Schwartz’s mind was whirling. In a queer, hectic way he felt at ease. There was a piece of him that seemed in absolute control of the situation, and more of him that could not believe that. Paralysis had been applied later to him than to the others. Even Dr. Shekt was sitting up, while he himself could just budge an arm and little more.
And, staring up at the leering mind of the Secretary, infinitely foul and infinitely evil, he began his duel.
He said, “I was on your side originally, for all that you were preparing to kill me. I thought I understood your feelings and your intentions....But the minds of these others here are relatively innocent and pure, and yours is past description. It is not even for the Earthman you fight, but for your own personal power. I see in you not a vision of a free Earth, but of a re-enslaved Earth. I see in you not the disruption of the Imperial power, but its replacement by a personal dictatorship.”
“You see all that, do you?” said Balkis. “Well, see what you wish. I don’t need your information after all, you know--not so badly that I must endure insolence. We have advanced the hour of striking, it seems. Had you expected that? Amazing what pressure will do, even on those who swear that more speed is impossible. Did you see that, my dramatic mind reader?”
Schwartz said, “I didn’t. I wasn’t looking for it, and it passed my notice....But I can look for it now. Two days--Less--Let’s see--Tuesday--six in the morning--Chica time.”
The blaster was in the Secretary’s hand, finally. He advanced in abrupt strides and towered over Schwartz’s drooping figure.
“How did you know that?”
Schwartz stiffened; somewhere mental tendrils bunched and grasped. Physically his jaw muscles clamped rigorously shut and his eyebrows curled low, but these were purely irrelevant--involuntary accompaniments to the real effort. Within his brain there was that which reached out and seized hard upon the Mind Touch of the other.
To Arvardan, for precious, wasting seconds, the scene was meaningless; the Secretary’s sudden motionless silence was not significant.
Schwartz muttered gaspingly, “I’ve got him....Take away his gun. I can’t hold on--” It died away in a gurgle.
And then Arvardan understood. With a lurch he was on all fours. Then slowly, grindingly, he lifted himself once more, by main force, to an unsteady erectness. Pola tried to rise with him, could not quite make it. Shekt edged off his slab, sinking to his knees. Only Schwartz lay there, his face working.
The Secretary might have been struck by the Medusa sight. On his smooth and unfurrowed forehead perspiration gathered slowly, and his expressionless face hinted of no emotion. Only that right hand, holding the blaster, showed any signs of life. Watch closely, and you might see it jerk ever so gently; note the curious flexing pressure of it upon the contact button: a gentle pressure, not enough to do harm, but returning, and returning--
“Hold him tight,” gasped Arvardan with a ferocious joy. He steadied himself on the back of a chair and tried to gain his breath. “Let me get to him.”
His feet dragged. He was in a nightmare, wading through molasses, swimming through tar; pulling with torn muscles, so slowly--so slowly.
He was not--could not be--conscious of the terrific duel that proceeded before him.
The Secretary had only one aim, and that was to put just the tiniest force into his thumb--three ounces, to be exact, since that was the contact pressure required for the blaster’s operation. To do so his mind had only to instruct a quiveringly balanced tendon, already half contracted, to--to--
Schwartz had only one aim, and that was to restrain that pressure--but in all the inchoate mass of sensation presented to him by the other’s Mind Touch, he could not know which particular area was alone concerned with that thumb. So it was that he bent his efforts to produce a stasis, a complete stasis--
The Secretary’s Mind Touch heaved and billowed against restraint. It was a quick and fearfully intelligent mind that confronted Schwartz’s untried control. For seconds it remained quiescent, waiting--then, in a terrific, tearing attempt, it would tug wildly at this muscle or that--
To Schwartz it was as if he had seized a wrestling hold which he must maintain at all costs, though his opponent threw him about in frenzies.
But none of this showed. Only the nervous clenching and unclenching of Schwartz’s jaw; the quivering lips, bloodied by the biting teeth--and that occasional soft movement on the part of the Secretary’s thumb, straining--straining.
Arvardan paused to rest. He did not want to. He had to. His outstretched finger just touched the fabric of the Secretary’s tunic and he felt he could move no more. His agonized lungs could not pump the breath his dead limbs required. His eyes were blurred with the tears of effort, his mind with the haze of pain.
He gasped, “Just a few more minutes, Schwartz. Hold him, hold him--”
Slowly, slowly, Schwartz shook his head. “I can’t--I can’t--“
And indeed, to Schwartz all the world was slipping away into dull, unfocused chaos. The tendrils of his mind were becoming stiff and nonresilient.
The Secretary’s thumb pressed once again upon the contact. It did not relax. The pressure grew by tiny stages.
Schwartz could feel the bulging of his own eyeballs, the writhing expansion of the veins in his forehead. He could sense the awful triumph that gathered in the mind of the other
Then Arvardan lunged. His stiff and rebellious body toppled forward, hands outstretched and clawing.
The yielding, mind-held Secretary toppled with him. The blaster flew sideways, clanging along the hard floor.
The Secretary’s mind wrenched free almost simultaneously, and Schwartz fell back, his own skull a tangled jungle of confusion.
Balkis struggled wildly beneath the clinging dead weight of Arvardan’s body. He jerked a knee into the other’s groin with a vicious strength while his clenched fist came down sideways on Arvardan’s cheekbone. He lifted and thrust--and Arvardan rolled off in huddled agony.
The Secretary staggered to his feet, panting and disheveled, and stopped again.
Facing him was Shekt, half reclining. His right hand, shakingly supported by the left, was holding the blaster, and although it quivered, the business end pointed at the Secretary.
“You pack of fools,” shrilled the Secretary, passion-choked, “what do you expect to gain? I have only to raise my voice--”
“And you, at least,” responded Shekt weakly, “will die.”
“You will accomplish nothing by killing me,” said the
Secretary bitterly, “and you know it. You will not save the Empire you would betray us to--and you would not save even yourselves. Give me that gun and you will go free.”
He extended a hand, but Shekt laughed wistfully. “I am not mad enough to believe that.”
°’Perhaps not, but you are half paralyzed.” And the Secretary broke sharply to the right. far faster than the physicist’s feeble wrist could veer the blaster.
But now Balkis’s mind, as he tensed for the final jump” was utterly and entirely on the blaster he was avoiding. Schwartz extended his mind once again in a final jab, and the Secretary tripped and slammed downward as if he had been clubbed.
Arvardan had risen painfully to his feet. His cheek was red and swollen and he hobbled when he walked. He said, “Can you move, Schwartz?”
“A little,” came the tired response. Schwartz slid out of his seat.
“Anyone else coming this way, maybe?’“
“Not that I can detect.”
Arvardan smiled grimly down at Pola. His hand was resting on her soft brown hair and she was looking up at him with brimming eyes. Several times in the last two hours he had been sure that never, never would he feel her hair or see her eyes again.
“Maybe there will be a later after an, Pola?”
And she could only shake her head and say, “There’s not enough time. We only have till six o’clock Tuesday.”
“Not enough time? Well, let’s see.” Arvardan bent over the prone Ancient and pulled his head back, none too gently.
“Is he alive?” He felt futilely for a pulse with his still-numb finger tips and then placed a palm beneath the green robe. He said, “His heart’s beating, anyway....You’ve a dangerous power there, Schwartz. Why didn’t you do this in the first place?”
“Because I wanted to see him held static.’“ Schwartz clearly showed the effects of his ordeal. “I thought that if I could hold him, we could lead him out before; use him as decoy; hide behind his skirts.”
Shekt said, in sudden animation, “We might. There’s the Imperial garrison in Fort Dibburn not half a mile away. Once there, we’re safe and can get word to Ennius.”
“Once there! There must be a hundred guards outside, with hundreds more between here and there--And what can we do with a stiff green-robe? Carry him? Shove him along on little wheels?” Arvardan laughed humorlessly.
“Besides,” said Schwartz gloomily, “I couldn’t hold him very long. You saw--I failed.”
