Fugitives from Earth
"What time is it?" asked Nora Powell.
Dr. Bryant looked up from the black-and-white-squared table over which
he and his companion were bent, engrossed in one of mankind's most
ancient pastimes.
"Er--I beg your pardon, my dear? What did you say?"
"I asked," repeated Nora, "what time it is?"
"Oh--time? Almost four o'clock."
"Time," growled Flick Muldoon, from the other end of the balcony, "he
was getting back."
"Gary, you mean?" Dr. Boris Anjers, having placed his opponent
destructively _en prise_, leaned back in his chair. "Have patience, my
boy. These things take time, you know, and it is a difficult mission
upon which our young friend has gone."
"It's all right for you and Doc Bryant. You've got a chess game to
occupy your minds. Me, I got little pink and green meemies running up
and down my corpuscles. I'm going to take a walk. Want to come along,
Nora?"
Nora Powell said, "No, thanks, Flick. I'll wait here for him." Then,
as the restless young cameraman stalked from the piazza and the two
graybeards returned to their game, she wandered disconsolately to the
far end of the balcony, for perhaps the dozenth time in the hour gazed
out over the most heartbreaking beauty of the scene before and below
her.
This eyrie from which she looked was a modest but charming _pension_ in
Geneva, a rustic famed for its beautiful surroundings and delightful
old-world charm. To the south lay the valley of the Arve; beyond this
the gray and barren rock of the Petit Salève rose like a wall, it, in
turn, overtopped by the distant, imperial slopes of Mont Blanc. The sky
was the bright and unbelievable blue of mountain country. From the vale
below echoed the mellow lilt of a shepherd's yodeling.
Here, after hasty preparation, had the five comrades-in-adventure
established residence until Gary Lane could convince the World Council,
which gathered in this traditionally neutral nation, of the urgency
of their demands ... and receive from this all-supreme body that
terrestrial secret which was vital to the furtherment of their aims.[3]
[Footnote 3: Out of the bloody conflict of the Anarchist Rebellion
(2197-2208 A.D.) was born, at long last, the Terrestrial World Union.
National boundaries were broken down, racial cliques and prejudices
were abandoned, and Earth became one single community speaking a single
language. The World Council, an electoral body seated in Geneva, Unit
44a (once the Republic of Switzerland), governed planetary trade,
politics and practices.--_Ed._]
Here had they cooled their heels for very nearly a fortnight while
Gary wormed and forced and argued his way through hordes of underlings
to finally reach the ear of those Councillors who alone could grant his
request. Such an interview had finally been achieved, and today was the
fateful appointment.
Alone, a few short hours ago, Lane had set forth to the Council Hall,
laden with Muldoon's photographs, his own and Dr. Bryant's mathematical
analyses, and all other documents necessary to prove his claims. Now
his companions, placidly or nervously as their individual natures
determined, awaited his return.
* * * * *
As to what sort of exhibition she herself was making, Nora Powell could
not say. If she was not so openly impatient as Flick Muldoon, neither
was she complacently attentive like the two older scientists. She was,
she thought with sudden whimsy, much like one of those ancient volcanic
peaks so gloriously sharp-limned on the horizon before her: surfacely
cool, but inwardly and secretly aflame with constrained eruptive fires
which might at any moment burst their bonds.
The afternoon was pleasantly cool, but standing there alone on the
balcony her cheeks were suddenly warm to the touch as she caught
herself wondering what would be Gary Lane's reaction were he to realize
how startlingly accurate was this analogy. During these last weeks,
their past differences forgotten, she and the young physicist had
fallen into a pleasant and easy _camaraderie_. Formalities had been
swept away in the urgency of the moment, and on everything they worked
together like lifelong friends.
But that, thought Nora with a thin stirring of rebelliousness, was
just the trouble. That which within her had developed toward Gary
Lane could not so easily be dismissed with the loose and meaningless
term "friendship." It was something else, something deeper, stronger,
more tremulously chaotic ... like the subdued inner strivings of those
pleasantly placid mountains.
