The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 405
Another edging forward, and yet another. At a little under one thousand yards he was heard. About forty of them stared simultaneously in his direction, unable to see him but obviously certain that he was there. A split second later all the rest looked the same way, their minds responding to those of the forty. Two hundred pairs of young eyes seeking the hidden. As a demonstration of how to point out the source of a mental message it was mighty impressive.
CARTER backed away fast, his own brain repeating the final item of essential information. All of them. All of them—at nearly a thousand yards. He was watching them even as he retreated, half expecting them to rush his way like one excited mob.
They did not bother. Standing in silence they gazed his way with one accord. It did not occur to him that two hundred minds sounding an alarm would be no less effective than two hundred childish voices unitedly screaming, "Fire!"
Cutting across the valley, he started up the next slope, looked backward at the village. The kids were still there, still gazing toward his last hiding-place. But now a battalion of hefty adults were sprinting for the same spot. Some bore weapons resembling high-velocity rifles.
On the road previously crossed, a large truck and two cars had stopped, unloaded a dozen pursuers who were already after him and pointing in his direction. From that angle they'd had no need to seek him mentally, they'd seen him. The hunt was on. If any more proof were needed, the big gang from the village changed course in obedience to the pointings of the dozen.
HE BOLTED uphill like a frightened hare, got deep among the trees and thanked the fates for their cover. His legs started pounding at a fast, regular pace that would wear down all but the most exceptional pursuer. No sense now in weaving around or doubling back to defeat the chase. No use playing hide and seek among the trees when the seekers can see through every obstacle within a thousand yards. The only effective tactic was to head for the ship, meanwhile maintaining a lead that would keep him out of mental reach. So long as he kept one jump beyond grasp of listening minds, so long must they fumble and lose time by following his visible tracks.
Down the hill, across another valley, this one devoid of habitation. Up the wooded side of the next hill. At a suitable viewing gap on the crest he paused long enough to consult the sympath and watch for the hunt. When the first of them burst from the opposite trees he got going again, good and fast, knowing that he had gained most of a mile.
Carter kept up the killing pace for two hours, resisting the temptation to make easier detours through valleys, taking hills and dales alike as he followed the sympath's pointing needle. The last descent through thick woods brought him to a wide, flat area on which stood a small town, and beyond it the jungle.
The landscape offered poor cover. A crossing would be much less risky by night. He could find a hole amid the trees, crawl into it and remain until darkness fell. But if any of the posse nosed around within a thousand yards, the first he'd know of it would be when a gun was poked down the hole.
Indecision cost no more than a few seconds. Determined to push on, he surveyed the flat area, seeking a route that took maximum advantage of the little cover available. Four soarers appeared over the rim of the distant jungle, rapidly swept toward the town, and landed in an untilled field on the nearer side.
THERE WAS no way of telling whether these arrivals were ordinary travelers, aerial searchers, or part of a jungle-watching patrol. Assembled reports must have told the enemy that he could have come only out of this particular tangle of vegetation and not from any other. They lacked the manpower to place a close cordon around it, but had the facilities to keep the big area under constant observation. Possibly other soarers were maintaining guard, having relieved the ones just landed.
While Carter looked on, the four pilots dismounted, strolled across the landing-field and into the town. He licked his lips as he eyed the abandoned machines. The natural instinct of the well-trained spy is to exploit any moment of carelessness. To do so is to take chances; sometimes it comes off, other times it doesn't work out so well.
He made quick appraisal of the odds against him. To get there, he'd have to cross a mile of flat, in broad daylight, with no cover, no way of telling how many curious eyes were watching from windows at the edge of the town. If he reached the machines and got aboard one of them, he might find its alien controls strange enough to cause fatal delay. Further, all four might be low in whatever they used for fuel. If he took one up in a hurry, without checking, he could get a mile away and a thousand feet high, then plunge to ground when power failed.
There were weighty counter-considerations. Somewhere behind, a small army of trackers was slowly but surely catching up. He was their meat if he stayed put long enough. To reach sanctuary the flatland had to be crossed, the chance of being pounced upon had to be accepted. He found his legs taking him toward the parked soarers even before he'd finally decided to grab one.
Chapter Seven
IF ANY snoopers at suburban windows saw him making for the machines they thought nothing of it. Probably they were deceived by the casual way in which he ambled the last four hundred yards and behaved as though he had every right to be there.
Still displaying what authority he could muster, for the benefit of nearby onlookers, Gregory Carter stepped aboard a soarer, looked it over. It was not identical with Earth models. A peculiar ring of wire mesh projected from its top rim and it had no visible engine. The controls consisted of a small lever and two studs, one red, one white.
Maybe the thing utilised broadcast power radiated from somewhere in the area. If so, that put them another step ahead of Earth which had solved the problem of how to do it, but not that of how to do it economically.
Firming his lips, he pressed the red stud; nothing happened. He shot a glance along his back trail and saw twenty of the enemy emerge from the woods. They spotted him at the same moment and started running. On his other side, two more were racing out of town and heading for him at top pace. Whipping out his big gun, Carter put it on the control-board in readiness to shoot it out if necessary.
