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Robard bowed nervously. “If you will excuse me…”

“Not yet,” Elizabeth snapped. “Get me Doctor Killops on that thing.”

“Yes, My Lady,” Robard murmured into the instrument, listened for a moment, and then handed it to her. He began to withdraw but she pointed at a spot nearby, silently ordering him to stay.

Elizabeth raised the communicator to her lips. “Tell me, Doctor Killops, has Mrs Garamond had her sedative today yet? No? Then don’t give it to her. Captain Garamond is returning, alive, and we want his wife to be fully conscious and alert for the reunion.” She threw the instrument down and Robard stooped to pick it up.

“Never mind that,” Elizabeth said quietly. “Get my car ready to leave in five minutes. I have urgent business in Beachhead City.”

* * *

The shock of hearing by radio that his wife and son were still alive had stormed through Garamond’s system like a nuclear fireball. In its wake had come relief, joy, gratitude, bafflement, renewal of optimism — and finally, as a consequence of emotional overload, an intense physical reaction. There was a period of several hours during which he experienced cold sweats, irregular heartbeat and dizziness; and the symptoms were at their height when the little transit boat from fleet headquarters arrived underfoot.

As had happened once before, he felt disoriented and afraid on seeing a spacesuited figure clamber upwards through a black hole in the ground. The figure was followed by others who were carrying empty spacesuits, and — even when the faceplates had been removed and the two parties were mingling — they still looked strange to him. At some time in the preceding months he had come to accept the thin-shouldered shabbiness of his own crew as the norm, and now the members of the rescue party seemed too sleek and shiny, too alien.

“Captain Garamond?” A youthful Starflight officer approached him and saluted, beardless face glowing with pleasure and health. “I’m Lieutenant Kenny of the Westmorland. This is a great honour for me, sir.”

“Thank you.” The action of returning the salute felt awkward to Garamond.

Kenny’s gaze strayed to the sloping, stiff-winged outlines of the two aircraft and his jaw sagged. “I’m told you managed to fly a couple of million kilometres in those makeshifts. That must have been fantastic.”

Garamond suppressed an illogical resentment. “You might call it that. The Westmorland? Isn’t that Hugo Schilling’s command?”

“Captain Schilling insisted on coming with us. He’s waiting for you aboard the transit boat now. I’ll have to photograph those airplanes, sir — they’re just too…”

“Not now, Lieutenant. My Chief Science Officer is very ill and he must be hospitalized at once. The rest of us aren’t in great shape, either.” Garamond tried to keep his voice firm even though a numbness had enveloped his body, creating a sensation that his head was floating in the air like a balloon.

Kenny, with a flexibility of response which further dismayed Garamond, was instantly solicitous. He began shouting orders and within a few minutes the eight members of the Bissendorf’s crew had been suited up for transfer to the waiting boat. Garamond’s mind was brimming with thoughts of Aileen and Chris as he negotiated the short spacewalk, with its swaying vistas of star rivers and its constrained breathing of rubber-smelling air. As soon as he had passed through the airlock he made his way to the forward compartment, which seemed impossibly roomy after his months in the aircraft’s narrow fuselage. Another spacesuited figure rose to greet him.

“It’s good to see you, Vance,” Hugo Schilling said. He was a blue-eyed, silver-haired man who had been in the Exploration Arm for twenty years and treated his job of wandering unknown space as if he was the pilot of a local ferry.

“Thanks, Hugo. It’s good to…” Garamond shook his head to show he had run out of words.

Schilling inspected him severely. “You don’t look well, Vance. Rough trip?”

“Rough trip.”

“Enough said, skipper. We’re keeping the suits on, but strap yourself in and relax — we’ll have you home in no time. Try to get some sleep.”

Garamond nodded gratefully. “Have you seen my wife and boy?”

“No. Unlike you, I’m just a working flickerwing man and I don’t get invited out to the Octagon.”

“The Octagon! What are they doing out there?”

“They’ve been staying with the President ever since you… ah… disappeared. They’re celebrities too, you know — even if there is some reflection of glory involved.”

“But…” A new centre of coldness began to form within Garamond’s body. “Tell me, Hugo, did the President send you out here to pick us up?”

“No. It was an automatic reaction on the part of Fleet Command. The President is out at North Ten — that’s one of the forward supply depots we’ve built.”

“Will she have heard my first message yet?”

“Probably,” Schilling pointed a gloved finger at Garamond. “Starting to sweat over some of those things you said about Starflight? Don’t worry about it — we all know you’ve been under a strain. You can say you got a bit carried away with the sense of occasion.”

Garamond took a deep breath. “Are there any airplanes or other rapid transport systems in use around Beachhead City?”

“Not yet. All the production has been concentrated on ground cars and housing.”

“How long will it take the President to get back to the Octagon?”

“It’s hard to say — the cars they produce aren’t built for speed. Eight hours, maybe.”

“How long till we get back?” “Well, I’m allowing five hours in view of Mister O’Hagan’s condition.”

“Speed it up, Hugo,” Garamond said. “I have to be back before the President, and she’s had a few hours’ start.”

Schilling glanced at the information panel on which changing colour configurations showed that the ship was sealed and almost ready for flight. “That would mean fairly high G-forces. For a sick man…”

“He won’t mind — go ask him.”

“I don’t see…”

“Supposing I said it was a matter of life or death?”

“I wouldn’t believe you, but…” Schilling winked reassuringly, opened an audio channel to the flight deck and instructed the pilot to make the return journey in the shortest possible time consistent with O’Hagan’s health. Garamond thanked him and tried to relax into the G-chair, wishing he had been able to take the other man into his confidence. Schilling was kindly and uncomplicated, with a high regard for authority. It would have been difficult, possibly disastrous, for Garamond to try telling him he believed Elizabeth Lindstrom was a psychopath who would enjoy murdering an innocent woman and child. Schilling might counter by asking why Elizabeth had not done it as soon as she had had the chance, and Garamond would not have been able to answer. It would not have been enough to say that he felt it in his bones. He closed his eyes as the acceleration forces clamped down, but his growing conviction of danger made it impossible for him to rest. Thirty minutes into the flight he got an idea.

“Do you think there’ll be a reception when we get back? A public one?”

“Bound to be,” Schilling said. “You keep hogging the news. Even while you were away a reporter called Mason, I think, ran a campaign to persuade somebody to go looking for your ship. The betting was fifty-to-one you were dead, though, so he didn’t have much success.”

Garamond had forgotten about the reporter from Earth. “You said my wife and boy are well known, too. I want them to meet me at the Beachhead City transit tube. Can you arrange that?”

“I don’t see why not — there’s a direct communications link to the Octagon from the President’s flagship.” Schilling spoke into the command microphone of his spacesuit, waited, spoke again, and then settled into a lengthy conversation. Only occasional whispers of sound came through his open faceplate, but Garamond could hear the exchange becoming heated. When it had finished Schilling sat perfectly still for a moment before turning to speak.