Brourne’s gun was in his hand. Su-Mueng too drew his own Corgel automatic in one easy movement – the Titans, treating his honorary rank as one huge joke, had delighted in fitting him out with all accoutrements, including an “honorary certificate of racial purity”– and bent forward in a supple stance, bringing his gun hand forward to shoot the Major carefully in the arm. Brourne swung away, cursing with pain.
Su-Mueng put a hand between Sobrie’s shoulder blades and propelled him through the door. Sobrie, surrendering his will, ran with him across the plaza toward the stream of guns and vehicles that bounced across the occasionally uneven flooring.
Glancing behind him, Sobrie saw Brourne struggle to the door, leaning against the jamb. Su-Mueng threw up his hand imperiously, bringing to a halt a light truck.
The driver glanced curiously at him, but he already knew about this strange dev officer; it didn’t seem odd to him that he should be hitching a ride, while Sobrie’s presence went unremarked. Su-Mueng urged his companion into the covered rear, joined him, and banged on the driving cab for the Titan to continue.
The truck was half-filled with crated ammunition. They settled down tensely as the vehicle jolted forward. “When we’re out of the area we’ll slip out and make our own way,” Su-Mueng said, speaking low.
Sobrie nodded. They rode for some minutes with no apparent sign of danger, and now that he had time free from action Su-Mueng let his dismay and resentment flood like a tide of sickness through his bloodstream.
“Anyone could have told you,” Sobrie admonished, noticing his distress. “It was a pretty silly thing to do, tying yourself in with the Titans.”
“I thought I would give my father’s death some meaning,” Su-Mueng answered. “Never again would a man die for loving his son.…”
He trailed off, realising that Sobrie didn’t know what he was talking about. His face creased in a pondering frown. “Perhaps the Titans will go away again when they have what they want.”
“Not likely. They’ll probably try to fly this city to the solar system and orbit it somewhere. It gives them a ready-made industrial system, complete with millions of trained slaves, and they’ll make all the use they can of it, for a long time to come. Even if they decide to abandon it, they wouldn’t leave anybody alive,” he ended. “To their way of thinking you people are a blot on nature. I’m amazed you couldn’t see it.”
“I knew they hold to some sort of biological creed, of course,” Su-Mueng admitted grudgingly, “but I hadn’t supposed it would make any difference. Ours was a practical arrangement purely, to our mutual advantage – as I thought. There was no conflict of interests.”
“Ah well, I suppose it would have gone the same way whatever race you belonged to,” Sobrie sighed. “The Titans always seek only their own advantage – never anyone else’s.”
Su-Mueng was silent for a while. “It’s all yet another indictment of Retort City’s social methods,” he said then, grinding the words out. “I was brought up in a closed system, unable to adapt myself to the mores of another world.”
“Your remarks, nevertheless, are acute,” said Sobrie with a wry smile. “All you need is a chance. But where exactly are we supposed to be going?”
“Having brought disaster to my city, the least I can do is to try to rectify the situation. Perhaps something can be salvaged from all this yet.”
“I’d like to know how you’re going to do that, young man.”
Su-Mueng brooded, and after a while peered out of the back of the truck.
“Here,” he commanded.
They dropped lightly from the truck, stumbled, and ran for the shelter of a grove of willow trees. The convoy passed by without pause.
Behind the grove was a colonnade flanked by walls slatted and louvered in rosewood. They set off down this and then Su-Mueng, hesitating frequently, led Sobrie on a long, circuitous tour of the Leisure Retort.
Sobrie, who wasn’t yet very familiar with the retort, saw much that was new to him. The beauty of the place was offset, to some extent, by the ubiquitous black-and-gold Titan uniforms. Amazingly, no general order for their arrest seemed to have gone out and Su-Mueng was several times saluted smartly by patrolling troops.
An unreal air pervaded the city. The inhabitants, contrasting sharply in appearance with their newly arrived conquerors, displayed no apparent alarm. There was much laughing and joking as the sweating Titans set up their emplacements. If Sobrie hadn’t already sampled the mental sophistication of these people, he would have thought them to be simple children who didn’t know what was happening.
At last they entered what Sobrie took to be a nursery. Cribs lined the walls of a sunny room, nearly every crib bearing a baby. All, Sobrie guessed, were newborn.
He couldn’t imagine why Su-Mueng should have brought him to a maternity ward. A young woman came forward, inclining her head while Su-Mueng spoke to her rapidly in a low voice. She frowned, looked doubtful and incredulous by turns, and then the two of them went off somewhere together.
Sobrie was beginning to feel uneasy by the time Su-Mueng returned. “They’ve agreed to it,” the young man said. “It’s kind of hard to get these people to admit there’s an emergency afoot. I thought I was going to have to use force.”
“They’ve agreed to what?” Sobrie asked, following the other. They passed along a corridor, smelling pleasantly of perfumes, and came to a chamber that evidently served some function not clear to Sobrie. There were cradles, set on rails that vanished into the wall. A barely perceptible hum filled the air.
“We’re going down into the Production Retort,” Su-Mueng informed him. Men entered the chamber, removed the cradles and replaced them with a platform on which were mounted a number of padded chairs.
One of them grinned cheerfully at Su-Mueng. “A long time since this was last used,” he said.
At his direction Sobrie seated himself in one of the chairs beside Su-Mueng. The wall facing them rolled away, revealing a tunnel that dwindled into the distance.
Su-Mueng’s expression was matter-of-fact. The platform moved into the tunnel, which was unlit and soon pitch-black. They travelled smoothly, without noticeable acceleration – without, indeed, any noticeable breeze – but Sobrie became aware of an unusual feeling, as if he were being lifted and compressed at the same time, and the faint hum intensified. After perhaps two minutes a light showed ahead, brightening until they emerged into a chamber much like the one they’d left.
Su-Mueng leaped up from his chair, shouting excitedly at the receptionists, young women who seemed astonished at their arrival. Sobrie followed him as he dashed into an adjoining chamber. From nearby he heard the crying of very young babies.
There were no babies, however, in the room in which Sobrie found himself. There was a bank of instruments and controls arranged in a workmanlike way around a bucket seat and desk. In that seat was a controller – but dressed in a simple blue garb rather than the sumptuous finery Sobrie had come to expect in the Leisure Retort.
Energetically Su-Mueng pushed the controller aside and applied himself with great concentration to the controls. The displaced controller gawped from the floor, too staggered to rise.
The ever-present hum that lay just within the bounds of audibility died into silence. With satisfaction Su-Mueng drew his automatic and fired several times into the main switch, sealing the settings temporarily at least.
The two retorts were now totally separated in time: no time-gradient connected them. If the Titans were to come along the tunnel Sobrie and Su-Mueng had just travelled, or to enter by any other route, they would only arrive into its unpeopled future.