Chapter V

He got up stiffly and reached for the locker handles, squeezed the metal, felt the latches withdraw, swung the doors open. Mechanically he took down the reels of film and wire from their pegs and laid them in squat pillars on the table top. Another locker yielded two black rectangular carrying cases with handles. Herl loaded the reels carefully into one case, checked the power pack in the base of the other case with leads to a test-board in one drawer of the table. Lifting both heavy cases, he started for the door.

The slightest clue of remembrance ting-tinged in his mind, and he returned to his chair and phoned the control tower.

"Class M ship _Krylla_ on the field calling control tower," he bit off the words tensely.

"Control tower to _Krylla_; come in _Krylla_." The voice was high-pitched and boyish, obviously not Saem Berry.

"Did you see what became of the cabter that landed me here," Herl referred to the chronometer on his instrument panel, "ten minutes ago?"

"Cabter KZ-351 returned to Delight City."

"Can you call me another cabter to take me to the city?" At any rate, Herl thought, she really was powerful to be able to return an empty cabter. He had an amusing mental image of Abigail stretching an extra shining arm through the miles of air between the _Krylla_ and where a shining hand supported the waiting and unconscious Bill Haulwell. He might learn some tricks from her yet.

All he had to do was find out why she had rescued him and Bill. After all, if she had no knowledge of valid selection of purposes, she must be controlled by some command, some exterior compulsion, like the familiar robots of earth, so carefully constructed with arbitrary functions and prohibitions built in. Time to compute on that later. The thought was rapid, finished before the answer came from the tower.

"I'll have to see your hired vehicle permit, if you have one." The thin voice was sarcastic and a bit suspicious.

"I'll come right to the tower with it. Over."

Grasping a case in each hand he left the ship and headed for the tower entrance. Almost there, the hum of an incoming copter made him turn and look at the runway. The copter landed neatly and, even from that distance, Herl could recognize the fur-coated figure of Commissioner Crawford getting out.

The Commissioner raised an arm and hailed Captain Hofner. "Hey!"

"Hey, yourself," Herl turned from the tower and strode toward the copter. "Did you come for me?"

"Sure," yelled the Commissioner. Turning to look up and wave at the tower, he called, "It's all right, Alco. This is my guest." He halted and waited for Herl to come up with him.

"Bill phoned me," began Crawford apologetically, "that he'd had the word about Agnes and dashed back to straighten out the driving job so someone else could take over." The two men walked side by side to the copter. "That was a very decent thing for him to do, even if it did leave you stranded out here ... so I came out for you. Find everything?"

"Oh I found everything, all right," Herl grinned wryly. "Did Bill tell you about Abigail?"

"Abigail?" asked Crawford. "I don't seem to remember the name."

"She saved me from getting hurt during the landing. A goddess. Bill was probably embarrassed to mention it. It was my own stupid fault."

Herl went around the copter to get in.

Crawford edged in behind the controls. "Bill probably wanted you to keep out of trouble. He knows that we are apt to look with considerable suspicion on people who have to be saved from their own foolish mistakes by superhuman agencies. That doesn't apply to you, of course, unless you're planning to settle and raise kids here." The 'perish-the-thought' tone was obvious.

"Frankly, as an outsider," Herl said, "it seems to me that these gods and goddesses could be a very useful mechanism. I didn't mind missing a bad fall at all."

"And frankly, as a local citizen and an ordinary one at that, I think you were very lucky. You might even say that down underneath I'm just a bit jealous." The copter slid through the upper air. "I sometimes dream of having a chance to rescue some female not a tenth as luscious as a goddess."

* * * * *

Herl was surprised to hear the Commissioner snigger at his own remark. Surprised but not disgusted. Females less perfect than goddesses seemed to call for sniggers.

"Goddesses are only goddesses, but women are women," Herl commented dryly.

"Oh! You found that out already, did you?" Crawford looked admiringly at his companion. "You're a quick worker."

