2
2
Gwen was on the Moon. She had to keep telling herself that. She was on the Moon and talking to a TV set.
The face on the TV was human. Strange, but human, and after what Gwen had seen on the ship, any human face was a relief.
The man looked bored. “You have come voluntarily?” he asked.
An embarrassing question. Gwen was naked, except for a sheet that she wrapped around herself when she realized that the TV screen worked both ways. She sat on the edge of the bed to talk to the man in the rust-colored tunic who’d appeared on the screen. Les lay partly covered on the bed, and his expression was—worried? Why worried, she wondered.
“Yes, I came voluntarily,” she said. “Les asked me to come. He said I would visit strange and exotic lands and—”
“You boarded voluntarily,” the man said. “Will you be missed? Will your disappearance cause difficulties? Widespread search by the authorities?”
“I don’t think so. I left a note for my landlady that said I was going for a weekend trip. She’ll worry when I don’t come back after that. She may call the police.”
“They will probably assume you were murdered. That is no problem of mine.” The screen went blank.
“That’s over,” Les said. He looked relieved.
Why relieved? And why had he been worried? There was a lot that Gwen didn’t understand. But certainly she was glad she had come. There were marvels enough, even here in the compartment. It was lavishly furnished, mostly with goods from Earth; but some of the furnishings were new and strange. There was the TV with its strange control box that could call up books and maps and all kinds of interesting material—the only problem was that she couldn’t read a word of it. And there had been the aliens, and the experience of seeing Earth from space. Now she felt the low gravity of the Moon and could see the lunar surface on the TV screen. It was all frightening, but exciting, too.
“Who was that man?” she asked.
“A policeman,” Les said.
“What would have happened if I had said you kidnapped me?”
“He probably would not have believed you. But if you had said the Shalnuksis had kidnapped you, there would have been trouble.”
Gwen shuddered, but not in fear. It was all so marvelous. Aliens. Spaceships. And they were so nice to her. Les had given her clothes and jewelry—not that the gifts meant anything, but he had got them for her. He cared. She knew that. He cared.
“And you don’t come from anywhere on Earth?” she asked. “I still can’t believe that.”
“It’s true, though,” he said. “My home is twenty light-years from here.”
“How long have you been on Earth?”
“Four years. A bit more than that.”
“But you speak English so well! No wonder I couldn’t tell where you came from. How did you learn to speak English so well in four years?”
“It’s a gift,” he said. “I speak a number of human languages. Four from your planet.”
“A number of human languages—Les, what do you do for these—for the aliens?”
“You can think of me as a civil servant,” he said. “I pilot ships, make studies of primitives, buy equipment and see that it gets aboard ship—any number of activities that the traders or the confederacy need done.”
“A civil servant.”
“Sort of,” Les told her. “That is, most humans work for the confederacy, but they sometimes rent us out to traders when the work involves other humans. Just now I’m doing some errands for the Shalnuksis.”
“But why don’t you go to Washington and tell them? Or someone? Why such secrecy?”
“Time enough for questions later,” he said. “We will have a lot of time. For the moment, we are together, and we have a few hours before we go to the other ship.”
“Another ship?”
“Yes. I’m supposed to take some people—human volunteers, soldiers—to another planet. I’ll have to brief them on the way.”
“Soldiers. Volunteers. You mean mercenaries.” She made no attempt to disguise the contempt in her voice.
He laughed. “You don’t like warriors? You ought to feel a bit sorry for these. They’ve got their work cut out. More than they know.”
“Who will they fight? What are they going to be doing?”
“All in good time. You’ll know more about them than you want to by the time we get to Tran. For now—” He reached for her.
For a moment she resisted, but she could feel his urgency.
Why resist? she thought. Why resent his need? A need for me. He cares. I can lose myself in him. And he keeps his promises.
He’d already showed her marvels beyond her imagination. What more would there be? She shuddered in anticipation.
* * *
The screen came to life while the troops were cooking lunch. Rick Galloway went over carrying his new lists of equipment. There was a lot they needed, and they hadn’t received much of what they’d asked for.
“No time,” Agzaral said. “No time at all. Gather your equipment. You must leave this cavern immediately. There is a ship outside, and you must be aboard it with everything you propose to take with you. You have two hours.” He seemed very excited. “You must hurry.”
