"Unfortunately I wasn"t with the group that picked you up, Eddie. They thought they had taken a Vininese leader and it seemed such a suitable punishment to take your disk away and let you hear the sound for a while. Later--after you"d escaped--when the others described your Air-Command uniform I took a chance and sent my note."
He helped Dirrul to his feet. "You"ll have to take over from here on in, Eddie. You said you knew how to pilot this thing. I figured out a take-off but that"s as far as I can go."
"Sorgel"s pilot showed me once," he said. "What I don"t remember I"ll improvise. He said a s.p.a.ce-dragon could make the run in thirty days.
This baby"s got to do it in less than twenty-five if we"re going to beat the Vininese fleet to Agron."
"You didn"t tell them the Plan, did you, Eddie?"
"No."
"The Vininese won"t land without instructions."
"Sorgel may get up enough courage to send a teleray code. We can"t take any chances either."
Dirrul drove himself without rest. He cut every corner he knew, used every trick of navigational skill he had ever learned. Nonetheless it was twenty-eight days before the little ship hung in the air over the Agronian capital.
His heart sank. On the s.p.a.ce-field, in neat ranks, the Vininese s.p.a.ce-fleet was drawn up in proud review. The planet had fallen!
Dirrul made his decision instinctively.
The s.p.a.ce-dragon wheeled and swept low over the field, its vicious guns blazing. The yellow clouds of destruction swept up toward the sky--the little ship was caught in the blazing flame. The interplanetary freight sheds loomed ahead. And the world exploded, falling apart into a soothing painless silence.
Dirrul opened his eyes and looked at the neutral blue of a hospital ceiling. Gradually he became conscious of Dr. Kramer, seated by the bed.
"Dr. Kramer!" Dirrul whispered. "Then everything"s all right."
"If by everything you mean your companions, yes. There"s even a chance we can restore the girl"s hearing."
"And the Vininese?"
"Defeated."
"Dr. Kramer, we"ve got to destroy the Confederacy! I saw their transmitters--I know how their system works."
"Hush, Edward--I promised not to excite you. We know about it."
"Then how could you have been foolish enough to let them land?"
"It seemed a pity not to give a few of their people another chance.
It"s working out quite nicely too."
"I don"t follow you, Dr. Kramer."
"Long ago we became interested when tourists told us about the curious block-buildings on Vinin. Our physics boys worked out an ingenious device for a.n.a.lyzing their atmosphere. It was a little machine concealed in the lining of an ordinary air-freight crate, as I recall.
"A machine is quite objective, Edward--and Customs men don"t stamp freight crates with the negative adaptors. When we learned that a Vininese fleet was going to land here we simply issued insulating helmets to all our people and let them come. As soon as we destroyed their portable transmitters the Vininese army proved quite adaptable to a new environment."
"Then--I did nothing to help when I destroyed their fleet?"
"Unfortunately you wounded two of our mechanics."
"I"m a traitor, Dr. Kramer. Even when I try I can"t redeem myself!"
"Only on Vinin can you betray an external absolute, Edward. To an Agronian all objective concepts are relative to the subjective interpretations made by each individual. You can only be a traitor to yourself."
"The words are pleasant to say to a sick man but the fact remains--I would have betrayed Agron."
"But you didn"t. Why not?"
"When I saw what their efficiency really meant--"
"You changed your mind before you knew about the transmitters?"
"Yes."
"Then you"re libeling yourself. Don"t trap yourself in another self-delusion, Edward. All that"s happened is that you"ve grown up."
Dirrul said slowly, feeling for words that would express the idea as he felt it, "When I was in the center of the galaxy, looking out on s.p.a.ce, I almost grasped a new concept but I lost it when the Agronian patrol attacked me. It"s coming back.
"Time and s.p.a.ce seem to be one and the same. Neither exists as an objective reality. There is no past and no future--all of it occurs eternally in the instant of my own being. I am everything and nothing--infinity and a speck lost in s.p.a.ce."
"Thus you discover the Rational Potential," Dr. Kramer smiled. "I think you"re ready for the s.p.a.ce-pilot promotional, Edward." After a pause Dr. Kramer inquired, "Did you see the Chief of Vinin, Edward?"
"Then you know about that too?"
"I"ve guessed--it seems likely."
"I sc.r.a.ped off the putty and the face color. Beneath it he was an Earthman. A hundred thousand of them rule the Confederacy."
"All time and s.p.a.ce, forever occurring for each of us in the instant of now! Yes, he would be an Earthman, Edward--quite logically. Both good and evil begin with the same source. Both have the same Rational Potential. The act of being has always been the same struggle of constant forces, between the absolute and the relative. The time never changes nor the event but merely the pa.s.sing illusion of place."
Shaking his head the chubby professor departed. Dirrul closed his eyes, at peace with himself.