CHAPTER 9 - THE WAY BACK

"COME BACK here, you idiot!"

Matt stopped halfway to the door. "Huh? Isn't this what you all want?"

"Come back here! How are you going to get over the wall? You can't pound on the gate again!"

Matt turned back. He felt feverish, unable to think. "Castro'd be ready for that, wouldn't he? He may not know what happened last night, but he must know something's wrong."

"We tried hard enough to tell him! Come here, sit down... Don't underestimate that man, Matt. We've got to think this through."

"That wall. How am I going to get over? Oh, damn, damn."

"You're tired. Why not wait till Harry comes down? Then we can get things organized."

"Oh, no. I'm not taking help from the Sons of Earth. This has nothing to do with them."

"How about me? Will you take my help?"

"Sure, Laney."

She decided not to question the illogic of this. "All right, let's start at the beginning, How are you going to reach the Hospital?"

"Yah. Too far to walk. Mmm ... Parlette's car. It's on the roof."

"But if Castro gets it, it'll lead him straight here."

"I'd have to wait till midnight to get the other car."

"That may be the only way." Laney wasn't tired; she'd had twice as much sleep as she needed in the vivarium. But she felt used, ready for the laundry. A hot bath would help. She put it out of her mind. "Maybe we can raid a crew house for another car. Then we set the autopilot to take Parlette's car back here."

"That'll take time."

"We'll have to take it. We'll also have to wait till after sunset before we start."

"Will we need darkness that early?"

"It would help. And suppose the fog cleared while we were over the void?"

"Oh." Colonist and crew alike, the people of the Plateau loved to watch the sun setting over the void mist. The colors were never the same twice. Land along the void edge always cost three times as much as land anywhere else.

"Suddenly we'd have a thousand crew looking down at us. It might be a mistake to use the void at all. Castro may have thought of that. We'll be safe if the fog holds. But whatever we do, we'll have to wait till dark."

Matt stood up and stretched muscles that felt knotted. "Okay. So we get to the Hospital. How do we get in?-Laney, what's an electric eye?"

She told him.

"Oh. I didn't see any light... Ultraviolet, of course, or infrared. I should be able to get over that."

"We."

"You're not invisible, Laney."

"I am if I stick close to you."

"Phut. "

"I'll have to come that far with you anyway. You can't program an autopilot."

Matt got up to pace. "Leave that a moment. How do we get over the wall?"

"I don't," said Laney, and stopped. "There may be a way," she said. "Leave it to me."

"Tell me."

"I can't."

The cold breeze outside had become a wind, audible through the walls. Laney shivered, though the electric fire was hot enough. The fog beyond the south windows was growing dark.

"We'll need guns," she said.

"I don't want to take one of yours. You've only got the two we picked up on the way to the car."

"Matt, I know more than you do about crew. They all go in for sports of one kind or another."

"So?"

"Some of them hunt. A long time ago Earth sent us some frozen fertilized deer and caribou ova in a cargo ramrobot. The Hospital hatched them out, grew 'em to adulthood and scattered them around the bottom edge of the glacier, north of here. There's enough grass there to keep them happy."

"Then we might find guns here."

"It's a good bet. The richer a crew is, the more sports equipment he buys. Even if he never uses it."

The gun rack was in a room in the upper story, a room lined with paintings of more-or-less wild-animals and with heads and hooves of deer and caribou. The rack held half-a-dozen air-powered rifles. They searched the room, and eventually Laney found a drawer containing several boxes of crystal slivers, each sliver two inches long.

"They look like they'd stop a bandersnatch," said Matt. He'd never seen a bandersnatch, except in filmed maser messages from Jinx, but he knew they were big.

"They'll stop an elk cold. But the guns only fire one at a time. You have to be accurate."

"Makes it more sporting?"

"I guess so."

Implementation mercy-guns fired a steady stream of tiny slivers. One would make the victim woozy; it took half a dozen to drop him in his tracks.

Matt closed and pocketed the box of oversized mercy-slivers. "Getting hit with one of these would be like being stabbed with an ice pick, even without the knockout effect. Will they kill a man?"

"I don't know," said Laney. She chose two guns from the rack. "We'll take these."

"Jay!" Hood stopped halfway to the living room, turned, and made for the entrance hall.

Lydia Hancock was bending over Millard Parlette. She had folded his flaccid hands neatly in his lap. "Come here and have a look at this."

Hood looked down at the stunned crew. Millard Parlette was coming around. His eyes didn't track and wouldn't focus, but they were open. Hood saw something else, and he bent for a closer look.

The crew's hands didn't match. The skin of one was mottled with age. It couldn't be as old as Parlette must be, but he hadn't replaced the skin in a good long time. From fingertips to elbow the arm showed a curious lack of personality, of what Hood decided was artistic continuity. Part of that might have been imagination. Hood knew in advance that Parlette must have used the organ banks continuously during his lifetime. But no imagination was needed to see that the left hand was dry and mottled and faintly callused, with cracked fingernails and receding quick.

Whereas the skin of the right hand was like a baby's, smooth and pink, untanned, almost translucent. The quick of the fingernails ran all the way to the tips of the fingers. Many high school students could not have said the same.

"The old love-child just got a transplant job," said Hood.

"No. Look here." Lydia pointed to the wrist. There was a ragged band of color, something less than an inch wide, running round Parlette's wrist. It was a dead milky-white such as Hood had never seen in human skin.

"Here too." A similar ring circled the first joint of Parlette's thumb. The thumbnail was cracked and dry, with a badly receding quick.

"Right, Lydia. But what is it? An artificial hand?"

"With a gun inside, maybe. Or a radio."

"Not a radio. They'd be all over us by now." Hood took Parlette's right hand and rolled the joints in his fingers. He felt old bone and muscle under the baby skin, and joints that would be arthritic someday soon. "This is a real human hand. But why didn't he get the whole thing replaced?"

"We'll have to let him tell us."

Hood stood up. He felt clean and rested and well fed. If they had to wait for Parlette to talk, they'd picked a nice place to wait.

Lydia asked, "How's Laney doing with Keller?"

"I don't know. I'm not going to try to find out."

"That must be tough, Jay." Lydia laughed a barking laugh. "You've spent half your life trying to find psychic powers on Plateau. Now one finally shows up, and he doesn't want to play with us."

