The Project Gutenberg eBook of Peril of the Starmen, by Kris Neville.

"I called you three in," the Oligarch said, "because I have some very important news."

Herb—he would later be assigned that name—was one of the three. He hated the Oligarch, and he had no doubt that the Oligarch knew it.

Dull rage and frustration and despair and helplessness bubbled up in Herb. His face remained calm.

Herb wanted to cry: Find another! Not this one! Not the only one we've ever found with people on it!

But he said nothing. His anguished thoughts whirled like a dust storm, handling and rejecting ideas like bits of paper. The remote and inaccessible Scientists were beyond accounting. Perhaps only this planet would serve. Perhaps there was insufficient time to locate another of suitable mass. Perhaps.... But one could not know. One could only submit to authority. The storm died away, and Herb acknowledged bitter reality with helplessness. There even seemed a nightmare inevitability about the selection.

"It would be dangerous to try to work secretly," the Oligarch said. "If they were to discover us in the midst of planting the explosive, it would be fatal. We'll go down and ask their permission."

"To that end," the Oligarch said, "I have selected you three competent, trustworthy men. You will learn their language and when we land, lull their natural suspicions. It will be your responsibility to see that we blow up the planet on schedule."

The crush of the responsibility was terrifying. "I don't need to tell you," the Oligarch said, "that you can't fail."

Unless the planet Earth were exploded, the ever-unstable Universe, itself, would collapse. Already the binding force was dangerously diminished. If new energy were not released within a month, disintegration would begin. The Universe would alter and flow and contract and after the collapse, slowly build itself into a new form—that form itself containing the inherent stresses of change and mutability. Only the arrival of starmen to space flight at the critical time—only their continued vigilance—prevented disaster beyond accounting for.

Well inside the solar system the huge space ship plunged on, released from the warp drive and slowly braking to establish an orbit around the third planet.

Herb came up from the deep stupor of the drugs. He had been under their influence for the last twenty hours while the sleep tapes hammered information into his unconscious brain.

"All right," said Wezen, their private custodian, "time for exercise. Two hours of work-outs, and then you eat."

Herb sat up and felt his head. It ached dully. "Give me a minute. Time to think, Wezen. I'm—"

Herb got reluctantly to his feet. Cold air washed over his nude body, and he trembled. He wanted to return to sleep, not the drugged sleep of the sleep tapes, but the genuine, untroubled sleep. Something frightening and alien was taking place in his mind.

He looked around for a dream form. It was a subconscious response. He realized with relief that it was not necessary to fill one in. Technically, he had not been asleep.

One of the others said, "There's all kinds of information, but I can't get at it. I ... can't ... get ... at ... it." He looked around desperately. "Every time I try, something new comes up. It's like a volcano. I can't control it. I think, the name of a river is Mississi—and then I know that leaves are green, and...."

"The Federal Government of the United States of America is composed of three independent branches...."

"Good, good," said the Oligarch. He was satisfied with the progress. By the time they landed, they would be little more than mechanisms designed to answer questions; they would not be able to think at all: they would respond . Stimuli-response.

"Is," Herb found himself saying, "is the basis of any government that governs justly."

Wezen relaxed, but he was visibly shaken. He had heard the heresy. What might happen to him later, when this job was done?

"The indoctrination is beginning nicely." The Oligarch nodded. They would be able to soothe suspicion and dispel fear when they arrived on Earth. They would speak of love and assistance when the time came. "But you still have much to learn."

"You have a lot of information about them," Herb said. "Their history ... their.... You got it just in the last few days from their radio and television shows? I don't see how...."

"We extrapolate; there are machines," the Oligarch said. He regarded Herb narrowly. "I believe we better step up the pace." He was not going to give Herb time to rest, to think, to understand, to correlate the mind staggering mass of information he was receiving. "Let's hurry to the recreation room for calisthenics."

In the corridor, Herb glanced around for microphones and saw he was in an unwired stretch. He turned to the starman beside him. Their eyes met. Identical information had been fed simultaneously to both of them. "You heard what I said?"

The Oligarch went to his stateroom and ordered a meal. He had been indoctrinated by the sleep tapes about Earth well over a Brionimanian year previously. The tapes had been brought back by an extensive scouting expedition composed solely of Oligarchs.

He found them a naive race. Weakness, of course, was their short coming. As was often the case. He imagined his hand touching the lever that would trigger the explosive. He saw, in imagination, the planet fly asunder.

Perhaps, he thought, I am growing old. Why is it I do not want to destroy this race myself? Am I becoming weak?

He was angry with himself. Weakness! he thought. I'm acting like a subject, he thought. I'm an Oligarch.

Slowly the smile came. We are supreme, he thought, the lords and masters, and it will never end.

Perspiration crept down his spine. If a planet were not blown up, the whole fabric of his society would collapse. Brionimar must never learn.

But Brionimar would learn. Earth was on the verge of space flight. Within a generation they would be listening for radio and television extension-waves in hyperspace that would indicate the existence of another civilization. In two generations they would be in the skies of Brionimar. And then the subjects would see salvation: here (they would reason) is another race capable of preserving the Universe. And there would be no appeasing their blind and mindless wrath until the last Oligarch was dismembered and bloodless.

His hand reached out and curled around an imaginary lever. It must be done, he thought. But not by me. Not by me. Not this hand. He looked down at his hands: white and immaculate and always clean. He washed them frequently.

Psychology was a science on Brionimar; and he was a scientist. There was only one man he could be sure of out of all the crew. There were several fanatics, but he distrusted them. There was one idealist who would, of a psychological certainty, pull that lever and blow himself up along with Earth in the belief that his action was necessary to preserve the Universe.

When the starmen came, they made headlines in the newspapers all over the world.

Fear and faith combined; courage and cowardice; hatred and optimism. The great ground swell of popular approval was to come much later. At first there was naked uncertainty. Could the starmen be trusted?

Bud Council, freshman senator from the state of Missouri, was one of them. In the course of events he was to be assigned to the Committee to investigate the starmen. A weak man, a fearful man, and as such, a dangerous man....

From his initial statement it was obvious that Bud sided with the group determined to oppose all contact with the starmen. His reaction was more frantic than most. He awoke at night from a soggy dream of terror. Let us alone , he sobbed, trembling. Let us alone. The future, once so secure, was now a veiled menace. Go away , he whispered into the night, let us alone. We don't want you. Go away.

He appeared sleepless for the first hearing. The three starmen filed in. He hated them.

Herb, in the witness stand, peered out at the swarm of white faces; his head turned automatically from interrogator to interrogator.

"Our government is a modified democracy, much as your own, containing strong safe guards for individual liberty and civil rights," Herb said. One would need to look deeply into his eyes to detect the dullness and the depersonalization that was the true index to the words.

His thoughts were fuzzy, floating upon the periphery of his immediate existence. A detached part of himself seemed to observe and record the proceedings without understanding them; there was a fever of information inside of him.

"We believe in the mutual exchange of knowledge. As proof of our good will, we will be glad to send in a team of scientists...." And later: "Our aim is mutually profitable trade."

He rested. One of the starmen took the stand. The drone and whine of voices lulled Herb. He wanted to relax, to sleep, to recover, to become master of himself once again.

After a recess, he found himself once more on the stand. Senator Rawlins, a thin, nervous mid-Westerner, began a line of inquiry. Herb tested his fingers, feeling the comforting reality of the hard chair arm. He explored the surface with childish wonder while his voice responded and waited and responded. Dimly, persistently, doggedly, stubbornly the ego, the self—that small spark of assertiveness and awareness—struggled to arrange and order, to reason and make sense of—to unify and master—the knowledge it possessed. The consistency with which his spoken lies appealed to human prejudice should have made him realize the extent to which the Oligarchy was experienced in dealing with alien civilizations and the extent to which they had prepared specifically to confront this one. But he was aware only of the sound of his voice. The words fell away into some lost abyss of confusion.

"I'm sorry, sir. We are technicians aboard this expedition. We have very little to do with the theoretical aspects. That's up to the Scientists."

"Well, you are, sir, familiar with the idea that—we'll say—that light has limited velocity?"

"Yes, sir, that is correct. It wouldn't make sense for it to have infinite velocity, to be instantaneously everywhere." A tiny sense of urgency formed in his mind.

"Are you familiar with the fact that the speed of light is a limiting factor? Nothing in the natural Universe goes faster than light."

"I couldn't say, sir, I really don't know. At an extremely high speed our space ship makes a, a transition , but ... I guess, sir, yes, sir." The answers weren't coming now. The Oligarch had not dared permit him scientific knowledge. There was a little vacuum where there should be information.

"You'll pardon me, but aren't you unusually ignorant, for a technician, about physical theory: about the action of gases that we were talking about a moment ago—in fact, even about astronomy?"

Herb did not say that such pursuits were the exclusive prerogatives of the Oligarchs. He did not say: I am inferior in mental capacity to an Oligarch; I can never become a Scientist. That was not to be mentioned. "I am a technician, sir."

There was fear somewhere inside of him. What more could he say? Suppose ... suppose.... Had he answered wrong? It was as if his knowledge were a river rushing his ego toward the great waterfall of defeat, and he was powerless to control anything. He must not fail. Must not, must not, must not fail.

The imminence of collapse made the very sky terrifying, to know that this apparent order could crumble, and planets fly from suns, and suns themselves spin blindly nowhere. Every word before the Committee was vital. The whole wheeling order of existence turned upon it.

The second day of the open hearing, Norma flew down from Vermont to reason with Bud.

Bud was gracious. Years in politics had taught him to mask his real feelings; taught him so well that he was no longer at all sure what his real feelings were.

The outbursts of anger and suppressed sadism he unleashed on those closest to him always the morning after confused him and left him feeling that the person of the previous day had been someone distinct and separate from his genuine self.

"It's good to see you," he said. A warm, brotherly and artificial love flattered his sense of rectitude. He considered her the baby of the family. He remembered her as a gawky, frightened girl giving a last long glance at the security of the living room before venturing into the night of her first date. "I've been meaning to get up your way." His hands signaled the extent of his confinement to Washington. "There's so much to do, you can't imagine. I have to take work home with me. I'm sometimes up half the night with it.... I've been hearing about you. Very fine, Norma, very fine."

Norma was tense and uncomfortable and, Bud thought, a little over-awed to be sitting across the desk from her own brother in the rebuilt Senate Office Building.

"Yes. Yes?" A trace of petulance haunted Bud's voice. "Terribly busy just now, but...." Hollow enthusiasm conquered. "That's just fine. I can always find time to see Frank."

"Has something happened?" Bud always sought ways to escape from the anticipated responsibility of sharing a family crisis.

Instantly the Senator felt the crush of the whole family arrayed against him, and he wanted to snarl at her in shame and anger and shout, "Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone, for Chrissake!"

"They've got space flight. We can't even begin to guess what else they've got. What does Senator Stilson do? And you're there on his side, right with him!"

Bud puffed his cheeks and his skin grew hot and prickly. It's none of your damned business , he thought viciously.

