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Mason had thought the atmosphere unusually dense. His "baby bullet" had wobbled and danced crazily as they descended from the mother ship to the speckled riot of color that was the surface of the planet Lilith. Now that he stood here on what should be the familiar ground of the spaceport, one hand resting lightly on the warm side of his entry capsule, he felt rather than saw a difference about the place—a faint luminescence in the sunlight that he didn't remember; a curious thickness in the air.
Well, Mason thought, he'd only reported from here twice before and wasn't expected to know all of the local phenomena. Satisfied at this inner explanation, he leaned over and adjusted the controls of the capsule, closed the hatch and patted the Miranda twice for luck. He stepped back and watched his baby soar unerringly into the sky. In ten minutes she would be safely back in the big belly of her mother ship.
The moment Mason turned to walk toward the port offices he had an immediate, disquieting suspicion that he shouldn't have sent her back. His neck prickled uncomfortably and his heart leapt in an unreasonable stab of fear. He wheeled around in a panic and looked for the Miranda. Too late. She was gone, well on her way now beyond the atmosphere.
Idiocy, Mason fairly shouted at himself, fighting to put down the strange terror. Sheer idiocy! He hadn't been re-porting anywhere near long enough to acquire that condition known in the Federation as "space hysteria." If any of his present sensations persisted, Mason promised himself he'd go straight to Ulinski who was right here on Lilith.
Lilith. Older than Eve, the first wife of Adam; the ancient female spirit of evil splendor—Lilith! What a name for an experimental planet, Mason thought, and unexpectedly found himself laughing. With relief at finding his emotions normal once more, he strode purposefully toward the low buildings flanking the field.
Simpkins, Trope and Plummef, Mason repeated to himself, trying to remember the names and faces of the staff. They'd be here, and possibly Yee Mon, if he were lucky. He hoped that Yee's presence at the port might save him a trip into the interior. But the Vining sisters were sure to be out at the second lab and the Federation would insist he see them.
Mason sighed, resigning any hope of an easy stay at the port and faintly dreading the prospect of the difficult trip over the mountains and into the interior jungles. Would they ever get around to authorizing flyers instead of land rovers for a place like this!
Now, in which lab would Herb Gregson be, he wondered vaguely. And Louisa Wenger. She was one member of the staff he wouldn't mind treking many miles without a land rover to see. Thinking of Louisa, Mason smiled warmly and began to walk a little faster.
Suddenly, without any warning, he was picked up off his feet and blown at least six feet into the air. He whirled around dizzily choking on mouthfuls of a fine, black substance that spiraled around him and bit fiercely through his clothing, stabbing him with the sharp precision of shot. He fell to the ground gasping and spitting, nearly blinded by the black stuff that still clung to his eyes, sending vicious stabs of pain into the retinas.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. The stuff practically danced away from him, leaving with a swiftness that looked almost like flight. Mason cautiously rubbed his smarting eyes but there wasn't a speck left. He followed the black cloud, watching as it spiraled like a top over the build-ings and then seemed to dissipate before his eyes. Gone! There was nothing left of it but the pain in his eyes and a severe wrench in his back where he had fallen.
Curiously, he realized that he hadn't been afraid. He wondered momentarily at the inaccuracies of his reactions: fear at the wrong time, and complete steadiness in the middle of the storm. No, not storm—that ridiculous small tornado. But was it a tornado? Was it any sort of storm? Mason frowned, trying to recall an impression that had seemed terribly vivid six feet up in the spiral. But all he could remember now was a faint childlike dream of dust and houses spinning—Oz! Of course, the age-old dream of a journey to Oz. But had that been the real impression?
For the first time since he'd landed, Mason became uncomfortably aware of the absolute stillness of the port. A dead quiet that permeated slowly, making him intensely aware of the beating of his heart. His movements, as he pulled himself up from the ground, were unnaturally loud. He could hear his own exhalation and took a deep breath, unconsciously trying to hold it as long as possible.
He looked around, noticing the emptiness of the field, finally understanding that all the ordinary sounds of a spaceport were unreasonably and unmistakably absent.
For the second time a thrill of fear coursed through Mason and he began to run, loudly, as only a solitary human in a vastly empty space can run. As he reached the door of the main building and tore it open he realized he was yelling. Yelling with an hysterical violence so strange that hearing it brought him up sharply. It couldn't be he making those maniacal sounds.
He forced himself to stand quite still and take deep breaths. Where was Ulinski? At the moment it was all he cared to know. Somehow it had registered on his senses that the buildings were deserted, that the offices were an amorphous mass of tumbled papers and overturned chairs. Even running over the field he had understood that the usual quota of parked land rovers were gone.
But at this moment Mason was quite certain that something serious had affected his psyche and he wanted desperately to see Dr. Ulinski before it was too late. Rigid, breathing deeply, he stood there clenching and unclenching his fists until a sound, the first sound other than his own, made him spin around in terrified swiftness and search the dim corners of the room.
It was a moan, the faint whimper of something in pain, and it was unmistakably a human sound. This certainty brought Mason around so abruptly that he almost cried with relief. And immediately (later he thought it quite miraculous) all of Mason's control returned. It was less than a minute before his fear had entirely vanished and he was bending carefully over the broken, mutilated body of Herb Gregson.
"Mason, I stayed to warn you," Gregson whispered. "Knew you were coming. Others have gone…" His breathing became more and more difficult until the words that followed were only disjointed gasps, blurted out with a final effort of will. "Other lab… there. Our fault, shouldn't tamper… Be careful…"
"What happened?" Mason urged as gently as he could. "Who did this?"
But Gregson's eyes were closed and he could only say, "No… No, our fault," before he was gone.
Mason rose slowly and stood looking down at the pitiful body for a moment, a strange new compassion stirring within him. A compassion that had something to do with meeting so violent a death here on Lilith. He didn't believe that he would feel so deeply had it occurred on Earth or even on one of the other settled planets.
He walked over to the window and looked out at the panorama across the field. In the distance the rainbow range of Lilith's strange colors made the surrounding vegetation look like an artist's dream of a world gone crazy. The faintly purple hue of the tall fern trees cast long shadows across the terrain.
Gregson should have to be buried out there, Mason thought with an instinctive repugnance. He would have to lie out there, under the multicolored earth that would shift arid change, eventually claiming Gregson as its own. Mason had a swift and nostalgic vision of the quiet brown loam of Earth, a more fitting rest for a man. He was, at that moment, bitterly sorry that the Federation had ever discovered Lilith.
Mason had been six when he was chosen. Barely the minimum age for preparation. A tall boy for his age, with a shock of thick sandy hair and serious dark eyes, he had grown during the years of his schooling into a taller, more mature replica of the child he had been. The rigors of space training had given him a hard, lean look. But his job as a reporter, with the many quiet hours of writing it required, had allowed him to retain that contemplative seriousness which had been so characteristic of him as a child.
He had been home only once since that time twenty years ago when he boarded the school ship to prepare for his life in space. Not until this last trip, when he had been assigned again to report on the station at Lilith, had he ever questioned that decision made on a windy hill on Earth during a summer evening, when he lay on his back sucking a long blade of grass and staring up at the stars. Even at six he had recognized the precariousness of his childhood and understood that in taking the stars he would be relinquishing the most precious years of his life.
That moment often returned to him, with the odors of the damp ground, the slick feeling of wet grass against his tongue and the physical connection with the ground of Earth that he had felt so deeply. But none of this could prevail against that blazing sight in the heavens. What child could look long at the universe without an unbearable longing?
Mason was accepted quickly when his wish was made known. He had already been tested in his first Earth school, and was one of only three boys in his town chosen for life in space. His parents made the separation against their will, painfully but proudly. They had little choice between the Federation tests and the wish of their only child.
And on that first trip back when he was just sixteen, Mason had found Earth a strange home. He was so accustomed to other planets, to the company of fellow reporters, to his work, that the adjustment was almost impossible. His parents were changed. His memory of them had become dimmed through the long years of separation, and meeting again was a strained and emotionally charged encounter. But somehow the impressions gathered during that time had stayed with him, and now, in a corner of his being, was a wish to know Earth again and know her well, not as a visitor but as a child who had come home.
Lilith only intensified this feeling. When Mason had been given his orders, he had felt a reluctance to set foot again on this planet which was so utterly unlike any other. Most of the inhabited or experimental planets were at least similar to Earth in many respects. Mason had never been to an "alien" planet. Reporters were sent only to Man's experimental stations or to report on human settlers elsewhere. Mason was a Specialist in experimental stations, and of them all he least liked Lilith with her eerie spectrum that confounded his senses and made him feel isolated in the universe.
His eyes, as he stared out the window, were haunted with a longing for home. They burned deeply in his tanned, craggy face. Someone seeing Mason at that moment would have been struck by the contrast between those serious eyes and his air of youthfulness. There was something naive and childlike, something unfinished about Russell Mason.
It wasn't until he had buried Gregson that Mason remembered the Miranda. Cursing himself for the sentiment that had displaced his own instinct for survival, he drew out a tiny transmitter from his pocket and began a call. Again he was too late. The mother ship had left and would now be on her way to the next experimental station to drop off another reporter, not returning for him until—Mason began to wonder about that until.
Then he remembered that of course he could contact the ship anywhere from the radio room here on the stronger frequency. He raced back to the offices, running through the labyrinth of corridors until he found it. One look at the complicated apparatus and Mason realized that he didn't know the first thing about it. He pulled levers and switches, pressed buttons, turned dials, damning the mentality that had sent him here equipped to use one little transmitter to his ship, and that only when she was directly above.
Why hadn't they prepared him for an emergency like this, he thought numbly as he sat down on the Tech's chair, knowing that his efforts were futile. Space exploration had become too mundane, he guessed, these experimental stations too ordinary. Well, they wanted a reporter and they had one. He supposed it had never crossed their minds that anything could happen to the staff. And, actually, it hadn't crossed his either. In a way he had no right to accuse; he should have forseen an emergency himself.
Soberly he took pen and paper and drew up a list. Then he walked carefully through the building seeking out storerooms and deliberately fashioning a pack for himself. Survival kit, he thought ironically, remembering his history, when every Federation member was obliged to carry one. Eventually he was equipped with what he considered necessary and wondered whether any of it would be of the least value.
The storeroom for the interior was stacked with a seemingly full inventory. He admitted this grudgingly, realizing that if the entire staff had gone to the second lab—which was his ardent hope—they would surely have depleted the supplies. Still, Gregson had managed to say, "Second lab," and Mason knew he had been hanging on by a thread. He would not have said anything that wasn't meaningful.
If the others had fled in some sort of panic, which was how it looked, what were they running from? Mason had been thinking incessantly of Gregson's last words: "Our fault." He thought he knew what Gregson had been trying to say. It wasn't a staff member who had killed him; it was something else. That tornado? Mason doubted it. Even though he'd been tossed around a bit, it hardly had the necessary force. And too, there'd been something about Gregson that spoke of something more evil than a local storm.
He arranged the kit on his back, took a last look around and walked out. He searched the entire field for a land rover, hating to give up the idea that in some nook or cranny he'd find one. This was something he really couldn't understand. Even if they had left in a hurry, they would surely have had the foresight to leave one for him. They knew he was coming.
Their complement of the sturdy little cars had been a substantial one. How many? Mason tried to recall his figures from the last report. They'd been alloted at least ten. Ten rovers to take a small group to the interior? It didn't make sense. Grimly, Mason started walking.
He hadn't gone more than a mile up the rough road when he became aware that his teeth were aching strangely. There was a queer, metallic taste in his mouth and the air had a faintly leaden cast and odor that irritated his nostrils and stung his eyes. Was he due for another spin in one of those black clouds? Mason frowned and looked around, seeing nothing unusual except a gray tint to the landscape that seemed to be growing stronger as he walked on.
It was certainly different from the usual patchwork riot of color, but that didn't worry him greatly. The unusual spectrum and rapid changes of reflection brought constant surprise to the eye. It was Lilith's color, in fact, that had determined her fate as an experimental planet.
The taste grew stronger and the metal, if metal it was, caused every nerve in his mouth to jump painfully. Mason rounded a curve, coming out from the dense vegetation that lined the road to a clear stretch that looked at least a half a mile long and wide.
It was a circular area, looking quite like a flat gray metal disc. The center was almost black with concentric rings of gray circling out from it and fading gradually as they grew toward the outer rim. At first glance Mason thought he had come upon a man-made rink of some sort—for what purpose he couldn't imagine.
Then he realized that it was the earth itself, flattened and pounded with amazing precision. What had they done this for, he wondered incredulously, and then realized that the lab here didn't even have the equipment necessary to do a job like this.
Without thinking further, he hurried on toward the black center. He hadn't taken more than two steps into the gray when he realized that whereas he had started walking, he was now being pulled. Magnetic! The understanding came in a flash and Mason tried to turn around and go back the way he had come. At first he made no headway—he was trying to run and as he lifted his feet they were forced back and he would fall, finding himself being drawn closer to the center.
Then, in desperation, he found that if he took long slow strides, he could actually make a slow but certain movement toward the outer rim. His entire body was aching and the metallic air had invaded his lungs to the point where he wondered if he could breathe much longer.
At last he made the final stride and found himself outside the circle. G&sping for air, he ran off to the side, through the vegetation, until he found a clear spot where the air was fresher. His lungs clear again, he retraced his steps to the gray earth. Mason intended to go around the circle. If he kept to the rim, the air would be just bearable and he wouldn't lose the road completely.
As he approached the circle, Mason saw with horror that the gray was slowly creeping toward him. The substance seemed to engulf the earth it touched, sucking it in like quicksand and then spewing it back transformed to the flat metal. It was a horribly slow, sickening movement. Then, as he watched, it stopped. There was a sudden, final shudder of earth and the rim grew still.
He noticed that the outer edge was now the faintest gray possible. Beyond that dim shade it would fade again into… what? White, Mason imagined, or maybe black again. At any rate, the thing had stopped. He tried to fight down the images that came into his mind, telling himself that this was obviously some project of the staff. But he couldn't forget another thing Gregson had said: "Shouldn't tamper…"
Was that the answer? Were they all lying underground there in the middle of that fantastic black ring? Mason refused the thought and continued around the edge, not even glancing at it except to make sure it wasn't encroaching again— or growing. He shivered at the spontaneous parallel.
It was sheer relief to come into uncontaminated air again, relief even to meet the glowing hues of Lilith. The colors were quickly getting stronger and Mason knew it must be nearing noon when here the world became so unnaturally bright and the chroma so strong that special glasses were necessary. Mason had remembered to bring more than one pair and was glad of the lens when he put them on. Through this shield the landscape took on almost Earthly colors and Mason felt a sharp, nostalgic pain as he thought of home.
A familiar sound came from the distance and as Mason looked up the hill that now rose in front of him, he saw speeding over the crest the incredibly welcome shape of a land rover!
Mason ran to the middle of the road, jumping up and down and waving his arms above his head with the most overwhelming sensation of relief he'd ever known.
The rover screamed down the road, made a reckless turn in front of him and bounced to a halt. The top flew back and Louisa Wenger waved frantically at him to get in. Mason was already running and he jumped into the car, pulling the top panel closed.
"Never been so glad to see anybody in my life!" Mason said, taking off his glasses as Louisa released the brake.
"I had to leave without letting anybody know," Louisa said hurriedly. "They didn't want me to come at all, but I had a feeling you might make it." The car was practically flying now, at a speed well beyond the safety level.
"What are we running from?" Mason muttered uneasily, "It's awfully fast—"
"Matter of time. We have to," Louisa answered, "The circle. I suppose you went around it, but it was spreading so quickly—"
"It's stopped," Mason said.
Louisa slowed down and looked at him. "Stopped?"
"As I was going around. It stopped quite suddenly."
"What color was it?" Louisa interrupted tensely.
"Light gray, almost white."
Louisa braked completely and leaned over the wheel, her whole body visibly limp with relief. "Thank God," she breathed. "We didn't know. Well, actually we weren't sure it would stop at that hue although we suspected it might. It was growing so quickly when we left." She sat up suddenly and turned to him, "How was Gregson when you found him?"
Mason noticed how gaunt she was, hollow-cheeked with shadows under her enormous blue eyes. Her uniform was wrinkled and dirty, looking as if she'd been sleeping in it for days, and her usually round figure had given way to an extreme slimness that Mason nevertheless still found attractive. He was surprised at the extent of his concern for her and took her hand gently as he replied. "Gregson died minutes after I arrived. I'm afraid you'll have to tell me what happened." • Louisa sat quite still, her eyes fixed on the horizon. "It's a long story, Russ. How much do you know about what we're doing here?"
"I thought I knew exactly what you were doing," Mason said tersely, "until I arrived and found a deserted field, a dying man and an atmosphere that seemed crazy for Lilith—to say nothing of that weird circle and a black cloud that tossed me around."
^A black cloud?"
"Yes, and something in the air that had me utterly convinced I was going out of my mind. You'd better tell me about it, because by the time we reach the interior I may have worked up a healthy antagonism toward Yee Mon for whatever he's left unreported."
"It's too late for that, Russ, and actually it wasn't his fault. There were certain things we were reporting only to Eckert."
"Eckert!" Mason *cried, "You mean Eckert's staff, don't you?"
"No, I mean Eckert himself. We gave our information to him and we have no idea who else, if anyone, in his division has the knowledge. I mean knowledge of certain experiments."
"Eckert," Mason whistled softly. Haskell Eckert was the Head of Experimental Science Division, American Section of World States. Even Mason had never met the man, although he was a considerably well known reporter. "Okay. Go on."
"It doesn't matter now, of course," Louisa continued. "We're completely cut off."
"What do you mean?" Mason interrupted. "The transmitter seemed in perfect order at the port. I just didn't know how to operate it."
"It wouldn't have mattered if you had. We can't get through anyway. There's an atmospheric interference we can't penetrate. The sun storms have been particularly bad recently."
Mason was reminded of the others. "Who's with you?"
"Everybody except Gregson and Mike Plummer. Plummer was killed immediately and although Gregson was a short distance away from the explosion, he was wounded so badly he knew he'd never make it to the second lab. He insisted on staying with the hope of seeing you in time."
"He did," Mason said. "In time to warn me of something, but he never got to the explanation. I did the best I could for him," he added, remembering the inadequate burial. "What caused the explosion, Louisa?"
"Color," she said shortly. "We think it was the combination of a certain color experiment done at a time when there were violent sun spots. Gregson and Plummer were both working at the little lab in back of the fuel station. We heard a terrific blast—terrific! I can't describe it. We rushed out to find the lab completely gone and Gregson lying on the ground in much the same condition that you found him.
"Plummer had simply vanished, like the lab. Fortunately, Gregson was able to give us some data on their experiment, so we have some knowledge to go on. He wanted us to come out here immediately but we stayed at the port until yesterday. He tried to warn us, too, but we didn't listen, and— well, you saw the circle. That's what's left of all the land rovers except this one. This is the one we had left for you. After the others were all engulfed, we went back to get it."
**Engulfed by what?" Mason asked, trying to make sense of it, I'm still in the dark."
"If we hadn't known better we'd have called it quicksand. We were towing the extra cars along for use at the lab, and because we felt we had to get them away from the port. Simpkins was driving the lead car and he passed over the center spot before anything began to happen. Then the car he was towing suddenly stopped and began moving backwards, taking Simpkins' car along with it."
Mason tried to imagine the energy that could reverse a vehicle traveling at that speed and shook his head. "I don't believe it."
"No, neither did we. But Neil Trope was following and he saw it. He stopped and we all had to follow suit. Simpkins got out of his car and found that he was being dragged back to the center spot—which wasn't black then—and, well, you went around the thing, so you wouldn't know."
"Yes, I would," Mason corrected. "I went around only after I'd been pulled in quite a way. What would have happened if I'd been drawn to the center?"
Louisa regarded him thoughtfully. "I have no idea, but I'm awfully glad you'll never find out. You or any of us. We all managed to get away but every car was pulled in. I imagine it was growing at a faster rate yesterday. They probably react quickly at first and then lose momentum. It's valuable information, Russ."
Mason frowned at the implication. "They?" he asked. "Is there more than one?"
Louisa started up the road again. "We're not absolutely sure yet, but we believe that the particle displacement from Plummer's death reacted in a chain that's steadily growing. We think it's the answer to the atmosphere you felt—we all had the same reaction. Unreasonable fear, wasn't it?"
Mason nodded dumbly.
"Probably like Plummer's fear the split-second before death," Louisa went on. "We couldn't work in such conditions and it became much worse, so we had to leave. We had no choice. Our minds were working but our emotions were completely out of control."
Mason watched her closely, unwilling to believe. "What you're saying, then, is that Plummer is still, in some strange way, alive?"
"Oh, not the way you imply, Russ." Louisa smiled. "Not in an occult way or anything like that. Without getting too technical about it, we think the explanation is that his energy has permeated previously unintelligent matter. In other words, that the energy released at the moment of death remained intelligent in a certain way, for some reason or other."
Mason stared. "Are you kidding?"
"No, I'm not," Louisa said vehemently. "Listen, do you know what was in the middle of that black circle? Simpkins saw it before he managed to get away and before it changed. The center of the black circle held the irrilium feedback mechanism from Plummer's watch."
"But that's not Plummer's life," Mason said shortly. "And anyway it doesn't make sense. How did it get there? It was too far away from the explosion."
"He had it on when he died," she said. "That's definite. It wasn't too far away to be carried by the force of that explosion."
"And you think that the irrilium in the watch attracted the irrilium of the land rovers?"
"Definitely. But only within a certain area. After all, there was plenty of irrilium in the lab, too. There may be other spots growing similarly."
Mason thought of the black cloud and immediately knew what his first impression had been: life; living! That was it. He shivered.
"… and others beginning with plastics or any other basic structure," Louisa was saying. "What we didn't know was the rate of growth or whether they'd ever stop. That information is going to be welcomed. Yee Mon will probably think we're over the worst of it right now."
"But you don't think so?" asked Mason.
Louisa shook her head. "I think the answer is somewhere in the atmosphere. Wait until you see what's going on in the pen with the animals! I don't think anything is going to stop until we leave Lilith and stop tampering."
Tampering. The word rang familiarly in Mason's ear. "But ihow can simple research on color result in something so fantastic?"
"Simple?" Louisa slowed down and indicated the scenery around them. "Look around you, Russ. Have you ever seen such violence of color on Earth or any other planet that we know? We've found a spectrum here with visible colors that we didn't know even existed. Imagine the range beyond that, the spectrum that we're finding with instruments.
"That's the part of our research we were reporting only to Eckert. You never knew about it. The steps we've taken go far beyond Twentieth Century physics. We've discovered oscillations that seem to be at the heart of the universe itself."
"De Broglie's Theory," murmured Mason, remembering the Twentieth Century scientist who had theorized that if particles behaved like waves, waves could therefore behave like particles.
"Oh, much more than that," Louisa said, "because they never came to the real center of light itself."
"Or the meaning behind light," Mason said uncomfortably.
Louisa glanced over gratefully. "Yes, that's the whole point. I hope you'll be able to persuade Ulinski and Yee Mon to quit now. If we can radio out just once we can be picked up before it's too late. At some point we should be able to get through this atmosphere."
The car turned at that moment, where the road left its avenue of tunnel-like growth and came out on the crest of a hill. A blinding panorama stretched before it.
