IV

Not only had Herl's permits come when they returned to the office,

but so had an officer from Eyefer Placement who wanted to talk about

Agnes Haulwell and a number of other cases. Herl had no difficulty in

persuading the commissioner to let him go alone to get his listings

and films, when he assured Crawford that the latter's presence was not

essential to the trip.

Crawford called for his cabter to take Herl out to the ship; and Herl

started back for the elevator, stuffing his assorted cards and permit

slips in various pockets about his person.

He scrutinized the lobby for centers of golden light as he passed, but

there were no gods or goddesses to be seen there. There were none on

the nearly empty elevator going down. There were none on his side of

the walkway at the bottom, though he thought he glimpsed the glow far

away on the other side just before his cab drew up beside him.

The driver was the same sulky young fellow who had brought him in. Herl

settled back for a silent ride to the port, looked intently out the

window at the large warehouses, small shops, and low compact residences

as they headed for open country where the cab could take off. The

air seemed a little fresher as well as much colder. There were few

pedestrians to be seen on the chilly streets and those few seemed to be

in a great hurry ... whether merely because of the cold or because the

demands of life were so numerous, Herl could not tell. He wasn't even

sure this might not be a time of eating or sleeping for many of the

population. He turned his head to his companion.

"What's the daily schedule here?" he asked. "I mean, what hours do

stores and offices and families keep?"

"Stores and offices are open all day. Families have two ups: a day and

a night up, depends on their jobs and such whether it's morning and

first night or afternoon and second half night."

"What do they do in their night ups?"

"Kids go to school same as day. Rest of us have night jobs ... mostly

mining and factory work. My sister and I work in a viscose mill nights."

The cabter had arrived at a broad hardtop landing area. The driver

turned in, raised the copter vanes and took off. Herl watched the bleak

countryside drop away below. The air had the piercing dampness of

coming snow.

It occurred to Herl suddenly that the driver had volunteered some

personal information ... maybe he could get more.

"What's your name," he asked interestedly, turning to face the driver.

"Bill Haulwell."

"Oh, any relation to Agnes Haulwell?" Herl felt a little apprehensive.

"Brother."

Herl let the conversation drop right there. He'd have to fish for

information round-about. He watched miles of fields and pasture roll

behind, noticed an isolated house, used that.

"Lonely sort of place to live," he pointed downward. "Don't suppose

your people assign Eyefers to live out so far."

"Some do. What's it to them where they live?"

"Does it make any difference to a man's relatives when he goes Eyefer,

other than his wife and children, I mean? Crawford told me some but not

all about them," Herl added.

"Difference? They might as well have gone Eyefer themselves. They

usually give a man's wife some heavy routine job no matter what she's

been trained for. Say it's to keep her busy and take the mental strain

off while she readjusts. Other relatives generally get the same. If

they're close relatives they're suspected of being on the verge of

Eyefer, since they're from the same stock; so all their permits come

due within a month after. That's one reason I work so blamed hard

on this job.... Aggie's job means so much to her. She wants to get

married, too; and she'd have a deuce of a lot of trouble with that if

anything happened to me."

This long speech made Herl most uncomfortable. It wasn't any of his

business to tell Bill that Aggie had gone Eyefer only an hour since.

But maybe it would ease Bill's strain. If Bill was going to lose his

job when he got back to town anyway, it wouldn't make any difference if

he knew it now. Might even give him a chance to wrestle it out inside

himself.

"Bill," he began as if it were to be another question.

"Yeah?"

"Miss Haulwell went Eyefer an hour ago. Commissioner Crawford told me."

Bill Haulwell's face went whiter than it was by nature. "You're

kidding. And that's not the kind of joke I like," he said threateningly.

"It's no joke, I'm afraid."

Bill scanned Herl's face, saw it grave, sympathetic. He then opened the

door on his own side of the cabter and stepped out into the sky.

* * * * *

Herl found himself sliding over to the driver's seat, reaching for the

loosely swinging door, peering down and out. Bill was a mere dwindling

spot below. Herl slammed the door shut by reflex action; then sat

numbly nauseated. The cab flew on evenly.

Herl took a couple of very deep breaths to subdue the nausea and looked

ahead to where the outline of the port tower was sharpening on the

horizon. Cautiously he tried the controls of the cabter ... up ...

down ... right ... left. He could manage it, he thought dully. He could

find no lever, no button, no pedal with which to reduce or increase the

forward speed, however. The brake pedal for surface control evoked

no response in the air. The tower came nearer and the image of the

dwindling, falling blob that had been Bill Haulwell faded from Herl's

mind as he sought frantically for the mechanism to cut his speed for

landing.

The tower rushed toward the cab ... and past. Herl set the cab into a

tight circle a little smaller than the circumference of the landing

area. Someone would notice him, someone would either signal him or, if

the power were broadcast, let him down slowly ... he hoped. If the cab

used its own fuel, that would have to run out with time. He circled and

circled, counterclockwise.

