 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Eleanor Matheson. The 4D Doodler by Graf Waldayer. Do you believe, Professor Galt, that this four-dimensional plane contains life, intelligent life? At the question, Galt laughed shortly. You have been reading pseudoscience, Dr. Pilbot, he tweeted. I realize that as a psychiatrist you are interested in minds, in living beings, rather than in-dimensional planes. But I fear you will find no minds to study in the fourth dimension. There aren't any there. Professor Galt paused, peered from beneath bushy white brows out over the laboratory. To his nearsighted eyes, the blurred figure of Harper, his young assistant, seemed busily at work over his mathematical charts. Galt hoped sourly that the young man was actually working and not just drawing more of his absurd, senseless designs amidst the mathematical computations. Your proof, Dr. Pilbot broke into his thoughts insistently, is purely negative, Professor. How can you know there are no beings in the fourth dimension unless you actually enter this realm to see for yourself? Professor Galt stared at the fat, puffy face of his visitor, and snorted loudly. I am afraid, Pilbot, you do not comprehend the impossibility of such a passage. We cannot possibly break from the confines of our three-dimensional world. Here, let me explain by a simple illustration. Galt took up a book, held it so that a shadow fell onto the surface of the desk. That shadow, he said, is two-dimensional, has length and breadth, but no thickness. Now, in order to enter the third dimension, our plane, the shadow would have to bulge out in some way into the dimension of thickness, an obvious impossibility. Similarly, we cannot enter the fourth dimension. Do you see? No! retorted Pilbot with some heat. In the first place, we are not two-dimensional shadows. And why? What is the matter? Professor Galt's lanky form had stiffened. His nearsighted eyes glaring out over the laboratory to the rear of Pilbot. The psychiatrist wheeled around, following his host's gaze. It was Harper. That young man's antics drew an amazed grunt from Pilbot. He was describing peculiar motions in the air with his pencil. Circles, whirls, angles, abrupt jabs forward. He bent over the paper on the desk, made a few sweeps of the pencil. Then the pencil rose again into the air to describe more erratic motions. Harper himself seemed in a trance. Suddenly Pilbot gave a stifled gasp. It seemed to him that Harper's arm vanished at the elbow as it stabbed forward, then reappeared. Once again the phenomena happened. Pilbot blinked rapidly, rubbed his eyes. It must have been an illusion, he decided. It was too unlikely. Harper, Galt's voice was like the snapping of a steel trap. Startled, Harper came to with a jerk. Seeing he was being watched, he flushed readily, then bent over his charts again. An apologetic murmur floated from his desk. What was he doing? Pilbot asked puzzedly. Doodling, Galt spat out the word disgustedly. Doodling, echoed the psychiatrist. Why, that is a slang term we use in psychiatry to describe the absent-minded scrolls and designs people make while their attention is elsewhere occupied. An overflow of the conscious mind, we call it. Many famous people are doodlers. Their doodles often are a sign of a special ability. Exactly, snapped Galt, it shows a special ability to waste time, and Harper has become worse since I hired him to do some of my mathematical work. Some influence in this laboratory, I blush to confess, seems to bring it on. Four-dimensional doodling, we call it, because, as you saw, he doesn't confine it to the surface of the paper. Pilbot looked startled. By Jove, he cried, I believe you've hit on something new to psychiatry. This young man may have some unknown faculty of mind, an instinctive perception of the fourth dimension. Just as some people have an unerring sense of direction, so perhaps Harper has a sense of a fourth direction, the fourth dimension. I should like to examine some of his doodles. Harper looked up in alarm, as his crusty-tempered employer appeared, followed by the stout figure of Pilbot. He rose and stood aside unassumingly, as Pilbot bent over the scrolls on his charts, clucking, interestingly. Harper flickered a worried gaze over to the corner, he hoped they wouldn't notice his stress-analyzing clay model standing there. It looked like a futurist nightmare, with angles, curves, and knobs stuck out at all angles. Professor Galt might not understand. For one of his retiring temperament, Harper was aiming high. There was a standing award of $50,000 for the lucky mathematician who would solve the mystery of the stress barrier encountered by skyscrapers as they were built up toward the 150-story mark. At this height, they encountered stress and strains which mathematical computations and engineering designs had been unable to solve. Harper believed the stress barrier was due to an undetected space bending close to the Earth's surface, a bending of space greater than ever provided for in the prediction of Einstein. And if he was right, he could win that award, and there might be wedding bells, and a little bungalow with Judas. Harper's greatest fear was that he would do something to annoy Galt into firing him, thus depriving him of the privilege of using the mathematical charts and computing machines available in the laboratory. Right now, he hoped Galt wouldn't notice that statue in the corner. What's that? Harper's heart leaped. The professor was glaring at the statue as though it were something the cat brought in. Pilbott looked up from examination of the doodles and followed Galt over to the futuristic statuary. As Galt made strangled noises, Pilbott stared interestingly. Why, it's like some of the designs in his doodling, he exclaimed. And made with some of my best modeling clay for reproducing geometric solids, rapsed Galt, he wheeled upon Harper. Get that thing out of here. I won't stand for such rot in this laboratory. Throw it into the hall for the janitor. Yes, sir, said Harper, gulping. He took hold of the statue, pulled at it. It won't budge, he exclaimed amazingly. Eh, won't move. It's not heavy, is it? demanded the professor. No, about thirty pounds, but it won't move. Galt took hold of one of the angles of the thing, jerked at it savagely. He gave up with an oath, returning to Harper's desk muttering. Harper suddenly noticed the top portion of the statue. It didn't seem to be all there. He was positive there'd been another section on top, shooting off at an angle, representing a problem in tangential stress. What had happened to that top section? He would figure that out later, when the occasion was more propitious. Right now, he realized that only the presence of Dr. Pilbott prevented Galt from firing him. He cast an apprehensive glance toward his employer. With trepidation, he saw Galt reaching for something projecting from behind a bench. Galt pulled it out, held it dangling before him. A strangled exclamation of wrath came from him. His long nose pointed accusingly toward Harper, like a finger pointing to a criminal. I was afraid of that, he graded, cutting paper dolls. Galt was holding up a large paper cutout of a human figure, a long, rangy man. This is the last straw, Galt went on, his voice rising. I have stood enough. It wasn't me, sir, Harper cried quickly, with visions of his job and fifty thousand dollars vanishing. It was your ten-year-old nephew, Rudolph. When he was here yesterday, he cut it out, said it looked like his uncle. Harper stopped as Galt seemed about to explode. Then the mathematician subsided, a malicious expression crept over his face. Hmm, he said, might be just what I need to explain things to Dr. Pilbott. I shall take this matter before the psychiatric society, Pilbott was saying excitedly. Undoubtedly you have some strange faculty, an instinctive perception of four-dimensional laws. What was that, Professor? I said, if you will step over to this desk, I will explain to you in elementary terms, very elementary and easy to understand, why you will never be able to study four-dimensional beings, if any exist. Galt's voice was tinged with sarcasm. Pilbott came over, followed by Harper, who was interested in any explanations about the fourth dimension, even elementary ones. Galt, with a glance in his eye, pressed the paper figure flatly on the surface of Harper's desk. This paper man, we will say, represents a two-dimensional creature. We lay him flatly against the desk, which represents his world. Flatland, we mathematicians call it. Mr. Flatlander can't see into our world. He can only see along the flat plain of his own world. To see us, for instance, he would have to look up, which is the third dimension, a direction inconceivable to him. Now, Doctor, are you beginning to understand why we can never see four-dimensional beings? Pilbott frowned thoughtfully, then looked up. And what about the viewpoint of the four-dimensioners themselves? What would prevent them from seeing us? Harper hardly heard the Professor's snort of disgust. This two-dimensional cutout in Flatland fascinated him. An idea occurred to him. Now, just supposing. As Galt and Pilbott argued, Harper grasped the paper cutout and bent it, jackknifed it, creasing it firmly in the middle. Then he raised the upper half so that it rose vertically from the desk, while the lower half was still pressed flatly against the surface. Now, he murmured to himself, the Flatlander would have appeared to his fellows to have vanished from the waist up, because from the waist up he has bent into the third dimension, so far as they are concerned. Yee! At the wavering scream, Harper looked up quickly. Pilbott was staring frozenly in front of him toward the floor. Harper followed his glance and saw it. Professor Galt had vanished from the waist up. His lower body still stood before Pilbott, swaying slightly, but the upper body was unconditionally missing. From the large feet planted solidly on the floor, long legs rose majestically, terminating in slim angular hips, and from thence vanished abruptly into nothingness. It was as though the upper body had been sheared away, neatly and precisely at the waist. Pilbott stared from the visible portion of Galt to slack-jawed Harper and back again, sweat splashing from his puffy face. Why, why really, my dear fellow? He quavered, addressing the half figure. This, this is a bit rude of you, vanishing in the midst of my sentence. I trust you will, uh, return at once. Then, as the full import of the phenomena penetrated to his understanding, his eyes became glazed, and he backed away. The portion of Professor Galt addressed failed to give any indication it had heard the remonstrance. Slowly, the legs began to feel their way, like a blind man, about the floor. Harper stared wildly, white showing around his pale blue irises. No, he pleaded. The professor didn't do it himself. I caused it to happen. I bent the paper cut out, and, and something saw me do it, and imitated me by bending the professor into the fourth dimension. Harper moaned faintly, wringing his hands. Pilbott, at the moment, got little satisfaction from this demonstration of his point about four-dimensional life. He glanced fearfully at the half figure. You mean to say, he quailed, that we are under scrutiny by some being of the fourth dimension? That's it, replied Harper with a winny. I know it, I can feel it. It became aware of our three-dimensional life in some way, and its attention is now concentrated on the lab. He wrung his hands. I just know something else terrible is going to happen. He backed away quickly as the occupied pair of pants moved toward him. His retreat was halted by his desk, upon which were posed two large California oranges, an inevitable accompaniment to Harper's lunch. To him, orange juice was a potent, revivifying drink. Now he automatically reached for one