance has he?" it was drever who answered him. "not much, i'm afraid. the poison gets into the blood stream and acts quickly. you can't get it out with a suction disk the way you sometimes can with a snake bite. it's a nerve poison and it spreads very fast. and there's no way of neutralizing it, no serum injection that does any good. of course, there have been a few recoveries." corriston swung about and stared out across the desert again. the two colonists had reached the stricken man now and were attempting to tear the lamprene--or lamprenes--from his flesh. they were bending over him, and it was hard to tell for a moment whether they were succeeding or not. then, abruptly, one of them rose and made a despairing gesture, unmistakable even from a distance of five hundred feet. the next few minutes were like a nightmare that has no clear beginning or end. they brought the man back and laid him down on the sand. the man was stone. it was drever who got the lamprene off. he did it with an electric torch, taking care to manipulate the jet of fire in such a way that it scorched only the head of the creature and not stone's exposed flesh. corriston bent then, and gripped stone firmly by the shoulders and shook him until a look of desperate pleading came into his eyes. he forced himself not to feel pity, seeing in stone's closeness to death a threat that could have but one outcome if the man refused to speak at all. "where's helen ramsey?" he demanded. "where is she, stone? we're not likely to do anything more for you if you don't tell us." "i--i don't know," stone muttered. "saddler ... double-crossed henley. i guess ... he wanted her for himself. i don't know where he's taken her. i'm telling you the truth. you've got to believe me." "all right," corriston said, easing stone back on the sand. "i believe you. take it easy now. they've got the lamprene off." he stood very still, waiting for his heart to beat normally again, telling himself that saddler had taken an almost suicidal risk in leaving the ship on foot with no certain refuge in mind. by taking along a helpless girl, he was making himself a target for the rage and relentless enmity of men who would never rest until they had tracked him down. there could be no sanctuary for him anywhere. if he escaped henley's vengeance, the colonists would capture him in a matter of days. but corriston wasn't thinking in terms of days. he was thinking in terms of minutes, hours. he stared at the empty stretch of desert ahead, trying desperately to control the despair that was welling up inside him. how long a head start did saddler have? had he left the ship only a few minutes, or hours before? he'd have to ask stone one more question. like a fool he'd put off asking it, dreading the thought of what stone's answer might be. but now he had no choice. he must ask, and risk knowing that pursuit could not be immediately undertaken by one man, that saddler was miles away across the desert, hiding out in some remote and inaccessible cave and that tracking him down and putting a bullet through his heart would have to be a joint undertaking. it was a cruelly frustrating possibility. it increased corriston's rage, his bitterness. the hate within him seemed suddenly violent enough to destroy anyone or anything. he preferred to go on alone, in relentless pursuit of saddler and if it took days to track him down.... it was freddy's voice that brought him back to reality, startling and sobering him. freddy was coming toward him between the tractors, shouting at the top of his lungs. 21 corriston couldn't quite catch what the lad was shouting at first. something about the dunes and the ship and footprints. then he caught the name of helen ramsey and his mouth went dry and for an instant he couldn't seem to breathe. freddy was shouting that he had found helen ramsey. dr. drever started and leapt quickly to his feet, his eyes darting with an understandable solicitude toward the small figure coming toward them across the sand. he moved quickly to place himself directly in front of stone, as if fearing it would be bad for freddy to see a man so close to death. then the full significance of freddy's words seemed to dawn on him, and his solicitude for his son was replaced by a larger concern, a wider sympathy. "you talk to him, corriston," he said. "you've been living through a short stretch of hell. if he's really found her--" corriston needed no urging. he swayed a little forward, steadied himself and broke into a run, meeting freddy almost midway between the nearest tractor and the hollow where drever was crouching. freddy's eyes seemed almost too large for so young a face, large and immensely serious. but along with the seriousness corriston could sense something else, a taper glow of excitement burning bright. freddy had gone exploring. as he told corriston about it, the words seemed to flow from him as if they had a mysterious life of their own, and were somehow reshaping freddy, making him over into a grown man with a heavy stubble of beard and eyes that had looked on far places and a thousand brilliant suns. freddy had found helen ramsey by following her footprints in the sand. corriston let freddy tell it in his own words, shaken by doubts for a moment, but finally convinced that the lad couldn't possibly be making any of it up. "there wasn't a footprint anywhere near the ship, lieutenant corriston. the sandstorm covered them over. i looked everywhere just to be sure. i mean there wasn't any prints that could have been made by a woman leaving the ship with a man. the sand was trampled in a few places, because about ten minutes ago mr. macklin and two other men started looking too. but that was all. "i remembered then that the sand sometimes stays nearly smooth close to very high dunes, even in a storm. there's a--a windbreaking buffer zone where the dunes keep the sand from piling up. i asked mr. macklin about that once and he told me. i got to thinking that if i just wandered off i could be back again before anyone missed me." freddy turned and gestured toward the ship. "you can see the dunes from here. not the ones right behind the ship. those two bigger ones over there ... that sort of look like the humps on a camel. i guess nobody would have been crazy enough to go looking for prints that far away from the ship. but if i hadn't done it i wouldn't have found her. that's for sure." corriston said: "you're so much the opposite of crazy, freddy, that i'm afraid you're trying to spare me. it's hard to hurt someone you like, but i've got to have the truth." his hand tightened on freddy's shoulder. "do you understand, freddy? i must know. don't lie to spare me. is she all right?" freddy looked up at him, troubled, uncertain. "i think she is. she's lying down near the bottom of the dune, right where it slopes up again toward another dune. it's like one, big, hollow dune. i didn't see her move. i guess she must have fainted. he's there, too, lying face down in the sand halfway up the dune, like he was hurt...." "all right," corriston said. "now you'd better stay here with your father." "can't i go back with you? i was afraid to climb down to her alone. i was afraid he'd catch me and kill me, and then no one would ever know i'd found her. he'd be warned and try to get away--" "it was the right thing to do, the level-headed thing," corriston said. "you couldn't have used better judgment." "then it's all right if i go back with you?" corriston shook his head. "no, freddy. i'd rather you didn't. don't you understand? you've done _more_ than your share. now it's my turn." freddy tightened his lips and stared for a moment at the glitter of sunlight on the caterpillar tread of the nearest tractor. finally he said, "all right, lieutenant corriston. if it's an order." "it's an order, freddy." corriston gave freddy's shoulder a pat. then, after the briefest pause, he said: "there's no substitute for the kind of fast-thinking resourcefulness you've just displayed, freddy. in a dozen years you'll be heading an expedition and it won't be the kind that gets bogged down after the first thousand miles. you can take my word for that." he turned then and walked toward the ship. in a moment he had passed the ship and was moving out into the desert beyond, and freddy wondered how a man could remain so calm in an affair of life and death such as this. it was just as well, perhaps, that he could not see corriston's face as he moved still further away from the ship into a loneliness of desert and sky. * * * * * she was lying in a wind-scoured hollow beneath a seventy-foot dune, her head resting on one sharply-bent elbow, a look of utter exhaustion on her face. her eyes were closed, and even from where he stood corriston could see that she was breathing heavily. he could see the slight rise and fall of her bosom, the trembling vibration of her oxygen mask. she was completely alone. he stood for an instant absolutely motionless on the summit of the dune, staring down at her, noticing in alarm the hollow contour of her cheeks on both sides of the oxygen mask, and the slight tinge of gray that had crept into her countenance. then he started downward. almost instantly the sand rose like an unsteady sea on all sides of him, and a warning signal sounded in his brain. he could connect it with no cause. beneath him stretched only the wind-scoured inner surface of the dune, dazzling his eyes with its brightness, mirroring the sunlight like a burning glass. for a moment the brightness deceived him, and he did not realize that there were shadowed hollows directly beneath him, dark fissures in the tumbled sand wide enough to conceal a crouching man. he did not even see the shadow creeping toward him over the sand. only the dazzle for an instant and the gleam of sunlight on helen ramsey's tousled hair. then, suddenly, he was aware of the danger, fully awake and aware. but realization came too late. abruptly, without warning, a knife blade flashed in the sunlight and he felt an agonizing stab of pain just below his left kneecap. a dark shape rose before him, and then dissolved into the shadows again, darting downward and sideways as it disappeared. corriston threw himself backwards and froze into immobility, thrusting his elbows deep into the sand behind him, using that moment of surprise forced upon him by his assailant to lower his eyes and seek him out. he saw saddler's face clearly for an instant, saw the gleaming knife and the hand holding it, and the wavering outline of the man's crouching body three-fourths in shadow. he heard saddler mutter: "i'm done for, corriston. but i'll get you first." it all seemed to happen in slow motion. corriston's hand went to his hip, but with a nightmare feeling of retardation and his fingers seemed to move without any assistance from the motor centers of his brain. then even more slowly he was facing the hollow with the gun in his clasp, and the weapon was exploding into the shadows, filling the hollows and windy places with reverberating echoes of sound. there was complete silence after that. no groans, no outcry--nothing but silence. it went on for so long that corriston could not shake off a numbing sense of unreality. surely only a dream could have had so violently unreal a beginning, so terrible an outcome. then he looked down, and saw the blood on his leg where the knife had grazed it, and knew that it could not have been a dream. he was still facing the hollow, with two bullets left in his gun. but he knew that he would not have to fire again. saddler was lying on his back on the sand, his eyes wide open, his jaw hanging slack. there was a spreading red stain on his chest and a rim of blood around his lips. the wind which was blowing across the crest of the dune seemed suddenly to turn malevolent, striking out at the dead man with a sudden, downsweeping gust, ruffling his hair and making him seem to be still enveloped in violence. corriston felt his throat muscles contract. he forced himself to bend over and search for a heart beat he knew he wouldn't find, remembering the other times when the outcome had been less fatal, when only a man's face had changed. as his palm rested for an instant above the dead man's heart, the stirring of the sand immediately beneath him seemed to increase, to become a loud and continuous rustling sound that filled him with a vague sense of disquiet. he could not quite dismiss from his mind a feeling that he was still in danger, that in some strange, almost terrifying way saddler was still a menace, and that the terrible reality of his death had not destroyed all of the hatred and savage violence which had forced corriston to kill him in self-defense. suddenly corriston realized that what he heard was not the wind stirring the sand at all, but something quite different. it was closer to him than the sloping rim of the dunes, and it was accompanied by movements directly under his hand, a sudden tightening of the dead man's skin, a contraction more pronounced than could have been produced by the abrupt onset of rigor mortis, however freakishly violent or premature. the rustling continued for perhaps ten more seconds. then, abruptly, it stopped and the heads of two lamprenes came into view, moving slowly across saddler's unstirring flesh until their writhing mouth parts were less than two inches from corriston's outspread hand. the sight of them brought an instant of terror, an awareness of peril so acute that corriston's breath caught in his throat. his hand whipped back and he leapt to his feet with a convulsive shudder. it was suddenly very still on the dune again. corriston stood for a moment with his body rigid, fearing to look downward, his mind filled with a growing sense of panic. had helen ramsey been attacked by lamprenes too? no, no, she was all right; she had to be. everything confirmed it, her quietness, her steady breathing, the simple fact that her eyes had been closed and not opened wide in torment. he descended the dune like a man ploughing in frantic haste through a snowdrift, sinking to his knees and floundering free again, lurching backward and sideways, sliding a third of the way. she was all right when he got to her. he dropped down beside her and lifted her into his arms, and for an instant there was complete silence between them. she just looked at him, looked up into his face steadily and calmly, as if she could read his mind and had the good sense to realize there could be no more certain way of reassuring him. then her arms tightened about him. "darling," she whispered. "darling, darling...." corriston started fumbling with his oxygen mask and suddenly he had it off. he held his breath and more slowly helped her free her lips so that he could kiss her. their lips met and the kiss was longer and more intense than any they had ever before shared. * * * * * a half hour later the tractors were in rumbling motion again, their destination ramsey's citadel. and corriston had a plan. he knew that it was riddled with risks and that he was perhaps quite mad to think that it might succeed. but the fact that helen ramsey was now completely safe and had dropped off into a brief, outwardly untroubled sleep at his side made him feel reckless to the point where a cautious, level-headed man like drever could only stare at him and shake his head. there was a swaying and a creaking all about them, the slow, steady rumble of caterpillar treads, and drever had almost to shout to make himself heard. he stood directly opposite corriston, supporting himself by a guard rail, and watching the desert through the weather-shield change color in the wake of the heavy vehicle's heaving, churning, torpedo-shaped rear-end. "stone's been unconscious now for an hour," drever said, dividing his gaze between corriston, and the loosely strapped-in, sleeping girl at his side, both swaying with the swaying tractor. "we can't count on getting any more information out of him. i can't wake him up. drugs would be dangerous. i don't think he'll live, but we can't deliberately kill him to get him to talk." "i know that," corriston said. "but he's the only one who knows why henley is staying so long at the citadel. he should have been back hours ago. he left before you escaped from the ship. for all we know, he may be dead. ramsey may have lost his head and had him shot, although that seems unlikely. ramsey would go to any length to save his daughter. but we've no way of knowing whether he believed henley's story or not. anything could have happened. henley may have attacked ramsey." "i've a feeling that he's still at the citadel," corriston said. "i'll have to gamble on that--the one-in-five chance that for some reason the negotiations have been prolonged. he may be lying dead in the desert somewhere. he may have been attacked by lamprenes. as you say, anything could have happened. but when i make up my mind to do something i usually go through with it. it's just a matter of plain common sense. you don't toss aside a decision you've given a great deal of thought to just because the arguments against it are weighty, too." "i see. so you're still determined to walk right up to the gate and tell them you're stone." "why not? they've never laid eyes on stone and they don't know me from adam. i won't be wearing this uniform. i'll tell them that henley's expecting me, that he left orders for me to join him if he failed to come back at a specified time. i'll watch the guard's face and change my story a little--if i have to--as i go along." "it's a _very_ long gamble. i hope you realize that." "it's either that or no gamble at all. and we've _got_ to gamble. we're holding at least two high cards and a joker. henley has had the ground shot right out from under him. he's completely alone, and the only thing he has left to gamble with is his nearness to ramsey, his ability to terrify ramsey by making him believe that his daughter's life is still in danger. ramsey has to be told that helen has been freed, has to be warned in time, before he does anything foolish. "don't you see? with that threat hanging over him, ramsey would never let us get within fifty yards of the citadel, let alone walk through the gates. and if henley finds out that we've got helen, he'll know that he has nothing left to gamble with except that desperate bluff. and he may doubt his ability to win with a bluff. that would be the worst tragedy of all. he may turn on ramsey in blind rage, and kill him. he gets a horrible, pathological pleasure out of killing. i've told you how he went berserk on the station." drever nodded, and, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, the look of stubborn opposition was gone from his eyes. "i guess you're right, lieutenant. you can't always tell how the cards will fall." "you can never tell," corriston said. "and there are some games where the important moves can only be made by just one player, and he usually has to be something of a reckless fool." 22 corriston left the tractor a hundred and seventy yards from the gate, well hidden behind a hundred foot dune. the other tractors had come to a halt a much greater distance from the citadel, and were spread out across the desert in a slightly uneven, double line. he walked slowly forward across the rust-red sand, with a feeling in his bones that he was going to be lucky. yet he knew that he'd have to be convincing, or he wouldn't stand a chance. if there was more than one guard at the gate he might never get inside. with luck he might be able to convince two guards--even three--but never four or five, for you couldn't forge words into persuasive enough weapons to disarm the suspicion of that many observant men. not the kind of men who would be guarding ramsey, at any rate. the massiveness of the fortified gate shook his confidence a little as he drew near to it. it was at least fifty feet in height, a solid oblong of inches-thick steel with a desert-mirroring surface. he could see his own reflection as he advanced, but it did nothing to reassure him. he knew what he'd have to do, of course. walk right up to the gate and trust to luck that he could find some way of announcing his presence without getting himself killed. how _did_ you gain entrance to an impregnable fortress? surely there had to be some way by which a man could gain admittance without being instantly shot down as a hostile intruder. he was surprised by the simplicity of the answer. there was no need for him to press a bell or a buzzer, to manipulate a mechanism of any sort. there was not even any need for him to proclaim his arrival by shouting. the gate swung inward without a sound, and in the shadows cast by its moving bulk two figures silently materialized. they were guards, heavily armed, one tall with shaggy brows and piercing dark eyes, the other a wiry little man with reddish hair, his expression peculiarly bland and non-committal. it was the little man who said: "all right, come inside. we've been expecting you." it was impossible, but true. there was nothing threatening in the way the words were uttered, just calm acceptance, just the matter-of-fact indifference of a man who has a duty to perform and doesn't care what happens afterwards. but it would have perhaps been better if corriston had not moved so quickly forward, for almost instantly the second guard barred his passage and laid a firm hand on his arm. "hold on. just a minute," the tall guard said. "you're peter stone, aren't you?" with a quick pretense of anger corriston jerked his arm free and looked the guard up and down. "naturally i'm stone. who in hell did you think i was." "sorry," the guard said, shrugging. "don't take it out on me. i just had to be sure." "well, you're sure now. i guess you know why i'm here." the guard nodded. "ramsey just phoned down about you. your friend is with him now. see that big gray building, the one on the left with the shuttered windows? there's a guard stationed at the door, but he won't stop you. he has his orders. climb two flights of stairs and go down the long corridor on the third floor. ramsey and your friend are in the last room on the left." corriston drew a deep breath, wondering if the guard had noticed the tightening of his facial muscles. he turned away from the gate slowly, staring out over the interior of the fortress, letting his emotions of the moment take complete possession of him. he had entered as if by magic a world apart, a small, shutin world of massive magnificence, of undreamed of material power and wealth. there were five buildings within the encircling wall of the fortress, each monumental in architectural sweep. each was a citadel alone and apart, monuments to man's creative genius erected by one man with a determination to make himself unique. it was a folly almost beyond belief, a terrifying distortion of human creativeness that could lead only to ultimate disaster and defeat. but greedy and cruel and ruthless as ramsey undoubtedly was, there still burned in him a little of the spark that had created athens in white marble. had it not been so, he could not have even commissioned men of creative genius to transport to mars the materials for such a project and have taken pleasure in its completion. "your friend got here two hours ago," the tall guard said. "they've been talking ever since. he came down to the gate once and said we should let you in, you and another man. saddler, i think his name was. i see he's not with you." "no, saddler is not with me," corriston said. "what happened to him?" "the big gray building with the shuttered windows, you said. if the guard tries to stop me, what do i say." "i told you he had his orders." corriston looked up at the massive gate swinging shut behind him. for good or ill, he was completely trapped, completely at the mercy of the armed guards inside the citadel. they hadn't taken his gun away from him, but, nevertheless, he was trapped. what chance would one armed man have against seventy-five or a hundred guards? they were keeping out of sight, all but the two at the gate. but at any moment they could converge upon him and shoot him down. they could choose their own moment, precisely as a research medical man could choose his own moment to experiment upon a laboratory animal, knowing that the creature was safe in its cage and couldn't possibly get away. corriston's lips tightened and from a shadowed corner of his mind came a determination to brush all that aside, to ignore it completely. the guards at the gate might very well be telling the truth. it stood to reason that ramsey would have remained secretive about his daughter. kidnappers do not like to have their ransom demands discussed too openly. if ramsey had been a complete fool he would have gone down to the gate and taken the guards completely into his confidence, but corriston could not believe that ramsey was that much of a fool. in all probability henley had threatened ramsey and provoked him almost beyond endurance. there had arisen the questions of how the ransom was to be paid, the girl set free. damn it, corriston thought, the thing for me to do now is to go straight toward that building and straight up the stairs to the third floor and straight down the corridor until i'm confronting ramsey face to face. i'm peter stone. i'm one of the two men who helped henley kidnap the girl and i've come to help henley convince ramsey. i've come to help him really put the screws on ramsey. i can improvise from that point on. he moved away from the guards without looking back. within the citadel there was silence, stillness, the five massive buildings cutting a rampart of pure, fragile design across the sky. there was a strange kind of perfection about the interior of the citadel. it was akin, somehow, to the perfection of solitude and even the sky seemed hushed, expectant, remote from reality, as if awaiting the unfolding of some impossible event, some terrifying drama of violence and retribution that could take place nowhere else. but corriston's reason told him that to believe any such thing would have been the height of folly. the sky inside the citadel was just as real, just as cloud-flecked and palely blue as the sky outside, and the notion that architecture or scenery of any kind could influence events was absolute nonsense. things would happen exactly as he willed them to happen, provided nothing stood in the way of immediate drastic action and the kind of luck which had saved him at the gate continued to smile upon him. the big gray building with the shuttered windows continued to occupy most of his attention, and he walked very resolutely toward it, his eyes on the glimmer of pale light which marked its wide doorway. he was still fifty feet away when he saw the guard, standing very quietly just inside the door with his hand on his gun holster. corriston's lips tightened, but he did not moderate his stride. he had a reply ready if the guard challenged him. he preferred to believe that he would not be challenged, but he had no intention of taking anything for granted. he continued on until he reached the doorway and then he stopped abruptly. he waited for the guard to say something, but the man did not speak at all. he simply stared quietly at corriston for an instant, and then stepped quickly back into the shadows. corriston went on past him, and advanced along the wide corridor that stretched before him. the wide central staircase that circled up did not seem appropriate to a building that was not a residence and corriston found himself wondering if ramsey had turned the other four buildings into similarly unusual expressions of his own strong-willed orientation to reality. the buildings had undoubtedly been designed as administrative units of an industrial empire--a beginning empire in a new world. an empire predatory, avaricious, merciless. yet ramsey had seemingly allowed his desire for a home to gain dominance here, had allowed the emotions common to all men to influence his taste in interior architecture in at least one of the buildings. chalk up that much to ramsey's credit. in that respect at least, he was superior to henley. in that respect at least a man of good will could take sides, all apart from the personal issues involved. henley was a predatory vulture on all counts, his talons constantly spread, constantly crimson-tipped. ramsey was a vulture too, but in the depths of his mind he knew it. part of the agony was shared by him, and in one desperate, despairing part of his personality he had tried to be creative. corriston ascended the staircase swiftly, casting one brief glance at some murals and then ignoring them. the second floor landing stretched away into shadows, bisected by a wide corridor dimly lighted by overhead lamps. the second floor had an administrative building aspect and so did the third floor, which seemed in all respects its exact duplicate. corriston's excitement grew as he mounted the stairway. he felt like a man poised on the brink of a precipice with no assurance that he would not be hurled to his death; a man aware that tragedy would not strike him like a thunderbolt at any moment; and yet also like a man who thought and felt differently from the trapped and the desperately despairing. he felt very confident, very sure of himself, and it seemed to him that there was no danger that he could not surmount, and deep within him there was something that exulted in the thought and kept him moving steadily upward. the third floor was like the second, its long central corridor dwindling away into shadows. down it he moved cautiously, remembering what the guard at the gate had said. the third floor, the last door on your left. ramsey was in conference. but it wasn't a conference of industrial associates planning a division of spoils. ramsey was talking to a killer under duress. corriston was half way down the corridor when he heard the shot. it rang out in the stillness with a terrible clarity, sending echoes reverberating throughout the building, stopping corriston in his tracks. for an instant the silence remained absolute, as if the shot had somehow silenced all life within the building. even corriston's breathing was affected by it, so that for an instant he remained like a man horror-blasted into immobility, frozen, a statue with waxen features and widely dilated eyes. then, abruptly, he ceased to be a statue. he broke into a run, heading for the door from which the shot had come. he came to the door and saw that it did not slide open on a panel. it was massive, with a knob jutting out from it, and when he grasped the knob it swung inward instantly and soundlessly and he found himself in a large, blank-walled room brightly illumed by three circular overhead lamps. ramsey was sitting stiff and straight before a desk that was cluttered with reference files, manuscripts in folders, pens, pencils and other writing materials. his face was drained of all color, and his eyes were wide and staring. he was looking directly at corriston, and yet he did not seem to see corriston. he did not appear to be staring at anything in particular, that small, shrunken, unimpressive-looking little man with graying temples and a look of blank incomprehension in his eyes that chilled corriston to the core of his being. shaking, wishing that the eyes would close or brighten with relief, or do anything but remain so stonily indifferent, corriston moved closer to the desk. he saw at once that ramsey was close to death. he had been shot in the chest. there was a dull red stain on his chest, and even as corriston stared it widened, a butterfly pattern of red, like a rorschach seen through the eyes of a homicidally inclined psychotic. suddenly ramsey moved. he caught hold of the desk edge, and swayed a little, but his eyes remained filmed, blankly staring. corriston was bending above him when a familiar voice said: "he's done for. nothing you can do for him. we had an argument and he lost his head. he just couldn't see it my way. so i made a mistake and shot him. it was a mistake, all right. i lost _my_ head. now i've got nothing to lose by killing you." corriston raised his eyes slowly. he had one chance in a hundred perhaps. he knew it; he sensed it. henley had somehow managed to stay out of sight for an instant. the room was very large. there were shadows in it, and henley had apparently flattened himself against the wall behind the desk, in deep shadow. but now he was standing very straight and still behind the desk, ignoring the shuddering form of the man he had shot, little dark deathheads dancing in his eyes. henley's nearness did not bother corriston. death at ten feet could be no more final than death at a hundred yards. only one thing bothered him. events could move fast when you were close to a killer. he didn't intend to let them move fast. not for him, at any rate. he let his eyes rest for an instant on the gun in henley's hand, his thoughts racing. he knew that he'd be as good as dead if he made a single concession. don't let him know that the gun worries you. pretend that the odds are even, even though he's got the drop on you. corriston said: "how do you know he's fatally wounded? the wound's three inches below his heart. you're taking a hell of a lot for granted. you just said you made a mistake in shooting him. if he's rushed to a hospital that mistake may not be your last. you'll have a chance to go to work on him again." henley shook his head, his lips tightening. "don't be a fool. he'll be dead in five minutes." "i'm not being a fool," corriston said. "what will you stand to gain by shooting me and letting him die? you've got his daughter, but a dead man won't be able to ransom her." for a moment, nothing happened. henley had made no attempt to draw his gun, and he did not draw it now. he stood very quietly staring at corriston, breathing heavily, a strange, withdrawn look in his eyes. perhaps he was thinking over what corriston had said. corriston wondered about that for an instant, and then dismissed it from his mind. you did not take anything for granted when you were standing that close to a killer. it was probably too late to save ramsey. but for the first time he was standing very near to henley with a weapon beneath his hand. if he drew his gun instantly and shot henley through the heart ramsey might have a chance. otherwise.... somehow he couldn't do it; not without giving the other some slight warning, not without whipping his hand to his gun with a vigor that was clear and unmistakable. in matters of crime a fair man is at a disadvantage. he can only deal with a murderer in one way. he drew a split second ahead of henley. he shot henley three times, the gun blazing in his hands, and it did not seem important to him that henley had also drawn his gun. a tight knot reached into his stomach as henley's gun blazed, but he kept right on firing. henley died missing him, not scoring at all. that was the incredible thing. henley, an expert shot, a genius at massacre, had missed him clearly with five shots and now he was down on the floor, clutching at his stomach, dragging himself along, while beneath his fingers a dull red stain grew. his eyes turned glassy suddenly. he tried twice to raise himself but he fell back each time. he did not speak at all. blood from his punctured lungs flooded up into his mouth, and with a terrible, convulsive trembling of his entire body he rolled over on his side and lay still. corriston's hands began to sweat beneath the hard, cold gun. he wanted to drop the weapon, to hurl it from him, but he couldn't somehow. he had killed saddler in immediate self-defense. this had been a little different--a new experience, a frightening experience and he had been forced to grit his teeth even in firing, and now that it was all over he was tormented inwardly in a way that left him badly shaken. henley was gone now. dead and still and forever removed from a world he had contaminated. henley had been warped and twisted largely by circumstances outside himself; nevertheless a deadly reptile has to be crushed when it is about to strike. corriston looked up from the limp form sprawled out on the floor, and for a moment the tight lines of his face relaxed a little. henley was no longer a menace; the breath of life that had sustained him had expired so completely that he had become now a kind of hollow mockery of something monstrous and distorted that could never harm anyone again. it was ramsey who had to be considered now, ramsey who was in peril. the light in the room seemed somehow a little dimmer than it had been. he turned slowly back to ramsey, and for a moment could not quite believe what he saw. ramsey's face was changing. the hollows beneath his cheekbones were deeper than they had been, and his mouth had gone completely slack, and his eyes were uprolled in a quite ghastly way, so that only the whites showed. slowly as corriston stared ramsey's features began to come apart. the familiar, hideous pattern began to repeat itself on ramsey's blanched features. the mouth widened until it turned into a shapeless, colorless gash in a face that was hardly recognizable. the nose widened and spread out, the chin receded, and the cheeks became a flattened expanse of wrinkled flesh that stubbornly refused to stop spreading. ramsey's face became a pumpkin face, with slits for eyes and a hideous caricature of a mouth that seemed almost to pout as it expanded. suddenly ramsey was no longer sitting upright before the desk. his body swayed and began to slump, tilting at first only a little sideways and then sliding completely from the chair to the floor. ramsey did not descend to the floor with violence. it was a slow, barely perceptible gliding motion of his entire body that carried him from an upright position to a prone one in less than thirty seconds. his body seemed to collapse inward upon itself, as if he had suddenly become too skeleton-thin for his clothes, as if so much vitality had been drained from him by the shot which had put an end to his life that he had given up all hope of maintaining his dignity in death. but perhaps the man on the floor had no dignity to maintain. he wasn't ramsey. he was a hired substitute, an impostor, and quite obviously no man would undertake to play such a role without calculating all of the risks in advance. perhaps he expected to die without dignity. perhaps that was one of the risks which went with the bargain--the assumption that ramsey might very well be killed in a violent fashion, and that anyone who stepped into ramsey's shoes and masqueraded as ramsey might expect a similar fate. corriston felt a nerve begin to twitch violently in his cheek. why had ramsey kept henley occupied in so strange a manner, talking to a nonentity, a stand-in, a double who could never bargain and come to terms unless ramsey ordered him to do so? had ramsey been incapable of dealing with henley directly, and had taken this means of complying with the ransom demands? it seemed incredible on the face of it. ramsey was quite obviously the kind of man who could live through any kind of private hell if he had to. he'd have stood up to henley no matter how great his inner torment. he'd have met the ransom demands or rejected them--and it was almost inconceivable that he would have rejected them--without for an instant losing his outward composure. and even inwardly he would have kept a tight rein on his emotions. he was not the kind of man who would hire someone else to protect him from anything that vitally concerned him, even with the masks so conveniently at hand. why then had he employed a double to bargain with henley and keep him occupied for so long a time? it didn't matter if ramsey had made use of doubles in the past. probably he had, in order to protect himself in dealings with the colonists when the advantages of deception would favor him. but he would never have done so under these present circumstances--when a criminal who would stop at nothing was holding his daughter under threat of death. he would never have done so unless he had some very special reason that dominated his thinking to the exclusion of all else. suddenly corriston had the answer. it came to him in a lightning-swift flash of intuition, which carried with it complete credibility. it was more than a guess. somehow he was sure; he knew. a full minute before he heard the dull rumble of the tractors as they came through the gate, and went to the window and stared down, he knew. he had the answer and yet what he saw eclipsed what he knew. it was a little like watching a rocket take off, hearing the roar and seeing the flames through all of its burning time, and seeing at the same time the men on the proving ground moving swiftly about, and the space-helmeted men at the controls of the rocket itself, each grimly intent on one particular task. ramsey was returning into the citadel with armed guards on both sides of him, and his daughter was walking with her head erect at his side. five colony tractors had followed him into the citadel and two more were just coming through the gate, moving ponderously on their caterpillar treads because each tractor weighed two tons even in the light gravity of mars. corriston did an almost unbelievable thing then. standing quietly by the window he raised his right hand and saluted ramsey in silent tribute to the man's courage at the most threatening moment of his life. what ramsey had done in no way lessened his guilt. but corriston would have just as readily repeated the salute in public, without caring what anyone might think. what ramsey had done was as clear to him now as a series of moves on a chessboard laid out in advance, but hidden from the man who was to be outwitted and outplayed. ramsey had made use of a double to keep henley occupied--no doubt with repeated, skillful evasions, a constant insistence that more proof be forthcoming, more details supplied. perhaps a half-dozen conferences had taken place in all, extending over many hours. and while henley was being encouraged to believe that ramsey was being softened up and would accept all of his demands in the end, ramsey had gone out into the desert alone, armed, furious, and determined to rescue his daughter if it cost him his life. or perhaps he hadn't gone alone. perhaps he had taken a dozen armed guards with him. somehow it didn't seem important, couldn't take away ramsey's moment of victory. it was a moment of victory for ramsey even though he hadn't played a major role for long, even though he had found his daughter already rescued and safe on his return. and corriston had been the one to move out into the center of the board and deliver the _coup de grace_. he had kept a restless killer immobilized while the play was under way, and that was victory enough for any man. corriston suddenly realized that neither ramsey nor the colonists had any way of knowing that henley was dead. they had probably joined forces outside the citadel for the sole purpose of rescuing him from the deadliest kind of danger. and he wasn't helping them at all. in another minute they'd be trying to get to him with tear gas. it didn't make any kind of sense, but when corriston went down the wide central staircase he wasn't thinking about the colonists at all. he was wondering only how helen ramsey would look standing alone on a strange dark headland at midnight. then the vision dissolved and another one took its place. she wasn't on a headland any more. she was standing at the door of a small, white cottage and there were a couple of kids beside her: a boy of about freddy's age, or maybe a little younger, and a little girl with golden curls, her hair like a crown. he realized suddenly that it could never be a small, white cottage. there were no small white cottages on the station, and never could be. but the station would be all right for a married man with kids. the kids could come and visit him, and his wife could be with him about one-fourth of the time, both on the station and on earth. what more could a happily married man ask, if the station was so much a part of him that it was never wholly absent from his thoughts? he'd have to ask her, of course--at least a dozen times to make sure--that she really wanted that kind of man for a husband. but he knew what her answer would be even before the vision dissolved, and he was soon out in the central square between the five buildings, holding her tightly in his arms. from the way she kissed him he knew that she must have endured an eternity of torment just from uncertainty, just from not knowing whether he was dead or alive. for an instant he could think of nothing else but the wonder of it, the absolute reassurance which she had brought to him with her closeness, her gratefulness, the intensity of her concern. across the square they could see the tractors, looking in the dazzling light like massive blocks of metal standing almost end to end. there was a great deal of movement and shouting between the buildings, and corriston knew that in another half-minute they would no longer be alone together, that the closeness couldn't last. a change was coming over her face, and he was suddenly afraid for her, afraid that when she was told the full truth about her father just the pain of knowing might make her withdraw from him, even though it could never really come between them or separate them for long. so there it was. he could see it in her eyes, the fear, the shadow, and because he had no way of knowing just how much she already knew he decided that only complete honesty could keep the shadow from lengthening. his hands moved slowly up over her face, and he drew her chin up and said, very gently: "there's something i'd like to say now, about your father. without his help henley would have finished what he started out to do. there are different ways of paying off a debt, and your father--" she raised her hand as if to put a stop to his words. "darling, i know he's in serious trouble. don't try to spare me; there's no need to. there will be a trial and we both know what the outcome will be. he'll never walk out of the courtroom a free man. but he's not afraid ... and neither am i. these last few, terrible hours have changed him. he's not ashamed now to admit that he loves me. all the hardness, the coldness, is gone." something in her voice stilled the questions he wanted to ask. she seemed to sense what was in his mind, for she said quickly. "i don't think father has any enemies now on mars. he's going to give the colonists back their land. not because he has to, but because he wants to. they came to his assistance when they could have used the way he cheated and robbed them as an excuse for not helping him at all. there are few men who wouldn't feel grateful, who wouldn't be shaken by remorse. but i think it goes deeper than that. even now i'm not completely sure, but i think he knows it's the only way he can free himself from the prison he's been building around himself since i was a little girl." she was silent for an instant, while the pain in her eyes seemed to deepen. then she said, "i can't leave him now, darling. not right away. it would be too cruel a blow." ahead now corriston could see three of the colonists coming toward him. they were less than forty feet away. "i think i know how it is," he said. "when you've been through too much, you just go dead inside. you can feel sympathy for someone very close, like your father. but that's about all...." "darling, that's not what i mean. we'll be apart, but just for a little while. it will be so short a time we won't even miss it later on ... two or three weeks, at most. and this time you won't have to wonder about me at all." corriston noticed then for the first time that her hair had been blown in all directions by the wind. he remembered how, on their first meeting, it had been disarranged in much the same way. she'd been wearing a beret then, and just the casual tilt of her hat had done the fluffing. but wind or no wind, he'd always like the way her hair looked, the gold in it, and the way it set off the great beauty of her face. "i'd be more than unreasonable if i tried to pick flaws in a promise like that," he said. "you can never go home again," someone had once said. you can never go home because people change and places change with them, and familiar scenes take on an aspect of strangeness as the old, well-loved landmarks fade. but in space, the landmarks are as wide and deep as the gulfs between the stars, and it is not too difficult for a man to return to a steel-ribbed gibraltar in space and experience again the emotions he felt when he first sighted it, and hear again the long thunder-roll of the ships berthing and taking off. the ship which was bringing corriston back had begun to loom up behind the telemetric aerials with her bow slanting forward. she had almost berthed, and, standing with his face half in shadow, commander clement watched the landing lights flashing on and off and wondered just what he would say to the young lieutenant he'd never met--the very famous lieutenant who would be emerging from the boarding port and descending the ramp any minute now. he told himself that it ought to be something very simple and direct, accompanied by a friendly handclasp and a nod. "welcome back, lieutenant. welcome back. i guess you know how i feel about the scoundrels who kept us from meeting the first time." yes, just a few words and a friendly handclasp would be best. no salutes either given or returned. no stiff-necked salutes, and damn the regulations for once. it was truly a very great occasion. 