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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Equation of Doom, by Gerald Vance
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Equation of Doom
+
+
+Author: Gerald Vance
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 17, 2009  [eBook #29146]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EQUATION OF DOOM***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, David Wilson, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+  |                                                              |
+  | Transcriber's note:                                          |
+  |                                                              |
+  | This story was published in _Amazing Stories_, February      |
+  | 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that   |
+  | the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.          |
+  |                                                              |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: equation of doom
+
+  His agony of soul at being unable to save Margot was
+  far greater than physical torture.]
+
+
+
+    _They grounded Ramsey's ship on a hostile planet hoping he would
+    starve to death, so the first thing he did was give most of his
+    money away and lose the rest gambling. Then he picked a fight
+    with the Chief of Police and joined forces with a half-naked
+    dream-chick who was seemingly bent on self-destruction. The
+    stakes were big--a planet or two--but it all added up to an----_
+
+
+
+EQUATION OF DOOM
+
+by
+
+GERALD VANCE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+"Your name ith Jathon Ramthey?" the Port Security Officer lisped
+politely.
+
+Jason Ramsey, who wore the uniform of Interstellar Transfer Service and
+was the only Earthman in the Service here on Irwadi, smiled and said:
+"Take three guesses. You know darn well I'm Ramsey." He was a big man
+even by Earth standards, which meant he towered over the Irwadian's
+green, scaly head. He was fair of skin and had hair the color of copper.
+It was rumored on Irwadi and elsewhere that he couldn't return to Earth
+because of some crime he had committed.
+
+"Alwayth the chip on the shoulder," the Port Security Officer said.
+"Won't you Earthmen ever learn?" The splay-tongued reptile-humanoids of
+Irwadi always spoke Interstellar _Coine_ with a pronounced lisp which
+Ramsey found annoying, especially since it went so well with the
+officious and underhanded behavior for which the Irwadians were famous
+the galaxy over.
+
+"Get to the point," Ramsey said harshly. "I have a ship to take through
+hyper-space."
+
+"No. You have no ship."
+
+"No? Then what's this?" His irritation mounting, Ramsey pulled out the
+Interstellar Transfer Service authorization form and showed it to the
+Security Officer. "A tip-sheet for the weightless races at Fomalhaut
+VI?"
+
+The Security Officer said: "Ha, ha, ha." He could not laugh; he merely
+uttered the phonetic equivalent of laughter. On harsh Irwadi, laughter
+would have been a cultural anomaly. "You make joketh. Well,
+nevertheleth, you have no ship." He expanded his scaly green barrel
+chest and declaimed: "At 0400 hours thith morning, the government of
+Irwadi hath planetarithed the Irwadi Tranthfer Thervith."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Planetarized the Transfer Service!" gasped Ramsey in surprise. He knew
+the Irwadians had been contemplating the move in theory for many years,
+but he also knew that transferring a starship from normal space through
+hyper-space back to normal space again was a tremendously difficult and
+technical task. He doubted if half a dozen Irwadians had mastered it,
+yet the Irwadi branch of Interstellar Transfer Service was made up of
+seventy-five hyper-space pilots of divers planetalities.
+
+"Ecthactly," said the Security Officer, as amused as an Irwadian could
+be by the amazement in Ramsey's frank green eyes. "Tho if you will
+kindly thurrender your permit?"
+
+"Let's see it in writing, huh?"
+
+The Security Officer complied. Ramsey read the official document,
+scowled, and handed over his Irwadi pilot license. "What about the
+_Polaris_?" he wanted to know. The _Polaris_ was a Centaurian ship he'd
+been scheduled to take through hyper-space on the run from Irwadi to
+Centauri III.
+
+"Temporarily grounded, captain. Or should I thay, ecth-captain?"
+
+"Temporarily my foot," said Ramsey. "It'll be months before you
+Irwadians can get even a fraction of the ships into hyper. You must be
+out of your minds."
+
+"Our problem, captain. Not yourth."
+
+That was true enough. Ramsey shrugged.
+
+"Your problem," the Security Officer went on blandly, "will be to find a
+meanth of thelf-thupport until you and all other ecthra-planetarieth can
+be removed from Irwadi. We owe you ecthra-planetarieth nothing. Ethpect
+no charity from uth."
+
+Ramsey shrugged. Like all extra-planetaries on a bleak, friendless world
+like Irwadi, he'd regularly gambled away and drank away his monthly
+paycheck in the interstellar settlement which the Irwadians had
+established in the Old Quarter of Irwadi City. But last month he'd
+managed to come out even at the gaming tables, so he had a few hundred
+credits to his name. That would be enough, he told himself, to tide him
+over until Interstellar Transfer Service came to the rescue of its
+stranded pilots.
+
+Ramsey went up the gangway and got his gear from the _Polaris_. When he
+returned down the gangway, the late afternoon wind was blowing across
+the spacefield tarmac, a wet, bone-chilling wind which only the
+reptile-humanoid Irwadians didn't seem to mind.
+
+Ramsey fastened the toggles of his cold-weather cape, put his head down
+and hunched his shoulders, and walked into the teeth of the wind. He did
+not look back at the _Polaris_, marooned indefinitely on Irwadi despite
+anything the Centaurian owners or anyone else for that matter could do
+about it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Irwadi Security Officer, whose name was Chind Ramar, walked up the
+gangway and ordered the ship's Centaurian first officer to assemble his
+crew and passengers. Chind Ramar allowed himself the rare luxury of a
+fleeting smile. He could imagine this scene being duplicated on fifty
+ships here on his native planet today, fifty outworld ships which had no
+business at all on Irwadi. Of course, Irwadi was an important
+planet-of-call in the Galactic Federation because the vital metal
+titanium was found as abundantly in Irwadian soil as aluminum is found
+in the soil of an Earth-style planet. Titanium, in alloy with steel and
+manganese, was the only element which could withstand the tremendous
+heat generated in the drive-chambers of interstellar ships during
+transfer. In the future, Chind Ramar told himself with a kind of cold
+pride, only Irwadian pilots, piloting Irwadian ships through
+hyper-space, would bring titanium to the waiting galaxy. At Irwadi
+prices.
+
+With great relish, Chind Ramar announced the facts of planetarization
+and told the Centaurians and their passengers that they would be
+stranded for an indefinite period on Irwadi. Amazement, anger, bluster,
+debate, and finally resignation--the reactions were the expected ones,
+in the expected order. It was easy, Chind Ramar thought, with all but
+the interstellar soldiers of fortune like Jason Ramsey. Ramsey, of
+course, would need watching. As for these others....
+
+One of the others, an Earthgirl whose beauty was entirely missed by
+Chind Ramar, left the _Polaris_ in a hurry. She either had no luggage or
+left her luggage aboard. Jason Ramsey, she thought. She had read Chind
+Ramar's mind; a feat growing less rare although by no means common yet
+among the offspring of those who had spent a great deal of time
+bombarded by cosmic radiation between the stars. She hurried through the
+chilling wind toward the Old Quarter of Irwadi City. Panic, she thought.
+You've got to avoid panic. If you panic, you're finished....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"So that's about the size of it," Ramsey finished.
+
+Stu Englander nodded. Like Ramsey he was a hyper-space pilot, but
+although he had an Earth-style name and had been born of Earth parents,
+he was not an Earthman. He had been born on Capella VII, and had spent
+most of his life on that tropical planet. The result was not an uncommon
+one for outworlders who spent any amount of time on Irwadi: Stu
+Englander had a nagging bronchial condition which had kept him off the
+pilot-bridge for some months now.
+
+Englander nodded again, dourly. He was a short, very slender man a few
+years older than Ramsey, who was thirty-one. He said: "That ties it. And
+I mean ties it, brother. You're looking at the brokest Capellan-earthman
+who ever got himself stuck on an outworld."
+
+"You mean it?"
+
+"Dead broke, Jase."
+
+"What about Sally and the kids?"
+
+Englander had an Arcturan-earthian wife and twin boys four years old. "I
+don't know what about Sally and the kids," he told Ramsey glumly. "I
+guess I'll go over to the New Quarter and try to get some kind of a
+job."
+
+"They wouldn't hire an outworlder to shine their shoes with his own
+spit, Stu. They have got the planetarization bug, and they've got it
+bad."
+
+Sally Englander called from the kitchen of the small flat: "Will Jase be
+staying for supper?"
+
+Englander stared at Ramsey, who shook his head. "Not today, Sally,"
+Englander said, looking at Ramsey gratefully.
+
+"Listen," Ramsey lied, "I've been lucky as all get out the last couple
+of months."
+
+"You old pro!" grinned Englander.
+
+"So I've got a few hundred credits just burning a hole in my pocket,"
+Ramsey went on. "How's about taking them?"
+
+"But I haven't the slightest idea when I could pay back."
+
+"I didn't say anything about paying me back."
+
+"I couldn't accept charity, Jase."
+
+"O.K. Pay me back when you get a chance. There are plenty of hyper-space
+jobs waiting for us all over the galaxy, you know that."
+
+"Yeah, all we have to do is get off Irwadi and go after them. But the
+Irwadians are keeping us right here."
+
+"Sure, but it won't last. Not when the folks back in Capella and Deneb
+and Sol System hear about it."
+
+"Six months," said Englander bleakly. "It'll take at least that long."
+
+"Six months I can wait. What d'you say?"
+
+Englander coughed wrackingly, his eyes watering. He got off the bed and
+shook Ramsey's hand solemnly. Ramsey gave him three hundred and
+seventy-five credits and said: "Just see you make that go a long way
+supporting Sally and the kids. I don't want to see you dropping any of
+it at the gaming tables. I'll knock your block off if I see you there."
+
+"I'll knock my own block off if I see me there. Jase, I don't know how
+to thank--"
+
+"Don't is right. Forget it."
+
+"Do you have enough--"
+
+"Me? Plenty. Don't worry about old Jase." Ramsey went to the door.
+"Well, see you."
+
+Englander walked quickly to him and shook his hand again. On the way
+out, Ramsey played for a moment or two with the twins, who were rolling
+a couple of toy spaceships marked hyper-one and hyper-two across the
+floor and making anachronistic machine-gun noises with their lips. Sally
+Englander, a plump, young-home-maker type, beamed at Ramsey from the
+kitchen. Then he went out into the gathering dusk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As usual on Irwadi, and particularly with the coming of night, it was
+bitterly cold. Sucker, Ramsey told himself. But he grinned. He felt good
+about what he'd done. With Stu sick, and with Sally and the kids, he'd
+done the only thing he could do. He still had almost twenty-five credits
+left. Maybe he really would have a lucky night at the tables. Maybe ...
+heck, he'd been down-and-out before. A fugitive from Earth didn't have
+much choice sometimes....
+
+"Red sixteen," the croupier said indifferently. He was a short,
+heavy-set Sirian with a shock of scarlet hair, albino skin, and red
+eyes.
+
+Ramsey watched his money being raked across the table. It wasn't his
+night, he told himself with a grim smile. He had only three credits
+left. If he risked them now, there wouldn't even be the temporary
+physical relief and release of a bottle of Irwadian brandy before
+hitting the sack.
+
+Which was another thing, Ramsey thought. Hitting the sack. Ah yes, you
+filthy outworlder capitalist, hitting the sack. You owe that fish-eyed,
+scale-skinned Irwadian landlady the rent money, so you'd better wait
+until later, until much later, before sneaking back to your room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He watched the gambling for another hour or so without risking his few
+remaining credits. After a while a well-dressed Irwadian, drunk and
+obviously slumming here in the Old Quarter, made his way over to the
+table. His body scales were a glossy dark green and he wore glittering,
+be-jeweled straps across his chest and an equally glittering, be-jeweled
+weapons belt. Aside from these, in the approved Irwadian fashion, he was
+quite naked. An anthropologist friend had once told Ramsey that once the
+Irwadians had worn clothing, but since the coming in great number of the
+outworlders they had stripped down, as though to prove how tough they
+were in being able to withstand the freezing climate of their native
+world. Actually, the Irwadian body-scales were superb insulation,
+whether from heat or from cold.
+
+"... Earthman watching me," the Irwadian in the be-jeweled straps said
+arrogantly, placing a fat roll of credits on the table.
+
+"I'm sorry," Ramsey said. "Were you talking to me?"
+
+"I thertainly wath," lisped the Irwadian, his eyes blazing with drunken
+hatred. "I thaid I won't have any Earthman thnooping over my thoulder
+while I gamble, not unleth he'th gambling too."
+
+"Better tell that to your Security Police," Ramsey said coldly but not
+angrily. "I'm out of a job, so I don't have money to throw around. Go
+ahead and tell me--" with a little smile--"you think it was my idea."
+
+The Irwadian looked up haughtily. Evidently he was looking for trouble,
+or could not hold his liquor, or both. The frenzy of planetarization,
+Ramsey knew from bitter experience on other worlds, made irrational
+behavior like this typical. He studied the drunken Irwadian carefully.
+In all the time he'd spent on Irwadi, he'd never been able to tell a
+native's age by his green, scale-skinned, fish-eyed poker-face. But the
+glossy green scales covering face and body told Ramsey, along with the
+sturdy muscles revealed by the lack of clothing, that the Irwadian was
+in his prime, shorter than Ramsey by far, but wider across the shoulders
+and thicker through the barrel chest.
+
+"You outworlderth have been deprething the thandard of living on Irwadi
+ever thince you came here," the Irwadian said. "All you ever brought
+wath poverty and your ditheath germth and more trouble than you could
+handle. I don't want your thtink near me. I'm trying to enjoy mythelf.
+Get out of here."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was abruptly silent in the little gambling hall. Since the
+establishment catered to outworlders and was full of them, the silence,
+Ramsey thought, should have been both ominous and in his favor. He
+looked around. Outworlders, yes. But not another Earthman present. He
+wondered if he was in for a fight. He shrugged, hardly caring. Maybe a
+fight was just what he needed, the way he felt.
+
+"Get out of here," the Irwadian repeated. "You thtink."
+
+Just then a Vegan girl, blue-skinned and fantastically wasp-waisted like
+all her kind, drifted over to Ramsey. He'd seen her around. He thought
+he recognized her. Maybe he'd even danced with her in the unit-a-dance
+halls reserved for humanoid outworlders.
+
+"Are you nuts?" she said, hissing the words through her teeth and
+grabbing Ramsey's elbow. "Don't you know who that guy is?"
+
+"No. Who?"
+
+"He's Garr Symm, that's who."
+
+Ramsey smiled at her without mirth. "Do I bow down in awe or run from
+here screaming? I never heard of Garr Symm."
+
+"Oh you fool!" she whispered furiously. "Garr Symm is the brand new
+number one man of the Irwadi Security Police. Don't you read the
+'casts?"
+
+Before Ramsey could answer or adjust to his surprise, the Irwadian
+repeated:
+
+"I'm telling you for the third time. Get out."
+
+Ostentatiously, Ramsey reached into his cloak-pocket for a single credit
+bill and tossed it on the table.
+
+"The denomination is not sufficient, sir," the albino Sirian croupier
+said indifferently. Ramsey had known it was not.
+
+Garr Symm's face turned a darker green. The Vegan girl retreated from
+Ramsey's side in fright. Symm raised his hand and an Irwadian waiter
+brought over a drink in a purple stem glass with a filigree pattern of
+titanium, bowing obsequiously. Symm lurched with the glass toward
+Ramsey. "I'm telling you to go," he said in a loud voice.
+
+Ramsey picked up his credit note but stood there. With a little sigh of
+drunken contentment, Garr Symm sloshed the contents of his stem glass in
+Ramsey's face.
+
+The liquor stung Ramsey's eyes. Many of the other outworlders, neither
+Irwadian nor Earthmen, laughed nervously.
+
+Ramsey wiped his eyes but otherwise did not move. He was in a rough spot
+and he knew it. The fact that their new Security Chief went out drunk at
+night with a chip on his shoulder was the Irwadian government's affair,
+not Ramsey's. He'd been insulted before. An Earthman in the outworlds,
+particularly an Earthman fugitive who knew he dared not get into the
+kind of trouble that could bring the Earth consul to investigate, was
+used to insults. For Earth was the leading economic and military power
+of the galaxy, and the fact that Earth really tried to deal fairly with
+its galactic neighbors meant nothing. Earth, being top dog, was
+resented.
+
+The thing which got Ramsey, though, was this Garr Symm. He had never
+heard of Garr Symm, and he thought he knew most of the big shots in the
+Irwadian Security Police by name. But there must have been a reason for
+his appointment. A government throwing off outworld influence had a
+reason for everything. So, why Garr Symm?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You, Mith Vegan!" Garr Symm called suddenly. "You whithpered to the
+Earthman. What did you tell him?"
+
+"Not to look for trouble," the Vegan girl said in a frightened voice.
+
+"But what elth?"
+
+"Honest, that's all."
+
+"Come here, pleath."
+
+Her blue skin all at once very pale, the Vegan girl walked back toward
+Garr Symm. He leered at her quite drunkenly and took hold of her slender
+arm. "What did you tell him? For the latht time."
+
+The girl whimpered: "You are hurting my arm."
+
+Thoughts raced through Ramsey's mind. As an administrator, as an
+Irwadian public servant in a touchy job, Garr Symm, a drunkard, was
+obviously grossly incompetent. What other qualifications did he have
+which gave him the top Irwadian Security job? Ramsey didn't know. He
+sighed. The Vegan girl's mouth formed a rictus of pain. Ramsey had a
+hunch he was going to find out.
+
+He said curtly: "Let go of her, Symm. She told me nothing that would
+interest you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Garr Symm ignored him. The blue-skinned girl cried.
+
+Ramsey grimaced and hit Garr Symm in the belly as hard as he could.
+
+Symm thudded back against the table. It overturned with a crash and the
+Security Chief crashed down on top of it. There wasn't a sound in the
+gambling hall except Ramsey's sudden hard breathing, the Vegan girl's
+sniffling, and Garr Symm's noisy attempts to get air into his lungs.
+Then Garr Symm gagged and was sick. He writhed in pain, still unable to
+breathe. His hands fluttered near his weapons belt.
+
+"Come on," Ramsey told the Vegan girl. "We'd better get out of here." He
+took her arm. Dumbly she went with him. None of the outworlders there
+tried to stop them. Ramsey looked back at Garr Symm. The Irwadian was
+shaking his fist. He had finally managed to draw his m.g. gun, but the
+crowd of outworlders closed between them and there was no chance he
+could hit Ramsey or the girl. Retching, he had dirtied the glossy green
+scales of his chest.
+
+"I'll get you," he vowed. "I'll get you."
+
+Ramsey took the girl outside. It was very cold. "I'm so afraid," she
+said. "What will I do? What can I do?" She shook with fear.
+
+"You got a place to sleep?"
+
+"Y-yes, but I'm the only Vegan girl in Irwadi City. He'll find me. He'll
+find me when he's ready."
+
+"O.K. Then come home with me."
+
+"I--"
+
+"For crying out loud, I don't look that lecherous, do I? We can't just
+stand here."
+
+"I--I'm sorry. I'll go with you of course."
+
+Ramsey took her hand again and they ran. The cold black Irwadian night
+swallowed them.
+
+"So you live in the Old Quarter too," the Vegan girl said.
+
+"Heck yeah. Did you expect a palace?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey had a room, rent one Irwadi month in arrears, in a cold-water
+tenement near the river which demarked the Old and the New Quarters. The
+façade of the old building was dark now. His landlady was probably
+asleep, although you never could tell with that old witch. Ramsey knew
+it wouldn't be the first time she stayed up through half the night to
+await a delinquent tenant.
+
+"I--I never went to a man's room before," the blue-skinned Vegan girl
+said. She was rather pretty in a slender, muscleless, big-eyed,
+female-helpless mode.
+
+"You're a dance-hall girl, aren't you?"
+
+"Still, I never spent the night in a man's--"
+
+"What's the matter with you? You think we're going to spend the night
+here? Somebody over at those gaming tables will be able to identify me.
+Garr Symm'll be on his way before long."
+
+"Then what are we going to do?" The girl was shivering with cold.
+
+"Hide," Jason Ramsey said. "Somewhere. I just came back to get my
+things. There isn't much, but there's an old m.g. gun which we might
+need."
+
+"But they'll find us, and--"
+
+"You coming upstairs or will you wait out here and freeze to death in
+the cold?"
+
+"I'm coming."
+
+They went upstairs together, on tip-toe. Ramsey's room was on the third
+floor, with a besooted view of the industrial complex on the river by
+day. The narrow hall was dark and silent. Behind one of the closed doors
+an outworlder cried out in his sleep. Ramsey had to cup a hand over the
+Vegan girl's mouth so she wouldn't scream in empathic fear. He opened
+the door of his room, surprised that it was not locked. He thought he
+had left it locked.
+
+At once he was wary. It was dark in the hall, just as dark in the room.
+He could see nothing. The door hinges squeaked.
+
+"Come in, Captain Ramsey," a voice said. "I thought you would never get
+here."
+
+He stood on the threshold, uncertain. The voice had spoken not
+Interstellar _Coine_, but English. It had spoken English, without a
+foreign accent.
+
+And it was a girl's voice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Still, it could have been an elaborate trick. It was unlikely, but not
+impossible, that Garr Symm had learned Ramsey's identity already and had
+sent an operative here to await him. Ramsey and the Vegan girl had come
+on foot. It was a long walk.
+
+"I'm armed," Ramsey lied. "Come over here. Slowly. Don't put any lights
+on." He could feel the Vegan girl trembling next to him. Not able to
+understand English, she didn't know what was going on.
+
+"You're armed," the unseen girl's voice said in crisp, amused English,
+"like I'm a six-legged Antarean spider-man. You have an m.g. gun,
+Ramsey. It's in this room. I have it. That's all you have. No, don't try
+to lie to me. I'm a telepath. I can read you. Come in and put the light
+on and shut the door. You may bring the girl with you if you want.
+Brother, is she ever radiating fear! It's practically drowning your own
+mind out."
+
+The unseen girl wasn't kidding, Ramsey knew. She could read minds. She
+had proved it to him. Which left him this choice: he could grab the
+Vegan girl's arm again and get the heck out of there, or do what the
+unseen Earth girl told him to do. He wanted that m.g. gun. He took the
+Vegan girl's hand and advanced over the threshold and closed the door
+and switched on the light.
+
+The girl was sitting on the bed. She was an Earthgirl, all right. She
+had come in a toggle-cloak of green Irwadian fur, which was folded
+neatly at her side on the bed. Under it she wore a daring net halter of
+the type then fashionable on Earth but which had not yet taken over the
+outworlds. It left her shoulders bare and exposed a great deal of
+smooth, tawny skin through the net. Her firm breasts were cupped in two
+solid cones of black growing out of the net. Her midriff was bare to an
+inch or two below the navel. Her loins were covered by an abrevitog
+which formed a triangle in front and, Ramsey knew, would form one in
+back. Her long, well-formed legs were bare down to the mid-calf boots
+she wore. She had a beautiful body and had dressed so Ramsey couldn't
+miss it. Her face was so provocatively beautiful that Ramsey just stood
+there staring at it--after he had taken in the rest of her. She wore her
+hair quite long. She seemed perfectly composed. In her right hand she
+held Ramsey's m.g. gun, but she wasn't pointing it at them.
+
+She looked at the timid Vegan girl and smiled. "Oh, I am sorry, Captain
+Ramsey," she said. "I couldn't know, of course, you'd be coming home
+with--company."
+
+"It isn't what you think it is," Ramsey said, surprised to find himself
+on the defensive. "The girl's in trouble. So'm I."
+
+The Earthgirl laughed. "Already? You looked the type, but I thought it
+would take a little time."
+
+"What do you want?" Ramsey said. They were speaking in English. The
+Vegan girl tugged at Ramsey's arm. She wanted to get out of there and
+hoped Ramsey would go with her. Abruptly the Earthgirl burst out
+laughing.
+
+"What's so funny?" Ramsey demanded.
+
+"Your little Vegan friend. I read her mind, Ramsey. She thinks I'm your
+wife. She thinks I'm mad at you for bringing her home."
+
+"Then why don't you talk in _Coine_," Ramsey said in the interstellar
+language, "and make her feel better? She might as well know I never saw
+you before in my life." He was annoyed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Vegan girl smiled timidly, taking hope.
+
+"But you did," the beautiful Earthgirl said. "I was on the _Polaris_
+today, Captain. You were to be the pilot, until Interstellar Transfer
+here on Irwadi was planetarized."
+
+"I didn't see you. Dressed like that I wouldn't have forgotten you."
+
+"I wasn't dressed like this." The girl smiled, very sure of herself. "I
+read your mind when you came in. The costume's had the desired effect, I
+see. But you needn't broadcast your animal desires so blatantly."
+
+"Nobody asked you to read my mind. Besides, you needn't broadcast your
+physical assets so blatantly."
+
+"Touché," said the Earthgirl.
+
+"Listen," Ramsey began. "We're in a jam. We're in a hurry."
+
+"So you told me. I couldn't have wished for more. It looks like I didn't
+need this costume and its obvious inducements at all, if you're really
+in a jam."
+
+"What the devil is that supposed to mean?"
+
+"My name is Margot Dennison, Captain Ramsey. I have managed to buy an
+old starship, small and held together by spit and string and whatever
+the Irwadians use for prayer--"
+
+"They're atheists," Ramsey said a little pointlessly. It was the girl.
+Darn her hide, she was beautiful! What did she expect? Looking at her,
+how could a man concentrate.... "Hey!" Ramsey blurted suddenly. "Did you
+say Margot Dennison? The tri-di star?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Margot Dennison smiled. "That's right," she said. "Stranded five hundred
+light years from nowhere, Captain Ramsey. With a ship. With money. In
+need of a hyper-space pilot. That's why I'm here, or didn't you guess?"
+
+"I'm listening."
+
+"Isn't it clear? I'll pay you to take me away from here."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"Through hyper-space to Earth. Well?"
+
+"I've been grounded. If I take you through hyper-space, I lose my
+license."
+
+"You really don't believe that, do you? After the Irwadians grounded all
+of you without warning, and grounded all ships until they can train a
+few more pilots. You don't really think I.T.S. would take your license
+away if you took a ship up and through hyper, do you? Under the
+circumstances? Especially since you're in a jam with a totalitarian
+government gone wild? Do you?"
+
+Ramsey said abruptly: "I'm sorry. I can't take you to Sol System."
+
+Margot Dennison smiled. It wasn't the kind of smile designed to make a
+man roll over on his back and wave all fours in the breeze. Margot
+Dennison didn't need that kind of smile.
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I read your mind, you see. Very well,
+Captain. If you're a fugitive from Earth--I assume Ramsey isn't your
+real name, by the way--you may take me through hyper to Centauri. That
+will be quite satisfactory. I will make my way from Centauri. Well?"
+
+"Give me the gun," Ramsey said.
+
+"My goodness, of course. I'm not trying to hold you up. Here." She got
+up from the bed for the first time and walked toward them. She had firm,
+long legs, and used them well. She was utterly lovely and although part
+of it was probably her professional know-how, she made you forget that.
+She was the most attractive girl, Earth or outworld, Ramsey had seen in
+years.
+
+Ramsey took the gun. Their hands met. Ramsey leaned forward quickly and
+kissed her on the lips. He was still holding the Vegan girl's slender
+arm, though. She tried to run away but couldn't. Margot Dennison
+returned the kiss for an instant, to show Ramsey that when she really
+wanted to return it, if she ever really would, she would pack the same
+kind of libidinal vitality in her responses as she did in her
+appearance; then she stood coldly, no longer responsive, until Ramsey
+stepped back.
+
+"Maybe I was asking for it," she said. "I was prepared for that--and
+more. But it isn't necessary now, is it? My gosh, Ramsey! Will you
+please close that mind of yours? You make a girl blush."
+
+"Then put on your cloak," Ramsey said, and, really blushing this time,
+she did so.
+
+She said: "I'm prepared to pay you one thousand credits; what do you
+say?"
+
+"I say it must be a pretty important appointment you have on Centauri."
+
+"Earth, Captain Ramsey. I'm settling for Centauri. Well?"
+
+"I'll take you," Ramsey said, "if this girl comes too."
+
+Margot Dennison looked at the frightened Vegan girl and smiled. "So it's
+like that," she said.
+
+"It isn't like anything."
+
+Ramsey packed a few things in an expanduffle and the three of them
+hurried through the doorway and down stairs. The cold dark night
+awaiting them with a fierce howling wind and the first flurries of snow
+from the north.
+
+"Where to?" Ramsey hollered above the wind.
+
+"My place," Margot Dennison told him, and they ran.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Margot Dennison had a large apartment in Irwadi City's New Quarter. This
+surprised Ramsey, for not many outworlders lived there. That night,
+though, he was too tired to think about it. He vaguely remembered a
+couch for himself, a separate room for the Vegan girl, another for
+Margot Dennison. He slept like a log without dreaming.
+
+He awoke with anxious hands fluttering at his shoulder. Opening one
+sleepy eye, he saw the Vegan girl. He saw daylight through a window but
+said, "Gmph! Middle of the night."
+
+The Vegan girl said: "She's gone."
+
+Ramsey came awake all at once, springing to his feet fully dressed and
+flinging aside his cloak, which he'd used as a blanket. "Margot!" he
+called.
+
+"She's gone," the Vegan girl repeated. "When I awoke she wasn't here.
+The door--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey ran to the door. It was a heavy plastic irising door. It was
+locked and naturally would not respond to the whorl patterns of Ramsey's
+thumb.
+
+"So now we're prisoners," Ramsey said. "I don't get it."
+
+"At least there's food in the kitchen."
+
+"All right. Let's eat."
+
+There were two windows in the room, but when Ramsey looked out he saw
+they were at least four stories up. They'd just have to wait for Margot
+Dennison.
+
+It took the Vegan girl some time to prepare the unfamiliar Earth-style
+food with which Margot Dennison's kitchen was stocked. Ramsey used the
+time to prowl around the apartment. It was furnished in Sirian-archaic,
+a mode of furniture too feminine to suit Ramsey's tastes. But then, the
+uni-sexual Sirians, of course, often catered to their own feminine
+taste.
+
+Ramsey found nothing in Margot Dennison's apartment which indicated she
+had done any acting on Irwadi, and that surprised him, for he'd assumed
+she had plied her trade here as elsewhere. He felt a little guilty about
+his snooping, then changed his mind when he remembered that Margot had
+locked them in.
+
+In one of the slide compartments of what passed for a bureau in
+Sirian-archaic, he found a letter. Since it was the only piece of
+correspondence in the apartment, it might be important to Margot
+Dennison, thought Ramsey. And if it were important to her....
+
+Ramsey opened the letter and read it. Dated five Earth months before, it
+ran:
+
+    _My darling Margot: By the time you read this I shall be dead.
