Are you prepared to run it exactly as I tell it?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. Come straight out to my place.”
“I can’t, sir. I called you because I think I’m being watched, and there may not be much time.”
“All right, then. You can report that in my opinion the potential of Orbitsville is…”
“Orbitsville?”
“The local name for Lindstromland…” Garamond stopped speaking as the image of the reporter broke up into motes of coloured light which swarmed in the air for a second before abruptly vanishing. He waited for the image to re-establish itself but nothing happened.
“I thought it was too good to be true,” Napier commented. “Somebody pulled out the plug on you.”
“I know. Where do you think Mason was speaking from?”
“Must have been from one of the depot stores. Those are the only places where he’d have any access to a communicator set.”
“Let’s get down there right now.” Garamond pulled on a lightweight jacket and, without waiting to explain to Aileen, hurried from the house into Orbitsville’s changeless noon. Christopher looked up from the solitary game he was playing in the grass but did not speak. Garamond waved to the boy and strode out in the direction of the clustered buildings around the aperture.
“It’s bloody hot,” Napier grumbled at his side. “I’m going to buy a parasol for walking about outdoors.”
Garamond was in no mood to respond to small talk. “It’s getting too much like Earth and Terranova.”
“You won’t be able to prove the call was blocked.”
“I’m not even going to try.”
They walked quickly along the brown dirt road which threaded through the scattering of residences and reached the belt of small administrative buildings, research laboratories and windowless storehouses which surrounded the aperture. The black ellipse began to be disjointedly visible through a clutter of docking machinery and L-shaped entry ports. Garamond was no longer able to think of it as a lake of stars — now it was simply a hole in the ground. As they were passing an unusually large anonymous building his attention was caught by sunlight glinting on a moving vehicle — one of the few yet to be seen on Orbitsville. It stopped at the entrance to the building, four men got out and hurried inside. One of them had a youthful build which contrasted with his greying hair.
Napier caught Garamond’s arm. “That looked like our man.”
“We’ll see.” They sprinted across a patch of grass and into the dense shade of the foyer, just in time to see an interior door closing. A doorman wearing Starflight emblems came out of a kiosk and tried to bar their way, but Garamond and Napier went by on each side of him and burst through to the inner room. Garamond’s first glance confirmed that he had found Colbert Mason. The reporter was between two men who were gripping his arms, and three others — one of whom Garamond identified as Silvio Laker, a member of Elizabeth Lindstrom’s personal staff — were standing close by. Mason’s face had a dazed, drugged expression.
“Hands off him,” Garamond commanded.
“Out of here,” Laker said. “You’re outside your territory, Captain.”
“I’m taking Mason with me.”
“Like hell you are,” said one of the men holding Mason, stepping forward confidently.
Garamond gave him a bored look. “I can cripple you ten different ways.” He was lying, never having been interested in even the recreational forms of personal combat, but the man suddenly looked less confident. While he was hesitating, his partner released Mason and tried to snatch something from his pocket, but was dissuaded by Napier who simply moved his three-hundred-pound bulk in a little closer and looked expectant. A ringing silence descended on the sparsely furnished room.
“Are you all right?” Garamond said to Mason.
“My neck,” the reporter said uncertainly, fingering a pink blotch just above his collar. “They used a hypodermic spray on me.”
“It was probably just a sedative to keep you quiet.” Garamond fixed his gaze on Laker. “For your sake, I hope that’s right.”
“I warned you to stay out of this,” Laker said in a hoarse voice, his short round body quivering with anger. He extended his right fist, on which was a large gold ring set with a ruby.
“Lasers are messy,” Garamond said.
“I don’t mind cleaning up.”
“You’re getting in over your head, Laker. Have you thought about what Elizabeth would do to you for involving her in my murder?”
“I’ve an idea she’d like to see you put away.”
“In secret, yes — but not like this.” Garamond nodded to Napier. “Let’s go.” They turned the compliant, stupefied reporter around and walked him towards the door.
“I warn you, Garamond,” Laker whispered. “I’m prepared to take the chance.”
“Don’t be foolish.” Garamond spoke without looking back. The door was only a few paces away now and he could feel an intense tingling between his shoulder blades. He put out his hand to grasp the handle, but in the instant of his touching it the door was flung open and three more men exploded into the room. Garamond tensed to withstand an onslaught but the newcomers, two of whom were wearing field technician uniforms, brushed past with unseeing eyes.
“Mr Laker,” shouted the third man, who was wearing the blue uniform of a Starflight engineering officer. “You’ve got to hear this! You’ll never…”
Laker’s voice was ragged with fury. “Get out, Gordino. What the hell’s the idea of bursting in here like… ?” “But you don’t understand! We’ve made contact with outsiders! Two of my technicians went over the hills to the west of here last night and they found an alien community — one that’s still in use!”
Laker’s jaw and threatening fist sagged in unison. “What are you saying, Gordino? What kind of a story is this?”
“These are the two men, Mr Laker. They’ll tell you about it themselves.”
“Two of your drunken gypsies.”
“Please.” The taller of the technicians raised his hand and spoke in an incongruous and strangely dignified voice. “I anticipated a certain degree of scepticism, so instead of returning to base immediately I waited till daylight and took a number of photographs. Here they are.” He produced a sheaf of coloured rectangles and offered them to Laker. Garamond pushed Napier and the still-dazed Mason out through the door and, forgetting all notion of fleeing, strode back to Laker and snatched the photographs. Other hands were going for them as well, but he emerged from the free-for-all with two pictures. The background in each was the limitless prairie of Orbitsville and ranged across the middle distance were pale blue rectangles which could be nothing other than artificial structures. Near the base of some of the buildings were multicoloured specks, so small as to be represented only by pinpricks of pigment beneath the glaze of the photographs.
“These coloured dots,” Garamond said to the tall technician. “Are they… ?”
“All I can say is that they moved. From the distance they look like flowers, but they move around.”
Garamond returned his attention to the pictures, trying to drive his mind down a converging beam at the focus of which were the bright-hued molecules — as if he could reach an atomic level where alien forms would become visible, and beyond it a nuclear level on which he could look into the faces and eyes of the first companions Man had found in all his years of star-searching. The reaction was a natural one, conditioned by centuries during which the sole prospect of contacting others lay in close examination of marks on photographic plates, but it was swept aside almost at once by forces of instinct. Garamond found himself walking towards the door and was out in the sunlight before understanding that he was heading for the Starflight vehicle parked near the entrance. The figures of Napier and Mason were visible a short distance along the road, apparently on their way to Garamond’s house. He got into the crimson vehicle and examined the controls. The car was brand-new, having been manufactured on board one of the spaceships specifically for use on Orbitsville, and no keys were needed to energize the pulse-magnet engine. Garamond pressed the starter button and accelerated away in a cloud of dust as Laker and the others were coming out of the building.
He ignored their shouts, gunned the engine for the few seconds it took to catch up on Napier, brought his heel down on the single control pedal and skidded the car to a halt. He threw open a door. Napier glanced back at
