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like the alarm going off. So she fixed it. With a hairpin."
Helena giggled and appealed to Bernie. "Doesn't he kill you?" she asked.
Ross's eyes were glazed and his hands worked convulsively. "Kill," he
muttered, advancing on
Helena. "Kill, kill, kill  "
"Help!" she screamed.
The two men managed to subdue Ross with the aid of a needle from Dr. Jones's
kit-pocket.
Helena was in tears and tried to explain to the others: "Just for no reason at
all  "
She got only icy stares. After a while she sulkily began setting up the Wesley
board for the Earth jump.
12
ROSS awoke, clearheaded and alert. Helena and Bernie were looking at him
apprehensively.
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He understood and said grudgingly, "Sorry I flipped. I didn't mean to scare
you. Everything seemed to go black  "
They smothered him with relieved protestations that they understood perfectly
and Helena wouldn't stick hairpins into the Wesley Drive ever again. Even if
the ship hadn't blown up. Even if she had rescued the men from "Minerva."
"Anyway," she said happily, "we're off Earth. At least, it's supposed to be
Earth, according to the charts."
He unkinked himself and studied the planet through a vision screen at its
highest magnification.
The apparent distance was one mile; nothing was hidden from him.
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"Golly," he said, impressed. "Science! Makes you realize what backward gropers
we were."
Obviously they had it, down there on the pleasant, cloud-flecked, green and
blue planet. Science!
White, towering cities whose spires were laced by flying bridges and
inexplicably decorated with something that looked like cooling fins. Huge
superstreamlined vehicles lazily coursing the roads and skies. Long,
linked-pontoon cities slowly heaving on the breasts of the oceans. Science!
Ross said reverently, "We're here. Flarney was right. Helena, Bernie,
Doc maybe this is the parent planet of us all and maybe it isn't. But the
people who built those cities must know all the answers. Helena, will you
please land us?"
"Sure, Ross. Shah11 look for a spaceport?"
Ross frowned. "Of course. Do you think these people are savages? We'll go in
openly and take our problem to them. Besides, imagine the radar setup they
must have! We'd never sneak through even if we wanted to."
Helena casually fingered the controls; there was the sickening swoop
characteristic of her ship-
handling, several times repeated. As she jerked them wildly across the
planet's orbit she explained over her shoulder, "I had the darnedest time
finding a really big spaceport on that little radar thing oops! but there's a
nice-looking one near that coastal city. Wheel That was close! There was one
 sorry, Ross on a big lake inland, but I didn't like   Now everybody be very
quiet. This is the hard part and I have to concentrate."
Ross hung on.
Helena landed the ship with her usual timber-shivering crash. "Now," she said
briskly, "we'd better allow a little tune for it to cool down. This is nice,
isn't it?"
Ross dragged himself, bruised, from the floor. He had to agree. It was nice.
The landing field, rimmed by gracious, light buildings (with the cooling
fins), was dotted with great, silvery ships.
They didn't, Ross thought with a twinge of irritation, seem to be space
vessels, though; leave it to Helena to get them down at some local airport!
Still the ships also, he noticed, were liberally studded with the fins. He
peered at them with puzzlement and a rising sense of excitement.
Certainly they had a function, and that function could only be some sort of
energy receptor. Could it be dared he imagine that it was the long-dreamed-of
cosmic energy tap? What a bonus that would be to bring back with him! And what
other marvels might this polished technology have to give them. . . .
Bernie distracted him. He said, "Hey, Ross. Here comes somebody."
But even Bernie's tone was awed. A magnificent vehicle was crawling toward
them across the field.
It was long, low, bullet-shaped and with cooling fins. Multiple plates of
silvery metal contrasted with a glossy black finish. All about its periphery
was a lacy pattern of intricate crumples and crinkles of metal, as though its
skirts had been crushed and rumpled. Ross sighed and marveled:
What a production problem these people had solved, stamping those forms out
between dies.
Then he saw the faces of the passengers.
He drew in his breath sharply. Godlike. Two men whose brows were cliffs of
alabaster, whose chins
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firmness of steady, flamelike wisdom. Two women whose calm, lovely features
made the heart within him melt and course.
The vehicle stopped ten yards from the open spacelock of the ship. From its
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tip gushed upward a ten-foot fountain of sparks that flashed the gamut of the
rainbow. Simultaneously one of the godlike passengers touched the wheel, and
there was a sweet, piercing, imperative summons like a hundred strings and
brasses hi unison.
Helena whispered, "They want us to come out. Ross Ross I can't face theml"
She buried her face in her hands.
"Steady," he said gravely. "They're only human."
Ross gripped that belief tightly; he hardly dared permit himself to think,
even for a second, that perhaps these people were no longer merely human.
Hoarsely he said, "We need their help. Maybe we should send Doc Jones out
first. He's the oldest of us, and he's the only one you could call a
scientist; he can talk to them. Where is he?"
A raucous Jones voice bellowed through the domed control room: "Who wansh ol'
doc, hargh? Who wansh goo' ol' doc?"
Good old doc staggered into the room, obviously loaded to the gills by a very
enjoyable backslide.
He began to sing:
"In A. J. seven thirty-two a Jones from Jones's Valley, He wandered into
Jones's Town to hold a
Jones-ist Rally. He shocked the gents and ladies both; his talk was most
disturbing; He spoke of seven-sided doors and purple-colored curbing  "
Jones's eyes focused on Helena. He flushed. " 'm deeply sorry," he mumbled. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]