Docchi stared at the man on the screen. A spot of light pulsed on his cheek and then flared rapidly over his face.
“Sure,” he said casually. “But there are criminal charges against me.”
“A formality,” said the medicouncilor. “With a thing like the discovery—or rediscovery—of the gravital drive to think about, no one is going to worry much about your unauthorized departure from the asteroid.”
Medicouncilor Thorton sounded pleased. “I don’t want to mislead you. We can’t do any more for you medically than has already been done. However, you will find yourself the center of a more adequate social life. Friends, work, whatever you want. Naturally, in return for this, we will expect your full cooperation.”
“Naturally.” Docchi blinked at him and got to his feet. “Sounds interesting. I’d like to think about it for a minute.”
Cameron planted himself squarely in front of the screen. “Maybe I don’t understand. I think you’ve got the wrong person.”
“Dr. Cameron!” Thorton glowered. “Please explain.”
“It was an easy mistake to make,” said Cameron. “Cut off from communication, the gravital drive began to work. How? Why? Mostly, who did it? You knew it wasn’t I. I’m a doctor, not a physicist. Nor Jordan, he’s at best a mechanic. Therefore it had to be Docchi, because he’s an engineer. He could make it work. But it wasn’t Docchi. He had nothing to do with—”
“Look out!” cried Thorton too late.
Cameron fell to his knees. The same foot that brought him down crashed into his chin. His head snapped back and he sprawled on the floor. Blood trickled from his face.
“Docchi!” shouted Thorton from the screen.
Docchi didn’t answer. He was crashing through the door. The commander was lounging against the wall. Head down, Docchi ran into him. The toaster fell from his belt to the floor. With scarcely a pause, Docchi stamped on it and continued running.
The commander got to his feet and retrieved the weapon. He aimed it tentatively at the retreating figure; a thought occurred to him and he lowered it. He examined the damaged mechanism. After that, it went gingerly into a tunic pocket.
Muffled shouts were coming from Cameron’s office. The general broke in.
The medicouncilor glared at him from the screen. “I can see that you let him get away.”
The disheveled officer straightened his uniform. “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll alert the guards immediately.”
“Never mind now. Revive that man.”
The general wasn’t accustomed to giving resuscitation; it was out of his line. Nevertheless, in a few minutes Cameron was conscious, though somewhat dazed.
“Now then, Doctor, if it wasn’t Docchi who was responsible for the sudden functioning of the gravital drive, who was it?”
With satisfaction, Cameron told him. He had not been wrong about the girl. Listening to the detailed explanation of Nona’s mental abilities, the general was perplexed, as generals sometimes are.
“I see.” The medicouncilor nodded. “We overlooked that possibility altogether. Not the mechanical genius of an engineer. Instead, the strange telepathic sense of a girl. That puts the problem in a different light.”
“It does.” Cameron pressed his aching jaw. “She can’t tell us how she does it. We’ll have to experiment. Fortunately, it won’t involve any danger. With the monitor system we can always control the gravital drive.”
The medicouncilor leaned perilously backward and shook his head. “You’re wrong. It’s supposed to, but it doesn’t. We tried. For a microsecond, the monitor did take over, but the gravital computer is smarter than we thought, if it was the computer that figured out the method. It found a way of cutting the power from the monitor circuit. It didn’t respond at all.”
Cameron forgot his jaw. “If you didn’t bring the rocket back on remote, why did she come?”
“Docchi knows,” growled the medicouncilor. “He found out in this room. That’s why he escaped.” He tapped on his desk with blunt fingers. “She could have taken the ship anywhere she pleased and we couldn’t have stopped her. Since she voluntarily came back, it’s obvious that she wants the asteroid!”
Medicouncilor Thorton tried to shove his face out of the screen and into the room. “Don’t you ever think, General? There isn’t any real difference between gravital units except size and power. What she did to the ship she can do as easily to the asteroid.” He thrust out a finger and pointed angrily. “Don’t stand there, General Judd. Find that girl!”
It was late for that kind of command. The great dome overhead trembled and creaked in countless joints. The little world shivered, groaned as if it had lain too long in an age-old orbit. It began to move.
* * * *
Vague shapes stirred, crawled, walked if they could. Fantastic and near-fantastic figures came to the assembly. Huge or tiny, on their own legs or borrowed ones, they arrived, with or without arms, faces. The word had spread by voice, by moving lips, by sign languages of every sort.
“Remember, it will be hours or perhaps days before we’re safe,” said Docchi. His voice was growing hoarse. “It’s up to us to see that Nona has all the time she needs.”
“Where is she hiding?” asked someone from the crowd.
“I don’t know. If I did, I still wouldn’t tell you. It’s our job to keep them from finding her.”
“How?” demanded one near the front. “Fight the guards?”
“Not directly,” said Docchi. “We have no arms in the sense of weapons. Many of us have no arms in any sense. All we can hope to do is obstruct their search. Unless someone has a better idea, this is what I plan:
“I want all the men, older women, and the younger ones who aren’t suitable for reasons I’ll explain later. The guards won’t be here for another half hour—it will take that long to get them together and give them the orders that the Medicouncil must be working out now. When they do come, get in their way.
