Part 2

"It's cloudy," she said. "There's a mist of rain falling and it's cloudy outside. I guess it's already later than we thought."

He went over to stand beside her and saw that the morning was alight with near-sunrise behind the gray clouds.

"It's out there waiting for us--_The Cat_," she said.

He saw it, standing silver-white in the gray morning, gleaming in the rain and with its slim, dynamic lines making it look as though it might at any moment hurl itself roaring into the sky.

"It's a beautiful ship," she said. "I wonder what they will do with it when they--"

A sound came from the far end of the corridor; a snapped command in Tharnarian. The command was followed at once by the sound of footsteps approaching their cell; the heavy tread of robots and the lighter, softer steps of the guards.

Virginia turned away from the window and they faced the cell door as they waited.

"This is it," she said.

"Are you afraid, Ginny?"

"Afraid?" She laughed up at him, a laugh that came only a little too quickly. "It's like a play, set a long time ago on Earth. Coffee and pistols at dawn. Only I don't think they're bringing us any coffee and if we get a pistol, it will have to be one of theirs."

"It isn't over with till the end--and maybe we can change the ending of this play for them."

"I'll be watching you, Bob, so I can help you the moment you make the try."

The Tharnarian guards stopped outside the door, their blasters in their hands. One of them unlocked the door and two robots entered, guards locking the big door behind the robots the moment they were inside. The robots carried no blasters, nothing but three lengths of chain.

The Tharnarian leader outside the door rasped a command:

"You will both turn to face the window, with your hands behind you."

Bob did not obey at once, but appraised the situation. The robots were massive things--more than six hundred pounds in weight, their metal bodies invulnerable to any attack he could make with his bare hands. But there was one chance in ten thousand: if he could catch the first robot by surprise and send it toppling into the cell door, its weight might be enough to break the lock of the door.

He struck it with his shoulder, all his weight and strength behind the attack, and Virginia's small body struck it a moment later.

But it was like shoving against a stone wall. The robot rocked for the briefest instant, then it threw out a foot to regain its balance. The other robot snapped a chain around his wrists while Virginia fought it.

"Don't, Ginny," he said, ceasing his own struggles. "It's no use, honey."

She stopped, then, and the robot jerked her arms around behind her back, to lock the second chain around her wrists.

She smiled up into his dark and sombre face. "We tried, Bob. They were just too big for us."

A third chain, longer than the first two, was produced. He felt the cool metal of it encircle his neck and heard the lock snap shut. The other end of it was locked around Virginia's neck.

The cell door was opened and the guard leader commanded, "Step forward. The robots will guide you."

They stepped forward, the robots beside them, gripping their arms with steel fingers. The chain around their necks rattled from the movement of walking, linking them together like a pair of captive wild animals. Bob wondered if the chain had been solely as another precaution to prevent their escape or if it had been a deliberate act of contempt. The Tharnarians feared them and, because they feared them, they hated them. Did it bolster the morale of the Tharnarians to deliberately treat them as though they were animals?

They stepped out into the cool dawn, into a small courtyard with a black stone wall at its farther side. The sky was bleakly gray and the rain was falling as a cold mist, dampening Virginia's face as she looked up at him.

"The last mile, Bob."

"Walk it straight and steady, Ginny. They're watching."

"How else would we walk it?" she asked calmly.

They came to the wall, where a metal ring had been set in the stone. There was a chain fastened to the ring and when the robots had swung them around with their backs to the wall, the free end of the chain was locked to the center of the chain around their necks.

Again, it could be an added precaution. Or it could be the final attempt to let their execution be like the killing of a pair of dangerous animals. It did not really matter, of course....

Two of the armed robots who had walked with the guards took up a position twenty feet in front of them, blasters in their metal hands. The robots who had chained them stepped to one side, away from the line of fire. The leader of the guards lifted his arm to look at his watch and said something to the robots. The robots lifted their blasters at the words and leveled them, one aimed at Virginia's heart and one at Bob's.

But the expected blast did not come. The guard leader continued to observe his watch. Apparently the first command had meant only: "Aim." The "Fire" command would come when the hands of the watch reached the thirty-three twelve mark.

Virginia's shoulder was warm against his arm. But her hand, when it found his behind their backs, was cold.

