So while the smoke still hung over the burnt moor, Pertwee cut back the way he had come. The fire, he knew, would already have burnt itself out in that direction, while it still blazed everywhere rise except round the wood. Haste was more important now than staying low. He stumbled on, blindly, forcing his painful eyes open every so often to make sure his path was comparatively straight.
He stumbled and found the body of a Clade at his feet, charred and ahnost unrecognizable. He was about to hurry on when he saw the gun at the dead man's belt, still gleaming. He picked it up and dropped it again. It seemed to be undamaged, but it was still too hot to touch. He wrapped it in a piece of charred cloth left of the Clade's uniform, and hurried on.
If he got free and reached Lemon, the gun would settle one thing at least. If any of the Mundans were disposed to regard his story, as invention, that gun would be proof that the Clades existed. It was entirely different from the guns they still preserved at Lemon, explosive guns. The Clades had guns like that too, but this looked quite another kind of weapon -- probably atomic.
He felt a surge of fear at the thought, but didn't drop the gun. There might be people at Lemon who would say he should never have brought back such a weapon; but they were the very people who would say, if he didn't, that he should have brought it back, and certainly would have done if his whole tale hadn't been a lie to explain the absence of Toni.
Presently he found himself on moor which had not been burnt. He cut back into the black patch for a half mile or so, then struck out towards Lemon, avoiding any landmarks such as rocks, forests, or bare patches. The Clades would certainly investigate possible hiding places first.
Abruptly the rain started. That would put out what was left of the fire, but it also made him much more difficult to find.
The rains of Mundis were the daily overflow of the atmosphere. There were next to no open bodies of water from which water vapor could rise, and but for the high temperature of the world there would have been no rain at all. The water rained down, drained underground, and then the rain stopped. Then the process was reversed -- the plants dried and sucked moisture back to the surface, where the warm air lifted it into the atmosphere once more.
At Lemon the Mundans took cover when it rained, but since the start of their journey Pertwee and Toni had had to stay out in it every day. That was a small hardship. The rain was never cold. It washed them and their clothes; when it came to drying afterwards, the temperature was too high for there to be any risk of chills.
The sun was visible through the rain -- just. So while it rained Pertwee was able to put a few more miles between him and the scene of his escape, plodding doggedly through the heavy, drenched ground. While it rained, he could be practically certain that the Clades couldn't detect him.
But, the rain lasted no longer than usual. It stopped abruptly, and soon after that Pertwee saw the Clades.
He had been traveling in the general direction of Lemon since he escaped, knowing the Clades were reasonably satisfied it didn't lie in that direction. If he failed to throw off his pursuers he would have led them off the track eventually; but it seemed to him that the Clades, knowing he had known he was pursued and had had a plan all along to escape them, would be most unlikely to reach the conclusion that he had been leading them straight to Lemon.
When he saw the ship he dropped and lay still. The ship's radar could probably be adjusted to detect a moving body which was not a plant, but it was hardly likely that it would be interested in a flat object which might easily be a stone. After a time the ship's systematic search took it to the north again, and he put five miles more between him and the scene of the outbreak.
He went on through the night and most of the next day. He knew that all the way to Lemon the risk of recapture would remain. The Clades had hundreds of men it could land to beat the bracken for him, and the ship itself could search the whole surface of Mundis. It would be ironic and heartbreaking if the Clades found Lemon in the course of the search for him.
But on the third day he knew that the immediate risk of recapture was over.
3
Phyllis took her suggestion to Sloan, not Corey, because he would favor it more. He would try to sell it to Corey as his own idea, which suited Phyllis.
As she expected, Sloan liked it. She saw it in his face. She saw also the regret as he realized that if he was to bring up the idea, he could hardly be the man to play the main part in it. It would hardly be safe.
"As you say, Lieutenant," he remarked formally, "the first priority at the moment is getting the location of this Lemon from the Mundan woman." He added unpleasantly: "You feel doubtful of your ability to get it from her by the present means?"
