“I am, in the last analysis, Kemal, nothing more than an elaborate counting machine. I consider probabilities and make suggestions based on them. I would like to employ the best probabilities to ensure that Eric Abbott is not used against us again … and if events can be manipulated, to ensure even more than that.”

“Us?” Tarragon blurted.

“Mankind and myself. We are tied together, you know.”

“Yeah,” said Tarragon softly, not knowing.

“Delay involves certain risks,” Oristano put in. “The Colligatarch is trying to tell you that there’s an outside chance we may be able to turn Eric Abbott against those who are using him.”

“I don’t know about that,” Tarragon muttered. “He strikes me as a pretty independent sort of person. I don’t think he’s in the mood to listen to anyone. Or anything,” he added pointedly, eyeing the opto pickup across the room.

“Our success may lie in that very independence you have so correctly observed. Kemal,” said the machine. “But we must move quickly. Martin, you may listen or return to your own work. This does not involve you.”

Tarragon readied himself. It was one thing to take orders through a machine, quite another to receive them from a machine. But this was no mere machine. This was the Colligatarch.

There was only a little resentment, and as the machine instructed him, he soon forgot it.

Truly there was much to learn, and a great deal he hadn’t even suspected.

XVI

Eric felt Lisa’s hand on his arm. The movement caused her body to move against his, drifting within the limits imposed on her by the harness that kept her safely anchored to her seat.

“This isn’t going to work,” she whispered.

“It’ll work,” he assured her. “It has to work. It’s worked so far.”

“Only because we shocked them so badly back in London. I still wish I knew how you managed that.”

“So do I,” he said feelingly. He leaned back slightly so that she could look past him. “We might as well enjoy the trip. It’ll be over soon enough. Ever been off-planet before?” She shook her head, staring past his chest. “Me neither. It’s more of a wrench than leaving Phoenix was.”

Below them the Earth was a lambent blue-and-white globe, electric against the blackness of space. Ahead lay their destination and, if they were extremely lucky, safety.

GATE Station was much more than a vast orbiting laboratory. It was the largest inhabited facility circling the Earth, positioned in geostationary orbit above the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where it intersected the equator. Thousands of lights sparkled along its sides, giving it the appearance of an exploding snowflake. The actual design was similar.

Branching arms extended for a kilometer and more in every direction possible. Rising from top and bottom relative to the heavily inhabited axes were many square kilometers of solar panels composed of amorphous metallic glass solar cells that drew enough energy from the distant sun to power the floating city.

One particular arm caught the eye of every passenger the instant it hove into view. It was familiar to everyone from numberous appearances on the opto: a long, thin cylinder that ended in a modest, well-lit bulge tipped by a parabolic dish two kilometers in diameter.

GATE Terminus.

At the base of the immense curving dish was Departure Lounge, and immediately beyond that the GATE itself, the GATE that led to Eden or Garden according to how the projector was aligned. The GATE that led through an as yet undefined limbo to paradisiacal worlds of milk and honey, a fifth-dimensional subway across the galaxy, a journey still better understood in philosophical than physical terms.

No one understood quite how the GATE worked, or why it worked. Its development arose out one of those wonderful accidents of science, those exquisite serendipitous discoveries that occur every few millennia or so.

The men and women who’d discovered the principle that led to the building of the GATE hadn’t been looking for it. When they found it, it took several years more to understand what they had.

Now the GATE had been operational for nearly 150 years. Mathematically it still made no sense, but like the bumblebee too heavy to fly, it still worked. It enabled mankind to extend two tenuous threads to the stars while sneering at the tyranny of light-speed.

Barnard’s Star, Alpha Centauri, all the nearby suns were easily bypassed. Eden and Garden lay further in on the galactic lens but were as near as a complexly charged chamber. In terms of actual travel time they lay closer to GATE Station than Earth. No GATE could be built on a planet, of course. Gravity and magnetosphere made it impossible. So men were forced to resort to travel via sturdy, slow ships to reach GATE Station or the solar colonies.

