The Galaxy Primes Part 24

Lola pitched her scanner at its rack and threw herself face-down on a davenport, sobbing uncontrollably. James sat down beside her and soothed her until she quieted down.

"You'd better eat something, sweetheart, and then for a good, long sleep."

"Eat? Why, I couldn't, Jim, not possibly."

"Let her sleep first, I think, Jim," Belle said, and followed with her eyes as Jim picked his wife up and carried her into the corridor.

"We'd better eat _something_, I suppose," Belle said, thoughtfully. "I don't feel like eating, either, but I never realized until this minute just how much this has taken out of me and I'd better start putting it back in.... She did a wonderful job, Clee, even if she couldn't take it full s.h.i.+ft toward the last."

"I'll say she did. I hated like the devil to let her work that way, but ... you knew I was scared witless every second until we topped off."

Exhausted and haggard as she was, Belle laughed. "I know d.a.m.n-blasted well you weren't; but I know what you mean. Fighting something you don't know anything about, and can't guess what may happen next, is tough.

Seconds count." Side by side, they strolled toward the alcove.

"I simply didn't think she had it in her," Belle marveled.

"She didn't. She hasn't. It'll take her a week to get back into shape."

"Right. She was going on pure nerve at the last--nothing else ... but she did a job, and she's so sweet and fine.... I wonder, Clee, if ... if I've been missing the boat...."

"You have not." Garlock sent the thought so solidly that Belle jumped.

"If you'd just let yourself be, you'd be worth a million of her, just as you stand."

"Yes? You lie in your teeth, Cleander, but I love it.... Oh, I don't know what I want to eat--if anything."

"I'll think up yours, too, along with mine."

"Please. Something light, and just a little."

"Yeah. Sit down. Just a light snack--a two-pound steak, rare; a bowl of mushrooms fried in b.u.t.ter; French fries, french dips, salad, and a quart of coffee. The same for me, except more of each. Here we are."

"Why, Clee, I couldn't _possibly_ eat half of that...." Then, after a quarter of it was gone, "I _am_ hungry, at that--simply ravenous. I could eat a horse and saddle, and chase the rider."

"That's what I thought. I knew I could, and figured you accordingly."

They ate those tremendous meals slowly, enjoying every bite and sip; in an atmosphere of friendliness and good fellows.h.i.+p; chatting on a wide variety of subjects as they ate. Neither was aware of the fact that this was the first time they had ever been on _really_ friendly terms. And finally every dish and container was empty, almost polished clean.

"One hundred percent capacity--can chew but can't swallow," Garlock said then, lighting two cigarettes and giving Belle one. "How's that for a masterly job of calibration?"

"Me, too. It'll pa.s.s." Belle sighed in repletion. "Your ability to estimate the exact capacity of containers is exceeded only by your good looks and by the size of your feet. And now to hit the good old sack for an indefinite but very long period of time."

"You chirped it, birdie." Still eminently friendly, the two walked together to their doors. Belle put up a solid block and paused, irresolute, twisting the toe of one slipper into the carpet.

"Clee, I ... I wonder ... if...." Her voice died away.

"I know what you mean." He put his arms around her gently, tenderly, and looked deep into her eyes. "I want to tell you something, Belle. You're a woman, not in seven thousand million women, but in that many planets full of women. What it takes, you very definitely and very abundantly have got. And you aren't the only one that's p.o.o.ped. I don't need company tonight, either. I'm going to sleep until I wake up, if it takes all day. Or say, if you wake up first, why not punch me and we'll have breakfast together?"

"That's a thought. Do the same for me. Good night, Clee."

"Good night, ace." He kissed her, as gently as he had been holding her, opened her door, closed it after her, and stepped across the corridor into his own room.

"_What_ a man!" Belle breathed to herself, behind the solid screens of her room. "He thought I was too tired, not just scared to death too.

