Chapter VI: Part 6

The known order crumbled under the touch into something that was strange. But where sight itself would not suffice, it was possible to touch reality, to soak it into the skin, like understanding which cometh slowly to the growing mind. But what was understanding? Parts of it were always left out and she could venture toward it only a little way.

She twisted the head on the bench. The silence was unchanging. (What was silence?) Other heads on the bench didn't move; they weren't supposed to. Once they had been attached to clumsy machines and could move about with a stiff degree of freedom. They couldn't now, though they could twist the light perceptors in whichever direction suited them.

But they didn't know where to look.

She herself couldn't see the thing that was approaching. It was because her eyes were imperfect. Lenses were pliable and nerve endings were huge things, too gross to catch the instant infinitesimal signals. Or perhaps it was permeability--force bounced on distant impenetrability and bounded back to and through her senses.

She'd have to align the heads to help them help her, string them together for what reinforcement they offered each other. And still they wouldn't see because what they depended on for seeing was too slow. By itself the hookup wouldn't correct their sight.

But nearby was a fast mind though a lazy one. It liked routine once the meaning of it was made clear. And it worked with instantaneity. Blind itself it could fingertip touch the incredible impulses and interpret what it felt for those who had eyes. It would join with her, reluctantly but surely if she made it interesting, a game at which it could always win. And winning wouldn't be difficult for it, not against these nine circuit bound minds, even if it was true that they did augment one another. Singly there were stupid and even added they were not much better. Their virtue was that they were electronic.

(Alone) Were there intangible machines? Sometimes she thought there might be. People twisted their mouth and (not because they were smiling) to indicate that they too understood. She could touch the air coming out but the impulses had no meaning. It was not like vibrations machines set up, harmonics that told of the unseen structure. There was nothing mechanical that could be concealed from harmonics--there were no hard and fast secrets. But what came out of mouths was senseless. It told nothing, or if it did have meaning her hands and her skin were unable to relay the interpretation further. (People were soft machines and they did not ring true. It was difficult to understand.)

Her hands were usually quite capable. (Now) she wove wires so fine that only occasional light was caught and brilliantly reflected. Each strand led somewhere. She removed panels from the robots' heads and grouped them closer. They were beginning to shake off their incomplete individuality. They were no longer separate mechanisms, each of which could only grope for a small fragment of reality. They were merging, becoming larger and stronger. There was more to be done to them but she couldn't do it.

As light as her touch was it was too inaccurate for what must follow. There were objects smaller than her eye could see, movements finer than her muscles could control. She summoned a repair machine whose microsenses were adequate to begin with. She would like to have the one she repaired some time ago (actually it was quite smart) but it had disappeared and she didn't know where to find it. However this one would do.

It was set merely to repair what was already built, but what she wanted was not yet made. She changed the instructions; they were not to her liking anyway.

She delved into the machine and set the problem. The statement of it was complex and she wasn't sure how much data the robot aide would need. When she finished it stood there thrumming. It didn't move.

She waited but nothing happened. The robot, whose senses were far finer than her own, remained frozen and baffled. Impatiently she restated the problem, rephrased it so that it could reach every part of the circuit almost instantly. Where it was complex she simplified, reducing it at last to an order the robot could act on. It began to work, slowly at first.

It copied exactly a circuit she had made previously. After she approved it started another, like the first but much smaller, attaching it in series. Satisfied it was obeying instructions, she left it. It would continue to make those circuits, each one progressively smaller, the final one delicate enough to contact the gravity computer.

Meanwhile there was her own work. It wouldn't suffice that the geepees be linked with the gravity computer. They would then see what she had discovered long ago--but it was people who had to be shown. Their eyes were even less sensitive than hers.

Fortunately this was the easiest part. She went to the screen and began to alter it. It could be made to scan what the gravity computer passed on to the geepee heads. A row of dominos, each of which would topple if the first were struck, and the screen was the last of the series.

"Hello," said a voice. "So this is where you always are. What a dreary place to work."

She didn't hear the voice. She felt the footsteps and the air brushing against her skin. She turned around, letting her hands continue, deft and sure. She didn't need to see what she was doing. The smile was involuntary.

He leaned against the wall, watching her. It was embarrassing the way she gazed back. He wished she could say something but then he'd always wished it. He'd had a thesis once, hadn't he? that for mechanics deafness wasn't a handicap considering how noisy machines were. A deaf person could withstand a concentration of sound the average man would find intolerable. And there was no need for such a person to talk since there was no one who could hear.

The connections in her hands grew swiftly. She felt that she could work better while he was near. Why was this?

"What do you respond to?" he said gruffly. "Diagrams, blue-prints? If so I'll have to learn to draw the damnedest things." He laughed uncertainly. "Come on, help me a little bit. I've got some ideas that might help you break out of your shell if you'd try to respond."

He fixed things too, warm soft mechanisms. She didn't know but she thought it was a higher skill than hers. He was not as adept as she was, though he could learn to be. There was so much more he could do if he would realize. His mouth was a handicap. He moved it often when he should be thinking.