"They cheated us," she said. "We were supposed to have a whole firing squad."

The guard leader gave another command and there was a double click as the robots pressed the buttons that would ready their blasters for firing. Virginia swayed a little for the first time, a movement too small for the Tharnarians to see and one from which she recovered almost at once.

"It's--I'm all right," she said. "I'm not afraid, Bob."

"Of course you're not, Ginny--of course you're not."

The guard leader had returned his attention to his watch and the seconds went by; long seconds in which the only sound was the almost inaudible whisper of the rain against the stone wall behind them. Virginia looked up at him for the last time, the cold mist wet on her face.

"We've had a lot of fun together, Bob. We never expected it to end so soon, but we knew all the time that it might. We'll go together and that's the way we always wanted it to be, wherever and whenever it might happen."

Then she faced forward again and they waited, the rain whispering on the wall behind them and forming in crystal drops on the chain around their necks. She did not waver again as she stood beside him and he knew she would not when the end came.

The guard leader dropped his arm, as though he no longer needed to refer to his watch. He glanced at them very briefly then turned to the robots, his face revealing the command he was going to give.

Virginia's hand tightened on his own in farewell and he could feel the pulse of her wrist racing hard and fast. But she stood very straight as she looked into the blaster and they heard the final command to their robot-executioners:

"_Dorend thendar!_"

* * * * *

_Thirty-three one._

Tal-Karanth looked again at the timepiece on the wall. Thirty-three one. At the end of eleven more small fractions of time, the Terrans would no longer exist.

What was life? What was the purpose behind it all? In fifty thousand years the Tharnarians were no nearer the answer than their ancestors had been. Why should there be life at all? Why not the suns and planets, created by chance, and devoid of life? And why even the suns and planets, the millions of galaxies racing outward across the illimitable expanse of space and time? Why the universe and why the life it contained? Why not just--nothing?

The barbarians had set out to find the answer within a hundred years after the building of their first interstellar ship. And Tharnar's interstellar ships had not been outside the system for fifty thousand years; no Tharnarian had been as far as Vendal for fifteen thousand years.

Why had the Tharnarians lost their curiosity; the curiosity and desire to learn that had created the past glory of Tharnar?

He thought again of what he had discovered that night; of one of the reasons why the Terrans had named their ship _The Cat_. It was not because a cat was a dangerous animal, as he and the others had thought. It was because the mission of _The Cat_ would be to explore in unknown territory, because of an old Terran proverb: _Curiosity killed a cat_. He did not yet understand the second reason behind the name, but the first reason showed that the Terrans were not without a sense of humor. How long had it been since he had heard a Tharnarian laugh at himself, at his own failings or possibility of failure? Never.

Yet--wasn't that pride? What was wrong with the high-headed pride that admitted no inferiority, no failure? Wasn't fifty thousand years of civilization something of which to be extremely proud?

_Thirty-three five._

He went to the window and pressed the button that would open it against the mechanical will of the automatic health-guard equipment. It slid open and he breathed the cool, moist air that smelled of wet earth and grass and the odor of the _lana_ tree flowers; flowers that were closed against the rain and would not open until the sun came out.

The City was quiet in the gray of the morning. He could see one pedestrian and three moving vehicles in the entire visible portion of the City. The City, like the flowers of the _lana_ trees, would not open into life until the storm was over and the sun was shining again.

_Thirty-three nine._

The City, like the flowers of the _lana_ trees. The beauty and perfection of them both was the result of fifty thousand years of breeding to bring about that perfection. The City, like the flowers of the _lana_ trees....

But flowers were without purpose; were only--vegetation.

And what was the purpose of the City?

He did not know. He was the Supreme Executive of Tharnar, and he did not know.

_Thirty-three ten._

He went back to his desk and switched on the three-dimensional projection of the scene that would be taking place in the courtyard behind the prison.

The man and girl stood chained to the wall and the robots were waiting for the third and last command from the guard leader, the blasters in their hands as steady as though held in vises and their metal faces impassive. He increased the magnification of the scene, drawing the images of the man and girl closer to him. There was no reading the man's face, other than the hardness and lack of fear. But on the face of the girl was a defiance that seemed to shine like a radiance about her. He was reminded of the physical similarity between the barbarian girl and his daughter. But now the similarity had faded to a shadow. There was something vital and alive about the barbarian girl, there was a beauty to her in the way she waited for death that was strange and wild by Tharnarian standards.

