ENIGMA OF THE CITY

Originally published in Amazing Stories, April 1943.

“John! Oh, John!”

The sound of his name being called halted John Reid in his long-limbed progress up the slope. He turned, knee-deep in lush grass, to see the figure of a girl hurrying toward him.

John Reid smiled and waved an acknowledging arm. He waited as she approached, wiping his damp face on the sleeve of his tunic. Once he glanced up at the green sky where Alpha Centauri shone in all its fiery splendor. The heat had been intense for days, and as yet there was no sign of the rain clouds which would bring relief.

In another moment the girl was standing before him, her small bosom rising and falling rapidly beneath her simple blouse. Perspiration beaded the tanned oval of her face and darkened her auburn hair where it swept back from temple and forehead. She looked up at him with grey eyes that were clouded with anxiety.

“Hello, Susan,” Reid greeted, in the quiet tone with which he always spoke to her. “I was just going up to the Parsec to see how Doug Lain’s coming along with the engines.” He gestured up toward where the slope leveled off to a broad and grassy rise. Here, limned against the green sky, rested a great rocket freighter.

“You shouldn’t exert yourself like that,” Reid went on. “This isn’t Earth, you know, and we’ve got to take things easy until we grow accustomed to New Terra’s heavier gravity.”

Susan Carew brushed his gentle admonition aside with a sudden rush of words.

“Any sign of the auxiliary yet?”

Reid shook his head slowly; the admiration which had glinted in his brown eyes from sight of her died away. “None,” he answered in a voice grown curiously flat. “I’ve got lookouts posted on high ridges at four different points. They haven’t reported anything.”

“John, something must be wrong,” the girl declared worriedly. “Steve should have been back in the auxiliary days ago. What possibly could have happened to him?”

“I don’t know, Susan. But look here, now, it’s nothing to get excited about. Steve probably just went a bit further on this scouting trip than he usually does.”

“Yes—but even then he should have been back before this! Don’t try to put me off like that, John.”

There was a moment of strained silence. Reid became suddenly aware that her eyes were searching his face. He looked away uncomfortably. He had meant to be reassuring, but from all indications something was seriously wrong. Steve Norlin had been gone eight days now which made him more than merely overdue. Reid knew that the scout always planned his trips with the exactness of a time schedule, and this delay might easily mean disaster.

Reid looked down at the tiny valley which lay at the foot of the slope, fighting down the weary bitterness which was flooding him. Steve Norlin. Always it was Steve Norlin. Was she blind?

His moody eyes came to rest upon the camp which lay sprawled down there in the valley, and something of calm and comfort came into them. It was a sight which never failed to bring him some measure of peace. Peace—and at the same time, unrest.

The camp was spread out with only the faintest suggestion of geometrical planning. At first glance, it resembled something that might have been built by a people whose degree of civilized development had just progressed beyond that of living in caves. It was crowded and noisy, poorly constructed, littered with all sorts of imaginable things, from tools and personal belongings to stacks of piled logs not yet trimmed for building. Completed houses, really little more than crude wooden shelters stood here and there, mingling with others just under construction, while in several places stood flimsy tents consisting of a length of cloth draped over a framework of poles.

Through it all, busily engaged at a multitude of tasks, moved a small band of some two hundred men, women, and children. These were John Reid’s charges, the Arkites, as he had come to think of them, exiles as they were from a war-devastated Solar System. He thought in the same way of the Parsec which had brought them here to New Terra, not as the old, lumbering freighter it once had been, but as a great Ark bearing these last remnants of a once great species to a virgin world to begin life anew.

The Arkites had been in extremely difficult circumstances even while on Earth, and their present situation had been changed but little, save for he fact that the war which had menaced their lives had been left far behind. Their bodies were grimy and unkempt with toil, their clothing bedraggled and tattered. More than a few wore bandages about their limbs as mute evidence of their clumsiness and unfamiliarity with even the simplest of tools. They were thin, too, and had Reid looked carefully through the shimmering heat of Alpha Centauri, he might have noticed the sullen lines of discontent which were growing about their mouths and eyes.

But Reid did not see the crudeness and discomforts of the camp. Neither did he see the discontent just breaking into bud. He looked through the heat with a dreamer’s eyes, and the vision he saw was one of glittering, sky-high towers and a people happy and wise in their greatness.

“You should have listened to Steve,” Susan went on. “You should have had a radio installed aboard the auxiliary, so that if anything ever went wrong, we’d get to know about it in time to help.”

The vision faded from Reid’s eyes; the old bitterness crept back. “It wasn’t absolutely necessary,” he responded patiently. “Besides, neither the time nor the materials could have been spared in setting up a radio system. There’s no telling what kind of weather we’ll be having on this world, and it’s imperative that we get the camp set up and organized as soon as possible. Everyone and everything we have is needed for that.”

Susan pushed back a stray lock of auburn hair with a work-roughened hand, her red mouth set stubbornly. “I know that—but it seems to me that in your concern for the others you might have a little more consideration for Steve. He’s doing by far the most dangerous work of us all, and it’s only fair that—”

She broke off suddenly; her voice softened. “This is a strange, new world, John, and there are so few of us here…”

“Of course,” Reid muttered. He bent down suddenly and plucked one of the spear-like blades of the grass that grew about him. He felt angry with himself, and a little ashamed. He knew that his face had gotten that look of a jealous, small boy as it always did when Susan spoke of Steve Norlin.

Reid frowned down at the blade of grass in his hand, running a calloused thumb along its serrated edge. Trouble was, he was almost old enough to be her father. Why, streaks of grey were already beginning to appear in his crisp, black hair. He was a fool for ever daring to imagine that Susan might be interested in him. An old fool.

Steve Norlin was young and handsome. He had all the necessary dash and charm. He knew how to act around women, knew all the clever and witty things to say. Reid felt his own deficiency in this respect acutely. He’d been too busy all his life to cultivate the social manner. There had been so many other things to do…

He tried now, as always, to tell himself that Susan didn’t really matter. Hp was already well started up the path that led to final realization of his dream, the vision which had kept him inspired through the long, hard years. That was all that counted now—final realization of the dream.

But he glanced up from the blade of grass and looked at Susan, and now, as always, he knew that the final realization would be all the sweeter if she were there to share it with him. This small, rounded girl with her wealth of auburn hair and her cool, grey eyes was the embodiment of certain other dreams, of which up to the time of meeting her, he had been too busy to become fully aware.

“I’ve got to go,” Susan said abruptly. “I’ve got a lot to do.” She turned from him; her grey eyes refused to meet his brown ones.

“Of course,” Reid muttered again. The bitterness crept from his eyes and hardened around his mouth as he watched her go. Her purposeful figure went quickly down the slope and toward the camp. Soon it was swallowed up in the general bustle of the Arkites.

* * * *

Reid stood alone upon the slope. Up in the green sky Alpha Centauri was beginning to edge down toward its resting place behind the tremendous mountains that lay to the north. It was nearing evening now, with the swiftness with which days passed on New Terra. The heat still held, thick and oppressive.

Memory of his intention to visit the Parsec came back to Reid; he crumpled the blade of grass in his hand, then let it drop to the ground as though it were a hope he was reluctantly casting aside. He resumed his journey up the slope, but something of the litheness of his earlier progress had gone.

It was not until he was several yards from the ship did Reid notice the lank, bony form of Doug Lain standing just within the airlock. Lain was wiping his hands on a bit of oily waste, and his long, seamed face was expressionless.

“Oh—hello, Doug,” Reid said, faintly startled. “Thought I’d come up to see how you were getting along.”

“I saw you talking to Susan,” Lain said quietly.

“Why, yes. She wanted to know if the auxiliary had been sighted yet.” Reid looked at the other with a trace of defiance.

“That isn’t quite what I meant,” Lain said. His features softened momentarily, and he gave Reid’s shoulder a gentle punch. “Wake up to yourself, John. If she can’t see that you’re worth two of that Norlin Don Juan any old day, then she’s not worth the trouble of running after.”

“It’s not that. It’s just that she’s young, and I’m—well, I’m pretty well along, Doug.”

Lain threw the bit of waste aside with an abrupt gesture. “That makes little difference, John. I know she’s pretty—but you want a woman who has a sense of values, too. Norlin’s a slacker. You know we had to give him that job of scouting in the auxiliary because there wasn’t much else he could do. And he’s just vain enough to go around boasting about it. Danger, adventure—hell! The auxiliary’s safe enough, and even in the event of a forced landing he’d be just as safe as though he were right in camp. We’ve seen enough of New Terra by now to know that its animal life hasn’t developed far enough even to be remotely dangerous. Norlin’s a trouble maker as well, mark my word.”

