The Viscount of the Tharn Suns, the greatest star-cluster in the Scythe
federation, knotted his jaw muscles feverishly and gnawed at his lower
lip. Somehow or other the strain-pile had been energized. Probably
the terrific proton storm that had hidden both ships for years had
compensated for the unrealized potential of the undrawn fifth rod. It
was his duty to the federation to throw this woman to the floor and
take refuge between the shadowy, shimmering walls of the escape ship.
He must carry the secret of the pile to safety with him. He had only
seconds.
He looked down distractedly at the small creature who was destroying
the proud ships that two great civilizations had spent a generation in
building. She seemed to be in a deep, peaceful sleep. The only sign of
life was a faint pulse in her throat.
She was the only woman that he had ever found whose companionship he
could have ... enjoyed hour after hour. He almost thought, "could have
loved."
The room was growing quite warm. The tremendous currents coursing
through the walls were swiftly growing stronger.
Another thought occurred to him: How had those Terran mentors planned
for their escape ship to avoid the holocaust? Any matter within
millions of miles would be destroyed. It was evident, then, that
wherever the ship was, it was _not_ within the danger zone.
Suddenly he understood everything.
With a queer smile, in which ribald surmise and tenderness fought
for supremacy, he picked the woman up, carried her into the phantom
vessel, placed her on the pilot's lounge, and strapped her in. From
his waist-purse he took a hypodermic syringe, removed the sheath from
the needle, and thrust it into her arm. Her face twinged briefly, but
she did not waken. He threw a blanket over her and then strode quickly
to the controls. They were fairly simple, and he had no difficulty in
switching the automatic drive to the general direction of the Tharn
sun cluster. He wrote a hasty note on the pilot's navigation pad, and
then turned again to the woman. He removed one of his duplicate jeweled
rings and slipped it on her finger. His father would recognize it and
would believe her.
Then he bent over her and kissed her lightly on the lips.
"Perhaps I love you too, my dearest enemy," he whispered gently.
"Educate our son-to-be in the ways of peace."
Again outside the ship, he spun the space lock that sealed her in. The
ship's walls were now growing opaque and he could no longer see inside.
His communications box was jangling furiously in a dozen different
keys, and anxious, querulous voices were pouring through it into
the room. He snapped it off, loosened his collar, filled his glass
to overflowing with the last of the _terif_, and cut off the table
luminar. His stereop projector next had his attention.
He lay on his couch in the darkness of his death cell, studying with
the keenest satisfaction his wife, son, and father, while they waved at
him happily from the radiant stereop sphere.
Those Terran mentors had planned well. The escape ship would not be
affected by the nearing cataclysm, because it was really in a different
time plane--at least five years in the past. The catastrophe would
simply release it to its original continuum, whence it would proceed
with its precious cargo to the Tharn suns.
Odd effect, that time shift. He wished now he'd read more of the
theories of that ancient Terran, Einstein, who claimed that
simultaneity was an illusion--that "now" here could be altogether
different from "now" in other steric areas. His son, unborn as
yet "here," was more than four years old "there"--on the planet.
Tharn-R-VII, where the lad played in his grandfather's gardens.
And then there was the mystery of the rings. The old count had not
had another ring made of course. The ring the count had sent with the
stereop coils must have been the same one that Perat had just placed
on the finger of his bride. The ring sent with the stereops was merely
his original ring brought back in the relooping of a time-line. In his
"now" there was only one ring--the one he was wearing. In Evelyn's
"now" there was the same ring, but that was logical, because her "now"
would soon be five years earlier than his. Owing to this five-year
relooping of time, it had been possible for the ring to exist in
duplicate for six weeks. But very soon, in his "now," it would be
destroyed for good.
He pressed the repeat button on the stereop and started the coil again.
The boy had an engaging grin, rather like his own (he would indulge
a final vanity), but without the scar. He hoped there would never
be another war to disfigure or kill his son. It was up to the next
generation.
As he swirled his _terif_, he smiled and thought of the note he had
left on the pilot's pad: _Name him after your father--Gordon_.
* * * * *
"... _failed to find any survivors, or for that matter, any trace
whatever of either globe, if one excepts the supernova that appeared
for a quarter metron some thirty years ago at the far margin of the
proton storm. We of the Armistice Commission therefore unanimously
urge that further hostilities by either side would necessarily be
indecisive_...."
--Scythe-Terran Armistice, History and Tentative Provisions (excerpts):
Gordon of Tharn, Editor-in-Chief and Primary Scythian Delegate.