Nine days had passed according to the Solar clock on Paul's instrument
panel. Nine days with the air slowly becoming stale. It was beginning
to smell a bit, now. Paul did not notice it particularly, but someone
just in from a planetary atmosphere would say that the air reeked to
high heaven. His senses were beginning to numb. This was not a fast
death, but slow and sordid. Paul yawned constantly, and took deep
heaving gulps of air only to try again.
Paul fought sleep. He fought it because he knew that he might drift
off to sleep never to awaken. But he had no recourse. Most of his time
he spent a-sprawl on the cot in the instrument room because he had too
little energy to be up and around and when he fought himself to get
erect, there was nothing to do but to curse at the inert machinery.
He had tried everything. He had considered everything, even up to and
including the start of a diary in the hope that someday someone might
find it.
But it was a fruitless task. Sort of like putting a daily account
on the bottom of a cave in the hope that someone, someday, might
investigate the cave and find out what happened.
He did not know the periodicity of Harrigan's Horror. But the
sun--still a catalog number--was running lower along the horizon. The
beacon had been placed near enough to the South Pole of rotation so
that it could always look at the distant stars to and from which the
radio beacons ran. This was a nice job of latitude selection regarding
the plane of the planet's ecliptic and rotation for the Galactic Survey
beams.
But Paul was dully uninterested in facts. He slept more than he knew,
and was awake much less than he believed. His dreams were vivid enough
to make him believe that he was awake, excepting those that dealt with
Nora Phillips and John Stacey, neither of whom could have been there.
He was asleep, dreaming fitfully, when the spacecraft dropped down in
a landing that would have made the air on any normal planet scream.
It came down at nearly five gravities, its deceleration calculated to
a fine degree of precision so that the zero-velocity moment of its
computation coincided with the instant of contact. The drivers ceased
and the ship settled into the gritty ground of Harrigan's Horror.
He did not hear the swift manipulation of the airlock from the outside
controls.
"Grayson" came the cry. "Paul Grayson!"
Paul looked up dazedly, sitting up. He was weak, and dizzy. But Paul
pulled himself erect with the determination that he would not let
them see how badly off he was. The very deliberate attempt showed
them--showed them a man whose cheeks were hollow, whose lips were a bit
blue, eyes glazed and whose mind was dull.
He believed that he greeted them blithely, but what came from his mouth
was a dry croak. Then he went to sleep again, sitting up on the cot,
complete with a five day beard, and a shot-to-hell nervous system.
But they wasted no time. Bundling him into a spacesuit, they let the
air out of the BurAst P.G.1. with a blast and hurried him to their own
ship. Then they took off at six gravities, a force that bent them all
into their cushions. It did not touch Paul. He was dead to the world
in the first pleasant, honest, comfortable sleep he had since the air
began to go foul.
And once again there were a couple of days of timelessness. It was very
pleasant to have someone massage your muscles, to be steamed to the
boiled-lobster point and then quick-frozen in a cold shower, followed
by the ministrations of three dozen professional wrestlers. Gallons of
cold water and miles of fresh air, a daily shave with a hot towel and a
facial massage, good food and boiling tea, a pipe of aromatic tobacco,
forty-eight hours of deep sleep....
And Paul, dressed in clean shirt and slacks and once more back to
normal, was facing an elderly gentleman that looked like Santa Claus.
"I'll come to the point," said the elderly gentleman. "I am Franklin
Huston. I am one of a group of men whose desire is completely
political. This time it is also a bit personal. Perhaps you are one of
the few men we can talk to who knows something about Nora Phillips."
"I have met Nora Phillips."
"We know."
"I'd like to meet Miss Phillips again."
"That all depends."
"On what?"
Huston spread his hands. "Possibly upon whether she is still alive."
"Alive!" roared Paul.
"Yes. Alive."
Paul shook his head. "If they killed Stacey, they would not stop at--"
There was a moment of silence. "Stacey was killed?"
Paul looked up. "Almost a year ago. Of course, it is barely possible
that the news would be here by now. We took off very shortly afterwards
in a fast ship, and the official news might be still on the way."
