Where the hell can I be? he asked himself. Where in the galaxy is there a city of this size which has been abandoned, allowed to die? Left to erode and rot away. It has been dead for a century! he said to himself, appalled.
Rising unsteadily to his feet he crept to the hatch of the squib. Opening it electrically—he did not have enough strength to operate the quicker manual crank—he peered out.
The air smelled stale and cold. He listened. No sound.
Summoning his strength he lurched haltingly out of the squib, onto the roof top.
There is no one here, he said to himself.
Am I still on Delmak-O? he wondered.
He thought. There is no place like this on Delmak-O. Because Delmak-O is a new world to us; we never colonized it. Except for our one small settlement of fourteen people.
And this is old!
He clambered unstably back into the squib, stumbled to the control board and awkwardly reseated himself. There he sat for a time, meditating. What should I do? he asked himself. I’ve got to find my way back to Delmak-O, he decided. He examined his watch. Fifteen hours had passed—roughly—since the two men in black leather uniforms had kidnapped him. Are the others in the group still alive? he wondered. Or did they get all of them?
The automatic pilot; it had a voice-control box.
He snapped it on and said into the microphone, “Take me to Delmak-O. At once.” He shut the microphone off, leaned back to rest himself, waited.
The ship did nothing.
“Do you know where Delmak-O is?” he said into the microphone. “Can you take me there? You were there fifteen hours ago; you remember, don’t you?” Nothing. No response, no movement. No sound of its ion-propulsion engine cackling into activity. There is no Delmak-O flight pattern engrammed into it, he realized. The two leather-clad men had taken the squib there on manual, evidently. Or else he was operating the equipment incorrectly.
Gathering his faculties, he inspected the control board. He read everything printed on its switches, dials, knobs, control-ball … every written declaration. No clue. He could learn nothing from it—least of all how to operate it manually. I can’t go anywhere, he said to himself, because I don’t know where I am. All I could do would be fly at random. Which presupposes that I figure out how to operate this thing manually.
One switch caught his eye; he had missed it the first time around. REFERENCE, the switch read. He snapped it on. For a time nothing happened. And then the speaker above the control board squawked into life.
“Your query.”
He said, “Can you tell me my location?”
“You want FLIGHT INFO.”
“I don’t see anything on the panel marked FLIGHT INFO,” he said.
“It is not on the panel. It is mounted above the panel to your right.”
He looked. There it was.
Snapping the FLIGHT INFO unit into operating position, he said, “Can you tell me where I am?”
Static, the semblance of something at work … he heard a faint zzzzzzz sound; almost a whir. A mechanical device had slid into activity. And then, from the speaker, a vodor voice, an electronic matching of human vocal sound. “Yezzz sirrr. Euuuu arrrr in London.”
“‘London’!” he echoed, dazed. “How can that be?” “Euuuu fluuuu there.”
He struggled with that but could make nothing out of it.
“You mean the city of London, England, on Terra?” he asked.
“Yezzz sirrr.”
After a time he managed to pull himself together enough to put another question to it. “Can I fly to Delmak-O in this squib?”
“That izzz a six-year flightttt. Euuuur squib is not equipped for such a flighttt. Forrr example it doesss not possess enough thrust to breakkk euuuu freeeee from the planet.”
“Terra,” he said thickly. Well, it explained the deserted city. All the big cities on Terra were—he had heard—deserted. They no longer served any purpose. There was no population to house itself in them because everyone, except the ostriches, had emigrated.
“My squib, then,” he said, “is a local high-velocity shuttle vessel, for homoplanetery flight only?”
“Yesss sirrr.”
“Then I could fly here to London only from another locus on the planet.”
“Yesss sirrr.”
Morley, his head ringing, his face damp with grease-like drops of perspiration, said, “Can you retroplot my previous course? Can you determine where I came here from?”
“Certainly.” A protracted wheeze from the mechanism. “Yezz. Euuuu flewww here from the following origination: #3R68-222B. And before thattt—”
“The ident notation is incomprehensible to me,” Morley said. “Can you translate that into words?”
