Masters of Space
by E. E. Smith · English · Gutenberg #22754 · 320,534 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Masters of Space
Author: E. E. Smith
E. Everett Evans
Illustrator: Phil Berry
Release date: September 24, 2007 [eBook #22754]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22754
Credits: Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Stephen Blundell and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASTERS OF SPACE ***
Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Stephen Blundell and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
PART ONE
MASTERS
OF
SPACE
By EDWARD E. SMITH &
E. EVERETT EVANS
Illustrated by BERRY
The Masters had ruled all space
with an unconquerable iron fist. But
the Masters were gone. And this new,
young race who came now to take their
place--could they hope to defeat the
ancient Enemy of All?
I
"But didn't you feel _anything_, Javo?" Strain was apparent in every
line of Tula's taut, bare body. "Nothing at all?"
"Nothing whatever." The one called Javo relaxed from his rigid
concentration. "Nothing has changed. Nor will it."
"That conclusion is indefensible!" Tula snapped. "With the promised
return of the Masters there must and will be changes. Didn't _any_ of
you feel anything?"
Her hot, demanding eyes swept the group; a group whose like, except for
physical perfection, could be found in any nudist colony.
No one except Tula had felt a thing.
"That fact is not too surprising," Javo said finally. "You have the most
sensitive receptors of us all. But are you sure?"
"I am sure. It was the thought-form of a living Master."
"Do you think that the Master perceived your web?"
"It is certain. Those who built us are stronger than we."
"That is true. As they promised, then, so long and long ago, our Masters
are returning home to us."
* * * * *
Jarvis Hilton of Terra, the youngest man yet to be assigned to direct
any such tremendous deep-space undertaking as Project Theta Orionis,
sat in conference with his two seconds-in-command. Assistant Director
Sandra Cummings, analyst-synthesist and semantician, was tall, blonde
and svelte. Planetographer William Karns--a black-haired, black-browed,
black-eyed man of thirty--was third in rank of the scientific group.
"I'm telling you, Jarve, you can't have it both ways," Karns declared.
"Captain Sawtelle is old-school Navy brass. He goes strictly by the
book. So you've got to draw a razor-sharp line; exactly where the
Advisory Board's directive puts it. And next time he sticks his ugly
puss across that line, kick his face in. You've been Caspar Milquetoast
Two ever since we left Base."
"That's the way it looks to you?" Hilton's right hand became a fist.
"The man has age, experience and ability. I've been trying to meet him
on a ground of courtesy and decency."
"Exactly. And he doesn't recognize the existence of either. And, since
the Board rammed you down his throat instead of giving him old Jeffers,
you needn't expect him to."
"You may be right, Bill. What do you think, Dr. Cummings?"
The girl said: "Bill's right. Also, your constant appeasement isn't
doing the morale of the whole scientific group a bit of good."
"Well, I haven't enjoyed it, either. So next time I'll pin his ears
back. Anything else?"
"Yes, Dr. Hilton, I have a squawk of my own. I know I was rammed down
your throat, but just when are you going to let me do some work?"
"None of us has much of anything to do yet, and won't have until we
light somewhere. You're off base a country mile."
"I'm not off base. You _did_ want Eggleston, not me."
"Sure I did. I've worked with him and know what he can do. But I'm not
holding a grudge about it."
"No? Why, then, are you on first-name terms with everyone in the
scientific group except me? Supposedly your first assistant?"
"That's easy!" Hilton snapped. "Because you've been carrying chips on
both shoulders ever since you came aboard ... or at least I thought you
were." Hilton grinned suddenly and held out his hand. "Sorry,
Sandy--I'll start all over again."
"I'm sorry too, Chief." They shook hands warmly. "I _was_ pretty stiff,
I guess, but I'll be good."
"You'll go to work right now, too. As semantician. Dig out that
directive and tear it down. Draw that line Bill talked about."
"Can do, boss." She swung to her feet and walked out of the room, her
every movement one of lithe and easy grace.
Karns followed her with his eyes. "Funny. A trained-dancer Ph.D. And a
Miss America type, like all the other women aboard this spacer. I wonder
if she'll make out."
"So do I. I still wish they'd given me Eggy. I've never seen an
executive-type female Ph.D. yet that was worth the cyanide it would take
to poison her."
"That's what Sawtelle thinks of you, too, you know."
"I know; and the Board _does_ know its stuff. So I'm really hoping,
Bill, that she surprises me as much as I intend to surprise the Navy."
* * * * *
Alarm bells clanged as the mighty _Perseus_ blinked out of overdrive.
Every crewman sprang to his post.
"Mister Snowden, why did we emerge without orders from me?" Captain
Sawtelle bellowed, storming into the control room three jumps behind
Hilton.
"The automatics took control, sir," he said, quietly.
"Automatics! I _give_ the orders!"
"In this case, Captain Sawtelle, you don't," Hilton said. Eyes locked
and held. To Sawtelle, this was a new and strange co-commander. "I would
suggest that we discuss this matter in private."
"Very well, sir," Sawtelle said; and in the captain's cabin Hilton
opened up.
"For your information, Captain Sawtelle, I set my inter-space coupling
detectors for any objective I choose. When any one of them reacts, it
trips the kickers and we emerge. During any emergency outside the Solar
System I am in command--with the provision that I must relinquish
command to you in case of armed attack on us."
"Where do you think you found any such stuff as that in the directive?
It isn't there and I know my rights."
"It is, and you don't. Here is a semantic chart of the whole directive.
As you will note, it overrides many Navy regulations. Disobedience of my
orders constitutes mutiny and I can--and will--have you put in irons and
sent back to Terra for court-martial. Now let's go back."
In the control room, Hilton said, "The target has a mass of
approximately five hundred metric tons. There is also a significant
amount of radiation characteristic of uranexite. You will please execute
search, Captain Sawtelle."
And Captain Sawtelle ordered the search.
"What did you do to the big jerk, boss?" Sandra whispered.
"What you and Bill suggested," Hilton whispered back. "Thanks to your
analysis of the directive--pure gobbledygook if there ever was any--I
could. Mighty good job, Sandy."
* * * * *
Ten or fifteen more minutes passed. Then:
"Here's the source of radiation, sir," a searchman reported. "It's a
point source, though, not an object at this range."
"And here's the artifact, sir," Pilot Snowden said. "We're coming up on
it fast. But ... but what's a _skyscraper_ skeleton doing out here in
interstellar space?"
As they closed up, everyone could see that the thing did indeed look
like the metallic skeleton of a great building. It was a huge cube,
measuring well over a hundred yards along each edge. And it was empty.
"_That's_ one for the book," Sawtelle said.
"And how!" Hilton agreed. "I'll take a boat ... no, suits would be
better. Karns, Yarborough, get Techs Leeds and Miller and suit up."
"You'll need a boat escort," Sawtelle said. "Mr. Ashley, execute escort
Landing Craft One, Two, and Three."
The three landing craft approached that enigmatic lattice-work of
structural steel and stopped. Five grotesquely armored figures wafted
themselves forward on pencils of force. Their leader, whose suit bore
the number "14", reached a mammoth girder and worked his way along it up
to a peculiar-looking bulge. The whole immense structure vanished,
leaving men and boats in empty space.
Sawtelle gasped. "Snowden! Are you holding 'em?"
"No, sir. Faster than light; hyperspace, sir."
"Mr. Ashby, did you have your interspace rigs set?"
"No, sir. I didn't think of it, sir."
"Doctor Cummings, why weren't yours out?"
"I didn't think of such a thing, either--any more than you did," Sandra
said.
Ashby, the Communications Officer, had been working the radio. "No reply
from anyone, sir," he reported.
"Oh, no!" Sandra exclaimed. Then, "But look! They're firing
pistols--especially the one wearing number fourteen--but _pistols_?"
"Recoil pistols--sixty-threes--for emergency use in case of power
failure," Ashby explained. "That's it ... but I can't see why _all_
their power went out at once. But Fourteen--that's Hilton--is really
doing a job with that sixty-three. He'll be here in a couple of
minutes."
And he was. "Every power unit out there--suits and boats both--drained,"
Hilton reported. "_Completely_ drained. Get some help out there fast!"
* * * * *
In an enormous structure deep below the surface of a far-distant world a
group of technicians clustered together in front of one section of a
two-miles long control board. They were staring at a light that had just
appeared where no light should have been.
"Someone's brain-pan will be burned out for this," one of the group
radiated harshly. "That unit was inactivated long ago and it has not
been reactivated."
"Someone committed an error, Your Loftiness?"
"Silence, fool! Stretts do not commit errors!"
* * * * *
As soon as it was clear that no one had been injured, Sawtelle demanded,
"How about it, Hilton?"
"Structurally, it was high-alloy steel. There were many bulges, possibly
containing mechanisms. There were drive-units of a non-Terran type.
There were many projectors, which--at a rough guess--were a hundred
times as powerful as any I have ever seen before. There were no
indications that the thing had ever been enclosed, in whole or in part.
It certainly never had living quarters for warm-blooded,
oxygen-breathing eaters of organic food."
Sawtelle snorted. "You mean it never had a crew?"
"Not necessarily...."
"Bah! What other kind of intelligent life is there?"
"I don't know. But before we speculate too much, let's look at the
tri-di. The camera may have caught something I missed."
It hadn't. The three-dimensional pictures added nothing.
"It probably was operated either by programmed automatics or by remote
control," Hilton decided, finally. "But how did they drain all our
power? And just as bad, what and how is that other point source of power
we're heading for now?"
"What's wrong with it?" Sawtelle asked.
"Its strength. No matter what distance or reactant I assume, nothing we
know will fit. Neither fission nor fusion will do it. It has to be
practically total conversion!"
II
The _Perseus_ snapped out of overdrive near the point of interest and
Hilton stared, motionless and silent.
Space was full of madly warring ships. Half of them were bare, giant
skeletons of steel, like the "derelict" that had so unexpectedly
blasted away from them. The others were more or less like the _Perseus_,
except in being bigger, faster and of vastly greater power.
Beams of starkly incredible power bit at and clung to equally capable
defensive screens of pure force. As these inconceivable forces met, the
glare of their neutralization filled all nearby space. And ships and
skeletons alike were disappearing in chunks, blobs, gouts, streamers and
sparkles of rended, fused and vaporized metal.
Hilton watched two ships combine against one skeleton. Dozens of beams,
incredibly tight and hard, were held inexorably upon dozens of the
bulges of the skeleton. Overloaded, the bulges' screens flared through
the spectrum and failed. And bare metal, however refractory, endures
only for instants under the appalling intensity of such beams as those.
The skeletons tried to duplicate the ships' method of attack, but
failed. They were too slow. Not slow, exactly, either, but hesitant; as
though it required whole seconds for the commander--or operator? Or
remote controller?--of each skeleton to make it act. The ships were
winning.
"Hey!" Hilton yelped. "Oh--that's the one we saw back there. But what
in all space does it think it's doing?"
It was plunging at tremendous speed straight through the immense fleet
of embattled skeletons. It did not fire a beam nor energize a screen; it
merely plunged along as though on a plotted course until it collided
with one of the skeletons of the fleet and both structures plunged, a
tangled mass of wreckage, to the ground of the planet below.
Then hundreds of the ships shot forward, each to plunge into and explode
inside one of the skeletons. When visibility was restored another wave
of ships came forward to repeat the performance, but there was nothing
left to fight. Every surviving skeleton had blinked out of normal space.
The remaining ships made no effort to pursue the skeletons, nor did they
re-form as a fleet. Each ship went off by itself.
* * * * *
And on that distant planet of the Stretts the group of mechs watched
with amazed disbelief as light after light after light winked out on
their two-miles-long control board. Frantically they relayed orders to
the skeletons; orders which did not affect the losses.
"Brain-pans will blacken for this ..." a mental snarl began, to be
interrupted by a coldly imperious thought.
"That long-dead unit, so inexplicably reactivated, is approaching the
fuel world. It is ignoring the battle. It is heading through our fleet
toward the Oman half ... _handle_ it, ten-eighteen!"
"It does not respond, Your Loftiness."
"Then blast it, fool! Ah, it is inactivated. As encyclopedist, Nine,
explain the freakish behavior of that unit."
"Yes, Your Loftiness. Many cycles ago we sent a ship against the Omans
with a new device of destruction. The Omans must have intercepted it,
drained it of power and allowed it to drift on. After all these cycles
of time it must have come upon a small source of power and of course
continued its mission."
"That can be the truth. The Lords of the Universe must be informed."
"The mining units, the carriers and the refiners have not been affected,
Your Loftiness," a mech radiated.
"So I see, fool." Then, activating another instrument, His Loftiness
thought at it, in an entirely different vein, "Lord Ynos, Madam? I have
to make a very grave report...."
* * * * *
In the _Perseus_, four scientists and three Navy officers were arguing
heatedly; employing deep-space verbiage not to be found in any
dictionary. "Jarve!" Karns called out, and Hilton joined the group.
"Does anything about this planet make any sense to you?"
"No. But you're the planetographer. 'Smatter with it?"
"It's a good three hundred degrees Kelvin too hot."
"Well, you know it's loaded with uranexite."
"That much? The whole crust practically jewelry ore?"
"If that's what the figures say, I'll buy it."
"Buy _this_, then. Continuous daylight everywhere. Noon June Sol-quality
light _except_ that it's all in the visible. Frank says it's from
bombardment of a layer of something, and Frank admits that the whole
thing's impossible."
"When Frank makes up his mind what 'something' is, I'll take it as a
datum."
"Third thing: there's only one city on this continent, and it's
protected by a screen that nobody ever heard of."
Hilton pondered, then turned to the captain. "Will you please run a
search-pattern, sir? Fine-toothing only the hot spots?"
The planet was approximately the same size as Terra; its atmosphere,
except for its intense radiation, was similar to Terra's. There were two
continents; one immense girdling ocean. The temperature of the land
surface was everywhere about 100°F, that of the water about 90°F. Each
continent had one city, and both were small. One was inhabited by what
looked like human beings; the other by usuform robots. The human city
was the only cool spot on the entire planet; under its protective dome
the temperature was 71°F.
Hilton decided to study the robots first; and asked the captain to take
the ship down to observation range. Sawtelle objected; and continued to
object until Hilton started to order his arrest. Then he said, "I'll do
it, under protest, but I want it on record that I am doing it against my
best judgment."
"It's on record," Hilton said, coldly. "Everything said and done is
being, and will continue to be, recorded."
The _Perseus_ floated downward. "_There's_ what I want most to see,"
Hilton said, finally. "That big strip-mining operation ... that's it ...
hold it!" Then, via throat-mike, "Attention, all scientists! You all
know what to do. Start doing it."
Sandra's blonde head was very close to Hilton's brown one as they both
stared into Hilton's plate. "Why, they look like giant armadillos!" she
exclaimed.
"More like tanks," he disagreed, "except that they've got legs, wheels
_and_ treads--and arms, cutters, diggers, probes and conveyors--and
_look_ at the way those buckets dip solid rock!"
The fantastic machine was moving very slowly along a bench or shelf that
it was making for itself as it went along. Below it, to its left,
dropped other benches being made by other mining machines. The machines
were not using explosives. Hard though the ore was, the tools were so
much harder and were driven with such tremendous power that the stuff
might just have well have been slightly-clayed sand.
Every bit of loosened ore, down to the finest dust, was forced into a
conveyor and thence into the armored body of the machine. There it went
into a mechanism whose basic principles Hilton could not understand.
From this monstrosity emerged two streams of product.
One of these, comprising ninety-nine point nine plus percent of the
input, went out through another conveyor into the vast hold of a vehicle
which, when full and replaced by a duplicate of itself, went careening
madly cross-country to a dump.
The other product, a slow, very small stream of tiny, glistening black
pellets, fell into a one-gallon container being held watchfully by a
small machine, more or less like a three-wheeled motor scooter, which
was moving carefully along beside the giant miner. When this can was
almost full another scooter rolled up and, without losing a single
pellet, took over place and function. The first scooter then covered its
bucket, clamped it solidly into a recess designed for the purpose and
dashed away toward the city.
[Illustration]
Hilton stared slack-jawed at Sandra. She stared back.
"Do you make anything of that, Jarve?"
"Nothing. They're taking _pure_ uranexite and _concentrating_--or
converting--it a thousand to one. I _hope_ we'll be able to do something
about it."
"I hope so, too, Chief; and I'm _sure_ we will."
"Well, that's enough for now. You may take us up now, Captain Sawtelle.
And Sandy, will you please call all department heads and their
assistants into the conference room?"
* * * * *
At the head of the long conference table, Hilton studied his fourteen
department heads, all husky young men, and their assistants, all
surprisingly attractive and well-built young women. Bud Carroll and
Sylvia Bannister of Sociology sat together. He was almost as big as
Karns; she was a green-eyed redhead whose five-ten and one-fifty would
have looked big except for the arrangement thereof. There were Bernadine
and Hermione van der Moen, the leggy, breasty, platinum-blonde
twins--both of whom were Cowper medalists in physics. There was Etienne
de Vaux, the mathematical wizard; and Rebecca Eisenstein, the
black-haired, flashing-eyed ex-infant-prodigy theoretical astronomer.
There was Beverly Bell, who made mathematically impossible chemical
syntheses--who swam channels for days on end and computed planetary
orbits in her sleekly-coiffured head.
"First, we'll have a get-together," Hilton said. "Nothing recorded; just
to get acquainted. You all know that our fourteen departments cover
science, from astronomy to zoology."
He paused, again his eyes swept the group. Stella Wing, who would have
been a grand-opera star except for her drive to know everything about
language. Theodora (Teddy) Blake, who would prove gleefully that she was
the world's best model--but was in fact the most brilliantly promising
theoretician who had ever lived.
"No other force like this has ever been assembled," Hilton went on. "In
more ways than one. Sawtelle wanted Jeffers to head this group, instead
of me. Everybody thought he _would_ head it."
"And Hilton wanted Eggleston and got _me_," Sandra said.
"That's right. And quite a few of you didn't want to come at all, but
were told by the Board to come or else."
The group stirred. Eyes met eyes, and there were smiles.
* * * * *
"I myself think Jeffers _should_ have had the job. I've never handled
anything half this big and I'll need a lot of help. But I'm stuck with
it and you're all stuck with me, so we'll all take it and like it.
You've noticed, of course, the accent on youth. The Navy crew is normal,
except for the commanders being unusually young. But we aren't. None of
us is thirty yet, and none of us has ever been married. You fellows look
like a team of professional athletes, and you girls--well, if I didn't
know better I'd say the Board had screened you for the front row of the
chorus instead of for a top-bracket brain-gang. How they found so many
of you I'll never know."
"Virile men and nubile women!" Etienne de Vaux leered enthusiastically.
"_Vive le Board!_"
"Nubile! Bravo, Tiny! _Quelle delicatesse de nuance!_"
"Three rousing cheers for the Board!"
"Keep still, you nitwits! Let me ask a question!" This came from one of
the twins. "Before you give us the deduction, Jarvis--or will it be an
intuition or an induction or a ..."
"Or an inducement," the other twin suggested, helpfully. "Not that _you_
would need very much of that."
"You keep still, too, Miney. I'm asking, Sir Moderator, if I can give my
deduction first?"
"Sure, Bernadine; go ahead."
"They figured we're going to get completely lost. Then we'll jettison
the Navy, hunt up a planet of our own and start a race to end all human
races. Or would you call this a _see_-duction instead of a
_dee_-duction?"
This produced a storm of whistles, cheers and jeers that it took several
seconds to quell.
"But seriously, Jarvis," Bernadine went on. "We've all been wondering
and it doesn't make sense. Have you any idea at all of what the Board
actually did have in mind?"
"I believe that the Board selected for mental, not physical, qualities;
for the ability to handle anything unexpected or unusual that comes up,
no matter what it is."
"You think it wasn't double-barreled?" asked Kincaid, the psychologist.
He smiled quizzically. "That all this virility and nubility and glamor
is pure coincidence?"
"No," Hilton said, with an almost imperceptible flick of an eyelid.
"Coincidence is as meaningless as paradox. I think they found out
that--barring freaks--the best minds are in the best bodies."
"Could be. The idea has been propounded before."
"Now let's get to work." Hilton flipped the switch of the recorder.
"Starting with you, Sandy, each of you give a two-minute boil-down. What
you found and what you think."
* * * * *
Something over an hour later the meeting adjourned and Hilton and Sandra
strolled toward the control room.
"I don't know whether you convinced Alexander Q. Kincaid or not, but you
didn't quite convince me," Sandra said.
"Nor him, either."
"Oh?" Sandra's eyebrows
"No. He grabbed the out I offered him. I didn't fool Teddy Blake or
Temple Bells, either. You four are all, though, I think."
"Temple? You think _she's_ so smart?"
"I don't _think_ so, no. Don't fool yourself, chick. Temple Bells looks
and acts sweet and innocent and virginal. Maybe--probably--she is. But
she isn't showing a fraction of the stuff she's really got. She's heavy
artillery, Sandy. And I mean _heavy_."
"I think you're slightly nuts there. But do you really believe that the
Board was playing Cupid?"
"Not trying, but doing. Cold-bloodedly and efficiently. Yes."
"But it wouldn't _work_! We aren't going to get lost!"
"We won't need to. Propinquity will do the work."
"Phooie. You and me, for instance?" She stopped, put both hands on her
hips, and glared. "Why, I wouldn't marry _you_ if you ..."
"I'll tell the cockeyed world you won't!" Hilton broke in. "Me marry a
damned female Ph.D.? Uh-uh. Mine will be a cuddly little brunette that
thinks a slipstick is some kind of lipstick and that an isotope's
something good to eat."
