Andrews tossed his cigarette savagely away. The cigarette rolled off, glowing behind them. "Anything more?"
"Nothing. It all happened in a second. She was standing there, looking over the water. Suddenly she quivered -- like a dead branch. Then she just sort of dwindled away. And the robant was out of the launch and into the water with her before I could figure out what was happening."
The sky was almost dark. Huge clouds drifted across the faint stars. Clouds of unhealthy night vapors and particles of waste. A flock of immense birds crossed the horizon, flying silently.
Against the broken hills the moon was rising. A diseased, barren globe, tinted faintly yellow. Like old parchment.
"Let's get back in the ship," Andrews said. "I don't like this place."
"I can't figure out why it happened. The old woman." Norton shook his head.
"The wind. Radioactive toxins. I checked with Centaurus II. The War devastated the whole system. Left the planet a lethal wreck."
"Then we won't --"
"No. We won't have to answer for it." They continued for a time in silence. "We won't have to explain. It's evident enough. Anybody coming here, especially an old person --"
"Only nobody would come here," Norton said bitterly. "Especially an old person."
Andrews didn't answer. He paced along, head down, hands in pockets. Norton followed silently behind. Above them, the single moon grew brighter as it escaped the mists and entered a patch of clear sky.
"By the way," Norton said, his voice cold and distant behind Andrews. "This is the last trip I'll be making with you. While I was in the ship I filed a formal request for new papers."
"Oh."
"Thought I'd let you know. And my share of the kilo positives. You can keep it."
Andrews flushed and increased his pace, leaving Norton behind. The old woman's death had shaken him. He lit another cigarette and then threw it away.
Damn it -- the fault wasn't his. She had been old. Three hundred and fifty years. Senile and deaf. A faded leaf, carried off by the wind. By the poisonous wind that lashed and twisted endlessly across the ruined face of the planet.
The ruined face. Salt ash and debris. The broken line of crumbling hills. And the silence. The eternal silence. Nothing but the wind and the lapping of the thick stagnant water. And the dark birds overhead.
Something glinted. Something at his feet, in the salt ash. Reflecting the sickly pallor of the moon.
Andrews bent down and groped in the darkness. His fingers closed over something hard. He picked the small disc up and examined it.
"Strange," he said.
"Strange," he said.
He slid away from the control panel, searching his pockets for it.
The disc was worn and thin. And terribly old. Andrews rubbed it and spat on it until it was clean enough to make out. A faint impression -- nothing more. He turned it over. A token? Washer? Coin?
On the back were a few meaningless letters. Some ancient, forgotten script. He held the disc to the light until he made the letters out.
E PLURIBUS UNUM
He shrugged, tossed the ancient bit of metal into a waste disposal unit beside him, and turned his attention to the star charts, and home...
Imposter
"One of these days I'm going to take time off," Spence Olham said at first-meal. He looked around at his wife. "I think I've earned a rest. Ten years is a long time."
"And the Project?"
"The war will be won without me. This ball of clay of ours isn't really in much danger." Olham sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. "The newsmachines alter dispatches to make it appear the Outspacers are right on top of us. You know what I'd like to do on my vacation? I'd like to take a camping trip to those mountains outside of town, where we went that time. Remember? I got poison oak and you almost stepped on a gopher snake."
"Sutton Wood?" Mary began to clear away the food dishes. "The Wood was burned a few weeks ago. I thought you knew. Some kind of flash fire."
Olham sagged. "Didn't they even try to find the cause?" His lips twisted. "No one cares anymore. All they can think of is the war." He clamped his jaws together, the whole picture coming up in his mind, the Outspacers, the war, the needle-ships.
"How can we think about anything else?"
Olham nodded. She was right, of course. The dark little ships out of Alpha Centauri had bypassed the Earth cruisers easily, leaving them like helpless turtles. It had been one-way fights, all the way back to Terra.
All the way, until the protec-bubble was demonstrated by Westinghouse Labs. Thrown around the major Earth cities and finally the planet itself, the bubble was the first real defense, the first legitimate answer to the Outspacers -- as the news-machines labeled them.
But to win the war, that was another thing. Every lab, every project was working night and day, endlessly, to find something more: a weapon for positive combat. His own project, for example. All day long, year after year.
Olham stood up, putting out his cigarette. "Like the Sword of Damocles. Always hanging over us. I'm getting tired. All I want to do is take a long rest. But I guess everybody feels that way."
He got his jacket from the closet and went out on the front porch. The shoot would be along any moment, the fast little bug that would carry him to the Project.
"I hope Nelson isn't late." He looked at his watch. "It's almost seven."
"Here the bug comes," Mary said, gazing between the rows of houses. The sun glittered behind the roofs, reflecting against the heavy lead plates. The settlement was quiet; only a few people were stirring. "I'll see you later. Try not to work beyond your shift, Spence."
stirring. "I'll see you later. Try not to work beyond your shift, Spence."
"Well?" Olham said, as the bug shot ahead. "Heard any interesting news?"
The usual," Nelson said. "A few Outspace ships hit, another asteroid abandoned for strategic reasons."
"It'll be good when we get the Project into final stage. Maybe it's just the propaganda from the newsmachines, but in the last month I've gotten weary of all this. Everything seems so grim and serious, no color to life."
"Do you think the war is in vain?" the older man said suddenly. "You are an integral part of it, yourself."
"This is Major Peters," Nelson said. Olham and Peters shook hands. Olham studied the older man.
"What brings you along so early?" he said. "I don't remember seeing you at the Project before."
"No, I'm not with the Project," Peters said, "but I know something about what you're doing. My own work is altogether different."
A look passed between him and Nelson. Olham noticed it and he frowned. The bug was gaining speed, flashing across the barren, lifeless ground toward the distant rim of the Project building.
"What is your business?" Olham said. "Or aren't you permitted to talk about it?"
"I'm with the government," Peters said. "With FSA, the security organ."
"Oh?" Olham raised an eyebrow. "Is there any enemy infiltration in this region?"
"As a matter of fact I'm here to see you, Mr Olham."
Olham was puzzled. He considered Peters" words, but he could make nothing of them. "To see me? Why?"
"I'm here to arrest you as an Outspace spy. That's why I'm up so early this morning. Grab him Nelson --"
The gun drove into Olham's ribs. Nelson's hands were shaking, trembling with released emotion, his face pale. He took a deep breath and let it out again.
"Shall we kill him now?" he whispered to Peters. "I think we should kill him now. We can't wait."