Taking control of the ship, he steered a course down through the atmosphere, pleased by the absence of re-entry effects, and slanted towards the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The descent was comparatively leisurely, giving him plenty of time to look for a suitable dumping ground. He found a group of small atolls, brought the ship to a halt in the air about a hundred metres above a lagoon, and— after taking a deep breath to steady his nerves— switched off the transceiver drive.
The ship fell like a lead weight.
Peace counted two seconds and fired the nuclear drive, with dramatic effect. As the thrusters came into play, the plummeting ship clanged as if it had struck an invisible barrier, and Peace—who had been perched on the edge of his seat—was forcibly driven down on to his knees, catching his chin on the edge of the console. Nursing his jaw, which felt as though it had been unhinged, he looked to the left and in spite of his pain was overjoyed to see that the Oscars had disappeared.
The ship’s structure was creaking and protesting as the thunderous nuclear jets bore it aloft again. Peace put the metal giant out of its misery by making a rapid switch back to the transeiver mode, and swung into a curve for a slow pass close to the atoll. Ripples were still spreading across its central lagoon, but he could see down into the clear water without difficulty. The Oscars were standing on the floor of the lagoon, unperturbed at being under several fathoms of water. Their faces tilted upwards as they watched the spaceship cruise by overhead, and it seemed to Peace that they were shaking their fists at him.
“Same to you, fellers,” he called. “Watch out for rust.”
Chuckling with satisfaction, he boosted the ship high into the afternoon sky and set a course for Porterburg, the city he presumed to be his home.
In an older type of craft the navigational problems would have been considerable, but Peace simply flew in a sharp climb until he had reached orbital height—a manoeuvre which took only ten seconds—and could see the entire western seaboard of the North American continent laid out beneath him. From there it was easy to pick out the estuary of the Columbia River, in the middle latitudes of the long narrow Republic of Califanada which stretched from Mexico to Alaska. He could also see the planetary terminator sweeping in from the east, and knew the short winter’s day was drawing to a close in Porterburg and Fort Eccles.
Cool intangible fingers stroked his spine as he realized that his previous self was down there at that moment, preparing to carry his burden of remorse for one more night before making the fateful visit to the Legion’s recruiting station. It briefly occurred to Peace that he had no intention of joining the Legion and therefore no longer required a lever to get him out of a service contract. The wisest thing might be to steal away quietly and allow his past, with all its guilt, to remain a mystery. He flirted with the notion for a moment, then shook his head and put the ship into a steep descent. Unhampered by inertial and aerodynamic effects, the vessel reached the vicinity of Porterburg in some twenty seconds.
As the city appeared on the forward screen, an accretion of silvery cubes on a broad bend of the Columbia, he remembered he was now guilty of stealing a spaceship and was likely to be arrested if he put down at any civil or military landing field. Making a snap decision, he overflew Porterburg by about forty kilometres and selected a snow-covered pasture which was reasonably close to a small community, but screened from it by low hills. The ship settled with a jolt and the control room door slid aside to admit a gust of chill November air.
Peace stepped out into the silent twilight and took his bearings. Bordering the field was a second-class roadway which looked as though it ran straight to the community he had noticed from the air. There was nobody in the area who could have seen his arrival, and within a matter of minutes darkness would cloak both the spaceship and Peace’s subsequent movements. A comforting sense of being in command of the situation burgeoned within him as he realized that all he had to do was play it cool until the morning, avoid attracting any attention, and—above all—control his tendency to become involved in silly accidents.
Turning up his collar, he squared his shoulders and set off walking towards the road.
“Just a moment, young man,” a woman’s voice called imperiously. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Peace froze in his tracks, his eyes wide with disbelief, and turned around.
The door in the ship’s central passenger section had sprung open and, almost filling it, was a stout, middle-aged woman wearing a straw sun bonnet and a flowered dress. Other portly and middle-aged ladies, similarly attired, milled about behind her in the lighted interior, emitting bleats of consternation. Peace staggered like a man who had been sandbagged as he realized he had stolen a ship which was full of Aspatrian passengers.
“See that?” another woman said, joining the first in the doorway. “He’s drunk! I told you the pilot was drunk. Coffee all over me I’ve got, and it’s all his fault.”
“Where are we anyway?” a third chimed in. “This doesn’t look like the Sunnyside Weight-free Pleasure Asteroid to me.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Peace mumbled, backing away. Gradually gaining speed until he had reached the safe maximum for that form of perambulation, he turned and ran as fast as he could. The party of stout ladies watched until he had faded out of sight in the gathering dusk before turning to each other with looks of indignation. Silence reigned for several seconds, and then—by mutual consent—they produced subetheric whistles from their purses and blew a long and concerted blast of pure outrage.
Five thousand kilometres away to the south-east, where the afternoon sun was still shining on a Pacific atoll, two gold-gleaming supermen—who had been staring irresolutely at the sand—suddenly raised their heads. They remained in a listening posture for a time, red fire pulsing in their eyes, the hairless domes of their skulls reflecting the sun’s brilliance.
At last the giants turned to each other, nodded, and ran down a sloping shelf of coral into the sea. Too heavy and compacted for swimming, they continued to run along the ocean floor after the water had closed over their heads, and sea creatures prudently darted out of the way as the invaders of their domain struck a course for Califanada.
Panting loudly with exhaustion, Peace leaped over a boundary ditch and reached the verge of the deserted highway. Snow which had been cleared from the road itself formed a low moraine on each side. Slithering over this last barrier with some difficulty, Peace brushed snow and ice droplets from his clothing, shoved his hands in his pockets and began walking in the direction of the nearby settlement.
Everything is still all right, he assured himself. Those old trouts on the ship are bound to be a bit upset, but they don’t know how lucky they are I changed my mind about going far beyond the meagre confines of this galaxy and all the galaxies about it, and the suffering a C-change bit. That would have really given them something to complain about! Anyway, it will be hours before they can contact police, and in the meantime I’ve got plenty of money for transport, I’m correctly and inconspicuously dressed, I’m close to Porterburg, and I’m fit and healthy-except for a suspected fracture of the lower mandible, and perhaps some frostbite.
All I have to do now, he impressed on himself, building up his confidence, is stop being so damned accident prone. Play it cool! Blend into the background! Even I can stay out of trouble till the morning.