"I'll tell you what really bothers me about Matt Keller. I grew up with him. In school I never noticed him, except one time when he got me mad at him." Absently he rubbed a point on his chest with two fingertips. "He was right under my nose all the time. But I was right, wasn't I? Psi powers exist, and we can use them against the Hospital."

"Can we?"

"Laney's persuasive. If she can't talk him around, I sure, can't."

"You're not pretty enough."

"I'm prettier than you."

The barking laugh rang again. "Touche!"

"I knew it," said Laney. "It had to be the basement."

Two walls were covered with various kinds of small tools. Tables held an electric drill and a bandsaw. There were drawers of nails, screws, nuts ...

Matt said, "Parlette the Younger must have done a lot of building."

"Not necessarily. It may be just a hobby. Come on, Matt, get your wrists down here. I think I see the saw we want."

Twenty minutes later he was rubbing bare wrists, scratching furiously where he'd been unable to scratch before. His arms felt ten pounds lighter without the handcuffs.

The time of waiting sat heavily on Jesus Pietro.

It was long past quitting time. From the windows of his office he could see the trapped forest as a darker blur in a darkening gray mist. He'd called Nadia and told her not to expect him home that night. The night shift was in charge of the Hospital, reinforced at Jesus Pietro's orders with scores of extra guards.

Soon he'd have to alert them for what he expected. Right now he was trying to decide what to say.

He wasn't about to impress them with the startling news that all of five prisoners were loose somewhere on Alpha Plateau. They would already have heard about the escape. They'd leave the mop-up job to the hunting squads.

Jesus Pietro activated the intercom. "Miss Lauessen, please connect me with all of the Hospital intercoms."

"Will do." She didn't always call him Sir. Miss Lauessen had more crew blood than Jesus Pietro-she was nearly pure--and she had powerful protectors. Fortunately she was a pleasant person and a good worker. If she ever became a disciplinary problem...

"You're on, sir."

"This is the Head," said Jesus Pietro. "You all know of the man captured last night infiltrating the Hospital. He and several others escaped this morning. I have information that he was scouting the Hospital defenses in preparation for an attack to take place tonight.

"Sometime between now and dawn the Sons of Earth will almost certainly attack the Hospital. You have all been issued maps of the Hospital showing the locations of automatic protective-devices installed today. Memorize them, and don't stumble into any of the traps. I have issued orders for maximum dosage of anesthetic in these traps, and they can kill. Repeat, they can kill.

"I think it unlikely that the rebels will make any kind of frontal attack." Unlikely, indeed! Jesus Pietro smiled at the understatement. "You should be alert for attempts to infiltrate the Hospital possibly by using our own uniforms. Keep your identification handy. If you see someone you do not recognize, ask for his ident. Compare him with the photo. The rebels have not had time to forge idents.

"One last word. Don't be reluctant to shoot each other."

He signed off, waited for Miss Lauessen to clear the lines, then had her contact the Power Sections. "Cut off all power to the colonist regions of the Plateau until dawn," he told them.

The men of Power took pride in their work, and their work was to keep the power running. There were loud protests. "Do it," said Jesus Pietro, and cut them off.

Once again he thought longingly of issuing death darts to his men. But then they would be afraid to shoot each other. Worse, they'd fear their own weapons. Never since the Covenant of Planetfall had Implementation used deadly weapons. In any case the poison slivers had been stored so long that they'd probably lost their effectiveness.

He'd raised hell with tradition tonight; there'd be hell to pay if nothing happened. But he knew something would. It wasn't just the fact that this was the last chance for the rebels to get their prisoners out of the vivarium, it was the cold certainty in Jesus Pietro's viscera. Something would happen.

A vague red line divided black sky from black land. It faded gradually, and suddenly the Hospital lights came on outside, making the night white. Somebody brought Jesus Pietro dinner, and he ate hurriedly, and kept the coffeepot when the tray was gone.

"Down there," said Laney.

Matt nodded and pushed in the fan levers. They dropped toward a medium-sized dwelling that at first glance looked like a large, flat haystack. There were windows in the haystack, and on one side was a porchlike platform. Under the porch was an oddly curved swimming pool. Lights showed at the windows, and the swimming pool area blazed with light. The water itself was lit from underneath. There was no rooftop landing-zone, but on the other side of the house were two cars.

"I'd have picked an empty house, myself." Matt was commenting, not criticizing. He'd decided hours ago that Laney was the expert in rebellion.

"Then what? Even if you found a car, where would you get the keys? I picked this one because most of them will be out in plain sight by the pool. There, see them? Hover the car and I'll see how many I can pick off."

They'd flown east along the void, flying blind in the fog, staying far from the edge, so that even the sound of their fans would not carry. Finally, miles east of the Parlette mansion, they'd turned inland. Matt flew with the gun balanced beside him on the seat. He'd never owned anything with such power in it. It gave him a warm feeling of security and invulnerability.

Laney was in the back seat, where she could fire from either window. Matt couldn't tell how many people were down around the swimming pool. But the guns had telescopic sights.

There were pops like balloons exploding. "One," said Laney. "Two. Oop, here comes another ... Three, and out. Okay, Matt, drop her fast. Yeee! Not that fast, Matt."

"Listen, did I get us down or didn't I?"

But she was out and running for the house. Matt followed more slowly. The swimming pool steamed like a huge bathtub. He saw two fallen crew near the pool, and a third near the glass doors to the house, and he blushed, for they were naked. Nobody had ever told him that crew threw nude swimming-parties. Then he noticed blood pooling under a woman's neck, and he stopped blushing. Clothing was trivia here.

From the pool area the house still looked like a haystack, but with more normal solid structures showing through the grassy yellow sides. Inside it was vastly different from Geoffrey Eustace Pariette's house; the walls were all curved, and a conical false fireplace occupied the center of the living room. But there, was the same air of luxury.

Matt heard a pop like a balloon exploding, and he ran.

He rounded a door jamb as he heard the second pop. A man stood behind a polished table dialing a handphone. He was beginning to fall as Matt saw him: a brawny middle-aged crew wearing nothing but a few drops of water and an expression of ultimate terror. He was looking straight at Laney. One hand pawed at a blood spot on his ribs. His terror seemed to fade as he fell, but Matt remembered it. Being hunted was bad in itself, but being hunted naked must be far worse. Naked had always been synonymous with "unprotected."

