T
hey were all in the control compartment. "I don't want a focus exclusively on me," Docchi was saying. "To a world of perfect normals I may look strange, but we have to avoid the family portrait effect."
"Samples," suggested Anti.
"In a sense, yes. A lot depends on whether they accept those samples."
For the first time Dr. Cameron began to realize what they were up to. "Wait!" he exclaimed. "You've got to listen to me!"
"We're not going to wait and we've already done enough listening to you," said Docchi. "Jordan, see that Cameron stays out of the telecom transmitting angle and doesn't interrupt. We've come too far for that."
"Sure," Jordan promised harshly. "If he makes a sound, I'll melt the teeth out of his mouth." He held the toaster against his side, out of line with the telecom, but aimed at Cameron's face.
Cameron began to shake with urgency, but he kept still.
"Ready?" Docchi asked.
"Flip the switch and we will be, with everything we've got. If they don't read us, it'll be because they don't want to."
The rocket slipped out of the approach lanes. It spun down, the stern tubes pulsing brightly, coming toward Earth in a tight trajectory.
"Citizens of the Solar System!" began Docchi. "Everyone on Earth! This is an unscheduled broadcast, an unauthorized appeal. We are using the emergency bands because, for us, it is an emergency. Who are we? Accidentals, of course, as you can see by looking at us. I know the sight isn't pretty, but we consider other things more important than appearance. Accomplishment, for example. Contributing to progress in ways normals cannot do.
"Shut away on Handicap Haven, we're denied this right. All we can do there is exist in frustration and boredom; kept alive whether we want to be or not. Yet we have a gigantic contribution to make ... if we are allowed to leave the Solar System for Alpha Centauri! You can't travel to the stars now, although eventually you will.
"You must be puzzled, knowing how slow our present rockets are. No normal person could make the round trip; he would die of old age. But we accidentals can go! We would positivelynotdie of old age! The Medicouncil knows that is true ... and still will not allow us to go!"
At the side of the control compartment, Cameron opened his mouth to protest. Jordan, glancing at him, imperceptibly waggled the concealed weapon. Cameron swallowed his words and subsided without a sound.
"Biocompensation," continued Docchi evenly. "You may know about it, but in case information on it has been suppressed, let me explain: The principle of biocompensation has long been a matter of conjecture. This is the first age in which medical technology is advanced enough to explore it. Every cell, every organism, tends to survive, as an individual, as a species. Injure it and it strives for survival according to the seriousness of the injury. We accidentals have been maimed and mutilated almost past belief.
"Our organisms had the assistance of medical science.Realmedical science. Blood was supplied as long as we needed it, machines did all our breathing, kidneys were replaced, hearts furnished, glandular products supplied in the exact quantities necessary, nervous and muscular systems were regenerated. In the extremity of our organic struggle, because we had the proper treatment, our bodies were wiped virtually free of death."
Sweat ran down his face. He longed for hands to wipe it away.
"Most accidentals are nearly immortal. Not quite—we'll die four or five hundred years from now. Meanwhile, there is no reason why we can't leave the Solar System. Rockets are slow; you would die before you got back from Alpha Centauri. We won't. Time doesn't matter to us.
"Perhaps better, faster rockets will be devised after we leave. You may get to there long before we do. We won't mind. We will simply have made our contribution to progress as best we could, and that will satisfy us."
With an effort Docchi smiled. The instant he did, he felt it was a mistake, one that he couldn't rectify. Even to himself it felt more like a snarl.
"You know where we're kept That's a politer word than imprisoned. We don't call it Handicap Haven; our name for it is thejunkpile. And to ourselves we're junkmen. Does this give you a clue to how we feel?
"I don't know what you'll have to do to force the Medicouncil to grant their permission. We appeal to you as our last resort. We have tried all other ways and failed. Our future as human beings is at stake. Whether we get what we want and need is something for you to settle with your conscience."
He nudged the switch and sat down.
His face was gray.
"I don't like to bother you," said Jordan, "but what shall we do about them?"
Docchi glanced at the telecom. "They" were uncomfortably close and considerably more numerous than the last time he had looked.
"Take evasive action," he said wearily. "Swing close to Earth and use the planet's gravity to give us a good push. We've got to keep out of their hands until people have time to react."
"I think you ought to know—" began Cameron. There was an odd tone to his voice.