"They have space flight," she repeated doggedly. "Think what that would mean to us."

"I haven't time to discuss it right now, Sis. We'll have to talk this out later." He stood up, anger pounding in his temples.

"I don't quite see how...." His voice was weary, and he let the sentence hang short of blunt refusal.

"Well ..." he sighed resignedly. "My place, then. I'll see you at, nine o'clock there."

Less than an hour later flash bulbs popped from all corners of the room as the starmen entered for their second session of questioning.

Chairman Stilson, in a peevishly thin voice, limited the photographers to ten minutes and ruled against pictures during the questioning. After nearly half an hour, the hearing got under way.

Herb was first on the stand. He continued in the same fashion as yesterday. His answers were polite and informative. Senator Stilson's attempt to get him to contradict himself proved unfruitful. Herb surrendered the chair to one of the others and returned to his seat at the long table reserved for the starmen.

"Yes," said the starman who was testifying, "that is correct. One of our main reasons for making this expedition is to offer you technological information: space flight, medicine...."

Herb heard someone say: "But we have limited facilities on this expedition. A larger one, with your permission, will be dispatched for Earth within a year." He was not even sure whether it was he who was speaking. "In the meantime, we would like permission to conduct certain scientific tests on the surface.... A mineral analysis, sir, primarily. But we are interested in geological evidence...."

"... whether or not," someone said, "the physical similarity of our two races is due to parallel evolution or to a forgotten, prehistoric cycle of colonization by a common ancestor...."

They described their own planet and their own civilization. They made an excellent impression.

When it was Bud's turn to question, he asked Herb: "How do we know—here, you've learned the language, so much about us and all—how do we know that this isn't a fabrication, a tissue of prevarications you're telling the American people here today? We have to take everything on faith. Now, you know so much about us, you have studied us...."

"I'm sorry," Bud said. "Came as quickly as I could. I was at a secret session.... But for a brother and sister, well, I just had to leave...."

"Mind if I have one? I'm rather upset today—the hearings and all, the meeting tonight...."

Frank was on the sofa. His gaunt, heavy boned body waited motionless. His blunt fingered, surgeon's hands lay unmoving. His skin was tanned from the Oklahoma sun. Norma sat stiffly erect in the overstuffed chair.

Bud poured carefully without looking around. "Norma said something about the starmen. Terrifying thing, terrifying thing. You think they'll really leave when we tell them to?"

"I don't see there's much we can do about it if they make up their minds to stay," Frank said.

"Look, Bud," Norma said, "think how far ahead of us they are. They must be friendly, they must be sincere in their offer to help us."

Bud shook his head. "My deep and sincere conviction on this is that it's a matter of our pride and our independence and our freedom. They're all at stake. I mean—" He waved helplessly. "You know how I feel. I mean, my views are in all the papers, in the Record . With me it's a matter of principle. I don't see how we can accept that sort of offer. It's degrading."

"If we tell them to leave, to go away, to leave us alone, we've lost the greatest opportunity in history." Norma insisted.

"Norma," Bud said. "You know how I feel about you. You know I'd do anything in the world for either of you. Anything within my power. All you need do is ask. Money, anything. But this ... this.... We're proud. Mankind is proud." His heart swelled with the beauty of renunciation and righteousness. "We're too proud, too independent, too free . I would not be willing to sacrifice those great, eternal truths, those historic principles that are the foundation of our way of life, that have made America great: dignity, pride, self reliance...."

"I think they have about the same metabolism as humans," Frank said. "Speaking as a medical man, I believe if they'd give us their medical knowledge, we could conquer disease on Earth. And with their technology—"

"We are a proud race," Bud said. "We must cling to that. That is more precious than gold."

When Frank spoke, there was a mixture of contempt and terror in his voice. "Bud, you're a monument to the basic anarchy of the American people."

"He is. If the people paid any attention to what they were doing, do you think they'd elect a man like that?"

Bud's mind darted frantically. What was happening here? What was behind this? Why was Frank, his own brother, out to get him? What sinister motive—?

"You underestimate them, though," Frank said. "There's a little trickle of maturity in this country. For every aberration like you it gains a drop of experience and knowledge. The war is over. We've had our emotional jag. We're about to go into one of our rational periods. We're about to wake up to our responsibilities. Your day is passing. I don't know if there's enough of you left to keep out the starmen. The people are coming around. But—I—do—know—this. I know...."

"Stop!" Norma cried. "You don't understand Bud! You're trying to make him into something dishonest and cynical!"

"I've watched him come up. I've watched him for years. I've seen all the rotten deals he's pulled. I've seen him smear innocent people—ruin their careers—and all not for patriotism but for himself. To advance his career. Keep his name before the public. He doesn't care for anything but Bud. Bud, and any means to the end that he moves up, gets power—power for power's sake—power to create and destroy—power to change and control. I've watched him: I know him. I'm talking the only language he understands."

Bud was trembling. The sense of indignation, horror, and innocence was blunted by the shallow dryness of his breathing.

"I'm going to see you defeated in the next election, Bud. I'm going to dig up dirt, I'm going to find out who your mistresses are. I'm your brother. I'm going to hound you, disgrace you, drive you from office. You know me. You know I mean what I say. You know I will do it. "

Frank's hands were shaking. His mouth worked nervously. "For once in my life, for once in my life I've got something all-the-way decent to fight for, and I mean to fight just as dirty as I have to get it. Bud, you're coming over to my side on this starmen hearing. You're going to vote for co-operation with them. Do you hear me? Do you hear what I say?"

Bud, his eyes bulging with shock and disbelief, shook his head dumbly. His own brother—this terror raging before him—impossible, his own brother.... His heart pounded. His will was gone. "What do you want?" he repeated dryly.

Bud snaked from behind her and fled to the bar. His unprotected back a crawling mass of chill, he poured himself a drink. "You're ... you're upset, Frank. You've been, been overworked." He drank the drink in a feverish gulp. "Now ..." his voice fluttered nervously. "I'll forget what you've said here tonight. I understand." His breathing was still tight and frightened. "About the starmen. I haven't, I haven't really given the matter too, too much ... attention. I still have an ... I was just today thinking of...."

"I can see both sides of the argument," Bud said rapidly. In the depth of his stomach he lived with the cold knowledge that Frank would stoop to anything—any lie, any distortion—to—defeat him. Frank could defeat him. It wasn't as if Frank were a stranger. It wasn't as if Bud had been in the Senate for years. No, he was a vulnerable freshman, and unscrupulous politicians back home were already.... This was terrible. All his dreams of the future trembled on his words. He was physically afraid.

Frank and Bud found their eyes locked in a moment of silent communication, and seeing victory in the dull defeat inside of Bud, Frank said hoarsely, "I apologize, Bud. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said those things. I lost my head. I'm sorry."

The spider ships towered above the surrounding aircraft. Their construction was utilitarian; their living quarters were cramped; entrance was achieved from the ground by means of a retractable ladder from the base platform.

The underbelly dome contained the cutting ray. It could strike deep into the Earth, burning through shale and granite with equal efficiency. The portable casing could be sunk almost simultaneously; it would seem to contain the ray as a hose contains water. While like a giant rig, the ship would poise on its triple legs above the operation. As rapidly as the crew could section the casing, the drilling would proceed.

The three ships would form a triangle. Like insects sending down stingers they would, when the time came, lance three deep shafts into the Earth. Then down the casings would plunge the identical charges. Technicians could compute the point where the three shock waves would meet. A fourth ray would enter the Earth to the proper depth; and at that point would be buried the deadly atomic seed. At the proper time, the charges would be detonated. And where their waves met, under incredible heat and pressure, there the chain reaction would begin, to explode, in an instant, the whole of the Earth.

"The necessity for rushing them into a hasty decision is unfortunate," the Oligarch said.

Herb sat hating. The words scarcely penetrated into his confused being. The turmoil was worse than ever.

"... I have been studying the reports. Three members of the Committee, as it stands now, oppose us. And listen...."

"It will go to the full Senate. We have requested a decision within a week. That may not be sufficient time for the popular sentiment of the country to crystallize in our favor. A few determined men may be able to defeat us."

Herb felt a little shudder crawl along his mind. Then his thoughts whirled away.

"It will be infinitely more difficult to win the crucial support of Senators Klein, Stilson and Council after the Committee hearings end. We must bring them to our side. They have become the focal point of the opposition. We must prolong the Committee hearings until we have convinced them. If we can convince them, the full Senate will go along. We'll have ripped the heart out of the opposition."

"They will press for an immediate vote. They have known, even if they don't realize it consciously, that the longer they delay, the surer they are of being defeated."

I don't know , the Oligarch thought. I don't know. Threats? Try to plant the charges secretly? "We'll have to convince them. And we've got to do it within a week—maybe a little more, a day or two more."

"What do we do? How? I mean, what do we tell them?" Herb's thoughts were like fog. He wished he could go back to sleep.

The Oligarch knew he was wasting his time explaining to Herb. He wished that he could go before the Committee, himself, but he dared not. Automatic reactions were far more consistent and convincing than his calculating deceit would be. He could conceivably be caught in a lie. Not Herb.

The Oligarch analyzed Herb's potential. Ten days. Ten days. If he becomes unreliable, where shall I find another?

"We have almost three weeks," Herb said. "We could give them fifteen or sixteen days.... We could plant the charges in one day...."

He fumbled at the newspapers. He saw an editorial: "Council Makes Starmen Hearing Political Football." The people were slowly coming to the starmen's support, but how long, how long...? He saw another headline: STARMEN POSSIBLE MENACE TO EARTH SOCIETY.

The first thing Herb did upon arising the morning of the third hearing was to fill in his dream form. He had filled in thousands of them during his life, and yet it was always a frightening experience.

Watchful eyes were, in a way, reassuring; planted microphones could be circumvented; spies could be recognized. But the dream form could not be cheated.

What awful secrets did it reveal? Life and death hung in the balance. Somehow they could tell from the fantasy fiction of a dream how you felt about the reality around you: about the Oligarchy, about your job, about your family.

Even into his numb and information filled mind, terror crept as his pencil moved across the dream form.

He breakfasted in the messhall and then left for the hearing. As usual, there was a group of humans standing outside the guard lines, marveling at the three starships, standing upon spider legs, looking ready to whirl skyward at any sign of hostility. Far above, the interstellar ship waited in the coldness of space for the shuttle ships to complete their mission and return.

There was an unexpected buzz in the Committee Room when Herb and his two companions arrived.

Herb watched Bud cross to Senator Stilson. Until this morning the two had seemed very friendly.

"Let's get together later," Bud was saying. "I'll explain my position. I'm sure you'll understand."

"Look, Eddy, boy, don't act like that. Listen, I was thinking this over last night, and I think it's only right...."

Bud swallowed in shocked disbelief. "Oh, now...." More than anything else in the world Bud wanted to refute this slander. Desperation gripped him: the socialists have gotten to you ! No! God damn you! Take that back, you son of a bitch! His hands clenched.