Did he, she wondered with a strained and baffled curiosity, feel that,
too? Or was he always too much the scientist to be just a plain man
looking upon her ... seeing her ... not as a friend, but as a woman?
The sound of crisp, firm footsteps spelled an end to her thinking. She
whirled to the doorway.
"Gary! You're back!"
Then her heart chilled within her at the look on his face. Never had
she seen Gary Lane like this. His features were hard as if they had
been cast in a mold, then frozen. His lips were whitely set, his eyes
twin glittering flints of anger.
"Yes," he said harshly, "I'm back. It's all over. We're done. Finished.
Washed up."
Dr. Bryant rose from his chair swiftly. "What do you mean, Gary? The
Council didn't--?"
"Oh, didn't they?" Lane's bark was a mirthless shard of laughter. "They
turned me down cold. Said our conclusions were erroneous, my theory a
fantastic figment of the imagination. The fools! The everlasting damned
fools! Don't they realize they're condemning a universe to oblivion?"
Dr. Anjers patted the younger man's shoulder soothingly, his bright
cherubic face soberly consoling.
"I'm sorry, my boy. But I warned you it would be difficult. Men see no
farther than the ends of their noses."
"Maybe not," grated Gary, "but they _hear_ ... oh, God, how they
_hear_! That's what killed our chances. Somehow or other they got a
rumor of what was in the wind. They had been warned in advance of
who I was and what I wanted; when I started explaining, showing my
photographs, they just sat back and smirked at me with that '_Yes,
yes, we know all about it; isn't it a pity that one so young should be
deranged?_' look on their smug, complacent faces."
"_Heard_ of it?" cried Nora. "But how could they have heard of it?"
Lane shook his head doggedly. "That's what I've been asking myself
ever since I left the Council Hall. To the best of my knowledge, not a
living soul knows our secret except us five."
"And," reminded Dr. Anjers, "one other."
"One other?"
"The marauder in the observatory."
* * * * *
Lane was silent for a moment. Then he nodded. "That's right. I'd almost
forgotten. _Their_ ambassador. It's his diabolic hand again. It must
be. Lord, if we had only caught him that day. If we only had some idea
who he _was_--"
The door opened again, and Flick Muldoon burst in jubilantly. "Great
howling snakes, folks, look who I found wandering around down on the
streets like a roaming comet! That old star-shooting son-of-a-gun
himself--Oh, golly, Gary! You're back! What'd they say, pal? Do we get
the ship? Is everything set?"
"Not set," corrected Gary. "Settled!" And told him what he had told the
others.
Muldoon's ruddy face fell. "Well, I'll be damned!" he whispered. "And
to think Earth's government set them dumb lunks up in power to rule
mankind's affairs! What are we going to do now? We can't give up just
because--"
"I think," suggested Nora, "the first thing you'd better do, Flick, is
introduce your friend. This must all seem rather mysterious and awkward
to him."
"Oh, my golly!" gulped Flick. "I almost forgot. I'm sorry, Hugh. Doc,
you remember Hugh Warren, don't you?"
"Warren?" Dr. Bryant's gaze turned querulously toward the tall,
fair, smiling young man in the doorway. The newcomer was dressed in
the respected gold-trimmed blue of the Solar Space Patrol. His even
features were tanned to a cinnamon hue by long exposure to the raw,
unshielded radiations of the void. The old scientist's eyes lighted
with belated recognition. "Not young Hugh Warren who used to study
Celestial Astrogation at the Observatory?"
The spaceman grinned, stepping forward to wring the older man's hand
with phalange-crushing enthusiasm.
"The same, Dr. Bryant," he chuckled. "I've never forgotten those
courses in Silly Ass. Most fun I've ever had ... and I've had plenty
since that. Lord--" He made the rounds, ending beside Gary Lane, about
whose shoulders he threw an arm in warm, masculine affection--"Lord,
it's good to see you earth-lubbers again! You haven't changed a bit,
Gary. You look a little more sober and settled down. But, then, they
tell me marriage does that to a guy...."
