50 in 50

The Streets of Ashkelon

Somewhere above, hidden by the eternal clouds of Wesker's World, a thunder rumbled and grew. Trader Garth stopped suddenly when he heard it, his boots sinking slowly into the muck, and cupped his good ear to catch the sound. It swelled and waned in the thick atmosphere, growing louder.

"That noise is the same as the noise of your sky-ship," Itin said, with stolid Wesker logicality, slowly pulverizing the idea in his mind and turning over the bits one by one for closer examination. "But your ship is still sitting where you landed it. It must be, even though we cannot see it, because you are the only one who can operate it. And even if anyone else could operate it we would have heard it rising into the sky. Since we did not, and if this sound is a sky-ship sound, then it must mean—"

"Yes, another ship," Garth said, too absorbed in his own thoughts to wait for the laborious Weskerian chains of logic to clank their way through to the end. Of course it was another spacer, it had been only a matter of time before one appeared, and undoubtedly this one was homing on the S.S radar reflector as he had done. His own ship would show up clearly on the newcomer's screen and they would probably set down as close to it as they could.

"You better go ahead, Itin," he said. "Use the water so you can get to the village quickly. Tell everyone to get back into the swamps, well clear of the hard ground. That ship is landing on instruments and anyone underneath at touchdown is going to be cooked."

This immediate threat was clear enough to the little Wesker amphibian. Before Garth had finished speaking Itin's ribbed ears had folded like a bat's wings and he slipped silently into the nearby canal. Garth squelched on through the mud, making as good time as be could over the clinging surface. He had just reached the fringes of the village clearing when the rumbling grew to a head-splitting roar and the spacer broke through the low-hanging layer of clouds above. Garth shielded his eyes from the down-reaching tongue of flame and examined the growing form of the gray-black ship with mixed feelings.

After almost a standard year on Wesker's World he had to fight down a longing for human companionship of any kind. While this buried fragment of herd-spirit chattered for the rest of the monkey tribe, his trader's mind was busily drawing a line under a column of figures and adding up the total. This could very well be another trader's ship, and if it was his monopoly of the Wesker's trade was at an end. Then again, this might not be a trader at all, which was the reason he stayed in the shelter of the giant fern and loosened his gun in its holster. The ship baked dry a hundred square meters of mud, the roaring blast died, and the landing feet crunched down through the crackling crust. Metal creaked and settled into place while the cloud of smoke and steam slowly drifted lower in the humid air.

"Garth — you native-cheating extortionist — where are you?" the ship's speaker boomed. The lines of the spacer had looked only slightly familiar, but there was no mistaking the rasping tones of that voice. Garth had a twisted smile when he stepped out into the open and whistled shrilly through two fingers. A directional microphone ground out of its casing on the ship's fin and turned in his direction.

"What are you doing here, Singh?" he shouted towards the mike. "Too crooked to find a planet of your own and have to come here to steal an honest trader's profits?"

"Honest!" the amplified voice roared. "This from the man who has been in more jails than cathouses — and that a goodly number in itself, I do declare. Sorry, friend of my youth, but I cannot join you in exploiting this aboriginal pesthole. I am on course to a more fairly at-mosphered world where a fortune is waiting to be made. I only stopped here since an opportunity presented, to turn an honest credit by running a taxi service. I bring you friendship, the perfect companionship, a man in a different line of business who might help you in yours. I'd come out and say hello myself, except I would have to decon for biologicals. I'm cycling the passenger through the lock so I hope you won't mind helping with his luggage."

At least there would be no other trader on the planet now, that worry was gone. But Garth still wondered what sort of passenger would be taking one-way passage to an undeveloped world. And what was behind that concealed hint of merriment in Singh's voice? He walked around to the far side of the spacer where the ramp had dropped, and looked up at the man in the cargo lock who was wrestling ineffectually with a large crate. The man turned towards him and Garth saw the clerical dog-collar and knew just what it was Singh had been chuckling about.

"What are you doing here?" Garth asked, and in spite of his attempt at self-control he snapped the words. If the man noticed this he ignored it, because he was still smiling and putting out his hand as he came down the ramp.

"Father Mark," he said, "of the Missionary Society of Brothers. I'm very pleased to meet—"

"I said what are you doing here." Garth's voice was under control now, quiet and cold. He knew what had to be done, and it must be done quickly or not at all.

"That should be obvious.” Father Mark said, his good nature still unruffled. "Our missionary society has raised funds to send spiritual emissaries to alien worlds for the first time. I was lucky enough—"

"Take your luggage and get back into the ship. You're not wanted here — and have no permission to land. You'll be a liability and there is no one on Wesker's World to take care of you. Get back into the ship."

"I" don't know who you are sir, or why you are lying to me," the priest said. He was still calm but the smile was gone. "But I have studied galactic law and the history of this planet very well. There are no diseases or beasts here that I should have any particular fear of. It is also an open planet, and until the Space Survey changes that status I have as much right to be here as you do."

The man was of course right, but Garth couldn't let him know that. He had been bluffing, hoping the priest didn't know his rights. But he did. There was only one distasteful course left for him, and he had better do it while there was still time.

"Get back in that ship," he shouted, not hiding his anger now. With a smooth motion his gun was out of the holster and the pitted black muzzle only inches from the priest's stomach. The man's face turned white, but he did not move.

"What the hell are you doing, Garth?!" Singh's shocked voice grated from the speaker. "The guy paid his fare and you have no rights at all to throw him off the planet."

"I have this right," Garth said, raising his gun and sighting between the priest's eyes. "I give him thirty seconds to get back aboard the ship or I pull the trigger."

"Well, I think you are either off your head or playing a joke," Singh's exasperated voice rasped down at them. "If it is a joke, it is in bad taste. But either way you're not getting away with it. Two can play at that game — only I can play it better."

There was the rumble of heavy bearings and the remote-controlled four-gun turret on the ship's side rotated and pointed at Garth. "Now — down gun and give Father Mark a hand with the luggage," the speaker commanded, a trace of humor back in the voice now. "As much as I would like to help, Old Friend, I cannot. I feel it is time you had a chance to talk to the father, after all, I have had the opportunity of speaking with him all the way from Earth."

Garth jammed the gun back into the holster with an acute feeling of loss. Father Mark stepped forward, the winning smile back now and a Bible, taken from a pocket of his robe, in his raised hand. "My son—" he said.

"I'm not your son," was all Garth could choke out as the bitterness and defeat welled up within him. His fist drew back as the anger rose, and the best he could do was open the fist so he struck only with the flat of his hand. Still the blow sent the priest crashing to the ground and hurled the white pages of the book splattering into the thick mud.

Itin and the other Weskers had watched everything with seemingly emotionless interest. Garth made no attempt to answer their unspoken questions. He started towards his house, but turned back when he saw they were still unmoving.

"A new man has come," he told them. "He will need help with the things he has brought. If he doesn't have any place for them, you can put them in the big warehouse until he has a place of his own."

He watched them waddle across the clearing towards the ship, then went inside and gained a certain satisfaction from slamming the door hard enough to crack one of the panes. There was an equal amount of painful pleasure in breaking out one of the remaining bottles of Irish whiskey that he had been saving for a special occasion. Well this was special enough, though not really what he had had in mind. The whiskey was good and burned away some of the bad taste in his mouth, but not all of it. If his tactics had worked, success would have justified everything. But he had failed and in addition to the pain of failure there was the acute feeling that he had made a horse's ass out of himself. Singh had blasted off without any goodbyes. There was no telling what sense he had made of the whole matter, though he would surely carry some strange stories back to the trader's lodge. Well, that could be worried about the next time Garth signed in. Right now he had to go about setting things right with the missionary. Squinting out through the rain he saw the man struggling to erect a collapsible tent while the entire population of the village stood in ordered ranks and watched. Naturally none of them offered to help.

By the time the tent was up and the crates and boxes stowed inside it the rain had stopped. The level of fluid in the bottle was a good bit lower and Garth felt more like facing up to the unavoidable meeting. In truth, he was looking forward to talking to the man. This whole nasty business aside, after an entire solitary year any human companionship looked good. Will you join me now for dinner! John Garth, he wrote on the back of an old invoice. But maybe the guy was too frightened to come? Which was no way to start any kind of relationship. Rummaging under the bunk, he found a box that was big enough and put his pistol inside. Itin was of course waiting outside the door when he opened it, since this was his tour as Knowledge Collector. He handed him the note and box.

"Would you take these to the new man?" he said.

"Is the new man's name New Man?" Itin asked.

"No, it's not!" Garth snapped. "His name is Mark. But I'm only asking you to deliver this, not get involved in conversation."

As always when he lost his temper, the literal-minded Weskers won the round. "You are not asking for conversation," Itin said slowly, "but Mark may ask for conversation. And others will ask me his name, — if I do not know his na—"

The voice cut off as Garth slammed the door. This didn't work in the long run either because next time he saw Itin — a day, a week, or even a month later — the monologue would be picked up on the very word it had ended and the thought rambled out to its last frayed end. Garth cursed under his breath and poured water over a pair of the tastier concentrates that he had left.

"Come in," he said when there was a quiet knock on the door. The priest entered and held out the box with the gun.

"Thank you for the loan, Mr. Garth, I appreciate the spirit that made you send it. I have no idea of what caused the unhappy affair when I landed, but I think it would be best forgotten if we are going to be on this planet together for any length of time."

"Drink?" Garth asked, taking the box and pointing to the bottle on the table. He poured two glasses full and handed one to the priest. "That's about what I had in mind, but I still owe you an explanation of what happened out there." He scowled into his glass for a second, then raised it to the other man. "It's a big universe and I guess we have to make out as best we can. Here's to Sanity."

"God be with you," Father Mark said, and raised his glass as well.

"Not with me or with this planet," Garth said firmly. "And that's the crux of the matter." He half-drained the glass and sighed.

"Do you say that to shock me?" the priest asked with a smile. "I assure you that it doesn't."

"Not intended to shock. I meant it quite literally. I suppose I'm what you would call an atheist, so revealed religion is no concern of mine. While these natives, simple and unlettered Stone Age types that they are, have managed to come this far with no superstitions or traces of deism whatsoever. I had hoped that they might continue that way."

"What are you saying?" The priest frowned. "Do you mean they have no gods, no belief in the hereafter? They must die. .?"

"Die they do, and to dust returneth. Like the rest of the animals. They have thunder, trees and water without having thunder-gods, tree sprites, or water nymphs. They have no ugly little gods, taboos, or spells to hag-ride and limit their lives. They are the only primitive people I have ever encountered that are completely free of superstition and appear to be much happier and sane because of it. I just wanted to keep them that way."

"You wanted to keep them from God — from salvation?" The priest's eyes widened and he recoiled slightly.

"No," Garth said. "I wanted to keep them from superstition until they knew more and could think about it realistically without being absorbed and perhaps destroyed by it."

"You're being insulting to the Church, sir, to equate it with superstition. ."

"Please.” Garth said, raising his hand. "No theological arguments. I don't think your society footed the bill for this trip just to attempt to convert me. Just accept the fact that my beliefs have been arrived at through careful thought over a period of years, and no amount of undergraduate metaphysics will change them. I'll promise not to try and convert you — if you will do the same for me."

"Agreed, Mr. Garth. As you have reminded me, my mission here is to save these souls, and that is what I must do. But why should my work disturb you so much that you try and keep me from landing? Even threaten me with your gun, and—" The priest broke off and looked into his glass.

"And even slug you?" Garth asked, suddenly frowning. "There was no excuse for that, and I would like to say that I'm sorry. Plain bad manners and an even worse temper. Live alone long enough and you find yourself doing that kind of thing." He brooded down at his big hands where they lay on the table, reading memories into the scars and calluses patterned there. "Let's just call it frustration, for lack of a better word. In your business you must have had a lot of chance to peep into the darker places in men's minds and you should know a bit about motives and happiness. I have had too busy a life to ever consider settling down and raising a family, and right up until recently I never missed it. Maybe leakage radiation is softening up my brain, but I had begun to think of these furry and fishy Weskers as being a little like my own children, that I was somehow responsible to them."

"We are all His children," Father Mark said quietly.

"Well, here are some of His children that can't even imagine His existence," Garth said, suddenly angry at himself for allowing gentler emotions to show through. Yet he forgot himself at once, leaning forward with the intensity of his feelings. "Can't you realize the importance of this? Live with these Weskers a while and you will discover a simple and happy life that matches the state of grace you people are always talking about. They get pleasure from their lives— and cause no one pain. By circumstances they have evolved on an almost barren world, so have never had a chance to grow out of a physical Stone Age culture. But mentally they are our match — or perhaps better. They have all learned my language so I can easily explain the many things they want to know. Knowledge and the gaining of knowledge gives them real satisfaction. They tend to be exasperating at times because every new fact must be related to the structure of all other things, but the more they learn the faster this process becomes. Someday they are going to be man's equal in every way, perhaps surpass us. If — would you do me a favor?"

"Whatever I can."

"Leave them alone. Or teach them if you must — history and science, philosophy, law, anything that will help them face the realities of the greater universe they never even knew existed before. But don't confuse them with your hatreds and pain, guilt, sin, and punishment. Who knows the harm—"

"You are being insulting, sir!" the priest said, jumping to his feet. The top of his grey head barely came to the massive spaceman's chin, yet he showed no fear in defending what he believed. Garth, standing now himself, was no longer the penitent. They faced each other in anger, as men have always stood, unbending in the defense of that which they think right.

"Yours is the insult," Garth shouted. "The incredible egotism to feel that your derivative little mythology, differing only slightly from the thousands of others that still burden men, can do anything but confuse their still fresh minds. Don't you realize that they believe in truth — and have never heard of such a thing as a lie? They have not been trained yet to understand that other kinds of minds can think differently from theirs. Will you spare them this. .?"

"I will do my duty which is His will, Mr. Garth. These are God's creatures here, and they have souls. I cannot shirk my duty, which is to bring them His word so that they may be saved and enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."

When the priest opened the door the wind caught it and blew it wide. He vanished into the storm-swept darkness and the door swung back and forth and a splatter of raindrops blew in. Garth's boots left muddy footprints when he closed the door, shutting out the sight of Itin sitting patiently and uncomplaining in the storm, hoping only that Garth might stop for a moment and leave with him some of the wonderful knowledge of which he had so much.

By unspoken consent that first night was never mentioned again. After a few days of loneliness, made worse because each knew of the other's proximity, they found themselves talking on carefully neutral grounds. Garth slowly packed and stowed away his stock and never admitted that his work was finished and he could leave at any time. He had a fair amount of interesting drugs and botanicals that would fetch a good price. And the Wesker artifacts were sure to create a sensation in the sophisticated galactic market. Crafts on the planet here had been limited before his arrival, mostly pieces of carving painfully chipped into the hard wood with fragments of stone. He had supplied tools and a stock of raw metal from his own supplies, nothing more than that. In a few months the Weskers had not only learned to work with the new materials, but had translated their own designs and forms into the most alien — but most beautiful — artifacts that he had ever seen. All he had to do was release these on the market to create a primary demand, then return for a new supply. The Weskers wanted only books and tools and knowledge in return, and through their own efforts he knew they would pull themselves into the galactic union.

This is what Garth had hoped. But a wind of change was blowing through the settlement that had grown up around his ship. No longer was he the center of attention and focal point of the village life. He had to grin when he thought of his fall from power, — yet there was very little humor in the smile. Serious and attentive Weskers still took turns of duty as Knowledge Collectors, but their recording of dry facts was in sharp contrast to the intellectual hurricane that surrounded the priest.

Where Garth had made them work for each book and machine, the priest gave freely. Garth had tried to be progressive in his supply of knowledge, treating them as bright but unlettered children. He had wanted them to walk before they could run, to master one step before going on to the next.

Father Mark simply brought them the benefits of Christianity. The only physical work he required was the construction of a church, a place of worship and learning. More Weskers had appeared out of the limitless planetary swamps and within days the roof was up, supported on a framework of poles. Each morning the congregation worked a little while on the walls, then hurried inside to learn the all-promising, all-encompassing, all-important facts about the universe.

Garth never told the Weskers what he thought about their new interest, and this was mainly because they had never asked him. Pride or honor stood in the way of his grabbing a willing listener and pouring out his grievances. Perhaps it would have been different if Itin was on Collecting duty, he was the brightest of the lot, but Itin had been rotated the day after the priest had arrived and Garth had not talked to him since.

It was a surprise then when after seventeen of the trebly-long Wes-ker days, he found a delegation at his doorstep when he emerged after breakfast. Itin was their spokesman, and his mouth was open slightly. Many of the other Weskers had their mouths open as well, one even appearing to be yawning, clearly revealing the double row of sharp teeth and the purple-black throat. The mouths impressed Garth as to the seriousness of the meeting: this was the one Wesker expression he had learned to recognize. An open mouth indicated some strong emotion: happiness, sadness, anger, he could never be really sure which. The Weskers were normally placid and he had never seen enough open mouths to tell what was causing them. But he was surrounded by them now.

"Will you help us, Garth?" Itin said. "We have a question."

"I'll answer any questions you ask," Garth said, with more than a hint of misgiving. "What is it?"

"Is there a God?"

"What do you mean by 'God'?" Garth asked in turn. What should he tell them? What had been going on in their minds that they should come to him with this question?

"God is our Father in Heaven, who made us all and protects us. Whom we pray to for aid, and if we are Saved will find a place—"

"That's enough," Garth said. "There is no God."

All of them had their mouths open now, even Itin, as they looked at Garth and thought about his answer. The rows of pink teeth would have been frightening if he hadn't known these creatures so well. For one instant he wondered if perhaps they had been already indoctrinated and looked upon him as a heretic, but he brushed the thought away.

"Thank you," Itin said, and they turned and left.

Though the morning was still cool, Garth noticed that he was sweating and wondered why.