In the distance rose the mountains of Lilith, dropping down sheerly on the far side to a small valley that harbored the, second lab. Between, there stretched a canvas of color so brilliantly intense that even through the specially treated window, Louisa and Mason had to put on their glasses again. Colors from a strange world, reflections from a stranger sun.
Mason had no difficulty believing that if he could see with the eye of the sun, he might see here, not color, but light; pure patterns of energy. He thought about the small, furry animal life of Lilith and wondered at the construction that allowed them to live in a world that assailed a human's senses so unmercifully. No man could live long in Lilith without mechanical aid.
They had all made the experiment, even Mason, who had no right to do so. He remembered his reports on the sensation. The blinding headaches, strange tensions and the phenomena of changed personalities. They had all suffered physically and, in their attempt to see if Man could adapt to the new colors, several of the staff had undergone deep psychological disintegration, followed by treatment from Dr. Ulinski.
For at first, Mason had to admit, it was fascinating. It was a little like living in a fairy tale more colorful than the most roseate dreams of childhood, or a world more bizarre than the wildest fancy of imagination—until the message from the eye caused the body and brain to scream in pain and seek any relief from the unnatural environment.
Almost everyone had learned to dispense with their glasses until noon. A mist hung over Lilith at dawn, softening and dulling the brilliance like a veil drifting in front of a bright tapestry, or a soft cloud tempering hues that one might expect of the world's first dawn. The film clung like a drape, slowly dissolving until noon, when Lilith appeared herself at last, in a burst of color so intense that senses reeled.
The road, hacked roughly out of the earth, twisted now in serpentine loops and curves as it wound around the edges of the numerous small lakes and pools that lay underneath the shadow of the mountains. Mason had often attempted to give names to the color of the waters of Lilith, but found it impossible. Lilith had colors of her own that defied any classification. They weren't known colors or even hues of known colors.
Down here among the myriad shimmering lakes, the world was invested again with magic, and through their glasses which screened out the intensity, Mason and Louisa felt they were in an enchanted garden, enclosed in an almost immortal radiance. Louisa smiled and in an easier, nearly playful mood, put the land rover into boat gear and sailed it straight into the middle of a pond. She cut the power and they rocked there, drifting, feeling a curious and comfortable sort of peace.
"Look." Louisa pointed to the edge of the pool where a plump, ruffled bird was standing poised on a cluster of flow-ers. "It'll only be a moment before the whole group appears." They watched while the birds, their feathers ruffled with the wind, popped up one by one like mechanical soldiers drilling, around the side of the pool.
The birds circling the pool were busy bobbing up and down, rocking in a rotation that looked like a stationary dance. Suddenly they began to disappear one by one, diving into the pool headfirst.
Louisa noticed it instantly, "Look, Russ! The cloud!" There wasn't time to start the car. The black spinner came tip from nowhere, obliterating one side of the pool, gathering up into itself the growth and flowers and birds that were left Standing. It whirled furiously up and down in one spot and then disgorged a garbage of matter that fell down heavily as the cloud formed a tighter spin and veered off over the water, dissolving in the distance.
It was dusk when the land rover crossed the last summit and began its slow descent toward the valley. The last rays of the sun scorched the jungle below, fingering treetops with delirious, polychrome illumination. The world beneath glewed faintly phosphorescent, while the crags and furrowed spurs of the mountains flushed in a weird echo of reflection. It was like a descent to the final inferno. Grotesque shadows rose and leapt around them in a phantasmagoria of distorted shapes, rising and writhing and slowly dissolving away.
With vision thus impaired, driving was difficult and it took three more hours to arrive at the final road to the lab. When finally they came upon the buildings and parked the car at last, it was with a feeling of complete exhaustion. They sat there for a moment enveloped in darkness, too tired to think. At last Mason pushed back the hood and they left the car for the oddly comforting rooms of the building.
It was remarkably like coming home, Mason thought. Coming home to the security of the human family though they were strangely transplanted to alien and ominous soil.
Yee Mon alone was up to greet them. Gravely he unlocked the main door and ushered them into the lounge, his long sleeves swaying as he made the gracious, ceremonial gesture. Mason smiled. So nothing had changed. Even in the midst of peril, Yee could affect, as he did each night, the graceful flowing gown of his remote ancestors. But something had changed. Instead of tea there was steaming hot coffee, pots of it, and sandwiches piled ridiculously high on a platter. Mason noted this out of the corner of his eye as he shook Yee's hand gratefully.
"Well, I believe we've made it, after all. I didn't have much hope this morning, but after seeing you, I've changed my mind."
"You're not making sense, Mason," Yee said. "Drink your coffee."
Louisa threw herself down on a couch limply, her head back and eyes closed as she murmured, "Tell him about the circle, Russ…" And then, suddenly, she was asleep.
Mason covered her with a robe and sat down at the table with Yee. As he ate, Mason told Yee his story. He had expected some elation at the news of the circle stopping, but Yee just nodded soberly.
"Yes," Yee said. "We found another circle here about a mile away from the lab. Like you, we watched it as it stopped. It wasn't metal like the other, but some other red substance. A brilliant deep magenta in the center. It grew until it reached the end of its own hue and then stopped."
When Yee said, "Magenta," Mason understood that he was describing, in Earth terms, the quality of the tint, not the actual color.
"Louisa said something about all this being caused by Plummer's death," Mason began.
"Oh, yes, but that's a woman's way, not the whole story."
Yee interrupted. "There's much more to it than that. She mentioned our secret experiments?"
Mason nodded.
"They have to do with the destructive effects of light. I suppose you didn't know that?"
Mason was appalled. "But we—I mean, the Federation outlawed such experiments years ago."
"That's quite right. And it is still against the law. When I say destructive, I don't mean that the purpose is a destructive one. The destructive element is only a preliminary to discovering the creative effects. And we've found that the most potent way of working with light on Lilith is in blending colors. In some of those vibrational effects we may have the key to the universe."
"And you went too far," Mason said. "Tampering."
"I didn't," corrected Yee, holding one sleeve back as he replenished Mason's cup. "Gregson went too far. He and Plum-mer rushed ahead recklessly, without our knowledge."
"But Louisa said the atmosphere was congested before the explosion ever took place."
"That's true," Yee said. "But Trope is investigating that, and I don't believe that it is a permanent phenomenon or an important one. Merely an unusual sun storm. I feel quite sure it will dissipate."
"And then we can leave," Mason said.
"Leave?" Yee leaned back in his chair, watching Mason impassively. "There's no reason to leave. We're just at the beginning of things."
Mason was puzzled. "I thought you were so frantic? When I met Louisa—"
Yee chuckled. "A woman's way again. But it's true,' we were terribly disturbed. The psychological terror at the port— the circle—it's true. We were ready to go. But then—" he shrugged "—we found that the things stopped. And even this wind, this tiny tornado shape you describe—I'm not worried. If it can't affect us it's not important."
Mason stared. "Not important! But the possible effect on Lilith itself?"
Yee Mon folded his arms inside the long sleeves and looked at Mason with shaded eyes. As the months pass, thought Mason, he became more and more strange. Maybe it had something to do with living on a strange planet. He was going on in that calm, impenetrable way… In spite of the coffee Mason had to make an effort to stay awake.
"… and I certainly don't want you to see me as the proverbial dispassionate scientist, ivory tower and all that. But really, Mason, there is something to be said for these small experimental stations. We will never colonize this system. It's light-years away from human habitation, and what goes on here can hardly affect our race. We're not even tampering, as you put it, with any intelligence here. Biological life on Lilith shows no sign of evolving further."
"Can't be sure," mumbled Mason, his eyes closing.
"… and we're on the verge of Life itself. Lilith can and will play genesis to the final answer. It's too bad about, Gregson. Good man, but even he…"
Mason had a vague impression of a long cigarette holder waving in the air, dragons dancing, Yee Mon's sleeve again, as he droned on and on, until Mason fell asleep.
Blue. Deep, midnight blue, ultramarine and royal blue, tints and shades of cobalt, cornflower, Empire and French blue, lapis and aquamarine. Mason opened his eyes to almost a full third of the wheel of color—Earth colors—and realized at once that he was being given the full treatment. Nevertheless, the effect was soothing and he lazily shifted his position, pulling up the blanket—blue blanket, blue sheets.
"Ah! Feeling better?" Ulinski was sitting by the bed.
Mason sat up hurriedly as Ulinski, grinning under his bristly gray beard, tossed him a robe. Mason put it on and grimaced. "You don't really think I'm in such bad shape, do you?" '■
Ulinski laughed as he switched on a projector and bathed Mason in the spotlight. "It won't hurt, you know. You had quite a few shocks yesterday. Just lie there for awhile." He walked to the door, calling over his shoulder, "And if you get too lethargic, I'll put you in the red room tonight!"
Mason gave up and lay back. Ulinski was right. He needed the special vibrational effects of the color right now. He could feel his tension slowly disappearing. How long had it taken medicine to understand the therapy of color, he wondered. They'd ignored it right through the Twentieth Century, that was certain. Then, years later, the Bogen Foundation had unearthed the ancient science and applied modern theory.
That was the beginning. There'd been a lot of quackery at first, Mason remembered, until some results became too obvious to ignore. Then science had stepped in with modern methods of vibrational therapy, realizing at last that color could be used not only for psychological effect but for actual healing as well. Strange that it had taken so long, Mason mused, but then the search was still going on. Light was still a mystery unless possibly the final answer were to be found here, on Lilith.
Mason dozed off again and didn't wake until just before noon, when Ulinski came in and shook him.
"Hurry up, Russ. You'll want to see this. Simpkins has found something."
So relaxed that any movement was actually an effort, Mason managed to get dressed. He felt as if he'd been sleeping for months, but as soon as he was out of the room his muscles tightened and a feeling of well-being surged through him. He was ready for anything. Louisa looked at him approvingly as she joined them in the hall.
Ulinski led them out of the building and along a path that circled the pen for animals. "I'm taking you to see that red circle we found yesterday. Simpkins has been watching it all night and it seems to be dying—watch the thorns, Louisa, they're vicious."
They left the path and started through the jungle over a trail that had been hastily and roughly cleared. Ulinski led the way, parting the heavy ferns and branches before them. "Simpkins wasn't positive, but he thought the hue was fading and this morning he saw he was right. We knew the circle had stopped growing, but now we shall see the next stage. We are quite certain now that these isolated spots were feeding on something, and that this one had no sustenance. Ah, here we are!"
Mason gasped when he saw the circle. Although smaller, and of a different hue, it was almost exactly like the one on the road. The circumference however, was steadily contracting, and the color fading to a dull, dusty pink, becoming grayer at each moment. The rest of the staff members were standing around the edge, gazing curiously at the dying ring.
Suddenly Simpkins, standing on the far side, cried, "Look! Look at the middle."
At the exact center, in the deepest hue, they saw something pulsating; a deep throbbing that seemed to start under the ground and swell like a bubble. As the rest of the circle faded —very quickly now—the color in the center grew darker. The tint that had spread to the outer edges was slowly swallowed by the throbbing beat in the center which pulsated more and more rapidly as it darkened.
"It's like a heart," Louisa whispered alarmingly.
But Mason didn't hear. He was seized suddenly with a completely irrational urge that caused him to dart swiftly to the center, exclaiming as he ran, "We should try to see—"
"Don't touch it!" Ulinski's command was too late. Mason was already bending over the spot. As they watched him lean over, there was a blinding illumination and Mason's entire body glowed for an instant incandescently. They could see the framework of his skeleton behind the light.
At that moment the spot disappeared and the ground beneath was transformed again into the bare, multicolored patchwork of Lilith.
Mason could never have said why he did it. The impulse certainly didn't start in his head, where certain processes were going on telling him quite as firmly as Ulinski to not touch it. But his body was another matter. It pulled him along in spite of himself, his legs drawing him like a magnet to that fatal attraction.
As he bent over, still not knowing why, Mason received a shock unlike any that he had ever felt or heard about. It was excruciatingly painful; a swift sharpness that penetrated to the marrow, making his bones sing out with an almost unbearable vibration. At the same time he felt extremely light, as if all his weight and substance had vanished.
And then he felt a sensation of great space. He thought for a moment that he was floating in a dark void. The darkness around him was the deep, velvet darkness of eternity, without form or movement, until gradually his vision began to clear.
The first thing he noticed was a cloud of silver, a faint sprinkling of dust swirling around in the distance. Gradually it became brighter. Pinpoints of luminescence stabbed mercilessly into his eyes. The sensation of floating merged into a feeling of suspension. Mason thought he was hanging somewhere, and as the spirals and wheels of light took form he saw beneath him a great flaming cartwheel, with gases and vapors flaring out into immense distances, licking at the edge of creation. He seemed to descend through it, passing through that fiery heart as if he were, himself, a flame, lighter than light.
Around him it seemed as if a great dance were taking place, an intricate revolution of bodies turning and passing and crossing each other. And the dance, at first weightless, became a slow, ponderous movement of huge masses moving heavily around the great, flaming hub.
He descended through the heat, melting and merging in the inferno, and passing through, saw below him the great round green globe of Earth, her continents at first a hazy swirl, merging together as she spun. Then the outlines became sharper as he fell down, passing through gases and clouds of dust like a meteor racing through space. He felt the breath of atmosphere around him, and the blue of the sky was a palpable thing, a material substance he could feel and touch and smell.
Clouds were a white, hot mass, and he caught his breath painfully as the awful heat stabbed at him. And then, as he fell yet faster, the heat increased, and below he saw a pinnacle. A jagged spur of moss-covered rock that thrust up like a spear from the mountains below. It was high, higher than anything ought to be, higher than anything he remembered on Earth. Higher and hotter. Blazingly, agonizingly hot
In the room at the observatory on top of the mountain, two men were sitting at a table. One was dark, ebony dark, with softly moulded features and skin smooth as marble. Not a dot of moisture appeared on that quiet black countenance.
The other was an old man. Very old, and pale, with a sickly pallor under his white beard and a quick breath that caused beads of perspiration to course down his furrowed cheeks. He was wiping his face with a cloth and panting slightly as he spoke.
"No, Deayban^ there is no further hope. We are truly deserted and our peril is beyond repair. You had best give up any hope of salvation. The race is doomed and your desperate hope only causes difficulty. We need not to hope, but to prepare. Let us seek meaning in our end, and in finding that meaning, find true hope." The old man took a cup of water and sipped slowly as his companion rose and went to the great window overlooking the range of mountains.
"Charka," the black man murmured, his voice a deep bell vibrating in the corners of the room. "Charka says—"
"Charka!" the old man interrupted sharply. "Charka says that which came in ancient prophecies. He speaks not with the new tongue but with the tongue of ancient ancestors before the dawn of Time. His prophecies foresaid the end of his last Ruler, but since then, which foresaying has proved true? Eh? You tell me that, Deayban!"
The black man at the window was silent.
Mason stood beside him, not knowing how, knowing only that he was there and in some strange way unseen, knowing that he saw with Deayban's eyes as they both looked over the mountains and beyond the sun.
The Sun.
Had anyone ever seen a sun like this? Could any man look at it for long? Mason—and Deayban—felt their hearts shrinking as they gazed at it. Huge, red, redder than red, a monstrous swollen globe of incandescent gas hanging over the horizon, its flaring outlines casting an orange shadow over half the Earth, like the shadow of a flaming shroud.
Mason no longer felt anything, nor did he think of anything. He was incapable of thought or feeling except as it occurred to Deayban. He thought and felt nothing of himself save his presence, so it never occurred to him to wonder how he could be there and yet not be there; feel himself there and yet remain invisible, as it were.
Without any mental process, Mason simply understood his presence and understood that he was as much a part of everything he saw as he was a part of the two men or himself. As Deayban's thoughts took form, Mason heard them, or felt them. He understood them. And in back of Deayban's thoughts, Mason was aware of that other deep layer of recorded information that was Deayban's whole life and knowledge. Mason grasped that instantly, so that he was aware of the two processes simultaneously: Deayban's present associations and the background for them.
But instead of thinking all this little by little, Mason saw it, like a vast, unwinding panorama in his mind's eye. Charka— and the jagged range of mountains, and below, the silent reaches of the Himalayas. For, Mason knew, these were the old Himalayas, changed and formed anew. And in back of that, in eons past, the slow unfolding of Earth's history.
All, this was in Deayban's mind.
Ages ago, in the Dawn of Time, Earthmen had created their first crude ships—cumbersome vessels of heavy metals that cruised slowly and painfully away from the globe—out into the rough and dangerous oceans of space. Many ships had been lost and innumerable men had given their lives in the ancient quest of exploration., And then, as the search expanded, and their knowledge of building and navigation improved, Earthmen had made the great voyage away from their own sun and met other cultures, other intelligences in the great Creation. .
But Time was still young and the evolution of Man still in its infancy. So Man, in the early days, had used archaic means of meeting his destiny. Still bound by ancient tradition and early culture, still confined to old processes of thought and not ready to understand his meaning; like a child transiting to adolescence, Man had formed a Union of Cultures and bound it in heavy laws and called it the Federation. All discovered worlds were under its laws. All intelligences subject to its "justice." Rules and penalties for disobeying rules were put into courts, and all beings were required to live under this canopy of law.
Men thought it a very good thing, and indeed, for them, and for a time, it was. For before the Dawn of Time great wars had been fought between the Brotherhood of Man, and at last, with the Federation, Man had known freedom from war. But he had never understood that a Federation of Law, so useful for his own purposes on Earth, might not be equally efficacious in the Great Brotherhood of Intelligence among the stars.
Man had also refused to conceive a limitation to science. He had not known how, where, or when to stop. Plunging recklessly ahead in his compulsion to secure all the answers, when he found unusual substance or strange formations in his hunt among the stars, he had claimed them too under the Law and "called them "experimental planets."
He cared little that his meddling ruined or reversed entirely the natural design of the Great Evolution. He saw no evil in the blighted planets and often degenerating earths. He carelessly formed pockets of waste in the universe.
But some intelligences in the Federation were of a different nature than Man. Contrary to Man's insistence of his knowledge of the Great Plan, and his superiority, all beings did not develop the same way. Some, starting later than Man, arrived earlier at the peak of their development. Some, depending on their place in the vast universe of stars, skipped entirely an intermediate stage of evolution. They outstripped Man rapidly, and their intelligence and natures were as different from Man's, as Man was to a gnat.
But still a child, still not ready to accept his place, Man could not accept the counsel of those who offered to be his teachers. And, like a child, Man stubbornly refused to give up his playthings—his experimental planets and his laws. And since he refused to listen to those who now understood the meaning of Brotherhood rather than Federation, he was treated like a child and confined to his room. From the immense reaches of infinity, Man was sent home, in fleets of silver ships that traced comet paths between the suns. Great armadas sailed from the ends of the universe to bring Man home.
He was allowed the freedom of his own solar system, but beyond that boundary he dare not go.
And now—Mason felt a searing agony as he understood— Man was being scorched off the face of the Earth, and burned like a pestilence off the other neighboring planets.
For now was the time of the end of his sun.
And knowing that, for an instant Mason knew also how far he had traveled. Not some thousands of light-years through space, through swirling galaxies and suns, that, yes, but not only that. He had also traveled into time, some ten thousand million years into the future to witness the end of the world. He would not see the death of his sun—that was even yet in the far future, in a few hundred million years.
But he saw, with Deayban's eyes, the end of life on our world as the Sun's temperature rose and energy was liberated faster and faster from the great flaring arms of fire. The stock of hydrogen was running out, and helium increasing, and in a few hundred million years the Sun would shrivel, as something tired and old, weary unto death of life-giving. The death would be final, the last agony alone with no life to feel it, as long before then Man would have been scorched fjom the face of Earth.
And there would be no rescue. Mason understood that as Deayban understood it and sighed, and turned away from the window.
For Man had asked for help too late. Adult enough at last to understand his place in the universe, willing now to accept his role, it was still too late. A few hundred years ago something might have been possible, had Man asked for help. Now there was not time nor means for evacuation. The universe hung heavy as other worlds recognized Earth's end and mourned for Man who had matured too late.
Not all the resources of the heavens, racing faster than the speed of light, could save the enormous population from its fate. A few could go; certainly some could be saved now that the universe was open to them. But who would now leave his brother to die alone? What Man would leave his birthplace now with the knowledge that the rest of Mankind was doomed? In all the worlds circling the dying Sun there was not one who wished personal salvation at the expense of his neighbor. This Sun had given Man life, and under this Sun he would die, trying only to seek meaning in his end.
The black man sat down again at the table. His heart was heavy and he held his head in his hands. He would be one of the last to go. His race endured the shimmering waves of heat better than most. The last people to come out of the earth and win their place among men, the last to find their place in the sun, and now the last to die under that sun.
Deayban was uneasy. Mason felt the nagging question in back of his sorrow. Had all roads been explored? Deayban's thoughts kept returning to Charka, and suddenly Mason saw him.
He was sitting very still in a cave on the side of a mountain. Very quietly, his legs crossed, hands placed loosely in his lap. Mason saw Deayban enter the cave, stooping low, and understood that Deayban was remembering the scene.
It had been several weeks ago when the black man had first heard of the old hermit on the hill. Charka was possessed of secret information, men said, ancient knowledge from behind the Dawn of Time. And in spite of opposition from the old man with the white beard, Deayban went to find him. He left the lonely observatory on the mountain spur and went in search of Charka.
The cave wasn't far. Charka had chosen the highest spot on Earth. For these were the old Himalayas, once sunken beneath many waters and now risen again, higher than the height old stories told of them. The people of the Himalayas —what legends were woven around their name. How once, eons ago, they could take pilgrims through the Valley of the
Dead and lead them back unharmed but wiser.
Their prophets foretold great things, and the ancient records were kept in symbols which no man could read. There were legends which said that some never joined the Brotherhood of Man, but remained apart to study their ancient knowledge and seek their destiny alone. And Charka, it was said, was one of the last of these people.
There was nothing in the cave other than a small skin of water and a bowl of greens. The ground was parched and dry and the roof hung low, hot as an oven. Even Deayban began to perspire as he sat down in front of the old man, but Charka was dry and immobile. His face was parchment lined with thousands of tiny wrinkles crisscrossed in a web of age. He was old; so old that it seemed as if he must have passed the summit of old-age and come to his youth again. His eyes were clear and shining, with a far vision standing in them.
"Look," Charka said, pointing out of the opening. "Look," was all he said, and Deayban saw, framed in the arch of the cave, the same splendid, far vision.
It was night, but the sun still glowed a dull red, investing the mountain range with a humid glow, outlining the far peaks with streaks of orange. Beyond, far in space, other suns glowed in reflection. But shining up from Earth, like millions upon millions of streaking comets, there rose a trail of light, sleek and silver, like traces of quicksilver against the sky.
Higher and higher they rose, fleet upon fleet, as they plunged ever upward to the stars. And Deayban saw, too, the same silver streaks hurtling heavenward from the other settled planets, until the sky was a blaze of light and it was impossible to tell which were stars and which were streaks and which were swirling trails of galaxies.
Man was leaving his home for another place among the stars, but—Mason sensed the quality—it was not a sad partaking, nor a reluctant leaving, nor a giving up. It was rather a tremendous surge of affirmation. In his Manhood, Man was leaving in a dazzling blaze of glory, no longer confined like a child to the life-giving parent. Man was now ready to be himself, to meet whatever demand, wherever the universe would hold him… the table, Deayban drew in his breath sharply, and Mason too felt the same bittersweet tears that sprang to his eyes. For that was how it should be. In Charka's vision was the ring of truth. Man was ready now. Was he never to know the result of his Becoming?