“Nooo. There are nooo wordzzz to describe it.”
“Can you program my squib to returnfly there?”
“Yezzz. I can feed the coordinates into euuuur flight-control assembly. I am also equipped to accident-arrest monitor the flighttt; shall I do thattt?”
“Yes,” he said, and slumped, exhausted and painfilled, against the horizontal frame of the control board.
The FLIGHT INFO unit said, “Sirrr, do you need medical attentionnn?”
“Yes,” Morley said.
“Dooo you wish your squibbb to shuttle euuuu to the nearest medical station?”
He hesitated. Something at work in the deeper parts of his mind told him to say no. “I’ll be all right,” he said. “The trip won’t take long.”
“Nooo sirrr. T-ank euuuu, sirrr. I am now feeding the coordinates for a flight to #3R68-222B. And I will accident-arrest minimon euuuur flight; isss that correct?”
He could not answer. His shoulder had begun bleeding once more; evidently he had lost more blood than he realized.
Lights, as on a player piano, lit up before him; he vaguely made their winking warmth out. Switches opened and shut … it was like resting his head on a pinball machine prepared to release a free game—in this case a black and dismal free game. And then, smoothly, the squib rose up into the midday sky; it circled London—if it actually was London—and then headed west.
“Give me oral confirmation,” he grunted. “When we get there.”
“Yezzz sirrr. I will awaken euuuu.”
“Am I really talking to a machine?” Morley murmured.
“Technically I am an inorganic artificial constructtt in the proto-computer classsss. But—” It rambled on, but he did not hear it; once again Seth Morley had passed out.
The squib continued on its short flight.
“We are approaching coordinates #3R68-222B,” a shrill voice squeaked in his ear, jarring him awake.
“Thanks,” he said, lifting his heavy head to peer cloudily into the viewscreen. A massive entity loomed up in the viewscreen; for a moment he could not identify it—most certainly it was not the settlement—and then, with horror, he realized that the squib had returned to the Building. “Wait,” he said frantically. “Don’t land!”
“But we are at coordinates #3R68—”
“I countermand that order,” he snapped. “Take me to the coordinates prior to that.”
A pause, and then the FLIGHT INFO unit said, “The previoussss flight originated at a locussss manually plotted. Hence there isss nooo recorddd of it in the guide-assembly. There isss nooo way I can compute ittt.”
“I see,” he said. It did not really surprise him. “Okay,” he said, watching the Building below become smaller and smaller; the squib was rising from it to flap about in a circle overhead. “Tell me how to assume manual control of this craft.”
“Firssst euuuu push switch tennn for override cancellation. Then—doo euuuu seee that large plastic ball? Euuuu roll that from side to side and forwarddd and backkk; that controlsss the flight path of euuuur small craft. I suggest euuuu practice before I release controlll.”
“Just release control,” he said savagely. Far below, he saw two black dots rising from the Building.
“Cont
rol released.”
He rotated the big plastic ball. The squib at once bucked, floundered; it shuddered and then plunged nose-first toward the dry lands below.
“Back, back,” FLIGHT INFO said warningly. “Euuur descending too fassst.”
He rolled the ball back and this time found himself on a reasonably horizontal course.
“I want to lose those two ships following me,” he said.
“Euuuur ability to maneuver thisss craft isss not such that—”
“Can you do it?” he broke in.
The FLIGHT INFO unit said. “I possess a variety of random flight-patternsss, any one of which would tend to throwww them offf.”
“Pick one,” Morley said, “and use it.” The two pursuing ships were much closer, now. And, in the viewscreen, he saw the barrel of a cannon poking from the nose of each, an .88 millimeter barrel. Any second now they would open fire.
“Random course in operation, sirrr,” the FLIGHT INFO unit told him. “Pleeezzz strap eurrself in, sirrr.”
He haltingly fiddled with the seat belt. As he clicked the buckle into place his squib abruptly shot upward, rolling into an Immelmann loop … it came out of the maneuver flying in the opposite direction, and well above the pursuing ships.
