"From here, Captain," said Dame Isabel, "we will set a course directly to Rlaru."

Captain Gondar drew a deep breath. "That's a terrible long pull. The detour into Hydra took us far off course. We can return to Earth almost as easily."

"No, Captain," said Dame Isabel inexorably. "I insist that we pursue our original plans. Rlaru will be the next stop."

Captain Gondar's chin sagged, the shadows under his eyes suddenly seemed darker. He turned away, looked out across s.p.a.ce. "Very well," he said in a m.u.f.fled voice, "I will take you to Rlaru."

Chapter XII.

Back across the galaxy fled the Phoebus; through the Orion Sector, where Rigel occulted a far dim star which was Home Sun. The mood of the opera company was subdued, but morale had not deteriorated. As two pianos had been included among the orchestra properties, rehearsals continued without interruption.

Madoc Roswyn remained in the infirmary three days. Dr. Shand reported to Dame Isabel that only youth and vitality had brought her back to the Phoebus; whoever or whatever had attacked her might well have left her for dead. Roger sat with her for long periods; at times a grace of her old self would show itself; at other times she seemed to be reliving the events in the forest, when she would wince and close her eyes and turn her face to the wall; but for the most part she lay quietly, watching Roger.

Logan de Appling stalked about his duties in silence and injured dignity. Captain Gondar had disa.s.sociated himself from everything but his own inner existence and except for a minimum partic.i.p.ation in the business of the ship spoke to no one. Dame Isabel attempted to extract detailed information regarding Rlaru, but Captain Gondar seemed absent-minded and vague.

Dame Isabel inquired sharply: "The inhabitants are quite friendly?"

Captain Gondar turned his head, and his sunken eyes gradually came into focus. "Friendly? You saw the Ninth Company; did they seem unfriendly?"

"No, of course not. Although I have always considered their abrupt departure rather ungracious, in view of our efforts."

Captain Gondar ventured no opinion of his own.

Dame Isabel returned to the subject of Rlaru itself. "I believe you stated that you had photographed the planet?"

Captain Gondar looked at her blankly. "Did I tell you that?"

"Yes, during our original negotiations."

"I don't recall the circ.u.mstances."

Dame Isabel said briskly, "I would now like to be shown these photographs. There can be no possible reason for further caution."

Grudgingly Captain Gondar went to his cabin, returning with a plain white envelope, from which he took three rumpled photographs.

Dame Isabel gave him a stern glance, as if in admonishment for unnecessary circ.u.mspection. She took the photographs and examined them. The lack of detail was disappointing. The first had been recorded from a height of perhaps 500 miles, the second from 100 miles, the last from about five miles. The first showed a wide ocean, a north continent with a long peninsula depending into the temperate zone. The second showed the southern end of the peninsula, and hinted of the relief: low mountains to the north, hills rolling south to a nearly flat river-plain at the southern cape. The third picture, somewhat blurred, showed a sh.o.r.e-line, a river meandering between wide terraces, a hint of what might have been cultivated fields.

Dame Isabel frowned. "These photographs are hardly informative. You have nothing depicting the people, their cities, their architecture, their rituals?"

"No. I did not take the camera from the ship."

Dame Isabel examined the third photograph once again. "I presume this represents the area where you landed?"

Captain Gondar looked at the photograph as if he hardly recognized it. "Yes," he said at last. "This is where I landed - here." He touched a spot with his finger.

"The inhabitants gave you a hospitable greeting?"

"Oh yes. No difficulty of any sort."

Dame Isabel surveyed him keenly. "You sound just a trifle uncertain."

"Not at all. Although 'hospitable' isn't quite the right word. They accepted me without much interest of any kind."

"Hmm. Weren't they surprised to see you?"

"Difficult to say. They showed no great interest in me."

"Did they show curiosity in regard to Earth, or your s.p.a.ceship?"

"No, not to any great extent."

"Hmmf. One would think them a stolid or stupidly introverted people, were it not for the evidence of the Ninth Company to the contrary ..." Dame Isabel questioned Captain Gondar further, but received little added information.

Days went by, each with some small event to set it apart from every other. Madoc Roswyn left the infirmary, and retreated into herself even more completely than before. The singers and musicians indulged in occasional spasms of temperament; the Tough Luck Jug Band, disregarding Dame Isabel's interdict, produced what Ephraim Zerner described as "mind-shattering cacophony". Bernard Bickel, once more dispatched to quell the disturbance, was threatened with physical harm by the washboard player, whom he subsequently described as "intoxicated and truculent". Neil Henderson, the Chief Technician, intervened before the threat was put into effect, and Bernard Bickel returned to the saloon, furious at the insolence he had encountered.