HE RAMMED the white stud. The twin fans shifted, hesitated, circled, built up a low whine. The soarer trembled but remained on the ground. That left nothing but the lever. The twenty pursuers from the woods were still nearly a mile away. The two from the town were six hundred yards distant and galloping like racehorses.
He moved the lever one notch. The whine hit a higher note, the fans sped faster, the whole machine jittered. Two notches. The soarer lifted with lazy reluctance and wobbled upward. Two more notches. The machine steadied and ascended rapidly. His heart full of glee, he looked over the side, saw the two runners from the town standing with legs apart and gaping up at him open-mouthed.
The grin with which he favored them left his face as they recovered and dashed for the other soarers. Too late he realised that he should have sabotaged the three by sending them skyward unpiloted. No use deploring the oversight; even if he had thought of it he might not have had time to do it.
The lever shifted five notches and the air-column boosted pressure. Tilting the contraption forward, he shot toward the jungle.
By the time the other two had left the ground he was five miles ahead and zooming along at maximum tilt. At the jungle's verge his lead was maintained, but not increased. Dropping the soarer low enough to skim the tree-tops, and thus making observation more difficult for the pursuit, he raced along the line indicated by the sympath's needle.
FOURTEEN miles brought him to the hidden ship. At that point, the other two soarers were at the same distance in the south but coming up fast. Another one had appeared high in the north. A flotilla of ten was speeding in from the east.
They weren't giving him much time to find a suitable gap below, sink to ground, dismount, run through the jungle and get into the ship. It would be touch and go, unless somehow he could make more time.
That problem was solved by simple process of becoming desperate and acting accordingly. He dropped the soarer until it hung four feet above the camouflaging mass of leaves and branches. Then he tilted it, jerked its lever to the last notch and jumped out. He fell into the holding-net while the deserted machine soared westward.
It was senseless to wait and see whether the aerial hunt had risen to the bait. Either they were chasing the soarer or they weren't. Frantically scrambling under the net, Carter slid over the ship's top bulge, tumbled headlong into thick undergrowth. The gun he'd grabbed as he'd jumped fell out of his hand and he wasted no time in looking for it.
As he lugged open the ship's door it struck him inconsequentially that not once had he used the gun or the tiny camera. And not once had anyone fired a shot at him. The entire episode had been one of pursuit and evasion, without bloodshed or battle. If those facts had any significance, he decided, they proved that success can be gained without pain.
Retracting the splay-rods, Carter left the net suspended between trees. At the control-board he switched in the pre-set return coordinates. A vast silence fell and supreme blackness lay all around. The dark of nothingness. That was escape, complete, unpreventable escape. No matter what they'd got, no matter what they did, they could not stop him now.
The waiting time in hyperspatial obscurity would be long because he had a long, long way to go. When light flamed through the ports again he would not be on Earth. The pre-set switching devices weren't all that accurate. But he'd find himself in a known, familiar starfield with Sol easily identifiable.
A few dexterous hops into and out of the dark would take him the rest of the way. He'd play the man in the new moon before the last switching, then step onto the green fields of home.
HIS ARRIVAL created no great excitement. The scoutship appeared like a hazy phantom and quickly solidified at the edge of a plantation that once had been a spaceport. Of the port there was no sign at all. Probably it had been rebuilt elsewhere, on bigger and better scale. An absolute minimum of four thousand years is a whacking big slice of time.
The town still stood exactly where it had been before. A different town, smaller, neater, of unfamiliar architecture; that, too, was to be expected. They'd warned him of all this when he'd left, telling him that when he returned he might not be able to understand the speech, conform to the customs, make sense of the culture. He'd be too ignorant to feel his way along an alley, if there were any alleys.
AS ORDERED in the far past, Gregory Carter did not befuddle himself by leaving the ship and seeking authority in a place become almost alien. He opened the door, sat on the bottom step of the ladder and waited for the powers that be to come and fetch him. In that town was somebody appointed to take care of the unadapted, and put him in contact with those currently in command of Terrestrial strategy.
While he waited, several people passed along a nearby road, paused to look at him and the ship, moved quietly on. It was half an hour before the spread of news brought results. A huge car slid along the road, stopped by the path to the plantation. Two burly men in dark green uniforms got out, walked up the path, halted before the ship.
Feeling that the information should be trumpeted rather than spoken, he said to them, "I'm Gregory Carter. Ship number X4B. My details are on file in the Space Records Office, wherever that's located these days."
They heard him with no especial interest and less surprise. One of them pointed invitingly toward the road. Carter sighed, locked the ship's door and went with them. The car moved off with high acceleration and no engine noise whatever. The escort sat blank-faced and silent.
"Oh, well," muttered Carter with resignation. "Reckon I'll have to learn the language all over again. Velly solly, no spik."
