Q.Why has no one seen you sooner
A.Fear
Q.You mean you frightened our people
A.No I mean fear of your people
Q.Why
A.Gizl resemble earth animals
Q.Was superior the first place you landed
A.No
Q.Where was it
A.Australia
"The home of the kangaroo," Doc Bendy said. "No wonder they had a bad time. I can imagine some stockman in the outback taking umbrage at a kangaroo asserting its equality. Let me talk to him a while, Don."
Q.How many are there of you
A.Many
Q.How many
A.No specific comment
Q.Are you responsible for raising superior
A.Entirely
Q.How
A.Impossible to explain with these
Q.Where is superior going
A.East for now
Q.And later
A.No specific comment
Q.3000 lives are in your hands
A.Gizls have no malevolent designs
Q.Thanks. You said friendship brought you. What else.
A.Trade. Cultural exchange
Q.What have you to trade
A.Will discuss this later with duly constituted authority
Q.Who. King Hector
A.Terminating interview with good will assurances
"Wait," Alis said. "I haven't had a chance to talk to him." She formed letters into words. "I don't think he's being very frank with us but I have a few random questions."
Q.How many sexes have Gizls
A.Three
Q.Male female and
A.Neuter
Q.Are there babies among you
A.Babies are neuter and develop according to need
Q.Confidentially what do you think of fathers science
A.Unfathomable our meager knowledge
Q.Flatterer
A.Ending conversation with pleasant regard
Q.Likewise
Gizl slid back his chair and got up. King Hector stood and bowed as Gizl, who had nodded politely to each in turn, walked manlike, without hopping, to a corner of the room which then sank out of sight.
"He's quite a guy, that Gizl," Hector said, taking off his crown and putting it on the table. "Makes me sweat," he said, wiping his forehead.
"Are you the duly constituted authority?" Bendy asked him.
"Who else? Somebody's got to be in charge till we get Superior back to Earth."
"Sure," Bendy said, "but you don't have to rig yourself up in ermine. I also have a sneaking suspicion that you aren't exactly anxious to get Superior down in a hurry."
"I'll overlook that remark for old time's sake. But I defend the kingship. A show of force was necessary to prevent crime from running rampant."
"Maybe," Bendy said. "Anyhow I appreciate your frankness in introducing us to Gizl and what he modestly describes as his meager knowledge. Since you've already admitted that he's the one who provided the big feed, will you ease Alis's mind now and assure her that what she was eating wasn't Negusburger?"
"Negusburger?" The king laughed. "Is that what you thought, Alis?"
"Not really," she said. "But I couldn't help wondering where all the food came from all of a sudden."
"Over here." The king led them to the corner where Gizl had sunk from sight. The top of the elevator, now level with the floor, blended exactly with the linoleum tile. "I don't know how it works, but Gizl and his people have their headquarters down there somewhere. All I have to do is place the order and up comes food or whatever I need. Would you like to try it?"
"Love to," Bendy said. "What shall I ask for?"
"Anything."
"Anything?"
"Anything at all."
"Well." Bendy looked impressed. "This will take a moment of thought. How about a gallon—no, as long as I'm asking I might as well ask for a keg—of rum, 151 proof."
Up it came, complete with spigot and tankard.
"Fabulous!" Bendy said. He rolled it out of the elevator and the elevator went down again.
"Let me try!" Alis said. "If Doc can get a keg, I ought to be able to have—oh, say a pint of Channel No. 5. Would that be too extravagant?"
"A simple variation in formula, I should think," the king said.
What came up for Alis didn't look in the least like an expensive Paris perfume. In fact, it looked like a lard pail with a quantity of liquid sloshing lazily in it. But its aroma belied its looks.
"Oh, heaven!" Alis said. "Smell it!" She lifted it by its handle, stuck a finger in it and rubbed behind each ear.
"It's a bit overpowering by the pint," Bendy said. He'd drained off part of a tankard of rum and looked quite at peace with the world. "You'd better get yourself a chaperone, Alis, if you're going to carry that around with you."
"I'll admit they're not very good in the packaging department, but that's just a quibble. Could I have—how many ounces in a pint?—sixteen one-ounce stoppered bottles? And a little funnel?"
"Easiest thing in the world," the king said. "Don? Anything you'd like at the same time? Save it a trip."
"I've got an idea, Your Majesty, but I don't know whether you'd approve. Even though I work in a bank, I've never seen a ten thousand dollar bill. Do you think they could whip one up?"
"I really don't know," Hector said. "It could upset the economy if we let the money get out of hand. But we can always send it right back. Let's see what happens."
The elevator came up with the bottles, the funnel and a green and gold bill.
It was, on the face of it, a ten thousand dollar bill. But the portrait was that of Hector Civek, crowned and ermined. And the legend on it was:
"Payable to Bearer on Demand, Ten Thousand Dollars. This Note is Legal Tender for all Debts, Public and Private, and is Redeemable in Lawful Money at the Treasury of the Kingdom of Superior.(Signed)Gizl, Secretary of the Treasury."
Don didn't know what he might learn by skulking around the freezing grounds of Hector's palace in the faint moonlight. He hoped for a glimpse of the kangaroo-Gizl to see if he were as sincere off-guard as he had been during their interview.
But his peering into basement windows had revealed nothing, and he was about to head back to the campus for a night's sleep when someone called his name.
It was a girl's voice, from above. He looked up. Red-headed Geneva Jervis was leaning out of one of the second-story windows.
"Well, hello," he said. "What are you doing up there?"
"I've sworn fealty," she said. "Come on up."
"What?" he said. "How?"
She disappeared from his sight, then reappeared. "Here." She dropped a rope ladder.
Don climbed it, feeling Like Romeo. "Where'd you get this?"
"They've got them in all the rooms. Fire escapes. Old McFerson was a precautious man, evidently." She pulled the rope back in.
Jen Jervis had a spacious bedroom. She wore a dressing gown.
"What do you mean, you swore fealty?" Don asked. "To Hector?"
"Sure. What better way to find out what he's up to? Besides, I was getting fed up with that dormitory at Cavalier. No privacy. House mothers creeping around all the time. Want a drink?"
Don saw that she had a half-full glass on the dresser. Next to the glass stood a bottle of bourbon with quite a bit gone from it.
"Why not?" he said. "Let's drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may freeze to death."
"Or be shot down by Reds." She poured him a stiff one. "Here's to happy endings."
He sipped his drink and she swallowed half of hers.
"I didn't picture you as the drinking type, Jen."
"Revise the picture. Come sit down." She backed to the big double bed and relaxed into it, lying on one elbow.
