He was back. The roar of the crowd and the fire and the hideous
'poot-poot-poot' of the alarm filled his consciousness. He was
stumbling forward into the pitchy blackness of the tunnel under the
building. He could see a man a hundred feet ahead scrambling up to the
walkway, illumined only by the glare from the tunnel mouth. Suddenly
brightness bloomed beside the man and the golden form of a god cradled
the man's body like a child, rose four or five feet into the air, and
faded abruptly into nothingness. The tunnel was dark and empty ahead.
Herl turned and strode back toward the mouth of the tunnel. Just under
the sheltering edge he paused to look out at the mob and to judge
whether another part of the building were about to fall.
The throng was now a series of rings of luridly red wild-faced beings
linked together at the elbows, swaying this way and that, howling in
unison, "Burn the records! No more Eyefers! Burn the records! No more
Eyefers!"
Hovering over the heads of the chanters, Herl could see at least half a
dozen great yellow lights which he took to be gods watching the doings.
"Some sense of humor," he said to himself, as he leaned out of the
shelter to look up.
The searing redness of the fire faded before his eyes to the cooler
radiance of Abigail; and he was looking up at her where she hung near
the ceiling of the _Krylla's_ cabin.
"They don't think it's funny at all," she replied reproachfully, as if
he had addressed his last remark to her. "They are simply preventing
accidents. Being trampled to death is not really a joke." This in a
minor cadence of muted violins.
"But don't the Eyefers intend death and destruction to the non-Eyefers?
That fire is no joke, either."
"No one will be hurt, as I told you. The Eyefer Plan calls only for the
destruction of the records. They burned all the individual permits they
could find before they left the houses. Now they burn the files. Nobody
could tell an Eyefer from anybody else without the papers; and papers
burn." She sounded quite pleased.
"Are you gods in on this?" Herl sat frustratedly on the edge of the
desk. "Why didn't you just vanish the papers years ago?"
"We only help when people are sure they know what they want to do. The
Eyefers had to be ready. After that they will do as they please and as
they can and must."
"But you are involved in this revolt somehow," he frowned, "and why
should this uprising come just when I arrive?"
"You are a catalyst," she giggled, a peal of tiny sleighbells, and
drifted down toward the pilot chair. "And we are just preventing the
Eyefers from being sorry for their plan as we prevented the civies from
being sorry for theirs. The civies made a mistake and we are saving
them from it." She laughed again. "They frown at people who are saved
from their mistakes by 'supernatural agencies' so the Eyefers will save
them."
Herl was ready to ask how he was a catalyst, but the words
'supernatural agencies' reminded him of Crawford and his own cases
resting on the stalled carpter.
"My cases," he said. "I've got to get them back here. Take me back
again, Abby." His thought continued that he would get a chance to see
more of the fight, that had been brewing for decades.
"I'll bring them to you," she assented, resting lightly in the chair.
"This isn't your squabble."
"But you said I was involved--as a catalyst at least."
"The reaction is self-sustaining now."
"But you don't know where the carpter is," he objected hopefully.
"You do ... so I do." The cases were on the table in front of him.
"What am I supposed to do now? Wait till Crawford calls to say all
deals are off?" Herl remarked irritated. Who did the girl think she
was, refusing like an over-solicitous mother to let him get back to the
riot?
"Yes. Mr. Crawford won't be able to call you till the power is restored
about noon tomorrow. And it will be months before he knows what he
wants to order. What you do is your own will, of course. I can't
penetrate that unless you can. I'm going back to the fire to help
there. I'll see you again unless you decide to blast off before I come
back."
Herl grabbed for her bare shoulders where they shone a mere yard in
front of him. "You're not going back without me!" he stormed but she
was quite gone before the sentence was complete, leaving him in the
utter darkness of an unillumined cabin.
He found the back of the chair, seated himself, touched the light
switch. He was indeed alone in the cabin. The heavy cases sat smug on
the motionless table. He felt numb, aware only of an unwillingness
to move and of the futility of trying to get back to the city if he
was only to find himself back in the _Krylla_ if he did. "Damned
interfering female," he muttered disgustedly, "I'll show her!" All he
had to do, she'd said, was blast off. Why not?