30 minutes to live! joe kenmore heard the airlock close with a sickening wheeze and then a clank. in desperation he turned toward haney. "my god, we've been locked out!" through the transparent domes of their space helmets, joe could see a look of horror and disbelief pass across haney's face. but it was true! joe and his crew were locked out of the space platform. four thousand miles below circled the earth. under joe's feet rested the solid steel hull of his home in outer space. but without tools there was no hope of getting back inside. joe looked at his oxygen meter. it registered thirty minutes to live. _space tug_ by murray leinster is an independent sequel to the author's popular _space platform_, which is also available in a pocket book edition. both books were published originally by shasta publishers. _of other books by murray leinster, the following are science-fiction:_ [a]space platform sidewise in time murder madness the last space ship the laws of chance (_anthology_) great stories of science fiction (_editor_) [a] published in a pocket book edition. _murray leinster_ space tug _pocket books, inc._ _new york, n. y._ this pocket book includes every word contained in the original, higher-priced edition. it is printed from brand-new plates made from completely reset, clear, easy-to-read type. * * * * * space tug shasta edition published november, 1953 pocket book edition published january, 1955 1st printing november, 1954 all rights reserved. this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. for information, address: shasta publishers, 5525 south blackstone avenue, chicago 37, illinois. _copyright, 1953, by will f. jenkins. this_ pocket book _edition is published by arrangement with shasta publishers. library of congress catalog card number: 53-7292. printed in the u. s. a._ +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note | | | | no evidence has been found that the copyright of this book | | has been renewed. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ * * * * * [illustration: pocket book] _notice_: pocket book editions are published in the united states by pocket books, inc., in canada by pocket books of canada, ltd. trade marks registered in the united states and british patent offices by pocket books, inc., and registered in canada by pocket books of canada, ltd. _to joan patricia jenkins_ 1 to the world at large, of course, it was just another day. a different sort entirely at different places on the great, round, rolling earth, but nothing out of the ordinary. it was tuesday on one side of the date line and monday on the other. it was so-and-so's wedding anniversary and so-and-so's birthday and another so-and-so would get out of jail today. it was warm, it was cool, it was fair, it was cloudy. one looked forward to the future with confidence, with hope, with uneasiness or with terror according to one's temperament and one's geographical location and past history. to most of the human race this was nothing whatever but just another day. but to joe kenmore it was a most particular day indeed. here, it was the gray hour just before sunrise and already there were hints of reddish colorings in the sky. it was chilly, and somehow the world seemed still and breathless. to joe, the feeling of tensity marked this morning off from all the other mornings of his experience. he got up and began to dress, in major holt's quarters back of that giant steel half-globe called the shed, near the town of bootstrap. he felt queer because he felt so much as usual. by all the rules, he should have experienced a splendid, noble resolution and a fiery exaltation, and perhaps even an admirable sensation of humility and unworthiness to accomplish what was expected of him today. and, deep enough inside, he felt suitable emotion. but it happened that he couldn't take time to feel things adequately today. he was much more aware that he wanted some coffee rather badly, and that he hoped everything would go all right. he looked out of the windows at empty, dreary desert under the dawn sky. today was the day he'd be leaving on a rather important journey. he hoped that haney and the chief and mike weren't nervous. he also hoped that nobody had gotten at the fuel for the pushpots, and that the slide-rule crew that had calculated everything hadn't made any mistakes. he was also bothered about the steering-rocket fuel, and he was uncomfortable about the business of releasing the spaceship from the launching cage. there was, too, cause for worry in the take-off rockets--if the tube linings had shrunk there would be some rather gruesome consequences--and there could always be last-minute orders from washington to delay or even cancel everything. in short, his mind was full of strictly practical details. he didn't have time to feel noble aspirations or sensations of high destiny. he had a very tricky and exacting job ahead of him. the sky was growing lighter outside. stars faded in a paling blue and the desert showed faint colorings. he tied his necktie. a deep-toned keening set up off to the southward, over the sere and dreary landscape. it was a faraway noise, something like the lament of a mountain-sized calf bleating for its mother. joe took a deep breath. he looked, but saw nothing. the noise, though, told him that there'd been no cancellation of orders so far. he mentally uncrossed one pair of fingers. he couldn't possibly cross fingers against all foreseeable disasters. there weren't enough fingers--or toes either. but it was good that so far the schedule held. he went downstairs. major holt was pacing up and down the living room of his quarters. electric lights burned, but already the windows were brightening. joe straightened up and tried to look casual. strictly speaking, major holt was a family friend who happened also to be security officer here, in charge of protecting what went on in the giant construction shed. he'd had a sufficiently difficult time of it in the past, and the difficulties might keep on in the future. he was also the ranking officer here and consequently the immediate boss of joe's enterprise. today's affair was still highly precarious. the whole thing was controversial and uncertain and might spoil the career of somebody with stars on his collar if it should fail. so nobody in the high brass wanted the responsibility. if everything went well, somebody suitable would take the credit and the bows. meanwhile major holt was boss by default. he looked sharply at joe. "morning." "good morning, sir," said joe. major holt's daughter sally had a sort of understanding with joe, but the major hadn't the knack of cordiality, and nobody felt too much at ease with him. besides, joe was wearing a uniform for the first time this morning. there were only eight such uniforms in the world, so far. it was black whipcord, with an eisenhower jacket, narrow silver braid on the collar and cuffs, and a silver rocket for a badge where a plane pilot wears his wings. it was strictly practical. against accidental catchings in machinery, the trousers were narrow and tucked into ten-inch soft leather boots, and the wide leather belt had flat loops for the attachment of special equipment. its width was a brace against the strains of acceleration. sally had had much to do with its design. but it hadn't yet been decided by the pentagon whether the space exploration project would be taken over by the army or the navy or the air corps, so joe wore no insignia of rank. technically he was still a civilian. the deep-toned noise to the south had become a howl, sweeping closer and trailed by other howlings. "the pushpots are on the way over, as you can hear," said the major detachedly, in the curious light of daybreak and electric bulbs together. "your crew is up and about. so far there seems to be no hitch. you're feeling all right for the attempt today?" "if you want the truth, sir, i'd feel better with about ten years' practical experience behind me. but my gang and myself--we've had all the training we can get without an actual take-off. we're the best-trained crew to try it. i think we'll manage." "i see," said the major. "you'll do your best." "we may have to do better than that," admitted joe wrily. "true enough. you may." the major paused. "you're well aware that there are--ah--people who do not altogether like the idea of the united states possessing an artificial satellite of earth." "i ought to know it," admitted joe. the earth's second, man-constructed moon--out in space for just six weeks now--didn't seem nowadays like the bitterly contested achievement it actually was. from earth it was merely a tiny speck of light in the sky, identifiable for what it was only because it moved so swiftly and serenely from the sunset toward the east, or from night's darkness into the dawn-light. but it had been fought bitterly before it was launched. it was first proposed to the united nations, but even discussion in the council was vetoed. so the united states had built it alone. yet the nations which objected to it as an international project liked it even less as a national one, and they'd done what they could to wreck it. the building of the great steel hull now out there in emptiness had been fought more bitterly, by more ruthless and more highly trained saboteurs, than any other enterprise in history. there'd been two attempts to blast it with atomic bombs. but it was high aloft, rolling grandly around the earth, so close to its primary that its period was little more than four hours; and it rose in the west and set in the east six times a day. today joe would try to get a supply ship up to it, a very small rocket-driven cargo ship named pelican one. the crew of the platform needed food and air and water--and especially the means of self-defense. today's take-off would be the first attempt at a rocket-lift to space. "the enemies of the platform haven't given up," said the major formidably. "and they used spectroscopes on the platform's rocket fumes. apparently they've been able to duplicate our fuel." joe nodded. major holt went on: "for more than a month military intelligence has been aware that rockets were under construction behind the iron curtain. they will be guided missiles, and they will carry atom bomb heads. one or more may be finished any day. when they're finished, you can bet that they'll be used against the platform. and you will carry up the first arms for the platform. your ship carries half a dozen long-range interceptor rockets to handle any attack from earth. it's vitally important for them to be delivered." "they'll attack the platform?" demanded joe angrily. "that's war!" "not if they deny guilt," said the major ironically, "and if we have nothing to gain by war. the platform is intended to defend the peace of the world. if it is destroyed, we won't defend the peace of the world by going to war over it. but while the platform can defend itself, it is not likely that anyone will dare to make war. so you have a very worthwhile mission. i suggest that you have breakfast and report to the shed. i'm on my way there now." joe said, "yes, sir." the major started for the door. then he stopped. he hesitated, and said abruptly, "if my security measures have failed, joe, you'll be killed. if there has been sabotage or carelessness, it will be my fault." "i'm sure, sir, that everything anybody could do--" "everything anybody can do to destroy you has been done," said the major grimly. "not only sabotage, joe, but blunders and mistakes and stupidities. that always happens. but--i've done my best. i suspect i'm asking your forgiveness if my best hasn't been good enough." then, before joe could reply, the major went hurriedly away. joe frowned for a moment. it occurred to him that it must be pretty tough to be responsible for the things that other men's lives depend on--when you can't share their danger. but just then the smell of coffee reached his nostrils. he trailed the scent. there was a coffeepot steaming on the table in the dining-room. there was a note on a plate. _good luck. i'll see you in the shed. sally_ joe was relieved. sally holt had been somewhere around underfoot all his life. she was a swell girl, but he was grateful that he didn't have to talk to her just now. he poured coffee and looked at his watch. he went to the window. the faraway howling was much nearer, and dawn had definitely arrived. small cloudlets in a pale blue sky were tinted pinkish by the rising sun. patches of yucca and mesquite and sage out beyond the officers' quarters area stretched away to a far-off horizon. they were now visibly different in color from the red-yellow earth between them, and cast long, streaky shadows. the cause of the howling was still invisible. but joe cared nothing for that. he stared skyward, searching. and he saw what he looked for. there was a small bright sliver of sunlight high aloft. it moved slowly toward the east. it showed the unmistakable glint of sunshine upon polished steel. it was the artificial satellite--a huge steel hull--which had been built in the gigantic shed from whose shadow joe looked upward. it was the size of an ocean liner, and six weeks since some hundreds of pushpots, all straining at once, had gotten it out of the shed and panted toward the sky with it. they'd gotten it twelve miles high and speeding eastward at the ultimate speed they could manage. they'd fired jato rockets, all at once, and so pushed its speed up to the preposterous. then they'd dropped away and the giant steel thing had fired its own rockets--which made mile-long flames--and swept on out to emptiness. before its rockets were consumed it was in an orbit 4,000 miles above the earth's surface, and it hurtled through space at something over 12,000 miles an hour. it circled the earth in exactly four hours, fourteen minutes, and twenty-two seconds. and it would continue its circling forever, needing no fuel and never descending. it was a second moon for the planet earth. but it could be destroyed. joe watched hungrily as it went on to meet the sun. smoothly, unhurriedly, serenely, the remote and twinkling speck floated on out of sight. and then joe went back to the table and ate his breakfast quickly. he wolfed it. he had an appointment to meet that minute speck some 4,000 miles out in space. his appointment was for a very few hours hence. he'd been training for just this morning's effort since before the platform's launching. there was a great box swinging in twenty-foot gimbal rings over in the shed. there were motors and projectors and over two thousand vacuum tubes, relays and electronic units. it was a space flight simulator--a descendant of the link trainer which once taught plane pilots how to fly. but this offered the problems and the sensations of rocketship control, and for many hours every day joe and the three members of his crew had labored in it. the simulator duplicated every sight and sound and feeling--all but heavy acceleration--to be experienced in the take-off of a rocketship to space. the similitude of flight was utterly convincing. sometimes it was appallingly so when emergencies and catastrophes and calamities were staged in horrifying detail for them to learn to respond to. in six weeks they'd learned how to handle a spaceship so far as anybody could learn on solid ground--if the simulator was correctly built. nobody could be sure about that. but it was the best training that could be devised. in minutes joe had finished the coffee and was out of major holt's quarters and headed for the shed's nearest entrance. the shed was a gigantic metal structure rising out of sheer flat desert. there were hills to the westward, but only arid plain to the east and south and north. there was but one town in hundreds of miles and that was bootstrap, built to house the workmen who'd built the platform and the still invisible, ferociously howling pushpots and now the small supply ships, the first of which was to make its first trip today. the shed seemed very near because of its monstrous size. when he was actually at the base of its wall, it seemed to fill half the firmament and more than half the horizon. he went in, and felt self-conscious when the guard's eyes fell on his uniform. there was a tiny vestibule. then he was in the shed itself, and it was enormous. there were acres of wood-block flooring. there was a vast, steel-girdered arching roof which was fifty stories high in the center. all this size had been needed when the space platform was being built. men on the far side were merely specks, and the rows of windows to admit light usually did no more than make a gray twilight inside. but there was light enough today. to the east the shed's wall was split from top to bottom. a colossal triangular gore had been loosened and thrust out and rolled aside, and a doorway a hundred and fifty feet wide let in the sunshine. through it, joe could see the fiery red ball which was the sun just leaving the horizon. but there was something more urgent for him to look at. pelican one had been moved into its launching cage. only joe, perhaps, would really have recognized it. actually it was a streamlined hull of steel, eighty feet long by twenty in diameter. there were stubby metal fins--useless in space, and even on take-off, but essential for the planned method of landing on its return. there were thick quartz ports in the bow-section. but its form was completely concealed now by the attached, exterior take-off rockets. it had been shifted into the huge cradle of steel beams from which it was to be launched. men swarmed about it and over it, in and out of the launching cage, checking and rechecking every possible thing that could make for the success of its flight to space. the other three crew-members were ready--haney and chief bender and mike scandia. they were especially entitled to be the crew of this first supply ship. when the platform was being built, its pilot-gyros had been built by a precision tool firm owned by joe's father. he'd gone by plane with the infinitely precise apparatus to bootstrap, to deliver and install it in the platform. and the plane was sabotaged, and the gyros were ruined. they'd consumed four months in the building, and four months more for balancing with absolute no-tolerance accuracy. the platform couldn't wait so long for duplicates. so joe had improvised a method of repair. and with haney to devise special machine-tool setups and the chief to use fanatically fine workmanship, and mike and joe aiding according to their gifts, they'd rebuilt the apparatus in an impossibly short time. the original notion was joe's, but he couldn't have done the job without the others. and there had been other, incidental triumphs by the team of four. they were not the only ones who worked feverishly for the glory of having helped to build the earth's first artificial moon, but they had accomplished more than most. joe had even been appointed to be an alternate member of the platform's crew. but the man he was to have substituted for recovered from an illness, and joe was left behind at the platform's launching. but all of them had rated some reward, and it was to serve in the small ships that would supply the man-made satellite. now they were ready to begin. the chief grinned exuberantly as joe ducked through the bars of the launching cage and approached the ship. he was a mohawk indian--one of that tribe which for two generations had supplied steel workers to every bridge and dam and skyscraper job on the continent. he was brown and bulky and explosive. haney looked tense and strained. he was tall and lean and spare, and a good man in any sort of trouble. mike blazed excitement. mike was forty-one inches high and he was full-grown. he had worked on the platform, bucking rivets and making welds and inspections in places too small for a normal-sized man to reach. he frantically resented any concessions to his size and he was as good a man as any. he simply was the small, economy size. "hiya, joe," boomed the chief. "all set? had breakfast?" joe nodded. he began to ask anxious questions. about steering-rocket fuel and the launching cage release and the take-off rockets and the reduction valve from the air tanks--he'd thought of that on the way over--and the short wave and loran and radar. haney nodded to some questions. mike said briskly, "i checked" to others. the chief grunted amiably, "look, joe! we checked everything last night. we checked it again this morning. i even caught mike polishing the ejection seats, because there wasn't anything else to make sure of!" joe managed a smile. the ejection seats were assuredly the most unlikely of all devices to be useful today. they were supposedly life-saving devices. if the ship came a cropper on take-off, the four of them were supposed to use ejection-seats like those supplied to jet pilots. they would be thrown clear of the ship and ribbon-parachutes might open and might let them land alive. but it wasn't likely. joe had objected to their presence. if a feather dropped to earth from a height of 600 miles, it would be falling so fast when it hit the atmosphere that it would heat up and burn to ashes from pure air-friction. it wasn't likely that they could get out of the ship if anything went wrong. somebody marched stiffly toward the four of them. joe's expression grew rueful. the space project was neither army nor navy nor air corps, but something that so far was its own individual self. but the man marching toward joe was lieutenant commander brown, strictly navy, assigned to the shed as an observer. and there were some times when he baffled joe. like now. he halted, and looked as if he expected joe to salute. joe didn't. lieutenant commander brown said, formally: "i would like to offer my best wishes for your trip, mr. kenmore." "thanks," said joe. brown smiled distantly. "you understand, of course, that i consider navigation essentially a naval function, and it does seem to me that any ship, including a spaceship, should be manned by naval personnel. but i assuredly wish you good fortune." "thanks," said joe again. brown shook hands, then stalked off. haney rumbled in his throat. "how come, joe, he doesn't wish all of us good luck?" "he does," said joe. "but his mind's in uniform too. he's been trained that way. i'd like to make a bet that we have him as a passenger out to the platform some day." "heaven forbid!" growled haney. there was an outrageous tumult outside the wide-open gap in the shed's wall. something went shrieking by the doorway. it looked like the magnified top half of a loaf of baker's bread, painted gray and equipped with an air-scoop in front and a plastic bubble for a pilot. it howled like a lost baby dragon, its flat underside tilted up and up until it was almost vertical. it had no wings, but a blue-white flame spurted out of its rear, wobbling from side to side for reasons best known to itself. it was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. only it did. it settled down on its flame-spouting tail, and the sparse vegetation burst into smoky flame and shriveled, and the thing--still shrieking like a fog-horn in a tunnel--flopped flat forward with a resounding _clank!_ it was abruptly silent. but the total noise was not lessened. another pushpot came soaring wildly into view, making hysterical outcries. it touched and banged violently to earth. others appeared in the air beyond the construction shed. one flopped so hard on landing that its tail rose in the air and it attempted a somersault. it made ten times more noise than before--the flame from its tail making wild gyrations--and flopped back again with a crash. two others rolled over on their sides after touching ground. one ended up on its back like a tumble-bug, wriggling. they seemed to land by hundreds, but their number was actually in dozens. it was not until the last one was down that joe could make himself heard. the pushpots were jet motors in frames and metal skin, with built-in jato rocket tubes besides their engines. on the ground they were quite helpless. in the air they were unbelievably clumsy. they were actually balanced and steered by vanes in the blasts of their jets, and they combined the absolute maximum of sheer thrust with the irreducible minimum of flyability. crane-trucks went out to pick them up. joe said anxiously, "we'd better check our flight plan again. we have to know it absolutely!" he headed across the floor to the flight data board. he passed the hull of another ship like his own, which was near completion, and the bare skeletons of two others which needed a lot of work yet. they'd been begun at distant plants and then hauled here on monstrous trailers for completion. the wooden mockup of the design for all the ships--in which every possible arrangement of instruments and machinery had been tested out--lay neglected by the shed wall. the four stood before the flight data board. it listed the readings every instrument should show during every instant of the flight. the readings had been calculated with infinite care, and joe and the others needed to know them rather better than they knew their multiplication tables. once they started out, they wouldn't have time to wonder if everything was right for the time and place. they needed to know. they stood there, soaking up the information the board contained, forming mental pictures of it, making as sure as possible that any one of them would spot anything wrong the instant it showed up, and would instantly know what had to be done about it. a gigantic crane-truck came in through the wide doorway. it dangled a pushpot. it rolled over to the launching cage in which the spaceship lay and set the unwieldy metal object against that cage. there was a _clank_ as the pushpot caught hold of the magnetic grapples. the crane went out again, passing a second crane carrying a second pushpot. the second beetle-like thing was presented to the cage. it stuck fast. the crane went out for more. major holt came across the floor of the shed. it took him a long time to walk the distance from the security offices to the launching cage. when he got there, he looked impatiently around. his daughter sally came out of nowhere and blew her nose as if she'd been crying, and pointed to the data board. the major shrugged his shoulders and looked uneasily at her. she regarded him with some defiance. the major spoke to her sternly. they waited. the cranes brought in more pushpots and set them up against the steel launching cage. the ship had been nearly hidden before by the rocket tubes fastened outside its hull. it went completely out of sight behind the metal monsters banked about it. the major looked at his watch and the group about the data board. they moved away from it and back toward the ship. joe saw the major and swerved over to him. "i have brought you," said the major in an official voice, "the invoice of your cargo. you will deliver the invoice with the cargo and bring back proper receipts." "i hope," said joe. "_we_ hope!" said sally in a strained tone. "good luck, joe!" "thanks." "there is not much to say to you," said the major without visible emotion. "of course the next crew will start its training immediately, but it may be a month before another ship can take off. it is extremely desirable that you reach the platform today." "yes, sir," said joe wrily. "i have even a personal motive to get there. if i don't, i break my neck." the major ignored the comment. he shook hands formally and marched away. sally smiled up at joe, but her eyes were suddenly full of tears. "i--do hope everything goes all right, joe," she said unsteadily. "i--i'll be praying for you." "i can use some of that, too," admitted joe. she looked at her hand. joe's ring was on her finger--wrapped with string on the inside of the band to make it fit. then she looked up again and was crying unashamedly. "i--will," she repeated. then she said fiercely, "i don't care if somebody's looking, joe. it's time for you to go in the ship." he kissed her, and turned and went quickly to the peculiar mass of clustered pushpots, touching and almost overlapping each other. he ducked under and looked back. sally waved. he waved back. then he climbed up the ladder into pelican one's cabin. somebody pulled the ladder away and scuttled out of the cage. the others were in their places. joe slowly closed the door from the cabin to the outer world. there was suddenly a cushioned silence about him. out the quartz-glass ports he could see ahead, out the end of the cage through the monstrous doorway to the desert beyond. overhead he could see the dark, girder-lined roof of the shed. on either side, though, he could see only the scratched, dented, flat undersides of the pushpots ready to lift the ship upward. "you can start on the pushpot motors, haney," he said curtly. joe moved to his own, the pilot's seat. haney pushed a button. through the fabric of the ship came the muted uproar of a pushpot engine starting. haney pushed another button. another. another. more jet engines bellowed. the tumult in the shed would be past endurance, now. joe strapped himself into his seat. he made sure that the chief at the steering-rocket manual controls was fastened properly, and mike at the radio panel was firmly belted past the chance of injury. haney said with enormous calm, "all pushpot motors running, joe." "steering rockets ready," the chief reported. "radio operating," came from mike. "communications room all set." joe reached to the maneuver controls. he should have been sweating. his hands, perhaps, should have quivered with tension. but he was too much worried about too many things. nobody can strike an attitude or go into a blue funk while they are worrying about things to be done. joe heard the small gyro motors as their speed went up. a hum and a whine and then a shrill whistle which went up in pitch until it wasn't anything at all. he frowned anxiously and said to haney, "i'm taking over the pushpots." haney nodded. joe took the over-all control. the roar of engines outside grew loud on the right-hand side, and died down. it grew thunderous to the left, and dwindled. the ones ahead pushed. then the ones behind. joe nodded and wet his lips. he said: "here we go." there was no more ceremony than that. the noise of the jet motors outside rose to a thunderous volume which came even through the little ship's insulated hull. then it grew louder, and louder still, and joe stirred the controls by ever so tiny a movement. suddenly the ship did not feel solid. it stirred a little. joe held his breath and cracked the over-all control of the pushpots' speed a tiny trace further. the ship wobbled a little. out the quartz-glass windows, the great door seemed to descend. in reality the clustered pushpots and the launching cage rose some thirty feet from the shed floor and hovered there uncertainly. joe shifted the lever that governed the vanes in the jet motor blasts. ship and cage and pushpots, all together, wavered toward the doorway. they passed out of it, rocking a little and pitching a little and wallowing a little. as a flying device, the combination was a howling tumult and a horror. it was an aviation designer's nightmare. it was a bad dream by any standard. but it wasn't meant as a way to fly from one place to another on earth. it was the first booster stage of a three-stage rocket aimed at outer space. it looked rather like--well--if a swarm of bumblebees clung fiercely to a wire-gauze cage in which lay a silver minnow wrapped in match-sticks; and if the bees buzzed furiously and lifted it in a straining, clumsy, and altogether unreasonable manner; and if the appearance and the noise together were multiplied a good many thousands of times--why--it would present a great similarity to the take-off of the spaceship under joe's command. nothing like it could be graceful or neatly controllable or even very speedy in the thick atmosphere near the ground. but higher, it would be another matter. it _was_ another matter. once clear of the shed, and with flat, sere desert ahead to the very horizon, joe threw on full power to the pushpot motors. the clumsy-seeming aggregation of grotesque objects began to climb. ungainly it was, and clumsy it was, but it went upward at a rate a jet-fighter might have trouble matching. it wobbled, and it swung around and around, and it tipped crazily, the whole aggregation of jet motors and cage and burden of spaceship as a unit. but it rose! the ground dropped so swiftly that even the shed seemed to shrivel like a pricked balloon. the horizon retreated as if a carpet were hastily unrolled by magic. the barometric pressure needles turned. "communications says our rate-of-climb is 4,000 feet a minute and going up fast," mike announced. "it's five.... we're at 17,000 feet ... 18,000. we should get some eastward velocity at 32,000 feet. our height is now 21,000 feet...." there was no change in the feel of things inside the ship, of course. sealed against the vacuum of space, barometric pressure outside made no difference. height had no effect on the air inside the ship. at 25,000 feet the chief said suddenly: "we're pointed due east, joe. freeze it?" "right," said joe. "freeze it." the chief threw a lever. the gyros were running at full operating speed. by engaging them, the chief had all their stored-up kinetic energy available to resist any change of direction the pushpots might produce by minor variations in their thrusts. haney brooded over the reports from the individual engines outside. he made minute adjustments to keep them balanced. mike uttered curt comments into the communicator from time to time. at 33,000 feet there was a momentary sensation as if the ship were tilted sharply. it wasn't. the instruments denied any change from level rise. the upward-soaring complex of flying things had simply risen into a jet-stream, one of those wildly rushing wind-floods of the upper atmosphere. "eastern velocity four hundred," said mike from the communicator. "now four-twenty-five.... four-forty." there was a 300-mile-an-hour wind behind them. a tail-wind, west to east. the pushpots struggled now to get the maximum possible forward thrust before they rose out of that east-bound hurricane. they added a fierce push to eastward to their upward thrust. mike's cracked voice reported 500 miles an hour. presently it was 600. at 40,000 feet they were moving eastward at 680 miles an hour. a jet-motor cannot be rated except indirectly, but there was over 200,000 horsepower at work to raise the spacecraft and build up the highest possible forward speed. it couldn't be kept up, of course. the pushpots couldn't carry enough fuel. but they reached 55,000 feet, which is where space begins for humankind. a man exposed to emptiness at that height will die just as quickly as anywhere between the stars. but it wasn't quite empty space for the pushpots. there was still a very, very little air. the pushpots could still thrust upward. feebly, now, but they still thrust. mike said: "communications says get set to fire jatos, joe." "right!" he replied. "set yourselves." mike flung a switch, and a voice began to chatter behind joe's head. it was the voice from the communications-room atop the shed, now far below and far behind. mike settled himself in the tiny acceleration-chair built for him. the chief squirmed to comfort in his seat. haney took his hands from the equalizing adjustments he had to make so that joe's use of the controls would be exact, regardless of moment-to-moment differences in the thrust of the various jets. "we've got a yaw right," said the chief sharply. "hold it, joe!" joe waited for small quivering needles to return to their proper registrations. "back and steady," said the chief a moment later. "okay!" the tinny voice behind joe now spoke precisely. mike had listened to it while the work of take-off could be divided, so that joe would not be distracted. now joe had to control everything at once. the roar of the pushpots outside the ship had long since lost the volume and timbre of normal atmosphere. not much sound could be transmitted by the near-vacuum outside. but the jet motors did roar, and the sound which was not sound at such a height was transmitted by the metal cage as so much pure vibration. the walls and hull of the spaceship picked up a crawling, quivering pulsation and turned it into sound. standing waves set up and dissolved and moved erratically in the air of the cabin. joe's eardrums were strangely affected. now one ear seemed muted by a temporary difference of air pressure where a standing wave lingered for a second or two. then the other eardrum itched. there were creeping sensations as of things touching one and quickly moving away. joe swung a microphone into place before his mouth. "all set," he said evenly. "brief me." the tinny voice said: "_you are at 65,000 feet. your curve of rate-of-climb is flattening out. you are now rising at near-maximum speed, and not much more forward velocity can be anticipated. you have an air-speed relative to surface of six-nine-two miles per hour. the rotational speed of earth at this latitude is seven-seven-eight. you have, then, a total orbital speed of one-four-seven-oh miles per hour, or nearly twelve per cent of your needed final velocity. since you will take off laterally and practically without air resistance, a margin of safety remains. you are authorized to blast._" joe said: "ten seconds. nine ... eight ... seven ... six ... five ... four ... three ... two ... one...." he stabbed the master jato switch. and a monstrous jato rocket, built into each and every one of the pushpots outside, flared chemical fumes in a simultaneous, gigantic thrust. a small wire-wound jato for jet-assisted-take-off will weigh a hundred and forty pounds and deliver a thousand pounds of thrust for fourteen seconds. and that is for rockets using nonpoisonous compounds. the jatos of the pushpots used the beryllium-fluorine fuel that had lifted the platform and that filled the take-off rockets of joe's ship. these jatos gave the pushpots themselves an acceleration of ten gravities, but it had to be shared with the cage and the ship. still.... joe felt himself slammed back into his seat with irresistible, overwhelming force. the vibration from the jets had been bad. now he didn't notice it. he didn't notice much of anything but the horrible sensations of six-gravity acceleration. it was not exactly pain. it was a feeling as if a completely intolerable and unbearable pressure pushed at him. not only on the outside, like a blow, but inside too, like nothing else imaginable. not only his chest pressed upon his lungs, but his lungs strained toward his backbone. not only the flesh of his thighs tugged to flatten itself against his acceleration-chair, but the blood in his legs tried to flow into and burst the blood-vessels in the back of his legs. the six-gravity acceleration seemed to endure for centuries. actually, it lasted for fourteen seconds. in that time it increased the speed of the little ship by rather more than half a mile per second, something over 1,800 miles per hour. before, the ship had possessed an orbital speed of a shade over 1,470 miles an hour. after the jato thrust, it was traveling nearly 3,400 miles per hour. it needed to travel something over 12,000 miles per hour to reach the artificial satellite of earth. the intolerable thrust ended abruptly. joe gasped. but he could allow himself only a shake of the head to clear his brain. he jammed down the take-off rocket firing button. there was a monstrous noise and a mighty surging, and haney panted, "clear of cage...." and then they were pressed fiercely against their acceleration chairs again. the ship was no longer in its launching cage. it was no longer upheld by pushpots. it was free, with its take-off rockets flaming. it plunged on up and out. but the acceleration was less. nobody can stand six gravities for long. anybody can take three--for a while. joe's body resisted movement with a weight of four hundred and fifty pounds, instead of a third as much for normal. his heart had to pump against three times the normal resistance of gravity. his chest felt as if it had a leaden weight on it. his tongue tried to crowd the back of his mouth and strangle him. the sensation was that of a nightmare of impossible duration. it was possible to move and possible to see. one could breathe, with difficulty, and with titanic effort one could speak. but there was the same feeling of stifling resistance to every movement that comes in nightmares. but joe managed to keep his eyes focused. the dials of the instruments said that everything was right. the tinny voice behind his head, its timbre changed by the weighting of its diaphragm, said: "_all readings check within accuracy of instruments. good work!