A Wreath of Stars

Chapter Thirteen

The soldier was so drunk that he would have been unable to stand but for the support of the two military policemen who gripped his arms. From the state of his uniform it was obvious that he had fallen more than once, and had been helplessly sick. In spite of his physical misery, he was terrified in the presence of Colonel Tommy Freeborn, and he told his story in disconnected groups of words—with frequent lapses into Swahili—which made sense only to someone who already had the general picture. When he had finished speaking, the Colonel stared at him with leaden-eyed contempt.

“You’re positive,” Freeborn said, after a pause, “that it was the white man, Snook, who had the weapon?”

“Yes, sir.” The soldier’s head rolled from side to side as he spoke. “And I only done what the Lieutenant told me.”

“Take this object away,” Freeborn ordered. As the redcaps bundled the soldier out of the office, the sergeant who accompanied them glanced back with an unspoken question. Freeborn nodded and mimed the action of pulling a hat down over his ears. The sergeant—who was a useful man, and knew that the invisible hat was a-polythene bag—saluted correctly and left the office.

As soon as he was alone, Colonel Freeborn lowered his head and thought for a few moments about his brother’s son, then he opened a communicator channel and gave a series of orders which would assemble a force of a hundred men at the entrance to National Mine No. 3. He picked up his cane, flicked a speck of dust from his half-sleeved shirt, and, walking with a firm and measured tread went outside to where his car was waiting. It was two hours before dawn and the night wind was cold, but he waved away the coat offered by his driver and got into the car’s rear seat.

During the drive from Kisumu he sat without moving, bare arms folded, and in his mind apportioned the blame for his nephew’s death. One part he allocated to himself—in his efforts to eradicate Curt’s weaknesses he had pushed the boy too hard and threatened him with too much; a larger portion he laid at the door of Paul Ogilvie, without whose interference there would have been no unwanted foreigners meddling with the operation of the mine; but the greatest share of the guilt lay with the insolent trickster, Gilbert Snook, who should have been put down like a dog on the day he entered Barandi.

The hour was not yet ripe for Ogilvie to be brought to book, but within a short time—a very short time, Freeborn promised himself—Snook would regret that he had not been quietly suffocated three years earlier. Each thought of Snook was like the opening of a furnace door within Freeborn’s head, and as he neared the mine he could feel himself being buoyed higher and higher on the searing blasts. It was like a plunge into black Arctic waters, therefore, when—on reaching the mine entrance—he saw one of the Presidential limousines parked outside the gates. Its gleaming waxy haunches looked incongruous against the backdrop of military trucks and watchful troops. He got out of his own car and, knowing what was required of him, went straight to the limousine and got into the rear seat beside Paul Ogilvie.

The President did not turn his head as he spoke. “I want an explanation for this, Tommy.”

“The situation has changed since we…” Uncharacteristically, Freeborn abandoned his officialese. “Curt has been murdered by Snook.”

“I’ve heard about that. I’m still waiting for an explanation of why these men are here.”

“But…” Freeborn felt his temples begin to throb. “I’ve just told you—my nephew has been murdered.”

“Telling me that your nephew and other members of his regiment went into the mine against my orders does not explain why you have assembled this force of men here against my orders.” Ogilvie’s voice was dry and cold. “Are you challenging my authority?”

“I would never do that,” Freeborn said, flooding his voice with sincerity, while his mind weighed up the kind of factors which influence the history of nations. His service automatic was within reach of his right hand, but before he could use it he would have to open the leather flap of his holster. It was most unlikely that Ogilvie would have ventured out without protection, and yet he must have moved very quickly after being contacted by his informants. This moment, here in the darkness of the car, could be a pivotal point for the whole of Barandi—and Curt’s death might have served a useful purpose…

“A penny for them.” The note of complacency in Ogilvie’s voice told Freeborn all he needed to know. The President was protected, and the status quo would have to remain for some time yet.

“Leaving personal issues aside,” Freeborn said, “the Leopard Regiment is a keystone of our internal security. Those men out there don’t know anything about international policies and diplomacies—what they do know is that two of their comrades have been shot down in cold blood by a white foreigner. They don’t think very much about anything, but if they get the idea that such actions are not followed by swift punishment…”

“You don’t need to spell it out for me, Tommy. But the UN people will be here tomorrow.”

