Carl eyed the man, his lips set in an aggravating silence. Then: "Yes,
I know. Or at least I think I know. Furthermore, Dr. Hamlin knows too.
He's known all the time. Obviously, this girl is the only one who's
still in the dark. I think it's about time someone told her."
"Wait!" Dr. Hamlin said.
"Say, what's this all about?" Edgerton said suddenly. "Where's Paul
Spero anyhow? Rhind and Mitchell are waiting!"
Carl flicked a look at Diane, then turned back to her father. "Are you
going to tell her? Or should I?"
"Tell me what?" Diane said. "How does he know about Paul Spero? Spero
told us...."
V
"Spero told us a lot of things," Carl said thickly. "He told us he'd
taken pictures without speaking to anyone. It served his purpose better
to keep us in the dark about how this immortality thing was really
worked until after we got here. After that, he figured he'd take
over and we'd have to go along with him whether we liked it or not.
Furthermore, Ferguson and your father were in on it from the beginning,
weren't you?"
"Please," Dr. Hamlin said nervously, "it's not near as bad as you're
making it out to be. It's only a minor adjustment."
"Minor adjustment!" Carl grasped the arm of Diane's jumper, pulling her
along with him through the long corridors of boxes. At the far end of
the structure, he found what he was searching for. Three boxes--slitted
in front like a zoo cage. And inside the boxes, peering at them through
sad yellow-rimmed eyes--were three chowls.
"There's the answer to your immortality," Carl said grimly. "Rhind and
Mitchell were both doctors--surgeons. Do you get it now?"
Raymond Edgerton and Norman Hamlin had joined them now. "Mr. Keating,"
Edgerton said, "I'm sure if you were a doctor, you wouldn't be
so squeamish about a thing like this. After all, what's a simple
operation?"
"Simple operation!"
Carl reached over clamping his gloved hands on Edgerton's shoulders.
Quickly, he raked the steel-tipped fingers of both hands down the man's
back. There was a tearing noise, as the open-collared shirt ripped
apart at the seams, revealing a broad fleshy back--smooth-looking
except for where an angry gash dipped in a deep U between the shoulder
blades.
He jerked his thumb back to where the chowls were chattering restlessly
in their cages. "In case you don't know it," he said, "chowls are
humanoid. They're the only things on this planet with any sign of
intelligence. Killing them's not only murder. It's worse than murder.
It's genocide! All that has to happen is for this story to get back
to Terra, and you'll have every quack who can wield a scalpel up here
cutting the lungs out of these poor creatures!"
Alongside him, he was aware of Diane getting sick inside her helmet.
Ferguson coughed.
"Since you were apparently aware of this all the time, Keating, just
why did you come along?" Ferguson asked.
"I wasn't aware of it all along. It wasn't till I saw Dr. Hamlin
nursing Spero's jaw that I began to wonder why he wanted a doctor along
in the first place. He needed you to finance the trip, and he needed me
to pilot the ship. But why Dr. Hamlin unless there was some need for
a surgeon? Then I remembered the chowls, and everything began to fall
into place."
Ferguson sat down on one of the wooden cases. "As usual Keating, you're
not being very logical. As a matter of fact, he didn't need the good
doctor at all. He had two doctors right here. Remember?"
Carl nodded. "Yes, I remember," he said grimly. "That was the part of
the puzzle that didn't fit. But now I think I've even got the answer to
that."
"Do tell?"
"Yes, I'll tell you," Carl said ruthlessly. "It was because with all
the build-up these would-be-gods gave you about this immortality
gimmick, they were sick to death of it. They were sick of the
loneliness, sick of the rain, sick of the color of purple. In short,
they were sick of this foul planet and were willing to trade it in for
whatever the earth had to offer them! That's where Dr. Hamlin came in."
Doggedly, Carl spun on Edgerton, trying to draw the tatters of his
shirt back across his back.
"Who's lungs were you going to take, Mr. Edgerton? Mine, or Stewart
Ferguson's?"
