He saw the light-shafts first--two glowing cones of color that speared
down from a single halo-source high in this vastest of all the
bubble-chambers. The beam on the left shone rich with hues of deepest
purple. The other, the one on the right, shimmered golden as Earth's
September sun.
Numb, wordless, Boone moved forward with unsteady steps.
Now he saw the cones' bases as well as source; and all at once his
heart was pounding, pounding, till he thought that it must surely burst.
For each light played on a separate transparent sphere that floated,
somehow invisibly suspended, at eye-level in the bubble-room.
A nude human body lay within each sphere.
Shaking, Boone made his way to the gold-bathed globe.
But the figure inside was that of a man, a stranger, with a calm,
vaguely-familiar face.
Boone turned to the second sphere, that on which played the cone of
purple light.
This time, he looked upon a woman.
_Eileen!_
He swayed, still not daring to allow himself to believe it.
How had he found her in this weird maze, this bubble-catacomb? How
long had he wandered through dim-lit passageways and domed, echoing
chambers? How many times had he despaired?
It was as if destiny had walked beside him, guiding.
Destiny, or ... other minds. Alien minds, perhaps greater than his.
But whatever the answer, he'd kept on, and he'd found her. That was
what counted.
Now, while he watched, new radiance suffused the chamber. The
light-cones dimmed; and as they faded, the spheres floated slowly,
gently, to the floor.
Then, as on that other, dream-like day that seemed so long ago, there
was a crash of silent thunder. The globes split, fell apart.
Boone dropped to one knee. With trembling fingers he touched Eileen's
bare breast.
Her flesh was warm, her heartbeat steady. Like a child awakening, her
lashes fluttered. Then, lids already lifting, she turned and looked up
at him with calm, untroubled eyes.
A sob rose in Boone's throat. He pressed her to him.
She laughed, ever so softly; and tenderness was in it. Cool fingers
smoothed his brow, his hair. "Fred, you sound so--worried...."
His words came in a jumble, then: "You--you're all right?
There's--nothing's happened?"
"No, of course not." She sounded not even quite certain of his meaning.
"I only went to sleep for a little while; that's all."
The last tension drained from Boone's taut body. Weak, tremulous,
unsteady, he slumped beside her amid the segments of the shattered
sphere. "There's been so much, so many things--" He groped for words.
Only then, before he could say more, a distant impact rocked the
chamber.
The impact of a demolition charge exploding.
In spite of emotional drain, exhaustion, Boone went rigid. "Krobis--!"
"What--?" Eileen's blue eyes distended. "Fred, you mean he's here?"
"Yes, with plans for blasting apart this whole cursed Helgae city!"
Boone stumbled erect. "Quick! We've got to go!"
* * * * *
The girl rose beside him, then looked down in sudden, swift abashment.
A flush swept up her throat. Her face turned scarlet. "My clothes--!
Where are they?"
A man's voice answered, "Here."
As one, Boone and Eileen spun around.
The stranger, he who had lain in the golden sphere, was getting up.
Calmly, he strode to a low ledge on the far side of the bubble and
picked up one of two bulky bundles; tossed it deftly to Eileen.
"Everything is there."
Boone gripped his blaster. He moved a quick step forward. "You! Who are
you?"
"They call me Lor."
"A name's no answer. Where'd you come from? How'd you get here?"
The other bent to pick up the second bundle, then straightened and,
turning, stood full-face to Boone. "You ... do not know? You cannot
guess?"
Boone studied him ... stared narrow-eyed at the calm,
strangely-familiar face.
A youthful face, yet with eyes somehow old beyond all years.
A prickling ran up and down Boone's spine. "You--look--like me!"
"Of course." Lor smiled, turned to Eileen. "Surely you can tell?"
Her hand rose to her throat. Her face grew pale. "I--I don't know.
You're like Fred ... or--or--my father--"
"Yes." The sphere-man nodded gravely. "Indeed, I am--can only be--like
both of you."
The silence echoed, then.
But it was a silence too taut to last for long. It had to break.
"You--can only be--like us?" Boone forced out the words.
Again, the other nodded. "Yes." And then: "Because--I am your son!"
Somewhere too close, another demolition charge exploded. But for Boone,
the room rocked more with the stranger's words than from the blast.
"No!" he choked. "No!" Beside him, Eileen had slumped dazed-faced to
the floor.
The sphere-man sighed. "I know. They told me it would be hard for you
to understand."
"They--?"
"The ones you call the Helgae." For the first time, emotion seemed
to grip Lor. He stared down at the bulky bundle in his hands; then,
opening it, spread out an array of Cartel crewman's clothes. "They are
an old race, older than you can know; and wise. They wanted no war with
anyone, but there was no way for them to speak to a life-form so unlike
theirs. So, when your ships attacked their cities on the world called
Titan, they drew monsters from your minds to slow your onslaughts, then
sought some way to bridge the barrier between your different brains."
