Groves turned to Louise. "You're going back then?"
Louise nodded.
"I'm sticking," Jereti said.
Mary Uzich was astonished. "You're staying?"
"I can't stand Earth any more. Dirty people crowded together in slums; noise and filth..." He tapped his dish. "This meal has made me remember what I'm missing; I can't go back to protine."
"I'm staying," Janet Sibley whispered in an almost inaudible voice. Her eyes were fixed avidly on Captain Groves.
"I'm staying," Mary Uzich said, with a glance at Konklin.
Nat Gardner stirred restlessly. "I'm staying," he announced, and then flushed scarlet. "I have to make up for that." He gestured in embarrassment. "That son of a gun McLean. I want to make up, for having been a fool."
"I don't have to ask if you're going," Groves said to Paul Flood. "I'm not giving you any choice."
Flood grinned. Things were satisfactory. The ipvic-tap was in place, concealed within the transmitting antenna. Half the Society was turning back. The ship was short of fuel—and, most important, for a brief time he had been President. The score had been settled. He had shown Cartwright up for what he was.
Groves addressed the people round him. "Those who are leaving must collect their personal possessions and valuables."
Gardner slammed the hull-locks of the lifeboat and stood for a moment inspecting the jet flanges. A blur of pale, terrified faces gleamed from the window of the boat, and then Gardner signalled Captain Groves. The boat was dropped into the sphincter of the ship. It held for a short while as the atmosphere-envelope carefully sealed itself behind, and then all at once it fell like a stone into the empty void. Its jets came on with a furious splutter. Groves, in the control bubble of the ship, followed its course on his instrument board. The lifeboat hesitated, then very slowly began to fall behind as its sighting mechanism focused on the distant orb of Neptune.
Konklin lingered at the entrance of the bubble, not wanting to go into the deserted cargo hold. "The only people left are you, me, and the Japanese optical workers."
"It's not as bad as that," Groves said; he had opened his writing tablet and was studying a list. "We can use that old carpenter. I don't think the Sibley woman will be much use. It's good that Gardner stayed. The optical workers will come in handy when..."
Mary appeared at the entrance, white-faced and breathless. "They've left three children in the forward cabins! And there's all that stuff everybody left. We'll have plenty of protine when we land!"
After a moment Groves answered: "Plenty of food, clothing, raw plastics, machine tools, construction materials, wiring, pipe, boring equipment, medical supplies—everything but fuel."
"We won't need fuel," Mary said, surprised. "We won't leave again, will we?"
"We may have to search before we locate it," Groves admitted reluctantly.
"Is it true that the Hills have data about the Disc?" Konklin asked. "Good photographs that were never publicly released?"
"One hears that. The Hills are interested in not finding the Disc."
"The expedition of 'eighty-nine found nothing," Konklin pointed out. "And they had all Preston's data."
"Maybe what Preston saw was an extra large space serpent," Mary suggested wanly. "Maybe it'll devour us, like in the stories."
Groves eyed her stonily. "You two turn in and get some sleep."
Mary shivered. "It's like a tomb; down there in the cargo hold."
Mary threw herself wearily down on a bed and slipped off her sandals. "It's peaceful, here," she said to Konklin.
Konklin wandered moodily about. "I keep thinking of what's outside. The no-man's-land of space: it's all around us, out there. Coldness, silence, death... if not worse. It seemed a good idea, a tenth planet for everybody to migrate to, but now we're beginning to face the fact that it may not be true."
Konklin threw himself down on the cot beside her. "I never told you why I came, or why I joined the Society. You want to know?"
"If you want to tell me."
Konklin licked his lips. "I'm wanted by the Directorate police. I skipped out of a work-camp on Europa three years ago. The penalty for that is death. With four others I beat up a guard, stole a patrol ship and took off for Earth. We were shot down over North America. I was the only one who got out. I've been on the run since then."
"Does Groves know all this?"
"Both he and Cartwright know."
