The Fugitive Worlds

Chapter 8

Divivvidiv had had a very good dream, one in which he had savored every diamond-sharp second of a day in his childhood. The day chosen had been the eighty-first of the Clear Sky Cycle. His high-brain had taken his memories of the actual day as the basis of the dream, then had discarded those which were less than perfect and replaced them with invented sequences. The content of the fabricated sections had been excellent, as had been the merging of their boundaries with the rest of the dreamscape, and Divivvidiv had awakened with intense feelings of happiness and fulfillment. For once there had been no undertones, no stains of guilt seeping in from the present, and he knew he would return to the dream—perhaps with minor variations—many times in the years to come.

He lay for a moment in the weak artificial gravity field of his bed, enjoying a mental afterglow, then became aware that the Xa was waiting to communicate with him. What is it? he said, raising himself to an upright position.

Nothing of great urgency, Beloved Creator—that is why I waited until you had achieved a natural return to consciousness, the Xa replied at once, using a mind-color similar to yellow for reassurance.

That was very considerate of you. Divivvidiv massaged the muscles of his arms in preparation for a return to activity. I sense you have good news for me. What is it?

The Primitives’ ship is returning, with two males on board, and this time they will not pass beyond my perimeter.

Divivvidiv was immediately on the alert. You are quite positive about this?

Yes, Beloved Creator. One of the males is emotionally linked to one of the females. He believes that she and her companions have damaged their ship in a collision with my body during the hours of darkness, and that they have taken refuge in one of the habitats we found in the datum plane. It is his intention to find and retrieve the female.

How interesting! Divivvidiv said. These beings must have an unusually strong inclination towards single-partner reproduction. First we learn of their mind-blindness, and now this—how many handicaps can a race endure and yet remain viable?

Stated in those terms, Beloved Creator, the question is meaningless.

I expect so. Divivvidiv turned his attention to matters of a more practical nature. Tell me, are the male Primitives becoming aware that you belong to a class of object totally outside their previous experience?

Object? Object?

Being. I should have referred to you as a being, of course. How do they perceive you?

As a natural phenomenon, the Xa said. An accretion of ice or some other crystalline form of matter.

That is good—II reduces their potential for causing damage and at the same time makes them easier for us to capture. Divivvidiv shifted his thinking to the high-brain mode to exclude the Xa from his deliberations. Obtaining specimens of the Primitives for Director Zunnunun’s personal study was in a way a frivolity, something quite extraneous to the great project, and if the Xa were to be damaged in the course of it the penalties would be dire. He, Divivvidiv, would almost certainly be subjected to personality modification as a punishment for allowing himself to be diverted from his duties. After all, the project was the single most important undertaking in the history of his people. The future of the entire race…

Beloved Creator! The Xa’s call was an unexpected intrusion. I have a question for you.

What is it? Divivvidiv demanded, hoping the Xa was not about to make more of the increasingly tiresome enquiries about its own future. The Xa would not have been able to build itself had it not been provided with a powerful artificial intelligence, but its designers—in the remote high floors of the Palace of Numbers—had not anticipated the development of self-awareness.

Tell me, Beloved Creator, the Xa said, what is a Rope?

The shock of the question was so sudden, so forceful, that Divivvidiv experienced a momentary giddiness and a dangerous weakening of mental control. For one perilous instant he almost gave the Xa access to all high-brain networks, and the effort of closing off hundreds of neural highways left him feeling chilled and sick.

Practicing eye-of-the-hurricane rituals to induce a state of calmness, he said, Who told you about Ropes?

There was a slight delay before the Xa responded. Not you, Beloved Creator. Not anybody. The word has lately begun to exist all around me. It must be continually in the minds of millions of intelligent beings, but the concepts behind it are too elusive to be captured. All I know is that the word is associated with fear… a terrible fear of ceasing to exist…

It is nothing for you to be concerned about, Divivvidiv said, using every mental reinforcement technique he knew to give strength to the lie. The word is little more than a sound. Its origins lie in certain aberrations of the human mind—logical lesions, you might say—metaphysics, religion, superstition…

But why has it begun to impinge on my consciousness?

For no particular reason. A tide, a current, an eddy. You trouble yourself with things that do not concern you. I command you to be at peace and concentrate on your given task.

Yes, Beloved Creator.

Grateful for the Xa’s compliant attitude, Divivvidiv severed the telepathic link and floated to the airlock which was closest to his living quarters. As he pulled on the suit which would enable him to survive the outer cold he pondered, with some disquiet, on the Xa’s acquisition of the term “Rope”. Did it simply mean that the Xa’s direct communication capability had increased? Or was there a new degree of alarm on the home world, a heightening of fear which had driven telepathic ripples through the surrounding regions of space?

Divivvidiv entered the airlock and completed the inner seal. As soon as he opened the outer door the bitter coldness stung his face and eyes, and breathing became so painful that he almost gasped aloud. The metallic plazas of the station stretched away before him, flat and bare in some places, replete with engineered complexities in others. The antennae of the teleportation unit projected into the sunlit air—slim and delicately curved sculptures—and occasional flickers of green fire at their tips showed that a consignment of the Xa’s nutrients was currently being received. Beyond the angular boundaries of the station the Xa’s body, now grown huge, formed a sea of white crystalline brilliance stretching into remoteness on all sides.

Divivvidiv’s eyes were not able to focus on infinity without artificial aid, and so the universe beyond the white horizon was simplified into a vision of the sun and one of the local planets on a background washed and speckled with blurs of luminance. He was, nevertheless, able to gaze directly at the mote of blue light which was his home world of Dussarra, and within seconds was in contact with Director Zunnunun.

What is it? Zunnunun said. Why do you interrupt my work?

I have good news, Divivvidiv replied. II was an unfortunate and freakish circumstance that the sampling of Primitives I supplied to you consisted entirely of females. Also, we were unlucky in that the second ship—containing Primitive males—became aware of the Xa in time to guide their ship successfully past its perimeter.

You said you had good news. Zunnunun tinted the words with the mind-colors of growing irritability.

Yes! The same Primitive ship is now ascending towards the datum plane, and those on board believe—or hope—that the lost females have taken refuge within the habitats I found here. This time, Director, there is no doubt at all that I will be able to send them to you, because—as a simple consequence of previous physical contact—the sole purpose of the males in making the new ascent is to retrieve the females. They will come directly to me.

This is quite incredible, Zunnunun said. Are you sure of your facts?

Absolutely.

You bring me good news indeed—I had no idea that such powerful bonding could exist between individuals of any species. I look forward to receiving the Primitive males and to carrying out appropriate experiments.

It is my pleasure to serve you, Divivvidiv said, pleased that he had regained the Director’s approval. While we are in private discourse, may I raise another matter?

Proceed.

The Xa’s consciousness continues to reach new levels, and it has just made an initial enquiry about the Ropes.

Does it have any understanding? Any insight?

No. Divivvidiv paused, qualifying the statement. But I sensed undertones… Has there been a new development?

I have to say—yes. There was a brief silence, and when Director Zunnunun spoke again his words were clouded with strange colors indicative of doubt and apprehension. As you know, a powerful faction in society has forced those in the Palace of Numbers to carry out a new assessment of the local situation, and the latest data have strengthened the opinion that the Ropes really do exist. It also seems highly probable that as many as twelve Ropes once intersected near our galaxy—compared with the original estimate of seven.

And if that is truly the case, not only will our own galaxy cease to exist—as many as a hundred other galaxies in the cosmic region will be annihilated.

I see. The surrounding cold seemed to invade Divivvidiv’s clothing with relentless force as he broke the mental contact. This is strange, he thought. Why should a force which promises to annihilate a million other galaxies be feared more than a force which threatens to destroy only this one—when my personal fate will be exactly the same in either case? And why should I trouble myself over my people’s plan to obliterate a pair of undeveloped and sparsely populated minor worlds when the cosmos itself is bent on such monstrous feats of destruction?

Chapter 9

During the last fifty miles of the ascent Toller and Steenameert had turned the ship on its side at frequent intervals. The purpose had been to get an early view of the small line of wooden stations and spaceships so that they could steer directly towards them by countering lateral drift. Even in good viewing conditions the artifacts would have been hard to find, but with a sea of crystal spanning the sky and diffusing the sunlight into a uniform white brilliance Toller had expected his task to be doubly difficult. He had therefore been surprised when, at a range of some thirty miles, he had begun discerning a mote of solid darkness at the center of the translucent disk. As the ship crept closer to it, binoculars revealed that the object—although irregular in its general outline—was bounded by straight lines and square corners. Its silhouette resembled the plan of a very large building to which numerous extensions had been added in quite a haphazard manner.

For a time Toller was able to reject the implication—there simply was no room for it in his scheme of reality—but eventually the painful mental shift took place…

“Whatever that thing is,” he said to Steenameert, “I cannot visualize it growing there by itself like a crystal of ice. It has to be a midpoint station of some kind, but…”

“Not built by the likes of us,” Steenameert supplied.

“You speak truly. The size… We could be looking at a palace in the sky.”

“Or a fortress.” Steenameert’s voice was low, almost furtive, in spite of the fact that he and Toller were alone on the ship in the vast reaches of the weightless zone. “Could it be that the Farlanders have at last decided on conquest?”

“They are going about it in an odd way, if they have,” Toller replied, frowning, instinctively rejecting the idea of a military invasion from the third planet. Bartan Drumme was one of the two men still alive who had been on the single epic voyage to Farland many years ago, and Toller had often heard him declare that its inhabitants were insular in their outlook, totally lacking in the colonial urge. Besides, the enigmatic sea of living crystal and the gigantic midpoint station were obviously connected in some respect, and what military commander—no matter how alien his mind—would set about an invasion in such a pointless manner?

“No, this is something new to us,” Toller went on. “We know there are many other worlds circling distant stars, and we also know that on some of those worlds there are civilizations much further advanced than ours. Perhaps, my friend Baten, what we see above us is… is… but one of many far-flung palaces belonging to some unimaginable king of kings. Perhaps those reaches of ice are his hunting grounds … his deerparks…” Toller paused, lost for the moment in the exotic grandeur of his vision, but was recalled when Steenameert posed a crucial question.

“Sir, do we go on?”

“Of course!” Toller pulled his scarf down from over his nose and mouth so that his words could be heard with perfect clarity. “1 continue to assume that the Countess and her crew have taken refuge in one of our stations, but if we fail to find them there… Why, we now have one other place to look!”

“Yes, sir.”

Steenameert’s eyes, peering from the horizontal slit between his scarf and the edge of his hood, gave no indication that anything out of the ordinary was happening, but Toller was suddenly struck by the fantastic import of his own words. His hand dropped of its own accord to the hilt of his sword as he realized that his entire being was awash with dread.

Even as he was first hearing of Vantara’s disappearance there had been born in him the sickening fear that she was dead. He had refused to acknowledge that fear, driving it out of his mind with manufactured optimism and the demanding activities of the hurriedly-mounted rescue expedition. But new elements had been added to the situation—bizarre, monstrous and inexplicable new elements—and it was impossible to see how they could bode anything but ill.

The six wooden structures were known collectively as the Inner Defense Group—a name which had clung to them since the days of the interplanetary war although it had long since lost all relevance.

Toller and Steenameert had located the group on the Overland side of the ice barrier and about two miles out from the alien station. Taking his ship in a wide curve, Toller had approached the wooden cylinders very cautiously from an outer direction, keeping them between him and the mysterious angular outline. He had chosen the course with a tenuous hope of avoiding detection by alien eyes, although it was purely an assumption that the metallic construct housed living beings. It appeared to be embedded in the crystalline barrier, and when viewed through his powerful glasses had something of the look of a vast and lifeless machine—an incomprehensible engine which had been placed in the weightless zone to carry out some incomprehensible task on behalf of equally incomprehensible builders.

And now, as his ship nudged to within a furlong of the cylinders, Toller was developing the conviction that they were empty. They were nestling against the underside of the frozen sea, apparently held in place by slim girdles of crystal which had grown around them. Four of the cylinders were habitats and stores, and two longer versions were functional copies of the spaceship which had once flown to Farland, but they all had one thing in common—the appearance of lifelessness.

If Vantara and her crew had been waiting within any of the wooden shells they would surely have been maintaining a watch and by this time would have signaled to the approaching skyship. But there was no sign of activity. All the portholes remained uniformly dark, and the hulls obstinately remained what they had been since Toller first saw them—inert relics of years long gone.

“Are we going to go inside?” Steenameert said.

Toller nodded. “We have to—it is expected of us—but…” His throat closed up painfully, forcing him to pause for a moment. “You can see for yourself that nobody is there.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Thanks.” Toller glanced at the strange alien edifice which projected from the icecap far to his left. “If that had been an aerial palace—as I so foolishly surmised—or even a fortress, I could have clung to some shred of hope that they had taken refuge in it. I would even have preferred to imagine them as the captives of invaders from another star—but the thing looks like nothing more than a great block of iron… an engine… Vantara could have seen no prospect of a haven there.”

“Except…”

“Goon, Baten.”

“Except in a case of the utmost desperation.” Steenameert had begun to speak quickly, as though fearful of having his ideas dismissed. “We don’t know how wide the ice barrier was when the Countess reached it, but if she did so in the hours of darkness—and there was a collision which disabled her ship—she would have been on the Land side of the barrier. The wrong side, sir. It would have been impossible to locate or reach our own vessels, and under those circumstances the… engine could have seemed a likely place to shelter. After all, sir, it is certainly large enough, and there may be hatches or doors leading to its interior, and—”

“That’s good!” Toller cut in as the darkness in his mind suddenly began to abate. “And I’ll tell you something else!

I have been treating this whole affair as though the Countess were an ordinary woman, but nothing could be further from the truth. We have been talking about an accidental collision, but there may not have been one. If Vantara had chanced to see the alien engine from afar she would have taken it upon herself to investigate it!

“She and her crew could be watching us through some vent at this very minute. Or… they might have spent some days exploring the machine and then have decided to return to Land. They could have passed us unseen as we were ascending with the commissioner—such things can easily happen. Don’t you agree that such things can easily happen?”

The tentative way in which Steenameert nodded in assent told Toller something he already knew—that he was allowing the pendulum of his emotions to swing too far—but the black despair he had begun to feel had to be staved off as long as possible, and by any means available. In the unexpected upsurge of hope it mattered little to him that his reactions were immature, that the real Toller Maraquine would have acted differently—he had been restored to the universe of light and was determined to remain in it as long as possible.

Now keyed up to a state in which he had to undertake some physical action, his system thrumming with emotional energy. Toller grinned fiercely at Steenameert. “Don’t just sit there fiddling with the controls—we have work to do!”

They fully inverted the ship and shut down the jet, letting the vessel coast to a gentle halt only fifty yards from the nearest of the wooden cylinders. The gondola’s landing legs actually came in contact with the barrier’s glowing surface, which at close range proved to be highly uneven—a haphazard mass of man-sized crystals. Most of them appeared to be hexagonal in cross-section, but others were circular or square, and many displayed feathery interior patterns of pale violet. The overall effect was visually stunning—a seemingly endless vista of unearthly beauty and brilliance.

Toller and Steenameert strapped on their personal propulsion units and made an inspection tour of the six cylinders. As expected, they were empty except for the provisions which had been stored against an emergency which had never come. The shells, with their varnished timbers and reinforcement bands of black iron, were colder and more silent than tombs. Toller was glad he had satisfied himself in advance that Vantara and her crew were elsewhere, otherwise the opening and investigating of each darkly brooding hull would have been an unbearable experience.

Towards the end of the tour he was struck by the fact that, although the crystals of the barrier had indeed extended themselves downwards to encompass the cylinders, they had done so in a very sparing fashion. Instead of completely engulfing the wooden hulls, as would have seemed natural to Toller, they had encircled each with only a narrow and spiky growth. It was something he might have puzzled over had his thoughts not been fully occupied with what lay ahead.

When the formal search had been completed, he and Steenameert—riding on plumes of white condensation—returned to their ship and collected from it seven parachutes and seven failbags, which they stored in the nearest of the habitats. Toller had insisted on bringing the survival equipment in case something catastrophic should happen to the skyship’s balloon while maneuvering close to the crystalline spikes of the barrier.

With the bags and parachutes at hand he and Steenameert, and any others they might rescue, were rendered independent of their skyship as far as descending to Overland was concerned. Protected from slipstream’s deadly chill by the fleecy wombs of the failbags, they could drop for more than a day and a night towards the planetary surface, only deploying the parachutes for the last few thousand feet of the descent. Daunting though the prospect might seem to die uninitiated, in all the years it had been in use the system had resulted in only one death—that of an experienced messenger who, it was thought, had fallen so deeply asleep that he had not roused himself in time to emerge from the fallbag and open his parachute.

Leaving their ship hanging in the inverted position, Toller and Steenameert began the strange two-mile flight to the huge alien artifact. Their jet units carried them at walking pace below a fantastic, glittering ceiling of giant crystals which appeared to have grown at random, except that at widely spaced intervals there were flatter areas in which the crystals were packed in what looked like orderly ranks, and in which the faint violet patterns within were more evident.

As the structure ahead expanded to fill more of his vision Toller began to revise his opinion that it was merely a lifeless engine. Here and there on the metallic surface he could see what seemed to be portholes, and there were hatches which had the size and proportions of doorways. The thought that Vantara might be at one of the portholes and watching his approach added to the heady excitement which suffused his system. At last, after a lifetime of waiting, he was taking part in an adventure which could stand comparison with the exploits which had studded his grandfather’s career.

On reaching the nearest edge of the artifact he saw that it was rimmed with a single metal rail supported by slim posts which could easily have been made in a foundry on Overland. The sea of crystals abutted the perimeter of the artifact with no discernible gap. Toller shut down his jet and brought himself to a halt by gripping the rail. Steenameert arrived at his side a moment later.

“This is obviously a handrail,” Toller said. “I fancy we are about to meet travelers from another star.”

Steenameert’s face was all but hidden by his scarf, but his eyes were wide with wonder. “I hope they bear no ill will towards trespassers. Anybody who can loft a redoubt like this into the sky…”

Toller nodded thoughtfully as he surveyed the structure and saw that it was at least half a mile across. He and Steenameert were perched at the edge of a flat area the size of a large parade ground, beyond which a central tower-like extrusion projected a hundred feet or more into the chilled air. As Toller studied it his senses made an adjustment and suddenly he was no longer “beneath” a fantastic landscape. In his new orientation he was looking across a plain towards a strange castle, and the great disk of Overland was directly overhead. Far off to his right was a cluster of curved, tapering poles—like giant reeds sculpted in steel—and as he watched a cold green fire began to flicker around their tips. The phenomenon served as a reminder that he was venturing far beyond the limits of his people’s understanding.

“We have nothing to gain by waiting here,” he said briskly, fending off an unwelcome surge of doubt and timidity. “Are you ready to… ?”

He broke off, shocked into silence, as from behind him came a sudden and unexpected sound. It was a hissing noise and a continuous crackling noise merged into one, like dried leaves and twigs being consumed in a fierce blaze. Toller tried to spin around, but panic and the absence of gravity combined to thwart his intention. He only succeeded in thrashing helplessly for a few seconds, and by the time he had used the handrail to steady himself it was too late—the trap had been sprung.

A sparkling globe composed of fist-sized crystals had grown up around him and his companion with breath-stopping speed, enclosing them in a spherical prison some six paces in diameter.

It had extruded itself from the greater crystals of the frozen sea and part of its lower edge was molded and attached to the metal of the alien station. The glittering material of it encompassed a section of the handrail to which the two men were clinging. Toller and Steenameert gaped at each other for a moment, faces contorted with shock, then Toller pulled off one of his gloves and touched the inner surface of the sphere. It was as cold as ice, and yet remained dry under his fingertips.

“Glass!” He pointed at the pistol slung on Steenameert’s equipment belt. “Blow a few holes in it and we’ll soon be out of here.”

“Yes, yes…” Steenameert unclipped the weapon and at the same time removed a pressure sphere from his carrier net. He was feverishly screwing it to the pistol’s underside when a silent voice—cool, all-knowing and totally convincing—reverberated inside Toller’s head.

I advise you not to fire the weapon. The material with which you are surrounded is protected by a reciprocal energy layer. The layer’s prime function is to deflect meteors away from the parent construction, but it is effective against any kind of projectile. If the weapon is fired the bullet will ricochet around the interior of the sphere with undiminished velocity until its energy is absorbed by one of your bodies. If the weapon is discharged the sphere will not be weakened in any way, but one of you may be killed.

Toller knew at once, without being able to explain why, that both he and Steenameert had been party to the same communication. The non-voice, modulations of silence, had addressed itself directly to their inner selves… mind had spoken to mind… which meant that…

He glanced to his left and flinched as he saw that there was a figure just outside the sphere. The glass honeycomb surface of the sphere was distorting and fragmenting the outline, but the figure was man-sized, human in its general appearance, and was holding itself in place by gripping the handrail as any man would have done. Toller had no doubt that it was the source of the mentally-heard voice, but he was unable to understand how the alien newcomer had crossed the metallic plain so quickly and without being seen.

He also felt afraid. His fear was unlike anything he had experienced before—a compound of xenophobia, shock and simple concern for his own safety which rendered him speechless and almost unable to move. He saw that Steenameert was equally stricken, equally immobilized, and had stopped attaching the pressure sphere to his pistol. The voiceless communication had not merely been a statement—it had passed on pure knowledge and now both men understood that a bullet striking the inside of the sphere would be repelled by a force whose magnitude was directly influenced by its speed.

There is no reason for you to be alarmed. The non-voice conveyed assurance and something which might have been mistaken for kindliness but for its underlying condescension and lack of warmth.

We are not afraid …of… Toller’s unspoken challenge was lost in the chaos of his mind as he began to wonder if he could communicate with his captor.

Speaking in your normal way will organize your thoughts sufficiently for us to exchange ideas, the alien told him. But do not waste time on untruths, empty boasts or threats. You were about to assert that you are not afraid of me, and that is manifestly untrue. What you must do now is compose yourselves and avoid the mistake of trying to offer me any form of resistance.

The utter confidence with which the alien spoke, the sheer smugness of the assumption of superiority, triggered in Toller a response—inherited from his grandfather—which he had never been able to control. A surge of red-clouded anger erupted through his system, freeing him from the stasis which had affected his mind and body.

“You are the one in danger of making a mistake,” he cried out. “I don’t know what your design is, but I will resist it to the death—and the death I have in mind is yours!”

This is quite interesting. The alien’s thought was tinged with amusement. One of your females reacted with exactly the same kind of irrational belligerence, Toller Maraquine—and I am almost certain she was the one to which you are emotionally bonded.

The reply jolted Toller into a wider frame of awareness. “Have you taken our women?” he bellowed, suddenly forgetful of his own situation. “Where are they? If they have come to any harm…”

They have not been harmed in any way. I have simply transported them to a place of safety far from here—as I am about to do with you. I shall now inject a sedative gas into the confine. Do not be alarmed by it. The gas will cause you to enter a deep sleep, and when you recover consciousness you will be in comfortable surroundings. And although it will be necessary to detain you there indefinitely, you will be adequately provisioned.

