And then apparently the speakers moved out of range. Ross was cold with sweat, and there was an abnormal hollow hi the pit of his stomach that breakfast would never fill.
He spun around as a Jones voice croaked painfully: "Hear anything good, stranger?"
The surgeon, looking very dilapidated, was sitting up and regarding him through bloodshot eyes.
"They're talking about killing us," he said shortly.
"They are not really intelligent," Sam Jones said wearily. "They were just bright enough to entangle me to the point where I had to work for them—and to keep me copiously supplied with that green stuff I haven't the intelligence to use in moderation."
Ross said, "How'd you like to break away from this?"
Sam Jones mutely extended his hand. It trembled like a leaf. He said, "For his own inscrutable reason, Jones grants me steadiness of hand during an operation designed to frustrate his grand design. He then overwhelms me with a titanic thirst for oblivion to my shame."
"There's no design," Ross said. "Or if there is, luckily this planet is a trifling part of it. I have never heard of such arrogant pip-squeakery in my life. You flyspecks hi your shabby corner of the Galaxy think your own fouled-up mess is the pattern of universal life. You're wrong! I've seen life elsewhere and I know it isn't."
The doctor passed his trembling hand over his eyes. "Jones is not mocked," he croaked. "L-sub-T equals L-sub-zero e to the minus T-over-two-N. You can't fight that, stranger. You can't fight that."
Ross realized he was silently crying behind his covering hand.
He said, much more gently, "It's nothing you have to fight. It's something you have to understand." He told Sam Jones of his two previous encounters with the formula. The doctor looked up, his eyes full of wonder. Ross said, "How would you like to be free, doctor? Free of your shaking hands, free of your guilt, free of these killers? How would you like to know the truth?"
The doctor said faintly, "If I dared——"
Ross pressed, "The museum hi Earth city. Get me records, facts, anything about the War of the Joneses. If there's any meaning to the formula it'll have to lie in that. It seems there was a battle about its interpretation and we know who won. Let's find out what the other side said. Get me in there." He was thinking of the disgraceful war of fanaticism that had marred his own planet's history. The doctor's weak Jones jaw was firming up, though his eyes were still haunted. "Stall your killer friends, doctor," Ross urged. "Tell them you can use us for experiments that'll cut the cost of the operations. That ought to bring them around. And get me the facts!"
"To be free," the doctor said wistfully. He said after a pause, "I'll try. But——" And rapped a code series on the steel door.
11
THE doctor said with weak belligerence, "Who do you think I am? Jones? I had to leave your Mends behind. I had enough trouble getting those hoods to let me take you along. After all, I'm not a miracle-worker."
Ross said sullenly, "Okay, okay." He glowered out of the car window and spat out a tendril of red hair that had come loose from the fringe surrounding his mouth. The trouble with a false beard was that it itched, worse than the real article, worse than any torment Ross had ever known. But at least Ross, externally and at extreme range, was enough of a Jones to pass a casual glance.
And what would Helena and Bernie be thinking now? He hadn't had a chance to whisper to them; they'd been just waking when the doctor dragged him out. Ross put that problem out of his mind; there were problems enough right on hand.
He cautiously felt his red wig to see if it was on straight. The doctor didn't seem to look away from his driving, but he said: "Leave it alone. That's the first thing the Peepeece look for, somebody who obviously isn't sure if his hair is still on or not. It won't come off."
"Umph," said Ross. The road was getting worse, it seemed; they had passed no houses for several miles now. They rounded a rutted turn, and ahead was a sign.
STOP!
RESTRICTED AREA AHEAD
WARNING: THIS ROAD Is MINED No TRAFFIC ALLOWED! DETOUR
"Trespassers beyond this point will be shot without further notice."
Decree #404-5 People's Commissariat of Culture and Solidarity.
The doctor spat contemptuously out the window and roared past. Ross said, "Hey!"
"Oh, relax," said the doctor. "That's just the Cultureniks. Nobody pays any attention to them."
Ross swallowed and sat as lightly as possible on the green leather cushion of the car. By the time they had gone a quarter of a mile, he began to feel a little reassured that the doctor knew what he was talking about. Then the doctor swerved sharply to miss a rusted hulk and almost skidded off the road. He swore and manhandled the wheel until they were back on the straightaway.
White lipped, Ross asked, "What was that?"
"Car," grunted the doctor. "Hit a mine. Silly fools!"
Ross squawked, "But you said——"
"Shut up," the doctor ordered tensely. "That was weeks ago; they haven't had a chance to lay new mines since then." Pause. "I hope."
The car roared on. Ross closed his eyes, limply abandoning himself to what was in store. But if it was bad to see what was going on, the roaring, swerving, jolting race was ten times worse with his eyes closed. He opened them again in tune to see another sign flash past, gone before he could read it.
"What was that?" he demanded.
"What's the difference?" the doctor grunted. "Want to go back?"
"Well, no——" Ross thought for a moment. "Do we have to go this fast, though?"
"If we want to get there. Crossed a Peepeece radar screen ten miles back; they'll be chasing us by now."
"Oh, I see," Ross said weakly. "Look, Doc, tell me one thing—why do they make this place so hard to get to?"
"Tabu area," the doctor said shortly. "Not allowed."
"Why not allowed?"
"Because it's not allowed. Don't want people poking through the old records."
"Why not just put the old records in a safe place—or burn the damn things up?"
"Because they didn't, that's why. Shut up! Expect me to tell you why the Peepeece do anything?
They don't know themselves. It isn't Jonesly to destroy, I guess."
Ross shut up. He leaned against the window, letting the air rush over his head. They were moving through forest, purplish squatty trees with long, rustling leaves. The sky overhead was crisp and cool looking; it was still early morning. Ross exhaled a long breath. Back on Halsey's Planet he would be getting up about now, rising out of a soft, warm bed, taking his leisurely time about breakfast, climbing into a comfortable car to make his way to the spaceport where he was safe, respected, and at home. . . . Damn Haarland!
At least, Ross thought, some sort of a pattern was beginning to shape up. The planets were going out of communication each for its own reason; but wasn't there a basic reason-for-the-reasons that was the same in each case? Wasn't there some overall design—some explanation that covered all the facts, pointed to a way out?
He sat up straight as they approached a string of little signs. He scanned them worriedly as they rolled past. "Workers, Peasants, Joneses all——" "By these presents know ye——" "If you don't stop in spite of all——" "THIS to hell will blow ye!"
"Duck!" the doctor yelled, crouching down in the seat and guiding the careening car with one hand.
Ross, startled, followed his example, but not before he saw that "THIS" was an automatic, radar-actuated rapid-fire gun mounted a few yards past the last sign. There was a stuttering roar from the gun and a splatter of metal against the armored sides of the car. The doctor sat up again as soon as the burst had hit; evidently only one was to be feared. "Yah, yah," he jeered at the absent builders of the gun. "Lousy fifty-millimeters can't punch their way through a tin can!"