The Universe Maker (7 page)

"Bouvy, open up! It's me."

The discovery of his escape was seconds away. Cargill reached the doorway of Carmean's ship, paused only long enough to let Lela get in ahead of him and then he was inside.

"You get the ship into the air," he whispered. "I'll hold them off here." He wasn't sure just what he would do against guns but he had a vague notion that it was important to keep the door open until the ship was actually rising into the air.

There was a prolonged pause and then: the ship tugged slightly under him. Cargill held his breath, counting the seconds as the floater drifted upward.

Presently, with shaking fingers, he closed the door and called to Lela, "Can you turn off the lights?"

There was silence, then darkness. Cautiously Cargill opened the door again and carefully he peered out. The top of a tree glided by, only inches below. The slow way in which it passed from sight emphasized that the speed of these light-powered ships at night was negligible.

Lela's voice came faintly from forward. "I'm trying to get her out over the river. There'll be
more light
there. Anybody following?"

Cargill couldn't be sure. He was looking down slantingly at a camp that was slowly coming to life. Even that minimum activity was fairly well hidden behind dense foliage. He saw splashes of light and there was the sound of excited voices. But if any ship rose up to follow them during those first minutes Cargill did not see it.

Under him the machine seemed to quicken its pace. He looked down and saw that they were over the river. And now he could understand Lela's purpose. The water was alive with light reflections. He estimated that they were traveling at least ten miles an hour.

The camp slowly vanished behind a bend in the river. When he could no longer see it, he closed the door and headed for the all-room. It was somewhat larger than the similar room in the Bouvy’s ship but it was functionally the same. He glanced into the control room.

Lela was in the control chair. She did not look at him Cargill hesitated,
then
went back to the door. He opened it and spent the next hour gazing into the night. The moon came up while he sat there and the ship accelerated perceptibly. They were still only a few feet above the forest.

The minister listened with a scowl to Cargill's objections. He was a big, grim man, and his problem must have been to understand what Cargill was trying to say. His scowl transferred abruptly into an expression of astounded fury. "Well, I'll be darned," he said. "A Tweener trying to get out of marrying one of our girls—" Without warning, he launched a ham-like fist at Cargill's head.

Cargill ducked just in time to avoid the full impact of the blow. The huge fist seared along his cheek and sent him staggering across the room.

He came back, with narrowed eyes, body crouching low for the attack. From his left, Lela said sharply, "I'll sting your foot with this spitter. I'll burn you so you won't ever walk again. Don't you go starting a fight
now.
"

The threat stopped Cargill. He had a tense conviction that Lela might actually have an impulse to lame him anyway. Then he'd never be able to get away.

"Sadie!" bellowed the minister. It was like a cue. A small woman catapulted through the door and came up breathlessly.

"Yes, Henry," she said.

"Watch this Tweener scum," he said, "
while
Miss Lela and I"—he smiled knowingly—"make the arrangements. These forced Tweener weddings cost a little extra, you know." He and Lela went out of the room.

Cargill walked over to the window. Through the glass he could see the floater that had belonged to Carmean. It was less than a hundred feet away. "If I could get inside it," he thought, "I could be away from here in ten seconds." Unfortunately, Lela had taken the precaution of locking the door of the floater. He grew aware that the small woman had edged up beside him.

"I know something," she said in a loud whisper.

Cargill glanced at her, repelled by the avaricious look on her face and in her narrowed eyes. He said nothing.

Once more, the woman whispered hoarsely, "I heard the news on the radio this morning." She didn't wait for him to react to that, but rushed on eagerly, "What'll you give me if I tell the old man Carmean is against this wedding?"

The mystery of her demeanor was solved, and the implication it carried of this ministerial couple of the future was not pretty. He decided not to be critical. Hastily, he searched his pockets and held out the contents for her to look at. A pencil, a ball pen, a key ring with keys, some silver money, and his wallet.