Shekt said earnestly, “Because you’re not used to it. Now listen, Schwartz, I’ve got a notion as to what it is you do with your mind. It’s a receiving station for the electromagnetic fields of the brain. I think you can transmit also. Do you understand?”
Schwartz seemed painfully uncertain.
“You must understand, “ insisted Shekt. “You’ll have to concentrate on what you want him to do--and first we’re going to give him his blaster back.”
“What!” The outraged exclamation was neatly triple.
Shekt raised his voice. “He’s got to lead us out of here. We can’t get out otherwise, can we? And how can it look less suspicious than to allow him to be obviously armed?”
“But I couldn’t hold him. I tell you I couldn’t.” Schwartz was flexing his arms, slapping them, trying to get back into the feel of normality. “I don’t care what your theories are, Dr. Shekt. You don’t know what goes on. It’s a slippery, painful thing, and it’s not easy.”
“I know, but it’s the chance we take. Try it now, Schwartz. Have him move his arm when he comes to.” Shekt’s voice was pleading.
The Secretary moaned as he lay there, and Schwartz felt the reviving Mind Touch. Silently, almost fearfully, he let it gather strength--then spoke to it. It was a speech that included no words; it was the silent speech you send to your arm when you want it to move, a speech so silent you are not yourself aware of it.
And Schwartz’s arm did not move; it was the Secretary’s that did. The Earthman from the past looked up with a wild smile, but the others had eyes only for Balkis--Balkis, that recumbent figure, with a lifting head, with eyes from which the glaze of unconsciousness was vanishing, and an arm which peculiarly and incongruously jerked outward at a ninety-degree angle.
Schwartz bent to his task.
The Secretary lifted himself up in angular fashion; nearly, but not quite, overbalancing himself. And then, in a queer and involuntary way, he danced.
It lacked rhythm; it lacked beauty; but to the three who watched the body, and to Schwartz, who watched body and mind, it was a thing of indescribable awe. For in those moments the Secretary’s body was under the control of a mind not materially connected with it.
Slowly, cautiously, Shekt approached the robotlike Secretary and, not without a qualm, extended his hand. In the open palm thereof lay the blaster, butt first.
“Let him take it, Schwartz,” said Shekt.
Balkis’s hand reached out and grasped the weapon clumsily. For a moment there was a sharp, devouring glitter in his eyes, and then it all faded. Slowly, slowly, the blaster was put into its place in the belt, and the hand fell away.
Schwartz’s laugh was high-pitched. “He almost got away, there.” But his face was white as he spoke.
“Well? Can you hold him?”
“He’s fighting like the devil. But it’s not as bad as before.”
“That’s because you know what you’re doing,” said Shekt, with an encouragement he did not entirely feel. “Transmit, now. Don’t try to hold him; just pretend you’re doing it yourself.”
Arvardan broke in. “Can you make him talk?”
There was a pause, then a low, rasping growl from the Secretary. Another pause; another rasp.
“That’s all,” panted Schwartz.
“But why won’t it work?” asked Pola. She looked worried.
Shekt shrugged. “Some pretty delicate and complicated muscles are involved. It’s not like yanking at the long limb muscles. Never mind, Schwartz. We may get by without.”
The memory of the next two hours was something no two of those that took part in the queer odyssey could duplicate. Dr. Shekt, for instance, had acquired a queer rigidity in which all his fears were drowned in one breathless and helpless sympathy with the inwardly struggling Schwartz. Throughout he had eyes only for that round face as it slowly furrowed and twisted with effort. For the others he had hardly time for more than a moment’s glance.
The guards immediately outside the door saluted sharply at the appearance of the Secretary, his green robe redolent of officialdom and power. The Secretary returned the salute in a fumbling, flat manner. They passed, unmolested.
It was only when they had left the great Hall that Arvardan became conscious of the madness of it all. The great, unimaginable danger to the Galaxy and the flimsy reed of safety that bridged, perhaps, the abyss. Yet even then, even then, Arvardan felt himself drowning in Pola’s eyes. Whether it was the life that was being snatched from him, the future that was being destroyed about him, the eternal unavailability of the sweetness he had tasted--whatever it was, no one had ever seemed to him to be so completely and devastatingly desirable.
In aftertime she was the sum of his memories. Only the girl--
And upon Pola the sunny brightness of the morning burned down so that Arvardan’s downturned face blurred before her. She smiled up at him and was conscious of that strong, hard arm on which her own rested so lightly. That was the memory that lingered afterward. Flat, firm muscle lightly covered by glossy-textured plastic cloth, smooth and cool under her wrist--
Schwartz was in a sweating agony. The curving drive that led away from the side entrance from which they had emerged was largely empty. For that he was hugely thankful.
Schwartz alone knew the full cost of failure. In the enemy Mind that he controlled he could sense the unbearable humiliation, the surpassing hatred, the utterly horrible resolves. He had to search that Mind for the information that guided him--the position of the official ground car, the proper route to take--And, in searching, he also experienced the galling bitterness of the determined revenge that would lash out should his control waver for but the tenth part of the second.
The secret fastnesses of the Mind in which he was forced to rummage remained his personal possession forever. In aftertimes there came the pale gray hours of many an innocent dawn during which once again he had guided the steps of a madman down the dangerous walks of an enemy stronghold.
Schwartz gasped at the words when they reached the ground car. He no longer dared relax sufficiently to utter connected sentences. He choked out quick phrases: “Can’t--drive car--can’t make--him--make drive--complicated--can’t--”
Shekt soothed him with a soft, clucking sound. He dared not touch him, dared not speak in an ordinary way, dared net distract Schwartz’s mind for a second.
He whispered, “Just get him into the back seat, Schwartz. I’ll drive. I know how. From now on just keep him still. and I’ll take the blaster away.”
The Secretary’s ground car was a special model. Because it was special, it was different. It attracted attention. Its green headlight turned to the right and left in rhythmic swings as the light dimmed and brightened in emerald flashes. Men paused to watch. Ground cars advancing in the opposite direction moved to the side in a respectful hurry.
Had the car been less noticed, had it been less obtrusive. the occasional passer-by might have had time to note the pale, unmoving Ancient in the back seat--might have wondered--might have scented danger--
But they noticed only the car, so that time passed....
A soldier blocked the way at the gleaming chromium gates that rose sheerly in the expansive, overwhelming way that marked all Imperial structures in sharp contrast to the squatly massive and brooding architecture of Earth. His huge force gun shot out horizontally in a barring gesture, and the car halted.
Arvardan leaned out. “I’m a citizen of the Empire, soldier. I’d like to see your commanding officer.”
“I’ll have to see your identification, sir.”
“That’s been taken from me. I am Bel Arvardan of Baronn, Sirius. I am on the Procurator’s business and I’m in a hurry.”
The soldier lifted a wrist to his mouth and spoke softly into the transmitter. There was a pause while he waited for an answer, and then he lowered his rifle and stepped aside. Slowly the gate swung open.
The hours that followed saw turmoil within and without Fort Dibburn. More so, perhaps, in Chica itself.
It was at noon that the High Minister at Washenn inquired via Communi-wave after his Secretary, and a search for the latter failed. The High Minister was displeased; the minor officials at the Hall of Correction were perturbed.
Questioning followed, and the guards outside the assembly room were definite that the Secretary had left with the prisoners at ten-thirty in the morning....No, he had left no instructions. They could not say where he was going; it was, of course, not their place to ask.
Another set of guards was equally uninformed and uninformative. A general air of anxiety mounted and swirled.
At 2 P.M. the first report arrived that the Secretary’s ground car had been seen that morning--no one had seen if the Secretary was within--some thought he had been driving, but had only assumed it, it turned out--
By two-thirty it had been ascertained that the car had entered Fort Dibburn.
At not quite three, it was finally decided to put in a call to the commander of the fort. A lieutenant had answered.
It was impossible at that time, they learned, for information on the subject to be given. However, His Imperial Majesty’s officers requested that order be maintained for the present. It was further requested that news of the absence of a member of the Society of Ancients be not generally distributed until further notice.
