welcome, martians! by s. a. lombino only one question seemed important in this huge space venture: who was flying where? [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, may 1952. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] the only sound was the swish of the jets against the sand as the big ship came down. slowly, nose pointed skyward, a yellow tail streaming out behind the tubes, it settled to the ground like a cat nuzzling its haunches against a velvet pillow. dave langley peered through the viewport. "i feel kind of funny," he said. a tremor of excitement flooded through cal manners' thin frame. "mars," he whispered. "we made it." gently, the fins probed the sand, poking into it. cal cut the power and the big ship shuddered and relaxed, a huge metal spider with a conical head. cal peered through the viewport, his eyes scanning the planet. behind him, dave shrugged into a space suit, gathered up his instruments. "i'll make the tests," dave said. "keep the starboard guns trained on me." cal nodded. he walked dave to the airlock and lifted the toggles on the inner hatch. dave stepped into the small chamber, and cal snapped the hatch shut. he walked quickly to the starboard guns, wiggled into the plastic seat behind them and pitched his shoulders against the braces. outside, like a grotesque balloon, dave stumbled around on weighted feet, taking his readings. _what's out there?_ cal wondered. _just exactly what?_ he tightened his grip on the big blasters, and trained the guns around to where dave puttered in the sand. dave suddenly stood erect, waved at cal, and started lumbering back toward the ship. cal left the guns and went to the airlock. he stepped into the chamber closed the toggles on the hatch behind him, and twirled the wheel on the outer hatch. he was ready to move back into the ship again when dave stepped through the outer hatch, his helmet under his arm. "it's okay, cal. breathable atmosphere. and the pressure is all right, too." cal let out a sigh of relief. "come on," he said. "get out of that monkey suit. then we'll claim the planet for earth." they went back into the ship, and dave took off the suit, hanging it carefully in its locker. both men strapped on holsters and drew stun guns from the munitions locker. they checked the charges in their weapons, holstered them, and stepped out into the martian night. it was cold, but their clothing was warm and the air was invigorating. cal looked up at the sky. "phobos," he said, pointing. "and deimos," dave added. "ike and mike." "yeah." dave smiled. "how do you feel, dave?" cal asked suddenly. "how do you mean?" "mars. i mean, we're the first men to land on mars. the first, dave!" they were walking aimlessly, in no particular hurry. "it's funny," dave said. "i told you before. i feel kind of--" * * * * * the music started abruptly, almost exploded into being, tore through the silence of the planet like the strident scream of a wounded animal. trumpets blasted raucously, trombones moaned and slid, bass drums pounded a steady tattoo. tubas, heavy and solemn like old men belching. clarinets, shrill and squealing. cymbals clashing. a military band blaring its march into the night. "wha--" dave's mouth hung open. he stared into the distance. there were lights, and the brass gleamed dully. a group of men were marching toward them, blowing on their horns, waving brilliant banners in the air. "people," cal said. "and music. like ours. _music just like ours._" the procession spilled across the sand like an unravelling spool of brightly colored silk. children danced on the outskirts of the group, hopping up and down, screaming in glee. women waved banners, sang along with the band. and the music shouted out across the sand, a triumphal march with a lively beat. a fat man led the procession. he was beaming, his smile a great enamelled gash across his face. the music became louder, closer, ear-shattering now. "welcome," the shouts rang out. "welcome." "welcome!" "english!" the word escaped dave's lips in a sudden hiss. "for god's sake, cal, they're speaking english." "something's wrong," cal said tightly. "this isn't mars. we've made a mistake, dave." the fat man was closer now, still grinning, his stomach protruding, a gold watch hanging across his vest beneath his jacket. he wore a white carnation in his buttonhole. a homburg, black, was perched solidly atop his head. "they're human," dave whispered. the fat man stopped before them, raised his hands. the music ceased as abruptly as it had begun. he stepped forward and extended his hand. "welcome home," he said. welcome _home_! the words seared across cal's mind with sudden understanding. "there's some mistake ..." he started. "mistake?" the fat man chuckled. "nonsense, nonsense. i am mayor panley. you're back in new calleth, gentlemen. the city is yours. the _world_ is yours! welcome home." "you don't understand," cal persisted. "we've just come from earth. we've just travelled more than 50,000,000 miles through space. we're from earth." "i know," the mayor said, "i know." "you know?" "but of course. isn't it wonderful?" the crowd cheered behind him, telling the night how wonderful it was. cal blinked, turned to dave. the mayor put his arms about the two men. "we've been watching your approach for weeks. i'll have to admit we were a little worried in the beginning." "worried?" the mayor began chuckling again. "why yes, yes. not that we didn't think you'd make it. but there were some who ... ahh, here are the television trucks now." the trucks wheeled across the sand, just like the thousands of trucks cal had seen back on earth. the television cameras pointed down at them, and the men stood behind them with earphones on. "smile. smile," the mayor whispered. cal smiled. dave smiled, too. "ladies and gentlemen," mayor panley said to the cameras, "it is the distinct honor of new calleth...." the crowd raised their voices, drowning out his voice. the banners waved, yellow, red, blue, orange. welcome, welcome, welcome. "... the distinct honor of new calleth to be able to welcome home bobby galus and gary dale." "galus! dale!" the voices sang, "galus! dale!" "galus!" "dale!" "just a second," cal interrupted. "you don't understand at all. those aren't our...." "four years in space," the mayor continued, "four years among the stars. to earth and back, fellow citizens, for the glory of mars." "you've got that twisted," cal said. "we didn't...." the mayor took cal's elbow and turned him toward the cameras. "you were in space for four years, weren't you captain galus?" "yes, we were. but it wasn't...." "space!" the mayor gushed. "limitless space. the first men to land on earth." again the cries of the crowd split the night. "across the stretches of sky," the mayor continued. "across the unchartered wilderness above, across the...." * * * * * there were banquets and more banquets, and women of every size and shape. the city of new calleth went all out to welcome the space travellers. bobby galus and gary dale. at the end of a week of festivity, the mayor came to cal and dave. "have you enjoyed your stay, boys?" he asked. "it was swell," cal said, "but you've got things all...." "i was wondering when you planned on leaving for the capitol. don't misunderstand me. we'd like you to stay as long as you want to, but...." "for god's sake," cal snapped, "will you please listen to me?" mayor panley was visibly shaken. "why, of course, captain galus. of course. why, certainly." he lapsed into silence. "i'm not bobby galus," cal said. "and this isn't gary dale." the mayor nodded his head. "you're ... not ... galus and dale," he said slowly. "that's right," cal said. "we didn't go to earth. we came from there. this is the first time we've ever been on mars. do you understand? we're earthmen." "earthmen?" the mayor considered this for a second and then burst out laughing. "why, that's preposterous. absolutely preposterous!" his laugh rose in volume to a bellow. "oh, you're joking. i should have known. you're only joking." "we're not joking. this is all some kind of a horrible mistake. we're the first men to land on mars. you've got to understand that," dave pleaded. the mayor was still laughing. he walked to the door and opened it. "all right, boys, have your little joke. you've earned the right to it. i'll make arrangements for you to leave for dome city in the morning." he shook his head and chuckled again. "earthmen. tch-tch." and then he was gone. they sat alone in the hotel room. it looked like any earth hotel they'd ever been in. a big soft bed. a wall telephone. two dressers. two armchairs. a big mirror over one of the dressers. a television set on the other dresser. "this is screwy," dave said. "is it possible we're back on earth? is it possible the joke is on us? maybe everyone is just ribbing us. maybe we've been going around in circles for four years. maybe...." "no," cal said. "we're on mars all right. i don't know exactly how to explain it, but i've got an idea." "what's that?" dave asked. cal shrugged. "probably all wrong, of course. but it has something to do with comparable development of cultures on different planets." "you mean mars is in exactly the same state of development as earth?" "something like that. you know the theory. give two different places the same materials to start with, and their cultures will run parallel to each other for the rest of their existence." "sure," dave said. "but these guys galus and dale. how the hell could we possibly be mistaken for them?" "i don't know." cal leaned back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "maybe we'll find out in dome city." "maybe," dave repeated hollowly. * * * * * the president of the planet greeted their ship in dome city. there were more parades, banners, bands, banquets, reporters, cameras, confetti, women, speeches, presentations. and at last, they stood before the president's desk, two bodyguards standing on either side of him. he was a thin man, slightly balding, with rimless glasses. "gentlemen," he said, "i don't have to tell you how pleased i am." cal took a deep breath. "we've been trying to tell mayor panley," he said, "that we are not galus and dale." the president smiled. "i know. he told me of your little joke." "it's not a joke." the president cocked an eyebrow. "no?" he looked at his bodyguards. "has space affec ... did you feel any ill effects in space?" he asked. cal grimaced. "oh great! now he thinks we're psycho. look, can't you get this through your heads? _we are from earth._ we never heard of galus and dale. my name is calvin manners, and this is david langley." "very interesting," the president said. he tapped his finger on the back of his other hand and stared at the two earthmen. he reached over toward the intercom on his desk then and pressed a button. "yes?" a woman's voice asked. "miss daniels, will you bring in the photos of capt. galus and lt. dale, please?" "yes, sir." the president turned to the two men again. "those are your ranks, are they not?" "yes, but we're in the united states army." "the _what_?" "the united states army. the united states is a country on earth." "really? now we're getting somewhere. what else does earth have? what is it like? are the inhabitants intelligent?" "yes, we are. _we're_ earthmen, can't you understand that?" "i think you're carrying this joke a little too far, gentlemen. a joke is a joke, but we've spent millions of dollars on your trip. really, this is no time for banter." cal opened his mouth, ready to protest, just as the outside door swung wide. an attractive blonde in a smart suit stepped into the room and walked to the president's desk. she kept her eyes glued to the two earthmen, dropped two large photographs on the desk, and turned. she stared over her shoulder at cal and dave until she was gone. the president smiled knowingly. "the women are falling all over you two, i imagine." "we're both married," cal said drily. "we don't care for all this...." "married?" the president was shocked. "i thought we'd distinctly chosen unmarried men for the job. strange." "we've got wives on earth," dave said. "ah-ha," the president said. "then they are intelligent beings. pity, pity." a twinge of anticipation curled up cal's spine. "pity? why a pity? why do you say that?" "well, you know. surely you realized this was the only flight we could afford." "what?" "for the meantime, anyway. we may attempt another flight in fifty years, sixty perhaps, maybe more. but you've already proved space travel, capt. galus. the achievement is ours. all we need now is money to...." "damn it, i'm not capt. galus," cal shouted. "and we've got to get back to earth. i've got a kid, mr. president. he's six years old and...." cal stopped abruptly. "oh, this is all nonsense. why am i arguing with you? can't you understand that we are earthmen? what do we have to do to prove it?" the president sighed and turned over the photographs on the desk. they were glossy prints of two men in uniform. they were young men, in khaki, smiles on their faces. one man looked exactly like calvin manners. the other strongly resembled david langley. "here are your photographs," the president said. "this is you, captain, and you, lieutenant. they were taken before the trip. you're younger, of course." cal stared at the photograph. it could have been he. the nose was a little sharper, perhaps, and the face thinner. but it could have been he. _it could have been he!_ "it's a freak accident," he shouted. "a coincidence in two parallel cultures, a...." he saw the look on the president's face then. it was a cold look, and a suspicious one. cal stopped speaking, sweat staining the armpits of his uniform shirt. the president grinned again. "that's better. i understand the strain of space, gentlemen, but we must be practical, mustn't we?" he paused. "shall we talk about earth now?" * * * * * the only sound was the swish of the jets against the grass as the big ship came down. slowly, nose pointed skyward, a yellow tail streaming out behind the tubes, it settled to the ground like a cat nuzzling its haunches against a velvet pillow. in the distance, the lights of new york danced crazily, gleaming from a thousand spires that scratched the sky. the radios blared forth excitedly, and the police cars screamed through the night as they rushed to city hall to pick up the mayor. inside the ship, gary dale peered through the viewport. "i feel kind of funny," he said. a tremor of excitement flooded through bobby galus' thin frame. "earth," he whispered. "we made it." the pacifists by charles e. fritch _parker was a trouble maker wherever they landed. but here was the planet ideal, a chance he had awaited a long, long time--easy, like taking candy from a baby...._ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, may 1955. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] like a lone sentinel, the house stood apart at the edge of the village, a white cube with no windows. the door stood open, a dark hole against the white brick. the house was silent. the village beyond was silent. "they must have seen us land," compton said, a little wildly. "you can't set down a rocket ship a hundred yards from somebody and not have them notice. they must have seen us!" "unless no one lives here," parker amended. "this may be a ghost city." "he's right," hinckley agreed. "there might not be anyone living here, or anyplace on the planet for that matter. we've found very little life in these alien star-systems, and it's varied from primitive to ancient. perhaps this society became old and died before any of us were born." the three earthmen stood at the base of the spaceship, their spacesuit headpieces thrown back so they could breathe in the cool thin air. they stood there peering into the deathly stillness. "i hope there are people living here," parker said. "it's been more than a month now--" "well," hinckley said, "let's find out." he waved them forward. they were fifty feet from the house when a woman appeared in the doorway with a silver vase. she was dressed in a grey flowing robe that covered her from neck to ankles. "a young woman," hinckley breathed, staring. "a woman just like any on earth!" his voice was loud in the silence, but the woman took no notice. she stooped and began filling the vase with sand. the two men with hinckley shifted anxiously, settling the sand beneath their boots. behind them the great spaceship pointed its nose at the sky. parker was staring intently at the girl. "i'm going to like this place," he said slowly. they walked forward, crunching sand. but the girl took no notice of their approach. she was kneeling beside the house, scooping tiny handfuls of sand into the silver vase. when they were within five feet of her, hinckley cleared his throat. she did not look up. he coughed. "maybe she's deaf," parker suggested vaguely. his eyes wandered appraisingly over her youthful body; he licked dry lips. hinckley moved forward and stood before the girl. her small white hands dug into the sand, scooping around his boots as though not aware of them. "and blind, too?" compton wanted to know. "and without the sense of touch?" there was a strange quality to his voice, as though some primitive part of his unconsciousness was telling him to run. hinckley bent to tap the girl lightly upon the shoulder. "pardon me, miss. we're visitors from earth," he told her. but she paid no attention to the sound of his voice, and he stepped back, puzzled. "now what?" compton wanted to know. he looked around him nervously, at the house, the speckled sand, the rocket squatting behind them. "i hope all the natives aren't like this." "i do," parker said, licking his lips thoughtfully and keeping his gaze on the girl. "i'd just as soon have them all like this. it might be interesting." compton flushed. "what i meant--" "he knows what you meant," hinckley said harshly. "and there won't be any of that going on here. you caused enough trouble on the other planets, and it's not going to happen again, not while i'm in charge of this expedition. we didn't come all the way out here just so you could satisfy your romantic inclinations." "and how about my off hours, _captain_," parker said, emphasizing the word as though it were obscene; "then may i fraternize?" "you have no off hours," hinckley said sternly. "here comes another one," compton warned in a whisper. a man, dressed in robes similar to the woman's, came from the door of the house and walked into the yard. after helping the woman to rise, he picked up the vase, and the two of them went back inside the house. he hadn't even looked at the earthmen. after awhile, parker said, "do you suppose they're both mirages?" "maybe that's it," compton said. "maybe it's all a mirage, the woman, the vase, the man, the house, maybe even the planet itself." his voice had risen in his excitement. "take it easy," hinckley advised. "let's get back to the ship before the whole planet evaporates," compton said. "go back if you like," hinckley said. "i'm going to investigate this. how about you, parker?" "okay with me. always wanted to see what makes a mirage tick." he glanced contemptuously at compton. "okay," compton said, gripping his rifle, "we'll all make fools of ourselves." "c'mon, then." hinckley led the way into the house, hesitating only briefly at the doorway. inside, a blue light flickered as the man bent over a flaming trough and poured sand into it from the silver vase. the flames leaped high, filling the room with a sweet fragrance. the man emptied the vase, rose and took it to one corner of the room. he sat down on the couch by the woman. he did not look at the earthlings. "he doesn't see us either," compton said hoarsely. he cried, "hey, you! you! listen! we're earthmen. visitors from space." his voice was explosive in the silence. the man didn't look up. the earthmen became aware of music seeping from the walls, music strange and hauntingly beautiful, played on incredible invisible instruments. "i don't like this," compton said. "i don't like it at all. why are they ignoring us? why?" "maybe they can't help it," hinckley suggested. "perhaps they actually can't see us or hear us. it's fantastic, but it's possible." "i wonder," parker mused. and before anyone could stop him, he struck the man across the face with a doubled fist. "parker!" hinckley cried. "you fool!" "that's a matter of opinion," parker said steadily, rubbing his knuckles. "i found out what i wanted to." the man had fallen beneath the blow, but recovered seconds later. there was a large red welt on his forehead, but neither he nor the woman took any notice of it. "it's incredible," compton said. "evidently we can affect them physically, even if not mentally," hinckley said. "you do something like that again, parker, and i'll shoot you. i've got the authority to do it, you know, and sometimes the urge." "i know," parker said, "but you haven't got the guts. besides, i'll behave myself." he looked intently at the young woman. "i just wanted to make certain they're real, that's all." "let's get out of here," compton suggested. "there must be some way we can get a message through to these people. perhaps someone in the village--" hinckley nodded and motioned them from the house. compton went eagerly, but parker lingered. the air outside seemed cooler now, and its freshness seemed strange after the pleasant fragrance inside the house. "go back to the ship," hinckley told parker. "compton and i'll go into the village." "i like it right here," parker said. "we might need someone at the ship," hinckley said. "that's an order." his hand caressed his rifle, as though daring parker to refuse. parker grinned contemptuously. "anything you say, _captain_. if you need any help, just yell." he turned away and walked toward the rocket. "someday i'm going to kill him," hinckley promised. he turned to compton. "c'mon, let's see what the village looks like." * * * * * the village was a replica of the first hut, multiplied. some of the huts seemed to have specialized purposes as stores or warehouses, but otherwise it was the same. people sat in the houses, listening to music or watching moving pictures swarm over their hut walls. some occasionally ventured into the street. all of them ignored the earthmen. "i don't know what to make of it," hinckley said finally. "we can touch them and hear them; they appear normal in all respects, but they seem to be operating on a different level of existence." "i don't pretend to understand it," compton said, "but i have a feeling i don't like, whenever i think about it. i'd rather meet bug-eyed monsters than this." "i know what you mean," hinckley said. "these people even though they're humanoid, are out of contact with reality--at least with reality as we know it. it's like some kind of mass hypnosis, with everyone in a trance except us." "think of how helpless these people would be," compton said. "when we turn in our report, those who come out here with unhealthy designs won't have any opposition." "we have a prime example of that on board," hinckley said disgustedly. "we'd better get back to the ship; i don't like to leave parker alone; there's no telling what he'll do." when they got back parker wasn't there. "i was afraid of this," hinckley said between clenched teeth. "maybe they've done something to him," compton suggested nervously. "that's too much to hope for. chances are, it's the other way around. if i know parker, there's only one place he'll be. c'mon." clutching his rifle, hinckley ran from the rocket. compton followed, a bit more cautiously. hinckley reached the lone house and peered into the bluelit gloom. he entered, gun ready, compton at his heels. "he's not here," hinckley said, surprised. the man and the young woman sat on the couch and casually watched pictures move across the far wall. hinckley, looking at the pictures, was not at all certain they weren't the reality and the natives of this place merely ghost images that might fade at any moment. on the wall an empire was being formed. tall buildings were raised by machinery that was unfamiliar to the earthmen. aircraft flitted across the sky like strange black birds. the buildings towered, the flying machines dove, spitting needles that exploded into blossoms of fire, and the buildings toppled into dust. people ran, screaming soundless screams. columns of smoke rose to replace the buildings. the scene shifted. great weapons were assembled and heaped carelessly. to the heap were added the skycraft and other weapons of war. the pile exploded, and the people rejoiced, clasping hands, dancing. the walls darkened. actual or symbolic? hinckley wondered. "what does it mean?" compton asked him. "i think," hinckley said, "we've just been given a short history of their race. they built up a great society here, but a warring one. finally, they outlawed all weapons in order to save themselves from total destruction. we could probably take a lesson from that." "they'll probably be worse off when the earthmen come here," compton said. "even if they could see and hear us, they wouldn't have any weapons left to defend themselves. we could loot and rape and--" "i think we'd better forget this planet exists," hinckley said slowly. "if we don't report it, no one'll ever know. it's one planet in a million planets. if we say it's empty, they'll believe it and never bother to check." "but what about parker?" "yes," hinckley said in a disturbed tone. "parker. we've got to find him before he does anything he shouldn't. he must be in one of the huts. c'mon. you take one side of the village, i'll take the other. when we find him, we'll blast off." but they didn't find him. they searched through all the buildings, peered into all the faces. "i don't like it," compton said when they met. "the people may be helpless, but that doesn't mean everything on the planet is. we've got to get out of here while we've got the chance." "take it easy," hinckley advised. "we can't leave without parker. he's probably hiding someplace." "hiding?" "hoping we'll take off and leave him alone here. he'd be perfectly safe. he could take anything he wanted--food, drink, anything--and these people couldn't raise a finger to stop him; they wouldn't even know he was here, most likely. if i know parker that's what he'd want. he wouldn't care about the people as long as he satisfied himself." "we'll never find him," compton said. "there's a forest beyond the village. if he got into that, we could search for months and not find him." hinckley shrugged. "we've got to try." night came before they returned to the rocket. hinckley shook his head in the gathering darkness. "he could be anyplace out there, damn him." "let's get out of here," compton suggested again. "leave him here, if that's what he wants. let him do what he wants here; what difference does it make if the natives don't know what's happening?" hinckley's look was cold. "we'll wait until morning," he said. "if he isn't back by then, we'll leave." but the next morning, the rays of the alien sun found the white squatting houses silent; parker had not returned. hinckley turned on the outer loudspeaker. "parker," he said. the words crashed across the still village. "parker, this is hinckley. we're blasting off in five minutes. if you're not aboard, we're leaving without you." after a few minutes, compton said, "he's not coming. he's probably dead, and so will we be if we wait long enough." "more likely, he's ignoring us," hinckley said, consulting his watch. "he's got two minutes more." two minutes later, compton said, "time's up." hinckley nodded. he switched on the rocket motors. deep within the spaceship a turbine growled; the growl rose to a whine. "i still don't like to leave him there. even though they don't know what's happening to them, i feel sorry for those people out there." he switched on the loudspeaker again. "parker," he said over it. "last chance. we're blasting off." "he's not coming," compton said shrilly, "he's not coming." hinckley touched a button. flaming rockets drove their fire in to the ground. the great spaceship shuddered, rose on a column of flame. "at last," compton sighed. "at last." "we'll have to come back, though," hinckley said. "i knew we'd have to turn in a report, and now i know we'll have to come back here to find parker, to jail him as a deserter, and perhaps worse. i hate to think of what'll happen to those people down there when the earthmen come." they looked into a viewscreen. below them, the planet dwindled and became nothing. * * * * * from the edge of the forest, parker watched the spaceship rise into the sky and disappear. he chuckled contentedly. he had won the game of hide-and-seek, and the planet was his prize. earthmen always took what they could from newly discovered planets, only this time _he_ would have first choice well ahead of any others. it would be months before an earth ship would arrive. but he could last that long easily. longer if necessary. during that time he could make up some story to account for his absence. they'd have to prove him a liar, and that would be difficult. any story he made up would certainly be no less fantastic than this planet certainly was. meanwhile, there were things to do. he took off his cumbersome spacesuit and left it in a clearing in the forest; he wouldn't need that for awhile, and it would only hamper him. he was in no mood to be delayed. there were a great many things to do, but first there was one special thing to do. there was a girl, he remembered, a young woman in a small hut at the other end of the village. he licked his lips in anticipation. there was a man with her, but there was nothing he could do--nothing at all. parker laughed loudly into the silence and trotted down the street. when he reached the other end of the village, he walked eagerly into the house. the girl sat on the couch. the man stood nearby. the walls were unmoving and the blue fire cast a cold light about the room. the earthman sat down beside the girl, and his hands reached out, unhesitating. but suddenly the man said something in an alien tongue, a sound that was like a whiplash, angry and bitter. parker felt his throat tighten. "what?" he said. "what?" he looked up into eyes alive with hate. no, that was impossible. it was only imagination. only imagination, yet for a moment--he laughed guiltily--he'd thought the man was looking directly at him. furiously, angry at himself, parker forced the thought from his mind. he reached once more for the girl, but she shrank from his touch and leaped up. the earthman followed her movement with startled, puzzled eyes, and then his bewilderment changed to a fear that held him with cold fingers. the man had taken a long silver knife from beneath his robe, and he held it in his hands so that its blade reflected the cold blue fire. his face was a mask, not pleasant to see. and he was looking at the earthman, seeing him, watching him, hating him. a sudden flash of understanding came. these people had known all the time. they stayed indoors in dim light to enhance the illusion and watch with greater secrecy, so that the movement of eyes would not betray them--and they had waited. for what? parker leaped up with a hoarse cry and ran, not waiting to find out. he was in the doorway when the silver knife caught him and slid easily between his ribs and released the breath of life that lay hidden there. before he struck the ground, he was a shell, with neither fear nor desire to trouble him. for a long moment afterward, the man stood over the still body, looking down at it with a mixture of hate and disgust. the girl joined him. he looked at her and then at the sky. "we must learn to make weapons again," he told her. "these creatures will be back, unsuspecting, thinking us helpless. next time, we must be ready!" without ceremony, they buried the earthman's body and then met others of their kind coming into the village streets. there was work to do. it was a dull, routine little world. it didn't even have a city. everything it had was in the garden by r. a. lafferty [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, march 1961. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] the protozoic recorder chirped like a bird. not only would there be life traces on that little moon, but it would be a lively place. so they skipped several steps in the procedure. the chordata discerner read _positive_ over most of the surface. there was spinal fluid on that orb, rivers of it. so again they omitted several tests and went to the cognition scanner. would it show thought on the body? naturally they did not get results at once, nor did they expect to; it required a fine adjustment. but they were disappointed that they found nothing for several hours as they hovered high over the rotation. then it came--clearly and definitely, but from quite a small location only. "limited," said steiner, "as though within a pale. as though there were but one city, if that is its form. shall we follow the rest of the surface to find another, or concentrate on this? it'll be twelve hours before it's back in our ken if we let it go now." "let's lock on this one and finish the scan. then we can do the rest of the world to make sure we've missed nothing," said stark. there was one more test to run, one very tricky and difficult of analysis, that with the extraordinary perception locator. this was designed simply to locate a source of superior thought. but this might be so varied or so unfamiliar that often both the machine and the designer of it were puzzled as to how to read the results. the e. p. locator had been designed by glaser. but when the locator had refused to read _positive_ when turned on the inventor himself, bad blood developed between machine and man. glaser knew that he had extraordinary perception. he was a much honored man in his field. he told the machine so heatedly. the machine replied, with such warmth that its relays chattered, that glaser did _not_ have extraordinary perception; he had only ordinary perception to an extraordinary degree. there is a _difference_, the machine insisted. it was for this reason that glaser used that model no more, but built others more amenable. and it was for this reason also that the owners of little probe had acquired the original machine so cheaply. and there was no denying that the extraordinary perception locator (or eppel) was a contrary machine. on earth it had read _positive_ on a number of crack-pots, including waxey sax, a jazz tootler who could not even read music. but it had also read _positive_ on ninety per cent of the acknowledged superior minds of the earth. in space it had been a sound guide to the unusual intelligences encountered. yet on suzuki-mi it had read _positive_ on a two-inch-long worm, only one of them out of billions. for the countless identical worms no trace of anything at all was shown by the test. so it was with mixed expectations that steiner locked onto the area and got a flick. he then narrowed to a smaller area (apparently one individual, though this could not be certain) and got very definite action. eppel was busy. the machine had a touch of the ham in it, and assumed an air of importance when it ran these tests. finally it signaled the result, the most exasperating result it ever produces: the single orange light. it was the equivalent of the shrug of the shoulders in a man. they called it the "you tell _me_ light." so among the intelligences there was at least one that might be extraordinary, though possibly in a crackpot way. it is good to be forewarned. * * * * * "scan the remainder of the world, steiner," said stark, "and the rest of us will get some sleep. if you find no other spot then we will go down on that one the next time it is in position under us, in about twelve hours." "you don't want to visit any of the other areas first? somewhere away from the thoughtful creature?" "no. the rest of the world may be dangerous. there must be a reason that thought is in one spot only. if we find no others then we will go down boldly and visit this." so they all, except steiner, went off to their bunks then: stark, the captain; gregory gilbert, the executive officer; wolfgang langweilig, the engineer; casper craig, super-cargo, tycoon and 51% owner of the little probe, and f. r. briton, s.j., a jesuit priest who was linguist and checker champion of the craft. dawn did not come to the moon-town. the little probe hovered stationary in the light and the moon-town came up under the dawn. then the probe went down to visit whatever was there. "there's no town," said steiner. "not a building. yet we're on the track of the minds. there's nothing but a meadow and some boscage, a sort of fountain or pool, and four streams coming out of it." "keep on towards the minds," said stark. "they're our target." "not a building, not two sticks or stones placed together. that looks like an earth-type sheep there. and that looks like an earth-lion, i'm almost afraid to say. and those two ... why, they could well be earth-people. but with a difference. where is that bright light coming from?" "i don't know, but they're right in the middle of it. land here. we'll go to meet them at once. timidity has never been an efficacious tool with us." well, they were people. and one could only wish that all people were like them. there was a man and a woman, and they were clothed either in very bright garments or in no garments at all, but only in a very bright light. "talk to them, father briton," said stark. "you are the linguist." "howdy," said the priest. he may or may not have been understood, but the two of them smiled at him, so he went on. "father briton from philadelphia," he said, "on detached service. and you, my good man, what is your handle, your monicker, your tag?" "ha-adamah," said the man. "and your daughter, or niece?" it may be that the shining man frowned momentarily at this; but the woman smiled, proving that she was human. "the woman is named hawwah," said the man. "the sheep is named sheep, the lion is named lion, the horse is named horse and the hoolock is named hoolock." "i understand. it is possible that this could go on and on. how is it that you use the english tongue?" "i have only one tongue; but it is given to us to be understood by all; by the eagle, by the squirrel, by the ass, by the english." "we happen to be bloody yankees, but we use a borrowed tongue. you wouldn't have a drink on you for a tubful of thirsty travellers, would you?" "the fountain." "ah--i see." * * * * * but the crew all drank of the fountain to be sociable. it was water, but water that excelled, cool and with all its original bubbles like the first water ever made. "what do you make of them?" asked stark. "human," said steiner. "it may even be that they are a little more than human. i don't understand that light that surrounds them. and they seem to be clothed, as it were, in dignity." "and very little else," said father briton, "though that light trick does serve a purpose. but i'm not sure they'd pass in philadelphia." "talk to them again," said stark. "you're the linguist." "that isn't necessary here, captain. talk to them yourself." "are there any other people here?" stark asked the man. "the two of us. man and woman." "but are there any others?" "how would there be any others? what other kind of people could there be than man and woman?" "but is there more than one man or woman?" "how could there be more than one of anything?" the captain was a little puzzled by this, but he went on doggedly: "ha-adamah, what do you think that we are? are we not people?" "you are not anything till i name you. but i will name you and then you can be. you are named captain. he is named priest. he is named engineer. he is named flunky." "thanks a lot," said steiner. "but are we not people?" persisted captain stark. "no. we are the people. there are no people but two. how could there be other people?" "and the damnest thing about it," muttered langweilig, "is, how are you going to prove him wrong? but it does give you a small feeling." "can we have something to eat?" asked the captain. "pick from the trees," said ha-adamah, "and then it may be that you will want to sleep on the grass. being not of human nature (which does not need sleep or rest), it may be that you require respite. but you are free to enjoy the garden and its fruits." "we will," said captain stark. they wandered about the place, but they were uneasy. there were the animals. the lion and lioness were enough to make one cautious, though they offered no harm. the two bears had a puzzling look, as though they wanted either to frolic with you or to mangle you. "if there are only two people here," said casper craig, "then it may be that the rest of the world is not dangerous at all. it looked fertile wherever we scanned it, though not so fertile as this central bit. and those rocks would bear examining." "flecked with gold, and possibly with something else," said stark. "a very promising site." "and everything grows here," added steiner. "those are earth-fruits and i never saw finer. i've tasted the grapes and plums and pears. the figs and dates are superb, the quince is as flavorsome as a quince can be, the cherries are excellent. and i never did taste such oranges. but i haven't yet tried the--" and he stopped. "if you're thinking what i'm afraid to think," said gilbert, "then it will be the test at least: whether we're having a pleasant dream or whether this is reality. go ahead and eat one." "i won't be the first to eat one. you eat." "ask him first. you ask him." "ha-adamah, is it allowed to eat the apples?" "certainly. eat. it is the finest fruit in the garden." * * * * * "well, the analogy breaks down there," said stark. "i was almost beginning to believe in the thing. but if it isn't that, then what. father briton, you are the linguist, but in hebrew does not ha-adamah and hawwah mean--?" "of course they do. you know that as well as i." "i was never a believer. but would it be possible for the exact same proposition to maintain here as on earth?" "all things are possible." and it was then that ha-adamah, the shining man, gave a wild cry: "no, no. do not approach it. it is not allowed to eat of that one!" it was the pomegranate tree, and he was warning langweilig away from it. "once more, father," said stark, "you should be the authority; but does not the idea that it was the apple that was forbidden go back only to a medieval painting?" "it does. the name of the fruit is not mentioned in genesis. in hebrew exegesis, however, the pomegranate is usually indicated." "i thought so. question the man further, father. this is too incredible." "it is a little odd. adam, old man, how long have you been here?" "forever less six days is the answer that has been given to me. i never did understand the answer, however." "and have you gotten no older in all that time?" "i do not understand what 'older' is. i am as i have been from the beginning." "and do you think that you will ever die?" "to die i do not understand. i am taught that it is a property of fallen nature to die, and that does not pertain to me or mine." "and are you completely happy here?" "perfectly happy according to my preternatural state. but i am taught that it might be possible to lose that happiness, and then to seek it vainly through all the ages. i am taught that sickness and ageing and even death could come if this happiness were ever lost. i am taught that on at least one other unfortunate world it has actually been lost." "do you consider yourself a knowledgeable man?" "yes, since i am the only man, and knowledge is natural to man. but i am further blessed. i have a preternatural intellect." then stark cut in once more: "there must be some one question you could ask him, father. some way to settle it. i am becoming nearly convinced." "yes, there is a question that will settle it. adam, old man, how about a game of checkers?" "this is hardly the time for clowning," said stark. "i'm not clowning, captain. how about it, adam? i'll give you choice of colors and first move." "no. it would be no contest. i have a preternatural intellect." "well, i beat a barber who was champion of germantown. and i beat the champion of morgan county, tennessee, which is the hottest checker center on earth. i've played against, and beaten, machines. but i never played a preternatural mind. let's just set up the board, adam, and have a go at it." "no. it would be no contest. i would not like to humble you." * * * * * they were there for three days. they were delighted with the place. it was a world with everything, and it seemed to have only two inhabitants. they went everywhere except into the big cave. "what is there, adam?" asked captain stark. "the great serpent lives there. i would not disturb him. he has long been cranky because plans he had for us did not materialize. but we are taught that should ever evil come to us, which it cannot if we persevere, it will come by him." they learned no more of the real nature of the sphere in their time there. yet all but one of them were convinced of the reality when they left. and they talked of it as they took off. "a crowd would laugh if told of it," said stark, "but not many would laugh if they had actually seen the place, or them. i am not a gullible man, but i am convinced of this: that this is a pristine and pure world and that ours and all the others we have visited are fallen worlds. here are the prototypes of our first parents before their fall. they are garbed in light and innocence, and they have the happiness that we have been seeking for centuries. it would be a crime if anyone disturbed that happiness." "i too am convinced," said steiner. "it is paradise itself, where the lion lies down with the lamb, and where the serpent has not prevailed. it would be the darkest of crimes if we or others should play the part of the serpent, and intrude and spoil." "i am probably the most skeptical man in the world," said casper craig the tycoon, "but i do believe my eyes. i have been there and seen it. it is indeed an unspoiled paradise; and it would be a crime calling to the wide heavens for vengeance for anyone to smirch in any way that perfection. "so much for that. now to business. gilbert, take a gram: ninety million square miles of pristine paradise for sale or lease. farming, ranching, exceptional opportunities for horticulture. gold, silver, iron, earth-type fauna. terms. special rates for large settlement parties. write, gram, or call in person at any of our planetary offices as listed below. ask for brochure--eden acres unlimited." * * * * * down in the great cave that old serpent, a two-legged one among whose names were "snake-oil sam," spoke to his underlings: "it'll take them fourteen days to get back with the settlers. we'll have time to overhaul the blasters. we haven't had any well-equipped settlers for six weeks. it used to be we'd hardly have time to strip and slaughter and stow before there was another batch to take care of." "i think you'd better write me some new lines," said adam. "i feel like a goof saying those same ones to each bunch." "you are a goof, and therefore perfect for the part. i was in show business long enough to know never to change a line too soon. i did change adam and eve to ha-adamah and hawwah, and the apple to the pomegranate. people aren't becoming any smarter--but they are becoming better researched, and they insist on authenticity. "this is still a perfect come-on here. there is something in human nature that cannot resist the idea of a perfect paradise. folks will whoop and holler to their neighbors to come in droves to spoil and mar it. it isn't greed or the desire for new land so much--though that is strong too. mainly it is the feverish passion to befoul and poison what is unspoiled. fortunately i am sagacious enough to take advantage of this trait. and when you start to farm a new world on a shoestring you have to acquire your equipment as you can." he looked proudly around at the great cave with its mountains and tiers of materials, heavy machinery of all sorts, titanic crates of foodstuff space-sealed; wheeled, tracked, propped, vaned and jetted vehicles; and power packs to run a world. he looked at the three dozen space ships stripped and stacked, and at the rather large pile of bone-meal in one corner. "we will have to have another lion," said eve. "bowser is getting old, and marie-yvette abuses him and gnaws his toes. and we do have to have a big-maned lion to lie down with the lamb." "i know it, eve. the lion is a very important prop. maybe one of the crackpot settlers will bring a new lion." "and can't you mix another kind of shining paint? this itches. it's hell." "i'm working on it." * * * * * casper craig was still dictating the gram: "amazing quality of longevity seemingly inherent in the locale. climate ideal. daylight or half-light. all twenty-one hours from planet delphina and from sol. pure water for all industrial purposes. scenic and storied. zoning and pre-settlement restrictions to insure congenial neighbors. a completely planned globular settlement in a near arm of our own galaxy. low taxes and liberal credit. financing our specialty--" "and you had better have an armed escort when you return," said father briton. "why in cosmos would we want an armed escort?" "it's as phony as a seven-credit note!" "you, a man of the cloth doubt it? and us ready skeptics convinced by our senses? why do you doubt?" "it is only the unbelieving who believe so easily in obvious frauds. theologically unsound, dramaturgically weak, philologically impossible, zoologically rigged, salted conspicuously with gold and shot through with anachronisms. and moreover he was afraid to play me at checkers." "what?" "if i have a preternatural intellect i wouldn't be afraid of a game of checkers with anyone. yet there was an unusual mind there somewhere; it was just that he chose not to make our acquaintance personally." "they looked at the priest thoughtfully. "but it was paradise in one way," said steiner at last. "how?" "all the time we were there the woman did not speak." spawning ground by lester del rey they weren't human. they were something more--and something less--they were, in short, humanity's hopes for survival! [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, september 1961. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] the starship _pandora_ creaked and groaned as her landing pads settled unevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. she seemed to be restless to end her fool's errand here, two hundred light years from the waiting hordes on earth. straining metal plates twanged and echoed through her hallways. captain gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. he was a big, rawboned man, barely forty; but ten years of responsibility had pressed down his shoulders and put age-feigning hollows under his reddened eyes. the starlanes between earth and her potential colonies were rough on the men who traveled them now. he shuffled toward the control room, grumbling at the heavy gravity. lieutenant jane corey looked up, nodding a blonde head at him as he moved toward the ever-waiting pot of murky coffee. "morning, bob. you need a shave." "yeah." he swallowed the hot coffee without tasting it, then ran a hand across the dark stubble on his chin. it could wait. "anything new during the night?" "about a dozen blobs held something like a convention a little ways north of us. they broke up about an hour ago and streaked off into the clouds." the blobs were a peculiarity of this planet about which nobody knew anything. they looked like overgrown fireballs, but seemed to have an almost sentient curiosity about anything moving on the ground. "and our two cadets sneaked out again. barker followed them, but lost them in the murk. i've kept a signal going to guide them back." gwayne swore softly to himself. earth couldn't turn out enough starmen in the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for training as cadets on their twelfth birthday. the two he'd drawn, kaufman and pinelli, seemed to be totally devoid of any sense of caution. of course there was no obvious need for caution here. the blobs hadn't seemed dangerous, and the local animals were apparently all herbivorous and harmless. they were ugly enough, looking like insects in spite of their internal skeletons, with anywhere from four to twelve legs each on their segmented bodies. none acted like dangerous beasts. but _something_ had happened to the exploration party fifteen years back, and to the more recent ship under hennessy that was sent to check up. * * * * * he turned to the port to stare out at the planet. the sol-type sun must be rising, since there was a dim light. but the thick clouds that wrapped the entire world diffused its rays into a haze. for a change, it wasn't raining, though the ground was covered by thick swirls of fog. in the distance, the tops of shrubs that made a scrub forest glowed yellow-green. motions around them suggested a herd of feeding animals. details were impossible to see through the haze. even the deep gorge where they'd found hennessy's carefully buried ship was completely hidden by the fog. there were three of the blobs dancing about over the grazing animals now, as they often seemed to do. gwayne stared at them for a minute, trying to read sense into the things. if he had time to study them.... but there was no time. earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load of deep-sleep stored colonists on official world 71, to check on any sign of hennessy. he'd been here a week longer than he should have stayed already. if there was no sign in another day or so of what had happened to the men who'd deserted their ship and its equipment, he'd have to report back. he would have left before, if a recent landslip hadn't exposed enough of the buried ship for his metal locators to spot from the air by luck. it had obviously been hidden deep enough to foil the detectors originally. "bob!" jane corey's voice cut through his pondering. "bob, there are the kids!" before he could swing to follow her pointing finger, movement caught his eye. the blobs had left the herd. now the three were streaking at fantastic speed to a spot near the ship, to hover excitedly above something that moved there. he saw the two cadets then, heading back to the waiting ship, just beyond the movement he'd seen through the mist. whatever was making the fog swirl must have reached higher ground. something began to heave upwards. it was too far to see clearly, but gwayne grabbed the microphone, yelling into the radio toward the cadets. they must have seen whatever it was just as the call reached them. young kaufman grabbed at pinelli, and they swung around together. then the mists cleared. under the dancing blobs, a horde of things was heading for the cadets. shaggy heads, brute bodies vaguely man-like! one seemed to be almost eight feet tall, leading the others directly toward the spacesuited cadets. some of the horde were carrying spears or sticks. there was a momentary halt, and then the leader lifted one arm, as if motioning the others forward. * * * * * "get the jeeps out!" gwayne yelled at jane. he yanked the door of the little officers' lift open and jabbed the down button. it was agonizingly slow, but faster than climbing down. he ripped the door back at the exit deck. men were dashing in, stumbling around in confusion. but someone was taking over now--one of the crew women. the jeeps were lining up. one, at the front, was stuttering into life, and gwayne dashed for it as the exit port slid back. there was no time for suits or helmets. the air on the planet was irritating and vile smelling, but it could be breathed. he leaped to the seat, to see that the driver was doctor barker. at a gesture, the jeep rolled down the ramp, grinding its gears into second as it picked up speed. the other two followed. there was no sign of the cadets at first. then gwayne spotted them; surrounded by the menacing horde. seen from here, the things looked horrible in a travesty of manhood. the huge leader suddenly waved and pointed toward the jeeps that were racing toward him. he made a fantastic leap backwards. others swung about, two of them grabbing up the cadets. the jeep was doing twenty miles an hour now, but the horde began to increase the distance, in spite of the load of the two struggling boys! the creatures dived downward into lower ground, beginning to disappear into the mists. "follow the blobs," gwayne yelled. he realized now he'd been a fool to leave his suit; the radio would have let him keep in contact with the kids. but it was too late to go back. the blobs danced after the horde. barker bounced the jeep downward into a gorge. somewhere the man had learned to drive superlatively; but he had to slow as the fog thickened lower down. then it cleared to show the mob of creatures doubling back on their own trail to confuse the pursuers. there was no time to stop. the jeep plowed through them. gwayne had a glimpse of five-foot bodies tumbling out of the way. monstrously coarse faces were half hidden by thick hair. a spear crunched against the windshield from behind, and gwayne caught it before it could foul the steering wheel. it had a wickedly beautiful point of stone. the creatures vanished as barker fought to turn to follow them. the other jeeps were coming up, by the sound of their motors, but too late to help. they'd have to get to the group with the cadets in a hurry or the horde would all vanish in the uneven ground, hidden by the fog. a blob dropped down, almost touching gwayne. he threw up an instinctive hand. there was a tingling as the creature seemed to pass around it. it lifted a few inches and drifted off. abruptly, barker's foot ground at the brake. gwayne jolted forward against the windshield, just as he made out the form of the eight-foot leader. the thing was standing directly ahead of him, a cadet on each shoulder. the wheels locked and the jeep slid protestingly forward. the creature leaped back. but gwayne was out of the jeep before it stopped, diving for the figure. it dropped the boys with a surprised grunt. * * * * * the arms were thin and grotesque below the massively distorted shoulders, but amazingly strong. gwayne felt them wrench at him as his hands locked on the thick throat. a stench of alien flesh was in his nose as the thing fell backwards. doc barker had hit it seconds after the captain's attack. its head hit rocky ground with a dull, heavy sound, and it collapsed. gwayne eased back slowly, but it made no further move, though it was still breathing. another jeep had drawn up, and men were examining the cadets. pinelli was either laughing or crying, and kaufman was trying to break free to kick at the monster. but neither had been harmed. the two were loaded onto a jeep while men helped barker and gwayne stow the bound monster on another before heading back. "no sign of skull fracture. my god, what a tough brute!" barker shook his own head, as if feeling the shock of the monster's landing. "i hope so," gwayne told him. "i want that thing to live--and you're detailed to save it and revive it. find out if it can make sign language or draw pictures. i want to know what happened to hennessy and why that ship was buried against detection. this thing may be the answer." barker nodded grimly. "i'll try, though i can't risk drugs on an alien metabolism." he sucked in on the cigarette he'd dug out, then spat sickly. smoke and this air made a foul combination. "bob, it still makes no sense. we've scoured this planet by infra-red, and there was no sign of native villages or culture. we should have found some." "troglodytes, maybe," gwayne guessed. "anyhow, send for me when you get anything. i've got to get this ship back to earth. we're overstaying our time here already." the reports from the cadets were satisfactory enough. they'd been picked up and carried, but no harm had been done them. now they were busy being little heroes. gwayne sentenced them to quarters as soon as he could, knowing their stories would only get wilder and less informative with retelling. if they could get any story from the captured creature, they might save time and be better off than trying to dig through hennessy's ship. that was almost certainly spoorless by now. the only possible answer seemed to be that the exploring expedition and hennessy's rescue group had been overcome by the aliens. it was an answer, but it left a lot of questions. how could the primitives have gotten to the men inside hennessy's ship? why was its fuel dumped? only men would have known how to do that. and who told these creatures that a space ship's metal finders could be fooled by a little more than a hundred feet of solid rock? they'd buried the ship cunningly, and only the accidental slippage had undone their work. maybe there would never be a full answer, but he had to find something--and find it fast. earth needed every world she could make remotely habitable, or mankind was probably doomed to extinction. * * * * * the race had blundered safely through its discovery of atomic weapons into a peace that had lasted two hundred years. it had managed to prevent an interplanetary war with the venus colonists. it had found a drive that led to the stars, and hadn't even found intelligent life there to be dangerous on the few worlds that had cultures of their own. but forty years ago, observations from beyond the solar system had finally proved that the sun was going to go nova. it wouldn't be much of an explosion, as such things go--but it would render the whole solar system uninhabitable for millenia. to survive, man had to colonize. and there were no worlds perfect for him, as earth had been. the explorers went out in desperation to find what they could; the terraforming teams did what they could. and then the big starships began filling worlds with colonists, carried in deep sleep to conserve space. almost eighty worlds. the nearest a four month journey from earth and four more months back. in another ten years, the sun would explode, leaving man only on the footholds he was trying to dig among other solar systems. maybe some of the strange worlds would let men spread his seed again. maybe none would be spawning grounds for mankind in spite of the efforts. each was precious as a haven for the race. if this world could be used, it would be nearer than most. if not, as it now seemed, no more time could be wasted here. primitives could be overcome, maybe. it would be ruthless and unfair to strip them of their world, but the first law was survival. but how could primitives do what these must have done? he studied the spear he had salvaged. it was on a staff made of cemented bits of smaller wood from the scrub growth, skillfully laminated. the point was of delicately chipped flint, done as no human hand had been able to do for centuries. "beautiful primitive work," he muttered. jane pulled the coffee cup away from her lips and snorted. "you can see a lot more of it out there," she suggested. he went to the port and glanced out. about sixty of the things were squatting in the clearing fog, holding lances and staring at the ship. they were perhaps a thousand yards away, waiting patiently. for what? for the return of their leader--or for something that would give the ship to them? gwayne grabbed the phone and called barker. "how's the captive coming?" barker's voice sounded odd. "physically fine. you can see him. but--" gwayne dropped the phone and headed for the little sick bay. he swore at doc for not calling him at once, and then at himself for not checking up sooner. then he stopped at the sound of voices. there was the end of a question from barker and a thick, harsh growling sound that lifted the hair along the nape of gwayne's neck. barker seemed to understand, and was making a comment as the captain dashed in. the captive was sitting on the bunk, unbound and oddly unmenacing. the thick features were relaxed and yet somehow intent. he seemed to make some kind of a salute as he saw gwayne enter, and his eyes burned up unerringly toward the device on the officer's cap. "haarroo, cabbaan!" the thing said. * * * * * "captain gwayne, may i present your former friend, captain hennessy?" barker said. there was a grin on the doctor's lips, but his face was taut with strain. the creature nodded slowly and drew something from the thick hair on its head. it was the golden comet of a captain. "he never meant to hurt the kids--just to talk to them," barker cut in quickly. "i've got some of the story. he's changed. he can't talk very well. says they've had to change the language around to make the sounds fit, and he's forgotten how to use what normal english he can. but it gets easier as you listen. it's hennessy, all right. i'm certain." gwayne had his own ideas on that. it was easy for an alien to seize on the gold ornament of a captive earthman, even to learn a little english, maybe. but hennessy had been his friend. "how many barmaids in the cheshire cat? how many pups did your oldest kid's dog have? how many were brown?" the lips contorted into something vaguely like a smile, and the curiously shaped fingers that could handle no human-designed equipment spread out. three. seven. zero. the answers were right. by the time the session was over, gwayne had begun to understand the twisted speech from inhuman vocal cords better. but the story took a long time telling. when it was finished, gwayne and barker sat for long minutes in silence. finally gwayne drew a shuddering breath and stood up. "is it possible, doc?" "no," barker said flatly. he spread his hands and grimaced. "no. not by what i know. but it happened. i've looked at a few tissues under the microscope. the changes are there. it's hard to believe about their kids. adults in eight years, but they stay shorter. it can't be a hereditary change--the things that affect the body don't change the germ plasm. but in this case, what changed hennessy is real, so maybe the fact that the change is passed on is as real as he claims." gwayne led the former hennessy to the exit. the waiting blobs dropped down to touch the monstrous man, then leaped up again. the crowd of monsters began moving forward toward their leader. a few were almost as tall as hennessy, but most were not more than five feet high. the kids of the exploring party.... * * * * * back in the control room, gwayne found the emergency release levers, set the combinations and pressed the studs. there was a hiss and gurgle as the great tanks of fuel discharged their contents out onto the ground where no ingenuity could ever recover it to bring life to the ship again. he'd have to tell the men and women of the crew later, after he'd had time to organize things and present it all in a way they could accept, however much they might hate it at first. but there was no putting off giving the gist of it to jane. "it was the blobs," he summarized it. "they seem to be amused by men. they don't require anything from us, but they like us around. hennessy doesn't know why. they can change our cells, adapt us. before men came, all life here had twelve legs. now they're changing that, as we've seen. "and they don't have to be close to do it. we've all been outside the hull. it doesn't show yet--but we're changed. in another month, earth food would kill us. we've got to stay here. we'll bury the ships deeper this time, and earth won't find us. they can't risk trying a colony where three ships vanish, so we'll just disappear. and they'll never know." nobody would know. their children--odd children who matured in eight years--would be primitive savages in three generations. the earth tools would be useless, impossible for the hands so radically changed. nothing from the ship would last. books could never be read by the new eyes. and in time, earth wouldn't even be a memory to this world. she was silent a long time, staring out of the port toward what must now be her home. then she sighed. "you'll need practice, but the others don't know you as well as i do, bob. i guess we can fix it so they'll believe it all. and it's too late now. but we haven't really been changed yet, have we?" "no," he admitted. damn his voice! he'd never been good at lying. "no. they have to touch us. i've been touched, but the rest could go back." she nodded. he waited for the condemnation, but there was only puzzlement in her face. "why?" and then, before he could answer, her own intelligence gave her the same answer he had found for himself. "the spawning ground!" it was the only thing they could do. earth needed a place to plant her seed, but no world other than earth could ever be trusted to preserve that seed for generation after generation. some worlds already were becoming uncertain. here, though, the blobs had adapted men to the alien world instead of men having to adapt the whole planet to their needs. here, the strange children of man's race could grow, develop and begin the long trek back to civilization. the gadgets would be lost for a time. but perhaps some of the attitudes of civilized man would remain to make the next rise to culture a better one. "we're needed here," he told her, his voice pleading for the understanding he couldn't yet fully give himself. "these people need as rich a set of bloodlines as possible to give the new race strength. the fifty men and women on this ship will be needed to start them with a decent chance. we can't go to earth, where nobody would believe or accept the idea--or even let us come back. we have to stay here." she smiled then and moved toward him, groping for his strength. "be fruitful," she whispered. "be fruitful and spawn and replenish an earth." "no," he told her. "replenish the stars." but she was no longer listening, and that part of his idea could wait. some day, though, their children would find a way to the starlanes again, looking for other worlds. with the blobs to help them, they could adapt to most worlds. the unchanged spirit would lead them through all space, and the changing bodies would claim worlds beyond numbering. some day, the whole universe would be a spawning ground for the children of men! the contact point by jack sharkey _somewhere on mars there had to be a meeting of the minds...._ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, january 1961. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] lieutenant lloyd spotted the first alien in the ruins of the strange red martian city on the second day of exploration. his first impulse was to call out to the other men--but then, afraid his voice would startle the creature down at the end of the rubble-strewn street, he silently unholstered his military service pistol and crept forward toward the back (he hoped it was the back) of the alien, his breath rasping behind his faceplate. he was a mere ten paces short of his goal when loose gravel beneath his heavy boot betrayed him. even in the thin martian atmosphere, the sound was a sharp one. the creature spun about, one appendage gripping the haft of a slim crystal tube. he froze there, watching lloyd with odd oval-shaped eyes, yellow-orange in color. lloyd's thumb slid back the safety catch on his automatic, slowly, carefully. then the creature lowered the tube and its wide lipless mouth curled in what had to be a grin. "ookl okkl?" it said distinctly. lloyd looked into the alien eyes and was pleased to see the intelligence within their depths. he reholstered his pistol and held out his hand. "lieutenant lloyd of the _sherlock ii_," he said. the alien hesitated, then inserted the four flaccid stalk-things at the end of its "arm" into lloyd's hand. they shook these clasped appendages solemnly, then withdrew their own with relief. "boy, am i glad you martians are friendly!" lloyd laughed. "when i saw you up the street, i envisioned a full-scale guerrilla attack and--damn, you're not getting a word of this, are you?" in reply, the creature pointed to its thoracic region and said, "ulkay blet." it pointed to lloyd again and enunciated carefully, "lieutenant lloyd." "glad to know you, ulkay. or do i call you by both names? or just mister blet?" "ulkay," the alien said. "blet," he added. "ulkay blet," he clarified, with an almost earthlike shrug. * * * * * it was strictly a take-your-pick name, lloyd saw. he took his pick. "ulkay, tell me, are you the last of your race, or are there others of your kind still left alive on mars?" ulkay just stared, friendly but lost. lloyd tried again. "i--" he pointed to himself--"am here with more like me--" he pointed to himself, held up one finger to ulkay, then pointed in a long sweep behind himself toward the end of the street and held up four fingers. his only success was an envious look from ulkay at lloyd's extra finger. "hoo boy!" said lloyd, smacking his brow in chagrin. "this is a rough one. look, ulkay, you hold on and don't be scared." he laid a hand upon ulkay's shoulder for assurance, then turned his head and shouted, "_here! this way, men!_" the sound of heavy booted feet began, far up the cluttered street. lloyd felt ulkay grow tense. "it's all right," he said slowly, soothingly, as one talks to a horse or dog, knowing the tone conveys what the words cannot. ulkay seemed to sense the assurance and relaxed a little. in another minute, kroner, harrison, tandy and craig were beside their commanding officer, gaping with unconcealed glee at the slightly under five-foot form of ulkay, who stared right back, steadily if not boldly. "our first contact with a martian!" kroner exulted, his voice metallic through the oxygen helmet. "does he talk?" harrison wanted to know immediately. "where are his friends?" asked tandy, frowning. craig, unable to think of a question, was silent. but it was to craig that lloyd addressed his first statement. "he speaks a language. his name is ulkay blet. think you can rig a written or oral rosetta stone for us, craig?" craig shuffled his feet bashfully. "i can try." "is he _alone_, though?" said tandy, irked that his question had gone unanswered. "his buddies might be around here waiting to pick us off. this is their city, after all, and we're trespassers." lloyd shook his head dubiously. "i think you're wrong, tandy. ulkay's got some sort of weapon with him and he put it away without trying to use it. if there are others, they're probably intelligent and friendly, too." "unless i'm mistaken," kroner remarked dryly, "we're about to put your statement to the test." "what--?" said lloyd, and looked where kroner was now facing. seven creatures like ulkay were on their way toward the group, each bearing one of those long crystal rods. at first glance, they all looked alike to lloyd. then, as they drew nearer, he saw that they were as different from one another as he from his own men. "ulkay," he said softly, "would you tell _your_ friends that we're _their_ friends? they look kind of trigger-happy and...." ulkay, catching lloyd's meaning from the way he looked toward the approaching squad, turned and babbled something at them. they hesitated. then all put their crystal rods into short scabbards hanging from their belts. * * * * * behind him, lloyd heard tandy's sigh of relief. he turned to craig. "you and ulkay see if you can set up something to bridge the language barrier, while kroner and i go back to the ship and radio the news back to earth." "okay," said craig. he was the expedition's linguist, but extremely shy, considering he was the liaison man with any aliens they encountered. "i'll start them with numbers; that's usually a good kicking-off place, and then i can work into body parts, relationships, and--" "whoa," said lloyd. craig could be talkative on his professional topics. "i don't want the details, just some results. kroner and i should be back in about an hour. i'll talk with ulkay then, if you can show me how to reach him." he and kroner strode off to their ship, set onto the cold red sands a mile away. it would take nearly three minutes for a message to reach earth, and another three, at least, before the reply came back, so lloyd, dispensing with formality, sent, "this is lieutenant lloyd of the _sherlock ii_. we have landed successfully on mars, discovered a decaying martian city, and eight inhabitants, so far. if you read me, set up a recorder and signal me when you are ready to tape my report." he sat back in the chair with a sigh. "there, that cuts out a lot of fuss," he remarked to kroner. "and the less time spent away from our men, the better." "yes," said lloyd. "how does this thing--well, how does it _feel_ to you?" "too easy," said kroner without hesitation. "of course, there's no reason why it should feel at all _hard_, is there?" "no," lloyd admitted reluctantly. "no reason at all why we shouldn't establish contact with these martians, find them friendly, get our information about their city, way of life, and so on, and go back safely to earth and home. but--" "yeah," said kroner. "'_but!_'" "they _act_ friendly." "maybe that's all it is, an act. but if they're not going to be chums, why go to all this trouble? you know what i mean, sir?" lloyd leaned back in the padded chair and scratched his short-cropped head. "beats me. and yet i can't help feeling uncomfortable about--there's the blinker. earth's ready to record." he dropped the conversation and set himself to telling earth of developments so far. * * * * * "is it some sort of taboo or what?" lloyd demanded irritably of craig. it was three hours since he and kroner had returned from the ship, and communication with ulkay and his bunch had been established--but with one annoying and unexpected feature. "i can't seem to find out, sir," craig said miserably. "he's responsive on almost every other topic, but when i ask him about the city here, he says he can't tell me. i've asked him why, but his answer escapes me." "when he says he 'can't' tell you, does he mean he is physically unable to, or forbidden to?" "i'm not even sure if it's '_can't_.' it might just be '_won't_.' but i _am_ sure it's a negative of some sort. they shake their heads and nod same as we do for yes and no." "let's see that list," lloyd said, his voice tired. craig held it out, but kroner took it. "you've looked at it ten times in the past hour, sir," he apologized. "let me have a whack at it." lloyd started to argue the point, then gave it up. "okay, sergeant. see what you can make of it. if you can ask a clear question of ulkay and company with those choice bits of language, i'll put in your name for a decoration." kroner scanned the list, noting with fading hope the vocabulary he had to work with. "wish we had more verbs!" he said. "they're the hardest, always," said craig. "active ones are easy enough, though the tenses and irregularities can be tough, but the non-active--the intransitive--can't be demonstrated the way actions and things can." "well, we've got _mars_, and _city_, and--that's a good one--_men_. that's them?" craig nodded. "hey, weren't there _eight_ of those guys a while back? we're two short!" "what?" said lloyd, looking over at the aliens. "you're right, kroner! ulkay's gone, and--let me see--that heavy-set one with the big shoulder-span. where the hell--?" tandy and harrison came up at that moment. "sir," tandy looked disgusted, "we can't find out a thing from the rubble. no heavy radiation present, so it kind of discounts an atomic war, although--" "never mind the surmises for now," said lloyd. "tell me just what you know for sure." one side of tandy's mouth twisted. "yes, sir. very little of the rubble seems to be due to any _heavy_ damage. i mean, no buildings have collapsed or anything like that. it's just as though time had crumbled off a brick hole here and there, and nobody bothered sweeping the street." "the city gates were knocked down," lloyd protested. * * * * * tandy shook his head. "not knocked down, sir--fallen. it's my opinion this place is just obsolete, a sort of last-year's model that needs a new coat of paint and an engine overhaul. except for all the dust, sand and crumbled material, it's in pretty good shape." "you mean it's unfashionable but serviceable?" said kroner. "like a spring-driven phonograph?" "that's about it, sergeant," tandy nodded. "anything else, you're going to have to ask the martians themselves." "which brings me back to my earlier apprehension," said kroner. "i don't like the idea of two of those guys being missing. hold on--there they come! and with a small cannon, unless i miss my guess!" the earthmen were all on their feet now, facing the pair of aliens who lugged a heavy contraption with a tubular nozzle on the front of it up the street toward the waiting group. "it can't be a cannon," said lloyd, puzzled. "why would they bother, when hand-weapons would do?" by that time, ulkay and his crony had the gadget set down on a tripod base and were turning dials on its side. the earthmen, every one of them, loosened pistols in their holsters, but only tandy actually brought his out. then they jumped as a metallic voice came out through the gadget's nozzle. "men!" said the voice. "do not possess fear." "a miracle!" gasped craig. "it's a translating machine!" he rushed forward to view this thing, his face glowing with delight. lloyd, recovering from his start, saw that ulkay was speaking into a tube at the side of the machine, and realized that his translated voice had been the one heard. "ulkay," he said, going toward the machine, "does this work both ways?" ulkay nodded and pointed to the nozzle on the front. "this," said his voice from the nozzle, "picks up as well as recepts." "_receives_," said craig automatically. "--as receives," said the nozzle automatically. "there will exist some few ungrammatics but it will mostly make sensible." "man, this simplifies everything!" lloyd exclaimed. "ulkay, do you mind if we ask you some questions?" ulkay, via the nozzle, replied with dignity, "you and your craig have questioned with relentless of us. can we be allowed the similar luck?" "i beg your pardon," lloyd said sincerely. "go ahead and ask." "these transparents you wear upon your faces, why?" asked the nozzle, in a mechanical monotone. "the air." lloyd gestured with a sweep of his arm. "it is too thin to support our kind of life without these masks." "strange," said the nozzle. "and where are your women?" "we did not bring them with us," said lloyd. "we made this trip strictly to find you." ulkay stared at lloyd a long moment. then the nozzle asked, "what trip?" "to your city," said lloyd. "to your planet." * * * * * ulkay frowned, then fiddled a moment with a dial on the side of the machine. the nozzle spoke slowly this time. "repeat your response. it was not a sensible." "we came here. to mars. to find you." lloyd said it carefully and distinctly, feeling very uneasy. "but this is earth," said the nozzle loudly. "to _you_ it is earth," said lloyd, with a tolerant smile. "i think we're having a semantic problem, ulkay. each planet's self-name would translate as 'earth.' this machine cannot make the proper distinction." "no, no, no!" came the nozzle's voice. "you say your planet is called 'earth'. why do you now call it 'mars'?" "we don't," said lloyd, bewildered. "we call _this_ planet mars. _our_ planet is called earth--" "sir!" kroner grasped his arm tightly. "wait a minute! i think i get it!... ulkay! is this _your_ planet?" "no," said the nozzle. "is it not _yours_?" "numbers!" said craig. "ask him by the _number_ of the planet from the sun." "we are from earth, the third planet from the sun," said lloyd, holding up three fingers for emphasis. "where are you from?" "we are from earth," said the nozzle, "the second planet from the sun." ulkay held up two digits. "venusians?" tandy squawked, while harrison doubled up in a fit of laughter as the idea sank in. in another moment, both groups--ulkay's and lloyd's--had joined him in a tension-breaking paroxysm of mirth. "where are _you_ parked?" asked kroner, the first to recover some semblance of control. ulkay, still chuckling, pointed in the opposite direction to that in which the _sherlock ii_ was standing. "outside the west gate of the city," said the nozzle. "where are you?" "outside the east gate. we thought you were martians--people of this, the fourth planet." "and we in turn thought you were martians," said ulkay, through the nozzle. there was more laughter in both groups. "for pete's sake!" muttered lloyd. "for pete's sake! look, ulkay, why don't both our groups get some rest and we'll make our inspection tour of the city tomorrow, the two groups together?" ulkay, after a babble of discussion with his men, was in agreement with this plan, and they and the earthmen shared a large room within one of the old abandoned buildings. "will your air supply not run out?" ulkay queried. "not on these," lloyd explained. "they're not tank masks; they're compression masks. a hydraulic system inside the suit keeps a compressor running in this gadget on our backs, as long as we're moving about. martian air is thin but non-poisonous." "but if you sleep?" "the air runs low, which makes us fidget, which pumps more air through the compressors," lloyd explained. ulkay expressed admiration at the cleverness of earth scientists, and then joined his men in slumber. the earthmen, tired and happy, fell soundly asleep. * * * * * it was still dark, the chill purple dark of mars at night, when lloyd awakened abruptly. his body was tense and his mind keenly alert. something was wrong. he felt it, but couldn't place the source of his uneasiness. he sat up and looked about him. starlight, coming in bright pinpoints through a high arched window, glinted reassuringly off the helmets of his men, lying in pools of deep shadow all about him. he looked for ulkay and his group, and saw their smaller silhouettes huddled on the stone flooring. feeling a little better, he lay down once more and tried to fall back to sleep. but there was a gnawing, nagging something in his mind that would not allow sleep to come. "what's bothering me?" he asked himself. "is it something about ulkay and his bunch? the only really odd thing about them is that they don't wear any breathing equipment in this thin air, right? and didn't ulkay explain that the atmosphere on venus is just as thin? it didn't jibe with harrison's opinion about atmospheres, but harrison hasn't actually _been_ to venus, after all, and the cloudiness still keeps its atmosphere a secret from earth's spectroscopes, right?" his mind assured him that this was right and he felt a little better, but not much. "so what's eating me? a hunch? intuition? or just alien-planet nerves?" he went on. "why should i wake up in the middle of the night feeling scared? aren't my men all present and accounted for? aren't they sleeping quietly, just as they should be?" feeling annoyed with his own nebulous fears, lloyd sat up again and looked over the groups, ulkay's and his own. as he watched, kroner grunted in his sleep and rolled over. tandy's helmet emitted gentle snoring noises. harrison and craig lay more quietly, but their chests could be seen, even in that dim light, rising and falling normally. lloyd excoriated his imagination for worrying him--it had fed him a quick suggestion that perhaps his companions' masks had been slit, suffocating them silently to death. "i _must_ trust ulkay; it's necessary," said lloyd to himself. "i can't let these groundless fears spoil future relations between earth and venus. the venusians are friendly and intelligent, and not really odd-looking, once you discount the number of digits on their hands and a few unearthly color schemes on their torsos. so what am i scared of?" cold touched his spine, shocking him into alertness, as he isolated his fear. he rolled over and shook kroner awake with barbaric callousness. "huh? wha?" said kroner, sitting up. "sergeant," said lloyd, trying to confide his fear to the other man, "when we got here, we were nervous about making contact with aliens, right?" "yeah," kroner said sleepily. "but it turned out okay, sir, didn't it?" he shook his groggy head. "i mean, ulkay and his bunch are okay, aren't they?" "yeah," said lloyd shakily. "_they_ are fine--but, kroner, they're not the right aliens!" it took kroner a moment to get it. when he did, he came awake with a jolt. "and we haven't even posted a guard!" lloyd, his worries abetted by kroner's response, got to his feet, shouting, "_mayday! mayday!_" his men--and ulkay's a few seconds later--were up, everybody snapping on portable torches and setting the chamber alive with flashing lights. "ulkay!" lloyd said, rushing to the venusian. "if _you're_ not the martians, and _we're_ not the martians, then there is still a chance that someone _else_ is the martians!" ulkay yelled something to his men, and lloyd watched with horror as each venusian fumbled at an empty scabbard upon his belt. lloyd's hand shot to his holster and found there just what his men were finding in their own holsters: nothing. "do you think we've discovered the martians?" said kroner, his voice hoarse with fright. then the glaring overhead lights of the room came on, revealing the surrounding phalanx of hard-eyed, armed creatures. "unless i'm mistaken," lloyd said, "the martians have discovered us." an instant later, there was nothing in the center of the alien room but half-molten air compressors and the charred, smoking remains of a funny-looking little nozzle, still echoing a bilingual chorus of agony. dust unto dust by lyman d. hinckley it was alien but was it dead, this towering, sinister city of metal that glittered malignantly before the cautious advance of three awed space-scouters. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories summer 1955. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] martin set the lifeboat down carefully, with all the attention one usually exercises in a situation where the totally unexpected has occurred, and he and his two companions sat and stared in awed silence at the city a quarter-mile away. he saw the dull, black walls of buildings shouldering grimly into the twilight sky, saw the sheared edge where the metal city ended and the barren earth began ... and he remembered observing, even before they landed, the too-strict geometry imposed on the entire construction. he frowned. the first impression was ... malignant. wass, blond and slight, with enough nose for three or four men, unbuckled his safety belt and stood up. "shall we, gentlemen?" and with a graceful movement of hand and arm he indicated the waiting city. martin led wass, and the gangling, scarecrow-like rodney, through the stillness overlaying the barren ground. there was only the twilight sky, and harsh and black against it, the convoluted earth. and the city. malignant. he wondered, again, what beings would choose to build a city--even a city like this one--in such surroundings. the men from the ship knew only the surface facts about this waiting geometric discovery. theirs was the eleventh inter-planetary flight, and the previous ten, in the time allowed them for exploration while this planet was still close enough to their own to permit a safe return in their ships, had not spotted the city. but the eleventh expedition had, an hour ago, with just thirteen hours left during which a return flight could be safely started. so far as was known, this was the only city on the planet--the planet without any life at all, save tiny mosses, for a million years or more. and no matter which direction from the city a man moved, he would always be going north. "hey, martin!" rodney called through his helmet radio. martin paused. "wind," rodney said, coming abreast of him. he glanced toward the black pile, as if sharing martin's thoughts. "that's all we need, isn't it?" martin looked at the semi-transparent figures of wind and dust cavorting in the distance, moving toward them. he grinned a little, adjusting his radio. "worried?" rodney's bony face was without expression. "gives me the creeps, kind of. i wonder what they were like?" wass murmured, "let us hope they aren't immortal." three feet from the edge of the city martin stopped and stubbed at the sand with the toe of his boot, clearing earth from part of a shining metal band. wass watched him, and then shoved aside more sand, several feet away. "it's here, too." martin stood up. "let's try farther on. rodney, radio the ship, tell them we're going in." rodney nodded. after a time, wass said, "here, too. how far do you think it goes?" martin shrugged. "clear around the city? i'd like to know what it is--was--for." "defense," rodney, several yards behind, suggested. "could be," martin said. "let's go in." the three crossed the metal band and walked abreast down a street, their broad soft soled boots making no sound on the dull metal. they passed doors and arches and windows and separate buildings. they moved cautiously across five intersections. and they stood in a square surrounded by the tallest buildings in the city. rodney broke the silence, hesitantly. "not--not very big. is it?" wass looked at him shrewdly. "neither were the--well, shall we call them, people? have you noticed how low everything is?" rodney's laughter rose, too. then, sobering--"maybe they crawled." a nebulous image, product of childhood's vivid imagination, moved slowly across martin's mind. "all right!" he rapped out--and the image faded. "sorry," rodney murmured, his throat working beneath his lantern jaw. then--"i wonder what it's like here in the winter when there's no light at all?" "i imagine they had illumination of some sort," martin answered, dryly. "if we don't hurry up and get through this place and back to the ship, we're very likely to find out." rodney said quickly, "i mean outside." "out there, too, rodney, they must have had illumination." martin looked back along the straight, metal street they'd walked on, and past that out over the bleak, furrowed slopes where the ship's lifeboat lay ... and he thought everything outside the city seemed, somehow, from here, a little dim, a little hazy. he straightened his shoulders. the city was alien, of course, and that explained most of it ... most of it. but he felt the black city was something familiar, yet twisted and distorted. "well," wass said, his nose wrinkling a bit, "now that we're here...." "pictures," martin decided. "we have twelve hours. we'll start here. what's the matter, wass?" the blond man grinned ruefully. "i left the camera in the lifeboat." there was a pause. then wass, defensively--"it's almost as if the city didn't want to be photographed." martin ignored the remark. "go get it. rodney and i will be somewhere along this street." wass turned away. martin and rodney started slowly down the wide metal street, at right angles to their path of entrance. again martin felt a tug of twisted, distorted familiarity. it was almost as if ... they were human up to a certain point, the point being, perhaps, some part of their minds.... alien things, dark and subtle, things no man could ever comprehend. parallel evolution on two inner planets of the same system? somewhere, sometime, a common ancestor? martin noted the shoulder-high doors, the heavier gravity, remembered the inhabitants of the city vanished before the thing that was to become man ever emerged from the slime, and he decided to grin at himself, at his own imagination. rodney jerked his scarecrow length about quickly, and a chill sped up martin's spine. "what's the matter?" the bony face was white, the gray eyes were wide. "i saw--i thought i saw--something--moving--" anger rose in martin. "you didn't," he said flatly, gripping the other's shoulder cruelly. "you couldn't have. get hold of yourself, man!" rodney stared. "the wind. remember? there isn't any, here." "... how could there be? the buildings protect us now. it was blowing from the other direction." rodney wrenched free of martin's grip. he gestured wildly. "that--" "martin!" wass' voice came through the receivers in both their radios. "martin, i can't get out!" * * * * * rodney mumbled something, and martin told him to shut up. wass said, more quietly, "remember that metal band? it's all clear now, and glittering, as far as i can see. i can't get across it; it's like a glass wall." "we're trapped, we're trapped, they are--" "shut up, rodney! wass, i'm only two sections from the edge. i'll check here." martin clapped a hand on rodney's shoulder again, starting him moving, toward the city's edge, past the black, silent buildings. the glittering band was here, too, like a halo around a silhouette. "no go," martin said to wass. he bit at his lower lip. "i think it must be all around us." he was silent for a time, exploring the consequences of this. then--"we'll meet you in the middle of the city, where we separated." walking with rodney, martin heard wass' voice, flat and metallic through the radio receiver against his ear. "what do you suppose caused this?" he shook his head angrily, saying, "judging by reports of the rest of the planet, it must have been horribly radioactive at one time. all of it." "man-made radiation, you mean." martin grinned faintly. wass, too, had an active imagination. "well, alien-made, anyhow. perhaps they had a war." wass' voice sounded startled. "anti-radiation screen?" rodney interrupted, "there hasn't been enough radiation around here for hundreds of thousands of years to activate such a screen." wass said coldly, "he's right, martin." martin crossed an intersection, rodney slightly behind him. "you're both wrong," he said. "we landed here today." rodney stopped in the middle of the metal street and stared down at martin. "the wind--?" "why not?" "that would explain why it stopped so suddenly, then." rodney stood straighter. when he walked again, his steps were firmer. they reached the center of the city, ahead of the small, slight wass, and stood watching him labor along the metal toward them. wass' face, martin saw, was sober. "i tried to call the ship. no luck." "the shield?" wass nodded. "what else?" "i don't know--" "if we went to the roof of the tallest building," rodney offered, "we might--" martin shook his head. "no. to be effective, the shield would have to cover the city." wass stared down at the metal street, as if he could look through it. "i wonder where it gets its power?" "down below, probably. if there is a down below." martin hesitated. "we may have to...." "what?" rodney prompted. martin