What a _man_! Belle Bellamy, you ought to be kicked from here to Tellus...." Then she threw back her head, drove a hard little fist into a pillow, and spoke aloud through clenched teeth. "No, d.a.m.n and blast it, I _won't_ give in. I _won't_ love him. I'll take the Project away from him if it's the last thing I ever do in this life!"

She woke up the next morning--not morning, either, since it was well after noon--a little before Garlock did, but not much. When she went into his room he was shaved and fully dressed except for one shoe, which he was putting on.

"Hi, boss! Better we eat, huh? Not only am I starving by inches, but if we don't eat pretty quick we'll get only one meal today instead of three. Did you eat your candy bar?"

"I sure did, ace."

"Oh, I'm still 'ace'? You can kiss me, then," and she raised her face toward his.

He kissed her, still tenderly, and they strolled to and through the Main and into the alcove. James and Lola, the latter looking terribly strained and worn, had already eaten, but joined them in their after-breakfast coffee and cigarettes.

"You've checked, of course," Garlock said. "Everything on the beam?"

"Dead center. Even to Lola and her biologists. Everybody's full of joy and grat.i.tude and stuff--as well as information. And we managed to pry ourselves loose without waking you two trumpet-of-doom sleepers up. So we're ready to jump again. I wonder where in _h.e.l.l_ we'll wind up _this_ time."

"I'm glad you said that, Jim." Garlock said. "It gives me the nerve to spring a thing on you that I've been mulling around in my mind ever since we landed here."

"Nerve? You?" James asked, incredulously. "Pa.s.s the coffee-pot around again, Brownie. If that character there said what I heard him say, this'll make your hair stand straight up on end."

"On our jumps we've had altogether too much power and no control whatever...." Garlock paused in thought.

"Like a rookie pitcher," Belle suggested.

"Uh-uh," Lola objected. "It _couldn't_ be that wild. He'd have to stand with his back to the plate and pitch the ball over the center-field stands and seven blocks down-town."

"Cut the persiflage, you two," Garlock ordered. "Consider three things.

First, as you all know, I've been trying to figure out a generator that would give us intrinsic control, but I haven't got any farther with it than we did back on Tellus. Second, consider all the jumps we've made except this last one. Every time we've taken off, none of us has had his s.h.i.+eld really up. You, Jim, were concentrating on the drive, and so were wide open to it. The rest of us were at least thinking about it, and so were more or less open to it. Not one of us has ever ordered it to take us to any definite place; in fact, I don't believe that anyone of us has ever even suggested a destination. Each one of us has been thinking, at the instant of energization of the fields, exactly what you just said, and with exactly the same emphasis.

"Third, consider this last jump all by itself. It's the first time we've ever stayed in the same galaxy. It's the first time we've ever gone where we wanted to. And it's the first time--here's the crux, as I see it--that any of us has been concentrating on any destination at the moment of firing the charge. Brownie was willing the _Pleiades_ to this planet so hard that we all could taste it. The rest of us, if not really pus.h.i.+ng to get here, were at least not opposed to the idea. Check?"

"Check." "That's right." "Yes, I was pus.h.i.+ng with all my might," came from the three listeners, and James went on:

"Are you saying the d.a.m.n thing's _alive_?"

"No. I'm saying I don't believe in miracles. I don't believe in coincidence--that concept is as meaningless as that of paradox. I certainly do _not_ believe that we hit this planet by chance against odds of almost infinity to one. So I've been looking for a reason. I found one. It goes against my grain--against everything I've ever believed--but, since it's the only possible explanation, it must be true. The only possible director of the Gunther Drive _must_ be the mind."

"h.e.l.l's blowtorches--Now you're _insisting_ that the d.a.m.n thing's alive."

"Far from it. It's Brownie who's alive. It was Brownie who got us here.

Nothing else--repeat, _nothing_ else--makes sense."

James pondered for a full minute. "I wouldn't buy it except for one thing. If you, the hardest-boiled skeptic that ever went unhung, can feed yourself the whole bowl of such a mess as that, I can at least take a taste of it. Shoot."