THE GOVERNMENT did do something; the draft act was passed the next day. Don heard about it at noon; as soon as the lunch hour rush was over he dried his hands and went uptown to the recruiting station. There was a queue in front of it; he joined its tail and waited.
Over an hour later he found himself facing a harried-looking warrant officer seated at a table. He shoved a form at Don. "Print your name. Sign at the bottom and thumb it. Then hold up your right hand."
"Just a minute," Don answered. "I want to enlist in the High Guard. This forms reads for the Ground Forces."
The officer swore mildly. "Everybody wants the High Guard. Listen, son, the quota for the High Guard was filled at nine o'clock this morning-now I'm not even accepting them for the waiting list."
"But I don't want the Ground Forces. I'm-I'm a spaceman."
The man swore again, not so mildly. "You don't look it. You last-minute patriots make me sick-trying to join the sky boys so you won't have to soldier in the mud. Go on home; when we want you we'll send for youand it won't be for the High Guard. You'll be a duckfoot and like it."
"But. . ."
"Get out, I said."
Don got. When he reached the restaurant Old Charlie looked at the clock then at him. "You soldier boy now?"
"They wouldn't have me."
"Good thing. Get me up some cups."
He had time to think about it while bending over suds. Although not inclined to grieve over spilt milk Don could see now that Sergeant McMasters' advice had been shrewd; he had missed what was probably his only chance (slim as it might have been) to get to Mars. It seemed a vacuum-tight certainty that he would spend the war (months? years?) as a duckfoot in the Ground Forces ~ getting no nearer to Mars than opposition distance-say sixty, seventy million miles. Hardly shouting distance.
He thought about the possibility of claiming exemption on the basis of Terran citizenship-but discarded it at once. He had already claimed the right to come here as a citizen of Venus; blowing hot and cold from the same mouth did not suit him. His sympathies lay with Venus anyhow, no matter what the lawyers eventually decided about his nationality.
More than that, even if he could stomach making such a claim, he could not see himself behind wire in an enemy alien camp. There was such a camp, he knew, over on East Spit. Sit out the war there and let Isobel bring him packages on Sunday afternoons?
Don't kid yourself, Don, my boy-Isobel was fiercely patriotic; she'd drop you like a mud louse.
"What can't be cured must be endured"-Confucius or somebody. He was in it and that was that-he didn't feel too upset about it; the Federation didn't have any business throwing its weight around on Venus anyhow. Whose planet was it?
He was most anxious to get in touch with his parents and to let them know he had Dr. Jefferson's ring, even if he couldn't deliver it right away. He would have to get up to the I. T. & T. office and check-there might be communication today. Charlie ought to have a phone in this dump.
He remembered that he had one possible resource that he had not exploited-"Sir Isaac." He had sincerely intended to get in touch with his dragon friend as soon as he landed, but it had not proved to be easy: "Sir Isaac" had not landed at New London, nor had he been able to find out from the local office where he had landed. Probably at CuiCui Town or at Buchanan-or, possibly, since "Sir Isaac" was a V.I.P., the Middle Guard might have accommodated him with a special landing. He might be anywhere on a planet with more land surface than Earth.
Of course, such an important personage could be traced down-but the first step would be to consult the Office of Aborigine Affairs over on Governor's Island. That meant a two-hour trip, what with a gondola ride both ways and the red tape he was sure to run into. He told himself that he just hadn't had time.
But now he must take time. "Sir Isaac" might be able to get him assigned, or transferred, to the High Guard, quotas or no. The government was extremely anxious to keep the dragons happy and friendly to the new regime. Mankind remained on Venus at the sufferance of the dragons; the politicians knew that.
He felt a little bit sheepish about resorting to political influence-but there were times when nothing else would work.
"Charlie."
"Huh?"
"Go easy on the spoons; I've got to go uptown again."
Charlie grunted grumpily; Don hung up his apron and left. Isobel was not on the desk at 1. T. & T.; Don sent in his name via the clerk on duty and got in to see her father. Mr. Costello looked up as he came in and said, "I'm glad you came in, Mr. Harvey. I wanted to see you."
"My message got through?"
"No, I wanted to give you back your note."
"Huh? What's the matter?"
"I haven't been able to send your message and I don't know when I shall be able to send it. If it turns out later that it can be sent, I'll accept your note-or cash, if you have it."
Don had an unpleasant feeling that he was being given a polite brush-off. "Just a moment, sir. I understood that today was the earliest that communication could be expected. Won't conditions be better tomorrow-and still better the next day?"
"Yes, theoretically. But conditions were satisfactory today. There is no communication with Mars."
"But tomorrow?"
"I haven't made myself clear. We tried to signal Mars; we got no answer. So we used the radar check. The bounce came back right on schedule-two thousand two hundred and thirty-eight seconds, no chance of a ghost blip. So we know that the channel was satisfactory and that. our signal was getting through. But Schiaparelli Station fails to answer -no communication."
"Out of order, maybe?"
"Most unlikely. It's a dual station. They depend on it for astrogation, you know. No, I'm afraid the answer is obvious."
"Yes?"
"The Federation forces have taken the station over for their own uses. We won't be able to communicate with Mars until they let us."
Don left the manager's office looking as glum as he felt. He ran into Isobel just coming into the building. "Don!"
"Oh-hi, Grandma."
She was excited and failed to notice his mood. "Don-I'm just back from Governor's Island. You know what? They're going to form a women's corps!"
"They are?"
"The bill is in committee now. I can't wait-I'll be in it, of course. I've already put my name in."
"You will be? Yes, I guess you would be." He thought about it and added, "I tried to join up this morning."
She threw her arms around his neck, much to the interest of customers in the lobby. "Don!" She untangled herself, to his blushing relief, and added, "Nobody really expected that of you, Don. After all, it's not your fight; your home is on Mars."
"Well, I don't know. Mars isn't exactly my home, either: And they didn't take me they told me to wait for my draft call."
"Well-anyway, I'm proud of you."
He went back to the restaurant, feeling ashamed that he had not had the courage to tell her why he had tried to enlist and why he had been turned down. By the time he reached Charlie's place he had about decided to go again to the recruiting office the next day and let them swear him in as a duckfoot. He told himself that the severance of communication with Mars had cut off his last connection with his old life; he might as well accept this new life with both arms. It was better to volunteer than to be dragged.
On second thought he decided to go over to Governor's
Island first and send some sort of message to "Sir Isaac"-no use staying in the Ground Forces if his friend could wangle a transfer to the High Guard. It was a dead cinch now that the High Guard would eventually send an expedition to Mars; he might as well be in it. He'd get to Mars yet!
On third thought he decided that it might be well to wait a day or two to hear from "Sir Isaac"; it would certainly be easier to get assigned to the Guard in the first place than to get a transfer later.
Yes, that was the sensible thing to do. Unfortunately it did not make him feel pleased with himself.
That night the Federation attacked.
The attack should not have happened, of course. The rice farmer sergeant had been perfectly right; the Federation could not afford to risk its own great cities to punish the villagers of Venus. He was right-from his viewpoint.
A rice farmer has one logic, men who live by and for s power have another and entirely different logic. Their lives are built on tenuous assumptions, fragile as reputation; they cannot afford to ignore a challenge to their power-the Federation could not afford not to punish the insolent colonists.
The Valkyrie, orbiting Venus in free fall, flashed into radioactive gas without warning. The Adonis, in the same orbit a thousand miles astern, saw the explosion and reported it to PHQ at New London; then she, too, became an expanding ball of fire.
Don was awakened from work-drugged sleep by the ululation of sirens. He sat up in the dark, shook his head to clear it, and realized with leaping excitement what the sound was and what it meant. Then he told himself not to be silly; there had been talk lately of holding a night alert-that's what it was: practice.
But he got up and fumbled for the light switch, only to find that the power seemed to he off. He felt around for his clothes, got his right leg in his left trouser leg, tripped. Despite this he was practically dressed by the time a small flickering light came toward him. It was Charlie, carrying a candle in one hand and in the other his favorite cleaver, the one used both for business and social purposes.
The cyclic moan of the sirens continued. "What is it, Charlie?" asked Don. "Do you suppose we've actually been attacked?"
"More likely some dumbhead leaned against the switch."
"Could be. Tell you what-I'm going uptown and find out what's happening."
"Better you stay home."
"I won't be gone long."
In leaving he had to push his way through a crowd of move-overs, all bleating with fright and trying to crowd inside to be close to their friend Charlie. He got through and groped his way to the street, closely escorted by two moveovers who seemed to want to climb into his pockets.
The nights of Venus make the darkest night on Earth feel like twilight. The power seemed to be off all over town; until he turned into Buchanan Street Don could not have counted his own fingers without feeling them. Along Buchanan Street there was an occasional flicker of a lighter and a window or two with dim lights inside. Far up the street someone held a hand torch; Don set his sights on that.
The streets were crowded. He kept bumping into persons in the dark and hearing snatches of speech. "-completely destroyed." "It's a routine drill. I'm a space warden; I know." "Why turn off the lights? Their detectors can pick up the power pile in any case." "Hey-get off my feet!" Somewhere along the way he lost his escort; no doubt the gregarians found someone warmer to snuggle up to.
He stopped where the crowd was thickest, around the office of the New London TIMES. There were emergency lights inside by which it was possible to read the bulletins being pasted up in the window. At the top was: FLASH BULLETIN (UNOFFICIAL) CRUISER VALKYRIE REPORTED BY CRUISER ADONIS TO HAVE EXPLODED 0030 TONITE. CAUSE NOT REPORTED. LOCAL AUTHORITIES DISCOUNT ATTACK POSSIBILITY, FAVOR POSSIBLE SABOTAGE. FURTHER REPORT EXPECTED COMMANDING OFFICER ADONIS.
BERMUDA (INTERCEPTED) DISORDERS IN WEST AFRICA TERMED "MINOR INCIDENT" STIRRED UP BY RELIGIOUS AGITATORS. LOCAL POLICE ASSISTED BY FEDERATION PATROL HAVE SITUATION WELL IN HAND (IT IS CLAIMED).
BERMUDA (INTERCEPTED) A SOURCE CLOSE TO THE MINISTER OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS STATES THAT AN EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE VENUS INCIDENT IS EXPECTED. REPRESENTATIVES OF INSURGENT COLONISTS SAID TO BE CONFERRING WITH FEDERATION PLENIPOTENTIARIES SOMEWHERE ON LUNA IN AN ATMOSPHERE OF GOOD WILL AND MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING. (NOTE: THIS REPORT HAS BEEN UNOFFICIALLY DENIED FROM GOVERNOR'S ISLAND.)
NEW LONDON (PHQ-OFFICIAL) CHIEF OF STAFF CONFIRMED DAMAGE TO VALKYRIE BUT STATES EXTENT GREATLY EXAGGERATED. LIST OF CASUALTIES WITHHELD PENDING NOTIFICATION OF NEXT OF KIN. FULL REPORT FROM COMMANDING OFFICER ADONIS EXPECTED MOMENTARILY.
FLASH BULLETIN (UNOFFICIAL) CUICUI-UNIDENTIFIED SHIPS REPORTED RADAR-TRACKED TOLANDINGS NORTH AND NORTHWEST OF SETTLEMENT. LOCAL GARRISON ALTERED. PHQ REFUSES COMMENT. NO THIRTY, MORE COMING.
Don crowded up, managed to read the bulletins and listened to the talk. A faceless voice said, "They wouldn't land-that's as obsolete as a bayonet charge. If they actually have blitzed our ships-which I doubt-they would simply hang in orbit and radio an ultimatum."
"But suppose they did?" someone objected.
"They won't. That bulletin-nerve warfare, that's all. There are traitors among us."
"That's no news."
A shadowy shape inside was posting a new bulletin. Don used his elbows and forced his way closer. FLASH-it read -PHQ (OFFICIAL) PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER GENERAL STAFF CONFIRMS REPORT THAT AN ATTACK HAS BEEN MADE ON SOME OF OUR SHIPS BY UNIDENTIFIED BUT PRESUMABLY FEDERATION FORCES. THE SITUATION IS FLUID BUT NOT CRITICAL. ALL CITIZENS ARE URGED TO REMAIN IN THEIR HOMES, AVOID PANIC AND LOOSE TALK, AND GIVE FULL CO-OPERATION TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES. MORE DETAILS MAY BE EXPECTED LATER IN THE DAY. REPEAT-STAY HOME AND COOPERATE.
A self-appointed crier up front read the bulletin in a loud voice. The crowd took it in silence. While he was reading the sirens died away and the street lights came on. The same voice which had complained of the blackout before now expostulated, "What do they want to turn on the lights for? That's simply inviting them to bomb us!"
No more bulletins showed up; Don backed out, intending to go to the I. T. & T. Building, not with the expectation of finding Isobel there at that hour but in hopes of picking up more news. He had not quite reached the building when he ran into a squad of M. P.'s, clearing the streets. They turned him back and dispersed the crowd at the newspaper office. As Don left the only person there was a dragon with his eyestalks pointed in several directions; he appeared to be reading all the bulletins at once. Don wanted to stop and ask him if be knew "Sir Isaac" and, if so, where his friend might be found, but an M. P. hustled him along. The squad made no attempt to send the dragon about his business; he was left in undisputed possession of the street.
Old Charlie was still up, seated at a table and smoking. His cleaver lay in front of him. Don told him what he had found out. "Charlie, do you think they will land?"
Charlie got up, went to a drawer and got out a whetstone, came back and commenced gently stroking the blade of his cleaver. "Can happen."
"What do you think we ought to do?"
"Go to bed."
"I'm not sleepy. What are you sharpening that thing for?"
"This is my restaurant." He held up the tool, balanced it. "And this is my country." He threw the blade; it turned over twice and chunked into a wood post across the room.
"Be careful with that! You might hurt somebody."
"You go to bed."
"But. . ."
"Get some sleep. Tomorrow you wish you had." He turned away and Don could get no more out of him. He gave up and went to his own cubbyhole, not intending to sleep but simply to think things over. For a long time after he lay down he could hear the soft swishing of stone on steel.
The sirens awoke him again; it was already light. He went out into the front room; Charlie was still there, standing over the range. "What's going on?"
"Breakfast." With one hand Charlie scooped a fried egg out of a pan, placed it on a slice of bread, while with the other hand he broke another egg into the grease. He slapped a second slice of bread over the egg and handed the sandwich to Don.
Don accepted it and took a large bite before replying, "Thanks. But what are they running the sirens for?"
"Fighting. Listen."
From somewhere in the distance came the muted WhaHoom! of an explosion; cutting through the end of it and much nearer was the dry sibilance of a needle beam. Mixed with the fog drifting in the window was a sharp smell of wood burning. "Say!" Don exclaimed, his voice high, "they really did it." Automatically, his mind no longer on food, his jaws clamped down on the sandwich.
Charlie grunted. Don went on, "We ought to get out of here."
"And go where?"
Don had no answer for that. He finished the sandwich while still watching out the window. The smell of smoke grew stronger. A half squad of men showed up at the end of the alley, moving at a dog trot. "Look! Those aren't our uniforms!"
"Of course not."
The group paused at the foot of the street, then three men detached themselves and came down the alley, stopping at each door to pound on it. "Outside! Wake up in there-outside, everybody!" Two of them reached the Two Worlds Dining Room; one of them kicked on the door. It came open. "Outside! We're going to set fire to the place."
The man who had spoken was wearing a mottled green uniform with two chevrons; in his hands was a Reynolds one-man gun and on his back the power pack that served it. He looked around. "Say, this is a break!" He turned to the other. "Joe, keep :in eye out for the lieutenant." He looked back at Old Charlie. "You, Jack-scramble up about a dozen eggs. Make it snappy-we got to burn this place right away."
Don was caught flat-footed, could think of nothing to do or say. A Reynolds gun brooks no argument. Charlie appeared to feel the same way for he turned back to the range as if to comply.
Then he turned again toward the soldier and in his hand was his cleaver. Don could hardly follow what happened-a flash of blue steel through the air, a meaty, butcher-shop sound, and the cleaver was buried almost to its handle in the soldier's breastbone.
He uttered no cry; he simply looked mildly surprised, then squatted slowly where he stood, his hands still clasping the gun. When he reached the floor, his head bowed forward and the gun slipped from his grasp.
While this went on the other soldier stood still, his own gun at the ready. When his petty officer dropped his gun it seemed to act as a signal to him; he raised his own gun and shot Charlie full in the face. He swung and trained his gun on Don. Don found himself staring into the dark cavity of the projector.
They stayed that way for three heart beats . . . then the soldier lowered his weapon about an inch and rapped out, "Outside! Fast!"
