The final processes of loading and stowing seemed to drag endlessly. At
last it was accomplished and word given to close up the ship.
* * * * *
It was a grim and silent company in the control awaiting the blast-off.
Grouth, Concor and Tiny were morose, already disheartened by the
knowledge of defeat. Amyth and Elshar stood close to Wilding, both
smiling enigmatically. He found their presence irritating, but said
nothing. Only Tichron seemed untouched by the atmosphere of failure. He
studied Wilding curiously, and even attempted to joke.
"Not that it matters now," he said. "But I've wondered why you were
willing to include me on your expedition. Don't you know that I'm a
chronic trouble-maker?"
Wilding smiled thinly. "Of course I knew that. But I wanted someone
like you in my new world. Every healthy society needs some kind of
trouble-maker. It stimulates growth."
Atomic motors roared into life, and the ship rose steadily up and out
from the asteroid. As it moved toward the patrol cruisers, Wilding
ordered the speed held to low levels, lest its seeming flight provoke
action from trigger-nervous gunners aboard the patrol ships.
Tension grew as the range shortened.
A spreading, soundless flash of light flowered against the vaulted
darkness of space. An atomic shell fired by the nearest cruiser. Just a
warning, this time.
"Make contact," Wilding commanded. "We'll have to talk to them now."
The view-screen swirled with color as Grouth worked at the keyboard.
Squirming colors cleared and a three dimensional image appeared. A man
in the silver gray uniform of Security Police. It was like speaking
with him face to face.
"The first shot was a warning," he said gravely. "Just hold your
present course and do not attempt to change your speed."
"Warning of what?" Wilding demanded wryly. "Aren't you out of bounds?
What right have you to interfere with our course or speed?"
The officer went white. "My orders are to stop you at all costs," he
said. "If you surrender, and the hostages are unharmed, you will all be
returned to prison without further punishment."
Wilding stared at the policemen insolently. "Not so fast," he
protested. "Since when are people sent off to prison without even a
trial? And for a trial, you must prefer some kind of charge. What is
the charge against us?"
The officer's face went from white to red. "Jailbreak will do for the
first charge," he stormed angrily. "After that, we'll see. You're all
known criminals, or you'd never have been in Alcatraz."
Wilding laughed suddenly. "You're not making sense. You can charge us
with jailbreak, even arrest us. But you can't make your charge stick
in court. If we were in Alcatraz, you know there are no records in
existence of criminal charges against us, so you have no right to say
that we're known criminals. We can sue you for saying so publicly.
As for the jailbreak charge, you may have a few witnesses among
the convicts still on Alcatraz. But you know how unreliable such
witnesses are in court. Any good lawyer can break down an eyewitness
identification--"
The patrol officer licked his lips, his eyes took on a hard, metallic
sheen. "We'll let the lawyers argue about it. Over your corpses if you
try to evade arrest. I have my orders to stop you and take you back,
alive if possible, dead if necessary. You have taken hostages, so a
kidnapping charge will hold. If they are killed, the charge will be
murder. Suit yourself about details."
One after another, armed patrol cruisers moved in to take up positions
in the formation ringed about the doomed _Starship I_. On every side,
batteries of atomic cannon covered every possible route of escape.
"What are you going to do?" asked Tiny, her voice hopeless.
An expression of sour triumph crossed the face of the man on the screen.
"You have five minutes to decide," he told them. "By then, if you
haven't surrendered and let a prize crew come aboard, we have orders to
blow you out of space." He stopped talking and his image vanished back
into the writhing colors.
"Show them the hostages," suggested Tichron viciously. "Then tell them
to keep their distance or you'll blow up our atomic fuel. They're
bluffing."
"I don't think so," Grouth contended. "We could find out by
threatening to kill the hostages, one by one."
Wilding glanced round the circle of faces. All were pale, set into
lines of strain and bitterness.
"No," said Wilding. "The decision is mine, and I've made it. We won't
have unnecessary killing. You can't found a new world on other people's
corpses. If it were to cost even one innocent life, I wouldn't want
that responsibility. We'll have to surrender and start planning all
over again...."
"Shall I set the surrender signal?" Grouth asked.
Wilding nodded. For some reason, his eyes sought Elshar's face. She was
smiling. It startled Wilding that her approval meant so much to him. He
was not in love with her, and never had been. The sight of Amyth close
beside Elshar was enough to prove that to him. Any world, new or old,
without Amyth would have been dust and ashes to him. His feeling about
Elshar was completely different, almost as if she were a child for whom
and to whom he was responsible. But her face now was that of a judge,
benign and sad and incredibly world-wise. And her smile was almost a
benediction.
The girl moved forward suddenly. Her voice was clear and oddly
confident.
"Don't signal anything," she ordered. "There is another way out.
Wilding has won the right to it for all of you."
Elshar turned fondly to Wilding and put her hand on his arm.
"You don't understand, of course. Because of me you lost your freedom.
You thought all along that you were my guardian angel. In your own way,
you tried to be kind and good and understanding. The truth is that I am
your guardian angel, one of them."
* * * * *
Puzzlement in his face seemed to amuse her. She went on very quickly.