Reid nodded slowly; this last applied in his own case, at least. And more than once he had wished that he could find the necessary time to take over the scouting trips himself. Norlin was wasting too much fuel in searching for a site on which the Arkites could build a permanent settlement. There were any number of suitable locations which he might have missed.

But Reid shrugged these regrets aside; he turned to a more pressing problem.

“Have you found out what’s wrong with the engines, Doug?”

Lain shook his head with something of disgust. “No results again,” he grunted. “John, we’ll never learn what caused that strange shake-up unless we take the engines apart bolt by bolt.”

“I can’t imagine what could have caused it,” Reid said slowly. “I’m perfectly certain there was nothing wrong at my end. When the distance gauges showed that we were within Alpha’s system, I began to cut power from the field in just the gradations indicated by our stress-relaxation formulae. There was nothing wrong with these; I’d checked and rechecked them often enough during the trip. The meters showed the propelling warp to be folding in normally enough. It was almost gone, when—blam! I thought the Parsec had turned inside out.”

“Almost did—the old tub!” Lain growled. “I was tossed more than a dozen feet. Well, I guess the only thing that remains to be done now is to disassemble the engines. I’d never trust using them again without knowing just what was wrong.”

They stood silently together upon the rise. Except for essentials, there was little need for words between them. Their bitter struggle through the years had forged about them an unbreakable link of friendship.

It was a friendship which had begun at the university which both had attended during that turbulent last decade of the 26th century, when Earth and her rebellious subject worlds were rushing toward the brink of that terrible struggle later known as the War of the Planetary Secessions. It was a friendship founded on a mutual dream—interstellar travel.

To Doug Lain the dream had been one of finding a solution to the problem of crossing interstellar distances. But to Reid it had had more deep-reaching significance. He saw interstellar travel as the harbinger of a mighty galactic civilization, and, in its more immediate results, as something which would avert the conflict which then threatened.

All the habitable portions of the Solar System had become overcrowded; man’s last frontiers had fallen before his restless advance. There was seemingly nothing left in nature against which to pit his wits. So he had taken the only other outlet for his restless energies—he had invented quarrels with his fellows.

Earth’s colonial possessions, which had been satisfied with the Solar Federation for over two hundred years, had been clamoring for their independence. Reid realized that it wasn’t really this that they wanted. It was new fields to conquer, new outlets, new resources. Given the opportunity to spread out to the stars, they would quickly forget their petty quarrel with Earth.

But the problem of interstellar travel was a tremendous one. Somehow, a method had to be found which would enable the voyages to be made in as short a space of time as possible. They found the answer, finally, in Truman Varne’s “Supercosm” that vast and ingenious work which dealt with hyperspace as a higher extension of our three dimensional universe. Working from Varne’s theory and formulae, they had begun work upon a hyper-spacial drive.

But they had hardly progressed as far as building the first small warp-generating engine when the war broke out in a sudden flare-up of furious violence. In one stroke, Mars had seceded from the Solar Federation and taken over all Federation bases and Interplanetary Ranger stations within reach. A short time later all the other outer planets followed her example, leaving Earth, Venus, and Mercury facing a coalition of terrible, ruthless power.

Reid and Lain had worked feverishly while that titanic struggle raged about them. At first they had entertained the hope that the introduction of interstellar travel would bring about peace. But as the war progressed the hates and bitterness between both sides became so deep-seated and virulent that they had finally come to the sombre realization that nothing less than the complete extermination of one or the other would bring an end to the conflict.

By the time Reid and Lain perfected their hyperspatial drive engines, the Earth had lain in ruins. They themselves had escaped destruction only because they had hidden their laboratory deep in a wild and unfrequented portion of the Adirondack mountains.

Only one thing had been left to do, and they had done it. In the Parsec, that old rocket freighter which they had long ago secured as an adjunct to their experiments and within which they had now installed their hyper-spatial drive engines, they combed Earth’s devastated cities for the materials necessary for the start of a new civilization. From roving bands of refugees they had selected the best physical specimens of mankind still left, always on the alert for scientists, teachers, doctors, engineers. Then they had made a careful search for books, tools, food, and clothing. When they had gathered all of this available, they had departed for Alpha Centauri, leaving forever behind them the ruins and barbarism of what had once been a mighty interplanetary civilization. The trip through hyperspace had been uneventful enough, with the minor exception of the strange shake-up that had occurred when they had reached Alpha Centauri’s planetary system and emerged once more into normal space.

Doug Lain’s dream had been achieved. But his was the soul of an adventurer who, having overcome one problem, goes forever onward to meet the next. Hyperspace still presented many mysteries; Reid knew that Lain would be occupied with these for many years to come. As for himself, his dream lay down there in the valley, with the first crude Arkite settlement on New Terra.

Reid’s interest had always been in people. Not people so much as individuals, but people as a race, a civilization. His vision of an interstellar culture had long since tumbled into dust, but out of it had arisen something deeper and finer, more personal. It was the dream of a new civilization—one that had carved out its own beginning from the stubborn crust of a new and virgin world. Though he knew he would never live long enough to see it reach the pinnacle of its glory and greatness, he found satisfaction in the knowledge that it would be himself who, with his own hands, had given it the impetus which had sent it upward.

The shadow of the Parsec was long upon the grass; the great, bloated disc of Alpha Centauri was almost touching the topmost peaks of the northern mountains. Down in the camp the first fires of the evening were being lit. But the coming of night brought no relief from the heat; it pressed down, thick and mostly humid.

Lain yawned and stretched his long, lean arms. “Well, it’s food and then bed for me. I’ll get back to work on the engines in the morning.”

Of a sudden, he stiffened, gripping Reid’s shoulder. “Listen!” he hissed.

A man’s cry, dim and far away, had sounded in a signal upon the air.

“The auxiliary!” Reid cried. “It’s coming back!”

Faintly at first, then louder and louder, the putt-putt of a rocket motor made itself audible. Silence had fallen heavily over the camp; the Arkites were standing like frozen statues among their fires, peering up at the darkening sky. In the west a tiny streak of flame became visible. It grew swiftly brighter until at last the auxiliary was circling the camp preparatory to landing.

“Come on!” Reid barked. He set off at a bounding run for the spot where he knew the auxiliary would come down, a charred expanse of meadow that Norlin always used as a landing field. The Arkites were already running in the same direction, their voices swelling into a clamor of excitement.

The airlock was already open by the time Reid and Lain reached the little ship. In the dusk they could make out the figure of a man just emerging.

Steve Norlin waved nonchalantly at the gathering crowd as though nothing at all had happened. His strong, white teeth flashed in a confident grin.

Panting, perspiration trickling down his face, Reid looked at the scout. In that moment he was struck as forcefully as always by the neat, almost immaculate appearance which Norlin somehow managed to keep up. His pilot’s uniform was just as natty as it had been back on Earth when he was earning a living shuttling passenger rockets through the stratosphere. It fitted just as snugly, too, over his tall, lithe form with its broad shoulders and narrow hips. Norlin pulled off his flying helmet, and hi«f bronze hair, just a shade darker than his skin, tumbled in curls about his forehead.

“Where have you been?” Reid demanded. “Why were you gone so long?”

“Easy, skipper, easy! One question at a time, please.” Norlin held up a mockingly imploring hand. He dropped it suddenly; there was an eager cry of “Steve! Oh, Steve!” and Susan came running into his arms.

Sight of the two embracing was a raging fire in Reid’s heart; he looked away, biting his lips. But as though under the pressure of something vastly important, Norlin cut the reunion mercifully short.

“All right, baby, save it for later. Papa’s got news right now.” He released the girl. He looked at Reid, then at the Arkites standing all around.

“Folks, the reason why I’ve been gone so long is because I’ve made a terrific discovery.” Norlin leaned forward, his eyes glistening. “I’ve found a city here on New Terra!”

Silence dropped over the meadow, a complete and utter silence. It was as though the air had vanished to be replaced by the chill vacuum of interstellar space, taking away all sound, freezing all motion.

The figures about Reid blurred crazily. A sudden, unexpected slap in the face from Doug Lain couldn’t have stunned him more.

A city—here on New Terra! It meant that the planet was not, as he had hoped, uninhabited after all. The disillusionment was as bitterly keen as though some object of a life-long quest had turned to dust in his hands; for it spelled the destruction of all his plans.

