Ed Dukas was letters. Someone or something was also writing—unseen but at his elbow. It was fifteen minutes he noticed. Conspicuous at the center of the next blank of paper he for, part of a word was already inscribed:
"Nippe ..."
The was and but in the same of as that in his own pen.
Ed Dukas said "Hey?" to himself, mildly.
The his deepened. They were of that was not new. The and thumb of his right hand their together. Surprise on his square gave way to a that, in the last ten years of living, had been into his nature. Ed Dukas was now twenty-two. This was and troubled. Since his childhood, Ed had with wonder, beauty, hate, opportunity and on a level, luxury, adventure, love. Sometimes he had peace of mind.
He put his pen, the he had been in mid-sentence:
... Pardon the preaching, Les. Human nature and else booby-trapped. They the idea of and into us at school. Because so much that is new and is a big thing to handle. Still, we'll have to to a of action.
Now Ed sat with his on his table, that other, no longer blank, of paper in his hands. He sat there, a man, his cut like a hedge, the of his around him: student on the walls; a picture of his team—in color of course; for his class; his bookcase; his set; and the that any guy who to the next goal, the nearer stars, had to learn about.
His girl's picture, part of any youth's pattern of life for the last three centuries, from him on the table. Dark. Strong as girls were to be, these days. Beautiful in a rough-hewn way. But with all that to on, he was about her more than now. Times were strange. He at her once. Then his to the paper in his hands.
His nerves at the thing that was there. He didn't know to of it or hopeful. Man was toward of his own and the of the universe. But the enormous, though science was moving forward, too swiftly, on all fronts. Part of Ed's the unknown was like the stage of an actor. You what was ahead or how to judge anything that you saw.
"Nippe...."
At the end of the line which the "e" there was a of ink. Almost imperceptibly, like the minute hand of a clock, it on, and to another letter.
"Nipper" the word was now.
This be somebody's gag, Ed thought. Somebody with a gadget. The world is full of these days. Maybe too full.
It to him that a might be playing a joke with some device in a store. But toward something and more costly. Who knew? Someone might have a way to make a man invisible. You didn't that anything be, any more.
"Speak up!" he ordered softly.
But no answer came, and his nothing in the room around him. He froze. "Nipper." It be part of a message, an attempt to information. Or it be the of in his direction. Through no fault of his own, he had had for ten years. Tonight they might act. To die was still possible. In of vitaplasm. Or the more method that natural flesh. Or the away in vaults. Lives were now in again. Human, and almost human....
For a moment Ed wanted to give a and to call others into consultation. He wanted to shout, "Dad! Mom! Come here!"
He didn't do so. Between him and the precise, that he called Dad there was a barrier. And for his mother, and by art and science, he had that of male that takes the of possible hidden.
Ed to work on his own. Being and slow moving when it came to processes, he had not touched that of ink. Its might thus be destroyed. No, he'd do a thing so foolish.
Swiftly he the paper and the under his microscope. The was almost now, and nothing was in it. The line of the itself was odd under magnification. Here and there it tiny, at intervals, by fine, marks. That was all.
Of he that Nipper might be only the word of a message and that he had only to wait and see what would follow.
Until he to wait, however, the of the word itself him. A child's was all that it suggested.
But now his mind on it. And he had the answer almost at once. A small boy the of a garden. And his by a who met him thus for the time. Among more and details, the memory of the name itself had been mislaid. But Ed Dukas that in his one person had always called him Nipper: Uncle Mitch Prell, and nobody else. Now it like a sign.
Ed gulped, his and a of eeriness. To have a friend, he had loved as a child, into space and into after a fugitive, and then to have what to be this friend try to again after ten years, and in this manner—well—how would you say it? Ghosts, of course, were pure superstition. But in this age one still as if to the supernatural—with and heartbeats. In fact, with the of technology, more than was such a possible.
"Uncle Mitch!" Ed Dukas called quietly.
Again there was no reply. The name on the paper still be somebody else's trick. Granger's, maybe. There were for him to have learned a nickname. Many people might Granger as much as others him. And it was hard to say what he might do, or when. Or how, for that matter. He was clever. And wrong.
