“Perhaps he just wanted to stay alive longer,” Kramer said. “He was old and about to die. Or—”
“Or what?”
“Nothing.” Kramer stood up. “I think as soon as we get to the moon base I’ll make a vidcall to earth. I want to talk to somebody about this.”
“Who’s that?” Gross asked.
“Dolores. Maybe she remembers something.”
“That’s a good idea,” Gross said.
“Where are you calling from?” Dolores asked, when he succeeded in reaching her.
“From the moon base.”
“All kinds of rumors are running around. Why didn’t the ship come back? What happened?”
“I’m afraid he ran off with it.”
“He?”
“The Old Man. Professor Thomas.” Kramer explained what had happened.
Dolores listened intently. “How strange. And you think he planned it all in advance, from the start?”
“I’m certain. He asked for the plans of construction and the theoretical diagrams at once.”
“But why? What for?”
“I don’t know. Look, Dolores. What do you remember about him? Is there anything that might give a clue to all this?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. That’s the trouble.”
On the vidscreen Dolores knitted her brow. “I remember he raised chickens in his back yard, and once he had a goat.” She smiled. “Do you remember the day the goat got loose and wandered down the main street of town? Nobody could figure out where it came from.”
“Anything else?”
“No.” He watched her struggling, trying to remember. “He wanted to have a farm, sometime, I know.”
“All right. Thanks.” Kramer touched the switch. “When I get back to Terra maybe I’ll stop and see you.”
“Let me know how it works out.”
He cut the line and the picture dimmed and faded. He walked slowly back to where Gross and some officers of the Military were sitting at a chart table, talking.
“Any luck?” Gross said, looking up.
“No. All she remembers is that he kept a goat.”
“Come over and look at this detail chart.” Gross motioned him around to his side. “Watch!”
Kramer saw the record tabs moving furiously, the little white dots racing back and forth.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“A squadron outside the defense zone has finally managed to contact the ship. They’re maneuvering now, for position. Watch.”
The white counters were forming a barrel formation around a black dot that was moving steadily across the board, away from the central position. As they watched, the white dots constricted around it.
“They’re ready to open fire,” a technician at the board said. “Commander, what shall we tell them to do?”
Gross hesitated. “I hate to be the one who makes the decision. When it comes right down to it—”
“It’s not just a ship,” Kramer said. “It’s a man, a living person. A human being is up there, moving through space. I wish we knew what—”
“But the order has to be given. We can’t take any chances. Suppose he went over to them, to the yuks.”
Kramer’s jaw dropped. “My God, he wouldn’t do that.”
“Are you sure? Do you know what he’ll do?”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
Gross turned to the technician. “Tell them to go ahead.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but now the ship has gotten away. Look down at the board.”
Gross stared down, Kramer over his shoulder. The black dot had slipped through the white dots and had moved off at an abrupt angle. The white dots were broken up, dispersing in confusion.
“He’s an unusual strategist,” one of the officers said. He traced the line. “It’s an ancient maneuver, an old Prussian device, but it worked.”
The white dots were turning back. “Too many yuk ships out that far,” Gross said. “Well, that’s what you get when you don’t act quickly.” He looked up coldly at Kramer. “We should have done it when we had him. Look at him go!” He jabbed a finger at the rapidly moving black dot. The dot came to the edge of the board and stopped. It had reached the limit of the chartered area. “See?”
—Now what? Kramer thought, watching. So the Old Man had escaped the cruisers and gotten away. He was alert, all right; there was nothing wrong with his mind. Or with his ability to control his new body.
Body—The ship was a new body for him. He had traded in the old dying body, withered and frail, for this hulking frame of metal and plastic, turbines and rocket jets. He was strong, now. Strong and big. The new body was more powerful than a thousand human bodies. But how long would it last him? The average life of a cruiser was only ten years. With careful handling he might get twenty out of it, before some essential part failed and there was no way to replace it.
And then, what then? What would he do, when something failed and there was no one to fix it for him? That would be the end. Someplace, far out in the cold darkness of space, the ship would slow down, silent and lifeless, to exhaust its last heat into the eternal timelessness of outer space. Or perhaps it would crash on some barren asteroid, burst into a million fragments.
It was only a question of time.
“Your wife didn’t remember anything?” Gross said.
“I told you. Only that he kept a goat, once.”
“A hell of a lot of help that is.”
Kramer shrugged. “It’s not my fault.”
“I wonder if we’ll ever see him again.” Gross stared down at the indicator dot, still hanging at the edge of the board. “I wonder if he’ll ever move back this way.”
“I wonder, too,” Kramer said.
That night Kramer lay in bed, tossing from side to side, unable to sleep. The moon gravity, even artificially increased, was unfamiliar to him and it made him uncomfortable. A thousand thoughts wandered loose in his head as he lay, fully awake.
What did it all mean? What was the Professor’s plan? Maybe they would never know. Maybe the ship was gone for good; the Old Man had left forever, shooting into outer space. They might never find out why he had done it, what purpose—if any—had been in his mind.
Kramer sat up in bed. He turned on the light and lit a cigarette. His quarters were small, a metal-lined bunk room, part of the moon station base.
The Old Man had wanted to talk to him. He had wanted to discuss things, hold a conversation, but in the hysteria and confusion all they had been able to think of was getting away. The ship was rushing off with them, carrying them into outer space. Kramer set his jaw. Could they be blamed for jumping? They had no idea where they were being taken, or why. They were helpless, caught in their own ship, and the pursuit ship standing by waiting to pick them up was their only chance. Another half hour and it would have been too late.
But what had the Old Man wanted to say? What had he intended to tell him, in those first confusing moments when the ship around them had come alive, each metal strut and wire suddenly animate, the body of a living creature, a vast metal organism?
It was weird, unnerving. He could not forget it, even now. He looked around the small room uneasily. What did it signify, the coming to life of metal and plastic? All at once they had found themselves inside a living creature, in its stomach, like Jonah inside the whale.
It had been alive, and it had talked to them, talked calmly and rationally, as it rushed them off, faster and faster into outer space. The wall speaker and circuit had become the vocal cords and mouth, the wiring the spinal cord and nerves, the hatches and relays and circuit breakers the muscles.
They had been helpless, completely helpless. The ship had, in a brief second, stolen their power away from them and left them defenseless, practically at its mercy. It was not right; it made him uneasy. All his life he had controlled machines, bent nature and the forces of nature to man and man’s needs. The human race had slowly evolved until it was in a position to operate things, run them as it saw fit. Now all at once it had been plunged back down the ladder again, prostrate before a Power against which they were children.