Later, Charka had spoken. Mason grasped that from Deay-ban's thoughts Charka had told the old prophecy, of which they had both seen the vision: That one day Man, in dreadful peril, would almost perish. But because the time of his Becoming would be past, and because he would then be prepared to partake of the Great Plan, Man would not be annihilated.
Tested and scourged, with many deep wounds from his struggle, yes. But Man would find the help of "angels." Charka had used that word. Deayban took that allegorically, but still, it moved him, for if not of the literal stuff of angels, what other word could be used for the blazing radiance of that vision of departure?
Who were they? And what were they, these angels? From where did they come? What beings could possibly have the resource and speed to suddenly appear and rescue Man from extinction when the rest of the universe was unable to help?
Deayban patted the old man on the shoulder as he rose from the table, his memory finished, and went to the great telescope that looked far into the depth of infinity. "You prepare, old man," Deayban said, "You try to find meaning and prepare for the end." He focused the lens on a cluster of stars millions of light-years away.
"But while you prepare, I will watch." Deayban put his eye to the telescope, and Mason, seeing with him the far nebula, felt suddenly wrenched away, as if he were being pulled with the eye of the telescope, farther and farther along the path it followed in the sky.
And then there was nothing; nothing but the blackness of lost consciousness. He knew nothing more—until he stood upright, the vibration of shock lingering in his body as he stepped out of the circle, Ulinski's cry, "Don't touch it!" still ringing in his ears.
Mason stepped out of the circle and a high, shrill singing suddenly enveloped him. He was almost blinded for a moment by the shock of colors that met his eyes.
Dr. Ulinski started running toward him, and Mason put up his hands to shield his eyes from the movement. In back of the colors and the earth and Ulinski, he saw everything moving, in tiny stars and dots and particles speeding in intricate circles and streaks, crossing and colliding with fantastic speed. Then slowly the unbearable vibration ceased and things once more looked ordinary. Mason put his hands down, looking at Ulinski who stood a few feet away.
"Russ—" Ulinski's voice was rough "—Are you all right? No, don't move for a moment. Make sure."
It was a moment before he spoke, and then, hearing his own voice, Mason thought how infinitely weak and ordinary the words were, how small against the experience. "I think I'm all right," Mason said, and knew right away that nothing more could be said.
He understood instantly that communication of his experience was impossible. More than that, he felt it would be wrong. He had stepped into that circle and been gone—how long? To him it seemed as if he had passed half his life on that journey, but to the others standing around that clearing in the jungle, Mason had stepped into the circle, received a shock and now was stepping out again.
The ground beneath his feet was the old ground of Lilith. The spot of pulsating red had vanished and the earth was its old, firm, multicolored hue, changing as the long shadows shifted beneath the sun.
The group was standing around in a semicircle, staring at him. Ulinski near, and in the background Louisa. Beside her stood Thomas Simpkins, a lean, stringy little man, his brow creased over puzzled and apprehensive eyes. Some distance away Neil Trope and Marina and Nadia Vining were grouped like marble statues in the sun, Neil with his arms folded in tight protection and the Vining sisters leaning slightly forward on their toes, as if ready to spring away in sudden flight.
He had not seen Yee Mon, who was in back of him. Now he heard a movement and turned as Yee came up beside Ulinski.
They both regarded him seriously. Yee looked at Ulinski and, as if in agreement, they both stepped back a few paces. Mason understood. They all had the same thought of possible radiation effects.
"Let's go back," Yee said quietly. "Please follow at a distance, Russ. You understand."
Mason didn't protest. He felt quite sure that he hadn't been harmed and would not himself be harmful radioactively, but he understood their concern. Louisa gestured toward him helplessly and said only, "Russ," and he nodded back reassuringly.
They started back, a thoughtful single file, with Mason following in the rear. He was glad of the silence. Words would have been difficult right now and, he felt, in a way even dangerous. Mason wanted to think, and at the moment he felt he could think in a different and better than ordinary way. He felt charged with energy and vitality and had to subdue an impulse to run wildly and exuberantly through the woods.
He felt entirely different. He couldn't remember ever having felt this way before. Everything looked different, and particularly the people he was following through the woods. Mason wondered at the new way in which he'd seen them in that snapshot by the circle. For the first time he saw them not as people who might know more or less than he did, not as personalities and mannerisms, but he had seen them, or through them, to their very natures.
He had never liked Simpkins because of that constant serious attitude, which Mason had always suspected was a pose. But now he had seen what that pose covered, the deep insecurity and fear.
And the Vining sisters. Mason had always thought them quite brilliant and even, as a man, been irritated at their success. The beautiful Vining sisters who had received honor after honor for their work in physics and biochemistry, and with their fantastic earnings purchased an actual half of a discarded experimental planet.
Stories verging on fantasy had been told about the Vining sisters and that small planet. And for an instant Mason had seen them out of context, far removed from that association.
He had seen them simply as bodies. Bodies being used by minds not really brilliant but by some quirk of heredity possessing a peculiar aptitude for memory and recall. And in back of that there had been nothing. No spark, no humanity, little emotion.
And Neil Trope: not as shallow, but oh how young. Untouched by any real experiences, he must have come to his thirties in the same way he had entered his twenties. He was blinded by externals, believed everything, passed from one association to another and took it all as final. Mason had liked him very much. He felt somewhat strange now, realizing how much he had enjoyed Neil's company.
Mason's exuberance suddenly left him. He felt ashamed that he hadn't begun to know himself or his own lack. He had taken a startling journey through time and space and seen—a vision? The truth? And he had returned a little different, but still Mason, still unexplored.
He began to feel heavy, as if the energy were pouring out of him in a great widening flood, and his doubts began to rise. Vision or truth? And couldn't it have happened to any of the others as well? Was he special or different in any way? What had caused him to run toward that circle? Anyone of them might have done the same.
But as he thought this, Mason felt better because he knew, or thought be knew, that there was a purpose behind it. It had nothing to do with him as he was, but could it have something to do with what he might become? He tried to understand it.
The circle had pulsated. He had, for some unknown reason, run toward it. He might never know why. All right. • But what was that circle? It had stopped when he stepped in. Or had it died, as Ulinski suggested? It had taken him somewhere. Or had it? Was it only a dream caused by shock? And what of those other isolated spots—the cloud and the black circle on the road. What was the connection?
The others had passed from sight, and Mason began to push back the heavy ferns that blocked his path. It turned here, just before the clearing for the animal pen. Mason stopped for a moment. Something was occurring to him and he stood quite still and closed his eyes to see it better. He must have the answer.
And all at once, he knew. He had known it before, he now realized. He had known it the minute he stepped out of that red circle, but the knowledge had been so swift that it had disappeared before the spectacle of the staff that met his eyes.
Now it returned, swift as lightning, instantaneous knowledge that needed no long involved reasoning to know its truth.
Plummer's death had resulted in liberated energy. It had remained intelligent, just as they had suspected. Intelligent with its own particular properties of intelligence. And each small particle of Plummer had attracted its like, in a terrific effort to live and grow. The experiment itself had caused that, and the explosion combining with the atmosphere of Lilith at the time had resulted in this freak of nature. Even the nonliving matter of the laboratory had the same fate: to attract its like and try to grow.
But now it was over.
That was what Mason knew. The metallic spot on the road would remain for awhile, a blot on the landscape, and then gradually disappear. It was hardier than the other structures which had already died. There were no more black clouds, and the other spots and circles had already died and vanished. Lilith had transformed them, after their short new life, into her own atmosphere and earth. They were gone because the sun's disturbance was decreasing.
Well, he knew all this, but would the others realize it too? He couldn't try to explain to them how he knew. All he could do to help alleviate their fear was to suggest that it might be so. They would have to find out the rest for themselves.
He started walking again, toward the room in the lab where he knew they would examine him. He felt unfinished, with only half the puzzle solved. That the previous danger was past, he knew. But there was so much missing.
Had that journey been true?
And if truth, why had he been allowed to see the world's end—or Man's beginning? Why had he been placed in the cen-ter of two such distinctly different futures? Mason wondered how a man would feel, knowing that his race was doomed to either extinction or salvation.
One thing that had always concerned Mason was time.
The moments of time stretching along the path of his existence seemed to him the thinnest of points in a line, vanishing before he ever realized them. There was the future and the past, but Mason had always felt a curious lack of the present. He wished that a man could find a way to hold one of those moments—stretch it out at will—much like moments of heightened perception often appeared longer than ordinary moments.
Years ago men had conceived of time as the fourth dimension and postulated a theory of a possible fifth dimension in which time would be seen as a solidity, no longer a moving, vanishing thing, but all-together, as something materially there in which man could move about at will. Now that theory was regarded as a fairy tale. Man had never found this so-called fifth dimension and even the old stories of time travel were treated as nothing more than fantasies.
Mason, however, had never gotten over the feeling that there was more to time than what was presently know. And now he had actually experienced something in that direction. He wished he could trust it absolutely, but it was precisely his concern with time that prevented him from accepting it as real.
The shock of vibration that had reached him in the circle could have unlocked something deep inside him that wished for the experience. It could have been of no more substance than his nightly dreams.
The one part he never questioned was his knowledge of the disappearance of the various spots and circles. This was confirmed by the reports of Neil Trope and Simpkins. Moments after his examination Trope had rushed in with the news of a change in the atmosphere.
. Simpkins had -been dispatched to check on the circle near the port and returned to report that it was slowly but quite steadily fading. Lilith was itself again at last, and Dr. Ulinski had found no trace of radioactivity in Mason. He attributed this to atmospheric influences, although, he conceded, it was puzzling.
Later that night, as Mason was wondering what kind of a report to prepare, Ulinski called the staff to the lounge for a conference.
"We have a problem," he began, seating himself at the large round table in the center of the room. "In just a short time I'm sure we'll be able to radio out, and Mason here is going to have to send a report on Lilith. They're sure to know that something has happened. They have undoubtedly tried to contact us and been unsuccessful in penetrating the atmosphere. Now—" he looked thoughtfully at the group seated around the room "—we must decide what we shall tell them."
"Eckert is another matter," he added, pulling absently at his beard. "Yee Mon will contact him privately as soon as he can. With him, of course, we will be truthful. But the reporting ship must not have all the facts. Mason knows enough now; there would be no point in disguising anything for his benefit here. You can speak freely. In fact, I think it would be wise to clear everything up for him since he's been more or less directly connected with our experiments."
Marina Vining leaned forward on her chair, her blonde hair making a halo around her small, even features. "Why do we have to make up any story?" she asked, clasping her hands together. "They will know about the atmospheric interference. That's nothing unusual, even on Earth. Isn't that the answer to the whole thing as far as they're concerned?"
"No," Yee Mon answered curtly. "It can't be the answer to how Gregson died, or why we don't have a trace left of Mike Plummer's body. There will be a question of burial, Marina."
Mason started. He hadn't remembered that. Of course, the ritual of space burial. As at the old days at sea, when sailors were buried in the very waters that had taken them, so the Federation buried their victims in the black night of space.
"Oh, yes, I see," murmured Marina.
"Well, then, we have to say there was an explosion." Nad-ia's voice was sharper than her sister's, in keeping with her appearance.
"Yes, and if we do, then we have to say why." Ulinski was grave. "An explosion from ordinary causes is almost out of the question in these stations. They will know that, and they'll ask for details, and then it will be obvious that this was caused by an experiment."
Simpkins turned very pale and his voice trembled as he spoke, "And if they know that, will the high court ask for a hearing?" He looked around the room, and getting no answer, rushed on, tripping over his words nervously. "Why can't Eckert take care of it for us? Eh? Come on, Ulinski, why can't he do that? Why should we have to appear in high court? This is all a matter for Eckert."
Mason was fascinated. It was quite obvious that he was hearing something no reporter had heard before. The inner workings of the Federation and experimental stations and high court were a mystery that was slowly unfolding as he listened. He wasn't sure he liked what he heard.
Yee Mon said, with a trace of impatience, "Oh, Tom, you understood the conditions when you accepted this work. What the universe knows about experimental planets is one thing; what Eckert knows is another. But he is alone in the work, don't you understand? There are possibly only one or two men above him."
"Who are they?" interrupted Simpkins.
Yee Mon shrugged. "Who knows? We don't know, maybe Eckert doesn't even know. He is sworn to secrecy just as we are." Then he laughed a little. "Secrecy! You know it's more than that. The whole structure would come tumbling down and take Eckert with it if the truth were known."
Louisa frowned, looking anxiously at Mason. He caught her glance and was suddenly uneasy. The truth: that was a reporter's job. Why were they trusting him with this confidential discussion?
Ulinski seemed to sense his thought, for he turned to Mason and smiled. "It's quite simple, Russ. You know so much already We can't keep anything from you. In fact it would be impossible. And when Yee Mon says the whole structure would come down, he is including not only the experimental planets and Eckert, but Mankind. All of us as well.
"Even the Federation would be in grave danger. I don't know how the high court would explain it away, or if they would even try. There are some sitting in the high court who already object to many of our laws. This would give them an excuse they might welcome."
Mason had been silent, trying to piece loose ends together, but now he thought he had a rough picture. "The fact that we have experimental planets is well known throughout the Federation," he began.
"Ah, yes," Trope interrupted with a sarcastic grin. "The entire universe knows of our humanitarian endeavors and the great benefits to all beings with our pure research—"
"Hush," Ulinski stopped him. "Let Russ continue."
"When I first arrived," Mason went on, "Louisa told me that some information was being released only to Eckert. That was my first clue. Then Yee Mon said something about working with the destructive effects of light. I knew such experiments had long ago been outlawed. In fact, the penalty is so severe that I had difficulty believing it was true. But then Yee said that these experiments were only a preliminary, and that led me to believe that you were keeping them a secret only because it was necessary for further pure research."
Neil guffawed and again Ulinski silenced him. Louisa was looking seriously and intently as if she couldn't bear to look at Mason.
"So I thought that the explosion was simply a horrible acci-dent. Something that would, of course, be investigated later on, but nothing for which you would be to blame."
Ulinski nodded. "Of course, it was an accident, Russ. But any investigation would show that the experiment that caused it was outside the law. We were working outside of nature, and you know we are only allowed to work within nature's framework. An investigation is out of the question. We can't have one."
Louisa suddenly looked up. "Can't the whole thing still be attributed to the atmosphere, just as Marina said?"
"No," Ulinski answered. "Anything that results in a death must be investigated, and any investigation would show what we were doing. The same phenomenon would not have resulted without the sun storms, that?s true. But we were not supposed to be working the way we were under any circumstances."
"Can you tell me exactly what happened?" Mason asked, "I know I'm not much of an expert on light, but…"
"You don't have to be," Ulinski said. "It's quite simple. We were blending colors from opposite ends of the spectrum. Gregson and Plummer had hit on it. They found that light on Lilith has a peculiar property. For one thing, the visible spectrum is much wider than that of Earth. So here we actually see rays that on Earth are invisible. And not only that, but the same process of reflection from these rays results in colors which on Earth would be out of the question."
Mason nodded to show that he understood.
"And Gregson found that by combining these colors he got a very strange result. As you know, on Earth you can match any color in the spectrum by a combination of three other carefully chosen colors. Well, here on Lilith a certain combination of colors from the least visible rays, on the long and short end of the band, resulted in a color not included in the spectrum of Lilith!
"And not of the wave length or quantum of any ray we've been able to isolate here. It seemed to have properties of both long and short rays, but in addition it had its own properties, which we were unable to analyze because it kept shifting. The color seemed to have a life of its own, if you can imagine that."
"Yes, I can," Mason said, "if it was anything like the illumination from that circle I stepped into."
"That was so fast that we couldn't have seen color in it even if color had been there," Yee Mon observed. "But I wouldn't be surprised if it were the same thing."
"At any rate," Ulinski continued, "not being able to put a tag on this particular rate of vibration, we decided to throw it on some of the animals and see what happened. We had a few at the port lab, and since it was Gregson's and Plummer's discovery, they made the experiment." He paused for a moment and looked at Mason. "You know what happened? Absolutely nothing at first. Then, two days later, the animals showed a change of color themselves and then they all died."
Mason frowned. "With a discovery like that, I mean a new color, it seems to me you did nothing wrong. I hate animal experiments myself, that isn't against the law, is it?"
The room was stiff with silence and Mason looked from one to the other, puzzled. "That isn't against the law, is it?" he repeated.
Ulinski looked down at the floor and then angrily hit the palm of his hand with his other fist. His mouth was tight. "No, that was not against the law, as you put it. But we reported it to Eckert and received further orders." He raised his large shaggy head and looked vacantly at one wall.
"Our orders from Eckert were to pursue this matter of a new color that could kill, to pursue it until we had something we were sure of. A new weapon that couldn't make a mistake."
"A weapon!" Mason choked on the word.
"That's right, Russ." Yee Mon smiled at him remotely. "I didn't tell you the night you arrived. We weren't sure then it would be necessary. Not a weapon to be used, though," he added, "just a balance-of-power weapon."
"But it's against the law!" Mason cried, aghast.
"So was continuing our experiment. You were right when you said the first time was not wrong," Yee continued. "But that was where the law says we should stop. Anything that has a harmful effect on life is considered working outside nature. Regardless of the fact that nature produced the color."
But had nature produced it, Mason wondered. Man had in-terfered and produced it, hadn't he? Even if the color was inherently there…
Noticing Mason's expression, Trope laughed and poured a drink. He handed it to Mason. "Buck up. You're about to learn the facts of life. Which I'm sure they don't teach you in reporting school."
Mason set the drink down without tasting it and stared at Neil. "But you can't take this so lightly! That balance of power business is ancient history."
"Very modern history," Ulinski corrected him dryly. "It's been going on under your nose all the time. Only you young reporters never knew it. You're the most effective screen they've been able to dream up."
"Do you mean that this is going on on other planets?" Mason demanded. "On every experimental planet you visit," Ulinski said. "At least, that's my guess."
"But who's responsible? What's it for?"
"Weapons?" Trope raised his eyebrows. "Why that's to keep Man in his place of prominence among the stars. Haven't you noticed yet that some of the beings who sit in the high court are slightly more intelligent than Man?" He regarded Mason cynically and shook his head. "They really keep you confined to those ships, don't they?"
"I—I haven't had much contact with other cultures," Mason admitted slowly, seeing the truth in what Neil said. "But if some of them are more intelligent," he added suddenly, "why don't they know what we're doing? Or do they know?"
"I doubt it very much," Louisa said, finally looking up. "Their intelligence is so different from ours. They think in a different way. I don't believe such a possibility would occur, to them. And if it did—" her voice rose "—I'm sure they would think we were mad. Warped and utterly crazy. And they'd be right!"
After a silence Ulinski slowly said, "And would you be happy with the knowledge that Man was no longer at the center of creation? Could you give up your idea of Man as the final and best image of evolution? Could you submit to a lesser role in the Federation?" He held her with his eyes, waiting for her answer. "Wouldn't you seize your superiority with force, if necessary?"
All of a sudden Mason was transported back to his vision of the observatory on top of the mountain and he remembered Deayban's memory of Man sailing home across the stars, coming back captive because he was an outcast in the universe. The memory was a shock here in the silence of the room where forces leading to that prison seemed to be at work. Was this the real beginning of that failure? Again the people in the room appeared differently to him. He saw them as strangers acting out a preordained role; puppets destined to be pulled this way and that.
Louisa broke the silence. "If it were meant to be," she said softly, "the answer is yes. I think I could."
The others looked away from the simplicity of her answer. Mason could feel what was at stake here. For Man to accept a small role was to ask a great deal. Each person sensed the magnitude of the question.
"Well," Ulinski sighed, "I'm afraid you're quite alone in that, Louisa. You'll find few men who are capable of such humility." He smiled at her gently. "I even wonder if you would be, put to a real test." Then he turned to Mason, "Now you see, Russ, why knowledge of these activities is out of the question."
Mason slowly nodded. Of course he saw. There was nothing he could do about it. Any report on the real facts would split asunder the whole structure that Man had so carefully built. He couldn't do that. It would be a betrayal of his race. But, lie wondered silently, could he help change the direction by Seeing Eckert? He didn't formulate it any more than that; it was simply a swift thought.
As if ,he had read Mason's mind, Yee Mon said to Ulinski, "I think we should get Russ in touch with Eckert. He will Want a firsthand report about that circle and Mason was directly involved. Can't we send him to Eckert first and hold off the regular report? Eckert may have something to suggest."
"I could explain that my reports aren't completed yet, and not mention anything at all about Gregson and Plummer to my ship," Mason said, anxious for Ulinski to agree with Yee Mon. Ulinski was thoughtful. "Yes, perhaps that's best for the present. We'll leave it at that until we hear from Eckert."
Soon the others left, leaving Mason alone with Louisa. He had a terrific urge to tell her what had happened in that circle, and only restrained himself with difficulty. It wasn't time. Maybe someday, but not now. They talked quietly for a while, deliberately avoiding a repetition of the discussion. Louisa was deeply disturbed, Mason sensed, and he steered the conversation away from serious thoughts to speak lightly of people and home.
"How long has it been for you?" Mason asked.
"Since I've been home? Oh, I haven't seen Earth since I was a child," she answered. "My work was chosen when I was just ten, and that was just in the nick of time, so I was sent off to school immediately." She paused for a moment and then added, "It was hard."
Mason took her hand and held it, realizing that she was thinking of her parents whom she couldn't have seen now since that day long ago when she boarded the ship school, to prepare for her life in space.
"I know," he said. "I haven't seen my family since I was sixteen."
Louisa looked at him intently. "Do you think it's right, Russ? I know we all wanted this life, but I wonder if children are really capable of choosing?"
They were silent, thinking of the many years spent in space, growing up in the huge ship schools which carried them farther and farther out among the stars. As young adults the greater part of their lives had been spent in space and on strange planets. Although Earth, in a way, was even stranger for them. Dim memories from their childhood on the mother planet recurred hauntingly, as if Earth were a dream.
"What do you remember, Louisa?" Mason asked.
Her eyes lighted as she replied. "I remember the Pacific. More than anything I remember the sea and the sand and running wild on the beach and the huge waves. I was born on one of those islands, Russ, and children grew up very freely there. More freely than anywhere else on Earth, I imagine."
Her face glowed as she spoke, "And my parents gave me so much personal freedom, too. I think they realized I might be chosen for space, and they wanted me to soak in nature and childhood as much as I could before I left."
She grinned at him somewhat mischievously. "And I almost didn't go! I took the tests, and when they said I'd been chosen if I wished it, I almost said no. The call of the islands was very strong! But then nature worked a little in reverse, and I began to think that if nature was so wonderful here, what would it be like out in the stars?"
"Yes," Mason said in a low voice, "that's the way they reach us. A child's imagination can't resist such an opportunity."
Suddenly serious again, Louisa insisted, "Do you think it's right? After all, it's never what we think it's going to. be. It's not dancing among the stars at all. It's a life confined to boarding school. And it's hard work. The hardest study in the world."
"They told you all that; you were warned."
"I know, but I shrugged it off. I had visions of the stars."
"As did we all." Mason pressed her hand sympathetically. "But it won't be long now, and when we do get back we'll have had an experience that can't be matched by those who stayed at home."
"When were you due to go home?" Louisa asked.
"Oh, in a few more trips, I think."