of the oranges, as a more hearty individual might reach for a whiskey and soda in a moment of mental shock. His eyes wide on the shuffling approach of Galt's underpinnings, Harper nervously dug sharp fingernails into the orange, tore off large chunks of skin. A sudden blur seen from the corner of his eyes pulled his gaze back to the desk. The other orange had vanished. It dropped to the floor before Harper, and now it was a squashy mess, the inside standing out like petals, the juice running from it. The other orange slipped from Harper's nerveless fingers, rolled along the desktop. Harper pounced on the squashy thing on the floor, feverishly pulling back the projecting insides, closely examined it. He looked up wide-eyed at Pilbot. Turned inside out, he gasped hoarsely, without breaking its skin. Pilbot's expression indicated that the scientific attitude was slowly replacing his former fright. He snapped his fingers. Imitation again, he said, half to himself. He looked at Harper. When you bent the paper figure, this four-dimensional entity imitated your action by bending the professor. Now, as you started to peel the orange, your action was again imitated, in a four-dimensional manner, by this entity turning the other orange inside out. His voice dropped as he muttered. Imitativeness, the mark of a mind of low evolutionary order, or of... His words faded off, his expression thoughtful. More white showed around Harper's eyes. You...you mean I'm being specially watched by this being? That he...uh...it? Imitates everything I do? That's it, clipped Pilbot. Because you possess the strange perception of its realm, the being has been especially attracted to you. Imitates whatever you do, but in a four-dimensional manner. A being of inexplicable powers and prerogatives, with weird power over matter, but with a mentality that is either very primitive or... Harper leaped into the air with a yell, as Professor Galt's abbreviated body sidled up to him from behind. As he leaped, the inside-out orange flew out of his grasp. I just know, he quavered, that Professor Galt wants me to do something is probably barking orders at me from that other dimension. Oh dear, I've dropped the orange on the professor's where his stomach should be. The squashy orange had landed on the area of Galt that was the line of demarcation between his visible and invisible portions. That area that his stomach would occupy normally. It rested there in plain sight of the two startled men. I...I'd better remove it, said Harper weakly. He moved with a dreadful compulsion toward the swaying half-figure. One slender hand extended tremblingly toward the inverted orange. Abruptly, the orange vanished. Harper halted like he'd run into a brick wall. Staring blankly ahead, he put his hands to his stomach, moaning faintly. What's the matter, cried Pilbot? The orange! It's in my stomach! See, what did I tell you, exalted Pilbot? Another act of imitativeness! It saw you drop the orange on Galt's where his stomach should be and imitated by putting the orange in your stomach. It proves I'm right about the being. With a loud belch, Pilbot broke off. He stared blankly at Harper. Then his hand slowly came up to clutch at his stomach. Harper looked quickly at the desktop. The other orange! It's gone! Into my stomach, groaned Pilbot. Be...be careful what you do. My God, don't do anything. Don't even think! This four-dimensional creature will surely imitate whatever you do in some weird manner. Rubbing his stomach, Pilbot glanced about at the various articles of furniture. He blanched. I wouldn't want any of that stuff inside of me. He yammered. Harper flicked a despairing glance at the half-body, now gliding along in the vicinity of the paper cut-out. We...we must do something to get the professor back, he said wardly. He thought incongruously of a restaurant where he used to order lemon pie and invariably get apple. Finally, he found that he could get lemon by ordering peach. Now the problem was, what did he have to order to get his employee extricated from being stuck between dimensions, like a pig under a fence? Anything he did would be imitated in a manner that might prove tragic. The upright portion of the cut-out was leading over backward, the head drooping down like a wilted flower as the tension at the crease slowly lessened. Gathering together, what resolution he could, Harper determined to take the bull by the horns. He would get the professor returned by pressing the upper portion of the cut-out flatly onto the desk surface. With trembling hands, he pressed down on it, then sprang back with a muffled yell. Three feet above the half-body, the professor's head had flashed into visibility. You only pressed the head onto the desk, said Pilbot disgustedly, so the being only impressed Galt's head back into the laboratory. Now press down the rest of the body. The professor's head, suspended above the body, glared about, affixed Harper with a smoldering glance. The mouth moved rapidly, but no words came. Professor, I can't hear you, whimpered Harper. Your lungs and vocal cords are in the other dimension. Here, I'll have you completely returned. He reached a hand toward the cut-out, the torso of which still bulged upward from the desk. Galt's head waggled in vigorous negation of Harper's contemplated act. His mouth moved in what, if audible, would have been clipped, burning accents. Harper drew back his hand as if he had touched a red-hot poker. The professor doesn't want me to touch the cut-out, he said helplessly. Galt's head hovered over the cut-out like a gaunt moon. It swooped down toward the paper figure, seeming to be studying its position on the desk closely. Pilbott watched him for a sign of his intentions or wishes. Harper wandered distractedly over toward the high wall bench. He had it! He would distract the attention of the entity from Galt by making another cut-out. He would then experiment with that second one without endangering Galt. He'd be careful not to make this one tall and thin, so as not to resemble the professor in outline. Perhaps with it, he could trick the entity into releasing the missing part of Galt's body. He scraped in the bench door for the scissors and started to shear through a large stiff piece of paper. A moment later he looked up as Pilbott walked over. Galt has some reason for not wanting his silhouette touched, he said. Can't quite make out his lip movements, but he seems afraid some permanent mark may be left on him by his return. He wants time to figure out, why, what are you doing? I've made another cut-out for experiment, exclaimed Harper. And this one doesn't look like the professor. It isn't tall and thin, see? He lifted the second cut-out from the flat surface of the bench, held it suspended before him. This one is short and fat. Harper halted abruptly, the breath whooshing from his lungs. There was no use talking to thin air. Pilbott had been whisked into nothingness, where the portly figure of the eminent psychiatrist had stood was now nothing, not even a half-man. Too late, Harper realized that when he had lifted the paper figure from the surface of the bench, the entity had imitated him by lifting Pilbott into the fourth dimension. Belatedly, he knew that the cut-out which he held dangling resembled Pilbott in outline. Harper dashed back and forth in little rushes, carrying the paper figure. He dared not put it down for fear of seeing some segment of Pilbott flash back. He did not know what to do with it. Finally, he compromised by suspending it to a low-hanging chandelier where it dangled swaying in the slight air currents. Galt was watching his assistant's antics with a bleak expression that changed his sardonic satisfaction as he realized Pilbott was in a predicament like his, only more so. Abruptly he frowned, staring ahead, and Harper guessed that Pilbott had located Galt's torso in the other realm, was nudging him to indicate the fact. Suddenly Harper knew that he himself must enter this fourth dimensional realm, that strange instinct told him the solution to everything was there, somewhat as a woman's intuition impels her to act in a certain way without knowing why. How to get there? Another paper cut-out? He glanced toward the professor, the occupied trousers and swimming above it the man's head. The head was watching him, the expression savage. No, there must be no more cut-outs, Harper decided, while the four-dimensional entity distinguished between the outlines of a thin silhouette and a fat one, something in between, like Harper's form, would be testing it too far. He, Harper, would take the place of his own cut-out. Galt's head reared up, glared fixedly at his assistant, as the young man swung his legs onto the desk, then lay down flat. A moment he lay there, in flat land, then leaped to his feet. It was as though he had leaped into a different world. He was no longer in the laboratory. He wasn't on any floor at all, as far as he could make out. His feet rested on nothing, and yet there was some sort of tension under him, like the surface tension of water. He was, he suddenly knew it, standing on a segment of warped space. There was a spatial strain here that acted as a solid beneath him. Harper looked up, that is overhead. There was nothing there but vast stretches of emptiness at first. Then he saw that this emptiness was lined and laced with filmy striations, like cellophane. They bore a strange resemblance to his doodlings, as though that strange faculty of his enabled him to somehow perceive this place of the fourth dimension. And instinctively, Harper knew that these lacings were the boundaries of a vast enclosure, a four-dimensional enclosure, the walls of which consisted of joined and meshed space warps. Abruptly, he became aware of movement. He became aware of solidity there above him, and the solidity was in motion. Harper knew he was gazing upon a being of the fourth dimension, doubtless the entity that had caused the phenomena in the laboratory, which had snatched him into the fourth dimension, and even now observing him with its four-dimensional sight. There was a shape above him that strained his eyes, gave hint of form just beyond his comprehension. Harper hardly noticed that Pilbott was beside him, shaking him. He had suddenly grasped a fundamental law of spatial stresses, and he whipped out a patent pencil, began scribbling down the mathematical formula of these laws. He began to see now why skyscrapers encountered the stress barrier at a certain height. He understood just as a person of innate musical ability, hearing music for the first time, would understand the laws of that music. Look out! It's moving, descending! Pilbott was yelling in his ear. It is about to act. Became active the moment you got here. How did you induce it to bring you here? Huh? Harper looked up from his scribbling. Oh! Harper explained quickly how he had induced the being to act on himself. That's it! cried Pilbott hoarsely. You've switched the pattern of imitation on it, tricked it into bringing you here. That's what made it angry. Harper almost dropped his pad, clutched at Pilbott as there was a sudden upheaval of the invisible tension surface on which they stood. A violent shake sprawled them on the ground, and now Harper saw the torso of Galt a few feet away, apparently hovering above the surface. Yes, angry! Pilbott was pale. As long as you merely gave it something to imitate, it was pacified, but now it recognizes opposition, an effort to outwit it due to your switching the pattern of imitation. Its condition is dangerous. It's bound to react violently. We have to get out of here. You must know some way. Harper again scribbled some figures on his pad. As soon as I worked out this formula, Pilbott shook him frantically. Can't you understand? This creature is a mental patient of a violent type. We are in a fourth dimensional insane asylum. Pilbott gazed