They had not fouled the radio. But that was like letting a prisoner on Antarctica keep his hearing-aid. Not worth a damn for helping him escape.
Paul then tried the Z-wave. It was not dead, so far as Paul could tell. It did not crackle with cosmic static, but there was a faint hiss. Paul wondered about the connection to the station across the plain. They must have some sort of connection otherwise the flanged-up evidence would not ring true.
Paul began to tune the Z-wave receiver, just partly in hope and partly for lack of something to do.
"Damn!" he swore.
"Grayson! Grayson! That you?"
Paul blinked. Hearing things—?
"Grayson! Paul Grayson! Is that you?"
Paul grabbed the microphone like a drowning man clutching a straw. "Hello! Hello Neoterra. This is Paul Grayson marooned on Harrigan's Horror with a low air supply. I'm about two miles from the radio beac—"
"Grayson! Forget it. I know where you are. This isn't Neoterra. This is your old friend Evans waiting around in space until you stop trying things. For all we know, you might be able to figure a way out. Take it easy, pal. Such energy takes a lot of air—and you haven't much left...."
Nine days had passed according to the Solar clock on Paul's instrument panel. Nine days with the air slowly becoming stale. It was beginning to smell a bit, now. Paul did not notice it particularly, but someone just in from a planetary atmosphere would say that the air reeked to high heaven. His senses were beginning to numb. This was not a fast death, but slow and sordid. Paul yawned constantly, and took deep heaving gulps of air only to try again.
Paul fought sleep. He fought it because he knew that he might drift off to sleep never to awaken. But he had no recourse. Most of his time he spent a-sprawl on the cot in the instrument room because he had too little energy to be up and around and when he fought himself to get erect, there was nothing to do but to curse at the inert machinery. He had tried everything. He had considered everything, even up to and including the start of a diary in the hope that someday someone might find it.
But it was a fruitless task. Sort of like putting a daily account on the bottom of a cave in the hope that someone, someday, might investigate the cave and find out what happened.
He did not know the periodicity of Harrigan's Horror. But the sun—still a catalog number—was running lower along the horizon. The beacon had been placed near enough to the South Pole of rotation so that it could always look at the distant stars to and from which the radio beacons ran. This was a nice job of latitude selection regarding the plane of the planet's ecliptic and rotation for the Galactic Survey beams.
But Paul was dully uninterested in facts. He slept more than he knew, and was awake much less than he believed. His dreams were vivid enough to make him believe that he was awake, excepting those that dealt with Nora Phillips and John Stacey, neither of whom could have been there.
He was asleep, dreaming fitfully, when the spacecraft dropped down in a landing that would have made the air on any normal planet scream. It came down at nearly five gravities, its deceleration calculated to a fine degree of precision so that the zero-velocity moment of its computation coincided with the instant of contact. The drivers ceased and the ship settled into the gritty ground of Harrigan's Horror.
He did not hear the swift manipulation of the airlock from the outside controls.
"Grayson" came the cry. "Paul Grayson!"
Paul looked up dazedly, sitting up. He was weak, and dizzy. But Paul pulled himself erect with the determination that he would not let them see how badly off he was. The very deliberate attempt showed them—showed them a man whose cheeks were hollow, whose lips were a bit blue, eyes glazed and whose mind was dull.
He believed that he greeted them blithely, but what came from his mouth was a dry croak. Then he went to sleep again, sitting up on the cot, complete with a five day beard, and a shot-to-hell nervous system.
But they wasted no time. Bundling him into a spacesuit, they let the air out of the BurAst P.G.1. with a blast and hurried him to their own ship. Then they took off at six gravities, a force that bent them all into their cushions. It did not touch Paul. He was dead to the world in the first pleasant, honest, comfortable sleep he had since the air began to go foul.
And once again there were a couple of days of timelessness. It was very pleasant to have someone massage your muscles, to be steamed to the boiled-lobster point and then quick-frozen in a cold shower, followed by the ministrations of three dozen professional wrestlers. Gallons of cold water and miles of fresh air, a daily shave with a hot towel and a facial massage, good food and boiling tea, a pipe of aromatic tobacco, forty-eight hours of deep sleep....
And Paul, dressed in clean shirt and slacks and once more back to normal, was facing an elderly gentleman that looked like Santa Claus.
"I'll come to the point," said the elderly gentleman. "I am Franklin Huston. I am one of a group of men whose desire is completely political. This time it is also a bit personal. Perhaps you are one of the few men we can talk to who knows something about Nora Phillips."
"I have met Nora Phillips."
"We know."
"I'd like to meet Miss Phillips again."
"That all depends."
"On what?"
Huston spread his hands. "Possibly upon whether she is still alive."
"Alive!" roared Paul.
"Yes. Alive."
Paul shook his head. "If they killed Stacey, they would not stop at—"
There was a moment of silence. "Stacey was killed?"
Paul looked up. "Almost a year ago. Of course, it is barely possible that the news would be here by now. We took off very shortly afterwards in a fast ship, and the official news might be still on the way."
Huston hit his palm with his other fist. "We need something faster than ten months communication-time!" he cried. "Hell! We're no better off than the Pilgrims, hoping for some news from England. Grayson, what happened?"
Grayson started to explain, but half way through he stopped thoughtfully. "I've missed a point," he said. "I don't know that Staceywaskilled. After all, the men that arrested me weren't officers. Just henchmen of that guy Hoagland."
"Quite! Now, while there is a school that seems to apply logic to human motives, or tries to, there is another school that claims that the way people do things are entirely dependent upon their point of view and no one can catalog human nature. Grayson, I've known Hoagland a long time and spent most of that time fighting him one way or another. He is as cold-blooded about murder as a snake. But he is a sort of 'string-saver' as well. Anyone who has a bare chance of chipping in something toward the furthering of Hoagland's plans he will keep alive—and it is no great problem to keep them sequestered off somewhere away from contact until he needs 'em.
"For instance, Hoagland would be disinclined to kill Nora Phillips because in some way she might be useful to him—if only as a hostage. John Stacey is another item; Stacey might be kept alive for some reason. This is a big-time game, Grayson."