_" joe moved his eyes to a quartz window. the sky was black. but there were stars. bright stars against a black background. at the same instant he saw the bright white disks of sunshine that came in the cabin portholes. stars and sunshine together. and the sunshine was the sunshine of space. even with the polarizers cutting off some of the glare it was unbearably bright and hot beyond conception. he smelled overheated paint, where the sunlight smote on a metal bulkhead. stars and super-hot sunshine together.... it was necessary to pant for breath, and his heart pounded horribly and his eyes tried to go out of focus, but joe kenmore strained in his acceleration-chair and managed to laugh a little. "we did it!" he panted. "in case you didn't notice, we're out of--the atmosphere and--out in space! we're--headed to join the space platform!" 2 the pressure of three gravities continued. joe's chest muscles ached with the exertion of breathing over so long a period. six gravities for fourteen seconds had been a ghastly ordeal. three gravities for minutes built up to something nearly as bad. joe's heart began to feel fatigue, and a man's heart normally simply doesn't ever feel tired. it became more and more difficult to see clearly. but he had work to do. important work. the take-off rockets were solid-fuel jobs, like those which launched the platform. they were wire-wound steel tubes lined with a very special refractory, with unstable beryllium and fluorine compounds in them. the solid fuel burned at so many inches per second. the refractory crumbled away and was hurled astern at a corresponding rate--save for one small point. the refractory was not all exactly alike. some parts of it crumbled away faster, leaving a pattern of baffles which acted like a maxim silencer on a rifle, or like an automobile muffler. the baffles set up eddies in the gas stream and produced exactly the effect of a rocket motor's throat. but the baffles themselves crumbled and were flung astern, so that the solid-fuel rockets had always the efficiency of gas-throated rocket motors; and yet every bit of refractory was reaction-mass to be hurled astern, and even the steel tubes melted and were hurled away with a gain in acceleration to the ship. every fraction of every ounce of rocket mass was used for drive. no tanks or pumps or burners rode deadhead after they ceased to be useful. but solid-fuel rockets simply can't be made to burn with absolute evenness as a team. minute differences in burning-rates do tend to cancel out. but now and again they reinforce each other and if uncorrected will throw a ship off course. gyros can't handle such effects. so joe had to watch his instruments and listen to the tinny voice behind him and steer the ship against accidental wobblings as the earth fell away behind him. he battled against the fatigue of continuing to live, and struggled with gyros and steering jets to keep the ship on its hair-line course. he panted heavily. the beating of his heart became such a heavy pounding that it seemed that his whole body shook with it. he had to do infinitely fine precision steering with hands that weighed pounds and arms that weighed scores of pounds and a body that had an effective weight of almost a quarter of a ton. and this went on and went on and on for what seemed several centuries. then the voice in the speaker said thickly: "_everything is in the clear. in ten seconds you can release your rockets. shall i count?_" joe panted, "count!" the mechanical voice said, "_seven ... six ... five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... cut!_" joe pressed the release. the small, unburnt stubs of the take-off rockets went hurtling off toward emptiness. they consumed themselves as they went, and they attained an acceleration of fifty gravities once they were relieved of all load but their own substance. they had to be released lest one burn longer than another. it was also the only way to stop acceleration by solid-fuel rockets. they couldn't be extinguished. they had to be released. from intolerably burdensome heaviness, there was abruptly no weight at all in the ship. joe's laboring heart beat twice with the violence the weight had called for, though weight had ended. it seemed to him that his skull would crack open during those two heart-beats. then he lay limply, resting. there was a completely incredible stillness, for a time. the four of them panted. haney was better off than joe, but the chief was harder hit. mike's small body had taken the strain best of all, and he would use the fact later in shrill argument that midgets were designed by nature to be the explorers of space for their bulkier and less spaceworthy kindred. the ending of the steady, punishing drag was infinitely good, but the new sensation was hardly pleasant. they had no weight. it felt as if they and the ship about them were falling together down an abyss which must have a bottom. actually, they were falling up. but they felt a physical, crawling apprehension--a cringing from an imaginary imminent impact. they had expected the sensation, but it was not the better for being understood. joe flexed and unflexed his fingers slowly. he stirred and swallowed hastily. but the feeling persisted. he unstrapped himself from his seat. he stood up--and floated to the ceiling of the cabin. but there was of course no ceiling. every way was up and every way was down. his stomach cramped itself in a hard knot, in the instinctive tensity of somebody in free fall. he fended himself from the ceiling and caught at a hand-line placed there for just this necessity to grip something. in his absorption, he did not notice which way his heels went. he suddenly noticed that his companions, with regard to him, were upside down and staring at him with wooden, dazed expressions on their faces. he tried to laugh, and gulped instead. he pulled over to the quartz-glass ports. he did not put his hand into the sunlight, but shifted the glare shutters over those ports which admitted direct sunshine. some ports remained clear. through one of them he saw the earth seemingly at arm's length somewhere off. not up, not down. simply out from where he was. it filled all the space that the porthole showed. it was a gigantic mass of white, fleecy specks and spots which would be clouds, and between the whiteness there was a muddy dark greenish color which would be the ocean. yet it seemed to slide very, very slowly past the window. he saw a tanness between the clouds, and it moved inward from the edge of his field of view. he suddenly realized what it was. "we've just about crossed the atlantic," he said in a peculiar astonishment. but it was true the ship had not been aloft nearly as much as half an hour. "africa's just coming into sight below. we ought to be about 1,200 miles high and still rising fast. that was the calculation." he looked again, and then drew himself across to the opposite porthole. he saw the blackness of space, which was not blackness because it was a carpet of jewels. they were infinite in number and variations in brightness, and somehow of vastly more colorings than one noticed from earth. he heard the chief grunt, and haney gulp. he was suddenly conscious that his legs were floating rather ridiculously in mid-air with no particular relationship to anything. he saw the chief rise very cautiously, holding on to the arms of his seat. "better not look at the sun," said joe, "even though i've put on the glare-shields." the chief nodded. the glare-shields would keep out most of the heat and a very great deal of the ultraviolet the sun gave off. but even so, to look at the sun directly might easily result in a retinal sunburn which could result in blindness. the loudspeaker behind joe's chair clattered. it had seemed muted by the weight of its diaphragm at three gravities. now it blasted unintelligibly, with no weight at all. mike threw a switch and took the message. "communications says radar says we're right on course, joe," he reported nonchalantly, "and our speed's okay. we'll reach maximum altitude in an hour and thirty-six minutes. we ought to be within calculated distance of the platform then." "good," said joe abstractedly. he strained his eyes at the earth. they were moving at an extraordinary speed and height. it had been reached by just four human beings before them. the tannishness which was the coast of africa crept with astonishing slowness toward the center of what he could see. joe headed back to his seat. he could not walk, of course. he floated. he launched himself with a fine air of confidence. he misjudged. he was floating past his chair when he reached down--and that turned his body--and fumbled wildly. he caught hold of the back as he went by, then held on and found himself turning a grandly dignified somersault. he wound up in a remarkably foolish position with the back of his neck on the back of the chair, his arms in a highly strained position to hold him there, and his feet touching the deck of the cabin a good five feet away. haney looked greenish, but he said hoarsely: "joe, don't make me laugh--not when my stomach feels like this!" the feeling of weightlessness was unexpectedly daunting. joe turned himself about very slowly, with his legs floating indecorously in entirely unintended kicks. he was breathing hard when he pulled himself into the chair and strapped in once more. "i'll take communications," he told mike as he settled his headphones. reluctantly, mike switched over. "kenmore reporting to communications," he said briefly. "we have ended our take-off acceleration. you have our course and velocity. our instruments read--" he went over the bank of instruments before him, giving the indication of each. in a sense, this first trip of a ship out to the platform had some of the aspects of defusing a bomb. calculations were useful, but observations were necessary. he had to report every detail of the condition of his ship and every instrument-reading because anything might go wrong, and at any instant. anything that went wrong could be fatal. so every bit of data and every intended action needed to be on record. then, if something happened, the next ship to attempt this journey might avoid the same catastrophe. time passed. a lot of time. the feeling of unending fall continued. they knew what it was, but they had to keep thinking of its cause to endure it. joe found that if his mind concentrated fully on something else, it jerked back to panic and the feel of falling. but the crew of the space platform--now out in space for more weeks than joe had been quarter-hours--reported that one got partly used to it, in time. when awake, at least. asleep was another matter. they were 1,600 miles high and still going out and up. the earth as seen through the ports was still an utterly monstrous, bulging mass, specked with clouds above vast mottlings which were its seas and land. they might have looked for cities, but they would be mere patches in a telescope. their task now was to wait until their orbit curved into accordance with that of the platform and they kept their rendezvous. the artificial satellite was swinging up behind them, and was only a quarter-circle about earth behind them. their speed in miles per second was, at the moment, greater than that of the platform. but they were climbing. they slowed as they climbed. when their path intersected that of the platform, the two velocities should be exactly equal. major holt's voice came on the communicator. "_joe_," he said harshly, "_i have very bad news. a message came from central intelligence within minutes of your take-off. i--ah--with sally i had been following your progress. i did not decode the message until now. but central intelligence has definite information that more than ten days ago the--ah--enemies of our space exploration project_--" even on a tight beam to the small spaceship, major holt did not name the nation everybody knew was most desperately resolved to smash space exploration by anybody but itself--"_completed at least one rocket capable of reaching the platform's orbit with a pay-load that could be an atomic bomb. it is believed that more than one rocket was completed. all were shipped to an unknown launching station._" "not so good," said joe. mike had left his post when joe took over. now he made a swooping dart through the air of the cabin. the midget showed no signs of the fumbling uncertainty the others had displayed--but he'd been a member of a midget acrobatic team before he went to work at the shed. he brought himself to a stop precisely at a hand-hold, grinning triumphantly at the nearly helpless chief and haney. major holt said in the headphones: "_it's worse than that. radar may have told the country in question that you are on the way up. in that case, if it's even faintly possible to blast the platform before your arrival with weapons for its defense, they'll blast._" "i don't like that idea," said joe dourly. "anything we can do?" major holt laughed bitterly. "_hardly!_" he said. "_and do you realize that if you can't unload your cargo you can't get back to earth?_" "yes," said joe. "naturally!" it was true. the purpose of the pushpots and the jatos and the ship's own take-off rockets had been to give it a speed at which it would inevitably rise to a height of 4,000 miles--the orbit of the space platform--and stay there. it would need no power to remain 4,000 miles out from earth. but it would take power to come down. the take-off rockets had been built to drive the ship with all its contents until it attained that needed orbital velocity. there were landing rockets fastened to the hull now to slow it so that it could land. but just as the take-off rockets had been designed to lift a loaded ship, the landing-rockets had been designed to land an empty one. the more weight the ship carried, the more power it needed to get out to the platform. and the more power it needed to come down again. if joe and his companions couldn't get rid of their cargo--and they could only unload in the ship-lock of the platform--they'd stay out in emptiness. the major said bitterly: "_this is all most irregular, but--here's sally._" then sally's voice sounded in the headphones joe wore. he was relieved that mike wasn't acting as communications officer at the moment to overhear. but mike was zestfully spinning like a pin-wheel in the middle of the air of the control cabin. he was showing the others that even in the intramural pastimes a spaceship crew will indulge in, a midget was better than a full-sized man. joe said: "yes, sally?" she said unsteadily. "_i'm not going to waste your time talking to you, joe. i think you've got to figure out something. i haven't the faintest idea what it is, but i think you can do it. try, will you?_" "i'm afraid we're going to have to trust to luck," admitted joe ruefully. "we weren't equipped for anything like this." "_no!_" said sally fiercely. "_if i were with you, you wouldn't think of trusting to luck!_" "i wouldn't want to," admitted joe. "i'd feel responsible. but just the same--" "_you're responsible now!_" said sally, as fiercely as before. "_if the platform's smashed, the rockets that can reach it will be duplicated to smash our cities in war! but if you can reach the platform and arm it for defense, there won't be any war! half the world would be praying for you, joe, if it knew! i can't do anything else, so i'm going to start on that right now. but you try, joe! you hear me?_" "i'll try," said joe humbly. "thanks, sally." he heard a sound like a sob, and the headphones were silent. joe himself swallowed very carefully. it can be alarming to be the object of an intended murder, but it can also be very thrilling. one can play up splendidly to a dramatic picture of doom. it is possible to be one's own audience and admire one's own fine disregard of danger. but when other lives depend on one, one has the irritating obligation not to strike poses but to do something practical. joe said somberly: "mike, how long before we ought to contact the platform?" mike reached out a small hand, caught a hand-hold, and flicked his eyes to the master chronometer. "forty minutes, fifty seconds. why?" joe said wrily, "there are some rockets in enemy hands which can reach the platform. they were shipped to launchers ten days ago. you figure what comes next." mike's wizened face became tense and angry. haney growled, "they smash the platform before we get to it." "uh-uh!" said mike instantly. "they smash the platform _when_ we get to it! they smash us both up together. where'll we be at contact-time, joe?" "over the indian ocean, south of the bay of bengal, to be exact," said joe. "but we'll be moving fast. the worst of it is that it's going to take time to get in the airlock and unload our guided missiles and get them in the platform's launching-tubes. i'd guess an hour. one bomb should get both of us above the bay of bengal, but we won't be set to launch a guided missile in defense until we're nearly over america again." the chief said sourly, "yeah. sitting ducks all the way across the pacific!" "we'll check with the platform," said joe. "see if you can get them direct, mike, will you?" then something occurred to him. mike scrambled back to his communication board. he began feverishly to work the computer which in turn would swing the tight-beam transmitter to the target the computer worked out, he threw a switch and said sharply, "calling space platform! pelican one calling space platform! come in, space platform!..." he paused. "calling space platform...." joe had a slide-rule going on another problem. he looked up, his expression peculiar. "a solid-fuel rocket can start off at ten gravities acceleration," he said quietly, "and as its rockets burn away it can go up a lot higher than that. but 4,000 miles is a long way to go straight up. if it isn't launched yet--" mike snapped into a microphone: "right!" to joe he said, "space platform on the wire." joe heard an acknowledgment in his headphones. "i've just had word from the shed," he explained carefully, "that there may be some guided missiles coming up from earth to smash us as we meet. you're still higher than we are, and they ought to be starting. can you pick up anything with your radar?" the voice from the platform said: "_we have picked something up. there are four rockets headed out from near the sunset-line in the pacific. assuming solid-fuel rockets like we used and you used, they are on a collision course._" "are you doing anything about them?" asked joe absurdly. the voice said caustically: "_unfortunately, we've nothing to do anything with._" it paused. "_you, of course, can use the landing-rockets you still possess. if you fire them immediately, you will pass our scheduled meeting-place some hundreds of miles ahead of us. you will go on out to space. you may set up an orbit forty-five hundred or even five thousand miles out, and wait there for rescue._" joe said briefly: "we've air for only four days. that's no good. it'll be a month before the next ship can be finished and take off. there are four rockets coming up, you say?" "_yes._" the voice changed. it spoke away from the microphone. "_what's that?_" then it returned to joe. "_the four rockets were sent up at the same instant from four separate launching sites. probably as many submarines at the corners of a hundred-mile square, so an accident to one wouldn't set off the others. they'll undoubtedly converge as they get nearer to us._" "i think," said joe, "that we need some luck." "_i think_," said the caustic voice, "_that we've run out of it._" there was a click. joe swallowed again. the three members of his crew were looking at him. "somebody's fired rockets out from earth," said joe carefully. "they'll curve together where we meet the platform, and get there just when we do." the chief rumbled. haney clamped his jaws together. mike's expression became one of blazing hatred. joe's mind went rather absurdly to the major's curious, almost despairing talk in his quarters that morning, when he'd spoken of a conspiracy to destroy all the hopes of men. the firing of rockets at the platform was, of course, the work of men acting deliberately. but they were--unconsciously--trying to destroy their own best hopes. for freedom, certainly, whether or not they could imagine being free. but the platform and the space exploration project in general meant benefits past computing for everybody, in time. to send ships into space for necessary but dangerous experiments with atomic energy was a purpose every man should want to help forward. to bring peace on earth was surely an objective no man could willingly or sanely combat. and the ultimate goal of space travel was millions of other planets, circling other suns, thrown open to colonization by humanity. that prospect should surely fire every human being with enthusiasm. but something--and the more one thought about it the more specific and deliberate it seemed to be--made it necessary to fight desperately against men in order to benefit them. joe swallowed again. it would have been comforting to be dramatic in this war against stupidity and malice and blindness. especially since this particular battle seemed to be lost. one could send back an eloquent, defiant message to earth saying that the four of them did not regret their journey into space, though they were doomed to be killed by the enemies of their country. it could have been a very pretty gesture. but joe happened to have a job to do. pretty gestures were not a part of it. he had no idea how to do it. so he said rather sickishly: "the platform told me we could fire our landing-rockets as additional take-off rockets and get out of the way. of course we've got missiles of our own on board, but we can't launch or control them. absolutely the only thing we can choose to do or not do is fire those rockets. i'm open to suggestions if anybody can think of a way to make them useful." there was silence. joe's reasoning was good enough. when one can't do what he wants, one tries to make what he can do produce the results he wants. but it didn't look too promising here. they could fire the rockets now, or later, or-an idea came out of the blue. it wasn't a good idea, but it was the only one possible under the circumstances. there was just one distinctly remote possibility. he told the others what it was. mike's eyes flamed. the chief nodded profoundly. haney said with some skepticism, "it's all we've got. we've got to use it." "i need some calculations. spread. best time of firing. that sort of thing. but i'm worried about calling back in the clear. a beam to the platform will bounce and might be picked up by the enemy." the chief grinned suddenly. "i've got a trick for that, joe. there's a tribesman of mine in the shed. get charley red fox to the phone, guy, and we'll talk privately!" the small spaceship floated on upward. it pointed steadfastly in the direction of its motion. the glaring sunshine which at its take-off had shone squarely in its bow-ports, now poured down slantingly from behind. the steel plates of the ship gleamed brightly. below it lay the sunlit earth. above and about it on every hand were a multitude of stars. even the moon was visible as the thinnest of crescents against the night of space. the ship climbed steeply. it was meeting the platform after only half a circuit of earth, while the platform had climbed upward for three full revolutions. earth was now 3,000 miles below and appeared as the most gigantic of possible solid objects. it curved away and away to mistiness at its horizons, and it moved visibly as the spaceship floated on. invisible microwaves flung arrowlike through emptiness. they traveled for thousands of miles, spreading as they traveled, and then struck the strange shape of the platform. they splashed from it. some of them rebounded to earth, where spies and agents of foreign powers tried desperately to make sense of the incredible syllables. they failed. there was a relay system in operation now, from spaceship to platform to earth and back again. in the ship chief bender, mohawk and steelman extraordinary, talked to the shed and to one charley red fox. they talked in mohawk, which is an algonquin indian language, agglutinative, complicated, and not to be learned in ten easy lessons. it was not a language which eavesdroppers were likely to know as a matter of course. but it was a language by which computations could be asked for, so that a very forlorn hope might be attempted with the best possible chances of success. naturally, none of this appeared in the look of things. the small ship floated on and on. it reached an altitude of 3,500 miles. the earth was visibly farther away. behind the ship the atlantic with its stately cloud-formations was sunlit to the very edge of its being. ahead, the edge of night appeared beyond india. and above, the platform appeared as a speck of molten light, quarter-illuminated by the sun above it. spaceship and platform moved on toward a meeting place. the ship moved a trifle faster, because it was climbing. the speeds would match exactly when they met. the small torpedo-shaped shining ship and the bulging glowing metal satellite floated with a seeming vast deliberation in emptiness, while the most gigantic of possible round objects filled all the firmament beneath them. they were 200 miles apart. it seemed that the huge platform overtook the shining ship. it did. they were only 50 miles apart and still closing in. by that time the twilight band of earth's surface was nearly at the center of the planet, and night filled more than a quarter of its disk. by that time, too, even to the naked eye through the ports of the supply-ship the enemy rockets had become visible. they were a thin skein of threads of white vapor which seemed to unravel in nothingness. the vapor curled and expanded preposterously. it could just be seen to be jetting into existence from four separate points, two a little ahead of the others. they came out from earth at a rate which seemed remarkably deliberate until one saw with what fury the rocket-fumes spat out to form the whitish threads. then one could guess at a three-or even four-stage launching series, so that what appeared to be mere pinpoints would really be rockets carrying half-ton atomic warheads with an attained velocity of 10,000 miles per hour and more straight up. the threads unraveled in a straight line aimed at the two metal things floating in emptiness. one was small and streamlined, with inadequate landing-rockets clamped to its body and with stubby fins that had no possible utility out of air. the other was large and clumsy to look at, but very, very stately indeed in its progress through the heavens. they floated smoothly toward a rendezvous. the rockets from earth came ravening to destroy them at the instant of their intersection. the little spaceship turned slowly. its rounded bow had pointed longingly at the stars. now it tilted downward. its direction of movement did not change, of course. in the absence of air, it could tumble indefinitely without any ill effect. it was in a trajectory instead of on a course, though presently the trajectory would become an orbit. but it pointed nose-down toward the earth even as it continued to hurtle onward. the great steel hull and the small spaceship were 20 miles apart. an infinitesimal radar-bowl moved on the little ship. tight-beam waves flickered invisibly between the two craft. the rockets raged toward them. the ship and the platform were 10 miles apart. the rockets were now glinting missiles leaping ahead of the fumes that propelled them. the ship and the platform were two miles apart. the rockets rushed upward.... there were minute corrections in their courses. they converged.... flames leaped from the tiny ship. its landing-rockets spouted white-hot flame and fumes more thick and coiling than even the smoke of the bombs. the little ship surged momentarily toward the racing monsters. and then---the rockets which were supposed to let the ship down to earth flew free--flung themselves unburdened at the rockets which came with deadly intent to the meeting of the two earth spacecraft. the landing-rockets plunged down at forty gravities or better. they were a dwindling group of infinitely bright sparks which seemed to group themselves more closely as they dwindled. they charged upon the attacking robot things. they were unguided, of necessity, but the robot bombs had to be equipped with proximity fuses. no remote control could be so accurate as to determine the best moment for detonation at 4,000 miles' distance. so the war rockets had to be devised to explode when near anything which reflected their probing radar waves. they had to be designed to be triggered by anything in space. and the loosed landing-rockets plunged among them. they did not detonate all at once. that was mathematically impossible. but no human eye could detect the delay. four close-packed flares of pure atomic fire sprang into being between the platform and earth. each was brighter than the sun. for the fraction of an instant there was no night where night had fallen on the earth. for thousands of miles the earth glowed brightly. then there was a twisting, coiling tumult of incandescent gases, which were snatched away by nothingness and ceased to be. then there were just two things remaining in the void. one was the great, clumsy, shining platform, gigantic in size to anything close by. the other was the small spaceship which had climbed to it and fought for it and defended it against the bombs from earth. the little ship now had a slight motion away from the platform, due to the instant's tugging by its rockets before they were released. it turned about in emptiness. its steering-rockets spouted smoke. it began to cancel out its velocity away from the platform, and to swim slowly and very carefully toward it. 3 making actual contact with the platform was not a matter for instruments and calculations. it had to be done directly--by hand, as it were. joe watched out the ports and played the controls of the steering jets with a nerve-racked precision. his task was not easy. before he could return to the point of rendezvous, the blinding sunlight on the platform took on a tinge of red. it was the twilight-zone of the satellite's orbit, when for a time the sunlight that reached it was light which had passed through earth's atmosphere and been bent by it and colored crimson by the dust in earth's air. it glowed a fiery red, and the color deepened, and then there was darkness. they were in earth's shadow. there were stars to be seen, but no sun. the moon was hidden, too. and the earth was a monstrous, incredible, abysmal blackness which at this first experience of its appearance produced an almost superstitious terror. formerly it had seemed a distant but sunlit world, flecked with white clouds and with sprawling differentiations of color beneath them. now it did not look like a solid thing at all. it looked like a hole in creation. one could see ten thousand million stars of every imaginable tint and shade. but where the earth should be there seemed a vast nothingness. it looked like an opening to annihilation. it looked like the veritable pit of darkness which is the greatest horror men have ever imagined, and since those in the ship were without weight it seemed that they were falling into it. joe knew better, of course. so did the others. but that was the look of things, and that was the feeling. one did not feel in danger of death, but of extinction--which, in cold fact, is very much worse. lights glowed on the outside of the platform to guide the supply ship to it. there were red and green and blue and harsh blue-white electric bulbs. they were bright and distinct, but the feeling of loneliness above that awful appearance of the pit was appalling. no small child alone at night had ever so desolate a sensation of isolation as the four in the small ship. but joe painstakingly played the buttons of the steering-rocket control board. the ship surged, and turned, and surged forward again. mike, at the communicator, said, "they say slow up, joe." joe obeyed, but he was tense. haney and the chief were at other portholes, looking out. the chief said heavily, "fellas, i'm going to admit i never felt so lonesome in my life!" "i'm glad i've got you fellows with me!" haney admitted guiltily. "the job's almost over," said joe. the ship's own hull, outside the ports, glowed suddenly in a light-beam from the platform. the small, brief surges of acceleration which sent the ship on produced tremendous emotional effects. when the platform was only one mile away, haney switched on the ship's searchlights. they stabbed through emptiness with absolutely no sign of their existence until they touched the steel hull of the satellite. mike said sharply: "slow up some more, joe." he obeyed again. it would not be a good idea to ram the platform after they had come so far to reach it. they drifted slowly, slowly, slowly toward it. the monstrous pit of darkness which was the night side of earth seemed almost about to engulf the platform. they were a few hundred feet higher than the great metal globe, and the blackness was behind it. they were a quarter of a mile away. the distance diminished. a thin straight line seemed to grow out toward them. there was a small, bulb-like object at its end. it reached out farther than was at all plausible. nothing so slender should conceivably reach so far without bending of its own weight. but of course it had no weight here. it was a plastic flexible hose with air pressure in it. it groped for the spaceship. the four in the ship held their breaths. there was a loud, metallic _clank!_ then it was possible to feel the ship being pulled toward the platform by the magnetic grapple. it was a landing-line. it was the means by which the ship would be docked in the giant lock which had been built to receive it. as they drew near, they saw the joints of the plating of the platform. they saw rivets. there was the huge, 30-foot doorway with its valves swung wide. their searchlight beam glared into it. they saw the metal floor, and the bulging plastic sidewalls, restrained by nets. they saw the inner lock-door. it seemed that men should be visible to welcome them. there were none. the airlock swallowed them. they touched against something solid. there were more clankings. they seemed to crunch against the metal floor--magnetic flooring-grapples. then, in solid contact with the substance of the platform, they heard the sounds of the great outer doors swinging shut. they were within the artificial satellite of earth. it was bright in the lock, and joe stared out the cabin ports at the quilted sides. there was a hissing of air, and he saw a swirling mist, and then the bulges of the sidewall sagged. the air pressure gauge was spinning up toward normal sea-level air pressure. joe threw the ready lever of the steering rockets to _off_. "we're landed." there was silence. joe looked about him. the other three looked queer. it would have seemed natural for them to rejoice on arriving at their destination. but somehow they didn't feel that they had. joe said wrily, "it seems that we ought to weigh something, now we've got here. so we feel queer that we don't. shoes, mike?" mike peeled off the magnetic-soled slippers from their place on the cabin wall. he handed them out and opened the door. a biting chill came in it. joe slipped on the shoe-soles with their elastic bands to hold them. he stepped out the door. he didn't land. he floated until he reached the sidewall. then he pulled himself down by the netting. once he touched the floor, his shoes seemed to be sticky. the net and the plastic sidewalls were, of course, the method by which a really large airlock was made practical. when this ship was about to take off again, pumps would not labor for hours to pump the air out. the sidewalls would inflate and closely enclose the ship's hull, and so force the air in the lock back into the ship. then the pumps would work on the air behind the inflated walls--with nets to help them draw the wall-stuff back to let the ship go free. the lock could be used with only fifteen minutes for pumping instead of four hours. the door in the back of the lock clanked open. joe tried to walk toward it. he discovered his astounding clumsiness. to walk in magnetic-soled shoes in weightlessness requires a knack. when joe lifted one foot and tried to swing the other forward, his body tried to pivot. when he lifted his right foot, he had to turn his left slightly inward. his arms tried to float absurdly upward. when he was in motion and essayed to pause, his whole body tended to continue forward with a sedate toppling motion that brought him down flat on his face. he had to put one foot forward to check himself. he seemed to have no sense of balance. when he stood still--his stomach queasy because of weightlessness--he found himself tilting undignifiedly forward or back--or, with equal unpredictability, sidewise. he would have to learn an entirely new method of walking. a man came in the lock, and joe knew who it was. sanford, the senior scientist of the platform's crew. joe had seen him often enough on the television screen in the communications room at the shed. now sanford looked nerve-racked, but his eyes were bright and his expression sardonic. "my compliments," he said, his voice tight with irony, "for a splendidly futile job well done! you've got your cargo invoice?" joe nodded. sanford held out his hand. joe fumbled in his pocket and brought out the yellow sheet. "i'd like to introduce my crew," said joe. "this is haney, and chief bender, and mike scandia." he waved his hand, and his whole body wobbled unexpectedly. "we'll know each other!" said sanford sardonically. "our first job is more futility--to get the guided missiles you've brought us into the launching tubes. a lot of good they'll do!" a huge plate in the roof of the lock--but it was not up or down or in any particular direction--withdrew itself. a man floated through the opening and landed on the ship's hull; another man followed him. "chief," said joe, "and haney. will you open the cargo doors?" the two swaying figures moved to obey, though with erratic clumsiness. sanford called sharply: "don't touch the hull without gloves! if it isn't nearly red-hot from the sunlight, it'll be below zero from shadow!" joe realized, then, the temperature effects the skin on his face noticed. a part of the spaceship's hull gave off heat like that of a panel heating installation. another part imparted a chill. sanford said unpleasantly, "you want to report your heroism, eh? come along!" he clanked to the doorway by which he had entered. joe followed, and mike after him. they went out of the lock. sanford suddenly peeled off his metal-soled slippers, put them in his pocket, and dived casually into a four-foot metal tube. he drifted smoothly away along the lighted bore, not touching the sidewalls. he moved in the manner of a dream, when one floats with infinite ease and precision in any direction one chooses. joe and mike did not share his talent. joe launched himself after sanford, and for perhaps 20 or 30 feet the lighted aluminum sidewall of the tube sped past him. then his shoulder rubbed, and he found himself skidding to an undignified stop, choking the bore. mike thudded into him. "i haven't got the hang of this yet," said joe apologetically. he untangled himself and went on. mike followed him, his expression that of pure bliss. he was a tiny man, was mike, but he had the longings and the ambitions of half a dozen ordinary-sized men in his small body. and he had known frustration. he could prove by mathematics that space exploration could be carried on by midgets at a fraction of the cost and risk of the same job done by normal-sized men. he was, of course, quite right. the cabins and air and food supplies for a spaceship's crew of midgets would cost and weigh a fraction of similar equipment for six-footers. but people simply weren't interested in sending midgets out into space. but mike had gotten here. he was in the space platform. there were full-sized men who would joyfully have changed places with him, forty-one inch height and all. so mike was blissful. the tube ended and joe bounced off the wall that faced its end. sanford was waiting. he grinned with more than a hint of spite. "here's our communications room," he said. "now you can talk down to earth. it'll be relayed, now, but in half an hour you can reach the shed direct." he floated inside. joe followed cautiously. there was another crew member on duty there. he sat before a group of radar screens, with thigh grips across his legs to hold him in his chair. he turned his head and nodded cheerfully enough. "here!" snapped sanford. joe clambered awkwardly to the seat the senior crew member pointed out. he made his way to it by handholds on the walls. he fumbled into the chair and threw over the curved thigh grips that would hold him in place. suddenly he was oriented. he had seen this room before--before the platform was launched. true, the man at the radar screens was upside-down with reference to himself, and sanford had hooked a knee negligently around the arm of a firmly anchored chair with his body at right angles to joe's own, but at least joe knew where he was and what he was to do. "go ahead and report," said sanford sardonically. "you might tell them that you heroically destroyed the rockets that attacked us, and that your crew behaved splendidly, and that you have landed in the space platform and the situation is well in hand. it isn't, but it will make nice headlines." joe said evenly, "our arrival's been reported?" "no," said sanford, grinning. "obviously the radar down on earth--shipboard ones on this hemisphere, of course--have reported that the platform still exists. but we haven't communicated since the bombs went off. they probably think we had so many punctures that we lost all our air and are all wiped out. they'll be glad to hear from you that we aren't." joe threw a switch, frowning. this wasn't right. sanford was the senior scientist on board and hence in command, because he was best-qualified to direct the scientific observations the platform was making. but there was something specifically wrong. the communicator hummed. a faint voice sounded. it swelled to loudness. "calling space platform! _calling space platform!