"My employer is Frederick Waverill. He has an appointment."
"And you."
"Gilbert Murdoch."
There was a pause, then, "Gilbert Andrew Murdoch. Age thirty-four. Born
in the state called Illinois."
Murdoch, startled, hesitated, then realized he'd probably been asked a
question. "Er--that's right."
"There is a price on your head Murdoch."
Murdoch hesitated again, then said, "There'd be a price on your own if
Earth dared to put it there."
Waverill gripped the arms of his seat and stood up, too vigorously for
the light gravity. "Never mind all that. I hired this man because he
could make the contact and get me here. Can you give me back my eyes?"
"We can but first of all I must warn both of you against trying to
steal anything from us or prying into our methods. Several Terrans have
tried but none have escaped alive."
Waverill made an impatient gesture. "I've already got more money than I
can count. I've spent a lot of it, a very great lot, on the metal you
wanted, and I have it here in the ship."
"We have already perceived it and we do not care what it has cost you.
We are not altruists."
That, thought Murdoch, could be believed. He felt clammy. If they knew
so much about him, they might also be aware of the years he'd spent
sifting and assessing the rumors about them that circulated around the
tenuous outlaw community of space. Still, he'd been as discreet as was
humanly possible.
He wondered if Waverill knew more than he pretended. He thought not;
Murdoch's own knowledge was largely meticulous deduction. This much
Murdoch knew with enough certainty to gamble his life on it: the
treatments here involved a strange virus-like thing which multiplied in
one's veins and, for presumably selfish or instinctive reasons, helped
the body to repair and maintain itself. He knew for dead certain that
the aliens always carefully destroyed the virus in a patient's veins
before letting him go.
He thought he knew why.
The problem was to smuggle out any viable amount of the virus. Even a
few cells, he thought, would be enough if he could get away from here
and get them into his own blood. For it would multiply; and what would
be the going price for a drop of one's blood--for a thousandth of a
drop--if it carried virtual immortality?
A man could very nearly buy Earth.
* * * * *
The voice was speaking again. "Move straight ahead. The field will be
opened for you."
Murdoch got the ship moving. He was blanked out again by the melting
ice until they popped free into air, with an odd hesitation and then a
rush. The ship was borne clear on some sort of a beam. He could hear
water cascading outside the hull for a second, then it was quiet.
He glanced at the aft viewer and could see the tunnel where they'd
come out, with a little water still in the bottom, confined by the
force-field again. The water that had escaped was running off along a
ditch that circled the clearing.
They were lowered slowly to the gravelled area. "Leave the ship," the
voice directed, "and walk to the doorway you see."
Murdoch helped Waverill through the inner and outer hatches and led him
toward the building. His information was that a force barrier sliced
off this half of the circle from the other, and he could see that the
hedges along the diameter pressed against some invisible plane surface.
He hesitated as they came to it, and the voice said, "Walk straight
ahead to the door. The field will be opened for you."
He guided Waverill in the right direction. As they passed the mid-point
he felt an odd reluctance, a tingle and a slight resistance. Waverill
grunted at it, but said nothing.
The door slid open and they were in a plain room with doors at the left
and right. The outer door closed behind them. The door on the right
opened and Murdoch took Waverill through it. They were in a second room
of the same size, bare except for a bench along one wall.