"With fake arms and grease-paint? No. They'll have to accept us as we
are."
"A good idea. I hadn't thought of the sympathy angle."
"Not sympathy. Reality. I don't want them to approve of us as handsome
accidentals and have them change their minds when they discover what
we're really like."
Anti looked doubtful, but she kept her objections to herself as she
waddled away.
Sitting in silence, he watched her go. She, at least, would derive
some benefit. Dr. Cameron apparently hadn't noticed that exposure to
extreme cold had done more to inhibit her unceasing growth than the
acid bath. She'd never be normal again; that was obvious. But some
day, if the cold treatment were properly investigated, she might be
able to stand gravity.
He examined the telecom. They were getting closer. No longer a bright
point of light, Earth was a perceptible disc. He could see the outline
of oceans, shapes of land; he could imagine people.
Jordan came in. "The record is rigged up, though we haven't had to use
it. But we have a friend behind us. An official friend."
"Has he blipped us?"
"Not yet. He keeps hanging on."
"Is he overtaking us?"
"He would like to."
"Don't let him."
"With this bag of bolts?"
"Shake it apart if you have to," Docchi impatiently said. "How soon
can you break into a broadcasting orbit?"
"I thought that was our last resort."
"Right. As far as Anti and I are concerned, this is it. Any argument
against?"
"None that I can think of," answered Jordan. "With a heavy cruiser
behind us, no argument at all."
* * * * *
They were all in the control compartment. "I don't want a focus
exclusively on me," Docchi was saying. "To a world of perfect normals
I may look strange, but we have to avoid the family portrait effect."
"Samples," suggested Anti.
"In a sense, yes. A lot depends on whether they accept those
samples."
[Illustration]
For the first time Dr. Cameron began to realize what they were up to.
"Wait!" he exclaimed. "You've got to listen to me!"
"We're not going to wait and we've already done enough listening to
you," said Docchi. "Jordan, see that Cameron stays out of the telecom
transmitting angle and doesn't interrupt. We've come too far for
that."
"Sure," Jordan promised harshly. "If he makes a sound, I'll melt the
teeth out of his mouth." He held the toaster against his side, out of
line with the telecom, but aimed at Cameron's face.
Cameron began to shake with urgency, but he kept still.
"Ready?" Docchi asked.
"Flip the switch and we will be, with everything we've got. If they
don't read us, it'll be because they don't want to."
The rocket slipped out of the approach lanes. It spun down, the stern
tubes pulsing brightly, coming toward Earth in a tight trajectory.
[Illustration]
"Citizens of the Solar System!" began Docchi. "Everyone on Earth! This
is an unscheduled broadcast, an unauthorized appeal. We are using the
emergency bands because, for us, it is an emergency. Who are we?
Accidentals, of course, as you can see by looking at us. I know the
sight isn't pretty, but we consider other things more important than
appearance. Accomplishment, for example. Contributing to progress in
ways normals cannot do.
"Shut away on Handicap Haven, we're denied this right. All we can do
there is exist in frustration and boredom; kept alive whether we want
to be or not. Yet we have a gigantic contribution to make ... if we
are allowed to leave the Solar System for Alpha Centauri! You can't
travel to the stars now, although eventually you will.
"You must be puzzled, knowing how slow our present rockets are. No
normal person could make the round trip; he would die of old age. But
we accidentals can go! We would positively _not_ die of old age! The
Medicouncil knows that is true ... and still will not allow us to go!"
At the side of the control compartment, Cameron opened his mouth to
protest. Jordan, glancing at him, imperceptibly waggled the concealed
weapon. Cameron swallowed his words and subsided without a sound.
"Biocompensation," continued Docchi evenly. "You may know about it,
but in case information on it has been suppressed, let me explain: The
principle of biocompensation has long been a matter of conjecture.
This is the first age in which medical technology is advanced enough
to explore it. Every cell, every organism, tends to survive, as an
individual, as a species. Injure it and it strives for survival
according to the seriousness of the injury. We accidentals have been
maimed and mutilated almost past belief.