"Listen, robot face, I left a career for you. Do you think they wouldn't take me back? The Medicouncil wouldn't like it but I'd have been a popular hero. Sometimes they want their heroes to fail. Besides from their viewpoint it was the best possible solution. Now they don't have to think of people like you out on that god-forsaken asteroid. You're off their conscience and they don't have to have bad dreams about you."

She smiled again and it was infuriating. What he said or did had no effect. "At least show that you recognize me. Stop what you're doing. It can't be important."

He drew her to him roughly and the work fell from her hands. The connections had been done minutes before and she'd continued to hold them because she didn't want to move away from him. She was willing to let him look at her closely if he wanted. It was surprising how much he wanted to.

Later he held her away from him. "I take it back," he said softly. "You're not a robot face. There's no point of resemblance to a machine. And look, you've even discovered that you've got more than one expression."

The robot aide that had been laboring on whirred inaudibly and clacked its extensibles. It rolled away from the work bench, brushing lightly against the doctor as it did so.

Cameron glanced down blankly, not actually seeing it. "What do I do now?" he said with unexpected gloominess. "You're a child. You're as old as Jeriann, maybe as old as I am, but in this you're hardly more than a child." What was consent and how would he know when he had it? Well, no, that was not the problem--he knew, but would she? What _could_ he explain to her? He put his arms around her and gazed thoughtfully over her head at the odds and ends of machinery she had been stringing together. The screen flickered and sprang into illumination.

He glared at it for interrupting his thoughts. It seemed to him he had just discovered something very significant and if he'd had a few more minutes he'd have been able to say it in a way he'd never forget. But there was a shape on the screen and he couldn't ignore it. The image wavered in and out of focus, growing clearer as the machine learned to hold it steady.

It was a ship.

A ship. He dropped his hands. "Don't give up on me. I'm not going to run out on you." Was it his imagination that the ship was growing larger? His throat was dry and tight. The last thing he wanted to see was a ship.

"I don't know what we can do about this, Nona, but come on. We'll see."

She leaned against the wall, showing no inclination to follow. She seemed to be disturbed but he would guess it was not about the same thing he was. "Come on," he said. "We've got to tell the others."

And still she didn't move. "I can't stay here," he muttered and kissed her. He started walking away fast so he'd be able to leave.

She could tell that he was upset by the unexpected appearance of the ship on the scanner. Perhaps he thought they were alone in space, that emptiness was lonely. He ought to have known better. She had seen it long ago, and guessed what it meant. It would have to be overcome.

What she couldn't understand was what happened to her when he touched her. Others had tried to come close and either she minded or was indifferent and they went away. But this was surely outside of her experience. She thought it meant something to touch a machine and to know therefrom what it was. But to come in contact with him and to learn all at once what he was--yes and herself too.... The warm soft mechanism that she was behaved strangely--never the same way twice.

And now she was becoming confused--because she would always feel this when he was near--and she didn't mind.

She closed her eyes and could see him more clearly. (What was choice?)

* * * * *

Docchi walked on, carefully skirting one of the columns that supported the dome. Once it had seemed huge and unshakable and now it was remarkably slender. The dome itself was hardly adequate to keep the darkness overhead from descending. This was the dull side of their rotation; they were looking back at the way they'd come. The stars were gray and faint. "Where did you see it?" he asked after a long silence.

"In the place Jordan described. It's deep underground but I believe it's near one of the piles. I felt the wall and it was warm."

"Somewhere below the gravity computer," said Docchi. "Why there, I don't know, but Nona may have had a reason. What I want to know is: how do you account for the ship?"

"What?" said Cameron. "Oh, I leave that to you and Jordan. I can't explain it."

Docchi guessed why the doctor was less concerned than he tried to be. Let him live with his exaltation for a while. It might not last. "Part of it's easy, how the ship came to be there."

"It isn't to me," said Cameron. "We haven't been gone long, not much more than a month."

"Six weeks to be exact. Six weeks on our calendar."

"I see, relative time. I heard we were approaching the speed of light but I didn't think we were close enough to make any difference." He glanced at his watch as if it held secrets he couldn't fathom. "How long have we actually been gone, Earth time?"

"I don't know. We haven't any figures on our acceleration rate nor our present speed."

"What are you planning to do? We can't just sit here and let them overtake us."

"I don't know. We're not helpless." Docchi's plans were vague. There was much that had to be determined before he could decide on anything. "You're certain it's one of ours? It's not an alien ship?"

The idea hadn't occurred to Cameron. He turned the image around in his mind before he answered. "I'm not familiar with ship classifications, but it's ours unless these aliens use the English language. There was a name on it. I could read part. It ended in -_tory_."

"The Victory class," said Docchi. "The biggest thing built. At one time it was intended for interstellar service, before the gravity drive fizzled."

"That's how they were able to do it," said Cameron. "I've been wondering how they were able to send a ship after us so soon, even allowing for the fact that we've been gone longer than it seems to us, maybe two or three months instead of six weeks."

He had nothing definite to go on but in Docchi's opinion the time was closer to half a year. "Right. Since the ships were already there rusting in the spaceport all they had to do was clean them up and add an information unit to the drive. They may have started work on it while we were in the solar system, when they were still looking for Nona."