Boone caught his breath. "You mean--mutation--?"
"It was the only answer." The man who claimed him father bent to slide
on shoes. "By casting their powers of mind in human bodies through the
contagion you call Titan fever, the source of conflict between your
separate species once and for all could be removed."
"Of course!" Of a sudden Boone was pacing. "Only then, our sphere-ship
hit Hyperion, broke the ice-shell--"
"--And menaced another whole Helgae world." Lor shrugged into a
jacket. "It made the danger too great for them to wait on normal human
reproduction and maturing.
"But you two were on that sphere-ship--and you were male and female,
man and woman."
"Then--that's why they trapped us!"
"Yes. While you lay in your sphere here, in the state you call
unconscious, your seed was planted in the woman. When growth began, the
egg itself was taken, processed. By science beyond your human dreams,
they speeded the whole cycle of gestation, then brought me on to
manhood in days instead of years. The mind-rays drained all knowledge
from both of you, gave it to me, that I might be able properly to play
my role."
Boone stopped short in his pacing. "Your role--?"
"You'd call it that." Now fully dressed, the other straightened. "I am
a messenger, a human spokesman for the Helgae, with no other goal than
to help our race live at peace."
"There'll be men who take convincing of that."
"You mean--men like the one named Martin Krobis?"
Boone stared. "Krobis--? You know about him?"
"Of course." His mutant son still smiled. "The mind-rays poured your
every thought into me--even those too utterly alien for the Helgae
themselves to understand. So, I know of Krobis: the things he's done;
the way he thinks; the fact that he is here now, blasting at this very
city--"
Like an exclamation point, new impact came. Thread-like cracks shot
through the radiance of the bubble-chamber's inner surface. The floor
shook till Boone could hardly stand.
* * * * *
Lor's face went grim. His voice rang with sudden tension: "Come,
quickly! We dare not die in this mad destruction! We dare not!"
He pivoted as he spoke; moved swiftly towards the bubble's exit.
Gripping his blaster, Eileen trembling beside him, Boone followed.
Now they walked another world--a world of weird translucence,
bubble-cells and tunnels, pitch-blackness and colors too brilliant for
human eyes to bear.
Yet through it all, the man called Lor strode swiftly, surely. Not once
did he hesitate or falter. It was as if the whole, vast, maze-like
pattern were etched in acid on his brain.
Then, at long last, they were on a ramp and climbing in slow spirals,
ever upward. Ahead, a pale light glowed ... the light of Hyperion's
ice-shell-filtered outer day.
Lor led them out a low-roofed cave-mouth ... helped them up the slope
of a brushy rise. Bitterly, he flung his arm out: "Look--the city!"
Boone looked, then shuddered; and suddenly Eileen was sobbing.
For they gazed on a holocaust, a ruin, strewn with the smouldering
shards of a thousand shattered domes.
"So these are the ways of men!" Now there was wonder in Lor's voice;
and sadness. "They have so much to learn!"
"Oh, Lor--!" Eileen choked on her tears.
The mutant turned to face her. "You need not cry, my mother.
We--I--shall teach them better." Then, once more smiling: "Think of
some living thing--a thing of beauty. Picture it sharp and clear within
your mind."
She stared up at him--face puzzled, eyes still brimming. "I--I'll
try...."
"Then close your eyes."
She did as he had ordered.
Lor stood unmoving, placid. Yet while Boone watched, mists seemed to
rise and gather, swirling. Then, in their midst, a flower took form, a
perfect blood-red rose.
The sphere-man reached out, plucked it. "Here, my mother."
Eileen's eyes went wide with awe and sheer delight. She gasped aloud
and held the opening bud close, drinking in its fragrance.
Lor faced Boone. "You asked for proof to convince doubters. Would such
serve?"
Boone ran his tongue along dry lips. "Do I even need to answer?"
"Then let us go. We must reach those who can stop the blasting of these
Helgae cities."
"That means the top men of the Federation. No one else could act
against the Cartel."
"So, we must have a carrier." Lor smiled thinly. "Even one of Krobis',
perhaps...."
Boone's blood quickened. "Yes. It might be. His base camp's near."
"Then--why are we waiting?"
Wordless again, they left the rise; and now there was new, silent
tension in them--tension born of looming dangers yet to come ... of the
very world-shaking import of their task.
Yet other factors, even more, churned Boone to turmoil.
Could he believe the man called Lor--the incredible tale he'd told, the
things he'd said?
Or, even assuming belief, could he yet trust the other? What proof
did he have of the real effects of the mutation, or of the Helgae's
motives? True, they'd not harmed either him or Eileen. But might not
that be a mere trick to lull suspicion? Perhaps Lor himself did not
even know the facts. It could be that he was only a pawn--a being
created as part of some dark plan to bring the whole human race down in
disaster.