He was aware of Diane pulling on his arm. He turned to the two men in
the mud-splattered jumpers. "We're leaving for Terra in an hour," he
said crisply. "Are you coming, or staying?"
Ferguson and Hamlin stared at each other.
"Make up your mind!"
Abruptly, Dr. Hamlin walked over to where Diane was standing. "I'm an
old man," he said. "All I have back on Earth is twenty years at the
most. Stay with me, Diane?"
Breathlessly, Carl watched the girl--watched her shake her head,
slowly. "How about you?" he asked Ferguson.
For a long moment, Ferguson appeared undecided. Then he looked at
Dr. Hamlin. "I'm in trouble back home," he mumbled. "Bad trouble.
They're going to find out about it any day, if they haven't found out
already.... I--I'd better stay."
* * * * *
With Diane grasping his arm, Carl started down the long corridor of
packing cases toward the open lock-door.
"I'm sorry it turned out this way," he said. "As soon as we ready the
ship I'll go back and talk to them again. Maybe they'll change their
minds."
Diane didn't answer. Instead she turned a last backward glance toward
her father. It was a long glance. Too long. He was aware of her
steel-tipped fingers digging into the sleeve of his jumper. He wheeled.
Ten feet away, standing in a niche between the wooden cases, was a man.
He wore a regulation space jumper and helmet, and was regarding them
curiously over the barrel of a Westinghouse-chain-rifle. The man spoke:
"I'm interrupting something, I hope," he said evenly.
The man was Paul Spero.
Carl eyed the man warily. Diane choked out a heavy gasp.
"You should have killed me back in the ship like I suggested," Spero
said smugly. "Now I'm going to have to kill you instead."
Carl flicked a quick look at Diane. "What about her? Are you planning
to kill her too?"
The overhead light sparkled briefly across the rifle barrel as Spero
snapped the weapon to his shoulder. Across the sights he said: "Diane
will stay here with me. That's the way I planned it and that's how
it'll be."
"I know I'm interfering with your plans," Carl said with mock-concern,
"but I don't think she is. Not unless she wants to of course."
From behind the face-plate, Spero flashed a double row of teeth. "Stop
stalling for time, Keating. You had your chance on the ship, and you
muffed it. Now it's my turn!"
Carl waited--waited while Spero's gloved hand tightened against
the trigger-switch. The bolt coil snapped back. There was a dull
click--nothing else....
"Did you really think I'd be stupid enough to leave you alone with a
case full of live guns?" Keating said thinly.
Bewildered, Spero snapped the rifle down to chest level, fumbling
awkwardly with the trigger assembly.
"It won't work," Carl said indulgently. "Before we left the ship I
removed the anodes from every gun in the case. It's an old army trick,
in case you haven't heard."
With Spero glaring at him, Carl allowed his arm to brush against his
own needle gun. He didn't bother to draw.
"I think your friends are waiting for you," he said.
Back in the control room, Carl went through the motions of readying
the ship for take-off. Back in the galley he could hear Diane sobbing
softly.
Idly, he glanced out of the amber blister ports toward the big
sphere-like structure that rose out of the sea of purple mud. It looked
evil, and ominous-looking against the rain-sodden backdrop of the saroo
forest.
Then from the edge of the tree line, moving shapes suddenly began to
make an appearance. He rubbed his eyes. There were hundreds--no,
thousands of them. Slowly and curiously they poured out of the
rain-soaked forest, deliberately converging on the open lock-doors of
the huge, white building. Some were carrying sticks, some stones, some
nothing. It was as if the mystic forces of evolution had chosen this
exact moment to endow the chowls with an emotion hitherto lacking in
their makeup. Call it hate; call it self-preservation; call it anything
you like, it was something they hadn't had before, yet needed badly.
Quickly, he bit off the half-formed cry that rose to his throat. Diane
was still back in the galley. He was glad she wasn't watching. Actually
there was no need for her to know about it ever.
Silently he made a vow never to tell her--even as a few moments ago
they'd both vowed to keep another secret: The secret that could spell
the life or death of an entire planet.