“Did they have a name for themselves?”
“Sure,” Garrard said. “They were the beademungen.”
“What did they look like?”
“I never saw them.”
Haertel leaned forward. “Then …”
“I heard them. I think.” Garrard shrugged, and tasted his Scotch again. He was home, and on the whole he was pleased.
But in his malleable mind he heard someone say, On Earth, as it is in Heaven; and then, in another voice, which might also have been his own (why had he thought “him-other”?), It is later than you think.
“Adolph,” he said, “is this all there is to it? Or are we going to go on with it from here? How long will it take to make a better starship, a DFC-4?”
“Many years,” Haertel said, smiling kindly. “Don’t be anxious, Garrard. You’ve come back, which is more than the others managed to do, and nobody will ask you to go out again. I really think that it’s hardly likely that we’ll get another ship built during your lifetime; and even if we do, we’ll be slow to launch it. We really have very little information about what kind of playground you found out there.”
“I’ll go,” Garrard said. “I’m not afraid to go backI’d like to go. Now that I know how the DFC-3 behaves, I could take it out again, bring you back proper maps, tapes, photos.”
“Do you really think,” Haertel said, his face suddenly serious, “that we could let the DFC-3 go out again? Garrard, we’re going to take that ship apart practically molecule by molecule; that’s preliminary to the building of any DFC-4.
And no more can we let you go. I don’t mean to be cruel, but has it occurred to you that this desire to go back may be the result of some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion? If so, the more badly you want to go back, the more dangerous to us all you may be. We are going to have to examine you just as thoroughly as we do the ship. If these beademungen wanted you to come back, they must have had a reason and we have to know that reason.”