There seemed to be no diminution of speed so he began to spiral down

toward the ground. If he could hold the circle a few feet above the

ground, someone might at least come out and shout instructions.

There was no sign from the tower that his approach had been noticed. He

circled the _Krylla_ several times, then circled the tower. The place

seemed deserted in the growing twilight. He considered flying close to

the ground and jumping out but rejected that thought as he remembered

the towerman's remark about the pitting of the cinder surface ... and

remembered the paved runway at the edge of the field from which the

cabter had taken off on his trip to the city.

He headed for the runway in the direction from which he had originally

taken off, coming down to let the wheels skim the smooth pavement. The

cabter gathered speed rapidly as the end of the runway flung itself

toward him. He raised the machine into the air missing the rough ground

at the end of the way by scant feet.

Herl smiled grimly. Apparently power was somehow beamed at the runway.

He circled over the weedy pasture-like space and a copse of small

trees and headed back to the runway. Perhaps the power would be cut

if one approached from this end. Again he lowered the cab till the

wheels seemed but inches above the pavement ... and sure enough, the

speed decreased. Slower and more slowly he went; but the far end of

the runway approached all too rapidly. He tried to rise again, but the

response of the cab was sluggish now. By lightning judgment, Herl knew

that only a jump would save him from crashing with the cab among the

weeds. Those weeds swept toward him as he opened the door and rolled

out, relaxing to meet the pavement sliding past.

There was no tearing bruising impact, no sound of the cab's crash. Herl

opened his eyes suddenly to see, meaninglessly before him, the control

panel of his own _Krylla_. He was sitting in his own pneumatic control

chair.

A moment of dull wonder was replaced by a deep shuddering from

shoulders to hips and a feeling that his legs and arms had turned to

dough. His eyes regarded the shadow across the control panel without

trying to comprehend it; but the golden light reflected on both sides

of the shadow meant something. He turned to see the source ... and it

was the goddess of the lobby.

She smiled reassuringly, and the smile seemed to flow through his veins

and tingle along his nerves, pushing the numbness out and away. He was

alive and eager and yet utterly peaceful for the duration of her smile.

But as the corners of her mouth fell into a graver repose, his thoughts

sped back through the moment of expected impact ... through the frantic

struggle with the cabter ... through the moment of Haulwell's step from

the door.

"Bill Haulwell," Herl mumbled, "he ... he's...."

"He's in his cab halfway back to the city to report to Eyefer

Placement." The matter-of-fact words were sung in the triumphant

cadence of the close of a vast chorale, rich and full.

"You saved him ... and me?" Herl asked incredulously.

"Yes."

"Why?"

Clear recitative explained, "He had not earned his death; he did not

wish to die. No more had you."

Herl thought this over for a moment. Did no one die here till he was

ready? Were the gods personal guardians? Was the presence of human life

one of their conditions of being, one of their motivations? He started

to speak, then hesitated as he remembered his conclusion that there

were special ways of phrasing special questions for such beings as

these. His mind tried in vain to block the consciousness of fear that

she would leave him with his questions unasked ... and simply that she

would leave him.

But the cloud still swirled and glowed with a million pinpoints of deep

yellow incandescence. A sodium halo, Herl thought irrelevantly.

"Yes," she smiled again from her seat above the edge of the

paper-cluttered desk. "It's like sodium. And we are not guardians. We

do not care whether men live or die but we do ... enjoy ... their being

glad about living or dying. I will not leave you till you are sorry."

She stood and came near his chair.

Herl could not see that she walked in the air ... she was just nearer.

He rose and put out his hands as if to take hers to assure himself that

she would stay, but where his hands entered the cloud they disappeared

and felt nothing. He withdrew his offered embrace and his hands

reappeared.

"Sorry for what?" asked Herl's voice; and Herl's heart quickened and

his breathing forced, as he grew afraid to lose her and wild to keep

her with him.

"Just sorry."

* * * * *

Regret was like a knife stab. He must lose her: a man couldn't go

around rejoicing forever. Anger succeeded regret, and he accused her

bitterly, "So that's why you do nothing for the poor Eyefers! Because

they're sorry to be that way! When you could save the poor creatures

even by picking them out of the air, it offends your sensibilities to

save them from a little red tape. Is that kind or just?"

His voice sneered 'kind' and 'just' as his mind pictured 'sympathetic'

and 'the best that men ought to receive.' He was angry for himself,

for the Eyefers. His anger grew with the hurt to include all humanity

betrayed by heartless beauty.

But a flood of intense living greenness washed through the control

room, blotting out the walls and lapping against Herl's red tunic above

the hip pockets, as if a strange sea rose about him to quench his anger.

He repeated his last words, vaguely, enthralled by the green waves, "Is

that kind or just?"

The green waves changed to living blue and he heard her voice like a

distant bell. "No."

