The Edmond Hamilton MEGAPACK ®. Edmond Hamilton

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      The Virgin and the Scales—”

      The old zodiacal rhyme was running through Hyrst’s mind, and that was the only thing that was in his mind.

      The Virgin and the Scales.

      Yes. And she’s very beautiful, too, thought Hyrst. But she shouldn’t be holding the Scales. That’s all wrong. The Scales come next, and then the Scorpion—Scorpio—and the Archer—Sagittarius—

      And anyway they aren’t scales, they’re a pair of big golden stars, and she’s putting them down, and they’re melting together. There’s only one of them, and it’s not a star at all, really. It’s a polished metal jug, reflecting the light, and—

      The Virgin smiled. “The doctor said you were coming around. I brought you something to drink.”

      Reality returned to Hyrst with a rush. “You’re Christina,” he said, and tried to sit up. He was dizzy, and she helped him, and he said, “I guess it did fall short.”

      “What?”

      “The grenade. The last thing I remember is Shearing—Wait. Where is Shearing?”

      “Sitting up in the lounge, nursing his bruises. Yes, it fell short, but I don’t think telekinetics had much to do with that. We’ve never been able to control matter convincingly. There. All right?”

      “Fine. How did you get us out?”

      “Of course the grenade had made the entrance impassible—we had to cut our way in through the outer wall. We had a clear field. Bellaver’s men had all gone back to their ships. They thought you were dead, and to tell you the truth we thought you must be, too. But you didn’t quite ‘feel’ dead, so we dug you out.”

      “Thanks,” said Hyrst. “I suppose they know different now.”

      He was in a ship’s sick-bay. From the erratic crash and shudder of the lateral jets, they were beating their way through the Belt, and at a high rate of speed. Hyrst sent a glance back into space. The tugs and Bellaver’s yacht were following, but this time only the yacht had a chance. The tugs were dropping hopelessly behind.

      “Yes, they soon found out once we got you out, but with any luck we’ll lose them,” said Christina. She sat down beside the bunk, where she could see his face. “Shearing told you about the ship.”

      “The starship. Yes.” He looked at her. Suddenly he laughed. “You’re not a goddess at all.”

      “Who said I was?”

      “Shearing. Or anyway, his mind. Ten feet tall, and crowned with stars—I was afraid of you.” He leaned closer. “Your eyes, though. They are angry.”

      “So will yours be,” she said, “when you’ve fought the Bellavers as long as we have.”

      “There are still things I don’t understand. Why you built the ship, why you’ve kept it secret from everyone, not just Bellaver, what you plan to do with it—how you came to be one of the Brotherhood.”

      She smiled. “The Seitz method was originated to save wreck-victims frozen in deep space. Remember? Quite a few of us never went through the door at all, innocent or guilty. But that makes no difference, once you’ve come back from out there.” She put her hand on his. “You’ve learned fast, but you’re only on the threshold. There’s no need for words with us. Open your mind—”

      * * * *

      He did so. At first it was no different from the contact he had had with Shearing’s mind, or with Christina’s before on the Happy Dream. Thoughts came to him clearly phrased—You want to know why we built the ship, what we plan to do with it—and it was only after some time that he realized the words had stopped and he was receiving Christina’s emotions, her memories and opinions, her disappointments and her dreams, as simply and directly as though they were his own.

      You haven’t had time yet, they told him without words, to realize how alone you are. You haven’t tried, as most of us do at first, to be human again, to fit yourself into life as though the gap of time was not there, as though nothing had changed. You haven’t watched people getting old around you while you have hardly added a gray hair. You haven’t had to move from one place to another, one job, one group of friends to another, because sooner or later they sense something wrong about you. You haven’t had to hide your new powers as you would hide a disease because people would fear and hate you, perhaps even kill you, if they knew. That’s why there is a brotherhood. And that’s why we built the ship.

      Symbol of flight. Symbol of freedom. A universe wide beyond imagining, thronging with many colored guns, with new worlds where men in a human society could build a society of their own. No boundaries beyond which the mind cannot dare to go. All space, all time, all knowledge—free!

      Once more he saw those wide dark seas between the suns. His mind raced with hers through the cold-flaming nebulae, wheeled blinded and stunned past the hiving stars of Hercules, looked in eager fascination at the splendid spiral of Andromeda—no longer, perhaps, beyond reach, for what are time and space to the intangible forces of the mind?

      Then that wild flight ceased, and instead there was a smaller vision, misty and only half realized, of houses and streets, a place where they could live and be what they were, openly and without fear.

      Can you understand now, she asked him, what they would think if they knew about the ship? Can you understand that they would be afraid to have us colonizing out there, afraid of what we might do?

      He understood. At the very least, if the truth were known, the Lazarites would never be free again. They would be taken and tested and examined and lectured about, legislated over, restricted, governed, and used. They might be fairly paid for their ship and whatever other advancements they might develop, but they would never be permitted to use them.

      With sudden savage eagerness Hyrst said, “But first of all I must know who killed MacDonald. Shearing explained about the latent impressions. I’m ready.”

      She stood up, regarding him with grave eyes. “There’s no guarantee it will work. Sometimes it does. Sometimes not.”

      Hyrst thought about the tired, gray-haired man who had stood at the foot of his bed. “It’ll work. It’s got to.”

      He added, “If it doesn’t, I’ll tear the truth out of Bellaver with my hands.”

      “It may come to that,” she said grimly. “But we’ll hope. Lie quiet. I’ll make the arrangements.”

      An hour later Hyrst lay on the padded table in the middle of the sick-bay. The ship spun and whirled and leaped in a sort of insane dance, and Hyrst was strapped to the table to prevent his being thrown off. He had known that the ship was maneuvering in the thickest swarm area of the Belt with four pilots mind-linked and flying esper, trying to out-dare Bellaver. Two others were keeping Vernon blanked, and they hoped that either Bellaver himself or his radar-deflector system would give up. Hyrst had known this, but now he was no longer interested. He was barely conscious of the lurching of the ship. They had given him some sort of a drug, and he lay relaxed and pliant in a pleasant suspension of all worries, looking vaguely up at the faces that were bent over him. Finally he closed his eyes, and even they were gone.

      * СКАЧАТЬ