DARD LAY ON HIS back staring up into unfamiliar gray reaches. Then
a pinkish globe swam into position over him and he concentrated
upon it. Eyes, nose, a mouth that was opening and shutting, took
proper place.
"How is it, fella?"
Dard considered the question. He had been face down in the snow,
there had been Peacemen creeping after him and —Dessie! Dessie! He
struggled to sit up and the face of that figure above him
moved.
"The little girl, she's all right. You're both all right now.
You are the Nordis kids?"
Dard nodded. "Where is here?" he formed the inquiry slowly. The
face crinkled into laughter.
"Well, at least that's a variation on the old 'Where am I?'
You're in the Cleft, kid. We saw you trying to make it across the
river valley with that 'copter after you. You managed to delay them
long enough for us to lay down the fog. Then we gathered you in.
Also we're a 'copter and some assorted supplies to the good, so
you've more than paid your admittance fee—even if you weren't Lars
Nordis' kin."
"How did you discover who we are?" Dard asked.
Dark brown eyes twinkled. "We have our little ways of learning
what is necessary for us to know. And it is a painless
process—done while you're asleep."
"I talked in my sleep? But I don't!"
"Maybe not under ordinary circumstances. But let our medico get
the digester on you and you do. You've had a pretty hard pull, kid,
haven't you?"
Dard levered himself up on his elbows and the other slipped
extra support behind him. Now he could see that he was stretched
out on a narrow cot in a room which seemed to be part cave, for
three of its walls were bare rock, the fourth a smooth gray
substance cut by a door. There were no windows, and a soft light
issued from two tubes in the rock ceiling. His visitor perched on a
folding stool and there was no other furniture in the cell-like
chamber.
But there were coverings over him such as he had not seen for
years, and he was wearing a clean, one-piece coverall over a bathed
body. He smoothed the top blanket lovingly. "Where is here—and
what is here?" he expanded his first question.
"This is the Cleft, the last stronghold, as far as we know, of
the Free Men." The other got to his feet and stretched. He was a
tall lean-waisted man, with dark brown skin, against which his
strong teeth and the china-white of his eyeballs made startling
contrast. Curly black hair was cropped very close to his round
skull, and he had only a slight trace of beard. "This is the
gateway to Ad Astra—" he paused, eyeing Dard as if to assess the
effect those last two words had on the boy.
"Ad Astra," Dard repeated. "Lars spoke of that once."
"Ad Astra means 'to the Stars.' And this is the jumping off
place."
Dard frowned. To the stars! Not interplanetary—but galactic
flight! But that was impossible!
"I thought that Mars and Venus—" he began doubtfully.
"Who said anything about Mars or Venus. kid? Sure, they're
impossible. It would take most of the resources of a willing Terra
to plant a colony on either of them—as who should know better than
I? No, not interplanetary flight—stellar. Go out to take our pick
of waiting worlds such as earth creepers never dreamed of, that's
what we're going to do! Ad Astra!"
Galactic flight—his first wild guess had been right
"A star ship here!" In spite of himself Dard knew a small thrill
far inside his starved body. Men had landed on Mars and Venus back
in the days before the Burn and the Purge, discovering conditions
on both planets which made them almost impossible for human life
without a vast expenditure which Terra was not willing to make.
And, of course, Pax had forbidden all space flight as part of the
program for stamping out scientific experimentation. But a star
ship—to break the bounds of Sol's system and go out to find
another sun, other planets. It sounded like a very wild dream but
he could not doubt the sincerity of the man who had just voiced
it.
"But what did Lars have to do with this?" he wondered aloud.
Lars' field had been chemistry, not astronomy or the mechanics of
space flight. Dard doubted whether his brother could have told one
constellation from another.
"He had a very important part. We've just been waiting around
for you to wake up to get the report of his findings."
"But I thought you got the full story out of me while I was
unconscious."
"What you personally did in the past few days, yes. But you do
carry a message from Lars, don't you?" For the first time some of
the dark man's lightheartedness vanished.
Dard smoothed the blanket and then plucked at it with nervous
fingers. "I don't know—I hope so—"
His companion ran his hands across his tight cap of hair.
"Suppose we have Tas in. He's only been waiting for you to come
around." He crossed the room and pushed a wall button.
"By the way," he said over his shoulder, "I'm forgetting
introductions. I'm Simba Kimber, Pilot-astrogator Simba Kimber," he
repeated that title as if it meant a great deal to him. "And Tas is
First Scientist Tas Kordov, biological division. Our organization
here is made up of survivors from half a dozen Free Scientist teams
as well as quite a few just plain outlaws who are not Pax-minded.
