Джон Макдональд - Wine of the Dreamers [= Planet of the Dreamers]

“Always she geds all the gards,” Heintz said dolefully.

“Anyway,” Bard said. “We’re doing it. We’re doing what we set out to do. I almost hate to think of what will happen when and if that ship does set down. I don’t know why all this... took the public fancy so strongly. Do you know, Heintz?”

“Of gorse. Mangind has always wanted a whipping boy. You gave them one. They love it. That governor of Nevada, he has helped.”

“Investigating the senseless murder cases and pardoning people. I wonder.”

Kornal yawned as he awakened. He looked at his watch. “Nearly time for our favorite man, isn’t it?”

Bard turned on the video. The screen brightened at once. He turned off the sound while the commercial was on, then turned the dial up as Walter Howard Path’s announcer appeared on the screen.

“... regret to announce that Walter Howard Path will be unable to appear as usual. Mr. Path has suffered a breakdown due to overwork and has been given an indefinite leave of absence. This program is being taken over by Kinsey Hallmaster, distinguished reporter and journalist. Mr. Hallmaster.”

Mr. Hallmaster sat behind a vast desk and smiled importantly at the video audience. With his twinkling eyes and projecting front teeth he looked like a happy beaver.

“I am honored to be asked to take over this weekly newscast. I am sorry, however, that Mr. Path cannot be with you as usual. He has my every hope for a speedy recovery.

“My first duty is to read you a statement prepared by Mr. Path.

“ ‘This is Walter Howard Path telling you that I have just received additional information regarding the space ship which has been alleged to—’ ”

“Alleged!” Bard shouted angrily. The others shushed him.

“ ‘—and these investigators, hired by me out of my own pocket, have brought me additional information which now leads me to believe that I, as well as many of the public, have been misled by Lane, Inly, Lurdorff and Kornal. I have before me the notarized statement, among other things, of a tavern owner which states that for a period of three weeks Dr. Lane, in a consistently drunken condition, gave speeches in his tavern regarding so-called mental visitations from space. I sincerely regret that I was taken in. There is no space ship. There are no Watchers. The alien brother and sister are figments of the overripe imaginations of Lane, Inly, Lurdorff and Kornal. I say to all of you who through an honest mistake have become Kinsonians, just mark it all up to the rather unusual gullibility of your reporter, Walter Howard Path.’ ”

Hallmaster put the document aside, folded his hands on the edge of the desk. “There you have it,” he said. “Mr. Path’s health was broken by the discovery that he had been misled. I have a few other words to say about this entire matter, however. From an official and informed source high in Washington, I have it on good authority that there is something far more sinister involved than the efforts of a little clique of greedy people to make money out of being in the public eye.

“We know, for an absolute fact, that Inly, Lane, Lurdorff and Kornal were... shall we say, financially embarrassed at a time two weeks before Mr. Path’s unfortunate backing of their wild tale. Now they are well enough off to spend money freely, living in expensive hotel suites, employing stenographic help. This money did not come from Mr. Path. Where did it come from?

“Now bear with me a moment. Suppose this nation were to be attacked. Interceptor rockets would flash up at the first target. But suppose that in advance we as a nation had been led to expect the arrival of some mythical space ship. Maybe the Kinsons will arrive in twenty simultaneous space ships which land in twenty industrial cities. Maybe their point of origin will not be some far planet, but rather the heartland of Pan-Asia. What then?

“Need I go further?”

For a jolly moment he let the implications settle into the minds of the vast audience. “And now for the more serious side of the news. We find that—”

Bard snapped off the set. The room was silent. The phone rang. Bess lifted it off the cradle and set it aside without answering it.

“That... low... dirty...”

“In five minutes,” Sharan said softly, “he destroyed the whole thing, everything we’ve done. Every last thing.”

“Maybe enough of them will still believe,” Kornal said.

“After that?” Heintz Lurdorff said with a mild, dignified contempt. “I think now I go. I am sorry. There is nothing more we can do.”

“The kiss of death, neatly administered,” Sharan said. “Kissed off by a Wilkins’ Mead culture. We need a new symbol. A monkey with six arms, like Vishnu, so he can simultaneously cover his eyes, ears and mouth.”

“Give him one more hand, honey, so he can hold his nose,” Kornal said.

After an hour on the phone, Bard Lane found out that Walter Howard Path was in a private sanitarium, committed by his wife, for an indefinite stay.

As closely as Raul could estimate, it was ten days before the keening whine of a warning device startled them into immobility. They had been eating at the moment it sounded.

Leesa, startled, lost her grip on the wall railing and floated out beyond any chance of grasping it again. She writhed in the air, but could not appreciably change her position.

Raul calculated, pushed against the wall with his hand as he let go of the railing. As he passed Leesa he grasped her ankle and the two of them made one slow pinwheel in the air before touching the high railing on the opposite side of the cabin. He strapped her in, then made a slow shallow dive toward his own position. He arranged his own straps, slid forward into proper position, staring up at the panel.

Five long minutes passed before there was any change.

And then came an indescribable twisting. It was as though in one microsecond, vast hands had grasped him, turning as though wringing moisture from a bit of cloth, releasing him. Dimly he heard Leesa’s startled cry. His vision cleared at once and he saw that the value of the first dial had returned to zero. A softer bell-note sounded, and he guessed that it meant an end to the warning period. Adjusting the screen he looked at strange star patterns.

Days later, when the warning sound came again, they strapped themselves in. The second time jump was like the first, but easier to bear because it was expected.

For the third, one day later, they did not go to position. They waited near the rail, and as the twisting came, her fingernails dug into his arm. He watched the convulsed look fade from her face as they smiled at each other.

An hour later the warning sound was more shrill. Again they went to their positions. One twisting, wrenching sensation followed closely on the heels of the next. When at last he was able to look at the dials, he saw that all of them had returned to zero. With a weakened hand he adjusted the image screen.

“Is... it over?” Leesa called.

“I think so.”

“What do you see? Quickly!”

“Wait. I must turn the ship. Now I see a sun. Blazing white, Leesa.”

“Their sun, Raul.”

“I’ve seen their sun from Earth. It is yellow, Leesa.”

“Look for the planet.”

He turned the ship. A tiny distant planet was ghostly in the reflected sun glow.

“I see a planet!” he called.

“Take us there, Raul. Quickly. Oh, very quickly.”

Cautiously he made the sound that drove the ship ahead, gave them weight after so many days. He felt the slick movement of the great cylinder which compensated in part for the force of the acceleration on their bodies. He made the sound again and the planet began to grow. He watched it grow, and it did not seem that he could breathe deeply enough.