More days went by. The Phoebus, entering Cetus, pa.s.sed close by the star Xi Arietis, the seventh planet of which supported a Starline Freight terminus. During one of his moody perambulations Roger Wool chanced to walk by the pod in which the lifeboat was housed. By sheer chance he noticed the port swinging shut, a situation contrary to ship's regulations, which required that access to the lifeboat be at all times free and unconstricted. Hurrying forward Roger caught the port, just before it closed. He jerked it open and in doing so, brought Captain Gondar stumbling back out into the corridor.

Captain Gondar's expression of startled anger changed comically to affability. "Just checking up on lifeboat equipment," he said. "Part of my weekly routine."

Roger made a skeptical sound. "Why close the port?"

Captain Gondar's expression changed again to sternness. "What affair is it of yours, how I order my work?"

Roger shrugged. He went to the lifeboat port, peered inside, to be seized by the shoulder and flung back into the corridor - but not before he had seen a suitcase and a duffel bag. Captain Gondar's face was now congested with rage. He s.n.a.t.c.hed for his pocket and pulled forth a small hand-weapon; Roger thought to see murder in Captain Gondar's face. He forced his paralyzed muscles to act: never had they felt so limp. He dodged, struck out, and more by accident than design struck the gun from Captain Gondar's hand. Gondar hissed, panted, bent for the gun; Roger gave him a violent shove, kicked the gun rattling down the corridor.

Gondar had now lost all control of his emotions. He hurled himself upon Roger; the two tumbled back and forth in the corridor, striking, kicking, shoving.

The noise attracted attention; Neil Henderson and a pair of crew-men were suddenly between the two men, thrusting them apart. "Just what's this all about?" demanded Henderson.

Captain Gondar raised a trembling hand, pointed to Roger. But words refused to come to his mouth, and his arm dropped.

Roger panted, "He was going to kill me ... I stopped him from going off in the lifeboat ..."

Captain Gondar had been sidling down the corridor. He lunged for the gun; again Roger dived at him, blocked him away. Henderson seized the gun. "Now then, this is a serious business! What are the facts of the matter?"

"In the lifeboat is his luggage," panted Roger. "He was planning to desert the Phoebus and make for the Starline Terminal."

Captain Gondar, curling his lip, said nothing.

Henderson stepped into the lifeboat, and emerged with a grim expression. "Take that stuff out," he told one of the crewmen, and to Captain Gondar: "Come along; we'd better talk this over with the big-wigs."

Dame Isabel heard the news in ominous silence. When Roger finished his account, she turned the full force of her gaze upon Captain Gondar. "Do you have any answer to make?"

"No."

"You must realize that by your acts you have forfeited all claim to the money I hold in trust."

"Not at all," said Gondar in a disdainful voice. "I have fulfilled my commitments."

"You have not taken us to Rlaru. The precise location of the planet is still known only to you."

"Wrong," said Captain Gondar. "This morning I made a detailed memorandum and gave it to de Appling. You cannot take my money on that pretext."

"We'll see about that," said Dame Isabel. "It seems to me that while serving the letter of the agreement, you have done violence to the spirit."

"I think not," said Captain Gondar. "However, I do not care to argue the matter, as I am presently at a disadvantage."

"Indeed you are. I hardly know what to do with you. Obviously your authority is at an end."

Gondar had regained his poise; he bowed with ironic grace. "Since you refuse to allow me the lifeboat, I ask only that you put me off at the Starline Terminal at Xi Arietis Seven."

"I will do nothing of the sort. Xi Arietis is considerably out of the way, and we have already engaged in one time-consuming detour."

Adolph Gondar scowled, then shrugged. Obviously he had expected no more. "In that case, I ask only that I be relieved of responsibility for the running of the ship."

"There is no difficulty as to this," said Dame Isabel drily.

"Also I wish to be allowed to keep to my cabin, for such time as I see fit."

"For such time as I see fit," said Dame Isabel. "Your inclinations need not enter into the situation. Perhaps you'll tell me why you chose to act in this fashion?"

"Certainly," said Adolph Gondar courteously. "I suddenly became anxious to leave the ship."

Dame Isabel turned to Chief Technician Henderson and Bernard Bickel. "Please conduct Mr. Gondar to his cabin. Make certain that he has no further weapons. Mr. Henderson, you will see that a suitable lock is attached to the door."

Adolph Gondar strode from the room, followed by Henderson and Bernard Bickel.

The Phoebus fleeted across the interstellar void, possibly as fast as thought, the velocity of which was yet a moot point. Logan de Appling indeed had been entrusted with Rlaru's coordinates: the sun was that yellow-orange star Cetus FQR910, which at last appeared on the cross-hairs. In due course a single planet could be distinguished. The Phoebus slid in close, went into reconnaissance orbit. Any planet observed from s.p.a.ce is an awesome sight, its ma.s.sive sphericity emphasized by the harsh contrast of sunlit surface against the black of the void. If the planet appears to be habitable and displays an interesting configuration, then the provocation to the imagination is almost intolerable.

Rlaru was just such a world, in size and general aspect not unlike Earth: perhaps a trifle smaller and certainly of a more mature physiography. The environment a.n.a.lyzers reported conditions benign to human existence, with temperatures at poles and equator roughly equivalent to those of Earth.

