They made good time back to the compound, and the group split up as
they approached it. Fetzer took Nina and Lucifer to their quarters and
showed them how to locate the warp.
"So long," he said. "Good luck to us all."
Nina and Lucifer ducked through the warp, but did not go immediately
inside. They watched the clouds shred apart, and the incredibly
brilliant stars light up the night.
"I wonder where Earth is?" Nina whispered.
"We couldn't see it if we knew."
"Do you think we'll ever get back, Lucifer?"
"I don't know."
She slipped her arm through his.
"Maybe I shouldn't say this, but I have a feeling that we won't. That
we will never see our own sun rise again."
He was silent, feeling the weight of her words, the unknown to come,
the burden of his responsibility.
"It was hard for me to say that," she continued quietly. "I loved
Earth. I loved its beauty and its ugliness. I loved its poor blind
people. I loved them all, for I was part of them, and my eyes belonged
to them. I could never hate anyone."
She put her cheek against his, and her breath was warmer than the
warmth of the night.
Lucifer did not draw away. He asked, "Do you have a sense of what may
happen tomorrow?"
"Only a sense of much pain. Beyond that, I can't see. It may be just as
well. Are you afraid, Lucifer?"
"A little."
"It is good to be a little afraid, always."
"What about you--are you ever afraid, Nina?"
It was the first time he had spoken the name of this strange woman who
bore his child.
"I am afraid, but I am at peace, too. If we do not come through this,
there will be nothing more to the end of time. But if we do, we will
have a child who can see, and its life will belong to us. Isn't that a
wonderful thought?"
Lucifer trembled under the added burden, but he thrust it from his
mind, lest she perceive it there. Time enough for her to know the
truth when they knew the future.
"We'd better go in," he said.
Her cheek turned. Her mouth found his.
* * * * *
When Huth called them shortly after breakfast, Lucifer was already
at work in front of the visagraph screen. He held up a sheet of
scribbling, and forced himself to speak with animation.
"Here are some further possibilities based on our findings of
yesterday. Can we work on them here today?"
Huth looked interested. "Along what lines are you proceeding, Dr.
Brill?"
"All the primary needs and functions of a child could be related to
psi, just as well as the feeding. I am intrigued by the possibility
of stimulus and response in the prenatal stage. Mrs. Brill believes
she has heard or read that thumb-sucking begins within the womb.
Could you verify this with Dr. Thame? If it is indeed the case, the
need expressed by the foetus in sucking its thumb might be answered
psionically by a perceptive mother, thus strengthening the psi sense
and building reliance on it at an even earlier stage of development."
"Splendid, Dr. Brill!"
Lucifer pointed to the stack of books beside him on the couch.
"Earlier this morning, I asked for some works on the infant brain,
and several books on electroencephalography were delivered by the
tubicular. In scanning them, I find several items that may be fruitful
for future research. For example, electrodes attached to the belly of
a pregnant woman in the eighth month of gestation record an irregular
pattern of delta waves. It also appears that both delta and theta
are typically infantile rhythms, and that theta activity is early
associated with such non-visual stimulation as pleasure, pain and
frustration. The pathways on this frontier go in many directions."
"Follow them where you will!" There was deep satisfaction in Huth's
voice. "May I say, Dr. Brill, that I have misjudged the potential
adaptability of the Earth scientific mind, when it is given proper
stimulus and motivation. Your progress has been remarkable, truly
remarkable! Would you be content to return to your old cubicle?"
"No," Lucifer answered steadily. "I would not."
The day dragged endlessly, even with the research to occupy his
attention. It might have been easier if he could have talked with
Nina about what lay ahead, but he dared not risk a chance word being
monitored. They could only try to talk casually about themselves and
the research.
As the minutes crawled by, new doubts tormented him. Would Fetzer and
his men be able to contact everyone? Would the people believe enough in
their own power to make a serious attempt at focusing it on the guard
tower? If the test failed, he had no doubts that the men would go ahead
with their original plan.
