Lasting peace—the words echoed off the face of the senate building.
"That lasting peace,” Captain Cranium said, “never came to be. Certain ‘savage and downtrodden creatures’ were less than eager to be put under Terran rule. They decided to fight for their freedom, a war that nearly annihilated mankind and half a dozen other races.”
"You said the future could be changed,” Nick exclaimed, drawing away from the stream. “You can warn the people about Johnny Quog. You’re Lifestylers—they’ll listen to you.”
“We tried,” Captain Cranium said wearily. “Lex Largesse tried. Sir Etherium tried.”
Then it was all clear to Nick. “So that’s what Lex wanted to tell Scolpes. And that’s why he was assassinated. But you’re still going to tell the galaxy, aren’t you?”
Nick looked from face to face. The Lifestylers avoided his gaze.
“We can’t,” Captain Cranium said finally. We’d be killed off one by one.”
“But billions of lives are at stake!”
‘‘Try to understand,” Lady Lovelorn said, placing her hand on his arm. ‘‘We are nearly immortal. If one of you is killed you lose twenty or thirty years of life. If I am killed I lose several thousand. Try to see how precious life is to us!”
“Furthermore,” Squire Stolid rumbled, from high above Nick’s head, “we don’t like to involve ourselves in politics. We’re artists. Oh, it’s been tried in the past. There have been political Lifestylers, but they’ve always been critical failures. Too polemical. Preachy, if you know what I mean.”
“We’re on your side,” Lady Lovelorn reassured Nick. “We’ll do everything we can to help you change the future. But suppose you don’t succeed? Quog becomes dictator. Billions are killed. After it’s all over you’ll be dead, but we’ll only be a couple of hundred years older. Why, I don’t even suppose I’ll be getting wrinkles. I’ll be able to make a comeback. I mean, no matter what happens to civilization and politics, they’ll always need Lifestylers.”
Reflected in her eyes now, Nick noticed, was an image of herself.
He couldn’t believe his ears. These people whom he had worshipped all his life were self-absorbed, infantile egotists. Fortunately for them the public never glimpsed them back-stage.
“I hope you don’t think,” Nick said, “that I’m going to run back to the real world and tell them what I saw—because first off, they’d laugh at me; then they’d shoot me. You’re the only ones who can do it, and I get the feeling you’re all digging in for a thousand-year nap.”
“Don’t make us out to be villains,” Captain Cranium said. “We’re afraid for our lives. You’d be too if you were in our place.”
Nick decided he wouldn’t, but remained silent.
“Tell you what we will do, though,” Cranium continued. “If you find the man who murdered Lex and Sir Etherium and show us that he’s safely confined, then we’ll come out and alert the people.”
“Well, that’s just great,” Nick said. “The election is next week. You expect me to find the murderer and put him away in eight days when I can’t even show my face anywhere?”
“You’re our only hope, Nicholas Harmon,” Lady Lovelorn said.
“Well then, 1 guess that’s that.” Nick shrugged his shoulders, turned and started back along the flow of colors which led to the transdimensional window.
II
It was about noon when Nick emerged from the window, judging by the position of the sun. He had no sooner shrunk the window out of existence when he heard behind him a hissing sound. Hali raised her head from a clump of whisper ferns and beckoned to him.
“What are you doing down—” Nick said.
But before he could finish she had grabbed him by the hand and dragged him behind the ferns. Althea was kneeling beside her; they both looked worried.
“What’s going on?” Nick said.
“Visitors,” she whispered, pointing to a clearing to the left of them.
A swankily appointed MHD camper was parked only a hundred feet from where they crouched. A hammock had been rigged between the landing-ramp rail and a Brinko tree which bent almost double under the weight, and basking in the hammock, an iced drink in one tentacle, a best-selling microfiche in another and a dainty sandwich in the third—watercress on white bread with crusts removed—was a Roolik.
All Rooliks looked the same to Nick, the round hairless head with bulging eyes, the skin of diamond-shaped scales which grew more and more wrinkled as it approached the year molting. Two tentacles on the left, one on the right. The third tentacle was for picking your pocket, as the old joke went, while you were being embraced with the other two. This particular Roolik wore tanning-tights with cutouts, a gaudy jeweled codpiece and the most ostentatious cape Nick had ever seen.
The Roolik’s wife stood beside the hammock dabbing mois-tener on his scales with an applicator bottle. Physically she was identical to him, only a head shorter. She wore a Terran-style sundress with three puffy sleeves. Their two children, diminutive versions of themselves, sat nearby, playing contentedly with toy spaceships. The presence of additional Rooliks was implied by a holovision blaring from inside the camper, probably a grandparent or two. As a rule, Rooliks had large families and liked to take them all on vacations—to act as unpaid servants for the master of the household.
“What a happy little family,” Nick whispered. “I wonder how they’d feel about lending us their camper?”
“That’s what we were thinking,” Althea said conspir-atorially.
It appeared that mutual need had smoothed relations between the two women.
“Where's the gun?” Nick whispered.
Hali slipped it into his hand and tapped him on the cheek with her bill for luck.
Crouching, he crawled toward the clearing. They didn’t notice until he was almost on top of them; then the female Roolik shrieked and tossed the bottle into the air.
Nick stood up. “Line up over there,” he said, flourishing the nerve gun. “Do as I say and you won’t get hurt.”
The male Roolik rose warily from the hammock and put a protective tentacle around his wife. The children ran behind him, hugging his legs with fright. Nick hoped they wouldn’t test him; he knew he couldn’t fire the gun at them, even if it meant his own life.
“What do you want fwom us?” the Roolik asked.
The children were crying with fear, odd little snorting sounds.
“Just stay put and keep quiet.”
Nick glanced at the entrance to the saucer.
“My gwandmother’s the only one inside,” the Roolik said. "She’s just an old lady.”
“Tell her to come out.”
“Come on out, Gwandma,” the Roolik shouted helpfully.
The next instant something came rolling down the ramp so fast Nick didn’t have time to react; it knocked him on his back and sent the gun flying to the feet of Father Roolik, who snatched it up in a tentacle. The next instant Hali and Althea were kneeling by Nick’s side, rubbing his hands and patting his cheeks, asking him if he had been hurt?
"Ohhhhhh,” Nick said, and, "What happened?”
The answer was a life-preserver jar containing a wizened Roolik grandmother, curled up like a dried lizard. The stereoptic camera on top of the jar was aimed at Nick and the speaker below it was emitting an emotionless rasping—they had not yet learned to pass feelings through wire—which Nick took to be a cackle.
‘ Heh-heh-heh, serves you wight, humie, twying to twick a Woolik ..
“Shut up, you old hag,” Althea snapped. “Can’t you see he’s been hurt?”