“We are not animals to be penned and provisioned,” Toller snapped, his anger further fuelled. “We will go with you to the place to where the women are imprisoned, but of our own free will and with our eyes wide open. Those are my terms, and if you consent to them I give you my word that neither of us will cause you any injury.”

Your arrogance is quite astonishing—and equaled only by your ignorance, came the reply, calm and amused. Beings at your primitive stage of development could never injure me, but I will sedate you, nevertheless, to prevent your causing any minor inconvenience while you are being transported.

The figure beyond the crystal wall made a slight movement—which was translated into flowing color transformations of icy facets—and then a particular darkening of one of the hexagonals showed that something was being placed against its outer surface. Steenameert completed his arming of the pistol, raised it and aimed at the focus of activity.

Suicide, Baten Steenameert? The non-voice held something of the detached pity of a naturalist watching a delicate fly drift closer to a spider’s web. Surely not!

Steenameert glanced at Toller, his eyes unfathomable in the narrow space between scarf and cowl, and lowered the pistol. Toller nodded to him in evident approval of his prudence and—with a deliberate abandonment of conscious intention—drew his sword and in a single swift movement drove the point of it into the crystal wall. He had clamped his left forearm around the handrail, turning his body into a closed system of forces, and the tip of the steel blade buried itself in the shining cells with a power which sent vitreous fragments spinning outwards from the point of impact.

The crystal sphere screamed.

The scream was noiseless, but had no other resemblance to the type of precisely shaped and controlled mental communication employed by the alien. Toller knew, without understanding how, that it was emanating from the walls of the sphere and also from the frozen lake beyond—a multiplied shriek of agony in which chance harmonics and discordant echoes clashed again and again until they hid away and a strange, whimpering non-voice made itself heard…

I have been hurt, Beloved Creator! You did not tell me that the Primitives would be able to damage my body.

Toller, obeying warrior’s instinct, did not allow the unexpected voice to inhibit him or blunt his attack. He had hurt an enemy and that was the signal to press forward with renewed vigor, to go for a kill. His sword seemed to be meeting a peculiar resistance, as though passing through a layer of invisible sponge, but his repeated thrusts were retaining enough force to damage and dislodge glassy cells. In only a few seconds he had shattered an adjacent pair and created a small hole in the sphere.

Changing the style of attack, he used the haft of his sword to strike the damaged area, and in spite of the unseen resistance he succeeded in dislodging the two cells entirely, sending them tumbling away into the outer void. Feverishly inspired, he transferred the sword to his other hand and punched the same area of wall with his gauntleted fist. This time there was no magical barrier to soften the blow and several more of the hexagonal cells, their structural unity weakened, went spinning out of sight, greatly enlarging the hole in the sphere.

The silent, inhuman screaming began again.

Steenameert followed Toller’s example and—bracing himself against the handrail—began raining blows on the irregular edge of the hole, adding to the destructive effect.

In the roaring furnace of Toller’s mind virtually no time passed until the way ahead of him had been cleared and he was outside the sphere and, in weightless flight, closing on a silver-suited figure which was turning to flee. His left arm clamped around the alien’s neck in the instant of collision, and he whipped the sword—which seemed to have returned to his right hand of its own accord—into position for a thrust into the alien’s side.

How did you achieve this? The alien’s words were tinged with revulsion because of the physical contact, but Toller was unable to feel any fear.

You had fully coordinated control of all your muscles, the voice went on, but there was no coherent mental activity that I could detect. It was impossible for me to anticipate your actions. How was it done?

“Be silent,” Toller snarled, hooking a leg around the handrail to prevent himself and his captive drifting free of the metal surface of the station. “Where are the women?”

All you need to know, the alien said imperturbably, b that they are in a place of safety. Again, and to Toller’s bafflement, the mental contact revealed no shadings of alarm.

“Listen to me!” Toller gripped the alien by the shoulder and thrust him to arm’s length, a movement which brought them face to face for the first time. In one searching, wondering, dismayed moment Toller took in every detail of a face which was surprisingly human in the disposition of its features. The principal differences were that the skin was grey; the eyes, lacking pupils, were white orbs drilled with black holes; and the small upturned nose had no central division. Toller could see far back into the nasal cavity, where red-veined orange membranes fluttered back and forth or clung together in tune with the alien’s breathing.

“You haven’t been listening.” Toller, repressing an urge to push himself away from the hideous caricature of a human being, leaned harder on his sword and forced it deep into the reflective material of the other’s suit. “You will tell me what I need to know—immediately—or I will kill you.”

The alien’s charcoal lips slackened into what could have been a smile. At this range? So close? While we are in actual physical contact? No member of a humanoid species could possibly…

Toller’s head filled with crimson thunder. His mind blurred, became a montage of smeared visions of Vantara and death-hued alien predators; and the rage, a special rage—beguiling and repugnant, shameful and joyous—took hold of his being. He pulled the alien towards him, at the same time going in hard with the sword, and it was only a startled cry from Steenameert which returned him to sanity.

You hurt me! The alien’s silent words were shaded with astonishment and the beginnings of fearful comprehension. You could have done it! You were prepared to kill me!

“That’s what I have been telling you, greyface,” Toller ground out.

My name is Divivvidiv.

“You resemble a corpse to begin with, greyface,” Toller went on, “and it would occasion me not the slightest qualm of conscience were I forced to reconcile appearance with reality. I repeat, if you do not tell me—”

He broke off, disconcerted, as the alien’s face rippled with muscular convulsions, and the frail shoulder gripped in his left hand began to vibrate in tune with internal tremors. The black-rimmed mouth underwent asymmetrical changes, flowing in one direction and then another like a sea anemone pulled by conflicting currents, sending threads of discharged saliva snaking weightlessly through the air. Blurred mental echoes picked up by Toller told him that his captive had never been directly threatened with death before. At first it had been impossible for Divivvidiv even to believe that his life was in danger, and now he was undergoing an extremely violent emotional reaction.

Toiler, receiving his first insight into a culture totally dissimilar to his own, responded by renewing the pressure of his sword point. “The women, greyface … the women! Where are they?”

They have been transported to my home world. Divivvidiv was regaining some physical control, but his words reeked with fear, revulsion and barely contained hysteria. They are in a secure place—millions of miles from here—in the capital city of the most advanced civilization in this galaxy. I can assure you that it is far beyond the abilities of a Primitive like you to alter those circumstances in any way, therefore the logical thing for you to do is—

“Your logic is not my logic,” Toller cut in, hardening his voice in the hope of concealing the dismay which was washing through him. “If the women are not brought back unharmed, I will send you to another world—one from which no man has ever returned. I trust my meaning is clear…”

Chapter 10

The room was large and almost bare, its principal item of furniture being a blue oblong which looked like a bed except that it lacked restraint nets. Ranged around the walls were rectangular and circular panels which continuously changed color, slowly in some cases, rapidly in others. The floor was of a grey-green seamless material closely perforated with small holes. Toller noticed that his feet tended to stick to the floor, obviating the need for zero-gravity lines, and he guessed the holes formed part of a vacuum system.

He was, however, giving little thought to his surroundings—his attention being concentrated on Divivvidiv, who was busy removing his skysuit. The silvery garment had seams which opened readily when a toggle was drawn along them, an intriguing feature which enabled Divivvidiv to shed the suit in only a few seconds, revealing a frail-looking body of humanoid form and proportions. The alien’s thin frame was clad in a one-piece suit made up of dozens of sections of black material which overlapped like birds’ feathers.

The outlandishness of the costume; the bald grey cranium; the virtually noseless, corpselike face—all of these combined to inspire in Toller a powerful xenophobia which was augmented by the discovery that the alien had a smell. The odor was not unpleasant in itself—it was sweet and soupy, like a rich beef broth—but the incongruity of the source rendered it highly distasteful to Toller. He glanced at Steenameert and wrinkled his nose. Steenameert, who had been surveying the strange room, did likewise.

You may be interested to learn that you also have an objectionable smell, Divivvidiv commented. Though I suspect that yours is much to do with inadequate hygiene and would draw complaints from members of your own species.

Toller smiled coldly. “Recovering from your little bout of the shakes, are you? Backbone beginning to stiffen again? Let me remind you that I can still end your life at any second and am quite prepared to do so.”

You are a blusterer, Toller Maraquine. At heart you doubt your ability to fulfill the role you have assumed in society, and you try to disguise that fact in various ways—one of which is the issuing of flamboyant threats.

“Take care, greyface!” Toller was disconcerted at having a ghoulish figure from some distant region of the universe so casually penetrate the innermost recesses of his mind and then blurt out its findings, revealing secrets which he scarcely ever admitted to himself. He glanced at Steenameert, but the younger man had resumed his scanning of the room, almost certainly being diplomatic.

I advise you to divest yourselves of those clumsy insulated suits, Divivvidiv replied unconcernedly. Crude though they look, they are probably quite efficient and will soon make you highly uncomfortable at these temperatures.

Toller, who was already sweating, gazed suspiciously at Divivvidiv. “If you are hoping to surprise me while I am entangled with—”

Nothing could be further from my thoughts. Divivvidiv was now free of his silver suit and was standing close to Toller, swaying slightly above anchored feet. You know that.

The multiplex levels of communication inherent in mental contact left Toller with no doubt about the alien’s truthfulness. But, he wondered, could that be a telepathic technique? Could super-speech be a vehicle for a super-lie, one which carried total conviction for the listener?

“Keep the pistol on him while I get out of this suit,” he said to Steenameert. “If he moves … if he even blinks… put a ball in him.”

Your thought processes are unusually complicated for a Primitive. Divivvidiv seemed increasingly at his ease, and his silent words might have been shaded with amusement.

“I’m glad you realize you are not dealing with simpletons,” Toller said as he struggled out of his skysuit. “And why are you becoming so satisfied with yourself, greyface? What reason is there for it?”

Reason is the reason. An incongruously human chuckle escaped Divivvidiv’s black-rimmed mouth. Now that I have had the opportunity to appraise your mental structure more thoroughly—and find you fairly amenable to reason—I realize that I can protect myself and my interests simply by making your position clear to you. The more information 1 impart to you, the more stable our relationship will be. That is why I suggested moving to these more comfortable surroundings, where we can converse without so many distractions.

“Nothing can distract me in this matter,” Toller said, wondering if the full extent of the lie would be apparent to Divivvidiv. The mode of communication alone was enough to swamp his mind with wonder, and when the outlandish nature and appearance of the alien—to say nothing of the bizarre circumstances of the meeting—were taken into consideration it was a matter of some surprise to him that his brain was able to function at all. He would have to keep Vantara in the forefront of his thoughts at all times. Nothing else mattered but the need to find and rescue her, and return her to the safety of Overland…

There is no need to keep pointing that barbaric weapon at me, Divivvidiv said as Toller got free of his skysuit and took the pistol from Steenameert to enable him to strip down as well. I told you that logic will prevail over force.

“In that case you have nothing to be alarmed about,” Toller replied comfortably, “if it comes to a falling out, you can fire syllogisms at me and I will have to make do with firing mere bullets at you.”

You grow complacent.

“And you grow tiresome, greyface. Tell me how you plan to retrieve the women and thus preserve your own life.”

Divivvidiv projected feelings of exasperation. I have a question for you, Toller Maraquine. It may seem irrelevant to our circumstances, but if you will control your impatience for a short time understanding will come. Is that reasonable?

Toller nodded reluctantly, with an uneasy suspicion that he was being manipulated.

Good! Now, how many worlds are in your planetary system?

“Three,” Toller said. “Land, Overland and Farland. My paternal grandfather—whose name I am proud to bear—died on Farland.”

Your knowledge of astronomy is deficient. Has it not come to your attention that there are now four worlds in the local system?

“Four worlds?” Toller stared at Divivvidiv, frowning, as he half-remembered someone having spoken to him in recent days about a blue planet. “Now four worlds? You speak as if a new world had been added to our little flock by magic.”

That is exactly what has happened—although no magic was involved. Divivvidiv leaned forward. My people have transported their home planet—which is called Dussarra—across hundreds of light years. They plucked it from its ancient orbit about a distant sun, and they placed it in a new orbit about your sun. Does that suggest anything to you about their powers?

“Yes—powers of imagination,” Toller said with a show of scorn in spite of a dreadful conviction that the alien was presenting the unvarnished truth. “Even if you could move an entire world, how could its inhabitants survive in the coldness and darkness between the stars? How long would such a journey take?”

No time at all! Interstellar travel has to be accomplished instantaneously. The concepts are far beyond your grasp—through no fault of your own—but I will try to implant analogies which will give you some measure of understanding.

Divivvidiv’s inhuman eyes closed for a second. Toller felt a wrenching sensation within his head, disturbing and yet curiously pleasurable, and he gasped as—like a slewing beam from a lighthouse—a flaring intellectual luminance swept through his mind. For one tantalizing instant he seemed on the verge of knowing everything that a complete being ought to know, then there came a wavering, an accelerating slippage, followed by an aching sense of loss as the light moved away from him. The philosophical darkness which rolled in to take its place was, however, less oppressive, less monolithic than before. There were twilight areas. Toller had a fleeting glimpse of vacuums within vacuums; of interstellar space as a spongy nothingness riddled with tubes and tunnels of a greater nothingness; of insubstantial galactic highways whose entrances coincided with their exits…

“I believe, I believe,” he breathed. “But—between us—nothing has changed.”

You disappoint me, Toller Maraquine. Divivvidiv stepped over his discarded suit, which had been drawn to the floor by air currents, and moved closer to Toller. Where is your curiosity? Where is your spirit of scientific enquiry? Do you not wish to know why my people embarked upon such a mammoth venture? Do you think it is a commonplace thing for the members of an intelligent species to transport their home world from one part of a galaxy to another?

“I have already told you—those things are no concern of mine.”

Oh, but they are! They are also the concern of every living creature on every planet of this system. Divivvidiv’s mouth underwent further asymmetrical changes, tugged by the invisible tides of emotion. You see, my people are fleeing for their lives. We are fugitives from the greatest catastrophe in the recent history of the universe. Does that fact not make you the least bit inquisitive?

Toller glanced at Steenameert, who appeared to have frozen halfway through the task of removing his skysuit, and for the first time in days his preoccupation with Vantara and her fate began to loosen its hold on his mind.

“Catastrophe!” he said. “But the stars are billions upon billions of miles apart! Are you talking about some manner of great explosion? If it ever happens I cannot see how—”

It has already happened, Divivvidiv cut in. And it matters little that stars are billions of miles apart—the scale of the explosion was such that upwards of a hundred galaxies will be destroyed by it!

Toller tried to conjure up a mental image to go with the alien’s words, but his imagination baulked. “What could cause such an explo… ? And if it has already happened why are we still here? How can you know about it?”

Divivvidiv was now very close to Toller, and his sweet body odor was thick in Toller’s nostrils. Again, the concepts are beyond you, but…

The slewing beam from the lighthouse was fiercer this time, and Toller’s instinct was to shrink away from it, but there was nothing he could do to protect himself. He shuddered as, within a tiny fraction of a second, his inner model of reality was torn apart and rebuilt, and he found that his newly vouchsafed vision of space as an emptiness riddled with transient wormholes of greater emptiness was a simplification. The cosmos—he now knew, or almost knew—was born in an explosion which was inconceivable in its ferocity, and within a minute its entire volume was permeated by seething masses of ropes. The ropes—comparatively ancient and decaying relics of a period of cosmic history which had spanned a length of time equal to one human breath—had a diameter approximating one millionth of that of a human hair, and were so massive that a single inch weighed as much as an average-sized planet. They writhed and twisted and oscillated, and in their blind contortions they decided nothing less than the disposition of matter throughout the universe: the patterns of galaxies, the patterns of clusters of galaxies, the patterns of sheets of clusters of galaxies.

As the universe grew older—and intelligent life made its first appearance—the ropes grew fewer in number. Their incredible stores of energy squandered by their frenzied threshings and twistings, by the propagation of gravitational waves, they became more of a cosmic rarity. As they slowly erased themselves from existence the universe became more stable, a safer place for frail biological constructs such as human beings—but it was not homogenous. There were anomalous regions in which ropes remained plentiful, so plentiful that interactions and collisions were bound to occur, with consequences beyond the descriptive powers of any system of mathematics.

At one location no less than twelve ropes had intersected and yielded up their total energy in an explosion which was destined to annihilate perhaps a hundred galaxies, and to have a profound effect on a further thousand. No living creature would ever see the explosion, so close was the speed of its fronts to that of light, but intelligent beings—using data gathered by subspace probes—could deduce its existence. And once the deduction had been made there was only one thing left to do.

Flee!

Flee far and fast…

Toller blinked vigorously, momentarily certain that a watery ripple had passed across his vision, but he realized almost at once that the effect had been subjective and illusory. His internal model of the universe had been torn asunder and rebuilt in drastically different form, and now he, too, was different. A quick glance at Steenameert’s pale face and blanked-out eyes confirmed that he also had undergone a similar chastening metamorphosis.

A voice from Toller’s distant past whispered a warning: Your defenses have been breached! Should he choose to do so, grey face could overwhelm you in this very instant!

Responding to the warning, Toller alerted himself. He triangulated his gaze on the alien’s face and saw nothing there but a growing display of relaxation and satisfaction. There was no sense of physical threat, but that in itself might have constituted another kind of menace. They were in Divivvidiv’s stronghold and there was no telling what semi-magical forces the alien might be able to summon to do his bidding without so much as having to raise a finger.

Striving to assimilate all that he had learned, Toller shook his head as though recovering from a blow. His mind had been swamped in the influx of pure knowledge—to the extent that all normal thought processes were being prorogued—but, even so, he had a dim awareness that one great question remained unanswered. What could it be? He had been told too much in too short a time, and yet he was troubled by a nagging conviction that he had been told too little. And, all the while, the hideous alien in his costume of wafting black rags gave the impression of being more and more content with the situation…

“Why do you seem so pleased with yourself, greyface?” Toller growled. “After all, nothing has changed between us.”

Oh, but it has, Divivvidiv assured him, shading his words with a kind of glee. You are not immune to reason, and therefore in this situation logic has to work for me and against you. Without admitting as much to yourself you have already begun to realize how pointless it would be for you to pit yourself against representatives of the greatest civilization in the galaxy.

“I refuse to…”

And now that you have come so far, Divivvidiv went on relentlessly, I will complete the edifice of logic which to me is an impregnable defense and to you an insurmountable barrier. You were on the verge of asking why your insignificant pair of little worlds had to become involved with Dussarra’s flight from annihilation.

The answer is that binary planets sharing a common atmosphere are extremely rare. Dussarran astronomers are aware of only three other examples in this galaxy—all of them very distant and less well matched than Land and Overland. As you already know, we can move our home world instantaneously from star to star, but energy limitations prevent us from leaping more than a few light years at a time. That fact means that the annihilation front, which even now is roiling outwards through this region of the galaxy, would always have been at our heels… unless… unless, Toller Maraquine… we found the way to make the leap to another galaxy.

Toller became aware of his own breathing, a regular and impersonal sound, like waves subsiding on a distant beach.

We designed a machine which was capable of transporting the home world across the required distance, but for its construction the machine required a very special physical environment. There had, of course, to be freedom from gravity to prevent the machine from distorting under its own weight—a factor which posed us no problems. There also had to be a limitless supply of oxygen and helium to facilitate accretive growth of the machine—and that is why we chose to position the Xa at the very center of your two worlds.

In addition to all the other knowledge which I have impressed on your mind, Toller Maraquine, it is necessary for you to appreciate that the Xa is almost complete. It will be activated in approximately six days from now, and when that happens the planet Dussarra will simply vanish from your sight. It will have been instantaneously relocated in another galaxy—one which is nine million light years from here.

Absorb what I am telling you, Toller Maraquine—for your own sake, for your own peace of mind.

There is nothing you can do to retrieve your females. The massed resources of a thousand civilizations like yours would be powerless in this situation. I urge you—accept what I say and return to your home world in peace and with no qualms of conscience, knowing that you have done all that any individual could possibly do…

Toller stared into the black-drilled orbs of the alien’s eyes, tranced, communing with himself and with another—that heroic figure from heroic times past whose example and counsel, although inferred, he prized above all else. “What would the real Toller have done?” he asked himself, silently moving his lips to frame the words. He remained immobile for several seconds, half-seduced by the blandishments of the alien logic, then he recoiled, eyes widening, like a man evading the jaws of a steel trap.

’Take this pistol from me,” he said to Steenameert. “And give me my sword.”

I have lost you again. Divivvidiv cowered back from him. You are acting without thinking. What are you going to do?

Toller accepted the weapon from Steenameert, closing his fingers around the familiar moldings of the haft, and pressed the tip of the blade to the alien’s throat. Crimson stars sparkled across his vision.

“What am I going to do, greyface?” he whispered. “Why, I am going to part your head from your foul body unless you stop telling me what you want me to hear and start telling me what I want to hear. Has your wonderful intellect absorbed that message? Tell me—now!—how I can rescue our women.” He bored with the steel blade into Divivvidiv’s throat.

The alien’s black-rimmed mouth distorted and his frail body began its convulsive trembling, but this time the threat of instant death did not entirely destroy his self-control. I have told you all there is to tell. You have to understand the situation—there is nothing you can do.

“I could kill you!”

Yes, but what would that achieve? Nothing! Nothing!

*T…” Toller refused to be diverted. “You said the women were transported to your world… instantaneously … by one of your machines…”

Yes?

“In that case, we will pursue them by the same mode of transport,” Toller ground out, shocked by his own words.

The quaking of Divivvidiv’s body grew less severe. Is there no end to your obtuseness, Toller Maraquine? You ask to be transported to the heart of a Dussarran mega-city, the population of which is in excess of thirty millions! What do you think you and your companion could achieve there?

“I would have you as a hostage. I will bargain with your miserable life.”

The tremors in Divivvidiv’s frame ceased altogether. This is quite incredible, but there is just a chance—infinitesimal though it may be—that in your blind and primitive stubbornness you could succeed where vastly superior beings would have been doomed to failure. What an intriguing concept! This could even form a major topic for discussion at the next meeting of the…

“Enough!” Still gripping the alien’s shoulder with his left hand, Toller lowered his sword slightly. “You will do as I command? You will take us to Dussarra?”

You leave me no choice. We will go immediately.

“This is more to my liking.” Toller released his grip on Divivvidiv’s shoulder, then tightened his fingers again, so fiercely that the alien winced. “Or is it less to my liking?”

I do not understand you! What has happened?

“You ceased your shivering, greyface. You ceased being afraid.”

But that was a natural reaction to your new proposal.

“Was it? I don’t trust you, greyface.” Toller produced a cold smile. “This is the way we Primitives conduct ourselves when negotiating with an enemy. We rely to a great extent on our brute instincts—the instincts which are so despised by an advanced being like you—and mine are telling me that you would like us to proceed to Dussarra by way of your magical machine. I suspect that were we to do so I would be immediately overwhelmed, or rendered unconscious, or disadvantaged in some other way which would put me at your mercy.”

There would be no point in my pitting reason against your wild and uninformed imaginings. A note of challenge had begun to insinuate itself into Divivvidiv’s manner. May I therefore be informed as to what fresh proposals you are going to put forward under the aegis of your treasured primitive instincts?