Mary reached out shyly and took his hand. "I think you'll be a good person for the colony." She pulled him close to her. "Even if we don't get there, this will be wonderful."
"This cell?"
She gazed up at him earnestly. "This is what I wanted when I was drifting aimlessly. I have a charm I made up to bring you to me; Janet Sibley helped me with it. I wanted you to love me."
Konklin smiled and leaned down to kiss her.
Abruptly, soundlessly, the girl winked out of existence.
A sheet of white flame filled the room; there was nothing else, only the glittering fire, a shimmering incandescence.
He stumbled and fell into the sea of light. He groped futilely for something to hang on to, but there was only the expanse of dazzling phosphorescence.
And then the voice began.
The sheer force of it stunned him. He sank down, bewildered and helpless, limp, inert. The voice thundered in this world of fire that had consumed him completely.
"Earth ship," it said, "where are you going? Why are you here?"
The sound thrilled through Konklin as he lay helplessly sprawled in the lake of foaming light.
"This is beyond your system," the voice went on. "You have gone outside. Do you understand that? This is the middle, space, the emptiness between your system and mine. Why have you come so far? What is it you are after?"
In the control bubble, Groves struggled desperately against the current of fury that swept over his body and mind. He crashed blindly against the navigation table and as instruments and charts rained down, the voice continued harshly.
"Fragile Earthmen, go back to your own system. Go back to your little orderly universe, your strict civilization. Stay away from regions you do not know! Stay away from darkness and monsters!"
Groves stumbled against the hatch. Groping feebly, he managed to creep from the bubble into the corridor. The voice came again, and seemed to impale him against the battered hull of the ship.
"You seek the tenth planet of your system, the legendary Flame Disc. Why do you seek it? What do you want with it?"
Groves shrieked in terror. He knew, now, what this was. The Voices prophesied in Preston's book. The Voices that led.
"Flame Disc is our world. Carried by us across space to this system. Set in motion here, to circle your sun for eternity. You have no right to it. What is your purpose?"
Groves tried to direct his thoughts outward. In an instant of time he tried to project all his hopes, plans, all the needs of the race, mankind's vast yearnings... .
The voice answered: "We will consider and analyse your thoughts———"
Groves found the ipvic transmission room. He stumbled to the transmitter, a vague shape dancing beyond the rim of white fire. His fingers flung on the power: closed circuits locked automatically in place.
"Cartwright!" he gasped. Across the void the beamed signal speared its way to the Directorate monitor at Pluto and from there to Uranus. From planet to planet the thin signal went, relayed directly to the office at Batavia.
"Flame Disc was placed within your system for a reason," the great voice continued. It paused, as if consulting with companions. "Contact between our races might bring us to a new cultural level," it went on presently.
Groves huddled over the transmitter. He prayed feverishly that the signal was getting across, that back in Batavia Cartwright was hearing the booming voice he heard, and understanding the terrifying yet hope-giving words.
The voice continued: "We must know more about you. We do not decide quickly. As your
ship is guided towards Flame Disc we will reach a decision; we will decide whether to destroy you or to lead you to safety on Flame Disc."
Reese Verrick accepted the ipvic technician's hurried call. "Come along," he snapped to Herb Moore. "We're cutting-in on Cartwright's ship. A transmission's coming across to Batavia, something important."
Seated before the vid-tap the ipvic technicians had set up for Chemie, Verrick and Moore gazed with incredulous amazement at the scene. Groves, a miniature figure lost in a rolling flame, was dwarfed to the size of an insect. From the aud speaker above the screen the booming voice, distorted and dimmed by millions of miles of space, thundered out:
"Our warning! If you attempt to ignore our friendly efforts to guide your ship, if you try to navigate on your own, then we cannot promise..."
"What is it?" Verrick croaked, blank-faced and dazed. "Is this really———"
"Shut up!" Moore grated. He peered hastily around. "You have a tape running on this?"
Verrick nodded, slack-jawed.
Moore examined the vid and aud tape recorders and then turned briskly to Verrick. "You think this is a supernatural manifestation?"