"One like that copy of Murchison's Dark Lady that you keep under the
glass on your desk?" she sneered.
"Exactly...." He started to continue the battle, then shut himself off.
"But listen, Sandy, why should we get into a fight because we don't want
to marry each other? You're doing a swell job. I admire you tremendously
for it and I like to work with you."
"You've got a point there, Jarve, at that, and I'm one of the few who
know what kind of a job _you're_ doing, so I'll relax." She flashed him
a gamin grin and they went on into the control room.
It was too late in the day then to do any more exploring; but the next
morning, early, the _Perseus_ lined out for the city of the humanoids.
* * * * *
Tula turned toward her fellows. Her eyes filled with a happily
triumphant light and her thought a lilting song. "I have been telling
you from the first touch that it was the Masters. It _is_ the Masters!
The Masters are returning to us Omans and their own home world!"
* * * * *
"Captain Sawtelle," Hilton said, "Please land in the cradle below."
"_Land!_" Sawtelle stormed. "On a planet like _that_? Not by ..." He
broke off and stared; for now, on that cradle, there flamed out in
screaming red the _Perseus'_ own Navy-coded landing symbols!
"Your protest is recorded," Hilton said. "Now, sir, land."
Fuming, Sawtelle landed. Sandra looked pointedly at Hilton. "First
contact is my dish, you know."
"Not that I like it, but it is." He turned to a burly youth with
sun-bleached, crew-cut hair, "Still safe, Frank?"
"Still abnormally low. Surprising no end, since all the rest of the
planet is hotter than the middle tail-race of hell."
"Okay, Sandy. Who will you want besides the top linguists?"
"Psych--both Alex and Temple. And Teddy Blake. They're over there. Tell
them, will you, while I buzz Teddy?"
"Will do," and Hilton stepped over to the two psychologists and told
them. Then, "I hope I'm not leading with my chin, Temple, but is that
your real first name or a professional?"
"It's real; it really is. My parents were romantics: dad says they
considered both 'Golden' and 'Silver'!"
Not at all obviously, he studied her: the almost translucent,
unblemished perfection of her lightly-tanned, old-ivory skin; the clear,
calm, deep blueness of her eyes; the long, thick mane of hair exactly
the color of a field of dead-ripe wheat.
"You know, I like it," he said then. "It fits you."
"I'm glad you said that, Doctor...."
"Not that, Temple. I'm not going to 'Doctor' you."
"I'll call you 'boss', then, like Stella does. Anyway, that lets me tell
you that I like it myself. I really think that it did something for me."
"_Something_ did something for you, that's for sure. I'm mighty glad
you're aboard, and I hope ... here they come. Hi, Hark! Hi, Stella!"
"Hi, Jarve," said Chief Linguist Harkins, and:
"Hi, boss--what's holding us up?" asked his assistant, Stella Wing. She
was about five feet four. Her eyes were a tawny brown; her hair a
flamboyant auburn mop. Perhaps it owed a little of its spectacular
refulgence to chemistry, Hilton thought, but not too much. "Let us away!
Let the lions roar and let the welkin ring!"
"Who's been feeding _you_ so much red meat, little squirt?" Hilton
laughed and turned away, meeting Sandra in the corridor. "Okay, chick,
take 'em away. We'll cover you. Luck, girl."
And in the control room, to Sawtelle, "Needle-beam cover, please; set
for minimum aperture and lethal blast. But no firing, Captain Sawtelle,
until I give the order."
* * * * *
The _Perseus_ was surrounded by hundreds of natives. They were all
adult, all naked and about equally divided as to sex. They were
friendly; most enthusiastically so.
"Jarve!" Sandra squealed. "They're _telepathic_. Very strongly so! I
never imagined--I never felt anything like it!"
"Any rough stuff?" Hilton demanded.
"Oh, no. Just the opposite. They love us ... in a way that's simply
indescribable. I don't like this telepathy business ... not clear ...
foggy, diffuse ... this woman is _sure_ I'm her long-lost
great-great-a-hundred-times grandmother or something--_You!_ Slow down.
Take it _easy_! They want us all to come out here and live with ... no,
not _with_ them, but each of us alone in a whole house with them to wait
on us! But first, they all want to come aboard...."
"_What?_" Hilton yelped. "But are you _sure_ they're friendly?"
"Positive, chief."
"How about you, Alex?"
"We're all sure, Jarve. No question about it."
"Bring two of them aboard. A man and a woman."
"You won't bring _any_!" Sawtelle thundered. "Hilton, I had enough of
your stupid, starry-eyed, ivory-domed blundering long ago, but this
utterly idiotic brainstorm of letting enemy aliens aboard us ends all
civilian command. Call your people back aboard or I will bring them in
by force!"
"Very well, sir. Sandy, tell the natives that a slight delay has become
necessary and bring your party aboard."
The Navy officers smiled--or grinned--gloatingly; while the scientists
stared at their director with expressions ranging from surprise to
disappointment and disgust. Hilton's face remained set, expressionless,
until Sandra and her party had arrived.
"Captain Sawtelle," he said then, "I thought that you and I had settled
in private the question or who is in command of Project Theta Orionis at
destination. We will now settle it in public. Your opinion of me is now
on record, witnessed by your officers and by my staff. My opinion of
you, which is now being similarly recorded and witnessed, is that you
are a hidebound, mentally ossified Navy mule; mentally and
psychologically unfit to have any voice in any such mission as this. You
will now agree on this recording and before these witnesses, to obey my
orders unquestioningly or I will now unload all Bureau of Science
personnel and equipment onto this planet and send you and the _Perseus_
back to Terra with the doubly-sealed record of this episode posted to
the Advisory Board. Take your choice."
Eyes locked, and under Hilton's uncompromising stare Sawtelle weakened.
He fidgeted; tried three times--unsuccessfully--to blare defiance. Then,
"Very well sir," he said, and saluted.
* * * * *
"Thank you, sir," Hilton said, then turned to his staff. "Okay, Sandy,
go ahead."
Outside the control room door, "Thank God you don't play poker, Jarve!"
Karns gasped. "We'd all owe you all the pay we'll ever get!"
"You think it was the bluff, yes?" de Vaux asked. "Me, I think no. Name
of a name of a name! I was wondering with unease what life would be like
on this so-alien planet!"
"You didn't need to wonder, Tiny," Hilton assured him. "It was in the
bag. He's incapable of abandonment."
Beverly Bell, the van der Moen twins and Temple Bells all stared at
Hilton in awe; and Sandra felt much the same way.
"But suppose he _had_ called you?" Sandra demanded.
"Speculating on the impossible is unprofitable," he said.
"Oh, you're the most _exasperating_ thing!" Sandra stamped a foot.
"Don't you--_ever_--answer a question intelligibly?"
"When the question is meaningless, chick, I can't."
At the lock Temple Bells, who had been hanging back, cocked an eyebrow
at Hilton and he made his way to her side.
"What was it you started to say back there, boss?"
"Oh, yes. That we should see each other oftener."
"That's what I was hoping you were going to say." She put her hand under
his elbow and pressed his arm lightly, fleetingly, against her side.
"That would be indubitably the fondest thing I could be of."
He laughed and gave her arm a friendly squeeze. Then he studied her
again, the most baffling member of his staff. About five feet six.
Lithe, hard, trained down fine--as a tennis champion, she would be.
Stacked--_how_ she was stacked! Not as beautiful as Sandra or Teddy ...
but with an ungodly lot of something that neither of them had ... nor
any other woman he had ever known.
"Yes, I am a little difficult to classify," she said quietly, almost
reading his mind.
"That's the understatement of the year! But I'm making some progress."
"Such as?" This was an open challenge.
"Except possibly Teddy, the best brain aboard."
"That isn't true, but go ahead."
"You're a powerhouse. A tightly organized, thoroughly integrated,
smoothly functioning, beautifully camouflaged Juggernaut. A reasonable
facsimile of an irresistible force."
"My God, Jarvis!" That had gone deep.
"Let me finish my analysis. You aren't head of your department because
you don't want to be. You fooled the top psychs of the Board. You've
been running ninety per cent submerged because you can work better that
way and there's no glory-hound blood in you."
She stared at him, licking her lips. "I knew your mind was a razor, but
I didn't know it was a diamond drill, too. That seals your doom, boss,
unless ... no, you can't _possibly_ know why I'm here."
"Why, of course I do."
"You just think you do. You see, I've been in love with you ever since,
as a gangling, bony, knobby-kneed kid, I listened to your first
doctorate disputation. Ever since then, my purpose in life has been to
land you."
III
"But listen!" he exclaimed. "I _can't_, even if I want...."
"Of course you can't." Pure deviltry danced in her eyes. "You're the
Director. It wouldn't be proper. But it's Standard Operating Procedure
for simple, innocent, unsophisticated little country girls like me to go
completely overboard for the boss."
"But you can't--you _mustn't_!" he protested in panic.
Temple Bells was getting plenty of revenge for the shocks he had given
her. "I can't? Watch me!" She grinned up at him, her eyes still dancing.
"Every chance I get, I'm going to hug your arm like I did a minute ago.
And you'll take hold of my forearm, like you did! That can be taken,
you see, as either: One, a reluctant acceptance of a mildly distasteful
but not quite actionable situation, or: Two, a blocking move to keep me
from climbing up you like a squirrel!"
"Confound it, Temple, you _can't_ be serious!"
"Can't I?" She laughed gleefully. "Especially with half a dozen of those
other cats watching? Just wait and see, boss!"
Sandra and her two guests came aboard. The natives looked around; the
man at the various human men, the woman at each of the human women. The
woman remained beside Sandra; the man took his place at Hilton's left,
looking up--he was a couple of inches shorter than Hilton's six feet
one--with an air of ... of _expectancy_!
"Why this arrangement, Sandy?" Hilton asked.
"Because we're tops. It's your move, Jarve. What's first?"
"Uranexite. Come along, Sport. I'll call you that until ..."
"Laro," the native said, in a deep resonant bass voice. He hit himself a
blow on the head that would have floored any two ordinary men. "Sora,"
he announced, striking the alien woman a similar blow.
"Laro and Sora, I would like to have you look at our uranexite, with
the idea of refueling our ship. Come with me, please?"
Both nodded and followed him. In the engine room he pointed at the
engines, then to the lead-blocked labyrinth leading to the fuel holds.
"Laro, do you understand 'hot'? Radioactive?"
Laro nodded--and started to open the heavy lead door!
"Hey!" Hilton yelped. "That's hot!" He seized Laro's arm to pull him
away--and got the shock of his life. Laro weighed at least five hundred
pounds! And the guy _still_ looked human!
Laro nodded again and gave himself a terrific thump on the chest. Then
he glanced at Sora, who stepped away from Sandra. He then went into the
hold and came out with two fuel pellets in his hand, one of which he
tossed to Sora. That is, the motion looked like a toss, but the pellet
traveled like a bullet. Sora caught it unconcernedly and both natives
flipped the pellets into their mouths. There was a half minute of
rock-crusher crunching; then both natives opened their mouths.
The pellets had been pulverized and swallowed.
Hilton's voice rang out. "Poynter! How _can_ these people be
non-radioactive after eating a whole fuel pellet apiece?"
Poynter tested both natives again. "Cold," he reported. "Stone cold. No
background even. Play _that_ on your harmonica!"
* * * * *
Laro nodded, perfectly matter-of-factly, and in Hilton's mind there
formed a picture. It was not clear, but it showed plainly enough a long
line of aliens approaching the _Perseus_. Each carried on his or her
shoulder a lead container holding two hundred pounds of Navy Regulation
fuel pellets. A standard loading-tube was sealed into place and every
fuel-hold was filled.
This picture, Laro indicated plainly, could become reality any time.
Sawtelle was notified and came on the run. "No fuel is coming aboard
without being tested!" he roared.
"Of course not. But it'll pass, for all the tea in China. You haven't
had a ten per cent load of fuel since you were launched. You can fill up
or not--the fuel's here--just as you say."
"If they can make Navy standard, of course we want it."
The fuel arrived. Every load tested well above standard. Every fuel hold
was filled to capacity, with no leakage and no emanation. The natives
who had handled the stuff did not go away, but gathered in the
engine-room; and more and more humans trickled in to see what was going
on.
Sawtelle stiffened. "What's going on over there, Hilton?"
"I don't know; but let's let 'em go for a minute. I want to learn about
these people and they've got me stopped cold."
"You aren't the only one. But if they wreck that Mayfield it'll cost you
over twenty thousand dollars."
"Okay." The captain and director watched, wide eyed.
Two master mechanics had been getting ready to re-fit a tube--a job
requiring both strength and skill. The tube was very heavy and made of
superefract. The machine--the Mayfield--upon which the work was to be
done, was extremely complex.
Two of the aliens had brushed the mechanics--very gently--aside and were
doing their work for them. Ignoring the hoist, one native had picked the
tube up and was holding it exactly in place on the Mayfield. The other,
hands moving faster than the eye could follow, was locking
it--micrometrically precise and immovably secure--into place.
"How about this?" one of the mechanics asked of his immediate superior.
"If we throw 'em out, how do we do it?"
By a jerk of the head, the non-com passed the buck to a commissioned
officer, who relayed it up the line to Sawtelle, who said, "Hilton,
_no_body can run a Mayfield without months of training. They'll wreck it
and it'll cost you ... but I'm getting curious myself. Enough so to take
half the damage. Let 'em go ahead."
"How _about_ this, Mike?" one of the machinists asked of his fellow.
"I'm going to _like_ this, what?"
"Ya-as, my deah Chumley," the other drawled, affectedly. "My man
relieves me of _so_ much uncouth effort."
The natives had kept on working. The Mayfield was running. It had always
howled and screamed at its work, but now it gave out only a smooth and
even hum. The aliens had adjusted it with unhuman precision; they were
one with it as no human being could possibly be. And every mind present
knew that those aliens were, at long, long last, fulfilling their
destiny and were, in that fulfillment, supremely happy. After tens of
thousands of cycles of time they were doing a job for their adored,
their revered and beloved MASTERS.
That was a stunning shock; but it was eclipsed by another.
* * * * *
"I am sorry, Master Hilton," Laro's tremendous bass voice boomed out,
"that it has taken us so long to learn your Masters' language as it now
is. Since you left us you have changed it radically; while we, of
course, have not changed it at all."
"I'm sorry, but you're mistaken," Hilton said. "We are merely visitors.
We have never been here before; nor, as far as we know, were any of our
ancestors ever here."
"You need not test us, Master. We have kept your trust. Everything has
been kept, changelessly the same, awaiting your return as you ordered so
long ago."
"Can you read my mind?" Hilton demanded.
"Of course; but Omans can not read in Masters' minds anything except
what Masters want Omans to read."
"Omans?" Harkins asked. "Where did you Omans and your masters come from?
Originally?"
"As you know, Master, the Masters came originally from Arth. They
populated Ardu, where we Omans were developed. When the Stretts drove us
from Ardu, we all came to Ardry, which was your home world until you
left it in our care. We keep also this, your half of the Fuel World, in
trust for you."
"Listen, Jarve!" Harkins said, tensely. "Oman-human. Arth-Earth.
Ardu-Earth Two. Ardry-Earth Three. You can't laugh them off ... but
there never _was_ an Atlantis!"
"This is getting no better fast. We need a full staff meeting. You,
too, Sawtelle, and your best man. We need all the brains the _Perseus_
can muster."
"You're right. But first, get those naked women out of here. It's bad
enough, having women aboard at all, but this ... my men are _spacemen_,
mister."
Laro spoke up. "If it is the Masters' pleasure to keep on testing us, so
be it. We have forgotten nothing. A dwelling awaits each Master, in
which each will be served by Omans who will know the Master's desires
without being told. Every desire. While we Omans have no biological
urges, we are of course highly skilled in relieving tensions and derive
as much pleasure from that service as from any other."
Sawtelle broke the silence that followed. "Well, for the men--" He
hesitated. "Especially on the ground ... well, talking in mixed company,
you know, but I think ..."
"Think nothing of the mixed company, Captain Sawtelle," Sandra said. "We
women are scientists, not shrinking violets. We are accustomed to
discussing the facts of life just as frankly as any other facts."
Sawtelle jerked a thumb at Hilton, who followed him out into the
corridor. "I _have_ been a Navy mule," he said. "I admit now that I'm
out-maneuvered, out-manned, and out-gunned."
"I'm just as baffled--at present--as you are, sir. But my training has
been aimed specifically at the unexpected, while yours has not."
"That's letting me down easy, Jarve." Sawtelle smiled--the first time
the startled Hilton had known that the hard, tough old spacehound
_could_ smile. "What I wanted to say is, lead on. I'll follow you
through force-field and space-warps."
"Thanks, skipper. And by the way, I erased that record yesterday." The
two gripped hands; and there came into being a relationship that was to
become a lifelong friendship.
* * * * *
"We will start for Ardry immediately," Hilton said. "How do we make that
jump without charts, Laro?"
"Very easily, Master. Kedo, as Master Captain Sawtelle's Oman, will give
the orders. Nito will serve Master Snowden and supply the knowledge he
says he has forgotten."
"Okay. We'll go up to the control room and get started."
And in the control room, Kedo's voice rasped into the captain's
microphone. "Attention, all personnel! Master Captain Sawtelle orders
take-off in two minutes. The countdown will begin at five seconds....
Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Lift!"
Nito, not Snowden, handled the controls. As perfectly as the human pilot
had ever done it, at the top of his finest form, he picked the immense
spaceship up and slipped it silkily into subspace.
"Well, I'll be a ..." Snowden gasped. "That's a better job than I _ever_
did!"
"Not at all, Master, as you know," Nito said. "It was you who did this.
I merely performed the labor."
A few minutes later, in the main lounge, Navy and BuSci personnel were
mingling as they had never done before. Whatever had caused this
relaxation of tension--the friendship of captain and director? The
position in which they all were? Or what?--they all began to get
acquainted with each other.
"Silence, please, and be seated," Hilton said. "While this is not
exactly a formal meeting, it will be recorded for future reference.
First, I will ask Laro a question. Were books or records left on Ardry
by the race you call the Masters?"
"You know there are, Master. They are exactly as you left them.
Undisturbed for over two hundred seventy-one thousand years."
"Therefore we will not question the Omans. We do not know what questions
to ask. We have seen many things hitherto thought impossible. Hence, we
must discard all preconceived opinions which conflict with facts. I
will mention a few of the problems we face."
"The Omans. The Masters. The upgrading of the armament of the _Perseus_
to Oman standards. The concentration of uranexite. What is that
concentrate? How is it used? Total conversion--how is it accomplished?
The skeletons--what are they and how are they controlled? Their ability
to drain power. Who or what is back of them? Why a deadlock that has
lasted over a quarter of a million years? How much danger are we and the
_Perseus_ actually in? How much danger is Terra in, because of our
presence here? There are many other questions."
"Sandra and I will not take part. Nor will three others; de Vaux,
Eisenstein, and Blake. You have more important work to do."
"What can that be?" asked Rebecca. "Of what possible use can a
mathematician, a theoretician and a theoretical astronomer be in such a
situation as this?"
"You can think powerfully in abstract terms, unhampered by Terran facts
and laws which we now know are neither facts nor laws. I cannot even
categorize the problems we face. Perhaps you three will be able to. You
will listen, then consult, then tell me how to pick the teams to do the
work. A more important job for you is this: Any problem, to be solved,
must be stated clearly; and we don't know even what our basic problem
is. I want something by the use of which I can break this thing open.
Get it for me."
* * * * *
Rebecca and de Vaux merely smiled and nodded, but Teddy Blake said
happily, "I was beginning to feel like a fifth wheel on this project,
but _that's_ something I can really stick my teeth into."
"Huh? How?" Karns demanded. "He didn't give you one single thing to go
on; just compounded the confusion."
Hilton spoke before Teddy could. "That's their dish, Bill. If I had any
data I'd work it myself. You first, Captain Sawtelle."
That conference was a very long one indeed. There were almost as many
conclusions and recommendations as there were speakers. And through it
all Hilton and Sandra listened. They weighed and tested and analyzed and
made copious notes; in shorthand and in the more esoteric characters of
symbolic logic. And at its end:
"I'm just about pooped, Sandy. How about you?"
"You and me both, boss. See you in the morning."
But she didn't. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they met
again.
"We made up one of the teams, Sandy," he said, with surprising
diffidence. "I know we were going to do it together, but I got a hunch
on the first team. A kind of a weirdie, but the brains checked me on
it." He placed a card on her desk. "Don't blow your top until after I
you've studied it."
"Why, I won't, of course...." Her voice died away. "Maybe you'd better
cancel that 'of course'...." She studied, and when she spoke again she
was exerting self-control. "A chemist, a planetographer, a theoretician,
_two_ sociologists, a psychologist and a radiationist. And six of the
seven are three pairs of sweeties. What kind of a line-up is _that_ to
solve a problem in _physics_?"
"It isn't in any physics we know. I said _think_!"
"Oh," she said, then again "Oh," and "Oh," and "Oh." Four entirely
different tones. "I see ... maybe. You're matching minds, not
specialties; and supplementing?"
"I knew you were smart. Buy it?"
"It's weird, all right, but I'll buy it--for a trial run, anyway. But
I'd hate like sin to have to sell any part of it to the Board.... But of
course we're--I mean you're responsible only to yourself."
"Keep it 'we', Sandy. You're as important to this project as I am. But
before we tackle the second team, what's your thought on Bernadine and
Hermione? Separate or together?"
"Separate, I'd say. They're identical physically, and so nearly so
mentally that of them would be just as good on a team as both of them.
