Herb had no real hope of eluding capture. After he fled from Norma, he
pulled his hat low over his face and hurried down the street. At the
first hotel, he entered and registered and was shown his room.
He fell on the bed; the room was fuzzy and dull. He wanted nothing more
than to sleep. His mind was such a searing agony of doubt that he had
to escape from it. He curled up warmly and nestled against the softness
of the mattress and closed his eyes, trying to drive all thought from
him, and he slept....
When he awoke, the room was heavy with darkness and silence, and he lay
still, trying to feel the vibration of the ship's motors. The memory of
a formless dream clung to his mind, and he tried to clarify it for the
dream form.
Awareness of his location came. He relaxed, wanted to sleep again,
thought: no more dream forms, no more.... Other memories stirred and
returned, and he was uneasily awake. He opened his eyes, growing tense.
He held his breath. The dark around him concealed unknown dangers. He
was still fully clothed, and he stood up. He found the light switch.
With the bright flame of electricity he became aware of how heavy his
head was; how incoherent his thoughts were; and there was a sour taste
in his mouth. He blinked his eyes. The room was reassuringly normal.
He went back to bed and lay down. His thoughts whirled. Beyond thought
there was a great, tugging emptiness in his stomach, a sense of despair
that seemed to dwell in every tiny muscle and radiate outward from
every tiny blood vessel. The light made him naked, and he could not
face his own nakedness.
He turned out the light and returned to the bed. The dark was
protective and reassuring now, and he closed his eyes.
Bit by bit the sense of unreality fled.
Dawn came.
* * * * *
The TV set sat squatly on the table across the room. Morning sunshine
fell brightly through the Venetian blinds. Herb turned on the set to
discover the latest news of his pursuit.
The screen lighted and on its surface formed the deadly trinity of the
starships. It was a long shot from a sound truck, and the camera panned
an expanse of desert beyond to focus briefly on the Arizona sunrise.
An announcer was commenting on the riot of color that was quite obvious
to the viewer: the flame of dawn in the sky and the blood red of the
prairie flowers that covered the desert.
Herb watched and listened.
The starships were in place. Their cutting beams lanced out, there were
puffs of destruction, and the tubings struck into the ground.
The camera near one of the ships observed the operation intently.
A scientist was commenting on the technology of the starmen.
"The information inherent in one of these ships alone," he said
(characteristically underestimating the pace of advancement), "would
be enough to thrust Earth a hundred years--in terms of scientific
knowledge--into the future."
A shudder spun through Herb's body. He paced the room restlessly.
Somewhere at a distance a clock struck the hour. Outside the open
window, English sparrows chattered shrill, imperative commands.
Herb was hungry. He phoned the desk and ordered breakfast. He was in
the bath room when the bellboy arrived; he called, "The money's on the
dresser." For fear of being recognized, he remained hidden until the
bellboy left.
He came out. The tray was on the night table. Eating, he continued to
watch the progress of the starships.
The voice of the Oligarch now came from the TV. He fabricated plausible
details about what they were discovering of Earth's early physical
history.
Sweaty faces advanced and receded from the cameras. The three tubes
continued into the Earth, going deeper by the minute.
A sense of urgency and desperation filled Herb. He must hurry to kill
Bud. By noon the desert operation would be completed. Earth would be a
mined planet. Destruction could then be accomplished by the flick of a
switch.
He looked at his face in the mirror. Black stubble pricked his skin in
a thousand places, and he ran his hand across his cheek. He shrugged
and found his hat.
Until sunset, he told himself, he would have until sunset to accomplish
his self-imposed assignment.
Bud, he thought (and revulsion mounted in him), is her brother, and
she, his sister; and Frank, Frank is dead and forgotten and hidden
somewhere, as soon will be now the Earth and all its beauty.
He was in the street. The sunshine was bright. He walked.
A gun, he thought, for a hand that is hungry for--and he thought: To
cup the hand behind Norma's head, and stroke her hair, and look deeply
into her eyes. He looked at his hands; strange, hungry hands, he
thought. He felt them tighten against the metallic iciness of a gun....
"You can't," the man behind the counter said, "buy a pistol without
a permit. You'll have to get a police permit before I can sell you a
gun." His eyes shifted uneasily from Herb's face, and Herb thanked the
man and started back toward the sunshine.
"Wait a minute!" the man said.
The harsh command froze Herb. He turned. He found himself looking into
reward-hungry eyes. The hand below them held an automatic. The hand was
trembling with greed.