The woman examined them with visible disappointment. "Is that all you got?" she asked. Suddenly, her face brightened. She reached over and touched his wrist watch. "What's that?"

Cargill
unstrapped
it and held it up to her ear. "It tells the time," he said. He wondered if it were possible that these people had no knowledge of watches. He couldn't remember if he had seen a timepiece aboard either the Bouvy floater or Carmean's ship.

The little woman looked disgusted. "I've heard of these things," she said, "but what good are they? The sun comes up in the morning and the sun goes down at night. That's good enough for me."

Cargill, who was learning fast, reached forward and took the watch from her fingers. "I can use it, if you can't," he said. "Now, I want you to tell me a couple of things."

"I'm not talking," said the woman.

"You'll talk," said Cargill, "or I'll tell your husband what I just gave you."

"You didn't give me anything."

"You can argue that out with him," said Cargill.

The woman hesitated,
then
said sullenly, "What do you want to know?"

"What did the radio say?"

The prospect of imparting information excited her. She leaned forward. "Carmean says you're to be caught. She says you're wanted by the Shadows. She says not to let any wedding take place." The woman's face twisted. "I never did like that woman," she said savagely. "If—" She stopped and drew away several paces.

Lela and the minister came back into the room. The girl was pale, the man angry.

"No deal," he said. "She won't pay me what
it's
worth."

"We'll live in sin," Lela said palely. "You've had your chance."

"You live in sin," retorted the minister, "and I'll bring the wrath down on your head."

Lela tugged at Cargill's arm. "He wanted me to change our ship for an old wreck he's got. Come on."

Cargill followed her, not quite sure how he should respond to what had just happened. He remembered his earlier thoughts about religion and "preachers," and, though this incident fitted, he was unwilling to let what he had just seen either affirm or decry his previous opinions. What was astonishing was that both Lela and "Henry" took the latter's ministerial powers for granted. Each accepted, somehow, that souls were involved, and that punishment was possible on the soul level. "Suppose," Cargill thought, "there
is a
soul, or at least that behind all the excitement of fifty thousand years of human soul-hunger, there is actual phenomena?"

It was hard to imagine that the reality had ever been more than vaguely glimpsed. People had been too rigid. All too frequently the vast powers of the state had been used to enforce an inflexible set of beliefs. And, where a breakaway was not a mere denial, the individuals somehow assumed they believed in a simple soul state-of-being. In connection with this, the word "immortal" was bandied about in such a loose fashion that it was instantly evident that no one had ever seriously thought about it.

The whole thing was disturbing because as a very concrete example of immortality, he had survived his normal death time by nearly four hundred years. Accordingly, for him the reality, or unreality, of the soul, or life force, or spirit, or whatever it might be, was more than just the academic thing it was to most people.

He was caught up in an astounding experience which surely involved all the actuality of the life process, the known and the unknown, including the hidden meaning behind the soul phenomena of ten thousand religions and a hundred thousand gods.

In one sense it was a mistake to think in terms of "soul," for such belief had a religious significance which automatically implied the belief was non-scientific, dependent on faith, incapable of being tested. Whereas, if there were phenomena, it would have manifested in innumerable ways, and would automatically be subject to laws. The fact that these laws might not be the same as those of the space-tune continuum, known as the material universe, would not prevent them from being correlated in a scientific fashion.

"If," thought Cargill, as he entered the floater behind Lela, "I'm an energy field in the real universe, every time that field manifests itself somebody says 'Aha!' and we've got another philosophy."

He had a very strong conviction that it was a riddle he would have to resolve.

The days went by. Each morning their floater would drift up as high as its light-driven motor could carry them. On very clear, bright days that was as high as three miles. A thick mist could bring them down to within half a mile of the ground. And on a muggy or rainy day they had difficulty in clearing the higher hills. At such times, two or three hundred yards seemed to be their top altitude.

It was a strange, almost timeless existence, with nothing to do except watch the ground or lie on a cot and sleep, or sit in the all-room of the ship and plan escape.

