IX

It was night, and the overhead lights in the corridors were dimmed.

Ernest Carston tossed restlessly in his bed. He could not sleep, he had

been unable to sleep since seeing and hearing the Earth Council on the

ethero-magnum.

Carston arose, and dressed quickly. Silently he crossed the room to

the outer door, and stepped out into the corridor. He paced slowly,

aimlessly, his brow knit in deep thought. Finally he made a decision,

and turned his footsteps in the direction of the palace and the

laboratory. He was still an Earth official; he had known all the time

that he would have to take matters here into his own hands.

Before he reached the corridor leading to the laboratory, however,

he heard the soft shuffle of footsteps. Carston leaped back into the

shadows just as a lone figure emerged from one of the transverse

corridors. It passed very close to him, and he saw that it was Cynthia

Marnik; her face seemed very white, and her steps were hurried.

Carston's heart quickened a pace, as he followed her at a safe

distance, keeping to the shadows. She continued along the main

corridor, past the men's quarters and past the furnaces. With a shock,

Carston realized she was heading for the outer air-lock.

He reached there in time to see the huge door slide open, then Cynthia

stepped through, and the door closed. Carston waited, giving her time

to leave the tunnel, before he followed. Finally he entered the tunnel

himself, having long since learned how to operate the mechanism of

these doors. Cynthia was gone; the outer doors were closed.

Carston hurried down the long tunnel. The magnetic degravitizing coils

along each side were silent now, would remain so until the Spacer's

return. Carston reached the racks of vacuum suits near the outer door,

quickly donned one and was soon outside the Base.

Against the sun-swept horizon, a hundred yards away, he could easily

discern Cynthia's metal-encased figure. She kept close to the shadows

at the foot of the low lying cliffs. Not once did she look back. A

quarter of a mile further, she turned sharply, entered a narrow,

steep-walled canyon.

Puzzled, Carston hurried forward. He reached the canyon and entered it,

realizing that this must be one of the few places on Vulcan's surface

where there was anything simulating night; it wasn't really dark, but

sort of a twilight gloom between the rock cliffs sheering upward.

And he saw Cynthia. She hadn't gone far. Her vacuum-suited figure stood

very still, and she seemed to be staring up at the immensity of space.

Carston crept closer, came very near indeed, until he could see the

profiled whiteness of her face beneath the helmet.

Carston stared too, following her gaze. At first he didn't see a thing.

Then, high on the horizon, out of the sun's glare, right between the

canyon walls ... he caught the bright blue glint of a star. He suddenly

realized what it was, and with a sharp intake of breath he whispered:

"Earth!"

* * * * *

She must have had her helmet phones on. She turned slowly to face him,

and Carston was startled at the clear-cut radiance of her face.

"It's the Earth, yes ... it's beautiful. There's no other place on this

planet where you can see it like that, and then only when the position

is right. Sometimes not for months...."

Carston stepped quickly to her side. Cynthia averted her face, but

not before he saw the glint of tears in her eyes, and the lengthening

glimmer of one that rolled down her cheek beneath the transparent

helmet.

For an instant, Carston was dumbfounded. Then a vast exultation surged

within him. "I knew it!" he whispered fiercely. "Almost from the first

moment I saw you, I sensed there was something artificial beneath your

mask of hardness. This is it! You don't hate Earth at all, Cynthia,

you've never hated it!"

"Yes," she spoke softly, her voice deepening. "I've never hated Earth.

It was only father--" Abruptly she stopped, and her gaze strayed to

where the blue star shone like an aquamarine ablaze. "I can't remember

clearly; it's like a vague dream--but I have a dim vision of green

fields and golden light, and clouds in an unreal blue sky; and trees

beside a wide lake, with a crisp tang of air, different from the air

here. To me, that's Earth. I was born there." Her voice faded, and as

if from a great distance Carston heard her say, "Oh perhaps it's just a

dream."

"No, it's not a dream," Carston whispered, standing very close to her

now. "It's part of you, it belongs to you! All Earthians feel that out

here, a yearning to get back. Cynthia, I've loved you from the very

first ... didn't you know? Let me take you back with me, out of this

madness that can only mean death for us all!" He stopped, at the sight

of her upturned face, white and wan.

"I guessed. Yes, I know. I've been waiting a long time to hear you say

this. And I'd go with you, Carston, but how is it possible now? My

life's forfeit, you yourself said so!"