Nina smiled whenever their eyes met, but for all its strength her dark
face showed the strain of waiting. Near the end of the day, she sat
beside him, brushed her lips against the edge of his mustache, and let
them creep up to his ear.
"I love you," she whispered. "I want to say it now, and then think only
of what we must try to do."
Rain came with the first of dusk. It had been holding back since
mid-day, building up rolling black thunderheads. Now it came with such
fury that it blotted out the view of the compound and the guard tower.
Nina looked stricken.
"The signal!" she whispered. "What will we do?"
Lucifer could only stare through the rain-washed window and repeat to
himself the fragment of a prayer he had learned from his father.
With deepening of dusk, the rain lifted a little, but they still
couldn't know whether the light would be visible. A sudden gust could
blot it out.
Huth called on the visagraph. "I will send a car for you," he said. "I
thought it might be pleasant to dine together and pass this miserable
evening in stimulating conversation!"
"Thank you," said Lucifer. He hoped his concern didn't show. From the
corner of his eye he could see Nina by the window, straining to catch
the first glimpse of the signal light.
He must delay Huth in sending for them!
Lucifer picked up a book.
"I will bring this along," he said. "This afternoon I encountered
another concept that may help...."
As he had hoped, Huth could not resist the bait.
"That's most interesting, Dr. Brill."
"It has to do with what might be called the relationship between the
anatomical maturing of the brain and the changing of rhythm patterns as
the child grows older. This has not been applied to psi patterns--"
"By all means, let's discuss it, Dr. Brill! Now--"
"Another factor," Lucifer continued desperately, "may be the alpha
rhythm patterns in a child. While these emerge very infrequently below
the age of three, and do not appear with regularity until around
the age of eleven, there is evidence to indicate that alpha rhythm
characteristics are hereditary, and that...."
As Lucifer talked, he saw that Nina's body had become rigid, that her
fingers were extended and shaking, with the frenzy of a drowning person
trying to reach something just beyond his grasp.
"... and that environmental factors may affect the frequency of alpha
rhythms during the period of childhood. For example, two uniovular
twins--"
A cry of pain escaped from Nina's lips. Huth showed he had heard it.
"Is something wrong, Dr. Brill?"
"Mrs. Brill may have fallen--I will--"
And then it came, more a rending than an explosion. It was like a
gigantic steel beam snapping apart from an irresistible pressure within
its molecules.
Their dwelling and the ground beneath it shuddered.
Nina cried out again, a cry in which agony and triumph were one.
Huth leaped back from the screen. A terrible rage was stamped on his
bronze features.
"Dr. Brill, if you are responsible for whatever has happened...."
The screen went dark.
Lucifer rushed to the window, tore Nina away from it. He caught a
glimpse of white flames in the darkness.
"Hurry! Through the warp!" he shouted.
She followed woodenly, in a state of psychic shock. Her head struck the
edge of the warp. Lucifer had to make her bend in order to get through.
The drenching rain revived her a little.
"Oh, Lucifer.... It hurt me so.... I tried so hard...."
She was sobbing, and her tears became part of the rain on her cheeks.
"It was like trying to swim against the tide of all the oceans in the
universe. And the tide was pushing me back--and then, all of a sudden,
the tide was with me--and I was tumbled and choked--in breakers as high
as the stars."
She pressed hard against him, her strong body contorting in a spasm
that was more than muscular. Words tore themselves from lips that
quivered and twisted:
"Dear God! We've never lived before! A new world, and we're not strong
enough to live there, Lucifer--Not strong enough yet! I can't go back
to it--but I want to--I want to so much."
* * * * *
They skirted the compound, just within the fringe of the forest. As
they ran, other shadow forms joined them in the scramble toward the
meeting place. Children, awed momentarily to silence, ran nimbly ahead
of their parents. A baby wailed.
Seachlights probed through the rain, thrusting at the forest. Blocks
of light and shadow flickered between the trees. It was like a film
running wild in its projector.
