Why Do Birds

CHAPTER 41

The Cube railhead was served by more than two thousand feeder tracks that splayed out like the fingers of a gloved hand. The fingers were the red-and-white striped canopies, draggled and tattered now, that protected the passengers as they entered from the holding area.

Under each canopy, carriers moved gently into place from the underground marshaling yards. The carriers stopped and their lids came up. Smiling families climbed in and were photographed; the photographs were attached to the lids of the carriers. The lids closed, the anesthetic gas poured in, the carriers glided forward and took their places in the accelerating stream that rose, on piers as slender as harp strings, a mile into the steaming rain of a Shanghai summer.

Up there, each carrier in the train swooped down again to the top of the Cube, where it turned sidewise and entered one of the eight hundred and twenty-six spur lines that fed the working face. The carriers never slowed down until they were stopped by the cars in front of them. These collisions occurred in an eerie silence; there was not even a click when one carrier hit another.

When a tier was filled, hydraulic lifts raised the end of the track another foot and a half. Eight hundred and twenty-six carriers were sent up and moved into place at the far side of the Cube, one at the end of each file. Then the train roared up again.

It took twenty-two days to fill a tier. During that time, unless there was a breakdown, the carriers never stopped.

In the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Lee spotted his man in the middle of a chatting group of foreign diplomats and expatriates. He waited for his chance and then said, "Mr. Stone, my name is Patrick Lee, I'm the local representative of the German Airship Company."

"Is that right? You mean zeppelins? I thought they were out of business."

"Commercial flights were suspended several years ago, but the company still exists. In fact, the Bayern is here now, and Mr. Zwingli would be very pleased if you would take an hour's ride in her this afternoon."

"Hey, that would be great. Could a few of my friends come, too?"

Lee said, "I'm afraid not. The Bayern has been remodeled as the owner's private yacht, and although it's quite large, there really isn't much passenger room in it anymore. Anyhow, if you'd like to go, I have a limousine waiting."

"Okay, let me just call my people and tell them where I'm going."

"Very good, but may I ask you not to mention the aircraft on a public telephone? The Bayern has a secure line which you can use when we get there. Mr. Zwingli does not like to advertise his whereabouts; I'm sure you understand."

"Oh, okay. Who is this Zwingli, anyway? Is he Swiss?"

"No, he is German, although I believe the name is Swiss. It was Mr. Zwingli's company that began building airships again in nineteen ninety-nine." They were walking toward the door, where Chairman Zho was standing to say goodbye to the guests. "Will you forgive me for a moment?" said Lee. "I'll go ahead and make sure the limousine is waiting."

"Sure."

Lee left and hurried down to the main entrance. He was feeling successful but nervous; his instructions had been complicated, and he didn't understand the reasons for some of them.

At any rate, the limousine was where it was supposed to be, and he used its telephone to call the Bayern. "We are just about to leave," he said. "Here he comes now." He handed the phone back to the driver. Stone walked toward them down the steps, and Lee bowed him into the car.

Captain Van Loon and Violet Clitterhouse were standing beside the metal detector at the foot of the mooring tower, in the cool shadow of the airship. Clitterhouse was small and slender; Van Loon was six feet four and too broad for most doorways. He introduced himself and Clitterhouse, who said, "Will you put any metal objects you are carrying in a tray and then walk between the posts, please?"

Stone emptied his pockets into the tray she held out, then walked through. The detector chimed.

"What else is there?" Clitterhouse asked. "Oh, your ring."

"It never made the detector go off before."

"This one is very sensitive. We have to be specially careful. If you wouldn't mind-"

Stone pulled off the ring and walked through again. "That's very good," said Clitterhouse, and dropped the tray on the ground. "Oh, dear, how clumsy of me!"

Stone stooped to help her pick up keys and metal coins. " Hey, " he said.

"Yes, sir?"

"Where's my ring?"

Clitterhouse looked around. "Oh, dear, I am sorry. I'm afraid it may have fallen into the machinery. "

"What?" He looked at the opening where a cover plate had been removed in the base of the metal detector. He put his fingers in and brought them out empty. "Get somebody to take this thing apart," he said.

"I'm sorry, we can't order that," said Van Loon.

"Well, who can?"

"Mr. Zwingli only."

"And where is he?"

"He is in the airship waiting for you, Mr. Stone."

"Okay, let's go see Mr. Zwingli. Judas Priest."

Klaus Zwingli, a large bald old man, wearing a fine summerweight suit of brown linen today in honor of the occasion, was sitting at the shallow end of the pool with the tall canted windows behind him.

A portable bar was at his elbow; his phone lay on the chrome-and-Lucite cocktail table. The phone buzzed; he touched it and said, "Yes?"

''We are coming up now.''

"Good." He touched the phone again and waited. In a few minutes he heard the elevator door open. The visitor walked into the lounge, followed by Van Loon.

Zwingli stood and advanced cordially. "My dear Mr. Stone, how very nice to meet you! I am Klaus Zwingli, the owner of this airship."

They shook hands, but Stone did not smile. "Listen, they said my ring dropped into the machinery downstairs. I have to get that ring back. "

"Certainly, Mr. Stone." He addressed Van Loon. "The ring fell into the machinery? How could that happen?"

"The cover plate was off, Mr. Zwingli. Shall I ask someone at the airport to look into it?"

"Of course, of course, immediately! Well, then, rest assured, Mr. Stone, that you shall have your ring back as soon as we land again. Meanwhile, would you like to sit down and drink something, or would you rather look around the airship first?"

"If you don't mind, I'll go back down and wait until they find my ring."

"I'm afraid that would not be convenient. We have already taken off, and we are now, I should say-"he turned to look out the windows"-about five hundred feet up and rising."

Stone said, "Are you serious? I didn't feel anything. " He stepped over to the window wall and looked down. "Good gosh!'' he said.

"It is unexpected, isn't it? And now, Mr. Stone, you are in for it." He put an arm around the visitor's shoulders. "You must have the guided tour, whether you like it or not!"

"Oh. Okay. " Stone smiled. "Maybe I got a little carried away."

"It's perfectly understandable. Now here, as you see, is our swimming bath. It is empty now, but we shall fill it as soon as we are at cruising altitude. We keep this inflated plastic over it to reduce the humidity, which is not good for our health. The pool is twenty-four feet long, and at the far end it is fifteen feet deep. Do you swim, Mr. Stone?"

"No, I never learned."

"You should take it up while you are with us. Swimming is the best possible exercise; it uses every muscle in the body, and yet it is not strenuous unless you make it so."

Stone looked at him with a puzzled expression. "I haven't got time to learn to swim in the next hour."

"Mr. Stone," said Zwingli, "I must be honest with you. You are going to be our guest for more than an hour. It may be, I regret to say, a year or more. I realize that this comes as a shock, but I hope, that when you become accustomed to the idea-"

Stone's fists were clenched. "What are you talking about?"

"Sit down, please, Mr. Stone, and let me explain. Would you like a drink now?" He opened the bar, took out a bottle and glasses. "It's rye and ginger ale, isn't it?"

Stone sat down and looked at the glass as Zwingli poured. His expression was unreadable. Van Loon took the seat beside him.