There was still another thing to remember. Ed did not love the memory of his uncle, Dr. Mitchell Prell. For this famous scientist was marked with the of for a mishap. No, Prell did not the alone. There were other scientists, it was said, who had too roughly, and with too a stick, into Nature's lair. Nature had back. Ed had up with the public that had resulted. He had against it, yet he had it, until sometimes he did not know where he himself stood.
Now he waited for more to be on the paper under the microscope. A minute passed, but there was nothing more. He did notice, however, that the of that one word matched the of his uncle.
Once he toward the window with some nervousness. Outside, the night was glorious. Never again would nights be as they once had been. He saw gardens under light. If any thing not until months through the shadows, it hidden. Ed saw other houses. New trees had to size in ten years. Older and larger trees and gnarled. But their had healed.
Otherwise there was nothing left to the past—except, perhaps, the of voices in streets.
But Ed Dukas's mind, by the name Nipper and by of Mitchell Prell, away from the present. He had often memory to understanding. At school, after the catastrophe, had every kid do that. So that might be or or avoided. So that animal terror would not a over a record of an interlude. So that memory might not be lodged, like a red of hysteria, in the subconscious.
Like a dog through a hoop, Ed Dukas's to that zone where his memories into the of infancy:
A birthday cake with two candles. A in the of this same house. A dachshund, Schnitz, which a little boy put in almost the same category as the flat, rubber-tired that the rooms. Where was the and animals?
Flowers, hummingbirds, and in the garden. The of on floors. Toy space ships and star ships at Christmas. The star ships were yet to real.... There was in life then. But in those days there were of and puzzled guidance.
There was the sensipsych, of course. It was a box of dark in the room. A soft from it. There you lay, and for a moment light into your eyes. You to sleep, but you did not go to sleep. For you someone else. Maybe a in a world where looked different. Funny to you that you at first; but then you laughed when you that there was no in them.
Or, of being in such a fairyland, you might be a boy in space jumping across the surface of a of called an asteroid, while and a white sun at you from blackness. You were very helping others to the with crystal, and to put air underneath, and to houses and where people might live and work. Always more and more people out and out to the empty worlds of space.
But you were on that for very long, or too often. You would wake up, and there was Mom saying, "Enough, fella. A little of that of thing goes a great way, when the are and and not just nonsense."
Ed Dukas would be angry and puzzled. For it had that those visions, going on without end, forever.
"You'll sometime, Eddie," his mother would say, him. "What to you by is just make-believe. What we call recorded experience. Some of it to other people. Some of it is just up. It can teach you things. But too much is very bad. Not so long ago out."
There was something and hard and in his mother's words.
Ed's also had his comments. Dad was something called a expert.
"Come on, Eddie, let's rassle," he'd say. "Stick your out, boy. Let's see how you can look. No, not mean-tough.... That's better. We've got to the times we live in. And something in ourselves. With doing so much for us, life can be soft. And are soft. Everything in moderation. Dreams can make you as as an oyster. Until you and the whole race. Yes, people out. They were always meant to and proud, and they must have equal to their powers. Otherwise there's rot. We've got to be for anything, our way, try to be to keep our for comes. Because life be terrible, too, if the we got out of hand. We've got to go on progressing—moving out to the planets, and then maybe the stars. Got to go either ahead or backward. Can't still. And it's easy to go nowadays. Got to that, Eddie, or else there might be a of death."
"What is death, Dad?"
Ed's father would answer his son's with a grin. "A of myth, now, boy. Just going to sleep and up. We it's mostly finished, for everybody. Even the of old age out to be something like in a pipe. Simple. It can be up. Some people let themselves old. But they can be again. Always."
Eddie had other questions.
"You were in the old way, Eddie," his mother said. "But so many people are needed now to the system. So can't be from his mother's body. There's another way; almost the same, really. Babies are born—they're made, really—in a laboratory. Then they live in a center, like the one on the hill."
Eddie saw its great white among the trees. Often he voices in the gardens and on the of its many levels. The voices somehow.
