Meantime, the others packed his concentrated food rations, and tested the Teleo components.
The Teleo had helped to make Earth One World with one tongue. It looked simple but wasn’t. There was a lightweight skull cap connected by twin cable to a small box fixed on a belt. The solitary controclass="underline" a push-pull switch. Two or more people could communicate via the Teleo, even if they spoke different languages. A thought, in essence, was a measurable electrical discharge from the brain cells. The Teleo precisely measured that discharge and transmitted it on a short-wave. Or it could receive such an impulse; it was a two-way radio. The discharge was reproduced in the receiver’s brain, became a thought which was interpreted in the recipient’s language. Only the frontal lobes, concerned with deliberately conscious thoughts, were affected by the cap. Subconscious or unconscious thoughts remained screened. If a sender had difficulty in controlling or clarifying his thoughts, he merely switched off until he was good and ready to communicate. The effective range of the Teleo was but three metres, and this had both advantages and disadvantages.
George decided to take six sets, packed in a satchel. He said; “If I do meet up with the Venusians, I hope they’ve got heads to fit these things on.”
He checked his supplies, then shook hands with the others, and said goodbye. Freiburg warned: “Keep away from the ceiling. Remember, those clouds are poisonous. Look for that white circle—and steer clear of the green triangle. Good luck, George.”
George took off, and climbed slowly. The faces below became white dots and then imperceptible. The spaceship shrank until it looked just like an old stick lying on the ground. The stick floated away behind and was lost in the distance. Ahead, the blur on the horizon was revealing itself as a range of white-peaked mountains. Soon, he was passing between those peaks and staring down into desolate, twisting valleys. Beyond, the plain resumed, and went on and on. Visibility continued to be poor.
He came down pretty close to the ground, looking for friendly vehicles or signs of the white circle. All at once he glimpsed a great metal wheel, similar to the one which had created a barrier around the ship and its crew. It was bowling busily along upon a secret errand, cutting its path as straight as a bee-line. It was all alone on the spreading plain but seemed confident of its mission. He swooped down to follow it. The ultimate target, more likely than not, would turn out to be white circle elements.
However, from directly behind and above it was so thin that he soon lost sight of it. Circling, he caught a glimpse of it later, so far off that it looked no larger than a silver dollar. It was too distant and moving too fast for him to have a hope of catching up with it now.
He kept a look-out for another, but that was the only moving object he saw until a jet plane dropped from the clouds and came screaming down at him. It shot past and banked widely. In those moments he saw it clearly: a stubby craft, gray as the clouds, with swept-back wings. On each wing was a white circle. His heart leaped. A friendly plane. Perhaps it would guide him to the G.H.Q. Perhaps it had come for that very purpose.
The friendly plane, having zoomed around a semicircle, now drove straight at him, spitting unfriendly rocket missiles. The confusion in his mind was mirrored by the noisy physical confusion without.
There were ear-splitting bangs and widening smoke trails. He lost control of the helicopter. It was taken from him and bounced about the sky like a rubber ball. Sometimes the greeny-brown plain usurped the place of the cloud layer. Sometimes it turned itself into a wall, standing first on this side of him, then on that. Smoke blotches stained all aspects impartially. He pressed the ejector button—voluntarily or not, he never decided. But suddenly he was flying without the doubtful benefit of the ’copter. Then he was falling. His parachute opened automatically, and he began to rock under its see-sawing canopy.
The ’copter, with only air where its tail had been, was side-slipping away and below. Its assassin had vanished, presumably back into the clouds. Angry, bewildered, feeling betrayed, he watched the helicopter crash on the plain. Why had the white circle plane shot him down on sight?
A mistake? But surely the white circle crowd had a radio. Surely information about the Earthmen had reached all their fighting forces by now? If not, then the white circle G.H.Q. wasn’t up to its job, and its help could only be regarded as a doubtful quantity.
Or perhaps they’d changed sides yet again? In which case they could never be trusted for a moment.
He landed with a foot-tingling jar. It looked much the same as the place where the space-ship had landed. The murky plain was pitted with similar shell or bomb craters.
But now he was alone and unarmed, and both sides appeared to be gunning for him.
He threw off the parachute harness, and plodded off in the direction of the crashed ’copter. He must try to salvage the food. He was less concerned about the Teleos. There didn’t seem much point to them now. Venusians, with or without heads, were clearly people to avoid.
III
MARA RETURNED with a bundle of the succulent loogo stalks even before Dox had missed them from the well-guarded store. Swift as she’d been, it was already too late. Mother sat up in bed with her mouth open as if eager to be fed at once. But she’d never eat again. Her mouth was open this time merely because her jaw had dropped.
Mara looked at the fat, still body, shrugged and thought: well, that servitude is ended. She fed well. None can say I failed in my duty. Absently, she nibbled a stalk herself. She felt no sorrow, only relief. She was free from the onus of feeding that insatiable appetite. Now she wished to be free from Fami itself. It was a problem. The only known way to leave Fami was the way her mother (most reluctantly, she was sure) had gone: along Death’s road.
Maybe Leep knew another way. He knew most things. Still nibbling, she went along to his cave. He was squatting outside writing painfully upon a strip of bleached cloth.
“Go away,” he said, without looking up. “Even my disciples aren’t allowed near me when I’m composing.”
She sat down silently, watching him, and eating.
“Give me a loogo stalk, and you may stay.”
She would have stayed, anyway, but she gave him a stalk.
“Your mother is dead,” he said, with his mouth full. She nodded, not questioning his source of knowledge. Leep was often aware of events without being told of them. He was a mystic, a seer, a versifier, and very lazy. Because of his rare qualities, he had a circle of devotees who stole for him.
“You may have this.” He passed her the cloth strip. She read it, as slowly and painfully as he’d written it. It’s all a pointless game,
Played by a forgotten name,
The warlord and child,
Immortal, bored Senilde,
In a house of tricks,
A box of bricks,
Beneath the verdant tower.
Who commands the power
To stifle his breath
And bring him death?
“Become my artist now, and I shall write you many such verses,” Leep said. Mara tucked the strip carefully in her one pocket. It was worth preserving. Cloth was scarce. This was good cloth. She could use it for patching. She shook her head. “I wish to leave Fami. Which is the way?”