may be proud,” said the other, “but I am not cruel. Why should I move to hurt him? Time takes care of her own. This coming war will see.”
“Perhaps,” said the other merchant. “Perhaps.”
* * * *
Once over the island city of Toron, capital of Toromon, the transit ribbon breaks from its even course and bends among the towers, weaves among the elevated highways, till finally it crosses near a wide splash of bare concrete, edged with block-long aircraft hangars. Several airships had just arrived, and at one of the passenger gates the people waiting for arrivals crowded closely to the metal fence.
Among them was one young man in military uniform. A brush of red hair, eyes that seemed doubly dark in his pale face, along with a squat, taurine power in his legs and shoulders; these were what struck you in the swift glance. A close look brought you the incongruity of the major’s insignia and his obvious youth.
He watched the passengers coming through the gate with more than military interest.
Someone called, “Tomar!”
And he turned, a grin leaping to his face.
“Tomar,” she called again. “I’m over here.”
A little too bumptiously, he rammed through the crowd until at last he almost collided with her. Then he stopped, looking bewildered and happy.
“Gee, I’m glad you came,” she said. “Come on. You can walk me back to father’s.” Her black hair fell close to broad, nearly oriental cheekbones. Then the smile on her first strangely, then attractively pale mouth fell.
Tomar shook his head, as they turned now, arm in arm, among the people wandering over the field.
“No?” she asked. “Why not?”
“I don’t have time, Clea,” he answered. “I had to sneak an hour off just to get here. I’m supposed to be back at the Military Ministry in forty minutes. Hey, do you have any bags I can carry?”
Clea held up a slide rule and a notebook. “I’m traveling light. In a week I’ll be back at the university for summer courses, so I didn’t bring any clothes. Wait a minute. You’re not going to be too busy to get to the party Dad’s giving me tonight, are you?”
Tomar shrugged.
Clea began a word, but pushed her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth. “Tomar?” she asked after a moment.
“Yes?” He had a rough voice, which, when he was sad, took on the undertones of a bear’s growl.
“What’s happening about the war? Will there really be one?”
Again he shrugged. “More soldiers, more planes, and at the Ministry there’s more and more work to do. I was up before dawn this morning getting a fleet of survey planes off for a scouting trip to the mainland over the radiation barrier. If they come back this evening, I’ll be busy all night with the reports and I won’t be able to make the party.
“Oh,” said Clea. “Tomar?”
“Yes, Clea Koshar?”
“Oh, don’t be formal with me, please. You’ve been in the City long enough and known me long enough. Tomar, if the war comes, do you think they’ll draft prisoners from the tetron mines into the army?”
“They talk about it.”
“Because my brother.…”
“I know,” said Tomar.
“And if a prisoner from the mines distinguished himself as a soldier, would he be freed at the end of the war? They wouldn’t send him back to the mines, would they?”
“The war hasn’t even begun yet,” said Tomar. “No one knows how it will end.”
“You’re right,” she said, “as usual.” They reached the gate. “Look, Tomar, I don’t want to keep you if you’re busy. But you’ve got to promise to come see me and spend at least an afternoon before I go back to school.”
“If the war starts, you won’t be going back to school.”
“Why not?”
“You already have your degree in theoretical physics. Now you’re only doing advanced work. Not only will they conscript prisoners from the mines, but all scientists, engineers, and mathematicians will have to lend their efforts to the cause as well.”
“I was afraid of that,” Clea said. “You believe the war will actually come, don’t you, Tomar?”
“They get ready for it night and day,” Tomar said. “What is there to stop it? When I was a boy on my father’s farm on the mainland, there was too much work, and no food. I was a strong boy, with a strong boy’s stomach. I came to the City and I took my strength to the army. Now I have work that I like. I’m not hungry. With the war, there will be work for a lot more people. Your father will be richer. Your brother may come back to you, and even the thieves and beggars in the Devil’s Pot will have a chance to do some honest work.”
“Perhaps,” said Clea. “Look, like I said, I don’t want to keep you—I mean I do, but. Well, when will you have some time?”
“Probably tomorrow afternoon.”
“Fine,” said Clea. “We’ll have a picnic then, all right?”
Tomar grinned. “Yes,” he said. “Yes.” He took both her hands, and she smiled back at him. Then he turned away, and was gone through the crowd.
Clea watched a moment, and then turned toward the taxi stand. The sun was beginning to warm the air as she pushed into the shadow of the great transit ribbon that soared above her between the towers.
* * * *
Buildings dropped bands of shadow across the ribbon, as it wound through the city, although occasional streaks of light from an eastward street still made silver half-rings around it. At the center of the city it raised a final two hundred feet and entered the window of the laboratory tower in the west wing of the royal palace of Toron.
The room in which the transit ribbon ended was deserted. At the end of the metal band was a transparent crystal sphere, fifteen feet in diameter which hovered above the receiving platform. A dozen small tetron units of varying sizes sat around the room. The viewing screens were dead gray. On a control panel by one ornate window, a bank of forty-nine scarlet-knobbed switches pointed to off. The metal catwalks that ran over the receiving platform were empty.
In another room of the palace, however, someone was screaming.
“Tetron!”
“…if your Highness would only wait a moment to hear the report,” began the aged minister, “I believe.…”
“Tetron!”
“…you would understand the necessity,” he continued in an amazingly calm voice, “of disturbing you at such an ungodly hour…”
“I never want to hear the word tetron again!”
“…of the morning.”
“Go away, Chargill; I’m sleeping!” King Uske, who had just turned twenty-one though he had been the official ruler of Toromon since the age of seven, jammed his pale blond head beneath three over-stuffed pillows that lay about the purple silken sheets of his bed. With one too-slender hand he sought feebly around for the covers to hide himself completely.
The old minister quietly picked up the edge of the ermine-rimmed coverlet and held it out of reach. After several half-hearted swipes, the pale head emerged once more and asked in a coldly quiet voice, “Chargill, why is it that roads have been built, prisoners have been reprieved, and traitors have been disemboweled at every hour of the afternoon and evening without anyone expressing the least concern for what I thought? Now, suddenly, at—” Uske peered at the jewel-crusted chronometer by his bed in which a shimmering gold light fixed