But Celeste didn't want to move too fast. "You know, Teddy," she said
uncomfortably, "all this reminds me of those old myths where too much
good fortune is a sure sign of coming disaster. It was just too much
luck, our great-grandparents missing World III and getting the World
Government started a thousand years ahead of schedule. Luck like that
couldn't last, evidently. Maybe we've gone too fast with a lot of
things, like space-flight and the Deep Shaft and--" she hesitated a
bit--"complex marriages. I'm a woman. I want complete security. Where
am I to find it?"
"In me," Theodor said promptly.
"In you?" Celeste questioned, walking slowly. "But you're just
one-third of my husband. Perhaps I should look for it in Edmund or
Ivan."
"You angry with me about something?"
"Of course not. But a woman wants her source of security whole. In a
crisis like this, it's disturbing to have it divided."
"Well, we are a whole and, I believe, indivisible family," Theodor
told her warmly. "You're not suggesting, are you, that we're going to
be punished for our polygamous sins by a cosmic catastrophe? Fire from
Heaven and all that?"
"Don't be silly. I just wanted to give you a picture of my feeling."
Celeste smiled. "I guess none of us realized how much we've come to
depend on the idea of unchanging scientific law. Knocks the props from
under you."
Theodor nodded emphatically. "All the more reason to get a line on
what's happening as quickly as possible. You know, it's fantastically
far-fetched, but I think the experience of persons with Extra-Sensory
Perception may give us a clue. During the past three or four days
there's been a remarkable similarity in the dreams of ESPs all over the
planet. I'm going to present the evidence at the meeting."
Celeste looked up at him. "So that's why Rosalind's bringing Frieda's
daughter?"
"Dotty is your daughter, too, and Rosalind's," Theodor reminded her.
"No, just Frieda's," Celeste said bitterly. "Of course you may be the
father. One-third of a chance."
Theodor looked at her sharply, but didn't comment. "Anyway, Dotty will
be there," he said. "Probably asleep by now. All the ESPs have suddenly
seemed to need more sleep."
As they talked, it had been growing darker, though the luminescence of
the path kept it from being bothersome. And now the cloud rack parted
to the east, showing a single red planet low on the horizon.
"Did you know," Theodor said suddenly, "that in _Gulliver's Travels_
Dean Swift predicted that better telescopes would show Mars to have two
moons? He got the sizes and distances and periods damned accurately,
too. One of the few really startling coincidences of reality and
literature."
"Stop being eerie," Celeste said sharply. But then she went on, "Those
names Phobos and Deimos--they're Greek, aren't they? What do they mean?"
Theodor lost a step. "Fear and Terror," he said unwillingly. "Now
don't go taking that for an omen. Most of the mythological names of
major and minor ancient gods had been taken--the bodies in the Solar
System are named that way, of course--and these were about all that
were available."
It was true, but it didn't comfort him much.
* * * * *
_I am a God_, Dotty was dreaming, _and I want to be by myself and
think. I and my god-friends like to keep some of our thoughts secret,
but the other gods have forbidden us to._
A little smile flickered across the lips of the sleeping girl, and
the woman in gold tights and gold-spangled jacket leaned forward
thoughtfully. In her dignity and simplicity and straight-spined grace,
she was rather like a circus mother watching her sick child before she
went out for the trapeze act.
_I and my god-friends sail off in our great round silver boats_, Dotty
went on dreaming. _The other gods are angry and scared. They are
frightened of the thoughts we may think in secret. They follow us to
hunt us down. There are many more of them than of us._
* * * * *
As Celeste and Theodor entered the committee room, Rosalind Wolver--a
glitter of platinum against darkness--came in through the opposite
door and softly shut it behind her. Frieda, a fair woman in blue robes,
got up from the round table.
Celeste turned away with outward casualness as Theodor kissed his two
other wives. She was pleased to note that Edmund seemed impatient too.
A figure in close-fitting black, unrelieved except for two red arrows
at the collar, he struck her as embodying very properly the serious,
fateful temper of the moment.
He took two briefcases from his vest pocket and tossed them down on the
table beside one of the microfilm projectors.
"I suggest we get started without waiting for Ivan," he said.
Frieda frowned anxiously. "It's ten minutes since he phoned from the
Deep Space Bar to say he was starting right away. And that's hardly a
two minutes walk."
Rosalind instantly started toward the outside door.
"I'll check," she explained. "Oh, Frieda, I've set the mike so you'll
hear if Dotty calls."
Edmund threw up his hands. "Very well, then," he said and walked over,
switched on the picture and stared out moodily.
Theodor and Frieda got out their briefcases, switched on projectors,
and began silently checking through their material.
Celeste fiddled with the TV and got a newscast. But she found her eyes
didn't want to absorb the blocks of print that rather swiftly succeeded
each other, so, after a few moments, she shrugged impatiently and
switched to audio.
At the noise, the others looked around at her with surprise and some
irritation, but in a few moments they were also listening.
"The two rocket ships sent out from Mars Base to explore the orbital
positions of Phobos and Deimos--that is, the volume of space they'd be
occupying if their positions had remained normal--report finding masses
of dust and larger debris. The two masses of fine debris are moving
in the same orbits and at the same velocities as the two vanished
moons, and occupy roughly the same volumes of space, though the mass
of material is hardly a hundredth that of the moons. Physicists have
ventured no statements as to whether this constitutes a confirmation of
the Disintegration Hypothesis.
