12

THE BATTLESHIP’S caller-system bawled imperatively, “Fanshaw, Folsom, Fuller, Garson, Gleed, Gregory, Haines, Harrison, Hope—” and so on down through the alphabet.

A steady trickle of men flowed along the passages, catwalks and alleyways toward the forward chartroom. They gathered outside it in small clusters, chattering in undertones and sending odd scraps of conversation echoing down the corridor.

“Wouldn’t say anything to us but, ‘Myob!’ We became sick and tired of it after a while.”

“You should have split up, like we did. That showplace on the outskirts just doesn’t know what a Terran looks like. I walked in and took a seat with no trouble at all.”

“If ten of you stick together, all in the same uniform, you must expect to be identified on sight. That and your depraved faces is a complete giveaway.”

“Did you hear about Meakin? He mended a leaky roof, chose a bottle of double-dith in payment and mopped the lot. He was dead flat when we found him. Snoring like a hog. Had to be carried back.”

“Some guys have all the luck. We got the brush-off wherever we showed our faces. Man, it was wearing.”

“You should have separated, like I said.”

“Half the mess must still be lying in the gutter—they haven’t turned up yet.”

“Grayder will be hopping mad. He’d have stopped this morning’s second quota if he’d known in time.”

“When my turn comes the technique will be to get down that gangway and run like hell before they’ve a chance to call me back.”

“Sammy, you’ll be mighty lucky if you get a turn.”

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Every now and again First Mate Morgan stuck his head out of the chartroom doorway and yelled a name already voiced on the caller. Frequently there was no response.

“Harrison!” he bawled.

With a puzzled expression, Harrison went inside. Captain Grayder was there seated behind his desk and gazing moodily at a list lying before him. Colonel Shelton was stiff and erect to one side with Major Hame slightly behind. Both wore the pained look of those tolerating a bad smell while a half-witted plumber searches in vain for the leak.

In front of the desk the Ambassador was tramping steadily to and fro, muttering deep down in his chins. “Barely five days and already the rot has set in.” He halted as Harrison entered, fired off sharply, “So it’s you, Mister. When did you return from leave?”

“The evening before last, sir.”

“Ahead of time, eh? That’s curious. Did you get a puncture or something?”

“No, sir. I didn’t take my bicycle with me.”

“Which is just as well,” approved the Ambassador. “If you had done so you’d now be a thousand miles away and still pushing hard.”

“Why, sir?”

“Why? He asks me why! That is precisely what I want to know— why?” He fumed a bit, then inquired, “Did you visit this town by yourself or in company?”

“I went with Sergeant Gleed, sir.”

“Call him,” ordered the Ambassador, looking at Morgan.

Opening the door, Morgan shouted, “Gleed! Gleed!”

No answer.

He tried again, without result. Once more they put it over the caller-system. The name resounded all over the ship from nose to tail. Sergeant Gleed refused to be among those present.

“Has he signed in?”

Grayder consulted his list. “Yes. In early. Twenty-four hours ahead of time. He may have sneaked out again with the second liberty quota this morning and omitted to put it in the book. That’s a double crime.”

“If he’s not on the ship he’s off the ship, crime or no crime.”

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“Yes, Your Excellency.” Grayder registered slight weariness.

“GLEED!” howled Morgan outside the door. A moment later he poked his head within and said, “Your Excellency, one of the men tells me that Sergeant Gleed cannot be aboard because he saw him in town an hour ago.”

“Send him in.” The Ambassador made an impatient gesture at Harrison. “Stay where you are, Mister, and keep those confounded ears from flapping. I’ve not finished with you yet.”

A tall, gangling grease-monkey came in, blinked around obviously awed by the assembly of top brass.

“What do you know about Sergeant Gleed?” demanded the Ambassador.

The other nervously licked his lips, sorry that he had mentioned the missing man. “lt’s like this, your honor

“Call me “sir.”