“Radar fixxx on usss, sirrr,” the FLIGHT INFO unit informed him. “From the aforementioned two vesselsss. I shall program the flight-control assembly to take proper evasive action. Therefore we will shortly be flying close to the groundddd. Do not be alarmed.” The ship plunged down like a deranged elevator; stunned, he rested his head on his arm and shut his eyes. Then, equally abruptly, the squib leveled off. It flew erratically, compensating from moment to moment against altitude-variations in the terrain.
He lay resting in his seat, sickened by the up-and-down gyrations of the ship.
Something boomed dully. One of the pursuing ships had either fired its cannon or released an air-to-air missile. Swiftly coming awake he studied the viewscreen. Had it been close?
He saw, far off, across the wild terrain, a tall column of black smoke arising. The shot had been across his bow, as he had feared; it was now telling him that he had been caught.
“Are we armed in any manner?” he asked FLIGHT INFO.
FLIGHT INFO said, “As per regulation we carry two 120-A type air-to-air missiles. Shall I program the control carrier to activate themmm in relation to the craft following ussss?”
“Yes,” he said. It was, in a way, a hard decision to make; he would be committing his first voluntary homicidal act in their—in any—direction. But they had started the firing; they had no hesitation about killing him. And if he did not defend himself they would.
“Missssilesss fired,” a new and different vodor voice sounded, this one from the central control panel itself. “Doooo euuuu want a vizzzual scan of their activity?”
“Yesss, he doesss,” FLIGHT INFO ordered.
On the screen a different scene appeared; it was being transmitted, via a split screen, from both missiles.
The missile on the left side of the screen missed its target and passed on by, to descend, gradually, into a collision course with the ground. The second one, however, flew directly at its target. The pursuing ship wheeled, screamed directly upward … the missile altered target and then the viewscreen was suffused with silent, white light. The missile had detonated. One of the two pursuing ships had died.
The other one continued on, directly at him. Picking up velocity as it came. The pilot knew that he had fired all his armaments. Combatwise he was now helpless—and the remaining ship knew it.
“Do we have a cannon?” Morley asked.
FLIGHT INFO said, “The small size of thisss ship doesss not permit—”
“A simple yes or no.”
“No.”
“Anything, then?”
“No.”
Morley said, “I want to give up. I’m injured and I’m bleeding to death as I sit here. Land this ship as soon as possible.”
“Yesss sirrr.” Now the squib dipped down; again it flew parallel to the ground, but this time braking, slowing its speed. He heard its wheel-lowering mechanism go into operation and then, with a shuddering bump, the squib touched down.
He moaned with pain as the squib bounced, quaked, then turned on an angle, its tires squealing.
It came to a stop. Silence. He lay against the central control panel, listening for the other ship. He waited; he waited. No sound. Still only the empty silence.
“FLIGHT INFO,” he said aloud, raising his head in a palsied, trembling motion. “Has it landed?”
“It continued on byyy.”
“Why?”
“I do not knowww. It continuesss to move away from usss; my scanner can barely pick it up.” A pause. “Now it’s beyond scanner-probe range.”
Maybe it had failed to perceive his landing. Maybe it—the pilot—had assumed his low-level, horizontal flight to be a further attempt to defeat the computerized radar.
Morley said, “Take off again. Fly in widening circles. I’m looking for a settlement that’s in this area.” He chose a course at random. “Fly slightly northeast.”
“Yesss sirrr.” The squib pulsed with new activity and then, in a professional, competent way, rose up into the sky.
Again he rested, but this time lying so that he could perpetually scan the viewscreen. He did not really think that they would be successful; the settlement was small and the funky landscape was enormous. But—what was the alternative?
To go back to the Building. And now he had a firm, physical revulsion toward it; his earlier desire to enter it had evaporated.
It is not a winery, he said to himself. But what the hell is it, then?
He did not know. And he hoped he never would.
Something glinted to the right. Something metallic. He roused himself groggily. Looking at the control board clock he saw that the squib had been flying in widening circles for almost an hour. Did I drift off? he wondered. Squinting, he peeped to see what had glinted. Small buildings.
