“Hands off him,” Garamond commanded.
“Out of here,” Laker said. “You’re outside your territory, Captain.”
“I’m taking Mason with me.”
“Like hell you are,” said one of the men holding Mason, stepping forward confidently.
Garamond gave him a bored look. “I can cripple you ten different ways.” He was lying, never having been interested in even the recreational forms of personal combat, but the man suddenly looked less confident. While he was hesitating, his partner released Mason and tried to snatch something from his pocket, but was dissuaded by Napier who simply moved his three-hundred-pound bulk in a little closer and looked expectant. A ringing silence descended on the sparsely furnished room.
“Are you all right?” Garamond said to Mason.
“My neck,” the reporter said uncertainly, fingering a pink blotch just above his collar. “They used a hypodermic spray on me.”
“It was probably just a sedative to keep you quiet.” Garamond fixed his gaze on Laker. “For your sake, I hope that’s right.”
“I warned you to stay out of this,” Laker said in a hoarse voice, his short round body quivering with anger. He extended his right fist, on which was a large gold ring set with a ruby.
“Lasers are messy,” Garamond said.
“I don’t mind cleaning up.”
“You’re getting in over your head, Laker. Have you thought about what Elizabeth would do to you for involving her in my murder?”
“I’ve an idea she’d like to see you put away.”
“In secret, yes — but not like this.” Garamond nodded to Napier. “Let’s go.” They turned the compliant, stupefied reporter around and walked him towards the door.
“I warn you, Garamond,” Laker whispered. “I’m prepared to take the chance.”
“Don’t be foolish.” Garamond spoke without looking back. The door was only a few paces away now and he could feel an intense tingling between his shoulder blades. He put out his hand to grasp the handle, but in the instant of his touching it the door was flung open and three more men exploded into the room. Garamond tensed to withstand an onslaught but the newcomers, two of whom were wearing field technician uniforms, brushed past with unseeing eyes.
“Mr Laker,” shouted the third man, who was wearing the blue uniform of a Starflight engineering officer. “You’ve got to hear this! You’ll never…”
Laker’s voice was ragged with fury. “Get out, Gordino. What the hell’s the idea of bursting in here like… ?” “But you don’t understand! We’ve made contact with outsiders! Two of my technicians went over the hills to the west of here last night and they found an alien community — one that’s still in use!”
Laker’s jaw and threatening fist sagged in unison. “What are you saying, Gordino? What kind of a story is this?”
“These are the two men, Mr Laker. They’ll tell you about it themselves.”
“Two of your drunken gypsies.”
“Please.” The taller of the technicians raised his hand and spoke in an incongruous and strangely dignified voice. “I anticipated a certain degree of scepticism, so instead of returning to base immediately I waited till daylight and took a number of photographs. Here they are.” He produced a sheaf of coloured rectangles and offered them to Laker. Garamond pushed Napier and the still-dazed Mason out through the door and, forgetting all notion of fleeing, strode back to Laker and snatched the photographs. Other hands were going for them as well, but he emerged from the free-for-all with two pictures. The background in each was the limitless prairie of Orbitsville and ranged across the middle distance were pale blue rectangles which could be nothing other than artificial structures. Near the base of some of the buildings were multicoloured specks, so small as to be represented only by pinpricks of pigment beneath the glaze of the photographs.
“These coloured dots,” Garamond said to the tall technician. “Are they… ?”
“All I can say is that they moved. From the distance they look like flowers, but they move around.”
Garamond returned his attention to the pictures, trying to drive his mind down a converging beam at the focus of which were the bright-hued molecules — as if he could reach an atomic level where alien forms would become visible, and beyond it a nuclear level on which he could look into the faces and eyes of the first companions Man had found in all his years of star-searching. The reaction was a natural one, conditioned by centuries during which the sole prospect of contacting others lay in close examination of marks on photographic plates, but it was swept aside almost at once by forces of instinct. Garamond found himself walking towards the door and was out in the sunlight before understanding that he was heading for the Starflight vehicle parked near the entrance. The figures of Napier and Mason were visible a short distance along the road, apparently on their way to Garamond’s house. He got into the crimson vehicle and examined the controls. The car was brand-new, having been manufactured on board one of the spaceships specifically for use on Orbitsville, and no keys were needed to energize the pulse-magnet engine. Garamond pressed the starter button and accelerated away in a cloud of dust as Laker and the others were coming out of the building.
He ignored their shouts, gunned the engine for the few seconds it took to catch up on Napier, brought his heel down on the single control pedal and skidded the car to a halt. He threw open a door. Napier glanced back at the Starflight men who were now in pursuit and, without needing to be told, bundled Mason into the vehicle and climbed in after him. The engine gave a barely perceptible whine as Garamond switched from heel to toe pressure on the pedal, sending the car snaking along the packed earth of the road as the excess of power forced its drive wheels to slide from side to side.
In less than a minute they had cleared the perimeter of the township and were speeding towards the sunlit hills.
The alien settlement came in view as soon as the car reached the crest of the circular range of hills. It was composed of pale blue rectangles shining in the distance like chips of ceramic. His brief study of the photographs had given Garamond the impression that the buildings were in a single cluster, but in actuality they spanned the entire field of view and extended out across the plain for several kilometres. Garamond realized he was looking at a substantial city. It was a city which appeared to lack a definite centre — but nevertheless large enough to sustain a population of a million or more, judging by human standards. Garamond eased back on the throttle, slowing the car’s descent. He had just picked out the colourful moving specks which he believed were the first contemporaries mankind had ever encountered beyond the biosphere of his birth planet.
“Cliff, didn’t I hear something about the Starflight science teams duplicating our experiment with a reconnaissance torpedo?” Garamond frowned as he spoke, his eyes fixed on the glittering city.
“I think so.”
“I wonder if the cameras were activated?”
“I doubt it. They could hardly have missed seeing this.”
Mason, who had recovered from his shot of sedative, stirred excitedly in the rear seat, panning with his scene recorder. “What are you going to say to these beings, Captain?”
“It doesn’t matter what any of us say — they won’t understand it.”
“They mightn’t even hear it,” Napier said. “Maybe they don’t have ears.”
Garamond felt his mouth go dry. He had visualized this moment many times, with a strength of yearning which could not be comprehended by anyone who had not looked into the blind orbs of a thousand lifeless worlds, but the prospect of coming face to face with a totally alien life form was upsetting his body chemistry. His heart began a slow, powerful pounding as the pale blue city rose higher beyond the nose of the car. Without conscious bidding, his foot eased further back on the throttle and the hum of the engine became completely inaudible at the lower speed. For a long moment there was no sound but that of the tough grasses of Orbitsville whipping at the vehicle’s bodywork.