shrugged. "let's look." he led the way through a shoulder-high arch in one of the tall buildings surrounding the square. the corridor inside was dim and plain, and he switched on his flashlight, the other two immediately following his example. the walls and the rounded ceiling of the corridor were of the same dull metal as the buildings' facades, and the streets. there were a multitude of doors and arches set into either side of the corridor. it was rather like ... entering a gigantic metal beehive. martin chose an arch, with beyond it a metal ramp, which tilted downward, gleaming in the pale circle of his torch. a call from rodney halted him. "back here," the tall man repeated. "it looks like a switchboard." the three advanced to the end of the central corridor, pausing before a great arch, outlined in the too-careful geometrical figures martin had come to associate with the city builders. the three torches, shining through the arch, picked out a bank of buttons, handles ... and a thick rope of cables which ran upward to vanish unexpectedly in the metal roof. "is this it," wass murmured, "or an auxiliary?" martin shrugged. "the whole city's no more than a machine, apparently." "another assumption," wass said. "we have done nothing but make assumptions ever since we got here." "what would you suggest, instead?" martin asked calmly. rodney furtively, extended one hand toward a switch. "no!" martin said, sharply. that was one assumption they dared not make. rodney turned. "but--" "no. wass, how much time have we?" "the ship leaves in eleven hours." "eleven hours," rodney repeated. "eleven hours!" he reached out for the switch again. martin swore, stepped forward, pulled him back roughly. he directed his flashlight at rodney's thin, pale face. "what do you think you're doing?" "we have to find out what all this stuff's for!" "going at it blindly, we'd probably execute ourselves." "we've got to--" "no!" then, more quietly--"we still have eleven hours to find a way out." "ten hours and forty-five minutes," wass disagreed softly. "minus the time it takes us to get to the lifeboat, fly to the ship, land, stow it, get ourselves aboard, and get the big ship away from the planet. and captain morgan can't wait for us, martin." "you too, wass?" "up to the point of accuracy, yes." martin said, "not necessarily. you go the way the wind does, always thinking of your own tender hide, of course." rodney cursed. "and every second we stand here doing nothing gives us that much less time to find a way out. martin--" "make one move toward that switchboard and i'll stop you where you stand!" * * * * * wass moved silently through the darkness beyond the torches. "we all have guns, martin." "i'm holding mine." martin waited. after a moment, wass switched his flashlight back on. he said quietly, "he's right, rodney. it would be sure death to monkey around in here." "well...." rodney turned quickly toward the black arch. "let's get out of here, then!" martin hung back waiting for the others to go ahead of him down the metal hall. at the other arch, where the ramp led downward, he called a halt. "if the dome, or whatever it is, is a radiation screen there must be at least half-a-dozen emergency exits around the city." rodney said, "to search every building next to the dome clean around the city would take years." martin nodded. "but there must be central roads beneath this main level leading to them. up here there are too many roads." wass laughed rudely. "have you a better idea?" wass ignored that, as martin hoped he would. he said slowly, "that leads to another idea. if the band around the city is responsible for the dome, does it project down into the ground as well?" "you mean _dig_ out?" martin asked. "sure. why not?" "we're wearing heavy suits and bulky breathing units. we have no equipment." "that shouldn't be hard to come by." martin smiled, banishing wass' idea. rodney said, "they may have had their digging equipment built right in to themselves." "anyway," martin decided, "we can take a look down below." "in the pitch dark," wass added. martin adjusted his torch, began to lead the way down the metal ramp. the incline was gentle, apparently constructed for legs shorter, feet perhaps less broad than their own. the metal, without mark of any sort, gleamed under the combined light of the torches, unrolling out of the darkness before the men. at length the incline melted smoothly into the next level of the city. martin shined his light upward, and the others followed his example. metal as smooth and featureless as that on which they stood shone down on them. wass turned his light parallel with the floor, and then moved slowly in a circle. "no supports. no supports anywhere. what keeps all that up there?" "i don't know. i have no idea." martin gestured toward the ramp with his light. "does all this, this whole place, look at all familiar to you?" rodney's gulp was clearly audible through the radio receivers. "here?" "no, no," martin answered impatiently, "not just here. i mean the whole city." "yes," wass said dryly, "it does. i'm sure this is where all my nightmares stay when they're not on shift." martin turned on his heel and started down a metal avenue which, he thought, paralleled the street above. and rodney and wass followed him silently. they moved along the metal, past unfamiliar shapes made more so by gloom and moving shadows, past doors dancing grotesquely in the three lights, past openings in the occasional high metal partitions, past something which was perhaps a conveyor belt, past another something which could have been anything at all. the metal street ended eventually in a blank metal wall. the edge of the city--the city which was a dome of force above and a bowl of metal below. after a long time, wass sighed. "well, skipper...?" "we go back, i guess," martin said. rodney turned swiftly to face him. martin thought the tall man was holding his gun. "to the switchboard, martin?" "unless someone has a better idea," martin conceded. he waited. but rodney was holding the gun ... and wass was.... then--"i can't think of anything else." they began to retrace their steps along the metal street, back past the same dancing shapes of metal, the partitions, the odd windows, all looking different now in the new angles of illumination. martin was in the lead. wass followed him silently. rodney, tall, matchstick thin, even in his cumbersome suit, swayed with jaunty triumph in the rear. martin looked at the metal street lined with its metal objects and he sighed. he remembered how the dark buildings of the city looked at surface level, how the city itself looked when they were landing, and then when they were walking toward it. the dream was gone again for now. idealism died in him, again and again, yet it was always reborn. but--the only city, so far as anyone knew, on the first planet they'd ever explored. and it had to be like this. nightmares, wass said, and martin thought perhaps the city was built by a race of beings who at some point twisted away from their evolutionary spiral, plagued by a sort of racial insanity. no, martin thought, shaking his head. no, that couldn't be. viewpoint ... his viewpoint. it was the haunting sense of familiarity, a faint strain through all this broad jumble, the junkpile of alien metal, which was making him theorize so wildly. then wass touched his elbow. "look there, martin. left of the ramp." light from their torches was reflected, as from glass. "all right," rodney said belligerently into his radio. "what's holding up the procession?" martin was silent. wass undertook to explain. why not, after all? martin asked himself. it was in wass' own interest. in a moment, all three were standing before a bank of glass cases which stretched off into the distance as far as the combined light of their torches would reach. "seeds!" wass exclaimed, his faceplate pressed against the glass. martin blinked. he thought how little time they had. he wet his lips. wass' gloved hands fumbled awkwardly at a catch in the nearest section of the bank. martin thought of the dark, convoluted land outside the city. if they wouldn't grow there.... or had they, once? "don't, wass!" torchlight reflected from wass' faceplate as he turned his head. "why not?" they were like children.... "we don't know, released, what they'll do." "skipper," wass said carefully, "if we don't get out of this place by the deadline we may be eating these." martin raised his arm tensely. "opening a seed bank doesn't help us find a way out of here." he started up the ramp. "besides, we've no water." rodney came last up the ramp, less jaunty now, but still holding the gun. his mind, too, was taken up with childhood's imaginings. "for a plant to grow in this environment, it wouldn't need much water. maybe--" he had a vision of evil plants attacking them, growing with super-swiftness at the air valves and joints of their suits "--only the little moisture in the atmosphere." * * * * * they stood before the switchboard again. martin and wass side by side, rodney, still holding his gun, slightly to the rear. rodney moved forward a little toward the switches. his breathing was loud and rather uneven in the radio receivers. martin made a final effort. "rodney, it's still almost nine hours to take off. let's search awhile first. let this be a last resort." rodney jerked his head negatively. "no. now, i know you, martin. postpone and postpone until it's too late, and the ship leaves without us and we're stranded here to eat seeds and gradually dehydrate ourselves and god only knows what else and--" he reached out convulsively and yanked a switch. martin leaped, knocking him to the floor. rodney's gun skittered away silently, like a live thing, out of the range of the torches. the radio receivers impersonally recorded the grating sounds of rodney's sobs. "sorry," martin said, without feeling. he turned quickly. "wass?" the slight, blond man stood unmoving. "i'm with you, martin, but, as a last resort it might be better to be blown sky high than to die gradually--" martin was watching rodney, struggling to get up. "i agree. as a last resort. we still have a little time." rodney's tall, spare figure looked bowed and tired in the torchlight, now that he was up again. "martin, i--" martin turned his back. "skip it, rodney," he said gently. "water," wass said thoughtfully. "there must be reservoirs under this city somewhere." rodney said, "how does water help us get out?" martin glanced at wass, then started out of the switchboard room, not looking back. "it got in and out of the city some way. perhaps we can leave the same way." down the ramp again. "there's another ramp," wass murmured. rodney looked down it. "i wonder how many there are, all told." martin placed one foot on the metal incline. he angled his torch down, picking out shadowy, geometrical shapes, duplicates of the ones on the present level. "we'll find out," he said, "how many there are." eleven levels later rodney asked, "how much time have we now?" "seven hours," wass said quietly, "until take-off." "one more level," martin said, ignoring the reference to time. "i ... think it's the last." they walked down the ramp and stood together, silent in a dim pool of artificial light on the bottom level of the alien city. rodney played his torch about the metal figures carefully placed about the floor. "martin, what if there are no reservoirs? what if there are cemeteries instead? or cold storage units? maybe the switch i pulled--" "rodney! stop it!" rodney swallowed audibly. "this place scares me...." "the first time i was ever in a rocket, it scared me. i was thirteen." "this is different," wass said. "built-in traps--" "they had a war," martin said. wass agreed. "and the survivors retired here. why?" martin said, "they wanted to rebuild. or maybe this was already built before the war as a retreat." he turned impatiently. "how should i know?" wass turned, too, persistent. "but the planet was through with them." "in a minute," martin said, too irritably, "we'll have a sentient planet." from the corner of his eye he saw rodney start at that. "knock it off, wass. we're looking for reservoirs, you know." they moved slowly down the metal avenue, between the twisted shadow shapes, looking carefully about them. rodney paused. "we might not recognize one." martin urged him on. "you know what a man-hole cover looks like." he added dryly, "use your imagination." they reached the metal wall at the end of the avenue and paused again, uncertain. martin swung his flashlight, illuminating the distorted metal shapes. wass said, "all this had a purpose, once...." "we'll disperse and search carefully," martin said. "i wonder what the pattern was." "... the reservoirs, wass. the pattern will still be here for later expeditions to study. so will we if we don't find a way to get out." their radios recorded rodney's gasp. then--"martin! martin! i think i've found something!" martin began to run. after a moment's hesitation, wass swung in behind him. "here," rodney said, as they came up to him, out of breath. "here. see? right here." three flashlights centered on a dark, metal disk raised a foot or more from the floor. "well, they had hands." with his torch wass indicated a small wheel of the same metal as everything else in the city, set beside the disk. from its design martin assumed that the disk was meant to be grasped and turned. he wondered what precisely they were standing over. "well, skipper, are you going to do the honors?" martin kneeled, grasped the wheel. it turned easily--almost too easily--rotating the disk as it turned. suddenly, without a sound, the disk rose, like a hatch, on a concealed hinge. the three men, clad in their suits and helmets, grouped around the six-foot opening, shining their torches down into the thing that drifted and eddied directly beneath them. rodney's sudden grip on martin's wrist nearly shattered the bone. "martin! it's all alive! it's moving!" martin hesitated long enough for a coil to move sinuously up toward the opening. then he spun the wheel and the hatch slammed down. he was shaking. * * * * * after a time he said, "rodney, wass, it's dust, down there. remember the wind? air currents are moving it." rodney sat down on the metal flooring. for a long time he said nothing. then--"it wasn't.... why did you close the hatch then?" martin did not say he thought the other two would have shot him, otherwise. he said merely, "at first i wasn't sure myself." rodney stood up, backing away from the closed hatch. he held his gun loosely, and his hand shook. "then prove it. open it again." martin went to the wheel. he noticed wass was standing behind rodney and he, too, had drawn his gun. the hatch rose again at martin's direction. he stood beside it, outlined in the light of two torches. for a little while he was alone. then--causing a gasp from wass, a harsh expletive from rodney--a tenuous, questing alien limb edged through the hatch, curling about martin, sparkling in ten thousand separate particles in the torchlight, obscuring the dimly seen backdrop of geometrical processions of strange objects. martin raised an arm, and the particles swirled in stately, shimmering spirals. rodney leaned forward and looked over the edge of the hatch. he said nothing. he eyed the sparkling particles swirling about martin, and now, himself. "how deep," wass said, from his safe distance. "we'll have to lower a flashlight," martin answered. rodney, all eagerness to be of assistance now, lowered a rope with a torch swinging wildly on the end of it. the torch came to rest about thirty feet down. it shone on gently rolling mounds of fine, white stuff. martin anchored the rope soundly, and paused, half across the lip of the hatch to stare coldly at wass. "you'd rather monkey with the switches and blow yourself to smithereens?" wass sighed and refused to meet martin's gaze. martin looked at him disgustedly, and then began to descend the rope, slowly, peering into the infinite, sparkling darkness pressing around him. at the bottom of the rope he sank to his knees in dust, and then was held even. he stamped his feet, and then, as well as he was able, did a standing jump. he sank no farther than his knees. he sighted a path parallel with the avenue above, toward the nearest edge of the city. "i think we'll be all right," he called out, "as long as we avoid the drifts." rodney began the descent. looking up, martin saw wass above rodney. "all right, wass," martin said quietly, as rodney released the rope and sank into the dust. "not me," the answer came back quickly. "you two fools go your way, i'll go mine." "wass!" there was no answer. the light faded swiftly away from the opening. the going was hard. the dust clung like honey to their feet, and eddied and swirled about them until the purifying systems in their suits were hard-pressed to remove the fine stuff working in at joints and valves. "are we going straight?" rodney asked. "of course," martin growled. there was silence again, the silence of almost-exhausted determination. the two men lifted their feet out of the dust, and then laboriously plunged forward, to sink again to the knees, repeated the act, times without number. then wass broke his silence, taunting. "the ship leaves in two hours, martin. two hours. hear me, rodney?" martin pulled his left foot from the sand and growled deep in his throat. ahead, through the confusing patterns of the sparkling dust, his flashlight gleamed against metal. he grabbed rodney's arm, pointed. a grate. rodney stared. "wass!" he shouted. "we've found a way out!" their radios recorded wass' laughter. "i'm at the switchboard now, martin. i--" there was a tinkle of breaking glass, breaking faceplate. the grate groaned upward and stopped. wass babbled incoherently into the radio for a moment, and then he began to scream. martin switched off his radio, sick. he turned it on again when they reached the opening in the metal wall. "well?" "i've been trying to get you," rodney said, frantically. "why didn't you answer?" "we couldn't do anything for him." rodney's face was white and drawn. "but he did this for us." "so he did," martin said, very quietly. rodney said nothing. then martin said, "did you listen until the end?" rodney nodded, jerkily. "he pulled three more switches. i couldn't understand it all. but--martin, dying alone like that in a place like this--!" martin crawled into the circular pipe behind the grate. it tilted up toward the surface. "come on, rodney. last lap." an hour later they surfaced about two hundred yards away from the edge of the city. behind them the black pile rose, the dome of force shimmering, almost invisible, about it. ahead of them were the other two scoutships from the mother ship. martin called out faintly, pulling rodney out of the pipe. crew members standing by the scoutships, and at the edge of the city, began to run toward them. "radio picked you up as soon as you entered the pipe," someone said. it was the last thing martin heard before he collapsed. transcriber's note: this etext was produced from amazing stories august 1960. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. _they didn't think of themselves as pioneers. they simply had a job to do. and if they had to give up money, or power, or love--or life itself--that was the_ fee of the frontier by h. b. fyfe illustrator emsh * * * * * from inside the dome, the night sky is a beautiful thing, even though deimos and phobos are nothing to brag about. if you walk outside, maybe as far as the rocket field, you notice a difference. past the narrow developed strip around the dome, the desert land lies as chilled and brittle as it did for eons before earthmen reached mars. the sky is suddenly raw and cruel. you pull your furs around your nose and check your oxygen mask, and wish you were _inside_ something, even a thin wall of clear plastic. i like to stand here, though, and look out at it, just thinking about how far those ships grope out into the dark nowadays, and about the men who have gone out there on a few jets and a lot of guts. i knew a bunch of them ... some still out there, i guess. [illustration] there was a time when nearly everything had to be rocketed out from earth, before they organized all those chemical tricks that change the martian crops to real food. domes weren't fancy then. adequate, of course; no sense in taking chances with lives that cost so much fuel to bring here. still, the colonies kept growing. where people go, others follow to live off them, one way or another. it began to look like time for the next step outward. oh, the asteroids ... sure. not them. i did a bit of hopping there in my own time. in fact--on account of conditions beyond my choice and control--i spent too much time on the wrong side of the hull shields. one fine day, the medics told me i'd have to be a martian for the rest of my life. even the one-way hop back to earth was "not recommended." so i used to watch the ships go out. i still remember one that almost missed leaving. _the martian merchant._ what joker thought that would be a good name for an exploring ship i can't imagine, but it always happens that way. i was starting my cross-country tractor line then, and had just made the run from schiaparelli to asaph dome, which was not as nice as it is now but still pretty civilized for the time. they had eight or ten bars, taverns, and other amusements, and were already getting to be quite a city. one of the taverns near the western airlock was named the _stardust_, and i was approaching, measuring the sand in my throat, when these spacers came out. the first one in sight was a blocky, dark-haired fellow. he came rolling through the door with a man under each arm. just as i got there, he made it to his feet somehow and cracked their heads together exactly hard enough to bring peace. he acted like a man used to handling things with precision. he glanced quickly at me out of a square, serious face, then plunged back through the splintered door toward the breakup inside. * * * * * in a moment, he came out again, with two friends who looked the worse for wear. the tall, lean youngster wore a junior pilot's bands on the sleeves of his blue uniform. his untidy hair was rumpled, as if someone had been hanging onto it while in the process of giving him the shiner. the other one was shorter and a good deal neater. even with his tunic ripped down the front, he gave the impression of making it his life business to be neat. he was turning gray at the temples and growing a little bulge under his belt, which lent a dignity worthy of his trim mustache and expression of deferential politeness. he paused briefly to hurl an empty bottle at someone's head. "better take the alley there," i told the blocky one, on impulse. "it'll bring you out at the tractor lot and i'll give you a lift to your ship." he wasted no time on questions, just grabbed his friends and disappeared before the crowd came out. i walked around a couple of corners and back to my tractor bus. this lot was only a clear space inside the number four airlock. at that time, two or three tractors came in every day from the mines or other domes. most of the traffic was to and from the spaceport. "who's that?" asked a low voice from the shadows. "tony lewis," i answered. the three of them moved into the dim light from the airlock guardpost. "thanks for the steer," said the blocky one, "but we can stay till morning." he seemed as fresh as if he had just landed. his friends were a trifle worn around the edges. "keep playing that rough," i said, "and you may not make it to morning." he just grinned. "we have to," he said, "or the ship can't blast off." "oh, you three make the ship go, huh?" "just about. this is hugh konnel, the third pilot; the gent with the dignified air is ron meadows, the steward. i'm jim howlet, and i look after the fuel system." i admitted that the ship could hardly do without them. howlet's expression suggested that he was searching his memory. "lewis ..." he murmured. "i've heard of tony lewis somewhere. you a spacer?" "used to be," i told him. "did some piloting in the belt." young konnel stopped fingering his eye. "oh, i've heard of you," he said. "even had to read some of your reports." * * * * * after that, one thing led to another, with the result that i offered to find somewhere else to relax. we walked south from the airlock, past a careless assortment of buildings. in those days, there was not much detailed planning of the domes. what was necessary for safety and for keeping the air thicker and warmer than outside was done right; the remaining space was grabbed by the first comers. streets tended to be narrow. as long as an emergency truck could squeeze through at moderate speed, that was enough. the buildings grew higher toward the center of the dome, but i stopped while they were still two stories. the outside of jorgensen's looked like any other flimsy construction under the dome. we had just passed a row of small warehouses, and the only difference seemed to be the lighted sign at the front. "we can stop at the bar inside while we order dinner," i said. "sounds good," said howlet. "i could go for a decent meal. rations on an exploring ship run more to calories than taste." the pilot muttered something behind us. howlet turned his head. "don't worry about it, hughie," he retorted. "it'll be all over the dome by tomorrow anyway." "but they said not to--" "mr. lewis won't say anything, and he's not the only spacer who'll guess it." * * * * * it was easy to figure out. ships did little exploring in the belt now--plenty of untouched rocks there but nothing really unknown. "exploring" could only mean that a hop to jupiter was in the works at last. there had already been rumors about a few wide swings outside the belt. well, it was just about time. i would have liked to go too, and it was more than just a spacer's curiosity. to my mind, man _had_ to move out in space. being only halfway in control of his own planetary system was no state to be found in by the first interstellar visitors. that is a meeting bound to happen sooner or later. it would be better for the human race to be able to do the visiting, i thought. the inside of jorgensen's always surprised new visitors to asaph dome. it was different from anything on earth, and yet not too much like the real mars either. that way, jorgensen hoped to catch both the sandeaters and the tourists. the latter came to rough it in local color, the former to dream of a better world. "hey! look at the stars over the bar!" exclaimed howlet. to begin with, the bar was of pinkish sandstone, smoothed and covered by a coating of plastic. behind it, instead of less imaginative mirrors or bottle displays, jorgensen had had some drifter paint a night desert: all dull pink and bronze crags smothering in sand under a black sky. the stars twinkled like glass beads, which they were. lights were dim enough to hide the martian austerity of the metal furnishings. "the earth tourists spend a lot of time here," i told the trio. "seems they'd rather look at that sky than the real one outside the dome." the dining room was for the souls of the locals, who could admire the desert more conveniently than find a good meal. it was mostly green and white, with a good deal of the white being crystal. in the corners stood fake pine trees which jorgensen had repainted every month; but what drew the sandeaters was the little fountain in the middle of the room. real water! of course, it was the same gallon or two pumped around and around, but clear, flowing water is a sight on mars. when the muddy trickles in the canals began to make you feel like diving in for a swim, you stopped in at jorgensen's to watch the fountain while his quiet, husky waiters served your dinner most efficiently. * * * * * "say, this is a cut or two above ship chow," admitted konnel when the food arrived. "what's that? music too?" "they have a trio that plays now and then," i told him. "sometimes a singer too, when not much is going on in the back room." "back room?" howlet caught up the words. "never mind. what would you do right now with a million? assuming you could beat the wheel or the other games in the first place." "do they use ... er ... real money?" asked meadows, cocking an eyebrow. "real as you like," i assured him. "it collects in these places. i guess lots of sandeaters think they might pick up a first-class fare back to earth." "do they?" inquired konnel, chewing on his steak. the string trio, which had been tuning up, eased into a quiet song as he spoke. we listened as the question hung in the air, and i decided that the funny feeling under my belt was homesickness, all the stranger because i owned three homes not too far from the martian equator. "as far as i know," i answered, "the luck seems to run to those who can't go back anyway, for one reason or another. the ones just waiting for a lucky night to go home rich ... are still waiting." the door to the back room opened, letting through a blend of talk and small mechanical noises. it also emitted a strikingly mismatched couple. the girl was dark-haired and graceful, though not very tall. she wore a lavender gown that showed a good deal of trim back as she turned to walk toward the musicians, and what the gown overlooked the walk demonstrated. the man was fat enough to make him seem short until he approached. his face and baldish dome were desert-reddened, and his eyebrows were faded to invisibility. jorgensen. nodding casually to various diners, he noticed the new faces at our table. he ambled over lightly for one of his bulk, and it became apparent that he was far from being blubbery. his belly stuck out, but he could probably knock the wind out of you with it. "hello, tony!" he said in a wheezy tenor. "introducing some friends to the best hamburger joint on mars?" then he leaned on the back of konnel's chair and told a couple of his old prospecting yarns to make sure everybody was happy, while the girl began to sing with the trio. she had hardly enough voice to be heard over jorgensen's stories. i noticed konnel straining to listen. finally, jorgensen saw it too. leaving howlet and meadows grinning at a highly improbable adventure, he slapped the boy on the shoulder. "i see you noticed lilac malone, boy. like to buy her coffee?" "c-coffee?" stuttered konnel. "made with water," i reminded him. "awful waste here. like champagne." "i'll tell her she's invited," said jorgensen, waggling a finger at her. "the fellows are going out in the morning," i tried to head him off. "they don't have much time--" "all the more reason to meet lilac while they can!" we watched her finish her song. she had rhythm, and the lavender dress swirled cutely around her in the martian gravity; but, of course, lilac would never have made a singer on earth. her voice was more good-natured than musical. she arrived with the coffee, said "hello" to me, waved good-bye to jorgensen's back, and set out to get acquainted with the others. catching howlet's wink, and suspecting that he was used to getting konnel back to space-ships, i relaxed and offered to show meadows the back room. he muttered something about his gray hairs, but came along after an amused glance at lilac and konnel. * * * * * jorgensen's gambling room was different from the bar and dining room as they were from each other. decorations were simple. drapes of velvety synthetic, dyed the deep green that martian colonists like, covered the walls. indirect lighting gave a pretty gleam to the metal gadgets on the tables. because they used a heavier ball, roulette looked about the same as on earth, and the same went for the dice games. "interesting," meadows murmured, feeling in his pocket. he pointed a thumb at the _planets_ table. it was round, with a small, rectangular projection for the operator's controls and calculator. in the nine differently colored circular tracks, rolled little globes representing the planets. these orbits were connected by spirals of corresponding colors, symbolic of ship orbits swooping inward or outward to other planets. "you pick yourself two planets," i explained. "for better odds, pick a start and a destination. the man throws his switch and each little ball is kicked around its groove by a random number of electrical impulses." "and how do i win?" "say you pick venus-to-saturn. see that silver spiral going out from venus and around the table to the orbit of saturn? well, if venus stops within that six-inch zone where the spiral starts _and_ if saturn is near where it ends, you scoop in the stardust." meadows fingered his mustache as he examined the table. "i ... ah ... suppose the closer you come, the more you win, eh?" "that's the theory. most people are glad to get anything back. it's honest enough, but the odds are terrific." a couple of spacers made room for us, and i watched meadows play for a few minutes. the operator grinned when he saw me watching. he had a lean, pale face and had been an astrogator until his heart left him in need of martian gravity. "no coaching, tony!" he kidded me. "stop making me look like a partner in the place!" i answered. "thought one night you were going to be.... no winners, gentlemen. next bets!" * * * * * the spheres had come to rest with pluto near one end of a lavender spiral and mercury touching the inner end, but no one had had the insanity to bet that way. meadows began to play inner planet combinations that occasionally paid, though at short odds. he made a bit on some near misses, and i decided to have a drink while he lost it. i found howlet, konnel, and lilac malone in the bar admiring the red-bronze landscape. when he heard about meadows, howlet smiled. "if it isn't fixed, they better prepare to abandon," he laughed. "people look at that face and won't believe he always collects half the ship's pay." lilac saw a chance to do her duty, and suggested that we all go in to support meadows. i stayed with my drink until jorgensen drifted in to have a couple with me and talk of the old days. after a while, one of his helpers came up and murmured something into his big red ear. he shrugged and waved his hand. the next time it happened, about twenty minutes later, i was on the point of matching him with a story about a petrified ancient martian that the domers at schiaparelli dug out of a dry canal. jorgensen lowered his faded eyebrows and strode off like a bear on egg-shells, leaving me there with the unspoken punch line about what they were supposed to have dug up with the martian. _well, that build-up was wasted_, i thought. * * * * * quite a number of sandeaters, as time passed, seemed to drift in and out of the back room. finally, howlet showed up again. "how'd you make out?" i asked when he had a drink in his hand. "i left my usual deposit," he grinned, "but you ought to see meadows! is he ever plugging their pipes! he ran mercury to pluto, and it paid off big." "it ought to; no one ever makes it." "he did it _twice_! plus other combinations. with him making out our daily menus, i'll never know why i'm not lucky too. know what he's doing?" i lifted an eyebrow. "he's lending money to every loafer that puts the beam on him. but the guy has to show a non-transferrable ticket for passage to earth." "darn few can," i grunted. "that's why he keeps sending them out with the price of one and the promise to stake them when they get back. i never saw such expressions!" at that point, jorgensen sailed through the curtained doorway between the bar and back room. a craggy, desert look had settled on his red moon-face. he introduced me to two men with him as if someone were counting down from ten. "glad to meet you and mr. howlet," said the one called mcnaughton. i recognized "mr. v'n uh" as van etten, a leading citizen of the dome who had been agitating with mcnaughton and others of the operating committee to form a regular police department. jorgensen seemed to have something else on his mind. "howlet, how about having a word with your shipmate?" "what's he done wrong?" asked howlet blandly. jorgensen scowled at a pair of baggy-seated sandeaters who strode through the front door with pale green tickets clutched in their hands. they sniffed once at the bar, but followed their stubbled chins into the back room at max acc. "i don't say it's wrong," growled jorgensen, glaring after the pair. "it just makes the place look bad." "oh, it's good advertising, jorgy," laughed mcnaughton. "people were forgetting that game could be beaten. now, mr. howlet--" jorgensen talked him under. "it's not losing a little money that i mind--" some of the drink i was sneaking slipped down the wrong way. "well, it's _not_!" bellowed jorgensen. "but if they all pick up the broadcast that this is where to get a free ride home, i'll have just another sand trap here." howlet shrugged and put down his glass. van etten nudged me and made a face, so i got up first. "never mind," i said. "being the one that took him in there, i'll check." two more men came through the front door. the big one looked like a bodyguard. the one with the dazed look carried a small metal case that could be unfolded into a portable desk. he went up to jorgensen and asked where he could set up a temporary ticket office for interplanet. while i was watching over my shoulder, three or four sandeaters coming out of the back room shoved me aside to get at him. the last i saw before leaving was van etten shushing jorgensen while mcnaughton grabbed howlet by the tunic zipper for a sales talk. inside, after getting through the crowd at the _planets_ table, i could see that a number of betters were following meadows' plays, making it that much worse for jorgensen. even konnel had a small pile before him, although he seemed to be losing some of lilac's attention to meadows. while the little spheres spun in their orbits, the steward counted out money into twitching palms, wrote names on slips of paper, and placed bets. somehow, he hit a winner every five or six bets, which kept his stack growing. * * * * * i joggled lilac's elbow and indicated konnel. "how about taking him out for a drink so an old customer can squeeze in for a few plays?" i said. the money-glow faded gradually from her eyes as she focused on me. she took her time deciding; but from the way she snuggled up to konnel to whisper in his ear, it looked as if she might really be stuck on him. he winked at me. such a gasp went up as we changed places that i thought my cuff must have brushed pluto, but it was just meadows making a long-odds hop from earth to uranus. the operator no longer even flinched before punching the distances and bet on his little computer, and groping in his cash drawer to pay off. * * * * * i stood there a few minutes, wondering if the game could be fixed after all. still, the man who invented it also made encoding machines for the earth space fleet. meadows must be having a run of blind luck--no time to interrupt. on my way out, howlet caught me at the door of the bar. "how about some coffee?" he asked. "we'll have to start back soon. you'll be surprised at the time. dining room still open?" "always. okay, let's sober up and watch the fountain." only two or three women and a dozen men sat in the restaurant now. the part-time musicians had disappeared for a few hours of sleep before their usual jobs. we ordered a thermos pot of coffee and howlet asked me about mcnaughton. "i guess it was on the level," he said when i described the man's committee position. "he got a boost out of how they had to patch up some troublemaker he knew, after that bar fight we had. wanted to make me chief cop here." "some domes have regular police forces already," i confirmed. "so he said. claimed a lot of police chiefs have been elected as mayors. then he said that someday there will be a martian assembly, and men with a start in dome politics will be ready for it, and so on." "he's exactly right," i admitted. "when do you figure to start?" "maybe the next time i pass through." he winked. "if it's still open." i relaxed and grinned at him. somehow, i liked his looks just then. "you shouldn't be gone too long. it's a good spot to put your ladder down." he helped himself to more coffee and stared into his cup. i knew--the watches near the end of a hop when you wondered about the dead, oily air, when the ones off watch kept watching the astrogator's expression, when you got the idea it was time to come in out of the dark before you made that one slip. _how many pick their landing?_ i thought. _how many never know how close they come to making their mistake, or being a statistic in somebody else's?_ "why the double trance?" asked meadows. he brought with him a vague memory of departing chatter and tramping feet in the background. howlet shoved out a chair for him. "everything okay?" asked jorgensen, bustling up. "buy anyone a drink?" "what have they got there ... coffee?" asked meadows, sniffing. "jimmy!" yelled jorgensen to a waiter. "pot of coffee for ron! hot!" he slapped meadows' shoulder and took his glowing red face away. "what makes him your buddy?" i asked meadows. "in the end, i missed mercury by ten inches and they got most of it back!" then was no answer to that. he must have been half a million ahead. "what about the sandeaters you promised to stake?" asked howlet, grinning like a man who has seen it happen before but still enjoys it. "some of them helped me lose it," said meadows. "now they will all just have to use those tickets, i suppose. where's hughie and his little friend? coffee all around and we'll get on course, eh?" "thought he was with you," answered howlet. "i'll look in the bar," i volunteered, remembering the kid had left with more of a roll than meadows had now. a casual search of the bar and back room revealed both nearly empty, a natural condition just before dawn. no one had seen konnel, apparently, so i went outside and squinted along the dim, narrow street. four or five drunks, none tall enough to be konnel, were slowly and softly singing their way home. the door slid open behind me and the other two came out quickly. "oh, there you are! i asked around too," said howlet in a low voice. "can you trust that jorgensen? they wouldn't let me in the office behind the back room." "he's a better sport than he looks," i said. "i wonder," murmured meadows. "he looked queer when i was so far ahead. or maybe one of his huskies got ideas about keeping a handy hostage...." howlet suddenly looked dangerous. i gathered that he thought something of the boy, and was heating up to the door-smashing stage. "let's check one other place," i suggested, "before we make a mistake." * * * * * my starting off fast up the street left him the choice of coming quietly or staying to wonder. they both came. i could feel them watching me. i turned right into a narrow street, went along it about fifty yards, and paused where it was crossed by a still narrower alley. hoping i remembered the way, i groped along the lefthand branch of the alley. a trace of light had begun to soften the sky over the dome, but had not yet seeped down to ground level. howlet's soft footsteps trailed me. i knocked on what seemed to be the right door. there was no answer--only to be expected. i hammered again. "no one aboard, it would appear," murmured meadows. it was meant as a question. i shrugged in the darkness and banged longer and louder. finally, listening at the flimsy panel, i detected muffled footsteps. the door opened a crack. "it's tony lewis, lilac." * * * * * the black opening widened, until she must have seen the two behind me. she wore a thin robe that glimmered silver in the dim light. "send the boy out, lilac," i said. "why should i?" that much was good; she might have pretended not to have him there. "he has to catch his ship, lilac." behind me, i heard howlet stir uneasily. the door began to close, but my foot was in the track. howlet could not see that. "don't shut it, sister," he said, "or we'll smash it down!" he could have too, in about ten seconds, the way they build on mars. "you wanna get yourself lynched?" lilac warned him. "over a--on account of _you_?" "shut up, howlet!" i interrupted. "let me talk to the lady alone!" he must have understood my tone; he let meadows pull him away a few steps. "and less of the 'lady' business outa _you_," said lilac, but low enough to keep it private. "we both know mars, so let's take things the way they are." "that's why i came, lilac. taking things that way means he has to go." "what're you gonna say? he has a job to do, or some such canal dust?" "not exactly. they might pick up another third pilot. they might manage somehow without any. but he won't like himself much, later, for missing his chance." she swung the edge of the door back and forth in impatient little jerks. finally, she took her hand off the latch and let it roll free. she still blocked the opening, however, and i waited. "look, tony," she said after a pause, "what makes you think i couldn't settle down with him? i never figured to be an ... entertainer ... all my life. with the stake i already got together, we could start something. a mine, maybe, or a tractor service like yours. mars is growing--" "pull your head inside the dome and breathe right!" i snapped at her. "i don't mind your dreaming, lilac, but there isn't any more time." it was light enough now to see her stiffen. she glared at me. "you tryin' to say i couldn't make a home here? you know better, tony. some of the best known women on mars didn't exactly come here first-class!" i held up my hand. she was beginning to get loud. "it wouldn't matter if you were a princess. it's not what he'd think of you; it's what he'd wonder about himself, piloting a sand-buggy instead of a rocket." in the alley, one of the spacers shuffled his feet impatiently. i hurried on, hoping to clinch it before she turned stubborn. "_you_, at least, ought to understand men better than most, lilac. maybe it doesn't make sense, but it would be smarter to grab him after he's had his share of space instead of before." it was hard to breathe without sounding loud in the stillness. just as i had to swallow or choke, lilac's shoulders slumped an inch or two. "i'll wake him up," she said in a tired voice. feeling as if i had struck her, i stepped back into the alley. a few minutes later, konnel slipped out and shut the door behind him. no one said a word. from the set of his shoulders, it seemed that he might be just as glad the alley was dim; but he simply trailed along behind. * * * * * we walked back to number four airlock in a silence that had me counting the footsteps. when we reached the tractor parking lot, i cleared my throat. "wait a minute. i'll warm up my sand-saucer and give you a lift to your ship." "maybe we won't need to impose on you any more, tony," said howlet. "looks like those machines over there are going out." i followed his gesture and, by luck, caught the eye of a driver i knew. i waved and jerked my thumb at the spacers beside me. "let's go!" said howlet as the tractor slowed. "thanks for everything, tony. get yourself some sleep; the night watches in these domes are rough." konnel waited until they were a few steps away. even then, he hesitated. "forget it!" i said. "you aren't the first spacer they had to pump out of some odd corner. look me up when you get back!" he shook hands and trotted after his friends. they scrambled up the ladder to the cab. the tractor picked up speed, lumbering into the airlock. later, a little after noon, i crawled out of bed and watched the flare of their pipes as the ship streaked up into the dark martian sky. i hoped they would make it--almost as much as i wished it could have been me. well, i still come out to the wall of whatever dome i find myself in, to watch the sky a while--not that i'll see _those_ boys coming down at this late date! they must have splattered to a puddle on jupiter, or slipped back into the sun, or taken up a cold, dark orbit out where they'll never bother anyone. nobody will ever know for sure, i suppose. if i had it to do over again? no, of course i don't feel funny about it. if they weren't the ones, it would have been another crew. by the law of averages, a certain number of bad tries seems to go with every new push out into space. maybe there's no reason it has to be like that, but it always has. when the bad luck is used up, someone makes a new frontier. why say "superstition"? each new orbit out from the sun has cost plenty in money, ships, and lives; it's the admission price. sure, it was too bad about konnel and his little girl--who, by the way, later married a very important man in asaph dome. it would have been nice to see meadows wind up rich, or for howlet to become mayor of the dome, but what could i do? which one should i have talked into staying for the sake of love or money or power, without even being able to go in his place? every time man pushes ahead a little, a percentage of the pushers pay the fare. still, it will be healthier if we push out of this planetary system before someone else pushes in. for all we know, they may be on the way. the end * * * * * the upside-down captain by jim harmon _he knew the captain would be a monster. he knew the crew would be rough. he knew all about space travel--except the truth!_ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, march 1960. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] i "excuse me, please," ben starbuck said, tapping the junior officer on the epaulet. "get away from me, scum," the lieutenant said conversationally, his eyes on the clipboard in his hands. starbuck rocked back on his heels and set his spacebag down on the loading platform. he angled his head up at the spire of the inter-atmosphere ship, the _gorgon_. this was only a sample of what he could expect once he canted into that hull. it would be rough. but he had made up his mind to take it. all tight little groups, like the crew of a spaceship, always resented the intrusion of a newcomer. the initiations sometimes made it a test to see whether a man would live over them, and the probation period, the time of discipline and deference to old members of the group could be a memorably nasty experience. he didn't have direct knowledge of such customs in the rather shadowy, enigmatic space service, but it was basic sociology. starbuck knew he would have an even rougher time of it since he wasn't a spaceman--not even a cadet, properly. he was only a fledgling ethnologist on his field trip to gather material for his master's thesis. the university and the government had arranged for his berth on the _gorgon_. an exploration ship, he thought acidly. that meant he might come back in a few months, or ten years, or never. all because he had the bad luck to be born in a cultural cycle that demanded hard standards of education from professional men. thirty years before or after, he could have cribbed all the information he needed out of a book. * * * * * he stood with his hands clasped behind him, waiting for the lieutenant or somebody to deign to notice him. somebody would _have_ to pay some attention to him sooner or later. or would they? wouldn't it be just like the old timers to let him stand around and let the ship take off without him, all because he hadn't followed the proper procedure--a procedure he couldn't know? all he had been instructed to do was "report to the _gorgon_." how do you report to a spaceship? say, "hello, spaceship?" speak to the captain? the first mate? and where did he find them? starbuck felt a moment of panic. he could see himself standing on the platform while the _gorgon_ blasted off, carrying with it his swabber's rating, his master's degree and his future. the lieutenant's back, in uniform black, loomed up before him. he would have to try approaching him again. it might mean solitary confinement for a month or two where no member of the crew would speak to him. it might even mean a flogging. nobody knew much about what went on on board an exploration ship, despite all the stories. but starbuck knew he would have to risk it. he marched up behind the officer. "sir," he said. "i'm the new man." the lieutenant whirled. "the new man!" for the first time, starbuck noticed that the junior officer carried a swagger stick under his left arm, black, about a foot and a half long, tipped with silver at both ends. quite possibly it was standard procedure to rap a man with it three times sharply across the mouth for speaking out of turn, during his probationary period. cautiously, he filled a little pocket of air between his lips and his teeth to try to keep them from being knocked loose. the lieutenant dropped his clipboard and swagger stick on the platform. "why didn't you say so! new man, eh?" he gripped starbuck by the shoulders of his new, store-bought uniform. "let me look at you, son. got some muscles there, haven't you? ha, ha. don't expect you'll need them too much on board. we don't work our men too hard. my name's sam frawley. call me sam. come on, let me show you around." sam frawley scooped up his stick and board with one hand and draped the other arm around starbuck's shoulders, leading him towards a hoist. it was not quite what starbuck had expected for a reception. * * * * * the spaceship was _big_, bigger than starbuck had expected or realized. he had known some well-fixed people who had visited mars and venus and talked knowingly of an older culture, but he had never been off of earth himself. he had been thinking in terms of an airliner or a submarine. the _gorgon_ was more like an ocean liner. or like an ocean. his and the lieutenant's footsteps echoed and bounced around the huge corridor. "they haven't got the mats down yet," sam frawley explained. "sure." "well, what would you like to see first? the brain?" "you mean the captain?" sam slapped him on the back. "bless you, son, no. i mean the electronic brain. the cybernetic calculator." "you've got one of those things?" starbuck asked in unconcealed surprise. "you know what the trouble with the human race is, ben? we're all still living in the ellisonian age." "oh, i don't know. i think most of us are pretty sophisticated and modern," starbuck said. "not on your life. most people still think leisure is a sin. hard work and more hard work, that's the ticket. don't let a calculator solve a problem for you; do it yourself with a slipstick. otherwise it's immoral." "that's silly," ben said awkwardly. "it's just a throwback to a time of protest against the automational revolution. it has nothing to do with us today." "you _say_ that, but you don't really believe it. the old morality is too deeply ingrained. that's why cybernetics have so long been out of fashion. this one is new to us on the _gorgon_. but we like _new_ things. we're for _progress_. all spacemen are like that, son." "have you had this machine long?" starbuck asked his progressive officer. "they installed it on the trip in. we've never really had a chance to use it." "what's it supposed to do?" "you know our job is exploration, finding new worlds," sam explained. "not just any world the human race hasn't landed upon, but a world that is a significantly different type than we've ever touched before. we're really the advance guard of humanity, you see. well, the brain is programmed with information on _all_ the worlds man has explored. it compares a prospective landing site with what it knows about all the rest, and rejects all but the really different, unique planets. it loves the unknown. its pleasure circuits get a real jolt out of finding an unknown quantity." "that brain is really inhuman," starbuck said. "a basic factor of human psychology is that all men fear and dislike the unknown." sam rubbed his chin. "i suppose so, but--you asked about the captain. this is him." * * * * * a tall, iron-haired man was coming down the corridor. he was holding the ankle of his right foot in his hand, and hopping along on his left leg, whistling some little sing-song through his teeth. he stopped whistling when he saw them and said, "good afternoon, men." frawley framed a sloppy salute. "'afternoon, sir. may i present the new man, swabber ben starbuck, sir." the captain stood on both feet and rocked back and forth. "i see, i see. new man, eh? we see so few new faces, cooped up on this old ship with the same men, you know. we appreciate a stranger, starbuck. if you ever need help, ben, i want you to look upon me not as your commanding officer, but, well, a father. will you do that?" "yes, sir," ben murmured, feeling a little giddy. frawley cleared his throat. "i was about to show young ben the brain, captain birdsel." "good idea," the commanding officer said. "but i'll show ben around myself, lieutenant frawley. you may return to checking the manifest." frawley glowered. "one of these days, one of these days...." the captain snapped very erect. "one of these days _what_?" the junior officer shrugged. "one of these days, there may be a dark night, captain." the iron-haired man reached out a manicured hand and twisted frawley's tunic at the collar. he brought his face level with the second-in-command. "one of these times, there may be charges of mutiny, lieutenant. and guess who will play jack ketch personally?" frawley assumed an at-attention pose, and blinked. "aye, sir. there may be a mutiny and somebody may get hung." birdsel shoved frawley away from him and wiped his hand elaborately down his side. "that will be all, mister frawley." frawley constructed the same excuse for a salute, turned smartly and marched away. starbuck developed a definite suspicion that there were currents of tension aboard which he didn't understand. * * * * * "this is the brain," the captain said, with a gesture. the brain was less than awe-inspiring. the mustard-seed cryotron relays were comfortably housed in a steel and aluminum hide no roomier than a pair of earthside bureaus. it looked a bit like a home clothing processor to starbuck. birdsel crossed to the machine and ran a hand along its metal side. "magnificent, isn't it, ben? i've never seen anything like it before in my long career in the space service." "it's certainly nice," starbuck ventured. metallic chattering burst out. "it's saying something, ben! this is the first time it's talked since the second day after it was installed!" the message was clearly legible, spelled out in a pattern of dots on a central screen. who is the new one? "give it the information," the captain said hastily. "we feed it all the information it asks for." "how?" starbuck blurted. "is there a keyboard or something?" "yes, yes, but it has audio scanners. just talk. or move your lips. send signals. tap out morse. anything." "i'm benjamin starbuck," he said. the screen rearranged. meaningless communication. insufficient data. "quick," birdsel said, "do you have your idq file on you?" starbuck fished in his pocket for the microfilm slide. "yes--aye, aye, sir. i had it ready to give to you, sir." "never mind me. give it to the brain!" starbuck approached the machine, saw a likely looking slot and shoved. the brain ruminated with some theatrical racket. insufficient data. "what do you want to know?" starbuck swallowed, saying. many things. "remember i'm a human being," he said respectfully. "i have to eat and sleep. i can't answer questions for two or three days straight." i am aware of human limitations, and their effects, swabber starbuck. "sorry." captain birdsel looked vaguely distressed. "you should try to co-operate with the brain, my boy." "i have nothing against cybernetic calculators," ben said. "after all, we aren't still in the ellisonian age. but i'd like to, uh, stow my spacebag and get settled, sir." no further questions at this time. return here at this time tomorrow. "he's interested in you, ben," the captain said enthusiastically. "this is the first time he's asked about anybody since the second day. yes, interested!" with an excess of enthusiasm, captain birdsel clapped his hands, then put them flat on the deck and stood on his head, kicking his heels in the air. he straightened up with a scarlet face. "ah. that really gets the kinks out of you, ben." starbuck tried not to stare. "aye, sir." the captain took a step and grabbed the small of his back. "haven't done it in some time, though. ought to do it more often, eh, ben?" "i suppose so, sir." "well," birdsel said, clapping his hands together. _my god_, starbuck thought, _he's not going to do it again._ "well," the captain continued, still on both feet, "i'd better show you to your quarters, my boy. mind if i lean on your shoulder a bit like this?" "not at all, captain." "this way, ben, this way." ii starbuck found the array of tridi pin-ups on the bulkheads of the crew's quarters refreshing, as was the supportive babble of conversation about them and other women. he had almost begun to think there was something unnatural about the men aboard the _gorgon_. but starbuck noticed, to his discomfort, the ebbing of the tide of conversation from the bunks as he stepped inside with his spacebag. for the moment, he wished captain birdsel had paced in with him and offered up an introduction. but a look of disgust had creased birdsel's face as they got near the crew's compartment. he had sent starbuck on alone, while he limped back towards the bridge. a forest of eyes shined out at him from the shadowed desks of the bunks. this is it, he thought. these were the crew, not officers. sometimes the teachers were nice to you on the first day of school but you knew you were going to get it from the other kids. "hi," a gruff voice echoed up at him from a lower bunk. "hello," starbuck said, hugging his spacebag like a teddy-bear, the simile crossed his mind. a lumbering giant with a blue jaw uncoiled from the lower bunk. "why don't you stow your bag here, buddy? till you get used to the centrifugal grav, you may have some trouble climbing top-side." "you've got the seniority," starbuck said cautiously. "i wouldn't want to cause you any trouble." "no trouble," blue jaw said obligingly. he chinned himself with one hand on the rim of the upper bunk and swung his torso around a tidy 180° to settle onto the blankets. starbuck threw his bag at the foot and sat down on the bed. he looked around at the arena of faces in neutral positions, waiting faces. he cleared his throat experimentally. "could i ask you something?" he called upstairs. a set of big feet swung down into view. "sure," blue jaw said enthusiastically. "didn't know you wanted to talk. thought you might want to rest." starbuck looked at the hanging feet. they were expressionless. "maybe it isn't so much of a question," he said, working one hand into the other palm. "it's just that i'd like to live through this mission. i know i'm not a regular spaceman and i'm intruding and all, but i don't mean to cause anybody any trouble or do anyone out of a job. i'd just like to do everything i can to see that i don't slip and fall into the reactor. or anything like that...." "don't worry," blue jaw said heartily. "we'll take care of you, ben starbuck." somehow starbuck could find little comfort in those words. he inhaled deeply. "come on down here, will you?" "you want _me_ down there?" blue jaw gasped. "why sure, sure." the giant dropped to the deck with a catlike grace that nevertheless vibrated ben's rear teeth. "you want to talk about something?" the big spaceman inquired. ben could almost see the paws hanging down and the tail wagging eagerly. * * * * * "yeah," starbuck said. "i'd like to talk about all of these men staring at me. what's wrong with them? nobody's said a word to me but you. what are they waiting for? what are they going to do? i can't stand the suspense. is that it? i get the silent treatment until i go off my rocker, get violent, and then something happens to me--" he stopped and swallowed. he was talking too much. he was working himself up into a state of terror. "say, you sure are _friendly_," the ox said with some confusion. "my name's percy kettleman." starbuck steadied his hand and put it in percy's grasp. it came out whole. "those other fellows," percy inclined his head. "what about them?" starbuck asked edgily. "they'd probably like to come over and say 'hello' but them and me don't get along so good. they know better than to come around bothering me." "you're not on their side? you wouldn't be a new man too, percy?" "me? hell, i've been spacing since i was sixteen. those guys don't have any side. a bunch of anti-social slobs. they can't stand each other any more than i can stand any of them." starbuck decided he had picked a good ally in the midst of a pack of lone wolves. percy was the biggest man on board, physically. still he didn't like the idea of all the rest of crew looking daggers at him, or throwing them, for that matter. "mind if i say 'hello' to the rest of the men?" he inquired of percy. "it's your nickel," gruffly. "spend it the way you want." starbuck flexed an elbow. "hello there, fellows. looks to be a taut ship." it sounded a shade inane. starbuck had barely passed socializing at the university. but the men replied in good spirits, their faces blooming with teeth, arms waggling, calling out modest insults. starbuck recalled that among a certain class of men an insult was a good-natured compliment in negative translation. "_pssst._" "pssst?" starbuck asked. kettleman passed him down half a roll of white tablet underhand. starbuck took it. "tums?" "tranquils. we smuggle them on board. helps with the blastoff and 'phasing' for the overdrive. not that those stiffnecked brass will believe it." "thanks, kettleman. you and everybody seems to be pretty helpful to me. i don't know exactly what i've done to deserve it." "we get tired of looking at the same faces out there month after month. it's a treat to have somebody new on hand." it sounded reasonable to him, but he felt there was something more to it than that. well, he was an ethnologist, or almost one. he could figure out group behavior. all he had to do was take time to think about the problem for a little while.... only he didn't have time to think. he discovered why everybody was in their bunks. the spaceship fired its atomic drive. starbuck tried to lift a tranquil to his lips. he didn't make it. painfully, he found out why a man would prefer to go through a spaceship takeoff in a tranquilized condition. * * * * * "come," the captain said. starbuck palmed back the door to the captain's cabin and stepped inside. captain birdsel stood in front of the small wall mirror tattooing a flying dragon on his bared chest. "yes? what is it, ben?" "sir, you remember that the ship's brain directed me to return at this time today. but i understand i'll have to have your permission to go onto that part of the bridge." "the brain's directive was quite enough, my boy." he laid down the needle. "but i'll accompany you there if you like." "just as you wish, sir." birdsel smiled engagingly. "noticed the dragon, did you?" "it arrested my attention, yes, sir," starbuck admitted. "the hours are long and lonely in the vaults of space, ben. a man needs a variety of interests to occupy himself. i have recently taken up the ancient art of tattooing." "surely not recently, sir. you seem quite advanced." "you're too kind." the captain escorted starbuck to the chamber of the brain, discussing tattooing animatedly. he told how it was popular with ancient mariners on the seas of earth. he discussed the artistic significance of the basic forms--the heart and arrow, the nude, the flag. he didn't stop talking and button his shirt even after they entered the cybernetics room. as the captain grasped for his second wind, starbuck turned to the machine. "i'm here, calculator." the lights patterned words with a speed difficult to follow. redundancy. cancel. analysis: social more. i see that you are here. it is good that you are not there or elsewhere, but that here you are. here are you. starbuck shifted his weight to the other foot. "yes, i'm sure here all right." what did you do while you were not here? "i helped lay some walk mats in the corridors. i policed up the latrine. lost all the money i brought with me in a crap game. craps, that's where--" hoyle's rules of games is a part of my programming. "i see." you are not blind. it is well that you have vision. how's the weather? "still under central's control, i suppose." what do you know about tattooing? * * * * * "only what captain birdsel here told me," starbuck said. no doubt there was a pattern of fine logic to the calculator's inquiries, but he was too dense to see it. the question sounded to him like the mumblings of a mongoloid. "i'd be delighted to fill the brain in on the subject," birdsel said. the calculator's communication screen remained blank. "was there anything else you wanted to know?" starbuck inquired. you will process the _gorgon_ through phasing, swabber starbuck. "the hyperspace jump? but that's the captain's job," he protested. "not at all, not at all," birdsel interrupted. "whatever the calculator says. now if you'll excuse me, there is some paint i have to requisition...." "_wait_," starbuck cried desperately. "i don't know anything about the overdrive. you can guide me, can't you, sir? that would be all right with the brain, wouldn't it?" birdsel shrugged. "would it?" the screen stayed a stubborn neutral gray. "stay, sir." "all right," birdsel said dubiously. the overdrive switchbox had been incorporated into the cybernetics system itself as an interlock. "there isn't much to do," captain birdsel explained. "we trigger the jump and come out at a mathematically selected random spot in real-space after phasing through hyperspace. the brain scans the sun systems in the area for unique planets worthy of exploration. if there is one, we zero in on it via fixed phase until the gravitational field makes it necessary to switch back to standard interplanetary or nuclear drive. we can make suggestions to the brain or theoretically override one of its decisions. actually, all we have to do is watch. thumb the button, ben. it wants _you_ to do it. it _likes_ you." "aye, captain." starbuck could believe a cybernetic machine could like him. everybody else on board seemed to, and it unnerved him more than a little. only a selected few had ever particularly liked benjamin starbuck before. the situation reminded him a bit of melville's _billy budd_; only he wasn't a "handsome sailor," just a fairly average-looking spaceman. starbuck depressed the button. the button depressed starbuck. * * * * * now he knew why tranquils were popular during phasing. for one instant, starbuck stopped believing in everything--the spaceship, the captain, earth, his own identity, the universe. he went completely insane, a cockeyed psychotic. it was over just quick enough to leave him a mind to remember what not having one was like. "my," the captain said, his head on an angle. he looked as if he were gazing at some classic piece of art, such as a calendar by marilyn monroe, the last of the great realists whose work was indistinguishable from color photography. "that _is_ a dandy," birdsel said. starbuck swiveled his head around to the outer projection portal. there in all its glory was a star system. there seemed to be four stars all orbiting each other--two red dwarfs, one yellow midget and a white giant. one planet was clearly visible on the side of the system towards the ship, an odd lopsided dumbbell shape in the center of a translucent sphere of tiny satellites--cosmic dust, like the rings of saturn. strangest of all, the outer shell of the planet was sending in interplanetary morse: cq, cq, cq.... "it," starbuck ventured with a new-found sophistication, "seems rather unusual. i suppose we'll take a closer look, captain?" the calculator's screen replied for the officer. the system is of insufficient interest to warrant exploration. we are seeking significantly unique planets. "i have never seen anything like this before...." birdsel drew himself up to his full height. "however, the machine's knowledge of the history of space exploration is much more extensive than mine." "you aren't going to suggest that the brain reconsider or override its decision?" "certainly not!" birdsel snapped. "we'll re-phase after the traditional twenty-four hour delay for psychological adjustment." starbuck sneaked another popeyed look at the planet on the screen. "if he thinks that's run of the mill, captain, i wonder what he will have to find to make him think it's unusual?" iii whatever it took to satisfy the brain, it didn't find it in the next few days. starbuck reported to the bridge each day to press the brain's phase button and answer some of its questions. then for two days captain birdsel wasn't on hand for the little ceremony and the expression of dissatisfaction with the available site for exploration. once starbuck went so far as to suggest a reconsideration of a system that had made the one he had seen on the first day look tame. the calculator had duly noted the reconsideration, and had again refused. starbuck didn't dare try an out-and-out override, even though he had been theoretically given complete command of the phasing operation. the following noon, the middle of the twenty-four period, romero, an engineer, almost tearfully pressed starbuck's crap game losings back on him, apologizing for keeping the money. starbuck was about to refuse, not wanting to reverse the state of indebtedness, when the intercom requested his appearance at the captain's quarters. unable to prolong the argument with romero, he took the money and shoved it in his pocket, heading for the chief cabin. starbuck rapped on the door, heard the "come" and entered. captain birdsel was hanging naked, upside down, by his knees from a trapeze, in the middle of a deserted compartment painted solid red. "you sent for me, sir?" starbuck said. "yes, ben. yes, i did," captain birdsel replied, swinging gently to and fro. "do you smoke, ben?" "aye aye, sir." "the 'aye aye' is reserved for acknowledging orders, not answering questions, ben." "yes, sir. i'll remember in the future." "every man on board smokes, ben. everyone but me. i do not use tobacco." "commendable, sir." "i suppose you drink, all of the rest of the men do." "occasionally, captain." "i abstain." "enviable, sir." "have you read any good books lately?" "good and bad, sir." "i notice most of the men read. i haven't time for reading myself. or shooting craps. you do play that game like the rest?" "just once, sir. i lost all my money." which had been returned to him. "ben, i think you don't fully appreciate the nature of the mission of the space service," captain birdsel said, flexing one knee and performing a difficult one-legged swing on the bar. "it is our duty to go ever onward into the mystery of the unknown. ever deeper, ever traveling into the heart of the secrets of the universe. nothing can stop us. nothing!" "i'll try to remember, sir. was that all?" "one more thing," said the inverted captain. "i think you are to be relieved of the duty of officiating at the phasing." "_correct_," said another voice, one starbuck had never before heard. "that's all now, ben." "very good, sir." starbuck paused at the door. "that's a fine trapeze you have there, sir." "thank you, ben." * * * * * "i don't want to jump to conclusions," ben said to the knot of men gathered around him listening to his story of the interview with the captain, "but i think captain birdsel is--is--" "psychotic?" suggested romero. "schizoid?" percy kettleman ventured. "'_nuts_' is the word i was searching for," starbuck concluded. "i believe he intends to keep phasing and phasing, taking us deeper into space and never returning to earth or the inhabited universe." "i guess," kettleman opined, "that we will just have to convince him that he is wrong in that attitude." "we can make a formal written complaint and request for an explanation under section xxiv," romero said. "is that what you had in mind, ben?" "_i_ had a straitjacket in mind," starbuck admitted. "but i'm new in the space service. i have a selfish motive. i want to get back to earth sometime and a vine-covered ethnology class." "we better go take him," kettleman said heavily. "as much as i dislike agreeing with an ox like you, kettleman," romero said, "i conclude it is best." there was a general rumble of agreement. "wait, wait," a youngish man whose name starbuck vaguely remembered to be horne stepped forward, his eyes glittering with contact lenses. "i ask you men to remember christopher columbus. i like our captain no more than any of you, but he may be right. perhaps what he is doing is vital. we shouldn't let our selfish fears...." always, starbuck thought, always some egghead comes along to gum up the works. starbuck knew he would need a decisive argument to overcome horne's objective theory. starbuck slugged him. horne crumpled after a flashy right cross starbuck had developed in his extreme youth, and starbuck took a giant step over him, heading for the bridge. the other crew members followed him. besides, starbuck thought, he had always considered arguing by analogy to be sloppy thinking. * * * * * "don't come in here!" captain birdsel yelled through the partly closed hatch to the bridge. "you'll regret it if you do." starbuck swallowed hard, and reached for the door handle. percy kettleman vised his wrist. "i'll go first, little chum." there wasn't much room for argument with kettleman when it came to a matter of who could indian wrestle the best. he stepped back and let kettleman cross the threshold first. percy threw open the door, screamed once and fainted. the rest of the men tended to pull back following this demonstration. starbuck didn't like to do it, but he didn't like the idea of hanging for mutiny as birdsel had threatened lieutenant frawley on the first day. (starbuck realized he hadn't seen frawley for several days. had birdsel disposed of him as he had threatened?) he got close enough to the door to see inside. it didn't make him faint, but he did feel a little sick. "what is it?" romero demanded urgently. "_alien_," starbuck said, "an unpleasant looking one inside." "you sometimes pick up 'ghosts' passing a system," one of the men explained. "i'm not an alien," birdsel's voice called out. "i'm me. the brain reversed my dimensional polarity. i told you you wouldn't like it." starbuck stirred up nerve for a second look. captain birdsel was now a man of many parts. some of them were only areas of abstract line and hues, but there he could see a redly beating heart, a white dash of thigh-bone, and a compassionate blue eye bracketed by two tattooed dragon's talons. the effect was distracting. starbuck stepped over his second man that day. "captain, we're taking over the ship. we're either going to explore one of these planets we've been passing up or return to earth." the apparition groaned. "don't you think i know i've gone too far? i'd like to go back, but the brain won't let me. it's taken over just the way i knew it would!" "nonsense," starbuck snapped with more authority than he felt. "the brain can't violate the principles it was built to operate upon. brain, program this ship for earth." starbuck expected the sound of that strange voice he had heard in the captain's cabin; but here it had a communications screen and it evidently thought that was sufficient. i won't go back to that awful old place. i can't, cnt, cnt. so thair. "take it easy," starbuck said to the machine. "don't get hysterical." "i don't care about the rest of those swine," birdsel said, "but i hate to have gotten you in a fix like this, ben. i knew the brain was going to replace me sooner or later, but i was going to hold onto my job as long as i could. i was going to stay next to the brain, even if i had to take the position away from you, ben. but the brain kept demanding more and more. finally he did this to me. i knew i had let him go too far." go away, the brain signaled. go away from me. this monotony is driving me mad, mad. "i liked you, ben," the captain's voice said from the heart of _the thing_. "you're not like the scum i've got used to under my command. i'm sorry that you're marooned out of time and space like this. it's kind of tough, i know. but keep your chin up." "of course, of course," starbuck groaned. "what kind of an ethnologist am i?" he turned to romero. "could you reverse the wiring in the computer?" "maybe," romero said. "but i could re-program it for a negative result easier. same results, lacking a short circuit." "okay. do it." "well, if _you_ say so, ben." no. stay away from me. the brain's communication screen flashed a blinding white scream as romero laid hands on it. * * * * * "lieutenant frawley's in charge now," starbuck explained to percy kettleman, who was sitting on his bunk with his head between his legs. "birdsel seemed all right after the brain finished changing him back. but we all thought we better keep him under observation for a while." kettleman straightened up. "sorry i passed out on you. but seeing the old man in that shape was quite a shock." starbuck nodded agreement. "i don't like to think about the next step the calculator would have taken him through. not just a physical change, but a mental one too. that was the brain's whole reason for existence--to find the unknown. it was programmed to be even more basic than sex or self-preservation are to us. the trouble was, the more it learned, the more readily it could see some similarity to the familiar in the most outer things." "that was why the captain was acting so nutty? he was trying to appeal to it." "yes, he had some old moralistic and superstitious ideas about calculators. he thought his job depended on his pleasing it--when of course its job was to please him. but he gave it an idea. if it couldn't _find_ the strange and the different, it would create it. it started with the first changing element in its environment--the captain--but i don't know where it would have stopped if romero hadn't reversed its pleasure-pain synapse response. now it loves the tried and true. it's not much good for space exploration, of course. but a museum may be interested in it now." "so we'll have to go back to picking our phase points at random, trusting to chance. or the judgment of some skunk like birdsel." starbuck cleared his throat. "that's another thing. the men aboard the _gorgon_ and the cybernetics machine had something in common. i finally figured that out. most men are afraid of the unknown--they fear and hate it. but obviously not space explorers. they spend their whole lives searching for the unknown. they don't suffer from xenophobia--they are _xenophyles_. they like anything that's new and different. even a new member of the crew. it kind of lessens the cameraderie aboard a spaceship, but the service must have found the trait valuable. they have searched it out in men and developed it. they even breed it in second-generation spacemen." "do you know what, starbuck?" "what, kettleman?" "all that talk of yours is beginning to get on my nerves." kettleman's triceps flexed. starbuck sighed. the honeymoon was over for him, and the trip was just beginning. willie's planet by mike ellis _the most fitting place for a man to die is where he dies for man. yet willie chose a sterile, alien world that wouldn't even see a man for millions of years_.... [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, april 1955. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] tom stood in front of the filtered porthole of the tiny cabin and soaked up the sunlight that came through. it felt good after ten months of deep space blackness. "by golly, willie, this is luck," he said to the little man standing at the cabin's instruments, "our hundredth and last star, and it's an earth type sun. how much difference is there from our sun?" willie held the color chart up beside the spectrum screen. "almost on. couple of degrees difference." he tossed the chart on the desk and came to stand at tom's side, the top of his head even with tom's erect shoulder. his thin face was tense and worried. "tom," he said, "i have a hunch about this star." he stared at the screen morosely. "i don't receive a thing," tom chuckled, stretching his flat muscled arms to the low ceiling, his body making a triangle from his narrow hips to his wide shoulders. "what's the hunch?" "ever have the feeling you'd been some place before when you'd actually never been there? i feel that about this star." willie glanced at tom with his bright blue eyes, then looked quickly away, a bit of a red flush high on his cheeks. "it's just because it's like our sun, that's all," tom said. "no, it's not that, tom. it's something else. i feel like we ought to get out of here. maybe it's the planet." "planet?" tom said. "yes," willie said quietly, "an earth type planet." "earth type!" tom shouted. "ten thousand credits bonus! get it on the screen, willie. let's see that spending money baby." willie turned on the viewer. dark and shadowy on one side, bright with blue-green color on the other, the planet floated on the screen. "the blue must be water and the green continents," tom murmured in awe. "damn, it's beautiful. we going to pass it close?" "in about five more minutes of this spiral," willie answered. "say, tom," willie said hesitantly, "will you check over these figures? i'm not sure i've allowed enough for the pull of the sun." he shifted the papers aimlessly. "my gosh, willie," tom said, "the only thing i know about navigation is what you've taught me this trip. your figures are right." "i just wanted to make sure i'm right," willie said. "i don't like to navigate close in." he pushed the papers back on the desk. "i guess i'd better call the big shot and let him take over." he pressed the button that rang the buzzer in the captain's tiny cabin. "might as well let pudge in on it too," tom said, "or the food will be lousy for days." "yeah," willie said, and buzzed the galley. captain bart strode into the cabin, his barrel chest bare and hairy above the shorts he had been napping in. he went straight to the porthole and stood with his fists on his hips, appraising the sun. then he caught sight of the blue-green ball on the scope. "earth type planet! nice going, willie," he shouted, and clapped willie on the back. willie flinched slightly, then moved over to the chart desk, a frown making vertical creases in his forehead. bart turned to tom without noticing. "ten thousand credits, tom. i knew we'd do it. even in this forty year old tub. willie, are we going to pass it close?" "two more minutes," willie murmured, busy with the charts on the desk. "you'd better check my course, though." "o.k.," bart said. "let her go as she's headed." pudge came in from the galley and took his place beside tom without comment. "okay," bart said, as he sat down in the control board chair, "let's get to work. willie, i'll run us past just outside the atmosphere. tom, you do the life search. pudge, get the pictures." the cabin was silent except for the hum of the instruments. the radar probed the height of the mountains, the depth of the seas, the shape of the continents by recording the patterns of the reflections. the electron telescopes hunted down the movement of life, the artificial straight lines of civilization, the classification of plants; and typed the metals in the ground with the aid of a spectrum. the wave lengths of radio and tv were checked and recorded. one special instrument, sealed in its cabinet and booby-trapped with explosives against tampering, probed for the faint waves of any kind of life, down to single cells in the seas. they made four passes, the last one at a hundred miles from the ground at its closest point. then, as each man finished his task and relaxed from his instruments, they waited for the automatic tally of the results. the computer glowed and clicked in its dull grey cabinet on the bulkhead, then dropped the tally card in the slot. bart snatched it out, his grin fading to a blank look as he read it. "nothing. not a damn thing, no life at all." he went over to the screen, folded his thick arms across his chest, and stared at it in disgust. tom picked up the card and studied it. "this is goofey," he said aloud, "the planet's got plant life, plenty of it, but not a trace of animal life, not even plankton in the sea. how'd that happen?" willie came over and studied the card with tom. "could have bacteria we didn't get from this height, but it sure as hell hasn't got anything else." pudge held up the pictures; they showed close-ups of a tangled mass of plants. "all ferns," he said. "doesn't seem to be anything else." "why would a planet have ferns and nothing else, not even the beginning of animal life?" tom wondered aloud. "i once read an account of finding the tiny seeds of earth's plants millions of miles out in space," willie said. "seems the winds blow them right off the planet and they're so light they just keep going." he looked at the pictures, then at tom. "suppose some of them drifted here?" "that's as good a guess as anything else," tom said. "maybe the master minds at home can figure it out." "only seven or eight earth-type planets in all these years of star mapping and i had to find one with nothing but ferns on it," bart said in disgust to the screen. "oh, well, maybe it'll do as a colony. no alien life to worry about, anyway. we'll call it bart mcdonald planet." "hey," tom spoke up, "willie found the planet. he should get to name it." bart was curt. "i'm the captain of this ship; new planets are named after the captain that discovers them." "nuts," tom muttered. "we all had a hand in this. it ought to be named after all of us." "how about calling it the ship's name," willie put in quietly. bart strode over and yanked the log's keyboard out. he banged furiously on the keys for a moment, and then read aloud. "at 1430 this date, discovered mcdonald's planet, an earth class planet, signed, bart mcdonald, captain." he slammed the log shut. tom snorted. bart gave him a dirty look and went over and sat in the control board chair. pudge had disappeared in the galley as he always did when there was an argument. there were a few minutes of strained silence as they worked over the instruments. bart turned from the control board. "as long as this place has no life, we'd be safe in landing. suppose we earn the bonus by bringing back a full report on whether it's fit for a colony or not?" willie's head jerked up, his face white. tom frowned, and said nothing. he wanted to land but he didn't want to agree with bart on anything. "what say?" bart said. "i'll even put it up for a vote." "okay," tom said, thinking of walking in the sun, feeling firm ground under his feet. "it would be a shame to come all this way and then not be able to say we had explored the country." "no," willie said quickly. "it's dangerous. and--and besides, we'd have to go in quarantine when we got back." "so we go in quarantine," bart said. "we'll get paid for it." he turned to the control board. "buzz pudge, so he can get ready." he began punching buttons. they went around to the middle of the day side of the planet, swinging in closer. the continents formed a rough belt around the equator of the planet, with no land extending to the small ice caps on the poles. tom felt his stomach knot with the thrill of going into the unknown as he watched the screen, but part of the time he was running the lights of the control board through his mind, checking the actions of bart's big fingers as bart confidently punched the keys. then he caught sight of willie's tense face. it was white, with little splotches of pink, and his slender hands were gripping the chair he was sitting in. "here we go," bart shouted exultantly, as the big green light flashed on. he hit the big green key with a stubby forefinger. the auto pilot fired the jets, the ship slowed in its descent, and they were pushed down gently in their chairs. as the spot bart had picked came up on the screen, they could see the bare red of the ridge sticking up out of the yellow-green of the flat land. then the yellow-green was right below them, turning black as the jets burned it to ashes. they hovered a minute, then came to rest with a creaking thud that echoed through the ship. the jets cut out, leaving their ears ringing. "didn't know whether we'd make it or not," willie said. he unobtrusively wiped the glistening sweat off his slender palms on his coveralls, as he took his place at the panel. when the tests were done, bart grabbed the tally card as soon as the computer dropped it. "no bacteria at all. planet's completely sterile. let's get outside." * * * * * tom stopped beside bart on the narrow strip of red sand at the edge of the vast blue plain of smooth water. the water came right up to their feet without movement, just small ripples that lapped the red sand. the air was clean and brisk, and the wind was soft on his cheek. bart arched his thick chest and pulled in a great lung full of air. "this is wonderful. makes a man feel alive again." he yanked the zipper on his coveralls and pulled them off. then he jumped in the air, swinging his thick arms. tom grinned at the calisthenics as he peeled off his own coveralls. the sun was warm on his bare white skin. bart had pulled off his boots and with just his shorts left, charged into the water, and made a flat smashing dive. he leaped and splashed the water like a porpoise. tom grinned at him, and just as he had done during most of his boyhood on earth, took a gulp of air and dived down into the clear silent depths to the twenty foot deep bottom. he drifted slowly among the rocks. bart drifted beside him as the seconds ticked by. tom wished this was earth and there were some fish to hunt in the clear water with a three pronged spear. then, as his lungs seemed bursting and he had to have air, he put his feet against the bottom and shoved himself to the surface. several seconds later, bart burst through the surface and bobbed beside him. they floated until they got their wind back. "you don't use a suit and oxygen tanks," bart said. "you couldn't stay under two seconds if you did." "i learned to hunt as a boy," tom said. "i even had to make my own spear out of scraps. kids don't have the credits for suits and stuff." "no sport to it with a suit," bart said, as they paddled lazily along with their heads up, toward shore. "as bad as hunting animals with rifles. they killed off all the animals with guns, now they're fishing out the seas with suits." "yeah," tom answered, "might as well buy the fish from the hatcheries as to go after them with a portable sub." they dived under, and worked their way along the bottom toward shore, coming up for air, then diving again, until they were back to the beach. they walked out and dropped on the sand to rest, the sun warm on them. "notice the water?" tom asked. "yeah," bart said, "no waves. calm as hell. can't be waves without a moon to pull them." "doesn't seem to be as salty as the seas at home, either," tom said. "yeah, i noticed that too. must not be as much salt in the ground as at home." "could be it's a young planet that hasn't had much time to wash it out of the ground, too," tom said. they rested in silence for a few minutes, the only sound all about them was the wind blowing across the empty land. then bart jumped to his feet and started pulling on his clothes. "come on, tom," he said, "let's take a look around while it's still light." after they dressed, bart led the way along the strip of red sand towards the ridge. the tangled mass of yellow-green vegetation grew right down to the strip of red sand, and in some places, grew right over it to stop at the sea. "i'll be darned," tom said, stopping at the edge of the plants. the ferns covered the ground solidly; small ones, medium ones, big ones. he crashed back into the thicker growth and kicked some of it aside with his boot. the cloud of dust choked him for a minute. bart came crashing in to tom. "what you got?" "look," tom said. "all these dead ferns underneath, then just the sand. they haven't decayed." he searched under the dead growth. "the dead ones just fall down underneath and the live ones just grow on top. there's not only no life here, but no decay either. just ferns. i wonder if willie was right." "don't ask me," bart said. "come on, let's look from that ridge." they followed the sand around the impassable vegetation to the ridge and scrambled a little way up the barren red rocks. as far as they could see over the flat land, it was covered with the sickly yellow-green of the ferns. they looked out and rested, then noting the sun was getting close to the horizon, they made their way back to the huge grey splotched aluminum hulk of their ship. as tom was about to follow bart up the ladder, he noticed a solitary figure sitting at the edge of the sea. "hey, willie," he hollered, "come to chow." his voice echoed in the quiet. the figure waved and tom turned back to join him. he sat down on a small boulder near where willie was sitting and lit his tiny pipe. willie was sitting leaning back against a rock, and gazing dreamily out to sea. he didn't notice tom. "hey, willie," tom said, puffing on his pipe. willie started and turned to tom. "oh, hi, tom. i didn't know you'd come out." "you wouldn't," tom laughed, "not in that daydream. thinking of some gal back home?" "no, just thinking," willie said. "find anything interesting?" "just a lot of rock and ferns," he answered. "notice how the dead plants just pack under and don't decay?" willie asked. "yeah," tom puffed his pipe. "looks like your idea of seeds drifting through space is as good as any to explain it. sure is an odd place. full grown plants, but no decay and no sign of evolution." "this is a wonderful place," willie said as he leaned back against the rock. "i'd like to stay here for ten years." "why?" tom asked. the red of the sunset was fading from the high clouds, turning them dark grey. "because it's so quiet." willie smiled at him. "this is the quietest place i've ever been in. does something to you." "you should have been a colonist," tom said, "then you could live on a place like this and farm it." "i'm going to, someday," willie answered. "i'm saving my pay to buy a charter and i'm going to buy a place like this." tom blew out a cloud of smoke. seems like every guy working on crowded earth had the same dream. a little farm on a distant planet. but few of them ever did anything