Paul grunted unhappily. "A year ago I was a man hopeful of trying out an idea. I've spent the last year being harassed, threatened, kidnaped, and shoved around. It looks like a big game to me but I don't know what the rules are or what the prize is to the winning side."
"You don't?"
"It revolves around me. I can see any number of reasons why people would go to bat for a system that will lead to communications across the galaxy. But for the life of me I can't see why anybody would prefer isolation."
"Paul, as a student, how did your history compare with your math?"
"None too well."
"Why did the Puritans leave England in the first place?"
"Something about their religion."
"The books call it religious freedom. The fact is more likely that they did not like the way things were being run in England. Well, forget that and tell me why the American Revolution was fought?"
"Because of taxation."
"Balderdash. That was just an excuse. I've heard that roar about 'Taxation without representation' every Fourth of July since I was a kid. Sure it was that, but why? Why? Well, because it took months for anything to cross the ocean, letter, information, data, anything. A representative would always be some months behind the demands of his job, and his people would be months behind him. The upshot was that people were being ruled—note that I saidruled—from a distance in time and space.
"Neoterra is being ruled by Terra, remote in time and space. At this moment, Grayson, Neoterra can go in one of two ways. I should say Neoterra and the whole galaxy. This is the crossroads, the fork, the place where one single decision or act will dictate for the future the entire history of mankind among the stars.
"One way is to have each stellar system set up its own autonomous government, an entity in itself, until at long last we have a million stars with its own set of rules and regulations and customs. Then someday someone may discover some means of cutting down the flight-time between the stars, and then we shall have a fine millenium of galactic wars for this reason or that, until the galaxy is settled down to some form of integrated government.
"The second course, Grayson, is to start this thing off with a solidarity. Let mankind spread through the galaxy, but let each new stellar system recognize that it must be a part of the whole, and not a world in itself with no outside interference.
"Remember, strife between men ended with the community, strife between communities ended with the state; while strife between states ended with the country. Finally strife between countries ended with the unification of Terra. But in this unification there is plenty of self-government. Eventually strife between worlds must end with the galactic government—unless we can bypass the colonization, growing into autonomy, and then formenting strife—and this faction on Neoterra hopes that this time mankind will get off on the right foot.
"And the way to do it is to let people know on Neoterra what happened on Terra yesterday and not next year!"
"The Z-wave—"
Huston smiled. "Serene in your own little Terra, you do not even know of the wrangle we are now going through. Of course it takes ten months for a fast ship, and the news is so remote and far away. The President of Neoterra will be elected in a year. We have already two vigorous candidates, one of which is speaking vigorously for autonomy and freedom from Terran intervention. The other is for continued harmony. Promise the people something positive and they will vote for you. But we have nothing to promise—save the interstellar link of the Z-wave. A damned poor offering."
"I'd say it was damned good."
Huston eyed Paul sharply. "How do you know?"
Paul opened his mouth and then closed it again. "I don't know," he said at last. "I think—"
"Not good enough. Not by far."
"But I've been circumvented and frustrated and I—"
Huston slammed a fist down on the desk. "Grayson, we found you and slid you out from under Hoagland's watchful eye for one reason only. You stand as a symbol to the people of Neoterra. You are a possible symbol of communications. With Paul Grayson free to work on the interstellar Z-wave, the political campaign will get a transfusion of new blood."
"When do I start?"
Huston nodded. "Now. But not here. We will have no damned nonsense. The fate of this political campaign rests upon your work."
"I see that."
"Four months flight time from Neoterra there is an equilateral trinary—"
"Latham's Triplets. One of the network beacons is on Latham Alpha IV."
"You will go to Latham Beta III where we have an extra-terran botanical research outfit. You can set up a laboratory there and go to work."
"But why not go back to Harrigan's Horror and pick up the radio beacon when it gets there? We can save a lot of time."
"Grayson, you are a symbol. You may be a tin God with feet of clay for all we know. So far all you've done is to create a ruckus, hollering against Haedaecker's Theory which you have not substantiated by any shred of evidence. Faith is a wonderful thing—I wish I had more of it than I have—but hardly a bulwark against the slings and arrows of life. So we'll not dicker with a proposition that may go wrong."
"But if I am to work—"
Huston smiled serenely. "I've often wondered why they call it 'Political Science' when the main idea is to get your point across whether it is true or not. We'll have no part of any experiments that may deal in failure. You'll go and work on Latham Beta III where reports of progress can be made without having a lot of curious people around to watch the answers."
Paul scowled. "And it isn't going to take more than a week following the initial announcement of success before someone is going to try it from Harrigan's Horror to Neoterra, or from Proxima I to Terra itself. Then what—?"
Huston put the forefingers of his hands tip to tip. "Well, you see, it is not quite as easy as you first imagined. It takes quite a bit of specialized equipment, and therefore the simple test will not work. You'd be glad to make a demonstration, but you are far too busy making a set-up that will ultimately bring a voice-to-ear communication between Terra and Neoterra, which is of course, the final touch. Why bother going through a lot of piddling little demonstrations to prove what you already know?"
"And in the meantime?"
"In the meantime, Grayson, you're going to have to work like the very devil to keep your research even with the reports we are making about your progress."
Paul eyed Huston coldly. "I suppose that was the main idea behind that flanged-up conversation I caught on Proxima I?"
"Yes."
"Nora Phillips has been very helpful, hasn't she?"
"You recognized her voice?"
"Yes."
Huston looked at Paul sympathetically. "I hope for your sake—as well as hers—that she is alive."
Paul grunted. "I've been a sucker."
Huston laughed at him. "And you'll be a sucker again, Paul. Forget it, for the moment. We're all suckers. It makes life interesting that way. You get going and see what you can do. Remember, I'll not hamper any progress. But we will most certainly see to it that any negative reports are multiplied by Minus One before they are made public."
"So—"
"Get what you need for experimentation and see that you make an ostentatious show of it. Drop a few hints about the Galactic Network and make a long-range prediction that within a year or two people can pick up a telephone and talk to friends on Terra."
