“Half,” she insisted; then grinned suddenly. “But why argue about half of nothing? To
get back onto the subject of cops-the lugs!-they brushed my report off as a stripper’s
publicity gag and I didn’t get even one line in the papers. And if I report this weirdie
they’ll give me a oneway, most-direct-route ticket to the nearest funny-farm.”
“You’ve got a point there.” He glowered at his drink. “I can see us babbling about
instantaneous translation through the fourth dimension and an impossible spaceship on
the moon manned by people exactly like us-except that the men all look like Green Bay
Packers and all the girls without exception are stacked like . . . like . . .” Words failed
him.
Madlyn nodded thoughtfully. “Uh-huh,” she agreed. “They were certainly stacked. That
Luloy . . . that biologist Sennlloy, who was studying all those worms and mice and
things . . . all of ’em. And they swap hundred-carat perfect blue-white diamonds for
books.”
“Yeah. We start babbling that kind of stuff and we wind up in wrap-arounds.”
“You said it. But we’ve got to do something!”
“Well, we can report to an Observer-”
“I’ve got a better idea. Let’s tie one really on.”
Neither of them remembered very much of what happened after that, but at about three
o’clock the following afternoon Charley van der Gleiss struggled upward through 4
million miles of foul-tasting molasses to consciousness. He was lying on the couch in
his living room; fully dressed, even to his shoes. He worked himself up, very carefully, to
a sitting position and shook his head as carefully. It didn’t quite explode. Good-he’d
probably live.
Walking as though on eggs, he made cautious way to the bedroom. She was lying, also
fully dressed, on his bed. On the coverlet. As he sat gingerly down on the side of the
bed she opened one eye, then the other, put both hands to her head, and groaned; her
features twisting in agony. “Stop shaking me, you . . . please,” she begged. “Oh, my
poor head! It’s coming clear off . . . right at the neck . . .”
Then, becoming a little more conscious, she went on, “It didn’t go back into the
woodwork, Charley, did it? I’ll see that horrible moonscape and that naked Luloy as long
as I live.”
“And I’ll see that nightmare of a spaceship. While you’re taking the first shot at the
bathroom I’ll have ’em send up a gallon of black coffee, a couple of quarts of orange
juice, and whatever the pill-roller downstairs says is good for what ails us. In the
meantime, would you like a hair of the dog?”
“My God, no!” She shuddered visibly. “I never got drunk in my life before-I have to keep
in shape, you know-and if I live through this I swear I’ll never take another drink as long
as I live!”
When they began to feel better Madlyn said, “Why don’t you peek into that drawer,
Charley? There just might be something in it.”
He did, and there was, and he gave her the honor of lifting the soft plastic bag out of the
drawer.
“My God!” she gasped. “There’s four or five pounds of them!” She opened the bag with
trembling fingers and stood entranced for half a minute, then took out a few of the gems
and examined them minutely.
“Charley,” she said then, “if I know anything about diamonds-and I admit that I know a
lot-these are not only real, but the finest things I have ever seen. I’m almost afraid to try
to sell even the littlest ones. Men just simply don’t give girls rocks like that. I’m not even
sure that there are very many others like those around. If any.”
“Well, we would probably have had to talk to an Observer anyway, and this makes it a
forced putt. Let’s go, Maddy.”
“In this wreckage?” Expression highly scornful, she waved a hand at her rumpled and
wrinkled green afternoon gown. “Are you completely out of your mind?”
“Oh, that’s easy. I’ll shave and put on a clean shirt and an intelligent, look and then we’ll
skip over to your place for you to slick up and then we’ll go down to the Observer’s
office. Say, have you got a safe-deposit box?”
“No, but don’t worry about that for awhile, my friend. We haven’t got ’em past the
Observer yet!”
An hour later, looking and feeling almost human again, the two were ushered into the
Observer’s heavily screened private office. They told him, as nearly as they could
remember, every detail of everything that had happened.
He listened attentively. He had been among the Tellurians only a few short months; in
the cautious thoughtful way of Norlaminians, he was far from ready to claim that he
understood them. These two in particular seemed quite non-scientific and un-logical in
their attitudes . . . and yet, he thought, and yet there was that about them which
seemed to deserve a hearing. So he heard. Then he put on a headset and saw.
Visually he investigated the far side of the moon; then, frowning slightly, he increased
his power to microscopic magnification and re-examined half a dozen tiny areas. He
then conferred briefly with Rovol of Rays on distant Norlamin, who in turn called Seaton
into a long-distance three-way.
“No doubt whatever about it,” Seaton said. “If they hadn’t been hiding from somebody
or something they wouldn’t have ground up that many thousands of tons of inoson into
moon-dust-that’s a project, you know-and I don’t need to tell you that inoson does not
occur in nature. Yes, we definitely need to know more about this one. Coming in!”
Seaton’s projection appeared in the Observer’s office and, after being introduced,
handed thought-helmets to Madlyn and Charley. “Put these on, please, and go over the
whole thing again, in as fine detail as you possibly can. It’s not that we doubt any of
your statements; it’s just that we want to record and to study very carefully all the side-
bands of thought that can be made to appear.”
The two went over their stories again; this time being interrupted, every other second or
two, by either Seaton or the Observer with sharply pertinent questions or suggestions.
When, finally, both had been wrung completely dry, the Observer took off his helmet
and said:
“Although much of this material is not for. public dissemination, I will tell you enough to
relieve your minds of stress; especially since you have already seen some of it and I
know that neither of you will talk.” Being a very young Norlaminian, just graduated from
the Country of Youth, he smiled at this, and the two smiled-somewhat wryly-back.
“Wait a minute,” Seaton said. “I’m not sure we want their minds relieved of too much
stress. They both ring bells-loud ones. I’d swear I know you both from somewhere,
except I know darn well I’ve never met either of you before . . . it’s a cinch nobody could
ever forge: meeting Madlyn Mannis . . .” He paused, then snapped a finger sharply.
“Idiot! Of course! Where were you, both of you, at hours twenty-three fifty-nine on the
eighteenth?”
“Huh? What is this, a gag?” van der Gleiss demanded.
“Anything else but, believe me,” Seaton assured him. “Madlyn?”
“One minute of midnight? That would be the finale of my first show . . . Oh-oh! Was the
eighteenth a Friday?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it!” The girl was visibly excited now. “Something did happen. Don’t ask me what-
all I know is I was just finishing my routine, and I got this feeling–this feeling of
importance about something. Why, you were in it!” She stared at Seaton’s projection
incredulously. “Yes! But-you were different somehow. I don’t know how. Like a-like a
reflection of you, or a bad photograph . . .”
Through his headset Seaton thought a quick, private three-way conference with Rovol
and the Norlaminian on Earth: “-clearly refers to our beacon message-” “-yes, but holy
cats, Rovol, what’s this about a `reflection’?=’ “-conceivably some sort of triggered
response from another race-”
It took less than a second, then Seaton continued with the girl and her companion, who
were unaware that any interchange had taken place.
“The `something important’ you’re talking about, Madlyn, was a message that we
broadcast. You might call it an SOS; we were looking for a response from some other
race or civilization with a little more on the ball than we have. We’ve been hoping for an
answer; it’s just possible that, through you, we’ve got one. What was that `reflection’
like?”
“I’d call it a psychic pull,” said Madlyn promptly. “And now that you mention it, I felt it
with these Jelmi too. And-” Her eyes widened, and she turned to stare at Charley.
Seaton snapped his fingers. “Look, Madlyn. Can you take time off to spend with us? I
don’t know what you’ve got into-but I want you nearby if you get into it again!”