+    Ironical, isn't it? Coming so close--with death in the form of
+    an incurable cancer intervening._
+
+    _As you know, Margot, I always wished for a son but never had
+    one. You'll have to play that role, I'm afraid, as you always
+    have. Here is the information I told you I would write down.
+    Naturally, if you intend to do anything about it, you'll guard
+    it with your life._
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _Apparently the hyper-space pattern from Irwadi to Earth is the
+    one I was looking for. The proto-men, if I may be bold enough to
+    call them that, first left hyper-space at that point, perhaps a
+    million, perhaps five million, Earth years ago. I don't have to
+    tell you what this means, my child. I've already indicated it to
+    you previously. It suffices to remind you that, in what science
+    has regarded as the most amazing coincidence in the history of
+    the galaxy, humanoid types sprang up on some three thousand
+    stellar worlds simultaneously between one and five million years
+    ago. I say simultaneously although there is the possibility of a
+    four million year lag: indications are, however, that one date
+    would do quite well for all the worlds._
+
+    _Proto-man was tremendously ahead of us in certain sciences,
+    naturally. For example, each humanoid type admirably fits the
+    evolutionary pattern on its particular planet. The important
+    point, Margot, is the simultaneity of the events: it means that
+    proto-man left hyper-space, his birth-place, and peopled the
+    man-habitable worlds of the galaxy at a single absolute instance
+    in time. This would clearly be impossible if the thousands of
+    journeys involved any duration. Therefore, it can only be
+    concluded that they were journeys which somehow negated the
+    temporal dimension. In other words, instant travel across the
+    length and breadth of the galaxy!_
+
+    _Whoever re-discovers proto-man's secret, needless to say, will
+    be the most influential, the most powerful, man in the galaxy.
+    Margot, I thought that man would be me. It won't be now._
+
+    _But it can be you, Margot. It is my dying wish that you
+    continue my work. Let nothing stop you. Nothing. Remember this,
+    though: I cannot tell you what to expect when you reach the
+    original home of proto-man. In all probability the whole race
+    has perished, or we'd have heard of them since. But I can't be
+    sure of that. I can't be sure of anything. Perhaps proto-man,
+    like some deistic god, became disinterested in the Milky Way
+    Galaxy for reasons we'll never understand. Perhaps he still
+    exists, in hyper-space._
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _Finally, Margot, remember this. If you presented this letter to
+    the evolutionary scientists on any of the worlds, they'd laugh
+    at you. It is as if unbelief of the proto-man legend were
+    ingrained in all the planetary people, perhaps somehow
+    fantastically carried from generation to generation in their
+    genes because proto-man a million years ago decided that each
+    stellar world must work out its own destiny independently of the
+    others and independent of their common heritage. But in my own
+    case, there are apparently two unique factors at work. In the
+    first place, as you know, I deciphered--after discovering it
+    quite by accident--what was probably a proto-man's dying message
+    to his children, left a million years ago in the ruins on
+    Arcturus II. In the second place, isn't it quite possible that
+    my genes have changed, that I have mutated and therefore do not
+    have as an essential part of my make-up the unbelief of the
+    proto-man legend?_
+
+    _Good luck to you, Margot. I hope you're willing to give up your
+    career to carry out your dying father's wish. If you do, and if
+    you succeed, more power will be yours than a human being has
+    ever before had in the galaxy. I won't presume to tell you how
+    to use it._
+
+    _Oh, yes. One more thing. Since Earth and Alpha Centauri are on
+    a direct line from Irwadi, Centauri will do quite well as your
+    outbound destination if for some reason you can't make Earth.
+    Again, good luck, my child. With all my love, Dad._
+
+Ramsey frowned at the letter. He did not know what to make of it. As far
+as he knew, there was no such thing as a proto-man myth in wide currency
+around the galaxy. He had never heard of proto-man. Unless, he thought
+suddenly, the dying man could have simply meant all the myths of human
+creation, hypothecating a first man who, somehow, had developed
+independently of the beasts of the field although he seemed to fit their
+evolutionary pattern....
+
+But what the devil would hyper-space have to do with such a myth?
+Proto-man, whatever proto-man was, couldn't have lived in hyper-space.
+Not in that bleak, ugly, faceless infinity....
+
+Unless, Ramsey thought, more perplexed than ever, it was the very bleak,
+ugly, faceless infinity which made proto-man leave.
+
+"Breakfast!" the Vegan girl called. Ramsey joined her in the kitchen,
+and they ate without talking. When they were drinking their coffee, an
+Earth-style beverage which the Vegan girl admitted liking, the apartment
+door irised and Margot Dennison came in.
+
+Ramsey, who had replaced the letter where he'd found it, said: "Just
+what the devil did you think you were doing, locking us in?"
+
+"For your own protection, silly," Margot told him smoothly. "I always
+lock my door when I go out, so I locked it today. Naturally, we won't
+have a chance to apply for a new lock. Besides, why arouse suspicion?"
+
+"Where'd you go?"
+
+"I don't see where that's any of your business."
+
+"Believe it or not," Ramsey said caustically, "I've seen a thousand
+credits before. I've turned down a thousand credits before, in jobs I
+didn't like. As for being stranded here on Irwadi, it's all the same to
+me whether I'm on Irwadi or elsewhere."
+
+"What does all that mean, Captain Ramsey?"
+
+"It means keep us informed. It means don't get uppity."
+
+Margot laughed and dropped a vidcast tape on the table in front of
+Ramsey. He read it and did not look up. There was a description of
+himself, a description of the Vegan girl, and a wanted bulletin issued
+on them. For assaulting the Chief of Irwadi Security, the bulletin said.
+For assaulting a drunken fool, Ramsey thought.
+
+"Well?" Margot asked. This morning she wore a man-tailored jumper which,
+Ramsey observed, clashed with the Sirian-archaic furniture. She looked
+cool and completely poised and no less beautiful, if less provocatively
+dressed, than last night.
+
+Ramsey returned question for question. "What about the ship?"
+
+"In a Spacer Graveyard, of course. There isn't a landing field on the
+planet we could go to."
+
+"You mean we'll take off from a Graveyard? From a junk-heap of battered
+old derelict ships?"
+
+"Of course. It has some advantages, believe it or not. We'll work on the
+ship nights. It needs plenty of work, let me tell you. But then the
+Graveyard is a kind of parts department, isn't it?"
+
+Ramsey couldn't argue with that.
+
+They spent the next three days sleeping and slowly going stir-crazy.
+They slipped out each night, though, and walked the two miles to the
+Spacer Graveyard down near the river. It was on the other side of the
+river, which meant they had to boat across. Risky, but there was no help
+for it. Each night they worked on the ship, which Ramsey found to be a
+fifty-year old Canopusian freighter in even worse condition than Margot
+had indicated. The night was usually divided into three sections. First,
+reviewing the work which had been done and planning the evening's
+activities. Then, looking for the parts they would need in the jungle of
+interstellar wrecks all about them. Finally, going to work with the
+parts they had found and with the tools which Ramsey had discovered on
+the old Canopusian freighter the first night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As they made their way back across the river the first night, Ramsey
+paddling slowly, quietly, Margot said:
+
+"Ramsey, I--I think we're being watched."
+
+"I haven't seen or heard a thing. You, Vardin?" Vardin was the Vegan
+girl's name.
+
+Vardin shook her head.
+
+Ramsey was anxious all at once, though. Things had gone too smoothly.
+They had not been interfered with at all. Personally, things hadn't gone
+smoothly with Ramsey, but that was another story. He found himself
+liking Margot Dennison too much. He found himself trying to hide it
+because he knew she could read minds. Just how do you hide your thoughts
+from a mind reader? Ramsey didn't know, but whenever his thoughts
+drifted in that direction he tried thinking of something else--anything
+else, except the proto-man letter.
+
+"Yes, that's just what I was thinking," Margot said in the boat. "I can
+read minds, so I'd know best if we were being watched. To get a clear
+reading I have to aim my thoughts specifically, but I can pick up
+free-floating thoughts as a kind of emotional tone rather than words.
+Does that make sense?"
+
+"If you say so. What else did you read in my mind?"
+
+Margot smiled at him mysteriously and said nothing.
+
+Ramsey felt thoughts of proto-man nibbling at his consciousness. He
+tried to fight them down purely rationally, and knew he wouldn't
+succeed. He grabbed Margot and pulled her close to him, seeking her
+lips with his, letting his thoughts wander into a fantasy of desire.
+
+Margot slapped his face and sat stiffly in her cloak while he paddled to
+the other side of the river. Vardin sat like a statue. Ramsey had come
+to a conclusion: he did not like letting Margot know how he felt about
+her, but it was mostly on a straight physical level and he preferred her
+discovering it to her learning that he'd read the proto-man letter from
+her father. In his thoughts, though, he never designated it as the
+proto-man letter from her father. He designated it as X.
+
+When they reached the bank, Margot said: "I'm sorry for slapping you."
+
+"I'm sorry for making a pass."
+
+"Ramsey, tell me, what is X?"
+
+Ramsey laughed harshly and said nothing. That gave Margot something to
+think about. Maybe it would keep her thoughts out of his mind, keep her
+from reading....
+
+X marks the spot, thought Ramsey. XXX marks the spot-spot-spot. X is a
+spot in a pot or a lot of rot....
+
+"Oh, stop it!" Margot cried irritably. "You're thinking nonsense."
+
+"Then get the heck out of my mind," Ramsey told her.
+
+Vardin walked on without speaking. If she had any inkling of what they
+were talking about, she never mentioned it.
+
+Margot said: "I still get the impression."
+
+"What impression?"
+
+"That we're being followed. That we're being watched. Every step of the
+way."
+
+Wind and cold and darkness. The hairs on the back of Ramsey's neck
+prickled. They walked on, bent against the wind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Security Officer Second Class Ramar Chind reported to his Chief in the
+Hall of Retribution the following morning. Chind, a career man with the
+Irwadi Security Forces, did not like his new boss. Garr Symm was no
+career man. He knew nothing of police procedure. It was even
+rumored--probably based upon solid fact--that Garr Symm liked his brandy
+excessively and often found himself under its influence. Worst of
+all--after all, a man could understand a desire for drink, even if,
+sometimes, it interfered with work--worst of all, Garr Symm was a
+scientist, a dome-top in the Irwadi vernacular. And hard-headed Ramar
+Chind lost no love on dome-tops.
+
+He saluted crisply and said: "You wanted to see me, sir?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Garr Symm leaned forward over his desk, making a tent of his scaly green
+fingers and peering over it. He said three words. He said: "The
+Earthgirl Dennison."
+
+"The Spacer Graveyard," Ramar Chind said promptly. That was an easy one.
+His agents had been following the Dennison girl, at Garr Symm's orders.
+Ramar Chind did not know why.
+
+"And?" Garr Symm asked.
+
+"The Earthman Ramsey, the Vegan Vardin, both are with her. We can close
+in and arrest the lot, sir, any time you wish."
+
+"Fool," Garr Symm said softly, without malice. "That is the last thing I
+want. Don't you understand that? No, I guess you don't."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Their ship?"
+
+"Every morning after they leave we go over it. Still two or three nights
+away from completion, sir. Also--" Ramar Chind smiled.
+
+"Yes, what is it?"
+
+"Two or three nights away from completion, except for one thing. They'll
+need a fuel supply. Two U-235 capsules rigged for slow implosion, sir.
+The hopper of their ship is empty."
+
+"Is there such a fuel supply in the Graveyard?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"But could there be?"
+
+"Usually, no. Naturally, the junkers drain out spaceship hoppers before
+scrapping them. U-235 in any form brings--"
+
+"I know the value of U-235. Proceed."
+
+"Well, there could be. If they were lucky enough to find such a fuel
+supply in one of the wrecks in the Graveyard, they wouldn't be
+suspicious. Naturally, we won't put one there."
+
+"But you're wrong, my dear Ramar Chind. You'll load the hopper of one of
+those wrecks with enough U-235 for their purposes, and you'll do it
+today."
+
+"But sir--"
+
+"We're going to follow them, Chind. You and I. We want them to escape.
+If they don't escape, how can we follow them?"
+
+Ramar Chind shrugged resignedly and lisped: "How much fuel will they
+need for their purposes, sir, whatever their purposes are?" Naturally,
+his lisping sounded perfectly normal to Garr Symm, who also spoke in
+the sibilantless Irwadi manner.
+
+"You'd really like to know, wouldn't you?" Garr Symm said.
+
+"Yes, sir. To put me in a position in which I could better do my--"
+
+"To satisfy your curiosity, you mean!"
+
+"But sir--"
+
+"I am a scientist, Chind."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Didn't it strike you as odd that a scientist should be elevated to the
+top post in your department?"
+
+"Of course, sir. I didn't question it, though."
+
+"As you know, Chind, when it was decided to planetarize Irwadi as a
+first step toward driving away the outworlders, the quarters of every
+outworlder on Irwadi were thoroughly searched."
+
+"I participated in the--uh, program, sir."
+
+"Good. Then I needn't tell you. Something was found in Margot Dennison's
+apartment. Something of immense importance. Something so important that,
+if used properly, it can assure Irwadi the dominant place in the galaxy
+for all time to come."
+
+"But I thought Irwadi craved isolation--"
+
+"Isolation, Chind? To be sure, if intercourse with the other galactic
+powers saw us at the bottom of the heap. But at the top--who would crave
+isolation at the top?"
+
+"I see, sir. And the something that was found needed a scientist?"
+
+"Very perceptive of you, Chind. Precisely. It was a letter. We copied
+it. Of course, Margot Dennison knows more than what is in the letter;
+the letter alludes to previous information. We need Dennison and Ramsey.
+We have to let them go ahead with their plans. Then we follow them,
+Chind. You understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You're a good policeman, Chind. The best we have, I understand. You'll
+be going with me--on the most important assignment you or any Irwadian
+ever had."
+
+"I am grateful, sir, that you consider me--"
+
+"Now, see about that U-235 slow-implosion capsule."
+
+"At once, sir."
+
+Saluting smartly, Ramar Chind left Garr Symm's office. Symm smiled and
+sat perfectly still for some minutes. For Irwadi, yes, he was thinking.
+Certainly for Irwadi. For Irwadi absolutely. To make Irwadi the most
+important planet in the galaxy. But important planets--in the way that
+Irwadi would be important--couldn't maintain the status quo. For
+example, Irwadi's form of government might have to be changed. At
+present, an autocratic bureaucracy with no one man at the top.
+Ultimately, after the rediscovery of proto-man's secret--rule by one
+man.
+
+Garr Symm, absolute dictator of the galaxy, if he played his hand right.
+
+Garr Symm sat there for a long time, dreaming of power as no man before
+him on any world had ever dreamed of power....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Vardin rushed into the airlock of the Canopusian freighter in a state of
+excitement. At last they had given her something to do, and she had been
+successful at the outset. Specifically, Ramsey and the beautiful woman
+had given her a scintillation-counter and told her to prowl among the
+wrecks with it while they worked on the control board of the freighter,
+which the beautiful woman had named _Enterprise_.
+
+"I found it!" Vardin cried. "I found it!"
+
+She led a sceptical Margot Dennison outside while Ramsey continued
+working on the _Enterprise_. The two girls walked swiftly through the
+darkness between the wrecks. By this time they knew every foot of the
+Graveyard.
+
+"There," Vardin said. "You see?"
+
+The scintillation counter was clicking and blinking. Margot smiled and
+went to work with a portable mechanical arm and a leaded bottle. In ten
+minutes, she had the slow-implosion capsule out of the hopper of a
+battered old Aldebaranese cargo ship.
+
+"I never saw one of those mechanical arms working before," Vardin said.
+
+Margot smiled. She was delighted with the timid Vegan girl, with the
+cold night, with the way the wind blew across the Graveyard, with
+everything. They had their fuel. Tomorrow night the _Enterprise_ would
+be ready for its dash into hyper-space. In thirty-six hours she might
+have her hands on the most valuable find in the history of mankind....
+
+When they returned to the _Enterprise_, she let Ramsey kiss her and
+tried to slip the telepathic tentacles of her mind behind his guard--
+
+Lewd libidinous fantasies, X stands for nothing for nothing for nothing,
+XXX--she got nowhere.
+
+What was X? What was Ramsey's secret? Margot did not know, and wondered
+if she would ever find out.
+
+She smiled, reading Vardin's mind. For Vardin was thinking: it must be
+so wonderful to have beauty such as she has, to melt the wills of strong
+handsome men such as Ramsey. It must be truly wonderful.
+
+For the first twenty-eight years of her life, Margot Dennison would have
+agreed, would have delighted in her own beauty. She still did, to a
+point. But beyond that point, she could dream only of proto-man and his
+secret.
+
+Beauty or power?
+
+She had beauty.
+
+She wanted power.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the early hours of the following morning, behind the cover of what
+appeared to be a dense early morning fog but what actually was an
+artificially produced fog, a team of Irwadi technicians swarmed all over
+a battered Procyonian cruiser of three thousand tons. By mid-morning,
+working swiftly and with all the tools and spare parts they would need,
+they made the ship, called _Dog Star_, space-worthy.
+
+Later that day, but still two hours before nightfall, Ramar Chind
+arrived with a small crew of three Security Police. He had selected his
+men carefully: they knew how to handle a spaceship, they knew how to
+fight, they were quite ruthless. He thought Garr Symm would be pleased.
+
+Symm did not arrive until just before nightfall. He was very agitated
+when he came. Ramar Chind, too, was eager. What would happen within the
+next several hours, he realized, might be beyond his ken, but he still
+recognized its importance. And, being an opportunist, he would pounce on
+whatever he found of value to himself....
+
+Several hours after the setting of the Irwadi primary had ushered in the
+cold night, Margot Dennison, Ramsey and Vardin arrived at the Graveyard
+and made their way at once to the _Enterprise_. They went inside swiftly
+and in a very few minutes prepared the thousand-tonner for blastoff.
+Ramsey's mouth was dry. He could barely keep the thoughts of proto-man
+from his mind. If Margot read them....
+
+"Centauri here we come," he said, just to talk.
+
+"Centauri," said Margot.
+
+But of course, she had another destination in mind.
+
+Several hundred yards across the Graveyard, watching, waiting, the
+occupants of _Dog Star_ were armed to the teeth.
+
+Ramsey sat at the controls. Vardin stood behind him nervously. The space
+trip from Vega to Irwadi was probably the only one she had ever taken.
+Margot sat, quite relaxed, in the co-pilot's chair.
+
+"I still can't believe we're not going to feel anything," Vardin said in
+her soft, shy voice.
+
+"Haven't you ever been through hyper-space before?" Margot asked the
+Vegan girl.
+
+"Just once."
+
+"In normal space," Ramsey explained, "we feel acceleration and
+deceleration because the increase or decrease in velocity is experienced
+at different micro-instants by all the cells of our body. In hyper-space
+the velocity is felt simultaneously in all parts of the ship, including
+all parts of us. We become weightless, of course, but the change is
+instant and we feel no pressure, no pain."
+
+Ramsey was waiting until 0134:57 on the ship chronometer. At that
+precise instant in time, and at that instant only, blastoff would place
+them on the proper hyper-space orbit. And, before they could feel the
+mounting pressure of blastoff, the timelessness of hyper-space would
+intervene.
+
+"0130:15," Margot read the chronometer for Ramsey. "It won't be long
+now. 30:20--"
+
+"All right," Ramsey said suddenly. "All right. I can read the
+chronometer."
+
+"Why, Ramsey! I do believe you're nervous."
+
+"Anxious, Margot. A hyper-pilot is always anxious just before crossover.
+You've got to be, because the slightest miscalculation can send you
+fifty thousand light years off course."
+
+"So? All you'd have to do is re-enter hyper-space and go back."
+
+Ramsey shook his head. "Hyper-space can only be entered from certain
+points in space. We've never been able to figure out why."
+
+"What certain points?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey looked at her steadily. "Points which vary with the orbits of the
+three thousand humanoid worlds, Margot," he said slowly. He watched her
+for a reaction, knowing that strange fact about hyper-space--perfectly
+true and never understood--dovetailed with her father's letter about
+proto-man, an unknown pre-human ancestor of all the humanoid races in
+the galaxy, who had discovered hyper-space, bred variations to colonize
+all the inhabitable worlds, found or created the three thousand
+crossover points in space, and used them.
+
+Margot showed no response, but then, Ramsey told himself, she was a
+tri-di actress. She could feign an emotion--or hide one. She merely
+asked: "Is it true that there's no such thing as time in hyper-space?"
+
+"That's right. That's why you can travel scores or hundreds or thousands
+of light years through hyper-space in hours. Hyper-space is a continuum
+of only three dimensions. There is no fourth dimension, no dimension of
+duration."
+
+"Then why aren't trips through hyper-space instantaneous? They take
+several hours, don't they?"
+
+"Sure, but the way scientists have it figured, that's subjective time.
+No objective time passes at all. It can't. There isn't any--in
+hyper-space."
+
+"Then you mean--"
+
+Ramsey shook his head. "0134:02," he said. "It's almost time."
+
+The seconds ticked away. Even Margot did not seem relaxed now. She
+stared nervously at the chronometer, or watched Ramsey's lips as he
+silently read away the seconds. A place where time did not exist, an
+under-stratum of extension sans duration. An idea suddenly entered her
+mind, and she was afraid.
+
+If proto-man had colonized the galactic worlds between one and four or
+five million years ago, but if time did not exist for proto-man, then
+wasn't the super-race which had engendered all mankind still waiting in
+its timeless home, waiting perhaps grimly amused to see which of their
+progeny first discovered their secret? Or must proto-man, like humans
+everywhere, fall victim to subjective time if objective time did not
+matter for him?
+
+Ramsey was saying softly: "Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five,
+fifty-six ... blastoff!"
+
+His hand slammed down on the activating key.
+
+An instant later, having felt no sensation of acceleration, they were
+floating weightlessly in the cabin of the little _Enterprise_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The qualities of radar," Garr Symm said, "exist in their totality in a
+universe of extension. Time, actually is a drawback to radar,
+necessitating a duration-lag between sending and receiving. Therefore,
+Ramar Chind, radar behaves perfectly in hyper-space, as you see."
+
+"Yes," Ramar Chind said, floating near the radar screen aboard the _Dog
+Star_. At its precise center was a bright little pip of light.
+
+_The Enterprise_....
+
+"But don't we do anything except follow them?" Ramar Chind said after a
+long silence.
+
+Garr Symm smiled. "Does it really matter? You see, Chind, time actually
+stands still for us here. Duration is purely subjective, so what's your
+hurry?"
+
+Ramar Chind licked his lips nervously and stared fascinated at the
+little pip of bright light.
+
+Which suddenly dipped and swung erratically.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What is it?" Margot asked. "What's the matter?"
+
+"Take it easy," Ramsey told her.
+
+"But the ship's swooping. I can feel it. I thought you weren't supposed
+to feel movement in hyper-space!"
+
+"Relax, will you? There are eddies in hyper-space, that's all. If you
+want an analogy in terms of our own universe, think of shoals in an
+ocean--unmarked by buoys or lights."
+
+"You mean they have to be avoided?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But this particular shoal--it's midway between Irwadi and Earth?"
+
+"There isn't any 'midway,' Margot. That's the paradox of hyper-space."
+
+"I--I don't understand."
+
+"Look. In the normal universe, extension is measured by time. That is,
+it takes a certain amount of time to get from point A to point B.
+Conversely, time is measured by extension in space. On Earth, a day of
+time passes when Earth moves through space on an arc one
+three-hundred-sixty-fifth of its orbit around the sun in length. Since
+there isn't any time to measure extension with in hyper-space, since
+time doesn't exist here, you can't speak of mid-points."
+
+"But this--shoal. It's always encountered in hyper-space between Earth
+and Irwadi?"
+
+Ramsey nodded. "Yes, that is right."
+
+Margot smiled.
+
+The smile suddenly froze on her face.
+
+The _Enterprise_ lurched as if an unseen giant hand had slapped it.
+
+At that moment Ramsey leaned forward over the controls, battling to
+bring the _Enterprise_ back on course.
+
+And let down his mental guard.
+
+_... precise place in hyper-space her father must have meant ... home of
+proto-man ... thinks I'm going to stop there, she's crazy ... heck, I'm
+no mystic, but there are things not meant to be meddled with ..._
+
+The ship swooped again. Ramsey went forward against the control panel
+head-first and fell dazed from the pilot chair. His head whirled, his
+arms and legs were suddenly weak and rubbery. He tried to stand up and
+make his way back to the controls again, but collapsed and went down to
+his knees. He crouched there, trying to shake the fog from his brain.
+
+With a cry of triumph, Margot Dennison leaped at him and bore him down
+to the floor with her weight. He was still too dazed from the blow on
+his head to offer any resistance when her strong hands tugged at his
+belt and withdrew the m.g. gun. She got up with it, backing away from
+him quickly toward the rear bulkhead as the ship seemed to go into a
+smooth glide which could be felt within it. Vardin stood alongside
+Ramsey, a hand to her mouth in horror. Ramsey got up slowly.
+
+"Stay where you are!" Margot cried, pointing the m.g. gun at him. "I'll
+kill you if I have to. I'll kill you, Ramsey, I mean it."
+
+Ramsey did not move.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"So you knew about my father," Margot challenged him.
+
+"Yeah. So what?"
+
+"And this shoal in hyper-space is a world, isn't it?"
+
+Ramsey nodded. "I think so."
+
+"O.K. Sit down at the controls, Ramsey. That's right. Don't try
+anything."
+
+Ramsey was seated in the pilot chair again. His head was still whirling
+but his strength had returned. He wondered if he could chance rushing
+her but told himself she meant what she said. She would kill him in cold
+blood if she had to.
+
+"Bring the _Enterprise_ down on that world, Ramsey."
+
+He sat there and stubbornly shook his head. "Margot, you'll be meddling
+with a power beyond human understanding."
+
+"Rubbish! You read my father's letter, didn't you? That fear's been
+implanted in your genes. It's part of the heredity of our people. It's
+rubbish. Bring the ship down."
+
+Still Ramsey did not move. Vardin looked from him to Margot Dennison and
+back again with horror in her eyes.
+
+"I'll count three," Margot said. "Then I'll shoot the Vegan girl. Do you
+understand?"
+
+Ramsey's face went white.
+
+"One," Margot said.
+
+Vardin stared at him beseechingly.
+
+Ramsey said: "All right, Margot. All right."
+
+Five minutes later, subjective time, the _Enterprise_ landed with a
+lurch.
+
+That they had reached a world in hyper-space there could be no doubt.
+But outside the portholes of the little freighter was only the murky
+grayness of the timeless hyper-space continuum.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"They've gone down, sir!" Ramar Chind cried.
+
+Garr Symm nodded. For the first time he was really nervous. He wondered
+about the Dennison letter. Could his fear be attributed to ancestral
+memory, as Dennison had indicated? Was it really baseless--this
+crawling, cold-fingered hand of fear on his spine?
+
+There was no physical barrier. The _Enterprise_ had established that
+fact. Then was there a barrier which Garr Symm, along with all
+humanoids, had somehow inherited?
+
+A barrier of stark terror, subjective and unfounded on fact?
+
+And beyond it--what?
+
+Power to chain the universe....
+
+Think, Garr Symm told himself. You've got to be rational. You're a
+scientist. You've been trained as a scientist. This is their barrier,
+erected against you, against all humanoids, a million years ago. It
+isn't real. It's all in your mind.
+
+"Do you want me to follow them down?" Ramar Chind asked.
+
+Garr Symm envied the policeman. Naturally, Ramar Chind did not share his
+terror. You didn't know the terror until you learned about proto-man;
+then the response seemed to be triggered in your brain, as if it had
+been passed to you through the genes of your ancestors, waiting a
+million years for release....
+
+Fear, a guardian.
+
+Of what? Garr Symm asked himself. Think of that, fool. Think of what it
+guards.
+
+Power--
+
+Teleportation or its equivalent.
+
+Gone the subjective passage of hours in hyper-space.
+
+Earned--if you were strong enough or brave enough to earn it--the
+ability to travel instantly from one humanoid world to another.
+Instantly. Perhaps from any one point on any humanoid world to any one
+point, precise, specific, exact, on another world.
+
+To plunder.
+
+Or assassinate.
+
+Or control the lives of men, everywhere.
+
+_Sans_ ship.
+
+_Sans_ fear.
+
+_Sans_ the possibility of being caught or stopped.
+
+Sweating, Garr Symm said: "Bring the _Dog Star_ down after them, Ramar
+Chind."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey smiled without humor. "What now, little lady?" he said mockingly.
+
+"Shut up. Oh, shut up!"
+
+"What are you going to do now?"
+
+"I told you to shut up. I have to think."
+
+"I didn't know a gorgeous tri-di actress ever had to think."
+
+"Let me see those figures again," Margot said.
+
+Ramsey handed her the tapes from the _Enterprise's_ environment-checker.
+
+Temperature: minus two hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit.
+
+Atmosphere: none.
+
+Gravity: eight-tenths Earth-norm.
+
+"And we don't have a spacesuit aboard," Ramsey said.
+
+"But it can't be. It can't. This is the home of proto-man. I know it is.
+But if I went out there I'd perish from cold in seconds and lack of air
+in minutes."
+
+"That's right," Ramsey said almost cheerfully. "So do I take the ship
+back up?"
+
+"I hate you, Jason Ramsey. Oh, I hate you!" Margot cried. Then suddenly:
+"Wait! Wait a minute! What was that you were thinking? Tell me! You must
+tell me--"
+
+Ramsey shook his head and tried to force the thoughts from his mind with
+doggerel. Ben Adam, he thought. Abou Ben Adam, Humpty Dumpty, hurry,
+hurry, hurry, the only two headed get yours here the sum of the square
+of the sides is equal to the square of the hyper-space, no, mustn't
+think that mimsy were the borogroves and the momraths now what the heck
+did the momraths do anyhow absolute zero is the temperature at which
+all molecular activity....
+
+"What were you thinking, Ramsey?"
+
+His mind was a labyrinth. There were thousands of discrete thoughts, of
+course. Millions of them, collected over a lifetime. But all at once he
+did not know his way through that labyrinth and his thoughts kept
+whirling back to the one Margot Dennison wanted as if, somehow, she
+could pluck it from his mind.
+
+She stood before him, her brow furrowed, sweat beading her pretty face.
+
+And she was winning, forcing the thought to take shape in Ramsey's
+mind--
+
+_But if I went out there I'd perish from cold in seconds and lack of air
+in minutes._
+
+_Cold_, came the known and unbidden thoughts to Ramsey's struggling
+mind. _And lack of air. Attributes of extension, of space_, but measured
+by duration, by time. _And since time does not exist in hyper-space, the
+vacuum out there and the terrible, killing cold, could have no effect on
+you. You could go out there perfectly protected from the lethal
+environment by the absence of the time dimension._
+
+Margot smiled at him. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you, Ramsey."