The reaction was not long in coming. Itin returned that same afternoon. "Will you come to the church?" he asked. "Many of the things that we study are difficult to learn, but none as difficult as this. We need your help because we must hear you and Father Mark talk together. This is because he says one thing is true and you say another is true and both cannot be true at the same time. We must find out what is true."

"I'll come, of course," Garth said, trying to hide the sudden feeling of elation. He had done nothing, but the Weskers had come to him anyway. There could still be grounds for hope that they might Yet be free.

It was hot inside the church, and Garth was surprised at the number of Weskers who were there, more than he had seen gathered at any one time before. There were many open mouths. Father Mark sat at a table covered with books. He looked unhappy but didn't say anything when Garth came in. Garth spoke first.

"I hope you realize this is their idea — that they came to me of their own free will and asked me to come here?"

"I know that.” the priest said resignedly. "At times they can be very difficult. But they are learning and want to believe, and that is what is important."

"Father Mark, Trader Garth, we need your help," Itin said. "You both know many things that we do not know. You must help us come to religion, which is not an easy thing to do." Garth started to say something, then changed his mind. Itin went on. "We have read the bibles and all the books that Father Mark gave us, and one thing is clear. We have discussed this and we are all agreed. These books are very different from the ones that Trader Garth gave us. In Trader Garth's books there is the universe which we have not seen, and it goes on without God, for He is mentioned nowhere, we have searched very carefully. In Father Mark's books He is everywhere and nothing can go without Him. One of these must be right and the other must be wrong. We do not know how this can be, but after we find out which is right then perhaps we will know. If God does not exist…"

"Of course He exists, my children," Father Mark said in a voice of heartfelt intensity. "He is our Father in Heaven who has created us all. ."

"Who created God?" Itin asked and the murmur ceased and every one of the Weskers watched Father Mark intensely. He recoiled a bit under the impact of their eyes, then smiled.

"Nothing created God, since He is the Creator. He always was—"

"If He always was in existence — why cannot the universe have always been in existence? Without having had a creator?" Itin broke in with a rush of words. The importance of the question was obvious.

The priest answered slowly, with infinite patience.

"Would that the answers were that simple, my children. But even the scientists do not agree about the creation of the universe. While they doubt — we who have seen the light know. We can see the miracle of creation all about us. And how can there be a creation without a Creator? That is He, our Father, our God in Heaven. I know you have doubts and that is because you have souls and free will. Still the answer is simple. Have faith, that is all you need. Just believe."

"How can we believe without proof?"

"If you cannot see that this world itself is proof of His existence, then I say to you that belief needs no proof — if you have faith!"

A babble of voices arose in the room and more of the Wesker mouths were open now as they tried to force their thoughts through the tangled skein of words and separate the thread of truth.

"Can you tell us, Garth?" Itin asked, and the sound of his voice quieted the hubbub.

"I can tell you to use the scientific method which can examine all things — including itself — and give you answers that can prove the truth or falsity of any statement."

"That is what we must do," Itin said. "We had reached the same conclusion." He held a thick book before him and a ripple of nods ran across the watchers. "We have been studying the Bible as Father Mark told us to do, and we have found the answer. God will make a iracle for us, thereby proving that He is watching us. And by this sign we will know Him and go to Him."

"This is a sign of false pride," Father Mark said. "God needs no miracles to prove His existence."

But we need a miracle!" Itin shouted, and though he wasn't human there was still the cry of need in his voice. "We have read here of many smaller miracles, loaves, fishes, wine, snakes — many of them, for much smaller reasons. Now all He need do is make a miracle and He will bring us all to Him — the wonder of an entire new world worshiping at His throne, as you have told us, Father Mark. And you have told us how important this is. We have discussed this and find that there is only one miracle that is best for this kind of thing."

His boredom and amused interest in the incessant theological wrangling drained from Garth in an instant. He had not been really thinking or he would have realized where all this was leading. By turning slightly he could see the illustration in the Bible where Itin held it open, and knew in advance what picture it was. He rose slowly from his chair, as if stretching, and turned to the priest behind him.

"Get ready!" he whispered. "Get out the back and get to the ship, I'll keep them busy here. I don't think they'll harm—"

"What do you mean. .?" Father Mark asked, blinking in surprise.

"Get out, you fool!" Garth hissed. "What miracle do you think they mean? What miracle is supposed to have converted the world to Christianity?"

"No!" Father Mark said. "It cannot be. It just cannot—"

"GET MOVING!" Garth shouted, dragging the priest from the chair and hurling him towards the rear wall. Father Mark stumbled to a halt, turned back. Garth leaped for him, but it was already too late. The amphibians were small, but there were so many of them. Garth lashed out and his fist struck Itin, hurling him back into the crowd. The others came on as he fought his way towards the priest. He beat at them but it was like struggling against the waves. The furry, musky bodies washed over and engulfed him. He struggled until they tied him, and he still struggled until they beat on his head until he stopped. Then they pulled him outside, where he could only lie in the rain and curse and watch.

Of course the Weskers were marvelous craftsmen, and everything had been constructed down to the last detail, following the illustration in the Bible. There was the cross, planted firmly on the top of a small hill, the gleaming metal spikes, the hammer. Father Mark was stripped and draped in a carefully pleated loincloth. They led him out of the church and at the sight of the cross he almost fainted. After that he held his head high and determined to die as he had lived, with faith.

Yet this was hard. It was unbearable even for Garth, who only watched. It is one thing to talk of crucifixion and look at the gentle carved bodies in the dim light of prayer. It is another to see a man naked, ropes cutting into his skin where he hangs from a bar of wood. And to see the needle-tipped spike raised and placed against the soft flesh of his palm, to see the hammer come back with the calm deliberation of an artisan's measured stroke. To hear the thick sound of metal penetrating flesh.

Then to hear the screams.

Few are born to be martyrs and Father Mark was not one of them. With the first blows, the blood ran from his lips where his clenched teeth met. Then his mouth was wide and his head strained back and the awful guttural horror of his screams sliced through the susurration of the falling rain. It resounded as a silent echo from the masses of watching Weskers, for whatever emotion opened their mouths was now tearing at their bodies with all its force, and row after row of gaping jaws reflected the crucified priest's agony.

Mercifully he fainted as the last nail was driven home. Blood ran from the raw wounds, mixing with the rain to drip faintly pink from his feet as the life ran out of him. At this time, somewhere at this time, sobbing and tearing at his own bonds, numbed from the blows on the head, Garth lost consciousness.

He awoke in his own warehouse and it was dark. Someone was cutting away the woven ropes they had bound him with. The rain still dripped and splashed outside.

"Itin," he said. It could be no one else.

"Yes," the alien voice whispered back. "The others are all talking in the church. Lin died after you struck his head, and Inon is very sick. There are some that say you should be crucified too, and I think that is what will happen. Or perhaps killed by stoning on the head. They have found in the Bible where it says—"

"I know." With infinite weariness. "An eye for an eye. You'll find lots of things like that once you start looking."

"You must go, you can get to your ship without anyone seeing you. There has been enough killing." Itin as well spoke with a newfound weariness.

Garth experimented, pulling himself to his feet. He pressed his head to the rough wall until the nausea stopped.

"He's dead." He said it as a statement, not a question.

"Yes, some time ago. Or I could not have come away to see you."

"And buried of course, or they wouldn't be thinking about starting on me next."

"And buried!" There was almost a ring of emotion in the alien's voice, an echo of the dead priest's. "He is buried and he will rise on High. It is written and that is the way it will happen. Father Mark will be so happy that it has happened like this." The voice ended in a sound like a human sob, but of course it couldn't have been that since Itin was alien, and not human at all. Garth painfully worked his way towards the door, leaning against the wall so he wouldn't fall.

"We did the right thing, didn't we?" Itin asked. There was no answer. "He will rise up, Garth, won't he rise?"

Garth was at the door and enough light came from the brightly lit church to show his torn and bloody hands clutching at the frame. Itin's face swam into sight close to his, and Garth felt the delicate, many-fingered hands with the sharp nails catch at his clothes.

"He will rise, won't he, Garth?"

"No," Garth said, "he is going to stay buried right where you put him. Nothing is going to happen, because he is dead and he is going to stay dead."

The rain runneled through Itin's fur and his mouth was opened so wide that he seemed to be screaming into the night. Only with effort could he talk, squeezing out the alien thoughts in an alien language.

"Then we will not be saved? We will not become pure?"

"You were pure," Garth said, in a voice somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "That's the horrible ugly dirty part of it. You were pure. Now you are—"

"Murderers," Itin said, and the water ran down from his lowered head and streamed away into the darkness.

Rescue Operation

"Pull! Pull steadily. .!" Dragomir shouted, clutching at the tarry cords of the net. Beside him in the hot darkness Pribislav Polasek grunted as he heaved on the wet strands. The net was invisible in the black water, but the blue light trapped in it rose closer and closer to the surface.

"It's slipping…" Pribislav groaned and clutched the rough gunwale of the little boat. For a single instant he could see the blue light on the helmet, a faceplate and the suited body that faded into blackness, then it slipped free of the net. He had just a glimpse of a dark shape before it was gone. "Did you see it?" he asked. "Just before he fell he waved his hand."

"How can I know? The hand moved, it could have been the net, or he might still be alive." Dragomir had his face bent almost to the glassy surface of the water, but there was nothing more to be seen. "He might be alive."

The two fishermen sat back in the boat and stared at each other in the harsh light of the hissing acetylene lamp in the bow. They were very different men, yet greatly alike in their stained, baggy trousers and faded cotton shirts. Their hands were deeply wrinkled and callused from a lifetime of hard labor, their thoughts slowed by the rhythm of work and years.

"We cannot get him up with the net," Dragomir finally said, speaking first as always.

"Then we will need help," Pribislav added. "We have anchored the buoy here, we can find the spot again."

"Yes, we need help." Dragomir opened and closed his large hands, then leaned over to bring the rest of the net into the boat. "The diver, the one who stays with the widow Korenc, he will know what to do. His name is Kukovic and Petar said he is a doctor of science from the university in Ljubljana."

They bent to their oars and sent the heavy boat steadily over the glasslike water of the Adriatic. Before they had reached shore, the sky was light and when they tied to the sea wall in Brbinj the sun was above the horizon.

Joze Kukovic looked at the rising ball of the sun, already hot on his skin, yawned and stretched. The widow shuffled out with his coffee, mumbled good morning and put it on the stone rail of the porch. Ho pushed the tray aside and sat down next to it, then emptied the coffee from the small, long-handled pot into his cup. The thick Turkish coffee would wake him up, in spite of the impossible hour. From the rail he had a view down the unpaved and dusty street to the port, already stirring to life. Two women, with the morning's water in brass pots balanced on their heads, stopped to talk. The peasants were bringing in their produce for the morning market, baskets of cabbages and potatoes and trays of tomatoes, strapped onto tiny donkeys. One of them brayed, a harsh noise that sawed through the stillness of the morning, bouncing echoes from the yellowed buildings. It was hot already. Brbinj was a town at the edge of nowhere, located between empty ocean and barren hills, asleep for centuries and dying by degrees. There were no attractions here, if you did not count the sea. But under the flat, blue calm of the water was another world that Joze loved.

Cool shadows, deep valleys, more alive than all the sun-blasted shores that surrounded it. Excitement, too: just the day before, too late in the afternoon to really explore it, he had found a Roman galley half-buried in the sand. He would get into it today, the first human in two thousand years, and heaven alone knew what he would find there. In the sand about it had been shards of broken amphorae, — there might be whole ones inside the hull.

Sipping happily at his coffee he watched the small boat tying up in the harbor, and wondered why the two fishermen were in such a hurry. They were almost running, and no one ran here in the summer. Stopping below his porch the bigger one called up to him.

"Doctor, may we come up? There is something urgent."

"Yes, of course." He was surprised and wondered if they took him for a physician.

Dragomir shuffled forward and did not know where to begin. He pointed out over the ocean.

"It fell, out there last night, we saw it, a sputnik without a doubt?"

"A traveler?" Joze Kukovic wrinkled his forehead, not quite sure that he heard right. When the locals were excited it was hard to follow their dialect. For such a small country Yugoslavia was cursed with a multitude of tongues.

"No, it was not a putnik, but a sputnik, one of the Russian spaceships."

"Or an American one." Pribislav spoke for the first time, but he was ignored.

Joze smiled and sipped his coffee. "Are you sure it wasn't a meteorite you saw? There is always a heavy meteor shower this time of the year."

"A sputnik." Dragomir insisted stolidly. "The ship fell far out in the Jadransko Mor and vanished, we saw that. But the space pilot came down almost on top of us, into the water…"

"The WHAT?" Joze gasped, jumping to his feet and knocking the coffee tray to the floor. The brass tray clanged and rattled in circles unnoticed. "There was a man in this thing — and he got clear?"

Both fishermen nodded at the same time and Dragomir continued. "We saw this light fall from the sputnik when it went overhead and drop into the water. He couldn't see what it was, just a light, and we rowed there as fast as we could. It was still sinking and we dropped a net and managed to catch him…"

"You have the pilot?"

"No, but once we pulled him close enough to the surface to see he was in a heavy suit, with a window like a diving suit, and there was something on the back that might have been like your tanks there."

"He waved his hand," Pribislav insisted.

"He might have waved a hand, we could not be sure. We came back for help."

The silence lengthened and Joze realized that he was the help that they needed, and that they had turned the responsibility over to him. What should he do first? The astronaut might have his own oxygen tanks, Joze had no real idea what provisions were made for water landings, but if there were oxygen the man might still be alive.

Joze paced the floor while he thought, a short, square figure in khaki shorts and sandals. He was not handsome, his nose was too big and his teeth were too obvious for that, but he generated a certainty of power. He stopped and pointed to Pribislav.

"We're going to have to get him out. You can find the spot again?"

"A buoy."

"Good. And we may need a doctor. You have none here, but is there one in Osor?"

"Dr. Bratos, but he is very old…"

"As long as he is still alive, we'll have to get him. Can anyone in this town drive an automobile?"

The fishermen looked towards the roof and concentrated, while Joze controlled his impatience.

"Yes, I think so," Dragomir finally said. "Petar was a partisan."

"That's right," the other fisherman finished the thought. "He has told many times how they stole German trucks and how he drove…"

"Well, then one of you get this Petar and give him the keys to my car, it's a German car so he should be able to manage. Tell him to bring the doctor back at once."

Dragomir took the keys, but handed them to Pribislav who ran out.

"Now let's see if we can get the man up.” Joze said, grabbing his scuba gear and leading the way towards the boat.

They rowed, side by side though Dragomir's powerful stroke did most of the work.

"How deep is the water out here?" Joze asked. He was already dripping with sweat as the sun burned on him.

"The Kvarneric is deeper up by Rab, but we were fishing off Trsten-ilc and the bottom is only about four fathoms there. We're coming to the buoy."

"Seven meters, it shouldn't be too hard to find him." Joze kneeled in the bottom of the boat and slipped into the straps of the scuba. He buckled it tight, checked the valves, then turned to the fisherman before he bit into the mouthpiece. "Keep the boat near this buoy and I'll use it for a guide while I search. If I need a line or any help, I'll surface over the astronaut, then you can bring the boat to me."

He turned on the oxygen and slipped over the side, the cool water rising up his body as he sank below the surface. With a powerful kick he started towards the bottom, following the dropping line of the buoy rope. Almost at once he saw the man, spread-eagled on white sand below.

Joze swam down, making himself stroke smoothly in spite of his growing excitement. Details were clearer as he dropped lower. There were no identifying marks on the pressure suit, it might be either American or Russian. It was a hard suit, metal or reinforced plastic, and painted green, with a single, flat faceplate in the helmet.

Because distance and size are so deceptive under water, Joze was on the sand next to the figure before he realized it was less than four feet long. Ho gasped and almost lost his mouthpiece.

Then he looked at the faceplate and saw that the creature inside was not human.

Joze coughed a bit and blew out a stream of bubbles: he had been holding his breath without realizing it. He just floated there, paddling slowly with his hands to stay in a position, looking at the face within the helmet.

It was still as a waxen cast, green wax with roughened surface, slit nostrils, slit mouth and large eyeballs unseen but prominent as they pushed up against the closed lids. The arrangement of features was roughly human, but no human being had skin this color or had a Pulpy crest, partially visible through the faceplate, growing up from above the closed eyes. Joze stared down at the suit made up of some unknown material, and at the compact atmosphere-regeneration apparatus on the alien's back. What kind of atmosphere? He looked back at the creature and saw that the eyes were open and the thing was watching him.

Fear was his first reaction, he shot back in the water like a startled fish then, angry at himself, came forward again. The alien slowly raised one arm, then dropped it limply. Joze looked through the faceplate and saw that the eyes were closed again. The alien was alive, but unable to move, perhaps it was injured and in pain. The wreck of the creature's ship showed that something had been wrong with the landing. Reaching under as gently as he could he cradled the tiny body in his arms, trying to ignore a feeling of revulsion when the cold fabric of the thing's suit touched his bare arms. It was only metal or plastic, — he had to be a scientist about this. When he lifted it up the eyes still did not open as he bore the limp and almost weightless form to the surface.

"You great stupid clumsy clod of peasant, help me," he shouted, spitting out his mouthpiece and treading water on the surface, but Dragomir only shook his head in horror and retreated to the point of the bow when he saw what the physicist had borne up from below.

"It is a creature from another world and cannot harm you!" Joze insisted but the fisherman would not approach.

Joze cursed aloud and only managed with great difficulty to get the alien into the boat, then climbed in after him. Though he was twice Joze's size, threats of violence drove Dragomir to the oars. But he used the farthest set of tholepins, even though it made rowing much more difficult. Joze dropped his scuba gear into the bottom of the boat and looked more closely at the drying fabric of the alien space-suit. His fear of the unknown was forgotten in his growing enthusiasm. He was a nuclear physicist, but he remembered enough of his chemistry and mechanics to know that this material was completely impossible by Earth's standards.