upward fearfully at a descending mass. The pattern of its action fits perfectly, he went on. Some violent type of insanity, combined with delusions of grandeur. Any slightest opposition will cause a spasm of fury. It recognizes such opposition in the way you tricked it into bringing you here. At first I thought it was a primitive mentality, but now I know it is a highly evolved but insane creature thinks it's Napoleon, wants to conquer the three dimensional plane which its attention has been attracted to in some way. Harper looked up in surprise. Does it know about Napoleon? Of course not you fool! Screamed Pilbott, it has the Napoleonic complex identifies itself with some great conqueror of its own realm, and now it's on the rampage. We have to get out of here. He clutched it Harper as another upheaval of the surface threw them down. Rising, Harper put away his pad. His calculations were complete. He could now show engineers how to build high buildings taking advantage of space stress instead of trying to fight the stress. For the first time, the danger of their positions seemed to penetrate to his consciousness. He looked about, and his eyes rested on a strange familiar projection rising from the invisible floor a few feet away. It was the section of his clay statue that had vanished. Vanished because its peculiar shape had somehow caused it to be warped into the fourth dimension. Why hadn't he been able to move it? Professor Galt moved around freely. He and Pilbott went over to it, tried to move it. A slight filming web work around the projection caught Harper's eye. Now he knew. The being had somehow affixed it to the spot as a landmark so it could locate the laboratory. It must have been this projection that had first attracted the being's attention to the three-dimensional world since, ordinarily, it would never have noticed the presence of three-dimensional life any more than humans would notice the presence of two-dimensional life if such existed. Harper looked up at a bleat from Pilbott. Above them was a sudden furious play of lights and shades. Vast masses seemed shifting in crazy juxtapositions, now descending rapidly toward them. Quick! Harper, now fully aroused, gasped to Pilbott, climbed down this projection. Climbed down it? Yes, there is a fluid condition of space where it penetrates between the two planes. By hugging its contours, you will emerge into the laboratory, I hope. Pilbott glanced overhead nervously, then experimentally slid a foot down the projection. The foot vanished. With a cry of relief, Pilbott lowered himself until only head and shoulders were visible. Then that too vanished. Harper looked up. Some monstrous suggestion of form was almost upon him. He grasped the projection, and just as his head sank out of sight, the form seemed to smash down on him. Pilbott helped Harper to his feet from where he had sprawled at the base of the statue on the laboratory floor. Quick! he gasped. The creature will be infuriated now by our escape from its realm. A maniacal spasm is sure to follow. We must get Galt back in some way, then leave the laboratory. Even as they dashed over toward the abbreviated form of Galt, the laboratory shook. Invisible strains seemed to be bulging the walls inward. Harper rushed to the desk upon which still reposed the cutout, the section between neck and waist still arched off the surface. As Harper reached toward the cutout to press it flat, Galt's eyes widened, his mouth opened in a soundless shout of opposition. Harper hesitated. Never mind him, yammered Pilbott, press the figure flat. Harper pressed it flat. For an instant the laboratory stopped its ominous vibration. Then the figure of Galt flew through the air, came up against a wall, but it was his complete figure. More signs of violence cried Pilbott, but that action won't appease it. We must get out of here. Even as he spoke, there was a thunderous crackling and roaring. Harper felt himself flying about, and for an instant of awful vertigo, he did not know up from down. Forces seemed to be tearing at him. He felt as though he were a piece of iron being attracted simultaneously in several directions by powerful electromagnets. There was a flare of colored lights, a deafening detonation, and he felt himself knocked breathless against a wall. He picked himself up, looked around. On one side of him was the familiar south wall of the laboratory. To the north, east, and west was open air. He was standing on a section of laboratory flooring that jetted out over empty space from the wall. His desk was a few feet away, right at the edge of the jutting floor. Galt and Pilbott were picking themselves up to one side of the desk. The pair looked over the edge of the floor and recoiled, frenziedly, hugging the flooring under them. Harper crawled over, looking over the edge, quickly backed away, several hundred feet below the traffic of the city roared. Galt went over to the door in one wall, opened it, then stepped back quickly, his face pale. The laboratory has been turned inside out, he shouted. We are on the outside. We must get away from here, squalled Pilbott. Another spasm of the creature will precipitate us into the street. Galt forgot his apprehensions long enough to freeze Harper with a glance. This is all you're doing, he bawled, you with your absurd doodling which attracted the attention of some being of the fourth dimension. In his anger, he overlooked the fact that he was contradicting his formerly held opinion. The laboratory wrecked, he continued, and that isn't all. He stalked up to the cringing Harper, thrust his face toward him. Do you know, he yelled, why I didn't want to be returned hastily, why I didn't want you to bring me back by flattening out the paper cutout? You dolt. Did you ever try to get a crease out of a piece of paper? I don't understand, muttered Harper. That paper doll was creased, wasn't it? shouted Galt. Once a piece of paper is creased, he resumed heatedly. It can't be perfectly flattened out again. At the crease, a thin cross-section continues to bulge, into the third dimension, in the case of that paper cutout, into the fourth dimension, in my case. I'm creased, too, at the line where I was bent into the fourth dimension. Surely you aren't blind. Harper staggered back as he saw it, a thin horizontal line of light shining through Galt's body across his waistline, through clothes and all. I shall have to go through life this way, Galt snarled, due to your imbecilic doodling, and your meddling with what you don't understand. Go about constantly with a slit of daylight showing through me. You're fired. Gentlemen! cried Pilbot. The Entity! We must get away! Another spasm will surely follow. Harper didn't think so. A few feet away he noticed something, his statue lying on its side. It was all there, including the portion that had been in the fourth dimension. The Entity's landmark was gone. Harper didn't believe it would locate this particular area of the third dimension again. The scream of a fire siren rose up to them. As a ladder scraped over the projecting floor, Harper fondly felt the pad in his pocket with the formula on it. He wasn't worried now about having been fired. He was seeing visions of a small cottage with Judith. Of course, he would have to be careful in the future with his doodling. He could not again risk attracting the attention of some four-dimensional being, not with Judith to think about. End of The 4-D Doodler by Graf Waldayer Recording by Eleanor Matheson in the City of Orlando As a blisteringly hot but guaranteed weather-controlled future summer day, dawned on the Mississippi Valley, the walking mills of puffy products, spiked aloof in one operation, began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas. The walking mills resembled fat metal serpents, rather larger than those Chinese paper dragons animated by files of men in procession. Sensory robot devices in their nose informed them that the waiting wheat had reached ripe perfection. As they advanced, their heads swung lazily from side to side, very much like snakes, gobbling the yellow grain. In their throats it was threshed, the chaff bundled and burped aside for pickup by the crawl-trucks of a chemical corporation. The kernels quick-dried and blown along into the mighty chests of the machines. There the tireless mills ground the kernels to flour, which was instantly sifted, the bran being packaged and dropped like the chaff for pickup. A cluster of tanks which gave the metal serpents a decidedly hump-backed appearance, added water, shortening, salt, and other ingredients, some named and some not. The dough was at the same time infused with gas from a tank conspicuously labeled carbon dioxide, no yeast creatures in your bread. Thus instantly risen the dough was clipped into loaves and shot into radionic ovens, forming the mid-sections of the metal serpents. There the bread was baked in a matter of seconds, a fierce heat front browning the crusts, and the piping hot loaves sealed in transparent plastic bearing the proud puffy loaf emblem, two cherubs circling a floating loaf, and ejected on to the delivery platform at each serpents' rear end, where a cluster of pickup machines like hungry piglets snatched at the loaves with hygienic claws. A few loaves would be hurried off for the day's consumption. The majority stored for winter in strategically located mammoth deep freezes. But now, behold a wonder! As loaves began to appear on the delivery platform of the first walking mill to get into action, they did not linger on the conveyor belt, but rose gently into the air and slowly travelled off downwind across the hot, rippling fields. The robot claws of the pickup machines clutched in vain, and, not noticing the difference, proceeded carefully to stack emptiness, tier by tier. One errant loaf, rising more sluggishly than its fellows, was snagged by a thrusting claw. The machine paused, clumsily wiped off the injured loaf, set it aside, where it bobbed on one corner unable to take off again, and went back to the work of storing nothingness. A flock of crows rose from the trees of a nearby shelter belt as the flight of loaves approached. The crows swooped to investigate, and then suddenly scattered, screeching in panic. The helicopter of a hangoverish Sunday traveller bound for Wichita shied very similarly from the brown flyers, and did not return for a second look. A black-haired housewife spied them over her back fence, crossed herself, and grabbed her walkie-talkie from the laundry basket. Seconds later, the yawning correspondent of a regional newspaper was jotting down the lead of a humorous news story which, recalling the old flying saucer scares, stated that now apparently bread was to be included in the mad aerial tea-party. The congregation of an open-walled country church, standing up to recite the most familiar of Christian prayers, had just reached the petition for daily sustenance, when a sub-flight of the loaves, either forced down by a vagrant wind or lacking the natural buoyancy of the rest, came coasting silently as the sunbeams between the graceful pillars at the altar end of the building. Meanwhile the main flight, now augmented by other bread flocks from scores and hundreds of walking mills that had started work a little later, mounted slowly and majestically into the cirrus-flect upper air, where a steady wind was blowing strongly toward the east. About one thousand miles farther on in that direction, where a cluster of stratosphere tickling towers marked the location of the metropolis of New New York, a tender scene was being enacted in the pressurized penthouse managerial suite of puffy products. Megara Winterly, secretary-in-chief to the managerial board, and referred to by her underlings as the Blonde Eicicle, was dealing with the advances of Roger, resource Sneddon, assistant secretary to the board, and often indistinguishable