Now Carston was very sure of himself. "No, my dear," he said softly,

trying to filter the triumph from his voice. "Your life's not forfeit

if you help prevent the carnage and destruction that Aladdian's mad

dream will bring about. She doesn't know, she _can't_ know the awful

power of Earth's fleet. Luhor's vaunted super-cruisers will be so many

leaves scattered in the void. This allotropic metal on which his hope

of invincibility is based, can be neutralized and destroyed!"

"But how? What can we do?" Cynthia's voice held a note of despair, as

her hand unconsciously went out to his.

"We can give Earth the location of Luhor's asteroid, and the secret of

Vulcan!" He said it so softly, so insinuatingly that it was little more

than a thought. "I can promise you an absolute pardon, my dear--more!

I can promise you honor for aiding Earth. The Council knows how to

reward, as it knows how to punish."

"But Aladdian and Mark? Would it not mean death, or worse, for them

both?" She shuddered, as a vision of the Swamp came before her eyes. "I

could never condemn them to that," she thought aloud.

"With my influence, I can get amnesty for them--leniency at least,"

Carston said with the glibness of one to whom nothing mattered but the

ultimate task that must be accomplished at all costs. "All Earth wants

is to avoid another war. If we make it possible for Earth's fleet to

capture Luhor and neutralize the asteroid, I'm certain the Council will

pardon Aladdian and Mark." He pressed her hand confidently in both of

his.

She seemed to hesitate, but Carston knew she had already made up

her mind. "If you're sure you can obtain the pardon--and stop this

senseless war--yes--yes, my dear, I'll give the Earth Council any

information you wish--"

Her voice dwindled and stopped as Carston took her into his arms.

He, himself, was white and trembling with the reaction of having

accomplished his task. Over her shoulder he could see the twinkling

blue dot of Earth. He smiled, and it was a very smug smile. His breath

was long and trembling, but his intense emotion at the moment was _not_

akin to love.

X

"Soon, now."

Carston's murmur echoed eerily against the shrill hum of the

atomomotors in the upper scales. The phantasmal glow of the selector

screens suffused the chamber. Selenic cells poured additional power

into the trans-telector beam as Cynthia's fingers trembled over the

shining dials. Carston, standing beside her, was white-faced and tense.

Slowly a shifting blur materialized on the huge televise of the

ethero-magnum. It focused, and the thin-lipped, ascetic features of the

Earth Coordinator materialized in the immense Council room of Earth.

The Council in full session surrounded him. All were intent on their

receiving screens, on which Carston and Cynthia were reflected.

Cynthia stepped nervously aside, and Carston came forward. He bowed

low. Then his voice, hoarse with uncontrollable elation, rose in

greeting.

"Your Beneficence, and Elders of the Council! I am speaking from

_Vulcan_, the long-sought base of Captain George Marnik, where I have

been a prisoner for many months! But no longer. This," he gestured

hesitantly, "is Cynthia, George Marnik's daughter, for whom I beseech

the Coordinator's and the Council's clemency for the service she is

about to do."

Then in slow and measured words Carston told in detail all that had

happened, beginning with his own release from the Swamp by Cynthia,

relating Luhor's murder of Marnik, and finally telling of the asteroid

where Luhor's space cruisers were being assembled, and of the new

allotropic metal being mined on Vulcan. Then he motioned for Cynthia to

come forward.

The Coordinator had listened in silence, his grim face impassive. Every

eye in the Council room was unwaveringly on the screen, and the silence

lay heavy between two distant worlds. Slowly, Cynthia walked toward the

ethero-magnum sender, a sheaf of note paper in her hand. She smiled

wanly, but confidently at Carston. Then in a colorless voice she read

her mathematical figures giving the position of the asteroid in space,

and the formula for the shortest approach from Vulcan, as the key for

computation of the trajectory from Earth. Without animation, she gave

the formula for the allotropic metal process, and the secret of the

entrance to Vulcan.

Then she fell silent. As if she didn't know what to do, she turned to

Carston and caught for a fleeting instant the smug smile of triumph on

his lips; but before she could comprehend its meaning, it was gone.

"Will ... will I be pardoned?" Cynthia questioned aloud, more to

Carston than to the Coordinator on the screen.

But the silence in the Council room of Earth persisted, as busy

mathematicians already were furiously computing the mathematical

formulae. A thin, contemptuous smile had parted the Coordinator's lips.

It was the first time Carston had ever seen him smile, and the room

where he and Cynthia stood, although millions of miles distant, seemed

colder suddenly as that glacial glimmer came through the screen.