"It is almost done," said Mury solemnly. With the words he cut off the afterdrive. Silence fell clublike, mind-numbing after the pounding of the rockets.
Arliess spoke again, with all the feeling washed out of his voice. "Where do you and your pal come out on this?" he demanded carefully. "You don't think you can get away with this, do you, even if you succeed in blowing up Dynamopolis?"
"There are some things I can't reveal even now, slight as are the chances of failure," said Mury smoothly. "We won't be caught, though; I can tell you that surely. And you'll accompany us to our destination. It would be best if you did so willingly." Ryd thought he knew what was implicit in the Panclast's words. There would be some hiding-place maintained by the secret power of We. In Antarctica, perhaps, as rumor whispered. Ryd clung hard to his new faith in Mury, and was warmed by it. He dreamed.... Perhaps, he, Ryd, in some new world to come from chaos....
Mury thumbed a stud; the sidethrust of the starboard drive made the counterpoised seats tilt far to the left. Then, as they drifted in free flight again: "Perhaps, since you have heard the truth, Arliess, you would like to join our cause. Secret now, it will soon be victorious over all Earth ... a cause of glory which will have its heroes...."
The astrogator gazed stonily ahead. "You may be right," he said stiffly, strangely. "But right on wrong, you're mad. Mad with power."
The other laughed softly. "That's very true. It is a little heady. The power that will rock any planet—power indeed!"
All at once the stars were darkened. From overhead as the ship was oriented, a long black shape, picked out by patterned lights, drove past and dwindled into the flaming constellations. The power shell had arrived. Words were at an end.
Instead, there roared out the mighty voices of the after tubes. The sustained forward leap of the ship took breath from their bodies. But the colored lights came slipping back out of the starfields, their pattern expanding swiftly as seconds passed. As suddenly as he had accelerated, Mury closed the throttle, cut in the foredrive, and started braking his speed. Then, with delicate spurts of power from all the rockets, he brought the Shahrazad's speed and course to parallel that of the great projectile which coasted effortlessly through space less than a mile away.
In the weightless pause, Mury said quietly to the astrogator: "The magnet controls are before you, Arliess. Would it be too much strain on your conscience to operate them now?"