"From the beginning now," Kerk said. "And leave out nothing."
"There is very little more that I can add to the physical facts. I saw
the animals, understood the message. I even experimented with some of
them and they reacted to my mental commands. What I must do now is track
down the source of the orders that keep this war going.
"I'll tell you something that I have never told anyone else. I'm not
only lucky at gambling. I have enough psi ability to alter probability
in my favor. It's an erratic ability that I have tried to improve for
obvious reasons. During the past ten years I managed to study at all of
the centers that do psi research. Compared to other fields of knowledge
it is amazing how little they know. Basic psi talents can be improved by
practice, and some machines have been devised that act as psionic
amplifiers. One of these, used correctly, is a very good directional
indicator."
"You want to build this machine?" Kerk asked.
"Exactly. Build it and take it outside the city in the ship. Any signal
strong enough to keep this centuries-old battle going should be strong
enough to track down. I'll follow it, contact the creatures who are
sending it, and try to find out why they are doing it. I assume you'll
go along with any reasonable plan that will end this war?"
"Anything reasonable," Kerk said coldly. "How long will it take you to
build this machine?"
"Just a few days if you have all the parts here," Jason told him.
"Then do it. I'm canceling the flight that's leaving now and I'll keep
the ship here, ready to go. When the machine is built I want you to
track the signal and report back to me."
"Agreed," Jason said, standing up. "As soon as I have this hole in my
back looked at I'll draw up a list of things needed."
A grim, unsmiling man named Skop was assigned to Jason as a combination
guide and guard. He took his job very seriously, and it didn't take
Jason long to realize that he was a prisoner-at-large. Kerk had accepted
his story, but that was no guarantee that he believed it. At a single
word from him, the guard could turn executioner.
The chill thought hit Jason that undoubtedly this was what would happen.
Whether Kerk accepted the story or not--he couldn't afford to take a
chance. As long as there was the slightest possibility Jason had
contacted the grubbers, he could not be allowed to leave the planet
alive. The woods people were being simple if they thought a plan this
obvious might succeed. Or had they just gambled on the very long chance
it might work? _They_ certainly had nothing to lose by it.
Only half of Jason's mind was occupied with the work as he drew up a
list of materials he would need for the psionic direction finder. His
thoughts plodded in tight circles, searching for a way out that didn't
exist. He was too deeply involved now to just leave. Kerk would see to
that. Unless he could find a way to end the war and settle the grubber
question he was marooned on Pyrrus for life. A very short life.
When the list was ready he called Supply. With a few substitutions,
everything he might possibly need was in stock, and would be sent over.
Skop sank into an apparent doze in his chair and Jason, his head propped
against the pull of gravity by one arm, began a working sketch of his
machine.
Jason looked up suddenly, aware of the silence. He could hear machinery
in the building and voices in the hall outside. What kind of silence
then--?
Mental silence. He had been so preoccupied since his return to the city
that he hadn't noticed the complete lack of any kind of psi sensation.
The constant wash of animal reactions was missing, as was the vague
tactile awareness of his PK. With sudden realization he remembered that
it was always this way inside the city.
He tried to listen with his mind--and stopped almost before he began.
There was a constant press of thought about him that he was made aware
of when he reached out. It was like being in a vessel far beneath the
ocean, with your hand on the door that held back the frightening
pressure. Touching the door, without opening it, you could feel the
stresses, the power pushing in and waiting to crush you. It was this way
with the psi pressure on the city. The unvoiced hate-filled screams of
Pyrrus would instantly destroy any mind that received them. Some
function of his brain acted as a psi-circuit breaker, shutting off
awareness before his mind could be blasted. There was just enough
leak-through to keep him aware of the pressure--and supply the raw
materials for his constant nightmares.
There was only one fringe benefit. The lack of thought pressure made it
easier for him to concentrate. In spite of his fatigue the diagram
developed swiftly.
* * * * *
Meta arrived late that afternoon, bringing the parts he had ordered. She
slid the long box onto the workbench, started to speak, but changed her
mind and said nothing. Jason looked up at her and smiled.
"Confused?" he asked.
"I don't know what you mean," she said, "I'm not confused. Just annoyed.