Reid forced his shock aside. The Arkites had gotten over their own amazement at Norlin’s announcement, and their voices now rose in an excited babble of sound. Reid could feel their eyes upon him as they watched for what action he would take.

He looked at Norlin. The words were difficult to form, but he got them out.

“Where is the city?” he asked. “What—what is it like?”

Norlin grinned as though the question had called forth some mysterious inner satisfaction. He was facing Reid, but when he spoke, it was more to the Arkites who were eagerly pressing forward.

“Remember that great ocean to the west that I discovered on my last trip?” he began. “Well, I’d have no more than a glimpse of it, and this time I decided to go clear across to see what lay beyond. That spread of water is big; even with the auxiliary eating up the miles the way it did, it took me a long time to get across.

“This world seems to be made up mostly of mountains; the country I found on the other side was no better, except that the peaks there towered higher than any I’ve yet seen. There wasn’t much use in crossing them, since I’d have had to keep to the stratosphere most of the time where accurate observation would have been impossible. So I flew along the shoreline with the hope that somewhere along it I might find a comparatively level area which would enable me to get inland.

“It was a lucky thing I did, too, though I almost gave up several times. That shoreline seemed endless; I followed It for the greater part of two days. And then, suddenly, the shoreline and the mountains which paralleled it curved inward to form a tremendous bay, and within this, dim on the shores of its extreme end, stood the city.”

Norlin paused, and though Reid knew that the scout’s nature was not sensitive enough for a true appreciation of beauty, he could have sworn that a vast awe glowed in the other’s eyes.

“Sight of it so startled me,” Norlin continued, “that I almost lost control of the ship. I landed in a convenient canyon just within the bay, and then climbed a high ridge for a better look. The city is something to see, I can tell you. Even at that distance, it was a thing of soaring spires and mighty domes that gleamed with every imaginable color. And the location is ideal; in fact, it’s just the spot I’d have suggested as a site for our own settlement.

“It was already about time that I started getting back to camp, but I couldn’t leave without learning more about the city first. I decided to approach it for a closer inspection, without, however, using the auxiliary, since I thought it safest not to be seen. I packed a two-day supply of food and then set off along the shore.

“But I was fooled all the time; the city was much further away than it had seemed. It was so big that its size had merely made it seem close. In a day and a half of almost constant traveling I got no nearer and so had to give up. I’d already been gone too long. But I did learn one thing—the people who live in the city are a lot like us. I saw a few working on outlying farms in the distance, and I watched them long enough to make certain that they are erect bipeds like ourselves.”

Norlin gestured. “Well, that’s about all. I returned to the auxiliary in the canyon and flew back here.”

* * * *

The figures clustered on the meadow were very still. It had grown dark; Alpha Centauri had set behind the northern mountains, leaving only a few crimson streaks in the sky. The heat pressed like a blanket over everything. Somewhere the voice of a child sounded in a plaintive cry of hunger.

Reid glanced covertly at the Arkites near him, and suddenly he felt a sinking sensation. Their faces were dim in the dusk, but he could make out unmistakably the hope and eagerness which glowed upon them.

Reid turned back to Norlin. “In the morning we’ll service the auxiliary, and then you’ll fly me over to see the city. As for the rest of you, you’ll remain here in camp and continue your activities as though nothing had happened.” His voice was harsh and authoritative.

The Arkites woke suddenly back into sound and motion. They started back to camp, gathered thickly about Norlin, their voices making a din of eager questions. Reid remained behind on the meadow with Doug Lain, thinking with a detached bitterness that the ruin which Norlin’s discovery had brought to his plans had, on the other hand, made the scout a hero in the eyes of the Arkites.

“What a rotten break,” Lain muttered. “All along we thought we were the only ones on this world, and now, after all we’ve done, we find out different. A city! That means civilization, John—intelligent beings.” He paused a moment. Then his voice sounded again. “Well, what do you intend to do now, John? This end of the affair was always more yours than mine.”

Reid looked up to the stars which glittered in their strange constellations in the sky. His tones were heavy with weariness.

“We’ll have to start all over again, Doug. You know that I’ve always wanted to do something with people as a civilization. Back on Earth, I’d hoped that our invention of interstellar travel would pave the way for a mighty galactic culture—but the war ended that. Here on New Terra I saw my chance to get civilization started again. With a settlement near all the necessary resources, with books and teachers, I’d hoped to give the Arkites one great push would keep them going forward for all the years to come.

“But discovery of the city has changed all that. The Arkites remember only too well the easy life they led on Earth before the war. Machines did all their work; the merest push of a button satisfied every want. Norlin’s city offers many temptations—especially so since the people there seem to resemble ourselves. The Arkites would want inevitably to live in the city. Once there, they’d lose their identity as a race, become submerged in another culture. There might be intellectual differences, too, which would lead to war and death. No, Doug, we’ll just have to leave New Terra. On some world circling another star, we’ll begin all over.”

“But do you think the Arkites will want to leave New Terra, John?” Lain asked slowly. “The city does offer many attractions, as you’ve said. They’ve suffered a lot already, and they may not want to go through it again.”

“I’m sure they’ll see it my way,” Reid answered. “They must have enough pride of race left to want to build a civilization of their own.”

But Reid felt a return of his earlier premonition. For the first time he wondered just how far the Arkites would follow him up that long, hard road which led to a new beginning. He realized now that his dream could not possibly appear as rich and real to them as it was to him, so that they would make every sacrifice to give it substance. They lived too much in the present, were too concerned with the comforts of their bodies and the satisfaction of their petty desires to give their all for a vision as intangible as the very air they breathed.

Reid shoved these doubts aside for the present. He touched Lain’s arm, and together they walked toward the camp, bright now with its supper fires.

Morning dawned with the sky as brightly cloudless as ever. The rays of Alpha Centauri struck down with a heat whose intensity was almost like the impact of something solid.

After breakfast, Reid, Lain, and Norlin began their task of servicing the auxiliary. Shortly before noon, they were finished, and after supplies had been loaded aboard, Reid and Norlin were ready to leave.

“Too bad there’s no room for you, Doug,” Reid said. “I’m sure you’re curious enough to want a look at the city yourself.”

Lain shrugged his bony shoulders. “I can do without it, I guess. Wouldn’t be much sense in just taking a look at it, anyway.” He looked significantly at Reid.

Norlin’s head popped out from the airlock. “We’re all ready, skipper. Let’s go!”

Only a few Arkites had come to the meadow to see them off. The others had remained in camp where there was shade from the fiery heat of the sun. Reid took his place beside Norlin in the tiny control room and they blasted off.

It was one of the few times Reid had been up in the auxiliary, and he absorbed himself in watching the landscape crawl away far below. He said nothing to Norlin; the scout himself was preoccupied with thoughts of his own.

By evening they were within sight of the western ocean, and when night fell the continent they had left was far behind. The steady drumming of the rockets and the peacefulness of the star-strewn night through which they sped lulled Reid to sleep. When he awoke it was to see the sun edging above the watery horizon and lighting the sky with its first, feeble crimson rays.

Norlin pointed through the forward observation port. “We’re almost there. You can see the tips of the mountains beginning to appear.”

Reid nodded, then watched them swell into size. Soon they were within sight of the white sand of the shore, and Norlin sent the ship slanting downward to take up a course parallel to it. In the afternoon of the third day out, Norlin leaned suddenly forward in his seat, peering ahead tensely.

“The bay!” he announced, after a moment. “See it?”

Reid narrowed his eyes against the glare of the sand. In the distance, the white ribbon of shoreline ended as suddenly as though cut by a knife.

“That’s where the shoreline curves inward to form the bay,” Norlin explained. “Great cliffs rise out of the water on the other side of the inlet.”

Shortly they were entering the inlet itself. This was nothing more than a vast slit in the mountains which towered up fifteen miles and more on either side. Reid gasped at the vista revealed. The bay was a vast one, enclosed on both sides by sky-high peaks. But it was not this that held his attention. His eyes were fixed upon the multicolored towers and domes that glittered at the opposite end.

“There it is!” Norlin said. “Want me to land now?”

Reid took a deep breath. “No. I’d like to get as close as possible. Skim a hundred feet or so above the shore until we’re within sight of the farm lands you spoke of. If you hug the mountain walls, we won’t be seen.”

Norlin sent the ship down until the blast from the underjets was churning the sand. He cut speed for a more cautious approach. Reid watched the city grow, every atom of his being concentrated upon the sight of it.