Oh, come in, Tas."
The man who entered was short and almost as broad as he was
tall. But sturdy muscle, not fat, thickened his shoulders and
pillared his arms and legs. He wore the faded uniform of a Free
Scientist with the flaming sword of First Rank still to be picked
out on the breast. His eyes and broad cheek bones had Tartar
contours and Dard believed that he was not a native of the land in
which he now lived.
"Well, and now you are awake, oh?" he smiled at Dard. "We have been waiting for you to open those eyes—and that mouth
of yours—young man. What word do you bring from Lars Nordis?"
Dard could hesitate about telling the full truth no longer.
"I don't know whether I have anything or not. The night the
roundup gang came Lars said he had finished his job—"
"Good!" Tas Kordov actually clapped his hands.
"But when we had to clear out he didn't try to bring any papers
with him—"
Kordov's face was avid as if he would drag what he wanted out of
Dard by force. "But he gave to you some message—surely he gave
some message!"
"Only one thing. And I don't know how important that may be.
I'll have to have something to write on to explain properly."
"Is that all?" Kordov pulled a notebook out of his breeches'
pocket and flipped it open to a blank page, handing it to him with
an inkless stylus. Dard, equipped with the tools, began the
explanation which neither of these men might believe.
"It goes way back. Lars knew that I imagine words as designs.
That is, if I hear a poem, it makes a pattern for me—" he paused
trying to guess from their expressions whether they understood.
Somehow it didn't sound very sensible, now.
Kordov pulled his lower lip away from his yellowish teeth and
allowed it to snap back. "Hmm—semantics are not my field. But I
believe that I can follow what you mean. Demonstrate!"
Feeling foolish, Dard recited Dessie's jingle, marking out the
pattern on the page.
"Eesee, Osee, Icksie, Ann; Fullson, Follson, Orson, Cann."
He underlined, accented, and overlined, as he had that evening
on the farm and Dessie's kicking legs came into being again.
"Lars saw me do this. He was quite excited about it. And then he
gave me another two lines, which for me do not make the same
pattern. But he insisted that this pattern be fitted over his
lines."
"And those other lines?" demanded Tas.
Dard repeated the words aloud as be jotted them down.
"Seven, nine, four and ten; twenty, sixty and seven again."
Carefully he fitted the lines through and about the numbers and
handed the result to Kordov. To him it made no possible sense, and
if it didn't to the First Scientist, then he would not have had
Lars' precious secret at all. When Tas continued to frown down at
the page, Dard lost the small flicker of confidence he had had.
"Ingenious," muttered Kimber looking over the First Scientist's
shoulder. "Could be a code."
"Yes," Tas was going to the door. "I must study it. And look
upon the other notes again. I must—"
With that he was gone. Dard sighed.
"It probably doesn't mean a thing," he said wearily. "But what
should it be?"
"The formula for the 'cold sleep,' " Kimber told him.
"Cold sleep?"
"We go to sleep, hibernate, during that trip—or else the ship
comes to its port manned by dust! Even with all the improvements
they have given her the new drive—everything—our baby isn't going
to make the big jump in one man's lifetime, or in a number of
lifetimes!" Kimber paced back and forth as he talked, turning
square corners at either end of the room. "In fact, we didn't have
a chance—we'd begun thinking of trying to make a stand on
Mars—before one of our men accidentally discovered Lars Nordis was
alive. Before the purge he'd published one paper concerning his
research on the circulatory system of bats—studying the drop in
their body temperature during their winter sleep. Don't ask me
about it, I'm only a pilot-astrogator, not a Big Brain! But he was
on the track of something Kordov believed might be done—the
freezing of a human being so that he can remain alive but in sleep
indefinitely. And since we contacted him, Lars has continued to
feed us data bit by bit."
"But why?" Why, if Lars bad been working with this group so
closely, hadn't he wanted to join them? Why had they had to live in
the farmhouse on a starvation level, under constant fear of a
roundup?
"Why didn't he come here?" It was as if Kimber bad picked that
out of Dard's mind. "He said he wasn't sure he could make the
trip—crippled as he was. He didn't want to try it until the last
possible moment when it wouldn't matter if he were sighted
trying—or traced here. He believed that he was under constant
surveillance by some enemy and that the minute he, or any of you,
made a move out of the ordinary, that enemy would bring in the
Peacemen, perhaps before he had the answer to our problem. So you
had to live on a very narrow edge of safety."
"Very narrow," Dard agreed. There was logic in what Kimber said.
If Folley had been spying on them, and he must have or else he
would not have appeared in the barn, he would have suspected
something if any of them had not shown around the house as usual.
