by E. C. Tubb
"And when they do?"
"Tell them the truth. You have no reason to lie."
Batrun looked at his hands. They were quivering and he reached for his snuff, opening the box and pinching up the last of the powder it contained.
"You've got a deal, Earl. Anything else?"
"The coordinates of this world. Forget them. Erase them from the computer. I don't want anything else to come here."
"Your world, Earl, I understand. And the angels-the Ypsheim wouldn't be the only ones to want their wings." Batrun snapped shut the box in his hand and stared at its bright ornamentation. "A bomb," he said musingly. "They thought it was a bomb. And Ysanne an agent-you had it all worked out. A bluff and you got away with it. A damned shame she had to die."
"Yes."
"One of the finest navigators I ever had. And fun to be with. I'll miss her." Batrun shook his head and then, remembering, said, "I'm sorry, Earl. I guess I talk too much at times. But, at least, she died happy. She'd given you Earth."
"No."
"But you said-" Batrun broke off. "You lied," he said. "She was dying and you lied to make her happy. But are you sure?"
Dumarest nodded, staring at the screens, the stars now thick in the sky. Too many stars and the moon, though large, lacked the skull-like image he remembered. Things which could have been blurred by the passage of time but one thing brooked no argument.
"Here." He drew a slip of plastic from the hollow of his belt. "You took a spectrograph of the sun, right?"
"Of course, Earl. It's standard procedure."
"Compare it with this."
The spectrum of a forgotten sun found on a world far distant in time and space, one he was convinced bore the unique pattern of Earth's sun. Dumarest watched as Batrun busied himself with an instrument. On the screen two patterns of color showed; rainbows traced with lines of varying density. Fraunhofer lines which the captain tried to match.
"It's close," he said. "Damned close, but they aren't identical. But if this world isn't Earth then what the hell is it?"
"Heaven," said Dumarest, and tasted the irony of a bitter jest. The trick used to lull the Ypsheim had been nothing but the simple truth. "Remember the mnemonic?" He began to repeat it as Ysanne had. "Thirty-two, forty, sixty-seven- that's the way to get to Heaven. Heaven, Andre. This world. That's what the Terridae called it."
Heaven-with angels.
One of which was now Cyber Avro. His mind within the creature's skull, the body his own by the magic of the affinity twin. Sensing what it sensed, feeling the emotions which burned through it, the euphoria of flight, the frenzy of mating.
Batrun said dully, "Ysanne was so certain. So sure that she was right. And you-Earl, what can I say?"
Nothing, for the woman was dead and a hope had been lost and all that was left was to head into space where, somewhere, Earth was waiting.
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