"Save it for later," said Docchi. "I'm going to sleep." His body sagged. "Jordan, wake me up if anything important happens. And remember that you don't have to listen to this fellow unless you want to."
Jordan nodded and touched the controls. Nona, leaning against the gravital panel, paid no attention to the scene. She seemed to be listening to something nobody else could hear. That was nothing new, but it broke Docchi's heart whenever he saw it. His breath drew in almost with a sob as he left the control room.
T
he race went on. Backdrop: planets, stars, darkness. The little flecks of light that edged nearer didn't seem cheerful to Jordan. His lips were fixed in a straight, hard line. He could hear Docchi come in behind him.
"Nice speech," said Cameron.
"Yeah." Docchi glanced at the telecom. The view didn't inspire further comment.
"That's the trouble, it was just a speech. It didn't do you any good. My advice is to give up before you get hurt."
"It would be."
Cameron stood at the threshold. "I may as well tell you," he said reluctantly. "I tried to before the broadcast, as soon as I found out what you were going to do. But you wouldn't listen."
He came into the control compartment. Nona was huddled in a seat, motionless, expressionless. Anti was absent.
"You know why the Medicouncil refused to let you go?"
"Sure," said Docchi.
"The general metabolism of accidentals is further from normal than that of creatures we dredge from the bottom of the sea. Add to that an enormously elongated life span and you ought to see the Medicouncil's objection."
"Get to the point!"
"Look at it this way," Cameron continued almost desperately. "The Centauri group contains quite a few planets. From what we know of cosmology, intelligent life probably exists there to a greater or lesser extent. You will be our representatives to them. Whattheylook like isn't important; it's their concern. But our ambassadors have to meet certain minimum standards. They at least—damn it, don't you see that they at least have tolooklike human beings?"
"I know you feel that way," said Jordan, rigid with contempt.
"I'm not talking for myself," Cameron said. "I'm a doctor. The medicouncilors are doctors. We graft on or regenerate legs and arms and eyes. We work with blood and bones and intestines. We know what a thin borderline separates normal people from—from you.
"Don't you understand? They're perfect, perhaps too much so. They can't tolerate even small blemishes. They rush to us with things like hangnails, pimples, simple dandruff. Health—or rather the appearance of it—has become a fetish. They may think they're sympathetic to you, but what they actually feel is something else."
"What are you driving at?" whispered Docchi.
"Just this: if it were up to the Medicouncil, you would be on your way to the Centauri group. But it isn't. The decision always had to be referred back to the Solar System as a whole. And the Medicouncil can't go counter to the mass of public opinion."
Docchi turned away in loathing.
"Don't believe me," said Cameron. "You're not too far from Earth. Pick up the reaction to your broadcast."
Worriedly, Jordan looked at Docchi.
"We may as well find out," said Docchi. "It's settled now, one way or the other."
They searched band after band. The reaction was always the same. Obscure private citizen or prominent one, man or woman, they all told how sorry they were for the accidentals, but—
"Turn it off," said Docchi at last.
"Now what?" Jordan asked numbly.
"You have no choice," said the doctor.
"No choice," repeated Docchi dully. "No choice but to give up. We misjudged who our allies were."
"We knew you had," said Cameron. "It seemed better to let you go on thinking that way while you were on the asteroid. It gave you something to hope for. It made you feel you weren't alone. The trouble was that you got farther than we thought you would ever be able to."
"So we did," Docchi said. His lethargy seemed to lift a little. "And there's no reason to stop now. Jordan, pick up the ships behind us. Tell them we've got Cameron on board. A hostage. Play him up as a hero. Basically, he's not with those who are against us."
Anti came into the control compartment. Cheerfulness faded from her face. "What's the matter?" she asked.
"Jordan will explain to you. I've got to think."
Docchi closed his eyes. The ship lurched slightly, though the vibration from the rockets did not change. There was no reason for alarm; the flight of a ship was never completely steady. Docchi paid no attention.
At last he opened his eyes. "If we were properly fueled and provisioned," he said without much hope, "I would be in favor of the four of us heading for Alpha or Proxima. Maybe even Sirius. It wouldn't matter where, since we wouldn't intend to come back. But we can't make it with our small fuel reserve. If we can shake the ships behind us, we might be able to hide until we can steal the necessary fuel and food."
