Authors: James White
Without waiting for a reply, the Keidi leader added, "Your clothing will be returned to you," and stamped out of the cell.
Although he remembered every step of the journey, the return to the ground-level entrance seemed three times longer, and the stairs much steeper, than they had been on the way in. Outside the building they began walking slowly and silently along the road leading toward the landing area, while Keidi guards kept their distance ahead, behind, and on both flanks.
The rain had stopped some time ago and the ground was drying out. The rising, or perhaps setting, sun illuminated the low buildings and the distant hull of the lander with the warm, orange tones of a theater spotlight. When Martin finally broke the silence, he knew that he was taking an incredibly stupid risk.
"I am deeply obligated to you for arranging this temporary freedom," he said, "but it shames me to admit that I was not completely honest with you, and you should know that the description of some of my symptoms was, well, exaggerated."
The doctor made an untranslatable sound and said, “I have been long enough in the profession to know when a patient, regardless of his species, is lying to me. And you should know, off-worlder, that in spite of the dramatization of your symptoms, your condition is worse than you yourself realize. That is why I argued for you to be allowed out here, so that you would at least have the opportunity of escaping, if your condition eventually allows it. You and your life-mate must try to protract the negotiations with the First until you are feeling better. Also, I consider myself partly responsible for your involvement with this fanatical and untrustworthy being. This and my other personal obligations to you must be discharged.”
Martin continued walking, not knowing what to say.
"But I can only give you the opportunity, off-worlder," the doctor went on, "not actively support any future escape attempt. The First is unforgiving of those who oppose him. His triple obligation to me for attending his granddaughter, and your share of it for bringing me to her quickly, would be argued away. I have no wish to spend the rest of my life in the First's labor camp."
Does he know? Martin wondered. Is he aware of what is going on? Aloud, he said, "What is it like in the labor camp?"
THEY had reached the perimeter and the lander lay, enclosed by the semicircular halo of its repulsion field, less than a quarter of a mile away. One of the First's ground vehicles, filled with guards, was already positioning itself between them. Nearby there was a cylindrical mass of rust which might once have been a fuel tank. Martin sat down heavily on it, feeling as if he had just run a mile.
The doctor remained standing as he replied, "I don't know what the labor camp is like. Nobody has ever returned to talk about it, and I would rather not find out. You look distressed, and plainly you are in no condition for an escape attempt. We may need a litter to get you back to your cell."
"No, wait," Martin said urgently. "Have you ever treated a patient suffering from radiation sickness?"
"What sort of question is that?" the doctor asked impatiently. "Are you feeling confused again?"
"No," Martin said. "Have you?"
"Never," the doctor replied. "I was an obstetrician, off-worlder, and did not deal with such cases. And after the Exodus all fissionable materials, civil, military, or medical, were taken from us. Thankfully, that particular scourge no longer exists on Keida."
"You are wrong," Martin said.
"And you," the doctor said quietly, "are mentally confused."
"Not about this," Martin said fiercely. "As soon as we put our sensors on the First we knew that he had been exposed to radiation, although the dosage was small. The mother ship was able to detect the original source."
The doctor looked away from him and did not speak.
"You are the only Keidi that I feel I can trust," Martin went on. "From the beginning you did not behave toward us like an-"
"Careful," the doctor said.
"All right," Martin said impatiently, "I will not risk insulting you by using that word. But surely you are not, well, not at all like the First."
The doctor made another untranslatable sound and said, "That is a compliment."
"There must be many others on Keida like yourself," Martin went on. "People who could have gone to the Federation World, but chose to remain because of self-imposed responsibilities, for parents, life-mates or loved ones, or in your case patients. In the city your people were, worried, not about losing you to the Estate, but of you leaving them for the Federation World with us. I'm sure that many of the Keidi could qualify for citizenship now and leave, if the First did not guard the induction centers and send them to his labor camp for trying-"
Without giving the other time to react, Martin broke off and quickly described how the sealed underground missile arsenal had been opened by volcanic activity and the First's rebuilding a surface launching facility, adding a rough estimate of the number of grave markers outside the camp stockade.
",.. Earlier the First told us that he could proceed with his plans without our help," Martin went on. "I'm afraid that he intends making a show of force, probably the air detonation of a nuclear device over an uninhabited area, timed so that the fallout would be carried out to sea by the wind. This would demonstrate his power to the independents and force them into his Estate. But winds can change direction suddenly, the contamination lingers and could affect the genetic structure of generations of Keidi to come.
"My guess," Martin continued quickly, "is that the missile project personnel comprises three distinct types. The majority are the slave laborers, who have no control over the situation and are waiting to share the fate of their friends who have died of radiation sickness. There are the guards who are fanatically loyal to the First and, like all fanatics, have minds impervious to the logical argument. Then there are a few, a very few, aging technicians who may not be as expert at reassembling the old and perhaps damaged equipment as they would have the First believe.