Paul eyed Huston. "That won't be hard. I'm convinced—"
"Just be properly vague and un-specific. If you've got to talk at length, take a verbal swing at Haedaecker. Leave the political angle out of it; this is strictly science and you're a scientist and not a politician. Besides you've spent so much time a-space that you've lost voting residence anyway. This is at least a free chance for you to work, Grayson."
"I'm not too pleased at the basic conditions," said Paul, "but I am pleased at any chance to do something about the Z-wave."
"Then make the best of it."
Latham's Triplets, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma, were at the corners of an equilateral triangle about a quarter of a light year on a side. Beta III was a small planet possessed of a somewhat odorous atmosphere that was unpleasant but not deadly by any means. Beta III was not capable of supporting human life—if by 'supporting' is meant that the planet shall be called upon to accept, foster, and maintain in growing population a colony from Terra without outside assistance. A dearth of light metals on Beta III meant that man got insufficient salt to maintain the chemical balance established over a few million of Terran years. There was an abundance of heavy metals there which eventually caused an upset of the digestive tract. There was also something—or lack of something—in the make-up of the planet and its edible flora and fauna that tended to lower the birth-expectancy rate among couples who lived there. Paul did not care to ask which side of the fence Huston was on; one cultural faction wanted this something—or lack of something—isolated because knowing what it was would permit its eradication and thus cause a rise in the birth rate. The other faction wanted this something isolated for reasons best explained by Margaret Sanger.
But for Paul's purpose, Latham's Triplets was an ideal laboratory and proving ground.
Huston's offer was valid enough; he backed it with a half dozen young technicians to do whatever Paul wanted, and included a group of three small but very fast spacecraft for making tests in space itself.
While the galactic survey had picked Latham Alpha IV because of its ecliptic tilt, and Latham Beta III was semipopulated by a few hundred botanical researchers, none of the other planets of the system were being used. Paul selected Gamma II as the third relay station and his group set up both radio beacons and Z-wave equipment on each planet, one of them being not far from the Survey Station on Alpha IV.
Setting both Z-wave gear and radio beacons in operation complete with their timing gear, it was Paul's hope to show that the arrival of the radio beacon wave was coincident with the establishment of Z-wave contact. Then because this short distance did compare to true interstellar separation, Paul would have a talking point to make the big attempt across some real distance when one of the Beacon Stations checked in.
He considered for some time the possibility of sneaking in to one of the already-closed contacts, of which there were many, with many more being completed every week. The thing that stopped him was that the success at the Proxima I to Terra original contact had established the fact that the Galactic Network was functional, and now every station along the line that had contact already made was more than likely to be visited regularly by various technicians for one checking job or another. He would never know just how much time he would have unmolested.
While he had few qualms about working on the stuff, Paul still felt a vague fear at the idea of getting involved with the Bureau of Astrogation, for he was undoubtedly a wanted man on Terra, even if Neoterra did not seem to care. With his crew checking each of his own stations, Paul took off in his spacecraft at a speed just below the speed of light. A micro-wave beam went spearheading into space, and the velocity of Paul's ship created a Doppler shift that permitted him to receive the micro-wave frequency as one of the extremely long waves of low-frequency radio. Hour after hour he raced into space, checking both the radio and the Z-wave, raced ahead of the long finger of energy, then slowed until it caught up with him.
Suddenly the idea struck Paul. If he could not safely remain in the vicinity of a radio beacon station that had been checked-in, why couldn't he tap one end of the radio beam while one of his men coupled onto, not at, but near the other end?
Paul flopped ends with his ship and raced back to Beta III.
Twelve days later Paul was floating free a couple of million miles above a planet known only as 'The Ninth Planet of General Star Catalog Number 311' or in bureaucratic lingo: G.S.C. 311 was the star, and the planet was IX. As nearly as he could recall the lineup of the Galactic Survey network, G.S.C. 311 IX had checked-in some weeks ago with another star with a catalog number some five and a fraction light years distant.
The beacon signal from the planet below him roared in like thunder. It overrode the 'zero' position of the volume control enough to drive the loudspeaker into a blubber of noise.
Somewhere five light years distant, Toby Morrow, one of his men, should be waiting. He might have a bit of trouble finding the beacon with his spacecraft receiver at that distance. Noise was bothersome stuff, and the nature of the signal after crossing light years of space was not often high enough to come in strong and clear on anything but the specialized Survey Stations, where the input coils were immersed in liquid air to cut the random thermal agitation of the electrons in the wire.
Paul watched the clock and promptly at 0600 hours he snapped on the Z-wave transmitter and receiver, clutched the microphone and tried to think of something heroic to say. He gave up trying to be heroic after a few seconds, and merely said: "Toby! Toby Morrow! Can you hear me?"
The Z-wave receiver was silent.
Paul tried again and again, calling until his throat was dry, wishing ruefully that he had made a record to play into the transmitter. He pondered on the uncertainty angle; he could not be sure that Toby was observing the same set of conditions as he was, since they were separated in time and space; very well separated by five light years, in a universe that would not permit gross matter to exceed the speed of light, but forced such high-velocity matter into a completely-enclosed bubble of its own type of space.
It had been demonstrated that matter increases in mass as its velocity rises, and the formula claims that the mass becomes infinite as the velocity of light is reached. But space itself is warped by mass, and as the velocity rises toward the speed of light the mass increases until space is warped completely around it, creating a special transitory space of its own. Tests had been made with timed supervelocity missiles running toward an uninhabited, useless planet. The missile in its own warp of space had passed through the planet without making any fuss or mark on either the planet or the missile. Then men had tried it. Obviously matter occupies space, but specially-warped space did no more exist for real space than otherwise.
Only the law of equal and opposite reaction brought the ship back to real space once the drive was cut. The potential energy caused by the warping of space released once the power was withdrawn, and like a spring tightly wound and then released, the whole condition returned to its original state of inert stability.