Don looked at the gun; the soldier gestured with it.
Don went outside. His heart was raging; he wanted to kill this soldier who had killed Old Charlie. It meant nothing to him that his boss had been killed strictly in accordance with the usages of warfare; Don was in no frame of mind to juggle legalisms. But he was naked against an overpowering weapon; he obeyed. Even as he left the soldier was fanning out with the Reynolds gun; Don heard the hiss as the beam struck dry wood.
The soldier put the torch to the building wastefully; it seemed almost to explode. It was burning in a dozen places as soon as Don was out the door. The soldier jumped out behind him and prodded him in the seat with the hot projector. "Get moving! Up the street." Don broke into a trot, ran out the alley and into Buchanan Street.
The street was filled with people, and green-suited soldiers were herding them uptown. Buildings were burning on both sides of the street; the invaders were destroying the whole city but giving the inhabitants some chance to escape the holocaust. As a part of a faceless mob Don found himself being pushed along and then forced into a side street which was not yet burning. Presently they were beyond the town but the road continued; Don had never been out in this direction but he learned from the talk around him where they were headed-out East Spit.
And into the fenced camp which the new government had used for enemy aliens. Most of the crowd seemed too stunned to care. Somewhere near Don a woman was screaming, her voice rising and falling like a siren.
The camp was crowded to more than ten times its capacity. The camp buildings did not provide standing room; even outdoors the colonists were elbow to elbow. The guards simply shoved them inside and ignored them; they stood there or milled around, while the soft gray ashes of their former homes drifted down on them from the misty sky.
Don had regained his grip on himself during the march out to the camp. Once inside, he tried to find Isobel Costello. He threaded his way through the crowd, searching, asking, peering at faces. More than once he thought he had found her, only to be disappointed-nor did he find her father. Several times he talked to persons who thought they had seen her; each time the clue failed to lead him to her. He began to have waking nightmares of his impetuous young friend dead in the fire, or lying in an alley with a hole in her head.
He was stopped in his weary search by an iron voice bellowing out of the air and reaching all parts of the camp through the camp's announcing system. "Attention!" it called out. "Quiet! Attention to orders-this is Colonel Vanistart of the Federation Peace Forces, speaking for the Military Governor of Venus. Conditional amnesty has been granted to all colonists with the exception of those holding office in the rebel government and commissioned officers in the rebel forces. You will be released as quickly as you can be identified. The code of laws in force before the rebellion is restored, subject to such new laws as may be promulgated by the military governor. Attention to Emergency Law Number One! The cities of New London, Buchanan, and CuiCui Town are abolished. Hereafter no community of more than one thousand population will be permitted. Not more than ten persons may assemble without license from the local provost. No military organization may be formed, nor may any colonist possess power weapons under penalty of death.'
The voice paused. Don heard someone behind him say, "But what do they expect us to do? We've no place to go, no way to live--"
The rhetorical question was answered at once. The voice went on, "No assistance will be furnished to dispersed rebels by the Federation. Relief to refugees must be provided by colonists who have not been dispossessed. When you are liberated you are advised to spread out into the surrounding countryside and seek temporary shelter with farmers and in the smaller villages."
A bitter voice said, "There's your answer, Clara-they don't give a hoot whether we live or die."
The first voice answered, "But how can we get away? We don't even own a gondola."
"Swim, I guess. Or walk on water."
Soldiers came inside and delivered them to the gate in groups of fifty, cutting them out like cowpunchers handling cattle. Don had pushed toward the gate, hoping to spot Isobel during the processing, and got picked up against his will in the second group. He produced his I. D.s when demanded and immediately ran into a hitch; his name did not appear in the city lists. He explained that he had come in on the last trip of the Nautilus.
"Why didn't you say so?" grumbled the soldier doing the checking. He turned and produced another list: "Hannegan. . . Hardecker . . . here it is: Harvey, Donald J.-Yikes! Wait a minute-it's flagged. Hey, sarge! This bird has a polit flag against his name."
"Inside with him," came the bored answer.
Don found himself shoved into the guardroom at the gate, along with a dozen other worried-looking citizens. Almost at once he was conducted on into a little office at the rear. A man who would have seemed tall had he not been so fat stood up and said, "Donald James Harvey?"
"That's right."
The man came to him and looked him over, his face wreathed in a happy grin. "Welcome, my boy, welcome! Am I glad to see you!"
Don looked puzzled. The man went on, "I suppose I should introduce myself-Stanley Bankfield, at your service. Political Officer First Class, I.B.I., at the moment special adviser to his excellency, the Governor."
At the mention of the I.B.I., Don stiffened. The man noticed it-his little fat-enfolded eyes seemed to notice everything. He said, "Easy, son! I mean you no harm; I'm simply delighted to see you. But I must say you have led me a merry chase-half around the system. At one point I thought you had been killed in the late lamented Glory Road, and I cried tears over your demise. Yes, sir! real tears. But that's over with, and all's well that ends well. So let's have it."
"Have what?"
"Come, now! I know all about you-almost every word you've uttered back to your babyhood. I've even fed sugar :o your stock pony, Lazy. So hand it over."
Hand what over?"
"The ring, the ring!" Bankfield put out a pudgy hand.
"I don't know what you are talking about."
Bankfield shrugged mightily. "I am talking about a plastic ring, marked with an initial 'H', given to you by the late Dr. Jefferson. You see, I know what I am talking about; I know you have it-and I mean to have it. An officer in my own service was so stupid as to let you walk out with it-and was broken for it. You wouldn't want that to happen to me, I'm sure. So give it to me."
"Now I know what ring you are talking about," Don answered, "but I don't have it."
"Eh? What's that you are saying? Where is it, then?"
Don's mind was racing ahead. It took him no time at all to decide not to set the I.B.I. to looking for Isobel-no, not if he had to bite his tongue out. "I suppose it's burned up," he answered.
Bankfield cocked his head on one side. "Donald, my boy, I believe you are fibbing to me-I do indeed! You hesitated just a teeny-weeny bit before you answered. No one but a suspicious old man like myself would have noticed it."
"It's true," Don insisted. "Or, at least, I think it is. One of those monkeys you have working for you set fire to the building just as I left. I suppose the building burnt down and the ring with it. But maybe it didn't."
Bankfield looked doubtful. "What building?"
"Two Worlds Dining Room, at the end of Paradise Alley off the foot of Buchanan Street."
Bankfield moved rapidly to the door, gave orders. "Use as many men as needed," he concluded, "and sift every ounce of ash. Move!" He turned back, sighing. "Mustn't neglect any possibilities," he said, "but now we will go back to the probability that you lied. Why should you have taken off your ring in a restaurant?"
"To wash dishes."
"Eh?"
"I was working for my meals, living there. I didn't like putting it in the hot water so I kept it in my room."
Bankfield pursed his lips. "You almost convince me. Your story holds together. And yet, let us both pray that you are deceiving me. If you are and can lead me to the ring, I would be very grateful. You could go back to Earth in style and comfort. I think I could even promise a moderate annuity; we have special funds for such purposes."
"I'm not likely to collect it-unless they find the ring in the restaurant."
"Dear me! In that case I don't suppose either one of us will go back to Earth. No, sir, I think that in such a case I would find it better to stay right here-devoting my declining years to making your life miserable."
He smiled. "I was joking-I'm sure we'll find the ring, with your help. Now, Don, tell me what you did with it." He put an arm around Don's shoulders in a fatherly fashion.
Don tried to shrug the arm off, found that he could not. Bankfield went on, "We could settle it quickly if I had proper equipment at hand. Or I could do this-" The arm around Don's shoulders dropped suddenly; Bankfield seized Don's left little finger and bent it back sharply. Involuntarily Don grunted with pain.
"Sorry! I don't like such methods. The operator, in an excess of zeal, frequently damages the client so that no truth of any sort is forthcoming. No, Don, I think we will wait a few minutes while I get word to the medical department-sodium pentothal seems to be indicated. It will make you more cooperative, don't you think?" Bankfield stepped again to the door. "Orderly! Put this one on ice. And send in that Mathewson character."
Don was conducted outside the guardhouse and into a pen, a fenced enclosure used to receive prisoners. It was some thirty feet wide and a hundred feet long; one of its longer sides was common with the fence that ran around the entire camp, the other shut it off from the free world. The only entrance to it lay through the guardhouse.
There were several dozen prisoners in the receiving pen, most of them civilian men, although Don saw a number of women and quite a few officers of the Middle Guard and of the Ground Forces-still in uniform but disarmed.
He at once checked the faces of the women; none was Isobel. He had not expected to find her, yet found himself vastly disappointed. His time was running out; he realized with panic that it was probably only minutes until he would be held down, drug injected into his veins-and be turned thereby into a babbling child with no will to resist their questioning. He had never been subjected to narco-interrogation but he knew quite well what the drug would do. Even deep-hypnotic suggestion could not protect against it in the hands of a skilled operator.
Somehow he felt sure that Bankfield was skilled.
He went to the far end of the pen, pointlessly, as a frightened animal will retreat to the back of a cage. He stood there, staring up at the top of the fence several feet above his head. The fence was tight and strong, proof against almost anything but a dragon, but one could get handholds in the mesh-it could be climbed. However, above the mesh were three single strands of wire; every ten feet or so on the lowest strand was a little red sign-a skull-and-crossbones and the words HIGH VOLTAGE.
Don glanced back over his shoulder. The everpresent fog, reinforced by smoke from the burning city, almost obscured the guardhouse. The breeze had shifted and the smoke was getting thicker; he felt reasonably sure that no one could see him but other prisoners.
He tried it, found that his shoes would not go into the mesh, kicked them off and tried again.
"Don't!" said a voice behind him.
Don looked back. A major of the Ground Forces, cap missing and one sleeve torn and bloody, stood behind him. "Don't try it," the major said reasonably. "It will kill you quickly. I know; I supervised its installation."
Don dropped to the ground. "Isn't there some way to switch it off?"
"Certainly-outside." The officer grinned wryly. "I took care of that. A locked switch in the guardhouse-and another at the main distribution board in the city. Nowhere else." He coughed. "Pardon me-the smoke."
Don looked toward the burning city. "The distribution board back in the powerhouse," he said softly. "I wonder--"
"Eh?" The major followed his glance. "I don't know-I couldn't say. The powerhouse is fireproof."
A voice behind them in the mist shouted, "Harvey! Donald J. Harvey! Front and center!"
Don swarmed up the fence.
He hesitated just before touching the lowest of the three strands, flipped it with the back of his hand. Nothing happened-then he was over and falling. He hit badly, hurting a wrist, but scrambled to his feet and ran.
There were shouts behind him; without stopping he risked a look over his shoulder. Someone else was at the top of the fence. Even as he looked he heard the hiss of a beam. The figure jerked and contracted, like a fly touched by flame.
The figure raised its head. Don heard the major's voice in a clear triumphant baritone: "Venus and Freedom!" He fell back inside the fence.
Dory plunged ahead, not knowing where he was going, not caring as long as it was away. Again he heard the angry, deadly hissing; he cut to the left and ran faster, then cut back again beyond a clump of witch's brooms. He pounded ahead, giving it all he had, with his breath like dry steam in his throat-then skidded to a stop at water's edge.
He stood still for a moment, looked and listened. Nothing to see but grey mist, nothing to hear but the throbbing of his own heart. No, not quite nothing-someone shouted in the distance and he heard the sounds of booted feet crashing through the brush. It seemed to come from the right; he turned left and trotted along the waterfront, his eyes open for a gondola, a skiff, anything that would float.
The bank curled back to the left; he followed it, then stopped as he realized that it was leading him to the narrow neck of land that joined Main Island to East Spit. It was a cinch, he thought, that there would be a guard at the bottleneck; it seemed to him that there had been one there when he and the other dispossessed had been herded across it to the prison camp.
He listened-yes, they were still behind him-and flanking him. There was nothing in front of him but the bank curving back to certain capture.
For a moment his face was contorted in an agony of frustration, then his features suddenly relaxed to serenity and he stepped firmly into the water and walked away from the land.
Don could swim, in which respect he differed from most Venus colonials. On Venus no one ever swims; there is no water fit to swim in. Venus has no moon to pile up tides; the solar tide disturbs her waters but little. The waters never freeze, never approach the critical 4° C. which causes terrestrial lakes and streams and ponds to turn over and "ventilate." The planet is almost free of weather in the boisterous sense. Her waters lie placid on their surface-and accumulate vileness underneath, by the year, by the generation, by the eon.
Don walked straight out, trying not to think of the black and sulphurous muck he was treading in. The water was shallow; fifty yards out with the shore line dim behind him, he was still in only up to his knees. He glanced back and decided to go out farther; if he could not see the shore, then they could not see him. He reminded himself that he would have to keep his wits about him not to get turned around.
Presently the bottom suddenly dropped away a foot or more; he stepped off the edge; lost his balance and thrashed around; recovered himself and scrambled back up on the ledge, congratulating himself that he had not gotten his face and eyes into the stuff.
He heard a shout and almost at once the sound of water striking a hot stove, enormously amplified. Ten feet away from him a cloud of steam lifted from the water's surface, climbed lazily into the mist. He cringed and wanted to dodge, but there was no way to dodge. The shouting resumed and the sounds carried clearly across the water muffled by the fog but still plain: "Over here! Over here! He's taken to the water."
Much more distantly he heard the answer: "Coming!"
Most cautiously Don moved forward, felt the edge of the drop off, tried it and found that he could still stand beyond it, almost up to his armpits but still wading. He was moving, forward slowly, trying to avoid noise and minding his precarious, half-floating balance, when he heard the sibilant sound of the beam.
The soldier back on the bank had imagination; instead of firing again at random into the drifting mist he was fanning the flat surface of the water, doing his best to keep his beam horizontal and playing it like a hose. Don squatted down until his face alone was out of the water.
The beam passed only inches over his head; he could hear it pass, smell the ozone.
The hissing stopped abruptly to be followed by the age-old, monotonous cursing of the barrackroom. "But, sergeant-" someone protested.
"I'll `sergeant' you! Alive-do you hear? You heard the orders. If you've killed him, I'll take you apart with a rusty knife. No, I won't; I'll turn you over to Mr. Bankfield. You hopeless fool!"
"But, sergeant, he was escaping by water; I had to stop him."
" `But sergeant!' `But sergeant!'-is that all you can say! Get a boat! Get a snooper! Get a two-station portable bounce
rig. Call base and find out if they've got a copter down."
"Where would I get a boat?"
"Get one! He can't get away. We'll find him-or his body. If it's his body, you'd better cut your throat."
Don listened, then moved silently forward-or away from the direction the voices seemed to come from. He could no longer tell true direction; there was nothing but the black surface of water and a horizon of mist. For some distance the bottom continued fairly level, then he realized that it was again dropping away. He was forced to stop, able to wade no further.
He thought it over, trying to avoid panic. He was still close to Main Island with nothing but mist between himself and the shore. It was a certainty that with proper search gear-infra-red or any of the appropriate offspring of radar-they could pin him like a beetle to cork. It was merely a matter of waiting for the gear to be brought up.
Should he surrender now and get out of this poisonous swill? Surrender and go back and tell Bankfield to find Isobel Costello if he wanted the ring? He let himself sink forward and struck out strongly, swimming breast stroke to try to keep his face out of the water.
Breast stroke was far from being his strongest stroke and it was made worse by trying so hard to keep his face dry. His neck began to ache presently the ache spread through his shoulder muscles and into his back. Indefinite time and endless gallons later he ached everywhere, even to his eyeballs-yet for all he could tell about it he might have been swimming in a bathtub, one whose walls were grey mist. It did not seem possible that, in the archipelago which made up Buchanan Province, one could swim so far without running into something . . . a sand spit, a mud bar.
He stopped to tread water, barely moving his tired legs and fluttering his palms. He thought he heard the rushing sound of a powered boat, but he could not be sure. At that moment he would not have cared; capture would have been relief. But the sound, or ghost of a sound, died away and he was again in a grey and featureless wilderness.
He arched his back to shift again to swimming and his toe struck bottom. Gingerly he felt for it-yes, bottom . . . with his chin out of water. He stood for a moment or two and rested, then felt around. Bottom dropped away on one side, seemed level or even to rise a little in another direction.
Shortly his shoulders were out with his feet still in the muck. Feeling his way like a blind man, his eyes useless save for balancing, he groped out the contour, finding bits that rose, then forced to retreat as the vein played out.
He was out of water to his waist when his eyes spotted a darker streak through the fog; he went toward it, was again up to his neck. Then the bottom rose rapidly; a few moments later he scrambled up on dry land.
