X
The _Orion_ hung in space, a couple of thousands of miles away from anasteroid which was perhaps a mile in average diameter. Hiltonstraightened up.
"Put Triple X Black filters on your plates and watch that asteroid." Thecommanders did so. "Ready?" he asked.
"Ready, sir."
Hilton didn't move a muscle. Nothing actually moved. Nevertheless therewas a motionlessly writhing and crawling distortion of the ship andeverything in it, accompanied by a sensation that simply can not bedescribed.
It was not like going into or emerging from the sub-ether. It was noteven remotely like space-sickness or sea-sickness or free fall oranything else that any Terran had ever before experienced.
And the asteroid vanished.
It disappeared into an outrageously incandescent, furiously pyrotechnic,raveningly expanding atomic fireball that in seconds seemed to fill halfof space.
After ages-long minutes of the most horrifyingly devastating fury anyman there had ever seen, the frightful thing expired and Hilton said:"_That_ was just a kind of a firecracker. Just a feeble imitation of thefirst-stage detonator for what we'll have to have to crack the Stretts'ground-based screens. If the skipper and I had taken time to take theship down to the shops and really work it over we could have put on ashow. Was this enough so you iron-heads are ready to listen with yourears open and your mouths shut?"
They were. So much so that not even Elliott opened his mouth to say yes.They merely nodded. Then again--for the last time, he hoped!--Hiltonspoke his piece. The response was prompt and vigorous. Only Sam Bryant,one of Hilton's staunchest allies, showed any uncertainty at all.
"I've been married only a year and a half, and the baby was due about amonth ago. How sure are you that you can make old Gordon sit still forus skimming the cream off of Terra to bring out here?"
"Doris Bryant, the cream of Terra!" Elliott gibed. "_How_ modest ourSamuel has become!"
"Well, damn it, she is!" Bryant insisted.
"Okay, she is," Hilton agreed. "But either we get our people or Terradoesn't get its uranexite. That'll work. In the remote contingency thatit doesn't, there are still tighter screws we can put on. But you missedthe main snapper, Sam. Suppose Doris doesn't want to live for fivethousand years and is allergic to becoming a monster?"
"Huh; you don't need to worry about that." Sam brushed that argumentaside with a wave of his hand. "Show me a girl who doesn't want to stayyoung and beautiful forever and I'll square you the circle. Come on.What's holding us up?"
* * * * *
The _Orion_ hurtled through space back toward Ardry and Hilton, struckby a sudden thought, turned to the captain.
"Skipper, why wouldn't it be a smart idea to clamp a blockade onto FuelBin? Cut the Stretts' fuel supply?"
"I thought better of you than that, son." Sawtelle shook his head sadly."That was the first thing I did."
"Ouch. Maybe you're 'way ahead of me too, then, on the one that weshould move to Fuel Bin, lock, stock and barrel?"
"Never thought of it, no. Maybe you're worth saving, after all. Afterconversion, of course.... Yes, there'd be three big advantages."
"Four."
Sawtelle raised his eyebrows.
"One, only one planet to defend. Two, it's self-defending against sneaklandings. Nothing remotely human can land on it except in heavy leadarmor, and even in that can stay healthy for only a few minutes."
"Except in the city. Omlu. That's the weak point and would be the pointof attack."
"Uh-uh. Cut off the decontaminators and in five hours it'll be as hot asthe rest of the planet. Three, there'd be no interstellar supply linefor the Stretts to cut. Four, the environment matches our new physiquesa lot better than any normal planet could."
"That's the one I didn't think about."
"I think I'll take a quick peek at the Stretts--oh-oh; they've screenedtheir whole planet. Well, we can do that, too, of course."
"How are you going to select and reject personnel? It looks as thougheverybody wants to stay. Even the men whose main object in life is to goaground and get drunk. The Omans do altogether too good a job on themand there's no such thing as a hangover. I'm glad I'm not in yourboots."
"You may be in it up to the eyeballs, Skipper, so don't chortle toosoon."
Hilton had already devoted much time to the problems of selection; andhe thought of little else all the way back to Ardry. And for severaldays afterward he held conferences with small groups and conductedcertain investigations.
* * * * *
Bud Carroll of Sociology and his assistant Sylvia Banister had beenmarried for weeks. Hilton called them, together with Sawtelle and Bryantof Navy, into conference with the Big Eight.
"The more I study this thing the less I like it," Hilton said. "With acivilization having no government, no police, no laws, no medium ofexchange ..."
"No _money_?" Bryant exclaimed. "How's old Gordon going to pay for hisuranexite, then?"
"He gets it free," Hilton replied, flatly. "When anyone can haveanything he wants, merely by wanting it, what good is money? Now,remembering how long we're going to have to live, what we'll be upagainst, that the Masters failed, and so on, it is clear that the primebasic we have to select for is stability. We twelve have, bypsychodynamic measurement, the highest stability ratings available."
