A man--at least the figure was a two-legged, two-armed body reasonably human in outline--was lying several yards away. But the body was so wrapped in bandages and the head so totally muffled, that it lacked all identity. For that reason it was the more startling.
One of the mittened hands moved slightly, raising the body from the ground so it could squirm forward an inch or so. Before Ross could move, a man came running into the corridor from the far end. Murdock recognized Major Kelgarries. He wet his lips as the major went down on his knees beside the creature on the floor.
"Hardy! Hardy!" That voice, which carried the snap of command whenever it was addressed to Ross, was now warmly human. "Hardy, man!" The major's hands were on the bandaged body, lifting it, easing the head and shoulders back against his arm. "It's all right, Hardy. You're back--safe. This is the base, Hardy." He spoke slowly, soothingly, with the steadiness one would use to comfort a frightened child.
Those mittened paws which had beat feebly into the air fell onto the bandage-wreathed chest. "Back--safe--" The voice from behind the face mask was a rusty croak.
"Back, safe," the major assured him.
"Dark--dark all around again--" protested the croak.
"Just a power failure, man. Everything's all right now. We'll get you into bed."
The mitten pawed again until it touched Kelgarries' arm; then it flexed a little as if the hand under it was trying to grip.
"Safe--?"
"You bet you are!" The major's tone carried firm reassurance. Now Kelgarries looked up at Ross as if he knew the other had been
there all the time.
"Murdock, get down to the end room. Call Dr. Farrell!"
"Yes, sir!" The "sir" came so automatically that Ross had already reached the end room before he realized he had used it.
Nobody explained matters to Ross Murdock. The bandaged Hardy was claimed by the doctor and two attendants and carried away, the major walking beside the stretcher, still holding one of the mittened hands in his. Ross hesitated, sure he was not supposed to follow, but not ready either to explore farther or return to his own room. The sight of Hardy, whoever he might be, had radically changed Ross's conception of the project he had too speedily volunteered to join.
That what they did here was important, Ross had never doubted. That it was dangerous, he had early suspected. But his awareness had been an abstract concept of danger, not connected with such concrete evidence as Hardy crawling through the dark. From the first, Ross had nursed vague plans for escape; now he knew he must get out of this place lest he end up a twin for Hardy.
"Murdock?"
Having heard no warning sound from behind, Ross whirled, ready to use his fists, his only weapons. But he did not face the major, or any of the other taciturn men he knew held positions of authority. The newcomer's brown skin was startling against the neutral shade of the walls. His hair and brows were only a few shades darker; but the general sameness of color was relieved by the vivid
7
blue of his eyes.
Expressionless, the dark stranger stood quietly, his arms hanging loosely by his sides, studying Ross, as if the younger man was some problem he had been assigned to solve. When he spoke, his voice was a monotone lacking any modulation of feeling.
"I am Ashe." He introduced himself baldly; he might have been saying "This is a table and that is a chair."
Ross's quick temper took spark from the other's indifference. "All right--so you're Ashe!" He strove to make a challenge of it. "And what is that supposed to mean?"
But the other did not rise to the bait. He shrugged. "For the time being we have been partnered----" "Partnered for what?" demanded Ross, controlling his temper.
"We work in pairs here. The machine sorts us ..." he answered briefly and consulted his wrist watch. "Mess call soon."
Ashe had already turned away, and Ross could not stand the other's lack of interest. While Murdock refused to ask questions of the major or any others on that side of the fence, surely he could get some information from a fellow "volunteer."
"What is this place, anyway?" he asked.
The other glanced back over his shoulder. "Operation Retrograde."
Ross swallowed his anger. "Okay, but what do they do here? Listen, I just saw a fellow who'd been banged up as if he'd been in a concrete mixer, creeping along this hall. What sort of work do they do here? And what do we have to do?"
To his amazement Ashe smiled, at least his lips quirked faintly. "Hardy got under your skin, eh? Well, we have our percentage of failures. They are as few as it's humanly possible to make, and they give us every advantage that can be worked out for us----"
"Failures at what?" "Operation Retrograde."
Somewhere down the hall a buzzer gave a muted whirr.
"That's mess call. And I'm hungry, even if you're not." Ashe walked away as if Ross Murdock had ceased to exist.
But Ross Murdock did exist, and to him that was an important fact. As he trailed along behind Ashe he determined that he was go-ing to continue to exist, in one piece and unharmed, Operation Retrograde or no Operation Retrograde. And he was going to pry a few enlightening answers out of somebody very soon.
To his surprise he found Ashe waiting for him at the door of a room from which came the sound of voices and a subdued clatter of trays and tableware.
"Not many in tonight," Ashe commented in a take-it-or-leave-it tone. "It's been a busy week."
The room was rather sparsely occupied. Five tables were empty, while the men gathered at the remaining two. Ross counted ten men, either already eating or coming back from a serving hatch with well-filled trays. All of them were dressed in slacks, shirt, and moc-casins like himself--the outfit seemed to be a sort of undress uniform--and six of them were ordinary in physical appearance. The other four differed so radically that Ross could barely conceal his amazement.
Since their fellows accepted them without comment, Ross silently stole glances at them as he waited behind Ashe for a tray. One pair were clearly Oriental; they were small, lean men with thin brackets of long black mustache on either side of their mobile mouths. Yet he had caught a word or two of their conversation, and they spoke his own language with the facility of the native born. In addition to the mustaches, each wore a blue tattoo mark on the forehead and others of the same design on the backs of their agile hands.
The second duo were even more fantastic. The color of their flaxen hair was normal, but they wore it in braids long enough to swing
across their powerful shoulders, a fashion unlike any Ross had ever seen. Yet any suggestion of effeminacy certainly did not survive
8
beyond the first glance at their ruggedly masculine features.
"Gordon!" One of the braided giants swung halfway around from the table to halt Ashe as he came down the aisle with his tray. "When did you get back? And where is Sanford?"
One of the Orientals laid down the spoon with which he had been vigorously stirring his coffee and asked with real concern, "Another loss?"
Ashe shook his head. "Just reassignment. Sandy's holding down Outpost Gog and doing well." He grinned and his face came to life with an expression of impish humor Ross would not have believed possible. "He'll end up with a million or two if he doesn't watch out. He takes to trade as if he were born with a beaker in his fist."
The Oriental laughed and then glanced at Ross. "Your new partner, Ashe?"
Some of the animation disappeared from Ashe's brown face; he was noncommittal again. "Temporary assignment. This is Murdock." The introduction was flat enough