War Against the Rull (15 page)

"Nor me either," said Gil.

The woman smiled "You mustn't be shy," she said. "But never mind. I'll give you a clue anyway. Do you know what the word
miasma
means?" She spoke directly to Jackie.

"Mist."

"That's my clue, then. Miasma. And now, you'd better be getting along. The sun is due up a few minutes before six, and it's after two o'clock now."

She picked up her book and, when Diddy glanced back a few minutes later, she looked as if she were a part of the chair. She seemed scarcely alive, so still was she. But because of her, he knew the situation was as deadly as he had suspected. The great ship itself must be in danger. It was toward the ship that he headed.

Trevor Jamieson awakened suddenly to the realization that something had roused him, and that accordingly he must have slept. He groaned inwardly and started to turn over. If he only
could
sleep through this night. With a start he grew aware that his wife was sitting on the edge of the bed. He glanced at his illuminated watch. It was 2:22
a.m.

Oh, my gosh, he thought, I've got to get her back to bed.

"I can't sleep," said Veda. Her voice had a whimper in it, and he felt sick. For she was worrying like this about nothing definite. He pretended to be very thoroughly asleep.

"Darling."

Jamieson stirred, but that was all.

"Sweetheart."

He opened one eye. "Darling, please."

"I wonder how many other boys are out tonight."

Jamieson turned over. "Veda, what are you trying to do— keep me awake?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." Her tone was not sorry, and after a moment she seemed to have forgotten she'd spoken the words.

"My dear."

He didn't answer.

"Do you think we could find out?" she asked.

He'd intended to ignore further conversation, but his mind started to examine the possible meaning of what she'd said. He grew astonished at the meaninglessness of her words and woke up.

"Find out what?" he asked.

"How many there are."

"How many what?"

"Boys... outside tonight."

Jamieson, who was weighed down by a far more desperate fear, sighed. "Veda, I've got to go to work tomorrow."

"Work!" said Veda, and her voice had an edge on it. "Don't you ever think of anything but work? Haven't you any feelings?"

Jamieson kept his silence, but that was not the way to get her back to bed.

She continued, her voice several tones higher. "The trouble with you men is that you grow callous."

"If you mean by that, am I worried—no, I'm not." That came hard. He thought, I've got to keep this on this level. He sat up and turned on the light. He said aloud, "Darling, if it gives you any satisfaction, you've succeeded in your purpose. I'm awake."

"It's about time," said Veda. "I think we ought to call up. And if you don't, I will."

Jamieson climbed to his feet. "Okay, but don't you dare hang over my neck when I'm calling. I refuse to have anybody suspect that I'm a hen-pecked husband. You stay right here."

He found himself relieved that she had forced the issue. He went out of the bedroom and shut the door firmly behind him. On the video, he gave his name. There was a pause, and then a grave-faced man in a space admiral's uniform came into view. Jamieson and he were acquainted, officially. His image filled the videoplate as he bent over the videophone in the patrol office.

He said, 'Trevor, the situation is as follows: Your son is still in the company of two Rulls—a different pair now, incidentally. They used a very ingenious method to get across the barrier, and at the present moment we suspect that about a hundred Rulls

posing as boys are somewhere in The Yards. Nobody has tried to cross in the past half hour, so we feel that every Rull in Solar City who had been prepared against the particular defense we had in the area is now in The Yards. Although they have not yet concentrated on any particular point, we feel that the crisis is imminent."

Jamieson said in a steady tone, "What about my son?"

"Undoubtedly, they have further plans for him. We are trying to provide him with a weapon, but that would have a limited value at best."

Jamieson realized wretchedly that they were being very careful to say nothing that would give him any real hope. He said slowly, "You let a hundred of these Rulls get into The Way without knowing what they were after?"

The admiral said, "You know how important it is that we learn their objective. What do they value? What do they think is worth such a tremendous risk? This is a very courageous enterprise on their part, and it is our duty to let it come to a head. We are reasonably certain of what they are after, but we must be sure. At the final moment we will make every effort to save your son's life, but we can guarantee nothing."

Jamieson realized clearly how these men regarded the situation. To them, Diddy's death would be a regrettable incident. The papers would say, "Casualties were light." They might even make a hero out of him for a day.

"I'm afraid," said the admiral, "I'll have to ask you to break off now. At this moment your son is going down under the ship, and I want to give my full attention to him. Goodbye."

Jamieson broke the connection and climbed to his feet. He stood for a moment bracing himself, and then he returned to the bedroom and said cheerfully, "Everything seems to be all right."

There was no reply. He saw that Veda was lying with her head on his pillow. She had evidently lain down to await his return and had immediately fallen asleep.

For a woman of her extreme sensitivity, he had done the merciful thing. She slept uneasily, her cheeks wet with tears. He decided to use a gas syringe under pressure to shoot a special sleep-inducing gas into her blood stream. When he did this, there was a pause, and then she relaxed with a drawn-out sigh. Her breathing grew slow and even.

Jamieson phoned Caleb Carson at his apartment and explained the situation. He then added urgently, "Get Ephraim. Tell him his family needs him; and bring him to Security Headquarters near the ship. Have him well boxed. Don't let anybody see him."

He broke the connection, dressed hurriedly and headed down to the Security Building himself. There would be problems, he knew. There would be resistance on the part of the military brass to the idea of using an ezwal. But the presence of the ezwal was a personal bonus that he and, through him, Diddy had earned.

"What'd that dame whisper to you?" asked Jackie. They were going down the escalator into the tunnel beneath The Way.

Diddy, who had been listening intently for the sound—there wasn't any particular noise—turned. "Oh, just what she said to
you."

Jackie seemed to consider that. They reached the walk and Diddy started immediately along it. Casually, he looked for a metal pillar with an H on it. He saw it abruptly, a hundred feet ahead.