"Are you sure _I_ belong here?" Bryant asked.
"Yes. Here are three lists." Hilton passed papers around. "The listlabeled 'OK' names those I'm sure of--the ones we're converting now andtheir wives and whatever on Terra. List 'NG' names the ones I know wedon't want. List 'X'--over thirty percent--are in-betweeners. We have tomake a decision on the 'X' list. So--what I want to know is, who's goingto play God. I'm not. Sandy, are you?"
"Good Heavens, no!" Sandra shuddered. "But I'm afraid I know who willhave to. I'm sorry, Alex, but it'll have to be you four--Psychology andSociology."
Six heads nodded and there was a flashing interchange of thought amongthe four. Temple licked her lips and nodded, and Kincaid spoke.
"Yes, I'm afraid it's our baby. By leaning very heavily on Temple, wecan do it. Remember, Jarve, what you said about the irresistible force?We'll need it."
"As I said once before, Mrs. Hilton, I'm very glad you're along,"Hilton said. "But just how sure are you that even you can stand up underthe load?"
"Alone, I couldn't. But don't underestimate Mrs. Carroll and the Messrs.Together, and with such a goal, I'm sure we can."
* * * * *
Thus, after four-fifths of his own group and forty-one Navy men had beenconverted, Hilton called an evening meeting of all the converts. Larry,Tuly and Javvy were the only Omans present.
"You all knew, of course, that we were going to move to Fuel Binsometime," Hilton began. "I can tell you now that we who are here areall there are going to be of us. We are all leaving for Fuel Binimmediately after this meeting. Everything of any importance, includingall of your personal effects, has already been moved. All Omans exceptthese three, and all Oman ships except the _Orion_, have already gone."
He paused to let the news sink in.
Thoughts flew everywhere. The irrepressible Stella Wing--_now_ Mrs.Osbert F. Harkins--was the first to give tongue. "What a _wonderful_job! Why, everybody's here that I really like at all!"
That sentiment was, of course, unanimous. It could not have beenotherwise. Betty, the ex-Ames, called out:
"How did you get their female Omans away from Cecil Calthorpe and therest of that chasing, booze-fighting bunch without them blowing thewhole show?"
"Some suasion was necessary," Hilton admitted, with a grin. "Everyonewho isn't here is time-locked into the _Perseus_. Release time eighthours tomorrow."
"And they'll wake up tomorrow morning with no Omans?" Bernadine tossedback her silvery mane and laughed. "Nor anything else except the_Perseus_? In a way, I'm sorry, but ... maybe I've got too much stinkerblood in me, but I'm
very glad none of them are here. But I'd like toask, Jarvis--or rather, I suppose you have already set up a new AdvisoryBoard?"
"We have, yes." Hilton read off twelve names.
"Oh, nice. I don't know of any people I'd rather have on it. But what Iwant to gripe about is calling our new home world such a horrible nameas 'Fuel Bin,' as though it were a wood-box or a coal-scuttle orsomething. And just think of the complexes it would set up in thosesuper-children we're going to have so many of."
"What would you suggest?" Hilton asked.
"'Ardvor', of course," Hermione said, before her sister could answer."We've had 'Arth' and 'Ardu' and 'Ardry' and you--or somebody--startedcalling us 'Ardans' to distinguish us converts from the Terrans. Solet's keep up the same line."
There was general laughter at that, but the name was approved.
* * * * *
About midnight the meeting ended and the _Orion_ set out for Ardvor. Itreached it and slanted sharply downward. The whole BuSci staff was inthe lounge, watching the big tri-di.
"Hey! That isn't Omlu!" Stella exclaimed. "It isn't a city at all and itisn't even in the same place!"
"No, ma'am," Larry said. "Most of you wanted the ocean, but many wanteda river or the mountains. Therefore we razed Omlu and built your newcity, Ardane, at a place where the ocean, two rivers, and a range ofmountains meet. Strictly speaking, it is not a city, but a place ofpleasant and rewardful living."
The space-ship was coming in, low and fast, from the south. To the left,the west, there stretched the limitless expanse of ocean. To the right,mile after mile, were rough, rugged, jagged, partially-timberedmountains, mass piled upon mass. Immediately below the speeding vesselwas a wide, white-sand beach all of ten miles long.
Slowing rapidly now, the _Orion_ flew along due north.
"Look! Look! A natatorium!" Beverly shrieked. "I know I wanted a nicebig place to swim in, besides my backyard pool and the ocean, but Ididn't tell anybody to build _that_--I swear I didn't!"
"You didn't have to, pet." Poynter put his arm around her curvaceouswaist and squeezed. "They knew. And I did a little thinking along thatline myself. There's our house, on top of the cliff over thenatatorium--you can almost dive into it off the patio."