from any passing office boy. Why don't you jump out the window, Roger, remembering to shut the airlock after you?" The golden glacier said in tones not unkind. When are your high-strung, thoroughbred nerves going to accept the fact that I would never consider marriage with a business inferior? You have about as much chance as a starving Ukrainian kulak now that Moscow's clapped on the interdict. Roger's voice was calm, although his eyes were feverishly bright, as he replied. A lot of things are going to be different around here, Meg, as soon as the board is forced to admit that only my quick thinking made it possible to bring the name of Puffyloaf in front of the whole world. Puffyloaf could do with a little of that, the business girl observed judiciously. The way sales have been plummeting it won't be long before the government deeds our desk to the managers of Fairy Bread and asks us to take the big jump. But just where does your quick thinking come into this, Mr. Snedden? You can't be referring to the helium. That was Rose Thinker's brainwave. She studied him suspiciously. You've birthed another promotional bumble, Roger. I can see it in your eyes. I only hope it's not as big a one as when you put the Martian ambassador on 3D, and he thanked you profusely for the gross of Puffyloafs, assuring you that he'd never slept on a softer mattress in all his life on two planets. Listen to me, Meg. Today. Yes, today. You're going to see the board eating out of my hand. Ha! I guarantee you won't have any fingers left. You're bold enough now, but when Mr. Grice and those two big machines come through that door— now wait a minute, Meg. Hush! They're coming now. Roger leaped three feet in the air but managed to land without a sound and edged toward his stool. Through the dilating iris of the door strode Phineas T. Grice, flanked by Rose Thinker and Tin Philosopher. The man approached the conference table in the center of the room with measured pace and gravely expressionless face. The rose-tinted machine on his left did a couple of impulsive pirouettes on the way, and twittered a greeting to Meg and Roger. The other machine quietly took the third of the high seats and lifted a claw at Meg, who now occupied a stool twice the height of Roger's. Miss Winterly, please. Our theme. The blond icicles faced thawed into a little girl's smile as she chanted bubblingly. Made up of tiny, wheaten motes and reinforced with sturdy oats, it rises through the air and floats, the bread on which Altera dotes. Thank you, Miss Winterly, said the Tin Philosopher. Though a purely figurative statement, that bit about rising through the air always gets me here. He wrapped his midsection, which gave off a high musical clang. Ladies, he inclined his photo-cells toward Rose Thinker and Meg. And, gentlemen, this is a historic occasion in Old Puffy's long history, the inauguration of the helium-filled loaf, so light it almost floats away, in which that inert and heaven-aspiring gas replaces old-fashioned carbon dioxide. Later there will be kudos for Rose Thinker, whose bright relays genius sparked the idea, and also for Roger Sneddon, who took care of the details. By the by, racehorse, that was a brilliant piece of work getting the helium out of the government. You've been pretty stuffy lately about their monopoly. But first I want to throw wide the casement in your minds that opens on the long view of things. Rose Thinker spun twice on her chair, and opened her photo-cells wide. Tin Philosopher coughed to limber up the diaphragm of a speaker and continued. Ever since the first cave-wife boasted to her next-den neighbor about the superior paleness and fluffiness of her tortillas, mankind has sought lighter, wider bread. Indeed, Thinker's wiser than myself have equated the whole upward course of culture with this poignant quest. Yeast was a wonderful discovery for its primitive day. Sifting the bran and wheat germ from the flour was an even more important advance. Early bleaching and preserving chemicals played their humble parts. For a while, barbarous fatists, blind to the deeply spiritual nature of bread, which is recognized by all great religions, held back our march toward perfection with their hair-splitting insistence on the vitamin content of the wheat germ. But their case collapsed when tasteless, colorless substitutes were triumphantly synthesized and introduced into the loaf, which for flawless purity, unequaled airiness, and sheer intangible goodness was rapidly becoming mankind's supreme gustatory experience. I wonder what the stuff tastes like, Rose Thinker said out of a clear sky. I wonder what taste tastes like, tin philosopher echoed dreamily. Recovering himself, he continued. Then early in the 21st century came the epical researches of Everett Whitehead, Puffyloaf chemist, culminating in his paper The Structural Bubble in Cereal Masses, and making possible the baking of airtight bread twenty times stronger for its weight than steel, and of a lightness that would have been incredible, given to the advanced chemist-bakers of the 20th century. A lightness so great that, besides forming the backbone of our own promotion, it has forever since been capitalized on by our consciousness-competitors of fairy bread, with their enduring slogan, It Makes Ghost Toast. That's a butte all right, that ectodoe blurb," Rose Thinker admitted, bugging her photo-cells sadly. Wait a sec. How about? There'll be bread overhead when you're dead, it is said. Phineas T. Grice wrinkled his nostrils at the pink machine as if he smelled her insulation smoldering. He said mildly, a somewhat unhappy jingle rose, referring as it does to the end of the customer as consumer. Moreover, we shouldn't overplay the figurative rises through the air angle. What inspired you? She shrugged. I don't know. Oh, yes I do. I was remembering one of the workers' songs we machines used to chant during the big strike. Work and pray. Live on hay. You'll get pie in the sky. When you die, it's a lie. I don't know why we chanted it," she added. We didn't want pie, or hay for that matter, and machines don't pray except to bet in prayer-wheels. Phineas T. Grice shook his head. Labor relations are another topic we should stay far away from. However, dear Rose, I'm glad you keep trying to out-jingle those dirty crooks at fairy bread. He scowled, turning back his attention to Tin Philosopher. I get whopping mad, old machine, whenever I hear that other slogan of theirs, the discriminatory one, untouched by robot claws, just because they employ a few filthy androids in their factories. Tin Philosopher lifted one of his own sets of bright talents. Thanks, P.T., but to continue my historical resume, the next great advance in the baking art was the substitution of purified carbon dioxide, recovered from coal smoke, for the gas generated by yeast organisms indwelling in the dough, and later killed by the heat of baking, their corpses remaining in situ. But even purified carbon dioxide is itself a rather repugnant gas, a product of metabolism whether fast or slow, and forever associated with those life processes which are obnoxious to the fastidious. Here the machine shuddered with delicate clinkings. Therefore, we of Puffyloaf are taking to-day what may be the ultimate step toward purity. We are air-reading our loaves with the noble gas helium, an element which remains virginal in the face of all chemical temptations, and whose slim molecules are eleven times lighter than obese carbon dioxide. Yes, noble uncontaminable helium, which, if it be a kind of ash, is yet the ash only of radioactive burning, accomplished or initiated entirely on the sun, a safe ninety-three million miles from this planet. Let's have a cheer for the helium loaf. Without changing expression Phineas T. Grice wrapped the table thrice in solemn applause, while the others bowed their heads. Thanks, T.B., P.T. then said, and now for the moment of truth. Miss Winterly, how is the helium loaf selling? The business girl clapped on a pair of earphones and whispered into a lapel mic. Her gaze grew abstracted as she mentally translated flurries of brief squawks into coherent messages. Suddenly a single vertical furrow creased her matchlessly smooth brow. It isn't Mr. Grice, she gasped in horror. Fairy bread is outselling puffy loaves by an infinity factor. So far this morning there has not been one single delivery of puffy loaves to any sales spot. Complaints about non-delivery are pouring in from both walking stores and sessile shops. Mr. Snedden, Grice sparked. What bug in the new helium process might account for this delay? Roger was on his feet, looking bewildered. I can't imagine, sir, unless, just possibly, there's been some unforeseeable difficulty involving the new metal foil wrappers. Metal foil wrappers? Were you responsible for those? Yes, sir. Last minute recalculation showed that the extra lightness of the new loaf might be great enough to cause drift during stackage. Drafts and stores might topple sales pyramids. Metal foil wrappers, by their added weight, took care of the difficulty. And you ordered them without consulting the board? Yes, sir. There was hardly time, and why you fool! I noticed that order for metal foil wrappers, assumed it was some sub-secretary's mistake, and cancelled it last night. Roger Snedden turned pale. You cancelled it? He quavered. And told them to go back to the lighter plastic wrappers? Of course! Just what is behind all of this, Mr. Snedden? What recalculations were you trusting, when our physicist had demonstrated months ago that the helium loaf was safely stackable in light airs and gentle breezes, winds up to Beaufort Scale III? Why should it change from heavier to lighter wrappers resulting complete non-delivery? Roger Snedden's paleness became tinged with an interesting green. He cleared his throat and made strange gulping noises. Ten philosophers' photocells focused on him calmly. Rose thinkers with unfaigned excitement. P.T. Grice's frown grew blacker by the moment, while McGarrow Winterly's Venus Mask showed an odd dawning of dismay and awe. She was getting new squawks in her earphones. Er, um, er... Roger Snedden winning tones. Well, you see, the fact is that I... Hold it! McGe interrupted crisply. Triple urgent from Public Relations, Safety Division. Tulsa Topeka Aero Express makes emergency landing after being buffeted in a counter with vast flight of objects first described as brown birds. Although no failures reported in Airway's electronic anti-bird fences. After grounding safely near Emporia, no fatalities, Pilots' windshield found thinly plastered with soft white and brown material. Emblems on plastic wrappers embedded in material identified incontrovertibly as an undetermined number of puffy loaves cruising at 3,000 feet. Eyes and photo cells turned inquisitorily upon Roger Snedden. He went from green to puffy loaf white and blurted, All right, I did it, but it was the only way out. Yesterday morning, due to the Ukrainian crisis, the government stopped sales and deliveries of all strategic stockpiled materials, including helium gas. Puffy's new program of advertising and promotion, based on the lighter loaf, was already rolling. There was only one thing to do. There being only one other gas comparable in lightness to helium. I diverted the necessary quantity of hydrogen gas from the hydrogenated oils section of our magna margarine division and substituted it for the helium. You substituted hydrogen for the helium? Phineas T. Grice faltered in low mechanical tones, taking four steps backward. Hydrogen is twice as light as helium, tin philosopher remarked judiciously. And many times cheaper. Did you know that? Roger countered feebly. Yes, I had substituted hydrogen. The metal foil wrapping would have added just enough weight to counteract the greater buoyancy of the hydrogen loaf. But so, when this morning's loaves