“And will they be favourably impressed to learn that murderers go unpunished in Barandi?” Sensing he had found the right approach, Freeborn pressed home his argument. “I’m not proposing a massacre of innocents, Paul. The only man I want is Snook, and he’s probably an embarrassment to the others—they’ll probably be glad to get rid of him.”

“What are you proposing?”

“Let me go in there with a couple of men and simply ask that he give himself up. I’d only have to hint that it would be for the benefit of the others. Including the girl.”

“You think it would be enough?”

“I think it would be enough,” Freeborn said. “You see, Snook is that kind of a fool.”

Having disposed of the brandy, Snook climbed up on the platform and watched the others at work. Since hearing of Murphy’s death they had gone about their tasks with a moody determination, only speaking when necessary. Ambrose, Culver and Quig spent most of their time kneeling at the complex control panel on the rear surface of the Moncaster machine. Even Helig and Prudence were busy with hammers and nails, erecting a makeshift handrail which Ambrose had decreed necessary for safety reasons. They had already completed another structure resembling a shower cubicle built of wood and clear plastic sheeting. Two cylinders of hydrogen stood inside the transparent box.

The concerted activity, in which he had no part, increased Snook’s sense of not belonging, and it was almost with relief that he heard the distant growl of truck engines.

None of the others appeared to notice the sound, so he did not mention it. Minutes dragged by without any sign of military activity, and he began to wonder if his imagination had conjured with the irregular soughing of the night wind. The logical thing, bearing in mind the decision he had reached, would have been to stroll quietly towards the mine entrance, but he felt a powerful reluctance simply to fade away into the darkness. He was not of the group, and yet he did not want to face the alternative.

“That’s it.” Ambrose stood up and rubbed his hands together. “The mini-pile is delivering all the power we need. I think we’re all set.” He glanced at his watch. “Less than half an hour to go.”

“•That’s quite a machine,” Snook said, suddenly aware of the enormity of what was being attempted.

“It certainly is. Up until ten years ago you would have needed an accelerator about five kilometres long to produce the radiation fields we can make right in here.” Ambrose stroked the top of the machine as if it were a favourite pet.

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

“It can be if you stand in front of it, but that applies to a bicycle as well. It’s machines like this that have speeded up nuclear research so much in the last decade—and with what we’re learning from Felleth…

“Watch out for the cubicle!” Ambrose shouted to Helig. “We can’t afford any rips in the plastic skin—it has to be air-

Snook examined the flimsy structure with growing doubt. “Is that where you’re expecting Felleth to materialise?”

“That’s the place.”

“But will he have to stay in there? How do you know he breathes hydrogen?”

“The hydrogen isn’t for breathing, Gil. It’s to provide the physical environment Felleth specified for his arrival, or part of it anyway. His knowledge is way beyond mine, but I think it’s to provide a convenient supply of prqtons which he’ll use to…”

“Doctor Ambrose,” bellowed an amplified voice from the encircling blackness. “This is Colonel Freeborn, Head of Barandian Internal Security. Can you hear me?”

Snook moved towards the ladder, but Ambrose gripped his arm with surprising strength. “I can hear you, Colonel.”

“This afternoon President Ogilvie sent instructions that you were to stop working here. Did you receive the message?”

“I received it.”

“Then why are you disobeying?”

Ambrose hesitated. Tm not disobeying, Colonel. One of these machines has a miniature nuclear reactor inside it, and the controls aren’t working properly. We’ve spent the last six hours trying to close it down.”

“That sounds like a very convenient story, Doctor Ambrose.”

“If you’d like to come up here I’ll show you what I mean.”

“I’m prepared to let it pass for the time being,” Freeborn’s voice boomed. “I see that you have Snook with you.”

“Yes—Mister Snook is here.”

“I have come to place him under arrest for the murder of two members of the Barandian Armed Forces.”

“For what ?” Ambrose’s voice was hoarse with the effort of shouting.

“I think you heard me, Doctor.”

“Yes, but it was so unexpected that I…We did hear some shooting, but I had no idea what was happening. This is terrible.” Ambrose released Snook’s arm and backed away from him.

