He drew a long breath. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. I’ll go.”
“In that case, Administrator Allan,” said the old man, “you will take your ships off in not more than two hours.” He rose, signing that the interview was closed. “I shall notify the Board of Governors.”
The screen went blank. Varn Allan looked at Kenniston and said, “You had better go and tell your people, at once.”
He knew, as he went out, that she was very angry. But Lund seemed strangely pleased.
With what speed he could muster, Kenniston went back across the desert toward the portal, and with every step he took the incredible reality of his commitment beat into his mind.
“You’re going away from Earth. You’re going to get into a ship, that ship, and step clear off the Earth, out to the stars—”
Just the realization of it gave him a feeling of vertigo, a shuddering recoil, and he knew that he had to keep his mind away from what it would be like in that ship, in space—he had to avoid anticipation or the impact of it would be too much for him.
Soldiers met him well outside the portal, raising their rifles but lowering them again when they recognized him. Beyond them, the red dust was flying from laboring shovels and the gun limbers were being wrestled into place.
“What’s going on out there?” cried a sergeant. “Are those ships going to attack? Are—”
“Where’s the Mayor?” Kenniston interrupted. “Back inside the portal. They’re all there, waiting.” Kenniston pushed past them, between the half-dug trenches, and saw Hubble and most of the Council grouped around Mayor Garris just inside the dome.
Most of Middletown’s people seemed crowded in the background, held back by rope barriers. They weren’t shouting now, their faces looked anxious, and he knew that that demonstration of the paralysis ray’s power had cooled down their rage and given them something to worry about.
Garris’ plump face was haggard with strain too, and he greeted Kenniston with a suspicious scowl. “What brought you back? I thought you’d stay out there with your friends.”
Kenniston’s temper, tightened by the weight of the thing he was going to do, let go. “For Christ’s sake,” he snarled, “I’ve been fighting to save your necks. I’ve even agreed to go out to Vega to do it, and this is the kind of reception I get!” Then he was ashamed of his outburst, and got a grip on his nerves. “Listen to me. Those ships are leaving. They’re leaving inside of two hours, and I’m going with them. I’m appealing this whole evacuation question to their Board of Governors.”
A wondering silence fell upon them all. They stared at him, all their faces except Hubble’s uncomprehending.
Hubble exclaimed, “Good God, Ken—you, to Vega? But will it do any good?”
“I’m hoping so,” Kenniston said. He ignored the others, speaking to Hubble as he rapidly explained. “So there’s a chance that I can make them understand our case, and let us alone.”
Mayor Garris had only now begun to understand, apparently. His face had changed—there was an eager hopefulness in it now, a hopefulness dawning also on the faces of Borchard and Moretti and the others.
Kenniston realized then just how hopeless they had all been before his coming. They, and the soldiers, and the people of Middletown, were still ready to fight evacuation, but the futility of such a fight had been made clear to them by the power of the ray, they had known they must fight a battle foredoomed to failure, and now he had brought them a hope at least of another way out.
“Well, now,” said Garris, a little unsteadily, “that’s the way I’ve wanted it all along. Due course of law, peaceful debate… It was just that I couldn’t let them force our people…” He broke off, seizing Kenniston’s hand. “You’ll do your best for us out there, Kenniston, I know that! They can’t all be as stubborn as that blasted woman!”
And, almost unmanned by his relief, Garris turned and cried out to the anxious crowd, “It’s all right, folks, there’s not going to be any fighting right now. Mr. Kenniston’s going to go clear out to where those people come from and put this thing to their government! He’s going to ask a square deal for us!”
There was cheering, during which the Mayor’s high color began to fade back to its original pallor as a new thought struck him.
He said to Kenniston, “But if anyone’s going out there to represent us, maybe as Mayor—” Kenniston really admired him as he struggled to get out those last awful words—“as Mayor, I ought to go?”
Kenniston shook his head. “You’re needed right here, Mr. Garris. And besides, you don’t speak the language, so there wouldn’t be any use in your going.”
“That’s so,” said the Mayor, beginning to breathe again. “Of course, that’s so. Yes, indeed. Now, Kenniston, what can we do to help you? Anything—”
“No, there’s nothing,” said Kenniston. “I haven’t much time. I only need to get a few things, and to say goodbye to someone. Hubble, will you come with me?”
Hubble came. And behind them, as they hurried back into town, they heard the Mayor shouting, and heard the rising voice of relief and jubila-tion from the people.
They had seen themselves about to be beaten in a hopeless fight against weapons they couldn’t combat, those people. And now, suddenly, there wasn’t going to be any fight, the ships were going away, one of their own was going out and convince the star-folk that they couldn’t shove Earth people around, everything was going to be all right!
Kenniston groaned. “I wish they weren’t so God-damned sure! This is only a reprieve.”
“What are our chances, Ken?” Hubble asked him. “Between us.”
“Honest to God, Hubble, I don’t know! I’ve got us into a big undercov-er struggle that I don’t half understand yet.” He told Hubble what Gorr Holl had said, and added, “Gorr and the humanoids are on our side, but maybe they’re only using me as a catspaw. Anyway, I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will,” said Hubble. “I wish I were going with you—but I’m too old, and I’m needed here.” He added, “I’ll get Carol while you pack.”
The nightmare unreality of it hit Kenniston again as he hastily got his few necessaries together. It was just like packing for an overnight run to Pittsburgh or Chicago, instead of for a trip across the galaxy. It couldn’t be really going to happen… Carol’s face, when she came, didn’t help him. There was no color in it at all, and when he took her in his arms and tried to explain, she only whispered, “No, Ken—no! You can’t go! You’re not like them—you’ll die out there!”
“I won’t die, and I can maybe help us all,” he told her. “Carol, listen—if I can do this, if I can find a way out for us, it’ll make up a little for our work that brought this whole thing on Middletown, won’t it? Won’t it?”
She wasn’t even listening to him. She was searching his face, her hands clinging to him painfully, and she said suddenly, “You want to go.”
“Want to?” said Kenniston. “I’m scared stiff! My skin is crawling right now! But I’ve got to.”
“You want to go,” she said again, and looked at him, he thought, as though she finally saw clearly a barrier between them. “That’s the difference between us, it’s always been the difference. I only want the old things, the old, loved ways. You want the new.”
Time was running out, and a sort of despair was in him, and it made him grasp her with a rough male masterfulness, and hold her fiercely against the intangible tide that was sweeping them apart.
“I’m going, to do what I can for us all, and I’m coming back the same, and you’re going to be waiting for me, Carol! You hear?”
He kissed her, and she returned his kiss with a curious tenderness as if she were never going to see him again and was remembering all the good days that they had had together. And when he let her go, her eyes were bright with tears.
He went with Hubble toward the portal, and now the whole city was vibrant with a new hopefulness and excitement, that centered upon himself. But he was quaking with the realization of what he was going toward, he hardly saw the crowded faces that watched him with a mixture of anxious hope and of awe, he hardly heard the voices that shouted,
“Good luck, Mr. Kenniston!” and “You tell ’em out there, Mr. Kenniston! You tell ’em!”
Kenniston went on, out of the domed city and across the plain, and the black, strange belly of the