Paul had no way of knowing whether Toby had hit a snag somewhere along the line. Again he thought of the short-term experiments that had been made and smiled unhappily. He would have liked to check Toby, whether his watch was properly set; if his receiver was turned on. But once checked, what was to prevent Toby from falling ill, his watch from running down, the blowup of some bit of vital equipment, the failure of something basic like a power supply filter condenser, or even to prevent Toby from turning off the Z-wave receiver just because the slight speaker hiss annoyed the man, running continuously for better than a week.
All Paul could do was to keep on calling. His first attempt had been steady for a half hour. He waited for a half hour and then called again:
"Toby! Toby Morrow. Can you hear me?" Paul went into a ramble of talk, just to keep the circuit alive. He recited poetry, discussed physics, and finally he broke into song:
"Round and round and round go the deuterons,Round and round the magnet swings 'emRound and round and round go the deutrons.Look at those neutrons pouring out there!"
"Round and round and round go the deuterons,Round and round the magnet swings 'emRound and round and round go the deutrons.Look at those neutrons pouring out there!"
"Round and round and round go the deuterons,
Round and round the magnet swings 'em
Round and round and round go the deutrons.
Look at those neutrons pouring out there!"
Then the Z-wave chattered into life. Paul jumped with excitement and reached for the volume control to bring the roar of voice down to a recognizable level.
"That's a lousy program we've got."
"Well, turn it off."
"Better we should shut the station off!"
"Hey! This is Paul Grayson—"
"We know who it is," came the sharp reply. At the same instant a powerful light flashed into the viewport, and Paul looked to see a spacer bearing down on him. As he watched, there was a flash of orange flame at the nose.
He did not see the shell. But whether it was one of the standard solid rounds used to check whether a planet or meteor were contraterrene, or whether it was loaded with high explosives, a four-inch projectile is nothing to be hit with in space.
His hand reached for the high drive, Paul could outrun any projectile that way, once his ship got started.
But another spacecraft passed at his side close enough to count the rivets, and as it passed him it began strewing space with a myriad of baseball sized chunks of solid matter. To start the high drive now would be death in a matter of seconds. The first few would be pushed aside, the next batch would ricochet from his hull. The batch he met just before he reached the high-space velocity would come through like a shotgun blast shattering a brick of cheese.
"Turn off the Z-wave!" came the command. "Turn it off or the next shot will drill dead center."
Paul hesitated.
Another flare came from the oncoming ship and the shell drilled deep into Paul's spacecraft, among the machinery and stores. Bulkhead doors clanged shut, the whistle of air rose and then fell as some compartment or other down in the bowels of the ship blasted its air out through a jagged hole in the hull.
"Next one will be through your department!"
Paul shrugged unhappily and snapped the toggle switch on the Z-wave transmitter. The other ship came alongside, threw out magnetic grapples, and then they came aboard in space suits through the airlock. They waved him aside and took over the controls of his ship.
Stolidly and silently they drove him toward G.S.C. 311; IX, landed him on a crude spaceport and escorted him to a new building where he faced a hard-looking man who chewed a cold cigar and eyed him with a great amount of pleasure.
"Well look who's here!" he gibed.
"What of it," snapped Paul.
"Lucky us. To think that of all the stars in the galaxy Paul Grayson would fasten his eye on us! My friend, you have no idea what a shock that Z-wave gave us. We broke three necks getting out there before you could do some harm."
"So you've caught me. But catching me isn't going to stop progress."
"How vitally correct you are."
"You—"
"Pardon me. I am called Westlake. I am what is known as a henchman, hireling, or employee of people who prefer to see the Z-wave communications stalled."
"How long can you prevent it?"
"Long enough," said Westlake. "After that it can start with a big bang. It would be helpful."
"You aren't going to get away with this, you know."
"Who—me? I'll bet I do. Just wait and see. I do admit that Z-wave communications would be helpful. For instance, if we had Z-wave contact with Neoterra I could find out what happened between the last information I got—which came from Terra—and your subsequent arrival here. Last dope I had was your capture and transmittal to Neoterra where some plan was being cooked up for you. Now, confound it, we've got a few months to wait between my telling the folks back home that I've collected you and what do they want me to do about it.
"Another angle, Grayson, is that if we had Z-wave networks, I could be sure that our friends on the other end of the line were as quick as we were. If we knew that—"
Westlake paused and then laughed. "Hell, if we had Z-wave networks running, I wouldn't have been the happiest guy in the galaxy to catch you."
"You're one of Hoagland's gang."
"That's as good a guess as any."
"Then suppose you tell me where Stacey and Nora Phillips are?"
"Oh, I don't mind. They came with the first line of information about you. In fact, I'll have you meet them. They'll let you in on a lot of things about this place—which will save me a lot of time. Burroughs! Burroughs! Burroughs, see that Grayson gets to talk to John Stacey and Nora Phillips in the closed conference room."
"Right!"
Stacey came first. He looked, nodded, and said: "I was wondering when you'd show up."
"I'm here. But about you?"
"So very simple. The rooker rooked, the seeker sucked in. It's a long time ago, Paul but do you remember when I called you just before you went to lecture?"
"Yes. You'd been to the house on 7111 Bridge Street."
"I left the upright coffin labelled 'Telephone Booth' and walked right between two large determined characters who insisted that I continue walking in their direction. I gathered from their conversation that someone responsible for their movements was irked at one Paul Grayson, and anger at Grayson included anybody else who had been seen talking to him for the past eight years. I was then bundled aboard a spacecraft and brought here. When did you miss me?"
"That's all you know?"
"The Oberspinnenführer is not exactly loquacious. Nor am I an honored guest to be greeted with shouts and glee. These spiders close their trap doors when I am around."
"Oh, then you didn't know that a couple of burly policemen arrested me for your murder."
"They did?" blinked Stacey. "What did they use for corpus delectable?"
"They didn't have to. They were probably the same pair of large determined gents that corralled you. This time they were dressed in clothing that belonged to a couple of real cops."
"And from there where?"
"I was hauled off to Harrigan's Horror."