_ calling space platform!" joe turned down the volume. he said into the microphone: "space platform calling earth. joe kenmore reporting. we have made contact with the platform and completed our landing. our cargo is now being unloaded. our landing rockets had to be expended against presumably hostile bombs, and we are now unable to return to earth. the ship and the platform, however, are unharmed. i am now waiting for orders. report ends." he turned away from the microphone. sanford said sharply, "go on! tell them what a hero you are!" "i'm going to help unload my ship," joe said shortly. "you report what you please." "get back at that transmitter!" shouted sanford furiously. "tell 'em you're a hero! tell 'em you're wonderful! i'll tell 'em how useless it is!" joe saw the other man in the room, the man at the radar screens, shake his head. he got up and fumbled his way along the wall to the door. sanford shouted after him angrily. joe went out, found the four-foot tunnel, and floated not down but along it back to the unloading lock. wordlessly, he set to work to get the cargo out of the cargo hold of the spaceship. handling objects in weightlessness which on earth would be heavy was an art in itself. two men could move tons. it needed only one man to start a massive crate in motion. however, one had either to lift or push an object in the exact line it was to follow. to thrust hard for a short time produced exactly the same effect as to push gently for a longer period. anything floated tranquilly in the line along which it was moved. the man who had to stop it, though, needed to use exactly as much energy as the man who sent it floating. he needed to check the floating thing in exactly the same line. if one tried to stop a massive shipment from one side, he would topple into it and he and the crate together would go floundering helplessly over each other. the chief had gone off to help maneuver two-ton guided missiles into launching tubes. one crew member remained with haney, unloading things that would have had to be handled with cranes on earth. joe found himself needed most in the storage chamber. a crate floated from the ship to the crewman. standing head downward, he stopped its original movement, braced himself, and sent it floating to joe. he braced himself, stopped its flight, and very slowly--to move fast with anything heavy in his hands would pull his feet from the floor--set it on a stack of similar objects which would presently be fastened in place. everything had to be done in slow motion, or one would lose his footing. joe worked painstakingly. he gradually began to understand the process. but the muscles of his stomach ached because of their continuous, instinctive cramp due to the sensation of unending fall. mike floated through the hatchway from the lock. he twisted about as he floated, and his magnetized soles clanked to a deft contact with the wall. he said calmly: "that guy sanford has cracked up. he's potty. if this were jail he'd be stir-crazy. he's yelling into the communicator now that we'll all be dead in a matter of days, and the rocket missiles we brought up won't help. he's nasty about it, too!" haney called from the cargo space of the ship in the lock: "all empty here! we're unloaded." there were sounds as he closed the cargo doors. haney, followed by the chief, came into view, floating as mike had done. but he didn't land as skillfully. he touched the wall on his hands and knees and bounced away and tried helplessly to swim to a hand-hold. it would have been funny except that joe was in no mood for humor. mike whipped off his belt and flipped the end of it to haney. he caught it and was drawn gently to the wall. haney's shoes clicked to a hold. the chief landed more expertly. "we need wings here," he said ruefully. "you reported, joe?" joe nodded. he turned to brent, the crew member who'd been unloading. he knew him too, from their two-way video conversations. "sanford does act oddly," he said uncomfortably. "when he met me in the lock he said our coming was useless. he talked about the futility of everything while i reported. he sounds like he sneers at every possible action as useless." "most likely it is," brent said mildly. "here, anyhow. it does look as if we're going to be knocked off. but sanford's taking it badly. the rest of us have let him act as he pleased because it didn't seem to matter. it probably doesn't, except that he's annoying." mike said truculently, "we won't be knocked off! we've got rockets of our own up here now! we can fight back if there's another attack!" brent shrugged. his face was young enough, but deeply lined. he said as mildly as before: "your landing rockets set off four bombs on the way from earth. you brought us six more rocket missiles. how many bombs can we knock down with them?" joe blinked. it was a shock to realize the facts of life in an artificial satellite. if it could be reached by bombs from earth, the bombs could be reached by guided missiles from the satellite. but it would take one guided missile to knock down one bomb--with luck. "i see," said joe slowly. "we can handle just six more bombs from earth." "six in the next month," agreed brent wrily. "it'll be that long before we get more. somebody sent up four bombs today. suppose they send eight next time? or simply one a day for a week?" mike made an angry noise. "the seventh bomb shot at us knocks us out! we're sitting ducks here too!" brent nodded. he said mildly: "yes. the platform can't be defended against an indefinite number of bombs from earth. of course the united states could go to war because we've been shot at. but would that do us any good? we'd be shot down in the war." joe said distastefully, "and sanford's cracked up because he knows he's going to be killed?" brent said earnestly. "oh, no! he's a good scientist! but he's always had a brilliant mind. poor devil, he's never failed at anything in all his life until now! now he _has_ failed. he's going to be killed, and he can't think of any way to stop it. his brains are the only things he's ever believed in, and now they're no good. he can't accept the idea that he's stupid, so he has to believe that everything else is. it's a necessity for him. haven't you known people who had to think everybody else was stupid to keep from knowing that they were themselves?" joe nodded. he waited. "sanford," said brent earnestly, "simply can't adjust to the discovery that he's no better than anybody else. that's all. he was a nice guy, but he's not used to frustration and he can't take it. therefore he scorns everything that frustrates him--and everything else, by necessity. he'll be scornful about getting killed when it happens. but waiting for it is becoming intolerable to him." he looked at his watch. he said apologetically, "i'm the crew psychologist. that's why i speak so firmly. in five minutes we're due to come out of the earth's shadow into sunshine again. i'd suggest that you come to watch. it's good to look at." he did not wait for an answer. he led the way. and the others followed in a strange procession. somehow, automatically, they fell into single file, and they moved on their magnetic-soled slippers toward a passage tube in one wall. their slipper soles clanked and clicked in an erratic rhythm. brent walked with the mincing steps necessary for movement in weightlessness. the others imitated him. their hands no longer hung naturally by their sides, but tended to make extravagant gestures with the slightest muscular impulse. they swayed extraordinarily as they walked. brent was a slender figure, and joe was more thick-set, and haney was taller, and lean. the burly chief and the forty-one inch figure of mike the midget followed after them. they made a queer procession indeed. minutes later they were in a blister on the skin of the platform. there were quartz glass ports in the sidewall. outside the glass were metal shutters. brent served out dense goggles, almost black, and touched the buttons that opened the steel port coverings. they looked into space. the dimmer stars were extinguished by the goggles they wore. the brighter ones seemed faint and widely spaced. beneath their feet as they held to handrails lay the featureless darkness of earth. but before them and very far away there was a vast, dim arch of deepest red. it was sunlight filtered through the thickest layers of earth's air. it barely outlined the curve of that gigantic globe. as they stared, it grew brighter. the artificial satellite required little more than four hours for one revolution about its primary, the earth. to those aboard it, the earth would go through all its phases in no longer a time. they saw now the thinnest possible crescent of the new earth. but in minutes--almost in seconds--the deep red sunshine brightened to gold. the hair-thin line of light widened to a narrow ribbon which described an eight-thousand-mile half-circle. it brightened markedly at the middle. it remained red at its ends, but in the very center it glowed with splendid flame. then a golden ball appeared, and swam up and detached itself from the earth, and the on-lookers saw the breath-taking spectacle of all of earth's surface seemingly being born of the night. as if new-created before their eyes, seas and lands unfolded in the sunlight. they watched flecks of cloud and the long shadows of mountains, and the strangely different colorings of its fields and forests. as brent had told them, it was good to watch. it was half an hour later when they gathered in the kitchen of the platform. the man who had been loading launching tubes now briskly worked to prepare a meal on the extremely unusual cooking-devices of a human outpost in interplanetary space. the food smelled good. but joe noticed that he could smell growing things. green stuff. it was absurd--until he remembered that there was a hydroponic garden here. plants grew in it under sunlamps which were turned on for a certain number of hours every day. the plants purified the platform's air, and of course provided some fresh and nourishing food for the crew. they ate. the food was served in plastic bowls, with elastic thread covers through which they could see and choose the particular morsels they fancied next. the threads stretched to let through the forks they ate with. but brent used a rather more practical pair of tongs in a businesslike manner. they drank coffee from cups which looked very much like ordinary cups on earth. joe remembered suddenly that sally holt had had much to do with the design of domestic science arrangements here. he regarded his cup with interest. it stayed in its saucer because of magnets in both plastic articles. the saucer stayed on the table because the table was magnetic, too. and the coffee did not float out to mid-air in a hot, round brownish ball, because there was a transparent cover over the cup. when one put his lips to the proper edge, a part of the cover yielded as the cup was squeezed. the far side of the cup was flexible. one pressed, and the coffee came into one's lips without the spilling of a drop. at that moment joe really thought of sally for the first time in a good two hours. she'd been anxious that living in the platform should be as normal and earth-like as possible. the total absence of weight would be bad enough. she believed it needed to be countered, as a psychological factor in staying sane, by the effect of normal-seeming chairs and normal-tasting food, and not too exotic systems for eating. joe asked brent about it. "oh, yes," said brent mildly. "it's likely we'd all have gone off the deep end if there weren't some familiar things about. to have to drink from a cup that one squeezes is tolerable. but we'd have felt hysterical at times if we had to drink everything from the equivalent of baby bottles." "sally holt," said joe, "is a friend of mine. she helped design this stuff." "that girl has every ounce of brains that any woman can be trusted with!" brent said warmly. "she thought of things that would never have occurred to me! as a psychologist, i could see how good her ideas were when she brought them up, but as a male i'd never have dreamed of them." then he grinned. "she fell down on just one point. so did everybody else. nobody happened to think of a garbage-disposal system for the platform." it came into joe's mind that garbage-disposal was hardly a subject one would expect to be discussing in interplanetary space. but the platform wasn't the same thing as a spaceship. a ship could jettison refuse and leave it behind, or store it during a voyage and dump it at either end. but the space platform would never land. it could roll on forever. and if it heaved out its refuse from airlocks--why--the stuff would still have the platform's orbital speed and would follow it tirelessly around the earth until the end of time. "we dry and store it now," said brent. "if we were going to live, we'd figure out some way to turn it to fertilizer for the hydroponic gardens. it's hardly worth while as things are. even then, though, the problem of tin cans could be hopeless." the chief wiped his mouth deliberately. he had helped load four guided-missile launching tubes, and he had been brought up to date on the state of things in the platform. he growled in a preliminary fashion and said, "joe." joe looked at him. "we brought up six two-ton guided missiles," said the chief dourly. "we'll have warning of other bombs coming up. we can send these missiles out to intercept 'em. six of 'em. they can get close enough to set off their proximity fuses, anyhow. but what are we going to do, joe, if somebody flings seven bombs at us? we can manage six--maybe. but what'll we do with the one that's left over?" "have you any ideas?" asked joe. the chief shook his head. brent said mildly. "we've worked on that here in the platform, i assure you. and as sanford puts it quite soundly, about the only thing we can really do is throw our empty tin cans at them." joe nodded. then he tensed. brent had meant it as a rather mirthless joke. but joe was astonished at what his own brain made of it. he thought it over. then he said, "why not? it ought to be a very good trick." brent stared at him incredulously. haney looked solemnly at him. the chief regarded joe thoughtfully out of the corner of his eye. then mike shouted gleefully. the chief blinked, and a moment later grunted wrathful unintelligible syllables of mohawk, and then tried to pound joe on the back and because of his want of weight went head over heels into the air between the six walls of the kitchen. haney said disgustedly, "joe, there are times when a guy wants to murder you! why didn't i think of that?" but brent was looking at the four of them with a lively, helpless curiosity. "will you guys let me in on this?" they told him. joe began to explain it carefully, but the chief broke in with a barked and impatient description, and then mike interrupted to snap a correction. but by that time brent's expression had changed with astonishing suddenness. "i see! i see!" he said excitedly. "all right! have you got space suits in your ship? we have them. so we'll go out and pelt the stars with garbage. i think we'd better get at it right now, too. in under two hours we'll be a fine target for more bombs, and it would be good to start ahead of time." mike made a gesture and went floating out of the kitchen, air-swimming to go get space suits from the ship. the grin on his small face threatened to cut his throat. joe asked, "sanford's in command. how'll he like this idea?" brent hesitated. "i'm afraid," he said regretfully, "he won't like it. if you solve a problem he gave up, it will tear his present adjustment to bits. he's gone psychotic. i think, though, that he'll allow it to be tried while he swears at us for fools. he's most likely to react that way if you suggest it." "then," agreed joe, "i suggest it. chief----" the chief raised a large brown hand. "i got the program, joe," he said. "we'll all get set." and joe went floating unhappily through passage-tubes to the control room. he heard sanford's voice, sardonic and mocking, as he reached the communications room door. "what do you expect?" sanford was saying derisively. "we're clay pigeons. we're a perfect target. we've just so much ammunition now. you say you may send us more in three weeks instead of a month. i admire your persistence, but it's really no use! this is all a very stupid business...." he felt joe's presence. he turned, and then sharply struck the communicator switch with the heel of his hand. the image on the television screen died. the voice cut off. he said blandly: "well?" "i want," said joe, "to take a garbage-disposal party out on the outside of the platform. i came to ask for authority." sanford looked at him in mocking surprise. "to be sure it seems as intelligent as anything else the human race has ever done," he observed. "but why does it appeal to you as something you want to do?" "i think," joe told him, "that we can make a defense against bombs from earth with our empty tin cans." sanford raised his eyebrows. "if you happen to have a four-leaf clover with you," he said in fine irony, "i'm told they're good, too." his eyes were bright and scornful. his manner was feverishly derisive. joe would have done well to let it go at that. but he was nettled. "we set off the last bombs," he said doggedly, "by shooting our landing rockets at them. they didn't collide with the bombs. they simply touched off the bombs' proximity fuses. if we surround the platform with a cluster of tin cans and such things, they may do as well. things we throw away won't drop to earth. ultimately, they'll actually circle us, like satellites themselves. but if we can get enough of them between us and earth, any bombs that come up will have their proximity fuses detonated by the floating trash we throw out." sanford laughed. "we might ask for aluminum-foil ribbon to come up in the next supply ship," said joe. "we could have masses of that, or maybe metallic dust floating around us." "i much prefer used tin cans," said sanford humorously. "i'll take the watch here and let everybody go out with you. by all means we must defend ourselves. forward with the garbage! go ahead!" his eyes were almost hysterically scornful as he waited for joe to leave. joe did not like it at all, but there was nothing to do but get out. he found the chief with a net bag filled with emptied tin cans. haney had another. there were two more, carried by members of the platform's four-man crew. they were donning their space suits when joe came upon them. mike was grotesque in the cut-down outfit built for him. actually, the only difference was in the size of the fabric suit and the length of the arms and legs. he could carry a talkie outfit with its batteries, and the oxygen tank for breathing as well as anybody, since out here weight did not count at all. there were plastic ropes, resistant to extremes of temperature. joe got into his own space suit. it was no such self-contained space craft in itself as the fantastic story tellers dreamed of. it was not much more than an altitude suit, aluminized to withstand the blazing heat of sunshine in emptiness, and with extravagantly insulated soles to the magnetic boots. in theory, there simply is no temperature in space. in practice, a metal hull heats up in sunshine to very much more than any record-hot-day temperature on earth. in shadow, too, a metal hull will drop very close to minus 250 degrees centigrade, which is something like 400 degrees fahrenheit below zero. but mainly the space boots were insulated against the almost dull-red-heat temperatures of long-continued sunshine. a crewman named corey moved into an airlock with one of the bags of empty tin cans. brent watched in a routine fashion through a glass in the lock-door. the pumps began to exhaust the air from the airlock. corey's space suit inflated visibly. presently the pump stopped. corey opened the outer door. he went out, paying plastic rope behind him. an instant later he reappeared and removed the rope. he'd made his line fast outside. he closed the outer lock-door. air surged into the lock and haney crowded in. again the pumping. then haney went out, and was anchored to the platform not only by his magnetic boots but by a rope fastened to a hand-hold. brent went out. mike. joe came next. they stood on the hull of the space platform, waiting in the incredible harsh sunshine of emptiness. the bright steel plates of the hull swelled and curved away on every hand. there were myriads of stars and the vast round bulk of earth seemed farther away to a man in a space suit than to a man looking out a port. where shadows cut across the platform's irregular surface, there was utter blackness. also there was horrible frigidity. elsewhere it was blindingly bright. the men were specks of humanity standing on a shining metal hull, and all about them there was the desolation of nothingness. but joe felt strangely proud. the seventh man came out of the lock-door. they tied their plastic ropes together and spread out in a long line which went almost around the platform. the man next to the lock was anchored to a steel hand-hold. the third man of the line also anchored himself. the fifth. the seventh. they were a straggling line of figures with impossibly elongated shadows, held together by ropes. they were peculiarly like a party of weirdly costumed mountaineers on a glacier of gleaming silver. but no mountain climbers ever had a background of ten thousand million stars, peering up from below them as well as from overhead. nor did any ever have a mottled greenish planet rolling by 4,000 miles beneath them, nor a blazing sun glaring down at them from a sky such as this. in particular, perhaps, no other explorers ever set out upon an expedition whose purpose was to throw tin cans and dried refuse at all the shining cosmos. they set to work. the space suits were inevitably clumsy. it was not easy to throw hard with only magnetism to hold one to his feet. it was actually more practical to throw straight up with an underhand gesture. but even that would send the tin cans an enormous distance, in time. there was no air to slow them. the tin cans twinkled as they left the platform's steel expanse. they moved away at a speed of possibly 20 to 30 miles an hour. they floated off in all possible directions. they would never reach earth, of course. they shared the platform's orbital speed, and they would circle the earth with it forever. but when they were thrown away, their orbits were displaced a little. each can thrown downward just now, for example, would always be between the platform and the earth on this side of its orbit. but on the other side of earth it would be above the platform. the platform, in fact, became the center of a swarm, a cluster, a cloud of infinitesimal objects which would always accompany it and always be in motion with regard to it. together, they should make up a screen no proximity fuse bomb could pierce without exploding. joe heard clankings, transmitted to his body through his feet. "what's that?" he demanded sharply. "it sounds like the airlock!" voices mingled in his ears. the other walkie-talkies allowed everybody to speak at once. most of them did. then joe heard someone laugh. it was sanford's voice. sandford's aluminized, space-suited figure came clanking around the curve of the small metal world. the antenna of his walkie-talkie glittered above his head. he seemed to swagger against the background of many-colored stars. brent spoke quickly, before anyone else could question sanford. his tone was mild and matter of fact, but joe somehow knew the tension behind it. "hello, sanford. you came out? was it wise? shouldn't there be someone inside the platform?" sanford laughed again. "it was very wise. we're going to be killed, as you fellows know perfectly well. it's futile to try to avoid it. so very sensibly i've decided to spare myself the nuisance of waiting to be killed. i came out." there was silence in the ear-phones of joe's space suit radio. he heard his own heart beating loudly and steadily in the absolute stillness. "incidentally," said sanford with almost hysterical amusement, "i fixed it so that none of us can get back in. it would be useless, anyhow. everything's futility. so i've put an end to our troubles for good. i've locked us all out." he laughed yet again. and joe knew that in sanford's madness it was perfectly possible for him to have done exactly what he said. there were eight human beings on the platform. all were now outside it, on its outer skin. they wore space suits with from half an hour to an hour's oxygen supply. they had no tools with which to break back into the satellite. and no help could possibly reach them in less than three weeks. if they couldn't get back inside the platform, sanford, laughing proudly, had killed them all. 4 there was a babbling of angry, strained, tense voices in joe's headphones. then the chief roared for silence. it fell, save for sanford's quiet, hysterical chuckling. joe found himself rather absurdly thinking that sanford was not actually insane, except as any man may be who believes only in his own cleverness. sooner or later it is bound to fail him. on earth, sanford's pride in his own intellect had been useful. he had been brilliant because he accepted every problem and every difficulty as a challenge. but with the platform's situation seemingly hopeless, he'd been starkly unable to face the fact that he wasn't clever or brilliant or intelligent enough. if joe's solution to the proximity fuse bombs had been offered before his emotional collapse, he could have accepted it grandly, and in so doing have made it his own. but it was too late for that now. he'd given up and worked up a frantic scorn for the universe he could not cope with. for joe's trick to work would have made him inferior even to joe in his own view. and he couldn't have that! even to die, with the prospect that others would survive him, was an intolerable prospect. he had to be smarter than anybody else. so he chuckled. the chief roared wrathfully into his transmitter: "quiet! this crazy fool's tried to commit suicide for all of us! how about it? why can't we get back in? how many locks----" joe found himself thinking hard. he could be angry later. now there wasn't time. thirty or forty minutes of breathing. no tools. a steel hull. the airlocks were naturally arranged for the greatest possible safety under normal conditions. in every airlock it had naturally been arranged so that the door to space and the door to the interior could not be open at the same time. that was to save lives. to save air, it would naturally be arranged that the door to space couldn't be opened until the lock was pumped empty. that in itself could be an answer. joe said sharply, "hold it, chief! somebody watch sanford! all we've got to do is find which lock he came out of. he couldn't get out until he pumped it empty--and that unlocks the outer door!" but sanford laughed once more. he sounded like someone in the highest of high good humor. "heroic again, eh? but i took a compressed air bottle in the lock with me. when the outer door was open, i opened the stopcock and shut the door. the air bottle filled the lock behind me. naturally i'd fasten the door after i came out! one must be intelligent!" joe heard brent muttering, "yes, he'd do that!" "somebody check it!" snapped joe. "make sure! it might amuse him to watch us die while he knew we could get back in if we were as smart as he is." there were clankings on the hull. men moved, unfastening the lines which held them to the hull to get freedom of movement, but not breaking the links which bound them to each other. joe saw haney go grimly back to the task of throwing away the stuff that they had brought out for the purpose. then mike's voice, brittle and cagey: "haney! quit it!" sanford's voice again, horribly amused. "by all means! don't throw away our garbage! we may need it!" a voice snapped, "this lock's fastened." another voice: "and this...." other voices, with increasing desperation, verified that every airlock was implacably sealed fast by the presence of air pressure inside the lock itself. time was passing. joe had never noticed, before, the minute noises of the air pressure apparatus strapped to his back. his exhaled breath went to a tiny pump that forced it through a hygroscopic filter which at once extracted excess moisture and removed carbon dioxide. the same pump carefully measured a volume of oxygen equal to the removed co_2 and added it to the air it released. the pump made very small sounds indeed, and the valves were almost noiseless, but joe could hear their clickings. something burned him. he had been standing perfectly still while trying to concentrate on a way out. sunshine had shone uninterruptedly on one side of his space suit for as long as five minutes. despite the insulation inside, that was too long. he turned quickly to expose another part of himself to the sunlight. he knew abstractedly that the metal underfoot would sear bare flesh that touched it. a few yards away, in the shadow, the metal of the hull would be cold enough to freeze hydrogen. but here it was fiercely hot. it would melt solder. it might-mike was fumbling tin cans out of the net bag from which haney had been throwing them away. he was a singular small figure, standing on shining steel, looking at one tin can after another and impatiently putting them aside. he found one that seemed to suit him. it was a large can. he knelt with it, pressing a part of it to the hot metal of the satellite's hull. a moment later he was ripping it apart. the solder had softened. he unrolled a sort of cylinder, then bent again, using the curved inner surface to concentrate the intolerable sunshine. joe caught his breath at the implication. concentrated sunshine can be incredibly hot. starting with unshielded, empty-space sunshine, practically any imaginable temperature is possible with a large enough mirror. mike didn't have a concave mirror. he had only a cylindrical one. he couldn't reflect light to a point, but only to a line. mike couldn't hope to do more than double or triple the temperature of a given spot. but considering what he wore on his back--! joe made his way clumsily to the spot where mike now gesticulated to haney, trying to convey his meaning by gestures since sanford would overhear any spoken word. "i get it, mike," said joe. "i'll help." he added: "chief! you watch sanford. the rest of you try to flatten out some tin cans or find some with flat round ends!" he reached the spot where mike bent over the plating. his hand moved to cast a shadow where the light had played. "i need more reflectors," mike said brusquely, "but we can do it!" joe beckoned. there were more, hurried clankings. space-suited figures gathered about. the platform rolled on through space. where it was bright it was very, very bright, and where it was dark it was blackness. off in emptiness the many-colored mass of earth shone hugely, rolling past. innumerable incurious stars looked on. the sun flamed malevolently. the moon floated abstractedly far away. mike was bent above a small round airlock door. he had a distorted half-cylinder of sheet tin between his space-gloved hands. it reflected a line of intensified sunlight to the edge of the airlock seal. haney ripped fiercely at other tin cans. joe held another strip of polished metal. it focused crudely--very crudely--on top of mike's line of reflected sunshine. someone else held the end of a tin can to reflect more sunshine. someone else had a larger disk of tin. they stood carefully still. it looked completely foolish. there were six men in frozen attitudes, trying to reflect sunshine down to a single blindingly-bright spot on an airlock door. they seemed breathlessly tense. they ignored the glories of the firmament. they were utterly absorbed in trying to make a spot of unbearable brightness glow more brightly still. mike moved his hand to cast a shadow. the steel was a little more than red-hot for the space of an inch. it would not melt, of course. it could not. and they had no tools to bend or pierce the presumably softened metal. but mike said fiercely: "keep it hot!" he squirmed. his space suit was fabric, like the rest, but it had been cut down to permit him to use it. it was bulkier on him than the suits of the others. he shifted his shoulder pack. the brass valve-nipple by which the oxygen tank was filled.... he jammed a ragged fragment of tin in place. he pressed down fiercely. a blazing jet of fierce, scintillating, streaking sparks leaped up from the spot where the metal glowed brightly. a hollow in the metal plate appeared. the metal disintegrated in gushing flecks of light.... white-hot iron in pure oxygen happens to be inflammable. iron is not incombustible at all. powdered steel, ground fine enough, will burn if simply exposed to air. really fine steel wool will make an excellent blaze if a match is touched to it. white-hot iron, with a jet of oxygen played upon it, explodes to steaming sparks. technically, mike had used the perfectly well-known trick of an oxygen lance to pierce the airlock door, let the air out of the lock, and so allow the outer door to be opened. there was a rush of vapor. the door was drilled through. haney picked mike up bodily, joe heaved the door open, and haney climbed into it, practically carrying mike by the scruff of the neck. joe panted, "plug the hole from the inside. sit on it if you have to!" and slammed the door shut. they waited. sanford's voice came in the ear-phones. it was higher in pitch than it had been. "you fools!" he raged. "it's useless! it's stupid to do useless things! it's stupid to do anything at all--" there were sudden scuffling clankings. joe swung about. the chief and sanford were struggling. sanford flailed his arms about, trying to break the chief's faceplate while he screamed furious things about futility. the chief got exactly the hold he wanted. he lifted sanford from the metal deck. he could have thrown him away to emptiness, then, but he did not. he set sanford in mid-space as if upon a shelf. the raging man hung in the void an exact man-height above the platform's surface. the chief drew back and left him there, sanford could writhe there for a century before the platform's infinitesimal gravity brought him down. "huh!" said the chief wrathfully. "how's haney and mike making out?" almost on the instant, twenty yards away, a tiny airlock door thrust out from the surface of glittering metal, and helmet and antenna appeared. "you guys can come in now," said haney's voice in joe's headphones. "it's all okay. mike's pumping out the other locks too, so you can come in at any of 'em." the space-suited figures clumped loudly to airlock doors. there were a dozen or more small airlocks in various parts of the hull, besides the great door to admit supply ships. the chief growled and moved toward sanford now raging like the madman his helplessness made him. "no," said joe shortly. "he'd fight again. go inside. that's an order, chief." the chief grunted and obeyed. joe went to the nearest airlock and entered the great steel hull. sanford floated in emptiness, two yards from the space platform he would have turned into a derelict. he did not move farther away. he did not fall toward it. there was nobody to listen to him. he cried out in blood-curdling fury because other men were smarter than he was. other men had solved problems he could not solve. other men were his superiors. he screamed his rage. presently the platform revolved slowly beneath him. it was turned, of course, by the monster gyros which in turn were controlled by the pilot gyros joe and haney and the chief and mike had repaired when saboteurs smashed them. the platform rotated sedately. a great gap appeared in it. the door of the supply ship lock moved until sanford, floating helplessly, was opposite its mouth. a rod with a rounded object at its end appeared past the docked supply ship. it reached out and touched sanford's helmet. it was the magnetic grapple which drew space ships into their dock. it drew sanford, squirming and streaming, into the great lock. the outer doors closed. before air was admitted to the inside, sanford went suddenly still. when they took him out of his suit he was apparently unconscious. he could not be roused. freed, he drew his knees up to his chin in the position in which primitive peoples bury their dead. he seemed to sleep. brent examined him carefully. "catatonia," he said distastefully. "he spent his life thinking he was smarter than anybody else--smarter, probably, than all the universe. he believed it. he couldn't face the fact that he was wrong. he couldn't stay conscious and not know it. so he's blacked out. he refuses to be anything unless he can be smartest. we'll have to do artificial feeding and all that until we can get him down to earth to a hospital." he shrugged. "we'd better report this down to earth," joe said. "by the way, better not describe our screen of tin cans on radio waves. not even microwaves. it might leak. and we want to see if it works." just forty-two hours later they found out that it did work. a single rocket came climbing furiously out from earth. it came from the night-side, and they could not see where it was launched, though they could make excellent guesses. they got a single guided missile ready to crash it if necessary. it wasn't necessary. the bomb from earth detonated 300 miles below the artificial satellite. its proximity fuse, sending out small radar-type waves, had them reflected back by an empty sardine can thrown away from the platform by mike scandia forty-some hours ago. the sardine can had been traveling in its own private orbit ever since. the effect of mike's muscles had not been to send it back to earth, but to change the center of the circular orbit in which it floated. sometimes it floated above the platform--that was on one side of earth--and sometimes below it. it was about 300 miles under the platform when it reflected urgent, squealing radar frequency waves to a complex proximity fuse in the climbing rocket. the rocket couldn't tell the difference between a sardine can and a space platform. it exploded with a blast of pure brightness like that of the sun. the platform went on its monotonous round about the planet from which it had risen only weeks before. sanford was strapped in a bunk and fed through a tube, and on occasion massaged and variously tended to keep him alive. the men on the platform worked. they made telephoto maps of earth. they took highly magnified, long-exposure photographs of mars, pictures that could not possibly be made with such distinctness from the bottom of earth's turbulent ocean of air. there was a great deal of official business to be done. weather observations of the form and distribution of cloud masses were an important matter. the platform could make much more precise measurements of the solar constant than could be obtained below. the flickering radar was gathering information for studies of the frequency and size of meteoric particles outside the atmosphere. there was the extremely important project for securing and sealing in really good vacua in various electronic devices brought up by joe and his crew in the supply ship. but sometimes joe managed to talk to sally. it was very satisfying to see her on the television screen in personal conversation. their talk couldn't be exactly private, because it could be picked up elsewhere. it probably was. but she told joe how she felt, and she wanted to read him the newspaper stories based on the reports brent had sent down. brent was in command of the platform now that sanford lay in a resolute coma in his bunk. but joe discouraged such waste of time. "how's the food?" asked sally. "are you people getting any fresh vegetables from the hydroponic garden?" they were, and joe told her so. the huge chamber in which sun-lamps glowed for a measured number of hours in each twenty-four produced incredibly luxuriant vegetation. it kept the air of the ship breathable. it even changed the smell of it from time to time, so that there was no feeling of staleness. "and the cooking system's really good?" she wanted to know. sally was partly responsible for that, too. "and how about the bunks?" "i sleep now," joe admitted. that had been difficult. it was possible to get used to weightlessness while awake. one would slip, sometimes, and find himself suddenly tense and panicky because he'd abruptly noticed all over again that he was falling. but--and yet again sally was partly responsible--the bunks were designed to help in that difficulty. each bunk had an inflatable top blanket. one crawled in and settled down, and turned the petcock that inflated the cover. then it held one quite gently but reassuringly in place. it was possible to stir and to turn over, but the feeling of being held fast was very comforting. with a little care about what one thought of before going to sleep, one could get a refreshing eight hours' rest. the bunks were luxury. sally said: "the date and time's a secret, of course, because it might be overheard, but there'll be another ship up before too long. it's bringing landing rockets for you to come back with." "that's good!" said joe. it would feel good to set foot on solid ground again. he looked at sally and said eagerly, "we've got a date the evening i get back?" "we've got a date," she said, nodding. but it couldn't very well be a definite date. there were people with ideas that ran counter to plans for joe to get back to earth and a date with sally holt. the space platform was not admired uniformly by all the nations of earth. the united states had built it because the united nations couldn't, and one of the attractions of the idea had been that once it got out to space and was armed, peace must reign upon earth because it could smack down anybody who made war. the trouble was that it wasn't armed well enough. six guided missiles couldn't defend it indefinitely. it looked as helpless as isolated berlin did before the first airlift proved what men and planes could do in the way of transport. and the platform's enemies didn't intend for it to be saved by a rocketlift. they would try to smash it before such a lift could get started. a week after joe got to it with the guided missiles, three rockets attacked. they went up from somewhere in the middle of the pacific. one blew up 250 miles below the platform. another detonated 190 miles away. for safety's sake the third was crashed--at the cost of one guided missile--when it had come within 50 miles. the screen of tin cans worked, but it wasn't thick enough. the occupants of the platform went about hunting for sheet metal that could be spared. they pulled out minor partitions here and there, and went out on the surface and threw away thousands of small glittering scraps of metal in all directions. two weeks later, there was another attack. it could be calculated that joe couldn't have carried up more than six guided missiles. there might be as few as two of them left. so eight rockets came up together--and the first of them went off 400 miles from the platform. only one got as close as 200 miles. no guided missiles were expended in defense. the platform's enemies tried once more. this time the rockets arched up above the platform's orbit and dived on the satellite from above. there were two of them. they went off at 180 and 270 miles from the platform. joe's trash screen would not work on earth, but in space it was an adequate defense against anything equipped with proximity fuses. it could be assumed that in a full-scale space-war nuts, bolts, rusty nails and beer bottle caps would become essential military equipment. three days after this last attack, a second supply ship took off from earth. lieutenant commander brown was a passenger. its start was just like the one joe's ship had made. pushpots lifted it, jatos hurled it on, and then the furious, flaming take-off rockets drove it valiantly out toward the stars. joe's ship had been moved out of the landing lock and was moored against the platform's hull. the second ship made contact in two hours and seventeen minutes from take-off. it arrived with its own landing rockets intact, and it brought a set of forty-foot metal tubes for joe's ship to get back to earth with. but those landing rockets and lieutenant commander brown constituted all its payload. it couldn't bring up anything else. and lieutenant commander brown called a very formal meeting in the huge living space at the platform's center. he stood up grandly in full uniform--and had to hook his feet around a chair leg to keep from floating absurdly in mid-air. this detracted slightly from the dignity of his stance, but not from the official voice with which he read two documents aloud. the first paper detached lieutenant commander brown from his regular naval duties and assigned him pro tem to service with the space exploration project. the second was an order directing him to take command and assume direction of the space platform. having read his orders, he cleared his throat and said cordially, "i am honored to serve here with you. frankly, i expect to learn much from you and to have very few orders to give. i expect merely to exercise such authority as experience at sea has taught me is necessary for a tight and happy ship. i trust this will be one." he beamed. nobody was impressed. it was perfectly obvious that he'd simply been sent up to acquire experience in space for later naval use, and that he'd been placed in command because it was unthinkable that he serve under anyone without official rank and authority. and he quite honestly believed that his coming, with experience in command, was a blessing to the platform. in fact, there was no danger that this commander of the platform would crack up under stress as sanford had. but it was too bad that he hadn't brought some long-range guided missiles with him. joe's ship had brought up twenty tons of cargo and twenty tons of landing rockets. the second ship brought up twenty tons of landing rockets for joe, and twenty tons of landing rockets for itself. that was all. the second trip out to the space platform was a rescue mission and nothing else. arithmetic wouldn't let it be anything else. and there couldn't be any idea of noble self-sacrifice and staying out at the platform, either, because only four ships like joe's had been begun, and only two were even near completion. joe's had taken off the instant it was finished. the second had done the same. the second pair of spaceships wouldn't be ready for two months or more. the ships that could be used had to be used. so, only thirty-six hours after the arrival of the second rocketship at the platform, the two of them took off together to return to earth. joe's ship left the airlock first. sanford was loaded in the cabin of the other ship as cargo. lieutenant commander brown stayed out at the platform to replace him. obviously, in order to get back to earth they headed away from it in fleet formation. they pointed their rounded noses toward the milky way. the upward course was an application of the principle that made the screen of tin cans and oddments remain about the platform. each of those small objects had had the platform's own velocity and orbit. thrown away from it, the centers of their orbits changed. in theory, the center of the platform's orbit was the center of earth. but the centers of the orbits of