What had Thralna said the night before? "... _Whenever I think of how they might escape and get into the City, it frightens me._"

--_it frightens me_--

What if it was Thralna who stood before the robots? Would she have her Tharnarian pride as she looked into the black muzzle of the blaster and knew she had only a few more heart beats of life left? Would she stand with the bold defiance of the barbarian girl? Or would she drop to the ground and plead for her life?

He knew the answer. But it was not Thralna's fault that she was as she was. She was only like all the others of Tharnar.

_Thirty-three eleven._

How different they were, the two barbarians and the men and women of Tharnar. Yet the difference would cease to exist within a few moments. When the man and girl were dead, when all the life and restless drive were gone from them and they lay still on the cold, wet ground, they would look the same as Tharnarians.

How did it feel to die in the cold dawn, on an alien world a thousand lightyears from your own? But they had known such a thing might happen to them. They had named their ship _The Cat_ because of that. Because of that, and something else....

Suddenly, clearly, he understood the second reason for the name of their ship.

_Thirty-three twelve._

* * * * *

The guard leader dropped his arm, to give the last command to the robots. Tal-Karanth's mind raced and he saw two things with vivid clarity:

He saw the inexorable decline of Tharnar and the City continuing down the centuries until the little spark that was left smouldered its last and was gone. And he saw the way death would obliterate the wild and savage beauty of the barbarian girl, knew that it would go when the life went from her, to leave her with a beauty that would be colorless by contrast, that would be like the beauty of a _lana_ blossom--or a Tharnarian woman.

And he thought he could see the answer to the menace that faced Tharnar and the City.

"_Dorend_--"

The guard leader's first word of command came. Tal-Karanth's finger stabbed at one of the buttons along his desk. He shoved it down, to deactivate the robot-executioners, and they were frozen in immobility when the final word came:

"--_thendar!_"

He snapped the switch which connected him with the office of Security Officer Ten-Quoth and said:

"Have the chains taken from the Terrans and see that they are given comfortable and unguarded quarters. Tell them they have been pardoned by the Supreme Executive and that they are free to leave Tharnar whenever they wish."

* * * * *

It was mid-morning of the next day, bright and warm with a few fleecy white clouds drifting across the blue sky. Tal-Karanth stood before the window again, Vor-Dergal beside him, and watched the City come to life; slowly and leisurely, as it had come to life each mid-morning for the past fifty thousand years.

Vor-Dergal looked toward _The Cat_, where the boarding ramps had already been withdrawn and the airlocks closed.

"They're ready to go," he said. "I hope you haven't made a mistake in what you did. The other Terrans will learn of us now, and when they come...." He let the sentence trail off, unfinished.

"We have a great deal to gain by the coming of the Terrans," Tal-Karanth said, "and little to lose."

"Little to lose?" Vor-Dergal asked. "We have Tharnar and the City to lose; we have our lives and our civilization to lose."

"Yes, our civilization," Tal-Karanth said. "Our god that we worshipped--our civilization. Look, Vor--listen to what I have to say:

"I did some thinking the night the Terrans were waiting to be executed. I'm afraid it was probably one of the few times for thousands of years that a Tharnarian ever tried to critically examine the Tharnarian way of life. I started from the beginning, more than fifty thousand years ago, when the interstellar ships of Tharnar were actually interstellar and were manned by men instead of robots.

"It was a good start we made in interstellar exploration, but it didn't last very long. We wanted to associate with our cultural peers, and there weren't any. We didn't attempt to make any contact with the primitive races we found. We felt that there would be no point in doing so. Tharnar possessed the highest--and the only--civilization in all the explored regions of the galaxy and younger races had nothing to offer us.

"The time came when no more exploration ships were sent out. We retired to Tharnar and Vendal and surrounded them with a robot-operated fleet, to keep out the inferior races when they finally did learn how to build spaceships. We devoted ourselves to our social culture and became imbued with self-satisfaction, with the assurance that we of Tharnar possessed the full flowering of culture and progress. We withdrew into a shell of complacency and each generation lived out its life with comfortable, methodical, sameness. And our robot-operated fleet was on guard to prevent any other race from annoying us, from disturbing us in the wisdom and serenity of our way of life.

