THE Orion in space, a of thousands of miles away from an which was a mile in diameter. Hilton up.
"Put Triple X Black on your plates and watch that asteroid." The did so. "Ready?" he asked.
"Ready, sir."
Hilton didn't move a muscle. Nothing actually moved. Nevertheless there was a and of the ship and in it, by a that can not be described.
It was not like going into or from the sub-ether. It was not like space-sickness or sea-sickness or free or anything else that any Terran had experienced.
And the vanished.
It into an incandescent, pyrotechnic, that in to of space.
After ages-long minutes of the most any man there had seen, the thing and Hilton said: "That was just a of a firecracker. Just a of the first-stage for what we'll have to have to the Stretts' ground-based screens. If the and I had taken time to take the ship to the shops and work it over we have put on a show. Was this so you iron-heads are to with your ears open and your mouths shut?"
They were. So much so that not Elliott opened his mouth to say yes. They nodded. Then again—for the last time, he hoped!—Hilton spoke his piece. The response was and vigorous. Only Sam Bryant, one of Hilton's allies, any at all.
"I've been married only a year and a half, and the was about a month ago. How sure are you that you can make old Gordon still for us the off of Terra to out here?"
"Doris Bryant, the of Terra!" Elliott gibed. "How our Samuel has become!"
"Well, it, she is!" Bryant insisted.
"Okay, she is," Hilton agreed. "But either we our people or Terra doesn't its uranexite. That'll work. In the that it doesn't, there are still we can put on. But you missed the main snapper, Sam. Suppose Doris doesn't want to live for five thousand years and is to a monster?"
"Huh; you don't need to worry about that." Sam that with a of his hand. "Show me a girl who doesn't want to and and I'll square you the circle. Come on. What's us up?"
THE Orion through space toward Ardry and Hilton, by a thought, to the captain.
"Skipper, why wouldn't it be a idea to a onto Fuel Bin? Cut the Stretts' fuel supply?"
"I of you than that, son." Sawtelle his sadly. "That was the thing I did."
"Ouch. Maybe you're 'way ahead of me too, then, on the one that we should move to Fuel Bin, lock, stock and barrel?"
"Never of it, no. Maybe you're saving, after all. After conversion, of course.... Yes, there'd be three big advantages."
"Four."
Sawtelle his eyebrows.
"One, only one to defend. Two, it's self-defending against landings. Nothing can land on it in lead armor, and in that can healthy for only a minutes."
"Except in the city. Omlu. That's the weak point and would be the point of attack."
"Uh-uh. Cut off the and in five hours it'll be as as the of the planet. Three, there'd be no supply line for the Stretts to cut. Four, the matches our new a than any normal could."
"That's the one I didn't think about."
"I think I'll take a quick at the Stretts—oh-oh; they've screened their whole planet. Well, we can do that, too, of course."
"How are you going to select and reject personnel? It looks as though wants to stay. Even the men main object in life is to go and drunk. The Omans do too good a job on them and there's no such thing as a hangover. I'm I'm not in your boots."
"You may be in it up to the eyeballs, Skipper, so don't too soon."
Hilton had already much time to the problems of selection; and he of little else all the way to Ardry. And for days he with small groups and investigations.
BUD Carroll of Sociology and his Sylvia Banister had been married for weeks. Hilton called them, together with Sawtelle and Bryant of Navy, into with the Big Eight.
"The more I study this thing the less I like it," Hilton said. "With a having no government, no police, no laws, no medium of ..."
"No money?" Bryant exclaimed. "How's old Gordon going to pay for his uranexite, then?"
"He it free," Hilton replied, flatly. "When anyone can have anything he wants, by wanting it, what good is money? Now, how long we're going to have to live, what we'll be up against, that the Masters failed, and so on, it is clear that the we have to select for is stability. We twelve have, by measurement, the available."
"Are you sure I here?" Bryant asked.
"Yes. Here are three lists." Hilton passed papers around. "The list 'OK' names those I'm sure of—the ones we're now and their and on Terra. List 'NG' names the ones I know we don't want. List 'X'—over thirty percent—are in-betweeners. We have to make a on the 'X' list. So—what I want to know is, who's going to play God. I'm not. Sandy, are you?"
"Good Heavens, no!" Sandra shuddered. "But I'm I know who will have to. I'm sorry, Alex, but it'll have to be you four—Psychology and Sociology."
Six and there was a of among the four. Temple her and nodded, and Kincaid spoke.
"Yes, I'm it's our baby. By very on Temple, we can do it. Remember, Jarve, what you said about the force? We'll need it."
"As I said once before, Mrs. Hilton, I'm very you're along," Hilton said. "But just how sure are you that you can up under the load?"
"Alone, I couldn't. But don't Mrs. Carroll and the Messrs. Together, and with such a goal, I'm sure we can."
THUS, after four-fifths of his own group and forty-one Navy men had been converted, Hilton called an meeting of all the converts. Larry, Tuly and Javvy were the only Omans present.
