“The experiments before we came say that we can.”

  “I trust they are repeatable experiments.” Vahdati spoke a few words to the dome and operated the cart again.

  Machinery whirred without sound. A skeletal arm, energy receivers and icon­oscopic pickup at the end, thrust out between the uprights. And nothing happened. A wave of dizziness went through Camacho. He could no longer hold back, he had to yell: “We were right! We were right!” And Vahdati was dancing with him, there in the clutter among machines and ice and stars.

  After a while they calmed down enough to observe. As the teleprobe swiveled, looking past the edge, images appeared on a screen: dim, tiny, spherical clouds. But when the ’scope turned a full hundred and eighty degrees, to register what was behind the gate, the screen filled with light.

  Vahdati’s flat tone seemed almost irreverent. “No strong radiation from that direction either, though the spectrum is biased far toward· the short-wave end. Um-m-m-m…yes, what was predicted, the same result as we got earlier. Look at these gauges.”

  Camacho’s untrained eyes saw only needles which began to bob more and more erratically. “The detectors are ceasing to function?”

  “Yes. We had better withdraw them.” Vahdati retracted the arm into the shed. When he touched it with a gloved hand, metal crumpled. “Crystal degeneracy,” he declared. “Still, under present conditions, eight minutes were required for this much damage.”

  Have we stood here so long? Camacho wondered. Or, rather, only so long?

  “Well,” Vahdati sighed, “I think we can return to Mars now.”

  A surge went through Camacho. He never knew if hysteria spoke. “No, wait. One other thing. I want a look for myself.”

  “What? Vahdati stepped back. “Are you insane?”

  “No, listen, a second or two ought not to hurt me. Mice survived longer, didn’t they? Somebody’s going to do it. Might as well be me. And this is my last chance. Ian was out here. I’ve got to, to say good-bye.” Before his companion could stop him, Camacho was at the gate.

  He clung hard to the frame and leaned forth.

  Around and around him reached illimitable darkness. It was strewn with little discs of light. The gate had simply happened not to face any of them—no coincidence, when they were so widely scattered. They didn’t need to cluster; they had an infinite space to fill. In appearance they were less impressive than stars. But then, they were terribly faraway. Camacho twisted his body to look entirely past the door, backward.

  Glory blazed at him.

  Camacho huddled on the floor and wept. “Ian, boy. I know now for sure. You were the first man who went beyond the universe.”

  -8-

  Port Nikolai. Nahabedian’s office. The commandant himself, Director Lawson, Manager Vahdati, Senator Camacho.

  “You are certain you are in good health?” Nahabedian fretted.

  “Oh, yes, the medics checked me out from head to toe,” Camacho assured him. “I really wasn’t reckless, snatching a peek. No dangerous amount of radiation had been registered. Of course, there was the matter of atomic and molecular destruction in living tissue. But in view of our earlier results, I figured I could stand a couple seconds.”

  Nahabedian rubbed his chin. “I am afraid I still do not see what this is all about,” he said.

  “The idea is not difficult,” Vahdati replied. “Here we are, inside the Hoyle-Bishop universe—that is, the entire oscillating system of matter-energy observable by astronomical methods. We had estimated its radius as twenty billion light-years. But we were evidently wrong. It is somewhere between fifteen and sixteen billion. Having gone to the latter distance, our gate was suddenly outside the system.”

  “Why did this cause disaster?”

  “Because the local characteristics of nature depend on the local concentration of matter-energy. The exact value of the fine-structure constant, or the ratio of mass between proton and electron, or any such important numerical quantity, is itself a property of a region. Basic natural law is the same everywhere, we believe. But the expression it takes is variable.” Vahdati hunted for words. “Consider an analogy from our own little Solar System. The law of gravitation is identical for all the planets. Yet· the force of gravity on the surface of each planet depends on its mass and diameter. In a similar way, the dimensionless constants which govern the behavior of matter-energy depend on the mass and diameter of a given universe.”