He swallowed again, stiffly, with difficulty. Relax. For the love of God, relax. "Oh, now...."

Bud sat down weakly. I'll show him, he thought. I'll.... I'll.... It was frightening to have Senator Stilson call you a Socialist.

Bud tried not to think about Frank's face ... Frank's threats had nothing to do with him changing his mind. A man can change his mind. That he had changed his mind seemed to Bud a measure of his honesty and fairness. It was nothing less than that.

Herb nodded. The Senators were beginning to respond to pressure from their constituents. But even as the tension was sinking, even as elation rose, a second emotion swept through him. It was not enough to deceive those in this room. Now he must also lie to innocent watching millions all over the planet. His fists clenched. He hated Bud.

Early in his testimony he noticed a girl in the audience. There was something in her face that made his eyes return to it time after time. Gradually he came to concentrate exclusively on her and try to explain everything to her alone. He smiled uncertainly, and she smiled back encouragement.

And Norma—this situation suddenly became immediate and personal to her. She watched Herb, listening intently, wanting desperately to communicate her encouragement to him and her belief in him.

Bud caught a taxi to attend the executive session of the hearings that had been set for eight o'clock that evening. The starmen would not be present.

Telegrams from all over the country had been pouring into his office. They had awakened him to certain possibilities. His changed vote on television had brought him unprecedented publicity, even from normally hostile newspapers. He realized that the longer the hearings continued the more familiar his name would become.

He was convinced by now that the majority of the people (even as himself) were inclined to approve an agreement with the starmen.

Surely they weren't thinking of ending the hearings and taking the matter to the full Senate? They wouldn't dare flush headlines down the drain like that.

He grumbled to himself. Of course they wouldn't. Here was a fulcrum, a lever.... Look at the publicity.... After all, another Missourian had made it from a Congressional Committee. Perhaps the starmen hearings had really seized the imagination of the American people ... Harry S. Truman had made it....

He experienced a moral awakening, a sharp clear call to duty that transcended morality. All things changed. The world was suddenly portentious and thrilling, and secret enemies lurked and unseen disasters hovered.

His mind was humming with the exultation. He thought of himself dying at the end of his ... sixth ... eighth ... tenth ... term of office. He pictured the universal sorrow. He wanted to cry. They would mourn for a year: for two years. They would build huge monuments to his memory. Monuments bigger than any monuments ever built.

Perhaps after forty years in office, he would be assassinated. The public wrath....

He was late. Already the other four Senators were seated. Bud nodded to them and took his place. He put his brief case (it gave him a sense of importance to carry one) on the table before him and unzipped it as if to be ready to delve into its contents to document his every statement.

The atmosphere was tense. Bud looked from face to face. Senator Stilson was granite hostility. Senator Gutenleigh avoided his eyes. Senator Klein glared at him truculently.

"Good evening," Senator Rawlins said. "These gentlemen here," he included everyone but Bud in his gesture, "intend to dispense with a report and merely issue the Committee's recommendation. They've already decided to close the hearings and present the matter to the Senate tomorrow."

Bud was stunned. This was unbelievable. That meant ... that.... The friends! Somehow they had gotten to Gutenleigh, the Senator from Hawaii. Bud had counted on him—on the basis of his television vote—to oppose Klein and Stilson. What outrageous, Un-American pressure had been exerted to cause him to surrender?

Enmity and hostility flared silently from the Chairman. An almost baffled look crossed his face as if the implications had finally arrived in his consciousness: here was a Senator, Senator Council, a member of—as he thought of it—his team , who had had the temerity to transgress his leadership. One would expect opposition from a radical like Rawlins. But from a Council...! He had always felt that Bud was one of his. The insult was compounded by heresy.

"I feel," Senator Rawlins said, "that two questions require further exploration: how is it that the starmen are so ignorant of basic scientific principles; and for what reason do they insist that we reach such a momentous decision in such a limited time? To ask the Senate to vote now would force an honest man to perhaps a hasty decision. For myself, until these points are clarified, I would be very reluctant to reach any sort of an agreement with them. I want to ask this Committee to reconsider its decision, and I hope the Honorable Senator from Missouri will join with me, and that between us we can prevail upon the other gentlemen."

A sincere democrat, he spoke with quiet desperation, "In order to expect the people to choose wisely, we must be sure that they are given an opportunity to receive all the pertinent facts."

Bud was howling inwardly with the fury of a thwarted child. Headlines were flying away from him. His stand in the full Senate would command only one one-hundredth of the attention it would receive here. He arose, trembling with rage.

Shaking a quivering finger at Senator Stilson he cried, "You have bribed Gutenleigh!"

"What did they promise you, Sam?" he thundered, wondering wildly what counter promises he could make.

Even Senator Stilson was shocked by Bud's violent outburst. Bud was famous for his rabid thundering against subversives, but no one had expected him to have the courage to open such hysterical fire on his Senate colleagues. Senator Stilson said, "I resent your attitude, sir!"

"I'm for them, damn you!" Bud cried. "You're all in a conspiracy—a filthy conspiracy—against me!"

"If you don't sit down, I will summon an officer and have you removed bodily from this Chamber," Senator Stilson said.

They were all looking at Bud. With a great display of reluctance, he sank to his seat. He refused to look at Senator Stilson. He sulked and plotted revenge. And remembered Frank and hated everybody.

The vote proceeded routinely. Three members voted to recommend that the Senate reject the starmen's offer. Senator Rawlins abstained, and Bud voted that the Senate accept it.

The committee meeting broke up. Senators Klein and Stilson went out to gather up opposition Senators. They lobbied far into the night.

The three spider ships waited in the late evening darkness. Only a few spectators loitered. The television cameras were quiet. Army sentries patroled the area to keep the starmen inside and the curious out. Norma's heels clicked sharply on the runway as she approached. At the ropes she stopped and showed the guard the entry permit her brother had obtained for her.

She moved in the indicated direction. A moment before, the night had been warm. Now an uncomfortably chill breeze whispered around her as she moved into the starship's shadow. The thought of the distance it had come, the countless millions of miles of space its hull had shed, was enough to dwarf her into less than insignificance. She wanted to run back to the guard, and to the protection of the familiar.

The ladder was down, and when she reached it, the door above opened and a starman looked out.

The starman went away. In a moment, he was back with one of the three who could speak English.

"I have an authorization from our government. I'd like to talk to Herb. You tell him I'm from Senator Council. It's about the report."

"Just a moment." He disappeared inside. Norma teetered nervously back and forth. Wonderingly she put out her hand to touch the hard, icy metal of the ladder.

She began to climb toward the opening. Looking behind her, she saw Washington, real and solid and reassuring.

In the first room off the main corridor, Herb stopped. Several starmen hovered nearby to listen.

The Oligarch, towering imperiously on the fringe of the group, said, "Why don't you interview her in my office, Herb?"

In contrast to the Spartan plainness of the rest of the ship, the Oligarch's office was richly furnished. Its private corridor led past the messhall and opened upon the main corridor that led forward to the second level: it was strategically located; from its doorway, one could interdict entrance and escape.

It was the first time Herb had been in the room. Automatically his eyes searched the walls.

"Senator Council asked me to talk to you," Norma said. "He wants you to understand about the report. You've heard? It's going to the full Senate tomorrow. We'd like you to...."

"Norma." His emotions were tangled beyond solution. He wanted to say, 'I'll stay behind when the others leave, will that make everything all right, you won't blame me, you won't blame me for it if I stay behind, will you?' His mind hurt with the confusion.

"We thought, if you'd go away, if the people thought we'd actually lost you...."

"It's not for me to make any kind of decision. I'll have to ask. Would that be all right, sir?"

Norma blinked. She did not understand to whom the question was addressed. Her eyes followed his to the wall, a concealed microphone? She felt a little prickle of fear.

"Bud wanted to, to see Herb tonight...." Norma felt resentment against this man in the doorway. "I was told to bring Herb."

"I was told to bring Herb," Norma said stubbornly. Bud had not specified, but she told herself that she would not yield to a stranger. She did not consider Herb a stranger. "Isn't it all right to take him?"

His voice was not reassuring. "Thank you." She modified her tone. Some of the iciness went out of it. "I'll leave now. Bud will send two C.I.D. men over for you."

Sitting at his desk in his Georgetown apartment, Bud looked through a stack of letters.

Norma, waiting, tried to become interested in a Saturday Evening Post story and failed. She put the magazine aside.

"Ah, hello," he said with a genial smile. "If you gentlemen will wait downstairs, I'll call you when they are ready to leave." The C.I.D. men withdrew. "Hello, young fellow. Herb, I believe? And?"

"George," the Senator said, pumping the Oligarch's hand and drawing him across the threshold. "I like your people's way of using first names. Very democratic. Just call me Bud."

Bud, solemn faced, mixed the drinks, talking over his shoulder. "I hope you haven't taken our Committee report as a rejection of your generous offer.... You understand? I want to explain my position—what we, you and I, can do.... There we are." He turned from his labors and handed the drinks around.

"Now," he said. Ambition was a sickness in him. This is the boy I've got to sell , he thought. That's all I've got to do: sell him. Once he's sold, the rest will follow. Ambition was like a hunger, and success hung in the air like smoke. "We can have a nice, private talk. I'm sure you'll appreciate my rather delicate position."

"Now here's the way I feel about it. I'm on your team. We're both on the same team. I want to help you all I can, and I know you'll want to help me."

"I was thinking: if you would leave. Not tell anybody. Leave tonight. I don't mean for good, but make it look that way. You see?"

"Yes, exactly. Your leaving might be just what the people need to wake them up and get them on our team. I don't need to tell you that the Senate is likely to reject your offer. I mean, right now. The way things stand now. My first mail is coming in. It's predominantly unfavorable. But some telegrams I've gotten, I think the people are coming around. But they're still not around yet. We need a couple of weeks. My idea is, I'd like to be the one that—more or less—handles it."

"You have put your finger on it, George. If there's just one Earthman you can trust and work through, who knows the ropes...."

"And when you come back, you make it plain that it was Bud Council who brought you back—it was Bud Council who really convinced you to return."

Jubilation rang in Bud's ears. This was it. The talk of working out a deal was an assurance of victory. President Bud—no, perhaps it would be better, more dignified, to be President Phil . He would write it out and see which looked best: President Philip Council or President Bud Council.... History lay heavily upon his thoughts.... For the first time he actually felt at home with a starman.

Bud found himself looking deep into George's eyes. Instinctively he knew that George knew him better than he knew himself, and that George had carefully studied him according to no one could tell what alien science.

"Well," George said, rising and going to Bud and dropping a hand across his shoulder, "just to be sure that you really are on our team, perhaps you could give us a little token of loyalty."

Bud grew cold in anticipation. But the crowds cheering and the banners waving.... No! Not now, they couldn't snatch it away now! What was it George wanted? Money? A signed agreement? Patronage? "Why, yes, naturally."

