FOURTEEN

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When she came back to consciousness she was stretched out flat on turf and able to stare up into the vast vault of the Tree. She was quite at ease, knew where she was, had no fear, and just lay there in peace, savoring the rare pleasure of being completely comfortable and happy. The completeness of it was in itself remarkable, and she was just beginning on that thought when she grew aware of a low muttering, quite close. She sat up and turned to look; there was Joe. He squatted before the Tree with his hands out to touch it, and he was talking to it. She wrinkled her brow at that, for a moment, but then let it go. Surely speech, she thought, was neither necessary nor of any use, but maybe it helped him with mental imagery. She lay back on an elbow and returned to contemplation of her own well-being. She looked up as he came padding across the grass to her and sank into a squat by her side.

"How do you feel?" he asked. She smiled.

"You know I can't describe it. I've read quite a lot by people who have had striking spiritual experiences, and it always comes to the same thing—it can't be described."

"That's in the Tao," he said unexpectedly. "If you can describe it, that's not it. I think that is what the Bible passage means—the peace of mind that passes all understanding. Something like that."

"I am through being surprised at anything you say, Joe. After that experience, nothing will surprise me. I feel as if I had been taken apart, molecule by molecule, and put back together again properly, the way I should have been all along. Isn't it crazy?"

"Say it like that and it is, but it's true. That's what I meant about casting out devils. We humans carry about with us all sorts of lies and illusions to preserve us against the sometimes unpleasant realities. That's why so very few people are really fit and healthy, and well. They don't know the right way to live, which is determined by the design of the body itself."

"I think it's more than that. I know something you don't, perhaps. Scientists have investigated the seeds of that Tree, and I know this about their results: those seeds grow and produce plants that have the power to take a construct from a human mind and create it in solid reality. It can deliver what you want."

"So?"

"So I suppose everyone has some kind of meaningful image of what he or she would like to be, a kind of superego picture of what we could be. And I think the Tree uses that as a working base."

"Maybe." He sounded doubtful. "It has limitations. It's only a tree, after all."

"You mean, this euphoria could be some kind of illusion in itself? That's a possibility I hadn't considered—hypnosis and suggestion."

"How do you tell the difference?"

"Well." She pondered. "If it really is repair and restructure—I have a scar or two. Mementoes of a lively past. Excuse me." She searched for a scar—and there was no scar.

"It's real, all right. Instant healing!"

"Not instant," he corrected. "It took an hour for you, maybe more. And maybe not healing, either. I told you, it's mental pictures it gets. If that's true then it fixes you up the way you want to be, as far as possible. And that's not always good, is it?"

"I suppose not," she agreed, and fled hastily from any possible revelation of her vanity. "But what do you mean by limitations?"

"Never mind. Look, we'd better get out of here to where we can keep an ear out for Pardoe and the others. This place is close to being soundproof, and Friendly isn't any help either. He's a relative of the Tree, you see, and completely paralyzed all the time he's here."

"Sort of 'Keep quite while Grandad is talking' you mean?"

"That's about the size of it." He rose and she went up with him as if new springs had been fitted into all her sinews. The delight of it was like wine and she had to fight to remain calm.

"I confess I'd forgotten all about Pardoe," she admitted as they left the glade, through the curtain of leaves and into the reddish glow of late afternoon. They headed for the stream. "Do you think he will harm the Tree?"

"I think so. I'm not sure. The only thing I have in mind is to stop him from getting at it, somehow. You're pretty good with that beamer."

"Yes, but if you think I'm going to shoot him down out of the sky, think again."

"I know. He'll have your friends aboard. He's no fool. He will figure that you value their lives."

"And I do, at least as much as my own, or yours."

"As much as the whole of the rest of humanity?" he challenged. She started to be angry with him. Then she was struck rigid as he threw her anger right back at her, as positively and unarguably as if it had been a ball.

"Good Heavens!"

"Right," he said grimly. "That's just one of the tricks I've learned from that Tree. You had some before, remember? When you tried to go for me, out by your ship? You probably thought that I hit you with something, and, in a way, I did, but all it was—I threw your own mental attack right back at you."

"Why wait until now to demonstrate—this ability?"

"Because, to do it, I have to touch you mentally to sense what you're doing, so I can reverse it. And—before—I didn't care to do that."

"Very delicately put. In other words, I was repulsive?"

"Put it like that, if you want. The point is, it can be learned. All I did was ask for it. I needed it, or so I thought, to protect myself in a place like this. I don't use it now, and you can see why."

"Yes, but I've lost your point somewhere. What has this to do with Pardoe and my friends?"

"And humanity, remember? Your trouble is, you're stuck on yourself. You're Selena Ash; your old man's a big wheel; maybe you've all the right in the world to think you're it."

"You won't make me angry again."

"Not trying to. I'm trying to tell you something. You've had a fumble or two, a knock or two, since you got here. But it didn't teach you a thing. That was just alien plants and such. You didn't feel you needed any help. You're still way up there."

"I take it you do have a point."

"Coming to it. Even when you met the Tree, you just swapped curiosity with it and got yourself a swift check-over and repair, that's all. No—you hold still and listen." Now he had somehow placed an invisible clamp on her, and her back hair began to lift at this further evidence of power.

"When I first came to the Tree I needed help in the worst way. That's how I found out what it could do. I thought I needed protection from the plants, and it gave me powers—you've seen some. Now I know a better way, by being friendly, but that's by the side. I thought I needed a weapon, and I had to explain to the thing just what that was, because it's only a tree, remember? And it grew me a spear. You've seen it. I carry it about to remind myself what a damn fool I was. This knife, though, was sensible. It grew that, too—for me."

He paused, and she began to understand what he was trying to explain. He went on, still calmly grim. "Let's run through it again. The Tree will do for you whatever you want, as far as it possibly can, as much as it can understand. It doesn't know good from bad or right from wrong. You want the strength of ten men? You want to be fifteen feet tall? You want power?

You have only to ask, to want in the right way—the way it can understand—and you've got it. So—I ask you—what do you think Buck Pardoe will do with that? Do you have any idea what desires are squirming in his mind?"

He released the power that held her, but she didn't move. She felt sick as he went on stonily. "What do you think all the crooks, the dregs, the scum of humanity will do with it, when they get it? You've just said that certain scientists have investigated its fruit. That means there can be, and there will be, other Trees—hundreds of them. God alone knows all the tricks this one can get up to. I only know some, but that is enough to convince me that wiping out Buck Pardoe and that woman is a small price to pay, and the lives of your friends, and your life, and mine, aren't much more, against the whole of humanity."

"And I've sent a Dirac," she said emptily. "It's too late to call that back."

"That's the least of our worries," he retorted swiftly. "If I know anything about Space Service, there'll be—hold it!" He halted, grew still and tense like a pointer, turned his head to listen, and the little blue-eyed flower turned with him. "Here they come now," he muttered. "You hear it?" She strained, and then nodded. Very faintly came the puttering sound of a jetcopter. He breathed hard.

"Right!" he grunted, and went away like a blur. There was no hint or request for her to follow. She picked up her feet and went after him as fast as she could, exulting in her new-found vitality, but soon realizing that he had a turn of speed she had not seen until now. And he seemed to have an unerring instinct for the way through, or around, and she was streaming with sweat as she came up to him at the base of a tree.

"You want in on this?"

"Of course," she panted. "I said I'd help."

"Give me the beamer. I can climb the tree faster with it than you can without."

