At first, the matches under his toe like the very devil. He had such pain. Then he about the matches under his toe nails. They started them under his fingers.
"Where did they go?" Cuso screamed. "How did they do it?"
Zen had long since trying to say that he didn't know. Instead of speaking, he his head. This was all he do. Cuso the shake as a to answer. He the in the face.
At the kick, the mind in. This was the Zen had—as if a third person had come in on a party line. After that, the pain from the did not so important. The from the matches under his to also.
Not that the with the mind the pain or it any less real. Fire was still fire and was still the same. But neither were very important.
Other were.
Zen to his attention on the other things. The room, the Cuso, the two Asians who were him while the third the matches under his nails, the Cal, the who was over-eager to his leader's orders, all these to and vague. These were real; there was no question about that. But his mind was another which these different. Time to its meaning.
He if he was fainting. Another question came across his thoughts, over like a ship moving across the wind. Was he dying?
There was no with the thought. If that was the way it was, then he was more than ready.
"You are not and you are not dying," the mind to him. "Come closer to me."
"How do I come closer to you?"
"Let go." The voice of the mind was like a from the other of infinity. "Let go and come to me."
Dimly, he how one let go. The answer came with the question. The meant what they said, the meaning was literal—let go.
As he performed the action that with the words, the big gallery, Cuso, the lieutenant, and the away and a part of a world that to have no existence. Even the pain vanished.
"Come to me," the mind whispered, again and again, a voice that him irresistibly.
Abruptly, he was in the gallery. He did not know how long he had been gone but he that some time must have passed, to allow them to set up a portable radio in the gallery. The set looked to be very powerful. A yellow-skinned was over the controls.
"In with Asian headquarters," Zen thought. He his was correct.
Off in the the the night shuddered. He the meaning of the sound. A ship was either landing or off, the latter. A long line of Asians was moving through the gallery.
At the of their Zen what had gone into the of that ship. The of the center here. He saw parts of the super go past on the of Asian soldiers, and he where this was going.
At this knowledge, came up in him. With West's super in their possession, no American was safe from Asian eyes, unless some way be to the employed.
Such might work for laboratories, but there was no way to movements and take-offs and landings. These would be as public as an advertisement.
His was wet. He not this until another of water him. An Asian over him, saw that his were open, and with satisfaction. They started again on his fingers.
The radio called to Cuso, him a message. Zen not the language but the Asian leader was and elated. He at the men to work faster.
"Not much time left. Big bomb coming."
"What bomb?" Zen thought. With the question came the answer. Warned by Cuso that their were known, the Asians had to their super bomb immediately. Turmoil came up Zen at this knowledge.
Real pain came from his as the operations again.
"Do you want to die?" the mind in his thoughts.
Although he couldn't it, the him. "You have all that is required. You have met the law. You may join me, if you wish."
"I—" Zen off his thinking. This was fantasy, the product of and dissolution. His own was him, he thought.
"This is not your imagination," the answer came. "This is what you call the mind."
"But—"
"How do you know? You don't. At this point, you have to accept me on faith." The into his mind into silence, then came again, than before. "Do you want to die? You have the right."
"No," Zen answered. He the again. "No. No!"
"The path you will be difficult."
"I don't how difficult it is. There's work to be done!" Again he the words.
"Very well. It is your choice. You may among the for as long as your may last." The voice in his mind into silence.
Kurt screaming. Pain through his again. As he came he that he was at the to stop.
He also that the Asian had stopped. There was a in the gallery. Filling the air, it to from the very of the itself.
The note of a violin!
High and sweet and compelling, the came from nowhere. Every in the solid to it up and to it. The of the air to in with it.
Simultaneously, about ten above the floor, the appeared again.
The lieutenant's at it. He after at point blank range. Red-hot from the of the big in a of death.
The at the lieutenant. The moved. "Keep shooting, old fellow," the to say.
The officer his gun. In a of fear, he it at the face.
The passed through the without it.
"You fool! That's a projection, not a person!" Cuso shouted. He the officer by the and him to the floor. "Who are you?" he of the face.
It at him.
Zen the to shout. He what was going to next.
"I said, Who are you?" Cuso again.
The crash of something in the his attention away. Twisting his around, he saw that one of the soldiers in the of this out to the plane waiting to it to Asia, had on the floor.
Under ordinary circumstances, Cuso would have had the man executed. But with that at him out of nothing, these were not ordinary.
Zen, what was going to happen, the pain of his and toes. He it over him in waves. This time he did not it: He let his close.
When he opened them, the was him. Every Asian in the big was asleep.
People were around him. The new people. In a glance, he every person he had met here, Nedra, and he did not see her at she was his hands. West was at him with an that was somehow grandfatherly. But of West's was perturbation.
Zen started to to his and they had not as yet the from his legs. As one did this, Nedra at him and to tell him that he was wounded. He said this did not matter. Faces were here that he did not recognize. This did not either.
"You did this?" he said to West.
"Yes. I designed and the equipment. Others were it in this instance." West had something else on his mind.
"Thanks," Zen said. "Why didn't you take me with you when you went—wherever it was you went?"
"We couldn't," West answered. "You haven't had the training."
"Why did you come back?"
"To you. Kurt—" West had something that he wanted to say.
"Nedra, will you stop with me? I'm all right."
"But your hands and feet."
"I don't them. I won't have them to at all unless action is taken. Don't you understand. Somewhere in Asia they're to a super bomb. Or maybe it's already on its way."