“There’s the farmlands,” Norlin said, finally, pointing ahead.

“Land, then,” Reid answered.

Norlin landed on the shore close to the mountain wall. He and Reid left the ship, then climbed their way up to a convenient ledge of rock. They looked in silence.

Reid’s face softened into lines of deep admiration at what he beheld. The city was like a jewel in a flawless setting.

It rested on a tremendous plain, within a semi-circle of titanic mountains. At its foot spread great farmlands, a vast patchwork of green, yellow, and brown. Mighty forests rolled away on either side.

The location, Reid thought, was not only ideal; it was perfection itself. The dwellers in the city could look out to the waters of the bay. They were sheltered and protected by the mountains. They had ready access to timber and ores. Reid felt a depthless sorrow that this could not be for the Arkites. He knew that even though a lifetime were spent to accomplish it, it was not likely that he would find another spot like this.

Dominating the scene was the city itself. It was still too far away for Reid to make out any amount of detail, but he knew the heights to which the mountains towered on New Terra, and from the way the city balanced those that soared into the sky behind it, he knew, that it was very big. And from what little he was able to make out, he knew that it was very beautiful. His eyes followed the tracery of delicate spires and leaping arches, and he felt at once a deep sadness and a great respect that another people could build so well. He turned away, embittered.

“Look,” Norlin said suddenly. “Let’s go down there. Let’s go into the city.” His eyes were eager and reckless.

Reid shook his head with somber slowness. “No. We can’t do that.”

“But why?” the other protested. “There’s no danger. There can’t be any danger. People who can build a city like that just couldn’t be bad.”

“No!” Reid said again. He faced the scout squarely. “Norlin, it’s about time you awoke to the realization that this city is not for us. The people who built it have made real their own racial dream of power and greatness. We must leave them to their glory. It would not be fair either to them or to us to share in it. We are another, different race—and at one time a mighty one. We should have enough pride in this knowledge to build and achieve for ourselves.”

Norlin’s face was bewildered. “I don’t think I get you, skipper. Do you mean we’re never going to have anything to do with the city or the people who live in it?”

Reid looked away, nodding. “And not only that,” he said huskily, “but as soon as we get back to camp, we’re going to pack everything into the Parsec and leave New Terra.”

“What!” Norlin’s shout was a cry of utter amazement. “But that’s insane, skipper. It’s positively stark, staring mad!”

“Nevertheless, it’s the thing we’re going to do.”

“Now look, skipper, you must surely know of the hardships we’ve all gone through in camp. We’re all soft—I might as well admit it. We’re not frontiersmen, and haven’t been for over two hundred years. That kind of life is killing us—and it will kill a lot of us before we get a permanent settlement established elsewhere.” Norlin became desperately pleading.

“To space with racial achievement, skipper! It’s ourselves, here and now, that counts—not those who come after us. They wouldn’t appreciate it anyway. Down there is an advanced city, inhabited by people like ourselves. Why, all we have to do is walk right in and make ourselves at home! There just isn’t any sensible reason for passing up an opportunity like this to go to another world and suffer all over again.”

Reid whirled on the scout, eyes blazing, his body shaking with fury. “Well, by all the powers, if that isn’t the vilest bit of drivel I’ve ever heard.” His voice became slow and concise with contempt and loathing.

“Gone soft? Gone soft, hell I It’s just that you’ve all gone rotten lazy to the core! You’ve pushed buttons so long that you can’t get your mental patterns adjusted to any other system of behavior. You’ve actually degenerated to the point where you’d be willing to crawl over to another race on your bellies, whining for the food and shelter that you’re too shiftless to obtain for yourselves.

“Well, I’ll change that, all right! If you all have lost your pride and ambition, I’ve got more than enough for the lot of you. I said we’re going to leave New Terra—and we’re going to. I said we’re going to build and achieve for ourselves—and we’re going to do just that. And I don’t want to hear another word to the contrary, understand me?”

For a moment Reid’s angry eyes locked with Norlin’s sullen ones; then the scout’s gaze dropped, and Reid made his way down from the ledge and back into the auxiliary. Norlin paused to throw a last, lingering look toward the city. When he turned to follow, his brows were drawn together thoughtfully.

The return trip was made in strained silence. Shortly after noon of the sixth day, they were back in camp.

Reid found conditions in a bad way. The rains still hadn’t come, and the terrific heat of Alpha Centauri had made its effects felt heavily. A strange fever had broken out in camp, and almost a dozen Arkites lay sick with it. The spring, which was their source of water had dried up, and now arduous trips to a distant lake had become necessary. Those of the Arkites who had yet the strength to move about were listless and dull-eyed, sullen.

Reid told Lain of what had taken place during the trip. Lain’s bony face grew sombre.

“John, you’ll remember that I’ve warned you of Norlin being a troublemaker. There’s no telling what he may do now. Things have gotten so bad here in camp that the Arkites would grasp at almost any opportunity offered them.”

“What do you mean?” Reid asked, frowning. “You aren’t suggesting that Norlin and the Arkites will go running off toward the city, are you?”

“Not exactly, John. Look here—wars have been fought over issues less great than the present one; the Solar System itself was destroyed over an empty, ideal. The Arkites have suffered enough already. What you’re asking now will mean sure death for a lot of them. You just can’t expect them to follow you that far. Then what other course of action is left for them to take?”

* * * *

“Rebellion?” Reid whispered. His voice rose in a sudden burst of impatience. “But, good heavens, Doug, civilization is founded upon blood and sweat! They’re to be expected; you can’t built without them. Perhaps a lot may perish in the building—even I may be among them—but what does it matter, provided that something has been accomplished in pushing the race a step or two nearer toward its goal of glory and greatness?”

“I know that, John—but do the Arkites see it that way? Greatness and glory are meaningless to them in their present situation. What they want most is decent food and shelter, cleanliness and sanitation. They know they could find that in the city.” Lain took a deep breath; his eyes dropped to his feet. When he spoke again, his voice faltered.

“John, I’m afraid that we’ve both bitten off more than we were able to chew. We thought we could play Gods with the Arkites, but we haven’t been very successful. Not for many, many years to come could we provide all the comforts and conveniences that the city offers now. Maybe—maybe it’s best if we were to go to the city.”

“Doug—you too!” Reid’s cry was agonized, as though wrung with sudden, terrible pain. He grasped Lain’s arms, staring at the other with wide, incredulous eyes.

And then his hands dropped to his sides. He stepped back, his face a hard mask.

“Doug, not even your doubt will turn me aside from the goal I’ve set for the Arkites. It’s the right one and the only one, and if neither you nor they can see that, then you’re only making things harder for yourselves. Because reach it we must—and shall. I won’t permit a small thing like comfort for a present few to stand in the way of the future of our race.”

“John, wait!” Lain held up an imploring hand. “I’m not doubting you. I was only suggesting the only alternative to the present situation. I followed you this far—and I’ll continue to follow you, you know that.”

Reid turned aside with steely purpose. “So much for that, then. We’re leaving New Terra, and that’s final. You and I will get to work upon the engines immediately. And as for rebellion among the Arkites in the meantime”—and his lips thinned against his teeth—“I’ll take care of that!”

Reid mounted the slope and vanished into the Parsec. When next he appeared in camp, the ominous shape of a blast-gun was strapped to his hip. Eyes widened at sight of the weapon, then grew narrow and vengeful. The Arkites gave way before him wherever he went, as though he had suddenly become something alien and deadly.

Reid said nothing in explanation as to the appearance and purpose of the weapon. His watchful eyes told him that the Arkites knew. He gave terse instructions for the partial dismantling of the camp, and the packing up of tools and supplies. Then he started once more for the Parsec to aid Lain in overhauling the engines.

“John, wait a moment.”

It was Susan, waiting for him just at the edge of camp. She indicated the blast-gun on his hip.

“Why are you wearing that?”

“You ought to know. You’ve seen the way things are shaping up in camp. Have you come to tell me that you wouldn’t scratch my eyes out for the chance to go to the city and live a life of luxury and ease?”

Her grey eyes were dark. “Not exactly. But—but if I were to tell you that, would you believe me?”

“Believe you?” Reid snorted disdainfully. “Are you trying to make me think that you’d be willing to pass up this chance to get back to the easy life you’ve known—pretty dresses, perfume, jewelry—all the other things a woman loves?”

“Yes,” she answered, very softly.