began to arrive on the delivery platforms of the walking mills, tin philosopher left the remark unfinished. Exactly. Roger agreed dismally. Let me ask you, Mr. Stedden. Grice interjected still in low tones. If you expected people to jump to the kitchen ceiling for their puffy bread after taking off the metal wrapper, or reach for the sky if they happened to unwrap the stuff outdoors. Mr. Grice, Roger said reproachfully. You have often assured me that what people do with puffy bread after they buy it is no concern of ours. I seem to recall. Rose thinker chirped somewhat unkindly. That dictum was created to answer inquiries after Roger put the famous Sculptures in Miniature artist on 3D, and he testified that he always molded his first attempts from puffy bread, one jumbo loaf squeezing down to approximately the size of a peanut. Her photo cells dimmed and brightened. Oh, boy! Hydrogen! The loaves unwrapped. After a while, in spite of the crust seal, a little oxygen diffuses in. An explosive mixture, housewife and curlers and kimono pops a couple slices in the toaster. Boom! The three human beings in the room winced. Tin philosopher kicked her under the table while observing. So you see, Roger, that the non-delivery of the hydrogen loaf carries some consolations, and I must confess that one aspect of the affair gives me great satisfaction, not as a board member, but as a private machine. You have at last made a reality of the rises through the air part of puffy bread's theme. They can't ever take that away from you. By now, half the inhabitants of the Great Plains must have observed our flying loaves rising high. Phineas T. Grice shot a frightened look at the west windows and found his full voice. Stop the mills! he roared at Meg winterly, who nodded and whispered urgently into her mic. A sensible suggestion, tin philosopher said. But it comes a trifle late in the day. If the mills are still walking and grinding, approximately seven billion puffy loaves are at this moment cruising eastward over middle America. Remember that a six-month supply for deep-freeze is involved, and that the current consumption of bread, due to its matchless airiness, is eight-and-one-half loaves per person per day. Phineas T. Grice carefully inserted both hands into his scanty hair, feeling for a good grip. He leaned menacingly toward Roger, who, chin-resting on the table, regarded him apathetically. Hold it! Meg called sharply. Flock of multiple urgence coming in. News liaison. Information bureaus swamped with flying bread inquiries. Arrow express lines. Clear our airways or face lawsuit. U.S. Army. Why do loaves flame when hit by incendiary bullets? U.S. Customs. If bread intended for export, get export license or face prosecution. Russian consulate in Chicago. Advise on destination of bread lift. And some Kansas church is accusing us of a hoax inciting to blasphemy of faking miracles. I don't know why. The business girl tore off her headphones. Roger's snitten! She cried with a hysteria that would have dumbfounded her underlings. You've brought the name of Puffy-loaf in front of the whole world, all right? Now do something about the situation! Roger nodded obediently. But his pallor increased a shade. The pupils of his eyes disappeared under the upper lids, and his head burrowed beneath his forearms. Oh boy! Rose-Thinker called Gailey to tin philosopher. This looks like the start of a real crisis session. Did you remember to bring spare batteries? Meanwhile the monstrous flight of Puffy-loaves, filling Midwestern skies as no small flyers had since the days of the passenger pigeon, soared steadily onward. Private flyers approached the brown and glistening bread front in curiosity and dipped back in awe. Arrow Express lines organized sightseeing flights along the flanks. Plains of the government forestry and agricultural services and copters bearing the Puffy-loaf ambulance hovered on the fringes, watching developments and waiting for orders. A squadron of supersonic fighters hung menacingly above. The behavior of birds varied considerably. Most fled or gave the loaves a wide berth, but some boulder species, discovering the minimal, nutritive nature of the translucent brown objects, attacked them furiously with beaks and claws. Hydrogen diffusing slowly through the crust had now distended most of the sealed plastic wrappers into little balloons, which ruptured when pierced with disconcerting pups. Below, neck-creening citizens crowded streets and backyards, cranks and cultists at a field day, while local and national governments raged indiscriminately of Puffy-loaf and at each other. Rumors that a fusion weapon would be exploded in the midst of the flying bread drew angry protests from conservationists, and a flood of telefax pamphlets titled H. Loaf or H. Bomb. Stockholm sent a mystifying note of praise to the United Nations Food Organization. Delhi issued nervous denials of a millet blight that no one had heard of until that moment, and reaffirmed India's ability to feed her population with no outside help, except the usual. Radio Moscow asserted that the Kremlin would brook no interference in its treatment of the Ukrainians, jokingly referred to the flying bread as a farce perpetrated by mad internationalist inhabiting cloud-cuckoo land, added contradictory references to airborne bread booby-trapped by capitalist gangsters, and then fell moodily silent on the whole topic. Radio Venus reported to its winged audience that Earth's inhabitants were establishing food depots in the upper air, preparatory to taking a permanent aerial residence such as we have always enjoyed on Venus. New New York made feverish preparations for the passage of the flying bread. Tickets for sightseeing space and skyscrapers were sold at high prices. Cold meats and potted spreads were hawked to viewers with the assurance that they would be able to snag the bread out of the air and enjoy a historic sandwich. Phineas T. Grice, escaping from his own managerial suite, raged about the city, demanding general cooperation in the stretching of great nets between the skyscrapers to trap the errant loaves. He was captured by tin philosopher, escaped again, and was found posted with oxygen mask and submachine gun on the topmost spire of Puffy Loaf Tower, apparently determined to shoot down the loaves as they appeared and before they involved his company in more trouble with customs and the State Department. Recaptured by tin philosopher, who suffered only minor bullet holes, he was given a series of mild electroshocks and returned to the conference table, calm and clear-headed as ever. But the bread flight, swinging away from a hurricane moving up the Atlantic coast, crossed a clouded embossed in by night and disappeared into a high Atlantic overcast, also thereby evading a local storm generated by the weather department in a last-minute effort to bring down or at least disperse the H Loaves. Warnings and counter-warnings by Communist and capitalist governments seriously interfered with military trailing of the flight during this period, and it was actually lost in touch with for several days. At scattered points, seagulls were observed fighting over individual loaves floating down from the gray roof. That was all. A mood of spirituality strongly tinged with humor seized the people of the world. Ministers sermonized about the bread, variously interpreting it as a call to charity, a warning against gluttony, a parable of the evanescence of all earthly things, and a divine joke. Husbands and wives facing each other across their walls of breakfast toast burst into laughter. The mere sight of a loaf of bread anywhere was enough to evoke guffaws, an obscure sect having as part of its creed the injunction, don't take yourself so damned seriously, one new adherence. The bread flight, rising above an Atlantic storm widely reported to have destroyed it, passed unobserved across a foggy England and rose out of the overcast only over middle Europa. The loaves had at last reached their maximum altitude. The sun's rays beat through the rarefied air on the distended plastic wrappers, increasing still further the pressure of the confined hydrogen. They burst by the millions and tens of millions. A high-flying Bulgarian evangelist who had happened to mistake the uplever for the east lever in the cockpit of his flyer and who was the sole witness of the event afterwards described it as the foaming of a sea of diamonds, the crackle of God's knuckles. By the millions and tens of millions, the loaves coasted down into the starving Ukraine. Shaken by a week of humor that threatened to invade even its own grim precincts, the Kremlin made a sudden about-face. A new policy was instituted of communal ownership of the produce of communal farms, and teams of hunger fighters and caravans of trucks loaded with pumpernickel were dispatched into the Ukraine. World distribution was given to a series of photographs showing peasants queuing up to trade scavenge puffy loaves for traditional black bread. Recently aerated itself but still extra solid by comparison, the rate of exchange demanded by the Moscow teams being 20 puffy loaves to one of pumpernickel. Another series of photographs picturing chubby workers' children being blown to bits by booby-trapped bread was quietly destroyed. Congratulatory notes were exchanged by various national governments and world organizations, including the brotherhood of free business machines. The great bread flight was over, though for several weeks afterwards scattered falls of loaves occurred, giving rise to a new folklore of manna among lonely Arabian tribesmen, and in one well authenticated instance in Tibet, sustaining life in a party of mountaineers cut off by a snow slide. Back in New New York, the managerial board of puffy products slumped an utter collapse around the conference table. The long crisis session at last ended. Empty coffee cartons were scattered around the chairs of the three humans, dead batteries around those of the two machines. For a while there was no movement whatsoever. Then Roger Snedden reached out wearily for the earphones where Magara winterly had hurled them down, adjusted them to his head, pushed a button, and listened apathetically. After a bit his gaze brightened. He pushed more buttons and listened more eagerly. Soon he was sitting tensely upright on his stool, eyes bright and lower face all a smile, muttering terse comments and questions into the lapel mic torn from Mag's fair neck. The others, reviving, watched him, at first dully, then with quickening interest, especially when he jerked off the headphones with a happy shout and sprang to his feet. Listen to this! he cried in a ringing voice. As a result of the worldwide publicity, puffy loaves are outselling fairy bread three to one. And that's just the old carbon dioxide stock from our freezers. It's almost exhausted, but the government, now that the Ukrainian crisis is over, has taken the ban off helium and will also sell us stockpiled wheat if we need it. We can have our walking mills burrowing into the wheat caves in a matter of hours. But that isn't all. The far greater demand everywhere is for puffy loaves that will actually float. Public relations, child liaison division, reports that the kitties are making their mother's lives miserable about it. If only we can figure out some way to make hydrogen non-explosive, or the helium loaf float just a little. I'm sure we can take care of that quite handily, tin philosopher interrupted briskly. Puffy loaf has kept it a corporation secret. Even you've never been told about it. But just before he went crazy, Everett Whitehead discovered a way to make bread using only half as much flour as we do in the present loaf. Using this secret technique, which we've been saving for just such an emergency, it will be possible to bake a helium loaf as buoyant in every respect as the hydrogen