II

A Cepheid Variable winked tauntingly at the edge of the Milky Way, the

Large Magellanic Cloud strewn like diamonds in a vast cosmic spume

behind it. It corruscated in glorious display as, far off, a great

silvery ship of Space and a tiny jot of man-made metal resumed their

headlong motion through the mighty legion of the stars.

And then for an instant, the Cepheid's bright wink was dulled;

eclipsed. A tapering streamlined shape slipped silently across it, and

then was gone in the blackness, and the white dwarf resumed its

brilliant display.

But the commander of the Cepheid's interruptor had been giving little

time to appreciation of the myriad beauties in the great darkness that

had swallowed her ship. She had trebled her screens and had taxed her

craft's colossal power installation to its limit, forcing it to absorb

and reconvert every erg of radiant energy possible as it labored to

maintain the awful output necessary to cling to the very edge of

R-Space, barely clear of the E-continuum itself.

She might have been an Amazon of Earth save for the great intelligence

behind the high plane of her forehead, yet she was not without beauty,

nor were those of her ship's complement. On their close-fitting

uniforms were emblazoned the Planet-and-Circle insignia of their

homeland, for they were of the galactic hosts of Thrayx.

"They proceed toward a planet on the near side of this galaxy called

Earth," the second officer said. "Their mission is to replenish their

supply of breeders."

"You are certain of that?"

"I admit it is peculiar, for the breeders they seek are women of that

planet."

"_Women?_"

"Yes. However, the Earthmens' minds indicated a strong tendency to

refuse cooperation."

"I see. Do you think our probe was detected?"

"No. I withdrew it immediately when the Earthmen were taken aboard the

Ihelian destroyer."

There was a long moment of silence. The commander's eyes stayed

unwaveringly on the control sphere mounted in gimbals before her. They

remained concentrated on it when she spoke again.

"Women, you say. Hardly conceivable, Daleb, unless--unless it was

_not_ simply a penal planetoid which we destroyed!"

"A startling thought, Lady!"

"Yes. And the Earthmen, you say, did not have cooperative thoughts?"

"That is correct. They are not taking the Ihelian craft to their

planet of their own volition."

"That is difficult to understand, Daleb, for the Ihelians are like

ourselves in at least one respect. They are not aggressors. And if

they are refused their strange request, they will leave the planet

Earth peacefully. But if they are not refused it, perhaps the

Earthman's superiors will cooperate, Daleb! In which case--"

"Whatever their mission, it is our duty to prevent its success, Lady.

But to do this without violating the Book, without infecting a foreign

area of the galaxy with our conflict?"

"I think there is a way," the commander said. She twisted the sphere

slightly, and again the two tiny pips it held were caught squarely at

the intersection of the curving light traceries within it. "There is a

way," she said. "Give me a complete description of the clothing these

Earthmen wore, Daleb...."

A tapering, streamlined shape slid shadow-like across the face of an

undulating globular cluster, and then was swallowed quickly in the

strange gray void of hyper-space.

* * * * *

Mason and Judith waited outside the towering New United Nations

building in Greater San Francisco, their chauffeured government helio

parked on a sky-ramp adjacent to the three hundredth floor.

They waited for Kriijorl; they had been assigned, as Earthmen best

acquainted with the alien, as his official hosts during his stay on

their planet. Mason had protested, but Judith had kept the protests

from reaching the wrong ears.

"You won't make any mistakes. You're home, now!" she had whispered.

"After all, he's only human!"

It had been the first time Mason had heard a hint of levity in her

voice, and he had liked it, and decided to take the assignment

gracefully. And, the orders said, Sergeant Judith Kent went with the

assignment. Without Cain!

He hardly felt nervous at all as they waited for the Ihelian to leave

the General Council chamber.

"Wonder how he made out?" he said idly, offering the girl a

self-lighting cigarette. "Been in there for hours...."

"We'll know soon enough," she said. "But I--I personally can't

conceive of it, sir. Of course, the New-UN is very practiced in

dealing with all kinds of cultures. Remember the time they had with

those awful five-legged things from Canis Major? Wanted to trade all

the tritium we'd need to blow up a planet just for trees; because they

worshipped trees! Any and all kinds of trees...."

Mason smiled. He was good looking when he smiled and the Space-tension

was gone from his slate colored eyes. "I remember. But it looks as

though they're going to have the toughest time with somebody just like

us--two legs, two arms, oxygen-breathing.... Women, the man said. Just

what the devil does he expect us to do? Draft 'em? Have an

international lot drawing?"