George's hand tightened in friendly reassurance. He knew that he had found his man. "Your brother's head. I believe his name is Frank. His head. We'll expect you to have it for us when we return in two weeks. Two weeks from tomorrow."

The starmen had vanished into the night that is deepest just before dawn, when the sky is black and most mysterious. They had ordered the guards away, their lifts had whirled, they rose, and far above the Earth there were ruby tongues of jets and the volcanic roar of power.

... In his ship, Herb could not sleep. He kept reviewing the time he had spent alone with Norma. It was difficult to remember clearly. What few things he could remember would, he was afraid, be lost forever in the jungle of confusion that was his mind unless he went over them again and again and planted them firmly and deeply into his being.

What an alien and lovely name, Norma. Something about her was so quiet and reassuring. He wanted to bury his head against her breasts and whisper, "I wish I could save your planet, but I can't." He had wanted to confess to her, but he could not. If she had discovered.... But now, in the darkness, on the narrow cot, he thought about her and buried his head against her soft breasts, and he smelled the cool darkness of the perfume, and he spoke to her and told her the truth, and she understood his hurt and knew the necessity and forgave him....

The trouble began one week after the take off. The Oligarch read well the signals of its arrival, but he did nothing. A scene would be bad for the crew's morale. He thought it would be a tonic to his own. It would prove the validity of his conclusion: that the indoctrinated starman called Leslie would crack up on the seventh day.

It happened, as he imagined it would, shortly after Leslie had filled out his dream form.

Without warning Leslie kicked over his chair. His face twisted. His hands whitened at the knuckles. There was an insane expression in his eyes. He looked slowly around the table.

With his first movement there came silence; it was instantaneous; it was as though the clock had stopped in a parlor of corpses. No one moved.

Leslie began to break things with mounting fury. He shattered his plate by slamming it savagely to the table. He threw his cup against the far wall.

The Oligarch felt his detachment shatter. Hurriedly he left his table and went to Leslie and killed him.

Breathing with difficulty, he arose and addressed the crew. "This is what happens to a man who lies on his dream form." They rustled uneasily. "Go back to your meal."

One by one they resumed eating. Slowly conversation grew and expanded from whispers to abnormal loudness and then back to whispers again. The ubiquitous microphones peered up eagerly from the tables, and the hungry record tapes consumed the sounds.

The food lodged in Herb's throat. There seemed no moisture anywhere in his body. He fought down an irrational impulse to get to his own feet and scream forever.

Once again at his private table, the Oligarch was amazed to find that the complete justification of his own logic left him feeling empty and unsatisfied and disappointed. The matter was behind him. In the future could he expect equal success? Insatiable doubt grew.

He stood up. The compulsion to wash his hands was irresistible. He left the mess hall hurriedly.

As he watched the cool cleanness of the water flow over his hands, he felt at peace.

He was a god, playing with men, knowing them as they would never know themselves, seeing into their inmost souls, moving them to his will.

He was tempted to greater accomplishment. Could he—could he—? Unsure of himself, he was doomed to seek endless reassurance.

Herb. Now Herb. There was a dangerous man. At least, he would become one, in another three days. It would be like playing with fire to play with Herb. It would be exciting, too.

Herb would soon begin to doubt. William was already doubting. He should have done something about them both before now. About Leslie before now....

His mouth was dry. Excitement swelled and made his breath catch. His throat ached.

The Oligarch rang the buzzer. He would leave the mike tapes and the dream forms until this afternoon.

In recent days, their common knowledge had drawn them together; before, they had scarcely spoken. Whenever they talked now, they used English, partly as a recognition of their kindred uniqueness, partly as a futile subconscious attempt to outwit the spy tapes.

"You wouldn't think a place like that could exist, a silly place like that, where a man can actually say whatever silly idea pops into his mind."

"Yes," William said. "They should be destroyed—even if it wasn't necessary, they should be destroyed."

Herb was silent for a moment. The microphones listened. Then: "Imagine how awful it would be to live down there, with no one to do your thinking for you."

"The natural leaders aren't even recognized. You can't tell an Oligarch from a Subject."

"I'd never like to live in a place like that," Herb said. I dreamed of it , he wanted to say, and I dreamed that Brionimar had been changed into Earth, and there was no Oligarchy, and a man was free. "It's like a nightmare," he said.

William wanted to say: If only we could take that dream back with us, if only our people could see.

"Not much ... I don't see what he was trying to get at." William stood up. He looked at the microphone. He felt courage grow in him. "I've been ... thinking ...."

After the fourth daily meal, William came once more. He took Herb's arm and gestured with his head that Herb should follow. Herb arose; his heart stood wildly beating in the cage of his chest; his blood ran with conspiracy and excitement.

They walked down the corridor until they were in a section free of microphones. It was, although they did not know it, intentionally unwired. It provided the crew a harmless escape valve for their emotions. It was not (as any Oligarch could have told you) necessary to watch a Subject all the time. Most of the spy tapes, as a matter of fact, were never even inspected.

William was sweating. Herb could not account for the intensity of emotional strain he seemed to be under. Herb imagined they would talk briefly—and plan vaguely—about ways to carry some of the idea and the feel of freedom back to Brionimar. They would bear a message of hope, they would tell that Earth had not been destroyed in vain, that a civilization could function in freedom without chaos. And perhaps, someday, not in their time, but someday....

"It's not perfect," Herb said. "We dream of perfection, do you understand, but even Earth is not perfect. I think we ought to remember that. I can feel it, I can tell it. I.... We want to take that back with us, too."

William was scarcely listening. His muscles were tense and crawling with danger. He had to speak, to confide, to know that he was not alone. To have Herb help him. Herb, too, must know.

The Universe wheeled. Herb could not believe what he had heard. A Destructionist!

" He dropped some hints, he didn't mean to, but he did," William said. "I finally realized. You must have known longer than I have. It's all a lie. He as good as told me so."

William, oblivious to everything but his own words, said, "We've got to stop and plan carefully. I will kill him myself, and then you get to the control room.... We'll have to hold the crew off. They might not believe us. Not at first. That will be the big trouble...."

Herb continued to back away. All the training of a lifetime surged into his mind. There is scarcely a way to express the detestation a starman, properly conditioned, felt toward a Destructionist. His reason was destroyed. He wanted to leap at William and tear at his face with his naked hands.

He turned and ran. The Oligarch! I've got to warn him! Breath sobbed in his throat.

William watched the fleeing figure. He reached out a hand to stay him. He could not believe his own miscalculation. He stood, limp and defeated. There was no will left in him. Bleak betrayal was a heavy winged vampire.

It was all very logical for the first time in his life. Some where in time the Oligarchy had invented the menace as a device to gain (or to retain) power. They had saturated the people with ignorance, ridiculed thought, and eliminated freedom until the menace could not be challenged. They had established a closed and consistent system that could justify anything. And now that he had gotten outside, stepped beyond it, by denying its ultimate premise, the immensity of the fraud was mind staggering. There was no combating it as long as one lived inside. There have, he thought, been other Earths. Nothing outside the system must be permitted to intrude.

Herb did not watch the kill. He went straight to his cot and lay down and waited for the news to come. He heard the rustle of voices in the corridor as the hunt was being organized.

He was still trembling with disgust: a Destructionist! The very word sent a shudder through his body. To think that William, of them all, that William, would have been one seemed impossible. Still, you could never tell. A neighbor, a friend.... You could never tell who might be.

How could they think? What sort of creatures could they be? Herb's imagination shrank from the task. It was one thing to hate the Oligarchy, but it was quite another to favor the end of the Universe.

Herb thought: Perhaps with this one action I have saved the Universe. When this becomes known on Brionimar, when it is learned how I, single handed, exposed the menace, then they will....

Never before had such a thought even fought for recognition, and now, without warning, it erupted in naked completeness. It was an electric shock.

He was sitting erect. He was clammy with icy perspiration. His whole body was suddenly silent and listening, every muscle and nerve strained in the direction of the hunt.

"I want to thank you again, Herb." He watched his words sink into naked flesh. "If you had not told me, I would never have suspected. But for you, he—he might have succeeded."

Herb refused to look into the Oligarch's face. I did right, he thought. I did what I had to do, what anyone would have done.

"I know it has been a shock," the Oligarch said. "You were very fond of William."

"I want to tell you a story," the Oligarch said. "Listen, listen carefully. It is about a man called Bud and what he did."

Herb was not listening; and then suddenly he was listening. The Oligarch told the story, and when he was done, leaned forward, waiting. It was as if Herb had just heard the most important story in the world.

"His brother's head," the Oligarch whispered, "he traded his brother's head for power...."

There was something about the idea that reached deep into the ancient folk shadows of Herb's mind and stood as a symbol. But he did not understand about symbols: only their compulsive effects. All his rage and frustration and guilt crystalized around Bud. If he could only see Bud fall and gasp and die, he would have vindicated morality and done all that he could do in the name and cause of justice.

Norma missed Herb. There was the glamor of the unknown about him and the appeal of the familiar. He was two individuals, a little boy, confused and puzzled and mute and needing her, and a man, strong and wise and belonging to a strange world she could not enter as she had entered all too easily the masculine world of Earth.

Bud beamed happily in the glare of uncounted millions of dollars of publicity. "At my invitation," he said, "the starmen have consented to return."

Frank winced to see what he thought to be a decent cause advancing the personal fortunes of a fool, a hypocrite, and a coward.

Bud—it was a little difficult to imagine (without having heard it) how he managed it—at the high point of his speech inserted a few remarks about home, mother, and the virtues of honesty and hard work. He was, he explained, a poor but honest man, holding certain principles dear to his heart. He was at a loss to account for the fact that he had been chosen to lead this great crusade for the starmen. "We can thank All Mighty God that they have consented to return. They will return. I do not believe there are enough Communists in the country today to prevent it."

Frank shuddered to think what might happen now. Suppose Bud should—God, no!—become President out of all this; suppose the people, in gratitude, or the politicians seeking a popular hero, contrived his election.

Frank felt that he might have erred in using bad means to gain good ends. For Bud, hunting subversives, socialists, liberals, and critics, could rapidly reduce the country to conformism and with native ingenuity, pervert starscience into a political weapon.

The first radio message, on Earth frequency, to the President requested that Bud be given the job of handling all negotiations. If, it said, Senator Council finds it in his heart to accept the responsibility.

The morning of the day the starmen returned, Norma came into Bud's office. She was practically bursting with excitement. Thoughts of what their knowledge would contribute to Earth, the marvelous advances in medicine, in physics, in art that hovered just within reach....

On her way through the secretary's office, she passed a slight, nattily dressed man wearing a hat.

For a puzzled second she furrowed her brow. Then memory came. He had been investigated by the Senate Crime Committee. She bit her lip in exasperation. Why would Bud be willing to see someone like that?

He got up with quick awkwardness. His face was bloodless. "Ohhhhhh," he sighed. "I didn't expect—Hello, Sis."

"It's, it's, it's, he, he...." Bud indicated the box on his desk. "From an old friend."