“Susan!” Reid grasped her by the shoulders, his fingers biting deep into the soft skin. “Look at me, girl! Are you playing with me? What do you mean?”

Her solemn gaze met his bewildered one. “John, do you know what I was before the war? A deb—a silly playgirl. My father had loads of money, and there was never a thing I had to do. I wasted my time in a constant round of wild, foolish parties. But the war and the life here on New Terra both have taught me something. I discovered a purpose in life, a reason for being. I’ve had to work and suffer with the rest—but, John, I’ve enjoyed it! For the first time in my life I was doing something real and vital. I was actually useful!”

“Yes, but I don’t see—”

“Wait. John, I’m probably one of the very few here who really believes in your dream. I want to see the foundation laid for a new and better civilization. And I’d be willing to work for it, for I’ve found happiness in working, accomplishing. But the others don’t and just can’t see it that way. They’ve suffered terribly—more so, lately, with the heat and the drought. They know, if they left New Terra, that they’d have to suffer again—perhaps more intensely on another world. They can’t take any more; they’re cracking up now. And I can’t bear it, John!” Susan’s flow of words ended in a sudden sob. Her small face grew appealing; her lips trembled.

“I don’t care for myself,” she went on. “But I can’t and won’t let them suffer any more. They’re whispering about revolt down in camp. Oh, of course, I know about it. And I can’t let that happen, either, for it’ll mean hurt and death to many.” She paused; her grey eyes went dark again.

“John, I know how you feel about me. It’s so obvious—Look, then, if—if I gave myself to you, would you take the step necessary to avoid further suffering, and possibly bloodshed? Would you allow the Arkites to go to the city?”

Reid stared at her, numb with shock and amaze. “You—you’d give yourself to me—for that?” he asked huskily.

“Yes, John.”

“But you love Norlin!”

Her eyes dropped to her roughened hands; her head nodded slowly. “But he doesn’t enter into this,” she said suddenly, looking up. “It won’t make any difference. I swear I’ll be just as faithful—”

Reid was a statue of stone to whom words were useless. Susan’s head bent again, and she bit her lip while tears crept from her eyes to tremble at the ends of her long lashes.

Reid looked down at the bowed, auburn head and the small shoulders shaking beneath their soiled blouse. He knew a sudden, overpowering urge to take her in his arms and hold her close. But he knew this could never be, and he turned aside. The sad, sweet melody which played in his heart ended on a broken chord.

He started up the slope toward the Parsec, but once again the girl’s voice reached out to hold him back.

“John—don’t you want me?”

He whirled. “Want you! Why—” he choked back the words which would tell her of the love and longing that filled him the way rich, vibrant life would fill the city of his dreams. His face grew once more flint-like.

“What ever made you think that I would consider having you as more important than the future of our race? Building on another world, we’d preserve our culture and traditions. Living down there in the city, we’d lose our racial identity just as surely as though we’d remained in the Solar System and perished with the rest. Did you think I would permit that—just for you?

“And did you ever stop to think for a moment that the people in the city might not welcome us with the friendly, wide-open arms that you all imagine they would? Have any of you actually been down in the city, seen them face to face, talked with them? They may resemble ourselves, but remember that this is a strange world, light-years removed from Earth. They my be so alien that they’d drive us crazy trying to understand or get along with them. Or, again, they might exterminate us because of some idiotic religious, political, or economic reason—or simply because they don’t like our smell.” Reid made an abrupt gesture.

“Enough of this. As soon as Lain and I fix up the engines, we’re leaving New Terra.” Without another word or backward glance, he started up the slope.

At the top a sudden, chilly sensation made him pause. Wind! It riffled through his hair and whipped the end of his tunic about his shorts. It hummed in his ears and the scent of it was fresh in his nostrils.

Abruptly, the sky darkened; Reid looked up to see a great, black cloud slide across the face of the sun. And then the coolness was not only of the wind; it swept down upon the world like a warm blanket thrown suddenly aside. Great, dark masses were gathering in the east and sweeping toward the camp. Even as Reid watched, a lightning flash appeared in a sudden blaze of brilliance, and a moment later there was a roll of thunder like the rumble of an awakening giant.

Reid gazed about him, transfixed. New Terra was stirring into ominous, elemental life. The trees that grew at the farther end of the rise were twisting and swaying as though in torment, their leaves rustling like a thousand tambourines shaking in a palsy of terror. The dry, brown grasses dipped and rose like waves upon a restlessly heaving sea.

Rain! Reid ran the rest of the way to the Parsec and bounded into the airlock.

“Doug!” he shouted. “Doug! Come here quick!”

When Lain appeared his long face was pale and strained. “I thought—What—” And then he noticed. “Rain!” he whispered. “Good lord, at last!”

They watched while the wind swooped and tore at them and the great, black cloud banks spread until they seemed to cover all the sky. Lightning flashed again, and again there was a shaking peal of thunder. It was like a signal sounded upon an immense drum somewhere in the heavens. Rain began pattering down in large, full drops, slow at first, then faster and faster until at last the water spread from sky to earth in an almost solid grey sheet.

“Great space, John!” Lain exclaimed. “All hell is breaking loose out there!”

Reid nodded, his eyes wide with appall. It was true; this was not the mere rain which he had expected at first—it was a storm of tremendous, terrible proportions. The wind had become a screaming, raging gale, the lightning crackled and flared almost continuously, and the thunder crashed and boomed like the death knell of a world. The very earth seemed to quake beneath the Parsec.

Reid stiffened suddenly. “The Arkites!” he cried. “My God! Doug, I’ve got to—” His face grey and twisted with apprehension, Reid started out into the storm.

“Come back here, you fool!” Lain screamed. “It’s too late to do anything!”

But Reid was already out in the storm. He staggered forward a few steps and then the gale swooped down at him, smashing him to the ground like the vicious swipe of a titanic palm. It tore at him, actually rolled him over. The rain beat at him, pummeled him, blinded him. The din of the storm deafened him.

Battered, gasping, deluged, Reid fought his way back to the airlock. Dimly he was aware of others near him in the storm, struggling forward as he was struggling. Then the cold metal of the Parsec’s hull was against his hand, and he felt along it for the airlock. His seeking fingers met wet, human flesh; others, too, were seeking to enter the ship. He acted automatically, mechanically, numbed by the fury of the elements with which he was in contact. One by one, he helped them into the ship, pushing, pulling, his hands slipping on slick, wet skin, while all the time he fought to keep his feet and balance in the, terrific gale. He didn’t know how many there were; his senses had become too over-taxed for the registering of further impressions. There was a seemingly interminable interval while he labored there in the midst of the storm—and then there was nothing but blackness.

When Reid awoke he found himself inside the Parsec. That much of his first awareness of things told him. When he turned his head a moment later, it was to discover that he was lying on the floor within general lounge, propped up by what seemed to be a folded blanket.

The lighting and heating units had been turned on for this part of the vessel, and it was bright and comfortable enough, save that it had the stuffy, tainted atmosphere of a crowded room. And it was crowded, Reid saw. For a moment he had hopes that all the Arkites might have escaped the storm.

“John! Are you all right?” Someone knelt beside him. It was Doug Lain.

“Doug—how is everything?” Reid demanded tensely.

“I don’t know yet. A little more than half the Arkites managed to reach the ship during the first full fury of the storm; you yourself helped a large number. They kept coming in trickles after that. Some are still arriving, but we won’t know the total amount of damage done until the storm is over. And that won’t be long now.”

With a sudden pang of apprehension, Reid thought of Susan. His eyes darted quickly about the crowded room, and then he slumped back in relief. The girl was bent over the reeling form of an Arkite in a far corner, tying a bandage. He had noticed Norlin, too, conversing with a group of men. Obviously, Susan and the scout had been among the first to reach the Parsec.

Reid thought of his own presence within the ship. He had no memory of having come aboard.

“Doug, how did I get here?” he asked, turning back to Lain.

“I went out and pulled you into the airlock after I realized that you had passed out. I was there all the time, helping you get the Arkites inside.”

Reid grinned affectionately at the other. “Good old Doug! I’d never once been aware of it.” His voice grew suddenly brisk and grim. “But there’s work to be done; I can’t lay around like this.” He struggled to his feet and walked unsteadily to the center of the room.

“Attention, please! As soon as the storm ends, we’ll go down to camp and pick up survivors. I’ll want volunteers for that. Then several of you might go down into the hold and knock apart a dozen crates or so which we can use as stretchers. I’d like to have about three or four of the women go to the galley and prepare hot broth. There’s plenty of emergency concentrates in the cabinets. The rest of you can search for such dry goods as are still present for use as coverings both for yourselves and the survivors. Are there any doctors present?”