  “Exactly. To be specific—though we will need a great deal of study to make sure—we suspect that between universes the radii of atoms are considerably larger than inside any universe. Thus, once outside, atoms expand, sucking away whatever energy is available.”

  “But how could you, ah, get away with it this last time?”

  Vahdati smiled at Camacho. But it was Lawson who said, “You tell him, Senator.”

  “Not really,” Camacho said. He felt more diffident than a politician should—actually hot in the ears! “No, I just thought Dr. Vahdati’s hypothesis, which he’s now explained to you, Commandant…I thought it sounded reasonable. The main stumbling block was that according to this notion, Ian Birkie ought not to have been harmed. I, knowing Ian, was able to remove that difficulty by pointing out that he must have disobeyed orders.

  “And then I thought, well, by using way stations, the probes had entered interuniversal space at a low relative velocity. But suppose they went direct, one step from here to there. They’d have a speed practically equal to light, as far as that space was concerned. Every atom, every electron would be tremendously massive; have tremendous inertia, not change configuration in a hurry.” He spread his hands. “The physics agreed with me, this sounded right. We tried. It worked.”

  “And Birkie was more vulnerable?” Nahabedian said.

  “Yes,” Camacho said. “Even a little bit of matter–a hand, say—stuck out into interuniversal space at low speed, would be affected immediately. It’d change, expand, draw energy from the rest of the body, pull everything on through and scatter it into infinity.” He met their eyes, man after man. “A merciful way to die,” he said, “and not for nothing. He gave us more than anyone has ever given before, proof that there is indeed no limit to space or time, no limit to what we dare hope for. We, those who cared for him, we can be content with that.”

  After a while, Lawson said almost timidly: “Senator, you have earned our respect and thanks. But have we perhaps earned yours? Enough to make you reconsider your stand on the Earthside gate?”

  Camacho was glad of an argument. “No,” he said. “Sorry. I was hoping this latest experience would finally convince you we’re still too ignorant to chance it.”

  “You took a risk!”

  “With myself, maybe. But certainly not with the entire human species.”

  Camacho smiled into their disappointment. “But relax, boys,” he said. “You’ve got more work than you can handle in your own lifetimes. And when we do find New Earth, several New Earths, when we have the race safely spread out, so that nothing can destroy it—why, then we’ll certainly build your gate. I’ve never advocated a permanent prohibition. This one problem got solved. We’ll solve every other problem we meet too. Just one at a time, please.”

  Presently he left to catch his ferry. They had laughed with him for a while. He hoped they would come to see matters his way. If not, well, he’d go on fighting.

  Deathwomb

  The courier slipped out of flightspace and paused for a navigational sight. It was still very far from the berserker sun, so far that the fierce blue-white A star was only the brightest of many. Others crowded heaven, unwinking brilliances every hue from radio to gamma, save where the Milky Way foamed around blackness or a nearby dark nebula loomed like a thunderhead.

  Having gotten its bearings, it accelerated under normal drive. At first it was receding, but soon it had quenched its intrinsic velocity and thereafter built up sunward speed. The rate at that, uncompensated, would have spread flesh in a film through any interior. But there were neither cabins nor passengers; the courier was essentially solid-state.

  It began to broadcast, at high power and on several wavebands. The message was in standard English, “Parley. Parley. Parley.” As haste mounted, frequencies changed to allow for Doppler shift, to make certain the message would be received. After all, the courier was unmistakable human work. Unless they had some reason not to, the berserkers would attack it. Such a motive would be motivated less by fear of what a warhead might do to one of their proud battlecraft than what might happen to the asteroid mines and spaceborne factories they had established.

  Motivation, fear, pride—nonsense words when used about a set of computer-­effector systems, unalive, belike unaware, programmed to burn life out of the universe.

  But then the courier was an automaton too, and nowhere nearly as complex or capable as the least berserker.

