Part 3

"Unfortunately," one or all of the Senators replied, "we do not know. It is said there is a continual production of new minds in the universe, which appear here and there, wherever there are suitable housings. Others disagree but have no real answer. If we lend you housing--a panther-style body for personal racing on the grass steppes, say, or a vast whale-style body for enjoying some of our oceans, and so on, there is some risk. Among certain cultures, we find a return of the mind to a similar vacant housing. In other places, we have found an obscuration of the mind. We think there are parallel universes differing from this as mind-form differs from substance. And we believe each mind continues in these further dimensions. This would be practical if you were unable to leave a dying housing. Our advice is not to get caught in any accidents.

"Should it be advantageous to you, we will keep housings ready for you here. One male and one female, of course. Ah--on one question which you did not ask--you will find our guest housings are a uniform breed which became popular on your Planet among the Greeks and Romans as ideal godlike forms, shortly before we returned here.

"And as to the other question you have not asked--we never interfere with local cultures, for the greater the variety of each, the greater the enrichment of all. Your system is entirely safe; we propose to observe it more closely from now on. It is our impression, however, that you would be wise _not_ to mention the galactic system we represent, when you return to your Earth. It would be too upsetting to the established pattern. We are all human beings, but we have solved the same problems in very different ways."

"We have not solved ours," Fred said.

"Oh, neither have we. But at least the few of us here, including yourselves, at any time as our guests, have achieved what you would probably call immortality."

"We are free to accept your invitation at any time?"

"Certainly."

"Then we will report that no other envoy is needed," Pat said clearly.

"That would be beneficial indeed."

"And may we send you a very limited number of friends?"

"Your guests shall be our guests. Again, we suggest you limit knowledge of us so far as possible."

"We are called Divers because we can leave our bodies. Only Divers could visit you in this way, and we will not send any others."

"Thank you. It is largely our fault. We have come across traces here and there of other colonies which we assumed were the successful result of past experiments. It occurs to us now that several of these may be in fact body-bound expeditions from your solar system. We will investigate and correct our catalogues."

"We can be of assistance there," Pat answered.

"Excellent. We wish you Godspeed and a pleasant return."

* * * * *

The nine minds released contact and moved apart. Fred felt Pat's mind slip into his. They rose off the dome and increased speed, soaring into the sky and out, above the ring of planets.

"Why didn't we borrow a couple of bodies?" Fred asked.

He could picture himself strutting elegantly in the body of a Greek god, with Pat to match beside him.

"Please stop that--we're zigzagging about. You're new, Fred. Every Diver goes through the same routine--a pep-talk from the President, Doctor Sprinnell's little tricks, your first Dive all over the universe, and then routine patrols. What you don't know is that whenever we Divers come into contact with another race or another form of life, we are invariably offered gifts of some sort. Primitives sense the presence of a Diver and put on a show, lay out food and their treasures. The more advanced, using trained telepaths, try to bribe us. And so on, without exception."

"Okay, so I'm new, Pat. So I don't know the pattern. A few days ago I was a slob in an automation-parts supply house and now I'm here with you at the back end of the Milky Way, or the center, whichever way you look at it. But Doc Spinner made some pretty odd cracks to me about security and I don't like the idea of being spied on all the time back on Earth."

"No Diver does. The Defense Council put us in business, but now they are afraid of us, in a way. We can go anywhere and see anything. We might have a look at their secret installations or their private files. Then we _would_ be in trouble."

"Well, I didn't ask to come into this. But now that I'm in and a Diver, just one fancy move by Security and I'm off to get another body. That sounds odd, doesn't it? But I mean it."

"I'm glad."

"Eh?"

"I'm very glad, Fred. I wanted to see how you'd take it. I feel the same way. It's true we're always offered presents, but immortality is something larger than a present. And to get out from under the thumb of the Psis and their spying is something all of us have been longing for."

"And I'll tell you something else, Pat. From now on, if the other Divers agree, we'll do what we want. Oh, the Solar System can have its patrolling. I'll have to learn how that's done from you. We'll tell them what they want to know. But one sign of interference and we're off, and they can keep the bodies. We won't tell them they are a backward colony that has forgotten how to Dive. But we know it. We won't tell them the rest of the Galaxy is run from the center back in Sagittarius by humans who can Dive. But we know that too. If I thought at all about it, I thought we were freaks, useful nuisances. And I didn't mind being ordered about. But we're not freaks, Pat. We're the _normal_ human beings that the Senate back there meant to create. It's the Solar System that is lop-sided, not us."

"I'm not--overinfluencing you, Fred?"

"Hell, of course you are. I can hardly think of you without looping around a star. But the facts are the same. And from today, we're not Divers. We're the _Free_ Divers, housing where we wish to, seeing what we want...."

"And protecting the Solar System, Fred."

"Well--they're entitled to that. And we'll keep to their security regulations for our bodies on Earth, if it makes them happy. We can afford to give a little here and there."

They shot together through the nearest T-Tauri variable arch and zoomed happily. After a while, they returned to the rendezvous off the American coast on Earth. The other Divers were waiting for them.

"It's a custom," Pat told him as they approached the nine Divers, hovering in space, "to greet you as a new Diver."