The light in the bow of the spaceship blazed on, and the misty twilight
became a phosphorescent glow, a great dome of brilliance that arched up
to the churning black clouds.
A shouting came from the direction of Center. The first attack group
had struck.
Sounds of the second attack came from the area of the spaceship. The
dome of light shimmered, then steadied, with eye-aching brightness. The
second diversionary group, the one led by the little man with the huge
nose, was now engaged.
The clearing opened ahead. It already teemed with activity. Fetzer and
his sector leaders were channeling all comers into groups of about
fifty, each under one of the leaders. The groups were fanned out along
the edge of the clearing, facing toward the compound. Except for the
muted crying of the very young, and the low-voiced commands from the
sector leaders, the groups were quiet.
Fetzer ran to Lucifer.
"Better stay with me. This is your show from now on! Just tell me what
you want us to do, and I'll pass the signal along. My God! Did you see
what happened to the guard tower?"
"Some of it."
"Do you think we can do anything like that again?"
Lucifer looked over the nearest group. Many of the adults showed the
same shock he had seen in Nina. The children were no longer so awed,
and their eyes were strangely bright.
"I don't know what we can do again," he answered. "And I'm not sure I
want to know."
The clearing filled rapidly. Each sector leader's group was separated
by about ten yards from the next, and all formed an uneven, convex line
some four hundred yards from end to end.
"All set, Doc," said Fetzer. He fired a cylindrical weapon, and a
streak of orange light curved over the compound.
"That's to give our boys a chance to get back into the woods--those
that still can. They'll be ready to hit again--if this other thing
doesn't work."
He waited for orders.
Lucifer stared across the compound. The fear in his stomach made
him feel like retching. These people were waiting for him to lead!
Incredible.
"You have to go on now," Nina said.
His stomach was still sick, but he managed to smile at her. Through
the slackening downpour he saw the bare walls and flat roof of Center.
"The Center," he told Fetzer.
Word leaped from group to group. Center. Center. Children picked it up
excitedly.
"Now," said Lucifer.
Fetzer brought his arm down sharply. Lucifer saw the people around him
pull themselves together for another effort. Nina looked faint.
Nothing happened.
Most of the children were bouncing with excitement. They still hadn't
joined the psi focus. Lucifer ran up to a freckle-faced boy of about
five.
"Let's have some fun," he said. "Blow up Center just like you did the
guard tower!"
The words rippled from child to child, spoken and unspoken. Now it
was a game instead of an awesome duty. Hey, Tommy, this is going to
be neat. Blow up Center! Wow! Watch me. Aw, you aren't so hot! Quit
shovin', will ya'? I can't see. Center. Blow up Center! Oh, boy!
Lucifer gripped the freckled boy by the shoulders.
"All right," he said, "you show them all.... Now!"
The boy's eyes glowed brighter. He'd show 'em. Right here in front of
Mom and Dad. You bet he would! Just watch.
As child after child joined the psi focus, each grew quiet.
In some deep center of his being, Lucifer had the sense of a dark,
rushing wind, a nightmare sense of falling into a void, and screaming,
though you knew you would never reach the bottom.
Once again came that rending crack. Center disintegrated. There were no
flying fragments. Just disintegration. A white light that was whiter
than light.
The children buzzed ecstatically. Their parents were numb and silent.
Lucifer knew that if Huth still lived, he must be reorganizing his
concept of what had originally happened. His reasoning would soon bring
him to the truth.
There was a period of quiet. It strengthened in Lucifer the belief that
Huth was alive and calmly directing the operation. He found himself
hoping that Huth, indeed, was alive. He had a respect for the man that
bordered on a sense of kinship.
The quiet was broken as Huth's men fanned in small groups through the
compound. They moved with great, leaping strides. One squad probed
toward the clearing. When its leader realized how many Earth people
were assembled there, he signalled for a quick retreat toward the
spaceship.
Again there was stillness.
"What now, Doc?" asked Fetzer. He looked five years older. "Shall we
blast that ship before it opens up on us?"