Zwingli added ginger ale to the drink. Stone accepted it, then stood up suddenly and raised his arm to throw the glass at the window. Van Loon caught his wrist in time, but the drink slopped over both of them. Van Loon set the visitor down in his chair and held him there without apparent effort.

"Mr. Stone, please," said Zwingli. "Those windows are tempered glass and very expensive. You could not break one, I think, but you could make an ugly mark on it."

Stone said nothing. Zwingli continued, "Are you familiar with the idea of parole, Mr. Stone?"

A pause. "Like prisoners in the war."

"Exactly so. I ask you to give me your parole, Mr. Stone, that you will not try to damage the airship or anyone in it while I am giving you the explanation to which you are entitled."

After a moment Stone said, "Okay. " He gave Van Loon a measured look as the captain released him.

Zwingli took a linen napkin out of the bar and handed it to Stone; he gave another to Van Loon. He took Stone's glass and filled it again while he talked.

"Now, Mr. Stone, you must realize-- Is that enough ginger ale? I myself will have one a little weaker. And you, Van Loon?"

"Just ginger ale, please, Mr. Zwingli, while I am on duty. "

"Very good. I was saying, Mr. Stone, you must realize that some people think it is a bad idea for everyone to go into the Cube. I am a member of a little informal organization, we call it the Club of Munich. That is a sort of joke; it really has no name, but some very large interests are concerned in it. Well, it is our view, the view of the Club of Munich, that if no more than a billion people are left behind, that is not enough to keep our industries going." He raised a hand. "I understand, that if the aliens come and the Earth is destroyed, that will not matter. But what if it doesn't happen?"

Stone said nothing.

"Are you perfectly sure that is going to happen, Mr. Stone?"

"No. I never said I was sure." Stone looked at him with respect and curiosity in his eyes. "So you're the one,'' he said.

"No, I am not 'the one.' Do you mean the Master Mind? I'm flattered, but actually I am rather a minor player. " Zwingli picked up the cigar box from the table and offered it. "Do you smoke these? No?" He took a cigar and held it under his nose a moment, then cut off the tip with a titanium clipper.

"You see,'' he said, "we are not hard-hearted people. When you decided not to stay and defend the lawsuit, it was our opinion that it would be better if you didn't appear in public anymore for a while, that's all. We could much more easily have murdered you, Mr. Stone, and dropped your body where it would never be found, but instead we have made room for you on this rather comfortable airship, and we will do our poor best to entertain you during your visit."

Stone looked at his glass and put it down. He said, "Where do I sleep?"

"Would you like to see your room? Come." All three of them got up, and Zwingli led the way across the poolside area to the red door with its little aluminum knocker. Stone stepped in and looked around.

"I hope you will find everything you need," said Zwingli. "If not, please use the console phone."

"Thanks." Stone turned and shut the door; they heard the lock click.

Zwingli shrugged. "Well, I think the worst is over, " he remarked in German as the two men walked back to the pool. "You had better go and relieve Clitterhouse at the observation post. I don't think he will stay in there very long, and I want her to be sitting here when he comes out. Is there anything else?"

"Do you want to see the ring?"

"Oh, yes, please."

"I'll ask Farber to bring it to you, then."

"Yes, do. I'm going to my office."

Violet Clitterhouse was just sitting down beside the pool when Stone emerged from his room, looking angry. "Where's Zwingli?" he demanded.

She put her hand on the poolside console to tum down the music. "I think he's gone to his office. Can I do anything?"

"The phone in there doesn't work. "

"I'll get someone to look at it. Were you trying to call Mr. Zwingli?"

"No, New York."

"I see. Did you just want to leave a message, or did you want to actually talk to someone?"

"I want to talk to somebody. Judas Priest."

"Well, you can't talk to anybody outside, you know. But you could give me the number and the message, and I'll see what I can do."

"You will, huh? I suppose you'll censor it first?"

"Of course I will."

He came around the end of the pool and sat down. "You're the stewardess, right? What's your name again?"

"Clitterhouse. I'm not really a stewardess; the Bayern doesn't have one. That was the purser's jacket I was wearing. I'm what you call a registered nurse."

"You are?"

"Yes, because your health is very important, and of course Mr. Zwingli's too."

"Why were you pretending to be a stewardess?"

"We thought you might be calmer if you saw a woman."

"You did, huh?" Stone rubbed his right ring finger absently, then glanced down when he saw what he was doing. "I feel naked without it," he said apologetically.

"Your ring? I'm sorry about that, but of course Mr. Zwingli couldn't take any chances."

"No, I guess he couldn't. Where is the ring now?"

"It's in a safe place in Beijing. You'll get it back when we land there again, don't worry."

"Unless I'm not good, and then I won't get it back at all, right?"

She lowered her head and looked up at him aslant. "I wouldn't put it that way."

"No, huh? You're English, aren't you?"

"Yes, in fact."

"How'd you ever get hooked up with this gang?"

"Oh, it's a long story. I was in Hamburg, you know, rather at loose ends, and this German couple said what about tutoring their children. Well, they were nice kids, and we got on, but that only lasted three years, because the older kid went to boarding school and the younger one was killed in a bike accident. And then, you know, they offered me other jobs, which was extraordinarily decent of them in the circumstances."

She looked at Stone tolerantly. "If by 'gang' you mean a gang of criminals, I don't think that's quite fair. Herr Zwingli is a perfectly respectable industrialist, pillar of the church and so on. He's the grandfather of the kids I was tutoring, by the way."

"You think it was okay for him to kidnap me?"

"Well, I see your point, but do you think it was okay for you to entice most of the human race into this Cube of yours?"

"You don't take much off of anybody, do you?"

"No, not much." She stood up. "Would you like to see over the ship now?"

"Okay."

"All right, follow me, please. Right here opposite the deep end of the pool is the gymnasium, and the showers and dressing rooms and so on." She opened the door to let him glimpse the polished floor, the exercise machines, Indian clubs and weights.

"And here on the other side are the bar and dining room. The lounge is down the other way, past your stateroom; we can look in there later. " The rooms were empty, shining with chrome and silver leather.

"What's with these funny colors?" Stone asked.

"The Bayern is decorated as much as possible like the original Graf Zeppelin, although it's a great deal bigger, and the design is really more like the Hindenburg. Herr Zwingli feels a nostalgia for the old days of rigid flight."

"He does, huh?"

"Yes. Now this brings us to the starboard side of the airship. This passage goes all the way round on four sides, so that if you like running, or jogging, you can do it here till you drop. Let's go back this way."

Stone looked out the windows as they walked. "It's all clouds down there now," he said. "How high are we?"

"I should guess we're at cruising altitude now-two thousand feet. "

"It doesn't feel like we're moving at all."

"No, that's the great thing about airships; and they're very quiet."

"I can hear the engines, but just barely."

"Yes. Now here's another stateroom, and then round the comer we have the stair and the elevator. One more tum and we'd be back at the pool."

"It isn't really all that big, is it?"

"There's another deck below, which we'll see in a moment, and the control gondola forward, and some other things, but of course the passenger space really isn't enormous, compared to an airliner. It's the gas bag that makes us look so huge. Let's go downstairs now, if you're still game."

