Gilpin's Space, page 24
He bowed.
“Also, it’s as secure as any cave can be,” he went on, “and close to Hopi country—quite handy, lovely Laure, for consulting the kachinas. People have climbed up here, of course, in the past, but there’s been nothing to interest archaeologists, and even less to interest spelunkers, so officially it’s not been worth looking at. What’ll happen if the Powers really have developed a drive detector—well, we’ll solve that problem when it comes to us. But I’m not too worried, at least where Cupid’s Arrow is concerned. Remember what I told you about
Louisa when you saw us on your screen? She’s psychic, Laure. If trouble’s conning, she can always tell.”
And so, I thought, can Laure, and I myself, and all of us who have been there and back again, perhaps not as clearly as Louisa, but definitely—yes, very definitely.
Saul pointed at the third ship. “That’s Sundowner. Bart Crankshaw, who you just met, owns her and he and she used to do all sorts of interesting things around the Java Sea, but now he’s giving full time to the underground. Like all of us, he has his reasons. ’E’s an Aussie, don’tcher know? Speaks pure Stryne, ’e does.”
“Absolutely.” Crankshaw laughed. “I speak it fluently when I have to. Usually, however, I prefer to imitate the more intelligible sort of BBC announcer.”
He was tall, gray-haired, in his later fifties.
“It was Bart’s ship, mostly, that shuttled your people to and from Suva and here and there. He and his gang have to be on their way. But he did want to meet you first.”
“It’s not often one meets a lady who is not only very brave and very beautiful, but to whom the world owes so much. Mrs. Endicott, wherever in this Universe you’re going. I—we, all of us—wish you well.”
Laure thanked him. She said goodbye to his small crew one by one—somehow she had managed to remember every name. Then they boarded their vessel. Almost at once, she vanished.
“And now,” said Saul, “michire matante, we can hardly wait to hear about your travels. Come, I know you have liquor in Owl’s wardroom, but it’s going to have to last you, so we’ll fetch some over from Cupid’s Arrow.”
“I love you, Saul,” Laure declared, “and we’d all love to drink your liquor, but before we do I want to know why you’re here on this sick old Earth instead of out in the Far Reaches, and how you ever managed to find out about the Macartneys and our picking up their ketch.”
“We couldn’t stay in Space—” Abruptly Saul was intensely serious. “—because, Laure, it was I who started this, and I felt I owed something to everyone who became involved. That is why I—and a lot of others—started the underground. That’s why I’ve helped to keep it going—”
Lillian pinched him. “What he means is that he runs the show. Very effectively, I must say. It’s doing so well that any day now he ought to be able to let someone else take over, and then—then we can do what you did and find ourselves a fresh, new world!”
“My dear,” said Laure, “you won’t need to find one. You can come to ours.”
“We’ll have to take a raincheck for now, but believe me, we’ll be there, if I have to drag Saul by his whiskers.”
“I think I know how you found out we’d come back, Saul—Pussycat called us before we even knew we’d sent a signal. But how did you ever learn we were picking Morveth up?” He chuckled. “You’re right about Owl keeping me informed, but as for your last question—” He hesitated. “—I rather hate to tell you, but the Macartneys have a small boy named Robin, and small boys aren’t very good at keeping secrets. Of course, they only tell them to their closest special friends, and always make them promise not to tell a soul. He just couldn’t manage to keep the news about his exciting cousin Jamie under his hat, and—well, the IPP put two and two together—”
“Why, that little brute!” growled Alec. “So that’s why we were being so closely watched. I didn’t dare load half my stuff—not even the electron microscope. And then that ambush! Well, just wait till we get him in the cabin. I’ll teach him to go giving the whole thing away!”
Saul smiled gently. “Speak to him by all means,” he said, “but softly, softly. Don’t forget, Alec Macartney, that where Auntie Laure is taking you survival won’t depend on keeping secrets. Everything will be different. All those subliminal and psychic pressures that weigh so heavily on us here on Earth will be gone completely. I wish I could go with you.”
