Jill nodded. “That’s very probably true.”
“Then how about giving me your full cooperation until we—you, I, your uncles—are all safely out of this?”
“At the moment,” Jill observed, “I don’t appear to have a choice in the matter.”
“I don’t mean that. The drug will wear off in a few hours. You’ll be able to move around freely again, and whether you cooperate or not will depend on you. How will you feel about it then?”
“That depends,” Jill said, “on whether we have reached an agreement.”
“Agreement about what?”
“A price for your silence, and for any assistance you can give in keeping things quiet. You can, of course, set the price as high as you wish. Terra will meet it.”
Dowland stared at her, somewhat astounded. It was as cold-blooded an attempt at bargaining as he’d run into, considering the circumstances. And—considering an I.Q. of 181—it seemed rather unrealistic. “Miss Trelawney,” he said, “the only thing silence might get me is a twenty-year stretch in an IPA pen. I’m not quite that foolish.”
“You’re also not aware of the true situation.”
“All right,” Dowland said, “what is it?”
“Miguel and Paul have earned the right to carry out the first of these tests. They may not complete it. But duplicates of their machine in the laboratory are concealed about the planet, waiting to be put into action by other teams of Freeholder scientists. You see? The tests will be continued until any problems connected with shifting back through time are recognized and overcome.”
Dowland said, “Then why is the entire haul of YM stacked away in the laboratory here?”
“Because that’s where it’s to be used at present. You still don’t understand the extent of this operation, Dowland. If we need more of the Overgovernment’s YM, we’ll simply take it. It can be done at any time. The only way the Overgovernment could really prevent future raids would be by destroying its supplies of YM-400. And it isn’t going to do that—at least not before we’ve obtained as much as we can use.”
* * *
As far as his own information went, she could be right, Dowland thought. He said, “So supposing some Freeholder scientists do succeed eventually in traveling back in time. What will that accomplish?”
“Everything we want, of course,” Jill said. “There’ll be no more reason to conceal our activities—and we’ll have time. As much time as we need. Thirty or fifty years perhaps. Scientific centers and automatic factories will be set up in the past, and eventually the factories will be turning out weapons superior to anything the Overgovernment has. And then the weapons will come to the present—to this present, Dowland. Within a year from now, Terra will have become a heavily armed world—overnight. There’ll be no more talk then of forcing us to remain under Overgovernment rule. Or of making Terra another Open Planet. . . .”
Theoretically, Dowland could see that such a plan might work. With the time to do it in, and the resources of a world at the Freeholders’ disposal . . . and there would be nothing to keep them from taking back spaceships and mining the asteroids. For a moment, while Jill Trelawney was talking, she had made it sound almost plausible.
Only for a moment. She was, of course, telling the truth as she knew it. They were up to something very dangerous—and very illegal—here, whatever it was, and they’d spread the time travel idea around among the lesser members of the group to help keep the real purpose concealed. He said, “Just how far back in time are they planning to go, Miss Trelawney?”
“Six hundred thousand years. The period is regarded as particularly suitable for what is being planned.”
Six hundred thousand years. Nothing half-hearted about the Freeholders, Dowland thought sardonically, even as to the size of the lies they put out. “When you waved me in here this evening,” he said. “I had the impression you were expecting someone else. Was I right?”
“Yes. But I wasn’t waving you in, Dowland. I was attempting to wave you off. If you’d been the man I thought it was, you would have realized it. . . . Have you considered my suggestion?”
“About selling out to the Freeholders?”
“If you wish to call it that.”
“Miss Trelawney,” Dowland said amiably, “if I did sell out, would you admire me for it?”
Her cheeks flushed. “No. You’d be despicable, of course.”
Dowland nodded. “That’s one thing we agree on. Now, just who was this man you were expecting, and just why were you expecting him?”
The girl’s lips twisted reluctantly for a moment; then words broke out again. “Carter is to send a man to the ranch with some pieces of equipment. The equipment either was unloaded at Columbia spaceport this afternoon, or will be, early tomorrow morning. I thought you were the messenger. Strange grid-cars don’t come through this area more than once every few weeks. If you’d been the man, you would already have attempted to call our house communicator by the time I saw you. . . .”
“To make sure the coast was clear before coming in with odd-looking equipment.”
“Yes. You would then have reported to Carter that there was no answer, which would have resulted in an immediate investigation. I was attempting to warn the messenger that he shouldn’t come closer, that something was seriously wrong here.”
Dowland reflected, nodded. “That would have worked—if I’d been the man. And now it seems it’s a good thing I inquired about this, Miss Trelawney. Because the messenger actually may have arrived this evening, received no answer from the ranch, reported the fact, and gone away again—mightn’t he?”
“Yes, that may have happened.” Her eyes were furious with frustration.
“And what would Carter do then?”
“He would rush a few squads of Troopers here to investigate.”
“Hedgehopping,” Dowland nodded, “in approved Trooper style to avoid detection. They hit the power-failure area, and the first few cars crash. They report the matter. What would happen then, Miss Trelawney?”
“Damn you, Dowland. They’d scout around Lion Mesa to see how close they could get by air. Carter would have horses and climbing equipment flown in to that point, and they’d continue on horseback.”
* * *
There were other methods, Dowland thought. Parachutes, gliders—they could even try ditching a few cars on the mesa as he’d done. He considered, and mentally shook his head. Aside from the difficulties, the Troopers would be warned to avoid spectacular stunts in the vicinity of the mesa. They’d come exactly as she’d said. It was a completely unobtrusive form of approach, even for a large body of men, and it would still get them here fast.
He said, “Well, let’s suppose all that has happened. Carter’s Troopers are on their way here at this minute, riding pell-mell. Giving them every break, what’s the earliest moment we can expect them to show up?”
She said, “Not before morning.”
“I’d figured it at perhaps two hours before sunrise,” Dowland said. “What would hold them up?”
“They can’t climb the mesa at any point near the ranch by night. A descent might be possible, but even that would be difficult and dangerous. And they’ll be carrying repair equipment to take care of whatever’s gone wrong. So they’ll have to come up the northern end, where it isn’t so steep.”
“And then,” Dowland said, “they still have to come down across the mesa on foot. Makes sense. And, of course, that messenger actually may not get here before tomorrow. If he comes then, at what time would he arrive?”
She shrugged. “Before noon. The hour wasn’t specified.”
“In any case,” Dowland said, “you were figuring on stalling me around here until Carter’s boys turned up. Then you realized I must be an Overgovernment man, and decided it would be too dangerous to allow me to prowl about the ranch until help came.”
Jill nodded.
Dowland considered her reflectively. “You understand, I believe, that unless I can somehow get word to the Solar Police Authority within the next few hours, Miguel’s injuries may very well kill him? And that if I could get word out, an SPA jet would have him in the nearest hospital ten minutes later?”
“I understand both those things, Dowland,” she said. “But I also know that Miguel would not choose to have his life saved at the cost of exposing our plans.”
Dowland shrugged. “Very well . . . Now, were the things that happened before I got here as you’ve described them?”
“Yes.”
“You know of no way to get into that laboratory at present?”
“Not unless you can find the key to the door.”
“That key should be around this immediate area?”
“It should be,” she said, “but I haven’t been able to find it.”
“No further ideas about that?”
“None.”
Dowland was silent a moment. “Miss Trelawney,” is there anything else that might be of importance here that you still have not told me?”