+
+He was about to speak, but she added: "And don't give me that stuff
+about a power we shouldn't tamper with. I'm going out there. Now."
+
+Ramsey nodded slowly. "I won't stop you."
+
+"But just so you don't get any ideas of stranding me here--Vardin.
+Vardin's going with me."
+
+The Vegan girl looked at Ramsey mutely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey said: "What makes you think I'll let you take her?"
+
+Margot smiled again. "The m.g. gun makes me think so."
+
+"The heck of it is, you're not really bad, Margot. This thing's got you,
+is all. You're not essentially evil."
+
+"Thank you for the thrilling compliment. I'm delighted," Margot said
+sarcastically.
+
+"Vardin stays with me."
+
+Margot reminded him of the lethal m.g. gun by showing it to him,
+muzzle-first.
+
+He laughed in her face. "Go ahead and shoot."
+
+She stared at him.
+
+"There isn't a lethal weapon'd do you any good here in a timeless
+continuum. Take an m.g. gun. It induces an artificial breakdown of
+radioactive fuel in its chamber, firing an instantly lethal dose of
+radiation. But in order for radioactive breakdown to occur, time must
+pass. Even if it's only milliseconds, as in the case of an m.g. gun.
+There aren't any milliseconds on this world, Margot. There isn't any
+time. So go ahead and pull the trigger."
+
+Margot frowned and pointed the gun to one side and fired.
+
+Nothing happened. Margot almost looked as if her hard shell had been
+sundered by the impotence of the m.g. gun. She pouted. Her eyes gleamed
+moistly.
+
+Then Ramsey said: "O.K. Let's go."
+
+"What--what do you mean?"
+
+"Out there. All of us."
+
+"But I thought you said--"
+
+"Sure, I'm scared stiff. A normal man would be. It's in our genes,
+according to your father. But I'm also a man. What the devil d'you think
+it was first got man out of his cave and started along the road to
+civilization and the stars? It was curiosity. Fear restraining him, and
+curiosity egging him on. Which do you think won in the end?"
+
+"Oh, Ramsey, I could kiss you!"
+
+"Go right ahead," Ramsey said, and she did.
+
+They opened the airlock. They went outside smiling.
+
+But Vardin, who went with them, wasn't smiling. There was sadness
+instead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In cumbersome spacesuits, the five Irwadians made their way from the
+_Dog Star_ to the _Enterprise_. Ramar Chind and his three policemen
+carried m.g. guns; Garr Symm was unarmed. Chind used a whorl-neutralizer
+to force the pattern of the lock on the outer door of the _Enterprise's_
+airlock. Then the five of them plunged inside the ship.
+
+The inner door was not closed.
+
+The _Enterprise_ was empty.
+
+Garr Symm looked doubtfully at the gray murkiness behind them. Although
+the _Dog Star_ stood out there less than a quarter of a mile away, they
+couldn't see it through the murk.
+
+"Where did they go?" Ramar Chind asked.
+
+Symm waved vaguely behind them.
+
+Chind and his men turned around.
+
+Gritting his teeth against the fear which welled up like nausea from the
+pit of his stomach, Garr Symm went with them.
+
+At that moment they all heard the music.
+
+"You hear it?" Ramsey asked softly. His voice did not carry on the
+airless world, of course. But he spoke, and the words were understood,
+not merely by Margot, who could read his mind, but by Vardin as well.
+
+"Music," said Margot. "Isn't it--beautiful?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey nodded slowly. He could barely see Margot, although he held her
+hand. He could barely see Vardin although they stood hand in hand too.
+The music was un-Earthly, incapable of repetition, indescribably the
+loveliest sound he had ever heard. He wanted to sink down into the
+obscuring gray murk and weep and listen to the haunting, sad, lovely
+strains of sound forever.
+
+"What can it possibly be?" Margot asked.
+
+Surprisingly, it was Vardin who answered. "Music of the Spheres," she
+said. "It's a legend on Vega III, my world."
+
+"And on Earth," Ramsey said.
+
+Vardin told them: "On all worlds. And, like all such legends, it has a
+basis in reality. This is the basis."
+
+That didn't sound like timid little Vardin at all. Ramsey listened in
+amazement. He thought he heard Vardin laugh.
+
+Music. But didn't the notes need the medium of time in which to be
+heard? How could they hear music here at all? Or were they hearing it?
+Perhaps it merely impinged on their minds, their souls, just as they
+were able to hear one another's thoughts as words....
+
+They'd never understand fully, Ramsey knew suddenly. Perhaps they could
+grasp a little of the nature of this place, a shadow here, the
+half-suggestion of the substance of reality there, a stillborn thought
+here, a note of celestial music there, the timeless legacy of proto-man,
+whatever proto-man was....
+
+"The fog is lifting!" Vardin cried.
+
+The fog was not lifting.
+
+Then it was.
+
+Ramsey would never forget that. Vardin had spoken while the dense gray
+murk enveloped them completely.
+
+Then it began to grow tenuous.
+
+As if Vardin's words had made it so. Little Vardin, shy, frightened
+Vardin, suddenly, inexplicably, the strongest, surest one among them....
+
+The sky, white and dazzling, glistened. The gray murk glistened too, a
+hundred yards off in all directions, like a wall of polished glass
+surrounding them.
+
+In the very middle of the bell-jar of visibility granted them all at
+once, stood a black rectangular object.
+
+"The teleporter!" Margot cried. "The matter-transmitter! I know it is. I
+_know_ it is!"
+
+Ramsey stood waiting breathlessly.
+
+No, he realized abruptly, not breathlessly. You couldn't say
+breathlessly.
+
+For Ramsey had not breathed, not once, since they left the _Enterprise_.
+
+You didn't breathe on a timeless world. You merely--somehow--existed.
+
+"It's opening!" Margot cried.
+
+The black rectangle, ominously coffin-shaped, was indeed opening.
+
+"The matter transmitter," Margot said a second time. "The secret of
+proto-man, of our ancestors who colonized all the worlds of space with
+it, instantly, at the same cosmic moment. Think of what it means,
+Ramsey, can you? Instantaneous travel, anywhere, without the need for
+energy since energy cannot be used here, without the passage of time
+since time does not exist here." She stood transfixed, looking at the
+black box. The lid had lifted at right angles to the rest of the box.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Margot said, in the whisper of an awed thought: "Who controls it
+controls the galaxy...."
+
+And she walked toward the box.
+
+At that moment Ramsey had a vision. He saw--or thought he saw--Margot
+Dennison in the costume she had worn when they first met. She stood,
+eyes wide, fearful, expectant, before a chess-board. The pieces seemed
+to be spaceships. It was a perfectly clear vision, but it was the only
+such vision Ramsey had ever been vouchsafed in his life. He was no
+mystic. He did not know what to make of it.
+
+Playing chess with Margot was--proto-man.
+
+Ramsey only saw his hand.
+
+A hand perhaps five million years old.
+
+He blinked. The vision persisted, superimposed over Margot's figure as
+she walked toward the box.
+
+A game, he thought. Because we don't understand it. Not that kind of
+power. Not the power a matter-transmitter would give. A cosmic game on
+a chess-board which wasn't quite a chess-board, with a creature who had
+never lived as we know life and so could never die....
+
+With the future of the galaxy hanging in the balance. Life or death for
+man hanging on a slim thread, because man wasn't ready for
+matter-transmission, couldn't hope to use it wisely, would use it
+perhaps for war, transmitting lethal weapons, thermonuclear,
+world-destroying weapons, instantly through space, for delivery
+anywhere, negating time....
+
+Death hovered.
+
+"Wait!" Ramsey called, and ran forward.
+
+Just then five new figures, space-suited, appeared under the gleaming
+dome.
+
+"Stop that woman!" a voice which Ramsey should not have been able to
+hear but which he somehow heard perfectly cried. "Stop her!"
+
+M.g. guns were raised, fired.
+
+Without effect.
+
+Three of the spacesuited figures ran after Margot as the voice repeated:
+"Stop her! The box is mine, mine!"
+
+It was Garr Symm's voice.
+
+Ramsey did not know if he should stop Margot himself, or fight Symm's
+men. Although they couldn't use their weapons on this world, they could
+still hurt--possibly even kill--Margot. Ramsey turned and waited for
+them.
+
+The strange, mystic vision was gone. He saw only three space-suited
+figures, saw Margot walking steadily toward the box. Either she was
+moving very slowly or the box retreated or it was further away than it
+had looked at first. For she hadn't reached it yet.
+
+Ramsey met the space-suited figures head-on.
+
+There were three of them, but they were awkward in their suits,
+cumbersome, incapable of quick responses.
+
+Ramsey hit the first one in the belly and darted back. His fist felt
+contact with the soft bulk of the insulined suit, then with the harder
+bulk of the man. He struck again, harder this time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The scaly green face of the Irwadi within the space-suit grimaced with
+pain. He doubled over and fell, his helmet shattering against the ground
+at Ramsey's feet.
+
+Then an incredible thing happened. The Irwadi opened his mouth to
+scream. His face froze. He lost his air. His face bloated.
+
+And he died.
+
+Ramsey couldn't believe his eyes.
+
+It was not possible to die from lack of air or from cold on a world
+without the time continuum. Ramsey, Vardin and Margot had proved that by
+venturing out without protection.
+
+But the Irwadi had died.
+
+Mental suggestion?
+
+Because he thought he would die?
+
+Because that was the only way you could perish on a world lacking in the
+time dimension--by your own thoughts?
+
+The second space-suited figure closed with Ramsey awkwardly. Ramsey hit
+him. The man of Irwadi fell, his helmet cracked, he tried to scream--and
+died.
+
+The third man fled.
+
+Ramsey ran after Margot. "Wait!" he cried. He couldn't talk to her about
+his fantastic vision. It was personal. She wouldn't understand. Mystic
+experience always is like that. And yet, with the conviction that only a
+mystic can have--although he certainly was no mystic--Ramsey knew the
+galaxy would be in grave trouble if mankind were given the secret of
+matter-transmission.
+
+A voice said: "You are right."
+
+It was Vardin's voice, and Vardin went on:
+
+"Ramsey, stop her. I can't stop her. It is only granted that I
+observe--and convince, if I can. I am not a Vegan girl. I am--"
+
+Ramsey said it. "Proto-man!"
+
+"There aren't many of us left. We discovered matter-transmission. We
+used it once, to people the worlds of the galaxy. It was our final
+creative effort. We merely observe now, unable to destroy our creation,
+trying to keep it out of mankind's hands. You see--"
+
+"Then back on Irwadi you knew all along we would come here!"
+
+"I was vouchsafed the vision, yes. Even as you--stop her, Ramsey. You
+must stop her!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey sprinted forward. Margot was nearing the black coffin now.
+
+Ramsey ran at her, and tackled her.
+
+They went down together, the girl fighting like a tigress, tooth and
+nail, wildly, sobbing, striking out at Ramsey with small impotent fists,
+until he subdued her. Panting, they glared at each other.
+
+And could not stop Garr Symm from running past them, eyes rapt behind
+the plastiglass of his helmet, and jumping into the black box.
+
+"To the end of the universe and back!" he cried. "Take me there and
+back. Instantly. Prove to me that you work! Now...." His voice trailed
+off. He had addressed the black rectangle almost as if it were something
+alive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey thought he heard a growl from the box. He stood before it,
+looking in. The hackles rose on his neck.
+
+"You see," Vardin said. "My ancestors and yours discovered the power of
+a god--and did not understand it. We were incorporeal. We created
+life--your ancestors. We patterned it to fit the evolution of the three
+thousand worlds. Human life. Millions of them, colonists for the worlds
+of normal space. We were tampering in our tragic pride, Ramsey, with
+forces we would never comprehend.
+
+"We colonized the worlds, deciding that physical existence, along with
+the mental prowess we had, was the ideal state. A few of us, like
+myself, or my ancestors if you wish, although the purely mental lives
+continuously--a few of us stayed behind and saw--the loss of a million
+years!"
+
+Ramsey's eyes still could not pierce the darkness inside the box.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked in an awed voice.
+
+"We sent out god-like men. We did not understand our discovery. The
+god-like men--but look at Garr Symm."
+
+The spacesuited figure got up slowly. It blinked at Ramsey. It growled.
+It had a recognizably green, scale-skinned face. But it was not the face
+of Garr Symm. It was the face of Garr Symm's caveman ancestors, a
+million years ago....
+
+"This is what happened to my people," Vardin said.
+
+She looked at Ramar Chind and Chind, responding, went to Garr Symm and
+led him quietly back toward the _Dog Star_. Chind never said a word.
+Garr Symm growled.
+
+"Take the Earthgirl and go," Vardin told Ramsey.
+
+"But I--you--aren't you coming?"
+
+"My work is finished," Vardin told him. "For now."
+
+"For now?"
+
+"I am a guardian. When I am needed again--" She shrugged her slim blue
+shoulders.
+
+"But Margot will never be content now," Ramsey protested. "Not when
+she's come so close."
+
+"She'll understand. Just as you understand. You'll be good for each
+other, Ramsey, you and the girl. She's had only her fierce pride and her
+dreams of power. She has room for love. She needs love."
+
+"But you--"
+
+"I? I am nothing. I am the end-product of an equation our ancestors
+found a million years ago. An equation to give them god-like power.
+Instead it made them savages and I have had to watch their slow climb
+back to the stars. An equation, Ramsey. Almost an equation of doom. Now
+go."
+
+Vardin flickered, became insubstantial. Her body seemed to melt into the
+gray mists.
+
+The gleaming walls were gone. The black box was gone. Vardin was gone.
+
+Ramsey led Margot back to the _Enterprise_.
+
+Moments later--although the elapsed time was subjective--they blasted
+off.
+
+Margot opened her eyes. She had been sleeping. She smiled at Ramsey
+tremulously. "I love you," she said. Her words seemed to surprise her.
+
+"I can't go back to Earth," Ramsey said.
+
+"Who wants to go back to Earth--if you can't?"
+
+They had, Ramsey knew, all of space and the life-span of mortal man to
+enjoy together.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+  |                                                              |
+  | Transcriber's note:                                          |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Inconsistent hyphenation (matter-transmitter/matter          |
+  | transmitter, scintillation-counter/scintillation counter,    |
+  | space-suit/spacesuit) has been retained.                     |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Deliberate mis-spellings (borogroves, momraths; plus all the |
+  | lithping) have been retained. Minor changes to punctuation   |
+  | were made without comment.                                   |
+  |                                                              |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EQUATION OF DOOM***
+
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+<body>
+<h1 class="center">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Equation of Doom, by Gerald Vance</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Equation of Doom</p>
+<p>Author: Gerald Vance</p>
+<p>Release Date: June 17, 2009  [eBook #29146]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EQUATION OF DOOM***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3 class="center">E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, David Wilson,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="tnote">
+<h3>Transcriber&#8217;s note:</h3>
+
+<p>This story was published in <cite>Amazing Stories</cite>,
+February 1957.
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p>
+
+<div class="illus"><img class="framed" src="images/cover.jpg" width="300" height="412"
+ alt="Amazing Stories" title="Magazine Cover" /></div>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="illus pgbrk"><a name="png.001" id="png.001"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">6</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span><img src="images/equation.png" width="700" height="500"
+ alt="equation of doom" title="Title illustration" /><br
+ /><small class="sans">His agony of soul at being unable to save
+Margot was far greater than physical torture.</small>
+</div>
+
+<div class="main">
+
+<p class="blurb"><small><a name="png.003" id="png.003"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">8</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span><i>They grounded Ramsey&#8217;s ship on a hostile planet hoping
+he would starve to death, so the first thing he did was
+give most of his money away and lose the rest gambling.
+Then he picked a fight with the Chief of Police and
+joined forces with a half-naked dream-chick who was
+seemingly bent on self-destruction. The stakes were
+big&mdash;a planet or two&mdash;but it all added up to <span class="nw">an&mdash;&mdash;</span></i></small></p>
+
+
+<table class="titleblock" summary="Story title">
+<tr><td class="lt"><h1 class="lt">Equation</h1></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rt"><h1 class="rt">of Doom</h1></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="lt"><big><strong>By GERALD VANCE</strong></big></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="drop">&ldquo;Y</span><span class="uc">our</span> name ith Jathon <!-- drop cap -->
+Ramthey?&rdquo; the Port Security
+Officer lisped politely.</p>
+
+<p>Jason Ramsey, who wore
+the uniform of Interstellar
+Transfer Service and was the
+only Earthman in the Service
+here on Irwadi, smiled and
+said: &ldquo;Take three guesses.
+You know darn well I&#8217;m
+Ramsey.&rdquo; He was a big man
+even by Earth standards,
+which meant he towered over
+the Irwadian&#8217;s green, scaly
+head. He was fair of skin and
+had hair the color of copper.
+It was rumored on Irwadi and
+elsewhere that he couldn&#8217;t return
+to Earth because of some
+crime he had committed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Alwayth the chip on the
+shoulder,&rdquo; the Port Security
+Officer said. &ldquo;Won&#8217;t you
+Earthmen ever learn?&rdquo; The
+splay-tongued reptile-humanoids
+of Irwadi always spoke
+Interstellar <i>Coine</i> with a
+pronounced lisp which Ramsey
+found annoying, especially
+since it went so well with the
+officious and underhanded
+behavior for which the Irwadians
+were famous the galaxy
+over.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Get to the point,&rdquo; Ramsey
+said harshly. &ldquo;I have a ship
+to take through hyper-space.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No. You have no ship.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No? Then what&#8217;s this?&rdquo;
+His irritation mounting, Ramsey
+pulled out the Interstellar
+Transfer Service authorization
+form and showed it to the
+Security Officer. &ldquo;A tip-sheet
+for the weightless races at
+Fomalhaut VI?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Security Officer said:
+&ldquo;Ha, ha, ha.&rdquo; He could not
+laugh; he merely uttered the
+phonetic equivalent of
+<a name="png.004" id="png.004"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">9</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>laughter. On harsh Irwadi, laughter
+would have been a cultural
+anomaly. &ldquo;You make joketh.
+Well, nevertheleth, you have
+no ship.&rdquo; He expanded his
+scaly green barrel chest and
+declaimed: &ldquo;At 0400 hours
+thith morning, the government
+of Irwadi hath planetarithed
+the Irwadi Tranthfer
+Thervith.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />&ldquo;Planetarized the Transfer
+Service!&rdquo; gasped Ramsey in
+surprise. He knew the Irwadians
+had been contemplating
+the move in theory for many
+years, but he also knew that
+transferring a starship from
+normal space through hyper-space
+back to normal space
+again was a tremendously
+difficult and technical task.
+He doubted if half a dozen
+Irwadians had mastered it,
+yet the Irwadi branch of Interstellar
+Transfer Service
+was made up of seventy-five
+hyper-space pilots of divers
+planetalities.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ecthactly,&rdquo; said the Security
+Officer, as amused as an
+Irwadian could be by the
+amazement in Ramsey&#8217;s frank
+green eyes. &ldquo;Tho if you will
+kindly thurrender your permit?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let&#8217;s see it in writing,
+huh?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Security Officer complied.
+Ramsey read the official
+document, scowled, and handed
+over his Irwadi pilot license.
+&ldquo;What about the <cite>Polaris</cite>?&rdquo;
+he wanted to know.
+The <cite>Polaris</cite> was a Centaurian
+ship he&#8217;d been scheduled to
+take through hyper-space on
+the run from Irwadi to
+Centauri III.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Temporarily grounded,
+captain. Or should I thay,
+ecth-captain?&rdquo;</p><!-- original has space following hyphen -->
+
+<p>&ldquo;Temporarily my foot,&rdquo;
+said Ramsey. &ldquo;It&#8217;ll be months
+before you Irwadians can get
+even a fraction of the ships
+into hyper. You must be out
+of your minds.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Our problem, captain. Not
+yourth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>That was true enough.
+Ramsey shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your problem,&rdquo; the Security
+Officer went on blandly,
+&ldquo;will be to find a meanth of
+thelf-thupport until you and
+all other ecthra-planetarieth
+can be removed from Irwadi.
+We owe you ecthra-planetarieth
+nothing. Ethpect no charity
+from uth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey shrugged. Like all
+extra-planetaries on a bleak,
+friendless world like Irwadi,
+he&#8217;d regularly gambled away
+and drank away his monthly
+paycheck in the interstellar
+settlement which the Irwadians
+had established in the
+Old Quarter of Irwadi City.
+But last month he&#8217;d managed
+<a name="png.005" id="png.005"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">10</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>to come out even at the gaming
+tables, so he had a few
+hundred credits to his name.
+That would be enough, he told
+himself, to tide him over until
+Interstellar Transfer Service
+came to the rescue of its
+stranded pilots.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey went up the gangway
+and got his gear from
+the <cite>Polaris</cite>. When he returned
+down the gangway, the late
+afternoon wind was blowing
+across the spacefield tarmac,
+a wet, bone-chilling wind
+which only the reptile-humanoid
+Irwadians didn&#8217;t seem to
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey fastened the toggles
+of his cold-weather cape,
+put his head down and hunched
+his shoulders, and walked
+into the teeth of the wind.
+He did not look back at the
+<cite>Polaris</cite>, marooned indefinitely
+on Irwadi despite anything
+the Centaurian owners or
+anyone else for that matter
+could do about it.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />The Irwadi Security Officer,
+whose name was Chind
+Ramar, walked up the gangway
+and ordered the ship&#8217;s
+Centaurian first officer to assemble
+his crew and passengers.
+Chind Ramar allowed
+himself the rare luxury of a
+fleeting smile. He could imagine
+this scene being duplicated
+on fifty ships here on
+his native planet today, fifty
+outworld ships which had no
+business at all on Irwadi. Of
+course, Irwadi was an important
+planet-of-call in the
+Galactic Federation because
+the vital metal titanium was
+found as abundantly in Irwadian
+soil as aluminum is
+found in the soil of an Earth-style
+planet. Titanium, in
+alloy with steel and manganese,
+was the only element
+which could withstand the
+tremendous heat generated in
+the drive-chambers of interstellar
+ships during transfer.
+In the future, Chind Ramar
+told himself with a kind of
+cold pride, only Irwadian
+pilots, piloting Irwadian ships
+through hyper-space, would
+bring titanium to the waiting
+galaxy. At Irwadi prices.</p>
+
+<p>With great relish, Chind
+Ramar announced the facts
+of planetarization and told
+the Centaurians and their
+passengers that they would be
+stranded for an indefinite
+period on Irwadi. Amazement,
+anger, bluster, debate,
+and finally resignation&mdash;the
+reactions were the expected
+ones, in the expected order.
+It was easy, Chind Ramar
+thought, with all but the interstellar
+soldiers of fortune
+like Jason Ramsey. Ramsey,
+of course, would need watching.
+As for these others&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p><a name="png.006" id="png.006"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">11</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span>One of the others, an
+Earthgirl whose beauty was
+entirely missed by Chind
+Ramar, left the <cite>Polaris</cite> in a
+hurry. She either had no luggage
+or left her luggage
+aboard. Jason Ramsey, she
+thought. She had read Chind
+Ramar&#8217;s mind; a feat growing
+less rare although by no
+means common yet among the
+offspring of those who had
+spent a great deal of time
+bombarded by cosmic radiation
+between the stars. She
+hurried through the chilling
+wind toward the Old Quarter
+of Irwadi City. Panic, she
+thought. You&#8217;ve got to avoid
+panic. If you panic, you&#8217;re
+finished&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />&ldquo;So that&#8217;s about the size
+of it,&rdquo; Ramsey finished.</p>
+
+<p>Stu Englander nodded. Like
+Ramsey he was a hyper-space
+pilot, but although he had an
+Earth-style name and had
+been born of Earth parents,
+he was not an Earthman. He
+had been born on Capella VII,
+and had spent most of his life
+on that tropical planet. The
+result was not an uncommon
+one for outworlders who
+spent any amount of time on
+Irwadi: Stu Englander had a
+nagging bronchial condition
+which had kept him off the
+pilot-bridge for some months
+now.</p>
+
+<p>Englander nodded again,
+dourly. He was a short, very
+slender man a few years older
+than Ramsey, who was thirty-one.
+He said: &ldquo;That ties it.
+And I mean ties it, brother.
+You&#8217;re looking at the brokest
+Capellan-earthman who ever
+got himself stuck on an outworld.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You mean it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dead broke, Jase.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What about Sally and the
+kids?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Englander had an Arcturan-earthian
+wife and twin
+boys four years old. &ldquo;I don&#8217;t
+know what about Sally and
+the kids,&rdquo; he told Ramsey
+glumly. &ldquo;I guess I&#8217;ll go over
+to the New Quarter and try
+to get some kind of a job.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They wouldn&#8217;t hire an outworlder
+to shine their shoes
+with his own spit, Stu. They
+have got the planetarization
+bug, and they&#8217;ve got it bad.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Sally Englander called
+from the kitchen of the small
+flat: &ldquo;Will Jase be staying for
+supper?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Englander stared at Ramsey,
+who shook his head. &ldquo;Not
+today, Sally,&rdquo; Englander said,
+looking at Ramsey gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; Ramsey lied,
+&ldquo;I&#8217;ve been lucky as all get out
+the last couple of months.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You old pro!&rdquo; grinned
+Englander.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So I&#8217;ve got a few hundred
+<a name="png.007" id="png.007"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">12</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>credits just burning a hole
+in my pocket,&rdquo; Ramsey went
+on. &ldquo;How&#8217;s about taking
+them?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I haven&#8217;t the slightest
+idea when I could pay back.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&#8217;t say anything
+about paying me back.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I couldn&#8217;t accept charity,
+Jase.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O.K. Pay me back when
+you get a chance. There are
+plenty of hyper-space jobs
+waiting for us all over the
+galaxy, you know that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yeah, all we have to do is
+get off Irwadi and go after
+them. But the Irwadians are
+keeping us right here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sure, but it won&#8217;t last.
+Not when the folks back in
+Capella and Deneb and Sol
+System hear about it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Six months,&rdquo; said Englander
+bleakly. &ldquo;It&#8217;ll take at least
+that long.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Six months I can wait.
+What d&#8217;you say?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Englander coughed <ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
+ original reads 'rackingly'">wrackingly</ins>,
+his eyes watering. He
+got off the bed and shook
+Ramsey&#8217;s hand solemnly.
+Ramsey gave him three hundred
+and seventy-five credits
+and said: &ldquo;Just see you make
+that go a long way supporting
+Sally and the kids. I don&#8217;t
+want to see you dropping any
+of it at the gaming tables.
+I&#8217;ll knock your block off if I
+see you there.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;ll knock my own block
+off if I see me there. Jase,
+I don&#8217;t know how to thank&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don&#8217;t is right. Forget it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you have enough&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Me? Plenty. Don&#8217;t worry
+about old Jase.&rdquo; Ramsey went
+to the door. &ldquo;Well, see you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Englander walked quickly
+to him and shook his hand
+again. On the way out, Ramsey
+played for a moment or
+two with the twins, who were
+rolling a couple of toy spaceships
+marked hyper-one and
+hyper-two across the floor and
+making anachronistic machine-gun
+noises with their
+lips. Sally Englander, a
+plump, young-home-maker
+type, beamed at Ramsey from
+the kitchen. Then he went out
+into the gathering dusk.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />As usual on Irwadi, and
+particularly with the coming
+of night, it was bitterly cold.
+Sucker, Ramsey told himself.
+But he grinned. He felt good
+about what he&#8217;d done. With
+Stu sick, and with Sally and
+the kids, he&#8217;d done the only
+thing he could do. He still had
+almost twenty-five credits
+left. Maybe he really would
+have a lucky night at the
+tables. Maybe &hellip; heck, he&#8217;d
+been down-and-out before. A
+fugitive from Earth didn&#8217;t
+have much choice sometimes&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p><a name="png.008" id="png.008"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">13</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span>&ldquo;Red <ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
+ original reads 'sitxeen'">sixteen</ins>,&rdquo; the croupier
+said indifferently. He was a
+short, heavy-set Sirian with
+a shock of scarlet hair, albino
+skin, and red eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey watched his money
+being raked across the table.
+It wasn&#8217;t his night, he told
+himself with a grim smile. He
+had only three credits left. If
+he risked them now, there
+wouldn&#8217;t even be the temporary
+physical relief and release
+of a bottle of Irwadian
+brandy before hitting the
+sack.</p>
+
+<p>Which was another thing,
+Ramsey thought. Hitting the
+sack. Ah yes, you filthy outworlder
+capitalist, hitting the
+sack. You owe that fish-eyed,
+scale-skinned Irwadian landlady
+the rent money, so you&#8217;d
+better wait until later, until
+much later, before sneaking
+back to your room.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />He watched the gambling
+for another hour or so without
+risking his few remaining
+credits. After a while a well-dressed
+Irwadian, drunk and
+obviously slumming here in
+the Old Quarter, made his
+way over to the table. His
+body scales were a glossy dark
+green and he wore glittering,
+be-jeweled straps across his
+chest and an equally glittering,
+be-jeweled weapons belt.
+Aside from these, in the approved
+Irwadian fashion, he
+was quite naked. An anthropologist
+friend had once told
+Ramsey that once the Irwadians
+had worn clothing, but
+since the coming in great
+number of the outworlders
+they had stripped down, as
+though to prove how tough
+they were in being able to
+withstand the freezing climate
+of their native world.
+Actually, the Irwadian body-scales
+were superb insulation,
+whether from heat or from
+cold.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;&hellip;&nbsp;Earthman watching
+me,&rdquo; the Irwadian in the be-jeweled
+straps said arrogantly,
+placing a fat roll of credits
+on the table.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m sorry,&rdquo; Ramsey said.
+&ldquo;Were you talking to me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I thertainly wath,&rdquo; lisped
+the Irwadian, his eyes blazing
+with drunken hatred. &ldquo;I thaid
+I won&#8217;t have any Earthman
+thnooping over my thoulder
+while I gamble, not unleth
+he&#8217;th gambling too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Better tell that to your
+Security Police,&rdquo; Ramsey said
+coldly but not angrily. &ldquo;I&#8217;m
+out of a job, so I don&#8217;t have
+money to throw around. Go
+ahead and tell me&mdash;&rdquo; with a
+little smile&mdash;&ldquo;you think it was
+my idea.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Irwadian looked up
+haughtily. Evidently he was
+looking for trouble, or could
+<a name="png.009" id="png.009"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">14</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>not hold his liquor, or both.
