got they’d be queuing up for it.’
‘And they hadn’t got an instantaneous communicator!’ Sylvester exclaimed, bursting into a hoot of laughter.
‘Naturally not, the thing being an impossibility, as our scientists proved long ago! But the funny bit was, Syl, they accidentally told me they hadn’t got one. And I didn’t even have to employ that argument for having no mind-readers present.’
‘So that little bit of recording we fixed up behind your ugly great ear did the trick?’
‘It sounded so absolutely genuine I almost believed it was the real thing,’ Stevens said enthusiastically. ‘I’m convinced we’ve won the day with that gadget.’
And then, perversely, the sense of triumph that had buoyed him all the way home deserted him. The trick was no longer clever: to have duped the Ultralords gave him suddenly nothing but disappointment. With listless surprise at this reaction, he realized he knew himself less well than he had believed.
He glanced at the gibbous Earth, low over Luna’s mountains: it was the colour of verdigris.
All the while, Sylvester chattered on excitedly.
‘Phew! You knock at least nine years off the ten I’ve aged since you left! When do we get the verdict, Dave? – the mighty Yea or Nay!’
‘Any time now – but I’m convinced the Ultralords are in the bag. Some of the mammoth ears present must have picked your voice up.’
Sylvester commenced to beat Stevens’s back again. Then he sobered and said: ‘Now we’ll have to think about stalling them when they come and ask for portable sub-radios. Still, that can wait; after all, we didn’t actually tell them we had them! Meanwhile, I’ve been stalling off the news-hounds here – the Galactics can’t prove more awkward than they’ve been. Then the President wants to see you – but before that there’s a drink waiting for you, and Edwina is sitting nursing it.’
‘Lead the way!’ Stevens said, a little more happily.
‘You look a bit gloomy all of a sudden,’ Sylvester commented. ‘Tired, I expect?’
‘It has been a strain …’
As he spoke, the door of his transport slammed shut behind him and the craft lifted purposefully off the field, silent on its cosmic drive. Stevens waved it a solemn farewell and turned away quickly, hurrying with Sylvester across to the domes of Luna One. A chillness was creeping over him again.
Our Council of the Ultralords must be certain it pronounces the correct verdict when aliens such as Stevens are under examination; consequently, it has to have telepaths present during the trials. All it asks is, simply, integrity in the defendants – that is the simple touchstone: yet it is too difficult for many of them. The men of Earth tortured themselves chasing phantoms, cooking up chimeras. Stevens had integrity, yet would not trust to it. Those who are convicted of dishonesty perish; we have no room for them.
The robot craft swung away from Luna and headed at full speed towards Earth, the motors in its warhead ticking expectantly, counting out the seconds to annihilation.
And that, of course, would be the end of the story – for Earth at least. It would have been completely destroyed, as is usual in such distressing cases, but Mordregon, who was amused by Stevens’s bluff, decided that, after all, the warped brains of Earthmen might be useful in coping with the warped brains of the enemy Eleventh Galaxy. He called it ‘an expedient war-time measure’.
Quietly, he deflected the speeding missile from its target, ordering it to return home. He sent this message by sub-radio, of course; dangerous aliens must necessarily be deluded at times.
Mrs. Snowden was slowly being worn down. She had reached the stage now where she carried about with her a square of card on which the word DON’T was written in large letters. It was kept tucked inside her cardigan, ready to be produced at a moment’s notice and flashed before Pauline’s eyes.
The ill-matched pair, the grubby girl of three and the shabby-elegant lady of fifty-eight, came up to the side door of their house, Pauline capering over the flagstones, Mrs. Snowden walking slowly with her eyes on the bare border. Spring was reluctantly here, but the tepid earth hardly acknowledged it; even the daffodils had failed to put in an appearance this year.
‘Can’t understand it at all,’ Mrs. Snowden told herself. ‘Nothing ever happens to daffodils.’ And then she went on to compile a list of things that nevertheless might have happened: frost – it had been a hard winter; soil-starvation – no manure since the outbreak of hostilities, seven years ago; ants; mice; cats; the sounds – that seemed most likely. Sound did anything, these days.
Pauline rapped primly on the little brass knocker and vanished into the hall. Mrs. Snowden paused in the porch, stopping to look at the houses on the other side of her high brick wall. When this house had been built, it had stood in open fields; now drab little semi-detacheds surrounded it on three sides. She paused and hated them. Catching herself at it, she tried instead to admire the late afternoon light falling on the huddled roofs; the sunshine fell in languid, horizontal strokes – but it had no meaning for her, except as a sign that it was nearly time to blackout again.
She went heavily into the house, closing the door. Inside, night had already commenced.
Her granddaughter marched round the drawing-room, banging a tin lid against her head. That way, she could hear the noise it made. Mrs. Snowden reached for the DON’T card, then let her hand drop; the action was becoming automatic, and she must guard against it. She went to the gram-wire-TV cabinet, of which only the last compartment was now of use, and switched on. Conditions at home were a little better since the recapture of Iceland, and there were now broadcasts for an hour and a half every evening.
Circuits warmed, a picture burned in the half-globe. A man and woman danced solemnly, without music. To Mrs. Snowden it looked as meaningless as turning a book of blank pages, but Pauline stopped her march and came to stare. She smiled at the dancing couple; her lips moved; she was talking to them.
DON’T, screamed Mrs. Snowden’s sudden, dumb card.
Pauline made a face and answered back. She jumped away as her grandmother reached forward, leaping, prancing over the chairs, shouting defiance.
In fury, Mrs. Snowden skimmed the card across the room, crying angrily, hating to be reminded of her infirmity, waving her narrow hands. She collapsed onto a music stool – music, that dear, extinct thing! – and wept. Her own anger in her own head had sounded a million cotton-wool miles away, emphasizing the isolation. At this point she always crumpled.
The little girl came to her delicately, treading and staring with impertinence, knowing she had the victory. She pulled a sweet face and twizzled on her heel. Lack of hearing did not worry her; the silence she had known in the womb had never left her. Her indifference seemed a mockery.
‘You little beast!’ Mrs. Snowden said. ‘You cruel, ignorant, little beast!’
Pauline replied, the little babblings which would never turn into words, the little noises no human ear could hear. Then she walked quietly over to the windows, pointed out at the sickening day, and began to draw the curtains. Controlling herself with an effort,