the thrown-away objects were pushed a few miles--twenty--fifty--a hundred--away from the center of earth. the returning space ships also had the orbit and speed of the platform. they wanted to shift the centers of their orbits by very nearly 4,000 miles, so that at one point they would just barely graze earth's atmosphere, lose some speed to it, and then bounce out to empty space again before they melted. cooled off, they'd make another grazing bounce. after eight such bounces they'd stay in the air, and the stubby fins would give them a sort of gliding angle and controllability, while the landing rockets would let them down to solid ground. or so it was hoped. meanwhile they headed out instead of in toward earth. they went out on their steering-rockets only, using the liquid fuel that had not been needed for course correction on the way out. at 4,000 miles up, the force of gravity is just one-fourth of that at the earth's surface. it still exists; it is merely canceled out in an orbit. the ships could move outward at less cost in fuel than they could move in. so they went out and out on parallel courses, and the platform dwindled behind them. night flowed below until the hull of the artificial satellite shone brightly against a background of seeming sheer nothingness. the twilight zone of earth's shadow reached the platform. it glowed redly, glowed crimson, glowed the deepest possible color that could be seen, and winked out. the ships climbed on, using their tiny steering rockets. nothing happened. the ships drew away from each other for safety. they were 50, then 60 miles apart. one glowed red and vanished in the shadow of the earth. the other was extinguished in the same way. then they went hurtling through the blackness of the night side of earth. microwaves from the ground played upon them--radar used by friend and foe alike--and the friendly radar guided tight-beam communicator waves to them with comforting assurance that their joint course and height and speed were exactly the calculated optimum. but they could not be seen at all. when they appeared again they were still farther out from earth than the platform's orbit, but no farther from each other. and they were descending. the centers of their orbits had been displaced very, very far indeed. going out, naturally, the ships had lost angular speed as they gained in height. descending, they gained in angular velocity as they lost height. they were not quite 30 miles apart as they sped with increasing, headlong speed and rushed toward the edge of the world's disk. when they were only 2,000 miles high, the earth's surface under them moved much faster than it had on the way up. when they were only 1,000 miles high, the seas and continents seemed to flow past like a rushing river. at 500 miles, mountains and plains were just distinguishable as they raced past underneath. at 200 miles there was merely a churning, hurtling surface on which one could not focus one's eyes because of the speed of its movement. they missed the solid surface of earth by barely 40 miles. they were moving at a completely impossible speed. the energy of their position 4,000 miles high had been transformed into kinetic energy of motion. and at 40 miles there is something very close to a vacuum, compared to sea-level. but compared to true emptiness, and at the speed of meteors, the thin air had a violent effect. a thin humming sound began. it grew louder. the substance of the ship was responding to the impact of the thin air upon it. the sound rose to a roar, to a bellow, to a thunderous tumult. the ship quivered and trembled. it shook. a violent vibration set up and grew more and more savage. the whole ship shook with a dreadful persistence, each vibration more monstrous, more straining, more ominous than before. the four in the space ship cabin knew torture. weight returned to them, weight more violent than the six gravities they had known for a bare fourteen seconds at take-off. but that, at least, had been smoothly applied. this was deceleration at a higher figure yet, and accompanied by the shaking of bodies which weighed seven times as much as ever before--and bodies, too, which for weeks past had been subject to no weight at all. they endured. nothing at all could be done. at so many miles per second no possible human action could be determined upon and attempted in time to have any effect upon the course of the ship. joe could see out a quartzite port. the ground 40 miles below was merely a blur. there was a black sky overhead, which did not seem to stir. but cloud-masses rushed at express-train speed below him, and his body weighed more than half a ton, and the ship made the sound of innumerable thunders and shook, and shook and shook.... and then, when it seemed that it must fly utterly to pieces, the thunder diminished gradually to a bellow, and the bellow to a roar, and the roaring.... and the unthinkable weight oppressing him grew less. the earth was farther away and moving farther still. they were 100 miles high. they were 200 miles high.... there was no longer any sound at all, except their gaspings for breath. their muscles had refused to lift their chests at all during the most brutal of the deceleration period. presently joe croaked a question. he looked at the hull-temperature indicators. they were very, very high. he found that he was bruised where he had strapped himself in. the places where each strap had held his heavy body against the ship's vibrations were deeply black-and-blue. the chief said thickly: "joe, somehow i don't think this is going to work. when do we hit again?" "three hours plus or minus something," said joe, dry-throated. "we'll hear from the ground." mike said in a cracked voice: "radar reports we went a little bit too low. they think we weren't tilted up far enough. we didn't bounce as soon as we should." joe unstrapped himself. "how about the other ship?" "it did better than we did," said mike. "it's a good 200 miles ahead. down at the shed, they're recalculating for us. we'll have to land with six grazes instead of eight. we lost too much speed." joe went staggering, again weightless, to look out a port for the other ship. he should have known better. one does not spot an eighty-foot space ship with the naked eye when it is 200 miles away. but he saw something, though for seconds he didn't know what it was. now the little ship was 300 miles high and still rising. joe was dazed and battered by the vibration of the ship in the graze just past. the sister space ship hadn't lost speed so fast. it would be traveling faster. it would be leaving him farther behind every second. it was rising more sharply. it would rise higher. joe stared numbly out of a port, thinking confusedly that his hull would be dull red on its outer surface, though the heating had been so fast that the inner surfaces of the plating might still be cold. he saw the vast area which was the curve of the edge of the world. he saw the sunlight upon clouds below and glimpses of the surface of the earth itself. and he saw something rising out of the mists at the far horizon. it was a thread of white vapor. the other rocketship was a speck, a mote, invisible because of its size and distance. this thread of vapor was already 100 miles long, and it expanded to a column of whiteness half a mile across before it seemed to dissipate. it rose and rose, as if following something which sped upward. it was a rocket trail. the violence of its writhings proved the fury with which the rocket climbed. it was on its way to meet the other space ship. it did. joe saw the thread of vapor extend and grow until it was higher than he was. he never saw the other ship, which was too small. but he saw the burst of flame, bright as the sun itself, which was the explosion of a proximity fuse bomb. he knew, then, that nothing but incandescent, radioactive gas remained of the other ship and its crew. then he saw the trail of the second rocket. it was rising to meet him. 5 the four of them watched through the ports as the thread of vapor sped upward. they hated the rocket and the people who had built it. joe said between his teeth, "we could spend our landing-rockets and make it chase us, but it'll have fuel for that!" the chief muttered in mohawk. the words sounded as if they ought to have blue fire at their edges and smell of sulphur. mike the midget said crackling things in his small voice. haney stared, his eyes burning. their ship was a little over 400 miles up, now. the rocket was 100 or better. the rendezvous would be probably 200 miles ahead and correspondingly higher. the rocket was accelerating furiously. it had farther to travel, but its rate of climb was already enormous and it increased every second. the ship could swing to right or left on steering rockets, but the war rocket could swerve also. it was controlled from the ground. it did not need to crash the small ship from space. within a limited number of miles the blast of its atomic warhead would vaporize any substance that could exist. and of course the ship could not turn back. even the expenditure of all its landing-rockets could not bring twenty tons of ship to a halt. they could speed it up, so it would pass the calculated meeting place ahead of the war rocket. but the bomb would simply follow in a stern chase. in any case, the ship could not stop. but neither could the rocket. joe never knew how he saw the significance of that fact. on land or sea, of course, an automobile or a ship moves in the direction in which it is pointed. even an airplane needs to make only minor corrections for air currents which affect it. but an object in space moves on a course which is the sum of all its previous speeds and courses. joe's ship was moving eastward above the earth at so many miles per second. if he drove north--at a right angle to his present course--the ship would not cease to move to the east. it would simply move northward in addition to moving east. if the rocket from earth turned north or east it would continue to move up and merely add the other motion to its vertical rise. joe stared at the uncoiling thread of vapor which was the murder rocket's trail. he hated it so fiercely that he wanted to escape it even at the cost of destruction, merely to foil its makers. at one moment, he was hardly aware of anything but his own fury and the frantic desire to frustrate the rocket at any cost. the next instant, somehow, he was not angry at all. because somehow his brain had dredged up the fact that the war rocket could no more turn back than he could--and he saw its meaning. "mike!" he snapped sharply. "get set! report what we do! everybody set for acceleration! steering rockets ready, chief! get set to help, haney! i don't know whether we'll get out of this alive, but we'd better get into our space suits." then he literally dived back to his acceleration chair and strapped in in feverish haste. the ship was then a quarter of the way to the meeting place and the rocket had very much farther to go. but it was rising faster. the ship's gyros whined and squealed as joe jammed on their controls. the little ship spun in emptiness. its bow turned and pointed down. the steering rockets made their roarings. joe found himself panting. "the--rocket's rising faster--than we are. it's been gaining--altitude maybe--two minutes. it's lighter than when--it started but--it can't stop--less than a minute, anyhow so we duck under it----" he did not make computations. there was no time. the war rocket might have started at four or five gravities acceleration, but it would speed up as its fuel burned. it might be accelerating at fifteen gravities now, and have an attained velocity of four miles a second and still increasing. if the little ship ducked under it, it could not kill that rate-of-climb in time to follow in a stern chase. "haney!" panted joe. "watch out the port! are we going to make it?" haney crawled forward. joe had forgotten the radar because he'd seen the rocket with his own eyes. it seemed to need eyes to watch it. mike spoke curtly into the microphone broadcasting to ground. he was reporting each action and order as it took place and was given. there was no time to explain anything. but mike thought of the radar. he watched it. it showed the vast curve of earth's surface, 400 miles down. it showed a moving pip, much too much nearer, which was the war rocket. mike made a dot on the screen with a grease pencil where the pip showed. it moved. he made another dot. the pip continued to move. he made other dots. they formed a curving line--curved because the rocket was accelerating--which moved inexorably toward the center of the radar screen. the curve would cut the screen's exact center. that meant collision. "too close, joe!" said mike shrilly. "we may miss it, but not enough!" "then hold fast," yelled joe. "landing rockets firing, three--two--one!" the bellowing of the landing-rockets smote their ears. weight seized upon them, three gravities of acceleration toward the rushing flood of clouds and solidity which was the earth. the ship plunged downward with all its power. it was intolerable--and ten times worse because they had been weightless so long and were still shaken and sore and bruised from the air-graze only minutes back. mike took acceleration better than the others, but his voice was thin when he gasped, "looks--like this does it, joe!" seconds later he gasped again, "right! the rocket's above us and still going away!" the gyros squealed again. the ship plunged into vapor which was the trail of the enemy rocket. for an instant the flowing confusion which was earth was blotted out. then it was visible again. the ship was plunging downward, but its sidewise speed was undiminished and much greater than its rate of fall. "mike," panted joe. "get the news out. what we did--and why. i'm--going to turn the ship's head back on our--course. we can't slow enough but--i'd rather crash on earth than let them blast us----" the ship turned again. it pointed back in the direction from which it had come. with the brutal sternward pressure produced by the landing-rockets, it felt as if it were speeding madly back where it had come from. it was the sensation they'd felt when the ship took off from earth, so long before. but then the cloud masses and the earth beneath had flowed toward the ship and under it. now they flowed away. the appearance was that of an unthinkably swift wake left behind by a ship at sea. the earth's surface fled away and fled away from them. "crazy, this!" joe muttered thickly. "if the ship were lighter--or we had more power--we could land! i'm sorry, but i'd rather----" haney turned his head from where he clung near the bow-ports. his features changed slowly as he talked because of acceleration-driven blood engorging his lips and bloating his cheeks. after one instant he closed his eyes fiercely. they felt as if they would pop out of his head. he gasped, "yes! get down to air-resistance. a chance--not good but a chance--ejection seats--with space suits--might make it...." he began to let himself back toward his acceleration chair. he could not possibly have climbed forward. it was a horrible task to let himself down, with triple his normal weight pulling at him and after the beating taken a little while ago. sweat stood out on his skin as he lowered himself sternward. once his grip on a hand-line slipped and he had to sustain the drag of nearly six hundred pounds by a single hand and arm. it would not be a good idea to fall at three gravities. the landing rockets roared and roared, and joe tilted the bow down a little farther, so that the streaming flood of clouds drew nearer. haney got to his acceleration chair. he let himself into it and his eyes closed. mike's sharp voice barked: "what's the chance, haney?" haney's mouth opened, and closed, and opened again. "rocket flames," he gasped, "pushed back--wind--splash on hull--may melt--lighten weight--hundred to one against----" the odds were worse than that. the ship couldn't land because its momentum was too great for the landing rockets to cancel out. if it had weighed five tons instead of twenty, landing might have been possible. haney was saying that if the ship were to be lowered into air while rushing irresistibly sternward despite its rockets, that the rocket flames might be splashed out by the wind. instead of streaking astern in a lance-like shape, they might be pushed out like a rocket blast when it hits the earth in a guided missile take-off. such a blast spreads out flat in all directions. here the rocket flames might be spread by wind until they played upon the hull of the ship. if they did, they might melt it as they melted their own steel cases in firing. and three-fourths or more of the hull might be torn loose from the cabin bow section. so much was unlikely, but it was possible. the impossible odds were that the four could survive even if the cabin were detached. they were decelerating at three gravities now. if part of the ship burned or melted or was torn away, the rocket thrust might speed the cabin up to almost any figure. and there is a limit to the number of gravities a man can take, even in an acceleration chair. nevertheless, that was what haney proposed. they were due to be killed anyhow. joe tried it. he dived into atmosphere. at 60 miles altitude a thin wailing seemed to develop without reason. at 40 miles, the ship had lost more than two miles per second of its speed since the landing-rockets were ignited, and there was a shuddering in all its fabric--though because of the loss of speed it was not as bad as the atmosphere-graze. at 30 it began to shake and tremble. at 25 miles high there was as horrible a vibration and as deadly a deceleration as at the air-graze. at 12 miles above the surface of the earth the hull temperature indicators showed the hind part of the hull at red heat. the ship happened to be traveling backward at several times the speed of sound, and air could not move away from before it. it was compressed to white heat at the entering surface, and the metal plating went to bright red heat at that point. but the hull just aft of the rocket mouths was hotter still. there the splashing rocket flames bathed it in intolerable incandescence. hull plates, braces and beams glared white---the tip of the tail caved in. the ship's empty cargo space was instantly filled with air at intolerable pressure and heat. the hull exploded outward where the rocket flames played. there was a monstrous, incredible jerking of the cabin that remained. that fraction of the ship received the full force of the rocket thrust. they could decelerate it at a rate of fifteen gravities or more. they did. joe lost consciousness as instantly and as peacefully as if he had been hit on the jaw. an unknown but brief time later, he found himself listening with a peculiar astonishment. the rockets had burned out. they had lasted only seconds after the separation of the ship into two fragments. radars on the ground are authority for this. those few seconds were extremely important. the cabin lost an additional half-mile per second of velocity, which was enough to make the difference between the cabin heating up too, and the cabin being not quite destroyed. the cabin remnant was heavy, of course, but it was an irregular object, some twenty feet across. it was below orbital velocity, and wind-resistance slowed it. even so, it traveled 47 miles to the east in falling the last 10 miles to earth. it hit a hillside and dug itself a 70-foot crater in the ground. but there was nobody in it, then. a little over a month before, it had seemed to joe that ejection seats were the most useless of all possible pieces of equipment to have in a space ship. he'd been as much mistaken as anybody could be. with an ejection seat, a jet pilot can be shot out of a plane traveling over mach one, and live to tell about it. this crumpling cabin fell fast, but joe stuffed mike in an ejection seat and shot him out. he and the chief dragged haney to a seat, and then the chief shoved joe off--and the four of them, one by one, were flung out into a screaming stream of air. but the ribbon-parachutes did not burst. they nearly broke the necks of their passengers, but they let them down almost gently. and it was quite preposterous, but all four landed intact. mike, being lightest and first to be ejected, came down by himself in a fury because he'd been treated with special favor. the chief and joe landed almost together. after a long time, joe staggered out of his space suit and harness and tried to help the chief, and they held each other up as they stumbled off together in search of haney. when they found him he was sleeping heavily, exhausted, in a canebrake. he hadn't even bothered to disengage his parachute harness or take off his suit. 6 a good deal of that landing remained confused in joe's mind. while it was going on he was much too busy to be absorbing impressions. when he landed, he was as completely exhausted as anybody wants to be. it was only during the next day that he even tried to sort out his recollections. then he woke up suddenly, with a muffled roaring going on all about him. he blinked his eyes open and listened. presently he realized what the noise was, and wondered that he hadn't realized before. it was the roaring of the motors of a multi-engined plane. he knew, without remembering the details at the moment, that he and the other three were on a plane bound across the pacific for america. he was in a bunk--and he felt extraordinarily heavy. he tried to move, and it was an enormous effort to move his arm. he struggled to turn over, and found straps holding his body down. he fumbled at them. they had readily releasable clasps, and he loosened them easily. after a bit he struggled to sit upright. he was horribly heavy or horribly weak. he couldn't tell which. and each separate muscle in his whole body ached. twinges of pain accompanied every movement. he sat up, swaying a little with the slow movements of the plane, and gradually, things came back. the landing in the ribbon-chute. they'd come down somewhere on the west coast of india, not too far from the sea. he remembered crashing into the edge of a thin jungle and finding the chief, and the two of them searching out haney and stumbling to open ground. after laying out a signal for air searchers, they went off into worn-out slumber while they waited. he remembered that there'd been a patrol of american destroyers in the arabian sea, as everywhere under the orbit of the platform. their radar had reported the destruction of one space ship and the frantic diving of the other, its division into two parts, and then the tiny objects, which flew out from the smaller cabin section, which had descended as only ejection-seat parachutes could possibly have done. two destroyers steamed onward underneath those drifting specks, to pick them up when they should come down. but the other nearby destroyers had other business in hand. the two trailing destroyers reached goa harbor within hours of the landing of the four from space. a helicopter found the first three of them within hours after that. they were twenty miles inland and thirty south from goa. mike wasn't located until the next day. he'd been shot out of the ship's cabin earlier and higher; he was lighter, and he'd floated farther. but things--satisfying things--had happened in the interval. sitting almost dizzily on the bunk in the swiftly roaring plane while blood began sluggishly to flow through his body, joe remembered the gleeful, unofficial news passed around on the destroyers. they waited for mike to be brought in. but they rejoiced vengefully. the report was quite true, but it never reached the newspapers. nobody would ever admit it, but the rockets aimed at the returning space ships had been spotted by navy radar as they went up from the arabian sea. and the ships of the radar patrol couldn't do anything about the rockets, but they could and did converge savagely upon the places from which they had been launched. planes sped out to spot and bomb. destroyers arrived. somewhere there was a navy department that could write off two modern submarines with rocket-launching equipment, last heard from west of india. american naval men would profess bland ignorance of any such event, but there were acres of dead fish floating on the ocean where depth-bombs had hunted down and killed two shapes much too big to be fish, which didn't float when they were killed and which would never report back how they'd destroyed two space ships. there'd be seagulls feasting over that area, and there'd be vague tales about the happening in the bazaars of hadhramaut. but nobody would ever admit knowing anything for certain. but joe knew. he got to his feet, wobbling a little bit in the soaring plane. he ached everywhere. his muscles protested the strain of holding him erect. he held fast, summoning strength. before his little ship broke up he'd been shaken intolerably, and his body had weighed half a ton. where his safety-belt had held him, his body was one wide bruise. there'd been that killing acceleration when the ship split in two. the others--except mike--were in as bad a case or worse. haney and the chief were like men who'd been rolled down mount everest in a barrel. all of them had slept for fourteen hours straight before they even woke up for food. even now, joe didn't remember boarding this plane or getting into the bunk. he'd probably been carried in. joe stood up, doggedly, until enough strength came to him to justify his sitting down again. he began to dress. it was astonishing how many places about his body were sore to the touch. it was startling how heavy his arms and legs felt, and how much of an effort even sitting erect was. but he began to remember mike's adventure, and managed to grin feebly. it was the only thing worth a smile in all the things that had happened. because mike's landing had been quite unlike the others. joe and the chief landed near the edge of a jungle. haney landed in a canebrake. but mike came floating down from the sky, swaying splendidly, into the estate of a minor godling. he was relatively unharmed by the shaking-up he'd had. the strength of muscles depends on their cross-section, but their weight depends on their volume. the strength of a man depends on the square of his size, but his weight on the cube. so mike had taken the deceleration and the murderous vibration almost in his stride. he floated longer and landed more gently than the rest. joe grinned painfully at the memory of mike's tale. he'd come on board the rescue destroyer in a towering, explosive rage. when his ribbon-parachute let him down out of the sky, it deposited him gently on ploughed fields not far from a small and primitive hindu village. he'd been seen to descend from the heavens. he was a midget--not as other men--and he was dressed in a space suit with glittering metal harness. the pagan villagers greeted him with rapture. when the searching-party found mike, they were just in time to prevent a massacre--by mike. adoring natives had seized upon him, conveyed him in high state to a red mud temple, seemingly tried to suffocate him with evidences of their pride and joy at his arrival, and dark-skinned maidens were trying hopefully to win his approval of their dancing. but the rescue-party found him with a club in his hand and blood in his eye, setting out furiously to change the tone of his reception. joe still didn't know all the details, but he tried to concentrate on what he did know as he put his uniform on again. he didn't want to think how little it meant, now. the silver space ship badge didn't mean a thing, any more. there weren't any more space ships. the platform wasn't a ship, but a satellite. there'd never been but two ships. both had ceased to exist. joe walked painfully forward in the huge, roaring plane. the motors made a constant, humming thunder in his ears. it was not easy to walk. he held on to handholds as he moved. but he progressed past the bunk space. and there was mike, sitting at a table and stuffing himself with good honest food. there was a glass port beside him, and joe caught a glimpse of illimitable distances filled with cloud and sky and sea. mike nodded. he didn't offer to help joe walk. that wouldn't have been practical. he waited until joe sank into a seat opposite. "good sleep?" asked mike. "i guess so," said joe. he added ruefully, "it hurts to nod, and i think it would hurt worse to shake my head. what's the matter with me, mike? i didn't get banged up in the landing!" "you got banged up before you landed," said mike. "worse than that, you spent better than six weeks out of gravity, where in an average day you took less actual exercise than a guy in bed with two broken legs!" joe eased himself back into his chair. he felt about 600 years old. somebody poked a head into view and withdrew it. joe lifted his arm and regarded it. "weighty! i guess you're right, mike." "i know i'm right!" said mike. "if you spent six weeks in bed you'd expect to feel wobbly when you tried to walk. up on the platform you didn't even use energy to stand up! we didn't realize it, but we were living like invalids! we'll get our strength back, but next time we'll take measures. huh! take a trip to mars in free fall, and by the time a guy got there his muscles'd be so flabby he couldn't stand up in half-gravity! something's got to be done about that, joe!" joe said sombrely, "something's got to be done about space ships before that comes up again!" somebody appeared with a tray. there was food on it. smoking hot food. joe looked at it and knew that his appetite, anyhow, was back to earth normal. "thanks!" he mumbled appreciatively, and attacked the food. mike drank his coffee. then he said, "joe, do you know anything about powder metallurgy?" joe shrugged. it hurt. "powder metallurgy? yes, i've seen it used, at my father's plant. they've made small precision parts with it. why?" "d'you know if anybody ever made a weld with it?" asked mike. joe chewed. then he said: "i think so. yes. at the plant they did. they had trouble getting the surfaces properly cleaned for welding. but they managed it. why?" "one more question," said mike tensely. "how much portland cement is used to make a cubic yard of concrete?" "i wouldn't know," admitted joe. "why? what's all this about?" "haney and the chief. those two big apes have been kidding me--as long as they could stay awake--for what happened to me when i landed. those infernal savages--" mike seethed. "they got my clothes off and they had me smeared all over with butter and forty-'leven necklaces around my neck and flowers in my hair! they thought i was some kind of heathen god! hanuman, somebody told me. the hindu monkey-god!" he raged. "and those two big apes think it's funny! joe, i never knew i _knew_ all the words for the cussings i gave those heathen before our fellas found me! and haney and the chief will drive me crazy if i can't slap 'em down! powder metallurgy does the trick, from what you told me. that's okay, then." he stood up and stalked toward the front of the plane. joe roused himself with an effort. he turned to look about him. haney lay slumped in a reclining chair, on the other side of the plane cabin. his eyes were closed. the chief lay limply in another chair. he smiled faintly at joe, but he didn't try to talk. he was too tired. the return to normal gravity bothered him, as it did joe. joe looked out the window. in neat, geometric spacing on either side of the transport there were fighter jets. there was another flight above and farther away. joe saw, suddenly, a peeling-off of planes from the farther formation. they dived down through the clouds. he never knew what they went to look for or what they found. he went groggily back to his bunk in a strange and embarrassing weakness. he woke when the plane landed. he didn't know where it might be. it was, he knew, an island. he could see the wide, sun-baked white of the runways. he could see sea-birds in clouds over at the edge. the plane trundled and lurched slowly to a stop. a service-truck came growling up, and somebody led cables from it up into the engines. somebody watched dials, and waved a hand. there was silence. there was stillness. joe heard voices and footsteps. presently he heard the dull booming of surf. the plane seemed to wait for a very long time. then there was a faint, faint distant whine of jets, and a plane came from the east. it was first a dot and then a vague shape, and then an infinitely graceful dark object which swooped down and landed at the other end of the strip. it came taxiing up alongside the transport ship and stopped. an officer in uniform climbed out, waved his hand, and walked over to the transport. he climbed up the ladder and the pilot and co-pilot followed him. they took their places. the door closed. one by one, the jets chugged, then roared to life. the officer talked to the pilot and co-pilot for a moment. he came down the aisle toward joe. mike the midget regarded him suspiciously. the plane stirred. the newly arrived officer said pleasantly, "the navy department's sent me out here, kenmore, to be briefed on what you know and to do a little briefing in turn." the transport plane turned clumsily and began to taxi down the runway. it jolted and bumped over the tarmac, then lifted, and joe saw that the island was nearly all airfield. there were a few small buildings and distance-dwarfed hangars. beyond the field proper there was a ring of white surf. that was all. the rest was ocean. "i haven't much briefing to do," admitted joe. then he looked at the briefcase the other man opened. it had sheets and sheets of paper in it--hundreds, it seemed. they were filled with questions. he'd be called on to find answers for most of them, and to admit he didn't know the answers to the rest. when he was through with this questioning, every possible useful fact he knew would be on file for future use. and now he wrily recognized that this was part payment for the efficiency and speed with which the navy had trailed them on their landing, and for the use of a transport plane to take them back to the united states. "i'll try to answer what i can," he said cautiously. "but what're you to brief me about?" "that you're not back on earth yet," said the officer curtly, pulling out the first sheaf of questions. "officially you haven't even started back. ostensibly you're still on the platform." joe blinked at him. "if your return were known," continued the lieutenant, "the public would want to make heroes of you. first space travelers, and so on. they'd want you on television--all of you--telling about your adventures and your return. inevitably, what happened to your ship would leak out. and if the public knew you'd been waylaid and shot down there'd be demands that the government take violent action to avenge the attack. it'd be something like the tumult over the sinking of the _maine_, or the _lusitania_--or even pearl harbor. it's much better for your return to be a secret for now." joe said wrily: "i don't think any of us want to be ridden around to have ticker-tape dumped on us. that part's all right. i'm sure the others will agree." "good! one more difficulty. we had two space ships. now we have none. our most likely enemies haven't only been building rockets, they've got a space fleet coming along. intelligence just found out they're nearly ready for trial trips. they've been yelling to high heaven that we were building a space fleet to conquer the world. we weren't. they were. and it looks very much as if they may have beaten us." the lieutenant got out the dreary mass of papers, intended to call for every conscious or unconscious observation joe might have made in space. it was the equivalent of the interviews extracted from fliers after a bombing raid, and it was necessary, but joe was very tired. wearily, he said, "start your questions. i'll try to answer them." they arrived in bootstrap some forty-six hours after the crashing of their ship. joe, at least, had slept nearly thirty of those hours. so while he was still wobbly on his feet and would be for days to come, his disposition was vastly improved. there was nobody waiting on the airfield by the town of bootstrap, but as they landed a black car came smoothly out and stopped close by the transport. joe got down and climbed into it. sally holt was inside. she took both his hands and cried, and he was horribly embarrassed when the chief came blundering into the car after him. but the chief growled, "if he didn't kiss you, sally, i'm going to kick his pants for him." "he--he did," said sally, gulping. "and i'm glad you're back, chief. and haney. and mike." mike grinned as he climbed in the back too. haney crowded in after him. they filled the rear of the car entirely. it started off swiftly across the field, swerving to the roadway that led to the highway out of bootstrap to the shed. it sped out that long white concrete ribbon, and the desert was abruptly all around them. far ahead, the great round half-dome of the shed looked like a cherry-pit on the horizon. "it's good to be back!" said the chief warmly. "i feel like i weigh a ton, but it's good to be back! mike's the only one who was happier out yonder. he figures he belongs there. i got a story to tell you, sally----" "chief!" said mike fiercely. "shut up!" "won't," said the chief amiably. "sally, this guy mike----" mike went pale. "you're too big to kill," he said bitterly, "but i'll try it!" the chief grunted at him. "quit being modest. sally----" mike flung himself at the chief, literally snarling. his small fist hit the chief's face--and mike was small but he was not puny. the "crack" of the impact was loud in the car. haney grabbed. there was a moment's frenzied struggling. then mike was helplessly wrapped in haney's arms, incoherent with fury and shame. "crazy fool!" grunted the chief, feeling his jaw. "what's the matter with you? don't you feel good?" he was angry, but he was more concerned. mike was white and raging. "you tell that," he panted shrilly, "and so help me----" "what's got into you?" demanded haney anxiously. "i'd be bragging, i would, if i'd got a brainstorm like you did! that guy sanford woulda wiped us all out----" the chief said angrily, between unease and puzzlement: "i never knew you to go off your nut like this before! what's got into you, anyway?" mike gulped suddenly. haney still held him firmly, but both haney and the chief were looking at him with worried eyes. and mike said desperately: "you were going to tell sally----" the chief snorted. "huh! you fool little runt! no! i was going to tell her about you opening up that airlock when sanford locked us out! sure i kidded you about what you're talking about! sure! i'm going to do it again! but that's amongst us! i don't tell that outside!" haney made an inarticulate exclamation. he understood, and he was relieved. but he looked disgusted. he released mike abruptly, rumbling to himself. he stared out the window. and mike stood upright, an absurd small figure. his face worked a little. "okay," said mike, with a little difficulty. "i was dumb. only, chief, you owe me a sock on the jaw when you feel like it. i'll take it." he swallowed. sally was watching wide-eyed. "sally," said mike bitterly, "i'm a bigger fool than i look. i thought the chief was going to tell you what happened when i landed. i--i floated down in a village over there in india, and those crazy savages'd never seen a parachute, and they began to yell and make gestures, and first thing i knew they had a sort of litter and were piling me in it, and throwing flowers all over me, and there was a procession----" sally listened blankly. mike told the tale of his shame with the very quintessence of bitter resentment. when he got to his installation in a red-painted mud temple, and the reverent and forcible removal of his clothes so he could be greased with butter, sally's lips began to twitch. at the picture of mike in a red loincloth, squirming furiously while brown-skinned admirers zestfully sang his praises, howling his rage while they celebrated some sort of pious festival in honor of his arrival, sally broke down and laughed helplessly. mike stared at her, aghast. he felt that he'd hated the chief when he thought the chief was going to tell the tale on him as a joke. he'd told it on himself as a penance, in the place of the blow he'd given the chief and which the chief wouldn't return. to mike it was still tragedy. it was still an outrage to his dignity. but sally was laughing. she rocked back and forth next to joe, helpless with mirth. "oh, mike!" she gasped. "it's beautiful! they must have been saying such lovely, respectful things, while you were calling them names and wanting to kill them! they'd have been bragging to each other about how you were--visiting them because they'd been such good people, and--this was the reward of well-spent lives, and you--you----" she leaned against joe and shook. the car went on. the chief chuckled. haney grinned. joe watched mike as this new aspect of his disgrace got into his consciousness. it hadn't occurred to mike, before, that anybody but himself had been ridiculous. it hadn't occurred to him, until he lost his temper, that haney and the chief would ride him mercilessly among themselves, but would not dream of letting anybody outside the gang do so. presently mike managed to grin a little. it was a twisty grin, and not altogether mirthful. "yeah," he said wrily. "i see it. they were crazy too. i should've had more sense than to get mad." then his grin grew a trifle twistier. "i didn't tell you that the thing that made me maddest was when they wanted to put earrings on me. i grabbed a club then and--uh--persuaded them i didn't like the idea." sally chortled. the picture of the small, truculent mike in frenzied revolt with a club against the idea of being decked with jewelry.... mike turned to the two big men and shoved at them imperiously. "move over!" he growled. "if you two big lummoxes had dropped in on those crazy goofs instead of me, they'd've thought you were elephants and set you to work hauling logs!" he squirmed to a seat between them. he still looked ashamed, but it was shame of a different sort. now he looked as if he wished he hadn't mistrusted his friends for even a moment. and he included sally. "anyhow," he said suddenly in a different tone, "maybe it did do some good for me to get all worked up! i got kind of frantic. i figured somebody'd made a fool of me, and i was going to put something over on you." "mike!" said sally reproachfully. "not like you think, sally," said mike, grinning a little. "i made up my mind to beat these lummoxes at their own game. i asked joe about my brainstorm in the plane. he didn't know what i was driving at, but he said what i hoped was so. so i'm telling you--and," he added fiercely, "if it's any good everybody gets credit for it, because all of us four--even two big apes who try kidding--are responsible for it!" he glared at them. joe asked. "what is it, mike?" "i think," said mike, "i think i've got a trick to make space ships quicker than anybody ever dreamed of. joe says you can make a weld with powder metallurgy. and i think we can use that trick to make one-piece ships--lighter and stronger and tighter--and fast enough to make your head swim! and you guys are in on it!" the black car braked by the entrance to the security offices outside the shed. it looked completely deserted. there was only a skeleton force here since the platform had been launched three months before. there was almost nobody to be seen, but mike pressed his lips pugnaciously together as they got out of the car and went inside. the four of them, with sally, went along the empty corridors to the major's office. he was waiting for them. he shook hands all around. but it was not possible for major holt to give an impression of cordiality. "i'm very glad to see all of you back," he said curtly. "it didn't look like you'd make it. joe, you will be able to reach your father by long-distance telephone as soon as you finish here. i--ah--thought it would not be indiscreet to tell him you had landed safely, though i did ask him to keep the fact to himself." "thank you, sir," said joe. "you answered most of the questions you needed to answer on the plane," added the major, grimly, "and now you may want to ask some. you know there is no ship for you. you know that the enemies of the platform copied our rocket fuel. you know they've made rockets with it. you've met them! and intelligence says they're building a fleet of space ships--not for space exploration, but simply to smash the platform and get set for an ultimatum to the united states to backwater or be bombarded from space." mike said crisply: "how long before they can do it?" major holt turned uncordial eyes upon him. "it's anybody's guess. why?" "we've been working something out," said mike, firmly but in part untruthfully. he stood sturdily before the major's desk, which he barely topped. "the