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<html>
<div class="illus pgbrk"><a name="png.001" id="png.001"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">6</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span><img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:g:gerald-vance-equation-of-doom-equation.png" width="700" height="500"
 alt="equation of doom" title="Title illustration" /><br
 /><small class="sans">His agony of soul at being unable to save
Margot was far greater than physical torture.</small>
</div>

<div class="main">

<p class="blurb"><small><a name="png.003" id="png.003"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">8</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span><i>They grounded Ramsey&#8217;s ship on a hostile planet hoping
he would starve to death, so the first thing he did was
give most of his money away and lose the rest gambling.
Then he picked a fight with the Chief of Police and
joined forces with a half-naked dream-chick who was
seemingly bent on self-destruction. The stakes were
big&mdash;a planet or two&mdash;but it all added up to <span class="nw">an&mdash;&mdash;</span></i></small></p>


<table class="titleblock" summary="Story title">
<tr><td class="lt"><h1 class="lt">Equation</h1></td></tr>
<tr><td class="rt"><h1 class="rt">of Doom</h1></td></tr>
<tr><td class="lt"><big><strong>By GERALD VANCE</strong></big></td></tr>
</table>



<p class="noindent"><span class="drop">&ldquo;Y</span><span class="uc">our</span> name ith Jathon <!-- drop cap -->
Ramthey?&rdquo; the Port Security
Officer lisped politely.</p>

<p>Jason Ramsey, who wore
the uniform of Interstellar
Transfer Service and was the
only Earthman in the Service
here on Irwadi, smiled and
said: &ldquo;Take three guesses.
You know darn well I&#8217;m
Ramsey.&rdquo; He was a big man
even by Earth standards,
which meant he towered over
the Irwadian&#8217;s green, scaly
head. He was fair of skin and
had hair the color of copper.
It was rumored on Irwadi and
elsewhere that he couldn&#8217;t return
to Earth because of some
crime he had committed.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Alwayth the chip on the
shoulder,&rdquo; the Port Security
Officer said. &ldquo;Won&#8217;t you
Earthmen ever learn?&rdquo; The
splay-tongued reptile-humanoids
of Irwadi always spoke
Interstellar <i>Coine</i> with a
pronounced lisp which Ramsey
found annoying, especially
since it went so well with the
officious and underhanded
behavior for which the Irwadians
were famous the galaxy
over.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Get to the point,&rdquo; Ramsey
said harshly. &ldquo;I have a ship
to take through hyper-space.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;No. You have no ship.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;No? Then what&#8217;s this?&rdquo;
His irritation mounting, Ramsey
pulled out the Interstellar
Transfer Service authorization
form and showed it to the
Security Officer. &ldquo;A tip-sheet
for the weightless races at
Fomalhaut VI?&rdquo;</p>

<p>The Security Officer said:
&ldquo;Ha, ha, ha.&rdquo; He could not
laugh; he merely uttered the
phonetic equivalent of
<a name="png.004" id="png.004"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">9</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>laughter. On harsh Irwadi, laughter
would have been a cultural
anomaly. &ldquo;You make joketh.
Well, nevertheleth, you have
no ship.&rdquo; He expanded his
scaly green barrel chest and
declaimed: &ldquo;At 0400 hours
thith morning, the government
of Irwadi hath planetarithed
the Irwadi Tranthfer
Thervith.&rdquo;</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />&ldquo;Planetarized the Transfer
Service!&rdquo; gasped Ramsey in
surprise. He knew the Irwadians
had been contemplating
the move in theory for many
years, but he also knew that
transferring a starship from
normal space through hyper-space
back to normal space
again was a tremendously
difficult and technical task.
He doubted if half a dozen
Irwadians had mastered it,
yet the Irwadi branch of Interstellar
Transfer Service
was made up of seventy-five
hyper-space pilots of divers
planetalities.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Ecthactly,&rdquo; said the Security
Officer, as amused as an
Irwadian could be by the
amazement in Ramsey&#8217;s frank
green eyes. &ldquo;Tho if you will
kindly thurrender your permit?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Let&#8217;s see it in writing,
huh?&rdquo;</p>

<p>The Security Officer complied.
Ramsey read the official
document, scowled, and handed
over his Irwadi pilot license.
&ldquo;What about the <cite>Polaris</cite>?&rdquo;
he wanted to know.
The <cite>Polaris</cite> was a Centaurian
ship he&#8217;d been scheduled to
take through hyper-space on
the run from Irwadi to
Centauri III.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Temporarily grounded,
captain. Or should I thay,
ecth-captain?&rdquo;</p><!-- original has space following hyphen -->

<p>&ldquo;Temporarily my foot,&rdquo;
said Ramsey. &ldquo;It&#8217;ll be months
before you Irwadians can get
even a fraction of the ships
into hyper. You must be out
of your minds.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Our problem, captain. Not
yourth.&rdquo;</p>

<p>That was true enough.
Ramsey shrugged.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Your problem,&rdquo; the Security
Officer went on blandly,
&ldquo;will be to find a meanth of
thelf-thupport until you and
all other ecthra-planetarieth
can be removed from Irwadi.
We owe you ecthra-planetarieth
nothing. Ethpect no charity
from uth.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey shrugged. Like all
extra-planetaries on a bleak,
friendless world like Irwadi,
he&#8217;d regularly gambled away
and drank away his monthly
paycheck in the interstellar
settlement which the Irwadians
had established in the
Old Quarter of Irwadi City.
But last month he&#8217;d managed
<a name="png.005" id="png.005"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">10</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>to come out even at the gaming
tables, so he had a few
hundred credits to his name.
That would be enough, he told
himself, to tide him over until
Interstellar Transfer Service
came to the rescue of its
stranded pilots.</p>

<p>Ramsey went up the gangway
and got his gear from
the <cite>Polaris</cite>. When he returned
down the gangway, the late
afternoon wind was blowing
across the spacefield tarmac,
a wet, bone-chilling wind
which only the reptile-humanoid
Irwadians didn&#8217;t seem to
mind.</p>

<p>Ramsey fastened the toggles
of his cold-weather cape,
put his head down and hunched
his shoulders, and walked
into the teeth of the wind.
He did not look back at the
<cite>Polaris</cite>, marooned indefinitely
on Irwadi despite anything
the Centaurian owners or
anyone else for that matter
could do about it.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />The Irwadi Security Officer,
whose name was Chind
Ramar, walked up the gangway
and ordered the ship&#8217;s
Centaurian first officer to assemble
his crew and passengers.
Chind Ramar allowed
himself the rare luxury of a
fleeting smile. He could imagine
this scene being duplicated
on fifty ships here on
his native planet today, fifty
outworld ships which had no
business at all on Irwadi. Of
course, Irwadi was an important
planet-of-call in the
Galactic Federation because
the vital metal titanium was
found as abundantly in Irwadian
soil as aluminum is
found in the soil of an Earth-style
planet. Titanium, in
alloy with steel and manganese,
was the only element
which could withstand the
tremendous heat generated in
the drive-chambers of interstellar
ships during transfer.
In the future, Chind Ramar
told himself with a kind of
cold pride, only Irwadian
pilots, piloting Irwadian ships
through hyper-space, would
bring titanium to the waiting
galaxy. At Irwadi prices.</p>

<p>With great relish, Chind
Ramar announced the facts
of planetarization and told
the Centaurians and their
passengers that they would be
stranded for an indefinite
period on Irwadi. Amazement,
anger, bluster, debate,
and finally resignation&mdash;the
reactions were the expected
ones, in the expected order.
It was easy, Chind Ramar
thought, with all but the interstellar
soldiers of fortune
like Jason Ramsey. Ramsey,
of course, would need watching.
As for these others&hellip;.</p>

<p><a name="png.006" id="png.006"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">11</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span>One of the others, an
Earthgirl whose beauty was
entirely missed by Chind
Ramar, left the <cite>Polaris</cite> in a
hurry. She either had no luggage
or left her luggage
aboard. Jason Ramsey, she
thought. She had read Chind
Ramar&#8217;s mind; a feat growing
less rare although by no
means common yet among the
offspring of those who had
spent a great deal of time
bombarded by cosmic radiation
between the stars. She
hurried through the chilling
wind toward the Old Quarter
of Irwadi City. Panic, she
thought. You&#8217;ve got to avoid
panic. If you panic, you&#8217;re
finished&hellip;.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />&ldquo;So that&#8217;s about the size
of it,&rdquo; Ramsey finished.</p>

<p>Stu Englander nodded. Like
Ramsey he was a hyper-space
pilot, but although he had an
Earth-style name and had
been born of Earth parents,
he was not an Earthman. He
had been born on Capella VII,
and had spent most of his life
on that tropical planet. The
result was not an uncommon
one for outworlders who
spent any amount of time on
Irwadi: Stu Englander had a
nagging bronchial condition
which had kept him off the
pilot-bridge for some months
now.</p>

<p>Englander nodded again,
dourly. He was a short, very
slender man a few years older
than Ramsey, who was thirty-one.
He said: &ldquo;That ties it.
And I mean ties it, brother.
You&#8217;re looking at the brokest
Capellan-earthman who ever
got himself stuck on an outworld.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;You mean it?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Dead broke, Jase.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;What about Sally and the
kids?&rdquo;</p>

<p>Englander had an Arcturan-earthian
wife and twin
boys four years old. &ldquo;I don&#8217;t
know what about Sally and
the kids,&rdquo; he told Ramsey
glumly. &ldquo;I guess I&#8217;ll go over
to the New Quarter and try
to get some kind of a job.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;They wouldn&#8217;t hire an outworlder
to shine their shoes
with his own spit, Stu. They
have got the planetarization
bug, and they&#8217;ve got it bad.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Sally Englander called
from the kitchen of the small
flat: &ldquo;Will Jase be staying for
supper?&rdquo;</p>

<p>Englander stared at Ramsey,
who shook his head. &ldquo;Not
today, Sally,&rdquo; Englander said,
looking at Ramsey gratefully.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; Ramsey lied,
&ldquo;I&#8217;ve been lucky as all get out
the last couple of months.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;You old pro!&rdquo; grinned
Englander.</p>

<p>&ldquo;So I&#8217;ve got a few hundred
<a name="png.007" id="png.007"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">12</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>credits just burning a hole
in my pocket,&rdquo; Ramsey went
on. &ldquo;How&#8217;s about taking
them?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;But I haven&#8217;t the slightest
idea when I could pay back.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I didn&#8217;t say anything
about paying me back.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I couldn&#8217;t accept charity,
Jase.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;O.K. Pay me back when
you get a chance. There are
plenty of hyper-space jobs
waiting for us all over the
galaxy, you know that.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Yeah, all we have to do is
get off Irwadi and go after
them. But the Irwadians are
keeping us right here.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Sure, but it won&#8217;t last.
Not when the folks back in
Capella and Deneb and Sol
System hear about it.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Six months,&rdquo; said Englander
bleakly. &ldquo;It&#8217;ll take at least
that long.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Six months I can wait.
What d&#8217;you say?&rdquo;</p>