Lucifer shook his head.
"I don't think it will open up--not just yet. This project means too
much to Huth. He'll try to save as much of it as possible."
Once more groups of Huth's men scattered through the compound. This
time the groups were larger. They followed converging courses that
would end at the clearing.
"They're rushing us!" cried Fetzer.
"Stop them!"
The command leaped from sector leader to sector leader. Lucifer picked
up the freckled boy so that he could see across the compound.
"Now we'll have some more fun," he said. "Those men are trying to get
here. Let's see if you can stop them."
"Betcha we can!"
Stop 'em! Stop 'em!
Word of the new game spread psionically from child to child, and was
repeated vocally. One tiny girl bounced up and down in glee, dancing,
first on one foot and then the other, as if she were skipping rope.
A shrill whistle launched the attack. Five squads converged on the
clearing. The bronze faces of Huth's men were impassive. Their long
legs covered nearly three yards at a stride. Each man carried a short,
silver-colored tube.
Once again the adults were first to project themselves into psi focus.
But this time the children were not so slow to join and reinforce them.
The rain had stopped. The hot, humid air was motionless.
And it was a motionless wind that seemed to strike Huth's men. They
were swept off their feet and spun around as if caught in a tornado.
The huge leader of the squad bearing down on Lucifer's sector shot
backward in a rising trajectory that cleared the compound. He screamed
once. A hoarse, wild scream.
The freckled boy in Lucifer's arms clapped his chubby hands.
Some of Huth's men smashed into dwellings and fell in broken heaps.
Others landed in open spaces and rolled like tumbleweeds. The survivors
crawled or ran, screaming and sobbing, toward the spaceship.
"We'd better get that ship now!" Fetzer urged.
"Perhaps Huth will try to talk to us first."
Five minutes passed. No sign came from Huth.
"They're up to something," said Fetzer. "Let's not wait anymore."
The gates of one of the administration training buildings swung open,
and the _Goolies_ poured out, driven and prodded by their attendants.
They came straight toward the clearing, running in weird, disjointed
strides or bounding along on footless stumps of legs. Monstrous heads
rolled loosely, snapping from shoulder to shoulder, from chest to back.
Tiny, hairless, eyeless heads were fixed and rigid. Slack mouths gaped
and drooled. Lipless mouths bared perpetual smiles. Dwarfed, naked
creatures bumped against the knees of eight-foot giants.
It was an unbelievable synthesis of every nightmare since time began.
The freckled boy wrapped his arms around Lucifer's neck. His small body
shuddered.
Lucifer felt his own stomach twist with the remembered horror, but he
held fast to reason. The _Goolies_ were in themselves no danger. It was
only their psychological effect. Huth was shrewd. He knew well the
Earth framework of prejudice. If they could break up the psi focus, his
own men could crash in behind them.
Confirming this line of reason, Huth's men were forming again on the
outskirts of the compound.
"Don't let them reach the clearing!" he told Fetzer.
Fetzer waved his signal. Though shaken, the adults, too, responded
to reason. They tried to focus. Children pressed against their legs,
sobbing.
A focus seemed to form, but weakly. It was like an exhausted,
distraught athlete trying to pull himself together.
The _Goolies_ faltered, appeared to lose some momentum and balance.
The attendants drove them forward again. They came on as though wading
against a strong current.
"Don't be afraid," Lucifer told the boy. "They really can't hurt you."
The small body continued to tremble.
"Try to stop them ... try!"
"I want my Mommy...."
Nina took the boy into her own arms. She cradled his face against her
breasts, pressed her lips to his cheek.
"Just keep your eyes closed," she cooed gently. "Everything is all
right now."
She stroked the wiry red hair, and murmured.
"You don't have to look to stop them, do you? Why, you can stop them
any time you want to! Let's tell all the other boys and girls to keep
their eyes closed--and stop those people so they can't hurt Mommy and
Daddy! Here, I'll help you--we'll do it together."
Nina pressed her cheek tightly to the child's, and closed her eyes. The
boy stopped trembling.