four of us have been working it out. joe says they've done powder metallurgy welds, back at his father's plant. joe and haney and the chief and me, we've been working out an idea." major holt waited. his hands moved nervously on his desk. joe looked at mike. haney and the chief regarded him warily. the chief cocked his head on one side. "it'll take a minute to get it across," said mike. "you have to think of concrete first. when you want to make a cubic yard of concrete, you take a cubic yard of gravel. then you add some sand--just enough to fill in the cracks between the gravel. then you put in some cement. it goes in the cracks between the grains of sand. a little bit of cement makes a lot of concrete. see?" major holt frowned. but he knew these four. "i see, but i don't understand." "you can weld metals together with powder-metallurgy powder at less than red heat. you can take steel filings for sand and steel turnings for gravel and powdered steel for cement--" joe jolted erect. he looked startledly at haney and the chief. and haney's mouth was dropping open. a great, dreamy light seemed to be bursting upon him. the chief regarded mike with very bright eyes. and mike sturdily, forcefully, coldly, made a sort of speech in his small and brittle voice. things could be made of solid steel, he said sharply, without rolling or milling or die-casting the metal, and without riveting or arc-welding the parts together. the trick was powder metallurgy. very finely powdered metal, packed tightly and heated to a relatively low temperature--"sintered" is the word--becomes a solid mass. even alloys can be made by mixing powdered metals. the process had been used only for small objects, but--there was the analogy to concrete. a very little powder could weld much metal, in the form of turnings and smaller bits. and the result would be solid steel! then mike grew impassioned. there was a wooden mockup of a space ship in the shed, he said. it was an absolutely accurate replica, in wood, of the ships that had been destroyed. but one could take castings of it, and use them for molds, and fill them with powder and filings and turnings, and heat them not even red-hot and there would be steel hulls in one piece. solid steel hulls! needing no riveting nor anything else--and one could do it fast! while the first hull was fitting out a second could be molded---the chief roared: "you fool little runt!" he bellowed. "tryin' to give us credit for that! you got more sense than any of us! you worked that out in your own head----" haney rubbed his hands together. he said softly, "i like that! i do like that!" major holt turned his eyes to joe. "what's your opinion?" "i think it's the sort of thing, sir, that a professional engineer would say was a good idea but not practical. he'd mean it would be a lot of trouble to get working. but i'd like to ask my father. they have done powder welding at the plant back home, sir." major holt nodded. "call your father. if it looks promising, i'll pull what wires i can." joe went out, with the others. mike was sweating. all unconsciously, he twisted his hands one within the other. he had had many humiliations because he was small, but lately he had humiliated himself by not believing in his friends. now he needed desperately to do something that would reflect credit on them as well as himself. joe made the phone call. as he closed the door of the booth, he heard the chief kidding mike blandly. "hey, einstein," said the chief. "how about putting that brain of yours to work on a faster-than-light drive?" but then he began to struggle with the long distance operator. it took minutes to get the plant, and then it took time to get to the point, because his father insisted on asking anxiously how he was and if he was hurt in any way. personal stuff. but joe finally managed to explain that this call dealt with the desperate need to do something about a space fleet. his father said grimly, "yes. the situation doesn't look too good right now, joe." "try this on for size, sir," said joe. he outlined mike's scheme. his father interrupted only to ask crisp questions about the mockup of the tender, already in existence though made of wood. then he said, "go on, son!" joe finished. he heard his father speaking to someone away from the phone. questions and answers, and then orders. his father spoke to him direct. "it looks promising, joe," said his father. "right here at the plant we've got the gang that can do it if anybody can. i'm getting a plane and coming out there, fast! get major holt to clear things for me. this is no time for red tape! if he has trouble, i'll pull some wires myself!" "then i can tell mike it's good stuff?" "it's not good stuff," said his father. "there are about forty-seven things wrong with it at first glance, but i know how to take care of one or two, and we'll lick the rest. you tell your friend mike i want to shake him by the hand. i hope to do it tonight!" he hung up, and joe went out of the phone booth. mike looked at him with yearning eyes. joe lied a little, because mike rated it. "my father's on the way here to help make it work," he told mike. then he added untruthfully: "he said he thought he knew all the big men in his line, and where've you been that he hasn't heard of you?" he turned away as the chief whooped with glee. he hurried back to major holt as the chief and haney began zestfully to manhandle mike in celebration of his genius. the major held up his hand as joe entered. he was using the desk phone. joe waited. when he hung up, joe reported. the major seemed unsurprised. "yes, i had washington on the wire," he said detachedly. "i talked to a personal friend who's a three-star general. there will be action started at the pentagon. when you came in i was arranging with the largest producers of powder-metallurgy products in the country to send their best men here by plane. they will start at once. now i have to get in touch with some other people." joe gaped at him. the major moved impatiently, waiting for joe to leave. joe gulped. "excuse me, sir, but--my father didn't say it was certain. he just thinks it can be made to work. he's not sure." "i didn't even wait for that, something has to turn up to take care of this situation!" said the major with asperity. "it has to! this particular scheme may not work, but if it doesn't, something will come out of the work on it! you should look at a twenty-five cent piece occasionally, joe!" he moved impatiently, and joe went out. sally was smiling in the outer office. there were whoopings in the corridor beyond. the chief and haney were celebrating mike's brainstorm with salutary indignity, because if they didn't make a joke of it he might cry with joy. "things look better?" "they do," said joe. "if it only works...." then he hunted in his pocket. he found a quarter and examined it curiously. on one side he found nothing the major could have referred to. on the other side, though, just by george washington's chin---he put the quarter away and took sally's arm. "it'll be all right," he said slowly. but there were times when it seemed in doubt. joe's father arrived by plane at sunset of that same day, and he and three men from the kenmore precision tool company instantly closeted themselves with mike in major holt's quarters. the powder metallurgy men turned up an hour later, and a three-star general from washington. they joined the highly technical discussion. joe waited around outside, feeling left out of things. he sat on the porch with sally while the moon rose over the desert and stars shone down. inside, matters of high importance were being battled over with the informality and heat with which practical men get things settled. but joe wasn't in on it. he said annoyedly, "you'd think my father'd have something to say to me, in all this mess! after all, i have been--well, i have been places! but all he said was, 'how are you, son? where's this mike you talked about?'" sally said calmly, "i know just how you feel. you've made me feel that way." she looked up at the moon. "i thought about you all the time you were gone, and i--prayed for you, joe. and now you're back and not even busy! but you don't---it would be nice for you to think about me for a while!" "i am thinking about you!" said joe indignantly. "now what," said sally interestedly, "in the world could you be thinking about me?" he wanted to scowl at her. but he grinned instead. 7 time passed. hours, then days. things began to happen. trucks appeared, loaded down with sacks of white powder. the powder was very messily mixed with water and smeared lavishly over the now waterproofed wooden mockup of a space ship. it came off again in sections of white plaster, which were numbered and set to dry in warm chambers that were constructed with almost magical speed. more trucks arrived, bearing such diverse objects as loads of steel turnings, a regenerative helium-cooling plant from a gaswell--it could cool metal down to the point where it crumbled to impalpable powder at a blow--and assorted fuel tanks, dynamos, and electronic machinery. ten days after mike's first proposal of concreted steel as a material for space ship construction, the parts of the first casting of the mockup were assembled. they were a mold for the hull of a space ship. there were more plaster sections for a second mold ready to be dried out now, but meanwhile vehicles like concrete mixers mixed turnings and filings and powder in vast quantities and poured the dry mass here and there in the first completed mold. then men began to wrap the gigantic object with iron wire. presently that iron wire glowed slightly, and the whole huge mold grew hotter and hotter and hotter. and after a time it was allowed to cool. but that did not mean a ceasing of activity. the plaster casts had been made while the concreting process was worked out. the concreting process--including the heating--was in action while fittings were being flown to the shed. but other hulls were being formed by metal-concrete formation even before the first mold was taken down. when the plaster sections came off, there was a long, gleaming, frosty-sheened metal hull waiting for the fittings. it was a replacement of one of the two shot-down space craft, ready for fitting out some six weeks ahead of schedule. next day there was a second metal hull, still too hot to touch. the day after that there was another. then they began to be turned out at the rate of two a day, and all the vast expanse of the shed resounded with the work on them. drills drilled and torches burned and hammers hammered. small diesels rumbled. disk saws cut metal like butter by the seemingly impractical method of spinning at 20,000 revolutions per minute. convoys of motor busses rolled out from bootstrap at change-shift time, and there were again security men at every doorway, moving continually about. but it still didn't look too good. there is apparently no way to beat arithmetic, and a definitely grim problem still remained. ten days after the beginning of the new construction program, joe and sally looked down from a gallery high up in the outward-curving wall of the shed. acres of dark flooring lay beneath them. there was a spiral ramp that wound round and round between the twin skins of the fifty-story-high dome. it led finally to the communications room at the very top of the shed itself. where joe and sally looked down, the floor was 300 feet below. welding arcs glittered. rivet guns chattered. trucks came in the doorways with materials, and there was already a gleaming row of eighty-foot hulls. there were eleven of them already uncovered, and small trucks ran up to their sides to feed the fitting-out crews such items as air tanks and gyro assemblies and steering rocket piping and motors, and short wave communicators and control boards. exit doors were being fitted. the last two hulls to be uncovered were being inspected with portable x-ray outfits, in search of flaws. and there were still other ungainly white molds, which were other hulls in process of formation--the metal still pouring into the molds in powder form, or being tamped down, or being sintered to solidity. joe leaned on the gallery-railing and said unhappily, "i can't help worrying, even though the platform hasn't been shot at since we landed." that wasn't an expression of what he was thinking. he was thinking about matters the enemies of the platform would have liked to know about. sally knew these matters too. but top secret information isn't talked about by the people who know it, unless they are actively at work on it. at all other times one pretends even to himself that he doesn't know it. that is the only possible way to avoid leaks. the top secret information was simply that it was still impossible to supply the platform. ships could be made faster than had ever been dreamed of before, but so long as any ship that went up could be destroyed on the way down, the supply of the platform was impractical. but the ships were being built regardless, against the time when a way to get them down again was thought of. as of the moment it hadn't been thought of yet. but building the ships anyhow was unconscious genius, because nobody but americans could imagine anything so foolish. the enemies of the platform and of the united states knew that full-scale production of ships by some fantastic new method was in progress. the fact couldn't be hidden. but nobody in a country where material shortages were chronic could imagine building ships before a way to use them was known. so the platform's enemies were convinced that the united states had something wholly new and very remarkable, and threatened their spies with unspeakable fates if they didn't find out what it was. they didn't find out. the rulers of the enemy nations knew, of course, that if a new--say--space-drive had been invented, they would very soon have to change their tune. so there were no more attacks on the platform. it floated serenely overhead, sending down astronomical observations and solar-constant measurements and weather maps, while about it floated a screen of garbage and discarded tin cans. but joe and sally looked down where the ships were being built while the problem of how to use them was debated. "it's a tough nut to crack," said joe dourly. it haunted him. ships going up had to have crews. crews had to come down again because they had to leave supplies at the platform, not consume them there. getting a ship up to orbit was easier than getting it down again. "the navy's been working on light guided missiles," said sally. "no good," snapped joe. it wasn't. he'd been asked for advice. could a space ship crew control guided missiles and fight its way back to ground with them? the answer was that it could. but guided missiles used to fight one's way down would have to be carried up first. and they would weigh as much as all the cargo a ship could carry. a ship that carried fighting rockets couldn't carry cargo. cargo at the platform was the thing desired. "all that's needed," said sally, watching joe's face, "is a slight touch of genius. there's been genius before now. burning your cabin free with landing-rocket flames----" "haney's idea," growled joe dispiritedly. "and making more ships in a hurry with metal-concrete----" "mike did that," said joe ruefully. "but you made the garbage-screen for the platform," insisted sally. "sanford had made a wisecrack," said joe. "and it just happened that it made sense that he hadn't noticed." he grimaced. "you say something like that, now...." sally looked at him with soft eyes. it wasn't really his job, this worrying. the top-level brains of the armed forces were struggling with it. they were trying everything from redesigned rocket motors to really radical notions. but there wasn't anything promising yet. "what's really needed," said sally regretfully, "is a way for ships to go up to the platform and not have to come back." "sure!" said joe ironically. then he said, "let's go down!" they started down the long, winding ramp which led between the two skins of the shed's wall. it was quite empty, this long, curving, descending corridor. it was remarkably private. in a place like the shed, with frantic activity going on all around, and even at major holt's quarters where sally lived and joe was a guest, there wasn't often a chance for them to talk in any sort of actual privacy. but joe went on, scowling. sally went with him. if she seemed to hang back a little at first, he didn't notice. presently she shrugged her shoulders and ceased to try to make him notice that nobody else happened to be around. they made a complete circuit of the shed within its wall, joe staring ahead without words. then he stopped abruptly. his expression was unbelieving. sally almost bumped into him. "what's the matter?" "you had it, sally!" he said amazedly. "you did it! you said it!" "what?" "the touch of genius!" he almost babbled. "ships that can go up to the platform and not have to come back! sally, you did it! you did it!" she regarded him helplessly. he took her by the shoulders as if to shake her into comprehension. but he kissed her exuberantly instead. "come on!" he said urgently. "i've got to tell the gang!" he grabbed her hand and set off at a run for the bottom of the ramp. and sally, with remarkably mingled emotions showing on her face, was dragged in his wake. he was still pulling her after him when he found the chief and haney and mike in the room at security where they were practically self-confined, lest their return to earth become too publicly known. mike was stalking up and down with his hands clasped behind his back, glum as a miniature napoleon and talking bitterly. the chief was sprawled in a chair. haney sat upright regarding his knuckles with a thoughtful air. joe stepped inside the door. mike continued without a pause: "i tell you, if they'll only use little guys like me, the cabin and supplies and crew can be cut down by tons! even the instruments can be smaller and weigh less! four of us in a smaller cabin, less grub and air and water--we'll save tons in cabin-weight alone! why can't you big lummoxes see it?" "we see it, mike," haney said mildly. "you're right. but people won't do it. it's not fair, but they won't." joe said, beaming, "besides, mike, it'd bust up our gang! and sally's just gotten the real answer! the answer is for ships to go up to the platform and not come back!" he grinned at them. the chief raised his eyebrows. haney turned his head to stare. joe said exuberantly: "they've been talking about arming ships with guided missiles to fight with. too heavy, of course. but--if we could handle guided missiles, why couldn't we handle drones?" the three of them gaped at him. sally said, startled, "but--but, joe, i didn't----" "we've got plenty of hulls!" said joe. somehow he still looked astonished at what he'd made of sally's perfectly obvious comment. "mike's arranged for that! make--say--six of 'em into drones--space barges. remote-controlled ships. control them from one manned ship--the tug! we'll ride that! take 'em up to the platform exactly like a tug tows barges. the tow-line will be radio beams. we'll have a space-tow up, and not bother to bring the barges back! there won't be any landing rockets! they'll carry double cargo! that's the answer! a space tug hauling a tow to the platform!" "but, joe," insisted sally, "i didn't think of----" the chief heaved himself up. haney's voice cut through what the chief was about to say. haney said drily: "sally, if joe hadn't kissed you for thinking that up, i would. makes me feel mighty dumb." mike swallowed. then he said loyally, "yeah. me too. i'd've made a two-ton cargo possible--maybe. but this adds up. what does the major say?" "i--haven't talked to him. i'd better, right away." joe grinned. "i wanted to tell you first." the chief grunted. "good idea. but hold everything!" he fumbled in his pocket. "the arithmetic is easy enough, joe. cut out the crew and air and you save something." he felt in another pocket. "leave off the landing rockets, and you save plenty more. count in the cargo you could take anyhow"---he searched another pocket still----"and you get forty-two tons of cargo per space barge, delivered at the platform. six drones--that's 252 tons in one tow! here!" he'd found what he wanted. it was a handkerchief. he thrust it upon joe. "wipe that lipstick off, joe, before you go talk to the major. he's sally's father and he might not like it." joe wiped at his face. sally, her eyes shining, took the handkerchief from him and finished the job. she displayed that remarkable insensitivity of females in situations productive of both pride and embarrassment. when a girl or a woman is proud, she is never embarrassed. she and joe went away, and sally rushed right into her father's office. in fifteen minutes technical men began to arrive for conferences, summoned by telephone. within forty-five minutes, messengers carried orders out to the shed floor and stopped the installation of certain types of fittings in all but one of the hulls. in an hour and a half, top technical designers were doing the work of foremen and getting things done without benefit of blueprints. the proposal was beautifully simple to put into practice. guided-missile control systems were already in mass production. they could simply be adjusted to take care of drones. within twelve hours there were truck-loads of new sorts of supplies arriving at the shed. some were air force supplies and some were ordnance, and some were strictly quartermaster. these were not component parts of space ships. they were freight for the platform. and, just forty-eight hours after joe and sally looked dispiritedly down upon the floor of the shed, there were seven gleaming hulls in launching cages and the unholy din of landing pushpots outside the shed. they came with hysterical cries from their airfield to the south, and they flopped flat with extravagant crashings on the desert outside the eastern door. by the time the pushpots had been hauled in, one by one, and had attached themselves to the launching cages, joe and haney and the chief and mike had climbed into the cabin of the one ship which was not a drone. there were now seven cages in all to be hoisted toward the sky. a great double triangular gore had been jacked out and rolled aside to make an exit in the side of the shed. nearly as many pushpots, it seemed, were involved in this launching as in the take-off of the platform itself. the routine test before take-off set the pushpot motors to roaring inside the shed. the noise was the most sustained and ghastly tumult that had been heard on earth since the departure of the platform. but this launching was not so impressive. it was definitely untidy, imprecise, and unmilitary. there were seven eighty-foot hulls in cages surrounded by clustering, bellowing, preposterous groups of howling objects that looked like over-sized black beetles. one of the seven hulls had eyes. the others were blind--but they were equipped with radio antennae. the ship with eyes had several small basket-type radar bowls projecting from its cabin plating. the seven objects rose one by one and went bellowing and blundering out to the open air. at 40 and 50 feet above the ground, they jockeyed into some sort of formation, with much wallowing and pitching and clumsy maneuvering. then, without preliminary, they started up. they rose swiftly. the noise of their going diminished from a bellow to a howl, and from a howl to a moaning noise, and then to a faint, faint, ever-dwindling hum. presently that faded out, too. 8 all the sensations were familiar, the small fleet of improbable objects rose and rose. of all flying objects ever imagined by man, the launching cages supported by pushpots were most irrational. the squadron, though, went bumbling upward. in the manned ship, joe was more tense than on his other take-off--if such a thing was possible. his work was harder this trip. before, he'd had mike at communications and the chief at the steering rockets while haney kept the pushpots balanced for thrust. now joe flew the manned ship alone. headphones and a mike gave him communications with the shed direct, and the pushpots were balanced in groups, which cost efficiency but helped on control. he would have, moreover, to handle his own steering rockets during acceleration and when he could--and dared--he should supervise the others. because each of the other three had two drone-ships to guide. true, they had only to keep their drones in formation, but joe had to navigate for all. the four of them had been assigned this flight because of its importance. they happened to be the only crew alive who had ever flown a space ship designed for maneuvering, and their experience consisted of a single trip. the jet stream was higher this time than on that other journey now two months past. they blundered into it at 36,000 feet. joe's headphones buzzed tinnily. radar from the ground told him his rate-of-rise, his ground speed, his orbital speed, and added comments on the handling of the drones. the last was not a precision job. on the way up joe protested, "somebody's ship--number four--is lagging! snap it up!" mike said crisply, "got it, joe. coming up!" "the shed says three separate ships are getting out of formation. and we need due east pointing. check it." the chief muttered, "something whacky here ... come round, you! okay, joe." joe had no time for reflection. he was in charge of the clumsiest operation ever designed for an exact result. the squadron went wallowing toward the sky. the noise was horrible. a tinny voice in his headphones: "_you are at 65,000 feet. your rate-of-climb curve is flattening. you should fire your jatos when practical. you have some leeway in rocket power._" joe spoke into the extraordinary maze of noise waves and pressure systems in the air of the cabin. "we should blast. i'm throwing in the series circuit for jatos. try to line up. we want the drones above us and with a spread, remember! go to it!" he watched his direction indicator and the small graphic indicators telling of the drones. the sky outside the ports was dark purple. the launching cage responded sluggishly. its open end came around toward the east. it wobbled and wavered. it touched the due-east point. joe stabbed the firing-button. nothing happened. he hadn't expected it. the seven ships had to keep in formation. they had to start off on one course--with a slight spread as a safety measure--and at one time. so the firing-circuits were keyed to relays in series. only when all seven firing-keys were down at the same time would any of the jatos fire. then all would blast together. the pilots in the cockpit-bubbles of the pushpots had an extraordinary view of the scene. at something over twelve miles height, seven aggregations of clumsy black things clung to frameworks of steel, pushing valorously. far below there were clouds and there was earth. there was a horizon, which wavered and tilted. the pushpots struggled with seeming lack of purpose. one of the seven seemed to drop below the others. they pointed vaguely this way and that--all of them. but gradually they seemed to arrive at an uncertain unanimity. joe pushed the firing-button again as his own ship touched the due-east mark. again nothing happened. out of the corner of his eye he saw haney pressing down both buttons. the chief's finger lifted. mike pushed down one button and held off the other. roarings and howlings of pushpots. wobblings and heart-breaking clumsinesses of the drone-ships. they hung in the sky while the pushpots used up their fuel. "we've got to make it soon," said joe grimly. "we've got forty seconds. or we'll have to go down and try again." there was a clock dial with a red sweep-hand which moved steadily and ominously toward a deadline time for firing. up to that deadline, the pushpots could let the ships back down to earth without crashing them. after it, they'd run out of fuel before a landing could be made. the deadline came closer and closer. joe snapped: "take a degree leeway. we've got ten seconds." he had the manned ship nearly steady. he held down the firing-button, holding aim by infinitesimal movements of the controls. haney pushed both hands down, raised one, pushed again. the chief had one finger down. mike had both firing buttons depressed.... the chief pushed down his second button, quietly. there was a monstrous impact. every jato in every pushpot about every launching cage fired at once. joe felt himself flung back into his acceleration chair. six gravities. he began the horrible fight to stay alive, while the blood tried to drain from the conscious forepart of his brain, and while every button of his garments pressed noticeably against him, and objects in his pockets pushed. the sides of his mouth dragged back, and his cheeks sagged, and his tongue strove to sink back into his throat and strangle him. it was very bad. it seemed to last for centuries. then the jatos burned out. there was that ghastly feeling of lunging forward to weightlessness. one instant, joe's body weighed half a ton. the next instant, it weighed less than a dust grain. his head throbbed twice as if his skull were about to split open and let his brains run out. but these things he had experienced before. there were pantings in the cabin about him. the ship fell. it happened to be going up, but the sensation and the fact was free fall. joe had been through this before, too. he gasped for breath and croaked, "drones?" "right," said haney. mike panted anxiously, "four's off course. i'll fix it." the chief grunted guttural mohawk. his hands stirred on the panel for remote control of the drones he had to handle. "crazy!" he growled. "got it now, joe. fire when ready." "okay, mike?" a half-second pause. "okay!" joe pressed the firing-button for the take-off rockets. and he was slammed back into his acceleration chair again. but this was three gravities only. pressed heavily against the acceleration cushions, he could perform the navigation for the fleet. he did. the mother-ship had to steer a true course, regardless of the vagaries of its rockets. the drones had simply to be kept in formation with it. the second task was simpler. but joe was relieved, this time, of the need to report back instrument-readings. a telemetering device took care of that. the take-off rockets blasted and blasted and blasted. the mere matter of staying alive grew very tedious. the ordeal seemed to last for centuries. actually it could be measured only in minutes. but it seemed millennia before the headphones said, staccato fashion: "_you are on course and will reach speed in fourteen seconds. i will count for you._" "relays for rocket release," panted joe. "throw 'em over!" three hands moved to obey. joe could release the drive rockets on all seven ships at will. the voice counted: "_ten ... nine ... eight ... seven ... six ... five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... cut!_" joe pressed the master-key. the remnants of the solid-fuel take-off rockets let go. they flashed off into nothingness at unbelievable speed, consuming themselves as they went. there was again no weight. this time there was no resting. no eager gazing out the cabin ports. now they weren't curious. they'd had over a month in space, and something like sixteen days back on earth, and now they were back in space again. mike and haney and the chief worked doggedly at their control boards. the radar bowls outside the cabin shifted and moved and quivered. the six drone ships showed on the screens. but they also had telemetering apparatus. they faithfully reported their condition and the direction in which their bows pointed. the radars plotted their position with relation to each other and the mother-ship. presently joe cast a glance out of a port and saw that the dark line of sunset was almost below. the take-off had been timed to get the ships into earth's shadow above the area from which war rockets were most likely to rise. it wouldn't prevent bombing, of course. but there was a gadget.... joe spoke into the microphone: "reporting everything all right so far. but you know it." the voice from solid ground said, "_report acknowledged._" the ships went on and on and on. the chief muttered to himself and made very minute adjustments of the movement of one of his drones. mike fussed with his. haney regarded the controls of his drones with a profound calm. nothing happened, except that they seemed to be falling into a bottomless pit and their stomach-muscles knotted and cramped in purely reflex response to the sensation. even that grew tedious. the headphones said, "_you will enter earth's shadow in three minutes. prepare for combat._" joe said drily, "we're to prepare for combat." the chief growled. "i'd like to do just that!" the phrasing, of course, was intentional--in case enemy ears were listening. actually, the small fleet was to use a variant on the tin can shield which protected the platform. it would be most effective if visual observation was impossible. the fleet was seven ships in very ragged formation. most improbably, after the long three-gravity acceleration, they were still within a fifty-mile globe of space. number four loitered behind, but was being brought up by judicious bursts of steering-rocket fire. number two was some distance ahead. the others were simply scattered. they went floating on like a group of meteors. out the ports, two of them were visible. the others might be picked out by the naked eye--but it wasn't likely. drone two, far ahead and clearly visible, turned from a shining steel speck to a reddish pin-point of light. the red color deepened. it winked out. the sunlight in the ports of the mother-ship turned red. then it blacked out. "shoot the ghosts," said joe. the three drone-handlers pushed their buttons. nothing happened that anybody could see. actually, though, a small gadget outside the hull began to cough rhythmically. similar devices on the drones coughed, too. they were small, multiple-barreled guns. rifle shells fired two-pound missiles at random targets in emptiness. they wouldn't damage anything they hit. they'd go varying distances, explode and shoot small lead shot ahead to check their missile-velocity, and then emit dense masses of aluminum foil. there was no air resistance. the shredded foil would continue to move through emptiness at the same rate as the convoy-fleet. the seven ships had fired a total of eighty-four such objects away into the blackness of earth's shadow. there were, then, seven ships and eighty-four masses of aluminum foil moving through emptiness. they could not be seen by telescopes. and radars could not tell ships from masses of aluminum foil. if enemy radars came probing upward, they reported ninety-one space ships in ragged but coherent formation, soaring through emptiness toward the platform. and a fleet like that was too strong to attack. the radar operators had been prepared to forward details of the speed and course of a single ship to waiting rocket-launching submarines half-way across the pacific. but they reported to very high authority instead. he received the report of an armada--an incredible fleet--in space. he didn't believe it. but he didn't dare disbelieve it. so the fleet swam peacefully through the darkness that was earth's shadow, and no attempt at attack was made. they came out into sunlight to look down at the western shore of america itself. with seven ships to get on an exact course, at an exact speed, at an exact moment, time was needed. so the fleet made almost a complete circuit of the earth before reaching the height of the platform's orbit. they joined it. a single man in a space suit, anchored to its outer plates, directed a plastic hose which stretched out impossibly far and clamped to one drone with a magnetic grapple. he maneuvered it to the hull and made it fast. he captured a second, which was worked delicately within reach by coy puffs of steering-rocket vapor. one by one, the drones were made fast. then the manned ship went in the lock and the great outer door closed, and the plastic-fabric walls collapsed behind their nets, and air came in. lieutenant commander brown was the one to come into the lock to greet them. he shook hands all around--and it again seemed strange to all the four from earth to find themselves with their feet more or less firmly planted on a solid floor, but their bodies wavering erratically to right and left and before and back, because there was no up or down. "just had reports from earth," brown told joe comfortably. "the news of your take-off was released to avoid panic in europe. but everybody who doesn't like us is yelling blue murder. somebody--you may guess who--is announcing that a fleet of ninety-one war rockets took off from the united states and now hangs poised in space while the decadent american war-mongers prepare an ultimatum to all the world. everybody's frightened." "if they'll only stay scared until we get unloaded," said joe in some satisfaction, "the government back home can tell them how many we were and what we came up for. but we'll probably make out all right, anyhow." "my crew will unload," said brown, in conscious thoughtfulness. "you must have gotten pretty well exhausted by that acceleration." joe shook his head. "i think we can handle the freight faster. we found out a few things by going back to earth." a section of plating at the top of the lock--at least it had been the top when the platform was built on earth--opened up as on the first journey here. a face grinned down. but from this point on, the procedure was changed. haney and joe went into the cargo-section of the rocketship and heaved its contents smoothly through weightlessness to the storage chamber above. the chief and mike stowed it there. the speed and precision of their work was out of all reason. brown stared incredulously. the fact was simply that on their first trip to the platform, joe and his crew didn't know how to use their strength where there was no weight. by the time they'd learned, their muscles had lost all tone. now they were fresh from earth, with earth-strength muscles--and they knew how to use them. "when we got back," joe told brown, "we were practically invalids. no exercise up here. this time we've brought some harness to wear. we've some for you, too." they moved out of the airlock, and the ship was maneuvered to a mooring outside, and a drone took its place. brown's eyes blinked at the unloading of the drone. but he said, "navy style work, that!" "out here," said joe, "you take no more exercise than an invalid on earth--in fact, not as much. by now the original crew would have trouble standing up on a trip back to earth. you'd feel pretty heavy, yourself." brown frowned. "hm. i--ah--i shall ask for instructions on the matter." he stood erect. he didn't waver on his feet as the others did. but he wore the same magnetic-soled shoes. joe knew, with private amusement, that brown must have worked hard to get a dignified stance in weightlessness. "mr. kenmore," said brown suddenly. "have you been assigned a definite rank as yet?" "not that i know of," said joe without interest. "i skipper the ship i just brought up. but----" "your ship has no rating!" protested brown irritably. "the skipper of a navy ship may be anything from a lieutenant junior grade to a captain, depending on the size and rating of the ship. in certain circumstances even a noncommissioned officer. are you an enlisted man?" "again, not that i know of," joe told him. "nor my crew, either." brown looked at once annoyed and distressed. "it isn't regular!" he objected. "it isn't shipshape! i should know whether you are under my command or not! for discipline! for organization! it should be cleared up! i shall put through an urgent inquiry." joe looked at him incredulously. lieutenant commander brown was a perfectly amiable man, but he had to have things in a certain pattern for him to recognize that they were in a pattern at all. he was more excited over the fact that he didn't know whether he ranked joe, than over the much more important matter of physical deterioration in the absence of gravity. yet he surely understood their relative importance. the fact was, of course, that he could confidently expect exact instructions about the last, while he had to settle matters of discipline and routine for himself. "i shall ask for clarification of your status," he said worriedly. "it shouldn't have been left unclear. i'd better attend to it at once." he looked at joe as if expecting a salute. he didn't get it. he clanked away, his magnetic shoe-soles beating out a singularly martial rhythm. he must have practised that walk, in private. joe got out of the airlock as another of the space barges was warped in. brent, the crew's psychologist, joined him when he went to unload. brent nodded in a friendly fashion to joe. "quite a change, eh?" he said drily. "sanford turned out to be a crackpot with his notions of grandeur. i'm not sure that brown's notions of discipline aren't worse." joe said, "i've something rather important to pass on," and told about the newly discovered physical effects of a long stay where there was no gravity. the doctors now predicted that anybody who spent six months without weight would suffer a deterioration of muscle tone which could make a return to earth impossible without a long preliminary process of retraining. one's heart would adjust to the absence of any need to pump blood against gravity. "which," said joe, "means that you're going to have to be relieved before too long. but we brought up some gravity-simulator harness that may help." brent said desolately: "and i was so pleased! we all had trouble with insomnia, at first, but lately we've all been sleeping well! now i see why! normally one sleeps because he's tired. we had trouble sleeping until our muscles got so weak we tired anyhow!" another drone came in and was unloaded. and another and another. but the last of them wasn't only unloaded. haney took over the platform's control board and--grinning to himself--sent faint, especially-tuned short wave impulses to the steering-rockets of the drone. the liquid-fuel rockets were designed to steer a loaded ship. with the airlock door open, the silvery ship leaped out of the dock like a frightened horse. the liquid-fuel rocket had a nearly empty hull to accelerate. it responded skittishly. joe watched out a port as it went hurtling away. the vast earth rolled beneath it. it sped on and vanished. its fumes ceased to be visible. joe told brent: "another nice job, that! we sent it backward, slowing it a little. it'll have a new orbit, independent of ours and below it. but come sixty hours it will be directly underneath. we'll haul it up and refuel it. and our friends the enemy will hate it. it's a radio repeater. it'll pick up short-wave stuff beamed to it, and repeat it down to earth. and they can try to jam that!" it was a mildly malicious trick to play. behind the iron curtain, broadcasts from the free world couldn't be heard because of stations built to emit pure noise and drown them out. but the jamming stations were on the enemy nations' borders. if radio programs came down from overhead, jamming would be ineffective at least in the center of the nations. populations would hear the truth, even though their governments objected. but that was a minor matter, after all. with space ship hulls coming into being by dozens, and with one convoy of hundreds of tons of equipment gotten aloft, the whole picture of supply for the platform had changed. part of the new picture was two devices that haney and the chief were assembling. they were mostly metal backbone and a series of tanks, with rocket motors mounted on ball and socket joints. they looked like huge red insects, but they were officially rocket recovery vehicles, and joe's crew referred to them as space wagons. they had no cabin, but something like a saddle. before it there was a control-board complete with radar-screens. and there were racks to which solid-fuel rockets of divers sizes could be attached. they were literally short-range tow craft for travel in space. they had the stripped, barren look of farm machinery. so the name "space wagon" fitted. there were two of them. "we're putting the pair together," the chief told joe. "looks kinda peculiar." "it's only for temporary use," said joe. "there's a bigger and better one being built with a regular cabin and hull. but some experience with these two will be useful in running a regular space tug." the chief said with a trace too much of casualness: "i'm kind of looking forward to testing this." "no," said joe doggedly. "i'm responsible. i take the first chance. but we should all be able to handle them. when this is assembled you can stand by with the second one. if the first one works all right, we'll try the second." the chief grimaced, but he went back to the assembly of the spidery device. joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses. he showed brent how they worked. brown hadn't official instructions to order their use, but joe put one on himself, set for full earth-gravity simulation. he couldn't imitate actual gravity, of course. only the effect of gravity on one's muscles. there were springs and elastic webbing pulling one's shoulders and feet together, so that it was as much effort to stand extended--with one's legs straight out--as to stand upright on earth. joe felt better with a pull on his body. brent was upset when he found that to him more than a tenth of normal gravity was unbearable. but he kept it on at that. if he increased the pull a very little every day, he might be able to return to earth, in time. now it would be a very dangerous business indeed. he went off to put the other members of the crew in the same sort of harness. after ten hours, a second drone broadcaster went off into space. by that time the articulated red frameworks were assembled. they looked more than ever like farm machinery, save that their bulging tanks made them look insectile, too. they were actually something between small tow-boats and crash-wagons. a man in a space suit could climb into the saddle of one of these creations, plug in the air-line of his suit to the crash-wagon's tanks, and travel in space by means of the space wagon's rockets. these weird vehicles had remarkably powerful magnetic grapples. they were equipped with steering rockets as powerful as those of a ship. they had banks of solid-fuel rockets of divers power and length of burning. and they even mounted rocket missiles, small guided rockets which could be used to destroy what could not be recovered. they were intended to handle unmanned rocket shipments of supplies to the platform. there were reasons why the trick should be economical, if it should happen to work at all. when they were ready for testing, they seemed very small in the great space lock. joe and the chief very carefully checked an extremely long list of things that had to work right or nothing would work at all. that part of the job wasn't thrilling, but joe no longer looked for thrills. he painstakingly did the things that produced results. if a sense of adventure seemed to disappear, the sensations of achievement more than made up for it. they got into space suits. they were in an odd position on the platform. lieutenant commander brown had avoided joe as much as possible since his arrival. so far he'd carefully avoided giving him direct orders, because joe was not certainly and officially his subordinate. lacking exact information, the only thing a conscientious rank-conscious naval officer could do was exercise the maximum of tact and insistently ask authority for a ruling on joe's place in the hierarchy of rank. joe flung a leg over his eccentric, red-painted mount. he clipped his safety-belt, plugged in his suit air-supply to the space wagon's tanks, and spoke into his helmet transmitter. "okay to open the lock. chief, you keep watch. if i make out all right, you can join me. if i get in serious trouble, come after me in the ship we rode up. but only if it's practical! not otherwise!" the chief said something in mohawk. he sounded indignant. the plastic walls of the lock swelled inward, burying and overwhelming them. pumps pounded briefly, removing what air was left. then the walls drew back, straining against their netting, and joe waited for the door to open to empty space. instead, there came a sharp voice in his helmet-phones. it was brown. "_radar says there's a rocket on the way up! it's over at what is the edge of the world from here. three gravities only. better not go out!