"Marriage?" echoed Lane blankly.
"Why--why, yes. Isn't this young lady--?"
"No. This is Miss Powell, my assistant. And the gentleman beside Dr.
Bryant is Dr. Boris Anjers. Dr. Anjers, Lieutenant Warren."
Dr. Anjers said politely, "It is always a pleasure to meet friends
of my friends. But hasn't Dr. Lane made a small mistake? If my poor
eyesight does not deceive me, your markings are not those of a space
lieutenant--"
Warren grinned. "That's right. S'prise, folks! The Council up and made
me a Captain, on account of me and my boys were lucky enough to salvage
a smashed liner out of the Bog.[4] That's why I'm here in Geneva.
Waiting to take command of my new ship, the sweetest, smoothest, little
whipper-dipper of a cruiser you ever laid eyes on. Boy, is it ever a
honey! All the latest equipment--"
[Footnote 4: The Bog: spaceman's term used to designate the Asteroid
Belt between Mars and Jupiter.--_Ed._]
"Cruiser!" said Lane bitterly. "They've got lots of cruisers for
routine work, but they won't even spare one old broken down jalopy
for--"
Hugh Warren looked puzzled. "For what? What's the gripe, chum? You look
like you'd just found a bug in a raspberry."
"It's worse than that," said Gary. And he told Warren the whole story
briefly, beginning with the lunar expedition and ending with the
recital of his recent interview.
* * * * *
As Lane spoke, the young spaceman's smile faded slowly, the
laughter-born crinkles in the corners of his eyes disappeared. And Nora
Powell, watching this transition, realized that beneath the surface
vivacity of this newcomer there lay a core of steel, flame-hardened in
the crucible of action.
When Gary finished Warren did not speak. Instead, he jammed hamlike
hands deep into his trousers pockets, stalked to the far end of the
balcony, and there with head lowered, shoulders hunched, his back to
the others of the group, stared for long minutes unseeingly out over
the distant panorama. At length he turned, his eyes gravely querulous.
"Gary ... you're sure of what you've been telling me?"
"I only wish," said Gary bitterly, "there were some possibility of
error."
"What do _you_ say, Dr. Bryant?"
"There is only one thing _to_ say. Gary is right; completely right.
We have seen the pictures, checked and rechecked our calculations a
hundred times. There is no doubt but that the time approaches, and
it all too soon, when Earth's sun and its entire swarm of tributary
planets will exceed the critical dwindling point and flame into sudden
oblivion."
"And--and knowing these things, the Council wouldn't give you a ship,
Gary?"
"They just laughed at me. Said the whole theory was ridiculous."
"Lord!" said Captain Hugh Warren, "What fools we mortals be! Of course,
Gary, I can see their point ... to a certain extent. It _does_ sound
mad, your idea of visiting three only half-friendly planets and asking
each of them to open-handedly donate its most cherished military
secret. But it's the only way...."
His hands came from his pockets in a swift, decisive motion.
"Yes, it's the only way. How soon can you be ready to leave?"
"How--soon?"
"There's no time for fiddle-faddle. If we're going to do anything,
we've got to do it now before anything leaks, or anyone can get
suspicious."
"We?" echoed Dr. Bryant bleakly.
"Of course!" Hugh Warren brushed the older man's dubiety aside with
brusque and characteristic impatience. "You don't think I'm going to
stand on the sidelines and let this adventure romp along without _me_,
do you? And besides, I'm just what the doctor ordered: the answer to
your problem. You need a ship and a crew, don't you? And a pilot?
Well, I've got the first and the second. And I'm the last myself."
* * * * *
Nora Powell burst forth impetuously, "But--but, Captain Warren, we
can't let you do that. You're a military man. You'd be court-martialed
on charges of desertion--"
"If," grunted Warren, "they caught us. Yes. But I'm not figuring on
anybody catching the _Liberty_. She's the sweetest little ether-pusher
that ever came off a cradle. And as for court-martial--" He
shrugged--"we'll worry about that if and when we get back. According
to Gary, if something isn't done--and done quick--there won't _be_ any
court-martials to try traitors.