The regular trip has been canceled and our supply schedule will be
thrown off for months to come. And instead of piloting or perimeter
assignment all I can do is stand around and wait for you. Then take
some silly flight following your directions. Do you wonder that I'm
annoyed?"
Jason carefully set the parts out on the chassis before he spoke. "As I
said, you're confused. I can point out how you're confused--which will
make you even more confused. A temptation that I frankly find hard to
resist."
She looked across the bench at him, frowning. One finger unconsciously
curling and uncurling a short lock of hair. Jason liked her this way. As
a Pyrran operating at full blast she had as much personality as a gear
in a machine. Once out of that pattern she reminded him more of the girl
he had known on that first flight to Pyrrus. He wondered if it was
possible to really get across to her what he meant.
"I'm not being insulting when I say 'confused,' Meta. With your
background you couldn't be any other way. You have an insular
personality. Admittedly, Pyrrus is an unusual island with a lot of
high-power problems that you are an expert at solving. That doesn't make
it any less of an island. When you face a cosmopolitan problem you are
confused. Or even worse, when your island problems are put into a bigger
context. That's like playing your own game, only having the rules change
constantly as you go along."
"You're talking nonsense," she snapped at him. "Pyrrus isn't an island
and battling for survival is definitely not a game."
"I'm sorry," he smiled. "I was using a figure of speech, and a badly
chosen one at that. Let's put the problem on more concrete terms. Take
an example. Suppose I were to tell you that over there, hanging from the
doorframe, was a stingwing--"
Meta's gun was pointing at the door before he finished the last word.
There was a crash as the guard's chair went over. He had jumped from a
half-doze to full alertness in an instant, his gun also searching the
doorframe.
"That was just an example," Jason said. "There's really nothing there."
The guard's gun vanished and he scowled a look of contempt at Jason, as
he righted the chair and dropped into it.
"You both have proved yourself capable of handling a Pyrran problem."
Jason continued. "But what if I said that there is a thing hanging from
the doorframe that _looks_ like a stingwing, but is really a kind of
large insect that spins a fine silk that can be used to weave clothes?"
The guard glared from under his thick eyebrows at the empty doorframe,
his gun whined part way out, then snapped back into the holster. He
growled something inaudible at Jason, then stamped into the outer room,
slamming the door behind him. Meta frowned in concentration and looked
puzzled.
"It couldn't be anything except a stingwing," she finally said. "Nothing
else could possibly look like that. And even if it didn't spin silk, it
would bite if you got near, so you would have to kill it." She smiled
with satisfaction at the indestructible logic of her answer.
"Wrong again," Jason said. "I just described the mimic-spinner that
lives on Stover's Planet. It imitates the most violent forms of life
there, does such a good job that it has no need for other defenses.
It'll sit quietly on your hand and spin for you by the yard. If I
dropped a shipload of them here on Pyrrus, you never could be sure when
to shoot, could you?"
"But they are not here now," Meta insisted.
"Yet they could be quite easily. And if they were, all the rules of your
game would change. Getting the idea now? There are some fixed laws and
rules in the galaxy--but they're not the ones you live by. Your rule is
war unending with the local life. I want to step outside your rule book
and end that war. Wouldn't you like that? Wouldn't you like an existence
that was more than just an endless battle for survival? A life with a
chance for happiness, love, music, art--all the enjoyable things you
have never had the time for."
All the Pyrran sternness was gone from her face as she listened to what
he said, letting herself follow these alien concepts. He had put his
hand out automatically as he talked, and had taken hers. It was warm and
her pulse fast to his touch.
Meta suddenly became conscious of his hand and snapped hers away, rising
to her feet at the same time. As she started blindly towards the door,
Jason's voice snapped after her.
"The guard, Skop, ran out because he didn't want to lose his precious
two-value logic. It's all he has. But you've seen other parts of the
galaxy, Meta, you know there is a lot more to life than
kill-and-be-killed on Pyrrus. You feel it is true, even if you won't
admit it."
She turned and ran out the door.
Jason looked after her, his hand scraping the bristle on his chin
thoughtfully. "Meta, I have the faint hope that the woman is winning
over the Pyrran. I think that I saw--perhaps for the first time in the
history of this bloody war-torn city--a tear in one of its citizen's
eyes."