“The reason I’m keeping my distance is that Snook is armed. It will not prevent his arrest, of course, but I would prefer that he be taken without any shooting. I have no wish for the innocent members of your party to be hurt, and that can be avoided if Snook will give himself up.”

“Thank you, Colonel.” Ambrose’s shadowed face was unreadable as he stared at Snook. “You’ll appreciate that this has come as a great shock to me and the other members of my party who, as you say, are innocent and had no idea of what was going on. May we have a little time to talk things over?”

“Fifteen minutes—no more.”

A lengthy silence ensued, showing that Freeborn considered the dialogue to have ended.

“Nice work, Boyce,” Snook said, keeping his voice low in case remote listening devices were trained on him. He recognised that Ambrose had acted with superb common sense in dissociating himself and the others, but the knowledge did not ease his irrational sense of betrayal. He nodded to Prudence and the three other men, and turned to leave.

“Gil,” Ambrose whispered fiercely, “where in hell do you think you’re going?”

“In hell? Any old place will do.”

“Stay right there. I’m going to get you out of this.”

Snook gave a humourless laugh. “There’s no way out. Besides, the little diversion could give you enough time to complete the experiment. That’s the main item on the agenda, isn’t it?”

Ambrose shook his head. “We agreed earlier tonight that I’m a self-centred bastard, but I have to draw the line somewhere. I don’t mind admitting I was hoping to be left alone long enough to go ahead as planned, but now the situation has changed.”

“Look…” Snook tapped himself on the chest. “I don’t want to sound melodramatic, but I’m as good as dead already. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I know you’re as good as dead, Gil,” Ambrose said, his voice resonant. “Otherwise I wouldn’t risk offering you the one escape that’s available.”

“Escape?” Snook felt the same old chill of premonition as he glanced at the cubical machine. “Where to?”

“There’s nowhere else for you to go,” Ambrose replied. “Nowhere except…Avernus.”

Snook took an involuntary step backwards, then looked around the rest of the group standing close by. Their faces were solemn and wide-eyed, like those of children, attention directed towards Ambrose.

“There’s a risk involved,” Ambrose said. “I can only do this with your consent and cooperation, and I wouldn’t try it at all if you had any other hope of getting out of here.”

Snook swallowed painfully. “What would you do?”

“There just isn’t time to give you a course in nuclear physics, Gil. Basically it involves reversing Felleth’s processes, making you neutron-rich—but you’ll just have to trust me. Are you willing?”

“I’m willing,” Snook said. He glimpsed in his mind’s eye the elongated diamond-shapes of Avernian islands. “But it isn’t what you came here to do.”

“That doesn’t matter. In this situation I couldn’t risk transferring Felleth, or any other Avernian, into our universe—somebody would probably shoot him.” Ambrose paused to light a cigarette, his gaze locked on Snook’s face. “But we can still prove the principle of operation, for Felleth’s benefit.”

“All right.” Snook discovered he was more afraid than he had been at the prospect of merely being killed. “What do you want me to do?”

“Well, the first thing you have to do is get in touch with Felleth and tell him about the change of plan.”

“Boyce, you make it sound…Have you got his phone number?”

“He’ll need reaction time, Gil. He has a lot of expertise, but even so he’ll need some warning so that he can make ready to receive you.” Ambrose’s face was impassive, but Snook sensed that his brain was racing, evaluating probabilities like a world-class card player.

“Do you think he can do it in time?” Snook knew the question demanded resources of knowledge which did not exist on Earth, but was unable to hold it back.

“Felleth is way ahead of us in this field, and the energy relationships favour a transfer from this universe into his. I think that with him doing a lot of pulling, and us doing a bit of pushing, it should work out all right.”

Snook suddenly realised he had lost all human contact with Ambrose—it was impossible to tell whether he was giving reassurance as a friend, or taking the appropriate action to protect his experiment. It made no practical difference either way—his own choice was between the certainty of death on Earth and the possibility of life on Avernus. He turned towards Prudence, but she looked away from him immediately, and he knew at once that she was afraid. A fresh worry appeared in his mind.

“Boyce, supposing everything works out right and I sort of…disappear,” he said, “what’s going to happen here afterwards? Freeborn isn’t going to like it very much.”