* * * * *

She smoked quietly, and her gray eyes were thoughtful. "A matter of

view-point, sir," she said finally. "As it always is. To them, females

are for breeding only, to keep their war machine well stocked. From

what Kriijorl said, they do not understand love as we do. There's

simply one purpose...."

"Well, that's why I think the whole thing is--well, as you say,

inconceivable from our point of view. Our culture, our women just

aren't conditioned for such an existence."

"Think back two centuries, sir."

"You don't have to keep calling me 'sir' like that!" Mason said,

feeling a sudden warmth at the back of his neck as he said it. And

then, "Two centuries back. Yes. After every war, Earth's birth rate

would go crazy. Mother Nature ruled the roost in those days, didn't

she? Supply and demand, cause and effect. It's a wonder Man ever got

anywhere."

"More wonder some men do--"

Mason looked up. But Judith's face was, as usual, quite calm and

detached. "You say something?"

"I said I'd like to have you get Kriijorl to demonstrate that

teleprobe thing of his for us, if you can, s---- Lance. How did he say

it worked?"

"I still don't get it completely. A peculiar mixture of radio and the

electroencephalograph, I think. He said it replaced radio on Ihelos

and Thrayx centuries ago. You can communicate to a group or an

individual with it in language, or in basic thought pictures. That's

what they use it mostly for, of course, and as such, it's termed a

mentacom. But he told me that it can also be used as it was on us as a

teleprobe when the subject isn't screened. They use a specially tuned

carrier wave of some sort, he said, that impinges on a thought wave

pattern, but instead of registering the pattern's electronic impulse

equivalents as does the electroencephalograph, it 'reflects' them.

Like a basic radar system. And the receiver, it's a tiny thing, breaks

the reflected pattern down into values equivalent to those in which

the 'listener' thinks; amplifies, and that's it! Mind reading made

easy, I guess."

Judith squirmed a little uneasily. "I'm glad they're not natural

telepaths, anyway," she answered. "And even with a gimmick like

that--"

And then the conversation was lost as Kriijorl, flanked by two New-UN

guides, strode from the building. The stiff breeze at three hundred

stories of what had once been called Nob Hill flicked his scarlet

short-cape behind him and rippled the broad front of his black and

silver tunic.

He climbed into the helio with a smiled greeting, seated himself to

Judith's right as he knew Earth custom demanded, and the craft was

lifting slowly over the central area of the ancient city before Mason

spoke.

"Well, how did they treat you in there, sir?"

"Not as well as I had hoped," Kriijorl answered. "Your

President-General spoke with me privately after the World Delegates

Council met to question me, and he held out extremely little hope.

However, the issue is to be debated. I think perhaps more out of

diplomatic courtesy than actual consideration. I am to be informed of

the official decision tomorrow...."

"There were scientists present, of course?"

"Yes; you have brilliant men on Earth, Lieutenant. They are good

thinkers. I am certain they were interested in me for more than the

sole fact that I am an alien of a race so precisely a replica of your

own. But it is again the old factor, cultural difference. Your entire

world simply regards women differently than we. I imagine my request,

to persons less learned than those with whom I spoke, would be quite

shocking anywhere on the planet."

"Perhaps," Judith murmured. "Yet somehow I wonder. Somehow I wonder

how much two hundred years has really changed us. Our history in such

things is not pleasant, Kriijorl. Many of our women once gave their

bodies for money. Shock us? I'm not sure you really could. For your

breeders simply give their bodies to produce the flesh for war. And

there was a time when we did that, too."

There was silence between them for a while, and then Lance began

directing the Ihelian's attention to points of interest as the air

phase of the diplomatic tour got under way.

The blue-green beauty of the Pacific stretched lazily below them from

the colorful California shore line to the west. Surrounding air

traffic was light, and the tour proceeded smoothly eastward; over the

Great Divide, and then swung north. Kriijorl seemed impressed and

grateful for the momentary respite.

* * * * *

It was near the end of the tour's air phase that Mason remembered

Judith's request, and Kriijorl obliged with an amused smile, producing

a personal mentacom for Judith to examine.

"And the receiver simply fits about the head like earphones?"

"Like this," Kriijorl said. They were nearing Denver, and air traffic

at their level had picked up, and the helio was proceeding more slowly

so that Kriijorl's demonstration caused him to miss little of the

tour.