Lars could never have made the journey they had just taken. Yes, he
could see why his brother had waited until it was too late for
him.
"But there's something else." Kimber sat down on the stool
again, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin supported by his
cupped hands.
"What do you know about the Temple of the Voice?"
Dard. still intent upon the problem of the cold sleep, was
startled. Why did Kimber want to know about the innermost heart of
the neighboring Pax establishment?
The "Voice" was that giant computer to which representatives of
Pax fed data—to have it digested and to receive back the logical
directives which enabled them to control the thousands under their
rule. He knew what the "Voice" was, had had it hazily described to
him by hearsay. But he doubted whether any Free Scientist or any
associate of such proscribed outlaws had ever dared to approach the
"Temple" which housed it.
"It's the center of the Pax—" he began, only to have the pilot
interrupt him.
"I mean—give me your own description of the place."
Dard froze. He hoped that his panic at that moment was not open
enough to be marked. How did they know he had been to the
Temple—through that mysterious digester which had picked over his
memories while he was unconscious?
"You were there—two years ago," the other bored in
relentlessly.
"Yes, I was there. Kathia was sick—there was just a chance of
getting some medico to attend her if I could show a 'confidence
card.' I made a Seventh Day visit but when I presented my
attendance slip to the Circle they asked too many questions. I
never got the card."
Kimber nodded. "It's okay, kid. I'm not accusing you of being a
Pax plant. If you had been that, the digester would have warned us.
But I have a very good reason for wanting to know about the Temple
of the Voice. Now tell me everything you can remember—every
detail."
Dard began. And discovered that his memory was a vivid one. He
could recall the number of steps leading into the inner court and
quote closely enough every word that the "Laurel Crowned" speaker of that particular Seventh Day had
spouted in his talk to the faithful. When he finished he saw that
Kimber was regarding him with an expression of mingled amazement
and admiration.
"Good Lord, kid, how do you remember everything—just from one
short visit?"
Dard laughed shakily. "What's worse, I can't forget anything. I
can tell you every detail of every day I've lived since the purge.
Before then," his hand went to his head, "before then for some reason it's not so dear."
"Lots of us would rather not remember what happened since then.
You get a pack of fanatics in control—the way Renzi's forces have
taken over this ant hill of a world—and things crack wide open.
We've organized our collective sanity to save our own lives. And
there's nothing we can do about the rest of mankind now—when we're
only a handful of outlaws hiding out in the wilderness. There's a
good big price on the head of everyone here in the Cleft. The whole
company of Pax would like nothing better than to round us up. Only
we're planning to get away. That's why we have to have the help of
the Voice."
"The Voice?"
Kimber swept over the half interruption. "You know what the
Voice is, don't you? A computer—mechanical brain they used to call
them. Feed it data, it digests the figures and then spews out an
answer to any problem which would require months or years for a
human mind to solve. The astrogation course, the one which is going
to take us to a sun enough like Sol to provide us with a proper
world, is beyond the power of our setting up. We have the data and
all our puny calculations—but the Voice has to melt them down for
us!"
Dard stared at this madman. No one but a Peaceman who had
reached the ratified status of "Laurel Wearer" dared approach the
inner sanctuary which held the Voice. And just how Kimber proposed
to get there and set the machine to work on outlawed formula, he
could not possibly guess.
Kimber volunteered no more information and Dard did not ask. In
fact he half forgot it during the next few hours as he was shown
that strange honeycomb fortress, blasted out of the living rock,
which served the last of the Free Scientists as a base. Kimber was
his guide and escort along the narrow passages, giving him short
glimpses of Hydro-gardens, of strange laboratories, and once, from
a vantage point, the star ship itself.
"Not too large, is she?" the pilot had commented, eyeing the
long silvery dart with a full-sized frown. "But she's the best we
could do. Her core is an experimental model designed for a try at
the outer planets just before the purge. In the first days of the
disturbance they got her here—or the most important parts of
her—and we have been building ever since."
No, the ship wasn't large. Dard frankly could not see where all
the toiling inhabitants of the Cleft were going to find berths on
her, whether in the suspended animation of hibernation or not. But
he didn't mention that aloud. Instead he said:
"I don't see how you've been able to hide out without detection
this long."
Kimber grinned wickedly. "We have more ways than one. What do
you think of this?" He drew his hand from his breeches pocket. On
his dark palm lay a flat piece of shining metal.
"That, my boy, is gold! There's been precious little of it about
for the past hundred years or so—governments buried their supplies
of it and sat tight on them brooding. But it hasn't lost its magic.