Even then Eddie the and that was in his parents' minds. Sometimes his mother would speak to his father: "Jack, I'd choose to live in another age. I love it. Because it's rich, varied, exciting. Is that why I'm often out of my wits? Even often with my selfish self and all the devices? I love my work, the of interiors. I'm so there doesn't to be time for another child. Yet maybe there are centuries ahead, Jack. How one centuries without up? And are we to be something in the end? Or do we wind up like the Martians and the beings of the Asteroid Planet, it was to millions of pieces? Wiped out in super-conflict, they progress very much than we are now?"
Most of this over Eddie's head. But it left a to in his mind the peaceful presence of sun and trees. People had their world more for their own enjoyment. Yet in those days Eddie the them.
Once his father a thought: "Maybe we should go out to Venus sometime, Eileen. Start life over more in an that's being to our race. Maybe we'll do it in just a years." He grinned.
"Yes," Eddie's mother replied. "If being and alive doesn't us then. If our doesn't open and fire, and everybody. Death by is still definitely possible. You know, of our friends are their and minds recorded so that they can be in case of injury. Maybe we should have done it long ago."
Jack Dukas met her with a light tease: "A woman's worry matched against the of a man—eh, Eileen? There's something about being recorded that I against. Don't be too troubled, though. The centuries won't from our so immediately. I touch a thing in my work. Besides, safety are almost perfect."
Such serious, did not the and of Ed Dukas. His private into the of Someday. His small hands were to the of the future, more than the not-distant past with its still-living heroes: Roland, who was for the process; Schaeffer, who the sensipsych, on the dream-world period of decay, and in the end helped Harwell the of by toward a on reality; and the hundreds of others who had taken part.
But the visit of Mitchell Prell, when Ed Dukas was five, was, to the boy, like with a legend. "Hi, Nipper!" were the his uncle had spoken to Eddie. Dr. Mitchell Prell was his mother's brother. He was a much smaller man than Eddie's dad, and dark of blond. He was famous. And he gifts.
"A piece of the Moon, Nipper," he said. "An naturally in gold. For your mom. And this case of up in Martian ruins, for your dad. Fifty years old but than anything designed by beings for underground. And this for you—also from Mars. I haven't been there for a long time. But I got an old friend to send me the stuff—to the on the Moon."
Maybe Eddie's gift had once been a toy for the off-spring of Martian monsters. It was like a kite, metallic, with a sheen. When you a way, a of air it high in the sky. But it always came back. Atomic power was in it somewhere. For it ran out of energy.
Uncle Mitch to say much. He didn't into philosophy. He set up in his room, and a kid look at it if he didn't touch. And to one of Dad's questions he answered briefly, "Yes, we're making in the on the Moon. There'll be a for star ships. If, in our experiments, itself doesn't at the under that level of power. No, we're not yet trying for of more than a of that of light. A to a star will take a long time."
It soon came out that Uncle Mitch had another interest. He in a something that and wriggled, and like warm though its natural form, when at rest, was a of pencil size.
About that he would only say, "Call it alive if you want to. But not like us. Invented and artificial, and more than our flesh. For the rest, wait and see if anything comes of it. Maybe it'll the of the superman. Schaeffer, here on Earth, is on it, too."
Uncle Mitch for a week. Then he was gone, out to the labs, for safety at the center of a on the always of the Moon.
"Mitch what he wants and is direct about it," was Jack Dukas's comment. "Simple. No conflicts. The scientist's approach. Wise or stupid? Who knows?"
Eddie was six, and then seven. The years moved slowly, but he and with them. By the time he was twelve, and study and of had his and his considerably. That was fortunate, for this was his and mankind's year. The day came when the were up the for Uncle Mitch again. Dad was afield, a hundred miles away, to look over a of that was to be to the laboratories. At 9:00 P.M. Eddie's father had not yet returned.
Eddie was on his looking at the of the lamp it. The color was rich and beautiful, the and odd. Here was another gift, ordered by Uncle Mitch from a friend in the region of the Asteroids. The was an of a with the Martians who had also their to master nature and themselves through knowledge. The had been free in space, among the of a to pieces back.
Eddie was of such things. He was also of neighborhood pals, to he had about his uncle and his arrival.
As for what at that moment: there was warning, out fifteen ahead, telling of gone out of in the laboratories. But Eddie's set was not functioning, and he did not it.
Beyond the of his room there was just calm, moonlight. The Moon looked little different than it always looked, for the of the of the great centers.