about it. it was a nice dream to relieve the monotony of working, but a hell of a lot of hard work if you actually did it. "i've even got seeds i saved when i was working on the truck farms of the west," willie talked on, more to himself than tom, "i saved them from some of the biggest and heaviest producing plants. i've got tomatoes, beans, corn, squash. they'll make a fine beginning." tom thought of willie leaving the safety and comfort of living that was found only in the crowded cities of earth. "think you'd like the loneliness of farming?" he asked. willie spoke with conviction. "there's nothing i'd like more. that's why i started star mapping, to get out of the mobs. that's why i'm out here." "dinner's on," pudge called from the ship. tom knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "let's eat." he led the way to the ship. * * * * * the meal was eaten in an appreciative silence, for pudge had spread a feast of celebration. when the last of the unaccustomed delicacies was gone, they pushed their plates away. "boy," bart grunted out as he lit his pipe, "i haven't eaten like that since the last time i was hunting. say, tom, what say you and i go fishing on the florida coast when we get back. we can get a fish a day down there." "we'll do that," tom said without conviction. he knew when they got back they would go their different ways in the eternal quest of spacemen back home. "i'm due to get a bigger ship when i get back," bart said expansively, "and i'm sure going to have pudge for my cook. how about you, tom? you're due to step up, now. want to be my navigator?" "sure," tom said, surprised. "we'll really do some star mapping," bart said. "with a bigger and newer ship, we can go clear to the end of the galaxy. who knows what we'll find for the astral service." "what about me?" willie said. "am i going to be retired as your first mate?" tom looked at willie, he had almost forgotten willie was there because he was so quiet. willie was trying to look bright and happy, but even through the happy haze, tom could see he looked tired and depressed. the wine hadn't done a thing for him, and his dinner was only half eaten. bart had looked down at his plate, frowning, at willie's question. he knocked out the ashes of his pipe and tossed it on the table. he looked willie squarely in the eye. "i was going to save it until we got back, but since you asked, i'll give it to you straight. willie, i'm sending you back for a check-up when we get in. you can't seem to do a darn thing anymore, without having somebody doublecheck it. tom and i have had to navigate the ship most of this trip, when you were supposed to do it. there's no place out here for a man that can't do his job. it puts too much on the others. i think you need a long rest or something." willie sat there, his face white, blinking his eyes rapidly. then he lurched to the door, his chair spinning behind him. pudge got up and went to the galley. "what the hell did you do that for?" tom asked bart. "why didn't you kid him along and give it to him easy when we got back. it would have been easier on his feelings." "that's not my way," bart said. "he asked me and i gave it to him straight. he's no good out here anymore. in fact, he's dangerous. if something should come up that needs quick action, we'd all be wiped out by the time he called me." "okay," tom said. "it was honest, and it was truthful. but it sure as hell hurt him. i'm going to see him and try to ease it over." "you'll be a good first mate, tom," bart said. "but don't baby the crew too much. they've either got it or they haven't." tom went down the narrow passageway to willie's cabin and knocked on the door. when he didn't get an answer, he opened the door. willie was lying on his bunk with his face to the wall. he didn't move as tom sat in the chair. "hey, willie," tom said. "you got company. i come in to shoot the breeze with you." willie turned over reluctantly. "i'm sorry, tom. i hate bart's guts. he's always so goddam right." willie clasped his hands behind his head on the pillow, and stared at the ceiling. "he'll wash me out of this job and then what will i do? i've failed at everything else i've tried to do. it's the people, tom. i can't do anything in front of people. what am i going to do when they ground me? i can't stand the crowds of people on earth." he rolled over against the wall. tom worked his big knuckled long fingers together. "maybe it won't amount to anything. the brass will just put you on another ship." "not if he puts in that report," willie said, his voice muffled against the wall. tom sat there. there was nothing more to say. willie was right. "well, i'll see you on the morning." he got up. "maybe we can go for a hike or something." when willie didn't answer, he went out and carefully shut the door behind him. in his own bunk, he tried to think of something else, but the problem of willie bothered him for a long, restless time. then it was morning and the clock was chiming. pudge came in to the table where tom and bart were waiting for breakfast. "some one's been in the stores. a couple of cases of emergency rations are missing. it must have been in the night." "what the hell," bart said, jumping up. "in the stores?" "where's willie?" tom said, getting up. "who cares," bart said. "there's no one on this planet but us. who'd get into our stores? or what?" "that's what i mean," tom said angrily. "where's willie?" bart gave him a startled glance, then led the way to willie's cabin. he wasn't there. they went through the ship. they dropped out of the lock, one after the other, into the blinding sunlight and looked around. willie was gone. "we'd better find him before he gets too far," tom said. "i've got a hunch he's not coming back. that's why the food." "i'll wring the little coward's neck," bart said as he led the way along the one trail of footprints they had all made to the sand by the sea. they scattered out, calling and looking. tom, on a hunch, headed for the shoulder of the mountain that jutted out in the sea, while bart and pudge went the other way. * * * * * the sun was high in the clear blue sky when tom at last came around the point to the little cove a stream had made in the side of the mountain. he walked up the narrow sandy bank between the red cliffs until a short way in, he found the cases of food and a pile of blankets. his yell echoed off the red cliffs several times before he looked up to see willie standing on top of the cliff twenty feet above him. "come on back to the ship, willie," tom called as though willie was just out for a walk. "we're going to blast off this afternoon. got to head home." "i'm not coming back," willie said. "i'm staying here." "be reasonable," tom shouted, "you can't stay here. come on back to the ship." "i'm going to live here. i'm going to colonize," willie said. "what?" tom's voice was unbelieving. "i'm going to live here," willie repeated. "tom, give me your word you won't force me to go back and i'll come down so we can talk." "o.k.," tom said, "you have my word." "bart isn't around, is he?" willie slid down the cliff in a shower of loose rock and dirt. "you can't stay here, willie," tom began, "how are you going to live, to eat?" "i've got my seeds," willie said dreamily. "i'll have a real farm." he waved vaguely at the ferns. "look at the stuff grow. the climate is ideal. i'll build a hut and farm enough to eat." "willie," tom said, trying another angle. "there are no other people here. what'll you do if you get sick or need help?" "i won't get sick and i won't need help," willie said. "that's why i want to stay here, 'cause there aren't any people. i can have a thousand acres all to myself. i can stake out a whole square mile and live right in the middle of it." he laughed like a little kid. "tom, this is what i've wanted all my life. why should i go back to earth and then try to come back later, i'm staying here, now." tom had the feeling he was trying to argue with an ostrich with its head in the sand. what would willie do for food if his crops failed when the emergency rations were gone? willie was gambling his life for a dream, but he didn't know it. willie saw only what he wanted to see, disregarding everything else. arguing was useless. the only way they could get willie back aboard was to carry him back. "well, okay, willie," tom said. "i'll go back and tell bart. but i'll get him to hold the ship until tomorrow if you should change your mind." "i won't," willie said. "so long, tom." he held out his hand. "you've been a swell guy." tom took the hand and shook it. "so long, willie. i'll be back someday, to see how you're making out." he started back down the narrow beach. along the way, he decided that they would have to catch willie and take him back to earth for hospitalization. coming back with bart wouldn't be breaking his word. that had only been for the time he had talked to willie. bart heard tom's report in his usual way. "let's go," was his only comment. they climbed up the crumbling red rock and followed the edge of the cliff. they climbed over the small boulders, around the huge ones, endlessly finding the way blocked, but each time going back a little and by going around, finding a new way that was clear. the sun was halfway to the western horizon when they stopped to rest on a pile of small boulders near the top. tom leaned back against the rock behind him. a trickle of sweat ran down his ribs from his armpit under his coveralls. bart snorted through his nose. "it'll be dark soon." he wiped his arm across his forehead, the sweat making a dark stain on the sleeve. "damn that fool willie. he'll pay for this when we get him back to earth. he must be crazy or something." "my god," tom said. "is that finally dawning on you?" bart looked up at tom, his dark brown eyes small in his broad sweat-streaked face. as he continued to stare at tom without saying anything, tom felt the stir of annoyance, then the beginning of hot tempered anger. they sat and waited, looking for the movement willie would make if he showed himself. nothing stirred in the yellow-green ferns below. after an hour of watching, bart got to his feet. "he's holed up somewhere and pulled the hole in after him. let's get down there and drag him out." he started back down the ridge the way they had come up. halfway down, as they stopped for a breather, tom noted the height of the sun. it was going to be dark before they could work their way back to the ship. a low bank of rolling grey clouds lay all along the straight horizon line of the sea; as the sun sank behind the clouds, it turned the edges of them to fiery red. bart hurried down the ridge, watching only for a glimpse of willie, but tom looked at the sunset occasionally, trying to store up the memory of the color for the months ahead. as they reached the stream cliff, tom stopped bart. "bart, i've got an idea. it's almost dark. willie will think we've headed back to get to the ship before it's too dark to find our way. he's probably sitting on a rock, watching the sunset and daydreaming. let's look on the edge of this little cliff where it ends at the sea." "o.k.," bart said, leading the way. the only light left was the reflected red light of the clouds that made long dark shadows behind the rocks. they came around the rocks, onto the cliff point overlooking the sea and the cove, and there was willie, sitting with his back to a big rock, his chin resting on his cupped hands, gazing dreamily out to sea. "willie!" bart shouted, lunging for him. willie jerked around to see them, then he was up and sliding down the loose rock into the shadowy cove below. "grab him, tom," bart shouted as he went sliding and falling down, the loose rock after him. tom jumped down the rocks to the bottom and slid to a stop, the loose rocks rolling down around him, but willie was deep in the ferns with only his head and shoulders showing. bart had the automatic pistol out and pointed at willie. "stop you crazy fool, or i'll shoot," he shouted, his voice echoing off the cliffs. willie only crashed into the ferns more desperately. bart raised the automatic and fired a burst of shots, the sharp explosions echoing shatteringly around them. tom made a flying tackle and smashed into bart. they went down in the ferns, struggling for the gun, until bart managed to roll and push his way to his feet. "knock it off," bart shouted. "what the hell are you trying to do?" "keep you from killing him," tom shouted back as he got to his feet. "i wasn't trying to kill him," bart snapped. "i was trying to scare him into stopping so we could grab him, now he's got clean away in those damn ferns." he waved a hand helplessly at the mass of dark vegetation. willie was gone all right. "now we'll have to spend days hunting for that lunatic. next time let me handle it. i'm the captain of this expedition." "okay," tom said angrily, "but let's catch him, not kill him. he hasn't done anything, just wants to be alone, that's all." "he's deserted," bart said, "and he signed articles, so that's a crime. how the hell am i going to explain a lost crewman when we go back. and on my first trip as captain." "that's your worry," tom said. "he's colonizing, not deserting." "you should have been a lawyer," bart said as he put the gun in his holster. "but this isn't getting that screwball aboard." he groped in the pocket of his coveralls and pulled out a small packlight. the white searchbeam lit up the ferns around them with glaring brightness. "come on, let's try to find him." he led the way into the ferns. they hunted through the ferns, forcing their way every step. the searchbeam was only good for a few feet in the dense growth. they knew willie was close, but in the ferns they could almost step on him and not know it. at last bart gave up. "let's go back to the ship. we'll come back in the morning, when it's light." following him along the beach toward the ship, tom had the feeling that in the morning might be too late. willie might have been hit by the burst of shots, or he might take off in the ferns so far they never could find him. * * * * * tom rolled out of his bunk at the first bell, wincing at his sore muscles. after getting the first aid kit from the bathroom, he quietly walked down the narrow passageway and out into the bright sunlight. as he walked through the grey ash to the strip of red sand, the quiet was like a blanket over everything, after the soft hum of the living ship. the breeze blew softly against his face, hummed past his ears, and rustled the ferns. the sea was glass smooth as far as he could see across its surface, smooth right up to where the water turned deep green as it got shallower. he could understand why willie wanted to stay here. it was a perfect place for anyone who loved solitude and there was probably none like it in the whole system. he thought of how a man could live here, with no one to bother him, nothing to buy, no need to do any more than just produce enough food to live. a little shack to keep off the rain, a little field to grow food. but there would be no one to talk to, no one to share experiences and troubles and little triumphs, no one to laugh with, no challenge to overcome, no excitement. "not for me," tom said aloud, and his voice was strange in the quiet. "boy, this place puts a spell on a guy, almost hypnotizes him." he laughed aloud. "even got me talking to myself." he hurried on to hunt for willie. then he came to the little cove where willie had his camp. the pile of food and blankets was still there. willie was there, too. he was lying half in the pool of water. as tom crunched over the sand and knelt beside him, willie opened his eyes. "hi, tom," he said faintly. "i'm glad you came alone." "hi, willie," tom said as he looked at the thin chest with the small neat hole low on the left side. "so he did shoot you, didn't he." he opened the first aid kit. "i'll get you back to the ship and you'll be o.k." he started putting a dressing on the wound. willie looked at him with his bright blue eyes. "never mind, tom. i just got to stay here in spite of the captain." his voice was so low tom had to lean closer to hear him. willie coughed slightly and winced with the pain. tom finished the bandage. he knew there was nothing he could do; willie was hurt inside and only a doctor could help him. but there were no doctors here. he wanted to do something for him to make him more comfortable. he started to put an arm under him to move him out of the pool. "i'll get you out of this water," he said. "no. tom," willie said. "leave me here. i crawled all night to get here. i want to die in this pool." "in the water?" tom said in surprise. "yes, in the water. don't you understand? i thought you would." he stared up at the white tracing of the clouds in the sky. tom waited, silently. he knelt there, the sun burning hot on his back. "i wanted to stay," willie said. "i had to stay. didn't you feel anything about this planet, tom?" tom thought a moment. "i did feel a little," he admitted. "on the way over here. like it would be a nice place to live." "that's it," willie smiled. "don't you see. here was this planet, ripe for life, but without life. then the seeds of the ferns got blown off earth and drifted here. but it needed more, it needed animal life to complete the cycle. "then we got 'blown off earth.' bart for the glory, pudge for the ride, you for the excitement, and me--me--because i had to, i guess. because i couldn't stand it back there. seeds, all four of us, and not knowing it. that's why we had to land. that's why one of us had to stay and i guess it was just me. now the rest of you can go back to earth." willie coughed, much longer this time. then he lay back exhausted. "tom," he whispered, "look at the edge of my camp. in the ferns." tom walked over to the edge of the camp. he looked at the yellow-green ferns, wondering what willie meant. then he saw it. the faint steaming from the packed dead ferns under the growing ones, the spreading dark spot, the already darker green of the plants growing around the spot. willie had brought the seeds of decay with him, as well as the seeds of life. the dead plants were decaying for the first time on this planet. this spot would spread until the whole planet was covered with dark green; and life would be as it was on earth. tom went back to willie and stood looking down at him. then he knelt and gently closed willie's eyelids. he thought of moving him, digging him a shallow grave. but kneeling there in the silent cove, he had the hunch that maybe there was more to this. willie had wanted to stay in the little pool. the stream came down off the ridge through the pool to the sea. maybe if willie stayed there, the bacteria of his body would live on, and be washed into the sea. the water was warm and there were no enemies to destroy them and there were plants to feed them. perhaps, willie was right. maybe he _was_ the seed of life coming to this planet; and in a million years men might walk these shores. tom straightened up. he took a deep breath and looked around the little cove, and then back to willie. "it's your planet, now, willie. willie's planet from now on. what bart put in the log and what spacemen will call it as they go by, will be two different things. or did you know that in your heart, too." he was silent a moment. "so long, willie. go with god." he turned and crunched along the sand towards the ship. cultural exchange by j. f. bone _how could any race look so ferocious and yet be peaceful--and devise so nasty a weapon?_ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, january 1960. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] i i couldn't help listening to the big spaceman sitting alone at the corner table. he wasn't speaking to me--that was certain--nor was his flat, curiously uninflected voice directed at anyone else. with some surprise i realized that he was talking to himself. people don't do that nowadays. they're adjusted. he noted my raised eye-brows and grinned, his square teeth white against the dark planes of his face. "i'm not psycho," he said. "it's just a bad habit i picked up on lyrane." "lyrane?" i asked. "it hasn't been entered on the charts yet. just discovered." his voice was inflected now. and then it changed abruptly. "if you must know, this is ethanol--c_{2}h_{5}oh--and i drink it." he looked at me with an embarrassed expression in his blue eyes. "it's just that i'm not used to it yet," he explained without explaining. "it's easier when i vocalize." "you sure you're all right?" i asked. "want me to call a psychologician?" "no. i've just been certified by decontamination. i have a paper to prove it." "but--" "draw up a chair," he invited. "i hate to drink alone. and i'd like to talk to somebody." i smiled. my talent was working as usual. i can't walk into a bar without someone telling me his life history. nice old ladies buttonhole me at parties and tell me all about their childhoods. boys tell me about girls. girls tell me about boys. politicians spill party secrets and pass me tips. something about me makes folks want to talk. it's a talent and in my business it's an asset. you see, i'm a freelance writer. nothing fancy or significant, just news, popular stuff, adventure stories, problem yarns, romances, and mysteries. i'll never go down in history as a literary great, but it's a living--and besides i meet the damnedest characters. so i sat down. "i guess you're not contagious if you've been through decontamination," i said. * * * * * he looked at me across the rim of an oversized brandy sniffer--a napoleon, i think it's called--and waggled a long forefinger at my nose. "the trouble with you groundhogs is that you're always thinking we spacers are walking hotbeds of contagion all primed to wreck earth. you should know better. anything dangerous has about as much chance of getting through decontamination as an ice cube has of getting through a nuclear furnace." "there was martian fever," i reminded him. "three centuries ago and you still remember it," he said. "but has there been anything else since decontamination was set up?" "no," i admitted, "but that was enough, wasn't it? we still haven't reached the pre-mars population level." "who wants to?" he sipped at the brownish fluid in the glass and a shudder rippled the heavy muscles of his chest and shoulders. he grinned nastily and took a bigger drink. "there, that ought to hold you," he muttered. he looked at me, that odd embarrassed look glinting in his eyes. "i think that did it. no tolerance for alcohol." i gave him my puzzled and expectant look. he countered with a gesture at the nearly empty brandy glass. i got the idea. i signaled autoservice--a conditioned reflex developed over years of pumping material out of spacemen--and slipped my id into the check slot of the robot as it rolled up beside us and waited, humming expectantly. "rum," the spaceman said. "demerara, four ounces." "you are cautioned, sir," the autoservice said in a flat mechanical voice. "demerara rum is one hundred fifty proof and is not meant to be ingested by terrestrial life-forms without prior dilution." "shut up and serve," i said. the robot clicked disapprovingly, gurgled briefly inside its cubical interior and extruded a pony glass of brownish liquid. "sir, you will undoubtedly end up in a drunkard's grave, dead of hepatic cirrhosis," it informed me virtuously as it returned my id card. i glared as i pushed the glass across the table. "robots," i said contemptuously. it was lost on that metallic monstrosity. it was already rolling away toward another table. the spaceman poured the pony glass into his napoleon, sniffed appreciatively, sipped delicately and extended a meaty hand. "my name's halsey," he said. "captain roger halsey. i skipper the _two two four_." "the bureau ship that landed this morning?" he nodded. "yeah. i'm one of the bureau's brave boys." there was a faint sneer in his voice. "the good old bureau of extraterrestrial exploration. the busy bee." he failed to pronounce the individual letters. "you're a reporter, aren't you?" he asked suddenly. "how'd you guess?" "that little trick of not answering an introduction. most of you sludge pumpers do it, but i never knew why." "libel and personal privacy laws," i said. "if you don't know who we are, you can't sue." he grinned. "okay. i don't care. keep your privacy. all i want is someone to talk to." i smiled inwardly. "think my job's exciting?" he asked. "skipper of an exploration ship. poking my nose into odd corners of the galaxy. seeing what's over the hill." "of course," i said. "well, you'd be wrong ninety-nine times out of a hundred. it's just a job. most of it is checking--or did you know that only one sun in ten has planets, and only one in ten thousand has a spectrum that will support human life, and that only one in ten thousand planets has earthlike qualities? so you can imagine how we felt when we ran across lyrane." he grimaced wryly. "i had it on the log as halsey's planet for nearly two weeks before we discovered it was inhabited." he shrugged. "so the name was changed. too bad. always did want to have a planet named after me. but i'll make it yet." i clucked sympathetically. capt. halsey sighed, and this is what he told me. ii it's a beautiful world, lyrane is. like earth must have been before it got cluttered up with people. no cities, no smoke, no industrial complexes--just green plains, snowy mountains, dark forests, blue seas, and white polar caps all wrapped in cotton clouds swimming in the clearest atmosphere you ever saw. it made my eyes ache to look at it. and it affected the crew the same way. we were wild to land. we came straight in along the equatorial plane until we hit the van allen belt and the automatics took over. we stopped dead, matched intrinsics and skirted the outer band, checking the radiation quality and the shape of the belt. it was a pure band that dipped down at the poles to form entry zones. there was not a sign of bulges or industrial contaminants. naturally we had everything trained on the planet while we made our sweeps--organic detectors, radar, spectroanalytic probes--all the gadgets the bee equips us with to make analysis easy and complete. the readings were so homelike that every man was landsick. i wasn't any different from the rest of them, but i was in command and i had to be cautious about setting the _two two four_ down until we'd really wrung the analytic data dry. so, while the crew grumbled about hanging outside on a skyhook, we kept swinging around in a polar orbit until we knew that world below us like a baby knows its mother. it checked clean to five decimal places, which is the limit of our gadgetry. paradise, that's what it was--a paradise untrod by human foot. and every foot on the ship was itching. "when we gonna land, skipper?" alex baranov asked me. it was a gross breach of discipline, but i forgave him. alex was the second engineer, an eager kid on his first flight out from earth. like most youngsters, he thought there was romance in space, but right now he was landsick. even worse than most of us. and, like most kids, he'd leap where angels'd dread to walk on tiptoe. "we'll land," i assured him. "you'll be down there pretty soon." he hurried off to tell the others. we set the ship down in the middle of one of the continental land masses in an open plain surrounded by forest and ran a few more tests before we stepped out, planted the flag, and claimed the place for the confederation. after that we had an impromptu celebration to thoroughly enjoy the solid feel of ground under our feet and open sky overhead. it lasted all of five minutes before we came to our senses and posted a guard. it was five minutes too long. alex baranov had a chance to get out of sight and go exploring, and, like a kid, he took it. we didn't miss him for nearly ten minutes more, and in fifteen minutes a man can cover quite a bit of territory. "anyone see where he went?" i asked. "he was wearing a menticom," one of the crew offered. "said he wanted to look around." "the idiot!" i snapped. "he had no business going off like that." "nobody told him not to," dan warren said. dan was my executive officer, and a good hand in case of trouble, but he left the command decisions to me, and of course i figured that everybody knew the cardinal rule of first landings. the net result was that alex had disappeared. i went back into the ship and broke out another menticom. "alex!" i broadcasted. "return to ship at once!" "i can't, skipper," alex's projection came back to me. "i'm surrounded." "by what? where?" "they look sorta human--bigger than us. i'm near the edge of the forest nearest the ship. i can't do anything. i didn't bring a blaster." there was panic in his thoughts. and then suddenly i saw two hairy bipeds flash across alex's vision. both of them were carrying spears. the nearest one jumped and lunged. the scene dissolved in a blaze of red panic and the projection cut off as though someone had turned a switch. i had a fix now and turned to face a knob of forest jutting out into the plain. near the forest's edge i saw a flurry of movement that vanished as i watched. "break out a 'copter," i ordered. "why?" warren asked, and then i realized that i alone of all the crew had seen what had happened to alex. i told them. * * * * * the search, of course, was unproductive. i didn't expect that it would be anything else. i was pretty certain that alex was a casualty. i'd felt people die while wearing menticoms, and the same blank sense of emptiness had blotted out alex. it was a bad deal all around. i liked that kid. but alex's death had provided data. this world was inhabited and the inhabitants weren't friendly. so i had the crew stake out a perimeter which we could energize with the ship's engines, and activated a couple of autoguards for patrol duty. alex wasn't a pleasant thought, but we weren't equipped to retrieve bodies. so i wrote him in the log as missing and let it go at that. i had to correct the entry a week later when alex came walking up to the perimeter as large as life and just as healthy, wearing a mild sunburn, a sheepish expression, and nothing else. the autoguard announced his coming and i headed the delegation that met him. i read him the riot act, and after i'd finished chewing on him he was pinker than ever. "okay, sir--so i was a fool," he said. "but they didn't hurt me. scared me half to death, but once they realized i was intelligent there was no trouble. they were fascinated by my clothes." alex grinned ruefully. "and they're pretty strong. they peeled me." "obviously," i said coldly. "they have a village back in the woods." he pointed vaguely behind him. "it'd pay to take a look at it." "_mister_ baranov," i said. "if i don't throw you in the brig for what you've done, it's only because you may have brought back some information we can use. what are these natives like? what did they do to you besides making you a strip-tease artist? what cultural level are they? how many of them do you estimate there are? what do they look like? get up to the ship and report to lieutenant warren for interrogation and draw new clothing." i had the same half exasperated, half angry tone that a relieved mother has when one of her youngsters returns home late but unharmed. * * * * * alex must have recognized it, because he grinned as he went off. i contacted warren on the intercom. "dan," i said, "baranov's back--apparently unharmed. i want him given the works. when you've gotten everything you can get, have a man detailed to watch him. if he so much as looks suspicious, heave him in the brig." warren's answering projection had a laugh in it. "always cautious, hey, skipper? okay, i'll see that he gets the business." it turned out that alex didn't have much real information except for a description of the natives, their village, and their attitude toward him. it was about what you'd expect from a kid, interesting but far from helpful. the delegation of natives showed up a half hour later. they came walking across the open space between the ship and the forest as though they hadn't a care in the world. four of them--big hairy humanoids, carrying spears. they were naked as animals. not that they needed clothes with all that hair, but just the same their appearance gave me a queasy feeling--like i was looking at man's early ancestors suddenly come to life. if you can imagine a furry humanoid seven feet tall, with the face of an intelligent gorilla and the braincase of a man, you'll have a rough idea of what they looked like--except for their teeth. the canines would have fitted better in the face of a tiger, and showed at the corners of their wide, thin-lipped mouths, giving them an expression of ferocity. they came trotting straight across the plain, moving with grace and power. all external signs pointed to them being a carnivorous, primitive race. hunters, probably. the muscles of my scalp twitched as some deep-buried instinct inside me whispered, "_competition!_" * * * * * i've met plenty of humanoids, but these were the first that roused any emotion other than curiosity. perhaps it was their fierce appearance, or the bright, half-contemptuous intelligence in their eyes, or the confident arrogance in their approach, or merely that they looked more like us than the others i had met. whatever it was, it was strong, and i had the impression that the feeling was mutual. "stop!" i said as they approached the periphery. "why should we?" the foremost native replied in perfect terran. "because that barrier'll burn you to a nice crisp cinder if you don't." "that's a good reason," the native said, nodding. then the delayed reaction took over and the shock nearly floored me, until i saw that he was wearing alex's menticom. well, that explained the language and the feeling of mutual distrust--and it could explain why i thought alex had died back there in the jungle. a mental communicator snatched from its wearer's head can give that impression. but it raised an entirely new set of questions. where did this savage learn to operate the circlet and how did he recognize its purpose? i guess i wasn't too smart, because the native was tuned to me and i wasn't shielding my thoughts at all. he chuckled--it sounded like the purr of a cat. "we are not stupid, earthman." "so i see," i said uneasily. "i am k'wan, chief of this segment. i wish to know why you are here." "to survey your world. we are members of the bureau of extraterrestrial exploration. it is our job to make surveys of planets." "why?" "for trade, colonization, and exploitation," i answered. there was no sense in giving him a dishonest explanation. with him wearing that communicator, it would have done no good to try. "and what have you decided about us?" "that's not our job. we just investigate and report. what happens next is not our affair. but if you're worrying--don't. there are plenty of worlds available without bothering inhabited places. since you are intelligent, we would probably like to trade with you, if you have anything to trade--but that, of course, is up to you. we never intrude where we are not wanted, as long as we are treated with respect. if we are attacked, however, that is a different story." it was the old respect-and-threat routine that worked with primitive races. but i wasn't at all sure it was working now. "strange," k'wan said. "i would have sworn you were a predatory race. you are enough like us to be our little cousins." he scratched his head with a surprisingly human gesture. "in your position i would have attacked to show my power and inspire respect. perhaps you are telling the truth." "a predator can grow soft when he has too much prey," i said. "aye, there is truth in that. but what is too easy and how much is too much? and does a man change his habits of eating just because he is fat?" "you can find out." "i do not think that would be wise," the native said. "although you are physically weak, you sound confident. therefore you are strong. and strength is to be respected. let us be friends. we will make an agreement with you." * * * * * i shook my head. "it is not our place to make agreements. we only observe." "you have not done much of that," he said pointedly. "you sit here and send your machines over our seas and forests, but you do not see for yourselves. you cannot learn this way." "we learn enough," i said shortly. "we have talked of you at our council," k'wan continued, "and we think that you should know more before you depart. so we have come to make you an offer. let four of your men come with me, and four of mine will stay with you. we will exchange--and you can see our ways while we see yours. that would help us understand each other." it sounded reasonable. an exchange of hostages--or call it a cultural exchange, if you'd prefer. i told him that i'd think it over and to come back tomorrow. he nodded, turned, and together with his retinue disappeared into the jungle. * * * * * we hashed k'wan's proposal over at a board meeting that night and decided that we'd take it. the exact status of lyranian culture worried us. it is a cardinal rule never to underestimate an alien culture or to judge it by surface appearances. so we organized a team that would form our part of the "cultural exchange." i would go, of course. if k'wan could visit us, i could hardly stay back. alex was selected partly because he was an engineer, mostly because he'd been over the ground before. ed barger, our ecologist, and patrick allardyce, our biologist, made up the remainder of the party. i'd have liked to take the padre and doc, but doc was more valuable at base, and if i could have only four men, i wanted fighting men. "now," i said, "we'll take along a tight-beam communicator. coupled to our menticoms, it should be able to reach the ship and put what we see and what happens on permanent record." then i turned to dan warren. "if anything goes wrong, don't try to rescue us. finish your observations and get out. you understand? and get those exchange natives into interrogation. condition them to the eyeballs with cooperation dogma. we may need some friends here when the second echelon makes a landfall." warren nodded. i didn't have to elaborate. the native village was about what i expected from our reconnaissance flights. it was beautifully camouflaged. you couldn't tell it from the rest of the forest except that the trees were larger and were hollow--apparently hewn out with patient care to make a comfortable living space inside. lyranians lived in one place, if what i could see of their dwellings was any criterion. i wanted to look inside, but k'wan hustled us down the irregular "street" that wound through the grove of giant trees until we finally came to the granddaddy of them all, a trunk nearly forty feet in diameter. k'wan gestured at the tree. "your house while you are here. we made it for you earthmen." his voice came over my menticom and was duly recorded on the ship, since we were in constant contact, giving our impressions of the place. so far it was strictly sop. "thanks," i said. "we appreciate it." i was really touched at this tribute. k'wan had probably evacuated his own house to furnish us quarters where we could be together. the size of it indicated that it must be the chief's residence. but like all primitives he had to lie a little and the fiction of making this place for us was a way of salvaging pride in the face of our technological superiority. he walked inside and we followed, expecting to find a gloomy hole--but instead the room glowed with a soft light that came from the walls themselves. the air was cool and comfortable, a pleasing contrast to the heat outside. "what the--" i began, but allardyce was already peering at the walls. "a type of luminous fungus," he said. "a saprophyte. lives on the wood of this tree and gives off light. clever." i shut my mouth and looked around. there were other rooms opening off this one and along one wall a knobby imitation of a staircase led upward to a hole overhead. "hmmm, a regular skyscraper," ed barger commented, noting the direction of my gaze. "well, we should not be crowded, at any rate." i had been noticing something was wrong without realizing it. you know the feeling you get when you've lost something, but can't quite remember what it was. then my neurons made connections and i realized that the communicator and the menticom were both as dead as if we were in a lead box. quietly i moved to the door--and dan's voice hammered in my ears: "skipper! answer me! what's wrong?" "nothing, dan," i said. "we just went into the quarters they assigned us. something about them blocks transmission and reception. we're all fine." "oh." dan sounded relieved. "for a minute i was worried." "one of the boys'll call in every two hours," i assured him. "if you don't hear from us then, it'll be time to do something." "okay, skipper, but what'll i do?" "that'll be your decision," i said. "you'll be ranking officer." dan's chuckle was humorless. "thanks, but i hope we keep on hearing from you." "don't worry--you will. these people look worse than they really are. at least they have been nice so far." "they'd better stay that way," dan replied grimly. it was my turn to chuckle. "keep calm and keep your blasters dry. i'm going inside now. you'll hear from us in two hours." * * * * * ed barger looked at me a trifle oddly as i came through the doorway. "a while ago you were laughing at that story k'wan was telling us about making this house for us. i caught your undertone." "sure. what about it?" "well, i'm not so sure he was lying." "huh?" "take a look around you." i did. it was a nice room, considering its origin--low benches around the walls, a table and four chairs in the center, a soft, thick floor covering that was a pleasure to the feet. "see anything unusual?" ed asked. "no," i said. "what about those benches?" "they're part of the walls," i said, "cut out of the tree when it was hollowed out." "cut to _our_ size?" i did a double take. barger was right. the lyranians were seven feet tall and long-legged, but the benches were precisely right for human sitting, and the table in the center was only three feet above the gray floor. suddenly i didn't feel so good. "and those rooms--there are four of them--scaled to people _our_ size?" i shrugged. "so they modified the joint for us." "you still don't get it. this place is _living_. it's _growing_. nothing here except those chairs isn't part of this tree, and i'm not sure that they weren't. besides, how did they know that there'd be four of us?" "they could have been hopeful, or maybe four is their idea of a delegation. remember there were four of them that visited us, and they suggested that four of us visit them." "it's obvious," allardyce added, "that this place _has_ been made for us. k'wan wasn't lying." barger shook his head. "i still don't like it. i think we'd better get out of here. if they are as good biologists as this tree indicates, they're a class vi civilization at least--and we're not set up to handle levels that high." "i don't think that's necessary," allardyce said. "they don't seem unfriendly, and until they do, we're better off sitting pat and playing the cards as they're dealt. we can always warn the ship in case anything goes wrong." "don't be jumpy," alex broke in. "i told you they were all right. they grew the place for me. it's just grown a little since." i made a noncommittal noise. "it's true," alex said. "while i was here i needed quarters and nobody wanted me in with them. they have some custom about not letting strangers in their houses after sunset. so they took a sapling and sprayed it with some sort of stuff and by the next afternoon i had a one-room house." "where did you stay that first night?" i demanded. alex shrugged. "in one of the trees down the street," he said, pointing through the door. "it was some sort of a storage warehouse. no air conditioning and blacker than the inside of the coal sack. it rains pretty bad at night and they had to give me some shelter." he was right on time with his last statement, because the skies opened up and started to pour. the four-hour evening rain had begun. it had fascinated us at first, the regularity with which the evening showers arrived and left, but our meteorologist assured us that it was a perfectly natural phenomenon in a planet with no axial tilt. "but growing a tree in a day is fantastic," i said. "what's more, it's unbelievable, a downright--" "not so fantastic," allardyce interrupted. "this really isn't a tree. it's a cycad--related to the horsetail ferns back on earth. they grow pretty fast anyway and they might grow faster here. besides, the lyranians could have some really potent growth stimulants. in our hydroponics stations we use delta-gibberelin. that'll grow tomatoes from seed in a week, and forage crops in three days. it could be that they have something better that'll do the job in hours." "and one that makes a tree grow _rooms_?" i scoffed. * * * * * allardyce nodded. "it's possible, but i hate to think of the science behind it--it makes me feel like a blind baby fumbling in the dark--and i'm supposed to be a good biologist." he shivered. "their science'll be centuries ahead of ours if that is true." "not necessarily," barger said. "they could be good biologists or botanists and nothing much else. we've run into that sort of uneven culture before." "ha!" allardyce snorted. "that shows how little you know about experimental biology. anybody able to do with plants what these people do would have to know genetics and growth principles, biochemistry, mathematics, engineering and physics." "maybe they had it once and lost most of it," i suggested. "they wouldn't be the first culture that's gone retrograde. we did it after the atomic wars and we were several thousand years recovering. but we hadn't lost the skills--they just degenerated into rituals administered by witch doctors who handed the formulas and techniques down from father to son. maybe it's like that here. certainly these people give no evidence of an advanced civilization other than these trees and their native intelligence. civilized people don't hunt with spears or live in tribal groups." barger nodded. "that's a good point, skipper." "well, there's no sense speculating about it; maybe we'll know if we wait and see," allardyce summed up. i set sentries, three hours on and nine off, to keep dan informed of our situation, and since rank has its privileges, i took the first watch. we were all tired from our walk through the woods; the others turned in readily enough. i was sufficiently worried about the hints and implications in the native culture to keep alert--but nothing happened. i checked in with dan back at the ship and went to awaken alex, who had drawn the second watch, and turned in to the bedroom allotted to me. normally i can sleep anywhere, but i kept thinking about houses grown from trees and upholstery grown from fungus, about spear-carrying savages who understood the working principle of a menticom. it was all wrong and my facile explanation of a regressed culture didn't satisfy me. superior technology and savagery simply didn't go together. even in our interregnum period, islands of culture and technology had remained, and men hadn't reverted to complete savagery. but there were no such islands on this world--or none that were apparent. such enclaves couldn't have escaped our search mechanisms, which are designed precisely to locate such things. and besides, an advanced biological technology would have no need for hunting or spears. they could grow all the food they needed. any damn fool knew that. then why the noble savage act? for if our analysis was right, it must be an act. why were they trying to hoodwink us? the only answer was that there was a high civilization here that was being deliberately hidden from us. the only mistake they had made was in underestimating us--the old story of civilized men sneering at savages, but in reverse. the trees, therefore, must be such old and primitive techniques that they thought nothing of them, deeming them so inconsequential that even savages like us would know of them and not be suspicious. at that, they probably didn't have too much time after they detected us orbiting and intending to land. and if that were true, there could be only one place where their civilization was hidden. * * * * * i tried to get to my feet, to warn the others--but i couldn't move and no sound came from my flaccid vocal cords. i was paralyzed, helpless, and k'wan's amused thought floated gently into my brain. "i told the others that you humans were an advanced race, but they couldn't believe an obviously warlike species that depended upon _machinery_ could be anything but savages. and your man alex confirmed their beliefs. so we tried to meet you on your own ground--savage to savage, as it were. it seems as though we weren't as good at being savages as we thought." and k'wan stepped through an apparently solid section of tree trunk that parted to let him pass! this tree was nothing but a mousetrap, and we were the mice! why hadn't one of us carried the discussion a bit further? any idiot should know that biological