<p>Englander coughed <ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
 original reads 'rackingly'">wrackingly</ins>,
his eyes watering. He
got off the bed and shook
Ramsey&#8217;s hand solemnly.
Ramsey gave him three hundred
and seventy-five credits
and said: &ldquo;Just see you make
that go a long way supporting
Sally and the kids. I don&#8217;t
want to see you dropping any
of it at the gaming tables.
I&#8217;ll knock your block off if I
see you there.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;ll knock my own block
off if I see me there. Jase,
I don&#8217;t know how to thank&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Don&#8217;t is right. Forget it.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Do you have enough&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Me? Plenty. Don&#8217;t worry
about old Jase.&rdquo; Ramsey went
to the door. &ldquo;Well, see you.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Englander walked quickly
to him and shook his hand
again. On the way out, Ramsey
played for a moment or
two with the twins, who were
rolling a couple of toy spaceships
marked hyper-one and
hyper-two across the floor and
making anachronistic machine-gun
noises with their
lips. Sally Englander, a
plump, young-home-maker
type, beamed at Ramsey from
the kitchen. Then he went out
into the gathering dusk.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />As usual on Irwadi, and
particularly with the coming
of night, it was bitterly cold.
Sucker, Ramsey told himself.
But he grinned. He felt good
about what he&#8217;d done. With
Stu sick, and with Sally and
the kids, he&#8217;d done the only
thing he could do. He still had
almost twenty-five credits
left. Maybe he really would
have a lucky night at the
tables. Maybe &hellip; heck, he&#8217;d
been down-and-out before. A
fugitive from Earth didn&#8217;t
have much choice sometimes&hellip;.</p>

<p><a name="png.008" id="png.008"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">13</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span>&ldquo;Red <ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
 original reads 'sitxeen'">sixteen</ins>,&rdquo; the croupier
said indifferently. He was a
short, heavy-set Sirian with
a shock of scarlet hair, albino
skin, and red eyes.</p>

<p>Ramsey watched his money
being raked across the table.
It wasn&#8217;t his night, he told
himself with a grim smile. He
had only three credits left. If
he risked them now, there
wouldn&#8217;t even be the temporary
physical relief and release
of a bottle of Irwadian
brandy before hitting the
sack.</p>

<p>Which was another thing,
Ramsey thought. Hitting the
sack. Ah yes, you filthy outworlder
capitalist, hitting the
sack. You owe that fish-eyed,
scale-skinned Irwadian landlady
the rent money, so you&#8217;d
better wait until later, until
much later, before sneaking
back to your room.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />He watched the gambling
for another hour or so without
risking his few remaining
credits. After a while a well-dressed
Irwadian, drunk and
obviously slumming here in
the Old Quarter, made his
way over to the table. His
body scales were a glossy dark
green and he wore glittering,
be-jeweled straps across his
chest and an equally glittering,
be-jeweled weapons belt.
Aside from these, in the approved
Irwadian fashion, he
was quite naked. An anthropologist
friend had once told
Ramsey that once the Irwadians
had worn clothing, but
since the coming in great
number of the outworlders
they had stripped down, as
though to prove how tough
they were in being able to
withstand the freezing climate
of their native world.
Actually, the Irwadian body-scales
were superb insulation,
whether from heat or from
cold.</p>

<p>&ldquo;&hellip;&nbsp;Earthman watching
me,&rdquo; the Irwadian in the be-jeweled
straps said arrogantly,
placing a fat roll of credits
on the table.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m sorry,&rdquo; Ramsey said.
&ldquo;Were you talking to me?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I thertainly wath,&rdquo; lisped
the Irwadian, his eyes blazing
with drunken hatred. &ldquo;I thaid
I won&#8217;t have any Earthman
thnooping over my thoulder
while I gamble, not unleth
he&#8217;th gambling too.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Better tell that to your
Security Police,&rdquo; Ramsey said
coldly but not angrily. &ldquo;I&#8217;m
out of a job, so I don&#8217;t have
money to throw around. Go
ahead and tell me&mdash;&rdquo; with a
little smile&mdash;&ldquo;you think it was
my idea.&rdquo;</p>

<p>The Irwadian looked up
haughtily. Evidently he was
looking for trouble, or could
<a name="png.009" id="png.009"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">14</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>not hold his liquor, or both.
The frenzy of planetarization,
Ramsey knew from bitter
experience on other worlds,
made irrational behavior like
this typical. He studied the
drunken Irwadian carefully.
In all the time he&#8217;d spent on
Irwadi, he&#8217;d never been able
to tell a native&#8217;s age by his
green, scale-skinned, fish-eyed
poker-face. But the glossy
green scales covering face and
body told Ramsey, along with
the sturdy muscles revealed
by the lack of clothing, that
the Irwadian was in his
prime, shorter than Ramsey
by far, but wider across the
shoulders and thicker through
the barrel chest.</p>

<p>&ldquo;You outworlderth have
been deprething the thandard
of living on Irwadi ever
thince you came here,&rdquo; the
Irwadian said. &ldquo;All you ever
brought wath poverty and
your ditheath germth and
more trouble than you could
handle. I don&#8217;t want your
thtink near me. I&#8217;m trying to
enjoy mythelf. Get out of
here.&rdquo;</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />It was abruptly silent in
the little gambling hall. Since
the establishment catered to
outworlders and was full of
them, the silence, Ramsey
thought, should have been
both ominous and in his
favor. He looked around. Outworlders,
yes. But not another
Earthman present. He wondered
if he was in for a fight.
He shrugged, hardly caring.
Maybe a fight was just what
he needed, the way he felt.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Get out of here,&rdquo; the Irwadian
repeated. &ldquo;You thtink.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Just then a Vegan girl,
blue-skinned and fantastically
wasp-waisted like all her
kind, drifted over to Ramsey.
He&#8217;d seen her around. He
thought he recognized her.
Maybe he&#8217;d even danced with
her in the unit-a-dance halls
reserved for humanoid outworlders.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Are you nuts?&rdquo; she said,
hissing the words through
her teeth and grabbing Ramsey&#8217;s
elbow. &ldquo;Don&#8217;t you know
who that guy is?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;No. Who?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;He&#8217;s Garr Symm, that&#8217;s
who.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey smiled at her without
mirth. &ldquo;Do I bow down
in awe or run from here
screaming? I never heard of
Garr Symm.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Oh you fool!&rdquo; she whispered
furiously. &ldquo;Garr Symm
is the brand new number one
man of the Irwadi Security
Police. Don&#8217;t you read the
&#8217;casts?&rdquo;</p>

<p>Before Ramsey could answer
or adjust to his surprise,
the Irwadian repeated:</p>

<p><a name="png.010" id="png.010"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">15</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span>&ldquo;I&#8217;m telling you for the
third time. Get out.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ostentatiously, Ramsey
reached into his cloak-pocket
for a single credit bill and
tossed it on the table.</p>

<p>&ldquo;The denomination is not
sufficient, sir,&rdquo; the albino
Sirian croupier said indifferently.
Ramsey had known it
was not.</p>

<p>Garr Symm&#8217;s face turned
a darker green. The Vegan
girl retreated from Ramsey&#8217;s
side in fright. Symm raised
his hand and an Irwadian
waiter brought over a drink
in a purple stem glass with
a filigree pattern of titanium,
bowing obsequiously. Symm
lurched with the glass toward
Ramsey. &ldquo;I&#8217;m telling you to
go,&rdquo; he said in a loud voice.</p>

<p>Ramsey picked up his credit
note but stood there. With
a little sigh of drunken contentment,
Garr Symm sloshed
the contents of his stem glass
in Ramsey&#8217;s face.</p>

<p>The liquor stung Ramsey&#8217;s
eyes. Many of the other outworlders,
neither Irwadian
nor Earthmen, laughed nervously.</p>

<p>Ramsey wiped his eyes but
otherwise did not move. He
was in a rough spot and he
knew it. The fact that their
new Security Chief went out
drunk at night with a chip
on his shoulder was the Irwadian
government&#8217;s affair, not
Ramsey&#8217;s. He&#8217;d been insulted
before. An Earthman in the
outworlds, particularly an
Earthman fugitive who knew
he dared not get into the
kind of trouble that could
bring the Earth consul to investigate,
was used to insults.
For Earth was the leading
economic and military power
of the galaxy, and the fact
that Earth really tried to deal
fairly with its galactic neighbors
meant nothing. Earth,
being top dog, was resented.</p>

<p>The thing which got Ramsey,
though, was this Garr
Symm. He had never heard of
Garr Symm, and he thought
he knew most of the big shots
in the Irwadian Security Police
by name. But there must
have been a reason for his
appointment. A government
throwing off outworld influence
had a reason for everything.
So, why Garr Symm?</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />&ldquo;You, Mith Vegan!&rdquo; Garr
Symm called suddenly. &ldquo;You
whithpered to the Earthman.
What did you tell him?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Not to look for trouble,&rdquo;
the Vegan girl said in a
frightened voice.</p>

<p>&ldquo;But what elth?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Honest, that&#8217;s all.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Come here, pleath.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Her blue skin all at once
very pale, the Vegan girl
<a name="png.011" id="png.011"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">16</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>walked back toward Garr
Symm. He leered at her quite
drunkenly and took hold of
her slender arm. &ldquo;What did
you tell him? For the latht
time.&rdquo;</p>

<p>The girl whimpered: &ldquo;You
are hurting my arm.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Thoughts raced through
Ramsey&#8217;s mind. As an administrator,
as an Irwadian public
servant in a touchy job,
Garr Symm, a drunkard, was
obviously grossly incompetent.
What other qualifications
did he have which gave
him the top Irwadian Security
job? Ramsey didn&#8217;t
know. He sighed. The Vegan
girl&#8217;s mouth formed a rictus
of pain. Ramsey had a hunch
he was going to find out.</p>

<p>He said curtly: &ldquo;Let go of
her, Symm. She told me nothing
that would interest
you.&rdquo;</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Garr Symm ignored him.
The blue-skinned girl cried.</p>

<p>Ramsey grimaced and hit
Garr Symm in the belly as
hard as he could.</p>

<p>Symm thudded back against
the table. It overturned with
a crash and the Security
Chief crashed down on top of
it. There wasn&#8217;t a sound in
the gambling hall except
Ramsey&#8217;s sudden hard breathing,
the Vegan girl&#8217;s sniffling,
and Garr Symm&#8217;s noisy attempts
to get air into his
lungs. Then Garr Symm
gagged and was sick. He
writhed in pain, still unable
to breathe. His hands fluttered
near his weapons belt.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Come on,&rdquo; Ramsey told
the Vegan girl. &ldquo;We&#8217;d better
get out of here.&rdquo; He took her
arm. Dumbly she went with
him. None of the outworlders
there tried to stop them.
Ramsey looked back at Garr
Symm. The Irwadian was
shaking his fist. He had finally
managed to draw his m.g.
gun, but the crowd of outworlders
closed between them
and there was no chance he
could hit Ramsey or the girl.
Retching, he had dirtied the
glossy green scales of his
chest.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;ll get you,&rdquo; he vowed.
&ldquo;I&#8217;ll get you.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey took the girl outside.
It was very cold. &ldquo;I&#8217;m
so afraid,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;What
will I do? What can I do?&rdquo;
She shook with fear.</p>

<p>&ldquo;You got a place to sleep?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Y-yes, but I&#8217;m the only
Vegan girl in Irwadi City.
He&#8217;ll find me. He&#8217;ll find me
when he&#8217;s ready.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;O.K. Then come home with
me.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;For crying out loud, I
don&#8217;t look that lecherous, do
I? We can&#8217;t just stand here.&rdquo;</p>

<p><a name="png.012" id="png.012"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">17</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span>&ldquo;I&mdash;I&#8217;m sorry. I&#8217;ll go with
you of course.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey took her hand
again and they ran. The cold
black Irwadian night swallowed
them.</p>