"Oh, can you, indeed?" Her momentary indignation was wasted as he vanished upwards like a squirrel. She shook her head ruefully and set herself to follow. She managed quite well, but he was out of sight long before she had gained the first few branches. She caught him right at the top, where the tree's limbs were perilously slender and yielding, and squirmed on her stomach along a thin branch to be close to him.

"Over there," he told her unnecessarily, as she had already seen the distant blot of the buzzing craft. "He's quartering. He can't miss. As soon as the Tree gets that noise it will perk up and call him." She accepted the beamer from his hand, stretched out on the uneasy perch and took tentative aim. It was about twenty-five miles, which was too far for accurate marksmanship.

"I can't do it, Joe. You know that, don't you?"

"I know." He sounded resigned. "Never thought you would. You and me, we're not the kind that can kill in cold blood. Can't help being what we are, I suppose."

"True enough, but let's not abandon all hope yet. I know a trick or two once he gets close enough."

"What kind of trick?"

"How well do you know the terrain about here? Is there somewhere he can land that thing close by? I mean, once he gets the feel of the Tree he will look for somewhere to come down, won't he? Where?"

"Two or three spots. Nearest is a clearing about two miles off, over to the right. Not very big, but enough for what he wants."

"Just one more detail. That's a hybrid craft, isn't it? Part copter, with jet assist?"

"Right."

"Well, if he's close enough, and is about to land, I can clip his wings for him, so that he may be able to get down safely, but he won't get back up again."

"That's a trick, all right. Where'd you learn it?"

"Not in school. I need a firmer branch than this." She backed and let herself down to a stouter limb, settled on it and kept her eyes on the dark machine. On a thought, she called up to him, "Can you let me know when he decides to go down?"

"I'll try. There—he's got the message! Watch him go!" She saw the jetcopter heel over and come swooping towards them, growing bigger rapidly. She could imagine the jubilation in Pardoe's mind at the first solid intimations that the Tree was real. The forward flight halted and the cab oscillated under its winged canopy. She set the rifle for needle focus and full power, set the stock against her cheek, and waited for the right moment.

FIFTEEN

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"Just making up his mind to land," Joe advised in an urgent whisper, and she spent an idle thought wishing she could pick up emotions at a distance like that. Then the swaying machine within her sights began to drop, its note changing. She drew a bead on the very edge of the blur that was the rotating blades, pressed the lever, and a fine thread of electric blue sprang out to lose itself in the evening sunlight. At once the flying machine shivered and swayed violently. The stuttering beat became a clamor, and she heard the sudden frantic whine of jets as whoever was at the controls threw in the lifters to prevent a total crash. The black shape bucked crazily and then went down fast. She peered over the sights of her weapon anxiously, but there was no crash.

"Neat," Joe muttered, coming to stand behind her. "He's down all in one piece, and they're all in good shape, but he can't get back up. And it will be dark soon."

"What will he do, sit tight until dawn? I would."

"Never can tell. Depends on how strong the Tree calls him. I reckon our best bet is to get along there and keep an eye on him." In the dark? The query came to her lips, but she halted it as an idea struck her. He put out his hand for the weapon, and she passed it back to him, wriggling around to see him go down, dropping almost as fast as if he were falling. I'm just beginning to catch on to all this, she thought as she followed at a slightly less frantic pace. If you want to learn how to climb up and down trees, who better to go to than the great white chief of all the trees—and ask? It was so obvious. It was difficult to adjust to the notion that one could have whatever one wanted, merely by asking. She scrambled and dropped, and then stood by his side. He aimed an arm and moved, but she called him back.

"Can we spare a few minutes to call on the Tree, first?"

"It's out of our way a bit."

"Only a little. And I need help, the kind of help the Tree can give me."

"Thin end of the wedge," he said cryptically. "All right, this way." He went off at a smart pace. She followed, trying to deduce what he had meant. It came to her after a while. One could get hooked on a thing like this. If you can have whatever you want, simply by asking for it, what happens to discipline, and effort, and moral fiber?—and pride of accomplishment, and all the other things humanity had held in high esteem for so long?

"What is it that you want from the Tree? Don't tell me, but think about it."

"Why shouldn't I tell you?"

"Can if you want, but thinking about it is the hard part. Not in words—that's no good. You have to feel it, believe it, present it in the form of an accomplishment—call it faith."

She pondered that as she ducked through the undergrowth at his heels. Longstaffe's words came back. The botanical researchers had believed the seeds were this, or that—and so they were. One must make an image, but how does one make an image of being able to see in the dark? She remembered how the Tree had plucked from her mind her own fond image of being a gorgeous gray-eyed brunet with a flawless complexion and a knock-your-eye-out figure. That was hardly a belief, more an ideal to be hoped for, and a delight now that she had it. Her mental waters grew deep and confused, and she was far from having them cleared by the time they reached the dim serenity of the tree-temple again.

"I need your help," she said, outside the leaf-curtain, "to get this thing right. Look, all I'm after is some way of being able to move at ease in the dark. Perhaps the ability to detect living forms over a long distance the way you do."

"That's out," he rejected instantly. "I don't do that Friendly does it for me. There are plenty of his brothers around here, but it takes time and practice and you have to develop the relationship."

"Can't I have that power on my own?"

"I doubt it. You're human, like me. We don't have that kind of equipment, so far as I know. What d'you expect, instant miracles? I keep telling you, it's only a tree!"

"You keep confusing me," she retorted. "What if I want my night vision improved, then? That's fully consonant with being human."

"All of that," he agreed acidly. "Only you're forgetting again. No tree, or plant ever had eyes or vision or anything like it. I've told you about their sense of space; that they do have. But how can you expect a tree to understand vision?"

"Like red to a blind man," she murmured, and inwardly scolded herself for being so blind. "Never mind, it can't hurt to try. Here goes." She walked through the curtain of leaves and up to the tree, composing her mind as she went, convincing herself that she could see the trunk, the lofty vault above, the branches, all of it plainly and in detail, despite the fact that it was almost totally dark in there. Halting, she revised it just one more time by telling herself that it was like that, and then put her hands affectionately on the trunk. Just for a breath there was, again, that sense of something going out of her—and then a warm counter-flow that became a rush, a flood, a bursting feeling—tiny galaxies of sparks erupted and died rapidly in her mind, a barrage of tickling thrills bathed her body and she was giddy. She would have fallen had she not clung tightly to the trunk. She leaned on it, closing her eyes. The all-over tingling subsided slowly.

And she could see the trunk quite plainly. She could see all around it, the grass under her feet and the graceful spreading branches overhead. And she could see Joe, quite definitely, standing there close behind her. Behind? She pushed away from the Tree and turned to him, smiling—and then realized her eyes were still shut tight. Opening them, she almost fell at the vertigo inspired by the two different but simultaneous images. By sight he was a hulking object in the gloom, but by this other sense he was there as a person, felt and identified in some delightful and indescribable way.

"Give me a minute," she said breathlessly. "This wants some getting used to. And don't ask me to describe it, I can't."

"You got something? You mean it actually did something for your vision?"

"No," she said, very softly because she knew the reason for his urgency.

"Not sight. You were probably right about that. But I have something better. Let's go."

It was better. With this new perception she could slip through bushes and tangles just as easily as he did, and know what was beyond, and all around her too. The darkness made no difference at all. She tried it with her eyes shut and it was as if she moved through a living world of bright images, all different and distinct, known and identified exactly as if, in some marvelous way, she could touch them with long and delicate fingers. It was an effort to bring her mind back to more commonplace affairs.

"Do you have any kind of plan in mind?" she asked him.