"Where in the name of—?"
"Planet near to Neosol, next Survey link station from Neoterra. I was to be used as a decoy or something." Paul went on to explain. "The one thing that did occur to me along the trip to Neosol was that if these guys would lie about their status, there was no reason to expect the truth about you. Nora now—?"
"She was here when I arrived under lock and key. She is quite a dish of tea, old man."
The door opened again to let Nora Phillips come in. Paul had been right in his appraisal of the woman. Imperfections in her dress or make-up did not lessen her appeal. She had been more than a year and a half without a hairdresser, her clothing was rough-woven crude and cheap. Not a trace of cosmetic was on her face. The light in her eye was dulled, and her litheness had become apathetic. Month after month of hopeless waiting had taken the ambition out of her.
But she was Nora Phillips nonetheless. Paul went to her and put his arms around her. She looked up at him quietly and then put her head down on his shoulder. She did not cry. She did not have to cry.
She relaxed against him and let him hold her; letting Paul give her some of his strength. It was a futile thing, Paul felt that he had no real comfort to offer. In fact he was in just as bad a position as she was.
His hand stroked her head, and she moved slightly, wriggling close to him.
Stacey coughed slightly. "I hate to bust this up," he said softly. "And maybe I shouldn't, because you may not get another chance. But now—after a year and a half—maybe we all could learn something about what the hell is going on. At least tell me."
Paul tightened his grip on Nora for a moment, holding her close. Raising her face, he kissed her gently before he moved to sit across the conference table from John Stacey.
"Don't you know anything about it?"
"I did mention a slight reticence; a certain lack of volubility on the part of mine host. This," said Stacey pointedly, "is the first time I've seen Nora Phillips close enough to let someone else touch her."
"Careful," said Paul. "This place is wired for sound, no doubt."
"We're not telling anything that the Management does not know," said Stacey. "And if we are, they'll not interrupt. Go on, Nora. Give. Remember, I'm the detective. In the novels I'm the guy who knows all the answers, forms the decisions, finds the clues, and solves the case. Just furnish me with one answer, one clue, one decision, and one solution and we'll have Professor Moriarity in gaol by morning."
Nora frowned at Stacey. "You take this lightly."
"I shall—as soon as I can get some—bedeck me out in sackcloth."
Paul, who knew Stacey's manner, shook his head at Nora. He pressed her hand a moment and then said, "Nora, some people get mad at the milkman and then take out their mad at everybody else they meet for a week. The other extreme is Stacey, who has the viewpoint that he and we are still alive."
"I'm that way," nodded Stacey. "No one ever got anywhere by yelling about the bum deal they got. It's the guy who puts his head down and shoves—and the bird that gets mad at the universe because some bum stepped on his foot in the subway is the guy who loses a lot of friends."
"I'm—"
"Forget it and tell us," suggested Stacey.
"This is a political battle," said Nora. Then she went on to explain, as Huston had explained to Paul. When she finished, Paul smiled knowingly.
"What?" she asked him.
"Hoagland's gang bumped off the guy that clipped me because he flopped. But on Proxima there was another guy made up to resemble me—and he was clipped by someone else."
Paul looked at Nora. "Probably the same guy that so conveniently provided a recording of your voice to convince me that I'd solved the problem of Z-wave transmission," he said sharply.
Nora shrugged. "That was Ed Link," she said simply. "What happened?"
"Someone dropped what looked like a meteor shower on the bird."
"That sounds like Link's idea of handling it," she said.
"But the deceased?" asked Stacey. "Upon whose side was he aligned?"
"Not on Hoagland's."
"Certainly not on Huston's."
"Nora—tell me—why did you make that false recording?"
Nora looked at Paul, and then pulled him to her and hugged his head against her cheek for a moment. "Paul, as a scientist you couldn't understand the man on the street. We wanted something to show Neoterra. You don't understand this. But Paul, what would have happened if you had gotten away with it?"
"But I did not."
"Just pretend. Set up a hypothesis for a minute. Suppose that you had been able to convince the Terran Physical Society that you had received Z-waves from Terra while you were on Proxima I."
"I'd have been the man of the hour. I'd have been handed a large appropriation and a project of my own to pursue this—But Nora, it will work. Why did you feel that you had to falsify?"
"Paul, you are the only man in the known universe that does not think Haedaecker's Theory is valid. Please go on—please?"
"So I'd have been able to pursue my work unhampered. And—"
"Now suppose that you were unable to make the Z-wave contact again?" suggested Nora. "Remember, the recording was the only contact but the Z-wave—regardless of your belief—does not really work."
Paul shrugged: "Lacking a repeat, I'd have begun to study the connection a bit more," he said.
"So the upshot would have been—Hope—for those who wanted communications between Terra and Neoterra."
Stacey looked wistful. "Quoting some great poet that I don't remember other than that it was not Edgar Guest or John Paul Jones:
"Of all sad words of tongue or penThe saddest are these: It might have been!"
"Of all sad words of tongue or penThe saddest are these: It might have been!"
"Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these: It might have been!"
"So what do we do now?"
Paul looked at Stacey. "This is G.S.C. 113; IX. Hoagland's gang have Z-wave equipment here, probably trying to see whether or not I am right. So the thing to do is to get free long enough to use the Z-wave equipment for a call for help."
Nora shook her head. Paul looked at Stacey. Stacey looked at Nora and said, "I don't know anything about it." Paul looked at Nora.
"Don't you believe either?"
Nora clung to him, hugged him to her, cradled his head against her soft breasts and caressed his cheek. "Paul—Paul—Paul; I do so desperatelywantto believe—I want you to be—everything—I want you—"
Paul relaxed in her arms for a moment then moved away from her; holding her by the shoulders and looking her straight in the face, he said, "But—?"
Nora buried her face in his shoulder. A sob wrenched her and she clutched at him frantically.
Then she looked up with tears welling on the brim of her eyes, tried to speak but choked and buried her head in his shoulder once more.
Paul put his hand under her chin, lifted it from his shoulder and with his other hand dashed the tears from Nora's eyes.