As for Eileen--Boone frowned and pondered. She was changed, somehow,
from the girl he'd known. It was as if her basic drive, her fierce
ambition, all at once had vanished. Now she was woman. Woman only.
Questions, questions. Seething, they loomed ever-larger, till at last
they were more than his aching brain could cope with. Of a sudden it
came to him that sometime, somewhere, there must be an end to thinking,
indecision.
For him, that moment had already come. From here on, if he were not to
find himself forever immobilized by doubt, there could be no choice for
him but action.
So, he would act.
* * * * *
They topped another rise as Boone reached his decision ... looked
out across a flower-field into the valley where the familiar scarlet
outlines of the ramped Independent carrier rose.
It would be only simple justice were they to steal that captured craft
back from Krobis.
Boldly, Boone strode forward. It was as if, suddenly, all fear had left
him.
Or perhaps he knew instinctively, somehow, that here audacity might win
where stealth had failed.
The flower-field fell behind them. They moved down a brushy draw into
the valley. On, to the outskirts of the base camp.
And still no guards rose up to halt them. A strange, deserted air hung
about the place. There was no sign of life, no human movement.
On, through the camp grounds. Across to the carrier. Around the great
ramping-fins to the yawning hatchway.
Still naught but silence. An echoing silence, too complete to believe.
Eileen pressed against Boone. "Fred, I'm afraid!"
Only it was too late for fears now; too late for panic. He climbed
through the port, not even answering.
Lor crowded behind him. "Let me go, my father--"
"You'll follow." Boone clipped it. "You've got a job; me--I don't
matter."
On, up the ladder; then through other hatches.
Still silence. Still no sign of crewmen.
At last, the control room. Boone's heart pounding, pounding.
He stepped through the entrance.
But this cell, too, lay empty.
Slick-palmed, taut nerves quaking, Boone waved on the others.
They came in. Their breathing rasped loud in the stillness. Boone
tightened his grip on the blaster.
Lor moved to the rear, to the converter chamber. "Perhaps here--" He
pushed open the hatch-door.
The silence broke, then.
A thousand ways it broke: in the _Whish!_ of a club, and the thud of a
heavy blow landing; the quick scrape of feet, the blurred whir of fast
movement. A curse and a clanking, a raw ring of metal.
Lor went down as a rock falls, blood spurting from a head-wound.
Eileen screamed.
And then, there was Krobis: tight-lipped, sharp-featured Krobis of the
too-short legs and too-slicked black hair.
Guards crowding past him, he stood in the converter-room hatchway, and
never had Boone seen such malice on any human face.
"So, you traitor!" Now Krobis was laughing. "I swore that I'd get you,
and by Rega, I have!"
Boone stood wordless, gripped by sick numbness.
"Chelan, take that blaster!"
A guard shuffled forward.
"No!" Boone grated. His finger went tight on the trigger. He backed to
the wall-plates.
"So--?" Krobis leered at him. "Think of the girl, Boone--your precious
Eileen! What chance would she have, if you let go a blast-bolt?"
Eileen--! Boone turned to stare at her.
She stood slumped, face covered. Her shoulders were shaking. Wearily,
Boone let the guard take the blaster.
"Good!" Krobis stalked forward, still leering. "But not for you, Boone!
This time you don't get off with just Venus Barracks!"
Boone raised his head slowly. "Not Venus Barracks--?"
"No, damn you!" Krobis' voice rang with elation. "I'm in command
here--and this is an unchartered base! Under space law, that gives me
full power to try and pass sentence." A pause, electric with tension.
"I'm condemning you to death!"
* * * * *
It was the strangest of moments. For all at once Boone's heart was no
longer pounding. The tension drained from him. It was as if he had
known from the start what was coming. The words in themselves brought
only relief, not more panic.
Krobis wouldn't even be censured. He stood too high in the Cartel for
that. Federation officials could be counted on to go along, too, if for
no other reason than the trouble at the Thelema base, the wrecking of
the airlocks.
Now Krobis was turning. He spoke to a sergeant: "Get a squad ready.
They die in five minutes."
"'They'--?" Boone went rigid. "What do you mean, 'they'? I'm the one
who's condemned, not Eileen and Lor!"
"Is that so?" Krobis' sharp-featured face was like granite. "You were
in this together."
Fury rocked Boone. "You're afraid, Krobis; that's the answer--afraid
that this whole dirty business will backfire--"
"Is that quite all?" Krobis' eyes, his voice, had never been colder.
"If so"--this to the guard--"sergeant, you may proceed with the
execution!"
Sweat chilled Boone. "Wait...." In spite of himself, all at once he was
pleading. "Kill us both, then--Eileen and me. But not Lor, there. He's
a mutant--"
"A mutant--?"