From time to time there was talk of building a second GATE. The enormous expense made it unlikely, and the physics made it impossible. To be able to operate without cross-over interference, a second GATE, according to the mathematicians, would have to be constructed several trillion miles outside the orbit of Pluto. Until the actions of the GATE field were better understood, mankind would have to get along with a single GATE. No one worried about it much anymore, not after a century and a half of successful operation.

No one greeted the shuttle passengers as they disembarked. There were no customs officials on GATE Station. It was open to the citizens of every nationality.

A moving walkway carried them to a large, domed reception area. Children bounced delightedly around their parents, laughing as they played in the three-quarters normal gravity. Through a two-story-high port the Earth rotated mechanically.

They settled into a moderately elegant restaurant, where Lisa blanched at the prices. Eric didn’t glance at them, assigning everything to his malleable credit card. There was no reason to stint, since within a short time the card would be useless no matter how deftly altered.

“I still don’t understand how you plan to try this,” she told him later that night. Around them the dimmed lights of the walkways glowed softly yellow. A few couples and groups strolled among the fountains and the soaring roses that benefited from the light gravity, drinking in the sight of Earth and stars.

“We can’t pass ourselves off as colonists. Everyone’s screened prior to GATing. For that matter, I don’t see how you expect us to get as far as the Departure Lounge.”

“I’m sure you’re right about passing ourselves off as colonists,” he told her as they turned a rounded corner. “The quota is tight, and the final ID must be exacting. Don’t you remember the story of that murderer—what was his name?—Griss or something like that. He tried to do it ten years ago. Figured once he was through the GATE he was free to start a safe, new life. He was right about that much.

“He did everything. Got himself a counterfeit departure suit and identification card, memorized the procedure, learned all the right responses. Hell of a scandal about it. And then he failed at the last minute, having passed all the checks and autocurbs, because his group leader didn’t recognize him.

“The colonists spend six months preparing to buy the GATE. They’re too well known to one another for a stranger to slip in with them.”

“Then how are we going to do it?”

“We’re not going to try and pass ourselves off as colonists, Lisa. We’re going to pass ourselves off as GATE technicians.”

She shook her head. “Suppose someone asks us to fix something?”

“I can do that. I know how portions of the GATE are put together.”

She gaped at him. “How could you know that?”

“Selvern, the company I’ve worked for, is one of the major suppliers of replacement components for the GATE. I’ve helped to design newer, more compact parts for the Station off and on for the last ten years. I don’t know how everything works, of course. No one man does. But I know enough to fool an unsuspecting supervisor.

“I have something like an eidetic memory, Lisa. I remember every project I’ve ever worked on. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been able to advance so fast in my career. My old career, I should say. I can make it sound like I know what I’m doing, and you can be my apprentice. That way you shouldn’t have to answer any technical questions.”

“Assuming it works, what then?”

“It only takes a second to actually make the passage. I’m hoping we can make a run for the GATE and slip through ahead of the assigned colonists in front of us. I won’t know for sure until I see the actual layout of the GATE chamber. If that doesn’t look like it’s possible, I may be able to operate the Station myself. We’ll study the procedure.”

“What about guards? They’re not going to let some lowly technician take over the main consoles.”

“I think the guards are all stationed outside the Departure Lounge. Anyone admitted to the Station itself would already have cleared as many security checks as necessary. Once we’re inside”—he hesitated uneasily—“I think I can cope with any physical reactions. I’ve done so these past weeks. I don’t want to hurt anyone. With luck I won’t have to. But they’re not going to stop us, Lisa.”

“You make everything sound so plausible. What if you don’t make the GATE operate properly?”

His reply was quietly matter-of-fact. “Then we’ll be dead, and Tarragon will have failed anyway because we’ll still be together.”

She put her arm around his waist. “My old life is already dead, Eric, Either we’ll have one together or we won’t have one at all.”

He nodded slowly. “I’ve nothing to go back to. Everything I want in life is here now.”