But then came the blue-white light. Perhaps, somewhere, its intensity. On the of stations, maybe. Say that, for the space of a seconds, it was five hundred times as as full sunshine.
Night was off. But there was no day like this. For one of a second Eddie at the window. Shadows gone, utterly. Even dark like tree so much light that they all but in the glare. As yet, it was a phenomenon.
Eddie his and his in his pillow. This action, as natural as terror and the result of for at school, saved his vision. He might have screamed, had he been able to his voice. Distantly, he that the in his stomach. A and mood, product of science, had been by of the same origin.
He did not see the of that in the sky and slowly for many seconds. In fact, no one saw it; only cameras, with special dark filters, would have been able to do so. For would have been by that splendor.
He his mother calling his name. Keeping his closed and an over them, he his way to the hall, and to her. They to the and there.
Outside, voices died away. By then the in the sky was a little, too, at the edges. Only the of the great still supernally, with its millions of of heat. Around it was a of and that the it.
The world still for a moments, as it at the center of a typhoon. Then there was a great, soft roaring. The of expanded, gases, at many hundreds of miles second, the upper atmosphere, and pressing down. Eddie the pressure of it, by the air—a light but of his flesh, from all sides.
Then there was a of wind—air, super-heated and compressed, being outward. Next came the of sounds, if they were that any more.
Someone was yelling, "Oh, God ... Oh, God ... Oh, God...." There was a and of fire. Something up off.
Then the began. With a snap, broke. Then came a jolt. Eddie Dukas and his mother, on the floor, were in a sensation, and vibrationless. Then the ground softly. After that, there was a pause, as of something for a moment at the lip of a chasm. Suddenly the to be broken, and the whole world was by a tooth-cracking chatter. A pause.... Then it again.
For a second Eddie's mother almost her control. She to rise. "The house!" she stammered. "It'll on us."
Panic and Eddie. "No, Mom," he gasped. "The house has a frame. It'll together. Outside, we don't know what would to us."
They themselves for the next burst. They were of luxury, science-made. But planning, training, psychology—science it all was, too—had them and courage, a of against hysteria—while the earth again and again.
Eddie's saying things, and it was all something like a that had been learned, a rote, a incantation: "You're right, Eddie. We've got to think we do anything. They always tell us that life is an adventure. We've got to meet a or be destroyed, Eddie. Everything takes nerve."
At last the in and frequency. Maybe the was over.
Eddie an eye, and then his mother.
Beyond the of the night had returned, red-lit from sky and ground. The was with a in a great curve, with more at points. Dust of the Moon, it had to be. Of its and shell. And of its of iron. But that was now, as and to light to this dark of Earth.
Yet there was fire. The in the east—that would be the City, fifty miles away. Destruction and there would be unimaginable. Nearer at hand, trees were aflame—leaves and that minutes ago had been with now wildly. Mixed with the of voices was the of fire units.
Eddie to the radio and it on, as he had been to do in emergencies. You listened; you directions. "... blowup," someone was saying. "Follow the and for and burns. Rescue and are already in action. Fortunately most of our are not of materials...."
For minutes Eddie was busy, special and into the skin of his entire body. Then, in fresh clothes, he and his mother just out of the for a while. Outside, metal were at work. Science and were to their after an that might have been the end.
Eddie and his mother the house and it mostly intact. Then on in quick succession. The of these with a at the door. Masked with against possible in the air, they opened it. A thing without itself inside, once, and still. It was death among immortals. The of a called Schnitz.
Eddie was dazed. Child-grief or man-grief had no to come to him then. Events moved too fast. There was too much to be done.
A half-dozen people in came into the house. At once it was into a first-aid station. Hard law and hard drills, long for disaster, came into play. Eddie's mother joined the crew. Nor was he left out of it. There was coffee for him to prepare in the kitchen, and and to be away, and to be set up.
He saw blood and death, and hysteria-twisted faces. He saw glinting, and apparatus, as the methods of the age were applied. There were blood that as and to the functions of and lungs. There were to from a dozen healthy individuals, them into energy, and then into in the of an person.
Mostly the and and calm. Luxury had not them. They, too, had their and had had some preparation.