"Oh, wonderful!"
Immediately north of the natatorium a tremendous river--named at firstsight the "Whitewater"--rushed through its gorge into the ocean; a riverand gorge strangely reminiscent of the Colorado and its Grand Canyon. Onthe south bank of that river, at its very mouth--looking straight upthat tremendous canyon; on a rocky promontory commanding ocean and beachand mountains--there was a house. At the sight of it Temple huggedHilton's arm in ecstasy.
"Yes, that's ours," he assured her. "Just about everything either of ushas ever wanted." The clamor was now so great--everyone was recognizinghis-and-her house and was exclaiming about it--that both Temple andHilton fell silent and simply watched the scenery unroll.
Across the turbulent Whitewater and a mile farther north, the mountainsended as abruptly as though they had been cut off with a cleaver and anapparently limitless expanse of treeless, grassy prairie began. Andthrough that prairie, meandering sluggishly to the ocean from thenortheast, came the wide, deep River Placid.
The _Orion_ halted. It began to descend vertically, and only then didHilton see the spaceport. It was so vast, and there were so manyspaceships on it, that from any great distance it was actuallyinvisible! Each six-acre bit of the whole immense expanse of levelprairie between the Placid and the mountains held an Omansuperdreadnought!
* * * * *
The staff paired off and headed for the airlocks. Hilton said: "Temple,have you any reservations at all, however slight, as to having Dark Ladyas a permanent fixture in your home?"
"Why, of course not--I like her as much as you do. And besides--" shegiggled like a schoolgirl--"even if she _is_ a lot more beautiful than Iam--I've got a few things she never will have ... but there's somethingelse. I got just a flash of it before you blocked. Spill it, please."
"You'll see in a minute." And she did.
Larry, Dark Lady and Temple's Oman maid Moty were standing beside theHilton's car--and so was another Oman, like none ever before seen. Sixfeet four; shoulders that would just barely go through a door; muscledlike Atlas and Hercules combined; skin a gleaming, satiny bronze; hair arippling mass of lambent flame. Temple came to a full stop and caughther breath.
"The Prince," she breathed, in awe. "Da Lormi's Prince of Thebes. Theultimate bronze of all the ages. _You_ did this, Jarve. How did you everdig him up out of my schoolgirl crushes?"
All six got into the car, which was equally at home on land or water orin the air. In less than a minute they were at Hilton House.
The house itself was circular. Its living-room was an immense annulus ofglass from which, by merely moving along its circular length, anydesired view could be had. The pair walked around it once. Then she tookhim by the arm and steered him firmly toward one of the bedrooms in thecenter.
"This house is just too much to take in all at once," she declared."Besides, let's put on our swimsuits and get over to the Nat."
In the room, she closed the door firmly in the faces of the Omans andgrinned. "Maybe, sometime, I'll get used to having somebody besides youin my bedroom, but I haven't, yet.... Oh, do you itch, too?"
Hilton had peeled to the waist and was scratching vigorously all aroundhis waistline, under his belt. "Like the very devil," he admitted, andstared at her. For she, three-quarters stripped, was scratching, too!
"It started the minute we left the _Orion_," he said, thoughtfully. "Isee. These new skins of ours like hard radiation, but don't like to besmothered while they're enjoying it. By about tomorrow, we'll be anudist colony, I think."
"I could stand it, I suppose. What makes you think so?"
"Just what I know about radiation. Frank would be the one to ask. Myhunch is, though, that we're going to be nudists whether we want to ornot. Let's go."
* * * * *
They went in a two-seater, leaving the Omans at home. Three-quarters ofthe staff were lolling on the sand or were seated on benches beside theimmense pool. As they watched, Beverly ran out along the line ofspringboards; testing each one and selecting the stiffest. She thenclimbed up to the top platform--a good twelve feet above the board--andplummeted down upon the board's heavily padded take-off. Legs and backbending stubbornly to take the strain, she and the board reachedlow-point together, and, still in sync with it, she put every muscle shehad into the effort to hurl herself upward.
She had intended to go up thirty feet. But she had no idea whatever asto her present strength, or of what that Oman board, in perfectsynchronization with that tremendous strength, would do. Thus, insteadof thirty feet, she went up very nearly two hundred; which of coursespoiled completely her proposed graceful two-and-a-half.
In midair she struggled madly to get into some acceptable position.Failing, she curled up into a tight ball just before she struck water.
_What_ a splash!
"It won't hurt her--you couldn't hurt her with a club!" Hilton snapped.He seized Temple's hand as everyone else rushed to the pool's edge."Look--Bernadine--that's what I was thinking about."
Temple stopped and looked. The platinum-haired twins had been basking onthe sand, and wherever sand had touched fabric, fabric had disappeared.
