'It is safe right now, Blake told him. 'I will cause no trouble.
'It's not you I mean, the captain said. 'It's the crowd outside.
'What do you mean the crowd?
'This time a crowd of worshippers. There are cults, it seems, which think you are a messiah sent to deliver man from all the evil in him. And at other times there are other groups that denounce you as a monster — You'll pardon me, please, sir. I forgot myself.
'These groups, said Blake, 'the both of them, have given you some trouble?
'At times, the captain said. 'At times a great deal of it. That is why we must sneak out of here.
'But wouldn't it be better to just walk out? Put an end to it?
'Unfortunately, said the captain, 'it's not a situation that can be handled quite so easily. I may as well be frank with you. No one except a few of us will know that you are gone. The guard will still be kept and…
'You'll go on letting the people think that I'm still here?
'Yes. It will be simpler that way'
'But some day…
The captain shook his head. 'No. Not for a long, long time. You will not be seen. We have a ship waiting for you. So that you can leave — if you want to go, of course.
'To get rid of me?
'Perhaps, the captain said. 'But it also will enable you to get rid of us.
33
Earth wanted to get rid of him, perhaps afraid of him, perhaps merely disgusted by him, a loathsome product of its own ambitions and imagination that must be quickly swept underneath the rug. For there was no place for him on the Earth or in humanity, and yet he was a human product and had been made possible by the nimble brains and the weasel understanding of Earth's scientists.
He had wondered at this and thought of it when he first had gone into the chapel and now, standing at the window of his room, and looking out at the streets of Washington, he knew he had been right, that he had judged accurately the reaction of humanity.
Although how much of this attitude was the actual attitude of the people of the world, how much the official attitude of Space Administration, there was no way of knowing. To Space he was an old mistake, a planning gone far wrong, and the quicker he could be got rid of, the better it would be.
There had been, he remembered, a crowd on the hillside outside the cemetery — a crowd that had gathered there to pay homage to what they thought he stood for. Crackpots, certainly, cultists, more than like — the kind of people who leaped at any new sensation to fill their empty lives, but still people, still human beings, still humanity.
He stood and stared out at the sun-drenched streets of Washington, with the few cars moving up and down the avenue, and the lazy strollers who sauntered on the pavements underneath the trees. The Earth, he thought, the Earth and the people living on it — people who had their jobs and a family to go home to, who had chores and hobbies, their worries and their little triumphs, and their friends. But people who belonged. Even if he could belong, he wondered, if by some circumstance beyond imagining, he should be made acceptable to humanity, could he consider it? For he was not himself alone. He could not consider himself alone, for there were the other two and they held with him, in joint right, this mass of matter which made up his body.
That he was caught up in an emotional trap was no concern of theirs, although back there in the chapel they had made it concern of theirs. That they, themselves, were incapable of such emotion was beside the point — although, thinking of it, he wondered if Quester might not hold as great an emotional capacity as he.
But to become an outcast, to be ejected out of Earth, to roam the universe a pariah out of Earth, seemed more than he could face.
The ship was waiting for him, almost ready now, and it was up to him — he could go or stay. Although Space had made it quite apparent it was preferred that he should go.
And there was, actually, nothing to be gained by staying, only the faint hope that some day he might become a human once again.
And if he could — if he only could — would he want it?
His brain hummed with the absence of an answer and he stood, looking dully out the window, only half seeing what lay out on the street.
A knock on the door brought him around.
The door came open and through it he saw the guard, standing in the hallway.
Then a man was coming in and for a moment, half blinded from looking out the window at the bright glare of the street, Blake did not recognize him. Then he saw who it was.
'Senator, he said, moving towards the man, 'it was kind of you to come. I hadn't thought you would.
'Why shouldn't I have come? asked Horton. 'Your message said you'd like to talk with me.
'I didn't know if you would want to see me, Blake told him. 'After all, I probably contributed to the outcome of the referendum.
'Perhaps, Horton agreed. 'Yes, perhaps you did. Stone was most unethical in his use of you as a horrible example. Although I must give the man his due — he used it most effectively.
'I'm sorry, said Blake. 'That's what I want to tell you. I would have come to see you, but it seems that, for the moment, I am under a mild sort of detention.
'Well, now, said Horton, 'I would think there'd be more to talk about than that. The referendum and its consequences are, as you may guess, a rather painful subject for me. I sent in my resignation just the other day. It will take a little time, quite frankly, to get used to not being a senator.
'Won't you have a seat? asked Blake. 'The chair over there, perhaps. And I can find some brandy.
'That is an idea, said the senator, 'that I can heartily subscribe to. It's late enough in the afternoon to begin one's drinking for the day. That time you came to the house, you may recall, we had brandy then. If I remember, it was a rather special bottle.
He sat down in the chair and looked around the room.
'I must say, he declared, 'they're doing well for you. Officer's quarters, no less.
'And a guard at the door, said Blake.
'They're a bit afraid of you, more than likely.
'I suppose they may be. But there's no need of it.
Blake went to the liquor cabinet and got out a bottle and two glasses. He came back across the room and sat down on a sofa, facing Horton.
'I understand, said the senator, 'that you're on the point of leaving us. The ship, I'm told, is almost ready.
Blake nodded, pouring out the brandy. He handed the senator a glass.
'I've been doing some wondering about the ship, he said. 'No crew. Just me, alone in it. Entirely automatic. To accomplish all of this in just one year's time…
'Oh, not a year's time, the senator protested. 'Hasn't anyone taken the time to tell you about the ship?
Blake shook his head. 'They've briefed me. That's the word — briefed. I've been told what levers to push and what dials to spin to take me where I want to go. How the food processors work. The housekeeping of the ship. But that is all they've told me. I asked, of course, but there seemed to be no answers. The main point seemed to be to give me the bum's rush off the Earth.
'I see, said the senator. 'The old military game. A holdover from the old days. Channels and things like that, I would imagine. And a bit, as well, of their ridiculous security.
He swirled the brandy in his glass, looked up at Blake. 'You needn't be afraid of it, if that's what's in your mind. It isn't a trap. It'll do all the things they say it will.
'I'm glad to hear that, senator.
'That ship wasn't built, said the senator. 'You might say that it was grown. It's been continuously on the drawing boards for forty years or more. Redesigned again and yet again. Built and then torn down to incorporate improvements or a new design. Tested time and time again. An attempt, you see, to build a perfect ship. Millions of man-days and billions of dollars spent on it. And always, you see, at any time, within a year or so of being finished because the refinements they were building into it finally became just that — refinements. It is a ship that can operate for ever and a man can live in it for ever. It is the one way a person equipped as you are can go out in space and do the job he's built to do.