Linc ignored his question and said to Magda, “Call a meeting of the people. Meditate and ask for Jerlet’s guidance. He’ll answer you with the proof that we have a chance to reach the new world. He’ll show you that world, and tell you what needs to be done to reach it.” If I can get back to Jerlet’s domain and set up the proper tapes for the wall screens to show.
“There’ll be no meeting,” Monel snapped.
“I’ll tell the people about it. They’ll want a chance to see the proof,” said Linc. “The priestess can’t deny giving someone a chance to be heard.”
“That’s true,” Magda said. “If the people ask for a meeting, I can’t refuse. It’s my duty as priestess.”
“After the next workday,” Linc said. “Call the people together to see Jerlet’s proof.”
Magda nodded her head so slightly that Linc wondered if she moved it at all. Monel sat glaring, red-faced with fury.
Linc turned and pushed the door open. He strode past the guards and down the corridor to his own room.
It should be a simple matter to set up the back-up communications antennas. Linc told himself as he paced down the corridor. Jerlet showed me how, and the computer has all the information I need to do it. Then I can beam the data about Beryl into the screens down here, even though the regular communications channels are broken.
But sleep was making its insistent demands on him. By the time he got to his old room, he knew that he had to rest for a few hours, at least.
He was asleep as soon as his head touched the bunk. A deep dreamless sleep of exhaustion.
He awoke to someone shaking him by the shoulder.
“Linc…wake up. Please! Wake up.”
He swam up through a fog, focusing his eyes slowly, with enormous effort. It was so good to sleep, to slide back into warm oblivion…
“Linc, please! Wake up!”
He flicked his eyes open. Bending over him was Jayna. She looked terribly upset.
“Wha… what’s wrong?” Linc pushed himself up to a sitting position.
Jayna brushed back a wisp of hair. She was pretty, Linc realized. Golden hair and ice-blue eyes. Like the gold and blue of Baryta and Beryl, except that she was close enough to touch, warm, alive.
“What’s the matter?” he asked again.
She glanced nervously at the door to the corridor. It was closed, but from the look on her face, she seemed to be afraid that someone could see her in here with Linc.
“You’re in danger,” Jayna said breathlessly. Her voice was soft and high-pitched, a little girl’s voice. “Monel wants to cast you out.”
“That’s nothing new,” he grumbled as he reached down for his slippers.
“No! You don’t understand! He’s going to do it now. This shift. Before the meeting.”
Linc looked up at her. “What time is it?”
“Firstmeal’s just starting.”
He tugged on the slippers. “I’ve got a lot to do.”
Jayna sank to her knees beside him. “Linc… please listen to what I’m saying. Monel is out to kill you. He won’t let you get to the meeting. He wants you dead.”
He stared at her. She seemed really frightened. “How do you know? And why…”
“I heard him telling his guards to find you and bring you to the deadlock. They’re waiting for you at the galley. If you don’t show up there, they’ll come down here and get you.”
He got to his feet. Jayna stood up beside him. She’s shorter than Magda, he automatically noticed. But softer.
“We can hide in my room,” she said. “They won’t think of looking for you there.”
A trap? Aloud, he said, “Grab that helmet. I’ll get the rest of the suit.” He picked up the various pieces of his pressure suit, limp and lifeless now without him inside it. The backpack with its oxygen tanks was heavy, but Linc hefted it over one shoulder, gripping it by the straps.
“Hurry!” Jayna urged.
“The boots… can you carry them?”
She scurried to the corner of the room where he had left the boots and picked them up, shifting the bulbous helmet under her other arm.
Linc eased the door open and peeked out. A few people were walking in the corridor, but none of Mend’s guards were in sight.
“Come on,” he said, and started down the corridor.
“My room’s in the other direction.”
With a shake of his head, Linc countered, “This way. Toward the deadlock. That’s where we’re heading.”
She looked even more terrified, but she scampered along beside him. Wordlessly, they rushed down the corridor and made it to the lock without any interference.
Linc began pulling on the pressure suit. As he sealed the leggings and sleeves, he asked Jayna:
“Why did you warn me? I thought you were Monel’s girl.”
“I couldn’t let him hurt you. And besides…” her little-girl’s face looked hurt, almost teary, “he’s not interested in me. Only Magda. He said he was going to make me priestess, but all he does is stay with her!”
“Listen,” Linc said. “You’d better get down to the galley for firstmeal. Act as if everything’s normal. Otherwise Monel and his guards will realize that you’ve warned me.”
The frightened look came back into her eyes. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Go on … I’ll be all right.”
“You’re sure?”
He nodded. Then, as she hesitated, watching him pull on his gloves, she handed him the helmet that she was still holding.
“Thanks,” he said.
Jayna suddenly threw her arms around Linc’s neck and kissed him. “Don’t let them hurt you,” she whispered. Before Linc could answer she let go and dashed off down the corridor, toward the galley.
With a puzzled shrug, Linc cycled the airlock hatch open and stepped inside. No sense hanging around out in the corridor where they might see me. But he knew the airlock would be the last place Monel’s guards-would search for him. To them, it was the deadlock, the dreaded place where the dead were sent into outer darkness. No one went there unless they had to.
Linc put the helmet on, connected the oxygen and life-support hoses, and checked out the pressure suit quickly but thoroughly. Satisfied, he touched the buttons that put the airlock through the rest of its cycle. The air pumped out of the cramped metal-walled chamber, into the storage bottles that lay hidden behind the access panels lining the walls. The telltale lights on the tiny control panel shifted from amber to red, and the outer hatch swung open.
Once again Linc was outside the ship. This time, though, he hurried up the outer skin of the tube-tunnel, racing against time to get to the hub of the ship.
He had something less than ten hours before the meeting would begin, just after lastmeal. Less than ten hours to find the tapes he wanted and set them up on the back-up communications system.
I can do it, he told himself. I know lean. He kept repeating it to himself.
It seemed strange to re-enter Jerlet’s domain. His months there were suddenly like a dream, something that had happened only in his imagination. No wonder the others have a hard time believing it, Linc realized. I hardly can believe it myself.
He took off the helmet, backpack, and gloves, then went to work.
It took hours. There were a few tapes where Jerlet’s voice droned over the pictures of Baryta and Beryl. There were no tapes with Jerlet’s picture. Linc found some old tapes in the computer’s memory files, scenes from old Earth that would show the people where their ancestors had come from. A carefully programmed series of old Earth as seen from the ship, centuries ago, together with similar views of Beryl. They do look alike, Linc saw.