He did not have the courage yet to do anything more than move inland a few feet and place between himself and the water a clump of Chika trees. Screened thus from search operations conducted from boats he looked himself over. Clinging to his legs were a dozen or more mud lice, each as large as a child's hand. With repugnance he brushed them off, then removed his shorts and shirt, found several more and disposed of them. He told himself that he was lucky not to have encountered anything worse-the dragons had many evolutionary cousins, bearing much the same relationship to them that gorillas do to men. Many of these creatures are amphibious-another reason why Venus colonials do not swim.
Reluctantly Don put his wet and filthy clothes back on, sat down with his back to a tree trunk, and rested. He was still doing so when he again heard the sound of a power boat; this time there was no mistaking it. He sat still, depending on the trees to cover him and hoping that it would go away.
It came in close to shore and cruised along it to his right. He was beginning to feel relief when the turbine stopped. In the stillness he could hear voices. "We'll have to reconnoiter this hunk of mud. Okay, Curly-you and Joe."
"What does this guy look like, corporal?"
"Now, I'll tell you-the captain didn't say. He's a young fellow, though, about your age. You just arrest anything that walks. He's not armed."
"I wish I was back in Birmingham."
"Get going."
Don got going, too - in the other direction, as fast and as silently as possible. The island was fairly well covered; he hoped that it was large as well-a precarious game of hideand-seek was all the tactics he could think of. He had covered perhaps a hundred yards when he was scared out of his wits by movement up ahead; he realized with desperation that the boat party might have landed two patrols.
His panic died down when he discovered that what he was seeing were not men but gregarians. They spotted him, too, and came dancing up, bleating welcome, and crowding up against him.
"Quiet!" he said in a sharp whisper. "You'll get me caughtl"
The move-overs paid no attention to that; they wanted to play. He endeavored to pay no attention to them but moved forward again, closely accompanied by the whole group, some five. He was still wondering how to keep from being loved to death-or at least back into captivity-when they came out into the clearing.
Here was the rest of the herd, more than two hundred head, from babies that butted against his knees up to the grey-bearded old patriarch, fat in the belly and reaching as high as Don's shoulder. They all welcomed him and wanted him to stay a while.
One thing that had worried him was now cleared up-he had not swum in a circle and blundered back onto Main Island. The only move-overs on Main Island were half-domesticated scavengers such as those which had hung around the restaurant; there were no herds.
It suddenly occurred to him that it was barely possible that he might turn the ubiquitous friendliness of the bipeds into an advantage rather than a sure giveaway. They would not let him be; that was sure. If he left the herd, some of them were certain to trail along, bleating and snorting and making themselves and him conspicuous. On the other hand. . .
He moved straight out into the clearing, pushing his friends aside as he went. He shoved himself right into the center of the herd and sat down on the ground.
Three of the babies promptly climbed into his lap. He let them stay. Adults and half-grown bucks crowded around him bleating and snuffling and trying to nuzzle the top of his head. He let them-he was now surrounded by a wall of flesh. From time to time one of the inner circle would be shouldered out of the way and would go back to grazing but there were always enough around him to block out his view of his surroundings. He waited.
After a considerable time he heard more excited bleating from the fringe of the herd. For a moment be thought his personal guard would be seduced away by this new excitement, but the inner circle preferred to keep their privileged positions the wall held. Again he heard voices.
"For Pete's sake-it's a whole flock of those silly billies!" Then-"Hey! Get down! Quit licking my face!"
Carly's voice replied, "I think he's fallen in love with you, Joe. Say-Soapy said to arrest anything that walks: shall we take this one back to him?"
"Stow it!" There were sounds of scuffling, then the high bleating of a move-over both surprised and hurt.
"Maybe we ought to burn one and take it back anyway,'" Curly went on. "I hear they are mighty tasty eating."
"You turn this into a hunting party and Soapy will haul you up before the Old Man. Come on-we got work to do."
Don could follow their progress around the edge of the herd. He could even tell by the sounds when the two soldiers managed to cuff and kick the most persistent of the creatures off their trail. He continued to sit there long after they were gone, tickling the chin of a baby which had gone to sleep in his lap, and resting himself.
Presently it began to grow dark. The herd started to bed down for the night. By the time it was fully dark they were all lying down except the sentries around the edge. Because he was dead tired and completely lacking in any plan of action Don bedded down with them, his head cradled on a soft and velvety back and himself in turn half supporting a couple of youngsters.
For a while he thought about his predicament, then he thought about nothing.
The herd stirred and he awakened. There was much snorting and stomping mixed with the whimpering complaints of the young, still not fully awake. Don got his bearings and got to his own feet; he knew vaguely what to expect-the herd was about to migrate. Gregarians rarely grazed the same island two days in a row. They slept the first part of the night, then moved out before dawn when their natural enemies were least active. They forded from one island to another, using paths through the water known-possibly by instinct-to the herd leaders. For that matter, gregarians could swim, but they rarely did so.
Don thought: well, I'll soon be rid of them. Nice people, but too much is too much. Then he thought better of it-if the move-overs were moving to another island it was sure that it would not be Main Island and it would certainly have to be farther away from Main Island than was this one. What could he lose?
He felt a bit light-headed but the logic seemed right; when the herd moved out he worked his way up near the van. The leader took them down the island about a quarter of a mile, then stepped off into the water. It was still so nearly pitch dark that Don was not aware of it until he too stepped into it. It was only up to his ankles and did not get much deeper. Don splashed along almost at a dogtrot, trying to stay inside the body of the herd so that he would run no chances of blundering into deeper water in the darkness. He hoped that this was not one of the migrations involving swimming.
It began to grow truly light and the pace quickened; Don was hard put to keep up. At one point the old buck in the lead stopped, snorted, and made a sharp turn; Don could not guess why he had turned, for the morning mist was very thick and one piece of water looked exactly like another. Yet the way chosen turned out to be shallow. They followed it for another kilometer or more, twisting and turning at times, then at last the leader clambered up a bank with Don on his heels.
Don threw himself down, exhausted. The old buck stopped, plainly puzzled, while the herd gained the land and crowded around them. The leader snorted and looked disgusted, then turned away and continued his duty of leading his people to good pasture. Don pulled himself together and followed them.
They were just coming out of the trees that hedged the shore when Don saw a fence off to the right. He felt like singing. "So long, folksl" he called out. "Here's where I get off." He headed for the fence, while the main herd moved on. When he reached the fence he reluctantly slapped and swatted his attendants until he managed to shoo them off, then headed along the wire. Eventually, he told himself, I will find a gate and that will lead me to people. It did not matter much who the people were; they would feed him and let him rest and help him to hide from the invaders.
The fog was very thick; it was good to have the fence to guide him. He stumbled along by it, feeling feverish and somewhat confused, but cheerful.
"Halt."
Don froze automatically, shook his head and tried to remember where he was.
"I've got you spotted," the voice went on. "Move forward slowly with your hands up."
Don strained his eyes to see through the fog, wondered if he dared to run for it. But, with a feeling of utter and final defeat, he realized that he had run as far as he could. '~
"SNAP out of it!" the voice said, "or I shoot."
"Okay," he answered dully and moved forward with his hands over his head. A few paces advance let him see a man's shape; a few more and he made out a soldier with a hand gun trained on him. His eyes were covered by snooper goggles, making him look like some bug-eyed improbability from another planet.
The soldier halted Don again a few steps from him, made him turn around slowly. When Don turned back he had shoved the snoopers up on his forehead, revealing pleasant blue eyes. He lowered his gun. "Jack, you're sure a mess", he commented. "What in the name of the Egg have you been doing?"
It was only then that Don realized that the soldier was wearing not the mottled green of the Federation but the tans of the Ground Forces of Venus Republic.
The soldier's commanding officer, a Lieutenant Busby, tried to question him in the kitchen of the farm house inside the fence, but he saw very quickly that the prisoner was in no shape to be questioned. He turned Don over to the farmer's wife for food, a hot bath, and emergency medical attention. It was late that afternoon that Don, much refreshed and with the patches left by the mud lice a covered with poultices, finally gave an account of himself.
Busby listened him out and nodded. "I'll take your word for it, mainly because it is almost inconceivable that a Federation spy could have been where you were, dressed the way you were, and in the shape you were in." He went on to question him closely about what he had seen in New London, how many soldiers there seemed to be, how they were armed, and so forth. Unfortunately Don could not tell him much. He did recite "Emergency Law Number One" as closely as he could remember it.
Busby nodded, "We got it over Mr. Wong's radio." He hooked a thumb at the corner of the room. He thought for a moment. "They played it smart; they took a leaf from Commodore Higgins' book and played it real smart. They didn't bomb our cities; they just bombed our ships-then they moved in and burned us out."
"Have we got any ships left?" Don asked.
"I don't know. I doubt it-but it doesn't matter."
"Huh?"
"Because they played it too smart. There's nothing left they can do to us; from here on they're fighting the fog. And we fog-eaters know this planet better than they do."
Don was allowed to rest up the balance of that day and the following night. By listening to the gossip of the soldiers he came to the conclusion that Busby was not simply an optimist; the situation was not completely hopeless. It was admittedly very bad; so far as anyone knew all the ships of the High Guard had been destroyed. The Valkyrie, the Nautilus and the Adonis were reported bombed and with them Commodore Higgins and most of his men. There was no word of the Spring Tide-which meant nothing; what little information they had was compounded of equal parts rumor and Federation official propaganda.
The Middle Guard might have saved some of their ships, might have them hidden out in the bush, but the usefulness at this time of superstratospheric shuttles which required unmovable launching catapults was conjectural. As for the Ground Forces a good half of them had been captured or killed at Buchanan Island Base and at lesser garrisons. While the enlisted survivors were being released, the only officers still free were such as Lieutenant Busby, those who had been on detached duty when the attack came. Busby's unit had been manning a radar station outside New London; he had saved his command by abandoning the now useless station.
The civil government of the baby republic was, of course, gone; almost every official had been captured. The command organization of the armed forces was equally out of action, captured in the initial attack. This raised a point that puzzled Don; Busby did not act as if his commanding generals were missing; he continued to behave as if he were a unit commander of an active military organization, with task and function clearly defined. Esprit de corps was high among his men; they seemed to expect months, perhaps years of bush warfare, harrying and raiding the Federation forces, but eventual victory at the end.
As one of them put it to Don, "They can't catch us. We know these swamps; they don't. They won't be able to go ten miles from the city, even with boat radar and dead-reckoning bugs. We'll sneak in at night and cut their throats -and sneak out again for breakfast. We won't let them lift a ton of radioactive off this planet, nor an ounce of drugs. We'll make it so expensive in money and men that they'll get sick of it and go home."
Don nodded. "Sick of fighting the fog, as Lieutenant Busby puts it."
"Busby?"
"Huh? Lieutenant Busby-your C. O."
"Is that his name? I didn't catch it." Don's face showed bewilderment. The soldier went on, "I've only been here since morning, you see. I was turned loose with the other duckfeet from the Base and was dragging my tail back home, feeling lower than swamp muck. I stopped off here, meaning to cadge a meal from Wong, and found the Lieutenant here-Busby, did you say? with a going concern. He attached me and put me back on duty. I tell you, it put the heart back into me. Got a light on you?"
Before he turned in that night-in Mr. Wong's barn, with two dozen soldiers-Don had found that most of those present were not of Busby's original detail, which had consisted of only five men, all electronics technicians. The rest were stragglers, now formed into a guerilla platoon. As yet few of them had arms; they made up for that in restored morale.
Before he went to sleep Don had made up his mind. He would have looked up Lieutenant Busby at once but decided that it would not do to disturb the officer so late at night. He woke up next morning to find the soldiers gone. He rushed out, found Mrs. Wong feeding her chickens, and was directed by her down to the waterfront. There Busby was superintending the moving out of his command. Don rushed up to him. "Lieutenant! May I have a word with you?"
Busby turned impatiently. "I'm busy."
"Just a single moment-please!"
"Well, speak up."
"Just this-where can I go to enlist?" Busby frowned; Don raced ahead with explanation, insisting that he had been trying to join -up when the attack came.
"If you meant to enlist, I should think you would have done so long ago. Anyway, by your own story you've lived a major portion of your life on Earth. You're not one of us."
"Yes, I am!''"
"I think you're a kid with your head stuffed with romantic notions. You're not old enough to vote."
"I'm old enough to fight."
"What can you do?"
"Uh, well, I'm a pretty good shot, with a hand gun anyway."
"What else?"
Don thought rapidly; it had not occurred to him that soldiers were expected to have anything more than willingness. Ride horseback? It meant nothing here. "Uh, I talk `true speech'-fairly well."
"That's useful-we need men who can palaver with the dragons. What else?"
Don thought about the fact that he had been able to make his escape through the bush without disaster-but the Lieutenant knew that; it simply proved that he was truly a fog-eater in spite of his mixed background. He decided that Busby would not be interested in the details of his ranch school education. "Well, I can wash dishes."
Busby grudged a faint smile. "That is unquestionably a soldierly virtue. Nevertheless, Harvey, I doubt if you're suited. This won't be parade-ground soldiering. We'll live off the country and probably never get paid at all. It means going hungry, going dirty, always on the move. You not only risk being killed in action; if you are captured, you'll be burned for treason."
"Yes, sir. I figured that out last night."
"And you still want to join?"
"Yes, sir."
"Hold up your right hand."
Don did so. Busby continued. "Do you solemnly swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the Venus Republic against all enemies, domestic and foreign; and to serve faithfully in the armed forces of the Republic for the duration of this emergency unless sooner discharged by competent authority; and to obey the lawful orders of superior officers placed over you?"
Don took a deep breath. "I do."
"Very well, soldier-get in the boat."
"Yes, sirl"
There were many, many times thereafter that Don regretted having enlisted-but so has every man who ever volunteered for military service. More of the time he was reasonably content, though he would have denied this sincerely-he acquired considerable talent at the most common of soldiers' pastimes, griping about the war, the weather, the food, the mud, the stupidities of high command. The old soldier can substitute for recreation, or even for rest or food, this ancient, conventional, and harmless form of literary art.
He learned the ways of the guerilla-to infiltrate without a sound, to strike silently, and to fade back into the dark and the mist before the alarm can be raised. Those who learned it lived; those who did not, died. Don lived. He learned other things-to sleep for ten minutes when opportunity offered, to come fully and quietly awake at a touch or a sound, to do without sleep for a night, or two night sor even three. He acquired deep lines around his mouth, lines beyond his years, and a white, puckered scar on his left forearm.
He did not stay long with Busby but was transferred to a company of gondola infantry operating between CuiCui and New London. They called themselves proudly "Marsten's Raiders"; he was assigned as "true speech" interpreter for his outfit. While most colonials can whistle a few phrases of dragon talk-or, more usually, can understand a bit of a pidgin sufficient for buying and selling-few of them can converse freely in it. Don, for all his lack of practice during his years on Earth, had been taught it young and taught it well by a dragon who had taken an interest in him as a child. And both his parents used it as easily as they did Basic English; Don had been drilled in it by daily use at home until he was eleven.
The dragons were of great use to the resistance fighters; a while not belligerents themselves their sympathies lay with the colonials-more accurately, they despised the Federation soldiers. The colonials had managed to make a home on Venus through getting along with the dragons-an enlightened self-interest policy instituted by Cyrus Buchanan himself. To a human born on Venus there was never any doubt that there existed another race-dragons-as intelligent, as wealthy, and as civilized as their own. But to the great majority of the Federation soldiers, new to the planet, the dragons were merely ugly, uncouth animals, incapable of speech and giving themselves airs, arrogating to themselves privileges that no animal had a right to claim.
This orientation cut below the conscious level; no general order issued to the Federation troops, no amount of disciplinary action for violations, could cope with it. It was stronger and less reasoned than any analogous Earthly trouble-white versus black, gentile versus Jew, Roman versus barbarian, or whatever-had ever been. The very officers issuing the orders could not feel the matter correctly; they were not Venus born. Even the governor's prime political adviser, the shrewd and able Stanley Bankfield, could not really grasp that one does not ingratiate oneself with a dragon by (so to speak) patting him on the head and talking down.
Two serious incidents had set the pattern on the very day of the original attack; in New London a dragon-the same one Don had seen reading the Times' bulletins had been, not killed, but seriously damaged by a flamethrower; he had been silent partner in the local bank and lessor of many ichthorium pits. Still worse, in CuiCui a dragon had been killed-by a rocket; through mischance he had had his mouth open. And this dragon had been related collaterally to the descendants of the Great Egg.
It does not do to antagonize highly intelligent creatures each of whom is physically equivalent to, say three rhinoceri or a medium tank. Nevertheless they were not themselves belligerents, as our convention of warfare is not part of their culture. They work in different ways to their ends.
