CHAPTER 1

 His employer had paid enormously to have the small ship camouflaged as a chunk of asteroid-belt rock, and Gil Murdoch had successfully maneuvered it past the quarantine. Now it lay snugly melted into the ice; and if above them enough water had boiled into space to leave a scar, that was nothing unique on Ganymede's battered surface. In any case, the Terran patrols weren't likely to come in close.

Murdoch applied heat forward and moved the ship gingerly ahead.

"What are you doing now?" Waverill demanded.

Murdoch glanced at the blind man. "Trying to find a clear spot, sir, so I can see into the place."

"What for? Why don't you just contact them?"

"Just being careful, sir. After all, we don't know much about them." Murdoch kept the annoyance out of his voice. He had his own reasons for wanting a preliminary look at the place, though the aliens had undoubtedly picked them up thousands of miles out and knew exactly where they were now.

Something solid, possibly a rock imbedded in the ice, bumped along the hull. Murdoch stopped the ship, then moved on more slowly.

The viewscreens brightened. He stopped the drive, then turned off the heat forward. Water, milky with vapor bubbles, swirled around them, gradually clearing. In a few minutes it froze solid again and he could see.

They were not more than ten feet from the clear area carved out of the ice. Murdoch had the viewpoint of a fish in murky water, looking into an immersed glass jar. The place was apparently a perfect cylinder, walled by a force-field or whatever held back the ice. He could see the dark translucency of the opposite wall, about fifty yards away and extending down eighty or ninety feet from the surface. He'd only lowered the ship a third that far, so that from here he looked down upon the plain one-story building and the neat lawns and hedges around it.

The building and greenery occupied only one-half of the area, the half near Murdoch being paved entirely with gravel and unplanted. That, he presumed, was where they'd land. The building was fitted to the shape of its half-circle, and occupied most of it, like a half cake set in a round box with a little space around it. A gravel walkway, bordered by grass, ran along the straight front of the building and around the back curve of it. The hedges surrounded the half-circle at the outside.

There was an inconspicuous closed door in the middle of the building. There were no windows in the flat gray wall.

The plants looked Terran, and apparently were rooted in soil, though there must be miles of ice beneath. Artificial sunlight poured on the whole area from the top. Murdoch had heard, and now was sure, that something held an atmosphere in the place.

"What are we waiting for?" Waverill wanted to know.

Murdoch reached for a switch and said, simply, "Hello."

The voice that answered was precise and uninflected. "Who are you."

"My employer is Frederick Waverill. He has an appointment."

"And you."

"Gilbert Murdoch."

There was a pause, then, "Gilbert Andrew Murdoch. Age thirty-four. Born in the state called Illinois."

Murdoch, startled, hesitated, then realized he'd probably been asked a question. "Er—that's right."

"There is a price on your head Murdoch."

Murdoch hesitated again, then said, "There'd be a price on your own if Earth dared to put it there."

Waverill gripped the arms of his seat and stood up, too vigorously for the light gravity. "Never mind all that. I hired this man because he could make the contact and get me here. Can you give me back my eyes?"

"We can but first of all I must warn both of you against trying to steal anything from us or prying into our methods. Several Terrans have tried but none have escaped alive."

Waverill made an impatient gesture. "I've already got more money than I can count. I've spent a lot of it, a very great lot, on the metal you wanted, and I have it here in the ship."

"We have already perceived it and we do not care what it has cost you. We are not altruists."

That, thought Murdoch, could be believed. He felt clammy. If they knew so much about him, they might also be aware of the years he'd spent sifting and assessing the rumors about them that circulated around the tenuous outlaw community of space. Still, he'd been as discreet as was humanly possible.

He wondered if Waverill knew more than he pretended. He thought not; Murdoch's own knowledge was largely meticulous deduction. This much Murdoch knew with enough certainty to gamble his life on it: the treatments here involved a strange virus-like thing which multiplied in one's veins and, for presumably selfish or instinctive reasons, helped the body to repair and maintain itself. He knew for dead certain that the aliens always carefully destroyed the virus in a patient's veins before letting him go.

He thought he knew why.

The problem was to smuggle out any viable amount of the virus. Even a few cells, he thought, would be enough if he could get away from here and get them into his own blood. For it would multiply; and what would be the going price for a drop of one's blood—for a thousandth of a drop—if it carried virtual immortality?

A man could very nearly buy Earth.

The voice was speaking again. "Move straight ahead. The field will be opened for you."

Murdoch got the ship moving. He was blanked out again by the melting ice until they popped free into air, with an odd hesitation and then a rush. The ship was borne clear on some sort of a beam. He could hear water cascading outside the hull for a second, then it was quiet. He glanced at the aft viewer and could see the tunnel where they'd come out, with a little water still in the bottom, confined by the force-field again. The water that had escaped was running off along a ditch that circled the clearing.

They were lowered slowly to the gravelled area. "Leave the ship," the voice directed, "and walk to the doorway you see."

Murdoch helped Waverill through the inner and outer hatches and led him toward the building. His information was that a force barrier sliced off this half of the circle from the other, and he could see that the hedges along the diameter pressed against some invisible plane surface. He hesitated as they came to it, and the voice said, "Walk straight ahead to the door. The field will be opened for you."

He guided Waverill in the right direction. As they passed the mid-point he felt an odd reluctance, a tingle and a slight resistance. Waverill grunted at it, but said nothing.

The door slid open and they were in a plain room with doors at the left and right. The outer door closed behind them. The door on the right opened and Murdoch took Waverill through it. They were in a second room of the same size, bare except for a bench along one wall.

The voice said, "Remove your clothing and pile it on the floor."

Waverill complied without protest, and after a second Murdoch did too. "Step back," the voice said. They did.

The clothing dropped through the floor, sluggishly in the light gravity. Murdoch grunted. There were weapons built into his clothes, and he felt uneasy without them.

At the end of the room away from the middle of the building was another door like the one they'd come through. It opened and a robot walked in.

It was humanoid in shape, flesh-colored but without animal details. The head had several features other than the eyes, but none of them was nose, mouth or ears. It stood looking at them for a minute, then said in the familiar voice, "Do not be alarmed if you feel something now."

There was a tingling, then a warmth, then a vibration, and some other sensations not easy to classify. Murdoch couldn't tell whether they came from the robot or not. It was obvious, though, that the robot was scanning them. He resisted an urge to move his hands more behind him. He'd been well satisfied with the delicate surgery, but now he imagined it awkward and obvious.

The robot didn't seem to notice anything.

After a minute the robot said, "Through the door where I entered you will find a bedroom and a bath and a place to cook. It is best you retire now and rest."

Murdoch offered his arm to Waverill, who grumbled a little but came along.

The voice went on, seeming now to come from the ceiling, "Treatment will begin tomorrow. During convalescence Murdoch will care for Waverill. Sight will be restored within four days and you will be here one day after that then you may return to your ship. You will be protected from each other while you are here. If you keep your bargain you will be of no concern to us after you leave."

Murdoch watched Waverill's face but it showed nothing. He was sure the billionaire already had arrangements to shut him up permanently as soon as he was no longer needed, and he didn't intend, of course, to let those arrangements work out.