“How you do that, I’ll leave to your imagination. Appeal to their sympathy as long as they have any. Put yourself in dangerous situations. They have ethics; at first they’ll be inclined to help you. When they do, try to steal their weapons. Avoid physical violence as much as you can. We don’t want to force them into retaliation. Make the most of that phase of their behavior. It won’t last long.”
Docchi paused and looked over the crowd. “Each of you will have to decide for himself when to drop that kind of resistance and start an active battle campaign. We have to disrupt the light and scanning and ventilation systems, for instance. They’ll be forced to keep them in repair. Perhaps they’ll try to guard these strategic points. So much the better for us—there will be fewer guards to contend with.”
“What about me?” called a woman from far in back. “What do I do?”
“You are in for a rough time,” Docchi promised her. “Is Jerian here?”
She elbowed her way to his side through the crowd.
“Jerian,” said Docchi to the accidentals, “is a normal, pretty woman—outwardly. She has, however, no trace of a digestive system. The maximum time she can go without food and fluid injections is ten hours. That’s why she’s here.”
Again Docchi scanned the group. “I need a cosmetech, someone who has her equipment with her.”
A legless woman propelled herself forward. Docchi conferred with her. She seemed startled, but she complied. Under her deft fingers Jerian was transformed—into Nona.
“She will be the first Nona they’ll find,” explained Docchi, “because she can get away with the disguise longer. I think—I hope—they’ll call off the search for a few hours while they test her. Eventually they are sure to find out. In Jerian’s case, fingerprints or X-rays would reveal who she is. But that won’t occur to them immediately. Nona is impossible to question, as you know, and Jerian will act exactly as Nona would.
“As soon as they discover that Jerian isn’t Nona—well, they won’t bother to be polite, if that’s the word for it. The guards wil
l like the idea of finding an attractive girl they can manhandle in the line of duty, especially if they think that will help them find Nona. It won’t, of course. But it will hold up the search and that’s what we want.”
They stood still, no one moving. Women looked at each other in silent apprehension.
“Let’s go,” said Jordan grimly.
“Wait,” advised Docchi. “I have one volunteer Nona. I need about fifty more. It doesn’t matter if you’re physically sound or not—we’ll raid the lab for plastissue. If you think you can be made up to look like Nona, come forward.”
Slowly, singly and by twos and threes, they came to him. There were few indeed who wouldn’t require liberal use of camouflage.
The rest followed Jordan out.
Mass production of an individual. Not perfect in every instance. Good enough to pass in most. Docchi watched approvingly, suggesting occasional touches of makeup.
“She can’t speak or hear,” he reminded the volunteers. “Remember that at all times, no matter what they do. Hide in difficult places. After Jerian is taken and the search called off and then resumed, let yourselves be found one at a time. Every guard that has to take you for examination is one less to look for the real Nona. They have to find her soon or get off the asteroid.”
The cosmetechs were busy; none stopped. There was one who looked up.
“Get off?” she asked. “Why?”
“The Sun is getting smaller.”
“Smaller!” exclaimed the woman.
He nodded. “Handicap Haven is leaving the Solar System.”
Her fingers flew and molded the beautiful curve of a jaw where there had been none. Next, plastissue lips were applied.
Nona was soon hiding in half a hundred places.
And one more.…
* * * *
The orbit of Neptune was far behind and still the asteroid was accelerating. Two giant gravital units strained at the core of Handicap Haven. The third clamped an abnormally heavy gravity on the isolated world. Prolonged physical exertion was awkward and doubly exhausting. Hours turned into a day, but the units never faltered.
“Have you figured it out as precisely as you should?” asked Docchi easily. “You share our velocity away from the Sun. You’ll have to overcome it before you can start going back.”
The general ignored him. “If we could only turn off that damned drive!”
Engineer Vogel shrugged sickly. “You try it,” he suggested. “I don’t want to be around when you do. It sounds easy: just a gravital unit. But remember there’s a good-sized nuclear pile involved.”
“I know we can’t,” admitted the general, morosely looking at the darkness overhead. “On the other hand, we can take off and blow this rock apart from a safe distance.”
“And lose all hope of finding her?” taunted Docchi.
“We’re losing her anyway,” Cameron commented sourly.
“It’s not as bad as all that,” consoled Docchi. “Now that you know where the difficulty is, you can always build another computer and furnish it with auxiliary senses. Or maybe build into it the facts of elementary astronomy.”
Cautiously, he shifted his frail body under the heavy gravity. “There’s another solution, though it may not appeal to you. I can’t believe Nona is altogether unique. There must be others like her. So-called ‘born’ mechanics, maybe, whose understanding of machinery is a form of empathy we’ve never suspected. Look hard enough and you may find them, perhaps in the most unlikely or unlovely body.”
General Judd grunted wearily, “If I thought you knew where she is—”
“You can try to find out,” Docchi invited, glowing involuntarily.
“Forget about the dramatics, General,” said Cameron in disgust. “We’ve questioned him thoroughly. Resistance we would have had in any event. He’s responsible merely for making it more effective than we thought possible.”