When in the course of his duties Don had to speak to dragons he sometimes inquired whether or not this particular citizen or the dragon nation knew his friend "Sir Isaac" using, of course, "Sir Isaac's true name. He found that those who could not claim personal acquaintance at least knew of him; he found, too, that it raised his own prestige to claim acquaintanceship. But he did not attempt to send a message to "Sir Isaac"; there was no longer any occasion for it-no need to try to wangle a transfer to a High Guard that no longer existed.
He did try and try repeatedly to learn what had happened to Isobel Costello-through refugees, through dragons, and through the increasingly numerous clandestine resistance fighters who could move fairly freely from one side to the other. He never found her. He heard once that she was confined in the prison camp on East Spit; he heard again that she and her father had been deported to Earth-neither rumor could be confirmed. He suspected, with a dull, sick feeling inside, that she had been killed in the original attack.
He was grieved about Isobel herself-not about the ring that he had left with her. He had tried to guess what it could possibly be about the ring, which would cause him to be chased from planet to planet. He could not think of an answer and concluded that Bankfield, for all his superior airs, had been mistaken; the important thing must have been the wrapping paper but the I.B.I. bad been too stupid to figure it out. Then he quit thinking about it at all; the ring was gone and that was that.
As for his parents and Mars - sure, sure, someday! Someday when the war was over and ships were running again-in the meantime why let the worry mice gnaw at one's mind?
His company was at this time spread out through four islands south-southwest of New London; they had been camped there for three days, about the longest they ever stayed in one place. Don, being attached to headquarters, was on the same island as Captain Marsten and was, at the moment, stretched out in his hammock, which he had slung between two trees in the midst of a clump of broom.
The company headquarters runner sought him out and awakened him-by standing well clear and giving the hammock rope a sharp tap. Don came instantly awake, a knife in his hand. "Easy!" cautioned the runner. "The Old Man wants to see you."
Don made a rhetorical and most ungracious suggestion as to what the Captain could do about it and slid silently to his feet. He stopped to roll up the hammock and stuff it into his pocket-it weighed only four ounces and had cost the Federation a nice piece of change on cost-plus contract. Don was very careful of it; its former owner had not been careful and now had no further need for it. He gathered up his weapons as well.
The company commander was sitting at a field desk under a screen of boughs. Don slid into his presence and waited. Marsten looked up and said, "Got a special job for you, Harvey. You move out at once."
"Change in the plan?"
"No, you won't be on tonight's raid. A high mugamug among the dragons wants palaver. You're to go to see him. At once."
Don thought it over. "Cripes, Skipper, I was looking forward to tonight's scramble. I'll go tomorrow-those people don't care about time; they're patient."
"That'll do, soldier. I'm putting you on leave status; according to the despatch from HQ, you may be gone quite a while."
Don looked up sharply. "If I'm ordered to go, it's not leave; it's detached duty."
"You're a mess hall lawyer at heart, Harvey."
"Yes, sir."
"Turn in your weapons and take off your insignia; you'll make the first leg of the trip as a jolly farmer boy. Pick up some props from stores. Larsen will boat you. That's all."
"Yes sir." Don tamed to go, adding, "Good hunting tonight, Skipper."
Marsten smiled for the first time. "Thanks, Don."
The first part of the trip was made through channels so narrow and devious that electronic seeing devices could reach no further than could the bare eye. Don slept through most of it, his head pillowed on a sack of sour-corn seed.
He did not worry about the job ahead-no doubt the officer he was to interpret for, whoever he was, would rendezvous and let him know what he was to do.
Early in the next afternoon they reached the brink of the Great South Sea and Don was transferred to a crazy wagon, a designation which applied to both boat and crew-a flat, jet-propelled saucer fifteen feet across manned by two young extroverts who feared neither man nor mud. The upper works of the boat were covered by a low, polished cone of sheet metal intended to reflect horizontal radar wavesupward, or vice versa. It could not protect against that locus in the sky, cone-shaped like the reflector itself, where reflections would bounce straight back to originating stations-but the main dependence was on speed in any case.
Don lay flat on the bottom of the boat, clinging to hand holds and reflecting on the superior advantages of rocket flight, while the crazy wagon skipped and slid over the surface of the sea. He tried not to think about what would happen if the speeding boat struck a floating log or one of the larger denizens of the water. They covered nearly three hundred kilometers in somewhat less than two hours, then the boat skidded and slewed to a stop. "End of the line", called out the downy-cheeked skipper. "Have your baggage checks ready. Women and children use the center escalator." The anti-radar lid lifted.
Don stood up on wobbly legs. "Where are we?"
"Dragonville-by-the-Mud. There's your welcoming committee. Mind your step."
Don peered through the mist. There seemed to be several dragons on the shore. He stepped over the side, went into mud to his boot tops, scrambled up to firmer soil. Behind him, the crazy wagon lowered its cover and gunned away at once, going out of sight while still gathering speed. "They might at least have waved," Don muttered and turned back to the dragons. He was feeling considerably perplexed; there seemed to be no men around and he had been given no instructions. He wondered if the officer he had expected to find-surely by this time! - had failed to run the gauntlet safely.
There were seven of the dragons, now moving toward him. He looked them over and whistled a polite greeting, while thinking how much one dragon looks like another. Then the center one of the seven spoke to him in an accent richly reminiscent of fish-and-chips. "Donald, my dear boy! How very happy I am to see you! Shucks!"
DON gulped and stared and almost lost track of his manners. "Sir Isaac! Sir Isaac!" He stumbled toward him.
It is not practical to shake hands with a dragon, kiss it, nor hug it. Don contented himself with beating Sir Isaac's armored sides with his fists while trying to regain control of himself. Long-suppressed emotions shook him, spoiling voice and vision. Sir Isaac waited patiently, then said, "Now, Donald, if I may present my family.
Don pulled himself together, cleared his throat, and wet his whistle. None of the others had a voder; it was possible that they did not even understand Basic.
"May they all die beautifully!"
"We thank you."
A daughter, a son, a granddaughter, a grandson, a great granddaughter, a great grandson-counting Sir Isaac himself, a four generation welcome, only one short of maximum dragon protocol; Don was overwhelmed. He knew that Sir Isaac was friendly to him, but he decided that this degree of ceremony must be a compliment to his parents.
"My Father and my Mother thank you all for the kindness you do to their egg."
"As the first egg, so the last. We are very happy to have you here, Donald."
A dragon visitor, honored by an escort, would have made a leisurely progress to the family seat flanked by the family members. But a dragon's leisurely progress is about twice as fast as a brisk walk for a man. Sir Isaac settled himself down and said, "Suppose you borrow my legs, dear boy; we have considerable distance to go."
"Oh, I can walk"
"Please - I insist."
"Well. . ."
" 'Upsy-daisy'! then - if I recall the idiom correctly."
Don climbed aboard and settled himself just abaft the last pair of eyestalks; they turned around and surveyed him. He found that Sir Isaac had thoughtfully had two rings riveted to his neck plates to let him hold on. "All set?"
"Yes, indeed."
The dragon reared himself up again and they set out, with Don feeling like Toomai-of-the-Elephants.
They went up a crowded dragon path so old that it was impossible to tell whether it was an engineering feat or a natural conformation. The path paralleled the shore for a mile or so; they passed dragons at work in their watery fields, then the path swung inland. Shortly, in the dry uplands, his party turned out of the traffic into a tunnel. This was definitely art not nature; it was one of the sort the floor of which slides quietly and rapidly away in the direction one walks (provided the walker is a dragon or weighs as much as a dragon); their ambling gait was multiplied by a considerable factor. Don could not judge the true speed nor the distance covered.
They came at last out into a great hall, large even for dragons; the flowing floor merged into the floor of the hall imperceptibly and stopped. Here were gathered the rest of the tribe symbolized by the seven who had met him. But Don was not required then to rack his brain for compliments, but was taken, still in accordance with etiquette, at once to his own chambers to rest and refresh himself.
The chambers were merely comfortable by Venerian standards; to Don, of course, they were huge. The wallowing trough in the center of the main room was less than six feet deep only at the ramp and it was long enough for him to take several strokes-which he did very soon with great pleasure. The water was as pure as the Sea he had just crossed was dirty and it was, as nearly as he could tell, heated for him to exactly the 98.6° of a human's blood.
He turned over on his back and floated, staring up into the artificial mist that concealed the remote ceiling. This, he thought, was certainly the life! It was the best bath he had had since-well, since that dilly of a bath in the Caravansary back in New Chicago, how long ago? Don thought with a sudden twinge of nostalgia that his class in school had graduated long since.
Growing tired even of such luxury he climbed out, then took his clothes and scrubbed out ancient dirt as best he could, while wishing for detergent, or even for the grey homemade soap the farmers used. He paddled around in bare feet, looking for somewhere to hang his wash. In the "small" retiring room he stopped suddenly.
Supper was ready. Someone had set a table for him, complete to fine napery-a card table, it was, with "Grand Rapids" spelled out in its lines. The chairs drawn up to it actually did have "Grand Rapids" stamped into its under side; Don turned it over and looked.
The table had been set in accordance with human customs. True, the soup was in the coffee cup' and the soup plate contained coffee, but Don was in no mood to care about such details-they were both hot. So was the sour bread toast and the scrambled eggs-shell eggs, if he was a judge.
He spread his wet clothes on the warm, tiled floor, hastily patted them smooth, drew up the chair and fell to. "As you say, Skipper," he muttered, "we never had it so good."
There was a foam mattress on the floor of another bay of the same room; Don did not need to look to see that it was Greenie general issue (officers). There was no bedframe and no blankets, but neither was necessary. Knowing that he would not be disturbed nor expected to put in an appearance until it suited him, he spread himself out on it after dinner. He was very tired, he now realized, and he certainly had much to think about.
The reappearance of Sir Isaac caused buried memories to lift their heads, fresh and demanding. He thought again of his school, wondered where his roommate was. Had he joined up on the other side? He hoped not . . . yet knew in his heart that Jack had. You did what you had to do, judging it from where you were. Jack wasn't his enemy, couldn't be. Good old Jack! He hoped strongly that the wild chances of war would never bring them face to face.
He wondered if Lazy still remembered him.
He saw again Old Charlie's face, suddenly blasted out of human shape . . . and again his heart raged with the thought. Well, he had paid back for Old Charlie, with interest. He grieved again for Isobel.
Finally he wondered about the orders, all the way from HQ, that had sent him to Sir Isaac. Was there actually a military job here? Or had Sir Isaac simply found out where he was and sent for him? The last seemed more likely; HQ would regard a request from a prince of the Egg as a military "must", dragons being as important as they were to operations.
He scratched the scar on his left arm and fell asleep.
Breakfast was as satisfactory as supper. This time there was no mystery about its appearance; it was wheeled in by a young dragon-Don knew that she was young as her rear pair of eyestalks were still buds; she could not have been more than a Venus century old. Don whistled his thanks; she answered politely and left.
Don wondered if Sir Isaac employed human servants; the cooking puzzled him, dragons simply do not cook. They prefer their fodder fresh, with a little of the bottom mud still clinging to it, for flavor. He could imagine a dragon boiling an egg the proper length of time, the time having been stated, but his imagination boggled at anything more complicated. Human cookery is an esoteric and strictly racial art.
His puzzlement did not keep him from enjoying breakfast.
After breakfast, his self-confidence shored up by clean and reasonably neat clothes, he braced himself for the ordeal of meeting Sir Isaac's numerous family. Used as he was to acting as a "true speech" interpreter, the prospect of so much ceremoniousness in which he himself would be expected to play a central and imaginative part made him nervous. He hoped that he would be able to carry it off in a fashion that would reflect honor on his parents and not embarrass his sponsor.
He had shaved sketchily, having no mirror, and was ready to make his sortie, when he heard his name called. It surprised him, as he knew that he should not have been disturbed-being a guest freshly arrived-even if he chose to stay in his chambers for a week, or a month-or forever.
Sir Isaac lumbered in. "My dear boy, will you forgive an old man in a hurry for treating you with the informality ordinarily used only with one's own children?"
"Why, certainly, Sir Isaac." Don was still puzzled. If Sir Isaac were a dragon in a hurry, he was the first one in history.
"If you are refreshed, then please come with me." Don did so, reflecting that they must have had him under observation; Sir Isaac's entrance was too timely. The old dragon led him out of his chambers, down a passage, and into a room which might have been considered cozy by dragon standards; it was less than a hundred feet across.
Don decided that it must be Sir Isaac's study, as there were roll upon roll of ribbon books racked on the walls and the usual sort of rotating bench set at the height of his handling tentacles. Above the racks on one wall was what Don judged to be a mural, but it looked like meaningless daubs to him; the three colors in the infra-red which dragons see and we do not produced the usual confusion. On second thought he decided that it might actually be meaningless; certainly a lot of human art did not seem to mean anything.
But the point which he noticed most and wondered about was that the room contained not one but two chairs meant for humans.
Sir Isaac invited him to sit down. Don did so and found that the chair was of the best powered furniture; it felt out his size and shape and conformed to it. He found out at once for whom the other terrestrial chair was intended; a man strode in-fiftyish, lean and hard in the belly, wiry grey hair around a bald pate. He had an abrupt manner and gave the impression that his orders were always obeyed. "Morning, gentlemen!'' He turned to Don. "You're Don Harvey. My name's Phipps-Montgomery Phipps." He spoke as if that were sufficient explanation. "You've grown some. Last time I saw you I walloped your britches for biting my thumb."
Don felt put off by the man's top-sergeant air. He supposed that it was some acquaintance of his parents whom he had met in the dim reaches of his childhood, but he could not place him. "Did I have reason to bite it?" he asked.
"Eh?" The man suddenly gave a barking laugh. "I suppose that is a matter of opinion. But we were even; I spanked you properly." He turned to Sir Isaac. "Is Malath going to be here?"
"He told me that he would make the effort. He should be along shortly."
Phipps threw himself in the other chair and drummed on the arms of it. "Well, I suppose we must wait, though I don't see the need of his attending. There has been much too much delay now-we should have had this meeting last night."
Sir Isaac managed to drag a shocked tone out of his voder. "Last night? With a guest newly arrived?"
Phipps shrugged. "Never mind." He turned back to Don. "How did you like your dinner, son?"
"Very much."
"My wife cooked it. She's busy in the lab now, but you'll meet her later. Top flight chemist-in or out of the kitchen."
"I'd like to thank her," Don said sincerely. "Did you say lab'?"
"Eh? Yes, yes-quite a place. You'll see it later. Some of the best talent on Venus here. The Federation's loss is our gain."
The questions that immediately popped into Don's mind were held up; someone, something was coming in. Don's eyes widened when he saw that it was a Martian's "pram"-the self-propelled personal environment without which a Martian cannot live either on Earth or Venus. The little car wheeled in and joined the circle; the figure inside raised itself to a sitting position with the aid of its powered artificial exoskeleton, tried feebly to spread its pseudowings and spoke, its thin, tired voice amplified through a speaking system. "Malath da Thon greets you, my friends."
Phipps stood up. "Malath old boy, you should be back in your tank. You'll kill yourself exerting like this."
"I shall live as long as is necessary."
"Here's the Harvey kid. Looks like his old man, doesn't he?"
Sir Isaac, shocked by such casualness, intervened with a formal introduction. Don tried feverishly to recall more than two words of High Martian, gave up and let it go with, "I'm glad to know you, sir."
"The honor is mine," answered the tired voice. " `A tall father casts a long shadow.' "
Don wondered what to answer while reflecting that the rowdy lack of manners of the move-overs had its points. Phipps broke in with, "Well, let's get down to business before Malath wears himself out. Sir Isaac?"
"Very well. Donald, you know that you are welcome in my house."
"Uh-why, yes, Sir Isaac, thank you."
"You know that I urged you to visit me before I knew aught of you but your parentage and your own good spirit."
"Yes, sir, you asked me to look you up. And I tried to, I really did-but I didn't know where you had landed. I was just getting organized to do a little detective work on it when the Greenies landed. I'm sorry." Don felt vaguely uncomfortable, knowing that he had put the matter off until he had a favor to ask.
"And I tried to find you, Donald-and was caught by the same mischance. Most recently, by rumors that are carried on the mist, did I discover where you were and what you were doing." Sir Isaac paused as if he found the choice of words difficult. "Knowing that this house is yours, knowing that you were welcome in any case, can you forgive me when you discover you were summoned also for a most
practical reason?"
Don decided that this called for "true speech." " `How can the eyes offend the tail? Or father offend son?' What can I do to help, Sir Isaac? I had already gathered that something was up."