Norma sat down. The box rested on the desk between them. Warily Bud sank into his chair. She saw his face framed above the box, almost as if the head were hanging suspended and bodiless, and she felt an unaccountable tremor of superstitious fear.

"You poor dear," she said. "You've been worrying so much about the starmen.... You're losing weight. Have Frank give you a checkup, Bud; you ought to take things easier."

"... I will. I've been intending to.... I'll have him look me over. Where is he; do you know where he is?"

He stood up. He was calmer now. He rested one hand on the box. "Yes, I wouldn't worry. He'll show up. I am tired, terribly tired. You saw the Secret Service men out there? They're out to kill me, Norma! Senator Stilson is hiring them! "

"I tell you, they are. If the Secret Service weren't out there to protect me, I'd be dead right now. But God has given me a job to do. I can't let them kill me until I have done His will."

"Bud, you're just overworked. Nobody's trying to do a thing like that. Frank says it's just publicity, and I thought...."

"Ahhhhh," Bud said darkly. "Would the President have assigned me a body guard if it weren't true? Would he? There are extremists in this country—Communists and Socialists—who stop at nothing to prevent the starmen from coming back. Even Frank...."

"You can never tell! But I'll tell you this. I pray every night, Sis. I get down on my knees, and I pray that God will let me live long enough." Bud's mind suddenly flashed back to his childhood, and he remembered praying that God would let him assassinate Stalin. God needed only to arm him and transport him to the Kremlin. He could have done the rest. He shook his head darkly again. "You don't understand the dangers." He felt courageous. It took guts to face the Communist menace.

She wanted to run. She clenched her fists. This is Bud, your brother, she thought. He's just upset. "I just wanted to see you for a moment," she said. "It wasn't about anything important."

"Don't worry about Frank!" Bud said sharply. "He's all right. Nothing's happened to him."

Bud began to cry, and looking at the box, he whispered, "It's all your fault. You made me do it. You did, you made me !"

Herb knew, even before the spider ships touched ground, that he was going to murder Bud.

The ships were motionless. Slowly suspense mounted. At last one ship opened its port. The landing ladder spun away.

Down came the Oligarch, alone, dressed simply in a solid color double breasted suit. A businessman's suit. There was something reassuring and normal about him. There was initial silence, and then the cheer rose and thundered.

He went directly to the platform. President Wilkerson advanced to meet him. Their hands joined, and a pleasantry passed unheard beneath the cheering. The Oligarch surveyed the welcoming party of Congressmen, foreign diplomats, and government officials. He saw Bud. He crossed to him.

They exchanged a few whispered words. Lip readers might have caught the question and the assent. Then, smiling, they turned to the public. Nodding, waving, Bud (visibly upset about something) tried to give the impression of recognizing each face individually. The Oligarch bowed his head modestly.

Herb watched from the port of the spider ship. He clenched his fists angrily. If only he had a weapon of some sort.

Then, as the Oligarch moved toward the speaker's platform, Herb dropped swiftly down the ladder. His feet touched the ground.

The Oligarch watched from the corner of his eye. Herb moved toward the crowd. The crowd leaned forward to catch the Oligarch's every word.

And he was cleansed. He was free of all responsibility: it was now between Herb and Bud. If Herb succeeded....

"Thank you for your reception. I stand today before...." His voice translated into a billion volts, blanketed the world with supersonic vibrations made audible by millions of loudspeakers.

He needed pay no attention to his speech. His mind was floating free, and his body was light and youthful. There were only a few more things to be done, and then his role would be finished.

Herb was free of the worst of the crowd. He resisted an impulse to run. He, too, was wearing a businessman's suit. It was the same one he had worn for the hearings. In it, he was indistinguishable from an Earthman. He pulled his hat lower over his face and pushed his way outward. Faces turned, eyes alerted with curiosity, shoulders shrugged, faces turned away. Herb did not know that Norma had seen him and was now trying to fight her way free of humanity to follow him.

The Oligarch continued his speech. His grim and gloomy reflections vanished. He peered out at the Earth faces with genuine benevolence. It's not in my hands any longer , he wanted to tell them. One of your Senators will make the ultimate decision, unless one of my starmen kills him first.

And then inwardly he chuckled. Or perhaps, he could have said, my starman will experience some incident, perhaps even a trivial one, that will awaken him to the fact that the universe is not in danger. In which event, he will not be able to convince you of the danger to Earth. For in due time, I will announce his escape as a dangerous lunatic.

Herb's feet moved rhythmically against the sidewalk. For one moment, there was a sense of freedom and impending loss. No more dream forms, his feet seemed to echo.

And coloring it, the perception of the world around him, the bright air, the hot sun, the colors and the gentle wind. Perhaps the colors were most startling, for on Brionimar there was universal drabness that approached decay. The Oligarchy struck out at all frivolity, sensing danger to itself in all sensuous pleasure.

And then the beauty, the sheer, heart-stopping beauty of freedom and color burst on him; his conditioning collapsed. Earth knowledge surged across his memories.

It must not die, he thought, forgetting hatred in beauty. It must not, because there is so much that is good, that is noble, that is sad and mighty....

He relaxed. Warmth grew within him. "Hello." Until now, it had not occurred to him that he might have been followed.

A radio was blaring somewhere, and as he looked at her, both of them half laughing, they both heard the announcement that would be headlined shortly in the papers, as:

Herb hunched his shoulders as if to ward off a suspected blow. Norma's eyes mirrored fright and uncertainty, and she moved half a step from him.

From the expression on his face, she knew that she had nothing to fear. She felt ashamed of herself.

They stood just inside the door. Norma turned and walked decisively to the divan. She sat down. "I think you'd better explain."

Norma knew he was not insane; there was something here that she did not understand, but it was not insanity. Her emotions went out to him. She saw the present situation only in personal terms, their own relationship. She saw no wider implications. Intuition, she would have called it. Decisively, she phoned for the bellboy and when he came, gave him a check for the management to cash.

"I can't. I can't. I wish I could. Please, if you'll—" he hesitated, and then, with sickness and loathing, said, "trust me...."

Perhaps it was the desire to shock her, to destroy her faith in him, perhaps and more probably, it was the need to confess (and hope for absolution) that he said: "I want to buy a gun."

Herb, still standing, tried to memorize her face. He was acutely aware of his isolation. He wanted to go to her side, to talk rapidly, to reveal the cruel and horrible compulsion that was driving him—and most of all, to enlist her aid and her understanding. He needed to know that one single individual in the whole Universe could appreciate his attempt to meet his own standard of truth and morality.

"Tell me. Maybe Bud will be able to help you out of your trouble.... He's my brother...."

The complexity of emotions that burst upon him was almost impossible to understand. He had thought of her—if he had actually thought of the connection at all—as an employee of Bud's, perhaps, but no more than that. He asked incredulously: "Frank was your brother?"

"What did you mean: was my brother?" Uneasiness settled deep inside her. "Has something happened to him?"

"No. No. It was a grammatical error." Herb thought the sentence too stiff for credence. But she seemed reassured.

"I'll get Bud to help you. And Frank, too. Perhaps the three of us can get you out of any trouble you're in. I'm sure the starmen will be fair. If it's something you've done...."

"Herb, you're being silly." She stood up. "You make it sound like I've got something to be afraid of from my own brother."

The empty room became a thing of terror. She was entangled in something beyond her understanding, and the world seemed less secure than at any time since her parents had died. Should she go after Herb, or...?

"Get me Senator Council's office.... Hello, oh, hello, John. Norma. Is Bud in yet? Oh, still. Have him call me as soon as he—oh. All right. I'll be over in an hour then. And John: have you heard anything from Frank? I'm beginning to get worried about him. He isn't in yet...."

She was early for the appointment with Bud, and she was waiting in the outer office when he came in. His two guards nodded recognition and Bud said, "What is it, Norma?" His tone was irritable, and she wanted to cry.

"Come on. I haven't got all day." Letting her enter the main office before him, he said. "What's it about this time?"

He drew the door to his private office closed after them, and went to his desk where he picked up a letter and pretended to read it. "Well? Well?"

Bud's face sagged. The letter began to tremble ever so slightly. Norma did not notice. He did not look up. How much did Herb know? About Frank? Did he know? "Yes?"

He felt weakness dissolve his arm muscles and dissolve the muscles of his thighs and calves. He was afraid that he was about to suffer a heart attack. He had difficulty breathing. "What—what did he have to say?"

Norma twisted her hands nervously. "I don't know. He wouldn't say. He's in trouble. I thought maybe we could help him."

"He didn't say anything else?" Bud demanded sharply, feeling the fear fade. "He didn't tell you, he didn't say anything else?"

"You don't know? You don't know? He's trying to get a gun, and you don't know where he is?"

"No telling what kind of a crazy fool idea he's got. No telling what kind of lies he'd tell about me!"

"You listen to me! You do what I say! Don't pay any attention to anything he says. If you see him again, you call me!"

Bud was on his feet and around the desk. He grabbed her shoulders and began to shake her. Her face drained of color. His nostrils flared white.

"Frank's all right!" Bud cried. "Now, get out, get out, GET OUT!" He shoved her away from him. "Get out," he sobbed.

Trembling, Bud sank into his chair. It was a long time before his breathing returned to normal. He counted his pulse with intense concentration, feeling it flutter like a wounded bird beneath his finger tips.

Herb had no real hope of eluding capture. After he fled from Norma, he pulled his hat low over his face and hurried down the street. At the first hotel, he entered and registered and was shown his room.

He fell on the bed; the room was fuzzy and dull. He wanted nothing more than to sleep. His mind was such a searing agony of doubt that he had to escape from it. He curled up warmly and nestled against the softness of the mattress and closed his eyes, trying to drive all thought from him, and he slept....

When he awoke, the room was heavy with darkness and silence, and he lay still, trying to feel the vibration of the ship's motors. The memory of a formless dream clung to his mind, and he tried to clarify it for the dream form.

Awareness of his location came. He relaxed, wanted to sleep again, thought: no more dream forms, no more.... Other memories stirred and returned, and he was uneasily awake. He opened his eyes, growing tense.

He held his breath. The dark around him concealed unknown dangers. He was still fully clothed, and he stood up. He found the light switch.

With the bright flame of electricity he became aware of how heavy his head was; how incoherent his thoughts were; and there was a sour taste in his mouth. He blinked his eyes. The room was reassuringly normal.

He went back to bed and lay down. His thoughts whirled. Beyond thought there was a great, tugging emptiness in his stomach, a sense of despair that seemed to dwell in every tiny muscle and radiate outward from every tiny blood vessel. The light made him naked, and he could not face his own nakedness.

He turned out the light and returned to the bed. The dark was protective and reassuring now, and he closed his eyes.

The TV set sat squatly on the table across the room. Morning sunshine fell brightly through the Venetian blinds. Herb turned on the set to discover the latest news of his pursuit.

The screen lighted and on its surface formed the deadly trinity of the starships. It was a long shot from a sound truck, and the camera panned an expanse of desert beyond to focus briefly on the Arizona sunrise.

