The entire System was after Ballantyne.
Earth wanted him. The Jovian war-fleet jetted
on his trail. But mainly Ballantyne feared his
big-bosomed, sword-swinging space-mate—Dyann
the Amazon from man-starved Alpha C3.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories March 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The hero is the child of his times, in that his milieu furnishes himwith motives and means, and yet the hero seizes the time and shapes itas he will. And he remains an enigma to his contemporaries and to thefuture.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the strange story of thethree whose discoveries and achievements determined the whole courseof history. The driving idealism and bold military genius of DyannKorlas; the mighty wisdom, profound and benign, of Urushkidan; aboveall, perhaps, the transcendent clarity of mind and inspired leadershipof Ballantyne—these molded our century and all centuries to come, andyet we will never understand them, they are too far beyond us and theiressential selves must be forever a mystery.
—Vallabbhai Rasmussen, History
of the Twenty-third Century, v. 1
I
The tender loomed above the crowd of passengers and leave-takers, agreat shining bullet caught in floodlights against the dark, and RayBallantyne quickened his steps. By Heaven, he'd made it! The flightfrom San Francisco to Quito, the nail-biting dawdle as he waited forthe airbus, then the flight out to Ecuador Spaceport, the last walkthrough the vast echoing hollowness of the terminal, out onto thefield—and there it was, there the little darling lay, waiting to carryhim from Earth up to the Jovian Queen and safety.
He kissed his fingers at the tender and shoved rudely through the swarmof people and Martians. He'd already missed the first trip up to theliner, and the thought of waiting for the third was beyond endurance.
"Hey, chum."
As the heavy hand fell on his arm, Ballantyne whirled, his heartslamming against his teeth and his spine dropping out. The thick-setman compared his thin sharp features with the photograph in the otherpaw, nodded, and said, "All right, Ballantyne, come along."
"Se llama Garcia!" gibbered the engineer. "No hablo Inglés."
"I said come along," said the detective wearily. "I thought you'd tryto leave Earth. This way."
Ballantyne's free hand reached up and crammed the fellow's hat downover his eyes. Wrenching loose, he turned and ran for the gangway,upsetting a corpulent Latin woman en route and pursued by a volley ofimprecations. He shoved aside the passenger before him and ran into thesolid wall of an impassive Jovian ship's officer.
The Jovian, a tall muscular blond in a dazzling crispness of whiteuniform, looked at him with the thinly veiled contempt of a properConfed for the lesser breeds of humanity. "Ticket and passport,please," he said stonily.
Ballantyne shoved them at him, glancing shakily back to the detectivewho had become entangled with the indignant woman and was being slappedwith a handbag and volubly cursed. With maddening deliberation theJovian scanned the engineer's papers, compared them with a list in hishand, and waved him on.
The detective caromed against the same immovable barrier. "Let me by!"he gasped.
"Your ticket and passport, please," said the Jovian.
"That man is under arrest. Let me by."
"Your ticket and passport, please."