"Nothing hard, no. Let's find that copter first—see what they are up to. Play it by ear from there. First thing I have in mind is to make sure that machine won't fly, ever again. After that we'll figure out some way of stopping Pardoe from getting to the Tree."

"I can't improve on that. What I don't quite get is why you're so bothered about the Tree itself. You know a lot more about it than I do, of course—" She chopped it off as she sensed the stationary bulk of the machine and four human shapes ahead. Shock waves came from one of them. They went forward together cautiously, making full use of the cover, for there was still enough light to make the risk considerable. Crouched behind a friendly bush, they saw Pardoe grasping a blade and staring at it furiously.

"All four!" he snarled, shoving it violently away. "That's all I need. That was no accident. Somebody took a shot at us."

" Way out here?" Miss Martine doubted it.

"What else would fuse the blade tips into globs of metal?" he roared back at her. "Whoever it is"—his voice swelled to a bellow—"you better believe me, one more trick and I burn these two down right away!"

"There's nobody to hear you, Buck."

"Who asked you? You just stay there and keep your burner on the playboys, while I rescue some equipment."

Pardoe scrambled back into the machine, and Joe sighed. "Can't do a thing until he moves out. You say I'm bothered about the Tree itself and that's right. Look, it's a mistake to credit it with too much, as it now is. Sensitive to mental fields. Possessed of certain mimetic powers. That's about it. But alien. I mean, it can't hear. It can detect sounds, sure, but a blown balloon can do that. It can sense light and shade, but not to see. The point is, all the development of those senses is human, and we use our senses because we've been taught how. The Tree hasn't been taught anything. It knows only what it has met and experienced."

"Yes. I can see that."

"And we are the only two humans it has ever met, the only ones it knows. It's had a considerable effect on me, and on you—but we have also had an effect on it. You understand that?"

"Yes, I do." She recalled the sensation of goodness going out, and caught her breath. "Good God! I see what you mean. You're saying the Tree is innocent, naïve."

"That's right. Just like an overgrown child. Now you try and imagine what effect it is going to have when it gets a taste of Buck Pardoe and Scorpia Martine!"

Selena started to ponder the prospect, but before she could get beyond a chill despair Pardoe came boiling out of the craft again.

"You must be out of your mind!" Miss Martine expostulated. "Why thrash about in the dark, damn it."

"Because I say so. I told you six or eight times already, we have no time to give away. All the time Miss High-and-Mighty Ash is missing there will be somebody—a whole lot of somebodies—looking for her. Maybe it will take them years to find this planet, and then again, maybe it won't. Half the Space Navy is looking for this place right now, and has been looking for a long while; you know what I mean. And maybe somebody has already found it, too, to go by those blades. We don't have any time to sit around and get fat."

"Get fat!" she screeched furiously. "Eaten alive by crazy plants, all my best duds rotted and ruined, two damned invalids to feed and nurse, and now your damned flying egg-box folds up on us—you call that getting fat?

And now you expect to march out and find a tree, one tree, in the dark?—

with God only knows what skulking in the bushes. You must be out of your mind; you've seen what the crazy things can do!"

"I've seen. You don't have to tell me. It will be just too bad for any plant that tries to get gay with me from here on." Pardoe sounded mean enough to spit acid right back at the surrounding undergrowth. She perceived how the unlikely caravan began to move and felt the first hurt of the plants as Pardoe blasted them to ashes in his path and marched forward.

"That hurts," Selena gasped, and Joe grunted in sympathy.

"Just one more reason for stopping him. Those plants are all my friends. Makes me ashamed to be human. They're almost clear of the craft now. Can you get a bead on it?"

"Just leave it to me." Selena aimed and poured a steady disruptive beam into the machine until it crackled and collapsed.

"That takes care of that," she declared with considerable satisfaction.

"Have they noticed anything?"

"Not them. Pardoe is making too much clatter for anybody to notice anything. The way they're headed they should pass close by us. We might as well keep still."

She directed her attention to the oncoming travelers, wincing as Pardoe kept letting go with a heavy-duty blaster to clear a way for himself. Much more of that, she thought, and it won't be so difficult to shoot you down, cold blood or not.

"Follow my track!" Pardoe commanded, "and if those two drag on their feet just toast 'em up a bit."

"How the hell can you tell which way you're going?"

"You mean to tell me you can't feel it? I always said you were so stuck on yourself you don't know anybody else is alive. Just keep on going, that's all you have to do. I'll take you to it."

SIXTEEN

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"We lie low, let 'em go by, then I clobber her from the back and we maybe can grab your friends, right? Think you can shoot that beamer out of her hand?" Joe whispered.

"I think so. Ill try to time it for your strike. Careful!"

"I will. You stay right here."

He went away with no more noise than a shadow, but she was able to follow his progress easily.

Behind Pardoe came the captives Delmar and Lacoste, shambling and reeling in acute distress. Each man had his wrists lashed together at his back, and a stout black plastic cable linked them, from the slip-noose about one neck to its counterpart about the other, so that neither man dared stumble and fall for fear of strangulation. There was no sign of any care of nursing, as Miss Martine had claimed, and Selena itched in sympathy as she saw their scars and scratches. Following, looking thoroughly bored and disgusted, came Miss Martine herself, visibly out of humor with the whole situation, but maintaining an alert grip on her beamer.

Joe was behind Miss Martine and ready to strike. Selena took careful aim and held her breath. Some instinct seemed to warn Miss Martine, perhaps some tiny sound or smell. She stiffened. The spear came down in the same second that she ducked and whirled, and caught her on the arm. She yelled in fright. Selena wriggled frantically, trying to get a clean shot. Miss Martine hoisted her beamer, and down came Joe's spear again, cracking solidly against the weapon. It went spinning away, and in the next second Joe and the woman were grappled and thrashing about in the undergrowth in a confusion of arms and legs.

Up ahead, Pardoe roared in anger, spun around, came galloping heavily back, elbowing the helpless captives out of the way. Miss Martine let out a shrill scream from the tangle and her partner homed in on it. Selena saw his unoccupied hand reach for a fragmentation pistol.

"Get clear!" he roared. "Damn it, Scorpia, get out of the way, let me get a shot at it!"

Selena acted without pause to consider implications. She sent a needle-beam slicing through the cable that linked the captives, then swung and aimed delicately at the heavy-charge beamer which jutted from Pardoe's right hand, now in perfect profile. The lethal metal erupted in a spray of incandescent sparks, and he flung it away from himself frantically, then spun heavily around, snarling, to peer into the gloom. Up came the frag-pistol in his hand, and the night flew apart in thunder as it spat one—two—three—and stopped. His aim was good. Selena heard the slugs rip through the night air where she had been crouched. Then, as they struck, the echoing silence gave way again, this time to a chorus of banshee wails as the lethal fragments sprayed the surrounding darkness. Face down and still, Selena was able to follow the action quite well. 'There was another animal screech from Miss Martine, a solid thumping blow, silence—and Joe melting shadowlike into the gloom, leaving her prone. Pardoe came close, kicked her to see if she was conscious, but kept his eyes continually scanning the surrounding gloom.

"Scorpia, you all right?"

She groaned, sat up and rubbed her head.

"Come on, come on," he urged. "What happened? Where'd he go?"

"I don't know, and I don't care, just so long as he stays gone. He? That was no he, Buck. It was an ape! Wild man of the woods. Something like that. Hey! Leggo my foot, damn it!" She scrambled up rapidly, rescuing her ankle from the grip of a green tendril. "Give that damned shrub a blast, will you? Before it comes after me."