The special irony was that our own discoveries were being used against them. Nona's first, the resurrected drive, and then his own not negligible contribution. Docchi himself had told them. His thoughtless remark that the drive would function without Nona had been relayed back to Earth. Vogel the engineer had probably picked it up and sent the information on. Someone would have chanced on the idea anyway, but he had given them weeks. And a week was of incalculable importance--planets could be won or lost.

Cameron was silent as they walked on. "There's a ship but we don't know where. Let's not worry until we find where it's going."

Docchi didn't answer. That the scanner Nona had built was capable of detecting a ship between the stars indicated a tremendous range--old style. But distances had shrunk lately. There was a ship behind them and it wasn't far. Neither was it on a pleasure jaunt.

At the hospital steps they conferred briefly and then separated, Cameron leaving to find Jeriann. Docchi went into his office and tried unsuccessfully to locate Jordan.

Ultimately he gave it up. Jordan had his own ideas of what was important and lately had been mysteriously concerned with some undertaking he refused to disclose. He had even tried to conceal that there was something he was working on. Docchi switched his efforts and finally contacted Webber. At a time like this they needed what support they could get. Webber was not a substitute for Jordan but he'd do. The person he'd most have liked to have along was Anti but she couldn't leave the prison, her tank. They missed her. They always would as long as she was confined.

Docchi sat down while he waited for Webber. He needed the rest. He had been hoping that the pursuit would not begin as soon as it had. They would find some way to throw off the ship behind them--but it was not the biggest threat.

* * * * *

"Do you suppose she hid here when the guards were looking for her?" said Webber.

"Doesn't seem likely," said Docchi, trying to keep up. The other's composite body gave him strength he wasn't aware of. Docchi couldn't match the effortless stride, the endurance. "Guards searched here too."

They had, but how thoroughly? The asteroid had once been a planet, a world with an atmosphere, oceans, lakes, streams. Water had seeped into the ground, creating imperceptible weaknesses in the crust. And long ago when the catastrophe came it had struck suddenly. The planet had been split with such violence that whole chunks had been hurled apart, each one intact except that the shock had enlarged on the work begun by water. Faults became underground caverns, tortuous caverns in the rock that intersected the man-made tunnel.

No matter what their orders were, the guards wouldn't have been anxious to explore too far. Under the stress of unusual gravity fissures could close again on the unwary--it was possible they'd made only a token search here.

"If we come here often there ought to be an easier way than this," said Webber as they went along.

Docchi had been thinking of it. He would be able to tell when he saw it whether it would be possible to move the scanner. If so a good place might be in gravity center. As nearly as he could tell it was almost directly overhead.

Voices sprang out of the tunnel as they neared the destination. "Don't know what's keeping them," grumbled Jordan. "Maybe we ought not to wait."

"He was looking for you," said Jeriann, her voice carrying in the stillness of the underground. "He said it was urgent for you to be here."

"A few minutes won't hurt," said Cameron. "Lucky we found you when we did or you'd have missed it."

"What do you mean, lucky?" growled Jordan. "I was on my way here when you yelled."

"Have you seen it in operation?" said Jeriann. "Cameron said you found the place."

"If I had I'd have told you. The scanner wasn't finished last time I was here. I figured Nona would let us know when she was ready."

The tunnel turned sharply and though they could hear Jordan's voice the words were indistinct. It was a quirk of acoustics because, as they travelled on, utter silence descended. They could hear nothing at all until the tunnel curved again and they entered the cavern.

He glanced around once before they were noticed. The nine geepee heads Cameron had described were almost indiscernible under the mass of circuitry that covered them. Nona had improved the scanner. He could identify some of the components but the arrangement was totally unfamiliar.

He thought he could trace the basic outline. It was a gravity device of some kind, what kind he wasn't sure. If he had thought about it previously he would have realized it practically had to be that.

"They're here," said Jeriann at his side, and he hadn't seen how she'd got there. Seconds before she'd been arguing with Jordan and now she was next to him.

Jordan looked up and Nona clipped a few connections in place. She stayed close to the doctor. "We all know what we came for so there's no need for preliminaries," said Docchi. "Cameron, can you tell Nona to start the scanner?"

"My communication is rather primitive," said Cameron with a slight smile. "However----" He had no time to say more. Nona didn't move but the scanner responded.

A shape glowed, a vague nebula, far away. It came closer and the nebula dissolved--it was a ship. There was darkness all around and yet the ship wasn't dark. The lights that streamed out of the ports couldn't account for this, there was nothing to reflect it on the hull. Radar was one explanation, a gravity radar. The impulses left the asteroid, traversed the space to the far away object and bounced back--in no-time.

"It's a military ship," said Jordan. "The biggest."

The ship rocked a little or perhaps the scanner resolved the image better. The name began to swing into sight. "Tory," repeated Webber when he was able to read it. "Victory. And victory always ends with _tory_."

"Star Victory," said Jeriann as the ship rotated and the full name grew visible. "They're premature. They haven't won yet."

"But how far away?" growled Jordan. "We ought to know the power of the screen."