Don sat next to her, but upright. "Tell me about this fealty deal. What did you have to do?"
"Oh, renounce my American citizenship and swear to protect Superior against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The usual thing."
"Have you got a title yet? Are you Dame Jervis?"
"Not yet." She smiled. "I think I'm on probation. They know I'm close to Bobby and they'd like to have him on their side, for all their avowed independence. They're not so terribly convinced that Superior's going to stay up forever. They're hedging their bets, it looks to me."
"It looks to me that maybe Bobby Thebold might not understand. He's the kind of man who demands absolute fealty, from what I've seen of him."
"Oh, to hell with Bobby Thebold." Jen took another swallow. "He's not here. He's had plenty of time to come, if he was going to, and he hasn't. To hell with him. Let me get you another drink."
"No, thanks. This will do me fine." He drank it and set the empty glass on the floor. Jen drank off the last of hers and put her glass next to his.
"Relax," she said. "I'm not going to bite you." She lay back and her dressing gown opened in a V as far as the belt. She obviously wasn't wearing anything under the gown.
Don looked away self-consciously.
Jen laughed. "What's the matter, boy? No red blood?" She rolled herself off the end of the bed and went to the dresser. "Another drink?"
"Don't you think you've had enough?"
She shook her red hair violently. "Drinking is as drinking does. Trouble is, nobody's doing anything."
"Exactly. Everybody's acting as if Superior's one big pleasure dome. Civek's on the throne and all's well with his little world. Even you've joined the parade. Why? I don't buy that double-agent explanation."
She was looking in the bureau mirror at the reflection of the top of her head, peering up from under her eyebrows. "I'm going to have to touch up the tresses pretty soon or I won't be a redhead any more." She looked at his reflection. "You don't like me, do you, Donny-boy?"
"I never said that."
"You don't have to say it. But I don't blame you. I don't like myself sometimes. I'm a cold fish. A cold, dedicated fish. Or I was. I've decided to change my ways."
"I can see that."
"Can you?" She turned around and leaned against the bureau, holding her glass. "How do you see me now?"
"As an attractive woman with a glass in her hand. I wonder which is doing the talking."
"Rhetorical questions at this time of night, Donny? I think it's me talking, not the whisky. We'll know better in the sober light of morning, won't we?"
"If that's an invitation," Don began, "I'm afraid—"
Her eyes blazed at him. "I think you're the rudest man I ever met.Andthe most boorish." She tossed off the rest of her drink, then began to cry.
"Now, Jen—" He went to her and patted her shoulder awkwardly.
"Oh, Don." She put her head against his chest and wept. His arms automatically went around her, comfortingly.
Then he realized that Jen's muffled sobs were going direct to the Pentagon through his transceiver. That piece of electronics equipment taped to his skin, he told himself, was the least of the reasons why he could not have accepted Jen's invitation—if it had been an invitation.
He lifted her chin from his chest to spare the man in the Pentagon any further sobs, which must have been reaching him in crescendo. Jen's face was tear-stained. She looked into his eyes for a second, then fastened her mouth firmly on his.
There was nothing a gentleman could do, Don thought, except return the kiss. Rude, was he?
Jen broke away first. "What's that?" she said.
Don opened his eyes and his glance went automatically to the door. It would not have surprised him to see King Hector coming through it in his royal night clothes. But Jen was staring out the window. He turned.
The sky was bright as day over in the direction of the golf course. Don made out a pinpoint of brighter light.
"It's a star shell," he said. "A flare."
They went to the window and leaned out, looking past a corner of the bubble gum factory.
"What's it for?" Jen asked.
Don pointed. "There. That's what for."
"A blimp!" she said. "It's landing!"
"Is it an Air Force job? I can't make out the markings."
"I think I can," Jen said. "They're—PP."
"Private Pilots! Senator Bobby the Bold!"
Jen Jervis clutched his arm. "S.O.B.!" she whispered fiercely.
Don Cort was down the rope fire escape and away from the mansion before it woke up to the invasion. As he crossed the railroad spur he had a glimpse of Jen Jervis hauling up the rope and of lights going on elsewhere in the building. There was a lot of whistle-blowing and shouting and a lone shot which didn't seem to be aimed at him.
Don waited at the spur, behind a boxcar, to see how the Hectorites would react to the landing of the blimp, A few men gathered at the front gate and looked nervously into the sky and toward the golf course. Others joined them, armed with shotguns, pistols, and a rifle or two, but not with King Hector's paralysis gadget.
It was clear that Hector had no intention of starting a battle. His men apparently were under orders only to guard the mansion and the bubble gum factory. No one even went to see what the blimp was up to.
Don found as he neared the golf course that the people from the blimp apparently had no immediate plan to attack, either. He found a sand trap to lie down in. From it he could watch without being seen. The star shell had died out but he could see the blimp silhouetted against the sky. Men in battle dress were establishing a perimeter around the clubhouse. Each carried a weapon of some kind. It was all very dim.
Don remembered his communicator. "Cort here," he said softly. "Do you read me?"
"Affirmative," a voice said. Don didn't recognize it. He described the landing and asked, "Is this an authorized landing or is it Senator Thebold's private party?"
"Negative," said the voice from the Pentagon, irritatingly GI.
"Negativewhat?" Don said. "You mean Theboldisleading it?"
"Affirmative," said the voice.
"What's he up to?" Don asked.
"Negative," the voice said.
Don blew up. "If you mean you don't know, why the hell don't you say so? Who is this, anyhow?"
"This happens to be Major Johns, the O.O.D., Sergeant, and if you know what's good for you—"
Don stopped listening because a man in battle dress, apparently attracted by his voice, was standing on the green, looking down into the bunker where Don lay, pointing a carbine at him.
"I'll have to hang up now, Major," Don said quietly. "Something negative has just happened to me. I've been captured."
The man with the carbine shouted down to Don, "Okay, come out with your hands over your head."
Don did so. He hoped he was doing it affirmatively enough. He had no wish to be shot by one of the Senator's men, regardless of whether that man was authorized or unauthorized.
Senator Thebold sat at a desk in the manager's office of the Raleigh Country Club. He wore a leather trench coat and a fur hat. Wing commander's insignia glittered on his shoulders and a cartridge belt was buckled around his waist. A holster hung from it but Thebold had the heavy .45 on the desk in front of it. He motioned to Don to sit down. Two guards stood at the door.
"Name?" Thebold snapped.
Don decided to use his own name but pretend to be a local yokel.
"Donald Cort."
"What were you doing out there?"