"What'll we do with Doc?" asked Jordan.
"We'd have to raid an unguarded outpost, of course. Probably a small mining asteroid. We can leave him there."
"Yeah," said Jordan. "A good idea,ifwe can run away from our personal escort of bloodhounds. Offhand, that doesn't seem very likely. They didn't come any closer when I told them we had Doc with us, but they didn't drop back—"
He stopped and raised his eyes to the telecom. He blinked, not believing what he saw.
"They're gone!" His voice broke with excitement.
Almost instantly Docchi was beside him. "No," he corrected. "They're still following, but they're very far behind." Even as he looked, the pursuing ships visibly lost ground.
"What's our relative speed?" asked Jordon. He looked at the dials himself, frowned, tapped them as if the needles had gone crazy.
"What did you do to the rockets?" demanded Docchi.
"Nothing! There wasn't a thing Icoulddo. We were already running at top speed."
"We're above it. Way above it. How?"
There was nothing to explain their astonishing velocity. Cameron, Anti, and Jordan were in the control compartment. Nona still sat huddled up, hands pressed tight against her head. There was no explanation at all, yet power was pouring into the gravital unit, as a long unused, actually useless dial was indicating.
"The gravital drive is working," Docchi blankly pointed out.
"Nonsense," said Anti. "I don't feel any weight."
"You don't," answered Docchi. "You won't. The gravital unit was originally installed to drive the ship. When that proved unsatisfactory, it was converted. The difference is slight but important. An undirected general field produces weight effects inside the ship. That's for passenger comfort. A directed field, outside the ship, will drive it. You can have one or the other, not both."
"But I didn't turn on the gravital drive," said Jordan in flat bewilderment. "I couldn't if I wanted to. It's disconnected."
"I would agree with you, except for one thing. It's working." Docchi stared at Nona, whose eyes were closed. "Get her attention," he said.
It was Jordan who gently touched her shoulder. She opened her eyes. On the instrument board, the needle of a once useless dial rose and fell.
"What's the matter with the poor dear?" asked Anti. "She's shaking."
"Let her alone," said Docchi.
No one moved. No one said anything at all. Minutes passed while the ancient ship creaked and groaned and ran away from the fastest rockets in the Solar System.
"I think I know," said Docchi at last, still frowning. "Consider the gravity-generating plant. Part of it is an electronic computer, capable of making the necessary calculations and juggling the proportion of power required to produce, continuously, directed or undirected gravity. In other words, a brain, a complex mechanical intelligence. From the viewpoint of that intelligence, why should it performad infinituma complicated but meaningless routine? It didn't know why, and because it didn't, very simply, it refused to do so.
"Now consider Nona. She's deaf, can't speak, can't communicate. In a way she's comparable to the gravital computer. Like it, she has a very high potential intelligence. Like it, she's had difficulty grasping the facts of her environment. Unlike it, though, she has learned something. How much, I don't know, but it's far more than the Medicouncil psychologists credit her with."
"Yeah," said Jordan dubiously. "But what's happening now?"
"If there were two humans involved, you would call it telepathy," answered Docchi hesitantly, fumbling for concepts he could only sense without grasping. "One intelligence is electronic, the other organic. You'll have to coin a new term, because the only one I know is extrasensory perception, and that's obviously ridiculous. It is, isn't it?"
Jordan smiled and flexed his arms. Under the shapeless garment his muscles rippled. "It isn't," he said. "The power was there, but we're the only ones who know how to use it. Or rather Nona is."
"Power?" repeated Anti, rising majestically. "You can keep it. I want just enough to get to Centauri."
"I think you'll get it," Docchi promised. "A lot of things seem clearer now. For example, in the past, why didn't gravital units work well at considerable distances from the Sun? As a matter of fact, the efficiency of each unit was inversely proportional to the square of the distance between it and the Sun.
"The gravital computer is a deaf, blind, mass-sensitive brain. The major fact in its existence is the Sun, the greatest mass in the Solar System. To such a brain, leaving the Solar System would be like stepping off the edge of a flat world, because it couldn't be aware of stars.
"Now that it knows about the Galaxy, the drive will work anywhere. With Nona to direct it, even Sirius isn't far away."
