Matson, however, had leaked the info to the small, militant, anti-emigration org, the Friends of a United People. Mostly they were old-fashioned, elderly and fearful, whose distrust of emigration by means of Telpor was based on neurotic reasons. But—they did print pamphlets. And Vidphone Corp’s refusal had duly been noted immediately in one of their Terra-wide broad-sheets.
But how many persons had seen it—that Rachmael did not know. He had the intuition, however, that very few people had. And—emigration continued.
As Matson said, the footprints leading into the predator’s lair continued to increase in number. And still none led out.
Dosker said, “All right, I am now officially, formally surrendering the Omphalos back to you. She appears to check out through every system, so you should have nothing to fear.” His dark eyes glinted. “I tell you what, ben Applebaum. During your eighteen years of null-deep-sleep you can amuse yourself as I’ve been, during the last week.” He reached to a table, picked up a leather-backed book. “You can,” he said quietly, “keep a diary.”
“Of what?”
“Of a mind,” Dosker said, “deteriorating. It’ll be of psychiatric interest.” Now he did not seem to be joking.
“So even you,” Rachmael said, “consider me—”
“Without deep-sleep equipment to drop your metabolism you’re making a terrible mistake to go. So maybe the diary won’t be a transcript of human deterioration; maybe that’s already taken place.”
Wordlessly, Rachmael watched the dark, lithe man step through the lock, disappear, out of the Omphalos and into the tiny rented flapple.
The lock clanged shut. A red light flicked on above it and he was alone, here in this, his giant passenger liner, as he would be for eighteen years and maybe, he thought, maybe Dosker is right.
But still he intended to make the trip.
At three o’clock a.m. Matson Glazer-Holliday was awakened by one of his staff of automatic villa servants. “Your lord, a message from a Mr. Bergen Phillips. From Newcolonizedland. Just received. And you asked—”
“Yes.” Matson sat up, spilling the covers from Freya, who slept on; he grabbed his robe, slippers. “Let’s have it.”
The message, typed out by routine printers of the Vidphone Corp, read:
BOUGHT MY FIRST ORANGE TREE. LOOKS LIKE A BIG CROP.
COME ON JOIN MOLLY AND ME.
Now Freya stirred, sat up; her spider silk nightgown, one strap of it, slipped from her bare, pale shoulder. “What is it?” she murmured.
“The first encoded note from B.P.,” Matson said; he absently tap-tapped the folded message against his knee, pondering.
She sat up fully, reached for her pack of Bering cigarillos. “What does he report, Mat?”
Matson said, “The message is version six.”
“That—things are exactly as depicted.” She was wide awake now; she sat lighting her cigarillo, watching him intently.
“Yes. But—THL psychologists, waiting on the far side, could have nabbed the field rep. ‘Washed his brain, gotten everything and then sent this; so it meant nothing. Only a transmission of one of the odd-numbered codes—indicating in various degrees that conditions at Whale’s Mouth were not as depicted—would have been worth anything. Because of course THL psychologists would have no motive to fake those. ”
“So,” Freya said, “you know nothing.”
“But maybe he can activate the Prince Albert B-y sat.” One week; it would not be long, and the Omphalos could easily be contacted by then. And, since its solo pilot did not lie in deep-sleep, he could be informed.
However, if after a week—
“If no data come from the sat,” Matson said thoughtfully, “it still proves nothing. Because then Bergen will transmit message n, meaning that the sat has proved inoperative. They will do all that, too, if they have him. So still nothing!” He paced about the bedroom, then took the burning cigarillo from the girl in the rumpled bed, inhaled from it violently, until it heated up and scorched his fingers. “I,” he said, “will not live out eighteen years.” I will never live to know the truth about Whale’s Mouth, he realized. That time period; it was just too long to wait.
“You’ll be seventy-nine,” Freya said practically. “So you’ll still be alive. But a jerry with artiforgs for natural organs.”
But—I’m just not that patient, Matson realized. A newborn baby grows virtually to adulthood in that time!
Freya retrieved the cigarillo, winced at its temperature. “Well, possibly you can send over—”
“I’m going over,” Matson said.
Staring at him, after a moment she said, “Oh god. God.”