'There is a strong probability of a catastrophic accident.
"A lot of this is supposition," he went on, "but only in the unimportant details. You must agree that the project has to be stopped, the surviving laborers evacuated and given treatment that only Federation medical science can provide, and the launching facility demolished and re-sealed. To do this I must escape."
The doctor looked toward the lander for a moment, then said, "If what you say is true, then a great many people on Keida will be obligated to you. But I am not convinced. I suspect an inspired and imaginative piece of verbal misdirection. Your arguments are both cogent, suggesting that there is little mental confusion in your mind, and so fantastic as to be the product of hallucination. Are you using me, applying die nonmaterial pressures which can affect only a doctor, as the First intends using you."
"Yes," Martin said, "to escape."
"But you're not fit enough to escape," the doctor said impatiently. "The guards would stop you before you had staggered ten paces toward your vessel. I cannot go to it for you because that screen pushed back everyone and everything else that tries to penetrate it, myself included. I tried out of curiosity, while taking my morning walk. Off-worlder, you cannot escape."
Martin shook his head, and gasped at the explosion of pain. When he could speak again, he said, "You could go to the screen and speak a certain phrase to the ship. Even if there are others nearby and you have to speak quietly, the sound sensors will hear and translate it. The words are 'I think, therefore I am in trouble. Can you memorize that?"
"I think you should return to the cell," the Keidi said. "Your injury appears to be troubling you."
"No, wait," Martin said desperately, but the could think of nothing else to say, nor did he rise.
"There have been rumors that the First was guarding induction centers," the doctor said, "to prevent loss of population. I can understand that even though I disagree with it. But using dissidents to excavate a nuclear weapons arsenal and rebuilding the launching towers.., No, that is deliberate misdirection. There is no proof that the arsenal exists, or even, with the instruments available to me, that the First was exposed to radioactivity or-"
"But there is indirect proof," Martin broke in. "The First is deeply concerned for his granddaughter and the newborn, and would normally stay as close as possible to them before the birth. Why, then, did he remain far down the ward if he was not afraid that he carried something which might .damage the genes of the newborn? ..."
He broke off, wishing that instead of speaking he had bitten oft his tongue. The doctor had swung around and was glaring down at him.
"You know all that happened in the birthing ward," the Keidi said angrily, "yet you concealed the knowledge even from me?"
"Not everything that happened," Martin said, desperately trying to retrieve the situation. "Our instruments were able to show the approximate location of the ward. That was why, when we realized that we were not being taken to see the First's granddaughter, we tried to escape. The people in the ward showed as formless blurs except for the First, whose radioactive contamination made his trace unmistakable. My intention was not to deceive you but to avoid further complicating the situation.
"Please help me," Martin went on, searching vainly for eloquence. "I wish only what is best for Keida."
The doctor grasped Martin's arm and drew him to his feet. "The First makes exactly the same claim," he said. "I will return you to your cell."
On the latitude of Frontier Camp Eleven, darkness fell quickly, and that may have been the reason why Martin fell several times on the way back. Dizziness and nausea were still making it impossible to think, but not to feel sorry for himself. When the Keidi put an arm around his back to support him by both elbows, his reaction was angry and despairing.
"You don't believe me," he said bitterly, "and now you don't believe that I'm unwell. Why are you bothering to help me?"
The Keidi made an untranslatable sound. "If I assisted only the patients who told me the truth, I would have very little work to do."
The doctor took him to the cell, then left to check on the condition of his other patient. Martin fell onto his bed, refusing to allow Beth to remove the warm boots or to give him any of the cold, unappetizing porridge she had made from water and food concentrates. Shortly afterward she spread the extra blankets they had been given over him, positioned the two muffling pillows, and crawled in beside him.
"I'm cold," he said unnecessarily through chattering teeth, "I want to sleep."
"With a bad head injury," she whispered, "is it wise to let yourself sleep? What does the doctor say?"
"Nothing, damn him," Martin replied. "I told him what to do, and everything we know or suspect about the First, but I don't think he believed a word of it."
Her body stiffened in disappointment and her arms tightened around him. She did not speak.
"Don't worry," he said. "We'll think of another way. But later."
He was woken by Beth shaking his shoulder violently. The cell was in darkness but the light outside the grill was brightening and fading erratically, the guards were talking at the tops of their voices, and even louder were the muffled detonations of what sounded like a major thunderstorm.
"Dammit, I think you would sleep through the Crack of Doom!" Beth said fiercely. "Just listen to that! It could be natural, a freak storm, even though it seems to be scaring the hell out of the guards. Or then again, our darling main computer likes to show off, and maybe it thinks we might need a diversion as well as a rescue. We haven't checked it for some time now; it may be planning something."
"We'll soon find out," Martin said excitedly. He swung his feet to the floor, and wondered if his head was going to explode or just fall off. "Start shouting for the doctor. Try to find out if he's come back from his morning walk."