“Wait outside,” Carman told the boy.
Blyde looked up from behind his desk and said, “What ship does he mean?”
“The one I’m taking back to Earth,” said Carman, and released the sleep capsule. Blyde smiled sweetly as he slipped into unconsciousness. Carman followed the boy to the spaceport.
A slim, trim two-man ship waited there, sleek and golden-hulled in the bright sunlight. The pilot was an efficient looking space-tanned man named Duane.
“Diplomatic pouch,” Carman said, handing over the leather attaché case he had prepared for the occasion. Duane stored it reverently in the hold, and they blasted off.
“Sirius IV first,” Carman ordered. “I’m supposed to take films. Top secret, of course.”
“Of course.”
They circled the small pockmarked gray fourth planet at 50,000 feet, and Carman took enough cloud-piercing infrared shots to prove conclusively that there was not and never had been any war between the amiable amphibious aborigines and Earth. Satisfied, he ordered the pilot to proceed immediately toward Sol.
They reached Earth nineteen days later, on 3 August 2672. A squad of security police was waiting for them as they landed at Upper Urbdistrict Spaceport, and Carman was swiftly conveyed to a cell in Confederation Detention House in the tunnels far below Old Manhattan. Blyde had sent word ahead via subradio concerning Carman’s escape, it seemed.
In his cell, later that evening, Carman was visited by a parched-looking, almost fleshless man in the blue cape and red wig of high governmental office.
“So you’re the culprit!”
“That’s what they tell me. Who are you?”
“Ferdan Veller, Administrative Assistant to Regulator Morch. The Regulator sent me to see who you were and what you were like.”
“Well, now you’ve seen,” Carman said. “Get out.”
Assistant Veller’s melancholy eyes widened. “I see you’re a forceful man, Mr. Carman. No doubt you’re full of plans for escaping, recapturing your confiscated films, and letting the world know what a dastardly hoax is being perpetrated in the interests of a balanced economy. Eh?”
“I might be,” Carman admitted.
“You might be interested in this morning’s telefax sheet, then,” Veller said. He extended a torn-off yellow strip.
The headline was:
NEW AGGRESSION THREATENS EARTH!
Government City, 3 Aug 2672—Word reached Earth today of yet another threat to her peace, coming hot on the heels of the recently concluded police action in the Sirius sector. Forces in the Great Andromeda Nebula have issued statements inimical to Earth, and a new conflict looms—”
“You killed off Sirius because you were afraid I’d expose it,” Carman said accusingly. “And now you’re starting up a new one.”
Veller nodded smugly. “Quite. The Great Andromeda Nebula happens to be 900,000 light years away. The round trip, even by hyperdrive, takes some twenty years.” He grinned, showing a double row of square tartared teeth. “You’re a forceful man, Mr. Carman. You may very well escape. You may even reach Andromeda and return with evidence once again unmasking us. If you live long enough to return, that is. I think our economic program is in no immediate danger from you.”
He left, smiling gravely. The cell door closed with a harsh metallic crash.
“Come back!” Carman yelled. “You can’t hoax mankind like that! I’ll let everyone know! I’ll get out and expose—”
There was no answer, not even a catcall. No one was listening. And, Carman realized dully, no one was going to listen to him at all, ever again.