_We did it_, said Shind.
_We did it_, he answered.
_And the dead?_
_I would say we will have a tally before we strike home port_.
Shind did not reply.
CHAPTER 2
Within the highest tower of the greatest port, he sat, one man opposing an empire.
Idiotic? he asked himself. No. Because they cannot hurt me.
Glaring down at the ocean, now momentarily visible, he inspected the wet miles of distance that lay beyond the Manhattan Citadel, his home.
It could be worse.
How?
When there's nobody else in port, you sometimes get fidgety ...
Looking at the waters, he watched the great plume cover them again, like an opening fan.
Someday, maybe ...
Dr. Malacar Miles was the only man on Earth. He was lord, he was monarch here. And he did not care. The Earth was his. Nobody else wanted it.
He stared through the bubble-window. It afforded him a prospect of half of what remained of Manhattan.
The smoke was a great cloud, and a mirror that hovered showed him the orange burning when he maneuvered it at the proper angle.
It blazed.
His shields absorbed this.
It burned; it was radioactive.
His shields absorbed this too.
There had been a time when he had actually paid attention to it.
He stared upward, and the Earth's dead moon in quarterphase was there before his eyes.
For three, ten seconds, he waited.
Then came the ship, and he sighed.
_My brother is hurting_, said Shind. _Will you give him more medicine now?_
_Yes_.
_I saw this thing long ago. Beware_.
Before moving to the laboratory, Malacar stared down at the thing which had once been New York City's heart. Long gray vines had whipped their ways around the bases of killed buildings, climbed high. Their leaves were coarse, long, rustling. The smoke blackened them, withered them. Still they grew. He could actually see the movement. No human being could live in those canyons of masonry they wound. For no special reason, he pressed a button and a low-yield atomic missile destroyed a building miles away.
_I will have to use karanin on your brother. It will impair his respiratory functions a bit_.
_It will do more good, will it not? Over-all?_
_Yes_.
_Then we must_.
_Go get him. Take him to the laboratory_.
_Yes_.
He looked out one more time, out across his kingdom and the patches of its ocean that showed through smoke. Then he departed the high deck.
The winds that swirled about the world had deposited their rubbish as he had watched. As always. The only human inhabitant of the place, he was neither especially paternal nor antagonistic about the view.
The drop-tube took him to the lower level of his citadel. To test them, he broke three alarm circuits as he moved along a corridor. Entering the laboratory, he saw Shind's brother Tuv waiting.
He extracted the medication from its wall-slot and blasted it into the small creature.
He waited. Perhaps ten minutes.
_How is he?_
_He complains concerning the sting of the injection, but he states that he begins to feel improvement in his condition_.
_Good. Can you unwind your mind now and tell me a little more about Morwin's visit?_
_He is your friend. Mine too. From long ago_.
_So why the 'Beware' business?_
_It is not he himself, but something that he brings which may lead you to danger_.
_What?_
_Information, I feel_.
_News that may kill me? Those CL radicaLs with their rockets did not exactly accomplish the job. What has Morwin got?_
_I do not know. I speak only as a member of my race who occasionally glimpses a fragment of future truth. Sometimes I know. I dream it. I do not understand the process_.
_Okay. Monitor your brother's condition and tell me about him now_.
_His breathing is a trifle labored, but his hearts beat more easily. We thank you_.
_It has worked again. Good_.
_It is not good. I see his life as coming to an end in twopoint-eight Earth years_.
_What do you want me to do?_
_He will require stronger drugs as time goes on. You have been kind, but you must be kinder. Possibly, a specialist_ ...
_All right. We can afford it. We will get him the best. Tell me more about what is wrong_.
_The blood vessels will begin to deteriorate at a more rapid rate soon. It will take approximately sixteen Earth months before the harm is widespread, however. Then he will go quickly. I do not know what I will do_.
_He will depend upon my care, and it will not be prominent by its absence. Talk to him and make him comfortable_.
_I am doing that now_.
_Pipe me in_.
_Bide a moment_.
... Then into the mind of a Mongoloid child, but more. Snatched up by the currents, drawn in, he knew and he saw.
... Everything that had fallen before those eyes was there, and Malacar had seen to it that they had looked upon many things.
You do not toss away a tool such as this because of a doctor's bill.
Malacar gazed into that dark place, the mind, moved through it. Shind maintained the bond and Malacar regarded the medium which held him. Skies, maps, millions of pages, faces, scenes, diagrams. It might be that there was no understanding in the idiot creature's mind, but it was a place where everything his yellow eyes had fallen upon had found a home. Malacar moved carefully.
No, that furry head was a storage house; and not to be surrendered readily.
Then, all about him, rang the feelings. Suddenly, he was near the spot of pain and death-fear--only partly understood, and more awful thereby--the seething nightmare place where half-formed images crawled, writhed, burned, bled, froze, were stretched and torn. Something within his own being echoed it and moved toward congruency. It was the basic terror of a thing confronting nothingness, attempting to people it in some fashion with all the worst gropings of the imagination, succeeding in this latter and, failing to comprehend, repeating it.
_Shind! Pull me out!_
... And he stood there again, beside the sink. He dumped a retort, rinsed it.
_The experience was of value?_
He decided so.
_I will increase the dosage on a very slow basis. Do not permit him to exert himself unduly_.
_You like his memory?_
_You are damned right I do, and I will act to preserve it_.
_Good. The estimate I gave you concerning his life expectancy might be several months off_.
_I will be judicious in acting upon it. --Tell me more of Morwin_.
_He is troubled_.
_Aren't we all?_
_He will be landing soon and coming by. It seems that his mind is invaded by fears given there by people of the place that you hate_.
_Likely. He lives among them_.
He only glanced at the vision of his world.
He had activated the Screens which showed him much of the Earth, to while away a few minutes. He shut them down because the changed map bored him. Living beside a volcano, simply because the site had once meant something, had accustomed him to the worst that the screens could show. It still meant something to him, but there was little he could do to change the landscape. Now he followed the trail of the ship and watched Morwin emerge.
Fixing a tracer on the man, he primed several weapons systems.
This is ridiculous, he decided. There must be somebody a man can trust.
He observed Morwin's progress all the way to his gate, however; and followed him with a hover-globe that could pour fiery death in an instant.
The space-armored figure halted and looked upward. Fracture lines crossed the globe. Malacar struck the recall button on his massive Weapons Console.
A white light blinked, and he turned a dial, bringing in words and static:
"I'm just here to say 'Hi,' sir. If you want me to go away, I will."
He touched Broadcast.
"No. Come on in. It's just the old precaution business."
But he tracked Morwin every step of the way, feeding the movement patterns into his battle computer. He X-rayed him, weighed him, determined his heartbeat rate, blood pressure and electroencephalographic indices. He fed this data to another computer which analyzed it and routed it back to the battle computer.