The _Goolies_ slowed. It became harder and harder for them to move
against the invisible current. An attendant picked up one of the
smaller creatures and hurled it forward. In midair, the _Goolie_
rebounded and knocked the attendant off his feet.
The psi current broke loose. Clusters of bodies flew in all directions,
like the exploding fragments of a grenade, crashing in and through the
metal walls of the compound buildings.
And then all was still, except for a few broken moans. They were the
loneliest sounds Lucifer had ever heard.
He saw Huth, palms outstretched, walking steadily toward the clearing.
"Let him come," said Lucifer. "I will talk to him."
They met about thirty yards in front of the clearing. Huth's bronze
features were chiseled deep with new lines.
"Dr. Brill," he said, "I am shocked and disappointed. I thought you had
come to believe in this great experiment."
"There is no longer a question of belief--its success to this point is
very obvious."
"Then why do you destroy it?"
"I am trying to save it."
"I don't understand," said Huth. But there was hope in his eyes.
"You have learned much about Earth and its people, but there is one
thing you failed to learn: Man may be blind, warped and prejudiced, but
his frameworks can be changed, and he must--above all--he must control
his own destiny. This law has been proved so often through our history
that I am surprised you missed it."
Huth bowed his head to acknowledge the rebuke.
"Then what do you see in the future of this project?"
"I see great problems, almost insurmountable obstacles; and the
threshold of a vast unknown. I see our people slowly approaching that
threshold--to find their own future."
Huth looked silently over the compound, over the shell of the project
to which he had dedicated his life, and not even his tremendous will
could keep his shoulders from sagging.
"I cannot say that I truly disagree with you, Dr. Brill. But my own
culture views this project from its own framework. I, too, had to fight
with prejudice to keep it going. We are a mighty race, in control of
a great section of the galaxy, and I doubt that you could hold out
against our full power, as you have done tonight against a fragment of
it on this isolated outpost."
"There seems to be a new power on this tiny planet. A power greater
than any of us can yet conceive," Lucifer answered calmly.
"That may be; but there is the extreme likelihood of its total
destruction before you can find out how to use it. I could not prevent
this destruction if I tried--once it is known what happened here
tonight. My people, too, have a destiny, and they are determined to
pursue it."
A great rumble, a mighty rush of air, swept them off their feet. The
spaceship rose in a straight vertical line and leveled off some five
hundred feet above the clearing. Its prow swung toward the Earth
people. A finger of blue flame probed downward.
Huth heaved himself to his feet.
"No! No!" he shouted. "Oh, you fools...."
The blue flame broadened at its extremity, until it resembled a long,
inverted funnel. When it touched the ground, it reduced to grey ash a
fifty foot area of buildings and trees. There was no burning, no odor,
no smoke. Just a sifting of ashes that fell like snowflakes.
Huth cried out in agony at this destruction of his dream. He ran toward
the path of the flame, waving his arms.
In the instant before the flame reached him, Huth stood motionless,
arms outstretched, face straining upward, the great muscles of his neck
standing out in rigid cords.
And then his statuesque body was a sifting handful of grey ash, falling
gently to the damp ground. The flame leaped forward.
Lucifer got to his feet. He could think only one thought: That he must
try to stand upright with as much dignity as possible.
He heard Nina's voice, but couldn't make out the words.
They were followed by a shrill, whistling sound. Surprisingly, the
sound grew fainter, like a siren fading into the distance.
Lucifer realized he had closed his eyes. He opened them and saw the
spaceship streaking upward. It tumbled end over end, out of control.
The blue funnel of flame whipped in wild circles, hissing against the
clouds. The ship disappeared momentarily behind a cloud bank, then
could be seen again, glowing with an incandescent brilliance.
Suddenly it burst into a shower of sparks that flared like a dying
meteor, and fell away into nothingness.
In the clearing behind Lucifer, children chattered gleefully.
* * * * *
Lucifer stood by the window and listened in silence as Albert Fetzer
made his report.