Light green, it was as hard as steel over the creature's limbs and torso, yet was soft and bent easily at the joints as he proved by lifting and dropping the limp arm. His eyes went down the alien's tiny figure. There was a thick harness about the middle, roughly where a human waist would be, and hanging from this was a bulky container, like an oversize sporran. The suiting continued without an apparent seam — but the right leg! It was squeezed in and crushed as though it had been grabbed by a giant pliers. Perhaps this explained the creature's lack of motion. Could it be hurt? In pain?

Its eyes were open again and Joze realized in sudden horror that the helmet was filled with water. It must have leaked in, the thing was drowning. He grabbed at the helmet, seeing if it would screw off, tugging at it in panic as the eyes rolled up towards him.

Then he forced himself to think, and shakingly let go. The alien was still quiet, eyes open, no bubbles apparently coming from lips or nose. Did it breathe? Had the water leaked in — or was it possible that it had always been there? Was it water? Who knew what alien atmosphere it might breathe: methane, chlorine, sulfur dioxide. Why not water? The liquid was inside, surely enough, the suit wasn't leaking and the creature seemed unchanged.

Joze looked up and saw that Dragomir's panicked strokes had brought them into the harbor. There was a crowd already waiting on the shore.

The boat almost overturned as Dragomir leaped up onto the harbor wall, kicking backward in his panic. They drifted away and Joze picked the mooring line up from the floorboards and coiled it in his hands. "Here," he shouted, "catch this. Tie it onto the ring there."

No one heard him, or if they heard, did not want to admit it. They stared down at the green-cased figure lying in the stern sheets and a rustle of whispering blew across them like wind among pine boughs. The women clutched their hands to their breasts, crossing themselves.

"Catch this!" Joze said through clenched teeth, forcing himself to keep his temper.

He hurled the rope onto the stones and they shied away from it. A youth grabbed it and slowly threaded it through the rusty ring, hands shaking and head tilted to one side, his mouth dropped in a permanent gape. He was feebleminded, too simple to understand what was going on: he simply obeyed the shouted order.

"Help me get this thing ashore," Joze called out, and even before the words were out of his mouth he realized the futility of the request.

The peasants shuffled backwards, a blank-faced mob sharing the same fear of the unknown, the women like giant, staring dolls in their knee-length flaring skirts, black stockings and high felt shoes. He would have to do it himself. Balancing in the rocking boat he cradled the alien in his arms and lifted it carefully up onto the rough stone of the harbor wall. The circle of watchers pushed back even farther, some of the women choking off screams and running back to their houses, while the men muttered louder: Joze ignored them.

These people were going to be no help to him — and they might cause trouble. His own room would be safest, he doubted if they Would bother him there. He had just picked up the alien when a newcomer pushed through the watchers.

"There — what is that? A vragl" The old priest pointed in horror at the alien in Joze's arms and backed away, fumbling for his crucifix.

"Enough of your superstition!" Joze snapped. "This is no devil but a sentient creature, a traveler. Now get out of my way."

He pushed forward and they fled before him. Joze moved as quickly as he could without appearing to hurry, leaving the crowd behind. There was a slapping of quick footsteps and he looked over his shoulder; it was the priest, Father Perc. His stained cassock flapped and his breath whistled in his throat with the unaccustomed exertion.

"Tell me, what are you doing. . Dr. Kukovic? What is that. . thing? Tell me…"

"I told you. A traveler. Two of the local fishermen saw something come from the sky and crash. This. . alien came from it." Joze spoke as calmly as possible. There might be trouble with the people, but not if the priest were on his side. "It is a creature from another world, a water-breathing animal, and it's hurt. We must help it."

Father Perc scrambled along sideways as he looked with obvious distaste at the motionless alien. "It is wrong.” he mumbled, "this is something unclean, Sao duh…"

"Neither demon nor devil, can't you get that through your mind? The Church recognizes the possibility of creatures from other planets — the Jesuits even argue about it — so why can't you? Even the Pope believes there is life on other worlds."

"Does he? Does he?" the old man asked, blinking with red-rimmed eyes.

Joze brushed by him and up the steps to the window Korenc's house. She was nowhere in sight as he went into his room and gently lowered the still-unconscious form of the alien onto his bed. The priest stopped in the doorway, quivering fingers on his rosary, uncertain. Joze stood over the bed, opening and closing his hands, just as unsure. What could he do? The creature was wounded, perhaps dying, something must be done. But what?

The distant droning whine of a car's engine pushed into the hot room and he almost sighed with relief. It was his car, he recognized the sound, and it would be bringing the doctor. The car stopped outside and the doors slammed, but no one appeared.

Joze waited tensely, realizing that the townspeople must be talking to the doctor, telling him what had happened. A slow minute passed and Joze started from the room, but stopped before he passed the priest, still standing just inside the door. What was keeping them? His window faced on an alleyway and he could not see the street in front of the building. Then the outside door opened and he could hear the widow's whispered voice, "In there, straight through."

There were two men, both dusty from the road. One was obviously the doctor, a short and dumpy man clutching a worn black bag, his bald head beaded with sweat. Next to him was a young man, tanned and windburned, dressed like the other fishermen: this must be Petar the ex-partisan.

It was Petar who went to the bed first, the doctor just stood clutching his bag and blinking about the room.

"What is this thing?" Petar asked, then bent over, hands on his knees, to stare in through the faceplate. "Whatever it is, it sure is ugly."

"I don't know. It's from another planet, that's the only thing I know. Now move aside so the doctor can look." Joze waved and the doctor moved reluctantly forward. "You must be Dr. Bratos. I'm Ku-kovic, professor of nuclear physics at the university in Ljubljana." Perhaps waving around a little prestige might get this man's reluctant cooperation.

"Yes, how do you do. Very pleased to meet you, Professor, an honor I assure you. But what it is you wish me to do, I do not understand?" He shook ever so lightly as he spoke and Joze realized that the man was very old, well into his eighties or more. He would have to be patient.

"This alien. . whatever it is… is injured and unconscious. We must do what we can to save its life."

"But what can we do? The thing is sealed in a metal garment— look, it is filled with water. I am a doctor, a medical man, but not for animals, creatures like that."

"Neither am I, Doctor. No one on earth is. But we must do our best. We must get the suit off the alien and then discover what we can do to help."

"It is impossible! The fluid inside of it, it will run out."

"Obviously, so we will have to take precautions. We will have to determine what the liquid is, then get more of it and fill the bathtub in the next room. I have been looking at the suit and the helmet seems to be a separate piece, clamped into position. If we loosen the clamps we should be able to get a sample."

For precious seconds Dr. Bratos stood there, nibbling at his lip, before he spoke. "Yes, I suppose we could, but what could we catch the sample in? This is most difficult and irregular."

"It doesn't make any difference what we catch the sample in," Joze snapped, frustration pushing at his carefully held control. He turned to Petar who was standing silently by, smoking a cigarette in his cupped hand. "Will you help? Get a soup plate, anything from the kitchen."

Petar simply nodded and left. There were muffled complaints from the widow, but he was back quickly with her best pot.

"That's good," Joze said, lifting the alien's head, "now slide it under here." With the pot in position he twisted one of the clamps; it snapped open but nothing else happened. A hairline opening was visible at the junction, but it stayed dry. But when Joze opened the second clamp there was a sudden gush of clear liquid under pressure, and before he fumbled the clamp shut again the pot was half full. He lifted the alien again and, without being told, Petar pulled the pot free and put it on the table by the window. "It's hot.” he said.

Joze touched the outside of the container. "Warm not hot, about one hundred twenty degrees I would guess. A hot ocean on a hot planet."

"But… is it water?" Dr. Bratos asked haltingly.

"I suppose it is — but aren't you the one to find out? Is it fresh water or sea water?"

"I'm no chemist. . how can I tell?… It is very complicated."

Petar laughed and took Joze's water glass from the nightstand. "That's not so hard to find out.” he said, and dipped it into the pot. He raised the half-filled glass, sniffed at it, then took a sip and puckered his lips. "Tastes like ordinary sea water to me, but there's another taste, sort of bitter."

Joze took the glass from him. "This could be dangerous," the doctor protested, but they ignored him. Yes, salt water, hot salt water with a sharpness to it. "It tastes like more than a trace of iodine. Can you test for the presence of iodine, Doctor?"

"Here. . no, it is quite complicated. In the laboratory with the correct equipment—" his voice trailed off as he opened his bag on the table and groped through it. He brought his hand out empty. "In the laboratory."

"We have no laboratory or any other assistance, Doctor. We will have to be satisfied with what we have here, ordinary sea water will have to do."

"I'll get a bucket and fill the tub," Petar said.

"Good. But don't fill the bathtub yet. Bring the water into the kitchen and we'll heat it, then pour it in."

"Right." Petar brushed past the silent and staring priest and was gone. Joze looked at Father Perc and thought of the people of the village.

"Stay here, Doctor," he said. "This alien is your patient and I don't think anyone other than you should come near. Just sit by him."

"Yes, of course, that is correct," Dr. Bratos said relievedly, pulling the chair over and sitting down.

The breakfast fire was still burning in the big stove and flamed up when Joze slid in more sticks. On the wall hung the big copper wash-tub and he dropped it onto the stove with a clang. Behind him the widow's bedroom door opened, but slammed shut again when he turned. Petar came in with a bucket of water and poured it into the tub.

"What are the people doing?" Joze asked.

"Just milling about and bothering each other. They won't be any trouble. If you're worried about them, I can drive back to Osor and bring the police, or telephone someone."

"No, I should have thought of that earlier. Right now I need you here. You're the only one who isn't either senile or ignorant."

Peter smiled. "Ill get some more water."

The bathtub was small and the washtub big. When the heated water was dumped in it filled it more than halfway, enough to cover the small alien. There was a drain from the bathtub but no faucets: it was usually filled with a hose from the sink. Joze picked up the alien, cradling it like a child in his arms, and carried it into the bath. The eyes were open again, following his every movement, but making no protest. He lowered the creature gently into the water, then straightened a moment and took a deep breath. "Helmet first, then we'll try to figure out how the suit opens." He bent and slowly twisted the clamps.

With all four clamps open the helmet moved freely. He opened it a wide crack, ready to close it quickly if there were any signs of trouble. The ocean water would be flowing in now, mixing with the alien water, yet the creature made no complaint. After a minute Joze slowly pulled the helmet off, cradling the alien's head with one hand so that it would not bump to the bottom of the tub.

Once the helmet was clear the pulpy crest above the eyes sprang up like a coxcomb, reaching up over the top of the green head. A wire ran from the helmet to a shiny bit of metal on one side of the creature's skull. There was an indentation there and Joze slowly pulled a metal plug out, perhaps an earphone of some kind. The alien was opening and closing its mouth, giving a glimpse of bony yellow ridges inside, and a very low humming could be heard.

Petar pressed his ear against the outside of the metal tube. "The thing is talking or something, I can hear it."

"Let me have your stethoscope, Doctor," Joze said, but when the doctor did not move he dug it from the bag himself. Yes — when he pressed it to the metal he could hear a rising and falling whine, speech of a kind.

"We can't possibly understand him — not yet," he said, handing the stethoscope back to the doctor who took it automatically. "We had better try to get the suit off."

There were no seams or fastenings visible, nor could Joze find anything when he ran his fingers over the smooth surface. The alien must have understood what they were doing because it jerkingly raised one hand and fumbled at the metal sealing ring about the collar. With a liquid motion the suit split open down the front, the opening bifurcated and ran down each leg. There was a sudden welling of blue liquid from the injured leg. Joze had a quick glimpse of green flesh, strange organs, then he spun about. "Quick, Doctor — your bag. The creature is hurt, that fluid might be blood, we have to help it.^;/

"What can I do?" Dr. Bratos said, unmoving. "Drugs, antiseptics — I might kill it — we know nothing of its body chemistry."

"Then don't use any of those. This is a traumatic injury, you can bind it up, stop the bleeding, can't you?"

"Of course, of course," the old man said and at last his hands had familiar things to do, extracting bandages and sterile gauze from his bag, tape and scissors.

Joze reached into the warm and now murky water and forced himself to reach under the green leg and grasp the hot, green flesh. It was strange — but not terrible. He lifted the limb free of the water and they saw a crushed gap oozing a thick blue fluid. Petar turned away, but the doctor put on a pad of gauze and tightened the bandages about it. The alien was fumbling at the discarded suit beside it in the tub, twisting its leg in Joze's grip. He looked down and saw it take something from the sporran container. Its mouth was moving again, he could hear the dim buzz of its voice.

"What is it? What do you want?" Joze asked.

It was holding the object across its chest now with both hands: it appeared to be a book of some kind. It might be a book, it might be anything.

Yet it was covered in a shiny substance with dark markings on it, and at the edge seemed to be made of many sheets bound together. It could be a book. The leg was twisting now in Joze's grasp and the alien's mouth was open wider, as if it were shouting.

"The bandage will get wet if we put it back into the water," the doctor said.

"Can't you wrap adhesive tape over it, seal it in?"

"In my bag — I'll need some more."

While they talked the alien began to rock back and forth, splashing water from the tub, pulling its leg from Joze's grasp. It still held the book in one thin, multifingered hand, but with the other one it began to tear at the bandages on its leg.

"It's hurting itself, stop it. This is terrible.” the doctor said, recoiling from the tub.

Joze snatched a piece of wrapping paper from the floor.

"You fool! You incredible fool!" he shouted. "These compresses you used — they're impregnated with sulfanilamide."

"I always use them, they're the best, American, they prevent wound infection."

Joze pushed him aside and plunged his arms into the tub to tear the bandages free, but the alien reared up out of his grasp, sitting up above the water, its mouth gaping wide. Its eyes were open and staring and Joze recoiled as a stream of water shot from its mouth. There was a gargling sound as the water died to a trickle, and then, as the first air touched the vocal cords, a rising howling scream of pain. It echoed from the plaster ceiling in inhuman agony as the creature threw its arms wide, then fell face forward into the water. It did not move again and, without examining it, Joze knew it was dead.

One arm was twisted back, out of the tub, still grasping the book. Slowly the fingers loosened, and while Joze looked on numbly, unable to move, the book thudded to the floor.

"Help me," Petar said, and Joze turned to see that the doctor had fallen and Petar was kneeling over him. "He fainted, or a heart attack. What can we do?"

His anger was forgotten as Joze kneeled. The doctor seemed to be breathing regularly and his face wasn't flushed, so perhaps it was only a fainting spell. The eyelids fluttered. The priest brushed by and looked down over Joze's shoulder.

Dr. Bratos opened his eyes, looking back and forth at the faces bent over him. "I'm sorry," he said thickly, then the eyes closed again as if to escape the sight of them.

Joze stood and found that he was trembling. The priest was gone. Was it all over? Perhaps they might never have saved the alien, but they should have done better than this. Then he saw the wet spot on the floor and realized the book was gone.

"Father Perc!" he shouted, crying it out like an insult. The man had taken the book, the priceless book!

Joze ran out into the hall and saw the priest coming from the kitchen. His hands were empty. With sudden fear Joze knew what the old man had done and brushed past him into the kitchen and ran to the stove, hurling open the door.

There, among the burning wood, lay the book. It was steaming, almost smoking as it dried, lying open. It was obviously a book, there Were marks on the pages of some kind. He turned to grab up the shovel and behind him the fire exploded, sending a white flame across the room. It had almost caught him in the face, but he did not think of that. Pieces of burning wood lay on the floor, and inside the stove there was only the remains of the original fire. Whatever substance the book had been made of was highly inflammable once it had dried out.

"It was evil," the priest said from the doorway. "A Sao duh, an abomination with a book of evil. We have been warned, such things have happened before on Earth, and always the faithful must fight back—"

Petar pushed in roughly past him and helped Joze to a chair, brushing the hot embers from his bare skin. Joze had not felt their burn, all he was aware of was an immense weariness.

"Why here?" he asked. "Of all places in the world why here? A few more degrees to the west and the creature would have come down near Trieste with surgeons, hospitals, men, facilities. Or, if it had just stayed on its course a little longer, it could have seen the lights, and would have landed at Rijeka. Something could have been done. But why here?" He surged to his feet, shaking his fist at nothing — and at everything.

"Here, in this superstition-ridden, simple-minded backwater of the country! What kind of world do we live in where there is a five-million-volt electron accelerator not a hundred miles from primitive stupidity? That this creature should come so far, come so close. . why, why?"

Why?

He dumped back into the chair again feeling older than he had ever felt before and tired beyond measure. What could they have learned from this book?

He sighed, and the sigh came from so deep within him that his whole body trembled as though shaken by awful fever.

The Repairman

The Old Man had that look of intense glee on his face that meant someone was in for a very rough time. Since we were alone, it took no great feat of intelligence to figure it would be me. I talked first, bold attack being the best defense and so forth.

"I quit. Don't bother telling me what dirty job you have cooked up, because I have already quit and you do not want to reveal company secrets to me."

The grin was even wider now and he actually chortled as he thumbed a button on his console. A thick legal document slid out of the delivery slot onto his desk.

"This is your contract," he said. "It tells how and when you will work. A steel-and-vanadium-bound contract that you couldn't crack with a molecular disrupter."

I leaned out quickly, grabbed it and threw it into the air with a single motion. Before it could fall, I had my Solar out and, with a wide-angle shot, burned the contract to ashes.

The Old Man pressed the button again and another contract slid out on his desk. If possible, the smile was still wider now.

"I should have said a duplicate of your contract — like this one here." He made a quick note on his secretary plate. "I have deducted thirteen credits from your salary for the cost of the duplicate — as well as a hundred-credit fine for firing a Solar inside a building."

I slumped, defeated, waiting for the blow to land. The Old Man fondled my contract.

"According to this document, you can't quit. Ever. I therefore I have a little job I know you'll enjoy. Repair job. The Centauri beacon has shut down. It's a Mark III beacon…"

"What kind of beacon?" I asked him. I have repaired hyperspace beacons from one arm of the galaxy to the other and was sure I had worked on every type or model made. But I had never heard of this kind.