“You can,” said Laure. “Saul, you’ve laid the foundation. Now men like your friend Crankshaw, men like Henry Kwei— they can keep things going. All of you aboard Cupid’s Arrow really should come with us, if for no other reason—” She smiled at Lillian. “—then just because you snubbed us ever since our return, even though you knew very well we were here. I do believe you’d still not be speaking to us if it weren’t for our giving you such a splendid chance to use your awful pun.”
“Madame,” said Saul gravely, “the first rule of the Free Space underground is that we make no contacts unless they’re absolutely necessary—not even with our sisters and our cousins and our aunts. That’s one reason we’re still functioning. I’m deeply hurt by your imputation. However, out of the goodness of my heart, I shall give you the opportunity to wash your mouth out either with Wild Turkey or with a comparable Scotch.” He took her arm. “En avant! Let’s board your ship. The booze and snacks will follow, and we can talk, and you can show us your tourist photos of your world.”
We crowded into Owl’s wardroom, and some of Saul’s people brought liquor over, and sandwiches, and for a little while we ate and drank and answered questions. Then it came time for Laure to tell them of her world. She brought the screen to life. “I’m afraid,” she told them, “that tourist pictures are what you’re going to get.” Then, as she had for Henry Kwei and the others, she showed them one brief sequence after another, from our first landing to our settlement on Mutton Island: the fauna and flora, continents and archipelagoes, forests and mountains and the frozen poles. When it was over, there was utter silence. I myself was almost overwhelmed by the sudden intensity of my yearning for Laure’s World, for its untouched magnificence and cleanliness, and above all for Janet. I sat there as silent as the rest.
Louisa was the first to speak. She spoke in a very low voice, to Saul, and in Hopi.
He listened to her, obviously disturbed, tearing at his moustache. He did not reply.
Laure, sitting next to Paul, asked him what she’d said.
“She spoke to him of a Hopi prophesy,” he replied. “It isn’t a happy one. She said, ’Saul, you are one of us. You are our—’ brother is as close as I can come to it. ’You should not be one of those who waits until the Blue Star Kachina dances. No, neither you nor Paul nor I.”
Finally Saul answered her, in Hopi and very somberly, and again Paul translated. “He has repeated that the responsibility is his. The drive he invented and gave the world is now a weapon. He is afraid that, because of it, the Blue Star Kachina may dance before his time.”
“And what must happen when the Blue Star Kachina dances?’ Laure asked.
“Disaster,” Paul replied. “But, I, too, think he is mistaken when he blames himself. That kachina will not dance until a new blue star flares in the daylight sky.”
“A supernova?” I broke in. “Even if the prophesy is right, that may be tomorrow or it may not happen for a hundred thousand years. Anyhow, Saul—” I raised my voice, and he turned, listening to me. “—you did not give the world a weapon. You gave it an instrument of power, and any instrument of power can be a weapon: a pitchfork, chain saw, tractor, aircraft. You gave the world an instrument of power—and a safety valve. How many thousands have already taken off for space? How many more are going to escape before the Powers really can clamp down? And will they ever succeed in stopping everybody? And will they even want to? I don’t think so. Neither does Henry Kwei. Neither does Laure. Saul, how do you know the whole thing might not have blown up already if you hadn’t given us the drive?”
There we all sat, in Owl’s convivial wardroom, the ship’s screen only just turned off; and I knew that later on, en route to Laure’s World, we’d have to offer an explanation to the Macartneys and those others who didn’t know Saul as we did.
He stared at me for a moment. “Geoffrey—” he began.
“Call me Commodore!” I snapped.
That brought back a bit of his usual self. His ears twitched, and he almost smiled. “It’s not just the world, Commodore,” he said. “No, indeed. In a way—spiritually, you might say— I am a Hopi. They’re my people. How can I leave them at a time of crisis, hey?”
Louisa answered him, again in Hopi.