"Try the upstairs," said Laney. She was reloading the gun. "We'll have to find where they changed. If you find a pair of pants, search the pockets for keys. Hurry; we can't stay here long."

He came down a few minutes later with a bunch of keys dangling from his finger. "They were in the bedroom," he said.

"Good. Throw'em away."

"Was that a funny?"

"I found these." She too had a key ring. "Think it through. Those clothes upstairs must belong to the owner of the house. If we take his car, Implementation can trace it back here. It may not matter; I can't think of any way they could trace us from here back to Parlette's. But if we take a visitors car, they can't trace us anywhere. So these are the ones we want. You can ditch yours."

They went back to the pool area for Parlette's car. Laney opened the dash and fiddled inside. "I don't dare send it back," she muttered. "Harry'll have to use the other one. Ah... So I'll just send it ten miles up and tell it to head south forever. Okay, Matt, let's go."

They found a key to fit one of the cars on the roof. Matt flew, east and north, directly toward the Hospital.

The fog had not been abnormally thick on the ground, but at this height it was the edge of Creation. Matt flew for an hour before he saw a faint yellow blur to the left.

"The Hospital." Laney agreed. They turned.

A faint yellow blur on the left... and white lights forming and clarifying all around them.

Matt dropped the car instantly.

They came down hard on water. As the car bobbed to the surface, they dived out opposite doors. Matt came up gasping with the cold. The fans washed spray over him, and he turned his face to avoid it. Ducks quacked in panic.

The white lights were dropping toward them. Matt called, "Where are we?"

"Parlette Park, I think."

Matt stood up in the water, waist deep, holding his gun high. The car skidded across the duck pond, hesitated at the edge, and then continued on until it nudged into a hedge. The fog was turning yellowish gray as car lights dropped toward the pond.

A thought struck him. "Laney. Got your gun?"

"Yah."

"Test it."

He heard it puff. "Good," he said, and pitched his own gun away. He heard it splash.

Car lights were settling all around them. Matt swam toward the sound of Laney's shot until he bumped into her. He took her arm and whispered, "Stay close." They waded toward shore. He could feel her shivering. The water was cold, but when they stood up, the wind was colder.

"What happened to your gun?"

"I threw it away. My whole purpose in life is being scared, isn't it? Well, I can't get scared with a gun in my hand."

They stumbled onto the grass. White lights surrounded them at ground level, faintly blurred by the lifting mist. Others hovered overhead, spotlights casting a universal glow over the park. In that light men showed as running black silhouettes. A car settled on the water behind them, gently as a leaf.

"Put me through to the Head," said Major Chin. He rested at ease in the back seat of his car. The car sat a foot above the water on a small duck pond in Parlette Park, supported on its ground-effect air cushion. In such a position it was nearly invulnerable to attack.

"Sir? ... We've caught a stolen car... Yes, sir, it must have been stolen; it landed the moment we flew over to investigate. Went down like a falling elevator... It was flying straight toward the Hospital. I imagine we're about two miles southwest of you. They must have abandoned the car immediately after landing it on a duck pond. ...Yes, sir, very professional. The car ran into a hedge and just stayed there, trying to butt its way through on autopilot... License number B-R-G-Y... No, sir, nobody in it, but we've surrounded the area. They won't get through... No, sir, nobody's seen them yet. They may be in the trees. But we'll smoke them out."

A puzzled expression chased itself across his smooth round face. "Yes, sir," he said, and signed off. He thought about directing the search by beltphone, but he had no further orders to give. All around him were the lights of police cars. The search pattern was fixed. When someone found something, he'd call.

But what had the Head meant by that last remark? "Don't be surprised if you don't find anyone."

His eyes narrowed. The car a decoy, on autopilot? But what would that accomplish?

Another car flying in above him. This empty car to hold his attention while the other got through.

He used the beltphone. "Carson, you there? Lift your car out of there. Up to a thousand feet. Turn on your lights and hover and see what you can pick up on infrared. Stay there until we call off the search." It was some time before he found out how badly he'd missed the mark.

"Calling Major Chin," said Doheny, hovering one hundred feet above Parlette Park. Controlled excitement tinged his voice with the thrill of the chase.

"Sir? I've got an infrared spot just leaving the pond.... Could be two people; this fog is messing up my imagine... Western shore. They're out now, moving toward where all the men are milling around... You don't? They're there; I swear it... Okay, okay, but if they aren't there, then something's wrong with my infrascope--sir... Yes, sir."

Annoyed but obedient, Doheny settled back and watched the dim red spot merge with the bigger spot that was a car motor. That tears it, he thought; that makes them police, whether they're real or not.

He saw the larger infrared source move away, leaving behind a second source smaller than a car but comfortably bigger than one man.. That jerked him alert, and he moved to the window to check. It was there, all right, and ...

He lost interest and returned to the infrascope. The cloverleaf-shaped source was still there, not moving, the right color to be four unconscious men. A man-sized source separated itself from the milling mass around the abandoned car, moving toward the cloverleaf source. Seconds later there was pandemonium.

Gasping, wheezing, running for their lives, they pelted out of Parlette Park and into a wide, well-lighted village walk. Matt gripped Laney's wrist as they ran, so that she couldn't "forget about him" and wander off on her own. As they reached the walk, Laney pulled back on his arm.

"Okay... We can... relax now."

"How far... to the Hospital?"

" 'Bout... two miles."

Ahead of them the white lights of Implementation cars faded behind a lighted dome of fog as they chased an empty car on autopilot. A yellow glow touched the fading far end of the walk -the lights of the Hospital.

The walk was a rectangular pattern of red brick, luxuriously wide, with great spreading chestnut trees planted down the middle in a pleasantly uneven row. Street lights along the sides illuminated old and individualistic houses. The chestnuts swayed and sang shrilly in the wind. The wind blew the still-thinning fog into curls and streamers; it cut steel-cold through wet clothes and wet skin to reach meat and marrow.

"We've got to get some clothes," said Matt.

"We'll meet someone. We're bound to. It's only nine."