“I won’t go alone. I’ll have a ‘family.’ At every outlet of Trails of Hoffman a Lies Incorporated commando team—” He possessed two thousand of them, many veterans of the war; they would pass over at the same moment as he, would link up at Whale’s Mouth. And, in their “personal” gear, they would convey enough detection, relay, recording and monitoring equipment to reestablish the private police agency. “So you’re in charge here on Terra,” he told Freya. “Until I get back.” Which would be thirty-six years from now, he thought acidly. When I’m ninety-seven years old . . . no, that’s right: we can obtain deep-sleep mechanisms at Whale’s Mouth because I remember them taking it across; that’s one reason why it’s so short of supply, here. Originally it was thought that if colonization didn’t work they could vacate—roanoke, they called it—they could roanoke back to the Sol system in deep-sleep by ship . . . from giant liners manufactured at Whale’s Mouth from prefab sections passed across by von Einem’s Telpor teleportation gates.
“A coup,” Freya said, then. “In fact—a coup d’etat.”
Startled, he said, “What? God no; I never—”
“If you take two thousand top reps,” Freya said, “Lies Incorporated won’t exist here; it’ll be a shade. But over there—it’ll be formidable. And the UN has no army at Whale’s Mouth, Matson. You’re aware of that, at least on an unconscious level. Who could oppose you? Let’s see. The President of Newcolonized land, Omar Jones, is up for reelection in two years; you’d possibly want to wait—”
“At the first call from Whale’s Mouth,” Matson said harshly, “Omar Jones could have UN troops trotting through every Telpor instrument in the world. And their tactical weapons with them, everything up to cephalotropic missiles.” And he hated—and feared—those.
“If a call came from Whale’s Mouth. But once you’re on the other side, you could handle that. You could be sure no such emergency announcement was sent out. Isn’t that what we’ve been discussing all this time? Isn’t this really why you bought Rachmael’s idea—your knowledge that all communication from the other side can be—managed?” She waited, smoking, watching him with a feminine vigil of intensity and acuity.
Presently he said tightly, “Yes. We could do that. They may have THL psychologists armed and ready for individuals. But not for two thousand trained police. We’d have control in half an hour—probably. Unless, unknown to us, Horst Bertold has been sending troops across.” And, he pondered, why should he? All they face—up to now—is bewildered citizens, expatriates who want jobs, homes, new roots . . . in a world they can’t leave.
“And remember this, too,” Freya said. She lifted the strap of her nightgown once more, then, covering her faintly freckled shoulder. “The receiving portion of the teleportation rig has to be spacially installed; every one of those over there had to be sent originally by interstellar hyper-see ship, and that took years. So you can stop the UN and Bertold just by rendering the receiving stations of the Telpors inoperative—if they suspect.”
“And if I can move quickly enough.”
“But you,” she said calmly, “can. Taking your best men, with their equipment . . . unless—” She paused, licked her lip, as if puzzling out a purely academic problem.
Maddened, he said, “Unless what, goddam it?”
“They may identify your reps as they cross. And you. They may be ready. I can see it now.” She laughed merrily. “You pay your poscreds, smile at the nice THL bald-headed, gargoyle-like New Whole Germany technicians who run those Telpors, you stand there while they subject your body to the field of the equipment . . . keep standing there innocently, fade away, reappear twenty-four light-years away at Whale’s Mouth . . . and are lasered dead before you’re even fully formed. It takes fifteen minutes. For fifteen minutes, Mat, you would be helpless, half materialized both here and there. And all your field reps. And all their gear.”
He glared at her.
“Thus,” she said, “goes hubris.”
“What’s that?”
“The Greek word for ‘pride.’ For trying to rise above the station the gods have allocated you. Maybe the gods don’t want you to seize control of Whale’s Mouth, Matty darling. Maybe the gods don’t want you to overreach your self.”
“Hell,” he said, “as long as I have to go across anyhow—”
“Sure; then why not take control? Push jovial, insipid Omar Jones aside? After all . . .” She stubbed out her cigarillo. “You’d be doomed to stay there anyhow; why live the ordinary life with the ordinary hoi polloi? Here, you’re strong . . . but Horst Bertold and the UN, with Trails of Hoffman as their economic support, are stronger. Over there—” She shrugged, as if made weary by human aspirations—or human vanity. Over there it was simply a different situation.