Or—
But it was no use. However he might say it, whatever he might do, the first step would be to reclaim the notes.
Dawdle up till then, he told himself. Work your way back toward the house until it's almost dark. Then get the notes and after that move fast — so fast that Trevor's gang can't catch up with you.
Second was the ship, the ship that he must steal.
He had spotted it earlier in the day while loafing at the area spaceport. Sleek and small, he knew that it would be a fast job, and the stiff, military bearing of the officer who had been directing the provisioning and refueling had been the final tip-off that it was the ship he wanted.
Loafing outside the barrier fence, playing the part of an idly curious, no-good android, he had carefully entered the officer's mind. Ten minutes later, he was on his way, with the information that he needed.
The ship did carry a time warp unit.
It was not taking off until the next morning.
It would be guarded during the night.
Without a doubt, Sutton told himself, one of Trevor's ships, one of the fighting fleetships of the Revisionists.
It would take nerve, he knew, to steal the ship. Nerve and fast footwork and a readiness and the ability to kill.
Saunter out onto the field, as if he were waiting for an incoming ship, mingling with the crowd. Slip out of the crowd and walk across the field, acting as if he had a right to be there. Not run…walk. Run only if someone challenged him and made the challenge stick. Run then. Fight. Kill, if necessary. But get the ship.
Get the ship and pile on the speed to the limit of endurance, heading in a direction away from his destination, driving the ship for everything that was in it.
Two years out, or sooner if necessary, he would throw in the time unit, roll himself and the ship a couple of centuries into the past.
Once in the past, he would have to ditch the motors, for undoubtedly they would have built-in recognition signals which could be traced. Unship them and let them travel in the direction he had been going.
Then take over the empty hull with his nonhuman body, swing around and head toward Buster's planet, still piling on the speed, building it up to that fantastic figure that was necessary to jump great interstellar spaces.
Vaguely he wondered how his body, how the drive of his energy-intake body, would compare with the actual motors in the long haul. Better, he decided. Better than the motors. Faster and stronger.
But it would take years, many years of time, for Buster was far out.
He checked. Unshipping the engines would throw off pursuit. The pursuers would follow the recognition signals in the motors, would spend long days in overhauling them before they discovered their mistake.
Check.
The time roll would unhook the contact of Trevor's psych-tracers, for they could not operate through time.
Check.
By the time other tracers could be set in other times to find him he would be so far out that the tracers would go insane trying to catch up on the time lag of his whereabouts — if, in fact, they could ever find it in the vastness of the outer reaches of the galaxy.
Check.
If it works, he thought. If it only works. If there isn't some sort of slip-up, some kind of unseen factor.
A squirrel skipped across the grass, sat up on its haunches and took a long look at him. Then, deciding that he was not dangerous, it started a busy search in the grass for imaginary buried treasure.
Cut loose, thought Sutton. Cut loose from everything that holds me. Cut loose and get the job done. Forget Trevor and his Revisionists, forget Herkimer and the androids. Get the book written.
Trevor wants to buy me. And the androids do not trust me. And Morgan, if he had the chance, would kill me.
The androids do not trust me.
That's foolish, he told himself.
Childish.
And yet, they did not trust him. You are human, Eva had told him. The humans are your people. You are a member of the race.
He shook his head, bewildered by the situation.
There was one thing that stood out clearly. One thing he had to do. One obligation that was his and one that must be fulfilled or all else would be with utterly no meaning.
There is a thing called destiny.
The knowledge of that destiny has been granted me. Not as a human being, not as a member of the human race, but as an instrument to transmit that knowledge to all other thinking life.
I must write a book to do it.
I must make that book as clear and forceful and as honest as I can.
Having done that, I have discharged my responsibility.
Having done that, there is no further claim upon me.
A footstep sounded on the path back of the bench and Sutton turned around.
'Mr. Sutton, isn't it?' said the man.
Sutton nodded.
'Sit down, Trevor,' he said. 'I've been expecting you.'
XLIX
'You didn't stay long with your friends,' said Trevor.
Sutton shook his head. 'We had a disagreement.'
'Something about this Cradle business?'
'You might call it that,' said Sutton. 'It goes a good deal deeper. The fundamental prejudices rooted between androids and humans.'
'Herkimer killed an android who brought him a message about the Cradle,' Trevor said.
'He thought it was someone that you sent. Someone masquerading as an android. That is why he killed him.'
Trevor pursed his mouth sanctimoniously. 'Too bad,' he said. 'Too bad. Mind telling me how he recognized the…might we call it the deception?'
'That is something,' Sutton said, 'that I'm not telling you.'
Trevor labored at acting unconcerned. 'The main point is,' he said, 'that it didn't work.'
'You mean the androids didn't run helter-skelter for the Cradle and show you where it was.'
Trevor nodded. 'There was another angle to it, too. They might have pulled some of their guards off the crisis points. That would have helped us some.'
'Double-barreled,' said Sutton.
'Oh, most assuredly,' said Trevor. 'Nothing like getting the other fellow square behind the eight-ball.'
He squinted at Sutton's face.
'Since when,' he asked, 'and why did you desert the human race?'
Sutton put his hand up to his face, felt the hardness of the plastic that had remodeled his features into those of another person.
'It was Herkimer's idea,' he declared. 'He thought it would make me hard to spot. You wouldn't be looking for an android, you know.'
Trevor nodded agreement. 'It would have helped,' he said. 'It would have fooled us for a while, but when you walked away and the tracer followed you, we knew who you were.'
The squirrel came hopping across the grass, sat down in front of them and looked them over.
