THE CRUCIBLE OF TIME BY JOHN BRUNNER

“Though of course,” Aglabec had declared, “we only want them to yield to our threats, and—like you, Chybee—acknowledge that the popular will is against them.”

With a nervous chuckle Creez had said, “I’m glad of that!”

And now he and Chybee were cresting the range of hills separating the city from the site, formerly a bank of the salt lake where Voosla had taken root. On the way she had repeatedly described for him what he must expect to see. But the moment she had a clear view from the top of the rise she stopped dead, trembling.

“What’s wrong?” Creez demanded.

“It’s changed,” she quavered, looking hither and yon in search of something familiar. Where was the row of distorted trees along which Hyge’s pride and joy had become a shining streak to the accompaniment of sudden thunder? Where was the monstrous cylinder itself, built of such a deal of costly metal, with its clever means of guidance warranted to thrive in outer space? Where was the control-house, which surely should have been visible from here?

Nothing of what she remembered was to be seen, save a mass of gigantic bladders swelling like live things in the day’s new warmth, rising at the midpoint of the valley into a slowly writhing column tethered by ropes and nets.

“It looks as though they’re actually going to try a shot into space!”

Chybee whispered, striving to concentrate on her errand. The clean morning air was stirring buried memories, and they were discomforting.

“Then we have to hurry!”

“Yes—yes, of course! But where is everybody?”

“We must go and look,” Creez declared, and urged her down the slope.

A moment later they were in the weirdest environment she had ever imagined, under a roof of colossal swollen globes that looked massive enough to crush them, yet swayed at every slightest touch of the breeze, straining at their leashes and lending the light an eerie, fearful quality, now brighter, now darker, according to the way it was reflected from each bladder to its neighbor.

“It’s like being underwater!” Creez muttered.

“My weather-sense disagrees,” Chybee answered curtly, fighting to maintain her self-control. “Listen! Don’t I sense somebody?”

“Over there! Something’s agitating the bladders!”

And, moments later, they came upon a work-team wielding nets and choppers, harvesting more and ever more full bladders to be added to the soaring column. One of them had incautiously collected so many, she risked being hoisted off her pads by a puff of wind.

Keeping up her pretense with all her might, Chybee hailed them.

“Is Ugant here, or Hyge? We have an urgent message!”

Resigning half her anti-burden to a colleague, the one who had so nearly soared into the sky looked her over.

“I remember you!” she said suddenly. “Weren’t you here with Ugant a moonlong past?”

All that time ago? Chybee struggled more valiantly than ever to remember her promise to Aglabec.

“Is she here now? I have to talk to her!”

“Well, of course! Didn’t you know? Today’s the day for the trial launch—that is, if we turn out to have enough floaters for a really high lift, which is what we’re working out right now. We got our first consignment of modified spores of the kind which ought to reproduce on Swiftyouth, and the line-up of the planets is ideal for them to be carried there by light-pressure! Of course, we can’t be certain things will all go off okay, but we’re doing our utmost. Only there have been some nasty rumors going around, about crazy psychoplanetarists who’d like to wreck the shot.”

“That’s exactly what I’ve come to warn you about!” Chybee exclaimed, seizing her opening. “I’ve been among them for—well, ever since I last saw Ugant! Call everybody together, please, right away! I have important news!”

“Say, I recall Ugant mentioning that you’d agreed to go undercover for us,” said another of the work-team. “But what about him?”—gesturing at Creez.

“It’s thanks to him that I know what I do!” Chybee improvised frantically. Something was wrong. Something was changing her mind against her will. She was still thinner and lower than when she set off on Ugant’s mission, but with regained well-being those buried memories were growing stronger … particularly now that she was clear of psychoplanetarist pheromones.

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