Stirling scowled as he tried to keep up his speed between the closely spaced tracks. Having his views suppressed was one thing; not even being noticed by the suppressors was another.
There was no way he could estimate how fast he was moving; and, after two hours’ steady marching, he felt like a man utterly remote from civilization and swallowed up in an alien dimension of green life—like an ant crossing a lawn. So far, he had seen nothing growing except beans: but a mental calculation showed him he was moving between only two of the hundred-foot strips out of some five hundred similar plots running the length of the He. Summoning up all his resolution, he heaved himself up onto the level of the soil bed and looked out across the broad acres. The scene was unexpectedly beautiful.
Stirling had not realized vegetation could assume so many different shades of the one basic color. The mid-evening sun had moved behind him. Its light washed along ruler-straight strips of green which converged in the distance and ranged from bottle green in color to near lemon, like the warp of a huge tapestry or the striations in a rare precious stone. Agricultural robots were visible on many of the strips; they flamed with ocherous brilliance in the sunlight and looking less inimical when working quietly at their appointed tasks.
A fourth of a mile ahead, and slightly to Stirling’s right, the flatness of the He was broken by a large windowless block. He identified it as the upper side of the central power station which he had seen from the skimmer on the way out from Newburyport. The sight of the station was an uneasy reminder that, right at that moment, clouds were drifting below his feet, that everything he could see was supported on thin air by a mathematical trick—a judo hold which man had put on gravity to turn some of its strength back on itself.
Stirling got down into the more reassuring confines of the track bed and began walking again. At this rate, held back by the ankle-twisting rails, it would be nightfall by the time he reached the far end of the He. The cuts on his shoulders and lower legs were stiffening up and becoming painful—another reminder that he had not simply opened a magic door into another dimension. Duke Bennett would have to be dealt with as soon as Stirling had his feet on solid ground again.
He kept going for another hour, then sat down to rest and eat one of the protein tablets from his pack. Through sheer force of conditioning, he had almost finished the dry, sickly compress of marine micro-organisms before realizing he could have fresh vegetables with it. Stirling had eaten beans perhaps three times in his whole life, always at Christmas. Filled with a strangely exhilarating sense of breaking every rule in the book, he broke off one of the velvety, still immature pods and slit it open with his thumb. The pale green beans were cool when lifted from the moist, white lining, and they tasted good. He began gathering them in handfuls.
As he ate, Stirling realized he felt quite warm—which was surprising considering that the He was three miles above the Atlantc. At this height the daytime temperature in summer should have been below freezing. Now that he thought of it, the transit area had been thick with frost, and the air in that region had been painful to breathe. The builders of the lies must have provided heating elements for the protection of their crops, which meant another detail of the boyhood plans had been wrong. Johnny had not needed Dad Considine’s boots, after all.
Stirling began to wonder how Johnny had made out since his arrival in Heaven. He had been aloft for a month now and had had time to establish himself, perhaps with a tent if there was a margin between the end of the soil beds and the outermost edge of the He. The concept appalled Stirling. While he and billions of others had been sheltered below in snug herd-warmth, could his kid brother have crouched over the ashes of a cooking fire and stared into the darkness of the lie with bleak, watchful eyes? What had Bennett said? A guy would need to be sick.
Shouldering the pack, Stirling stood up and moved on, suddenly anxious to make contact with his brother as soon as possible. The possibility had occurred to him that Johnny could have died on the He. Up here a comparatively minor accident or illness could result in a skull bleaching among the green stalks, eye sockets choked up with soil.
Sometime later, Stirling found himself approaching the yellow angularities of another robot. From the distance, it appeared to be stationary; but, when he got close, he saw it was rolling along at a slow walking pace. Several appendages were extended from the turret down into the bean rows on his left. He clambered into the soil bed on his right and hid until the huge machine had inched its way past If, as he suspected, there was one machine to each plot, he could expect to reach the eastern end of the lie without any further encounters and without being seen by robot eyes.
It was dusk when he discovered he was nearing the edge. A suggestion of a high wall began to emerge from the gathering darkness ahead, and there seemed to be a considerable open space between it and the ends of the soil beds. Stirling’s legs were aching from the long and difficult walk, and he was tired. He began to feel something approaching a childish glee. What a shock Johnny was going to get! If he was camped somewhere along the lateral strip, Stirling was bound to find him shortly; and it would be good—even up here—to sit down with his own brother and talk things over, just as they had done in bed at nights when Heaven was only a shadow in the sky. Stirling suspected that exhaustion, strain, and perhaps a lack of oxygen were playing tricks with his emotional balance; but it would be good to see Johnny again, regardless of the circumstances.
He finally reached the end of the fifteen-mile alley of vegetation and stepped out into an open area, which disappeared into the gathering twilight on both sides. The space was a good hundred yards across and was bounded on the eastern side by a high metallic wall, beyond which was the unthinkable. Almost immediately his nostrils picked a strange, heavy smell eddying on the evening breezes—a stench of decay. He looked around hoping to see the orange speck of a fire in the distance.
There was light, but not from a fire.
Ghostly shapes drifted hi the air close to the wall, luminescently flickering with cold, purple radiance. Instinctively Stirling took a step backwards, but he was much too late.
A bomb of pain exploded in his head and he fell forward, unable to suppress a mental scream as the three-mile well of darkness opened up to receive him.
Chapter Six
One of the armored guards laid down his spear and shield, and he approached a projection on the He’s boundary wall. He caught it and twisted with both hands. The two guards -behind Stirling urged him forward, and he realized the hideous truth: there was a door in the wall! Beyond the threshold there would be nothing but clouds and black, hungry air.
He fought grimly, but the men behind him were made of steel. They hurled him against the unlocked door; it gave way, and he reeled through.
There was an explosion of brilliance.
Stirling found himself standing in a rolling green pasture. The pure sunlight of a new morning glittered on its streams, dew-hung trees, and emerald scimitars of grass. Some part of him which had been asleep for a long, long time responded to the scene with grateful recognition— this was Heaven, the real Heaven. He heard footsteps nearby and looked around. A tall man with graying hair and a youthful, strangely familiar face was approaching. Stirling hesitated, disbelieving, then he ran forward to clasp the man’s outstretched hand.
“Father!”
The man smiled. “I knew you would find me, son. Welcome.” Stirling nodded, unable to speak for the tumult of emotion in his chest; then a cold shadow of dread loomed over him. There was something he had to say. Something terrible.