Conway threw down the report; this was another stupid piece of an already senseless puzzle, and all at once he was sick of the whole silly business. He rose and stamped into the outer office, sending the door crashing against the wall. Stillman twitched slightly and looked up.
“Dump that paperwork until morning!” Conway snapped. “Tonight we are going to indulge shamelessly in pleasures of the flesh. We’re going to sleep in our own cabins. .
“Sleep?” said Stillman, grinning suddenly. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” said Conway , “I thought you might. I hear it’s a new sensation, unutterable bliss and very habit-forming. Shall we live dangerously . . .
“After you,” said Stillman.
Outside the office block the night was pleasantly cool. There was broken cloud on the horizon but above them the stars seemed to crowd down, bright and thick and cold. This was a dense region of space, a fact further proved by the meteorites which made white scratches across the sky every few minutes. Altogether it was an inspiring and calming sight, but Conway could not stop worrying. He was convinced that he was missing something, and his anxiety was much worse out here under the sky than it had been at any time in the office. Suddenly he wanted to read that report on the Empire as quickly as possible.
To Stillman, he said, “Do you ever think of something, then feel horribly ashamed for having the kind of dirty mind which thinks thoughts like that?”
Stillman grunted, treating it as a rhetorical question, and they continued walking toward the ship. Abruptly they stopped.
On the Southern horizon the sun seemed to be rising. The sky had become a pale, rich blue which shaded through turquoise into black, and the bases of the distant clouds burned pink and gold. Then before they could appreciate, or even react to this glorious, misplaced sunrise it had faded to an angry red smudge on the horizon. They felt a tiny shock transmitted through the soles of their shoes, and a little later they heard a noise like distant thunder.
“Lonvellin’s ship!” said Stillman.
They began to run.
CHAPTER 11
The communications room on Vespasian was a whirlwind of activity with the Captain forming its calm and purposeful center. When Stillman and Conway arrived orders had gone out to the courier ship and all available helicopters to load decontamination and rescue gear and proceed to the blast area to render all possible aid. There was, of course, no hope for the Etlan force which had been surrounding Lonvellin’s ship, but there were isolated farms and at least one small village on the fringe area. The rescuers would have to deal with panic as well as radiation casualties, because the Etlans had no experience of nuclear explosions and would almost certainly resist evacuation.
Out on the field, when Conway had seen Lonvellin’s ship go up and had realized what it meant, he had felt physically ill. And now, listening to Williamson’s urgent but unhurried orders going out, he felt cold sweat trickle down his forehead and spine. He licked his lips and said, “Captain, I have an urgent suggestion to make..
He did not speak loudly, but there was something in his tone which made Williamson swing around immediately.
“This accident to Lonvellin means that you are in charge of the project, Doctor,” Williamson said impatiently. “There is no need for such diffidence.”
“In that case,” said Conway in the same low, tense voice, “I have orders for you. Call off the rescue attempts and order everyone back to the ship. Take off before we are bombed, too..
Conway saw them all looking at him, at his white, sweating face and frightened eyes, and he could see them all jumping to wrong conclusions. Williamson looked angry, embarrassed and completely at a loss for a few seconds, then his expression hardened. He turned to an officer beside him, snapped an order, then swung to face Conway again.
“Doctor,” he began stiffly, “I have just put out our secondary meteor shield. Any solid object greater than one inch in diameter approaching from any direction whatever will be detected at a distance of one hundred miles and automatically deflected by pressors. So I can assure you, Doctor, that we are in no danger from any hypothetical attack with atomic missiles. The idea of a nuclear bombardment here is ridiculous, anyway. There is no atomic power on Etla, none whatever. We have instruments. . . You must have read the report.