In awe and exultation Dame Isabel and Bernard Bickel stood gazing at the slow-spinning globe. "Think, Bernard!" she exclaimed. "After all these months of planning and preparation! Rlaru at last! The home of the Ninth Company!"

"A beautiful world, to be sure," Bernard Bickel agreed.

"And look!" Dame Isabel took his arm, pointed. "There is the peninsula of Mr. Gondar's photographs! It's proof - if we needed any - that this is indeed Rlaru!"

"I wish I could understand Gondar's actions," said Bickel. "When you consider them carefully, they seem - almost sinister."

"Surely you're joking?"

"Not altogether."

Dame Isabel shook her head dubiously. "Mr. Gondar has a.s.sured me time and time again that the inhabitants are friendly. I have no reason to suspect otherwise; indeed, the Ninth Company seemed gracious enough - though I must say Mr. Gondar kept them in seclusion."

"There's no use borrowing trouble." Bernard Bickel returned to an inspection of the planet. "Where do you propose to put down?"

"At Mr. Gondar's original landing. We know that the folk are friendly here, whereas conditions elsewhere might be otherwise."

She gave the necessary instructions to Logan de Appling, who made appropriate adjustments at the automatic pilot. Rlaru bulked and bulged, and suddenly underwent that peculiar psychological ninety-degree shift in position, jumping from "across" to "below".

Logan de Appling radioed down for permission to land, using interstellar signal code, but received no acknowledgment. He looked questioningly toward Dame Isabel. "We will land," she said.

Using the macro-viewer Dame Isabel and Bernard Bickel carefully studied the face of Rlaru. They could find no evidence of an advanced civilization. Bernard Bickel pointed out a ma.s.sive tumulus, and suggested that it might represent ruins; to which Dame Isabel made no response, the incident at the planet Yan being too fresh in her mind.

At full magnification, a few centers of population appeared, but they seemed hardly more than villages. As Adolph Gondar had stated, they were concentrated along the southwest sh.o.r.e of the long peninsula.

Adolph Gondar was summoned from his cabin; with poor grace he indicated the exact location of his previous landing. "I wouldn't land there again," he said in a surly voice. "Try further south; the people are much more hospitable."

"I understood that they took little notice, of any sort whatever."

"I've advised you; now you must do as you think best." Adolph Gondar stalked back to his cabin.

Bernard Bickel returned to the macro-viewer and made a new study of the landscape.

"What do you think?" asked Dame Isabel.

"There don't seem to be as many villages farther south. The countryside seems somewhat less fertile."

"We will land at the previous site," Dame Isabel decided. "I see no reason to be intimidated by Mr. Gondar's ambiguous hints."

Afternoon moved across the face of Rlaru; sunset had arrived before the Phoebus settled to a landing, almost exactly at Adolph Gondar's original point of contact. Environmental checks were made, and as before indicated complete compatibility with the human metabolism.

During the checks Dame Isabel examined the countryside from the vantage of the bridge. Though she noted several nearby villages, she saw none of the inhabitants, and no one came to investigate the Phoebus. When she alighted, with others of the company close behind, she found only a pleasant landscape across which twilight was darkening. A small river meandered a few hundred yards to the north; low hills rolled across the eastern horizon. In certain quarters were trees, growing in rather irregular rows, like a carelessly arranged orchard, while the meadow to the south seemed to be planted with low bushy shrubs. In general it was a pleasant peaceful landscape, with an air of long habitude.

With the deepening of darkness a sprinkle of lights shone from the direction of the village, but these soon flickered and disappeared, and it seemed that only the company of the Phoebus was awake to enjoy the nocturnal quiet.

Dame Isabel ordered the setting of a routine watch and one by one the company retired inside the ship, some to bed, some to the saloon.

Dame Isabel and Bernard Bickel were almost the last to return within. Finally they did so, and Roger, standing a little apart, thought himself alone. But there was a stir nearby, and peering through the darkness he saw Madoc Roswyn. She came to stand beside him. "This is such a soothing place, Roger," she said. "So calm and quiet ..." For a moment she looked off toward the dark village, then impulsively turned to Roger. "I've been extremely wicked, Roger. And you've been very kind to me. I'm ashamed. Truly I am."

"Don't let's talk about it," said Roger.

"But I must! It haunts me! Now that it's over I can see myself for the monomaniac I was."

"I'm sure you didn't mean to hurt anyone."

Madoc Roswyn laughed a soft forlorn laugh. "The sad truth is that I didn't care - which may be worse."

Roger could think of nothing to say which did not sound either prim or unnecessarily self-abnegatory. Madoc Roswyn seemed to interpret his silence as implacability and moved slowly away toward the entry-ramp. "Wait!" cried Roger. Madoc Roswyn obediently returned. "What I want to know," he said, stumbling over his words, "is what you're going to do now?"