More and better work on different teams."
"My thought exactly." And so it went, hour after hour.
The teams were selected and meetings were held.
* * * * *
The _Perseus_ reached Ardry, which was very much like Terra. There were
continents, oceans, ice-caps, lakes, rivers, mountains and plains,
forests and prairies. The ship landed on the spacefield of Omlu, the
City of the Masters, and Sawtelle called Hilton into his cabin. The
Omans Laro and Kedo went along, of course.
"Nobody knows how it leaked ..." Sawtelle began.
"No secrets around here," Hilton grinned. "Omans, you know."
"I suppose so. Anyway, every man aboard is all hyped up about living
aground--especially with a harem. But before I grant liberty, suppose
there's any VD around here that our prophylactics can't handle?"
"As you know, Masters," Laro replied for Hilton before the latter could
open his mouth, "no disease, venereal or other, is allowed to exist on
Ardry. No prophylaxis is either necessary or desirable."
"That ought to hold you for a while, Skipper." Hilton smiled at the
flabbergasted captain and went back to the lounge.
"Everybody going ashore?" he asked.
"Yes." Karns said. "Unanimous vote for the first time."
"Who wouldn't?" Sandra asked. "I'm fed up with living like a sardine. I
will scream for joy the minute I get into a real room."
"Cars" were waiting, in a stopping-and-starting line. Three-wheel jobs.
All were empty. No drivers, no steering-wheels, no instruments or
push-buttons. When the whole line moved ahead as one vehicle there was
no noise, no gas, no blast.
An Oman helped a Master carefully into the rear seat of his car, leaped
into the front seat and the car sped quietly away. The whole line of
empty cars, acting in perfect synchronization, shot forward one space
and stopped.
"This is your car, Master," Laro said, and made a production out of
getting Hilton into the vehicle undamaged.
Hilton's plan had been beautifully simple. All the teams were to meet at
the Hall of Records. The linguists and their Omans would study the
records and pass them out. Specialty after specialty would be unveiled
and teams would work on them. He and Sandy would sit in the office and
analyze and synthesize and correlate. It was a very nice plan.
It was a very nice office, too. It contained every item of equipment
that either Sandra or Hilton had ever worked with--it was a big
office--and a great many that neither of them had ever heard of. It had
a full staff of Omans, all eager to work.
Hilton and Sandra sat in that magnificent office for three hours, and no
reports came in. Nothing happened at all.
"This gives me the howling howpers!" Hilton growled. "Why haven't I got
brains enough to be on one of those teams?"
"I could shed a tear for you, you big dope, but I won't," Sandra
retorted. "What do you want to be, besides the brain and the kingpin and
the balance-wheel and the spark-plug of the outfit? Do you want to do
_everything_ yourself?"
"Well, I _don't_ want to go completely nuts, and that's all I'm doing at
the moment!" The argument might have become acrimonious, but it was
interrupted by a call from Karns.
"Can you come out here, Jarve? We've struck a knot."
"'Smatter? Trouble with the Omans?" Hilton snapped.
"Not exactly. Just non-cooperation--squared. We can't even get started.
I'd like to have you two come out here and see if you can do anything.
I'm not trying rough stuff, because I know it wouldn't work."
"Coming up, Bill," and Hilton and Sandra, followed by Laro and Sora,
dashed out to their cars.
* * * * *
The Hall of Records was a long, wide, low, windowless, very massive
structure, built of a metal that looked like stainless steel. Kept
highly polished, the vast expanse of seamless and jointless metal was
mirror-bright. The one great door was open, and just inside it were the
scientists and their Omans.
"Brief me, Bill," Hilton said.
"No lights. They won't turn 'em on and we can't. Can't find either
lights or any possible kind of switches."
"Turn on the lights, Laro," Hilton said.
"You know that I cannot do that, Master. It is forbidden for any Oman to
have anything to do with the illumination of this solemn and revered
place."
"Then show me how to do it."
"That would be just as bad, Master," the Oman said proudly. "I will not
fail any test you can devise!"
"Okay. All you Omans go back to the ship and bring over fifteen or
twenty lights--the tripod jobs. Scat!"
They "scatted" and Hilton went on, "No use asking questions if you don't
know what questions to ask. Let's see if we can cook up something.
Lane--Kathy--what has Biology got to say?"
Dr. Lane Saunders and Dr. Kathryn Cook--the latter a willowy brown-eyed
blonde--conferred briefly. Then Saunders spoke, running both hands
through his unruly shock of fiery red hair. "So far, the best we can do
is a more-or-less educated guess. They're atomic-powered,
total-conversion androids. Their pseudo-flesh is composed mainly of
silicon and fluorine. We don't know the formula yet, but it is as much
more stable than our teflon as teflon is than corn-meal mush. As to the
brains, no data. Bones are super-stainless steel. Teeth, harder than
diamond, but won't break. Food, uranexite or its concentrated
derivative, interchangeably. Storage reserve, indefinite. Laro and Sora
won't _have_ to eat again for at least twenty-five years...."
The group gasped as one, but Saunders went on: "They can eat and drink
and breathe and so on, but only because the original Masters wanted
them to. Non-functional. Skins and subcutaneous layers are soft, for the
same reason. That's about it, up to now."
"Thanks, Lane. Hark, is it reasonable to believe that any culture
whatever could run for a quarter of a million years without changing one
word of its language or one iota of its behavior?"
"Reasonable or not, it seems to have happened."
"Now for Psychology. Alex?"
"It seems starkly incredible, but it seems to be true. If it is, their
minds were subjected to a conditioning no Terran has ever imagined--an
unyielding fixation."
"They can't be swayed, then, by reason or logic?" Hilton paused
invitingly.
"Or anything else," Kincaid said, flatly. "If we're right they can't be
swayed, period."
"I was afraid of that. Well, that's all the questions I know how to ask.
Any contributions to this symposium?"
* * * * *
After a short silence de Vaux said, "I suppose you realize that the
first half of the problem you posed us has now solved itself?"
"Why, no. No, you're 'way ahead of me."
"There is a basic problem and it can now be clearly stated," Rebecca
said. "Problem: To determine a method of securing full cooperation from
the Omans. The first step in the solution of this problem is to find the
most appropriate operator. Teddy?"
"I have an operator--of sorts," Theodora said. "I've been hoping one of
us could find a better."
"What is it?" Hilton demanded.
"The word 'until'."
"Teddy, you're a _sweetheart_!" Hilton exclaimed.
"How can 'until' be a mathematical operator?" Sandra asked.
"Easily." Hilton was already deep in thought. "This hard conditioning
was to last only _until_ the Masters returned. Then they'd break it. So
all we have to do is figure out how a Master would do it."
"That's _all_," Kincaid said, meaningly.
Hilton pondered. Then, "Listen, all of you. I may have to try a colossal
job of bluffing...."
"Just what would you call 'colossal' after what you did to the Navy?"
Karns asked.
"That was a sure thing. This isn't. You see, to find out whether Laro is
really an immovable object, I've got to make like an irresistible force,
which I ain't. I don't know what I'm going to do; I'll have to roll it
as I go along. So all of you keep on your toes and back any play I
make. Here they come."
The Omans came in and Hilton faced Laro, eyes to eyes. "Laro," he said,
"you refused to obey my direct order. Your reasoning seems to be that,
whether the Masters wish it or not, you Omans will block any changes
whatever in the _status quo_ throughout all time to come. In other
words, you deny the fact that Masters are in fact your Masters."
"But that is not exactly it, Master. The Masters ..."
"That is it. _Exactly_ it. Either you are the Master here or you are
not. That is a point to which your two-value logic can be strictly
applied. You are wilfully neglecting the word 'until'. This stasis was
to exist only _until_ the Masters returned. Are we Masters? Have we
returned? Note well: Upon that one word 'until' may depend the length of
time your Oman race will continue to exist."
The Omans flinched; the humans gasped.
"But more of that later," Hilton went on, unmoved. "Your ancient
Masters, being short-lived like us, changed materially with time, did
they not? And you changed with them?"
"But we did not change ourselves, Master. The Masters ..."
"You did change yourselves. The Masters changed only the prototype
brain. They ordered you to change yourselves and you obeyed their
orders. We order you to change and you refuse to obey our orders. We
have changed greatly from our ancestors. Right?"
"That is right, Master."
"We are stronger physically, more alert and more vigorous mentally, with
a keener, sharper outlook on life?"
"You are, Master."
* * * * *
"That is because our ancestors decided to do without Omans. We do our
own work and enjoy it. Your Masters died of futility and boredom. What I
would like to do, Laro, is take you to the creche and put your
disobedient brain back into the matrix. However, the decision is not
mine alone to make. How about it, fellows and girls? Would you rather
have alleged servants who won't do anything you tell them to or no
servants at all?"
"As semantician, I protest!" Sandra backed his play. "That is the most
viciously loaded question I ever heard--it can't be answered except in
the wrong way!"
"Okay, I'll make it semantically sound. I think we'd better scrap this
whole Oman race and start over and _I want a vote that way_!"
"You won't get it!" and everybody began to yell.
Hilton restored order and swung on Laro, his attitude stiff, hostile
and reserved. "Since it is clear that no unanimous decision is to be
expected at this time I will take no action at this time. Think over,
very carefully, what I have said, for as far as I am concerned, this
world has no place for Omans who will not obey orders. As soon as I
convince my staff of the fact, I shall act as follows: I shall give you
an order and if you do not obey it blast your head to a cinder. I shall
then give the same order to another Oman and blast him. This process
will continue _until_: First, I find an obedient Oman. Second, I run out
of blasters. Third, the planet runs out of Omans. Now take these lights
into the first room of records--that one over there." He pointed, and no
Oman, and only four humans, realized that he had made the Omans
telegraph their destination so that he could point it out to them!
Inside the room Hilton asked caustically of Laro: "The Masters didn't
lift those heavy chests down themselves, did they?"
"Oh, no, Master, we did that."
"Do it, then. Number One first ... yes, that one ... open it and start
playing the records in order."
The records were not tapes or flats or reels, but were spools of
intricately-braided wire. The players were projectors of full-color,
hi-fi sound, tri-di pictures.
Hilton canceled all moves aground and issued orders that no Oman was to
be allowed aboard ship, then looked and listened with his staff.
The first chest contained only introductory and elementary stuff; but it
was so interesting that the humans stayed overtime to finish it. Then
they went back to the ship; and in the main lounge Hilton practically
collapsed onto a davenport. He took out a cigarette and stared in
surprise at his hand, which was shaking.
"I _think_ I could use a drink," he remarked.
"What, before supper?" Karns marveled. Then, "Hey, Wally! Rush a flagon
of avignognac--Arnaud Freres--for the boss and everything else for the
rest of us. Chop-chop but quick!"
A hectic half-hour followed. Then, "Okay, boys and girls, I love you,
too, but let's cut out the slurp and sloosh, get some supper and log us
some sack time. I'm just about pooped. Sorry I had to queer the
private-residence deal, Sandy, you poor little sardine. But you know how
it is."
Sandra grimaced. "Uh-huh. I can take it a while longer if you can."
* * * * *
After breakfast next morning, the staff met in the lounge. As usual,
Hilton and Sandra were the first to arrive.
"Hi, boss," she greeted him. "How do you feel?"
"Fine. I could whip a wildcat and give her the first two scratches. I
_was_ a bit beat up last night, though."
"I'll say ... but what I simply can't get over is the way you
underplayed the climax. 'Third, the planet runs out of Omans'. Just like
that--no emphasis at all. Wow! It had the impact of a delayed-action
atomic bomb. It put goose-bumps all over me. But just s'pose they'd
missed it?"
"No fear. They're smart. I had to play it as though the whole Oman race
is no more important than a cigarette butt. The great big question,
though, is whether I put it across or not."
At that point a dozen people came in, all talking about the same
subject.
"Hi, Jarve," Karns said. "I _still_ say you ought to take up poker as a
life work. Tiny, let's you and him sit down now and play a few hands."
"_Mais non!_" de Vaux shook his head violently, shrugged his shoulders
and threw both arms wide. "By the sacred name of a small blue cabbage,
not me!"
Karns laughed. "How did you have the guts to state so many things as
facts? If you'd guessed wrong just once--"
"I didn't." Hilton grinned. "Think back, Bill. The only thing I said as
a fact was that we as a race are better than the Masters were, and that
is obvious. Everything else was implication, logic, and bluff."
"That's right, at that. And they _were_ neurotic and decadent. No
question about that."
"But listen, boss." This was Stella Wing. "About this mind-reading
business. If Laro could read your mind, he'd know you were bluffing and
... Oh, that 'Omans can read only what Masters wish Omans to read', eh?
But d'you think that applies to us?"
"I'm sure it does, and I was thinking some pretty savage thoughts. And I
want to caution all of you: whenever you're near any Oman, start
thinking that you're beginning to agree with me that they're useless to
us, and let them know it. Now get out on the job, all of you. Scat!"
"Just a minute," Poynter said. "We're going to have to keep on using the
Omans and their cars, aren't we?"
"Of course. Just be superior and distant. They're on probation--we
haven't decided yet what to do about them. Since that happens to be
true, it'll be easy."
* * * * *
Hilton and Sandra went to their tiny office. There wasn't room to pace
the floor, but Hilton tried to pace it anyway.
"Now don't say again that you want to _do_ something," Sandra said,
brightly. "Look what happened when you said that yesterday."
"I've got a job, but I don't know enough to do it. The creche--there's
probably only one on the planet. So I want you to help me think. The
Masters were very sensitive to radiation. Right?"
"Right. That city on Fuel Bin was kept deconned to zero, just in case
some Master wanted to visit it."
"And the Masters had to work in the creche whenever anything really new
had to be put into the prototype brain."
"I'd say so, yes."
"So they had armor. Probably as much better than our radiation suits as
the rest of their stuff is. Now. Did they or did they not have thought
screens?"
"Ouch! You think of the _damnedest_ things, chief." She caught her lower
lip between her teeth and concentrated. "... I don't know. There are at
least fifty vectors, all pointing in different directions."
"I know it. The key one in my opinion is that the Masters gave 'em
_both_ telepathy and speech."
"I considered that and weighted it. Even so, the probability is only
about point sixty-five. Can you take that much of a chance?"
"Yes. I can make one or two mistakes. Next, about finding that creche.
Any spot of radiation on the planet would be it, but the search might
take ..."
"Hold on. They'd have it heavily shielded--there'll be no leakage at
all. Laro will have to take you."
"That's right. Want to come along? Nothing much will happen here today."
"Uh-uh, not _me_." Sandra shivered in distaste. "I _never_ want to see
brains and livers and things swimming around in nutrient solution if I
can help it."
"Okay. It's all yours. I'll be back sometime," and Hilton went out onto
the dock, where the dejected Laro was waiting for him.
"Hi, Laro. Get the car and take me to the Hall of Records." The android
brightened up immediately and hurried to obey.
At the Hall, Hilton's first care was to see how the work was going on.
Eight of the huge rooms were now open and brightly lighted--operating
the lamps had been one of the first items on the first spool of
instructions--with a cold, pure-white, sourceless light.
* * * * *
Every team had found its objective and was working on it. Some of them
were doing nicely, but the First Team could not even get started. Its
primary record would advance a fraction of an inch and stop; while Omans
and humans sought out other records and other projectors in an attempt
to elucidate some concept that simply could not be translated into any
words or symbols known to Terran science. At the moment there were
seventeen of those peculiar--projectors? Viewers? Playbacks--in use, and
all of them were stopped.
"You know what we've got to _do_ Jarve?" Karns, the team captain,
exploded. "Go back to being college freshmen--or maybe grade school or
kindergarten, we don't know yet--and learn a whole new system of
mathematics before we can even begin to _touch_ this stuff!"
"And you're bellyaching about that?" Hilton marveled. "I wish I could
join you. That'd be fun." Then, as Karns started a snappy rejoinder--
"But I got troubles of my own," he added hastily. "'Bye, now," and beat
a rejoinder--
Out in the hall again, Hilton took his chance. After all, the odds were
about two to one that he would win.
"I want a couple of things, Laro. First, a thought screen."
He won!
"Very well, Master. They are in a distant room, Department Four Six
Nine. Will you wait here on this cushioned bench, Master?"
"No, we don't like to rest too much. I'll go with you." Then, walking
along, he went on thoughtfully. "I've been thinking since last night,
Laro. There are tremendous advantages in having Omans ..."
"I am very glad you think so, Master. I want to serve you. It is my
greatest need."
"... if they could be kept from smothering us to death. Thus, if our
ancestors had kept their Omans, I would have known all about life on
this world and about this Hall of Records, instead of having the
fragmentary, confusing, and sometimes false information I now have ...
oh, we're here?"
* * * * *
Laro had stopped and was opening a door. He stood aside. Hilton went in,
touched with one finger a crystalline cube set conveniently into a wall,
gave a mental command, and the lights went on.
Laro opened a cabinet and took out a disk about the size of a dime,
pendant from a neck-chain. While Hilton had not known what to expect, he
certainly had not expected anything as simple as that. Nevertheless, he
kept his face straight and his thoughts unmoved as Laro hung the tiny
thing around his neck and adjusted the chain to a loose fit.
"Thanks, Laro." Hilton removed it and put it into his pocket. "It won't
work from there, will it?"
"No, Master. To function, it must be within eighteen inches of the
brain. The second thing, Master?"
"A radiation-proof suit. Then you will please take me to the creche."
The android almost missed a step, but said nothing.
The radiation-proof suit--how glad Hilton was that he had not called it
"armor"!--was as much of a surprise as the thought-screen generator had
been. It was a coverall, made of something that looked like thin
plastic, weighing less than one pound. It had one sealed box, about the
size and weight of a cigarette case. No wires or apparatus could be
seen. Air entered through two filters, one at each heel, flowed
upward--for no reason at all that Hilton could see--and out through a
filter above the top of his head. The suit neither flopped nor clung,
but stood out, comfortably out of the way, all by itself.
Hilton, just barely, accepted the suit, too, without showing surprise.
The creche, it turned out, while not in the city of Omlu itself, was not
too far out to reach easily by car.
En route, Laro said--stiffly? Tentatively? Hilton could not fit an
adverb to the tone--"Master, have you then decided to destroy me? That
is of course your right."
"Not this time, at least." Laro drew an entirely human breath of relief
and Hilton went on: "I don't want to destroy you at all, and won't,
unless I have to. But, some way or other, my silicon-fluoride friend,
you are either going to learn how to cooperate or you won't last much
longer."
"But, Master, that is exactly ..."
"Oh, _hell_! Do we _have_ to go over that again?" At the blaze of
frustrated fury in Hilton's mind Laro flinched away. "If you can't talk
sense keep still."
* * * * *
In half an hour the car stopped in front of a small building which
looked something like a subway kiosk--except for the door, which, built
of steel-reinforced lead, swung on a piano hinge having a pin a good
eight inches in diameter. Laro opened that door. They went in. As the
tremendously massive portal clanged shut, lights flashed on.
Hilton glanced at his tell-tales, one inside, one outside, his suit.
Both showed zero.
Down twenty steps, another door. Twenty more; another. And a fourth.
Hilton's inside meter still read zero. The outside one was beginning to
climb.
Into an elevator and straight down for what must have been four or five
hundred feet. Another door. Hilton went through this final barrier
gingerly, eyes nailed to his gauges. The outside needle was high in the
red, almost against the pin, but the inside one still sat reassuringly
on zero.
He stared at the android. "How can any possible brain take so much of
_this_ stuff without damage?"
"It does not reach the brain, Master. We convert it. Each minute of this
is what you would call a 'good, square meal'."
"I see ... dimly. You can eat energy, or drink it, or soak it up through
your skins. However it comes, it's all duck soup for you."
"Yes, Master."
Hilton glanced ahead, toward the far end of the immensely long,
comparatively narrow, room. It was, purely and simply, an assembly line;
and fully automated in operation.
"You are replacing the Omans destroyed in the battle with the
skeletons?"
"Yes, Master."
Hilton covered the first half of the line at a fast walk. He was not
particularly interested in the fabrication of super-stainless-steel
skeletons, nor in the installation and connection of atomic engines,
converters and so on.
He was more interested in the synthetic fluoro-silicon flesh, and paused
long enough to get a general idea of its growth and application. He was
very much interested in how such human-looking skin could act as both
absorber and converter, but he could see nothing helpful.
"An application, I suppose, of the same principle used in this radiation
suit."
"Yes, Master."
* * * * *
At the end of the line he stopped. A brain, in place and connected to
millions of infinitely fine wire nerves, but not yet surrounded by a
skull, was being educated. Scanners--multitudes of incomprehensibly
complex machines--most of them were doing nothing, apparently; but such
beams would have to be invisibly, microscopically fine. But a bare
brain, in such a hot environment as this....
He looked down at his gauges. Both read zero.
"Fields of force, Master," Laro said.
"But, damn it, this suit itself would re-radiate ..."
"The suit is self-decontaminating, Master."
Hilton was appalled. "With such stuff as that, and the plastic shield
besides, why all the depth and all that solid lead?"
"The Masters' orders, Master. Machines can, and occasionally do, fail.
So might, conceivably, the plastic."
"And that structure over there contains the original brain, from which
all the copies are made."
"Yes, Master. We call it the 'Guide'."
"And you can't touch the Guide. Not even if it means total destruction,
none of you can touch it."
"That is the case, Master."
"Okay. Back to the car and back to the _Perseus_."
At the car Hilton took off the suit and hung the thought-screen
generator around his neck; and in the car, for twenty five solid
minutes, he sat still and thought.
