The Star Virus

As he stood there he heard the sound of an approaching motor. One of the police cars swept by, containing members of his crew who struggled angrily with green-uniformed thugs. The driver, taking no notice of the scrimmage in the back of the vehicle, surged across the field at top speed, scattering bystanders and overturning a flimsy stall selling cold drinks.

The muffled, outraged shouts of Rodrone's men faded into the distance. Rodrone pulled his cloak around him and glowered.

"What's up, you been impounded?"

A mechanic had stepped out of the nearest bowser and was checking the meters. He glanced at Rodrone over his shoulder and gave a half-chuckle, half-grunt.

"Well, maybe this old crate won't go far or fast, but at least it's a ship. They might need an extra man."

Rodrone walked away without answering. The mechanic had immediately sized up his situation, but a glorified firework wouldn't take him far enough from Stundaker.

He made his way cautiously to the edge of the 'ground, and then threaded his way through the surrounding town. Any spaceground made for a fast-moving community; most of the buildings of the town were semipermanent structures made of plastic board, gaudy and in bad taste. Rodrone's hotel was typical: a five-story edifice deriving its structural strength from an external scaffolding. Inside, however, it was fairly pleasant.

He took a lift to the fourth floor and let himself into the suite he had rented. Clave looked around as he entered.

"How's things?"

"Bad." Rodrone told him what had happened.

Clave showed no sign of surprise or alarm, though he probably felt it. He made a gesture, crossing the room. "I've been looking at this thing while you were out. It's great."

Rodrone joined him and looked down at the lens, experiencing for the thousandth time the familiar fascination of it. Not for one second since he first set eyes on it had that fascination completely left him. Nor had he grown tired of the scenes and dramas of endless variety, both within and beyond the reach of his imagination, that sprang to life and played themselves out in its limpid outer parts. Not one of them was even mediocre or nondescript, and each had a clearly defined beginning and an end—except, that was, for the one that he had now come to look on as his own private personal serial: the mad monk and his rabble in their assault on the beautiful city.

He had definitely discounted the idea that it was merely an alien version of a fictional picture show. The playlets seemed too authentic for that, fantastic though they were. He was convinced that they represented actual events.

Hypnotically his gaze focused on the glowing swirl in the center, the swirl that was a homologue of a past age of the galaxy, atom for star. He basked in the feeling that came over him when he thought of the innumerable suns hissing in the Hub, that condensation from which the spirals radiated, pouring electromagnetic energy into space. There was a significance in it he could not put his finger on, something unvocalized, ungraspable, something that would explain the whole sweep of history.

Could it be, he thought, that the final understanding of history was to be found in atomics? The science of inciting atoms was very ancient, beginning with the utilization of electricity well over a thousand years ago. Even now, electronics was the basis of nearly all control systems, but in addition other atomic particles, and whole atoms, were induced to agitate, to migrate, to change places instantaneously, to give up scores of different kinds of energies and effects. Rodrone doubted if the engineer or physicist lived who knew everything that was being done with atomic science, for there were no such things as universities these days.

If Rodrone was right, the lens contained the ultimate use of the atomic world, implying absolute knowledge. It was no wonder that the Streall wanted it. But Rodrone wanted it for himself, to be the one to know the meaning of events. All he needed was the key; but that was becoming increasingly difficult to find.

Clave jerked him out of his revery. "What makes those Guild creeps so keen on making a present of this gadget?"

"Appeasement. Most people don't realize how the Streall regard us, Clave. We're something on the level of vermin, or perhaps domestic animals. The merchants do know this, but it suits them. They're rich, so why should they worry? The result is, they don't want trouble."

He glanced at the slanting sunlight. "We've got to get away from here. As soon as it's dark I'll go back to the 'ground and try to get us passage on a ship. You'd better stay here."

"What about the rest of the gang?"

"We can't do anything for them without losing the lens. They won't be harmed. Jal-Dee will have to let them go eventually and they can take the Stond back to the squadron."