Hard bitterness surged through Herl. "I found out a lot of things. They're nothing, absolutely nothing but mechanism. I wonder you people haven't learned to use them in place of copters and television. They're probably even capable of sorting your population in infancy so you wouldn't have to go to the trouble of inventing a dozen new kinds of red tape a day which must annoy your normal citizens even while it screens the adults."

"No ... no ... no...." Crawford's descending cadence was oddly reminiscent of some other falling cadence of no's. "You've got both the gods and us all wrong, Captain Hofner. I don't know what you think you found out from this Abigail, but you must have misinterpreted it somewhere."

"Indeed?"

"Oh yes indeed. Mechanisms are made ... made for somebody's use. Our best minds have never been able to find any use for gods. We can even use natural phenomena like rain and heat and wind and gravity and such because those things are governed by observable natural laws ... but the gods? No. Absolutely random in appearance; absolutely unpredictable in action. Whatever they are, it's not machines. Although," he added curiously, "I shall be most interested to learn how and why you think we could use them."

"Maybe I should sell you the secret. Selling is my business," suggested Herl.

"The commissioners will be most willing to buy ... if you have anything to sell," Crawford replied smoothly.

"You could use that childhood or prenatal screening, couldn't you?"

"Yes and no," answered Crawford. "That's another mistaken idea you have about us. What you think of as red tape invented purely for screening purposes is not so at all. It's an integral part of civilized life and social responsibility. We'd all be pleased to spare a portion of our children the strains of such a life if we could, but we have no intention of reverting to savagery ourselves just to avoid filling out a few miserable blanks at a few stated times."

"Oh, you like it?" Herl asked facetiously.

"We like having cars and living in houses and driving in comparative safety and eating enough and not having people we've cheated or oppressed or maimed in unnecessary accidents whining around on our doorsteps making us feel guilty and miserable. We even like having occasional strangers like you around so we can tell them all about it and keep the beauties of civilization clear before our eyes, so to speak."

"You win," Herl laughed. "I don't know whether there's a galactic destiny ahead of your people, but as long as you're enjoying it so much, that hardly matters."

"I hoped you'd see it that way," the Commissioner said genially. "And as for the destiny, that'll take care of itself. Did you have quite a talk with the goddess?" he added curiously.

"Quite a talk, but brief. I've had some training in cybernetics ... that's how I was able to ask the right questions to find out that she was a machine."

Crawford smiled to himself. "Then," he said slyly, "our experts must have asked the right questions to find out that she wasn't."

Herl bit his tongue. "Maybe," he admitted. There was no object in telling Crawford all about his method or his discoveries, or he'd have nothing to sell. Not that he'd make the profit from such a sale but somebody in coordination would appreciate his cleverness in selling a planet something it already had and still being able to peddle the idea to somebody else. If he were really clever, he could take a few gods on with him to the places where they could do the most good. He certainly would enjoy looking at Abigail, for instance, for a few months before he unloaded her on a planet less fortunate than Delight. And, if he were sorry to leave her behind, she'd stay there the more gladly. If she wouldn't tell him what to do, obviously she would have to do what he told her.

* * * * *

The gray air of the planet seemed to be thickening as they landed and drove back toward the Civil Building. A few more heavy-coated pedestrians were hastening along the walks, and a solid stream of small, lighted vehicles poured along the street in the opposite direction. As Crawford's slowed automatically for an intersection, Herl noticed flakes of snow in the air.

"Is this early spring or late fall?" he asked without enthusiasm.

"This is the way it always is at this altitude," Crawford replied, surprised. "I've read about seasons, of course, but we don't have them here. Our foodstuff is mostly grown further south. Around here and to the north is mostly grazing and pelt land on the surface above the mines."

At this moment the vehicle pulled to a stop in the middle of a residential block; and Crawford growled, "What the...?"

Herl noticed that the opposing traffic had also halted. Then the air was split with the deafeningly raucous hooting of some great signal horn.