"Doc," said Jordan carelessly, "you'd better be figuring a way to get off the ship. Remember, we're going faster than man ever went before." He chuckled. "Unless, of course, youlikeour company and don't want to leave."
"We've got to do some figuring ourselves," interposed Docchi. "Such as where we are heading now."
"A good idea," said Jordan. He busied himself with charts and calculations. Gradually his flying fingers slowed. His head bent low over his work. At last he stopped and folded his arms.
"Where?" asked Docchi.
"There." Jordan dully punched the telecom selector and a view became fixed on the screen. In the center glimmered a tiny world, a fragment of a long-exploded planet. Their destination was easily recognizable.
It was Handicap Haven.
"But why do we want to go there?" asked Anti. She looked in amazement at Docchi.
"We're not going voluntarily," he answered, his voice flat and spent. "We're going where the Medicouncil wants us to go. We forgot about the monitor system. When Nona activated the gravital unit, that fact was indicated at some central station. All the Medicouncil had to do was use the monitor to take the gravital drive away from Nona."
"We thought we were running away from the ships, which we were, but only to beat them back to the junkpile?" asked Anti.
Docchi nodded.
"Well, it's over. We did our best. There's no use crying about it." Yet she was. She passed by Nona, patting her gently. "It's all right, darling. You tried."
Jordan followed her from the compartment.
Cameron remained; he came over to Docchi. "Everything isn't lost," he said, somewhat awkwardly. "You're back where you started from, but Nona at least will benefit."
"Benefit?" said Docchi. "Someone will. It won't be Nona."
"You're wrong. Now that she is an important factor—"
"So is a special experimental machine. Very valuable. I don't think she'll like that classification."
Silence met silence. It was Dr. Cameron who turned away.
"That ghastly glow of yours when you're angry always did upset me. I'll come back when it's dimmer."
Docchi glared after him. Cameron was the only normal aware that it was Nona who controlled the gravital unit. All the outside world could realize was that it was in operation, as it had been designed to work, but never had. If Cameron could be disposed of—
He shook his head. It wouldn't solve anything. He might fool them for a while. They might think he was responsible. In the end, they'd find out. Nona wasn't capable of that much deception, for she never knew what a test was.
He went over to her. Once he had hoped.... It didn't matter what he had hoped.
She looked up and smiled. She had a right to. No word had ever broken the silence of her mind, but now she was communicating with something, whatever it was that an electronic brain could say. Of course she didn't understand that the conversation was taking place between two captives, herself and the gravital computer.
Abruptly he turned away. He stopped at the telecom panel and methodically kicked it apart. Delicate tubes smashed into powder. The emergency radio he thoroughly demolished.
The ship was firmly in the grip of the gravital monitor. There was nothing he could do about that. All that remained was to protect Nona from their prying minds as long as he could.
She didn't hear the noise, or didn't care. She sat there, head in her hands, calm and smiling.
T
he outer shell of the rocket dome opened before and closed behind them. Jordan set the controls in neutral and lifted his hands, muttering to himself. They were gliding through the lip of the inner shell. Home.
"Cheer up," said Cameron breezily. "You're not really prisoners, you know."
Nona seemed content, though Jordan didn't. Docchi said nothing, the light gone from his face. Anti wasn't with them; she was floating in the tank of acid. The gravity field of the asteroid made that necessary.
The ship scraped gently and they were down. Jordan touched a lever; passenger and freight locks were open.
"Let's go," said Dr. Cameron. "I imagine there's a reception committee for you."
There was. The little rocket dome held more ships than normally came in a year. The precise confusion of military discipline was everywhere in evidence. Armed guards lined either side of the landing ramp down which they walked.
At the bottom, a large telecom unit had been set up. If size indicated anything, someone considered this an important occasion. From the screen, larger than life, Medicouncilor Thorton looked out approvingly.
The procession from the ship halted in front of the telecom unit.
"A good job, Dr. Cameron," said the medicouncilor. "We were quite surprised at the escape of the four accidentals, and your disappearance, which coincided with it. From what we were able to piece together, you deliberately followed them. A splendid example of quick thinking, Doctor. You deserve recognition for it."
"Thank you," said Cameron.
"I'm sorry I can't be there to congratulate you in person, but I will be soon." The medicouncilor paused discreetly. "At first the publicity was bad. Very bad. We thought it unwise to conceal an affair of such magnitude. Of course the unauthorized broadcast made it impossible. Fortunately, the gravital discovery came along at just the right time. I don't mind telling you that the net effect is now in our favor."