But that was enough to achieve the direct opposite of the Imperial desires.
Men engaged in treason cannot take chances when one of the prime members of a conspiracy is in the hands of the enemy forty-eight hours before trigger time. It can mean only discovery or betrayal, and these are but the reverse sides of a single coin. Either alternative would mean death.
So word went out--
And the population of Chica stirred--
The professional demagogues were on the street corners. The secret arsenals were broken open and the hands that reached withdrew with weapons. There was a twisting drift toward the fort, and at 6 P.M. a new message was sent to the commandant, this time by personal envoy.
Meanwhile, this activity was matched in a smaller way by events within the fort. It had begun dramatically when the young officer meeting the entering ground car reached out a hand for the Secretary’s blaster.
“I’ll take that,” he said curtly.
Shekt said, “Let him take it, Schwartz.”
The Secretary’s hand lifted the blaster and stretched out; the blaster left it, was carried away--and Schwartz, with a heaving sob of breaking tension, let go.
Arvardan was ready. When the Secretary lashed out like an insane steel coil released from compression, the archaeologist pounced upon him, fists pumping down hard.
The officer snapped out orders. Soldiers were running up. When rough hands laid hold of Arvardan’s shirt collar and dragged him up, the Secretary was limp upon the seat. Dark blood was flowing feebly from the corner of his mouth. Arvardan’s own already bruised cheek was open and bleeding.
He straightened his hair shakily. Then, pointing a rigid finger, said firmly, “I accuse that man of conspiring to overthrow the Imperial Government. I must have an immediate interview with the commanding officer.”
“We’ll have to see about that, sir,” said the officer civilly. “If you don’t mind, you will have to follow me--all of you.”
And there, for hours, it rested. Their quarters were private, and reasonably clean. For the first time in twelve hours they had a chance to eat, which they did, despite considerations, with dispatch and efficiency. They even had the opportunity of that further necessity of civilization, a bath.
Yet the room was guarded, and as the hours passed, Arvardan finally lost his temper and cried, “But we’ve simply exchanged prisons.”
The dull, meaningless routine of an army camp drifted about them, ignoring them. Schwartz was sleeping and Arvardan’s eyes went to him. Shekt shook his head.
“We can’t,” he said. “It’s humanly impossible. The man is exhausted. Let him sleep.”
“But there are only thirty-nine hours left.”
“I know--but wait.”
A cool and faintly sardonic voice sounded. “Which of you claims to be a citizen of the Empire?”
Arvardan sprang forward. “I am. I--”
And his voice failed as he recognized the speaker. The latter smiled rigidly. His left arm he held a bit stiffly as a remaining memento of their last meeting.
Pola’s voice was faint behind him. “Bel, it’s the officer--the one of the department store.”
“The one whose arm he broke,” came the sharp addition. “My name is Lieutenant Claudy and yes, you are the same man. So you are a member of the Sirian worlds, are you? And yet you consort with these. Galaxy, the depths a man can sink to! And you’ve still got the girl with you.” He waited and then said slowly and deliberately, “The Earthie-squaw!”
Arvardan bristled, then subsided. He couldn’t--not yet
He forced humbleness into his voice. “May I see the colonel, Lieutenant?”
“The colonel, I am afraid, is not on duty now.”
“You mean he’s not in the city?”
“I didn’t say that. He can be reached--if the matter is sufficiently urgent.”
“It is....May I see the officer of the day?”
“At the moment I am the officer of the day.”
“Then call the colonel.”
And slowly the lieutenant shook his head. “I could scarcely do so without being convinced of the gravity of the situation.’.
Arvardan was shaking with impatience. “By the Galaxy, stop fencing with me! It’s life and death.”
“Really?” Lieutenant Claudy swung a little swagger stick with an air of affected dandyism. “You might crave an audience with me.”
“All right....Well, I’m waiting...
“I said--you might crave one.”
“May I have an audience, Lieutenant?”
But there was no smile on the lieutenant’s face. “I said, crave one--before the girl. Humbly.”
Arvardan swallowed and drew back. Pola’s hand was on his sleeve. “Please, Bel. You mustn’t get him angry.”
The archaeologist growled huskily, “Bel Arvardan of Sirius humbly craves audience with the officer of the day.”
Lieutenant Claudy said, “That depends. “
He took a step toward Arvardan and quickly and viciously brought the flat of his palm down hard upon the bandage that dressed Arvardan’s open cheek.
Arvardan gasped and stifled a shriek.
The lieutenant said, “You resented that once. Don’t you this time?”
Arvardan said nothing.
The lieutenant said, “Audience granted.”
Four soldiers fell in before and behind Arvardan. Lieutenant Claudy led the way.
Shekt and Pola were alone with the sleeping Schwartz, and Shekt said, “I don’t hear him any more, do you?”
Pola shook her head. “I haven’t either, for quite a while. But, Father, do you suppose he’ll do anything to Bel?”
“How can he?” said the old man gently. “You forget that he’s not really one of us. He’s a citizen of the Empire and cannot be easily molested....You are in love with him, I suppose?”
“Oh, terribly, Father. It’s silly, I know...
“Of course it is.” Shekt smiled bitterly. “He is honest. I do not say he isn’t. But what can he do? Can he live here with us on this world? Can he take you home? Introduce an Earthgirl to his friends? His family?”
She was crying. “I know. But maybe there won’t be any afterwards.”
And Shekt was on his feet again, as though the last phrase had reminded him. He said again, “I don’t hear him.”
It was the Secretary he did not hear. Balkis had been placed in an adjoining room, where his caged-lion steps had been clearly and ominously audible. Except that now they weren’t.
It was a little point, but in the single mind and body of the Secretary there had somehow become centered and symboled all the sinister force of disease and destruction that were being loosed on the giant network of living stars. Shekt jarred Schwartz gently. “Wake up,” he said.
Schwartz stirred. “What is it?” He felt scarcely rested. His tiredness went in and in, so deep as to come out at the other side, projecting in jagged streaks.
“Where’s Balkis?” urged Shekt.
“Oh--oh yes.” Schwartz looked about wildly, then remembered that it was not with his eyes that he looked and saw most clearly. He sent out the tendrils of his mind and they circled, sensing tensely for the Mind they knew so well.
He found it, and avoided touching it. His long immersion in it had not increased his fondness for the clinging of its diseased wretchedness.
Schwartz muttered, “He’s on another floor. He’s talking to someone.”
“To whom?”
“No one whose mind I’ve even Touched before. Wait--let me listen. Maybe the Secretary will--Yes, he calls him Colonel.”
Shekt and Pola looked quickly at one another.
“It can’t be treason, can it?” whispered Pola. “I mean, surely an officer of the Empire wouldn’t deal with an Earthman against the Emperor, would he?”
“I don’t know,” said Shekt miserably. “I am ready to believe anything.”
Lieutenant Claudy was smiling. He was behind a desk, with a blaster at his finger tips and the four soldiers behind him. He spoke with the authority that such a situation would lend one.
“I don’t like Earthies,” he said. “I never liked them. They’re the scum of the Galaxy. They’re diseased, superstitious, and lazy. They’re degenerate and stupid. But, by the Stars, most of them know their place.
“In a way, I can understand them. That’s the way they were born, and they can’t help it. Of course I wouldn’t endure what the Emperor endures from them--I mean their blasted customs and traditions--if 1 were the Emperor. But that’s all right. Someday we’ll learn--”
Arvardan exploded. “Now look here. I didn’t come to listen--”
“You’ll listen, because I’m not finished. I was about to say that what I can’t understand is the workings of the mind of an Earthie-lover. When a man--a real man, supposedly--can get so low in filth as to crawl in among them and go nosing after their womenfolk, I have no respect for him. He’s worse than they are--”
“Then to Space with you and your poor filthy excuse of a mind!” fiercely. “Do you know that there’s treason against the Empire afoot? Do you know just how dangerous the situation is? Every minute you delay endangers everyone of the quadrillions in the Galaxy--”
“Oh, I don’t know, Dr. Arvardan. It is Dr., isn’t it? I mustn’t forget your honors. You see, I’ve got a theory of my own. You’re one of them. Maybe you were born in Sirius, but you’ve got a black Earthman’s heart, and you’re using your Galactic citizenship to advance their cause. You’ve kidnaped this official of theirs, this Ancient. (A good thing, by the way, in itself, and I wouldn’t mind rattling his throat for him.) But the Earthmen are looking for him already. They’ve sent a message to the fort.”