Huston hit his palm with his other fist. "We need something faster than
ten months communication-time!" he cried. "Hell! We're no better off
than the Pilgrims, hoping for some news from England. Grayson, what
happened?"
Grayson started to explain, but half way through he stopped
thoughtfully. "I've missed a point," he said. "I don't know that Stacey
_was_ killed. After all, the men that arrested me weren't officers.
Just henchmen of that guy Hoagland."
"Quite! Now, while there is a school that seems to apply logic to
human motives, or tries to, there is another school that claims that
the way people do things are entirely dependent upon their point
of view and no one can catalog human nature. Grayson, I've known
Hoagland a long time and spent most of that time fighting him one way
or another. He is as cold-blooded about murder as a snake. But he is
a sort of 'string-saver' as well. Anyone who has a bare chance of
chipping in something toward the furthering of Hoagland's plans he will
keep alive--and it is no great problem to keep them sequestered off
somewhere away from contact until he needs 'em.
"For instance, Hoagland would be disinclined to kill Nora Phillips
because in some way she might be useful to him--if only as a hostage.
John Stacey is another item; Stacey might be kept alive for some
reason. This is a big-time game, Grayson."
Paul grunted unhappily. "A year ago I was a man hopeful of trying
out an idea. I've spent the last year being harassed, threatened,
kidnaped, and shoved around. It looks like a big game to me but I don't
know what the rules are or what the prize is to the winning side."
"You don't?"
"It revolves around me. I can see any number of reasons why people
would go to bat for a system that will lead to communications across
the galaxy. But for the life of me I can't see why anybody would prefer
isolation."
"Paul, as a student, how did your history compare with your math?"
"None too well."
"Why did the Puritans leave England in the first place?"
"Something about their religion."
"The books call it religious freedom. The fact is more likely that they
did not like the way things were being run in England. Well, forget
that and tell me why the American Revolution was fought?"
"Because of taxation."
"Balderdash. That was just an excuse. I've heard that roar about
'Taxation without representation' every Fourth of July since I was a
kid. Sure it was that, but why? Why? Well, because it took months for
anything to cross the ocean, letter, information, data, anything. A
representative would always be some months behind the demands of his
job, and his people would be months behind him. The upshot was that
people were being ruled--note that I said _ruled_--from a distance in
time and space.
"Neoterra is being ruled by Terra, remote in time and space. At this
moment, Grayson, Neoterra can go in one of two ways. I should say
Neoterra and the whole galaxy. This is the crossroads, the fork, the
place where one single decision or act will dictate for the future the
entire history of mankind among the stars.
"One way is to have each stellar system set up its own autonomous
government, an entity in itself, until at long last we have a million
stars with its own set of rules and regulations and customs. Then
someday someone may discover some means of cutting down the flight-time
between the stars, and then we shall have a fine millenium of galactic
wars for this reason or that, until the galaxy is settled down to some
form of integrated government.
"The second course, Grayson, is to start this thing off with a
solidarity. Let mankind spread through the galaxy, but let each new
stellar system recognize that it must be a part of the whole, and not a
world in itself with no outside interference.
"Remember, strife between men ended with the community, strife between
communities ended with the state; while strife between states ended
with the country. Finally strife between countries ended with the
unification of Terra. But in this unification there is plenty of
self-government. Eventually strife between worlds must end with the
galactic government--unless we can bypass the colonization, growing
into autonomy, and then formenting strife--and this faction on Neoterra
hopes that this time mankind will get off on the right foot.
"And the way to do it is to let people know on Neoterra what happened
on Terra yesterday and not next year!"
"The Z-wave--"
Huston smiled. "Serene in your own little Terra, you do not even know
of the wrangle we are now going through. Of course it takes ten months
for a fast ship, and the news is so remote and far away. The President
of Neoterra will be elected in a year. We have already two vigorous
candidates, one of which is speaking vigorously for autonomy and
freedom from Terran intervention. The other is for continued harmony.