"I know you have wondered about me, about my race. You always sensed
some strangeness in me, but not even you dreamed how much there was of
strangeness. I come of an alien race, not even of your Solar System.
There are many such races inhabiting planets of various stars in your
galaxy. Most of them have developed far beyond your people in science,
in culture, in social organization.
"For centuries these peoples have watched you and wondered. Many
factors in your culture disturbed us, but these matters were
unimportant as long as you were restricted to your own system. We
dreaded the time when you would conquer the atom and attempt space
travel. By the time that happened, we were prepared. A cordon of ships
established a barrier just beyond your outermost planet, and it was
deemed advisable to isolate you until your culture was found fit to
expand to other stars.
"Certain ones among us were chosen to venture into your worlds as
judges and observers. I was one of these, and mine was a special
mission. As bait, I was to select one man to be a test case. That man
must be one who typified all of the qualities most disturbing to us. I
chose Wilding, or perhaps by interfering in my behalf, he chose me. Our
problem was to see how one of the worst human products of your culture
would respond to increasing responsibility. In the final analysis,
Civilization is merely the response to expanding responsibilities.
"Wilding was a good choice. Environment and heredity made him a
criminal, but he had a good mind and the primal virtue of courage. He
was ambitious, a practical dreamer. Like your whole civilization, he
attempted to reach worthy ends by evil means. From desperate need and
because of a mystical anger, he is in revolt against his own kind, and
against their culture. There was almost fatal weakness in his disregard
of the precious gift of life, even of his own. He became an ideal test
case.
"By his decision to give up his hopes and plans, and surrender rather
than endanger a single life he has proved himself. He has won, for
himself and for his race, another chance.
"There is a place where you can go. An Earth-type planet on which you
can still play out your dream of building a world to your own needs and
desires. It is in a parallel space-time continuum, not your familiar
universe, and the way there is strange and terrible. There, you will be
no menace to my people and the others, and by the time you have learned
your way back, you will be civilized ... or will have destroyed
yourself in the process."
Wilding fixed his eyes on Elshar as the girl finished speaking. Doubt
had died out in him slowly, for her manner carried an eery conviction.
"Is all this true?" he had to ask as his mind grappled with the
strangeness of her. "Can you really get us away from the cruisers, and
show us how to reach this ... private world?"
"Quite true," she said softly. "I can't go with you, but I can make
some ... adjustments ... in your course calculators. I can give your
navigator instructions by post-hypnotic suggestion, which he will
forget as soon as you reach your destination. Do you still wish to go?"
* * * * *
Wilding nodded quickly. He glanced upward at the view-screen where
rioting colors had begun to flare and swirl. The timelimit of the
patrol's ultimatum was up.
"Do whatever she tells you," he ordered Concor. Then to Grouth, "Make
the connection. I'll talk to him."
Colors steadied and faded on the screen, built up an image. It was the
same officer.
"You've made no surrender signals," the policeman stated.
"Hold your fire," Wilding told him savagely. "We're putting out
spacecrafts with the hostages. They're alive and well. After that, I'll
discuss terms."
Indecision struggled on the officer's face. But he shrugged and smiled
coldly. If Wilding was willing to yield his only bargaining point, it
was worth a brief concession of time. And there was nothing to lose by
waiting, since the trap had already closed.
Grouth broke the connection rudely.
They waited while hostages were released, hustled into spacearmor, and
put aboard the spacecrafts. Air hissed in the escape tubes.
Wilding shot an anxious glance at Elshar. She was smiling again, sadly,
fondly.
"Time enough. Don't worry about the patrol ships. Everything is ready.
I almost wish I could go with you. Your experiment should be ...
interesting."
Concor sat at the control console. He pressed buttons, and a view of
space flashed on the screen. Electronic tapes fed swiftly into the
calculators, and from them to the robot controls that actually operated
the ship. Light faded in the cabin. In the dimness, Wilding's hand
found Amyth's and drew strength from her nearness.
He heard Elshar's voice, clear and steady. "Try not to be afraid. It is
terrible, but does not last long."
Something strange was happening on the view-screen. Space and the
familiar stars shifted, changing relative positions, like images
flowing around flaws in a mirror. There was a moment of kaleidoscopic
horror as if all the senses slipped, then adjusted to new patterns.
"This is good-bye." The sound of Elshar's voice drew his eyes to her.
The girl's form wavered in his vision. She was changing. For a fragment
of perception, he glimpsed something that suggested the old priest of
the Pit Men. Then, something as delicate, fearful and unhumanly wise
as a Martian pzintar idol. But as his mind grasped at the reality, she
faded and vanished like drifting smoke.
Long afterward, it seemed that the ship descended through dense,
luminous vapor. Through rifts below could be seen a patchwork of brown
and green, misted with blue. It was like an unrolling map in three
dimensions. Richly verdant continents, studded with tumbled mountains.
A broad ocean crimsoned by the setting of a double sun. Alien
stars winked on one by one in the thickening twilight, and unknown
constellations made fiery symbols against the dark vaults of another
space.
Wilding stared down at the planet which was their new home.
Every man has his obstacle course, never to be completed. This was his
next obstacle, and overcoming it was the joy of living. He was glad
that it seemed a big one.
"Ready for landing," he said. He was smiling....