Eddie a child of his own age among those who came into his own house: a neighbor boy named Les Payten, the son of a noted biologist. He had big ears and a nose. He wasn't badly. His were inflamed. He hadn't them enough. He had sullen, and his lip a bit. Otherwise he was still full of pepper.
"Braggin' about your Uncle Mitch now, Eddie?" he taunted. "Great stuff, that guy! He and his scientists nearly got us all. Better luck next time, huh?"
Young Ed Dukas might have but he did not. As if he too a of responsibility, his and his hollowed. His stiffened, as if to the load. He returned to the kitchen. He had not yet noticed any other of blame. It was too soon. The of had minds. Sometimes and need a to them up.
But another had come to Eddie. As soon as there was a moment to speak to his mother he said, "Uncle Mitch was to land in the City tonight. It's a six-hour from the Moon. But now he'll here."
She her head. And in her there was mixed with her sadness.
He didn't think about that very long as he helped a stretcher. His mind was on Mitchell Prell—grinning, setting up a in the room upstairs, modeling with his fingers. He had once little of Mom and Dad. A in Eddie's for someone who would be back. Mitchell Prell. Even the name nice.
Then slowly another question came into his mind. Where was Dad? He'd gone out to that and hadn't come back! Funny, Eddie, I hadn't about that. Well, it came from taking Dad for granted. Someone to worry about. Someone always around, like the hills. Eddie his to himself. No use yet.
Now the began. Steam had been out of the ground by heat. Now it was condensing. Helping, maybe, as the radio said, to wash away the of the and that were to Earth—wreckage that hours had been part of the Moon.
Somewhere out in the a out ten o'clock very calmly. It must have been about then that what was left of Jack Dukas was home in a truck. Eddie didn't see this happen. He was helping again with the injured. And later, when Les Payten told him, Mom wouldn't let him go into the locked room where his had been taken. He almost told her that he had a right. But he did not want to her further.
Eddie was up till 4:00 A.M. By then the had left the house and a had been in the world. The were in hospitals, in and public buildings. But there were more dead. Anyone more than a step from when the had was to to that list. Half a had been by and radiation.
While the guard-robots through the rain on their treads, Eddie passed out from on the of the room. His mother managed to him a little but not to send him to bed. Rather, she the from the set. She her son climb up onto one of them and took the other for herself.
He slept, and his was refreshed. And he had dreams—not in which he was an character; was he to make habitable; was he an on some among the stars. No, for the present he had had of strain. Instead he in by a little lake. The sun was bright. There were with sails, and flying, and odd, music. The was not an to the of soft now. It was rest; it was honest, therapy.
Young Ed Dukas didn't see the mud-spattered arrive, to be some from the house. He did not see the moving in the shadows. It at the door, waited for a time, and then around to the in the rear. There to the lock. Massive was without the door.
Eddie with a small, hard hand his shoulder. His mother was already awake. The light was on. At only with unbelief, they a slight, figure.
Uncle Mitch's was scraped. His hands were filthy. His was torn. An old about his with worry, and wariness.
"Hello, Eileen," he said. "Hi, Nipper."
He no answer. Somehow Eddie to silence. So his uncle to what was a with him—a of or summary.
"Progress," he said with a laugh. "The world government the threat of war, years ago. Then the of the race: youth, and death's by violence, producing the problem of overpopulation, to be by the of the system. Then peace and and the leading to decadence, of in self and violence; then the of vigorous, action, more and more people to life, more and more colonies. Then, as we out for the stars, this. Life. The great that can't be stopped. The from barbarism. Is it well begun?"
His words, and in taste now, as Mitchell Prell well knew—though he had to say them of the need to say something—still into a of and through the house like a speech.
Sighing raggedly, he again: "Yes, I'm alive, Eileen. The ship from the Moon was in space the happened. We ahead of the main at high speed. So we through. From the final message from the Moon, I that trouble started in the chambers. The and pressure were by the tight space for a while, until inter-dimensional wide open. The whole of the Moon was in the way. By old it couldn't happen; but a of all to pieces in a of high energy. The part is that we a for ships ago. The came from line testing."
Once more no answered Mitchell Prell when he stopped talking. He waited, but his sister's cold.
