Part 35 (2/2)
All personal haste was now over. Hilton went up into what he still thought of as the ”control room,” even though he knew that there were no controls, nor even any instruments, anywhere aboard. He knew what he would find there. Fast as he had acted, Temple had not had as far to go and she had got there first.
He could not have said, for the life of him, how he actually felt about this direct defiance of his direct orders. He walked into the room, sat down beside her and took her hand.
”I told you to stay home, Temple,” he said.
”I know you did. But I'm not only the a.s.sistant head of your Psychology Department. I'm your wife, remember? 'Until death do us part.' And if there's any way in the universe I can manage it, death isn't going to part us--at least, this one isn't. If this is it, we'll go together.”
”I know, sweetheart.” He put his arm around her, held her close. ”As a psych I wouldn't give a whoop. You'd be expendable. But as my wife, especially now that you're pregnant, you aren't. You're a lot more important to the future of our race than I am.”
She stiffened in the circle of his arm. ”What's _that_ crack supposed to mean? Think I'd ever accept a synthetic zombie imitation of you for my husband and go on living with it just as though nothing had happened?”
Hilton started to say something, but Temple rushed heedlessly on: ”_Drat_ the race! No matter how many children we ever have you were first and you'll _stay_ first, and if you have to go I'll go, too, so there! Besides, you know darn well that they can't duplicate whatever it is that makes you Jarvis Hilton.”
”Now wait a minute, Tempy. The conversion ...”
”Yes, the conversion,” she interrupted, triumphantly. ”The thing I'm talking about is immaterial--untouchable--they didn't--couldn't--do any thing about it at all. Kedy, will you please tell this big goofus that even though you have got Jarvis Hilton's brain you aren't Jarvis Hilton and never can be?”
The atmosphere of the room vibrated in the frequencies of a deep ba.s.s laugh. ”You are trying to hold a completely untenable position, friend Hilton. Any attempt to convince a mind of real power that falsity is truth is illogical. My advice is for you to surrender.”
That word hit Temple hard. ”Not surrender, sweetheart. I'm not fighting you. I never will.” She seized both of his hands; tears welled into her glorious eyes. ”It's just that I simply couldn't _stand_ it to go on living without you!”
”I know, darling.” He got up and lifted her to her feet, so that she could come properly into his arms. They stood there, silent and motionless, for minutes.
Temple finally released herself and, after feeling for a handkerchief she did not have, wiped her eyes with a forefinger and then wiped the finger on her bare leg. She grinned and turned to the Omans. ”Prince, will you and Dark Lady please conjure us up a steak-and-mushrooms supper? They should be in the pantry ... since this _Sirius_ was designed for us.”
After supper the two sat companionably on a davenport. ”One thing about this business isn't quite clear,” Temple said. ”Why all this tearing rush? They haven't got the booster or anything like it, or they'd have used it. Surely it'll take them a long time to go from the mere a.n.a.lysis of the forces and fields we used clear through to the production and installation of enough weapons to stop this whole fleet?”
”It surely won't. They've had the absorption principle for ages.
Remember that first, ancient skeleton that drained all the power of our suits and boats in nothing flat? From there it isn't too big a jump. And as for producing stuff; uh-_uh_! If there's any limit to what they can do, I don't know what it is. If we don't slug 'em before they get it, it's curtains.”
”I see.... I'm afraid. We're almost there, darling.”
He glanced at the chronometer. ”About eleven minutes. And of course I don't need to ask you to stay out of the way.”
”Of course not. I won't interfere, no matter what happens. All I'm going to do is hold your hand and pull for you with all my might.”
”That'll help, believe me. I'm mighty glad you're along, sweetheart.
Even though both of us know you shouldn't be.”
The task force emerged. Each s.h.i.+p darted toward its pre-a.s.signed place in a mathematically exact envelope around the planet Strett.
Hilton sat on a davenport strained and still. His eyes were closed and every muscle tense. Left hand gripped the arm-rest so fiercely that fingertips were inches deep in the leather-covered padding.
The Stretts _knew_ that any such attack as this was futile. No movable structure or any combination of such structures could possibly wield enough power to break down screens powered by such engines as theirs.
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