Oblomot rummaged for a fresh bottle in a nearby cabinet. It was as if he were pretending not to hear Heshke.
At last he said heavily: “Have another drink, Rond. I don’t blame you for thinking like that, because Titan propaganda is very good and everybody is infected by it. To your mind it even appears perfectly rational, that’s how good it is. But it’s wrong.”
Sipping the newly filled glass, Heshke said with a note of petulance: “Well, why are you unburdening your soul to me? Aren’t you afraid I’ll report you?”
“No, I trust you. Basically you’re just not the Titan type. I wanted you to know why I’m leaving. When things get bad – which they may – I want you to understand that there is an alternative, that Titan thinking isn’t the only option for our species.”
He raised his glass as though offering Heshke a toast. “To the future.”
“Where will you go?” Heshke asked idly.
“In hiding for a bit. I have friends.” Oblomot drained his glass. “Sorry to make a ‘race traitor’ of you, old man.”
“That’s all right,” mumbled Heshke, waving his hand in embarrassment. “You know I could never bring myself to inform on you, Blare.”
Lacking the energy to meet Oblomot’s arguments, he left after a few more drinks and made his way to his own tent. It was night now; the full moon was out, casting a cold, eerie radiance over the ruins. He glanced up at the shining satellite, thinking briefly of the Titan outposts there, lonely sentinels guarding the approaches to Earth, watching the outskirts of the solar system for the return of the invader.
Then for the millionth time he turned his full attention to the ruins themselves. Even without moonlight there had always been something ghostly, unearthly, about them – he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he had always put it down to the fact that they were, after all, of alien origin. On the short stroll to his tent he placed his hand on a time-worn wall. It was chill – yet, in his imagination, the phrase living rock came to him. The stone did indeed seem to carry the ghost of life, as if redolent of the beings who had shaped it. He reminded himself of the inexplicable photographs and shook his head in despair. Towers and walls reconstructing themselves over the centuries. What incredible hoax had the faker tried to perpetrate?
In his tent, he went straight to bed, his conversation with Oblomot tumbling over and over in his mind. Yes, he told himself, the Titans were masters of propaganda. But the propaganda was about real things, not about the fake things – not like those photographs. Its strength lay in its appeal to a primeval urge of nature. Blood and soil. It was a rare man who could resist it.
And he, too, was of that blood, and of that soil.
He was awakened just before dawn by the whine of hoverjets.
Blearily he rose from his camp bed and peered through the tent flap to see two hoverjets bearing Titan insignia settle squarely in the middle of the camp. Two others remained in the air, standing off just outside the ruins.
It was a frankly military style of approach. The airborne helijets were in a guard posture, and carried glaring searchlights which cast the scene in vivid relief.
Hurriedly Heshke dressed and went outside. A traversing searchlight beam hit him full in the face, transfixed him for a moment or two, then moved on. When his vision returned to normal he saw that two Titan noncoms were striding towards him.
“Are you Citizen Heshke?” one demanded. He nodded.
“Come with us, please.” They turned and strode off, leaving him to straggle after them.
The slim figure of Titan-Captain Brask stood by the nearer hoverjet. “Good morning, Heshke,” he said in a supercilious but not unfriendly voice. “We did warn you to be ready. Unfortunately it seems we need you somewhat sooner than we thought we would.”
Heshke said nothing, his brain still slow with sleep. “Is there anything you need to bring with you?” Brask asked politely. “Books, notes, charts? Well, we can supply anything you want, anyway.”
He turned. Blare Oblomot was approaching, walking slowly between Titan escorts. In the background Heshke saw some of his helpers emerging from their tents to stare curiously, white figures in pre-dawn darkness.
“Is my assistant Oblomot included in this project too?” he queried.
Brask gave a short, sharp laugh. “Oh, we know all about him. He’s got a different destination.”
As he came near, Oblomot gave Heshke a half pleading, half I-told-you-so look. Brask made a violent gesture with his arm.
“Take him to Major Brourne at Bupolbloc Two. Heshke comes with us.”
Heshke watched his friend being put aboard the second hoverjet, feeling sick inside. Bupolbloc Two, he thought. He hadn’t known there was a Number Two; hadn’t known that the building he had visited just yesterday was only Bupolbloc One.
Suddenly he reminded himself that his small personal belongings and toilet requisites were still in his tent, but he decided against returning to collect them. Brask looked impatient, and anyway the Titans were very efficient at providing details like that.
Numbly he climbed into the hoverjet. They surged upward and whined away to the north.
Suddenly there was a glare of light and the sound of an explosion from one of the other helijets, the one carrying Blare Oblomot. Heshke gasped with shock, and saw the flaring skeleton of the jet plummeting earthward in the darkness.
Brask jumped to his feet, cursing. “The fools! Didn’t they know enough to check him? He must have been carrying a suicide grenade!”
Heshke tore his gaze away from the blaze on the ground and gaped at him. Brask gave him a sidelong glance.
“You don’t know about these, do you? The underground has been using that trick quite a lot lately. Saves them from interrogation and takes a few of us with them.”
Unsuspected vistas seemed to be opening up to Heshke. “I… no, I hadn’t known.”
“Naturally, you wouldn’t. It’s not advertised on the media, and we have ways of discouraging rumour. Yes, there is an organised underground and your friend Oblomot was a member of it. You didn’t know that either – or did you?” Brask’s odd, quizzical gaze darted toward him.
“No, I hadn’t known – not until tonight,” Heshke murmured.
They hovered over the spot for a few minutes, watching the wrecked jet burn itself out. Finally one of the three remaining jets put down beside it. The other two continued the journey as the sun rose, whistling toward a destination that still had not been divulged to Heshke.
3
At the city of Cymbel they transferred to a fast intercontinental rocket transport. On board Heshke was given breakfast, but Brask said little during the two-hour journey. Once he went forward to the guidance cabin to receive a radio message and returned looking pensive.
They had chased the twilight zone on their five thousand mile trajectory, so it was still early morning when they arrived at their destination. The rocket transport put down at what was evidently a private landing strip. A car drove up to take them to a low, massive concrete building a few hundred yards away.
Once inside the building Heshke found himself confronted with the usual Titan combination of efficiency and bustle. The corridors literally hummed – he didn’t know from what source. Symbols whose meanings he did not understand signposted the way to various departments. He turned to Brask.
“What is this place?”
“A top secret research station.”
“Is the artifact here?”
Brask nodded. “That’s why this centre was set up – to study the artifact.”
Heshke’s eyebrows rose. “Then how long ago was it found?”