"Power's off! Emergency warning," Crawford shouted in Herl's ear. "Sit tight and see what happens!" He gestured to the line of opposing traffic from which passengers were popping out to run confusedly to the sidewalk. "They know better than that," he fumed.

Herl looked at the crowd gathering on his side of the carpter, then suddenly beyond it to the nearest house. Smoke was pouring out of two of the front windows. Some of the people from the vehicles were running toward the house, while the front door was flung open and two men and a woman came running out. Herl grabbed Crawford's arm. "Fire!" he yelled.

Crawford leaned across Herl to look. "Can't be serious," he bellowed. "Those places are practically fireproof. Inspected every two months."

Then he sounded puzzled and alarmed. "Where the devil are those three going?" and he pointed to the people who had run from the house and who were still running fleetly along the edges of lawns in the direction faced by Crawford's carpter.

Herl opened the door and leaned out to watch. People were coming out of houses further down the street, a few at a time, to follow or precede the first three in the direction of the heart of the city.

Cries of "Fire!" could be heard on down the street. Flames showed through the windows of other houses. The people who had got to the sidewalks from their abandoned vehicles were moving hesitantly toward the houses, apparently confused by the flight of those within.

A man appeared in the doorway of the house from which the first three had come. "Hey!" he shouted at those stragglers nearest him, "some of you come in here and help me put out the fire!" Several men ran into the house behind him.

A few more single individuals ran by in the direction of the business district. Herl turned to his companion.

"It looks as though those first three set the fire and ran off," he shouted, puzzled. "What's up?"

Crawford put his hand on the door and shook his head. "Don't know, but I recognized one of those fellows who just passed us. Eyefer named Hanston. Used to be a clerk of mine. I'm going on down the line and see what's doing."

"Not without me," Herl stated. "I can't operate one of these things," he waved his hand at the carpter, "and you may need help." Commissioner Crawford hardly looked in condition for a long run.

"What about your things? Don't you want to keep an eye on them?"

"They'll be all right," Herl said flatly, knowing that he should never let them out of his sight outside his own ship ... that they would be impossible to replace without returning to Earth.

The older man slid out of his seat and jogged off down the middle of the street till the younger caught up with him. Together they ran toward the city.

* * * * *

Between the lined-up cars they could see fires in many of the houses they passed, and groups of people standing helplessly on sidewalks and lawns. None of the houses appeared to be actually on fire, but window draperies or something near the windows were blazing merrily. Through some casements, people could be seen aiming fire extinguishers at the flames or throwing water on them.

Crawford lumbered along rather slowly. Herl matched his pace. A young man running rapidly passed them from behind.

"Going to the Civil Building to see the fun?" he panted out as he passed.

"Sure," returned Herl, speeding up a little. "What's it all about?"

The young man looked back at Herl, seeming to notice the red tunic and drum cap for the first time. "If you don't know ..." he gasped out, "you'd better stay back. It's the Eyefer Plan." He sprinted on and Herl turned back to wait for the Commissioner.

"It's something about the Eyefers," he told the trotting man as he fell into step beside him. "He said he was going to the Civil Building to see the fun, and he called it 'the Eyefer Plan.'"

"Can't imagine what ... that ... is," Crawford blurted out. "Keep going."

They passed dark shops and closed warehouses. The lines of cars were solid here and a tide of hurrying pedestrians on the sidewalks swept toward town. Runners threaded among them, men in shabby clothes, forlorn looking women pushing and stumbling ahead a little faster than the general pace. The center of the street where Herl and Crawford jogged on between the cars was almost deserted.

Crawford grasped Herl's sleeve and pulled him to a stop. "Look there!"

Herl looked where he pointed and saw the crowd milling about the door of a shop. A man and a woman stood in the doorway tossing fur coats out into the mob. Here and there a runner paused, grabbed up a coat where it fell on or near a pedestrian, and ran on.