"Mark III," the Old Man repeated with sly humor. "I never heard of it either until Records dug up the specs. They found them buried in the back of their oldest warehouse. This was the earliest type of beacon ever built — by Earth, no less. Considering its location on one of the Proxima Centauri planets, it might very well be the first beacon."

I looked at the blueprints he handed me and felt my eyes glaze with horror. "It's a monstrosity! It looks more like a distillery than a beacon — it must be at least a few hundred meters high. I'm a repairman, not an archaeologist. This pile of junk is over two thousand years old. Just forget about it and build a new one."

The Old Man leaned over his desk, breathing into my face. "It would take a year to install a new beacon — besides being too expensive — and this relic is one of the main routes. We have ships making fifteen-light-year detours now."

He leaned back, wiped his hands on his handkerchief and gave me Lecture Forty-four on Company Duty and My Troubles.

"This department is officially called Maintenance and Repair, when it really should be called Troubleshooting. Hyperspace beacons are made to last forever — or damn close to it. When one of them breaks down, it is never an accident, and repairing the thing is never a matter of just plugging in a new part."

He was telling me — the guy who did the job while he sat back on his fat paycheck in an air-conditioned office.

He rambled on. "How I wish that were all it took! I would have a fleet of parts ships and junior mechanics to install them. But it's not like that at all. I have a fleet of expensive ships that are equipped to do almost anything — manned by a bunch of irresponsibles like you."

I nodded moodily at his pointing finger.

"How I wish I could fire you all! Combination space jockeys, mechanics, engineers, soldiers, con men and anything else it takes to do the repairs. I have to browbeat, bribe, blackmail and bulldoze you thugs into doing a simple job. If you think you're fed up, just think how I feel. But the ships must go through! The beacons must operate!"

I recognized this deathless line as the curtain speech and crawled to my feet. He threw the Mark III file at me and went back to scratching in his papers. Just as I reached the door, he looked up and impaled me on his finger again.

"And don't get any fancy ideas about jumping your contract. We can attach that bank account of yours on Algol II long before you could draw the money out."

I smiled, a little weakly, I'm afraid, as if I had never meant to keep that account a secret. His spies were getting more efficient every day. Walking down the hall, I tried to figure a way to transfer the money without his catching on — and knew at the same time he was figuring a way to outfigure me.

It was all very depressing so I stopped for a drink, then went on to the spaceport.

By the time the ship was serviced, I had a course charted. The nearest beacon to the broken-down Proxima Centauri beacon was on one of the planets of Beta Circinus and I headed there first, a short trip of only about nine days in hyperspace.

To understand the importance of the beacons, you have to understand hyperspace. Not that many people do, but it is easy enough to understand that in this nonspace the regular rules don't apply. Speed and measurements are a matter of relationship, not constant facts like the fixed universe.

The first ships to enter hyperspace had no place to go — and no way to even tell if they had moved. The beacons solved that problem and opened the entire universe. They're built on planets and generate tremendous amounts of power. This power is turned into radiation that is punched through into hyperspace. Every beacon has a code signal as part of its radiation and represents a measurable point in hyperspace. Triangulation and quadrature of the beacons works for navigation — only it follows its own rules. The rules are complex and variable, but they are still rules that a navigator can follow.

For a hyperspace jump, you need at least four beacons for an accurate fix. For long jumps, navigators use as many as seven or eight. So every beacon is important and every one has to keep operating. That is where I and the other troubleshooters came in.

We travel in well-stocked ships that carry a little bit of everything; only one man to a ship because that is all it takes to operate the overly efficient repair machinery. Due to the very nature of our job, we spend most of our time just rocketing through normal space. After all when a beacon breaks down, how do you find it?

Not through hyperspace. All you can do is approach as close as you can by using other beacons, then finish the trip in normal space. This can take months, and often does.

This job didn't turn out to be quite that bad. I zeroed the Beta Circinus beacon and ran a complicated eight-point problem through the navigator, using every beacon I could get an accurate fix on. The computer gave me a course with an estimated point of arrival as well as a built-in safety factor I never could eliminate from the machine.

I would much rather take a chance of breaking through near some star than spend time just barreling through normal space, but apparently Tech knows this, too. They had a safety factor built into the computer so you couldn't end up inside a sun no matter how hard YOU tried. I'm sure there was no humaneness in this decision. They Just didn't want lose the ship.

It was a twenty-hour jump, ship's time, and I came through in the middle of nowhere. The robot analyzer chuckled to itself and scanned all the stars, comparing them to the spectra of Proxima Centauri. It finally rang a bell and blinked a light. I peeped through the eyepiece.

A last reading with the photocell gave me the apparent magnitude and a comparison with its absolute magnitude showed its distance. Not as bad as I had thought — a six-week run, give or take a few days. After feeding a course tape into the robot pilot, I strapped into the acceleration tank and went to sleep.

The time went fast. I rebuilt my camera for about the twentieth time and just about finished a correspondence course in nucleonics. Most repairmen take these courses. They have a value in themselves, because you never know what bit of odd information will come in handy. Not only that, the company grades your pay by the number of specialties you can handle. All this, with some oil painting and free-fall workouts in the gym, passed the time. I was asleep when the alarm went off that announced planetary distance.

Planet Two, where the beacon was situated according to the old charts, was a mushy-looking, wet kind of globe. I worked hard to make sense out of the ancient directions and finally located the right area. Staying outside the atmosphere, I sent a Flying Eye down to look things over. In this business, you learn early when and where to risk your own skin. The Eye would be good enough for the preliminary survey.

The old boys had enough brains to choose a traceable site for the beacon, equidistant on a line between two of the most prominent mountain peaks. I located the peaks easily enough and started the Eye out from the first peak and kept on a course directly toward the second. There was a nose and a tail radar in the Eye and I fed their signals into a scope as an amplitude curve. When the two peaks coincided, I spun the Eye controls and dived the thing down.

I cut out the radar and cut in the nose orthicon and sat back to watch the beacon appear on the screen.

The image blinked, focused — and a great damn pyramid swam into view. I cursed and wheeled the Eye in circles, scanning the surrounding country. It was flat, marshy bottomland without a bump. The only thing within a ten-mile circle was this pyramid — and that definitely wasn't my beacon.

Or was it?

I dived the Eye lower. The pyramid was a crude-looking thing of undressed stone, without carvings or decorations. There was a shimmer of light from the top and I took a closer look at it. On the peak of the pyramid was a hollow basin filled with water. When I saw that, something clicked in my mind.

Locking the Eye in a circular course, I dug through the Mark III plans — and there it was. The beacon had a precipitating field and a basin on top of it for water, — this was used to cool the reactor that powered the monstrosity. If the water was still there, the beacon was still there — inside the pyramid. The natives, who, of course, weren't even mentioned by the idiots who constructed the thing, had built a nice heavy, thick stone pyramid under the beacon.

I took another look at the screen and realized that I had locked the Eye into a circular orbit about twenty feet above the pyramid. The summit of the stone pile was now covered with lizards of some type, apparently the local life form. They had what looked like throwing stones and arbalests and were trying to shoot down the Eye; a cloud of rocks and arrows was flying in every direction.

I pulled the Eye straight up and away and threw it in the control circuit that would return it automatically to the ship.

Then I went to the galley for a long strong drink. My beacon was not only locked inside a mountain of handmade stone, but I managed to irritate the things who had built the pyramid. This was clearly designed to drive a stronger man than me to the bottle.

Normally, a repairman stays away from native cultures. They are poison. Anthropologists may not mind being dissected for their science, but a repairman wants to make no sacrifices of any kind for his job. For this reason, most beacons are built on uninhabited planets. If a beacon has to go on a planet with a culture, it is usually built in some inaccessible place.

Why this beacon had been built within reach of the local claws, I had yet to find out. But that would come in time. The first thing to do was to make contact. To make contact, you have to know the local language.

And for that, I had long before worked out a system that was foolproof.

I had a Pryeye of my own construction. It looked like a piece of rock about a foot long. Once on the ground, it would never be noticed, though it was a little disconcerting to see it float by. I located a lizard town about a thousand kilometers from the pyramid and dropped the Eye. It swished down and landed at night in the bank of the local mud wallow. This was favorite spot that drew a good crowd during the day. In the morning, when the first wallowers arrived, I flipped on the recorder.

After about five of the local days, I had a sea of native conversation in my memory bank of the machine translator and had tagged a few expressions. This is fairly easy to do when you have a machine memory to work with. One of the lizards gargled at another one and the second one turned around. I tagged the expression with the phrase 'Hey, George!" and waited my chance to use it. Later the same day, I caught one of them alone and shouted "Hey, George!" at him. It gurgled out through the speaker in the local tongue and he turned around.

When you get enough reference phrases in the memory bank, the MT brain takes over and starts filling in the missing pieces. As soon as the MT could give a running translation of any conversation it heard, I figured it was time to make contact.

I found him easily enough. He was the Centurian version of a goat boy and he herded a particularly loathsome form of local life, in the swamps outside the town. I had one of the working Eyes dig a cave in an outcropping of rock and wait for him.

When he passed next day, I whispered into the mike: "Welcome, O Goat Boy Grandson! This your grandfather's spirit speaking from paradise." This fitted in with what I could make out of the local religion.

Goat Boy stopped as if he'd been shot. Before he could move, I pushed a switch and a handful of the local currency, wampum-type shells, rolled out of the cave and landed at his feet.

"Here is some money from paradise, because you have been a good boy." Not really from paradise — I had lifted it from the treasury the night before. "Come back tomorrow and we'll talk some more.” I called after the fleeing figure. I was pleased to notice that he took the cash before taking off.

After that, Grandpa in paradise had many heart-to-heart talks with Grandson, who found the heavenly loot more than he could resist. Grandpa had been out of touch with things since his death and Goat Boy happily filled him in.

I learned all I needed to know of the history, past and recent, and it wasn't nice.

In addition to the pyramid being around the beacon, there was a nice little religious war going on around the pyramid.

It all began with the land bridge. Apparently the local lizards had been living in the distant swamps when the beacon had been built, but the builders hadn't thought much of them. They were a low type and confined to a distant continent. The idea that the race would develop and might reach this continent never occurred to the beacon mechanics. Which is, of course, what happened.

A little geological turnover, a swampy land bridge formed in the right spot, and the lizards began to wander up Beacon Valley. And found religion. A shiny metal temple out of which poured a constant stream of magic water — the reactor-cooling water pumped down from the atmosphere condenser on the roof. The radioactivity in the water didn't hurt the natives. It caused mutations that bred in time.

A city was built around the temple and, through the centuries, the pyramid was put up around the beacon. A special branch of the priesthood served the temple. All went well until one of the priests violated the temple and destroyed the holy waters. There had been revolt, strife, murder and destruction since then. But still the holy waters would not flow. Now armed mobs fought around the temple each day and a new band of priests guarded the sacred fount.

And I had to walk into the middle of that mess and repair the thing.

It would have been easy enough if we were allowed a little mayhem. I could have had a lizard fry, fixed the beacon and taken off. Only "native life forms" were quite well protected. There were spy cells on my ship, all of which I hadn't found, that would cheerfully rat on me when I got back.

Diplomacy was called for. I sighed and dragged out the plastifresh equipment.

Working from 3-D snaps of Grandson, I modeled a passable reptile head over my own features. It was a little short in the jaw, me not having one of their toothy mandibles, but that was all right. I didn't have to look exactly like them, just something close, to soothe the native mind. It's logical. If I were an ignorant aborigine of Earth and I ran into a Spican, who looks like a two-foot gob of dried shellac, I would immediately leave the scene. However, if the Spican was wearing a suit of plastifresh that looked remotely humanoid, I would at least stay and talk to him. This was what I was aiming to do with the Centaurians.

When the head was done, I peeled it off and attached it to an attractive suit of green plastic, complete with tail. I was really glad they had tails. The lizards didn't wear clothes and I wanted to take along a lot of electronic equipment. I built the tail over a metal frame that anchored around my waist. Then I filled the frame with all the equipment I would need and began to wire the suit.

When it was done, I tried it on in front of a full-length mirror. It was horrible but effective. The tail dragged me down in the rear and gave me a duck waddle, but that only helped the resemblance.

That night I took the ship down into the hills nearest the pyramid, an out-of-the-way dry spot where the amphibious natives would never go. A little before dawn, the Eye hooked onto my shoulders and we sailed straight up. We hovered above the temple at about two thousand meters, until it was light, then dropped down. It must have been a grand sight. The Eye was camouflaged to look like a flying lizard, sort of a cardboard pterodactyl. The slowly flapping wings obviously had nothing to do with our flight. But it was impressive enough for the natives. The first one that spotted me screamed and dropped over on his back. The others came running. They milled ^about and piled on top of one another, and by the time I had landed m the plaza fronting the temple the priesthood arrived.

I folded my arms in a regal stance. "Greetings, O noble servers °f the Great God," I said. Of course I didn't say it out loud, just Whispered softly enough for the throat mike to catch. This was radioed back to the MT and the translation shot back to a speaker in my jaws.

The natives chomped and rattled and the translation rolled out almost instantly. I had the volume turned up and the whole square echoed.

Some of the more credulous natives prostrated themselves and others fled screaming. One doubtful type raised a spear, but no one else tried that after the pterodactyl eye picked him up and dropped him in the swamp. The priests were a hard-headed lot and weren't buying any lizards in a poke; they just stood and muttered. I had to take the offensive again.

"Begone, O faithful steed.” I said to the Eye, and pressed the control in my palm at the same time.

It took off straight up a bit faster than I wanted; little pieces of wind-torn plastic rained down. While the crowd was ogling this ascent, I walked through the temple doors.

"I would talk with you, O noble priests," I said.

Before they could think up a good answer, I was inside.

The temple was a small one built against the base of the pyramid. I hoped I wasn't breaking too many taboos by going in_; I wasn't stopped, so it looked all right. The temple was a single room with a murky-looking pool at one end. Sloshing in the pool was an ancient reptile who clearly was one of the leaders. I waddled toward him and he gave me a cold and fishy eye, then growled something.

The MT whispered into my ear, "Just what in the name of the thirteenth sin are you and what are you doing here?"

I drew up my scaly figure in a noble gesture and pointed toward the ceiling. "I come from your ancestors to help you. I am here to restore the Holy Waters."

This raised a buzz of conversation behind me, but got no rise out of the chief. He sank slowly into the water until only his eyes were showing. I could almost hear the wheel turning behind that moss-covered forehead. Then he lunged up and pointed a dripping finger at me.

"You are a liar! You are no ancestor of ours! We will—"

"Stop!" I thundered before he got so far in that he couldn't back out. "I said your ancestors sent me as emissary — I am not one of your ancestors. Do not try to harm me or the wrath of those who have Passed On will turn against you."

When I said this, I turned to jab a claw at the other priests using the motion to cover my flicking a coin grenade toward them. It blew a nice hole in the door with a great show of noise and smoke.

The First Lizard knew I was talking sense then and immediately called a meeting of the shamans. It, of course, took place in the public bathtub and I had to join them there. We jawed and gurgled for about an hour and settled all the major points. I found out that they were new priests; the previous ones had all been boiled for letting the Holy Waters cease.

I explained that I was there only to help them restore the flow of the waters. They bought this, tentatively, and we all heaved out of the tub and trickled muddy paths across the floor. There was a bolted and guarded door that led into the pyramid proper. While it was being opened, the First Lizard turned to me.

"Undoubtedly you know of the rule," he said. "Because the old priests did pry and peer, it was ordered henceforth that only the blind could enter the Holy of Holies." I'd swear he was smiling, if thirty teeth peeking out of what looked like a crack in an old suitcase can be called smiling.

He was also signaling to him an underpriest who carried a brazier of charcoal complete with red-hot irons. All I could do was stand and watch as he stirred up the coals, pulled out the ruddiest iron and turned toward me. He was just drawing a bead on my right eyeball when my brain got back in gear.

"Of course," I said, "blinding is only right. But in my case you will have to blind me before I leave the Holy of Holies, not now. I need my eyes to see and mend the Fount of Holy Waters. Once the waters flow again, I will laugh as I hurl myself on the burning iron."

He took a good thirty seconds to think it over and had to agree with me. The local torturer sniffled a bit and threw a little more charcoal on the fire. The gate crashed open and I stalked through; then it banged to behind me and I was alone in the dark.

But not for long — there was a shuffling nearby and I took a chance and turned on my flash. Three priests were groping toward me, their eye sockets red pits of burned flesh. They knew what I wanted and led the way without a word.

A crumbling and cracked stone stairway brought us up to a solid metal doorway labeled in archaic script MARK m BEACON AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The overly trusting builders counted on the sign to do the whole job, for there wasn't a trace of a lock on the door. One lizard merely turned the handle and we were inside the beacon.

I unzipped the front of my camouflage suit and pulled out the blue-Prints. With the faithful priests stumbling after me I found that there Was a residue of charge in the emergency batteries, just enough to give a dim light. The meters and indicators looked to be in good shape; if anything, unexpectedly bright from constant polishing. I checked the readings carefully and found just what I had suspected.

One of the eager lizards had managed to open the circuit box and had polished the switches inside. While doing this, he had thrown one of the switches and that had caused the trouble.

Rather, that had started the trouble. It wasn't going to be ended by just reversing the water-valve switch. This valve was supposed to be used only for repairs, after the pile had been damped. When the water was cut off with the pile in operation, it had started to overheat and the automatic safeties had dumped the charge down the pit.

I could start the water again easily enough, but there was no fuel left in the reactor.

I wasn't going to play with the fuel problem at all. It would be far easier to install a new power plant. I had one in the ship that was about a tenth of the size of the ancient bucket of bolts. Before I sent for it, I checked over the rest of the beacon. In two thousand years there should be some sort of wear.

