'We don't mind at all,' said Eva. 'Were going to the hunting asteroid that you got from Benton. It has a lodge and a good supply of food and no one will think of looking for us there.'
'That's fine,' said Sutton, grinning. 'I could do with a spot of hunting.'
'You won't be doing any hunting,' said a voice behind them. Sutton swung around. Herkimer stood in the hatch that led to the pilot's shell.
'You're going to write a book,' said Eva, softly. 'Surely you know about the book. The one the Revisionists…'
'Yes,' Sutton told her. 'I know about the book…'
He stopped, remembering, and his hand went involuntarily to feel of his breast pocket. The book was there, all right, and something that crinkled when he touched it. He remembered that, too. The letter…the incredibly old letter that John H. Sutton had forgotten to open six thousand years before.
'About the book,' said Sutton, and then he stopped again, for he was going to say they needn't bother about writing the book, for he already had a copy. But something stopped him, for he wasn't certain that it was smart just then to let them know about the book he had.
'I brought along the case,' said Herkimer. 'The manuscript's all there. I checked through it.'
'And plenty of paper?' asked Sutton, mocking him.
'And plenty of paper.'
Eva Armour leaned toward Sutton, so close that he could smell the fragrance of her copper hair.
'Don't you see,' she asked, 'how important it is that you write this book? Don't you understand?'
Sutton shook his head.
Important, he thought. Important for what? And whom? And when?
He remembered the open mouth that death had struck, the teeth that glittered in the moonlight and the words of a dying man still rang sharply in his ears.
'But I don't understand,' he said. 'Maybe you can tell me.'
She shook her head. 'You write the book,' she told him.
XIX
The asteroid was enveloped in the perpetual twilight of the far-from-sun and its frosty peaks speared up like sharp, silvery needles stabbing at the stars.
The air was sharp and cold and thinner than on Earth and the wonder was, Sutton told himself, that any air could be kept on the place at all. Although at the cost that it had taken to make this or any other asteroid habitable, it would seem that anything should be possible.
A billion-dollar job at least, Sutton estimated. The cost of the atomic plants alone would run to half that figure and without atomics there would be no power to run the atmosphere and gravity machines that supplied the air and held it in its place.
Once, he thought, Man had been content, had been forced to be content, to find his solitude at a lakeshore cottage or a hunting lodge or aboard a pleasure yacht, but now, with a galaxy to spend, Man fixed up an asteroid at a billion bucks a throw or bought out a planet at a bargain price.
'There's the lodge,' said Herkimer, and Sutton looked in the direction of the pointing ringer. High up on the jigsaw horizon he saw the humped, black building with its one pinpoint of light.
'What's the light?' asked Eva. 'Is there someone here?'
Herkimer shook his head. 'Someone forgot to turn off a light the last time when they left.'
Evergreens and birches, ghostlike in the starlight, stood in ragged clumps, like marching soldiers storming the height where the lodge was set.
'The path is over here,' said Herkimer.
He led the way and they climbed, with Eva in the center and Sutton bringing up the rear. The path was steep and uneven and the light was none too good, for the thin atmosphere failed to break up the starlight and the stars themselves remained tiny, steely points of light that did not blaze or twinkle, but stood primly in the sky like dots upon a map.
The lodge, Sutton saw, apparently sat upon a small plateau, and he knew that the plateau would be the work of man, for nowhere else in all this jumbled landscape was it likely that one would find a level spot much bigger than a pocket handkerchief.
A movement of air so faint and tenuous that it could be scarcely called a breeze rustled down the slope and set the evergreens to moaning. Something scuttled from the path and skittered up the rocks. From somewhere far away came a screaming sound that set one's teeth on edge.
'That's an animal,' Herkimer said quietly. He stopped and waved his hand at the tortured, twisted rock. 'Great place to hunt,' he said, and added, 'if you don't break a leg.'
Sutton looked behind him and saw for the first time the true, savage wildness of the place. A frozen whirlpool of star-speckled terrain stretched below them…great yawning gulfs of blackness above which stood brooding peaks and spirelike pinnacles.
Sutton shivered at the sight. 'Let's get on,' he said.
They climbed the last hundred yards and reached the man-made plateau, then stood and stared across the nightmare landscape, and as he looked, Sutton felt the cold hand of loneliness reach down with icy fingers to take him in its grip. For here was sheer, mad loneliness such as he had never dreamed. Here was the very negation of life and motion, here was the stark, bald beginning when there was no life, nor even thought of life. Here anything that knew or thought or moved was an alien thing, a disease, a cancer on the face of nothingness.
A footstep crunched behind them and they swung around.
A man moved out of the starry darkness. His voice was pleasant and heavy as he spoke to them.
'Good evening,' he said and waited for a moment, then added by way of explanation, 'We heard you land and I walked out to meet you.'
Eva's voice was cold and just a little angry. 'You take us by surprise,' she said. 'We had not expected anyone.'
The man's tone stiffened. 'I hope we are not trespassing. We are friends of Mr. Benton and he told us to use the place at our convenience.'
'Mr. Benton is dead,' said Eva, frostily. 'This man is the new owner.'
The man's head turned toward Sutton.
'I'm sorry, sir,' he said. 'We did not know. Of course, we'll leave, the first moment that we can.'
'I see no reason,' Sutton told him, 'why you should not stay.'
'Mr. Sutton,' said Eva, primly, 'came here for peace and quiet. He expects to write a book.'
'A book,' said the man. 'An author, eh?'
Sutton had the uncomfortable feeling that the man was laughing, not at him alone, but at the three of them.
'Mr. Sutton?' said the man, acting as if he were thinking hard. 'I can't seem to recall the name. But, then, I'm not a great reader.'
'I've never written anything before,' said Sutton.
'Oh, well, then,' said the man, laughing as if he were relieved, 'that probably explains it.'
'It's cold out here,' Herkimer said, abruptly. 'Let us get indoors.'
'Certainly,' said the man. 'Yes, it is cold, although I hadn't noticed it. By the way, my name is Pringle. My partner's name is Case.'
No one answered him and after a few seconds he turned and trotted ahead of them, like a happy dog, leading the way.
The lodge, Sutton saw as they approached it, was larger than it had seemed from the valley where they had brought the ship in. It loomed huge and black against the starlit backdrop, and if one had not known that it was there it might have been mistaken for another rock formation.
The door opened as their feet sounded on the massive stone steps which led up to it and another man stood there, stiff and erect and tall, thin, but with whipcord strength about him as the light from inside the room threw his