"How could those crew stand it? Swimming!"

"The water was hot. Probably they had a sauna bath waiting somewhere. I wish we did."

"We should have taken that car."

"Your power wouldn't have hidden us. At night they couldn't see your face in a car window. They'd have seen a stolen car, and they'd have bathed it in sonics, which is just what they must be doing now."

"And why did you insist on stripping that policeman? And having got the damn suit, why did you throw it away?"

"For the Mist Demons' sake, Matt! Will you trust me?"

"Sorry. We could either of us use that coat."

"It's worth it. Now they'll be looking for one man in an Implementation uniform. Hey! In front of me, quick!"

A square of light had appeared several houses down. Matt stepped in front of her and stooped, hands on knees, so she could use his shoulder as a gun rest.

It had worked on four police in Parlette Park. It worked now. A crew couple appeared in the light. They turned and waved to their hosts, turned again and moved down the steps, hunching slightly against the wind. The closing door cut the light from them and left them as dim moving shadows. As they touched the brick, they crossed the flat trajectories of two hunting slivers.

Matt and Laney stripped them and left them propped against a garden hedge for the sun to find.

"Thank the Mist Demons," said Matt. He was still shivering inside the dry clothes.

Laney was already thinking ahead. "We'll stick with the houses as far as we can. These houses give off a lot of infrared. They'll screen us. Even if a car does spot us, he'll have to drop and question us to be sure we're not crew."

"Good. What happens when we run out of houses?"

Laney didn't answer for a long time. Matt didn't press her. Finally she said, "Matt, there's something I'd better tell you."

Again he didn't press her.

"As soon as we get through the Wall--if we get through the wall--I'm going to the vivarium. You don't have to come along, but I've got to go."

"Won't that be the first thing they expect?"

"Probably."

"Then we'd better not. Let's hunt down Polly first. We ought to keep the noise down as long as possible. Once your Sons of Earth come charging out, assuming we get that far, those doors will drop right away. In fact, if we--" At this point he glanced over at her and stopped.

Laney was looking straight ahead. Her face was hard and masklike. So was her voice, deliberately hard.

"That's why I'm telling you now. I'm going to the vivarium. That’s why I'm here." She seemed about to break off ; then she went on in a rush. "That's why I'm here, because the Sons of Earth are in there and I'm one of them. Not because you need me, but because they need me. I need you to get me in. Otherwise I'd be trying it alone."

"I see," said Matt. He was about to go on, but-no, he couldn't say that. He'd leave himself wide open to be slapped down, and in this, mood Laney would do it. Instead he said, "What about Polly's big secret?"

"Millard Parlette knows it too. He seemed eager to talk. If he isn't, Lydia will get it out of him anyway."

"So you don't need Polly anymore."

"That's right. And if you've got the idea I'm here for love of you, you can forget that too. I'm not trying to be boorish, Matt, or cruel either. I just want you to know where you stand. Otherwise you'll be counting on me to make intelligent decisions.

"You're transportation, Matt. We need each other to get in. Once we're inside I'll go straight to the vivarium, and you can do, whatever you have to to stay alive."

For some time they walked in silence, arm in arm, a crew couple strolling home along a distance too short to use a car. Other crew appeared from time to time. Mostly they walked quickly, bent against the wind, and they ignored Matt and Laney and each other in their hurry to get out of the cold. Once a good dozen men and women, varying from merely high to falling-down drunk, poured into the street ahead of them, marched four houses down, and began banging on the door. Matt and Laney watched as the door opened and the partygoers poured in. And suddenly Matt felt intensely lonely. He gripped Laney's arm a little tighter, and they went on.

The brick walk swung away to the left, and they followed it around. Now there were no houses on the right. Just trees, high and thick, screening the Hospital from view. The barren defense perimeter must be just the other side.

"Now what?"

"We follow it," said Laney. "I think we ought to go in along the trapped forest."

She waited for him to ask why, but he didn't. She told him anyway. "The Sons of Earth have been planning an attack on the Hospital for decades. We've been waiting for the right time, and it never came. One of the things we planned was to go in along the edge of the trapped woods. The woods themselves are so full of clever widgets that the guards on that side probably never notice it."

"You hope."

"You bet."

"What do you know about the Hospital defenses?"

"Well, you ran into most of them last night". A good thing you had the sense to stay out of the trapped woods, There are two electric-eye rings. You saw the wall; guns and spotlights all over it. Castro probably put extra men on it tonight, and we can bet he closed off the access road. Usually they leave it open, but it's easy enough to close the electric-eye ring and shut off power to the gate."

"And inside the wall?"

"Guards. Matt, we've been assuming that all these men will be badly trained. The Hospital's never been under direct attack. We're outnumbered--"

"Yes, we are, aren't we?"

"But we'll be dealing with guards who don't really believe there's anything to guard against."

"What about traps? We can't fight machinery."

"Practically none in the Hospital--at least, not usually. There are things Castro could set up in an emergency. In the slowboats there could be anything; we just don't know. But we won't be going near the slowboats. Then there are those damn vibrating doors."

Matt nodded, a swift vicious jerk of his chin.

"Those doors surprised us all. We should have been warned."

"By who?"

"Never you mind. Stop a second... Right. This is the place. We go through here."

"Laney.

"Yah? There are pressure wires in the dirt. Step on the roots only as we go through."

"What happened Friday night?"

She turned back to look at his face, trying to read what he meant. She said, "I happened to think you needed me."

Matt nodded slowly. "You happened to think right."

"Okay. That's what I'm there for. The Sons of Earth are mostly, men. Sometimes they get horribly depressed. Always planning, never actually fighting, never winning when they do, and always wondering if they aren't doing just what Implementation wants. They can't even brag except to each other, because not all the colonists are on our side. Then, sometimes, I can make them feel like men again."

"I think I need my ego boosted about now."

"What you need right now, brother, is a good scare. Just keep thinking scared, and you'll be all right. We go through here--"

"I just thought of something."

"What's that?"

"If we'd stayed here this afternoon, we'd have saved all this trouble."

"Will you come on? And don't forget to step on the roots".

CHAPTER 10 - PARLETTE'S HAND

DARKNESS COVERED most of Mount Lookitthat.