  “Parley. Parley. Parley.”

  In due course—time made no difference to a thing that had no consciousness, but the sun blazed now with a tiny disk—a warship came forth to meet it.

  That was a minor vessel, readily expendable, though formidable enough, a hundred-meter spheroid abristle with guns, missile launchers, energy projectors. Its mass, low compared to a planetkiller’s, made it quite maneuverable. Nonetheless flight was long and calculation intricate before it matched the velocity which the courier by then had.

  “Cease acceleration,” the berserker commanded.

  The courier obeyed. The berserker did likewise. Globe and minute sliver, they flew inert on parallel courses, a thousand kilometers apart.

  “Explain your presence,” was the next order. Command! Obedience! More nonsense, when two robots were directly communicating.

  “Word from certain humans,” the courier replied. “They know you have moved into this region of space.”

  Being a machine exchanging data with another machine, it did not add the obvious. No matter how vast astronomical distances are, an operation of that size could not stay hidden long, if it took place anywhere in that small portion of the galaxy where humans had settlements with high technology. Devices even simpler than the courier, patrolling over light-years, were sure to pick up the indications on their instruments, and report back to their masters. Of course, those were not necessarily all the humans in the stellar neighborhood. Nor did it follow that they could do much to prevent onslaughts out of the new base. Their own strength was thinly scattered, this far from the centers of their older civilizations. At best, they could marshal resources for the defense of some worlds—probably not all.

  The berserker did not waste watts inquiring what the message was. It merely let the courier go on.

  “Their analysis is that you will soon strike, while you continue to use the mineral and energy resources of the planetary system for repair and reproduction. If an overwhelming human force moves against you, you will withdraw; but that cannot happen in the immediate future, if ever. My dispatchers offer you information of value to your enterprise.”

  Logic circuits developed a question. “Are your dispatchers goodlife?”

  “I am not programmed with the answer, but there is no indication in my memory banks that they wish active cooperation with you. It may be a matter of self-interest, the hope of making a bargain advantageous to them. I can only tell you that, if the terms are right, they will steer you to a target you would not otherwise know about: an entire world for you to sterilize.”

  Radio silence fell, except for the faint seething of the stars.

  The berserker, though, required just a split second to make assessment. “Others shall be contacted before you leave. We will arrange a rendezvous for proper discussion, and you will bring a record of the proceeding back to your humans. Within what parameters do they operate?”

  The Ilyan day stood at midmorning when Sally Jennison came home. The thaw and the usual storms that followed sunrise were past and heaven was a clear, purplish-blue, save for a few clouds which glowed ruddy here and there. Eastward the great ember was climbing past Olga; shadows made sharp the larger craters upon the moon. Below, the Sawtooth Mountains rose dusky over the horizon. Snowcrown peak agleam as if on fire.

  Elsewhere land rolled gently, so that the Highroad River flowed slow out of the west on its way to Lake Sapphire. The boat had left wilderness behind and was in the settled part of Geyserdale. Grainfields rippled tawny on either side; they had thus ripened, been harvested, been resown, ripened again with the haste that the brief Ilyan year brought about, several times since the expedition departed. A village of beehive-rounded houses was visible in the northern distance, and occasional natives working near the stream hailed Sally and her companion. They were not many, for she had yet to hear of any society on this planet where persons liked to crowd together. Timberlots were plentiful, high boles and russet foliage. Steam blew from encrusted areas where hot springs bubbled and once she saw an upward spout of water.

  Insectoids flitted on glittery wings. A windrider hovered aloft. River and breeze murmured to each other. Air had warmed as day advanced, and grown full of pungencies. An unseen coneycat was singing.

  The peacefulness felt remote from Sally, unreal.

  Abruptly it broke. She had hooked her transceiver into the electrical system of the boats motor and inserted a tape for direct readout and continuous, repeated broadcast: “Hello, University Station. Hello, anybody, anywhere. This is the Jennison party return after we stopped hearing from you. I’ve called and called, and gotten no response. What’s wrong? Reply, please reply.”