"Tell me," he said gently.
"Paul—Paul—Oh Paul, I love you and this hurts—but for all of your faith, you have not one shred of evidence."
Like most human beings, Paul could comprehend the actions of someone of his own type. But he could not understand the mental machinations of people who had other motives and other interests in life. Nor could he seem to make other people understand that his continued interest in the Z-wave was only just and sensible. After all, he had never had an opportunity to try it.
To Paul it was just that simple. Just let him try it. He had so much faith in it that he could not foresee his next reaction if failure came. Paul did not consider failure as a possibility, but if he did fail, he would automatically begin insisting upon a chance to continue, insisting that something had gone awry, or that there were factors that must be studied.
This sort of attitude was acceptable to Paul, yet he could not comprehend the contemplated action of the political factions he was involved with.
For instance, one faction was going to falsify evidence in order to swing an election. This seemed dishonest to Paul. He wondered just how they could justify their act. The other faction was keeping him prisoner so that he could not furnish any evidence at all.
But eventually one side or the other was going to find that its evidence was in error. Then what? Supposing because he had been kidnaped by this particular gang and thus gave some concrete evidence of negative result, Hoagland and Westlake and the rest were elected—after which the Z-wave contact proved good? Or, if Huston and his crowd got elected on the strength of the Z-wave contact, and then because Paul was captive and unable to make it work, there was no Z-wave communication with Terra.
How could they justify their claims in the face of the emptiness of their prophecies?
Paul could not understand the political mind and the thinking of the man on the street. He could not even apply such thinking to his own case. The fact that for eons, politicians have been making promises that were unfulfilled after election did not register with Grayson.
The thing to do, of course, was to escape. Then he could work and bring out the truth—which to Paul was single-valued and positive—and thus do away with all of the half-truths, lies, and fingers-crossed statements.
But how? He had to admit that he was not ill-treated. He believed that both sides were willing to have Z-wave contact with Terra, for commercial reasons, but he knew that only one side wanted communications now. Ergo the opposing side which were his captors would treat him well in the hope of having him work for them once the election was over.
Paul shrugged. Whatever the cause, he would not cut off his nose to spite his face. His was no interest in political fray. He wanted to work with the Z-wave.
In fact Westlake and Hoagland had one facet that looked reasonably good. Their party was for autonomy, and if Paul worked for them, he would be forever free of any legal attachment to Terra. And doubtless Haedaecker and the whole Bureau of Astrogation were out gunning for Paul Grayson if for no other reason than the stolen BurAst P.G.1. Were Huston and his coalition government to get in, Haedaecker could swing a large club over the various integrated wings of government and make Paul's life precarious.
So Paul was on the fence so far as his work was concerned. In fact, at the present moment Paul did not think highly of either political ambition, since their high ambition was tarred with a wide, full brush of downright thuggery.
Escape, of course, was an easy word to say. It was true that Paul's incarceration was nothing like being cooped up in a jail cell. His door was closed but not locked; he had plenty of time and opportunity to see and talk to both Nora and John Stacey, and to make friends with other political prisoners. Across the broad plain was a spaceport and some spacecraft that came and went, but going there and taking off presented the problem of getting away with it. He was somewhat reminded of the signs reputed to be placed around the penal grounds on Antarctica. There were maps of the South Polar Region of Terra, with latitude, longitude, and the distance in miles from the penitentiary to the nearest shred of civilization carefully and accurately marked. Listed below the maps was a roster of average temperatures for the district at any time of the year, and the whole thing was a great deterrent to walking out of the place and trying to cross a few thousand miles of very cold nothing in order to get to one of Civilization's Southern outposts—where the escapee's name would be posted long before he could arrive.
The only way a man could escape was to have some means of communication so that friends could come to his aid. Paul's only method of contact was the Z-wave.
They did let Paul tinker, and they even let him work, but they would not let him near Z-wave equipment that was connected with the radio beacon. Toby Morrow helped Paul with calculations and theory, being the only one among the prisoners who had done any work with Grayson.
Morrow, of course, had been picked up by Westlake's crew on the planet at the other end of this leg of the Galactic Survey Link, along about the same time that Paul had been grabbed near G.S.C. 311; IX. It was apparent without saying anything about it that Westlake's gang had been working with the Z-wave in the hope of establishing the validity of Paul's statements.
But so far, they had not been able to make contact apparently, and Paul had not been able to, either.
So as the days passed into weeks, Paul once more reconstructed his map of the Galactic Survey and connected this star with that, and the other with the fourth. It was beginning to fill in, now.
Paul viewed it with interest, occasionally wondering who was checking the beacons in his place.
But it was filling in, and it reminded him somewhat of that game played with dots, in which each player takes a turn connecting two dots with a line, the idea being to complete squares yourself while preventing your opponent from completing any. Usually the first several moves are drawn here and there with no particular pattern. Then as the game progresses, more and more lines connect more and more dots until it is impossible to draw a line between two dots that does not also connect two other, previously drawn lines.
The galactic map is far from a square, otherwise all of the lines would have terminated at the same time.
Even so, there were whole lengths of solid line, zig-zag across space between the nearer stars that would make a solid connection between stations thirty to fifty light years apart. And every week saw another connection made, and each connection completed the connection between isolated groups. It took on a maze-like appearance; Paul thought that if it were stretched out and the collateral paths were added, the thing would have reached between Terra and Neoterra and half-way back.
So Paul added to his map as the weeks went on until there were only a few open stretches between Sol and Neosol. He thought ruefully that it was a damned shame that the whole Galactic Network would be completely closed before he got a chance to try the Z-wave. Instead of starting with one contact and working his way across, the first interstellar contact via Z-wave might well be a complete attempt between the two planets, one hundred and forty light years apart.
It was a curious proposition; Civilization had been geared to a constantly accelerating life up to the time that Mother Earth and her daughter colony obtained—and found that they were irrevocably separated in time and space by about ten months and one hundred forty light years. Fast, pre-guided spacecraft could hiss through the distance as message couriers in about eight months, but the power needed for such ships reduced the payload. But letters were the best means of communication, for a business man would be out of touch for at least twenty months if he went himself.
