Astounding British Edition, Volume 8, No. 11 — page 50: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

48 _ ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION care much about the girl’s abduction, or about his own death. Interstellar federations never tried to protect their citizens beyond the limits of their own volume of space. It would be an impossible task. Unless the Solarians were looking for him however, they themselves would probably not intercept the call. Their ships would be on higher C. And since they knew he was coming, they had no reason to search for him, At his present velocity and energy- level, he was four months from Sol. The mercy ship, on a higher level, would pro- bably reach Sol within three weeks. He was a sparrow chasing a smug hawk. But now there was more at stake than pride or reputation. He had set out to clear himself of a bad name, but now his name mattered little. If what he suspected were true, then Sol III was a potential threat to every world in the galaxy. Again he remem- bered the Solarian’s form of address—““man- thing’—as if a new race had arisen to inherit the places of their ancestors. If so, the new race had a right to bid for survival. And the old race called Man had-a right to crush it if he could. Such was the dialectic of life. Four months in the solitary confinement of a spaceship was enough to unnerve any man, however well-conditioned to it. He paced restlessly in his cell, from quarters to control to reactor room, reading everything that was aboard to read and devouring it several times. Sometimes he stopped td stare in Daleth’s doorway. Her gear was still in the compartment, gathering dust. A pair of boots in the corner, a box of Dalethian cigars on the shelf. ““Maybe she has a book or two,” he said once, and entered. He opened the closet and chuckled at the rough masculine clothing that hung there. But among the coarse fabrics was a wisp of pale green silk. He parted the dungarees to stare at the frail feminine frock, nestled toward the end and half-hidden like a suppressed desire. For a moment he saw her in it, strolling along the cool avenues of a Cophian city. But quickly he let the dungarees fall back, slammed the door, and stalked outside, feeling ashamed. He never entered again. The loneliness was overpowering. After three months, he shut off the transmitters and listened on the space frequencies for the sound of a human voice. There was nothing except the occasional twittering of a coded message. Some of them came from the direction of Sol. Why were they letting him come without interference? Why had they allowed him to transmit the message freely? Perhaps they wanted him as a man who knew a great deal about the military and economic resources of the Sixty-Star Cluster, information they would need if they had high ambitions in space. And perhaps the message no longer mattered, if they had already acquired enough nuclear materials for their plans. After a logical analysis of the situation, he hit upon a better answer. Their ships didn’t have the warp-locking devices that permitted one ship to slip into a parallel C with an enemy and stay with that enemy while it maneuvered in the fifth component. The Solarians had proven that deficiency — when the “mercy ship” had tried to escape him by evasive coursing. If their own ships - were equipped with the warp lockers, they would have known better than to try. They wanted such equipment. Perhaps they thought that the Jdiot possessed it, or that he could furnish them with enough informa- tion to let them build it. es After several days of correlating such : facts ‘as he already knew, Roki cut on his transmitters, fanned the beam down to a | narrow pencil, and directed it toward Sol. — “Blind Stab from Cluster-Ship Idiot,” he called. “Any Sol Ship from /diot. I have information to sell in exchange for the per- son of Talewa Walkeka. Acknowledge, please.” He repeated the message several times, and expected to wait a few days for an answer. But the reply came within three hours, indicating that a ship had been hovering just ahead of him, beyond the range of his own outmoded detectors. “Cluster-Ship from Sol Seven,” crackled the loud-speaker. “Do you wish to land on our planet? If so, please prepare to be boarded. One of our pilots will take you in. You are approaching our outer patrol zone. If you refuse to be boarded, you will have to turn back. Nonco-operative vessels are destroyed upon attempting to land. Over.” There was a note of amusement in the voice. They knew he wouldn’t turn back. They had a hostage. They were inviting him to surrender but phrasing the avitatign politely. Roki hesitated. Why had the man Pe “destroyed upon attempting to land?” After a moment’s thought, he realized that it was because they could not destroy a ship while manuevering in the fifth component. They could not even stay in the same continuum. Eomichookssco