“Certainly!” Toller thought of his grandfather and smiled again. “I am taking you to Dussarra as my hostage—exactly as planned—but the journey will be completed without resort to geometrical sorceries. Two good Kolcorronian spaceships—built of the finest wood and fully provisioned—are waiting close by.

“One of them will carry the three of us to Dussarra.”

Chapter 11

The Primitive’s words, coming at Divivvidiv out of shifting and formless blurs of emotional activity, were so unexpected—so ludicrous in their content—that at first he felt little sense of shock or alarm. It had been disconcerting to find that the Primitives were capable of coordinated, purposeful action while their neural systems were emitting no coherent signals, but he had put that down as a transient condition brought about by rage or fear. Surely an accidental sequence of words, with only a superficial resemblance to a rational sentence, would be abandoned by the larger Primitive as soon as the storms subsided in his mind.

“What do you think of that idea?” the Primitive said, his disgustingly pink and thick-lipped mouth widening.

Divivvidiv gazed at him for a moment and felt the beginnings of terror as he observed alien mental processes slowly taking place. The Primitive had heard his own words as if they were being uttered by another being. He had been almost as surprised as Divivvidiv by their content, but now he was returning to what passed for his rational mode of cerebration and was actually assuming responsibility for the words and the preposterous notion they embodied.

The idea is insane, Divivvidiv projected. You do not have to try putting it into practice merely because you verbalized it in a moment of stress. Be sensible, Toller Maraquine—protect your modern self from your ancient self!

Divivvidiv forced an understanding of his thoughts into the Primitive’s mind, fully expecting the odiferous giant to modify his mental stance. To Divivvidiv’s dismay the Primitive reacted with a blend of contempt, amusement, pride and sheerest blind obstinacy.

“Stiffen your backbone, greyface,” he boomed. “And try to show proper gratitude to me! You have tested my patience with your boasts about your kind’s space-faring prowess—if that word can be applied to your geometrical sorceries—but now I am going to acquaint you with the realities of going into the black.

“My paternal grandfather—whose name I am proud to bear—was the first man to take one of our spaceships to another world, and I feel privileged that destiny has called upon me to emulate his exploits. Get back into your silver fineries, greyface—we have work ahead of us.”

But this is suicidal! It is madness! Divivvidiv felt himself begin to quiver at the prospect of having to risk his life in one of the barbaric wooden shells he had examined so briefly in the preliminary phase of the Xa’s development. He had preserved the flimsy artifacts on the chance that the Director might show some interest in their origins. Why had he not had the foresight to destroy them? And why had the designers of the station—those autocrats in the high levels of the Palace of Numbers—not allowed for the possibility of alien intruders?

“Suicidal, you say? Not as suicidal as allowing you to… teleport … me into the center of one of your cities.” The larger Primitive slackened his grip on Divivvidiv’s shoulder a little, lessening the pain.

The giant was swelling in confidence with every second, but Divivvidiv was aware of a growing disquiet in the mind of his companion. He could not analyze the feeling for the present, because too much of his mental capacity was being taken up in dealing with his predicament, but he hoped that Steenameert was going to put forward a rational argument against using one of the wooden spaceships. At the low-brain level of communication, Divivvidiv could hear the Xa calling to him, a distracting undertone which added to an already dangerous degree of stress.

You have no astrogational instruments of any kind, therefore the journey you contemplate is impossible. A new thought occurred to Divivvidiv. I know you actually believe that your grandfather flew one of your ships to another world, but without-a precise knowledge of the vessel’s speed and…

“He had help with the various computations.” The giant pressed harder with the tip of his sword, the weapon with which he appeared to compensate for his mental inadequacies. “You will provide me with the same assistance. You are equal to the task, aren’t you, greyface? I mean, you have already spoken at length about your immeasurable superiority in all the sciences.”

I still say the risks are unjustifiable. Your so-called spaceship could have deteriorated beyond… Divivvidiv left the thought uncompleted as the second barbarian suddenly gave voice to his anxieties.

“Can I have a word, sir?” His worried gaze was fixed on the giant’s face. “Just a brief word?”

“What is it, Baten?”

Divivvidiv gained access to what was coming and was disappointed when he realized that Steenameert’s concern was less with immediate practicalities than with the cosmological overview he had been given earlier. Nevertheless, his intervention diverted most of the giant’s crude mindforce away from Divivvidiv and gave him a welcome opportunity to take stock of his situation.

What is happening, Beloved Creator? The Xa found its way into Divivvidiv’s mind on the instant. I have repaired the damage to my body, but I still feel some pain. I wish I had sense organs capable of seeing and hearing within the station. Are the Primitives with you?

That is no concern of yours.

But there has been talk of ropes, Beloved Creator! From you? Are you capable of issuing words which do not correspond to reality?

No ethical being has that capability, Divivvidiv replied irritably. Be calm!

Are you an ethical being, Beloved Creator?

Be calm, I tell you! Divivvidiv closed all his low-brain channels in an effort to end the Xa’s pestering.

“The scarecrow told us of a vast explosion, sir,” Steenameert said to the giant. “We have to take note of what he said. Entire galaxies will be annihilated! According to him Overland and Land will soon be destroyed in one great flash!”

“Baten, why do you plague me with all this talk of galaxies and explosions at this time?”

The smaller Primitive’s repulsive features showed signs of agitation. “He said it would happen soon, sir.”

“Soon? How soon is soon?”

“That is what we must find out.”

Beloved Creator! Divivvidiv was shocked to find that the Xa had regained access to his mind, apparently with little effort. Did you say to the Primitives that I am to be killed only six days from now?

The way in which the question was framed revealed to Divivvidiv that a communications leakage had developed somewhere in the station’s heavy shielding, enabling the Xa to pick up wisps of mental interactions which should have been denied to it. Useful though the discovery would have been at another time, it now served only to aggravate his feelings of anger and alarm.

I command you! He projected the words at the Xa with all the force he could gather. Go into general quiescence and remain in that condition until I recall you.

“… asking you, greyface,” the giant was shouting, “how long will it be until my home world is affected by the explosion of which you spoke?”

I cannot be precise—but two hundred of your years is a likely figure.

“Two hundred years.” The giant glanced at his companion. “It seems a short span for a world, but for me—at this very moment—it seems an eternity. There is much to do, Baten, and we must act quickly.”

More quickly than you realize, Divivvidiv added, encircling the thought with all the defenses of his high-brain so that not even the Xa could gain a hint of what was going on in his mind. The guilt which had formerly troubled him each time he remembered the fate his kind was planning for the inhabitants of the twin worlds had been erased, for the present anyway. The raw emotions of contempt, disgust and fear engendered in him by his gigantic captor had seen to that.

In only ten days, Toller Maraquine, he thought, your insignificant little home world will cease to exist.

Chapter 12

When Cassyll Maraquine emerged from the palace he was perspiring freely. Regardless of the impropriety for one of his station, he immediately took off his formal tabard and opened his blouse at the neck, allowing heat to escape from his body. He breathed deeply of the fresh morning air and looked around for Bartan Drumme.

“You look like a boiled lobster,” Bartan commented jovially, emerging from behind the base of the heroic statue of King Chakkell which dominated the forecourt as Chakkell had once dominated the entire planet.

“It was like a baker’s oven in there.” Cassyll dabbed his brow with a handkerchief. “Daseene is killing herself, living in conditions like that, but when I try to advise her to take the air…”

“What is the point of being the ruler if you can’t make death the subject of royal edicts?”

“This is not a fit topic for jests,” Cassyll said. “I fear that Daseene has only a little time left to her—and this astonishing business of the barrier, plus her worries about the well-being of Countess Vantara, can only make matters worse.”

“You must be concerned for Toller’s safety. Is there a scale upon which such emotions are balanced? Upon which your feelings weigh less heavily on the pan than those of Daseene?”

“Toller can take care of himself.”

Bartan nodded. “Yes, but he isn’t his grandfather.”

“What does that mean? What manner of convoluted family tree would I have if my father and my son were one and the same?” Cassyll demanded, not hiding his vexation.

“I’m sorry, old friend. I love young Toller almost as much as…” Bartan raised his shoulders to a level with his ears, a way of agreeing that they should talk about other things. “Shall we find a comfortable seat?”

“It would be preferable to an uncomfortable seat.”

The two men, forcibly nudging each other to show that their friendship was still intact, walked in the direction of the Lain River. They reached it near the Lord Glo Bridge, turned east along the embankment and sat down on a marble bench. The air was quiet and balmy, pervaded by the kind of privileged mid-morning calmness which is typical of administrative districts in capital cities. Ptertha were plentiful that morning, glistening like glass spheres as they followed the course of the river, darting and swooping a few feet above the surface of the breeze-ruffled water.

Bartan waited only a few seconds and said, “What is the verdict?”

“She wants to send a fleet.”

“Did you tell her there aren’t any ships available?”

“She told me not to vex her with minor details.” Cassyll gave a humorless laugh. “Details!”

“What are you going to do?”

“I have promised to find out exactly how many ships can be made airworthy, by cannibalizing others if necessary, and report the situation to her. Many engine parts will need to be repaired or replaced, and there is a dearth of balloon fabric. It could take as long as twenty days before we can send anybody aloft, and…” Cassyll fell silent, twisting the gold ring he wore on the sixth finger of his left hand.

“And you were hoping Toller would have returned long before then,” Bartan said sympathetically. “He probably will be back… with that countess hanging around his neck… It takes a lot to deflect that young man from his course.”

“Excellent choice of words—I took some fresh readings early this foreday and I’d say that the barrier is now almost a hundred miles across. It means that no ship could possibly fly around it.”

“There you are then!” Bartan said with a display of cheerfulness. “Toller has to come back soon!”

“You’re a good friend,” Cassyll replied, trying to smile. “I love you, Bartan, but I would love you even more if you could tell me why that blue world appeared in our system and caused a crystal wall to be built between us and our ancestral planet.”

“You think the two are related?”

“I’m sure they are related.” Cassyll glanced up at the sky, at the enigmatic disk of white light which hovered at the zenith. “Just as I’m sure that neither bodes us any good.”

Chapter 13

“I am going to have much to occupy my mind in the hours to come,” Toller said to Divivvidiv, omitting the now-ritual insult about the color of the alien’s face as a sign that he was speaking unemotionally, dealing in cold facts.

“Therefore I take this opportunity to make your position absolutely clear to you,” he went on. “it is incumbent on you to preserve your own life, and you can best do that by giving me your full support in our venture. If I find you lying to me, or giving me tricky answers to questions, or allowing me to blunder into a danger of which you could have given me a warning—I will kill you. Your execution may not be instantaneous—because you are valuable to me—but, if I believe that you have gone against me in any of the ways I have just mentioned… and if subsequently there is a move against us from any quarter… you will die immediately.

“You know how readily I act in such matters. At all times I will keep myself prepared to lop your head from your shoulders, and may be so keyed up to do so that any sudden disturbance—even as little as a sneeze from you—could precipitate your demise. I know how great the odds are against me. As far as I am concerned I am practically dead already, so do not delude yourself that you can exert leverage on me in any circumstance. If you want to remain alive you must make yourself an unquestioning instrument of my will.

“Have I made myself clear?”

Very clear, Divivvidiv replied. Your tendency to belabor the point shows no sign of fading.

Toller frowned at the alien, wondering if such a craven creature could summon up the nerve to be insolent while in a position of extreme danger. He finished tying all the thongs on his own skysuit, then took the pistol from Steenameert to allow him to do likewise. Divivvidiv had already encased himself in his silver garment, making his general appearance more acceptable to human eyes, and now there was nothing to prevent the small group setting out on the journey to the alien’s home planet. Toller tried not to think about what lay ahead. The future he had engineered for himself was filled with inconceivable menace, but he dared not try to anticipate the dangers in case he should become prey to self-doubts which might weaken his hold over Divivvidiv.

“A question before we leave, and before you reply think of the warnings I gave you,” he said to the alien, glancing around the strange and inhospitable room. “Will the very fact of your quitting this place alert or in any way give advantage to those who will oppose us?”

II is most unlikely, the alien replied. The entire facility is operating automatically. It is most unlikely, at this stage, that anybody on Dussarra will try to communicate with me in person.

“Most unlikely? Is that all the assurance you can give?”

You demanded the truth.

“Fair enough.” Toller nodded to Steenameert and the trio moved towards the door by which they had entered the room. The alien progressed confidently, sliding his feet on the perforated floor, while Toller and Steenameert walked with a top-heavy roll as though balancing on narrow beams. When they reached the pressure lock Divivvidiv unclipped the grey metallic box of his personal propulsion unit from the wall. He began to fasten it to his waist with gleaming clamps.

“Leave that,” Toller ordered.

But you have seen it before. Divivvidiv spread his hands in an oddly human gesture. It is only my transporter.

“A device which gives you the speed of an arrow—I seem to remember that you approached with uncanny speed when Baten and I were trapped in your glass cage.” Toller prodded the box with his sword, sending it drifting away from the alien. “It would be quite pointless for you to burden yourself with the temptation to try escaping—especially as I intend to escort you to my ship in regal style.”

Toller unfastened a coil of thin rope from his belt, passed the free end around Divivvidiv’s body and tied it with a hard-drawn knot. He pulled Divivvidiv into the pressure lock with him and Steenameert, and signaled the alien to operate the controls, which resembled blue tablets set in the seamless grey wall. The inner door slid shut in magical silence, and a few seconds later the outer hatch opened to give a view of the metallic grey plain and glittering crystal sea beyond it. Icy air billowed inwards. Toller drew his scarf up over his mouth and nose, glad to be escaping from the oppressive architecture of the station’s interior, and went forward into the familiar skyscapes of the weightless zone.

The sun had moved closer to Overland, and in doing so had crossed the datum plane, rising above the artificial horizon created by the vast disk which Toller now knew to be an incomprehensible machine. Rays of sunlight, striking billions of crystals at a shallow angle, created barricades of prismatic fire which dazzled the eye. So great was the brilliance that even Overland, a hemicircle of luminance which spanned the sky directly above, was dim and ghostly in comparison.

Toller paid out his line a short distance, activated his propulsion unit and set off for the Inner Defense Group with Divivvidiv being dragged in an undignified slow spin in his wake. The trio flew out over the rim of the alien station, the sound of their exhausts greedily absorbed by the surrounding void. Toller kept silent during the flight and concentrated on remembering all the steps involved in taking a spaceship outside the air bridge. During his two obligatory training sessions everything had seemed very simple and obvious, but that had been years in the past and now the complexities appeared enormous.

The group of wooden vessels eventually showed up in the brilliance ahead as small yellow, orange and tan silhouettes which did not assume any proper coloration until Toller had swung in a curve past them and got the sun behind him. Close by was the skyship in which he had made the ascent, its balloon beginning to look puffy and wrinkled as the gas inside it contracted through loss of heat. At the planetary surface the weight of the collapsing envelope would have expelled the gas, but in the absence of gravity the balloon simply puckered like the skin of some moribund creature of the deeps.

Toller shut down his microjet and coasted to rest, twitching the line to bring his silent prisoner into place beside him. Steenameert expertly drifted himself to a halt nearby, a few yards above the fantastic conglomeration of huge crystals. Two miles away across the burning sea the alien station was outlined like a castle against the darkest part of the sky, where occasional meteors made furtive dashes to oblivion.

“A rare sight, Baten,” Toller said. “One that not many can claim to have seen. One that you will no doubt remember.”

“I expect I will, sir,” Baten replied, a puzzled expression appearing in his eyes.

“I want you to take two messages back with you—one for my father and one for Queen Daseene. I have no time to write them out, so I want you to listen carefully and—” Toller broke off as Steenameert violently crossed and uncrossed his arms in a gesture of disagreement.

“What are you saying to me?” the younger man cried out. “Have I not served you well?”

It was Toller’s turn to be puzzled. “Nobody could have done better. I intend to include a citation in my message to the Queen so that you…”

“Then why are you dismissing me at this most crucial moment in the venture?”

Toller pulled down his scarf and smiled. “I am moved by your loyalty, Baten, but things have reached a pass at which I have no right to expect anything further from you. The voyage to the intruders’ home world will almost certainly result in my death—I am not deluding myself on that score—but that is an acceptable prospect to me because it is a matter of my personal honor. Having set out with the avowed intention of rescuing the Countess Vantara, I could never return to Prad and admit that I had abandoned the attempt simply because—”

“And what about my personal honor?” Steenameert demanded, his voice trembling with emotion. “Do you think that honor is a prerogative of the aristocracy? Do you imagine that I could ever hold my head up again, knowing that I had cravenly forsaken my duty at the first whiff of danger?”

“Baten, this goes beyond duty.”

“Not for me.” Steenameert’s voice had a new edge of hardness which made it almost unrecognizable. “Not for me!”

Toller paused for a few seconds, his eyes prickling painfully. “You may accompany me to Dussarra on one condition.”

“You have but to name it, sir!”

“The condition is that you cease addressing me as ‘sir’. We will go into this thing as private citizens, leaving the Sky Service and all its ways behind us. We will undertake the venture as friends and equals—is that understood?”

“I…” Steenameert’s new-found assertiveness seemed to have deserted him. “That would be difficult for me… for one of my upbringing…”

“Your upbringing counted for little a moment ago,” Toller interrupted, grinning. “It is a long time since I have been chastised so vigorously.”

Steenameert gave a sheepish grin. “I fear I may have lost my temper.”

“Keep hold of it until we reach Dussarra—then you may say good riddance to it forever.” Toller turned his attention to his alien captive. “What do you say, greyface?”

I say it is not too late for you to abandon this pointless exercise, Divivvidiv replied, breaking a long silence. Why don’t you try to use what little intelligence you have?

“He hasn’t understood a word of our discourse,” Toller said to Steenameert. “And he calls us Primitives!”

Without speaking further Toller activated his propulsion unit and maneuvered himself and the alien close to the nearer of the spaceships. The varnished, straight-grained timbers of the hull glowed in the sunlight with warm shades of brown. The ship had been assembled in the weightless zone from five cylindrical sections hauled up from Overland by skyship. It was four yards in diameter—and in the past had been regarded by Toller as a massive structure—but now, in comparison with the alien station, it seemed totally inadequate for its purpose. Reminding himself that his grandfather had successfully crossed the interplanetary void in a similar vessel, Toller thrust his doubts aside.

He examined the circlet of crystal which bound the ship to the glassy plain, and turned again to Divivvidiv. “Is there any strength in that manacle? Is there likely to be any damage to the ship if I simply blast off?”

The crystal will fracture easily.

“Are you sure? Perhaps it would be better if you were to instruct the being in the machine to release its hold.”

It is best if I do not communicate with the Xa at this time. The alien’s face was hidden behind a reflective visor, but to Toller his words carried conviction. Remember that I will be with you inside that barbaric contraption—it is in my interests to see that no harm befalls it.

“Very well,” Toller said, unfastening from his belt the coil of rope which tethered the alien and allowing the end to drift free. “My fellow Primitive and I have certain chores to carry out which demand our uninterrupted attention. I am going to leave you here for a short time—with a request that you do not stray. You will comply?”

I promise not to move an inch.

Toller had made his request with mock courtesy, knowing that the alien was incapable of changing his position, and had not expected a reply which seemed to match his own style of humor. It occurred to him, fleetingly, that the little exchange might have had some significance for the future if there had been any prospect of normal contact between the Dussarran and Kolcorronian cultures. As it was, he had more pressing concerns on his mind.

The rear section of the vessel was actually a specially designed skyship in which the customary square gondola had been replaced by a cylindrical spaceship section. Folded within it was a full-size balloon which gave crewmen the capability of taking the section down to a planetary surface and of rejoining the mother ship while it waited aloft. Toller had no use for the detachable module in the forthcoming mission because descent by balloon was both conspicuous and painfully slow.

“What do you think, Baten?” he said as they drifted in the thin cold air. “Is it worth trying to rid ourselves of the tail section? We have plenty of jacks, and 1 have no relish for the idea of lugging an extra engine and all those extra control mechanisms.”

“The sealing mastic has been there a long time,” Steenameert said doubtfully. “It will have worked its way into the leather seals, the wood, the pegs, the lashings … It will be like basalt. Even with jacks it could take four or five men to separate the section from the main hull, and there’s no telling what damage would be done in the process. On top of that, we would have to shorten all the control rods and reconnect them to the permanent engine…”

“To cut a long story short,” Toller put in, “we should take the ship as it is. Very well! If you will be so kind as to retrieve our supply of parachutes and fallbags, I will inspect the ship—and then we will be on our way.”

The flight to Dussarra produced little in the way of surprises for Toller.

Practically all that was known about the business of travelling to destinations beyond the Land/Overland pair came from notes made by liven Zavotle, who had been a member of the single historic expedition to Farland. Toller had studied abstracts from the notes during his training and was relieved to find them corresponding well with practical experience. He had enough to occupy his thoughts without any waywardness on the part of the ship or the cosmic environment.

The surrounding sky became black, exactly as predicted, and a short time later the ship warmed up, making it necessary for those on board to remove their insulated suits. According to the long-dead Zavotle, the bitter coldness of the weightless zone between the twin worlds was caused by atmospheric convection, and when a ship escaped into vacuum it was free to accept the sun’s bountiful heat. Also as predicted, the meteor display—a permanent feature of the home worlds’ night skies—could no longer be seen. Zavotle’s explanation was that the meteors were still present, hurtling through space at unimaginable velocities, and that they only became visible on encountering a planet’s atmosphere. The possibility of the ship being destroyed between heartbeats by an unseen rocky projectile was one that Toller did not care to dwell on.

He discovered that the steering of the spaceship was the single most demanding task, somewhat akin to balancing a pole on the end of a finger. The pilot’s station on the topmost deck was equipped with a low-power telescope mounted parallel to the ship’s longitudinal axis. It was necessary to keep the instrument’s crosshairs fixed on a reference star, and doing so required close concentration and skilful balancing with the lateral jets.

Steenameert, in spite of his lack of experience, soon proved himself better at the job than Toller and, furthermore, claimed to enjoy long spells at the controls. That arrangement suited Toller quite well, giving him what he needed most—time in which to try assimilating all that had happened in a few crowded hours. He would lounge for lengthy periods in a restraint net on the circular top deck, sometimes half-asleep, sometimes watching Steenameert and Divivvidiv.

The latter had been highly apprehensive during the first hours of the flight, but had gradually regained his composure as it became evident that the ship was not going to explode. He, too, spent much of his time in a restraint net, but not in repose. Dussarra, he had explained, was only eight million miles away from the twin worlds and preceding them in a closely matching orbit. Those facts simplified the parameters of the flight, but nevertheless the relevant calculations were arduous for one who was not a professional mathematician and working without computational aids.

At times Divivvidiv, using a pencil held oddly in slim grey fingers, made notes on a pad supplied to him by Toller. He gave frequent instructions to Steenameert about firing or closing down the main engine, or centering the astrogational crosshairs on a new target. Intermittently he went into a trance-like condition in which, Toller assumed, he was using telepathy or unknown senses to monitor the ship’s spatial relationship with its destination. Another necessary assumption was that the alien was not communing with others of his species and setting up a trap for his captors.

