The Currents Of Space

"I will, if you'll let me talk. My goodness! Whose side are you on? I said to myself (this was after dinner), I said, Why would a man like Fife make up a story like that? There was only one answer. He couldn't make it up. Not with his mind. So it was true. It must be true. And, of course, patrollers had been killed, though Fife is quite capable of arranging to have that happen."

Fife shrugged his shoulders.

Steen drove on. "Only who is X? It isn't I. Really! I know it isn't I! And I'll admit it could only have been a Great Squire. But what Great Squire knew most about it, anyway? What Great Squire has been trying to use the story of the Spatio-analyst for a year now to frighten the others into some sort of what he calls 'united effort' and what I call surrender to a Fife dictatorship?

"I'll tell you who X is." Steen stood up, the top of his head brushing the edge of the receptor-cube and flattening as the uppermost inch sliced off into nothingness. He pointed a trembling finger. "He's X. The Squire of Fife. He found this Spatio-analyst. He put him out of the way, when he saw the rest of us weren't impressed with his silly remarks at our first conference, and then he brought him out again after he had already arranged a military coup."

Fife turned wearily to Abel. "Is he through? If so, remove him. He is an unbearable offense to any decent man."

Abel said, "Have you any comment to make on what he says?"

"Of course not. It isn't worth comment. The man is desperate. He'll say anything."

"You can't just brush it off, Fife," called Steen. He looked about at the rest. His eyes narrowed and the skin at his nostrils was white with tension. He remained standing. "Listen. He said his investigators found records in a doctor's office. He said the doctor had died by accident after diagnosing the Spatio-analyst as the victim of psycho-probing. He said it was murder by X to keep the identity of the Spatio-analyst secret. That's what he said. Ask him. Ask him if that isn't what he said."

"And if I did?" asked Fife.

"Then ask him how he could get the records from the office of a doctor who was dead and buried for months unless he had them all along. Really!"

Fife said, "This is foolish. We can waste time indefinitely this way. Another doctor took over the dead man's practice and his records as well. Do any of you think medical records are destroyed along with a physician?"

Abel said, "No, of course not."

Steen stuttered, then sat down. -

Fife said, "What's next? Have any of you more to say? More accusations? More anything?" His voice was low. Bitterness showed through.

Abel said, "Why, that was Steen's say, and we'll let it pass. Now Junz and I, we're here on another kind of business. We would like to see the Spatio-analyst."

Fife's hands had been resting upon the desk top. They lifted now and came down to clutch the edge of the desk. His black eyebrows drew together.

He said, "We have in custody a man of subnormal mentality who claims to be a Spatio-analyst. I'll have him brought in!"

Valona March had never, never in her life dreamed such impossibilities could exist. For over a day now, ever since she had landed on this planet of Sark, there had been a touch of wonder about everything. Even the prison cells in which she and Bik

had been separately placed seemed to have an unreal quality of magnificence about them. Water came out of a hole in a pipe when you pressed a button. Heat came out of the wall, although the air outside had been colder than she had thought air could possibly get. And everyone who spoke to her wore such beautiful clothes.

She had been in rooms in which were all sorts of things she had never seen before. This one now was larger than any yet but it was almost bare. It had more people in it, though. There was a stern-looking man behind a desk, and a much older, very wrinkled man in a chair, and three others.

One was the Townrnan!

She jumped up and ran to him. "Townman! Townman!"

But he wasn't there!

He had gotten up and waved at her. "Stay back, Lona. Stay back!"

And she passed right through him. She had reached out to seize his sleeve, he moved it away. She lunged, half stumbling, and passed right through him. For a moment the breath went out of her body. The Townman had turned, was facing her again, but she could only stare down at her legs.

Both of them were thrusting through the heavy arm of the chair in which the Townman had been sitting. She could see it plainly, in all its color and solidity. It encircled her legs but she did not feel it. She put out a trembling hand and her fingers sank an inch deep into upholstery they could not feel either. Her fingers remained visible.

She shrieked and fell, her last sensation being that of the Townman's arms reaching automatically for her and herself f ailing through their circle as though they were pieces of flesh-tinted air.

She was in a chair again, Rik holding one hand tightly and the old, wrinkled man leaning over her.