“Take a walk outside and check it out,” VISAR’S voice suggested. “We’ll still be here when you get back.”
Hunt made his way dazedly to the door at the forward end of the corridor, stopped for a moment and braced himself for anything, and stepped through into the antechamber. McClusky and Alaska were back again. Through the open outer door he could see figures stirring and starting to move forward as they saw him. He moved toward the door, and seconds later was on his feet at the bottom of the access stairway. The figures converged around him, and excited questions assailed him from all sides as he began walking across the apron toward the mess hail.
“What’s happening in there?”
“Are there Ganymeans inside?”
“Are they coming out?”
“How many of them are there?”
“Just. . . talking so far. What? Yes. . . well, sort of. I’m not sure. Look, give me a few minutes. I need to check something.”
Inside the mess hall he made straight for the control room, set up in one of the front rooms. The controller and his two operators had watched Hunt through the window that looked out across the apron and were waiting expectantly. “Vic, how’s it going?” the controller greeted as he came in the door.
“Fine,” Hunt murmured absently. He stared hard at the consoles and screens set up around the room and forced his mind to go back over what had happened since they entered the craft. What he was seeing right now was real. Everything around him was real. The phone call had been part of something that hadn’t been real. Obviously it couldn’t have worked the other way around; reality couldn’t communicate into the realm of the hallucinatory via radio. Obviously?
“Have you had any contact from that plane since we went in-side?” he asked, turning to glance at the control-room crew.
“Why. . . yes.” The controller looked suddenly worried. “You talked to us yourself a few minutes ago. You’re sure everything’s
all right?”
Hunt brought a hand up to massage his brow and give the confusion boiling inside his head time to die down a little. “How did you get through?” he asked.
“We got a signal from it earlier teffing us we could couple in via a low-power beam, like I told you. I just asked for you by name.”
“Do it again,” Hunt said.
The controller moved in front of the supervisory console, tapped a command into its touchboard array, and spoke toward the two-way audio grille above the main screen. “McClusky Control to alien. Alien vessel, come in please.”
“Acknowledged,” a voice answered.
“VISAR?” Hunt said, recognizing it.
“Hi again. Convinced now?”
Hunt’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he stared at the blank screen. At last the wheels of his brain felt as if they were sorting themselves out and lining themselves up on the right axles again.
There was one obvious thing for him to try. “Put me through to Lyn Garland,” he said.
“One moment.”
The screen came to life, and a second later Lyn was looking out at him, framed by the background of the room he had recently been in. It must have been equally clear that Hunt was calling from McClusky, but her face did not register undue surprise. VISAR must have been doing some explaining.
“You sure get around,” she commented drily.
A shadow of a smile formed on Hunt’s face as the first glimmer of light began showing through it all. “Hi,” he said. “Question:
What happened after I last talked to you?”
“You vanished into thin air-just like that. It gave me a bit of a fright, but VISAR’S been straightening me out about a lot of things.” She held up a hand and wriggled her fingers in front of her face, at the s’ame time shaking her head wonderingly. “I can’t believe I’m not really doing this. It’s all happening inside my head? It’s incredible!”
Right at that moment she probably knew more about what was going on than he did, Hunt reflected. But he thought he had the general idea now. An instant communications link to Thurien.
miracles worked to order. . . Ganymeans talking in English. .