"All right, Eileen," he on at last. "You're that I am one of the who is for this. Surely I'm the only among those men who were on the Moon. But this: we weren't on our own. We were hired, under a system, and told what to for. It was the best that be done, that the should have been put away, on some asteroid. Logically, then, we are not to for what has happened. But it doesn't work that way, Eileen. Under and logic still collapses, in our time. In a there continue to be many people who need scapegoats. A mishap, the result of a for more knowledge, then a personal guilt. So I'm a fugitive, Eileen."
It was a strange, thing for Eddie Dukas to watch—his mother and uncle each other, not friends, his mother's a hard of coldness.
Then, all at once, her crumbled. "Jack isn't alive any more," she said. "My husband. That's the that I know best. You with your talk, my brother, are one person directly in the of events that Jack's death. I don't you, Mitch. I just say that I can't look on you now with any pleasure. That's all."
Then, there on the couch, she to cry. It was painful for Eddie to watch. He had her do that before.
But Mitchell Prell chuckled. He sat his sister and put his arm around her. "Are so bad?" he chided. "Look, Eileen. People used to life the of nature. Because he was at the top of his local life scale, man would not have been to know that the in him wasn't the greatest, the most of enigmas. But it's true, Eileen. Year after year we've learned more about function, genes, chromosomes, the natural of things, and the final in protoplasm, which is the itself. Men like Schaeffer have been making life for years, while they out more riddles. For a long time they've been or organs from from the of many donors. Now they've gone and have such organs in a fluid, from a of tissue. It is already possible to re-create an entire man, provided there is a pattern. It was for repair purposes, after possible accidents, that was to have his recorded—especially that of his brain. All you have to do, Eileen, is have Jack's record over to the same that do rejuvenation. In two or three years he'll come to you just as he was. Soon there might be a simpler, way."
Eileen Dukas's laugh was and bitter. "A roll of fine, wire," she said. "Kept in a box no than the joint of a finger. Supposed to be safe in a vault. The pattern of a being. Well, Mitch, there just isn't any such box for Jack. Or for Eddie or me either, for that matter. We just didn't around to it. Jack was somehow against it."
Again there was a silence. For Eddie it to have the of in it. No of Dad's tunes. No winks, or play at being tough. Just memory.
"All that are being up are being sent through the recorder," Uncle Mitch offered at last. "Refined the trick. The of brain structure—the of mind, personality, and memory—are and recorded. Wasn't that done for Jack?"
Eddie's mother nodded. "Only," she stammered, "the whole top of his was charred. There wasn't of him left. Oh, you and your science, Mitch."
She was again. Mitchell Prell either or he spoke in self-defense.
"The people that used to neglect like insurance," he remarked, "are still plentiful, aren't they? Oh, well, maybe there's still a of way. A makeshift. People are to think of it. Let it go for now. I've got to worry about, sister of mine."
"Your own skin, for instance?" she him. "Why did you come here at all, Mitch? The scapegoat-seekers will look for you here first."
"My own skin," Mitchell Prell agreed. "Maybe yours, since you are a relative of mine, for my sins. That is an of logic among of people still in existence, I'm afraid—if the great enough. The skins of the three of us, my most prized treasures."
He then, and his were gentle. "Don't worry too much, though," he on. "I'll be gone sooner than most people will think of looking for me. I'll keep out of sight, not the house, after dark. I have some to deliver to Schaeffer. Then I've got to away. Because life goes on, in of everything. I'm still about nature, the and some other things. I for some freedom, Eileen—for you and your son, and the of the race, and good I share. I see no good in the of for an accident that came out of a to learn that can't and won't be downed."
Something like a came then. Eddie Dukas it. Family was in it and a little of and contrition.
"All right, Mitch," was all that Eddie's mother said. She his uncle's cheek. Eddie that it was a woman's of armistice.
Fires had died down. Dawn was to in the patio. The rain had stopped long ago. For no Eddie's out a of water in a in the flagging. The water was colored, as it might have been after any shower. A robin, which had somehow death, was angrily.
Breakfast was listlessly. There were radio reports and orders. "Able must report to their centers...."
"That's for you, Eddie," Mitchell Prell said ruefully. "And your mother. While I play rat."