"I saw the lights."
"Who were you talking to in the sand trap?"
"Nobody. I sometimes talk to myself."
"Oh, you do. Do you ever talk to yourself about a man named Osbert Garet or Hector Civek?" Thebold looked at a big map of Superior that had been pinned to the wall, thus giving Don the benefit of his strong profile.
"Hector's the king now," Don said. "Things got pretty bad before that but we got enough to eat now."
"Where did the food come from?"
Don shrugged.
Thebold drummed his fingers on the desk. "You're not exactly a fount of information, are you? What do you do for a living?"
"I used to work in the gum factory but I got laid off."
"Do you know Geneva Jervis?"
"Who's he?" Don said innocently.
Thebold stood up in irritation. "Take this man to O. & I.," he said to one of the guards. "We've got to make a start some place. Are there any others?"
"Four or five," the guard said.
"Send me the brightest-looking one. Give this one and the rest a meal and a lecture and turn them loose. It doesn't look as if Civek is going to give us any trouble right away and there isn't too much we can do before daylight."
The guard led Don out of the room and pinned a button on his lapel. It said:Bobby the Bold in Peace and War.
"What's O. & I.?" Don asked him.
"Orientation and Integration. Nobody's going to hurt you. We're here to end partition, that's all."
"End partition?"
"Like in Ireland. Keep Superior in the U. S. A. They'll tell you all about it at O. & I. Then you tell your friends. Want some more buttons?"
Don was fed, lectured, and released, as promised.
Early the next morning, after a cup of coffee with Alis Garet at Cavalier's cafeteria, he started back for the golf course. Alis, in a class-cutting mood, went with him.
The glimpses of the Thebold Plan which Don had had from O. & I. were being put into practice. Reilly Street, which provided a boundary line between Raleigh Country Club and the gum-factory property, had been transformed into a midway.
The Thebold forces had strung bunting and set up booths along the south side of the street. Hector's men, apparently relieved to find that the battle was to be psychological rather than physical, rushed to prepare rival attractions on their side. A growing crowd thronged the center of Reilly Street. Some wore Thebold buttons. Some wore other buttons, twice as big, with a smiling picture of Hector I on them. Some wore both.
The sun was bright but the air was bitingly cold. As a result one of the most popular booths was on Hector's side of the street where Cheeky McFerson was giving away an apparently inexhaustible supply of hand-warmers. Cheeky urged everybody to take two, one for each pocket, and threw in handfuls of bubble gum.
Two of Hector's men set up ladders and strung a banner across two store-fronts. It said in foot-high letters:Kingdom of Superior, Land of Plenty.
A group of Thebold troubleshooters watched, then rushed away and reappeared with brushes and paint. They transformed an advertising sign to read, in letters two feet high:Superior, U.S.A., Home of the Free.
Hawkers on opposite sides of the midway vied to give away hot dogs, boiled ears of corn, steaming coffee, hot chocolate, candy bars, and popcorn.
"There's a smart one." Alis pointed to a sign in Thebold territory.The Gripe Roomit said over a vacant store. The Senator's men had set up desks and chairs inside and long lines had already formed.
Apparently a powerful complaint had been among the first to be registered because a Thebold man was galvanized into action. He ran out of the store and within minutes the sign painters were at work again. Their new banner, hoisted to dry in the sun, proclaimed:Blimp Mail.
Underneath, in smaller letters, it said:How long since you've heard from your loved ones on Earth? The Thebold Blimp will carry your letters and small packages. Direct daily connections with U. S. Mail.
"You have to admire them," Alis said. "They're really organized."
"One's as bad as the other," Don said. Impartially, he was eating a Hector hot dog and drinking Thebold coffee. "Have you noticed the guns in the upstairs windows?"
"No. You mean on the Senator's side?"
"Both sides. Don't stare."
"I see them now. Do you see any Gizl-sticks? The thing Hector used on Negus?"
"No. Just conventional old rifles and shotguns. Let's hope nobody starts anything."
"Look," Alis said, grabbing Don by the arm. "Isn't that Ed Clark going into the Gripe Room?"
"It sure is. Gathering material for another powerful editorial, I guess."
But within minutes Clark's visit had provoked another bustle of activity. Two of Thebold's men dashed out of the renovated store and off toward the country club. They came back with the Senator himself, making his first public appearance.
Thebold strode down the center of the midway, wearing his soft aviator's helmet with the goggles pushed up on his forehead and his silk scarf fluttering behind him. A group of small boys followed him, imitating his self-confident walk and scrambling occasionally for the Thebold buttons he threw to them. The Senator went into the Gripe Room.
"Looks as if Ed has wangled an interview with the great man himself," Alis said.
"You didn't say anything to Clark about our talk with the Gizl, did you?"
"I did mention it to him," Alis said. "Was that bad?"
"Half an hour ago I would have said no. Now I'm not so sure."
A speaker's platform had been erected on the Senator's side of Reilly Street, and now canned but stirring band music was blaring out of a loudspeaker. Thebold came out of the Gripe Room and mounted the platform. A fair-sized crowd was waiting to hear him.
Thebold raised his arms as if he were stilling a tumult. The music died away and Thebold spoke.
"My good friends and fellow Americans," the Senator began.
Then a Hectorite sound-apparatus started to blare directly across the street. The sound of hammering added to the disruption as workmen began to set up a rival speaker's platform. Then the music on the north side of Reilly Street became a triumphal march and Hector I made his entrance.
Thebold spoke on doggedly. Don heard an occasional phrase through the din. "... reunion with the U. S. A. ... end this un-American, this literal partition ..."
But many in the crowd had turned to watch Hector, who was magnificent and warm-looking in his ermine robe.
"Loyal subjects of Superior, I exhort you not to listen to this outsider who has come to meddle in our affairs," Hector said. "What can he offer that your king has not provided? You have security, inexhaustible food supplies and, above all, independence!"
Thebold increased his volume and boomed:
"Ah, butdoyou have independence, my friends? Ask your puppet king who provides this food—and for what price? And how securedoyou feel as you whip through the atmosphere like an unguided missile? You're over the Atlantic now. Who knows at what second the controls may break down and dump us all into the freezing water?"
Hector pushed his crown back on his head as if it were a derby hat. "Who asked the Senator here? Let me remind you that he does not even represent our former—and I emphasizeformer—State of Ohio. We all know him as a political adventurer, but never before has he attempted to meddle in the affairs of another country!"