"Some hope," he snarled. "Your so-called ape-man just shot my beamer out of my hand with one of his own. Him, or his friends. Some ape! Use your own."

"If I can find it in the damned dark." Miss Martine stooped complainingly to search, while Pardoe glared around into the gloom.

"Damn it!" he growled. "Where'd he go?" and then, giving vent to fury, he loosed off three more thunder-clap shots, and the shrill wails of shattered steel came back. But there were no screams of agony or indications of a hit.

"Yah," he snorted. "Got away. Oh, come on, you, and quit that moaning!

You and your judo and karate and all that, and you let yourself get jumped—hey!" Surprise choked him for a moment, then the leafy darkness shook to the fury of his cursing as he realized that his captives were gone. Back by the little knoll from which all the havoc had been done, Selena staggered to a halt and lowered Pierre Lacoste to the ground, gave a thankful sigh of relief.

"Hush now," she warned. "Not a sound. He's too handy with that splinter gun to take chances. Thanks, Joe, for taking Robin. I think he would have been a bit too heavy for me. Let's have that knife—"

A few seconds later the two baffled and battered men were free of their bonds. Lacoste was too far gone to do anything but stare, but Delmar still retained enough spark to peer into the gloom and gasp, "Selena? It is you, isn't it? But who's this character?"

"Call him Joe. He's a friend, on our side. No time to explain just now. Hush. That Pardoe has long ears and a brain. Keep still." Excitement erupted again below. Miss Martine had found her beamer and something else.

"A spear?" Pardoe demanded incredulously. "Don't tell me we have native tribes on our necks, too."

"That's it, Buck—got to be! We've been jumped by some local tribe, and they've carried off our prisoners." Her agitation was plain. "Look, Buck, why don't we go back to the jetcopter and button up until it's light, huh? This stumbling about in the dark, it's crazy. The next thing you know they'll get us, too."

"Anybody who tries to jump me," Pardoe vowed, "will get a gutfull of splintered steel. I don't like this, Scorpia."

"You don't like it?"

"That's not what I mean. Use your skull, damn it. Native tribes don't come complete with beamers."

"You sure it was a beamer?"

"What the hell do you think did this?" He waggled the ruined and partly fused weapon under her nose, and she wailed.

"That only makes it worse! Buck, I'm scared. Can't we go back? Get under cover?"

"We're going back as far as the copter, but only because I have another heavy beamer stashed there. And then we're coming right back and we're going to locate that Tree—if I have to blast every damned plant between here and Tau Ceti."

The unhappy pair went stumbling away, and Selena sighed.

"I don't know what we're going to do, now. They won't be pleased at the state of their craft, but I can't see that stopping Pardoe now."

"The Tree's got him," Joe agreed grimly. "He'll be back." It took just fifteen minutes to prove him right.

"Looks like we're stuck," Joe declared softly. "The only way to stop Pardoe now would be to kill him, and neither of us can do that."

"What is everything all about, please?" Pierre Lacoste broke his sleep-walking stupor to ask it in a voice that betrayed his Gallic origin. "I keep trying to believe it is all a nightmare, no? But it hurts like real."

"It's real." Selena shook her head in the gloom. "Don't either of you feel anything, a kind of uneasiness or anything like that?"

"I do," Robin volunteered. "Sounds crazy, but its like somebody singing, a Lorelei kind of thing, a long way off. And a sort of itch to go and see what it's all about. That what you mean?"

"Not singing," Pierre contradicted. "It is more like a beautiful woman who is saying 'Come to me, and I will make you happy.' It is like that, but I do not know how. It is insane. Is it?"

"It's a tree," Selena told them. "Believe it or not. Look, you've both heard stories, most of them fabulous, about Jensen's Planet and the miraculous Tree, haven't you? Well, this is it, and that's it, and it's all true—nearly all, anyway. This is no time to argue, or to explain. Just accept it. Buck Pardoe has, and he's on his way to the Tree right now, following the feeling that you have."

"You make that sound like the end of the world, Selena."

"It could be, Robin. We were hoping and trying to stop him, but short of shooting him down in cold blood from ambush, I don't see how we can, now. It would be absolute insanity to try to tackle him openly, the mood he's in and with the armory he has."

"I could kill him in cold blood, or hot blood, or any other kind," Pierre muttered. "But I am too much of a coward to try it."

"Don't run yourself into the ground," Delmar advised. "We never claimed to be professional heroes, did we? I still can't take it in—that noise in my mind is a tree? And that stuff about Jensen's Planet, is real? Even if so, what's so desperate about it?"

"This is no time to explain, Robin, even if I could without getting it all wrong. But you could try, for size, the idea of putting the ultimate weapon into the hands of a psychopath like Pardoe."

"Maybe you'll think better on a full stomach," Joe said, out of a long silence. "How long since you two ate?"

Selena felt instant contrition, deepened when both men revealed they had been given nothing at all; they had neither eaten nor had anything to drink since leaving their own ship.

"That's almost forty-eight hours. You must be starving! Joe, can we do anything about that?"

"No trouble at all. You ready?"

"Yes, but—what about Pardoe and the girl?"

"We can't do anything to them or about them, not now. The Tree wouldn't let us, now that it's curious about them. Come on." Twenty minutes of traveling brought them to food and a cool stream where they could all refresh themselves and regain some measure of ease. But, with that out of the way, the main problem remained.

"They must surely have reached the Tree by now, Joe. Can you tell, from here?"

"By inference," he said. "I was following them, and then they just blended into the background. About five minutes ago. That means they are inside the main area of influence."

"So there isn't anything we can do at all, now?"

"We can follow, if you like, and see what happens. You want to try that?

Bring your friends; I'll lead. Better keep a touch on me, Selena, just in case something goes wrong."

"I will," she promised, ridiculously pleased at his first use of her name.

"You will be careful, Joe, won't you?"

He went away as silently and smoothly as ever, and even with her new senses, it was difficult to keep up, so she didn't try. It was all right as long as she could keep a mental touch on him. Despite her helpful guidance, her two companions made heavy weather of the dark jungle.

"You must have eyes like a cat," Robin complained, picking himself up from his third fall over sprawling roots.

"That is one thing. What else I do not understand is the plants," Pierre muttered. "Before, they were pulling and clutching with hooks and stings, as if they were alive. But not now."

She was ready to explain when the words died in her throat. Suddenly there was a sense of something missing, an emptiness. Robin and Pierre felt it, too. The Tree—it had stopped calling.

SEVENTEEN

« ^ »

The absence of that pervading intelligence was almost a pain to her, like the death of a friend. Pierre put it in almost the same words.

"She has died—the so-beautiful woman who called me!"

"Something just switched off, that's for certain," Robin said. "What the hell, Selena?"

"I don't know." Confused notions came and went in her mind. Her intended explanation that the plants were sentient, that all one had to do was feel friendly—seemed vapid and unnecessary now. So, too, was her own tentative discovery, that the Tree presented itself in different ways to different people, or, possibly, that each individual interpreted the call in his own way. Whichever it was, it didn't matter. The Tree was dead—or was it?

She led the way towards where Joe was waiting, a silent shadow just a few feet clear of the veil of leaves.

"What's happened?" she demanded anxiously, and he shrugged.

"No idea. This is new to me. I've never known the Tree to shut right off like this."

"Do you suppose Pardoe burned it, with his weapon?"

"I doubt it would keep still for anything like that. It can detect a threat just as fast as any of the other plants. Faster."