They closed together as they met, within Fred's larger shell. He told them. There were no doubts among their minds.

"Sooner or later," Fred finished, "one of us was bound to meet the true Galactics we've just met. It happened to be Pat and myself. I'm new and don't know much about Diving, but I've seen enough to know that from now on I'm a Free Diver."

"So are we all," they answered.

* * * * *

Returning across America in the one shell, they scattered confusion and headache throughout the psi-watching stations in their path by the scramble of eleven sets of thoughts. Then they separated and left Fred to go down to his body while they returned to theirs in the different places Security had put them. Pat followed him down as a precaution.

This time, Fred Williams' body fitted his mind with a greater feeling of strangeness but less muddling. The smaller consciousnesses of his body did not obscure his perceptions; he was aware of it as a housing for his mind.

He looked at Dr. Howard Sprinnell, who had listened to him so far in silence, uncommenting and unmoved, a mild, friendly face in the small medical room.

"So, Fred. I warned you, Pat warned you. You go out on two Dives, a few days after discovering that such things exist, and you come back to give me an ultimatum for the Solar Government. A lifetime here in the drabbest, almost medieval surroundings of the city and, after a few days, you come back announcing you're a Free Diver, owing nothing to anyone. Is that right? Do you still stick to that?"

Fred nodded.

"You realize what we can do to you, Fred? Dammit, on your first Dive you almost went out of space-time altogether, only you didn't know what you were doing. Do you know what you're doing now? Do you think I've spent twenty years searching for negative Psis for government service so that you can turn them against the Solar System?"

"Hold on, Doc. No one said anything about being against the Solar System. If there's work to be done, we'll do it. But in our own way and without being spied on."

"Just give me one reason why the government should trust you, with the entire Security system."

"Because," Fred said carefully, "you may have my body, but in my mind I am a Free Diver."

"And nothing anyone can say will change that, eh?"

"No."

"You know," Dr. Howard Sprinnell said reflectively, "you're talking as if you had another body cached away somewhere."

"Whoever heard of that?"

"Lots of people, Fred. Voodoo zombies, certain Mahayana religious leaders, prehistoric Egyptians--there's quite a well documented tradition. But the great problem has always been to find a leader with the courage to do it scientifically and in the interests of all the people, not just the members of some sect. Give a man the universe to play in and he doesn't mind a few rules as long as he's allowed to play. Finding negative Psis and creating the Divers as an organized official body was easy compared with the task of completing the experiment--_by making one of them revolt_! Nine of the ten before you were too easily satisfied. Diving according to the rules and regulations was enough for them."

"Who was the tenth?"

"Pat. She was the prettiest and most discontented. I thought I could stir up some fire."

"You did."

"Ah, good. I am high-Psi, by the way. I seem to feel she's somewhere around here. However ... I can never be a Diver myself, but years ago I formed the theory that a lot of phenomena could be explained by minds reaching out beyond their bodies. Now be careful, Fred. I don't want to _know_. The Security Psis are very real and there are a lot of things I cannot afford to know. I'm a Solar Government servant, remember. But it seemed to me there might conceivably be a life-form somewhere in the universe which used the body as a vehicle for its convenience. I hoped one day the Divers would find such a life-form, and if I made the regulations stiff enough and supplied one or two other irritations, one Diver might decide to make the jump, to revolt and stand on his own feet. Free Divers, you called yourselves, eh? A good name. I don't want to know where your base--your other base--is, Fred. I only want to know there is a group of people willing to serve the Solar Government regardless of time, theoretically for eternity--that's what it amounts to when you work it out. As I say, I'm just a government servant. And thanks, Free Diver."

He held out his hand and shook Fred's. "From now on, Fred, you can all come and go as you wish. If you feel like keeping to the security regulations, fine. But I'll make it clear to the Defense Council that there's nothing they can do about it if you don't. Men who don't mind losing their bodies have always been somewhat beyond the power of a government."

"On that basis, Doc, I don't mind continuing the way you planned."

"Laryngeal transmitter, continue your cover-job and the rest?"

"Don't see why not."

"Come along then. You're due to be released from jail."

Fred followed the doctor into the operating room.

* * * * *

He remembered the beer this time. Elsie lay back on her bed, drinking from the can, one of her scuffs dangling from a bare toe.

"The trouble with you, Fred, is you can't even rob an office."

"I didn't."

"That's what I mean. See? You just can't do anything."

He lay back on his own bed and looked at her. There were a lot of things you didn't mind putting up with, voluntarily. You married her, so you'd look after her, trudge to the shipping room to work and trudge back. The tireder you got, the better.

For evening came every day, and with the evening came sleep for his housing and eight hours for patrolling the Galaxy. And beyond the system, out beyond the dark lanes, there were endless forms of life ... and the two great developments of men, one stemming from the other in different ways, but each expanding, colonizing, growing ... all with problems for the Free Divers he led.

"Wouldja get me another beer, Fred?"

"Sure."

He remembered to slouch into the kitchen, as if he did not care. And when you considered it, he didn't care at all. This was one path of human developments the Senators never thought of.

"Trouble with you, Fred, is you're just a negative character. You weren't when I married you, but you are now."

Well, she was certainly entitled to a beer for that.