It was in the interests of all concerned to complete the flight as quickly as possible, but Toller had been astonished when Divivvidiv—after less than an hour of assessing the ship’s performance—had predicted a transit time of three to four days, with an allowance for certain variables. When Toller tried analyzing the figures he found himself having to accept the notion of travelling at speeds of well over 100,000 miles an hour, and he promptly abandoned the calculations. The bars of sunlight coming into the ship through the portholes seemed unmoving; the whorled and spangled universe outside was as serene and changeless as ever—so it was better to forget about the chilling dreamworld of mathematics and imagine himself gently drifting from one island to another in a glassy black sea.

One of the traits Toller shared with his grandfather was impatience—even a few days of forced inactivity being enough to unsettle him. He had read liven Zavotle’s log of the Farland flight in its entirety and could recall a related passage word for word. Our captain has taken to quitting the control deck for long periods. He spends hours at a time in the middle sections, wedged in place at a porthole, and seems to find some kind of solace in these reveries in which he does nothing but stare into the depths of the universe.

Feeling oddly furtive and self-conscious. Toller occasionally emulated his grandfather, going down into the strange netherworld of the ship where the narrow rays of light from the ports created confusing patterns of shadow among the internal struts and the bins which housed supplies of power crystals, firesalt, food and water. He would position himself in a narrow space between two storage lockers, and simply allow his thoughts to drift while he gazed through the nearby porthole. The sound of the main engine was stronger there, the smell of the hull’s tarred canvas lining more noticeable, but he could think better in the solitude.

Inevitably, his thoughts often turned to the mysteries and dangers of the near future. It seemed incredible that not very long ago he had bemoaned the dearth of adventure in his life, the lack of any opportunity to prove himself worthy of his illustrious name. Now he was engaged in a venture which, although honorable, was so desperate that even the old Toller Maraquine might have counseled against it, one for which—try though he might—it was almost impossible to foresee a successful outcome.

The idea had come to him in an instant of total despair and he had seized on it gratefully and with manic certitude, seeing a clear-cut way through all the barriers and pitfalls of circumstance. It had all seemed so perfect. He could not be teleported to the alien planet in pursuit of his loved one—therefore he would fly there in a Kolcorronian ship and take the whole of Dussarra by surprise. Divivvidiv averred he was an unimportant member of his society and consequently without value as a hostage, but his claim was belied by his being in sole command of the great midpoint station. The stage was all set for a hero—armed with naught but daring, imagination and a trusty blade—to astound and confound the might of an alien world. There would be the swift, unseen descent by fallbag and parachute to a point near the enemy capital… the clandestine penetration of the alien leader’s citadel… the bargaining sessions in which Toller held the upper hand … the reunion with Vantara… the return to Overland by way of teleporter and skyship or parachute… the idyllic, aureate future with Vantara by his side…

You fool\ The recriminations would sometimes come with the same devastating psychic force as the original preposterous idea, and in those moments Toller would writhe and almost moan aloud with self-loathing. Only one element of the bizarre situation remained changeless amidst the turmoil of his thoughts, giving him the resolve he needed to see the matter through. He had vowed to himself and to others that he would make his way to Vantara’s side, and—that being the case—he had no option but to press forward, regardless of how slight the chances of success might be, even if it transpired that certain death lay ahead…

Viewed from a height of more than four thousand miles, the home world of the alien intruders looked remarkably similar to Land and Overland. The cloud cover consisted of the same patterns of broad flowing rivers breaking up into vortex streams or isolated whirlpools. It was only when Toller made his eyes refocus that he saw through the filigrees of shining vapor to the planetary surface and realized that the proportion of land masses to oceans was lower than he would have expected. The predominant color was blue, with only occasional patches of subdued ochres to indicate land.

“It looks as though we could all end up with wet arses,” he said somberly, gazing down through a porthole at the great convex shield of the planet.

It is not too late to abandon your insane scheme. Divivvidiv turned his black-drilled eyes towards Toller. There is nothing at all to prevent you from going home and living out your life in security and comfort.

“Are you trying to undermine our resolve?”

I am doing what you told me I must do in order to preserve my life—giving you sound information and advice.

“Do not become over-zealous,” Toller said. “The only information I require from you at this stage concerns the drop to the surface. Are you positive you have made the due allowance for crosswinds? While 1 have no wish to descend in the sea, I have an equally strong aversion to the idea of landing in the heart of the city.”

You can trust me—all relevant factors have been taken into consideration.

Divivvidiv had scarcely left his restraint net since the ship had been turned over at the midpoint of the flight, his time being spent in hushed meditation and the issuing of numerous demands for course and speed adjustments. Toller had formed the opinion that the alien, even with his awesome talents, had found it much more taxing to guide the ship while it was travelling “backwards” and he was referring to marker stars which were opposed to the direction of flight.

Now, however, with the ship in orbit at the fringes of Dussarra’s atmosphere Divivvidiv was in a much more relaxed and accessible mood. It was obvious that he feared the descent through the planet’s atmosphere, but—for some reason peculiar to his kind—the fact that it involved no hand-to-hand killing enabled him to face the ordeal with much the same fortitude as a reasonably courageous human.

He had already donned his silver skysuit in preparation for quitting the ship—an event due in less than one hour—and was concerning himself with his food supplies. When told that Kolcorronian rations consisted largely of strips of desiccated beef and fish, augmented by disks of compressed grain and dried fruit, he had insisted on bringing provisions of his own. The alien food seemed to consist mainly of varicolored cubes of tough jelly which had been wrapped in gold foil. Divivvidiv had taken a number of them from a pocket and was carefully scrutinizing the gleaming blocks, possibly in search of a tidbit.

Toller was again struck by his composure and, doing his utmost to foresee adverse factors, wondered if Divivvidiv was in possession of whole realms of knowledge of a kind which had not even been hinted at in all their telepathic exchanges. As an exercise in practical strategics, Toller tried to project his mind thousands of years into the future of the Kolcorronian civilization, with emphasis on the technology of warfare, and on the instant an alarming vision blossomed behind his eyes.

“Tell me something, greyface,” he said. “That thing you call the Xa… It is a mere machine, isn’t it?”

Basically—yes.

“And you have endowed it with the ability to see, with utmost clarity, objects which are thousands of miles away?”

Yes.

“It therefore seems eminently logical to me that your home world, the cradle of your civilization, would be plentifully provided with similar machines.” Toller paused to let his words have effect and the alien was able to follow his line of thought unaided by speech.

You are quite wrong! Divivvidiv injected amusement into his reply. There are no devices detecting this ship and giving warning of its presence. We do not keep a watch on our skies. Why should we?

“To warn you of invading armies… enemy forces.”

But where would such invaders come from? And why should another culture act in a hostile manner towards Dussarra?

“Conquest,” Toller said, beginning to wish he had never started the exchange. “The desire to conquer and rule…”

That is tribal thinking, Toller Maraquine—it has no place among civilized communities. Divivvidiv returned his attention to the sorting of his food cubes.

“Complacency is the enemy of…” Toller, to his annoyance, found himself unable to complete what he had hoped would be an aphorism. Becoming restless, he operated the handle of the air machine, mixing a fresh charge of firesalt with the water in its wire mesh reservoir. Divivvidiv had shown an interest in the device at the start of the flight, and had explained that air was made up of a mixture of gases, one of which—oxygen—supported life, fed fires and led to the rusting of iron. When firesalt came into contact with water it gave off copious quantities of oxygen, thus enabling the ship’s crew to survive long journeys through interplanetary vacuum. Toller had made a written note of the new scientific knowledge for the benefit of interested parties back in Prad, even though he did not care to speculate on their chances of receiving it.

It would have been a simple matter to bring the ship down to a level where the surrounding air was breathable, shut down the main engine and bail out. That way they would have been quitting a vessel which appeared to be at rest, and the whole business of getting into the fallbags and linking them together would have been comparatively easy. However, Divivvidiv had objected that the inert ship would then follow roughly the same path down through the atmosphere as the three parachutists, arriving at the surface like a bomb which could possibly claim Dussarran lives.

Toller had not been unduly alarmed at that prospect—he regarded the entire alien population as sworn enemies—but he had accepted the argument that his bargaining position could be compromised by the unnecessary loss of life. There was also the consideration that he wanted to land stealthily, and not to the accompaniment of a huge explosion.

For those reasons the ship had been turned on its side after being brought into the atmosphere and had been aimed in a direction which, according to Divivvidiv, would allow it to fall harmlessly into the sea. The main engine was still firing, with the controls lashed at the minimum thrust setting, and now Toller and Steenameert were faced with the problem of keeping hold of their prisoner while abandoning a ship which was building up a respectable speed. Divivvidiv, being much lighter than the other two, would fall through the air at a lesser rate. He had only to get free once and the laws of physics would see to it that his escape was made good as the vertical separation between him and the humans increased.

Toller had been very much aware of the problem and had insisted on all three being connected by a single strong line before emerging from the ship. There was only one exit, which was located in the middle section, and it had been kept as small as possible to preserve the structural integrity of the hull. In consequence, the three had been forced to cling to one another in a kind of distasteful intimacy while Toller pulled back the greased bolts. The door was a truncated cone, so that interior pressure would force it tighter into the seals of the frame, and it took all the power of his free arm to wrench the crafted wooden disk backwards into the ship.

A howling blast of icy air battered at Toller’s skysuit. Tightening his grip on Divivvidiv’s slight figure and Steenameert’s encircling arm, he launched all of them out into cold white sunlight. They tumbled in the ship’s slipstream. An instant later their ears were assailed by a stuttering roar and the universe turned a blinding white as they were engulfed in the choking gases of the condensation trail.

The roiling dazzlement went on for a matter of seconds, and then they were adrift in the sterile sunlit air, hundreds of miles above the surface of Dussarra. All about them was a panoply of stars, galaxies and frozen comets in which the ship’s exhaust formed a glowing cloud as, holding to a freakishly steady course, the vessel dwindled from their perceptions. The only way now in which Toller could return to his home world was by using the alien magic of a matter transmitter, but he had little time at that stage to ruminate over the situation.

Being adrift in a planet’s upper atmosphere, with nothing but thousands of miles of empty air yawning below, was a harrowing experience even for a veteran Kolcorronian skyman, and Toller knew it had to be correspondingly worse for Divivvidiv. The alien was not quaking, but the movements of his arms and legs seemed aimless, and there were no wisps of mental communication from him.

“Let’s get him into his fallbag before we all freeze to death,” Toller said. Steenameert nodded and they drew themselves close to Divivvidiv on the common line. The alien’s bulky parachute hampered them in the task of drawing the fleece-lined sack up over his head and adjusting the various closures and ventilation ring.

This is more comfortable than I had expected, Divivvidiv told them. I may be able to sleep and dream during the fall—but what will happen if I have difficulty in getting out of the bag when it is time to use the parachutes?

“Put your mind at ease,” Toller called into the neck of the bag. “We will not allow you to bounce.”

The scarf covering most of his face was already stiff with frozen exhalations and in spite of the protection of his skysuit he was beginning to shiver. He separated from the alien and struggled into his own fallbag, a job he accomplished slowly because of the awkward presence of his sword. He began to feel oddly guilty as he realized he was in a way looking forward to a spell in the bag’s snug and undemanding warmth.

As soon as he had cocooned himself he closed his eyes and prepared to doze. He was falling towards the planet, but it was going to be quite some time before his speed built up enough to produce slipstream sounds. For the present all was quiet, and he was very tired, and nothing was required of him…

Toller awoke an indeterminate time later and knew at once that there was darkness outside. Dussarra’s shadow had swung round to encompass the three specks of life which, having surrendered themselves to the planet’s gravity, were making the long pilgrimage from the fringes of space. Suddenly curious about how the alien world would look at night, Toller roused himself, opened the neck of the fallbag and peered out.

He could see the featureless shapes representing Steenameert and Divivvidiv close by, outlined against the silver blazes of the universe, but his gaze was captured and held by the spectacle of the enigmatic planet laid out below him. The visible hemisphere was mostly in darkness, with only a slim line of blue-white radiance adorning its eastern edge. Toller had seen Land and Overland in similar conditions many times, but there the areas where night held sway had always been dominated by a slumberous blackness which was only relieved by astronomical reflection. He was unprepared for his first glimpse of the nightside of a world which was the home of an advanced technical civilization.

The major land masses, which had appeared insignificant in daytime, were glittering networks of yellow light. Islands appeared brighter in contrast to the surrounding darkness, but even the oceans were plentifully speckled with points of brilliance which conjured in Toller’s mind visions of gargantuan ships, as large as cities, engaged in global commerce. The planet might have been a vast metal sphere pierced in a million places to emit light from an interior source.

Toller gazed down at it for a long time and then, feeling subdued and chastened, pulled the neck of the fallbag up over his head and closed it to shut out the intrusive cold.

He knew he had been deceived and trapped the instant his feet touched the ground.

The three parachutes had opened almost in unison above a night-black landscape in which the only sign of habitation was a thin line of lights, several miles away to the west. There had been no wind to complicate the touchdown for the inexperienced Divivvidiv, and Toller had felt a resurgence of his old optimism as the trio sank into a starlit expanse of grassland. He had prepared himself for a gentle impact, the sensation of his boots going into yielding turf, the feel and smell of grass…

All visual indicators had remained unchanged. As far as the evidence of his eyes was concerned, Toller had touched down in what could have been the rolling savannahs of his home world. Steenameert and Divivvidiv were not far away to his left. They too were standing in grass—and yet Toller could feel flat masonry beneath his feet. He and his two companions were alone in an open stretch of empty pasture—and yet he could hear movement all around, sense the pressure of minds.

“Defend yourself, Baten,” he shouted, drawing his sword. “We are betrayed!”

He turned towards Divivvidiv, snorting in his rage, but the swaddled figure of the alien was nowhere to be seen. It was as if he had ceased to exist.

Put the weapon down, Toller Maraquine. Divivvidiv’s tone was both kindly and contemptuous. You are surrounded by more than a thousand stability officers—many of them armed—and any hostile action on your part will most surely result in your death.

Toller shook his head and spoke in a growl. “I can take many of them with me.”

Possibly, but if that were the way of it you would never see your female again. She is only a few miles from here and within a matter of minutes you could be in her company. Alive you might, possibly, be of some comfort or service to her; but if you are dead…

Toller allowed his sword to fall, heard it ringing on stone pavement, and his eyes filled with tears of frustration.

Chapter 14

It was not until Toller and Steenameert had submitted to the pressure of many hands, and to having their wrists bound together behind their backs, that the alien scales were lifted from their eyes. Retinal communications were permitted to pass to the brain, unaffected by external forces, and suddenly the two Kolcorronians could see normally again.

Night still reigned, but the perceived starlit meadows had been replaced by a complex diorama of dimly lit buildings in the middle distance and ranks of shadowy Dussarran figures in the foreground. Toller guessed he was near the center of an enormous plaza. The surrounding buildings were delineated by gentle curves, in contrast to the rectangular architecture of his home world, and their outlines were punctuated by slim trees which swayed continuously although the humid night air was perfectly still. The only familiar element Toller could find was the face of Steenameert, turned towards him above a sea of industrious, seething, black-clad alien figures.

“It seems that you have won,” Toller said, fighting to keep his voice steady. “Sorcery prevails over strength.”

Divivvidiv moved a little closer through the crush of odorous bodies. For your own good, Toller Maraquine, put behind you all your primitive ideas about sorcery. There are no unfair advantages in nature. What is commonplace to my people seems magical to yours, but that is simply because we are more advanced in every branch of learning.

“It is as good as magic when men are deceived by their own eyes.”

That was simply done. When I was close enough to the ground I was able to enlist the telepathic aid of some of my fellow Dussarrans. As soon as you and your companion were sufficiently outnumbered we were able to dictate what you could see, in the same way that a crowd can drown out a single voice. Nothing magical about it!

“But you cannot deny that luck was on your side,” Toller grumbled, feeling himself being pushed towards a vehicle which had arrived in the vicinity. “For us to land where we did—so close to a city, in the midst of your lackeys… That had to be magic or blind luck.”

Neither! Divivvidiv and Toller were losing sight of each other in the press of bodies, but the alien’s silent words were clear. As soon as I had given warning of what was happening my people took control of the local wind cells and guided us to this spot. I told you at the outset, Toller Maraquine—your mission had NO chance of succeeding.

I am now returning to my post, so it is unlikely that we will ever see each other again, but you have no need to fear for your life. Unlike you Primitives, we Dussarrans do not…

Uncharacteristically for Divivvidiv, the incisive quality of his thought processes faded. There was a moment of woolliness, shadings of what Toller half-identified as guilt, and then the psychic contact was broken. The concept of telepathy was so new to Toller that he felt a dull amazement at even being able to think in such terms, but he was left with the conviction that the alien had suffered an unexpected crisis of conscience, perhaps triggered by the stresses of the fall from the edge of space.

Guilt! The word was a spiteful mosquito hovering and dipping in Toller’s confused consciousness. Is greyface lying to me? Are Baten and I being tricked? Are we being led meekly to our deaths?

Clumsily and inexpertly, he tried to reach out with his mind to the one Dussarran he knew, but there was only an echoing mental silence. Divivvidiv had withdrawn, was lost behind the palisades of his previous existence, and there was no time for retrospection. The vehicle which had nuzzled through the nocturnal ferment of the alien cityscape looked like nothing so much as a huge black egg. It floated a hand’s breadth above the seamless pavement. An opening appeared in its side with no apparent aid from mechanisms that Toller could visualize—in one instant the shell was complete, in the next there was a circular entrance to a redly glowing interior. Dozens of hands were pushing him and Steenameert towards it.

Toller’s first instinct was to resist with all the power he could muster, but one part of him had somehow come to hope that Divivvidiv was not entirely his enemy. It was a slim hope—based on little more than certain nuances of thought and the notion that the alien might have a sense of humor—but it was the only dim guide star remaining to him.

With Steenameert jostling against him he clambered into the vehicle, feeling it rock slightly under the shifting of their weight. The door flowed itself out of existence, like molten metal closing in response to surface tension, and a sudden pressure under foot told them the vehicle was rising into the night sky. There were no seats, but that was of no importance in the cramped interior because the thickly quilted skysuits of the two Kolcorronians largely filled the available space. It was easier to remain standing. Toller had been too hot for some time, but was only becoming aware of it as stealthy rivulets of sweat darted down his back.

“Well, Baten,” he said dispiritedly, “I gave you ample warning about what might happen.”

Steenameert mustered a smile. “I have no complaints. I am going to see sights the like of which I had never imagined, and my life is in no danger.”

“That’s if we can believe what greyface said—he has already lied to us.”

“For a reason! This time he has nothing to gain by telling us an untruth.”

“I suppose you are right.” Toller was reminded of the odd wavering, the telepathic stains of guilt and self-reproach in Divivvidiv’s last communication, but he had no time to pursue the line of thought. He and Steenameert swayed against each other as the direction of their weight shifted. There was a barely perceptible jolt as the vehicle came to rest. A small hole appeared in the side and rippled outwards in the dull metal to become a circular doorway.

Beyond it was a kind of short corridor which seemed to be fashioned from a mottled glassy tube of elliptical cross-section. The material was blurrily streaked with grey, yellow and orange, and was either lit from behind or was giving off an even glow of its own. Toller looked to his left and right and saw that the near end of the tube met the outer shell of the transporter in a curved seam so neat that it would have been impossible to slide a strip of finest paper into it. He transferred his attention to the far end of the corridor. It terminated in an ovoidal wall at the center of which was a small circular aperture which continuously opened and shrank in a manner which for Toller, exhausted and emotionally drained though he was, had to have biological implications.

“Is somebody trying to make us feel welcome?” he said to Steenameert as he started forward, moving clumsily in his voluminous skysuit, hands still tied behind his back. As he and Steenameert reached the end of the corridor the aperture in the wall rolled back to give them clear access to a large and complicated enclosed space, a circular hall rimmed with stairs and galleries. Imposing though the alien cathedral might have been to Toller in his normal state of mind, its architectural vistas now flowed outwards in his vision, centering all of his attention on the small group of women who were running in his direction.

And foremost among them was the Countess Vantara!

“Toller!” she screamed, her beautiful features transformed into a mask of inhumanly enhanced desire. “Toller, my love!

You came, you came, you came … I should have known it would be you!”

She hurled herself against him with such force that he was almost driven backwards. Her arms went around his neck and she kissed him with wet lips and urgently probing tongue. Toller was both thrilled and gratified, senses overwhelmed to the extent that he scarcely noticed the stockier form of Lieutenant Pertree moving behind him. The lieutenant began to untie his hands, while the three remaining members of the crew converged on Steenameert with similar intent. Vantara pushed Toller back to arm’s length, still clasping his neck, and it was only then that her eyes began to take stock of the true situation.

“You’re a prisoner!” she accused. “You have been captured, just like us!” She recoiled from Toller, her expression changing to one of disappointment and anger. “Did your ship also blunder into that strange reef?”

“No. I approached it in daylight and managed to get by. On reaching Prad and being told that your ship had failed to arrive, I immediately set out to find you.”

“Where are your forces?”

Toller rubbed his newly freed wrists. “There are no forces—Baten is my only companion.”

Vantara’s jaw sagged as she shot an incredulous glance to her lieutenant. “You set out—a general commanding an army of one—to challenge an invader!”

“At that time I had no way of knowing there was an enemy presence,” Toller said stiffly. “My only thought was of your safety. Besides, two men or a thousand—what difference would it have made?”

“Can this be the real Toller Maraquine who preaches defeatism, or is it an impostor conjured up by those foul beings who deny us our freedom?” Vantara turned away before Toller could protest and walked quickly towards the nearest stair.

First I’m too foolhardy—then Tm too timid, Toller thought, feeling both wounded and baffled. In his confusion he stared at the three young women in ranker uniforms who were attending to Steenameert. They were helping him out of his cumbersome skysuit, and at the same time—their welcome to him apparently undiminished—were smiling and plying him with questions. Steenameert looked embarrassed but gratified.

“You must excuse my aristocratic commander,” Lieutenant Pertree said, gazing up at Toller with a wry glint in her eye. “The terms of our detention here could hardly be described as onerous, but the countess—being of royal blood, and therefore possessing an exquisite degree of sensitivity—finds the life much more harrowing than would a commoner.”

Toller was almost grateful for the flicker of anger which brought reality into sharp focus. “I remember you, lieutenant, and I see that you are as insubordinate and disloyal as ever.”

Pertree sighed. “I remember you, captain, and I see that you are as besotted and calf-eyed as ever.”

“Lieutenant, I will not tolerate that kind of…” Toller allowed the sentence to die, suddenly recalling that he had only permitted Steenameert to accompany him into the unknown on condition that they discard all the stultifying appurtenances of rank and class. He smiled apologetically and began ridding himself of the stifling swaddles of his skysuit.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “The old ways die hard. I have heard your given name more than once, but confess to having forgotten it…”

“Jerene.”

He smiled. “My name is Toller. May we pledge friendship and in consequence present a united front against the common enemy?” He had expected the sturdy lieutenant to appear mollified to some extent, and therefore he was surprised when a look of alarm manifested itself on her rounded features.

“It must be true,” she breathed, suddenly losing her air of case-hardened composure. “You would never have spoken that way in normal circumstances. Tell me, Toller, have we been transported to another world? Are we lost forever? Is this prison on a strange planet millions of miles from Overland?”