<p>&ldquo;So you live in the Old
Quarter too,&rdquo; the Vegan girl
said.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Heck yeah. Did you expect
a palace?&rdquo;</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Ramsey had a room, rent
one Irwadi month in arrears,
in a cold-water tenement near
the river which demarked the
Old and the New Quarters.
The façade of the old building
was dark now. His landlady
was probably asleep,
although you never could tell
with that old witch. Ramsey
knew it wouldn&#8217;t be the first
time she stayed up through
half the night to await a
delinquent tenant.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I never went to a man&#8217;s
room before,&rdquo; the blue-skinned
Vegan girl said. She was
rather pretty in a slender,
muscleless, big-eyed, female-helpless
mode.</p>

<p>&ldquo;You&#8217;re a dance-hall girl,
aren&#8217;t you?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Still, I never spent the
night in a man&#8217;s&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;What&#8217;s the matter with
you? You think we&#8217;re going
to spend the night here?
Somebody over at those gaming
tables will be able to identify
me. Garr Symm&#8217;ll be on
his way before long.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Then what are we going
to do?&rdquo; The girl was shivering
with cold.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Hide,&rdquo; Jason Ramsey said.
&ldquo;Somewhere. I just came back
to get my things. There isn&#8217;t
much, but there&#8217;s an old m.g.
gun which we might need.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;But they&#8217;ll find us, and&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;You coming upstairs or
will you wait out here and
freeze to death in the cold?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m coming.&rdquo;</p>

<p>They went upstairs together,
on tip-toe. Ramsey&#8217;s
room was on the third floor,
with a besooted view of the
industrial complex on the
river by day. The narrow hall
was dark and silent. Behind
one of the closed doors an
outworlder cried out in his
sleep. Ramsey had to cup a
hand over the Vegan girl&#8217;s
mouth so she wouldn&#8217;t scream
in empathic fear. He opened
the door of his room, surprised
that it was not locked.
He thought he had left it
locked.</p>

<p>At once he was wary. It
was dark in the hall, just as
dark in the room. He could
see nothing. The door hinges
squeaked.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Come in, Captain Ramsey,&rdquo;
a voice said. &ldquo;I thought
you would never get here.&rdquo;</p>

<p>He stood on the threshold,
<a name="png.013" id="png.013"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">18</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>uncertain. The voice had
spoken not Interstellar <i>Coine</i>,
but English. It had spoken
English, without a foreign
accent.</p>

<p>And it was a girl&#8217;s voice.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Still, it could have been an
elaborate trick. It was unlikely,
but not impossible,
that Garr Symm had learned
Ramsey&#8217;s identity already and
had sent an operative here to
await him. Ramsey and the
Vegan girl had come on foot.
It was a long walk.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m armed,&rdquo; Ramsey lied.
&ldquo;Come over here. Slowly.
Don&#8217;t put any lights on.&rdquo; He
could feel the Vegan girl
trembling next to him. Not
able to understand English,
she didn&#8217;t know what was
going on.</p>

<p>&ldquo;You&#8217;re armed,&rdquo; the unseen
girl&#8217;s voice said in crisp,
amused English, &ldquo;like I&#8217;m a
six-legged Antarean spider-man.
You have an m.g. gun,
Ramsey. It&#8217;s in this room. I
have it. That&#8217;s all you have.
No, don&#8217;t try to lie to me.
I&#8217;m a telepath. I can read
you. Come in and put the light
on and shut the door. You
may bring the girl with you
if you want. Brother, is she
ever radiating fear! It&#8217;s practically
drowning your own
mind out.&rdquo;</p>

<p>The unseen girl wasn&#8217;t kidding,
Ramsey knew. She could
read minds. She had proved
it to him. Which left him this
choice: he could grab the
Vegan girl&#8217;s arm again and
get the heck out of there, or
do what the unseen Earth girl
told him to do. He wanted
that m.g. gun. He took the
Vegan girl&#8217;s hand and advanced
over the threshold and
closed the door and switched
on the light.</p>

<p>The girl was sitting on the
bed. She was an Earthgirl,
all right. She had come in a
toggle-cloak of green Irwadian
fur, which was folded
neatly at her side on the bed.
Under it she wore a daring
net halter of the type then
fashionable on Earth but
which had not yet taken over
the outworlds. It left her
shoulders bare and exposed a
great deal of smooth, tawny
skin through the net. Her
firm breasts were cupped in
two solid cones of black growing
out of the net. Her midriff
was bare to an inch or two
below the navel. Her loins
were covered by an abrevitog
which formed a triangle in
front and, Ramsey knew,
would form one in back. Her
long, well-formed legs were
bare down to the mid-calf
boots she wore. She had a
beautiful body and had dressed
so Ramsey couldn&#8217;t miss
<a name="png.014" id="png.014"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">19</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>it. Her face was so provocatively
beautiful that Ramsey
just stood there staring at it&mdash;after
he had taken in the
rest of her. She wore her
hair quite long. She seemed
perfectly composed. In her
right hand she held Ramsey&#8217;s
m.g. gun, but she wasn&#8217;t
pointing it at them.</p>

<p>She looked at the timid
Vegan girl and smiled. &ldquo;Oh,
I am sorry, Captain Ramsey,&rdquo;
she said. &ldquo;I couldn&#8217;t know, of
course, you&#8217;d be coming home
with&mdash;company.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;It isn&#8217;t what you think it
is,&rdquo; Ramsey said, surprised
to find himself on the defensive.
&ldquo;The girl&#8217;s in trouble.
So&#8217;m I.&rdquo;</p>

<p>The Earthgirl laughed. &ldquo;Already?
You looked the type,
but I thought it would take a
little time.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo; Ramsey
said. They were speaking
in English. The Vegan girl
tugged at Ramsey&#8217;s arm. She
wanted to get out of there
and hoped Ramsey would go
with her. Abruptly the Earthgirl
burst out laughing.</p>

<p>&ldquo;What&#8217;s so funny?&rdquo; Ramsey
demanded.</p>

<p>&ldquo;<ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
 original reads 'You&#8217;re'">Your</ins> little Vegan friend.
I read her mind, Ramsey. She
thinks I&#8217;m your wife. She
thinks I&#8217;m mad at you for
bringing her home.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Then why don&#8217;t you talk
in <i>Coine</i>,&rdquo; Ramsey said in the
interstellar language, &ldquo;and
make her feel better? She
might as well know I never
saw you before in my life.&rdquo;
He was annoyed.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />The Vegan girl smiled timidly,
taking hope.</p>

<p>&ldquo;But you did,&rdquo; the beautiful
Earthgirl said. &ldquo;I was on
the <cite>Polaris</cite> today, Captain.
You were to be the pilot, until
Interstellar Transfer here on
Irwadi was planetarized.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I didn&#8217;t see you. Dressed
like that I wouldn&#8217;t have forgotten
you.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I wasn&#8217;t dressed like this.&rdquo;
The girl smiled, very sure of
herself. &ldquo;I read your mind
when you came in. The costume&#8217;s
had the desired effect,
I see. But you needn&#8217;t broadcast
your animal desires so
blatantly.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Nobody asked you to read
my mind. Besides, you needn&#8217;t
broadcast your physical assets
so blatantly.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Touché,&rdquo; said the Earthgirl.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; Ramsey began.
&ldquo;We&#8217;re in a jam. We&#8217;re in a
hurry.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;So you told me. I couldn&#8217;t
have wished for more. It
looks like I didn&#8217;t need this
costume and its obvious inducements
at all, if you&#8217;re
really in a jam.&rdquo;</p>

<p><a name="png.015" id="png.015"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">20</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span>&ldquo;What the devil is that supposed
to mean?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;My name is Margot Dennison,
Captain Ramsey. I
have managed to buy an old
starship, small and held together
by spit and string and
whatever the Irwadians use
for prayer&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;They&#8217;re atheists,&rdquo; Ramsey
said a little pointlessly. It was
the girl. Darn her hide, she
was beautiful! What did she
expect? Looking at her, how
could a man concentrate&hellip;.
&ldquo;Hey!&rdquo; Ramsey blurted suddenly.
&ldquo;Did you say Margot
Dennison? The tri-di star?&rdquo;</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Margot Dennison smiled.
&ldquo;That&#8217;s right,&rdquo; she said.
&ldquo;Stranded five hundred light
years from nowhere, Captain
Ramsey. With a ship. With
money. In need of a hyper-space
pilot. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m
here, or didn&#8217;t you guess?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m listening.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Isn&#8217;t it clear? I&#8217;ll pay you
to take me away from here.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Where to?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Through hyper-space to
Earth. Well?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;ve been grounded. If I
take you through hyper-space,
I lose my license.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;You really don&#8217;t believe
that, do you? After the Irwadians
grounded all of you
without warning, and grounded
all ships until they can
train a few more pilots. You
don&#8217;t really think I.T.S. would
take your license away if you
took a ship up and through
hyper, do you? Under the circumstances?
Especially since
you&#8217;re in a jam with a totalitarian
government gone wild?
Do you?&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey said abruptly:
&ldquo;I&#8217;m sorry. I can&#8217;t take you
to Sol System.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Margot Dennison smiled. It
wasn&#8217;t the kind of smile designed
to make a man roll
over on his back and wave all
fours in the breeze. Margot
Dennison didn&#8217;t need that
kind of smile.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Oh, I&#8217;m sorry,&rdquo; she said.
&ldquo;I read your mind, you see.
Very well, Captain. If you&#8217;re
a fugitive from Earth&mdash;I assume
Ramsey isn&#8217;t your real
name, by the way&mdash;you may
take me through hyper to
Centauri. That will be quite
satisfactory. I will make my
way from Centauri. Well?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Give me the gun,&rdquo; Ramsey
said.</p>

<p>&ldquo;My goodness, of course.
I&#8217;m not trying to hold you up.
Here.&rdquo; She got up from the
bed for the first time and
walked toward them. She had
firm, long legs, and used them
well. She was utterly lovely
and although part of it was
probably her professional
know-how, she made you
<a name="png.016" id="png.016"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">21</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>forget that. She was the most
attractive girl, Earth or outworld,
Ramsey had seen in
years.</p>

<p>Ramsey took the gun. Their
hands met. Ramsey leaned
forward quickly and kissed
her on the lips. He was still
holding the Vegan girl&#8217;s slender
arm, though. She tried to
run away but couldn&#8217;t. Margot
Dennison returned the
kiss for an instant, to show
Ramsey that when she really
wanted to return it, if she
ever really would, she would
pack the same kind of libidinal
vitality in her responses
as she did in her appearance;
then she stood coldly, no longer
responsive, until Ramsey
stepped back.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Maybe I was asking for
it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I was prepared
for that&mdash;and more. But it
isn&#8217;t necessary now, is it? My
gosh, Ramsey! Will you please
close that mind of yours? You
make a girl blush.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Then put on your cloak,&rdquo;
Ramsey said, and, really
blushing this time, she did so.</p>

<p>She said: &ldquo;I&#8217;m prepared to
pay you one thousand credits;
what do you say?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I say it must be a pretty
important appointment you
have on Centauri.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Earth, Captain Ramsey.
I&#8217;m settling for Centauri.
Well?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;ll take you,&rdquo; Ramsey
said, &ldquo;if this girl comes too.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Margot Dennison looked at
the frightened Vegan girl and
smiled. &ldquo;So it&#8217;s like that,&rdquo; she
said.</p>

<p>&ldquo;It isn&#8217;t like anything.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey packed a few
things in an expanduffle and
the three of them hurried
through the doorway and
down stairs. The cold dark
night awaiting them with a
fierce howling wind and the
first flurries of snow from the
north.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Where to?&rdquo; Ramsey hollered
above the wind.</p>

