Chapter 5

The thing Walt first noticed was the hugeness of space around his tiny, falling ship. Through the viewplate above him--he was supine--the vast, star-set blackness seemed infinite, seemed to suck his mind out of his body until it was connected only by a tenuous thread. He had seen space from the great wheel that was dwindling behind him; but never before had its immediacy been impressed on him with such force: here, it was an intimate wrapping, clutching at him from all sides.

He had pointed out as nearly as he could determine it from brief, telepathic contact (the aliens showed him how to center on her) Julia’s location on the planet. The aliens had promised to land him in an unpopulated area on the same part of the continent. The aliens’ thoughts did not come through the shielding around their space station; nor did the thoughts of his compartment-mates. For the first time in his life, he was terribly alone.

Earth grew in the viewplate; expanding majestically to obliterate the surrounding space, it grew shimmery along its almost regular circumference. The orbit of his saucer-shaped ship flattened into a great spiral. The ship twisted around the Earth from shadow to light and then into shadow again as if it were attached to the loose end of a piece of string being wound up by the slowly turning planet. Gravity pressed his body, crushed him; a sudden, sickening drop left him weightless.

The aliens maneuvered his ship carefully. Walt could not--as the aliens could--be immersed in a liquid tank to make possible instantaneous changes of direction. They let him down tenderly.

Hello, Julia thought brightly.

It was frightening. Here was a Lyrian whose mind had pierced even the wheel’s shielding! How could he hope to kill her?

He stared at the approaching planet, and his hands tightened beneath the pressing layers of the acceleration cocoon that enfolded him.

But I, he thought: I was able to contact her through the shielding, too. I was the only one who did; nobody else reported her. It’s all right: she’s no stronger than I am.

I know you’re there, she thought.

I’ll wait to answer, he thought; he tried to hold his mind shut.

You’re traveling very fast: Much too fast!

The ship lurched a bit, slowing down. Then--for several seconds--he was as much in Calvin’s mind as his own; their minds blended. The shielding did not stop that. Calvin was waiting at the foot of the ladder for him to return. Don’t wait, Walt thought; I’m--And as unexpectedly as it had commenced, the blending ceased; he was once again alone. Calvin! Calvin! he thought. No answer. Calvin’s abnormal, unpredictable mind remained inaccessible.

Hello, Julia said sweetly. The complacency she conveyed, the assurity of her thought, the self confidence, the self reliance--these things troubled him.

The ship touched ground, bounced once and was still. The switch above him flipped over with a nasty, metallic snicker. In a fever of haste, he ripped out of the cocoon. He had less than twenty seconds to get outside before the molecular reaction set in.

His feet pounded to the door; his hand found the lever; his body fell hard against the surface. The door popped open and he sprawled across the cool sand.

He was up and running.

At fifty yards he looked back panting. The ship began to glow a dull, unexciting dun color. A wave of heat pressed against his cheek. The ship folded upon itself and collapsed into a powder of dry, red rust.

The desert around him was endless; the chill of distance from which he was completely unprotected caught in his throat. He sat down and huddled up to protect himself from it. He trembled violently and whimpered for Forential. Cold sweat drenched his body...

He forced himself to stand; slowly the reaction passed. He opened his eyes. He took a deep, nervous breath and let it out.

And--

He wanted to fall to the ground and dig his fingers into it.

Good God! he thought. She’s trying to teleport me to her! She had caught him unaware, when the terror of the desert was still upon him. He could not marshal his thoughts to resist her.

He twisted frantically. Watch out! You’ll kill me!

The attempt ceased at once.

... oh? I thought ... Yes, I can see now that... The thought ended abruptly. There was an utter and terrifying silence from her direction.

His mind began to add up the overall situation with great speed. Hello. She did not answer. He licked his lips.

I wasn’t, he thought,... I wasn’t serious when I tried to teleport you a while ago. I was just playing a joke on you. I wasn’t trying to kill you.

She seemed to be thinking the statement over. If you had tried again, I would have let you. I didn’t realize it was you at first.

He cursed himself.

You were moving too fast a moment ago.

He was getting her position fixed. She lay west. He turned in that direction. She broke the contact.

Search planes of the Air Force began to drone over the area; searching for the saucer the radar had tracked to earth.

Walt walked for hours across the desert. His feet, unaccustomed to the tight fitting shoes, pained him. He grew weary. Occasionally, lights from the highway to his left winked by in the night. On he trudged. Sand crept into his shoes.

Dawn came. He looked toward the mountains, blue with distance. He would not be able to make them. Soon the sun would be overhead. The heat (it was already promised) would be intense. He would have to have water. I could change the sand to water--the air--the plants, he thought. (Forential could, he told himself.) I could: If I only knew more; if I only had practice. If I could only see just how water is put together. Forential should have explained things like that to us.

Hello, he thought to Julia.

He received no answer.

She’s suspicious, he thought. What did I do to make her suspicious? She wasn’t when I first contacted her. But there was something funny about her ... Maybe she knows I know she’s a traitor. Forential said lie to her.

Hello, he thought. I’m a Lyrian traitor, too.

Julia, he thought. Where are you?

Damn her: she isn’t going to answer.

He looked at the mountains. He was walking automatically now.

Forential has confidence in me, he thought. Or else he’d have given me more instructions. He knows I can get there. It’s up to me to do it, that’s all ... Well, I can’t make the mountains by walking...

He crossed to the highway; he dreaded his first contact with earthlings.

It was a broad, gleaming band of concrete, six lanes wide with foot high rails between lanes, broken, each mile, by changeover slots.

Early morning sun cut down from the east.

Cars came by like bullets. Whirrr, whish, and they were gone.

He waved at the ones going west, but they were past him almost before he saw them. The trucks on the inner lanes were ladened streaks; the car traffic on the middle one was varicolored blurs. A streamlined bus flashed silver and dwindled to a spot in the distance.