"I hoped it would be," said Cameron. "Nona—"
"You've spoken about her before." The medicouncilor frowned. "We can discuss her later. For the moment, see that she and the rest of the accidentals are returned to their usual places. Bring Docchi to your office at once. I want to question him privately."
Cameron stared at him in bewilderment. "But I thought—"
"No objections, Doctor," snapped Thorton. "Important people are waiting for you. That is all." The telecom darkened.
"I think you heard what he said, Dr. Cameron." The officer at his side was very polite. He could afford to be, with the rank of three big planets on his tunic.
"Very well," Cameron answered. "But as commander of the asteroid, I request that you furnish a guard for the girl."
"Commander?" repeated the officer. "That's funny—my orders indicate that I am, until further notice. I haven't got that notice." He looked around at his men and crooked a finger. "Lieutenant, see that the little fellow—Jordan, I think his name is—gets a lift back to the main dome. And you can walk the pretty lady to her room. Or whatever it is she lives in." He smiled negligently at Cameron. "Anything to oblige another commander."
T
he medicouncilor, Thorton, was waiting impatiently on the telecom when they got to Cameron's office.
"We will arrive in about two hours," he said immediately. "When I say we, I mean a number of top governmental officials and scientists. Meanwhile, let's get on with this gravital business." He caught sight of the commander. "General Judd, this is a technical matter. I don't think you'll be interested in it."
"Very well, sir. I'll stand guard outside."
The medicouncilor was silent until the door closed behind General Judd. "Sit down, Docchi," he said with unexpected kindness. He paused to note the effect. "I can sympathize with you. You had everything you wanted nearly within your reach. And, after that, to return to Handicap Haven—well, I can understand how you feel. But since you did return, I think we can arrange to do something for you."
Docchi stared at the man on the screen. A spot of light pulsed on his cheek and then flared rapidly over his face.
"Sure," he said casually. "But there are criminal charges against me."
"A formality," said the medicouncilor. "With a thing like the discovery—or rediscovery—of the gravital drive to think about, no one is going to worry much about your unauthorized departure from the asteroid."
Medicouncilor Thorton sounded pleased. "I don't want to mislead you. We can't do any more for you medically than has already been done. However, you will find yourself the center of a more adequate social life. Friends, work, whatever you want. Naturally, in return for this, we will expect your full cooperation."
"Naturally." Docchi blinked at him and got to his feet. "Sounds interesting. I'd like to think about it for a minute."
Cameron planted himself squarely in front of the screen. "Maybe I don't understand. I think you've got the wrong person."
"Dr. Cameron!" Thorton glowered. "Please explain."
"It was an easy mistake to make," said Cameron. "Cut off from communication, the gravital drive began to work. How? Why? Mostly, who did it? You knew it wasn't I. I'm a doctor, not a physicist. Nor Jordan, he's at best a mechanic. Therefore it had to be Docchi, because he's an engineer. He could make it work. But it wasn't Docchi. He had nothing to do with—"
"Look out!" cried Thorton too late.
Cameron fell to his knees. The same foot that brought him down crashed into his chin. His head snapped back and he sprawled on the floor. Blood trickled from his face.
"Docchi!" shouted Thorton from the screen.
Docchi didn't answer. He was crashing through the door. The commander was lounging against the wall. Head down, Docchi ran into him. The toaster fell from his belt to the floor. With scarcely a pause, Docchi stamped on it and continued running.
The commander got to his feet and retrieved the weapon. He aimed it tentatively at the retreating figure; a thought occurred to him and he lowered it. He examined the damaged mechanism. After that, it went gingerly into a tunic pocket.
Muffled shouts were coming from Cameron's office. The general broke in.
The medicouncilor glared at him from the screen. "I can see that you let him get away."
The disheveled officer straightened his uniform. "I'm sorry, sir. I'll alert the guards immediately."
"Never mind now. Revive that man."
The general wasn't accustomed to giving resuscitation; it was out of his line. Nevertheless, in a few minutes Cameron was conscious, though somewhat dazed.
"Now then, Doctor, if it wasn't Docchi who was responsible for the sudden functioning of the gravital drive, who was it?"