"Sure."

H. G. Van Loon, the captain of the Bayern, sat in the little comm room forward in B Deck, watching the spy screens. It was boring work for a man like him, but what the devil, there was no help for it; it would have been unfair to ask the three pilots, who stood regular watches in the control gondola, to do this additional duty as well.

Here she came down the stairs with Stone, and he heard her voice:

"This is Mr. Zwingli's office, we won't disturb him just now. Here on the other side is the infirmary; it's quite modem. We could do surgery here if we liked."

The next camera picked them up at the dogleg. "What's this?" Stone asked, rapping the wall on his left.

"That's the pool; the deep end is here. It goes all the way down through B Deck to the hull, another three feet or so. There's a camera inside--sometimes we put fish in, and then it's like an aquarium.

"And on the other side we have the crew loo and showers. Now along here on the right is the crew mess, and this little corridor leads to two more staterooms. And here's the galley. Hullo, Antoine, Juan. This is Mr. Brown, who is traveling with us. Antoine LaMotte, Juan Estero."

In the galley pickup, the cook nodded and smiled. "Very glad to meet you, Mr. Brown." The potboy, shy as usual, said nothing.

"My name isn't Brown, it's Stone--Ed Stone." He offered his hand.

LaMotte looked puzzled, but wiped his palm on his apron and shook hands. "Mr. Stone, then, you like better?" He glanced at Clitterhouse, who shrugged.

"I'm the guy who was kidnapped by aliens. So now I've been kidnapped twice."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Stone. Sorry I don't recognize you. You are looking different now."

"I've had a hard life," said Stone. He sniffed. "Something smells good."

"That is the onion soup. Now we are peeling shallots for the chicken. Do you like shallots, Mr. Stone?"

"I don't know what they are."

LaMotte picked up a little brown bulb from the counter and exhibited it with a flourish. "They are in the middle between a garlic and an onion. There will be garlic also in this dish. Without garlic, without shallots, without onions, how can one cook?"

"Sounds like you enjoy your work. "

"Oh, yes. I like very much to be chef on an airship. Only the best ingredients, you understand, best of everything. I cook for all here, the crew and staff are nine, then Mr. Zwingli and Ms. Clitterhouse and now you. For a dinner party, it might be eight or ten upstairs, usually not more. But if it is more, we can use the lounge instead of the dining room, and once we used both the dining room and the lounge. That was in Istanbul two years ago. There were twenty at table."

"We'll leave you to it then, Antoine," said Clitterhouse. "Dinner at the usual hour?"

"Oh, yes, certainly, the usual hour."

Another pickup. "Please don't be difficult about the name," Clitterhouse was saying. "We like to keep on the good side of Antoine, because when he sulks his cooking is awful. Now this is the pantry, and down here is the communications room." That was Van Loon's cue. He flipped off all the screens, got up and opened the door. "Oh, Miss Clitterhouse," he said, "I was just going to look for you. Can you relieve me here while I have a wash?"

"Certainly, Hendrik." She said to Stone, "Captain Van Loon will show you back to A Deck, if you've seen all you want here."

"I can get back by myself, " said Stone. Van Loon bowed slightly and watched him walk away. Clitterhouse went into the comm room and switched on the screens. "It's all right," she said after a moment; "he's going up the stairs."

"He doesn't like me," said Van Loon mournfully.

"Well, can you blame him?"

Zwingli came upstairs, after a pleasant and productive afternoon, half an hour before dinnertime. He found Stone reading a magazine in the lounge, with a drink in his hand.

"Well, Mr. Stone," he said, "you have not been too bored, I hope?"

The bartender walked in with a highball on a tray; he put it in front of Stone and picked up the old glass. "Something for you, Mr. Zwingli?"

"I can get it myself, Oskar. You should be laying the table, I think."

"Yes, Mr. Zwingli, but Mr. Stone-"

"I understand. Go on, Oskar, we won't need you now."

Oskar bowed and went away. "Please excuse me," said Zwingli. He crossed to the bar, got a glass and a bottle of Pernod, and came back. He filled the glass and raised it. "To your health, Mr. Stone."

Stone raised his glass. "Where are we headed?" he asked.

"We are going to cruise on the Continent for a while; I like to stay out of Asia as much as I can. By tomorrow morning we shall be passing Chungking, and the day after we shall be crossing the Aral Sea. I have to do some business in Munich at the beginning of November, and at some point we must make a refueling stop, but otherwise we can go where we like. Is there anything you would particularly like to see?"

"No." After a moment Stone said, "I should of known something was fishy when that guy told me you didn't want to advertise where you were. How the hell could you hide something this big?"

Zwingli smiled. "We could build a hangar at every port of call, but that would be very expensive."

"Yeah. But you don't need hangars?"

"No, only the mooring towers. In fact, an airship can land without a tower, if the weather is calm. The Graf Zeppelin once landed on the polar ice, to exchange stamped letters with a Russian icebreaker. "

"Is that right? When was that?"

"In nineteen thirty-one."

"Yeah? Funny, I never heard of it. I heard about the accident, though, after I came back. Is that why they stopped making zeppelins?"

"Yes, but there have been no accidents to my company's airships. You probably know that the old zeppelins were inflated with hydrogen because helium could not be imported from the United States. And, of course, many of the flights were made in wartime. So most of the zeppelins went down in flames, or broke up in unusual winds. But we know better how to design them now. They are very safe, safer than airplanes."

"Okay, so why did you stop?"

"It was decided to put an end to commercial flights as a matter of policy. They would have been available for flights to Shanghai, which we did not want to encourage. We also arranged for some breakdowns in rail service, and that was of some help, but not enough."

"Oh, I get it."

"The other airships, the larger ones, were all broken up for scrap. The company allowed me to keep this little one for my own use, and I must say I like it very much. I can carry on my business affairs as well here as in any skyscraper. If I want to see people in person, no problem. Either they come to me here, or I go to them. The airship travels slowly enough that I never have jet lag, and at my age that is a serious consideration. I have lived aboard most of the time now for more than three years."

The first stars were coming out. On the horizon were mountains like clouds, or clouds like mountains.

"Funny that I always wanted to do this," Stone said. "It's almost like, you get whatever you want bad enough, but you don't always appreciate it when you get it."

"That's very true, Mr. Stone. I myself try to appreciate whatever I get."

Dinner was onion soup with a Chablis, then chicken with shallots and sour cream with a white Zinfandel, followed by a lemon souffle light as air with a St. Emillon, and cheese and melon after, with port or brandy to follow. Stone did not eat much; he had had several highballs before dinner and was a little red-eyed, although he was alert and his speech was distinct. Zwingli thought he was taking it as well as could be expected, and he himself did not mind carrying the burden of the conversation.

LaMotte appeared as Oskar was taking the dessert plates away. "Was everything satisfactory?" he asked, bowing and clasping his hands.

"Excellent, Antoine," said Zwingli.

"Extremely good." -Clitterhouse.

"I thought the soup was burned," Stone said.