"Yes. The Helgae, those structures we process--they're living, not
dead. They sent him to tell us, to give us their knowledge--"
"Their knowledge? What knowledge?" Of a sudden Krobis' black eyes were
gleaming and wary.
Boone sucked in a breath. "How much would the Cartel give to learn
mekronal's structure--the true chemistry of it?"
"Mekronal--? This creature can make it? From basic elements found
outside Saturn's system?"
"Yes."
"Then he _must_ die!"
Boone rocked under the onslaught. He groped for words; found none.
The other kept on talking: "There are things you should know,
Boone--and these guards here are men I can trust, so I'll tell you."
Martin Krobis smiled thinly. "You always forget that I stand for the
Cartel. We're reaching for power, those of us high in it. Mekronal is
our weapon. So long as it's ours alone, that power keeps growing. Make
it free to all comers, and IC's backbone is broken."
"You mean that you'd wipe out a whole culture to hold it? You'd bring
war with the Helgae for the sake of the Cartel?"
"Are you stupid enough that you have to ask me?" Krobis' words dripped
contempt. "We'd do even more, you fool--as witness our gambit with
chandak?"
"Your gambit--?" Boone rocked again.
"So I term it." Now the other was chuckling. "Consider that report
Terral showed you, for instance. I meant him to have it."
"Then--chandak--"
"--Is a fraud, pure and simple. It has no effect at all on mutation.
For that matter"--once more, Krobis chuckled--"our tests show that the
mutation itself brings new mental powers, not loss of old ones. But a
contrary report could bring panic, help to break our opponents. So...."
He shrugged.
It was a world out of nightmare, a moment to madden.
"Damn you, Krobis!" Boone choked. "Damn you!"
He flung himself forward, then, heedless of weakness, and the guards,
and the weapons.
If only his hands could reach Krobis' throat, rend it--!
But a clubbed blaster hit him. He sprawled to the floor-plates. Krobis'
laugh rang out above him, harsh and vindictive. Death's chill fingers
touched him.
Only then, in the shadows where Lor lay, his eyes caught strange
movement--a slithering, a rustling, a swirling of vapors.
Numbly, he wondered....
But guards seized his arms and dragged him up roughly. Martin Krobis
spat, "Kill him!" and bloodied his cheekbone.
The guards jerked him backwards, stumbling and reeling.
As they did so, the movement surged out of the shadows--and now it was
more than mere vapor.
* * * * *
A monster, it rose up--a weird, insectile monster! Great mandibles
speared out, clacking and slashing.
A guard saw it, cried hoarsely and leaped back.
Too late. The thing was upon him. Claws ripped at his belly. A
stinger-shaft pierced him.
Someone fired with a nerve-gun.
He died the monster's second victim.
Panic roared through the room, then. The guards trampled each other in
their rush for the hatchway, Boone swayed off balance, deserted.
Only five in the room now: Lor, Eileen, Krobis, Boone--and the monster.
The thing swung towards Krobis.
But Krobis spun aside, not even attempting to flee; he snatched up the
fallen guard's nerve-gun.
Then, pivoting, ignoring the monster, he aimed the gun straight at
Lor's prone figure.
Eyes open now, the mutant jerked back--trapped, cornered.
Boone and Eileen lunged as one.
The girl was closest. Her hand hit the nerve-gun as Krobis pulled the
trigger.
The charge burned out against the wall-plates off to one side of Lor.
Before Krobis could fire again, Boone was upon him. They went down
together, rolling and wrestling and panting. Boone could feel his
strength begin to go.
But now it was not for himself that he was fighting. The fate of two
races hung on the outcome.
With a curse, he writhed suddenly upward, then threw himself back,
smashing Krobis' head down to the floor.
The other's muscles went slack. Sobbing, Boone kicked clear.
Then something whipped past him--the monster, all claws slashing.
Its stinger speared through Martin Krobis' brain.
There was darkness after that, for Boone; a shadowy darkness that
somehow was more of his mind than in the room. Dimly, he knew that the
carrier all at once was hurtling upward; that the monster had vanished
back into whatever realm from whence it came.
Not that it mattered at this moment. Who cared for monsters? The thing
was Lor's creation, surely--a Helgae weapon he'd materialized to save
them, just as for his mother's--Eileen's--pleasure he had made a rose.
Lor, their son, the mutant. Lor, first clear-eyed champion of a new and
higher race.
How many battles would they fight together? What perils would they face
before the war against the Cartel's greed was won?
And then, Eileen....
As if in answer to his thought, she came now; knelt beside him,
cradling his weary head close to her breast.
"Eileen," he whispered, "Eileen, we have a mission...."
She answered softly, "My mission is with you, Fred, now and always."
He liked that thought, Fred Boone decided. It was one on which a man
could rest at peace.