They stood awhile in silence; their common concern made it a companionable silence. She tried to think aloud.

"Pardoe got this far—got through. Got right up to the Tree and touched it. We can assume that."

"And the Martine female," he added grimly. "It sucked them both dry, because that's how it works. But then what?"

"We have to go in there and find out, Joe. I can't detect a thing beyond that curtain. Can you?"

"Not a smell. Friendly is all curled up in a ball. He doesn't like it one bit." She shivered, put out her hand to take his, and felt his fingers grip on hers in sudden need.

"No way of telling what will happen if we go in there, Selena."

"Yes, I know. But we have to find out. And we have to believe that it won't hurt us."

"I'd like to believe that, too. All right, let me go ahead."

"No, not this time. You're handier than I am, Joe, Just in case you have to take Pierre and Robin back—to my ship—where the Navy will be landing—in case—you know?" She let his hand go and went forward to the curtain. It was strangely still; not a leaf quivered. She reached out and pushed the fronds aside; they were stiff, almost waxy and stayed parted where she had pushed them, leaving a gap. She went into darkness in which she could perceive nothing at all. Could it be that the Tree had snatched back its gift in a moment of anger? That didn't seem likely, or even possible. She probed and got the feeling that it wasn't her ability that was at fault, but that something like a fog pervaded the whole grove. She had the creepy sense of trying to move into an occluded mind. There was a dull pain, a headache of immense proportions. She aimed her mind at the Tree itself.

"You're hurt," she told it. "You're upset in some way. I can tell that much, but I don't know any more than that. I want to help. Please let me help you. Tell me what I can do. Let me help!"

There was neither pretense nor effort in her call. She really did want to help. Something came to her from the Tree, for the murk around her seemed to swirl and eddy in quick agitation, ghostly fingers of breeze caressing her skin. Then, gradually, the darkness dwindled and vanished and the churchlike dimensions of the grove came into her ken. There was the massive, looming trunk of the Tree, and it ached to her touch. There were blotches on it. She looked around more by habit than from need, for she had already sensed the presence of the two others there. She turned and called.

"Joe! I think it's all right. I don't know what's happened, not yet, but I think it's all right."

He was beside her in a moment, his hand out to take hers in a way that struck warmth into her heart over the sorrow that filled the air.

"It's had a hell of a knock," he whispered. "Do you reckon we can do anything sensible to help?"

"Let's see what happened to those two first. I can't get anything from them. They're just lumps."

Together they paced across the turf to where the intruders were, and halted as a distinct shock tingled them both.

"What?" he grunted, whirling swiftly, and then he relaxed, and she eased also, as she saw. Pierre and Robin had followed, through the gap in the curtain, but only a few steps. Now they stood quite still, frozen like wax models in a store window.

"Poor thing," she murmured in instant understanding. "It can't stand any more strangers."

"I'm not surprised. But they won't come to any harm for a while. Let's look at Pardoe."

It was what she had come to do, but she regretted the necessity as soon as she was able to see just what was left of the crook. He was sprawled on the turf in a shapeless heap that could hardly be described as squatting, or crouching, or anything else. He was just a shapeless mass of flesh and bone, slumped and helpless, his head sagging down between his knees. Joe reached down, took a handful of hair and hoisted up that heavy head so that they could see his face.

"Nothing there," he muttered, and she had to compress her lips to keep her stomach down where it belonged, for Joe was literally correct. It was a slack and idiot empty face, devoid of anything like wit or sanity. There was nothing at all. Just a helpless, brainless vegetable.

"Scraped him right out, and there was nothing to put back."

"Joe—that's horrible! And it's probably true, which makes it worse."

"No worse than a whole lot of people I've known." Joe was grimly calm. Scorpia Martine was very beautiful but just as empty. "She's withdrawn—gone completely."

"They got what they wanted, in a way," he said, taking her in his arms. "I guess the Tree knows a lot more about humans now than it did before."

"But it's all wrong! It's got us all wrong. Somehow it has to learn that those two—"

"Strikes me it doesn't want to know any more about any of us, the way it cooled off your friends. Can you blame it, Selena? I mean, take a look at the trunk there, where those two touched it."

She turned her head to stare. There were angry splotches like scars on the dark smoothness. She eased herself free of his arms and went towards the trunk urgently.

"Don't do it," he called. "Don't—you don't know—"

"I have to. Someone has to show it—" She reached out for the massive trunk, took a breath, and there was Joe at her side.

"Takes two," he muttered. They reached out and touched as one. She felt instant twisting pains in her arms and shoulders, then all over—and caught her breath—but the twinges went as fast as they had come and replacing them came a vast curiosity, a wondering. She spoke aloud because it was the simplest way of arranging her thoughts to make sense.

"I'm sorry you've been hurt and upset. It couldn't be helped. There are people like that. We don't like them any more than you do."

"That's right," Joe endorsed. "We don't like them. The only way anyone can tell what they are like is by finding out, by getting to know them; there's no other way. After a while you'll get to know them by—" He stopped, and she knew why. Something had gone, dissolved, was no longer there. She looked at him in surmise, but he shrugged and dropped his hands.

"I don't know, Selena. I'm no psychologist, and I doubt if even a proper headshrinking expert would get very far with this. Fugue?"

"I was just about to say the same thing. Flight from reality—all three of them, in different degrees. Pardoe has lost his identity altogether. Miss Martine is inturned, catatonic. And now the Tree has withdrawn itself. Some time ago you said 'Ashamed of being human.' I think I would agree with that, now." She turned away from the lifeless trunk miserably, and distant movement caught her attention. Robin and Pierre came groping in what was, for them, dense gloom broken only by fitful starlight through interstices in the high vault of leaves.

"So this is the famous Tree?" Delmar put his head back to assess the size of it. "It's big, certainly."

"Impressive," Pierre agreed. "So far as one can see. But it is only a tree, after all."

Selena exchanged rueful glances with Joe. He looked sad, and she felt it, as if he had lost an old and valued friend. And yet, she had to be philosophical about it, the Tree had learned something valuable—how to shut itself off from harm and interference.

"Ah well," she sighed. "Perhaps we should be thankful that's all it is. The next problem is, somehow, to get these two back to my ship by the time the Navy gets here."

That took three of the roughest and most arduous days Selena had ever known. Pardoe—the empty shell of him—had to be fed, led, constantly prodded, urged, and watched. Miss Martine was easier, but still a worry, because she would just stop like a mechanical doll as soon as she was left alone. Robin and Pierre were willing but ignorant of the area. Selena came to marvel at Joe's infinite patience and resource, and discovered resources in herself that she had not dreamed she possessed. At the end of those three dreadful days her erstwhile playboy friends had acquired poise, alertness, and muscles. She had grown to feel as close to Joe as the fingers on one hand. It was a comradeship that owed little to words. Somehow she felt little need, or urge, to talk everything out as she had been so accustomed to do. Now it was a silent understanding, shared emotions, knowing what he was going to do next, finding him always ready and anticipating her next move; it was a warm thing.

She missed him within moments of sighting the bright spike of her ship. There was relief at their safe arrival, the blessed feeling of being able to relax, the outspoken pleasure of Robin and Pierre at the sight of something familiar and reassuring—and then, in the middle of it all, he had vanished. She couldn't believe it at first. Then, when she tried pushing out her new senses as far as it was possible to stretch them, and finding no trace, she knew it was so, and that he had once again dropped out and gone into hiding. That was the evening of the third day. That night she slept once again in her own narrow bunk, bathed and clean, between silky sheets and with metal walls and watchdog circuits between her and the hazards of the wild outside—and she felt suffocated and shut in.

