The Instant of Now Part 5

They went back to the fire and talked soundlessly to their companions, holding up the identification disk which had been ripped from Dirrul's neck hours before. That amused them briefly, until one of the three s.n.a.t.c.hed the disk and hurled it toward the mouth of the ravine in violent anger.

The three men pulled thick white skins together near the fire and crept into them. Dirrul waited until he was sure they slept. It was the only chance he would have to escape, but when he tried to creep away his hands collapsed from sheer terror. The crying fear in his mind was so loud his head seemed to vibrate physically with the sound.

Thought was impossible. Judgment and decision were impossible. If he tried to consider even a problem as simple as the safest means of pa.s.sing the dying fire--reason failed him. He could weigh nothing critically--he could not consider probable courses of rational action.

Nonetheless he inched forward. It took all the courage and stamina he possessed. Gradually a strange and foggy understanding formed in his brain. The terror seemed to die if he planned nothing, merely responding without thought to the instinctive urge to escape. Let instinct do the trick then.

Detached from the control panel of his cerebral cortex his body mechanism functioned perfectly. It was like a s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p smoothly piloted by its automatic navigators. Dirrul gave himself over to his own built-in stimulus-response relays and the screeching fear shriveled and died.

Calm and unhurried he walked past the fire and the sleeping men. As calmly he searched the mouth of the ravine for Sorgel's disk. When he found it he stuffed it into the pocket of his tunic and strode confidently along the trail that led down from the hills.

It was dawn. In the pink morning light he could see the Vininese city at his feet, neat, clean, well-blocked streets and towering buildings of black stone. On the outskirts were the circular s.p.a.ce-fields and the long low flat-roofed interplanetary freight depots. Farther away, dotting the countryside at regular intervals, were curious block-shaped windowless structures surrounded by double walls.

Dirrul had never seen anything like them before but, through a process of judicial elimination, he decided they must be the Vininese Beam Transmitters. The defense of Vinin was remarkably thorough, far surpa.s.sing anything of a similar nature on Agron.

It came to him with something of a shock that he was thinking rationally once more. His mind was completely clear. He felt ashamed of the foolish, groundless terror that had unnerved him in the ravine.

He tried to understand what had happened to him but it was beyond a.n.a.lysis. In retrospect he realized that the danger had been less than what he faced on any normal day in the Air-Command emergency maintenance service.

The only logical explanation was the food they had given him. It must have been heavily drugged with a new poison known to the Vininese.

Dirrul was tempted to go back and rescue Glenna, if she were still alive after the torture to which she had been subjected. But he knew it was more important for him to contact Vininese Headquarters first.

He had a message to deliver. Glenna herself would have wanted that.

In two hours Dirrul was on the plain again. All the suffering of the past few hours was gone. The plentiful purple gra.s.s had quenched his thirst and surprisingly eased his hunger as well. He felt keenly alert and alive. The sun was warm, the air was balmy. He was on Vinin.

Spiritually he had come home, to the thing he believed in. Not many men had such opportunity to realize their dreams of perfection. To cap the triumph Dirrul knew it might still be possible to make his report and save the Movement on Agron.

From the top of a purple-swathed knoll he looked down across a twisting red stream toward the suburbs of the city. Magnificent black-stone villas, surrounded by stylized gardens, were on both sides of the green highway.

Further on, close to the city, were the crowded workers' quarters, behind them, hidden in a faint mist, the rectangular ma.s.ses of public buildings reaching up toward the stars. This was as Paul Sorgel had so often described it. Such grandeur could only belong to the capital city of the Vininese Confederacy.

Under the brow of the knoll Dirrul saw one of the stone block buildings within its protective double walls. A huge trumpet-like transmitter was exposed at the top of the structure. In some ways it resembled the Beam Transmitters on Agron but the differences were so striking Dirrul knew it was a totally new device--possibly a more efficient variation invented by the Vininese. The faint hum of machinery and the regular movement of the sending tube indicated that the machine was running--but for what purpose Dirrul could only guess.

The yard between the two walls was patrolled by a smartly disciplined score of Vininese. Dirrul considered going to them to ask for transportation to the city but changed his mind. It was very possible that the installation was secret. The guards might have had instructions to dispose immediately of any intruder. On the whole it seemed wiser to go a little farther to one of the walled villas.

Dirrul walked half a thousand feet along the green highway and turned up the drive leading toward one of the sprawling mansions. As he pa.s.sed the portals of the open gate an alarm bell clanged--seconds later five Vininese infantry surrounded him, prodding him into the house with their gleaming weapons. In precise Vininese, carefully enunciated, Dirrul tried to explain what he wanted--but the guards made no reply, merely staring at him with cold glazed eyes, comprehending nothing.