“Yes.” Toller saw that the three other women had begun listening intently to his words. “How could you fail to know such things?”

“Night came upon us when we were two hours below the datum plane,” Jerene said in a small, reflective voice. “It was decided that we would continue at reduced speed through the hours of darkness and carry out the inversion maneuver at first light…”

She went on to describe how the crew, most of them sleeping, had been thrown into a panic by a great shuddering groan from the balloon. It had been accompanied by the sound of the four acceleration struts breaking and ripping into the material of the envelope. Almost at once choking billows of miglign gas had spewed downwards around the crew from the balloon mouth as the flimsy structure collapsed inwards. Finally, to add to the terror and confusion, the gondola had coasted into the writhing folds of the ruined envelope and had been swallowed by them.

It had taken fear-protracted minutes for the bewildered astronauts to fight clear of the wreckage. Enough light was being reflected from Land for them to make the incredible discovery that their ship had collided with a crystalline barricade which appeared to span the horizons like a dull-glowing frozen sea. And only furlongs away—wonder piled upon wonder—had been the outline of a fantastic castle, exotic and enigmatic, silhouetted against the silvered cosmos.

Somehow they had managed to retrieve enough personal propulsion units to enable them to fly to the castle. Somehow they had managed to locate a door in its metallic surface.

They had entered, and—somehow—had found themselves, with no perceptible lapse of time, prisoners in a grey-and-yellow cathedral…

“It is much as I suspected,” Toller said when the lieutenant had finished. “Something told me that she… that all of you were still alive.”

“But what happened to us?”

“The Dussarrans employ a gas which quickly renders those who breathe it insensible. It must have—”

“We deduced that much for ourselves,” Jerene interrupted, “but what happened after that? We have been told that we were magically transported to another world, but we have only the monsters’ word for that. We believe we are somewhere inside the castle. It is true that we have normal weight—as though standing on solid ground—but that could be more magic.”

Toller shook his head. “I’m sorry, but what you have been told is true. Our captors have the ability to travel through the space between the stars at the speed of thought. You have indeed been transported, in the blink of an eye, to their home world of Dussarra.”

His words drew cries of mingled concern and disbelief from the listening women. A tall, snub-nosed blonde in the uniform of a skycorporal laughed and whispered something to the woman next to her. It came to Toller that the lessons in cosmology and galactic history that he and Steenameert had received from Divivvidiv had brought about fundamental changes in their inner selves, separating them from the rest of their kind. He got a slight but uncomfortable insight into how he, while steeped in ignorance, must have appeared to Divivvidiv.

“How do you know that all the humbug about being magicked through the heavens is true?” Jerene challenged. “You have to go by what you have been told, just like the rest of us.”

“Far from it!” Toller replied, beginning to divest himself of his own skysuit. “When Baten and I entered the castle, as you call it, we took its corpse-faced master prisoner at swordpoint. And we brought him here as a hostage in a good Kolcorronian ship—therefore we can testify that all of us, at this very moment, are millions of miles away from Overland. We are on the home planet of the invaders.”

Jerene’s eyes widened and as she gazed up at Toller her face became tinged with pink. “You did all that for:…” She glanced towards the stair by which Vantara had departed the company. “You took one of those ancient ships from the Defense Group… and flew it to another world … all because…”

“We bagged and parachuted all the way to the ground with our prisoner,” Steenameert put in, breaking a lengthy silence. “It was only then that the cursed scarecrows overwhelmed our senses and blinded us to the forces which lay in ambush. Had it been a fair and honorable contest things would have been very different. We would have walked in here with our hostage—who would have been quaking and in fear of his life because of the blade that lay across his throat—and then we would have bartered him for your freedom.”

“I must report this to the captain.” Jerene had become slightly breathless, and the pupils of her eyes seemed to have distended as they hunted over Toller’s face. “She should be apprised of all the facts.”

“She believes us still to be in our own weightless zone!” Toller sighed with relief and smiled as he realized why Vantara’s attitude towards him had shifted so rapidly. “It was only natural that she should have expected me to arrive at the head of an armada. It was only natural that she should have felt a certain disappointment.”

“Yes, but had she been a little less impatient…” Steenameert abandoned his comment and lowered his head.

Toller glared at him. “What are you saying, Baten?”

“Nothing! Nothing at all!”

“Sir?” The tall blonde stepped forward as she addressed Toller. “Can you tell us how long we have been here?”

“Why? Can’t you count the days?”

“There is no day or night within this dome. The light never changes.”

Toller, who had been trying to reconcile himself to the idea of being imprisoned for a long time, found the prospect of living in continuous even light strangely depressing. “I would say you have been here some twenty-five days. But what about your meals? Do they not mark the days?”

“Meals!” the blonde gave a wry smile. “Each cell has a basket which the monsters constantly replenish with cubes of… Well, each of us has a different opinion about what we are forced to eat.”

“Spiced bluehorn hoof,” another tall woman—a swarthy, brown-eyed skyprivate—suggested in aggrieved tones.

“Spiced bluehorn shit” the remaining flier put in with an exaggerated scowl, bringing snorts of amusement from her companions. She had cropped brown hair which made an ill match for her conventionally pretty face.

“These are Tradlo, Mistekka and Arvand,” Jerene said, indicating the three rankers in turn. “And, as you will have noticed, they have already forgotten how to conduct themselves in the presence of an officer.”

“Rank no longer means anything to me.” Toller nodded an informal greeting to the women. “Speak as you will; do as you will.”

“In that case…” Arvand shimmied to Steenameert’s side, clasped his arm and gave him a warm smile. “It is difficult to sleep in a lonely bed—don’t you agree?”

“Not fair!” the blonde Tradlo cried, disconcerting Steenameert further by gripping his other arm. “All rations must be shared equally!”

Toller had an urge to move off in pursuit of Vantara, but it was obvious from Jerene’s manner that she was eager to go on speaking to him. He acquiesced when she turned away from the others, implicitly creating a space in which they could converse discreetly about matters of consequence.

“Toller, I am sorry that I have shown a tendency to make little of you,” she began hesitantly. “You always seemed to bluster so much… and there was that sword… You made it so obvious that you longed to emulate your grandfather that—the logic of it now escapes me—all who met you assumed your ambitions to be in vain.

“But for anyone to do what you have done … for you to have flown one of those antiquated wooden barrels through the black deeps of space to another world … for you simply to be here…

“All I can say is that Vantara is the luckiest woman in all of history, and that you will have no need, ever again, to stand in the shadow of your grandfather. There can never be any doubt that you and he were peers.”

Toller blinked to ease a sudden smarting in his eyes. “I value what you say, but all I did…”

“Tell me something.” Jerene switched to a tone of practicality rather sooner than Toller might have liked. “Have the monsters cast a spell over us? How is it that we can hear what they say, even when they are not in our presence, even when there is no sound? Is it magic?”

“There is no magic,” Toller explained, again aware of the gulf which had opened between him and his kind. “It is the Dussarran way. They have progressed far beyond the need for shaping words with their mouths. They speak mind-to-mind, no matter how great the distance involved. Have these things not been explained to you?”

“Not a word. We are animals in a zoo as far as they are concerned.”

“I suppose I received my education because the scarecrow I dealt with was buying time, preserving his life.” Toller looked around the galleried dome with distaste. “When do the Dussarrans communicate with you?”

“There is one who seems to be known as the Director,” Jerene replied. “He will speak to us for hours at a time—always asking questions about our lives on Overland, about our families, about our food, farming methods, the differences between men’s clothing and women’s clothing… Nothing is too trivial for him.

“Then there is another one—possibly a female—who gives us our orders.”

“What manner of orders?”

Jerene shrugged. “When to leave our cells and come down here to the main floor… that sort of thing. We stay here while the food and water is being replenished up there by one of the monsters.”

“Does this so-called Director ever visit you in person? Do you ever get Dussarrans who seem to be important figures in their own society making close inspections?”

“It is difficult for us to tell. We sometimes see groups of the monsters behind that partition, but…” Jerene indicated a glazed, box-like structure which enclosed one of the entrances to the dome, then she gave Toller a thoughtful look. “Why do you enquire of such things, Toller?”

He gave her a thin smile. “I have lost one perfectly good hostage—now I am in the market for another.”

“But after what you have told us … It is impossible to escape from here.”

“You are wrong on that point,” Toller said quietly, his expression becoming somber. “It is possible to escape from any stronghold… provided that one’s heart is sufficiently set on it… provided that one is prepared to risk making the ultimate escape…”

Toller and Steenameert were arguing about traditional and modern methods of constructing furniture, with emphasis on the design of chairs.

“Don’t forget that we have had iron for only fifty years or so,” Toller said. “The design of brackets and angle braces will improve; the design of woodscrews will improve.”

“That is of little import,” Steenameert countered. “Furniture should be regarded as a form of art. A chair should be regarded as a sculpture as much as a contrivance for supporting fat arses. Any artist will tell you that wood should only be mated to wood. Tenons and dovetails are natural, Toller, and not only are they much stronger than your wood-and-metal hybrids, they have a tightness which…”

He continued speaking as Toller knelt and tested the gallery flooring with a heavy webbing-repair needle taken from his emergency pouch. Toller looked up at him and shook his head, signifying that the floor construction was too strong to be ripped upwards in a surprise raid on anybody who happened to be underneath. They were in the part of the first gallery directly above the enclosure where, according to Lieutenant Pertree, groups of Dussarrans sometimes gathered to observe their captives.

“Yes, but ever since the Migration only the rich have been able to employ the services of competent joiners,” Toller said as he straightened up. “Surely it is better for the ordinary citizen and his family to have something to plank their arses on—and I doubt if many of the said arses are fat—than for them to squat on the floor.”

Toller and Steenameert were openly talking about furniture design—a subject which evoked mental images of joints and frames—and at the same time were searching for weak points in the structure of their prison. They continued the contrived discussion as they made their way downstairs to the enclosure itself. They were novices, true primitives, in the darkly glimmering and bottomless world of telepathic communication, but they had gleaned enough from their encounter with Divivvidiv to believe that the aliens were fallible and could be deceived. It was likely that attempts were being made to eavesdrop on their innermost thought processes, but Kolcorronians were warriors by instinct and had a talent for misleading enemies.

“You can’t deny that doors have been improved by the addition of iron hinges and fittings,” Toller said as he reached the enclosure. In general it was surprisingly similar to what an artisan from Land or Overland would have built for the same purpose. It was a rectangular three-element structure with one edge attached to the wall on each side of an entrance to the dome. The three faces ran from the floor to the underside of the first gallery, and were glazed from waist-level upwards.

Still arguing about historical developments in his home world’s carpentry, Toller casually leaned against a corner of the enclosure and felt it shift slightly. He stood head and shoulders above all the aliens he had seen, and furthermore was built in much bulkier proportions, from which facts he estimated that his body weight was at least three times that of the average Dussarran. His physical power could be factorized upwards again, because of differences in muscle density, making him a force that Divivvidiv and his kind were unaccustomed to dealing with. There was a good possibility that a structure which a Dussarran saw as a formidable barrier could be breached by a single charge from Toller and Steenameert.

The alien captors had many undeniable advantages over the handful of Kolcorronians, but—Toller hoped—they were too sure of themselves, too complacent. Their best thinkers seemed to be expending their energies on remote abstracts, such as the dissolution of galaxies, while dismissing more immediate threats from close at hand. They were like high kings preparing defenses against global enemies, and all the while ignoring the body servant with the phial of poison or the smiling concubine with the slim dagger…

“I concede the point about doors and door furniture, but that is. a special case,” Steenameert said, nodding significantly as he tested a panel with his foot. “Metal has a natural function there, but it will always be out of place when you come to chairs and tables.”

“We shall see what we shall see,” Toller replied as they continued their leisurely circuit of the dome.

They had been imprisoned for an indeterminate time, only a few hours, but already Toller’s impatient and turbulent nature was rebelling against the monotony of confinement. A telepathic voice with indefinable female undertones had directed him and Steenameert to particular cells on the first gallery. Toller had inspected his briefly and then, being uncooperative on principle, had announced that he did not like it and was going to use another. As the cells were identical, and did not even have doors, there was no reason to prefer one above any other, but the reaction he had hoped to provoke did not occur.

He had lain for a while on the spongy oblong that was his bed, but had quickly become bored and had tried to visit Vantara in her cell. His hope had been that her attitude towards him would have improved once she had learned from Jerene that it had been impossible for him to have arrived at the head of an army of rescuers. She had, however, remained aloof and uncommunicative in her little enclave—her cell was flanked by those of the other women. Trying to be philosophical about it, Toller had decided that being informed she was a prisoner millions of miles from home—instead of only a few thousand—was good enough grounds for any woman to lapse into a spell of depression.

Becoming even more restless, he had explored every gallery of the dome. It was big enough to accommodate twenty times as many captives as at present, but none of the featureless compartments showed any sign of previous occupation. Had the place been designed as a prison? Did the Dussarrans have such things as prisons? Or was the dome, with its sterile shadowless illumination, more the equivalent of a zoo? A birdcage?

The torrent of questions caused a stirring in Toller’s memory. Just before he and Divivvidiv had parted company, possibly forever, the little alien’s mental presence seemed to have been disturbed by a dark emotion. Toller had intuitively recognized it as guilt—and in retrospect that identification appeared more and more accurate. At the time Toller had wondered if he and Steenameert were being led away to be slaughtered, but his suspicions had been ill founded—so what had been causing the turmoil in Divivvidiv’s alien soul?

There was also the matter of the Xa—that fantastic sea of living crystal—and the reason for its presence in the weightless zone between Land and Overland. Now that Toller’s consciousness had been saturated with exotic concepts, now that strangeness had in a way become the norm, he could accept the notion that the Xa’s function was to hurl an entire world into the heart of a galaxy which was millions of light years distant.

When he had first encountered the proposition it had been remote from the realities of life on the sister planets. It had been a conceptual soap bubble; a gossamer palace constructed from pale-tinted abstracts—but now everything was different!

He and Vantara and some loyal companions were imprisoned on that ill-fated world, and… and…

Toller’s brow wrinkled as other pertinent memories began to flicker behind his eyes. During his first antagonistic meeting with Divivvidiv the alien had told him that the intergalactic leap was due to take place in about six days’ time. Had it been six days? Yes, that memory held true… and the flight to Dussarra had taken roughly four days… and more precious time had slipped away during the long fall from the edge of space…

Icy sweat prickled through Toller’s skin as he realized that the time available to the small band of lost Kolcorronians could conveniently be reckoned in hours.

Or perhaps only minutes…

Chapter 15

The sight of black-clad, corpse-faced figures assembling behind the metal-and-glass screen came like the answer to a prayer.

Toller froze in mid-stride—trying to control the tumult in his mind, trying to think and at the same time not to think. His realization that the stupendous leap to a remote part of the universe had to take place in the very near future had filled him with pessimism. He needed a new hostage to give him even the faintest hope of escaping from Dussarra, but his off-hand way of mentioning the subject to Jerene had been a disguise for despair. His own society had faced its fair share of crises, and, although there were no real parallels, he could not imagine any official or scientific group on Overland deciding to visit a zoo at a comparable time.

And yet—in the aseptic and cheerless luminance of the dome—a few of the enemy were gathering, perhaps incautiously, perhaps making themselves vulnerable to a determined assault. The odds against a Kolcorronian success were vanishingly small, but the mere existence of odds—no matter how infinitesimal—was the only spur that Toller needed…

He strode across the open floor to where Steenameert and two of the rankers—Mistekka and Arvand—were sitting cross-legged and engaged in discussion. The women looked up at him without moving, but Baten hurriedly got his feet as soon as he saw Toller’s expression.

“Come on, Baten,” Toller said in a low voice. “Keep your mind on whatever it was, but follow me—this may be our only chance.” He looked down at the women. “Go at once and tell Vantara and Jerene to make ready to leave. We may have to move quickly.”

He turned and walked towards the enclosure, which now held about ten Dussarrans, with Steenameert at his side. “We will take the right hand edge of the box… yes, the Kailian black grape does make the most distinctive wine… I think we can hit hardest coming from the right… but it contains too much acid for my taste…”

Blanking all structured thought from his mind, surrendering himself to a crimson rage, Toller broke into a fast, loping run. The side of the enclosure expanded in his vision and he saw white-orbed, grey faces turning in his direction. He was moving at high speed now and could hear Steenameert snorting as he strove to keep pace. The metal-and-glass structure filled his view, and the voice of instinct was screaming at him to halt or risk terrible injury.

Snarling like an animal, Toller hit the enclosure with his shoulder and felt the edge of it tear free from the wall of the dome. Steenameert impacted with it at almost the same instant, having chosen to launch himself feet first at a lower panel. The side of the enclosure crumpled and was driven inwards, trapping several Dussarrans in the narrowing angle between it and the front wall. A huge pane of glass fell on Steenameert as he was scrambling to his feet, chilling Toller with images of brittle daggers, but the sheet remained intact and bounced harmlessly to the floor. Some of the Dussarrans were emitting thin mewing cries—the first sounds Toller had heard these aliens make with their mouths—as they backed away in obvious panic.

“Do not be in such haste about leaving,” Toller shouted, his shoulder hard against the metal panel, keeping pressure on the trapped Dussarrans. “We have three of your number here and they may require medical attention.”

He examined the haphazardly acquired captives. Two of them were still on their feet, held upright and immobile by the compressive force that he was exerting, their livid faces regarding him from a distance of inches. The third alien had dropped down to a crouching position inside the metal sandwich, possibly unconscious or dead. As Toller glared ferociously at the pair who were standing, he made no attempt to disguise the revulsion inspired in him by their noseless faces and tremulous, black-lipped mouths. They maintained a petrified silence, but Toller’s head was filled with a confused telepathic yammering. It was a mental distillation of pure fear—an exhilarating reminder that the Dussarrans were not a warrior breed—and therefore Toller saw it as a favorable omen as far as the hopes of his compatriots were concerned.

“See if the women are ready to proceed,” he called out to Steenameert. “In the meantime I will persuade the scarecrows to listen to reason.”

Steenameert nodded and darted away to where the female astronauts—Vantara among them—were clustered at the foot of a stair. Toller returned his attention to the scene within the enclosure. The aliens, all of them identical to his gaze in their scrappy dark garments, were poised near the doorway which led out of the dome. Their soupy body odor pervaded the confined space.

“Which of you is the leader?” Toller demanded. “Which of you nightmares can speak for the others?”

The aliens made no response. Seconds dragged by in which they did nothing but stare at Toller with eyes which were like black-holed chips of white porcelain. Although no telepathic voices were ranging words in his mind, he had no doubt that silent alarms were being transmitted to other Dussarrans—a thought which prompted him to reinforce his words with action.

“I see that a little firmness is called for,” he said giving the aliens the peaceful smile with which he often prefaced an act of violence. It was a trait he had inherited from his grandfather, he had been told, and he had half-consciously cultivated it since his youth. Without further warning he changed his stance and abruptly redoubled the force he was exerting on the wall panel. The aliens caught between it and the front of the enclosure gasped aloud, their ashen faces contorting with pain, and Toller was almost sure he heard the fracturing of a fragile bone.

Stop that, you savage! One of the group by the exit took a step forward. There can be no excuse for such barbarism!

“Perhaps not,” Toller replied, giving a slight bow, “but if you and your loathsome kin had not abducted my friends and penned them like beasts—which is your kind of barbarism—you would never have been exposed to my kind of barbarism. Do you see the principle involved? Or is the concept of natural justice cherished only by untutored Primitives?”

Primitive is an appropriate word for you, Toller Maraquine, came the alien’s voiceless reply. Can you not understand that it is impossible for you to leave this world?

“And can you not understand that I will leave this world—one way or another? And if it should transpire that death is my only escape, I will take some of your kind along the same road.” Toller glanced to his left and saw that the rest of the humans had reached the enclosure. To his surprise, Vantara was at the rear of the group and was looking at him with uncertain, troubled eyes.

“We are with you. Toller,” Steenameert called out.

“Excellent!” Toller returned his attention to the alien speaker. “You were elected spokesman, so I am going to assume that you possess some degree of some importance. You therefore will have the honor of being my principal hostage. Come to my side!”

What if I refuse?

“I have scarcely begun to squeeze these fine specimens of Dussarran manhood, and already their puny bones are beginning to crack.” Toller’s two upright captives moved their heads anxiously as he shifted his weight.

II you kill my deputies you will lose what little advantage you have at this moment.

“That would only be the start of the killing,” Toller said, longing for the reassurance of his sword. He had judged the Dussarrans to be lacking in physical courage, but to his growing unease the alien confronting him was proving to be unexpectedly stubborn. In appearance he was not distinguished from his fellows—the multiplex costume of pendant dark-hued scraps seemed to be universal among the aliens—but this individual conveyed the impression of being much more resolute than Divivvidiv.

Perhaps … An incredible idea began to flicker far back in Toller’s consciousness. Can it be that fortune has delivered into my hands the best hostage of all? Could this unremarkable and unprepossessing figure be the King of all the Dussarrans? What was the title Divivvidiv had accorded him? Director! And what name? Zunnunun!

“Tell me, scarecrow,” he said in a gentle voice, “what is your name?”

My name is of no relevance, the alien replied. I shall make one last appeal to your powers of reason. Your plan—if such an insane vision can be dignified with that word—is to force us to send you back whence you came by way of an instantaneous relocation unit. You and your followers would then return to one of your home planets, either by balloon or parachute. Is that a fair summation of your ambitions?

“I congratulate you, corpse-face!” The alien’s refusal to divulge his name was a fresh inspiration and encouragement for Toller.

The plan can never succeed! The more rational members of your group have severe doubts about attempting it, and in that respect they display considerable wisdom.

Toller’s eyes were again drawn to Vantara, but she lowered her head, refusing to meet his gaze.

I am not at liberty to go into details at this time, Toller Maraquine, the alien went on, but the fact is that all of you are very fortunate to be here on Dussarra. You must believe what I…

“I believe that you are the King of all the Dussarrans,” Toller shouted, giving way to a rage which was fuelled by subtle new fears. “This thing is going on far too long! Tell me your name right now, or—and I swear by my honor—I will crush these three until the blood spurts from their eyes!”

The alien figure brought a hand up to its concave chest. My name is Zunnunun.

“I thought so!” Toller glanced triumphantly at Vantara, Steenameert and the others. “I will now give…”

You will do precisely nothing, Zunnunun cut in, silencing Toller with a curious ease. I had planned to study the psychological relationship between you and your chosen female, but I have come to realize that in an unmodified state you will either kill yourself or continue to cause more trouble than you are worth. Accordingly, I have made the decision to bring your existence to an end.

Toller shook his head and his voice was no longer human. “It would take more than you and the likes of you to kill me.

Oh, I have no intention of killing you. The Dussarran’s psychic tone was now light, amused and confident. Your body will remain in perfect health—and will be useful to me in breeding experiments—but it will be inhabited by a different and more docile personality.

“You cannot do that!”

But I can! In fact, the process has already begun—as you will realize if you try to move. Zunnunun’s mouth flowed into a ghastly parody of a smile. You were right when you began to suspect that our confrontation was going on too long. I was then assembling sufficient of my people to form a telepathic lens. That lens is now focused on your brain, and in a few seconds you will cease to exist.