"Do you think Eckert will let you go now?"
Mason stared at her. "Why wouldn't he?"
She was silent for a moment, and then, without looking at him: "We were all carefully oriented to this work long before we arrived. But I think the preparation of the reporters is different, isn't it?"
Mason frowned at the implication. Of course, she was right. It was entirely different. Reporters were trained to tell the truth at whatever cost. They took an oath binding them to the search for facts. It was a serious business, this thing of truth. Mason had lived with the idea almost all his life. Truth, honesty, courage, morality.
He groaned as the whole thing became suddenly and terribly clear. How very clever they were! Send an honest young man to the experimental planets to report on the truth, and that truth would be as much or as little as the staffs cared to give him. No wonder their training had never included any of the sciences on which they were reporting.
They were given a slight knowledge of terms. Enough with which to write a correct report, but not enough to reach their own conclusions. Never enough to really understand what was taking place. They were utterly dependent on the explanations the staffs gave them.
Again Mason felt an urge to tell Louisa about that vision in the circle, and again something stopped him. He felt that he could trust her, that this whole business was as distasteful to her as to him. But the knowledge of deceit was a new thing to Mason, and as it penetrated, he felt he should have to go cautiously.
He must learn to be clever, too, clever enough to keep some things to himself. It was a strange awakening for a young man who had spent his entire life convinced of the reality of justice. He would have to be extremely circumspect, Mason thought, and watch himself closely. His background made him so specially vulnerable.
What was this man Eckert, Mason wondered? And who was above him in the hierarchy dedicated to sustaining Man's supremacy? He would have to find that out. Also, he would have to become convinced of the truth of what he had seen of Man's future. What he had learned so far brought him closer to that conviction, but he wanted further proof.
Mason also realized that there was a tremendous gap in his knowledge. Those other intelligences who sat in the high court, those other beings whom man had found in his exploration—Mason had never seen them. He had rarely heard of them.
Had any reporter ever seen one, he reflected? He had never heard of it. Why were the experimental planets so strangely devoid of alien intelligence? He had been taught that the Federation frowned on experiments involving life on any planets. But the experiments here were directly concerned with life.
Did the high court know any of this?
Deep inside, Mason knew the answer to that. It was a resounding no! Of course the high court had no knowledge of it. They received reports sent in by men like himself who were carefully screened and whose knowledge was filtered. In all the reports Mason had sent in, not one had mentioned the presence of life. Because the information he was given sedulously avoided all mention of the subject.
Mason wondered about those other beings. He knew that he had been given only hazy information. When he was still a child, like all children, he had been fascinated by the possibility of other life. And his teachers had tried to describe the intelligences the Federation had found. Described them always amorphously, hinting rather than telling, and then giving lectures on the alien's history which always proved so long and boring that gradually the children lost interest.
Who were they? What were they?
Suddenly, for the first time since his childhood, Mason's imagination was fired again. But this time it was not only empty curiosity. It was a deep desire to know more about the peculiar workings of the Federation, and an even deeper interest in knowing once and for all Man's place in this vast universe.
Perhaps he was strange, Mason puzzled, perhaps he was different. But even if Man were not the supreme creation, how in heaven's name could he resist the impulse to know? Mason certainly couldn't. He felt heady and courageous about it. It might well be the courage of ignorance, 'he admitted, but at any rate, it would carry him through.
He grinned suddenly at Louisa, coming out of his reverie, "Don't worry about me. I'll be all right."
The next morning Eckert's voice crackled through the transmitter on the special wave length. Ulinski closed the door and spoke to him alone. Outside, Mason waited, hoping for an answer before the mother ship radioed to him. That would be soon, he knew. They had been due to pick him up the following day and would check on his progress from somewhere on their route before stopping above Lilith. If his reports weren't completed they would go on to the next station and pick him up later. Mason was nervous waiting.
At last Ulinski came out and stood looking at him with a trace of anger in his face. He spoke roughly. "Eckert doesn't want to see you yet. He said to put the mother ship off and tell them to pick you up later. In the meantime, say nothing except that if they have tried to contact you they were prevented because of atmospheric interference. And keep any other reporter from coming down herel"
This last sounded like a warning to Mason who found himself irritated at Ulinski's tone of voice. On the other hand he was so used to taking orders from his superiors that he found it difficult to argue. "I can't very well stop another reporter from arriving," he said impatiently. "That's probably exactly what thy will suggest."
"I don't care what you say," Ulinski snapped. "Just make sure we don't get another man down here. Those are Eckert's orders/'
Ulinski appeared a trifle sorry as he looked at him. He Stopped, stood still for a moment as if trying to decide something, and then walked over to Mason.
"Eckert wants us to continue the experiments, Russ. That's why it's so necessary." He frowned, looking as if he wanted to say more, and then turned abruptly on his heel and left the hall.
A slow anger began to grow in Mason. After murdering two men and causing unknown damage to Lilith, Eckert wanted them to continue the experiments! Continue them how?
Mason ran after Ulinski, out of the buildings and around the path to the pen. "Wait!" he called. "Look, Ulinski, you're not thinking of working on the animals again, are you?"
They stood on the path together, eyes squinting from the sun, a blaze of color surrounding them and making them the two grayest images on the landscape. Dull blots on a brilliant canvas.
"What other experiments would you suggest?" Ulinski asked savagely.
Mason couldn't understand why Ulinski was so upset. Ulinski had worked before on these experiments and seemed to be reasonably content. Mason's anger vanished in front of this new curiosity. "What's the matter, Vladimir?"
He hadn't used Ulinski's first name before and the sound caused a sharp reaction in the man. Ulinski caught his breath and turned toward the pen, almost running in his haste to get away. Mason looked after him, perplexed.
Trying to think in the face of this was almost impossible, but still Mason managed to wonder why he should feel such remorse. He hadn't done a thing. Not a thing, except to be a pawn in the game of Man being played at various points in the universe. That was what he had done: nothing. He hadn't questioned, hadn't sought, hadn't examined. He shared a collective guilt and felt it individually.
Slowly the feeling passed and Mason walked back to his room. The clean emotions he experienced on Lilith were another cause for wonder. There was nothing mixed about his feelings here. When he felt something he felt it in its entirety. He felt it purely, and that was why the emotions penetrated so deeply. He wondered if that, too, had something to do with the color or the atmosphere.
He opened his door and found Louisa in his room sitting at the desk.
"What are you going to do, Russ?" She spoke quickly, as soon as he had closed the door, her face anxious as she looked up at him. "The experiments are beginning again today." Mason sat on his bed. "Yes, Ulinski told me."
"But can't you do something?" she pleaded. "Can't you make them stop? Look, Russ, I thought we were all finished here, that's why I didn't explain everything to you before. But we can't go on like this! Herb Gregson was a very brilliant man. He would never have said to stop tampering unless there were a good reason."
Mason wondered if she was telling the truth. He hated to be suspicious, but wasn't it just possible that she was drawing him out, to see where he stood? Was this a planned visit?
He said nothing and Louisa got up and walked to the window. "I know you don't trust me, Russ," she said. "And I can't blame you. Is there any way I can convince you that I'm as opposed to this as you are?"
She turned suddenly and faced him, her eyes blazing. "Russ, how would you like to see the experiment? I know how it's done. I was with Gregson once when they did it. If you could just see this, I think you'd understand. Please, Russ, let me show you!"
In spite of himself Mason was intrigued. He had never witnessed an experiment of this magnitude in his life. None of the reporters had. If he had that information, wouldn't it give him an even sharper weapon than he had now?
"Tonight." She was excited. "Late, after everyone's asleep. No one bothers to check on us then—" There was a sound outside the door and Louisa broke off. "I'll come tonight. Or better still, you meet me at the lab." She finished in a whisper and slipped out of the room.
Mason decided to go along. There was nothing to lose, anyway. Although nobody had bothered to explain it to him, he realized that he was virtually a prisoner here. If not a prisoner of the staff, certainly Eckert was head jailkeeper. He was just beginning to understand that he'd been in jail all his life. He had to take a risk or two if he ever hoped to be free.
Aftek midnight Mason quietly slipped out of his room and felt his way along the path to the lab. He wasn't sure which door was the entrance but a hand grasped him in the darkness and drew him along. Louisa took a key from the pocket of her overalls and unlocked the door.
They stepped inside and a wave of odor assailed Mason's nostrils. It was a mixture of smells that were unnaturally penetrating. A cloying sweetness that almost made him sick. Louisa led him through the pitch black to another door, opened it, and once inside turned on the light.
They looked at each other and Louisa smiled nervously. "You see, I've not led you into a lion's den."
No, there was no trap, at least not so far for Mason. It was only the animals who were trapped, hundreds of them in cages that lined the walls of the room. Mason half expected to hear an outburst of sound as they were suddenly exposed to the light, but instead they just blinked their eyes and came forward in their cages, looking out curiously and pathetically, Mason thought, at their visitors.
There were two varieties of life caged here on opposite sides of the room. One was a piglike creature, about the size of a large dog, with a snout and pale-violet reptilian skin. Mason had not seen this type of animal before on Lilith and was surprised at the lack of feathers or fur which was so characteristic of life here.
"Where did you get these?" he asked, going up to one of the cages. The animal came forward, putting its snout out of the bars, sniffed at his hand and then turned disinterestedly away.
"In the swamps beyond the lab. They breed there in large numbers. And they're not very bright. It was so easy to catch them. We were very interested in the chemical composition of their skin. Don't let the color fool you; we call them gilas be-cause of that resemblance to the Earth creature, but these animals absorb almost all the light that reaches them.
"On Earth they'd have to be black to do that. It's another of Lilith's mysteries." Louisa gently patted one of the animals on the head. "They're not very attractive, are they? But I can't help feeling sorry for them."
"And these?" Mason asked, going to the opposite wall where the cages rose from floor to ceiling, most of them empty. In only a few were the little, golden-furred animals, as tiny as kittens, with bright, somehow sweet little faces that peered out curiously at him. One of the animals came up and sat on its back legs, cocking its head on one side and regarding Mason intently. Its front paws waved at him, as if asking him to play. Mason laughed. "Why do you have so few of these? What are they, Louisa?"
"They're quite rare, as far as we know, and very difficult to capture. We call them melans because their color reminded us of the pigment melanin. Of course it isn't really the same thing, we discovered, but the name stuck."
"And they're rare?"
"Getting even rarer," Louisa commented unhappily. "At one time we had quite a few, but these experiments are fast exterminating them."
Mason put his finger through the bar and the little animal grabbed it with his paws, examining the nail curiously. "They have four digits!" he exclaimed. "How do you know these animals haven't farther to go? Yee Mon said that life here has reached the end of it's development. But how can you be so sure?"
"I'm not sure at all," Louisa said. "Marina is absolutely convinced that the gilas have evolved completely and will either stay that way or be wiped out. She hasn't said much about the melans, but they're so scarce that I guess she imagines they're on their way out already."
"But four digits!" Mason frowned. "That's very rare, isn't it? What do they eat?"
"Foliage. We haven't found an animal yet on Lilith that is carnivorous. They're all herbivorous. Come on, Russ, I want to show you something." She led him back to the door, open-ing it just slightly so that the light shone through a crack.
Again the powerful sweet smell made Mason catch his breath. "See the melans in those cages?" Louisa whispered. "They've all been exposed to the color experiment. Look quickly, because when they see any light at all now they set up a terrific hue and cry." Her voice was tight. "Look at them!"
Mason looked and had that awful sinking sensation that coursed through his body whenever he saw animals in pain. He held his breath, as much from the sight of the writhing animals as from the odor.
Louisa shut the door on the room and looked at him in anguish. "They never tell you about this, do they? Now do you see why it's got to stop, Russ? It's barbaric!" She was near tears, and Mason hekTher gently for a moment.
This was no deception. He had no doubt now that Louisa was on his side, available to help in whatever way she could. And he would need that help, Mason knew, and use it. Louisa broke away, and led him through the room of cages to the lab.
She left him there and disappeared. In front of him was a large window looking into the experimental room. When Louisa came back she pulled a switch on the wall and Mason saw that she had placed one of the melans in a cage that tilted it from the pen into the experimental room. She pulled another switch. The window acted as a magnifier. They saw the little animal in a large close-up.
She then handed Mason a pair of glasses. "You may need these, even with the window. The light is terrifically intense," she said grimly. "I hope you memorize every step of this process, Russ. I wish it weren't necessary, but it could always be said that the animals in pain out there were suffering from natural causes. This will give you the proof that you need. And I'm not going to let this one suffer," she added quietly.
Mason looked at her curiously.
"It isn't necessary," she explained. "Those animals out there are still alive because they weren't given full exposure. Many different combinations have been tried on them. I'm going to show you what Gregson did. It will kill the melan, but with the atmosphere as it is now, it won't have the same explosive effect."
"Wait a minute," Mason protested. "We've forgotten something. Could they know in the house what we're doing out here?" x
"Oh, no." She shook her head. "There's never been a need to set up controls like that and the vibration is confined to one room. Now watch." She turned to the bank of dials on the wall and Mason was so intent on remembering the combinations that he forgot to put on the glasses.
When he turned back toward the window, Louisa cried, "Now!" and the room in front of him was illumined for a moment with a flash of unbelievable color. The little melan in the cage stood up on its hind legs and stretched its small body to the limit, paws waving and seeming to grab at the light. For an instant he was transparent and glowed all over with the same light and color. Magnified, his eyes were huge with wonder and fright. And from across the room and through the window those eyes seemed to bore straight into Mason.
He felt a shock like that he had experienced in the circle, and sat there holding his breath as the melan looked at him. The pupils grew wider and wider and held Mason in their shock. He seemed to see through them, as the melan was seeing.
But what he saw! Like the last time it was a great and growing panorama of history, but unlike Deayban's mind, it held not the past, but the entire future of the melan and of Lilith. And it lived, not in its brain, but in every cell of its tiny body.
There was a hunger there, an unformed, unthought gnaw>-ing of desire. A wish so strong that already Nature reeled in front of it and would have to acquiesce. The melan already had four fingers, and in those straining, determined cells, there already grew the beginning of the next step, the formation of a thumb. In back of those curious eyes there lurked an alert cunning, an ability to adapt, to change, and to adapt again.
The enormity of its desire stunned Mason. Could Man ever have wished so completely and so purely? The tiniest, the humblest, the weakest of Lilith's creatures, this little melan was insisting on its destiny. It would take any risk, face any obstacle, to quench that burning thirst for being.
And Mason saw how it would slowly evolve, becoming taller, stronger and more clever through the years. First the physical senses would acquire a perfection unknown to Man, and then gradually the wonder of intelligence would unfold, and in back of that, always, the insatiable hunger. Until the melan, still unsatisfied, would demand eternity and even immortality as its goal.
Mason saw the transformation from flesh to intelligence, from cells to light. The melan would evolve toward light, for that was the destiny Lilith held for it. And so its food would change from heavier to ever lighter matter, until at last it took its nourishment directly in energy from the sun.
And in return?
Mason was staggered by the understanding already present in the tiny body before him, for the melan already knew that payment would be demanded from him. How could it, now, have a concept of the reciprocal demands of the universe, of creation? But it knew; in every cell of that small body there was a willingness to pay. And Mason saw that final act of surrender, carried out in the freedom of humility. For the melan would surrender to an even higher force, accepting all creation as one, and with that humility would race to rescue another part of that creation from extinction.
Faster than light, with a resource of energy that stunned the imagination, the melan, now truly something akin to angels, would rescue Man from the tomb of his dying sun. It was the melan who swooped down on Earth in that final, desperate moment, and took the children of Man to the Stars. It was their being, their intelligence, their very life, that was Man's hope.
More than that Mason could not see.
When at last the body of the melan lay still and twisted before him, the eyes lifeless and hollow, Mason sat shaken.
Noticing his expression, Louisa was startled. "What is it?" she cried, and then seeing that he wore no glasses, sighed in relief. "Oh, it's only the shock of the color. I know it does strange things." She looked at the still body of the animal and added, "At least he didn't suffer. If this one can save the rest, it will have been worth it."
"They must all be saved." Mason rose to his feet and took Louisa by her shoulders, holding her while he looked intensely into her eyes. "I can't explain all this now, but the rnelans must all be set free. What would happen if we opened all the cages and let them go?"
Louisa was almost frightened by his face. "They'd be caught again," she stammered, "and probably there'd be an even larger hunt for them. More would be destroyed in the process."
"All right." Mason was thinking quickly and ready to let that go for the moment. That wasn't the way. He must find another. "How can you help to get me out of here?" he asked bluntly. "I've got to get away."
"Away where?"
"Back to my ship. Look, Louisa, I've got an idea. They'll be calling me tomorrow. Ulinski said I was to tell them my report wasn't finished. The danger in that is that they might send down another reporter to help me complete it. I'm under orders now from Eckert personally to stop another reporter from coming. They left the method up to me."
He paced up and down the tiny room and then wheeled around suddenly. "Suppose I left tonight, took the land rover. You could tell them I'd decided the best way to play it safe was to report to the mother ship from the port. They'll be above it, anyway, when they radio me. I still have my own transmitter. I could send for the Miranda and leave without anyone knowing."
"They'd know, Russ. They'd be listening in on that call." ♦
"But what could they do about it?" Mason exulted. "They can't hold me here if I'm in a different place. I'd have the only land rover with me. And I don't think they'd dare to tell the ship not to take me. It would look too odd. No, that's it. I've got to leave here now and be back at the port by early tomorrow."
"And then what?" Louisa questioned seriously. "What will you do when you are back on the ship? I don't really see what you can do there."
**I can force Eckert to see me," Mason said grimly. "And if I can't get anywhere with him, I can go to the high court!"
Louisa's eyes widened. "You can't let them know about this," she whispered anxiously.
Mason wondered if he should now tell her everything he knew. She would certainly understand then, why, if necessary, he must go to the high court. But carrying that knowledge with her could be dangerous. The others might find a way to induce her to talk. No one would believe his story and even Louisa might decide he was acting on imagination and weird visions. It would be better if she continued to think that he was concerned simply in a humane way with these experiments.
Mason had no further doubt now about the validity of what he had seen. He trusted it completely. There might even be a scientific explanation of these strange changes in time, if one could delve deeply enough into the properties of that mysterious beam of light; the same light that had killed Gregson and Plummer and taken Mason twice through time.
-Perhaps I won't have to go to the high court," he said gently. "Chances are it won't be necessary. The main thing is to get to Eckert. Now, will you help me, Louisa?"
"What do you want me to do?" she asked simply, in agreement.
"We'll have to move the car silently until it's far enough from the buildings so I can start it without being heard. Even the slightest hum might be detected if anyone's awake. I want you to open the shed and help me move it out. I'll meet you there in a little while, as soon as I get some things from my room. But quietly, Louisa," he cautioned. "And be careful. Remember, if anything happens, that you had nothing to do with this."
They left the lab and Mason managed to reach his room undetected. He began to gather up his things, making ready the survival kit which he had never used. He had a suspicion that this time it might be needed. He was just closing the kit when there was a^ knock on his door. He swore under his breath as he heard Yee Mon call softly, "Russ…"
He threw the kit under his bed and went to the door, al-most forgetting for a moment that he was wearing a jacket. "Just a minute," he said, hastily removing the jacket and tossing it into a closet. He opened the door and Yee Mon looked at him in surprise.
"Not asleep?" he asked.
"No." Mason smiled, hoping he looked natural. "Too many things going on, I suppose. I've been lying here thinking. Guess I lost track of time. What time is it?" He managed to yawn a little.
"Late," Yee Mon said shortly. "But I'm glad you're up. I wanted to talk to you." He came in and sat down on the chair by Mason's desk, drumming his fingers on the top. "I'm worried," he stated carefully. "I have a feeling you don't really understand yet what this is all about. You don't do you?^
"I think I do." Mason was cautious now, wondering where all this was leading.
"Well, I disagree." Yee Mon took out a cigarette and lit it. "You've been given a quick report of the surface but I doubt if you have an idea of the depth of this project. That's what I want to talk to you about.
"You have to dream up some sort of story for tomorrow," he added, somewhat irrelevantly, Mason thought. "Have you decided what you're going to say?"
Mason groaned inwardly. This might go on all night and Louisa would be waiting out there. "Yes, I have an idea. I was planning to sleep on it and see how it looked in the morning."
He'd have to invent something fast, he thought, and somehow get Yee out of here. "I thought I might say that the report is so intricate that another man on the job would only comply cate it further. Maybe I could say that the job would be completed faster if I continue alone. Sound all right?" He yawned again and stretched out on the bed, putting his arms under his head.
Yee Mon inhaled deeply and slowly let out the smoke in a long drifting curl. He didn't answer.
"If there's a flaw, I'll probably see it in the morning. But basically I think it's sound, don't you?" Mason said.
"Perhaps," Yee Mon said, watching the smoke.
Would he never leave? "If you don't mind, I think I'll turn in now. As you say, it's late." Mason got up and began to make motions toward undressing. Yee didn't move and suddenly Mason was irritated. "I'd like to get some sleep," he said sharply.
"Not a bad idea," Yee agreed. "Louisa needed sleep, too. I believe she's sleeping quite soundly now." His lids flickered imperceptibly.
Mason stood stock still for an instant and then went on undressing. Whatever reaction Yee wanted, he wasn't going to give it to him.
"It's a kind of unwritten law around here," Yee said, "that we do not go out after dark. Unfortunately Miss Wenger seemed to have some idea of a night journey. Perhaps just a little spin around, but all the same we didn't agree with her that it was such a good idea."
Mason took a deep breath, thankful that his face was turned away. He had never been much of an actor, but he would have to improvise quickly and convincingly. He began laughing, "I think it's a marvelous idea. Wish she'd asked me to go along."
"Stop it, Russ!" Yee's voice was sharp. "We know exactly what you were planning." He stood up and Mason faced him. "No," he answered the unasked question, "Miss Wenger was not going to say anything. However, we had to have that information and it takes exactly sixty seconds for a shot of meslin to take effect. I'm so sorry you don't trust us, Mason. All this is really quite unnecessary. Now, if you'll sit down calmly, I'm sure we can come to some understanding."
Mason was violently angry. He was even more of a prisoner than he had imagined. Obviously someone had been sent to keep a close check on the car. They'd made Louisa talk under the drug. What was the next move, he wondered?
His anger surged to breaking point and suddenly he didn't care anymore. All the long years of careful training against violence vanished in an instantaneous eruption and he felt his fist explode into Yee Mon's bland, smiling face. Yee stumbled and fell back against the desk, the smile frozen in shock. He put up his hands to ward Mason off, too surprised to cry out, and Mason hit him again. He fell to the floor, cracking his head against the desk, his cigarette bouncing across the floor.
Mason stubbed out the cigarette in a fury, grabbed his jacket and put it on, took up his emergency kit and put his ear against the door. There were footsteps coming down the hall. Hastily, he shut off the light, locked the door and went to the window. He listened and heard nothing more than the wind whining in the fern trees. He opened the window and jumped down just as someone began knocking on his door.
He started to turn toward the shed and then saw a dim light coming from the entrance. Someone was still there. That meant that he would have to forget about the land rover. The knocks were louder in back of him. All right then, he'd have to make it on foot. Glancing sharply around, he darted across the path around the building and ran swiftly toward the forest of ferns.