"You all knew, of course, that we were going to move to Fuel Bin sometime," Hilton began. "I can tell you now that we who are here are all there are going to be of us. We are all for Fuel Bin after this meeting. Everything of any importance, all of your personal effects, has already been moved. All Omans these three, and all Oman ships the Orion, have already gone."
He paused to let the news in.
Thoughts everywhere. The Stella Wing—now Mrs. Osbert F. Harkins—was the to give tongue. "What a job! Why, everybody's here that I like at all!"
That was, of course, unanimous. It not have been otherwise. Betty, the ex-Ames, called out:
"How did you their female Omans away from Cecil Calthorpe and the of that chasing, booze-fighting without them the whole show?"
"Some was necessary," Hilton admitted, with a grin. "Everyone who isn't here is time-locked into the Perseus. Release time eight hours tomorrow."
"And they'll wake up tomorrow with no Omans?" Bernadine her and laughed. "Nor anything else the Perseus? In a way, I'm sorry, but ... maybe I've got too much blood in me, but I'm very none of them are here. But I'd like to ask, Jarvis—or rather, I you have already set up a new Advisory Board?"
"We have, yes." Hilton read off twelve names.
"Oh, nice. I don't know of any people I'd have on it. But what I want to about is calling our new home world such a name as 'Fuel Bin,' as though it were a wood-box or a coal-scuttle or something. And just think of the it would set up in those super-children we're going to have so many of."
"What would you suggest?" Hilton asked.
"'Ardvor', of course," Hermione said, her sister answer. "We've had 'Arth' and 'Ardu' and 'Ardry' and you—or somebody—started calling us 'Ardans' to us from the Terrans. So let's keep up the same line."
There was at that, but the name was approved.
ABOUT midnight the meeting ended and the Orion set out for Ardvor. It it and downward. The whole BuSci staff was in the lounge, the big tri-di.
"Hey! That isn't Omlu!" Stella exclaimed. "It isn't a city at all and it isn't in the same place!"
"No, ma'am," Larry said. "Most of you wanted the ocean, but many wanted a river or the mountains. Therefore we Omlu and your new city, Ardane, at a place where the ocean, two rivers, and a range of meet. Strictly speaking, it is not a city, but a place of and living."
The space-ship was in, low and fast, from the south. To the left, the west, there the of ocean. To the right, mile after mile, were rough, rugged, jagged, partially-timbered mountains, upon mass. Immediately the was a wide, white-sand beach all of ten miles long.
Slowing now, the Orion along north.
"Look! Look! A natatorium!" Beverly shrieked. "I know I wanted a big place to swim in, my and the ocean, but I didn't tell to that—I I didn't!"
"You didn't have to, pet." Poynter put his arm around her and squeezed. "They knew. And I did a little along that line myself. There's our house, on top of the over the natatorium—you can almost into it off the patio."
"Oh, wonderful!"
Immediately north of the a river—named at the "Whitewater"—rushed through its into the ocean; a river and of the Colorado and its Grand Canyon. On the south bank of that river, at its very mouth—looking up that canyon; on a and beach and mountains—there was a house. At the of it Temple Hilton's arm in ecstasy.
"Yes, that's ours," he her. "Just about either of us has wanted." The was now so great—everyone was his-and-her house and was about it—that Temple and Hilton and the unroll.
Across the Whitewater and a mile north, the ended as as though they had been cut off with a and an of treeless, began. And through that prairie, to the from the northeast, came the wide, River Placid.
The Orion halted. It to vertically, and only then did Hilton see the spaceport. It was so vast, and there were so many on it, that from any great it was actually invisible! Each six-acre of the whole of level the Placid and the an Oman superdreadnought!
THE staff off and for the airlocks. Hilton said: "Temple, have you any at all, slight, as to having Dark Lady as a permanent in your home?"
"Why, of not—I like her as much as you do. And besides—" she like a schoolgirl—"even if she is a more than I am—I've got a she will have ... but there's something else. I got just a of it you blocked. Spill it, please."
"You'll see in a minute." And she did.
Larry, Dark Lady and Temple's Oman Moty were the Hilton's car—and so was another Oman, like none seen. Six four; that would just go through a door; like Atlas and Hercules combined; skin a gleaming, bronze; a of flame. Temple came to a full stop and her breath.
"The Prince," she breathed, in awe. "Da Lormi's Prince of Thebes. The of all the ages. You did this, Jarve. How did you him up out of my crushes?"
All six got into the car, which was at home on land or water or in the air. In less than a minute they were at Hilton House.
The house itself was circular. Its living-room was an of from which, by moving along its length, any view be had. The pair walked around it once. Then she took him by the arm and him toward one of the in the center.
"This house is just too much to take in all at once," she declared. "Besides, let's put on our and over to the Nat."
In the room, she closed the door in the of the Omans and grinned. "Maybe, sometime, I'll used to having somebody you in my bedroom, but I haven't, yet.... Oh, do you itch, too?"
