One and Wonder Read Online Free

enough to smash the earth. The first necessity, however, is to learn what has happened. I believe you can anticipate the consequence to yourselves of failure.”
    “I think we can, Mr. Hudd,” said Cameron.
    My heart began to thump, with an excited and somewhat apprehensive expectation.
    II
    Life-craft 18 was a trim steel missile, lying snug in its berth-tube amidships of the Great Director. Eighty feet long and slim as a pencil, it had its own ion-drive, a regular crew of six, and plenty of additional space for our party.
    Captain Rory Doyle met us at the valves. He was a big man, red-haired,straight and handsome in the gray of the Atomic Service. Under party supervision, he and Cameron had rescued a scout ship sunk in a liquid nitrogen sea on the inner planet of the Dark Star. He was capable, fearless, and loyal to Hudd. Smiling, he welcomed us aboard his swift little craft.
    His crew of able spacemen helped us stow our space armor, and made ready to launch. Our take-off time went by, while Doyle scowled at his wrist chronometer, keeping the valves open.
    “Waiting for Victor Lord,” he muttered. “The Squaredealer.”
    Only his impatient tone suggested any dislike for Squaredealers—and even that was indiscreet.
    Lord came swaggering insolently aboard, twenty minutes late. He was a tiny man, very erect and precise in his gray uniform—with the gold squares of the Machine instead of the blazing atoms of the Service. He had tight brown skin over a hard narrow face, with heavy lids drooping over pale yellow eyes. His long black hair had a varnished slickness. Strutting between his two tall bodyguards, he looked like a peevish dwarf.
    He didn't bother to return Doyle's correct salute.
    “You know my status, Doyle.” His high, nasal voice was deliberately overbearing. “My duty here is to oversee your performance of this important mission. We'll have no trouble—if you just keep in mind that one word from me can break you.”
    He paused to blink at Doyle, with a sleepy-lidded arrogance. Success in the Squaredeal Machine required brutality, and Lord, I knew, stood second only to Julian Hudd. Haughtily, he added:
    “You may take off, now.”
    “Yes, Mr. Lord.”
    The Squaredealer's petulant insolence may have been nothing more than a compensation for his size, but still I didn't like him. His yellow eyes were shifty; his narrow forehead sloped and his nose was too big; his whole expression was one of vicious cunning.
    Doyle turned quickly away, perhaps to conceal his own resentment. He ordered the valves closed and climbed the central ladder-well to his bridge. A warning-horn beeped, and we cast off.
    In the acceleration-lounge, we hung weightless for a few seconds as we dropped away from the flagship; then the thrust of our own ion-drive forced us back into the cushions with a 2-G acceleration.
    I turned in the padded seat to look back through a small port. Against the dead black of space, I glimpsed the enormous bright projectile-shapes of the Great Director and the Valley Forge —coupled nose-to-nose with a long cable, spinning slowly, like a toy binary to create an imitation gravity.
    Earth, close beside them, was a huge ball of misty wonder. The twilight zone made a long crimson slash between the day-side and the night. Dullgreens and browns and blues were all patched with the dazzling white of storms.
    All the hope and longing of twenty years burst over me when I saw the earth, in a sudden flood of choking emotion. My wet eyes blurred that splendid view. I sat grappling in vain with that shocking mystery of spreading forest, abandoned farmlands, and jungle-buried cities, until Victor Lord’s high nasal voice recalled me to the life-craft.
    “Feather merchants, huh?” Sitting pygmy-like between his two husky guards, Lord turned condescendingly to Cameron. “But Hudd insisted you must come. Let's have your expert opinion.”
    He stressed the adjective too strongly, but Cameron answered quietly, “I rather