“Why? We can’t go now. We don’t have anything like the gear we asked for—”
“Some is aboard the ship. The rest may be supplied later. But hurry. Those who remain behind will not be happy with the consequences.”
“Why?”
“You will learn,” Agzaral said. “But you will not go at all if you do not board the ship now. Recall the alternatives I gave you. They have not changed.”
“This is ridiculous,” Rick said. “It makes no sense at all.”
There was no reply. Agzaral continued to stare out from the screen.
At least, Rick thought, he doesn’t look bored. Is that a good sign? It seems pretty frightening, actually.
“I cannot say I care for this,” André Parsons said. “But I think of few alternatives.” He turned to the screen. “Why should we trust you?”
“You would be surprised at how little that matters to me,” Agzaral said. “But you will regret not having boarded the ship.”
Parsons shrugged, then looked to Rick. “I think we should do it.”
“Agreed,” Rick said. “Load it up. Elliot, get them moving. We board ship.”
“Move your equipment to the upper corridor,” Agzaral said. “The ship will be ready to board shortly, and you should have all your possessions at the airlock.”
They sweated the weapons and other equipment up the corridor. “Now get that other stuff,” Rick ordered. “Clean out the cavern.”
“Why?” Warner demanded. “What do we do with a gasoline lawnmower?”
“I don’t know,” Rick said. “But we’ll never get another one. Now carry it up, Professor.”
“Yes, sir,” Warner said. “And the toaster, too?”
“Everything,” Rick said. He picked up a coffee urn.
When they had all left the cavern, the entrance to it closed off.
* * *
The ship stank. Although they couldn’t see very much of the ship, it was obvious that it wasn’t the same one they had come up in. The paint was stained and chipped in places. There were stains on the deck.
When they got the last of the equipment aboard, the entryway closed. There was no warning at all. Their weight increased. It was obvious that the ship was in motion. Rick estimated the acceleration at about twice the Moon’s gravity.
After two hours, he began shouting. “What the hell’s going on,” he demanded. There was no one to talk to. The only TV screen was blank. It seemed silly to be shouting at empty air, but it was sillier not to do something.
Nothing happened. Some of the troops prowled the areas they could reach. They found doorways that would open, and beyond them were latrines, storage compartments, another empty area. They found food in two other compartments.
The rest of the system was closed. There was no way into the rest of the ship.
“What the hell’s going on?” Rick muttered.
André Parsons shrugged. “There is wine and whiskey in the storerooms. I suggest we have a drink.”
“Is that all you think of?”
“No, but I think of nothing better to do at the moment.”
More than fifty hours went by. They still had no word from anyone. They had been under acceleration the entire time. Rick worked out the distance, assuming two Lunar gravities. The answer seemed so unreasonable that he worked it again. Thirty-two million miles. A third of the distance from Earth to the Sun.
There was nothing on the TV. Warner began to complain that their employers had violated their contract. Rick privately agreed, but he saw no point in talking about it. If the Shalnuksis were listening, he didn’t want them thinking in those terms. Finally Elliot shut Warner up.
A couple of troopers got roaring drunk, and Rick had to post guards at the door to the liquor compartment. The problem was—whom did he trust? Discipline was going to hell, and there wasn’t much he could do about it.
Another forty hours went by.
* * *
“TEN MINUTES.” The voice sounded through their compartment. “You have ten minutes to prepare for no gravity. Ten minutes.”
There was netting in the storerooms, and they put the loose equipment under that, but they kept their weapons. No one wanted ship’s doors between them and their rifles.
The acceleration stopped, and they were in free fall, but not for long. The ship moved in short jerks. Then there was a deep tone—nothing like the warning tones they had heard from the speakers. This was a deep thrum that sounded through the whole ship, as if the ship itself were vibrating to the noise.
Rick’s vision blurred. He could see, but not well, as if he were looking through heavy astigmatic lenses. The thrumming note got louder and increased in pitch. Then, gradually, the note died away and his vision returned. They began to feel weight again, more than before—almost a full Earth gravity.
The TV set came on. It showed Karreeel seated in his highchair. He looked almost comical, and some of the troops laughed nervously.