With satisfaction, Cameron told him. He had not been wrong about the girl. Listening to the detailed explanation of Nona's mental abilities, the general was perplexed, as generals sometimes are.
"I see." The medicouncilor nodded. "We overlooked that possibility altogether. Not the mechanical genius of an engineer. Instead, the strange telepathic sense of a girl. That puts the problem in a different light."
"It does." Cameron pressed his aching jaw. "She can't tell us how she does it. We'll have to experiment. Fortunately, it won't involve any danger. With the monitor system we can always control the gravital drive."
The medicouncilor leaned perilously backward and shook his head. "You're wrong. It's supposed to, but it doesn't. We tried. For a microsecond, the monitor did take over, but the gravital computer is smarter than we thought, if itwasthe computer that figured out the method. It found a way of cutting the power from the monitor circuit. It didn't respond at all."
Cameron forgot his jaw. "If you didn't bring the rocket back on remote, why did she come?"
"Docchi knows," growled the medicouncilor. "He found out in this room. That's why he escaped." He tapped on his desk with blunt fingers. "She could have taken the ship anywhere she pleased and we couldn't have stopped her. Since she voluntarily came back, it's obvious that she wants the asteroid!"
Medicouncilor Thorton tried to shove his face out of the screen and into the room. "Don't you ever think, General? There isn't any real difference between gravital units except size and power. What she did to the ship she can do as easily to the asteroid." He thrust out a finger and pointed angrily. "Don't stand there, General Judd. Find that girl!"
It was late for that kind of command. The great dome overhead trembled and creaked in countless joints. The little world shivered, groaned as if it had lain too long in an age-old orbit. It began to move.
V
ague shapes stirred, crawled, walked if they could. Fantastic and near-fantastic figures came to the assembly. Huge or tiny, on their own legs or borrowed ones, they arrived, with or without arms, faces. The word had spread by voice, by moving lips, by sign languages of every sort.
"Remember, it will be hours or perhaps days before we're safe," said Docchi. His voice was growing hoarse. "It's up to us to see that Nona has all the time she needs."
"Where is she hiding?" asked someone from the crowd.
"I don't know. If I did, I still wouldn't tell you. It's our job to keep them from finding her."
"How?" demanded one near the front. "Fight the guards?"
"Not directly," said Docchi. "We have no arms in the sense of weapons. Many of us have no arms in any sense. All we can hope to do is obstruct their search. Unless someone has a better idea, this is what I plan:
"I want all the men, older women, and the younger ones who aren't suitable for reasons I'll explain later. The guards won't be here for another half hour—it will take that long to get them together and give them the orders that the Medicouncil must be working out now. When they do come, get in their way.
"How you do that, I'll leave to your imagination. Appeal to their sympathy as long as they have any. Put yourself in dangerous situations. They have ethics; at first they'll be inclined to help you. When they do, try to steal their weapons. Avoid physical violence as much as you can. We don't want to force them into retaliation. Make the most of that phase of their behavior. It won't last long."
Docchi paused and looked over the crowd. "Each of you will have to decide for himself when to drop that kind of resistance and start an active battle campaign. We have to disrupt the light and scanning and ventilation systems, for instance. They'll be forced to keep them in repair. Perhaps they'll try to guard these strategic points. So much the better for us—there will be fewer guards to contend with."
"What about me?" called a woman from far in back. "What do I do?"
"You are in for a rough time," Docchi promised her. "Is Jerian here?"
She elbowed her way to his side through the crowd.
"Jerian," said Docchi to the accidentals, "is a normal, pretty woman—outwardly. She has, however, no trace of a digestive system. The maximum time she can go without food and fluid injections is ten hours. That's why she's here."
Again Docchi scanned the group. "I need a cosmetech, someone who has her equipment with her."
A legless woman propelled herself forward. Docchi conferred with her. She seemed startled, but she complied. Under her deft fingers Jerian was transformed—into Nona.
"She will be the first Nona they'll find," explained Docchi, "because she can get away with the disguise longer. I think—I hope—they'll call off the search for a few hours while they test her. Eventually they are sure to find out. In Jerian's case, fingerprints or X-rays would reveal who she is. But that won't occur to them immediately. Nona is impossible to question, as you know, and Jerian will act exactly as Nona would.