He paused once in his flight to look back and saw the building illuminated as all the lights were switched on. Voices carried across the path but Mason didn't wait to hear what they were saying. Panting from anger and determination, he ran wildly through the forest, stumbling over roots and fighting furiously at the tendrils that cut across his face. Several times he fell across the gnarled roots that cut under his feet, falling into wet moss that clung tenaciously to his clothes and hair.
It was impossible to continue running like this in the dark. Mason slowed down and began to walk cautiously, feeling his way among the ferns and brush. There didn't seem to be any sign of pursuit. But how could they follow him in the night like this? Of course, they wouldn't even try.
Mason sat down for a moment, breathing deeply, exhausted from his headlong flight. They would take the land rover, probably, and try to intercept him on the road back to the port, figuring that he would go that way. Or would they simply wait for him there? In any case, he had little hope of intercepting the Miranda at the port. For a while Mason considered the possibility of going back and talking it over with Yee Mon or Ulinski.
But he realized there wasn't the slightest chance of per-suasion. Eckert obviously meant to keep him here on Lilith. But—Mason felt a stirring of hope—there was still a chance. Eckert also didn't want the ship to know anything was amiss. What story could he possibly invent if Mason failed to answer the ship's call? He smiled with the knowledge that he was, in a way, valuable property.
He wasn't worried about Louisa. They would do nothing more than question her further on his plans. Thank heaven he hadn't told her everything. He should have anticipated the possibility of the truth drug, but he had never thought such measures might be used. No, she would be all right now that the information had been forced from her. He faced the problem now of intercepting his ship somewhere or giving up entirely. And giving up now was out of the question.
Mason lay back, resting his head against a tree trunk. He might as well get a few hours sleep. There wasn't much he could do until dawn. Suddenly he sat up, tense with the realization that he'd been all wrong about seeing Eckert. Naively, he had thought of -explaining the whole matter to him, persuading him that the experiments must be stopped. But would it be possible to talk to a man who took such measures as Mason had just witnessed?
Mason cursed himself for his innocence. Like a child he had thought no further than going to the boss, with a child's assurance that the boss would make everything right. Plainly Eckert was not the one to see. And Mason had no way of knowing who was above him. That left only one area of possible help. He would have to go the high court. He' would have to appeal to another Intelligence. Instinctively Mason shivered, knowing that he planned to attempt what few men had ever tried.
And wasn't it ridiculous, he thought, that lying here in the middle of a jungle on Lilith, with really very little hope of escape and all things pointing toward his failure, he had not the slightest doubt that he would complete his mission. He smiled again, refusing to think he might be deluding himself, and went to sleep.
On earth there had been an old expression: Break of dawn. Perhaps, in some distant time, some Man had witnessed the morning and thought that night had gently cracked to let through the sun. But here on Lilith dawn didn't break. It flooded, with a slow, relentless swell that enveloped the world in breathtaking films of light and color.
Mason awoke and stretched and opened his eyes to the sky of Lilith, framed through the mist and fern fronds that waved in great sweeps far above his head. He lay there for a while entranced. At last, reluctantly, he arose and ate sparingly from the food he had brought. Sometime during the night, perhaps in a dream, he had understood the only thing he could do. There wasn't the slightest possibility of getting to the port today. Even if he did, they would be there, waiting for him.
His plan was to go in a straight and difficult line away from the road and up to the mountains, hoping to contact the ship from there. Even if they guessed his route, they wouldn't follow. A report would be sent to the ship this morning that he was ill or had an accident. They would expect the ship to leave before nightfall without him.
But that was where he felt hopeful. A ship never left without waiting twenty-four hours. And then it was unlikely, to leave without sending down another man. Yee Mon or Eckert would have a hard time trying to dream up an answer to that one, Mason thought, as he began walking through the forest.
It was going to be a difficult hike, and he had no illusions about that. He tried to relax each muscle as he moved and save as much energy as possible. Still, the day was warm and soon he had to take off- his jacket, an extra burden to carry but necessary for what might face him tonight in the mountains.
As the day wore on Mason began to perspire and think longingly of the valley of pools .across the mountain range. So far he hadn't seen a stream or pool and he was being extremely careful about his supply of water. At noon he stopped in a glade among the giant ferns to rest. The sun was directly overhead and the clearing shone brightly in a rainbow of color.
The brilliance seemed to pour into Mason as he lay there, and he fancied he could see the actual rays of the sun shining in glancing lines of its spectrum. His own body seemed filled with light and color and looking up, the sun appeared to him at that moment like an ancient drawing, with the jagged tongues of fire licking out along the rim, and lines of light streaming in rays down across the heavens to the earth. Like the old astrological sun of the zodiac.
All at once he stood up with a shout. He wasn't wearing his glasses and he was looking directly at the sun! Mason looked around wildly, as if the ferns or growth could give him an answer. All around him were the violent colors of Lilith, shocking in their intensity but no longer dangerous to Mason. The colors gave off a special aura or illumination of their own, and he could feel the energy held in each one.
He ran around the clearing, weaving in and out of the waves of light, feeling each color. Then he sat down in front of a bed of flowers, wondering what had happened to his eyes. He could almost taste the color of the flowers. He was very thirsty, and as he looked at them his thirst grew stronger, as it usually does just before one drinks. He took one of the flowers, pulled off the petals and examined the stem. Just as he had sensed, there was water in the thick bulb halfway in the middle of the stem. He drank it immediately without worrying about the effect.
Although he had been trained to never taste other planetary food, he had no doubt about this. He drank from one flower and then another until the ground was strewn with petals. Then he replenished his water supply and began walking again. He felt extremely light and confident and his surprise at being able to see without glasses was modified by the wonder of what he saw. He was no longer stunned by the impact of color, rather he was refreshed and exhilarated and couldn't get enough of the marvelous light that met his eyes.
So this was what the melan saw, he thought. Or they might see even more, see beyond the color. And the other life— those birds so startingly plummaged, darting like bright rainbows across the sky—was this what they saw, too? And what would other men think if they could see Lilith purely, as Mason did now, instead of hiding behind a lens that filtered and obscured?
He couldn't imagine ever having disliked Lilith. This was truly an Eden, a magical spot in creation, an earth that glowed as it waited for the intelligence that would evolve to complete it.
Mason knew that his exposure to the two illuminations, first in the circle and then in the laboratory when he had forgotten to wear glasses, must be responsible for the change in his vision. Somehow he had been affected in a way that enabled him now to see what no other man could bear to look at. It was so lovely, so much lovelier than anything he had ever dreamed, that he walked along in a trance, nearly forgetting his purpose.
For the rest of the day he walked like that, pausing now and then to eat or drink, resting whenever he felt tired. By late afternoon he was amazed to find that in this relaxed state he had covered twice the amount of ground he had hoped to cover. By sunset he had come to the foothills of the mountains and he started up without pausing again, feeling as full of energy as when he had begun.
At dusk he finally stopped to rest on a rocky ledge that overhung the valley where he had just been. He would have to hurry now to reach the top before the last rays of the sun died away, but he wanted this moment to look back.
A mist hung over the valley, sweeping over the tips of the fern forest, and it seemed to Mason that spires began to rise above that moist cloud. He strained to see, and then before his eyes a vision of a city arose.
Tall spires and turrets touched with gold, glowing with the fading rays of the sun. Among the spires, floating like wraiths in a misty city, Mason saw a procession of colored forms, light and transparent as air. It was the people of Lilith, Mason knew—the melans now, and before him at a further point in their development. The spires of the city darkened and suddenly the vision was gone.
It was darker now and he must hurry. Climbing up, not stopping now for an instant, Mason wondered about what he had seen. There had been scenes like that on Earth, he remembered, mirages caused by refraction. When light was bent in a certain way it sometimes caused a shift in the appearance of the location of things. A strong air lens like that wasn't even disturbed by anything moving through it.
This was still a mystery to scientists; the strange, strong force that maintains it. And sometimes amazing things had been sighted. Whole cities appeared hundreds of miles from where they actually existed. People had been seen "walking through air," even landscapes had been transported across oceans to be visible to people on other continents.
Was it possible for a mirage to cross time?
That thought, with all it included for Mason, was enough to keep him occupied until at last he stood on the high summit of the mountain range, darkness blacking out the valleys below him. Far away in the distance a dim light of the lab flickered. Looking in the other direction, toward the port, Mason saw nothing to indicate anyone was there. But, he reasoned, they wouldn't show a light under any circumstances if they expected to intercept him. He was quite sure no one would expect him to be in his present situation, high in the mountains, shivering now with the change in temperature.
He scanned the sky, hoping to see the lights of the mother ship, but couldn't distinguish her among the myriad blazing stars that lit the night. He had had just enough time before he reached the summit to see that he was standing on a high plateau, large and broad enough to receive the Miranda if—he prayed silently—he could reach her before anyone on the staff intercepted his call.
He took out his transmitter and began to send. Almost immediately he saw the lights in the spaceport illuminate the whole area, and Simpkins' voice broke in as he tried to talk with the radio room.
Mason was relieved to hear Roy Wilson on duty. He was a clever, intelligent boy, and might realize that something was wrong. Mason hoped fervently that he wouldn't wait for orders but would send his ship down immediately. Without more explanation than the note of urgency in his voice, Mason told Roy to get a fix on his position and send down the Miranda. He only hoped Roy would understand what he was saying.
"Just send her down, Roy," Mason barked into the transmitter, "That's an order!"
At the same time Simpkins was saying, "Eckert has given orders that Mr. Mason is to remain here. He may not realize this, so will you please inform your commanding officer and relay our message. It's evident that Mr. Mason is not aware of our conversation. Extremely urgent, to your commanding officer."
And Mason went on, "I hear every word, Roy. Just send her down and quickly. Never mind contacting Cotter—just get her down here."
Wilson was in a bad position, Mason realized, so he wasn't surprised when Roy responded with evasive answers. "Yes, in a moment Mr. Simpkins. I understand your difficulty." Then Mason's ears pricked up as Roy went on, "We're having trouble-hearing you. There must be something wrong. Now, would you mind repeating that, Mr. Simpkins, and ■we'll try to get your message. No, sorry, nothing is clear up here. We're having difficulty receiving Mason, too. Sorry. Please try again."
Wilson kept it up for ten minutes while Mason, shivering in his light jacket, kept yelling into the transmitter, straining to get his message across. What had gone wrong? He chafed at the long delay.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a slim shape hurtle across the sky, making a sweeping curve as it homed-in almost directly above his head. He nearly shouted with relief, but Wilson was still going on: "Sorry, Mr. Simpkins, we're still not clear. Hold on."
Mason could have hugged him. Good boy! He was keeping Simpkins busy while Mason had a chance to get away. The Miranda made a beautiful landing just ten feet away and Mason ran over to her, hoping it would be a silent takeoff. He ducked into the capsule, closed the hatch, set the controls, and lay back.
The Miranda would glide quietly up into the night, back to the ship, and if he were lucky, Simpkins and the others wouldn't even know. Mason caught his breath as they left the ground suddenly with a leap that pressed him back against the side.
Ten minutes later he unlocked the hatch, jumped out in the huge garage in the belly of the mother ship, and, ignoring the reporters who pressed around in greeting, ran up the ramp and through the corridors to the radio room. He stopped at the door, grinning at Wilson who was sitting there, his feet up on a table, staring at the ceiling as he wearily kept up the routine.
"Can you hear me now, Mr. Simpkins?" he asked. "Sorry sir, missed that last part. No, we haven't been able to contact Mason either." He held the receiver away from his ear as Simpkins blustered loud and hoarsely.
Mason walked over to him and lifted his hands in the victory sign. Wilson grinned back and broke in on Simpkins. "Mr. Simpkins, sir. Sir—" He shrugged his shoulders helplessly at Mason as Simpkins doggedly kept talking.
"Mr. Simpkins, sir!" Roy interrupted loudly • and finally there was silence on the other end. "We can't hear you. I'm closing for the moment, sir. We'll call back as soon as our transmitter is fixed. Going off now, sir. Please be patient." He cut off the call and stood up, looking at Mason with a gleam of amusement in his eyes.
"In return for this bit of skulduggery, I demand a complete accounting! Heaven help you if we land in Cotter's bad graces!" Then he shook hands warmly with Mason who clapped him enthusiastically on the back.
"Did you tell Cotter?" Mason asked urgently.
"No!" Roy laughed. "I haven't had a chance. What went on down there, anyway? Trouble with the local ladies?"
"No," Mason smiled, "not trouble with the local ladies. Look, Roy, you've really gotten me out of a hole. It's so serious I don't have time to explain right now, but I promise you'll hear it all one day. Now I think I'd better see Cotter right away." He ran to the door, calling back, "You don't know what you've done for me, Roy. I won't forget it."
"I just hope Cotter forgets it," was the mumbled reply as Mason closed the door and ran forward to Cotter's stateroom in the front of the ship.
He didn't allow himself time to think. He would have to play it as it came. Without further preparation he knocked on the Captain's door.
Stuart Cotter wore an air of authority that matched his appearance. He was a long, lean man with grizzly gray hair and darker-rimmed eyes that had seen a lifetime of service in the reporting ships. He'd been Mason's officer for seven years and their relationship was more than that of reporter to Captain. So, in spite of a rather forbidding presence that caused apprehension in men who knew him only slightly, to Mason he appeared at the door like an old and dear friend, and Mason was glad to meet that strength. If anyone would understand, he suddenly realized, it would be Cotter.
"Mason!" The Captain smiled warmly and drew him into the cabin. "We didn't expect you until tomorrow. I was a little worried," he said, frowning slightly. "It isn't like you to miss a pickup." He looked at Mason with an unmistakable-demand behind those inquiring eyes and Mason knew right away that he would tell Cotter everything.
It was a long talk, lasting far into the night. Cotter broke in several times with strong questions and showed a particular interest in Mason's account of the "visions." Mason was particularly reluctant about recounting these, and paced up and down, saying, "I know it seems incredible. I know it's fantastic, but—" And Cotter sat silently, listening carefully to every word while Mason tried desperately to convey his sincerity.
At last they saw, out of the porthole, another dawn come to Lilith, and although clouds obscured much of the planet, the color breaking through here and there was still breathtaking. Cotter went to the porthole and looked out at the planet hanging there below them.
"If what you say is true, Russ—" He broke off and Mason held his breath for what would come next. Cotter wheeled around and, calling through the intercom, gave orders to leave Lilith. Mason watched him tensely. Then he called again, this time for breakfast. It arrived as they pulled away, leaving Lilith behind, a dwindling ball in the distance.
"Russ, I don't know what to say to all this," Cotter began. "It sounds like a dream, but I've known you for a good many years and I know you don't dream. Ordinarily I'd be inclined to forget the whole thing. But in this case there are two things that put me off. One is the fact that you are telling the story. The other is what you say about Man in the Federation."
He drank his coffee silently and sat back in his chair, looking off at something Mason couldn't see. "I've begun to wonder more and more, recently, about my own orders." He bit his lip and was silent again. Then, frowning: "I want you to go to the high court, Russ! That's what you want, isn't it?"
Mason nodded anxiously, not daring to breathe. He hadn't known how he would get to the high court, and here, perhaps, was his help! '
"I trust you enough," Cotter went on, "to realize that you are sincere in what you say. And that regardless of what I do, you'll find a way to get there."
Mason smiled thankfully at the compliment. "I can't prevent you," Cotter continued, "and I can't be much help since it would be much better for everyone concerned if I know nothing about this. But I will do what I can. And it's got to be fast, before we're given other orders from Eckert. That will happen as soon as the staff on Lilith knows you've gone. Now, here's what we'll do…"
Planning Mason's trip took the rest of the day. He was to take a lifeboat and make the last stages of the journey to the high court himself. It was just sheer luck that the next port of call for the ship was not too far from that system. Mason could be dropped off not more than two days away from the planet. In this way, it could be said that Mason had gone himself; there'd be no way of proving that Cotter had helped him.
Mason wondered frequently about Cotter's words, when he had said he'd be concerned about his own orders. While there was much in Mason's story he had questioned, he had shown a keen interest in what the staff on Lilith had said about balance of power. He had even confessed to Mason that he would be helping him by making this trip—if it didn't turn out to be fruitless.
True to their guess, orders from Eckert arrived a few hours later. Mason was to be brought immediately to him and the Captain had to explain—he did it convincingly, Mason thought—that Mason had already escaped in a lifeboat. At that news Eckert seemed to be set slightly off balance. He proceeded to tell Cotter more than he had intended. What he said worried Mason even more and it caused Cotter to become even more convinced of the truth in Mason's story.
Eckert hinted that the continuing experiments were not going according to plan, and there seemed to be some trouble. Therefore, said Eckert, it was necessary to find Mason if they had to send the whole fleet in to do it. He demanded to know Mason's plans and Mason could sense Cotter's reluctance to lie. He was placed in an almost untenable position for the Captain of a reporting ship, and Mason half expected him to give away the whole show then and there. Instead, Cotter maintained his position of ignorance, and Mason realized there must be a lot behind his wish to see Mason safely .off to the high court.
Immediately after the talk with Eckert, Mason was led to the lifeboat and equipped with everything he would need for the journey to Legus. How Cotter was going to manage to seal the tongues of the reporters who, of necessity, had to help, was something Mason worried over. But the Captain, shaking his hand, sternly told him to think only about his mission.
"Leave the rest to me, Russ, and don't worry. Your big-gest problem will be leaving Legus, and I'm not sure I can help you there. You may even be picked up before you arrive. I don't know what Eckert intends. It's easy enough for me to say I'm unable to locate you, but if he puts some other ships on your trail, I can't answer for them."
"I understand," Mason said solemnly.
They said good-bye quietly in the huge underbelly of the ship, the little lifeboat looking like a frail midget in the enormous space. There was a tense undercurrent in the atmosphere, and Mason was aware of Cotter's relief when the boat was sealed and the airlock closed behind it. Mason watched out the nose window as the great door in front of him opened and he was suddenly hurtled out into the black night of space.
Now theke was nothing to do for two days but eat, sleep and think. Scenes raced through Mason's mind as he stared ahead at the crowded universe. Here, near the center of the galaxy, stars were close and space was far from empty.
Mason went over every step of his experiences so far and found that more and more he came back to the idea that had struck him so forcibly back there on the mountain: A mirage in time. It seemed such a reasonable answer to his visions, and yet he couldn't rid himself of the idea that he had, himself, traveled on that long journey to Earth. Perhaps, though, one thing didn't exclude the other.
As the second day period drew to a close, there had been no sign of pursuit, and Mason felt easier. He would make it to Legus. But what would he find there? Understanding or contempt? That was what confronted him now as he slept ioi the last time in the cramped space in the tiny lifeboat.
Time had no real meaning out here. Mason only knew it was morning on Legus by his watch, as the ship dove through the atmosphere and he looked for a place to land. He did not know this planet and wanted to arrive as obscurely as possible. The ship swept over the continents and Mason slowed and flew still lower, looking for the great Capital of Law where he would find the buildings of the high court.
Finally he saw it; a sweep of white domed buildings spreading over the center of a great plain like frosting. There was no sign of a regular spaceport. Legus was rarely visited, so he imagined when ships did arrive they must land just outside the city. He found a clear area not far away and took the lifeboat down. It was warm when he stepped out and he changed the clothes he'd worn in the ship. Then he started walking toward the city.
As he started up the great center walk that led to the buildings, he paused for a moment apprehensively at the lack of life. There wasn't a soul around. Was this to be a repetition of his landing on Lilith? He kept walking ahead to the round, domed building that covered acres. It must house the high court.
He walked up the endless flights of steps surrounding the building on all sides and entered the chamber. It was one huge, circular room, vaulted, the ceiling far higher inside than it had appeared from the walk. He was on a balcony that ran around inside the building looking down at the chamber below.
Mason peered over and stopped still, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. Row upon row they sat, far below him, for half the building was underground. Circles of rows spread from the circumference to the center, where, on a raised dias, sat the Chief Justice. There must be thousands of beings down there—so many more than he had dreamed sat in the high court. No wonder the city seemed interested. They were all here.
There was no place to sit or hear on the balcony. He would have to find the entrance. He went around the balcony ■until he found a ramp that descended to the chamber below. He still heard nothing and went slowly down, half expecting someone to come out and stop him on his way.
But there was nothing. Down and down, turning several times in a great circle until he finally reached the lowest level. There, in front of him, were several doors, spaced regularly, all undoubtedly opening into the chamber.
Now Mason began to be nervous. He hadn't thought farther than this. What should he do? Was he prepared to meet that vast assembly or should he wait and try to see one of them alone? There would be men in there, too, he suddenly realized, and wondered if he could trust them.
All at once a swell of sound reached hiss ears. Since they were not all human voices the noise was indescribable. Mason looked around instinctively for a place to hide and there was none. The floor was as empty as the balcony had been. They must believe in austerity, he thought, a little hysterically, as the voices grew louder and he knew that one of the doors was about to open. What would he see? A man who had never seen an alien shouldn't be allowed here, he thought. He wasn't prepared!
The door opened and sheer instinct saved Mason from a horrible blunder. There was first, before anything, self-preservation. And it was this force that now moved him. He ran to the wall as the doors began to open, and stood so that he would be at their rear. They began to come out, and forcing his legs to pull him along, Mason joined the throng and walked slowly and carefully among them.
He didn't look; he couldn't. He stared straight ahead hoping that they might mistake him for one of the men sitting in court. There were so many beings, how could they know the difference? He couldn't help catching, out of the corner of his eye, an impression of fur, color, odd shapes, tendrils escaping from cloaks.
Just as he noticed in a swift panic that everyone was wearing the same outer garment, a huge purple cloak, an arm moved about his waist and he felt the edge of a cloak flung over his shoulder. He looked sideways and saw a kind, un-human face—thank God it was a face—that smiled gently at him and then nudged him to the opposite wall where, as if by magic, a door suddenly opened. Inside there was some sort of a cloak room, and the person—Mason already thought of him as a person—stood with his back against the door and tossed the cloak to Mason who quickly put it on.
The door opened again and Mason was led through the stfeam of beings who didn't seem to look his way at all. They were moving very quickly and a path seemed to open in front of them as they surged up the ramp and out of the building. He was led across the ground in front of the court, across the center walk to a low building. He was taken inside, and as the door closed behind him, he finally turned and faced his strange benefactor.
"That was foolish," the person said in English, in a deep, rough voice that was somehow quite soothing. He was slightly taller than Mason, almost human in appearance, and had limbs like men. But he was entirely elongated and there was just the faintest impression of a soft, furlike down that covered him and came to its fullest on his head.
His face was bushy. Mason could think of no other way to describe it. The eyebrows were full and reached almost across his forehead. Underneath, his eyes were startlingly large and clear, framed in heavy long lashes. The nose was long and his mouth was oddly wide, curling slightly upwards at the corners. It was that, Mason decided, that gave him such a gentle expression. His hands, too, were very long and expressive, and covered more than his face with the soft, golden down. He had, and Mason found himself not at all shocked to see it, six fingers—or rather, two thumbs.
Noticing this and relieved at the way he had taken it, Mason suddenly laughed and the person smiled understand-ingly. "Yes, of course this wouldn't bother you—" he indicated his hands "—but there are some sights that take slightly more preparation to bear. You were very foolish but very brave. We've been expecting you."
There it was, Mason thought, that expression that only appeared in books. Unless Eckert had warned them of his possible arrival.