"And you know what lies beyond Western Europe," Thebold said. "Eastern Europe and Russia. Atheistic, communistic Red Russia. Is that where you'd like to come down? For that's where you're heading under Hector Civek's so-called leadership. King Hector, he calls himself. Let me remind you, friends, that if there is anything the Soviet Russians hate more than a democracy, it's amonarchy! I don't like to think what your chances would be if you came down in Kremlinland. Remember what they did to the Czars."
Then Senator Bobby Thebold played his ace:
"But there's an even worse possibility, my poor misguided friends. And that's for the creatures behind Hector Civek to decide to go back home—and take off into outer space. Has Hector told you about the creatures? He has not. Has he told you they're aliens from another planet? He has not. Some of you have seen them—these kangaroo-like creatures who, for their own nefarious purposes, made Hector what he is today.
"But, my friends, these are not the cute and harmless kangaroos that abound in the land of our friendly ally, Australia. No. These are intelligent alien beings who have no use for us at all, and who have brazenly stolen a piece of American territory and are now in the process of making off with it."
A murmur came from the crowd and they looked over their shoulders at Hector, whose oratory had run down and who seemed unsure how to answer.
"Yes, my friends," Thebold went on, "you may well wonder what your fate will be in the hands of that power-mad ex-mayor of yours. A few thousand feet more of altitude and Superior will run out of air. Then you'll really be free of the good old U.S.A. because you'll be dead of suffocation. That, my friends—"
At that point somebody took a shot at Senator Bobby Thebold. It missed him, breaking a second-story window behind him.
Immediately a Thebold man behind that window smashed the rest of the glass and fired back across Reilly Street, over the heads of the crowd.
People screamed and ran. Don grabbed Alis and pulled her away from the immediate zone of fire. They looked back from behind a truck which, until a minute ago, had been dispensing hot buttered popcorn.
"Hostilities seem to have commenced," Alis said. She gave a nervous laugh. "I guess it's my fault for blabbing to Ed Clark."
"It was bound to happen, sooner or later," Don said. "I hope nobody gets hurt."
Evidently neither Thebold nor Hector personally had any such intention. Both had clambered down from the platforms and disappeared. Most of the crowd had fled too, heading east toward the center of town, but a few, like Alis and Don, had merely taken cover and were waiting to see what would happen next.
Sporadic firing continued. Then there was a concentration of shooting from the Senator's side, and a dozen or more of Thebold's men made a quick rush across the street and into the stores and buildings on the north side. In a few minutes they returned, under another protective burst, with prisoners.
"Slick," Don said. "Hector's being outmaneuvered."
"I wonder why the Gizls aren't helping him."
The Thebold loudspeaker came to life. "Attention!" it boomed in the Senator's voice. "Anyone who puts down his arms will be given safe conduct to the free side of Reilly Street. Don't throw away your life for a dictator. Come over to the side of Americanism and common sense." There was a pause, and the voice added: "No reprisals."
The firing stopped.
The Thebold loudspeaker began to playOn the Sunny Side of the Street.
But nobody crossed over. Nor was there any further firing from Hector's side.
Lay Down Your Arms, the loudspeaker blared in another tune from tin-pan alley.
When it became clear that Hector's forces had withdrawn completely from the Reilly Street salient, Thebold's men crossed in strength.
They worked their way block by block to the grounds of the bubble gum factory and proceeded to lay siege to it.
With Hector Civek immobilized, Senator Bobby Thebold went looking for Geneva Jervis, accompanied by two armed guards.
He was trailed by the usual pack of small boys, several of them dressed in imitation of their hero, in helmets, silk-like scarves and toy guns at hips.
Alis, unable to reach the besieged palace to see if her father was safe, had asked Don to go back with her to Cavalier after the Battle of Reilly Street. Her mother told Alis that the professor was not only safe on the campus but had resigned his post as Royal Astronaut at Hector's court.
"Father broke with Hector?" Alis asked. "Good for him! But why?"
"He and Dr. Rubach just up and walked out," Mrs. Garet said. "That's all I know. Your father never explains these things to me. But if my intuition means anything, the professor is up to one of his tricks again. He's been locked up in his lab all day."
The campus had an air of expectancy about it. Students and instructors went from building to building, exchanging knowing looks or whispered conversations.
A rally was in progress in front of the Administration Building when Senator Thebold arrived. Don and Alis joined the group of listeners for camouflage and pretended to pay attention to what the speaker, an intense young man on the back of a pickup truck, was saying.
"The time has come," he said, "for men and women of, uh, perspicacity to shun the extremes and tread the middle path. To avoid excesses as represented on the one hand by the, uh, paternalistic dictatorship of the Hectorites, and on the other by the, uh, pseudo-democracy of Senator Thebold which resorts to force when thwarted. I proclaim, therefore, the course of reason, the way of science and truth as exemplified by the, uh, the Garet-Rubach, uh—"
Senator Thebold had been listening at the edge of the little crowd. He spoke up.
"The Garet-Rubach Axis?" he suggested.
The speaker gave him a cold stare. "And who are you?"
"Senator Robert Thebold, representing pseudo-democracy, as you call it. Speak on, my young friend. Like Voltaire, I will defend to the death—but you know what Voltaire said."
"Yes, sir," the speaker said, abashed. "No offense intended, Senator."
"Of course you intended offense," Thebold said. "Stick to your guns, man. Free academic discussion must never be curtailed. But at the moment I'm more interested in meeting your Professor Garet. Where is he?"
"In—in the bell tower, sir. Right over there." He pointed. "But you can't go in. No one can." He looked at Alis as if for confirmation. She shook her head.
"We'll see about that," the Senator said. "Carry on with your free and open discussion. And remember, stick to your guns. Sorry I can't stay."
He headed for the bell tower, followed by his guards.
Alis waited till he had gone in, then tugged at Don's sleeve. "Come on. Let's see the fun."
"Alis," the speaker called to her, "was that really Senator Thebold?"
"Sure was. But what's this Garet-Rubach Axis? What's everybody up to?"
"Not Axis. That was Thebold's propaganda word. It's a movement of—oh, never mind. You don't appreciate your own father."
"You can say that again. Come on, Don."
As Alis closed the door to the bell tower behind them, they heard Professor Garet's voice from above.
"Attention interlopers," it said. "You have come unasked and now you find yourself paralyzed, unable to move a muscle except to breathe."
"Stay down here," Alis whispered. "There's a sort of vestibule one flight up. That's where Thebold must have got it. Father spends all his spare time guarding his holy of holies. Nobody gets past the vestibule." She frowned. "But I didn't know he had a paralysis thing, too."
"He probably swiped it from Hector before he broke with him," Don said.