“They have? Already? Then why are we talking here? I must see the colonel if I have to--”
“You expect a riot, trouble of any sort? Perhaps you even planned one as the first step in an arranged revolt, eh?”
“Are you mad? Why would I want to do that?”
“Well, then, you wouldn’t mind if we released the Ancient?”
“You cannot.” Arvardan rose to his feet, and for a moment it looked as though he might hurl himself across the desk at the other.
But the blaster was in Lieutenant Claudy’s hand. “Oh, can’t we? Look here, now. I’ve gotten a little of my own back. I’ve slapped you and made you crawl before your Earthie pals. I’ve made you sit here while I told you to your face what a low worm you are. And now I would love an excuse to blast your arm off in exchange for what you did to mine. Now make another move.”
Arvardan froze.
Lieutenant Claudy laughed and put his blaster away. “It’s too bad I have to save you for the colonel He’s to see you at five-fifteen.”
“You knew that--you knew that all the time.” Frustration tore his throat into hoarse sandpaper.
“Certainly.”
“If the time we have lost, Lieutenant Claudy, means that the issue is lost, then neither of us will have much time to live.” He spoke with an iciness that distorted his voice into something horrible. “But you will die first, because I shall spend my last minutes smashing your face into splintered bone and mashed brain.”
“I’ll be waiting for you, Earthie-lover. Any time!”
The commanding officer of Fort Dibburn had grown stiff in the service of the Empire. In the profound peace of the last generations there was little in the way of “glory” that any army officer could earn, and the colonel, in common with others, earned none. But in the long, slow rise from military cadet he had seen service in every part of the Galaxy--so that even a garrison on the neurotic world of Earth was to him but an additional chore. He wanted only the peaceful routine of normal occupation. He asked nothing beyond this, and for it was willing to humble himself--even, when it was necessary, to apologize to an Earthgirl.
He seemed tired when Arvardan entered. His shirt collar was open and his tunic, with its blazing yellow “Spaceship and Sun” of Empire, hung loosely over the back of his chair. He cracked the knuckles of his right hand with an abstracted air as he stared solemnly at Arvardan.
“A very confusing story, all this,” he said, “very. I recall you well, young man. You are Bel Arvardan of Baronn, and the principal of a previous moment of considerable embarrassment. Can’t you keep out of trouble?”
“It is not only myself that is in trouble, Colonel, but all the rest of the Galaxy as well.”
“Yes, I know,” somewhat impatiently. “Or at least I know that that is what you claim. I am told that you no longer have papers of identification.”
“They were taken from me, but I am known at Everest. The Procurator himself can identify me, and will, I hope, before evening falls.”
“We’ll see about that.” The colonel crossed his arms and teetered backward on his chair. “Suppose you give me your side of the story.”
“I have been made aware of a dangerous conspiracy on the part of a small group of Earthmen to overthrow the Imperial Government by force, which, if not made known at once to the proper authorities, may well succeed in destroying both the Government and much of the Empire itself.”
“You go too far, young man, in this very rash and farfetched statement. That the men of Earth could stage annoying riots, lay siege to this fort, do considerable damage, I am quite prepared to admit--but I do not for a moment conceive them capable of as much as driving the Imperial forces from this planet, let alone destroying the Imperial Government. Yet I will listen to the details of this--uh--plot.”
“Unfortunately, the seriousness of the matter is such that I feel it vital that the details be told to the Procurator himself in person. I request, therefore, to be put into communication with him now, if you don’t mind.”
“Umm....Let us not act too hurriedly. Are you aware that the man you have brought in is Secretary to the High Minister of Earth, one of their Ancients and a very important man to them?”
“Perfectly!”
“And yet you say that he is a prime mover in this conspiracy you mention.”
“He is.”
“Your evidence?”
“You will understand me, I am sure, when I say that I cannot discuss that with anyone but the Procurator.”
The colonel frowned and regarded his fingernails. “Do you doubt my competency in the case?”
“Not at all, sir. It is simply that only the Procurator has the authority to take the decisive action required in this case.”
“What decisive action do you refer to?”
“A certain building on Earth must be bombed and totally destroyed within thirty hours, or the lives of most, or all, of the inhabitants of the Empire will be lost.”
“What building?” asked the colonel wearily. Arvardan snapped back. “May I be connected with the Procurator, please?”
There was a pause of deadlock. The colonel said stiffly, “You realize that in forcibly kidnaping an Earthman you have rendered yourself liable to trial and punishment by the Terrestrial authorities? Ordinarily the government will protect its citizens as a matter of principle and insist upon a Galactic trial. However, affairs on Earth are delicate and I have strict instructions to risk no avoidable clash. Therefore. unless you answer my questions fully, I will be forced to turn you and your companions over to the local police.”
“But that would be a death sentence. For yourself tool... Colonel, I am a citizen of the Empire, and I demand an audience with the Pro--”
A buzzer on the colonel’s desk interrupted him. The colonel turned to it, closing a contact. “Yes?”
“Sir,” came the clear voice, “a body of natives have encircled the fort. It is believed they are armed.”
“Has there been any violence?”
“No, sir.”
There was no sign of emotion on the colonel’s face. This, at least, was what he was trained for. “Artillery and aircraft are to be made ready--all men to battle stations. Withhold all fire except in self-defense. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. An Earthman under flag of truce wishes audience.”
“Send him in. Also send the High Minister’s Secretary here again.”
And now the colonel glared coldly at the archaeologist. “I trust you are aware of the appalling nature of what you have caused.”
“I demand to be present at the interview,” cried Arvardan, nearly incoherent with fury, “and I further demand the reason for your allowing me to rot under guard here for hours while you closet yourself with a native traitor. I tell you that I am not ignorant that you interviewed him before speaking with me.”
“Are you making any accusations, sir?” demanded the colonel, his own voice ascending the scale. “If so, make them plainly.”
“I make no accusations. But I will remind you that you will be accountable for your actions hereafter, and that you may well be known in the future, if you have a future, as the destroyer, by your stubbornness, of your people.”
“Silence! I am not accountable to you, at any rate. We will conduct affairs, henceforward, as I choose. Do you understand?”
The Secretary passed through the door held open by a soldier. On his purpling, swollen lips there was a brief, cold smile. He bowed to the colonel and remained completely unaware, to all appearances, of the presence of Arvardan.
“Sir,” said the colonel to the Earthman, “I have communicated to the High Minister the details of your presence here and the manner in which it came about. Your detention here is, of course, entirely--uh--unorthodox, and it is my purpose to set you free as soon as I can. However, I have here a gentleman who, as you probably know, has lodged against you a very serious accusation; one which, under the circumstances, we must investigate--”
“I understand, Colonel,” said the Secretary calmly. “However, as I have already explained to you, this man has been on Earth, I believe, only a matter of two months or so, so that his knowledge of our internal politics is nonexistent. This is a flimsy basis, indeed, for any accusation.”
Arvardan retorted in anger, “I am an archaeologist by profession, and one who has specialized of late on Earth and its customs. My knowledge of its politics is far from nonexistent. And in any case, I am not the only one who makes the accusation.”
The Secretary did not look at the archaeologist either now or later. He spoke exclusively to the colonel. He said, “One of our local scientists is involved in this; one who, approaching the end of his normal sixty years, is suffering from delusions of persecution. Then, in addition, there is another man, one of unknown antecedents and a history of idiocy. All three could not raise a respectable accusation among them.”
Arvardan jumped to his feet. “I demand to be heard--”
“Sit down,” said the colonel coldly and unsympathetically. “You have refused to discuss the matter with me. Let the refusal stand. Bring in the man with the flag of truce.”
