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Viktor hesitated. Then, without knowing in advance he was going to say it, he
said, Do you mind telling me what s going on?
Lundy looked at him thoughtfully, then turned and absently rubbed the plaque
on the door clean. I don t know what you mean, he said.
The hell you don t! I ve asked Reesa, and she won t tell me a thing. Neither
will Billy.
But I know damn well there s some kind of secret! At first I thought
Viktor paused. He was unwilling to say that his first thought when he saw
Reesa and
Lundy whispering together had been the well, not the jealous feeling that
something was cooking between them, but certainly a lot of curiosity about
just what it was they whispered about. He finished, I thought all sorts of
things, but none of them make sense.
What sorts of things?
I don t know! That s why I m asking! And then he took a wild plunge into
speculation.
Is it Nebo, by any chance? I know Billy s always had this idea that we had to
go there. He got it from my father, of course. But it s crazy.
Why do you think it s crazy? Lundy asked, sounding interested and not at all
defensive.
Well it just is.
What could we do if we got there?
We could try to find out about those anomalous radiation readings, for one
thing, Lundy said seriously.
Why?
That, Lundy told him, for the first time looking strained, is what people
might want to go to Nebo to find out. I don t know what. I only know that
something s going on there, and it might be important.
But Viktor shook his head. What would be the point? Even if the others
would let you take
Ark there, I mean? You can t see anything through the cloud cover.
There s radar, Lundy pointed out. And if that didn t settle anything, we
could He hesitated, then finished, We could always drop a party onto the
surface of Nebo to find out.
But but but our job is to transfer fuel to
Mayflower, not go gallivanting off to satisfy somebody s curiosity!
We re doing that part of the job, Lundy pointed out. Then, when it s done,
we ll still have drive fuel in
Ark.
We can t transfer that! Once it s in the drive itself it s too dangerous. So
when we ve finished what we came for then we can take a vote.
On what? On taking
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Ark to Nebo?
Lundy shrugged.
And you ve been planning this for how long? Viktor demanded.
Since Reesa first suggested it, Lundy said simply. Reesa! Viktor stared at
him with his mouth open. Lundy went on: Now, the question is, are you going
to keep your mouth shut about it until we ve finished the fuel transfer?
I don t know, Viktor said wretchedly.
But, in the event, he did keep his mouth shut. He didn t say a word. He ate
the food they had brought back the fish turned out to be almost too bony to
eat, but the turtle eggs, roasted, were delicious and all the time he was
watching his wife and wondering what other surprises were hidden inside that
familiar head.
278
THE WORLD AT THE END OF TIME
Frederik Pohi
279
CHAPTER 11
The fifth of Wan-To s doppels did not have a real name. It wasn t important
enough.
When Wan-To addressed it at all it was simply as Matter Copy Number Five.
Still, Five was fairly important to the remnants of the human race on
Newmanhome, because it happened to be the one that had set up shop on the
scorched little planet the people of Newmanhome called
Nebo.
Although Five was certainly very tiny, primitive and stupid by Wan-To s
standards, it was quite capable of doing everything Wan-To ordered it to do.
It was even capable of figuring out how to do things Wan-To himself had never
gone to the trouble of figuring out before.
There s a human story that describes that situation pretty well. Problem: A
human army lieutenant has the task of erecting a thirty-foot flagpole when he
only has a twenty-foot length of rope and no hoisting machines. How does he do
it? Answer: He calls over his highest-ranking noncom and says, Sergeant, put
up that flagpole.
So when Five received its orders it exercised its built-in ingenuity to carry
them out.
It had to start pretty much from scratch. It had no experience of this bizarre
kind of environment (it had no experience at all, of course, except what
Wan-To had implanted in its memories). It was not deterred by the odd
qualities of this planet (solid matter! And an
atmosphere ! Five understood the concept of a gas well enough, but these
particular gases were so incredibly cold hardly more than eight or nine
hundred Kelvin). Then, the task of manipulating matter all by itself was not
really easy. There were so many kinds of matter. There were all those things
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