Chapter II

There was an icy sting lancing her arm, and then a million furry brushes began rubbing in her body. In a moment Ivy was totally paralyzed.

Black shapes, dripping and lean, picked her up gently, conducted her through the low hanging trees toward another place where a black square loomed. The hands were impersonal, but never in her life had she been touched like this. She was absolutely terrified. A door was opened. She was laid upon a dark hard floor. In a moment the floor began to move and she realized through her terror that she was in a truck. But they left her alone. She lay for a long while upon the floor unable to think. She could not possibly understand this, the who or the why, because she had not dreamed about it, or ever even considered it.

She was a girl of great natural sweetness, born of strict, respected parents and a strict, respectable life. What was happening now was so far from reality that she could not believe it. She lay on the floor of the truck trying to close her eyes, but the paralysis was too great and she couldn't. The truck drove on through the raining night, bumping, grinding, carrying her inevitably toward the worst day of terror she had ever known.

* * * * *

There was no question of sabotage. The men who went up, swore Security, were as clean as the driven snow. And in his own mind Dundon agreed. It was remotely conceivable that one man might just possibly slip through the incredibly complex Security check, but this was much too thorough a job. It would require too many men in too many places.

Dundon's next step was clear. Under the president's signature he had called for the Air Force file on flying saucers. He was disgusted to find that the Air Force knew no more than it had published, which was not very much. The file did, however, reach the tentative conclusion that "further investigation might well prove fruitful." Dundon was overcome. He seized a pen and wrote on the report--in great red angry letters--the indelible words:

"You bet your sweet--"

But even further investigation, Dundon realized when he had cooled to a touchable temperature, would probably not help. You could scan the skies with telescopes, until you wore your eyeballs down to the bone, but even if you saw, what could you do? He had a grave conviction that whoever went up to the satellite would not come down. There was no way of knowing what was up there or why, and it was a little more than possible that there was a lethal something about space itself which would never let Man off the face of the Earth. Not ever, for the rest of Time.

But somebody had to go. There was nothing else to do. You could not build another satellite, or send up another fully manned rocket, not until you found out what was wrong up there. There was always the chance that the failures were purely mechanical. Maybe, maybe, whoever was sent up would get back down.

And so a man was sent. He had to be a man with a thorough knowledge of the satellite, with an alert and adaptable mind, and at the same time a man whose failure to return would be of no great loss to anyone.

Such a man was Web Hilton.

* * * * *

"Never leave your suit," Dundon said urgently, "not for a damn minute. You'll have a large supply of oxygen, enough to see you there and back. Keep your eyes open and report whatever you see. We'll have a line attached to your suit running back through the rocket and broadcasting to us. We'll be in contact with you all the way."

And then he became embarrassed, as a man will in a position where he is sending someone else into a very dirty thing, and all he can do himself is nothing. So he said good luck and that was that.

The ship lifted shortly after midnight. Web rode up encased in his suit, along with the volunteer pilot who was the rocket's only crew. He did not speak to Dundon on the way up. He could not have spoken if he'd tried. But he endured the tremendous acceleration with the patient joy of a man who is about to do some very fast living. No more classes in Trajectory for him, no more teaching an endless chain of men no younger than himself to rise up above him and go out into space. He was an impatient man, he had always been an impatient man, so he rode out into blackness with no qualms at all. But he was not a fool. The qualms began very soon. They began with the sudden end of the acceleration.

The pilot--Joe Falk--spoke over the intercom to see if he was all right. He said he was. This was the signal for Dundon, from Earth, to cut in. They spoke back and forth, not saying very much, with cold shivers running through them, while Falk maneuvered into position. From his seat below the pilot Web could see nothing but wires, tubing, and a heavy stanchion. He waited. Eventually Falk said:

"Okay Web. In orbit. She's all yours."

Web took a deep breath. Dundon was speaking in his ear.

"Now watch yourself and tell me everything you see. Open the door and let's go."

Web freed himself from his straps, floated cautiously, hand over hand, to the hatch. Falk was right behind him. He spun the hatch and opened it, went through the airlock to the outer door, stepped out into space.

In the great blazing sea in which he found himself he paused for a second, immobile. The stars were brilliant beyond belief. He had forgotten that they would be of different colors, not just dull shades as seen from Earth, and the fiery reds, the yellows, the cool blues and blazing oranges stunned him. He held tight to the airlock, absorbing it all, while Falk came out behind him.

"God!" Web breathed.

"Wassamatter, wassamatter!" Dundon was immediately shouting.

"Nothing," Web said quickly, "I was just looking at the stars."

Dundon muttered something dark and profane. "To hell with the stars! Maybe that's what will get you. Man, watch the things that are close!"

"Okay," Web said with embarrassment, coming to himself and pulling his eyes away. But this was a sight he could not absorb all at once. He felt shaken for several minutes, and unutterably alone.

Off to his right, half-hidden by the bow of the ship, he saw the satellite. The huge gray ring was revolving slowly, rolling silently along above the great green plate of the Earth. Beyond it, dimly, he could see the floating black form of the first rocket. The entire scene was weird, unbelievable, and incredibly beautiful. He waited again while Dundon fumed from below, letting the sense of where he was sink into him. Falk did the same. At last, to Dundon's great relief, they were able to move.