<p>&ldquo;My place,&rdquo; Margot Dennison
told him, and they ran.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Margot Dennison had a
large apartment in Irwadi
City&#8217;s New Quarter. This
surprised Ramsey, for not
many outworlders lived there.
That night, though, he was
too tired to think about it. He
vaguely remembered a couch
for himself, a separate room
for the Vegan girl, another
for Margot Dennison. He
slept like a log without
dreaming.</p>

<p>He awoke with anxious
hands fluttering at his shoulder.
Opening one sleepy eye,
he saw the Vegan girl. He
saw daylight through a window
but said, &ldquo;Gmph! Middle
of the night.&rdquo;</p>

<p><a name="png.017" id="png.017"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">22</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span>The Vegan girl said: &ldquo;She&#8217;s
gone.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey came awake all at
once, springing to his feet
fully dressed and flinging
aside his cloak, which he&#8217;d
used as a blanket. &ldquo;Margot!&rdquo;
he called.</p>

<p>&ldquo;She&#8217;s gone,&rdquo; the Vegan
girl repeated. &ldquo;When I awoke
she wasn&#8217;t here. The door&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Ramsey ran to the door. It
was a heavy plastic irising
door. It was locked and naturally
would not respond to the
whorl patterns of Ramsey&#8217;s
thumb.</p>

<p>&ldquo;So now we&#8217;re prisoners,&rdquo;
Ramsey said. &ldquo;I don&#8217;t get it.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;At least there&#8217;s food in
the kitchen.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;All right. Let&#8217;s eat.&rdquo;</p>

<p>There were two windows
in the room, but when Ramsey
looked out he saw they
were at least four stories up.
They&#8217;d just have to wait for
Margot Dennison.</p>

<p>It took the Vegan girl some
time to prepare the unfamiliar
Earth-style food with
which Margot Dennison&#8217;s
kitchen was stocked. Ramsey
used the time to prowl around
the apartment. It was furnished
in Sirian-archaic, a
mode of furniture too feminine
to suit Ramsey&#8217;s tastes.
But then, the uni-sexual
Sirians, of course, often catered
to their own feminine
taste.</p>

<p>Ramsey found nothing in
Margot Dennison&#8217;s apartment
which indicated she had done
any acting on Irwadi, and
that surprised him, for he&#8217;d
assumed she had plied her
trade here as elsewhere. He
felt a little guilty about his
snooping, then changed his
mind when he remembered
that Margot had locked them
in.</p>

<p>In one of the slide compartments
of what passed for a
bureau in Sirian-archaic, he
found a letter. Since it was
the only piece of correspondence
in the apartment, it
might be important to Margot
Dennison, thought Ramsey.
And if it were important to
her&hellip;.</p>

<p>Ramsey opened the letter
and read it. Dated five Earth
months before, it ran:</p>

<blockquote>
<p><i>My darling Margot: By the
time you read this I shall be
dead. Ironical, isn&#8217;t it? Coming
so close&mdash;with death in
the form of an incurable
cancer intervening.</i></p>

<p><i>As you know, Margot, I
always wished for a son but
never had one. You&#8217;ll have to
play that role, I&#8217;m afraid, as
you always have. Here is the
information I told you I would
write down. Naturally, if you
<a name="png.018" id="png.018"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">23</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>intend to do anything about
it, you&#8217;ll guard it with your
life.</i></p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 /><i>Apparently the hyper-space
pattern from Irwadi to
Earth is the one I was looking
for. The proto-men, if I
may be bold enough to call
them that, first left hyper-space
at that point, perhaps
a million, perhaps five million,
Earth years ago. I don&#8217;t have
to tell you what this means,
my child. I&#8217;ve already indicated
it to you previously. It
suffices to remind you that,
in what science has regarded
as the most amazing coincidence
in the history of
the galaxy, humanoid types
sprang up on some three thousand
stellar worlds simultaneously
between one and five
million years ago. I say simultaneously
although there is
the possibility of a four million
year lag: indications are,
however, that one date would
do quite well for all the
worlds.</i></p>

<p><i>Proto-man was tremendously
ahead of us in certain
sciences, naturally. For example,
each humanoid type
admirably fits the evolutionary
pattern on its particular
planet. The important point,
Margot, is the simultaneity
of the events: it means that
proto-man left hyper-space,
his birth-place, and peopled
the man-habitable worlds of
the galaxy at a single absolute
instance in time. This would
clearly be impossible if the
thousands of journeys involved
any duration. Therefore,
it can only be concluded
that they were journeys
which somehow negated the
temporal dimension. In other
words, instant travel across
the length and breadth of the
galaxy!</i></p>

<p><i>Whoever re-discovers proto-man&#8217;s
secret, needless to
say, will be the most influential,
the most powerful, man
in the galaxy. Margot, I
thought that man would be
me. It won&#8217;t be now.</i></p>

<p><i>But it can be you, Margot.
It is my dying wish that you
continue my work. Let nothing
stop you. Nothing. Remember
this, though: I cannot
tell you what to expect
when you reach the original
home of proto-man. In all
probability the whole race has
perished, or we&#8217;d have heard
of them since. But I can&#8217;t be
sure of that. I can&#8217;t be sure
of anything. Perhaps proto-man,
like some deistic god,
became disinterested in the
Milky Way Galaxy for reasons
we&#8217;ll never understand.
Perhaps he still exists, in
hyper-space.</i></p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 /><!-- Original printed in two portions in magazine, hence jump in page numbers -->
<a name="png.019" id="png.019"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">104</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span><i>Finally, Margot, remember
this. If you presented this
letter to the evolutionary scientists
on any of the worlds,
they&#8217;d laugh at you. It is as
if unbelief of the proto-man
legend were ingrained in all
the planetary people, perhaps
somehow fantastically carried
from generation to generation
in their genes because proto-man
a million years ago decided
that each stellar world
must work out its own destiny
independently of the others
and independent of their common
heritage. But in my own
case, there are apparently two
unique factors at work. In the
first place, as you know, I
deciphered&mdash;after discovering
it quite by accident&mdash;what
was probably a proto-man&#8217;s
dying message to his children,
left a million years ago in the
ruins on Arcturus II. In the
second place, isn&#8217;t it quite
possible that my genes have
changed, that I have mutated
and therefore do not have as
an essential part of my make-up
the unbelief of the proto-man
legend?</i></p>

<p><i>Good luck to you, Margot.
I hope you&#8217;re willing to give
up your career to carry out
your dying father&#8217;s wish. If
you do, and if you succeed,
more power will be yours than
a human being has ever before
had in the galaxy. I won&#8217;t
presume to tell you how to
use it.</i></p>

<p><i>Oh, yes. One more thing.
Since Earth and Alpha Centauri
are on a direct line from
Irwadi, Centauri will do quite
well as your outbound destination
if for some reason you
can&#8217;t make Earth. Again,
good luck, my child. With all
my love, Dad.</i></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Ramsey frowned at the letter.
He did not know what to
make of it. As far as he knew,
there was no such thing as a
proto-man myth in wide currency
around the galaxy. He
had never heard of proto-man.
Unless, he thought suddenly,
the dying man could
have simply meant all the
myths of human creation,
hypothecating a first man
who, somehow, had developed
independently of the beasts of
the field although he seemed
to fit their evolutionary pattern&hellip;.</p>

<p>But what the devil would
hyper-space have to do with
such a myth? Proto-man,
whatever proto-man was,
couldn&#8217;t have lived in hyper-space.
Not in that bleak, ugly,
faceless infinity&hellip;.</p>

<p>Unless, Ramsey thought,
more perplexed than ever, it
was the very bleak, ugly,
<a name="png.020" id="png.020"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">105</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>faceless infinity which made
proto-man leave.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Breakfast!&rdquo; the Vegan
girl called. Ramsey joined her
in the kitchen, and they ate
without talking. When they
were drinking their coffee, an
Earth-style beverage which
the Vegan girl admitted liking,
the apartment door irised
and Margot Dennison came
in.</p>

<p>Ramsey, who had replaced
the letter where he&#8217;d found
it, said: &ldquo;Just what the devil
did you think you were doing,
locking us in?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;For your own protection,
silly,&rdquo; Margot told him
smoothly. &ldquo;I always lock my
door when I go out, so I locked
it today. Naturally, we
won&#8217;t have a chance to apply
for a new lock. Besides, why
arouse suspicion?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Where&#8217;d you go?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I don&#8217;t see where that&#8217;s
any of your business.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Believe it or not,&rdquo; Ramsey
said caustically, &ldquo;I&#8217;ve seen a
thousand credits before. I&#8217;ve
turned down a thousand credits
before, in jobs I didn&#8217;t
like. As for being stranded
here on Irwadi, it&#8217;s all the
same to me whether I&#8217;m on
Irwadi or elsewhere.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;What does all that mean,
Captain Ramsey?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;It means keep us informed.
It means don&#8217;t get uppity.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Margot laughed and dropped
a vidcast tape on the table
in front of Ramsey. He read
it and did not look up. There
was a description of himself,
a description of the Vegan
girl, and a wanted bulletin
issued on them. For assaulting
the Chief of Irwadi Security,
the bulletin said. For
assaulting a drunken fool,
Ramsey thought.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; Margot asked. This
morning she wore a man-tailored
jumper which, Ramsey
observed, clashed with
the Sirian-archaic furniture.
She looked cool and completely
poised and no less beautiful,
if less provocatively
dressed, than last night.</p>

<p>Ramsey returned question
for question. &ldquo;What about the
ship?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;In a Spacer Graveyard, of
course. There isn&#8217;t a landing
field on the planet we could
go to.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;You mean we&#8217;ll take off
from a Graveyard? From a
junk-heap of battered old
derelict ships?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Of course. It has some
advantages, believe it or not.
We&#8217;ll work on the ship nights.
It needs plenty of work, let
me tell you. But then the
Graveyard is a kind of parts
department, isn&#8217;t it?&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey couldn&#8217;t argue with
that.</p>

<p><a name="png.021" id="png.021"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">106</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span>They spent the next three
days sleeping and slowly going
stir-crazy. They slipped
out each night, though, and
walked the two miles to the
Spacer Graveyard down near
the river. It was on the other
side of the river, which meant
they had to boat across.
Risky, but there was no help
for it. Each night they worked
on the ship, which Ramsey
found to be a fifty-year old
Canopusian freighter in even
worse condition than Margot
had indicated. The night was
usually divided into three
sections. First, reviewing the
work which had been done
and planning the evening&#8217;s
activities. Then, looking for
the parts they would need in
the jungle of interstellar
wrecks all about them. Finally,
going to work with the
parts they had found and
with the tools which Ramsey
had discovered on the old
Canopusian freighter the first
night.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />As they made their way
back across the river the first
night, Ramsey paddling slowly,
quietly, Margot said:</p>

<p>&ldquo;Ramsey, I&mdash;I think we&#8217;re
being watched.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I haven&#8217;t seen or heard a
thing. You, Vardin?&ldquo; Vardin
was the Vegan girl&#8217;s name.</p>