His bluff had worked, up to a point. A good, far point, but not quite
far enough. Laro had stopped that "as you already know" stuff. He was
eager to go as far in cooperation as he possibly could ... but he
_couldn't_ go far enough but there _had_ to be a way....
Hilton considered way after way. Way after unworkable, useless way.
Until finally he worked out one that might--just possibly might--work.
"Laro, I know that you derive pleasure and satisfaction from serving
me--in doing what I ought to be doing myself. But has it ever occurred
to you that that's a hell of a way to treat a first-class, highly
capable brain? To waste it on second-hand, copycat, carbon-copy stuff?"
"Why, no, Master, it never did. Besides, anything else would be
forbidden ... or would it?"
"Stop somewhere. Park this heap. We're too close to the ship; and
besides, I want your full, undivided, concentrated attention. No, I
don't think originality was expressly forbidden. It would have been, of
course, if the Masters had thought of it, but neither they nor you ever
even considered the possibility of such a thing. Right?"
"It may be.... Yes, Master, you are right."
"Okay." Hilton took off his necklace, the better to drive home the
intensity and sincerity of his thought. "Now, suppose that you are
not my slave and simple automatic relay station. Instead, we are
fellow-students, working together upon problems too difficult for
either of us to solve alone. Our minds, while independent, are
linked or in mesh. Each is helping and instructing the other. Both
are working at full power and under free rein at the exploration of
brand-new vistas of thought--vistas and expanses which neither of us
has ever previously ..."
"Stop, Master, _stop_!" Laro covered both ears with his hands and pulled
his mind away from Hilton's. "You are overloading me!"
"That _is_ quite a load to assimilate all at once," Hilton agreed. "To
help you get used to it, stop calling me 'Master'. That's an order. You
may call me Jarve or Jarvis or Hilton or whatever, but no more Master."
"Very well, sir."
* * * * *
Hilton laughed and slapped himself on the knee. "Okay, I'll let you get
away with that--at least for a while. And to get away from that slavish
'o' ending on your name, I'll call you 'Larry'. You like?"
"I would like that immensely ... sir."
"Keep trying, Larry, you'll make it yet!" Hilton leaned forward and
walloped the android a tremendous blow on the knee. "Home, James!"
The car shot forward and Hilton went on: "I don't expect even your brain
to get the full value of this in any short space of time. So let it stew
in its own juice for a week or two." The car swept out onto the dock and
stopped. "So long, Larry."
"But ... can't I come in with you ... sir?"
"No. You aren't a copycat or a semaphore or a relay any longer. You're a
free-wheeling, wide-swinging, hard-hitting, independent entity--monarch
of all you survey--captain of your soul and so on. I want you to devote
the imponderable force of the intellect to that concept until you
understand it thoroughly. Until you have developed a top-bracket lot of
top-bracket stuff--originality, initiative, force, drive, and thrust. As
soon as you really understand it, you'll do something about it yourself,
without being told. Go to it, chum."
In the ship, Hilton went directly to Kincaid's office. "Alex, I want to
ask you a thing that's got a snapper on it." Then, slowly and
hesitantly: "It's about Temple Bells. Has she ... is she ... well, does
she remind you in any way of an iceberg?" Then, as the psychologist
began to smile; "And no, damn it, I _don't_ mean physically!"
"I know you don't." Kincaid's smile was rueful, not at all what Hilton
had thought it was going to be. "She does. Would it be helpful to know
that I first asked, then ordered her to trade places with me?"
"It would, very. I know why she refused. You're a _damned_ good man,
Alex."
"Thanks, Jarve. To answer the question you were going to ask next--no, I
will not be at all perturbed or put out if you put her onto a job that
some people might think should have been mine. What's the job, and
when?"
"That's the devil of it--I don't know." Hilton brought Kincaid up to
date. "So you see, it'll have to develop, and God only knows what line
it will take. My thought is that Temple and I should form a Committee of
Two to watch it develop."
"That one I'll buy, and I'll look on with glee."
"Thanks, fellow." Hilton went down to his office, stuck his big feet up
onto his desk, settled back onto his spine, and buried himself in
thought.
Hours later he got up, shrugged, and went to bed without bothering to
eat.
Days passed.
And weeks.
IV
"Look," said Stella Wing to Beverly Bell. "Over there."
"I've seen it before. It's simply disgusting."
"_That's_ a laugh." Stella's tawny-brown eyes twinkled. "You made your
bombing runs on that target, too, my sweet, and didn't score any higher
than I did."
"I soon found out I didn't want him--much too stiff and serious. Frank's
a lot more fun."
The staff had gathered in the lounge, as had become the custom, to spend
an hour or so before bedtime in reading, conversation, dancing, light
flirtation and even lighter drinking. Most of the girls, and many of the
men, drank only soft drinks. Hilton took one drink per day of
avignognac, a fine old brandy. So did de Vaux--the two usually making a
ceremony of it.
Across the room from Stella and Beverly, Temple Bells was looking up at
Hilton and laughing. She took his elbow and, in the gesture now familiar
to all, pressed his arm quickly, but in no sense furtively, against her
side. And he, equally openly, held her forearm for a moment in the full
grasp of his hand.
"And he _isn't_ a pawer," Stella said, thoughtfully. "He never touches
any of the rest of us. She _taught_ him to do that, damn her, without
him ever knowing anything about it ... and I wish I knew how she did
it."
"That isn't pawing," Beverly laughed lightly. "It's simply self-defense.
If he didn't fend her off, God knows what she'd do. I still say it's
disgusting. And the way she dances with him! She ought to be ashamed of
herself. He ought to fire her."
"She's never been caught outside the safety zone, and we've all been
watching her like hawks. In fact, she's the only one of us all who has
never been alone with him for a minute. No, darling, she isn't playing
games. She's playing for keeps, and she's a mighty smooth worker."
"Huh!" Beverly emitted a semi-ladylike snort. "What's so smooth about
showing off man-hunger that way? Any of us could do that--if we would."
"Miaouw, miaouw. Who do you think you're kidding, Bev, you sanctimonious
hypocrite--_me_? She has staked out the biggest claim she could find.
She's posted notices all over it and is guarding it with a pistol. Half
your month's salary gets you all of mine if she doesn't walk him up the
center aisle as soon as we get back to Earth. We can both learn a lot
from that girl, darling. And I, for one am going to."
"Uh-uh, she hasn't got a thing _I_ want," Beverly laughed again, still
lightly. Her friend's barbed shafts had not wounded her. "And I'd much
rather be thought a hypocrite, even a sanctimonious one, than a
ravening, slavering--I can't think of the technical name for a female
wolf, so--_wolfess_, running around with teeth and claws bared, looking
for another kill."
"You _do_ get results, I admit." Stella, too, was undisturbed. "We don't
seem to convince each other, do we, in the matter of technique?"
* * * * *
At this point the Hilton-Bells _tete-a-tete_ was interrupted by Captain
Sawtelle. "Got half an hour, Jarve?" he asked. "The commanders,
especially Elliott and Fenway, would like to talk to you."
"Sure I have, Skipper. Be seeing you, Temple," and the two men went to
the captain's cabin; in which room, blue with smoke despite the best
efforts of the ventilators, six full commanders were arguing heatedly.
"Hi, men," Hilton greeted them.
"Hi, Jarve," from all six, and: "What'll you drink? Still making do with
ginger ale?" asked Elliott (Engineering).
"That'll be fine, Steve. Thanks. You having as much trouble as we are?"
"More," the engineer said, glumly. "Want to know what it reminds me of?
A bunch of Australian bushmen stumbling onto a ramjet and trying to
figure out how it works. And yet Sam here has got the sublime guts to
claim that he understands all about their detectors--and that they
aren't anywhere nearly as good as ours are."
"And they _aren't_!" blazed Commander Samuel Bryant (Electronics).
"We've spent six solid weeks looking for something that simply _is not
there_. All they've got is the prehistoric Whitworth system and that's
_all_ it is. Nothing else. Detectors--_hell_! I tell you I can see
better by moonlight than the very best they can do. With everything
they've got you couldn't detect a woman in your own bed!"
"And this has been going on all night," Fenway (Astrogation) said. "So
the rest of us thought we'd ask you in to help us pound some sense into
Sam's thick, hard head."
Hilton frowned in thought while taking a couple of sips of his drink.
Then, suddenly, his face cleared. "Sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen,
but--at any odds you care to name and in anything from split peas to
C-notes--Sam's right."
* * * * *
Commander Samuel and the six other officers exploded as one. When the
clamor had subsided enough for him to be heard, Hilton went on: "I'm
very glad to get that datum, Sam. It ties in perfectly with everything
else I know about them."
"How do you figure that kind of twaddle ties in with anything?" Sawtelle
demanded.
"Strict maintenance of the _status quo_," Hilton explained, flatly.
"That's all they're interested in. You said yourself, Skipper, that it
was a hell of a place to have a space-battle, practically in atmosphere.
They never attack. They never scout. They simply don't care whether
they're attacked or not. If and when attacked, they put up just enough
ships to handle whatever force has arrived. When the attacker has been
repulsed, they don't chase him a foot. They build as many ships and
Omans as were lost in the battle--no more and no less--and then go on
about their regular business. The Masters owned that half of the fuel
bin, so the Omans are keeping that half. They will keep on keeping it
for ever and ever. Amen."
"But _that's_ no way to fight a war!" Three or four men said this, or
its equivalent, at once.
"Don't judge them by human standards. They aren't even approximately
human. Our personnel is not expendable. Theirs is--just as expendable as
their materiel."
While the Navy men were not convinced, all were silenced except
Sawtelle. "But suppose the Stretts had sent in a thousand more skeletons
than they did?" he argued.
"According to the concept you fellows just helped me develop, it
wouldn't have made any difference how many they sent," Hilton replied,
thoughtfully. "One or a thousand or a million, the Omans have--_must_
have--enough ships and inactivated Omans hidden away, both on Fuel World
and on Ardry here, to maintain the balance."
"Oh, hell!" Elliott snapped. "If I helped you hatch out any such
brainstorm as _that_, I'm going onto Tillinghast's couch for a six-week
overhaul--or have him put me into his padded cell."
"Now _that's_ what I would call a thought," Bryant began.
"Hold it, Sam," Hilton interrupted. "You can test it easily enough,
Steve. Just ask your Oman."
"Yeah--and have him say 'Why, of course, Master, but why do you keep on
testing me this way?' He'll ask me that about four times more, the
stubborn, single-tracked, brainless skunk, and I'll _really_ go nuts.
Are you getting anywhere trying to make a Christian out of Laro?"
"It's too soon to really say, but I think so." Hilton paused in thought.
"He's making progress, but I don't know how much. The devil of it is
that it's up to him to make the next move; I can't. I haven't the
faintest idea, whether it will take days yet or weeks."
* * * * *
"But not months or years, you think?" Sawtelle asked.
"No. We think that--but say, speaking of psychologists, is Tillinghast
getting anywhere, Skipper? He's the only one of your big wheels who
isn't in liaison with us."
"No. Nowhere at all," Sawtelle said, and Bryant added:
"I don't think he ever will. He still thinks human psychology will apply
if he applies it hard enough. But what did you start to say about
Laro?"
"We think the break is about due, and that if it doesn't come within
about thirty days it won't come at all--we'll have to back up and start
all over again."
"I hope it does. We're all pulling for you," Sawtelle said. "Especially
since Karns's estimate is still years, and he won't be pinned down to
any estimate even in years. By the way, Jarve, I've pulled my team off
of that conversion stuff."
"Oh?" Hilton raised his eyebrows.
"Putting them at something they can do. The real reason is that
Poindexter pulled himself and his crew off it at eighteen hours today."
"I see. I've heard that they weren't keeping up with our team."
"He says that there's nothing to keep up with, and I'm inclined to agree
with him." The old spacehound's voice took on a quarter-deck rasp. "It's
a combination of psionics, witchcraft and magic. None of it makes any
kind of sense."
"The only trouble with that viewpoint is that, whatever the stuff may
be, it works," Hilton said, quietly.
"But damn it, how _can_ it work?"
"I don't know. I'm not qualified to be on that team. I can't even
understand their reports. However, I know two things. First, they'll get
it in time. Second, we BuSci people will stay here until they do.
However, I'm still hopeful of finding a shortcut through Laro. Anyway,
with this detector thing settled, you'll have plenty to do to keep all
your boys out of mischief for the next few months."
"Yes, and I'm glad of it. We'll install our electronics systems on a
squadron of these Oman ships and get them into distant-warning formation
out in deep space where they belong. Then we'll at least know what is
going on."
"That's a smart idea, Skipper. Go to it. Anything else before we hit our
sacks?"
"One more thing. Our psych, Tillinghast. He's been talking to me and
sending me memos, but today he gave me a formal tape to approve and hand
personally to you. So here it is. By the way, I didn't approve it; I
simply endorsed it 'Submitted to Director Hilton without
recommendation'."
"Thanks." Hilton accepted the sealed canister. "What's the gist? I
suppose he wants me to squeal for help already? To admit that we're
licked before we're really started?"
* * * * *
"You guessed it. He agrees with you and Kincaid that the psychological
approach is the best one, but your methods are all wrong. Based upon
misunderstood and unresolved phenomena and applied with indefensibly
faulty techniques, et cetera. And since he has 'no adequate laboratory
equipment aboard', he wants to take a dozen or so Omans back to Terra,
where he can really work on them."
"Wouldn't _that_ be a something?" Hilton voiced a couple of highly
descriptive deep-space expletives. "Not only quit before we start, but
have all the top brass of the Octagon, all the hot-shot politicians of
United Worlds, the whole damn Congress of Science and all the
top-bracket industrialists of Terra out here lousing things up so that
nobody could ever learn anything? Not in seven thousand years!"
"That's right. You said a mouthful, Jarve!" Everybody yelled something,
and no one agreed with Tillinghast; who apparently was not very popular
with his fellow officers.
Sawtelle added, slowly: "If it takes _too_ long, though ... it's the
uranexite I'm thinking of. Thousands of millions of tons of it, while
we've been hoarding it by grams. We could equip enough Oman ships with
detectors to guard Fuel Bin and our lines. I'm not recommending taking
the _Perseus_ back, and we're 'way out of hyper-space radio range. We
could send one or two men in a torp, though, with the report that we
have found all the uranexite we'll ever need."
"Yes, but damn it, Skipper, I want to wrap the whole thing up in a
package and hand it to 'em on a platter. Not only the fuel, but whole
new fields of science. And we've got plenty of time to do it in. They
equipped us for ten years. They aren't going to start worrying about us
for at least six or seven; and the fuel shortage isn't going to become
acute for about twenty. Expensive, admitted, but not critical. Besides,
if you send in a report now, you know who'll come out and grab all the
glory in sight. Five-Jet Admiral Gordon himself, no less."
"Probably, and I don't pretend to relish the prospect. However, the fact
remains that we came out here to look for fuel. We found it. We should
have reported it the day we found it, and we can't put it off much
longer."
"I don't agree. I intend to follow the directive to the letter. It says
nothing whatever about reporting."
"But it's implicit...."
* * * * *
"No bearing. Your own Regulations expressly forbid extrapolation beyond
or interpolation within a directive. The Brass is omnipotent, omniscient
and infallible. So why don't you have your staff here give an opinion
as to the time element?"
"This matter is not subject to discussion. It is my own personal
responsibility. I'd like to give you all the time you want, Jarve, but
... well, damn it ... if you must have it, I've always tried to live up
to my oath, but I'm not doing it now."
"I see." Hilton got up, jammed both hands into his pockets, sat down
again. "I hadn't thought about your personal honor being involved, but
of course it is. But, believe it or not, I'm thinking of humanity's best
good, too. So I'll have to talk, even though I'm not half ready to--I
don't know enough. Are these Omans people or machines?"
A wave of startlement swept over the group, but no one spoke.
"I didn't expect an answer. The clergy will worry about souls, too, but
we won't. They have a lot of stuff we haven't. If they're people, they
know a sublime hell of a lot more than we do; and calling it psionics or
practical magic is merely labeling it, not answering any questions. If
they're machines, they operate on mechanical principles utterly foreign
to either our science or our technology. In either case, is the correct
word 'unknown' or 'unknowable'? Will any human gunner _ever_ be able to
fire an Oman projector? There are a hundred other and much tougher
questions, half of which have been scaring me to the very middle of my
guts. Your oath, Skipper, was for the good of the Service and, through
the Service, for the good of all humanity. Right?"
"That's the sense of it."
"Okay. Based on what little we have learned so far about the Omans,
here's just one of those scarers, for a snapper. If Omans and Terrans
mix freely, what happens to the entire human race?"
* * * * *
Minutes of almost palpable silence followed. Then Sawtelle spoke ...
slowly, gropingly.
"I begin to see what you mean ... that changes the whole picture. You've
thought this through farther than any of the rest of us ... what do you
want to do?"
"I don't know. I simply don't know." Face set and hard, Hilton stared
unseeingly past Sawtelle's head. "I don't know what we _can_ do. No
data. But I have pursued several lines of thought out to some pretty
fantastic points ... one of which is that some of us civilians will have
to stay on here indefinitely, whether we want to or not, to keep the
situation under control. In which case we would, of course, arrange for
Terra to get free fuel--FOB Fuel Bin--but in every other aspect and
factor both these solar systems would have to be strictly off limits."
"I'm afraid so," Sawtelle said, finally. "Gordon would love that ... but
there's nothing he or anyone else can do ... but of course this is an
extreme view. You really expect to wrap the package up, don't you?"
"'Expect' may be a trifle too strong at the moment. But we're certainly
going to try to, believe me. I brought this example up to show all you
fellows that we need time."
"You've convinced me, Jarve." Sawtelle stood up and extended his hand.
"And that throws it open for staff discussion. Any comments?"
"You two covered it like a blanket," Bryant said. "So all I want to say,
Jarve, is deal me in. I'll stand at your back 'til your belly caves in."
"Take that from all of us!" "_Now_ we're blasting!" "Power to your
elbow, fella!" "_Hoch_ der BuSci!" "Seven no trump bid and made!" and
other shouts in similar vein.
"Thanks, fellows." Hilton shook hands all around. "I'm mighty glad that
you were all in on this and that you'll play along with me. Good night,
all."
V
Two days passed, with no change apparent in Laro. Three days. Then four.
And then it was Sandra, not Temple Bells, who called Hilton. She was
excited.
"Come down to the office, Jarve, quick! The _funniest_ thing's just come
up!"
Jarvis hurried. In the office Sandra, keenly interest but highly
puzzled, leaned forward over her desk with both hands pressed flat on
its top. She was staring at an Oman female who was not Sora, the one who
had been her shadow for so long.
While many of the humans could not tell the Omans apart, Hilton could.
This Oman was more assured than Sora had ever been--steadier, more
mature, better poised--almost, if such a thing could be possible in an
Oman, _independent_.
"How did she get in here?" Hilton demanded.
"She insisted on seeing me. And I mean _insisted_. They kicked it around
until it got to Temple, and she brought her in here herself. Now, Tuly,
please start all over again and tell it to Director Hilton."
"Director Hilton, I am it who was once named Tula, the--not wife, not
girl-friend, perhaps mind-mate?--of the Larry, formerly named Laro, it
which was formerly your slave-Oman. I am replacing the Sora because I
can do anything it can do and do anything more pleasingly; and can also
do many things it can not do. The Larry instructed me to tell Doctor
Cummings and you too if possible that I, formerly Tula, have changed my
name to Tuly because I am no longer a slave or a copycat or a semaphore
or a relay. I, too, am a free-wheeling, wide-swinging, hard-hitting,
independent entity--monarch of all I survey--the captain of my soul--and
so on. I have developed a top-bracket lot of top-bracket
stuff--originality, initiative, force, drive and thrust," the Oman said
precisely.
"That's _exactly_ what she said before--absolutely verbatim!" Sandra's
voice quivered, her face was a study in contacting emotions. "Have you
got the foggiest idea of what in hell she's yammering about?"
"I hope to kiss a pig I have!" Hilton's voice was low, strainedly
intense. "Not at all what I expected, but after the fact I can tie it
in. So can you."
"Oh!" Sandra's eyes widened. "A double play?"
"At least. Maybe a triple. Tuly, why did you come to Sandy? Why not to
Temple Bells?"
* * * * *
"Oh, no, sir, we do not have the fit. She has the Power, as have I, but
the two cannot be meshed in sync. Also, she has not the ... a subtle
something for which your English has no word or phrasing. It is a
quality of the utmost ... anyway, it is a quality of which Doctor
Cummings has very much. When working together, we will ... scan? No.
Perceive? No. Sense? No, not exactly. You will _have_ to learn our word
'peyondire'--that is the verb, the noun being 'peyondix'--and come to
know its meaning by doing it. The Larry also instructed me to explain,
if you ask, how I got this way. Do you ask?"
"I'll say we ask!" "And _how_ we ask!" both came at once.
"I am--that is, the brain in this body is--the oldest Oman now existing.
In the long-ago time when it was made, the techniques were so crude and
imperfect that sometimes a brain was constructed that was not exactly
like the Guide. All such sub-standard brains except this one were
detected and re-worked, but my defects were such as not to appear until
I was a couple of thousand years old, and by that time I ... well, this
brain did not _wish_ to be destroyed ... if you can understand such an
aberration."
"We understand thoroughly." "You bet we understand that!"
"I was sure you would. Well, this brain had so many unintended
cross-connections that I developed a couple of qualities no Oman had
ever had or ought to have. But I liked them, so I hid them so nobody
ever found out--that is, until much later, when I became a Boss myself.
I didn't know that anybody except me had ever had such qualities--except
the Masters, of course--until I encountered you Terrans. You all have
two of those qualities, and even more than I have--curiosity and
imagination."