"How shall I begin? Should I speak of your Cyrus Buchanan who died far from his people, yet died happily since he had made us his people, too? Or should I speak of the strange and complicated customs -of your own people wherein you sometimes-or so it appears to us-cause the jaw to bite its own leg? Or should I discuss directly the events that have happened here since first you and I shared mud in the sky?" ; 4
Phipps stirred uneasily. "Let me handle it. Sir Isaac. Remember that this young man and I are of the same race. We won't have to beat around the bush; I can put it up to him in two words. It isn't complicated."
Sir Isaac lowered his massive head. "As you wish, my friend."
Phipps turned to Don. "Young fellow, you didn't know it, but when your parents called you home to Mars, you were a courier with a message."
Don looked at him sharply. "But I did know it." His mind raced ahead, adjusting himself to this new situation.
"You did? Well, that's fine! Let's have it, then."
"Have what?"
"The ring-the ring, of course. Give it to us."
JOHN VII:24
"WAIT a minute," Don protested. "You're mixed up. I know what ring you mean, all right, but it wasn't the ring; it was the paper that it was wrapped in. And the I.B.I. got that."
Phipps looked perplexed, then laughed. "They did, eh? Then they made the same mistake you did. But it's the ring itself that is important. Let's have it."
"You must be mistaken," Don answered slowly. "Or maybe we aren't talking about the same ring." He thought about it. "It's possible that the I.B.I. swapped rings before the package ever reached me. But it's a dead cinch that the ring that was delivered to me couldn't have contained a message. It was transparent plastic-styrene, probably-and there wasn't even a fly speck in it. No message. No way to hide a message."
Phipps shrugged impatiently. "Don't quibble with me as to whether or not a message could be concealed in the ring-it's the right ring; be sure of that. The I.B.I. didn't switch rings-we know."
"How do you know?"
"Confound it, boyl Your function was to deliver the ring, that's all. You let us worry about the message in it."
Don was beginning to feel sure that when his younger self had bitten Phipps' thumb, he must have been justified. "Wait a minute! I was to deliver the ring, yes-that is what Dr. Jefferson-you know who he is?"
"I knew who he was. I've never met him."
"That's what Dr. Jefferson wanted. He's dead, or so they told me. In any case I can't consult him But he was ,very specific about to wham I was to deliver it-to my father. Not to you."
Phipps pounded the arm of the chair. "I know it, I know it! If things had gone properly, you would have delivered it to your father and we would have been saved no end of trouble. But those eager lads in New London had to- Never mind. The rebellion occurring when it did caused you to wind up here instead of on Mars. I'm trying to pick up the pieces. You can't deliver it to your father, but you can get the same result by turning it over to me. Your father and I are working toward the same end."
Don hesitated before answering, "I don't wish to be rude -but you ought to give some proof of that."
Sir Isaac produced with his voder a sound exactly like a man clearing his throat. "Ahem!" They both turned their heads toward him. "Perhaps," he went on, "I should enter the discussion. I have known Donald, if I may say so, more recently, my dear Phipps."
"Well-go ahead."
Sir Isaac turned most of his eyes on Don. "My dear Donald, do you trust me?"
"Uh, I think so, Sir Isaac-but it seems to me that I am obligated to insist on proof. It isn't my ring."
"Yes, you have reason. Then let us consider what would be proof. If I say. . .
Don interrupted, feeling that the whole matter was out of hand. "I'm sorry I let this grow into an argument. You see, it does not matter."
"Eh?"
"Well, you see, I don't have the ring any longer. It's gone."
There was a dead silence for a long minute. Then Phipps said, "I think Malath has fainted."
There was scurrying excitement while the Martian's cart was removed to his chambers, tension until it was reported that he was floating in his very special bed and resting comfortably. The conference resumed with three members. Phipps glowered at Don. "It's your fault, you know. What you said took the heart out of him."
"Me? I don't understand."
"He was a courier, too-he was stranded here the same way you were. He has the other half of the message-of the message you lost. And you removed the last possible chance he has of getting home before high gravity kills him. He's a sick man-and you jerked the rug out from under him."
Donald said, "But-"
Sir Isaac interrupted. "Donald is not at fault. The young should be blamed only with just cause and after deliberation, lest the family sorrow."
Phipps glanced at the dragon, then back at Don. "I'm sorry. I'm tired and bad tempered. What's done is done. The important point is: what happened to the ring? Is there any possibility of locating it?"
Don looked unhappy. "I'm afraid not." He explained rapidly about the attempt to get the ring from him and how he had had no proper place to protect it. "I didn't know that it was really important but I was determined to carry out Dr. Jefferson's wishes-maybe I'm sort of stubborn at times. So I did the best I could think of to do; I turned it over to a friend for safekeeping. I figured that was best because no one would think of looking for it in the hands of a person who wouldn't be expected to have it."
"Sound enough," agreed Phipps, "but to whom did you give it?"
"A young lady." Don's features contorted. "I think she was killed when the Greenies attacked."
"You don't know?"
"I'm fairly certain. I've been doing work that gives me opportunities to ask and nobody has laid eyes on her since the attack. I'm sure she's dead."
"You could be wrong. What was her name?"
"Isobel Costello. Her father managed the I. T. & T. branch."
Phipps looked utterly astounded, then lay back in his chair and roared. Presently he wiped his eyes and said, "Did you hear that, Sir Isaac? Did you hear that? Talk about the Blue Bird in your own back yard! Talk about Grandma's spectacles!"
Don looked from one to the other. 'What do you mean?" he asked in offended tones.
"What do I mean? Why, son, Jim Costello and his daughter have been right here since two days after the attack." He jumped out of his chair. "Don't move! Stay where you are-I'll be right back."
And he was back quickly. "I always have trouble with those funny house phones of yours, Sir Ike," he complained. "But they're coming." He sat down and heaved a sigh. "Some days I'm tempted to turn myself in as an idiot."
Phipps shut up, save for a suppressed chuckle or two. Sir Isaac seemed to be contemplating his non-existent navel. Don was preoccupied with turbulent thoughts, relief too great to be pleasure. Isobel alive!
Presently, calm somewhat restored, he spoke up. "Look, isn't it about time somebody told me what this is all about?"
Sir Isaac lifted his head and his tendrils played over the keys. "Your pardon, dear boy. I was thinking of something else. Long, long ago when my race was young and when your race had not yet--"
Phipps cut in. "Excuse me, old boy, but I can brief it and you can fill him in on the details later." He assumed assent and turned to Don. "Harvey, there is an organization-a cabal, a conspiracy, a secret lodge call it what you like-we just call it 'The Organization'. I'm a member, so is Sir Isaac, so is old Malath-and so are both of your parents. And so was Dr. Jefferson. It's made up mostly of scientists but it is not limited to them; the one thing we all have in common is a belief in the dignity and natural worth of free intelligence. In many different ways we have fought-and fought unsuccessfully, I should add-against the historical imperative of the last two centuries the withering away of individual freedom under larger and even more pervasive organizations, both governmental and quasigovernmental.
"On Earth our group derives from dozens of sources, way back in history associations of scientists fighting against secrecy and the straitjacketing of thought, artists fighting against censorship, legal aid societies, many other organizations, most of them unsuccessful, and some downright stupid. About a century ago all such things were pushed underground; the weak sisters dropped out, the talkative got themselves arrested and liquidated-and the remnants consolidated.
"Here on Venus our origins go clear back to the rapprochement between Cyrus Buchanan and the dominant natives. On Mars, in addition to many humansmore about them later-the organization is affiliated with what we call the `priest class-a bad translation, for they aren't priests; `judges' would be closer."
Sir Isaac interrupted. " `Elder brothers."
"Eh? Well, maybe that is a fair poetical rendering. Never mind. The point is, the whole organization, Martian, Venerian, Terrestrial, has been striving-"
"Just a minute," put in Don. "If you can answer me one question, it would clear up a whole lot. I'm a soldier of the Venus Republic and we've got a war on. Tell me this: is this organization-here on Venus, I mean-helping in our fight to chuck the Greenies out?"
"Well, not precisely. You see--"
Don did not then find out what it was he was supposed to see; another voice cut through Phipps' words: "Don! Donald!"
He found himself swarmed by a somewhat smaller and female member of his own race. Isobel seemed determined to break his neck. Don was embarrassed and upset and most happy. He gently removed her arms from his neck and tried to pretend that it had not happened-when he caught sight of her father looking at him quite oddly. "Uh, hello, Mr. Costello." j
Costello advanced and shook hands with him. "How do you do, Mr. Harvey? It's good to see you again."
"It's good to see you. I'm mighty glad to see you folks alive and in one piece. I thought you had had it."
"Not quite. But it was a near thing."
Isobel said, "Don, you look older-much older. And how thin you are!"
He grinned at her. "You look just the same, Grandma."
Phipps interrupted, "Much as I dislike breaking up Old Home Week we have no time to waste. Miss Costello, we want the ring."
"The ring?"
"He means," explained Don, "the ring I left with you."
"Ring?" said Mr. Costello. "Mr. Harvey, did you give my daughter a ring?"
"Well, not exactly. You see. . ."
Phipps interrupted again. "It's the ring, Jim-the message ring. Harvey was the other courier-and it seems he made your daughter sort of a deputy courier."
"Eh? I must say I'm confused." He looked at his daughter.
"You have it?" Don asked her. "You didn't lose it?"
"Lose your ring? Of course not, Don. But I had thought-never mind; you want it back now." She glanced around at the eyes on her-fourteen, counting Sir Isaac's-then moved away and turned her back. She turned around again almost immediately and held out her hand. "Here it is."
Phipps reached for it. Isobel drew her hand away and handed it to Don. Phipps opened his mouth, closed it again, then reopened it. "Very well-now let's have it, Harvey."
Don put it in a pocket. "You never did get around to explaining why I should turn it over to you."
"But-" Phipps turned quite red. "This is preposterous) Had we known it was here, we would never have bothered to send for you-we would have had it without your leave."
"Oh, no!" '
Phipps swung his eyes to Isobel. "What's that, young lady? Why not?"
"Because I wouldn't have given it to you-not ever. Don told me that someone was trying to get it away from him. I didn't know that you were the one."
Phipps, already red-faced, got almost apoplectic. "I've had all this childish kidding around with serious matters that I can stand." He took two long strides to Don and grasped him by the arm. "Cut out the nonsense and give us that message!"
Don shook him off and backed away half a step, all in one smooth motion-and Phipps looked down to see the point of a blade almost touching his waistband. Don held the knife with the relaxed thumb-and-two-finger grip of those who understand steel.
Phipps seemed to have trouble believing what he saw. Don said to him softly, "Get away from me."
Phipps backed away. "Sir Isaacl"
"Yes," agreed Don. "Sir Isaac-do I have to put up with this in your house?"
The dragon's tentacles struck the keys, but only confused squawking came out. He stopped and started again and said very slowly, "Donald-this is your house. You are always safe in it. Please-by the service you did me--put away your weapon."
Don glanced at Phipps, straightened up and caused his knife to disappear. Phipps relaxed and turned to the dragon. "Well, Sir Isaac? What are you going to do about it?"
Sir Isaac did not bother with the voder. "Remove thyself!"
"Eh?"
"You have brought dissension into this house. Were you not both in my house and of my family? Yet you menaced him. Please go-before you cause more sorrow."
Phipps started to speak, thought better of it-left. Don said, "Sir Isaac, I am terribly sorry. I-
"Let the waters close over it. Let the mud bury it. Donald, my dear boy, how can I assure you that what we ask of you is what your honored parents would have you do, were they here to instruct you?"
Don considered this. "I think that's just the trouble, Sir Isaac-I'm not your `dear boy.' I'm not anybody's `dear boy.' My parents aren't here and I'm not sure that I would let them instruct me if they were. I'm a grown man now-I'm not as old as you are, not by several centuries. I'm not very old even by human standards-Mr. Phipps still classes me as a boy and that was what was wrong. But I'm not a boy and I've got to know what's going on and make up my own mind. So far, I've heard a lot of sales talk and I've been subjected to a lot of verbal pushing around. That won't do; I've got to know the real facts."
Before Sir Isaac could reply they were interrupted by another sound-Isobel was applauding. Don said to her. "How about you, Isobel? What do you know about all this?"
"Me? Nothing. I couldn't be more in the dark if I were stuffed in a sack. I was just cheering your sentiments."
"My daughter," Mr. Costello put in crisply, "knows nothing at all of these things. But I do-and it appears that you are entitled to answers."
"I could certainly use some!"
"By your leave, Sir Isaac?" The dragon ponderously inclined his head; Costello went on, "Fire away. I'll try to give you straight answers."
"Okay-what's the message in the ring?"
"Well, I can't answer that exactly or we wouldn't need the message ourselves. I know that it's a discussion of certain aspects of physics-gravitation and inertia and spin and things like that. Field theory. It's certainly very long and very complicated and I probably wouldn't understand it if I knew exactly what was in it. I'm simply a somewhat rusty communications engineer, not a topflight theoretical physicist."
Don looked puzzled. "I don't get it. Somebody tucks a physics book into a ring-and then we play cops-and-robbers all around the system. It sounds silly. Furthermore, it sounds impossible." He took the ring out and looked at it; the light shone through it clearly. It was just a notions counter trinket-how could a major work on physics be hidden in it?
Sir Isaac said, "Donald, my dear- I beg pardon. Shucks! You mistake simple appearance for simplicity. Be assured; it is in there. It is theoretically possible to have a matrix in which each individual molecule has a meaning-as they do in the memory cells of your brain. If we had such subtlety, we could wrap your Encyclopedia Britannica into the head of a pin-it would be the head of that pin. But this is nothing so difficult."
Don looked again at the ring and put it back in his pocket. "Okay, if you say so. But I still don't see what all the shooting is about."
Mr. Costello answered, "We don't either-not exactly. This message was intended to go to Mars, where they are prepared to make the best use of it. I myself had not even heard about the project except in the most general terms until I was brought here. But the main idea is this: the equations that are included in this message tell how space is put together-and how to manipulate it. I can't even imagine all the implications of that-but we do know a couple of things that we expect from it, first, how to make a force field that will stop anything, even a fusion bomb, and second, how to hook up a space drive that would make rocket travel look like walking. Don't ask me how-I'm out of my depth. Ask Sir Isaac."
"Ask me after I've studied the message," the dragon commented dryly.
Don made no comment. There was silence for some moments which Costello broke by saying, "Well? Do you want to ask anything? I do not know quite what you do know; I hardly know what to volunteer."
"Mr. Costello, when I talked to you in New London, did you know about this message?"
Costello shook his head. "I knew that our organization had great hopes from an investigation going on on Earth. I knew that it was intended to finish on Mars-you see, I was the key man, the `drop box,' for communication to and from Venus, because I was in a position to handle interplanetary messages. I did not know that you were a courier-and I certainly did not know that you had entrusted an organization message to my only daughter." He smiled wryly. "I might add that I did not even identify you in my mind as the son of two members of our organization, else there would have been no question about handling your traffic whether you could pay for it or not. There were means whereby I could spot organization messages-identifications that your message lacked. And Harvey is a fairly common name."
"You know," Don said slowly, "it seems to me that if Dr. Jefferson had told me what it was I was carrying-and if you had trusted Isobel here with some idea of what was going on, a lot of trouble could have been saved."
"Perhaps. But men have died for knowing too much. Conversely, what they don't know they can't tell."
"Yes, I suppose so. But there ought to be some way of running things so that people don't have to go around loaded with secrets and afraid to speak!"
Both the dragon and the man inclined their heads. Mr. Costello added, "That's exactly what we're after-in the long run. That sort of a world."
Don turned to his host. "Sir Isaac, when we met in the E Glory Road, did you know that Dr. Jefferson was using me C as a messenger?"
"No, Donald-though I should have suspected it when I learned who you were." He paused, then added, "Is there anything more you wish to know?"
"No, I just want to think." Too many things had happened too fast, too many new ideas- Take what Mr. Costello had said about what was in the ring, now-he could see what that would mean-if Costello knew what he was talking about. A fast space drive, one that would run rings around the Federation ships . . . a way to guard against atom bombs, even fusion bombs-Why, if the Republic had such things they could tell the Federation to go fly a kite!
But that so-and-so Phipps had admitted that all this hanky-panky was not for the purpose of fighting the Greenies. They wanted to send the stuff to Mars, whatever it was. Why Mars? Mars didn't even have a permanent human settlement-just scientific commissions and expeditions, like the work his parents did. The place wasn't fit for humans, not really. So why Mars?