The scanner wasn't calibrated and so they didn't know the distance. Later Nona might add that refinement but if she didn't there was practically no way of telling her what they wanted. Now there was merely a three quarter view, the nose of the ship and enough to make out that the rockets weren't flaring. Gravity drive of course. But they knew that.

"We've seen it," said Webber flatly. "Now what?"

"We're not going to let them take us," said Jeriann. "Docchi will think of something."

Her confidence wasn't warranted. Actually he'd done little to bring them this far. Intellectual force perhaps. He had turned discontent into something positive--and joint action had so far overcome the obstacles. But it was Nona who had given them the power to make the action worthwhile. And she was limited too--there would come an end to the seemingly endless flow of invention. There were circumstances against which no ingenuity could prevail.

At the present they needed more to go on. They knew there was a ship behind them. The relationship had to be defined. Space was vast and they might be able to elude the pursuer. They had to find out where the ship was.

They looked at Nona. She was standing close to Cameron, very close. She seemed to know what was expected of her, a mass rapport. She touched the doctor wonderingly as he smiled down at her and then she went to the scanner, working on it, changing the connections with negligent skill.

The ship wavered as she worked. It disappeared for seconds and when it came back it was rapidly approaching the viewing surface of the scanner. Closer--they touched the hull--and then they were inside, gazing out of a screen.

Jordan frowned. "They've duplicated the drive--have they duplicated her scanner?"

"I don't think so," said Docchi. "They have telescreens of short range. But there's no reason why two completely different systems can't be spliced together."

They were looking at an empty room and no one came in. Impatiently Nona touched the connections and the scene dissolved, shifted and blurred and when it cleared they were elsewhere, another screen, a different room. A broadshouldered man hunched over a desk, muttering and scratching his scalp. He signed his name several times; one of the sheets he crumpled and discarded, first tearing out his signature. The rest of the documents he dispatched in a slot.

When he turned around they saw it was General Judd.

He reached hastily for the switch but withdrew his hand before it got there. "Well, the orphans have come back, hand in hand." He smirked with calm deliberation. "Or should I say arm in arm, Cameron?"

Docchi noticed it if no one else did. The general hadn't called Cameron a doctor. As far as the Medicouncil was concerned Cameron probably no longer was. It was the final proof, if Docchi had needed it; of which side Cameron was on.

"We have a whole new alignment," continued the general. "Cameron with Nona, and our rebellious engineer with Jeriann."

Docchi's face began to glitter but he caught the light as it surged through his veins, willing it to stop before it showed in his skin. "We haven't come back, General. We didn't think it would hurt to talk, though, if you don't mind."

"I never mind a little chat, Docchi. Always willing to hear what the other fellow has to say--as long as he comes to the point."

The general thought his position was strong enough that he could be as insulting as he wanted. He was very nearly right. "First we'd like to know what you want."

"Our terms haven't changed a bit. Turn around and go back." Judd smiled broadly, an official wolfish expression. "We don't insist you return to the same orbit. In fact it might be better if you moved the asteroid closer to Earth."

Where the Medicouncil could keep a perpetual watch. And where they would swing through the heavens forever in sight of Earth but never a part of it. "Naturally we don't accept," said Docchi. "However we don't reject negotiations completely. There are some of us who might go back for one reason or another--homesickness mostly. If you're willing we can make arrangements to transfer them to your ship."

"Ah, trouble," said the general gravely, trying to conceal his delight. "And I think I know where the trouble is. We came fully prepared for every emergency that we--or you--might meet. The Medicouncil is very thorough."

The picture of Maureen crouched in a darkened room, whimpering through clenched teeth that she didn't want ever to see anyone. The tautness as one set of muscles extended her hand toward the door and another set tore it away. And there were other images, vague now, but in time they could become threatening.

The Medicouncil _had_ foreseen this; there were biologicals on the ship to cure Maureen. Docchi's face twitched and he hoped the general didn't notice. "I haven't checked to see how many are willing to go with you. I will, if it's satisfactory."

"Don't bother," said the general. "In case you weren't listening, I didn't say that we're a cozy little group of altruists, just anxious as hell to take over your responsibilities. The biologicals are here. You'll get them when we land a crew to make sure you do go back. My orders are very plain. We want all of you--or none."

"You know what we'll say," said Docchi. "None of us, of course." The letdown was less than he expected. He'd half known the conditions; it was consistent with all the attitudes toward accidentals--once human but now not quite. It was a typical way to ease their conscience--load the ship with every medical supply--and then refuse those in need unless they all came back. "We're getting along quite nicely without your help," he continued, and if it was less true than he liked, it was more so than the general realized. "One thing, Judd, don't try to land _without_ our consent."

"So you still think we're stupid," said the general affably, at ease in the situation. _He didn't expect us to surrender_, thought Docchi. _Then why had he asked?_ "We won't attempt to land until you cooperate. You will. Sooner or later you will."

"I hardly think so. We decided that a long time ago."

The general shrugged. "Suit yourself. Remember we're not vindictive, we're not trying to punish you. We do insist that you're sick and helpless. You'll have to come back and be placed under competent medical care." He glanced amusedly at Cameron.

