CHAPTER XII
Walt was outside the ship. His feet planted firmly, he waited. The fouradvancing mutants were not yet adjusted to the space disorientation.Behind them, the tip of the Washington Monument loomed starkly whiteabove the trees.
Walt's anger rose to an even greater fury. He knew how Julia had felt asa child: the hot, impotent flare of rage; the senseless desire to throwsomething; to smash and destroy something; to disprove helplessness bysome savage action.
The mutants were closer; terror was dying out of their eyes. Their lipswere relaxing. Their bodies were loosening to their wills.
_We're going to kill you, Walt: with our hands._
_Lyrian traitor._
Walt was breathing in shallow gasps. They would rush him in a minute.Willy, out of the saucer ship now, crouched only yards away, ready tospring. He feinted, and Walt flinched instinctively.
_You can't displace from five of us!_
_Not and hold the shielding, traitor!_
General Tibbets, in the doorway behind Walt, began firing at the mutantswith a pistol.
Bob clutched at his chest and staggered. In an instant, the others weredisplaced and invulnerable.
Bob fell.
Reg went to his wounded companion, held him in displacement, healed himrapidly.
Bob coughed and shook his head and scrambled to his feet. He screamedhis hate at the general.
The pistol clicked on an empty chamber.
Walt retreated several steps.
_... green wartle rivers of Lyria; birdsong, there, in a skybranch,partly pretty orange and soft like fur pictures...._
He was in Calvin's mind!
Calvin was sitting in the games space, on the floor, rolling the metalpractice ball back and forth before him between his hairy hands.Forential was speaking. The confining walls of the space station were socomfortingly solid....
And Walt had a fix on it! Knew its position, its direction, its speed!He had an anchor!
Where is something? he thought wildly. Quick! A rock! Throw a rock!Something big: to throw: quick! Huge, heavy--
* * * * *
Forgotten, the advancing mutants. With every unit and sub unit andcompartment and section of his mind, pouring out every available degreeof telepathic power, dropping the shielding, concentrating aboveeverything else, he seized the Washington Monument. It shook; it wobbledunsteadily; it wrenched free.
Calvin, delighted, was helping him.
_Walt!_ he cried. _We'll play games! We'll throw it!_
It was off the ground. It poised uncertainly. It moved upward. Slowly atfirst, like a rocket: faster and faster, dwindling from Earth, becominga vanishing pinpoint like a black, daylight star.
Calvin pulled it in with childish joy. _It's_ big! he cried proudly.
It was aimed on target.
Calvin was no longer in Walt's mind.
With a last, exhausting burst of thought, he increased its alreadyterrific speed. The laboratory still stood. The mutants had not realizedhis shielding was down. He restored it, weakened and quivering.
And they were upon him. He fought them off with his fists and elbows. Hedared not displace, lest the shielding should crumble entirely. A fewminutes more; if I can just gain a few minutes more, he thought.
He was down. He jerked his head out of the way of a foot. He caught aleg and twisted.
Fingers tore at his throat. He caught someone with a savage andsatisfying kick.
Out in space, beyond the orbit of the moon, Fierut detected theWashington Monument on his warning device. It was coming too fast todeflect. He tried.
A heartbeat later, it ripped into the steel of the space station. Itcrumbled and shattered and sprayed marble, and huge fragments eruptedfrom the opposite side. The space station became visible. There was agreat, ragged, tunneling hole from rim to rim. Escaping air spewedwreckage into space. Parts of demolished machinery whirled away. In ayet-sealed compartment, a power system exploded with a great, blinding,soundless flash. Chunks of steel debris, vast shrapnel, blossomed in alldirections.
The space station, its orbit altered, twisted away, a gutted, lifelessderelict.
Walt's shielding collapsed. His mutant bridge opened; his mutant powersvanished. He screamed for help.
He saw General Tibbets slam a pistol butt against Willy's suddenlyunprotected skull.
* * * * *
Five minutes later, in the laboratory, amid incredible confusion, Juliastood over Walt and dabbed antiseptic on his cut, swollen lip.
Throughout the room there were shouts and laughter and cries of victory.One of the technicians--one who had worked hardest over it--was joyfullysmashing the second signal generator.
In the center of the frenzy, Dr. Norvel sat slumped across the desk. Shewas sound asleep.