"Our organisms had the assistance of medical science. _Real_ medical
science. Blood was supplied as long as we needed it, machines did all
our breathing, kidneys were replaced, hearts furnished, glandular
products supplied in the exact quantities necessary, nervous and
muscular systems were regenerated. In the extremity of our organic
struggle, because we had the proper treatment, our bodies were wiped
virtually free of death."
Sweat ran down his face. He longed for hands to wipe it away.
"Most accidentals are nearly immortal. Not quite--we'll die four or
five hundred years from now. Meanwhile, there is no reason why we
can't leave the Solar System. Rockets are slow; you would die before
you got back from Alpha Centauri. We won't. Time doesn't matter to us.
"Perhaps better, faster rockets will be devised after we leave. You
may get to there long before we do. We won't mind. We will simply have
made our contribution to progress as best we could, and that will
satisfy us."
With an effort Docchi smiled. The instant he did, he felt it was a
mistake, one that he couldn't rectify. Even to himself it felt more
like a snarl.
"You know where we're kept That's a politer word than imprisoned. We
don't call it Handicap Haven; our name for it is the _junkpile_. And
to ourselves we're junkmen. Does this give you a clue to how we feel?
"I don't know what you'll have to do to force the Medicouncil to grant
their permission. We appeal to you as our last resort. We have tried
all other ways and failed. Our future as human beings is at stake.
Whether we get what we want and need is something for you to settle
with your conscience."
He nudged the switch and sat down.
His face was gray.
"I don't like to bother you," said Jordan, "but what shall we do about
them?"
Docchi glanced at the telecom. "They" were uncomfortably close and
considerably more numerous than the last time he had looked.
"Take evasive action," he said wearily. "Swing close to Earth and use
the planet's gravity to give us a good push. We've got to keep out of
their hands until people have time to react."
"I think you ought to know--" began Cameron. There was an odd tone to
his voice.
"Save it for later," said Docchi. "I'm going to sleep." His body
sagged. "Jordan, wake me up if anything important happens. And
remember that you don't have to listen to this fellow unless you want
to."
Jordan nodded and touched the controls. Nona, leaning against the
gravital panel, paid no attention to the scene. She seemed to be
listening to something nobody else could hear. That was nothing new,
but it broke Docchi's heart whenever he saw it. His breath drew in
almost with a sob as he left the control room.
* * * * *
The race went on. Backdrop: planets, stars, darkness. The little
flecks of light that edged nearer didn't seem cheerful to Jordan. His
lips were fixed in a straight, hard line. He could hear Docchi come in
behind him.
"Nice speech," said Cameron.
"Yeah." Docchi glanced at the telecom. The view didn't inspire further
comment.
"That's the trouble, it was just a speech. It didn't do you any good.
My advice is to give up before you get hurt."
"It would be."
Cameron stood at the threshold. "I may as well tell you," he said
reluctantly. "I tried to before the broadcast, as soon as I found out
what you were going to do. But you wouldn't listen."
He came into the control compartment. Nona was huddled in a seat,
motionless, expressionless. Anti was absent.
"You know why the Medicouncil refused to let you go?"
"Sure," said Docchi.
"The general metabolism of accidentals is further from normal than
that of creatures we dredge from the bottom of the sea. Add to that an
enormously elongated life span and you ought to see the Medicouncil's
objection."
"Get to the point!"
"Look at it this way," Cameron continued almost desperately. "The
Centauri group contains quite a few planets. From what we know of
cosmology, intelligent life probably exists there to a greater or
lesser extent. You will be our representatives to them. What _they_
look like isn't important; it's their concern. But our ambassadors
have to meet certain minimum standards. They at least--damn it, don't
you see that they at least have to _look_ like human beings?"
"I know you feel that way," said Jordan, rigid with contempt.