"You're that starman," the proprietor said.
Herb caught his breath. He jerked to his left and spun around. He ran.
* * * * *
The harsh roar of the automatic burst behind him. The proprietor
had taken flight for an admission of identity; but perhaps latent
uncertainty had carried the bullet high. It smashed into the window
pane above Herb's head, and glass fragments erupted upon the pavement.
"Stop him! Stop him!" cried the proprietor as Herb fled.
The sunlight was bright. Herb bolted across an intersection, narrowly
missed being run down by a car, dodged around a heavy truck and ran to
the left.
There was no more shooting. There was a hub-hub behind him. A
policeman's whistle sounded.
Herb jerked around another corner. There was the sound of pursuit.
He ran a block, doubled back, entered a department store, lost himself
in the crowd, took the elevator up to the third floor.
He tried to look interested in the merchandise. Each second cost him
an extra heart beat. He left a counter and went to the stairs. He
became inconspicuously preoccupied with distant thoughts. He was once
more on the ground floor. He left the building by the opposite entrance.
He hailed a taxi. His heart beat desperately.
Once settled in the rear seat, he felt almost secure. The worst was
over. He told the driver, "Down town."
After a dozen blocks, he got out. When the cab was gone, he walked back
the way he had come. He found a hotel, registered, and was shown his
room.
He stood at the window. A police car cruised by. For a moment, he was
afraid it would stop.
_I must get a gun_, he thought. Time seemed to be falling swiftly in
the bright air.
_I must, I must._
He went to the television set and switched it on.
The starships were still occupying the screen. The sun was slanting its
rays across the desert.
An announcer spoke in a dryly excited voice.
Herb sat down, and when at length one starship lumbered into the
center of the triangle and its beam struck out, weariness and futility
possessed him. They were planting the atomic seed. Within an hour
there would be no hope of reprieve. There was none now; and yet it
seemed, doom was not irreversible until this last act was accomplished
and the seed in place.
Herb spun the selector. He did not want to witness the climactic moment.
What was the name of Norma's hotel?
He remembered.
He went to the telephone....
* * * * *
When Norma arrived in answer to the call, she found an unshaven Herb
nervously pacing the floor.
"Where have you been?" she asked breathlessly.
He seated himself on the bed and wrinkled the coverlet in his hands,
working with it furiously.
"They're going to blow up the world," he said.
"Who--What?"
"I helped them. It's my fault. I was a fool. I couldn't know, you see
that? I couldn't _know_...."
Norma was ashen.
Herb stood up and crossed to her side and looked down at her. "Out in
the desert, they have just finished planting the charge. That's what
they came here for. They're going to blow up the world."
"The starmen?"
"Yes."
Norma was on her feet. She was too terrified to ask why. She did not
question.... _It was true!_
"We've got to stop them!"
"We can't, it's too late," Herb said.
"Why not, why is it?"
"It's too late."
"We've got to stop them."
"It's too late. There's nothing we can do. Listen. Get me a gun. I want
to--"
He loomed wild-eyed above her. She didn't understand what he intended
to do: only that some impossible fury was driving him. "You've got to
help me stop them. There must be some way."
"Get me a gun! Get me a gun!" Every atom of his being cried out to her:
he had to have the gun. His thoughts were warped and twisted. With the
gun everything would be clear in his mind. Everything would follow step
by step. The gun could spout a great, purifying flame.
He was alone in the room. He looked down. She had dropped her purse,
and it had spilled open. He walked to the gun that had fallen from it.
* * * * *
Norma ran, wild and terrified. To whom could she turn?
Frank! Where was he?
Frank....
Bud?
No. No, not Bud. He--
There was no one else. Bud. Her breath was fire. He would have to do
something. Bud.
She hailed a cab.
"Bud!" she called as she opened the car door. "The Senate Office
Building! Hurry!" Bud, she sobbed under her breath. He can do something
to stop it.
* * * * *
Herb examined the gun carefully. He weighed it in his hand. It would do
nicely. He pocketed it.
He would need only an instant. A taxi from here to the Senator's
office. A trip in the elevator. Perhaps a slight wait: and then Senator
Council framed in the doorway. He had--how long? Several hours, he told
himself.
He touched the gun again. No hurry. No real hurry.
Several hours.
* * * * *
Norma was hysterical when she burst into Bud's office. One of Bud's
hands darted for the drawer where he had taken to keeping an automatic.
The hand stopped.
Norma's lips were trembling uncontrollably. "Bud!" she gasped. "_Bud,
they're planning to blow up the world!_"
"What are you talking about?" he demanded angrily. "What do you mean?"