Goodbye, Toller Maraquine!

Toller tried to hurl himself at the alien, but—as had been predicted—he found himself unable to move. And something was happening within his mind. There was an invasion, a loosening, a shameful but joyous sense of yielding, an acceptance of the fact that life as Toller Maraquine II had always been wearisome, and the time had come when he could—gladly—lay that burden down…

Chapter 16

“Twelve ships! Is that all?” Daseene gave Cassyll Maraquine a reproving stare. “I was sure we could have done much better than that.”

“I am sorry, Majesty, but the factory is hard-pressed even to prepare that number,” Cassyll said, concealing his impatience over being required to repeat the same statements for the third time in an hour. “One of the major problems is the lack of reliable engines and parts.”

“But I have seen hundreds of engines stacked in the old parade ground at Kandell. With my own eyes I have seen them. Stacked!”

“Yes, but they are the old-style brakka wood units, and they have been replaced by steel engines.”

“Well, unreplace them in that case!” Daseene snapped, adjusting her coif of pearls.

“They won’t fit into the new mountings.” A veteran of many similar interviews with the Queen, Cassyll spoke in tones which were the embodiment of cool reasonableness. “It would take an excessive time to adapt one to the other, and many auxiliary components of the old engines are missing.”

Daseene narrowed her eyes and leaned forward in her high-backed chair. “Sometimes, my dear Maraquine, you remind me of your father.”

Cassyll smiled in spite of the oppressive heat in the audience room. “I appreciate the compliment, Majesty.”

“It wasn’t meant as a compliment, and well you know it,” Daseene said. “Your father performed some small service for my husband during the Migration, and—”

“If I may jog your Majesty’s memory to just the slightest extent,” Cassyll put in drily, “he saved the lives of your entire family.”

“I’m not sure if it was as dramatic as all that—but, no matter … He made himself useful on one occasion, and then proceeded to spend the rest of his life reminding my husband of the incident and demanding royal favors.”

“I am honored to serve your Majesty at all times,” Cassyll said, easily negotiating familiar territory, “and would never dream of asking for indulgence in return.”

“No, you have no need—you simply go ahead and arrange everything to suit yourself—and that is precisely my point! Your father had a way of pretending to do what the King wanted and all the time he was doing what he wanted. You have exactly the same way with you, Cassyll Maraquine. Sometimes I suspect that it is you, and not I, who rules this…”

Daseene leaned forward again, her rheumy eyes intent. “You do not look at all well, my dear fellow. Your face is quite crimson and your brow glistens with sweat. Are you suffering from an ague?”

“No, Majesty.”

“Well, something ails you. You do not look well. It is my opinion that you should consult your physician.”

“I shall do so without delay,” Cassyll said. He was yearning for the moment he could escape the intolerable heat of the room, but he had not yet achieved the purpose of his visit. Contrary to what Daseene had just said, he was not the complete master of his own affairs. He gazed into her fragile face, wondering if she was playing games with him. Perhaps she knew perfectly well that he was being tortured by the excessive warmth, and was waiting for him either to faint or give in and plead for respite.

“Why are you occupying so much of my time anyway?” she said. “You must want something.”

“As it so happens, Majesty, there is one—”

“Hah!”

“It is quite a routine matter… well within my normal areas of jurisdiction… but I thought, more or less in passing, that I should mention it to your Majesty… not that there is any…”

“Out with it, Maraquine!” Daseene glanced at the ceiling in exasperation. “What are you up to?”

Cassyll swallowed, trying to relieve the dryness in his throat. “The barrier which has appeared between Land and Overland is a matter of great scientific interest. I and Bartan Drumme have the privilege of serving as your Majesty’s principal scientific advisers, and—after sober consideration of all the facts—we feel that we should accompany the fleet which is to—”

“Never!” Suddenly Daseene’s face was an alabaster mask upon which a skilled artist had painted a likeness of the woman who used to be. “You will stay where I need you, Maraquine—right here on the ground! The same goes for your bosom friend, the eternal stripling, Bartan Drumme. Do I make myself clear?”

“Very clear, Majesty.”

“I am well aware that you are concerned for your son—just as I fear for the safety of my granddaughter—but there are times when one must turn a deaf ear to all appeals from the heart,” Daseene said in a voice which surprised Cassyll with its vigor.

“I understand, Majesty.” Cassyll bowed, and was turning to leave when Daseene halted him by raising one hand.

“And before you depart,” she said, “let me remind you of what I said earlier—be sure to see a doctor.”

Chapter 17

The startled cry from Steenameert reached Toller across dark distances of the soul, shadowy distances, where unseen worlds prowled their orbital paths. Each world was the embodiment of a new personality, one of which was destined to be his, and he had little concern for the trivialities of his old existence. Aloof and vaguely irritated, he asked himself why the young man was calling his name. What in all the black reaches of the cosmos could be important enough to justify distracting him at a time like this, just when momentous decisions were being made about his destiny?

But something else was happening! A battle was beginning in the stygian landscapes which surrounded him. Powerful external forces were being brought to bear on the psychic lens whose curvatures governed every aspect of his future…

The lens shattered! Released from his mental and physical paralysis, Toller was reborn into a world of tumult. Dozens of black-clad and ragged-edged Dussarran figures were running across the floor of the dome towards the enclosure. A woman was screaming. The aliens Toller had been crushing behind the panel were now free and were staggering towards their leader. Other aliens who had been clustered behind Zunnunun were fleeing through the exit to unknown parts of the building.

Come with us! A Dussarran appeared at Toller’s side and tugged his arm. We are your friends!

Toller shook himself free of the grey-fingered hand. The alien seemed no different from any of those he had already encountered, except that the ubiquitous piecemeal costume dangling around his spindly form featured a few diamond-shapes of drab green.

“Friends?” Toller made as if to thrust the newcomer away, then—accepting urgent telepathic guidance—realized the alien was one of a group which had recalled him to his own existence with no time to spare. The choice was not a difficult one in any case—stay and face the quietly invincible Director Zunnunun, or seize the unexpected offer of salvation.

“Baten!” Toller saw that Steenameert was staring at him with concern. “We have to trust these people!”

Steenameert nodded, as did some of the women behind him. The entire group of humans began to run in the company of their alien rescuers, but their escape route was being blocked by other Dussarrans who were spilling through the dome’s multiple entrances. The opposing forces converged and the scene quickly became chaotic as black-clad bodies locked with each other in all the grotesqueries of spontaneous physical combat.

Toller’s perception of the scene underwent rapid shifts as he saw that the Dussarrans’ idea of hand-to-hand struggle was to throw themselves at each other, lock arms and legs with opponents and bring them to the ground. Once that had happened they lay in ineffectual pairs, like copulating insects, each cancelling the other’s contribution to the battle. The advantage from the humans’ point of view was that no weapons were being used—the aliens fought like angry children, and although hostile enough were manifestly lacking in the ability to incapacitate an enemy. Toller was comforted when he realized that he and his new allies would not be annihilated in a few bloody seconds; but then the negative aspect of the situation came to him. The struggle was too democratic, too much like casting votes. In this style of combat the numerically superior force was bound to win.

Again longing for his sword, Toller turned on one of the group of unfriendly aliens who were closing on him with arms outspread. Toiler clubbed him to the ground with one diagonal blow of his fist, and then—with murder in his heart—drove his heel down on the alien’s neck, while at the same time hurling away two more attackers.

The feeling of living firmness crunching into inert mush told him immediately that the Dussarran was dead, but a more dramatic confirmation came from the surrounding melee. The mass of black-ragged aliens—friend and foe alike—underwent a convulsive spasm as though some powerful unseen force had torn through them. Their various pairings were dissolved and the air was filled with wordless keenings of anguish. All at once Toller and the other humans were the only mobile and concerted force on the bizarre battle ground.

“What happened?” Jerene shouted, her round face and clear eyes beaconing at Toller from the confusion.

“The scarecrows all suffer when one of their number dies near at hand,” Toller replied, remembering what Divivvidiv had told him about the strange telepathic backlash which accompanied the death of a Dussarran. “The trouble is that those who are favorably disposed to us are not spared. Get them on their feet and keep them moving—otherwise we are lost.”

The other six Kolcorronians responded at once, snatching suitably emblazoned aliens to their feet and urging them to run. They had to be dragged or pushed for some yards before their limbs began to pick up the motive rhythms. The ill-sorted band passed through an archway, entered a corridor and continued their awkward progress towards double-leafed doors at its far end. Other Dussarrans, shown to be friendly by their green-dappled clothing, were waiting at the door and making urgent beckoning signals.

My name is Greturk. The alien that Toller was propelling forwards looked up at him and his silent words were charged with fear and loathing. You deliberately ended a life! You behaved like a Vadavak! Have you no feelings?

“Yes—I have a powerful feeling that I want to get out of this place.”

That is not what I meant.

“I know! You were talking about the reflux.” Toller pushed the alien harder to emphasize his words. “You had better understand that I would quite happily break a thousand Dussarran necks to obtain my goal—so prepare yourself for a few more refluxes if we are attacked again.”

The chances of a new attack grew less, however, as the group reached the double door and were ushered through it by urgent hands. Livid alien faces danced around Toller, advancing and receding in the confusion, as he escaped from the confines of the corridor into a night which was shot through with artificial light. In part the light came from the facades of rectangular buildings, but there seemed to be free-floating blocks of radiance and a profusion of varicolored rays among which drifted vivid lines of intense red and yellow.

Toller had no time to fathom the exotic scene, because an egg-shaped vehicle—a larger version of the one which had earlier transported Steenameert and him to the dome—was waiting only a few paces away. He had the impression that its lower surface was not quite touching the ground. Its circular entrance revealed a dim-lit interior from which other Dussarrans beckoned. Toller halted by the entrance and helped cram his own people plus some of their alien rescuers into the vehicle. At the innermost end of the corridor more aliens were appearing, their mobility almost fully restored, and were running towards him like flapping black birds striving to take to the air.

Toller had no fear of pursuers who could be laid low by the death of only one of their number, but he was hounded by a conviction that Zunnunun was too resourceful to remain off balance for long, that other enemy forces were being ranged against him at that very moment. He threw himself into the oval vehicle, adding to the press of bodies inside, and the entrance flowed out of existence behind him. There came a giddy shifting of weight which signaled that the vehicle was moving and silently becoming airborne. It came to him that he had not seen a pilot or anything like a station from which a pilot could operate, and the eerie thought occurred that the Dussarran craft could control its own movements.

He was straining to see about him, trying to verify the idea, when he realized that Vantara was quite close by in the airless compression of alien and human forms. Her face was pale, distraught and immobile—rather like a tragic mask of the real woman—and, although her eyes were turned in his direction, he was not sure that she was looking at him. Feeling oddly self-conscious, he tried to produce a reassuring smile.

“Take heart, Vantara,” he said in a directed whisper, “I vow to you that no matter what befalls us I will be at your side.”

There followed an odd and timeless moment in which her gaze hunted over his face, and then—to Toller it was like a perfect sunrise—she answered his smile. “Toller, my dear Toller! I’m sorry if I have not been—”

Do not speak! Greturk, the alien at Toller’s side, cut in with an urgent telepathic warning. Do not think about what is happening—otherwise we will be easily followed. Try to forget who and what you are. Try to believe that you are nothing more than bubbles of air rising in a huge cauldron of boiling water… going this way and that way… swirling and spiraling in unpredictable paths…

Toller nodded and closed his eyes. He was a bubble rising in a huge cauldron… going this way and that… following a dangerous and unpredictable path…

Toller had become so deeply absorbed in the mental discipline, the negation of coherent thought, that he was scarcely aware of the vehicle coming to a halt. At one moment he was jammed upright, barely able to move because of the pressure of human and alien bodies; and at the next he was staggering slightly in a comparatively generous amount of floor space and Dussarrans were vanishing through the circular exit which had appeared in the vehicle’s side. He was receiving no structured telepathic communications, but his head was filled with a pulsing urgency. The very air seemed tremulous, agitated by a pervasive sense of panic.

You must disembark quickly. The silent message came from Greturk, the only alien to have remained inside the egg-shaped craft. There is very little time to spare.

“What is going on here?” Jerene put in before Toller could voice the same question.

Greturk’s black lips twitched. We are in the midst of a civil conflict—a war you might call it—the first in many thousands of years.

“A civil war!” Toller said. “In that case why are you so concerned about a few outsiders like us?”

This will come as a surprise—but you and the rest of your kind are at the center of the controversy which divides Dussarran society.

Toller blinked down at the alien. “I don’t understand.”

I know that the Decisioner responsible for the Xa project has explained to you the basic reasons for our presence in this part of the galaxy. How much of that information have you retained?

⁴There was something about Ropes,” Toller replied, frowning. “An explosion which will destroy dozens of galaxies…”

Steenameert cleared his throat and moved closer. “We were told that the crystal sea… the Xa … is a machine which will hurl your home world into a distant galaxy, where you will be safe from the explosion.”

I am quite impressed, Greturk answered, glancing from Toller to Steenameert while at the same time gesturing towards the vehicle’s exit. It is unusual for a species at your early stage of development to be able to accommodate concepts which are so far from primitive myth-based visions of…

“We have no relish for being styled as Primitives,” Toller growled. “Divivvidiv learned that to his cost.”

Perhaps that is why he withheld a piece of information which he knew would provoke an extreme reaction from you.

“Out with it!” Toller scowled into the alien’s livid face. “Out with it at once, or I may be…”

There is no need to bluster against me, Toller Maraquine, Greturk replied. I was opposed to the Xa project from the day of its inception. I am not culpable in any way, and therefore have no compunction about informing you that on the instant in which Dussarra is projected into the target galaxy your home world… and its neighbor… will cease to exist.

Chapter 18

In common with the rest of his companions, Toller was so stunned by Greturk’s words that—in spite of the alien’s diminutive stature—he meekly allowed himself to be pushed and prodded out of the vehicle. The darkness outside was as copiously shot through with glowing color as before, and in addition there were curved, tapering columns at the focus of which hovered a sheet of green luminance. Paying little heed to his surroundings, Toller brought Greturk to a halt by grasping his shoulders, and the rest of the humans crowded around him.

“What was that?” he demanded, using the form of words through force of habit—the telepathic communication had been perfectly clear, each word loaded with associated and corroborative layers of meaning. The Kolcorronians knew that a death sentence had been passed on their home worlds, but their minds were unable to accept the concept.

Greturk vainly tried to squirm free of Toller’s grip. It is vital that we should keep moving.

“It is even more vital that you explain yourself,” Toller countered, refusing to leave the spot. “Why is Overland to be destroyed?”

Greturk’s black-drilled eyes swept around the group, and Toller knew at once that all of them were about to be subjected to that disconcerting form of telepathy in which many facts were implanted in the mind forcibly and simultaneously. As had been the case with Divivvidiv, he felt a cerebral beam of lighthouse intensity begin to slew across his consciousness…

As the sister worlds rotate about their common center of gravity the disk-shaped instrument known as the Xa turns with them. Twice in the course of each revolution the Xa’s axis points directly at the Dussarran home world—once when it is projected through Land, once when it is projected through Overland. It is at one of these instants of perfect alignment that the Xa will be activated, making Dussarra the focus of supra-geometrical energies which will cause the planet to be relocated in the target galaxy. In that same instant Land and Overland will cease to exist in this continuum. Because Overland is the less massive of the pair, the relocation pulse will be directed through it during the forthcoming alignment. That alignment is due to occur less than ten minutes from now. If we are to prevent the relocation taking place—and thus save your home worlds from annihilation—we must proceed with all possible speed. The Director is almost certain to unleash the Vadavaks upon us. RELEASE ME AT ONCE—AND FOLLOW ME CLOSELY!

The moment of communion ended and Toller found himself—totally convinced that what he had learned was true—running behind the little alien. They were heading towards the circle of inward-leaning columns whose tips were immersed in greenish fire. Vantara was holding Toller’s left hand and Steenameert was running by his right, in step with Jerene. The three female rankers—Tradlo, Mistekka and Arvand—were keeping pace, and it was obvious from the grimly urgent set of their faces that they had absorbed Greturk’s message to the full. It was impossible to see far into the ambient darkness because of the profusion of glowing blocks and crisscrossing lines of radiance, but Toller was somehow persuaded that silent battles were taking place over a wide area. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of black-clad Dussarrans were locked together in their strange form of hand-to-hand combat, clogging and coagulating, each individual content to do no more than immobilize one of his counterparts on the enemy side.

“Why are you doing this?” Toller shouted at Greturk’s back, giving voice to the queries which had been accumulating in sheltered bywaters of his mind ever since the escape from the dome. “What is it to you if others perish?”

Again the swinging beam of mental radiance… but faster this time … a flaring whiplash of knowledge…

Dussarran society has long been divided over the issue of relocating the planet. Despite various pronouncements from the Palace of Numbers about Ropes, many citizens have always doubted that they exist in actuality. We believe that other interpretations of the sub-space probe data could be just as valid. In any case, it is our opinion that intergalactic relocation is an intemperate response to the situation. We had, however, failed to bring Director Zunnunun round to our point of view, or to rally a majority of the public behind us.

The relocation seemed destined to take place without any concrete opposition—and then came the rumors that one of the sacrificial worlds was inhabited by a humanoid species. It was in an attempt to prevent the spread of that knowledge that Director Zunnunun insisted on the Xa station being designed in such a way that it could be governed by a single Decisioner.

His plan could well have succeeded had it not been for one unforeseen development. The Xa, of necessity, had to have some degree of consciousness to enable it to control its own growth, but the technologists had never before produced such an instrument on that scale. They were taken by surprise when, on reaching a certain level of complexity, the Xa developed self-awareness—a personality—and began to fear its own dissolution. It was during imperfectly screened exchanges between the Xa and Decisioner Divivvidiv that adepts here on Dussarra established beyond doubt that a burgeoning civilization would be annihilated as a result of the relocation—and that was sufficient to unite and mobilize the opposition parties.

The telepathic communication, as well as lodging a store of hard facts like pebbles in the forefront of Toller’s mind, was luridly stained with anxiety and urgency. There was a despairing sense of time slipping away too quickly, of great invisible doors of opportunity being slammed in his face. Toller tried to run faster to draw abreast of Greturk, but the alien was fleet of foot and easily kept ahead. They were now only forty or so paces from the tapering columns, and Toller saw that other green-dappled aliens were waiting at the center of the circle. There were at least six of them, some beckoning to the runners, others struggling to move a white box which was about the size of a small desk.

“Why are we running?” Corporal Tradlo called out from close behind Toller, her words punctuated with gasps. “What is to be gained by… wearing ourselves out… if naught can be achieved?”

Good question, Toller thought. It had just occurred to him that there was little point in escaping by means of the alien matter transmitter to a world which was about to be obliterated.

There is much that can be done, came Greturk’s reply. The problem lies in doing it quickly enough.

“What can be done?” The question came from several of the humans simultaneously.

The white object you see being dragged on to the transfer plate by my brothers is a simplified version of the machine which was used to transport this world to its present location. The plan is to take it to Overland and use it to displace the planet by a short distance. A few tens of miles would be sufficient to destabilize the Xa and start its axis wandering. Under those conditions the relocation of Dussarra could not be attempted.

Toller stumbled to a halt at the edge of the green-lit circle, his gaze fixed on the white box. “How could that move an entire planet?” he said in tones of wonder. “It is much too small.”

Even in a moment of crushing urgency there was a note of ironic amusement in Greturk’s reply. How large must a fulcrum be, Toller Maraquine?

Before Toller could speak further there came a vast humming sound from directly above and curved rows of lights appeared far up in the gaudy darkness. The lights were in fixed positions with regard to each other, giving the impression they belonged to a huge skyship which was taking up its station overhead. The oppressive humming rose and fell at an increasing tempo, creating a sonic bludgeoning effect which numbed mind and body.

Run to the center of the plate! Greturk fussed and fluttered like a protective bird around the group of humans, goading them into motion. We have no more time!

Still holding Vantara’s hand, Toller moved on to a circular area of coppery metal some ten paces in diameter. Steenameert and the three rankers crowded on to the disk with him, and the group coalesced with the knot of aliens who were gathered around the white box…

And suddenly—without any physical sensation—the interplanetary leap took place.

The sights of the garish, light-fractured night of the Dussarran home planet vanished on the instant, and a mellow darkness closed in around the travelers. This is impossible, Toller thought, momentarily paralyzed with wonder, only then realizing that, although he had been forced to accept the idea of teleportation intellectually, in his heart there had lurked a conviction that it could not be done. There had not been so much as a twinge or a tingle anywhere in his body to inform him that he was being transported across millions of miles of space, and yet … A single glance at the richly emblazoned age-old sky of the sister planets told Toller that he was standing in the peaceful grasslands of his home world.

Having grown up on Overland and spent his adult life navigating across its surface, Toller had the almost instinctive ability to use the companion world as a clock and compass. His brief look at Land, which was almost perfectly centered in the dome of the sky, established that he was on Overland’s equator and possibly as little as fifty miles east of the capital city of Prad. The fact that the great disk of Land was divided just about evenly into night and day sides showed that dawn would soon break—which confirmed what Greturk had said about the timing of the Dussarran relocation.

When he returned his attention to earthly matters he saw by the half-light that several of the aliens were kneeling by the white box. They had opened a small door in its side and one of them was making rapid adjustments to something in the interior. A moment later that alien slammed the door shut and sprang to his feet.

The impeller is now alive and will activate itself in four minutes! He spread his arms and made violent scooping movements with his hands, a signal which—even without telepathic aid—the humans readily understood. Withdraw to the safety line!

There was a general movement away from the machine. Toller felt slim hands urging him to hurry, and it came to him that these Dussarrans—in spite of their nightmarish appearance—were altruists of the highest order. They had gone to great lengths and exposed themselves to unguessable dangers with no motivation other than the desire to preserve the existence of a totally unknown culture. Toller was reasonably certain that he would not have behaved as well in parallel circumstances, and all at once he felt a rush of mingled emotions—respect and affection—towards the Dussarrans. He ran with the others, losing contact with Vantara on the way, and slowed to a halt when they did, some sixty yards away from the enigmatic white rectangle.

“Is this far enough?” he said to Greturk, trying to visualize the unleashing of forces of sufficient magnitude to disturb a world lumbering through space and time, massively complacent in its shadowy orbit.

This is a safe distance, Greturk replied. Had the impeller not been built illegally, and in great haste, it could have been shielded in such a way that there would have been no need to move away from it. Ideally, it would also have been constructed with widespread anchor points, in such a way that it could not be overturned. Director Zunnunun, by advancing the time of relocation, has forced us to fall back on exigency plans.

Toller frowned, his mind still overwhelmed by partially absorbed ideas and concepts. “What would happen to a man who was too close to the impeller when it… when it did what is required of it?”

There would be a conflict of geometries. Greturk’s eyes swam like twin moons in the grey twilight. The constituent atoms of the man’s body would be sliced into a billion times a billion layers…”

“I was told my grandfather died in such a manner,” Toller said in a low voice. “It must have been instantaneous… and painless… but I don’t think I want to emulate him to that extent.”

We are safe while we stay at this distance from the machine, Greturk replied, looking all about him. Safe from the effects of the machine, anyway.