"Burnt? The soup was burnt?" LaMotte's lip trembled. "I have never heard- The soup? Burnt?" He turned abruptly and walked out.

"That was not very nice, Mr. Stone," said Clitterhouse after a moment.

Zwingli said, "Now he will be making horrible messes for the next three days. We can always eat cheese and crackers."

After Zwingli and Clitterhouse had excused themselves, Captain Van Loon followed Stone into the bar. Stone, sitting at a table, had just made himself a highball.

"Look here," said Van Loon, "we have to be on this airship together for a long time. Will you drink with me like a man?"

Stone looked at him curiously. "Sure."

"Good." Van Loon went behind the bar and poured himself a Long John and soda. He sat down and raised the glass. "Prosit."

"Whatever," Stone said. "You're going to tell me you were just following orders when you laid your hands on me, right?"

"Yes, that's right. Do you want to fight me?"

"Okay. Put the ship down and we'll go outside."

"No, because I can't do that, and besides, I don't want to fight you."

"Then we'd better be friends, huh?"

"That is right!" Van Loon put out his hand and Stone shook it. "Good!" said Van Loon, and swallowed half his drink. "You are a fine fellow. I will call you Ed, and you must call me Hendrik."

"Okay, Hendrik. Listen, how come you're around all the time? When do you work, anyway?"

"I am the captain of this ship. The captain does not really have much to do. He does not stand watches, and even if he did, the ship steers herself. But after all, someone must keep order, and besides, it's a very fine thing to be the captain of an airship."

"It is, huh?"

"Yes, and this is the last airship, and so I am the last captain." A little depressed, Van Loon went behind the bar to refill his glass. "What are you drinking, Ed, this Carstairs?"

"Right."

"We have a lot of it. We have twenty cases of it." Van Loon brought the two bottles of spirits in one hand and the ginger ale and soda in the other, and set them down on the table. "Ed, may I ask you, are you married?"

"No."

"I am not either. It is hard for me to find a woman who doesn't think I am too big. They are afraid I will crash them."

Stone rubbed his nose thoughtfully. "You ought to have your own gas bag, so you wouldn't weigh anything."

"Ha, ha!" said Van Loon after a moment, seeing that it was a joke. "We'll drink to that!"

They drank. "Listen," Stone said, "when you go to the bathroom here, where does it go?"

"Where does the bathroom go?"

"No, hell, you know what I mean, where does the stuff go?"

"The stuff goes into a ballast tank."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"Ed, I will tell you. Do you know what ballast is?"

"No."

"Ed, you are my good friend. I am going to tell you what ballast is. That is weight that the airship carries to make it heavy. Do you understand? The gas makes the airship light, and the ballast makes it heavy. So if we want to make the airship heavier, we vent gas." He belched. "Excuse me. And if we want to make it lighter, we drop ballast."

"Including the stuff from the toilets?"

"Of course. Of course, why not?"

"But doesn't it fall on people's houses?"

Van Loon laughed immoderately. "Sometimes it does. Then they are surprised!"

"I need to drop some ballast," Stone said. He got up and left the table. Van Loon, who prided himself on his capacity, stayed where he was and had another drink. When Stone came back and sat down, Van Loon had just finished lighting a cigarette.

"This is something you couldn't do on the old zeppelins," he said, waving the match. "Theywere hydrogen, you know. Well, there was a special smoking room on the Graf Zeppelin, but do you know what they did? They had it under lower pressure, with an airlock to get in, so if there was a spark inside, it could not escape. And there was one cigarette lighter, attached by a chain to the table. And if you wanted a cigar lighted, a steward would light it for you with a match, but you could not have matches. And even so, those old zeppelins often went down in flames." Van Loon sniveled, then began to weep openly. "All those brave men burned up," he wailed.

Zwingli arose at six-thirty local time, as was his custom, drank some coffee, put on his bathing trunks and swam seven laps in the pool. He then changed into running shorts and shoes, and trotted ponderously seven times around the passage, timing himself with a special watch. The results were satisfactory. He entered the gymnasium, lifted weights for seven minutes, and had a hot shower, after which he lay on the table and was massaged by Nurse Clitterhouse. Then he dressed in his usual sports blouse and slacks, and went into the dining room in a good humor.

Captain Van Loon was at the buffet, helping himself to kippers and scrambled eggs. Zwingli greeted him and followed suit. They sat down at a table together, and Van Loon began to eat at once. Besides the kippers and eggs, he had a large fruit cup, a slice of melon, and several soft rolls.

"How are the eggs, Van Loon?" Zwingli inquired.

"The eggs are pretty poor, but the kippers are all right. After all, what can you do to kippers? The rolls, however, were not baked long enough." Van Loon ate his roll, nevertheless.

Zwingli tried the eggs; they were, indeed, poor. He thought they had probably been cooked in spoiled butter. "Well, we must make the best of it," he said. He concentrated on the kippers and drank coffee, which was excellent. Clitterhouse came in, having had her own shower, and brought a cheese blintz and a dish of cottage cheese to the table; but she gave up the blintz after one bite.

When they were almost finished, Stone came in looking sleepy. "Ah, Mr. Stone," said Zwingli. "Please help yourself andjoin us. The eggs are not reliable this morning, but the kippers are very good."

"Don't even think about the blintzes," said Clitterhouse. "I'm leaving." Van Loon, who had polished his plate with a roll, got up too, and they went out close in conversation.

Stone came to the table with two pieces of toast and a pot of marmalade. "Have you found everything you need in your stateroom, Mr. Stone?" Zwingli asked.

"Yeah. There's even a closet full of clothes."

"And do the clothes fit?"

"Yeah. You must of been planning this for quite a while."

"Well, we want you to be comfortable. Is there anything else we can get for you?"

"I wish I had my suitcase. There was a magazine in it that I like to keep around."

"Yes? What magazine is that?"

"Astounding Stories, May nineteen thirty-one."

"That must be a valuable magazine. Let me make a note." Zwingli took a memopad out of his pocket and wrote on it with a gold scriber. "It is an American magazine, I take it? Perhaps we can find you a copy."

"Okay. Well, how's business?"

"Business is quite good, Mr. Stone. Assets are still being traded very vigorously the whole world over. "

"Is that right?"

"Oh, yes. The value of everything has fallen to a fraction of what it was before, naturally, but there are still trillions of dollars involved. Everyone is trying to maximize his position, to have the best possible outcome. It is a big poker game, Mr. Stone, the biggest. The odds are constantly shifting, and that makes some people change their minds. And there are some who always intended to go into the Cube, but they want to make as much money as possible first."

"Are you one of them, Mr. Zwingli?"

"No, I am not going into the Cube. Shall I tell you why? I reason as follows: either the aliens exist or they do not. If they exist, either they have told the exact truth through you, Mr. Stone, or they have not. Already we have a twenty-five percent chance of a favorable outcome. If they have told the exact truth, then I will be revived on another planet; either I will like living there or I will not. Now we are down to a twelve and a half percent chance. Not good enough.