“Yes, your honor.” More disconcerted blinking. “I went out with the second party early this morning but came back a short time ago because my stomach was acting up. On the way here I saw Sergeant Gleed and spoke to him.

“Where?”

“In town, your honor, sir. He was sitting in one of those big, long-distance coaches. I thought it a bit queer.”

“Get down to the roots of it, man! What did he tell you, if anything?”

“Not much, sir, your honor. He seemed pretty chipper about something. Mentioned a young widow struggling to look after two hundred acres. Someone had told him about her and he thought he’d take a peek.” He hesitated, backed off warily and finished, “he also said that I’d see him in irons or never.”

“One of your men,” said the Ambassador to Shelton. “A hardened space-trooper, allegedly experienced, loyal and well-disciplined. One with long service, three stripes and a pension to lose.” His attention returned to the informant. “Did he say exactly where he was going?”

“No, sir, your . . . uh. I asked him but he grinned like an ape and said, ‘Myob!’ So I came back to the ship.”

“All right. You may go.” The Ambassador watched the other de-

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part then continued with Harrison. “You were one of that first quota?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me tell you something, Mister. Over four hundred men went out. About two hundred have returned. Forty of those were in various stages of alcoholic turpitude. Ten of them are locked in the brig yelling, ‘I won’t’ in steady chorus. Doubtless they’ll continue to scream it until they’ve sobered up.”

He stared at Harrison as if holding that worthy personally responsible for the mess, then went on, “There is something paradoxical about this situation. I can understand the drunks. There are always a few morons who blow their tops first day on land. But of the two hundred who have condescended to come back about half returned before time, the same as you did. Their reasons were identical: the town was unfriendly, everyone treated them like ghosts until they’d had enough.

Harrison made no comment.

“So we have two diametrically opposed reactions,” the Ambassador complained. “One lot of men say the place stinks so much they’d far rather be back on the ship. Another lot finds the town so hospitable that either they get filled to the gills with some horrible muck called double-dith or they stay sober and desert the service. I want an explanation. There has to be one somewhere. You’ve been twice in this town. What can you tell us?”

Carefully, Harrison said, “It all depends upon whether or not one is immediately recognizable as a Terran. Also on whether you happen to make contact with Gands who’d rather convert you than give you the brush-off.” He pondered a few seconds, added, “Uniforms are a bad factor. The Gands seem to hate the sight of them.”

“You mean they’re allergic to uniforms?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any idea why?”

“I couldn’t say for certain, sir. I don’t know enough about them yet. As a guess, I think they may have been taught to associate uniforms with the Terran regime from which their ancestors escaped.”

“Escaped? Nonsense!” exclaimed the Ambassador. “They grabbed the benefit of Terran inventions, Terran techniques, and Terran manufacturing ability to go someplace where they’d have more

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elbow-room.” He gave Harrison the sour eye. “Don’t any of them wear uniforms?”

“Not that I could recognize as such. They seem to take pleasure in expressing their individual personalities by wearing anything from pigtails to pink boots; oddity in attire is the norm among the Gands. To them, uniformity is the real oddity—they think it’s submissive and degrading.”

“You refer to them as Gands. From where did they get that name?”

Harrison told him, thinking back to Elissa and her explanation. In his mind’s eye he could see her now. And Seth’s place with its inviting tables and steam rising behind the counter and mouthwatering smells oozing from the background. Now that he came to visualize the scene again it appeared to embody a subtle, elusive but essential something that the ship had never possessed.

“And this person,” he concluded, “invented what they call The Weapon.”

“H’m-m-m! And they say he was a Terran, eh? What did he look like? Did you see a photograph or statue?”

“They don’t erect statues, sir. They don’t consider that any person is more important than any other.”

“Bunkum!” snapped the Ambassador, instinctively rejecting that viewpoint. “Did it occur to you to gather any revealing details about him or, at least, find out at what period in history this wonderful weapon first appeared?”