+The frenzy of planetarization,
+Ramsey knew from bitter
+experience on other worlds,
+made irrational behavior like
+this typical. He studied the
+drunken Irwadian carefully.
+In all the time he&#8217;d spent on
+Irwadi, he&#8217;d never been able
+to tell a native&#8217;s age by his
+green, scale-skinned, fish-eyed
+poker-face. But the glossy
+green scales covering face and
+body told Ramsey, along with
+the sturdy muscles revealed
+by the lack of clothing, that
+the Irwadian was in his
+prime, shorter than Ramsey
+by far, but wider across the
+shoulders and thicker through
+the barrel chest.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You outworlderth have
+been deprething the thandard
+of living on Irwadi ever
+thince you came here,&rdquo; the
+Irwadian said. &ldquo;All you ever
+brought wath poverty and
+your ditheath germth and
+more trouble than you could
+handle. I don&#8217;t want your
+thtink near me. I&#8217;m trying to
+enjoy mythelf. Get out of
+here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />It was abruptly silent in
+the little gambling hall. Since
+the establishment catered to
+outworlders and was full of
+them, the silence, Ramsey
+thought, should have been
+both ominous and in his
+favor. He looked around. Outworlders,
+yes. But not another
+Earthman present. He wondered
+if he was in for a fight.
+He shrugged, hardly caring.
+Maybe a fight was just what
+he needed, the way he felt.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Get out of here,&rdquo; the Irwadian
+repeated. &ldquo;You thtink.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Just then a Vegan girl,
+blue-skinned and fantastically
+wasp-waisted like all her
+kind, drifted over to Ramsey.
+He&#8217;d seen her around. He
+thought he recognized her.
+Maybe he&#8217;d even danced with
+her in the unit-a-dance halls
+reserved for humanoid outworlders.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Are you nuts?&rdquo; she said,
+hissing the words through
+her teeth and grabbing Ramsey&#8217;s
+elbow. &ldquo;Don&#8217;t you know
+who that guy is?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No. Who?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He&#8217;s Garr Symm, that&#8217;s
+who.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey smiled at her without
+mirth. &ldquo;Do I bow down
+in awe or run from here
+screaming? I never heard of
+Garr Symm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh you fool!&rdquo; she whispered
+furiously. &ldquo;Garr Symm
+is the brand new number one
+man of the Irwadi Security
+Police. Don&#8217;t you read the
+&#8217;casts?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Before Ramsey could answer
+or adjust to his surprise,
+the Irwadian repeated:</p>
+
+<p><a name="png.010" id="png.010"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">15</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span>&ldquo;I&#8217;m telling you for the
+third time. Get out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ostentatiously, Ramsey
+reached into his cloak-pocket
+for a single credit bill and
+tossed it on the table.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The denomination is not
+sufficient, sir,&rdquo; the albino
+Sirian croupier said indifferently.
+Ramsey had known it
+was not.</p>
+
+<p>Garr Symm&#8217;s face turned
+a darker green. The Vegan
+girl retreated from Ramsey&#8217;s
+side in fright. Symm raised
+his hand and an Irwadian
+waiter brought over a drink
+in a purple stem glass with
+a filigree pattern of titanium,
+bowing obsequiously. Symm
+lurched with the glass toward
+Ramsey. &ldquo;I&#8217;m telling you to
+go,&rdquo; he said in a loud voice.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey picked up his credit
+note but stood there. With
+a little sigh of drunken contentment,
+Garr Symm sloshed
+the contents of his stem glass
+in Ramsey&#8217;s face.</p>
+
+<p>The liquor stung Ramsey&#8217;s
+eyes. Many of the other outworlders,
+neither Irwadian
+nor Earthmen, laughed nervously.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey wiped his eyes but
+otherwise did not move. He
+was in a rough spot and he
+knew it. The fact that their
+new Security Chief went out
+drunk at night with a chip
+on his shoulder was the Irwadian
+government&#8217;s affair, not
+Ramsey&#8217;s. He&#8217;d been insulted
+before. An Earthman in the
+outworlds, particularly an
+Earthman fugitive who knew
+he dared not get into the
+kind of trouble that could
+bring the Earth consul to investigate,
+was used to insults.
+For Earth was the leading
+economic and military power
+of the galaxy, and the fact
+that Earth really tried to deal
+fairly with its galactic neighbors
+meant nothing. Earth,
+being top dog, was resented.</p>
+
+<p>The thing which got Ramsey,
+though, was this Garr
+Symm. He had never heard of
+Garr Symm, and he thought
+he knew most of the big shots
+in the Irwadian Security Police
+by name. But there must
+have been a reason for his
+appointment. A government
+throwing off outworld influence
+had a reason for everything.
+So, why Garr Symm?</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />&ldquo;You, Mith Vegan!&rdquo; Garr
+Symm called suddenly. &ldquo;You
+whithpered to the Earthman.
+What did you tell him?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not to look for trouble,&rdquo;
+the Vegan girl said in a
+frightened voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But what elth?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Honest, that&#8217;s all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come here, pleath.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Her blue skin all at once
+very pale, the Vegan girl
+<a name="png.011" id="png.011"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">16</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>walked back toward Garr
+Symm. He leered at her quite
+drunkenly and took hold of
+her slender arm. &ldquo;What did
+you tell him? For the latht
+time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The girl whimpered: &ldquo;You
+are hurting my arm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Thoughts raced through
+Ramsey&#8217;s mind. As an administrator,
+as an Irwadian public
+servant in a touchy job,
+Garr Symm, a drunkard, was
+obviously grossly incompetent.
+What other qualifications
+did he have which gave
+him the top Irwadian Security
+job? Ramsey didn&#8217;t
+know. He sighed. The Vegan
+girl&#8217;s mouth formed a rictus
+of pain. Ramsey had a hunch
+he was going to find out.</p>
+
+<p>He said curtly: &ldquo;Let go of
+her, Symm. She told me nothing
+that would interest
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Garr Symm ignored him.
+The blue-skinned girl cried.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey grimaced and hit
+Garr Symm in the belly as
+hard as he could.</p>
+
+<p>Symm thudded back against
+the table. It overturned with
+a crash and the Security
+Chief crashed down on top of
+it. There wasn&#8217;t a sound in
+the gambling hall except
+Ramsey&#8217;s sudden hard breathing,
+the Vegan girl&#8217;s sniffling,
+and Garr Symm&#8217;s noisy attempts
+to get air into his
+lungs. Then Garr Symm
+gagged and was sick. He
+writhed in pain, still unable
+to breathe. His hands fluttered
+near his weapons belt.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come on,&rdquo; Ramsey told
+the Vegan girl. &ldquo;We&#8217;d better
+get out of here.&rdquo; He took her
+arm. Dumbly she went with
+him. None of the outworlders
+there tried to stop them.
+Ramsey looked back at Garr
+Symm. The Irwadian was
+shaking his fist. He had finally
+managed to draw his m.g.
+gun, but the crowd of outworlders
+closed between them
+and there was no chance he
+could hit Ramsey or the girl.
+Retching, he had dirtied the
+glossy green scales of his
+chest.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;ll get you,&rdquo; he vowed.
+&ldquo;I&#8217;ll get you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey took the girl outside.
+It was very cold. &ldquo;I&#8217;m
+so afraid,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;What
+will I do? What can I do?&rdquo;
+She shook with fear.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You got a place to sleep?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Y-yes, but I&#8217;m the only
+Vegan girl in Irwadi City.
+He&#8217;ll find me. He&#8217;ll find me
+when he&#8217;s ready.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O.K. Then come home with
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For crying out loud, I
+don&#8217;t look that lecherous, do
+I? We can&#8217;t just stand here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="png.012" id="png.012"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">17</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span>&ldquo;I&mdash;I&#8217;m sorry. I&#8217;ll go with
+you of course.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey took her hand
+again and they ran. The cold
+black Irwadian night swallowed
+them.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So you live in the Old
+Quarter too,&rdquo; the Vegan girl
+said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Heck yeah. Did you expect
+a palace?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Ramsey had a room, rent
+one Irwadi month in arrears,
+in a cold-water tenement near
+the river which demarked the
+Old and the New Quarters.
+The façade of the old building
+was dark now. His landlady
+was probably asleep,
+although you never could tell
+with that old witch. Ramsey
+knew it wouldn&#8217;t be the first
+time she stayed up through
+half the night to await a
+delinquent tenant.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I never went to a man&#8217;s
+room before,&rdquo; the blue-skinned
+Vegan girl said. She was
+rather pretty in a slender,
+muscleless, big-eyed, female-helpless
+mode.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You&#8217;re a dance-hall girl,
+aren&#8217;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Still, I never spent the
+night in a man&#8217;s&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What&#8217;s the matter with
+you? You think we&#8217;re going
+to spend the night here?
+Somebody over at those gaming
+tables will be able to identify
+me. Garr Symm&#8217;ll be on
+his way before long.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then what are we going
+to do?&rdquo; The girl was shivering
+with cold.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hide,&rdquo; Jason Ramsey said.
+&ldquo;Somewhere. I just came back
+to get my things. There isn&#8217;t
+much, but there&#8217;s an old m.g.
+gun which we might need.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But they&#8217;ll find us, and&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You coming upstairs or
+will you wait out here and
+freeze to death in the cold?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m coming.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They went upstairs together,
+on tip-toe. Ramsey&#8217;s
+room was on the third floor,
+with a besooted view of the
+industrial complex on the
+river by day. The narrow hall
+was dark and silent. Behind
+one of the closed doors an
+outworlder cried out in his
+sleep. Ramsey had to cup a
+hand over the Vegan girl&#8217;s
+mouth so she wouldn&#8217;t scream
+in empathic fear. He opened
+the door of his room, surprised
+that it was not locked.
+He thought he had left it
+locked.</p>
+
+<p>At once he was wary. It
+was dark in the hall, just as
+dark in the room. He could
+see nothing. The door hinges
+squeaked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come in, Captain Ramsey,&rdquo;
+a voice said. &ldquo;I thought
+you would never get here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He stood on the threshold,
+<a name="png.013" id="png.013"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">18</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>uncertain. The voice had
+spoken not Interstellar <i>Coine</i>,
+but English. It had spoken
+English, without a foreign
+accent.</p>
+
+<p>And it was a girl&#8217;s voice.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Still, it could have been an
+elaborate trick. It was unlikely,
+but not impossible,
+that Garr Symm had learned
+Ramsey&#8217;s identity already and
+had sent an operative here to
+await him. Ramsey and the
+Vegan girl had come on foot.
+It was a long walk.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m armed,&rdquo; Ramsey lied.
+&ldquo;Come over here. Slowly.
+Don&#8217;t put any lights on.&rdquo; He
+could feel the Vegan girl
+trembling next to him. Not
+able to understand English,
+she didn&#8217;t know what was
+going on.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You&#8217;re armed,&rdquo; the unseen
+girl&#8217;s voice said in crisp,
+amused English, &ldquo;like I&#8217;m a
+six-legged Antarean spider-man.
+You have an m.g. gun,
+Ramsey. It&#8217;s in this room. I
+have it. That&#8217;s all you have.
+No, don&#8217;t try to lie to me.
+I&#8217;m a telepath. I can read
+you. Come in and put the light
+on and shut the door. You
+may bring the girl with you
+if you want. Brother, is she
+ever radiating fear! It&#8217;s practically
+drowning your own
+mind out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The unseen girl wasn&#8217;t kidding,
+Ramsey knew. She could
+read minds. She had proved
+it to him. Which left him this
+choice: he could grab the
+Vegan girl&#8217;s arm again and
+get the heck out of there, or
+do what the unseen Earth girl
+told him to do. He wanted
+that m.g. gun. He took the
+Vegan girl&#8217;s hand and advanced
+over the threshold and
+closed the door and switched
+on the light.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was sitting on the
+bed. She was an Earthgirl,
+all right. She had come in a
+toggle-cloak of green Irwadian
+fur, which was folded
+neatly at her side on the bed.
+Under it she wore a daring
+net halter of the type then
+fashionable on Earth but
+which had not yet taken over
+the outworlds. It left her
+shoulders bare and exposed a
+great deal of smooth, tawny
+skin through the net. Her
+firm breasts were cupped in
+two solid cones of black growing
+out of the net. Her midriff
+was bare to an inch or two
+below the navel. Her loins
+were covered by an abrevitog
+which formed a triangle in
+front and, Ramsey knew,
+would form one in back. Her
+long, well-formed legs were
+bare down to the mid-calf
+boots she wore. She had a
+beautiful body and had dressed
+so Ramsey couldn&#8217;t miss
+<a name="png.014" id="png.014"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">19</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>it. Her face was so provocatively
+beautiful that Ramsey
+just stood there staring at it&mdash;after
+he had taken in the
+rest of her. She wore her
+hair quite long. She seemed
+perfectly composed. In her
+right hand she held Ramsey&#8217;s
+m.g. gun, but she wasn&#8217;t
+pointing it at them.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at the timid
+Vegan girl and smiled. &ldquo;Oh,
+I am sorry, Captain Ramsey,&rdquo;
+she said. &ldquo;I couldn&#8217;t know, of
+course, you&#8217;d be coming home
+with&mdash;company.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It isn&#8217;t what you think it
+is,&rdquo; Ramsey said, surprised
+to find himself on the defensive.
+&ldquo;The girl&#8217;s in trouble.
+So&#8217;m I.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Earthgirl laughed. &ldquo;Already?
+You looked the type,
+but I thought it would take a
+little time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo; Ramsey
+said. They were speaking
+in English. The Vegan girl
+tugged at Ramsey&#8217;s arm. She
+wanted to get out of there
+and hoped Ramsey would go
+with her. Abruptly the Earthgirl
+burst out laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What&#8217;s so funny?&rdquo; Ramsey
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
+ original reads 'You&#8217;re'">Your</ins> little Vegan friend.
+I read her mind, Ramsey. She
+thinks I&#8217;m your wife. She
+thinks I&#8217;m mad at you for
+bringing her home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then why don&#8217;t you talk
+in <i>Coine</i>,&rdquo; Ramsey said in the
+interstellar language, &ldquo;and
+make her feel better? She
+might as well know I never
+saw you before in my life.&rdquo;
+He was annoyed.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />The Vegan girl smiled timidly,
+taking hope.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But you did,&rdquo; the beautiful
+Earthgirl said. &ldquo;I was on
+the <cite>Polaris</cite> today, Captain.
+You were to be the pilot, until
+Interstellar Transfer here on
+Irwadi was planetarized.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&#8217;t see you. Dressed
+like that I wouldn&#8217;t have forgotten
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I wasn&#8217;t dressed like this.&rdquo;
+The girl smiled, very sure of
+herself. &ldquo;I read your mind
+when you came in. The costume&#8217;s
+had the desired effect,
+I see. But you needn&#8217;t broadcast
+your animal desires so
+blatantly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nobody asked you to read
+my mind. Besides, you needn&#8217;t
+broadcast your physical assets
+so blatantly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Touché,&rdquo; said the Earthgirl.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; Ramsey began.
+&ldquo;We&#8217;re in a jam. We&#8217;re in a
+hurry.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So you told me. I couldn&#8217;t
+have wished for more. It
+looks like I didn&#8217;t need this
+costume and its obvious inducements
+at all, if you&#8217;re
+really in a jam.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="png.015" id="png.015"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">20</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span>&ldquo;What the devil is that supposed
+to mean?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My name is Margot Dennison,
+Captain Ramsey. I
+have managed to buy an old
+starship, small and held together
+by spit and string and
+whatever the Irwadians use
+for prayer&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They&#8217;re atheists,&rdquo; Ramsey
+said a little pointlessly. It was
+the girl. Darn her hide, she
+was beautiful! What did she
+expect? Looking at her, how
+could a man concentrate&hellip;.
+&ldquo;Hey!&rdquo; Ramsey blurted suddenly.
+&ldquo;Did you say Margot
+Dennison? The tri-di star?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Margot Dennison smiled.
+&ldquo;That&#8217;s right,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;Stranded five hundred light
+years from nowhere, Captain
+Ramsey. With a ship. With
+money. In need of a hyper-space
+pilot. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m
+here, or didn&#8217;t you guess?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m listening.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Isn&#8217;t it clear? I&#8217;ll pay you
+to take me away from here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where to?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Through hyper-space to
+Earth. Well?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;ve been grounded. If I
+take you through hyper-space,
+I lose my license.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You really don&#8217;t believe
+that, do you? After the Irwadians
+grounded all of you
+without warning, and grounded
+all ships until they can
+train a few more pilots. You
+don&#8217;t really think I.T.S. would
+take your license away if you
+took a ship up and through
+hyper, do you? Under the circumstances?
+Especially since
+you&#8217;re in a jam with a totalitarian
+government gone wild?
+Do you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey said abruptly:
+&ldquo;I&#8217;m sorry. I can&#8217;t take you
+to Sol System.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Margot Dennison smiled. It
+wasn&#8217;t the kind of smile designed
+to make a man roll
+over on his back and wave all
+fours in the breeze. Margot
+Dennison didn&#8217;t need that
+kind of smile.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I&#8217;m sorry,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;I read your mind, you see.
+Very well, Captain. If you&#8217;re
+a fugitive from Earth&mdash;I assume
+Ramsey isn&#8217;t your real
+name, by the way&mdash;you may
+take me through hyper to
+Centauri. That will be quite
+satisfactory. I will make my
+way from Centauri. Well?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Give me the gun,&rdquo; Ramsey
+said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My goodness, of course.
+I&#8217;m not trying to hold you up.
+Here.&rdquo; She got up from the
+bed for the first time and
+walked toward them. She had
+firm, long legs, and used them
+well. She was utterly lovely
+and although part of it was
+probably her professional
+know-how, she made you
+<a name="png.016" id="png.016"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">21</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>forget that. She was the most
+attractive girl, Earth or outworld,
+Ramsey had seen in
+years.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey took the gun. Their
+hands met. Ramsey leaned
+forward quickly and kissed
+her on the lips. He was still
+holding the Vegan girl&#8217;s slender
+arm, though. She tried to
+run away but couldn&#8217;t. Margot
+Dennison returned the
+kiss for an instant, to show
+Ramsey that when she really
+wanted to return it, if she
+ever really would, she would
+pack the same kind of libidinal
+vitality in her responses
+as she did in her appearance;
+then she stood coldly, no longer
+responsive, until Ramsey
+stepped back.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Maybe I was asking for
+it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I was prepared
+for that&mdash;and more. But it
+isn&#8217;t necessary now, is it? My
+gosh, Ramsey! Will you please
+close that mind of yours? You
+make a girl blush.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then put on your cloak,&rdquo;
+Ramsey said, and, really
+blushing this time, she did so.</p>
+
+<p>She said: &ldquo;I&#8217;m prepared to
+pay you one thousand credits;
+what do you say?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I say it must be a pretty
+important appointment you
+have on Centauri.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Earth, Captain Ramsey.
+I&#8217;m settling for Centauri.
+Well?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;ll take you,&rdquo; Ramsey
+said, &ldquo;if this girl comes too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Margot Dennison looked at
+the frightened Vegan girl and
+smiled. &ldquo;So it&#8217;s like that,&rdquo; she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It isn&#8217;t like anything.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey packed a few
+things in an expanduffle and
+the three of them hurried
+through the doorway and
+down stairs. The cold dark
+night awaiting them with a
+fierce howling wind and the
+first flurries of snow from the
+north.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where to?&rdquo; Ramsey hollered
+above the wind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My place,&rdquo; Margot Dennison
+told him, and they ran.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Margot Dennison had a
+large apartment in Irwadi
+City&#8217;s New Quarter. This
+surprised Ramsey, for not
+many outworlders lived there.
+That night, though, he was
+too tired to think about it. He
+vaguely remembered a couch
+for himself, a separate room
+for the Vegan girl, another
+for Margot Dennison. He
+slept like a log without
+dreaming.</p>
+
+<p>He awoke with anxious
+hands fluttering at his shoulder.
+Opening one sleepy eye,
+he saw the Vegan girl. He
+saw daylight through a window
+but said, &ldquo;Gmph! Middle
+of the night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="png.017" id="png.017"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">22</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span>The Vegan girl said: &ldquo;She&#8217;s
+gone.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey came awake all at
+once, springing to his feet
+fully dressed and flinging
+aside his cloak, which he&#8217;d
+used as a blanket. &ldquo;Margot!&rdquo;
+he called.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She&#8217;s gone,&rdquo; the Vegan
+girl repeated. &ldquo;When I awoke
+she wasn&#8217;t here. The door&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Ramsey ran to the door. It
+was a heavy plastic irising
+door. It was locked and naturally
+would not respond to the
+whorl patterns of Ramsey&#8217;s
+thumb.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So now we&#8217;re prisoners,&rdquo;
+Ramsey said. &ldquo;I don&#8217;t get it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At least there&#8217;s food in
+the kitchen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All right. Let&#8217;s eat.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There were two windows
+in the room, but when Ramsey
+looked out he saw they
+were at least four stories up.
+They&#8217;d just have to wait for
+Margot Dennison.</p>
+
+<p>It took the Vegan girl some
+time to prepare the unfamiliar
+Earth-style food with
+which Margot Dennison&#8217;s
+kitchen was stocked. Ramsey
+used the time to prowl around
+the apartment. It was furnished
+in Sirian-archaic, a
+mode of furniture too feminine
+to suit Ramsey&#8217;s tastes.
+But then, the uni-sexual
+Sirians, of course, often catered
+to their own feminine
+taste.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey found nothing in
+Margot Dennison&#8217;s apartment
+which indicated she had done
+any acting on Irwadi, and
+that surprised him, for he&#8217;d
+assumed she had plied her
+trade here as elsewhere. He
+felt a little guilty about his
+snooping, then changed his
+mind when he remembered
+that Margot had locked them
+in.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the slide compartments
+of what passed for a
+bureau in Sirian-archaic, he
+found a letter. Since it was
+the only piece of correspondence
+in the apartment, it
+might be important to Margot
+Dennison, thought Ramsey.
+And if it were important to
+her&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey opened the letter
+and read it. Dated five Earth
+months before, it ran:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><i>My darling Margot: By the
+time you read this I shall be
+dead. Ironical, isn&#8217;t it? Coming
+so close&mdash;with death in
+the form of an incurable
+cancer intervening.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>As you know, Margot, I
+always wished for a son but
+never had one. You&#8217;ll have to
+play that role, I&#8217;m afraid, as
+you always have. Here is the
+information I told you I would
+write down. Naturally, if you
+<a name="png.018" id="png.018"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">23</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>intend to do anything about
+it, you&#8217;ll guard it with your
+life.</i></p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ /><i>Apparently the hyper-space
+pattern from Irwadi to
+Earth is the one I was looking
+for. The proto-men, if I
+may be bold enough to call
+them that, first left hyper-space
+at that point, perhaps
+a million, perhaps five million,
+Earth years ago. I don&#8217;t have
+to tell you what this means,
+my child. I&#8217;ve already indicated
+it to you previously. It
+suffices to remind you that,
+in what science has regarded
+as the most amazing coincidence
+in the history of
+the galaxy, humanoid types
+sprang up on some three thousand
+stellar worlds simultaneously
+between one and five
+million years ago. I say simultaneously
+although there is
+the possibility of a four million
+year lag: indications are,
+however, that one date would
+do quite well for all the
+worlds.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Proto-man was tremendously
+ahead of us in certain
+sciences, naturally. For example,
+each humanoid type
+admirably fits the evolutionary
+pattern on its particular
+planet. The important point,
+Margot, is the simultaneity
+of the events: it means that
+proto-man left hyper-space,
+his birth-place, and peopled
+the man-habitable worlds of
+the galaxy at a single absolute
+instance in time. This would
+clearly be impossible if the
+thousands of journeys involved
+any duration. Therefore,
+it can only be concluded
+that they were journeys
+which somehow negated the
+temporal dimension. In other
+words, instant travel across
+the length and breadth of the
+galaxy!</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Whoever re-discovers proto-man&#8217;s
+secret, needless to
+say, will be the most influential,
+the most powerful, man
+in the galaxy. Margot, I
+thought that man would be
+me. It won&#8217;t be now.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>But it can be you, Margot.
+It is my dying wish that you
+continue my work. Let nothing
+stop you. Nothing. Remember
+this, though: I cannot
+tell you what to expect
+when you reach the original
+home of proto-man. In all
+probability the whole race has
+perished, or we&#8217;d have heard
+of them since. But I can&#8217;t be
+sure of that. I can&#8217;t be sure
+of anything. Perhaps proto-man,
+like some deistic god,
+became disinterested in the
+Milky Way Galaxy for reasons
+we&#8217;ll never understand.
+Perhaps he still exists, in
+hyper-space.</i></p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ /><!-- Original printed in two portions in magazine, hence jump in page numbers -->
+<a name="png.019" id="png.019"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">104</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span><i>Finally, Margot, remember
+this. If you presented this
+letter to the evolutionary scientists
+on any of the worlds,
+they&#8217;d laugh at you. It is as
+if unbelief of the proto-man
+legend were ingrained in all
+the planetary people, perhaps
+somehow fantastically carried
+from generation to generation
+in their genes because proto-man
+a million years ago decided
+that each stellar world
+must work out its own destiny
+independently of the others
+and independent of their common
+heritage. But in my own
+case, there are apparently two
+unique factors at work. In the
+first place, as you know, I
+deciphered&mdash;after discovering
+it quite by accident&mdash;what
+was probably a proto-man&#8217;s
+dying message to his children,
+left a million years ago in the
+ruins on Arcturus II. In the
+second place, isn&#8217;t it quite
+possible that my genes have
+changed, that I have mutated
+and therefore do not have as
+an essential part of my make-up
+the unbelief of the proto-man
+legend?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Good luck to you, Margot.
+I hope you&#8217;re willing to give
+up your career to carry out
+your dying father&#8217;s wish. If
+you do, and if you succeed,
+more power will be yours than
+a human being has ever before
+had in the galaxy. I won&#8217;t
+presume to tell you how to
+use it.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Oh, yes. One more thing.
+Since Earth and Alpha Centauri
+are on a direct line from
+Irwadi, Centauri will do quite
+well as your outbound destination
+if for some reason you
+can&#8217;t make Earth. Again,
+good luck, my child. With all
+my love, Dad.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Ramsey frowned at the letter.
+He did not know what to
+make of it. As far as he knew,
+there was no such thing as a
+proto-man myth in wide currency
+around the galaxy. He
+had never heard of proto-man.
+Unless, he thought suddenly,
+the dying man could
+have simply meant all the
+myths of human creation,
+hypothecating a first man
+who, somehow, had developed
+independently of the beasts of
+the field although he seemed
+to fit their evolutionary pattern&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>But what the devil would
+hyper-space have to do with
+such a myth? Proto-man,
+whatever proto-man was,
+couldn&#8217;t have lived in hyper-space.
+Not in that bleak, ugly,
+faceless infinity&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Unless, Ramsey thought,
+more perplexed than ever, it
+was the very bleak, ugly,
+<a name="png.020" id="png.020"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">105</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>faceless infinity which made
+proto-man leave.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Breakfast!&rdquo; the Vegan
+girl called. Ramsey joined her
+in the kitchen, and they ate
+without talking. When they
+were drinking their coffee, an
+Earth-style beverage which
+the Vegan girl admitted liking,
+the apartment door irised
+and Margot Dennison came
+in.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey, who had replaced
+the letter where he&#8217;d found
+it, said: &ldquo;Just what the devil
+did you think you were doing,
+locking us in?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For your own protection,
+silly,&rdquo; Margot told him
+smoothly. &ldquo;I always lock my
+door when I go out, so I locked
+it today. Naturally, we
+won&#8217;t have a chance to apply
+for a new lock. Besides, why
+arouse suspicion?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where&#8217;d you go?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&#8217;t see where that&#8217;s
+any of your business.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Believe it or not,&rdquo; Ramsey
+said caustically, &ldquo;I&#8217;ve seen a
+thousand credits before. I&#8217;ve
+turned down a thousand credits
+before, in jobs I didn&#8217;t
+like. As for being stranded
+here on Irwadi, it&#8217;s all the
+same to me whether I&#8217;m on
+Irwadi or elsewhere.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What does all that mean,
+Captain Ramsey?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It means keep us informed.
+It means don&#8217;t get uppity.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Margot laughed and dropped
+a vidcast tape on the table
+in front of Ramsey. He read
+it and did not look up. There
+was a description of himself,
+a description of the Vegan
+girl, and a wanted bulletin
+issued on them. For assaulting
+the Chief of Irwadi Security,
+the bulletin said. For
+assaulting a drunken fool,
+Ramsey thought.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; Margot asked. This
+morning she wore a man-tailored
+jumper which, Ramsey
+observed, clashed with
+the Sirian-archaic furniture.
+She looked cool and completely
+poised and no less beautiful,
+if less provocatively
+dressed, than last night.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey returned question
+for question. &ldquo;What about the
+ship?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In a Spacer Graveyard, of
+course. There isn&#8217;t a landing
+field on the planet we could
+go to.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You mean we&#8217;ll take off
+from a Graveyard? From a
+junk-heap of battered old
+derelict ships?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course. It has some
+advantages, believe it or not.
+We&#8217;ll work on the ship nights.
+It needs plenty of work, let
+me tell you. But then the
+Graveyard is a kind of parts
+department, isn&#8217;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey couldn&#8217;t argue with
+that.</p>
+
+<p><a name="png.021" id="png.021"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">106</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span>They spent the next three
+days sleeping and slowly going
+stir-crazy. They slipped
+out each night, though, and
+walked the two miles to the
+Spacer Graveyard down near
+the river. It was on the other
+side of the river, which meant
+they had to boat across.
+Risky, but there was no help
+for it. Each night they worked
+on the ship, which Ramsey
+found to be a fifty-year old
+Canopusian freighter in even
+worse condition than Margot
+had indicated. The night was
+usually divided into three
+sections. First, reviewing the
+work which had been done
+and planning the evening&#8217;s
+activities. Then, looking for
+the parts they would need in
+the jungle of interstellar
+wrecks all about them. Finally,
+going to work with the
+parts they had found and
+with the tools which Ramsey
+had discovered on the old
+Canopusian freighter the first
+night.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />As they made their way
+back across the river the first
+night, Ramsey paddling slowly,
+quietly, Margot said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ramsey, I&mdash;I think we&#8217;re
+being watched.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&#8217;t seen or heard a
+thing. You, Vardin?&ldquo; Vardin
+was the Vegan girl&#8217;s name.</p>
+
+<p>Vardin shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey was anxious all at
+once, though. Things had
+gone too smoothly. They had
+not been interfered with at
+all. Personally, things hadn&#8217;t
+gone smoothly with Ramsey,
+but that was another story.