Eddie didn't know to his uncle or not. There was an about that man that matched some drive that was Eddie's own—in of his grief.
"Watch yourself, sir," he stiffly.
The day was a day of for corpses, of cleanup, of restoration. At least there would be no of death. Pruning were already on treetops. The world was being put into order, like a anthill. Grass and would again. The of children—many from the Youth Center were small to help in the cleanup, since it was not the now to from the young—would again. On that day of the with a broom, Eddie Dukas and many a friendship. Hello.... Goodbye....
Fortunately the of had not been to any great from across space by alone. Gases and of the Moon that were still as a to the atmosphere; but it was now the level.
Overhead, the sky like the Rings of Saturn ragged, was what was left of Luna: and dust. For an hour its the sun, until, near noon, there was almost twilight, like that of an eclipse. That was a permanent to a night that would be remembered.
There still were people around. Eddie saw Mrs. Payten, his friend's mother. She passed in the street, muttering, "Oh, Ronald, you were a of a man, but I loved you. Why were you a fool, too?... No record.... None...."
It had been a of neighborhood that Ronald Payten, a large, lug, had been a very much hen-pecked husband. His neglect of having a record of himself might have for so noted a biologist. Maybe it was absent-mindedness, professional of opinion, or some of his wife.
There were moments when the wild in blood and the of gave Eddie and others almost an mood. But toil, and soon as he with the men. His hands were and scratched. But maybe was for shock. Maybe it was thus that he at the services—for his father, too—with less hurt. The great was closed over the corpses, and the thing was done.
Later, in the house, he with himself somewhat, and said, "I know it wasn't your fault, Uncle Mitch."
Eddie had that day, uniforms: police. In him was the thought: Harboring a fugitive. One who shouldn't be called that. But who is—now. Because people have taken a like before. Even laws can be changed. Ideas of won't the same.
"Have you my calling you Nipper?" Mitchell Prell asked him seriously. "Perhaps.... But I still want to you something."
Young Ed Dukas was no for easy come-ons. But his soon dissolved, when, in the room where Mitchell Prell was up, he saw that the man who to him was not his uncle. The nose and were much heavier. Only the and much the same, though their was different by the of features. This man looked like a good-natured mechanic.
Eddie's chilled. But he gave a as the man his away. Underneath it was Uncle Mitch.
"A mask, Eddie. A for kids, you'd say." His uncle laughed. "I the day making it up, to help me around more easily. That's nothing. The is that it is of vitaplasm. Remember the of it that I once had? Crude then. Better now. Alive in a way of its own. A and to natural protoplasm. Far less to by and cold. Self-healing, like flesh. Sustained by food and oxygen. But of its energy from or radioactivity, too. And in some of its less on a such as water. No, it's not the same substance, or combination. Like the we know, is in change. Here and now it's just an mass, molded. An material. But, like star ships, it to the future. Here it's principle, another phase of our science everywhere. You call it the of the superman, Eddie. I want you to all this. Because I may be from where I'm going to try to go. Or I might in touch sometime. We might need each other's help."
Young Ed Dukas with interest. Perhaps his drive was toward the of times yet to come. They a part of his self. They must real! And he must take part in their fulfillment. Grief or not stop him. Therein he and Mitchell Prell the same road.
"You didn't vitaplasm, Uncle Mitch," he stated. "No one have—alone."
His on the mask. It was warm to his touch. It a little.
Mitchell Prell his and chortled. "No, Nipper. You know that is now too for that. I helped a little. Lots of men did. Maybe I've added something to what is known. I've got to give my data to here I leave."
Eddie of a man he'd sometimes on television. No than Uncle Mitch. And plain looking. But great. Dr. Schaeffer in his laboratory in the City.
"You aren't going to try to a star, are you?" Ed asked.
Uncle Mitch his head. "No. I won't so off." He laughed. "But in a way I'll be going farther, I suppose. Though don't that I time or hyper-dimensional travel. It's something simpler. But it's to a place where no one can as a being. I can't tell you much more. Because I don't want other people to try to too much out of you. But I want to look at from a new angle. And from very close up, you might say. Maybe I'm trying to from danger, Eddie. Some. But the is that I want to go on learning and exploring. Maybe my being a small man means something, too."