“Dear Louisa—” He shook his head. “She’s telling me that almost all the old Hopi beliefs and rituals have decayed, that almost nobody follows them anymore. She says that if she and Paul feel free to leave, why can’t I? Well, there are those I must consult—”
He stopped. Suddenly he stood. He held his glass on high. “A toast!” he cried. “Enough of questions, of dismal prophecies! Enough of Gentle Saul’s cruel conscience! Let it torment him after you are gone. Come now, let’s drink to Laure—and to her world!”
Everyone echoed him, but I overheard Louisa whispering to Laure. “For the Hopi, what will be will be. There are still enough who follow the old ways, if the prophesy must be fulfilled. We shall talk to him, Paul and I, but if he stays we can’t abandon him.”
“Does your—your second-sight tell you nothing?” Laure whispered back.
“Not yet,” Louisa answered. “No, not yet.”
For another half-hour, we drank and talked, and neither Laure nor I tried again to argue Saul into a change of heart, knowing him too well for that.”
Then came the goodbyes, embraces, kisses, a tear or two or three. They were very quiet goodbyes, for everyone realized that, in minutes, we would have left Old Earth irrevocably behind, and within hours and days light-years would separate us.
But I saw Laure, before I parted company with them, give Lillian and Louisa a dozen microflexes. “Take these,” she said. “Show them to him—especially those that deal with Vee Vee and the Gnat and the beings of the reef.”
Lillian took them, and touched her lightly on the cheek, and Louisa, standing by, said something in her native tongue which I knew was a blessing.
Moments later, we were back in Gilpin’s Space, threading through the cave into the canyon—then up, and out, with the threatened Earth left far behind.
When we reached the planet designated as our first rendezvous, Pussycat and Young Unicorn were already there. Pussycat and Chris’ junk-yacht deckload all secure. They had had their problems in the Far Reaches, as everybody does, but again our system of selection—or perhaps I should say our developed instincts—proved out. So, again, did the Senoi sessions and training with the Structural Differential. Everyone aboard both ships had profited by our experience, even the few who, with Placek, already had ventured into the Far Reaches. When terrors struck them out of the vastnesses, they—and their relatives and friends—knew how to cope. Besides, we’d learned that we veterans had acquired some measure of Laure’s protective power, a power which, while it worked unconsciously, did at least take some of the edge from the alien emotions that cut at us. Aboard Pussycat, Franz took the night watch, usually with Placek; aboard Young Unicorn, Linda did the same, with Lars— who had turned out to be that rare bird, a Far Reaches natural— backing her up.
Each assault, each seeming emergency successfully coped with, gave them renewed assurance. There were only three exceptions: Molly Brooke, on Young Unicorn, of whom we had been so dubious, and Antonina Tam’s two retrievers on Pussycat. Molly had turned out to be a second Rhoda, totally vulnerable, slightly paranoid. But the two dogs were a tragedy.
Almost as soon as Pussycat entered the Far Reaches, they began to howl spasmodically. They tried crazily to run away. Sometimes they growled and snapped. More often they did their best to hide. Antonina, weeping, had started to talk about putting them to sleep. “Christ!” she said. “The poor bastards! I should’ve understood—me, going to be a vet!—I should’ve realized that dogs don’t have the sense of individuality most people have—most people and all cats. They’re too dependent. Look! We’ve been here on this planet almost two days now, and they’re still cringing-crawling. They won’t eat. They’ll barely drink their water. What the hell are we going to do?”
“It’s damn lucky nobody brought Dobermans,” Placek grunted. “Why don’t you let Mrs. Endicott have a look at them?”
“Yes,” said Laure, “I’d like to.”
I went with her to Antonina’s cabin. The dogs were wretched, their coats staring, eyes bloodshot, thick sputum drooling from the lax comers of their mouths.
Laure knelt before them, and they cringed from her.
“Give them a little time,” she said. “Leave me alone with them for a bit.”
We went out, I and Placek and Antonina, and had a beer together, and in about ten minutes Laure joined us.
“They’re quieter now,” she said, smiling again. “But what can we do?” asked Antonina, not encouraged.