It was another member of the Society of Ancients. Scarcely a flicker of the eyelid betrayed any emotion on his part at the sight of the Secretary. The colonel rose from his chair and said, “Do you speak for the men outside?”
“I do, sir.”
“I assume, then, that this riotous and illegal assembly is based upon a demand for the return of your fellow countryman here?”
“Yes, sir. He must be immediately freed.”
“Indeed! Nevertheless, the interest of law and order and the respect due His Imperial Majesty’s representatives on this world require that the matter cannot possibly be discussed while men are gathered in armed rebellion against us. You must have your men disperse.”
The Secretary spoke up pleasantly. “The colonel is perfectly correct, Brother Cori. Please calm the situation. I am perfectly safe here, and there is no danger--for anybody. Do you understand? For anybody. It is my word as an Ancient.”
“Very well, Brother. I am thankful you are safe.”
He was ushered out.
The colonel said curtly, “We will see that you leave here safely as soon as matters in the city have returned to normal. Thank you for your co-operation in this matter just concluded.”
Arvardan was again on his feet. “I forbid it. You will let loose this would-be murderer of the human race while forbidding me an interview with the Procurator when that would be simply in accord with my rights as a Galactic citizen.” Then, in a paroxysm of frustration, “Will you show more consideration to an Barthman dog than you will to me?”
The Secretary’s voice sounded over that last near-incoherent rage. “Colonel, I will gladly remain until such time as my case is heard by the Procurator, if that is what this man wants. An accusation of treason is serious, and the suspicion of it--however farfetched--may be sufficient to ruin my usefulness to my people. I would really appreciate the opportunity to prove to the Procurator that none is more loyal to the Empire than myself.”
The colonel said stiffly, “I admire your feelings, sir, and freely admit that were I in your place my attitude would be quite different. You are a credit to your race, sir. I will attempt contact with the Procurator.”
Arvardan said nothing more until led back to his cell.
He avoided the glance of the others. For a long time he sat motionless, with a knuckle pinched between gnawing teeth.
Until Shekt said, “Well?”
Arvardan shook his head. “I just about ruined everything.”
“What did you do?”
“Lost my temper; offended the colonel; got nowhere--I’m no diplomat, Shekt.”
He felt riven with the sudden urge for self-defense. “What could I do?” he cried. “Balkis had already been to the colonel, so that I couldn’t trust him. What if he’d been offered his life? What if he’s been in on the plot all along? I know it’s a wild thought, but I couldn’t take the chance. It was too suspicious. I wanted to see Ennius himself.”
The physicist was on his feet, withered hands clasped behind his back. “Well, then--is Ennius coming?”
“I suppose so. But it is only at Balkis’s own request, and that I don’t understand.”
“Balkis’s own request? Then Schwartz must be right.”
“Yes? What has Schwartz been saying?”
The plump Earthman was sitting on his cot. He shrugged his shoulders when the eyes turned to him and spread out his hands in a helpless gesture. “I caught the Secretary’s Mind Touch when they took him past our room just now. He’s definitely had a long talk with this officer you talked to.”
“I know.”
“But there’s no treason in that officer’s mind.”
“Well,” miserably, “then I guessed wrong. I’ll eat worms when Ennius comes. What about Balkis?”
“There’s no worry or fear in his mind; only hate. And now it’s mostly hate for us, for capturing him, for dragging him here. We’ve wounded his vanity horribly, and he intends to square it with us. I saw little daydream pictures in his mind. Of himself, singlehanded, preventing the entire Galaxy from doing anything to stop him even while we, with our knowledge, work against him. He’s giving us the odds, the trumps, and then he’ll smash us anyway and triumph over us.”
“You mean that he will risk his plans, his dreams of Empire, just to vent a little spite at us? That’s mad.”
“I know,” said Schwartz with finality. “He is mad.”
“And he thinks he’ll succeed?”
“That’s right.”
“Then we must have you, Schwartz. We’ll need your mind. Listen to me--”
But Shekt was shaking his head. “No, Arvardan, we couldn’t work that. 1 woke Schwartz when you left and we discussed the matter. His mental powers, which he can describe only dimly, are obviously not under perfect control. He can stun a man, or paralyze him, or even kill him. Better than that, he can control the larger voluntary muscles even against the subject’s will, but no more than that. In the case of the Secretary, he couldn’t make the man talk. the small muscles about the vocal cords being beyond him. He couldn’t co-ordinate motion well enough to have the Secretary drive a car; he even balanced him while walking only with difficulty. Obviously, then, we couldn’t control Ennius, for instance, to the point of having him issue an order, or write one. I’ve thought of that, you see...” Shekt shook his head as his voice trailed away.
Arvardan felt the desolation of futility descend upon him. Then, with a sudden pang of anxiety, “Where’s Pola?”
“She’s sleeping in the alcove.”
He would have longed to wake her--longed--Oh, longed a lot of things.
Arvardan looked at his watch. It was almost midnight, and there were only thirty hours left.
He slept for a while after that, then woke for a while, as it grew light again. No one approached, and a man’s very soul grew haggard and pale.
Arvardan looked at his watch. It was almost midnight, and there were only six hours left.
He looked about him now in a dazed and hopeless way. They were all here now--even the Procurator, at last. Pola was next to him, her warm little fingers on his wrist and that look of fear and exhaustion on her face that more than anything else infuriated him against all the Galaxy.
Maybe they all deserved to die, the stupid, stupid--stupid--
He scarcely saw Shekt and Schwartz. They sat on his left. And there was Balkis, the damnable Balkis, with his lips still swollen, one cheek green, so that it must hurt like the devil to talk--and Arvardan’s own lips stretched into a furious, aching smile at the thought and his fists clenched and writhed. His own bandaged cheek ached less at the thought.
Facing all of them was Ennius, frowning, uncertain, almost ridiculous, dressed as he was in those heavy, shapeless, leadimpregnated clothes.
And he was stupid, too. Arvardan felt a thrill of hatred shoot through him at the thought of these Galactic trimmers who wanted only peace and ease. Where were the conquerors of three centuries back? Where?...
Six hours left--
Ennius had received the call from the Chica garrison some eighteen hours before and he had streaked half around the planet at the summons. The motives that led him to that were obscure but nonetheless forceful. Essentially, he told himself, there was nothing to the matter but a regrettable kidnaping of one of those green-robed curiosities of superstitious, hagridden Earth. That, and these wild and undocumented accusations. Nothing, certainly, that the colonel on the spot could not have handled.
And yet there was Shekt--Shekt was in this--And not as the accused, but as an accuser. It was confusing.
He sat now facing them, thinking, quite conscious that his decision in this case might hasten a rebellion, perhaps weaken his own position at court, ruin his chances at advancement--As for Arvardan’s long speech just now about virus strains and unbridled epidemics, how seriously could he take it? After all. if he took action on the basis of it, how credible would the matter sound to his superiors?
And yet Arvardan was an archaeologist of note.
So he postponed the matter in his mind by saying to the Secretary, “Surely you have something to say in this matter?”
“Surprisingly little,” said the Secretary with easy confidence. “I would like to ask what evidence exists for supporting the accusation?”
“Your Excellency,” said Arvardan with snapping patience, “I have already told you that the man admitted it in every detail at the time of our imprisonment day before yesterday.”
“Perhaps,” said the Secretary, “you choose to credit that, Your Excellency, but it is simply an additional unsupported statement. Actually the only facts to which outsiders can bear witness to are that I was the one violently taken prisoner, not they; that it was my life that was in peril, not theirs. Now I would like my accuser to explain how he could find all this out in the nine weeks that he has been on the planet, when you, the Procurator, in years of service here, have found nothing to my disadvantage?”
“There is reason in what the Brother says,” admitted Ennius heavily. “How do you know?”
Arvardan replied stiffly, “Prior to the accused’s confession I was informed of the conspiracy by Dr. Shekt.”
“Is that so, Dr. Shekt?” The Procurator’s glance shifted to the physicist.