"No," the stranger denied this unspoken thought, "no one told us that you were coming. Now," he gestured toward a chair that looked reassuringly like any other chair Mason had ever seen. "Please sit down and let us learn each other's names. I am called Oden."
"Russell Mason." He was a little uncomfortable under the obvious control the stranger had of the situation.
The alien smiled. "Mr. Mason, it is never easy to meet another intelligence, and you are at a disadvantage here. I have had much contact with other men and I know your race well." He regarded Mason quizzically. "I wonder how well you will bear it?"
"Meeting you, you mean? And other beings?" Mason asked. "That's why I'm here. I don't know why you rescued me back there at the court, but I want to say now that I'm grateful."
"Thank you." Oden gave him a short, almost ceremonial bow, and Mason felt even more uncomfortable. Oden was thanking him for his gratitude. Odd, Mason thought.
"Now," Oden continued graciously, "I will tell you quickly why we knew you were coming, and who we are. I am speaking of my own race, the Sumdac. We are mildly telepathic. By that I mean that we can receive rather large impressions of things when very much is at stake. But we cannot read thoughts as many believe. Also, we are so far the only beings with any telepathic powers at all. There may be more on planets not yet discovered, but so far we are alone.
"So we do not know why you are here. We knew that something grave was in the air—many of us felt a danger— and then we received the knowledge that someone or something was on its way here. We have been watching. When I saw you today, outside the great hall, I knew you must be the one.
"Frankly," Oden paused and looked curiously at the young man before him "—I didn't think it would be you; I didn't believe it would be a Man."
Mason was at a loss. Here was this alien, a superior being, he sensed instinctively, already hinting at many of the things Mason wished to learn about, and to say. Yet suddenly Mason felt a repugnance, a wish to be anywhere but here; a longing for the comfort of other human beings on his own scale. He had a wild impulse to tell a joke, anything to reach an ordinary level again. And just as he was about to say the whole thing had been a mistake, he remembered Ulinski's words to Louisa on that awful night when he had learned about the Federation:
"Could you give up your idea of man as the final and best image of evolution? Could you submit to a lesser role in the Federation?" Ulinski had said, and Mason knew now what Ulinski had meant. Man wasn't used to second place. He would do anything to avoid it. His entire history had been a demand for superiority. First individuals, then nations, and now the entire race.
And Mason felt it, too. This was going to be hard; harder than anything he'd ever done. What he must constantly keep in front of him, Mason decided, was that picture of Man's death. The end of his sun, and the end of Man, unless Mason could help now to save him. That vision was his only hope.
"You are really very brave," Oden said, and Mason wondered how he could bear such sympathy. "Braver than most men. We admire courage, you know. It is, of all Man's qualities, one of the most admirable. And," he smiled encouragingly, "we all have something to offer. Each one of us. We are each unique. You must never lose sight of that. Now—" he saw that Mason was all right again "—tell me your story and perhaps I can help."
Mason began with his arrival on Lilith and described the events that had led him here to the high court. He expected Oden to be shocked at his account of the deception practiced on the experimental planets. But, Mason now realized, these beings, the Sumdacs, were too intelligent to be shocked by anything. Oden was not shocked; he was deeply angry.
He had perfect control, however, and sat quietly until finally he said to Mason, with a smile, "You see how easily we are deceived by our wishes. We wished Man well. Knowing the strange arrangement of his being, we were even prepared to go along with his idea of law, although there are few intelligences in this universe who need that sort of court.
"This was a gesture to Man. A grand welcoming. Within this framework and because %of his need, we thought Man would eventually come to his maturity. We liked Man, we wished all this for him. Therefore it is our fault. It is not Man's error." He looked severely at Mason. "Never blame Man for this, Mr. Mason. Blame our wish for him, if you have to cast blame at all."
"Yes, but some men aren't to blame," Mason said, thinking of Cotter and Louisa. "A large part aren't. There are only a few men who are responsible for this. It isn't the race itself."
"Isn't it?" said Oden mildly. "If one of your limbs were be- • ing eaten away with disease, would you expect the rest of your body to remain unaffected? It is exactly the same with a large body of people, with a race. As long as there is one warped member it means that the group is not yet perfected. They have a little way to go yet. Do you understand that?"
Mason nodded reluctantly.
"Well, then, until a race is finished, or, in other words, completely evolved, they are usually confined by natural causes to their own worlds. Only Man had a technology in advance of his evolution.
"All of us," he smiled, "yes, the Sumdac. Do you think we never fought among ourselves or gave great pain to each other? Oh, yes, that was long ago, and it took many millions of years to reach our present state. But we evolved at home!" He stressed the word. "We were not out among the stars where we could do untold damage to the planets themselves and to Life. This is a very serious charge you bring against your own race, Mr. Mason. You must love Man very much to do it."
His understanding brought a lump to Mason's throat. Oden knew why he was here. How many men would understand?
"And I think you are in danger," Oden added. "You must stay here with me, out of the sight of other men until this affair is settled. First I will contact Haskell Eckert and threaten him with exposure unless he calls off the experiments on Lilith immediately. Then we will insist that you go back to Lilith to see that this is carried out. You will be in no danger then; Eckert will have the force of my knowledge behind anything he might attempt, and you will be well protected.
"After that it becomes our business. What the high court will decide to do with Man, I do not know. But we will not be hasty. You must go to Lilith with that assurance. I would not have you think in any other way. One other thing, Mr. Mason. Have you thought about whether these efforts of yours will be successful?"
"Do you mean stopping the experiments?" Mason asked, slightly confused.
"No, I am sure that can be done, with or without you. I mean the salvation of Mankind."
Mason stared at him while Oden bluntly continued. "You have told me of two separate visions, as you call them. To me they have the ring of truth. I would not choose to call them visions. We know that Earth's sun will one day die. That is not a fantasy. And who can tell what result will come from the information you have brought me?
"If Man cannot understand himself and his place among the stars, it may very well be that his punishment will be exactly as you have said: to be banished to his own solar system until he has become perfect. It makes sense; it doesn't sound like fiction.
"Your race is not convinced of the reality of some forms of perception. We take such things for granted and do not say that there are only so many senses. We know that there are many levels in each individual. Many levels in Time. You have crossed some of them, and I think you are right when you say that the light from the experiments was the cause.
"But have you thought of what else was necessary for that experience? What is there in you that allowed the light to take you on a journey? Did you ever think that another man might simply have been killed, like those two unfortunate scientists?"
Mason's heart began to beat wildly. He had wondered about it. But there was nothing different about him, he was sure. His voice shook a little: "'No, there's nothing different about me. It would have happened to anyone who stepped into that circle."
Oden smiled. "Maybe. I find it interesting, however, that you also saw the evolution of life on Lilith. One vision without the other would have led nowhere. But you saw both. And you not only saw; you understood slightly. It led to action, it brought you here. Do you realize how difficult it is to get here? Why were you not stopped? What is it that allowed you to come so far? Don't you see, Mr. Mason, how everything connects? It is all related."
Mason felt slightly numb as something beyond his ordinary level of understanding began to penetrate.
"Yes, you must wonder about all these things. Don't take everything so easily. And now we must make arrangements. I think you should get back to Lilith as soon as possible. I'm sure you are needed there. We will contact Mr. Eckert tonight so that you may go there immediately."
"Will I see you again?" Mason asked almost shyly, and not ashamed of it now. He had just begun to understand how much he could learn from this creature Oden. He felt in the role of pupil to teacher and for a moment wondered how Man would fare if he could accept that role. It would be a wonderful experience, he thought, as he understood for the first time the strength of humility. There was nothing in it to fear. Instead there was a whole new world ready to open, and Mason wished he could step into it.
"Of course," Oden replied affectionately. "I will arrange it so that we may keep in touch. In case of difficulty you will be able to reach me. I think you will have to do most of this alone, since if Man is to be saved, it will have to come from Man himself, and you are part of that potentially great race. But I don't want you to think you are completely alone or without resource. After all, we are all brothers in this great universe. And we have much to thank you for. We are grateful."
Mason slept more peacefully that he had for weeks. There was an influence of calm about the building in which Oden lived. The atmosphere was entirely different from anything he had ever known. In the morning Oden told him that Captain Cotter had been instructed to pick him up. He would take the lifeboat back to the ship which was now on its way to Legus. One unforeseen circumstance had developed. Eckert would also be on Lilith and that was something Mason would have to face. Eckert had almost panicked at the threat of exposure and insisted on being at the scene. He wanted to make sure, himself, that the experiments were stopped.
"Don't worry about that," Oden said. "He is sincere. Out of fear and selfishness, it is true. But he speaks honestly about the wish to see with his own eyes the end of the experiments and the resumption of natural life on Lilith. He may despise you—I am sure he does—but he will not do anything to harm you. He knows what would happen if he tried."
Oden was correct. When Mason arrived back on Lilith, there was an entirely different atmosphere about the space port. The mother ship had been instructed to wait overhead. She would orbit until it was time for the staff to leave Lilith. Cotter was available if Mason needed him, and he had sent Roy Wilson down to observe the proceedings.
Cotter's worst suspicions had been confirmed. He confessed to Mason that his worry had been based on a certain insistence from the Federation that all mention of life on experimental planets be avoided in the reports. This had led to the many doubts which prompted him to help Mason reach Legus. He was under Eckert's wrath, too. But, like Mason, he was in a position where Eckert could do nothing to harm him.
Eckert was like a wolf at bay, fighting to save his own skin. If he could carry it out he might save his place in the Federation. Mason wondered what was planned for the other plapets where experiments were being conducted. But that was for another time. Lilith was the immediate problem.
The port was a hub of activity. Extra scientists had been assigned to the task and had.to work without being given complete information. They were told of "accidents." This was necessary to protect the Federation. Only Mason, Eckert, Cotter and the original staff knew exactly what the situation was. Mason was anxious to know about the experiments that had taken place after he left.
Eckert was there to meet them when they landed. Mason walked with Roy across the port to the short, stocky figure that strode aggressively across the field. They stood looking at each other, Mason with undisguised curiosity and Eckert with eyes full of impotent rage. With Wilson present they could not speak openly.
"Mr. Mason," Eckert greeted him stiffly, squinting in the sun.
"Say, these colors are fantastic I" Roy observed, taking no notice of the scene being played before him.
"You'll be given glasses," Eckert said curtly. "No need for them before noon."
"What has happened since I left?" Mason demanded.
"You'll have to speak to Dr. Ulinski or Yee Mon about that," Eckert answered tartly.
Mason observed him out of the corner of his eye as they walked across the field to the flyer. Eckert had finally authorized them, so for once they wouldn't have to spend hours on the journey to the second lab.
So this was the great Haskell Eckert whom Mason had heretofore regarded as someone almost sacrosanct in the Federation; a man who had formerly stood as an image of humanitarian research, a symbol of all that was best in Man.
Mason saw a round, fleshy face with a slight gray cast to the skin, altogether nondescript except for the forehead which was high and slanted with thinning gray hair starting far back. Without that silver-gray hair, Mason thought, he would have looked quite ordinary. He didn't like Eckert's eyes which were small and cunning and moved too much, in a furtive way.
They got into the flyer, Mason next to Eckert at the controls and Roy sitting in the rear, unable to say enough about the marvels of Lilith. Other than Roy's frequent ejaculations of wonder at the color and scenery, it was a silent trip. Eck-ert chewed his lip nervously, his eyes darting constantly over the surface of the ground below. Mason wondered if Eckert had met Oden, but refrained from asking—the situation was tense enough.
They set down in front of the lab and as the hum of the engine stopped, Ulinski came running to them from the animal pen. He literally hugged Mason as he stepped out of the flyer, taking no notice of Eckert.
"Russ, I'm so glad to see you back! So glad! Now, come, I want to talk to you right away."
"Have you met Mr. Eckert?" Mason restrained him for a moment. "And this is Roy Wilson, another reporter from my ship."
"Mr. Eckert," Ulinski said gravely, not disguising a note of distaste. They shook hands and Ulinski called for Louisa to take Eckert to his room. "We will talk later," Ulinski said. "Right now I have something to discuss with Mr. Mason. You will excuse us?"
Eckert nodded impatiently and followed Louisa. She looked back at Mason as they left and smiled her relief at seeing him safely back.
"So Eckert hasn't been out here before?" Mason asked, surprised.
"No, he's been at the port waiting for you. We've been in touch by radio. Now, come." Ulinski started toward the animal pen. "We're in trouble. But before I show you, Russ, I wish to thank you for what you've done. There were a few of us here who despised what we were doing. Now we can face ourselves and do an honest task." He stopped and •beamed at Mason, "Thanks to you! I know you must have wondered why I acted so strangely. Now you know. We are all relieved."
"All?" Mason asked skeptically.
Ulinski shrugged, "Almost all. Perhaps Yee Mon still sees things differently, but Neil and Louisa and I are all elated at this new development. But," he became suddenly serious, "we have a great deal to correct here and it's going to be very hard. I even wonder whether we'll succeed. You'll see.
We have altered a life form to the point where I wonder if it will be possible to change."
"What happened? What other experiments did you do?"
"We tried something new on the Gilas. A new combination of colors, and it had a strong mutation effect. They began to breed more rapidly, and the worst—Here, look for yourself."
Ulinski opened the door to the room of cages and a new and powerful odor swept over them like a cloud, enveloping the room. But this time it was not sweet. It was an acrid stench of overwhelming intensity.
"Look!" Ulinski pointed to the cages.
Mason gasped. The Gilas were larger than they had been and their color had changed. But the greatest shock was to see them feeding on flesh. They had become carnivorous. And—Mason cried out when he saw it—they were feeding on the melans!
"Stop them! Stop them!" Mason heard someone screaming the following morning. He'd had a bad night, tossing restlessly almost until dawn. At first he thought it was a nightmare, but as the sound penetrated, he realized it was Louisa's voice. He ran outside quickly and found an ominous sight to confront him. The Gilas, hundreds of them, were running over the grounds and escaping into the forest. Many of them had taken a melan and were holding them in their mouths as they ran.
The size of the creatures was frightening in itself. And they were almost a purple color now—Lilith's purple. They made a rasping sound and the air was filled with noise.
Everywhere Mason looked he saw a mass of moving skin glinting viciously in the morning sun.
Louisa was trying to head them back to the pen, but they either rushed on, or turned on her ferociously. She kept on screaming until not only Mason but the rest of the staff and even Eckert came out and tried to head the creatures back. But it was no use. Every last one escaped into the surrounding forest.
Louisa's hands were bleeding and Ulinski took her inside to bandage them. Mason went to the pen to see what had happened. A few of the melans were left in their cages, nervous and frightened. Some were cowering back in the corners and others came forward when Mason entered, pressing anxious faces up against the bars.
He saw instantly what had gone wrong. The Gilas had been able to break through the bars with the force of their increased weight. They had broken through a number of the melans' cages, too, in order to feed. Others had been carried off by the Gilas in their flight. There were not many melans left.
Mason sat down on the floor of the pen, sick at what he had seen. The Gilas were now in a position to feed on all the remaining melans in the area. And if they grew any more, which seemed likely, the end of the melans was not far off. How could he convince the people here of the importance of saving these little creatures? They must be protected from the menace. How? There was only one answer: the Gilas must be destroyed if evolution on Lilith were to take its natural course.
Then and there he took out the curious little gadget Oden had given him in case of need, and called him. How something like this could work across the vast oceans of space without being intercepted by monitoring stations, Mason didn't know. All he cared about, actually, was that it did work. In a moment he heard Oden's thoughts, not in his ear, but somewhere in his chest. Then Mason knew this wasn't a transmitter. It was something entirely different, designed for direct thought communication, and probably wouldn't work with anyone other than one of the Sumdacs.
"No, you cannot tell the others what you saw in that vision." The thought was as clear as if Oden had been in the room himself. Mason found that he didn't have to talk to send his message, but simply framed the words in his head.
Oden replied: "They would not have the understanding. You are right to call me. On this matter you will need my help. I will send a message to Eckert to follow your instructions absolutely. But that means you must have a plan. Go to work on that now. Time is short."
The message stopped and Mason was left alone with the knowledge that it was now up to him. How could he stop this carnage? What could he do to save the melans? Of course no one would understand that they were Man's last hope. To anyone else it would be a laughable idea. He would have to work alone with that knowledge. At the moment he saw only one possibility.
Eckert had already received the message from Oden when Mason went back to the main building. "What do you intend to do?" Eckert asked fretfully, obviously indignant at having to take orders from what he considered an inferior.
"We'll have to send out searching parties," Mason replied, "and catch as many melans as we can. In the meantime I want a pen built here that's strong and secure enough to protect them. Once we've accomplished that, I see no alternative to destroying the Gilas. Perhaps this work on destruction may have a salutary effect after all," he concluded cryptically.
Some of the others had gathered to listen.
"How do you think we can eliminate them?" asked Marina. "They've already been exposed to the most destructive color blend we have, and they've been impervious. They absorb color and mutate."
"That's up to you," Mason said decisively. "You must find something. You're all responsible for this. Now you'll have to rectify it." He looked around the lounge. "While the men are out searching you'll have to work on that. I think you'd better get started now."
Yee Mon's cheek was still bruised where Mason had hit him. He rubbed it pointedly as he said, "I'd hate to see you get drunk with power, Russ. We can do only so much. Personally, I wouldn't guarantee anything. You have no conception of the complications in our work."
Mason restrained an impulse to hit him again. Odd that this man, whom he had once liked, had changed so alarmingly. He wondered at the cause. "You heard what I said, Yee," he stated quietly. "Do your best. You also have no conception of the importance of this job. You'll have to search for a miracle if necessary."
"But who are you to tell us—" Nadia started, when Eck-ert suddenly hushed her. "That's enough," he barked, "You're under Mr. Mason's direction now. You have your orders."
Eckert obviously still carried the weight of authority from the Federation. Mason realized that his presence was actually going to be a help.
The work went ahead at breakneck speed. Eckert worked with fanatical concentration, requisitioning all the materials needed, and getting them fast. Pens were built at the port and the second lab. There was no way of knowing how fast the Gilas were breeding or how far they traveled in their quest for new food. Teams were sent into the jungles, necessarily on foot, to capture all the melans they could find.
It was a slow, difficult process until a strange thing began to be noted. The melans, rather than running away from their captors, began to rush toward them as soon as the voices and footsteps of men were heard. They made no protest. Rather, they seemed to actively seek this capture. At night many would come from the surrounding forests and wait outside the enclosure at the lab until the gates were opened and they were let in. It showed an amazing intelligence and instinct for survival, and Mason had no difficulty persuading the teams that these little creatures were worthy of being saved.
Men liked them, and many had the idea of making them pets. But the melans were too independent for that. They accepted help but not familiarity. It was as if their cells had already the knowledge of their evolution and while they were grateful, they could not, even at this stage, accept Man as a higher being.
No one was aware of this save Mason. He alone regarded the melans as more than intelligent animals. And he alone had to control a sickening fury when he saw the remains of a melan breeding ground that had been invaded by the Gilas. It was heartbreaking, backbreaking work. There was little time for rest or even regular meals.
The staff was not making much progress in finding a way to destroy the Gilas or reverse the damage caused by the experiment. Mason disliked the idea of destroying any life form at all, but the Vining sisters had assured him that the Gilas were beyond hope. In any case they couldn't have evolved further than their stage of development before the experiments.
It was easy to accept, for they reminded everyone of some lost causes on Earth like the dinosaur and other forms that had necessarily become extinct. Now there was also general agreement that the little melans did have a further evolution. Strange, Mason thought, that it hadn't been noticed before. Strange and rather horrible.
Days later one of the searching parties returned to the lab with disturbing news. They had come across the strongest concentration of the Gilas yet discovered. A gigantic nest stretching for miles and spawning thousands of the monsters who, they said, were larger and more dangerous than those who had escaped from the pen.
Mason grabbed Ulinski away from the lab and took the flyer. He wanted to see this for himself and it seemed possible that Ulinski, observing the mutation, might have an idea or two. They followed the direction the searching party had indicated, about forty miles to the north of the lab.
It was an unexplored area and strange to Mason who had visualized all of Lilith as being an extension of what he had already seen. This was a haunted place of bogs and mire, steaming with gases that emerged from the ground and bubbling pools of liquid that reminded him of lava.
Ulinski grabbed his arm as they circled above, "Lower, Russ," he whispered. "Look!"
Mason brought the flyer down and peered through the vapor that rose in bursts of steam around them "Oh, no!" he breathed as they saw below the fantastic sight. There were thousands of them—it hadn't been an exaggeration. The ground and pools were covered with the animals who were much larger than any they had seen before. Their rasping voices were now a scream, and at the noise of the motor above them they rose and looked up, like a living mass of ferocious horror.
They were low enough to see that the animals had been gorging on a catch of melans. The area was covered with remnants of the little animals. Shredded flesh and fur and blood streaked across the gaping jaws of the monsters—for they were now indeed monsters. There was no other word for them.
"Bomb them," Mason said, not in question but statement.
"No." Ulinski shook his head. "How could we dare? There may be other life forms there, too. We'd be killing more than the Gilas and the radioactivity could cause untold harm."
"Don't we have anything that isn't radioactive?" Mason asked.
"No, and actually we don't even have that. It would take weeks or months to get nuclear weapons even if we could. And besides, Russ, killing on this one breeding ground won't do it. There'd still be other Gilas. We have to find a way to wipe out the strain altogether. Let's go back. I want to try something. Is this flyer strong enough to carry extra equipment?"
"Some, yes," Mason replied, wondering what Ulinski had in mind.
"I want to put a focusing beam in it and try the same experiment we did before."
"But that's what caused the mutation!" Mason protested.
"Yes, but it has killed everything else. I'm wondering whether now they have changed to a point where the color would have a destructive effect. It might, now."
"What if it only causes still further mutation?"
"Then we've failed and may be in worse trouble than before. But we have nothing else!" It was a plea and Mason recognized Ulinski's desperate wish to rectify his error. "We've tried every other color combination."
"Why does it have to be color?" Mason wanted to know. "Why can't you try something else?"
"There is nothing else," Ulinski exclaimed emphatically. "It's a case of reversing what we've already done or destroying them altogether. And it just might be accomplished by the same thing that caused this. It might work."
Mason could see no other alternative. And, he reasoned, how could it possibly get worse? The Gilas were obviously still mutating; their breeding had reached fantastic proportions and if something weren't done soon, they would literally overrun the planet. "All right," he said.
Ulinski sighed. It was both a sigh of relief and of prayer. He knew, as Mason knew, that if this failed there was little hope.
Mason wondered that Ulinski felt so strongly even without the knowledge of the melan's possible future. "I like those small creatures," Ulinski said. "There's something about them."
Mason smiled grimly. There was indeed something about them. How much, Ulinski might never know.
They tried it at night. The flyer was rigged with equipment to flood the swamp area with the beam of color. It was an intricate, complicated job to remove the mechanism from the lab and put it in the confined space of the flyer. When it was completed there was room for only two men. Yee Mon was a competent pilot, so he went with Ulmski. Mason took Louisa, Simpkins and Neil Trope in another flyer. Eckert asked to be excused. He wasn't interested in watching the experiment; he was interested in the results.
They left in a tense silence, feeling that everything was at stake in this one last gamble. Mason circled over the swamp waiting for Ulinski's signal. He switched his night flying lights to the beam that would illuminate the area while Ulinski directed his ray below.