"I'm not talking for myself," Cameron said. "I'm a doctor. The
medicouncilors are doctors. We graft on or regenerate legs and arms
and eyes. We work with blood and bones and intestines. We know what a
thin borderline separates normal people from--from you.
"Don't you understand? They're perfect, perhaps too much so. They
can't tolerate even small blemishes. They rush to us with things like
hangnails, pimples, simple dandruff. Health--or rather the appearance
of it--has become a fetish. They may think they're sympathetic to you,
but what they actually feel is something else."
"What are you driving at?" whispered Docchi.
"Just this: if it were up to the Medicouncil, you would be on your way
to the Centauri group. But it isn't. The decision always had to be
referred back to the Solar System as a whole. And the Medicouncil
can't go counter to the mass of public opinion."
Docchi turned away in loathing.
"Don't believe me," said Cameron. "You're not too far from Earth. Pick
up the reaction to your broadcast."
Worriedly, Jordan looked at Docchi.
"We may as well find out," said Docchi. "It's settled now, one way or
the other."
They searched band after band. The reaction was always the same.
Obscure private citizen or prominent one, man or woman, they all told
how sorry they were for the accidentals, but--
"Turn it off," said Docchi at last.
"Now what?" Jordan asked numbly.
"You have no choice," said the doctor.
"No choice," repeated Docchi dully. "No choice but to give up. We
misjudged who our allies were."
"We knew you had," said Cameron. "It seemed better to let you go on
thinking that way while you were on the asteroid. It gave you
something to hope for. It made you feel you weren't alone. The trouble
was that you got farther than we thought you would ever be able to."
"So we did," Docchi said. His lethargy seemed to lift a little. "And
there's no reason to stop now. Jordan, pick up the ships behind us.
Tell them we've got Cameron on board. A hostage. Play him up as a
hero. Basically, he's not with those who are against us."
Anti came into the control compartment. Cheerfulness faded from her
face. "What's the matter?" she asked.
"Jordan will explain to you. I've got to think."
Docchi closed his eyes. The ship lurched slightly, though the
vibration from the rockets did not change. There was no reason for
alarm; the flight of a ship was never completely steady. Docchi paid
no attention.
At last he opened his eyes. "If we were properly fueled and
provisioned," he said without much hope, "I would be in favor of the
four of us heading for Alpha or Proxima. Maybe even Sirius. It
wouldn't matter where, since we wouldn't intend to come back. But we
can't make it with our small fuel reserve. If we can shake the ships
behind us, we might be able to hide until we can steal the necessary
fuel and food."
"What'll we do with Doc?" asked Jordan.
"We'd have to raid an unguarded outpost, of course. Probably a small
mining asteroid. We can leave him there."
"Yeah," said Jordan. "A good idea, _if_ we can run away from our
personal escort of bloodhounds. Offhand, that doesn't seem very
likely. They didn't come any closer when I told them we had Doc with
us, but they didn't drop back--"
He stopped and raised his eyes to the telecom. He blinked, not
believing what he saw.
"They're gone!" His voice broke with excitement.
Almost instantly Docchi was beside him. "No," he corrected. "They're
still following, but they're very far behind." Even as he looked, the
pursuing ships visibly lost ground.
"What's our relative speed?" asked Jordon. He looked at the dials
himself, frowned, tapped them as if the needles had gone crazy.
"What did you do to the rockets?" demanded Docchi.
"Nothing! There wasn't a thing I _could_ do. We were already running
at top speed."
"We're above it. Way above it. How?"
There was nothing to explain their astonishing velocity. Cameron,
Anti, and Jordan were in the control compartment. Nona still sat
huddled up, hands pressed tight against her head. There was no
explanation at all, yet power was pouring into the gravital unit, as a
long unused, actually useless dial was indicating.
"The gravital drive is working," Docchi blankly pointed out.
"Nonsense," said Anti. "I don't feel any weight."