“How much time remains until the Xa is triggered?”

Greturk did not consult any kind of chronometer, but his response was immediate. Almost seven minutes.

“And only about three minutes remain until that thing… the impeller… does its work.” Toller took a deep breath of satisfaction and glanced at the other humans. “It seems to me that we are quite safe. What do you say, my fellow Kolcorronians? Shall we prepare to celebrate our deliverance?”

“I’m ready for a few beakers of good Kailian black when you are,” Steenameert cried out heartily, and the other humans—watched by silent aliens—cheered and waved their arms in agreement.

Toller was gratified beyond measure when Vantara moved through the gloaming to his side and put her hand in his. Seen in the nascent light of pre-dawn, her face was impossibly beautiful, and suddenly he felt that his entire life had been nothing more than a prelude to this moment of supreme justification. He had been faced with a challenge worthy of the real Toller Maraquine, he had met every demand made of him without flinching, and now a time of reward lay ahead.…

“I have been so busy congratulating myself on my good fortune that I have given little thought to you and all your companions, to whom we owe so much,” he said to Greturk. “Can you return safely to Dussarra?”

Returning home poses some problems for the present, but I have more serious worries at this time. Greturk continued to scan his surroundings as though every dimly-seen tuft of grass might conceal a deadly enemy. My principal fear is that Director Zunnunun will have set the Vadavaks upon us. We have, of course, done what we could to make pursuit difficult, but Zunnunun’s resources are far greater than ours…

“What are these Vadavaks?” Toller said. “Are they ferocious hunting beasts which cannot be eluded?”

No. Greturk’s thoughts were shaded with something akin to embarrassment. They are Dussarrans who were born with a major defect in the areas of their brains which are concerned with perception and communication. They are incapable of direct communication with other Dussarrans. We regard the condition in much the same way as you regard deafness.

“But why should they be feared?”

They do not experience the reflux. They are capable of killing.

“You mean,” Toller said, suddenly understanding Greturk’s embarrassment, “they are something like me?”

To the ordinary Dussarran the taking of a life is the ultimate abhorrence.

“That may be less due to ethics than dread of the backlash.” Toller knew he was in danger of offending the alien who had done so much for the group of fugitives, but he was unable to hold back his words. “After all, you noble Dussarrans were quite prepared to annihilate the entire population of my home world. Did that not offend your delicate sensibilities? Is killing all right as long as it is done at a remove?”

Many of us have put our own lives at risk to preserve your people, Greturk countered. We make no claim to be perfect, but…

“I apologize for my ingratitude and shoddy manners,” Toller cut in. “Look, if you are so worried about these Vadavaks appearing out of nowhere, can you not adjust the impeller’s controls and cause it to act sooner? Four minutes seems an irksome length of time to wait.”

We chose four minutes to allow for variables such as having to withdraw across difficult terrain. Now that the machine has been activated, its internal processes cannot be advanced or retarded. Neither can it be switched off and returned to an inert condition.

Steenameert, who had been paying close attention to the dialogue, raised a hand. “If the machine is immune to interference … if it cannot be switched off… are we not already in an inviolable position? Is it not too late for the enemy to try to thwart us?”

Given sufficient time we could have rendered the impeller virtually immune to interference. Greturk’s eyes flickered closed for a moment. As it is, it could be neutralized merely by turning it on its side…

“What?” Steenameert shot Toller a perplexed glance. “Is that all it would take to stop it working?”

Greturk shook his head in a surprisingly human manner. The impeller would not be affected internally in any way, but unless it is in a horizontal attitude—with its line of action passing through or close to the center of the planet—its motive energies will be squandered.

“I—” Toller broke off as the faintest breath of coolness entered his mind, a feather-flick of unease so tiny and fleeting that it could have been a product of his imagination. He raised his head, separating himself from the discussion, and took stock of his surroundings. Nothing seemed to have changed. The grassy plain reached out to a horizon which was made irregular by low hills to the north; a short distance away the white casing of the impeller glowed placidly through the pewter-colored light of early dawn; the incongruous group of Dussarrans and humans looked exactly as before—and yet Toller was vaguely alarmed.

On impulse he glanced up at the sky and there, centered on Land and almost touching the terminator on the planet’s dark side, was a pulsing yellow star. He knew at once that he was looking at the Xa, thousands of miles above.

No sooner had he made the identification than a faint telepathic voice reached him—strained, enfeebled, tortured—wisping downwards from the zenith. Why are you doing this to me, Beloved Creator? Please, please do not kill me.

Feeling oddly like an intruder, Toller spoke quietly to Greturk. “The Xa is… unhappy.”

It was fortunate for all of us that the Xa’s increasing complexity allowed it to… Greturk suddenly flinched, as if experiencing a spasm of pain, and spun to face the east. The other Dussarrans did likewise. Toller followed their concerted gazes and his heart lurched as he saw that the previously bare plain was now the setting for a party of about fifty figures clad in white. They were perhaps two furlongs distant, and above them was a fast-fading ellipse of greenish illumination.

The Vadavaks are upon us! Greturk took one futile step backwards. And so close!

Toller glared down at Greturk. “Are they armed?”

Armed?

“Yes! Armed! Do they carry weapons?”

Greturk had begun to shiver, but his telepathic response was clear and well controlled. The Vadavaks are equipped with enervators—instruments of social correction specially designed by Director Zunnunun. The enervators are black rods with glowing red tips. The slightest contact with one of the tips will cause intense pain and paralysis for several minutes.

“I have heard of more fearsome weapons,” Toller sneered, squeezing Vantara’s hand before releasing it and putting an encouraging arm around Steenameert’s shoulder. “What do you say, Baten? Shall we teach these bumptious pygmies a lesson or two?”

Contact with one enervator rod causes pain and paralysis, Greturk added. The Vadavaks carry an enervator in each hand—and simultaneous contact with two rods causes pain and death.

’That is a more serious matter,” Toller said soberly, staring at the blurred smear of white on a drab grey-green background which was the enemy’s sole manifestation thus far. “How long does it take for death to occur?”

Five seconds. Perhaps ten. Much depends on the size and strength of the individual.

“Much could be achieved in ten seconds,” Toller replied, a dryness developing in his mouth as he saw that the Vadavaks had already begun to advance at speed. “If only…”

Your sword is in the possession of Director Zunnunun and can never be retrieved—but one of our number holoviewed it well enough for copying. Greturk nodded to one of the other Dussarrans who moved forward dragging a sack made of a seamless grey material. We had hoped that the Vadavaks would not make contact with us—in which case we would have destroyed these weapons without ever showing them to you—but now we have no alternative.

The Dussarran opened the sack and Toller felt a surge of fierce gladness as he saw that it contained seven swords of the distinctive late Kolcorronian pattern. He dropped to his knees and eagerly reached for the familiar weapons.

Be careful! Greturk warned. In particular, do not touch the blades with your bare hands—they now have monomolecular edges which can never be blunted, and they will penetrate your flesh as easily as they would sink into fresh snow.

“Swords!” Jerene’s rounded features bore an angry expression as she stepped forward. “What do we want with a collection of antiques? Could you not have copied our pistols?”

Greturk shook his head again. There was no time… their interior mechanisms were not readily visible to us … all we could do in the limited time available was to produce five scaled-down versions of the sword for use by the smaller and weaker females of your race.

“That was most considerate of you,” Jerene exclaimed sarcastically, “but you may be interested to learn that any woman here could…”

“The enemy has taken to the field!” Toller put all the power of his lungs into the shout. “Are we to squabble among ourselves or go out and do battle?”

He pointed to where the gleaming white motes which represented the Vadavaks were spreading across the field of view, becoming larger collectively and individually, each advancing speck developing arms and legs, a face, the capability of inflicting death. On the horizon behind the Vadavaks the sun was appearing as a needle-spray of blinding fire, casting a fateful and melodramatic glow over the natural arena in which the fates of three worlds were to be decided.

Toller took the sword of his fancy from the sack and tried it in his hand to make sure that the balance had not been disturbed by alien machinations. The feel of the familiar weapon was comforting—the spirit of his grandfather was with him again—but it was less reassuring than he had hoped and expected. Seven humans, only one of whom was trained with the sword, were going against at least fifty well-armed aliens. By all accounts, his fabled namesake would have gloried in such a situation—but, no matter how many versions of the forthcoming battle the present-day Toller conjured up in his mind, he could not find one in which there were no deaths among his companions. Some of them, if not all, were bound to die—and Toller could see no glory in that fact. It was degrading, brutal, depressing, obscene, terrifying…

But, even as the adjectives paraded through his mind, he was forced to acknowledge another diamond-hard fact. Unless the Dussarran machine was successfully defended for another three to four minutes, until it performed its vital task, every man, woman and child on Overland would be annihilated in an unimaginable pulse of energy. That—above all else—had to be the single truth which governed his actions in the trial which lay ahead.

He looked around his little group of warriors, wondering if his face was as pale as theirs. They had taken their swords in hand and were gazing at him with expressions which seemed to convey complete faith in his leadership. Their trust was probably a legacy from all those times when he had swaggered and boasted of his prowess in combat—and now he was appalled by the responsibility he had taken upon himself. These people knew they were facing death, and they were afraid, and in the moment of ultimate tribulation they were turning to the only source of hope they could find. It was quite likely that they now regarded Toller as a pillar of strength, and he was numbed with guilt and regret as he realized the extent of his unworthiness to play that role.

“If we advance too far to meet the enemy they will be able to outflank us and overturn the machine,” he heard himself say in a firm, clear voice. “We must form a defensive line outside the radius of safety—and take a solemn vow that none of the Vadavaks shall pass.

“There are many more things I would like to say—” Toller’s eyes locked fleetingly with Vantara’s and he repressed an urge to reach out and touch her face—“but now is not the time. We have important work to do first.”

Toller turned and ran on a curving path to a point which placed him exactly between the impeller and the oncoming force of Vadavaks. Within a few seconds the other humans had taken up stations on either side of him, at spacings which they instinctively felt could be protected by the sword. The Vadavaks were now only a hundred yards or so away, running fast, and the sound of their feet swishing through the grass could easily be heard by the defenders. Pinpoints of red light danced before them in a horizontal swarm.

Toller tightened his grip on his sword as he saw that the Vadavaks, in place of the rag-like garments of the ordinary Dussarran citizen, wore white helmets and armor. The latter was of a glistening material which seemed to have no effect on the wearer’s mobility in spite of covering torso and limbs. The livid, black-holed faces glaring from under the rims of the alien helmets gave the attackers the semblance of an army of corpses, indefatigable because they were already dead.

Toller raised his sword to the first readiness position and waited. I beg of you, Beloved Creator, the Xa’s words threaded down from the remoteness of the sky, do not kill me.

One of the Vadavaks outdistanced the others, nominating himself as Toller’s first individual opponent, and dived forward with twin black rods outstretched like stings. The alien must have been totally accustomed to routing docile and unarmed civilians, because he came at Toller with head and torso quite unprotected. Toller struck down into his thin neck and the alien went down and backwards in a fountain of blood, his head connected to his body by only a narrow strip of tissue. The rods he had been holding fell close beside each other at Toller’s feet.

Toller stamped on them, extinguishing the crimson glow at their tips, and his momentum took him into immediate conflict with two more Vadavaks. The pair apparently had not enough time to learn anything from the fate of their companion, because they remained close together and lunged at Toller with enervator rods held only a few inches apart. He took their arms off below the elbows with two transverse strokes which sheared the white armor as if it were paper.

The aliens dropped to their knees, their mouths black circles of silent agony, and doubled over the stumps of their forearms.

Toller paid them no further attention—they had ceased to be combatants—and ran his gaze along the line of battle. The Vadavaks were throwing themselves into the fray with undiminished vigor and ferocity, but Toller was heartened to notice that not one Kolcorronian had been laid low. Their lack of experience in handling swords was being more than compensated for by the incredible sharpness of the blades, and the Vadavaks were being cut down as quickly as they advanced. The defense line had lost its regularity, but it was remaining intact, and the white wave of alien attackers was now liberally stained with red as its members collided with and stumbled over their wounded.

Can it be possible? Toller wondered. Are we all to be spared, after all? There can be very little time left before the impeller does its work, and if the Vadavaks are stupid enough not to change their tactics…

From the corner of his eye Toller saw a flicker of white as an alien appeared beyond one end of the battle line and ran towards the rectangular shape of the impeller. Toller broke free and ran on a course which enabled him to intercept the Vadavak about halfway across the margin of safety. The alien slid to a halt in the grass and turned on Toller, the milky marbles of his eyes gleaming beneath the rim of his helmet. He was holding one of his enervator rods as though it were a sword, darting and slicing with the glowing tip, striving to make contact with the skin of Toller’s sword arm.

Toller dealt with him by making a sideways flick of his blade which lopped the end off the menacing rod. The alien threw it down, transferred his remaining rod into his right hand and resumed the duel, apparently quite unafraid. Toller—acutely aware that he was within the impeller’s radius of death—decided to end the matter speedily in a rain of unstoppable blows. He was on the point of lunging forward when he heard a sound close behind him. He spun around just in time to see a second Vadavak thrusting an enervator rod into his midriff. Toller did his utmost to twist clear of the spitefully gleaming tip, but it made contact with him and pain fountained up through his chest. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath, and his two opponents—now moving at a much more leisurely pace, apparently relishing their moment of victory—closed in on him with black rods upraised.

A second touch from one of the red tips would bring about his death, Toller had been warned, and it was obvious that the Vadavaks intended to make sure of him by administering multiple contacts. But he had no intention of accepting death so easily, not with so much at stake. In spite of the debilitating pain which was washing through his body, he made a despairing effort to raise his sword to fend off the descending rods—and was thrilled to find his arms responding with close to normal speed and control.

The Vadavaks, abruptly realizing their peril, stabbed at him with their enervators, but his sword was now moving swiftly in a near-visible defensive arc. The black rods were destroyed and scattered in an instant as Toller rose to his feet. One of the aliens got away from him by sprinting off to safety; the other was transfixed as he turned to flee. Toller withdrew his sword from the twitching body and ran back to rejoin the main battle. He noticed a soreness in his legs for the first few paces, but it quickly faded and he deduced that a Dussarran enervator was a fairly inadequate weapon when used against a large and healthy human.

That seemed a favorable omen, but when Toller reappraised the continuing struggle he saw the situation had altered for the worse in the brief time that he had been sidetracked. One of the women was on the ground and surrounded by Vadavaks who were jabbing at her with red-glowing enervators. Fearing that the inert figure might be Vantara, Toller pounded his way towards her attackers with a hoarse cry of rage. He reached them simultaneously with Steenameert, taking them unawares, and in an impossibly short space of time—a time of raging red mists speckled with seething bright-rimmed corpuscles—the two humans had reduced at least five of the enemy to a bloody mass of carrion.

The woman on the ground was revealed as Corporal Tradlo. An enervator had been driven down her throat, her blonde hair was matted with blood, and it was obvious that she was dead.

Toller raised his eyes from her and saw that the remaining four women had split into pairs, each of which was busily engaged in close combat. To his left, Jerene and Mistekka had taken on four Vadavaks and were giving every appearance of being able to deal with the threat; to his right, Vantara and Arvand were almost hidden by a larger group of aliens who were pressing in on them from all sides.

Marveling at the aliens’ carelessness over the essential matter of guarding their flanks, Toller nodded to Steenameert and they flung themselves at the milling group of white-clad figures. Again they wrought a fearful slaughter in the space of a few heartbeats, inflicting terrible gouting wounds which either leveled the recipients at once or sent them staggering blindly away to sink down and expire in pools of blood.

Other aliens were coming forward to take their places, but Toller was beginning to sense a change in the overall situation. The Vadavaks, possessing not even a rudimentary battle sense, were pressing their attack with undiminished fervor in spite of conspicuous lack of success—and their forces were rapidly being depleted. Snatching a quick glance around the complex scene, Toller guessed that less than half of the Vadavaks were still on their feet, and a proportion of those were becoming slow and uncertain in their movements.

It had to be less than a minute until the impeller unleashed the energies which would displace the planet, and from that time onward Director Zunnunun’s warriors would—presumably—have no reason to continue the struggle. They should be well content to withdraw at that stage and limit the number of their dead. Feeling a resurgence of optimism, Toller risked looking in the direction of Greturk and his fellow Dussarrans, hoping for an indication that the machine was about to function. He felt a dull shock when he saw that his allies had disappeared—the only sign that they had ever been present being a fast-fading tinge of green in the morning air.

An instant later Toller paid the price for allowing himself to be distracted from the deadly conflict all about him. Pain exploded through him as something touched his left shoulder, and an instant later the sensation was repeated again in the region of his left hip. He had twice been hit from behind by enervators, but this time—miraculously—the effect was less devastating than before and he was able to remain on his feet. His attacker, who had clearly expected a quick and easy kill, was still gaping at him in astonishment when Toller swung an ill-controlled blow which was intended to sever the alien’s neck. The strike was slightly lacking in reach, because of Toller’s partial immobility, and the sword tip reached no further than the Vadavak’s throat, slicing cleanly through his windpipe. He clapped a hand to his throat and backed rapidly away, only to be impaled from behind by a sword held by the tall, dark-haired figure of Mistekka.

“These large bodkins are quite fun,” she called out to Toller, her brown eyes glinting as she casually pushed the dying alien away. “I’m beginning to see why you always carried one.”

“Just don’t get careless!” No sooner had Toller spoken than he heard Steenameert give a bellow of pain. He turned and saw that his friend was surrounded by four Vadavaks who were jabbing at him with their enervators, at least one of which had found its mark.

“Stay on your feet, Baten!” Toller shouted. He threw himself forward, closely followed by Mistekka and the stockier figure of Jerene. They descended on Steenameert’s attackers in a murderous swoop which, again in what seemed the blink of an eye, had a significant effect on the balance of forces. Steenameert had been hit with enervators several times and was sinking to the ground in spite of Arvand’s attempts to hold him up. But when Toller took a broader view he was uplifted to see that the humans were running out of live opponents. Of the original attacking force only two were on their feet in the immediate vicinity, and they were being competently dealt with by Jerene and Mistekka.

Three other Vadavaks, having faced strong and well-armed enemies for the first time, were withdrawing in dismay, fleeing across the plain towards the point where they had materialized. The only other movements among the aliens, Toller noted with an exultant feeling of relief, came from the white-and-crimson carpet of the wounded. It was a tragedy that even one of the Kolcorronians had been lost, but…

“Behind you, Toller!”

Jerene’s warning shriek came too late. Toller heard the sudden movement shockingly close behind him, and realized at once that he had become too complacent, too certain that the diminutive Vadavaks had none of the tenacity of a genuine warrior. Now he felt a curious, unmanning sensation in the calf of his left leg. There was no pain to speak of, and yet he had just received the most serious injury of his life. He looked down and saw that a Kolcorronian sword, almost certainly Tradlo’s, had gone to the bone in his leg. He struck backwards at the wounded Vadavak who had been lying on the ground, feigning death and awaiting his chance to strike. The alien sighed and rolled away to meet the point of Jerene’s sword.

“We must finish the lot of them,” Jerene shouted. “Show no mercy!”

“Keep everybody well away from the machine,” Toller said to her, wondering why Vantara was not more in evidence in her capacity as Jerene’s commander. “It is bound to detonate, or whatever it does, any second now.”

Jerene nodded and signaled for the combatants to move farther away from the box, which was now glowing like fresh snow in the light of the rising sun. “And we had better take a look at that leg of yours.”

“I’ll be…” Toller glanced down at his leg and felt a moment of giddiness as he saw that a grinning red mouth had opened right across the calf. It was spewing blood down his ankle on to the grass, and in its depths he could see the gleam of bone. When he tried to move the leg his foot remained obstinately on the ground.

“That has to be stitched here and now,” Jerene said in a hard and unemotional voice. “Somebody give me a held kit.”

Toller allowed himself to be lowered to the ground beside Steenameert, who was beginning to show signs of regaining consciousness. He felt nauseated, and was glad to surrender all responsibility to another for a period, even when the pain of the stitching began. With his chin resting on folded hands, Toller clenched his teeth and distracted himself from the pain by thinking about the impeller. What would the crucial moment be like? Would they hear great explosions or be blinded by flashes of lightning? And why was the cursed box taking so long to unleash its power?

“Surely more than four minutes have passed since we arrived in this place,” he said to those who had clustered around to watch his leg being repaired. “What say you? Can you see anything happening?”

Steenameert, who was lying with his face towards the sky, startled Toller by answering his question as though he had never been unconscious. “I don’t know about our wonderful white box, Toller—but I think something very strange is happening up there.”

He pointed straight up to the zenith and others followed his example. Toller twisted his upper body around, grunting as he involuntarily disturbed the work being done on his leg, and looked into the center of the sky. The vast disk of Land was divided equally by the terminator, and mounted exactly on the central line was the pulsing yellow star the watchers knew to be the Xa. But changes had taken place since Toller had first looked at it.

The Xa had grown much brighter—it now resembled a miniature sun—and its pulsations had become so rapid that they were almost merging into each other. It came to Toller that he had been so preoccupied with Greturk’s impeller, and the events surrounding it, that he had practically forgotten about that infinitely greater impeller which had spread itself across the weightless zone. The collective attention focused on the distant Xa seemed to throw a telepathic gateway wide open…

I cannot believe you are doing this to me, Beloved Creator! The anguish-laden message washed down out of an aureate sky. After all I have done for you, you are bringing forward the time of my death! I implore you, Beloved Creator, do not deny me a last few minutes in your treasured company…

“What’s going on here?” Toller growled, tearing the needle and suture from Jerene’s fingers as he raised himself to a sitting position. “Greturk told us that his cursed box of tricks would do its job long before the Xa… long before Dussarra was hurled into another galaxy… but the way things are going…” He fell silent, a chill perspiration gathering on his brow as he realized that he, and everybody he knew, and his entire home world could be on the point of instantaneous destruction.

Steenameert raised himself on one elbow. “It may be that Greturk’s device is imperfect. He told us it was built in too much haste. Dussarrans can make mistakes, also, and it may be that the delay mechanism he spoke of is not…” Steenameert’s voice faded and his eyes grew wide as he pointed with one trembling finger at something beyond Toller’s shoulder.

Toller followed his gaze and swore savagely as he saw something which had the power to dismay him, even in this time of astonishing and momentous events. The gleaming white figure of a Vadavak, one who must have concealed himself during the closing chaotic moments of battle, had appeared by the boxy shape of the impeller. Professional training must have made him much stronger than the average Dussarran because, as the petrified humans watched, he squatted and put his hands under one edge of the impeller, then slowly but steadily straightened up.

The impeller tilted in unison with his movements and fell on its side. An instant later, almost as though triggered by impact, something in the white box began to emit a mechanical scream.

Toller tried to scramble to his feet, but his left leg refused to take his weight and he lurched painfully to the ground. “That’s the final warning,” he shouted, undergoing a unique kind of torment because of his inability to move. “The machine must be uprighted—otherwise all is lost!”

He looked to the three women who were standing in his field of view, willing them to undertake what he could not. Mistekka and Arvand continued to stare down at him, frozen to the spot by a new kind of fear. Vantara dropped to her knees, covered her face and began to sob.