_" joe hesitated. brown still issued no order. but defense against a single rocket would be a matter of guided missiles--brown's business--if the tin can screen didn't handle it. joe would have no part in it. he wouldn't be needed. he couldn't help. and there'd be all the elaborate business of checking to go through again. he said uncomfortably: "it'll be a long time before it gets here--and three gravities is low! maybe it's a defective job. there have been misfires and so on. it won't take long to try this wagon, anyhow. they're anxious to send up a robot ship from the shed and these have to be tested first. give me ten minutes." he heard the chief grumbling to himself. but one tested space wagon was better than none. the airlock doors opened. huge round valves swung wide. bright, remote, swarming stars filled the opening. joe cracked the control of his forward liquid-fuel rockets. the lock filled instantly with swirling fumes. and instantly the tiny space wagon moved. it did not have to lift from the lock floor. once the magnetic clamps were released it was free of the floor. but it did have mass. one brief push of the rockets sent it floating out of the lock. it was in space. it kept on. joe felt a peculiar twinge of panic. nobody who is accustomed only to earth can quite realize at the beginning the conditions of handling vehicles in space. but joe cracked the braking rockets. he stopped. he hung seemingly motionless in space. the platform was a good half-mile away. he tried the gyros, and the space wagon went into swift spinning. he reversed them and straightened out--almost. the vastness of all creation seemed still to revolve slowly about him. the monstrous globe which was earth moved sedately from above his head to under his feet and continued the slow revolution. the platform rotated in a clockwise direction. he was drifting very slowly away. "chief," he said wrily, "you can't do worse than i'm doing, and we're rushed for time. you might come out. but listen! you don't run your rockets! on earth you keep a motor going because when it stops, you do. but out here you have to use your motor to stop, but not to keep on going. get it? when you do come out, don't burn your rockets more than half a second at a time." the chief's voice came booming: "_right, joe! here i come!_" there was a billowing of frantically writhing fumes, which darted madly in every direction until they ceased to be. the chief in his insect-like contraption came bolting out of the hole which was the airlock. he was a good half-mile away. the rocket fumes ceased. he kept on going. joe heard him swear. the chief felt the utterly helpless sensation of a man in a car when his brakes don't work. but a moment later the braking rockets did flare briefly, yet still too long. the chief was not only stopped, but drifting backwards toward the platform. he evidently tried to turn, and he spun as dizzily as joe had done. but after a moment he stopped--almost. there were, then, two red-painted things in space, somewhat like giant water-spiders floating forlornly in emptiness. they seemed very remote from the great bright steel platform and that gigantic ball which was earth, turning very slowly and filling a good fourth of all that could be seen. "suppose you head toward me, chief," said joe absorbedly. "aim to pass, and remember that what you have to estimate is not where i am, but where you have to put on the brakes to stop close by. that's where you use your braking-rockets." the chief tried it. he came to a stop a quarter-mile past joe. "_i'm heavy-handed_," said his voice disgustedly. "i'll try to join you," said joe. he did try. he stopped a little short. the two weird objects drifted almost together. the chief was upside down with regard to joe. presently he was sidewise on. "this takes thinking," said joe ruefully. a voice in his headphones, from the platform, said: "_that rocket from earth is still accelerating. still at three gravities. it looks like it isn't defective. it might be carrying a man. hadn't you better come in?_" the chief growled: "_we won't be any safer there! i want to get the hang of this._" then his voice changed sharply. "_joe! d'you get that?_" joe heard his own voice, very cold. "i didn't. i do now. brown, i'd suggest a guided missile at that rocket coming up. if there's a man in it, he's coming up to take over guided missiles that'll overtake him, and try to smash the platform by direct control, since proximity fuses don't work. i'd smash him as far away as possible." brown's voice came very curt and worried. "_right._" there was an eruption of rocket fumes from the side of the platform. something went foaming away toward earth. it dwindled with incredible rapidity. then joe said: "chief, i think we'd better go down and meet that rocket. we'll learn to handle these wagons on the way. i think we're going to have a fight on our hands. whoever's in that rocket isn't coming up just to shake hands with us." he steadied the small red vehicle and pointed it for earth. he added: "i'm firing a six-two solid-fuel job, chief. counting three. three--two--one." his mount vanished in rocket fumes. but after six seconds at two gravities acceleration the rocket burned out. the chief had fired a matching rocket. they were miles apart, but speeding earthward on very nearly identical courses. the platform grew smaller. that was their only proof of motion. a very, very long time passed. the chief fired his steering rockets to bring him closer to joe. it did not work. he had to aim for joe and fire a blast to move noticeably nearer. presently he would have to blast again to keep from passing. joe made calculations in his head. he worried. he and the chief were speeding earthward--away from the platform--at more than four miles a minute, but it was not enough. the manned rocket was accelerating at a great deal more than that rate. and if the platform's enemies down on earth had sent a manned rocket up to destroy the platform, the man in it would have ways of defending himself. he would expect guided missiles--but he probably wouldn't expect to be attacked by space wagons. joe said suddenly: "chief! i'm going to burn a twelve-two. we've got to match velocities coming back. join me? three--two--one." he fired a twelve-two. twelve seconds burning, two gravities acceleration. it built up his speed away from the platform to a rate which would have been breathless, on earth. but here there was no sensation of motion, and the distances were enormous. things which happen in space happen with insensate violence and incredible swiftness. but long, long, long intervals elapse between events. the twelve-two rocket burned out. the chief had matched that also. brown's voice in the headphones said, "_the rocket's cut acceleration. it's floating up, now. it should reach our orbit fifty miles behind us. but our missile should hit it in forty seconds._" "i wouldn't bet on that," said joe coldly. "figure interception data for the chief and me. make it fast!" he spotted the chief, a dozen miles away and burning his steering rockets to close, again. the chief had the hang of it, now. he didn't try to steer. he drove toward joe. but nothing happened. and nothing happened. and nothing happened. the two tiny space wagons were 90 miles from the platform, which was now merely a glittering speck, hardly brighter than the brightest stars. there was a flare of light to earthward. it was brighter than the sun. the light vanished. brown's voice came in the headphones, "_our missile went off 200 miles short! he sent an interceptor to set it off!_" "then he's dangerous," said joe. "there'll be war rockets coming up any second now for him to control from right at hand. we won't be fighting rockets controlled from 4,000 miles away! they've found proximity fuses don't work, so he's going to work in close. give us our course and data, quick! the chief and i have got to try to smash things!" the two tiny space wagons--like stick-insects in form, absurdly painted a brilliant red--seemed inordinately lonely. it was hardly possible to pick out the platform with the naked eyes. the earth was thousands of miles below. joe and the chief, in space suits, rode tiny metal frameworks in an emptiness more vast, more lonely, more terrible than either could have imagined. then the war rockets started up. there were eight of them. they came out to do murder at ten gravities acceleration. 9 but even at ten gravities' drive it takes time to travel 4,000 miles. at three, and coasting a great deal of the way, it takes much longer. the platform circled earth in four hours and a little more. anything intending interception and rising straight up needed to start skyward long before the platform was overhead. a three-g rocket would start while the platform was still below the western horizon from its launching-spot. especially if it planned to coast part of its journey--and a three-gravity rocket would have to coast most of the way. so there was time. coasting, the rising manned rocket would be losing speed. if it planned to go no higher than the platform's orbit, its upward velocity would be zero there. if it were intercepted 500 miles down, it would be rising at an almost leisurely rate, and joe and the chief could check their earthward plunge and match its rising rate. this they did. but what they couldn't do was match its orbital velocity, which was zero. they had the platform's eastward speed to start with--over 200 miles a minute. no matter how desperately they fired braking-rockets, they couldn't stop and maneuver around the rising control-ship. inevitably they would simply flash past it in the fraction of an instant. to fire their tiny guided missiles on ahead would be almost to assure that they would miss. also, the enemy ship was manned. it could fight back. but joe had been on the receiving end of one attack in space. it wasn't much experience, but it was more than anybody but he and his own crew possessed. "chief," said joe softly into his helmet-mike, as if by speaking softly he could keep from being overheard, "get close enough to me to see what i do, and do it too. i can't tell you more. whoever's running this rocket might know english." there was a flaring of vapor in space. the chief was using his steering-rockets to draw near. joe spun his little space wagon about, so that it pointed back in the direction from which he had come. he had four guided missiles, demolition type. very deliberately, he fired the four of them astern--away from the rising rocket. they were relatively low-speed missiles, intended to blow up a robot ship that couldn't be hooked onto, because it was traveling too much faster or slower than the platform it was intended to reach. the missiles went away. then joe faced about again in the direction of his prospective target. the chief fumed--joe heard him--but he duplicated joe's maneuver. he faced his own eccentric vessel in the direction of its line of flight. then his fuming suddenly ceased. joe's headphones brought his explosive grunt when he suddenly saw the idea. "_joe! i wish you could talk indian! i could kiss you for this trick!_" brown's voice said anxiously: "_i'm going to let that manned rocket have a couple more shots._" "let us get by first," said joe. "then maybe you can use them on the bombs coming up." he could see the trails of war-rockets on the way out from earth. they were infinitesimal threads of vapor. they were the thinnest possible filaments of gossamer white. but they enlarged as they rose. they were climbing at better than two miles per second, now, and still increasing their speed. but the arena in which this conflict took place was so vast that everything seemed to take place in slow motion. there was time to reason out not only the method of attack from earth, but the excuse for it. if the platform vanished from space, no matter from what cause, its enemies would announce vociferously that it had been destroyed by its own atomic bombs, exploding spontaneously. even in the face of proof of murder, enemy nations would stridently insist that bombs intended for the enslavement of humanity--in the platform--had providentially detonated and removed that instrument of war-mongering scoundrelly imperialists from the skies. there might be somebody, somewhere, who would believe it. joe and the chief were steadied now nearly on a line to intercept the rising manned rocket. they had already fired their missiles, which trailed them. they went into battle, not prepared to shoot, but with their ammunition expended. for which there was excellent reason. something came foaming toward them from the nearby man-carrying rocket. it seemed like a side-spout from the column of vapor rising from earth. actually it was a guided missile. "now we dodge," said joe cheerfully. "remember the trick of this maneuvering business!" it was simple. speeding toward the rising assassin, and with his missiles rushing toward them, the relative speeds of the wagons and the missiles were added together. if the space wagons dodged, the missile operator had less time to swing his guided rockets to match the change of target course. and besides, the attacker hadn't made a single turn in space. not yet. he might know that a rocket doesn't go where it's pointed, as a matter of theory. he might even know intellectually that the final speed and course of a rocket is the sum of all its previous speeds and courses. but he hadn't used the knowledge joe and the chief had. something rushed at them. they went into evasive action. and they didn't merely turn the noses of their space wagons. they flung them about end-for-end, and blasted. they used wholly different accelerations at odd angles. joe shot away from earth on steering rocket thrust, and touched off a four-three while he faced toward earth's north pole, and halfway along that four-second rush he flipped his craft in a somersault and the result was nearly a right-angled turn. when the four-three burned out he set off a twelve-two, and halfway through its burning fired a three-two with it, so that at the beginning he had two gravities acceleration, then four gravities for three seconds, and then two again. with long practice, a man might learn marksmanship in space. but all a man's judgment of speeds is learned on earth, where things always, always, always move steadily. nobody making his first space-flight could possibly hit such targets as joe and the chief made of themselves. the man in the enemy rocket was making his first flight. also, joe and the chief had an initial velocity of 200 miles a minute toward him. the marksman in the rising rocket hadn't a chance. he fired four more missiles and tried desperately to home them in. but---they flashed past his rising course. and then they were quite safe from his fire, because it would take a very long time indeed for anything he shot after them to catch up. but their missiles had still to pass him--and joe and the chief could steer them without any concern about their own safety or anything else but a hit. they made a hit. two of the eight little missiles flashed luridly, almost together, where the radar-pips showed the rocket to be. then there were two parts to the rocket, separating. one was small and one was fairly large. another demolition-missile hit the larger section. still another exploded as that was going to pieces. the smaller fragment ceased to be important. the explosions weren't atomic bombs, of course. they were only demolition-charges. but they demolished the manned rocket admirably. brown's voice came in the headphones, still tense. "_you got it! how about the others?_" joe felt a remarkable exhilaration. later he might think about the poor devil--there could have been only one--who had been destroyed some 3,700 miles above the surface of the earth. he might think unhappily of that man as a victim of hatred rather than as a hater. he might become extremely uncomfortable about this, but at the moment he felt merely that he and the chief had won a startling victory. "i think," he said, "that you can treat them with silent contempt. they won't have proximity fuses. those friends of ours who want so badly to kill us have found that proximity fuses don't work. unless one is on a collision course i don't think you need to do anything about them." the chief was muttering to himself in mohawk, twenty miles away. joe said: "chief, how about getting back to the platform?" the chief growled. "_my great-grandfather would disown me! winning a fight and no scalp to show! not even counting coup! he'd disown me!_" but joe saw his rockets flare, away off against the stars. the war rockets were very near, now. they still emitted monstrous jettings of thick white vapor. they climbed up with incredible speed. one went by joe at a distance of little more than a mile, and its fumes eddied out to half that before they thinned to nothingness. they went on and on and on.... they burned out somewhere. it would be a long time before they fell back to earth. hours, probably. then they would be meteors. they'd vaporize before they touched solidity. they wouldn't even explode. but joe and the chief rode back to the platform. it was surprising how hard it was to match speed with it again, to make a good entrance into the giant lock. they barely made it before the platform made its plunge into that horrible blackness which was the earth's shadow. and joe was very glad they did make it before then. he wouldn't have liked to be merely astride a skinny framework in that ghastly darkness, with the monstrous blackness of the abyss seeming to be trying to devour him. haney met them in the airlock. he grinned. "nice job, joe! nice job, chief!" he said warmly. "uh--the lieutenant commander wants you to report to him, joe. right away." joe cocked an eyebrow at him. "what for?" haney spread out his hands. the chief grunted. "that guy bothers me. i'll bet, joe, he's going to explain you shouldn't've gone out when he didn't want you to. me, i'm keeping away from him!" the chief shed his space suit and swaggered away, as well as anyone could swagger while walking on what happened to be the ceiling, from joe's point of view. joe put his space gear in its proper place. he went to the small cubbyhole that brown had appropriated for the office of the platform commander. joe went in, naturally without saluting. brown sat in a fastened-down chair with thigh grips holding him in place. he was writing. on joe's entry, he carefully put the pen down on a magnetized plate that would hold it until he wanted it again. otherwise it could have floated anywhere about the room. "mr. kenmore," said brown awkwardly, "you did a very nice piece of work. it's too bad you aren't in the navy." joe said: "it did work out pretty fortunately. it's lucky the chief and i were out practicing, but now we can take off when a rocket's reported, any time." brown cleared his throat. "i can thank you personally," he said unhappily, "and i do. but--really this situation is intolerable! how can i report this affair? i can't suggest commendation, or a promotion, or--anything! i don't even know how to refer to you! i am going to ask you, mr. kenmore, to put through a request that your status be clarified. i would imagine that your status would mean a rank--hm--about equivalent to a lieutenant junior grade in the navy." joe grinned. "i have--ah--prepared a draft you might find helpful," said brown earnestly. "it's necessary for something to be done. it's urgent! it's important!" "sorry," said joe. "the important thing to me is getting ready to load up the platform with supplies from earth. excuse me." he went out of the office. he made his way to the quarters assigned himself and his crew. mike greeted him with reproachful eyes. joe waved his hand. "don't say it, mike! the answer is yes. see that the tanks are refilled, and new rockets put in place. then you and haney go out and practice. but no farther than ten miles from the platform. understand?" "no!" said mike rebelliously. "it's a dirty trick!" "which," joe assured him, "i commit only because there's a robot ship from bootstrap coming up any time now. and we'll need to pick it up and tow it here." he went to the control-room to see if he could get a vision connection to earth. he got the beam, and he got sally on the screen. a report of the attack on the platform had evidently already gone down to earth. sally's expression was somehow drawn and haunted. but she tried to talk lightly. "derring-do and stuff, joe?" she asked. "how does it feel to be a victorious warrior?" "it feels rotten," he told her. "there must have been somebody in the rocket we blew up. he felt like a patriot, i guess, trying to murder us; but i feel like a butcher." "maybe you didn't do it," she said. "maybe the chief's bombs----" "maybe," said joe. he hesitated. "hold up your hand." she held it up. his ring was still on it. she nodded. "still there. when will you be back?" he shook his head. he didn't know. it was curious that one wanted so badly to talk to a girl after doing something that was blood-stirring--and left one rather sickish afterward. this business of space travel and even space battle was what he'd dreamed of, and he still wanted it. but it was very comforting to talk to sally, who hadn't had to go through any of it. "write me a letter, will you?" he asked. "we can't tie up this beam very long." "i'll write you all the news that's allowed to go out," she assured him. "be seeing you, joe." her image faded from the screen. and, thinking it over, he couldn't see that either of them had said anything of any importance at all. but he was very glad they'd talked together. the first robot ship came up some eight hours later--two revolutions after the television call. mike was ready hours in advance, fidgeting. the robot ship started up while the platform was over the middle of the pacific. it didn't try to make a spiral approach as all other ships had done. it came straight up, and it started from the ground. no pushpots. its take-off rockets were monsters. they pushed upward at ten gravities until it was out of atmosphere, and then they stepped up to fifteen. much later, the robot turned on its side and fired orbital speed rockets to match velocity with the platform. there were two reasons for the vertical rise, and the high acceleration. if a robot ship went straight up, it wouldn't pass over enemy territory until it was high enough to be protected by the platform. and--it costs fuel to carry fuel to be burned. so if the rocketship could get up speed for coasting to orbit in the first couple of hundred miles, it needn't haul its fuel so far. it was economical to burn one's fuel fast and get an acceleration that would kill a human crew. hence robots. the landing of the first robot ship at the platform was almost as matter-of-fact as if it had been done a thousand times before. from the platform its dramatic take-off couldn't be seen, of course. it first appeared aloft as a pip on a radar screen. then mike prepared to go out and hook on to it and tow it in. he was in his space suit and in the landing lock, though his helmet faceplate was still open. a loudspeaker boomed suddenly in brown's voice: "_evacuate airlock and prepare to take off!_" joe roared: "hold that!" brown's voice, very official, came: "_withhold execution of that order. you should not be in the airlock, mr. kenmore. you will please make way for operational procedure._" "we're checking the space wagon," snapped joe. "that's operational procedure!" the loudspeaker said severely: "_the checking should have been done earlier!_" there was silence. mike and joe, together, painstakingly checked over the very many items that had to be made sure. every rocket had to have its firing circuit inspected. the tanks' contents and pressure verified. the air connection to mike's space suit. the air pressure. the device that made sure that air going to mike's space suit was neither as hot as metal in burning sunlight, nor cold as the chill of a shadow in space. everything checked. mike straddled his red-painted mount. joe left the lock and said curtly: "okay to pump the airlock. okay to open airlock doors when ready. go ahead." mike went out, and joe watched from a port in the platform's hull. the drone from earth was five miles behind the platform in its orbit, and twenty miles below, and all of ten miles off-course. joe saw mike scoot the red space wagon to it, stop short with a sort of cocky self-assurance, hook on to the tow-ring in the floating space-barge's nose, and blast off back toward the platform with it in tow. mike had to turn about and blast again to check his motion when he arrived. and then he and haney--haney in the other space wagon--nudged at it and tugged at it and got it in the great spacelock. they went in after it and the lock doors closed. neither mike nor haney were out of their space suits when kent brought joe a note. a note was an absurdity in the platform. but this was a formal communication from brown. "_from: lt. comdr. brown to: mr. kenmore subject: cooperation and courtesy in rocket recovery vehicle launchings. 1. there is a regrettable lack of coordination and courtesy in the launching of rocket-recovery vehicles (space wagons) in the normal operation of the platform. 2. the maintenance of discipline and efficiency requires that the commanding officer maintain overall control of all operations at all times. 3. hereafter when a space vehicle of any type is to be launched, the commanding officer will be notified in writing not less than one hour before such launching. 4. the time of such proposed launching will be given in such notification in hours and minutes and seconds, greenwich mean time. 5. all commands for launching will be given by the commanding officer or an officer designated by him._" joe received the memo as he was in the act of writing a painstaking report on the maneuver mike had carried out. mike was radiant as he discussed possible improvements with later and better equipment. after all, this had been a lucky landing. for a robot to end up no more than 30 miles from its target, after a journey of 4,000 miles, and with a difference in velocity that was almost immeasurable--such good fortune couldn't be expected as a regular thing. the space wagons were tiny. if they had to travel long distances to recover erratic ships coming up from earth---joe forgot all about lieutenant commander brown and his memo when the mail was distributed. joe had three letters from sally. he read them in the great living compartment of the platform with its sixty-foot length and its carpet on floor and ceiling, and the galleries without stairs outside the sleeping cabins. he sat in a chair with thigh grips to hold him in place, and he wore a gravity simulation harness. it was necessary. the regular crew of the platform, by this time, couldn't have handled space wagons in action against enemy manned rockets. joe meant to stay able to take acceleration. it was just as he finished his mail that brent came in. "big news!" said brent. "they're building a big new ship of new design--almost half as big as the platform. with concreted metal they can do it in weeks." "what's it for?" demanded joe. "it'll be a human base on the moon," said brent relievedly. "an expedition will start in six weeks, according to plan. as long as we're the only american base in space, we're going to be shot at. but a base on the moon will be invulnerable. so they're going ahead with it." joe said hopefully: "any orders for me to join it?" brent shook his head. "we're to be loaded up with supplies for the moon expedition. we're to be ready to take a robot ship every round. actually, they can't hope to send us more than two a day for a while, but even that'll be eighty tons of supplies to be stored away." the chief grumbled, but somehow his grumbling did not sound genuine. "they're going to the moon--and leave us here to do stevedore stuff?" his tone was odd. he looked at a letter he'd been reading and gave up pretense. he said self-consciously: "listen, you guys.... my tribe's got all excited. i just got a letter from the council. they've been having an argument about me. wanna hear?" he was a little amused, and a little embarrassed, but something had happened to make him feel good. "let's have it," said joe. mike was very still in another chair. he didn't look up, though he must have heard. haney cocked an interested ear. the chief said awkwardly, "you know--us mohawks are kinda proud. we got something to be proud of. we were one of the five nations, when that was a sort of united nations and all europe was dog-eat-dog. my tribe had a big pow-wow about me. there's a tribe member that's a professor of anthropology out in chicago. he was there. and a couple of guys that do electronic research, and doctors and farmers and all sorts of guys. all mohawks. they got together in tribal council." he stopped and flushed under his dark skin. "i wouldn't tell you, only you guys are in on it." still he hesitated. joe found a curious picture forming in his mind. he'd known the chief a long time, and he knew that part of the tribe lived in brooklyn, and individual members were widely scattered. but still there was a certain remote village which to all the tribesmen was home. everybody went back there from time to time, to rest from the strangeness of being indians in a world of pale-skinned folk. joe could almost imagine the council. there'd be old, old men who could nearly remember the days of the tribe's former glory, who'd heard stories of forest warfare and zestful hunts, and scalpings and heroic deeds from their grandfathers. but there were also doctors and lawyers and technical men in that council which met to talk about the chief. "it's addressed to me," said the chief with sudden clumsiness, "in the world-by-itself canoe. that's the platform here. and it says--i'll have to translate, because it's in mohawk." he took a deep breath. "it says, 'we your tribesmen have heard of your journeyings off the earth where men have never traveled before. this has given us great pride, that one of our tribe and kin had ventured so valiantly.'" the chief grinned abashedly. he went on. "'in full assembly, the elders of the tribe have held counsel on a way to express their pride in you, and in the friends you have made who accompanied you. it was proposed that you be given a new name to be borne by your sons after you. it was proposed that the tribe accept from each of its members a gift to be given you in the name of the tribe. but these were not considered great enough. therefore the tribe, in full council, has decreed that your name shall be named at every tribal council of the mohawks from this day to the end of time, as one the young braves would do well to copy in all ways. and the names of your friends joe kenmore, mike scandia, and thomas haney shall also be named as friends whose like all young braves should strive to seek out and to be.'" the chief sweated a little, but he looked enormously proud. joe went over to him and shook hands warmly. the chief almost broke his fingers. it was, of course, as high an honor as could be paid to anybody by the people who paid it. haney said awkwardly, "lucky they don't know me like you do, chief. but it's swell!" which it was. but mike hadn't said a word. the chief said exuberantly: "did you hear that, mike? every mohawk for ten thousand years is gonna be told that you were a swell guy! crazy, huh?" mike said in an odd voice: "yeah. i didn't mean that, chief. it's fine! but i--i got a letter. i--never thought to get a letter like this." he looked unbelievingly at the paper in his hands. "mash note?" asked the chief. his tone was a little bit harsh. mike was a midget. and there were women who were fools. it would be unbearable if some half-witted female had written mike the sort of gushing letter that some half-witted females might write. mike shook his head, with an odd, quick smile. "not what you think, chief. but it is from a girl. she sent me her picture. it's a--swell letter. i'm--going to answer it. you can look at her picture. she looks kind of--nice." he handed the chief a snapshot. the chief's face changed. haney looked over his shoulder. he passed the picture to joe and said ferociously: "you mike! you doggoned don juan! the chief and me have got to warn her what kinda guy you are! stealing from blind men! fighting cops----" joe looked at the picture. it was a very sweet small face, and the eyes that looked out of the photograph were very honest and yearning. and joe understood. he grinned at mike. because this girl had the distinctive look that mike had. she was a midget, too. "she's--thirty-nine inches tall," said mike, almost stunned. "she's just two inches shorter than me. and--she says she doesn't mind being a midget so much since she heard about me. i'm going to write her." but it would be, of course, a long time before there was a way for mail to get down to earth. it was a long time. now it was possible to send up robot rockets to the platform. they came up. when the second arrived, haney went out to pull it in. joe forgot to notify brown, in writing, an hour before launching a rocket recovery vehicle (space wagon) according to paragraph 3 of the formal memo, nor the time of launching in hours, minutes, etc., by greenwich mean time (paragraph 4), nor was the testing of all equipment made before moving it into the airlock. this was because the testing equipment was in the airlock, where it belonged. and the commands for launching were not given by brown or an officer designated by him, because joe forgot all about it. brown made a stormy scene about the matter, and joe was honestly apologetic, but the chief and haney and mike glared venomously. the result was completely inconclusive. joe had not been put under brown's command. he and his crew were the only people on the platform physically in shape to operate the space wagons, considering the acceleration involved. brent and the others were wearing gravity simulators, and were building back to strength. but they weren't up to par as yet. they'd been in space too long. so there was nothing brown could do. he retreated into icily correct, outraged dignity. and the others hauled in and unloaded rockets as they arrived. they came up fast. the processes of making them had been improved. they could be made faster, heated to sintering temperature faster, and the hulls cooled to usefulness in a quarter of the former time. the production of space ship hulls went up to four a day, while the molds for the moonship were being worked even faster. the moonship, actually, was assembled from precast individual cells which then were welded together. it would have features the platform lacked, because it was designed to be a base for exploration and military activities in addition to research. but only twenty days after the recovery and docking of the first robot ship to rise, a new sort of ship entirely came blindly up as a robot. the little space wagons hauled it to the airlock and inside. they unloaded it--and it was no longer a robot. it was a modified hull designed for the duties of a tug in space. it could carry a crew of four, and its cargohold was accessible from the cabin. it had an airlock. more, it carried a cargo of solid-fuel rockets which could be shifted to firing racks outside its hull. starting from the platform, where it had no effective weight, it was capable of direct descent to the earth without spiralling or atmospheric braking. to make that descent it would, obviously, expend four-fifths of its loaded weight in rockets. and since it had no weight at the platform, but only mass, it was capable of far-ranging journeying. it could literally take off from the platform and reach the moon and land on it, and then return to the platform. but that had to wait. "sure we could do it," agreed joe, when mike wistfully pointed out the possibility. "it would be good to try it. but unfortunately, space exploration isn't a stunt. we've gotten this far because--somebody wanted to do something. but----" then he said, "it could be done and the united nations wouldn't do it. so the united states had to, or--somebody else would have. you can figure who that would be, and what use they'd make of space travel! so it's important. it's more important than stunt flights we could make!" "nobody could stop us if we wanted to take off!" mike said rebelliously. "true," joe said. "but we four can stand three gravities acceleration and handle any more manned rockets that start out here. we've lived through plenty more than that! but brent and the others couldn't put up a fight in space. they're wearing harness now, and they're coming back to strength. but we're going to stay right here and do stevedoring--and fighting too, if it comes to that--until the job is done." and that was the way it was, too. of stevedoring there was plenty. two robot ships a day for weeks on end. three ships a day for a time. four. sometimes things went smoothly, and the little space wagons could go out and bring back the great, rocket-scarred hulls from earth. but once in three times the robots were going too fast or too slow. the space wagons couldn't handle them. then the new ship, the space tug, went out and hooked onto the robot with a chain and used the power it had to bring them to their destination. and sometimes the robots didn't climb straight. at least once the space tug captured an erratic robot 400 miles from its destination and hauled it in. it used some heavy solid-fuel rockets on that trip. the platform had become, in fact, a port in space, though so far it had had only arrivals and no departures. its storage compartments almost bulged with fuel stores and food stores and equipment of every imaginable variety. it had a stock of rockets which were enough to land it safely on earth, though there was surely no intention of doing so. it had food and air for centuries. it had repair parts for all its own equipment. and it had weapons. it contained, in robot hulls anchored to its sides, enough fissionable material to conduct a deadly war--which was only stored for transfer to the moon base when that should be established. and it had communication with earth of high quality. so far the actual mail was only a one-way service, but even entertainment came up, and news. once there was a television shot of the interior of the shed. it was carefully scrambled before transmission, but it was a heartening sight. the shed on the tv screen appeared a place of swarming activity. robot hulls were being made. they were even improved, fined down to ten tons of empty weight apiece, and their controls were assembly line products now. and there was the space flight simulator with men practicing in it, although for the time being only robots were taking off from earth. and there was the moonship. it didn't look like the platform, but rather like something a child might have put together out of building blocks. it was built up out of welded-together cells with strengthening members added. it was 60 feet high from the floor and twice as long, and it did not weigh nearly what it seemed to. already it was being clad in that thick layer of heat insulation it would need to endure the two-week-long lunar night. it could take off very soon now. the pictured preparations back on earth meant round-the-clock drudgery for joe and the others. they wore themselves out. but the storage space on the platform filled up. days and weeks went by. then there came a time when literally nothing else could be stored, so joe and his crew made ready to go back to earth. they ate hugely and packed a very small cargo in their ship. they picked up one bag of mail and four bags of scientific records and photographs which had only been transmitted by facsimile tv before. they got into the space tug. it floated free. "_you will fire in ten seconds_," said a crisp voice in joe's headphones. "_ten ... nine ... eight ... seven ... six ... five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... fire!_" joe crooked his index finger. there was an explosive jolt. rockets flamed terribly in emptiness. the space tug rushed toward the west. the platform seemed to dwindle with startling suddenness. it seemed to rush away and become lost in the myriads of stars. the space tug accelerated at four gravities in the direction opposed to its orbital motion. as the acceleration built up, it dropped toward earth and home like a tumbled stone. 