+He found himself liking Margot
+Dennison too much. He
+found himself trying to hide
+it because he knew she could
+read minds. Just how do you
+hide your thoughts from a
+mind reader? Ramsey didn&#8217;t
+know, but whenever his
+thoughts drifted in that direction
+he tried thinking of
+something else&mdash;anything
+else, except the proto-man
+letter.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, that&#8217;s just what I was
+thinking,&ldquo; Margot said in the
+boat. &ldquo;I can read minds, so
+I&#8217;d know best if we were
+being watched. To get a clear
+reading I have to aim my
+thoughts specifically, but I
+can pick up free-floating
+thoughts as a kind of emotional
+tone rather than words.
+Does that make sense?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you say so. What else
+did you read in my mind?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>Margot smiled at him mysteriously
+and said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey felt thoughts of
+proto-man nibbling at his consciousness.
+He tried to fight
+them down purely rationally,
+and knew he wouldn&#8217;t succeed.
+He grabbed Margot and
+<a name="png.022" id="png.022"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">107</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>pulled her close to him, seeking
+her lips with his, letting
+his thoughts wander into a
+fantasy of desire.</p>
+
+<p>Margot slapped his face
+and sat stiffly in her cloak
+while he paddled to the other
+side of the river. Vardin sat
+like a statue. Ramsey had
+come to a conclusion: he did
+not like letting Margot know
+how he felt about her, but it
+was mostly on a straight physical
+level and he preferred
+her discovering it to her
+learning that he&#8217;d read the
+proto-man letter from her father.
+In his thoughts, though,
+he never designated it as the
+proto-man letter from her father.
+He designated it as X.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the
+bank, Margot said: &ldquo;I&#8217;m
+sorry for slapping you.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m sorry for making a
+pass.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ramsey, tell me, what is
+X?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey laughed harshly
+and said nothing. That gave
+Margot something to think
+about. Maybe it would keep
+her thoughts out of his mind,
+keep her from reading&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>X marks the spot, thought
+Ramsey. XXX marks the
+spot-spot-spot. X is a spot in
+a pot or a lot of rot&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, stop it!&ldquo; Margot cried
+irritably. &ldquo;You&#8217;re thinking
+nonsense.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then get the heck out of
+my mind,&ldquo; Ramsey told her.</p>
+
+<p>Vardin walked on without
+speaking. If she had any
+inkling of what they were
+talking about, she never mentioned
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Margot said: &ldquo;I still get the
+impression.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What impression?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That we&#8217;re being followed.
+That we&#8217;re being watched.
+Every step of the way.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>Wind and cold and darkness.
+The hairs on the back of
+Ramsey&#8217;s neck prickled. They
+walked on, bent against the
+wind.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Security Officer Second
+Class Ramar Chind reported
+to his Chief in the Hall of
+Retribution the following
+morning. Chind, a career man
+with the Irwadi Security
+Forces, did not like his new
+boss. Garr Symm was no
+career man. He knew nothing
+of police procedure. It was
+even rumored&mdash;probably
+based upon solid fact&mdash;that
+Garr Symm liked his brandy
+excessively and often found
+himself under its influence.
+Worst of all&mdash;after all, a man
+could understand a desire for
+drink, even if, sometimes, it
+interfered with work&mdash;worst
+of all, Garr Symm was a scientist,
+a dome-top in the
+Irwadi vernacular. And
+<a name="png.023" id="png.023"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">108</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>hard-headed Ramar Chind lost no
+love on dome-tops.</p>
+
+<p>He saluted crisply and
+said: &ldquo;You wanted to see me,
+sir?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Garr Symm leaned forward
+over his desk, making a tent
+of his scaly green fingers and
+peering over it. He said three
+words. He said: &ldquo;The Earthgirl
+Dennison.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Spacer Graveyard,&ldquo;
+Ramar Chind said promptly.
+That was an easy one. His
+agents had been following the
+Dennison girl, at Garr
+Symm&#8217;s orders. Ramar Chind
+did not know why.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And?&ldquo; Garr Symm asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Earthman Ramsey,
+the Vegan Vardin, both are
+with her. We can close in and
+arrest the lot, sir, any time
+you wish.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fool,&ldquo; Garr Symm said
+softly, without malice. &ldquo;That
+is the last thing I want. Don&#8217;t
+you understand that? No, I
+guess you don&#8217;t.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, sir.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Their ship?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Every morning after they
+leave we go over it. Still two
+or three nights away from
+completion, sir. Also&mdash;&ldquo;
+Ramar Chind smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, what is it?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Two or three nights away
+from completion, except for
+one thing. They&#8217;ll need a fuel
+supply. Two U-235 capsules
+rigged for slow implosion, sir.
+The hopper of their ship is
+empty.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is there such a fuel supply
+in the Graveyard?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, sir.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But could there be?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Usually, no. Naturally, the
+junkers drain out spaceship
+hoppers before scrapping
+them. U-235 in any form
+brings&mdash;&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know the value of U-235.
+Proceed.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, there could be. If
+they were lucky enough to find
+such a fuel supply in one of
+the wrecks in the Graveyard,
+they wouldn&#8217;t be suspicious.
+Naturally, we won&#8217;t put one
+there.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But you&#8217;re wrong, my dear
+Ramar Chind. You&#8217;ll load the
+hopper of one of those wrecks
+with enough U-235 for their
+purposes, and you&#8217;ll do it
+today.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But sir&mdash;&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We&#8217;re going to follow
+them, Chind. You and I. We
+want them to escape. If they
+don&#8217;t escape, how can we follow
+them?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramar Chind shrugged resignedly
+and lisped: &ldquo;How
+much fuel will they need for
+their purposes, sir, whatever
+their purposes are?&ldquo; Naturally,
+his lisping sounded perfectly
+normal to Garr Symm,
+<a name="png.024" id="png.024"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">109</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>who also spoke in the sibilantless
+Irwadi manner.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You&#8217;d really like to know,
+wouldn&#8217;t you?&ldquo; Garr Symm
+said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, sir. To put me in a
+position in which I could better
+do my&mdash;&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To satisfy your curiosity,
+you mean!&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But sir&mdash;&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am a scientist, Chind.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, sir.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />&ldquo;Didn&#8217;t it strike you as odd
+that a scientist should be elevated
+to the top post in your
+department?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, sir. I didn&#8217;t
+question it, though.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As you know, Chind, when
+it was decided to planetarize
+Irwadi as a first step toward
+driving away the outworlders,
+the quarters of every
+outworlder on Irwadi were
+thoroughly searched.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I participated in the&mdash;uh,
+program, sir.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good. Then I needn&#8217;t tell
+you. Something was found in
+Margot Dennison&#8217;s apartment.
+Something of immense
+importance. Something so important
+that, if used properly,
+it can assure Irwadi the dominant
+place in the galaxy for
+all time to come.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I thought Irwadi
+craved isolation&mdash;&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Isolation, Chind? To be
+sure, if intercourse with the
+other galactic powers saw us
+at the bottom of the heap. But
+at the top&mdash;who would crave
+isolation at the top?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I see, sir. And the something
+that was found needed
+a scientist?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very perceptive of you,
+Chind. Precisely. It was a
+letter. We copied it. Of course,
+Margot Dennison knows more
+than what is in the letter; the
+letter alludes to previous information.
+We need Dennison
+and Ramsey. We have to let
+them go ahead with their
+plans. Then we follow them,
+Chind. You understand?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, sir.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You&#8217;re a good policeman,
+Chind. The best we have, I
+understand. You&#8217;ll be going
+with me&mdash;on the most important
+assignment you or any
+Irwadian ever had.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am grateful, sir, that
+you consider me&mdash;&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, see about that U-235
+slow-implosion capsule.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At once, sir.&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>Saluting smartly, Ramar
+Chind left Garr Symm&#8217;s office.
+Symm smiled and sat
+perfectly still for some minutes.
+For Irwadi, yes, he was
+thinking. Certainly for Irwadi.
+For Irwadi absolutely.
+To make Irwadi the most important
+planet in the galaxy.
+But important planets&mdash;in
+<a name="png.025" id="png.025"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">110</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>the way that Irwadi would
+be important&mdash;couldn&#8217;t maintain
+the status quo. For example,
+Irwadi&#8217;s form of government
+might have to be
+changed. At present, an autocratic
+bureaucracy with no
+one man at the top. Ultimately,
+after the rediscovery
+of proto-man&#8217;s secret&mdash;rule
+by one man.</p>
+
+<p>Garr Symm, absolute dictator
+of the galaxy, if he played
+his hand right.</p>
+
+<p>Garr Symm sat there for a
+long time, dreaming of power
+as no man before him on
+any world had ever dreamed
+of power&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Vardin rushed into the airlock
+of the Canopusian
+freighter in a state of excitement.
+At last they had given
+her something to do, and she
+had been successful at the
+outset. Specifically, Ramsey
+and the beautiful woman had
+given her a scintillation-counter
+and told her to prowl
+among the wrecks with it
+while they worked on the
+control board of the freighter,
+which the beautiful woman
+had named <cite>Enterprise</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I found it!&ldquo; Vardin cried.
+&ldquo;I found it!&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>She led a sceptical Margot
+Dennison outside while Ramsey
+continued working on the
+<cite>Enterprise</cite>. The two girls
+walked swiftly through the
+darkness between the wrecks.
+By this time they knew every
+foot of the Graveyard.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There,&ldquo; Vardin said. &ldquo;You
+see?&ldquo;</p>
+
+<p>The scintillation counter
+was clicking and blinking.
+Margot smiled and went to
+work with a portable mechanical
+arm and a leaded bottle.
+In ten minutes, she had the
+slow-implosion capsule out of
+the hopper of a battered old
+<ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
+ original reads 'Aldeberanese'">Aldebaranese</ins> cargo ship.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I never saw one of those
+mechanical arms working before,&rdquo;
+Vardin said.</p>
+
+<p>Margot smiled. She was
+delighted with the timid
+Vegan girl, with the cold
+night, with the way the wind
+blew across the Graveyard,
+with everything. They had
+their fuel. Tomorrow night
+the <cite>Enterprise</cite> would be ready
+for its dash into hyper-space.
+In thirty-six hours she might
+have her hands on the most
+valuable find in the history of
+mankind&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>When they returned to the
+<cite>Enterprise</cite>, she let Ramsey
+kiss her and tried to slip the
+telepathic tentacles of her
+mind behind his guard&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Lewd libidinous fantasies,
+X stands for nothing for
+nothing for nothing, XXX&mdash;she
+got nowhere.</p>
+
+<p>What was X? What was
+<a name="png.026" id="png.026"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">111</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>Ramsey&#8217;s secret? Margot did
+not know, and wondered if
+she would ever find out.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, reading Vardin&#8217;s
+mind. For Vardin was
+thinking: it must be so wonderful
+to have beauty such as
+she has, to melt the wills of
+strong handsome men such as
+Ramsey. It must be truly
+wonderful.</p>
+
+<p>For the first twenty-eight
+years of her life, Margot
+Dennison would have agreed,
+would have delighted in her
+own beauty. She still did, to
+a point. But beyond that
+point, she could dream only
+of proto-man and his secret.</p>
+
+<p>Beauty or power?</p>
+
+<p>She had beauty.</p>
+
+<p>She wanted power.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />In the early hours of the
+following morning, behind the
+cover of what appeared to be
+a dense early morning fog but
+what actually was an artificially
+produced fog, a team of
+Irwadi technicians swarmed
+all over a battered Procyonian
+cruiser of three thousand
+tons. By mid-morning, working
+swiftly and with all the
+tools and spare parts they
+would need, they made the
+ship, called <cite>Dog Star</cite>, space-worthy.</p>
+
+<p>Later that day, but still
+two hours before nightfall,
+Ramar Chind arrived with a
+small crew of three Security
+Police. He had selected his
+men carefully: they knew
+how to handle a spaceship,
+they knew how to fight, they
+were quite ruthless. He
+thought Garr Symm would be
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>Symm did not arrive until
+just before nightfall. He was
+very agitated when he came.
+Ramar Chind, too, was eager.
+What would happen within
+the next several hours, he realized,
+might be beyond his
+ken, but he still recognized its
+importance. And, being an
+opportunist, he would pounce
+on whatever he found of
+value to himself&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Several hours after the setting
+of the Irwadi primary
+had ushered in the cold night,
+Margot Dennison, Ramsey
+and Vardin arrived at the
+Graveyard and made their
+way at once to the <cite>Enterprise</cite>.
+They went inside swiftly and
+in a very few minutes prepared
+the thousand-tonner
+for blastoff. Ramsey&#8217;s mouth
+was dry. He could barely keep
+the thoughts of proto-man
+from his mind. If Margot
+read them&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Centauri here we come,&rdquo;
+he said, just to talk.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Centauri,&rdquo; said Margot.</p>
+
+<p>But of course, she had another
+destination in mind.</p>
+
+<p>Several hundred yards
+<a name="png.027" id="png.027"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">112</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>across the Graveyard, watching,
+waiting, the occupants of
+<cite>Dog Star</cite> were armed to the
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey sat at the controls.
+Vardin stood behind him
+nervously. The space trip
+from Vega to Irwadi was
+probably the only one she had
+ever taken. Margot sat, quite
+relaxed, in the co-pilot&#8217;s chair.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I still can&#8217;t believe we&#8217;re
+not going to feel anything,&rdquo;
+Vardin said in her soft, shy
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Haven&#8217;t you ever been
+through hyper-space before?&rdquo;
+Margot asked the Vegan girl.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just once.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In normal space,&rdquo; Ramsey
+explained, &ldquo;we feel acceleration
+and deceleration because
+the increase or decrease in
+velocity is experienced at different
+micro-instants by all
+the cells of our body. In
+hyper-space the velocity is
+felt simultaneously in all
+parts of the ship, including
+all parts of us. We become
+weightless, of course, but the
+change is instant and we feel
+no pressure, no pain.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey was waiting until
+0134:57 on the ship chronometer.
+At that precise instant
+in time, and at that instant
+only, blastoff would place
+them on the proper hyper-space
+orbit. And, before they
+could feel the mounting pressure
+of blastoff, the timelessness
+of hyper-space would
+intervene.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;0130:15,&rdquo; Margot read
+the chronometer for Ramsey.
+&ldquo;It won&#8217;t be long now.
+30:20&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; Ramsey said
+suddenly. &ldquo;All right. I can
+read the chronometer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Ramsey! I do believe
+you&#8217;re nervous.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Anxious, Margot. A hyper-pilot
+is always anxious just
+before crossover. You&#8217;ve got
+to be, because the slightest
+miscalculation can send you
+fifty thousand light years off
+course.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So? All you&#8217;d have to do is
+re-enter hyper-space and go
+back.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey shook his head.
+&ldquo;Hyper-space can only be entered
+from certain points in
+space. We&#8217;ve never been able
+to figure out why.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What certain points?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Ramsey looked at her
+steadily. &ldquo;Points which vary
+with the orbits of the three
+thousand humanoid worlds,
+Margot,&rdquo; he said slowly. He
+watched her for a reaction,
+knowing that strange fact
+about hyper-space&mdash;perfectly
+true and never understood&mdash;dovetailed
+with her father&#8217;s
+letter about proto-man, an
+unknown pre-human ancestor
+<a name="png.028" id="png.028"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">113</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>of all the humanoid races in
+the galaxy, who had discovered
+hyper-space, bred variations
+to colonize all the inhabitable
+worlds, found or
+created the three thousand
+crossover points in space, and
+used them.</p>
+
+<p>Margot showed no response,
+but then, Ramsey
+told himself, she was a tri-di
+actress. She could feign an
+emotion&mdash;or hide one. She
+merely asked: &ldquo;Is it true that
+there&#8217;s no such thing as time
+in hyper-space?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&#8217;s right. That&#8217;s why
+you can travel scores or hundreds
+or thousands of light
+years through hyper-space in
+hours. Hyper-space is a continuum
+of only three dimensions.
+There is no fourth dimension,
+no dimension of
+duration.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then why aren&#8217;t trips
+through hyper-space instantaneous?
+They take several
+hours, don&#8217;t they?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sure, but the way scientists
+have it figured, that&#8217;s
+subjective time. No objective
+time passes at all. It can&#8217;t.
+There isn&#8217;t any&mdash;in hyper-space.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then you mean&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey shook his head.
+&ldquo;0134:02,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&#8217;s almost
+time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The seconds ticked away.
+Even Margot did not seem
+relaxed now. She stared nervously
+at the chronometer, or
+watched Ramsey&#8217;s lips as he
+silently read away the seconds.
+A place where time did
+not exist, an under-stratum
+of extension sans duration.
+An idea suddenly entered her
+mind, and she was afraid.</p>
+
+<p>If proto-man had colonized
+the galactic worlds between
+one and four or five million
+years ago, but if time did not
+exist for proto-man, then
+wasn&#8217;t the super-race which
+had engendered all mankind
+still waiting in its timeless
+home, waiting perhaps grimly
+amused to see which of
+their progeny first discovered
+their secret? Or must proto-man,
+like humans everywhere,
+fall victim to subjective
+time if objective time did
+not matter for him?</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey was saying softly:
+&ldquo;Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five,
+fifty-six &hellip; blastoff!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>His hand slammed down on
+the activating key.</p>
+
+<p>An instant later, having
+felt no sensation of acceleration,
+they were floating
+weightlessly in the cabin of
+the little <cite>Enterprise</cite>.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />&ldquo;The qualities of radar,&rdquo;
+Garr Symm said, &ldquo;exist in
+their totality in a universe
+of extension. Time, actually
+is a drawback to radar,
+<a name="png.029" id="png.029"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">114</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>necessitating a duration-lag between
+sending and receiving.
+Therefore, Ramar Chind, radar
+behaves perfectly in
+hyper-space, as you see.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Ramar Chind said,
+floating near the radar screen
+aboard the <cite>Dog Star</cite>. At its
+precise center was a bright
+little pip of light.</p>
+
+<p><cite>The Enterprise</cite>&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But don&#8217;t we do anything
+except follow them?&rdquo; Ramar
+Chind said after a long
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>Garr Symm smiled. &ldquo;Does
+it really matter? You see,
+Chind, time actually stands
+still for us here. Duration is
+purely subjective, so what&#8217;s
+your hurry?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramar Chind licked his
+lips nervously and stared
+fascinated at the little pip
+of bright light.</p>
+
+<p>Which suddenly dipped and
+swung erratically.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; Margot asked.
+&ldquo;What&#8217;s the matter?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take it easy,&rdquo; Ramsey
+told her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But the ship&#8217;s swooping. I
+can feel it. I thought you
+weren&#8217;t supposed to feel
+movement in hyper-space!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Relax, will you? There
+are eddies in hyper-space,
+that&#8217;s all. If you want an
+analogy in terms of our own
+universe, think of shoals in
+an ocean&mdash;unmarked by
+buoys or lights.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You mean they have to
+be avoided?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But this particular shoal&mdash;it&#8217;s
+midway between Irwadi
+and Earth?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There isn&#8217;t any &lsquo;midway,&rsquo;
+Margot. That&#8217;s the paradox
+of hyper-space.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I don&#8217;t understand.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Look. In the normal universe,
+extension is measured
+by time. That is, it takes a
+certain amount of time to get
+from point A to point B. Conversely,
+time is measured by
+extension in space. On Earth,
+a day of time passes when
+Earth moves through space
+on an arc one three-hundred-sixty-fifth
+of its orbit around
+the sun in length. Since there
+isn&#8217;t any time to measure extension
+with in hyper-space,
+since time doesn&#8217;t exist here,
+you can&#8217;t speak of mid-points.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But this&mdash;shoal. It&#8217;s always
+encountered in hyper-space
+between Earth and
+Irwadi?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey nodded. &ldquo;Yes, that
+is right.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Margot smiled.</p>
+
+<p>The smile suddenly froze
+on her face.</p>
+
+<p>The <cite>Enterprise</cite> lurched as
+if an unseen giant hand had
+slapped it.</p>
+
+<p><a name="png.030" id="png.030"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">115</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span>At that moment Ramsey
+leaned forward over the controls,
+battling to bring the
+<cite>Enterprise</cite> back on course.</p>
+
+<p>And let down his mental
+guard.</p>
+
+<p><i>&hellip; precise place in hyper-space
+her father must have
+meant &hellip; home of proto-man
+&hellip; thinks I&#8217;m going to stop
+there, she&#8217;s crazy &hellip; heck,
+I&#8217;m no mystic, but there are
+things not meant to be meddled
+<span class="nw">with &hellip;</span></i></p>
+
+<p>The ship swooped again.
+Ramsey went forward against
+the control panel head-first
+and fell dazed from the pilot
+chair. His head whirled, his
+arms and legs were suddenly
+weak and rubbery. He tried
+to stand up and make his way
+back to the controls again,
+but collapsed and went down
+to his knees. He crouched
+there, trying to shake the fog
+from his brain.</p>
+
+<p>With a cry of triumph,
+Margot Dennison leaped at
+him and bore him down to the
+floor with her weight. He was
+still too dazed from the blow
+on his head to offer any resistance
+when her strong
+hands tugged at his belt and
+withdrew the m.g. gun. She
+got up with it, backing away
+from him quickly toward the
+rear bulkhead as the ship
+seemed to go into a smooth
+glide which could be felt
+within it. Vardin stood alongside
+Ramsey, a hand to her
+mouth in horror. Ramsey got
+up slowly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stay where you are!&rdquo;
+Margot cried, pointing the
+m.g. gun at him. &ldquo;I&#8217;ll kill you
+if I have to. I&#8217;ll kill you,
+Ramsey, I mean it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey did not move.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />&ldquo;So you knew about my
+father,&rdquo; Margot challenged
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yeah. So what?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And this shoal in hyper-space
+is a world, isn&#8217;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey nodded. &ldquo;I think
+so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O.K. Sit down at the controls,
+Ramsey. That&#8217;s right.
+Don&#8217;t try anything.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey was seated in the
+pilot chair again. His head
+was still whirling but his
+strength had returned. He
+wondered if he could chance
+rushing her but told himself
+she meant what she said. She
+would kill him in cold blood
+if she had to.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bring the <cite>Enterprise</cite>
+down on that world, Ramsey.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He sat there and stubbornly
+shook his head. &ldquo;Margot,
+you&#8217;ll be meddling with a
+power beyond human understanding.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rubbish! You read my
+father&#8217;s letter, didn&#8217;t you?
+That fear&#8217;s been implanted in
+<a name="png.031" id="png.031"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">116</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>your genes. It&#8217;s part of the
+heredity of our people. It&#8217;s
+rubbish. Bring the ship
+down.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Still Ramsey did not move.
+Vardin looked from him to
+Margot Dennison and back
+again with horror in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;ll count three,&rdquo; Margot
+said. &ldquo;Then I&#8217;ll shoot the
+Vegan girl. Do you understand?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey&#8217;s face went white.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;One,&rdquo; Margot said.</p>
+
+<p>Vardin stared at him beseechingly.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey said: &ldquo;All right,
+Margot. All right.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later, subjective
+time, the <cite>Enterprise</cite>
+landed with a lurch.</p>
+
+<p>That they had reached a
+world in hyper-space there
+could be no doubt. But outside
+the portholes of the little
+freighter was only the murky
+grayness of the timeless
+hyper-space continuum.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />&ldquo;They&#8217;ve gone down, sir!&rdquo;
+Ramar Chind cried.</p>
+
+<p>Garr Symm nodded. For
+the first time he was really
+nervous. He wondered about
+the Dennison letter. Could his
+fear be attributed to ancestral
+memory, as Dennison had indicated?
+Was it really baseless&mdash;this
+crawling, cold-fingered
+hand of fear on his
+spine?</p>
+
+<p>There was no physical
+barrier. The <cite>Enterprise</cite> had
+established that fact. Then
+was there a barrier which
+Garr Symm, along with all
+humanoids, had somehow
+inherited?</p>
+
+<p>A barrier of stark terror,
+subjective and unfounded on
+fact?</p>
+
+<p>And beyond it&mdash;what?</p>
+
+<p>Power to chain the universe&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Think, Garr Symm told
+himself. You&#8217;ve got to be rational.
+You&#8217;re a scientist.
+You&#8217;ve been trained as a scientist.
+This is their barrier,
+erected against you, against
+all humanoids, a million years
+ago. It isn&#8217;t real. It&#8217;s all in
+your mind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you want me to follow
+them down?&rdquo; Ramar Chind
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>Garr Symm envied the policeman.
+Naturally, Ramar
+Chind did not share his terror.
+You didn&#8217;t know the terror
+until you learned about
+proto-man; then the response
+seemed to be triggered in
+your brain, as if it had been
+passed to you through the
+genes of your ancestors,
+waiting a million years for
+release&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Fear, a guardian.</p>
+
+<p>Of what? Garr Symm asked
+himself. Think of that,
+fool. Think of what it guards.</p>
+
+<p><a name="png.032" id="png.032"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">117</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span>Power&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Teleportation or its equivalent.</p>
+
+<p>Gone the subjective passage
+of hours in hyper-space.</p>
+
+<p>Earned&mdash;if you were
+strong enough or brave
+enough to earn it&mdash;the ability
+to travel instantly from one
+humanoid world to another.
+Instantly. Perhaps from any
+one point on any humanoid
+world to any one point, precise,
+specific, exact, on another
+world.</p>
+
+<p>To plunder.</p>
+
+<p>Or assassinate.</p>
+
+<p>Or control the lives of men,
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sans</i> ship.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sans</i> fear.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sans</i> the possibility of
+being caught or stopped.</p>
+
+<p>Sweating, Garr Symm
+said: &ldquo;Bring the <cite>Dog Star</cite>
+down after them, Ramar
+Chind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Ramsey smiled without
+humor. &ldquo;What now, little
+lady?&rdquo; he said mockingly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Shut up. Oh, shut up!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What are you going to do
+now?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I told you to shut up. I
+have to think.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&#8217;t know a gorgeous<!-- opening quote missing from scan -->
+tri-di actress ever had to
+think.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let me see those figures
+again,&rdquo; Margot said.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey handed her the
+tapes from the <cite>Enterprise&#8217;s</cite>
+environment-checker.</p>
+
+<p>Temperature: minus two
+hundred and twenty degrees
+Fahrenheit.</p>
+
+<p>Atmosphere: none.</p>
+
+<p>Gravity: eight-tenths
+Earth-norm.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And we don&#8217;t have a
+spacesuit aboard,&rdquo; Ramsey
+said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But it can&#8217;t be. It can&#8217;t.
+This is the home of proto-man.
+I know it is. But if I
+went out there I&#8217;d perish from
+cold in seconds and lack of
+air in minutes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&#8217;s right,&rdquo; Ramsey
+said almost cheerfully. &ldquo;So
+do I take the ship back up?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hate you, Jason Ramsey.
+Oh, I hate you!&rdquo; Margot
+cried. Then suddenly: &ldquo;Wait!
+Wait a minute! What was
+that you were thinking? Tell
+me! You must tell me&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey shook his head and
+tried to force the thoughts
+from his mind with doggerel.
+Ben Adam, he thought. Abou<!-- referencing James Leigh Hunt's poem "Abou Ben Adhem" -->
+Ben Adam, Humpty Dumpty,
+hurry, hurry, hurry, the only
+two headed get yours here the
+sum of the square of the sides
+is equal to the square of the
+hyper-space, no, mustn&#8217;t think
+that mimsy were the borogroves <!-- misremembering "All mimsy were the borogoves; And the mome raths outgrabe."
+ Lewis Carroll, Rectory Umbrella and Mischmasch -->
+and the momraths now
+what the heck did the momraths
+do anyhow absolute
+<a name="png.033" id="png.033"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">118</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>zero is the temperature at
+which all molecular activity&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What were you thinking,
+Ramsey?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>His mind was a labyrinth.
+There were thousands of discrete
+thoughts, of course.
+Millions of them, collected
+over a lifetime. But all at once
+he did not know his way
+through that labyrinth and
+his thoughts kept whirling
+back to the one Margot Dennison
+wanted as if, somehow,
+she could pluck it from his
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>She stood before him, her
+brow furrowed, sweat beading
+her pretty face.</p>
+
+<p>And she was winning, forcing
+the thought to take shape
+in Ramsey&#8217;s mind&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>But if<ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
+ 'I' invisible in scan"> I </ins>went out there I&#8217;d
+perish from cold in seconds
+and lack of air in minutes.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Cold</i>, came the known and
+unbidden thoughts to Ramsey&#8217;s
+struggling mind. <i>And
+lack of air. Attributes of extension,
+of space</i>, but measured
+by duration, by time.
+<i>And since time does not exist
+in hyper-space, the vacuum
+out there and the terrible,
+killing cold, could have no
+effect on you. You could go
+out there perfectly protected
+from the lethal environment
+by the absence of the time
+dimension.</i></p>
+
+<p>Margot smiled at him.
+&ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;Thank you, Ramsey.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was about to speak, but
+she added: &ldquo;And don&#8217;t give
+me that stuff about a power
+we shouldn&#8217;t tamper with.
+I&#8217;m going out there. Now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey nodded slowly. &ldquo;I
+won&#8217;t stop you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But just so you don&#8217;t get
+any ideas of stranding me
+here&mdash;Vardin. Vardin&#8217;s going
+with me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Vegan girl looked at
+Ramsey mutely.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Ramsey said: &ldquo;What makes
+you think I&#8217;ll let you take
+her?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Margot smiled again. &ldquo;The
+m.g. gun makes me think so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The heck of it is, you&#8217;re
+not really bad, Margot. This
+thing&#8217;s got you, is all. You&#8217;re
+not essentially evil.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thank you for the thrilling
+compliment. I&#8217;m delighted,&rdquo;
+Margot said sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Vardin stays with me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Margot reminded him of
+the lethal m.g. gun by showing
+it to him, muzzle-first.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed in her face. &ldquo;Go
+ahead and shoot.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She stared at him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There isn&#8217;t a lethal weapon&#8217;d
+do you any good here
+in a timeless continuum. Take
+an m.g. gun. It induces an
+<a name="png.034" id="png.034"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">119</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>artificial breakdown of radioactive
+fuel in its chamber,
+firing an instantly lethal dose
+of radiation. But in order for
+radioactive breakdown to occur,
+time must pass. Even if
+it&#8217;s only milliseconds, as in
+the case of an m.g. gun. There
+aren&#8217;t any milliseconds on
+this world, Margot. There
+isn&#8217;t any time. So go ahead
+and pull the trigger.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Margot frowned and pointed
+the gun to one side and
+fired.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing happened. Margot
+almost looked as if her hard
+shell had been sundered by
+the impotence of the m.g. gun.
