Attorney General Gunderson sat in a chair facing the two E's and Linda. He seemed stunned, frozen into immobility. Only his eyes were alive, darting here and there, unbelieving. There is limit to the number of shocks the mind can withstand, and the series had come too fast for him to adjust to them.
He too had picked up Junior E Gray as soon as he came through the arch of the quartz outcropping on top of the mountain, the structure that somehow interfered with their visoscope's ability to penetrate and see what went on inside. He had been watching when Gray suddenly disappeared from where he had been talking with the astronavigator. That had been a shock, immediately followed by a greater one, when the ship's operator had scanned the valley and found Gray talking with the E's pilot and the chief of the colonists. There was no way in which the journey could have been made that rapidly.
He was still watching when the village, the fields, the escape ship, the E ship all had suddenly materialized before his eyes. And the people were all clothed. It couldn't be done, but he had seen it. But he kept his head. E science must be farther along than he'd realized, to produce a miracle such as this—but it was science. He must hold to that, otherwise ...
He saw his case begin to melt out from under him, and he made one more effort to regain some measure of control. He gave his own pilot orders to land on the surface of Eden. He transmitted orders to the other two police ships to follow in close formation; the three of them to land and take custody.
But the barrier still remained, and the ships could not penetrate it.
He told himself that all wasn't lost. Maybe the E was back in control of Eden, but he, Gunderson, still had a morals case. All those photographs! Some of the press and commentators might desert him, now that the Junior had proved adequate to the job. Unless he chose carefully, some stupid judge might decide the means were justified by the end result. But there were those photographs, and the world was full of Mrs. Grundy. He might have to back up a little bit on the incompetence of the Junior E, but Mrs. Grundy would be behind him a hundred per cent on the morals issue—when he released some of the photographs, and titillated her nasty imagination by reference to others too indecent to release.
It was then that the observer ship got a call through to him, and told him that the photographs, every one of them, had disappeared from the ship's vault where they had been locked, and the only thing remaining in the vault was one little slip of paper which read, "Shame on you for taking feelthy pictures. Naughty, naughty! Calvin Gray."
The case was crumbling, but all was not lost. He still had witnesses. He thought for a minute and began to wonder about those witnesses. Any judge, anybody around the courts, anybody connected with the press, and maybe even some of the public knew that any police officer will swear to any lie to back up another police officer because he might need the favor returned tomorrow.
He suddenly found himself standing in the cabin of the E ship, confronted by E McGinnis, Junior E Gray, and Mrs. Gray. He sank down in a chair and sat frozen, immobile. Only his eyes were alive, darting frantically here and there as if expecting some hole to open up and swallow him—perhaps wishing one would.