Two of the Arkites stepped forward, dispirited, weary-looking men whose clothing hung in rags. Each gripped a sodden, and battered medical kit.

“Good!” Reid acknowledged. “Get some broth as soon as it’s ready, then stand by for action.” He turned and left general lounge. From the storeroom he gathered a number of fluorolite lanterns, later distributing them among the men who had volunteered for rescue work. Then he went to the airlock to watch for the breaking up of the storm.

Outside it was night. The thunder and lightning had gone, leaving only the rain and the wind. Gradually, the wind died down and the rain slackened from a heavy downpour to a light drizzle.

Reid looked at Doug Lain who had joined him during the interval of waiting. “Well, I guess we can go out now,” he said slowly. His tones were somber with dread.

The camp, as revealed by the beams of the fluorolites, was a flooded ruin. Hip-deep water covered everything. Not a single hut, tent, or lean-to was left standing; all had been demolished in the fury of the storm. Objects of all kinds floated everywhere.

Little more than a score of survivors was picked up. Reid found these clinging feebly to the rocks which projected from the valley walls. They were loaded onto the make-shift stretchers and taken up to the Parsec. But for Reid and Lain the work did not end there. Already dead-weary from sloshing back and forth through the flooded camp and toiling up and down the slope, they spent further hours in first-aid work. Assured, finally, that everything immediately vital had been taken care of, Reid rolled himself into a blanket and fell into an exhausted slumber.

* * * *

Morning came clear and cold. After a hasty breakfast of concentrates, Reid was once more down at the ravaged camp site, directing the gruesome task of salvage. By afternoon, all the bodies of the perished had been recovered and laid out upon the slope. And now Reid knew the full extent of the damage done.

Almost one-fourth of the Arkites had gone down in that incredible and merciless storm. It was a total that stunned Reid, left him feeling desolate and bitter. His conflict with the Arkites over the city had made him momentarily lose sight of the fact that they were his people. He had been as proud and jealous of them as a mother hen over a flock of newly-hatched chicks. The loss brought a forceful return of this feeling, and his emotions touched hitherto unplumbed depths of sadness and regret.

The rest of the day was consumed in burial of the bodies and the recovery of tools and supplies. A tiny, temporary camp was also set up around and about the Parsec. Early the next morning, Reid and Lain went down into the bowels of the ship to begin work upon the engines.

Reid scratched his head ruefully as he surveyed the gleaming rows of warp-generators. “Any idea of where to begin, Doug?” he asked. “You’ve been puttering around for more than two weeks now.”

“Well, I’ve got a hunch the trouble might lie with the relaxor-relays. We’ll take off the housings and trace out the leads and connections of these first. Then—” Lain broke off, listening. His face jerked abruptly back to Reid.

“John—sounds like a lot of men were coming down here!”

Reid’s face, already engraved by sorrow and suffering, grew deeper lines. “Let them come,” he responded metallically. He loosened the blast-gun in its holster. The weapon had somehow managed to remain with him in spite of everything.

“John, you—you’re not going through with your plan after all that’s happened?”

“To the bitter end, Doug. My dream hasn’t lost a bit of its reality.”

Reid stood there, straight and stiff, while the pound of approaching footsteps grew louder. Cold flames swirled in the dark depths of his eyes.

And then men were pouring through the engine-room door. Norlin was the first to enter. After him came a compact group of grim-faced Arkites.

Norlin strode forward.

“Reid, we’ve come here for a showdown.”

Reid looked at the scout. Norlin had been changed by the storm as all had been changed. His uniform was no longer neat and immaculate; it was wrinkled and torn. His irrepressible grin was gone, as was the carefree light in his eyes. His face was set, ominously purposeful.

“We know why you both are here,” Norlin went on. “You’ve come to overhaul the engines to take us away from New Terra. Well, we’re not going. We’ve made up our minds—we’re going to the city. And you’re going to take us there in the Parsec. What you do after that, none of us cares.”

“This is mutiny!” Reid whispered fiercely.

“Make of it what you will! We refuse to follow you any longer. If you won’t have any consideration for our well-being while you follow your crazy plans, then we’ll have to look out for ourselves.”

“Wait a moment, Norlin.” Reid leaned forward, his eyes burning into the scout. “Aren’t you forgetting something? Aren’t you forgetting that I rescued you and all the rest from the hell that was left of Earth? What do you think your chances would be if you were there now—soft as you all are? Starvation, plague, madness—death!

“By that very act of saving you, your lives have become my property. You owe me a debt of gratitude that can be paid back only through the strict obedience of my wishes and commands. Have you lost all pride and self-respect, become so degraded and without sense of honor or duty that you’d be willing to forego this debt for the life of luxury and ease which you imagine the city holds for you?” Reid’s bitterly accusing gaze raked the Arkites, and one by one, their eyes dropped before his.

“Don’t be fools!” Norlin’s voice lashed at them. “I’ll admit he saved us, but does this fact make us his slaves? Are we going to be led around by our noses, made to suffer and die, because of a debt? The storm gave you all a sample of what to expect if you keep on following him. Do you want more of that?” He whirled back to Reid.

“You’re mad to exact such payment from us! Your whole plan of leaving New Terra after all that’s happened is insane. We can owe no debt of gratitude to a madman—we cannot be expected to follow him, either.”

“Madman!” Reid was coldly furious. “Is this the only interpretation which you can make of my determination to leave New Terra and having nothing to do with the city? Then you are stupid, Norlin! Can’t you see that my own personal satisfaction does not enter into it? Can’t you see that the comfort and safety of the Arkites is of no importance whatsoever? It’s the future of our race that counts. Everything I’ve done and intend to do has been meant for your children and your children’s children. If you can’t see that, then you’re the ones who are mad!” Suddenly all anger left Reid; he became desperately earnest.

“Men, you’ve just got to understand that your intention of going to the city is wrong—terribly wrong. It’s an unforgivable expression of weakness and cowardice. You’ll be making beggars of yourselves, parasites upon another race. You’ll be destroying the last hope of a once mighty civilization. What sort of chances do you think your children will have, living among an alien people? And, for that matter, what do you think your own chances will be? You don’t know a single thing about the people in the city. You can’t be certain whether you’ll be welcomed or killed outright.”

“We’ve discussed that, Reid,” Norlin said coldly. “We’re certain we can take care of ourselves.” He made a gesture of sudden impatience. “I’ve had enough of this! We’ve made up our minds and nothing’s going to change them. After the storm, we’d risk anything rather than go further. For the last time, are you going to take us to the city?”

Showdown had come, Reid knew. Both pleading and reasoning had failed; there was but one response to make now. Norlin’s jaw muscles were clenched whitely, his body taut as a spring wound for instant, furious action. The grimly determined Arkites behind him were making a slow, almost imperceptible movement forward.

“Do you know what my answer is?” Reid snapped. “This!” His hand flashed to the, holster at his hip, pulling the blast-gun free. As straight and steady as though set in rock the weapon covered them. “Ill kill the first one who moves, I swear it! Now listen to me. Both sides of the matter have been presented fully by now, and by all the laws of common sense, mine still remains the right one. If you can’t and won’t see it that way, then there’s only one—”

“John! Steve! My God, stop it!”

Reid’s attention focused involuntarily upon the source of the cry, his sentence left unfinished. An auburn-haired fury was scratching and clawing her way into the engine room. It was Susan, her face pale and twisted with terror.

Reid jerked his eyes back to the men before him, but the diversion caused by the girl’s entrance, even though of less than a second’s duration, was a disastrous one for him. The blast-gun was smashed suddenly from his grasp, and almost in the same instant the Arkites threw themselves upon him in a battering wave of human flesh. Doug Lain uttered a strangled sob and threw himself frantically to Reid’s aid. But the attempt to fight back was futile for both of them, heavily outnumbered as they were.

For a moment only was Reid aware of pounding fists and clutching hands, of pain that flashed and roared. The next, he was plunging abruptly into the ebon depths of unconsciousness.

* * * *

When Reid came to, he found himself in the control room of the Parsec, seated in the pilot chair. He shook his head dazedly, and it was as though the action had upset a bucket of molten metal inside his skull, for droplets of searing pain coursed suddenly along the channels of his nerves. He winced and closed his eyes again, realizing with a dull fury that his body was so bruised and battered that it was almost one, huge, continuous throbbing ache.