He said, “That’s it.”
“Shall I land there?”
“Yes.” He hunched forward, straining to see. Straining to be sure.
It was the settlement.
14
A small—heartbreakingly small—group of men and women trudged wanly up to the parked squib as Seth Morley activated the electrical dehatching mechanism. They stared at him bleakly as he stumbled out, stood swaying, trying to get control of his waning vitality.
There they were. Russell, looking stern. His wife Mary, her face taut with alarm—then relief at seeing him. Wade Frazer, who looked tired. Dr. Milton Babble, chewing on his pipe in a reflexive, pointless way. Ignatz Thugg was not among them.
Neither was Glen Belsnor.
Leadenly, Seth Morley said, “Belsnor is dead, isn’t he?”
They nodded.
Russell said. “You’re the first of all of them to come back. We noticed late last night that Belsnor wasn’t guarding us. We got to him at the infirmary door; he was already dead.”
“Electrocuted,” Dr. Babble said.
“And you were gone,” Mary said. Her eyes remained glazed and hopeless, despite his return.
“You better get back into bed in the infirmary,” Babble said to him. “I don’t know how you could still be alive. Look at you; you’re drenched with blood.”
Together, they assisted him back to the infirmary. Mary fussily made up the bed; Seth Morley, swaying, stood waiting and then let them stretch his body out, propped up by pillows.
“I’m going to work on your shoulder some more,” Babble said to him. “I think the artery is allowing seepage out into the—”
Seth Morley said, “We’re on Earth.”
They stared at him. Babble froze; he turned toward Seth, then mechanically returned to his task of fumbling with a tray of surgical instruments. Time passed, but no one spoke.
“What is the Building?” Wade Frazer said, at last.
&nb
sp; “I don’t know. But they say I was there, once.” So on some level I do know, he realized. Maybe we all do. Perhaps at some time in the past all of us were there. Together.
“Why are they killing us?” Babble said.
“I don’t know that either,” Seth Morley answered.
Mary said, “How do you know we’re on Earth?”
“I was at London a little while ago. I saw it, the ancient, abandoned city. Mile after mile of it. Thousands of decaying, deserted houses, factories and streets. Bigger than any non-terran city anywhere in the galaxy. Where at one time six million people lived.”
Wade Frazer said, “But there’s nothing on Terra except the aviary! And nobody except ostriches!”
“Plus Interplan West military barracks and research installations,” Seth Morley said, but his voice ebbed; it lacked conviction and enthusiasm. “We’re an experiment,” he said, anyhow. “As we guessed last night. A military experiment being carried out by General Treaton.” But he did not believe it either. “What kind of military personnel wear black leather uniforms?” he said. “And jackboots … I think they’re called.”
Russell, in a modulated, disinterested voice, said, “Aviary guards. A sop to keep up their morale. It’s very discouraging to work around ostriches; introduction of the new uniforms, three or four years back, has done a great deal of morale-boosting for the personnel.”
Turning toward him, Mary said searchingly, “How do you happen to know that?”
“Because,” Russell said, still calm. “I am one of them.” Reaching into his jacket he brought out a small, shiny erggun. “We carry this type of weapon.” He held the gun pointed toward them, meanwhile motioning them to stand closer together. “It was one chance out of a million that Morley got away.” Russell pointed to his right ear. “They’ve been periodically keeping me informed. I knew he was on his way back here, but I—and my various superiors—never thought he’d arrive.” He smiled at them. Graciously.
A sharp thump sounded. Loudly.
Russell half-turned, lowered his erggun and slumped down, letting the weapon fall. What is it? Seth Morley asked himself; he sat up, trying to see. He made out a shape, the shape of a man, walking into the room. The Walker? he thought. The Walker-on-Earth come to save us? The man held a gun—an old-fashioned lead slug pistol. Belsnor’s gun, he realized. But Ignatz Thugg has it. He did not understand. Neither did the others; they milled about incoherently as the man, holding the pistol, walked up to them.
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