The old boys had built well, I'll give them credit for that. Ninety percent of the machinery had no moving parts and had suffered no wear whatever. Other parts they beefed up figuring they would wear, but slowly. The water-feed pipe from the roof for example. The pipe walls were at least three meters thick — and the pipe opening itself no bigger than my head. There were some things I could do, though, and I made a list of parts.

The parts, the new power plant and a few other odds and ends were chuted into a neat pile on the ship. I checked all the parts by screen before they were loaded into a small metal crate. In the darkest hour before dawn, the heavy-duty Eye dropped the crate outside the temple and darted away without being seen.

I watched the priests thorough the Pryeye while they tried to open it. When they had given up, I boomed orders at them through a speaker in the crate. They spent most of the day sweating the heavy box up through the narrow temple stairs and I enjoyed a good sleep. It was resting inside the beacon door when I woke up.

The repair didn't take long, though there was plenty of groaning from the blind lizards when they heard me ripping the wall open to get to the power leads. I even hooked a gadget to the water pipe so their Holy Waters would have the usual refreshing radioactivity when they started flowing again. The moment this was all finished, I did the job they waited for.

I threw the switch that started the water flowing again.

There were a few minutes while the water began to gurgle down through the dry pipe. Then a roar came from outside the pyramid that must have shaken its stone walls. Shaking my hands once over my head, I went down for the eye-burning ceremony.

The blind lizards were waiting for me by the door and looked even unhappier than usual. When I tried the door, I found out why — it was bolted and barred from the other side.

"It has been decided.” a lizard said, "that you shall remain here forever and tend to the Holy Waters. We will stay with you and serve your every need."

A delightful prospect, eternity spent in a locked beacon with three blind lizards. In spite of their hospitality, I couldn't accept.

"What! You dare interfere with the messenger of your ancestors!" I had the speaker on full volume and the vibration almost shook my head off.

The lizards cringed and I set my Solar for a narrow beam and ran it around the doorjamb. There was a great crunching and banging from the junk piled against it, and then the door swung free. I threw it open. Before they could protest, I had pushed the priests out through it.

The rest of their clan showed up at the foot of the stairs and made a great ruckus while I finished welding the door shut. Running through the crowd, I faced up to the First Lizard in his tub. He sank slowly beneath the surface.

"What lack of courtesy!" I shouted. He made little bubbles in the water. "The ancestors are annoyed and have decided to forbid entrance to the Inner Temple forever; though, out of kindness, they will let the waters flow. Now I must return — on with the blinding ceremony!"

The torture-master was too frightened to move, so I grabbed out his hot iron. A touch on the side of my face dropped a steel plate over my eyes, under the plastiskin. Then I jammed the iron hard into my phony eye sockets and the plastic gave off an authentic odor. A cry went up from the crowd as I dropped the iron and staggered in blind circles. I must admit it went off pretty well.

Before they could get any more bright ideas, I threw the switch and my plastic pterodactyl sailed in through the door.

I couldn't see it, of course, but I knew it had arrived when the grapples in the claws latched onto the steel plates on my shoulders. I had got turned around after the eye burning and my flying beast hooked onto me backward. I had meant to sail out bravely, blind eyes facing into the sunset. Instead, I faced the crowd as I soared away, so I made the most of a bad situation and threw them a snappy military salute. Then I was out in the fresh air and away.

When I lifted the plate and poked holes in the seared plastic, I could see the pyramid growing smaller behind me, water gushing out of the base and a happy crowd of reptiles sporting in its radioactive rush. I counted off on my talons to see if I had forgotten anything.

One: The beacon was repaired.

Two: The door was sealed, so there should be no more sabotage, accidental or deliberate.

Three: The priest should be satisfied. The water was running again, my eyes had been duly burned out, and they were back in business. Which added up to—

Four: The fact that they would probably let another repairman in, under the same conditions, if the beacon conked out again. At least I had done nothing, like butchering a few of them, that would make them antagonistic toward future ancestral messengers.

I stripped off my tattered lizard suit back in the ship, very glad it would be some other repairman who would get the job.

Pressure

The tension inside the ship rose as the pressure outside increased— and at the same rate. Perhaps it was because Nissim and Aldo had nothing at all to do. They had time to think too much. They would glance at the pressure gauges and then quickly away, reluctantly repeating this action over and over. Aldo knotted his fingers and was uncomfortably aware of the cold dampness of his skin, while Nissim chain-smoked cigarette after cigarette. Only Stan Brandon — the man with the responsibility — stayed calm and alert. While he studied his instruments he appeared completely relaxed, and when he made an adjustment on the controls there was a certain dash to his actions. For some reason this infuriated the other men, though neither would admit it.

"The pressure gauge has failed!" Nissim gasped, leaning forward against the restraint of his safety harness. "It reads zero."

"It's supposed to, Doc, built that way," Stan said, smiling. He reached over and flicked a switch. The needle jumped while the scale reading changed. "Only way to measure these kind of pressures. Chunks of metal and crystal in the outer hull, different compressibilities, and they compress to destruction. So we switch to the next one—"

"Yes, yes, I know all that."

Nissim contained his temper and dragged heavily on his cigarette. Of course he had been told about the gauges during the briefings. For an instant there it had just slipped his mind. The needle once more moved in steady pace up the scale. Nissim looked at it, looked away, thought about what was outside this seamless, windowless metal sphere, then, in spite of himself, glanced back at the dial again and felt the dampness on the palms of his hands. Nissim Ben-Haim, leading physicist at the University of Tel Aviv, had too much imagination.

So did Aldo Gabrielli and he knew it; he wished that he had something to do besides watch and wait. Dark-haired, swarthy, with a magnificent nose, he looked typically Italian and was an eleventh-generation American. His position in electronic engineering was a secure as Nissim's in physics — if not better. He was considered a genius whose work with the scantron amplifier had revolutionized matter transmitter mechanics. He was scared.

The C. Huygens fell down through the thickening atmosphere of Saturn. That was the ship's official name, but the men who had assembled her at Saturn One called the vehicle simply "the Ball." Essentially that is just what it was, a solid metal sphere with walls ten meters thick, enclosing the relatively minuscule space in its center. The immense, wedge-shaped sections had been cast in the asteroid belt and sent to the Saturn One satellite station for assembly. There, in high orbit, with the unbelievable beauty of the rings and the great bulk of the planet hanging above them, the Ball had taken shape. Molecular welding had joined the sections into a seamless whole, and, just before the final wedge had been slid into place, the MT screen had been carefully placed inside. When the last piece had been joined to the others the only access to the center of the Ball was through the matter transmitter. Once the welders, with their destroying radiation, were through, the final construction could begin. The specially constructed large MT screen had been built under the floor, on which was soon mounted the supplies, atmosphere equipment, and apparatus that made the Ball livable for men. Then the controls were installed, as well as the external tanks and jets that transformed it into an atomic-engined space vessel. This was the ship that would drop down to the surface of Saturn.

Eighty years previously the C. Huygens could not have been built since the pressure-compacted alloys had not yet been developed. Forty-two years earlier it could not have been assembled because molecular welding had not been invented. Ten years ago the unpierced hull could not have been used since that was when atomic differentiation had first been made practical. No wires or wave guides weakened the solidity of the metal hull of the Ball. Instead, areas of differentiation passed through the alloy, chemically and physically the same as the metal around them, yet capable of carrying separate electric impulses. Taken in its entirety, the Ball was a tribute to the expanding knowledge of mankind. Taking the three men to the bottom of Saturn's twenty-thousand-mile-deep atmosphere, it was a sealed prison cell.

All of them had been conditioned against claustrophobia, yet still they felt it.

"Come in control, how do you read me?" Stan said into his microphone, then switched to receive with a quick movement of his jaw against the switch. There was a few seconds' delay as the recording tape clicked out through the MT screen and the return tape rolled into his receiver.

"One and three," the speaker hissed, a sibilant edge to all the sounds.

"That's the beginning of the sigma effect," Aldo said, his hands still for the first time. He looked deliberately at the pressure gauge. “A hundred thirty-five thousand atmospheres, that's the usual depth where it begins.”

"I want to look at the tape that came through," Nissim said, grinding out his cigarette. He reached for his harness release.

"Don't do that, Doc," Stan said, raising a warning hand. "This has been a smooth drop so far but it's sure to get bumpy soon. You know what the winds in this atmosphere must be like. So far we've been in some kind of jet stream and moving laterally with it. That's not going to last forever. I'll have them send another tape through your repeater."

"It will take only a moment," Nissim said, but his hand hesitated on the release.

"You can break your skull quicker than that," Stan said and, as if to verify his words, the immense bulk of the Ball surged violently sideways, tipping as it did so. The two scientists clung to their couches while the pilot rightened the ship.

"You're an accurate prophet of doom.” Aldo said. "Do you dispense good omens as well?"

"Only on Tuesdays, Doc," Stan answered imperturbably as the pressure gauge died again and he switched to the next transmitter. "Rate of fall steady."

"This is taking an infernally long time," Nissim complained, lighting a cigarette.

"Twenty thousand miles to the bottom, Doc, and we don't want to hit too hard."

"I am well acquainted with the thickness of Saturn's atmosphere," Nissim said angrily. "And could you refrain from calling me Doc? If for no other reason than that you address Doctor Gabrielli in the same way, and a certain confusion results."

''Right you are, Doc." The pilot turned and winked as he heard the physicist's angry gasp. "That was just a joke. We're all in the same boat so we can all be cobbers just like at home. Call me Stan and I'll call you Nissim. And what about you, Doc, going to be Aldo?"

Aldo Gabrielli pretended that he did not hear. The pilot was an infuriating man. "What is that?" he asked as a continuous, faint vibration began to shake the Ball.

"Hard to tell," the pilot answered, throwing switches rapidly, then examining the results on his screens. "Something out there, clouds ttiaybe, that we're moving through. Varying impacts on the hull."

"Crystallization," Nissim said, looking at the pressure gauge. "The top of the atmosphere is two hundred and ten degrees below zero Fahrenheit, but up there the low vapor pressure prevents freezing. The pressure is much higher now. We must be falling through clouds °f methane and ammonia crystals—"

"I've just lost my last radar," Stan said. "Carried away."

"We should have had television pickups; we could see what is out there.” Nissim said.

"See what?" Aldo asked. "Hydrogen clouds with frozen crystals in them? They would have been destroyed like the other instruments. The radio altimeter is the only instrument that's essential."

"And it's working fine," Stan announced happily.

"Still too high for a reading, but it's in the green. Should be; it's an integral part of the hull."

Nissim sipped from the water tube on the side of his couch. Aide's mouth was suddenly dry as he saw this and he drank, too. The endless fall continued.

"How long have I been asleep?" Nissim asked, surprised that he had actually dropped off despite the tension.

"Just a few hours," Stan told him. "You seemed to enjoy it. Snored like a water buffalo."

"My wife always says a camel." He looked at his watch. "You've been awake for over seventy-two hours. Don't you feel it?"

"No. I'll catch up later. I've got pills here, and it's not the first time that I've pulled a long watch."

Nissim settled back on the couch and saw that Aldo was muttering figures to himself while he worked out a problem on his hand calculator. No sensation can be experienced indefinitely, he thought, even fear. We were both bloody frightened up there, but it can't go on forever.

He felt a slight tremble of emotion as he looked at the pressure gauge, but it passed quickly.

"It reads solid," Stan said, "but the height keeps shifting." There were dark smears, like arcs of soot, under his eyes, and he had been on drugs for the last thirty hours.

"It must be liquid ammonia and methane," Nissim said. "Or semi-liquid, changing back and forth from gas to liquid. God knows, anything is possible with those pressures outside. Just under a million atmospheres. Unbelievable."

"I believe it," Aldo told him. "Can we move laterally and perhaps find something solid underneath us?"

"I've been doing that for the last hour. We either have to sink into that soup, or hop up again for another drop. I'm not going to try and balance her on her jets, not with the G's we have waiting for us out there."

"Do we have fuel for a hop?"

"Yes, but I want to hold it for a reserve. We're down close to thirty percent."

"I vote to take the plunge.” Nissim said. "If there is liquid down there it probably covers the entire surface. With these pressures and the wind I'm sure that any irregularities would be scoured flat in a relatively short geological time."

"I don't agree," Aldo said. "But someone else can investigate that. I vote to drop on the fuel situation alone."

"Three to nothing then, gents. Down we go."

The steady descent continued. The pilot slowed the immense weight of the Ball as they approached the shifting interface, but there was no unusual buffeting when they entered the liquid because the change was so gradual.

"I have a reading now," Stan said, excited for the first time. "It's holding steady at fifteen kilometers. There may be a bottom to all this after all."

The other two men did not talk as the drop continued, fearful of distracting the pilot. Yet this was the easiest part of the voyage. The lower they sank the less the disturbance around them. At one kilometer there was no buffeting or sideways motion in the slightest. They fell slowly as the bottom approached. At five hundred meters Stan turned over the landing to the computer and, hand poised, stood ready to take command should there be difficulties. The engines blasted lightly, cut off, and, with a single grinding thud, they were down. Stan flipped the override and killed the engines.

"That's it," he said, stretching hugely. "We've landed on Saturn. And that calls for a drink." He mumbled a complaint when he discovered that it took most of his strength to push up from the chair.

"Two point six-four gravities," Nissim said, looking at the reading on the delicate quartz spring balance on his board. "It's not going to be easy to work under all these G's."

"What we have to do shouldn't take long," Aldo said. "Let's have that drink. Then Stan can get some sleep while we start on the MT."

"I'll buy that. My job is done and I'm just a spectator until you boys get me home. Here's to us." They raised their glasses with difficulty and drank.

The burden of the more-than-doubled gravity had been anticipated. Aldo and the pilot changed acceleration couches so that the engineer could face the instrument panels and the MT screen. When the restraining catches were released, Nissim's couch also swung about so that he could reach the screen. Before these preparations were finished Stan had flattened his couch and was soundly asleep. The other two men did not notice: they were now able to start on their part of the mission. Aldo, as the MT specialist, made the preparatory tests while Nissim watched closely.

"All the remotes we sent down developed sigma effect before they had penetrated a fifth of the atmosphere," Aldo said, plugging in the test instruments. "Once the effect was strong enough we lost all control and we have never had an accurate track past the halfway mark. We've just lost contact with them." He checked all the readings twice and left the wave form on the scope when he sank back to rest his tired back and arms.

"The wave looks right," Nissim said.

"It is. So is everything else. Which means that one half of your theory, at least, is correct."

"Wonderful!" Nissim said, smiling for the first time since they had begun the flight. His fists clenched as he thought of the verbal drubbings he would administer to the other physicists who had been rash enough to disagree with him. "Then the error is not in the transmitter? "

"Absolutely."

"Then let's transmit and see if the signal gets through. The receiver is tuned and waiting."

"C. Huygens calling Saturn One, come in. How do you read me?"

They both watched as the transcribed tape clicked into the face of the screen and vanished; then Aldo switched the MT to receive. Nothing happened. He waited sixty seconds and sent the message again — with the same results.

"And there is the proof," Nissim said happily. "Transmitter, perfect. Receiver, perfect — we can count on that. But no signal getting through. Therefore my spatial distortion factor must be present. Once we correct for that, contact will be reestablished."

"Soon, I hope," Aldo said, slightly depressed, looking up at the curved walls of their cell. "Because until the correction is made we are staying right here, sealed into the heart of this king-sized ball bearing. And even if there were an exit we have no place to go."

Stan was still exhausted when he woke up_; sleep under this heavy gravity was less than satisfactory. He yawned and shifted position, but stretching proved more debilitating than satisfying. When he turned to the others he saw Nissim working concentratedly with his computer while Aldo held a bloodstained handkerchief to his nose.

"Gravity bleeding?" Stan asked. "I better paint it with some adrenaline."

"Not gravity." Aide's voice was muffled by the cloth. "That bastard hit me."

"Right on that big beak," Nissim said, not looking up from his computer. "It was too good a target to miss."

"What seems to be the trouble?" Stan asked, glancing quickly from one to the other. "Isn't the MT working?"

"No it's not," Aldo said warmly. "And our friend here blames me for that and—"

"The theory is correct, the mechanics of application are wrong."

"— when I suggested that there might be an error or two in his equations he swung on me in a fit of infantile anger."

Stan moved in quickly to stop the developing squabble, his drill-field voice drowning out the others.

"Hold on now. Don't both talk at once because I can't understand a thing. Won't someone please put me into the picture and let me know exactly what's happening?"

"Of course," Nissim said, then waited impatiently until Aide's complaints had died down. "How much do you know about MT theory?"

"The answer is simple — nothing. I'm a torch jockey and I stick to my trade. Someone builds them, someone fixes them, I fly them. Would you kindly simplify?"

"I'll attempt to." Nissim pursed his lips in thought. "The first thing you must realize is that an MT does not scan and transmit like, say, a television transmitter does. No signal, as we commonly think of signals, is sent. What is done is that the plane of the screen of the transmitter is placed into a state of matter that is not a part of space as we normally know it. The receiving screen is placed in the same condition and tuning is accomplished once they are locked onto the same frequency. In a sense they become part of one another and the distance of the intervening space does not matter. If you step into one you will step out of the other without any awareness of either time or spatial separation. I am explaining very badly."

"You're doing fine, Nissim. What comes next?"

"The fact that spatial distance between transmitter and receiver does not matter, but the condition of that space does—"

"You're beginning to lose me."

"I'll give you a not unrelated example. Light rays travel in a straight line through space, unless interfered with in some physical manner — refraction, reflection, so forth. But — these rays can also be bent when they pass through an intense gravitational field such as that of the sun. We have noticed the same kind of effect in MT, and corrections are always made for the bulk of the Earth or other planetary bodies. Another condition affecting space appears deep in the ^rigid soup this planet calls an atmosphere. The incredible pressures affect the very binding energy of the atoms and stresses are produced. These interfere with the MT relationships. Before we can move an object from one MT screen to another down here we must make allowances and corrections for these new interferences. I have worked out the corrections, we must now apply them."