Lela was the obstacle. It seemed to Cargill that he had never seen a girl so tense and wary. She slept in the control room, with the door locked. And yet, if he stirred, her light went on and he could see her watching him through the transparent door. That happened not just once, but every time. Her alertness baffled all his schemes. The end of this phase of their relationship came one night—Cargill wasn't sure whether it was the tenth or eleventh day since their escape; he had lost track of time.

As the floater settled to the grass beside a stream, he opened the outer door, stepped down and walked rapidly off among the trees. A muffled yell sounded from behind him. The beam of a powerful searchlight pierced the gathering twilight and silhouetted him in its glare. A hundred feet ahead of
him
a tree fell, seared and smoldering.

Cargill, who hadn't expected her to be able to fire at him from inside the control room, stopped short. Slowly, angrily, he returned to the ship. He had planned a showdown if he failed, and the moment had come.

Lela met him at the door, tense and furious. "You were trying to run away," she accused.

Cargill stopped and glared at her. "You bet I was. What do you think I'm made of—stone?"

His tone must have conveyed part of his meaning, for some of the anger faded out of the girl. Oddly enough, to some extent, the implication was true. As a single man in the army, he had learned not to be too discriminating about his girls. After eleven days alone with Lela, he no longer felt as critical of her. She had a youthful prettiness, and there was more than enough passion in her to satisfy any man.

But his purpose was more than conquest of a woman. He intended to take full control of the floater. He stared at her now, where she stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light from inside. She held a spitter in her fingers; and that was his problem.

Boldly, he stepped closer to her. "It's one or the other," he said. "The two of us either live together here sensibly, or you'll have to kill me."

"Don't you come no nearer," said Lela, but her voice lacked conviction. She added, falteringly, "I've got to have marrying."

Cargill said urgently, "You know I've got to stick with you. Where else would I go?"

He stepped closer, so close that when she put up the gun, the end of the tube touched his shirt. "I'm going to stay, but I won't be bossed, and I won't be put off."

Deliberately, he pushed against the gun. She started to back away. He reached out and caught her shoulders with his fingers. Ignoring the gun, he pulled her gently into his arms.

She was stiff and unbending. She kept mumbling something about "
It's
sin! It's sin!" Her lips when he kissed her trembled. She tried to pull away, and yet simultaneously her body went limp. She took the gun out from between them and held it off to one side, as if she were afraid it might go off. If ever a person was in a state of internal conflict, it was she.

"Give me the gun," said Cargill. "We've got to be equal. A woman has got to trust a man. It can't be any other way."

He kissed her again, and this time she offered no resistance. She was crying a little under her breath, a sound as old as the relationship between a man and a woman. Cargill instinctively kissed away her tears, and then reached over and took the gun.

Just for an instant, that made her stiffen; and then— and then she let him have it.

It seemed to Cargill that control of the sky floater would enable him to do what he wanted. But what did he want? The weeks passed and he could not make up his mind. For some reason he had become involved in a plot. If he made a move that brought him out into the open, the plotters would once more close in upon him, and would try to force him to do their will.

Finally, one day Cargill had an idea, the beginning of purpose. The nature of that purpose made him uneasy but the idea, once it came, would not go away. He went into the control room and sat down in front of the video plate. It was not the first tune he had examined the machine or listened hi to it. But now there was a plan in his mind.

As with the floater engine and other machinery, the TV and radio mechanism was completely enclosed, making it impossible for him to examine the inner workings of the instrument. For a while Cargill simply tuned into conversations and into the one program that was on.

A Shadow station broadcasted the program, which consisted of popular music of the jive variety. After each selection, a persuasive voice urged the listener to come to Shadow City and receive Shadow training. To Cargill, who did not care for jazz, the "commercials" had been fascinating—in the beginning. Now he listened for a few moments to the repetitious music and then absently turned the dial.