"Fifteen thousand years ago, the last of us on Vendal returned to the more ideal world of Tharnar. And there was plenty of room for them on Tharnar by then. The population had been decreasing for thousands of years--it's decreasing right now. Women don't want to have children anymore--it's an inconvenience for them. They want comfort; the full stomach, the soft couch, the attention of their robots. And men are the same.

"There is no longer any incentive for living on Tharnar other than to duplicate the lives of our ancestors. There is nothing new, nothing to be done that has not already been done better. So we lapse into an existence of placid satisfaction with the status quo--we vegetate. We're like plants that have been seeded in the same field for so many centuries that the fertility of the soil is exhausted. This barren field in which we grow is our own form of culture.

"Do you see what the ultimate end will have to be, Vor?"

He had thought old Vor-Dergal would reply with a heated defense of Tharnarian civilization, but he did not. Instead, he said, "If the present trend continues, there will come a time when there will be more robots in the guard ships than there will be Tharnarians for them to guard. But is the other better, the destruction at the hands of the barbarians?"

"Destruction? It's within their power to destroy us, but why should they? It will be unpleasant for many Tharnarians to contemplate, but an unbiased study of the Terrans shows that they would not want the things we have on Tharnar and in the City; that they would not consider Tharnar and the City worth the trouble of conquest."

"A conjecture," Vor-Dergal said. "And, even if you are right and the Terrans never come to destroy us--what have we to gain by taking this risk?"

"New life. We've been too long in the barren field of our own culture. We've lost our curiosity, our desire to learn, our sense of humor that would permit us to make honest self-evaluations, our pride and courage. And in losing these things, we lost our racial urge to survive.

"Look at the City this morning, Vor. See how slowly it moves; listen to how still it is for a city that contains almost a million people. Do you know what this day is for the City? It's one more act, to be added to all the thousands of acts in the past, in the City's rehearsal for extinction.

"The Terrans have what we lost. They're a young race with a vitality that's like a fire where our own is like a dying spark. That's why I let those two go; why I want the others of their kind to know of Tharnar and come here. It's not too late for us; not yet too late for contact with these Terrans to give back to us all these things we lost."

* * * * *

In the pause following his words the quiet of the City was suddenly shattered by the thunder of _The Cat's_ drives. It lifted, shining and slender and graceful, and hurled itself up into the blue sky. Tal-Karanth watched it until it was a bright star, far away and going out into the universe beyond, until the sound of its drives had faded and gone.

He looked away from the sky and back to the slowly moving, softly whispering City; the City that was dying and did not know it. He felt the stirring of an uneasiness within him; a strange non-physical desire for something. It was the first time in his life he had ever felt such a sensation; it was something so long gone from the Tharnarians that the Tharnarian word for it was obsolete and forgotten. But the Terran word for it was _wanderlust_.

"I almost wish I could have gone with them, Vor," he said. "They're going to try to reach the heart of the galaxy and see if they can find the answer to Creation. And we on Tharnar spend our lives sipping sweet drinks as we discuss trifles and wait for the sun to shine warm enough for us to emerge from our air-conditioned houses."

"If you're right in thinking that Terrans won't come to plunder Tharnar and the City," Vor-Dergal said, "then it would be interesting to know what those two find when they reach the center of the galaxy. If they don't get killed long before they reach it."

"I think any hostile forms of life they encounter will find them hard to kill," Tal-Karanth said. "We paid a high price for their capture, remember? There were two Terran proverbs behind the name of their ship. It took me quite a while to understand the second one but when I did, I realized the true extent of Terran determination and self-confidence.

"Their mission was to explore across the unknown regions of space. They knew it would be dangerous, very dangerous. So they named their ship '_The Cat_' partly because of an old Terran proverb: '_Curiosity killed a cat_.' But that was only half the reason behind the name. They intended to reach the center of the galaxy and they didn't intend to let anything stop them. So there was a second meaning behind the naming of their ship:

"'_A cat has nine lives._'"