They threw him roughly into a dark room, where a slim Vininese waited in a lounge chair. As Dirrul's eyes grew accustomed to the faint light he saw that the Vininese held a snub-nosed rocket-pistol.

"Your permit?" the Vininese asked languidly.

"Yesterday I came here from--"

"Then you have no permit. I must shoot you, of course."

"Sir, I have a message from Agron! You must take me to Headquarters!"

"Oh, you're a tourist. But this is a prohibited area. From the dust on your tunic, I take it you have done a great deal of walking. A pity, my friend--naturally you've seen the transmitters."

"We have them on Agron but it is of no importance."

The Vininese threw back his head and laughed, "Oh, no--of no importance--you have seen nothing!"

"I do not understand you," Dirrul said desperately. "My Vininese is very poor. But you must help me. I bring news of the Movement on Agron and time is short." Anxiously Dirrul plunged into his story, tripping repeatedly over the involved syntax of Vinin to his host's obvious amus.e.m.e.nt.

Eventually, however, he made his point, for the tall Vininese said, "Then you must be the agent who sent the teleray report. We've been looking for you, sir. We feared, after you crashed, that you might have been taken by the vagabonds." Still holding Dirrul centered in the gunsight the Vininese picked up a portable teleray and asked for Headquarters.

While he waited he added, "You must forgive this reception, my friend from Agron. We have been having so much trouble with the vagabonds lately we must all go armed. Here in the transmission area we must be particularly alert."

His tone was warm but the gun never wavered. When he made his connection he spoke rapidly into the mouthpiece, too rapidly for Dirrul to work out an accurate translation. It seemed, however, that the conversation was centered around the transmitters rather than the report Dirrul had to make. The Vininese finished the dialogue and smiled engagingly at Dirrul.

"I am to take you to the capital, my friend," he said. "They are preparing a reception for you. You are a hero of Vinin, to have braved so much for the cause."

The Vininese came forward suddenly and pulled aside the torn cloth at the throat of Dirrul's tunic.

"But you--you must have a disk!" The Vininese was suddenly frightened.

"There is no tourist stamp on your arm. I don't understand."

"Paul Sorgel loaned me his when I left Agron." Dirrul felt in his tunic pocket. "He said I was to give it to the Chief when I made my report but if you must see it now--"

"No, no--by all means, keep it." The tall man's voice was pleasant again. "I was simply afraid that someone might have come who--but it is nothing. I am weary from all this vigilance against the vagabonds.

It is hard to think realistically."

"I was surprised to see so much lawlessness on Vinin."

"Then you're very naive, my friend. There's an element like that among all people, although I must admit ours here have suddenly become excessively active. Their attacks are so systematic and so well-organized! Hardly a night pa.s.ses without trouble at a work camp or a transmitter station.

"Your transmitters are different from ours. Have you developed an improvement in technique?"

"They are, curious, aren't they? You must ask the Chief to tell you all about them." The Vininese chuckled with delight. "I wouldn't want to spoil his surprise by letting you in on the secret first."

VII

The Vininese drove Dirrul to the city in a heavily armed surface car.

Two of the infantrymen sat behind them, their rocket guns ready on their knees. It was testimony to the efficiency and organization of Vinin that such a finished reception could be prepared on such short notice. Dirrul's first intimation of the scope of the ceremony came when they stopped at a school to be cheered by the pupils.

Rank upon rank of boys and girls lined up smartly behind the high wire fence. They ranged in ages from tots, barely able to stand, to young people in late adolescence. Except for the round metal disks, which all of them wore, they were completely naked.

"Clothing breeds such false modesty and so many foolish frustrations,"

Dirrul's host explained. "On Vinin every child is reared in completely objective equality. As soon as we take them from their parents--about the time when they're first learning to walk--we give them identification disks. Before that, when they're in the instinct period, the disks aren't necessary.

"After their basic education we cla.s.sify them. The leader-cla.s.s is issued permanent disks and the others give theirs up. The adjustment is something very severe but on the whole the casualties are light."

Suddenly the Vininese seized Dirrul's hand and looked into his eyes.

"I trust you follow me, my friend?"

"Yes," Dirrul answered. Reason led him to a conclusion as he looked at the ma.s.sed children, a conclusion he could not bring himself to face.

He felt a new kind of fear, as cold as the depths of s.p.a.ce and as devoid of emotion. Instead of trusting to his own logic Dirrul struggled to find a flaw in it--for a man cannot easily watch his dream turn to dust in his hands.

They drove on into the city. Rows of men and women in working clothes lined the streets, cheering wildly in unison. Crossed Vininese flags were draped between the buildings and brave-colored streamers danced in the wind.