The wheel was much too stiff. He could barely handle it. The damned shuttle bobbed and swayed, maneuvered like a tank with one broken tread.
“Be careful!” Allison said.
An intersection loomed ahead.
He made the mistake of trying to corner, and he suddenly found the wheel frozen altogether. He took his foot of the accelerator and discovered that was frozen too. The air speed brakes didn't work. They were completely out of control.
Allison screamed.
The fan shuttle tilted as if the gyros were as worn out as the rest of it, turned on its side and drove Allison down against him as far as her safety harness would permit.
Was this why the keys were in the ignition? Did Galing intend for them to die in the shuttle? If that were the case, what in the name of God had been the purpose of this entire charade?
A building lay directly ahead of them.
They struck the side of it and were pitched away like a scrap of paper in an ocean tide.
This is it, he thought. It's over now.
Galing has won.
The shuttle blades beneath them coughed, stuttered, cut in, cut out… The small craft rolled onto the roof with a resounding crash.
Joel was thrown against the steering wheel despite the safety harness, then was jerked upright again as the harness automatically compensated for the impact.
Metal screamed against macadam as they slid down the street, and sparks showered into the night air. An instant later they were brought up hard against the trunk of a willow tree and finally came to a full stop.
Alive.
But what about Allison?
Unconsciousness threatened, but he refused to sink into it. He saw that Allison was slumped against her restraining straps, not moving at all, face pale, mouth slack, eyes closed. He couldn't see any blood, no bruises on her face. She must be fine. Just unconscious. That was all. That had to be all.
He tried to force the door open on his side so that they could escape the wreckage before Galing showed up, but the door had been welded tight by the crash. He struggled with it for a long moment before leaning back in his harness. Calm down. Take it easy. He relaxed, trying to gather his wits, and he listened to the sigh of hot metal cooling down. Fluid dripped out of a ruptured line and hissed as it splashed on hot steel, and he could smell a thin but acrid smoke that rose out of the undercarriage.
Suddenly the door which he had struggled vainly to open was now opened easily, and he was confronted by the faceless man. Dark hair had fallen across the blank countenance. Hanging upside down in the overturned shuttle, supported by the safety harness, Joel had a strange view of the specter, on which made its featureless face seem even more hideous.
“Go away, he said. He closed his eyes, hoping to wake up, though he knew this dream just wouldn't go away.
“You didn't get far,” the specter said.
“You can't talk. You've got no mouth. I won't listen to you talk!” He knew he was slipping into hysteria, but he could not help it.
“I'm the sandman,” the specter said.
Joel opened his eyes.
The faceless man raised a chalky hand. Hundreds of tiny silver needles protruded from the palm in evenly spaced rows. They gleamed.
“No!” Joel said.
“The sandman.”
The specter reached out, touched him.
A cloud of steam hissed out of the undercarriage, whirled through the car, obscuring everything for one brief instant.
“Ill get you,” Joel said. “Ill get all of you.”
The sandman touched him again. The needles were cold and they stung.
At least he now knew that the creature's power was not at all supernatural. Of course, the knowledge did nothing to hearten him — or to save him. He fell asleep again, against his will…
VIII
Joel activated half a dozen data transmitters. Turning slightly in his chair he read the life systems reports on experimental subject Sam-3. The display screens brought in nothing but good news:
heartbeat: 51 per minute
respiration: 8 per minute
encephalographic patterns: all within
ACCEPTABLE PERIMETERS
digestion/primary stomach: balance
PERFECTED
digestion/secondary stomach: slight
degree of acidity. systems coping
He looked through the thick observation window which was placed at eye level in the wall before him, directly above the deck of controls. The pool was only minimally lighted now. The aquamen were just barely visible, quick shadows flickering in the green light.
He picked up his microphone and directed Sam-3 to approach his observation point.
A moment later the aquaman swam into view. He had a quasi-human face, lots of wicked teeth, and he was smiling. Five feet long (one could not say “tall", for that implied that he stood erect; and he never stood erect), with the legs and arms of a man but with the sleekness of a porpoise, Sam-3 was quite a sight. His feet and hands were twice as large as those of a land-bound man, his digits connected by filmy webbing. His neck was marked by six gill slits on each side, spaced close and angled toward his throat from the atrophied flaps of his ears. His eyes were exceptionally large and shielded by transparent lids. He passed the viewpoint and glided away, feet gracefully churning water.
“Get's boring, doesn't it?” Henry Galing asked.
Joel looked at the older man who was in the chair next to his, and he saw why Galing had once given up a fine career in genetic science to run for political office. Wealthy, handsome, dignified, with a confident manner that brooked no debate, he was a father image in whom the voters could place at least psychological confidence. And he wasn't just an image; he was extremely capable. He would have done well by those who elected him — if he'd had a chance to assume office before everything fell apart and the continuation of an elected, democratic government was no longer feasible. However, if mankind had lost a statesman it had gained a superior genetic theorist whose talents were now desperately necessary for the many projects at hand.
“If I were director of the department,” Joel said, “I wouldn't spend time sitting at a console, like you do. It is boring.”
“But we're short of good technicians,” Galing said. “I'd rather take an extra shift myself than load it onto someone who has already done twelve hours at the monitors. Besides, I've been taking a few inhibitors, and I don't need more than two hours sleep a night.”
“Inhibitors are dangerous,” Joel said.
“I know what makes an overdose.”
“But even without an overdose… How long can the body go without sleep — without enough sleep?”
“A year,” Galing said.
“And how long have you been taking them?”
“Only the last few weeks,” Galing said. “A year… And after that, what does it matter? I suppose we'll still be living here a year from now. But we'll just be waiting for the end. With luck though, our children will have started their journeys, leaving us behind…”
They both looked into the pool beyond the observation windows. The aquamen swam by and stared in at them as if the roles in this zoo had changed.
And maybe they had changed at that, Joel thought. It was the aquamen who were going out to the stars, taking the wider universe for their home — while he and Galing and the rest of them were forced to remain behind in the bunkers.
Turning away from the ports, Galing said, “How about you and Anita stopping by my suite for supper tonight. Something simple, a little wine.”
“It's okay with me,” Joel said. “If Anita—”