+She pouted. Her eyes gleamed
+moistly.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ramsey said: &ldquo;O.K.
+Let&#8217;s go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What&mdash;what do you
+mean?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Out there. All of us.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I thought you said&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sure, I&#8217;m scared stiff. A
+normal man would be. It&#8217;s in
+our genes, according to your
+father. But I&#8217;m also a man.
+What the devil d&#8217;you think it
+was first got man out of his
+cave and started along the
+road to civilization and the
+stars? It was curiosity. Fear
+restraining him, and curiosity
+egging him on. Which do you
+think won in the end?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Ramsey, I could kiss
+you!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go right ahead,&rdquo; Ramsey
+said, and she did.</p>
+
+<p>They opened the airlock.
+They went outside smiling.</p>
+
+<p>But Vardin, who went with
+them, wasn&#8217;t smiling. There
+was sadness instead.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />In cumbersome spacesuits,
+the five Irwadians made their
+way from the <cite>Dog Star</cite> to the
+<cite>Enterprise</cite>. Ramar Chind and
+his three policemen carried
+m.g. guns; Garr Symm was
+unarmed. Chind used a whorl-neutralizer
+to force the pattern
+of the lock on the outer
+door of the <cite>Enterprise&#8217;s</cite> airlock.
+Then the five of them
+plunged inside the ship.</p>
+
+<p>The inner door was not
+closed.</p>
+
+<p>The <cite>Enterprise</cite> was empty.</p>
+
+<p>Garr Symm looked doubtfully
+at the gray murkiness
+behind them. Although the
+<cite>Dog Star</cite> stood out there less
+than a quarter of a mile
+away, they couldn&#8217;t see it
+through the murk.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where did they go?&rdquo;
+Ramar Chind asked.</p>
+
+<p>Symm waved vaguely behind
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Chind and his men turned
+around.</p>
+
+<p>Gritting his teeth against
+the fear which welled up like
+nausea from the pit of his
+stomach, Garr Symm went
+with them.</p>
+
+<p><a name="png.035" id="png.035"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">120</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span>At that moment they all
+heard the music.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You hear it?&rdquo; Ramsey
+asked softly. His voice did not
+carry on the airless world,
+of course. But he spoke, and
+the words were understood,
+not merely by Margot, who
+could read his mind, but by
+Vardin as well.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Music,&rdquo; said Margot.
+&ldquo;Isn&#8217;t it&mdash;beautiful?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Ramsey nodded slowly. He
+could barely see Margot, although
+he held her hand. He
+could barely see Vardin although
+they stood hand in
+hand too. The music was un-Earthly,
+incapable of repetition,
+indescribably the loveliest
+sound he had ever heard.
+He wanted to sink down into
+the obscuring gray murk and
+weep and listen to the haunting,
+sad, lovely strains of
+sound forever.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What can it possibly be?&rdquo;
+Margot asked.</p>
+
+<p>Surprisingly, it was Vardin
+who answered. &ldquo;Music of the
+Spheres,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It&#8217;s a
+legend on Vega III, my
+world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And on Earth,&rdquo; Ramsey
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Vardin told them: &ldquo;On all
+worlds. And, like all such
+legends, it has a basis in reality.
+This is the basis.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>That didn&#8217;t sound like timid
+little Vardin at all. Ramsey
+listened in amazement. He
+thought he heard Vardin
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Music. But didn&#8217;t the notes
+need the medium of time in
+which to be heard? How
+could they hear music here
+at all? Or were they hearing
+it? Perhaps it merely impinged
+on their minds, their
+souls, just as they were able
+to hear one another&#8217;s thoughts
+as words&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>They&#8217;d never understand
+fully, Ramsey knew suddenly.
+Perhaps they could grasp a
+little of the nature of this
+place, a shadow here, the
+half-suggestion of the substance
+of reality there, a stillborn
+thought here, a note of
+celestial music there, the timeless
+legacy of proto-man,
+whatever proto-man was&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The fog is lifting!&rdquo; Vardin
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>The fog was not lifting.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey would never forget
+that. Vardin had spoken while
+the dense gray murk enveloped
+them completely.</p>
+
+<p>Then it began to grow
+tenuous.</p>
+
+<p>As if Vardin&#8217;s words had
+made it so. Little Vardin, shy,
+frightened Vardin, suddenly,
+inexplicably, the strongest,
+surest one among them&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>The sky, white and
+<a name="png.036" id="png.036"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">121</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>dazzling, glistened. The gray
+murk glistened too, a hundred
+yards off in all directions, like
+a wall of polished glass surrounding
+them.</p>
+
+<p>In the very middle of the
+bell-jar of visibility granted
+them all at once, stood a black
+rectangular object.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The teleporter!&rdquo; Margot
+cried. &ldquo;The matter-transmitter!
+I know it is. I <em>know</em> it
+is!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey stood waiting
+breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>No, he realized abruptly,
+not breathlessly. You couldn&#8217;t
+say breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>For Ramsey had not
+breathed, not once, since they
+left the <cite>Enterprise</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>You didn&#8217;t breathe on a
+timeless world. You merely&mdash;somehow&mdash;existed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&#8217;s opening!&rdquo; Margot
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>The black rectangle, ominously
+coffin-shaped, was indeed
+opening.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The matter transmitter,&rdquo;
+Margot said a second time.
+&ldquo;The secret of proto-man, of
+our ancestors who colonized
+all the worlds of space with
+it, instantly, at the same
+cosmic moment. Think of
+what it means, Ramsey, can
+you? Instantaneous travel,
+anywhere, without the need
+for energy since energy cannot
+be used here, without the
+passage of time since time
+does not exist here.&rdquo; She
+stood transfixed, looking at
+the black box. The lid had
+lifted at right angles to the
+rest of the box.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Margot said, in the whisper
+of an awed thought:
+&ldquo;Who controls it controls the
+galaxy&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And she walked toward the
+box.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Ramsey
+had a vision. He saw&mdash;or
+thought he saw&mdash;Margot
+Dennison in the costume she
+had worn when they first met.
+She stood, eyes wide, fearful,
+expectant, before a chess-board.
+The pieces seemed to
+be spaceships. It was a perfectly
+clear vision, but it was
+the only such vision Ramsey
+had ever been vouchsafed in
+his life. He was no mystic. He
+did not know what to make
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>Playing chess with Margot
+was&mdash;proto-man.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey only saw his hand.</p>
+
+<p>A hand perhaps five million
+years old.</p>
+
+<p>He blinked. The vision persisted,
+superimposed over
+Margot&#8217;s figure as she walked
+toward the box.</p>
+
+<p>A game, he thought. Because
+we don&#8217;t understand it.
+Not that kind of power. Not
+the power a matter-transmitter
+<a name="png.037" id="png.037"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">122</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>would give. A cosmic game
+on a chess-board which wasn&#8217;t
+quite a chess-board, with a
+creature who had never lived
+as we know life and so could
+never die&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>With the future of the
+galaxy hanging in the balance.
+Life or death for man
+hanging on a slim thread, because
+man wasn&#8217;t ready for
+matter-transmission, couldn&#8217;t
+hope to use it wisely, would
+use it perhaps for war, transmitting
+lethal weapons, thermonuclear,
+world-destroying
+weapons, instantly through
+space, for delivery anywhere,
+negating time&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Death hovered.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; Ramsey called, and
+ran forward.</p>
+
+<p>Just then five new figures,
+space-suited, appeared under
+the gleaming dome.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stop that woman!&rdquo; a voice
+which Ramsey should not
+have been able to hear but
+which he somehow heard perfectly
+cried. &ldquo;Stop her!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>M.g. guns were raised,
+fired.</p>
+
+<p>Without effect.</p>
+
+<p>Three of the spacesuited
+figures ran after Margot as
+the voice repeated: &ldquo;Stop her!
+The box is mine, mine!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was Garr Symm&#8217;s voice.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey did not know if he
+should stop Margot himself,
+or fight Symm&#8217;s men. Although
+they couldn&#8217;t use their
+weapons on this world, they
+could still hurt&mdash;possibly even
+kill&mdash;Margot. Ramsey turned
+and waited for them.</p>
+
+<p>The strange, mystic vision
+was gone. He saw only three
+space-suited figures, saw
+Margot walking steadily toward
+the box. Either she was
+moving very slowly or the box
+retreated or it was further
+away than it had looked at
+first. For she hadn&#8217;t reached
+it yet.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey met the space-suited
+figures head-on.</p>
+
+<p>There were three of them,
+but they were awkward in
+their suits, cumbersome, incapable
+of quick responses.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey hit the first one in
+the belly and darted back.
+His fist felt contact with the
+soft bulk of the insulined suit,
+then with the harder bulk of
+the man. He struck again,
+harder this time.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />The <ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
+  original reads 'scalely'">scaly</ins> green face of
+the Irwadi within the space-suit
+grimaced with pain. He
+doubled over and fell, his
+helmet shattering against the
+ground at Ramsey&#8217;s feet.</p>
+
+<p>Then an incredible thing
+happened. The Irwadi opened
+his mouth to scream. His face
+froze. He lost his air. His face
+bloated.</p>
+
+<p>And he died.</p>
+
+<p><a name="png.038" id="png.038"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">123</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span>Ramsey couldn&#8217;t believe his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It was not possible to die
+from lack of air or from cold
+on a world without the time
+continuum. Ramsey, Vardin
+and Margot had proved that
+by venturing out without protection.</p>
+
+<p>But the Irwadi had died.</p>
+
+<p>Mental suggestion?</p>
+
+<p>Because he thought he
+would die?</p>
+
+<p>Because that was the only
+way you could perish on a
+world lacking in the time
+dimension&mdash;by your own
+thoughts?</p>
+
+<p>The second space-suited
+figure closed with Ramsey
+awkwardly. Ramsey hit him.
+The man of Irwadi fell, his
+helmet cracked, he tried to
+scream&mdash;and died.</p>
+
+<p>The third man fled.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey ran after Margot.
+&ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; he cried. He couldn&#8217;t
+talk to her about his fantastic
+vision. It was personal. She
+wouldn&#8217;t understand. Mystic
+experience always is like that.
+And yet, with the conviction
+that only a mystic can have&mdash;although
+he certainly was no
+mystic&mdash;Ramsey knew the
+galaxy would be in grave
+trouble if mankind were given
+the secret of matter-transmission.</p>
+
+<p>A voice said: &ldquo;You are
+right.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was Vardin&#8217;s voice, and
+Vardin went on:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ramsey, stop her. I can&#8217;t
+stop her. It is only granted
+that I observe&mdash;and convince,
+if I can. I am not a Vegan
+girl. I am&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey said it. &ldquo;Proto-man!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There aren&#8217;t many of us
+left. We discovered matter-transmission.
+We used it
+once, to people the worlds of
+the galaxy. It was our final
+creative effort. We merely
+observe now, unable to destroy
+our creation, trying to
+keep it out of mankind&#8217;s
+hands. You see&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then back on Irwadi you
+knew all along we would come
+here!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was vouchsafed the vision,
+yes. Even as you&mdash;stop
+her, Ramsey. You must stop
+her!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Ramsey sprinted forward.
+Margot was nearing the black
+coffin now.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey ran at her, and
+tackled her.</p>
+
+<p>They went down together,
+the girl fighting like a tigress,
+tooth and nail, wildly, sobbing,
+striking out at Ramsey
+with small impotent fists, until
+he subdued her. Panting,
+they glared at each other.</p>
+
+<p>And could not stop Garr
+Symm from running past
+<a name="png.039" id="png.039"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">124</span><span class="ns">]
+ </span>them, eyes rapt behind the
+plastiglass of his helmet, and
+jumping into the black box.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To the end of the universe
+and back!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Take
+me there and back. Instantly.
+Prove to me that you work!
+Now&hellip;.&rdquo; His voice trailed
+off. He had addressed the
+black rectangle almost as if it
+were something alive.</p>
+
+<p class="tb"><br class="ns"
+ />Ramsey thought he heard
+a growl from the box. He
+stood before it, looking in.
+The hackles rose on his neck.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; Vardin said.
+&ldquo;My ancestors and yours discovered
+the power of a god&mdash;and
+did not understand it. We
+were incorporeal. We created
+life&mdash;your ancestors. We patterned
+it to fit the evolution
+of the three thousand worlds.
+Human life. Millions of them,
+colonists for the worlds of
+normal space. We were tampering
+in our tragic pride,
+Ramsey, with forces we would
+never comprehend.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We colonized the worlds,
+deciding that physical existence,
+along with the mental
+prowess we had, was the ideal
+state. A few of us, like myself,
+or my ancestors if you
+wish, although the purely
+mental lives continuously&mdash;a
+few of us stayed behind and
+saw&mdash;the loss of a million
+years!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey&#8217;s eyes still could
+not pierce the darkness inside
+the box.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; he
+asked in an awed voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We sent out god-like men.
+We did not understand our
+discovery. The god-like men&mdash;but
+look at Garr Symm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The spacesuited figure got
+up slowly. It blinked at Ramsey.
+It growled. It had a recognizably
+green, scale-skinned
+face. But it was not the face
+of Garr Symm. It was the
+face of Garr Symm&#8217;s caveman
+ancestors, a million
+years ago&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This is what happened to
+my people,&rdquo; Vardin said.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at Ramar Chind
+and Chind, responding, went
+to Garr Symm and led him
+quietly back toward the <cite>Dog
+Star</cite>. Chind never said a
+word. Garr Symm growled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take the Earthgirl and
+go,&rdquo; Vardin told Ramsey.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I&mdash;you&mdash;aren&#8217;t you
+coming?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My work is finished,&rdquo;
+Vardin told him. &ldquo;For now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For now?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am a guardian. When
+I am needed again&mdash;&rdquo; She
+shrugged her slim blue shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But Margot will never be
+content now,&rdquo; Ramsey protested.
+&ldquo;Not when she&#8217;s come
+so close.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="png.040" id="png.040"></a><span class="ns">[p </span><span
+ class="pgmark">125</span><span class="ns">]<br
+ /></span>&ldquo;She&#8217;ll understand. Just as
+you understand. You&#8217;ll be
+good for each other, Ramsey,
+you and the girl. She&#8217;s had
+only her fierce pride and her
+dreams of power. She has
+room for love. She needs
+love.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I? I am nothing. I am the
+end-product of an equation
+our ancestors found a million
+years ago. An equation to give
+them god-like power. Instead
+it made them savages and I
+have had to watch their slow
+climb back to the stars. An
+equation, Ramsey. Almost an
+equation of doom. Now go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Vardin flickered, became
+insubstantial. Her body seemed
+to melt into the gray mists.</p>
+
+<p>The gleaming walls were
+gone. The black box was gone.
+Vardin was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Ramsey led Margot back to
+the <cite>Enterprise</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>Moments later&mdash;although
+the elapsed time was subjective&mdash;they
+blasted off.</p>
+
+<p>Margot opened her eyes.
+She had been sleeping. She
+smiled at Ramsey tremulously.
+&ldquo;I love you,&rdquo; she said. Her
+words seemed to surprise her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can&#8217;t go back to Earth,&rdquo;
+Ramsey said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Who wants to go back to
+Earth&mdash;if you can&#8217;t?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They had, Ramsey knew,
+all of space and the life-span
+of mortal man to enjoy together.</p>
+
+
+<p class="rt sans tb"><small><strong>THE END</strong></small></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="tnote">
+<h3>Transcriber&#8217;s note:</h3>
+
+<p>Inconsistent hyphenation (matter transmitter/matter-transmitter,
+scintillation counter/scintillation-counter, spacesuit/space-suit) has been retained.</p>
+
+<p><span class="nopr">Corrections to spelling are flagged <ins class="TN" title="Transcriber's note:
+ original reads 'this'">thus</ins>; holding the mouse over the word will show a note of the original printing.</span>
+ Deliberate mis-spellings (borogroves, momraths; plus all the lithping) have been retained.
+ Minor changes to punctuation were made without comment.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EQUATION OF DOOM***</p>
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+</pre>
+</body>
+</html>
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+++ b/29146.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2437 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Equation of Doom, by Gerald Vance
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Equation of Doom
+
+
+Author: Gerald Vance
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 17, 2009  [eBook #29146]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EQUATION OF DOOM***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, David Wilson, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+  |                                                              |
+  | Transcriber's note:                                          |
+  |                                                              |
+  | This story was published in _Amazing Stories_, February      |
+  | 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that   |
+  | the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.          |
+  |                                                              |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: equation of doom
+
+  His agony of soul at being unable to save Margot was
+  far greater than physical torture.]
+
+
+
+    _They grounded Ramsey's ship on a hostile planet hoping he would
+    starve to death, so the first thing he did was give most of his
+    money away and lose the rest gambling. Then he picked a fight
+    with the Chief of Police and joined forces with a half-naked
+    dream-chick who was seemingly bent on self-destruction. The
+    stakes were big--a planet or two--but it all added up to an----_
+
+
+
+EQUATION OF DOOM
+
+by
+
+GERALD VANCE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+"Your name ith Jathon Ramthey?" the Port Security Officer lisped
+politely.
+
+Jason Ramsey, who wore the uniform of Interstellar Transfer Service and
+was the only Earthman in the Service here on Irwadi, smiled and said:
+"Take three guesses. You know darn well I'm Ramsey." He was a big man
+even by Earth standards, which meant he towered over the Irwadian's
+green, scaly head. He was fair of skin and had hair the color of copper.
+It was rumored on Irwadi and elsewhere that he couldn't return to Earth
+because of some crime he had committed.
+
+"Alwayth the chip on the shoulder," the Port Security Officer said.
+"Won't you Earthmen ever learn?" The splay-tongued reptile-humanoids of
+Irwadi always spoke Interstellar _Coine_ with a pronounced lisp which
+Ramsey found annoying, especially since it went so well with the
+officious and underhanded behavior for which the Irwadians were famous
+the galaxy over.
+
+"Get to the point," Ramsey said harshly. "I have a ship to take through
+hyper-space."
+
+"No. You have no ship."
+
+"No? Then what's this?" His irritation mounting, Ramsey pulled out the
+Interstellar Transfer Service authorization form and showed it to the
+Security Officer. "A tip-sheet for the weightless races at Fomalhaut
+VI?"
+
+The Security Officer said: "Ha, ha, ha." He could not laugh; he merely
+uttered the phonetic equivalent of laughter. On harsh Irwadi, laughter
+would have been a cultural anomaly. "You make joketh. Well,
+nevertheleth, you have no ship." He expanded his scaly green barrel
+chest and declaimed: "At 0400 hours thith morning, the government of
+Irwadi hath planetarithed the Irwadi Tranthfer Thervith."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Planetarized the Transfer Service!" gasped Ramsey in surprise. He knew
+the Irwadians had been contemplating the move in theory for many years,
+but he also knew that transferring a starship from normal space through
+hyper-space back to normal space again was a tremendously difficult and
+technical task. He doubted if half a dozen Irwadians had mastered it,
+yet the Irwadi branch of Interstellar Transfer Service was made up of
+seventy-five hyper-space pilots of divers planetalities.
+
+"Ecthactly," said the Security Officer, as amused as an Irwadian could
+be by the amazement in Ramsey's frank green eyes. "Tho if you will
+kindly thurrender your permit?"
+
+"Let's see it in writing, huh?"
+
+The Security Officer complied. Ramsey read the official document,
+scowled, and handed over his Irwadi pilot license. "What about the
+_Polaris_?" he wanted to know. The _Polaris_ was a Centaurian ship he'd
+been scheduled to take through hyper-space on the run from Irwadi to
+Centauri III.
+
+"Temporarily grounded, captain. Or should I thay, ecth-captain?"
+
+"Temporarily my foot," said Ramsey. "It'll be months before you
+Irwadians can get even a fraction of the ships into hyper. You must be
+out of your minds."
+
+"Our problem, captain. Not yourth."
+
+That was true enough. Ramsey shrugged.
+
+"Your problem," the Security Officer went on blandly, "will be to find a
+meanth of thelf-thupport until you and all other ecthra-planetarieth can
+be removed from Irwadi. We owe you ecthra-planetarieth nothing. Ethpect
+no charity from uth."
+
+Ramsey shrugged. Like all extra-planetaries on a bleak, friendless world
+like Irwadi, he'd regularly gambled away and drank away his monthly
+paycheck in the interstellar settlement which the Irwadians had
+established in the Old Quarter of Irwadi City. But last month he'd
+managed to come out even at the gaming tables, so he had a few hundred
+credits to his name. That would be enough, he told himself, to tide him
+over until Interstellar Transfer Service came to the rescue of its
+stranded pilots.
+
+Ramsey went up the gangway and got his gear from the _Polaris_. When he
+returned down the gangway, the late afternoon wind was blowing across
+the spacefield tarmac, a wet, bone-chilling wind which only the
+reptile-humanoid Irwadians didn't seem to mind.
+
+Ramsey fastened the toggles of his cold-weather cape, put his head down
+and hunched his shoulders, and walked into the teeth of the wind. He did
+not look back at the _Polaris_, marooned indefinitely on Irwadi despite
+anything the Centaurian owners or anyone else for that matter could do
+about it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Irwadi Security Officer, whose name was Chind Ramar, walked up the
+gangway and ordered the ship's Centaurian first officer to assemble his
+crew and passengers. Chind Ramar allowed himself the rare luxury of a
+fleeting smile. He could imagine this scene being duplicated on fifty
+ships here on his native planet today, fifty outworld ships which had no
+business at all on Irwadi. Of course, Irwadi was an important
+planet-of-call in the Galactic Federation because the vital metal
+titanium was found as abundantly in Irwadian soil as aluminum is found
+in the soil of an Earth-style planet. Titanium, in alloy with steel and
+manganese, was the only element which could withstand the tremendous
+heat generated in the drive-chambers of interstellar ships during
+transfer. In the future, Chind Ramar told himself with a kind of cold
+pride, only Irwadian pilots, piloting Irwadian ships through
+hyper-space, would bring titanium to the waiting galaxy. At Irwadi
+prices.
+
+With great relish, Chind Ramar announced the facts of planetarization
+and told the Centaurians and their passengers that they would be
+stranded for an indefinite period on Irwadi. Amazement, anger, bluster,
+debate, and finally resignation--the reactions were the expected ones,
+in the expected order. It was easy, Chind Ramar thought, with all but
+the interstellar soldiers of fortune like Jason Ramsey. Ramsey, of
+course, would need watching. As for these others....
+
+One of the others, an Earthgirl whose beauty was entirely missed by
+Chind Ramar, left the _Polaris_ in a hurry. She either had no luggage or
+left her luggage aboard. Jason Ramsey, she thought. She had read Chind
+Ramar's mind; a feat growing less rare although by no means common yet
+among the offspring of those who had spent a great deal of time
+bombarded by cosmic radiation between the stars. She hurried through the
+chilling wind toward the Old Quarter of Irwadi City. Panic, she thought.
+You've got to avoid panic. If you panic, you're finished....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"So that's about the size of it," Ramsey finished.
+
+Stu Englander nodded. Like Ramsey he was a hyper-space pilot, but
+although he had an Earth-style name and had been born of Earth parents,
+he was not an Earthman. He had been born on Capella VII, and had spent
+most of his life on that tropical planet. The result was not an uncommon
+one for outworlders who spent any amount of time on Irwadi: Stu
+Englander had a nagging bronchial condition which had kept him off the
+pilot-bridge for some months now.
+
+Englander nodded again, dourly. He was a short, very slender man a few
+years older than Ramsey, who was thirty-one. He said: "That ties it. And
+I mean ties it, brother. You're looking at the brokest Capellan-earthman
+who ever got himself stuck on an outworld."
+
+"You mean it?"
+
+"Dead broke, Jase."
+
+"What about Sally and the kids?"
+
+Englander had an Arcturan-earthian wife and twin boys four years old. "I
+don't know what about Sally and the kids," he told Ramsey glumly. "I
+guess I'll go over to the New Quarter and try to get some kind of a
+job."
+
+"They wouldn't hire an outworlder to shine their shoes with his own
+spit, Stu. They have got the planetarization bug, and they've got it
+bad."
+
+Sally Englander called from the kitchen of the small flat: "Will Jase be
+staying for supper?"
+
+Englander stared at Ramsey, who shook his head. "Not today, Sally,"
+Englander said, looking at Ramsey gratefully.
+
+"Listen," Ramsey lied, "I've been lucky as all get out the last couple
+of months."
+
+"You old pro!" grinned Englander.
+
+"So I've got a few hundred credits just burning a hole in my pocket,"
+Ramsey went on. "How's about taking them?"
+
+"But I haven't the slightest idea when I could pay back."
+
+"I didn't say anything about paying me back."
+
+"I couldn't accept charity, Jase."
+
+"O.K. Pay me back when you get a chance. There are plenty of hyper-space
+jobs waiting for us all over the galaxy, you know that."
+
+"Yeah, all we have to do is get off Irwadi and go after them. But the
+Irwadians are keeping us right here."
+
+"Sure, but it won't last. Not when the folks back in Capella and Deneb
+and Sol System hear about it."
+
+"Six months," said Englander bleakly. "It'll take at least that long."
+
+"Six months I can wait. What d'you say?"
+
+Englander coughed wrackingly, his eyes watering. He got off the bed and
+shook Ramsey's hand solemnly. Ramsey gave him three hundred and
+seventy-five credits and said: "Just see you make that go a long way
+supporting Sally and the kids. I don't want to see you dropping any of
+it at the gaming tables. I'll knock your block off if I see you there."
+
+"I'll knock my own block off if I see me there. Jase, I don't know how
+to thank--"
+
+"Don't is right. Forget it."
+
+"Do you have enough--"
+
+"Me? Plenty. Don't worry about old Jase." Ramsey went to the door.
+"Well, see you."
+
+Englander walked quickly to him and shook his hand again. On the way
+out, Ramsey played for a moment or two with the twins, who were rolling
+a couple of toy spaceships marked hyper-one and hyper-two across the
+floor and making anachronistic machine-gun noises with their lips. Sally
+Englander, a plump, young-home-maker type, beamed at Ramsey from the
+kitchen. Then he went out into the gathering dusk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As usual on Irwadi, and particularly with the coming of night, it was
+bitterly cold. Sucker, Ramsey told himself. But he grinned. He felt good
+about what he'd done. With Stu sick, and with Sally and the kids, he'd
+done the only thing he could do. He still had almost twenty-five credits
+left. Maybe he really would have a lucky night at the tables. Maybe ...
+heck, he'd been down-and-out before. A fugitive from Earth didn't have
+much choice sometimes....
+
+"Red sixteen," the croupier said indifferently. He was a short,
+heavy-set Sirian with a shock of scarlet hair, albino skin, and red
+eyes.
+
+Ramsey watched his money being raked across the table. It wasn't his
+night, he told himself with a grim smile. He had only three credits
+left. If he risked them now, there wouldn't even be the temporary
+physical relief and release of a bottle of Irwadian brandy before
+hitting the sack.
+
+Which was another thing, Ramsey thought. Hitting the sack. Ah yes, you
+filthy outworlder capitalist, hitting the sack. You owe that fish-eyed,
+scale-skinned Irwadian landlady the rent money, so you'd better wait
+until later, until much later, before sneaking back to your room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He watched the gambling for another hour or so without risking his few
+remaining credits. After a while a well-dressed Irwadian, drunk and
+obviously slumming here in the Old Quarter, made his way over to the
+table. His body scales were a glossy dark green and he wore glittering,
+be-jeweled straps across his chest and an equally glittering, be-jeweled
+weapons belt. Aside from these, in the approved Irwadian fashion, he was
+quite naked. An anthropologist friend had once told Ramsey that once the
+Irwadians had worn clothing, but since the coming in great number of the
+outworlders they had stripped down, as though to prove how tough they
+were in being able to withstand the freezing climate of their native
+world. Actually, the Irwadian body-scales were superb insulation,
+whether from heat or from cold.
+
+"... Earthman watching me," the Irwadian in the be-jeweled straps said
+arrogantly, placing a fat roll of credits on the table.
+
+"I'm sorry," Ramsey said. "Were you talking to me?"
+
+"I thertainly wath," lisped the Irwadian, his eyes blazing with drunken
+hatred. "I thaid I won't have any Earthman thnooping over my thoulder
+while I gamble, not unleth he'th gambling too."
+
+"Better tell that to your Security Police," Ramsey said coldly but not
+angrily. "I'm out of a job, so I don't have money to throw around. Go
+ahead and tell me--" with a little smile--"you think it was my idea."
+
+The Irwadian looked up haughtily. Evidently he was looking for trouble,
+or could not hold his liquor, or both. The frenzy of planetarization,
+Ramsey knew from bitter experience on other worlds, made irrational
+behavior like this typical. He studied the drunken Irwadian carefully.
+In all the time he'd spent on Irwadi, he'd never been able to tell a
+native's age by his green, scale-skinned, fish-eyed poker-face. But the
+glossy green scales covering face and body told Ramsey, along with the
+sturdy muscles revealed by the lack of clothing, that the Irwadian was
+in his prime, shorter than Ramsey by far, but wider across the shoulders
+and thicker through the barrel chest.
+
+"You outworlderth have been deprething the thandard of living on Irwadi
+ever thince you came here," the Irwadian said. "All you ever brought
+wath poverty and your ditheath germth and more trouble than you could
+handle. I don't want your thtink near me. I'm trying to enjoy mythelf.
+Get out of here."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was abruptly silent in the little gambling hall. Since the
+establishment catered to outworlders and was full of them, the silence,
+Ramsey thought, should have been both ominous and in his favor. He
+looked around. Outworlders, yes. But not another Earthman present. He
+wondered if he was in for a fight. He shrugged, hardly caring. Maybe a
+fight was just what he needed, the way he felt.
+
+"Get out of here," the Irwadian repeated. "You thtink."
+
+Just then a Vegan girl, blue-skinned and fantastically wasp-waisted like
+all her kind, drifted over to Ramsey. He'd seen her around. He thought
+he recognized her. Maybe he'd even danced with her in the unit-a-dance
+halls reserved for humanoid outworlders.
+
+"Are you nuts?" she said, hissing the words through her teeth and
+grabbing Ramsey's elbow. "Don't you know who that guy is?"
+
+"No. Who?"
+
+"He's Garr Symm, that's who."
+
+Ramsey smiled at her without mirth. "Do I bow down in awe or run from
+here screaming? I never heard of Garr Symm."
+
+"Oh you fool!" she whispered furiously. "Garr Symm is the brand new
+number one man of the Irwadi Security Police. Don't you read the
+'casts?"
+
+Before Ramsey could answer or adjust to his surprise, the Irwadian
+repeated:
+
+"I'm telling you for the third time. Get out."