“Something very simple, really. Franz and I will trade places. He’ll move over to Owl. I’ll go with you in Pussycat and Jamie Macartney can come with me—he’s very nice with animals. Jamie and I will stand the night watches, and the dogs can sleep in the control tower with us. The rest of the time, they can be either in my cabin or in yours. Antonina, I’m sure they’ll be all right.”
Antonina looked relieved and pleased—and at the same time a little hurt. Laure patted her hand, and told her she understood. “Don’t worry,” she said, “they won’t stop being your dogs.”
Molly was something else again. Like Rhoda, she wanted to return to Earth; unlike Rhoda, she had no one of her own to lean on, not the way Rhoda could lean on Dan. Laure had several talks with her, with Chris, and with Chris’ Gwen, without any acceptable solution being found. The girl wasn’t just neurotic; it seemed almost as though she was deliberately being difficult, and Chris spent half his time apologizing for her.
“Well, I suppose there’s only one thing we can do,” said Laure finally. “Perhaps the same medicine will do for girl and dog. We’ll shuffle people around a bit, and she can move over to Pussycat—perhaps with one of Chris’ kids—she’s fond of them. I think I can protect her adequately at night, and Sally Placek can take care of her in the daytime. If we’re lucky, maybe she’ll fall in love with somebody.”
It took another day for all of us to talk her into it, but finally the transfers were made, and another couple—Bess’ Stanford friend and her young man—moved into her cabin on Young Unicorn.
Sighing with relief, but with our fingers crossed, we took off again. Franz and I held down the night watch aboard Owl together, and spent a pleasant time playing chess, at which he usually beat me, and gin rummy, at which I always beat him, and telling each other how wonderful it’d be to get back to a civilized world and our girls.
When we made our second landing a few days later, we found that all had gone very well indeed. Molly had simmered down; almost all her tension had disappeared, and strangely, too, she and the dogs had found a common emotional ground. Now they were sleeping in her cabin, quietly and peacefully, when Laure and Jamie were on watch, and only occasionally, during daytime naps, showed any signs of their previous terror and confusion.
Laure and Franz and I talked matters over. “It’s gone a lot better than I’d ever have expected,” Franz declared. “We’ve learned a lot, and a lot of what we’ve learned’s rubbed off. Do we really need to make that third rendezvous?”
“Why don’t we make it conditional?” I suggested. “On Owl, we’ll be going slower, simply because the Macartneys had no preparatory training and we’re having to give it all to them en route. Tell Chris and Placek that we’ll take Owl to the designated spot, and that if they decide they have to land they can wait for us there. If they aren’t there when we arrive, we’ll know they didn’t run into anything they needed help with—”
“Or ran into a hell of a lot more than they could handle?” Franz said. “Or is that just the Magyar in me talking?”
“I think you’ve been humming ‘Gloomy Sunday’ to yourself again,” Laure told him. “What do you think Bess would say?”
Franz grinned. He felt his lip, where his moustache was struggling to regain its former luxuriance. “Promise you won’t tell?”
Laure laughed. “Yes, Franz, I promise.”
“You, too, Commander?”
“Commodore,” I corrected him. “All right, me too.”
We talked it over with the others, and they agreed to try and make the run straight through: and when Owl did finally reach the third rendezvous, nobody was there.
“All’s well,” I said. “I feel it—it’s almost as if Laure told me.”
“She did,” Franz answered. “She told me, too.”
We continued our slow passage for the sake of the Macartneys, and we encountered nothing we couldn’t cope with easily. We did not resent the extra time, but somehow all we could think of now was getting back to Laure’s World and those we loved and had risked losing for all time. When we passed through what I always thought of as the inspection point, where it had seemed as though some vast intelligence had vetted us and found us good, those of us who had passed through before experienced it for a few moments only, but others, like the Macartneys, told us that it had seemed to last for an eternity, and that—even as we ourselves—they never would feel quite the same again.
Finally, then, we entered our new world’s null zone, and hours later, from Gilpin’s Space, we looked down on all its glories, glowing ghostlike there, awaiting us.
It was late afternoon when we came down over Mutton Island, dropping as swiftly as I dared—
There were four vessels there.