"And--" He grinned--"I'd rather be a dead felon than a live loyalist."
Thus, in a manner far different from that which the comrades had
planned, was the matter arranged. Swiftly, but as inconspicuously as
possible, the conspirators made their preparations, gathered their
belongings together, and transported them to the Geneva rocketdrome,
which, fortunately, lay directly adjacent to the private cradle-field
of the Solar Space Patrol headquarters.
Amidst the hurly-burly and confusion of this place it was a simple
matter for Captain Hugh Warren to delegate two members of his crew to
slip to the larger drome and there, unnoticed in the bedlam of blasting
explosions, milling throngs, and tearful goodbyes, move the pile of
luggage from one drome to the other.
By nightfall the exchange had been completed; the plan was in
readiness. There came to the _pension_ a small, gnarled figure bearing
a mountainous bundle. This, when unwrapped, proved to be sufficient of
the familiar sky blue SSP uniform clothing to disguise every member
of the party. The bearer, a man who identified himself as, "'Awkins,
sir--'Erby 'Awkins, stooard o' the blinkin' _Liberty_, that's me, sir!"
gravely transmitted Captain Warren's instructions as to entering the
SSP rocketdrome.
"Just walk on past the sentry without sayin' nothin', folks," he
advised. "I'll give the password for the crew of us. Actin' like you
had maybe a drop too many might be a bit of an 'elp, but it don't
matter much. The sentries will be expectin' us, and won't think a thing
of it."
"Expecting us?" repeated Nora. "Five strangers, including a woman?"
'Erby 'Awkins grinned impishly. "Beggin' your poddon, miss, but
when you get them volly-oominus blues wrapped about your own pretty
self--meanin' no impertinence--it'd take a sharp-eyed sentry to tell
whether you was male or female, old or young. And there's no call for
them to be suspicious. Cap'n, he give five men all night leave, he did,
and told them not to bother comin' back. But he reported to the Captain
of the Guards that he was expectin' five of his crew to report back to
headquarters at eleven o'clock. That's the hour when we'll enter the
gates."
Gary said soberly, "We understand, Hawkins. I see Captain Warren has
already told you what we are planning to do."
And Hawkins replied with quiet dignity, "He didn't tell me nawthin',
sir; not a blinkin' word. And if I _does_ 'ave my suspicions, well, wot
matter? Cap'n Warren's our skipper, sir. What he decides is good enough
for me and the rest of the crew."
* * * * *
So at eleven o'clock that night, as the long black spires of the
circling mountains rose to merge with the thicker black of a clouded,
moonless sky, five slightly tipsy figures lurched with shambling feet
to the sacrosanct portal of the Solar Space Patrol rocketdrome.
[Illustration: Lane did what must be done--and did it swiftly.]
As Hawkins had promised, they passed the gate unchallenged, the little
purser volunteering the password for all of them. And as they left
the gate behind, young Dr. Lane breathed a deep sigh of relief. The
one hazardous point of their effort now lay behind them. Five hundred
yards away lay the ship upon whose flaming jets they soon would thrust
voidward on a quest of magnificent daring.
The gate crashed to behind them, and the sentry's amused drawl advised,
"All right, lads, hop along back to your ship and sleep it off before
your skipper finds out--Wait a minute! What's the matter there?"
His voice lifted in sharp query, and beside Gary, Nora Powell gasped
in swift alarm; her right hand sought and gripped his arm in a clutch
of panic fright. For, awkwardly, in the darkness, one of their party
had slipped and fallen. And as he sprawled on the rough, uneven ground,
he cried in a loud and decidedly unsailorlike voice, "_Oh, goodness
gracious! How perfectly stupid of me!_"
It was the rotund little scientist, Dr. Anjers!