loaf. Good! Roger cried. Will tether him on strings and sell him like balloons? No mother-child shopping team will leave the store without a cluster. Buying bread balloons will be the big event of the day for kitties. It'll make the carry-home shopping load lighter, too. I'll issue orders at once. He broke off, looking at Phineas T. Grice, said with quiet assurance, Excuse me, sir, if I seem to be taking too much upon myself. Not at all, son. Go straight ahead, the great manager said approvingly. Your— He laughed in anticipation of getting off a memorable remark. Rising to the challenging situation, like a genuine puffy loaf. Magara winterly looked from the older man to the younger. Then in a single leap she was upon Roger, her arms wrapped tightly around him. My sweet little ever-victorious, self-propelled monkey-wrench! she crooned in his ear. Roger looked fatuously over her soft shoulder at tin philosopher, who, as if moved by some similar feeling, reached over and touched claws with Rose Thinker. This, however, was what he telegraphed silently to his fellow machine across the circuit so completed. Good, oh, Rosie. That makes another victory for robot-engineered world unity, though you almost gave us away at the start with that bread overhead jingle. We struck another blow against the next world war in which, as we know only too well, we machines would suffer the most. Now if we can only arrange, say, a fur famine in Alaska and a migration of long-haired Siberian lemmings across Bering Straits, we'd have to swing the Japanese current up there so it'd be warm enough for the little fellows. Anyhow, Rosie, with a spot of help from the Brotherhood, those humans will paint themselves into the peace-corner yet. Meanwhile, he and Rose Thinker quietly watched the blonde icicle melt. And a story. Some never knew if the timing had been planned that way or not. It might have been coincidence that it came just when the colony was predicting its first real bumper crop of all time. When it was all over, Pete and Mario and the rest tried to figure it out, but none of them ever knew for sure just what had happened back on Earth or when it had actually happened. There was too little information to go on and practically none that they could trust. What Arnhem really knew that day was that this was the wrong year for a ship from Earth to land on Baron Four. Pete was out on the plantation when it landed. As usual, his sprayer had gotten clogged. Tarring should have been started earlier before it got so cold that the stuff clung to the nozzle and hardened before the spray could settle into the dusty soil. The summer past had been the colony's finest in the fourteen years he'd been there. A warm, still summer, with plenty of rain to keep the dirt down and let the tarot get well-rooted and grow up tall and gray against the purple sky. But now the tarot was harvested. It was waiting, compressed and crated, ready for shipment, and the heavy black clouds were scutting nervously across the sky, faster with every passing day. Two days ago Pete had asked Mario to see about firing up the little furnaces the dusties had built to help them fight the winter. All that remained now was tarring the fields and then buckling down beneath the windshields before the first winter storm struck. Pete was trying to get the nozzle of the tar sprayer cleaned out when Mario's jeep came roaring down the rutted road from the village in a cloud of dust. In the back seat a couple of dusties were bouncing up and down like happy five-year-olds. The brakes squealed and Mario bellowed at him from the road. Pete! The ship's in! Better get hopping! Pete nodded and started to close up the sprayer. One of the dusties tumbled out of the jeep and scampered across the field to give him a hand. It was an inexpert hand, to say the least, but the dusties seemed so proud of the little they were able to learn about mechanized farming that nobody had the heart to shoo them away. Pete watched the fuzzy brown creature get its paws thoroughly gummed up with tar before he pulled him loose and sent him back to the jeep with a whack on the backside. He finished the job himself, grabbed his coat from the back of the sprayer, and pulled himself into the front seat of the jeep. Mario started the little car back down the road. The young colonist's face was coated with dust, emphasizing the lines of worry around his eyes. I don't like it, Pete. There isn't any ship due this year. When did it land? About twenty minutes ago. Won't be cool for a while yet. Pete laughed. Maybe old Schooner is just getting lonesome to swap tall stories with us. Maybe he's even bringing us a locker of T-bones. Who knows? Maybe, said Mario without conviction. Pete looked at him and shrugged. Why complain if they're early? Maybe they've found some new way to keep our fields from blowing away on us every winter. He stared across at the heavy wind breaks between the fields. Long, ragged structures built in hope of outwitting the vicious winds that howled across the land during the long winter. Pete picked bits of tar from his beard and wiped the dirt from his forehead with the back of his hand. This tarring is mean, he said, wearily. Glad to take a break. Maybe Cap Schooner will know something about the rumors we've been hearing. Mario said gloomily. Pete looked at him sharply. About Earth? Mario nodded. Schooner's a pretty good guy, I guess. I mean, he'd tell us if anything was really wrong back home, wouldn't he? Pete nodded and snapped his fingers. One of the dusties hopped over into his lap and began gawking happily at the broad fields as the jeep jogged along. Pete stroked the creature's soft brown fur with his tar-caped fingers. Maybe some day these little guys will show us where they go for the winter, he said. They must have it down to a science. Somehow the idea was funny, and both men roared. If the dusties had anything down to a science, nobody knew what. Mario grinned and tweaked the creature's tail. They sure do beat the winter, though, he said. So do we. Only we have to do it the human way. These fellas grew up in the climate. Pete lapsed into silence as the village came into view. The ship had landed quite a way out. Resting on its skids on the long shallow groove the colonists had bulldozed out for it years before. The first year they had arrived on Baron Four. Slowly Pete turned Mario's words over in his mind, allowing himself to worry a little. There had been rumors of trouble back on earth—persistent rumors he had taken care to soft-pedal as mayor of the colony. There were other things, too, like the old newspapers and magazines that had been brought in by the lad from Baron Two, and the rare radio message they could pick up through their atmospheric disturbance. Maybe something was going wrong back home, but somehow political upheavals on earth seemed remote to these hardened colonists. Captain Schooner's visits were always welcome, but they were few and far between. The colony was small. One ship every three years could supply it, and even then the taro crates wouldn't half-fill up the storage holds. There were other colonies far closer to home that sent back more taro in one year than Baron Four could grow in ten. But when a ship did come down, it was a time of high excitement. It meant fresh food from earth, meat from the frozen lockers, maybe even a little candy and salt. And always for Pete a landing meant a long evening of paliver with the captain about things back home and things on Baron Four. Pete smiled to himself as he thought of it. He could remember earth, of course, with a kind of vague nostalgia, but Baron Four was home to him now and he knew he would never leave it. He had too many hopes invested there, too many years of heartache and desperate hard work, too much deep satisfaction in having cut a niche for himself on this dusty hostile world ever to think much about earth anymore. Mario stopped in front of the offices and one of the dusties hopped out ahead of Pete. The creature strode across the rough gravel to the door, pulling tar off his fingers just as he had seen Pete do. Pete followed him to the door and then stopped, frowning. There should have been a babble of voices inside with Captain Schooner's loud laugh roaring above the excitement, but Pete could hear nothing. A chill of uneasiness ran through him. He pushed open the door and walked inside. A dozen of his friends looked up silently, avoiding the eyes of the uniformed stranger in the center of the room. When he saw the man, Pete Farnham knew something was wrong indeed. It wasn't Captain Schooner. It was a man he'd never seen before. The dusty ran across the room in front of Pete and hopped up on the desk as though he owned it, throwing his hands on his hips and staring at the stranger curiously. Pete took off his cap and parka and dropped them on a chair. Well, he said, this is a surprise. We weren't expecting a ship so soon. The man inclined his head stiffly and glanced down at the paper he held in his hand. You're Peter Farnham, I suppose, mayor of this colony? That's right, and you? Varga is the name, the Captain said shortly. Earth security and supply. He nodded towards the small, frail-looking men and civilian clothes sitting beside him. This is Rupert Nathan of the Colonial Service. You'll be seeing a great deal of him. He held out a small wallet of papers. Our credentials, Farnham, be so good as to examine them. Pete glanced around the room. John Teagan and Hank Mario were watching him uneasily. Mary Turner was following the proceedings with her sharp little eyes, missing nothing, and Mel Dorfman stood like a rock, his heavy face curiously expressionless as he watched the visitors. Pete reached out for the papers, flipped through them, and handed them back with a long look at Captain Varga. He was younger than Captain Schooner, with sandy hair and pale eyes that looked up at Pete from a soft baby face. Clean shaven, his whole person seemed immaculate as he leaned back calmly in the chair. His civilian companion, however, had indecision written in every line of his pink face. His hands fluttered nervously and he avoided the colonist's eyes. Pete turned to the Captain. The papers say you're our official supply ship, he said. You're early, but an Earthship is always good news. He clucked at the Dusty, who was about to go after one of the shiny buttons on the Captain's blouse. The little brown creature hopped over and settled on Pete's knee. We've been used to seeing Captain Schooner. The Captain and Nathan exchanged glances. Captain Schooner has retired from security service, the Captain said shortly. You won't be seeing him again, but we have a cargo for your colony. You may send these people over to the ship to start unloading now, if you wish. His eyes swept the circle of wind-burned faces. While Nathan and I discuss certain matters with you here. Nobody moved for a moment. Then Pete nodded to Mario. Take the boys out to unload, Jack. We'll see you back here in an hour or so. Pete, are you sure? Don't worry. Take Mel and Hank along to lend a hand. Pete turned back to Captain Varga. Suppose we go inside to more comfortable quarters, he said. We're always glad to have word from Earth. They passed through a dark, smelly corridor into Pete's personal quarters. For a colony house it wasn't bad, good plastic chairs, a handmade rug on the floor, even one of Mary Turner's paintings on the wall, and several of the weird stylized carvings the Dustys had done for Pete. But the place smelled of tar and sweat, and Captain Varga's nose wrinkled in distaste. Nathan drew out a large silk handkerchief and wiped his pink hands, touching his nose daintily. The Dusty hopped into the room ahead of them and settled into the biggest most comfortable chair. Pete snapped his fingers sharply and the brown creature jumped down again like a naughty child and climbed up on