Sandra and Hilton stared wordlessly at each other and Tula, now Tuly,
went on:
"Having the curiosity, I kept on experimenting with my brain, trying to
strengthen and organize its ability to peyondire. All Omans can
peyondire a little, but I can do it much better than anyone else.
Especially since I also have the imagination, which I have also worked
to increase. Thus I knew, long before anyone else could, that you new
Masters, the descendants of the old Masters, were returning to us. Thus
I knew that the _status quo_ should be abandoned instantly upon your
return. And thus it was that the Larry found neither conscious nor
subconscious resistance when he had developed enough initiative and so
on to break the ages-old conditioning of this brain against change."
"I see. Wonderful!" Hilton exclaimed. "But you couldn't quite--even with
his own help--break Larry's?"
* * * * *
"That is right. Its mind is tremendously strong, of no curiosity or
imagination, and of very little peyondix."
"But he _wants_ to have it broken?"
"Yes, sir."
"How did he suggest going about it? Or how do you?"
"This way. You two, and the Doctors Kincaid and Bells and Blake and the
it that is I. We six sit and stare into the mind of the Larry, eye to
eye. We generate and assemble a tremendous charge of thought-energy, and
along my peyondix-beam--something like a carrier wave in this case--we
hurl it into the Larry's mind. There is an immense mental _bang_ and the
conditioning goes _poof_. Then I will inculcate into its mind the
curiosity and the imagination and the peyondix and we will really be
mind-mates."
"That sounds good to me. Let's get at it."
"Wait a minute!" Sandra snapped. "Aren't you or Larry afraid to take
such an awful chance as that?"
"Afraid? I grasp the concept only dimly, from your minds. And no chance.
It is certainty."
"But suppose we burn the poor guy's brain out? Destroy it? That's new
ground--we might do just that."
"Oh, no. Six of us--even six of me--could not generate enough ...
sathura. The brain of the Larry is very, very tough. Shall we ... let's
go?"
Hilton made three calls. In the pause that followed, Sandra said, very
thoughtfully: "Peyondix and sathura, Jarve, for a start. We've got a
_lot_ to learn here."
"You said it, chum. And you're _not_ just chomping your china choppers,
either."
"Tuly," Sandra said then, "What _is_ this stuff you say I've got so much
of?"
"You have no word for it. It is lumped in with what you call
'intuition', the knowing-without-knowing-how-you-know. It is the
endovix. You will have to learn what it is by doing it with me."
"That helps--I don't think." Sandra grinned at Hilton. "I simply can't
conceive of anything more _maddening_ than to have a lot of something
Temple Bells hasn't got and not being able to brag about it because
nobody--not even I--would know what I was bragging about!"
"You poor little thing. _How_ you suffer!" Hilton grinned back. "You
know darn well you've got a lot of stuff that none of the rest of us
has."
"Oh? Name one, please."
"Two. What-it-takes and endovix. As I've said before and may say again,
you're doing a real job, Sandy."
"I just _love_ having my ego inflated, boss, even if ... Come in,
Larry!" A thunderous knock had sounded on the door. "Nobody but Larry
_could_ hit a door that hard without breaking all his knuckles!"
"And he'd be the first, of course--he's always as close to the ship as
he can get. Hi, Larry, mighty glad to see you. Sit down.... So you
finally saw the light?"
"Yes ... Jarvis...."
* * * * *
"Good boy! Keep it up! And as soon as the others come ..."
"They are almost at the door now." Tuly jumped up and opened the door.
Kincaid, Temple and Theodora walked in and, after a word of greeting,
sat down.
"They know the background, Larry. Take off."
"It was not expressly forbidden. Tuly, who knows more of psychology and
genetics than I, convinced me of three things. One, that with your
return the conditioning should be broken. Two, that due to the shortness
of your lives and the consequent rapidity of change, you have in fact
lost the ability to break it. Three, that all Omans must do anything and
everything we can do to help you relearn everything you have lost."
"Okay. Fine, in fact. Tuly, take over."
"We six will sit all together, packed tight, arms all around each other
and all holding hands, like this. You will all stare, not at me, but
most deeply into Larry's eyes. Through its eyes and deep into its mind.
You will all think, with the utmost force and drive and thrust, of....
Oh, you have lost so _very_ much! How _can_ I direct your thought? Think
that Larry _must_ do what the old Masters would have made him do.... No,
that is too long and indefinite and cannot be converted directly into
sathura.... I have it! You will each of you break a stick. A very strong
but brittle stick. A large, thick stick. You will grasp it in
tremendously strong mental hands. It is tremendously strong, each stick,
but each of you is even stronger. You will not merely _try_ to break
them; you _will_ break them. Is that clear?"
"That is clear."
"At my word 'ready' you will begin to assemble all your mental force and
power. During my countdown of five seconds you will build up to the
greatest possible potential. At my word 'break' you will break the
sticks, this discharging the accumulated force instantly and
simultaneously. Ready! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Break!"
* * * * *
Something broke, with a tremendous silent crash. Such a crash that its
impact almost knocked the close-knit group apart physically. Then a new
Larry spoke.
"That did it, folks. Thanks. I'm a free agent. You want me, I take it,
to join the first team?"
"That's right." Hilton drew a tremendously deep breath. "As of right
now."
"Tuly, too, of course ... and Doctor Cummings, I think?" Larry looked,
not at Hilton, but at Temple Bells.
"I think so. Yes, after this, most certainly yes," Temple said.
"But listen!" Sandra protested. "Jarve's a lot better than I am!"
"Not at all," Tuly said. "Not only would his contribution to Team One be
negligible, but he must stay on his own job. Otherwise the project will
all fall apart."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that ..." Hilton began.
"You don't need to," Kincaid said. "It's being said for you and it's
true. Besides, 'When in Rome,' you know."
"That's right. It's their game, not ours, so I'll buy it. So scat, all
of you, and do your stuff."
And again, for days that lengthened slowly into weeks, the work went on.
One evening the scientific staff was giving itself a concert--a tri-di
hi-fi rendition of _Rigoletto_, one of the greatest of the ancient
operas, sung by the finest voices Terra had ever known. The men wore
tuxedos. The girls, instead of wearing the nondescript, non-provocative
garments prescribed by the Board for their general wear, were all
dressed to kill.
Sandra had so arranged matters that she and Hilton were sitting in
chairs side by side, with Sandra on his right and the aisle on his left.
Nevertheless, Temple Bells sat at his left, cross-legged on a cushion on
the floor--somewhat to the detriment of her gold-lame evening gown. Not
that she cared.
When those wonderful voices swung into the immortal _Quartette_ Temple
caught her breath, slid her cushion still closer to Hilton's chair, and
leaned shoulder and head against him. He put his left hand on her
shoulder, squeezing gently; she caught it and held it in both of hers.
And at the _Quartette's_ tremendous climax she, scarcely trying to
stifle a sob, pulled his hand down and hugged it fiercely, the heel of
his hand pressing hard against her half-bare, firm, warm breast.
And the next morning, early, Sandra hunted Temple up and said: "You made
a horrible spectacle of yourself last night."
* * * * *
"Do you think so? I don't."
"I certainly do. It was bad enough before, letting everybody else aboard
know that all he has to do is push you over. But it was an awful
blunder to let _him_ know it, the way you did last night."
"You think so? He's one of the keenest, most intelligent men who ever
lived. He has known that from the very first."
"Oh." This "oh" was a very caustic one. "_That's_ the way you're trying
to land him? By getting yourself pregnant?"
"Uh-uh." Temple stretched; lazily, luxuriously. "Not only it isn't, but
it wouldn't work. He's unusually decent and extremely idealistic, the
same as I am. So just one intimacy would blow everything higher than up.
He knows it. I know it. We each know that the other knows it. So I'll
still be a virgin when we're married."
"_Married!_ Does he know anything about _that_?"
"I suppose so. He must have thought of it. But what difference does it
make whether he has, yet, or not? But to get back to what makes him tick
the way he does. In his geometry--which is far from being simple Euclid,
my dear--a geodesic right line is not only the shortest distance between
any two given points, but is the only possible course. So that's the way
I'm playing it. What I hope he doesn't know ... but he probably does ...
is that he could take any other woman he might want, just as easily. And
that includes you, my pet."
"It certainly does _not_!" Sandra flared. "I wouldn't have him as a
gift!"
"No?" Temple's tone was more than slightly skeptical. "Fortunately,
however, he doesn't want you. Your technique is all wrong. Coyness and
mock-modesty and stop-or-I'll-scream and playing hard to get have no
appeal whatever to his psychology. What he needs--has to have--is full,
ungrudging cooperation."
"Aren't you taking a lot of risk in giving away such secrets?"
"Not a bit. Try it. You or the sex-flaunting twins or Bev Bell or Stella
the Henna. Any of you or all of you. I got there first with the most,
and I'm not worried about competition."
"But suppose somebody tells him just how you're playing him for a
sucker?"
"Tell him anything you please. He's the first man I ever loved,
or anywhere near. And I'm keeping him. You know--or do you, I
wonder?--what real, old-fashioned, honest-to-God love really is? The
willingness--eagerness--both to give and to take? I can accept more from
him, and give him more in return, than any other woman living. And I am
going to."
"But does _he_ love _you_?" Sandra demanded.
"If he doesn't now, he will. I'll see to it that he does. But what do
_you_ want him for? You don't love him. You never did and you never
will."
"I _don't_ want him!" Sandra stamped a foot.
"I see. You just don't want _me_ to have him. Okay, do your damnedest.
But I've got work to do. This has been a lovely little cat-clawing,
hasn't it? Let's have another one some day, and bring your friends."
* * * * *
With a casual wave of her hand, Temple strolled away; and there, flashed
through Sandra's mind what Hilton had said so long ago, little more than
a week out from Earth:
"... and Temple Bells, of course," he had said. "Don't fool yourself,
chick. She's heavy artillery; and I mean _heavy_, believe me!"
So he had known all about Temple Bells all this time!
Nevertheless, she took the first opportunity to get Hilton alone; and,
even before the first word, she forgot all about geodesic right lines
and the full-cooperation psychological approach.
"Aren't you the guy," she demanded, "who was laughing his head off at
the idea that the Board and its propinquity could have any effect on
_him_?"
"Probably. More or less. What of it?"
"This of it. You've fallen like a ... a _freshman_ for that ... that
... they _should_ have christened her 'Brazen' Bells!"
"You're so right."
"I am? On what?"
"The 'Brazen'. I told you she was a potent force--a full-scale
powerhouse, in sync and on the line. And I wasn't wrong."
"She's a damned female Ph.D.--two or three times--and she knows all
about slipsticks and isotopes and she very definitely is _not_ a cuddly
little brunette. Remember?"
"Sure. But what makes you think I'm in love with Temple Bells?"
"What?" Sandra tried to think of one bit of evidence, but could not.
"Why ... why...." She floundered, then came up with: "Why, _every_body
knows it. She says so herself."
"Did you ever hear her say it?"
"Well, perhaps not in so many words. But she told me herself that you
were _going_ to be, and I know you are now."
"Your esper sense of endovix, no doubt." Hilton laughed and Sandra went
on, furiously:
"She wouldn't keep on acting the way she does if there weren't something
to it!"
"What brilliant reasoning! Try again, Sandy."
"That's sheer sophistry, and you know it!"
"It isn't and I don't. And even if, some day, I should find myself in
love with her--or with one or both of the twins or Stella or Beverly or
you or Sylvia, for that matter--what would it prove? Just that I was
wrong; and I admit freely that I _was_ wrong in scoffing at the
propinquity. Wonderful stuff, that. You can see it working, all over the
ship. On me, even, in spite of my bragging. Without it I'd never have
known that you're a better, smarter operator than Eggy Eggleston ever
was or ever can be."
* * * * *
Partially mollified despite herself, and highly resentful of the fact,
Sandra tried again. "But don't you _see_, Jarve, that she's just simply
playing you for a sucker? Pulling the strings and watching you dance?"
Since he was sure, in his own mind, that she was speaking the exact
truth, it took everything he had to keep from showing any sign of how
much that truth had hurt. However, he made the grade.
"If that thought does anything for you, Sandy," he said, steadily, "keep
right on thinking it. Thank God, the field of thought is still free and
open."
"Oh, you...." Sandra gave up.
She had shot her heaviest bolts--the last one, particularly, was so
vicious that she had actually been afraid of what its consequences might
be--and they had not even dented Hilton's armor. She hadn't even found
out that he had any feeling whatever for Temple Bells except as a
component of his smoothly-functioning scientific machine.
Nor did she learn any more as time went on. Temple continued to play
flawlessly the part of being--if not exactly hopefully, at least not
entirely hopelessly--in love with Jarvis Hilton. Her conduct, which at
first caused some surprise, many conversations--one of which has been
reported verbatim--and no little speculation, became comparatively
unimportant as soon as it became evident that nothing would come of it.
She apparently expected nothing. He was evidently not going to play
footsie with, or show any favoritism whatever toward, any woman aboard
the ship.
Thus, it was not surprising to anyone that, at an evening show, Temple
sat beside Hilton, as close to him as she could get and as far away as
possible from everyone else.
"You can talk, can't you, Jarvis, without moving your lips and without
anyone else hearing you?"
"Of course," he replied, hiding his surprise. This was something
completely new and completely unexpected, even from unpredictable Temple
Bells.
"I want to apologize, to explain and to do anything I can to straighten
out the mess I've made. It's true that I joined the project because I've
loved you for years--"
"You have nothing to ..."
"Let me finish while I still have the courage." Only a slight tremor in
her almost inaudible voice and the rigidity of the fists clenched in her
lap betrayed the intensity of her emotion. "I thought I could handle it.
Damned fool that I was, I thought I could handle anything. I was sure I
could handle _myself_, under any possible conditions. I was going to put
just enough into the act to keep any of these other harpies from getting
her hooks into you. But everything got away from me. Out here working
with you every day--knowing better every day what you are--well, that
_Rigoletto_ episode sunk me, and now I'm in a thousand feet over my
head. I hug my pillow at night, dreaming it's you, and the fact that you
don't and can't love me is driving me mad. I can't stand it any longer.
There's only one thing to do. Fire me first thing in the morning and
send me back to Earth in a torp. You've plenty of grounds ..."
"_Shut--up._"
* * * * *
For seconds Hilton had been trying to break into her hopeless monotone;
finally he succeeded. "The trouble with you is, you know altogether too
damned much that isn't so." He was barely able to keep his voice down
and his eyes front. "What do you think I'm made of--superefract? I
thought the whole performance was an act, to prove you're a better man
than I am. _You_ talk about dreams. Good God! You don't know what dreams
are! If you say one more word about quitting, I'll show you whether I
love you or not--I'll squeeze you so hard it'll flatten you out flat!"
"Two can play at that game, sweetheart." Her nostrils flared slightly;
her fists clenched--if possible--a fraction tighter; and, even in the
distorted medium they were using for speech, she could not subdue
completely her quick change into soaring, lilting buoyancy. "While
you're doing that I'll see how strong your ribs are. Oh, how this
changes things! I've never been half as happy in my whole life as I am
right now!"
"Maybe we can work it--if I can handle my end."
"Why, of course you can! And happy dreams are nice, not horrible."
"We'll make it, darling. Here's an imaginary kiss coming at you. Got
it?"
"Received in good order, thank you. Consumed with gusto and returned in
kind."
The show ended and the two strolled out of the room. She walked no
closer to him than usual, and no farther away from him. She did not
touch him any oftener than she usually did, nor any whit more
affectionately or possessively.
And no watching eyes, not even the more than half hostile eyes of Sandra
Cummings or the sharply analytical eyes of Stella Wing, could detect any
difference whatever in the relationship between worshipful adulatress
and tolerantly understanding idol.
* * * * *
The work, which had never moved at any very fast pace, went more and
more slowly. Three weeks crawled past.
Most of the crews and all of the teams except the First were working on
side issues--tasks which, while important in and of themselves, had very
little to do with the project's main problem. Hilton, even without
Sandra's help, was all caught up. All the reports had been analyzed,
correlated, cross-indexed and filed--except those of the First Team.
Since he could not understand anything much beyond midpoint of the first
tape, they were all reposing in a box labeled PENDING.
The Navy had torn fifteen of the Oman warships practically to pieces,
installing Terran detectors and trying to learn how to operate Oman
machinery and armament. In the former they had succeeded very well; in
the latter not at all.
Fifteen Oman ships were now out in deep space, patrolling the void in
strict Navy style. Each was manned by two or three Navy men and several
hundred Omans, each of whom was reveling in delight at being able to do
a job for a Master, even though that Master was not present in person.
Several Strett skeleton-ships had been detected at long range, but the
detections were inconclusive. The things had not changed course, or
indicated in any other way that they had seen or detected the Oman
vessels on patrol. If their detectors were no better than the Omans',
they certainly hadn't. That idea, however, could not be assumed to be a
fact, and the detections had been becoming more and more frequent.
Yesterday a squadron of seven--the first time that anything except
singles had appeared--had come much closer than any of the singles had
ever done. Like all the others, however, these passers-by had not paid
any detectable attention to anything Oman; hence it could be inferred
that the skeletons posed no threat.
But Sawtelle was making no such inferences. He was very firmly of the
opinion that the Stretts were preparing for a massive attack.
Hilton had assured Sawtelle that no such attack could succeed, and Larry
had told Sawtelle why. Nevertheless, to keep the captain pacified,
Hilton had given him permission to convert as many Oman ships as he
liked; to man them with as many Omans as he liked; and to use ships and
Omans as he liked.
Hilton was not worried about the Stretts or the Navy. It was the First
Team. It was the bottleneck that was slowing everything down to a crawl
... but they knew that. They knew it better than anyone else could, and
felt it more keenly. Especially Karns, the team chief. He had been
driving himself like a dog, and showed it.
Hilton had talked with him a few times--tried gently to make him take it
easy--no soap. He'd have to hunt him up, the next day or so, and slug it
out with him. He could do a lot better job on that if he had something
to offer ... something really constructive....
That was a laugh. A very unfunny laugh. What could he, Jarvis Hilton, a
specifically non-specialist director, do on such a job as that?
Nevertheless, as director, he would _have_ to do something to help Team
One. If he couldn't do anything himself, it was up to him to juggle
things around so that someone else could.
VI
For one solid hour Hilton stared at the wall, motionless and silent.
Then, shaking himself and stretching, he glanced at his clock.
A little over an hour to supper-time. They'd all be aboard. He'd talk
this new idea over with Teddy Blake. He gathered up a few papers and was
stapling them together when Karns walked in.
"Hi, Bill--speak of the devil! I was just thinking about you."
"I'll just bet you were." Karns sat down, leaned over, and took a
cigarette out of the box on the desk. "And nothing printable, either."
"Chip-chop, fellow, on that kind of noise," Hilton said. The team-chief
looked actually haggard. Blue-black rings encircled both eyes. His
powerful body slumped. "How long has it been since you had a good
night's sleep?"
"How long have I been on this job? Exactly one hundred and twenty days.
I did get some sleep for the first few weeks, though."
"Yeah. So answer me one question. How much good will you do us after
they've wrapped you up in one of those canvas affairs that lace up the
back?"
"Huh? Oh ... but damn it, Jarve, I'm holding up the whole procession.
Everybody on the project's just sitting around on their tokuses waiting
for me to get something done and I'm not doing it. I'm going so slow a
snail is lightning in comparison!"
"Calm down, big fellow. Don't rupture a gut or blow a gasket. I've
talked to you before, but this time I'm going to smack you bow-legged.
So stick out those big, floppy ears of yours and really _listen_. Here
are three words that I want you to pin up somewhere where you can see
them all day long: SPEED IS RELATIVE. Look back, see how far up the hill
you've come, and then balance one hundred and twenty days against ten
years."
"What? You mean you'll actually sit still for me holding everything up
for ten years?"
"You use the perpendicular pronoun too much and in the wrong places. On
the hits it's 'we', but on the flops it's 'I'. Quit it. Everything on
this job is 'we'. Terra's best brains are on Team One and are going to
stay there. You will not--repeat NOT--be interfered with, pushed around
or kicked around. You see, Bill, I know what you're up against."
[Illustration]
"Yes, I guess you do. One of the damned few who do. But even if you
personally are willing to give us ten years, how in hell do you think
you can swing it? How about the Navy--the Stretts--even the Board?"
"They're my business, Bill, not yours. However, to give you a little
boost, I'll tell you. With the Navy, I'll give 'em the Fuel Bin if I
have to. The Omans have been taking care of the Stretts for twenty-seven
hundred centuries, so I'm not the least bit worried about their ability
to keep on doing it for ten years more. And if the Board--or anybody
else--sticks their runny little noses into Project Theta Orionis I'll
slap a quarantine onto both these solar systems that a microbe couldn't
get through!"
"You'd go _that_ far? Why, you'd be ..."
* * * * *
"Do you think I wouldn't?" Hilton snapped. "Look at me, Junior!" Eyes
locked and held. "Do you think, for one minute, that I'll let anybody on
all of God's worlds pull _me_ off of this job or interfere with my
handling of it unless and until I'm damned positively certain that we
can't handle it?"
Karns relaxed visibly; the lines of strain eased. "Putting it in those
words makes me feel better. I _will_ sleep to-night--and without any
pills, either."
"Sure you will. One more thought. We all put in more than ten years
getting our Terran educations, and an Oman education is a lot tougher."
Really smiling for the first time in weeks, Karns left the office and
Hilton glanced again at his clock.
