XIII
As Superior headed back across the Atlantic, the Earth-people were givena farewell tour. For the first time they had an authorized look at theunderground domain of the Gizls, which they reached through the tunnelthat led below from under Cavalier's grandstand.
The observation room which Don and Jen Jervis had found was connected bya hidden elevator to a vast main chamber. A control console formed theentire wall of one end of it. Half a dozen Gizls stood at the base ofthe console. From time to time one of them would launch himself upwardwith his powerful legs, grab a protruding rung, make an adjustment, thendrop lightly back to the floor.
Don and Alis stood for a moment watching Professor Garet, who wastugging at his beard as he became aware of the magnitude of theoperation which drove Superior through the skies and was soon to take itacross space to the asteroid belt.
"Poor Father," Alis whispered to Don. "Magnology in action, after allthese years--and he didn't have a thing to do with it."
"Is that why he wants to go with the Master?"
"I imagine so. If he stayed on Earth he'd have nothing. He's too old tostart again. It's kind of them to take him--and Mother. In a way, Isuppose, his going is justification for his years of work. He'll atleast be close to the things he might have developed in the rightcircumstances."
"He certainly won't be lonely," Don said. "Have you noticed the rush toemigrate? Cheeky McFerson's decided to stick with his bubble gumfactory. He says the Gizls are a ready-made market. He saw one of themcram five Super-Bubs into his mouth, at one time. That's twenty-fivecents right there."
Alis giggled. "And half of the student body of Cavalier wants to go.You'd think they'd be disillusioned with Father, but they're not. Iguess they had to be crazy to enroll in the first place."
"Senator Thebold's started campaigning to be named U.S. Ambassador toSuperior. I heard him talking to the man from the _New York Times_. Isuspect they'll give it to him--they'll need his influence to get Senateapproval of the treaty with the Gizls."
"I had a little talk with Jen Jervis," Alis said. "She's radiant, haveyou noticed? The Senator finally asked her to marry him. That's all thatwas the matter with her--Bobby the Bold had left her hanging by herthumbs too long."
"I guess he did." Don sought a way to get the conversation away from JenJervis. "Where's Doc Bendy? He certainly turned out to be adisappointment."
"Poor Doc!" Alis said. "He's always the first to form a committee. Butthen his enthusiasm wears off and he goes back to the bottle. Only nowhe's got a keg."
Don snapped his fingers. "The keg. I almost forgot about that matterduplicator. If it can give you perfume and Doc rum.... Come on. Let'sreopen negotiations with the Master."
They found the old man surrounded by a group of reporters, beingcharmingly evasive with the science editor of _Time_. Professor Garethad now joined this group, where he listened as eagerly as a student.
The Master was showing the vault-like chamber in which he had spent thegenerations since the spaceships left Gorel-zed. He let them examine thecoffin-sized drawer that had been his bed and indicated the others wherethe younger ones still slept, awaiting the birth of their new planet.Don counted fewer than three dozen drawers.
"Is that all?" he asked.
"Infants and children take up less room," the Master said. "There aretwo or three in each drawer, and still others in the ships that nevercome to Earth. Even so, we number fewer than a thousand."
"But you have the matter duplicator," Don said. "Won't it work onpeople?"
"Unfortunately, no. Transubstantiation has never worked on living cells.Don't think we haven't tried. We shall have to encourage early marriagesand hope for a high birth rate."
"Now about this transubstantiator," the _Time_ man said, and Garet'shead cocked in delight, apparently at the resounding sound of the word."What's the principle? You don't have to give away the secret--just giveme a general idea."
The Master shook his head.
Don asked, "What will you trade for the transubstantiator and theparalysis scepter you gave Hector?"
The old man smiled. "Not even New York," he said. "Our moral codecouldn't permit us to trade either. Earth has enough problems already."
"Offer him the formula for fusion," Frank Fogarty's voice said from thePentagon.
The old man shuddered. "I heard that," he said. "No, thank you, Mr.Secretary!"
"This is the _clean_ bomb," Fogarty said. "It ought to come in veryhandy in construction work on your new planet."
"We will try to manage in our own way," the Master said. He asked Garet,"Wouldn't you say that magnology was sufficient for our purposes,Professor?"
Alis' father beamed at being consulted and hearing his own term appliedto the Gorel-zed propulsion system.
"More than sufficient," he said enthusiastically. "Preferable, in fact.Magnology is safe, stressless, and permanently powerful in stasis. It isthe ultimate in gravity-beam nullification. If anything can glue theasteroids back into the planet they once were, magnology will do it. Youcan understand how I was misled. Your system so fitted my theory that Iimagined it was I who had caused Superior to rise from Earth."
"I understand perfectly," the Master replied graciously. "And I cannotsay how glad I am that you and Mrs. Garet have chosen to stay withCavalier and Superior and become citizens of our new world."
"What will you call your new planet?" the AP man asked. "Asteroida?Something like that?"