“I expect promotion for this,” Jerene exclaimed as she leapt to her feet, took her sword in hand and began to run towards the impeller. The strength inherent in her solid limbs, sprinter’s strength, drove her through the impeding grass at a speed Toller doubted he could have matched even had he not been wounded.

The lone Vadavak, showing vastly greater courage and obduracy than his vanquished comrades, chose not to retreat. He ran towards Jerene and, when separated from her by several paces, dived at her ankles. She partially thwarted him with a scything blow of her sword—a touch of crimson was abruptly added to the bleached palette of the scene—but the alien succeeded in clamping his hands around one of Jerene’s shins, bringing her to the ground. There followed a moment in which it was impossible to see what was happening, a moment in which Toller was struck dumb with anxiety, and then Jerene was up and running again.

The shrieking of the white rectangle seemed to intensify as she reached it. She grasped its nearer top edge and tried to pull it downwards, but it resisted her efforts. She ran around to the farther side and disappeared from view as she stooped to gain a more effective hold on the massive cabinet. And then, with nerve-destroying slowness, the impeller rotated into its normal attitude.

In less than one heartbeat, Jerene had reappeared from behind the impeller and was sprinting—head thrown back and limbs blurring—towards the fear-stricken watchers. She had covered perhaps a third of the distance to safety when the impeller suddenly fell silent. In the absence of its frenetic screaming another message of hysteria was perceived with silent and dreadful clarity, beating down from the remote apex of the heavens.

Do not kill me, Beloved Creator! Do not…

Toller, his face contorted into an inhuman mask of dread, looked beyond Jerene and saw the lustrous cabinet of the impeller begin to change its appearance. It glimmered and threw off expanding pale images of itself, layered versions of reality which flowed outwards to encompass all that could be seen of space and time.

Jerene was running through that shimmering matrix of what was and what might be, and Toller fancied she was calling his name. In one agonizing thrust of his limbs he forced himself into an upright position and tried to move towards her.

But above Jerene the entire dome of the sky had begun to convulse and contort. Concentric rings of eye-searing brilliance were pulsing and flooding outwards from the Xa, and they were clashing in intolerable discords with the emanations from the white box…

Too much is happening at once. Toller thought in the wildest extremities of terror.

Chapter 19

A deep, velvety and infinite darkness—a kind of night which was outside of Toller’s previous experience—suddenly pervaded the scene. It was as though an opaque cover had been clamped over the entire planet. The blackness above was made even more intense by the fact that the impeller, after its display of dimensional sorcery, was now glowing like a huge block of fluorescent ice, casting a shallow pool of illumination over the silenced battle field.

Toiler was still, blinking, trying to force his eyes to adapt to the strange new conditions, when Jerene reached him and allowed herself to be brought to a halt by his arms. She clung to him for a brief period, trembling and breathing harshly, then straightened up and stepped back a pace. For an instant Toller half-expected her to give him a formal salute, as though making amends for the breach of some rigorous discipline. Vantara, who had been standing close by, moved to Toller’s side and gently enfolded his arm with hers.

Toller was scarcely aware of her presence as he gazed into the awesome emptiness of the heavens. At first he had thought the dark celestial canopy was completely featureless, but as his eyes continued to adjust he began to pick out coldly remote points of light which could be identified as stars. They were faint and sparse compared to those he had known all his life, so meager with their output of light that an appreciable time went by before he seized on the strangest and most disconcerting factor of all.

Overland’s sister world had vanished from its place directly above.

In its place, in the crown of the heavens, there was nothing more than a handful of chilly flecks of light arranged in alien configurations.

Steenameert, overcoming his paralysis, rose to his feet behind Toller and spoke with the rapt voice of a child. “It was all to no avail, Toller. We have been cast out. This place is not home to us.”

Toller nodded, not trusting himself to reply, still yielding up his mind and soul to the black void which spanned his vision. We have indeed been cast out, he told himself. This is how the universe will look when it has grown old…

“Such darkness,” Vantara whispered, pressing herself closer to Toller. “It pleases me not at all—and I’m cold.”

“In that case,” Toller said, firmly disentangling his arm from hers, “I suggest that you begin gathering materials to build a fire. It may be a long time until dawn—if dawn ever comes.”

“Of course dawn will come!” Vantara, angered by his symbolic rejection, was instantly on the offensive. “How can dawn fail to come? What a foolish thing to say!”

Toller realized with a surge of pity that she had no inkling, no glimmer of understanding of the momentous series of events the group had survived. His own insight, derived from telepathic exchanges with Divivvidiv and Greturk, was nebulous and patchy, but he knew in his bones that Overland—instead of being annihilated—had been projected into an inconceivably remote region of the universe.

And the “universe” he was thinking about was not even the limited and well-defined entity which came to mind when Kolcorronian scientists used the word. It was that woolly, intangible and maddeningly elusive philosophical concept which Divivvidiv had referred to as the space-time continuum. Toller had grasped the notion at the time of his telepathic tuition, but in spite of all his efforts his understanding of it had been fading ever since, like the wistful memory of a dream.

Now it was all but gone, the only lingering remnant being its effect on his modes of thinking. Without being able to justify the idea in any form of words, he was quite prepared to believe that the incomprehensible forces unleashed by the Xa in its death throes could have displaced Overland in time as well as in space, perhaps far into the future of some parallel cosmos.

He was finding it hard to remember why he had ever been enamored of Vantara in the first place—and now, gazing at her beautiful but petulant face, he sensed an unbridgeable gulf opening between them. She had closed her mind, and as a consequence had no way of sharing Toller’s principal worry of the moment. Once, during the long hours of the flight to Dussarra, he had asked Divivvidiv how he knew the relocation device would not deposit the planet in the depths of interstellar space, too far from a sun for “minor” adjustments to be made in its position. Divivvidiv, possibly lost for a good answer, had slipped away from the question with some comments about probability coalescence and abstruse self-generating design features of the Xa which in the final outcome were to cope with biological viability zones and orbital dynamics.

Now Toller had to ask himself if there was a sun hidden behind the passive bulk of the planet. Either there would be a normal sunrise some hours from now, or Overland would grow colder and colder, and all its inhabitants would perish in never-ending blackness. There was only one way to obtain the answer, Toller realized, and that was by waiting. And there was no point in waiting in the dark…

“Why is everyone not gathering wood?” he shouted jovially, turning away from Vantara. “Let us find an agreeable place—away from these miserable alien corpses—and light a good fire to comfort us through the night.”

Cheered by having been presented with a homely objective, Steenameert, Mistekka and Arvand darted away towards a clump of wryberry bushes, the rounded outlines of which had gradually become visible in the starlight. Vantara gave Toller a prolonged stare, which he guessed to be one of disdain, then turned and slowly walked after the others, leaving him in the sole company of Jerene.

“Your leg needs many more stitches, but there is not enough light.” She glanced at the impeller, which had now faded into a rectangular patch of grey. “I will bind the wound now and finish the job properly in the morning.”

“Thank you,” Toller said, suddenly realizing that he was quite incapable of walking unaided. The wound, while serious enough, seemed insignificant in comparison to his size, and he was chastened to find that he felt cold, ill and weak. He stood patiently while Jerene bound his calf tightly with a bandage from the field kit.

“This is where my farm upbringing comes in useful,” she said, securing the dressing with an expert knot.

“Thank you again!” Toller spoke in mock indignation, grateful to be distracted from his haunting worry about the sun. “You may nail new shoes to my hooves in the morning, but in the meantime will you assist me to join the others by the fire?”

Jerene stood up, put an arm around his waist and helped him walk towards the flicker of orange light which was already beckoning through the darkness. He found it more difficult and painful than he had expected to make progress through the long grass, and he was relieved when Jerene stopped to rest.

“Now I doubly deserve promotion,” she said breathlessly. “You weigh nearly as much as my pet greyhorn.”

“I’ll see to your promotion as soon as…” Toller paused, hesitating to make any promises for a future which might not exist. “You were very courageous when you ran to the machine. My blood froze for fear that you would not get clear of it in time.”

“Why were you so concerned?” Jerene murmured. “After all, I had achieved what I set out to do.”

“It may have been because…” Toller smiled, realizing that Jerene was playing an ancient game with him, and all at once as they stood together in the darkness that game became more important to him than all his fear for the future of the planet. He drew her closer to him and they kissed with a kind of gentle fervor.

“The countess can see what we are doing,” Jerene said, still being provocative as the kiss ended, and her breath was warm in his mouth. “The countess will not be pleased.”

“What countess?” Toller said, and he and Jerene began to laugh as they clung together in the dark, dark night.

Toller had not expected to sleep. His wounded leg had begun throbbing like a busy machine, and in any case it had been inconceivable to him that he could lay down the burden of consciousness while wondering if his world was lost in a starless void. But the warmth of the fire had been pleasant, and it had felt good to have Jerene lying at his side with one arm draped across his chest, and he had been more tired than he knew…

He opened his eyes with a start, trying to solve the urgent problem of deciding where he was. The fire had been reduced to white-coated embers, but it gave enough light for him to see the sleeping forms of his tiny band of warriors—and suddenly the great question was again hammering between his temples. He abruptly raised his head, causing Jerene to sigh in her sleep, and scanned the edges of the world.

There was a faint but unmistakable feathering of pearly light above one section of the horizon.

Toller’s vision blurred with gratification as he took in the full, wondrous meaning of the tentative glow, then he sank back down to rest.

Chapter 20

Queen Daseene had suffered a major stroke, one which was almost certain to prove fatal.

As news of the impending tragedy raced out from Prad to the towns and lesser communities of Overland, the common people—already chastened by inexplicable events in the sky—became even more morose and subdued. Those of a religious or superstitious turn of mind saw the Queen’s illness as having been foretold by the spate of omens which had so radically transformed the appearance of the heavens. And even those who had no time for the supernatural were affected by their awareness that something very strange had happened at dawn three days previously.

The early risers who had been out of doors at the crucial time were extremely graphic in their reports. They had spoken of the initial awe-inspiring moment during which a fierce source of yellow light, like a miniature sun, had appeared at the zenith, centered on the great disk of Land. Hardly had the eye become accustomed to the cosmic intruder when multiple shells of luminance, concentric to different sources, had exploded into pulsing conflict across the dawn sky.

And then—a final incredible act in the cosmic drama—the sky had… died.

The same word—died—had been employed over and over again. It sprang spontaneously to the lips of untutored observers who had spent their lives under heavens which were extravagantly patterned with light, spilling over with astronomical jewels of every kind.

The sky had appeared to die when Land simply blinked out of existence—along with the Great Wheel and a myriad of lesser silver spirals; countless thousands of stars, the most brilliant of which had formed the constellation of the Tree; the irregular streamers of misty radiance strewn like delicate tresses among the galaxies; the comets whose glowing and tapering fans partitioned the universe; the darting meteors which had enlivened the dome of night, briefly linking star to star.

All of these had disappeared in an instant, and now the sky seemed dead—all the more so because of the cold, aloof and infinitely remote points of light which, instead of illuminating the sky, served only to emphasize its lack of light.

Toller Maraquine, supported by his crutches, was watching the sunset from the south-facing balcony of his family’s home. He had a hot drink positioned within reach on the wide stone balustrade, but it was forgotten for the time being as he saw the sky assume deeper and more somber colors. He repressed a shiver as the alienness of the darkening celestial dome made itself more and more apparent, and it was not merely the aching absence of the sister world from its ordained station directly overhead which disturbed him. He had spent a fair amount of time on the “outside” of Overland—where most of the inhabitants could not even visualize having the detailed convexity of another planet suspended above them—and had quickly become accustomed to the changed environment.

His present sense of alienation, he had to admit to himself, was caused by the stark emptiness of the night sky. Doing his utmost to be pragmatic, calm and reasonable he had tried to shrug the whole thing off. What did it matter, he had asked himself, if the irrelevant and uncaring night sky contained a billion stars or only a scattered handful? Would either condition affect the yield of a harvest by so much as a single grain?

The trouble was that the reassuring negative answer failed to provide sufficient reassurance. He had no idea of what fate had overtaken Land or Dussarra—for all he knew those worlds no longer existed anywhere—but he understood with a bleak and sterile exactitude that Overland had been, to use Steenameert’s phrase, cast out. This was an alien region of the space-time continuum. It had a heart-sinking quality to it. Somehow, within the blink of an eye, Overland had been flung into a decayed universe which had grown old and cold… old and cold… and the paramount question was posed: Could human life—individually and collectively—go on just as it had always done?

Physically, there appeared to be no obstacle to prevent the men and women of Kolcorron living out their lives in the same manner as their forebears had done since the beginnings of history. But was it possible that the drear sense of isolation, of inhabiting an outpost in the black wastes of infinity, could alter the racial outlook?

Land and Overland—sister worlds, so close that they were linked by a bridge of air—might have been designed by some cosmic Planner to coax and lure their inhabitants into becoming interplanetary travelers. And, once that critical first step had been taken, there had beckoned a universe laden with astronomical treasures—so obviously charged with the forces of life—that it would have been impossible for the adventurer to turn back. Toller’s people had been predisposed by their spatial environment to look outwards, to believe that their future lay in moving outwards into a fertile and welcoming universe—but how would they feel now? Would there ever appear a hero with sufficient vision and courage, sufficient stature, to gaze at the remote and icy stars of Overland’s bleak new sky and vow to make them his own?

Unwilling to confront abstracts any longer. Toller turned his back on the red-gold sunset and took a sip of his mulled brandy. As well as being heated, the liquor had been spiced and buttered to offset the coolness of the twilight air. He found its calorific familiarity deeply comforting as he watched his father and Bartan Drumme fuss over the telescopes which had been set up on the balcony. In his eyes the two older men had become granite pillars of intellectual fortitude and good sense in a quicksand universe, and his respect for them had been enhanced beyond measure. They were discussing a strange scientific anomaly, a quirky lesion in the fabric of the new reality, which thus far had been noticed by relatively few people.

“It is quite ironic,” Cassyll Maraquine was saying. “It would be no exaggeration to say that, taking the state factories as a whole, there are at least a gross of highly qualified engineers and technicians who are directly answerable to me. They spend much of their time peering at the most accurate measuring instruments we can devise—but none of them saw anything*.”

“Be fair,” Bartan murmured. “There is no change in the way in which circles relate to circles, and most of your—”

Cassyll shook his graying head. “No excuse, old friend! It took a humble employee of the Cardapin brewery—a cooper!—to fight his way to me through all the cursed barriers that bureaucracies insist on erecting in spite of one’s doughtiest efforts to prevent them. I have since plucked the man out of his lowly occupation and appointed him to my personal staff, where—”

“Tell me, father,” Toller cut in, his curiosity aroused. “What is this to-do concerning rings and circles and wheels and the like which perplexes you so? What can be so strange and intriguing about an ordinary circle?”

“A circle has always had certain fixed properties, just like any other geometrical figure, and now those properties have suffered a sudden change,” Cassyll said in solemn tones. “Until now, as you very well know, the circumference of a circle has been exactly equal to three times its diameter. Now, however—if you care to put the matter to the test—you will find that the ratio of circumference to diameter is slightly more than three.”

“But…” Toller tried to assimilate the idea, but his mind baulked at the task. “What does it mean?”

“It means we are a long way from home,” Drumme put in, with a twist of the lips which hinted that he had said something very profound.

“Yes, but will it make any difference to our lives?”

Cassyll snorted as he took the lens cap off a telescope. “There speaks a man who has never had to earn his crusts in commerce or industry! The re-design and re-calibration of certain classes of machinery is going to cost the state a veritable fortune. And then there will be clerical costs, and accountancy costs, and—”

“Clerical?”

“Just think of it, Toller. We have twelve fingers, so we naturally count to the base of twelve. That, coupled with the fact that the circumference of a circle used to be precisely three times the diameter, made whole areas of computation absurdly easy. From now on, however, everything in that line is going to be more difficult—and I am not talking about matters as rudimentary as a cooper having to learn to make longer straps for his barrels. Take, for example, the—”

“Tell me,” Toller said quickly, anxious to forestall one of his father’s rambling discourses, “what is the new ratio? I ought to know that much, at least.”

Cassyll glanced significantly at Bartan. “There has been a certain amount of discussion on that point. I have been too busy—what with the distressing events at the palace and so forth—to take measurements in person. Some of my staff are claiming that the new ratio is three-and-a-seventh—which, of course, is nonsense.”

“Why is it nonsense?” Bartan said with some heat.

“Because, my old friend, there has to be a natural harmony in the world of numbers. Three-and-a-seventh would work in with nothing. I have no doubt at all that when the measurements are made with proper accuracy we will find that the new ratio is amenable to…”

Toller allowed his attention to wander away from what promised to be a lengthy argument of the type from which his father and Bartan Drumme had always derived great satisfaction. He wished that Jerene was by his side, but she had gone to visit her family in the village of Divarl and was not expected back until the morrow. Tired of standing by the balustrade, he made his way to a couch, lowered himself on to it and set his crutches aside. His leg, now that the process of healing was well under way, had become stiff and capable of producing excruciating pain when subjected to any degree of stress. Simply living with such a leg, continually devising strategies to prevent it unleashing bolts of agony, was an experience which Toller found enervating and exhausting, and he was glad to lie down.

“Son, perhaps you should go off to your room and take your night’s sleep,” Cassyll Maraquine said gently, coming to stand by the couch. “The wound was more severe than you seem to think.”

“Not yet—I’d rather stay here for a while.” Toller smiled up at his father. “I seem to remember us exchanging similar words many times in the past, when I was a child. Are you about to pack me off to bed whether I like it or not?”

“You are too big for that kind of treatment. Besides, I am busy and I do not want to be plagued with calls for glasses of water.”

“And honey straws,” Bartan Drumme bantered from farther along the balcony. “Don’t forget the honey straws.”

“Honey straws!” Toller rose on one elbow. “Is that what I… ?”

“Yes, even though it might seem a strange weaning for the one they have begun to call the Godslayer,” Cassyll said to Toller. “You didn’t know that, did you? One can only guess at what kind of stories your friend Steenameert is noising abroad, but I’m told that every tavern in the realm is ringing with tales of how you flew to a land far beyond the heavens and slew a thousand gods … or demons … or a promiscuous mixture of both in order to save Overland from being swallowed by a great crystal dragon.”

Cassyll paused, looking rueful. “Now that I weigh the matter up, I suspect that the average ale-fuddled ploughman’s understanding of what happened is equal to or better than mine. Toller, all those things that were explained to you when mind addressed mind without recourse to speech… Have you no recollection at all, not even a trace, of what was meant by the term ‘space-time’? I would dearly love to know why two words which can have no logical connection came to be joined together in that particular way.”

“I am unable to help you,” Toller said with a sigh. “When Divivvidiv was speaking within my head I seemed to have a full understanding of what he meant, but the messages were written in smoke. Everything has faded. I reach for meanings, only to find emptiness. Not a true emptiness—but one which is haunted by echoes, a poignant feeling of massive doors having just closed for ever, of my being too slow and too late. I am sorry, father—I wish it were otherwise.”

“Never mind—we will make the journey unaided.” Cassyll brought a thick blanket to the couch and draped it over Toller. “The nights are colder here.”

Toller nodded and made himself comfortable, yielding to the luxurious feeling of being well cared for and of having no immediate responsibilities. His leg was throbbing warmly, and the physicians had predicted that he would henceforth walk with a limp, but that gave him even more entitlement to bask like a child in snug warmth, secure like a child beneath a blanket which—better than the stoutest armor—gave protection against all those elements of the outside world which might bring harm.

Safely cocooned, his mind misting with drowsiness, Toller tried to define his position in an unfamiliar universe. So much had been lost. The Queen was dying, unable to face or even comprehend a reality in which the planet of her birth—to which she had longed to return—no longer existed. Her dream of a single nation encompassing two worlds had been shattered in an instant. It had been a good dream, one with which Toller had instinctively sympathized, but now there would be no mile-high columns of skyships, commercially and culturally laden, plying the invisible trade lanes between Land and Overland. Instead, there would be… what?

More tired than he had realized, Toller found himself quite unable to deal with the sly and shifting enigmas of the future. He began slipping in and out of consciousness, and with each return to lucidity the sky was darker and the stars were more numerous, looking brighter than he had expected. The balcony was dark also, because his father and Bartan Drumme were using the telescopes, busily making and comparing notes.

Toller listened to the murmurous activity for an indeterminate time… dozing and drifting… half-comprehending the stray wisps of conversation that came his way… and gradually his mood began to change. He could see now that he had allowed himself, possibly through battle shock and extreme weariness, to be intimidated by the new sky, to become downcast and despondent in the face of it. He had asked if Kolcorron would ever find champions worthy of challenging that inimical black void, and at the very time of posing the question had been too blinkered by pessimism to realize that he was already in the company of such heroes.

Cassyll and Bartan were two middle-aged men whose investment in the old order of things had been much greater than his, and whose stake in a vexed future had to be correspondingly less—but had they slumped down to indulge in self-pity? No! Their reaction had been to take up their swords—swords of the mind—and at that very moment, quietly and without fanfare, they were engaged in no less an undertaking than laying the foundations of a new astronomy!

Halfway between wakefulness and sleep, Toller smiled.

His father and Bartan Drumme were speaking in low voices to avoid disturbing Toller’s rest, but whispers insinuate themselves into the quasi-realities of the drowsing mind more readily than shouts… five planets observed in the local system so far, Bartan… counting the double world as one, that is… if we have logged five in such a short time, it is only reasonable—don’t you think?—to assume that there must be others… I should rise to my feet in this very instant and take part in what is going on … it scarcely seems possible—a cream-colored planet girdled by a great ring—but perhaps I have done enough for the day… confirm your initial calculations, Cassyll… something very close to an inclination of twenty degrees, which means that Overland will have seasons from now on… Jerene will be with me in the morning, and with her help I’ll soon be able to work… the people, especially the farmers, must prepare to cope with the great changes brought about by the seasons… seasons and reasons, reasons and seasons … I have a curious premonition about that ringed planet, Bartan—it is so exceptional, so portentous in its aspect, that it must be destined to play a major role in our future affairs… Toller lapsed easily into a profound and healing sleep.

When he awoke the balcony was silent and deserted, an indication that the night was now well advanced. He found he had been covered with extra blankets which had protected him against the growing coldness of the air. The sky looked just as it had done when he first saw it. Unfamiliar constellations were poised overhead, and a tinge of nacreous light on the eastern horizon was beginning to overpaint the faintest of the meager stars.

This time Toller’s attention was caught by what appeared to be a bright double planet which had risen above the pre-dawn spray of luminance. On impulse he threw the blankets aside and struggled to his feet, lips moving silently as the wound in his leg exacted its due toll of pain. He gathered up his crutches and negotiated his way across the tiled floor to the nearest of the telescopes. His disability complicated the task of aiming and focusing the instrument, but within a few seconds he was gazing into the eyepiece.

And there, suspended before him in velvety blackness, was a shimmering world accompanied by a single huge moon. The larger component of the binary was bluish in color, perhaps a signal that it had an abundance of water, and as his eyes drank in the radiant spectacle Toller felt a touch of the uncanny, a stealthy coolness spreading down his spine.

“You may be right about the ringed world, father,” he whispered. “But—somehow—I wonder…”