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The Instant Of Now
by
Paul Sorgel’s plan was simple and efficient. The Air-Command field was fenced with electronic paralysis barriers and the entrance was heavily guarded. But no watch was kept inside the encampment except for a daily inspection of the machines when the guard was changed at dawn. Since Dirrul was a Captain of the Space-maintenance Division, 73rd Air-Command Wing, he was able to enter the area at any time without question. Among the scheduled night training flights for new cadets, the departure of one more surface jet would pass unobserved.
“Come back here for Glenna and Hurd,” Sorgel said, “and take them out to the South Desert. If there’s no hitch you should be back before dawn, with time to spare. If not….” Sorgel shrugged. “Eddie, we can’t build a better universe without taking occasional risks.”
Slowly Dirrul’s body tensed with fear. In a cold dead voice he asked, “Am I to leave them there, without help or medicine, to die of thirst and hunger?”
“Many sacrifices are necessary for the good of the Movement.”
“But Glenna and Hurd are our leaders!”
“The freedom of the universe means a little more, I think, than the temporary safety of two individuals.” Sorgel lit a cigarette. In the faint pink reflection of the Glo-Wave lighter his face was emptily placid, a faint smile twisting the corners of his lips. “Suppose I say it’s a command, Dirrul–a Vininese command, calling for Vininese discipline.”
After a moment Dirrul replied in a choked whisper, “I’ll take them, sir.”
Sorgel smiled and the crisp tone of authority edged out of his voice. “As a matter of fact, Eddie, I was curious to see what you would do. The Vininese Confederacy practises neither cruelty nor deception. You’ll find one of our Space-dragons hidden in a gorge of the Katskain Range. It’s the ship I came in a week ago.
“The pilot was instructed to wait fifteen planetary revolutions in the event that I might have a report to send back to Headquarters. You must learn to trust me, Eddie. From the first, you see, I intended to send Glenna and Hurd to Vinin. If they get there in time there’s a chance our Medical Corps can pull them through. They may even be back here with us for the day when we carry out the Plan.”
Dirrul was in no real danger. Much as it benefited the Movement the laxity of Agronian security was one of the chief reasons why Dirrul scorned the Planetary Union. The space-wide patrols of the Air-Command, the city guards and the electronic paralysis barricades created a feeling of internal control–but it was all a glittering sham. If it were not for the Nuclear Beams the whole system would long since have crumbled under the first pressure from outside.
With no difficulty he picked up Glenna and Hurd and took them to the South Desert, where he put them aboard the sleek Vininese space-ship. It was one of the new Dragon design–compact, efficient, faster than anything built by the Planetary Union, protected by sixteen circular batteries and yet small enough to be handled by one man.
Dirrul had seen only one other Vininese Space-dragon and that from a distance at the Agronian commercial airport, when the last Vininese ambassador arrived. Technically there was no reason why Paul Sorgel could not have landed there as well, except that the Customs questionnaire might have proved embarrassing.
Twenty years earlier, when Dirrul was still a schoolboy, the Galactic War had ended. Since that time relations between the Planetary Union and the Vininese Confederacy had steadily improved–at least in appearance. Undoubtedly there were commercial interests on both sides anxious to maintain peace and in recent years the quantity of goods in trade had grown enormously. But it was a truce, not a peace–a compromise, rather than a victory–forced on the galaxy when the scientists of the Planetary Union discovered the Nuclear Beams.
Pain shot through Dirrul’s mind as he carried Glenna into the pressurized chamber under the control room. She and Hurd were still unconscious but Glenna turned in his arms and her eyes fluttered open. She looked at him and screamed in terrible agony before the pilot of the Space-dragon plunged a hypodermic sedative into her arm.