"You don't act as if we're helpless," said Jeriann.

"Dangerously sick," said the general. "Have you ever heard of hysteria, in which the patient must be protected against himself--and he may hurt others?" He was fingering a chart on the desk, had been all the while he was talking. He examined it briefly and then looked up. "What goes on here? How can you talk across this distance?"

"It took you a long time to realize it, General. We're _not_ right next to you." Again it was Docchi's bad habit to talk too much but there was a reason for it and this time he wasn't telling the general anything he wouldn't figure out for himself.

The general's jaw hardened and he pawed futilely at the switch. "How do we do it?" said Docchi. "It's our secret." But the general didn't reply and he wouldn't reveal the information Docchi wanted. Nona finally broke the connection at her end.

Webber breathed noisily as the image faded. He stamped the mechanical foot, echoes rolling through the cavern. "Will somebody tell me why the general's so polite? Why won't he land unless we ask him to?"

"It's not consideration," said Docchi. "The asteroid's much larger than his ship, and nearly as fast. Did you ever try to land on a stationary port?"

Webber looked abashed. "I keep forgetting we're moving."

"Sure. Aside from the fact we could smash his ship and it wouldn't inconvenience us unless it hit the dome, not a very large part of the total surface, what else can he do? Come close and try to send out men in space suits? We veer off and leave them stranded until he picks them up. If he wants to we'll play tag half way across the galaxy with him."

"So he can't land," said Webber, gaining assurance. "Why didn't I think of the reasons?"

"Because one man can't figure out everything," said Jeriann. "If there was just Nona we'd still be back in the solar system. Or Docchi by himself, or Jordan, or Anti. Together we get the answers."

So far--but it might not always hold true. Docchi was worried by the general's lack of concern. He hadn't expected to contact the accidentals but when they'd got in touch with him he wasn't startled. He knew what to do because he had been told. He wasn't a fast thinker who could improvise, his specialty was carrying out a plan.

But if Judd was not at first disconcerted he'd made up for it when he became aware they weren't using conventional communication. Docchi would have given a lot to see the chart the general had. He'd tried to provoke the officer but the ruse hadn't been effective. The general knew the distance between the ship and the asteroid, but he hadn't revealed it.

Webber walked noisily to the scanner, peering into the circuits. "The general's communication experts will be working overtime for a while," he remarked.

"For the rest of the voyage. They'll know the scanner's a gravity device but that won't help them." It was another count against them. Communication at practically unlimited range was not a prize easily given up.

But what they really wanted was Nona. Indirectly she'd given them back the gravity drive, and now this. And they would think, rightly, that there was more where these inventions came from.

He wished Anti were here to advise them. Docchi looked around to ask Jordan about her but he was already gone. Cameron was standing quietly in a corner with Nona, talking to her in a low voice while she smiled and smiled. Webber was still looking into the scanner.

Only Jeriann was waiting for him. Now that the general had mentioned it, Docchi wondered if she really was waiting for him--and for how long.

12

Anti looked up at the dome. It was all she could see with comfort. Stars changed less than she would have believed. The patterns were substantially the same as on Earth. Brightness varied with rotation, that was the main difference. Now those overhead were brilliant and that meant she was facing the direction they were travelling. She wondered which was Alpha and which Proxima Centauri. She never had been able to recognize them.

She extended one arm, splashing acid. Lately there were times she had to keep moving if she didn't want to freeze. It wasn't pleasant but she could endure it for the sake of walking some day. There were degrees of helplessness and no one else, even here, was completely immobilized, confined completely to a specialized environment. She had forgotten much of the past and couldn't see far into the future. Perhaps it wasn't worth looking into.

"Quiet, you'll scare the fish."

She paddled around until she could see Jordan. "If you find fish who can live in this, throw them in. I'll welcome any kind of company."

"Maybe Cameron can mutate fish to stand the cold," suggested Jordan. "Or if that fails he can always transfer the fungus to them."

"I don't wish it on anything, even a fish."

"It wouldn't hurt. Besides, it might make them immortal."

"Thanks. I like fish, but not as playmates. They're better on a plate."

"Barbaric," said Jordan. "I prefer scientific food, synthetics. Wholly removed from the taint of the living creature. Something that didn't die in quick agony so that you could smack your lips. Germ free, compounded of balanced elements."

"Came from nature myself," said Anti. "Uncivilized though it is, I prefer nutrition from the same source."

"You're confusing yourself," commented Jordan. "Synthetics contain everything necessary for life. When was the last time Jeriann ate?"

"Longer than she cares to remember. Besides you're quibbling. She gets concentrates, which is not the same as synthetics."

"A minor point," conceded Jordan, coming closer. "However I didn't intend to talk about food."

"I don't care what it is as long as you talk. I need conversation too."

"There's Nona," began Jordan.

"Exceptions, exceptions. What do I care except that I get tired of staring up at nothing? Sometimes I wish they'd planted the tank at the entrance to the hospital. People'd have to stop and talk."

"For a while I was thinking of that."

"No you don't," said Anti. "There are useful things that have to be done."

"I abandoned the idea when I considered what your viewpoint would be. But we did move the tank once."