We have found many metals in these mountains and, while this is
useless for our purposes, it still carries a lot of weight out
there." He pointed to the peak which guarded the entrance to the
Cleft. "We have our trading messengers and we fill hands in proper
places. Then this is all camouflaged. If you were to fly across
this valley in a 'copter, you'd see only what our techneers want
you to. Don't ask me how they do it—some warping of the light
rays—too deep for me." He shrugged. "I'm only a pilot waiting for a
job."
"But if you are able to keep hidden, why 'Ad Astra'?"
Kimber rubbed the curve of his jaw with his thumb.
"For several reasons. Pax has all the power pretty well in its
hands now, so the Peacemen are stretching to wipe out the last
holes of resistance. We've been receiving a steady stream of
warnings through our messengers and the outside men we've bought.
The roundup gangs are consolidating— planning on a big raid. What
we have here is the precarious safety of a rabbit crouching at the
bottom of a burrow while the hound sniffs outside. We have no time
for anything except the ship, preparing to take advantage of the
thin promise for another future that it offers us. Lui Skort—he's
a medico with a taste for history—gives Pax another fifty to a
hundred years of life. And the Cleft can't last that long. So we'll
try the chance in a million of going out—and it is a chance in a
million. We may not find another earth-type planet, we may not ever
survive the voyage. And, well, you can fill in a few of the other
ifs, ands, and buts for yourself."
Dard still watched the star ship. Yes, a thousand chances of
failure against one or two of success. But what an adventure! And
to be free—out of this dark morass which stunted minds and fed
man's fears to the point of madness—to be free among the
stars!
He heard Kimber laugh softly. "You're caught by it, too, aren't
you, kid? Well, keep your fingers crossed. If your brother's stuff
works, if the Voice gives us the right course, if the new fuel Tang
concocted will really take her through—why—we're off!"
Kimber seemed so confident that Dard dared now to ask that other
question.
"She isn't very big. How are you going to stow away all the
people?"
For the first time the space pilot did not meet his eyes. With
the toe of his shabby boot Kimber kicked at an inoffensive table
savagely.
"We can stow away more than you would believe just looking at
her, if we are able to use the hibernation process."
"But not all," Dard persisted, driven by some inner need to
know.
"But not all," Kimber agreed with manifest reluctance.
Dard blinked, but now there was a veil between his eyes and the
sleek, silver swell of the star ship. He was not going to question
farther. There was no need to, and he had no desire for a straight
answer. Instead he changed the subject abruptly.
"When are you going to try to reach the Voice?"
"As soon as I hear from Tas—"
"And what do you wish to hear from Tas?" came a voice from
behind Dard. "That he has succeeded in making sense of gibberish
and 'kicking legs' and all the rest of the fantastic puzzle this
young man has dumped into his head? Because if that is what you
wait for, wait no longer, Sim! The sense has been made and thanks
to Lars Nordis and our messengers," Kordov's big paw of a hand
reached up to give Dard's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, "we can
now take off into the heavens at our will. We wait only for your
part of the operation."
"Good enough." Kimber started to turn when Dard caught his
arm.
"Look here. You've never been to the Temple of the Voice."
"Of course not," Tas cut in, "Is he completely crazy? Does one
thrust one's hand into raw atomic radiation?"
"But I have! Maybe I can't work your computations but I can
guide you in and out. And I know enough about the official forms
to—"
Kimber opened his mouth, plainly to refuse, but again the First
Scientist was too quick for him.
"Now that makes very good sense, Sim. If young Nordis has
already been there—why, that is more than any of the rest of us
have done. And in the disguise you have planned the risk is
less."
The pilot frowned and Dard prepared for an outright refusal. But
at last Kimber gave a half-nod. Tas pushed Dard after him.
"Go along with you. And mind you bring him back in one piece. We
can do many things among us, but he remains our only space pilot,
our only experienced astrogator."
Dard followed Kimber along rock passages, back through the maze
of the Cleft dwelling to a flight of stairs crudely hacked from the
stone. The stairs ended in a large room holding a 'copter which
bore all the markings of a Pax machine.
"Recognize it? This is the one which you played tag with out in
the valley. Now—get into this and hurry!"
From the 'copter he took a bundle of clothing which he pitched
over to Dard. The boy put on the Peaceman's black and white,
buckling around him as a finishing touch a belt supporting a hand
stun gun. Although the clothes were large the fit was good enough
to pass in the half-light of evening. And they had to visit the
Voice at night to have any chance at all.
He took his place gingerly beside the pilot inside the 'copter.
Overhead a cover had rolled back so that the sky was open to them.
As Dard secretly gripped tile edge of his seat Kimber took the
controls. And Dard continued to hold on as the machine started the
slow spiral up into the air.