The Earth people had returned to their quarters. Those whose dwellings
had been destroyed or badly damaged were sheltered with friends for the
night. Fifty-three of Huth's men and thirty of the women had survived.
A score of _Goolies_ had come crawling and whimpering out of the
forest. All were put under guard in one of the training buildings. Dr.
Thame, his own shoulder smashed, was helping with the injured.
A twenty-four hour guard was set up to watch for return of the supply
ship, or any other that might come.
"What about the children?" Lucifer asked.
"Mostly asleep. Some of them got a little frisky and started knocking
over things--until their mothers marched them off to bed."
Lucifer shivered, and he was not cold.
"You'd better get some sleep," he told Fetzer. "We'll meet with the
section leaders early in the morning."
When Fetzer was gone, Lucifer remained by the window. Nina came out of
the bedroom to join him. Together they watched the clouds close out the
stars, listened to the sweep of the rising wind and the drumbeat of the
returning rain. The eternal rain.
"Our world," said Nina. "Our new world."
Lucifer started to answer, then could not speak. The weight of his
thoughts was too great a burden to ease with words.
Nina put her arm around him.
"A frontier must always be like this," she said.
But what a frontier! There were the physical problems of existence,
with Huth's administration and most of his technology gone. There was
the moment when the supply ship would return, when a great fleet of
ships might come to see what had happened to the project.
Yet those problems seemed like foothills to the towering peaks ahead,
rising in range after range, beyond the outermost perimeter of thought.
As Lucifer stared into this unknown, he felt his mental stature shrivel
to microscopic size. How could he, or any combination of men, offer
leadership into such a future? If the project could survive against
the return of Huth's people, what would keep it from disintegrating
and destroying itself? How could a psi focus be channeled and used
constructively? How could a professor of parapsychology, a professor
who knew less about his subject than the youngest child on this planet,
assail such peaks?
And the children! A freckled boy whimpering in his arms. A boy with a
potential power that was as yet beyond the imagination. Lucifer thought
of a tiny child behind the wheel of a great diesel truck, speeding
through the crowded streets of a city. Or a child toying with the fuse
of a hydrogen bomb. Raise that capacity for destruction to the nth
power, and then....
God!
Tonight, for the first time, the children had glimpsed how great their
power could be. Tomorrow they would begin to play new games. Quickly
they would realize that they were stronger than their parents and other
adult authorities. How could such children be controlled, educated,
guided to maturity? If there were problem adolescents on Earth, what
problems lay ahead with adolescents who could hotrod among the stars?
"But there are more than problems," Nina said, in a hushed voice. "A
frontier means so much more!"
His thoughts, so recently liberated from their cubicle, drew back with
conditioned reluctance, then leaped toward those towering peaks. A free
thought could surmount any pinnacle, and look beyond the problems to
the grandeur of the infinite.
The view was of a magnitude and beauty beyond his capacity to absorb.
But small, incredibly wonderful details focused before him.
Now he saw knowledge and knowing from all the universe pour into this
steaming jungle planet through communication channels opened by a psi
focus that could leap time and space.
He saw knowledge and love and understanding transmitted outward again
to fall like rain wherever there was parched earth.
His mind drew back from the summit. It was enough to see, for an
evanescent moment of wonder, just a fragment of what lay beyond the
wild mountains. It was madness to look too long.
The future receded; the present returned.
"I was there with you," Nina said, breathlessly.
He buried his face in the softness of her hair and the warm curve of
her throat and shoulder.
He told her about himself, and their child.
She was silent and still for a long time.
"I must have known," she said. "I must have known all the time, without
admitting it to myself."
"I'm sorry, Nina."
Her strong arm tightened around him. Her answer was steady:
"We must have hope, because there is so much to learn. But if our child
cannot see...."
Her voice shook a little, then went on firmly,
"... If our child cannot see, we must find a Braille for the psi-blind!
And we will walk together ... as long as we can ... on our frontier ...
of infinity."