“No, sir,” confessed Harrison. “I didn’t think it important.”

“You wouldn’t. Some of you men are too slow to catch a Callistrian sloth wandering in its sleep. I don’t criticize your abilities as spacemen but as intelligence-agents you’re a dead loss.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Harrison.

Sorry? You louse! whispered something deep within his own mind. Why should you be sorry? He’s only a pompous fat man who couldn’t cancel an ob if he tried. He’s no better than you. Those raw boys prancing around on Hygeia would maintain that he’s not as good as you because he’s got a pot-belly. Yet you keep staring at his pot-belly and saying, “Sir” and, “I’m sorry.” If he tried to ride your bike he’d fall off before he’d gone ten yards. He’s just another

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Terran freak. Go spit in his eye and say, “I won’t!” You’re not scared, are you?

“No!” announced Harrison, loudly and emphatically.

Captain Grayder glanced up in surprise. “If you’re going to start answering questions before they’ve been asked, you’d better see the medic. Or have we a telepath on board?”

“I was thinking,” Harrison said.

“I approve of that,” put in the Ambassador. He lugged a couple of huge tomes off the wall-shelves, began to thumb rapidly through them. “Do plenty of thinking whenever you’ve the chance and it will become a habit. It will get easier and easier in time until eventually a day may come when it can be performed without great pain.”

Shoving the books back, he pulled out two more, spoke to Major Hame who happened to be at his elbow. “Don’t pose there glassy-eyed like a relic propped up in a military museum. Lend a hand with this mountain of knowledge. I want Gandhi, anywhere from four hundred to a thousand Earth-years ago.”

Hame came to life, started dragging out books and searching through them. So did Colonel Shelton. Grayder remained at his desk and continued to mourn the missing.

“Ah, here it is, nearly six hundred years back.” The Ambassador ran a plump finger along the printed lines. “Gandhi, sometimes called Bapu, or Father. Citizen of Hindi. Politico-philosopher. Opposed authority by means of an ingenious system called Civil Disobedience. Last remnants disappeared with the Great Explosion but may still persist on some planet out of contact.”

“Evidently it does,” commented Grayder dryly.

“Civil disobedience,” repeated the Ambassador, screwing up his eyes. He had the air of trying to study something turned upside-down and inside-out. “They can’t make that a social basis. It just won’t work.”

“It does work,” asserted Harrison, forgetting to put in the “sir.”

“Are you contradicting me, Mister?”

“I’m stating a fact.”

“Your Excellency,” put in Grayder, “I suggest—”

“Leave this to me.” His color deepening, the Ambassador waved him away. His gaze remained angrily on Harrison. “You are very far from being an expert upon socio-economic problems. Get that into

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your head, Mister. Anyone of your caliber can be fooled by superficial appearances.”

“It works,” persisted Harrison, finding cause to marvel at his own stubbornness.

“So does your damnfool bicycle. You’ve a bicycle mentality.”

Something snapped and a voice remarkably like his own said, “Nuts!” Astounded by this phenomenon, Harrison waggled his ears.

“What was that, Mister?”

“Nuts!” he repeated, feeling that what has been done cannot be undone.

Beating the purpling Ambassador to the draw, Grayder stood up, his expression severe, and exercised his own authority.

“Regardless of further leave-quotas, if any, you are confined to the ship. Now get out!”

Harrison departed, his mind in a whirl but his soul strangely satisfied. Outside, First Mate Morgan glowered at him.

“How long d’you think it’s going to take me to work through this list of names when guys like you squat in there for a week?” He grunted with ire, cupped hands around his mouth and bellowed, “Hope! Hope!”

No reply.

“Hope’s been abandoned,” informed Trooper Kinvig.

“That’s really funny,” sneered Morgan. “Look at me rolling all over the deck.” He cupped hands again and tried the next name. “Hyland! Hyland!”

No response.

Four more days, long, tedious, dragging ones. That made nine in all since the battleship formed the rut in which it was still sitting.

