* * * * *
But the rhythmic interference with his body grew stronger. Allison hadspoken not one single word while Calhoun conferred with the people ofMaya beyond the highway. His teeth chattered as they started back. Hedidn't attempt to speak during the beginning of the ride through thecattle-fence field. His teeth chattered, and stopped, and chatteredagain, and at long last he panted despairingly:
”Are you going to let the thing kill me?”
Calhoun stopped. The cars behind him stopped. He gave Allison twopellets and took two himself. With Murgatroyd insistently accompanyinghim, he went along the cars which trailed him. He made sure the six menhe'd asked for took their pellets and that they had an adequate effect.He went back to the sports car.
Allison whimpered a little when he and Murgatroyd got back in.
”I thought,” said Calhoun conversationally, ”that you might try to takeoff by yourself, just now. It would solve a problem for me. Of courseit wouldn't solve any for you. But I don't think your problems have anysolution, now.”
He started the car up again. It moved forward. The other cars traileddutifully. They went on through the starlit night. Calhoun noted thatthe effect of the cattle fence was less than it had been before. Thefirst desensitizing pellets had not wholly lost their effect when headded to it. But he kept his speed low until he was certain the otherdrivers had endured the anguish of passing through the cattle-fencefield.
Presently he was confident that the cattle field was past. He sent hiscar up to eighty miles an hour. The other cars followed faithfully. Toa hundred. They did not drop behind. The car hummed through the nightat top speed--a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty miles an hour.The three other cars' headlights faithfully kept pace with him.
Allison, said desperately, ”Look! I--don't understand what's happened.You talk as if I'd planned all this. I--did have advance notice of a--aresearch project here. But it shouldn't have held the people there fordays! Something went wrong! I only believed that people would want toleave Maya. I'd only planned to buy as much acreage as I could, andcontrol of as many factories as possible. That's all! It was business!Only business!”
Calhoun did not answer. Allison might be telling the truth. Somebusinessmen would think it only intelligent to frighten people intoselling their holdings below true value. Something of the sort happenedevery day in stock exchanges. But the people of Maya could have died!
For that matter, they still might. They couldn't return to their homesand food so long as broadcast power kept the cattle-fence in existence.But they could not return to their homes and food supplies if the powerbroadcast was cut off, either.
Over all the night surface of the world of Maya there was light onlyon one highway at one spot, and a multitude of smaller, lesser lightswhere the people of Maya waited to find out whether they would live ordie.
Med Ship Man Page 8
