inoperative.
Ronny said, “We could call down the
“If they could nullify our spacecraft, I assume they could do the same to yours,” one of the others told him.
“When do the annual ceremonies begin?” Dorn asked.
Rosemary said, “We don’t know.”
She was far from the smiling, bright Rosemary that the Section G agents had first met on Einstein. On the face of it, she had been under pressure long enough for her defenses to have collapsed. She was obviously in a state of despair.
Ronny frowned and said to her, “What are you doing here, anyway? I thought from what Marvin said back on Einstein that you were sending a delegation of your highest intelligences for this romp. You told us you were comparatively stupid.”
“That was a fake,” she sighed. “We wanted to put one of our number in a position to set you up. I was chosen.”
Following their conference, the three Section G agents were given a conducted tour of the premises. The rest of the building bore out what they had found in the living room. It was simple, to the point of being stark, but the furniture was comfortable. The bathrooms were surprisingly similar to those of Earth settled worlds, but, once again, Ronny decided, a humanoid life form would eventually come up with approximately the same toilet equipment; the bathtub, the shower, the flush toilet.
The dining room was something of a mystery, however. The Einstein five had never figured out how it worked. Periodically, the legless, anti-gravity dining room table would disappear. In moments, it would become visible again, bearing sufficient food for the number of persons present. None of them were particularly happy with the strange food, but it obviously supported their life form. Rosemary hated it and would eat only enough to keep her going.
The bedrooms were, once more, stark, and with no facilities for storing clothes. It occurred to Ronny that the Dawnmen had no need to store clothes. With a matter conversion unit, and he assumed that each dwelling had one, you could make new clothing, or anything else you might wish, at any time.
The beds were about half as high as the Earthlings were used to, but quite comfortable. There were no covers whatsoever, not even a bedsheet. One slept on the equivalent of a mattress which seemed similar to a water-mattress, though filled with something other than water. They never did find out what.
Each room had one or more large windows, according to its size, and they could look out without difficulty over the fabulous countryside. It was difficult to realize that from the exterior the house was invisible and all in it. Only by opening the front door could it be seen that a dwelling was here.
The building was fairly large, with five bedrooms in all, each with two beds. To accommodate the newcomers, those from Einstein did some switching about. Lee Chang and Ronny took over one room, Dorn another. Rosemary had made a wry mouth when it became obvious that Ronny was to sleep with the Chinese girl. However, Ronny suspected that she was probably not sleeping alone, but with one, or possibly more, of the Einstein men. He rather doubted that Rosemary slept alone very often, not with the sexual mores under which she had been raised.
The inspection of the premises over, they retired again to the living room. Ronny pulled up a chair before the floating table top and brought forth his communicator. He had his fingers mentally crossed. In view of what Rosemary had said about their time instruments being disrupted, all he needed was for his Section G communicator not to function. He was relieved to get an answer when he called the
Ronny reported briefly to John Fodor, who looked worried, but obviously knew that there was nothing that he could do. Thus far, he hadn’t spotted any signs of Dawnworld spacecraft, which could only be a relief to him.
Ronny told him that there was no night and day here and that evidently you slept when you became tired. He was beginning to feel that way already, so if he didn’t report in within the next six hours, the captain was not to become alarmed. He would as soon as sleep was over.
The captain gone, Ronny called the Octagon on Earth again and was put through to Sid Jakes. He gave him the whole story.
“A gladiator fight?” the assistant to Ross Metaxa protested. “The more I hear about these Dawnmen, the more I disbelieve. How can they be that far advanced and still put up with gladiator fights?”
Ronny shook his head. “They live by traditions and rituals, most of them going back to the dawn of their race. They’re bred into them. Evidently, it’s impossible to change them, any more than it’s possible to change a drone into a worker bee.”
“So the story is that if you win, you go free. All but Lee Chang, that is, and the girl from Einstein.”
“That’s right, Sid,” Ronny said lowly.
“Well, you and Dorn take the cloddies, Ronny, and figure out some way of getting the girls off the hook, especially Lee Chang.”
“Ha, you dreamer,” Ronny growled at him.
“Stiff upper lip, old chappie,” Sid Jakes grinned at him. “You’ll find some way. You always do.”
“Having a wonderful time,” Ronny snarled at him. “Wish you were here… instead.”
He flicked the communicator off and turned back to Dorn and Lee Chang who had been following the reports he had been making.
He snarled, “That grinning funker.”
But Lee Chang shook her head. “Poor Sid’s worried sick. How would you like to be in his position, sitting helpless there in Greater Washington?”
Gil entered and said, “Meal time again. At least the table is freshly loaded with their Dawnworld gook.”
They followed him into the dining room where the others had already gathered and found that Rosemary had exaggerated the quality of the food. It wasn’t as bad as all that. They were accustomed to none of the basics but they were obviously nourishing. There were even some fruits for dessert that were quite exotic in taste, though less sweet than the Earthlings were used to.
Following the meal, the three Section G agents felt like sleep. They were still used to the routine of the
Lee Chang and Ronny retired to their room. There were two windows and they could discover no way of darkening them. There were no drapes or blinds and evidently no mechanical means of opaquing them. It would seem that theDawnworlders slept in bright daylight. Ronny vaguely wondered if this perpetual light had always been so, or if it was a result of planetary engineering, perhaps some megayears ago. In either case, the need for dark to sleep comfortably would have evolved out of the Dawnmen, if they ever had it.
He wasn’t up to sex, even if Lee Chang had been. The fact that she was doomed, even if he had a very remote chance of surviving, hung heavily over the two of them. They undressed, kissed, and took to separate beds.
She said, before they dropped off into sleep, “Ronny, during your years as a Section G operative, have you ever before been in a spot where it seemed impossible that you could survive?”
“Yes,” he said.
After a moment, she said, “So have I, but never one where it seemed so very impossible.”
There was no answer to that. When they awakened, they made their toilets, dressed and returned to the living room to find nobody but Gil there. Gil and the dogs. Boy and Plotz had elected to spend their time here, rather than in the smaller bedrooms.
Boy looked up and said, “Boss, when do we eat? There’s a big spread on the dining room table.”
“I suppose now,” Ronny told him. “Eat, drink and be merry for… ” He broke it off. It wasn’t funny, with Lee Chang there beside him. And, seated across the room, Gil, who had never been in physical combat in his life and was slated to go up against expert gladiators.
Lee Chang looked at him from the side of her almond eyes but she had the guts to be amused. She said softly, in her Lee Chang voice, “You’ve got a real touch there, darling.”
“Sorry,” he said gruffly. They headed for the dining room.