"The starmen! I saw Herb. He told me. I had to come to you, Bud. You've
got to make them stop it!"
"Nonsense," Bud said. "You're out of your mind. You're crazy." He
surged to his feet. "Where is Herb? I told you to come see me if you
found him. Where is he?"
"It's true!" Norma cried. "I know it's true! They've been lying to us.
They spy on each other. They have hidden microphones everywhere. They
want to destroy the world, Bud! Oh, please, please, please, you've got
to believe me...."
Bud came toward her. She was insane, of course. It was astonishing how
many people were insane. Sometimes Bud thought he was the only sane
person left. "Now, now, you just tell me where Herb is, and I'll go
have a nice long talk with him." He pocketed the automatic.
"_You don't believe me._"
"Oh, I do. Dear, I do, of course, I do. They're going to blow up the
world.... I'd like to see Herb and talk it over with him." He made
soothing motions with his hands.
Bud's face, round and smiling and vacant, peered down. She wanted to
throw something at it. She wanted to launch herself upon him and shake
him and make him listen to her. He was a monolithic caricature of
stupidity. She had to force herself into his mind and make him _see_.
Bud came no closer to her. "Now, now, everything's going to be all
right," he said. "Now, now, brother's little sister is...." He took a
half step backward.
She was able to see him for the first time as Frank saw him. A little
sense of horror was born and began to grow. She stared at him with
slowly vanishing disbelief. How could someone like this be her brother?
He was some cold, unfeeling, insensitive thing, wrapped up in a world
that embraced no one but himself.
"What have you done to Frank?" she demanded. "Bud, _what have you done
to my brother_?"
Bud half snarled.
And the Oligarch stepped out of the little room to the left. "I think
it's about time I take over."
Norma felt her heart pulse and stop cold. Ice filled the air.
Bud said, staring at her with fascination, "She's going crazy, George."
Norma turned to the Oligarch. "What did you make him do to Frank?"
"Not here," Bud said softly. "Don't kill her yet. She knows where Herb
is."
Norma wanted to scream. She only half opened her mouth when the
Oligarch's hand slapped sharply against her neck. Her knees buckled and
she dropped unconscious to the heavy carpet.
"She knows where Herb is," Bud said again. "We've got to find him
before he tells someone--tells someone else about Frank."
"She was telling the truth," the Oligarch said. "We are going to blow
up the world. That's what I came back to Washington to tell you."
* * * * *
Herb arrived at the new Senate Office Building. He paid his fare and
dismissed the cab. No one noticed him as he entered the lobby. He took
the elevator to Senator Council's office. He was taking his time; he
had several hours.
The secretary, John, was behind his desk. The reception room was empty.
Herb felt his stomach muscles tighten, and his hands clenched the
pocketed gun tightly and grew damp.
"Yes?"
"I want to see the Senator."
"What is the nature of your business?"
"I want to talk about, about some private matters. I can wait until he
can see me." Herb felt the gun, heavy and reassuring.
"The Senator isn't in right now. Perhaps I can help you?"
"No," Herb said sharply. "My business is with him. It's just between
the two of us."
"He just left with his sister and George, the starman."
Herb bent forward intently. Time telescoped. An hour was no longer a
practical infinity. "Where did they go?"
"I don't know, sir."
To the spider ship, Herb thought. They came back to Washington. They
came back--to give Bud his reward for betrayal....
Herb was at the door. He almost tore it from the hinges when he jerked
it open.
John picked up his telephone and placed a call to the C.I.D. "The
starman, Herb," he said, "has just left Senator Council's office. You
can pick him up outside. If you hurry."
* * * * *
Bud dismissed his bodyguard, and he and George supported Norma between
them as they left the building by private elevator and subway to the
garage. Bud's face was grey, his lips bloodless.
The Oligarch had presented him with a choice. Tomorrow morning, some
high government official would receive in the mail Frank's head, along
with Bud's signed confession. If Bud did not, before then, speak the
key words that would blow up the planet. Bud, in the first stunned
instant, cried: "Take me with you!" But even as he spoke, he knew that
he was doomed. Knowledge did not prevent appeal, but it helped develop
resignation. Bud thrust out with entreaties and debased himself with
cowardly promises, and seeing them fail, tried threats which failed
equally. His mind splintered into a thousand shards and reality became
abstracted fragments of himself: the world ceased then to exist for
him, and he lived in a phantom land, and his ego seized upon icebergs
that drifted across the chill sea of thought.