"You don't," answered Docchi. "You won't. The gravital unit was
originally installed to drive the ship. When that proved
unsatisfactory, it was converted. The difference is slight but
important. An undirected general field produces weight effects inside
the ship. That's for passenger comfort. A directed field, outside the
ship, will drive it. You can have one or the other, not both."
"But I didn't turn on the gravital drive," said Jordan in flat
bewilderment. "I couldn't if I wanted to. It's disconnected."
"I would agree with you, except for one thing. It's working." Docchi
stared at Nona, whose eyes were closed. "Get her attention," he said.
It was Jordan who gently touched her shoulder. She opened her eyes. On
the instrument board, the needle of a once useless dial rose and fell.
"What's the matter with the poor dear?" asked Anti. "She's shaking."
"Let her alone," said Docchi.
No one moved. No one said anything at all. Minutes passed while the
ancient ship creaked and groaned and ran away from the fastest rockets
in the Solar System.
"I think I know," said Docchi at last, still frowning. "Consider the
gravity-generating plant. Part of it is an electronic computer,
capable of making the necessary calculations and juggling the
proportion of power required to produce, continuously, directed or
undirected gravity. In other words, a brain, a complex mechanical
intelligence. From the viewpoint of that intelligence, why should it
perform _ad infinitum_ a complicated but meaningless routine? It
didn't know why, and because it didn't, very simply, it refused to do
so.
"Now consider Nona. She's deaf, can't speak, can't communicate. In a
way she's comparable to the gravital computer. Like it, she has a very
high potential intelligence. Like it, she's had difficulty grasping
the facts of her environment. Unlike it, though, she has learned
something. How much, I don't know, but it's far more than the
Medicouncil psychologists credit her with."
"Yeah," said Jordan dubiously. "But what's happening now?"
"If there were two humans involved, you would call it telepathy,"
answered Docchi hesitantly, fumbling for concepts he could only sense
without grasping. "One intelligence is electronic, the other organic.
You'll have to coin a new term, because the only one I know is
extrasensory perception, and that's obviously ridiculous. It is, isn't
it?"
Jordan smiled and flexed his arms. Under the shapeless garment his
muscles rippled. "It isn't," he said. "The power was there, but we're
the only ones who know how to use it. Or rather Nona is."
"Power?" repeated Anti, rising majestically. "You can keep it. I want
just enough to get to Centauri."
"I think you'll get it," Docchi promised. "A lot of things seem
clearer now. For example, in the past, why didn't gravital units work
well at considerable distances from the Sun? As a matter of fact, the
efficiency of each unit was inversely proportional to the square of
the distance between it and the Sun.
"The gravital computer is a deaf, blind, mass-sensitive brain. The
major fact in its existence is the Sun, the greatest mass in the Solar
System. To such a brain, leaving the Solar System would be like
stepping off the edge of a flat world, because it couldn't be aware of
stars.
"Now that it knows about the Galaxy, the drive will work anywhere.
With Nona to direct it, even Sirius isn't far away."
"Doc," said Jordan carelessly, "you'd better be figuring a way to get
off the ship. Remember, we're going faster than man ever went before."
He chuckled. "Unless, of course, you _like_ our company and don't want
to leave."
"We've got to do some figuring ourselves," interposed Docchi. "Such as
where we are heading now."
"A good idea," said Jordan. He busied himself with charts and
calculations. Gradually his flying fingers slowed. His head bent low
over his work. At last he stopped and folded his arms.
"Where?" asked Docchi.
"There." Jordan dully punched the telecom selector and a view became
fixed on the screen. In the center glimmered a tiny world, a fragment
of a long-exploded planet. Their destination was easily recognizable.
It was Handicap Haven.
"But why do we want to go there?" asked Anti. She looked in amazement
at Docchi.
"We're not going voluntarily," he answered, his voice flat and spent.
"We're going where the Medicouncil wants us to go. We forgot about the
monitor system. When Nona activated the gravital unit, that fact was
indicated at some central station. All the Medicouncil had to do was
use the monitor to take the gravital drive away from Nona."