“That is so, Your Excellency.”
“And how did you find out?”
Shekt said, “Dr. Arvardan was admirably thorough and accurate in his description of the use to which the Synapsifier was put and in his remarks concerning the dying statements of the bacteriologist, F. Smitko. This Smitko was a member of the conspiracy. His remarks were recorded and the recording is available.”
“But, Dr. Shekt, the dying statements of a man known to be in delirium--if what Dr. Arvardan said is true--cannot be of very great weight. You have nothing else?”
Arvardan interrupted by striking his fist on the arm of his chair and roaring, “Is this a law court? Has someone been guilty of violating a traffic ordinance? We have no time to weigh evidence on an analytical balance or measure it with micrometers. I tell you we have till six in the morning, five and a half hours, in other words, to wipe out this enormous threat....You knew Dr. Shekt previous to this time, Your Excellency. Have you known him to be a liar?”
The Secretary interposed instantly, “No one accused Dr. Shekt of deliberately lying, Your Excellency. It is only that the good doctor is aging and has, of late, been greatly concerned over his approaching sixtieth birthday. I am afraid that a combination of age and fear have induced slight paranoiac tendencies, common enough here on Earth.... Look at him! Does he seem to you quite normal?”
He did not, of course. He was drawn and tense, shattered by what had passed and what was to come.
Yet Shekt forced his voice into normal tones, even into calmness. He said, “I might say that for the last two months I have been under the continual watch of the Ancients; that my letters have been opened and my answers censored. But it is obvious that all such complaints would be attributed to the paranoia spoken of. However, I have here Joseph Schwartz, the man who volunteered as a subject for the Synapsifier one day when you were visiting me at the Institute.”
“I remember.” There was a feeble gratitude in Ennius’s mind that the subject had, for the moment, veered. “Is that the man?”
“Yes.”
“He looks none the worse for the experience.”
“He is far the better. The exposure to the Synapsifier was uncommonly successful, since he had a photographic memory to begin with, a fact I did not know at the time. At any rate, he now has a mind which is sensitive to the thoughts of others.”
Ennius leaned far forward in his chair and cried in a shocked amazement, “What? Are you telling me he reads minds?”
“That can be demonstrated, Your Excellency. But I think the Brother will confirm the statement.” The Secretary darted a quick look of hatred at Schwartz, boiling in its intensity and lightninglike in its passage across his face. He said, with but the most imperceptible quiver in his voice, “It is quite true, Your Excellency. This man they have here has certain hypnotic faculties, though whether that is due to the Synapsifier or not I don’t know. I might add that this man’s subjection to the Synapsifier was not recorded, a matter which you’ll agree is highly suspicious.”
“It was not recorded,” said Shekt quietly, “in accordance with my standing orders from the High Minister.” But the Secretary merely shrugged his shoulders at that.
Ennius said peremptorily, “Let us get on with the matter and avoid this petty bickering....What about this Schwartz? What have his mind-reading powers, or hypnotic talents, or whatever they are, to do with the case?”
“Shekt intends to say,” put in the Secretary, “that Schwartz can read my mind.”
“Is that it? Well, and what is he thinking?” asked the Procurator, speaking to Schwartz for the first time.
“He’s thinking,” said Schwartz, “that we have no way of convincing you of the truth of our side of what you call the case.”
“Quite true,” scoffed the Secretary, “though that deduction scarcely calls for much mental power.”
“And also,” Schwartz went on, “that you are a poor fool, afraid to act, desiring only peace, hoping by your justice and impartiality to win over the men of Earth, and all the more a fool for so hoping.”
The Secretary reddened. ‘.1 deny all that. It is an obvious attempt to prejudice you, Your Excellency.”
But Ennius said, “I am not so easily prejudiced.” And then, to Schwartz, “ And what am 1 thinking?”
Schwartz replied, “That even if I could see clearly within a man’s skull, I need not necessarily tell the truth about what I see.”
The Procurator’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You are correct, quite correct. Do you maintain the truth of the claims put forward by Drs. Arvardan and Shekt?”
“Every word of it?”
“So! Yet unless a second such as you can be found, one who is not involved in the matter, your evidence would not be valid in law even if we could obtain general belief in you as a telepath.”
“But it is not a question of the law,” cried Arvardan, “but of the safety of the Galaxy.”,
“Your Excellency”--the Secretary rose in his seat--”I have a request to make. I would like to have this Joseph Schwartz removed from the room.”
“Why so?”
“This man, in addition to reading minds, has certain powers of mental force. I was captured by means of a paralysis induced by this Schwartz. It is my fear that he may attempt something of the sort now against me, or even against you, Your Excellency, that forces me to the request.”
Arvardan rose to his feet, but the Secretary overshouted him to say, “No hearing can be fair if a man is present who might subtly influence the mind of the judge by means of admitted mental gifts.”
Ennius made his decision quickly. An orderly entered, and Joseph Schwartz, offering no resistance, nor showing the slightest sign of perturbation on his moonlike face, was led away.
To Arvardan it was the final blow.
As for the Secretary, he rose now and for the moment stood there--a squat, grim figure in green; strong in his self-confidence.
He began, in serious, formal style, “Your Excellency, all of Dr. Arvardan’s beliefs and statements rest upon the testimony of Dr. Shekt. In turn, Dr. Shekt’s beliefs rest upon the dying delirium of one man. And all this, Your Excellency, all this, somehow never reached the surface until after Joseph Schwartz was submitted to the Synapsifier.
“Who, then, is Joseph Schwartz? Until Joseph Schwartz appeared on the scene, Dr. Shekt was a normal, untroubled man. You yourself, Your Excellency, spent an afternoon with him the day Schwartz was brought in for treatment. Was he abnormal then? Did he inform you of treason against the Empire? Of certain babblings on the part of a dying biochemist? Did he seem even troubled? Or suspicious? He says now that he was instructed by the High Minister to falsify the results of the Synapsifier tests, not to record the names of those treated. Did he tell you that then? Or only now, after that day on which Schwartz appeared?
“Again, who is Joseph Schwartz? He spoke no known language at the time he was brought in. So much we found out for ourselves later, when we first began to suspect the stability of Dr. Shekt’s reason. He was brought in by a farmer who knew nothing of his identity, or, indeed, any facts about him at all. Nor have any since been discovered.
“Yet this man has strange mental powers. He can stun at a hundred yards by thought alone--kill at closer range. I myself have been paralyzed by him; my arms and legs were manipulated by him; my mind might have been manipulated by him if he had wished.
“I believe, certainly, that Schwartz did manipulate the minds of these others. They say I captured them, that I threatened them with death, that I confessed to treason and to aspiring to Empire--Yet ask of them one question, Your Excellency. Have they not been thoroughly exposed to the influence of Schwartz, that is, of a man capable of controlling their minds?
“Is not perhaps Schwartz a traitor? If not, who is Schwartz?”
The Secretary seated himself, calm, almost genial.
Arvardan felt as though his brain had mounted a cyclotron and was spinning outward now in faster and faster revolutions.
What answer could one make? That Schwartz was from the past? What evidence was there for that? That the man spoke a genuinely primitive speech? But only he himself--Arvardan--could testify to that. And he, Arvardan, might well have a manipulated mind. After all, how could he tell his mind had not been manipulated? Who was Schwartz? What had so convinced him of this great plan of Galactic conquest?
He thought again. From where came his conviction of the truth of the conspiracy? He was an archaeologist, given to doubting, but now--Had it been one man’s word? One girl’s kiss? Or Joseph Schwartz?
He couldn’t think! He couldn’t think!
“Well?” Ennius sounded impatient. “Have you anything to say, Dr. Shekt? Or you, Dr. Arvardan?”
But Pola’s voice suddenly pierced the silence. “Why do you ask them? Can’t you see that it’s all a lie? Don’t you see that he’s tying us all up with his false tongue? Oh, we’re all going to die, and I don’t care any more--but we could stop it, we could stop it--And instead we just sit here and--and--talk--” She burst into wild sobs.