Professor Garet's voice came again. "I shall now pass among you and relieve you of your weapons. Why, if it isn't Senator Thebold and his strong-arm crew! I'm honored, Senator. Here we are: three archaic .45's disposed of. Very soon now you'll have the pleasure of seeing a scientific weapon in action."
Don, standing with Alis on the steps of the Administration Building, didn't know whether to be impressed or amused by the giant machine Professor Garet had assembled. It was mounted on the flat bed of an old Reo truck, and various parts of it went skyward in a dozen directions. Garet had driven it onto the campus from a big shed behind the bell tower.
The machine's crowning glory was a big bowl-shaped sort of thing that didn't quite succeed in looking like a radar scanner. It was at the end of a universal joint which permitted it to aim in any direction.
"What's it supposed to do?" Don asked.
"From what I gather," Alis said, "it's Hector's paralysis thing, adapted for distance. Only of course nobody admits Father stole it. It's supposed to have antigravity powers, too, like whatever it was that took Superior up in the first place. Naturally I don't believe a word of it."
"But where's he going with it?"
"He's ready to take on all comers, I gather. Please don't try to make sense out of it. It's only Father."
The young man who had addressed the student rally took over the driver's seat and Professor Garet hoisted himself into a bucket seat at the rear of the truck near a panel which presumably operated the machine. Maynard Rubach sat next to the driver. The small army of dedicated students who had been assembling fell in behind the truck. They were unarmed, except with faith.
Senator Thebold and his two former bodyguards, de-paralyzed, sat trussed up in the back of a weapons carrier, looking disgusted with everything.
"Are we ready?" Professor Garet called.
A cheer went up.
"Then on to the enemy—in the name of science!"
Don shook his head. "But even if this crazy machine could knock out Hector's and Thebold's men and the Garet-Rubach Axis reigns supreme, then what? Does he claim he can get Superior back to Earth?"
Alis said only, "Please, Don ..."
The forces of science were ready to roll. There had been an embarrassing moment when the old Reo's engine died, but a student worked a crank with a will and it roared back to life.
The Garet machine, the weapons carrier and the foot soldiers moved off the campus and onto Shaws Road toward Broadway and the turn-off for the country club.
They met an advance party of the Thebold forces just north of McEntee Street. There were about twenty of them, armed with carbines and submachine guns. As soon as they spotted the weird armada from Cavalier they dropped to the ground, weapons aimed.
Senator Thebold rose in his seat. "Hold your fire!" he shouted to his men. "We don't shoot women, children, or crackpots." He said to Professor Garet, "All right, mastermind, untie me."
A submarine surfaced on the Atlantic, far below Superior.
It was obvious to the commander of the submarine, which bore the markings of the Soviet Union, that the runaway town of Superior, being populated entirely by capitalist madmen, was a menace to humanity. The submarine commander made a last-minute check with the radio room, then gave the order to launch the guided missiles which would rid the world of this menace.
The first missile sped skyward.
Superior immediately took evasive action.
First, in its terrific burst of acceleration, everybody was knocked flat.
Next, Superior sped upward for a few hundred feet and everybody was crushed to the ground.
At the same time the first missile, which was now where Superior would have been had it maintained its original course, exploded. A miniature mushroom cloud formed.
The submarine fired again and a second missile streaked up.
Superior dodged again. But this time its direction was down. Everyone who was outdoors—and a few who had been under thin roofs—found himself momentarily suspended in space.
Don and Alis, among the hundreds who had had the ground snatched out from under them, clung to each other and began to fall. All around them were the various adversaries who had been about to clash. Professor Garet had been separated from his machine and they were following separate downward orbits. Many of Thebold's men had dropped their guns but others clung to them, as if it were better to cling to something than merely to fall.
The downward swoop of Superior had taken it out of the immediate path of the second missile, but whoever had changed the townoid's course had apparently failed to take the inhabitants' inertia into immediate consideration. The missile was headed into their midst.
Then two things happened. The missile exploded well away from the falling people. And scores of kangaroo-like Gizls appeared from everywhere and began to snatch people to safety.
Great jumps carried the Gizls into the air and they collected three or four human beings at each leap. The leaps appeared to defy gravity, carrying the creatures hundreds of feet up. The Gizls also appeared to have the faculty of changing course while airborne, saving their charges from other loose objects, but this might have been illusion.
At any rate, Geneva Jervis, who had been hurled up from the roof of Hector's palace, where she had gone in hopes of catching a glimpse of Senator Thebold, was reunited with the Senator when they were rescued by the same Gizl, whose leap had carried him in a great arc virtually from one edge of Superior to the other.
Don Cort, pressed close to Alis and grasped securely against the hairy chest of their particular rescuer, was experiencing a combination of sensations. One, of course, was relief at being snatched from certain death.
Another was the delicious closeness of Alis, who he realized he hadn't been paying enough attention to, in a personal way.
Another was surprise at the number of Gizls who had appeared in the moment of crisis.
Finally he saw beyond doubt that it was the Gizls who were running the entire show—that Hector I, Bobby the Bold, and the pseudo-scientific Garet-Rubach Axis were merely strutters on the stage.
It was the Gizls who were maneuvering Superior as if it were a giant vehicle. It was the Gizls who were exploding the missiles. And it was the alien Gizls who, unlike the would-be belligerents among the Earth-people, were scrupulously saving human lives.
"Thanks," Don said to his rescuing Gizl as it set him and Alis down gently on the hard ground of the golf course.
"Don't mention it," the Gizl said, then leaped off to save others.
"He talked!" Alis said.
Don watched the Gizl make a mid-air grab and haul back a man who had looked as if he might otherwise have gone over the edge. "He certainly did."
"Then that must have been a masquerade, that other time—all that mumbo-jumbo with the Anagrams."
"It must have been, unless they learn awfully fast."
He and Alis clutched each other again as Superior tilted. It remained steady otherwise and they were able to see the ocean, whose surface was marked with splashes as a variety of loose objects fell into it. Don had a glimpse of Professor Garet's machine plummeting down in the midst of most of Superior's vehicular population.
"There's a plane!" Alis cried. "It's going after something on the surface."
"It's the Hustler," Don said. "It's after the submarine."
The B-58's long pod detached itself, became a guided missile and hit the submarine square in the middle. There was a whooshing explosion, the B-58 banked and disappeared from sight under Superior, and the sub went down.
"Sergeant Cort," a voice said, and because Alis was lying with her head on Don's chest she heard it first.
"Is that somebody talking to you, Don? Are you a sergeant?"