Hilton had to the and was all around his waistline, under his belt. "Like the very devil," he admitted, and at her. For she, three-quarters stripped, was scratching, too!
"It started the minute we left the Orion," he said, thoughtfully. "I see. These new skins of ours like hard radiation, but don't like to be while they're it. By about tomorrow, we'll be a colony, I think."
"I it, I suppose. What makes you think so?"
"Just what I know about radiation. Frank would be the one to ask. My is, though, that we're going to be we want to or not. Let's go."
THEY in a two-seater, the Omans at home. Three-quarters of the staff were on the or were seated on benches the pool. As they watched, Beverly ran out along the line of springboards; each one and the stiffest. She then up to the top platform—a good twelve above the board—and upon the board's take-off. Legs and to take the strain, she and the low-point together, and, still in with it, she put every she had into the to herself upward.
She had to go up thirty feet. But she had no idea as to her present strength, or of what that Oman board, in perfect with that strength, would do. Thus, of thirty feet, she up very nearly two hundred; which of her two-and-a-half.
In she to into some position. Failing, she up into a tight just she water.
What a splash!
"It won't her—you couldn't her with a club!" Hilton snapped. He Temple's hand as else to the pool's edge. "Look—Bernadine—that's what I was about."
Temple stopped and looked. The platinum-haired had been on the sand, and had touched fabric, had disappeared.
Their had of approached the minimum to start with. Now Bernadine only a of on one and part of a that had once been a belt. Discovering the catastrophe, she once and into the any-which-way, her with her hands and in water up to her neck.
Meanwhile, the high had come to the surface, laughing apologetically. Surprised by the over her eyes, she for her cap. It was gone. So was her suit. Naked as a fish. She a of easy strokes, then stopped.
"Frank! Oh, Frank!" she called.
"Over here, Bev." Her husband did not know to laugh or not.
"Is it the or the water? Or both?"
"Radiation, I think. These new skins of ours don't want to be up. But it makes the water a good of a solvent."
"Good-by, clothes!" Beverly rolled over onto her back, water with her hands, and at herself. "I don't any more, anyway, so I'm very much in of it."
THUS the Ardans came to their new home world and to a life that was to be more by and by than any of them had on Earth. There were many other that day, of course; of which only two will be mentioned here. When they left the pool, at about seventeen hours G.M.T.[2], was hungry.
[2]Greenwich Mean Time. Ardvor was, always and everywhere, full daylight. Terran time and were as a of course.
"But why should we be?" Stella demanded. "I've been in sight, just for fun. But now I'm actually to eat a and and the driver!"
"Swimming makes hungry," Beverly said, "and I'm that hasn't changed. Why, I wouldn't if I didn't!"
Hilton and Temple home, and had a long-drawn-out and very supper. Prince waited on Temple, Dark Lady on Hilton; Larry and Moty ran the in the kitchen. All four Omans happiness.
Another came when they to bed. For the was a of something that looked like and, for an property of itself to the of their bodies, was almost as hard as rock. Nevertheless, it was the most either of them had had. When they were to go to sleep, Temple said:
"Drat it, those Omans still want to come in and sleep with us. In the room, I mean. And they so. They're and oh-so-submissive reproach. Shall we let 'em come in?"
"That's up to you, sweetheart. It always has been."
"I know. I they'd it sometime, but I they will. I still want an of at times, though they know all about that goes on. But we might let 'em in now, just while we sleep, and 'em out again as soon as we wake up in the morning?"
"You're the boss." Without additional the four Omans came in and themselves on the floor, on all four of the bed. Temple had time to up against Hilton, and he to put his arm closely around her, they into and sleep.
AT eight hours next all the met at the new Hall of Records.
This building, an exact of the old one, was on a in the of the natatorium, in a at of which Karns stopped and to laugh.
"I I'd everything," he remarked. "But yellow pine, spruce, tamarack, apples, oaks, palms, oranges, cedars, trees and cactus—just to name a few—all on the same quarter-section of land?"
"Just wants, is all," Hilton said. "But are they growing? Or just synthetics? Lane—Kathy—this is your dish."
"Not so fast, Jarve; give us a chance, please!" Kathryn, now Mrs. Lane Saunders, pleaded. She her head. "We don't see how any life can have at all, unless ..."
"Unless what? Natural shielding?" Hilton asked, and Kathy her husband.
"Right," Saunders said. "The life-forms must have a they and stabilize. Hence, it is that is in our skins was not a of Masters' science. They took it from Nature."
"Oh? Oh!" These were two of Sandra's most monosyllables, by a third. "Oh. Could be, at that. But how ... no, that."
"You'd it, Sandy. Give us a of months, and maybe we can answer a questions."
Now the Hall, all the teams, from Astronomy to Zoology, to work. Everyone now what to look for, how to it, and how to study it.
"The First Team doesn't need you now too much, it, Jarve?" Sawtelle asked.
"Not particularly. In fact, I was just going to onto my own job."
"Not yet. I want to talk to you," and the two into a long of affairs.