"Very simple the way he explains it.” Aldo said distastefully, dabbing at his nose and examining the results on his handkerchief. "But it doesn't work out that way in practice. No signals are getting through. And our friend will not agree with me that we'll have to step up the strength of our output if we're ever going to punch through all that pressurized gunk out there."

"It's quality not quantity!" Nissim shouted, and Stan stepped in once again.

"By that do you mean that we're going to have to unlimber the MT monster down under the floor?"

"I damned well do. That's why it was built in the first place, with adjustable components rather than sealed block units."

"It will take us a month to move everything and we'll probably kill ourselves trying.” Nissim shouted.

"Not that long, I hope," Stan said, sitting up and trying not to groan with the effort. "And the exercise will be good for our muscles."

It took them almost four days to clear away and get up the flooring, and they were over the edge of exhaustion before they had finished. Mechanical preparations had been made with this eventuality in mind; there were ringbolts to suspend the equipment from, and power hoists to lift it, but a certain amount of physical effort was still needed. In the end almost the entire floor area had been cleared and raised, leaving a ledge around the wall, on which their test equipment and couches alone remained. The rest of the floor consisted of MT screen. From the hard comfort of their couches they looked at it.

"A monster," Stan said. "You could drop a landing barge through it."

"It has more than size," Aldo told him, gasping for air. He could hear the hammer of blood in his ears and was sure that his heart had suffered from the strain. "All the circuitry is beefed up, with spare circuits and a hundred times the power-handling capacity it would need anywhere else."

"How do you dig into its guts for adjustments? I can't see anything except the screen?"

"That's deliberate." He pointed into the threaded hole in the armor, from which they had unscrewed a foot-thick plug. "Our operating controls are in there. Before we leave we put the plug back and it seals itself into place. To make adjustments we have to lift up sections of the screen."

"Am I being dense or is it the gravity? I don't understand."

Aldo was patient. "This MT screen is the whole reason for this expedition. Getting the MT to work down here is vital to us — but only secondary to the original research. When we get out the technicians will come through and replace all the circuitry with solid-state, block-sealed units — then evacuate. The upper section of the interior of the hull will be progressively weakened by automatic drills. This screen will be tuned to another MT in space above the ecliptic. Eventually the weakened Ball will collapse, implode, push right down on top of the screen. The screen will not be harmed because it will transmit all the debris through into space. Then the phasing will be adjusted slowly until transmission stops. At which point we will have access to the bottom of Saturn's sea. The cryo-genicists and high-pressure boys are looking forward to that."

Stan nodded but Nissim was looking up at the cluttered dome above, almost openmouthed, thinking of that imploding mass of metal, the pressure of the poison sea behind it…

"Let's get started," he said quickly, struggling to rise. "Get the screens up and the changes made. It's time we were getting back."

The other men helped with the labor of lifting the screen segments, but only Aldo could make the needed adjustments. He worked intensely, cursing feebly, on the units that the remote handler placed before him. When he was too tired he stopped and closed his eyes so he would not see Nissim's worried glances at him, up at the dome above, and back to him again. Stan served them food and doled out the G drugs and stimulants with a cheerful air. He talked about the varied experiences of space flight, which monologue he enjoyed even if they did not.

Then the job was done, the tests completed and the last segment of screen slid back into place. Aldo reached into the control pit and pressed a switch: the dark surface changed to the familiar shimmer of MT operation.

"Transmitting," he said. "Here, send this," Stan said, scribbling How do you read usl on a piece of paper. He threw it far out into the center of the screen and it sank from sight. "Now receive."

Aldo flipped the switch and the surface of the screen changed. Nothing else happened. For a heartbeat of time they watched, un-moving, not breathing, staring at that barren surface.

Then, with smooth sinuousness, a length of recording tape sprang mto existence and, bent by its own weight, curved and began to pile Up. Nissim was the nearest and he reached out and grabbed it, reeling it in until the cut end appeared.

"It works!" Stan shouted.

"Partially/⁷ Nissim said coldly. "The quality of transmission is sure to be off and finer adjustments will have to be made. But they can analyze at the receiving end and send us specific instructions."

He fed the tape into the player and switched it on. A booming squawking echoed from the metal walls. It could be perceived as the sound of a human voice only with a great effort.

"Finer adjustments.” Nissim said with a small smile. The smile vanished instantly as the Ball rocked to one side, then slowly returned to vertical. "Something has pushed us.” he gasped.

"Currents perhaps.” Aldo said, clutching to his couch as the motion slowly damped, "or maybe solid floes; there's no way to tell. It's past time we got out of here."

They were fighting against the unending fatigue now, but they tried to ignore it. The end was so close and the security of Saturn One station just a step away. Nissim computed the needed adjustments while the other two lifted up the screen sections again and reset the components. It was the worst kind of work to do in the more-than-doubled gravity. Yet, within a solar day they were getting sound-perfect tapes and the samples of materials they sent back tested out correct to five decimal places. The occasional jarring of the Ball continued and they did their best not to think about it.

"We're ready to begin live testing now," Nissim said into the microphone. Aldo watched the tape with these recorded words vanish into the screen and resisted a strong impulse to hurl himself after it. Wait. Soon now. He switched to receive.

"I do not think I have ever been in one place for so long before in my entire life," Nissim said, staring, like the others, at the screen. "Even in college in Iceland I went home to Israel every night."

"We take the MT screens for granted," Aldo said. "All the time we were working at Satellite One on this project I commuted to New York City after work. We take it for granted until something like this happens. It's easier for you, Stan."

"Me?" the pilot looked up, raising his eyebrows. "I'm no different. I get to New Zealand every chance I have." His gaze went back instantly to the empty screen.

"I don't mean that. It's just that you are used to being alone in a ship, piloting, for longer times. Maybe that's good training. You don't seem as… well, as bothered by all this as we do."

Nissim nodded silent agreement and Stan barked a short, hard laugh.

"Don't kid yourself. When you sweat, I sweat. I've just been trained different. Panic in my work and you're dead. Panic in your work and it just means taking a few extra drinks before dinner to cool down. You've never had the need to exercise control so you've never bothered to learn."

"That's just not true," Nissim said. "We're civilized men, not animals, with willpower—"

"Where was it when you popped Aldo on the beak?"

Nissim grinned wryly. "Score one for your side. I admit that I can be emotional — but that's an essential part of the human existence. Yet you personally have — what should I say — perhaps the kind of personality that is not as easily disturbed."

"Cut me, I bleed. It's training that keeps one from pressing the panic button. Pilots have been like that right back to the year one. I suppose they have personalities that lean that way to begin with, but it's only constant practice that makes the control automatic. Did you ever hear the recordings in the Voices of Space series?"

The other two shook their heads, looking at the still-empty screen.

"You should. You can't guess the date that any recording was made to within fifty years. Training for control and clarity is always the same. The best example is the first, the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin. There are plenty of examples of his voice, including the very last. He was flying an atmosphere craft of some sort, and he had trouble. He could have ejected and escaped safely — but he was over a populated area. So he rode the craft in and killed himself. His voice, right up to the very end, sounded just like all of his other recordings."

"That's unnatural," Nissim said. "He must have been a very different kind of man from the rest of us."

"You've missed my point completely."

"Look!" Aldo said. They all stopped talking as a guinea pig came up through the screen and dropped back to its surface. Stan picked it up.

"Looks great," he said. "Good fur, fine whiskers, warm. And dead." He glanced back and forth at their fatigue-drawn, panicked faces and smiled. "No need to worry. We don't have to go through this instant corpse-maker yet. More adjustments? Do you want to look at the body or should I send it back for analysis?"

Nissim turned away. "Get rid of it and get a report. One more time should do it."

The physiologists were fast: cause of death functional disability in the neural axon synapses. A common mishap in the first MTs, for which there was a known correction. The correction was made, although Aldo passed out during it and they had to revive him with drugs. The constant physical drain was telling on them all.

"I don't know if I could face lifting those segments again," Aldo said, almost in a whisper, and switched to receive.

A guinea pig appeared on the screen, motionless. Then it twitched its nose and turned and wriggled about painfully, looking for some refuge. The cheer was hoarse, weak, but still a cheer.

"Goodbye, Saturn.” Nissim said. "I have had it."

"Agreed," Aldo said, and switched to send.

"Let's first see what the docs say about the beast," Stan said as he dropped the guinea pig back into the screen. They all watched it as it vanished.

"Yes, of course." Nissim spoke the words reluctantly. "A final test."

It was a long time coming and was highly unsatisfactory. They played the tape a second time.

"… And those are the clinical reports, gentlemen. What it seems to boil down to is that there is a very microscopic slowing of some of the animal's reflexes and nerve transmission speeds. In all truth we cannot be sure that there has been an alteration until more tests are made with controls. We have no recommendations. Whatever actions you take are up to you. There seems to be general agreement that some evidence of disability is present, which appears to have had no overt effect on the animal, but no one here will attempt to guess at its nature until the more detailed tests have been made. These will require a minimum of forty-five hours…"

"I don't think I can live forty-five hours," Nissim said. "My heart…"

Aldo stared at the screen. "I can live that long, but what good will it do? I know I can't lift those segments again. This is the end. There's only one way out."

"Through the screen?" Stan asked. "Not yet. We should wait out the tests. As long as we can."

"If we wait them out we're dead," Nissim insisted. "Aldo is right, even if corrections are given to us we can't go through all that again. This is it."

"No, I don't think so," Stan said, but he shut up when he realized that they were not listening. He was as close to total collapse as they were. "Let's take a vote then, majority decides."

It was a quick two to one.

"Which leaves only one remaining question," Stan said, looking into their exhausted, parchment faces, the mirror images of his own. "Who bells the cat? Goes first?" There was an extended silence.

Nissim coughed. "There is one thing clear. Aldo has to stay because he is the only one who can make adjustments if more are needed. Not that he physically could, but he still should be the last to leave."

Stan nodded agreement, then let his chin drop back onto his chest. "I'll go along with that; he's out as the guinea pig. You're out, too, Dr. Ben-Haim, because from what I hear you are the bright hope of physics today. They need you. But there are a lot of jet jockeys around. Whenever we go through, I go first."

Nissim opened his mouth to protest, but could think of nothing to say.

"Right then. Me first as guinea pig. But when? Now? Have we done the best we can with this rig? Are you sure that you can't hold out in case further correction is needed?"

"It's a fact,” Aldo said hoarsely. "I'm done for right now."

"A few hours, a day perhaps. But how could we work at the end of it? This is our last chance."

"We must be absolutely sure," Stan said, looking from one to the other. "I'm no scientist, and I'm not qualified to judge the engineering involved. So when you say that you have done the absolute best possible with the MT I have to take your word for it. But I know something about fatigue. We can go on a lot longer than you think—"

"No!" Nissim said.

"Hear me out. We can get more lifting equipment sent through. We can rest for a couple of days before going back on drugs. We can have rewired units sent through so that Aldo won't have to do the work. There are a lot of things that might be done to help."

"None of those things can help corpses," Aldo said, looking at the bulging arteries in his wrist, throbbing with the pressure needed to force the blood through his body under the multiplied gravity. "The human heart can't work forever under these kind of conditions. There is strain, damage — and then the end."

"You would be surprised just how strong the heart and the entire human organism can be."

"Yours, perhaps," Nissim said. "You're trained and fit and we, let's face it, are overweight and underexercised. And closer to death than we have ever been before. I know that I can't hold on any longer, and if you're not going through — then I'm going myself."

"And how about you, Aldo?" Stan said.

"Nissim is speaking for me, too. If it comes to a choice I'll take rny chances with the screen rather than face the impossibility of surviving here. I think the odds on the screen are much better."

"Well then," Stan said, struggling his legs off the couch. "There doesn't seem to be very much more to say. I'll see you boys back in the station. It's been good working with you both and we'll all sure have some stories to tell our kids."

Aldo switched to transmit. Stan crawled to the edge of the screen. Smiling, he waved goodbye and fell, rather than stepped out onto its surface, and vanished.

The tape emerged instants later and Aldo's hands shook as he fed it to the player.

"… Yes, there he is, you two help him! Hello, C. Huygens, Major Brandon has come through and he looks awful, but I guess you know that, I mean he really looks all right. The doctors are with him now, talking to him. . just a moment…"

The voice faded to a distant mumble as the speaker put his hand over the microphone, and there was a long wait before he spoke again. When he did his voice was changed.

"I want to tell you. . it's a little difficult. Perhaps I had better put on Dr. Kreer." There was a clatter and a different voice spoke. "Dr. Kreer. We have been examining your pilot. He seems unable to talk, to recognize anyone, although he appears uninjured, no signs of physical trauma. I don't know quite how to say this — but it looks very bad for him. If this is related to the delayed responses in the guinea pig there may be some connection with higher brain function. The major's reflexes test out Al when allowance is made for fatigue. But the higher capacities — speech, intelligence — they seem to be, well, missing. I therefore order you both not to use the screen until complete tests have been made. And I am afraid I must advise you that there is a good chance that you will have to remain a longer period and make further adjustments…"

The end of the tape clicked through and the player turned itself off. The two men looked at each other, horrified, then turned away when their eyes met.

"He's dead," Nissim said. "Worse than dead. What a terrible accident. Yet he seemed so calm and sure of himself…"

"Gagarin flying his craft into the ground to save some others. What else could he have done? Could we have expected him to panic — like us? We as much as told him to commit suicide."

"You can't accuse us of that, Aldo!"

"Yes I can. We agreed that he had to go first. And we assured him that we were incapable of improving the operation of the machine in our present physical condition."

"Well. . that's true."

"Is it?" Nissim looked Aldo squarely in the eyes for the first time. "We are going back to work now, aren't we? We won't go through the MT as it is. So we will work on it until we have a good chance of making it — alive."

Aldo returned his gaze, steadily. "I imagine we can do that. And if it is true now — were we really speaking the truth when we said we would have gone through the screen first?"

"That is a very hard question to answer."

"Isn't it, though. And the correct answer is going to be very hard to live with. I think that we can truthfully say that we killed Stan Brandon."

"Not deliberately!"

"No. Which is probably worse. We killed him through our inability to cope with the kind of situation that we had never faced before. He was right. He was the professional and we should have listened to him.”

"Hindsight is wonderful stuff. But we could have used a little more foresight."

Aldo shook his head. "I can't bear the thought that he died for absolutely no reason."

"There was a reason, and perhaps he knew it at the time. To bring us back safely. He did everything he could to get us all returned without harm. But we couldn't be convinced by words. Even if he had stayed we would have done nothing except resent him. I don't think either of us would have had the guts to go through first. We would have just lain here and given up and died."

"Not now we won't.” Aldo said, struggling to his feet. "We are going to stick with it until the MT is perfect and we both can get out of this. We owe him at least that much. If his death is going to have any meaning we are both going to have to return safely."

"Yes, we can do it," Nissim agreed, forcing the words through his taut, closed lips. "Now we can."

The work began.

Welcoming Committee

It was a lousy landing. The tall spaceship tilted, wobbled, and finally jarred into the sand with a fin-rending crunch. Captain Moran looked at the back of Pilot Sinkley's sweating neck and resisted the impulse to close his hands around it.

"That was the worst landing I have seen since I have been in the service.” he said. "This is a rescue mission — so who is going to rescue us?"

"I'm sorry. . Captain…" Sinkley's voice shook as badly as his hands. "It was the glare. . first from the sand. . then the canal…" His voice died away like a run-down record.

There was a grinding crunch from somewhere below and emergency lights began to dance across the board. Captain Moran cursed and thumbed the telltales. Trouble. Engine room. Aft quadrant. The intercom suddenly belched out the gravel voice of Chief Engineer Beckett.

"Some gear carried away when we landed, nothing serious. Two ratings injured. Out."

The pilot sat with his back hunched, in either prayer or fear. He had goofed and goofed badly and he knew it. Captain Moran shot one tension-loaded glare at the back of the lowered head, then stamped out towards the lock. Too much was going wrong and the responsibility was all his.

Dr. Kranolsky, the medical officer, was already at the lock, taking samples through the bleeder tube. Captain Moran chewed his lip and waited while the fat little doctor fussed with his instruments. The vision plate next to the port was on and he looked at it, at the dusty red landscape that stretched away outside. Like a questioning metal finger, the tall bulk of the other ship stood silhouetted against the sky.

That was the reason they had come. One year since the first ship had left; one year without a report or a signal. The first ship, Argus, had carried at least a ton of signaling equipment. None of it had been used. A puzzled world had built a second interplanet ship — the Argus II. Moran had brought her this far — now he had to finish the job. Find out what had happened to the crew of the Argus. And get a report back to earth.

"More air pressure than had expected, Captain." Dr. Kranolsky's voice knifed through his thoughts. "And oxygen as well. About equal to the top of a high mountain on Earth. Also, the culture plates remain clear. Most interesting, because—"

"Doctor. Make it short and make it clear. Can I take my men out there?"

Kranolsky stopped in mid-phrase, deflated. He had no defenses against a man like the captain.

"Yes. . yes. You could go outside. Just be sure that certain precautions are followed—"

"Tell me what they are. Want to get over to the Argus while it's still light."

Back on the bridge the captain started to growl through the door of the radio room, but the operator beat him to the punch.

"I've tried to contact the Argus on all frequencies, Captain, right down to the infrared. Nothing. Either that ship is empty or the crew is—" He left the sentence unfinished, but the captain's thundercloud scowl finished it for him.

"What about search radar?" Captain Moran asked. "They might still be in the vicinity."

Sparks shook his head in a slow negative. "I've been looking at the slow sweep detail screen until I have pips on my eyeballs. There ain't nothing out there — Earthman or Martian. And at the distance I was using it that screen would show anything bigger than a baseball."

