The thought of his home made him wonder what Old Hot and Simple, the Hon. Sec., might be doing with his adversary on Earth. “It’s a long, long way to reach here!” he thought to himself.
C’mell drew his attention by plucking at his arm. “Hold me,” commanded she, “because I am afraid I might fall down and E’ikasus is not strong enough to hold me.”
Rod wondered who Yeekasoose might be, when only the little monkey A’gentur was with them; he also wondered why C’mell should need to be held. Norstrilian discipline had taught him not to question orders in an emergency. He held her.
She suddenly slumped as though she had fainted or had gone to sleep. He held her with one arm and with his free hand he tipped her head against his shoulder so that she would look as though she were weary and affectionate, not unconscious. It was pleasant to hold her little female body, which felt fragile and delicate beyond belief. Her hair, disarrayed and windblown, still carried the smell of the salty sea air which had so surprised him an hour ago. She herself, he thought, was the greatest treasure of Earth which he had yet seen. But suppose he did have her? What could he do with her in Old North Australia? Under-people were completely forbidden, except for military uses under the exclusive control of the Commonwealth government. He could not imagine C’mell directing a mowing machine as she walked across a giant sheep, shearing it. The idea of her sitting up all night with a lonely or frightened sheep-monster was itself ridiculous. She was a playgirl, an ornament in human form; for such as her, there was no place under the comfortable grey skies of home. Her beauty would fade in the dry air; her intricate mind would turn sour with the weary endlessness of a farm culture: property, responsibility, defense, self-reliance, sobriety. New Melbourne would look like a collection of rude shacks to her.
He realized that his feet were getting cold. Up on the deck they had had sunlight to keep them warm, even though the chill salty wet air of Earth’s marvelous “seas” was blowing against them. Here, inside, it was merely high and cold, while still wet; he had never encountered wet cold before, and it was a strangely uncomfortable experience.
C’mell came to and shook herself to wakefulness just as they saw the officer walking toward them from the other end of the immense room.
Later, she told Rod what she had experienced when she lapsed into unconsciousness.
First, she had had a call which she could not explain. This had made her warn Rod. “Yeekasoose” was, of course E’ikasus, the real name of the “monkey” which he called A’gentur.
Then, as she felt herself swimming away into half-sleep with Rod’s strong arm around her, she had heard trumpets playing, just two or three of them, playing different parts to the same intricate, lovely piece of music, sometimes in solos, sometimes together. If a human or robot telepath had peeped her mind while she listened to the music, the impression would have been that of a perceptive c’girl who had linked herself with one of the many telepathic entertainment channels which filled the space of Earth itself.
Last, there came the messages. They were not encoded in the music in any way whatever. The music caused the images to form in her mind because she was C’mell, herself, unique, individual. Particular fugues or even individual notes reached into her memory and emotions, causing her mind to bring up old, half-forgotten associations. First she thought of “High birds flying…” as in the song which she had sung to Rod. Then she saw eyes, piercing eyes which blazed with knowledge while they stayed moist with humility. Then she smelled the strange odors of Downdeep-downdeep, the work-city where the under-people maintained the civilization on the surface and where some illegal underpeople lurked, overlooked by the authority of Man. Finally she saw Rod himself, striding off the deck with his loping Norstrilian walk. It added up simply. She was to bring Rod to the forgotten, forlorn, forbidden chambers of the Nameless One, and to do so promptly. The music in her head stopped, and she woke up.
The officer arrived.
He looked at them inquisitively and angrily. “This whole business is funny. The Acting Commissioner does not believe that there are any blue men. We’ve all heard of them. And yet we know somebody set off a telepathic emotion-bomb. That rage! Half the people in this room fell down when it went off. Those weapons are completely prohibited for use inside the Earth’s atmosphere.”
He cocked his head at them.
C’mell remained prudently silent, Rod practiced looking thoroughly stupid, and A’gentur looked like a bright, helpless little monkey.
“Funnier still,” said the officer. “The Acting Commissioner got orders to let you go. He got them while he was chewing me out. How does anybody know that you underpeople are here? Who are you, anyhow?”
He looked at them with curiosity for a minute, but then the curiosity faded with the pressure of his lifelong habits.
He snapped, “Who cares? Get along. Get out. You’re underpeople and you’re not allowed to stand in this room, anyhow.”
He turned his back on them and walked away.
“Where are we going?” whispered Rod, hoping C’mell would say that he could go down to the surface and see Old Earth itself.
“Down to the bottom of the world, and then—” she bit her lip “…and then, much further down. I have instructions.”
“Can’t I take an hour and look at Earth?” asked Rod. “You stay with me, of course.”
“When death is jumping around us like wild sparks? Of course not. Come along, Rod. You’ll get your freedom some time soon, if somebody doesn’t kill you first. Yeekasoose, you lead the way!”
They walked toward a dropshaft.
When Rod looked down it, the sight made him dizzy. Only the sight of people floating up and down in it made him realize that this was some Earth device which his people did not have in Old North Australia.
“Take a belt,” said C’mell quietly. “Do it as though you were used to it.”
He looked around. Only after she had taken a canvas belt, about fifteen centimeters wide, and was cinching it to her waist, did he see what she meant. He took one too and put it on. They waited while A’gentur ran up and down the racks of belts, looking for one small enough to fit him. C’mell finally helped him by taking one of normal size and looping it around his waist twice before she hooked it.
“Magnetic,” she murmured. “For the dropshafts.”
They did not take the main dropshaft.
“That’s for people only,” said C’mell.
The underpeople dropshaft was the same, except that it did not have the bright lights, the pumping of fresh air, the labelling of the levels, and the entertaining pictures to divert the passengers as they went up and down. This dropshaft, moreover, seemed to have more cargo than people in it. Huge boxes, bales, bits of machines, furniture and inexplicable bundles, each tied with magnetic belts and each guided by an under-person, floated up and down in the mysterious ever busy traffic of Old Earth.