<p>Vardin shook her head.</p>

<p>Ramsey was anxious all at
once, though. Things had
gone too smoothly. They had
not been interfered with at
all. Personally, things hadn&#8217;t
gone smoothly with Ramsey,
but that was another story.
He found himself liking Margot
Dennison too much. He
found himself trying to hide
it because he knew she could
read minds. Just how do you
hide your thoughts from a
mind reader? Ramsey didn&#8217;t
know, but whenever his
thoughts drifted in that direction
he tried thinking of
something else&mdash;anything
else, except the proto-man
letter.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Yes, that&#8217;s just what I was
thinking,&ldquo; Margot said in the
boat. &ldquo;I can read minds, so
I&#8217;d know best if we were
being watched. To get a clear
reading I have to aim my
thoughts specifically, but I
can pick up free-floating
thoughts as a kind of emotional
tone rather than words.
Does that make sense?&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;If you say so. What else
did you read in my mind?&ldquo;</p>

<p>Margot smiled at him mysteriously
and said nothing.</p>

<p>Ramsey felt thoughts of
proto-man nibbling at his consciousness.
He tried to fight
them down purely rationally,
and knew he wouldn&#8217;t succeed.
He grabbed Margot and
<a name="png.022" id="png.022"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">107</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>pulled her close to him, seeking
her lips with his, letting
his thoughts wander into a
fantasy of desire.</p>

<p>Margot slapped his face
and sat stiffly in her cloak
while he paddled to the other
side of the river. Vardin sat
like a statue. Ramsey had
come to a conclusion: he did
not like letting Margot know
how he felt about her, but it
was mostly on a straight physical
level and he preferred
her discovering it to her
learning that he&#8217;d read the
proto-man letter from her father.
In his thoughts, though,
he never designated it as the
proto-man letter from her father.
He designated it as X.</p>

<p>When they reached the
bank, Margot said: &ldquo;I&#8217;m
sorry for slapping you.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m sorry for making a
pass.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Ramsey, tell me, what is
X?&ldquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey laughed harshly
and said nothing. That gave
Margot something to think
about. Maybe it would keep
her thoughts out of his mind,
keep her from reading&hellip;.</p>

<p>X marks the spot, thought
Ramsey. XXX marks the
spot-spot-spot. X is a spot in
a pot or a lot of rot&hellip;.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Oh, stop it!&ldquo; Margot cried
irritably. &ldquo;You&#8217;re thinking
nonsense.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Then get the heck out of
my mind,&ldquo; Ramsey told her.</p>

<p>Vardin walked on without
speaking. If she had any
inkling of what they were
talking about, she never mentioned
it.</p>

<p>Margot said: &ldquo;I still get the
impression.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;What impression?&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;That we&#8217;re being followed.
That we&#8217;re being watched.
Every step of the way.&ldquo;</p>

<p>Wind and cold and darkness.
The hairs on the back of
Ramsey&#8217;s neck prickled. They
walked on, bent against the
wind.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Security Officer Second
Class Ramar Chind reported
to his Chief in the Hall of
Retribution the following
morning. Chind, a career man
with the Irwadi Security
Forces, did not like his new
boss. Garr Symm was no
career man. He knew nothing
of police procedure. It was
even rumored&mdash;probably
based upon solid fact&mdash;that
Garr Symm liked his brandy
excessively and often found
himself under its influence.
Worst of all&mdash;after all, a man
could understand a desire for
drink, even if, sometimes, it
interfered with work&mdash;worst
of all, Garr Symm was a scientist,
a dome-top in the
Irwadi vernacular. And
<a name="png.023" id="png.023"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">108</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>hard-headed Ramar Chind lost no
love on dome-tops.</p>

<p>He saluted crisply and
said: &ldquo;You wanted to see me,
sir?&ldquo;</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Garr Symm leaned forward
over his desk, making a tent
of his scaly green fingers and
peering over it. He said three
words. He said: &ldquo;The Earthgirl
Dennison.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;The Spacer Graveyard,&ldquo;
Ramar Chind said promptly.
That was an easy one. His
agents had been following the
Dennison girl, at Garr
Symm&#8217;s orders. Ramar Chind
did not know why.</p>

<p>&ldquo;And?&ldquo; Garr Symm asked.</p>

<p>&ldquo;The Earthman Ramsey,
the Vegan Vardin, both are
with her. We can close in and
arrest the lot, sir, any time
you wish.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Fool,&ldquo; Garr Symm said
softly, without malice. &ldquo;That
is the last thing I want. Don&#8217;t
you understand that? No, I
guess you don&#8217;t.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Yes, sir.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Their ship?&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Every morning after they
leave we go over it. Still two
or three nights away from
completion, sir. Also&mdash;&ldquo;
Ramar Chind smiled.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Yes, what is it?&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Two or three nights away
from completion, except for
one thing. They&#8217;ll need a fuel
supply. Two U-235 capsules
rigged for slow implosion, sir.
The hopper of their ship is
empty.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Is there such a fuel supply
in the Graveyard?&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;No, sir.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;But could there be?&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Usually, no. Naturally, the
junkers drain out spaceship
hoppers before scrapping
them. U-235 in any form
brings&mdash;&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I know the value of U-235.
Proceed.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Well, there could be. If
they were lucky enough to find
such a fuel supply in one of
the wrecks in the Graveyard,
they wouldn&#8217;t be suspicious.
Naturally, we won&#8217;t put one
there.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;But you&#8217;re wrong, my dear
Ramar Chind. You&#8217;ll load the
hopper of one of those wrecks
with enough U-235 for their
purposes, and you&#8217;ll do it
today.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;But sir&mdash;&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;We&#8217;re going to follow
them, Chind. You and I. We
want them to escape. If they
don&#8217;t escape, how can we follow
them?&ldquo;</p>

<p>Ramar Chind shrugged resignedly
and lisped: &ldquo;How
much fuel will they need for
their purposes, sir, whatever
their purposes are?&ldquo; Naturally,
his lisping sounded perfectly
normal to Garr Symm,
<a name="png.024" id="png.024"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">109</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>who also spoke in the sibilantless
Irwadi manner.</p>

<p>&ldquo;You&#8217;d really like to know,
wouldn&#8217;t you?&ldquo; Garr Symm
said.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Yes, sir. To put me in a
position in which I could better
do my&mdash;&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;To satisfy your curiosity,
you mean!&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;But sir&mdash;&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I am a scientist, Chind.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Yes, sir.&ldquo;</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />&ldquo;Didn&#8217;t it strike you as odd
that a scientist should be elevated
to the top post in your
department?&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Of course, sir. I didn&#8217;t
question it, though.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;As you know, Chind, when
it was decided to planetarize
Irwadi as a first step toward
driving away the outworlders,
the quarters of every
outworlder on Irwadi were
thoroughly searched.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I participated in the&mdash;uh,
program, sir.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Good. Then I needn&#8217;t tell
you. Something was found in
Margot Dennison&#8217;s apartment.
Something of immense
importance. Something so important
that, if used properly,
it can assure Irwadi the dominant
place in the galaxy for
all time to come.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;But I thought Irwadi
craved isolation&mdash;&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Isolation, Chind? To be
sure, if intercourse with the
other galactic powers saw us
at the bottom of the heap. But
at the top&mdash;who would crave
isolation at the top?&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I see, sir. And the something
that was found needed
a scientist?&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Very perceptive of you,
Chind. Precisely. It was a
letter. We copied it. Of course,
Margot Dennison knows more
than what is in the letter; the
letter alludes to previous information.
We need Dennison
and Ramsey. We have to let
them go ahead with their
plans. Then we follow them,
Chind. You understand?&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Yes, sir.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;You&#8217;re a good policeman,
Chind. The best we have, I
understand. You&#8217;ll be going
with me&mdash;on the most important
assignment you or any
Irwadian ever had.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I am grateful, sir, that
you consider me&mdash;&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Now, see about that U-235
slow-implosion capsule.&ldquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;At once, sir.&ldquo;</p>

<p>Saluting smartly, Ramar
Chind left Garr Symm&#8217;s office.
Symm smiled and sat
perfectly still for some minutes.
For Irwadi, yes, he was
thinking. Certainly for Irwadi.
For Irwadi absolutely.
To make Irwadi the most important
planet in the galaxy.
But important planets&mdash;in
<a name="png.025" id="png.025"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">110</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>the way that Irwadi would
be important&mdash;couldn&#8217;t maintain
the status quo. For example,
Irwadi&#8217;s form of government
might have to be
changed. At present, an autocratic
bureaucracy with no
one man at the top. Ultimately,
after the rediscovery
of proto-man&#8217;s secret&mdash;rule
by one man.</p>

<p>Garr Symm, absolute dictator
of the galaxy, if he played
his hand right.</p>

<p>Garr Symm sat there for a
long time, dreaming of power
as no man before him on
any world had ever dreamed
of power&hellip;.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Vardin rushed into the airlock
of the Canopusian
freighter in a state of excitement.
At last they had given
her something to do, and she
had been successful at the
outset. Specifically, Ramsey
and the beautiful woman had
given her a scintillation-counter
and told her to prowl
among the wrecks with it
while they worked on the
control board of the freighter,
which the beautiful woman
had named <cite>Enterprise</cite>.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I found it!&ldquo; Vardin cried.
&ldquo;I found it!&ldquo;</p>

<p>She led a sceptical Margot
Dennison outside while Ramsey
continued working on the
<cite>Enterprise</cite>. The two girls
walked swiftly through the
darkness between the wrecks.
By this time they knew every
foot of the Graveyard.</p>

<p>&ldquo;There,&ldquo; Vardin said. &ldquo;You
see?&ldquo;</p>

<p>The scintillation counter
was clicking and blinking.
Margot smiled and went to
work with a portable mechanical
arm and a leaded bottle.
In ten minutes, she had the
slow-implosion capsule out of
the hopper of a battered old
<ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
 original reads 'Aldeberanese'">Aldebaranese</ins> cargo ship.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I never saw one of those
mechanical arms working before,&rdquo;
Vardin said.</p>

<p>Margot smiled. She was
delighted with the timid
Vegan girl, with the cold
night, with the way the wind
blew across the Graveyard,
with everything. They had
their fuel. Tomorrow night
the <cite>Enterprise</cite> would be ready
for its dash into hyper-space.
In thirty-six hours she might
have her hands on the most
valuable find in the history of
mankind&hellip;.</p>

<p>When they returned to the
<cite>Enterprise</cite>, she let Ramsey
kiss her and tried to slip the
telepathic tentacles of her
mind behind his guard&mdash;</p>

<p>Lewd libidinous fantasies,
X stands for nothing for
nothing for nothing, XXX&mdash;she
got nowhere.</p>

<p>What was X? What was
<a name="png.026" id="png.026"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">111</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>Ramsey&#8217;s secret? Margot did
not know, and wondered if
she would ever find out.</p>

<p>She smiled, reading Vardin&#8217;s
mind. For Vardin was
thinking: it must be so wonderful
to have beauty such as
she has, to melt the wills of
strong handsome men such as
Ramsey. It must be truly
wonderful.</p>

<p>For the first twenty-eight
years of her life, Margot
Dennison would have agreed,
would have delighted in her
own beauty. She still did, to
a point. But beyond that
point, she could dream only
of proto-man and his secret.</p>

<p>Beauty or power?</p>

<p>She had beauty.</p>

<p>She wanted power.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />In the early hours of the
following morning, behind the
cover of what appeared to be
a dense early morning fog but
what actually was an artificially
produced fog, a team of
Irwadi technicians swarmed
all over a battered Procyonian
cruiser of three thousand
tons. By mid-morning, working
swiftly and with all the
tools and spare parts they
would need, they made the
ship, called <cite>Dog Star</cite>, space-worthy.</p>

<p>Later that day, but still
two hours before nightfall,
Ramar Chind arrived with a
small crew of three Security
Police. He had selected his
men carefully: they knew
how to handle a spaceship,
they knew how to fight, they
were quite ruthless. He
thought Garr Symm would be
pleased.</p>