Since it was known that Pertwee had escaped and was on his way to Lemon, Phyllis had had three sessions a day with Toni. Still Corey insisted that she should not be seriously harmed. Time was less important, he said, than the ability to produce Toni whole might be.
Phyllis doubted that very much, but she had her orders and couldn't be held responsible if the interrogation of Toni took a long time.
"Not at all, sir," she said. "But I have believed all along that the present methods could hardly have quick results. The Mundan woman is weak, but obviously no coward. And you can imagine how long it would take to break a Clade by the present comparatively mild treatment."
She reflected fleetingly that it was a pity Toni couldn't hear her torture so far described as comparatively mild. If anything would make her collapse, spirit broken, that would.
Sloan nodded reluctantly. "Long enough," he admitted. "But not a woman!"
Phyllis was expressively silent. Sloan grunted. "I didn't mean someone llke you, Lieutenant," he said -- admitting that hidden somewhere within him there was a certain appreciation of the qualities of others. "If we try this idea of yours, I wonder who . . . ?"
"Why not Lieutenant Mathers, sir?" asked Phyllis casually.
Sloan started. "Mathers?" he repeated.
"I think," said Phyllis extremely carefully, "that he might relish the task."
She waited anxiously for Sloan's answer.
"Oh?" he said quietly. "Well, you should know, Lieutenant."
She breathed again. He had gone pretty far in his answer. It was an admission that practically made them allies for the moment.
Mathers was below Sloan, of course, but a rival. It could reasonably be assumed that Sloan would help her in any scheme against Mathers, since she was at the moment much less dangerous to him than Mathers was.
That evening Phyllis was a few minutes late and Toni was trying not to pretend that she wasn't coming. When she did, the disappointment would only be greater.
Toni had been told nothing, but when they stopped questioning her and almost began to treat her like a human being for a while, she knew Pertwee had escaped and that the Clades were tracking him, certain they were going to be led to Lemon. Then the interrogation began again, and she knew that the Clades had failed with Pertwee. But she didn't know whether to be glad or sorry, for while he might have escaped them completely, there was also the possibility that he had been killed.
The door rattled and Toni's heart jumped.
However, there was a difference this time. Phyllis was there, but so were Corey and Sloan and Mathers. Evidently there was going to be a special appeal.
The commodore adopted the tone which she had learned meant condescension. He had realized from the first that women among the Mundans were on a different plane, and that it was no use treating them as the Clade women were treated. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but he kept up the pretense, a sort of civility, guessing that showing Toni that the Clades would always treat all women as they treated their own would only increase her resistance and determination not to betray Lemon.
"You're a sensible girl, Toni," he said. "You must know what the outcome of this is going to be. If you were merely trying to keep something from us for a few hours, or a few days, or for that matter for any limited period,
I could appreciate your conviction that it was possible. But there's no limit. We keep on patiently until you tell us. That's all."
He stopped, waiting. Toni said nothing; She eyed Phyllis and Mathers. They were the two youngest Clades she had seen, the kind of material Lemon, in any struggle, would have to deal with. She marveled; in appearance they were still nice kids, the kind everyone would be gIad to welcome to Lemon.
But Phyllis Barton was a cold and quite efficient torturer. How about Mathers?
"You evidently don't appreciate /why/ we're in no hurry," the commodore went on. "You're trying to delay us, apparently under the delusion that time will help your people. It won't. This ship is considenbly bigger and stronger than the Mundis was, and we have a bigger, more efficient, better trained fighting force. Giving your people more time to prepare will make no difference to the result -- if it comes to fighting, which we don't want, of course."
He waited again. Toni saw his point. Even if the Mundis still existed, as strong as when it left Earth, it would be no match for the Clades. Corey was confident, unhurried, though the Mundis might still exist. How much more confident would he be if he knew the ship had been dismantled and the Mundans lived out in the open, exposed, defenseless, weaponless? But she said nothing.
