The medicouncilor leaned perilously backward and shook his head.
"You"re wrong. It"s supposed to, but it doesn"t. We tried. For a microsecond, the monitor did take over, but the gravital computer is smarter than we thought, if it _was_ the computer that figured out the method. It found a way of cutting the power from the monitor circuit.
It didn"t respond at all."
Cameron forgot his jaw. "If you didn"t bring the rocket back on remote, why did she come?"
"Docchi knows," growled the medicouncilor. "He found out in this room.
That"s why he escaped." He tapped on his desk with blunt fingers. "She could have taken the ship anywhere she pleased and we couldn"t have stopped her. Since she voluntarily came back, it"s obvious that she wants the asteroid!"
Medicouncilor Thorton tried to shove his face out of the screen and into the room. "Don"t you ever think, General? There isn"t any real difference between gravital units except size and power. What she did to the ship she can do as easily to the asteroid." He thrust out a finger and pointed angrily. "Don"t stand there, General Judd. Find that girl!"
It was late for that kind of command. The great dome overhead trembled and creaked in countless joints. The little world shivered, groaned as if it had lain too long in an age-old orbit. It began to move.
Vague shapes stirred, crawled, walked if they could. Fantastic and near-fantastic figures came to the a.s.sembly. Huge or tiny, on their own legs or borrowed ones, they arrived, with or without arms, faces.
The word had spread by voice, by moving lips, by sign languages of every sort.
"Remember, it will be hours or perhaps days before we"re safe," said Docchi. His voice was growing hoa.r.s.e. "It"s up to us to see that Nona has all the time she needs."
"Where is she hiding?" asked someone from the crowd.
"I don"t know. If I did, I still wouldn"t tell you. It"s our job to keep them from finding her."
"How?" demanded one near the front. "Fight the guards?"
"Not directly," said Docchi. "We have no arms in the sense of weapons.
Many of us have no arms in any sense. All we can hope to do is obstruct their search. Unless someone has a better idea, this is what I plan:
"I want all the men, older women, and the younger ones who aren"t suitable for reasons I"ll explain later. The guards won"t be here for another half hour--it will take that long to get them together and give them the orders that the Medicouncil must be working out now.
When they do come, get in their way.
"How you do that, I"ll leave to your imagination. Appeal to their sympathy as long as they have any. Put yourself in dangerous situations. They have ethics; at first they"ll be inclined to help you. When they do, try to steal their weapons. Avoid physical violence as much as you can. We don"t want to force them into retaliation. Make the most of that phase of their behavior. It won"t last long."
Docchi paused and looked over the crowd. "Each of you will have to decide for himself when to drop that kind of resistance and start an active battle campaign. We have to disrupt the light and scanning and ventilation systems, for instance. They"ll be forced to keep them in repair. Perhaps they"ll try to guard these strategic points. So much the better for us--there will be fewer guards to contend with."
"What about me?" called a woman from far in back. "What do I do?"
"You are in for a rough time," Docchi promised her. "Is Jerian here?"
She elbowed her way to his side through the crowd.
"Jerian," said Docchi to the accidentals, "is a normal, pretty woman--outwardly. She has, however, no trace of a digestive system.
The maximum time she can go without food and fluid injections is ten hours. That"s why she"s here."
Again Docchi scanned the group. "I need a cosmetech, someone who has her equipment with her."
A legless woman propelled herself forward. Docchi conferred with her.
She seemed startled, but she complied. Under her deft fingers Jerian was transformed--into Nona.
"She will be the first Nona they"ll find," explained Docchi, "because she can get away with the disguise longer. I think--I hope--they"ll call off the search for a few hours while they test her. Eventually they are sure to find out. In Jerian"s case, fingerprints or X-rays would reveal who she is. But that won"t occur to them immediately.
Nona is impossible to question, as you know, and Jerian will act exactly as Nona would.
"As soon as they discover that Jerian isn"t Nona--well, they won"t bother to be polite, if that"s the word for it. The guards will like the idea of finding an attractive girl they can manhandle in the line of duty, especially if they think that will help them find Nona. It won"t, of course. But it will hold up the search and that"s what we want."
They stood still, no one moving. Women looked at each other in silent apprehension.
"Let"s go," said Jordan grimly.
"Wait," advised Docchi. "I have one volunteer Nona. I need about fifty more. It doesn"t matter if you"re physically sound or not--we"ll raid the lab for plastissue. If you think you can be made up to look like Nona, come forward."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Slowly, singly and by twos and threes, they came to him. There were few indeed who wouldn"t require liberal use of camouflage.
The rest followed Jordan out.
Ma.s.s production of an individual. Not perfect in every instance. Good enough to pa.s.s in most. Docchi watched approvingly, suggesting occasional touches of makeup.
"She can"t speak or hear," he reminded the volunteers. "Remember that at all times, no matter what they do. Hide in difficult places. After Jerian is taken and the search called off and then resumed, let yourselves be found one at a time. Every guard that has to take you for examination is one less to look for the real Nona. They have to find her soon or get off the asteroid."
The cosmetechs were busy; none stopped. There was one who looked up.
"Get off?" she asked. "Why?"
"The Sun is getting smaller."
"Smaller!" exclaimed the woman.
He nodded. "Handicap Haven is leaving the Solar System."
Her fingers flew and molded the beautiful curve of a jaw where there had been none. Next, plastissue lips were applied.
Nona was soon hiding in half a hundred places.
And one more....
[Ill.u.s.tration]
The orbit of Neptune was far behind and still the asteroid was accelerating. Two giant gravital units strained at the core of Handicap Haven. The third clamped an abnormally heavy gravity on the isolated world. Prolonged physical exertion was awkward and doubly exhausting. Hours turned into a day, but the units never faltered.
"Have you figured it out as precisely as you should?" asked Docchi easily. "You share our velocity away from the Sun. You"ll have to overcome it before you can start going back."
The general ignored him. "If we could only turn off that d.a.m.ned drive!"
Engineer Vogel shrugged sickly. "You try it," he suggested. "I don"t want to be around when you do. It sounds easy: just a gravital unit.
But remember there"s a good-sized nuclear pile involved."