Captain Moran had a decision to make and it was a rough one. Almost every man aboard was essential to the operation of the ship. If he sent a small party to examine the other ship they might run into trouble that they couldn't handle. If they didn't come back, none of them would get back to Earth. But the only alternative to a small party was taking the entire ship's complement. That would leave the ship empty — looking just like the Argus.

Moran chewed the problem for a minute and a half, then banged the intercom board with decision.

"Attention, ship's crew, all ratings attention. We are going out of here in fifteen minutes — all of us. Draw Marsuits and the weapons YOU can carry. Now jump."

When they were all out on the red sand, Moran shut the massive lock door behind them and spun the combination lock. Then, dispersed like an infantry squad, they slowly circled towards the Argus.

In alternate rushes they approached the lock of the other ship. It ^was wide open and there was no resistance or sign of life. In a matter of minutes the captain was standing under the gaping mouth of the lock. There was complete silence except for the rustling of wind-churned sand granules. Redfaced and panting hard, Pilot Sinkley raced ^UP and slammed down next to the captain.

"Concussion grenade," Moran whispered.

Sinkley fumbled one out of his chest pack and handed it to the captain. He pulled the pin, counted slowly, then flipped it through the open port. There was a blasting roar and Moran was through the port before the echoes died away.

Nothing. No one in sight and no one in the carefully searched ship. The captain went to the empty bridge and tried to understand what had happened.

Moran was reading the log when he heard a hoarse shout from the guard he had left at the lock. He made it on a dead run, almost slamming into the men crowded there. Pushing them roughly aside he looked out.

There were four of them. Four girls. Lovely as any he had ever seen if you didn't take offense at their pale green skin.

"A welcoming committee. Boyoboy!" one of the crewmen said before Moran growled him into silence.

Yet that was all they seemed to be. They weren't armed and seemed incapable of any offense. The captain insisted on their being searched, to everyone's enjoyment. Including the girls. They answered questions in clear and incomprehensible voices. The only information they conveyed was that they wanted the spacemen to go with them. In unmistakable gestures they waved towards the canal and beckoned the men to follow them. Captain Moran was the only one who showed any hesitation about accepting. He finally posted a guard over the girls and called his officers aside for a conference.

There was only one course, and they finally took it. They had to find out about the men of the other ship, and the green girls were the only sign of a possible solution. There was no sign of any other kind of life on the red planet.

Well-armed, they went in force. The girls were bubbling with happiness at the move and the whole thing had more of the air of a picnic than an expedition. Particularly when they found the boats moored at the canal's edge with two or three more girls in each boat. After a careful search that disclosed nothing, Moran allowed his men to embark, one man to a boat.

A barely perceptible current moved them along and the whole expedition took on the air of a punting trip in paradise. Captain Moran ordered and roared but it did little good. The sudden change after the long trip was dismembering what few shards of military morale the men had left.

Only one incident marred the even placidity of the trip. Dr. Kranolsky — whose scientific interest seemed to rise above his libido— was making a detailed examination of the boats. He called to the captain, who guided his craft over until they touched.

"Something here, Captain. I have no idea what it might mean."

Following the doctor's pointing finger, Captain Moran saw faintly discernible scratches on one of the seats. Twisting and turning until the light hit them right he realised suddenly they were letters.

"SPII. . that's what it looks like. Could one of the men from the Argus have written it?"

"They had to.” the doctor said excitedly. "It is beyond reason that these Martians have an alphabet so similar to ours. But what can it mean?"

"It means.” Captain Moran said grimly, "that they came this way and we had better keep our eyes open. I don't feel safe in these damn boats. At least we have the girls. Whoever or whatever is behind this won't start anything while we have them as hostages."

As the hours went by the current increased; they were soon moving at a deceptively rapid speed between the wide banks. Moran was worried and had his gun out instantly when he heard the doctor's shout.

"Captain, I have been thinking about those letters. They could mean only one word. If the man who scratched them here hadn't finished the last letter, only made the vertical mark, the word could be SPIDER."

The captain put his gun down and scowled at the doctor. "And do you see any spiders, Doctor? There are none in these boats and these women are the only life we have found so far. Perhaps he meant water spiders. And if so — so what?"

Following this possibility, Dr. Kranolsky took closer notice of the water. Captain Moran shouted orders to his men, but the boats were drifting further apart and some of them didn't hear him, or pretended they didn't. He couldn't be sure, but he thought things were going on in some of the furthest boats that were definitely against orders. Also, the current was much faster. Only the presence of the green girls gave him any feeling of security.

There seemed to be a dark spot on the horizon, dead ahead. He tried vainly to make it out. Dr. Kranolsky's voice knifed irritatingly across his concentration.

"Being logical, Captain, whoever scratched this word here thought it was important. Perhaps he never had time to finish it."

"Don't be fantastic, Doctor. There are more important things to concern ourselves with."

For the first time since he had served under the captain, Dr. Kranolsky disagreed.

"No, I think this is the most important thing we have to concern ourselves with. If the man meant 'spider'—where is the beast? Certainly these girls are harmless enough. Or the spider web — where is that?" He mused for a second, his brow tight, then laughed. "It makes me think of a fantasy I had when we approached Mars. The canals looked like a giant spider web scratched on the surface of the planet."

Moran snorted with disgust. "And I suppose if this canal is a strand of the web, these girls are the 'bait.' And this building we are coming to is the spider's lair. Really, Doctor!"

The canal swept towards the giant black structure and seemingly vanished though an opening in its side. They couldn't control their small craft and within minutes were passing under a giant archway. Moran was frightened and to conceal his fear he poked fun at the doctor.

"And now we are in the lair, Doctor, what do you think a planet-wide spider should look like? How would you describe a beast that lives on a world as an earth spider lives on an apple?"

A scream was his only answer, a good enough answer.

Words were inadequate to describe the thing that completely filled the building.

Waiting.

Reaching for them. .

Heauy Duty

"But why you?" she asked.

"Because it happens to be my job." He clicked the last belt loop into place on his pack and shifted weight comfortably on his shoulders.

"I don't understand why those men, the ones flying the delivery ship, why they couldn't have looked around first. To help you out a little bit, perhaps let you know what you were getting into. I don't think it's fair."

"It's very fair.” he told her, tightening up one notch on the left shoulder strap and trying to keep his temper. He did not like her to come here when he was leaving, but there was no easy way to stop her. Once again he explained.

"The men who fly the contact ships have a difficult time of it just staying alive and sane, trapped in their ships while they go out to the stars. Theirs is a specialized job, only certain men with particular dispositions can survive the long flight. These same characteristics are outstandingly unsuited to planetary contact and exploration. It is work enough for them to do a high-level instrument and photographic sweep, and then to drop a transmatter screen on retrojets at a suitable spot. By the time the transmatter touches down and sends back their report they are well on their way to the next system. They've done their job. Now I'll do mine."

"Ready for me yet, Specialist Langli?" a man asked, looking in through the ready-room door.

"Just about," Langli said, disliking himself for the relief he felt at the other's intrusion.

"Artificer Meer, this is my wife, Keriza."

"A great honor, Wife Keriza. You must be proud of your husband."

Meer was young and smiled when he talked, so it could be assumed that he was sincere about what he said. He wore a throat mike and earphones and was in constant contact with the computer.

"It is an honor," Keriza said, but could not prevent herself from adding, "but not an eternal one. This is a first betrothal and it expires in a few days, while my husband is away."

"Fine," Artificer Meer said, not hearing the bitterness behind her Words. "You can look forward to a second or final when he returns. A good excuse for a celebration. Shall I begin, Specialist?"

"Please do," Langli said, lifting his canteen with his fingertips to see if it was full.

Keriza retreated against the wall of the drab room while the checklist began: she was already left out. The computer murmured its questions into the artificer's ear and he spoke them aloud in the same machine-made tones. Both men attended to the computer, not to her, alike in their dark-green uniforms, almost the same color as the green-painted walls. The orange and silver of her costume was out of place here and she unconsciously stepped backward toward the entrance.

The checklist was run through quickly and met the computer's approval. Far more time was then taken up making the needed adjustments on Langli's manpower gear. This was a powered metal harness that supported his body, conforming to it like a flexible exoskeleton. It was jointed at his joints and could swivel and turn to follow any motion. Since the supporting pads were an integral part of his uniform, and the rods were thin and colored to match the cloth, it was not too obvious. An atomic energy supply in his pack would furnish power for at least a year.

"Why are you wearing that metal gear?” Keriza asked. "You have never done that before." She had to repeat her question, louder, before either man noticed her.

"It's for the gravity," her husband finally told her. "There's a two-point-one-five-three-plus G on this planet. The manpower can't cancel that, but it can support me and keep me from tiring too quickly."

"You didn't tell me that about this planet. In fact you have told me nothing…"

"There's little enough. High gravity, cold and windy where I'm going. The air is good; it's been tested, but oxygen is a little high. I can use it."

"But animals, wild animals, are there any of them? Can it be dangerous?"

"We don't know yet, but it appears peaceable enough. Don't worry about it." This was a lie, but one officially forced upon him. There were human settlers on this new planet, and this was classified information. A public announcement would be made only after official appraisal of his report.

"Ready," Langli said, pulling on his gloves. "I want to go before I start sweating inside this suit."

"Suit temperature is thermostatically controlled, Specialist Langli. You should not be uncomfortable."

He knew that: he just wanted to leave. Keriza should not have come here.

"Restricted country from here in," he told her, taking her arms and kissing her quickly. "I'll send you a letter as soon as I have time."

He loved her well enough, but not here, not when he was going on a mission. The heavy door closed behind them, shutting her out, and he felt relieved at once. Now he could concentrate on the job.

"Message from control," the artificer said when they entered the armored transmatter room through the thick triple doors. "They want some more vegetation and soil samples. Life forms and water, though these last can wait."

"Will comply," Langli said, and the artificer passed on the answer through his microphone.

"They wish you quick success, Specialist," the artificer said in his neutral voice; then, more warmly, "I do, too. It is a privilege to have assisted you." He covered the microphone with his hand. "I'm studying, a specialist course, and I've read your reports. I think that you. . I mean what you have done…" His words died and his face reddened. This was a breach of rules and he could be disciplined.

"I know what you mean, Artificer Meer, and I wish you all the best of luck." Langli extended his hand and, after a moment's reluctance, the other man took it. Though he would not admit it aloud, Langli was warmed by this irregular action. The coldness of the trans-matter chamber, with its gun snouts and television cameras, had always depressed him. Not that he wanted bands or flags when he left, but a touch of human contact made up for a lot.

"Goodbye, then," he said, and turned and activated the switch on the preset transmatter control. The wire lattice of the screen vanished and was replaced by the watery blankness of the operating Bhatta-charya field. Without hesitating Langli stepped into it.

An unseen force seized him, dragging him forward, hurling him face-first to the ground. He threw his arms out to break his fall and the safety rods on his wrists shot out ahead of his hands, telescoping slowly to soften the shock of impact; if they had not he would surely have broken both his wrists. Even with this aid the breath was knocked from him by the impact of the manpower pads. He gasped for air, resting on all fours. His mouth burned with the coldness of it and his eyes watered. The uniform warmed as the icy atmosphere hit the thermocouples. He looked up.

A man was watching him. A broad, solidly built man with an immense flowing black beard. He was dressed in red-marked leather and furs and carried a short stabbing spear no longer than his forearm. It Was not until he moved that Langli realized he was standing up — not sitting down. He was so squat and wide that he appeared to be truncated.

First things came first: control had to have its samples. He kept a wary eye on the bearded man as he slipped a sample container from the dispenser on the side of his pack and put it flat on the ground. The ground was hard but ridged like dried mud, so he broke off a chunk and dropped it into the middle of the red plastic disc. Ten seconds later, as the chemicals in the disc reacted with the air, the disc curled up on the edges and wrapped the soil in a tight embrace. The other man shifted his spear from hand to hand and watched this process with widening eyes. Langli filled two more containers with soil, then three others with grass and leafy twigs from a bush a few feet away. This was enough. Then he backed slowly around the scarred bulk of the retrorockets until he stood next to the transmatter screen. It was operating but unfocused: anything entering it now would be broken down into Y-radiation and simply sprayed out into Bhattacharya space. Only when he pressed his hand to the plate on the frame would it be keyed to the receiver, — it would operate for no one else. He touched the plate and threw the samples through. Now he could turn to the more important business.

"Peace," he said, facing the other man with his hands open and extended at his sides. "Peace."

The man did nothing in response, though he raised the spear when Langli took a step toward him. When Langli returned to his original position he dropped the spear again. Langli stood still and smiled.

"It's a waiting game, is it? You want to talk while we're waiting?" There was no answer, nor did he really expect one. "Right then, what is it we're waiting for? Your friends, I imagine. All of this shows organization, which is very hopeful. Your people have a settlement nearby, that's why the transmatter was dropped here. You investigated it, found no answers, then put a guard on it. You must have signaled them when I arrived, though I was flat on my face and didn't see it."

There was a shrill squealing behind a nearby slope that slowly grew louder. Langli looked on with interest as a knot of bearded men, at this distance looking identical with his guard, struggled into sight. They were all pulling a strange conveyance which had three pairs of wooden wheels: the apparently unoiled axles were making the squealing. It was no more than a padded platform on which rested a man dressed in bright-red leather. The upper part of his face was hidden by a metal casque pierced with eyeslits, but from below the rim a great white beard flowed across his chest. In his right hand the man held a long, thin-bladed carving knife which he pointed at Langli as he slowly stepped down from the conveyance. He said something incomprehensible in a sharp hoarse voice at the same time.

"I'm sorry, but I cannot understand you," Langli said.

At the sound of his words the old man started back and nearly dropped the weapon. At this sudden action the other men crouched and raised their spears toward Langli. The leader disapproved of this and shouted what could only have been commands. The spears were lowered at once. When he was satisfied with the reaction the man turned back to Langli and spoke slowly, choosing his words with care.

"I did not know. . think… I would these words hear spoken by another. I know it only to read." The accent was strange but the meaning was perfectly clear.

"Wonderful. I will learn your language, but for now we can speak mine…"

"Who are you? What is it… the thing there? It fell at night with a loud noise. How come you here?"

Langli spoke slowly and clearly, what was obviously a prepared speech.

"I come with greetings from my people. We travel great distances with this machine you see before you. We are not from this world. We will help you in many ways which I will tell you. We can help the sick and make them well. We can bring food if you are hungry. I am here alone and no more of us will come unless you permit it. In return for these things we ask only that you answer my questions. When the questions are answered we will answer any questions that you may have."

The old man stood with his legs widespread and braced, unconsciously whetting the blade on his leg. "What do you want here? What are your real needs. . desires?"

"I have medicine and can help the sick. I can get food. I ask only that you answer my questions, nothing more."

Under the flowing moustache the old man's lips lifted in a cold grin. "I understand. Do as you say — or do nothing. Come with me, then." He stepped backward and settled slowly onto the cart, which creaked with his weight. "I am Bekrnatus. You have a name?"

"Langli. I will be happy to accompany you."

They went in a slow procession over the crest of the rise and down into the shallow valley beyond. Langli was already tired, his heart and lungs working doubly hard to combat the increased gravity, and was exhausted before they had gone a quarter of a mile.

"Just a moment," he said. "Can we stop for a short while?"

Bekrnatus raised his hand and spoke a quick command. The procession stopped and the men immediately sat, most of them sprawling out horizontally in the heavy grass. Langli undipped his canteen and drank deeply. Bekrnatus watched every move closely.

"Would you like some water?" Langli asked, extending the canteen.

"Very much.” the old man said, taking the canteen and examining it closely before drinking from it. "The water has a taste of very difference. Of what metal is this. . container made?"

"Aluminum I imagine, or one of its alloys." Should he have answered that question? It certainly seemed harmless enough. But you never could tell. Probably he shouldn't have, but he was too tired to really care. The bearded men were watching intently and the nearest one stood up, staring at the canteen.

"Sorry.” Langli said, blinking a redness of fatigue from his eyes and extending the canteen to the man. "Would you like a drink as well?"

Bekrnatus screamed something hoarsely as the man hesitated a moment — then reached out and clutched the canteen. Instead of drinking from it he turned and started to run away. He was not fast enough. Langli looked on, befuddled, as the old man rushed by him and buried his long knife to the hilt in the fleeing man's back.

None of the others moved as the man swayed, then dropped swiftly and heavily to the ground. He lay on his side, eyes open and blood gushing from his mouth, the canteen loose in his fingers. Bekrnatus kneeled and took away the canteen, then jerked the knife out with a single powerful motion. The staring dead eyes were still.

"Take this water thing and do not come… go near other people or give them any things."

"It was just water—"

"It was not the water. You killed this man."

Langli, befuddled, started to tell him that it was perfectly clear who had killed him, then wisely decided to keep his mouth shut. He knew nothing about this society and had made a mistake. That was obvious. In a sense the old man was right and he had killed the man. He fumbled out a stimulant tablet and washed it down with water from the offending canteen. The march resumed.

The settlement was in the valley, huddled against the base of a limestone cliff, and Langli was exhausted when they reached it. Without the manpower he could not have gone a quarter of this distance. He was in among the houses before he realized they were there, so well did they blend into the landscape. They were dugouts, nine-tenths below the ground, covered with flat sod roofs; thin spirals of smoke came from chimney openings in most of them. The procession did not stop, but threaded its way through the dug-in houses and approached the cliff. This had a number of ground-level openings cut into it, the larger ones sealed with log doors. When they were closer Langli saw that two window-like openings were covered with glass or some other transparent substance. He wanted to investigate this— but it would have to wait. Everything would have to wait until he regained a measure of strength. He stood, swaying, while Bekrnatus climbed slowly down from the wheeled litter and approached a log door which opened as he came near. Langli started after him — then found himself failing, unable to stand. He had a brief moment of surprise, before the ground came up and hit him, when he realized that for the first time in his life he was fainting.