Behind him, Gil spoke. "Why would she go to the trouble of whispering to you if she was going to tell us anyway?"

Their suspicion made Diddy tremble inside, but his training won out. "I think she was just having fun with us kids," he said.

"Fun!" That was Jackie.

Gil said, "What are we doing here under the ship?"

Diddy said, "I'm tired." He sat down on the edge of the walk beside the five-foot-thick metal beam that reared up into the distance above. He let his feet dangle down to the tunnel proper. The two Rulls walked past him and stood on the other side of the pillar. Diddy thought with dizzy excitement, They're going to communicate with each other—or with others!

He steadied himself and fumbled under the overlapping edge of the walk with his hand. Swiftly, he ran his fingers under the metal. He touched something. The tiny blaster came easily into his hand, and he slipped it into his pocket in a single synchronized motion. Then, weak from reaction, he sat there. He grew aware of the vibration of the metal on the bones of his thighs. His special shoes had absorbed most of that tremor, and he had been so intent on the weapon that he hadn't noticed immediately. Now he did. Ever so slightly, his body shook and shivered. He felt himself drawn into the sound. His muscles and organs hummed and quivered. Momentarily, he forgot the Rulls, and for that moment it seemed immeasurably strange to be sitting here on the raw metal, unprotected and in tune with the sound itself. He'd guessed the vibration would be terrific under the ship of ships. The city of The Yards was built on metal. But all the shock-absorbing material with which the streets and
roads were carpeted couldn't muffle the ultimately violent forces and energies that had been concentrated in one small area. Here were atomic piles so hot that they were exploding continuously with a maximum detonation short of cataclysm. Here were machines that could stamp out hundred-ton electro-steel plates.

For eight and a half years more, The Yards would exist for this colossal ship. And then, when it finally flew, he would be on it. Every family in The Yards had been selected for two purposes—because the father or mother had a skill that could be used in the building of the ship, or because they had a child who would grow up around the ship. His father, being top government personnel, had been included by request.

In no other way, except by growing up with it, would human beings ever learn to understand and operate the spaceship that was rising here like a young mountain. In its ninety-four hundred feet of length was concentrated the engineering genius of centuries, so much specialized knowledge, so much mechanical detail, that visiting dignitaries looked around in bewilderment at the acres of machines and dials and instruments on every floor, and at the flashing wall lights that had already been installed in the lower decks.

He would be on it. Diddy stood up in a shaking excitement of anticipation—just as the two Rulls emerged from behind the
pillar.

"Let's go!" said Jackie. "We've fooled around long enough."

Diddy came down from his height of exaltation, "Where to?"

Gil said, "We've been tagging along after you. Now, how about your going where we want to go for a change?"

Diddy did not even think of objecting. "Sure," he said.

The neon sign on the building said,
"research,"
and there were a lot of boys around. They wandered singly and in groups. He could see others in the distance, looking as if they were going nowhere in particular. Could any of those others be Rulls? Could they all be? But that was silly; he mustn't let his imagination run away with him.

Research. That was what they were after. Here in this building, human beings had developed the anti-Rull bacteria of the barrier. Just what the Rulls would want to know about that process, he had no idea. Perhaps a single bit of information in connection with it would enable them to destroy a source material or organism, and so nullify the entire defense. The Play Square had intimated that such possibilities existed.

All the doors of "Research" were closed, unlike those in the other buildings they had seen.

Jackie said, "You open up, Diddy."

Obediently, Diddy reached for the door handle. He stopped as two men came along the walk.

One of them hailed him. "Hello there, kid. We keep running into you, don't we?"

Diddy let go of the door and turned to face them. They looked like the two "men" who had originally brought him to the barrier and who had made the bacteria test on him. But that would be merely outward appearance. The only Rulls inside the barrier of all those in Solar City would be individuals who had been immunized against the particular bacteria which he had isolated for them at that one part of the barrier.

It would be a coincidence if both The Yards agent images had belonged to that group. Accordingly, these were probably not the same. Not that it mattered.

The spokesman said, "Glad we bumped into you again. We want to conduct another experiment. Now, look, you go inside there. Research is probably protected in a very special fashion. If we can prove our idea here, then we'll have helped in making it harder for the Rulls to come into The Yards. That'll be worth doing, won't it?"

Diddy nodded. He was feeling kind of sick inside, and he wasn't sure he could talk plainly in spite of all his training.

"Go inside," said the Rull, "stand around for a few moments, and then take a deep breath, hold it in, and come out. That's all."

Diddy opened the door, stepped through into the bright interior. The door closed automatically behind him. He found himself in a large room. I could run, he thought. They don't dare come in here. The absence of people inside the room chilled the impulse. It seemed unusual that there was no one around. Most of the departments in The Yards operated on a round-the clock basis.

Behind him, the door opened. Diddy turned. The only Rulls in sight were Jackie and Gil standing well back from the door, and other boys even farther away. Whoever had opened the door was taking no chances on getting a dose of anything, dangerous or otherwise.

"You can come out now," said the man's voice. He spoke from behind the door. "But remember, first take a deep breath and hold it."

Diddy took the breath. The door shut automatically as he emerged, and there were the two Yard police waiting behind it. One of them held up a little bottle with a rubber tube. "Exhale into this," he said.

When that was done, the Rull handed it to his companion, who

walked quickly around the corner of the building and out of sight.

The spokesman said, "Notice anything unusual?"

Diddy hesitated. The air in the building, now that he thought of it, had seemed thick, a little harder to breathe than ordinary air. He shook his head slowly. "I don't think so," he said.

The Rull was tolerant. "Well, you probably wouldn't notice," he said; then he added quickly, "We might as well test your blood too. Hold up your finger."