<p>Symm did not arrive until
just before nightfall. He was
very agitated when he came.
Ramar Chind, too, was eager.
What would happen within
the next several hours, he realized,
might be beyond his
ken, but he still recognized its
importance. And, being an
opportunist, he would pounce
on whatever he found of
value to himself&hellip;.</p>

<p>Several hours after the setting
of the Irwadi primary
had ushered in the cold night,
Margot Dennison, Ramsey
and Vardin arrived at the
Graveyard and made their
way at once to the <cite>Enterprise</cite>.
They went inside swiftly and
in a very few minutes prepared
the thousand-tonner
for blastoff. Ramsey&#8217;s mouth
was dry. He could barely keep
the thoughts of proto-man
from his mind. If Margot
read them&hellip;.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Centauri here we come,&rdquo;
he said, just to talk.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Centauri,&rdquo; said Margot.</p>

<p>But of course, she had another
destination in mind.</p>

<p>Several hundred yards
<a name="png.027" id="png.027"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">112</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>across the Graveyard, watching,
waiting, the occupants of
<cite>Dog Star</cite> were armed to the
teeth.</p>

<p>Ramsey sat at the controls.
Vardin stood behind him
nervously. The space trip
from Vega to Irwadi was
probably the only one she had
ever taken. Margot sat, quite
relaxed, in the co-pilot&#8217;s chair.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I still can&#8217;t believe we&#8217;re
not going to feel anything,&rdquo;
Vardin said in her soft, shy
voice.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Haven&#8217;t you ever been
through hyper-space before?&rdquo;
Margot asked the Vegan girl.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Just once.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;In normal space,&rdquo; Ramsey
explained, &ldquo;we feel acceleration
and deceleration because
the increase or decrease in
velocity is experienced at different
micro-instants by all
the cells of our body. In
hyper-space the velocity is
felt simultaneously in all
parts of the ship, including
all parts of us. We become
weightless, of course, but the
change is instant and we feel
no pressure, no pain.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey was waiting until
0134:57 on the ship chronometer.
At that precise instant
in time, and at that instant
only, blastoff would place
them on the proper hyper-space
orbit. And, before they
could feel the mounting pressure
of blastoff, the timelessness
of hyper-space would
intervene.</p>

<p>&ldquo;0130:15,&rdquo; Margot read
the chronometer for Ramsey.
&ldquo;It won&#8217;t be long now.
30:20&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; Ramsey said
suddenly. &ldquo;All right. I can
read the chronometer.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Why, Ramsey! I do believe
you&#8217;re nervous.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Anxious, Margot. A hyper-pilot
is always anxious just
before crossover. You&#8217;ve got
to be, because the slightest
miscalculation can send you
fifty thousand light years off
course.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;So? All you&#8217;d have to do is
re-enter hyper-space and go
back.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey shook his head.
&ldquo;Hyper-space can only be entered
from certain points in
space. We&#8217;ve never been able
to figure out why.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;What certain points?&rdquo;</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Ramsey looked at her
steadily. &ldquo;Points which vary
with the orbits of the three
thousand humanoid worlds,
Margot,&rdquo; he said slowly. He
watched her for a reaction,
knowing that strange fact
about hyper-space&mdash;perfectly
true and never understood&mdash;dovetailed
with her father&#8217;s
letter about proto-man, an
unknown pre-human ancestor
<a name="png.028" id="png.028"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">113</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>of all the humanoid races in
the galaxy, who had discovered
hyper-space, bred variations
to colonize all the inhabitable
worlds, found or
created the three thousand
crossover points in space, and
used them.</p>

<p>Margot showed no response,
but then, Ramsey
told himself, she was a tri-di
actress. She could feign an
emotion&mdash;or hide one. She
merely asked: &ldquo;Is it true that
there&#8217;s no such thing as time
in hyper-space?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;That&#8217;s right. That&#8217;s why
you can travel scores or hundreds
or thousands of light
years through hyper-space in
hours. Hyper-space is a continuum
of only three dimensions.
There is no fourth dimension,
no dimension of
duration.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Then why aren&#8217;t trips
through hyper-space instantaneous?
They take several
hours, don&#8217;t they?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Sure, but the way scientists
have it figured, that&#8217;s
subjective time. No objective
time passes at all. It can&#8217;t.
There isn&#8217;t any&mdash;in hyper-space.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Then you mean&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey shook his head.
&ldquo;0134:02,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&#8217;s almost
time.&rdquo;</p>

<p>The seconds ticked away.
Even Margot did not seem
relaxed now. She stared nervously
at the chronometer, or
watched Ramsey&#8217;s lips as he
silently read away the seconds.
A place where time did
not exist, an under-stratum
of extension sans duration.
An idea suddenly entered her
mind, and she was afraid.</p>

<p>If proto-man had colonized
the galactic worlds between
one and four or five million
years ago, but if time did not
exist for proto-man, then
wasn&#8217;t the super-race which
had engendered all mankind
still waiting in its timeless
home, waiting perhaps grimly
amused to see which of
their progeny first discovered
their secret? Or must proto-man,
like humans everywhere,
fall victim to subjective
time if objective time did
not matter for him?</p>

<p>Ramsey was saying softly:
&ldquo;Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five,
fifty-six &hellip; blastoff!&rdquo;</p>

<p>His hand slammed down on
the activating key.</p>

<p>An instant later, having
felt no sensation of acceleration,
they were floating
weightlessly in the cabin of
the little <cite>Enterprise</cite>.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />&ldquo;The qualities of radar,&rdquo;
Garr Symm said, &ldquo;exist in
their totality in a universe
of extension. Time, actually
is a drawback to radar,
<a name="png.029" id="png.029"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">114</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>necessitating a duration-lag between
sending and receiving.
Therefore, Ramar Chind, radar
behaves perfectly in
hyper-space, as you see.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Ramar Chind said,
floating near the radar screen
aboard the <cite>Dog Star</cite>. At its
precise center was a bright
little pip of light.</p>

<p><cite>The Enterprise</cite>&hellip;.</p>

<p>&ldquo;But don&#8217;t we do anything
except follow them?&rdquo; Ramar
Chind said after a long
silence.</p>

<p>Garr Symm smiled. &ldquo;Does
it really matter? You see,
Chind, time actually stands
still for us here. Duration is
purely subjective, so what&#8217;s
your hurry?&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramar Chind licked his
lips nervously and stared
fascinated at the little pip
of bright light.</p>

<p>Which suddenly dipped and
swung erratically.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; Margot asked.
&ldquo;What&#8217;s the matter?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Take it easy,&rdquo; Ramsey
told her.</p>

<p>&ldquo;But the ship&#8217;s swooping. I
can feel it. I thought you
weren&#8217;t supposed to feel
movement in hyper-space!&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Relax, will you? There
are eddies in hyper-space,
that&#8217;s all. If you want an
analogy in terms of our own
universe, think of shoals in
an ocean&mdash;unmarked by
buoys or lights.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;You mean they have to
be avoided?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;But this particular shoal&mdash;it&#8217;s
midway between Irwadi
and Earth?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;There isn&#8217;t any &lsquo;midway,&rsquo;
Margot. That&#8217;s the paradox
of hyper-space.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I don&#8217;t understand.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Look. In the normal universe,
extension is measured
by time. That is, it takes a
certain amount of time to get
from point A to point B. Conversely,
time is measured by
extension in space. On Earth,
a day of time passes when
Earth moves through space
on an arc one three-hundred-sixty-fifth
of its orbit around
the sun in length. Since there
isn&#8217;t any time to measure extension
with in hyper-space,
since time doesn&#8217;t exist here,
you can&#8217;t speak of mid-points.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;But this&mdash;shoal. It&#8217;s always
encountered in hyper-space
between Earth and
Irwadi?&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey nodded. &ldquo;Yes, that
is right.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Margot smiled.</p>

<p>The smile suddenly froze
on her face.</p>

<p>The <cite>Enterprise</cite> lurched as
if an unseen giant hand had
slapped it.</p>

<p><a name="png.030" id="png.030"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">115</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span>At that moment Ramsey
leaned forward over the controls,
battling to bring the
<cite>Enterprise</cite> back on course.</p>

<p>And let down his mental
guard.</p>

<p><i>&hellip; precise place in hyper-space
her father must have
meant &hellip; home of proto-man
&hellip; thinks I&#8217;m going to stop
there, she&#8217;s crazy &hellip; heck,
I&#8217;m no mystic, but there are
things not meant to be meddled
<span class="nw">with &hellip;</span></i></p>

<p>The ship swooped again.
Ramsey went forward against
the control panel head-first
and fell dazed from the pilot
chair. His head whirled, his
arms and legs were suddenly
weak and rubbery. He tried
to stand up and make his way
back to the controls again,
but collapsed and went down
to his knees. He crouched
there, trying to shake the fog
from his brain.</p>

<p>With a cry of triumph,
Margot Dennison leaped at
him and bore him down to the
floor with her weight. He was
still too dazed from the blow
on his head to offer any resistance
when her strong
hands tugged at his belt and
withdrew the m.g. gun. She
got up with it, backing away
from him quickly toward the
rear bulkhead as the ship
seemed to go into a smooth
glide which could be felt
within it. Vardin stood alongside
Ramsey, a hand to her
mouth in horror. Ramsey got
up slowly.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Stay where you are!&rdquo;
Margot cried, pointing the
m.g. gun at him. &ldquo;I&#8217;ll kill you
if I have to. I&#8217;ll kill you,
Ramsey, I mean it.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey did not move.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />&ldquo;So you knew about my
father,&rdquo; Margot challenged
him.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Yeah. So what?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;And this shoal in hyper-space
is a world, isn&#8217;t it?&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey nodded. &ldquo;I think
so.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;O.K. Sit down at the controls,
Ramsey. That&#8217;s right.
Don&#8217;t try anything.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey was seated in the
pilot chair again. His head
was still whirling but his
strength had returned. He
wondered if he could chance
rushing her but told himself
she meant what she said. She
would kill him in cold blood
if she had to.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Bring the <cite>Enterprise</cite>
down on that world, Ramsey.&rdquo;</p>

<p>He sat there and stubbornly
shook his head. &ldquo;Margot,
you&#8217;ll be meddling with a
power beyond human understanding.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Rubbish! You read my
father&#8217;s letter, didn&#8217;t you?
That fear&#8217;s been implanted in
<a name="png.031" id="png.031"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">116</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>your genes. It&#8217;s part of the
heredity of our people. It&#8217;s
rubbish. Bring the ship
down.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Still Ramsey did not move.
Vardin looked from him to
Margot Dennison and back
again with horror in her eyes.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;ll count three,&rdquo; Margot
said. &ldquo;Then I&#8217;ll shoot the
Vegan girl. Do you understand?&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey&#8217;s face went white.</p>

<p>&ldquo;One,&rdquo; Margot said.</p>

<p>Vardin stared at him beseechingly.</p>

<p>Ramsey said: &ldquo;All right,
Margot. All right.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Five minutes later, subjective
time, the <cite>Enterprise</cite>
landed with a lurch.</p>

<p>That they had reached a
world in hyper-space there
could be no doubt. But outside
the portholes of the little
freighter was only the murky
grayness of the timeless
hyper-space continuum.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />&ldquo;They&#8217;ve gone down, sir!&rdquo;
Ramar Chind cried.</p>

<p>Garr Symm nodded. For
the first time he was really
nervous. He wondered about
the Dennison letter. Could his
fear be attributed to ancestral
memory, as Dennison had indicated?
Was it really baseless&mdash;this
crawling, cold-fingered
hand of fear on his
spine?</p>