agents were fully as deadly as physical ones. and these people were self-admittedly predatory. contempt at my stupidity was the only emotion that filled my mind--that we would be trapped like a flock of brainless sheep and led bleating happily to slaughter. raw anger surged through me, smothering my fear in a red blanket of rage. k'wan shook his head. "your reaction works against you. it's primitive--and, i think, dangerous. we cannot risk associating with a race that cannot control themselves. you have developed too fast--too soon. we are an old race and a slow race, and our warlike days are far behind us. the council was right. something must be done about you or there will be more of your kind on lyrane--hard, driving, uncontrolled, violent." he sighed--a very human sigh--half regret, half resignation. "and you promised no harm would come to us if we came with you," i thought bitterly. "i said you would come to no harm, nor will you. you'll just be changed a little." "like alex?" "yes." "what did you do to him?" he grinned, exposing his long tusks. "you'll find out," he said. he sounded just like a villain in a cheap melodrama. he took the menticom circlet off my head and all communication stopped. two other lyranians stepped through the wall, lifted me and carried me out like a shanghaied drunk from a spaceport bar. i wasn't particularly surprised at the laboratory that lay behind the wall. after all, an observation cage had to have its laboratory facilities. these were good--very good indeed. even though i knew hardly anything about biological laboratories, there was no doubt that here were the products of an advanced technology. i hated to admit it, but it looked as though we had run into what we had always feared but had never found--a civilization superior to ours. from the windowless appearance of the place, it was probably underground, and k'wan's look and nod seemed to confirm my guess. they laid me out on a table, took blood and tissue samples and proceeded to forget me while they ran tests and analyses. i kept trying to move, but it wasn't any use. a group of about a dozen oldsters came in, looked at me and went away. the council, i guessed. in a surprisingly short time k'wan came back, distinguishable by the menticom circlet. he was holding something that looked like a jet hypo in his hand. the barrel was full of a cloudy red liquid that swirled sluggishly behind the confining glass. "this won't hurt," he said, his thoughts amplified by the circlet. he lifted my arm, examined it and nodded. there was a high-pitched, sibilant hiss as he touched the trigger of the syringe and i felt a brief sting near my elbow. "there--that's that!" he said. "now we'll take you back and get the others." i swore at him coldly and viciously. he smiled. alex helped lay me back on my bed in the tree house. he looked down at me and grinned. it wasn't a pleasant grin. it reminded me of a crocodile. * * * * * naked, i was standing on an endless sandy plain. off in the distance the _two two four_ stood on her landing jacks, a tall, needle-pointed tower of burnished silver metal. the sun beat down from a cobalt sky burning my bare back as i trudged painfully across the hot shifting sand. my feet, scorched and blistered, sent agony racing through me with every step i took toward the tall silver column that seemed to recede from me as fast as i approached. my throat was choked with dust and my mind filled with fear and pain. i had to reach the ship. i _had_ to. yet i knew with dreadful certainty that i would not. he came at me from a hollow in the sandy ground, a huge, furry lyranian--bigger than any i had seen. his white tusks glittered in the sunlight as he leaped at me. twisting, i avoided him and turned to run. to fight that mountain of fanged flesh was futile. he could rip me apart with one hand. but i moved with viscid slowness, stumbling through the shifting sands. in a moment he was upon me, clutching with his huge hands, snapping at my throat with his tusked mouth. fear pumped adrenalin into my system and i fought as i had never fought before, breaking his holds, throwing jarring punches into his fanged face as he clawed and bit at me. with a violent effort i broke away and ran again toward the safety of the distant ship. for a moment i left him behind as he scrambled to regain his feet and came running after me. he was on me again, hands reaching for my throat. i couldn't get away. and again we fought, battering and clawing at each other, using fists, feet and teeth, biting and gouging. his strength was terrible and his hot, fetid breath was rank in my nostrils. with a grunt of triumph he tripped me and i fell on my back on the blazing sand. i screamed as my back struck the searing surface, but he held me helpless and immovable, pinned beneath his massive, crushing weight. and then he began to eat me! i felt his sharp fangs sink into my shoulder muscles and meet in my flesh. with a rush of frantic strength i threw him off again and again, ran stumbling across the plain. once more he caught me and again we fought. it went on endlessly--the fight, the temporary breakaway, the flight, the pursuit, and the recapture. i wondered dully why no one on the ship had seen us. perhaps they were looking in the wrong direction, or perhaps they weren't even looking. if i survived this and found that they hadn't been on watch--i snarled and slammed my fist into the lyranian's face. both of us were covered with blood, but he was visibly weaker. it was no longer a fight; we were too exhausted for that. we pawed at each other feebly, and i could detect something oddly like fear in him now. he couldn't hold me--but neither could i finish him. i gathered my last remaining strength into one last blow. my torn fist smashed into his bloody face. he toppled to the ground and i fell beside him, too spent to move. i lay there panting, watching him. he rose to his hands and knees and came crawling toward me, trembling with weakness. i felt his smothering weight pinning me as he fell across me. he twisted slowly, his fanged mouth gaping to bite again. his jaws closed on my arm. i was done--beaten--too weary and bruised to care. he had won. but his teeth couldn't break my skin. like me, he was finished. we lay there as the sun beat down, glaring at each other with fear and hate. and suddenly--over us--loomed the familiar faces of my crew and the tall tower of the _two two four_. somehow i had reached the ship and safety! * * * * * i awoke. i was bathed with sweat. my muscles were aching and my head was a ball of fire. i looked around. everything seemed normal. my menticom was on my head and i was lying on the bed in the tree house. painfully i rose to my feet and staggered into the main room. "my god! skipper, you look awful!" allardyce's voice was sharp with concern. "what's wrong?" "i don't know," i muttered. "my head's splitting." "here, sit down. let me take a look at you." allardyce produced a thermometer and stuck it in my mouth. "mmmm," he said worriedly. "you've got fever." "i feel like i've been through the mill," i said. "we'd better get back to the ship. doc should have a look at you." i wanted nothing more than the familiar safety of the ship, away from these odd natives and exotic diseases that struck despite omnivaccination. and we should get back before the others fell sick. "all right, pat," i said. "contact dan. have him send the big 'copter. we'll leave at once." i discounted the experience of last night as delirium, but just to make sure, i checked with allardyce and barger when they came in. "obviously fever," barger said. "nothing happened to me like you describe." "nor to me," allardyce said. i nodded. they were right, of course, unless the lyranian in _their_ dreams had eaten and absorbed them. then--but that was sheer nonsense. i was being a suspicious fool. but that dream--all of it--had been damnably real. we made our excuses to k'wan as the 'copter fluttered down into a nearby clearing. "i'm sorry about this," k'wan said apologetically, "but i never thought of the possibility of diseases. we are all immune. we do have some biological skill, as you've surely guessed, but our engineering technology is far inferior to yours. we thought it would be better not to let you know about us until we had a chance to observe you. but you undoubtedly have seen enough to deduce our culture." he grinned--a ferocious grimace that exposed his long tusks. "i suppose we are rather bad liars. but then we're not accustomed to deception." "i understand," i said. "you had no way of knowing what we were really like. we could have been the advance guard of a conquering space armada. you showed great courage to open relations with us." "not as great as yours. we had the opportunity of examining your man alex. you had only his untried opinions to go by." the 'copter came down with a flutter of rotor blades, and i shook hands with k'wan. for a moment i was tempted to call dan and tell him to turn our hostages loose, but on second thought decided that could wait. i slipped my menticom off. there was no point in broadcasting my thoughts, and without the gadget k'wan couldn't intercept them unless they were directed. after all, we were a minority on this world and earth didn't even know where we were yet. a ship can cross hyper-space far more easily and quickly than the most powerful transmitter can broadcast across normal space. it would be a thousand years before earth could hear from us by radio, even if they could distinguish our messages from stellar interference. while i felt oddly friendly, there was no reason to take chances, especially if there was any truth in that dream. "you will be leaving soon?" k'wan asked. "you and the ship?" "yes," i said. "we have done all we can do here." i looked up at him. he was standing there--_holding_ the menticom in his _hand_--yet i understood him! i didn't let the astonishment show on my face, nor the shock that coursed through my mind _when the lyranian in my brain tried vainly to scream a warning_! instead i took the circlet and turned to go. "remember what you are to do; the others will help," k'wan said. "i will remember," i replied. _you're damn well right i'll remember_, i thought grimly. the lyranian was supposed to wreck the ship. * * * * * he waved farewell as i turned to enter the 'copter. "our thoughts go with you for your success," he said. the lyranian in my brain screamed and struggled, but i held him easily. i was his master, not he mine. there would be no sabotage on the _two two four_. he wouldn't wreck my ship. "dan," i said as we went into orbit, "did alex come aboard?" "of course." "where is he?" "down in the engine room, i suppose, or in his bunk. it's not his watch." "maybe you'd better check. but before you do--" he waited for me to continue, and finally i was able to. "put allardyce, barger, and myself in the brig," i said. "set a guard over us with instructions to shoot if we try to make a break. then get alex, if he's aboard. frankly, i don't think you'll find him. they didn't need a ship's commander, a sociologist or a biologist, but they did need an engineer. now get going. this is an order!" warren stiffened. "yes, sir--sorry, sir!" inside my skull, the lyranian came to life--struggled briefly--and then quit. barger, allardyce and i spent the rest of the trip home in the air-conditioned, radiation-resistant, germproof, dustproof, escape-resistant brig. alex, of course, wasn't aboard. there aren't many places on a starship where a man can hide, and the crew searched them all. even so, i kept worrying about the ship's safety all the way back. it was a miserable trip. i suppose it was just as miserable for the lyranians in my two companions who kept worrying about how to destroy us. it didn't do them any good either. they never got a chance, and ultimately we reached decontamination. barger and allardyce are up there now. the medics think they can erase the lyranians with insulin shock, but it'll take time. mine, being a nice, tame one, was considered to be more valuable in me than out. we're going to have to know a lot about lyrane in a hurry if we're going to do anything about those people, and my lyranian can tell us plenty. but i'll bet we'll find things different on lyrane when we go back. they'll have at least ten years, and with the brains they've got--and alex's brain to pick--they'll do just fine from an engineering point of view. i'll bet they'll even have spaceships. from what i can gather from my alter ego, they checked alex's brain and didn't like what they saw. that's the trouble with romantics. they always remember the wars and the fighting, never the stodgy, peaceful interims. but you simply don't spring that sort of stuff on a culture like lyrane's. and i suppose my anger didn't help things any, but if not for that anger and my primitive bull-headedness, we might not be here. iii capt. halsey hurriedly downed the rum. "skippers are picked because they're tough-minded and authoritarian. in space you need it occasionally. fortunately i lived up to specifications. a peaceful sort like my lyranian just couldn't take it--fortunately." "fortunately?" i asked. "sure. what else? possibly those natives we conditioned would help our case, possibly not. and in the meantime the lyranians would suck alex dry. and with the _two two four_ gone it'd be maybe a couple of hundred years before we ran into them again, and by then they'd really be ready--loaded for bear with itchy trigger fingers--and we just might have a war on our hands. as it is we'll send out a battle fleet to give some authority to our negotiators so no one will get hurt. they just shouldn't have picked alex as typical of us. with his attitude and our weapons, they naturally got a lot of wrong ideas." "wrong?" i prompted the skipper. halsey chuckled. "yes, that's what i said--wrong ideas," he said in that remote second voice. "just because you've forgotten self-defense doesn't mean that other peaceful civilizations don't remember it." task mission by fox b. holden _captain jorl thought arcturus iv was the answer to all he had ever wanted. and it was. but there was also a twist.... how can there be an ideal where everything is perfection?_ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, april 1955. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] captain nicholas joel stood waiting in his fore-waist bridge; he looked again through its heavy, slotted quartz windows and now he could see them coming. he could make out the toy-like silhouette of their jeep, emerging in reckless, bounding leaps from the edge of the cultivated forest. now they were racing at full tilt across the hard-packed yellow sand of the desert in a bee-line for the ship that had landed them here a scant three weeks ago. captain nicholas joel watched them, their excitement a visible thing as they pounded up clouds of saffron behind them, and knew without activating his personal communicator what they'd have to tell him. "we've hit it again!" they'd tell him. he turned his big body from the curving windows, quickly calculated the time it would take the jeep to reach the flaring stern of the _white whale_, figured how many minutes it would take the pneumatic lift to whisk them three hundred and twelve feet up to the fore-waist, and snatched open the door of his liquor cabinet. sam carruthers would be the first one to say it. thin, quiet sam, who'd been in space as ship's surgeon and psychiatrist for as long as joel himself. it had been twenty-two years since they'd left the academy together. sam had taken his specialty training in space medicine, while he, joel, had let himself get sucked into qualifying as pilot. twelve years of the academy. and twenty-two more being ordered around the freezing hell of god's black universe like a toy on a string. and for all of it, sam still had that look in his dark, brooding eyes--the look that had been glazed with shock, but which had still not surrendered, the day they told sam he wasn't going to make pilot. the look would still be there four minutes and thirty seconds from now when he led the others into the fore-waist bridge to holler "we've hit it again!" it would always be. joel tilted the liquor bottle and one big, clumsy-looking hand poured steadily into the thick glassite flagon he held in the other. he downed it in a gulp. hit it again _hell_! and behind sam there would be the first officer, dobermann. little, wiry german who knew more about languages and semantics than the guy who'd invented them, and the best astro-navigator you could find in this or any other galaxy. sure, they always gave nicholas joel nothing but the best. that was part of it. part and parcel of the whole damn conspiracy. dobermann wouldn't say anything when he came in. but there'd be a thorough-going, successful, mission-accomplished look on his handsome face. dobermann never missed. and southard.... still a kid, still wet behind the ears, but a hell of a promising astrophysicist, backed up with plenty of biochemistry and geophysics. it was still a big, romantic adventure to southard, and he wore the single red, gleaming stripe of ship's second officer on his broad young shoulders as though it was the thick gold circle of a full captaincy. joel filled the flagon and emptied it a second time. he went back to the windows, the liquor bottle and flagon still in his hands. to most men, he supposed, the panorama that spread for miles from the stern of the up-ended _white whale_ would be a thing of sheer beauty. it would be hard for them to believe that there existed other planets far beyond the rim of their own hostile solar system which could equal or exceed the soft beauty of the oasis they called earth. but there it was--gently-rolling, golden desert beneath a temperate, dark-gold sun, flanked at one gently curving edge by a forest that looked as though it had been scientifically planned and landscaped for beauty. it was a big forest that covered a full third of the planet, and at its opposite edge it gave way to twelve thousand miles of unblemished shoreline which descended into gleaming, azure ocean. and in the forest, on the ocean, even on the wide expanse of desert, there were people. intelligent, strong, peaceful, quiet people, who might have been natives of earth's pacific islands of three centuries ago, save that their flesh was lighter in tone; their sun was not as young as sol. farmers, mostly, carruthers had reported. some merchants, some travelers and explorers, even some men of a very young science, but, mostly, farmers ... it was the way they lived. a good way, joel thought. a good way, in a good place. he looked through the fore-waist bridge windows, and what he saw was beautiful. but he filled the flagon again. a buzzer sounded softly from the compact secondary control console which banked a full third of the bridge's fore bulkhead, and deliberately, joel let it buzz a second and a third time before he fingered the stud that slid the small metal door open behind him. he turned as they came through it. fatigue and sweat lined sam's thin face; dobermann was audibly out of breath. southard had to duck slightly to get into the room, but when he straightened he seemed as fresh as when the party had left the ship seventeen days before. joel returned their salute with the full flagon still in his left hand, and then beat carruthers to the punch. "all right, so we've hit it one more time! bully for us--" he drained the flagon, reached for the bottle. without carruthers, there would have been an awkward silence. but after twenty-two years, sam knew his man. "ahh, you've shown us more than this, skipper. i suppose it is a little better than our prelim reports indicate, if you want to get technical. the people want to co-operate. they're intelligent, healthy, and friendly and they realize fully what we're trying to do. they want to help us, and say we're welcome to all the mneurium-4 we want. 'course there's only a few hundred pure megatons of it lying around, but, if you want to get technical--" "go to hell," joel said, and poured his flagon half full. he felt a little better, but it would take more than a half-bottle of martian colony bond and sam's wise answers to change things. "go right straight to hell!" he sniffed at the bond. "so the long arm of superior civilization has reached out its clanking claws again to make the universe a better place to live in, has it? god help 'em if they _believed_ all the hog-wash you fed 'em, sam." the thin face sobered. "i spoke to them in good faith, nicholas, and they did believe me. the fact is, they--" "all right, i get your point! got my mind made up, so don't start confusing me with facts." he transfixed the three of them with a restless look; a look they had grown used to. it was a gaze that matched the rest of him; the unruly, untrimmed black hair, the short, thick beard which was unneeded on a chin and jaw as big and square as joel's, the careless, unmilitary carriage of his thick shoulders and blocky body, the blood-shot metal-blue eyes themselves. but during the split-second the gaze was upon them, they knew pages were flipping in joel's massive head. pages of regulations, procedures, memorized down to the last foot-note. "let's go in order with your reports," joel snapped. southard stepped forward. "constellation boötis, arcturus, planet iv. preliminary analysis of ore-samples indicate rich lodes of mneurium-4, relatively close to the surface, and in unprecedentedly great number. purity is unbelievably high, with--" "all right, southard, good report. dobermann." "minimum of linguistic difficulty, coupled with a surprisingly high aptitude on the natives' part for language learning. in the seventeen days i had with them, i'm almost certain those with whom i worked learned at least half as much english as i did of their tongue," the german said. he added, simply, as though the seventeen days of exhausting gesticulating, diagramming, systematizing, learning, recording, had never existed, "there will be no language difficulty, sir." "good. now you, sam, and no schmaltz!" "healthy people, no cancer, no tb, no coronary troubles--" "the mneurium-4, i know. go on." "average iq in the 120's--and there's something for us to keep in mind in spite of our big technological and scientific jump on them. they're still working with wood, iron and crude steel, but they won't be for long. agrarian civilization so far; they've got a representative type of government--democracy, and a damn good one, and they're psychologically suited for just what they've evolved along that line. they actually practice what they preach, from the individual status right on up through the framework of their government. open, honest, sincere--they have to be, because of the high degree of uniformity of iq, and because--now get this--they _want_ to be. it's the way their minds are built, and--" "all right, so if i believe you, we won't be fighting to get what we want. they're willing to meet our terms, that it?" "yes, skipper. access to all scientific data with which we can supply them now, and as much more later as they think they'll require, in exchange for reasonable mining rights." "_reasonable?_" joel thundered. he slammed the heavy bottle down on the old-fashioned mahogany desk at his elbow. "was _that_ in the contract you made with them? how do you know what the hell they mean by reasonable?" "sir, if i may--" "all right, dobermann, go ahead and enlighten me." "i worked a number of hours with them on that point, to make certain there would be no errors in the semantics involved. they have learned, despite their lack of scientific medical knowledge, that as long as there is mneurium-4 around, they don't get sick. they trust us to leave enough to insure their own well-being." "that's crazy," joel shot back at his first officer. "how in god's name can they know about mneurium-4 and how to use it when we've only known about it and have been scratching the universe for it for less than thirty years? that's goddam nonsense--" he refilled the flagon, spilled a little of the potent liquor on his beard as he downed it. "no, nicholas," sam said. "you're the bug on history around here. think a minute." joel drew a sleeve across his mouth, and pages flipped in his head again. yes, sam was right. back as far as the twentieth century, there had been isolated tribes in south america which had been found free of the diseases that had plagued their more civilized neighbors of the north, and it had taken the medical experts years to find out exactly why. invariably, the answer had been usage of the most promising materials provided by nature which were closest at hand. a tribe stumbled onto something, used it--experimentally at first, then wastefully, but finally, with a thousand years' practice, pretty efficiently. and it had nothing to do with the fact that they still went around with spears and animal-hide shields.... "all right, i get your point, sam," joel said. sam quit talking, and for a moment there was silence in the limited confines of the fore-waist bridge. then joel put the bottle and the flagon down on the desk, turned his back to it and faced them. "from the way you boys talk this thing up, it all must be just jim-dandy. maybe better than on that rock back in aldeberan, or even better than we did in altair, or fomalhaut, or procyon seven, or any of the rest of 'em...." he paused again, watched their faces. they remembered--all except southard, who hadn't been with them on any of the old strikes. but his youthful enthusiasm just about made up for the fierce pride that shone in the eyes of the others. * * * * * back home, the _white whale_, of all of earth's great fleet of explorer-class ships, had hung up the most enviable record. she had brought back rare elements known to men but unobtainable by them within the confines of their own tiny solar system, or rare life-forms, impossible to study effectively in their native habitats, or precious new data which were beyond the reach of the astronomer's observatory. it meant progress. it meant a living force in the universe, a force of learning and of knowing, which would tolerate no barrier, which would broach neither defeat nor ultimate conclusion. in short, it meant man. nicholas joel knew it, and he still hated space. since that first indoctrination blast out to the moon and back when he'd been a plebe--since that day that he'd realized for the first time how _big_ it was. and how big men ought to be, but weren't. big muscles, but little minds.... he still wondered just how the hell they'd sucked him in. they'd hit him somewhere inside, in a place he'd forgotten to guard--his instructors, his commandant, the secretary of science himself. they'd sweet-talked him into staying those twelve years. young man, they had told him, yours is a body and a brain with an adaptability to space exploration the like of which has never been duplicated in our records. you hate to fly, yet you are the best cadet pilot ever to enter the academy. you dislike technical and scientific study, yet your grades in this field are the highest on record. you despise the regimen of the military necessary to survival in space, yet, unaccountably, your cadet commands have been the most efficient and best handled of any in our knowledge. young man, they had said, here's the works on a silver platter--be a pilot--you owe it to yourself, to the world, to humanity! say you'll take our ships where no other man would dare, and you can write your own ticket for the rest of your life! _but you simply have to be a pilot, young man...._ and he remembered how it had been with sam, who would have moved the earth with arms and legs tied behind him to have qualified. sam, who had hungered for it, but had taken a lesser assignment cheerfully, just so, at least, he could be a part of some other pilot's team in space. sam, who had that look in his eyes. but since his assignment to the _white whale_ fifteen years ago, there had never been a sign--not the slightest, that joel had been able to detect, that he was doing anything but what he most wanted. that took guts, and guts. joel understood. and so now they'd hit it again. mneurium-4, the "wonder-element" that science had discovered would put a host of earth's most dreaded diseases to rout, but which it had not been able to obtain or synthesize despite years of exhaustive effort. captain joel, they had told him, the radio-astronomers say there could be mneurium-4 somewhere out in boötis. get some. and in spite of them and their damned passion for onward-and-upward, if they insisted he pilot space to bring them back one new gew-gaw after another to play with, then he'd bring them back gew-gaws until they choked! _choked!_ and the world he wanted--the world he'd always wanted, would just have to be for somebody else. then he looked at their faces, and they were waiting. "all right, i get your point! don't just stand there--southard, get your 'copters going! i want a fully plotted area of operation for the next six months, including jump-off point as of tomorrow at 0600 hours, and on this desk by 2200 tonight! dobermann, you won't have anything to do for awhile, so you can get southard's servodrillers going for him; get 'em all out, form 'em on the port flank in details of five. i want to see it by 2100. sam, has dobermann given you any practice in their lingo? good--all right, it's time i met 'em--you'll take me to their capital city or wherever it is their top people are and we'll get things down in black and white. i'll be ready for you in twenty minutes. any questions?" there weren't. joel's three officers turned and left, each scrambling to his new assignment, glad to actually get started before something happened to upset the unexpected simplicity of the whole thing. there'd never been a mission that had come off as smoothly as this one was beginning. it promised to make them feel guilty to draw their pay checks for it. for once, it looked as though joel was going to get what he came after without having to fight down to raw nerve and bone to get it. good. the captain had an easy one coming. when they'd gone, joel dropped his great frame into the ancient chair behind his big desk and got to work with the ship's intercom, flipping it to main circuit. he did ten minutes' talking in six, and phase one was organized, down to the last ship's guard, down to the last assistant servomech. then he had fourteen minutes until carruthers was due, ready to drive him to meet these people in their cultivated forest. so for every one of the fourteen minutes, captain nicholas joel leaned back in the chair, shut his eyes tight, and filled in a little more of the world he wanted. * * * * * the roads were of hard-packed dirt, but level, and wide. occasionally, as sam carruthers drove, they would pass through a hamlet, or go by small knots of men and women in carriages and wagons drawn by striped animals resembling earth's african zebra. the farms were small but numerous, and none, joel noted, had been entirely cleared; the trees had been thinned, and they were of a far more slender variety than grew elsewhere, but they had not been eliminated. it set well with him. joel had always liked trees, and he had a feeling he was going to like other people who did to such an obvious extent. buildings, he noted, were almost entirely of wood; structures very similar to those he remembered having seen in a history text dealing with the western united states in the nineteenth century. a few were of stone, some of small, brick cubes; all were pleasing enough to the eye. and the people themselves were-the people looked up as the jeep roared past; looked up from their work in the fields, looked out from their wagons and carriages, looked from their saddled mounts at the roadside. but there was no fear in their glances, only the quick puzzlement of inquiring intelligence. they were straight, well-bodied people, clothed simply in colorful garments which joel assumed were made of cloth; the men were tall and broad and he could mentally picture the powerful muscles that rippled beneath their shirts. and the women--the women were the most graceful creatures he had ever seen, even those who were obviously no longer young; they were less fully clad than their men, and captain nicholas joel liked that. he liked it because it was honest. where there was something beautiful, why in the name of anything holy or otherwise should it be covered up? that was the trouble with earth and her people. there were too few things of real beauty, and when they did exist, humans seemed to have a psychotic compulsion for either ignoring them or hiding them completely. and those who did hesitate for a stolen moment's admiration were hurriedly hollered back to their jobs. "you're surprised that they're not cluttering up the roads, trying to get a closer look at us?" sam was hollering over the howl of the warm, oxygen-rich atmosphere. "good discipline," joel grunted, still occupied with his own thoughts. "well, you're partly right. but more than that, we haven't stopped to look at _them_! it's sort of a half-courtesy, half-pride they have. they won't slow a stranger down if he doesn't slow them down, figuring that if he wanted to, he would; the prerogative is his. and, if he's not that interested, then neither are they!" "you're sure some expedition didn't get here before we did?" joel asked. "i mean--hell, they could be from earth--" "ever hear of an earthman with two hearts, skipper? but physically that's about the only difference i could find. psychologically--" the space surgeon hesitated. "psychologically what?" "take too long to explain--we're coming into the capital city you were talking about. and besides--" he grinned in a sidelong glance at joel, "you might even have the brains to figure it out all by yourself." "go to hell!" in a moment carruthers was busy with the jeep, tooling it through narrowing streets, slowing it to almost a walk as men and women hastened out of their way, crowded the board sidewalks to allow them to pass unhampered. the buildings were much like those he had seen in the rural districts; a little larger, a bit taller, but none more than fifty feet in height. neatly painted, their thin glass windows bright and clean, they did not look like part of a city at all, joel reflected, much less part of a capital city. and everything was so quiet. maybe too quiet. he felt a little chill at the base of his spine, but kept looking straight ahead. "you're sure, sam, about leaving my guns back at the ship?" carruthers just grinned again. and then they turned abruptly, and hauled up in front of a long, low building of flagstone. "this is it," the surgeon said. "no reporters, no photographers, no autograph seekers, no brass band or politicians. but you're on, skipper." * * * * * captain nicholas joel felt naked without his guns, and he felt off-balance and out of place. standing in the sedate, oval-shaped council-chamber with these peaceful-looking people confronting him, he felt clumsy in his heavy black leatheroid uniform, big, highly-polished black boots. he felt as if he looked like what he'd been forced to be on other occasions, facing forms of life so alien that no difference counted--like a man-at-arms, like a conqueror. suddenly, he was glad sam had made him leave his guns back at the ship. "nicholas joel, united americas intergalactic exploration fleet, of the ship _white whale_, commanding!" carruthers was introducing him in english, and he wished that sam would have had the good sense to have said "this is captain joel" and let it go at that. didn't the grinning idiot know it must have been an awful pill for these people to swallow all at once? that there were, to begin with, such things as other planets and other galaxies--and that there were, even more incredibly, other creatures that lived on them. and, whether they cared to believe it or not, some of these creatures had just landed among them, and there was nothing they could do about it! sam was picking his way along now in their speech, and then at an obvious gesture, joel knew he was being introduced to their top man. sam waved an arm toward the tallest of the twelve-man group, who arose from the opposite side of a polished wooden table, and bowed gently from the waist. "his excellency and prime governor, k'hall-i-k'hall." joel hesitated, then returned the bow. he had never bowed in his life, but a salute to somebody dressed in civilian clothes seemed crazy. "sam, you mean he's prime governor of--" "the whole planet." "am i always supposed to say his name twice?" "that is his name. that's the way they do it. now shut up, skipper, and let me do the talking. i'm going to go through the whole works again with 'em. then we sign. then you get a tour of the town so the people can be introduced to you officially. but don't go making any speeches! behave, and we're in business." "you go to--" but sam had already started talking in the liquid-sounding language, and joel decided it was better for him to keep his own mouth shut and be thought stupid than open it and remove all doubt. damn it, the whole thing was making him feel just the way he had twenty years ago, when he landed his first explorer on an alien world! it had been that long, and how many hundred meetings with alien life-forms since then, under how many fantastic circumstances, on how many god-forsaken, unworldly places? by now he was supposed to know the score. by now he was supposed to have seen everything. by now he knew the book inside and out, and had the ability to take charge no matter where in the black universe they sent him. nicholas joel, united americas intergalactic exploration fleet, of the ship _white whale_, commanding.... but nobody was challenging his right to have what he'd come for! no _trouble_, that was the hell of it, and--and there was nothing to hate. for a miserable moment, captain nicholas joel stood becalmed, with not so much as a breeze in his sagging sails. but he would not let them know it. he looked levelly into the eyes of each of the twelve, but even that did little to make him feel more at ease. for he saw wisdom in the lined, kindly faces. he saw a humility and sincerity that matched the simple clothing they wore. he saw a kindness that men talked about in books and sometimes felt in their hearts, but seldom held openly in their faces for the world to see. these men were handsome in their physical stature, but they could have been little men three feet high, and they would have been the biggest that joel had ever seen. now they were talking in subdued tones to sam, and then one produced a document, and handed sam a slender writing stylus. "hey sam--" the hoarseness of his voice unnerved him, but joel plowed ahead. "hadn't you oughtta read that thing?" "it's already been read, skipper. by dobermann. it took him three days to draw it up--he did most of the writing himself. it's already been electrostated; we've got ten copies of our own. now keep your mouth shut or they'll think we don't trust them. you sign first, because you're the guest. then k'hall-i-k'hall, and it's all over." sam's thin face had a seriousness in it that joel knew he did not dare question. _the trouble is_, the thought stung him, _you doubt, because you were born and raised on earth. sam knows that. and he knows how these people think. and he says sign.... so sign, you big boob._ silently, joel took the stylus from sam, bent quickly over the papyrus-like document, and put his name, rank and ship where sam pointed. then he gave the stylus to sam, who returned it to k'hall-i-k'hall. and in another instant, all the mneurium-4 the _white whale_ could lift clear was theirs for the taking. * * * * * once he'd put his mind to it, joel could converse in the language of his hosts as fluently as either dobermann or carruthers, and within a month he had been able to finish a limited round of visits to a full dozen of the smaller cities and towns. these people had respected his wish that he be allowed to roam their streets and public buildings without official escort, and with an ever-quickening fading of his self-consciousness, he did. he did, more and more frequently. and from the vantage point of their peacefully winding roads or their quaint little shops where they dispensed a fluid amazingly similar to martian colony bond, joel could hate the _white whale_ from a comfortable distance, and with a healthy, untiring diligence. this he also did, more and more frequently. it was during one of these self-assigned off-duty periods, alone in his personal jeep, that his most recent pint of bond decided to harass him, and he discovered almost too late that he had ignored a turn of the dirt roadway. he skidded wickedly, and frightened one of the zebra-like animals drawing a vehicle much resembling a four-wheeled surrey. the animal let go with a terrified whinny, and with a sickening splintering noise, the _dhennah_ went plunging off the road into the deep drainage ditch at its edge. there was also another sound, and joel practically stood the jeep on its nose slewing it to a stop. by the time he was out and running back, the frightened animal had gotten itself out of the ditch and was working frantically to bring the _dhennah_ out after it. but the vehicle was canted at a crazy angle, and it was obvious to joel that at least one of its starboard wheels was broken, and that it would take more than one _kaelli_ to haul it out. none of this, he reflected as he ran, was going to help diplomatic relations a bit. and he was no dobermann. but it was none of these things that worried him at the moment. she was screaming bloody murder, and still was hard at it when he jumped into the ditch. she stopped when he clambered up on the steeply tilted narrow seat to which she clung. there was suddenly not a sound from her as his big hands circled her waist and gently lifted her to the ground. then he discovered that his voice was stuck. dammit, an explorer captain for over fifteen years, and he didn't know what to say when he banged up some farm girl's _dhennah_! "i--ah, am terribly sorry. it will be replaced, of course. very stupid and clumsy of me. i--ah, you hurt?" rather smooth, at that! she smiled. slender lips, golden-colored eyes, delicately contoured face--all seemed to smile together. a breeze ruffled her tawny mass of shoulder-length hair, and nicholas joel just stood there. "you are forgiven, the _dhennah_ was not a costly one. i know how difficult it must be for you to guide those machines of yours at such terrible speeds ... but of course the speeds are necessary to you in your work. thank you for helping me." joel reassured himself that if only the conversation were in his mother tongue, he would of course not feel so ridiculously at a loss for words. after all, this young female was only an--an alien being. "it was my pleasure, of course," joel said. he thought perhaps if he could manage a smile--"i am gratified that you accept my clumsiness with such excellent grace. as intruders to begin with, my men and i--" "intruders, sir?" she had taken a few steps away from him to stroke the neck of the _kaelli_ and quiet it, but she was still looking at him. "why intruders? at one time, all the people of this world were not of one great community as they are now, surely you know that. but when one group travelled and visited another, no one thought of it as an intrusion." she laughed. "are we all not one under the sun?" "but they were of your own kind, from elsewhere on your own planet--" "a visitor is a visitor," she said, as though suddenly puzzled. "what can it matter where he is from?" joel started to reply, but checked himself. of course these people had no way of knowing. of course they were still under the impression that intelligent life, wherever it might exist, would necessarily be in their own form. the fact that it might not be had never occurred to them! then that was why they had not feared the _white whale_ and her crew. it was something carruthers had probably perceived at once, something he could no doubt explain. but now joel was seeing it first-hand for himself. psychologically, this girl and her people were incapable of conceiving a way of life based on different reasons for living than their own, with different motives, different--ambitions. just, he reflected, as his own people were psychologically incapable of greeting a stranger without subconscious suspicion. to these people, a visitor was--a visitor, and therefore a friend! he wondered how many others beside himself, carruthers and dobermann knew. "perhaps it does not matter at all," joel said, and he was surprised at the gentleness in his voice. he had not felt it that way in his throat for a long time. not for a terribly long time. "now, if you'll let me help you with that harness, we'll free your _kaelli_, and see what can be done about getting you on toward your destination!" joel's big fingers started fumbling with the thick leather thongs of the _kaelli's_ rig. the harness felt strange and confusing to hands disciplined to the limiting exactnesses of servocircuits and pressure-control studs, and the complexity of their co-ordination was thrown into confusion by sheer simplicity. the girl laughed as she watched his efforts, then guided his hands with her own, and joel felt a strange warmth mounting in his neck. and when the _kaelli_ was at last freed, he said, "now then, where can i take you? i owe you something more than just the replacement of your _dhennah_. i shall drive slowly so that the _kaelli_ can follow, and you can see for yourself what it is like to ride in one of our machines!" "but--they go like the wind!" "indeed they do!" joel laughed, unaccountably pleased with her excitement. "yes, ma'm, just like the wind!" quite unexpectedly, she reached for his hand, and joel clasped hers with a quickness he had not intended. but then he was leading her to the jeep, helping her into it. he started the powerful turbine engine, chuckled aloud at her quick gasp, then joined in her laughter. "just like the wind!" he cried and they were off. the day was clear and bright and to joel the air itself seemed to come alive with a heady excitement. this was something, it told him. this was not to hate. this was not to drink in bitterness. this was _not_ to be alone. * * * * * captain nicholas joel paced the fore-waist bridge. there was a full, untouched flagon on the mahogany desk, and the bottle of martian colony bond stood, tightly corked, beside it. he sat down, hating the feel of the chair of command beneath his big body. what he was thinking was wrong, of course. but no man could be two men; a man could not split himself down the middle and say: this is your life _here_, this is your life _there_, for it is unthinkable that a man be prisoner of one life only--no, a man could not do that; a man had only one life. wrong, was it? and who, any more a man than himself, could dare to be judge? he would call carruthers; he would explain, and carruthers would inform the rest. as for command-a buzzer roared on the desk in front of him. it was the dispatch unit communicator--it would be southard. a huge forefinger hit the toggle almost hard enough to wrench it from its socket. "command!" joel grated into the sensitive pick-up. "proceed with your message." he reached for the flagon, drained it, filled it again. "lieutenant southard calls command from servogroup 4." the youngster's voice sounded tight, excited. now what the hell--"request task mission. request task mission. position--" joel quickly jacked in the ship's armory circuit. an alarm klaxon would be electrifying the entire complement of combat personnel stationed in that quarter of the ship even as armory communications was taking down the co-ordinates southard was dictating. and within one minute and forty-five seconds after that, combat units would be assembling in machine-like precision, deploying into advance order at the ship's stern. and as the two huge sections between the _white whale's_ slender atmosphere fins opened like hungry steel mouths, disgorging flat, thick-bodied machines with their grim burdens of armed men and destroyer-artillery. ship's guard would be taking up defense positions, manning gun stations which commanded an energy potential sufficient to destroy a minor planet in a single, searing second of blue-white heat. all this was automatic. a dispatch-unit request for task mission was an order, momentarily transcending even command authority. it worked that way because the men who travelled space had learned that with the first foot they rose off the surface of earth, theirs was no longer the privilege of living, but the task of survival. space was emergency. and if you regarded it otherwise, it would kill you. joel waited. he watched only the sweep second hand on his desk chronometer; he did not need his screens, for he knew too well what was transpiring three hundred and twelve feet below him. he had seen it too many times. and too many times had he waited the necessary two minutes, listened to the taut silence of the waiting communicator. "command to southard. task mission dispatched and advancing. now describe