Free The Wind Between the Worlds by Lester del Rey Page B

stopped to cough.
    A blast of air struck, picking all three men up and tossing them against the wall. He’d forgotten the lag before the incoming air could be cut! It could be as fatal as the inrush alone.
    But the gale was dying as he hit the wall. His flesh was bruised from the shock, but it wasn’t serious. Plathgol had managed to make their remote control cut out almost to the micro-second of the time when the flow to them had stopped, or the first pressure released—and transmitter waves were supposed to be instantaneous.
    He tasted the feeling of triumph as he crawled painfully back. With this transmitter off and the others remote controlled, the whole battle was over. Ecthinbal had keyed out automatically when Earth stopped sending. From now on, every transmitter would have a full set of remote controls, so the trouble could never happen again.
    He staggered out, unhooking the chain, while workmen went rushing in. Pat came through the crowd, with a towel and a pair of pants, and began wiping the oil off him while he tried to dress. Her grin was a bit shaky. He knew it must have looked bad when the final counterblast whipped out.
    Amos looked up glumly, and Vic grinned at him. “All over, Amos.”
    The man nodded, staring at the workmen who were dragging out the great pieces of glass from the building. His voice was strained, unnatural. “Yeah. Common sense solution, Vic.”
    T hen his eyes swung aside and his face hardened. Vic saw the Envoy shoving through, with two wiry men behind him. The Envoy nodded at Vic, but his words were addressed to Amos. “And it should have been common sense that you’d be caught, Amos. These men are from your F. B. I. They have the men who paid you, and I suppose the glass will prove that it was a normal capsule, simply shocked with superhot spray and overdosed with supersonics. Didn’t you realize that your easy escape to Plathgol was suspicious?”
    Pat had come up; her voice was unbelieving. “Amos!”
    Amos swung back then. “Yeah, Pat. I’d do it again, and maybe even without the money. You think I like these God damned animals and plants acting so uppity? I liked it good enough before they came. Maybe I didn’t get rid of them, but I sure came close.”
    The two men were leading him away as he finished, and Pat stared after him, tears in her eyes.
    The Envoy broke in. “He’ll get a regular trial in your country. It looks better for the local governments to handle these things. But I’ll see if he can’t get a lighter sentence than the men who hired him. You did a good job, Vic—you and Pat and Flavin. You proved that Earth can cooperate with other worlds. That is the part that impresses the Council as no other solution could have. Your world and Plathgol have already been accepted officially as full members of the Council now, under Ecthinbal’s tutelage. We’re a little easier about passing information and knowledge to planets that have passed the test. But you’ll hear all that in the announcement over the network tonight. I’ll see you again. I’m sure of that.”
    He was gone, barely in time to clear space for Ptheela, as she came trooping up with eight thin, wispy versions of herself in tow. She chuckled. “They promoted me before they banished me, Pat. Meet my
eight
strong husbands. Now I’ll have the strongest seed on all Earth. Oh, I almost forgot. A present for you and Vic.”
    Then she was gone, leading her husbands toward Flavin’s car, while Vic stared down at a particularly ugly
tsiuna
in Pat’s hands. He twisted his mouth resignedly.
    “All right, I’ll learn to eat the stuff,” he told her. “I suppose I’ll have to get used to it. Pat, will you marry me?”
    She dropped the
tsiuna
as she came to him, her lips reaching up for his. It wasn’t until a month later that he found
tsiuna
tasted better than chicken.