"We thought we were running away from the ships, which we were, but
only to beat them back to the junkpile?" asked Anti.
Docchi nodded.
"Well, it's over. We did our best. There's no use crying about it."
Yet she was. She passed by Nona, patting her gently. "It's all right,
darling. You tried."
Jordan followed her from the compartment.
Cameron remained; he came over to Docchi. "Everything isn't lost," he
said, somewhat awkwardly. "You're back where you started from, but
Nona at least will benefit."
"Benefit?" said Docchi. "Someone will. It won't be Nona."
"You're wrong. Now that she is an important factor--"
"So is a special experimental machine. Very valuable. I don't think
she'll like that classification."
Silence met silence. It was Dr. Cameron who turned away.
"That ghastly glow of yours when you're angry always did upset me.
I'll come back when it's dimmer."
Docchi glared after him. Cameron was the only normal aware that it was
Nona who controlled the gravital unit. All the outside world could
realize was that it was in operation, as it had been designed to work,
but never had. If Cameron could be disposed of--
He shook his head. It wouldn't solve anything. He might fool them for
a while. They might think he was responsible. In the end, they'd find
out. Nona wasn't capable of that much deception, for she never knew
what a test was.
He went over to her. Once he had hoped.... It didn't matter what he
had hoped.
She looked up and smiled. She had a right to. No word had ever broken
the silence of her mind, but now she was communicating with something,
whatever it was that an electronic brain could say. Of course she
didn't understand that the conversation was taking place between two
captives, herself and the gravital computer.
Abruptly he turned away. He stopped at the telecom panel and
methodically kicked it apart. Delicate tubes smashed into powder. The
emergency radio he thoroughly demolished.
The ship was firmly in the grip of the gravital monitor. There was
nothing he could do about that. All that remained was to protect Nona
from their prying minds as long as he could.
She didn't hear the noise, or didn't care. She sat there, head in her
hands, calm and smiling.
* * * * *
The outer shell of the rocket dome opened before and closed behind
them. Jordan set the controls in neutral and lifted his hands,
muttering to himself. They were gliding through the lip of the inner
shell. Home.
"Cheer up," said Cameron breezily. "You're not really prisoners, you
know."
Nona seemed content, though Jordan didn't. Docchi said nothing, the
light gone from his face. Anti wasn't with them; she was floating in
the tank of acid. The gravity field of the asteroid made that
necessary.
The ship scraped gently and they were down. Jordan touched a lever;
passenger and freight locks were open.
"Let's go," said Dr. Cameron. "I imagine there's a reception committee
for you."
There was. The little rocket dome held more ships than normally came
in a year. The precise confusion of military discipline was everywhere
in evidence. Armed guards lined either side of the landing ramp down
which they walked.
At the bottom, a large telecom unit had been set up. If size indicated
anything, someone considered this an important occasion. From the
screen, larger than life, Medicouncilor Thorton looked out
approvingly.
The procession from the ship halted in front of the telecom unit.
"A good job, Dr. Cameron," said the medicouncilor. "We were quite
surprised at the escape of the four accidentals, and your
disappearance, which coincided with it. From what we were able to
piece together, you deliberately followed them. A splendid example of
quick thinking, Doctor. You deserve recognition for it."
"Thank you," said Cameron.
"I'm sorry I can't be there to congratulate you in person, but I will
be soon." The medicouncilor paused discreetly. "At first the publicity
was bad. Very bad. We thought it unwise to conceal an affair of such
magnitude. Of course the unauthorized broadcast made it impossible.
Fortunately, the gravital discovery came along at just the right time.
I don't mind telling you that the net effect is now in our favor."
"I hoped it would be," said Cameron. "Nona--"
"You've spoken about her before." The medicouncilor frowned. "We can
discuss her later. For the moment, see that she and the rest of the
accidentals are returned to their usual places. Bring Docchi to your
office at once. I want to question him privately."