Whom could he trust? Isobel, of course-he had trusted her and it had paid off. Her father? Isobel and her father were two different people and Isobel didn't know anything about what her father was doing. He looked at her; she stared back with big, serious eyes. He looked at her father. He didn't know, he just didn't know.
Malath? A voice out of a tank! Phipps? Phipps might be kind to children and have a heart of gold, but Don had no reason to trust him.
To be sure, all these people knew about Dr. Jefferson, knew about the ring, seemed to know about his parents-but so had Bankfield. He needed proof, not words. He knew enough now, enough had happened now, to prove to him that what he carried was of utmost importance. He must not make a mistake.
It occurred to him that there was one possible way of checking: Phipps had told him that Malath carried the other half of the same message-that the ring carried only one half. If it turned out that his half fitted the part that Malath carried, it would pretty well prove that these people had a right to the message.
But, confound it all!-that test required him to break the egg to discover that it was bad. He had to know before he turned it over to them. He had met the two-piece message system before; it was a standard military dodgebut used and used only when it was so terribly, terribly important not to let a message be compromised that you would rather not have it delivered than take any risk at all of having it fall into the wrong hands.
He looked up at the dragon. "Sir Isaac?"
"Yes, Donald?"
"What would happen if I refused to give up the ring?"
Sir Isaac answered at once but with grave deliberation. "You are my own egg, no matter what. This is your housewhere you may dwell in peace-or leave in peace-as is your will."
"Thank you, Sir Isaac." Don trilled it in dragon symbols-and used "Sir Isaac's" true name.
Costello said urgently, "Mr. Harvey--"
"Yes?"
"Do you know why the speech of the dragon people is ? called 'true speech'?"
"Uh, why, no, not exactly."
"Because it is true speech. See here-I've studied comparative semanticsthe whistling talk does not even contain a symbol for the concept of falsehood. And what a person does not have symbols for he can't think about! Ask him, Mr. Harveyl Ask him in his own speech. If he answers at all, you can believe him."
Donald looked at the old dragon. The thought went racing through his mind that Costello was right-there was no symbol in dragon speech for "lie," the dragons apparently never had arrived at the idea-or the need. Could Sir Isaac tell a lie? Or was he so far humanized that he could behave and think like a man? He stared at Sir Isaac and eight blank, oscillating eyes looked back at him. How could a man know what a dragon was thinking?
"Ask himl" insisted Costello.
He didn't trust Phipps; he couldn't logically trust Costello-he had no reason to. And Isobel didn't figure into it. But a man had to trust somebody, some time! A man couldn't go it alone-all right, let it be this dragon who had "shared mud" with him. "It isn't necessary," Don said suddenly. "Here." He reached into his pocket, took out the ring and slipped it over one of Sir Isaac's tentacles.
The tentacle curled through it and withdrew it into the slowly writhing mass. "I thank you, Mist-on-the-Waters."
DONALD looked at Isobel and found her still solemn, unsmiling, but she seemed to show approval. Her father sat down heavily in the other chair. "Phew!" he sighed "Mr. Harvey, you are a hard nut. You had me worried."
"I'm sorry. I had to think."
"No matter now." He turned to Sir Isaac. "I guess I had better dig up Phipps. Yes?"
"It won't be necessary." The voice came from behind them; they all turned all but Sir Isaac who did not need to turn his body. Phipps stood just inside the door. "I came in on the tail end of your remark, Jim. If you want me, I'm here."
"Well, yes."
"Just a moment, then. I came for another reason." He faced Don. "Mr. Harvey, I owe you an apology."
"Oh, that's all right."
"No, let me say my say. I had no business trying to bullyrag you into cooperating. Don't mistake me; we want that ring-we must have it. And I mean to argue until we get it. But I've been under great strain and I went about it the wrong way. Very great strain-that's my only excuse."
"Well," said Don, "come to think about it, so have I. So let's forget it." He turned to his host. "Sir Isaac, may I?" He reached toward Sir Isaac's handling tentacles, putting out his palm. The ring dropped into it; he turned and handed it to Phipps.
Phipps stared at it stupidly for a moment. When he looked up Don was surprised to see that the man's eyes were filled with tears. "I won't thank you," he said, "because when you see what will come of this it will mean more to you than any person's thanks. What is in this ring is of life and death importance to many, many people. You'll see."
Don was embarrassed by the man's naked emotion. "I can guess," he said gruffly. "Mr. Costello told me that it meant bomb protection and faster ships-and I bet on my hunch that you people and I are on the same side in the long run. I just hope I didn't guess wrong."
"Guess wrong? No, you haven't guessed wrong-and not just in the long run, as you put it, but right now! Now that we have this-" he held up the ring, "we stand a fight- . ing chance to save our people on Mars."
"Mars?" repeated Don. "Hey, wait a minute-what's this about Mars? Who's going to be saved? And from what?"
Phipps looked just as puzzled. "Eh? But wasn't that what persuaded you to turn over the ring?"
"Wasn't what persuaded me?"
"Didn't Jim Costello-" "Why, I thought of course you had-" and Sir Isaac's voder interrupted with, "Gentlemen, apparently it was assumed that. . ."
"Quiet!" Don shouted as Phipps opened his mouth again ; Don hurriedly added, "Things seem to have gotten mixed up again. Can somebody-just one of you-tell me what goes on?"
Costello could and did. The Organization had for many years been quietly building a research center on Mars. It was the one place in the system where the majority of humans were scientists. The Federation maintained merely an outpost there, with a skeleton garrison. Mars was not regarded as being of any real importance-just a place where harmless longhairs could dig among the ruins and study the customs of the ancient and dying race.
The security officers of the I.B.I. gave Mars little attention; there seemed no need. The occasional agent who did show up could be led around and allowed to see research of no military importance.
The group on Mars did not have the giant facilities available on Earth-the mastodonic cybernetic machines, the unlimited sources of atomic power, the superpowerful particle accelerators, the enormous laboratories-but they did have freedom. The theoretical groundwork for new advances in physics had been worked out on Mars, spurred on by certain mystifying records of the First Empire-that almost mythical earlier epoch when the solar system had been one political unit. Don was warmly pleased to hear that his parents' researches had contributed largely at this point in the problem. It was known-or so the ancient Martian records seemed to state-that the ships of the First Empire had traveled between the planets, not in journeys of weary months, or even weeks, but of days.
The descriptions of these ships and of their motive power were extensive, but differences in language, in concept, and in technology created obstacles enough to give comparative semanticists nervous breakdowns-had done so, in fact. A treatise on modern electronics written in Sanskrit poetry with half the thoughts taken for granted would have been lucid in comparison.
It had simply been impossible to make fully intelligible translation of the ancient records. What was missing had to be worked out by genius and sweat.
When the theoretical work had been carried as far as it could be the problem was sent to Earth via members of the Organization for sub rosa testing and for conversion of theory into present-day engineering. At first there was a steady traffic of information back and forth between planets, but, as the secret grew, the members of the Organization were less and less inclined to travel for fear of compromising what they knew. By the time of the Venus crisis it had been standard practice for some years to send critical information by couriers who knew nothing and therefore could not talk-such as Don-or by nonterrestrials who were physically immune to the interrogation methods of the security police-giving a Venerian dragon the "third degree" was not only impractical, but ridiculous. For different but equally obvious reasons Martians too were safe from the thought police.
Don himself was a last-minute choice, a "channel of opportunity"-the Venus crisis had rushed things. How badly it had rushed things no one knew until after Commodore Higgins' spectacular raid on Circum-Terra. The engineering data so urgently needed on Mars had gone to Venus instead, there to be lost (Don's half of it) in the confusion of rebellion and counterblow. The rebelling colonists, driving toward the same goal as the Organization, had unknowingly thwarted their best chance for overthrowing the Federation.
Communication between the Organization members on Venus, on Earth, and on Mars had been precariously and imperfectly reestablished right under the noses of the Federation police. The Organization had members working for I. T. & T. on all three planets-members such as Costello. Costello himself had been helped to make his escape, with Isobel, because he knew too much; they could not afford to have him questioned-but a new "drop box" had been set up at Governor's Island in the person of a Federation communications technical sergeant. The channel to the sergeant was a dragon who had the garbage disposal contract for the "Greenie" base. The dragon had no voder; the sergeant knew no whistle talk-but a tentacle can pass a note to a human hand.
Communication, though difficult and dangerous, was possible; travel between planets for members of the Organization was now utterly impossible. The only commercial line as yet reestablished was the Earth-Moon run. The group on Venus was attempting the almost impossible task of completing a project all preliminary preparations for which had been made for Mars. The task was not quite impossible-provided they could find the missing half of the message, they might yet outfit a ship, send it to Mars, and finish the job.
So they hoped . . . and continued to hope until recently, when disastrous news had gotten through to them from Earth-the Organization had been penetrated on Earth; a very senior member, one who knew much too much, had been arrested and had not been able to suicide in time.
And a task force of Federation ships was already on its way to attack the group on Mars.
"Wait a minute!" Don interrupted. "I thought-Mr. Costello, didn't you tell me, back in New London, that the Federation had already moved in on Mars?"
"Not exactly. I told you that I had inferred. . . that the Federation had taken over Schiaparelli Station, the I. T. & T. branch there. And so they had-to the extent of censoring all traffic and putting a stop to all traffic with Venus. They could do that with a squad of soldiers from the pint-sized garrison they've always had there. But this is an attack in force. They mean to liquidate the Organization."
Liquidate the Organization-Don translated the jawbreakers into real words: kill all the people who were against them. That meant his parents
He shook his head to clear it. The thought did not mean anything to him inside. It had been too many years; he could not see their faces-and he could not imagine them dead. He wondered if he himself had become dead inside, unable to feel things. No matter-something had to be done. "What do we do? How can we stop it?"
"We quit wasting time!" answered Phipps. "We've lost half a day already. Sir Isaac?"
"Yes, my friend. Let us hurry."
The room was a laboratory shop, but of dragon proportions. It needed to be, for it held a round dozen of dragons as well as fifty-odd men and a sprinkling of women. Everyone who could manage it wanted to see the opening of the ring. Even Malath da Thon was there, sitting up in his cell with the aid of his powerdriven corset and with the colors of emotion rippling gently across his frail body.
Don and Isobel had climbed to the top of the entrance ramp, where they could see without being in the way. Opposite them was a large stereo tank, lighted but with no picture growing in it. Below them was a micromanipulator, dragon style; other pieces of apparatus and power tools filled the rest of the room. They were strange to Don, not because they were of dragon construction and for dragon use, for many of them were not-they were strange in the way in which laboratory equipment is always exotic to the layman. He was used to dragon artifacts; the two technologies, human and dragon, had interpenetrated sufficiently that a human, especially one living on Venus, found nothing odd in joints that were wrung instead of welded or bolted, nothing unusual in interlocking ovoids where a man would use screws.
Sir Isaac was at the micromanipulator, his tendrils at the controls; down over his head fitted a frame with eight eyepieces. He touched the control rack; the tank rippled and a picture built in it-the ring, in full color and three dimensions. It seemed to be about eight feet across. The boss of the ring faced out, displaying the enamel-filled initial cut into it-a capital "H" framed with a simple circle of white enamel.
The picture flickered and changed. Only a portion of the initial was now visible, but so greatly magnified that the enamel rubbed into the shallow grooves of the letter looked like broken paving blocks. A shadowy pointed cylinder, out of focus save at its very end, moved across the picture; a great oily globe formed on the end of it, detached itself and settled on the enamel. The "paving blocks" started to break up.
Montgomery Phipps climbed the ramp, saw Don and Isobel, and sat down on the edge beside them. He seemed to want to be friendly. "This will be something to tell your grandchildren about," he remarked. "Old Sir Ike at work. The best microtechnician in the system-can darn near pick out a single molecule, make it sit up and beg."
"It rather surprises me," Don admitted. "I hadn't known that Sir Isaac was a laboratory technician."
"He's more than that; he's a great physicist; hadn't the significance of his chosen name struck you?"
Don felt foolish He knew how dragons went about picking vocalized names, but he took such names for granted, just as he took his own Venerian name for granted. "His whole tribe tends to be scientific," Phipps went on. "There's a grandson who calls himself 'Galileo Galilei'; have you met him? And there's a `Doctor Einstein' and a `Madame Curie' and there's an integrating chemist who calls herself-Egg alone knows why!-'Little Buttercup.' But old Sir Ike is the boss man, the top brain-he made a trip to Earth to help with some of the work on this project. But you knew that, didn't you?"
Donald admitted that he had not known why Sir Isaac was on Earth. Isobel put in, "Mr. Phipps, if Sir Isaac was working on this on Earth, why doesn't he know what is in the ring before he opens it?"
"Well, he does and he doesn't. He worked on the theoretical end. But what we will find-unless we get a terrific disappointment-will be detailed engineering instructions worked out for man-type tools and techniques. Very different."
Don thought about it. "Engineering" and "science" were more or less lumped together in his mind; he lacked the training to appreciate the enormous. difference. He changed the subject. "You are a laboratory man yourself, Mr. Phipps?"
"Me? Heavens, no! My fingers are all thumbs. The dynamics of history is my game. Theoretical once-applied now. Well, that's a dry hole." His eyes were on the tank; the solvent, sluiced in by what seemed to be hogshead amounts, had washed the enamel out of the groove that defined that part of the initial "H"; the floor of the groove could be seen, bare, amber, and transparent.
Phipps stood up. "I can't sit still-I get nervous. Excuse me, please." .
"Surely."
A dragon was lumbering up the ramp. He stopped by them just as Phipps was turning away. "Howdy, Mr. Phipps. Mind if I park here?"
"Not at all. Know these people?"
"I've met the lady."
Don acknowledged the introduction, giving both his names and receiving those of the dragon in turn-Refreshing Rain and Josephus ("Just call me `Joe' "). Joe was the first dragon, other than Sir Isaac, whom Don had met there who was voder trained and equipped; Don looked at him with interest. One thing was certain: Joe had learned English from some master other than the nameless Cockney who had taught Sir Isaac . . . a Texan, Don felt quite sure.
"I am honored to be in your house," Don said to him.
The dragon settled himself comfortably, letting his chin come about to their shoulders. "Not my house. These snobs wouldn't have me around if there wasn't a job I can do a little better than the next hombre. I just work here."
"Oh." Don wanted to defend Sir Isaac against the charge of snobbery but taking sides between dragons seemed unwise. He looked back at the tank. The scan had shifted to the circle of enamel which framed the "H"; fifteen or twenty degrees of it appeared in the tank. The magnification started to swell enormously until one tiny sector filled the huge picture. Again the solvent floated into the enamel; again it washed away.
"Now we are getting someplace, maybe," commented Joe.
The enamel was dissolving like snow in spring rain, but, instead of washing down to a bare floor, something dark was revealed under the paint-a bundle of steel pipes, it seemed to be, nested in the shallow groove.
There was dead silence-then somebody cheered. Don found that he had been holding his breath. "What is it?" he asked Joe.
"Wire. What would you expect?"
Sir Isaac stepped up the magnification and shifted to another sector. Slowly, as carefully as a mother bathing her first born, he washed the covering off the upper layer of the coiled wire. Presently a microscopic claw reached in, felt around most delicately, and extracted one end.
Joe got to his feet. "Got to get to work," he keyed. "That's my cue." He ambled down the ramp. Don noticed that he was growing a new starboardmidships leg and the process was not quite complete; it gave him a lopsided, one-flatwheel gait.
Slowly, tenderly, the wire was cleaned and uncoiled. More than an hour later the tiny hands of the micromanipulator stretched out their prize-four feet of steel wire so gossamer fine that it could not be seen at all by naked eye, even by a dragon.
Sir Isaac backed his head out of the eyepiece rack. "Is Malath's wire ready?" he inquired.
"All set."
"Very well, my friends. Let us commence."
They were fed into two ordinary microwire speakers, rigged in parallel. Seated at a control panel for synchronizing the fragmented message latent in the two wires was a worried-looking man wearing earphones-Mr. Costello. The steel spider threads started very slowly through-and a highpitched gabbling came out of the horn. There were very rapid momentary interruptions, like high frequency code.
"Not in synch," announced Mr. Costello. "Rewind."
An operator sitting in front of him said, "I hate to rewind, Jim. These wires would snap if you breathed on them."
"So you break a wire-Sir Isaac will splice it. Rewind!"
"Maybe you've got one in backwards."
"Shut up and rewind."
Presently the gabbling resumed. To Don it sounded the same as before and utterly meaningless, but Mr. Costello nodded. "That's got it. Was it recorded from the beginning?"
Don heard Joe's Texas accents answering, "In the can!"