He became noble.
Norma came to consciousness as the car, driven inexpertly by the
Senator, rolled toward the airport. Early afternoon sunlight slanted
down across the Capitol.
She lay very quiet in the back seat, listening to the hiss of the
tires. Her neck was swollen and throbbing. _Don't kill her yet_, her
own brother had said, and then, out of the silence of the car, came his
own voice again, contradicting what had gone before.
"Dearer to me than all gold," Bud said. "Child of my beloved mother."
"We will take her with us," the starman answered soothingly,
reassuringly.
"She's all that's left," Bud said.
Norma lay quiet, unmoving, not daring to open her eyes.
"You can't know what she means to me," Bud said. "You must tell her
that. You must promise to tell her."
"I will do it. I promise you."
Bud said intently, "You must promise, I must know."
"I promise."
"Nothing will happen to her? She's all I have left. All. Child of my
beloved mother."
Tension accumulated between Bud and the starman. Norma realized that
her brother was no longer sane.
The car slowed and stopped. Still Norma did not move. She was too
terrified. They came to her door and opened it.
George pulled her roughly from the seat. She moaned but she did
not open her eyes. His hard muscles against her were deadly and
threatening, and her knees were so weak that, had she wanted to, she
could not have supported herself.
She heard a starman's feet on the steel ladder that descended from the
spider ship. She felt herself scooped up and dropped over his shoulder.
In the background she heard her brother's voice, "Child of...." The
agony of the voice was almost unendurable. "You must tell her what I
did to save her."
And she was jolted harshly upon the starman's shoulder as he swung her
up the ladder.
George's feet clanged behind her on the steel, and she heard the sharp,
laboring hiss of the breath of the man carrying her.
They were at the port. They entered, and the starman dropped her
roughly to the floor, and George clanged the door.
"You attended to the other ships?" George asked in the alien tongue of
Brionimar.
"Yes," the starman said. "They will both explode shortly after takeoff."
"The others are all aboard? We are the only ones on this one?"
"Yes."
"Good. I will remember this. You have done a good day's work. You
follow instructions well. I won't forget."
"Thank you."
"Watch the girl. I'll give the signal to leave."
"What do we do with her?"
"Dump her out as soon as we hit open space."
George's feet went forward. It was over, he was done. The issue lay
between Bud and himself and between Bud and Herb, an exciting and
dangerous situation that held, in its solution, the Oligarch's (and the
Oligarchy's) fate: the fate of two worlds. The stakes were high. The
Oligarch, thinking how free he was of the final responsibility, went
first to wash the Earth germs from his contaminated hands.
Norma had not understood the conversation that muttered above her.
But her terror was replaced by a sense of desperation. She moaned and
opened her eyes.
The starman, looking down at her with a cold, impersonal gaze, grunted
something unintelligible.
Norma struggled to her feet. He made no move to prevent or assist her.
She steadied herself against the wall. Near her hand, in a clip holder,
was a short, steel fire extinguishing rod. When the starman drew back
his hand to hit her, she cringed away. Instinctively she found the
rod and jerked it loose. Before she was aware of the action with her
conscious mind, the starman sank to the floor, and the bar clattered
from her nerveless fingers.
Heart racing, she turned for the door. A moment later, she was outside,
clambering down the ladder.
* * * * *
There were no taxis in sight. A jeep, driven by a uniformed messenger,
drew to the curb. Herb, holding his breath, crossed to it. The driver
cut the motor and got out. When he disappeared in the building across
the street, Herb slipped behind the wheel. He was a technician. He
began to experiment. Recently acquired knowledge came to his aid.
After what seemed a timeless heat and an endless exposure, he had the
motor running.
The C.I.D. man, who had come over on the subway from the House, stepped
out into the sunshine. He surveyed the street with a practiced eye.
Herb spun the jeep away from the curb and sent it careening erratically
toward the airport. The C.I.D. man (fairly confident of his
identification of Herb) fired twice. Herb heard one of the bullets make
an explosive pop as it passed near his ear. He hunched over the wheel
and gunned the motor.
* * * * *
Norma stumbled from the ladder and started to run. The spider ships
loomed menacingly behind her. An army guard started forward to question
her, and a jeep leaped suddenly into sight from around the corner of
the Administration Building. A heart beat later the jeep skewed around
beside her, and Herb, his face twisted with hate and fury cried,
"Where's Bud?"
One of the spider ships behind them became airborne; and then a second
leaped away.