Pete's knee. The Captain glanced at the chair with disgust and sat down in another. Do you actually let those horrid creatures have the run of your house, he asked? Why not, Pete said. We have the run of their planet. They're quite harmless, really, and quite clean. The Captain sniffed. Nasty things. Might find a use for the furs, though. They look quite soft. We don't kill Dustys, said Pete Cooley. They're friendly and intelligent, too, and a childish sort of way. He looked at the Captain and Nathan and decided not to put on the coffee pot. Now what's the trouble? No trouble at all, the Captain said. Except the trouble you choose to make. You have your years taro ready for shipping? Of course. The Captain took out a small pencil on a chain and began to twirl it. How much to be exact? Twenty thousand? Earthweight? Tons? Pete shook his head. Hundred weight? The Captain raised his eyebrows. I see, and there are—he consulted the papers in his hand. Roughly two hundred and twenty colonists here on Baron Four. Is that right? That's right. Seventy-four men, eighty-one women, and fifty-nine children, to be exact? I'd have to look it up. Margaret Singman had twins the other night. Well, don't be ridiculous, snapped the Captain. On a plan at the size of Baron Four, with seventy-four men, you should be producing a dozen times the taro you stated. We'll consider that your quota for a starter at least. You have ample seed, according to my records. I should think with the proper equipment. Now wait a minute, Pete said softly. We're fighting a climate here, Captain. You should know that. We have only a two-planting season, and the proper equipment, as you call it, doesn't operate too well out here. It has a way of clogging up with dust in the summer and rusting in the winter. Really, said Captain Varga. As I was saying, with the proper equipment you could cultivate a great deal more land than you seem to be using. This would give you the necessary heavier yield, wouldn't you say so, Nathan? The little nervous man nodded. Certainly, Captain, with the proper organization of labour. That's nonsense, Pete said, suddenly angry. Nobody can get that kind of yield from this planet. The ground won't give it, and the men won't grow it. The Captain gave him a long look. Really, he said. I think you're wrong. I think the men will grow it. Pete stood up slowly. What are you trying to say? This business about quotas and organization of labour? You didn't read our credentials as we instructed you, Farnam. Mr. Nathan is the official governor of the colony on Baron Four, as of now. You'll find him most cooperative, I'm sure, but he's answerable directly to me in all matters. My job is administration of the entire Baron system. Clear enough? Pete's eyes were dark. I think you'd better draw me a picture, he said tightly. A very clear picture. Very well. Baron Four is not paying for his upkeep. Tarot, after all, is not the most necessary of crops in the universe. It has value, but not very much value, all things considered. If the production of tarot here is not increased sharply, it may be necessary to close down the colony altogether. You're a liar, said Pete shortly. The colonization board makes no production demands on the colonies, nor does it farm out systems for personal exploitation. The Captain smiled. The colonization board, as you call it, has undergone a slight reorganization, he said. Reorganization? It's a top-level board in the Earth government. Nothing could reorganize it, but a wholesale— He broke off his jaw sagging as the implications sank in. You're rather out on a limb, you see, said the Captain Cooley. Poor communications and all that. The fact is that the entire Earth government has undergone a slight reorganization also. The Dusty knew that something had happened. Pete didn't know how he knew. The Dustys couldn't talk, couldn't make any noise as far as Pete knew, but they always seemed to know when something unusual was happening. It was wrong, really, to consider them unintelligent animals. There are other sorts of intelligence than human, and other sorts of communication, and other sorts of culture. The Baron Four colonists had never understood the queer perceptive sense that the Dustys seemed to possess, any more than they knew how many Dustys there were or what they ate or where on the planet they lived. All they knew was that when they landed on Baron Four the Dustys were there. At first the creatures had been very timid. For weeks the men and women busy with their building had paid little attention to the skittering brown forms that crept down from the rocky hills to watch them with big curious eyes. They were about half the size of men and strangely humanoid in appearance, not in the sense that a monkey is humanoid, for they did not resemble monkeys, but in some way the colonists could not quite pin down. It may have been the way they walked around on their long fragile hind legs, the way they stroked their pointed chins as they sat and watched and listened with their pointed ears lifted alertly, watching with soft grey eyes, or the way they handled objects with their little forefingered hands. They were so remarkably human like in their elfin way that the colonists couldn't help but be drawn to the creatures. That whole first summer when the colonists were building the village and the landing group for the ships, the Dustys were among them trying pathetically to help, so eager for friendship that even occasional rebuffs failed to drive them away. They liked the colony. They seemed somehow to savor the atmosphere, moving about like solemn fuzzy overseers as the work progressed through the summer. Pete Farnham thought that they had even tried to warn the people about the winter, but the colonists couldn't understand, of course, not until later. The Dustys became a standing joke and were tolerated with considerable amusement until the winter struck. It had come with almost unbelievable ferocity. The houses had not been completed when the first hurricanes came and they were smashed into toothpicks. The winds came, vicious winds full of dust and sleet and ice, wild erratic twisting gales that ripped the village to shreds, tearing off the topsoil that had been broken and fertilized, merciless, never-ending winds that wailed and screamed the planet's protest. The winds drove sand and dirt and ice into the heart of the generators and the heating units corroded and jammed and went dead. The jeeps and tractors and bulldozers were scored and rusted. The people began dying by the dozens as they huddled down in the pitiful little pits they had dug to try to keep the winds away. Few of them were still conscious when the Dustys had come silently in the blizzard, eyes closed tight against the blast to drag the people up into the hills, into caves and hollows that still showed the fresh marks of carving-tools. They had brought food, what kind of food nobody knew for the colony's food had been destroyed by the first blast of the hurricane, but whatever it was it had kept them alive. And somehow the colonists had survived the winter which seemed never to end. There were frozen legs and ruined eyes. There was pneumonia so swift and virulent that even the antibiotics they managed to salvage could not stop it. There was near starvation, but they were kept alive until the winds began to die and they walked out of their holes in the ground to see the ruins of their first village. From that winter on nobody considered the Dustys funny anymore. What had motivated them no one knew, but the colony owed them their lives. The Dustys tried to help the people rebuild. They showed them how to build windshields that would keep houses intact and anchored to the ground when the winds came again. They built little furnaces out of dirt and rock which defied the winds and gave great heat. They showed the colonists a dozen things they needed to know for life on the rugged planet. The colonists, in turn, tried to teach the Dustys something about Earth and how the colonists had lived and why they had come. But there was a barrier of intelligence that could not be crossed. The Dustys learned simple things, but only slowly and imperfectly. They seemed content to take on their mock overseer's role, moving in and about the village, approving or disapproving, but always trying to help. Some became personal pets, though pet was the wrong word, because it was more of a strange personal friendship limited by utter lack of communication than any animal and master relationship. The colonists made sure that the Dustys were granted the respect to do them and somehow the Dustys perceived this attitude and were so grateful for the acceptance and friendship that there seemed nothing they wouldn't do for the colonists. There had been many discussions about them. You'd think they'd resent our moving in on them, Jack Mario had said one day. After all, we are usurpers and they treat us like kings. Have you noticed the way they mimic us? I saw one chewing tobacco the other day. He hated this stuff, but he chewed away and spat like a trooper. One of the Dustys had been sitting on Pete's knee when Captain Varga had been talking, and he had known that something terrible was wrong. Now he sat on the desk in the office, moving uneasily back and forth as Pete looked up at Mario's dark face and then across at John Teagan and Mel Dorfman. John's face was dark with anger as he ran his fingers through the heavy grey beard that fell to his chest. Mel sat stunned, shaking his head helplessly. Mario was unable to restrain himself. His face was bitter as he stomped across the room, then returned to shake his fist under Pete's nose. But did you see him, he choked? Governor of the Colony! What does he know about growing tarot in this kind of soil? Did you see those hands? Soft, dainty pink? How could a man with hands like that govern a colony? Pete looked over at John Teagan. Well, John? The big man looked up, his eyes hollow under craggy brows. It's below the belt, Pete. But if the government's been overthrown then the captain is right, it leaves us out on a limb. Pete shook his head. I can't give him an answer, he said. The answer has got to come from the colony. All I can do is speak for the colony. Teagan stared at the floor. We're an earth colony, he said softly. I know that. I was born in New York. I lived there for many years. But earth isn't my home anymore, this is. He looked at Pete. I built it, and so did you. All of us built it. Even when things were getting stormy back home. Maybe that's why we came. Maybe somehow we saw the handwriting on the wall. But when did it happen? Mel burst out suddenly. How could anything so big happen so fast? Speed was the secret, Pete said gloomily. It was quick, it was well organized, and the government was unstable. We're just caught in the edge of it. Pity the ones living there now. But the new government considers the colonies as areas for exploitation instead of development. Well they can't do it, Mario cried. This is our land, our home. Nobody can tell us what to grow in our fields. Pete's fist slammed down on the desk. Well how are you going to stop them? The law of the land is sitting out there in that ship. Tomorrow morning he's coming back here to install his fat little friend as governor. He has guns and soldiers on that ship to back him up. What are you going to do about it? Fight it, Mario said. How? Jack Mario looked around the room. There are only a dozen men on that ship, he said softly. We've got seventy-four. When Varga comes back to the village tomorrow we tell him to take his friend back to the ship and shove off. We give him five minutes to get turned around and if he doesn't we start shooting. Just one little thing said Pete quietly. What about the supplies? Even if we fought them off in one, what about the food, the clothing, the replacement parts for the machines? We