The crew never knew it. The lights of Alpha Plateau burned undimmed. Even in the houses along the Alpha-Beta cliff, with a view across Beta Plateau toward the distant, clustered town lights of Gamma and Iota, tonight that view was blanked by fog; and who was to know that the clustered lights were dark?

In the colonist regions there was fear and fury, but it couldn't touch Alpha Plateau.

No real danger threatened. On Gamma and Iota there were no hospitals where patients might die in dark operating theaters. No cars would crash without street lights. Spoiling meat in butcher shop freezers would cause no famine; there were the fruit and nut forests, the crops, the herds.

But there was fear and fury. Was something wrong, up there where all power originated? Or was it a prank, a punishment, an experiment-some deliberate act of Implementation?

You couldn't travel without lights. Most people stayed where they were, wherever they were. They bedded down where they could; for colonists it was near bedtime anyway. And they waited for the lights to come back.

They would give no trouble, Jesus Pietro thought. If danger came tonight, it would not come from down there.

Equally certain, the Sons of Earth would attack, though they only numbered five. Harry Kane would not leave most of his men to die. Whatever he could do, he would do it, regardless of risk.

And Major Chin's fugitive had escaped, was loose two miles from the Hospital, wearing a police uniform. And because he had escaped, because he was alone, because no man had seen him clearly--it had to be Matt Keller.

Five dossiers to match five, fugitives. Harry Kane and Jayhawk Hood: These were old friends, the most dangerous of the Sons of Earth. Elaine Mattson and Lydia Hancock and Matthew Keller: These he had come to know by heart during the long hours following the break this afternoon. He could have recognized any of them a mile away or told them their life stories.

The slimmest dossier was Matt Keller's: two and a half skimpy pages. Mining engineer... not much of a family man... few love affairs... no evidence he had ever joined the Sons of Earth.

Jesus Pietro was worried. The Sons of Earth, if they got this far, would go straight to the vivarium to free their compatriots. But if Matthew Keller was his own agent... If the ghost of Alpha Plateau was not a rebel, but a thing with its own unpredictable purpose...

Jesus Pietro worried. His last sip of coffee suddenly tasted horrible, and he pushed the cup away. He noted with relief that the mist seemed to be clearing. On his desk were a stack of five dossiers and a sixth all alone and a mercy-bullet gun.

In the lights of the Hospital the sky glowed pearl gray. The wall was a monstrous mass above them, a sharp black shadow cutting across the lighted sky. They heard regular footsteps overhead.

They'd crawled here side by side, close enough to get in each other's way. They'd broad-jumped the electric-eye barriers, Matt first, then Laney making her move while Matt stared up at the wall and willed nobody to see her. So far nobody had.

"We could get around to the gate," said Matt.

"But if Castro's cut off the power, we can't get it open. No, there's a better way."

"Show me."

"We may have to risk a little excitement... Here it is."

"What?"

"The fuse. I wasn't sure it'd be here."

"Fuse?".

"See, a lot of Implementation is pure colonist. We have to be careful who we approach, and we've lost good men who talked to the wrong person, but it paid off. I hope."

"Someone planted a bomb for you?"

"I hope so. There are only two Sons of Earth in Implementation, and either or both of them could be ringers." She fumbled in the big, loose pockets of her mudspattered crewish finery. "Bitch didn't carry a lighter. Matt?"

"Lessee. Here."

She took the lighter, then spoke deliberately. "If they see the light, we're done for." She crouched over the wire.

Matt crouched over her, to shield the light with his body. As he did so, he looked up. Two bumps showed on the straight black shadow of the wall. They moved. Matt started to whisper, Stop! Yellow light flared under him, and it was too late.

The heads withdrew.

Laney shook his arm. "Run! Along the wall!" He followed the pull.

"Now flat!" He landed beside her on his belly. There was a tremendous blast. Metal bits sang around them, raising tiny pings against the wall. Something bit a piece from Matt's ear, and he slapped at it like a wasp sting.

He didn't have time to curse. Laney jerked him to his feet, and they ran back the way they had come. There was confused shouting on the wall, and Matt looked up to meet a hundred eyes looking down. Then suddenly the area was bright as hell.

"Here!" Laney dropped to her, knees, slapped his hand onto her ankle, and crawled. Matt heard mercy-bullets spattering around his ankles as he went in after her.

On the outside the hole was just big enough to crawl through on hands and knees. The bomb must have been a shaped charge. But the wall was thick, and the hole was smaller on the inside. They emerged on their bellies, with scratches. Here too was light, too bright, making Matt's eyes water. Startlingly, there were pits all in a row in the dirt along this side of the wall, and over the cordite stink was the smell of rich, moist new earth.

"Bombs," he said wonderingly. Pressure bombs, set off by the explosion, originally intended to explode under an invader dropping from the top of the wall. Bombs, meant to kill. "I'm flattered," he whispered to himself, and lied.

"Shut up!" Laney turned to glare, and in the lurid artificial light he saw her eyes change. Then she turned and ran. She was beyond reach before Matt had time to react.

Feet pounded all around them, all running at top speed toward the hole in the wall. They were surrounded! Amazingly, nobody tried to stop Laney. But he saw someone jerk to a stop, then go pelting after her.

And nobody tried to stop Matt. He was invisible enough, but he'd lost Laney. Without him, she had nothing but the gun ... and he didn't know how to reach Polly. He stood there, lost.

Frowning, Harry Kane inspected hands which didn't match. He'd seen transplantees before, but never such a patchwork man as Millard Parlette.

Lydia said, "It isn't artificial, is it?"

"No. But it's not a normal transplant job either."

"He should be coming around."

"I am," said Millard Parlette.

Harry started. "You can talk?",

"Yes." Parlette had a voice like a squeaky door, altered by a would-be musical crew lilt, slurred by the effects of a sonic stunner. He spoke slowly, consciously enunciating. "May I have a glass of water?"

"Lydia, get him some water."

"Here." The stocky virago supported the old man's head with her arm and fed him the water in small sips.

Harry studied the man. They'd propped him against a wall in the vestibule. He hadn't moved since then and probably couldn't, but the muscles of his face, which had been slack and rubbery, now reflected a personality.

"Thank you," he said, in a stronger voice. "You shouldn't have shot me, you know."