An announcer was commenting on the riot of color that was quite obvious to the viewer: the flame of dawn in the sky and the blood red of the prairie flowers that covered the desert.

The starships were in place. Their cutting beams lanced out, there were puffs of destruction, and the tubings struck into the ground.

The camera near one of the ships observed the operation intently. A scientist was commenting on the technology of the starmen. "The information inherent in one of these ships alone," he said (characteristically underestimating the pace of advancement), "would be enough to thrust Earth a hundred years—in terms of scientific knowledge—into the future."

A shudder spun through Herb's body. He paced the room restlessly. Somewhere at a distance a clock struck the hour. Outside the open window, English sparrows chattered shrill, imperative commands.

Herb was hungry. He phoned the desk and ordered breakfast. He was in the bath room when the bellboy arrived; he called, "The money's on the dresser." For fear of being recognized, he remained hidden until the bellboy left.

He came out. The tray was on the night table. Eating, he continued to watch the progress of the starships.

The voice of the Oligarch now came from the TV. He fabricated plausible details about what they were discovering of Earth's early physical history.

Sweaty faces advanced and receded from the cameras. The three tubes continued into the Earth, going deeper by the minute.

A sense of urgency and desperation filled Herb. He must hurry to kill Bud. By noon the desert operation would be completed. Earth would be a mined planet. Destruction could then be accomplished by the flick of a switch.

He looked at his face in the mirror. Black stubble pricked his skin in a thousand places, and he ran his hand across his cheek. He shrugged and found his hat.

Until sunset, he told himself, he would have until sunset to accomplish his self-imposed assignment.

Bud, he thought (and revulsion mounted in him), is her brother, and she, his sister; and Frank, Frank is dead and forgotten and hidden somewhere, as soon will be now the Earth and all its beauty.

A gun, he thought, for a hand that is hungry for—and he thought: To cup the hand behind Norma's head, and stroke her hair, and look deeply into her eyes. He looked at his hands; strange, hungry hands, he thought. He felt them tighten against the metallic iciness of a gun....

"You can't," the man behind the counter said, "buy a pistol without a permit. You'll have to get a police permit before I can sell you a gun." His eyes shifted uneasily from Herb's face, and Herb thanked the man and started back toward the sunshine.

The harsh command froze Herb. He turned. He found himself looking into reward-hungry eyes. The hand below them held an automatic. The hand was trembling with greed.

The harsh roar of the automatic burst behind him. The proprietor had taken flight for an admission of identity; but perhaps latent uncertainty had carried the bullet high. It smashed into the window pane above Herb's head, and glass fragments erupted upon the pavement.

The sunlight was bright. Herb bolted across an intersection, narrowly missed being run down by a car, dodged around a heavy truck and ran to the left.

There was no more shooting. There was a hub-hub behind him. A policeman's whistle sounded.

He ran a block, doubled back, entered a department store, lost himself in the crowd, took the elevator up to the third floor.

He tried to look interested in the merchandise. Each second cost him an extra heart beat. He left a counter and went to the stairs. He became inconspicuously preoccupied with distant thoughts. He was once more on the ground floor. He left the building by the opposite entrance.

Once settled in the rear seat, he felt almost secure. The worst was over. He told the driver, "Down town."

After a dozen blocks, he got out. When the cab was gone, he walked back the way he had come. He found a hotel, registered, and was shown his room.

He stood at the window. A police car cruised by. For a moment, he was afraid it would stop.

I must get a gun , he thought. Time seemed to be falling swiftly in the bright air.

The starships were still occupying the screen. The sun was slanting its rays across the desert.

Herb sat down, and when at length one starship lumbered into the center of the triangle and its beam struck out, weariness and futility possessed him. They were planting the atomic seed. Within an hour there would be no hope of reprieve. There was none now; and yet it seemed, doom was not irreversible until this last act was accomplished and the seed in place.

When Norma arrived in answer to the call, she found an unshaven Herb nervously pacing the floor.

He seated himself on the bed and wrinkled the coverlet in his hands, working with it furiously.

"I helped them. It's my fault. I was a fool. I couldn't know, you see that? I couldn't know ...."

Herb stood up and crossed to her side and looked down at her. "Out in the desert, they have just finished planting the charge. That's what they came here for. They're going to blow up the world."

Norma was on her feet. She was too terrified to ask why. She did not question.... It was true!

He loomed wild-eyed above her. She didn't understand what he intended to do: only that some impossible fury was driving him. "You've got to help me stop them. There must be some way."

"Get me a gun! Get me a gun!" Every atom of his being cried out to her: he had to have the gun. His thoughts were warped and twisted. With the gun everything would be clear in his mind. Everything would follow step by step. The gun could spout a great, purifying flame.

He was alone in the room. He looked down. She had dropped her purse, and it had spilled open. He walked to the gun that had fallen from it.

There was no one else. Bud. Her breath was fire. He would have to do something. Bud.

"Bud!" she called as she opened the car door. "The Senate Office Building! Hurry!" Bud, she sobbed under her breath. He can do something to stop it.

Herb examined the gun carefully. He weighed it in his hand. It would do nicely. He pocketed it.

He would need only an instant. A taxi from here to the Senator's office. A trip in the elevator. Perhaps a slight wait: and then Senator Council framed in the doorway. He had—how long? Several hours, he told himself.

Norma was hysterical when she burst into Bud's office. One of Bud's hands darted for the drawer where he had taken to keeping an automatic. The hand stopped.

Norma's lips were trembling uncontrollably. "Bud!" she gasped. " Bud, they're planning to blow up the world! "

"The starmen! I saw Herb. He told me. I had to come to you, Bud. You've got to make them stop it!"

"Nonsense," Bud said. "You're out of your mind. You're crazy." He surged to his feet. "Where is Herb? I told you to come see me if you found him. Where is he?"

"It's true!" Norma cried. "I know it's true! They've been lying to us. They spy on each other. They have hidden microphones everywhere. They want to destroy the world, Bud! Oh, please, please, please, you've got to believe me...."

Bud came toward her. She was insane, of course. It was astonishing how many people were insane. Sometimes Bud thought he was the only sane person left. "Now, now, you just tell me where Herb is, and I'll go have a nice long talk with him." He pocketed the automatic.

"Oh, I do. Dear, I do, of course, I do. They're going to blow up the world.... I'd like to see Herb and talk it over with him." He made soothing motions with his hands.

Bud's face, round and smiling and vacant, peered down. She wanted to throw something at it. She wanted to launch herself upon him and shake him and make him listen to her. He was a monolithic caricature of stupidity. She had to force herself into his mind and make him see .

Bud came no closer to her. "Now, now, everything's going to be all right," he said. "Now, now, brother's little sister is...." He took a half step backward.

She was able to see him for the first time as Frank saw him. A little sense of horror was born and began to grow. She stared at him with slowly vanishing disbelief. How could someone like this be her brother? He was some cold, unfeeling, insensitive thing, wrapped up in a world that embraced no one but himself.

"What have you done to Frank?" she demanded. "Bud, what have you done to my brother ?"

And the Oligarch stepped out of the little room to the left. "I think it's about time I take over."

Norma wanted to scream. She only half opened her mouth when the Oligarch's hand slapped sharply against her neck. Her knees buckled and she dropped unconscious to the heavy carpet.

"She knows where Herb is," Bud said again. "We've got to find him before he tells someone—tells someone else about Frank."

"She was telling the truth," the Oligarch said. "We are going to blow up the world. That's what I came back to Washington to tell you."

Herb arrived at the new Senate Office Building. He paid his fare and dismissed the cab. No one noticed him as he entered the lobby. He took the elevator to Senator Council's office. He was taking his time; he had several hours.

The secretary, John, was behind his desk. The reception room was empty. Herb felt his stomach muscles tighten, and his hands clenched the pocketed gun tightly and grew damp.

"I want to talk about, about some private matters. I can wait until he can see me." Herb felt the gun, heavy and reassuring.

"No," Herb said sharply. "My business is with him. It's just between the two of us."

Herb bent forward intently. Time telescoped. An hour was no longer a practical infinity. "Where did they go?"

To the spider ship, Herb thought. They came back to Washington. They came back—to give Bud his reward for betrayal....

John picked up his telephone and placed a call to the C.I.D. "The starman, Herb," he said, "has just left Senator Council's office. You can pick him up outside. If you hurry."

Bud dismissed his bodyguard, and he and George supported Norma between them as they left the building by private elevator and subway to the garage. Bud's face was grey, his lips bloodless.

The Oligarch had presented him with a choice. Tomorrow morning, some high government official would receive in the mail Frank's head, along with Bud's signed confession. If Bud did not, before then, speak the key words that would blow up the planet. Bud, in the first stunned instant, cried: "Take me with you!" But even as he spoke, he knew that he was doomed. Knowledge did not prevent appeal, but it helped develop resignation. Bud thrust out with entreaties and debased himself with cowardly promises, and seeing them fail, tried threats which failed equally. His mind splintered into a thousand shards and reality became abstracted fragments of himself: the world ceased then to exist for him, and he lived in a phantom land, and his ego seized upon icebergs that drifted across the chill sea of thought.

Norma came to consciousness as the car, driven inexpertly by the Senator, rolled toward the airport. Early afternoon sunlight slanted down across the Capitol.

She lay very quiet in the back seat, listening to the hiss of the tires. Her neck was swollen and throbbing. Don't kill her yet , her own brother had said, and then, out of the silence of the car, came his own voice again, contradicting what had gone before.

"You can't know what she means to me," Bud said. "You must tell her that. You must promise to tell her."

"Nothing will happen to her? She's all I have left. All. Child of my beloved mother."

Tension accumulated between Bud and the starman. Norma realized that her brother was no longer sane.

The car slowed and stopped. Still Norma did not move. She was too terrified. They came to her door and opened it.

George pulled her roughly from the seat. She moaned but she did not open her eyes. His hard muscles against her were deadly and threatening, and her knees were so weak that, had she wanted to, she could not have supported herself.

She heard a starman's feet on the steel ladder that descended from the spider ship. She felt herself scooped up and dropped over his shoulder. In the background she heard her brother's voice, "Child of...." The agony of the voice was almost unendurable. "You must tell her what I did to save her."

And she was jolted harshly upon the starman's shoulder as he swung her up the ladder.

George's feet clanged behind her on the steel, and she heard the sharp, laboring hiss of the breath of the man carrying her.

They were at the port. They entered, and the starman dropped her roughly to the floor, and George clanged the door.

"You attended to the other ships?" George asked in the alien tongue of Brionimar.

"Good. I will remember this. You have done a good day's work. You follow instructions well. I won't forget."

George's feet went forward. It was over, he was done. The issue lay between Bud and himself and between Bud and Herb, an exciting and dangerous situation that held, in its solution, the Oligarch's (and the Oligarchy's) fate: the fate of two worlds. The stakes were high. The Oligarch, thinking how free he was of the final responsibility, went first to wash the Earth germs from his contaminated hands.