"However, we're mighty pleased at this news here. There's a marked
lessening of tension. The finding of the debris--solid, tangible
stuff--seems to lift the whole affair out of the supernatural miasma in
which some of us have been tempted to plunge it. One-hundredth of the
moons has been found.
"The rest will also be!"
Edmund had turned his back on the window. Frieda and Theodor had
switched off their projectors.
"Meanwhile, Earthlings are going about their business with a minimum
of commotion, meeting with considerable calm the strange threat to
the fabric of their Solar System. Many, of course, are assembled in
churches and humanist temples. Kometevskyites have staged helicopter
processions at Washington, Peking, Pretoria, and Christiana, demanding
that instant preparations be made for--and I quote--'Earth's coming
leap through space.' They have also formally challenged all astronomers
to produce an explanation other than the one contained in that strange
book so recently conjured from oblivion, _The Dance of the Planets_.
"That about winds up the story for the present. There are no new
reports from Interplanetary Radar, Astronomy, or the other rocket ships
searching in the extended Mars volume. Nor have any statements been
issued by the various groups working on the problem in Astrophysics,
Cosmic Ecology, the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes, and so
forth. Meanwhile, however, we can take courage from the words of a poem
written even before Dr. Kometevsky's book:
"This Earth is not the steadfast place
We landsmen build upon;
From deep to deep she varies pace,
And while she comes is gone.
Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship."
* * * * *
While the TV voice intoned the poem, growing richer as emotion caught
it up, Celeste looked around her at the others. Frieda, with her
touch of feminine helplessness showing more than ever through her
business-like poise. Theodor leaning forward from his scarlet cloak
thrown back, smiling the half-smile with which he seemed to face even
the unknown. Black Edmund, masking a deep uncertainty with a strong
show of decisiveness.
In short, her family. She knew their every quirk and foible. And yet
now they seemed to her a million miles away, figures seen through the
wrong end of a telescope.
Were they really a family? Strong sources of mutual strength and
security to each other? Or had they merely been playing family,
experimenting with their notions of complex marriage like a bunch of
silly adolescents? Butterflies taking advantage of good weather to
wing together in a glamorous, artificial dance--until outraged Nature
decided to wipe them out?
As the poem was ending, Celeste saw the door open and Rosalind come
slowly in. The Golden Woman's face was white as the paths she had been
treading.
Just then the TV voice quickened with shock. "News! Lunar Observatory
One reports that, although Jupiter is just about to pass behind the
Sun, a good coronagraph of the planet has been obtained. Checked and
rechecked, it admits of only one interpretation, which Lunar One
feels duty-bound to release. _Jupiter's fourteen moons are no longer
visible!_"
The chorus of remarks with which the Wolvers would otherwise have
received this was checked by one thing: the fact that Rosalind seemed
not to hear it. Whatever was on her mind prevented even that incredible
statement from penetrating.
She walked shakily to the table and put down a briefcase, one end of
which was smudged with dirt.
Without looking at them, she said, "Ivan left the Deep Space Bar
twenty minutes ago, said he was coming straight here. On my way back
I searched the path. Midway I found this half-buried in the dirt. I
had to tug to get it out--almost as if it had been cemented into the
ground. Do you feel how the dirt seems to be _in_ the leather, as if
it had lain for years in the grave?"
By now the others were fingering the small case of microfilms they had
seen so many times in Ivan's competent hands. What Rosalind said was
true. It had a gritty, unwholesome feel to it. Also, it felt strangely
heavy.
"And see what's written on it," she added.
They turned it over. Scrawled with white pencil in big, hasty, frantic
letters were two words:
"Going down!"
* * * * *
_The other gods_, Dotty dreamt, _are combing the whole Universe for us.
We have escaped them many times, but now our tricks are almost used up.
There are no doors going out of the Universe and our boats are silver
beacons to the hunters. So we decide to disguise them in the only way
they can be disguised. It is our last chance._
* * * * *
Edmund rapped the table to gain the family's attention. "I'd say we've
done everything we can for the moment to find Ivan. We've made a
thorough local search. A wider one, which we can't conduct personally,
is in progress. All helpful agencies have been alerted and descriptions
are being broadcast. I suggest we get on with the business of the
evening--which may very well be connected with Ivan's disappearance."
One by one the others nodded and took their places at the round table.
Celeste made a great effort to throw off the feeling of unreality that
had engulfed her and focus attention on her microfilms.
"I'll take over Ivan's notes," she heard Edmund say. "They're mainly
about the Deep Shaft."
"How far have they got with that?" Frieda asked idly. "Twenty-five
miles?"
"Nearer thirty, I believe," Edmund answered, "and still going down."
At those last two words they all looked up quickly. Then their eyes
went toward Ivan's briefcase.
* * * * *
_Our trick has succeeded_, Dotty dreamt. _The other gods have passed
our hiding place a dozen times without noticing. They search the
Universe for us many times in vain. They finally decide that we have
found a door going out of the Universe. Yet they fear us all the more.
They think of us as devils who will some day return through the door to
destroy them. So they watch everywhere. We lie quietly smiling in our
camouflaged boats, yet hardly daring to move or think, for fear that
the faintest echoes of our doings will give them a clue. Hundreds of
millions of years pass by. They seem to us no more than drugged hours
in a prison._
* * * * *
Theodor rubbed his eyes and pushed his chair back from the table. "We
need a break."