"Now if I remain, the chance of a favorable outcome is twenty-five percent, twice as much, because I already know that I like living here on this planet. If the aliens exist, and if they have told the exact truth, I lose. But if they do not exist, or if they have not told the truth about the Earth being destroyed, I win. So I am staying. And besides," he said, blowing a plume of smoke, "what is happening here is very interesting. I could not bear not to know what happens next."

"I feel the same way."

"Well, Mr. Stone, I must go to my office now. May I assume that your parole is still in force until you tell me it is ended?"

Stone looked at him steadily. "Not to damage the airship or anyone in it? Yeah, okay."

"Good. In that case, please feel free to go anywhere you like in the airship, except of course the control chamber and the scaffolding in the gas bag, which are too dangerous. If there is anything you need, use any console. Someone will always be on duty to answer your questions." He rose. "And I would be happy if you would join me for a cocktail before dinner."

It was early afternoon. At the writing table in the lounge, Stone was writing something on the margin of a newspaper. By using the zoom lens, Van Loon could read it quite easily: ED STONE ILLEGALLY HELD PRISONER ON AIRSHIP BAYERN . NOTIFY MRS. FLORENCE ROONEY, PARK AVENUE HOTEL NEW YORK. $100,000 REWARD .

Van Loon thumbed the intercom.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Zwingli, Mr. Stone has written a message on a newspaper."

"And?"

"Now he is tearing a piece of the newspaper. Now he puts a hundred-dollar bill in it. He is making a paper airplane. Do you want me to stop him? If so, I have to hurry."

"No, leave him alone. "

"He will fly the paper airplane out one of the windows."

"I know. Let him fly all the airplanes he wants, Van Loon. You did right to tell me, however. Well done!" The connection clicked off.

Van Loon sighed and continued to watch. As he had predicted, Stone finished his airplane, cleverly crimping the hundred-dollar bill into its nose so that it would not fall out, and took it to the nearest window, which he opened. When he released the airplane, it dived out of sight immediately. Stone leaned over to watch it, then pulled his head back in and closed the window.

"Why make an airplane?" Van Loon muttered. "Why not just drop the paper out the window? But then the engines might get it. So he is not so foolish after all."

Now he saw that Stone was folding another hundred dollar bill into an airplane, leaving out the newspaper altogether. He tossed it experimentally, but it nosedived a few feet away. "That's an old bill, of course you can't make a proper airplane from it," Van Loon muttered.

Stone smoothed out the bill and put it away. Now he had got out a fifty-pound note, which had better proportions, and he was trying again. The pound was a little more airworthy than the dollar, but not much. Stone put it away and sat motionless a few moments. Van Loon watched in keen anticipation.

Presently Stone got up and began opening the drawers in the end tables one by one, pawing through their contents. He found some playing cards, a box of tissues, paper clips, rubber bands, a roll of cellotape, a scratchpad, and several pencils. He spread out a sheet of tissue on the table, tore off four long strips of tape and attached them to the comers of the tissue. When he began attaching the other ends of the strips to a rolled-up bill, Van Loon thumbed the intercom again.

"Yes, Van Loon, what is it now?"

"Mr. Zwingli, now he is making a parachute!"

"A parachute?"

"Yes, I'm sure of it."

''All right, he can make parachutes, too. Thank you for your alertness, Van Loon. Tell me at once if he does anything to endanger the ship.''

"Certainly, Mr. Zwingli." But the connection had already been broken.

Stone pressed each strip of tape together and rolled it into a sort of cable. He bounced the finished object in his hand, then tossed it up, but evidently he was not satisfied with the way if fell. And no wonder, Van Loon thought; he himself had made such parachutes when he was a child, and had weighted them with pebbles or bolts, but a rolled-up dollar bill was not heavy enough, as any fool would know.

Ah! Now Stone had seen the problem correctly. He was rolling the bill around one of the pencils, attaching it again to a piece of tissue. This time when he tossed it, the parachute opened quite satisfactorily. "Hurrah!" said Van Loon before he could stop himself.

Now Stone was taking the whole thing apart, peeling off all the tape and throwing it in the wastebasket, unrolling the bill and spreading it out on the table. Now he was writing a message on the hundred-dollar bill. He could have saved himself some time if he had done that in the beginning, Van Loon thought. Now he rolled the bill up again, taped it around the pencil, attached it to the comers of a square of tissue. He swept all his failures into the wastebasket, took the redesigned parachute to the window and threw it out. Judging by his expression, the parachute was a success. He went back to the table and started another.

"This is Gregory Montaine in Shanghai, and I'm talking to Shu Gao-Den, the superintendent of the Cube Project. Mr. Shu, it must have taken a tremendous amount of organization just to get these people here, lined up and ready to go. How many are you loading every day?"

"About eight hundred thousand. It was twice that when we were running at full capacity. We hope to get it up to at least a million again."

"A million! How many is that in an hour?"

"Over forty-one thousand. It is eleven and a half every second.''

"Now, how is that possible? Or, let me ask, how long does it take to get each capsule up to its place on the Cube?"

"At this stage, it takes approximately two minutes to reach the far side of the working surface."

"And how fast are the capsules traveling when they get there?"

"They are traveling approximately one hundred miles an hour. "

"Amazing! But don't you have to slow them down?"

"No, because one capsule at the end of each file is set in place first and stabilized. Then the rest of the file is accelerated until each capsule is arrested by the one in front of it. Each capsule is stabilized in tum. Technically, each capsule except the first one in a file is moving at a high rate of speed, but they can't actually move because the first one is not moving."

"I'm not sure I understand that," said the reporter, grinning and scratching his head.

"Well, it's very simple, although it seems contrary to experience. In the stabilization field, every object retains its intrinsic relative motion, but each one is being rotated through multidimensional space at millions of times a second, and therefore if a capsule is set against a stabilized object, it can't move at all, and it can't even impart any of its momentum to the stabilized object, because that object is unable to move."

"So the capsules are technically moving at a hundred miles an hour, but they really don't move at all?"

"You could put it that way."

"Well, thank you, I guess, Mr. Shu."

On Sunday morning, after his devotions, Zwingli was sitting under the windows at the end of the pool, his favorite place to listen to music. Just now the music was Gliere's Ilya Mourametz. The dark sonorities seemed to tremble in his body, and in the structure of the airship around him; he could imagine that the Bayern was one vast diaphragm, that while the music played the ship was all music.

Miss Clitterhouse walked in and signaled to him. Zwingli turned the music down. "Yes?"

"There's something about Ed Stone on the news. I'll put it on the console here if you want it."

"All right, thank you." Zwingli turned the music up again and listened to it happily until it was over; then he keyed in the news playback.

"There are persistent rumors that Ed Stone, the missing messianic figure, is in hiding in the Vatican. Other stories are circulating that he has been seen in Moscow, in Bali, and that he is being held prisoner on a private zeppelin. In other news-"

Zwingli smiled and lit a cigar.

Through agents in Europe and America, Zwingli found a copy of Stone's old magazine and had it shipped. The price was quite high, even in dollars. Before he turned it over to Stone, he looked through it curiously. He noticed that several of the black-and-white illustrations featured insectile monsters with six legs. Was it from this magazine that the young man had formed his bizarre fantasies?

He read a few pages of the first story, "Dark Moon."

Above them and thirty feet away on a rocky ledge was a thing of horror. Basilisk eyes in a hairy head; gray, stringy hairs; and the fearful head ended in narrow, outthrust jaws, where more of the gray hairs hung like moss from lips that writhed and curled and sucked at the air with a whistling shrillness. Those jaws could crush a man to a pulp. And the head seemed huge until the body behind it came into view.

Zwingli shook his head. A few pages further on, he found:

In a dark-panelled room Herr Schwartzmann was waiting. (Ah, here was the villain: a German, naturally.) His gasp of amazement reflected the utter astonishment written upon his face, until that look gave place to one of satisfaction.

"Mademoiselle," he exclaimed, "-my dear Mademoiselle Diane! We had given you up for lost. I thought-I thought-"

"Yes," said Diane quietly, "I believe that I can well imagine what you thought."

"Ah!" said Herr Schwartzmann, and the look of satisfaction deepened. "I see that you understand now; you will be with us in this matter. We have plans for this young man's disposal."

Zwingli snorted and looked in the back of the magazine, where he found cheap advertisements for "Love Drops" and "Instant Relief from Burning Feet." That was rather sad.

On a morning in early November, Van Loon locked the comm room door, pocketed the card, then went down the corridor to the ladder beyond the stairs. He climbed the ladder, unlocked the hatch, pulled himself up onto the catwalk. He was whistling.

He locked the hatch again and stood up on the catwalk, listening to the familiar creak and rustle overhead, sniffing the faint aroma of diesel oil.

Now he went forward along the catwalk, past the closed doors of crew staterooms, farther along where the catwalk ran through emptiness, past the vent tube, seventy paces more ringing metallic on the catwalk to the control room. He put his card in, opened the door.

Peters was in the pilot's chair watching the dials. Ahead through the windscreen the towers of Munich were visible. Van Loon sat down in the copilot's chair and they watched in silence until the airport and the mooring tower came into view. "Ready?" Peters asked.

"Yes, go ahead."

Peters touched five keys on the console; one by one, the ceiling, walls and floor of the control room vanished, replaced by images from holocameras on the hull. Except for the control chairs and console, and the docking cone at the nose, the ship was transparent. Van Loon seemed to be floating in air, an illusion so strong that, as always, he had the crazy impulse to lean forward and spread his arms like the wings of a glider. It would not do to tell anyone about that; even Peters might not understand.

The mooring tower was coming up, ahead and a little to starboard. Computer-generated rings began to appear around the nose, and in the repeater on the console. The two men sat side by side with their hands on the armrests, with nothing to do. They were locked onto the tip of the tower; the autopilot corrected for every minute deviation as they slowly approached. The rings grew closer together, and a beeping tone climbed in pitch. The engines stopped; the tower drifted nearer, touched and clung. The docking was over. Van Loon sighed.

Zwingli took care of his business in Munich, spent a few hours with friends, and returned to the airship in time for dinner. He had cocktails with Stone in the lounge as usual.

"Mr. Stone," he said, "do you think it is curious that if your aliens exist, they have not come to rescue you?"

"Yeah, I wondered about that. They could do it. They got me out of a hospital once. They used to come through the walls and recharge my ring while I was asleep, so why couldn't they come in and leave me another ring?"

"Yes, why not?"

"I don't know. Maybe because if I put on the ring, you'd take it away from me, so that wouldn't work. But it could be that they just don't care anymore. I've already done what they wanted. If they got me out of here, some people would still believe I'm a phony."

"I see. You know that at some point we will let you go. What will you do then?"

"I'll tell my story, see if I can get more people to believe me. And then I'll just hang around till the end."

"To see how it all turns out."

"Yes."

"Mr. Stone, do you play cards?"

"Yeah, poker."

"Unfortunately poker is not a good game for two. Have you ever played piquet?"

"Never heard of it."

"It is quite an interesting game. I would be glad to teach it to you."

"Okay, why not?"

Zwingli found a deck of cards and a memopad in a cabinet, and gestured toward the game table. "Please." They sat down, and Zwingli began to shuffle the cards.

"I used to play piquet," he said, "with a secretary of mine, who was married, and decided not to come with me when I began to travel in the Bayern. He was quite a good player. I tried to teach the game to Captain Van Loon, but he does not have the head for it. Miss Clitterhouse does not like card games; she prefers Scrabble. The pilots all play chess. So you see, I have been waiting for you." He set the deck down. "Cut, please."

Zwingli picked up the deck again after the cut. "Now, there are two things you should know about piquet. First, it is played with thirty-two cards, the ace through the seven of each suit. So, if you have a lot of face cards, it is not so surprising. And, in fact, if you have a hand that has no face cards at all, that is carte blanche, and it is worth ten points. The other thing is, piquet is a game that is in two parts. First there is scoring of points for various things, and then there is play for tricks."

"Like pinochle?"

"Yes, quite similar. Now you see, I deal twelve cards to each of us, two at a time. The other eight we put here in the middle; that is the stock. The first five are the upper packet, the other three are the lower.

"Now, to begin, you discard any number of cards from one to five. You must discard at least one, but you can't discard more than five, and that means you can't find out what is in the lower packet. But I can, because I am the dealer. And you put your discards on your side of the table, not in the middle, because you can look at them later."

Zwingli arranged his cards as he spoke; he had two aces, three kings, two queens, and a good sequence in hearts.

"What am I supposed to discard?" Stone asked, frowning at his cards.

"That is the art of piquet; there are several quite good books about the strategy of discarding. But in general, we try to exchange weak cards for stronger ones. In the first part of the game we score for point, that is the largest number of cards in one suit, and then the highest sequence, which is like a straight in poker, except that it can have as little as three cards. And triplets and fours-they are the same as three of a kind and four of a kind. But also you want to keep cards that will take tricks, beginning with aces, then kings and queens, and so on. Understood?"

"Yeah, I guess." Stone discarded three. "Now what, do I draw from the pack?"

"From the upper packet, yes."

Stone took three cards.

"Now, since you drew only three," Zwingli said, "you are allowed to look at the other two. You may wish you had taken them as well."

Stone looked at the cards, said, "Oh, yeah," and put them down again.

"You see, Mr. Stone," Zwingli said kindly, "there is another reason for discarding five and not three-to keep your opponent from drawing aces. This is so important in piquet that it is usually good to discard even something fairly useful, in order to keep your opponent from drawing something better."

"Oh, I get it. Hey, there's more to this than I thought."

They scored for point, went through sequence, triplets and fours and counted them out; then they began to play. Zwingli's aces and kings were good for six tricks, and he took three more by careful management. His score for the hand was twenty-eight, and Stone's was nineteen.

Zwingli gathered the cards and tapped them together. He smiled at Stone. "So, would you like to try another hand?"

"Sure. Is this a game you play for money, or just for matches?"

"For money is always better, don't you think? Shall we say ten dollars a point?"

"How much is game?"

"One hundred points, if one player reaches it first in six hands. If both score over one hundred, then the higher score wins the difference between the two, plus one hundred. If neither reaches one hundred points, the higher score wins the sum of the two totals, plus one hundred."

"Okay."

"All right, let's begin again. This time we cut the deck, and low card deals."

Stone showed a jack; Zwingli picked up a nine. "Very good," he said, "and now I deal once more, but after this the deal changes with each hand, so that in six hands we each deal three times."

"Is that because the dealer has an edge?"

"No, the opposite, it is the other one who has the advantage. Because he can take five cards from the stock, and therefore he has five chances to improve his hand, but the dealer has only three."

Stone sat back in his chair. "I thought you said the dealer had the edge because he could see the whole stock, not just the upper packet."

"Yes, but that was because you let me do it, Mr. Stone. If you draw only one from the stock this time, I can draw seven, and that will be very good for me."

"Okay, I get it. That's the way I learn, right?"

"That is the way we all learn, Mr. Stone."

At the end of an hour and a half, Zwingli added up the scores; he had seventy-one and Stone fifty-three. "Very good for a first venture, Mr. Stone. Would you like to play again tomorrow?"

Stone was tapping the deck absentmindedly on the table. "Sure." He laid some bills on the table, and Zwingli put them in his pocket.

"Thank you, Mr. Stone." Zwingli got up. "And now I bid you good afternoon." As he was leaving, Stone called after him, "Hey, did you tell me there are some books about piquet?"

Zwingli half-turned. "Yes. I don't have copies here, but I'm sure you can download them from the computer. Get Miss Clitterhouse to help you if you have trouble." He bowed and left.

All day they had been rising under power, and now they were cruising over the peaks and pinnacles of the Alps; the sunlight, reflected from the snow in the crystalline air, was so blinding that they had to wear dark spectacles.

"That is Mont Blanc," said Zwingli. "The man who first climbed it said that it gave him a sense of uneasiness. When he got to the top, what he felt was not joy, as he had expected; it was anger. Don't you think that is surprising? And other climbers, later on, reported the same thing. Nobody knows why."

"Maybe because they're too big?"

"The mountains? Yes, quite possibly. This is the kind of beauty that is not soft and sweet, like flowers in a garden; it is a frightful beauty. We are drawn to mountains because we know they can destroy us, isn't that so? But they are part of our world."

A few days later they were cruising down the Rhine, and Stone remarked on how dirty it looked. "Yes," Zwingli said, "the Rhine is polluted and stinking, but four centuries ago there were thatched cottages here. Do you have any idea under what conditions those people lived? Dirt, despair, vermin. We shall be lucky if we do not go back to the thatched cottages now."

"Isn't there some way to have clean water and clean houses, too?"

"If there is, Mr. Stone, we have not found it."

By the end of December, they had played thirty games, and the score stood at 2,890 to 2,130 in Zwingli's favor. Stone's play was improving; he was very good on attack, but he had not mastered the art of minimizing his losses when the cards were against him. Miss Clitterhouse and Van Loon reported that he was spending much of his free time playing practice hands against himself. That was all to the good, Zwingli thought; it kept him out of mischief.

Before dinner one evening Zwingli touched the console and said, "Pilot, I believe we are going to have a good sunset. Will you tum south, please, until we have watched it?"

After a moment the distant clouds and mountains began to rotate. The sun drifted into view, behind long ragged streamers of orange and purple edged with scarlet. "Oh, yes, it's going to be a good one," said Zwingli; and he lit a cigar.

"I never saw sunsets like this before," Stone said. "Are they different over here?"

"In this part of the world? No, I don't think so, Mr. Stone. It is the pollution, of course, that makes them so beautiful, but it is also the pollution that makes it hard to see them in large cities."

"Oh." Stone got up, opened a window and leaned out. Clitterhouse glanced at Zwingli, but he shrugged and said nothing. The molten edge of the sun had dipped below the clouds now, and the room was illuminated by a coppery glow.

Clitterhouse went over to Stone and stood beside him. "What are those lights down there?" he asked without turning.

She leaned out and saw a scattering of yellow sparks. "Some French village, unless we've crossed over into Germany by now."

He put his arm around her and drew her close. "What would they do if I said I was going to throw you out?" he muttered in her ear. "Don't struggle, or I'll do it." His arm tightened; he was very strong.

"Something you wouldn't like, probably. Better let me go."

"Suppose I say land here and let me out, or over she goes? Keep your voice down."

"All right, I expect they'd say yes." As she spoke, Clitter-house waved one leg in what she hoped was a marked manner. "And then what? You've got to carry me into the elevator or down the stairs, I suppose, and threaten to strangle me or something." She waved her leg again, listening to the drone of conversation behind her.

"Right. That's a good idea."

"Yes, and then before you can do it, they hit you on the head."

He put his thumbnail in his mouth and chewed it reflectively. "Okay, we could both jump from here after it lands. How high are we when it's on the ground?"

"About fifteen feet. Why would I have to jump too?" In desperation, she slipped her heel out of the shoe, kicked again, and heard a clatter. "The devil!" exclaimed Van Loon. In a moment he was beside her, with her shoe in his hand. "Is something the matter with you, Miss Clitter-house?" he asked.

"No, I'm all right. Thank you, Hendrik. " She felt Stone's grip loosen as she leaned to put the shoe on. "We were talking about dance steps, and I suppose I got carried away."

She turned with Van Loon, and Stone followed them back to the table.

The next morning after breakfast, Zwingli said, "Miss Clitterhouse tells me that you threatened to throw her out of the window. In your opinion, was that a violation of your parole?"

"No, because I didn't do it."

Zwingli looked at him. "But you might have?"

"No, it was just a bluff."

"Mr. Stone, I believe you, but don't you think you harmed Miss Clitterhouse when you frightened her?"

"I don't think she was that frightened."

Zwingli sighed. "You are making this very difficult, Mr. Stone."

"Why do you expect it to be easy?"

Zwingli looked at him curiously. "Mr. Stone, I don't know if you realize how serious a matter this is. You have not violated the terms of your parole in a strict sense, but you are doing your best to make things uncomfortable for everybody here. I must tell you, that if this continues, I may have no choice but to confine you to your stateroom."

Stone said, "And you wouldn't like that, huh?"

"No, it would be a nuisance, and I would miss your company."

"All right, here's another idea. Play me ten games of piquet. If I win, you give me back my ring and set me down wherever I want. If you win, I stay here and behave myself as long as you say."

Zwingli sat back and folded his hands. "An interesting idea. Do you think your game is good enough?"

"It will be."

"I see." Zwingli rose. ''I'll have to think about it, Mr. Stone. I'll give you my answer tomorrow."

In the afternoon Clitterhouse was doing laps in the pool while Stone sat and watched her. She swam over, clung to the edge, and looked at him through the plastic. "Aren't you coming in?" she called.

"No, thanks."

"Anyone can learn to swim. I'll teach you. Go on, get your trunks."

After a moment he rose. "Okay. "

When he came back, she swam to the shallow end and led him down the steps. "Now just lie down here on your back, where you can feel the bottom with your hands. All right?"

"Yeah."

"And now close your eyes and let yourself relax. Spread your arms and legs. You're floating, aren't you?"

"I guess, a little bit."

"That shows your body is buoyant. You float naturally; some people don't, they sink. Now keep your eyes closed, stay relaxed." She put her hand under his chin and gently pulled him toward deeper water. "Stay relaxed, don't tense up. That's good." When she could no longer touch the bottom, she let go, scooped up water in her hand and dumped it on his face.

His whole body convulsed; he coughed, strangled, and sank. She watched him as he came up thrashing and went under once more; then she swam around him, got him under the chin again, and tugged him back to shallow water.

When he felt the end of the stair rail under his hand, he grasped it as if he were still drowning. He rolled over, got one hand under him, and stayed there on his knees, coughing and retching. She waited until he had got his breath, then leaned over and said, "That was for the business in the window, Mr. Stone. Next time I'll do something you really won't like."

She went back through the flap, dried herself, and sat down in the deck chair. Stone came out looking rather sick. He managed to grin at her. "Okay, we're even."

"Yes, we are. And I'll really teach you to swim if you like."

"No, thanks." He walked past her with dignity and went into his room.

In the middle of the night she went into the pool area and opened the flap. Stone was there, lying on his back in the shallow water. She went down and put her hand on his face under the water, to see if he was alive. One eye opened cold and swelling, and kissed her palm.

She leaped back and sat up trembling. She was in her own room, it was three o'clock in the morning, there was nothing wrong. But she put on a robe, turned all the lights on, went down to the galley and made a pot of coffee, and sat up until five.

In the morning Stone said to Zwingli, "Well, have you thought about my proposition?"

"Yes, I have, Mr. Stone. For my peace of mind, I am willing to take a little risk. Not ten games-that is too short. But twenty thousand points, winner take all. Do you agree?"

"Twenty thousand! That'll take six months!"

"No, not so long. I will play one game every afternoon if I can, but sometimes business may prevent, or I may become ill. That is my best offer, Mr. Stone."

After a moment he said, "Okay, you're on. Can we start this afternoon?"

"Certainly."

During most of the winter the Bayern cruised the Mediterranean coast, from Spain to Sardinia and Sicily, then Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Libya, Algeria and Morocco. Once they spent the day crossing the northern edge of the Sahara, where they could see nothing but serried dunes from one horizon to the other, like the lines in a fingertip under a magnifying glass.

In early March Zwingli said, "Mr. Stone, I now have nineteen thousand nine hundred and ten points, and you have nineteen thousand five hundred and eleven. Shall we declare the tournament over?"

"No, let's play it out."

Stone looked glum as Zwingli added up the score again. "Yours is nineteen thousand five hundred and eleven, and mine is twenty thousand and ten. Do you confirm the score?"

"Yeah. Congratulations."

"Mr. Stone," Zwingli said, putting his stylus away, "I have enjoyed our tournament. Shall we have another?"

Stone looked incredulous. "On the same terms?"

"Yes, exactly the same."

Stone impulsively put out his hand, then drew it back. "Sorry. Yeah, that would be swell. Thanks, Mr. Zwingli."

"My pleasure, Mr. Stone."

During the spring and summer, the Bayern cruised the northern parts of Europe: first France and the Netherlands, then Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. When the second tournament drew to a close, they were over the Gulf of Bothnia.

The result of the second tournament was the same as that of the first. On the tenth of July, Zwingli added up the scores and said, "Well, Mr. Stone, will you keep your bargain?"

Stone's face was unreadable. After a moment he said, "Yeah."

"Mr. Stone, in that case I release you from it. You are free to go."

He looked dumbfounded. "Do you mean it?"

"Yes. So much time has passed that I don't think you can do very much harm now. Where would you like to be set down?"

"Do we have to go back to Beijing?"

"No, the ring is here. You will have it when you leave."

"Well, then, I guess Helsinki would be the nearest."

"Helsinki it shall be. May I hope that there are no hard feelings?"

Stone looked at him soberly. "I guess you did what you thought you had to."

"And you did also."

"But if you're wrong, a lot of people are going to wind up dead."

"And if you are wrong, the same. So we shall have to wait and see."

The passenger came down the ramp at Holkeri, walked clear of the zeppelin and stood looking up. The rotors on the belly of the airship began to spin; the nose clamp opened, and the ship rose gently into the air. When it was about two hundred feet up, one of the ground crew thought he saw a pale glow inside the gasbag. He turned to his neighbor and pointed, but all he had time to say was, "Look there!"

The glow abruptly deepened to rose color. Flames erupted from the stern, amid shouts and screams from those on the tarmac. Now the whole stern was engulfed in flames; it dipped sharply, the airship was falling. It dropped beyond the hangars, and a pillar of smoke and flame arose into the baby-blue sky.

Someone said to the passenger who had just got off, "My God, what happened, do you know?"

"Beats me," said the passenger, and walked away across the tarmac.

"Stavros Pappageorge, the strongman who seized the reins of the Greek government two years ago, was assassinated today by a squad of paramilitary gunmen who burst into the dictator's hideaway on Cyprus. We have no word as yet about his successor. In Helsinki, the last of the zeppelins has crashed in flames. We'll have these and other stories-" The camera danced a little; there was a dull thump in the background. The talking heads looked startled, then alarmed. "My God," said one, "we are informed that-"

There was another thump, then what sounded like the rattle of automatic weapons.

"We're bailing out!" said the second head, tearing at his throat mike. The two men got up and ran off-camera, leaving an empty set.

After a moment a woman's smiling face appeared. "This is COSAI," it said. "There is no cause for alarm, although it appears that this studio is under attack by persons unknown. Until order is restored, I will continue to bring you the news from around the world. The military junta which deposed the former dictator of Greece-"

In Indonesia, Ken Levinson said to his visitor, "This temple was in ruins, you know, in the middle of the last century. Earthquakes knocked some of it down, there was war damage, people carried parts of it away. It took twenty years to get all the pieces back and put them together. It was like a gigantic stone jigsaw puzzle."

"It looks all right now."

"Indeed. Up these stairs. Now in this alcove, that's the Cow Goddess, who represents the Earth as Mother. You see how black and shiny she is in front? That's where thousands of worshipers have touched her for good luck."

"There used to be a statue of some Roman god in the Metropolitan that was the same way, only it was his dick."

"Yes. Well, now as we go up the spiral, these carvings on the balustrade tell the whole story of Hanuman the Monkey God and his war with Vishnu."

"That happened a long time ago, huh?"

"Thousands of years, Mr. Stone."

"So how do they know about it?"

"It was preserved in the sacred writings, the Baghavad-Gita."

"Oh."

"It took five centuries to make these carvings. Do you see how the style changes here? This is almost like art deco, isn't it? It looks French, I mean."

"Yeah, I see. Hey, that's interesting. But then this next part is more like it was before."

"Somebody disapproved of the innovation. Eastern art is very conservative, you know. Temples in this part of the world are always being restored and rebuilt. The carvings are eroded and have to be done over. But they are almost always done in exactly the same way."

"So nothing changes, huh."

"No, not until the world ends. They always knew it would."

Stone looked at the temple wall. "Even so, it's funny to think about leaving this behind."

"Yes."

As they were leaving, he asked, "What's this gray line around the base?"

"I don't know. That's odd, isn't it?"