Ambrose was unperturbed. “That problem will take care of itself—but you’re not even going to have a chance to transfer unless you do something about contacting Felleth right now.” He examined his watch, clicking its display buttons. “He’ll be coming up through the station we marked on Level Two in just over four minutes.”

“I’ll go,” Snook said quietly, aware that the time for talking had passed.

They went down the ladder and assembled in a tight group beneath the platform, giving cover for Snook as he slipped away towards the mine head. He ran as quickly as possible, •depending on the blue lenses of his Amplites to keep him from falling over obstacles, and praying that Freeborn had not taken the precaution of saturating the area with his men. It came to him that Freeborn had been strangely gentle in his handling of the situation, but there was not time for analysis of his motives.

Nearing the entrance of the shaft, he remained as long as possible in the lee of the vacuum pipes which curved away from it like the tentacles of a huge octopus. By repeating the moves that Murphy had always made, he started the elevator machinery and was grateful for the silence of its operation. He stepped into a descending cage, rode it downwards to Level Two and leaped out on to the circular gallery. For a panicky moment he was unable to identify the opening of the south pipe, then he was inside it and running with the cold air sighing in his ears.

When he reached the area marked out by Ambrose he found that Felleth and several other Avernians were already present, visible from the waist up above the rock floor, and coming more fully into view with every second, their unnaturally wide mouths pouting and pursing. The bluish translucent figures were interspersed with what seemed to be machines and tall rectangular cabinets.

None of the Avernians reacted to his arrival, and Snook recalled that on this occasion he was not being illuminated for them by Ambrose’s special equipment. He fixed his gaze on Felleth—one part of his mind wondering how he had made the identification—and went forward. Felleth suddenly raised his web-fingered hands to his head, and Snook saw the glint of the living green wall superimposed on his vision. He inclined his head towards Felleth’s, once more seeing the mist-pools of the eyes grow larger and larger until they swamped his mind.

Deep peace of the running wave.

I understand you, Equal Gil. You may come.

Deep peace of the running wave.

Snook found himself kneeling on the uneven wet stone of the tunnel floor, his Amplites showing—apart from a view of his normal surroundings—only a vague general radiance. That meant, he remembered, that the surface of Avernus had already risen above his head. He looked up at the curving hewn roof, wondering how much time he had lost. If he was to have any chance of life he had to rendezvous with Felleth and Ambrose at a point directly above his present position. Felleth was already on his way, straight up through geological strata which, for him, were non-existent—but for Snook there was no option other than retracing his steps.

He got to his feet, trying to throw off the now-familiar weakness which followed telepathic union, and ran towards the shaft. Reaching the gallery, he climbed into an ascending cage and clung to its mesh sides until he had been carried up to ground level. He lowered his head and ran towards the platform, heedless now of anyone trying to stop him. The portable lights surrounding the platform came into view in the starless black, and with the sight there returned his appreciation of the need to avoid blundering into possible enemies. He slowed his pace, crouched low and silently made his way to the base of the platform. Ambrose and Helig were waiting for him at the foot of the ladder.

“I got to Felleth,” Snook blurted, fighting to control his breathing. “It’s all right.”

“Good work,” Ambrose said. “We’d better go up and get started. There isn’t much time.”

They climbed the ladder and found Prudence and the other three men standing in a silent group. Snook got the impression they had been holding a whispered conversation and had broken it off on his arrival. There was a strong feeling of embarrassment, none of them wanting to meet his gaze, and he knew that barriers had fallen into place in the same way as when it is learned that a member of a family or group is going to die. No matter how hard they may try, he realised, people who know they have a continuing future cannot help being alienated by the aura surrounding a person who is making ready to die. In theory, Snook’s life was being saved by nuclear magic—but his world-line was about to be terminated with a finality equal to that of the grave, and the fact had to be subconsciously resented by all others present.

“We don’t need this,” Ambrose said, pushing the plastic hydrogen tent out of the way. He upended a small wooden crate where the tent had been. “You’d better sit on this, Gil.”