10 there was bright sunshine at the shed, not a single cloud in all the sky. the radar bowls atop the roof--they seemed almost invisibly small compared with its vastness--wavered and shifted and quivered. completely invisible beams of microwaves lanced upward. atop the shed, in the communication room, there was the busy quiet of absolute intentness. signals came down and were translated into visible records which fed instantly into computers. then the computers clicked and hummed and performed incomprehensible integrations, and out of their slot-mouths poured billowing ribbons of printed tape. men read those tapes and talked crisply into microphones, and their words went swiftly aloft again. down by the open eastern door of the shed at the desert's edge, sally holt and joe's father waited together, watching the sky. sally was white and scared. joe's father patted her shoulder reassuringly. "he'll make it, all right," said sally, dry-throated. joe's father nodded. "of course he will!" but his voice was not steady. "nothing could happen to him now!" said sally fiercely. "of course not," said joe's father. a loudspeaker close to them said abruptly: "_nineteen miles._" there was a tiny, straggling thread of white visible in the now. it thinned out to nothingness, but its nearest part flared out and flared out and flared out. it grew larger, came closer with a terrifying speed. "_twelve miles_," said the speaker harshly. "_rockets firing._" the downward-hurtling trail of smoke was like a crippled plane falling flaming from the sky, except that no plane ever fell so fast. at seven miles the white-hot glare of the rocket flames was visible even in broad daylight. at three miles the light was unbearably bright. at two, the light winked out. sally saw something which glittered come plummeting toward the ground, unsupported. it fell almost half a mile before rocket fumes flung furiously out again. then it checked. visibly, its descent was slowed. it dropped more slowly, and more slowly, and more slowly still.... it hung in mid-air a quarter-mile up. then there was a fresh burst of rocket fumes, more monstrous than ever, and it went steadily downward, touched the ground, and stayed there spurting terrible incandescent flames for seconds. then the bottom flame went out. an instant later there were no more flames at all. sally began to run toward the ship. she stopped. a procession of rumbling, clanking, earth-moving machinery moved out of the shed and toward the upright space tug. prosaically, a bulldozer lowered its wide blade some fifty yards from the ship. it pushed a huge mass of earth before it, covering over the scorched and impossibly hot sand about the rocket's landing place. other bulldozers began to circle methodically around and around, overturning the earth and burying the hot surface stuff. water trucks sprayed, and thin steam arose. but also an exit-port opened and joe stood in the opening. then sally began to run again. * * * * * joe sat at dinner in the major's quarters. major holt was there, and joe's father, and sally. "it feels good," said joe warmly, "to use a knife and fork again, and to pick food up from a plate where it stays until it's picked up!" "the crew of the platform----" major holt began. "they're all right," said joe, with his mouth full. "they're wearing gravity simulator harness. brent's got his up to three-quarters gravity. they get tired, wearing the harness. they sleep better. everything's fine! they can handle the space wagons we left and they've got guided missiles to spare! they're all right!" joe's father said unsteadily, "you'll stay on earth a while now, son?" sally moved quickly. she looked up, tense. but joe said, "they're going to get the moonship up, sir. we came back--my gang and me--to help train the crew. we only have a week to do it in, but we've got some combat tactics to show them on the training gadget in the shed." he added anxiously, "and, sir--they'll have to take the moonship off in a spiral orbit. she can't go straight up! that means she's got to pass over enemy territory, and--we've got to have a real escort for her. a fighting escort. it's planned for the space tug to take off a few minutes after the moonship and blast along underneath. we'll dump guided missiles out--like drones--and if anything comes along we can start their rockets and fight our way through. and we four have had more experience than anybody else. we're needed!" "you've done enough, surely!" sally cried. "the united states," said joe awkwardly, "is going to take over the moon. i--can't miss having a hand in that! not if it's at all possible!" "i'm afraid you will miss it, joe," major holt said detachedly. "the occupation of the moon will be a navy enterprise. space exploration project facilities are being used to prepare for it, but the navy won the latest battle of the pentagon. the navy takes over the moon." joe looked startled. "but----" "you're space exploration personnel," said the major with the same coolness. "you will be used to instruct naval personnel, and your space tug will be asked to go along to the platform as an auxiliary vessel. for purposes of assisting in the landing of the moonship at the platform, you understand. you'll haul her away from the platform when she's refueled and supplied, so she can start off for the moon. but the occupation of the moon will be strictly navy." joe's expression became carefully unreadable. "i think," he said evenly, "i'd better not comment." major holt nodded. "very wise--not that we'd repeat anything you did say. but the point is, joe, that just one day before the moonship does take off, the united nations will be informed that it is a united states naval vessel. the doctrine of the freedom of space--like the freedom of the seas--will be promulgated. and the united states will say that a united states naval task force is starting off into space on an official mission. to attack a space exploration ship is one thing. that's like a scientific expedition. but to fire on an american warship on official business is a declaration of war. especially since that ship can shoot back--and will." joe listened. he said, "it's daring somebody to try another pearl harbor?" "exactly," said the major. "it's time for us to be firm--now that we can back it up. i don't think the moonship will be fired on." "but they'll need me and my gang just the same," said joe slowly, "for tugboat work at the platform?" "exactly," said the major. "then," joe said doggedly, "they get us. my gang will gripe about being edged out of the trip. they won't like it. but they'd like backing out still less. we'll play it the way it's dealt--but we won't pretend to like it." major holt's expression did not change at all, but joe had an odd feeling that the major approved of him. "yes. that's right, joe," his father added. "you--you'll have to go aloft once more, son. after that, we'll talk it over." sally hadn't said a word during the discussion, but she'd watched joe every second. later, out on the porch of the major's quarters, she had a great deal to say. but that couldn't affect the facts. the world at large, of course, received no inkling of the events in preparation. the shed and the town of bootstrap and all the desert for a hundred-mile circle round about, were absolutely barred to all visitors. anybody who came into that circle stayed in. most people were kept out. all that anyone outside could discover was that enormous quantities of cryptic material had poured and still were pouring into the shed. but this time security was genuinely tight. educated guesses could be made, and they were made; but nobody outside the closed-in area save a very few top-ranking officials had any real knowledge. the world only knew that something drastic and remarkable was in prospect. mike, though, was able to write a letter to the girl who'd written him. major holt arranged it. mike wrote his letter on paper supplied by security, with ink supplied by security, and while watched by security officers. his letter was censored by major holt himself, and it did not reveal that mike was back on earth. but it did invite a reply--and mike sweated as he waited for one. the others had plenty to sweat about. joe and haney and the chief were acting as instructors to the moonship's crew. they taught practical space navigation. at first they thought they hadn't much to pass on, but they found out otherwise. they had to pass on data on everything from how to walk to how to drink coffee, how to eat, sleep, why one should wear gravity harness, and the manners and customs of ships in space. they had to show why in space fighting a ship might send missiles on before it, but would really expect to do damage with those it left behind. they had to warn of the dangers of unshielded sunshine, and the equal danger of standing in shadow for more than five minutes, and---they had material for six months of instruction courses, but there was barely a week to pass it on. joe was run ragged, but in spite of everything he managed to talk at some length with sally. he found himself curiously anxious to discuss any number of things with his father, too, who suddenly appeared to be much more intelligent than joe had ever noticed before. he was almost unhappy when it was certain that the moonship would take off for space on the following day. he talked about it with sally the night before take-off. "look," he said awkwardly. "as far as i'm concerned this has turned out a pretty sickly business. but when we have got a base on the moon, it'll be a good job done. there will be one thing that nobody can stop! everybody's been living in terror of war. if we hold the moon the cold war will be ended. you can't kick on my wanting to help end that!" sally smiled at him in the moonlight. "and--meanwhile," said joe clumsily, "well--when i come back we can do some serious talking about--well--careers and such things. until then--no use. right?" sally's smile wavered. "very sensible," she agreed wrily. "and awfully silly, joe. i know what kind of a career i want! what other fascinating topic do you know to talk about, joe?" "i don't know of any. oh, yes! mike got a letter from his girl. i don't know what she said, but he's walking on air." "but it isn't funny!" said sally indignantly. "mike's a person! a fine person! if he'll let me, i'll write to his girl myself and--try to make friends with her so when you come back i--maybe i can be a sort of match-maker." "that, i like!" joe said warmly. "you're swell sometimes, sally!" sally looked at him enigmatically in the moonlight. "there are times when it seems to escape your attention," she observed. * * * * * the next morning she cried a little when he left her, to climb in the space tug which was so small a part of today's activity. joe and his crew were the only living men who had ever made a round trip to the platform and back. but now there was the moonship to go farther than they'd been allowed. it was even clumsier in design than the platform, though it was smaller. but it wasn't designed to stay in space. it was to rest on the powdery floor of a ring-mountain's central plain. let it get off into space, and somehow get to the platform to reload. then let it replace the rockets it would burn in this take-off and it could go on out to emptiness. it would make history as the first serious attempt by human beings to reach the moon. joe and his followers would go along simply to handle guided missiles if it came to a fight, and to tow the moonship to its wharf--the platform--and out into midstream again when it resumed its journey. and that was all. the moonship lifted from the floor of the shed to the sound of hundreds of pushpot engines. then the space tug roared skyward. her take-off rockets here substituted for the pushpots. her second-stage rockets were also of the nonpoisonous variety, because she fired them at a bare 60,000 feet. they were substitutes for the jatos the pushpots carried. she was out in space when the third-stage rockets roared dully outside her hull. when the moonship crossed the west coast of africa, the space tug was 400 miles below and 500 miles behind. when the moonship crossed arabia, the difference was 200 miles vertically and less than 100 in line. then the moonship released small objects, steadied by gyroscopes and flung away by puffs of compressed air. the small objects spread out. haney and mike and the chief had reloaded the firing racks from inside the ship, and now were intent upon control boards and radar. they pressed buttons. one by one, little puffs of smoke appeared in space. they had armed the little space missiles, setting off tiny flares which had no function except to prove that each missile was ready for use. by the time the two space craft floated toward india, above an area from which war rockets had been known to rise, there were more little weapons floating with them. one screen of missiles hurtled on before the space tug, and another behind. anything that came up from earth would instantly be attacked by dozens of midget ships bent upon suicide. radar probed the space formation, but enemies of the fleet and the platform very wisely did no more than probe. the moonship and its attendants went across the pacific, still rising. above the longitude of washington, the space tug left its former post and climbed, nudging the moonship this way and that. and from behind, the platform came floating splendidly. tiny figures in space suits extended the incredibly straight lines which were plastic hoses filled with air. very, very gently indeed, the great, bulbous platform and the squat, flat moonship came together and touched. they moored in contact. and then the inert small missiles that had floated below, all the way up, flared simultaneously. their rockets emitted smoke. in fine alignment, they plunged forward through emptiness, swerved with a remarkable precision, and headed out for emptiness beyond the platform's orbit. their function had been to protect the moonship on its way out. that function was performed. there were too many of them to recover, so they went out toward the stars. when their rockets burned out they vanished. but a good hour later, when it was considered that they were as far out as they were likely to go, they began to blow up. specks of flame, like the tiniest of new stars, flickered against the background of space. but joe and the others were in the platform by then. they'd brought up mail for the crew. and they were back on duty. the platform seemed strange with the moonship's crew aboard. it had been a gigantic artificial world with very few inhabitants. with twenty-five naval ratings about, plus the four of its regular crew, plus the space tug's complement, it seemed excessively crowded. and it was busy. there were twenty-five new men to be guided as they applied what they'd been taught aground about life in space. it was three full earthdays before the stores intended for the journey to the moon and the maintenance of a base there really began to move. the tug and the space wagons had to be moored outside and reached only by space suits through small personnel airlocks. and there was the matter of discipline. lieutenant commander brown had been put in command of the platform for experience in space. he was considered to be prepared for command of the moonship by that experience. so now he turned over command of the platform to brent--he made a neat ceremony of it--and took over the ship that would go out to the moon. he made another ceremony out of that. in command of the moonship, his manner to joe was absolutely correct. he followed regulations to the letter--to a degree that left joe blankly uncomprehending. but he wouldn't have gotten along in the navy if he hadn't. he'd tried to do the same thing in the platform, and it wasn't practical. but he ignored all differences between joe and himself. he made no overtures of friendship, but that was natural. unintentionally, joe had defied him. he now deliberately overlooked all that, and joe approved of him--within limits. but mike and haney and the chief did not. they laid for him. and they considered that they got him. when he took over the moonship, lieutenant commander brown naturally maintained naval discipline and required snappy, official naval salutes on all suitable occasions, even in the platform. and joe's gang privately tipped off the noncommissioned personnel of the moonship. thereafter, no enlisted man ever saluted lieutenant brown without first gently detaching his magnet-soled shoes from the floor. when a man was free, a really snappy salute gave a diverting result. the man's body tilted forward to meet his rising arm, the upward impetus was one-sided, and every man who saluted brown immediately made a spectacular kowtow which left him rigidly at salute floating somewhere overhead with his back to lieutenant brown. with a little practice, it was possible to add a somersault to the other features. on one historic occasion, brown walked clanking into a storeroom where a dozen men were preparing supplies for transfer to the moonship. a voice cried, "shun!" and instantly twelve men went floating splendidly about the storeroom, turning leisurely somersaults, all rigidly at salute, and all wearing regulation poker faces. an order abolishing salutes in weightlessness followed shortly after. it took four days to get the transfer of supplies properly started. it took eight to finish the job. affixing fresh rockets to the outside of the moonship's hull alone called for long hours in space suits. during this time mike floated nearby in a space wagon. one of the navy men was a trifle overcourageous. he affected to despise safety lines. completing the hook-on of a landing rocket, he straightened up too abruptly and went floating off toward the milky way. mike brought him back. after that there was less trouble. even so, the moonship and the platform were linked together for thirteen full days, during which the platform seemed extraordinarily crowded. on the fourteenth day the two ships sealed off and separated. joe and his crew in the space tug hauled the moonship a good five miles from the platform. the space tug returned to the platform. a blinker signal came across the five-mile interval. it was a very crisp, formal, navy-like message. then the newly-affixed rockets on the moonship's hull spurted their fumes. the big ship began to move. not outward from earth, of course. that was where it was going. but it had the platform's 12,000 miles per hour of orbital speed. if the bonds of gravitation could have been snapped at just the proper instant, that speed alone would have carried the moonship all the way to its destination. but they couldn't. so the moonship blasted to increase its orbital speed. it would swing out and out, and as the earth's pull grew weaker with distance the same weight of rockets would move the same mass farther and farther toward the moon. the moonship's course would be a sort of slowly flattening curve, receding from earth and becoming almost a straight line where earth's and the moon's gravitational fields cancelled each other. from there, the moonship would have only to brake its fall against a gravity one-sixth that of earth, and reaching out a vastly shorter distance. joe and the others watched the roiling masses of rocket fumes as the ship seemed to grow infinitely small. "we should've been in that ship," said haney heavily when the naked eye could no longer pick it out. "we could've beat her to the moon!" joe said nothing. he ached a little inside. but he reflected that the men who'd guided the platform to its orbit had been overshadowed by himself and haney and the chief and mike. a later achievement always makes an earlier one look small. now the four of them would be forgotten. history would remember the commander of the moonship. forgotten? yes, perhaps. but the names of the four of them, joe and haney and the chief and mike, would still be remembered in a language joe couldn't speak, in a small village he couldn't name, on those occasions when the mohawk tribe met in formal council. the chief grumbled. mike stared out the port with bitter envy. "it was a dirty trick," growled the chief. "we shoulda been part of the first gang ever to land on the moon!" joe grimaced. his crew needed to be cured of feeling the same way he did. "i wouldn't say this outside of our gang," said joe carefully, "but if it hadn't been for us four that ship wouldn't be on the way at all. haney figured the trick that got us back to earth the first time, or else we'd have been killed. if we had been killed, mike wouldn't have figured out the metal-concrete business. but for him, that moonship wouldn't even be a gleam in anybody's eye. and if the chief hadn't blown up that manned rocket we fought in the space wagons, there wouldn't be any platform up here to reload and refuel the moonship. so they left us behind! but just among the four of us i think we can figure that if it hadn't been for us they couldn't have made it!" haney grinned slowly at joe. the chief regarded him with irony. mike said, "yeah. haney, and me, and the chief. we did it all." "uh-huh," said the chief sardonically. "us three. just us three. joe didn't do anything. just a bum, he is. we oughta tell sally he's no good and she oughta pick herself out a guy that'll amount to something some day." he hit joe between the shoulders. "sure! just a bum, joe! that's all! but we got a weakness for you. we'll let you hang around with us just the same! come on, guys! let's get something to eat!" the four of them marched down a steel-floored corridor, their magnetic-soled shoes clanking on the plates. their progress was uncertain and ungainly and altogether undignified. suddenly the chief began to bawl a completely irrelevant song to the effect that the inhabitants of the kingdom of siam were never known to wash their dishes. haney chimed in, and mike. they were all very close together, and they were not at all impressive. but it hit joe very hard, this sudden knowledge that the others didn't really care. it was the first time it had occurred to him that haney and mike and the chief would rather be left behind with him, as a gang, than go on to individual high achievement in a first landing on the moon. it felt good. it felt _real_ good. * * * * * but that, and all other sources of satisfaction, was wiped out by news that came back from the moonship a bare six hours later. the moonship was in trouble. the sequence and timing of its rocket blasts were worked out on earth, and checked by visual and radar observation. the computations were done by electronic brains the moonship could not possibly have carried. and everything worked out. the ship was on course and its firings were on schedule. but then the unexpected happened. it was an error which no machine could ever have predicted, for which statistics and computations could never have compensated. it was a _human_ error. at the signal for the final acceleration blast, the pilot of the moonship had fired the wrong set of rockets. inexperience, stupidity, negligence, excitement--the reason didn't matter. after years of planning and working and dreaming, one human finger had made a mistake. and the mistake was fatal! when the mistake was realized, they'd had sense enough to cut loose the still-firing rockets. but the damage had been done. the ship was still plunging on. it would reach the moon. but it wouldn't land in aristarchus crater as planned. it would crash. if every rocket remaining mounted on the hull were to be fired at the best possible instant, the moonship would hit near copernicus, and it would land with a terminal velocity of 800 feet per second--540 miles an hour. it could even be calculated that when the moonship landed, the explosion ought to be visible from earth with a fairly good telescope. it was due to take place in thirty-two hours plus or minus a few minutes. 11 the others got the space tug into the platform's lock and did things to it, in the way of loading, that its designers never intended, while joe was calling earth for calculations. the result was infuriating. the moonship had taken off for the moon on the other side of the platform's orbit, when it had a velocity of more than 12,000 miles an hour in the direction it wished to go. the platform and of course the space tug was now on the reverse side of the platform's orbit. and of course they now had a velocity of more than 12,000 miles per hour away from the direction in which it was urgently necessary for the space tug to go. they could wait for two hours to take off, said earth, or waste the time and fuel they'd need to throw away to duplicate the effect of waiting. "but we can't wait!" raged joe. then he snapped. "look here! suppose we take off from here, dive at earth, make a near-graze, and let its gravity curve our course! like a cometary path! figure that! that's what we've got to do!" he kicked off his magnetic-soled shoes and went diving down to the airlock. over his shoulder he panted an order for the radar-duty man to relay anything from earth down to him there. he arrived to find haney and mike in hot argument over whether it was possible to load on an extra ton or two of mass. he stopped it. they would. "everything's loaded?" he demanded. "okay! space suits! all set? let's get out of this lock and start blasting!" he drove them into the space tug. he climbed in himself. he closed the entrance port. the plastic walls of the lock bulged out, pulled back fast, and the steering rockets jetted. the space tug came out of the lock. it spun about. it aimed for earth and monstrous bursts of rocket-trail spread out behind it. it dived. naturally! when a ship from the platform wanted to reach earth for atmosphere-deceleration, it was more economical to head away from it. now that it was the most urgent of all possible necessities to get away from earth, in the opposite direction to the space tug's present motion, it was logical to dive toward it. the ship would plunge toward earth, and earth's gravity would help its rockets in the attainment of frenzied speed. but the tug still possessed its orbital speed. so it would not actually strike the earth, but would be carried eastward past its disk, even though aimed for earth's mid-bulge. yet earth would continue to pull. as the space tug skimmed past, its path would be curved by the pull of gravity. at the nearest possible approach to earth, the tug would fire its heaviest rockets for maximum acceleration. and it would swing around earth's atmosphere perhaps no more than 500 miles high--just barely beyond the measurable presence of air--and come out of that crazy curve a good hour ahead of the platform for a corresponding position, and with a greater velocity than could be had in any other way. traced on paper, the course of the tug would be a tight parabola. the ship dived. and it happened that it had left the platform and plunged deep in earth's shadow, so that the look and feel of things was that of an utterly suicidal plunge into oblivion. there was the seeming of a vast sack of pure blackness before the nose of the space tug. she started for it at four gravities acceleration, and joe got his headphones to his ears and lay panting while he waited for the figures and information he had to have. he got them. when the four-gravity rockets burned out, the tug's crew painstakingly adjusted the ship's nose to a certain position. they flung themselves back into the acceleration chairs and joe fired a six-g blast. they came out of that, and he fired another. the three blasts gave the ship a downward speed of a mile and a half a second, and earth's pull added to it steadily. the earth itself was drawing them down most of a 4,000-mile fall, which added to the speed their rockets built up. down on earth, radar-bowls wavered dizzily, hunting for them to feed them observations of position and data for their guidance. back on the platform, members of the crew feverishly made their own computations. when the four in the space tug were half-way to earth, they were traveling faster than any humans had ever traveled before, relative to the earth or the platform itself. when they were a thousand miles from earth, it was certain they would clear its edge. joe proposed and received an okay to fire a salvo of mark tens to speed the ship still more. when they burned to the release-point and flashed away past the ports, the chief and haney panted up from their chairs and made their way aft. "going to reload the firing-frames," gasped the chief. they vanished. the space tug could take rockets from its cargo and set them outside its hull for firing. no other ship could. haney and the chief came back. there was dead silence in the ship, save for a small, tinny voice in joe's headphones. "we'll pass earth 600 miles high," said joe in a flat voice. "maybe closer. i'm going to try to make it 450. we'll be smack over enemy territory, but i doubt they could hit us. we'll be hitting better than six miles a second. if we wanted to, we could spend some more rockets and hit escape velocity. but we want to stop, later. we'll ride it out." silence. stillness. speed. out the ports to earthward there was purest blackness. on the other side, a universe of stars. but the blackness grew and grew and grew until it neatly bisected the cosmos itself, and half of everything that was, was blackness. half was tiny colored stars. then there was a sound. a faint sound. it was a moan. it was a howl. it was a shriek.... and then it was a mere thin moan again. then it was not. "we touched air," said joe calmly, "at six and a quarter miles per second. pretty thin, though. at that, we may have left a meteor-trail for the populace to admire." nobody said anything at all. in a little while there was light ahead. there was brightness. instantly, it seemed, they were out of night and there was a streaming tumult of clouds flashing past below--but they were 800 miles up now--and joe's headphones rattled and he said: "now we can give a touch of course-correction, and maybe a trace of speed...." rockets droned and boomed and roared outside the hull. the earth fell away and away and presently it was behind. and they were plunging on after the moonship which was very, very, very far on before them. it was actually many hours before they reached it. they couldn't afford to overtake it gradually, because they had to have time to work in after contact. but overtaking it swiftly cost extra fuel, and they hadn't too much. so they compromised, and came up behind the moonship at better than 2,000 feet per second difference in speed--they approached it as fast as most rifle-bullets travel--and all creation was blotted out by the fumes of the rockets they fired for deceleration. then the space tug came cautiously close to the moonship. mike climbed out on the outside of the tug's hull, with the chief also in space equipment, paying out mike's safety-line. mike leaped across two hundred yards of emptiness with light-years of gulf beneath him. his metal soles clanked on the moonship's hull. then the vision-screen on the tug lighted up. lieutenant commander brown looked out of it, quietly grim. joe flicked on his own transmitter. he nodded. "_mr. kenmore_," said brown evenly, "_i did not contact you before because i was not certain that contact could be made. how many passengers can you take back to the platform?_" joe blinked at him. "i haven't any idea," he said. "but i'm going to hitch on and use our rockets to land you." "_i do not think it practicable_," said brown calmly. "_i believe the only result of such a course will be the loss of both ships with all hands. i will give you a written authorization to return on my order. but since all my crew can't return, how many can you take? i have ten married men aboard. six have children. can you take six? or all ten?_" then he said without a trace of emphasis, "_of course, none of them will be officers._" "if i tried to turn back now, i think my crew would mutiny," joe said coldly. "i'd hate to think they wouldn't, anyhow! we're going to hook on and play this out the way it lies!" there was a pause. then brown spoke again. "_mr. kenmore, i was hoping you'd say that. actually--er--not to be quoted, you understand--actually, intelligent defiance has always been in the traditions of the navy. of course, you're not in the navy, kenmore, but right now it looks like the navy is in your hands. like a battleship in the hands of a tug. good luck, kenmore._" joe flicked off the screen. "you know," he said, winking at mike, "i guess brown isn't such a bad egg after all. let's go!" in minutes, the space tug had a line made fast. in half an hour, the two space craft were bound firmly together, but far enough apart for the rocket blasts to dissipate before they reached the moonship. mike returned to the tug. a pair of the big mark twenty rockets burned frenziedly in emptiness. the moonship was slowed by a fraction of its speed. the deceleration was hardly perceptible. there were more burnings. back on earth there were careful measurements. a tight beam tends to attenuate when it is thrown a hundred thousand miles. it tends to! when speech is conducted over it, the lag between comment and reply is perceptible. it's not great--just over half a second. but one notices it. that lag was used to measure the speed and distance of the two craft. the prospect didn't look too good. the space tug burned rocket after rocket after rocket. there was no effect that joe could detect, of course. it would have been like noticing the effect of single oar-strokes in a rowboat miles from shore. but the instruments on earth found a difference. they made very, very, very careful computations. and the electronic brains did the calculations which battalions of mathematicians would have needed years to work out. the electronic calculations which could not make a mistake said--that it was a toss-up. the moon came slowly to float before the two linked ships. it grew slowly, slowly larger. the word from earth was that considering the rockets still available in the space tug, and those that should have been fired but weren't on the moonship, there must be no more blasts just yet. the two ships must pass together through the neutral-point where the gravities of earth and moon exactly cancel out. they must fall together toward the moon. forty miles above the lunar surface such-and-such rockets were to be fired. at twenty miles, such-and-such others. at five miles the moonship itself must fire its remaining fuel-store. with luck, it was a toss-up. safety or a smash. but there was a long time to wait. joe and his crew relaxed in the space tug. the chief looked out a port and observed: "i can see the ring-mountains now. naked-eye stuff, too! i wonder if anybody ever saw that before!" "not likely," said joe. mike stared out a port. haney looked, also. "how're we going to get back, joe?" "the moonship has rockets on board," joe told him. "only they can't stick them in the firing-racks outside. they're stowed away, all shipshape, navy fashion. after we land, we'll ask politely for rockets to get back to the platform with. it'll be a tedious run. mostly coasting--falling free. but we'll make it." "if everything doesn't blow when we land," said the chief. joe said uncomfortably: "it won't. not that somebody won't try." then he stopped. after a moment he said awkwardly: "look! it's necessary that we humans get to the stars, or ultimately we'll crowd the earth until we won't be able to stay human. we'd have to have wars and plagues and such things to keep our numbers down. it--it seems to me, and i--think it's been said before, that it looks like there's something, somewhere, that's afraid of us humans. it doesn't want us to reach the stars. it didn't want us to fly. before that it didn't want us to learn how to cure disease, or have steam, or--anything that makes men different from the beasts." haney turned his head. he listened intently. "maybe it sounds--superstitious," said joe uneasily, "but there's always been somebody trying to smash everything the rest of us wanted. as if--as if something alien and hateful went around whispering hypnotically into men's ears while they slept, commanding them irresistibly to do things to smash all their own hopes." the chief grunted. "huh! d'you think that's new stuff, joe?" "n-no," admitted joe. "but it's true. something fights us. you can make wild guesses. maybe--things on far planets that know that if ever we reach there.... there's something that hates men and it tries to make us destroy ourselves." "sure," said haney mildly. "i learned about that in sunday school, joe." "maybe i mean that," said joe helplessly. "but anyhow there's something we fight--and there's something that fights with us. so i think we're going to get the moonship down all right." mike said sharply: "you mean you think this is all worked out in advance. that we'd be here, we'd get here----" the chief said impatiently, "it's figured out so we can do it if we got the innards. we got the chance. we can duck it. but if we duck it, it's bad, and somebody else has to have the chance later. i know what joe's saying. us men, we got to get to the stars. there's millions of 'em, and we need the planets they've got swimming around 'em." haney said, "some of them have planets. that's known. yeah." "those planets ain't going to go on forever with nobody using 'em," grunted the chief. "it don't make sense. and things in general do make sense. all but us humans," he finished with a grin. "and i like us, anyhow. joe's right. we'll get by this time. and if we don't--some other guys'll have to do the job of landing on the moon. but it'll be done--as a starter." "i can see lots of mountains down there. plain," mike said quietly. "what's the radar say?" joe looked. back at the platform it had shown the curve of the surface of earth. here a dim line was beginning to show on the vertical-plane screen. it was the curve of the surface of the moon. "we might as well get set," said joe. "we've got time but we might as well. space suits on. i'll tighten up the chain. steering rockets'll do that. then we'll take a last look. all firing racks loaded outside?" "yeah," said haney. he grinned wrily. "you know, joe, i know what i know, but still i'm scared." "me, too," said joe. but there were things to do. they took their places. they watched out the ports. the moon had seemed a vast round ball a little while back. now it appeared to be flattening. its edges still curved away beyond a surprisingly nearby horizon. the ring-mountains were amazingly distinct. there were incredibly wide, smooth spaces with mottled colorings. but the mountains.... when the ships were 40 miles high the space tug blasted valorously, and all the panorama of the moon's surface was momentarily hidden by the racing clouds of mist. the rockets burned out. haney and the chief replaced the burned-out rockets. they were gigantic, heavy-bore tubes which they couldn't have stirred on earth. now they loaded them into the curious locks which conveyed them outside the hull into firing position. the ring-mountains were gigantic when they blasted again! they were only 20 miles up, then, and some of the peaks rose four miles from their inner crater floors. the ships were still descending fast. joe spoke into his microphone. "calling moonship! calling----" he stopped and said matter-of-factly, "i suggest we fire our last blast together. shall i give the word? right!" the surface of the moon came toward them. craters, cracks, frozen fountains of stone, swelling undulations of ground interrupted without rhyme or reason by the gigantic splashings of missiles from the sky a hundred thousand million years ago. the colorings were unbelievable. there were reds and browns and yellows. there were grays and dusty deep-blues and streaks of completely impossible tints in combination. but joe couldn't watch that. he kept his eyes on a very special gadget which was a radar range-finder. he hadn't used it about the platform because there were too many tin cans and such trivia floating about. it wouldn't be dependable. but it did measure the exact distance to the nearest solid object. "prepare for firing on a count of five," said joe quietly. "five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... fire!" the space tug's rockets blasted. for the first time since they overtook the moonship, the tug now had help. the remaining rockets outside the moonship's hull blasted furiously. out the ports there was nothing but hurtling whitenesses. the rockets droned and rumbled and roared.... the main rockets burned out. the steering rockets still boomed. joe had thrown them on for what good their lift might do. "joe!" said haney in a surprised tone. "i feel weight! not much, but some! and the main rockets are off!" joe nodded. he watched the instruments before him. he shifted a control, and the space tug swayed. it swayed over to the limit of the tow-chain it had fastened to the moonship. joe shifted his controls again. there was a peculiar, gritty contact somewhere. joe cut the steering rockets and it was possible to look out. there were more gritty noises. the space tug settled a little and leaned a little. it was still. then there was no noise at all. "yes," said joe. "we've got some weight. we're on the moon." they went out of the ship in a peculiarly solemn procession. about them reared cliffs such as no man had ever looked on before save in dreams. above their heads hung a huge round greenish globe, with a white polar ice-cap plainly visible. it hung in mid-sky and was four times the size of the moon as seen from earth. if one stood still and looked at it, it would undoubtedly be seen to be revolving, once in some twenty-four hours. mike scuffled in the dust in which he walked. nobody had emerged from the moonship yet. the four of them were literally the first human beings ever to set foot on the surface of the moon. but none of them mentioned the fact, though all were acutely aware of it. mike kicked up dust. it rose in a curiously liquid-like fashion. there was no air to scatter it. it settled deliberately back again. mike spoke with an odd constraint. "no green cheese," he said absurdly. "no," agreed joe. "let's go over to the moonship. it looks all right. it couldn't have landed hard." they went toward the bulk of the ship from earth, which now was a base for the military occupation of a globe with more land-area than all earth's continents put together--but not a drop of water. the moonship was tilted slightly askew, but it was patently unharmed. there were faces at every port in the hull. the chief stopped suddenly. a sizable boulder rose from the dust. the chief struck it smartly with his space-gloved hand. "i'm counting coup on the moon!" he said zestfully "tie that, you guys!" then he joined the others on their way to the moonship's main lock. "shall we knock?" asked mike humorously. "i doubt they've got a door-bell!" but the lock-door was opening to admit them. they crowded inside. commander brown was waiting for them with an out-stretched hand. "glad to have you aboard." and there was a genuine smile creeping across his face. * * * * * joe talked with careful distinctness into a microphone. his voice took a little over a second to reach its destination. then there was a pause of the same length before the first syllable of sally's reply came to him from earth. "i've reported to your father," said joe carefully, "and the moonship has reported to the navy. in a couple of hours haney and the chief and mike and i will be taking off to go back to the platform. we got rockets from the stores of the moonship." sally's voice was surprisingly clear. it wavered a little, but there was no sound of static to mar reception. "then what, joe?" "i'm bringing written reports and photographs and first specimens of geology from the moon," joe told her. "i'm a mailman. it'll probably be sixty hours back to the platform--free fall most of the way--and then we'll refuel and i'll come down to earth to deliver the reports and such." pause. one second and a little for his voice to go. another second and something over for her voice to return. "and then?" "that's what i'm trying to find out," said joe. "what day is today?" "tuesday," said sally after the inevitable pause. "it's ten o'clock tuesday morning at the shed." joe made calculations in his mind. then he said: "i ought to land on earth some time next monday." pause. "yes?" said sally. "i wondered," said joe. "how about a date that night?" another pause. then sally's voice. she sounded glad. "it's a date, joe. and--do you know, i must be the first girl in the world to make a date with the man in the moon?" combat mission! _joe kenmore's mission was as dangerous as it sounded simple:_ "deliver supplies and atomic weapons to the space platform. then prepare for man's first expedition to the moon." joe had helped launch the first space platform--that initial rung in man's ladder to the stars. but the enemies who had ruthlessly tried to destroy the space station before it left earth were still at work. they were plotting to stop joe's mission! cover painting by robert schulz +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note | | | | the chemical symbol for carbon dioxide has been shown as | | co_2 to depict a subscript 2. | | | | in the following words, the hyphen has been removed to | | conform to majority use in text. | | brain-storm | | loud-speaker | | | | the following words with and without a hyphen were left as | | such because of equal prevalence of both forms: | | half-way halfway | | pay-load payload | | rocket-lift rocketlift | | sun-lamps sunlamps | | hand-hold handhold | | pin-points pinpoints | | | | "overall" and "over-all" were left as such since the writers | | are different (the narrator and a character). | | | | the following typos have been corrected: | | adorning adoring | | level lever | | runing running | | shed shed | | thiry-nine thirty-nine | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ 