Ring Around the Sun

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

GOING down in the elevator, Vickers thought furiously.

It would take Crawford half an hour or so to spread the word that he was unprotected, that he was fair game, that anyone could pot him like a sitting duck.

If it had only been himself, it would have been an easy matter, but there was Ann.

Ann, without a doubt, would become fair game, too, for now the die was cast, now the chips were down, and Crawford wasn't the kind of man who would play according to any rules now.

He had to reach Ann. Reach and tell her fast, keep her from asking questions and make her understand.

At the ground floor he stepped out with the other passengers. As he walked away he saw the operator leave the elevator open and dash for a phone booth.

Reporting me, he thought. There was an analyzer on the elevator and it made some sort of a signal that would go undetected to anyone but the operator. And there were other analyzers everywhere, Crawford had said, in railroad terminals and bus stations and eating places — anywhere that a man might go.

Once one of the analyzers spotted a mutant, the word would be called in somewhere — to an exterminator squad, perhaps — and they would hunt the mutant down. Maybe they spotted him with portable analyzers, or maybe there were other ways to spot him, and once they spotted him it would be all over.

All over because the mutant would not know, because he would have no warning of the death that tracked him. Given a moment's warning, given a moment to concentrate, and he could disappear, as the mutants had disappeared at will when Crawford's men had tried to track them down for interview and parley.

What was it Crawford had said? "You ring the bell and wait. You sit in a room and wait."

But now no one rang a doorbell.

They shot you down from ambush. They struck you in the dark. They knew who you were and they marked you for the death. And you had no chance because you had no warning.

That was the way Eb had died and all the others of them who had died, struck down without a chance because Crawford's men could not afford to give a moment's chance to one who was marked to die.

Except that always before, when Jay Vickers had been spotted, he'd been known as one of the few who were not to be molested — he and Ann and maybe one or two others.

But now it would be different. Now he was just another mutant, a hunted rat, just like all the others.

He reached the sidewalk outside the building and stood for a moment, looking up and down the street.

A cab, he thought, but there would be an analyzer in a cab. Although, as far as that was concerned, there would be analyzers everywhere. There must be one at Ann's apartment building, otherwise how could Crawford have known so quickly that he had arrived there?

There was no way in which he could duck the analyzers, no way to hide or prevent them from knowing where he might be going.

He stepped to the sidewalk's edge and hailed a cruising cab. The cab drew up and he stepped inside and gave the driver the address.

The man threw a startled backward look at him.

"Take it easy," said Vickers. "You won't be in any trouble as long as you don't try anything."

The driver did not answer.

Vickers sat hunched on the edge of the seat.

"It's all right, chum," the driver finally told him. "I won't try a thing."

"That's just fine," said Vickers. "Now let's go."

He watched the blocks slide by, keeping an eye on the driver, watching for any motions that might signal that a mutant was in the taxi. He saw none.

A thought struck him. What if they were waiting at Ann's apartment? What if they had gone there immediately and had found her there and were waiting for him now?

It was a risk, he decided, he'd have to take.

The cab stopped in front of the building. Vickers opened the door and leaped out. The driver gunned the car, not waiting for his fare.

Vickers ran toward the door, ignored the elevator, and went pounding up the stairs.

He reached Ann's door and seized the knob and turned it, but the smooth metal slid beneath his fingers. It was locked. He rang the bell and nothing happened. He rang it again and again. Then he backed to the opposite wall and hurled his body forward across the corridor, smashing at the door. He felt it give, slightly. He backed up again. The third try and the lock ripped open and sent him sprawling.

"Ann," he shouted, leaping up.

There was no answer.

He went running through the rooms and found no one there.

He stood for a moment, sweat breaking out on him.

Ann was gone! There was little time left to them and Ann was gone!

He plunged out the door and went tearing down the stairs.

When he reached the sidewalk, the cars were pulling up, three of them, one behind the other, and there were two more across the Street. Men were piling out of them, men who carried guns.

He tried to swing around to get back into the door again and as he swung he bumped into someone and he saw that it was Ann, arms filled with shopping bags and from one of the bags, he saw, protruded the leafy top of a bunch of celery.

"Jay," she said. "Jay, what's going on? Who are all these men?"

"Quick," he said, "get into my mind. Like you did the others. The way you know how people think."

"But…"

"Quick!"

He felt her come into his mind, groping for his thoughts, fastening onto them.

Something hit the stone wall of the building just above their heads and went tumbling skyward with a howl of tortured metal.

"Hang on," he said. "We're getting out of here."

He closed his eyes and willed himself into the other earth, with all the urgency and will he could muster. He felt the tremor of Ann's mind and then he slipped and fell. He hit his head on something hard and stars wheeled inside his skull and something tore at his hand and something else fell on top of him.

He heard the sound of wind blowing in the trees. He opened his eyes and there were no buildings.

He lay flat on his back, at the foot of a gray granite boulder. A bag of groceries, with the top of a bunch of celery sticking out of it, lay on his stomach.

She shook her head at him. "This is all so strange."

"Not strange," he said. "Just sudden. If we'd had the time I'd told you, but we didn't have the time."

"Jay, they were shooting at us!"

Vickers nodded grimly. "They're gents who play for keeps."

"But they're human beings, Jay. Just like us."

"Not like us," said Vickers. "Only human. That's the trouble with them. Being human in this day isn't quite enough."

He tossed two or three pieces of wood on the campfire. Then he turned to Ann. "Come on," he said. "Let's go."

"But, Jay, it's getting dark."

"I know. If there's anything on the island, we'll spot it by the lights. Just up on that hill. If we don't see anything, we'll come back. When morning comes we can look again."

"Jay," she said, "in lots of ways, it's just like a picnic."

"I'm no good at riddles. Tell me why it's like a picnic."

"Why, the fire and eating in the open and…"

"Forget it, lady," Vickers told her. "We're not on any picnic."

He moved ahead and she followed close behind him, threading their way between the thickets and the boulders. Night-hawks skimmed the air above them in graceful, insect-catching swoops. From somewhere far off came the wickering of a coon. A few lightning bugs flashed on and off, dancing in the bushes.

They climbed the hill, not very high, but fairly steep, and when they reached the top they saw the lights, far down toward the island's tip.

"There it is," said Vickers. "I figured they would have to be here."

"It's a long way off. Will we have to walk it?"

"Maybe not."

"But how…"

"And you a telepath," said Vickers. She shook her head.

"Go on and try," said Vickers. "Just want to talk to someone down there."

And he remembered Flanders, rocking on the porch and saying that distance should be no bar to telepathy, that a mile or light year should not make the slightest difference.

"You think I can?"

"I don't know," said Vickers. "You don't want to walk, do you?"

"Not that far."

They stood silently, looking toward the small area of light in the gathering darkness. He tried to pick out the different locations. There was where Rockefeller Center was located on the old Earth, and up there Central Park and down there, where the East River curved in, the old abandoned United Nations structure. But it was all grass and trees here, not steel and concrete.

"Jay!" Her whisper was tense with excitement.

"Yes, Ann."

"I think I have someone."

"Man or woman?"

"No, I think it's a robot. Yes, he says he's a robot. He says he'll send someone — no, not someone — something — for us."

"Ann…"

"He says for us to wait right here. They'll be right along."

"Ann, ask him if they can make movies."

"Movies?"

"Sure. Motion pictures. Films. Have they got cameras and stuff like that?"

"But what do you…"

"Just go ahead and ask him."

"But motion pictures?"

"I have an idea we can lick Crawford yet."

"Jay, you aren't going back!"

"Most certainly," said Vickers.

"Jay Vickers, I won't let you."

"You can't stop me," Vickers said. "Here, let's sit down and wait to be picked up."

They sat down, close together.

"I have a story," Vickers said. "It's about a boy. His name was Jay Vickers and he was very young…" He stopped abruptly.

"Go on," she said. "Go on with your story."

"Some other time. Later on I'll tell you."

"Why not now? I want to hear it now."

"Not when a moon is coming up," said Vickers. "That's no time for stories,"

First he tried hard to close his mind, to erect a barrier against her still-inexpert telepathic powers. Only then did he feel free to wonder: Can I tell her that we are closer than she thinks, that we came from the one life and will go back to the same body and that we cannot love one another?

She leaned against him and put her head against his shoulder and looked up at the sky.

"It's coming clearer," she said. "It's not so strange now. And it seemed right. Queer as it may be, it seems right. This other world and the things we have, those strange abilities and all and the strange remembering."

He put his arm around her and she turned her head and kissed him, a quick, impulsive kiss.

"We'll be happy," she said. "The two of us in this new world."

"We'll be happy," Vickers said.

And now, he knew, he could never tell her. She might know soon enough, but he could never be the one to tell her.