“Oh, yes!” whispered Chybee. “Oh, yes!”
They turned to her, their exudations sympathetic and inviting. Thus encouraged, she went on, “And to think that what Ugant and Hyge are planning could despoil it all!”
“Would you not work with us to stop them?” demanded her hostess, Olgo.
“Of course! I want to! It’s my duty!”
A wave of satisfaction-odor rose from the company, and one who was near the entrance slipped away, shortly to return with Aglabec in high excitement.
“At last!” he said as he accepted the place of honor at the center of the bower. “I’ve been making inquiries about the situation at Hulgrapuk. It seems that the traitor Imblot has ensnared many folk there who should be wiser than a youngling like yourself. Yet you came hither, did you not, in search of truth?”
“I did!” Chybee confirmed excitedly.
“Well, you were guided to where I was, even though you failed to understand the reason. Now you’ve been shown the error of your ways, are you resolved to make amends?”
“With all my pith! I never dreamed what harm would stem from what Ugant and Hyge are doing!”
“And what exactly does that amount to?”
So she described what she had seen at the test site—the metal tube with its prong of fire, the huge floaters designed to lift it to the limits of the atmosphere, the instruments which reported on its behavior even when it was traveling faster than sound. At each new revelation the company uttered fresh gusts of horror, until by the end Chybee was dreadfully ashamed of her own words.
“You said they’re close to success?” Aglabec demanded at last.
“Very close indeed!”
“That breeds with what I’ve been hearing recently.” The dream-leader pleated his mantle into a frown. “We must move against them before it’s too late. Chybee, have you been in contact with Ugant or any of her associates since—well, since our meeting before last?”
There was a reason for his awkward turn of phrase; she was aware of the fact, but the reason itself eluded her. She uttered a vehement denial, and Olgo confirmed that at no time had she been away from the supervision of someone utterly trustworthy.
“Very well, then,” Aglabec decided. “We must rely on you for a delicate mission. Presumably Ugant will be expecting you to make a report. You are to go back to the test site, but this time on our behalf, to lull the suspicions of those who work there. To make assurance doubly sure, I’ll send you with a companion, supposedly someone you’ve converted to the scientists’ views. Creez, I offer you a chance to redeem yourself!”
And Creez was he who had braggartly been known as Startoucher … and who voiced a question Chybee meant to.
“But how can we possibly conceal our true opinions?”
“I will give you a—a medicine,” Aglabec said after a fractional hesitation. “It will suffice for a short time.”
That too should have been significant, Chybee thought. Once again, though, the notion was elusive.
“Now pass the news,” said Aglabec, rising. “At dawn tomorrow we shall strike a blow against the scientists such as it will take them a laq of years to recover from! By then, I trust, no one will any longer pay attention to their foolishness! You, Creez and Chybee, come with me, and receive your full instructions.”
All the next dark the word spread among the psychoplanetarists, and the pool of pheromones in their quarter of Slah became tinged with violent excitement. Around dawn they started to emerge from their homes and move towards the test site, not in a concerted mass but in small groups, so as not to alert the authorities. The morning breeze today was very light, and few outsiders caught wind of what was happening.
Aglabec was not with them. He had declared that he was too well known and too easily recognizable.
Chybee and Creez, fortified with the “medicine” which disguised pheromones, went in advance of the others. They were to announce an urgent report for Ugant or Hyge, which would require everyone working at the site to be called together. For so long the psychoplanetarists had merely talked instead of acting, Aglabec was convinced this simple stratagem would suffice to postpone any warning of the actual attack. And the nature of the latter was the plainest possible. The huge bladders being filled to raise the rocket contained fiercely inflammable gas; let but one firebrand fall among them, and the site would be a desert.