Reid stared hard at the instrument board before him, his eyes settling slowly back into focus. Then a flicker of motion caught his quickening awareness; he turned to see Norlin appear beside him. In one hand the scout gripped the blast-gun upon which Reid had pinned his last hopes of resistance—and failed.

“So you’re finally awake, eh?” Norlin grunted. “Well, it’s about time. We’ve all been waiting for you to come out of it. Everything’s been packed into the ship, and we’re ready to move.”

“Ready—” Reid’s lips curled bitterly. “You’re in a hurry to see your folly through, aren’t you, Norlin?”

“Perhaps. But I wouldn’t call it folly. I’ve got this, remember.” Norlin brandished the blast-gun. “Now listen, Reid, I’ll have no tricks, see? You’ve lost irrevocably, and the least you can do now is to be decent about it. I’m holding no grudges against you; in fact, when we reach the city, you and Lain will be free to do as you please.”

“Where is Lain?”

“Down in the engine room, waiting for orders. I told you we were ready, didn’t I?”

Reid leaned forward and pressed the signal button of the inter-ship communicator. After a moment a voice buzzed from the speaker.

“What is it?”

“Doug, is that you?”

“John! Are you all right?”

“Well enough. Doug, hasn’t anything been done about the engines?”

“Of course not. You know it’s a two-man job. We’ll never get down to the source of the trouble unless we take them completely apart, and then put them back together again, checking every detail against our formulae. And, well—you know how it is…”

“Norlin tells me we’re ready to leave at once.”

Lain’s sigh was just barely audible through the speaker. “That’s what I meant.”

Reid swung around to the scout. “Norlin, something’s wrong with the engines. It won’t be safe to move the ship until the trouble has been found and corrected.”

“You’re stalling!” the other snapped. “If you think you can make a play for time in order to—”

“I’m serious, I tell you!” Reid gritted. “Look. Remember that queer shake-up we had upon first emerging from hyperspace into Alpha Centauri’s system? Well, it wasn’t the natural phenomenon you all thought it was. Normally, the translation process should have been almost unnoticeable. That shake-up meant something was drastically wrong somewhere. Remember, Norlin, this isn’t the kind of ship with which you’ve grown familiar. It travels through an entirely different medium, upon an entirely different principle. We just can’t take chances.”

“Well, if another shake-up’s all we can expect, that won’t be taking much of a chance. Reid, I’ve told you we’re ready; we won’t stand for any delays.”

Reid started to speak again, but a glance at Norlin’s stubbornly determined face told him it was useless. He turned back to the inter-ship communicator.

“Doug, have you heard everything?”

“Yes, John. I’m afraid we’ll just have to risk it, then. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t take a chance like this with hyperspace, but I guess there’s nothing else we can do.”

Reid’s features settled grimly. “All right. Stand by.” His fingers played over a bank of keys on the control board. “Signals?”

“All clear.”

“Ready, now. I’m turning on power.” Reid pulled down a switch and simultaneously the instrument board before him lighted up. He depressed an activator stud and now a deep hum spread throughout the ship. He watched the progress of an indicator along the face of one of the meters on the control board, his hand ready upon a lever. When the indicator reached the stop, he pulled the lever forward. The hum rose to a shrill whine; there was a sudden sensation of motion-change. Another indicator moved and came to rest.

Reid turned. “We’re in hyperspace.”

“No tricks, now!” Norlin warned.

“Tricks?” Reid snorted contemptuously. “You’re in my power out here, Norlin, and don’t forget it. One wrong move upon these controls would kill us all instantly and horribly. But there would be no point to it; either here or in the city, the last hope of our civilization dies. I wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for it. Your own senseless determination will take care of that.”

Reid turned his attention to the control board again. He pressed a button beneath what appeared to be a large, concave mirror. This was the hypervon, a viewing device which served somewhat the same purpose as did periscopes on 20th century submarines. Reid and Lain had realized early in their experiments that hyperspatial travel would be useless unless some means of reference could be made constantly to the familiar guide-stars of normal, interstellar space. Almost as much as the warp engines, perfection of the hypervon had occupied their time.

Now the hypervon lighted up. In its center, tiny, though sharp and dear, appeared the flooded campsite and the rise upon which the Parsec had rested. This was all that was visible; the outer edges of the screen remained grey and featureless, flickering weirdly with light and shadow.

Reid touched the control stick and the scene changed abruptly. Mountain, plain, and forest appeared and vanished with incredible rapidity. For a longer time there was the deep blue of water. Then the mountains of the other continent appeared and swelled into size. Soon they were within the bay, and Reid cut their progress to a crawl, following the shoreline.

“Lord,” Norlin whispered, watching the hypervon in awe. “And to think it took us almost three days to get here in the auxiliary!”

And then the city appeared, tiny picture of perfection. Just within sight of its outlying farmlands, Reid returned the control stick to neutral. He operated a series of switches and buttons, and gradually the ground below the Parsec as seen in the hypervon grew in size and detail. He took up the stick again, and once more they moved forward. Finally a road that gleamed with the hue of metal appeared on the screen.

“We’re on the outskirts of the city,” Reid said.

Norlin nodded eagerly. “Land here.”

As Reid prepared to fold in the warp-field and return the Parsec to normal space, he paused, gripped by a sudden premonition of disaster. The trip thus far had been without danger, but he remembered that it was just at this point on the previous voyage that the shake-up had taken place. There had been no serious consequences, other than the mere fact of the occurrence, but he felt that a repetition might not be so fortunate.

Suddenly Reid shrugged; he had nothing to lose. Everything had been lost already. He reached out to the control board again and began to draw back the power release lever, watching the meters and gauges on the instrument panel.

The field was folding in; the indicators flickered toward their stops. Reid held his breath tensely.

It happened, then, just as he had subconsciously felt it would. There was a sudden, ear-piercing whine that rose into inaudibility, became a vibration that tingled painfully along his nerves. The Parsec was shaken with abrupt violence, and Reid, clutching desperately at his seat, saw the hypervon flare with intolerable brightness. Simultaneously, there came the sound of a terrific explosion. Scarcely had the echoes of this died away, when Reid was thrown out of the pilot chair by a great crash.

Sickened, stunned, Reid groped to his feet. Across the room, Norlin was arising painfully out of the corner into which he had been thrown. Everything was very still.

And then Reid stiffened, paralyzed with sudden, chilling horror. He darted to the inter-ship communicator.

“Doug!” he cried. “Doug! Answer me!”

He strained his ears with the intensity of his listening, but no sound came from the speaker. He turned and ran crazily from the room, his breath sobbing in his throat. Only a very small part of him was aware that Norlin followed.

Reid reached the engine room to find smoke pouring from the door in thick, black clouds. The air was acrid with the smell of ozone. The interior was a shambles of destruction. Flame had blackened and seared the walls. The engine housings had been blown entirely off and the delicate inner mechanisms lay scattered all over the room, blasted into fragments.

Finally Reid’s eyes settled upon the charred body of Doug Lain. He walked forward slowly, his face a gray, lined death-mask. Everything became very motionless and quiet.

“Doug!” he whispered. “We could have gone on together, you and I. There’s so much we could have seen, so much we could have talked about. And now—” Reid’s voice ended brokenly. After a time he looked up. His gaze fixed upon Norlin standing woodenly in the engine room doorway.

“You did this!” Reid accused in low, terrible tones. “You killed him just as surely as if you had blasted him with the gun you’re holding. If you had listened to me this would never have happened.” Reid stalked toward the scout, his hands spread like talons. His eyes burned with a light as awful as the very fires of hell.

Norlin’s face paled. “I didn’t know!” he gasped. “I tell you, I didn’t realize—”

Reid’s forward progress was the slow and inevitable one of death itself.

“Reid, wait! Let me explain.”

But Reid did not halt, did not waver. He came on.

Norlin broke; he released an inarticulate cry, whirled, and ran from the engine room. He fled as if every fear known to man since the dawn of time had suddenly taken on form and substance to pursue him. He had forgotten the blast-gun in his hand, had forgotten everything save his insane desire to get away from the hideous, consuming fire that blazed in Reid’s eyes.

Like an automaton Reid continued onward. And then, suddenly, the supernal fury died out of him. Just at the foot of the ladder which led to the upper deck he collapsed, crumpling slowly like a man grown abruptly old and weak. He lay there motionlessly, his head buried in his arms.