They manned the small taxi pod, shoved off carefully in the direction of the satellite. Falk brought them with a gingerly caution to the turret of the hub. They had to stop a few feet away because the turret was revolving, and to try to land the pod while the turret was in motion was useless.

"Jump," said Dundon.

Web gulped. Although he had no sense of gravity, he could not help but feel the absolute emptiness all around him and beneath him. Between him and the Earth, straight down, there was a thousand miles of nothing.

But he rose in the taxi and braced himself. And jumped.

He shot across space and crashed head on into the turret, came very close to cracking his helmet against the gray steel. He swore feebly, but sincerely and with great fright, and clutched for a hold. He had greatly overestimated the power he needed to cross a space in which there was no gravity at all.

But he found a hold at last on a vane of the reflector and hung on grimly, desperately, for several moments.

Dundon asked how he was.

"Delightful," Web muttered, "absolutely delightful." Then he looked around for Falk.

The taxi had been kicked quite some distance away, Falk, white-faced through his helmet, was bringing her slowly back in.

"Easy when you jump, Joe," Web called. "I like to went right through this thing."

Falk grunted. He slipped a rope on the pod and leaped for the turret. Even warned he came in too hard and Web had to grab at him, wildly, with one hand. But now the hard part was done and they were aboard. Web looked around for the airlock.

* * * * *

Web went in alone. There was no need for both of them inside so Falk waited by the airlock and fed him the radio line. As he spun the wheel which opened the lock and looked down the long tube into darkness he began to feel for the first time the perspiration soaking him.

He took one last look at the whirling stars and then stepped inside the turret.

In the turret there was no gravity, but as he climbed down the landing net toward the rim of the revolving doughnut centrifugal force caught into him and gave him weight. It was immensely reassuring. He had a small sealed light at his belt which enabled him to see his way around and at the base of the turret he came to the main door into the satellite.

He stood on the net and regarded the door silently. Now, if there really was some sabotaging gent on board this thing, right behind this door now would be where he would be. He would have heard the boots clump on the steel, there was no doubt about that. And he would not be hampered by a space suit. Thoughtfully, Web considered the fact that he had no weapon. No weapon but his size. Up to now, this moment, that had always been enough, but he had no illusions about what would happen if there really was somebody alive in there. Still, Dundon would know, and that was his job after all, to let Dundon know.

"Well," said Dundon anxiously.

"Half a mo," Web said. He laid his helmet against the door and listened. Nothing. If he was inside, he wasn't moving. Which was the smart thing to do.

"Okay," Web said, "cross your fingers." He opened the door.

A great bright light shone out of the opening. For a brief moment he was startled, until he realized that it was only the normal electric light of the room, intensified by the black around him. Cautiously, with his handflash held like a club, he stepped into the room.

There was nobody behind the door.

"What's up, what's up?" Dundon called.

"Nothin'," Web said. "Listen, don't keep getting in my hair. I'll tell you what happens as I go along. I'm in the receiving room. Nobody here. But the lights are on."

The room was bare, metal-floored, lined with lockers. Two of the lockers were open, and from where he stood Web could see clothing hanging from pegs. There was nothing unusual about the room. Web described it to Dundon, walked across the floor to the next door.

"Don't take your helmet off," Dundon roared.

"You bet your sweet life," Web grinned. "I have to leave the doors open a little to let the radio line pass through. The pressure's going down pretty quick."

"Oh," said Dundon. And then after a while he said, "Let's hope there's nobody alive in there."

"If he is," Web said, "he's somebody we don't need. There's nothing wrong with the reflector. He could have light-signaled any time he wanted to."

Dundon was silent. Web pushed open the door to the next room, which would be the radio shack, and waited. Then he peeked inside. There was no one here either.

"Empty," Web said.

"Stop for a minute," Dundon said. "Put your helmet against the wall."

"I already did," Web said, but he did it again.

"Do you hear anything?"

"Nope. Quiet as a ... grave."

"Keep listening as you go along."

Good idea. And then he thought of another good idea. He called out to Joe Falk.

"Yes?"

"I just wanted to know if you were still out there."

"I don't leave without one hell of a yell," Falk chuckled.

"And you don't leave without me either." Web faced the next door, the tension mounting. He could not get over the feeling that there had to be somebody aboard. At least there had to be bodies, certainly, because nothing had left the satellite. Forty-seven men had come up here. The bodies were probably all pretty close together. He stopped thinking about that because it only made it difficult to keep on looking. He opened the next door, and there was nobody there either.

He began to have an awful suspicion.

He went cautiously, stealthily, from room to room, made a full round of the doughnut. He never saw anybody. In some rooms there were a number of shoes on the floor, and clothes were strewn around haphazardly, the way men will do when they are living close together. Here was a pipe lying for no apparent reason in the middle of the floor. Here was a chessboard, laid out on a table with a game half completed. Everywhere there was a general sense of confusion, as if these men had suddenly dropped what they were doing and run away. The further he walked, the more he saw, the more fantastic it became. In one room he found four pairs of shoes sitting on the floor, four complete suits of clothes dropped over them exactly as if--

"Dundon!" he cried.

--as if the men in the clothes had ceased to exist.