There was trouble on board. Put off repeatedly, the third and fourth leave-quotas were becoming impatient, irritable.

“Morgan showed him the third roster again this morning. Same result. Grayder was forced to admit that this world cannot be defined as hostile and that we’re legally entitled to run free.”

“Well, why the blazes doesn’t he keep to the book? The Space Committee could crucify him for ignoring it.”

“Same excuse. He says he’s not denying leave, he’s merely postponing it. That’s a crafty evasion, isn’t it? He says he’ll allow us to go out immediately the missing men come back.

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“That might be never. Darn him, he’s using them as a pretext to gyp me out of my liberty.”

It was a powerful and legitimate complaint. Weeks, months, years of close confinement in a constantly vibrating metal bottle, no matter how big and comfortable, demands ultimate release. Men need fresh air, the good earth, the broad, clear-cut horizon, bulk-food, feminine companionship, new faces.

“He would ram home the stopper just when we’ve learned the best way to get around. Civilian clothes and behave like Gands, that’s the secret. Even the first-quota boys are ready for another try.”

“Grayder daren’t take the risk. He’s lost too many men already. One more quota cut in half and he won’t have sufficient crew to lift the ship and take it home. We’d be stuck here for keeps. How’d you like that, freak?”

“I wouldn’t grieve.”

“He could train the bureaucrats to run the ship. It’s high time those myopic bums did some honest work.”

“That would take three years. Your training lasted three years, didn’t it?”

Harrison came along holding a small envelope. Three of them picked on him at sight.

“Look who sauced His Loftiness and got confined to ship—same as us.”

“That’s what I like about it,” observed Harrison. “Better to be fastened down for something than for nothing.”

“It won’t be for much longer, you’ll see! We’re not going to hang around bellyaching forever. Mighty soon we’ll do something.”

“Such as what?”

“We’re thinking it over,” evaded the other, not liking to be taken up so quickly. He noticed the envelope. “What’s that you’ve got there?—the morning mail?”

“Exactly that,” Harrison agreed.

“Have it your own way. I wasn’t being nosey. I thought perhaps you’d got some more written orders. You engineers usually pick up the paper-stuff first.”

“It is mail,” said Harrison.

“Don’t be daft. Nobody receives letters in this part of the cosmos.”

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“I do.”

“Well, how did you get that one?”

“Worrall brought it in from town a few minutes ago. A friend of mine gave him dinner and let him bring the letter to wipe out the ob.” He pulled a large ear and smirked at them. “Influence, that’s what you boys need.”

Showing annoyance, one demanded, “What’s Worrall doing off the boat? Is he privileged?”

“In a way. He’s married and has three kids.”

“So what?”

“The Ambassador figures that some people can be trusted more than others. They’re not as likely to disappear, having too much to lose. So a few have been sorted out and sent into town to seek information about the missing ones.”

“Have they found out anything?”

“Not much. Worrall says the quest is sheer waste of time. He traced a few of our men here and there, tried to persuade them to return but each said, “I won’t.’ The Gands all said, ‘Myob!’ And that was that.”

“There must be something in this Gand business,” said one of them thoughtfully. “I’d give a lot to look into it for myself.”

“That’s what Grayder is afraid of.”

“We’ll give him more than that to worry about if he doesn’t become reasonable pretty soon. Our patience is evaporating fast.”

“Mutinous talk,” Harrison reproved. He shook his head and displayed great sorrow. “You fellows shock me.”

Continuing along the corridor, he reached his tiny cabin, fingered the envelope in pleased anticipation. The writing inside might be feminine. He hoped so. Tearing it open, he had a look. It wasn’t.

Signed by Gleed, the missive said, “Never mind where I am or what I’m doing—this note might get into the wrong hands. All I’ll tell you is that I expect to be fixed up topnotch providing I wait a decent interval to improve acquaintance. The rest of this directly concerns you.”