<p>There was no physical
barrier. The <cite>Enterprise</cite> had
established that fact. Then
was there a barrier which
Garr Symm, along with all
humanoids, had somehow
inherited?</p>

<p>A barrier of stark terror,
subjective and unfounded on
fact?</p>

<p>And beyond it&mdash;what?</p>

<p>Power to chain the universe&hellip;.</p>

<p>Think, Garr Symm told
himself. You&#8217;ve got to be rational.
You&#8217;re a scientist.
You&#8217;ve been trained as a scientist.
This is their barrier,
erected against you, against
all humanoids, a million years
ago. It isn&#8217;t real. It&#8217;s all in
your mind.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Do you want me to follow
them down?&rdquo; Ramar Chind
asked.</p>

<p>Garr Symm envied the policeman.
Naturally, Ramar
Chind did not share his terror.
You didn&#8217;t know the terror
until you learned about
proto-man; then the response
seemed to be triggered in
your brain, as if it had been
passed to you through the
genes of your ancestors,
waiting a million years for
release&hellip;.</p>

<p>Fear, a guardian.</p>

<p>Of what? Garr Symm asked
himself. Think of that,
fool. Think of what it guards.</p>

<p><a name="png.032" id="png.032"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">117</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span>Power&mdash;</p>

<p>Teleportation or its equivalent.</p>

<p>Gone the subjective passage
of hours in hyper-space.</p>

<p>Earned&mdash;if you were
strong enough or brave
enough to earn it&mdash;the ability
to travel instantly from one
humanoid world to another.
Instantly. Perhaps from any
one point on any humanoid
world to any one point, precise,
specific, exact, on another
world.</p>

<p>To plunder.</p>

<p>Or assassinate.</p>

<p>Or control the lives of men,
everywhere.</p>

<p><i>Sans</i> ship.</p>

<p><i>Sans</i> fear.</p>

<p><i>Sans</i> the possibility of
being caught or stopped.</p>

<p>Sweating, Garr Symm
said: &ldquo;Bring the <cite>Dog Star</cite>
down after them, Ramar
Chind.&rdquo;</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Ramsey smiled without
humor. &ldquo;What now, little
lady?&rdquo; he said mockingly.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Shut up. Oh, shut up!&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;What are you going to do
now?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I told you to shut up. I
have to think.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I didn&#8217;t know a gorgeous<!-- opening quote missing from scan -->
tri-di actress ever had to
think.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Let me see those figures
again,&rdquo; Margot said.</p>

<p>Ramsey handed her the
tapes from the <cite>Enterprise&#8217;s</cite>
environment-checker.</p>

<p>Temperature: minus two
hundred and twenty degrees
Fahrenheit.</p>

<p>Atmosphere: none.</p>

<p>Gravity: eight-tenths
Earth-norm.</p>

<p>&ldquo;And we don&#8217;t have a
spacesuit aboard,&rdquo; Ramsey
said.</p>

<p>&ldquo;But it can&#8217;t be. It can&#8217;t.
This is the home of proto-man.
I know it is. But if I
went out there I&#8217;d perish from
cold in seconds and lack of
air in minutes.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;That&#8217;s right,&rdquo; Ramsey
said almost cheerfully. &ldquo;So
do I take the ship back up?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I hate you, Jason Ramsey.
Oh, I hate you!&rdquo; Margot
cried. Then suddenly: &ldquo;Wait!
Wait a minute! What was
that you were thinking? Tell
me! You must tell me&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey shook his head and
tried to force the thoughts
from his mind with doggerel.
Ben Adam, he thought. Abou<!-- referencing James Leigh Hunt's poem "Abou Ben Adhem" -->
Ben Adam, Humpty Dumpty,
hurry, hurry, hurry, the only
two headed get yours here the
sum of the square of the sides
is equal to the square of the
hyper-space, no, mustn&#8217;t think
that mimsy were the borogroves <!-- misremembering "All mimsy were the borogoves; And the mome raths outgrabe."
 Lewis Carroll, Rectory Umbrella and Mischmasch -->
and the momraths now
what the heck did the momraths
do anyhow absolute
<a name="png.033" id="png.033"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">118</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>zero is the temperature at
which all molecular activity&hellip;.</p>

<p>&ldquo;What were you thinking,
Ramsey?&rdquo;</p>

<p>His mind was a labyrinth.
There were thousands of discrete
thoughts, of course.
Millions of them, collected
over a lifetime. But all at once
he did not know his way
through that labyrinth and
his thoughts kept whirling
back to the one Margot Dennison
wanted as if, somehow,
she could pluck it from his
mind.</p>

<p>She stood before him, her
brow furrowed, sweat beading
her pretty face.</p>

<p>And she was winning, forcing
the thought to take shape
in Ramsey&#8217;s mind&mdash;</p>

<p><i>But if<ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
 'I' invisible in scan"> I </ins>went out there I&#8217;d
perish from cold in seconds
and lack of air in minutes.</i></p>

<p><i>Cold</i>, came the known and
unbidden thoughts to Ramsey&#8217;s
struggling mind. <i>And
lack of air. Attributes of extension,
of space</i>, but measured
by duration, by time.
<i>And since time does not exist
in hyper-space, the vacuum
out there and the terrible,
killing cold, could have no
effect on you. You could go
out there perfectly protected
from the lethal environment
by the absence of the time
dimension.</i></p>

<p>Margot smiled at him.
&ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she said.
&ldquo;Thank you, Ramsey.&rdquo;</p>

<p>He was about to speak, but
she added: &ldquo;And don&#8217;t give
me that stuff about a power
we shouldn&#8217;t tamper with.
I&#8217;m going out there. Now.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey nodded slowly. &ldquo;I
won&#8217;t stop you.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;But just so you don&#8217;t get
any ideas of stranding me
here&mdash;Vardin. Vardin&#8217;s going
with me.&rdquo;</p>

<p>The Vegan girl looked at
Ramsey mutely.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Ramsey said: &ldquo;What makes
you think I&#8217;ll let you take
her?&rdquo;</p>

<p>Margot smiled again. &ldquo;The
m.g. gun makes me think so.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;The heck of it is, you&#8217;re
not really bad, Margot. This
thing&#8217;s got you, is all. You&#8217;re
not essentially evil.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Thank you for the thrilling
compliment. I&#8217;m delighted,&rdquo;
Margot said sarcastically.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Vardin stays with me.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Margot reminded him of
the lethal m.g. gun by showing
it to him, muzzle-first.</p>

<p>He laughed in her face. &ldquo;Go
ahead and shoot.&rdquo;</p>

<p>She stared at him.</p>

<p>&ldquo;There isn&#8217;t a lethal weapon&#8217;d
do you any good here
in a timeless continuum. Take
an m.g. gun. It induces an
<a name="png.034" id="png.034"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">119</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>artificial breakdown of radioactive
fuel in its chamber,
firing an instantly lethal dose
of radiation. But in order for
radioactive breakdown to occur,
time must pass. Even if
it&#8217;s only milliseconds, as in
the case of an m.g. gun. There
aren&#8217;t any milliseconds on
this world, Margot. There
isn&#8217;t any time. So go ahead
and pull the trigger.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Margot frowned and pointed
the gun to one side and
fired.</p>

<p>Nothing happened. Margot
almost looked as if her hard
shell had been sundered by
the impotence of the m.g. gun.
She pouted. Her eyes gleamed
moistly.</p>

<p>Then Ramsey said: &ldquo;O.K.
Let&#8217;s go.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;What&mdash;what do you
mean?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Out there. All of us.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;But I thought you said&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Sure, I&#8217;m scared stiff. A
normal man would be. It&#8217;s in
our genes, according to your
father. But I&#8217;m also a man.
What the devil d&#8217;you think it
was first got man out of his
cave and started along the
road to civilization and the
stars? It was curiosity. Fear
restraining him, and curiosity
egging him on. Which do you
think won in the end?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Oh, Ramsey, I could kiss
you!&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Go right ahead,&rdquo; Ramsey
said, and she did.</p>

<p>They opened the airlock.
They went outside smiling.</p>

<p>But Vardin, who went with
them, wasn&#8217;t smiling. There
was sadness instead.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />In cumbersome spacesuits,
the five Irwadians made their
way from the <cite>Dog Star</cite> to the
<cite>Enterprise</cite>. Ramar Chind and
his three policemen carried
m.g. guns; Garr Symm was
unarmed. Chind used a whorl-neutralizer
to force the pattern
of the lock on the outer
door of the <cite>Enterprise&#8217;s</cite> airlock.
Then the five of them
plunged inside the ship.</p>

<p>The inner door was not
closed.</p>

<p>The <cite>Enterprise</cite> was empty.</p>

<p>Garr Symm looked doubtfully
at the gray murkiness
behind them. Although the
<cite>Dog Star</cite> stood out there less
than a quarter of a mile
away, they couldn&#8217;t see it
through the murk.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Where did they go?&rdquo;
Ramar Chind asked.</p>

<p>Symm waved vaguely behind
them.</p>

<p>Chind and his men turned
around.</p>

<p>Gritting his teeth against
the fear which welled up like
nausea from the pit of his
stomach, Garr Symm went
with them.</p>

<p><a name="png.035" id="png.035"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">120</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span>At that moment they all
heard the music.</p>

<p>&ldquo;You hear it?&rdquo; Ramsey
asked softly. His voice did not
carry on the airless world,
of course. But he spoke, and
the words were understood,
not merely by Margot, who
could read his mind, but by
Vardin as well.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Music,&rdquo; said Margot.
&ldquo;Isn&#8217;t it&mdash;beautiful?&rdquo;</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Ramsey nodded slowly. He
could barely see Margot, although
he held her hand. He
could barely see Vardin although
they stood hand in
hand too. The music was un-Earthly,
incapable of repetition,
indescribably the loveliest
sound he had ever heard.
He wanted to sink down into
the obscuring gray murk and
weep and listen to the haunting,
sad, lovely strains of
sound forever.</p>

<p>&ldquo;What can it possibly be?&rdquo;
Margot asked.</p>

<p>Surprisingly, it was Vardin
who answered. &ldquo;Music of the
Spheres,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It&#8217;s a
legend on Vega III, my
world.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;And on Earth,&rdquo; Ramsey
said.</p>

<p>Vardin told them: &ldquo;On all
worlds. And, like all such
legends, it has a basis in reality.
This is the basis.&rdquo;</p>

<p>That didn&#8217;t sound like timid
little Vardin at all. Ramsey
listened in amazement. He
thought he heard Vardin
laugh.</p>

<p>Music. But didn&#8217;t the notes
need the medium of time in
which to be heard? How
could they hear music here
at all? Or were they hearing
it? Perhaps it merely impinged
on their minds, their
souls, just as they were able
to hear one another&#8217;s thoughts
as words&hellip;.</p>

<p>They&#8217;d never understand
fully, Ramsey knew suddenly.
Perhaps they could grasp a
little of the nature of this
place, a shadow here, the
half-suggestion of the substance
of reality there, a stillborn
thought here, a note of
celestial music there, the timeless
legacy of proto-man,
whatever proto-man was&hellip;.</p>

<p>&ldquo;The fog is lifting!&rdquo; Vardin
cried.</p>

<p>The fog was not lifting.</p>

<p>Then it was.</p>

<p>Ramsey would never forget
that. Vardin had spoken while
the dense gray murk enveloped
them completely.</p>