Weary and proud, Julia straightened up from Walt.
"I've--we've both--got to get some rest," she said. "There'll be thepress, the TV, the radio.... I can't face them. I'm too tired.... I mustlook like something the cat dragged in...."
Walt, heavy lidded and exhausted, looked up at her. He smiled leadenly."Look fine, Julia." His voice was thick and indistinct because of theswelling of his tongue.
She sure ran me around, he thought. But she can't now. She's notsuperior to me any more. I'll be able to hold my own. She's, she's sohelpless, so pliant. That's the way I like her. Poor tired girl!
We'll travel, he thought. I want to see all of the planet. All thesights, all the cities. I want to live in the bustle of its life, in thehurry of its crowds. I want to travel and learn all the different smellsand experience all the different places, and I want to celebrate itsrichness and its newness; I want to devour it; I want to--
She'll be there; I want to feel her by my side: sweet Julia, socompliant, waiting my decisions and anticipating my wishes. I want tosee her laugh. And I want ... I want....
I'll have to ask her about things like that.
... I'm no longer so innocent, but I'm not yet so wise. I have grownand matured marvelously, and I will further: I know what I want. Andshe'll be there to, to help me see and do and....
He felt a great warm glow of bursting and bubbling emotions.
"I'm going to sleep twenty-four hours," Julia said. "Just as soon as Ican get in bed."
"Better leave before the fourth estate gets here," the general said."I'll have the staff car drive you back to the hotel."
"Don't tell anybody we're there."
The general nodded. He took Julia's arm. "I'll walk you outside." Hesent an orderly for the car.
"When you're rested--" he let Walt and Julia go through the door infront of him--"when you're rested, we'll want to see both of you again.You said something, Julia, about making us all like you were: with allthose unusual abilities?"
"Later. Please, later. I'm just too tired to think." She held ontoWalt's arm possessively.
But do, she wondered, _do_ I remember enough details to enable a surgeonto install a bridge?
* * * * *
A welter of other thoughts and impressions seethed to the surface of herleaden brain: The international situation ... if nothing changes ... forthe last few years, there is an equilibrium ... working for genuinepeace.... War is farther off every year.... But to interfere? Whenpeople can still be convinced of so many, so many falsehoods? Patternsof hatred (like of superstition), are they (aren't they: who can say?would the bridge not join but divide, upset the equilibrium?) are thepatterns of hatred too deep, and too dangerous, and too entrenched inour generation?
She was tired; but out of the exhaustion, the weariness, the fatigue,she suddenly realized with startling clarity, like the chime of a great,flawless bell, ringing hope and promise: That it will come; the nextdevelopment of man will come, lies waiting in the future (near or far)to be born, to be born: will come. When mankind is ready, it will come:will come.
A wave of exultation filled her. Oh, be ready soon!
she cried. Be readysoon!
"I, I don't think I can, can be of any help on that, General," she said.
"After you get some rest--"
"No," she said. Did she remember enough to guide a surgeon? "No, I'mafraid I've forgotten too thoroughly."
The general helped them into the car.
She snuggled over against Walt. She didn't want to think at all. Shedreaded the next few days. She wished they were over.
She pulled Walt's head down and kissed his swollen lips. He tried todraw back in surprise. She held on. The car began to move. He resistedand then relaxed and then cooperated. She was deliriously in love withhim.
Drifting to sleep she thought: After next week, we'll be able to getaway and go home. We'll settle down right away. We'll buy the CastlePlace; he can fix it up and work around the yard in the evenings, andI'll put pink and white curtains in the kitchen. And there's Beck'sHardware Store. I'll have to see about making the down payment on it thefirst day we get back.
There will be Saturday teas. Walt will look stunningly handsome in adouble breasted suit in Church on Sunday....
... movies twice a week ... dancing once a month.... I'll let him gomoose hunting in Canada every single year if he wants to.
She snuggled closer.
He's so innocent, she thought. He'll have to be educated (not so much asthe other mutants, because he's already learned a little): but not morethan it is good a husband should be.
My, she thought, feeling his arms around her. My, he has _strong_muscles.
But he won't be any trouble. He'll handle like a lamb. I can manage him.
She smiled and was asleep.
THE END
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