"It's from another civilization," Verrick quavered. "We've made contact with another race."
As soon as the transmission ceased, and the screen had faded into black silence, Moore snatched up the tapes and hurried them out of the Chemie buildings to the public Information Library.
Within an hour the analysis was in, from the main Quiz research organs in Geneva. Moore grabbed the report up and carried it to Reese Verrick.
"Look at this!" He slammed the report on Verrick's desk.
Verrick blinked. "What's it say? Is that voice——"
"That was John Preston." There was a peculiar expression on Moore's face. "He once recorded part of his Unicorn; the Information Library has it all down on aud, together with vid shots for us to compare."
Verrick gaped foolishly. "I don't understand. Explain it to me."
"John Preston is out there. He's been waiting for that ship and now he's made contact with it. He'll lead it to the Disc."
"But Preston died a hundred and fifty years ago!"
Moore laughed sharply. "Get that crypt open as soon as possible and you'll understand. John Preston is still alive."
Chapter IX
The MacMillan robot moved languidly up and down the aisle collecting tickets. Overhead, the midsummer sun beat down and was reflected from the gleaming silver hull of the sleek rocket liner. Below, the vast blue of the Pacific Ocean lay sprawled out, an eternal surface of colour and light.
"It really looks nice," the straw-haired young man said to the pretty girl in the seat next to him. "The ocean, I mean. The way it mixes with the sky. Earth is about the most beautiful planet in the system."
The girl lowered her portable television lenses, blinked in the sudden glare of natural sunlight, and glanced in confusion out of the window. "Yes, it's nice," she admitted shyly.
She was a very young girl, eighteen at the most. Her hair was curly and short, a halo of dark orange—the latest colour style—round her slim neck and finely cut features. She blushed and returned hastily to her lenses.
"How far are you going?" the young man asked presently.
"To Peking. I have a job at the Soong Hill, I think. I mean, I got a notice for an interview." She fluttered with her purse. "Maybe you can look at it and tell me what all those legal phrases mean. Of course," she added quickly, "when I get to Batavia Walter can..."
"You're classified?"
"Class 11-76. It isn't much, but it helps."
Her companion studied her papers. "You're going to compete against three hundred other class 11-76 people," he said presently. "For every vacancy they call a couple of hundred trained personnel. They they call an additional hundred untrained novices, like yourself, who have the classification but no actual experience. That way they have three hundred together in one spot, so———" He dropped her papers back in her lap. "Then they start taking bids."
"Bids!"
"They don't call it bidding, of course. Those who have the experience see the position going for less money and privileges to someone like yourself. To them the hiring office stresses youth and willingness to learn. To your group the office stresses need of experience. Both groups get panicky. The hiring office strategy is to pit one against the other, each individual and each group."
"But why do they do all that?"
"The one they finally condescend to hire takes the position on any terms they're willing to dole out. That's how the Hills get classified persons to swear on for their entire lives, and on any terms the Hill sets. Theoretically the skilled workers ought to be able to dictate to the Hills. But instead of being organized, they are pitted against each other."
"You sound so—cynical."
The young man laughed a thin, colourless laugh. "Maybe I am." He eyed the girl benignly. "What's your name?"
"Margaret Lloyd." She lowered her eyes shyly.
"My name's Keith Pellig," the young man said, and his voice was even thinner than before.
The girl thought about it a moment. "Keith Pellig?" For an instant her smooth forehead wrinkled unnaturally. "I think I've heard that name, haven't I?"
''You may have." Amusement was in the toneless voice.
"Where are you going?"
"Batavia."
"On business?"
"I'd call it business." Pellig smiled humourlessly. "When I've been there a while I may begin calling it pleasure. My attitude varies."
"You talk strangely," the girl said, puzzled and somewhat awed.
"I'm a strange person. Sometimes I hardly know what I'm going to do or say next. Sometimes I seem to be a stranger to myself. Sometimes what I do surprises me and I can't understand why I do it." Pellig stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. The smile had left his face and now he scowled, dark and troubled.