He switched on the phone, still set for the control tower.
"Class M ship _Krylla_ on the field, calling control tower," he
articulated crisply.
There was no response.
"Class M Ship," he repeated impatiently, "calling control tower. Come
in tower!"
There was no carrier hum from his receiver. The thing seemed dead. He
activated the viewscreen above the instrument panel and adjusted the
angle for a full sight of the tower.
The tower was there, all right, a black hulk against the slightly
luminous night sky, unlighted, solid, a mere chunk of construction.
"Hanh! Power's off, of course," Herl said aloud. Well, that meant
nobody else would try to land here, so takeoff should be safe if he
wanted to do his own manipulating out of the atmosphere.
But he'd have to leave some sort of message for Crawford, he realized.
He swivelled the chair and regarded the cases of film and wire blankly.
His job was coordination, not dashing off on a mad into space. He
calculated quickly ... twenty-two, twenty-three hours till daylight;
then maybe another ten hours or so till the power was restored and
he could talk to Crawford ... if Crawford would talk to him ... if
Crawford still had any power to negotiate extra-planetary purchases.
And if Crawford didn't, he, Herl, would have to wait around till
somebody did have the authority. Wait, wait, wait!
Every muscle in Herl's body seemed taut to the breaking point. He
couldn't just sit and wait thirty-two hours for the privilege of
waiting till the Eyefers formed a government and got ready to bargain!
He jumped hopefully for an instant at the thought of walking the eighty
miles to town. He could probably do that in thirty-two hours. Only to
have that woman catch up to him when he was halfway there and plump
him back in this ship.
* * * * *
A metallic clanging against the skin of the ship brought him to
his feet. He moved to the inner lock door and opened it slowly,
noiselessly. Maybe the Eyefers had got control of the tower already!
Bang! Bang! the hammering continued. Not power hammering, more like
knocking.
Herl let the outer lock open a fraction of an inch toward him. The
voice from outside filled the lock with its bellow. "Hey! Anybody in
here? Hey, Captain."
It was the tower man of the first long wait.
"What d'you want?" Herl asked suspiciously, shoulder against the lock
door.
"It's Saem Berry. I need help. Power's off, Joe Alco's gone,
twenty-five hours mail is due in anytime. May try to land right on top
of us! You got a radio!"
"Sure," Herl's suspicions faded. "Come in." He opened the lock wide and
gave the heavy man a hand up. "Want me to try to contact the mail, huh?"
"Yeah. But you better let me talk to them." The towerman followed Herl
to the chair, adding the necessary instructions for calling the mail
ship.
Herl sat down and got to work.
Within five minutes the ship had been re-routed back to its last port
of call and Herl and Saem were relaxing over cups of haffy Herl had
opened in the galley. Saem tipped back in the pilot chair to reflect on
the state of things in the city, which Herl had given him in bits and
pieces as he relayed it to the oncoming mail ship.
"Well, Captain, I might as well get back to the tower and wait it out
unless you're willing to have me here for company, that is. There's no
other ship due till about morning."
"I'd be glad to have you stay," Herl said hesitantly, "but I haven't
decided just what to do myself. I don't suppose Crawford and the
commissioners will be in any position to trade now; and I'm not too
hopeful about trying to deal with an irresponsible gang like those
Eyefers. I could probably get back this way in, say, a couple of years
when things have settled down and they know what they need." His voice
was nonchalant, but with an undercurrent of eagerness for an excuse to
be gone.
"I wouldn't be in any hurry, son," Saem assured him, taking a deep swig
of haffy. "I don't think the Eyefers will try to run things at all. Not
only out of the habit, but they don't want to. They'd have everything
to lose by not using the present trade and power set-ups. All they want
is jobs and justice."
"And no questions asked?" Herl frowned. "You sound as if you approved
of this revolt."
"Why not?" Saem demanded truculently. "I had a kid all trained to
take over the second day shift ... best radioman I ever had. When his
mother went Eyefer they jerked him out of here to a bobbin job in the
mills so fast I had to work twenty-two hours a day for a month before
I got a replacement. I approve of anything that'll put a stop to such
stupidity."