She laughed, a hurting, bitter laugh. “So you’ve been fed the propaganda, too? No, John. Shanstar is the next.”
“Give me proof.
“We’ll speak to my uncle in the morning.”
“Very well. Just remember that I promise nothing. I’ve given my word once. I don’t toss that around lightly.”
“No, John. No, I don’t believe you do.”
She went out and closed the door gently behind her. When Caradine tried it next the robot did the work so she must have cut him back into the circuit. He rubbed his chin and smiled. Quite a girl….
The next morning Harriet Lafonde phoned. It was okay. He could drop by the office any time and pick up his permit.
Later, Sharon Ogilvie called to him as he was leaving the hotel’s dining room after a pleasant lunch. Sunshine splashed across her silver hair and turned it into a spinning whirl of sparks. She was wearing diamond-patterned pants, tightly cut as usual, in red and green and screaming blue. Her yellow blouse was daringly cut.
Caradine stopped politely and took the cigar from his mouth.
“Oh, Mr. Carter, Greg and I arq taking a run out to the Painted Caves this afternoon.” She spoke in a low, confidential tone. “Perhaps you’d care to come along. It should be a lovely drive and the Caves are famous throughout almost all the galaxy.”
Caradine had heard of them. He was interested.
“That is, if you have no other engagements,” she added.
“No. I’d love to, Miss Ogilvie. I have certainly heard of the Caves. A previous civilization, aren’t they? Before humanity set up house here?”
“Yes.” They fell into step. “The beings who painted the Caves must have all died out many thousands of years ago.” She laughed a burble of sound in the hot afternoon stillness. “And that’s a long time ago by any of the years that men use to measure time.”
“Yes.”
Sharon Ogilvie, walking at his side with her tight pants and her silver hair, and Allura Koanga, with her auburn hair and transparent negligee—were they both after the same thing? And was that one thing what he thought, or was Horakah after neither Ahansic nor Shanstar? So many names to remember. Well, that part of it was easy. Any man who had to deal with dangerous men and dangerous women in his life remembered names. They were the stock in trade of the successful man.
Rawson had the hired car ready. It was a no-nonsense runabout, dark-green with plenty of chrome trim, and the antigrav unit was probably five years old and good for another five before an overhaul. The drive tubes looked a little pitted, but they’d give the car a safe top speed of just under Mach One, which on this planet would probably be fairly high, especially at this time of year.
Caradine allowed Rawson to slide behind the wheel and with Sharon in the center of the four-seater front bench, he had plenty of space to stretch himself and lean his elbow on the armrest. Rawson took off with a nicely sedate swoop that took them into the east-bound traffic lanes smoothly. Caradine passed one of the red stogies across to Rawson and sat back to enjoy the ride.
Blue and purple hills passed beneath, then a river on which pleasure boats dotted the silvered current with scraps of color. Farther on they received a detour signal over the traffic radio and Rawson obediently angled the car onto a southeasterly swing. Away to the north, banks of black smoke crept up against the horizon.
“One of their industrial plants,” Rawson said laconically.
“Mostly automated, though, I suppose?”
“Oh, sure. And turning out kettles and electric stoves and refrigerators. The plants turning out megaton warheads and destructor-ray projectors will all be on Alpha. Mostly, anyway.”
“Do you think Horakah means business?”
Rawson was not shaken by the remark. He took it as Caradine had meant it. There had always been an out if Rawson didn’t want to play. “Of course they do. Any and everybody is meat for their grinders.”
“Your folk on Ahansic getting worried?”
“What do you think? Same as Shanstar, I expect.
“Shanstar’s a good way off.”
“Yes,” Sharon said with an edge to her voice. “And Ahansic has about three small groupings between us and the Horakah monster.”
Caradine decided to needle a little. “You know,” he said equably, “I’d kinda figure that those little groups would prefer to join up with the big boy. If they joined up with the little ’un they’d be swallowed up in their turn and receive no thanks. The other way they’d come in for some of the pickings.”
Rawson laughed nastily. “We can’t fight Horakah,” he said. “Only Ragnar and the good ol’ PLW could do that.”
“True, maybe, but debatable. You could make it uncomfortable for them. Not a good proposition.”
“We’d go down fighting. We’d mess up a lot of Horakah battleships and maybe a planet or so. But we’d go down. And Horakah would have the pickings. They’d recover. We wouldn’t.”
“Much the same for Shanstar.” Caradine glanced idly over the side at the distant fine of forest and hint of far-off mountains. “Pity Ahansic and Shanstar are so far away in the galaxy. We could get together.”
“But are we so far away?” asked Sharon softly.
“Three months aboard a fast starship.”
“There are other groupings. Around Horakah. If they all pooled their resources…”
“And who’d take orders from whom?” Caradine made it light. He laughed as he spoke. But it was the stumbling block.
Anyone who’d tried to organize people, to run a stellar grouping, knew that.
The others said nothing to that. Caradine felt a flush of deviltry, of scatter-brain couldn’t-care-less stirring rise in him. Speaking quite casually, yet watching the others from shrewd eyes, he said, “According to the stories, look what happened along those lines back on Earth.”
Sharon laughed. “Mr. Carter! Don’t tell me you still believe in the fairy stories? Why, that’s strictly for the kids!”
“Well…” began Caradine.
“I met a man once, who said he believed that a place called Earth really did exist,” said Rawson, musingly. “He spoke quite rationally, too. Had a good job. Then he refused to use ball-point pens because he said they were symbols for spaceships and all spaceships were evil. He got worse. He ended up claiming that Earth had really existed—did still-somewhere beyond the Blight area. They had to dig so deep into his brain to cure him he never rose above moron grade again. Shame.”
“Some folks have pretty convincing theories—”
“We’re sane, grownup people, Mr. Carter,” Sharon said positively. “Everybody knows that Earth is just a fairy story. Earth just doesn’t exist.”
VI
The car lurched and Rawson had to uncouple the robot and bring it back onto course manually. They were over open country and no traffic lanes operated.
“Damn!” Rawson said without heat. “Car’s packed up on us. Control’s shot to hell.”
“Can you put it down?” asked Sharon. She half rose from her seat.
“Take it easy, Miss Ogilvie. Mr. Rawson can handle this car in his sleep.” Caradine felt that to be true. It was true of most adults. The car banked and swept down, and the whisper of air on the hull penetrated as a distant drumming.
“No official landing space. Have to put down where we can.
“There’s a promising-looking field over there.” Caradine pointed. He felt no alarm. There were always the ejector capsules; personalized parachute packs with an enclosed seat and wind-breaks. He wondered at Sharon. She hadn’t seemed the girl to panic.
Rawson brought the car round again, cautiously heading into the wind. He lowered the undercart and flaps and lined the car up on the rapidly growing field.
That told Caradine that his estimate of another five years active work from the antigrav unit had been out by four years, three hundred and sixty-four days and twenty-two and a half hours.