“Huh?” He lay back on his bunk and held the letter nearer the light.

“I found a little fat guy running an empty shop. He does nothing

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but sit there waiting. Next, I learned that he has established possession by occupation of the premises. He’s doing it on behalf of a factory that makes two-ball rollers, you know, those fan-driven motor-bikes. They want someone to operate the place as a local roller sales and service depot. The little fat man has had four applications to date but none from anyone with engineering ability and experience. The one who eventually gains this post will thereby plant a functional ob on the town, whatever that means. Anyway, this lovely business proposition is measured to your size. It’s yours for the taking. Don’t be freaky, freak. Jump in with me—the water’s fine!”

“Zipping meteors!” said Harrison. His eyes moved on to the footnote at bottom.

“P.S. Seth will give you the address. P.P.S. This place where I am right now is your brunette’s home town and she’s thinking of coming back. She wants to live near her sister. So do I, man! The said sister is a honey!”

Stirring restlessly, he read it through a second time and a third, got up and paced around the cabin. There were sixteen hundred occupied worlds within the scope of the Terran Empire. He’d seen less than one-twentieth of them. No spaceman could live long enough to visit the lot. The service was divided into cosmic groups each dealing with its own relatively small section of the galaxy.

Except by hearsay—of which there was plenty and most of it highly colored—he would never know what heavens or pseudo-heavens existed in the other sections. In any case, it would be a blind gamble to pick on an unfamiliar world for landbound life solely on somebody else’s recommendation. Not all think alike or have the same tastes. One man’s meat may be another’s poison.

The choice for retirement—which was the ugly name for beginning another, different but vigorous life—was high-priced Terra or some more desirable planet in his own section. There was the Epsilon group, for instance, fourteen of them, all attractive providing you could suffer the gravity and endure lumbering around like a tired elephant. And there was Norton’s Pink Paradise if, for the sake of getting by in peace, you could pander to Septimus Norton’s rajah-complex and put up with his delusions of grandeur.

Out near the edge of the Milky Way was a matriarchy bossed by

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blonde Amazons, and a world of self-styled wizards, and a Pentecostal planet, and a globe where semi-sentient vegetables cultivated themselves in obedience to human masters. All these scattered across many light-years of space but accessible by Bliederdrive.

There were more than fifty known to him by personal experience, though only a tithe of the whole. All offered life and that human company which is the essence of life. But this world of the Gands had something all the others lacked; it had the quality of being present, in the here and now. It was part of the existing environment from which he drew data on which to build his decisions. The others were not. They lost virtue by being absent and far away.

Quietly he made his way to the Blieder-room lockers, spent an hour cleaning and oiling his bicycle. Twilight was approaching when he returned. Taking a thin plaque from his pocket, he hung it on the wall, lay on his bunk and contemplated it.

F.—I.W.

The caller-system clicked, cleared its throat and announced, “All personnel will stand by for general instructions at eight hours tomorrow.”

“I won’t,” said Harrison, and closed his eyes.

It was seven-twenty in the morning but nobody thought it early. There is little sense of earliness or lateness among space-roamers; to regain it they have to be landbound a month, watching a sun rise and set.

The chartroom was empty but there was considerable activity in the control-cabin. Grayder was there with Shelton and Hame, also Chief Navigators Adamson, Werth and Yates, and, of course, His Excellency.

“I never thought the day would come,” groused the latter, scowling at the star map over which the navigators pored. “Less than a couple of weeks and we retreat, admitting complete defeat.”

“With all respect, Your Excellency, it doesn’t look like that to me,” said Grayder. “One can be defeated only by avowed enemies. These people are not enemies. That is where they’ve got us by the short hairs. They’re not definable as hostile.”

“That may be. I still say it’s defeat. What else can you call it?”

“We’ve been outwitted by awkward relatives. There’s nothing we

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can do about it. A man doesn’t beat up his nephews and nieces merely because they refuse to speak to him.”