He added slowly: “At the moment, obviously, he’s trying to tear down our morale. He doesn’t have to bother. The situation is so bad that it looks hopeless. I can’t think of a thing we can do that would help us.”
The Sun was high in the center of the dome. Sun? More like a very bright star. It cast no shadows; the lights in the dome did. They flickered and with monotonous regularity went out again. The general swore constantly and emotionlessly until service was restored.
A guard approached with his captive. “I think I’ve found her, sir.”
Cameron looked at the girl in dismay. “Guard, where’s your decency?”
“Orders, sir,” the man said.
“Whose orders?”
“Yours, sir. You said she was sound of body. How else could I find out?”
Cameron scowled and thrust a scalpel deep into the girl’s thigh. She looked at him with a tear-stained face, but didn’t move a muscle.
“Plastissue, as any fool can see,” he commented dourly.
The guard looked revolted and started to lead her out.
“Let her go,” snapped the doctor. “Both of you will be safer, I think.”
The girl darted away. The guard followed her, shuddering, his eyes filled with a self-loathing that Cameron realized would require hours of psychiatric work to remove.
Docchi smiled. “I have a request to make.”
“Go ahead and make it,” snorted the general. “We’re likely to give you anything you want.”
“You probably will. You’re going to leave without her. Very soon. When you do go, don’t take all your ships. We’ll need about three when we come to another solar system.”
General Judd opened his mouth in rage.
“Don’t you say anything you’ll regret,” cautioned Docchi. “When you get back, what will you report to your superiors? Can you tell them that you left in good order, while there was still time to continue the search? Or will they like it better if they know you stayed until the last moment? So late that you had to abandon some of your ships?”
The general closed his mouth and stamped away. Wordlessly, Cameron dragged after him.
* * * *
The last ship had blasted off and the rocket trails had faded into overwhelming darkness. The Sun, which had been trying to lose itself among the other stars, finally succeeded. The asteroid was no longer the junkpile. It was a small world that had become a swift ship.
“We can survive,” said Docchi. “Power and oxygen, we have, and we can grow or synthesize our food.”
He sat beside Anti’s tank, which had been returned to the usual place. A small tree nodded overhead in the artificial breeze. It was peaceful enough. But Nona wasn’t there.
“We’ll get you out of the tank,” promised Jordan. “When she comes back, we’ll rig up a place where there’s no gravity. And we’ll continue cold treatment.”
“I can wait,” said Anti. “On this world I’m normal.”
Docchi stared forlornly about. The one thing he wanted to see wasn’t there.
“If you’re worrying about Nona,” advised Anti, “don’t. The guards were pretty rough with the women, but plastissue doesn’t feel pain. They didn’t find her.”
“How do you know?”
“Listen,” said Anti. The ground shivered with the power of the gravital units. “As long as they’re running, how can you doubt?”
“If I could be sure—”
“You can start now,” Jordan said. “First, though, you’d better get up and turn around.”
Docchi scrambled to his feet. She was coming toward him.
She showed no sign of strain. Except for a slight smudge on her wonderfully smooth and scar-less cheek, she might just have stepped out of a beauty cubicle. Without question, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. This world, of course, though she could have done well on any world—if she could have communicated with people as well as with machines.
“Where were you hiding?” Docchi asked, expecting no answer.
She smiled. He wondered, with a feeling of helplessness, if machines coul
d sense and appreciate her lovely smile, or whether they could somehow smile themselves.
“I wish I could take you in my arms,” he said bitterly.
“It’s not as silly as you think,” said Anti, watching from the surface of the tank. “You don’t have any arms, but she has two. You can talk and hear, but she can’t. Between you, you’re a complete couple.”
“Except that she would never get the idea,” he answered unhappily.
Jordan, rocking on his hands, looked up quizzically. “I must be something like her. They used to call me a born mechanic; just put a wrench in my hand and I can do anything with a piece of machinery. It’s as if I sense what the machine wants done to it. Not to the extent that Nona can understand, naturally. You might say it’s reversed, that she’s the one who can hear while I have to lip-read.”
“You never just gabble,” Docchi prompted. “You have something in mind.”
Jordan hesitated. “I don’t know if it’s stupid or what. I was thinking of a kind of sign language with machines. You know, start with the simple ones, like clocks and such, and see what they mean to her. Since they’d be basic machines, she’d probably have pretty basic reactions. Then it’s just a matter of—”
“You don’t have to blueprint it,” Docchi cut in excitedly. “That would be fine for determining elementary reactions, but I can’t carry around a machine shop; it wouldn’t be practical. There ought to be one variable machine that would be portable and yet convey all meanings to her.”
“An electronic oscillator?”
Acid waves washed at the sides of the tank as Anti stirred impatiently. “Will you two great brains work it out in the lab, please? And when you get through with that problem, you’ll have plenty more to keep you occupied until we get to the stars. Jordan and me, for instance. What future is there for a girl unless she can get married?”
“That’s right,” Docchi said. “I’ve got an idea we can do better than normal doctors. Being accidentals ourselves, we won’t stop experimenting till we succeed. And we have hundreds of years to do it in.”
The Eleventh Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack Page 14
