The pilot shook his head. Sweat ran down his nose.
"Don't move or I'll leave the neurotube on you long enough to kill you," Brooks shouted. "Because you don't understand."
"I won't move," the pilot whispered. "I won't try to stop you; I won't say anything. Go back out there and I'll open the door for you. As far as I'm concerned, I don't know anything; I've never seen you."
"All right; you're a fool, but I think you're honest."
Already the side freight chamber port was open. Robotractors were unloading and carting the freight onto conveyor belts. Brooks ran into the exit chamber, shut the airtight. The pilot kept his word; the outer door opened. Brooks went down the ladder. He ran; he didn't look back. He didn't have time for that. Somewhere there were a few Guards, stationed here permanently in an isolated barracks building. They would learn of his deeds. But he was free, for a while.
He ran down the long silent avenues and through the strangely silent parks, among the odd unearthly plants and among the alien looking trees and over the paper-like unreal seeming grass.
Above him, the teflonite dome that held in the synthetic atmosphere was like a huge white bubble.
Brooks walked like a drugged man through his dreams-come-true. He stared; his mouth hung open; a warm ecstatic joy filled him. Stars, stars everywhere. There was Ellan Morlan and Clifford Marlowe gliding past in a bubble-shaped shiny white gravcar. They passed so close to Brooks he could see the color of their eyes, the shine of their teeth.
To most women, Clifford Marlowe was the fulfillment of every wish. Ellan Morlan was second only in popularity to Glora Delar. Beautiful people, golden-skinned, perfectly proportioned, like gods and goddesses.