The Navy arrived the following day, just before noon, with urgent messages crackling in her radio, and busy black dots high up in the blue, jockeying for orbit. It was an impressive force. Two medium-heavy cruisers, two shuttle ships, and one enormous research monitor, a space-borne laboratory complex crammed with specialists, their equipment, all hand-picked for just this moment. The range of disciplines covered the whole spectrum of anything that could possibly apply to botanical biology, plus a more than fair complement of psychologists and psychiatrists, all unanimous in being firmly confident that there could be no such thing as sentient vegetation, but all equally determined to be there, just in case. Admiral Longstaffe was in the first shuttle to touch ground. He had been briefed by radio about the immediate essentials—beware of the bushes—think friendly thoughts—and he was sensible enough to heed the advice. Selena greeted him warmly, very fit and honey-tanned, efficiently conventional in a fresh set of disposable coveralls, and was secretly amused to see the way his eyes widened at sight of her.

"No need to ask if you are well, my dear. One look is enough. And this is M. Lacoste, and Mr. Delmar? Congratulations, gentlemen. I'm told you were to a large degree instrumental in locating this planet. I'll want a word with both of you on that, later."

"And we need help with these two." Selena showed him the unfortunate victims of the Tree, and watched as trained personnel took charge.

"And now," Longstaffe declared, "what about the Tree?"

EIGHTEEN

« ^ »

"Yes, " she said soberly. "We found it. I can give you the coordinates. You have a walkabout there?" She meant the radio that linked Longstaffe with at least one other of his men at all times. As he nodded she resumed, "Better have all your department heads listen in, and make a recording, otherwise you'll all be asking the same questions several times over. And there's too much of it for that. In the first place, when I tell you just where the Tree is, and you mount an expedition, pick good men and women for it. I do not mean technically capable people. I mean good as in honest, sincere, clean-minded—with integrity. You'll see why when I explain the whole thing."

Longstaffe gave her a hard look, but respected her enough to do no more than issue instructions for all senior research personnel to listen. Then she told them precisely what they needed to know, and all she knew, about the Tree itself and the rest of the plant life, so far as she understood it. Impersonal and objective reportage was no new exercise for her, and she did it competently, omitting several items of a purely personal nature. Nevertheless, there was a lot to tell, and by the time she was finished the first impatient wave of scientists were standing looking at the Tree while listening to her. Their guarded comments came back to her via the etherwaves.

"A sense of serenity," one reported, "but no positive activity. You would say it resembles fugue?"

"That's my guess. You'll work out your own diagnosis. All I'm saying is that for centuries, possibly, it knew nothing but what it had learned from other trees, plants and growing things. Then it met honest humans, if I may so describe Scout Jensen—and myself. One can presume a whole new and exciting world being opened up to it. On the basis of your own results with its seeds, you will admit that to be a reasonable assumption. Then, as I have explained, it was so unfortunate as to encounter two rather bad humans, two people who were repulsive even to normal people. Ask Lacoste and Delmar how they were treated, what they have to say about those two. The result? You people are the experts, the psychologists. You'll have your own names for what happens to a mind that believes everything is sweetness and light and then has everything go bad all at once. What will you call it, insanity, overwhelming doubt, flight?"

"This is one for the books," one of the behaviorists snorted. "A neurotic tree."

"That's your problem," she declared. "But I have a suggestion, for what it's worth. If we assume this Tree is merely a reserve of potential, and talent, without what we would call personality—and that the effect, the impact of fully developed human personalities on it has been disastrous, it seems that the wisest thing to do is to study it as a specimen —that is, study its growth pattern, soil conditions, habitat and all that. And then forget it, but use that knowledge to develop the seeds properly. And then train them. Grow them into the ways you want them to be, as you would grow and educate an intelligent animal—or a baby."

She had had time to think that one through, and it was just as well, because they had many questions. What helped to still the remaining skepticism was the undeniable mobility of the plants. Before that day was over all the researchers were busy, slipping readily into teams, to search for and identify the peculiar molecules which might be responsible, to dissect and examine sections of the plants, to do air, soil and water analyses, cosmic-ray studies, crustal radioactivity tests—and a group of them hovered around the Tree itself, checking it in every way they could devise. Longstaffe went back to his command cruiser with the third shuttle, taking Robin Delmar and Pierre Lacoste with him. They were to be sent home just as soon as his men had put them through a total interrogation and had impressed on them the importance of saying nothing whatever about the things they had seen and heard in the past four days. When that shuttle came back down, disgorging more scientists and technicians, it also yielded a tall, gaunt, gray-haired man, with a perpetual dry smile and Selena's gray eyes. She was quietly delighted to see him.

"I hope I didn't give you a scare, Dad. I know you don't like me being in this kind of work, and I worry because you might be worried."

"Don't." He gripped her hand once, then got out the pipe that he was seldom seen without. "I never bothered to tell you, child, but it was my gentle hint that opened the way for you to be considered by the Corps in the first place."

"I suspected something of the kind. I mean, when they sorted me out and offered me the chance to take their tests, I knew someone had been singing my praises."

"And why not?" Conway Ash fired up and wreathed himself in aromatic smoke for a moment. "I know people; I can pick 'em. That's all there is to my job—not expertise, just knowing how to pick the right people for the right job."

"That I can understand." She relaxed in the sunshine by his side, and watched the busy men and gadgetry. She had always been comfortably close to her father in this way, able to relax and talk to him as man to man.

"What I don't quite get is how you happened to know about the Philosophy Corps anyway. From the inside, I know that they are—deliberately vague, dispersed, hard to get in touch with, and almost legendary. That is really their strength, that they have no official propaganda, no known chief, or headquarters, and very nearly no rules, either. Very few people even believe there is such a corps, in fact. Something like this planet, until we found it."

"Let you in on a secret." He smiled. "I was one of the founding members of the Corps. Had to pull out because I had talents that were more useful elsewhere. But I keep in touch; I can pull strings occasionally."

"I might have known! Tell me, what's going to happen to this planet, and the Tree?"

"Well now." He emitted a blue plume and studied it. She knew that he was in fact watching her like a hawk. "I was going to ask you one—why are you hanging on here? Nothing more you can do. Your friends have gone. You're not technical enough to contribute anything further. What's the attraction?"

"It's a lovely place," she said promptly and demurely, and he snorted gently. "I'd like to live here," she added, and he snorted again.

"Bad luck. I've been through the preliminary assessments. We are going to invoke Secregs on this one, make it Q-max."

"Quarantine?" She frowned over that for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, I suppose that's sensible. It's hardly ideal for open colonization as it stands, and it wouldn't be wise to leave it unguarded for more enterprising people like Pardoe and company. But total quarantine? Wouldn't you want to leave someone here, in charge? A look-out?"

"Look out for what? There'll be a network of watch-dog satellites and alarms. And eventually, maybe, we will put down a base team, but not for a long while yet—some years. The scientists will gather and take away enough material to keep them busy that long. You see, if we can't grow the plants and make them do tricks in our laboratories, or in some spot of our own choosing, there's not a lot of point, is there? So who needs a ground base? And, in any case," he added, so negligently that she fell right into it,

"who would want to stay here in this wilderness?"

"I would," she said grinning as he stirred just a little. "You like sneaking up on people, don't you? All right, now you know. I want to stay here."

"You look well on it. That glow isn't just health; Selly, I know you that well. There's only one thing could make you offensively radiant like that and willing to pull out of the Corps at the same time. Want to tell me about him?"