“That is your viewpoint as a ship’s commander. You have been confronted with a situation that requires you to return to base and report. It’s routine. The entire space service is hidebound with routine.” The Ambassador again eyed the star map as if he considered it offensive. “My own status is different. If I get out without so much as leaving a consul, it’s diplomatic defeat, an insult to the dignity and prestige of Terra. I’m far from sure that I ought to go. It might be better if I stayed put even though circumstances would prevent me from functioning effectively and even though my presence would give these Gands endless opportunities for further insults.”

“I wouldn’t presume to advise you what to do for the best,” Grayder said. “All I know is this: we carry troops and armaments for any protective or policing purposes that might be necessary here. But we cannot use them offensively against the Gands because they have provided no real excuse for doing so, also because we cannot influence a government that doesn’t exist, and also because our full strength isn’t enough to crush a population numbering many millions. We’d need an armada to make an impression upon this world. Even then we’d be fighting at the extreme limit of our reach and the reward of victory would be an area of destruction not worth having.”

“Don’t remind me. I have examined the problem from every angle until I’m sick of it.”

Grayder shrugged. He was a man of action so long as it was action in deep space. Planetary shenanigans were not properly his responsibility. Now that the decisive moment was drawing near, when he would be back in his own attenuated element, he was becoming phlegmatic. To him, the Gand world was a visiting-place among a big number of them. And there were plenty more to come.

“Your Excellency, if you’re in serious doubt about remaining here or returning with us, I’d appreciate it if you’d reach a decision fairly soon. First Mate Morgan has given me the tip that if I haven’t approved the third leave-quota by ten o’clock the men intend to take matters into their own hands and walk out.”

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“That kind of conduct would get them into trouble of a really hot kind, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t know, really I just don’t know,” confessed Grayder.

“You mean they can actually defy you and get away with it?”

“Their idea is to turn my own quibbling against me. Since I’ve said repeatedly that I’m not officially forbidding leave, a walkout cannot be construed as mutiny. As you know, Your Excellency, I have been postponing leave. Therefore the men could plead before the Space Committee that I have ignored regulations. It is quite possible that the plea might succeed if the Space Committee happened to be in the mood to assert its authority.”

“The Space Committee ought to be taken on a few long flights,” opined the Ambassador. “They’d discover a lot of things they’ll never learn behind a desk.” He became mockingly hopeful. “How about us accidentally dropping our cargo of bureaucrats overboard on the way home? Such a misfortune should benefit the spaceways if not humanity in general.”

“The suggestion strikes me as Gandish,” said Grayder.

“The Gands wouldn’t think of it. Their one and only technique is to say no, no, a thousand times no. That’s all. But to judge by what has happened here it is more than enough.” Morosely, the Ambassador pondered his predicament, decided, “I’m coming with you. It goes against the grain because it smacks of abject surrender. To stay would be a defiant gesture but I have to face the fact that it wouldn’t serve any useful purpose at the present stage.”

“Would you like us to return you to Hygeia?”

“No. The consul there is welcome to that crowd of nakes. Besides, I think I should give Terra the benefit of my personal report about this trip.”

“Very well, Your Excellency.” Going to a port, Grayder looked through it toward the town. “We have lost approximately four hundred men. Some of them have deserted for keeps. The others will return in their own good time and if I wait long enough. The latter have struck lucky, got their legs under somebody’s table and are likely to extend their leave for as long as the fun lasts. They’ll come back when it suits them, thinking they may as well be hung for sheep as for lambs. I have that sort of trouble on every long trip. It isn’t so bad on the short ones.” Moodily he surveyed a terrain

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bare of returning prodigals. “But we dare not wait for them. Not here.”

“No, I reckon not.”

“If we hang around much longer we’re going to lose another two hundred. There won’t be enough skilled men to take the boat up. The only way in which I can beat them to the draw is to give the order to prepare for take-off. They’ll all come under flight regulations from that moment.” He put on a pained smile. “That will give the space-lawyers among them plenty to think about.”