Herl had a sensation as if the blueness washed completely through him

with a tingling coolness. Suddenly the room cleared and she was sitting

on the edge of the table still. In Herl's mind lay fresh and clear

the method he had planned hours ... or was it minutes ... earlier for

communicating with this glowing girl-thing, exact, detailed, perfect

questions for a perfect mind. His overwhelming intent to embrace her

was put neatly to one side as on a shelf; his anger was as if it had

never been.

"Do you have a name?" he looked coolly at her as if helping her fill

out a questionnaire.

"Yes."

"What is it please?" he asked, firm, polite.

"Abigail."

Herl smothered a grin. There could be something unexotic about a

goddess. "Can you offer data as well as supply data and computation on

demand?" he wanted to know.

"Yes."

"Will you be good enough to do so hereafter when I ask you questions?"

"If you will indicate the limitations you wish on additional data," she

replied gravely.

"Do you mean that there is so great a correlation between all extant

data that you would continue offering indefinitely if you were not

arbitrarily limited?" he asked curiously, feeling an interior warmth of

success. His method of communication was working indeed. Be explicit,

he told himself.

"Yes."

Herl sneaked a mental look at his urge to kiss her. As when eating

Crawford's steak, he found that he could forgive and forget a great

deal when confronted with considerable pleasure in prospect.

He continued. "Will you decide and tell me what questions I ought to

ask and what actions I ought to take and what limitations I should set

on the data you have to offer?" Now he would have communication by the

roots.

"No."

"Are you capable of doing so, Abigail?" A crucial question, asked

almost in a whisper.

"No."

Grief more bitter than anger ran through his veins like corrosive

poison. This was the wrong answer. She must be a machine-thing after

all, he concluded ... limited, arbitrary, unhuman, incapable of loving

him or being concerned for his welfare, incapable of sorting out good

from bad or valuable from expedient.

He withdrew his eyes from her brightness and from her delicate features

and from her rounded limbs and put his head in his hands. An agonized

sigh burst from him. No human woman could keep from giving him good

advice, particularly if she knew all the answers ... his mother never

had avoided the responsibilities of knowledge. So she could have

nothing human about her. She was just a thing.

"No ... no ... no," her music faded slowly away; and Herl looked up

to catch the faintest after-image of the brilliance that had centered

on the table. That, too, was gone in an instant; and no presence or

effects of a presence other than his own was visible before him.

He sat motionless in his supporting chair, his eyes staring unseeingly

at brown table and black film lockers and at the long blue chart

roll hung behind the table and at the calculator keys in their neat

meaningless ranks. In her absence, he felt compressed between the

backward thrust of disillusion and emptiness and the forward pull of

a tearing desire to be with her wherever she was. He would have done

anything she wanted, gone anywhere, been anything ... and there was

nothing she wanted of him. He remained slumped, drained of purpose.

Drained, he reflected, by a shiny machine more bound than he to

commands and limitations. At any rate he did have a few minor purposes

of his own.

V

He got up stiffly and reached for the locker handles, squeezed the

metal, felt the latches withdraw, swung the doors open. Mechanically

he took down the reels of film and wire from their pegs and laid

them in squat pillars on the table top. Another locker yielded two

black rectangular carrying cases with handles. Herl loaded the reels

carefully into one case, checked the power pack in the base of the

other case with leads to a test-board in one drawer of the table.

Lifting both heavy cases, he started for the door.

The slightest clue of remembrance ting-tinged in his mind, and he

returned to his chair and phoned the control tower.

"Class M ship _Krylla_ on the field calling control tower," he bit off

the words tensely.

"Control tower to _Krylla_; come in _Krylla_." The voice was

high-pitched and boyish, obviously not Saem Berry.

"Did you see what became of the cabter that landed me here," Herl

referred to the chronometer on his instrument panel, "ten minutes ago?"

"Cabter KZ-351 returned to Delight City."

"Can you call me another cabter to take me to the city?" At any rate,

Herl thought, she really was powerful to be able to return an empty

cabter. He had an amusing mental image of Abigail stretching an extra

shining arm through the miles of air between the _Krylla_ and where a

shining hand supported the waiting and unconscious Bill Haulwell. He

might learn some tricks from her yet.

All he had to do was find out why she had rescued him and Bill. After

all, if she had no knowledge of valid selection of purposes, she must

be controlled by some command, some exterior compulsion, like the

familiar robots of earth, so carefully constructed with arbitrary

functions and prohibitions built in. Time to compute on that later. The

thought was rapid, finished before the answer came from the tower.

"I'll have to see your hired vehicle permit, if you have one." The thin

voice was sarcastic and a bit suspicious.

"I'll come right to the tower with it. Over."

Grasping a case in each hand he left the ship and headed for the tower

entrance. Almost there, the hum of an incoming copter made him turn

and look at the runway. The copter landed neatly and, even from that

distance, Herl could recognize the fur-coated figure of Commissioner

Crawford getting out.