Crawford climbed over the bumpers of a couple of cars and got to the sidewalk. Herl followed and joined him at the shop doorway in time to hear the Commissioner say, "See here, my man, those coats are not yours to give away. You're an Eyefer and you have no business at all here. Now get on home."

He grabbed the man's elbow to start him on his way ... and recognized him. "Good grief! Bill Haulwell!"

The woman in the doorway was Agnes. She laughed boisterously. "Get along home yourself, old man. We want coats so we take coats. Here, have one."

She threw a heavy fur coat over Crawford's head and as he tried to fight clear of its folds, Bill held it down like a bag and hoisted the small man along toward the edge of the crowd.

Herl caught him as he fell and pulled off the coat. Crawford threw it angrily on the ground. "You can't get away with this," he shouted. "The police will be here in a minute."

This time it was Bill who laughed. "They're all too busy at the Civil Building to bother with coats." Agnes threw out a couple more coats which had been handed to her by somebody within the shop.

"Besides, they already have coats," she added.

"We'd better get out of this," Herl told Crawford, starting back across the cars.

"Yes," agreed the latter as he clambered up and over. "Better see what's happening downtown. Sounds drastic."

The pair ran on faster now. From ahead grew a trembling roar which swelled to a steady gentle thundering above which the alarm yapped and blatted. A ruddy glow silhouetted the bodies of the cars they were passing, and the center of the street was filling with runners. A few hundred yards brought them to where Herl could see the shape of the Civil Building and recognize the glow as fire spurting from the windows of the two top storeys.

They stopped on the outskirts of an immense crowd circling the building. Great streams of water shot aloft from immense hoses; but the streams wobbled and wavered in a hundred directions as the nozzles shifted everywhere but at the building itself. Herl and Crawford were drenched twice before they could get close enough to see that the hoses were being battled for by gangs of Eyefers against the sturdy teams of firemen. The shouting and roar of the fire were so deafening that Herl and the Commissioner were well into the crowd before the words were comprehensible.

"Let 'em burn! Let the records burn! Let 'em burn up!"

"The records!" Crawford gave out a kind of spluttering screech that made Herl turn in astonishment. "The records! My God! There won't be any laws ... any Eyefers ... any _civilization_ if we lose the records!"

Herl thought the little man was going to faint, he trembled so violently. Then, suddenly, Crawford took a great gulping breath, wrenched himself from Herl's supporting grasp and, pushing his way through the massed bodies, made for the cordon keeping the onlookers out of the danger zone. Herl pressed after him but reached the front line only in time to see Crawford jumping sidewise fifty feet ahead to elude a fireman and dashing for the gaping mouth of the vehicle tunnel through the building. Herl followed on the double, pointing ahead at the disappearing figure of the Commissioner without trying to yell out his destination to the hindering firemen.

A greater shout went up as a piece of the stone cornice fell from the top of the building to the pavement below with the crash of nearby blasting. Severed sections of hose blatted forth powerful torrents that swept firemen and mob along the street into a line of cars. Herl dodged among writhing pythons of hose toward the tunnel. Another surging shout heralded another cataclysmic deed of fire; and Herl looked up to see a piece of wall about twenty feet high falling slowly away from the building above him.

He closed his eyes and dashed forward. He felt the tremendous jar of the smashing stone force him to his knees, but no sound ... in fact all sound had faded to utter stillness.

"Struck deaf," he thought wonderingly and opened his eyes to find himself kneeling before the table in the silence of the _Krylla_. The bright warmth of Abigail shone before him where she sat several inches above the table top.

"Abigail," he shouted, scrambling to his feet. His voice rang through the small cabin, and he lowered it to suit his surroundings. "Why did you bring me here?"

"You were in danger," she replied pleasantly.

"So is Crawford. I've got to help him. Take me back!" he commanded.

"He's all right. No one will be hurt tonight who doesn't want to be hurt." Her voice was sweetly matter of fact.

"I don't believe it. The Eyefers have run wild! Crawford ran right into the building. He'll be killed. Take me back!" He pounded the table with his fist.