don't need machinery to farm this land, said Mario eagerly. There's food here, food we can live on. The Dustys showed us that the first winter and we can farm the land for our own use and let the machinery rust. There's nothing they can bring us from earth that we can't do without. We couldn't get away with it. Mel Dorfman shook his head bitterly. You're asking us to cut ourselves off from earth completely but they'd never let us. They'd send ships to bomb us out. We could hide and rebuild after they had finished. Pete farnham sighed. They'd never leave us alone, Jack. Didn't you see that, Captain? His kind of mind can't stand opposition. We'd just be a thorn in the side of the new earth government. They don't want any free colonies. Well let's give them one. Mario sat down tiredly, snapping his fingers at the Dusty. Furs, he snarled. He looked up, his dark eyes burning. It's no good, Pete. We can't let them get away with it. Produce for them yes, try to raise the yield for them yes, but not a governor. If they insist on that we can throw them out and keep them out. I don't think so. They'd kill every one of us first. John Teagan sat up and looked at Pete farnham straight in the eye. In that case, Peter, it might just be better if they did. Pete stared at him for a moment and slowly stood up. All right, he said. Call a general colony meeting. We'll see what the women think. Then we'll make our plans. The ship's jeep skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust. Captain Varga peered through the windshield. Then he stood up, staring at the three men blocking the road at the edge of the village. The little pink-faced man at his side turned white when he saw their faces, and his fingers began to tremble. Each of the men had a gun. You'd better clear the road, the captain snapped, we're driving through. Pete Farnham stepped forward. He pointed to Nathan. Take your friend there back to the ship. Leave him there, we don't want him here. Nathan turned to Varga. I told you, he said viciously. Too big for their boots. Go on through. The captain laughed and gunned the motor. Started straight for the men blocking the road. Then Jack Mario shot a hole in his front tire. The jeep lurched to a stop. Captain Varga stood up, glaring at the men. Farnham, step out here, he said. You heard us, Pete said without moving. Crops, yes. We'll try to increase our yield, but no overseer. Leave him here and we'll kill him. Once more, said the captain. Clear the way. This man is your new governor. He will be regarded as the official agent of the earth government until the final production capacity of this colony is determined. Now clear out. The men didn't move. Without another word, the captain threw the jeep into reverse, jerked back in a curve, and started the jeep, flat tire and all, back towards the ship, in a billow of dust. Abruptly the village exploded into activity. Four men took up places behind the row of windbreaks beyond the first row of cabins. Pete turned and ran back into the village. He found John Teagan commandeering a squad of ten dirty-faced men. Are the women and children all out? he shouted. All taken care of. Teagan spat tobacco juice and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Where's Mel? Left flank. He'll try to move in behind them. Gonna be tough, Pete. They've got good weapons. What about the boys last night? John was checking the bolt on his ancient rifle. Hank and Ringo? Chisk got back an hour ago. If Vargo wants to get his surface plans into action, he's going to have to dismantle them and rebuild them outside. The boys jammed up the launching ports for good. He spat again. Don't worry, Pete. This is going to be a ground fight. OK. Pete held out his hand to the old man. This may be it, and if we turn them back, there's bound to be more later. There's a lot of planet to hide on, said Teagan. They may come back, but after a while they'll go again. Pete nodded. I just hope we'll still be here when they do. They waited. It seemed like hours. Pete moved from post to post among the men. Heavy-faced men he had known all his life, it seemed. They waited, with whatever weapons they had available. Pistols, homemade revolvers, ortho-guns, an occasional rifle, even knives and clubs. Pete's hearts sank. They were bitter men, but they were a mob with no organization, no training for fighting. They would be facing a dozen of security's best disciplined shock troops, armed with the latest weapons from Earth's electronics laboratories. The colonists didn't stand a chance. Pete got his rifle and made his way up the rise of ground overlooking the right flank of the village. Squinting he could spot the cloud of dust rising up near the glistening ship, moving toward the village. And then, for the first time, he realized that he hadn't seen any dusties all day. It puzzled him. They had been in the village in abundance an hour before dawn while the plans were being laid out. He glanced around, hoping to see one of the fuzzy brown forms at his elbow, but he saw nothing. And then, as he stared at the cloud of dust coming across the valley, he thought he saw the ground moving. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. With a gasp, he dragged out his binoculars and peered down at the valley floor. There were thousands of them, hundreds of thousands, their brown bodies moving slowly out from the hills, surrounding the village, converging into a broad liquid column between the village and the ship. Even as he watched the column grew thicker, like a heavy blanket being drawn across the road, a multitude of dusties lining up. Pete's hair prickled on the back of his neck. They knew so little about the creatures, so very little. As he watched the brown carpet rolling out, he tried to think. Could there be a weapon in their hands? Did they somehow have perceived the evil that came from the ship, somehow sense the desperation in the men's voices as they had laid their plans? Pete stared, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. They were there on the road, thousands upon thousands of them, standing there, waiting. For what? Three columns of dust were coming from the road now. Through the glasses Pete could see the jeeps, filled with men in their gleaming gray uniforms, crash helmets tight about their heads, blasters glistening in the pale light. They moved in deadly convoy along the rutted road, closer and closer to the crowd of dusties overflowing the road. The dusties just stood there, they didn't move, they didn't shift or turn, they just waited. The captain's car was first in line. He pulled up before the line with a screech of brakes and stared at the sea of creatures before him. Get out of there, he shouted. The dusties didn't move. The captain turned to his men. Fire into them, he snapped, clear a path. There was a blaze of fire, and a half a dozen dusties slid to the ground, convulsing. Pete felt a chill pass through him, staring in disbelief. The dusties had a weapon, he kept telling himself. They must have a weapon, something the colonists had never dreamed of. The guns came up again, and another volley echoed across the valley, and a dozen more dusties fell to the ground. For every one that fell, another moved stolidly into its place. With a curse, the captain sat down in the seat, gunned the motor, and started forward. The jeep struck the fallen bodies, rolled over them, and plunged straight into the wall of dusties. Still they didn't move. The car slowed and stopped, mired down. The other cars picked up momentum and plunged into the brown river of creatures. They too ground to a stop. The captain started roaring at his men. Cut them down! We're going to get through here! Blasters began roaring into the faces of the dusties, and as they fell, the jeeps moved forward a few feet, until more of the creatures blocked their path. Pete heard a cry below him, and saw Jack Mario standing in the road, gun on the ground, hands out in front of him, staring in horror as the dusties kept moving into the fire. Do you see what they're doing, he screamed? They'll be slaughtered every one of them! And then he was running down the road, shouting at them to stop, and so were Pete and Tegan and the rest of the men. Something hit Pete in the shoulder as he ran. He spun around and fell into the dusty road. A dozen dusties closed in around him, lifted him up bodily, and started back through the village with him. He tried to struggle, but vaguely he saw that the other men were being carried back also, while the river of brown creatures held the jeeps at bay. The dusties were hurrying, half carrying and half dragging him back through the village, and up a long ravine into the hills beyond. At last they set Pete on his feet again, plucking urgently at his shirt sleeve as they hurried him along. He followed them willingly then, with the rest of the colonists at his heels. He didn't know what the dusties were doing, but he knew they were trying to save him. Finally they reached a cave, a great cleft in the rock that Pete knew for certain had not been there when he had let exploring parties through these hills years before. It was a huge opening, and already a dozen of the men were there, waiting, dazed by what they had witnessed down in the valley, while more were stumbling up the rocky incline, tugged along by the fuzzy brown creatures. Inside the cavern, peps led down the side of the rock, deep into the dark coolness of the earth. Down and down they went, until they suddenly found themselves in a mammoth room lit by blazing torches. Pete stopped and stared at his friends who had already arrived. Jack Marriot was sitting on the floor, his face in his hands, sobbing. Teagan was sitting too, blinking at Pete as if he were a stranger, and Dorfman was trembling like a leaf. Pete stared about him through the dim light, and then looked where Teagan was pointing at the end of the room. He couldn't see it clearly at first. Finally he made out a raised platform with four steps leading up. A torch lighted either side of a dais at the top, and between the torches, rising high into the gloom, stood a statue. It was a beautifully carved thing, hewn from the heavy granite that made up the core of this planet, with the same curious styling as other carving the Dusties had done. The design was intricate, the lines carefully turned and polished. At first Pete thought it was a statue of a Dustie, but when he moved forward and squinted in the dim light, he suddenly realized that it was something else indeed, and in that moment he realized why they were there, and why the Dusties had done this incredible thing to protect them. The statue was weirdly beautiful, the work of a dedicated master sculptor. It was a figure standing with five-fingered hands on hips, head raised high. Not a portrait, but an image seen through other eyes than human, standing high in the room with the lights burning reverently at its feet. Unmistakably, it was the statue of a man. They heard the bombs much later, the granite roof and floor of the cavern trembled, and the men and women stared at each other, helpless and sick as they huddled in that great hall. But presently the bombing stopped. Later, when they stumbled out of that grotto into the late afternoon light, the ship was gone. They knew it would be back. Possibly it would bring back search parties to hunt down the rebels in the hills. Perhaps it would just wait and again bomb out the new village when it rose. But searching parties would never find their quarry, and the village would rise again and again if necessary. And in the end, somehow, Pete knew that the colonists would find a way to survive here and live free as they had always lived. It might be a bitter struggle, but no matter how hard the fight, there would be one strange and wonderful thing they could count on. No matter what they had to do, he knew the Dusties would help them.