DARD LAY ON HIS back staring up into unfamiliar gray reaches. Then
a pinkish globe swam into position over him and he concentrated
upon it. Eyes, nose, a mouth that was opening and shutting, took
proper place.
"How is it, fella?"
Dard considered the question. He had been face down in the snow,
there had been Peacemen creeping after him and —Dessie! Dessie! He
struggled to sit up and the face of that figure above him
moved.
"The little girl, she's all right. You're both all right now.
You are the Nordis kids?"
Dard nodded. "Where is here?" he formed the inquiry slowly. The
face crinkled into laughter.
"Well, at least that's a variation on the old 'Where am I?'
You're in the Cleft, kid. We saw you trying to make it across the
river valley with that 'copter after you. You managed to delay them
long enough for us to lay down the fog. Then we gathered you in.
Also we're a 'copter and some assorted supplies to the good, so
you've more than paid your admittance fee—even if you weren't Lars
Nordis' kin."
"How did you discover who we are?" Dard asked.
Dark brown eyes twinkled. "We have our little ways of learning
what is necessary for us to know. And it is a painless
process—done while you're asleep."
"I talked in my sleep? But I don't!"
"Maybe not under ordinary circumstances. But let our medico get
the digester on you and you do. You've had a pretty hard pull, kid,
haven't you?"
Dard levered himself up on his elbows and the other slipped
extra support behind him. Now he could see that he was stretched
out on a narrow cot in a room which seemed to be part cave, for
three of its walls were bare rock, the fourth a smooth gray
substance cut by a door. There were no windows, and a soft light
issued from two tubes in the rock ceiling. His visitor perched on a
folding stool and there was no other furniture in the cell-like
chamber.
But there were coverings over him such as he had not seen for
years, and he was wearing a clean, one-piece coverall over a bathed
body. He smoothed the top blanket lovingly. "Where is here—and
what is here?" he expanded his first question.
"This is the Cleft, the last stronghold, as far as we know, of
the Free Men." The other got to his feet and stretched. He was a
tall lean-waisted man, with dark brown skin, against which his
strong teeth and the china-white of his eyeballs made startling
contrast. Curly black hair was cropped very close to his round
skull, and he had only a slight trace of beard. "This is the
gateway to Ad Astra—" he paused, eyeing Dard as if to assess the
effect those last two words had on the boy.
"Ad Astra," Dard repeated. "Lars spoke of that once."
"Ad Astra means 'to the Stars.' And this is the jumping off
place."
Dard frowned. To the stars! Not interplanetary—but galactic
flight! But that was impossible!
"I thought that Mars and Venus—" he began doubtfully.
"Who said anything about Mars or Venus. kid? Sure, they're
impossible. It would take most of the resources of a willing Terra
to plant a colony on either of them—as who should know better than
I? No, not interplanetary flight—stellar. Go out to take our pick
of waiting worlds such as earth creepers never dreamed of, that's
what we're going to do! Ad Astra!"
Galactic flight—his first wild guess had been right
"A star ship here!" In spite of himself Dard knew a small thrill
far inside his starved body. Men had landed on Mars and Venus back
in the days before the Burn and the Purge, discovering conditions
on both planets which made them almost impossible for human life
without a vast expenditure which Terra was not willing to make.
And, of course, Pax had forbidden all space flight as part of the
program for stamping out scientific experimentation. But a star
ship—to break the bounds of Sol's system and go out to find
another sun, other planets. It sounded like a very wild dream but
he could not doubt the sincerity of the man who had just voiced
it.
"But what did Lars have to do with this?" he wondered aloud.
Lars' field had been chemistry, not astronomy or the mechanics of
space flight. Dard doubted whether his brother could have told one
constellation from another.
"He had a very important part. We've just been waiting around
for you to wake up to get the report of his findings."
"But I thought you got the full story out of me while I was
unconscious."
"What you personally did in the past few days, yes. But you do
carry a message from Lars, don't you?" For the first time some of
the dark man's lightheartedness vanished.
Dard smoothed the blanket and then plucked at it with nervous
fingers. "I don't know—I hope so—"
His companion ran his hands across his tight cap of hair.
"Suppose we have Tas in. He's only been waiting for you to come
around." He crossed the room and pushed a wall button.
"By the way," he said over his shoulder, "I'm forgetting
introductions. I'm Simba Kimber, Pilot-astrogator Simba Kimber," he
repeated that title as if it meant a great deal to him. "And Tas is
First Scientist Tas Kordov, biological division. Our organization
here is made up of survivors from half a dozen Free Scientist teams
as well as quite a few just plain outlaws who are not Pax-minded.