"Okay, keep it rolling and start playing back the recording. Try slowing the composite twenty to one." Costello threw a switch; the gabbling stopped completely although the machines continued to unreel the invisible threads. Shortly a human voice came out of the loudspeaker horn; it was deep, muffled, dragging, and almost unintelligible. Joe stopped it and made an adjustment, started over. When the voice resumed it was a clear, pleasant, most careful enunciated contralto.
"Title," the voice said, " `Some Notes on the Practical Applications of the Horst-Milne Equations. Table of Contents: Part One-On the Design of Generators to Accomplish Strain-Free Molar Translation. Part Two-The Generation of SpaceTime Discontinuities, Closed, Open, and Folded. Part Three -On the Generation of Temporary Pseudo-Acceleration Loci. Part One, Chapter One-Design Criteria for a Simple Generator and Control System. Referring to equation seventeen in Appendix A, it will be seen that--' "
The voice flowed on and on,, apparently tireless. Don was interested, intensely so, but he did not understand it. He found himself growing sleepy when the voice suddenly rapped out: "Facsimile! Facsimile! Facsimile!"
Costello touched a switch, stopping the voice, and demanded, "Cameras ready?"
"Hot and rolling)"
"Shift!"
They watched the picture build up-a wiring diagram, Don decided it must be-or else a plate of spaghetti. When the picture was complete the voice resumed.
After more than two hours of this, broken only by desultory conversation, Don turned to Isobel. "I'm not doing any good here and I'm certainly not learning anything. What do you say we leave?"
"Suits."
They went down the ramp and headed for a tunnel that led toward living quarters. On the way they ran into Phipps, his face glowing with happiness. Don nodded and started to push on past; Phipps stopped him. "I was just going to hunt you up."
"Me?"
"Yes. I thought you might want this-for a souvenir." He held out the ring.
Don took it and examined it curiously. There was a very tiny break in one branch of the "H" where the enamel had been eaten away. The framing circle was an empty, slightly shadowed groove, a groove so narrow and shallow that Don could hardly catch his fingernail in it.
"You've no more use for it?"
"It's squeezed dry. Keep it. You'll be able to sell it to a museum some day, for a high price."
"No," said Don. "I reckon I'll deliver it to my father-eventually."
DON moved out of the Gargantuan chambers he had been given and in with the other humans. Sir Isaac would have let him stay until the Sun grew cold, monopolizing an acre or so of living space, but to Don it seemed not only silly for one person to clutter up chambers built big enough for dragons but not entirely comfortable-so much open space made a man tuned to bush fighting uneasy.
The human guests occupied one dragon apartment with the great rooms partitioned off into cubicles. They shared its wallowing trough as a plunge bath and had a communal mess. Don roomed with Dr. Roger Conrad, a tall and shaggy young man with a perpetual grin. Don was a bit surprised to find that Conrad was held in high esteem by the other scientists.
He saw very little of his roommate, nor of any of the others-even Isobel was busy with clerical work. The team worked night and day with driving intensity. The ring had been opened and they had engineering data to work from, true-but that task force was already swinging toward Mars. Nobody knew-nobody could know-whether or not they could finish in time to save their colleagues.
Conrad had tried to explain it to Don one night late as he was turning in. "We don't have adequate facilities here. The instructions were conceived in terms of Earth- and Mars-type techniques. The dragons do things differently. We've got mighty little of our own stuff and it's hard to jury-rig what we need from their stuff. The original notion was to install the gear in-you know those little jumpbug ships that people use to get around in on Mars?"
"Seen pictures of them."
"Never actually seen 'em myself. Useless as rocketships, of course, but they are pressurized and big enough. Now we've got to adapt for a shuttle." A superstratospheric shuttle "with its ears trimmed"-the spreading glider wings unshipped and carried awaywaited in a covered bayou outside Sir Isaac's family seat. It would make the trip to Mars if it could be prepared. "It's a headache," he added.
"Well, can we do it?"
"We'll have to do it. We can't possibly do the design calculations over again; we don't have the machines, even if we had time to re-engineer the job-which we haven't."
"That's what I meant. Will you finish in time?"
Conrad sighed. "I wish I knew."
The pressure of time sat heavily on all of them. In their mess hall they had set up a large chart showing Earth, Sun, Venus, and Mars, each in its proper position. At lunch each day the markers were moved along the scribed orbits, the Earth by one degree, Venus a bit more, Mars by only half a degree and a trifle.
A long dotted line curved from a point on Earth's orbit to a rendezvous with Mars-their best estimate of the path and arrival date of the Federation task force. The departure date was all they knew with certainty; the trajectory itself and the arrival date were based on the relative positions of the two planets and what was believed to be the maximum performance of any Federation ship, assuming refueling in parking orbit around Earth.
For a rocket ship some orbits are possible, some are impossible. A military ship in a hurry would not, of course, use the economical doubly-tangent ellipse; such a trip from Earth to Mars would require 258 Earth days. But, even using hyperboloids and wasting fuel, there are severe limits to how quickly a reaction-driven ship can make an interplanetary voyage.
An Earth calendar hung beside the chart; near it was a clock showing Earth Greenwich time. Posted near these was a figure, changed each time the clock read twenty-four hundred, the number of days till M-day-by their best estimate, now only thirty-nine.
Don was enjoying a combat soldier's paradise-hot food sharp on the hour, well cooked and plenty of it, all the sack time he cared to soak up, clean clothes, clean skin, no duties and no hazards. The only trouble was that he soon grew to hate it.
The intense activity around him shamed him into wanting to help-and try to help he did-until he found out that he was being given make-work to shut him up. Actually there was nothing he could do to help; the sweating specialists, trying their level best to haywire improbable circuits into working, had no time to waste on an untrained assistant. He gave up and went back to loafing, found that he could sleep all right in the afternoons but that the practice kept him awake at night.
He wondered why he could not enjoy so pleasant a leave. It was not that-he was worried about his parents.
Yes, he was! Though they had grown dim in his memory his conscience was biting him that he was doing nothing helpful for them. That was why he wanted to get out, away from here where he could do no good, back to his outfit, back to his trade-back to where there was nothing to worry about between scrambles-and plenty to worry about then. With the blackness around you and the sound of your mate's breathing on your right and the same for the man on your left-the slow move forward, trying to feel out what dirty tricks the Greenie techs had thought of this time to guard their sleep . . . the quick strike-and the pounding drive back to the boat with nothing to guide you through the dark but the supersonics in your head bones
He wanted to go back.
He went to see Phipps about it, sought him out in his office. "You, eh? Have a cigarette."
"No, thanks."
"Real tobacco-none of your `crazy weed.'"
"No, thanks, I don't use 'em."
"Well, maybe you've got something. The way my mouth tastes these mornings-" Phipps lit up himself, sat back and waited.
Don said, "Look-you're the boss around here."
Phipps exhaled, then said carefully, "Let's say I'm the coordinator. I certainly don't try to boss the technical work."
Don brushed it aside. "You're the boss for my purposes. See here, Mr. Phipps, I feel useless around here. Can you arrange to get me back to my outfit?"
Phipps carefully made a smoke ring. "I'm sorry you feel that way. I could give you work to do. You could be an executive assistant to me."
Don shook his head. "I've had enough of `pick up sticks and lay them straight. I want real work-my own work. I'm a soldier and there's a war going on-that's where I belong. Now when can I get transportation?"
"You can't."
"Huh?"
"Mr. Harvey, I can't let you go; you know too much. If you had turned over the ring without asking questions, you could have gone back to your outfit the next hour-but you had to know, you had to know everything. Now we don't dare risk your capture. You know the Greenies put every prisoner through full interrogation; we can't dare risk that-not yet."
"But-Dog take it, sir, I'll never be captured! I made up my mind about that a long time ago."
Phipps shrugged. "If you get yourself killed, that's all right. But we can't be sure of that, no matter how resolute you are. We can't risk it; there's too much at stake."
"You can't hold me here! You have no authority over me!"
"No. But you can't leave."
Don opened his mouth, closed it, and walked out.
He woke up the next morning determined to do something about it. But Dr. Conrad was up before he was and stopped to make a suggestion before he left. "Don?"
"Yeah, Rog?"
"If you can tear yourself out of that sack, you might come around to the power lab this morning. There will be something worth looking at-I think."
"Huh? What? What time?"
"Oh, say about nine o'clock."
Don showed up, along with apparently every human in the place and about half of Sir Isaac's numerous family. Roger Conrad was in charge of the demonstration. He was busy at a control console which told the uninstructed observer nothing. He busied himself with adjustments, looked up and said, "Just keep your eyes on the birdie, folks-right over that bench." He pressed a key.
There flicked into being over the bench, hanging in the air unsupported, a silvery ball some two feet across. It seemed to be a perfect sphere and a perfect reflector and, more than anything else in the world, it made Don think of a Christmas tree ornament. Conrad grinned triumphantly. "Okay, Tony-give it the ax!"
Tony Vincente, the most muscular of the laboratory crew, picked up a broadbladed ax he had ready. "How would you like it split-up and down, or sideways?"
"Suit yourself."
Vincente swung the ax over his head and brought it down hard.
It bounced off.
The sphere did not quiver, nor was there any mar on its perfect mirror surface. Conrad's boyish grin got even wider. "End of act one," he announced and pressed another button. The sphere disappeared, left nothing to show where it had been.
Conrad bent over his controls. "Act two," he announced. "We now cancel out half the locus. Stand clear of the bench." Shortly he looked up. "Ready! Aim! Fire!" Another shape took being, a perfect sphere otherwise like the last. Its curved outer surface was faced up. "Stick the props in, Tony."
"Just a sec, while I light up." Vincente lit a cigarette, puffed it vigorously, then propped it in an ash tray and slid it under the half globe. Conrad again manipulated his controls; the shape descended, rested on the bench, covering the burning cigarette on its tray. "Anybody want to try the ax on it, or anything else?" asked Conrad.
Nobody seemed anxious to tamper with the unknown. Conrad again operated his board and the silver bowl lifted. The cigarette still smoldered in the tray, unaffected. "How," he asked, "would you like to put a lid like that over the Federation's capital at Bermuda-aiid leave it in place until they decided to come to terms?"
The idea quite evidently met with unanimous approval. The members of the Organization present were all, or almost all, citizens of Venus, emotionally involved in the rebellion no matter what else they were doing. Phipps cut through the excited comment with a question. "Dr. Conrad-would you give us a popular explanation of what we have seen? Why it works, I mean; we can guess at its enormous potentials."
Conrad's face got very serious. "Mmm . . . Chief, perhaps it would be clearest to say that the fasarta modulates the garbab in such a phase relationship that the thrimaleen is forced to bast-or, to put it another way, somebody loosed mice in the washroom. Seriously, there is no popular way to explain it. If you were willing to spend five hard years with me, working up through the math, I could probably bring you to the same level of ignorance and confusion that I enjoy. Some of the tensor equations involved are, to put it mildly, unique. But the instructions were clear enough and we did it."
Phipps nodded. "Thanks-if that is the word I want. I'll ask Sir Isaac."
"Do, please. I'd like to listen."
Despite the proof that the lab crew had been able to jury-rig at least part of the equipment described by the message in the two wires, Don's jitters got no better. Each day the sign in the mess hall reminded him that time was running out-and that he was sucking his thumb while it did so. He thought no more about trying to get them to send him back to the war zone; instead he began to make plans to get there on his own.
He had seen maps of the Great South Sea and knew roughly where he was. To the north there was territory uninhabited even by dragons-but not uninhabited by their carnivorous cousins. It was considered impassable. The way to the south around the lower end of the sea was much farther, but it was dragon country all the way right up to outlying human farms. With whistle speech and food enough to last at least a week he might get through to some settler who could pass him along to the next. As for the rest he had his knife and he had his wits and he was much more swampwise than he had been when he had made his escape from Bankfield's men.
He began to sneak food out of the mess hall and cache it in his room.
He was within a day and a night of attempting his break when Phipps sent for him. He considered not showing up but decided that it would be less suspicion-arousing to comply.
Sit down," Phipps began. "Cigarette? No-I forgot. What have you been doing with yourself lately? Keeping busy?"
"Not a darn thing to do!"
"Sorry. Mr. Harvey, have you given any thought to what sort of a world we will have when this is over?"
"Well, no, not exactly." He had thought about it, but his own imaginings were too poorly worked out for him to care to express them. As for himself, someday the war would be over-he supposed-and then he would carry out his long-postponed intention of seeking out his parents. After that, well. . .
"What sort of world would you like it to be?"
"Uh? Well, I don't know." Don pondered. "I guess I'm not what you call `politically minded.' I don't much care how they run it-except, well, there ought to be a sort of looseness about it. You know-a man ought to be able to do what he wants to, if he can, and not be pushed around."
Phipps nodded. "You and I have more in common than you may have thought. I'm not a purist in political theory myself. Any government that gets to be too big and too successful gets to be a nuisance. The Federation got that way-it started out decently enough-and now it has to be trimmed down to size. So that the citizens can enjoy some looseness. "
Don said, "Maybe the dragons have the right idea-no organization bigger than a family."
Phipps shook his head. "What's right for dragons is not right for us. Anyhow, families can be just as oppressive as government-take a look at the youngsters around here; five hundred years or so to look forward to before they can sneeze without permission. I asked your opinion because I don't know the answer myself-and I've studied the dynamics of history longer than you've been alive. All I know is that we are about to turn loose into the world forces the outcome of which I cannot guess."
Don looked startled. "We've got space travel now; I don't see what important difference it will make to make it faster. As for the other gimmick, it seems to me a swell idea to be able to put a lid on a city so that it can't be atom-bombed."
"Granted. But that is just the beginning. I've been making a list of some of the things that will come about-I think. In the first place you vastly underestimate the importance of speeding up transportation. As for the other possibilities, I'm stumped. I'm too old and my imagination needs greasing. But here's one for a starter: we might be able to move water, lots of water, significant amounts, from here to Mars." His brow wrinkled. "We might even be able to move planets themselves."
Don looked up suddenly. Somewhere he had heard almost those same words . . . the memory evaded him.
"But never mind," Phipps went on. "I was just trying to get a younger, fresher viewpoint. You might think about it. Those laboratory laddies won't, that's sure. These physicists-they produce wonders but they never know what other wonders their wonders will beget." He paused and added, "We are resetting the clock, but we don't know what time it will be."
When he added nothing more Don decided with relief that the interview was over and started to get up. "No, no, don't go," Phipps put in. "I had another matter on my mind. You've been getting ready to leave, haven't you?"
Don stuttered and stammered. "What gave you that idea?"
"I'm right. Some morning we would wake up and find your bed empty. Then I'd be put to a lot of trouble when effort can't be spared to try to find you and bring you back."
Don relaxed. "Conrad snitched to you," he said bitterly.
"Conrad? No. I doubt if the good doctor ever notices anything larger than an electron. No, credit me with some sense. My business is people. True, I did badly with you when you first arrived-but I still plead that I was bone weary. Tiredness is a mild insanity. The point is: you're leaving and I can't stop you. I know dragons well enough to know that Sir Isaac wouldn't let me if you wanted to go. You're `his' confounded 'egg'! But I can't let you go; the reasons are just as compelling as before. So-rather than let you go, I'd have to try to kill you."
Don leaned forward, shifting his weight onto his feet. "Do you think you could?" he said very softly.
Phipps grinned. "No, I don't. That's why I've had to think up another scheme. You know that we are making up the ship's crew. How would you like to go along?"
Don let his mouth drop open and left it that way. To his credit, while he had thought about it, he had never given it the slightest serious consideration; he was not conceited enough to think that he would be allowed to hitch a ride, just to suit his personal wishes, on this trip.
Phipps went on, "Frankly, I'm doing it to get rid of you, to put you on ice, safe from the Federation's inquisitors, until it no longer matters. But I think I can justify it. We want to train as many as the Little David can carry on this trip as cadres for more ships. But my choice is limited-most of our group here are too old, or they are near-sighted, narrow-chested -young geniuses suitable only for laboratories. You are young, you are healthy, your reflexes are fast-I know! -and you are space-wise from babyhood. True, you are not a qualified shiphandler, but that won't matter too much; these ships will be new to everyone. Mr. Harvey, how would you like to go to Mars and return as `Captain Harvey,' master of your own ship-a ship strong enough to strike at these Federation vermin orbiting around Venus?
"Or executive officer, at least," Phipps qualified, reflecting that in a two-man ship Don could hardly be less.
Like it? He'd love it! Don's tongue got twisted trying to accept too quickly. Then almost at once he was struck by a cold thought; Phipps saw from his expression that something was wrong. "What's the matter?" Phipps said sharply. "Are you afraid?"