"I didn't know," the girl said. "The big one?"
"Yes."
A of pain her and she her head. "I always what it would be like to live on a flat. I wonder if we will be oysters, or eels. Or maybe crabs."
"What the are you talking about?" Zen demanded.
"After the bomb goes off," the girl said.
"What then?"
"The mind will have to start over again," she explained. Her manner that she was something that she understood. She to wonder why he did not it. "Maybe we will be turtles? That will be funny! A that can when it was a man! That's the way it will be. Except—"
"I know all about that."
"Except that the won't be able to do anything about its memories," the girl as if she had not him. "It will have and a but what it will need will be hands. It won't have them until it them itself. A with the memories that it was once a man, that if it had hands, it culture!" A appeared on her face. "I wonder how the mind will solve that problem." Again she to muse. "It would be to be crabs. Or would it?"
"Shut up!" Zen snarled. "We're not yet. Or crabs. And we're not on the flats."
"But we're on the of them," the girl insisted. "One more and we will go totter."
Zen to West. "What the has to Nedra?"
"Nothing," the man answered. "She has some of and it is to consciousness. Unfortunately, she has not yet had time to her in that direction."
"Maybe the wouldn't want to culture," the girl interrupted. "Maybe it wouldn't want to go that again. Perhaps it would decide to go into another channel, to into something totally different. In that case, it might not need hands."
Zen her. He to West. "A bomb will be going off," he said.
"That is what I've been trying to talk to you about," the man answered. "This is another why we came for you—so we talk to you about that bomb."
"To me?" Zen said startled.
"Yes, to you."
"Why?"
"Because you are a of and have in such matters. Also you are something that none of us are—a man."
"I—I don't you," Zen answered.
"I can you there. But once there, my knowledge fails. I, to my regret, know nothing of fighting." West spread his hands in a gesture.
"Get me where?" Zen asked.
"To Asia. To the where they are to that bomb," West explained. The of his voice said this was easy. The hard part came in what to do, and being able to do it, after they were there.
"To Asia?" Zen parroted the words. He had the that this whole was unreal, that the Asians on the floor, Cal by the wall, and the new people into the room, would all in of green smoke. "How in the will you us to Asia?"
"How did we out of this gallery?" West responded. "How did we vanish? How did the men in the reports you read into the that were about to crash? Who Colonel Grant's space satellite? Who it? Who provided the power to the motion? Who—"
"Did you know I about Grant?"
"It was that you must know."
"And you can me to Asia?"
"You and as many others as you choose to take with you!"
Walking over to the sleeping lieutenant, he up the man's rifle, then to the group.
"Who will go with me to Asia?" he asked.
The group as one man.
A in Kurt Zen's at the and he to it down. He how much this meant to them. They had been in the of peace, they were for the road to the future. Fighting meant on the path that to growth, it was the last thing they wanted to do. Yet do it they would, if it was necessary. In an they were for from the sleeping Asians, then they were trying to and tell him their names and say they would him at the same time.
One man well. "Red-Dog Jimmie Thurman," he said. Pride was in the man's voice.
Zen the man's arm. "Red-Dog Jimmie Thurman? But I know you."
"Maybe you do, suh." Thurman spoke with the soft of the old south.
"One of the new people appeared in your plane and saved your life!" Zen out.
"Yes, suh. That's right, suh."
"But you deserted!"
"Put it another way, suh, let's say I joined the right side."
"How did you this place?"
"I just and trying. Eventually we each other. The psychos to make me I was nuts. But I better. I what had happened. And I there had to be a for it. I until I that reason. The big part of the battle, where I had an over most else, was that I from that something was going on. Knowing this much, all I had to do was keep looking." The man's voice the explanation. His smiled. "At your service, suh."
"Do you know that going with me may death?"
"What's death, suh?" Red-Dog Jimmie Thurman grinned. "I died over the North Pole, suh."
"Spike Larson," another man said.
"You were in a sub," Zen challenged. A was up of him like nothing he had before. He was men to him.
"Yes," Larson answered. "And I will it a to you."
Like soldiers, they passed in him, the boy, the tall, lean, brown-skinned youths. Somehow he there ought to be another one. He looked around for him. Grant was talking to West.
Grant was the man had looked out of thin air in the middle of the room.
Seeing that Zen was at him, he left off his talk with the man and came over and saluted.
"How was it up in that satellite?" Zen asked.
"Lonely, as hell, colonel," Grant answered.
"Do you want to go with me to Asia?"
"There's no place on Earth I'd go. And, the way now I don't have much choice. If they that bomb into the air—" He left the unfinished.
Then Nedra was in of Zen. At the of her, it to him that the world still. He his head.
"Why?" she challenged.
"Because I love you," he answered.
"Then that is the why you should take me with you," she answered.
"I don't follow," he said.
"If you fail, there will be no tomorrow," she answered. To her, the had no answer. "Besides, I am a nurse," she continued. "If there are wounded, I can help with them."
"But—"
"The that you love me not enter into this situation. It is a thing apart. It is a very thing," she added hastily, the star light in her eyes. "And I wish we it to fruit the it used to be. But those days are gone. And I am going to Asia with you."
Watching, West smiled. Zen spread his hands in a of defeat. He to the man. "This sleep thing: I don't know how you do it and don't much care, but you have a portable of some that you used to put the out in the town."
"Yes," West agreed.
"I'd like to borrow the unit," Zen said.
"Gladly, colonel. I wish we had other weapons."
"We'll make do with what we have," Zen answered.