Oh, come in, Tas."
The man who entered was short and almost as broad as he was
tall. But sturdy muscle, not fat, thickened his shoulders and
pillared his arms and legs. He wore the faded uniform of a Free
Scientist with the flaming sword of First Rank still to be picked
out on the breast. His eyes and broad cheek bones had Tartar
contours and Dard believed that he was not a native of the land in
which he now lived.
"Well, and now you are awake, oh?" he smiled at Dard. "We have been waiting for you to open those eyes—and that mouth
of yours—young man. What word do you bring from Lars Nordis?"
Dard could hesitate about telling the full truth no longer.
"I don't know whether I have anything or not. The night the
roundup gang came Lars said he had finished his job—"
"Good!" Tas Kordov actually clapped his hands.
"But when we had to clear out he didn't try to bring any papers
with him—"
Kordov's face was avid as if he would drag what he wanted out of
Dard by force. "But he gave to you some message—surely he gave
some message!"
"Only one thing. And I don't know how important that may be.
I'll have to have something to write on to explain properly."
"Is that all?" Kordov pulled a notebook out of his breeches'
pocket and flipped it open to a blank page, handing it to him with
an inkless stylus. Dard, equipped with the tools, began the
explanation which neither of these men might believe.
"It goes way back. Lars knew that I imagine words as designs.
That is, if I hear a poem, it makes a pattern for me—" he paused
trying to guess from their expressions whether they understood.
Somehow it didn't sound very sensible, now.
Kordov pulled his lower lip away from his yellowish teeth and
allowed it to snap back. "Hmm—semantics are not my field. But I
believe that I can follow what you mean. Demonstrate!"
Feeling foolish, Dard recited Dessie's jingle, marking out the
pattern on the page.
"Eesee, Osee, Icksie, Ann; Fullson, Follson, Orson, Cann."
He underlined, accented, and overlined, as he had that evening
on the farm and Dessie's kicking legs came into being again.
"Lars saw me do this. He was quite excited about it. And then he
gave me another two lines, which for me do not make the same
pattern. But he insisted that this pattern be fitted over his
lines."
"And those other lines?" demanded Tas.
Dard repeated the words aloud as be jotted them down.
"Seven, nine, four and ten; twenty, sixty and seven again."
Carefully he fitted the lines through and about the numbers and
handed the result to Kordov. To him it made no possible sense, and
if it didn't to the First Scientist, then he would not have had
Lars' precious secret at all. When Tas continued to frown down at
the page, Dard lost the small flicker of confidence he had had.
"Ingenious," muttered Kimber looking over the First Scientist's
shoulder. "Could be a code."
"Yes," Tas was going to the door. "I must study it. And look
upon the other notes again. I must—"
With that he was gone. Dard sighed.
"It probably doesn't mean a thing," he said wearily. "But what
should it be?"
"The formula for the 'cold sleep,' " Kimber told him.
"Cold sleep?"
"We go to sleep, hibernate, during that trip—or else the ship
comes to its port manned by dust! Even with all the improvements
they have given her the new drive—everything—our baby isn't going
to make the big jump in one man's lifetime, or in a number of
lifetimes!" Kimber paced back and forth as he talked, turning
square corners at either end of the room. "In fact, we didn't have
a chance—we'd begun thinking of trying to make a stand on
Mars—before one of our men accidentally discovered Lars Nordis was
alive. Before the purge he'd published one paper concerning his
research on the circulatory system of bats—studying the drop in
their body temperature during their winter sleep. Don't ask me
about it, I'm only a pilot-astrogator, not a Big Brain! But he was
on the track of something Kordov believed might be done—the
freezing of a human being so that he can remain alive but in sleep
indefinitely. And since we contacted him, Lars has continued to
feed us data bit by bit."
"But why?" Why, if Lars bad been working with this group so
closely, hadn't he wanted to join them? Why had they had to live in
the farmhouse on a starvation level, under constant fear of a
roundup?
"Why didn't he come here?" It was as if Kimber bad picked that
out of Dard's mind. "He said he wasn't sure he could make the
trip—crippled as he was. He didn't want to try it until the last
possible moment when it wouldn't matter if he were sighted
trying—or traced here. He believed that he was under constant
surveillance by some enemy and that the minute he, or any of you,
made a move out of the ordinary, that enemy would bring in the
Peacemen, perhaps before he had the answer to our problem. So you
had to live on a very narrow edge of safety."
"Very narrow," Dard agreed. There was logic in what Kimber said.
If Folley had been spying on them, and he must have or else he
would not have appeared in the barn, he would have suspected
something if any of them had not shown around the house as usual.