He glanced through the window at a row of small, attractive shops, noticed that above each one was a sign consisting of a single line with a few wiggles. No lettering; nothing resembling anything out of the oldtime alphabet. A highly refined form of shorthand, perhaps.
THEY ARRIVED at what might be a police station, a military recruiting depot, a tax office or any other haunt of officialdom. Several more green uniformed men were therein. None offered him better than a casual glance. Conducting him to a small room, the escort signed to a chair and left him to his thoughts.
A few minutes later one of them returned, went through the performance of rubbing his midriff and pretending to drink, finished with a questioning look. Gregory Carter shook his head. The other went away. Hell of a thing, thought Carter. The day of established space-going, with Armageddon preparing at the root of the nebular arm, and people were communicating by primitive signs like so many aborigines.
His escort reappeared, led him along a corridor and into a metal walled room resembling a very small elevator-box. It would hold only two. One guard stepped in with him while the other stayed outside and closed the sliding door. The inside guard adjusted a dial on the wall and pressed a stud.
Ready for a rapid rise or fall, Carter was taken by surprise when the room made no motion in the vertical plane. Nothing happened except that from outside came the muffled sound of a hard crack like that of a distant shot. The guard opened the door. His fellow was no longer there and they were standing in a bigger corridor.
THEY WENT to an office where two men stared at them, thought in silence, waved them away. Two more in another office did the same. Within an hour they'd visited twenty offices and not a soul had offered them so much as a grunt.
Back to the metal room. More dialling, more stud-pressing and again the bang of a faraway gun. This time they entered a large hall, mounted an escalator at one end, rode upstairs. A glimpse through a wide window gave Carter a view of a large, unrecognizable city outside. Tall, slender towers, aerial bridges, a moving roadway, something black and streamlined bulleting through the sky.
Given a seat in a corridor, he was left there long enough for his mind to go whirly with speculation. He was still on Earth, no doubt of that, but how he had been transferred from town to city passed his understanding.
The guard came back, took him to a long, narrow room. In it was a big stretch of table behind which sat seven men. The one in the middle, an elderly character with a wisp of white beard on his chin, carefully considered the visitor, then spoke.
He said, "Sit down."
Taking a chair, Carter looked at the other's incongruously youthful eyes and remarked, "Thank heavens I can talk to somebody at last."
"THAT IS exactly why I am here," responded the other. "I am Sedom, a speaker of archaic languages. I am fluent with a dozen of them." He gave a faint, deprecating smile. "There aren't many of us—it is an eccentric form of scholarship."
His six fellows then smiled, doing it with an air of tolerance. They seemed content to listen, leaving the handling to Sedom. The guard remained by the door, impassive and bored.
"Tell me your story," Sedom invited.
Carter told it swiftly, with a wealth of detail. The others listened without interruption, matching expressions from time to time.
"Now you know what you're up against," Carter concluded. "I would not attempt to forecast when or where contact may take place, or whether it will result in collision and war. However, there is one thing we should do in the interim."
"What is that?"
"We should locate the parent planet."
"Why?"
"It's the throbbing heart of the entire species. One blow at it would be more effective than twenty aimed at frontier worlds. If dragged into war, we should immediately clobber the parent world good and hard. That means we've got to learn where it is. I am willing to volunteer for further search. I'd have made search while there but for the more urgent need of getting back with what I'd got."
"I see your predicament," Sedom admitted.
Carter pressed on. "What's more, I should now have a better chance of success. After all these years you should be able to give me a scout-vessel that is really something. Not that I complain about the old one. For its day and age, it was topnotch; but ships considerably superior can be built. I have seen them for myself."
LEANING back in his chair, Sedom brooded a short while, then echoed, "After all these years. Do you know how many you have used?"
"No, sir. The minimum time required for my trip was four thousand. I know I've exceeded it but don't know by how much."
"Our records go back six thousand," Sedom informed. "They contain no mention of you. That does not surprise us; we know that three or four stabs into deep space were made at earlier dates. Evidently yours was one of them. Therefore you have been gone at least six thousand years, and no man can say how much longer."
"Then the greater the urgency, the greater the need to prepare for trouble," Carter retorted. "If time marches on for us, it also marches for them. Every century, every decade widens their empire and brings it nearer to ours. We've got to move fast to get the measure of them. And we've got to find and identify the planet of origin."
"Time marches on for you, too," said Sedom, gently. He made a gesture indicating the six sitting with him. "They see your lips move and hear your mind talking and answer you through my mouth. They lack the faculty of speech which has become superfluous."
Carter shot to his feet. "What? You mean Earth has been conquered even while I was feeling around for the foe?"
"You misunderstand." Sedom waved him down. "I hate to tell you this. You were an early bird; too early—so early that you lost the worm. Later ones got there first, having technical advantages not available to you."
He registered sympathy, went on, "It is impossible to strike at the heart of the opposition, as you suggest. There is no opposition; there is no foe. The ones out there are ours. This is the parent-world!"
The guard led Gregory Carter away, squeezing his arm by way of speechless comfort. But outside were the stars, still calling, calling.