"I'm afraid so," he said. "I'll have to explain later. Sergeant Cort here," he said to the Pentagon.
"Things are getting out of hand, Sergeant," the voice of Captain Simmons said.
"Captain, that's the understatement of the week."
"Whatever it is, we can't allow the people of Superior to be endangered any longer."
"No, sir. Is there another submarine?"
"Not as far as we know. I'm talking about the state of anarchy in Superior itself, with each of three factions vying for power. Four, counting the kangaroos."
"They're not kangaroos, sir. They're Gizls."
"Whatever they are. You and I know they're creatures from some other world, and I've managed to persuade the Chief of Staff that this is the case. He's in seeing the Defense Secretary right now. But the State Department isn't buying it."
"You mean they don't believe in the Gizls?"
"They don't believe they're interplanetary. Their whole orientation at State is toward international trouble. Anything interplanetary sends them into a complete flap. We can't even get them to discuss the exploration of the moon, and that's practically around the corner."
"What shall we do, sir?"
"Between you and me, Sergeant—" Captain Simmons' voice interrupted itself. "Never mind that now. Here comes the Defense Secretary."
"Foghorn Frank?" Don asked.
"Sh."
Frank Fogarty had earned his nickname in his younger years when he commanded a tugboat in New York Harbor. That was before his quick rise in the shipbuilding industry where he got the reputation as a wartime expediter that led to his cabinet appointment.
"Is this the gadget?" Don heard Fogarty say.
"Yes, sir."
"Okay. Sergeant Cort?" Fogarty boomed. "Can you hear me?" It was no wonder they called him Foghorn.
"Yes, sir," Don said, wincing.
"Fine. You've been doing a topnotch job. Don't think I don't know what's been going on. I've heard the tapes. Now, son, are you ready for a little action? We're going to stir them up at State."
"Yes, sir," Don said again.
"Good. Then stand up. No, better not if Superior is still gyrating. Just raise your right hand and I'll give you a field promotion to major. Temporary, of course. I can do that, can't I, General?"
Apparently the Chief of Staff was there, and agreed.
"Right," Fogarty said. "Now, Sergeant, repeat after me...."
Don, too overwhelmed to say anything else, repeated after him.
"Now then, Major Cort, we're going to present the State Department with what they would call afait accompli. You are now Military Governor of Superior, son, with all the power of the U.S. Defense Establishment behind you. A C-97 troop carrier plane is loading. I'll give you the ETA as soon as I know it. A hundred paratroopers. Arrange to meet them at the golf course, near the blimp. And if Senator Thebold tries to interfere—well, handle him tactfully. But I think he'll go along. He's got his headlines and by now he should have been able to find his missing lady friend. Help him in that personal matter if you can. As for Hector Civek and Osbert Garet, be firm. I don't think they'll give you any trouble."
"But, sir," Don said. "Aren't you underestimating the Gizls? If they see paratroops landing they're liable to get unfriendly fast. May I make a suggestion?"
"Shoot, son."
"Well, sir, I think I'd better go try to have a talk with them and see if we can't work something out without a show of force. If you could hold off the troops till I ask for them...."
Foghorn Frank said, "Want to make a deal, eh? If you can do it, fine, but since State isn't willing to admit that there's such a thing as an intelligent kangaroo, alien or otherwise, any little deals you can make with them will have to be unofficial for the time being. All right—I'll hold off on the paratroopers. The important thing is to safeguard the civilian population and uphold the integrity of the United States. You have practically unlimited authority."
"Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I'll do my best."
"Good luck. I'll be listening."
"As I see it," Alis said after Don had explained his connection with the Pentagon, "Senator Thebold licked Hector Civek. Father, who defected from Hector, captured the Senator and vice versa. But now the Gizls have taken over from everybody and you have to fight them—all by your lonesome."
"Not fight them," Don said. "Negotiate with them."
"But the Gizls are on Hector's side. It seems to come full circle. Where do you start?"
Superior had returned to an even keel and Don helped her up. "Let's start by taking a walk over to the bubble gum factory. We'll try to see the Gizl-in-Chief."
There didn't seem to be anyone on the grounds of the McFerson place. The boxcar which had been on the siding near the factory was gone. It was probably at the bottom of the Atlantic by now, along with everything else that hadn't been fastened down. Don wondered if Superior's gyrations had been strong enough to dislodge the train that had originally brought him to town. The Pennsylvania Railroad wouldn't be happy about that.
They saw no one in the mansion and started for the basement room in which they'd had their talk with the Gizl, passing through rooms where the furniture had been knocked about as if by an angry giant. They were stopped en route by Vincent Grande, ex-police chief now Minister of Defense. "All right, kids," he said, "stick 'em up. Your Majesty," he called, "look what I got."
Hector Civek, crownless but still wearing his ermine, came up the stairs. "Put your gun away, Vince. Hello, Alis. Hello, Don. Glad to see you survived the earthquake. I thought we were all headed for kingdom come."
Vincent protested, "This is that traitor Garet's daughter. We can hold her hostage to keep her father in line."
"Nuts," the king said. "I'm getting tired of all this foolishness. I'm sure Osbert Garet is just as shaken up as we are. And that crazy Senator, too. All I want now is for Superior to go back where it came from, as soon as possible. And that's up to Gizl, I'm afraid."
"Have you seen him since the excitement?" Don asked.
"No. He went down that elevator of his when the submarine surfaced. I guess his control room, or whatever it is that makes Superior go, is down there. Let's take a look. Vince, will you put that gun away? Go help them clean up the mess in the kitchen."
Vincent Grande grumbled and went away.
In the basement room, Hector went to the corner and said, "Hey! Anybody down there?"
A deep voice said, "Ascending," and the blue-gray kangaroo-like creature appeared. He stepped off the elevator section. "Greetings, friends."
"Well," Hector said, "I didn't know you could talk."
"Forgive my lack of frankness," Gizl said. "Alis," he said, bowing slightly. "Your Majesty."
"Frankly," Hector said, "I'm thinking of abdicating. I don't think I like being a figurehead. Not when everybody knows about it, anyhow."
"Major Cort," Gizl said.
Don looked startled. "What? How did you know?"
"We have excellent communications. We thank your military for its assistance with the submarine."
"A pleasure. And we thank you and your people for saving us when we went flying."
"Mutuality of effort," Gizl said. "I'll admit a dilemma ensued when the submarine attacked. But our obligation to safeguard human lives outweighed the other alternative—escape to the safety of space. Now suppose we have our conference. You, Major, represent Earth. I, Rezar, represent the survivors of Gorel-zed. Agreed?"