She was relieved to be able to talk, and Conway Ash was a good listener.

"It wasn't," she admitted, "until I was slanging him for being a drop-out—tucking himself away in the Scout Service, and then here—that I realized I was talking about myself, too. I don't belong anywhere. All my life I've been pretending to be this, that and the other. The only reason I liked being in the Corps was because it set me apart from the herd. And above them, too—and that's not good. I don't belong out there. But I am at home here."

"All right. It's your life. He sounds quite a character. The way you've drawn him, I don't blame him for hiding out. But, supposing you do find him, and he doesn't think the way you do, then what happens?"

"It's a big planet. I really do like it here, Dad. Leave me a caller, and I'll be official guide and advisor to the base team, when you do send one. But not for a year, please?"

"All right again. May I offer just one piece of advice? That research monitor up there is stuffed with psychologists of all kinds. You have a chat with some of them, learn up a bit. It can't hurt, and in my opinion that boy of yours needs help. You do that, eh?"

"You're ahead of me, as always. I was intending to do just that." She had her chances. It took the researchers almost four weeks of concentrated effort to get all the material they needed, and for the Navy to establish a four-unit network of guardian satellites, small and far out, almost invisible, but triggered to give warning should anyone try to orbit and land on the planet. Eventually, though, the shuttles went off into the blue for the last time. Temporary base cabins were dismantled and shipped out; people went away in groups—one small crew took care of her own ship and lifted it to swing with the rest—and the planet was still and silent once more. She was prepared for a long wait. She had managed to find Joe's old ship; it had not been easy because he had allowed the landing feet to settle deep into the soft earth and had encouraged creepers and flowering shrubs of all kinds to drape themselves around it until it was like a part of the living forest, but she found it. Without her special sense of space she might never have succeeded. Having located it, she took no liberties, but made herself at home in a discreet manner with the minimum of disturbance, like a guest. He had made sure it would never fly again, but it was otherwise quite functional and comfortable. There were book tapes and musicassettes enough to make sure she would not be bored, even if she had not had ploys of her own to occupy the time.

Part of her task was to get to know the friendly flowers all about his home and to revive his custom of playing them tuneful and rhythmic music. They really did prefer waltzes, and it was great fun for her to sit and be aware of their pleasure in the music. Another thing she did was to discard all the artificial trappings of civilization. " Consider the lilies of the field . . ." She had quoted the lines from Matthew often, but never until now had she realized the point of them. Quite happily, she went naked and was at one with the peaceful and unspoiled world about her. Warmed in the sun by day, securely dreamless and untroubled by night, she settled into a serene and quiet bliss she had never before believed possible, a state of mind that took her back to the carefree, semi-mystical days of her childhood. And, like a child, she had mischief in mind.

It was in the early afternoon of the. ninth day that he came back. She was aware of his approach long before he came into sight, and she assumed that he was likewise aware of her presence. She had counted on it and prepared against it as part of her mischief. She sat, quite still and at ease, on the warm turf by the ship's gangway foot, and waited, sensing his slow movement, guessing at his suspicions and waiting for him to appear through a break in the bushes across the glade from where she was. The slanting sun was on his face as he stood there, gripping his spear and swinging his head from side to side in bewilderment.

"Selena?" he said very softly and in doubt. She kept silent, stealing this precious moment to study him and refresh her memory. He looked lost and baffled searching for her, although she was in plain view.

"It's a trick," he said. "You're playing a trick on me. Where are you?"

"I'm here, Joe. It's all right." She rose and went to him, took his arm and led him back to where she had been sitting. "Yes, I played a trick on you. Several tricks, in fact, but none of them malicious—"

"I watched the ships go. I thought everyone had gone. I thought they would quarantine the planet."

"They did. It's a Q-Max. There'll be no one coming back here for at least a year, and then only a research team. You're quite safe now."

"But you're here. You stayed."

"Do you mind that very much?"

"I don't understand." He looked lost and troubled. "Why are there so many of you—like echoes?"

"I made friends with your friendly plants, Joe, and I trained some of them, four of them, to play a trick on you— on your Friendly. He is picking me up all over the place, isn't he? And, all the time, I am here, right by your side." She touched his hand again, and he shook his head.

"You know?"

"I've known for a long time, Joe, that you're blind."

NINETEEN

« ^ »

He sat, just where he was, and she settled down beside him, to reach and take his hand again. It was quite still in hers.

"How long have you known?"

"Almost from the beginning, Joe. You have a very direct stare, and I learned long ago that only abnormal people stare steadily like that. Either they do it on purpose—or the person isn't really looking at all. And then, those binoculars. You hadn't used them in so long, you not only forgot where you'd put them, you also forgot to slip back the lens covers. Yet you pretended to look through them, for my benefit. And you never did mention the color of anything, even the red blossom I put in my hair; you let me call it blue. So I knew, but it wasn't until the Tree gave me the power to sense masses and shapes—like Friendly—that I realized how wonderfully you could manage. So I don't feel sorry for you. If you're all ready to recoil from pity, don't be."

"Why did you stay behind?"

"To any other man the reason would be obvious. If it was any other woman but me, that would be the right reason, too. It might well be"—she hesitated at it—"one of the reasons. There are others. One is that I like this place; I really do. There's another, not so simple. To explain it, I want you to sit still and listen while I tell you a story, a story about a man called Jory Jensen, a Navy Scout."

"He's dead."

"Yes, yes, he's dead. In a way, he is. I know a lot about Jory Jensen. Before I ever came to this planet I had studied his dossier, the full record in the Navy files, so I know all that. But I know a lot more than that, too. I know how and where he died. He was a strange man, an eccentric one, but a good man. To be a scout a man needs to be a bit of an oddball, but Jensen was a near-genius. He could have been away up at the top in anything he tried—but he couldn't stand people—stupid, non-rational, whimsical, emotional, immature people. He was too good. It is nothing unusual, that. Such people go strange trying to fit in, or they opt out. Jensen opted out, as a scout. And he was a good one.

"And then one day he happened on a planet of a system that was different. He went through all the routine steps, but he kept running into the awareness that this place was different: pleasant, clean, good, and welcoming. He felt at home. So he omitted to include it in his flight log. And he kept on coming back to this place between commissions. He would have staked a personal claim, but a scout is not allowed to do that, so he had to go on hoping that no one else would ever land on it. And it preyed on his mind. He worried. He had found a wise old tree on this planet and made friends with it. On one trip he had a small accident, nothing serious, and the Tree cured him—just like that. That's when he began to realize what he had found. And then—the law of averages caught up with him. He had a bad accident with his drive, and got an overdose of mu-radiation. He didn't know for sure, but he suspected. He patched up the job and came on home—"

"How do you know all that?" he queried, and she squeezed his hand.

"Part of the job. The mechanics went over his ship for a fast preliminary, spotted the repair, made it good, and reported it while they made an estimate as to the rest of the overhaul. Meanwhile, Jensen went in for his routine checkup, and they gave him a blue card. That was enough to confirm what he suspected. He ran, got back to his ship before anyone thought to slap a distraint on it, and blew. According to the official book he headed out into the big dark and died."

"That's mu-radiation," Joe muttered. "There's no cure."

"Just so. That's fact. The rest is guesswork, but with some supporting grounds. Jory Jensen came to this planet. He knew what the Tree could do, he hoped it could cope with mu-radiation. He tried—and it did. It was a big job, and in the process Jory got changed quite a bit. A complete overhaul, you might say. You might also say that he was not the same man he had been. So, you might say, Jory Jensen is dead. But you're alive, Joe."