Lars could never have made the journey they had just taken. Yes, he
could see why his brother had waited until it was too late for
him.
"But there's something else." Kimber sat down on the stool
again, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin supported by his
cupped hands.
"What do you know about the Temple of the Voice?"
Dard. still intent upon the problem of the cold sleep, was
startled. Why did Kimber want to know about the innermost heart of
the neighboring Pax establishment?
The "Voice" was that giant computer to which representatives of
Pax fed data—to have it digested and to receive back the logical
directives which enabled them to control the thousands under their
rule. He knew what the "Voice" was, had had it hazily described to
him by hearsay. But he doubted whether any Free Scientist or any
associate of such proscribed outlaws had ever dared to approach the
"Temple" which housed it.
"It's the center of the Pax—" he began, only to have the pilot
interrupt him.
"I mean—give me your own description of the place."
Dard froze. He hoped that his panic at that moment was not open
enough to be marked. How did they know he had been to the
Temple—through that mysterious digester which had picked over his
memories while he was unconscious?
"You were there—two years ago," the other bored in
relentlessly.
"Yes, I was there. Kathia was sick—there was just a chance of
getting some medico to attend her if I could show a 'confidence
card.' I made a Seventh Day visit but when I presented my
attendance slip to the Circle they asked too many questions. I
never got the card."
Kimber nodded. "It's okay, kid. I'm not accusing you of being a
Pax plant. If you had been that, the digester would have warned us.
But I have a very good reason for wanting to know about the Temple
of the Voice. Now tell me everything you can remember—every
detail."
Dard began. And discovered that his memory was a vivid one. He
could recall the number of steps leading into the inner court and
quote closely enough every word that the "Laurel Crowned" speaker of that particular Seventh Day had
spouted in his talk to the faithful. When he finished he saw that
Kimber was regarding him with an expression of mingled amazement
and admiration.
"Good Lord, kid, how do you remember everything—just from one
short visit?"
Dard laughed shakily. "What's worse, I can't forget anything. I
can tell you every detail of every day I've lived since the purge.
Before then," his hand went to his head, "before then for some reason it's not so dear."
"Lots of us would rather not remember what happened since then.
You get a pack of fanatics in control—the way Renzi's forces have
taken over this ant hill of a world—and things crack wide open.
We've organized our collective sanity to save our own lives. And
there's nothing we can do about the rest of mankind now—when we're
only a handful of outlaws hiding out in the wilderness. There's a
good big price on the head of everyone here in the Cleft. The whole
company of Pax would like nothing better than to round us up. Only
we're planning to get away. That's why we have to have the help of
the Voice."
"The Voice?"
Kimber swept over the half interruption. "You know what the
Voice is, don't you? A computer—mechanical brain they used to call
them. Feed it data, it digests the figures and then spews out an
answer to any problem which would require months or years for a
human mind to solve. The astrogation course, the one which is going
to take us to a sun enough like Sol to provide us with a proper
world, is beyond the power of our setting up. We have the data and
all our puny calculations—but the Voice has to melt them down for
us!"
Dard stared at this madman. No one but a Peaceman who had
reached the ratified status of "Laurel Wearer" dared approach the
inner sanctuary which held the Voice. And just how Kimber proposed
to get there and set the machine to work on outlawed formula, he
could not possibly guess.
Kimber volunteered no more information and Dard did not ask. In
fact he half forgot it during the next few hours as he was shown
that strange honeycomb fortress, blasted out of the living rock,
which served the last of the Free Scientists as a base. Kimber was
his guide and escort along the narrow passages, giving him short
glimpses of Hydro-gardens, of strange laboratories, and once, from
a vantage point, the star ship itself.
"Not too large, is she?" the pilot had commented, eyeing the
long silvery dart with a full-sized frown. "But she's the best we
could do. Her core is an experimental model designed for a try at
the outer planets just before the purge. In the first days of the
disturbance they got her here—or the most important parts of
her—and we have been building ever since."
No, the ship wasn't large. Dard frankly could not see where all
the toiling inhabitants of the Cleft were going to find berths on
her, whether in the suspended animation of hibernation or not. But
he didn't mention that aloud. Instead he said:
"I don't see how you've been able to hide out without detection
this long."
Kimber grinned wickedly. "We have more ways than one. What do
you think of this?" He drew his hand from his breeches pocket. On
his dark palm lay a flat piece of shining metal.
"That, my boy, is gold! There's been precious little of it about
for the past hundred years or so—governments buried their supplies
of it and sat tight on them brooding. But it hasn't lost its magic.