"Afraid?" Don looked annoyed. "Of course I'll be afraid! I've been afraid so many times that I am no longer scared to be afraid again. That's not the trouble."
"What is it, then? Speak up!"
"It's just this-I'm still on active duty. I can't go gallivanting off a hundred million miles or so. Properly speaking, it would be desertion. Why, when they laid hands on me, they'd probably hang me first and ask questions afterwards."
Phipps relaxed. "Oh. Perhaps that can be managed. You let me worry about it."
It could be managed. It was only three days later that Don received new orders, written this time, and delivered by devious means that he could only guess at. They read:
To: Harvey, Donald J., Sergeant-Specialist 1/c Via: Channels
1. You are assigned to special temporary duty of indefinite duration.
2. You will travel as necessary to carry out this duty.
3. This assignment is deemed in the best interests of the Republic. When, in your opinion, your duties are completed, you will report to the nearest competent authority and request transportation to enable you to report in person to the Chief of Staff.
4. For the duration of this duty you are brevetted to the rank of sublieutenant.
J. S. Busby, Wing Colonel (brevet)
For the Commanding General
First Endorsement:
1. Delivered (via courier)
Henry Marsten, Captain (brevet) Commanding 16th Gondola Combat Team
Clipped to the orders was a scrawled note which read:
P.S. Dear "Lieutenant,"
These are the silliest orders I have ever had to endorse.
What the devil have you been up to? Did you marry one of the dragons? Or did you catch a Big Brass with his finger off his number? Anyway, have fun-and good huntingl
Marsten
Don tucked the orders and the note into his pocket. Every now and then he would reach in and touch them.
The days trickled away; the dotted line got ever closer to Mars: and the whole group got more and more jumpy. Another date was posted on the mess hall wall, a date by which the Little David must be ready-if they were to arrive in time.
The calendar marked that deadline the day the ship was finally manned. At raise-ship-minus-twenty-minutes Don was still in Sir Isaac's study, his baggage (such as it was) already aboard. Saying goodbye to Sir Isaac, he discovered, was rather more difficult than he had expected it to be. His head was not cluttered with ideas about "father images" and the like; he was simply aware that this dragon was all the family he had, much more so than that remote pair on the planet where he was headed.
He was almost relieved when a glance at his watch told him that he was late. "Got to run," he said. "Nineteen minutes."
"Yes, my dear Donald. Your short-lived race must always live in frantic haste."
"Well-g'bye."
"Farewell, Mist on the Waters."
He stopped outside Sir Isaac's study to blow his nose and pull himself together. Isobel stepped out from behind a massive pillar. "Don-I wanted to say goodbye to you."
"Huh? Sure, sure-but aren't you coming out to see `raise ship'?"
"No."
"Well, as you like, but I've got to hurry, Grandma."
"I told you to stop calling me 'Grandma'!"
"So you fibbed about your age. So you're stuck with it-Grandma."
"Don, you stubborn beast! Don-you come back. You understand me?"
"Why, sure! We'll be back in jig time."
"See that you do! You're not bright enough to take care of yourself. Well-Open sky!" She grabbed him by both ears and kissed him quickly, then ran away.
Don stared after her, rubbing his mouth. Girls, he reflected, were much odder than dragons. Probably another race entirely. He hurried on down to the take-off point. The entire colony seemed to be there and he was the last of the crew to arrive, winning thereby a dirty look from Captain Rhodes, skipper of the Little David. Rhodes, once of Interplanet and now of the Middle Guard, had appeared three days ago; he had not been inclined to talk and had spent the whole time with Conrad. Don touched the pocket and wondered if Rhodes carried orders that read as oddly as his.
The Little David had been dragged up on shore, where she rested in skids. No catapult would be needed for her take-off, nor was any available: the three shuttle catapults on Venus were all in the hands of the Federation forces. The ship had been concealed by a screen of boughs; these were now cut back, giving her open sky, room to lift.
Don looked at her, thinking that she looked more like an oversized and unusually ugly concrete mixer than a space ship. The roots of her amputated wings stubbed out sadly to port and starboard. Her needle nose had been trimmed off and replaced by a bulbous special radar housing. She was scarred here and there by the marks of cutting torches where modifications had been done hastily and with no attempt to pretty up, smooth out, and make ship-shape after the surgery.
Her rocket tubes were gone and the space formerly occupied by rocket fuel tanks now held an atomic power pile, while a major part of what had been her passenger space was now taken up by a massive bulkhead, the antiradiation shield to protect the crew from the deadly emanations of the pile. All over her outer surface, disfiguring what had been sleek streamlines, were bulging discoids-"antennas" Conrad had called them, antennas used to strain the very shape of space. They did not look much like antennas to Don.
The Little David carried a crew of nine, Rhodes, Conrad, Harvey, and six others, all young and all on "makeelearnee"-except Roger Conrad who carried the undignified title of "Gadget Officer," that being shorter than "Officer in Charge of Special Appliances." She carried one passenger, Old Malath. He was not in sight and Don did not look for him; the after part of the remaining cabin space had been sealed off for his use and airconditioned thin, dry, and cold.
All were aboard, the lock was sealed, and Don sat down. Despite the space taken up by the new equipment enough passenger seats had been left in the little ship to accommodate them. Captain Rhodes settled himself in his control seat and barked, "Acceleration stations! Fasten beltsl" Don did so.
Rhodes turned to Conrad who was still standing. Conrad said conversationally, "About two minutes, gentlemen. Since we had no time for a test run, this will be a very interesting experiment. Any of three things can happen.
He paused.
Rhodes snapped, "Yes? Go on!"
"First, nothing might happen. We might bog down on a slight theoretical oversight. Second, it might work. And third-it might blow up." He grinned. "Anyone want to place a small bet?"
Nobody answered. He glanced down and said, "Okay, Captain-twist her tail!"
It seemed to Don that it had suddenly become night and that they had gone immediately into free fall. His stomach, long used to the fairly high gravity of Venus, lurched and complained. Conrad, not strapped down, was floating, anchored by one hand to his control board. "Sorry, gentlemen!" he said. "Slight oversight. Now let's adjust this locus to Mars normal, as an accommodation to our passenger." He fiddled with his dials.
Don's stomach went abruptly back into place as a quite satisfactory weight of more than one-third g took over. Conrad said, "Very well, Captain, you can let them unstrap."
Someone behind Don said, "What's the matter? Didn't it work?"
Conrad said, "Oh, yes, it worked. In fact we have been accelerating at about-" He stopped to study his dials. "-twenty gravities ever since we left the atmosphere."
The ship remained surrounded by darkness, cut off from the rest of the universe by what was inadequately described as a "discontinuity," save for a few minutes every other watch when Conrad cut the field to enable Captain Rhodes to see out and thereby take direct star sights. During these periods they were in free fall and the stars shone sharp through the ports. Then the darkness again would close in and the Little David would revert to a little world of its own.
Captain Rhodes showed a persisting tendency to swear softly to himself after each fix and to work his calculations through at least three times.
In between times Conrad conducted "gadget class" for as many hours each day as he could stand it. Don found most of the explanations as baffling as the one Conrad had given Phipps. "I just don't get it, Rog," he confessed after their instructor had been over the same point three times.
Conrad shrugged and grinned. "Don't let it throw you. By the time you have helped install the equipment in your own ship, you'll know it the way your foot knows your shoe. Meantime, let's run through it again."
Aside from instructions there was nothing to do and the ship was too small and too crowded in any case. A card game ran almost continuously. Don had very little money to start with; very soon he had none and was no longer part of the game. He slept and he thought.
Phipps had been right, he decided; travel at this speed would change things-people would go planet-jumping as casually as they now went from continent to continent on Earth. It would be like-well, like the change from sailing ships to trans-ocean rockets, only the change would be overnight, instead of spread over three centuries.
Maybe he would go back to Earth someday; Earth had its points-horseback riding, for instance. He wondered if Lazy still remembered him?
He'd like to teach Isobel to ride a horse. He'd like to see her face when she first laid eyes on a horse!
One thing he knew: he would not stay on Earth, even if he did go back. Nor would he stay on Venus-nor on Mars. He knew now where he belonged-in space, where he was born. Any planet was merely a hotel to him; space was his home.
Maybe he would go out in the Pathfinder, out to the stars. He had a sneaking hunch that, if they came through this stunt alive, a member of the original crew of the Little David would be able to wangle it to be chosen for the Long Trip. Of course, the Pathfinder was limited to married couples only, but that was not an obstacle. He was certain that he would be married in time to qualify although he could not remember clearly just when he had come by that knowledge. And Isobel was the whither-thou-goest sort; she wouldn't hold him back. The Pathfinder would not leave right away in any case; they would wait to change over to the Horst-Milne-Conrad drive, once they knew about it.
In any event he meant to stir around a bit, do some traveling, once the war was over. They would surely have to transfer him to the High Guard when he got back, then High Guard experience would stand him in good stead when he was a discharged veteran. Come to think about it, maybe he was already in the High Guard, so to speak.
McMasters had certainly been right; there was just one way to get to Mars-in a spacing task force.
He looked around him. The inevitable card game was still in progress and two of his mates were shooting dice on the deckplates, the cubes spinning lazily in the low paragravity field. Conrad had opened up his chair and was stretched out asleep, his mouth open. He decided that it certainly did not look like a world-saving task force; the place had more the air of an unmade bed.
They were due to "come out" on the eleventh day, within easy free fall of Mars, and-if all guesses had been rightclose by the Federation task force, making almost a photo finish with those ships. "Gadget class" gave way to drill at battle stations. Rhodes picked Art Frankel, who had had some shiphandling experience, as his co-pilot; Conrad was assisted by Franklyn Chiang, a physicist like himself. Of the other four, two were on radio, two on radar. ;Don's battle station was a saddle amidships, back of the pilots' chairs-the "dead man's" seat. Here he guarded a springloaded demolition switch, a type of switch known through the centuries as a "dead-man" switch for the contrary reason that it operated only if its operator were dead.
At first drill Conrad got the others squared away, then came back to Don's station. "You savvy what you are to do, Don?"
"Sure. I throw this switch to arm the bomb, then I hang onto the dead-man switch."
"No, no! Grab the dead-man switch first-then close the arming switch"
"Yes, sure. I just said it backwards."
"Be sure you don't do it backwards! Just remember this, Lieutenant: if you let go, everything does."
"Okay. Say, Rog, this thing triggers an A-bomb-right?"
"Wrong. We should waste so much money! But the load of H.E. in there is plenty for a little can like this, I assure you. So, anxious as we are to blow up this packet rather than let it be captured, don't let go of that switch otherwise. If you feel a need to scratch, rise above it."
Captain Rhodes came aft and with a motion of his head sent Conrad forward. He spoke to Don in a low voice, such that his words did not reach the others. "Harvey, are you satisfied with this assignment? You don't mind it?"
"No, I don't mind," Don answered. "I know the others all have more technical training than I have. This is my speed."
"That's not what I mean," the Captain corrected. "You could fill any of the other seats, except mine and Dr. Conrad's. I want to be sure you can do this job."
"I don't see why not. Grab onto this switch, and then close that one-and hang on for dear life. It sure doesn't take any higher mathematics to do that."
"That's still not what I mean. I don't know you, Harvey. I understand you have had combat experience. These others haven't-which is why you have this job. Those who do know you think you can do it. I'm not worried that you might forget to hang on; what I want to know is this: if it becomes necessary to let go of that switch, can you do it?"
Don answered almost at once-but not before there had been time for him to think of several things-Dr. Jefferson, who had almost certainly suicided, not simply died-Old Charlie with his mouth quivering but his cleaver hand steady and sure-and an undying voice ringing through the fog, "Venus and Freedom!".
"Guess I can if I have to."
"Good. I'm by no means sure that I could. I'm depending on you, sir, if worse comes to worst, not to let my ship be captured." He went forward.
Tension mounted, tempers got edgy. They had no way to be sure that they would come out near the Federation task force; that force might be using something other than what was assumed to be the maximum-performance orbit. They could not even be certain that the Federation forces were not already on Mars, already in command and difficult to dislodge. The Little David's laboratory miracles were designed for ship-to-ship encounter in space, not for mopping up on the surface of a planet.
Conrad had another worry, one that he did not voice, that the ship's weapons might not work as planned. More than any of the rest he knew the weakness of depending on theoretical predictions. He knew how frequently the most brilliant computations were confounded by previously unsuspected natural laws. There was no substitute for test-and these weapons had not been tested. He lost his habitual grin and even got into a bad-tempered difference of opinion with Rhodes as to the calculated time of "coming out."
The difference of opinion was finally settled; a half hour later Rhodes said quietly, "It's almost time, gentlemen. Battle stations." He went to his own seat, strapped himself in, and snapped, "Report!"'
"Co-pilot."
"Radio!"
"Radar!"
"Special weapons ready."
"Dead man!" Don finished.
There was a long wait while the seconds oozed slowly away. Rhodes spoke quietly into a microphone, warning Malath to be ready for free fall, then called out, "Stand by!" Don took a tighter grip on the demolition switch.
Suddenly he was weightless; ahead of him and in the passenger ports on each side the stars burst into being. He could not see Mars and decided that it must be "under" the ship. The Sun was somewhere aft; it was not in his eyes. But his view ahead was excellent; the Little David, having begun life as a winged shuttle, had an airplane-type conning port in front of the piloting chairs. Don's position let him see as clearly as Rhodes and his co-pilot and much better than could the others.
"Radar?" inquired Rhodes.
"Take it easy, Skipper. Even the speed of light is-Oh, oh! Blips!"
"Co-ordinates and range!"
"Theta three five seven point two; phi minus zero point eight; range radius six eight oh."
"I'm feeding it in automatically," Conrad cut in sharply.
"Tracking?"
"Not yet."
"In range?"
"No. I think we should sit tight and close range as much as possible. They may not have seen us."
They had slowed their headlong flight earlier to permit maneuvering; nevertheless they were closing with the "blips" at more than ninety miles a second. Don strained his eyes to try to make out the ships, if such the radar reflections were. No use-his protoplasmic scanners were no match for electronic ones.
They stayed that way, nerves on edge and stomachs tight, and range steadily closing, until it seemed that the blips must not be the task force, perhaps were even some wandering uncharted asteroid-when the radio alarm, sweeping automatically the communication frequencies, clangingly broke the silence. "Get it!" shouted Rhodes.
"Coming up." There was a short wait. "They demanded that we identify. They're our babies, all right."
"Switch it over here." Rhodes turned to Conrad. "How about it?"
"I ought to be closer. Stall 'em!" Conrad's face was grey and wet with sweat.
Rhodes touched a key and spoke into his mike. "What ship are you? Identify yourself."
The answer was amplified through the horn - over the Captain's head. "Identify or be fired upon."
Rhodes glanced again at Conrad, who was too busy to look back. Rhodes spoke into the mike, "This is the destroyer Little David, commissioned privateer, Venus Republic. Surrender immediately."
Don strained his eyes again. It seemed to him that there were three new "stars" dead ahead.
The answer came back with hardly more than transmission delay. "Federation flagship Peacemaker to pirate ship Little David: surrender or be destroyed."
To Rhodes' inquiry Conrad turned a face contorted with uncertainty. "It's still pretty far. The track hunts on me. I might miss."
"No time! Go ahead!"
Don could see them now-ships, growing unbelievably. Then, most suddenly, one was a silver globe, then a second-and a third. A cluster of incredible, Gargantuan Christmas tree ornaments where had been three mighty warships, . they continued to swell, drew to the left and flashed past the ship . . . the "battle" was over.
Conrad sighed shakily. "That's all, Captain." He turned and said, "Don, you'd make us all feel easier if you'd open that arming switch. We're not going to need it."
Mars swam below them, ruddy and beautiful. Schiaparelli Station, I. T. & T.'s powerful interplanetary radio, had already had a silvery "hat" placed on it to guard the secret of their strike; Captain Rhodes had spoken with a lesser station, warning of their arrival. In less than an hour they would ground near da Thon-Malath himself had come out of his icebox, no longer sick and weary but pert as a cricket, willing to risk the warm, thick, moist air of the cabin for a view of home.
Don climbed back into his battle-station saddle for a better view. The fabulous canali were already plain to the eye; he could see them cutting through the soft greens and the dominant orange and brick red. It was winter in the south; the planet wore its south pole cap jauntily, like a chef's hat. The fancy reminded him of Old Charlie; he thought of him with gentle melancholy, memory softened by all that had gone between.
Mars at last . . . he'd be seeing his parents perhaps before the day was out-and give his father the ring. This was certainly not the way they had planned it.
Next time he would try not to take the long way round.