here."
"Where to?"
"Through hyper-space to Earth. Well?"
"I've been grounded. If I take you through hyper-space, I lose mylicense."
"You really don't believe that, do you? After the Irwadians grounded allof you without warning, and grounded all ships until they can train afew more pilots. You don't really think I.T.S. would take your licenseaway if you took a ship up and through hyper, do you? Under thecircumstances? Especially since you're in a jam with a totalitariangovernment gone wild? Do you?"
Ramsey said abruptly: "I'm sorry. I can't take you to Sol System."
Margot Dennison smiled. It wasn't the kind of smile designed to make aman roll over on his back and wave all fours in the breeze. MargotDennison didn't need that kind of smile.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I read your mind, you see. Very well,Captain. If you're a fugitive from Earth--I assume Ramsey isn't yourreal name, by the way--you may take me through hyper to Centauri. Thatwill be quite satisfactory. I will make my way from Centauri. Well?"
"Give me the gun," Ramsey said.
"My goodness, of course. I'm not trying to hold you up. Here." She gotup from the bed for the first time and walked toward them. She had firm,long legs, and used them well. She was utterly lovely and although partof it was probably her professional know-how, she made you forget that.She was the most attractive girl, Earth or outworld, Ramsey had seen inyears.
Ramsey took the gun. Their hands met. Ramsey leaned forward quickly andkissed her on the lips. He was still holding the Vegan girl's slenderarm, though. She tried to run away but couldn't. Margot Dennisonreturned the kiss for an instant, to show Ramsey that when she reallywanted to return it, if she ever really would, she would pack the samekind of libidinal vitality in her responses as she did in herappearance; then she stood coldly, no longer responsive, until Ramseystepped back.
"Maybe I was asking for it," she said. "I was prepared for that--andmore. But it isn't necessary now, is it? My gosh, Ramsey! Will youplease close that mind of yours? You make a girl blush."
"Then put on your cloak," Ramsey said, and, really blushing this time,she did so.
She said: "I'm prepared to pay you one thousand credits; what do yousay?"
"I say it must be a pretty important appointment you have on Centauri."
"Earth, Captain Ramsey. I'm settling for Centauri. Well?"
"I'll take you," Ramsey said, "if this girl comes too."
Margot Dennison looked at the frightened Vegan girl and smiled. "So it'slike that," she said.
"It isn't like anything."
Ramsey packed a few things in an expanduffle and the three of themhurried through the doorway and down stairs. The cold dark nightawaiting them with a fierce howling wind and the first flurries of snowfrom the north.
"Where to?" Ramsey hollered above the wind.
"My place," Margot Dennison told him, and they ran.
* * * * *
Margot Dennison had a large apartment in Irwadi City's New Quarter. Thissurprised Ramsey, for not many outworlders lived there. That night,though, he was too tired to think about it. He vaguely remembered acouch for himself, a separate room for the Vegan girl, another forMargot Dennison. He slept like a log without dreaming.
He awoke with anxious hands fluttering at his shoulder. Opening onesleepy eye, he saw the Vegan girl. He saw daylight through a window butsaid, "Gmph! Middle of the night."
The Vegan girl said: "She's gone."
Ramsey came awake all at once, springing to his feet fully dressed andflinging aside his cloak, which he'd used as a blanket. "Margot!" hecalled.
"She's gone," the Vegan girl repeated. "When I awoke she wasn't here.The door--"
* * * * *
Ramsey ran to the door. It was a heavy plastic irising door. It waslocked and naturally would not respond to the whorl patterns of Ramsey'sthumb.
"So now we're prisoners," Ramsey said. "I don't get it."
"At least there's food in the kitchen."
"All right. Let's eat."
There were two windows in the room, but when Ramsey looked out he sawthey were at least four stories up. They'd just have to wait for MargotDennison.
It took the Vegan girl some time to prepare the unfamiliar Earth-stylefood with which Margot Dennison's kitchen was stocked. Ramsey used thetime to prowl around the apartment. It was furnished in Sirian-archaic,a mode of furniture too feminine to suit Ramsey's tastes. But then, theuni-sexual Sirians, of course, often catered to their own femininetaste.
Ramsey found nothing in Margot Dennison's apartment which indicated shehad done any acting on Irwadi, and that surprised him, for he'd assumedshe had plied her trade here as elsewhere. He felt a little guilty abouthis snooping, then changed his mind when he remembered that Margot hadlocked them in.
In one of the slide compartments of what passed for a bureau inSirian-archaic, he found a letter. Since it was the only piece ofcorrespondence in the apartment, it might be important to MargotDennison, thought Ramsey. And if it were important to her....
Ramsey opened the letter and read it. Dated five Earth months before, itran:
_My darling Margot: By the time you read this I shall be dead. Ironical, isn't it? Coming so close--with death in the form of an incurable cancer intervening._
_As you know, Margot, I always wished for a son but never had one. You'll have to play that role, I'm afraid, as you always have. Here is the information I told you I would write down. Naturally, if you intend to do anything about it, you'll guard it with your life._
* * * * *
_Apparently the hyper-space pattern from Irwadi to Earth is the one I was looking for. The proto-men, if I may be bold enough to call them that, first left hyper-space at that point, perhaps a million, perhaps five million, Earth years ago. I don't have to tell you what this means, my child. I've already indicated it to you previously. It suffices to remind you that, in what science has regarded as the most amazing coincidence in the history of the galaxy, humanoid types sprang up on some three thousand stellar worlds simultaneously between one and five million years ago. I say simultaneously although there is the possibility of a four million year lag: indications are, however, that one date would do quite well for all the worlds._
_Proto-man was tremendously ahead of us in certain sciences, naturally. For example, each humanoid type admirably fits the evolutionary pattern on its particular planet. The important point, Margot, is the simultaneity of the events: it means that proto-man left hyper-space, his birth-place, and peopled the man-habitable worlds of the galaxy at a single absolute instance in time. This would clearly be impossible if the thousands of journeys involved any duration. Therefore, it can only be concluded that they were journeys which somehow negated the temporal dimension. In other words, instant travel across the length and breadth of the galaxy!_
_Whoever re-discovers proto-man's secret, needless to say, will be the most influential, the most powerful, man in the galaxy. Margot, I thought that man would be me. It won't be now._
_But it can be you, Margot. It is my dying wish that you continue my work. Let nothing stop you. Nothing. Remember this, though: I cannot tell you what to expect when you reach the original home of proto-man. In all probability the whole race has perished, or we'd have heard of them since. But I can't be sure of that. I can't be sure of anything. Perhaps proto-man, like some deistic god, became disinterested in the Milky Way Galaxy for reasons we'll never understand. Perhaps he still exists, in hyper-space._
* * * * *
_Finally, Margot, remember this. If you presented this letter to the evolutionary scientists on any of the worlds, they'd laugh at you. It is as if unbelief of the proto-man legend were ingrained in all the planetary people, perhaps somehow fantastic
ally carried from generation to generation in their genes because proto-man a million years ago decided that each stellar world must work out its own destiny independently of the others and independent of their common heritage. But in my own case, there are apparently two unique factors at work. In the first place, as you know, I deciphered--after discovering it quite by accident--what was probably a proto-man's dying message to his children, left a million years ago in the ruins on Arcturus II. In the second place, isn't it quite possible that my genes have changed, that I have mutated and therefore do not have as an essential part of my make-up the unbelief of the proto-man