The Secretary said, “So we are reduced to the screams of a hysterical girl....Your Excellency, I have this proposition. My accusers say that all this, the alleged virus and whatever else they have in mind, is scheduled for a definite time--six in the morning, I believe. I offer to remain in your custody for a week. If what they say is true, word of an epidemic in the Galaxy ought to reach Earth within a few days. If such occurs, Imperial forces will still control Earth--”
“Earth is a fine exchange, indeed, for a Galaxy of humans,” mumbled the white-faced Shekt.
“I value my own life, and that of my people. We are hostages for our innocence, and I am prepared at this instant to inform the Society of Ancients that I will remain here for a week of my own free will and prevent any disturbances that might otherwise occur.”
He folded his arms.
Ennius looked up, his face troubled. “I find no fault in this man--”
Arvardan could stand it no more. With a quiet and deadly ferocity, he arose and strode quickly toward the Procurator. What he meditated was never known. Afterward he himself could not remember. At any rate, it made no difference. Ennius had a neuronic whip and used it.
For the third time since landing on Earth everything about Arvardan flamed up into pain, spun about, and vanished.
In the hours during which Arvardan was unconscious the six o’clock deadline was reached--
And passed!
Light--
Blurring light and misty shadows--melting and twisting, and then coming into focus.
A face--Eyes upon his--
“Pola!” Things were sharp and clear to Arvardan in a single, leaping bound. “What time is it?”
His fingers were hard upon her wrist, so that she winced involuntarily.
“It’s past seven,” she whispered. “Past the deadline.”
He looked about wildly, starting from the cot on which he lay, disregarding the burning in his joints. Shekt, his lean figure huddled in a chair, raised his head to nod in brief mournfulness.
“It’s all over, Arvardan.”
“Then Ennius--”
“Ennius,” said Shekt, “would not take the chance. Isn’t that strange?” He laughed a queer, cracked, rasping laugh. “The three of us singlehandedly discover a vast plot against humanity, singlehandedly we capture the ringleader and bring him to justice. It’s like a visicast, isn’t it, with the great all-conquering heroes zooming to victory in the nick of time? That’s where they usually end it. Only in our case the visicast went on and we found that nobody believed us. That doesn’t happen in visicasts, does it? Things end happily there, don’t they? It’s funny--” The words turned into rough, dry sobs.
Arvardan looked away, sick. Pola’s eyes were dark universes, moist and tear-filled. Somehow, for an instant, he was lost in them--they were universes, star-filled. And toward those stars little gleaming metallic cases were streaking, dee vouring the light-years as they penetrated hyperspace in calculated, deadly paths. Soon--perhaps already--they would approach, pierce atmospheres, fall apart into unseen deadly rains of virus--
Well, it was over. It could no longer be stopped. “Where is Schwartz?” he asked weakly. But Pola only shook her head. “They never brought him back.”
The door opened, and Arvardan was not so far gone in the acceptance of death as to fail to look up with a momentary wash of hope upon his face.
But it was Ennius, and Arvardan’s face hardened and turned away.
Ennius approached and looked momentarily at the father and daughter. But even now Shekt and Pola were primarily Earth creatures and could say nothing to the Procurator, even though they knew that short and violent as their future lives were to be, that of the Procurator would be even shorter and more violent.
Ennius tapped Arvardan on the shoulder. “Dr. Arvardan?”
“Your Excellency?” said Arvardan in a raw and bitter imitation of the other’s intonation.
“It is after six o’clock.” Ennius had not slept that night. With his official absolution of Balkis had come no absolute assurance that the accusers were completely mad--or under mental control. He had watched the soulless chronometer tick away the life of the Galaxy.
“Yes,” said Arvardan. “It is after six and the stars still shine.”
“But you still think you were right?”
“Your Excellency,” said Arvardan, “in a matter of hours the first victims will die. They won’t be noticed. Human beings die every day. In a week hundreds of thousands will have died. The percentage of recovery will be close to zero. No known remedies will be available. Several planets will send out emergency calls for epidemic relief. In two weeks scores of planets will have joined the call and States of Emergency will be declared in the nearer sectors. In a month the Galaxy will be a writhing mass of disease. In two months not twenty planets will remain untouched. In six months the Galaxy will be dead....And what will you do when those first reports come in?
“Let me predict that as well. You will send out reports that the epidemics may have started on Earth. This will save no lives. You will declare war on the Ancients of Earth. This will save no lives. You will wipe the Earthman from the face of his planet. This will save no lives....Or else you will act as go-between for your friend Balkis and the Galactic Council, or the survivors thereof. You may then have the honor of handing the wretched remnants of the crumbs of the Empire to Balkis in return for antitoxin, which mayor may not reach sufficient worlds in sufficient quantities in sufficient time to save a single human being.”
Ennius smiled without conviction. “Don’t you think you’re being ridiculously overdramatic?”
“Oh yes. I’m a dead man and you’re a corpse. But let’s be devilishly cool and Imperial about it, don’t y’know?”
“If you resent the use of the neuronic whip--”
“Not at all,” ironically. “I’m used to it. I hardly feel it any more.”
“Then I am putting it to you as logically as I can. This has been a nasty mess. It would be difficult to report sensibly, yet as difficult to suppress without reason. Now the other accusers involved are Earthmen; your voice is the only one which would carry weight. Suppose you sign a statement to the effect that the accusation was made at a time when you were not in your--Well, we’ll think of some phrase that will cover it without bringing in the notion of mental control.”
“That would be simple. Say I was crazy, drunk, hypnotized, or drugged. Anything goes.”
“Will you be reasonable? Now look, I tell you that you have been tampered with.” He was whispering tensely. “You’re a man of Sirius. Why have you fallen in love with an Earthgirl?”
“What?”
“Don’t shout. I say--in your normal state, could you ever have gone native? Could you have considered that sort of thing?” He nodded his head just perceptibly in the direction of Pola.
For an instant Arvardan stared at him in surprise. Then, quickly, his hand shot out and seized the highest Imperial authority on Earth by the throat. Ennius’s hands wrenched wildly and futilely at the other’s grip.
Arvardan said, “That sort of thing, eh? Do you mean Miss Shekt? If you do, I want to hear the proper respect, eh? Ah, go away. You’re dead anyway.”
Ennius said gaspingly, “Dr. Arvardan, you will consider yourself under ar--”
The door opened again, and the colonel was upon them.
“Your Excellency, the Earth rabble has returned.”
“What? Hasn’t this Balkis spoken to his officials? He was going to arrange for a week’s stay.”
“He has spoken and he’s still here. But so is the mob. We are ready to fire upon them, and it is my advice as military commander that we proceed to do that. Have you any suggestions, Your Excellency?”
“Hold your fire until I see Balkis. Have him sent in here.” He turned. “Dr. Arvardan, I will deal with you later.”
Balkis was brought in, smiling. He bowed formally to Ennius, who yielded him the barest nod in return.
“See here,” said the Procurator brusquely, “I am informed your men are packing the approaches to Fort Dibburn. This was not part of our agreement....Now, we do not wish to cause bloodshed, but our patience is not inexhaustible. Can you disperse them peaceably?”
“If I choose, Your Excellency.”
“If you choose? You had better choose. And at once.”
“Not at all, Your Excellency!” And now the Secretary smiled and flung out an arm. His voice was a wild taunt, too long withheld, now gladly released. “Fool! You waited too long and can die for that! Or live a slave, if you prefer--but remember that it will not be an easy life.”
The wildness and fervor of the statement produced no shattering effect upon Ennius. Even here, at what was undoubtedly the profoundest blow of Ennius’s career, the stolidity of the Imperial career diplomat did not desert him. It was only that the grayness and deep-eyed weariness about him deepened.
“Then I lost so much in my caution? The story of the virus--was true?” There was almost an abstract, indifferent wonder in his voice. “But Earth, yourself--you are all my hostages.”