Norma had not understood the conversation that muttered above her. But her terror was replaced by a sense of desperation. She moaned and opened her eyes.

The starman, looking down at her with a cold, impersonal gaze, grunted something unintelligible.

Norma struggled to her feet. He made no move to prevent or assist her. She steadied herself against the wall. Near her hand, in a clip holder, was a short, steel fire extinguishing rod. When the starman drew back his hand to hit her, she cringed away. Instinctively she found the rod and jerked it loose. Before she was aware of the action with her conscious mind, the starman sank to the floor, and the bar clattered from her nerveless fingers.

Heart racing, she turned for the door. A moment later, she was outside, clambering down the ladder.

There were no taxis in sight. A jeep, driven by a uniformed messenger, drew to the curb. Herb, holding his breath, crossed to it. The driver cut the motor and got out. When he disappeared in the building across the street, Herb slipped behind the wheel. He was a technician. He began to experiment. Recently acquired knowledge came to his aid.

After what seemed a timeless heat and an endless exposure, he had the motor running.

The C.I.D. man, who had come over on the subway from the House, stepped out into the sunshine. He surveyed the street with a practiced eye.

Herb spun the jeep away from the curb and sent it careening erratically toward the airport. The C.I.D. man (fairly confident of his identification of Herb) fired twice. Herb heard one of the bullets make an explosive pop as it passed near his ear. He hunched over the wheel and gunned the motor.

Norma stumbled from the ladder and started to run. The spider ships loomed menacingly behind her. An army guard started forward to question her, and a jeep leaped suddenly into sight from around the corner of the Administration Building. A heart beat later the jeep skewed around beside her, and Herb, his face twisted with hate and fury cried, "Where's Bud?"

One of the spider ships behind them became airborne; and then a second leaped away.

George was at the controls of the ship. As his hand hovered at the firing stud, he heard someone enter behind him. He turned.

It was the starman. His hair was matted with blood. There was a wild, rebellious glint in his eyes. He snarled like an animal.

"She hit me!" he cried. And then he smashed a fist into George's face. George went down and the starman stepped across him to the control panel. His resentment had been accumulating for a life time. He had just sabotaged two ships and sent his fellow starmen to death at the orders of the Oligarch; and he must have known (even if he told himself otherwise) that he, too, would not return to Brionimar: that alone of all who had been on the surface of Earth, the Oligarch would survive. But even in this knowledge, he had still remained loyal, caught like Herb, like his whole civilization, by the specter of chaos and held helpless. But now, thinking the destruction of Earth a certainty, his resentment rechanneled, he was able to strike—even kill, if necessary—the Oligarch in order to revenge himself upon the Earth girl who had struck him.

He snapped on the scanner and searched the airport. He saw Norma climb into the jeep. He sent the spider ship lumbering toward her. The jeep began to run.

The spider legs moved faster, and the ship, like a drunk, lurched awkwardly across the runway in pursuit. He was no pilot, but his hands jerked levers and twisted wheels and the ship moved. He sighted the underbelly heat ray.

Just as he depressed the firing lever, the ship stumbled across a transport plane that lay passively interdicting its path. The ship veered sharply to the left, throwing the sighting off target and causing the ray to turn the ground molten short of the speeding car.

George found his weapon. He was numb and horrified. If Norma were actually killed ... if Bud found out...!

George moved his weapon slowly so as not to attract the starman's attention. He was terribly, desperately frightened and unsure of himself.

The starman reached again for the firing lever. George shot twice. The starman's hand fluttered as if in indecision, and George shot again. The starman fell backwards, and the ship shuddered to a stop.

George rolled to his feet. If Norma were not already dead, he must recapture her.

The C.I.D. man arrived in time to see the fantastic sight of a red and silver, tri-legged Leviathan from space stumbling after a surplus jeep. He slammed his car to a halt before the army guard station and cried, "Shoot him! Shoot him!" Demonstrating, he fired wildly in the direction of the jeep. "C.I.D.!" he cried. "Shoot, damn it!"

Herb heard the sinister pop of the hand gun and, glancing out of the corner of his eye, saw the rifles aligning themselves in his direction. He huddled lower over the wheel and screamed to Norma, "Hold on!"

Herb was going too fast for the quick turn he attempted. The steering wheel was wrenched from his hand, and the jeep, like a tripped animal, twisted and threw itself to the ground and rolled over.

At the first bone shattering crash, Norma slammed into Herb, and his head cracked the steering wheel solidly.

Far to the west, the sky flashed dull red as the first spider ship exploded in flight. The sky flashed red again. Soldiers were running toward the wreck when the first shock wave rolled in.

In giant strides, George brought his own ship to the overturned jeep. It straddled the wreck like a defiant parent and seemed to challenge the advancing soldiers. George hurried to the port.

He slammed the door back and cried, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" The outer ladder fell away at the touch of his hand, and a second later his feet were hurrying down it.

Once on the ground, he was at the jeep in a heart beat. There was no blood, but both figures were very still. "Help me!" he cried to the arriving soldiers.

Two came forward, laid aside their guns, and together, with gentle hands, lifted Norma and then Herb free of the wreckage.

When they were stretched out on the ground, George knelt. Perspiration wetted his upper lip. He poised above Norma, seeking some sign of life, and he was aware of Herb stirring uneasily to his rear. Norma's eyelids fluttered, and a wave of relief and exultation enveloped George.

"She's all right," George said loudly. "Make sure the newspapers carry that. The girl is all right."

"She's one of ours," the Oligarch said with nice possessiveness. Bud would know better: that was all that mattered. He would know that the girl was Norma and that the girl was safe. The delicate equation of his decision was once more in balance. "Help me get them aboard the ship."

A small crowd was gathering, and an Army major pushed his way forward. The C.I.D. man, over-awed by the Oligarch's presence, and uncertain of what to do now, held back watching.

"He—" George said.... "It was sabotage. He is responsible. Terrible. Terrible. I'm stunned. We haven't any time to waste. I've got to get this girl back to our big ship out there in space for medical attention."

"We have doctors. For God's sake, man, help me get them aboard. There's no time to stand here talking. We have advanced techniques, if I can only get there in time, that may mean the difference between life and death...."

The major hesitated. "All right. You two soldiers—take the girl up the ladder."

George followed them up the ladder. He greeted the capture of Herb with bitterness. The game was over; he had been denied the excitement of it being played out. And yet there was relief: although he had once more been thrust into a role of player, it was not of his own volition. The conspiracy of events had released him from free choice. It was not his fault that it was necessary to remove Herb prematurely from the arena. He was uncomfortably aware that the major was following him.

Inside the ship, George directed the soldiers to put their burdens in the first compartment to the left. Then he turned to the major. "Your prompt action may well have saved her life." He was tense and frightened. Now that he was sure it would be reported that a girl had been returned to the ship and hurried to medical attention, it was of paramount importance to get the soldiers and the major out of the ship. If Norma were unexpectedly to recover and begin to talk, the major might prove difficult to handle.

The crush of danger hung upon him. An instant, in which he wished to surrender and confess, was transplanted by dedication to victory. The sense of mission returned.

"I don't think I should permit you to leave, sir," the major said politely. "I've thought it over."

"In view of what happened to the other two ships. How do you know this one hasn't been sabotaged, too? In your understandable anxiousness to get this girl...."

"Well, how do you know? Obviously, you knew the other two ships were all right, too; only they weren't...."

The Oligarch restrained an impulse to command. "This is too important a matter to delay with explanations."

George's hands trembled with rage and maddening anxiety. "I am going to takeoff immediately. Explanations can come later when the girl has been treated. I will hold you personally responsible for any further delay." He went toward the control room.

The Oligarch whirled to face him. "You will be responsible for her death. I am going to leave. If necessary, I will take all of you with me. You will have to use force to stop me."

The major stood with his hands clenched into fists at his sides. There was silence. The fists slowly unclenched.

"I would advise you to get off the ship at once," George said. He turned once more. This time he did not look back.

A thrill of uncertainty grew within the major. He swallowed stiffly and then snapped angrily to the waiting soldiers, "All right, get the lead out! Let's go! Let's go, let's go!" He seemed to want to push them physically toward the exit.

The Oligarch was in the control room by the time they dropped off the ladder to the ground. A flick of the switch, and the ladder retreated. The ship trembled. A savage jab, and the ship became airborne. It was too late now for them to stop him. He had made a successful escape. He was weak with reaction. A few moments more....

He could hurry. He only need save enough fuel for a tie in. He waited impatiently for altitude. Earth shrank. The features of her surface blurred. A cloud occluded her face completely. The air resistance lessened. Gravity weakened. He was able to pour the fuel into the space jets. He fired the first and second banks. Fuel gauges descended. Acceleration pressed against him like a hand. More jets. He was in a hurry. His mission was accomplished. Within two hours he would be out of the danger area of the Earth explosion. But he was not overly worried about that. He did not expect it until an hour or so after sunrise over Washington.

He locked the ship on automatic. Time enough later to finish computing the trajectory.

The sense of elation increased as he left the control room. He fingered his hand weapon and smiled to himself. Less than a minute later, he stepped into the doorway of the room containing the two people, his gun raised.

Herb shot, and flame leaped toward the Oligarch. The room roared with the explosion.

George jerked back, and in mid-motion, something caught him low in his chest, on the left side of his body and slapped him savagely off his feet.

He shook his head and got one knee under him. His left side was numb. He looked down and saw blood start to color his shirt.

He got to his feet and backed along the corridor. His knees were weak. He covered the door with a trembling hand and prayed for Herb to show himself.

He had to have a place to hide. He had to hide, and wait, and when Herb came searching for him—

"He's out there," Herb said, knowing that his words would carry over the hidden microphones. "I will manage to kill him before we reach the big ship."

Norma was breathing shallowly, not yet fully recovered from the wreck. "What about Earth?"

"If we could—if we could destroy the ... that ship ... if we could ram it: prevent it from setting off the charge...."

"It's too late," Herb said doggedly. But even with the words, he felt the first hesitant flicker of hope. If he could take over this ship, and with it assault the great ship in space, there capture the remote-control mechanism by which the charge would be detonated then perhaps Earth could really be saved. First kill the Oligarch. Then....

"You stay here," he hissed, too softly, he hoped for the microphones to pick up his voice.

"Shhhhhh," he silenced her. Bending, he whispered, "I'll find him first. You'll be all right."

He left her. At the doorway, he looked back. She seemed crumpled and lifeless and defeated.

The Oligarch was somewhere to his left. In the corridor, waiting? Herb could not know. There was only one way to find out. He stepped from the room, gun ready to fire.

The Oligarch had backed across the messhall. One hand clutched at his left side. His breathing was too loud. Herb would surely hear it.

He stood in the far doorway that opened into the short corridor leading to his office and that extended beyond his office to open into the main corridor. Herb would have to cross before its open face should he come forward. From the doorway, the Oligarch also commanded a view of the main messhall entrance, should Herb stop to inspect that room first. By ducking either in or out, he could place a protecting wall between himself and his pursuer. The Oligarch knew that Herb would come. His left side was terrifying testimony that the lifetime of conditioning had been stripped away.