"Never again. Anyway geepees are scarce and who else could do it?"

"I could," said Jordan. He added quickly: "It's a joke." He swung along the tank until he was as close as he could get without toppling in. "Instead of something you'd forget once I left, I brought a gift."

"What is it? I can't see from this angle."

"It's a belt."

"You doll. It's beautiful."

"No it's not--merely wonderful."

"I know. Save it for me, till later. It will go swoosh if acid touches it."

"It positively will not react. I took care of that. There are some metals that are just about inert. It wasn't easy to cover it but I did."

"You made it for me. You shouldn't have."

Jordan puzzled himself with it. He hadn't much to do with it. At the most he'd made a protective covering for it. Nona was solely responsible for the way it functioned. And there was no doubt whom she intended it for; that was why he hadn't hesitated taking it. And yet, why hadn't she turned it over to Anti? It was working perfectly the first time he saw it.

The logical answer was that it wasn't in operating condition, that she couldn't make it work and had laid it aside for further inspiration. But this led to nonsensical conclusions involving the repair robot. He refused to accept the conclusions. "Let's say I didn't make it entirely. I added to what was existing." He swung the belt out to her.

"Are you sure it will fit? I'm quite big."

"Originally it wouldn't. I had to make it longer."

Anti examined the belt at length. "Hammered link effect. Primitive but striking."

Jordan blushed. "I thought it was a pretty smooth job. I had to do it by hand."

"It is," exclaimed Anti. "You have a strong unconscious sense of design." With trepidation she lowered it in the acid and when nothing happened she fastened it. "There," she said in triumph. "The first piece of jewelry in years. I feel like a new woman."

"You are, Anti. Believe me, you are."

She laughed giddily. "It's silly, but I do believe it. It's amazing what jewelry will do for a woman."

"It's not exactly jewelry." Jordan tried to think of how to explain it. Anti was unscientific, or better--prescientific. "Think of it as a complicated machine that's remotely connected to your mind."

"My mind? Am I supposed to be telepathic now? Is that what it is? Can I talk with anyone, no matter at what distance they are?"

"No, you're not telepathic except well maybe in a certain way."

Jordan was silent, trying to sort the explanation. It never occurred to her that machines operated at different levels, many of them simultaneously, electrical or electromagnetic, others more subtle. Jordan gave up. "Think of what you'd most like to do."

"It's no use, Jordan. I won't torment myself. I know how long it's going to take."

He should have kept it and demonstrated. That would have convinced her. He would never forget the first time he had worn it--and nearly frightened himself off the ceiling. He cast about for other ways but nothing else was necessary. Anti was thinking of what she'd forbidden herself to contemplate.

"There," said Jordan, his voice rough with pride. "I knew you'd get the hang of it."

"Why didn't you say so?" said Anti. "The gravity computer. My mind and _that_ mind."

For a prescientific person she'd grasped the essentials quickly. "Jordan, maybe you should keep it," she called. "You can use it as well as I can."

"I don't need it," he said. "Nobody's heard me complaining. And you can't, or couldn't move." He gazed at her in alarm. "Come on down," he shouted. "You can't catch the stars by yourself."

"You think I can't?" said Anti. "I'll come closer to it than anyone who ever lived."

Nevertheless she obeyed his instructions, sinking slowly until her feet touched the ground. The grass crackled and smouldered, though it was green, bursting into flame where she walked as the acid dripped down. And it was walking, though her legs carried only a fraction of her real weight. The rest of the weight was destroyed for her convenience by the gravity computer as it responded continually and repeatedly to her unspoken commands.

"The doctor will be surprised," muttered Jordan.

"Not as much as I am," said Anti. "I can fly if I want, but do you know, I'd rather walk."

* * * * *

Docchi teetered on the chair. Not much; if he fell he had no way of stopping himself, and there was the devil's own time getting up. "I'm speechless," he said.

"So was Cameron," said Anti.

"I imagine. He didn't expect his prognosis to be disproved so soon." Docchi righted the chair. "This is the thing Jordan's been working on."

"He said he didn't have much to do with it. He would." Anti moved warily. The acid soaked robe had stopped dripping but there was enough left to react with subdued violence if she came into contact with the wrong substance. "The best is I'm already stronger--using my muscles more. I don't have an exact way of knowing since there aren't gadgets and dials in my mind but it seems to me I can support a lot more of my weight. Maybe I can walk unaided at quarter gravity."

Docchi let the calls, of which there were several, go unattended. It was the first big personal victory for any accidental and it was heartening amidst the general uncertainties. "Fine, fine. But how long can you continue? Won't you revert?"

"Cameron says I won't. He made several tests which indicate the virulence of the fungus. He says the body conquers."

And for her it had. The biological mechanism had reached the point of strength wherein it could contain the attenuated invasion with little outside help. After some indefinite period the menace would be reduced, finally vanquished, utterly and forever. The body conquered.

"Cameron says it will be enough to sleep in the tank. I don't mind, though I won't get much sleep. I feel the cold now, though not as much as anyone else would.

"For the rest I'll increase the weight on my legs as much as I can. It's almost automatic; no buttons to push except mentally. If I get tired I think myself lighter."

