Before he could drive away, the blonde ran down from the porch. She leaned across the seat and touched his wrist.
'Maybe we really shouldn't see each other again,' she said. 'But I would like it if we did. If you come this way again, ask for me in the village of Nod. Or you can call me through the TV.'
'I'd like that very much. But I don't know. The authorities might interfere. And what would your family do if they thought I was courting you?'
'We'll worry about that when it's time to do so,' she said.
She withdrew her hand, leaving a warm tingling spot on his wrist. 'It's up to you. I've been too bold as it is.'
He drove away without looking back. It had been a pleasant experience, one which had done much, even if only temporarily, to alleviate his loneliness.
Except when he was with Philemon and his fellow athletes, he'd felt that he was truly an alien. What was it? 'A stranger in a strange land.'
The hospitality and the genuine friendliness of the family, and the attraction Gulthilo felt for him, had made him feel warm and somewhat secure. But, he warned himself, this was illusory. There was danger in seeing the blonde, and the Ben-Hebhels had shown to their guest a welcome that their Law probably required.
No, that wasn't fair. Their reception of him had not been the polite formality that was demanded if correct behaviour was to be observed. They'd seemed genuinely interested in him. Of course, that could be because he was a curiosity, something they could talk about to their friends, a conversation piece.
As long as he had no evidence, he told himself, he was being paranoid again. Why take them at their face value until he had proof it was false?
Wang had given him a bottle of wine. He drank from it now and then so that when he reached the wall he was half-drunk. He realised that he was stupid to be in this condition. He had to have all his wits when he was trying to locate the tunnel entrances. It was then that he knew that he was drinking because he did not really believe that he was going to get away with his effort. They - the enemy - were too indifferent. They didn't care if he took a car and drove around doing what he wanted to do and eventually found the entrance. They knew where he was; they could stop him any time they wished.
By the time he'd finished the bottle, instead of feeling audacious and exhilarated, he was in a funk. He was a fool to think he could boldly drive up to the escape route and go through it. No intelligent people - and the Martians were intelligent even if they did have some weird religious convictions - would leave the way to the surface unguarded.
Or perhaps they had done so because, once he reached the surface, he'd find that the lander wasn't operable. Or that it had been removed.
Nevertheless, he drove up the winding road to the dome, which he had seen from the ground level. What the hell. He might as well go through with it.
Before him was a metal door, two doors, in fact, set into the wall of the cavern. On his right was the hemisphere, shining in the decreased light of late afternoon. There was no one around. They felt so secure they hadn't even posted guards.
He stopped the car and punched the off button. For a minute he sat listening, his gaze moving around to take in everything it could. He turned around once and looked behind him. No one was coming up the road after him. The only near vehicle in sight was a large horse-drawn wagon a half-mile away, piled with something shaggy. Probably a farmer taking a load of plants to some destination.
It was very quiet here. A slight breeze moved over his face, the normal air- conditioning in this immense hollow. The sun's rays sparkled here and there, rays glancing off white houses and storage domes, off a brook or creek, and once an intense flash as if from a mirror. A red deer trotted out from the edge of a thick wood near the wall, looked around, and disappeared back into the trees.
It was all very quiet and pastoral. Yet it was a time-bomb ticking away; it could explode on Earth. Perhaps. What did the Martians plan?
Orme got out of the car and walked over to the dome. Its great windows were open, and the door stood ajar. No sound came from it. But when he looked through a window, he saw a male Krsh sitting at a desk writing with a pen.
The Krsh looked up as if he had heard Orme, though he had made no sound.
'Come in, Richard,' Hfathon said. 'I've been waiting for you.'
10
His heart beating hard, Orme entered. He took the chair indicated by the Krsh. Hfathon leaned back and smiled at him across the desk. Orme thought he looked smug.
Hfathon gestured at an instrument-control console against the wall.
'There is the means to open the tunnel door. You probably would have figured out how to operate it. And then what? You'd have triggered alarms in the central government building and within the tunnel complex itself. There are men stationed at all times in the complex. Even if they weren't there, you couldn't open more than one door within without a coded sonic device nor without the co- operation of two human monitors in the government building.'
Orme shrugged. 'I had to try.'
'Of course. Very commendable. It was your duty to make an attempt. But I am surprised, and disappointed, that your colleagues lack your courage and determination.'
'They think escape is impossible. So I didn't enlist them. Anyway, they're so fascinated with their studies that I don't think they really want to leave. Even if it is their duty to get back to Earth if they can.'
'However,' Hfathon said, 'from another viewpoint your duty should not be to your nation if that duty means preferring evil over good. There is Someone higher than nations or a whole world. You should have thought about that. If you had, you would have seen that the Sons of Light are to be preferred to the Sons of Darkness. You would have cast your allegiance to them. That is, you would have if you could see that most of Earth's inhabitants are of the Sons of Darkness. So...'
'Why would I think that?' Orme blazed.
Hfathon said, calmly, 'It is obvious. You and your fellows have told us much about conditions on Earth. It is plain that injustice, misery, poverty, murder, every conceivable kind of crime, and, above all, hatred and hatefulness abound there, i You have the means for making Earth as near a paradise as is possible, but you pervert these means.'
He paused, then said, 'I'm assuming, of course, that what you tell us is the truth. I can't see that you'd paint such a bad picture deliberately. Now, be truthful, isn't it far superior here to anything you know on Earth?'
'Yes,' Orme said. 'I admit that what I've seen so far is incomparably better. But then you have a small society here, and you're not subjected to the many influences existing on Earth. I mean, you're homogenous. Here you don't have many races, many nations, languages, and differing ideologies and religions. Nor do you have the thousand clashing traditions and the many hostilities of classes, races, and political systems. These were wiped out when you formed a single political-religious-economic entity. You took one tradition and developed it without interference from others. You did that a long time ago, and you also had a superior science and technology enabling you to give your people the benefits we Terrestrials lacked then.'
'True,' Hfathon said. 'So... we might give you those benefits you lack now. But not just as gifts which you will inevitably pervert.'
'I'd like a drink of water.'
Hfathon rose, saying, 'Allow me to get it for you. I am your host... though I didn't invite you here.'
He went into the next room and came back holding a tall glass.