The air was warm on his face and he was lying down. It took him some moments, even after he had opened his eyes, to realize where he was. An immense fatigue gripped him and every movement was an effort; even his thoughts felt drugged. He looked about the darkened room several times before the details made any meaning. A window that was set deep into the stone wall. The dim bulk of furniture and unknown objects. A weaker, yellow light from the fire on the grate. A stone fireplace and stone walls. Memory returned and he realized that he must be in one of the rooms he had noticed, hollowed out of the face of the cliff. The fire crackled; there was the not-unpleasant odor of pungent smoke in the air, — soft, slapping footsteps came up behind him. He felt too tired to turn his head, but he banished this unworkmanlike thought and turned in that direction.

A girl's face, long blond hair, deep blue eyes.

"Hello. I don't believe we have met," he said.

The eyes widened, shocked, and the face vanished. Langli sighed wearily and closed his own eyes. This was a very trying mission. Perhaps he should take a stimulant. In his pack—

His pack! He was wide awake at the thought, struggling to sit up. They had taken his pack from him! At the same instant of fear he saw it lying next to the cot where it had been dropped. And the girl returned, pressing him back to a lying position. She was very strong.

"I'm Langli. What's your name?"

She was attractive enough, if you liked your girls squarefaced. Good bust, filled the soft leather dress nicely. But that was about all. Too broad-shouldered, too hippy, too much muscle. Very little different really from the other natives of this heavy planet. He realized that her eyes had never left his while he had been looking her up and down. He smiled.

"Langli is my name, but I suppose I shall never learn yours. The leader — what did he call himself — Bekrnatus, seems to be the only one who speaks a civilized tongue. I suppose I shall have to learn the local grunts and gurgles before I will be able to talk to you?"

"Not necessarily," she said, and burst out laughing at the surprised look on his face. Her teeth were even, white, and strong. "My name is Patna. Bekrnatus is my father."

"Well, that's nice." He still felt dazed. "Sorry if I sounded rude. The gravity is a little strong for me."

"What is gravity?"

"I'll tell you later, but I must talk to your father first. Is he here?"

"No. But he will be soon back. Today he killed a man. He must now the man's wife and family look after. They will go to another. Can I not answer your questions?"

"Perhaps." He touched the button on his waist that switched on the recorder. "How many of your people speak my language?"

"Just me. And Father, of course. Because we are The Family and the others are The People." She stood very straight when she said it.

"How many are there, of The People I mean?"

"Almost six hundred. It was a better winter than most. The air was warmer than in other years. Of course there was more — what is the word? — more rot in the stored food. But people lived."

"Is winter over yet?"

She laughed. "Of course. It is almost the warmest time now."

And they believed that this is warm, he thought. What can the winters possibly be like? He shivered at the thought.

"Please tell me more about The Family and The People. How are they different?"

"They just are, that is all," she said and stopped, as though she had never considered the question before. "We live here and they live there. They work and they do what we tell them to do. We have the metal and the fire and the books. That is how we talk your language, because we read what is written in the books."

"Could I see the books?"

"No!" She was shocked at the thought. "Only The Family can see them."

"Well — wouldn't you say that I qualify as a member of The Family? I can read, I carry many things made of metal." At that moment he realized what the trouble had been with his canteen. It was made of metal, for some reason taboo among most of these people. "And I can make fire." He took out his lighter and thumbed it so that a jet of flame licked out.

Patna looked at this, wide-eyed. "Our fires are harder to make. But, still, I am not sure. Father will know if you should look at the books." She saw his expression and groped around for some compromise. "But there is one book, a little book, that Father lets me have for my own. It is not an important book, though."

"Any book is important. May I see it?"

She rose hesitantly and went to the rear of the room, to a log door let into the stone, and tugged at the thick bars. When it was open she groped into the darkness of another room, a deeper cavern cut into the soft stone of the cliff. She returned quickly and resealed the door.

"Here," she said, holding it out to him, "you may read my book."

Langli struggled to a sitting position and took it from her. It was crudely bound in leather — the original cover must have worn out countless years earlier — and it crackled when he opened it. The pages were yellowed, frayed, and loose from the backbone. He poked through them, squinting at the archaic typeface in the dim light from the window, then turned back to the title page.

"Selected Poems," he read aloud. "Published at, I've never heard of the place, in — this is more important—785 p.v. I think I've heard of that calendar, just a moment."

He put the book down carefully and bent to his pack, almost losing his balance as the more-than-doubled gravity pulled at him. His ex-oskeleton hummed and gave him support. The handbook was right on top and he flipped through it.

"Yes, here it is. Only went to 913 in their reckoning. Now to convert to Galactic Standard…" He did some silent figuring and put the handbook away, taking up the other book again. "Do you like poetry?" he asked.

"More than anything. Though I only have these. There are no other poems in the books. Though of course there are some others…"

She lowered her eyes and, after a moment's thought, Langli realized why.

"These others, you wrote them yourself, didn't you? You must tell me one sometime—"

There was a sudden rattling at the bolts that sealed the front door and Patna tore the book from his hands and ran with it to the dark end of the room.

Bekrnatus pushed open the door and came in wearily. "Close it," he ordered as he threw aside his helmet and dropped into a padded lounge, half bed, half chair. Patna moved quickly to do his bidding.

"I am tired, Langli," he said, "and I must sleep. So tell me what you are doing here, what this all means."

"Of course. But a question or two first. There are things I must know. What do your people do here, other than sleep and eat and gather food?"

"The question makes no sense."

"I mean anything. Do they mine and smelt metal? Do they carve, make things from clay, paint pictures, wear jewelry—"

"Enough. I understand your meaning. I have read of these things, seen pictures of them. Very nice. In answer to your question — we do nothing. I could never understand how these things were done and perhaps you will tell me when it suits you to answer questions rather than ask them. We live, that is hard enough. When we have planted our food and picked our food we are through. This is a hard world and the act of living takes all of our time."

He barked a harsh command in the local language, and his daughter shuffled to the fireplace. She returned with a crude clay bowl which she handed to him. He raised it to his lips and drank deeply, making smacking noises with his lips.

"Would you care for some?" he asked. "It is a drink we make; I do not know if there is a word for it in the book language. Our women chew roots and spit them into a bowl."

"No, none thank you." Langli fought to keep his voice even, to control his disgust. "Just one last question. What do you know of your people coming to this world? You do know that you came here?"

"Yes, that I know, though little more. The story is told, though nothing is written, that we came from another world to this world, from the sky, though how it was done I know not. But it was done, for the books are not of this world and they have pictures of scenes not of this world. And there is the metal, and the windows. Yes, we came here."

"Have others come? Like myself? Are there records?"

"None! That would have been written. Now you tell me, stranger from the metal box. What do you do here?"

Langli lay down, carefully, before he spoke. He saw that Patna was sitting as well. The gravity must be fought, constantly, unceasingly.

"First you must understand that I came from inside the metal box, then again I didn't. At night you see the stars and they are suns like the one that shines here, yet very distant. They have worlds near them, like this world here. Do you know what I am talking about?"

"Of course. I am not of The People. I have read of astronomy in the books."

"Good. Then you should know that the metal box contains a trans — matter which you must think of as a kind of door. One door that is at the same time two doors. I stepped through a door on my planet, very far away, and stepped out of your door here. All in an eye-blink of time. Do you understand?"

"Perhaps." Bekrnatus dabbed at his lips with the back of his hand. "Can you return the same way? Step into the box and come out on a planet, up there in the sky?"

"Yes, I can do that."

"Is that how we came to this world?"

"No. You came by a ship of space, a large metal box built to move between the stars, in the years before the transmatter could be used at stellar distances. I know this because your window there is the window from a spacer, and I imagine your metal was salvaged from the ship as well. And I also know how long you have been here, since there was a date in the front of that poetry book your daughter showed me."

Patna gasped, a sharp intake of air, and Bekrnatus pulled himself to a sitting position. The clay bowl fell, unheeded, and shattered on the floor.

"You showed him a book," Bekrnatus hissed, and struggled to his feet.

"No, wait!" Langli said, realizing he had precipitated another crisis through ignorance. Would the man try to kill his daughter? He tore at his pack. "It was my fault, I asked for the book. But I have many books, — here, I'll show you. I'll give you some books. This. . and this."

Bekrnatus did not heed the words, if he even heard them, but he stopped as the books were pushed before him. He reached for them hesitantly.

"Books," he said, dazedly. "Books, new books, books I have never seen before. It is beyond wonder." He clutched the books to his chest and half fell back into his chair. A good investment, Langli thought. Never were a first reader and a basic dictionary more highly prized.

"You can have all the books you want now. You can discover your history, all of it. I can tell you that your people have been here, roughly, about three thousand years. Your coming here may have been an accident; two things lead me to believe that. This is a very grim world with little to offer. I can't picture it being selected for colonization. Then there is the complete break with technology and culture. You have a few books, — they could have been salvaged. And metal, perhaps from the wreck of the ship. That you have survived is little short of miraculous. You have this social or class distinction that has also passed down. Your ancestors were perhaps scientists, ship's officers, something that set them apart from ordinary men. And you have kept the distinction."

"I am tired," Bekrnatus said, turning the books over and over in his hands, "and there are many new things to think about all at once. We will talk tomorrow."

He dropped back, eyes closed, books still in his grasp. Langli was ready to sleep himself, exhausted by the efforts he had forced himself to. The light seemed to be fading; he wondered how long the local day was, and did not really care. He took an eight-hour sleeping pill from his medical kit and washed it down with water from his canteen. A night's sleep would make things look a good deal different.

During the night he was aware of someone moving about, going to the fire. At one time he thought he felt the soft touch of hair across his face and lips upon his forehead. But he could not be sure and thought it was probably a dream.

It was bright morning when he awoke, with the sun striking directly through the window, the shaft of light adding unexpected color to the gray stone of the back wall. Bekrnatus' couch was empty and Patna was working at the fireplace, humming quietly to herself. When he shifted position his bed squeaked and she turned to look at him.

"You are awake. I hope that you slept well. My father has gone out with the axe so wood can be chopped."

"You mean that he chops the wood?" Langli yawned, his head still thick with sleep.

"No, never. But the axe head is metal so he carries it and must be there when it is used. Your morning food is ready." She ladled one of the clay bowls full of gruel and brought it to him. He smiled and shook his head no.

"Thank you, that is very hospitable. But I cannot eat any of your food until laboratory analysis has been made—"

"You think I am trying to poison you?"

"Not at all. But you must realize that major metabolic changes take place in human beings cut off from the mainstream. There may be chemicals in the soil here, in the plants, that you can ingest but that would be sure death for me. It smells wonderful, but it could hurt me. You wouldn't want that to happen?"

"No! Of course not." She almost hurled the bowl from her. "What will you eat?"

"I have my own food here, see." He opened his pack and took out a mealcel, pulling the tab so the heating began. He was hungry, he realized, hungrier than he had ever felt before, and began spooning down the concentrate before the heat cycle was finished. His body needed nourishment, fighting constantly against the drag of gravity.

"Do you know what this is?" Patna asked, and he looked up to see her holding a brownish, ragged-edged fragment of some kind.

"No, I don't. It looks like wood or bark."

"It is the inner bark of a tree, we use it to write on, but that is not what I meant. I meant there is something on it. That is what I meant…"

Even in the dim light Langli could realize that she was blushing. Poor girl, a literate among savages, trapped on this dismal and isolated world.

"I might guess," he said carefully. "Could it be one of the poems you wrote? If it is — I would like to hear it."

She shielded her eyes with her hand and turned away for a moment, a caricature of a shy maiden in a squat wrestler's body. Then she struggled with herself and started the poem in a weak voice, but continued, louder and louder.

"I dare not ask a kiss, I dare not beg a smile, Lest having that, or this, I might grow proud the while. No, no, the utmost share Of my desire shall be Only to kiss the air That lately did kiss thee."

She almost cried the last words aloud, then turned and fled to the far side of the room and stood with her face against the wall. Langli groped for the right words. The poem was good; whether she had written it herself or copied it he did not know — nor did it matter. It said what she wanted to say.

"That's beautiful.” he told her. "A really beautiful poem—"

Before he could finish she ran, feet slapping hard against the floor, across the room and knelt beside his bed. Her solid, powerful arms were about him and her face against his, buried in the pillow. He could feel the tear-wetness of her cheeks against his own and her muffled voice in his ear.

"I knew you would come, I know who you are, because you had to come from far away like a knight in the poems riding a horse to save me. You knew I needed you. My father, I, the only Family left, I must marry one of The People. It has been done before. Ugly, stupid, I hate them, the brightest, we tried to teach him to read, he couldn't, stupid. But you came in time. You are The Family, you will take me. ."

The words died away and her lips found his, urgent and strong with desire, and when he held her shoulders and tried to push her away his exoskeleton whined with the effort but she did not move. Finally, exhausted, she released him and pushed her face deep into the pillow again. He stood, swaying, bracing himself on the back of a chair. When he spoke it was with sincerity as he tried to make the truth less harsh than it really was.

"Patna, listen, you must believe me. I like you, you're a wonderful, brave girl. But this just can't be. Not because I am already married, that marriage will be terminated before I return, but because of this world. You can't leave it, and I would die if I stayed here. The adaptations your people have been forced to make to survive must be incredible. Your circulatory system alone must be completely different — your blood pressure much more than normal to get blood to your brain, with more muscles in the walls of the arteries to help pump it. Perhaps major valve changes and distribution. You can't possibly have children with anyone from off this planet. Your children would be stillborn, or die soon after birth, unfit. That is the truth, you must believe—"

"Ugly, skinny, too tall, too weak, shut up!" she screeched and lashed out at him, her head still turned away.

He tried to move aside, he could not, not fast enough. Her hand slapped against his arm with a sudden explosion of pain. A sharp cracking sound.

The bitch has broken my arm, he screamed to himself, staggering, sitting down slowly. His forearm hung crookedly in the brace of the exoskeleton and how it hurt! He cradled it on his knees and fumbled through his medical supplies with his good hand. She tried to help him and he snarled at her and she went away.

Bekrnatus came in, an axe over his shoulder, while the emergency cast was hardening and Langli was giving himself a shot of painkiller, with a tranquilizer for his nerves.

"What is wrong with your arm?" Bekrnatus asked, dropping the axe and falling into his couch.

"I had an accident. I will have to go get medical help from my people soon so I must talk to you now. Tell you what you need to know—"

"Do that. I have questions—"

"There is no time for questions." The pain was still there and he snapped the words out. "If I had the time I would explain everything slowly and in great detail so you would understand and agree. Now I will just tell you. If you want help you must pay for it. It costs a great deal to plant an MT screen on a planet as distant as this one. Medical supplies, food, energy sources, anything that we supply you will also cost a good deal. You will have to repay us."

"You have our thanks, of course."

"Not negotiable!" The pain was almost gone but he could feel the broken ends of the bones grate together when he moved. His nerves felt the same way despite the tranquilizer.

"Listen carefully and try to remember what I say. There is no pie in the sky. What you get for nothing is worth it. Out there are more planets than you could possibly count — and more people on them than I could count. And the transmatter makes them all next-door neighbors. Can you imagine what hell that has wreaked with culture, government, finances, down through the millennia? No, I can see by your face that you can't. Then just think about this one bit of it. To further certain ends individuals form a cooperation, a sort of cross between a cooperative and a corporation, if those words are in any of your books. I belong to one of these called World Openers. We explore unsettled planets and occasionally contact worlds like yours that aren't on the MT net. For services rendered we demand payment in full.”

Patna had come to stand by her father, silently, her arm about his thick knobbed shoulders. Her face, as she looked at Langli, was a study in hatred, contempt. Bekrnatus, a lord on his own world, would still not comprehend the realities of the galaxy outside.

"We will pay what you ask, gladly, but pay with what? We have no money, none of the resources you were asking about last night."

"You have yourselves," Langli said, emotionlessly, as the drugs took hold. "Because that is all you have, it will take generations to repay your debt. You will breed faster and better, and we will help you with that. For a price, of course. We have operations on heavy-gravity worlds that must be supervised. Automatic machinery can't do everything. And there are others who can use workers of your type as well—"

"You come to enslave us, imprison us!" Bekrnatus roared. "To make free men into beasts of burden. Never!"

He grabbed up the axe from the floor and climbed to his feet, swinging it high. Langli was ready. His gun snapped just once and the explosion shook the room as a great pit was blown from the stone wall behind Bekrnatus.

"Just imagine what that would have done to you. Now sit down and don't be foolish. I will kill you to save my own life, be sure of that. We can't imprison you — because you are in prison already on this high-G world. The force that pulls you down, that makes things fall when dropped. This force is weaker on other worlds. I can leave and seal the transmatter and that will be the end of it. If that is what you really wish. The choice is yours to make." He waved the gun at Patna. "Now open that door."

Bekrnatus stood, the axe dangling forgotten from his hand; the world he knew had changed, everything changed. Langli struggled his pack to one shoulder and waved Patna aside. He moved slowly toward the door.

"I will return and you can tell me your decision then."

Patna called to him as he went out, righting down her loathing.

"The transmatter, when will we get to use it? To see the wonders of other worlds?"

"Never in your lifetime. Use of the MT is granted only when all the debts are paid." He had to say it because the sooner she faced the truth the better she would adjust. "And you will be occupied else-wise. Intelligent operators will be needed, not strong backs. Yours is the only womb from which intelligence may spring on this world. Keep it busy."

He hobbled away until he was clear of the buildings, then gratefully set the pack down. It was too much of a burden to take back to the transmatter. He triggered the destruct and went on while it burned fiercely behind him. Expensive equipment, but it would go on the bill. They would choose to accept and pay, — they really did not have much of a choice. It would be for their benefit. Not so much now, but in the long run. The two squat figures were still in the doorway looking after him and he turned quickly away.

What did they expect, charity? The universe was uncharitable. You had to pay for what you took from it. That was a natural law that could not be broken.

And he was doing his job, that was all.

It was just a job.

He was helping them.

Wasn't he?

Stumbling, sweating, and gasping, he hurried to be away from this place.