<p>Then it began to grow
tenuous.</p>

<p>As if Vardin&#8217;s words had
made it so. Little Vardin, shy,
frightened Vardin, suddenly,
inexplicably, the strongest,
surest one among them&hellip;.</p>

<p>The sky, white and
<a name="png.036" id="png.036"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">121</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>dazzling, glistened. The gray
murk glistened too, a hundred
yards off in all directions, like
a wall of polished glass surrounding
them.</p>

<p>In the very middle of the
bell-jar of visibility granted
them all at once, stood a black
rectangular object.</p>

<p>&ldquo;The teleporter!&rdquo; Margot
cried. &ldquo;The matter-transmitter!
I know it is. I <em>know</em> it
is!&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey stood waiting
breathlessly.</p>

<p>No, he realized abruptly,
not breathlessly. You couldn&#8217;t
say breathlessly.</p>

<p>For Ramsey had not
breathed, not once, since they
left the <cite>Enterprise</cite>.</p>

<p>You didn&#8217;t breathe on a
timeless world. You merely&mdash;somehow&mdash;existed.</p>

<p>&ldquo;It&#8217;s opening!&rdquo; Margot
cried.</p>

<p>The black rectangle, ominously
coffin-shaped, was indeed
opening.</p>

<p>&ldquo;The matter transmitter,&rdquo;
Margot said a second time.
&ldquo;The secret of proto-man, of
our ancestors who colonized
all the worlds of space with
it, instantly, at the same
cosmic moment. Think of
what it means, Ramsey, can
you? Instantaneous travel,
anywhere, without the need
for energy since energy cannot
be used here, without the
passage of time since time
does not exist here.&rdquo; She
stood transfixed, looking at
the black box. The lid had
lifted at right angles to the
rest of the box.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Margot said, in the whisper
of an awed thought:
&ldquo;Who controls it controls the
galaxy&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>

<p>And she walked toward the
box.</p>

<p>At that moment Ramsey
had a vision. He saw&mdash;or
thought he saw&mdash;Margot
Dennison in the costume she
had worn when they first met.
She stood, eyes wide, fearful,
expectant, before a chess-board.
The pieces seemed to
be spaceships. It was a perfectly
clear vision, but it was
the only such vision Ramsey
had ever been vouchsafed in
his life. He was no mystic. He
did not know what to make
of it.</p>

<p>Playing chess with Margot
was&mdash;proto-man.</p>

<p>Ramsey only saw his hand.</p>

<p>A hand perhaps five million
years old.</p>

<p>He blinked. The vision persisted,
superimposed over
Margot&#8217;s figure as she walked
toward the box.</p>

<p>A game, he thought. Because
we don&#8217;t understand it.
Not that kind of power. Not
the power a matter-transmitter
<a name="png.037" id="png.037"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">122</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>would give. A cosmic game
on a chess-board which wasn&#8217;t
quite a chess-board, with a
creature who had never lived
as we know life and so could
never die&hellip;.</p>

<p>With the future of the
galaxy hanging in the balance.
Life or death for man
hanging on a slim thread, because
man wasn&#8217;t ready for
matter-transmission, couldn&#8217;t
hope to use it wisely, would
use it perhaps for war, transmitting
lethal weapons, thermonuclear,
world-destroying
weapons, instantly through
space, for delivery anywhere,
negating time&hellip;.</p>

<p>Death hovered.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; Ramsey called, and
ran forward.</p>

<p>Just then five new figures,
space-suited, appeared under
the gleaming dome.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Stop that woman!&rdquo; a voice
which Ramsey should not
have been able to hear but
which he somehow heard perfectly
cried. &ldquo;Stop her!&rdquo;</p>

<p>M.g. guns were raised,
fired.</p>

<p>Without effect.</p>

<p>Three of the spacesuited
figures ran after Margot as
the voice repeated: &ldquo;Stop her!
The box is mine, mine!&rdquo;</p>

<p>It was Garr Symm&#8217;s voice.</p>

<p>Ramsey did not know if he
should stop Margot himself,
or fight Symm&#8217;s men. Although
they couldn&#8217;t use their
weapons on this world, they
could still hurt&mdash;possibly even
kill&mdash;Margot. Ramsey turned
and waited for them.</p>

<p>The strange, mystic vision
was gone. He saw only three
space-suited figures, saw
Margot walking steadily toward
the box. Either she was
moving very slowly or the box
retreated or it was further
away than it had looked at
first. For she hadn&#8217;t reached
it yet.</p>

<p>Ramsey met the space-suited
figures head-on.</p>

<p>There were three of them,
but they were awkward in
their suits, cumbersome, incapable
of quick responses.</p>

<p>Ramsey hit the first one in
the belly and darted back.
His fist felt contact with the
soft bulk of the insulined suit,
then with the harder bulk of
the man. He struck again,
harder this time.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />The <ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
  original reads 'scalely'">scaly</ins> green face of
the Irwadi within the space-suit
grimaced with pain. He
doubled over and fell, his
helmet shattering against the
ground at Ramsey&#8217;s feet.</p>

<p>Then an incredible thing
happened. The Irwadi opened
his mouth to scream. His face
froze. He lost his air. His face
bloated.</p>

<p>And he died.</p>

<p><a name="png.038" id="png.038"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">123</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span>Ramsey couldn&#8217;t believe his
eyes.</p>

<p>It was not possible to die
from lack of air or from cold
on a world without the time
continuum. Ramsey, Vardin
and Margot had proved that
by venturing out without protection.</p>

<p>But the Irwadi had died.</p>

<p>Mental suggestion?</p>

<p>Because he thought he
would die?</p>

<p>Because that was the only
way you could perish on a
world lacking in the time
dimension&mdash;by your own
thoughts?</p>

<p>The second space-suited
figure closed with Ramsey
awkwardly. Ramsey hit him.
The man of Irwadi fell, his
helmet cracked, he tried to
scream&mdash;and died.</p>

<p>The third man fled.</p>

<p>Ramsey ran after Margot.
&ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; he cried. He couldn&#8217;t
talk to her about his fantastic
vision. It was personal. She
wouldn&#8217;t understand. Mystic
experience always is like that.
And yet, with the conviction
that only a mystic can have&mdash;although
he certainly was no
mystic&mdash;Ramsey knew the
galaxy would be in grave
trouble if mankind were given
the secret of matter-transmission.</p>

<p>A voice said: &ldquo;You are
right.&rdquo;</p>

<p>It was Vardin&#8217;s voice, and
Vardin went on:</p>

<p>&ldquo;Ramsey, stop her. I can&#8217;t
stop her. It is only granted
that I observe&mdash;and convince,
if I can. I am not a Vegan
girl. I am&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey said it. &ldquo;Proto-man!&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;There aren&#8217;t many of us
left. We discovered matter-transmission.
We used it
once, to people the worlds of
the galaxy. It was our final
creative effort. We merely
observe now, unable to destroy
our creation, trying to
keep it out of mankind&#8217;s
hands. You see&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;Then back on Irwadi you
knew all along we would come
here!&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I was vouchsafed the vision,
yes. Even as you&mdash;stop
her, Ramsey. You must stop
her!&rdquo;</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Ramsey sprinted forward.
Margot was nearing the black
coffin now.</p>

<p>Ramsey ran at her, and
tackled her.</p>

<p>They went down together,
the girl fighting like a tigress,
tooth and nail, wildly, sobbing,
striking out at Ramsey
with small impotent fists, until
he subdued her. Panting,
they glared at each other.</p>

<p>And could not stop Garr
Symm from running past
<a name="png.039" id="png.039"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">124</span><span class="ns">]
 </span>them, eyes rapt behind the
plastiglass of his helmet, and
jumping into the black box.</p>

<p>&ldquo;To the end of the universe
and back!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Take
me there and back. Instantly.
Prove to me that you work!
Now&hellip;.&rdquo; His voice trailed
off. He had addressed the
black rectangle almost as if it
were something alive.</p>

<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
 />Ramsey thought he heard
a growl from the box. He
stood before it, looking in.
The hackles rose on his neck.</p>

<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; Vardin said.
&ldquo;My ancestors and yours discovered
the power of a god&mdash;and
did not understand it. We
were incorporeal. We created
life&mdash;your ancestors. We patterned
it to fit the evolution
of the three thousand worlds.
Human life. Millions of them,
colonists for the worlds of
normal space. We were tampering
in our tragic pride,
Ramsey, with forces we would
never comprehend.</p>

<p>&ldquo;We colonized the worlds,
deciding that physical existence,
along with the mental
prowess we had, was the ideal
state. A few of us, like myself,
or my ancestors if you
wish, although the purely
mental lives continuously&mdash;a
few of us stayed behind and
saw&mdash;the loss of a million
years!&rdquo;</p>

<p>Ramsey&#8217;s eyes still could
not pierce the darkness inside
the box.</p>

<p>&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; he
asked in an awed voice.</p>

<p>&ldquo;We sent out god-like men.
We did not understand our
discovery. The god-like men&mdash;but
look at Garr Symm.&rdquo;</p>

<p>The spacesuited figure got
up slowly. It blinked at Ramsey.
It growled. It had a recognizably
green, scale-skinned
face. But it was not the face
of Garr Symm. It was the
face of Garr Symm&#8217;s caveman
ancestors, a million
years ago&hellip;.</p>

<p>&ldquo;This is what happened to
my people,&rdquo; Vardin said.</p>

<p>She looked at Ramar Chind
and Chind, responding, went
to Garr Symm and led him
quietly back toward the <cite>Dog
Star</cite>. Chind never said a
word. Garr Symm growled.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Take the Earthgirl and
go,&rdquo; Vardin told Ramsey.</p>

<p>&ldquo;But I&mdash;you&mdash;aren&#8217;t you
coming?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;My work is finished,&rdquo;
Vardin told him. &ldquo;For now.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;For now?&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I am a guardian. When
I am needed again&mdash;&rdquo; She
shrugged her slim blue shoulders.</p>

<p>&ldquo;But Margot will never be
content now,&rdquo; Ramsey protested.
&ldquo;Not when she&#8217;s come
so close.&rdquo;</p>

<p><a name="png.040" id="png.040"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
 class="pgmark">125</span><span class="ns">]<br
 /></span>&ldquo;She&#8217;ll understand. Just as
you understand. You&#8217;ll be
good for each other, Ramsey,
you and the girl. She&#8217;s had
only her fierce pride and her
dreams of power. She has
room for love. She needs
love.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;But you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I? I am nothing. I am the
end-product of an equation
our ancestors found a million
years ago. An equation to give
them god-like power. Instead
it made them savages and I
have had to watch their slow
climb back to the stars. An
equation, Ramsey. Almost an
equation of doom. Now go.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Vardin flickered, became
insubstantial. Her body seemed
to melt into the gray mists.</p>

<p>The gleaming walls were
gone. The black box was gone.
Vardin was gone.</p>

<p>Ramsey led Margot back to
the <cite>Enterprise</cite>.</p>

<p>Moments later&mdash;although
the elapsed time was subjective&mdash;they
blasted off.</p>

<p>Margot opened her eyes.
She had been sleeping. She
smiled at Ramsey tremulously.
&ldquo;I love you,&rdquo; she said. Her
words seemed to surprise her.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I can&#8217;t go back to Earth,&rdquo;
Ramsey said.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Who wants to go back to
Earth&mdash;if you can&#8217;t?&rdquo;</p>

<p>They had, Ramsey knew,
all of space and the life-span
of mortal man to enjoy together.</p>


<p class="rt sans tb"><small><strong>THE END</strong></small></p>
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