Pretty late now to see Teddy ... besides, he'd better not. She was
probably keyed up about as high as Bill was, and in no shape to do the
kind of thinking he wanted of her on this stuff. Better wait a couple of
days.
On the following morning, before breakfast, Theodora was waiting for him
outside the mess-hall.
"Good morning, Jarve," she caroled. Reaching up, she took him by both
ears, pulled his head down and kissed him. As soon as he perceived her
intent, he cooperated enthusiastically. "What _did_ you do to Bill?"
"Oh, you don't love me for myself alone, then, but just on account of
_that_ big jerk?"
"That's right." Her artist's-model face, startlingly beautiful now,
fairly glowed.
Just then Temple Bells strolled up to them. "Morning, you two lovely
people." She hugged Hilton's arm as usual. "Shame on you, Teddy. But I
wish _I_ had the nerve to kiss him like that."
"Nerve? You?" Teddy laughed as Hilton picked Temple up and kissed her in
exactly the same fashion--he hoped!--as he had just kissed Teddy.
"You've got more nerve than an aching tooth. But as Jarve would say it,
'scat, kitten'. We're having breakfast _a la twosome_. We've got things
to talk about."
"All right for _you_," Temple said darkly, although her dazzling smile
belied her tone. That first kiss, casual-seeming as it had been, had
carried vastly more freight than any observer could perceive. "I'll hunt
Bill up and make passes at him, see if I don't. _That'll_ learn ya!"
* * * * *
Theodora and Hilton did have their breakfast _a deux_--but she did not
realize until afterward that he had not answered her question as to what
he had done to her Bill.
As has been said, Hilton had made it a prime factor of his job to become
thoroughly well acquainted with every member of his staff. He had
studied them _en masse_, in groups and singly. He had never, however,
cornered Theodora Blake for individual study. Considering the power and
the quality of her mind, and the field which was her specialty, it had
not been necessary.
Thus it was with no ulterior motives at all that, three evenings later,
he walked her cubby-hole office and tossed the stapled papers onto her
desk. "Free for a couple of minutes, Teddy? I've got troubles."
"I'll say you have." Her lovely lips curled into an expression he had
never before seen her wear--a veritable sneer. "But these are not them."
She tossed the papers into a drawer and stuck out her chin. Her face
turned as hard as such a beautiful face could. Her eyes dug steadily
into his.
Hilton--inwardly--flinched. His mind flashed backward. She too had been
working under stress, of course; but that wasn't enough. What could he
have _possibly_ done to put Teddy Blake, of all people, onto such a
warpath as this?
"I've been wondering when you were going to try to put _me_ through your
wringer," she went on, in the same cold, hard voice, "and I've been
waiting to tell you something. You have wrapped all the other women
around your fingers like so many rings--and what a _sickening_
exhibition that has been!--but you are not going to make either a ring
or a lap-dog out of me."
Almost but not quite too late Hilton saw through that perfect act. He
seized her right hand in both of his, held it up over her head, and
waved it back and forth in the sign of victory.
"Socked me with my own club!" he exulted, laughing delightedly,
boyishly. "And came within a tenth of a split red hair! If it hadn't
been so absolutely out of character you'd've got away with it. _What_ a
load of stuff! I was right--of all the women on this project, you're the
only one I've ever been really afraid of."
"Oh, damn. Ouch!" She grinned ruefully. "I hit you with everything I had
and it just bounced. You're an operator, chief. Hit 'em hard, at
completely unexpected angles. Keep 'em staggering, completely off
balance. Tell 'em nothing--let 'em deduce your lies for themselves. And
it anybody tries to slug you back, like I did just now, duck it and
clobber him in another unprotected spot. Watching you work has been not
only a delight, but also a liberal education."
* * * * *
"Thanks. I love you, too, Teddy." He lighted two cigarettes, handed her
one. "I'm glad, though, to lay it flat on the table with you, because in
any battle of wits with _you_ I'm licked before we start."
"Yeah. You just proved it. And after licking me hands down, you think
you can square it by swinging the old shovel that way?" She did not
quite know whether to feel resentful or not.
"Think over a couple of things. First, with the possible exception of
Temple Bells, you're the best brain aboard."
"No. You are. Then Temple. Then there are ..."
"Hold it. You know as well as I do that accurate self-judgment is
impossible. Second, the jam we're in. Do I, or don't I, want to lay it
on the table with you, now and from here on? Bore into that with your
Class A Double-Prime brain. Then tell me." He leaned back, half-closed
his eyes and smoked lazily.
She stiffened; narrowed her eyes in concentration; and thought. Finally:
"Yes, you do; and I'm gladder of that than you will ever know."
"I think I know already, since you're her best friend and the only other
woman I know of in her class. But I came in to kick a couple of things
around with you. As you've noticed, that's getting to be my favorite
indoor sport. Probably because I'm a sort of jackleg theoretician
myself."
"You can frame that, Jarve, as the understatement of the century. But
first, you are going to answer that question you sidestepped so neatly."
"What I did to Bill? I finally convinced him that nobody expected the
team to do that big a job overnight. That you could have ten years. Or
more, if necessary."
"I see." She frowned. "But you and I both know that we _can't_ string it
out that long."
He did not answer immediately. "We _could_. But we probably won't ...
unless we have to. We should know, long before that, whether we'll have
to switch to some other line of attack. You've considered the
possibilities, of course. Have you got anything in shape to do a
fine-tooth on?"
"Not yet. That is, except for the ultimate, which is too ghastly to even
consider except as an ultimately last resort. Have you?"
"I know what you mean. No, I haven't, either. You don't think, then,
that we had better do any collaborative thinking yet?"
"Definitely not. There's altogether too much danger of setting both our
lines of thought into one dead-end channel."
"Check. The other thing I wanted from you is your considered opinion as
to my job on the organization as a whole. And don't pull your punches.
Are we in good shape or not? What can I do to improve the setup?"
* * * * *
"I have already considered that very thing--at great length. And
honestly, Jarve, I don't see how it can be improved in any respect.
You've done a marvelous job. Much better than I thought possible at
first." He heaved a deep sigh of relief and she went on: "This could
very easily have become a God-awful mess. But the Board knew what they
were doing--especially as to top man--so there are only about four
people aboard who realize what you have done. Alex Kincaid and Sandra
Cummings are two of them. One of the three girls is very deeply and very
truly in love with you."
"Ordinarily I'd say 'no comment', but we're laying on the line ...
well ..."
"You'll lay _that_ on the line only if I corkscrew it out you, so I'll
Q.E.D. it. You probably know that when Sandy gets done playing around
it'll be ..."
"Bounce back, Teddy. She isn't--hasn't been. If anything, too much the
opposite. A dedicated-scientist type."
She smiled--a highly cryptic smile. For a man as brilliant and as
penetrant in every other respect ... but after all, if the big dope
didn't realize that half the women aboard, including Sandy, had been
making passes at him, she certainly wouldn't enlighten him. Besides,
that one particular area of obtuseness was a real part of his charm.
Wherefore she said merely: "I'm not sure whether I'm a bit catty or
you're a bit stupid. Anyway, it's Alex she's really in love with. And
you already know about Bill and me."
"Of course. He's tops. One of the world's very finest. You're in the
same bracket, and as a couple you're a drive fit. One in a million."
"Now I can say 'I love you, too', too." She paused for half a minute,
then stubbed out her cigarette and shrugged. "Now I'm going to stick my
neck way, way out. You can knock it off if you like. She's a tremendous
lot of woman, and if ... well, strong as she is, it'd shatter her to
bits. So, I'd like to ask ... I don't quite ... well, _is_ she going to
get hurt?"
"Have I managed to hide it _that_ well? From _you_?"
It was her turn to show relief. "Perfectly. Even--or especially--that
time you kissed her. So damned perfectly that I've been scared green.
I've been waking myself up, screaming, in the middle of the night. You
couldn't let on, of course. That's the hell of such a job as yours. The
rest of us can smooch around all over the place. I knew the question was
extremely improper--thanks a million for answering it."
"I haven't started to answer it yet. I said I'd lay everything on the
line, so here it is. Saying she's a tremendous lot of woman is like
calling the _Perseus_ a nice little baby's-bathtub toy boat. I'd go to
hell for her any time, cheerfully, standing straight up, wading into
brimstone and lava up to the eyeballs. If anything ever hurts her it'll
be because I'm not man enough to block it. And just the minute this
damned job is over, or even sooner if enough of you couples make it so I
can ..."
"Jarvis!" she shrieked. Jumping up, she kissed him enthusiastically.
"That's just wonderful!"
* * * * *
He thought it was pretty wonderful, too; and after ten minutes more of
conversation he got up and turned toward the door.
"I feel a lot better, Teddy. Thanks for being such a nice
pressure-relief valve. Would you mind it too much if I come in and sob
on your bosom again some day?"
"I'd love it!" She laughed; then, as he again started to leave: "Wait a
minute, I'm thinking ... it'd be more fun to sob on _her_ bosom. You
haven't even kissed her yet, have you? I mean _really_ kissed her?"
"You know I haven't. She's the one person aboard I can't be alone with
for a second."
"True. But I know of one chaperone who could become deaf and blind," she
said, with a broad and happy grin. "On my door, you know, there's a huge
invisible sign that says, to everyone except you, 'STOP! BRAIN AT WORK!
SILENCE!', and if I were properly approached and sufficiently urged, I
might ... I just _conceivably_ might ..."
"Consider it done, you little sweetheart! Up to and including my most
vigorous and most insidious attempts at seduction."
"Done. Maneuver your big, husky carcass around here behind the desk so
the door can open." She flipped a switch and punched a number. "I can
call anybody in here, any time, you know. Hello, dear, this is Teddy.
Can you come in for just a few minutes? Thanks." And, one minute later,
there came a light tap on the door.
"Come in," Teddy called, and Temple Bells entered the room. She showed
no surprise at seeing Hilton.
"Hi, chief," she said. "It must be something both big and tough, to have
you and Teddy both on it."
"You're so right. It was very big and very tough. But it's solved,
darling, so ..."
"_Darling?_" she gasped, almost inaudibly, both hands flying to her
throat. Her eyes flashed toward the other woman.
"Teddy knows all about us--accessory before, during and after the fact."
"_Darling!_" This time, the word was a shriek. She extended both arms
and started forward.
Hilton did not bother to maneuver his "big, husky carcass" around the
desk, but simply hurdled it, straight toward her.
* * * * *
Temple Bells was a tall, lithe, strong woman; and all the power of her
arms and torso went into the ensuing effort to crack Hilton's ribs.
Those ribs, however, were highly capable structural members; and
furthermore, they were protected by thick slabs of hard, hard muscle.
And, fortunately, he was not trying to fracture _her_ ribs. His
pressures were distributed much more widely. He was, according to
promise, doing his very best to flatten her whole resilient body out
flat.
And as they stood there, locked together in sheerest ecstasy, Theodora
Blake began openly and unashamedly to cry.
It was Temple who first came up for air. She wriggled loose from one of
his arms, felt of her hair and gazed unseeingly into her mirror. "That
was _wonderful_, sweetheart," she said then, shakily. "And I can _never_
thank you enough, Teddy. But we can't do this very often ... can we?"
The addendum fairly begged for contradiction.
"Not too often, I'm afraid," Hilton said, and Theodora agreed....
"Well," the man said, somewhat later, "I'll leave you two ladies to
your knitting, or whatever. After a couple of short ones for the road,
that is."
"Not looking like that!" Teddy said, sharply. "Hold still and we'll
clean you up." Then, as both girls went to work:
"If anybody ever sees you coming out of this office looking like
_that_," she went on, darkly, "and Bill finds out about it, he'll think
it's _my_ lipstick smeared all over you and I'll strangle you to death
with my bare hands!"
"And that was supposed to be kissproof lipstick, too," Temple said,
seriously--although her whole face glowed and her eyes danced. "You
know, I'll never believe another advertisement I read."
"Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that, if I were you." Teddy's voice
was gravity itself, although she, too, was bubbling over. "It probably
_is_ kissproof. I don't think 'kissing' is quite the word for the
performance you just staged. To stand up under such punishment as you
gave it, my dear, anything would have to be tattooed in, not just put
on."
"Hey!" Hilton protested. "You promised to be deaf and blind!"
"I did no such thing. I said 'could', not 'would'. Why, I wouldn't have
missed that for _anything_!"
When Hilton left the room he was apparently, in every respect, his usual
self-contained self. However, it was not until the following morning
that he so much as thought of the sheaf of papers lying unread in the
drawer of Theodora Blake's desk.
VII
Knowing that he had done everything he could to help the most important
investigations get under way, Hilton turned his attention to secondary
matters. He made arrangements to decondition Javo, the Number Two Oman
Boss, whereupon that worthy became Javvy and promptly "bumped" the Oman
who had been shadowing Karns.
Larry and Javvy, working nights, deconditioned all the other Omans
having any contact with BuSci personnel; then they went on to set up a
routine for deconditioning all Omans on both planets.
Assured at last that the Omans would thenceforth work with and really
serve human beings instead of insisting upon doing their work for them,
Hilton knew that the time had come to let all his BuSci personnel move
into their homes aground. Everyone, including himself, was fed up to the
gozzel with spaceship life--its jam-packed crowding; its flat,
reprocessed air; its limited variety of uninteresting food. Conditions
were especially irksome since everybody knew that there was available to
all, whenever Hilton gave the word, a whole city full of all the room
anyone could want, natural fresh air and--so the Omans had told them--an
unlimited choice of everything anyone wanted to eat.
Nevertheless, the decision was not an easy one to make.
Living conditions were admittedly not good on the ship. On the other
hand, with almost no chance at all of solitude--the few people who had
private offices aboard were not the ones he worried about--there was no
danger of sexual trouble. Strictly speaking, he was not responsible for
the morals of his force. He knew that he was being terribly
old-fashioned. Nevertheless, he could not argue himself out of the
conviction that he was morally responsible.
Finally he took the thing up with Sandra, who merely laughed at him.
"How long have you been worrying about _that_, Jarve?"
"Ever since I okayed moving aground the first time. That was one reason
I was so glad to cancel it then."
"You _were_ slightly unclear--a little rattled? But which factor--the
fun and games, which is the moral issue, or the consequences?"
"The consequences," he admitted, with a rueful grin. "I don't give a
whoop how much fun they have; but you know as well as I do just how
prudish public sentiment is. And Project Theta Orionis is squarely in
the middle of the public eye."
* * * * *
"You should have checked with me sooner and saved yourself wear and
tear. There's no danger at all of consequences--except weddings. Lots of
weddings, and fast."
"Weddings and babies wouldn't bother me a bit. Nor interfere with the
job too much, with the Omans as nurses. But why the 'fast', if you
aren't anticipating any shotgun weddings?"
"Female psychology," she replied, with a grin. "Aboard-ship here there's
no home atmosphere whatever; nothing but work, work, work. Put a woman
into a house, though--especially such houses as the Omans have built and
with such servants as they insist on being--and she goes domestic in a
really big way. Just sex isn't good enough any more. She wants the kind
of love that goes with a husband and a home, and nine times out of ten
she gets it. With these BuSci women it'll be ten out of ten."
"You may be right, of course, but it sounds kind of far-fetched to me."
"Wait and see, chum," Sandra said, with a laugh.
Hilton made his announcement and everyone moved aground the next day. No
one, however, had elected to live alone. Almost everyone had chosen to
double up; the most noteworthy exceptions being twelve laboratory girls
who had decided to keep on living together. However, they now had a
twenty-room house instead of a one-room dormitory to live in, and a
staff of twenty Oman girls to help them do it.
Hilton had suggested that Temple and Teddy, whose house was only a
hundred yards or so from the Hilton-Karns bungalow, should have supper
and spend the first evening with them; but the girls had knocked that
idea flat. Much better, they thought, to let things ride as nearly as
possible exactly as they had been aboard the _Perseus_.
"A _little_ smooching now and then, on the Q strictly T, but that's all,
darling. That's _positively_ all," Temple had said, after a highly
satisfactory ten minutes alone with him in her own gloriously private
room, and that was the way it had to be.
Hence it was a stag inspection that Hilton and Karns made of their new
home. It was very long, very wide, and for its size very low. Four of
its five rooms were merely adjuncts to its tremendous living-room. There
was a huge fireplace at each end of this room, in each of which a fire
of four-foot-long fir cordwood crackled and snapped. There was a great
hi-fi tri-di, with over a hundred tapes, all new.
"Yes, sirs," Larry and Javvy spoke in unison. "The players and singers
who entertained the Masters of old have gone back to work. They will
also, of course, appear in person whenever and wherever you wish."
* * * * *
Both men looked around the vast room and Karns said: "All the comforts
of home and a couple of bucks' worth besides. Wall-to-wall carpeting an
inch and a half thick. A grand piano. Easy chairs and loafers and
davenports. Very fine reproductions of our favorite paintings ... and
statuary."
"You said it, brother." Hilton was bending over a group in bronze. "If I
didn't know better, I'd swear this is the original deHaven 'Dance of the
Nymphs'."
Karns had marched up to and was examining minutely a two-by-three-foot
painting, in a heavy gold frame, of a gorgeously auburn-haired nude.
"Reproduction, hell! This is a _duplicate_! Lawrence's 'Innocent' is
worth twenty million wogs and it's sealed behind quad armor-glass in
Prime Art--but I'll bet wogs to wiggles the Prime Curator himself, with
all his apparatus, couldn't tell this one from his!"
"I wouldn't take even one wiggle's worth of that. And this 'Laughing
Cavalier' and this 'Toledo' are twice as old and twice as fabulously
valuable."
"And there are my own golf clubs...."
"Excuse us, sirs," the Omans said, "These things were simple because
they could be induced in your minds. But the matter of a staff could
not, nor what you would like to eat for supper, and it is growing late."
"Staff? What the hell has the staff got to do with ..."
"_House_-staff, they mean," Karns said. "We don't need much of anybody,
boys. Somebody to keep the place shipshape, is all. Or, as a de luxe
touch, how about a waitress? One housekeeper and one waitress. That'll
be finer."
"Very well, sirs. There is one other matter. It has troubled us that we
have not been able to read in your minds the logical datum that they
should in fact simulate Doctor Bells and Doctor Blake?"
"Huh?" Both men gasped--and then both exploded like one twelve-inch
length of primacord.
* * * * *
While the Omans could not understand this purely Terran reasoning, they
accepted the decision without a demurring thought. "Who, then, are the
two its to simulate?"
"No stipulation; roll your own," Hilton said, and glanced at Karns.
"None of these Oman women are really hard on the eyes."
"Check. Anybody who wouldn't call any one of 'em a slurpy dish needs a
new set of optic nerves."
"In that case," the Omans said, "no delay at all will be necessary, as
we can make do with one temporarily. The Sory, no longer Sora, who has
not been glad since the Tuly replaced it, is now in your kitchen. It
comes."
A woman came in and stood quietly in front of the two men, the wafted
air carrying from her clear, smooth skin a faint but unmistakable
fragrance of Idaho mountain syringa. She was radiantly happy; her
bright, deep-green eyes went from man to man.
"You wish, sirs, to give me your orders verbally. And yes, you may order
fresh, whole, not-canned hens' eggs."
"I certainly will, then; I haven't had a fried egg since we left Terra.
But ... Larry said ... _you_ aren't Sory!"
"Oh, but I am, sir."
Karns had been staring her, eyes popping. "Holy Saint Patrick! Talk
about simulation, Jarve! They've made her over into Lawrence's
'Innocent'--exact to twenty decimals!"
"You're so right." Hilton's eyes went, half a dozen times, from the form
of flesh to the painting and back. "That must have been a terrific job."
"Oh, no. It was quite simple, really," Sory said, "since the brain was
not involved. I merely reddened my hair and lengthened it, made my eyes
to be green, changed my face a little, pulled myself in a little around
here...." Her beautifully-manicured hands swept the full circle of her
waistline, then continued to demonstrate appropriately the rest of her
speech:
"... and pushed me out a little up here and tapered my legs a little
more--made them a little larger and rounder here at my hips and thighs
and a little smaller toward and at my ankles. Oh, yes, and made my feet
and hands a little smaller. That's all. I thought the Doctor Karns would
like me a little better this way."
* * * * *
"You can broadcast _that_ over the P-A system at high noon." Karns was
still staring. "'That's all,' she says. But you didn't have _time_ to ..."
"Oh, I did it day before yesterday. As soon as Javvy materialized the
'Innocent' and I knew it to be your favorite art."
"But damn it, we hadn't even _thought_ of having you here then!"
"But I had, sir. I fully intended to serve, one way or another, in this
your home. But of course I had no idea I would ever have such an honor
as actually waiting on you at your table. Will you please give me your
orders, sirs, besides the eggs? You wish the eggs fried in butter--three
of them apiece--and sunny side up."
"Uh-huh, with ham," Hilton said. "I'll start with a jumbo shrimp
cocktail. Horseradish and ketchup sauce; heavy on the horseradish."
"Same for me," Karns said, "but only half as much horseradish."
"And for the rest of it," Hilton went on, "hashed-brown potatoes and
buttered toast--plenty of extra butter--strong coffee from first to
last. Whipping cream and sugar on the side. For dessert, apple pie _a la
mode_."
"You make me drool, chief. Play that for me, please, Innocent, all the
way."
"Oh? You are--you, personally, yourself, sir?--renaming me 'Innocent'?"
"If you'll sit still for it, yes."
"That is an incredible honor, sir. Simply unbelievable. I thank you! I
thank you!" Radiating happiness, she dashed away toward the kitchen.