"Rezar?" Don said. "I thought your name was Gizl. And what's Gorel-zed?"
"Little Marie Bendy called me Gizl," Rezar said. "She couldn't pronounce Gorel-zed. I'm afraid I haven't been entirely candid with you about a number of things. But I think I know you better now. I heard your conversation with Foghorn Frank."
Don smiled. "Do you mean you've been listening in ever since I strapped on the transceiver?"
"Oh, yes," Rezar said. "So recapitulation is unnecessary. But we Gizls, so-called, are still a mystery to you, of course. I suppose you'd like some background. Where from, where to, when, and all that."
"I certainly would," Don said. "So would everybody else, I imagine, especially King Hector here, and Mr. Fogarty."
"By all means let us communicate on the highest level," Rezar said. "First, where from, eh?"
"Right. Are you listening, Mr. Secretary?"
"I sure am," Fogarty said. "What's more, son, you're being piped directly into the White House—and a few other places."
"Good," Rezar said. "Now marvel at our saga."
The end of a civilization is a tragic thing.
On the desert planet of Gorel-zed, the last world to survive the slow nova of its sun, the Gizls, once the pests but now through brain surgery the possessors in their hardy bodies of the accumulated knowledge of the frail human beings, were preparing to flee. Their self-supporting ships were ready, capable of crossing space to the ends of the universe.
But their universe was barren. No planet could receive them. All were doomed as was theirs, Gorel-zed. They set out for a new galaxy, knowing they would not reach it but that their descendants might. They became nomads of space, self-sufficient.
For generations they wandered, their population diminishing. Their scientist-philosophers evolved the theory that accounted for their spaceborn ennui with life, their acceptance of their fate, their eventual doom. They had no roots, no place of their own. They had only the mechanistic world of their ships—which were vehicles, not a land. They must find a home of their own, or die.
Several times in their odyssey they had come to a planet which could have housed them. But each time an injunction which had been built into them at the time of the brain surgery prevented them from staying. The doomed human beings on Gorel-zed had built into the very fiber of the Gizls—who were, after all, only animals—the injunction that no human being could be harmed for their comfort.
This meant that the world of Ladnora, whose gentle saffron inhabitants were incapable of offering resistance, could not be conquered. The Ladnorans, in their generosity, had offered the refugees from Gorel-zed a hemisphere of their own. But the Gizls required a world of their own, not a half-world. They accepted a small continent only and made it spaceborne and took it with them.
The Crevisians were the next to be visited. They ruled a belt of fertile land around the equator of their world—the rest was icy waste. The Gizls took a slice of each polar region and, joining them, made them spaceborne.
In time they reached the system of Sol.
Mars attracted them first because of its sands. Mars was like Gorel-zed in many ways. But that very resemblance meant it was not for them. Mars was a dead world, as their own Gorel-zed had become.
But the next planet they came to was a green planet. The Gizls moored the acquisitions in the asteroid belt and visited Earth.
Here, at their planetfall, Australia, was the perfect land. Even its inhabitants—the great kangaroos, the smaller wallabies—breathed Home to the Gizls. But there were also the human beings who had made the land their own. And though memory of their origin had weakened in the Gizls, the injunction had not.
For a time they set up a kind of camp in the great central desert and with delight found their legs again. Out of the cramped ships they came, to bound in freedom and fresh breathable air across the wasteland. But hardy, naked, black human beings lived in the desert and they attacked the Gizls with their primitive weapons. And when the Gizls fled, not wishing to harm them, they came to white men, who attacked them with explosive weapons.
And so they took to their ships and were spaceborne again. But the attraction of Earth was strong and they sought another continent, called North America.
And in the center of it they found a great race whose technology was nearly as great as their own. These people had an intelligence and drive which rivaled that of their human antecedents, whose minds had been transferred to the Gizl's hardy, cumbersome bodies.
Rezar paused. His intelligent eyes seemed misplaced in his heavy animal body.
"What attracted you to Superior, of all places?" Alis asked.
Rezar seemed to smile. "Two things. Cavalier and bubble gum."
"What?" Alis said. "You're kidding!"
"No," Rezar said. "It's true. Bubble gum because after generations of subsistence on capsule food our teeth had weakened and loosened, and bubble gum strengthened them. Nourishment, no. Exercise, yes. And Cavalier Institute because here were men who spoke in terms which paralleled the secret of our spacedrive."
Alis laughed. "This would make Father expire of joy," she said. "But now you know he's just a phony."
"Alas," Rezar said. "Yes, alas. But he was so close. Magnology. Cosmolineation. It's jargon merely, as we learned in time. Osbert Garet is mad. Harmless, but mad."
Don asked Rezar, "But if this built-in morality of yours is so strong, why didn't it prevent you from taking off with Superior?"
Rezar replied, "There are factions among us now. An evolution of a sort, I suppose. Nothing is static. One faction"—he tapped his chest—"is completely bound by the injunction. But in the other, self-preservation places a limit on the injunction."
The explanation seemed to be that the other faction, which grew in strength with every failure to find a world of their own, felt that on a planet such as Earth, with a history of men warring against men, required the Gizls to be no more moral than the human inhabitants themselves.
"The Good Gizls versus the Bad Gizls?" Alis asked.
Rezar seemed to smile. The Bad Gizls, led by one called Kaliz, had got the upper hand for a time and elevated Superior, intending to join it to the bits and pieces of other planets they had previously collected and stored in the asteroid belt. But Rezar's influence had persuaded them not to head directly into space—at least not until they had solved the problem of how to put Superior's inhabitants "ashore" first.
Don, unaccustomed to his new role of interplanetary arbitrator, said tentatively:
"I can't authorize you to take Superior, even if you do put us all ashore, but there must be a comparable piece of Earth we could let you have."
"But Superior is not all," Rezar said. "To use one of your nautical expressions, Superior merely represents a shake-down cruise. Our ability to detach such a populated center had shown the feasibility of raising other typical communities—such as New York, Magnitogorsk and Heidelberg—each a different example of Earth culture."
Don heard a gasp from the Pentagon—or it might have come from the White House.
"You mean you've burrowed under each one of those 'communities'?" Don asked.
Rezar shrugged. "Kaliz's faction," he said, as if to dissociate himself from the project of removing some of Earth's choicest property. "They aim at a history-museum of habitable worlds."
"Interplanetary souvenirs," Alis said. "With quick-frozen inhabitants? Don, what are you going to do?"
Don didn't even know what to say. His eyes met Hector's.
"Don't look at me," Hector said. "I definitely abdicate."