He had lost—utterly, completely, beyond all hope of recovery. His dream of transplanting civilization and watching it bud had failed. By now the Arkites were within the city, their first step toward racial destruction having been taken.

With Doug Lain he might have found solace, traveling in the Parsec to all the numberless, glittering stars of the universe. But Doug Lain was dead and the Parsec would never travel again. There was nothing left for him. Nothing, except—

“John!”

He lifted his head wearily, mechanically. Someone was calling him. Susan. But what difference did it make? He had lost Susan, too.

“John! Where are you?”

A dim response of emotion stirred within him. Susan’s voice was sharp and strained. Something was wrong.

He shook himself out of the numbness of despair. What could be wrong? He remembered, suddenly, having warned the Arkites against the inhabitants of the city. His eyes widened. Could the Arkites have been attacked?

Strength and spirit came back to him in a rush. He rose to his feet and climbed Up the ladder. He gained the upper deck in time to see Susan turn a corner at the lower end of the passageway.

“Susan!” he called.

The girl reappeared, her face lighting in relief. “Oh, John, I’ve been looking all over for you!” She hurried toward him breathlessly.

“What’s wrong?” Reid demanded.

“The city!” she gasped. “The city, John. It—it’s gone!”

“Gone?” Reid stared at her bewilderedly. Abruptly he whirled and bounded toward the airlock. Bright, afternoon sunlight poured down upon him as he jumped to the ground outside the ship. He looked quickly about him, his eyes widening with shock and disbelief.

Incredibly, amazingly, it was true. The city had vanished!

Reid stared in all directions, his senses whirling in confusion. The Parsec should have been resting upon a gleaming, metal road. Huge, multicolored buildings should have been towering before him.

But there was no road. There were no buildings. Reid looked out upon an immense plain, covered with waving grasses. At its outer fringes a great, dark forest spread. In the hazy distance, gigantic mountains soared majestically into the green sky.

Mountain, plain, and forest were as Reid remembered them. He turned his head. Yes—and there was the great curve of the bay, its waters lapping gently at the white sand of the shore. Except for the disappearance of the city, the scene had changed but little.

For the first time, now, Reid became conscious of the Arkites standing all around him. They were subdued and bewildered, their eyes anxious and questioning. Their glances fell before his shamefacedly.

“Where’s Norlin?” Reid asked.

“He ran down there somewhere,” one of the Arkites volunteered. “He came running out of the ship as though he’d gone crazy. When he saw the city was gone, he let out a yell and started running. We called to him but he didn’t stop. After a while we lost sight of him.” The man shrugged.

“He was a trouble-maker anyway. We shouldn’t have listened to him.”

Susan’s voice sounded abruptly beside Reid. “John, are you sure this is the exact place where you and Steve saw the city?”

“No doubt of it,” Reid answered. “There just couldn’t be another place like this on the entire planet. And just before the accident occurred, the city was just beneath the ship, relatively speaking, of course. The field was almost gone, so weak that it just couldn’t have moved the ship for more than a few feet.”

“But, John, what could have happened? Why did the city vanish like that?”

Reid’s eyes clouded with thought. “I think I know,” he said slowly.

The Arkites gathered around him in an eager, attentive circle. He was their leader again. His words were something to heed, and they tried to show, like the children they really were, that henceforth they would heed them. They listened.

“Doug Lain and I built the warp-generators under terrific pressure,” Reid began. “Almost from beginning to end, it was a constant race against time and the destructiveness of man. It was only to be expected, therefore, that some mistakes should creep in. Just what these were, we’ll never know, now.

“In some way, our long run through hyperspace here to Alpha Centauri’s system made these mistakes crop out forcefully. They altered the principle of the generators so that they produced a warp which allowed travel not only through hyperspace, but through time also. In what manner the two are linked I can only guess. They may interlock, run in parallel planes, or they may be one and the same thing.

“Anyway, in the instant upon emerging from hyperspace into Alpha’s system, the intensity of the warp-field was such that the Parsec was snapped through time. Instead of emerging at almost the same period that we first entered, we did so at one which I estimate as being approximately 500 years in the future!”

Reid looked at the Arkites, and suddenly his eyes were glowing.

“Listen closely now. You all are aware of the fact that animal life here on New Terra hasn’t as yet reached a very high point of development. This can only mean that the builders of the city were not natives of New Terra!

“Then who were they? They were intelligent. They resembled us. They built only one city, whereas if they were a race native to this world they’d have had hundreds, in addition to towns and roads. Can you imagine that a race capable of building a city like that wouldn’t also be able to navigate the great oceans and spread out to the other continents? They didn’t do so because of the fact that expansion wasn’t necessary—there weren’t enough of them to make it necessary. In the thousands of years that it takes a race to achieve civilization, could it be possible for their numbers to remain so few as to build only one city, inhabit only one continent?”

Reid looked at the Arkites. Their eyes were glowing, too. They knew now.

Reid went on swiftly. “When the Parsec emerged from hyperspace over the city, it was snapped through time once more, to the same extent as previously but in the opposite direction. We were returned to the point in time where we should originally have emerged. As a result, the city had vanished. It hadn’t as yet been built!” His voice became deep and vibrant.

“That was our city! We are the builders! Through a strange quirk of fate, we saw the crowning result of our work—the work which we will begin now and which our children will carry on after us. Our civilization will not perish after all.”

For a moment there was silence. Then one of the Arkites ventured timidly:

“Would it be possible for us to go back to the city?”

Reid smiled sadly. “The second shake-up not only snapped us back through time, but also strained the engines to the point where their inherent flaws caused them to explode. They’re ruined, utterly and completely. Doug Lain, who might have helped me rebuild them, was killed in the explosion. I could never do the job alone in all the years of life left to me.

“No, we’ll never be able to return to the city. Let us keep it in mind only as an inspiration. Our work lies clearly before us. The foundation for the city must be laid. That and that alone should henceforth occupy our thoughts.”

The Arkites looked at the plain and the forests. They looked up at the sky. And Reid knew they saw neither plain, forest, nor sky. They looked through these things with the dreaming eyes of a race, and the vision they saw was one of glittering, sky-high towers and a people grown happy and wise in their greatness.

One by one, the Arkites went into the Parsec. The women came out with pots and pans and baskets of food. They began clearing spaces for fires. The men came out with axes and saws slung over their shoulders. They moved off toward the forests, and presently there came busy sounds of chopping and sawing.

Everywhere Reid looked, the Arkites were absorbing themselves in some small task, gladly, willingly. Life for them had suddenly taken on purpose and meaning.

Reid felt a light touch on his arm; he turned to see Susan looking up at him, her grey eyes shining moistly.

“John—they’re happy!” she whispered incredulously.

“A building people are always a happy people, Susan. All the Arkites ever needed was a goal toward which to direct their efforts—something more than merely the dream of one man, something which they could visualize for themselves. They have that, now.”

“And I’ve found something, too, John.”

The shining, grey eyes still looked up at him. Reid glanced away, troubled to find that this girl could still make his heart ache in spite of the happiness that had finally come to him.

“I’m glad,” he said huskily. “This is a new beginning for you, too, I suppose. Steve Norlin will be back, of course, and then you’ll have your own home and—”

“You are blind, aren’t you, John? And you’re wrong about Steve. No; he won’t be back. He was really in love with himself, you see. Loss of the city meant an end to his hopes of comfort and leisure, and there just wasn’t anything else left for him.” Susan shook her auburn head. “He won’t be back.”

Reid had a sense of foreboding as he looked into her eyes, wide and dark with the age-old intuition of woman. He was to remember this feeling forcefully several weeks later when Norlin’s body was discovered in the forest, its head blown off by the blast-gun. But at the present it was crowded aside by a sudden, heart-quickening thrill.

“You—you don’t care?” he cried.

Her grey eyes smiled again. “No, John. I stopped caring that day I asked you if you wanted me. Oh, you should have seen your face! That was what I learned—real love. You wanted me, but the race came first. And I knew you were right, John, though I did want to help the Arkites. I realized, then, that what Steve was doing was wrong; I knew that if I had offered myself to him in order to prevent him from going to the city, that he’d have refused me. It was his own wellbeing that concerned him most; he had no real thought for the Arkites.”

Susan was silent a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was very soft.

“Well, I’m here if you still want me.”

“Still want you? Why—” Reid choked inarticulately; the words he wanted to say were so full with affirmation that they stuck in his throat. Music throbbed in his veins. And then, somehow, she was in his arms and his cheek was pressed to her hair, and there was no longer need to say anything.