Again and again the wave of golop built up high enough to crack and to shatter that feeble wall; again and again golop and water met in ultimately furious, if insensate, battle. Inch by inch the ocean’s shoreline was driven backward toward ocean’s depths – but every inch the ocean lost was to its tactical advantage, since the advancing front was by now practically filled with hard, solid, dead blocks of its own substance, which it could neither assimilate nor remove from the scene of conflict.
Hence the wall grew ever thicker and more solid, and the
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advance became slower and slower.
Then, finally, ocean waves of ever-increasing height and violence rolled in against the new-formed shore. What caused those tremendous waves – earthquakes, perhaps due to the shifting of the mountains masses? – no Tellurian ever knew for sure. Whatever the cause, however, those waves operated to pin the golop down. Whenever and wherever one of those monstrous waves whitecapped in, hurling hundreds of thousands of tons of water inland, the battle-front stabilized then and there.
All over that world the story was the same. Wherever there was water enough, the water won. And the total quantity of water in that world’s oceans remained practically unchanged.
‘Good! A lot of people escaped,’ James said, expelling a long-held breath. ‘Everybody who lives on or could be flown to the smaller islands … if they can find enough to eat and if the air isn’t poisoned.’
‘Air’s okay – so’s the water – and they’ll get food, Garlock said. ‘The Arpalones will handle things, including distribution. What I’m thinking about is how they’re going to rehabilitate it. As an engineering project, that’s a feat to end all feats.’
James nodded vigorous agreement. ‘Except for the fact that it’ll take too many months before they can even start the job, I’d like to stick around and see how they go about it. How does this kind of stuff fit into that theory you’re not admitting is a theory?’
‘Not worth a damn. However, it’s a datum – and, as I’ve said before and may say again, if we can get enough data we can build a theory out of it.’
Then it began to rain. For many minutes the clouds had been piling up – black, far flung, thick and high. Immense bolts of lightning flashed and snapped and crackled; thunder crashed and rolled and rumbled; rain fell, and continued to fall, like a cloudburst. And shortly thereafter – first by square feet and then by acres and then by square miles – the surface of the golop began to die. To die, that is, if it had ever been even partially alive. At least it stopped sparkling, darkened, and froze into thick skins … which broke up into blocks … which in turn sank – thus exposing an ever-renewed surface to the driving, pelting relentlessly cascading rain.
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‘Well, I don’t know that there’s anything to hold us here any longer,’ Garlock said, finally, ‘shall we go?’
They went; but it was several days before any of the wanderers really felt like smiling; and Lola did not recover from her depression for over a week.
FIVE
Supper was over, but the four were still at the table, sipping coffee and smoking. During a pause in the casual conversation, James suddenly straightened up.
‘I want an official decision, Clee,’ he said, abruptly. ‘While we’re out of touch with United Worlds you, as captain of the ship and director of the project, are boss – the Lord of Justice, High and Low. The works. Check?’
‘On paper, yes – with my decisions subject to appeal and/or review when we get back to Base. In practice, I didn’t expect to have to make any very gravid rulings.’
‘I never thought you’d have to, either, but Belle fed me one with a bone in it, so…’
‘Just a minute. How official do you want it? Completely formal, screens down and recorded?’
‘Not unless we have to. Let’s explore it first. As of right now, are we under the Code or not?’
‘Of course we are.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Belle put in sharply. ‘Not slavishly to the letter. We’re so far away and our chance of getting back is so slight that it should be interpreted in the light of common sense.’
Garlock stared at Belle and she stared back, her eyes as clear and innocent as a baby’s.
‘The Code is neither long enough nor complicated enough to require interpretation,’ Garlock stated, finally. ‘It either applies
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in full and exactly or not at all. It’s like being pregnant, Belle -either you are or you aren’t.’
‘The cases aren’t comparable,’ Belle insisted.