"You have things to tell us, Mr. Parlette."

"You're Harry Kane. Yes, I have things to tell you. And then I'll want to make a deal of sorts with you."

"I'm open to deals. What kind?"

"You'll understand when I finish. May I start with the recent ramrobot package? This will be somewhat technical."

"Lydia, get Jay." Lydia Hancock quietly withdrew.

"I'll want him to hear anything technical. Jay is our genius."

"Jayhawk Hood? Is he here too?"

"You seem to know a good deal about us."

"I do. I've been studying the Sons of Earth for longer than you've been alive. Jayhawk Hood has a fine mind. By all means, let us wait for him."

"You've been studying us, have you? Why?"

"I'll try to make that clear to you, Kane. It will take time. -Has the situation on Mount Lookitthat ever struck you as artificial, fragile?"

"Phut. If you'd been trying to change it as long as I have, you wouldn't think so."

"Seriously, Kane. Our society depends entirely on its technology. Change the technology, and you change the society. Most especially you change the ethics."

"That's ridiculous. Ethics are ethics."

The old man's hand twitched. "Let me speak, Kane."

Harry Kane was silent.

"Consider the cotton gin," said Millard Parlette. "That invention made it economically feasible to grow cotton in quantity in the southern United States, but not in the northern states. It brought slaves in great numbers to one section of that nation while slavery died out in another. The result was a problem in racial tolerance which lasted for centuries.

"Consider feudal armor. The ethics of chivalry were based on the fact that armor was a total defense against anything which wasn't similarly armored. The clothyard arrow, and later gunpowder, ended chivalry and made a new ethic necessary.

"Consider war as a tool of diplomacy." Millard Parlette stopped to gasp for breath. After a moment he went on. "It was, you know. Then came poison gas, and fission bombs, and fission-fusion bombs, and a possible fissionfusion-radiocobalt bomb. Each invention made war less and less useful for imposing one's will, more and more randomly destructive, until nationalism itself became too dangerous to be tolerated, and the United Nations on Earth became more powerful than any possible minority alliance of nations.

"Consider the settling of the Belt. A solely technological development, yet it created the wealthiest population in the system in a region which absolutely required new ethics, where stupidity automatically carries its own death penalty." The old man stopped again, exhausted.

"I'm no historian," said Harry. "But morals are morals. What's unethical here and now is unethical anywhere, anytime."

"Kane, you're wrong. It is ethical to execute a man for theft?"

"Of course."

"Did you know that there was once a vastly detailed science of rehabilitation for criminals? It was a branch of psychology, naturally, but it was by far the largest such branch. By the middle of century twenty-one, nearly two-thirds of all criminals could eventually be released as cured."

"That's silly. Why go to all that trouble when the organ banks must have been crying for--Oh. I see. No organ banks."

The old man was finally smiling, showing perfect new white teeth. Sparkling teeth and keen gray eyes: The real Millard Parlette showed behind the cracked, wrinkled, loose rubber mask of his face.

Except that the teeth couldn't be his, thought Harry. Nuts to that. "Go on." he said.

"One day a long time ago I realized that the ethical situation on Mount Lookitthat was fragile. It was bound to change someday, and suddenly, what with Earth constantly bombarding us with new discoveries. I decided to be ready."

There were footsteps on the stairs, running. Lydia and Hood burst in.

Harry Kane introduced Hood to Millard Parlette as if they were already allies. Hood took his cue and shook hands formally, wincing inside himself because Parlette's hand still felt like something dead.

"Keep that hand," said Millard Parlette. "Examine it."

"We already did."

"Your conclusions?"

"Ask you about it."

"Apparently Earth is using biological engineering for medical purposes. There were four gifts in the ramrobot package, along with complete instructions for their care and use. One was a kind of fungus-virus symbiot. I dipped my little finger in it. Now the muck is replacing my skin."

"Replacing--? Sorry," said Hood. It was difficult not to interrupt Parlette, his speech was so irritatingly slow.

"That's right. First it dissolves the epidermis, leaving. only the living cells beneath. Then it somehow stimulates the DNA memory in the derma. Probably the virus component does that. You may know that a virus does not reproduce; it compels its host to produce more virus, by inserting its own reproductive chains into the host cells."

"You may have a permanent guest," said Hood.

"No. The virus dies after a short time. Any virus does that. Then the fungus starves."

"Wonderful! The muck moves in a ring, leaving new skin behind!" Hood considered. "Earth really came through this time. But what happens when it reaches your eyes?"

"I don't know. But there were no special instructions. I offered myself as a test subject because I could use a new pelt. It's even supposed to get rid of scar tissue. It does."

"That's quite an advance," said Harry.

"But you don't see why it's important. Kane, I showed you this first because I happened to bring it along. The others will jolt you." Parlette let his head-droop to relieve the strain on his neck. "I don't know what animal gave birth to the second gift, but it now resembles a human liver. In the proper environment it will behave like a human liver."

Harry's eyes went wide and blank. Lydia made a startled hissing sound. And Millard Parlette added, "The proper environment is, of course, the environment of a human liver. They have not been tested because they are not fully grown. We can expect disadvantages due to the lack of nervous connections--"

"Keller told the truth. Little hearts and livers!" Harry exclaimed. "Parlette, was the third gift an animal to replace the human heart?"

"Yes. Nearly all muscle. It reacts to Adrenalin by speeding up, but once again the lack of nervous-"

"Yee HAH!" Harry Kane began to dance. He grabbed Lydia Hancock, spun her around and around. Hood watched, grinning foolishly. Kane abruptly released her and dropped to his knees in front of Parlette. "What's the fourth?"

"A rotifer."

"A... rotifer?"

"It lives as a symbiot in the human bloodstream. It does things the human body will not do for itself. Kane, it has often struck me that evolution as a process leaves something to be desired. Evolution is finished with a man once he is too old to reproduce. Thus there is no genetic program to keep him alive longer than that. Only inertia. It takes enormous medical knowledge to compen-"

"What does it do, this rotifer?"

