No one said anything for a time.
“Anyhow,” Babble said presently, “there’s nothing of value on him. Nothing that tells us anything.” He rolled up Russell’s left sleeve. “His watch: Omega self-winding. A good watch.” He rolled up the brown canvas sleeve a little farther. “A tattoo,” he said. “On the inside of his lower arm. How strange; it’s the same thing I have tattooed on my arm, and in the same place.” He traced the tattoo on Russell’s arm with his finger. “‘Persus 9,’” he murmured. He unfastened his cuff and rolled back his own left sleeve. There, sure enough, was the same tattoo on his arm and in exactly the same place.
Seth Morley said, “I have one on my instep.” Strange, he thought. And I haven’t thought about that tattoo in years.
“How did you get yours?” Dr. Babble asked him. “I don’t remember getting mine; it’s been too long. And I don’t remember what it means… if I ever did know. It looks like some kind of identifying military service mark. A location. A military outpost at Persus 9.”
Seth looked around at the rest of the group. All of them had acutely uncomfortable—and anxious—expressions on their faces.
“All of you have the mark on you, too,” Babble said to them, after a long, long time had passed.
“Does any one of you remember when you got this mark?” Seth Morley said. “Or why? Or what it means?”
“I’ve had mine since I was a baby,” Wade Frazer said.
“You were never a baby,” Seth Morley said to him.
“What an odd thing to say,” Mary said.
“I mean,” Seth Morley said, “that it isn’t possible to imagine him as a baby.”
“But that’s not what you said,” Mary said.
“What difference does it make what I said?” He felt violently irritable. “So we do have one common element—this annotation chiseled into our flesh. Probably those who are dead have it, too. Susie and the rest of them. Well, let’s face it; we all have a slot of amnesia dug somewhere in our brains. Otherwise, we’d know why we got this tattoo and what it means. We’d know what Persus 9 is—or was at the time the tattoo was made. I’m afraid this confirms the criminally insane theory; we were probably given these marks when we were prisoners in the Building. We don’t remember that, so we don’t remember this tattoo either.” He lapsed into brooding introversion, ignoring, for the time, the rest of the group. “Like Dachau,” he said. “I think,” he said, “that it’s very important to find out what these marks mean. It’s the first really solid indication we’ve found as to who we are and what this settlement is. Can any of you suggest how we find out what Persus 9 means?”
“Maybe the reference library on the squib,” Thugg said.
Seth Morley said, “Maybe. We can try that. But first I suggest we ask the tench. And I want to be there. Can you get me into the squib along with you?” Because, he said to himself, if you leave me here I will, like Belsnor, be murdered.
Dr. Babble said, “I’ll see that you’re gotten aboard—with this one proviso. First we ask the squib’s reference libraries. If it has nothing, then we’ll go searching out the tench. But if we can get it from the squib then we won’t be taking such a great—”
“Fine,” Morley said. But he knew that the ship’s reference service would be unable to tell them anything.
Under Ignatz Thugg’s direction they began the task of getting Seth Morley—and themselves—into the small squib.
Propped up at the controls of the squib once more, Seth Morley snapped on REFERENCE. “Yezzz sirr,” it squeaked.
“What is referred to by the designated Persus 9?” he asked. A whirr and then it spoke in its vodor voice. “I have no information on a Persussss 9,” REFERENCE said.
“If it were a planet, would you have a record of it?”
“Yezzz, if known to Interplan West or Interplan East authorities.”
“Thanks,” Seth Morley shut off the REFERENCE service. “I had a feeling it wouldn’t know. And I have an even stronger feeling that the tench does know.” That, in fact, the tench’s ultimate purpose would be served by asking it this question. Why he thought that he did not know.
“I’ll pilot the ship,” Thugg said. “You’re too injured; you lie down.”
“There’s no place to lie down because of all these people,” Seth Morley said.
They made room. And he stretched himself out gratefully. The squib, in the hands of Ignatz Thugg, zipped up into the sky. A murderer for a pilot, Seth Morley reflected. And a doctor who’s a murderer. And my wife. A murderess. He shut his eyes. The squib zoomed on, in search of the tench.
“There it is,” Wade Frazer said, studying the viewscreen. “Bring the ship down.”
“Okay,” Thugg said cheerfully. He moved the control ball; the ship at once began to descend.
“Will they pick up our presence?” Babble said nervously. “At the Building?”
“Probably,” Thugg said.
“We can’t turn back now,” Seth Morley said. “Sure we can,” Thugg said. “But nobody said anything about it.” He adjusted the controls; the ship glided to a long, smooth landing and came to rest, bumping noisily.
“Get me out,” Morley said, standing hesitantly; again his head rang. As if, he thought, a sixty cycle hum is being conducted through my brain. Fear, he thought; it’s fear that’s making me this way. Not my wound.
They gingerly stepped from the squib onto parched and highly arid land. A thin smell, again like something burning, reached their noses. Mary turned away from the smell, paused to blow her nose.
“Where’s the river?” Seth Morley said, looking around.
The river had vanished.
Or maybe we’re somewhere else, Seth Morley thought. Maybe the tench moved. And then he saw it—not far away. It had managed to blend itself almost perfectly with its local environment. Like a desert toad, he thought. Screwing itself backward into the sand.
Rapidly, on a small piece of paper, Babble wrote. He handed it, when finished, to Seth Morley. For confirmation.
WHAT IS PERSUS 9?
“That’ll do.” Seth Morley handed the slip around; all of them soberly nodded. “Okay,” he said, as briskly as he could manage. “Put it in front of the tench.” The great globular mass of protoplasmic slush undulated slightly, as if aware of him. Then, as the question was placed before it, the tench began to shudder… as if, Morley thought, to get away from us. It swayed back and forth, evidently in distress. Part of it began to liquify.
Something’s wrong, Seth Morley realized. It did not act like this before.
“Stand back!” Babble said warningly; he took hold of Seth Morley by his good shoulder and propelled him bodily away.
“My God,” Mary said, “it’s coming apart.” Turning swiftly, she ran; she hurried away from the tench and climbed back into the squib.
“She’s right,” Wade Frazer said. He, too, retreated.
Babble said, “I think it’s going to—” A loud whine from the tench sounded, shutting out his voice. The tench swayed, changed color; liquid oozed out from beneath it and formed a gray, disturbed pool on all sides of it. And then, as they stared fixedly in dismay, the tench ruptured. It split into two pieces, and, a moment later, into four; it had split again.
“Maybe it’s giving birth,” Seth Morley said, above the eerie whine. By degrees, the whine had become more and more intense. And more and more urgent.
“It’s not giving birth to anything,” Seth Morley said. “It’s breaking apart. We’ve killed it with our question; it isn’t able to answer. And instead it’s being destroyed. Forever.”
“I’ll retrieve the question,” Babble knelt, whisked the slip of paper back from its spot close to the tench.
The tench exploded.
They stood for a time, not speaking, gazing at the ruin that had been the tench. Gelatin everywhere… a circle of it, on all sides of the central remains. Seth Morley took a few steps forward, in its direction; Mary and the others who had run away came slipping cautiously back, to stand with him and view it. View what they had done.