Their suits had of course approached the minimum to start with. NowBernadine wore only a wisp of nylon perched precariously on one breastand part of a ribbon that had once been a belt. Discovering thecatastrophe, she shrieked once and leaped into the pool any-which-way,covering her breasts with her hands and hiding in water up to her neck.
Meanwhile, the involuntarily high diver had come to the surface,laughing apologetically. Surprised by the hair dangling down over hereyes, she felt for her cap. It was gone. So was her suit. Naked as afish. She swam a couple of easy strokes, then stopped.
<
br /> "Frank! Oh, Frank!" she called.
"Over here, Bev." Her husband did not quite know whether to laugh ornot.
"Is it the radiation or the water? Or both?"
"Radiation, I think. These new skins of ours don't want to be coveredup. But it probably makes the water a pretty good imitation of auniversal solvent."
"Good-by, clothes!" Beverly rolled over onto her back, fanned watercarefully with her hands, and gazed approvingly at herself. "I don'titch any more, anyway, so I'm very much in favor of it."
* * * * *
Thus the Ardans came to their new home world and to a life that was tobe more comfortable by far and happier by far than any of them had knownon Earth. There were many other surprises that day, of course; of whichonly two will be mentioned here. When they finally left the pool, atabout seventeen hours G.M.T.[2], everybody was ravenously hungry.
[2] Greenwich Mean Time. Ardvor was, always and everywhere, fulldaylight. Terran time and calendar were adapted as a matter of course.
"But why _should_ we be?" Stella demanded. "I've been eating everythingin sight, just for fun. But now I'm actually hungry enough to eat ahorse and wagon and chase the driver!"
"Swimming makes everybody hungry," Beverly said, "and I'm awfully glad_that_ hasn't changed. Why, I wouldn't feel _human_ if I didn't!"
Hilton and Temple went home, and had a long-drawn-out and very wonderfulsupper. Prince waited on Temple, Dark Lady on Hilton; Larry and Moty ranthe synthesizers in the kitchen. All four Omans radiated happiness.
Another surprise came when they went to bed. For the bed was a raisedplatform of something that looked like concrete and, except for anuncanny property of molding itself somewhat to the contours of theirbodies, was almost as hard as rock. Nevertheless, it was the mostcomfortable bed either of them had ever had. When they were ready to goto sleep, Temple said:
"Drat it, those Omans _still_ want to come in and sleep with us. In theroom, I mean. And they suffer so. They're simply _radiating_ silentsuffering and oh-so-submissive reproach. Shall we let 'em come in?"
"That's strictly up to you, sweetheart. It always has been."
"I know. I thought they'd quit it sometime, but I guess they never will.I _still_ want an illusion of privacy at times, even though they knowall about everything that goes on. But we might let 'em in now, justwhile we sleep, and throw 'em out again as soon as we wake up in themorning?"
"You're the boss." Without additional invitation the four Omans came inand arranged themselves neatly on the floor, on all four sides of thebed. Temple had barely time to cuddle up against Hilton, and he to puthis arm closely around her, before they both dropped into profound anddreamless sleep.
* * * * *
At eight hours next morning all the specialists met at the new Hall ofRecords.
This building, an exact duplicate of the old one, was located on a mesain the foothills southwest of the natatorium, in a luxuriant grove atsight of which Karns stopped and began to laugh.
"I thought I'd seen everything," he remarked. "But yellow pine, spruce,tamarack, apples, oaks, palms, oranges, cedars, joshua trees and_cactus_--just to name a few--all growing on the same quarter-section ofland?"
"Just everything anybody wants, is all," Hilton said. "But are theyreally growing? Or just straight synthetics? Lane--Kathy--this is yourdish."
"Not so fast, Jarve; give us a chance, _please_!" Kathryn, now Mrs. LaneSaunders, pleaded. She shook her spectacular head. "We don't see how anystable indigenous life can have developed at all, unless ..."
"Unless what? Natural shielding?" Hilton asked, and Kathy eyed herhusband.
"Right," Saunders said. "The earliest life-forms must have developed ashield before they could evolve and stabilize. Hence, whatever it isthat is in our skins was not a triumph of Masters' science. They took itfrom Nature."
"Oh? Oh!" These were two of Sandra's most expressive monosyllables,followed by a third. "Oh. Could be, at that. But how _could_ ... no,cancel that."
"You'd better cancel it, Sandy. Give us a couple of months, and _maybe_we can answer a few elementary questions."
Now inside the Hall, all the teams, from Astronomy to Zoology, wentefficiently to work. Everyone now knew what to look for, how to findit, and how to study it.
"The First Team doesn't need you now too much, does it, Jarve?" Sawtelleasked.
"Not particularly. In fact, I was just going to get back onto my ownjob."
"Not yet. I want to talk to you," and the two went into a longdiscussion of naval affairs.
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