It would be so easy to dart to his own office; but the unprotected space between him and it was a barrier more solid than a rock cliff. If Herb should emerge as he was making the exposed crossing, he would be a perfect target. His movements were sluggish. He had to locate Herb in order to know in which direction safety lay. But to be safe in the office, with the door barricaded....

Standing just outside, not exposing himself, he could see a clot of blood beyond the main door. Probably the Oligarch had hesitated there, undecided—or resting.

He held the gun more tightly. His heart beat rapidly, and his mouth was dry. But he was not afraid. There was an iciness far down inside of him.

He heard the stumble of the Oligarch's fleeing feet, heard the office door open and slam.

"Herb!" Norma called. "Herb! Are you all right?" She was running down the corridor toward him.

"I'm going in after him," Herb said. "I've got to. It's more than him, more than killing or getting killed. I've got to."

"Get away!" the Oligarch cried frantically. His voice was no longer vigorous, and it sounded pathetic and child-like through the door.

The Oligarch did not fire. Herb, pressed against the wall, could not see into the room.

Herb balanced on the balls of his feet. Then, taking a deep breath, he stepped into the doorway, his body framed beautifully between the two jambs. He held his gun at ready and then lowered it.

Reaction set in, and Herb's knees almost collapsed. His body was trembling and drenched with perspiration.

"Make him tell us. How we can keep them from setting off the explosion!" Norma said.

The Oligarch wanted to talk, and he made a motion—a feeble one—to silence them both. The girl's pathetic conviction that the explosion could be prevented infuriated the Oligarch. There was nothing she could do. The cleverness with which he had executed his mission defied time and eternity.

"It won't be set off in the big ship," the Oligarch said. "I had intended to leave you at the site, Herb, to trigger it personally." He spoke English and was disappointed to see that his vision began to mist. He would have liked to watch the girl's face. "But your later dream forms made me deny you martyrdom. I think I might have done it any way, if you hadn't left. You have the idealism. You were the one I had counted on. And after you, of course, there was only Bud."

Norma choked weakly and her knees half gave way. The sound was satisfying to the Oligarch.

"I told Bud the explosion was planted," the Oligarch said. "Then I ... I told him...." He coughed again. "I told him that I had mailed his brother's head along with his confession to ... to.... Then I gave him a telephone number. He phones long distance, gives the number. At the bomb site, the receiver ... lifts automatically.... He says, 'Frank Council' ... his brother's name ... the key.... The trigger falls." The Oligarch's hands scrabbled on the desk. "Don't you think he'll do it, in the knowledge of his own personal destruction?... Oh, he will, yes.... And this is the final...." Blood dribbled from the Oligarch's mouth. "I didn't mail his brother's head.... I lied to him. Don't you see what a beautiful ... what a satisfying lie that was?" He laughed, coughed again, and slumped forward. And the chase ended.

And Herb, looking at death, grabbed Norma by the arm and ran toward the control room.

... And back on Earth, Bud Council sat sick and trembling, his eyes fastened on the telephone beside him....

Herb thought first of the bomb site. The chill desert night would be fresh upon it. Overhead, the pale moon would ride toward the terrible Apocalypse of dawn—if Bud waited until then to make his phone call.

In a few hours (he thought) he could bring the spider ship down upon the desert. The long dark night beyond would give him time....

He visualized the scene as he remembered it from TV: the single sentry shack where an Army guard protected the alien handiwork.

"I'll talk to them when we land. I'll explain about Bud. They'll find him and keep him away from the telephone. They'll tell long distance operators not to place any calls until they can find him. All I need is a few hours to convince someone that Bud, that Bud...."

Norma was in his arms, shaking hysterically. "He ... he did that to Frank . Bud did that!"

"The fuel. I haven't got enough left to brake the ship, to turn it, and then land against Earth gravity."

Herb re-sorted the information available from the dials, seeking a method to defy the dictates of inertia. Once more he weighed the remaining fuel against that necessary to brake and turn the ship, and still there was none left over to counteract Earth's gravity and the long planetfall. He projected trajectories.

"Maybe I can throw the ship in a long orbit," he said. "If I can kill the speed against the atmosphere...."

Herb's hands eased fuel into the forward port jet and sparked it. "I'm tilting for the orbit."

The gauge dropped alarmingly, and as momentum changed, the center of gravity shifted. The ship nosed up and fell sideways and slipped away to the right.

"It's an ellipse," Herb said. "It's a long fall now, but I'm afraid to make it shorter." He set the controls.

"I'll have to make half a dozen bounces. The first one won't be for nearly six hours.... We won't be able to land until sunup."

When the time came, he turned to her. "I've got to hit the atmosphere now. We'll have to strap down."

Numb with tension, she sat in one of the shock-chairs and buckled herself in. Then, in his chair before the panel, Herb adjusted the buckles and waited the few remaining minutes. "This will be the worst," he said.

The ship hit the upper gases—gases, made by speed into an iron curtain; and as the air clawed at the strange shape of the ship, and as the interior cooling system whined into overdrive, he fought against wild, erratic movements, firing precious fuel to brake and stabilize.... And then they were free, and shooting away along a shortened and slower ellipse.

Finally they were well into the atmosphere, but they were very high, too high to be more than a speck, so high that the sound spread too thinly to be heard on the surface.

"I'll set down outside Washington," Herb said. "Somewhere outside, where we can get away from the ship before they get there to start asking questions."

He released his blast, and the ship turned nose up. Gravity became heavier. The ship plummeted down.

"Here's the last of the jets," Herb hissed, and he eased them in, slowing the fall, slowing it....

The Earth expanded and a fantastically fast painter seemed to be sketching in the details of the landscape.

The sun was cut off by the horizon. A few lights sparkled in slowly waking Washington.

Herb slammed on the low lift controls. The aerodynamically designed platform-like wings spun and hissed against the air. For a long moment, Herb was afraid they would not brake the fall, but the lifts caught, and the ship jerked, and Herb felt the buoyancy through the ship and through his mind and through his body.

Less than five minutes later, they were stationary. The slowing lifts purred and the landing ladder hissed down.

"About a—five hundred yards," Herb said. "Over that way: the highway. Let's go!"

They sprinted the last short distance because of growing headlights from the south. The car was coming fast, and Herb jumped into the roadway, waving his hands.

The car came on, sounding its horn hysterically. Herb waved and brakes squealed, and the car, at almost the last instant, veered away from him. The wind of its passing rustled his hair, and the horn still bleating, it slowly dwindled as the red tail lights faded into the darkness.

Early fire hung over the ocean from the as yet invisible sun. Dew lay on the plowed field behind them. The air was chill.

It seemed that the sun was symbolic fire slowly creeping and coloring the sky, slowly spreading over the world.

A long way away, the driver set his brakes, and the car coasted slowly, passed them, and finally stopped.

They ran to it. Herb jerked open the door. "You've got to take us to Washington!" Herb said.

The new buildings pressed against the new sidewalks. The streets were empty except for their car and a turret-like Mobile Sweeper whose gutter broom whispered against the curb. A light here and there in a window heralded the end of sleep. A lone car crossed at an intersection ahead, moving slowly as if fatigued by a night-long vigil.

The sun seemed reluctant to plunge the world into daylight; it balanced on the horizon in indecision. The moon was high and tiny and rode the growing blueness with a ghostlike pallor.

Herb, leaning forward tensely, thought: Suppose Bud isn't there? Suppose he's somewhere else?

The buildings anchored time to the Earth, encapsulating the past in steel and concrete. Morning shadows walked before the onrushing future.

The driver watched them run wildly, and an uneasiness settled upon him. He glanced to the east. The morning was chill. The excitement their urgency had generated had not vanished with their departure. What the devil? he thought. Whadda you suppose it's all about?

Inside, Norma said, "Third floor. He's got guards. I'll take the elevator. You take the stairs. I'll try to get the guards' attention."

Herb nodded. He bolted for the stairway. The carpet blanketed his footfalls. He heard the elevator doors click and the cage rattle upward.

His heart was loud. His feet became delicate, and he balanced on his toes, moving toward the final encounter.

Norma had the guard. There was only one. She was speaking intently. The guard faced away from Herb.

Herb was in the corridor. He moved like a sigh, and the space between him and the guard shortened.

The guard turned, and Herb sprang. He crashed into the guard before the police automatic was clear of the shiny holster. The impact of his body spun the gun away.

They were down, wrestling viciously. Herb felt his head ring. He stifled a cry. Pain nestled in his groin. He struck out.

The guard smashed an elbow into Herb's nose. He got up and kicked Herb in the face, and Herb jerked his leg savagely. Unbalanced, he went down. Herb was upon him. Breath hissed out, and Herb struck viciously with his gun butt. Panting, he stood.

"It's locked," he said, testing the door. Norma had recovered the guard's automatic. Whitefaced she stood.

Bloody nosed, bleeding, Herb threw himself into the panel. There was a great, kettle drum boom and the panel held. Again he slammed into it. It splintered away. He fought through the shards of maple; and was halfway into the room when Bud, looking up from the telephone, fired. Herb sighed and fell to the left and his gun slipped from his hand.

His eyes dulled. Conflicting emotions ran jagged edges over his face. One hand held the phone, the other the gun. Norma was afraid to fire for fear she would miss. "I'll kill you if you try to stop me!" he screamed. He could not place the person in the doorway. And then he realized that it was the Devil cleverly disguised as his sister.

Norma stepped into the room, drawing closer. Her hand trembled violently. Bud was perspiring.

"Bud," she said. Her voice choked. "He didn't mail ... he didn't mail the ... package ... the ... the package." Tears ran down her cheeks.

"He didn't mail it! No one need ... you're safe ... your secret.... Put down the phone, Bud. Please, now. Put down the phone! "

Very clever nonsense, Bud thought, not believing it for a moment. What package? There was no.... He must shoot this creature, now, before she....

The Devil was nearer. It was too late, he thought. Norma thought: Now, now, now .

Bud's hand whitened at the knuckles. His throat was dry. He was ready to scream the Name. He did not see Herb's hand close on the weapon nor see the muzzle elevate.

"Bud, Bud, Bud, please, please, Bud!" Norma said. The trigger of her gun would not respond.

Herb staggered erect. Blood covered his suit. It hurt to move. A broken collar bone, he thought. Too high for the lungs.

He found Norma weeping hysterically in his arm. The other arm hung limp, and he winced with pain as he drew her tight.

He choked and bent to her ear and said, "Yes, yes," and suddenly he bent to kiss her tear stained lips, and he wanted to brush away the hair from her face, but that arm refused to move. She trembled against him, and he whispered, "Yes."

The sunlight came in the broad windows and slanted across Bud's face, boyish and petulant still in death; the sun, moving toward noon, bathed the whole awakening world with light, and far beyond it, in space but not in time, lay other stars.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Peril of the Starmen

Peril Of The Starmen

By Kris Neville

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