"And blind!"

"Yes. I've been thinking about that. You say the Tree can't understand sight, because it's just a tree. And that's true enough. But there's another side to that, Joe. Those ships that came, and went away again, were stuffed to the rivets with psychologists of all kinds. That's obvious, isn't it? I mean—intelligent plants? So, I've always been interested in psychology and its application to sociology, too. I talked with them. About you. Not by name," she added quickly, as his fingers twitched. "More in the nature of a hypothetical question. And the answers were illuminating. To start with, the effect of mu-radiation is to induce a slow but irreversible decay in the nervous system. It goes, bit by bit. The senses are the first to shut down. No need to go into all of it, but let's get this straight. You're cured completely. You wouldn't be here otherwise. Is that understood?"

"Not by me, it isn't. I'm still blind!"

"And feeling a bit sorry for yourself?"

He lifted up and away from her all in one sinuous movement, and his face was bleak, like weathered timber. "I'm happy here. I have Friendly. I get by. This is my home."

"I touched a nerve, didn't I, Joe?—admit it. Come back here and face it—and listen." She waited, steeling her heart to be hard and as ruthless as was necessary. He came and sat, defiantly. She reached for his hand again.

"Here's a question for you, Joe. Suppose you could see again? Just suppose it could be fixed? Would it make any difference?"

"None at all. I like it here. I'm all through and washed up with people. I decided that when I knew I was losing my sight. What good is a blind scout? I dropped out, as you say. But then, I learned to live with it, with Friendly to help. And this is my home, now, sight or not." He hesitated at that, and she could feel his mind working along with his uneasy fingers. After a while he added, "I don't mind you being here. I thought you had gone along with the rest, and I was a bit sorry about that. I had begun to think that you could fit in here."

"Thank you. I'm glad; I like it here. I was thinking that I fitted in, too, but I was quite ready to move away to some other spot. I don't want to be in your way."

"That's all right; you belong. But let's not have any more of that about me feeling sorry for myself."

"Why not? Wouldn't you like to be able to see again?"

"I can see all I want to, with Friendly."

"Just so. And that tells me quite a bit. Here's part of it. You say a tree can't see, knows nothing of sight. That's true. Sight is more than just a functional optical system, though. Eyes don't see, Joe. You see, with and through your eyes; and your eyes are perfectly all right, Joe. There's nothing wrong with them."

This time he didn't jerk up and away. He sat quite still, but his fingers were tense in hers. "That's not a very good joke," he said quietly. "It's not funny. Do you think I'm just pretending to be blind?"

"No, not quite that. I want you to do something for me, please. It won't take long. And I promise, afterwards, I will go away and leave you alone, if that's what you want. Please?"

"More tricks?"

"In a way, but I'm trying to help not to hurt. You do know me better than that, surely?"

"All right, what do I do?"

"Stand up. Stand up just there. Right—now take off your friendly plant, right off and away." As he hesitated she added, "It's quite all right, I'll take care of him, and you shall have him back. I promise."

Highly unwillingly he peeled out of his fiber harness, carefully easing away the coils of the plant-stem from his chest and shoulder.

"I'm all in the dark now," he muttered. She took the small warm bundle and laid it aside, and smiled at him.

"All in the dark and helpless—I know. You fear that, and quite naturally. But not just now. You're with friends, Joe, including me. Just think about that for a moment."

"All right," he muttered. "There's no danger. So?"

"So," she said, mocking him gently, "now shut your eyes. Go on, it can't make any difference, can it?" He shrugged, closed his eyes, and she stood back a few paces from him, facing him, put an edge on her voice.

"Think, Joe, think hard. Think, Jory Jensen that was, and tell me true. What is it that you don't want to see? What is it you're afraid to face? What are you hiding from? Is it guilt? Do you feel guilty because you've dropped out—dodged your responsibilities? Abandoned your career, your duty, your Service oath? What? What is it that you are refusing to see?" She threw the words at him like darts, leaning on them, putting them in deep as she had been taught, striking right down to his hidden values, stirring up the submerged fears.

She saw him shake and dwindle like a stricken tree. He choked on words that were difficult to get out. Then, in a burst, they came.

"Humanity! You can keep it, have it, forget it—lying, cheating, grubbing, stinking—the whole filthy mess—you can have it all. I want no part of it!"

"You're so right," she agreed. "That's the way humanity is, part of the time. And you are part of it; you're a human being, too."

"No! The hell with it. I want no part of it. I'm out"

"It's no good, Joe. Shutting your eyes to it won't make it go away. It's still here. You think you've gone away from it, but you can't get away from yourself. You can't! Face it, Joe; look at it. Look at me, Joe. I'm human, too. Look at me —you can. You know you can. You're not afraid of me, surely?

Look at me, Joe. Come on now, look!"

Then she caught her breath, just watching him sweat and struggle, and then open his eyes. And her heart turned over—because he could see. It was obvious. The expression on his face was enough to prove it. She stood quite still, blinking at ridiculous tears and trying to smile—and then she held out her arms to him. But he shook his head as if dazed, and the light in his eyes was something to behold.

"No magic,'' she whispered, suddenly embarrassed. "Don't think that—just applied psychology. Psychic blindness is nothing new nor strange. It's common enough. Joe, don't—"

"Selena!" he said, and there was that in his voice that made heat in her cheeks and giddiness in her heart. "You're beautiful. So beautiful! Friendly told me you were lovely, but I never dreamed—I can see you—and you're much more beautiful than I ever dreamed."

"It was a chance I had to take," she mumbled, suddenly and dizzily aware that she was completely nude. "I'm so glad it worked—and that you think I'm—nice to look at!"

"I would have known you by your voice. But you—you're so beautiful, I could go on looking at you—I can see!" A shadow darkened his delight. "I can see; you cured me. Now I'll have to go back."

"Oh no you won't," she said, suddenly in charge again, and very positive.

"No one knows anything about you except me—and Dad. I had to tell him, you see, because I've dropped out, too. I'm official resident here, at least for a year. And, if I like it at the end of that time, it will be permanent. I think I am going to like it here, but that's really up to you, isn't it? Now that you can see, you may not think that I belong—"

"You belong more than ever, Selena. I'd sooner be blind again than lose you now. I can ask you honestly now, please stay."

"I was hoping you'd ask. You see, my dear, my motives for wanting you to be able to see were not quite impersonal. They were rather selfish, really. Tell me again, am I really so beautiful?"

AFTERWORD

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Safely back in his office on Luna, Admiral Longstaffe took out and re-read the personal memo that Selena had handed him just before he left the planet.

TO Longstaffe, Adml., SEC/CHEF U.P. Off. TECH/STRAT. FROM Selena Ash, P.C.

RE Jensen's Planet.

Please have the enclosed standard one-square-mile territorial claim processed for me soonest. I haven't yet chosen my spot, but I promise it will be nowhere near the Tree.

When you report to P.C. H.Q. on my behalf, please inform them I hope to be able to recruit a new boy, if I can open his eyes for him. Finally, when you mark off the date on your calendar one year from now, please include in the party one multi-denominational padre. One way or another, I mean to get this one. Wish me luck.

"Luck?" Longstaffe sighed as he filed the papers carefully and made the necessary calendar notation. "That's like taking an ore crusher to crack an egg. By God, if I was thirty years younger you wouldn't have to twist my arm! And he sighed again. Some folk, he thought, have all the luck.

^