“Not at all,” came the instant, victorious cry. “It is you and yours that are my hostages. The virus that now is spreading through the Universe has not left Earth immune. Enough already saturates the atmosphere of every garrison on the planet, including Everest itself. We of Earth are immune, but how do you feel. Procurator? Weak? Is your throat dry? Your head feverish? It win not be long, you know. And it is only from us that you can obtain the antidote.”
For a long moment Ennius said nothing, his face thin and suddenly incredibly haughty.
Then he turned to Arvardan and in cool, cultured tones said, “Dr. Arvardan, I find I must beg your pardon for having doubted your word. Dr. Shekt, Miss Shekt--my apologies.”
Arvardan bared his teeth. “Thank you for your apologies. They will be of great help to everybody.”
“Your sarcasm is deserved,” said the Procurator. “If you will excuse me, I will return to Everest to die with my family. Any question of compromise with this--man is, of course, out of the question. My soldiers of the Imperial Procuracy of Earth will, I am sure, acquit themselves properly before their death, and not a few Earthmen will undoubtedly have time to light the way for us through the passages of death....Good-by.”
“Hold on. Hold on. Don’t go.” Slowly, slowly, Ennius looked up to the new voice.
Slowly, slowly, Joseph Schwartz, frowning a bit, swaying a bit with weariness, stepped across the threshold.
The Secretary tensed and sprang backward. With a sudden, wary suspicion, he faced the man from the past.
“No,” he gritted, “you can’t get the secret of the antidote out of me. Only certain men have it, and only certain others are trained to use it properly. All these are safely out of your reach for the time it takes the toxin to do its work.”
“They are out of reach now,” admitted Schwartz, “but not for the time it would take the toxin to do its work. You see, there is no toxin, and no virus to stamp out.”
The statement did not quite penetrate. Arvardan felt a sudden choking thought enter his mind. Had he been tampered with? Had all this been a gigantic hoax, one that had taken in the Secretary as well as himself? If so, why?
But Ennius spoke. “Quickly, man. Your meaning.”
“It’s not complicated,” said Schwartz. “When we were here last night I knew I could do nothing by simply sitting and listening. So I worked carefully on the Secretary’s mind for a long time....I dared not be detected. And then, finally, he asked that I be ordered out of the room. This was what I wanted, of course, and the rest was easy.
“I stunned my guard and left for the airstrip. The fort was on a twenty-four-hour alert. The aircraft were fueled, armed, and ready for flight. The pilots were waiting. I picked one out--and we flew to Senloo.”
The Secretary might have wished to say something. His jaws writhed soundlessly.
It was Shekt who spoke. “But you could force no one to fly a plane, Schwartz. It was all you could do to make a man walk.”
“Yes, when it’s against his will. But from Dr. Arvardan’s mind I knew how Sirians hated Earthmen--so I looked for a pilot who was born in the Sirius Sector and found Lieutenant Claudy.”
“Lieutenant Claudy?” cried Arvardan.
“Yes--Oh, you know him. Yes, I see. It’s quite clear in your mind.”
“I’ll bet....Go ahead, Schwartz.”
“This officer hated Earthmen with a hate that’s difficult to understand, even for me, and I was inside his mind. He wanted to bomb them. He wanted to destroy them. It was only discipline that tied him fast and kept him from taking out his plane then and there.
“That kind of a mind is different. Just a little suggestion, a little push, and discipline was not enough to hold him. I don’t even think he realized that I climbed into the plane with him.”
“How did you find Senloo?” whispered Shekt.
“In my time,” said Schwartz, “there was a city called St. Louis. It was at the junction of two great rivers....We found Senloo. It was night, but there was a dark patch in a sea of radioactivity--and Dr. Shekt had said the Temple was an isolated oasis of normal soil. We dropped a flare--at least it was my mental suggestion--and there was a five-pointed building below us. It jibed with the picture I had received in the Secretary’s mind....Now there’s only a hole, a hundred feet deep, where that building was. That happened at three in the morning. No virus was sent out and the universe is free.”
It was an animal--like howl that emerged from the Secretary’s lips--the unearthly screech of a demon. He seemed to gather for a leap, and then--collapsed.
A thin froth of saliva trickled slowly down his lower lip.
“I never touched him,” said Schwartz softly. Then, staring thoughtfully at the fallen figure, “I was back before six, but I knew I would have to wait for the deadline to pass. Balkis would have to crow. I knew that from his mind, and it was from his own mouth, only, that I could convict him....Now there he lies.”
Thirty days had passed since Joseph Schwartz had lifted off an airport runway on a night dedicated to Galactic destruction. with alarm bells shrilling madly behind him and orders to re. turn burning the ether toward him.
He had not returned; not, at least, until he had destroyed the Temple of Senloo.
The heroism was finally made official now. In his pocket he had the ribbon of the Order of the/Spaceship and Sun, First Class. Only two others in all the Galaxy had ever gotten it nonposthumously.
That was something for a retired tailor.
No one, of course, outside the most official of officialdom, knew exactly what he had done, but that didn’t matter. Some. day, in the history books, it would all become part of a bright and indelible record.
He was walking through the quiet night now toward Dr. Shekt’s house. The city was peaceful, as peaceful as the starry glitter above. In isolated places on Earth bands of Zealots still made trouble, but their leaders were dead or captive and the moderate Earthmen, themselves, could take care of the rest.
The first huge convoys of normal soil were already on their way. Ennius had again made his original proposal that Earth’s population be moved to another planet, but that was out. Charity was not wanted. Let Earthmen have a chance to remake their own planet. Let them build once again the home of their fathers, the native world of man. Let them labor with their hands, removing the diseased soil and replacing it with healthy, seeing the green grow where all had been dead and making the desert blossom in beauty once again.
It was an enormous job; it could take a century--but what of that? Let the Galaxy lend machinery; let the Galaxy ship food; let the Galaxy supply soil. Of their incalculable resources, it would be a trifle--and it would be repaid.
And someday, once again, the Earthman would be a people among peoples, inhabiting a planet among planets, looking all humanity in the eye in dignity and equality.
Schwartz’s heart pounded at the wonder of it an as he walked up the steps to the front door. Next week he left with Arvardan for the great central worlds of the Galaxy. Who else of his generation had ever left Earth?
And momentarily he thought of the old Earth, his Earth. So long dead. So long dead.
And yet but three and a half months had passed...
He paused, his hand on the point of signaling at the door, as the words from within sounded in his mind. How clearly he heard thoughts now, like tiny bells.
It was Arvardan, of course, with more in his mind than words alone could ever handle. “Pola, I’ve waited and thought, and thought and waited. I won’t any more. You’re coming with me.”
And Pola, with a mind as eager as his, yet with words of the purest reluctance, said, “I couldn’t, Bel. It’s quite impossible. My backwoods manners and bearing...I’d feel silly in those big worlds out there. And, besides, I’m only an Ear--”
“Don’t say it. You’re my wife, that’s an. If anyone asks what and who you are, you’re a native of Earth and a citizen of the Empire. If they want further details, you’re my wife.”
“Well, and after you make this address at Trantor to your archaeological society, what next?”
“What next? Well, first we take a year off and see every major world in the Galaxy. We won’t skip one, even if we have to get on and off it by mail ship. You’ll get yourself an eyeful of the Galaxy and the best honeymoon that government money can buy.”
“And then...”
“And then it’s back to Earth, and we’ll volunteer for the labor battalions and spend the next forty years of our lives lugging dirt to replace the radioactive areas.”
“Now why are you going to do that?”
“Because”--there was the suspicion of a deep breath at this point in Arvardan’s Mind Touch--”I love you and it’s what you want, and because I’m a patriotic Earthman and have the honorary naturalization papers to prove it. “
“All right...”
And at this point the conversation stopped. But, of course, the Mind Touches did not, and Schwartz, in full satisfaction, and a little embarrassment, backed away.
He could wait. Time enough to disturb them when things had settled down further.
He waited in the street, with the cold stars burning down--a whole Galaxy of them, seen and unseen.
And for himself, and the new Earth, and all those millions of planets far beyond, he repeated softly once more that ancient poem that he alone now, of so many quadrillions, knew:
“Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made...”