The mechanism couldn't be improved on. It was a portable null gravity field that fit neatly around her and touched nothing else. And if Anti had reported Jordan's views correctly, it was impossible to build another like it because they didn't have the parts. It was an excellent device but not of great importance except to Anti. Jordan could use one too and so could a number of others though they wouldn't get it. It replaced legs and was more efficient in all respects save appearance.

There was nothing, however, that was a substitute for hands.

"Now that you're up and moving, what do you want to do?" he said. "You must be anxious to get busy."

"It's a funny thing but I'm not," she said. "It sounds queer but I want to look around. I haven't seen anything except what I could glimpse from the tank."

Docchi rocked back; he'd always thought of her as knowing more about the asteroid than anyone else. In a personal sense she did, having been there longer than anyone he could name. It was said she may even have been responsible for the building of the asteroid, so they'd have some place to put her. It might be true. "Go ahead. Jordan will show you around. You don't have to be in a hurry to take a job."

Anti rose a few inches to show that she could. "First I want to visit the laboratory Nona has. I want to see the ship that's after us. I know they haven't given up just because they can't land."

He felt so too though he hadn't figured out what they could do. "Let me know if anything occurs to you."

When she left, walking by preference, the responsibilities came back, Maureen and other deficients with various degrees of disability, the ship with undetermined resources behind them, stars and planets ahead of them, unknown or vaguely guessed at, mysterious. They'd reach their goal but all of the accidentals might not survive.

Anti alone was better off but there were others who were not. It was depressing at times, so much freedom and so little to show for it. Docchi went back to work but the image of the ship kept rising up out of the countless important and unimportant decisions he had to make. What did they plan to do?

Late the following day Anti returned. She marched in determinedly and sat down. It was no longer remarkable that a few chairs would fit her. She'd never be mistaken for someone else, but her bulk had diminished considerably and her weight was whatever she wanted. That the chair didn't collapse in a soggy mass or burst into flame was an indication that Jordan had found a way to neutralize the acid that clung to her without reducing the medical effectiveness. "Nice place we have," she remarked. "Didn't realize it was so pretty."

"There are others who disagree."

"They don't really see it. The only thing I don't like is the ship."

"Neither do I. What do you think?"

"Well----" Anti hesitated. "What did it look like to you?"

He described it as he remembered, answering the questions with which she kept interrupting. After he finished she was silent, nodding to herself as if he wasn't there. "You know what I think," she said. "You saw it three quarters, from the front. When I looked it was flatter. They're gaining."

Docchi glanced out the window. "Anti, they can't land here unless we let them--and we won't. What else can they do?"

"It's a military ship. They've got the force to stop us."

"Not without shattering the dome, or blowing the place apart. And they won't. You don't cure a sick person by killing him, and for their own peace of mind they've convinced themselves that we're sick."

"So we're safe there," commented Anti dubiously. "They figured at first they'd sneak up and land before we knew it. The scanner squashed that. But they had other plans from the very beginning, what they'd do if we discovered them in time." She nodded and nodded. "Well, if it was me and I couldn't stop somebody, I'd try to get where they're going before they did. It ties right in, doesn't it? They don't want us to contact aliens. All they have to do is get there first."

Of course. It was very plain, but anxiety had prevented his seeing it. Fearfulness was often next door to stupidity. Whoever got there first controlled the situation even more than Anti realized. He began to suspect the depth of preparation that was against them, the intense fury and careful planning they had to overcome. Mankind was capable of more hatred for its own kind than it ever expended against outsiders. Methodically Docchi began kicking open switches.

"You're right, Anti," he said. "But I think there are ways to see that they don't get there first." He was lying blithely, perhaps as much because he didn't want to face what he foresaw. "If those don't work, and there's a chance they won't, we have an unexpected ally."

"Who?"

"Not who, what. Distance." It was a most preposterous untruth. "If we don't get there in time we'll let them have both of the Centauris. We'll go on to the next star."

"You can always think of some way out," said Anti as tiny lights began to flash on the panel. The flickering confusion there matched his emotions.

"Jordan?" he said urgently when the latter appeared on the screen. And after that there was Webber and anyone else who knew something about electronics or could be taught with a minimum of instruction. They were willing to drive themselves to exhaustion but there was no substitute for technical superiority.

"Now don't worry," said Anti after he'd finished summoning everyone who could help. "I have a feeling they can't stop us no matter what they do."

"That so?" he said. "Which toe tells you that, or is it an ache in your bones? Think it will rain tomorrow?"

"Don't laugh," said Anti, rising and leaving with him as he hurried out. "I have confidence in what we're able to do together."

It was a good thing someone did.

* * * * *

"Maureen's getting worse," said Jeriann. "I need more power." There was a tiny bead of sweat on her temple, the first Docchi had seen since ordinarily she didn't perspire.

"How much worse? I'd like to see her."

Jeriann made a final adjustment on the machine but didn't straighten up immediately as if it disturbed her to contemplate what went on in her own mind. She snapped the synthesizer on and turned around, brushing the hair away from her eyes. "Do you think your diagnosis is better than Cameron's?"