‘Not precisely, of course, but they are analogous. My ruling is that the Code applies, strictly, until I declare the state of Ultimate Contingency. Are you ready, Belle, to abandon the project, find an uninhabited Tellurian world, and begin to populate it?’
‘Well, not quite, perhaps.’
‘Yes or no, please.’
‘No.’
‘We are under the Code, then. Go ahead, Jim.’
T broke pairing with Belle and she refused to confirm.’
‘Certainly I refused. He had no reason to break with me.’
‘I had plenty of reason!’ James snapped. ‘I’m fed up to here’ – he drew his right forefinger across his forehead – ‘with making so-called love to a woman who can never think of anything except cutting another man’s throat.’
‘You both know that reasons are unnecessary and are not discussed in public,’ Garlock said flatly. ‘Now as to confirmation of a break. In simple pairing there is no marriage, no registration, no declaration of intent or of permanence. Thus, legally or logically, there is no obligation. Morally, however, there is always some obligation. Hence, as a matter of urbanity, in cases where no injury exists except as concerns chastity, the Code calls for agreement without rancor. If either party persists in refusal to confirm, and cannot show injury, that party’s behavior is declared inurbane. Confirmation is declared and the offending party is ignored.’
‘Just how would you go about it to ignore Prime Operator Belle Bellamy?’
‘You’ve got a point there, Jim. However, she hasn’t persisted very long in her refusal. As a matter of information, Belle, why did you take Jim in the first place?’
‘I didn’t.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘It was pure chance. You saw me flip the tenth-piece.’
‘Am I to ignore the fact that you’re one of the best tele-kineticists living?’
‘I don’t have to control things unless I want to! Can’t you conceive of me flipping a coin honestly?’
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‘No. However, since this is not a screens-down inquiry, I’ll give you – orally, at least – the benefit of the doubt. The next step, I presume, is for Lola to break with me. Lola?’
‘Well … I hate to say this, Clee … I thought that mutual consent would be better, but…’ Lola paused, flushing in embarrassment.
‘She feels,’ James said steadily, ‘as I do, that there should be much more to the sexual relation than merely releasing the biological tensions of two pieces of human machinery.’
‘I confirm, Lola, of course,’ Garlock said. Then he went on, partly thinking aloud, partly addressing the group at large. ‘Ha. Reasons again, and very well put – not off the cuff. Evasions. Flat lies. There’s something damned strange here – in sum, indefensible actions based upon unwarranted conclusions drawn from erroneous assumptions. The pattern isn’t clear … but I won’t order screens down until I have to. If the reason had come from Belle…’
‘Me?’ Belle flared. ‘Why from me?’
Ignoring Belle’s interruption, Garlock frowned in thought. After a minute or so his face cleared.
‘Jim,’ he said, sharply, ‘have you been consciously aware of Belle’s manipulation?’
‘Why, no, of course not. She couldn’t I’
‘That’s really a brainstorm, Clee,’ Belle said. ‘You’d better turn yourself in for an overhaul.’
‘Nice scheme, Belle,’ Garlock said. ‘I underestimated your .power – at least, I didn’t consider it carefully enough. And I overestimated your ethics and urbanity.’
‘What are you talking about?’ James asked. ‘You lost me ten parsecs back.’
‘Just this. Belle is behind this whole operation, working under a perfectly beautiful smoke-screen.’
‘I’m afraid the boss is cracking up, kids,’ Belle said. ‘Listen to him, if you like, but use your own judgment.”
‘But nobody could make Jim and me really love each other,’ Lola argued, ‘and we really do. It’s real love.’
‘Admitted,’ Garlock said. ‘But she could have helped it along – and she’s all set to take every possible advantage of the situation thus created.’
‘I still don’t see it.’ James objected. ‘Why, she wouldn’t even
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confirm our break. She hasn’t yet.’
‘She would have, at the exactly correct psychological moment; after holding out long enough to put you both under obligation to her. There would have been certain strings attached, too. Her plan was, after switching the pairings —’
‘I’d never paired with you!’ Belle broke in viciously.