At last the signal came and this time they all wore glasses to shield themselves from the shock. Mason kept well in back of the other flyer, hovering in the air while Yee Mon took his flyer in to place. By night the area below, splotched with the color of the Gilas, looked like something out of an inferno. The writhing mass of feeding animals, skin glinting in the light from the flyers, the wisps of steam curling up from the ground. They were all held in a ghostly silence as Yee Mon blinked his lights in the signal and then turned them off.
"Now, Mason said nervously. Suddenly the beam of color stabbed through the night, flashing on the monsters who began screaming in fright and pain. The shock caused everyone to close their eyes and the flyers quivered for a moment in the air before steadying again. Ulinski moved his light around the area, shooting it again and again until the entire swamp had been sprayed.
Then everything below was quiet. The monsters lay in heaps and mounds, shuddering as they cowered from the blast of light.
"Are they dead?" Louisa whispered shakily.
"I don't know," Mason said, and his voice sounded strange to him as he spoke. "Let's watch."
They hovered over the area like eerie sentinels while Ulinski and Yee Mon took their flyer back. With their extra equipment it wasn't safe to stay aloft for long. The vigil lasted until dawn—Lilith's beautiful dawn that gave birth to a horrible scene in the swamp below.
As the sun came up the Gilas began to move, their ghastly screams filling the sky. Heavily they lumbered up and began to move away, like a monstrous exodus, into the forest. Mason followed them as long as he could, until the treetops hid them from sight.
"Oh, Russ," Louisa began to cry, guessing what was taking place under the giant fronds.
"It's going to be worse than it was before," Neil spoke slowly, measuring his words. "You watch and see. These monsters are going to mutate until they become a menace not only to the melans but to us. They'll be after us next, you wait and see."
"I'd like to leave," Simpkins said a little hysterically. "I
don't see why we have to stay. I had nothing to do with this. I was only following orders. I say we should all leave and leave this planet to them. They're going to take it over anyway."
"They are not going to take it over!" Mason exclaimed angrily, with more force than he felt. "And you're not going to leave. No one is. You're going back to that lab and work out something."
"I'm not going to work anything out," Neil said violently. I'm leaving. I don't see any point in this whole thing anyway. Simpkins is right. The Federation sent us here to do one thing, and now we're doing another. Why? Nobody has explained that.
"Eckert doesn't seem very happy, either. Sometimes I wonder why he's here and whether the Federation even knows he's here!" He looked around defiantly and Mason was suddenly worried. Neil had put his finger on the one possibility that might blow everything wide open. If he went over Eckert's head…
"So far the Federation has never asked a man to deliberately put his life in danger," Neil went on defensively. "We've been pretty well protected. I intend to continue being protected, and that means getting out of the way of those monsters. Nothing is going to stop them, Russ, absolutely nothing!"
They landed at the lab and found that Ulinski already knew the outcome of the experiment. It was really serious now. A man on one of the searching parties had been badly mangled by one of the monsters leaving the swamp. Neil had been right.
Mason knew he would have to find a solution and find it fast. Oden? He wondered if he should contact him. But what could Oden do? He had left the process up to Mason.
He went to his room and closed the door. He needed a quiet place to think. He had been so caught up in the recent developments, so busy doing and running, that he had almost forgotten why. Somewhere he had lost the sense of his experiences, he had lost the feeling of being on Lilith.
He might as well have been on any other planet in the Federation in the last few weeks.
Mason stood in the middle of the room and then slowly lay down on his bed. Something was wrong. He was going about this the wrong way. What was it that Oden had said? "Don't take things so easily?" And he had mentioned the connection between everything that had happened to Mason —the strange relationships between his visions and time. He had seen the future twice because of that light. That same light that had had such horrible effects on the Gilas.
Mason sat up with a start. That was his answer. If he had seen the future twice, why couldn't there be a third time? The answer lay in the future! If that mirage in time on the mountain had been true, why the melans must have evolved! The menace of the Gilas was gone. They must have been exterminated.
If he could only see into the future again, he might see how it had been done. To have a vision of that particular moment in time was a lot to ask, but Oden had pointed out the relationship between everything he had seen. That might be just the moment in time he would see, if everything was really connected.
If he could see the future, or if he, by being in the future, could see the past, he would have his answer. How could he contact that moment in time? There was apparently a purpose behind everything he had seen. What purpose? Whose purpose? No matter, the point was in getting the answer to how the Gilas had been destroyed and the melans had been saved. How could he do it, other than the light again?
He would ask Louisa to do the experiment on him.
The simplicity of the thought, and the horror of it staggered him. It was his answer, of course. He knew that. He knew he would do it. It was almost as if he had already done it. But he was breathless with the magnitude of it.
How could he dare? He couldn't possibly. He felt a tremor of shock run through his body like a current of electricity and he knew he couldn't dare. But he would. His heart was racing and he could feel the difference in his heartbeat and his breath. His mind was racing with associations, leaping from one thing to another. Silly, small things.
He felt the soles of his feet on the floor. They tingled and felt very warm. The color and shapes of things in the room suddenly leaped forward at him. He thought he could see in back of things to their other side. Still his mind raced on and still his thought was actually in another place—or rather his knowledge, his absolute certainty that he was going to do this thing in spite of his entire body and brain and nervous system and heart and lungs that said differently.
He got up and walked to the door and went out to find Louisa.
Mason stood in the same place that the little melan had been that night when Louisa had first shown him the experiment. Facing him, in back of the window, Louisa was nervously adjusting the controls. Now that the moment had come Mason was no longer afraid, or if he was, it was a numb panic buried so deeply that he hardly felt it.
He put his hand on the small object in his pocket through which he had just been in touch with Oden. The sensation of the metal gave him some assurance. Oden had not protested. Oden accepted the idea calmly. Mason had even felt approval in the thoughts that came from far across the stars. It was that assurance and approval that had made it possible for him to persuade Louisa to try this.
She didn't know the source, but she knew as she spoke with Mason that the choice was out of her hands. She was an instrument, nothing more. He was aware of her anxiety and smiled reassuringly through the window. She knew that he could see now, on Lilith, without the protective glasses, and that fact implemented her courage. It was a small measure of hope, but it allowed her to feel that Mason had some possibility of coming through this alive.
Slowly, she donned her glasses and, one hand on the lever that would focus the beam, she looked at him. Mason saw her doubt in this last second. It was the hardest moment and she musn't falter now. With all the energy he could muster he raised his own hand, hoping that the in-tensity of his force would take the decision out of her mind and cause her hand to react mechanically. He brought his hand down sharply. In back of the glass, so did Louisa, pulling the lever.
Mason expected another agonizing protest from his body as the ray hit him, but this time it did not occur. Instead he felt a gentle peace, filled with light, and for a moment he wondered vaguely if he were dying. The light seemed at first to be inside him, then it swelled slowly, enveloping him as if he were encased in a bubble.
Like the time he had stepped into the red circle, Mason felt suspended, but he had no sensation of traveling or moving or falling as he had done toward Earth. Another peculiarity was that he carried a memory of those other times.
It was all there—Earth and the dying sun and Deayban and the Old Man—and Charka—and then the evolution of the melans. Before, when he had contacted this light indirectly, there hadn't been room for anything more than the immediate vision. Now, it was all stored and he was able to interpret what he now saw in view of what he had seen previously.
What he saw was Lilith.
He saw the planet as a whole, as a brilliant globe spinning around her sun, held by a powerful magnetic force. Then the colors became more vivid and Mason felt that he was passing through this moment in time—passing through to a farther point. He saw a violent disturbance in the atmosphere, as if the air were at war with the earth.
For suddenly there were great floods as the sky broke open and water began filling the land. The valley of pools became a sea of turbulent, moving water of the strangest colors in the universe. Streaked and stabbed with color, the water rose to meet the downpour streaming from the clouds.
But the atmospheric disturbance did more than that. He saw the Gilas rise and run, some carried away by the force of the current, but others reaching higher ground, and suddenly writhing under some unknown impact and, as suddenly, lying quite stiR as they died.
And the little melans rode the crest of the waves made by this rushing flood. He saw them carried safely away on the water while the Gilas died in great numbers around them, to be tossed and broken as they were thrown against trees and rocks.
And then he saw the forest near the laboratory as the waves rushed toward it, filling the valleys between the mountains and flooding through to drench this ground. Mason looked for the buildings and saw—as he seemed to be carried himself by that rising flood—the dim shapes of something foreign to the natural terrain. The buildings of the lab?
He strained to know that answer but it was too late. The water rose still higher and he felt that he was swept away in a mighty stream that had no beginning and no end; that he would be carried in this flood of incredible color until the end of time…
He awoke lying on the floor of the room with Louisa bending anxiously over him. He sat up as if he had just been caught in the middle of a deep dream, saying, "But when? When?"
Louisa knelt down and took his hand, rubbing it gently. He looked at her as if she could give him the answer. "It's all there, Louisa. I saw it. It's out of our hands. They 11 be destroyed naturally by something in the atmosphere and the flood—But when? You see, if we're still here when that happens—" He broke off and stood up quickly, drawing her to her feet. "Go and get Neil Trope, quickly, please."
"Is it all right?" she persisted, not ready to leave him. yet. "What happened, Russ? You fell down on the floor and I rushed in—"
And that was all the time it took, thought Mason! One second to see the truth—and the future—but there wasn't time to consider all this now.
"Please, Louisa," he urged her out the door. "I'll wait here."
He paced up and down the room while he waited. All that. He had seen all that except the largest answer: when? The flood could come at any time. The Gilas would be exterminated—that was fantastic in itselfl
That which Man had created would be destroyed by nature, as if purposefully. Mason was led to some considerations and thoughts that were too much to contemplate right now.
The melans would be saved. And with them Man might be saved one day when his sun was dying—far, far away from here; an eternity away from Lilith.
But what of the men here now? How much time did they have? Mason had been responsible for bringing a far larger group than the first small staff. He felt their presence keenly and felt responsible for their very lives. He didn't concern himself much now with his own life, for it had become so strange to him that he felt it was out of his hands. Things were simply happening to him. He couldn't possibly control it.
Louisa returned with Neil, who still wore the air of suspicion he had shown in the flyer. A pity it had to be Neil that Mason must question. But he had no choice.
"I want you to determine as closely as you can the time span between the last two sun storms here," Mason said. "And give me the date of the next one. We have to know when that will be."
Neil stared at him as if he were crazy. "Impossible," he stated shortly. "There's only been one storm since we've been here. I have nothing to go on."
"Make a guess," Mason said desperately.
"I can't," Neil protested. "It's impossible. It took years of research on Earth to determine sunspot cycles. I have to determine a probability Jiere. We'd have to watch this sun for years maybe."
"You mean there's no possible way of guessing?" Mason urged. "It's so urgent, Neil. Can't you think of anything?"
"Yes." It was Louisa who spoke, excitedly. "Yes, there may be a way. Neil, don't you remember that just before the disturbance, before we left the port, there were color changes?"
"No, I don't remember."
"But there were! We noticed it outside, in the trees. They changed slightly, and right after that we had the explosion."
"That might have nothing to do with sun storms."
"Then why wasn't it noticed again?" Louisa appealed to Mason. "It was a definite change, Russ. Interesting enough that Nadia started to investigate it."
"And what did she find?" Neil asked disinterestedly. "We didn't stay there long enough—"
"Let's find her." Mason didn't want to waste time arguing the point. "She may know something. It's worth a try."
Nadia was in another room at the lab working on a classification system with Yee Mon. They were handing their reports to Ulinski who was planning a number of new experiments in hope of finding something that would have the desired effect on the Gilas. Mason couldn't tell any of them just yet that this was no longer necessary. He could visualize the ensuing panic if he divulged their true danger, which might be weeks or months away.
"Russ wants your reports on the color changes preceding the last sun storm," Louisa told Nadia, who glanced around in surprise.
"Sorry, they're back at the port. After a preliminary start it seemed a waste of time. I didn't come to any conclusion."
"Did you find anything?" Mason persisted. "Can you say for sure that the storms are preceded by color change?"
"No." Nadia looked puzzled. "Of course not. There was no proof. During the time of the change we had no idea that a sun storm was about to take place."
"Do you think the color change does signify an approaching disturbance?"
"Well, I don't know," Nadia said, a little annoyed now.
"Have there been any color changes recently that you've noticed?" Mason was relentless. "Around here, for example?"
"No, I haven't been looking for color changes." Nadia was exasperated. "I've been working on the experiments, as you know."
"How long before the last storm and the explosion did you notice the trees changing?"
"One day," Nadia sighed impatiently. "But for all I know the storm might already have started. We don't know how long it takes here for sunspots to actually cause a difference in the atmosphere."
Mason frowned. That was something he hadn't expected to hear and didn't want to hear. The sun storms might be taking place even now, and they wouldn't realize it until the floods actually started. He let Nadia go and ran out of the lab, back to the main building to find Haskell Eckert. There was only one thing to do now, and that was to evacuate Lilith immediately.
Eckert was in the lounge reading. Mason saw the heavy red seal splashed across the face of the document and wondered what it was. Most things were communicated by radio or tapes, so it was unusual to see an actual.book of plastic or pages. Eckert put it down abruptly at Mason's entrance, but Mason saw the heading: The Constitution and General Laws of the Federation.
What could Eckert be looking for in that long, complicated manual, Mason wondered? Or was he finally taking the words more seriously and beginning to understand what Man's place in this vast network of life might be? There wasn't time to inquire, and anyway he doubted if Eckert would answer. He plunged right into the essence of his message.
"We have to evacuate immediately," he said, watching Eckert's expression which changed from the immediate distaste that always registered when Mason was near, to one of shock and relief.
Then he became suspicious. "What of the experiments? We haven't solved that problem yet." With a sudden hope,
Eckert asked, "Have you been in touch with Oden? Are they his orders?"
Mason hated the look of victory when Eckert said this. It was so obvious that his only consideration was saving his own place in the hierarchy of the Federation. "No," Mason replied shortly, "they're my orders. We must leave as quickly as possible. Immediately, in fact."
Eckert laughed, "That's a large order from one young reporter who has had no experience in the evacuation of planets. Let me tell you something, Mr. Mason. These are planned events. It takes weeks. The salvaging of equipment is an immense job. We work in teams and by relays. There are special storage ships that come to carry heavy equipment."
"There isn't time for that now," Mason said softly. "We won't be able to salvage anything but ourselves. If we're lucky. I need your cooperation in ordering out all the men at the port and getting every extra flyer out here to take off-"
He broke off as he watched the older man. He hadn't wanted to mention the danger the staff was in, but now he saw there was no other way. Nothing less than the threat of personal extinction would move this cynical man before him.
"We are about to have a violent sun storm here," Mason said carefully. "As you know the last cycle caused the explosion at the port lab. It does very strange things to the atmosphere here. This storm is going to cause a tremendous flood which will be so fast that we won't have a chance of escaping.
"There's one good thing about it. The Gilas will all be destroyed. Not only by the flood, but by the atmosphere. And the ones we're hoping to save, the melans, will be all right. They're going to survive because they're small and flexible and will float until they come to rest. But if we're not out of here when that flood hits, I wouldn't want to answer for anyone's life."
Eckert went white. "Whose prognostication? Ulinski's?"
Mason paused. "No…" He didn't want to explain his vision.
"Trope found it in his observations!" Eckert guessed wildly. "But how do you know about the flood? Are you sure?"
Mason was about to agree and let it go at that when unfortunately Neil came into the room and Eckert grabbed him, almost shouting. "When Mr. Trope? When is this flood going to happen?"
Neil was confused and Mason tried to silence him, but Eckert was persistent. "But we don't know that there is going to be a sun storml" Neil regarded Mason as if he were crazy. "Atmospheric disturbance on Earth often produces heavier rainfall during a sunspot cycle, but there's no evidence of anything like that here."
"What do you know?" Eckert demanded.
"We've only investigated color here, Mr. Eckert." ,
"Nevertheless," Mason insisted, "we must plan to leave immediately."
"Look, Mason," Eckert broke in. "I've gone along so far, but I cannot, in any real conscience, leave Lilith without returning Federation property! There is a law—"
"All right," Mason said impatiently, "forget that for now. I'll have Oden give the order releasing you from that demand." He stopped, not wishing Neil to hear any more. Trope had already looked suddenly curious at the mention of a strange name.
"This may be premature," he admitted. "I have no way of knowing exactly when this flood will break, but lives are at stake and can't be gambled on the chance that it may come weeks from now."
"Where do you get your information?" Neil asked suspiciously, but Mason silenced him with a glance and led him out of the room.
Telling Neil to return to his work, Mason went to his own room and contacted Oden. It would be only moments now before the orders would come through to Eckert. Until then there was nothing he could do. Mason stared out of his win dow at the jungle enclosure and noticed that the tops of the fern trees were beginning to glisten with a tint he had never seen before.
Seconds later everything happened at once. Orders came through for Eckert to proceed with the evacuation immediately. He rushed to Mason's room in time to look out the window and see that the rain had begun to fall. The two men stood there silently as it began with a soft and steady drip that changed within moments to a heavy downpour. The staff working at the lab came running back to the main house with searching parties from the jungles following on their heels.
"How are we going to get out?" Eckert shouted.
But Mason was already out of the building, running back to the animal pens. The first thing was to release all the melans they had caught. They must have the chance themselves to ride this flood. He opened the gates, noticing vaguely that people were running out of the house and toward the land rovers and the two flyers.
He opened the last gate and let the little animals surge through. They sniffed at the air and ran off in a direction away from the mountains, the opposite way from the road back to the port. A land rover was already pulling out of the driveway.
Mason ran back to the house, yelling* "Not that way! We won't be able to make it! We have to go through the swamps, can't take the cars—"
From the general excitement it was obvious that Eckert had told them about the flood and the need to evacuate at once. Simpkins was running toward one of the flyers and Mason ran after him.
"Wait, Simpkins! The women should be taken off in that." He grabbed him by the arm but Simpkins turned on him with a wild look and suddenly swung out, hitting Mason a blinding blow in the head. Before Mason recovered Simpkins was in the flyer and taking off above his head.
Mason began to shout and then realized it was no use. Simpkins was away and he could see that the flyer was being buffeted about in a wild dance by the force of the deluge. Mason doubted if he could stay aloft for long, and gave up the idea of using the other flyer. He looked back in the direction of the mountains. He didn't see yet that roaring sweep of water that he expected to come running down the valley.
He ran back to the others. The Vining sisters were crying hysterically and Neil Trope stood quite still, a glazed look in his eyes. Ulinski was clenching and unclenching his fists. Mason knew immediately what had happened: the atmospheric disturbance again.
That wild, unreasonable fear. It had driven them all close to insanity once, back at the port, and now here it was again affecting everyone but him in the same manner. How could he organize people who were momentarily stunned and emotionally disabled by this strange force in the air? How could he reach them?
Yee Mon looked all right, Mason suddenly noticed. He seemed quite collected. "Yee, go inside and contact the port. Tell them to get away at once and send help from the ship to us. Quick!"
Yee nodded with a gentle smile and began to walk very slowly and methodically toward the house. No, he wasn't all right, Mason saw. He was just affected differently. Shoving him aside, Mason went to the radio room himself and tried to call. Nothing. He almost screamed. He still didn't know how to operate it. All at once Wilson walked into the room looking quite sleepy. Mason stared at him closely.
"Roy," he whispered, "do you know how to contact the port?"
"Sure," Wilson yawned, "what's the message?" He sat down in front of the dials and looked up at Mason.
He'd been asleep, Mason realized! Perhaps he hadn't felt anything yet. But how long would it take for the atmosphere to reach him, too? Mason grabbed his shoulder, almost trying to feed him his own sanity while he called. "Tell them we're going to try to outrun it. Well go north. I don't know where they'll find us, but if they send a lifeboat they can pick us up somewhere."
Roy blinked at him as if trying to get it straight. "Call!" Mason urged desperately, and as if in a dream, Roy slowly contacted the port. Mason grabbed the transmitter and gave the message himself, hoping they were all right on the other end. Wilson was already acting queerly and before Mason had finished he began to laugh in hysterical starts and stops. Mason pulled him out of the house to join the group outside.
"Who left in one of the land rovers?" he asked.
"It—it was some of the extra men," Louisa managed to say. She was gasping and seemed to be having terrible difficulty getting her breath. But Mason was elated. Louisa was making a struggle! Somehow she retained a memory of that other time, and by sheer force of will, was fighting against her emotions.
"Come on," he beckoned to the others. "We'll go this way. He started off with Louisa beside him but there was no motion from any of the others. From the wild hysteria that had gripped them when the rain first began to fall, they were now held in a paralyzing fear.
Somehow Louisa managed to go back and get one of the sisters, taking her hand and leading her like a child. Mason tried to move Ulinski, feeling he was one who might be able to summon a struggle in himself. But Ulinski couldn't take a step. Mason looked at the mountains again. He could barely see the outlines now. The world was a seething mist of rain. They were drenched to the skin. It ran in rivulets down their faces. Dimly, Mason perceived the far shape of the mountains and then he heard that mighty roar break like a wave and begin rushing toward them. How long would it take? The others still stood vacantly. If he could arouse that old hysteria, perhaps—Mason pointed and yelled with all the violence he could muster, "Look!" They turned slightly and looked over their shoulders, and then it must have nudged their consciousness. At least they all suddenly heard the ominous rush of water.
"Run!" Mason screamed, leading the way. "Run this way!" And now they did run, for their very lives. They ran in hysteria but at least their bodies were functioning again.
Already pools of water were forming beneath their feet. Mason couldn't see now, for the rain was a sheet in front of his face. He had to fight against it, as one would against a blizzard. But instead of waves and rivulets of clear water, this was ribbons of color and light. It was like fighting through banners and colored streamers of impossible tints. And the others weren't wearing their glasses. Mason wondered how long they could bear it, until he saw that they were all running blindly with eyes closed most of the time.
The rush of water raced upon them, beating it seemed, at their heels. Soon the roar filled the world and there was nothing else. Nothing but wafer upon them and above them and in back of them. They were close to the swamps now and Mason saw some Gilas screaming and bellowing from fright. They began to run toward the people but at the sound of the flood they turned and began running the other way.
Mason looked for a spot of higher ground. They couldn't run much longer. The swamps were filling and the water was above their calves. Soon it began to reach their knees and they could only make a slow, agonizing movement ahead. Mason looked above. How could a lifeboat spot them at his level?
Then he saw, in the distance, a very high hummock, almost a small hill. The water was lapping around the edges but it still rose fairly high above that. Louisa, in back of him now, was gasping and crying. He stopped until she caught up to him.
"There," he panted. "Up there." She nodded, too weak to speak, and they went on. Slowly, with a tremendous effort, they reached it and started to climb up. The others followed, crawling up the sides, some simply giving up and lying down before they reached the top. Mason reached back and pulled up the Vining sisters. He heaved Ulinski's dead weight to the top.
The others were still climbing, almost fainting with the effort. Mason took out his transmitter and began to send. He prayed that the lifeboat had been cruising to pick up a signal.
Suddenly the rain stopped and a mist rose from the whole earth, reaching high into the sky, steaming in fantastic brilliance. Everything was terribly quiet for a moment. The silence lasted for a split-second and then, like a sudden clap of thunder in the dead quiet, they heard it. And saw it A mighty wave, higher than all the trees, higher than a hill—a mountain of water moving down on them with terrifying finality.