+
+Ostentatiously, Ramsey reached into his cloak-pocket for a single credit
+bill and tossed it on the table.
+
+"The denomination is not sufficient, sir," the albino Sirian croupier
+said indifferently. Ramsey had known it was not.
+
+Garr Symm's face turned a darker green. The Vegan girl retreated from
+Ramsey's side in fright. Symm raised his hand and an Irwadian waiter
+brought over a drink in a purple stem glass with a filigree pattern of
+titanium, bowing obsequiously. Symm lurched with the glass toward
+Ramsey. "I'm telling you to go," he said in a loud voice.
+
+Ramsey picked up his credit note but stood there. With a little sigh of
+drunken contentment, Garr Symm sloshed the contents of his stem glass in
+Ramsey's face.
+
+The liquor stung Ramsey's eyes. Many of the other outworlders, neither
+Irwadian nor Earthmen, laughed nervously.
+
+Ramsey wiped his eyes but otherwise did not move. He was in a rough spot
+and he knew it. The fact that their new Security Chief went out drunk at
+night with a chip on his shoulder was the Irwadian government's affair,
+not Ramsey's. He'd been insulted before. An Earthman in the outworlds,
+particularly an Earthman fugitive who knew he dared not get into the
+kind of trouble that could bring the Earth consul to investigate, was
+used to insults. For Earth was the leading economic and military power
+of the galaxy, and the fact that Earth really tried to deal fairly with
+its galactic neighbors meant nothing. Earth, being top dog, was
+resented.
+
+The thing which got Ramsey, though, was this Garr Symm. He had never
+heard of Garr Symm, and he thought he knew most of the big shots in the
+Irwadian Security Police by name. But there must have been a reason for
+his appointment. A government throwing off outworld influence had a
+reason for everything. So, why Garr Symm?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You, Mith Vegan!" Garr Symm called suddenly. "You whithpered to the
+Earthman. What did you tell him?"
+
+"Not to look for trouble," the Vegan girl said in a frightened voice.
+
+"But what elth?"
+
+"Honest, that's all."
+
+"Come here, pleath."
+
+Her blue skin all at once very pale, the Vegan girl walked back toward
+Garr Symm. He leered at her quite drunkenly and took hold of her slender
+arm. "What did you tell him? For the latht time."
+
+The girl whimpered: "You are hurting my arm."
+
+Thoughts raced through Ramsey's mind. As an administrator, as an
+Irwadian public servant in a touchy job, Garr Symm, a drunkard, was
+obviously grossly incompetent. What other qualifications did he have
+which gave him the top Irwadian Security job? Ramsey didn't know. He
+sighed. The Vegan girl's mouth formed a rictus of pain. Ramsey had a
+hunch he was going to find out.
+
+He said curtly: "Let go of her, Symm. She told me nothing that would
+interest you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Garr Symm ignored him. The blue-skinned girl cried.
+
+Ramsey grimaced and hit Garr Symm in the belly as hard as he could.
+
+Symm thudded back against the table. It overturned with a crash and the
+Security Chief crashed down on top of it. There wasn't a sound in the
+gambling hall except Ramsey's sudden hard breathing, the Vegan girl's
+sniffling, and Garr Symm's noisy attempts to get air into his lungs.
+Then Garr Symm gagged and was sick. He writhed in pain, still unable to
+breathe. His hands fluttered near his weapons belt.
+
+"Come on," Ramsey told the Vegan girl. "We'd better get out of here." He
+took her arm. Dumbly she went with him. None of the outworlders there
+tried to stop them. Ramsey looked back at Garr Symm. The Irwadian was
+shaking his fist. He had finally managed to draw his m.g. gun, but the
+crowd of outworlders closed between them and there was no chance he
+could hit Ramsey or the girl. Retching, he had dirtied the glossy green
+scales of his chest.
+
+"I'll get you," he vowed. "I'll get you."
+
+Ramsey took the girl outside. It was very cold. "I'm so afraid," she
+said. "What will I do? What can I do?" She shook with fear.
+
+"You got a place to sleep?"
+
+"Y-yes, but I'm the only Vegan girl in Irwadi City. He'll find me. He'll
+find me when he's ready."
+
+"O.K. Then come home with me."
+
+"I--"
+
+"For crying out loud, I don't look that lecherous, do I? We can't just
+stand here."
+
+"I--I'm sorry. I'll go with you of course."
+
+Ramsey took her hand again and they ran. The cold black Irwadian night
+swallowed them.
+
+"So you live in the Old Quarter too," the Vegan girl said.
+
+"Heck yeah. Did you expect a palace?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey had a room, rent one Irwadi month in arrears, in a cold-water
+tenement near the river which demarked the Old and the New Quarters. The
+facade of the old building was dark now. His landlady was probably
+asleep, although you never could tell with that old witch. Ramsey knew
+it wouldn't be the first time she stayed up through half the night to
+await a delinquent tenant.
+
+"I--I never went to a man's room before," the blue-skinned Vegan girl
+said. She was rather pretty in a slender, muscleless, big-eyed,
+female-helpless mode.
+
+"You're a dance-hall girl, aren't you?"
+
+"Still, I never spent the night in a man's--"
+
+"What's the matter with you? You think we're going to spend the night
+here? Somebody over at those gaming tables will be able to identify me.
+Garr Symm'll be on his way before long."
+
+"Then what are we going to do?" The girl was shivering with cold.
+
+"Hide," Jason Ramsey said. "Somewhere. I just came back to get my
+things. There isn't much, but there's an old m.g. gun which we might
+need."
+
+"But they'll find us, and--"
+
+"You coming upstairs or will you wait out here and freeze to death in
+the cold?"
+
+"I'm coming."
+
+They went upstairs together, on tip-toe. Ramsey's room was on the third
+floor, with a besooted view of the industrial complex on the river by
+day. The narrow hall was dark and silent. Behind one of the closed doors
+an outworlder cried out in his sleep. Ramsey had to cup a hand over the
+Vegan girl's mouth so she wouldn't scream in empathic fear. He opened
+the door of his room, surprised that it was not locked. He thought he
+had left it locked.
+
+At once he was wary. It was dark in the hall, just as dark in the room.
+He could see nothing. The door hinges squeaked.
+
+"Come in, Captain Ramsey," a voice said. "I thought you would never get
+here."
+
+He stood on the threshold, uncertain. The voice had spoken not
+Interstellar _Coine_, but English. It had spoken English, without a
+foreign accent.
+
+And it was a girl's voice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Still, it could have been an elaborate trick. It was unlikely, but not
+impossible, that Garr Symm had learned Ramsey's identity already and had
+sent an operative here to await him. Ramsey and the Vegan girl had come
+on foot. It was a long walk.
+
+"I'm armed," Ramsey lied. "Come over here. Slowly. Don't put any lights
+on." He could feel the Vegan girl trembling next to him. Not able to
+understand English, she didn't know what was going on.
+
+"You're armed," the unseen girl's voice said in crisp, amused English,
+"like I'm a six-legged Antarean spider-man. You have an m.g. gun,
+Ramsey. It's in this room. I have it. That's all you have. No, don't try
+to lie to me. I'm a telepath. I can read you. Come in and put the light
+on and shut the door. You may bring the girl with you if you want.
+Brother, is she ever radiating fear! It's practically drowning your own
+mind out."
+
+The unseen girl wasn't kidding, Ramsey knew. She could read minds. She
+had proved it to him. Which left him this choice: he could grab the
+Vegan girl's arm again and get the heck out of there, or do what the
+unseen Earth girl told him to do. He wanted that m.g. gun. He took the
+Vegan girl's hand and advanced over the threshold and closed the door
+and switched on the light.
+
+The girl was sitting on the bed. She was an Earthgirl, all right. She
+had come in a toggle-cloak of green Irwadian fur, which was folded
+neatly at her side on the bed. Under it she wore a daring net halter of
+the type then fashionable on Earth but which had not yet taken over the
+outworlds. It left her shoulders bare and exposed a great deal of
+smooth, tawny skin through the net. Her firm breasts were cupped in two
+solid cones of black growing out of the net. Her midriff was bare to an
+inch or two below the navel. Her loins were covered by an abrevitog
+which formed a triangle in front and, Ramsey knew, would form one in
+back. Her long, well-formed legs were bare down to the mid-calf boots
+she wore. She had a beautiful body and had dressed so Ramsey couldn't
+miss it. Her face was so provocatively beautiful that Ramsey just stood
+there staring at it--after he had taken in the rest of her. She wore her
+hair quite long. She seemed perfectly composed. In her right hand she
+held Ramsey's m.g. gun, but she wasn't pointing it at them.
+
+She looked at the timid Vegan girl and smiled. "Oh, I am sorry, Captain
+Ramsey," she said. "I couldn't know, of course, you'd be coming home
+with--company."
+
+"It isn't what you think it is," Ramsey said, surprised to find himself
+on the defensive. "The girl's in trouble. So'm I."
+
+The Earthgirl laughed. "Already? You looked the type, but I thought it
+would take a little time."
+
+"What do you want?" Ramsey said. They were speaking in English. The
+Vegan girl tugged at Ramsey's arm. She wanted to get out of there and
+hoped Ramsey would go with her. Abruptly the Earthgirl burst out
+laughing.
+
+"What's so funny?" Ramsey demanded.
+
+"Your little Vegan friend. I read her mind, Ramsey. She thinks I'm your
+wife. She thinks I'm mad at you for bringing her home."
+
+"Then why don't you talk in _Coine_," Ramsey said in the interstellar
+language, "and make her feel better? She might as well know I never saw
+you before in my life." He was annoyed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Vegan girl smiled timidly, taking hope.
+
+"But you did," the beautiful Earthgirl said. "I was on the _Polaris_
+today, Captain. You were to be the pilot, until Interstellar Transfer
+here on Irwadi was planetarized."
+
+"I didn't see you. Dressed like that I wouldn't have forgotten you."
+
+"I wasn't dressed like this." The girl smiled, very sure of herself. "I
+read your mind when you came in. The costume's had the desired effect, I
+see. But you needn't broadcast your animal desires so blatantly."
+
+"Nobody asked you to read my mind. Besides, you needn't broadcast your
+physical assets so blatantly."
+
+"Touche," said the Earthgirl.
+
+"Listen," Ramsey began. "We're in a jam. We're in a hurry."
+
+"So you told me. I couldn't have wished for more. It looks like I didn't
+need this costume and its obvious inducements at all, if you're really
+in a jam."
+
+"What the devil is that supposed to mean?"
+
+"My name is Margot Dennison, Captain Ramsey. I have managed to buy an
+old starship, small and held together by spit and string and whatever
+the Irwadians use for prayer--"
+
+"They're atheists," Ramsey said a little pointlessly. It was the girl.
+Darn her hide, she was beautiful! What did she expect? Looking at her,
+how could a man concentrate.... "Hey!" Ramsey blurted suddenly. "Did you
+say Margot Dennison? The tri-di star?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Margot Dennison smiled. "That's right," she said. "Stranded five hundred
+light years from nowhere, Captain Ramsey. With a ship. With money. In
+need of a hyper-space pilot. That's why I'm here, or didn't you guess?"
+
+"I'm listening."
+
+"Isn't it clear? I'll pay you to take me away from here."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"Through hyper-space to Earth. Well?"
+
+"I've been grounded. If I take you through hyper-space, I lose my
+license."
+
+"You really don't believe that, do you? After the Irwadians grounded all
+of you without warning, and grounded all ships until they can train a
+few more pilots. You don't really think I.T.S. would take your license
+away if you took a ship up and through hyper, do you? Under the
+circumstances? Especially since you're in a jam with a totalitarian
+government gone wild? Do you?"
+
+Ramsey said abruptly: "I'm sorry. I can't take you to Sol System."
+
+Margot Dennison smiled. It wasn't the kind of smile designed to make a
+man roll over on his back and wave all fours in the breeze. Margot
+Dennison didn't need that kind of smile.
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I read your mind, you see. Very well,
+Captain. If you're a fugitive from Earth--I assume Ramsey isn't your
+real name, by the way--you may take me through hyper to Centauri. That
+will be quite satisfactory. I will make my way from Centauri. Well?"
+
+"Give me the gun," Ramsey said.
+
+"My goodness, of course. I'm not trying to hold you up. Here." She got
+up from the bed for the first time and walked toward them. She had firm,
+long legs, and used them well. She was utterly lovely and although part
+of it was probably her professional know-how, she made you forget that.
+She was the most attractive girl, Earth or outworld, Ramsey had seen in
+years.
+
+Ramsey took the gun. Their hands met. Ramsey leaned forward quickly and
+kissed her on the lips. He was still holding the Vegan girl's slender
+arm, though. She tried to run away but couldn't. Margot Dennison
+returned the kiss for an instant, to show Ramsey that when she really
+wanted to return it, if she ever really would, she would pack the same
+kind of libidinal vitality in her responses as she did in her
+appearance; then she stood coldly, no longer responsive, until Ramsey
+stepped back.
+
+"Maybe I was asking for it," she said. "I was prepared for that--and
+more. But it isn't necessary now, is it? My gosh, Ramsey! Will you
+please close that mind of yours? You make a girl blush."
+
+"Then put on your cloak," Ramsey said, and, really blushing this time,
+she did so.
+
+She said: "I'm prepared to pay you one thousand credits; what do you
+say?"
+
+"I say it must be a pretty important appointment you have on Centauri."
+
+"Earth, Captain Ramsey. I'm settling for Centauri. Well?"
+
+"I'll take you," Ramsey said, "if this girl comes too."
+
+Margot Dennison looked at the frightened Vegan girl and smiled. "So it's
+like that," she said.
+
+"It isn't like anything."
+
+Ramsey packed a few things in an expanduffle and the three of them
+hurried through the doorway and down stairs. The cold dark night
+awaiting them with a fierce howling wind and the first flurries of snow
+from the north.
+
+"Where to?" Ramsey hollered above the wind.
+
+"My place," Margot Dennison told him, and they ran.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Margot Dennison had a large apartment in Irwadi City's New Quarter. This
+surprised Ramsey, for not many outworlders lived there. That night,
+though, he was too tired to think about it. He vaguely remembered a
+couch for himself, a separate room for the Vegan girl, another for
+Margot Dennison. He slept like a log without dreaming.
+
+He awoke with anxious hands fluttering at his shoulder. Opening one
+sleepy eye, he saw the Vegan girl. He saw daylight through a window but
+said, "Gmph! Middle of the night."
+
+The Vegan girl said: "She's gone."
+
+Ramsey came awake all at once, springing to his feet fully dressed and
+flinging aside his cloak, which he'd used as a blanket. "Margot!" he
+called.
+
+"She's gone," the Vegan girl repeated. "When I awoke she wasn't here.
+The door--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey ran to the door. It was a heavy plastic irising door. It was
+locked and naturally would not respond to the whorl patterns of Ramsey's
+thumb.
+
+"So now we're prisoners," Ramsey said. "I don't get it."
+
+"At least there's food in the kitchen."
+
+"All right. Let's eat."
+
+There were two windows in the room, but when Ramsey looked out he saw
+they were at least four stories up. They'd just have to wait for Margot
+Dennison.
+
+It took the Vegan girl some time to prepare the unfamiliar Earth-style
+food with which Margot Dennison's kitchen was stocked. Ramsey used the
+time to prowl around the apartment. It was furnished in Sirian-archaic,
+a mode of furniture too feminine to suit Ramsey's tastes. But then, the
+uni-sexual Sirians, of course, often catered to their own feminine
+taste.
+
+Ramsey found nothing in Margot Dennison's apartment which indicated she
+had done any acting on Irwadi, and that surprised him, for he'd assumed
+she had plied her trade here as elsewhere. He felt a little guilty about
+his snooping, then changed his mind when he remembered that Margot had
+locked them in.
+
+In one of the slide compartments of what passed for a bureau in
+Sirian-archaic, he found a letter. Since it was the only piece of
+correspondence in the apartment, it might be important to Margot
+Dennison, thought Ramsey. And if it were important to her....
+
+Ramsey opened the letter and read it. Dated five Earth months before, it
+ran:
+
+    _My darling Margot: By the time you read this I shall be dead.
+    Ironical, isn't it? Coming so close--with death in the form of
+    an incurable cancer intervening._
+
+    _As you know, Margot, I always wished for a son but never had
+    one. You'll have to play that role, I'm afraid, as you always
+    have. Here is the information I told you I would write down.
+    Naturally, if you intend to do anything about it, you'll guard
+    it with your life._
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _Apparently the hyper-space pattern from Irwadi to Earth is the
+    one I was looking for. The proto-men, if I may be bold enough to
+    call them that, first left hyper-space at that point, perhaps a
+    million, perhaps five million, Earth years ago. I don't have to
+    tell you what this means, my child. I've already indicated it to
+    you previously. It suffices to remind you that, in what science
+    has regarded as the most amazing coincidence in the history of
+    the galaxy, humanoid types sprang up on some three thousand
+    stellar worlds simultaneously between one and five million years
+    ago. I say simultaneously although there is the possibility of a
+    four million year lag: indications are, however, that one date
+    would do quite well for all the worlds._
+
+    _Proto-man was tremendously ahead of us in certain sciences,
+    naturally. For example, each humanoid type admirably fits the
+    evolutionary pattern on its particular planet. The important
+    point, Margot, is the simultaneity of the events: it means that
+    proto-man left hyper-space, his birth-place, and peopled the
+    man-habitable worlds of the galaxy at a single absolute instance
+    in time. This would clearly be impossible if the thousands of
+    journeys involved any duration. Therefore, it can only be
+    concluded that they were journeys which somehow negated the
+    temporal dimension. In other words, instant travel across the
+    length and breadth of the galaxy!_
+
+    _Whoever re-discovers proto-man's secret, needless to say, will
+    be the most influential, the most powerful, man in the galaxy.
+    Margot, I thought that man would be me. It won't be now._
+
+    _But it can be you, Margot. It is my dying wish that you
+    continue my work. Let nothing stop you. Nothing. Remember this,
+    though: I cannot tell you what to expect when you reach the
+    original home of proto-man. In all probability the whole race
+    has perished, or we'd have heard of them since. But I can't be
+    sure of that. I can't be sure of anything. Perhaps proto-man,
+    like some deistic god, became disinterested in the Milky Way
+    Galaxy for reasons we'll never understand. Perhaps he still
+    exists, in hyper-space._
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _Finally, Margot, remember this. If you presented this letter to
+    the evolutionary scientists on any of the worlds, they'd laugh
+    at you. It is as if unbelief of the proto-man legend were
+    ingrained in all the planetary people, perhaps somehow
+    fantastically carried from generation to generation in their
+    genes because proto-man a million years ago decided that each
+    stellar world must work out its own destiny independently of the
+    others and independent of their common heritage. But in my own
+    case, there are apparently two unique factors at work. In the
+    first place, as you know, I deciphered--after discovering it
+    quite by accident--what was probably a proto-man's dying message
+    to his children, left a million years ago in the ruins on
+    Arcturus II. In the second place, isn't it quite possible that
+    my genes have changed, that I have mutated and therefore do not
+    have as an essential part of my make-up the unbelief of the
+    proto-man legend?_
+
+    _Good luck to you, Margot. I hope you're willing to give up your
+    career to carry out your dying father's wish. If you do, and if
+    you succeed, more power will be yours than a human being has
+    ever before had in the galaxy. I won't presume to tell you how
+    to use it._
+
+    _Oh, yes. One more thing. Since Earth and Alpha Centauri are on
+    a direct line from Irwadi, Centauri will do quite well as your
+    outbound destination if for some reason you can't make Earth.
+    Again, good luck, my child. With all my love, Dad._
+
+Ramsey frowned at the letter. He did not know what to make of it. As far
+as he knew, there was no such thing as a proto-man myth in wide currency
+around the galaxy. He had never heard of proto-man. Unless, he thought
+suddenly, the dying man could have simply meant all the myths of human
+creation, hypothecating a first man who, somehow, had developed
+independently of the beasts of the field although he seemed to fit their
+evolutionary pattern....
+
+But what the devil would hyper-space have to do with such a myth?
+Proto-man, whatever proto-man was, couldn't have lived in hyper-space.
+Not in that bleak, ugly, faceless infinity....
+
+Unless, Ramsey thought, more perplexed than ever, it was the very bleak,
+ugly, faceless infinity which made proto-man leave.
+
+"Breakfast!" the Vegan girl called. Ramsey joined her in the kitchen,
+and they ate without talking. When they were drinking their coffee, an
+Earth-style beverage which the Vegan girl admitted liking, the apartment
+door irised and Margot Dennison came in.
+
+Ramsey, who had replaced the letter where he'd found it, said: "Just
+what the devil did you think you were doing, locking us in?"
+
+"For your own protection, silly," Margot told him smoothly. "I always
+lock my door when I go out, so I locked it today. Naturally, we won't
+have a chance to apply for a new lock. Besides, why arouse suspicion?"
+
+"Where'd you go?"
+
+"I don't see where that's any of your business."
+
+"Believe it or not," Ramsey said caustically, "I've seen a thousand
+credits before. I've turned down a thousand credits before, in jobs I
+didn't like. As for being stranded here on Irwadi, it's all the same to
+me whether I'm on Irwadi or elsewhere."
+
+"What does all that mean, Captain Ramsey?"
+
+"It means keep us informed. It means don't get uppity."
+
+Margot laughed and dropped a vidcast tape on the table in front of
+Ramsey. He read it and did not look up. There was a description of
+himself, a description of the Vegan girl, and a wanted bulletin issued
+on them. For assaulting the Chief of Irwadi Security, the bulletin said.
+For assaulting a drunken fool, Ramsey thought.
+
+"Well?" Margot asked. This morning she wore a man-tailored jumper which,
+Ramsey observed, clashed with the Sirian-archaic furniture. She looked
+cool and completely poised and no less beautiful, if less provocatively
+dressed, than last night.
+
+Ramsey returned question for question. "What about the ship?"
+
+"In a Spacer Graveyard, of course. There isn't a landing field on the
+planet we could go to."
+
+"You mean we'll take off from a Graveyard? From a junk-heap of battered
+old derelict ships?"
+
+"Of course. It has some advantages, believe it or not. We'll work on the
+ship nights. It needs plenty of work, let me tell you. But then the
+Graveyard is a kind of parts department, isn't it?"
+
+Ramsey couldn't argue with that.
+
+They spent the next three days sleeping and slowly going stir-crazy.
+They slipped out each night, though, and walked the two miles to the
+Spacer Graveyard down near the river. It was on the other side of the
+river, which meant they had to boat across. Risky, but there was no help
+for it. Each night they worked on the ship, which Ramsey found to be a
+fifty-year old Canopusian freighter in even worse condition than Margot
+had indicated. The night was usually divided into three sections. First,
+reviewing the work which had been done and planning the evening's
+activities. Then, looking for the parts they would need in the jungle of
+interstellar wrecks all about them. Finally, going to work with the
+parts they had found and with the tools which Ramsey had discovered on
+the old Canopusian freighter the first night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As they made their way back across the river the first night, Ramsey
+paddling slowly, quietly, Margot said:
+
+"Ramsey, I--I think we're being watched."
+
+"I haven't seen or heard a thing. You, Vardin?" Vardin was the Vegan
+girl's name.
+
+Vardin shook her head.
+
+Ramsey was anxious all at once, though. Things had gone too smoothly.
+They had not been interfered with at all. Personally, things hadn't gone
+smoothly with Ramsey, but that was another story. He found himself
+liking Margot Dennison too much. He found himself trying to hide it
+because he knew she could read minds. Just how do you hide your thoughts
+from a mind reader? Ramsey didn't know, but whenever his thoughts
+drifted in that direction he tried thinking of something else--anything
+else, except the proto-man letter.
+
+"Yes, that's just what I was thinking," Margot said in the boat. "I can
+read minds, so I'd know best if we were being watched. To get a clear
+reading I have to aim my thoughts specifically, but I can pick up
+free-floating thoughts as a kind of emotional tone rather than words.
+Does that make sense?"
+
+"If you say so. What else did you read in my mind?"
+
+Margot smiled at him mysteriously and said nothing.
+
+Ramsey felt thoughts of proto-man nibbling at his consciousness. He
+tried to fight them down purely rationally, and knew he wouldn't
+succeed. He grabbed Margot and pulled her close to him, seeking her
+lips with his, letting his thoughts wander into a fantasy of desire.
+
+Margot slapped his face and sat stiffly in her cloak while he paddled to
+the other side of the river. Vardin sat like a statue. Ramsey had come
+to a conclusion: he did not like letting Margot know how he felt about
+her, but it was mostly on a straight physical level and he preferred her
+discovering it to her learning that he'd read the proto-man letter from
+her father. In his thoughts, though, he never designated it as the
+proto-man letter from her father. He designated it as X.
+
+When they reached the bank, Margot said: "I'm sorry for slapping you."
+
+"I'm sorry for making a pass."
+
+"Ramsey, tell me, what is X?"
+
+Ramsey laughed harshly and said nothing. That gave Margot something to
+think about. Maybe it would keep her thoughts out of his mind, keep her
+from reading....
+
+X marks the spot, thought Ramsey. XXX marks the spot-spot-spot. X is a
+spot in a pot or a lot of rot....
+
+"Oh, stop it!" Margot cried irritably. "You're thinking nonsense."
+
+"Then get the heck out of my mind," Ramsey told her.
+
+Vardin walked on without speaking. If she had any inkling of what they
+were talking about, she never mentioned it.
+
+Margot said: "I still get the impression."
+
+"What impression?"
+
+"That we're being followed. That we're being watched. Every step of the
+way."
+
+Wind and cold and darkness. The hairs on the back of Ramsey's neck
+prickled. They walked on, bent against the wind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Security Officer Second Class Ramar Chind reported to his Chief in the
+Hall of Retribution the following morning. Chind, a career man with the
+Irwadi Security Forces, did not like his new boss. Garr Symm was no
+career man. He knew nothing of police procedure. It was even
+rumored--probably based upon solid fact--that Garr Symm liked his brandy
+excessively and often found himself under its influence. Worst of
+all--after all, a man could understand a desire for drink, even if,
+sometimes, it interfered with work--worst of all, Garr Symm was a
+scientist, a dome-top in the Irwadi vernacular. And hard-headed Ramar
+Chind lost no love on dome-tops.
+
+He saluted crisply and said: "You wanted to see me, sir?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Garr Symm leaned forward over his desk, making a tent of his scaly green
+fingers and peering over it. He said three words. He said: "The
+Earthgirl Dennison."
+
+"The Spacer Graveyard," Ramar Chind said promptly. That was an easy one.
+His agents had been following the Dennison girl, at Garr Symm's orders.
+Ramar Chind did not know why.
+
+"And?" Garr Symm asked.
+
+"The Earthman Ramsey, the Vegan Vardin, both are with her. We can close
+in and arrest the lot, sir, any time you wish."
+
+"Fool," Garr Symm said softly, without malice. "That is the last thing I
+want. Don't you understand that? No, I guess you don't."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Their ship?"
+
+"Every morning after they leave we go over it. Still two or three nights
+away from completion, sir. Also--" Ramar Chind smiled.
+
+"Yes, what is it?"
+
+"Two or three nights away from completion, except for one thing. They'll
+need a fuel supply. Two U-235 capsules rigged for slow implosion, sir.
+The hopper of their ship is empty."
+
+"Is there such a fuel supply in the Graveyard?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"But could there be?"
+
+"Usually, no. Naturally, the junkers drain out spaceship hoppers before
+scrapping them. U-235 in any form brings--"
+
+"I know the value of U-235. Proceed."
+
+"Well, there could be. If they were lucky enough to find such a fuel
+supply in one of the wrecks in the Graveyard, they wouldn't be
+suspicious. Naturally, we won't put one there."
+
+"But you're wrong, my dear Ramar Chind. You'll load the hopper of one of
+those wrecks with enough U-235 for their purposes, and you'll do it
+today."
+
+"But sir--"
+
+"We're going to follow them, Chind. You and I. We want them to escape.
+If they don't escape, how can we follow them?"
+
+Ramar Chind shrugged resignedly and lisped: "How much fuel will they
+need for their purposes, sir, whatever their purposes are?" Naturally,
+his lisping sounded perfectly normal to Garr Symm, who also spoke in
+the sibilantless Irwadi manner.
+
+"You'd really like to know, wouldn't you?" Garr Symm said.
+
+"Yes, sir. To put me in a position in which I could better do my--"
+
+"To satisfy your curiosity, you mean!"
+
+"But sir--"
+
+"I am a scientist, Chind."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Didn't it strike you as odd that a scientist should be elevated to the
+top post in your department?"
+
+"Of course, sir. I didn't question it, though."
+
+"As you know, Chind, when it was decided to planetarize Irwadi as a
+first step toward driving away the outworlders, the quarters of every
+outworlder on Irwadi were thoroughly searched."
+
+"I participated in the--uh, program, sir."
+
+"Good. Then I needn't tell you. Something was found in Margot Dennison's
+apartment. Something of immense importance. Something so important that,
+if used properly, it can assure Irwadi the dominant place in the galaxy
+for all time to come."
+
+"But I thought Irwadi craved isolation--"
+
+"Isolation, Chind? To be sure, if intercourse with the other galactic
+powers saw us at the bottom of the heap. But at the top--who would crave
+isolation at the top?"
+
+"I see, sir. And the something that was found needed a scientist?"
+
+"Very perceptive of you, Chind. Precisely. It was a letter. We copied
+it. Of course, Margot Dennison knows more than what is in the letter;
+the letter alludes to previous information. We need Dennison and Ramsey.
+We have to let them go ahead with their plans. Then we follow them,
+Chind. You understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You're a good policeman, Chind. The best we have, I understand. You'll
+be going with me--on the most important assignment you or any Irwadian
+ever had."
+
+"I am grateful, sir, that you consider me--"
+
+"Now, see about that U-235 slow-implosion capsule."
+
+"At once, sir."
+
+Saluting smartly, Ramar Chind left Garr Symm's office. Symm smiled and
+sat perfectly still for some minutes. For Irwadi, yes, he was thinking.
+Certainly for Irwadi. For Irwadi absolutely. To make Irwadi the most
+important planet in the galaxy. But important planets--in the way that
+Irwadi would be important--couldn't maintain the status quo. For
+example, Irwadi's form of government might have to be changed. At
+present, an autocratic bureaucracy with no one man at the top.
+Ultimately, after the rediscovery of proto-man's secret--rule by one
+man.
+
+Garr Symm, absolute dictator of the galaxy, if he played his hand right.