We have found many metals in these mountains and, while this is
useless for our purposes, it still carries a lot of weight out
there." He pointed to the peak which guarded the entrance to the
Cleft. "We have our trading messengers and we fill hands in proper
places. Then this is all camouflaged. If you were to fly across
this valley in a 'copter, you'd see only what our techneers want
you to. Don't ask me how they do it—some warping of the light
rays—too deep for me." He shrugged. "I'm only a pilot waiting for a
job."
"But if you are able to keep hidden, why 'Ad Astra'?"
Kimber rubbed the curve of his jaw with his thumb.
"For several reasons. Pax has all the power pretty well in its
hands now, so the Peacemen are stretching to wipe out the last
holes of resistance. We've been receiving a steady stream of
warnings through our messengers and the outside men we've bought.
The roundup gangs are consolidating— planning on a big raid. What
we have here is the precarious safety of a rabbit crouching at the
bottom of a burrow while the hound sniffs outside. We have no time
for anything except the ship, preparing to take advantage of the
thin promise for another future that it offers us. Lui Skort—he's
a medico with a taste for history—gives Pax another fifty to a
hundred years of life. And the Cleft can't last that long. So we'll
try the chance in a million of going out—and it is a chance in a
million. We may not find another earth-type planet, we may not ever
survive the voyage. And, well, you can fill in a few of the other
ifs, ands, and buts for yourself."
Dard still watched the star ship. Yes, a thousand chances of
failure against one or two of success. But what an adventure! And
to be free—out of this dark morass which stunted minds and fed
man's fears to the point of madness—to be free among the
stars!
He heard Kimber laugh softly. "You're caught by it, too, aren't
you, kid? Well, keep your fingers crossed. If your brother's stuff
works, if the Voice gives us the right course, if the new fuel Tang
concocted will really take her through—why—we're off!"
Kimber seemed so confident that Dard dared now to ask that other
question.
"She isn't very big. How are you going to stow away all the
people?"
For the first time the space pilot did not meet his eyes. With
the toe of his shabby boot Kimber kicked at an inoffensive table
savagely.
"We can stow away more than you would believe just looking at
her, if we are able to use the hibernation process."
"But not all," Dard persisted, driven by some inner need to
know.
"But not all," Kimber agreed with manifest reluctance.
Dard blinked, but now there was a veil between his eyes and the
sleek, silver swell of the star ship. He was not going to question
farther. There was no need to, and he had no desire for a straight
answer. Instead he changed the subject abruptly.
"When are you going to try to reach the Voice?"
"As soon as I hear from Tas—"
"And what do you wish to hear from Tas?" came a voice from
behind Dard. "That he has succeeded in making sense of gibberish
and 'kicking legs' and all the rest of the fantastic puzzle this
young man has dumped into his head? Because if that is what you
wait for, wait no longer, Sim! The sense has been made and thanks
to Lars Nordis and our messengers," Kordov's big paw of a hand
reached up to give Dard's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, "we can
now take off into the heavens at our will. We wait only for your
part of the operation."
"Good enough." Kimber started to turn when Dard caught his
arm.
"Look here. You've never been to the Temple of the Voice."
"Of course not," Tas cut in, "Is he completely crazy? Does one
thrust one's hand into raw atomic radiation?"
"But I have! Maybe I can't work your computations but I can
guide you in and out. And I know enough about the official forms
to—"
Kimber opened his mouth, plainly to refuse, but again the First
Scientist was too quick for him.
"Now that makes very good sense, Sim. If young Nordis has
already been there—why, that is more than any of the rest of us
have done. And in the disguise you have planned the risk is
less."
The pilot frowned and Dard prepared for an outright refusal. But
at last Kimber gave a half-nod. Tas pushed Dard after him.
"Go along with you. And mind you bring him back in one piece. We
can do many things among us, but he remains our only space pilot,
our only experienced astrogator."
Dard followed Kimber along rock passages, back through the maze
of the Cleft dwelling to a flight of stairs crudely hacked from the
stone. The stairs ended in a large room holding a 'copter which
bore all the markings of a Pax machine.
"Recognize it? This is the one which you played tag with out in
the valley. Now—get into this and hurry!"
From the 'copter he took a bundle of clothing which he pitched
over to Dard. The boy put on the Peaceman's black and white,
buckling around him as a finishing touch a belt supporting a hand
stun gun. Although the clothes were large the fit was good enough
to pass in the half-light of evening. And they had to visit the
Voice at night to have any chance at all.
He took his place gingerly beside the pilot inside the 'copter.
Overhead a cover had rolled back so that the sky was open to them.
As Dard secretly gripped tile edge of his seat Kimber took the
controls. And Dard continued to hold on as the machine started the
slow spiral up into the air.