Corey sighed. "Very well. I believe you love Pertwee, Toni. We Clades do things differently from you, but that doesn't mean we have no imagination, when it's necessary. I think perhaps you would like to be faithful to your husband, Toni."
Internally Toni relaxed. So that was it. It was true that she would like to be faithful to Pertwee; she wanted that in a way she had never believed possible. She had discovered, when she knew that he might be dead, what it would mean to her if she were suddenly restored to Lemon, but without Pertwee. Rog was right, damn him. Pertwee had awakened in her something that no man before him had ever awakened.
She would be faithful to Pertwee if she could, but apparently these Clades didn't realize how a little thing like that mattered. They had misunderstood the ideals of Lemon completely, and her love for Pertwee. If they gave her to Sloan or Mathers, which appeared to be the intention, it would make little or no difference to her life with Pertwee in the future, if they ever had a chance to take it up again.
She decided to make even less of it than it deserved. She laughed. "You're twisted on sex, all of you," she said. "Naturally you'd think of it as a punishment. I suppose it's treason among you to suggest it's a pleasure?"
It was, but Phyllis's eyes widened involuntarily at that. That men enjoyed sex was an open secret, but that women could was a new idea entirely, to her.
"This is a transparent bluff, sir" said Sloan confidently, forced to support the plan for which he had taken responsibility.
"We'll see," said Corey. "Mathers!'
"I had at least expected the rest of you to go," said Toni. "But it doesn't matter."
4
Phyllis was delighted. It had never occurred to her that Toni would help. Mathers was now definitely suspected of non-Clade emotions and inclinations. She had seen that in the faces Of Sloan and Corey. Mathers was too young, perhaps, too imperfectly trained. He couldn't help himself.
But soberly as she lay in her bunk that night she realized, not for the first time, that she could never be safe -- only safer. She wished there was trust among Clades, as there seemed to be among Mundans. But how could there be? Today she almost trusted Sloan; tomorrow Sloan might be her worst enemy -- quite possibly would be, after the failure of the scheme she had made him suggest. Fenham she clearly could never trust, for she was in Fenham's footsteps, her successor if one was needed. Mathers -- well, Mathers at the moment would be unwise to make himself conspicuous. But in a week's time she might be forced to bargain with Mathers to ensure her own survival.
She wished openly, unreservedly in her own mind, that the Clade system was more like that of the Mundans. Toni and Pertwee had hardly known fear. Among the Mundans a woman could afford to be nobody, it seemed, and still be happy and free of this constant striving to be ahead of one's neighbor, in case the neighbor slipped a knife in one's ribs.
She wrenched her mind back from such thoughts with self-derision. What did she know of Mundis and the Mundans? They were weak, and the Clades were strong. The Mundans would die, and the Clades survive, ever more strongly.
Now that they knew positively that Earth was gone, with the whole solar system, and that no stronger force yet would ever come out -- as if there had ever been any doubt of that -- humanity must be welded into one strong, virile, conquering unit. The galaxy was man's.
And high in this hierarchy would be Phyllis Barton, always clawing her way up, until someone clawed her down. When she ceased to strive and fight and climb, she would be dead.
VII
1
Pertwee came across the fields to Lemon, and thus was seen nearly an hour before he actually reached the town. He hadn't planned his approach so as announce himself like that. As the town was in the south end of the valley, it was the natural way for him to come. But he had considered the implications. He wanted to know as soon as possible what he had to face, and this was as good a way as any. Lemon had time to prepare and give him precisely the kind of reception it wanted to give him. He didn't hurry. He had done over thirty miles that day, and it was still full daylight.
When he was still a long way from the town, he saw two people come out to meet him. Ruby and Jack? He could see, long before he recognized them, that they were not founders. But the man was taller than the woman -- no, it wasn't Jack. He was only fourteen and small for his age.
