THE CRUCIBLE OF TIME BY JOHN BRUNNER

“Hurry!” she moaned. “Hurry, please!”

But they wouldn’t. They didn’t. With maddening slowness they debated what to do, and at last agreed to guide her and Creez to the control-house, whence messages could be sent faster by nervograp.

She was going to be too late after all, Chybee thought despairingly as she plodded after them under the canopy of translucent globes. Oh, to think that so much effort, so many hopes and ambitions must go to waste because—

Because Aglabec knows how to disguise the pheromones which otherwise would betray his true convictions.

Enlightenment overcame her. Suddenly she realized what was meant by being stardazzled.

She looked about her with a clear eye. They had reached the entrance platform of the control-house, whence Ugant was emerging with cries of excitement. Chybee ignored her. From here she could plainly see the way the bladders were humped, netful by netful, in a carefully planned spiral. Without being told she deduced that the first batch due for release must be that over there; then those; then those—and lastly those through which could now and then be glimpsed the shining metal of Hyge’s cylinder.

And on the hills which she and Creez had lately crossed: Aglabec’s disciples, surging this way like a sullen flood. They were passing flame from each to the next under a smear of smoke, igniting firebrands turn and turn about, seeking a vantage point from which to hurl them.

“But Aglabec promised—!” Creez exclaimed. Chybee cut him short.

“He lied! He’s always lied to all his followers! He has a means to hide his lying, and he gave some to us for this mission! Ugant, forgive me, but they starved and tortured me until I couldn’t help myself!”

Taken aback, the scientist said, “Starved? Tortured? Oh, it can’t be true! I knew they were crazy, but surely even they—”

“No time!” Chybee shouted as Hyge too emerged from the control-house. “Everybody slack down to tornado status! I mean now!”

This drill was known to all the personnel from their test-firings. A single glance at the threat posed by the psychoplanetarists and their multiplying firebrands caused them to respond as though by mindless reflex, dragging Creez inside with them.

But, seizing one of the work-team’s choppers, Chybee flung herself over the side of the platform and rushed back the way she had come.

Without realizing until she had an overview of the complete spiral, she had noticed how the bladders were lashed to pumplekins by clusters, each connected by only a single bond for the sake of lightness, and if she could sever just one of those ropes, one that was all-important, there was a thin, faint, tenuous chance that when Aglabec’s crazed disciples began to fling their torches, then…

But which one? Where? She had imagined she fully understood the layout, yet she came to an abrupt halt, baffled and terrified. Had she wandered off course in her panic? All these groups of bladders looked alike, and all the ropes that tethered them—

A chance gust parted the dense globes and showed her the horde of attackers moving down the slope with grim determination, poising to toss their firebrands, heedless of any hurt that might come to them. Well, she had long craved vengeance on behalf of her friend Isarg; how could she do less than match their foolhardiness?

With sudden frantic energy she began to slash at every restraining rope in reach, and cluster after cluster of the bladders hurtled upward as though desperate to join the clouds.

To the psychoplanetarists perhaps it seemed that their prey was about to escape. At any rate, instead of padding purposefully onward they broke into a rush, and some of those at the rear, craving futile glory, threw their brands so that they landed among the others in the front ranks. A reek of fury greeted the burns they inflicted, and many of the foremost spun around, yelling with pain. Later, Chybee found herself able to believe that that fortunate accident must have saved her life. At the moment, however, she had no time to reason, but frenziedly went on cutting rope after rope after rope…

Abruptly she realized the sky above was clear, but the attackers had recovered from their setback, and were once more advancing on the remaining floaters.

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