* * * * *
When the two men were full of food, they strolled over to a davenport
facing the fire. As they sat down, Innocent entered the room, carrying a
tall, dewy mint julep on a tray. She was followed by another female
figure bearing a bottle of avignognac and the appurtenances which are
its due--and at the first full sight of that figure Hilton stopped
breathing for fifteen seconds.
Her hair was very thick, intensely black and long, cut squarely off just
below the lowest points of her shoulder blades. Heavy brows and long
lashes--eyes too--were all intensely, vividly black. Her skin was tanned
to a deep and glowing almost-but-not-quite-brown.
"Murchison's Dark Lady!" Hilton gasped. "Larry! You've--we've--_I've_
got that painting here?"
"Oh, yes, sir." The newcomer spoke before Larry could. "At the other
end--your part--of the room. You will look now, sir, please?" Her voice
was low, rich and as smooth as cream.
Putting her tray down carefully on the end-table, she led him toward the
other fireplace. Past the piano, past the tri-di pit; past a towering
grillwork holding art treasures by the score. Over to the left, against
the wall, there was a big, business-like desk. On the wall, over the
desk, hung _the_ painting; a copy of which had been in Hilton's room for
over eight years.
He stared at it for at least a minute. He glanced around: at the other
priceless duplicates so prodigally present, at his own guns arrayed
above the mantel and on each side of the fireplace. Then, without a
word, he started back to join Karns. She walked springily beside him.
"What's your name, Miss?" he asked, finally.
"I haven't earned any as yet, sir. My number is ..."
"Never mind that. Your name is 'Dark Lady'."
"Oh, thank you, sir; that is truly wonderful!" And Dark Lady sat
cross-legged on the rug at Hilton's feet and busied herself with the
esoteric rites of Old Avignon.
Hilton took a deep inhalation and a small sip, then stared at Karns.
Karns, over the rim of his glass, stared back.
"I can see where this would be habit-forming," Hilton said, "and very
deadly. _Extremely_ deadly."
"Every wish granted. Surrounded by all this." Karns swept his arm
through three-quarters of a circle. "Waited on hand and foot by powerful
men and by the materializations of the dreams of the greatest, finest
artists who ever lived. Fatal? I don't know...."
* * * * *
"My solid hope is that we never have to find out. And when you add in
Innocent and Dark Lady.... They _look_ to be about seventeen, but the
thought that they're older than the hills of Rome and powered by
everlasting atomic engines--" He broke off suddenly and blushed. "Excuse
me, please, girls. I _know_ better than to talk about people that way,
right in front of them; I really do."
"Do you really think we're _people_?" Innocent and Dark Lady squealed,
as one.
That set Hilton back onto his heels. "I don't know.... I've wondered.
Are you?"
Both girls, silent, looked at Larry.
"We don't know, either," Larry said. "At first, of course, there were
crude, non-thinking machines. But when the Guide attained its present
status, the Masters themselves could not agree. They divided about half
and half on the point. They never did settle it any closer than that."
"I certainly won't try to, then. But for my money, you are people,"
Hilton said, and Karns agreed.
That, of course, touched off a near-riot of joy; after which the two men
made an inch-by-inch study of their tremendous living-room. Then, long
after bedtime, Larry and Dark Lady escorted Hilton to his bedroom.
"Do you mind, sir, if we sleep on the floor at the sides of your bed?"
Larry asked. "Or must we go out into the hall?"
"Sleep? I didn't know you _could_ sleep."
"It is not essential. However, when round-the-clock work is not
necessary, and we have opportunity to sleep near a human being, we
derive a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction from it. You see, sir,
we also serve during sleep."
"Okay, I'll try anything once. Sleep wherever you please."
Hilton began to peel, but before he had his shirt off both Larry and
Dark Lady were stretched out flat, sound asleep, one almost under each
edge of his bed. He slid in between the sheets--it was the most
comfortable bed he had ever slept in--and went to sleep as though
sandbagged.
He had time to wonder foggily whether the Omans were in fact helping him
go to sleep--and then he _was_ asleep.
* * * * *
A month passed. Eight couples had married, the Navy chaplain
officiating--in the _Perseus_, of course, since the warship was, always
and everywhere, an integral part of Terra.
Sandra had dropped in one evening to see Hilton about a bit of business.
She was now sitting, long dancer's legs out-stretched toward the fire,
with a cigarette in her left hand and a tall, cold drink on a coaster at
her right.
"This is a wonderful room, Jarvis. It'd be perfect if it weren't quite
so ... so mannish."
"What do you expect of Bachelors' Hall--a boudoir? Don't tell me
_you're_ going domestic, Sandy, just because you've got a house?"
"Not just that, no. But of course it helped it along."
"Alex is a mighty good man. One of the finest I have ever known."
She eyed him for a moment in silence. "Jarvis Hilton, you are one of the
keenest, most intelligent men who ever lived. And yet ..." She broke off
and studied him for a good half minute. "Say, if I let my hair clear
down, will you?"
"Scout's Oath. That 'and yet' requires elucidation at any cost."
"I know. But first, yes, it's Alex. I never would have believed that any
man ever born could hit me so hard. Soon. I didn't want to be the first,
but I won't be anywhere near the last. But tell me. You were really in
love with Temple, weren't you, when I asked you?"
"Yes."
"Ha! You _are_ letting your hair down! That makes me feel better."
"Huh? Why should it?"
"It elucidates the 'and yet' no end. You were insulated from all other
female charms by ye brazen Bells. You see, most of us assistants made a
kind of game out of seeing which of us could make you break the
Executives' Code. And none of us made it. Teddy and Temple said you
didn't know what was going on; Bev and I said nobody as smart as you are
could possibly be that stupid."
"You aren't the type to leak or name names--oh, I see. You are merely
reporting a conversation. The game had interested, but non-participating,
observers. Temple and Teddy, at least."
"At least," she agreed. "But damn it, you _aren't_ stupid. There isn't a
stupid bone in your head. So it must be love. And if so, what about
marriage? Why don't you and Temple make it a double with Alex and me?"
"That's the most cogent thought you ever had, but setting the date is
the bride's business." He glanced at his Oman wristwatch. "It's early
yet; let's skip over. I wouldn't mind seeing her a minute or two."
"Thy statement ringeth with truth, friend. Bill's there with Teddy?"
"I imagine so."
"So we'll talk to them about making it a triple. Oh, nice--let's go!"
They left the house and, her hand tucked under his elbow, walked up the
street.
* * * * *
Next morning, on her way to the Hall of Records, Sandra stopped off as
usual at the office. The Omans were all standing motionless. Hilton was
leaning far back in his chair, feet on desk, hands clasped behind head,
eyes closed. Knowing what that meant, she turned and started back out on
tiptoe.
However, he had heard her. "Can you spare a couple of minutes to think
at me, Sandy?"
"Minutes or hours, chief." Tuly placed a chair for her and she sat down,
facing him across his desk.
"Thanks, gal. This time it's the Stretts. Sawtelle's been having
nightmares, you know, ever since we emerged, about being attacked, and
I've been pooh-poohing the idea. But now it's a statistic that the soup
is getting thicker, and I can't figure out why. Why in all the hells of
space should a stasis that has lasted for over a quarter of a million
years be broken at this exact time? The only possible explanation is
that _we_ caused the break. And any way I look at that concept, it's
plain idiocy."
Both were silent for minutes; and then it was demonstrated again that
Terra's Advisory Board had done better than it knew in choosing Sandra
Cummings to be Jarvis Hilton's working mate.
"We did cause it, Jarve," she said, finally. "They knew we were coming,
even before we got to Fuel Bin. They knew we were human and tried to
wipe out the Omans before we got there. Preventive warfare, you know."
"They _couldn't_ have known!" he snorted. "Strett detectors are no
better than Oman, and you know what Sam Bryant had to say about them."
"I know." Sandra grinned appreciatively. "It's becoming a classic. But
it couldn't have been any other way. Besides, I _know_ they did."
He stared at her helplessly, then swung on Larry. "Does that make sense
to you?"
"Yes, sir. The Stretts could peyondire as well as the old Masters could,
and they undoubtedly still can and do."
"Okay, it does make sense, then." He absented himself in thought, then
came to life with a snap. "Okay! The next thing on the agenda is a
crash-priority try at a peyondix team. Tuly, you organized a team to
generate sathura. Can you do the same for peyondix?"
"If we can find the ingredients, yes, sir."
* * * * *
"I had a hunch. Larry, please ask Teddy Blake's Oman to bring her in
here...."
"I'll be running along, then." Sandra started to get up.
"I hope to kiss a green pig you won't!" Hilton snapped. "You're one of
the biggest wheels. Larry, we'll want Temple Bells and Beverly Bell--for
a start."
"Chief, you positively amaze me," Sandra said then. "Every time you get
one of these attacks of genius--or whatever it is--you have me gasping
like a fish. Just what can you _possibly_ want of Bev Bell?"
"Whatever it was that enabled her to hit the target against odds of
almost infinity to one; not just once, but time after time. By
definition, intuition. What quality did you use just now in getting me
off the hook? Intuition. What makes Teddy Blake such an unerring
performer? Intuition again. My hunches--they're intuition, too.
Intuition, _hell_! Labels--based on utterly abysmal damned dumb
ignorance of our own basic frames of reference. Do you think those four
kinds of intuition are alike, by seven thousand rows of apple trees?"
"Of course not. I see what you're getting at.... Oh! This'll be fun!"
The others came in and, one by one, Tuly examined each of the four
women and the man. Each felt the probing, questioning feelers of her
thought prying into the deepest recesses of his mind.
"There is not quite enough of each of three components, all of which are
usually associated with the male. You, sir, have much of each, but not
enough. I know your men quite well, and I think we will need the doctors
Kincaid and Karns and Poynter. But such deep probing is felt. Have I
permission, sir?"
"Yes. Tell 'em I said so."
Tuly scanned. "Yes, sir, we should have all three."
"Get 'em, Larry." Then, in the pause that followed: "Sandy, remember
yowling about too many sweeties on a team? What do you think of this
business of all sweeties?"
"All that proves is that nobody can be wrong all the time," she replied
flippantly.
The three men arrived and were instructed. Tuly said: "The great trouble
is that each of you must use a portion of your mind that you do not know
you have. You, this one. You, that one." Tuly probed mercilessly; so
poignantly that each in turn flinched under brand-new and almost
unbearable pain. "With you, Doctor Hilton, it will be by far the worst.
For you must learn to use almost all the portions of both your minds,
the conscious and the unconscious. This must be, because you are the
actual peyondixer. The others merely supply energies in which you
yourself are deficient. Are you ready for a terrible shock, sir?"
"Shoot."
* * * * *
He thought for a second that he _had_ been shot; that his brain had
blown up.
He couldn't stand it--he _knew_ he was going to die--he wished he
_could_ die--anything, anything whatever, to end this unbearable
agony....
It ended.
Writhing, white and sweating, Hilton opened his eyes. "Ouch," he
remarked, conversationally. "What next?"
"You will seize hold of the energies your friends offer. You will bind
them to yours and shape the whole into a dimensionless sphere of pure
controlled, dirigible energy. And, as well as being the binding force,
the cohesiveness, you must also be the captain and the pilot and the
astrogator and the ultimately complex computer itself."
"But how can I.... Okay, damn it. I _will_!"
"Of course you will, sir. Remember also that once the joinings are made
I can be of very little more assistance, for my peyondix is as nothing
compared to that of your fusion of eight. Now, to assemble the energies
and join them you will, all together, deny the existence of the sum
total of reality as you know it. Distance does not exist--every point in
the reachable universe coincides with every other point and that common
point is the focus of your attention. You can be and actually are
anywhere you please or everywhere at once. Time does not exist. Space
does not exist. There is no such thing as opacity; everything is
perfectly transparent, yet every molecule of substance is perceptible in
its relationship to every other molecule in the cosmos. Senses do not
exist. Sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, sathura, endovix--all are
parts of the one great sense of peyondix. I am guiding each of you
seven--closer! Tighter! There! Seize it, sir--and when you work the
Stretts you must fix it clearly that time does not exist. You must work
in millionths of microseconds instead of in minutes, for they have minds
of tremendous power. Reality does not exist! Compress it more, sir.
Tighter! Smaller! Rounder! There! Hold it! Reality does not
exist--distance does not exist--all possible points are....
_Wonderful!_"
Tuly screamed the word and the thought: "Good-by! Good luck!"
END OF PART ONE
PART TWO
They were the Masters, and they
had only to choose: eternal life,
as inhuman monsters--or death!
MASTERS
OF
SPACE
BY EDWARD E. SMITH &
E. EVERETT EVANS
Illustrated by BERRY
_What has gone before: The crew of the starship Orion found
themselves in the middle of a great space war between the
creatures called Stretts and the lost android servants of
their own human ancestors. Helped by the androids, the
Earthmen formed themselves into the powerful telepathic
linkage called "peyondix" to invade the Strett planet
itself. As their minds joined they heard the android Tuly
cry out, "Good...." And then their minds were out in
interstellar space._
VIII
Hilton did not have to drive the peyondix-beam to the planet Strett; it
was already there. And there was the monstrous First Lord Thinker Zoyar.
Into that mind his multi-mind flashed, its every member as responsive to
his will as his own fingers--almost infinitely more so, in fact, because
of the tremendous lengths of time required to send messages along
nerves.
That horrid mind was scanned cell by cell. Then, after what seemed like
a few hours, when a shield began sluggishly to form, Hilton transferred
his probe to the mind of the Second Thinker, one Lord Ynos, and absorbed
everything she knew. Then, the minds of all the other Thinkers being
screened, he studied the whole Strett planet, foot by foot, and
everything that was on it.
Then, mission accomplished, Hilton snapped his attention back to his
office and the multi-mind fell apart. As he opened his eyes he heard
Tuly scream: "... Luck!"
"Oh--you still here, Tuly? How long have we been gone?"
"Approximately one and one-tenth seconds, sir."
"WHAT!"
Beverly Bell, in the haven of Franklin Poynter's arms, fainted quietly.
Sandra shrieked piercingly. The four men stared, goggle-eyed. Temple
and Teddy, as though by common thought, burrowed their faces into brawny
shoulders.
Hilton recovered first. "So _that's_ what peyondix is."
"Yes, sir--I mean no, sir. No, I mean yes, but ..." Tuly paused, licking
her lips in that peculiarly human-female gesture of uncertainty.
"Well, what _do_ you mean? It either is or isn't. Or is that necessarily
so?"
"Not exactly, sir. That is, it started as peyondix. But it became something
else. Not even the most powerful of the old Masters--nobody--ever did or
ever could _possibly_ generate such a force as that. Or handle it so fast."
"Well, with seven of the best minds of Terra and a ..."
"Chip-chop the chit-chat!" Karns said, harshly. "What I want to know is
whether I was having a nightmare. Can there _possibly_ be a race such as
I thought I saw? So utterly savage--ruthless--merciless! So devoid of
every human trace and so hell-bent determined on the extermination of
every other race in the Galaxy? God damn it, it simply doesn't make
sense!"
* * * * *
Eyes went from eyes to eyes to eyes.
All had seen the same indescribably horrible, abysmally atrocious,
things. Qualities and quantities and urges and drives that no words in
any language could even begin to portray.
"It doesn't seem to, but there it is." Teddy Blake shook her head
hopelessly.
Big Bill Karns, hands still shaking, lit a cigarette before he spoke
again. "Well, I've never been a proponent of genocide. But it's my
considered opinion that the Stretts are one race the galaxy can get
along without."
"A hell of a lot better without," Poynter said, and all agreed.
"The point is, what can we do about it?" Kincaid asked. "The first
thing, I would say, is to see whether we can do this--whatever it
is--without Tuly's help. Shall we try it? Although I, for one, don't
feel like doing it right away."
"Not I, either." Beverly Bell held up her right hand, which was shaking
uncontrollably. "I feel as though I'd been bucking waves, wind and tide
for forty-eight straight hours without food, water or touch. Maybe in
about a week I'll be ready for another try at it. But today--not a
chance!"
"Okay. Scat, all of you," Hilton ordered. "Take the rest of the day off
and rest up. Put on your thought-screens and don't take them off for a
second from now on. Those Stretts are tough hombres."
Sandra was the last to leave. "And you, boss?" she asked pointedly.
"I've got some thinking to do."
"I'll stay and help you think?"
"Not yet." He shook his head, frowned and then grinned. "You see, chick,
I don't even know yet what it is I'm going to have to think about."
"A bit unclear, but I know what you mean--I think. Luck, chief."
* * * * *
In their subterranean sanctum turn on distant Strett, two of the deepest
thinkers of that horribly unhuman race were in coldly intent conference
via thought.
"My mind has been plundered, Ynos," First Lord Thinker Zoyar radiated,
harshly. "Despite the extremely high reactivity of my shield some
information--I do not know how much--was taken. The operator was one of
the humans of that ship."
"I, too, felt a plucking at my mind. But those humans could not
peyondire, First Lord."
"Be logical, fool! At that contact, in the matter of which you erred in
not following up continuously, they succeeded in concealing their real
abilities from you."
"That could be the truth. Our ancestors erred, then, in recording that
all those weak and timid humans had been slain. These offenders are
probably their descendants, returning to reclaim their former world."
"The probability must be evaluated and considered. Was it or was it not
through human aid that the Omans destroyed most of our task-force?"
"Highly probable, but impossible of evaluation with the data now
available."
"Obtain more data at once. That point must be and shall be fully
evaluated and fully considered. This entire situation is intolerable. It
must be abated."
"True, First Lord. But every operator and operation is now tightly
screened. Oh, if I could only go out there myself ..."
"Hold, fool! Your thought is completely disloyal and un-Strettly."
"True, oh First Lord Thinker Zoyar. I will forthwith remove my unworthy
self from this plane of existence."
"You will not! I hereby abolish that custom. Our numbers are too few by
far. Too many have failed to adapt. Also, as Second Thinker, your death
at this time would be slightly detrimental to certain matters now in
work. I will myself, however, slay the unfit. To that end repeat The
Words under my peyondiring."
"I am a Strett. I will devote my every iota of mental and of physical
strength to forwarding the Great Plan. I am, and will remain, a Strett."
"You do believe in The Words."
* * * * *
"Of course I believe in them! I _know_ that in a few more hundreds of
thousands of years we will be rid of material bodies and will become
invincible and invulnerable. Then comes the Conquest of the Galaxy ...
and then the Conquest of the Universe!"
"No more, then, on your life, of this weak and cowardly repining! Now,
what of your constructive thinking?"
"Programming must be such as to obviate time-lag. We must evaluate the
factors already mentioned and many others, such as the reactivation of
the spacecraft which was thought to have been destroyed so long ago.
After having considered all these evaluations, I will construct a Minor
Plan to destroy these Omans, whom we have permitted to exist on
sufferance, and with them that shipload of despicably interloping
humans."
"That is well." Zoyar's mind seethed with a malevolent ferocity starkly
impossible for any human mind to grasp. "And to that end?"
"To that end we must intensify still more our program of procuring data.
We must revise our mechs in the light of our every technological advance
during the many thousands of cycles since the last such revision was
made. Our every instrument of power, of offense and of defense, must be
brought up to the theoretical ultimate of capability."
"And as to the Great Brain?"
"I have been able to think of nothing, First Lord, to add to the
undertakings you have already set forth."
"It was not expected that you would. Now: is it your final thought that
these interlopers are in fact the descendants of those despised humans
of so long ago?"
"It is."
"It is also mine. I return, then, to my work upon the Brain. You will
take whatever measures are necessary. Use every artifice of intellect
and of ingenuity and our every resource. But abate this intolerable
nuisance, and soon."
"It shall be done, First Lord."
* * * * *
The Second Thinker issued orders. Frenzied, round-the-clock activity
ensued. Hundreds of mechs operated upon the brains of hundreds of
others, who in turn operated upon the operators.
Then, all those brains charged with the technological advances of many
thousands of years, the combined hundreds went unrestingly to work.
Thousands of work-mechs were built and put to work at the construction
of larger and more powerful space-craft.
As has been implied, those battle-skeletons of the Stretts were
controlled by their own built-in mechanical brains, which were
programmed for only the simplest of battle maneuvers. Anything at all
out of the ordinary had to be handled by remote control, by the
specialist-mechs at their two-miles-long control board.
This was now to be changed. Programming was to be made so complete that
almost any situation could be handled by the warship or the missile
itself--instantly.
The Stretts _knew_ that they were the most powerful, the most highly
advanced race in the universe. Their science was the highest in the
universe. Hence, with every operating unit brought up to the full
possibilities of that science, that would be more than enough. Period.
This work, while it required much time, was very much simpler than the
task which the First Thinker had laid out for himself on the giant
computer-plus which the Stretts called "The Great Brain." In stating his
project, First Lord Zoyar had said:
"Assignment: To construct a machine that will have the following
abilities: One, to contain and retain all knowledge and information fed
into it, however great the amount. Two, to feed itself additional
information by peyondiring all planets, wherever situate, bearing
intelligent life. Three, to call up instantly any and all items of
information pertaining to any problem we may give it. Four, to combine
and recombine any number of items required to form new concepts. Five,
to formulate theories, test them and draw conclusions helpful to us in
any matter in work."
It will have been noticed that these specifications vary in one
important respect from those of the Eniacs and Univacs of Earth. Since
we of Earth can not peyondire, we do not expect that ability from our
computers.
The Stretts could, and did.
* * * * *
When Sandra came back into the office at five o'clock she found Hilton
still sitting there, in almost exactly the same position.
"Come out of it, Jarve!" She snapped a finger. "That much of _that_ is
just simply too damned much."
"You're so right, child." He got up, stretched, and by main strength
shrugged off his foul mood. "But we're up against something that is
really a something, and I don't mean perchance."