So Mankind struggled along as best it could, hoping that someday someone would be able to lick the problem.
Even Paul's group was able to witness the regular arrival and departure of couriers and men who came on official business. When one of the faster ships brought Hoagland himself, none of the prisoners gave any special attention to his arrival.
Hoagland told to Westlake, "That was a sharp job, Westlake."
"I thought so."
"But your report forgot to mention one item. You did state that Grayson was trying to tap the radio beacon from a couple of million miles out, and that you caught him and his partner on the other end of the beam. But you forgot to mention whether your own experiments were successful."
Westlake laughed. "Only in catching Grayson and Morrow. That was coincidence of the upper brackets."
Hoagland smiled. "That it was," he said. "But have you gotten any evidence?"
"None. We'd been trying Grayson's idea for months without success. When the Z-wave broke into life we thought it was working until we located the source and went out to pick him up. The boys at the other end heard the same thing, did likewise, and then came scurrying back home to let me know about it. So we collected Grayson and Morrow in two fell swoops."
Hoagland nodded again, and then said: "Westlake, how good a gambler are you?"
"I like to play safe," said Westlake.
"How safe?"
"Plenty."
"Then you won't like this. But I'm going to make one gamble, and one bet on a certain thing."
"Yes—and which is which?"
"Without a doubt Grayson got the equipment he was using from Huston and Huston's crowd of coalitionists. They set him up on some planet with a laboratory under their direction, and are probably running the Neoterran Press ragged with glowing reports of Grayson's howling success—carefully guarding their statements with cautious warnings that The Public must not expect Z-wave communications with Terra overnight, but someday—soon—et-cetera, and so forth."
Westlake laughed. "'The police anticipate an early apprehension of the criminals,' sort of thing."
"Exactly."
"Furthermore I will be a bad prophet if I am incorrect in assuming that when Huston started Grayson on his job, Huston gave orders that Grayson was not to do anything that would gain him any notice whatsoever. On the idea that the first mention of failure would puncture Huston's political propaganda."
"All reasoning based upon the 'what would I do?' theory. Good and sound I calls it."
"Right. Now, here is the certainty. If Grayson is the kind of idealist that I think he is, Grayson will at the first opportunity make some check of the Z-wave—in fact he has tried to set it up already. He will try again if he is permitted."
"That's your certainty."
"Now for the gamble. I've read all of Haedaecker's Theory and find it solid. I've read Grayson's line of reasoning and find it logical."
"Then which is right?"
"Haedaecker based his reasoning on fact. Grayson set out to poke holes in it and—like so many idealists—he proceeded to leap upon any facet that supported his theory against Haedaecker, while discounting anything that mitigated against him.
"So," smiled Hoagland affably, "the thing to do is to permit Mister Grayson's escape in a ship loaded with Z-wave gear. Let him take his friends, Phillips, Stacey, and Morrow."
Westlake nodded slowly. "I get it. Grayson will not make his next attempt in secret. He'll try it and we'll have observers to watch—and report his failure."
"Right."
Not much later, Hoagland's ship took off for Neoterra. Another ship took off for Terra with messages. Out across the broad plain, Paul could see from his window that the only ship remaining on the rough spaceport was his own spacecraft; the one furnished by Huston. Morrow's little job had been taken off somewhere. Paul shook his head unhappily. Someone was willing to pour a lot of money into this business. Spacecraft were expensive, yet they were being bandied about and traded like horses in a rustler's camp.
While all Paul needed was entry to that one spacecraft over there, plus about ten minutes of free time....
Grayson paced his room until dark muttering and grunting unhappily. Time and again he returned to the window to look longingly at his spacecraft, and time and again he wondered whether it would be possible to steal out across that mile or so of sheer flat plain and get into the ship without being seen. In broad daylight it would be impossible. But the encampment was somewhat south of the Polar region where the big beacon station was situated, and the planet was progressing along in its year so that very soon the beacon station would be entering the half-year of night. The encampment had been in perpetual daylight, a 'Land of the Midnight Sun' latitude. But now there was a short night beginning, which would lengthen as the year progressed.
It was dark ... dark....
Paul looked out of his room. The corridor was dark. Deliberately, Paul stood there with the door open, waiting. He had gone out before, but had not gone far before someone came sauntering by to engage him in conversation. Pleasant conversation that carefully avoided mention of the fact that this talk was between jailer and prisoner and that one was keeping an eye on the other.
Paul sauntered down toward Toby Morrow's room. The door was open and Toby was fiddling with something at the top inner corner of the jamb.
"What gives?" asked Grayson.
Toby jumped like a startled doe, settled down as he saw Paul, and then took a deep breath. "Don't scare a man that way," he complained. He took another deep breath. "I've just discovered the burglar alarm," he chuckled. "And fixed it!"
"From here?"
Morrow waved at the open door. "Been open for an hour. Nobody came. Thought you were it, Paul."
Grayson smiled. "I doubt that you did much, Toby. Something's blown out somewhere. I got out without fixing my door and no one came for me, either."
Morrow nodded thoughtfully. "Most alarms are designed so that any tinkering with them will result in sending the alarm," he muttered. "Closed-circuit propositions. I'd just located the contactor on my door and was jamming it shut. That would take care of my door but not yours. Now let's see what could be wrong—"
Paul grunted. "Let's not waste time in figuring out what's wrong with the enemy's burglar alarm," he said. "This is no time to be overly helpful. You go collect John Stacey and I'll find Nora Phillips and we'll meet down in the front hallway."
"What gives?"
"Sitting here like a fool doesn't make me happy. I want action. Why don't we try to get away, Toby. What can we lose?"
"Nothing but some breath. Okay, it's a deal."
Paul went down the stairs cautiously, along the corridor below until he came to Nora's room, and then without rapping he opened the door and stole in, closing the door behind him.
"Paul!" she cried. "What—?"
