"Yes," said Farnham quickly. "Half-rate as agreed."
"Half-rate for cash," said Dumarest. "Full rate on a note. Make it out and we have a deal."
"And landing?" Ava Vasudiva's tone was brittle. "When do we land?"
"Soon." Dumarest paused, turning as he reached the door. "In three days."
The control room was a place of shadows, drifts of dimness illuminated by the glow of instruments, the glory of the screens. Standing before them Ysanne resembled some ancient goddess, jewels of brilliance touching her hair, the planes of her face with kaleidoscopic hues. Tiredness had deepened the shadows around her eyes; a weariness born more of the tedious journey than lack of sleep, but now she was vibrant with excitement.
"There!" Her hand lifted to point at the splendor of the universe. "By God, Earl, we did it! We found it! The end of the rainbow! Earth!"
From where he sat in the big pilot's chair Batrun warned, "Not Earth, my dear. You mustn't call it that. We agreed to call it Heaven-our passengers wouldn't like the truth."
"To hell with them!" Her voice rose in triumph. "This is it, I tell you! The big one! The pot of gold! That's Earth, out there! You're looking at Earth!"
Dumarest stepped forward, feeling the pulse of blood in his ears, the tension, the sudden quiver of his hands. A metabolic reaction which constricted his chest and edged his vision with blackness. He fought to conquer it as he moved closer, staring at the screen. At the blaze of stars. At the tiny mote framed among them in the enhancing pattern of the target zone. One which blurred a little as if seen through rain.
Chapter Ten
There were seas and plains and masses of scudding cloud with vast expanses covered with shattered stone as if a giant child had destroyed fabrications in a fit of petulant irritation. Clustered forests drew brown and green patterns and ice caps sprawled in blue-white abandon. Massed blooms made a tapestry edging the silver threads of rivers and peaks stood like gnarled guardians in ranked and somber array.
"Beautiful!" said Ysanne. "Earl, it's beautiful!" She touched a control and an image jumped into amplified details on her screen. "Look at that ravine! And there! See? That canyon! And that lake!" She sucked in her breath at the sight of a waterfall; endless masses of water cascading down from a soaring precipice, the summit and base wreathed in spume which coiled like smoke. A moment and it had gone, replaced by an undulating desert patched with vivid color, scored with riffs, mounded with silken dunes. "No cities," she murmured. "No signs of industry. Earl, it's a virgin world!"
Dumarest said nothing as he stood drinking in the vistas, the scenes.
"Ours," said Ysanne. "All ours! A whole, damned world to call our own."
Batrun said dryly, "Our passengers could argue that."
"Not for long." She was abruptly savage. "They play it our way or they don't play at all. Earl-"
"Forget it!" He was curt. "There's a whole planet down there, why argue over a few square miles? Let's do one thing at a time. Picked your spot yet, Andre?"
"More than one," said Batrun. He was in the big chair, hands poised on the controls, ready to turn the Erce into an extension of his body. To bring the massed tons of inanimate bulk down to kiss the dirt beneath. But, for now, there was still time to relax. "Near the equator, I think. Not too far from the shore of an ocean. Close to a river would be nice."
"With a supply of ready-broken stone not too far and plenty of growing timber close to hand." Ysanne was sarcastic. "Why not throw in herds of game while you're at it? Obedient creatures which roll over and die at a word of command. It would help if they could skin themselves first, of course."
"You sound bitter, my dear." Batrun adjusted the magnification of a screen. "And a little illogical. If Earth is paradise as the legends claim then all things should be possible." He checked his instruments and shed his bantering tone. "Our orbit is decaying. We must find a landing place. I'd like it to be the best."
"The second best," she said. "Or the third. We want the very best for ourselves." Her eyes moved toward Dumarest. "Right, Earl?"
"Choose," he said. "Choose and land."
Batrun obeyed as he sat in his chair, tense, holding every life in the vessel in the skill of his hands. Nursing them as he sent the Erce falling from the skies, to slow, to drift in the, protective shimmer of its Erhaft field, to finally touch and settle on the dirt.
"Earth!" Ysanne sucked in her breath as the vessel stilled. "We found it, Earl. Now let's go and see what it looks like."
She followed Dumarest as he made for the hold, the hatch, the ramp outside. As it lowered Batrun caught her by the arm, drawing her back from the opening, shaking his head as he turned to glare at him.
"Wait," he whispered. "Let Earl go first."
He was in no hurry. For a long moment Dumarest stood at the head of the ramp, looking down at the dirt, the grass, the soft contours of the clearing. Lifting his eyes to study the ochre stone spread to one side and rising to low hills. Lifting them higher still to look at the clear blueness of a sky fleeced with scudding white clouds and set with the golden ball of a brilliant sun. The air held an encompassing stillness broken by the rasp of his boots as he began to walk down the ramp.
A man going home.
Ysanne watched him as he walked slowly down the slope of the ramp, a frown puckering her brows. Some, she knew, would have walked tall and proud, arrogantly flaunting their wealth or position. Others would have crept in the shadow of darkness, failures returning to the haven of familiar things. Dumarest did neither and for a moment she was puzzled and then, with a sudden flash of insight, she understood.
Dumarest walked down the ramp as if he were approaching a woman.
She sensed it as he began to move faster down the slope, his body leaning forward, hands lifted, head tilted downward to the ground below. A lover rushing to the beloved mistress lying in wait before him. One for whom he had yearned for too long so that now, as they neared, the barrier which had held emotion in check began to crumple to reveal the torment within; the agony of parting, the need, the crying emptiness, the ceaseless ache of being incomplete, alone.
"No!" She felt Batrun's hand on her wrist the thin fingers gripping with an unexpected strength. As he pulled her back he whispered again, "No-let him be alone!"
She moved forward with instinctive jealousy, now she watched as Dumarest reached the end of the ramp, taking three long strides before dropping to his knees, to dig his hands deep in the loam, to freeze, stooped, shoulders quivering as if he were a lover locked in the release of orgasm.
"No," said Batrun again and she turned, snarling, fighting the restraint of his hand, her own darting to her belt, the buckle, the knife it contained. "Give him time, my dear." His voice was soothing. "This is his home. Don't you understand? His home."
Earth. Mother Earth-she remembered the name of the ship and what it meant. Erce-Mother Earth. Mother!
She sagged, sucking in her breath, looking at the wrist Batrun released, the bruises dark beneath the skin. There was a moment in which she was shaken by the depth of her passion and then, with a subtle shift, the picture changed. He had run not to the warm embrace of a loved mistress but to the comfort of a more basic need. A child running to the warmth and security of its mother. To touch and feel the haven of what it had left, the womb from which it had been rejected.
"Strange," murmured Batrun, "how people have an affinity with their world. Like some animals who are driven to return to the place of their birth in order to breed. Some make a religion of it." He fumbled for his snuff box, took a pinch, and said, as he snapped shut the lid, "I confess it has never bothered me to any degree-but I was not born on Earth."