"It fights disease. It cleans fatty deposits from the veins and arteries. It dissolves blood clots. It is too big to move into the small capillaries, and it dies on contact with air. Thus it will not impede necessary clotting. It secretes a kind of gum to patch weak points in the walls of the arteries and larger capillaries, which is reassuring to a man of my age,

"But it does more than that. It acts as a kind of catch-all gland, a supplementary pituitary. It tends to maintain the same glandular balance a man is supposed to have at around age thirty. It will not produce male and female hormones, and it takes its own good time disposing of excess adrenaline, but otherwise it maintains the balance. Or so say the instructions--"

Harry Kane sank back on his heels. "Then the organ banks are done. Obsolete. No wonder you tried to keep it secretes

"Don't be silly."

"What?" Parlette opened his mouth, but Harry rode him down. "I tell you the organ banks are done for! Listen, Parlette. The skin mold replaces skin grafting, and does it better. The heart animal and the liver animal replace heart and liver transplants. And the rotifer keeps everything else from getting sick in the first place! What more do you want?"

"Several things. A kidney beast, for example. Or--"

"Quibbling.

"How would you replace a lung? A lung destroyed by nicotine addiction?"

Hood said, "He's right. Those four ramrobot gifts are nothing but a signpost. How do you repair a smashed foot, a bad eye, a baseball finger?" He was pacing now, in short jerky steps. "You'd need several hundred different artifacts of genetic engineering to make the organ banks really obsolete. All the same--"

"All right, cut," said Harry Kane, and Hood was silent. "Parlette, I jumped the gun. You're right. But I'll give you something to think about. Suppose every colonist on Mount Lookitthat knew only the facts about the ramrobot package. Not Hood's analysis, and not yours--just the truth. What then?"

Parlette was smiling. He shouldn't have been, but his white teeth gleamed evenly in the light, and the smile was not forced. "They would assume the organ banks were obsolete. They would confidently expect Implementation to disband."

"And when Implementation showed no sign of disbanding, they'd revolt! Every colonist on Mount Lookitthat! Could the Hospital stand against that?"

"You see the point, Kane. I am inclined to think the Hospital could stand against any such attack, though I would not like to gamble on it. But I am sure we could lose half the population of this planet in the bloodbath, win or lose."

"Then--you've already thought of this."

Parlette's face twisted. His hands fluttered aimlessly and his feet jumped against the floor as the effects of the sonic gave up their hold on him. "Do you think me a fool, Harry Kane? I never made that mistake about you. I first heard of the ramrobot package six months ago, when the ramrobot sent out its maser message. I knew immediately that the present crew rule over the Plateau was doomed."

Laney had vanished around to the left, around the great gentle curve of the Planck, while Matt stood gaping. He started after her, then checked himself. She must know of another entrance; he'd never catch her before she reached it. And if he followed her through, he'd be lost in the maze of the Hospital.

But he had to find her. She'd kept him in the dark as much as she could. Probably because she expected Castro to get him, and didn't want him to spill anything important. She hadn't mentioned the bomb until the fuse was in her hand, nor the detailed plans for invading the Hospital until she was already following them.

Eventually she'd have told him how to find Polly. Now he'd lost both.

Or ... ?

He ran toward the main entrance, dodging police who tried to run through his solid bulk. He would meet Laney at the vivarium--if she got there. But he knew only one route to reach it.

The great bronze doors swung open as he approached. Matt hesitated at the bottom of the wide stairs. Electric eyes? Then three uniformed men trotted through the entrance and down, and Matt trotted up between them. If there were electric eyes here, and men watching them, they could never keep track of the last minute's traffic.

The doors swung shut as he went through. They almost caught him between them. He cursed in a whisper and stepped aside for a running policeman with a whistle in his mouth. Like the ultrasonic whistle the gateman had used to get in last night. He'd need one to get out. But later. He needn't think about leaving yet.

His legs ached savagely. He slowed to a brisk walk and tried not to pant.

Right, up a flight, take a right, then a left...

VIVARIUM. He saw the door down the corridor, and he stopped where he was and sagged gratefully against a wall. He'd beaten her here. And he was horribly tired. His legs were numb, there was a singing in his head, he wanted to do nothing but breathe. A taste in his mouth and throat reminded him of the hot metal taste of the void mist when he'd bored for the bottom less than thirty-six plateau hours ago. It seemed he'd been running forever, terrified forever. His blood had carried adrenaline for too long. The wall felt soft against his back.

It was good to rest. It was good to breathe. It was good to be warm, and the Hospital walls were warm, almost too warm for a cold-weather crewish overjacket. He'd ditch it when it got too hot. Probing idly in his pockets, he found a double handful of unshelled roasted peanuts.

Corporal Halley Fox rounded the corner and stopped. He saw a crew resting against a wall, wearing his over-jacket indoors. There was a ragged tear in the crew's ear and a pool of blood below it, soaked into the neck of his overjacket. He was cracking and eating peanuts, dropping the shells on the floor.

It was strange, but not strange enough.

Halley Fox was in the third generation of a family which traditionally produced Implementation police. Naturally he had joined Implementation. His reflexes were not quick enough to make him a raider, and he made a better follower than a leader. For eight years now he had been a competent man in a good position that did not require much responsibility.

Then... last night he'd caught a colonist invading the Hospital.

This morning there'd been a break from the vivarium, the first since the vivarium was built. Corporal Fox had seen blood for the first time. Man's blood, not drained into an organ-bank tank but spilled recklessly along a hallway in conscious murderous violence.

This evening the Head had warned of an impending attack on the Hospital. He'd practically warned Corporal Fox to shoot his own fellow guards! And everyone was taking him seriously!

Minutes ago there'd been a hell of a big blast outside the windows... and half the guards had deserted their posts to see what had happened.

Corporal Fox was slightly punch-drunk.

He had not deserted his post. Things were confused enough. He stuck to his training as something he knew to be solid. And when he saw a crew resting against a wall eating peanuts, he saluted and said, "Sir."

Matt looked up to see a police officer standing stiff as a board, holding the short barrel of a mercy-bullet pistol slantwise across his forehead.

Effectively he disappeared. Corporal Fox continued down the hall, stepping wide around the vivarium door. At the end of the corridor he stopped, half turned, and fell.

Matt got unsteadily to his feet. The sight of the guard had damn near stopped his heart.

Laney came around fast. She saw Matt, dodged back, poked the gun around--

"Stop! It's me!"