“Right.” Snook tried to appear stolid and unmoved, but a deathly chill had gathered inside him, and his knees felt weak as he crossed the platform and shook hands with Helig, Culver and Quig. He had no idea why the formality suddenly seemed necessary to him. Prudence took his hand in both of hers, but her face was the mask of a high priestess as he kissed her once, very lightly and very briefly. He was turning away when she spoke his name.

He said, “What is it. Prudence?” There flickered in him the hope that she would give him something, a gift of words, to take to another world.

“I…” her voice was almost inaudible. “I’m sorry I laughed at your name.”

He nodded his head, strangely gratified and unable to speak, then went and sat down on the crate. The only occasion on which Prudence had shown amusement over his name had been at their very first meeting, and in his state of abject craving for human comfort it seemed to him that the odd apology had been her way of wiping clean the slate of subsequent events. That’s as good as you’re going to get, he thought. Perhaps it was more than you could have expected, under the circumstances. He looked all around him, taking in the sight which—barring some grotesque anticlimax—was to be his last view of Earth.

The five people on the platform stared back at him, but their blue-lenses Amplite glasses—which enabled them to see in darkness—made them look like blind people. Surrounding the crude wooden stage was a curtain of night which was now beginning to abate slightly, and he knew that dawn was near. Only the thick covering of low cloud, similar to that of Avernus, was keeping the level of light so low. Ambrose had moved in behind the Moncaster machine and was intent on its controls when Freeborn’s voice crashed from out of the blackness.

“The fifteen minutes is up, Doctor,” it said, “and I’m tired of waiting.”

“We haven’t finished our discussion,” Ambrose shouted, his hands still busy.

“What is there to discuss?”

“You must understand that it’s asking a lot for us to band over a man when we have no evidence of his crime.”

“You’ve been playing games with me. Doctor.” The amplification and echoes made Freeborn’s voice come from all sides at once. “You’ll be sorry you did that. If Snook doesn’t give himself up immediately I’m coming to take him.”

The words brought it home to Snook that, regardless of what might have lain in store for him, he was stiE an inhabitant of Earth and retained all his responsibilities. “I have to go down there, Boyce,” he said. “We’ve run out of time.”

“Stay where you are,” Ambrose commanded. “Kill the lights, Des.” Quig stooped and pulled a cable connection apart, and the faint light reflecting upwards from the ring of ground lights abruptly vanished.

“What good will that do?” Snook half-rose, then sank back on to his improvised seat. With the onset of full darkness, ghostly blue fingers could be seen beyond the edge of the platform. The inhabitants of Avernus—silent, translucent and awesome—moved among and through the piles of dank lumber, their eyes turning without seeing, their wide mouths moving without speech. In a few seconds there came the cries of frightened men. A gun was fired time after time, but the shots were not directed at human targets, and eventually there was a return to silence. The Avernians continued their strolling, unaware of anything outside their own universe.

“I was sure we could buy some time that way,” Ambrose said, secure in his role of master magician as the faint outlines of a building became visible about him. “Now, Gil, this is it. Felleth will be up level with us in a couple of minutes, and I’ve got to get you ready for him.”

With the removal of one danger. Snook’s former fears returned to him and he sought the comfort of words again. “What are you going to do to me, Boyce?” An instinct prompted him to take the automatic from his pocket and slide it away from him across the uneven timber.

“I’m surrounding you with a flux of neutrons, that’s all.” Ambrose sounded calm. “I’m making you neutron-rich.”

Incredibly, Snook found he was still capable of thought. “But parts of a nuclear plant are bombarded with neutrons for years, and they just stay put. Don’t they?”

“It isn’t the same thing, Gil. In a power plant the neutrons don’t exist long enough, or else they’re manifested in other reactions.” Ambrose went on speaking in the same reassuring monotone as the figures of Felleth and other Avernians and their equipment rose up around him. “This is mainly Felleth’s show, of course—he’s got all the work of synthesising your body with his elements. All we know is that the free neutrons to which you’re being converted will decay into protons, electrons and anti-neutrons. And Felleth will ensure that the anti-neutrons are preserved…”

Snook ceased listening to the incantation as the insubstantial framework of a cabinet was manoeuvred into place around him by Avernians who had luminous mist-pools for eyes. He looked for Prudence, but she had covered her face with her hands. There was just enough time for him to hope that she was crying for his sake…

Then he journeyed beyond the stars.