"Look," Don said to Rezar, "how far advanced are these plans? I mean, is there a deadline for this mass levitation?"
"Twenty-four hours, your time," Rezar said.
"Can't you stop them? Aren't you the boss?"
The alien turned Don's question back on him. "Areyouthe boss?"
Don had started to shake his head when Foghorn Frank's voice boomed out.
"Yes, by thunder, heisthe boss! Don, raise your right hand. I'm going to make you a brigadier general. No, blast it, a full general. Repeat after me...."
General Don Cort squared his shoulders. He was almost getting used to these spot promotions.
"Now negotiate," Fogarty said. "You hear me, Mr. Gizl-Rezar? The United States of America stands behind General Cort." There was no audible objection from the White House. "Who stands behind you?"
"A democratic government," Rezar said. "Like yours."
"You represent them?" Fogarty asked.
"With my council, yes."
"Then we can make a deal. Talk to him, Don. I'll shut up now."
Don said to Rezar, "Was it your decision to burrow under New York and Magnitogorsk and Heidelberg?"
"I agreed to it, finally."
"But you agreed to it in the belief that the Earth-people were a warring people and that your old prohibitions did not apply. But we are not a warring people. Earth is at peace."
"Is it?" Rezar asked sadly. "Your plane warred on the submarine."
"In self-defense," Don said. "Don't forget that we defended you, too. And we'd do it again—but not unless provoked."
Rezar looked thoughtful. He tapped his long fingernails on the table. Finally he said, "I believe you. But I must talk to my people first, as you have talked to yours. Let us meet later"—he seemed to be making a mental calculation—"in three hours. Where? Here?"
"How about Cavalier?" Alis suggested. "It would be the first important thing that ever happened there."
For the first time since Superior took off, all of the town's elected or self-designated representatives met amicably. They gathered in the common room at Cavalier Institute as they waited for Rezar and his council to arrive for the talks which could decide, not only the fate of Superior, but of New York and two foreign cities as well.
Apparently the Pentagon expected Don to pretend he had authority to speak for Russia and Germany as well as the United States. But could he speak for the United States constitutionally? He was sure that Bobby Thebold, comprising exactly one percent of that great deliberative body, the Senate, would let him know if he went too far, crisis or no crisis.
The Senator, reunited with Geneva Jervis, sat holding her hand on a sofa in front of the fireplace in which logs blazed cheerfully. Thebold looked untypically placid. Jen Jervis, completely sober and with her hair freshly reddened, had greeted Don with a cool nod.
Thebold had been chagrined at learning that Don Cort was not the yokel he had taken him for. But he recovered quickly, saying that if there was any one thing he had learned in his Senate career it was the art of compromise. He would go along with the duly authorized representative of the Pentagon, with which he had always had the most cordial of relations.
"Isn't that so, sweetest of all the pies?" he said to Jen Jervis.
Jen looked uncomfortable. "Please, Bobby," she said. "Not in public." The Senator squeezed her hand.
Professor Garet, whose wife and daughter were serving tea, stood with Ed Clark near the big bay window, through which they looked occasionally to see if the Gizls were coming. Maynard Rubach sat in a leather armchair next to Hector Civek, who had discarded his ermine and wore an old heavy tweed suit. Doc Bendy sat off in a corner by himself. He was untypically quiet.
Don Cort, despite his four phantom stars, was telling himself he must not let these middle-aged men make him feel like a boy. Each of them had had a chance to do something positive and each had failed.
"Gentlemen," Don said, "my latest information from Washington confirms that the Gizls have actually tunneled under the cities they say their militant faction wants to take up to the asteroid belt, just as they dug in under Superior before it took off. So they're not bluffing."
"How'd we find out about Magnitogorsk?" Ed Clark asked. "Iron curtain getting rusty?"
Don told him that the Russians, impressed by the urgency of an unprecedented telephone call from the White House to the Kremlin, had finally admitted that their great industrial city was sitting on top of a honeycomb. The telephone conversation had also touched delicately on the subject of the submarine that had been sunk in mid-Atlantic, and there had been tacit agreement that the sub commander had exceeded his authority in firing the missiles and that the sinking would not be referred to again.
Maynard Rubach turned away from the window. "Here they come. Three of them. But they're not coming from the direction of the McFerson place."
"They could have come up from under the grandstand." Don said. "Miss Jervis and I found one of their tunnels there. Remember, Jen?"
Jen Jervis colored slightly and Don was sorry he'd brought it up. "Yes," she said. "I fainted and Don—Mr. Cort—General Cort—helped me."
"I'm obliged to the general," Senator Thebold said.
Professor Garet went to the door. The three Gizls followed him into the room. Everyone stood up formally. There was some embarrassed scurrying around because no one had remembered that the Gizls required backless chairs to accommodate their tails.
The Gizls, looking remarkably alike, sat close together. Don tentatively addressed the one in the middle.
"Gentlemen," he said, "first it is my privilege to award to you in the name of the President, the Medal of Merit in appreciation of your quick action in saving uncounted lives during the submarine incident. The actual medal will be presented to you when we re-establish physical contact with Earth."
Rezar, who, it turned out, was the one in the middle, accepted with a grave bow. "Our regret is that we were unable to prevent the loss of many valuable objects as well," he said.
"Mr. Rezar," Don said, "I haven't been trained in diplomacy so I'll speak plainly. We don't intend to give up New York. Contrary to general belief, there are about eight million people whodowant to live there. And I'm sure the inhabitants of Heidelberg and Magnitogorsk feel the same way about their cities."
"Then you yield Superior," Rezar said.
"I didn't say that."
"Yield Superior and we will guarantee safe passage to Earth for all its inhabitants. We only want its physical facilities."
"We'll yield the bubble gum factory to help your dental problem—for suitable reparations," Don said.
"Payment will be made for anything we take. Give us Superior intact, including the factory and Cavalier Institute, and we will transport to any place you name an area of equal size from the planet Mars."
"Mars?" Don said. "That'd be a very valuable piece of real estate for the researchers."
"Take it," Don heard Frank Fogarty say from the Pentagon.
Professor Garet spoke up. "If Cavalier goes, I go with it. I won't leave it."
"And I won't leave you, Osbert," his wife said. "Will there be air up there among the asteroids?"
"We are air-breathers like you," Rezar said. "When we have assembled our planet there will be plenty. You will be welcome, Professor and Mrs. Garet."
"Hector?" Don said. "You're still mayor of Cavalier. What do you think?"
"They can have it," Hector said. "I'll take a nice steady civil service job with the Federal Government, if you can arrange it."