He fitted the compact headpiece to his ears and flicked a small

switch. It was suddenly bathed in a warm orange glow. "This way, the

device functions as a limited range mentacom," he began. And then he

flicked the switch again. "And now, as a teleprobe, you see, I could

tell you, Lady Judith, just what--"

She flushed furiously, but Kriijorl had suddenly stopped speaking. His

face had blanched, and a look of bewildered fury was suddenly in his

eyes.

"Lieutenant! That air bus! There!" He pointed to a thick egg shaped

vehicle speeding to the north. "Tell your chauffeur to pursue it at

once! It carries a full passenger-load of Earthwomen!"

For a moment Mason thought the Ihelian was attempting some strange

joke. But a look at the man's face told him that here was no joke;

that here was something he was failing to understand.

"Earthwomen? Sure--"

"Plus two other beings, Lieutenant. Two others using Thrayxite probe

screens!"

On Mason's order the government chauffeur swiftly heeled the helio

about. "Those buses can make nearly a full Mach when they're wide open

like that one," he told Kriijorl. "We can't overtake them, but maybe

we can keep up. I'll have the chauffeur try for radio contact--"

"No, no! They'll be alert for any signs of awareness of their

presence! Wait--" The Ihelian made a third adjustment on the mentacom,

and it emitted a slight humming sound, and the orange glow vanished.

"This will screen us for a short period, at least," he said. "And if

we've not been already detected, perhaps we'll be able to follow. If

you'll continue to help me, Lieutenant--"

"Looks as though they've got some of ours, doesn't it?" Mason said

evenly. There was a strange heat in his veins now, and with the

Ihelian, his nervousness was somehow evaporated. "But how the devil--"

"They are clever, Lieutenant. We were somehow followed here even as we

at first followed you in your Scout ship. We may have been probed

before you were taken aboard our screened destroyer."

"But you said nothing about destroying _their_ breeders," Judith said

above the throbbing roar of the helio's fast accelerating jets. "Why

would they want--" and she let the sentence die as comprehension

snapped in her gray eyes. Her dark, slender eyebrows arched nearly

together as she pushed the thought further.

The borderlands of Canada sped beneath them, and then there was pine

forest, but the helio kept the fleeing bus in sight even as the

shadows of a dying day crept inexorably from the east to engulf them.

And then, abruptly, the bus had started down.

"They're hanging a neat frame on you, sir," Mason said. "Making

certain you don't get the women you ask. By kidnaping some, they plan

sure as hell to make it look as though Ihelian desperation is

responsible. And bingo, your side's in the dog house in nothing flat.

No deal!"

"They're damnably cunning," Kriijorl said. "It will not be the first

time they have come near making utter fools of us. I can't understand

that."

"But how would they have gotten those women?" Judith asked. The helio

was slanting downward, and was now less than five miles distant from

the fast vanishing bus. It began to skim the tree tops of a great

tract of spruce, its chauffeur awaiting Mason's signal to drop quickly

out of their quarry's line of sight.

"Video ads, of course," Mason answered quickly, straining his tensed

eyes to estimate distance in the fast gathering darkness. "Some big

deal. Spaceliner hostess at twice the going rate of payment. Anything

like that...."

The bus finally vanished less than a half-mile ahead of Mason's helio,

and there was a dark vertical shadow jutting just above the tree tops.

He knew it was one of their shuttle boats, and from its apparent size

would easily hold all the bus would be able to carry--perhaps a full

three hundred. He gave orders quickly to the chauffeur, and then the

helio was hovering inches above the tree tops, and he tossed a

plastiweave ladder over the side.

"Don't use the radio," he snapped to Judith. "Just get back to New-UN

headquarters. Inform them any way possible of what's going on, and

then flash the air patrol and tell 'em to come gunning!"

He didn't give her a chance to argue. He simply swung over the helio's

side, Kriijorl after him, and within moments they were on the ground,

and running with what silence they could through the darkness toward

the towering Thrayxite ship a quarter-mile distant.

"Their action is incomprehensible to me," the Ihelian grunted between

gulps of air. "It violates the most basic tenets of the ancient Book

of the Saints, sacred to us both--"

"Better save your breath for running," Mason told him, and they

sprinted across the soft pine needle forest floor, shielding their

eyes from treacherous, low hanging boughs, dodging the trees

themselves as best they could in the moonlit darkness.

And they burst upon the clearing in which the Thrayxite ship had

landed almost before realizing it.

Mason caught a glimpse of Earthwomen, being led as though drugged into

the yawning flank of the silent vessel.

There was a sudden movement in the darkness to his left, and he heard

the start of an outcry on the Ihelian's lips. But it was all he heard

or saw. There was a quick knifing pain in his skull, and he crumpled

to the ground.