"I lost my hearing in the beating Sorgel gave me on Agron."
"_Sorgel!_" Dirrul repeated unbelievingly. It was the last illusion to
go and for that reason the most painful. "Then it wasn't the Agronian
police--"
"Of course it was Sorgel," Glenna said quietly. "He had to get rid of
us because we wouldn't go along with him on the idea of a Vininese
invasion. I tried so hard to tell you, Eddie, but I couldn't because
of the drugs they gave us."
"The Vininese never knew I was deaf," Hurd went on. "It's easy enough
to escape from a work camp when you can think for yourself. The
Vininese resistance found me in the hills and I've been working with
them ever since. A pitiful band of the deaf, fighting insurmountable
odds to win back the human dignity of half the galaxy! But they won't
turn tail and run and their numbers grow every time they raid a work
camp."
"Were you with the men who kidnapped Glenna?"
"We were all out that night, trying to keep watch on the camps near
the capital. We didn't know which one Glenna was in but I was sure the
Vininese would try to reach her after they got your teleray message.
We counted on the Vininese leading us to her and we knew we had to
kidnap her first if we were to keep them from learning about the Plan
on Agron.
"Unfortunately I wasn't with the group that picked you up, Eddie. They
thought they had taken a Vininese leader and it seemed such a suitable
punishment to take your disk away and let you hear the sound for a
while. Later--after you'd escaped--when the others described your
Air-Command uniform I took a chance and sent my note."
He helped Dirrul to his feet. "You'll have to take over from here on
in, Eddie. You said you knew how to pilot this thing. I figured out a
take-off but that's as far as I can go."
"Sorgel's pilot showed me once," he said. "What I don't remember I'll
improvise. He said a Space-dragon could make the run in thirty days.
This baby's got to do it in less than twenty-five if we're going to
beat the Vininese fleet to Agron."
"You didn't tell them the Plan, did you, Eddie?"
"No."
"The Vininese won't land without instructions."
"Sorgel may get up enough courage to send a teleray code. We can't
take any chances either."
Dirrul drove himself without rest. He cut every corner he knew, used
every trick of navigational skill he had ever learned. Nonetheless it
was twenty-eight days before the little ship hung in the air over the
Agronian capital.
His heart sank. On the space-field, in neat ranks, the Vininese
space-fleet was drawn up in proud review. The planet had fallen!
Dirrul made his decision instinctively.
The Space-dragon wheeled and swept low over the field, its vicious
guns blazing. The yellow clouds of destruction swept up toward the
sky--the little ship was caught in the blazing flame. The
interplanetary freight sheds loomed ahead. And the world exploded,
falling apart into a soothing painless silence.
* * * * *
Dirrul opened his eyes and looked at the neutral blue of a hospital
ceiling. Gradually he became conscious of Dr. Kramer, seated by the
bed.
"Dr. Kramer!" Dirrul whispered. "Then everything's all right."
"If by everything you mean your companions, yes. There's even a chance
we can restore the girl's hearing."
"And the Vininese?"
"Defeated."
"Dr. Kramer, we've got to destroy the Confederacy! I saw their
transmitters--I know how their system works."
"Hush, Edward--I promised not to excite you. We know about it."
"Then how could you have been foolish enough to let them land?"
"It seemed a pity not to give a few of their people another chance.
It's working out quite nicely too."
"I don't follow you, Dr. Kramer."
"Long ago we became interested when tourists told us about the curious
block-buildings on Vinin. Our physics boys worked out an ingenious
device for analyzing their atmosphere. It was a little machine
concealed in the lining of an ordinary air-freight crate, as I recall.
* * * * *
"A machine is quite objective, Edward--and Customs men don't stamp
freight crates with the negative adaptors. When we learned that a
Vininese fleet was going to land here we simply issued insulating
helmets to all our people and let them come. As soon as we destroyed
their portable transmitters the Vininese army proved quite adaptable
to a new environment."
"Then--I did nothing to help when I destroyed their fleet?"
"Unfortunately you wounded two of our mechanics."
"I'm a traitor, Dr. Kramer. Even when I try I can't redeem myself!"
"Only on Vinin can you betray an external absolute, Edward. To an
Agronian all objective concepts are relative to the subjective
interpretations made by each individual. You can only be a traitor to
yourself."
"The words are pleasant to say to a sick man but the fact remains--I
would have betrayed Agron."
"But you didn't. Why not?"
"When I saw what their efficiency really meant--"
"You changed your mind before you knew about the transmitters?"
"Yes."
"Then you're libeling yourself. Don't trap yourself in another
self-delusion, Edward. All that's happened is that you've grown up."
Dirrul said slowly, feeling for words that would express the idea as
he felt it, "When I was in the center of the galaxy, looking out on
space, I almost grasped a new concept but I lost it when the Agronian
patrol attacked me. It's coming back.
"Time and space seem to be one and the same. Neither exists as an
objective reality. There is no past and no future--all of it occurs
eternally in the instant of my own being. I am everything and
nothing--infinity and a speck lost in space."
"Thus you discover the Rational Potential," Dr. Kramer smiled. "I
think you're ready for the space-pilot promotional, Edward." After a
pause Dr. Kramer inquired, "Did you see the Chief of Vinin, Edward?"
"Then you know about that too?"
"I've guessed--it seems likely."
"I scraped off the putty and the face color. Beneath it he was an
Earthman. A hundred thousand of them rule the Confederacy."
"All time and space, forever occurring for each of us in the instant
of now! Yes, he would be an Earthman, Edward--quite logically. Both
good and evil begin with the same source. Both have the same Rational
Potential. The act of being has always been the same struggle of
constant forces, between the absolute and the relative. The time never
changes nor the event but merely the passing illusion of place."
Shaking his head the chubby professor departed. Dirrul closed his
eyes, at peace with himself.
* * * * *
End of Project Gutenberg's The Instant of Now, by Irving E. Cox, Jr.