"Oh, Matt. I thought I'd lost you."

He moved toward her. "I saw someone come after you. Did you get him?"

"Yah." She looked down at Corporal Fox. "They're badly trained. That’s something."

"Where'd you learn to shoot like that?"

"Never you mind. Come on." She moved back toward the vivarium.

"Hold it. Where do I find Polly?"

"I really don't know. We've never known where they administer the coffin cure." She reached for the door handle. Matt caught her wrist. "Come now, Matt," she said. "You had fair warning."

"The door's Booby-trapped."

"Oh?"

"I saw the way that guy walked around it."

She frowned at the handle. Then, with effort, she tore a strip from the bottom of Matt's jacket. She tied it to the handle, moved back as far as it would reach.

Matt backed away. He said, "Before you do something irrevocable, won't you please tell me where to find Polly?"

"Honestly, Matt, I don't know." She wasn't trying to hide the fact that he was an unneeded distraction.

"Okay, where's Castro's office?"

"You're out of your mind."

"I'm a fanatic. Like you."

That got a grin. "You're crazy, but okay. You go back the way I came, turn the only way you can, and go up another flight. Follow the hall until you see signs. The signs will take you the rest of the way. The office is up against the hull of the Planck. But if you stick with me, we may find an easier way."

"Pull then."

Laney pulled.

The handle came down and clicked. Immediately something fired from the ceiling: a conical burst of mercy-bullets spattering the area where anyone would have stood to pull the handle. And a siren blared in the corridor, loud and raucous and familiar.

Laney jumped straight back in surprise, fetched up against the wall. The door swung open a couple of inches. "In," she cried, and dove through, followed by Matt.

The puffs of mercy-bullets were lost in the sound of the siren. But Matt saw four men in the room, crouched in target-shooting position in a line opposite the door. They were still firing as Laney fell.

"Doomed? Really?" Even to himself Harry sounded inane. But he'd expected no such easy capitulation.

"How many Sons of Earth are there?"

"I can't tell you that."

"I can tell you," said Millard Parlette. "Less than four hundred. On all of Mount Lookitthat there are less than seven hundred active rebels. For three hundred years you and your kind have been trying to build a rebellion. You've made no progress at all."

"Precious little."

"You enlist your rebels from the colonists, naturally. Your trouble is that most colonists don't really want the crew to lose control of the Plateau. They're happy the way they are. Yours is an unpopular cause. I tried to explain why before; let me try again." With obvious effort he moved his arms enough to fold his hands in his lap. Random muscles in his shoulders twitched from time to time.

"It's not that they don't think they could do better than the crew if it came to the point. Everybody always thinks that. They're afraid of Implementation, yes, and they won't risk their good blood and bone to make the change, not when Implementation has all the weapons on the Plateau and controls all the electrical power too.

"But that isn't the point. The point is that they don't really think that the crew rule is wrong.

"It all depends on the organ banks. On the one hand, the organ banks are a terrible threat, not only a death penalty, but an ignominious way to die. On the other hand, the banks are a promise. A man who deserves it and can pay for it, even a colonist, can get medical treatment at the Hospital. But without the organ banks there'd be no treatment. He'd die.

"Do you know what your rebels would do if they could beat the crew to their knees? Some would insist that the organ banks be abolished. They'd be killed or ostracized by their own members. The majority would keep the banks just as they are, but use the crew to feed them!"

His neck was stronger now, and he looked up to see patient stares. A good audience. And he had them hooked, finally.

"Up to now," he went on, "you couldn't start a rebellion because you couldn't convince enough fighting men that your cause was just. Now you can. Now you can convince the colonists of Mount Lookitthat that the organ banks are and should be obsolete. Then wait a little. When Implementation doesn't disband, you move."

Harry Kane said, "That's exactly what I was thinking, only you seem to be way ahead of me. Why did you call me silly?"

"You made a silly assumption. You thought I was trying to keep the ramrobot package a secret. Quite the contrary. Just this afternoon I--"

"I've finally got it," said Hood. "You've decided to join the winning side, have you Parlette?"

"You fool. You bad-mouthed colonist fool."

Jay Hood flushed. He stood perfectly straight with his arms at his sides and his fists clenched. He was no angrier than Parlette. The old man was trying to shift his weight, and every muscle in his body was jumping as a result. He said, "Do you think so little of me, to think I'd follow such motives?"

"Relax, Jay. Parlette, if you have something to say, say it. If we jump to the wrong conclusions, please assume that you're expressing yourself badly, and don't try to shift the blame."

"Why don't you all count to infinity?" Lydia Hancock suggested.

Parlette spoke slowly and evenly. "I am trying to prevent a bloodbath. Is that clear enough for you? I'm trying to prevent a civil war that could kill half the people in this world."

"You can't do it," said Harry Kane. "It's coming.

"Kane, cannot you and I and your associates work out a new... constitution for Mount Lookitthat? Obviously the Covenant of Planetfall will no longer work."

"Obviously."

"I made a speech today. In fact, I seem to be spending the whole damn day and night making speeches. This afternoon I called an emergency session--rammed it through the Council. You know what that means?"

"Yah. You were talking to every crew on the Plateau, then."

"I told them what was in ramrobot package one-forty-three. I showed them. I told them about the organ-bank problem and about the relationship between ethics and technology. I told them that if the secret of the ramrobot ever reached the colonists, the colonists would revolt en masse. I did my damndest, Kane, to scare the pants off them.

"I've known from the beginning that we couldn't keep the secret forever. Now that thirty thousand people know it, it'll be out even faster, even if we were all killed this instant. I did all this, Kane, in order to warn them. To scare them. When they realize that the secret is out, they may be scared enough to dicker. The smart ones will. "I've been planning this a long time, Kane. I didn't even know what it was that Earth would ship us. It might have been a regeneration serum, or designs for cheap alloplasty components, or even a new religion. Anything. But something was coming, and here it is, and, Kane, we've got to try to stop the bloodbath." Gone were Parlette's shortness of breath and his clumsy attempts to make his lips and tongue work against a sonic blast. His voice was smooth and lilting, rising and falling, a little hoarse but terribly earnest. "We've got to try. Maybe we can find something both the crew and the colonists can agree on."

He stopped, and three heads nodded, almost in reflex.