"As soon as they discover that Jerian isn't Nona—well, they won't bother to be polite, if that's the word for it. The guards will like the idea of finding an attractive girl they can manhandle in the line of duty, especially if they think that will help them find Nona. It won't, of course. But it will hold up the search and that's what we want."
They stood still, no one moving. Women looked at each other in silent apprehension.
"Let's go," said Jordan grimly.
"Wait," advised Docchi. "I have one volunteer Nona. I need about fifty more. It doesn't matter if you're physically sound or not—we'll raid the lab for plastissue. If you think you can be made up to look like Nona, come forward."
Slowly, singly and by twos and threes, they came to him. There were few indeed who wouldn't require liberal use of camouflage.
The rest followed Jordan out.
Mass production of an individual. Not perfect in every instance. Good enough to pass in most. Docchi watched approvingly, suggesting occasional touches of makeup.
"She can't speak or hear," he reminded the volunteers. "Remember that at all times, no matter what they do. Hide in difficult places. After Jerian is taken and the search called off and then resumed, let yourselves be found one at a time. Every guard that has to take you for examination is one less to look for the real Nona. They have to find her soon or get off the asteroid."
The cosmetechs were busy; none stopped. There was one who looked up.
"Get off?" she asked. "Why?"
"The Sun is getting smaller."
"Smaller!" exclaimed the woman.
He nodded. "Handicap Haven is leaving the Solar System."
Her fingers flew and molded the beautiful curve of a jaw where there had been none. Next, plastissue lips were applied.
Nona was soon hiding in half a hundred places.
And one more....
T
he orbit of Neptune was far behind and still the asteroid was accelerating. Two giant gravital units strained at the core of Handicap Haven. The third clamped an abnormally heavy gravity on the isolated world. Prolonged physical exertion was awkward and doubly exhausting. Hours turned into a day, but the units never faltered.
"Have you figured it out as precisely as you should?" asked Docchi easily. "You share our velocity away from the Sun. You'll have to overcome it before you can start going back."
The general ignored him. "If we could only turn off that damned drive!"
Engineer Vogel shrugged sickly. "You try it," he suggested. "I don't want to be around when you do. It sounds easy: just a gravital unit. But remember there's a good-sized nuclear pile involved."
"I know we can't," admitted the general, morosely looking at the darkness overhead. "On the other hand, we can take off and blow this rock apart from a safe distance."
"And lose all hope of finding her?" taunted Docchi.
"We're losing her anyway," Cameron commented sourly.
"It's not as bad as all that," consoled Docchi. "Now that you know where the difficulty is, you can always build another computer and furnish it with auxiliary senses. Or maybe build into it the facts of elementary astronomy."
Cautiously, he shifted his frail body under the heavy gravity. "There's another solution, though it may not appeal to you. I can't believe Nona is altogether unique. There must be others like her. So-called 'born' mechanics, maybe, whose understanding of machinery is a form of empathy we've never suspected. Look hard enough and you may find them, perhaps in the most unlikely or unlovely body."
General Judd grunted wearily, "If I thought you knew where she is—"
"You can try to find out," Docchi invited, glowing involuntarily.
"Forget about the dramatics, General," said Cameron in disgust. "We've questioned him thoroughly. Resistance we would have had in any event. He's responsible merely for making it more effective than we thought possible."
He added slowly: "At the moment, obviously, he's trying to tear down our morale. He doesn't have to bother. The situation is so bad that it looks hopeless. I can't think of a thing we can do that would help us."
The Sun was high in the center of the dome. Sun? More like a very bright star. It cast no shadows; the lights in the dome did. They flickered and with monotonous regularity went out again. The general swore constantly and emotionlessly until service was restored.
A guard approached with his captive. "I think I've found her, sir."
Cameron looked at the girl in dismay. "Guard, where's your decency?"
"Orders, sir," the man said.
"Whose orders?"
"Yours, sir. You said she was sound of body. How else could I find out?"
Cameron scowled and thrust a scalpel deep into the girl's thigh. She looked at him with a tear-stained face, but didn't move a muscle.
"Plastissue, as any fool can see," he commented dourly.
The guard looked revolted and started to lead her out.
"Let her go," snapped the doctor. "Both of you will be safer, I think."
The girl darted away. The guard followed her, shuddering, his eyes filled with a self-loathing that Cameron realized would require hours of psychiatric work to remove.