Then they crowded around shouting obscenities. There was no response. Instead, Karreeel began to speak in a flat monotone.
“I regret that this is a recorded message,” the alien said. “Please listen carefully.”
“Shut up,” Rick ordered. The babble died, but he missed the first words.
“. . . was unavoidable. You are now on your way to Tran, and you cannot regret your lack of proper equipment more than we do. Your success is important to us, and only great need forces us to send you with so little preparation.” The alien spoke in a calm and detached manner, but Rick noticed that the mouth and nose slits flared more than they had during the interview in Agzaral’s office.
“We will provide you with as much information as possible. The pilot of this vessel is of your species, and he has tapes of what we know of local conditions. He will translate the information and provide you with copies of the planetary surveys.
“You will be aboard the transport ship for approximately forty of your days. During that time the acceleration will be increased to that of Paradise to accustom you to the gravity you will find there.
“I regret that most of the information on local languages is very old, but doubtless you will learn those currently in use. You may need only one. We are interested in only a small area of the planet. You will also be given all the information required to plant and harvest the crops. The cultivation of the surinomaz is complex, and it is important that you follow instructions exactly. The harvest will be valuable to us, and thus to you. When next we visit Paradise, we will bring luxuries and necessities. You need have no concern, provided that you have grown what we require and are prepared to furnish it to us.
“Of course you must understand that if you have nothing to sell us, we will have nothing to sell to you.
“We wish you great success.”
The screen went blank. Then a human face appeared.
The man was not as dark as Agzaral, and his eyes were lighter in color, but there was a faint resemblance to Agzaral even so. His voice had no accent at all. “You can call me ‘Les,’ ” he said. “I’m the pilot. I’ll try to answer questions.”
“Take us back!” Warner shouted. “You have no right to change our contract! We enlisted under specified conditions and you have changed them. We quit!”
The pilot laughed. “You’ll do it on Tran, then. I don’t think anybody ever jumped ship in phase drive before, but you’re welcome to try. Unfortunately, there’s no known way you can report to us on what happens. Telepathy? Are you telepathic?”
“That’s enough, Warner,” Rick said. “Elliot, sit on him if that’s what it takes.”
“Sir.” Sergeant Elliot grinned. This was the first thing he’d completely understood since they left the Moon, and he was eager to be useful.
“Equipment,” Rick said. “We don’t have what we need—we don’t even know what we need.”
“Yeah, that’s too bad,” Les said. “Karreeel is very sorry about that. You see, we got word that a shipload of government people had just come out of phase drive and was about to make a visit. That would have delayed your trip for months, maybe longer. Might have canceled it entirely. This ship is under charter to Karreeel’s trading company, and you wouldn’t believe what it would have cost to have it sit idle all that time.”
“But—we don’t know what to do when we get there,” Rick protested.
“You’ll get all the information you need,” Les said. “Well, all we have, anyway. Look, this has all been done before. You’ll manage.”
“This is absurd,” André Parsons said. “How do you expect us to establish control of an area and raise crops with almost no equipment and very little ammunition?”
“Don’t know,” the pilot said. “But you’d better try. Karreeel will keep his part of the bargain, but he won’t trade with you if you’ve got nothing to trade.”
“But it makes so little sense,” Parsons said. “If they wish this crop, why send us with inadequate gear?”
“Well, it’s too bad,” Les said. “But his outfit can afford the loss. What they couldn’t afford was the time they’d lose if you were still around when the Commission people arrived. You wouldn’t have liked that much either. Hearings, committee meetings, more hearings, and all the time they’d insist they were interested only in what was best for you.”
“Can’t you explain some of this?” Rick asked. “Somehow you people don’t act the way we always thought an interstellar civilization would—”
The pilot laughed. “I’ve read some of your speculations. Why did you think we’d be so different from you? Or that we’d treat Earth any different from the way the English treated India? Excuse me, I’ve got work to do. Among other things, I have to translate all this stuff.”
“Can’t a computer do that?” Rick asked.
“Yeah, but it’s not as easy as you think. Have to set up the right programs for it. I’ll be back.” The screen went blank again.
André Parsons looked thoughtful. “What was it that the East India Company called native soldiers?”
“Sepoys,” Rick said.
Parsons nodded. “Sepoys. Well, now we know our status.”