Only when they were quite close did he recognize Rog Foley and Alice Bentley -- for he wasn't expecting to see either of them. What concern he was of theirs he couldn't see. Unless -- Toni had once been married to Rog, hadn't she? And Alice could be Toni's friend, though from what he knew of them both it didn't seem at all likely.
The three of them met. "You've left Toni behind as a hostage?" Rog inquired bluntly.
"No. The crew of a second ship from Earth has taken her prisoner," replied Pertwee, equally bluntly.
Alice caught her breath, but Rog merely nodded. "Let's sit down and talk about it," he said. "You look tired."
"Here?" said Pertwee. "Why don't we go on to Lemon~"
"Because we wouldn't get any talking done, There'd be crazy people screaming at you and accusing you of murdering Toni and suggesting we lynch you -- just a few, but the ones who make the most noise. They wouldn't mean it, but they'd say it all the same. And even some of the sensible people would want to lock you up instead of hearing the story. Well, let's have it."
He and Alice had squatted comfortably in the field. Pertwee still didn't understand, but he appreciated their confidence and coolness. Something had happened since he left Lemon, apparently. These two counted more than they had when he left.
He told them the main facts, briefly. They didn't even ask questions. Rog didn't say a word until Pertwee stopped speaking.
Then: "You're certain you weren't followed?" he asked.
"I'm certain I was. I've seen the Clades six times since I escaped, the last only two days ago. But then it was well to the north. I think it's been combing the ground in a tight spiral from the place I escaped, looking for me and for Lemon. If you mean, could anyone have followed me on foot, no. Twice when I was in a safe place I lit moor fires in case there was anyone in my tracks."
"Wouldn't that give the ship a clue?"
"No. Further north there are more fires than we're used to here. I expect flying over the moors they'd see two or three every day. Oh . . . "
For the first time, so easily had they accepted his story, he remembered the only proof he had that it had happened. He drew out the Clade gun carefully and laid it gently on the grass.
Rog and Alice looked at it curiously. "Have you fired it?" Rog asked.
"No, I didn't dare. Perhaps it won't work. It was in a fire. Handle it carefully."
"Keep it," said Rog.
"It proves your story."
Pertwee frowned, puzzled. Whatever kind of reception he had expected, it wasn't this.
"Tell us everything that happened since you saw this ship," said Alice. "The whole story."
"Hadn't you better tell me something first?" suggested Pertwee. "What's happened since Toni and I went away -- a revolution? Have you killed off the older people?"
"No. I'd like to kill off Boyne and Robertson and Beaton and Watters, but I imagine you felt like that too in your time."
"I did." Pertwee looked at Rog with new interest. "Are you the new President? Was it a bloodless revolution?"
"Not even that," Alice told him, "thank goodness. No, Rog isn't the President officially, because we haven't voted him in. But in practice he is. Now how about my question?"
Prompted by Rog and Alice, Pertwee told everything he knew about the Clades -- all he had seen, every word that had been said, how it had been said, how the Clades moved, how they looked.
"You're right, Rog," Alice observed. "They come from Secundis, all right."
Pertwee started. "You know about them?"
"They passed here," Rog told him, "probably just before they picked you and Toni up. No, they couldn't have seen anything."
"But what's this about Secundis?"
"They must have a base there. Put two and two together. A few days after we see Sol explode, they're here. They haven't been waiting in space --- not if they're as strong physically as you say. Instead of living in free fall, thay've been coping with a greater gravity than that of Mundis -- Secondis, in fact."
Pertwee found his respect for Foley growing. Alice too. They could separate the wheat from the chaff, and they knew what to do with it when they had it. A big part of the impression they had made on him was in their expression, the way they talked, the rapidity with which they accepted things. He realized that he had expected to have to insist that what he was saying was true, to repeat everything, to explain not only how things were, but how they could be so, excuse himself for abandoning Toni before they would listen to the rest . . .
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