‘That's because the incident outside has frightened you, and the experience since then has frightened me.’
‘What experience since then, Eugenia?’
‘I tried to set the limits, after she was back in the Dome. I said to her, “Young lady, don't you dare speak to me like that or, far from not being able to leave the Dome, you won't be able to leave your room. You'll be locked in, tied up if necessary, and back to Rotor we'll go on the first rocket.” You see, I was wild enough to threaten her all the way.’
‘Well, what did she do? I'm willing to bet a large sum she didn't burst into tears. I suspect she gritted her teeth and defied you. Right?’
‘No. I hadn't even gotten half the words out when my teeth started chattering and I couldn't speak. A wave of nausea swept over me.’
Genarr said, frowning, ‘Are you about to tell me that you think Marlene has some strange hypnotic power that can prevent us from opposing her? Surely that's impossible. Have you ever noticed anything like that in her before this?’
‘No, of course I haven't. I don't even see this in her now. She has nothing to do with it. I must have looked quite ill at the moment I was threatening her and that clearly frightened her. She was very concerned. She couldn't possibly have caused it and then reacted so. And when you two were outside the Dome and she was taking off her E-suit, she wasn't even looking at you. She had her back to you. I was watching and I know that. Yet you found you couldn't do anything to interfere with her and when she realized you were in trouble, she flew to your assistance. She couldn't have deliberately done that to you and reacted in that fashion.’
‘But then-’
‘I'm not through. After I had threatened her, or, rather, after I had failed to threaten her, I scarcely dared say anything to her that wasn't perfectly superficial, but you can be sure I kept my eye on her and tried not to let her see I was doing that. At one point, she talked to one of your guards - you have them all over the place.’
‘In theory,’ muttered Genarr, ‘the Dome is a military post. The guards merely maintain order, help out when needed-’
‘Yes, I dare say,’ said Insigna with a touch of contempt. ‘That's Janus Pitt making sure he has a way of keeping you all under observation and under control, but never mind. Marlene and the guard talked for quite a while, seemed to be arguing. I went to the guard afterward, after Marlene was gone, and asked him what Marlene had talked to him about. He was reluctant to say, but I squeezed it out of him. He said she wanted to arrange some sort of pass that would allow her to leave and re-enter the Dome freely.
‘I said to him, “What did you tell her?”
‘He said, “I told her that would have to be arranged at the Commander's office, but that I would try to help her.”
‘I was indignant. “What do you mean you would help her?” I said. “How could you offer to do that?”
‘He said, “I had to do something, ma'am. Every time I tried to tell her it couldn't be done, I felt sick.” ’
Genarr listened to all of this stonily. ‘Are you telling me that this is something Marlene does unconsciously, that anyone who dares contradict her is made ill, and that she doesn't even know that she is responsible for it?’
‘No, of course not. I don't see how she can be doing anything at all. If this were an unconscious ability of hers, it would have made its appearance on Rotor, and it never happened there. And it isn't just any contradiction. She tried for a second helping of dessert at dinner last night, and quite forgetting that I didn't dare cross her, I said sharply, “No, Marlene.” She looked terribly rebellious, but subsided, and I felt in perfect health, I can tell you. No, I think it's only in connection with Erythro that one can't contradict her.’
‘But why do you suppose that should be, Eugenia? You seem to have some notion or other about this. If I were Marlene, I would read you like a book and tell you what that notion is, but since I am not, you must tell me.’
‘I don't think it's Marlene at all who's doing this. It's - it's the planet itself.’
‘The planet!’
‘Yes, Erythro! The planet. It's controlling Marlene. Why else should she be so confident that she is immune to the Plague, and that she will come to no harm? It controls the rest of us, too. You came to harm when you tried to stop her. I did. The guard did. Many people came to harm in the early days of the Dome because the planet felt it was being invaded, so it produced the Plague. Then, when it seemed you were all content to remain within the Dome, it let go, and the Plague stopped. See how it all fits in?’
‘Do you think, then, that the planet wants Marlene out upon its surface?’
‘Apparently.’
‘But why?’
‘I don't know. I don't pretend to understand it. I'm just telling you how it must be.’
Genarr's voice softened. ‘Eugenia, surely you know that the planet can't do anything. It's a lump of rock and metal. You're being mystical.’
‘I am not. Siever, don't slip into this trick of pretending that I'm a silly woman. I'm a first-class scientist and there's nothing mystical about my thinking. When I say the planet, I don't mean the rock and metal. I mean that there's some powerful permeating life-form upon the planet.’
‘It would have to be invisible, then. This is a barren world with no sign of life above the prokaryote, let alone intelligence.’
‘What do you know about this barren world, as you call it? Has it been properly explored? Has it been searched through and through?’
Slowly, Genarr shook his head. He said with a pleading note in his voice, ‘Eugenia, you're drifting off into hysteria.’
‘Am I, Siever? Think it out yourself and tell me if you can find an alternate explanation. I tell you the life on the planet - whatever it is - will not have us. We're doomed. And what it wants with Marlene’ - her voice quavered -‘I can't imagine.’
28. Takeoff
Officially, it had a very elaborate name, but it was spoken of as Station Four by those few Earthpeople who had occasion to mention it. From the name it was at once apparent there had been three such objects earlier - none of which were any longer in use, having been cannibalized, in point of fact. There was also a Station Five that had never been finished and had become derelict.
It is doubtful if the vast majority of Earth's population ever thought of the existence of Station Four, which drifted slowly around Earth in an orbit well beyond that of the Moon.
The early stations had been Earth's launching pads for the construction of the first Settlements, and then, when the Settlers themselves took over the job of building Settlements, Station Four was used for Earth's flights to Mars.
One such Martian flight was all that took place, however, for it turned out that the Settlers were far better suited, psychologically, to long flights (living, as they did in worlds that were large enclosed spaceships), and Earth left it to them with a sigh of relief.
Station Four was now rarely used for any purpose and was maintained only as Earth's foothold in space, as a symbol that the Settlers were not the sole owners of the vastness beyond Earth's atmosphere.
But now Station Four had a use.
A large cargo ship had lumbered out in its direction, carrying with it the rumor (among the Settlements) that another attempt - the first in the twenty-third century - would be made to place an Earth team on Mars. Some said it was merely for exploration, some for the establishment of an Earth colony on Mars in order to bypass the few Settlements in orbit around the planet; and some for the purpose, eventually, of establishing an outpost on some sizable asteroid that no Settlement had yet claimed.
What the ship actually carried in its cargo hold was the Superluminal and the crew that was to propel her to the stars.
Tessa Wendel, even though she had been planetbound for eight years, took the space experience calmly, as any Settler by birth would naturally do. Spaceships were far more like Settlements in principle than they were like the planet Earth. And because of that, Crile Fisher, though he had been on many a spaceflight before, was a bit uneasy.