"We haven't decided. I welcome suggestions."
The UPI man was inspired. "How about Neworld?" he asked. "That describesit perfectly, doesn't it? New world--Neworld?" He wrote it on a piece ofpaper and admired it.
"Thank you," the Master said. "Well certainly consider it."
The UPI man was satisfied. He had a lead for his story.
* * * * *
_SUPERIOR, Nov. 6 (AP)--The floating city of Superior, Earthbound againafter nearly six days of aerial meandering, prepared today to dischargeits former residents. Its new inhabitants, the kangaroo-like Gizls whocame from beyond the stars to swing an unprecedented barter dealinvolving the United States, Russia and Germany, said they would leavealmost immediately to join Superior with the new planet they have beenbuilding in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter...._
* * * * *
_HEIDELBERG, Nov. 6 (AP)--This university city said good-by today tosome 400 interplanetary visitors it belatedly realized had long beenburrowed under it. The first officially acknowledged flying saucerlanded on Heidelberg's outskirts early today and took aboard the Gizls,who, but for the shrewd maneuvering of the U. S. Secretary of State,"Foghorn Frank" Fogarty, acting through a hastily commissionedex-sergeant troubleshooter, General Don Cort ..._
* * * * *
_MOSCOW, Nov. 6 (Reuters)--The industrial city of Magnitogorsk wasassured of remaining Soviet territory today with the departure of 1,000kangaroo-like aliens. These visitors from Gorel-zed, the doomed worldwhose survivors will increase the number of planets in the solar systemto ten with the creation between Mars and Jupiter of ..._
* * * * *
From the editorial page of the New York Daily News:
NICE KNOWING YOU, GIZLS, BUT--
_Next time you visit us, how about doing it openly, instead of burrowingunderground like a bunch of Reds?_
* * * * *
BULLETIN
_ABOARD THE SPACESHIP SUPERIOR, Nov. 6 (UPI)--This former Ohio town,adapted for space travel, took off for the asteroid belt today aftertransferring 2,878 of its citizens to a convoy of buses bound for arelocation center. The other 122 of its previous population of 3,000chose to remain aboard to pioneer the birth of the tenth planet of thesolar system--Neworld._
_Neworld, named by the United Press International correspondentaccompanying the survivors of the burned-out planet of Gorel-zed, willbecome the second known inhabite
d planet in the solar system...._
* * * * *
"Just a minute, Alis," Don said.
"No, sir, Sergeant-General Donald Cort, sir. Not a minute longer. Youtell him now."
"All right. Sir," Don Cort (Gen., temp.) said to Frank Fogarty,Secretary of Defense, "has the mission been accomplished?"
Don and Alis were in the back seat of an army staff car that was leadingthe bus convoy.
"Looks that way, son. Our best telescopes can't see them any more. I'dsay Neworld was well on its way to a-borning."
Alis Garet, her arms around Don and her head on his shoulder, spokedirectly into the transceiver. "Mr. Fogarty, are you aware that Ihaven't had a single minute alone with this human radio station sinceI've know him? This is the most inhibited man in the entire U. S. Army."
"Miss Garet," the Defense Secretary said, "I understand perfectly. WhenI was courting Mrs. Fogarty I was a pilot on the Meseck Line.... Well,never mind that. Mission accomplished, General Cort, my boy."
"Then, sir," Don said, "Sergeant Cort respectfully requests permissionto disconnect this blasted invasion of privacy so he can ask Miss AlisGaret if she thinks two of us can live on a non-com's pay."
The driver of the staff car, a sergeant himself, said over his shoulder,"Can't be done, General."
Fogarty said, "Don't be too anxious to revert to the ranks, my boy. I'lladmit the T/O for generals isn't wide open but I'm sure we cancompromise somewhere between three stripes and four stars. Suppose youtake a ten-day delay en route to Washington while we see what we can do.I'll meet you in the White House on November sixteenth. The Presidenttells me he wants to pin a medal on you."
"Yes, sir," Don said. Alis was very close and he was only halflistening. "Any further orders, sir?"
"Just one, Don. Kiss her for me, too. Over to you."
"Yes, sir!" Don said. "Over and out."
* * * * *
RICHARD WILSON, a part-time novelist, is a full-time newsman for an international press service (Reuters). He is the author of two previous books and several dozen short stories in science-fiction magazines since 1940.
He finds time for his fiction writing at night and on week ends in the attic workroom of his century-old ex-farmhouse exactly 35 miles, as the odometer on his Volkswagen computes it, from Times Square.
Reviewers have not exactly compared his writing to those of some others who once labored in Reuters' 109-year-old vineyards, among them John Buchan and Edgar Wallace. But one _New York Times_ critic praised "his whacky humor," which he said has "the bite of shrewd satire behind its madness," and the _New York Herald-Tribune'_s man maintained that "there's not another male in the science-fiction field who can beat Wilson in the easy, intimate exposition of the private lives of the space-future."
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