Part 3

"Spero told us a lot of things," Carl said thickly. "He told us he'd taken pictures without speaking to anyone. It served his purpose better to keep us in the dark about how this immortality thing was really worked until after we got here. After that, he figured he'd take over and we'd have to go along with him whether we liked it or not. Furthermore, Ferguson and your father were in on it from the beginning, weren't you?"

"Please," Dr. Hamlin said nervously, "it's not near as bad as you're making it out to be. It's only a minor adjustment."

"Minor adjustment!" Carl grasped the arm of Diane's jumper, pulling her along with him through the long corridors of boxes. At the far end of the structure, he found what he was searching for. Three boxes--slitted in front like a zoo cage. And inside the boxes, peering at them through sad yellow-rimmed eyes--were three chowls.

"There's the answer to your immortality," Carl said grimly. "Rhind and Mitchell were both doctors--surgeons. Do you get it now?"

Raymond Edgerton and Norman Hamlin had joined them now. "Mr. Keating," Edgerton said, "I'm sure if you were a doctor, you wouldn't be so squeamish about a thing like this. After all, what's a simple operation?"

"Simple operation!"

Carl reached over clamping his gloved hands on Edgerton's shoulders. Quickly, he raked the steel-tipped fingers of both hands down the man's back. There was a tearing noise, as the open-collared shirt ripped apart at the seams, revealing a broad fleshy back--smooth-looking except for where an angry gash dipped in a deep U between the shoulder blades.

He jerked his thumb back to where the chowls were chattering restlessly in their cages. "In case you don't know it," he said, "chowls are humanoid. They're the only things on this planet with any sign of intelligence. Killing them's not only murder. It's worse than murder. It's genocide! All that has to happen is for this story to get back to Terra, and you'll have every quack who can wield a scalpel up here cutting the lungs out of these poor creatures!"

Alongside him, he was aware of Diane getting sick inside her helmet. Ferguson coughed.

"Since you were apparently aware of this all the time, Keating, just why did you come along?" Ferguson asked.

"I wasn't aware of it all along. It wasn't till I saw Dr. Hamlin nursing Spero's jaw that I began to wonder why he wanted a doctor along in the first place. He needed you to finance the trip, and he needed me to pilot the ship. But why Dr. Hamlin unless there was some need for a surgeon? Then I remembered the chowls, and everything began to fall into place."

Ferguson sat down on one of the wooden cases. "As usual Keating, you're not being very logical. As a matter of fact, he didn't need the good doctor at all. He had two doctors right here. Remember?"

Carl nodded. "Yes, I remember," he said grimly. "That was the part of the puzzle that didn't fit. But now I think I've even got the answer to that."

"Do tell?"

"Yes, I'll tell you," Carl said ruthlessly. "It was because with all the build-up these would-be-gods gave you about this immortality gimmick, they were sick to death of it. They were sick of the loneliness, sick of the rain, sick of the color of purple. In short, they were sick of this foul planet and were willing to trade it in for whatever the earth had to offer them! That's where Dr. Hamlin came in."

Doggedly, Carl spun on Edgerton, trying to draw the tatters of his shirt back across his back.

"Who's lungs were you going to take, Mr. Edgerton? Mine, or Stewart Ferguson's?"

He was aware of Diane pulling on his arm. He turned to the two men in the mud-splattered jumpers. "We're leaving for Terra in an hour," he said crisply. "Are you coming, or staying?"

Ferguson and Hamlin stared at each other.

"Make up your mind!"

Abruptly, Dr. Hamlin walked over to where Diane was standing. "I'm an old man," he said. "All I have back on Earth is twenty years at the most. Stay with me, Diane?"

Breathlessly, Carl watched the girl--watched her shake her head, slowly. "How about you?" he asked Ferguson.

For a long moment, Ferguson appeared undecided. Then he looked at Dr. Hamlin. "I'm in trouble back home," he mumbled. "Bad trouble. They're going to find out about it any day, if they haven't found out already.... I--I'd better stay."

* * * * *

With Diane grasping his arm, Carl started down the long corridor of packing cases toward the open lock-door.

"I'm sorry it turned out this way," he said. "As soon as we ready the ship I'll go back and talk to them again. Maybe they'll change their minds."

Diane didn't answer. Instead she turned a last backward glance toward her father. It was a long glance. Too long. He was aware of her steel-tipped fingers digging into the sleeve of his jumper. He wheeled. Ten feet away, standing in a niche between the wooden cases, was a man. He wore a regulation space jumper and helmet, and was regarding them curiously over the barrel of a Westinghouse-chain-rifle. The man spoke:

"I'm interrupting something, I hope," he said evenly.

The man was Paul Spero.

Carl eyed the man warily. Diane choked out a heavy gasp.

"You should have killed me back in the ship like I suggested," Spero said smugly. "Now I'm going to have to kill you instead."

Carl flicked a quick look at Diane. "What about her? Are you planning to kill her too?"

The overhead light sparkled briefly across the rifle barrel as Spero snapped the weapon to his shoulder. Across the sights he said: "Diane will stay here with me. That's the way I planned it and that's how it'll be."

"I know I'm interfering with your plans," Carl said with mock-concern, "but I don't think she is. Not unless she wants to of course."

From behind the face-plate, Spero flashed a double row of teeth. "Stop stalling for time, Keating. You had your chance on the ship, and you muffed it. Now it's my turn!"

Carl waited--waited while Spero's gloved hand tightened against the trigger-switch. The bolt coil snapped back. There was a dull click--nothing else....

"Did you really think I'd be stupid enough to leave you alone with a case full of live guns?" Keating said thinly.

Bewildered, Spero snapped the rifle down to chest level, fumbling awkwardly with the trigger assembly.

"It won't work," Carl said indulgently. "Before we left the ship I removed the anodes from every gun in the case. It's an old army trick, in case you haven't heard."

With Spero glaring at him, Carl allowed his arm to brush against his own needle gun. He didn't bother to draw.

"I think your friends are waiting for you," he said.

Back in the control room, Carl went through the motions of readying the ship for take-off. Back in the galley he could hear Diane sobbing softly.

Idly, he glanced out of the amber blister ports toward the big sphere-like structure that rose out of the sea of purple mud. It looked evil, and ominous-looking against the rain-sodden backdrop of the saroo forest.

Then from the edge of the tree line, moving shapes suddenly began to make an appearance. He rubbed his eyes. There were hundreds--no, thousands of them. Slowly and curiously they poured out of the rain-soaked forest, deliberately converging on the open lock-doors of the huge, white building. Some were carrying sticks, some stones, some nothing. It was as if the mystic forces of evolution had chosen this exact moment to endow the chowls with an emotion hitherto lacking in their makeup. Call it hate; call it self-preservation; call it anything you like, it was something they hadn't had before, yet needed badly.

Quickly, he bit off the half-formed cry that rose to his throat. Diane was still back in the galley. He was glad she wasn't watching. Actually there was no need for her to know about it ever.

Silently he made a vow never to tell her--even as a few moments ago they'd both vowed to keep another secret: The secret that could spell the life or death of an entire planet.