"Collect yourself," grinned Paul. "We're leaving." He did not think until much later that he had not bothered to knock, nor had he apologized for bursting in this way. It had come as a natural way, a normal thing. Modesty, propriety, and convention were only words, and totally useless commodities when escape from imprisonment looked possible. And it was also much later before Paul realized that Nora must have agreed with him, for she wasted no time. In the darkened room there was a wild flurry of arms, legs, and clothing, a nightgown dropped carelessly on the floor and trampled as Nora slid a dress over her head and at the same time tried to fumble her feet into her shoes.
There was the whisk of a hand smoothing cloth over skin, and then a quick step. Nora bumped into Paul, and clutched at him. He put his arms around her and held her for a moment, enjoying the warm softness of her against him.
Then he turned away and led her to the door.
They met Stacey and Morrow in the downstairs hall. "Okay?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.
"Looks so," said Morrow.
"I don't like it," said Stacey.
"Why?"
"Looks too easy."
"Don't be so everlastingly suspicious," said Nora.
"Oh, I'm not the type to admire the denture of a gift horse," responded Stacey. "Not until later. So let's get going."
Paul opened the door. "This is it!" he snapped. "Run for it!"
"Wait a minute," objected Stacey. "Not straight. Head left, you two. We'll go right. Cut a large circle and don't run. Just walk as fast as you can and be as quiet as you can. It's as dark as the Devil's hip pocket out there, but sooner or later someone will realize that all is not well with the Boys at Home. Now!"
"Now!"
They separated. Blind-black outside compared to the lights in the hallways of the house, Paul and Nora picked their way carefully until their eyes became adjusted to the dark. Then they could see the dim lights of the buildings across the plain. They left their former home and swung wide, angling away from the line between the house and the ship. Paul paused once, listening, and heard a faint crackle from some distance; either Morrow or Stacey had stumbled over something.
They were half-way there before any hue-and-cry was raised. Each pair had gone out in a diamond-shaped course until house and spaceship were almost a ninety-degree angle apart.
Paul wondered; they were far from the house it was true, but they were almost as far from the spacecraft now as they had been when standing on the front steps of the house. His mathematical mind made a quick computation and he smiled, audibly chuckling.
"What?" said Nora in a low voice.
"I was just thinking that we are now point seven zero seven of the original distance from the spaceship."
Nora laughed gently. "Some man," she said. "Has no time to kiss me in my room, but has time to play trigonometry here."
Paul patted her gently. "Trig is something I can do without putting all I've got into it. No—"
From a distance there came the faint ringing of a bell.
"Nice man," said Nora. "I forgive you—until later."
Lights went on across the plain, men stormed out of the big building and leaped into a command-car parked on the road in front of it. The command car roared into life and started across the plain toward the dormitory.
"Now!" said Paul. "Down!"
They hit the dirt side by side as the headlights swung around. Then the beams of light were gone and Nora and Paul were upright once more and running.
Noise meant nothing in face of the roar from the jeep's engine; the car was careening across the plain madly, and Paul knew that no one aboard the car would be able to keep a sharp lookout for any running figures. About all they could do was to hang onto the racketing jeep.
The spacecraft loomed larger before them. The roar of the jeep died as the car reached the dormitory, and Paul looked back over his shoulder to watch the men pile out of the car and head into the building on a dead run.
"Faster!" he breathed.
The ship was a hundred yards away—and Paul could see Stacey and Morrow running in from the other side—when there was the roar of the engine again. The headlights swung around to catch them, but this time they did not care. It was run for it; no time to play cat and mouse. The engine whined high, Paul put on more speed, running away from Nora.
"Paul—"
"Come on," he snapped over his shoulder. "Don't talk—run!"
He raced away from her, outdistanced her; the jeep's roar coming louder and louder.
Paul reached the spacelock and fumbled with the outside controls. Ponderously the lock opened, swinging aside just as Stacey and Morrow came panting up.
"In!" snapped Paul. Then he turned, caught Nora's hand, and hurled her headlong through the opening. He leaped in after her, tripped over her sprawling ankle, caught the flipper switch to the door as he fell, and scrambled to his feet as the spacelock door started to close.
The roar of the engine still came through the closing slit, a shot pinged against the steel hull. Paul forgot about the spacelock and headed up the runway to the control room.
He hit the control panel with both hands; flipped the warm-up switch and the low-drive at the same time. It would be a ragged take-off, with the ship rising as the driving generators warmed up instead of taking off with a hot drive. He waited with one hand on the high drive switch, waited and waited and waited. Another shot pinged against the hull, one glanced from the view-dome but it was at such an angle that it merely nicked the ultra-hard glass but did not crack it. It sang off high into the air.
Stacey and Morrow came into the control room, panting, and half-carrying Nora between them.
"What are we waiting for?" snapped Stacey.
"Getting up steam."
"What is this, a Stanley Steamer?"
"Just takes as long," grunted Paul. Then the low drive took hold. The ship lifted uncertainly, awkwardly, quaveringly, and slowly. Not the quick rush-upwards of the well-prepared ship. But as the seconds passed the ship steadied, the controls got less mushy, and the drive became more certain. A light flashed in through the port, their erstwhile jailers had aimed a spotlight on the ship, and with the light there came the pattering of gunshot. A flat bark came from below and Paul braced himself for the impact that did not come. A miss!
Then he snapped the high drive and the floor leaped upward under them. Chair cushions flattened, and then filled out again as the hydraulic compensators went to work. Behind them the planet diminished in size visibly, and then, at once, the viewport just became black and featureless outside.
Paul leaned back in the pilot's chair.
"Wow!" he yelped.
"Made it!" said Stacey.
Paul got up and went over to Nora. "I wasn't running away from you," he said plaintively. "It takes time to get the door open—"
"I forgive you," said Nora with a smile.
Back below them, Westlake said: "You're sure you missed?"
"I'm a master gunner," said the other. "It takes a good gunner to miss a ship that big when it is that close. I missed all right."
Westlake smiled. "We sure made that look good. But God what a job of timing! I thought we were going to have to blow out a tire to keep from catching them!"