The Godmen

thoughts from it kept pouring into Harlow's mind and he did not think he could take any more. It was easy enough to talk of leaving off the shackles of flesh and wearing a body of pure energy, but it was too big for his brain to grasp as yet. He said, “Dundonald.'

'Yes?'

'I'm Mark Harlow, remember? I'm just a guy from Earth. You spring this on me all at once, you expect me to—” He broke off, and then he clenched his hands and made himself go on again. He said, “Listen. I'm talking to a patch of light. And I get a thought in my mind that this light-patch says it's Dundonald, a man I knew. It's hard to take. You know?'

Dundonald's thought came with a pitying quality in it. “Yes, Mark. I suppose it is.'

'All right.” Harlow felt sweat damp on his forehead, but he stared straight at the misty radiance and said, “Give it to me slow, then, will you?'

'All right, Mark, I'll give it to you slow. But not too slow, please, for time is running out.'

Harlow asked, “You found the world of the Vorn from the legend Brai told you about?'

'Yes.'

'You found the Vorn on it?'

'No. No, Mark — the Vorn have been gone from that world for a long, long time. Ever since they found out how to change and become — like me. I found their dead cities, and I found the Converter. Not them.'

'The Converter that made you this way. What made you do it, Dundonald?'

The answering thought was strong. “I had to. I had to try the thing, after I learned its secret. I went through. I was still like this — like the Vorn — when Taggart's ship came.'

'Ah,” said Harlow. “And then-?'

'My men, my ship, were waiting,” Dundonald answered. “Taggart took them by surprise, easily. In the fight, three of my men were killed. He has the others locked up.'

Harlow, in the anger he felt, almost forgot he was not talking to Dundonald in the flesh. He said, between his teeth, “He's very good at trick surprises, is Taggart.'

'He learned,” said Dundonald, “that I was — on the other side. He has armed men watching the Converter. If I try to come back through, he'll have me.'

'But what's he doing — just sitting there?” demanded Harlow.

'He's waiting, Harlow. He sent out communic messages, to someone named Frayne. Frayne, I gathered, commands another of the secret ships that the Cartel sent to find me and the Vorn. Taggart messaged him to come to the world of the Vorn, to help him take the Converter away.'

The appalling picture began to come clear to Harlow. If the Cartel ships got this Converter away, the ultimate freedom of the universe would be in the hands of a group of greedy men who could exploit the greatest of all discoveries for their own power and profit.

'Oh, no,” said Harlow. “We've got to stop that. Can we reach that world before this other ship — Frayne's ship — does?'

'I don't know,” said Dundonald. “Frayne can't be too far away or he'd be out of range of communic. That's why you've got to hurry, to get there first. Yet you can't land right where Taggart is, his ship radar will spot you coming and his missiles will get you before you're even close. The only way you can get to him is through that.'

And the patch of radiance became a round ball and moved to the visiscreen, touching the black outward bulge of a looming cloudcliff.

'I can guide you through it, Harlow. But you'll have to come down beyond the curve of the planet and walk the rest of the way to Lurluun — that's that old Vorn city where the Converter is. After that—'

'After that,” Harlow said, “we'll hit Taggart with everything we've got.'

'Which isn't much,” Dundonald said, “if all you have are the popguns prescribed by Regulation Six. Well, they'll have to do. Change your course now, and make it fast.'

Harlow, as he moved, glimpsed the strained face of Yrra gazing in awe at the floating core of radiance. He said, “Something else, Dundonald. “The girl's brother, Brai. She came after him. Is he still living?'

'He's with Taggart's prisoners — my men,” came the answering thought. “How long any of them will live if Taggart pulls this off, you can guess.'

Harlow told Yrra briefly, in her own language, and saw the tears start in her eyes.

'For God's sake, will you hurry!” prodded Dundonald's thought.

* * *

Feeling very strange indeed, like a man dreaming or drunk or in partial shock, Harlow spun the Thetis around on her tail and sent her plunging toward the black cliff of dust.

He filled in Kwolek and Garcia as much as he could in a few words, and had Garcia get on the intercom to the crew. He tried not to look at the dust-cliff ahead. It was a million miles each way and it looked as solid as basalt. The green glare of the distant sun touched its edges with a poisonous light.

'Relax,” said Dundonald. “It only looks that way. I've been through it a dozen times.'

'Fine,” said Harlow, “but we're still bound to our old fleshly selves, not at all impervious to floating hunks of rock.'

'I'll take you through, Harlow. Don't worry.'

Harlow worried.

The cliff was black and imminent before them. Instinctively Harlow raised his arm before his face, flinching as they hit. There was no impact. Only suddenly it was dark, as dark as Erebus, and the telltales on the board flopped crazily. The Thetis was blind and deaf, racing headlong through the stellar dust.

Kwolek muttered, “This is crazy. We just imagined we saw and heard—'

'Shut up,” whispered Harlow. “I can't hear—” He looked around. Panic hit him. The patch of radiance was gone. Dundonald was gone. Dundonald? How did he know it was Dundonald and not a deceitful stranger, one of the old Vorn sent to lead him to destruction? He could wander forever in this cosmic night until the ship was hulled and they died, and still they would wander forever—

'Pull your nose up,” came Dundonald's thought sharply. “Three degrees at least. What the hell, Mark! Pull it up. Now. Starboard ten degrees — forget the degrees. Keep turning until I tell you to stop. Good. Now keep her steady — there's some stuff ahead but we'll go under it. Steady—'

Harlow did as he was told, and presently he saw what he had not seen before — the misty brightness that was Dundonald's strange new being drawn thin as a filament and extending out of sight through the fabric of the ship. Harlow found time to be ashamed.

The utter dark went on, not quite forever. There was no thinning, no diffusion. Or perhaps they went through the fringe area so swiftly that none was apparent. One moment the screens were dead black and in the next moment the green sunblaze burst painfully upon their eyes and they were out of the cloud, back in the vast, dark walled bay of the Vorn. But their detour through the dark had now brought them out on the other side of the green star and its planet.

Dundonald's thought reached him, urgent. “Taggart expects you to come after him, straight in through the bay the way he came. He's got his ship cruising out in front of the planet to radar your approach.'

'And we've got the planet between us and his ship, masking us,” Harlow said. “If we keep it between, we can land secretly.'

'That's it, Harlow. But you've got to hurry! I'll guide you in.'

Strange pilot for the strangest landing a man ever made, thought Harlow. Don't think about it, don't think about what Dundonald has become, play it as it comes, take her in.

He took her in. The Thetis hit the atmosphere and it was like plunging into a green well.

'I'm trying to land you as near Lurluun as I can,” said Dundonald. “But this planet rotates, and Lurluun is rolling toward the picketship out there, and you have to keep the curve of the planet hiding you.'

The ship plunged downward, and now weird-colored forests rolled beneath them, vast deserts of greenish sand, mountains of black rock stained with verdigris like old copper, a strange, unearthly landscape under the light of the emerald sun that was setting as this side of the planet turned away from it.