Peter Wakeman pushed the analysis across the breakfast table to Cartwright. "It really is Preston. It's no supernatural being from another system."
Rita O'Neill touched Cartwright's arm. "That's what he meant in the book. He planned to be there to guide us. The Voices."
Wakeman was deep in thought. "A few minutes before our call reached the Information Library another was received for an identical analysis."
Cartwright sat up with a jerk. "What does it mean?"
"I don't know. They say aud and vid tapes were rushed to them for analysis. Substantially the same material as we sent over, but they don't know who it was from."
"Can't you tell anything?" Rita O'Neill asked uneasily.
"First of all, they do know who sent in the prior information request. But they're not telling. I'm toying with the idea of sending a few Corpsmen over to scan the officials."
Cartwright waved his hand impatiently. "We have more important things to worry about. Any news on Pellig?"
Wakeman looked surprised. "Only that he's supposed to have left the Chemie Hill."
Cartwright's face twitched. "You haven't been able to make contact? Can't you go out and get him? Are you just going to sit and wait?"
In the few days since Cartwright had become Quizmaster there had been a corrosive change in him. He sat fumbling with his coffee cup, a hunched, aged, frightened man. His face was dark and lined with fatigue, and his pale blue eyes glinted with apprehension. Again and again he started to speak, then changed his mind and remained silent.
"Cartwright," Wakeman said softly, "you're in bad shape."
Cartwright glared at him. "A man's coming here to kill me, publicly and in broad daylight, with the approval of the system."
"It's only one man," Wakeman said quietly. "He has no more power than you. You have the whole Corps behind you, and all the resources of the Directorate. Each Quizmaster has had to face this." He raised an eyebrow. "I thought all you wanted was to stay alive until your ship was safe."
Cartwright smiled shakily, half-apologetically. "Yo
u've been dealing with assassins all your life. To me it's a new thing; I've been an nonentity. Now I'm chained here under a ten billion watt searchlight. A perfect target——" His voice rose. "And they're trying to kill me! What are you going to do?"
Wakeman thought to himself: 'He's falling apart; he doesn't care a damn about his ship.'
To Wakeman's mind Shaeffer's answering thoughts came. Shaeffer was at his desk on the other side of the Directorate building, acting as the link between Wakeman and the Corps. "This is the time to get him over there. I don't think Pellig is close, but in view of Verrick's sponsorship we should leave a wide margin for error."
Wakeman thought back: "At any other time Cartwright would have been overwhelmed to learn that John Preston is alive. Now he pays only little attention. And he can assume that his ship has reached its destination."
Wakeman turned to Cartwright and spoke to him aloud. "All right, Leon. Get ready, we're taking you out of here. We have plenty of time. No report on Pellig yet."
Cartwright blinked and then eyed him suspiciously. "Out where? I thought the protective chamber Verrick fixed up——"
"Verrick assumes you'll use that, so he'll try there first. We're taking you off Earth entirely. The Corps has arranged a retreat on Luna. While the Corps battles it out with Pellig you'll be 239,000 miles away."
Cartwright gazed helplessly at Rita O'Neill. "Shall I go?"
"Here at Batavia," Wakeman said, "ships land thousands of people hourly; it is the functional centre of the nine planet system. But on Luna a human being literally stands out. You'll be surrounded by miles of bleak, airless space. If Keith Pellig should manage to trace you to Luna and come walking along in his bulky Parley suit, geiger counter, radar cone and helmet, I think we'll spot him."
Wakeman was trying to joke, but Cartwright didn't smile. "In other words, you can't defend me here."
Wakeman sighed. "We can defend you better if you're on Luna."
It was like talking to a child. Frightened, helpless, the old man had ceased to reason. Wakeman got to his feet and examined his watch. "Miss O'Neill will be coming along with you." He made his voice patient but firm. "So will I. Any time you want to come back to Earth, you can. But I suggest you see our layout there; make up your own mind afterwards."
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