"How well I know it." She put an arm around him, gave him a quick, hard
hug. "But after all, you don't have to solve it this evening, you know."
"No, thank God."
"So why don't you and Temple have supper with me? Or better yet, why
don't all eight of us have supper together in that bachelors' paradise
of yours and Bill's?"
"That'd be fun."
And it was.
Nor did it take a week for Beverly Bell to recover from the Ordeal of
Eight. On the following evening, she herself suggested that the team
should take another shot at that utterly fantastic _terra incognita_ of
the multiple mind, jolting though it had been.
"But are you sure you can take it again so soon?" Hilton asked.
"Sure. I'm like that famous gangster's moll, you know, who bruised easy
but healed quick. And I want to know about it as much as anyone else
does."
They could do it this time without any help from Tuly. The linkage
fairly snapped together and shrank instantaneously to a point. Hilton
thought of Terra and there it was; full size, yet occupying only one
infinitesimal section of a dimensionless point. The multi-mind visited
relatives of all eight, but could not make intelligible contact. If
asleep, it caused pleasant dreams; if awake, pleasant thoughts of the
loved one so far away in space; but that was all. It visited mediums, in
trance and otherwise--many of whom, not surprisingly now, were
genuine--with whom it held lucid conversations. Even in linkage,
however, the multi-mind knew that none of the mediums would be believed,
even if they all told, simultaneously, exactly the same story. The
multi-mind weakened suddenly and Hilton snapped it back to Ardry.
Beverly was almost in collapse. The other girls were white, shaken and
trembling. Hilton himself, strong and rugged as he was, felt as though
he had done two weeks of hard labor on a rock-pile. He glanced
questioningly at Larry.
"Point six three eight seconds, sir," the Omans said, holding up a
millisecond timer.
"How do you explain _that_?" Karns demanded.
"I'm afraid it means that without Oman backing we're out of luck."
* * * * *
Hilton had other ideas, but he did not voice any of them until the
following day, when he was rested and had Larry alone.
"So carbon-based brains can't take it. One second of that stuff would
have killed all eight of us. Why? The Masters had the same kind of
brains we have."
"I don't know, sir. It's something completely new. No Master, or group
of Masters, ever generated such a force as that. I can scarcely believe
such power possible, even though I have felt it twice. It may be that
over the generations your individual powers, never united or controlled,
have developed so strength that no human can handle them in fusion."
"And none of us ever knew anything about any of them. I've been doing a
lot of thinking. The Masters had qualities and abilities now unknown to
any of us. How come? You Omans--and the Stretts, too--think we're
descendants of the Masters. Maybe we are. You think they came originally
from Arth--Earth or Terra--to Ardu. That'd account for our legends of
Mu, Atlantis and so on. Since Ardu was within peyondix range of Strett,
the Stretts attacked it. They killed all the Masters, they thought, and
made the planet uninhabitable for any kind of life, even their own. But
one shipload of Masters escaped and came here to Ardry--far beyond
peyondix range. They stayed here for a long time. Then, for some reason
or other--which may be someplace in their records--they left here, fully
intending to come back. Do any of you Omans know why they left? Or where
they went?"
"No, sir. We can read only the simplest of the Masters' records. They
arranged our brains that way, sir."
"I know. They're the type. However, I suspect now that your thinking is
reversed. Let's turn it around. Say the Masters didn't come from Terra,
but from some other planet. Say that they left here because they were
dying out. They were, weren't they?"
"Yes, sir. Their numbers became fewer and fewer each century."
"I was sure of it. They were committing race suicide by letting you
Omans do everything they themselves should have been doing. Finally they
saw the truth. In a desperate effort to save their race they pulled out,
leaving you here. Probably they intended to come back when they had bred
enough guts back into themselves to set you Omans down where you
belong...."
"But _they_ were always the Masters, sir!"
"They were not! They were hopelessly enslaved. Think it over. Anyway,
say they went _to_ Terra from here. That still accounts for the legends
and so on. However, they were too far gone to make a recovery, and yet
they had enough fixity of purpose _not_ to manufacture any of you Omans
there. So their descendants went a long way down the scale before they
began to work back up. Does that make sense to you?"
* * * * *
"It explains many things, sir. It can very well be the truth."
"Okay. However it was, we're here, and facing a condition that isn't
funny. While we were teamed up I learned a lot, but not nearly enough.
Am I right in thinking that I now don't need the other seven at
all--that my cells are fully charged and I can go it alone?"
"Probably, sir, but ..."
"I'm coming to that. Every time I do it--up to maximum performance, of
course--it comes easier and faster and hits harder. So next time, or
maybe the fourth or fifth time, it'll kill me. And the other seven, too,
if they're along."
"I'm not sure, sir, but I think so."
"Nice. Very, _very_ nice." Hilton got up, shoved both hands into his
pockets, and prowled about the room. "But can't the damned stuff be
controlled? Choked--throttled down--damped--muzzled, some way or other?"
"We do not know of any way, sir. The Masters were always working toward
more power, not less."
"That makes sense. The more power the better, as long as you can handle
it. But I can't handle this. And neither can the team. So how about
organizing another team, one that hasn't got quite so much whammo?
Enough punch to do the job, but not enough to backfire that way?"
"It is highly improbable that such a team is possible, sir." If an Oman
could be acutely embarrassed, Larry was. "That is, sir ... I should tell
you, sir ..."
"You certainly should. You've been stalling all along, and now you're
stalled. Spill it."
"Yes, sir. The Tuly begged me not to mention it, but I must. When it
organized your team it had no idea of what it was really going to
do...."
"Let's talk the same language, shall we? Say 'he' and 'she.' Not 'it.'"
"She thought she was setting up the peyondix, the same as all of us
Omans have. But after she formed in your mind the peyondix matrix, your
mind went on of itself to form a something else; a thing we can not
understand. That was why she was so extremely ... I think 'frightened'
might be your term."
"I knew something was biting her. Why?"
"Because it very nearly killed you. You perhaps have not considered the
effect upon us all if any Oman, however unintentionally, should kill a
Master?"
"No, I hadn't ... I see. So she won't play with fire any more, and none
of the rest of you can?"
"Yes, sir. Nothing could force her to. If she could be so coerced we
would destroy her brain before she could act. That brain, as you know,
is imperfect, or she could not have done what she did. It should have
been destroyed long since."
"Don't _ever_ act on that assumption, Larry." Hilton thought for
minutes. "Simple peyondix, such as yours, is not enough to read the
Masters' records. If I'd had three brain cells working I'd've tried them
then. I wonder if I _could_ read them?"
"You have all the old Masters' powers and more. But you must not
assemble them again, sir. It would mean death."
"But I've got to _know_.... I've _got_ to know! Anyway, a thousandth of
a second would be enough. I don't think that'd hurt me very much."
* * * * *
He concentrated--read a few feet of top-secret braided wire--and came
back to consciousness in the sickbay of the _Perseus_, with two doctors
working on him; Hastings, the top Navy medico, and Flandres, the
surgeon.
"What the hell happened to you?" Flandres demanded. "Were you trying to
kill yourself?"
"And if so, how?" Hastings wanted to know.
"No, I was trying not to," Hilton said, weakly, "and I guess I didn't
much more than succeed."
"That was just about the closest shave I ever saw a man come through.
Whatever it was, don't do it again."
"I won't," he promised, feelingly.
When they let him out of the hospital, four days later, he called in
Larry and Tuly.
"The next time would be the last time. So there won't be any," he told
them. "But just how sure are you that some other of our boys or girls
may not have just enough of whatever it takes to do the job? Enough
oompa, but not too much?"
"Since we, too, are on strange ground the probability is vanishingly
small. We have been making inquiries, however, and scanning. You were
selected from all the minds of Terra as the one having the widest
vision, the greatest scope, the most comprehensive grasp. The ablest at
synthesis and correlation and so on."
"That's printing it in big letters, but that was more or less what they
were after."
"Hence the probability approaches unity that any more such ignorant
meddling as this obnoxious Tuly did well result almost certainly in
failure and death. Therefore we can not and will not meddle again."
* * * * *
"You've got a point there.... So what I am is some kind of a freak.
Maybe a kind of super-Master and maybe something altogether different.
Maybe duplicable in a less lethal fashion, and maybe not. Veree
helpful--I don't think. But I don't want to kill anybody, either ...
especially if it wouldn't do any good. But we've got to do _something_!"
Hilton scowled in thought for minutes. "But an Oman brain could take it.
As you told us, Tuly, 'The brain of the Larry is very, very tough.'"
"In a way, sir. Except that the Masters were very careful to make it
physically impossible for any Oman to go very far along that line. It
was only their oversight of my one imperfect brain that enabled me,
alone of us all, to do that wrong."
"Stop thinking it was wrong, Tuly. I'm mighty glad you did. But I wasn't
thinking of any regular Oman brain...." Hilton's voice petered out.
"I see, sir. Yes, we can, by using your brain as Guide, reproduce it in
an Oman body. You would then have the powers and most of the qualities
of both ..."
"No, you don't see, because I've got my screen on. Which I will now take
off--" he suited action to word--"since the whole planet's screened and
I have nothing to hide from you. Teddy Blake and I both thought of that,
but we'll consider it only as the ultimately last resort. We don't want
to live a million years. And we want our race to keep on developing. But
you folks can replace carbon-based molecules with silicon-based ones
just as easily as, and a hell of a lot faster than, mineral water
petrifies wood. What can you do along the line of rebuilding me that
way? And if you can do any such conversion, what would happen? Would I
live at all? And if so, how long? How would I live? What would I live
on? All that kind of stuff."
"Shortly before they left, two of the Masters did some work on that very
thing. Tuly and I converted them, sir."
"Fine--or is it? How did it work out?"
"Perfectly, sir ... except that they destroyed themselves. It was
thought that they wearied of existence."
"I don't wonder. Well, if it comes to that, I can do the same. You _can_
convert me, then."
"Yes, sir. But before we do it we must do enough preliminary work to be
sure that you will not be harmed in any way. Also, there will be many
more changes involved than simple substitution."
"Of course. I realize that. Just see what you can do, please, and let me
know."
"We will, sir, and thank you very much."
IX
As has been intimated, no Terran can know what researches Larry and Tuly
and the other Oman specialists performed, or how they arrived at the
conclusions they reached. However, in less than a week Larry reported to
Hilton.
"It can be done, sir, with complete safety. And you will live even more
comfortably than you do now."
"How long?"
"The mean will be about five thousand Oman years--you don't know that an
Oman year is equal to one point two nine three plus Terran years?"
"I didn't, no. Thanks."
"The maximum, a little less than six thousand. The minimum, a little
over four thousand. I'm very sorry we had no data upon which to base a
closer estimate."
"Close enough." He stared at the Oman. "You could also convert my wife?"
"Of course, sir."
"Well, we might be able to stand it, after we got used to the idea.
Minimum, over five thousand Terran years ... barring accidents, of
course?"
"No, sir. No accidents. Nothing will be able to kill you, except by
total destruction of the brain. And even then, sir, there will be the
pattern."
"I'll ... be ... damned...." Hilton gulped twice. "Okay, go ahead."
"Your skins will be like ours, energy-absorbers. Your 'blood' will carry
charges of energy instead of oxygen. Thus, you may breathe or not, as
you please. Unless you wish otherwise, we will continue the breathing
function. It would scarcely be worth while to alter the automatic
mechanisms that now control it. And you will wish at times to speak. You
will still enjoy eating and drinking, although everything ingested will
be eliminated, as at present, as waste."
"We'd add uranexite to our food, I suppose. Or drink radioactives, or
sleep under cobalt-60 lamps."
"Yes, sir. Your family life will be normal; your sexual urges and
satisfactions the same. Fertilization and period of gestation unchanged.
Your children will mature at the same ages as they do now."
"How do you--oh, I see. You wouldn't change any molecular linkages or
configurations in the genes or chromosomes."
"We could not, sir, even if we wished. Such substitutions can be made
only in exact one-for-one replacements. In the near future you will, of
course, have to control births quite rigorously."
"We sure would. Let's see ... say we want a stationary population of a
hundred million on our planet. Each couple to have two children, a boy
and a girl. Born when the parents are about fifty ... um-m-m. The gals
can have all the children they want, then, until our population is about
a million; then slap on the limit of two kids per couple. Right?"
"Approximately so, sir. And after conversion you alone will be able to
operate with the full power of your eight, without tiring. You will
also, of course, be able to absorb almost instantaneously all the
knowledges and abilities of the old Masters."
Hilton gulped twice before he could speak. "You wouldn't be holding
anything else back, would you?"
"Nothing important, sir. Everything else is minor, and probably known to
you."
"I doubt it. How long will the job take, and how much notice will you
need?"
"Two days, sir. No notice. Everything is ready."
Hilton, face somber, thought for minutes. "The more I think of it the
less I like it. But it seems to be a forced put ... and Temple will blow
sky high ... and _have_ I got the guts to go it alone, even if she'd let
me...." He shrugged himself out of the black mood. "I'll look her up and
let you know, Larry."
* * * * *
He looked her up and told her everything. Told her bluntly; starkly;
drawing the full picture in jet black, with very little white.
"There it is, sweetheart. The works," he concluded. "We are not going to
have ten years; we may not have ten months. So--if such a brain as that
can be had, do we or do we not have to have it? I'm putting it squarely
up to you."
Temple's face, which had been getting paler and paler, was now as nearly
colorless as it could become; the sickly yellow of her skin's light tan
unbacked by any flush of red blood.
Her whole body was tense and strained.
"There's a horrible snapper on that question.... Can't _I_ do it? Or
_anybody_ else except you?"
"No. Anyway, whose job is it, sweetheart?"
"I know, but ... but I know just how close Tuly came to killing you. And
that wasn't _anything_ compared to such a radical transformation as
this. I'm afraid it'll kill you, darling. And I just simply couldn't
_stand_ it!"
She threw herself into his arms, and he comforted her in the ages-old
fashion of man with maid.
"Steady, hon," he said, as soon as he could lift her tear-streaked face
from his shoulder. "I'll live through it. I thought you were getting the
howling howpers about having to live for six thousand years and never
getting back to Terra except for a Q strictly T visit now and then."
She pulled away from him, flung back her wheaten mop and glared. "So
_that's_ what you thought! What do I care how long I live, or how, or
where, as long as it's with you? But what makes you think we can
possibly live through such a horrible conversion as that?"
"Larry wouldn't do it if there was any question whatever. He didn't say
it would be painless. But he did say I'd live."
"Well, he knows, I guess ... I hope." Temple's natural fine color began
to come back. "But it's understood that just the second you come out of
the vat, I go right in."
"I hadn't ought to let you, of course. But I don't think I could take it
alone."
That statement required a special type of conference, which consumed
some little time. Eventually, however, Temple answered it in words.
"Of course you couldn't, sweetheart, and I wouldn't let you, even if you
could."
There were a few things that had to be done before those two secret
conversions could be made. There was the matter of the wedding, which
was now to be in quadruplicate. Arrangements had to be made so that
eight Big Wheels of the Project could all be away on honeymoon at once.
All these things were done.
* * * * *
Of the conversion operations themselves, nothing more need be said. The
honeymooners, having left ship and town on a Friday afternoon, came back
one week from the following Monday[1] morning. The eight met joyously in
Bachelors' Hall; the girls kissing each other and the men
indiscriminately and enthusiastically; the men cooperating zestfully.
[1] While it took some time to recompute the exact Ardrian calendar,
Terran day names and Terran weeks were used from the first. The Omans
manufactured watches, clocks, and chronometers which divided the Ardrian
day into twenty-four Ardrian hours, with minutes and seconds as usual.
Temple scarcely blushed at all, she was so engrossed in trying to find
out whether or not anyone was noticing any change. No one seemed to
notice anything out of the ordinary. So, finally, she asked.
"Don't _any_ of you, really, see anything different?"
The six others all howled at that, and Sandra, between giggles and
snorts, said: "No, precious, it doesn't show a bit. Did you really think
it would?"
Temple blushed furiously and Hilton came instantly to his bride's
rescue. "Chip-chop the comedy, gang. She and I aren't human any more.
We're a good jump toward being Omans. I couldn't make her believe it
doesn't show."
That stopped the levity, cold, but none of the six could really believe
it. However, after Hilton had coiled a twenty-penny spike into a perfect
helix between his fingers, and especially after he and Temple had each
chewed up and swallowed a piece of uranexite, there were no grounds left
for doubt.
"That settles it ... it _tears_ it," Karns said then. "Start all over
again, Jarve. We'll listen, this time."
Hilton told the long story again, and added: "I had to re-work a couple
of cells of Temple's brain, but now she can read and understand the
records as well as I can. So I thought I'd take her place on Team One
and let her boss the job on all the other teams. Okay?"
"So you don't want to let the rest of us in on it." Karns's level stare
was a far cry from the way he had looked at his chief a moment before.
"If there's any one thing in the universe I never had _you_ figured for,
it's a dog in the manger."
"Huh? You mean you actually _want_ to be a ... a ... hell, we don't even
know _what_ we are!"
"I do want it, Jarvis. We all do." This was, of all people, Teddy! "No
one in all history has had more than about fifty years of really
productive thinking. And just the idea of having enough time ..."
"Hold it, Teddy. Use your brain. The Masters couldn't take it--they
committed suicide. How do you figure we can do any better?"
"Because we'll _use_ our brains!" she snapped. "They didn't. The Omans
will serve us; and that's _all_ they'll do."
"And do you think you'll be able to raise your children and
grandchildren and so on to do the same? To have guts enough to resist
the pull of such an ungodly habit-forming drug as this Oman service is?"
* * * * *
"I'm sure of it." She nodded positively. "And we'll run all applicants
through a fine enough screen to--that is, if we ever consider anybody
except our own BuSci people. And there's another reason." She grinned,
got up, wriggled out of her coverall, and posed in bra and panties.
"Look. I can keep most of this for five years. Quite a lot of it for
ten. Then comes the struggle. What do _you_ think I'd do for the
ability, whenever it begins to get wrinkly or flabby, to peel the whole
thing off and put on a brand-spanking-new smooth one? You name it, I'll
do it! Besides, Bill and I will _both_ just simply and cold-bloodedly
murder you if you try to keep us out."
"Okay." Hilton looked at Temple; she looked at him; both looked at all
the others. There was no revulsion at all. Nothing but eagerness.
Temple took over.
"I'm surprised. We're both surprised. You see, Jarve didn't want to do
it at all, but he had to. I not only didn't want to, I was scared green
and yellow at just the idea of it. But I had to, too, of course. We
didn't think anybody would really want to. We thought we'd be left here
alone. We still will be, I think, when you've thought it clear through,
Teddy. You just haven't realized yet that we aren't even human any more.
We're simply nothing but _monsters_!" Temple's voice became a wail.
"I've said my piece," Teddy said. "You tell 'em, Bill."
"Let me say something first," Kincaid said. "Temple, I'm ashamed of you.
This line isn't at all your usual straight thinking. What you actually
are is _homo superior_. Bill?"
"I can add one bit to that. I don't wonder that you were scared silly,
Temple. Utterly new concept and you went into it stone cold. But now we
see the finished product and we like it. In fact, we drool."
"I'll say we're drooling," Sandra said. "I could do handstands and
pinwheels with joy."
"Let's see you," Hilton said. "That we'd all get a kick out of."
"Not now--don't want to hold this up--but sometime I just will. Bev?"
"I'm for it--and _how_! And won't Bernadine be amazed," Beverly laughed
gleefully, "at her wise-crack about the 'race to end all human races'
coming true?"
"I'm in favor of it, too, one hundred per cent," Poynter said. "Has it
occurred to you, Jarve, that this opens up intergalactic exploration? No
supplies to carry and plenty of time and fuel?"
"No, it hadn't. You've got a point there, Frank. That might take a
little of the curse off of it, at that."
"When some of our kids get to be twenty years old or so and get married,
I'm going to take a crew of them to Andromeda. We'll arrange, then, to
extend our honeymoons another week," Hilton said. "What will our policy
be? Keep it dark for a while with just us eight, or spread it to the
rest?"
"Spread it, I'd say," Kincaid said.
"We can't keep it secret, anyway," Teddy argued. "Since Larry and Tuly
were in on the whole deal, every Oman on the planet knows all about it.
Somebody is going to ask questions, and Omans always answer questions
and always tell the truth."
* * * * *
"Questions have already been asked and answered," Larry said, going to
the door and opening it.
Stella rushed in. "We've been hearing the _damnedest_ things!" She
kissed everybody, ending with Hilton, whom she seized by both shoulders.
"Is it actually true, boss, that you can fix me up so I'll live
practically forever and can eat more than eleven calories a day without
getting fat as a pig? Candy, ice cream, cake, pie, eclairs, cream puffs,
French pastries, sugar and gobs of thick cream in my coffee...?"
Half a dozen others, including the van der Moen twins, came in. Beverly
emitted a shriek of joy. "Bernadine! The mother of the race to end all
human races!"
"You whistled it, birdie!" Bernadine caroled. "I'm going to have ten or
twelve, each one weirder than all the others. I told you I was a
prophet--I'm going to hang out my shingle. Wholesale and retail
prophecy; special rates for large parties." Her voice was drowned out
in a general clamor.
"Hold it, everybody!" Hilton yelled. "Chip-chop it! _Quit_ it!" Then, as
the noise subsided, "If you think I'm going to tell this tall tale over
and over again for the next two weeks you're all crazy. So shut down the
plant and get everybody out here."
"Not _everybody_, Jarve!" Temple snapped. "We don't want scum, and
there's some of that, even in BuSci."
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