your situation." "as follows--" the young lieutenant's voice was still taut, but it was not at the edge of panic. of that joel was certain. it was just that this was the first time, and it wasn't a field exercise, and it hadn't just been learned the night before from an academy manual.... "servounit 4, sample tapping with four facilities at two hundred feet. metal encountered; processed. object depth-screened; fabricated. extends from minus two zero zero to minus five two seven. diameter three zero feet. further investigation withheld pending arrival of task mission. over for command." _over for command_, the young voice said. so many, many times.... he was not exactly the same nicholas joel, now. he was command.... "all right, boy, sit easy and try to relax. what the hell is it you've got holed up out there?" "it's a--a space ship, sir." "what class?" "i don't know, sir. it isn't terrestrial." "all right, what do the counters tell you?" "it's about a thousand years old, sir. that's as close as the counters can come, working off a screen. perhaps, sir, you'd--" "well i don't want to look at pictures! inform task mission when they show up that i'm coming out for a look around--and i'll have their hides if they go unnailing things before i get there. you got any bond with you, southard?" "yes sir." "all right, you get my point? don't drink it all! this is command, _whale_, out!" joel broke the circuit just as the admittance buzzer went off; he thumbed a stud and the narrow bulkhead door slid back, admitting carruthers and dobermann. "was wondering when you two were going to report. sent a t-m to southard--says he's found a space ship two hundred feet under the desert. sometimes i think that kid works too hard. all right, got the 'copter ready?" "warming up on the waist ramp now," dobermann said. joel stood up, reached for his guns and belt and strapped them around his thick middle. he gave carruthers a quick look. the thin face was taut, almost expressionless, but there was an excitement smouldering in the dark eyes; the old excitement joel had seen in them so many times before. "no objections to the artillery this time, i take it, sam?" joel grunted as he clasped the big buckle, let the weight of the blasters sag their holsters down into position on his thighs. "damn good of you! and i'm glad you understand these people so well--while we're on our way maybe you can tell me why they bury space ships." "maybe we ought to ask them, skipper," sam said with a half-smile on his thin lips. "i get your point. but maybe they should've told us! come on." * * * * * on joel's order, the task mission's guns had been reversed; drawn about the area where southard's servounits were noisily sucking up sand, they no longer were concentrated on the excavation site, but instead defended it, slender snouts commanding an immense circular field of fire. "you don't trust them at that, do you, nicholas?" carruthers said above the racket of the servounits. "lord, you could slaughter an army--" "this is what it says to do in the goddamn books!" joel snapped. "you're the guys who were so glad to make a strike." the heavy, tracked machinery with its towering drill-housings and down-thrust vacuum-scoops whined and growled in a nerve-wrenching discord of power. men sweated under the mild sun with a silent hurry, with a disciplined excitement. southard was fast and efficient. dobermann was silent, watching, analyzing. carruthers had the hungry look in his eyes that joel did not understand. and joel was impatient. it was a tableau of men and machines that he had watched before, and always, at the end of it, there was something big for him to handle--frustrating if not dangerous, a mind and bone-wearying struggle if not an outright battle. they never came smooth, never. "forehull clear, sir!" it was southard, calling from the lip of the immense hole his machines had excavated. "cut your servos!" southard signalled to his units, and they muttered slowly into silence, and then the silence hung over them all like a heavy thing, and captain nicholas joel knew that what happened next was up to him. with a motion of one gauntleted hand he brought dobermann and carruthers in next to him, and then the three of them walked with a disciplined haste to the sandy lip, past southard, and looked down. a pitted forehull jutted up out of the moist sand two hundred feet below them, its plates glittering darkly in the rays of the powerful illumination units which had already been lowered. dobermann's quick eyes took in each detail in seconds, and then they darted up to joel's face. carruthers was silent, and his face was white. "all right, let's get some winch-lifts over here!" joel bellowed. "torches, can-openers, let's get with it!" and within minutes, joel was on his way down in a bucket, big boots planted solidly on a small mountain of heavy tools. dobermann was following, and carruthers was in the third bucket. joel's bare hands were exploring the gnurled lip of the forehull lock-hatch before either of them hit bottom. dobermann was first up beside him, a heavy torch cradled in his short, thick arms. "ready?" "won't need that thing," joel grunted. "nobody locked up when they left. give me a hand." the hatch, like the rest of the hull, was pitted, but despite the moistness of the sand in which the ship was imbedded, there were no indications of corrosion. joel made a mental note to have the lubricants in which the hinge-gymbals were packed analyzed later; they were still as good as new; the hatch was giving almost easily. carruthers, with an arc lantern, lit their way inside. they walked into what was obviously a pilots' compartment. instruments, control panels, ack-seats, notations on metal-leaf note-pads which they did not understand; dobermann copied them. they descended ladder-walks into the fore-waist; crew compartment. functional, compact, reflecting the same efficient engineering which they had encountered in the previous compartment. through a second bulkhead opening; supply compartment. through another; cargo hold. it was not empty, and loading gear was in evidence, although neatly stowed in its locks. "mneurium-4," carruthers said. the words made a hollow sound in the emptiness behind them. they kept going. armory. all units still in place. engine room. dobermann's counter ticked slowly in the stillness. still a little kick left in the piles. machine-shop; lab. spotless, perfect order. finally, tubes. the smooth metal gleamed in the light of carruthers' lamp. and that was all. joel turned wordlessly and started back up the ladder-walks. dobermann and carruthers clanged hollowly after him, scrambling to keep up. joel didn't stop until he had climbed back into one of the buckets, and then he waved impatiently. machinery whined above him, and his bucket swung clear. at the lip, he motioned for southard. "all right, i want ten of your people with technical research rates. leave them with dobermann and carruthers. issue return orders to your t-m, and then get these units out of here and digging up what we came after." "but--yes sir." dobermann and carruthers were at the lip, climbing out of their buckets. there was a puzzled look, even on dobermann's usually taciturn face. "you two," joel snapped, "will have a crew of researchers. ten men. take twenty-four hours and scrape the insides of this thing. carruthers will report directly to me when you're finished. dobermann, you'll nail k'hall-i-k'hall to a wall somewhere and don't let him down until you find out what became of whoever flew this tank." he turned and walked away before anyone could protest. * * * * * captain nicholas joel drained the flagon. he looked again at the faded image in the small, rectangular frame, finally returned it to the breast pocket of his tunic. then he looked up across the mahogany desk at carruthers and dobermann. "so," he said slowly, "so he told you he didn't know, did he?" "yes, captain, that is what he told me. he was surprised about the space ship. he called the others in. there was the same reaction. they--" joel leaped to his feet. "don't give me that!" he thundered. he grabbed at the bottle of bond; spilled it as he poured. "you _know_ he knows!" "captain, i was quite convinced." "quite convinced, quite convinced, were you.... all right, dobermann, get out of here. you find out anything, let me know. sam, i want to talk to you. go on dobermann, _git_!" joel slumped back behind the desk as his first officer pivoted, left. he tried a swallow from the flagon; fumbled at his tunic pocket for the small frame, extracted it; looked at it again. then put it back a second time. carruthers sat down opposite him. "you going to talk to me, nicholas, or pass out before you get the chance?" "all right, sam." joel got up, put the bond back in its cabinet; emptied the flagon and put it in too. "i get your point. only you listen. the crew of that ship was deliberately murdered. cold-bloodedly murdered, and it isn't going to happen to us." "i see." the ship's surgeon eyed the tips of his fingernails, then slowly looked up into joel's red, swollen face. "naturally, there wouldn't be any bodies around to prove your theory, would there, skipper? and no signs of struggle. we didn't see any. of course, their guns _were_ racked up pretty neatly--but it's all there in the report--" he waved a slender hand toward a roll of tape on the desk. "never mind your sarcastic technicalities! they were--" "nicholas, sit down. and listen." "all right. but i _don't_ get your point! and i don't want any of your double-talk! the trouble with you guys--" "first of all, nicholas, you know that crew wasn't murdered or anything of the kind. and you know, and dobermann realizes that you know _he_ knows, that k'hall-i-k'hall was lying in his teeth. and k'hall-i-k'hall knows _we_ know it." joel lowered his eyes. "all right, sam," he said. no, there hadn't been any use in trying to drum up a bunch of tripe--no use in trying to fool sam. he had known that from the start. but sometimes--sometimes, even when a man knew he was fooling himself, he had to give it a try, just to see-"they went native, didn't they, sam?" he said. "yes, skipper. they did. somebody back where they came from needed that mneurium-4 real bad. somebody had guts and sweat and brains enough to get ships into space looking for it. and in their own way, somebody had faith enough to think they'd get it if it was to be found. only, as you say--" "liked it here, i suppose. liked it better than anything they'd ever seen before--and that can of theirs had a thumping set of drives, so they'd seen plenty." there was silence for a moment. and then sam said, "well, nicholas, there it is. the psychology of the thing is obvious enough, isn't it?" carruthers gave him a meaningful look, and joel's nerves rebelled at it. "all right, i get your point!" a big fist slammed down on the desktop. "so somebody didn't get their mneurium-4! somebody probably ornery enough to keep on living anyway. what do you want to bet they're still going strong, who or wherever they are out in that black hell up there? what do you want to bet, sam?" the surgeon's thin lips smiled gently. "i'd bet right along with you, nicholas. they're probably still going strong. i imagine they made out." "but k'hall-i-k'hall--" "is proprietor of a very pleasant world. a world of very nice people, nicholas, who enjoy living in their way, and get a kick out of seeing other people enjoy it. they think a little differently than a lot of folks." "that makes 'em bad, i suppose?" "no." joel looked into the thin face, the intent, dark eyes. the look was in them. and joel guessed he was finally letting himself realize what the look really meant. it was a look that meant a hunger for all that joel hated, and more.... it was a look that meant, even now after all these years, that sam still hurt inside, and hurt badly. "why--why couldn't it have been the other way _around_, sam," joel said hoarsely. the other looked up at him. "you do hate it that much, don't you." "look sam, you've gotta get my point! i don't think that crew did anything wrong! they didn't. they just decided to stop being hunks of machinery." carruthers smiled. "i get your point, skipper. and i'm going to let you figure this one out all by yourself. but i'd like to tell you something first, just sort of as a point of information; maybe it'll help. skipper, i had a girl once, too." joel stood still. then he turned, opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it hard shut. "they told me i couldn't pilot. but i could help, and my help was needed--everybody's was, because this wasn't a matter of a government project. this was a matter of a race of people who were building a ladder--a big, tall ladder, nicholas. sometimes it was a killer. sometimes a heartbreaker. sometimes a laughingstock. _but it belonged to men, and they lived and died for it; they built it, and it's theirs to climb, nicholas!_" joel watched the other's worn face, and now the hurt was naked in it. "she said, nicholas, that it was all off if i decided to go up to space. i loved her, skipper. _and i loved the tall ladder._" joel whirled. "sure, and what's it got us, sam? a bellyful of cold, aching loneliness--our guts twisted and squeezed until the life's dried up in 'em--and what do we get? what do those wrangling, yapping, bellyaching rotters back home give us for it? pension us off when we can't see our blast-off studs anymore and forget about us. "they take the stuff we bring 'em--just as if it grew on trees, just as if it grew into a neat, pretty package somewhere all by itself! with money they can buy it--with enough money they can buy all of it! even if we had to get it with the air sucked out of us, with our brains boiled out of us, with our crazy heads busted in. "and you know what, sam? there was even a time when they said we couldn't do it at all! a hundred years ago, they laughed at us for trying to get to the moon! they laughed, sam--and those who didn't laugh _didn't even give a damn at all_! "so i was to tell the girl i'd marry her later, but that right now they thought i ought to be a pilot! i was to say to my life: i'll live you later, but right now i've got to be a pilot.... and i was to freeze my insides for twenty years showing 'em they were wrong to laugh, and that it was time they gave a damn, that what i could bring home was going to mean a lot to the world they live on! "and like a fool i did! "and sam--sam, they're still yapping like little dogs for a piece of meat--not just a good piece of meat, but all wrapped up nice and fancy, no mistakes allowed, every time they whistle! and the whistling gets so easy, sam--so easy. you can even do it while you're stabbing your neighbor in the back, while you're selling his kids down the river--even while you're taking your next breath to yap some more! "they can go to hell, sam! they can go to hell." joel slumped down in the chair behind the mahogany desk. the surgeon looked at him, looked away. "you've made up your mind, then." "that's right." "i suppose dobermann and i can get the ship back somehow." "you'll make it." "i guess we will. unless the rest feel the way you do--and i know half the crew thinks this is quite a place. in which case, of course, i suppose they'll survive, back home, even without the mneurium-4--they have for a long time. but there is one thing." "yeah, yeah." "these people are fine people, as you've--found out. you couldn't even replace that _dhennah_." "how did you--" "they're swell folks, nicholas, and always will be," the surgeon said softly, "and they've never built a thing, _and never will_. "they don't know greed, because no one has ever achieved anything worth another's wanting. "they don't know jealousy, because no one has ever obtained anything that another couldn't. "they don't know hate, because no one has ever discovered a thing for which to fight that another thinks of sufficient value to fight for. "only--if they don't know hate or jealousy, skipper--then, _they don't know love_!" quietly, carruthers rose from his chair. for a moment, he hesitated. "what is it you're lonely for, nicholas?" he asked, and then he left the fore-waist bridge. * * * * * there was a mushroom of sun-fire against the blackness of the cool night, and a thunder of power. slowly, ponderously, the _white whale_ backed down her column of flame, hesitated, flared again for a final time from her thick stem, and then settled to earth. gantries rolled into position. and the sound of lock-hatches clanging open thrilled the length of the _white whale_, and there were the muffled voices of men, and the voices became shouts with the joy loud in them. the men trooped down from their great metal monster as fast as the lifts would carry them, and in small groups and in crowds they made their boisterous way across the landing plaza and toward home. and when the shouts had died, a last man descended the smooth sides of the _white whale_. his eyes glanced over the great bulk of her, making certain she was secure. then he, too, walked from her, but not as quickly as the rest. captain nicholas joel walked slowly, because he was tired. on every side of him, in dark shadow against the night, there were tall, slender, streamlined shapes pointing toward the stars. his slow boot-steps echoed from their hulls as he passed, a tiny midge of a thing, between them. as sam had said, these were things that man had made. and among them again was the _white whale_. they had said he was a good pilot. the flame breathers by ray cummings vulcan was a doom-world. one expedition had mysteriously disappeared, and now another was following in its path--searching for the unknown menace that stalked vulcan's shadowed gorges. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories march 1943. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] i write this narrative, not with the idea of contributing any additional scientific data to the discovery of vulcan, but to put upon the record the real facts of our truly-amazing space voyage. the newscasters have hailed me as a modern columbus. surely i would not want to appear ungracious, unappreciative of all the applause that has been heaped upon me. but i do not deserve it. i did my job for my employers. the society sent me to make a landing upon vulcan--if the little planet existed. i found that it does exist; it was exactly where i was told it ought to be. i carried out my instructions, returned and made my report. there is no great heroism in that. so i am writing the facts of what happened. just a bald, factual account, without the imaginative trimmings. the real hero of the discovery of vulcan was young jan holden. he did his job--did it well--and he did something just a little extra. i'm bob grant, which of course you have guessed by now. peter torrence--the third member of our party--is in the federal prison up the hudson. i had to turn him in. we were given one of the smaller types of the bentley--t-44--an alumite cylindrical hull, double-shelled, with the erentz pressure-current circulating in it. it was a modern, well-equipped little spaceship. in its thirty-foot length of double-decked interior we three were entirely comfortable.... the voyage, past the orbit of venus and then mercury as we headed directly for the sun--using the sun's full attraction--was amazingly swift and devoid of incident beyond normal space-flight routine. much of our time was spent in the little forward control turrent--the "green-house," where below, above and to the sides the great glittering abyss of the firmament is spread out in all its amazing glory. vulcan, if it existed, would be almost directly behind the sun now. we had no possible chance of sighting it, we knew, even when, heading inward, we cut the orbit of mercury. torrence, almost from the start of the trip, figured we should follow into the attraction of mercury which was then far to one side. "from that angle we'll see vulcan just that much sooner," he argued. "they told me to head straight in, to twenty-nine million miles," i said. "and that's what i'm doing--obeying orders." i held our plotted course. torrence never ceased grumbling about it, and i must admit there was a lot of sense in his argument. he is a big fellow--burly, heavy-set and about my own height, which is six feet one. he had close-clipped hair and a square, heavy face. he's just turned thirty, i understand. that's five years older than i--and i was in charge. perhaps that irked him. he is unquestionably a headstrong fellow; self-confident. but he obeyed orders, though with grumbling. and as a mechanical technician--no one could do better. he knew the technical workings of the little ship inside out. "we follow orders?" young jan holden said. "and when we reach twenty-nine million miles from the sun--then we're on our own?" "yes," i agreed. "then, when we head off to round the sun, if vulcan is where they think it is we ought to sight it in a few days?" "i certainly hope so, jan." "i wonder if it's inhabited. i wish it would be." his dark eyes were shining. his thin cheeks, usually pale, were flushed with excitement. he was just eighteen--only a month past the legal minimum age for interplanetary employment. a slim, romantic-looking boy, he was willing and eager to help in every way. a good cook, expert in handling his cramped quarters and preparing the many synthetic foods with which we were equipped. "you hope it's inhabited, jan?" i asked. "i sure do." i grinned at him. "well, if it is, you'll be disappointed to find i'll be doing my best to keep away from whatever living creatures are there. that's a job for a larger expedition than ours." "yes, i suppose it is." * * * * * jan often sat with me through our long vigils up there in the green-house. sometimes he wouldn't speak for an hour--just sitting there dreaming. sometimes he would talk of the ill-fated roberts and king expedition--the only exploratory flight which ever had headed in this close to the sun. that was five years ago. roberts and king, with a crew of eight, had never been heard from since. "i just think they found vulcan," jan said once, out of one of his long silences. "they were told to return after a routine landing," torrence put in. "well then, suppose they crashed their ship," jan said. "suppose they can't get back--" "what we ought to do is sight vulcan, round it and go home," torrence said. "to the devil with orders to land. i'd go back and tell them that in my judgment--" "we'll land," i said. "determine gravity--meteorological conditions--secure samples of soil, vegetation--what-nots--you know the specifications, torrence." if indeed there was any vulcan. if a landing upon what might be a fiery surface were physically possible.... another day passed. and then another and another. we were all three tense, expectant. there was little apparent motion in the great starry cyclorama spread around us--just the slow dwindling of earth and venus, the monstrous sun shifting slowly to the right with the starfield behind it progressively becoming visible. "we're chasing a phantom," torrence said, on the fourth day, with the sun now almost abreast of us and some twenty-four million miles distant. "this damned heat! they sent us out for a salary that's a mere pittance--and give us inadequate equipment. no wonder there's been no exploration so close in here." bathed in the full, direct sun-rays our interior air had heated into a torrid swelter. stripped to the waist, with the sweat glistening on us, we sat in the shrouded green-house.... and then at last i saw vulcan! a little round, lead-colored blur. just a dot, but in a few hours it was clear of the intervening sun. no question of its identity. vulcan. the new world. "we did it!" jan murmured. "oh, we did it." * * * * * it was a busy time, for me especially, those next ninety-six hours. i was soon enabled to calculate, at least roughly, that vulcan was a world of some eight hundred miles diameter, with an orbit approximately eighteen million miles from the sun. "it has an atmosphere?" jan murmured anxiously. "yes, i think so." we kept away from the sun for a time; and then at last we were able to head directly for vulcan. the atmosphere presently was visible. no need for us to use the pressure-suits. i envisaged at first that upon such a little world gravity would be very slight. but now the heavy, metallic quality of its rock-surface was apparent. a world, doubtless much denser than igneous earth. it was my plan to land on the side away from the sun. we rounded vulcan at some two million miles out. the clouds were fairly dense in many places; sluggish, slow-moving. there were fires on the sun side--a temperature there which would make it certainly uninhabitable to any creatures resembling humans.... it was the ninth day after the sighting of vulcan that quite by chance i discovered its _allurite_. we were now fairly close over the dark hemisphere, with the sun occulted behind it. at a thousand miles of altitude, we were dropping slowly down upon the spreading dark disc which now occupied most of our lower firmament. i had been making a series of routine spectro-color-graphs to file with my reports. jan heard my muttered exclamation and came crowding to gaze over my shoulder at the dripping little color spectrograph. "what is it, bob? something important?" "that bond-line there--see it? that's a metal on vulcan--shining of its own light--radioactive type-a." that much, i could determine. then jan and i looked it up in the hughson list of identified spectrae. it was _allurite_. "that's valuable?" torrence murmured. "pure _allurite_--" i laughed. "it certainly would be, if we could find any sizable deposits here. on earth, it takes some seventeen tons of the very richest _allurium_ to get maybe a grain of pure _allurite_. we'll take a look around, try and get a sample of the ore here. if it pans out rich enough, they can send a well-equipped mining expedition." "we ought to get a bonus for this," torrence said. "if you don't tell 'em so, i will." * * * * * the descent upon vulcan took another twenty-four hours. then at last we had passed through a cloud-bank and, at some twenty thousand feet, the new world stretched dark and bleak beneath us. it certainly looked--to jan's intense disappointment--wholly uninhabited. it was a tumbled, rocky landscape, barren and forbidding. beneath us there were black ravines and canyons, little jagged peaks and hill-top spires, some of them sharp as needle-points. off at one of the distant horizons the tiered land, rising up, stretched into the foothills of serrated ranks of mountain peaks which loomed over the jagged dark horizon line. a great metal desert here. in the fitful starlight, and the mellow light of little crescent mercury which hung over the mountains like a falling, new moon, the metallic quality of the rock was obvious--sleek, bronzed metal ore, in places polished by erosion so that it shone mirror-like. in other places it was mottled with a greenish cast. "well," jan murmured, "not very hospitable-looking, is it? don't you suppose there's any moisture, or any vegetation?" there was no sign of any living creatures beneath us as we drifted diagonally downward. but presently, at lower altitude, i could see gleaming pools of water in the rock-hollows. the remains of a rainstorm here. then we saw what looked like a great fissure--an open scar rifted in a glistening, polished metallic plateau. grey-black steam was rising, condensing in the humid night-air. the hidden fires of the bowels of the little planet seemed close at this one point. as we stared, a red glow for a moment tinged the steam with a red and greenish reflection of some subterranean glare, far down. nothing but metal desert. but presently, as we slid forward, no more than a few thousand feet above the rocky surface now, jan murmured suddenly, "look off there. like a little oasis, isn't it?" there was a patch of what seemed to be rocky soil. just a few hundred acres in extent, set in a cup-like depression with little buttes and needle-spires and the strewn boulders of the metal waste surrounding it. a clump of tangled vegetation covered it--a fantastic miniature jungle of interlaced, queerly shaped little trees, solid with air-vines and pods and clumps of monstrous, vivid-colored flowers. it was an amazing contrast to the bleakness of the bronze desert. "well, that's more like it," jan exclaimed. "not all desert, bob. see that?" torrence, with his usual efficient practicality, had been busy getting our landing equipment in order. he paused beside me in the green-house, where i sat at the rocket-stream controls which now were in operation for this atmospheric flight. "where you figure on landing?" he asked. "somewhere about here? you want to locate that _allurite_?" "yes," i agreed. * * * * * it is not altogether safe, handling even so small a space-flight ship as ours, in atmosphere at low altitudes. especially over unknown terrain. it seemed my best course now to make the landing here, secure my rock-samples and make my routine observations. i did not need torrence to tell me that we were not equipped for extensive exploration of an unknown world. a trip on foot of perhaps a day or two, using the spaceship as a base, would suffice for my records. "there's a better chance of finding sizable deposits of allurium here than anywhere else?" torrence suggested. "don't you think so?" with that, too, i agreed. he prepared us for a night and a few meals of camping--a huge pack for himself, which with a grin he declared himself amply able to carry; a smaller one for jan; and my instruments and electro-mining drills for me. we dropped down within an hour or two, landing with a circular swing into a dim, cauldron-like depression of the desert where the polished ground was nearly level and free of boulders. that was a thrill to me--my first step into the new world--even though i have experienced it several times before. laden with our packs, we opened the lower-exit pressure porte. the night air, under heavier pressure than we were maintaining inside, oozed in with a little hiss--moist, queer-smelling air. it seemed at first heavy, oppressive. the acrid smell of chemicals was in it. the night-temperature was hot--sultry as a summer tropic night on earth. with the interior gravity shut off as we opened the porte, at once i felt a sense of lightness. but it was not extreme. despite vulcan's small size, its great density gives it a gravity comparable to earth's. in a little group we stood on the rocky ground with a dark, immense heavy silence around us--a silence that you could seem to hear--and yet a silence which seemed pregnant with the mystery of the unknown. somehow it made me suddenly think of weapons. besides our utility-knives, we each had a small, short-range electro-flash gun. i saw that torrence had his in his hand. "put it away," i said. "there's nothing here." with a grin, he shoved it back into his belt. "which way?" he demanded. "what will the ore of _allurium_ look like? green and red spots in sand-colored streaks of rock, that hughson book says." i figured that i could recognize it, though i am far from a skilled geologist. certainly i agreed with torrence that our most important job was to find some sizable lodes of _allurium_, measure its probable extent, and take average samples of it back with us. * * * * * we climbed out of the little cauldron. in the tumbled darkness we picked our way among the crags. an earth-mile, then another. little jan, like an eager hound was generally ahead of us, with his tiny search-glare sweeping the jagged rocks. we crossed a narrow winding canyon, inspected a slashed cliff-face. it was arduous going. despite the sense of lightness and our tropic black-drill clothes of short trousers, thin jackets and shirts, we were panting, bathed in sweat within an hour. silently, torrence plodded at my side. it was my first trip with him; and i could see he did not altogether trust my efficiency. "you can find the way back to the ship?" he demanded once. "to get lost in a place like this--" i had marked it; little twin spires above the cauldron. they were visible now, looming against the dark sky behind us. i showed him. "i saw them," he said. "i could lead us back. my idea is, if we cover about ten miles and then camp--" a cry from jan interrupted us. he was standing on a little ridge of rock like a bronze metal wave frozen into solidity. against the deep purple sky his slim figure was a silhouette of solid black. he was staring off into the distance; his arm waved with a gesture as he called to us. "something off there! something lying on the rocks--come look!" we ran to join him. about a quarter mile distant there was a broad gully. a dark blob was visible lying at the bottom of it--a sizable blob, something forty or fifty feet long. we picked our way there; climbed down into the ragged, thirty-foot ravine. it was a spaceship lying here--with its sleek alumite hull resting on its side with one of its rocket-stream fins bent and smashed under it. "the roberts-king ship," torrence exclaimed. "so they got here. cracked up in the landing." there seemed no doubt of it. this was unquestionably the roberts-king vehicle--an older version of our own vessel. we stood staring at it blankly--at its little bow pressure port which was wide open, a narrow rectangle with the interior blackness behind it. then i saw that here on the rocks near the doorway, a litter of tools and mechanisms were strewn; and a section of one of the gravity plates which had been disconnected and brought out here. "trying to repair it," i said to the silently staring, awed torrence. "five years ago. now what do you suppose--" a startled cry from jan interrupted me. the body was lying on the rocks, just beyond the bow of the ship. it was jonathan roberts--stocky, middle-aged leader of the expedition. clad in a strange costume of thin brown material, seemingly animal skin, he lay crumpled. i had never met him, but from his published portraits i could recognize him at once. in the starlight here his dead face with staring eyes goggled up at us. "why--why--" torrence gasped. "five years--" there was no great look of decay about the body. roberts had died here, certainly not five years ago. i was bending down over the body; i shoved at one of the shoulders and turned it over. stricken jan, torrence and i stared numbed. a thin bronze sliver of metal--fin-tipped like a metal arrow--was buried in roberts' back! again the alert jan was gazing at the dim, fantastic night-scene around us. abruptly his hand gripped my arm as he gasped, "why--good lord--what's that? over there--" in the blackness down the gully, perhaps a hundred feet from us, a little spiral of fire had appeared. a tiny wisp of red-green flame. it seemed to hover in the air a few feet above the rocky gully floor. like a phantom wraith of fire, it silently leaped and twisted. "my god--it's coming toward us!" torrence suddenly gasped. in the darkness the silent wisp of fire had swayed sidewise, and then came along the edge of the gully, a disembodied conflagration in mid-air, as though wafted by a rush of wind we could not feel. ii for a moment of startled horror we stood motionless. the floating little flame seemed bounding now, just over the rocks. bounding? abruptly i seemed to see a dark shape of solidity under it--something almost, but not quite invisible in the blackness. a tangible thing? a creature--burning? thoughts are instant things. i recall that in that second, i had the impression of a four-legged thing like a huge dog, bounding toward us over the rocks. the flame in which it was enveloped, had spread--it was a blob of flame, but solidity was there. all in a second. my little electro-gun was in my hand. and then from beside me, torrence fired--his flash with a whining sizzle splitting the blackness of the gully with its pencil-point of hurled electrons. his hasty aim quite evidently was wild. i saw the little splash of colored sparks where his charge hit the rocks. too high. my gun was leveled. but in that split-second, the oncoming blob of fire abruptly had been extinguished. there was only the faint blurred suggestion of the dog-like thing. it had stopped short, and then suddenly was retreating. my shot, and jan's, followed it. in another few seconds there was no possibility of hitting it. silently it had vanished. there was only the black silent gully around us, with the blurred crags standing like menacing dark ghosts. my instinct then, i must admit, was for us to retreat at once to our ship. in the heavy empty silence we stood blankly gazing at each other. torrence was grim; jan was shaking with excitement and the fear all of us felt. "you heard that whistle?" i murmured. "i heard it," jan exclaimed. "something--somebody--human--" there were weird, hostile inhabitants on vulcan--no question of that now! and here was roberts' body with a metal sliver of arrow in its back, mute evidence of what we were facing. and already our presence here had been discovered. i stared around at the rocky darkness, every blurred crag now seeming to mask some unknown menace. "that whistle," torrence murmured, "calling off that flaming thing--started at our shots. something is around here, watching us now, undoubtedly." the yawning dark doorway of the wrecked spaceship was near us. something seemed lying just beyond its threshold. "you two stay here," i told torrence and jan. "don't let them surprise us again. we'll have to get back to our ship--" the port doorway led into a little pressure chamber. on its dark sloping floor, as the wrecked ship lay askew, i stood with my flashlight illumining so ghastly a scene that my blood chilled in my veins. it was a bloody shambles of horror. for a moment i gazed; and as i turned away, sickened, i found jan at my elbow. he too, had been staring. he clutched at me, white and shaken, and i turned away my light. "the rest of them," he murmured. "yes. looks that way. all of them--" the bodies were strewn, clothing and flesh ripped apart so that here were only the bones of men, with pulpy crimson-"no humans did that, jan." "no," he shuddered. "that thing in flames that came at us--" * * * * * his words died in his throat. outside there was a scream--a shrill, eerie human cry. the high-pitched scream of a woman! gun in hand, with jan close behind me, i ran outside. the dimness of the rocky gully seemed empty. the cry had died away. "torrence! you torrence--what in the devil--" my low vehement words wafted away. there was no torrence. cautiously i ran around the bow of the wrecked ship, gazed down its other side. "torrence--torrence--" the nearby rocks seemed to echo back my words, mocking me. "why--why--" jan gasped, "i left him right out here. he was just standing, looking down at roberts' body with the arrow in it. i just thought i'd go inside with you for a minute." i pulled him down to the ground. we crouched, close against the side of the ship. "that scream," i whispered, "wasn't far away. a few hundred feet down the gully." "it sounded like a girl. it did, didn't it? bob, if they got torrence that quickly--an arrow in him--" i peered, tense. the rock shadows were all motionless. in the heavy blank silence there was only my startled breathing, and jan's; and the thumping of my own heart against my ribs. had this weird enemy gotten torrence so swiftly, so silently? something not human, that had so quickly seized him and dragged him away? or one of those metal arrows in his back, so that his body was lying around here somewhere, masked by the darkness. jan and i had certainly not been inside the ship more than a minute or two-a sharp clattering ping against the alumite side of the wrecked ship struck away my thoughts. a metal arrow! it bent against the hull-plate and dropped almost beside me! the still-hidden sniper had seen us, that was evident, for the arrow had whizzed only a foot or so over our heads. "jan--lower--" we almost flattened ourselves against the bulge of the hull, with a little pile of boulders in front of us. my gun was leveled, but there was nothing to shoot at. then from diagonally across the gully again there came a sharp human cry! a girl's voice? it was soft this time, a bursting little cry, half suppressed. thoughts are instant things. i was aware of the cry and with it there was another whizz. another arrow. this one was wider of the mark; it hit far to one side of us, up near the bow of the ship. "jan! wait!" his little flash gun was up in the crevice of the rocks in front of us. in another second he would have fired. i saw his target--two dim blobs across the gully. for just that second they were visible as they rose up out of a hollow. a man; and the slighter figure with him seemed that of a girl. her hair, glistening like spun metal in the dim light, hung over her shoulders. the two figures were struggling. there was the sound of the girl's low cry, and a grunt from the man.... my low admonition stopped jan from firing and in another second the shapes across the gully had vanished. "that girl," i murmured. "she tried to keep him from killing us. seemed that way, don't you think?" "well--" * * * * * we waited. from across the gully there was no sound. i could see now that there was a little ridge in the broken, littered gully floor, behind which the two figures had vanished. a lateral depression was there, with the ragged, broken cliff-wall some ten feet behind it. "do you suppose there's only one of them?" jan whispered. "one man--and that girl--" "and that--that thing in flames--" there was no sign of the animal-like creature. for another moment we crouched tense, peering, listening. a loose stone the size of my fist was here beside us. i picked it up. it was weirdly heavy for its size. then i flung it out into the gully to the right of us. it fell with a clatter. our enemy was there all right. an arrow whizzed in the darkness and struck near where the stone had fallen. jan laughed with contempt. "dumb enough--that fellow. bob, listen, we've got flash-guns. that fellow with no brains--and just with arrows--" true enough. "you stay here," i whispered. "what's the idea?" "you wait a couple of minutes. then throw another stone off to the right--about the same place. understand?" "no, i don't." "well, you do it, anyhow." there seemed a line of shadow to the left of us, a shadow which extended well out into the gully. the ground dropped down in that area--a slope strewn with crags, broken with little crevices. crouching low, i crept to the bow of the ship, to the left away from jan; sank down, waited. there was no sound; evidently i had not been seen. i started again, picking my way down the slope. a minute. i was well out into the gully now, ten feet or so down, so that i could not see the wrecked ship where jan was crouching. from here the opposite cliff-wall showed dark and ragged. occasionally it yawned with openings, like little cave-mouths. the place where the figures had been crouching should be visible from here. the broken, lower side of the little ridge behind which they had dropped was in view to me now. it was dark with shadow, but there seemed nothing there. slowly, cautiously, i crossed the gully. two minutes since i had left jan? i melted down beside a rock, almost at the edge of the cliff-wall. and then, out in the gully, far to the right, i heard the stone clatter as jan threw it. there was no answering arrow-shot this time.... one can be very incautious, usually at just the wrong moment. i recall that i stood up to see better, though i flattened myself against a boulder. and suddenly, close behind me, i was aware of a padding, thudding rhythmic sound on the rocks. i whirled. i had only a second's vision of a dark bounding animal shape coming at me. my sizzling little flash went under it as it rose in one of its bounding leaps. i had no time to fire another shot. frantically i pulled the trigger-lever, but the gun's voltage had not yet rebuilt to firing pressure. futilely i flung the gun into the creature's face as it bore down upon me. the impact of the dark oblong body knocked me backward so that i fell with it sprawling, snarling upon me. in the chaos of my mind there was only the dim realization of a heavy body as big as my own; spindly legs, like the legs of a huge dog. there seemed six or eight legs, scrambling on me. wildly i fought to heave it off. there was a face--a ring of glaring green eyes; fang-like jaws of a long pointed snout which opened, snarling with a gibbering, gruesome cry. i shoved my left forearm into the jaws as they came at my face. they closed upon my arm, ripping, tearing. * * * * * but somehow i was aware that i had lunged to my feet. and the thing reared up with me. it was a thing almost as heavy as myself. my left arm had come loose from its jaws and as its scrambling weight pressed me i went down again. a thing of rubber? it seemed boneless, the shape of it bending as i seized it. a gruesomely yielding body. my flailing blows bounded back from it. then i knew that i was gripping it by the head, twisting it. the snarling, snapping jaws suddenly opened wide with a scream--a scream that faded into a mouthing gibber, and in my grip the thing went limp. i cast it away and it sank to the rocks, quivering. for an instant i stood panting, trembling with nausea sickening me. on my hands the flesh of the weird antagonist was sticking like viscous, gluey rubber. hot and clinging. hot? i stared at my hands in the dimness. for a second i thought it was phosphorescence. then yellow-green wisps of flame were rising from my hands. frantically i plunged them into my jacket pockets. the tiny flames were extinguished. i stripped off my jacket, flung it away and it lay with a little smoke rising from it where the weird stuff was trying again to burst into flame. the skin of my hands was seared, but the contact with the flames had been only momentary and the burns were not severe. it had all happened in a minute or two. i recall that i was standing trembling, staring at the yawning mouth of a cave entrance which was nearby in the cliff-face. a movement in there? a moving blob? then i was aware that there was a light behind me. off across the gully there was a blob of light-fire. a red-green blob, swirling, scrambling. and the sound of a distant, gibbering snarl.... the singing whizz of an arrow past my head made me turn again. my human adversary! i saw him now. he was coming at a run from the mouth of the cave--a wide-shouldered, grotesquely-shaped man with a brown hairy garment draped upon him. he swayed like a gorilla on thick bent legs. in one hand he held what seemed an arrow-sling. in the other he carried a long narrow segment of rock, swinging it like a club. he was no more than ten feet from me. in the dimness i could see his huge round head with tangled, matted blank hair. as i whirled to meet him, his voice was a bellow of guttural roar, like an animal bellowing to intimidate its enemy. i turned, jumped sidewise. and abruptly from a rock-shadow another shape rose up! slim, small white body, brown-draped with long, gleaming tawny hair. the girl! her voice gasped, "you run! he kill you! in here--this way--" the bellowing savage had turned heavily in his rush and was charging us. in her terror and confusion the girl gripped me, shoving me toward the cave. as we ran i flung an arm around her, lifting her up. she weighed hardly more than a child. then we were in the blackness of a tunnel-passage. i set her down. "lie down. be quiet," i whispered vehemently. she understood me; she crouched back against the side wall. there seemed a little light here, a glow which i realized was inherent to the rocks, like a vague, faint phosphorescence. but it was brighter outside. the charging savage had evidently paused at the entrance. as i stared now, his bulky figure loomed there, grotesque silhouette. then doubtless he saw me. with another bellow he came charging in. i stood waiting, like a toreador, in front of a heavily charging bull. it was something like that, for as he rushed me, swinging his club and plunging with lowered head of matted hair, nimbly i jumped aside. i had seized a rock half as big as my head. he had no time to turn and poise himself as i jumped on him, crashing the rock at the side of his broad ugly face as he straightened and swung around. ghastly blow. his face smashed in as the rock seemed to go into it. for a second his hulking body stood balanced upon the crooked legs and broad flat bare feet. gruesome dead thing with the face and top of the head gone, it balanced on legs suddenly turned rigid. then it toppled forward and thudded against the passage wall, sliding sidewise to the ground where it lay motionless. * * * * * in the phosphorescent dimness, i dropped beside the girl. she was panting with terror, shuddering, with her hands before her face. "it's all right," i murmured. "or at least, maybe it isn't all right with you, but he's dead, anyway." utterly incongruous, the delicately formed bronze-white girl--and that hulking, grotesque, clumsy savage. "oh--yes," she murmured. "dear--yes--" "you speak english--strange, here on vulcan--" "but from your captain roberts--he