At that moment the lifeboat appeared, miraculously, seeking them out unerringly as they huddled together on top of the hummock. It hovered just above and the door opened. Mason shoved everyone inside, Louisa helping. The terror overcame Yee Mon again and he began fighting. Mason grabbed Louisa and literally threw her inside. Then he tried to move Yee Mon, but it was too late. The water was upon them.
Somehow Mason managed to close the door and knew that the boat was gone, soaring up into the sky. He felt himself being swallowed by that mountain of water. His lungs filled with it. He began to sink and then was suddenly tossed high, riding the crest of the wave as he gasped for air. He sank again, knowing it was useless to fight. He would be sorry not to know the end, not to know about Lilith.
The current flung him around and he began to spin in an undercurrent. He wanted to think of his life but he was too tired. His eyes closed.
[ason woke up and thought for a moment that he was in Heaven. Then he imagined it was a dream or the echo of a dream and he closed his eyes, not wanting to let it go. He lay on a moss-covered mound in a little valley between two high cliffs of rock.
The jagged crags rose around him, the reflection of the sun causing each granule of rock to glitter like a treasure of srecious jewels. The moss was deep and soft and luxurious.
A few feet away the ground dropped precipitously from the high cliff. The opening of the rocks disclosed, like a picture in a frame, the ocean below.
Mason got up and walked toward it. His muscles ached terribly, but the vie.w was worth more than that. Away in front of him stretched the ocean. Not the blue ocean of Earth, but an iridescent, almost phosphorescent color like blue and violet and green and silver all togetherr. The waves bubbled along the shore, filling the hollows on the beach with their own effervescent color.
And the shore was not sand. It looked, from where he Stood, like the same soft springy moss on which he had lain. He looked for a way to get down. The cliffs seemed to enclose him completely, but then he saw a small cleft in one rock and managed to squeeze through.
He was in a high cavern of rock now, and the ocean was closed from view. But he saw what looked like a downward slope and went through that. It led him in a twisting path through the rocks until at last he came out again at the sea.
This close to the water, he noticed that the odor was telling him something different than the seas of Earth. He didn't smell salt, and he rushed down to the ocean, tasting it and finding that it was not a salt water sea at all. He drank his fill and sat down.
What now? He supposed Yee Mon was dead, and assuredly Simpkins was. Did he still have his transmitter? Hurriedly he went through his pockets and found, not the ship signal—he must have lost that on the hummock—but the contact for Oden. He smiled. All was well, then. But before he called for help, he would swim. No one could look at that ocean for long without an irresistable urge to plunge in.
Mason laughed, thinking how distasteful the idea would have been the night before. He took off his clothes, vaguely aware that they had dried with strange rapidity, and laid them on a rock. Then, as he stood there anticipating the first step into the water, he suddenly saw himself, as a spectator might have seen him, like another Adam: the only man on this planet; the only human soul on this vast round globe spinning in the universe.
It was a breathtaking thought, but although it shocked him, he felt none of the loneliness one might expect of such a situation. Instead he felt more alive, more akin to the air that he breathed and the ground under his feet than he had ever felt with the knowledge of other men's presence. He was absolutely alone.
How would he feel if he were without resource here, he wondered? What would be his emotions if he knew he couldn't contact Oden? It was puzzling, but at this moment Mason didn't believe it would bother him much. It wasn't a thought for now, anyway. He dove into the water and found it surprisingly buoyant for a sea that wasn't salt water. Something moving along the shore caught his eye and as he swam back he saw a group of melans curiously regarding him.
Only now, he realized, it was difficult to think of them as melans. It felt wrong to use the name men had given them. He thought of them as Creatures of Light, for he saw, always, their ultimate destiny. Mason stepped out of the water and put out his hand to them, but they only cocked their heads to one side and then moved away. Perhaps they were not of those who had been at the pen and were more used to humans.
The encounter sobered him. It was a reminder that he had no further business here. He should leave these children to their evolution and their earth. Now the thought of leaving Lilith caused an emotion of regret that he wouldn't have thought possible a few weeks ago. He felt a part of Lilith now, felt related to the planet.
Nevertheless, he sat down on the beach, and called Oden.
What a strange thing to sit here on this shore and speak to someone light-years away. Mason felt very quiet inside as he heard Oden's thought.
"You have done a good work," the alien said, and Mason felt again the force of that humility which Oden always evoked in him.
"I think we have lost some of our men, however," Mason replied. "Yee Mon did not get into the lifeboat last night, and I'm afraid he's dead. Simpkins' flyer must have crashed, and there were some men in a land rover. I don't know how I can verify it, though."
"Perhaps it will be verified for you," Oden said. "And the others are safe. You needn't worry."
"Where are they?" Mason asked.
"In Legus. They're here now."
For a moment Mason couldn't think clearly. "But, there wasn't time—" He faltered. "The flood was just last—"
"The flood was over a week ago." Oden's thought was calm. "I'm afraid the others assumed you were dead."
"A week! But how have I—I mean, I just woke up!"
"I know. I realized you were all right by the absence of any sense that something was wrong with you. You have been sleeping all the time?"
"I guess so," Mason wondered aloud. "But how can a man sleep for a week?"
"And what do you see now?" Oden asked. "How do you feel?"
"I feel—" And Mason couldn't say any more. He knew what Oden was trying to tell him, what he had sensed across millions of miles.
Mason had gone to sleep as a youth and wakened as a man. He knew that now with every fibre of his being. He must have known it when he woke up, but hadn't formulated it until now. Years had nothing to do with it. He could have continued as a youth until his old age. But something on Lilith had changed him. He was different, and he felt a swift thrill as he knew himself all at once as a man.
"You have a choice now, Mason," Oden said, and his thoughts had a different quality about them, as if he were demanding a response from Mason as an equal. "We can send you back to one of your own ships to continue as a reporter, but I can also offer you something quite different with us here on Legus. You may come here, if you wish, to continue what you have already started on Lilith. You may be in the high court to watch over Man's destiny if you choose."
Mason stared out at the endless sea foaming before him as the words beat in his chest. He had no immediate answer.
Oden went on. "You are still very young and a decision like this is difficult for you, I know. But you will have time to think. I am sending a ship now and it will be several days before you see it. Think during that time and give me your answer later. I think you should not contact me again until your decision is made. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Mason nodded involuntarily, as if Oden were here before him. He knew that the alien was demanding more of him now. He was asking Mason to come to a personal decision with all his best intelligence, and to come to that decision as a Man, not leaning on another's wisdom.
"There is only one more thing," Oden added. "Since you will be required to testify here in high court, a choice on your part to remain on Legus will be taken badly by many men of your race, particularly after the disclosures about the experimental planets are made.
"You may testify simply as a reporter and return to your work with no man thinking you a coward. If you testify in another way, however, you may well be regarded as a traitor to your race and to Earth."
Oden closed his message with that and Mason knew he would hear no more from him until he arrived on Legus. He sank back, pillowing his head on the soft moss as he gazed at the sky. The clouds of Lilith were rising and swelling, changing into strange, elongated shapes and drifting thinly away.
The sound of the waves on the shore was a rhythmic rise and fall, like a breath being inhaled and exhaled. Mason had a sudden impression of the planet as being totally alive. He felt that he was resting on a living body, warm and pulsating.
He fell asleep for a time and when he awoke he was terribly hungry. He dressed and climbed back up the path through the rocks. He supposed he could have rigged up something to catch fish, or whatever it was that must live in the fresh seas. But he couldn't forage for food among the living creatures of Lilith, no matter how low their life form.
Down there, deep in the ocean, there might be other intelligences slowly evolving. No, he would have to seek another kind of food. Remembering the flowers that had held the liquid, he surmised there must be other fruits or vegetables. He had no fear of eating here. He was sure that in some way he was now a part of Lilith and the chemistry of the planet would be adaptable to his own body.
He found another way out of the cliffs and came out from the rocks to a high plateau that stretched for miles. Far in the distance he saw the beginning line of a forest and guessed that back there somewhere was the land he knew of ferns and pools and mountains.
His attention was caught by a figure moving in the distance. He strained to see. It was only a dot, far away, and appeared to be moving in a strange, jerking fashion. He lost it for a moment and then it reappeared, staggering across the ground. He began to walk toward it. There was little to seek here in the way of food, anyway.
The plateau was covered with fronds of high moss that waved like grass in the faint wind. He should have to enter the forest for food unless he found something along the way. Could that movement be a Gila slowly dying? If so, he had nothing to fear. It would be in its last death throes.
The figure rose again and fell. Maspn gasped and began to run. It was a man, maybe one of the survivors from the land rover. He ran faster and slowly the figure began to take on shape. It fell again and lay still. Mason finally reached the spot.
It was Yee Mon, lying face down, his clothing torn, terrible rents scratched across his back. Mason turned him over and saw that he was unconscious. He looked around for a place to take him in the shade, and saw that to his right, not near enough to suit him, there seemed to be a small oasis of fern trees.
He walked for half an hour, carrying Yee Mon across his shoulders, put the unconscious man down on the ground. Then he saw what he'd been searching for. A stream broke out here under one of the trees and growing close to it was a fruit or vegetable that looked much like the melons on Earth. He plucked one from its thick stem and peeled off the outer skin. It was somewhat mealy inside, not sweet, but very filling. After eating one he felt quite satisfied.
He bathed Yee Mon with the cold water and washed his cuts as best he could. Momentarily the man awoke and stared blankly at him, mumbling something so indistinctly that Mason didn't understand the words. Then he fell asleep. Perhaps here, in the shade, Mason thought, in a few days time, his wounds might heal.
For two days they stayed there and still Yee Mon did not completely regain consciousness. He began to turn violently in the night and cry out, still in the same indistinct manner. Mason guessed that he had been subjected to a terrible shock. Could one of the Gilas have molested him during the flood? That could be the answer to those awful scars on his back.
On the third night Mason lay back against the tree trunk and tried to figure out how much longer it would be until the ship came. They would find them here, he knew, for the planet would be circled until Mason saw or heard the ship and then used the contact signal Oden had given him. He was anxious about Yee Mon's condition, too. He didn't seem to be showing any improvement, and Mason wished he were under a doctor's care now.
Mason also had to make that decision. He hadn't wished to actually think of it. He had hoped that by not thinking, something would occur to him instinctively that would give him his answer. Could he give up his association with Man? And if he chose Legus, wouldn't it mean just that? That he would have to be prepared to cut himself off from the human race?
How many men were there on Legus, in the high court? And who were they? Wouldn't they, too, regard him as a traitor? Even more, he thought, than the others. At least on Earth, or as a reporter, he might find some men who would understand. Cotter, for example, and Louisa. Would he have to give up Louisa, too?
And what would he do there? Oden hadn't gone into that aspect of it at all. He had said, "… to watch over Man's destiny." Who was he, Russell Mason, to watch over Man's destiny, whatever that might mean?
He suddenly felt very tired and fell asleep quickly.
Mason woke choking from the hands around his neck trying to strangle him. He grabbed the arms and tried to unlock the viselike grip. Yee Mon had a maniacal strength and Mason gasped for air, heaving and clawing at the figure that was trying to kill him.
He got his knees up and gripping onto the hands with all his might, he managed to shove. Yee Mon's grip broke and instantly Mason lunged at him and pinned him down on the ground.
"You're wrong. You don't understand!" Yee's voice was shrill and hysterical and Mason kept his shoulders down, kneeling on top of him while Yee thrashed around.
"Yes, it's Mason. You've been hurt. I'm taking care of you. It's all right now." Mason tried to soothe him, thinking this was part of a nightmare and a reaction from shock. But Yee suddenly went limp and lay back smiling at Mason.
"All right," he mumbled distantly, "you have won for now. But not forever. There are other places. You can never find them all." His eyes were glazed and he suddenly closed them, his breath coming slower. Mason felt his pulse and found that he was still alive. He seemed to be not unconscious now, but in a deep trance.
A dark shadow moved swiftly across the field. Mason rose and ran out into the open away from the trees. Vanishing over the horizon, he saw the dim outlines of the ship. He drew out Oden's contact and held it, waiting. Minutes 'later the ship reappeared and Mason was just able, in the dark, to make out the shape of a lifeboat emerging from it.
It descended quickly and made a landing only yards away. Mason ran back and picked up Yee Mon, carrying him to the ship. He placed him in a corner and strapped him in carefully for takeoff. He took a last look at the night of Lilith —strange to be leaving in the dark—and then got in and closed the door. He set the controls for re-entry and lay back. The ascent pinned him tightly against the wall of the ship and then they were above Lilith. A little later the huge doors opened and the lifeboat entered the ship. Yee Mon had not opened his eyes.
Yee was put into the hospital room. This was an alien ship run by the Sumdacs and there were no other men aboard. The Captain had greeted him cordially and given him a room that almost embarrassed Mason. The space up front, close to the control room and Captain's quarters, were usually reserved for other Space Captains, Seconds-in-Command, or at least for very high functionaries in the Federation.
Now Mason stood in front of the porthole as the ship circled Lilith, making the orbit that would lead them out into deep space and back to Legus. They were still near enough to see the riot of color below. The atmosphere only intensified the brilliance of the spectrum. Mason caught his breath at that magnificence. They turned toward the sun and again Mason saw the long streamers of light; rays that seemed to penetrate even here, beyond the heavy casing of the ship's walls.
As he looked at that sun for the last time, before the final sweep that would take them away, Mason thought he saw that light again, that vibration that was a combination of all the spectrum together. And with that he seemed to experience the totality of all his visions. He saw the sun as a living being; a father, as Lilith was mother, to the life he had helped to save.
The Captain sent a message that Yee Mon was now conscious and wished to see him. Mason left the porthole and entered the hospital room. Yee looked dreadfully weak, his skin an awful pallor, almost white. His eyes were dim but his voice was strong again.
"Mason, I wish to thank you for my life," he began, and Mason nodded, wishing that the interview were over. "I think my breakdown was caused by the atmosphere, and then I was attacked during the flood. I dimly remember fighting with you. I'm sorry. But that's over. What I wanted to say was this."
He sat up in his bunk with an effort, leaning on one elbow and speaking with difficulty. "You have been instrumental in opening up a phase of our operations on experimental planets that is going to cause great harm to man. I don't have much time left, you know—"
Mason started to speak but Yee impatiently silenced him. "No, I wish to say that I do not blame you personally for this, but you have committed a grave error. Man will now be set back for perhaps hundreds of years, after the hearing…"
His voice became weaker and he lay back again. "Eck-ert had no choice. He hoped to avoid complete exposure by stopping the experiments on Lilith alone. We thought that would be enough. But now this hearing will open up other phases. I had wished to avoid that. I was personally on Lilith because I suspected there was unlimited power there—and there was."
His eyes closed and Mason had to lean over the bunk to hear. "Mason, you don't want a world with Man as an underling. You can't want that. We have the universe open to us now. It would take only a little while and we could be masters. Do you understand? Mastersl There are places, other places we have discovered…"
He opened his eyes again. "Think, Mason, before you testify. If you say too much I can't answer for the consequences. We already have enough at our disposal to start a war. The greatest war ever known. And Man may do it—now—if he feels his place is threatened…"
The voice faded away and Mason could hardly hear the last words. He ran to summon a doctor. Yee was still alive but it wouldn't be long now. Mason went back to his room, dimly understanding what he'd just heard. He had guessed, during those last days on Lilith, that Yee Mon was directly connected with this search for weaponry. Now he realized that Yee had been Eckert's superior in this mad scheme.
And Yee had admitted that there were other planets— perhaps unknown except to a few men—where other experiments of this magnitude were being conducted. Would they actually start a war if the hearing in high court became known? Or was Yee making empty threats, trying to frighten Mason into a different testimony?
When he went to bed at last, all he could see was that picture engraved in his memory, of Man facing his dying sun. Had he been banished to his solar system after a terrible war? Was it possible that this punishment would be the result of Mason's testimony?* Or, even worse, would Mason be responsible for bringing the war about? Would he cause that in his ignorance? Be responsible for that monstrous endeavor, instead of being responsible for the evolution of the people of Lilith?
He couldn't sleep. Half awake, his dreams were filled with the phantasmagoria of nightmares. He got up drenched with perspiration and went to take a shower. Washing his face first, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. It had been so long since he had looked at himself that it was a shock. These features staring back at him were not the same he had known weeks or months ago. It was a different face entirely.
Mason literally didn't recognize himself. His cheeks were lean and there was the beginning of strong lines beside his nose. His jaw was firmer and rubbing his hand against his forehead, he saw that it was creased with small lines. He laughed suddenly, combing back his hair which had grown so much lighter since he'd been on Lilith. Once a light brown, it was now blond, almost white.
Then he dropped his comb and leaned forward in amazement. His eyes! Hadn't they been brown? He stared at the eyes before him and suddenly felt weak. They were no longer brown. They were not even an Earth color.
His eyes were the clear, penetrating hue of the light of Lilith!
As he looked at them he saw the entire spectrum—and he put up his hands, unable to look further.
He went back to sit on his bunk, wondering, puzzling over the fantastic change. It must have happened when the experiment had been conducted on him. Had anyone noticed? No, of course not. He had worn his glasses much of the time to avoid suspicion.
The spectrum of Lilith!
Suddenly Mason rose and went back to the shower room. He had seen the future before by the light of Lilith. Could he see the future now, in his own eyes? Could he evoke that change, that particular combination that would lead to the shock? He forced himself to stand quite still and look into his eyes as if he were looking at a color wheel.
Mason stood there for a long, long time.
They buried Yee Mon in the oceans of space. Mason watched the body slip into the void and felt at peace, as if Yee Mon had returned not only to the womb of all life, but had also returned to his own individuality. The individuality that Mason had once known and liked.
They landed secretly at Legus in the middle of the night. There was no one to meet them and the Captain took Mason directly to Oden's home. They spoke far into the night and the morning, and at noon the following day Mason donned the purple cloak of the high court and walked with Oden toward the great hall.
They descended the ramp, and this time Mason was not unnoticed, nor did he avoid noticing. His fear of the aliens was past. He looked clearly and directly at everyone he saw and felt in return an acknowledgment that was gratifying.
The doors in the lower level were opened and Mason walked in beside Oden, looking straight ahead to the center of the great circles. There, raised on the dais, sat the Chief Justice. And in his presence there was something that evoked in Mason a faster beating of his heart and a different kind of humility than he felt even with Oden.
Oden led him to the circle immediately surrounding the dais. There, directly in front of the Chief Justice, they sat. Mason couldn't see what was under the purple robe that wrapped and hooded the figure. All he could see was the face, and he couldn't look away.
He knew there was no other being in the great hall quite like the one from this race. He knew it instinctively, and the shock from that face grew until it filled Mason's whole presence, and then it subsided leaving him weak, yet with a deep inner calm.
The face belonged to a Man.
Not a Man as Mason knew men, but another being, a distant relative, as remote from Man as Mason was from an ape. And yet related, connected. If Mason had felt like a student before Oden, to the Chief Justice Mason felt like a child to its father or an infant to its God. In that instant Mason knew that he wished to sit before this being for the rest of his life. He would pay any price for that. He wished never to leave that face.
And then he wondered about the others of his own race here. How could they ignore this Man whose presence bespoke their own future possibility? How could they think of superiority in front of this figure? How could the idea of experimental planets ever have begun? No man who had ever seen that face could have thought of it.
At last he was able to draw away his eyes and look around the hall. The members of the staff were sitting to his right in the next row. Some were looking at the Chief Justice with nothing at all in their expression. Others were curiously staring at the assembly. Only Louisa sat quietly with head downcast as though she felt something but was unable to see it.
Mason looked at Oden who smiled at him thoughtfully. "Try using your new eyes," Oden suggested, barely above a whisper. "I think you have used them only one way yet. Try to see from another view. Try to see what I see." - Mason gazed at him for a moment and then looked back at the Chief Justice. He drew in his breath sharply. Now the Chief Justice was not a Man; he was a Sumdac. Only a
Sumdac far above Oden in his evolution and intelligence. And Mason sensed that Oden was filled with the same emotion that held Mason, the same relationship of son to father.
He tried to see what the Vining sisters saw, and discovered that the Chief Justice to them was a replica of one of the stranger forms in the hall. Neil Trope saw something that wasn't even in the room, and Ulinski seemed puzzled. Mason realized that shapes were continually changing and shifting in front of him.
Haskell Eckert saw nothing at all. Under that purple hood a blankness stared at him, and Eckert thought the Chief Justice was wearing a mask.
Louisa still refused to look, and now Mason saw why. She, too, saw a vague manlike form, but in a guise unbearable to face for long. She saw him as Mason might have seen him some time ago.
He leaned over to Oden. "Who is he?"
"He is akin to a Man," Oden said. "You are right. I sense what you have thought and seen. But you are the only one who has ever seen him as he really is. I cannot. To me he appears like myself or my father—and to others in like manner. And the men of your race see him very differently, each one. Never as a Man. They couldn't accept him. He is not one of you, you know."
"I know," Mason said. "But we are one of him. Someday we may be like him."
So he had seen what no being had ever seen before. Mason didn't question it. He knew it had something to do with the light of Lilith, but more importantly, with what he himself wished now, and had wished before, for Man. His eyes had changed. Or had his way of looking changed? He recognized the demand this made.
He didn't wonder where this Man was from, or how his race of Man was distantly related, or why this being, Man, sat in the center of that great circle. He only knew that it had essential importance for him; that his wish had been true; that there was purpose, after all, in rescuing Man from his death. If this was what Man might become…
The Chief Justice spoke. He spoke in one tongue and yet everyone understood. He said that they must discuss the state of Man and re-examine Man's place in the Federation. No more. He made no mention of anything that had happened in the experimental stations. Then, with a look that it was difficult to fathom, he called upon Mason.
Mason stood up and turned to face the assembly. He understood now that not only did he have the opportunity of speaking like a simple reporter who had come across certain experiments unaware. He had also the opportunity to say nothing. He could stand here and pretend that nothing had happened. The Chief Justice had left it all up to him.
He felt in that moment that he was in the center of the universe, for here were gathered beings from the far corners of time. And yet he knew that beyond there stretched more and more creation, life forming and evolving. For what purpose? To gather here and make rules and regulations formulated by Man, who knew how to do that much but little more?
Out of sympathy and faith these beings allowed Man his presence in this great hall, and now Mason stood before them, an infinitesimal speck in the great creation, holding the power within him to alienate his own race from the rest of the universe.
He remembered what he had seen in his own eyes in the mirror on the ship and knew that there would not be war now. Already, from what he had seen, fleets of ships were on their way to all the experimental planets to stop the preparations. No, there would not be war. But after an interlude Man would begin to prepare for war again. And it would be many millions of years before he reached maturity.
Mason had now to choose his loyalty. Would it be to Man? To save Man's place here? To allow him to continue as a member of this vast body? Or would his loyalty be to the universe, of which he was such a small part?
He had made his decision long ago.
His loyalty was to Man.
His loyalty had been to Man ever since the beginning, ever since he had faced the threat of Man's extinction.
His loyalty was to Man and therefore to Man's evolution, which could come only from the truth about himself. Even if that truth meant banishment. Mason knew he would stay here to seek that truth.
And he knew the search must begin now with the facts of Man's terrible error. The facts of the experimental stations. The facts of preparations for war. The facts of Man's meddling.
Mason no longer cared what other men might think of him. His loyalty was too strong for that, his hope for Man's potential too grave and deep. He couldn't consider himself in that way. Not now, Not here.
He looked up once more to that face on the dais before he began to speak.