For the rest, Doc looked unperturbed, as if he was the only person there, besides myself, who was wide awake. Ellen looked concerned, Marie looked drawn and older than I had ever seen her look, and Bill was still white-faced and shrunken-looking from interrupted slumber.
“I’m going to tell Paula today I’ll go with her,” I said, without preamble. “We’ll probably take off later today.”
I told them about my hope, my talk with Porniarsk and about what he was already at work on at this moment “... The point is,” I wound up, “Porniarsk and the rest of you are probably safe here as long as Paula still considers me a friend and coworker. If that changes, she might think of keeping me under control by picking up some of you as hostages for my good behavior. So, if things get prickly between the two of us I’ll send you warning of it; and I want you all to clear out of here immediately and scatter. Scatter all over the place, each one by yourself— and don’t let the rest of the community know you’re going.”
Wendy looked grim.
“I mean that,” I said, looking her in the eye. “Nobody. Wendy, you can stay with your mother; but everybody else take off alone.”
“Marc,” said Marie, “do you really need the rest of us to go into the far future with you, if this works? Can’t you just go alone, tell the people there what you want to tell them, and then come back?”
“How can I?” I said. “You know I need a monad gestalt to control the storm forces; and that’ll take all of you. So, listen. What I’ll do is take the Old Man with me. If I send him back to you or if he comes back under any conditions, that’s your signal. Take off and scatter.”
“Marc,” said Doc, “you’ll need some way of getting the message from us in a hurry when Porniarsk finds what he’s after. How’s about I make regular runs to you, just to bring in letters from the home folks and a box of cookies and such, so Paula’s people won’t think anything of it when I pop in with the word?”
I looked over at him gratefully. It was nice to hear a sensible mind at work around the table that morning.
“Good,” said Ellen. “Then if you need help getting away from wherever you are, Doc can help you.”
Another sensible mind.
“Fine idea, Doc,” I said. “You’re right, Ellen. Anybody else have any suggestions?”
“How long will you be gone altogether?” Marie asked.
“I can’t tell,” I said. “It depends on how fast Porniarsk can reach the ultimate configuration in his tank. Why?”
I knew why. She was having more and more trouble controlling Wendy and was leaning on me more and more for that task.
“Maybe Wendy could go with you. She could see something of the rest of the world that way.”
“No!” said Wendy and I, simultaneously. That was all I needed, to have Wendy on my hands, while I was trying to keep Paula happy and unsuspecting. I thought quickly. “Too dangerous for her.”
“I don’t want to,” whimpered Wendy, who was no slouch herself at picking up cues. Marie looked from the girl to me, helplessly. She knew she was being doubleteamed, but she was helpless to do anything about it.
“All right,” I said. “Then, if nobody’s got any more suggestions, you can get busy putting together what I’ll need to take with me and spreading the word that I’ll be going. I’ll break the news myself to Paula over breakfast in an hour or so.”
28
Paula took the news coolly. Whether this was because some of her people had already picked up the word of it that was spreading rapidly through the ranks of our own people, or simply because it was a strategy on her part to act as if her enlisting me had never been in doubt, was impossible to tell. In either case, it made no difference to me, who was going with her for my own private reasons.
“All right,” she said, over the breakfast table. “How soon can you be ready?”
“Six hours, maybe,” I said.
“In that case, I’ll wait for you and you can join my staff right here. If you hadn’t been able to move quickly, I’d have needed to let you catch up with me. I’ll send word to my officers. No offense to your kitchen help, Marc, but I’ll be glad to get back to my own headquarters and have some decent coffee.”
There was only one small incident of interest in our leaving. Paula’s people had already climbed aboard the helicopters that had been sitting parked and waiting for them, and I was not yet aboard the one carrying Paula herself. The Old Man, as I said, had shown no liking for Paula; and now he had made himself scarce. Doc had found him, finally, about half a mile from the summer palace among the rocks of the hillside and literally held an automatic pistol at his head to get him to come along back to the takeoff point. The Old Man knew what human weapons were and came, but not happily.
When I finally saw him approaching, squatting ominously beside Doc in the front of the jeep, I changed my mind about taking him.
“Look,” I said to Doc, under my breath, when the jeep drove up and stopped by the entrance ladder of the ’copter, “this isn’t going to work. If he’s going to bolt the minute I take my eyes off him, this’ll never work. Leave him here and you come along instead while we figure things out. Then I can send you back with word.”
“All right,” said Doc, climbing out of the jeep. “Do I have time to pick up any gear, or—”
But at that point, the Old Man solved the problem for us. He had been staring at the ’copter, and at me, all the while the jeep was driving out to us on the open area. He was not unintelligent and he must have finally realized that I was actually going, with or without him. At any rate, he took a sudden leap out of the jeep directly onto the first step of the ladder, caught my hand and pulled me toward him and the steps.
“That’s all right, then,” I said to Doc. “But why don’t you come along anyway, at least until I’ve had a chance to settle down. No, you won’t have time to bring anything. Got any kind of weapon with you?”
“Pistol.”
“All right. I can shake down Paula’s people for what you’ll need beyond that, and what you’ll need to get back here from wherever she’s headed next. Let’s get inside.”
He followed me up the ladder, the Old Man preceding us.
“What’s this?” said Paula when we were inside and the ladder was being taken in, the entry hatch being shut behind us. She looked from Doc to me.
“There’s some unfinished business,” I said. “I’ve got some decisions yet to make. He can carry word back from wherever we stop, a couple of days from now—if that’s all right with you?”
“Certainly. Why not?” She turned her attention to the Old Man who still clung to my hand. “This is the creature? I thought I saw it around earlier. Is it housebroken?”
“Since long before I met him,” I said. “All his people learn to live like human beings while they’re growing up, just as our children do.”
“People?” She smiled. “Well, keep him out of the way. Find your seats now.”
She turned away.
Apparently, we were not to return to where her camp had been when I had visited. Her orders had already gone out, and her troops and wagons had been on the move from an hour after I had broken the news to her over our breakfast table. We flew on eastward and put down by a river about twenty-five miles further on, where the motorized section of Paula’s transport had already arrived and set up her personal tents. Later, that evening, the main body of her wagons and infantry arrived.