“All right, make the order as soon as you like,” approved the Ambassador. He joined the other at the port, studied the distant road, watched three Gand coaches whirl along it without stopping. He frowned, still upset by the type of mind which insists on pretending that a metal mountain is not there. Then his attention turned aside toward the tail-end. “What are those men doing outside?”

Shooting a swift glance in the same direction, Grayder grabbed the caller-microphone and rapped, “All personnel will prepare for take-off at once!” Then he seized his intercom phone and spoke on that. “Who’s there? Sergeant Major Bidworthy? Look, Sergeant Major, there are half a dozen men loafing outside the midway lock. Order them in immediately—we’re lifting as soon as everything is ready.”

By now the fore and aft gangways had been rolled into their stowage spaces. The midway one swiftly followed. Some fast-thinking quartermaster prevented further escapes by operating the midship ladder-wind, thus trapping Bidworthy along with an unknown number of would-be sinners.

Finding himself stalled by the fifty-foot drop, Bidworthy stood in the rim of the airlock and glared at those outside. His mustache not only bristled, but quivered. Five of the objects of his fierce attention had been members of the first leave-quota. One of them was Trooper Casartelli. That got Bidworthy’s rag out, a trooper. The sixth was Harrison, complete with bicycle polished and shining.

Searing the lot of them, especially the trooper, Bidworthy grated, “Get back on board. No funny business. We’re about to go up.”

“Hear that, Mortimer?” asked one, nudging the nearest. “Get back

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on board. If you can’t jump fifty feet you’d better flap your arms and fly.”

“No sauce from you,” roared Bidworthy. “I have my orders.”

“Ye gods, he actually takes orders! At his age!”

Bidworthy scrabbled at the lock’s smooth rim in vain search of something to grasp. A ridge, a knob, any kind of projection was needed to help take the strain.

“I warn you men that if you try me too—

“Quiet, freak.”

“Save your breath, Rulus,” put in Casartelli. “From now on I’m a Gand.” With that, he turned away and walked rapidly toward the road. Four followed him.

Getting astride his bike, Harrison put a foot on the pedal. His back tire promptly sank with a loud whee-e-e.

“Come back!” howled Bidworthy at the retreating five. “Come back!” He made extravagant motions, tried to tear the ladder from its automatic grips. A siren keened thinly inside the vessel and that upped his agitation by several ergs.

“Hear that?” His expression murderous, he watched Harrison calmly tighten the rear valve and apply a hand-pump. “We’re about to lift. For the last time—”

Again the siren, this time in a rapid series of shrill toots. Bidworthy jumped backward as the airlock seal came down. The lock closed. Harrison again mounted his machine, settled a foot on a pedal but remained watching.

The metal monster shivered from nose to tail then arose slowly and in complete silence. There was stately magnificence in this ascent of such enormous bulk. The ship gradually increased its rate of climb, went faster, faster, became a toy, a dot, and finally disappeared.

For a brief moment Harrison felt a touch of doubt, a hint of regret. It soon passed away. He glanced toward the road.

The five self-elected Gands had thumbed a coach which was now picking them up. That was helpfulness apparently precipitated by the ship’s vanishing. Quick on the uptake, these people. He saw it move off on huge rubber balls bearing the five with it. A fan-cycle raced in the opposite direction, hummed into the distance.

“Your brunette,” was how Gleed had described her. What had

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given him that idea? Had she made some remark that he’d construed as complimentary because it had contained no reference to outsize ears?

He had a last look around. The earth bore a great curved rut one mile long by ten feet deep. Two thousand Terrans had been there.

Then about eighteen hundred.

Then sixteen hundred.

Less five.

“One left,” he said to himself. “Me.”

Giving a fatalistic shrug, he put on the pressure and rode to town.

And then there were none.

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Chapter 11 | TOC | Chapter 12