+
+Garr Symm sat there for a long time, dreaming of power as no man before
+him on any world had ever dreamed of power....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Vardin rushed into the airlock of the Canopusian freighter in a state of
+excitement. At last they had given her something to do, and she had been
+successful at the outset. Specifically, Ramsey and the beautiful woman
+had given her a scintillation-counter and told her to prowl among the
+wrecks with it while they worked on the control board of the freighter,
+which the beautiful woman had named _Enterprise_.
+
+"I found it!" Vardin cried. "I found it!"
+
+She led a sceptical Margot Dennison outside while Ramsey continued
+working on the _Enterprise_. The two girls walked swiftly through the
+darkness between the wrecks. By this time they knew every foot of the
+Graveyard.
+
+"There," Vardin said. "You see?"
+
+The scintillation counter was clicking and blinking. Margot smiled and
+went to work with a portable mechanical arm and a leaded bottle. In ten
+minutes, she had the slow-implosion capsule out of the hopper of a
+battered old Aldebaranese cargo ship.
+
+"I never saw one of those mechanical arms working before," Vardin said.
+
+Margot smiled. She was delighted with the timid Vegan girl, with the
+cold night, with the way the wind blew across the Graveyard, with
+everything. They had their fuel. Tomorrow night the _Enterprise_ would
+be ready for its dash into hyper-space. In thirty-six hours she might
+have her hands on the most valuable find in the history of mankind....
+
+When they returned to the _Enterprise_, she let Ramsey kiss her and
+tried to slip the telepathic tentacles of her mind behind his guard--
+
+Lewd libidinous fantasies, X stands for nothing for nothing for nothing,
+XXX--she got nowhere.
+
+What was X? What was Ramsey's secret? Margot did not know, and wondered
+if she would ever find out.
+
+She smiled, reading Vardin's mind. For Vardin was thinking: it must be
+so wonderful to have beauty such as she has, to melt the wills of strong
+handsome men such as Ramsey. It must be truly wonderful.
+
+For the first twenty-eight years of her life, Margot Dennison would have
+agreed, would have delighted in her own beauty. She still did, to a
+point. But beyond that point, she could dream only of proto-man and his
+secret.
+
+Beauty or power?
+
+She had beauty.
+
+She wanted power.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the early hours of the following morning, behind the cover of what
+appeared to be a dense early morning fog but what actually was an
+artificially produced fog, a team of Irwadi technicians swarmed all over
+a battered Procyonian cruiser of three thousand tons. By mid-morning,
+working swiftly and with all the tools and spare parts they would need,
+they made the ship, called _Dog Star_, space-worthy.
+
+Later that day, but still two hours before nightfall, Ramar Chind
+arrived with a small crew of three Security Police. He had selected his
+men carefully: they knew how to handle a spaceship, they knew how to
+fight, they were quite ruthless. He thought Garr Symm would be pleased.
+
+Symm did not arrive until just before nightfall. He was very agitated
+when he came. Ramar Chind, too, was eager. What would happen within the
+next several hours, he realized, might be beyond his ken, but he still
+recognized its importance. And, being an opportunist, he would pounce on
+whatever he found of value to himself....
+
+Several hours after the setting of the Irwadi primary had ushered in the
+cold night, Margot Dennison, Ramsey and Vardin arrived at the Graveyard
+and made their way at once to the _Enterprise_. They went inside swiftly
+and in a very few minutes prepared the thousand-tonner for blastoff.
+Ramsey's mouth was dry. He could barely keep the thoughts of proto-man
+from his mind. If Margot read them....
+
+"Centauri here we come," he said, just to talk.
+
+"Centauri," said Margot.
+
+But of course, she had another destination in mind.
+
+Several hundred yards across the Graveyard, watching, waiting, the
+occupants of _Dog Star_ were armed to the teeth.
+
+Ramsey sat at the controls. Vardin stood behind him nervously. The space
+trip from Vega to Irwadi was probably the only one she had ever taken.
+Margot sat, quite relaxed, in the co-pilot's chair.
+
+"I still can't believe we're not going to feel anything," Vardin said in
+her soft, shy voice.
+
+"Haven't you ever been through hyper-space before?" Margot asked the
+Vegan girl.
+
+"Just once."
+
+"In normal space," Ramsey explained, "we feel acceleration and
+deceleration because the increase or decrease in velocity is experienced
+at different micro-instants by all the cells of our body. In hyper-space
+the velocity is felt simultaneously in all parts of the ship, including
+all parts of us. We become weightless, of course, but the change is
+instant and we feel no pressure, no pain."
+
+Ramsey was waiting until 0134:57 on the ship chronometer. At that
+precise instant in time, and at that instant only, blastoff would place
+them on the proper hyper-space orbit. And, before they could feel the
+mounting pressure of blastoff, the timelessness of hyper-space would
+intervene.
+
+"0130:15," Margot read the chronometer for Ramsey. "It won't be long
+now. 30:20--"
+
+"All right," Ramsey said suddenly. "All right. I can read the
+chronometer."
+
+"Why, Ramsey! I do believe you're nervous."
+
+"Anxious, Margot. A hyper-pilot is always anxious just before crossover.
+You've got to be, because the slightest miscalculation can send you
+fifty thousand light years off course."
+
+"So? All you'd have to do is re-enter hyper-space and go back."
+
+Ramsey shook his head. "Hyper-space can only be entered from certain
+points in space. We've never been able to figure out why."
+
+"What certain points?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey looked at her steadily. "Points which vary with the orbits of the
+three thousand humanoid worlds, Margot," he said slowly. He watched her
+for a reaction, knowing that strange fact about hyper-space--perfectly
+true and never understood--dovetailed with her father's letter about
+proto-man, an unknown pre-human ancestor of all the humanoid races in
+the galaxy, who had discovered hyper-space, bred variations to colonize
+all the inhabitable worlds, found or created the three thousand
+crossover points in space, and used them.
+
+Margot showed no response, but then, Ramsey told himself, she was a
+tri-di actress. She could feign an emotion--or hide one. She merely
+asked: "Is it true that there's no such thing as time in hyper-space?"
+
+"That's right. That's why you can travel scores or hundreds or thousands
+of light years through hyper-space in hours. Hyper-space is a continuum
+of only three dimensions. There is no fourth dimension, no dimension of
+duration."
+
+"Then why aren't trips through hyper-space instantaneous? They take
+several hours, don't they?"
+
+"Sure, but the way scientists have it figured, that's subjective time.
+No objective time passes at all. It can't. There isn't any--in
+hyper-space."
+
+"Then you mean--"
+
+Ramsey shook his head. "0134:02," he said. "It's almost time."
+
+The seconds ticked away. Even Margot did not seem relaxed now. She
+stared nervously at the chronometer, or watched Ramsey's lips as he
+silently read away the seconds. A place where time did not exist, an
+under-stratum of extension sans duration. An idea suddenly entered her
+mind, and she was afraid.
+
+If proto-man had colonized the galactic worlds between one and four or
+five million years ago, but if time did not exist for proto-man, then
+wasn't the super-race which had engendered all mankind still waiting in
+its timeless home, waiting perhaps grimly amused to see which of their
+progeny first discovered their secret? Or must proto-man, like humans
+everywhere, fall victim to subjective time if objective time did not
+matter for him?
+
+Ramsey was saying softly: "Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five,
+fifty-six ... blastoff!"
+
+His hand slammed down on the activating key.
+
+An instant later, having felt no sensation of acceleration, they were
+floating weightlessly in the cabin of the little _Enterprise_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The qualities of radar," Garr Symm said, "exist in their totality in a
+universe of extension. Time, actually is a drawback to radar,
+necessitating a duration-lag between sending and receiving. Therefore,
+Ramar Chind, radar behaves perfectly in hyper-space, as you see."
+
+"Yes," Ramar Chind said, floating near the radar screen aboard the _Dog
+Star_. At its precise center was a bright little pip of light.
+
+_The Enterprise_....
+
+"But don't we do anything except follow them?" Ramar Chind said after a
+long silence.
+
+Garr Symm smiled. "Does it really matter? You see, Chind, time actually
+stands still for us here. Duration is purely subjective, so what's your
+hurry?"
+
+Ramar Chind licked his lips nervously and stared fascinated at the
+little pip of bright light.
+
+Which suddenly dipped and swung erratically.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What is it?" Margot asked. "What's the matter?"
+
+"Take it easy," Ramsey told her.
+
+"But the ship's swooping. I can feel it. I thought you weren't supposed
+to feel movement in hyper-space!"
+
+"Relax, will you? There are eddies in hyper-space, that's all. If you
+want an analogy in terms of our own universe, think of shoals in an
+ocean--unmarked by buoys or lights."
+
+"You mean they have to be avoided?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But this particular shoal--it's midway between Irwadi and Earth?"
+
+"There isn't any 'midway,' Margot. That's the paradox of hyper-space."
+
+"I--I don't understand."
+
+"Look. In the normal universe, extension is measured by time. That is,
+it takes a certain amount of time to get from point A to point B.
+Conversely, time is measured by extension in space. On Earth, a day of
+time passes when Earth moves through space on an arc one
+three-hundred-sixty-fifth of its orbit around the sun in length. Since
+there isn't any time to measure extension with in hyper-space, since
+time doesn't exist here, you can't speak of mid-points."
+
+"But this--shoal. It's always encountered in hyper-space between Earth
+and Irwadi?"
+
+Ramsey nodded. "Yes, that is right."
+
+Margot smiled.
+
+The smile suddenly froze on her face.
+
+The _Enterprise_ lurched as if an unseen giant hand had slapped it.
+
+At that moment Ramsey leaned forward over the controls, battling to
+bring the _Enterprise_ back on course.
+
+And let down his mental guard.
+
+_... precise place in hyper-space her father must have meant ... home of
+proto-man ... thinks I'm going to stop there, she's crazy ... heck, I'm
+no mystic, but there are things not meant to be meddled with ..._
+
+The ship swooped again. Ramsey went forward against the control panel
+head-first and fell dazed from the pilot chair. His head whirled, his
+arms and legs were suddenly weak and rubbery. He tried to stand up and
+make his way back to the controls again, but collapsed and went down to
+his knees. He crouched there, trying to shake the fog from his brain.
+
+With a cry of triumph, Margot Dennison leaped at him and bore him down
+to the floor with her weight. He was still too dazed from the blow on
+his head to offer any resistance when her strong hands tugged at his
+belt and withdrew the m.g. gun. She got up with it, backing away from
+him quickly toward the rear bulkhead as the ship seemed to go into a
+smooth glide which could be felt within it. Vardin stood alongside
+Ramsey, a hand to her mouth in horror. Ramsey got up slowly.
+
+"Stay where you are!" Margot cried, pointing the m.g. gun at him. "I'll
+kill you if I have to. I'll kill you, Ramsey, I mean it."
+
+Ramsey did not move.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"So you knew about my father," Margot challenged him.
+
+"Yeah. So what?"
+
+"And this shoal in hyper-space is a world, isn't it?"
+
+Ramsey nodded. "I think so."
+
+"O.K. Sit down at the controls, Ramsey. That's right. Don't try
+anything."
+
+Ramsey was seated in the pilot chair again. His head was still whirling
+but his strength had returned. He wondered if he could chance rushing
+her but told himself she meant what she said. She would kill him in cold
+blood if she had to.
+
+"Bring the _Enterprise_ down on that world, Ramsey."
+
+He sat there and stubbornly shook his head. "Margot, you'll be meddling
+with a power beyond human understanding."
+
+"Rubbish! You read my father's letter, didn't you? That fear's been
+implanted in your genes. It's part of the heredity of our people. It's
+rubbish. Bring the ship down."
+
+Still Ramsey did not move. Vardin looked from him to Margot Dennison and
+back again with horror in her eyes.
+
+"I'll count three," Margot said. "Then I'll shoot the Vegan girl. Do you
+understand?"
+
+Ramsey's face went white.
+
+"One," Margot said.
+
+Vardin stared at him beseechingly.
+
+Ramsey said: "All right, Margot. All right."
+
+Five minutes later, subjective time, the _Enterprise_ landed with a
+lurch.
+
+That they had reached a world in hyper-space there could be no doubt.
+But outside the portholes of the little freighter was only the murky
+grayness of the timeless hyper-space continuum.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"They've gone down, sir!" Ramar Chind cried.
+
+Garr Symm nodded. For the first time he was really nervous. He wondered
+about the Dennison letter. Could his fear be attributed to ancestral
+memory, as Dennison had indicated? Was it really baseless--this
+crawling, cold-fingered hand of fear on his spine?
+
+There was no physical barrier. The _Enterprise_ had established that
+fact. Then was there a barrier which Garr Symm, along with all
+humanoids, had somehow inherited?
+
+A barrier of stark terror, subjective and unfounded on fact?
+
+And beyond it--what?
+
+Power to chain the universe....
+
+Think, Garr Symm told himself. You've got to be rational. You're a
+scientist. You've been trained as a scientist. This is their barrier,
+erected against you, against all humanoids, a million years ago. It
+isn't real. It's all in your mind.
+
+"Do you want me to follow them down?" Ramar Chind asked.
+
+Garr Symm envied the policeman. Naturally, Ramar Chind did not share his
+terror. You didn't know the terror until you learned about proto-man;
+then the response seemed to be triggered in your brain, as if it had
+been passed to you through the genes of your ancestors, waiting a
+million years for release....
+
+Fear, a guardian.
+
+Of what? Garr Symm asked himself. Think of that, fool. Think of what it
+guards.
+
+Power--
+
+Teleportation or its equivalent.
+
+Gone the subjective passage of hours in hyper-space.
+
+Earned--if you were strong enough or brave enough to earn it--the
+ability to travel instantly from one humanoid world to another.
+Instantly. Perhaps from any one point on any humanoid world to any one
+point, precise, specific, exact, on another world.
+
+To plunder.
+
+Or assassinate.
+
+Or control the lives of men, everywhere.
+
+_Sans_ ship.
+
+_Sans_ fear.
+
+_Sans_ the possibility of being caught or stopped.
+
+Sweating, Garr Symm said: "Bring the _Dog Star_ down after them, Ramar
+Chind."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey smiled without humor. "What now, little lady?" he said mockingly.
+
+"Shut up. Oh, shut up!"
+
+"What are you going to do now?"
+
+"I told you to shut up. I have to think."
+
+"I didn't know a gorgeous tri-di actress ever had to think."
+
+"Let me see those figures again," Margot said.
+
+Ramsey handed her the tapes from the _Enterprise's_ environment-checker.
+
+Temperature: minus two hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit.
+
+Atmosphere: none.
+
+Gravity: eight-tenths Earth-norm.
+
+"And we don't have a spacesuit aboard," Ramsey said.
+
+"But it can't be. It can't. This is the home of proto-man. I know it is.
+But if I went out there I'd perish from cold in seconds and lack of air
+in minutes."
+
+"That's right," Ramsey said almost cheerfully. "So do I take the ship
+back up?"
+
+"I hate you, Jason Ramsey. Oh, I hate you!" Margot cried. Then suddenly:
+"Wait! Wait a minute! What was that you were thinking? Tell me! You must
+tell me--"
+
+Ramsey shook his head and tried to force the thoughts from his mind with
+doggerel. Ben Adam, he thought. Abou Ben Adam, Humpty Dumpty, hurry,
+hurry, hurry, the only two headed get yours here the sum of the square
+of the sides is equal to the square of the hyper-space, no, mustn't
+think that mimsy were the borogroves and the momraths now what the heck
+did the momraths do anyhow absolute zero is the temperature at which
+all molecular activity....
+
+"What were you thinking, Ramsey?"
+
+His mind was a labyrinth. There were thousands of discrete thoughts, of
+course. Millions of them, collected over a lifetime. But all at once he
+did not know his way through that labyrinth and his thoughts kept
+whirling back to the one Margot Dennison wanted as if, somehow, she
+could pluck it from his mind.
+
+She stood before him, her brow furrowed, sweat beading her pretty face.
+
+And she was winning, forcing the thought to take shape in Ramsey's
+mind--
+
+_But if I went out there I'd perish from cold in seconds and lack of air
+in minutes._
+
+_Cold_, came the known and unbidden thoughts to Ramsey's struggling
+mind. _And lack of air. Attributes of extension, of space_, but measured
+by duration, by time. _And since time does not exist in hyper-space, the
+vacuum out there and the terrible, killing cold, could have no effect on
+you. You could go out there perfectly protected from the lethal
+environment by the absence of the time dimension._
+
+Margot smiled at him. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you, Ramsey."
+
+He was about to speak, but she added: "And don't give me that stuff
+about a power we shouldn't tamper with. I'm going out there. Now."
+
+Ramsey nodded slowly. "I won't stop you."
+
+"But just so you don't get any ideas of stranding me here--Vardin.
+Vardin's going with me."
+
+The Vegan girl looked at Ramsey mutely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey said: "What makes you think I'll let you take her?"
+
+Margot smiled again. "The m.g. gun makes me think so."
+
+"The heck of it is, you're not really bad, Margot. This thing's got you,
+is all. You're not essentially evil."
+
+"Thank you for the thrilling compliment. I'm delighted," Margot said
+sarcastically.
+
+"Vardin stays with me."
+
+Margot reminded him of the lethal m.g. gun by showing it to him,
+muzzle-first.
+
+He laughed in her face. "Go ahead and shoot."
+
+She stared at him.
+
+"There isn't a lethal weapon'd do you any good here in a timeless
+continuum. Take an m.g. gun. It induces an artificial breakdown of
+radioactive fuel in its chamber, firing an instantly lethal dose of
+radiation. But in order for radioactive breakdown to occur, time must
+pass. Even if it's only milliseconds, as in the case of an m.g. gun.
+There aren't any milliseconds on this world, Margot. There isn't any
+time. So go ahead and pull the trigger."
+
+Margot frowned and pointed the gun to one side and fired.
+
+Nothing happened. Margot almost looked as if her hard shell had been
+sundered by the impotence of the m.g. gun. She pouted. Her eyes gleamed
+moistly.
+
+Then Ramsey said: "O.K. Let's go."
+
+"What--what do you mean?"
+
+"Out there. All of us."
+
+"But I thought you said--"
+
+"Sure, I'm scared stiff. A normal man would be. It's in our genes,
+according to your father. But I'm also a man. What the devil d'you think
+it was first got man out of his cave and started along the road to
+civilization and the stars? It was curiosity. Fear restraining him, and
+curiosity egging him on. Which do you think won in the end?"
+
+"Oh, Ramsey, I could kiss you!"
+
+"Go right ahead," Ramsey said, and she did.
+
+They opened the airlock. They went outside smiling.
+
+But Vardin, who went with them, wasn't smiling. There was sadness
+instead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In cumbersome spacesuits, the five Irwadians made their way from the
+_Dog Star_ to the _Enterprise_. Ramar Chind and his three policemen
+carried m.g. guns; Garr Symm was unarmed. Chind used a whorl-neutralizer
+to force the pattern of the lock on the outer door of the _Enterprise's_
+airlock. Then the five of them plunged inside the ship.
+
+The inner door was not closed.
+
+The _Enterprise_ was empty.
+
+Garr Symm looked doubtfully at the gray murkiness behind them. Although
+the _Dog Star_ stood out there less than a quarter of a mile away, they
+couldn't see it through the murk.
+
+"Where did they go?" Ramar Chind asked.
+
+Symm waved vaguely behind them.
+
+Chind and his men turned around.
+
+Gritting his teeth against the fear which welled up like nausea from the
+pit of his stomach, Garr Symm went with them.
+
+At that moment they all heard the music.
+
+"You hear it?" Ramsey asked softly. His voice did not carry on the
+airless world, of course. But he spoke, and the words were understood,
+not merely by Margot, who could read his mind, but by Vardin as well.
+
+"Music," said Margot. "Isn't it--beautiful?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey nodded slowly. He could barely see Margot, although he held her
+hand. He could barely see Vardin although they stood hand in hand too.
+The music was un-Earthly, incapable of repetition, indescribably the
+loveliest sound he had ever heard. He wanted to sink down into the
+obscuring gray murk and weep and listen to the haunting, sad, lovely
+strains of sound forever.
+
+"What can it possibly be?" Margot asked.
+
+Surprisingly, it was Vardin who answered. "Music of the Spheres," she
+said. "It's a legend on Vega III, my world."
+
+"And on Earth," Ramsey said.
+
+Vardin told them: "On all worlds. And, like all such legends, it has a
+basis in reality. This is the basis."
+
+That didn't sound like timid little Vardin at all. Ramsey listened in
+amazement. He thought he heard Vardin laugh.
+
+Music. But didn't the notes need the medium of time in which to be
+heard? How could they hear music here at all? Or were they hearing it?
+Perhaps it merely impinged on their minds, their souls, just as they
+were able to hear one another's thoughts as words....
+
+They'd never understand fully, Ramsey knew suddenly. Perhaps they could
+grasp a little of the nature of this place, a shadow here, the
+half-suggestion of the substance of reality there, a stillborn thought
+here, a note of celestial music there, the timeless legacy of proto-man,
+whatever proto-man was....
+
+"The fog is lifting!" Vardin cried.
+
+The fog was not lifting.
+
+Then it was.
+
+Ramsey would never forget that. Vardin had spoken while the dense gray
+murk enveloped them completely.
+
+Then it began to grow tenuous.
+
+As if Vardin's words had made it so. Little Vardin, shy, frightened
+Vardin, suddenly, inexplicably, the strongest, surest one among them....
+
+The sky, white and dazzling, glistened. The gray murk glistened too, a
+hundred yards off in all directions, like a wall of polished glass
+surrounding them.
+
+In the very middle of the bell-jar of visibility granted them all at
+once, stood a black rectangular object.
+
+"The teleporter!" Margot cried. "The matter-transmitter! I know it is. I
+_know_ it is!"
+
+Ramsey stood waiting breathlessly.
+
+No, he realized abruptly, not breathlessly. You couldn't say
+breathlessly.
+
+For Ramsey had not breathed, not once, since they left the _Enterprise_.
+
+You didn't breathe on a timeless world. You merely--somehow--existed.
+
+"It's opening!" Margot cried.
+
+The black rectangle, ominously coffin-shaped, was indeed opening.
+
+"The matter transmitter," Margot said a second time. "The secret of
+proto-man, of our ancestors who colonized all the worlds of space with
+it, instantly, at the same cosmic moment. Think of what it means,
+Ramsey, can you? Instantaneous travel, anywhere, without the need for
+energy since energy cannot be used here, without the passage of time
+since time does not exist here." She stood transfixed, looking at the
+black box. The lid had lifted at right angles to the rest of the box.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Margot said, in the whisper of an awed thought: "Who controls it
+controls the galaxy...."
+
+And she walked toward the box.
+
+At that moment Ramsey had a vision. He saw--or thought he saw--Margot
+Dennison in the costume she had worn when they first met. She stood,
+eyes wide, fearful, expectant, before a chess-board. The pieces seemed
+to be spaceships. It was a perfectly clear vision, but it was the only
+such vision Ramsey had ever been vouchsafed in his life. He was no
+mystic. He did not know what to make of it.
+
+Playing chess with Margot was--proto-man.
+
+Ramsey only saw his hand.
+
+A hand perhaps five million years old.
+
+He blinked. The vision persisted, superimposed over Margot's figure as
+she walked toward the box.
+
+A game, he thought. Because we don't understand it. Not that kind of
+power. Not the power a matter-transmitter would give. A cosmic game on
+a chess-board which wasn't quite a chess-board, with a creature who had
+never lived as we know life and so could never die....
+
+With the future of the galaxy hanging in the balance. Life or death for
+man hanging on a slim thread, because man wasn't ready for
+matter-transmission, couldn't hope to use it wisely, would use it
+perhaps for war, transmitting lethal weapons, thermonuclear,
+world-destroying weapons, instantly through space, for delivery
+anywhere, negating time....
+
+Death hovered.
+
+"Wait!" Ramsey called, and ran forward.
+
+Just then five new figures, space-suited, appeared under the gleaming
+dome.
+
+"Stop that woman!" a voice which Ramsey should not have been able to
+hear but which he somehow heard perfectly cried. "Stop her!"
+
+M.g. guns were raised, fired.
+
+Without effect.
+
+Three of the spacesuited figures ran after Margot as the voice repeated:
+"Stop her! The box is mine, mine!"
+
+It was Garr Symm's voice.
+
+Ramsey did not know if he should stop Margot himself, or fight Symm's
+men. Although they couldn't use their weapons on this world, they could
+still hurt--possibly even kill--Margot. Ramsey turned and waited for
+them.
+
+The strange, mystic vision was gone. He saw only three space-suited
+figures, saw Margot walking steadily toward the box. Either she was
+moving very slowly or the box retreated or it was further away than it
+had looked at first. For she hadn't reached it yet.
+
+Ramsey met the space-suited figures head-on.
+
+There were three of them, but they were awkward in their suits,
+cumbersome, incapable of quick responses.
+
+Ramsey hit the first one in the belly and darted back. His fist felt
+contact with the soft bulk of the insulined suit, then with the harder
+bulk of the man. He struck again, harder this time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The scaly green face of the Irwadi within the space-suit grimaced with
+pain. He doubled over and fell, his helmet shattering against the ground
+at Ramsey's feet.
+
+Then an incredible thing happened. The Irwadi opened his mouth to
+scream. His face froze. He lost his air. His face bloated.
+
+And he died.
+
+Ramsey couldn't believe his eyes.
+
+It was not possible to die from lack of air or from cold on a world
+without the time continuum. Ramsey, Vardin and Margot had proved that by
+venturing out without protection.
+
+But the Irwadi had died.
+
+Mental suggestion?
+
+Because he thought he would die?
+
+Because that was the only way you could perish on a world lacking in the
+time dimension--by your own thoughts?
+
+The second space-suited figure closed with Ramsey awkwardly. Ramsey hit
+him. The man of Irwadi fell, his helmet cracked, he tried to scream--and
+died.
+
+The third man fled.
+
+Ramsey ran after Margot. "Wait!" he cried. He couldn't talk to her about
+his fantastic vision. It was personal. She wouldn't understand. Mystic
+experience always is like that. And yet, with the conviction that only a
+mystic can have--although he certainly was no mystic--Ramsey knew the
+galaxy would be in grave trouble if mankind were given the secret of
+matter-transmission.
+
+A voice said: "You are right."
+
+It was Vardin's voice, and Vardin went on:
+
+"Ramsey, stop her. I can't stop her. It is only granted that I
+observe--and convince, if I can. I am not a Vegan girl. I am--"
+
+Ramsey said it. "Proto-man!"
+
+"There aren't many of us left. We discovered matter-transmission. We
+used it once, to people the worlds of the galaxy. It was our final
+creative effort. We merely observe now, unable to destroy our creation,
+trying to keep it out of mankind's hands. You see--"
+
+"Then back on Irwadi you knew all along we would come here!"
+
+"I was vouchsafed the vision, yes. Even as you--stop her, Ramsey. You
+must stop her!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey sprinted forward. Margot was nearing the black coffin now.
+
+Ramsey ran at her, and tackled her.
+
+They went down together, the girl fighting like a tigress, tooth and
+nail, wildly, sobbing, striking out at Ramsey with small impotent fists,
+until he subdued her. Panting, they glared at each other.
+
+And could not stop Garr Symm from running past them, eyes rapt behind
+the plastiglass of his helmet, and jumping into the black box.
+
+"To the end of the universe and back!" he cried. "Take me there and
+back. Instantly. Prove to me that you work! Now...." His voice trailed
+off. He had addressed the black rectangle almost as if it were something
+alive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ramsey thought he heard a growl from the box. He stood before it,
+looking in. The hackles rose on his neck.
+
+"You see," Vardin said. "My ancestors and yours discovered the power of
+a god--and did not understand it. We were incorporeal. We created
+life--your ancestors. We patterned it to fit the evolution of the three
+thousand worlds. Human life. Millions of them, colonists for the worlds
+of normal space. We were tampering in our tragic pride, Ramsey, with
+forces we would never comprehend.
+
+"We colonized the worlds, deciding that physical existence, along with
+the mental prowess we had, was the ideal state. A few of us, like
+myself, or my ancestors if you wish, although the purely mental lives
+continuously--a few of us stayed behind and saw--the loss of a million
+years!"
+
+Ramsey's eyes still could not pierce the darkness inside the box.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked in an awed voice.
+
+"We sent out god-like men. We did not understand our discovery. The
+god-like men--but look at Garr Symm."
+
+The spacesuited figure got up slowly. It blinked at Ramsey. It growled.
+It had a recognizably green, scale-skinned face. But it was not the face
+of Garr Symm. It was the face of Garr Symm's caveman ancestors, a
+million years ago....
+
+"This is what happened to my people," Vardin said.
+
+She looked at Ramar Chind and Chind, responding, went to Garr Symm and
+led him quietly back toward the _Dog Star_. Chind never said a word.
+Garr Symm growled.
+
+"Take the Earthgirl and go," Vardin told Ramsey.
+
+"But I--you--aren't you coming?"
+
+"My work is finished," Vardin told him. "For now."
+
+"For now?"
+
+"I am a guardian. When I am needed again--" She shrugged her slim blue
+shoulders.
+
+"But Margot will never be content now," Ramsey protested. "Not when
+she's come so close."
+
+"She'll understand. Just as you understand. You'll be good for each
+other, Ramsey, you and the girl. She's had only her fierce pride and her
+dreams of power. She has room for love. She needs love."
+
+"But you--"
+
+"I? I am nothing. I am the end-product of an equation our ancestors
+found a million years ago. An equation to give them god-like power.
+Instead it made them savages and I have had to watch their slow climb
+back to the stars. An equation, Ramsey. Almost an equation of doom. Now
+go."
+
+Vardin flickered, became insubstantial. Her body seemed to melt into the
+gray mists.
+
+The gleaming walls were gone. The black box was gone. Vardin was gone.
+
+Ramsey led Margot back to the _Enterprise_.
+
+Moments later--although the elapsed time was subjective--they blasted
+off.
+
+Margot opened her eyes. She had been sleeping. She smiled at Ramsey
+tremulously. "I love you," she said. Her words seemed to surprise her.
+
+"I can't go back to Earth," Ramsey said.
+
+"Who wants to go back to Earth--if you can't?"
+
+They had, Ramsey knew, all of space and the life-span of mortal man to
+enjoy together.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+  |                                                              |
+  | Transcriber's note:                                          |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Inconsistent hyphenation (matter-transmitter/matter          |
+  | transmitter, scintillation-counter/scintillation counter,    |
+  | space-suit/spacesuit) has been retained.                     |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Deliberate mis-spellings (borogroves, momraths; plus all the |
+  | lithping) have been retained. Minor changes to punctuation   |
+  | were made without comment.                                   |
+  |                                                              |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EQUATION OF DOOM***
+
+
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