Docchi smiled. "I have a request to make."
"Go ahead and make it," snorted the general. "We're likely to give you anything you want."
"You probably will. You're going to leave without her. Very soon. When you do go, don't take all your ships. We'll need about three when we come to another solar system."
General Judd opened his mouth in rage.
"Don't you say anything you'll regret," cautioned Docchi. "When you get back, what will you report to your superiors? Can you tell them that you left in good order, while there was still time to continue the search? Or will they like it better if they know you stayed until the last moment? So late that you had to abandon some of your ships?"
The general closed his mouth and stamped away. Wordlessly, Cameron dragged after him.
T
he last ship had blasted off and the rocket trails had faded into overwhelming darkness. The Sun, which had been trying to lose itself among the other stars, finally succeeded. The asteroid was no longer the junkpile. It was a small world that had become a swift ship.
"We can survive," said Docchi. "Power and oxygen, we have, and we can grow or synthesize our food."
He sat beside Anti's tank, which had been returned to the usual place. A small tree nodded overhead in the artificial breeze. It was peaceful enough. But Nona wasn't there.
"We'll get you out of the tank," promised Jordan. "When she comes back, we'll rig up a place where there's no gravity. And we'll continue cold treatment."
"I can wait," said Anti. "On this world I'm normal."
Docchi stared forlornly about. The one thing he wanted to see wasn't there.
"If you're worrying about Nona," advised Anti, "don't. The guards were pretty rough with the women, but plastissue doesn't feel pain. They didn't find her."
"How do you know?"
"Listen," said Anti. The ground shivered with the power of the gravital units. "As long as they're running, how can you doubt?"
"If I could be sure—"
"You can start now," Jordan said. "First, though, you'd better get up and turn around."
Docchi scrambled to his feet. She was coming toward him.
She showed no sign of strain. Except for a slight smudge on her wonderfully smooth and scar-less cheek, she might just have stepped out of a beauty cubicle. Without question, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. This world, of course, though she could have done well on any world—if she could have communicated with people as well as with machines.
"Where were you hiding?" Docchi asked, expecting no answer.
She smiled. He wondered, with a feeling of helplessness, if machines could sense and appreciate her lovely smile, or whether they could somehow smile themselves.
"I wish I could take you in my arms," he said bitterly.
"It's not as silly as you think," said Anti, watching from the surface of the tank. "You don't have any arms, but she has two. You can talk and hear, but she can't. Between you, you're a complete couple."
"Except that she would never get the idea," he answered unhappily.
Jordan, rocking on his hands, looked up quizzically. "I must be something like her. They used to call me a born mechanic; just put a wrench in my hand and I can do anything with a piece of machinery. It's as if I sense what the machine wants done to it. Not to the extent that Nona can understand, naturally. You might say it's reversed, that she's the one who can hear while I have to lip-read."
"You never just gabble," Docchi prompted. "You have something in mind."
Jordan hesitated. "I don't know if it's stupid or what. I was thinking of a kind of sign language with machines. You know, start with the simple ones, like clocks and such, and see what they mean to her. Since they'd be basic machines, she'd probably have pretty basic reactions. Then it's just a matter of—"
"You don't have to blueprint it," Docchi cut in excitedly. "That would be fine for determining elementary reactions, but I can't carry around a machine shop; it wouldn't be practical. There ought to be one variable machine that would be portable and yet convey all meanings to her."
"An electronic oscillator?"
Acid waves washed at the sides of the tank as Anti stirred impatiently. "Will you two great brains work it out in the lab, please? And when you get through with that problem, you'll have plenty more to keep you occupied until we get to the stars. Jordan and me, for instance. What future is there for a girl unless she can get married?"
"That's right," Docchi said. "I've got an idea we can do better than normal doctors. Being accidentals ourselves, we won't stop experimenting till we succeed. And we have hundreds of years to do it in."
Glowing, literally, with pleasure, he bent over for Jordan to climb on his back. Then he kissed Nona and headed for the laboratory.
Nona smiled and followed.
"There are some things you don't need words or machines to express," Anti called out. "Keep that in mind, will you?"
She submerged contentedly in the acid bath. Above the dome, the stars gleamed a bright welcome to the little world that flashed through interstellar space.
—F. L. WALLACE