Promise the people something positive and they will vote for you. But
we have nothing to promise--save the interstellar link of the Z-wave. A
damned poor offering."
"I'd say it was damned good."
Huston eyed Paul sharply. "How do you know?"
Paul opened his mouth and then closed it again. "I don't know," he said
at last. "I think--"
"Not good enough. Not by far."
"But I've been circumvented and frustrated and I--"
Huston slammed a fist down on the desk. "Grayson, we found you and slid
you out from under Hoagland's watchful eye for one reason only. You
stand as a symbol to the people of Neoterra. You are a possible symbol
of communications. With Paul Grayson free to work on the interstellar
Z-wave, the political campaign will get a transfusion of new blood."
"When do I start?"
Huston nodded. "Now. But not here. We will have no damned nonsense. The
fate of this political campaign rests upon your work."
"I see that."
"Four months flight time from Neoterra there is an equilateral
trinary--"
"Latham's Triplets. One of the network beacons is on Latham Alpha IV."
"You will go to Latham Beta III where we have an extra-terran botanical
research outfit. You can set up a laboratory there and go to work."
"But why not go back to Harrigan's Horror and pick up the radio beacon
when it gets there? We can save a lot of time."
"Grayson, you are a symbol. You may be a tin God with feet of clay for
all we know. So far all you've done is to create a ruckus, hollering
against Haedaecker's Theory which you have not substantiated by any
shred of evidence. Faith is a wonderful thing--I wish I had more of
it than I have--but hardly a bulwark against the slings and arrows of
life. So we'll not dicker with a proposition that may go wrong."
"But if I am to work--"
Huston smiled serenely. "I've often wondered why they call it
'Political Science' when the main idea is to get your point across
whether it is true or not. We'll have no part of any experiments that
may deal in failure. You'll go and work on Latham Beta III where
reports of progress can be made without having a lot of curious people
around to watch the answers."
Paul scowled. "And it isn't going to take more than a week following
the initial announcement of success before someone is going to try it
from Harrigan's Horror to Neoterra, or from Proxima I to Terra itself.
Then what--?"
Huston put the forefingers of his hands tip to tip. "Well, you see, it
is not quite as easy as you first imagined. It takes quite a bit of
specialized equipment, and therefore the simple test will not work.
You'd be glad to make a demonstration, but you are far too busy making
a set-up that will ultimately bring a voice-to-ear communication
between Terra and Neoterra, which is of course, the final touch. Why
bother going through a lot of piddling little demonstrations to prove
what you already know?"
"And in the meantime?"
"In the meantime, Grayson, you're going to have to work like the very
devil to keep your research even with the reports we are making about
your progress."
Paul eyed Huston coldly. "I suppose that was the main idea behind that
flanged-up conversation I caught on Proxima I?"
"Yes."
"Nora Phillips has been very helpful, hasn't she?"
"You recognized her voice?"
"Yes."
Huston looked at Paul sympathetically. "I hope for your sake--as well
as hers--that she is alive."
Paul grunted. "I've been a sucker."
Huston laughed at him. "And you'll be a sucker again, Paul. Forget
it, for the moment. We're all suckers. It makes life interesting that
way. You get going and see what you can do. Remember, I'll not hamper
any progress. But we will most certainly see to it that any negative
reports are multiplied by Minus One before they are made public."
"So--"
"Get what you need for experimentation and see that you make an
ostentatious show of it. Drop a few hints about the Galactic Network
and make a long-range prediction that within a year or two people can
pick up a telephone and talk to friends on Terra."
Paul eyed Huston. "That won't be hard. I'm convinced--"
"Just be properly vague and un-specific. If you've got to talk at
length, take a verbal swing at Haedaecker. Leave the political angle
out of it; this is strictly science and you're a scientist and not a
politician. Besides you've spent so much time a-space that you've lost
voting residence anyway. This is at least a free chance for you to
work, Grayson."
"I'm not too pleased at the basic conditions," said Paul, "but I am
pleased at any chance to do something about the Z-wave."
"Then make the best of it."