"I wasn't doubting his ability."

"You'll have to take our word for it. I can see her because I'm a woman and she hardly reacts to me. Cameron can visit her because she's been conditioned to accept him. Even so he has to take precautions. The hypnotics control only the surface of her mind."

"What precautions?"

"Sprays that plasticize his skin. By now her senses are far keener than ours. The doctor has a cosmetic technician recreate his face, something impersonal with which she had no association."

"I'll take your word for it. I don't want to see her under those conditions. But you didn't answer my question: how much worse?"

The smock was clearly a laboratory garment to protect the wearer from chemical irritation and the chemicals from human contamination. It was only incidental there was a certain light in which it was almost transparent. Jeriann became aware she was standing in such a light and swished the smock angrily around her and moved out of the illumination. "I can tell you this: neither Cameron nor I will be responsible for keeping her alive longer than three weeks, _unless I get that power_."

"Is this what Cameron said?"

"It's my own idea. I know more about this machine than he does. But you can ask him. He'll back me up."

Docchi didn't doubt her but there was more to think of than the fate of one individual. "You're just guessing, aren't you? There's a chance, if you experiment wildly enough, you'll find the right compounds."

"Please," said Jeriann. "It will only be for a few weeks. Less than that if it works the way I think it will."

"What about the other deficients? They need biologicals too."

"They can wait and Maureen can't."

Reluctantly he gave consent. "Then you can have all the power you need, for the next few days anyway. After that we'll see."

"You're a dear." Jeriann walked through the lab, inspecting it critically from every angle. "Of course I'll need help. Part of the trouble is that we can't get enough power to the machine, we're not using it to the full capacity. With larger power connections we'll be able to turn out stuff we haven't touched on before."

He shook his head. "That wasn't in the bargain. You can have all the power the existing lines will take. But we can't spare men to install new lines. The technicians we have are busy elsewhere."

"It's such a little thing," she coaxed. "The machine's not a sledge hammer that smashes molecules apart and then crushes them into a new chemical alignment. It's a keen instrument, an ultramicrosize knife that slits delicately here and there and then slides the separated atoms together to form a different molecule."

"I'm not arguing about power," he said adamantly. "I said you can have it and you can. Trained men you can't. I'll see if I can spare them after what they're working on is finished."

She stopped as if she'd stumbled into a taut wire she hadn't noticed. She looked at him thoughtfully and strolled back to the synthesizer, under the light that shone down and provocatively through the smock. She wore other clothing but that too seemed almost to vanish. "For me, won't you? Just a few men for a few days. It means a lot to Maureen."

"I can't let you have technicians now," he said obstinately.

She glanced at him curiously, sauntering closer as if to get a better look. "I forgot. Cameron has Nona, hasn't he? They're going to get married as soon as he can figure out a simple ceremony. And now you hate women, don't you? That's why you won't give Maureen the same chance you'd give a man."

He rocked back under the cold hatred. He had no idea she was capable of such venom. "You're reading into my emotions something that was never there. I'm glad Nona found someone she can respond to. But why are you so concerned with Maureen? You never liked her."

"What rationalization," she said bitterly. "It makes no difference what I thought about her. She's going to die if I don't help her, and I will. I'd expect the same from anyone else."

"Jeriann," he said but she was gone, tearing the smock off and thrusting it on a hook, leaving him alone beside a machine that alternately hummed and purred in oily accents. He stared at it with complete lack of interest as the cycle changed. The synthesizer grunted with satisfied pride and three drops of a colorless fluid were discharged into a retort.

If there was no other way they could save Maureen by contacting the expedition behind them. They had the supplies Jeriann was trying vainly to duplicate. But that was surrender and the only alternative was to go ahead as planned.

Docchi left the laboratory, taking the long way around to avoid the doctor's office. Cameron wouldn't put the same pressure on him that Jeriann had--no one could. Why did she have to think he was responsible?

13

The dimensions of the place were fear, panic and loneliness. It was no-time or all-time, the endless instant of survival--or less. It was light or it wasn't, the illumination of the closed mind, the intellect turned in on itself, perception curled backward while it reached for the outside world. It was a universe which neither existed nor would ever quite vanish.

And there wasn't a sound. To the distorted senses, wavering and uncertain, sounds could be masculine. "Yes?" said Maureen poutingly. "Where are you now?" But she couldn't hear what she said. So she stopped speaking.

It was forbidden.

The bloodstream left her heart and had no path but to return deviously. It travelled darkly with many branches, pounding, flushed with oxygen from the lung machines. The mind was turned inward. The body was turned inward. Life had no place to go. It was out of balance.

Her feet touched the floor and she got out of bed. The flesh was heavy. The tube in her chest whistled with exertion. There was oxygen, too much of it, but there was no substitute for the regulative substances her body didn't have. She was falling apart, pulled apart by the wild dissimilar tendencies of all her cells.

She kept on walking until she lunged against a wall. Her nose splayed to one side but her veins weren't ready to bleed. There was nothing to tell them to let out the red drops. She fell down and got up, walking on, banging against the wall.

She could never find anyone she knew. After a while she realized the person she missed most was herself.