  Sound from the set was a man’s voice, harsh with tension, the English bearing a burred accent unfamiliar to her: “Wha’s this? Who are ye? Where?”

  She gasped, then got her balance back. Years in strangeness, sometimes in danger, had taught her how to meet surprise. Underneath, she felt a tide of relief—she was not the only human left alive on Ilya!—but it carried an ice flow of anxiety. What had become of them, her friends, every one of the hundred-odd researchers and support personnel at the base and exploring around the planet?

  She must wet her lips before she could answer. “Sally Jennison. I’ve been doing xenological work in the field, Farside, for the past twenty days or so.” The man was perhaps not used to the slow rotation of Ilya. “Uh, that would be about six months, Terrestrial. When communication cut off—yes, of course I could send and receive that far away, we do have comsats in orbit, you know— I grew alarmed and started back.”

  “Where are ye?” he demanded. “Who’s wi’ ye?”

  “I’m on the Highroad River, passing by Dancers’ Town. About a hundred fifty klicks west of the station, it is. I’ve only one partner left, a native who lives near us. The rest of my expedition, all natives too, have disembarked along the way and gone to their own homes.”

  Anger flared. “Enough!” she exclaimed. “Jesus Christ! Suppose you tell me who you are and what’s going on?”

  “No time,” he said. “Your people are safe. We’ll ha’ someone out in an aircar to pick ye up as fast as possible. Meanwhile, cease transmission. Immediately.”

  “What? Now you listen just a minute—”

  “Dr. Jennison, the berserkers are coming. They may arrive at any minute, and they must no’ detect any electronics, any trace o’ man. Under martial law, I lay radio silence on ye. Turn your set off!”

  The voice halted. Numbly, Sally reached for the switch of her unit. She slumped on her bench, stared, scarcely noticed that she was still at the rudder.

  Rainbow-in-the-Mist stroked a four fingered hand shyly over hers. In a short-sleeved shirt, she felt his plumage (not hair, not feathers; an intricate, beautiful, sensitive covering for his skin) tickle her arm. “Have you news at last, Lady-Who-Seeks?” he trilled, whistled, hummed.

  “Not quite,” she said in English. They could understand if not pronounce each other’s languages, though the new intonation had baffled him. “Whoever it was did claim my people are safe.”

  “That good makes any ill very slight.” He meant it.

  But your people are in mortal danger! she almost cried out. Your whole world is.

  She gazed at her friend of years as if she had never before seen any of his kind—body somewhat like hers, but standing only to her chin and more gracile; round head, faun ears, short muzzle, quivering catwhiskers, enormous golden eyes; delicate gray sheen of plumage; the belt, pouch, and bandolier that were his entire garb, the steel knife he carried with such pride not because it was a rare thing in his chalcolithic society but because it was a present from her…She had seen images of planets the berserkers had slain, radioactive rock, ashen winds, corrupted seas.

  But this is insane! she thought suddenly. They’ve never heard of Ilya. They couldn’t have, except by the wildest chance, and if that happened, how could that man have known?

  And he wanted me to stop sending in case a berserker detected it, but what about the flyer he’s dispatching for me…Well, that may be a risk he feels he has to take, to get me under cover in a hurry. A small vehicle is less likely to be spotted optically within a short time-slot than a radio ’cast is to be picked up electronically.

  But what about our relay satellites? What about University Station itself, buildings, landing strip, playing field, everything?

  Why didn’t anybody mention me to those…human…invaders?

  Rainbow-in-the-Mist patted the yellow hair falling in a pony tail past her neck. “You have great grief, I sense,” he breathed. “Can your wander-brother give comfort in any way?”

  “Oh, Ramie!” She hugged him to her and fought not to weep. He was warm and smelled like spices in the kitchen when she was a child on Earth.