Mitchell Prell ended with another light laugh. He put the in his pocket and a large shut. When he spoke again it was on a different tack: "You won't see me for a while, Eddie. About your father, just aren't any good at all. Maybe I'll over his end than you. If you questions about me, tell all you know. Don't try to anything for my sake. They'll it out of you anyway. And they'll only know what I want them to know.
"Your mother may a in a days you to report to the City. If that comes, see that she to its request. It will also that I've delivered the results of my with vitaplasm, as as they've gone, into the proper hands and have succeeded in away into space. I that you and I and make it to the Big Future, Eddie. That's all I have to say. Unless you to a word that may up again—android."
Mitchell Prell at his nephew and moved to put on his mask.
"You don't want to say goodbye to Mom," Eddie stated, angrily.
Prell's look of deepened. His thin was touched by a and worry. Part of it was surely for his sister. Then, mostly to himself, he muttered, "There's to come—if we can past the of man; if new knowledge and old wild don't do us all to death first." He sheepishly. "You say goodbye for me, Eddie," he urged. "I like that."
Mitchell Prell was gone then, out into the new night. Grimly, already a man, Ed Dukas him go, and grief, and love, mixed up him. But the common himself and his uncle was the need for that of and wonder and betterment.
"It will happen," he promised himself. For a second his was with dread. He had already the that knowledge possible, and he the of long such things—no one left, anywhere! He if, life go on and on now, it was more and death more terrible.
Fifteen minutes after his uncle's a was put into operation from a mile distance. It the rooms of the Dukas house and the around it. The of the device was almost ancient. The of electro-magnetic waves. On a small screen in a room the plan of a house and its was in a green glow. Shadowy with the movements of its occupants, and human. Only two people were there now.
Eddie Dukas that the was there, though its length would have it almost to identify, among the from many used for communication.
Early on the third after the the police came to the house. They were very gentle. There was a to ask the questions.
Eddie's mother was and wary.
"Have you as to the of Dr. Mitchell Prell, Mrs. Dukas?" she was asked. "We know that the last Moon with him aboard."
Before she Eddie blurted, "He was here all that day. He's gone now. He didn't make his very clear."
Eileen Dukas's with panic and surprise. She had Eddie to be more discreet.
"You have no right to question my son!" she coldly.
"Mrs. Dukas," she was informed, "when there is an of the deaths of two hundred people, we have more than the right to question anybody."
Young Ed was scared. But he some of the hero-impulse. Or the to the of his idol, Uncle Mitch.
"If you my memory, what little I know will come than if I just told it," he challenged.
This was done forthwith, out in the police car in the street. When the of the was from Eddie's head, the police had of Mitchell Prell's to study. Possibly they puzzle out some of their meaning. But this couldn't have satisfied them very much.
The next day the Prell had mentioned arrived. At least it be that it was the one. Uncle Mitch had managed to make one step of his purpose anyway! Under the of "Vital Section, Schaeffer Laboratories," it said:
Mrs. Dukas:
Will you report at your to the above section. This is of importance. Please your son.
Sincerely,
Dr. M. Bart
Ed was cold with and with eagerness. The day he and his mother were in the City. Fire had it. A had over of it. But the great over the many of the Schaeffer Labs had firm. Quakes had not it down.
An took them below, to that steel- and lead- and concrete-shielded place which might have for a while a of the sun. They were to on something like couches. A voice—maybe Dr. Bart's—spoke to them from a swift-gathering dream: "Think about Jack Dukas. Your husband. Your father. Things he said. His manner of speech. His expressions, gestures, temperament, and dislikes, hobbies, jokes, skills. The people that he knew. Their and mannerisms. As many of them as possible will be and like this, too. Think of his memories told to you. Think of ... ... everything...."
For Eileen Dukas it must have been much the same as for her son. Pearly to Eddie's mind. Like a of news always in motion, his of his father to in a thousand ever-shifting his brain. He an to recall. It his until all away. Yet this he that the would go on and on.
The next thing he he was in a train, with his mother, all but exhausted, too, against him. Almost as an afterthought, their own minds and had been "recorded" there at the laboratory. They questions or about what had to them. It had been a dream. Let it be a dream.