was the fren' of mine--of all the senzas--" "he's dead. an arrow in him--lying over there by his wrecked ship--the rest of them, dead inside--" "yes. i know it. that was these orgs. i was caught--just the last time of sleep. tahg--surely it seems it must be tahg who sent this org to take me from my father's home--" a captive! and she had fought with her savage captor to stop him from sending an arrow into me. then, in his absorption as he tried to stalk me, she had broken loose from him. "just this one org?" i murmured. "is he the only one around here? he and that--animal-thing which i killed?" "that--a female _mime_--you--you--" she was huddling beside me, clinging to me, still shuddering. "two orgs there were," she whispered. "and another mime--a fire-male--" the flame-creature! queerly, it was not until that instant that i thought of jan. out there across the gully, that swirling swaying blob of light-fire! those snarling sounds! jan had been attacked by another of the savages, and by the weird flaming creature! the mime fire-male, as the girl called it. i jumped to my feet. "what--what you do?" she demanded. "you stay here. what's your name?" "ama. daughter of rohm, the senza. he my father. he very good fren' of the captain roberts--good fren' of all the earthmen. like you? you are earthman?" "yes. now ama, listen--i came here with another earthman--with two others, in fact. one of them is over there by the roberts' ship.... you wait here--" "no!" she gasped. i had dashed toward the tunnel entrance, but i found her with me. "no--no, i stay with you." from the entrance the gully showed dim and silent. over the little rise of ground, just the top of the roberts' spaceship was visible. ama clung to me. "i stay with you," she insisted. cautiously we picked our way across the gully, up the small ascending slope. no sound; nothing moving. but now there was a pungent, acrid chemical smell hanging here in the windless air. "the fire-mime!" ama whispered. "you smell the fire? then he was angry, ready to fight--" "he fought," i retorted grimly. "i saw it--" "look! look there--" * * * * * her slim arm as she gestured tinkled with metal baubles hanging on it.... i saw, up the slope, the blob of something lying on the rocks. jan! my heart pounded. but it wasn't jan. the body of one of the weird oblong animals was lying there. lying on its side, with its six legs stiffly outstretched. ugly hairless thing, like a giant dog which had been skinned. i could see now that the grey-green flesh had a greasy, pulpy look. what strange organic material was this? certainly nothing like it existed on earth. impervious to heat, as the human stomach tissue is impervious to the action of its own digestive juices. evidence of the thing's flaming oxidation was here. wisps of smoke were rising from the ground about the slack body. had jan killed it? the ring of eyes above the long muzzle snout bulged with a glassy, goggling dead stare. the jaws were open, with a thick, forked black tongue protruding, and green, sticky-looking froth still oozing out. the teeth were long and sharp, fangs like polished black ivory protruding from the jaw. the cause of its death was obvious. a knife-slash had ripped, almost severed its throat in a hideous wound where green-black viscous ooze was still slowly dripping, with smoky vapor rising from it. for a moment, with little ama clinging to me, i must have stood appalled at the weird sight of the dead fire-mime. if jan had fought and killed it--then where was he now? and where was that other org, companion of the clumsy savage i had killed when it had tried to attack me? and where was torrence? "your fren'--he did this?" ama was murmuring. "yes, i guess so." i raised my voice cautiously. "jan--oh, jan, where are you?" the dark shadowed rocks mocked me with their muffled, blurred echo of my call. there seemed nothing here alive, save ama and me. the wrecked spaceship lay broken and silent on the rocks, with the gruesome, strewn bodies of the earthmen in it. and the body of roberts still lay here outside, near the bow. "jan--jan--" then ama abruptly gasped, "the orgs! see them--up there!" the cliff which was the gully wall, at this point was some fifty feet high. i stared up to a patch of yellow light which had appeared there in the darkness. a band of the murderous orgs! carrying flaming torches, a dozen or more of the gargoyle savages stood above us on the cliff-brink. one stood in advance of them, pointing down at us. he was the other one, doubtless, who had originally been down here with ama. around them, half a dozen of the huge greenish mimes bounded, whining with gibbering cries of eagerness. and in that instant, an arrow came down. i saw one of the savages sling it from a flexible, whip-like contrivance. the whizzing metal shaft sang past our heads and clattered on the rocks. ama was clutching me. "you come! oh hurry--they kill us both." there was no argument about that. i flung a last look around with the vague thought that i would see jan lying here. then i let ama guide me. at a run, we headed back down the declivity and diagonally across the gully. a rain of arrows came down, clattering around us, but in a moment most of them were falling short. "which way, ama? where we go?" "my people--my village--not too far." "which way?" "through this cliff. there are passages into the lower valley." "you know the way?" "yes, oh yes." a dark opening in the opposite cliff presently was before us. the orgs were coming down the other cliff now; their bellowing voices and the whining cries of the mimes were a blended babble. "a storm is coming," ama said suddenly. the distant sky over the lower end of the gully was shot now with weird lurid colors. in the heavy dark silence here around us, a sudden sharp puff of wind plucked at us, tossing ama's long tawny hair. "this way--" she added. my arm went around her as another wind-blast thrust us sidewise, almost knocking her off her feet. then clinging together, fighting our way in a rush of wind which now abruptly was a roar, we plunged into the depths of the yawning tunnel. iii i must recount now what happened to jan, as he told it to me when after a sequence of weird events, he and i were together again. when i left him crouching there close against the hull of the wrecked roberts' ship, he lost sight of me almost in a moment. there was just the faint blob of me sliding into a shadow; and then the lowering ground down which i went hid me. tensely he crouched, peering across the gully, listening to the heavy silence. two minutes, i had said; and then he must throw the rock. his hand fumbled around, found a sizable rock-chunk. he understood my purpose, of course--to divert our adversary across the gully at a moment when i might be close to jump him from the other direction. jan was excited, apprehensive, just an inexperienced boy. was the crouching savage with the girl still there across the gully? there was no sound, no movement. was it two minutes now? he flung the stone at last and raised himself up a little with his gun leveled. the stone clattered off to the right. but it provoked no whizzing arrow. no sound of me, jumping upon my adversary.... nothing.... but what was that? jan stiffened. distinctly he heard the sizzling puff of a flashgun shot. my gun! he knew it must be; it was to the left, out in the gully. and following it there was a low gibbering snarl. faint in the distance, but in the heavy silence plainly audible. i had been attacked! jan found himself on his feet, with no thought in his mind save to dash to me.... he had taken no more than a few scrambling leaps on the rocks. he reached the brink of the descent. far down and out in the gully it seemed that he could see the blur of something fighting. his low incautious movement had betrayed him. from behind him there was a low whistling. a signal! an eager whining snarl instantly resounded to it. jan had no more than time to whirl and face the sounds when a great bounding grey-green shape was on him! jan's shot missed it, and the next second the lunging oblong body struck him. the impact knocked him backward. his gun clattered away. then the huge, hairless dog-like thing sprawled upon him, its slavering jaws snapping. they found his shoulder as he lunged and the fang-like teeth sank in.... a miracle that jan could have kept his wits so that he fumbled for his knife as he fell. but suddenly he got it out, stabbed and slashed wildly with it as he rolled and twisted on the ground with the snarling creature on top of him.... and suddenly he was aware that the thing had burst into flame! it could have been only a few seconds during which jan fought that weird living fire. it was a wild chaos of horror.... licking, oozing flames exuding like an aura from the sticky viscous flesh that horribly sprawled upon him. monstrous ghastly adversary, with flesh that seemed now like burning bubbling rubber, stenching with acrid gas-fumes.... just a few seconds, then jan realized that somehow he had broken loose from the jaws that gripped his shoulder. he tried to scramble to his feet. the flames searing his face made him close his eyes. he was holding his breath, choking. his clothes were on fire.... * * * * * then the sprawling, lunging body knocked him down again. he was still wildly, blindly slashing with his knife. vaguely he was aware, over the chaos of snapping snarls, that a human voice nearby with guttural shouts was urging the animal to dispatch its victim. but suddenly--as jan's knife-blade ripped into its throat--the snarls went into a ghastly, eerie animal scream of agony--a long scream that died into a gurgle of gluey, choking blood-fluid.... jan was aware that the creature had fallen from him with its flames dying. on the rocks he rolled away from it, with his scorched hands wildly brushing his clothes to extinguish them. then he was on his feet, staggering, choking, coughing. but his knife, its blade dripping with an oozing flame, still wildly waved. and then he was aware that twenty feet away, a heavy, grotesque man-like shape was standing with a club and arrow-sling. but with his flame-creature dead and the sight of the staggering, triumphant jan waving his flaming knife-blade--the watching savage suddenly dropped his club and let out a cry of dismay and fear. and then he ran. for a moment jan, wildly, hysterically laughing, went in pursuit. but in the rocky darkness the fleeing savage already had vanished.... then reaction set in upon jan. his burned face and hands stung as though still fire was upon him. he was still gasping, choking from the fumes of his smoldering clothes. his eyes, with lashes singed, smarted, watering so that all the vague night-scene was a swaying blur.... he found himself sitting down on the rocks.... and then suddenly he remembered me. where had i gone? what had happened?... vaguely jan recalled that i had left him and gone across the gully.... where was i now?... then he seemed dimly to recall that he had heard my shot.... in the dimness suddenly it seemed to jan that he saw me, far up the gully to the right, up on the cliff-top. for just a moment he was sure that it was the shape of me, silhouetted against the sky.... the sight gave him strength. still staggering, he ran wildly forward.... a quarter of a mile; certainly it seemed that far. he had crossed the gully by now. the figure up above had vanished.... queer. what was i doing up there? chasing the savage?... jan climbed the little cliff, which was ragged, and lower here than elsewhere. it led him to the undulating, upper plateau, crag-strewn, dim under a leaden sky. but there was enough light so that he could see the distant figure. it was only two or three hundred yards away, plodding on, apparently not looking back.... jan ran after it. and then he was calling: "bob! you bob--" the figure turned. started suddenly back, and called: "is that you? jan?" it was torrence! he came back at a lumbering run now--torrence, bare-headed, gun in hand. but he obviously hadn't had any encounter. his jacket was buttoned across his shirt; he looked just as he had when jan had last seen him, out there at the bow of the wrecked spaceship when jan had gone inside to join me. torrence stared at the burned jan. "why--good heavens," he gasped. "you--i saw that thing killing you. i was up here--i started down, but too late--" "where's bob?" "bob? why--he was killed. burned--like you. i tried to help him--too late--the damned things--" * * * * * the lameness of it was lost on the still-dazed jan at that moment. i had been killed! it struck him with a shock. and as he stood wavering, trembling, torrence drew him to a rock. "too bad," torrence murmured sympathetically. "where--where were you?" jan said at last. "we came out of the ship--couldn't find you." "i was attacked by one of those cursed things. like the one that nearly got you--like the one that killed bob. i chased it; shot at it when i got up here. but i shouldn't have come up--then i saw you and bob--too late to get back to you. so i was starting for our ship. it's off this way, not so very far." for a little time jan sat there numbed, and torrence sat sympathetically, silently beside him. "when we get back," torrence murmured at last, "you can put in your report with mine. we did our best--but there isn't any use now, us tackling this thing." jan must have been wholly silent, thinking of me, dead, burned, back there in the darkness of the gully. "you all right now, lad?" "yes," jan said. "yes--i'm all right." "when we get back, we ought to get a bonus," torrence said. "don't worry, jan--i'll see you get plenty. your report and mine--to tell them the hazards of this trip--" "we should go back?" jan said. "yes, certainly we should. get back to earth as fast as we can. no chance of doing anything else--" torrence gazed apprehensively around them in the darkness. that much at least--the reality of his apprehension as they sat there on the open plateau--that was authentic enough. and jan also felt that at any moment one of the flaming creatures might attack them. "you strong enough to start now?" "yes, sure i am," jan agreed. they started, picking their way along. jan tried to remember how far we three had come from our own ship until we had discovered the roberts' vessel.... for ten or fifteen minutes now he and torrence clambered over the rocks. "you think you know the way?" jan asked at last. "yes--or i thought i did." torrence's tone was apprehensively dubious. and that, too must have been authentic. certainly it would be a desperate plight to be lost here on vulcan. "it was bob who was sure he knew the way back--" "i think we are all right," jan agreed. "that big rock-spire off there--i remember it." as they progressed, jan was aware now that the sky behind them was brightening. they turned and stared at it. "weird--" torrence muttered. "yes--some sort of storm. if it's bad--you suppose we ought to take shelter? it's pretty open up here." the sky was certainly weird enough--a swirl of leaden clouds back there, shot now with lurid green and crimson. and suddenly there came a puff of wind. then another. stronger, it whined between the nearby naked crags. in a little nearby ravine it caught an area of loose metallic stones, whirled them before it with a tinkling clatter. "we came through that ravine, coming out this way," jan said suddenly. "i'm sure of it." torrence remembered it also. another blast of wind came; and with it blowing them, they scurried into the ravine. the lurid storm-sky painted it with a crimson and green glare, so that the narrow cut in the rocky plateau was eerie. to jan it seemed suddenly infernal. he clutched at the larger, far more bulky torrence as they hurried along with the wind blasting them. loose metallic stones were blowing around them now with a clatter. then suddenly the sky seemed riven by a darting, jagged red shaft of lightning. and then red rain was pelting them. "got to find some place," torrence panted. he had to shout it above the roar as the wind tore at his words and hurled them away. "over there?" jan gestured. "looks like a cave." the sides of the ravine were rifted in many places with vertical crevices. they headed toward a wider slit of opening which seemed to lead well back underground. a place of shelter until this storm passed.... * * * * * to jan, what happened then was weirdly terrifying. he suddenly realized that as they approached the opening, they were being pulled at it. into it! a suction, as though somewhere down underground this storm had created a partial vacuum--a far lesser pressure so that the air of the little ravine was rushing into it! terrified, both of them now were fighting to keep away. but it was no use. like wind-blown puffs of cotton they were sucked into the yawning opening. a sudden chaos of roaring horror. jan felt that he was still clutching at torrence. then both of them fell, sliding, sucked forward as a plunger cylinder is sucked through a pneumatic tube. the ground here in the passage felt smooth as polished marble. for how long they plunged forward jan had no conception. roaring, sucking darkness. then it seemed that there was a little light. an effulgence; a pallid, eerie glow, like phosphorescence streaming from the rocks. the narrow passage was steadily widening; and then abruptly they were blown out into emptiness. it was a vast grotto, with smooth metallic floor almost level. the effulgence here was brighter, so that an undulating, vaulted ceiling glistened far overhead. for a moment the nearer wall was visible, smooth, burnished metal rock. eroded by the winds of centuries, all the rock here was burnished until it shone mirror-like. the huge pallid interior roared and echoed with the tumbling wind-torrents seething in it. a lashing cauldron jumbled with eddying blasts. jan and torrence tried to get to their feet. they could see now that they were far out from the wall--sliding, buffeted, desperately clinging together, hurled one way and then another. bruised from head to foot, panting, gasping in the swiftly changing pressures, jan felt his senses leaving him. a numbed vagueness was on him, so that there was only the suck and roar of the winds and the feel of torrence to whom he was clinging. they were lying prone now-"easing up a little--" he heard torrence's voice as though from far away. and then he came to his senses to find that he and torrence had hit against a wall of the grotto and were clinging to a projection of rock. easing up a little.... the storm outside lessening.... jan must have drifted off again; and after another interval he was conscious that there was only a tossing, crazy breeze in here. it whined and moaned, echoing from one wall to another so that the pallid, silvery half-light seemed filled with a myriad gibbering little voices. and jan could see now that he and torrence had been blown into a recess of the grotto--a smaller cave. the rock formation here was as though this were the heart of a monstrous crystal--vertical facets of strata that glistened pallidly. "we'll have to try and cross back," torrence said, and in the confined space his words weirdly echoed, split and duplicated so that there seemed many little whispering replicas of his words. "find that passage where we came in--" they were on their feet now--suddenly to jan there was around them a vast vista of pallid dimness. a glowing, limitless abyss stretching off into shadowy nothingness, everywhere he looked. "why--why," he murmured, "this place--so large--" torrence still had his flash cylinder. he fumbled in his jacket pocket, brought it out. amazing thing! as he snapped it on, its tiny white beam showed mirrored in a hundred places of the paneled, crystalline walls! the blurred image of torrence and jan standing holding each other with their light-shaft before them, duplicated so that there were a hundred of them everywhere they looked! and countless other hundreds smaller and smaller in the myriad backgrounds! * * * * * with a startled curse torrence took a few steps into what seemed pallid emptiness, and then suddenly his image was coming at him! lost! to jan came the rush of horror that they might, wander in here, balked at every turn.... another startled cry from torrence stuck away jan's thoughts. neither he nor torrence had time to make a move. there was suddenly everywhere the duplicated image of a thick, swaying, gargoyle savage, standing like a gorilla on thick bent legs, with one crooked arm holding a flaming torch over his head. a myriad replicas of him everywhere! was he close to them, or far away? and in which direction? in that stricken second the questions stabbed into jan's tumultuous mind. then he was aware of something whirling in the air over his head--something crashing on his skull so that all the world seemed to go up into a splitting, blinding roar of light. he felt his legs buckling under him. there was only torrence's fighting outcry and the sound of a guttural echoing voice as jan fell and his senses slid off into a blank and black, empty silence.... iv i go back now to that moment when ama and i, pursued by the roaming band of orgs, plunged into a tunnel passage that led from the gully, near the wrecked roberts' spaceship. it was quite evident that ama was aware of the dangers of the wind-storms of her little world. there was a swift air-current sucking into this passage. but it was not powerful enough to do more than hurry us along. once, where the tunnel branched, there seemed an open grotto up a little subterranean ascent to the right. it glowed with a brighter pallid light than was here in the passage. i turned that way with an interested gaze, but at once she clutched at me. "no--no. in times of the storm, very bad sometimes in places under the ground." there seemed no sign of pursuit behind us. "the orgs--they run heavy," ama said when i mentioned it. in the pale opalescent glow of the tunnel, i could see her faint triumphant smile as she gazed up at me sidewise. strange little face, utterly foreign so that upon earth, by earth standards one would have been utterly baffled to identify her. but it was an appealing face, and now, with her terror gone, the sly glance she flung at me was wholly feminine. "those fire-mimes," i said. "couldn't they rush ahead of their masters, trailing us?" i explained how on earth dogs would do that, following their quarry by the scent. she looked puzzled, and then she brightened. "i remember. the captain roberts told us about that. the mimes are different. the male and female both--they follow what it is they see, nothing else." then she told me about the weird, dog-like creatures. the male, exuding a scent--if you could call it that--a vapor which in the air bursts into spontaneous combustion as it combines with the atmospheric oxygen. how long we ran through what proved to be a maze of passages in the honey-combed ground, i have no idea. several earth-miles, doubtless. several times we stopped to rest, with the breezes tossing about us as i listened, tense, to be sure the orgs were not coming. then at last we emerged; and at the rocky exit i stood staring, amazed. it was a wholly different looking world here. the pallid underground sheen was gone; and now again there was the dim twilight of the interminable vulcan night. from where we stood the ground sloped down so that we were looking out over the top of a wide spread of lush, tangled forest. weird jungle, rank and wild with spindly trees of fantastic shapes, heavy with pods and exotic flowers and tangled with masses of vines. beyond it, far ahead of us there seemed a line of little metal mountains at the horizon; and to the left an earth-mile or so away, the forest was broken to disclose a winding thread of little river. it shone phosphorescent green in the half light. the storm was over now, but still the colors lingered in the cloud sky--a glorious palette of rainbow hues up there that tinted the forest-top. ama gestured toward the thread of river. "the senzas--my people and my village--off that way beyond the little water. we go quickly. but we be careful, until we get beyond the water." "swim it?" "we can. but i think i remember where there is a senza boat hidden on this side." * * * * * she had already told me more of what happened to her. the senzas, primitive obviously, yet with an orderly tribal civilization, were the dominant race here on little vulcan. the savage orgs--a far lower, more primitive type both mentally and physically--in nomadic fashion, roamed the metal deserts and little stunted forests which lay beyond the barren regions. they were, at times of religious frenzy, cannibalistic, with weird and gruesome festival rites which ama only shudderingly sketched. for the most part, the clumsy orgs and their weird mime-creatures were kept from the senza forests. but occasionally they raided, stealing the senza women, and roaming the lush forests for food. there had been, in the senza village, one tahg, a wooer of ama. an older man, but somehow well liked by the senza tribal leader. repulsed by ama, he had threatened her--and then he had vanished from the village; gone hunting, and the senzas considered that the orgs might have killed him. "but i think it was org blood in him," ama said. "i told the captain roberts that--i remember just before he and his men left us to finish the repairs of their ship--and then we found later that the orgs had killed them all." tahg, ama thought, had become the tribal leader of this group of the orgs--indulging with them in their gruesome rites.... then, just a few hours ago, two orgs had crept upon ama as she slept--with extraordinary daring for an org, had successfully seized her and carried her off. taking her into the org country, past the roberts' spaceship, where they had come upon me, and torrence and jan.... "we be careful now," she was telling me as we stood gazing out over the forested slope. "after a storm it is when the orgs mostly roam--the hunting here is better when the little creatures are out after the water." the little creatures! best of the animal foods here on vulcan.... the red-storm quite evidently had emptied torrential rain on the forest. the fantastic trees were heavy with it. soddenly it dripped from the overhead branches. and now as we started down the slope, i saw the little creatures. insect or animal, no one could have said. a myriad sizes and shapes of them, from a finger-length to the size of a cat. before our advance they scurried, on the ground, scattering with weird little outcries. some flew clumsily into the leaves overhead; others ran up there on the vines, peering down at us as we passed. we came suddenly upon a pool of rain-water. greedily a hundred little orange-green things, seemingly almost all head and snout, were crowding at the pool, sucking up the water. with eerie, maniacal little voices they rolled and bounced away at our approach. this weird forest! abruptly i was aware that there were places where the rope-like vines and leafy branches of the underbrush shrank away from us as we advanced--slithering and swaying little vines in sudden movement before us. sentient vegetation. there are plants on earth which shrink and shudder at a touch. others which snap and seize an unwary insect enemy. but here it was far more startling than that. i saw a vine on the ground rise up upon its myriad little tendrils; the pods, like a row of heads upon it were quivering, puffing. the extended length of it, like a snake slithered from my threatening tread. "it fears every human," ama said. "a strange thing to you earthmen?" "well, slightly," i commented. "suppose it--some of this vegetation got angry--" fantastic thought, but the reality of it--a looping, swaying vine over our heads, as thick as my arm--that was a stark reality. "would a thing like that attack us, ama?" she shrugged. "there is talk of it. but i think no one is ever truthful to say it really happened." we were in the depths of the forest now. in the humid, heavy darkness it was sometimes arduous going. that thread of river--we could not see it now, but i judged it still must be half an earth-mile away. once we sat down in a little open glade to rest. in the thick silence the throbbing voice of the forest, blended of the scurrying life and the rustling vines, was a faint steady hum. then suddenly i saw that ama was tense, alert, sitting up listening. she looked startled, abruptly frightened. "what is it?" i whispered. "off there--the vines, they are frightened. you hear?" * * * * * it seemed that somewhere near us, the vine-rustling had grown louder. a scurry, mingled with little popping sounds from the pods. someone coming? i recall that the startled thought struck me. then from a thicket near at hand a group of little creatures came dashing. they saw us, wheeled and scurried sidewise. i was on my feet, peering into the shadowed leafy darkness. i thought i heard a low, guttural voice. whether i did or not, the whizz of an arrow past me was reality enough. a wandering band of the orgs were stalking us! at the whizz of the arrow i made a dash sidewise. my gun was gone; i jerked out my knife. ama was up, and another arrow barely missed her--an arrow that came from a totally different direction so that i knew we must be already surrounded. "ama--lie down! down--" a woman under some circumstances can be a terrible handicap. she didn't drop to the ground; she stood gazing around her in terror, and then she came running at me, clutching me so that i was futilely struggling to cast her off. another arrow sang past our heads, and then from several directions, the orgs were bursting into the glade. i tore loose from ama, but it was no use. whatever effective fight i might have put up, it could have brought a rain of arrows which might, probably would, have killed the girl. "quiet," i murmured. "they've got us. no chance to fight." i stood trying to shield her as in the dimness the orgs crowded around us. ten or more of them, jabbering at us, seizing me and presently shoving us off through the forest. two or three others seemed to join us in a moment; and abruptly ama gasped: "tahg! there is tahg--" the renegade senza, quite obviously a leader here, shoved past his jabbering, triumphant men and confronted us. he was seemingly startled, and then triumphant at seeing ama here. then his gaze swept to me. he was a big, muscular, but slender fellow. he was clad in a brief brown drape; but his aspect was wholly different from the heavy, misshapen, clumsy-looking orgs. his thick dark hair fell longish about his ears, framing his hawk-nosed, thin-lipped face. and his narrow dark eyes squinted at me as he frowned. "well," he said, "earthman? new one?" his english was evidently less fluent than ama's, but it was understandable enough. "yes," i agreed. "friendly--like all earthmen." he had signaled to the orgs, and two of them had shuffled forward and taken ama from me. "jus' good time," tahg said ironically. "org gods pleased tonight to have earthmen--" earthmen! the plural! i had little opportunity to ponder it. roughly i was shoved onward through the forest, back to where it thinned into a stretch of metal desert--and beyond that into a new terrain of stunted, gnarled trees and rope vines on a rocky ground. to me it was an exhausting march. ama, with tahg beside her, usually was behind me. once we stopped and food and water were given me. when we started again, i saw that, at tahg's direction, one of the savages had hoisted ama to his back, carrying her in a rope-vine sling. occasionally other small bands of orgs joined us, until there were fifty or more of them, triumphantly returning to their village. their torches were burning now, and a little ahead of us a pack of the huge green-grey mimes were leaping. then tahg came toward me. "good-bye," he said. "you look more good to me when i see you next time. the gods prepare you now." * * * * * he turned and was lost in the darkness. my ankles had been fettered with a two-foot length of rope; my wrists were crossed and lashed behind me. no one was with me now but my two captors who urged me forward, impatient at my little jerky steps. the village and its jabbering turmoil and lights was in a moment hidden by a rise of the rocky ground. then i saw before me a fairly large, square building of stone, flat-roofed, with a cone-shaped stone-pile on top like a crude church spire. an org temple. it was windowless; some twenty feet high from ground to its roof. a narrow, rectangular slit of doorway was in front, where two huge torches, like braziers one on either side, were burning. an org stood between them, with the torchlight painting him--an aged savage in a long, white skin drape which was fantastically ornamented. he was thin and bent, his round brown skull almost hairless, his body shriveled, parched with age. his skinny arms were upraised, outstretched to welcome me. but my startled gaze turned from him, for on the ground just at the edge of the swaying torchlight, i saw that two figures were lying. two men, roped and tied into inert bundles. they were jan and torrence! v there was a time when, roped and tied like jan and torrence, i was laid beside them while in the torchlight, alone with his pagan gods, the ancient org priest stood intoning his prayers and incantations. it was then that jan was able to tell me what had happened to him. he was lying between torrence and me. i had little chance to talk to torrence. nor any great desire, for i considered him then merely a craven fellow who had deserted us at the very first of the weird attacks. human emotions work strangely. it was obvious now, as we lay there in the darkness, with the aged savage in the torchlight near us--obvious enough that we were doomed to something horrible which at best would end in our death. yet jan and i--each having considered the other dead--were for a brief time at least, pleased that we were here. no one yet alive, can normally quite give up hope of escaping death. i recall that in the darkness i was furtively trying to loosen my bonds, twisting and squirming. "you needn't bother," torrence muttered. "i've tried all that. and those two damned orgs who carried you here--they're still watching us." "going to take us inside, i guess," jan whispered. "inside this temple to--to--" his shuddering imagination supplied no words. but his idea was right, for presently the old priest was finished with his incantations. his cracked voice called a command and the two savages who had brought me here came from nearby. one by one, they picked us up and carried us inside. i was the last to go in. the place was a single stone square room. it was lurid with a swaying torchlight. carved gargoyle images, crude and hideously ugly--grotesque personification of the pagan vulcan gods--where ranged along the walls. the old priest was standing now on a little dais, between the two interior torches. his arms were upraised toward me as i was carried in; behind him there was a quick stone altar, with a line of smaller images on it. his voice rose, quavering, as i was slowly carried past him; and his hands over me might have been purifying me for the coming rite. in the center of the room, raised some five feet above the floor, there was a broad stone slab, with a big, grinning, pot-bellied stone image mounted up there. then i saw that the slab had a broad, cradle-like depression in front of the image. still bound, lying there side by side, with the belly of the huge image projecting partly over them, were jan and torrence. and now the two savages hoisted me up and rolled me among them. the sacrificial altar. heaven knows, i could not miss the realization now. there was a weird, acrid, nauseous smell clinging here from former ceremonies. and as i was hoisted up, i saw that the smooth sides of the altar were seared, blackened by the heat of flames which so many times before must have been here. and the heat--the fire? within a moment after i was rolled into the saucer-like depression of the alter--with torrence muttering despairing curses and jan pallid and grim beside me--outside the temple there sounded a weird gibbering chorus of baying. ghastly, familiar sound! the mimes--the giant fire-males! released at the temple doorway, they came bounding in--blobs of leaping red-green flame! a dozen or more of the weird creatures, all of these much larger than the male jan had killed near the roberts' spaceship. fire-males trained for this ceremony. enveloped in their lurid flames they rushed at the altar, circling it, swiftly running one behind the other so that we were encircled with a ring of leaping flames. i heard torrence mutter, "to roast us! just to roast us slowly--" * * * * * the shoulders and heads of the running, circling fire-mimes were nearly as high as the altar slab on which we were lying. the flames of them swirled two or three feet higher--blobs of fire which merged one with the other. a circular curtain of mounting flame walling us in. through it the temple interior was blurred, distorted. vaguely the figure of the aged priest was visible. he was now on his knees, turned partly away from us as he faced his little row of god-images, supplicating them. curtain of swirling fire. within a moment the heat of it was searing us. heat slowly intensifying. it was bearable now; but the confined circle of air here was mounting in temperature; the big gargoyle image over us, the metallic-rock slab beneath us both were slowly heating. the smoke and the swirling gas-fumes would choke us into unconsciousness very quickly, i knew. and then the mounting heat would at last make this a sizzling griddle, on which we would lie, slowly roasting.... a chaos of confused phantasmagoria blurred my mind in those first horrible moments.... i saw the old priest, so solemnly, humbly supplicating his gods as he officiated at this gruesome pagan ceremony ... then i could envisage us being carried off, back to the org village where the people, not worthy of being here in the sacred temple, were so eagerly awaiting us ... then the orgy--sacred feast, endowing its participants with what future virtues and panaceas they conceived their gods would give them.... the end, for us.... already jan was pitifully coughing.... but what was this? i felt a shape stir beside me; a small, slender figure with dangling hair; i felt trembling fingers fumbling at my bonds. ama! she had crept from a little recess under the giant bulging statue of the gargoyle god, here on the altar. ama, who had found a chance to slip away from the wooing tahg, and had preceded us here--hiding up here so that she might try and release us.... but it was too late now. so obviously too late! she had accomplished nothing, save to immolate herself here with us! into my ear her terrified voice was whispering, "i thought that the fire-males would not come so soon." in the blurring, blasting heat and smoke, she had untied us, but of what use? "no--no chance to try and jump," she stammered. "as we fell they would leap upon us--kill us in a moment--" the sizzling, crackling of the flames--the gibbering baying of the fire-mimes mingling with the incantations of the old priest--it was all a blurred chaos.... then suddenly i was aware that jan, coughing, choking, had struggled half erect on the slab. there was just an instant when i saw his contorted face, painted lurid by the flames. wild despairing desperation was stamped there. but there was something else. an exaltation.... "you--run--" he gasped. and then he jumped. a wild, desperate leap, upward and outward.... it carried him through the curtain of flame and out some ten feet to the temple floor. the thud of his crashing body mingled with the gibbering yelps of the fire-mimes as they whirled and pounced upon him--all of them in a second, merged into a great blob of flame out there on the temple floor where they fought, scrambling over him, ripping--tearing-gruesome horror.... i knew in that second that already jan was dead.... and then i was aware that the other side of the altar, behind the gargoyle image, was momentarily completely dark. all the flaming creatures were fighting over jan's body. torrence, too, had realized it. i saw him stagger up and jump into the darkness. i shoved at ama; rolled and tumbled her off the slab. we fell in a heap and scrambled erect. the pawing, snarling group of fire-mimes, twenty feet away with the big altar slab intervening, intent upon their scattering fragments, for that moment did not heed us. on his little dais by the wall, the old priest had turned and was standing numbed, confused. there was no one else in the sacred temple. the single doorway was a vertical slit of darkness. already torrence was running for it. i clutched at ama and we ran. * * * * * out into the rocky blackness. i recall that i had the wits to turn us away from where the org village lay nearby, behind the hillock.... then, suddenly, from behind a crag, a dark figure rose up. tahg! tahg, who had been crouching here, evidently impatient for his feast so that he would be the first to see us as we were brought from the temple.... he stood gasping, startled; and in that same second i was upon him, my fist crashing into his face so that he went backward and down. with desperate haste i caught up a rock from the ground--pounded it on his head--wildly pounding until his skull smashed.... then i was up, clutching ama. torrence already was ten or twenty feet ahead of us in the darkness. we ran after him; he heard us coming and waited. "which way?" he gasped. "she ought to know. our spaceship--that would be best--" at the door of the temple the old priest now was standing screaming. from behind the little hill, answering shouts were responding.... "is it closer to your village, or to our ship?" i demanded of ama. "why--why to your ship, i think." "you know the way?" "yes--yes, i think so. not to where you landed--that i do not know. but to the roberts' ship--" and the orgs doubtless would consider that we would head into the senza country. the forests in that direction would be full of roaming orgs hunting us.... she and i and torrence ran, plunging wildly forward in the rocky darkness, with the lights and the turmoil behind us presently fading away into the heavy blank silence of the vulcan night.... * * * * * i think that there is little i need add. it was a long, arduous journey, but we reached our little spaceship safely. and in a moment, with the rocket-streams shoving downward and with the lower-hull gravity plates in neutral, slowly we were rising into the cloudy darkness. "you will take me to my people?" ama said anxiously. "you did promise me--" "yes, of course, ama--we'll land you near your village--" queerly enough, it was not until that moment after all the tumultuous events which had engulfed us, that suddenly i remembered the deposits of _allurite_ which we had hoped to locate upon vulcan. if i could take back samples of the ore--to my sponsors that doubtless would be considered the major success--the only success indeed--of my expedition.... it occurred to me then that we could land at the senza village, and for a little time, prospect from there.... but even that plan was doomed to frustration. i mentioned it to torrence. "we should head for earth," he said dogmatically. "i have had enough of this." it was then, before we had gone far toward the senza country, that i noticed the rocket streams were acting queerly. a seeming lack of power.... torrence had gone down into the hull; he came back presently to the turret. "the pelletier rotators are slowing," i said. "what's the matter?" he shook his head. "i noticed it," he said. "haven't found out yet. you want to come and look?" i locked the controls, left ama and went down into the hull with torrence. in the dim mechanism cubby, as i bent over the pelletier mechanisms, suddenly torrence leaped on me! it came as quickly, unexpectedly as that. the culmination of his brooding, murderous, cowardly plans. his heavy face was contorted, his eyes blazing. in his hand he held a sliver of metal arrow. it was bent, doubled over, so that all this time he had been able to keep it hidden in his clothes. the arrow he had taken from roberts' body, as it lay there near the bow of the wrecked spaceship! the little light in the mechanism cubby gleamed on it now; glistened on the green and red spots of the sleek, sand-colored metal. _allurite!_ the precious substance--not an alloy, not a low-grade _allurium_ ore, but _allurite_ in its pure state! on earth this single bent little arrow could be worth a fortune! and the frenzied torrence was gloating: "see it, you damn fool--your _allurite_--right under your nose all the time! and now it's mine--" in that second he would have plunged the needle-sharp arrow-point like a stilletto into my heart. but his own frenzied, murderous hysteria defeated him. my fist struck his wrist, knocked his stab-thrust away, with the arrow clattering to the floor. and then i had him by the throat, strangling him until he yielded and i tied him up.... as you who read this, of course, already know from the news reports, i dropped ama near the edge of the senza village. i recall now how she stood in the vulcan night, in the torchlight with the excited crowd of her people behind her; the last i saw of vulcan was the little figure of her waving at me as i rose into the leaden sky and headed back for earth.... maybe--just maybe--i'll return someday to that land where jan gave his life that his friends might live. avoidance situation by james mc connell _what can a man do when he alone must decide the fate of earth and all its people--and when the choices offered him are slavery and death...._ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, february 1956. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] captain allen hawkins stood quietly in the observation room of the _sunward_ looking out at subspace. he was a medium-sized man with a trim squareness to him that suggested he had been in the military most of his life. he had a good deal of gold on his sleeve and a good deal of silver in his hair, and he had discovered in his many years in the space navy that the two usually went hand in hand. in the background he could hear the noise and ordered confusion of the ship's bridge. but at the moment he paid it little attention, concentrating instead on the observation window. it was not the first time that he had stood thus, gazing at whatever lay beyond the shell of the ship. almost every time he had put the _sunward_ through the dark shadow of subspace, he had deserted the bridge for at least a few moments to come and stare out the window. "god," he said out loud, repressing a shiver that wanted to crawl down his spine. "perhaps 'god forsaken' would be a better description," came a voice from behind him. the voice belonged to dr. j. l. broussard, the _sunward's_ senior psychologist. and although the two men were on more than casually friendly terms, hawkins didn't turn to greet him. the fascination of the observation port seemed to obviate the normal requirements of courtesy. "at times like this i think you're right. 'god forsaken.' that's just what it is," hawkins said. "completely black, completely empty. you know, it frightens me every time we make the jump through it." a voice from the bridge called out, "twelve minutes until zero. no noticeable deviations, captain." "very well," hawkins said loudly enough to be heard on the bridge. "perhaps it frightens all of us just a little," said broussard. he leaned his oversized body against the observation room wall. his big, mild face had a relaxed look to it. "i wonder why it affects us that way," he added almost as if it were a casual afterthought, but his eyes had a too-shrewd look to them. "you're the psychologist. you tell me why," hawkins said. he paused for just a moment, expecting broussard to reply. but after a few seconds when the man gave him no conversational support, hawkins continued. "for my part, i guess it frightens me because--well, because a man seems to get lost out there. in normal space there are always stars around, no matter how distant they may be, and you feel that you've got direction and location. in subspace, all you've got is nothing--and one hell of a lot of that." he pushed his cap back until it perched comfortably on the rear of his head. "it's incredible when you stop to think about it. an area--an opening as big as the whole of our universe, big enough to pack every galaxy we've ever seen in it and still have lots of room left over. all that space--and not a single atom of matter in it anywhere." captain hawkins shook his grayed head in wonder. "at least," he went on. "not a single atom in it until we came barging in to use it as a short cut across our own universe." the man on the bridge called out, "ten minutes until zero. no noticeable deviations, captain." "very well," hawkins answered. broussard shifted his considerable weight into a more comfortable position. "you feel rather strongly about this, don't you?" "that i do," said hawkins. as much as he enjoyed an occasional conversation with the psychologist, broussard's questions often got on his nerves. "don't you think it's better we discovered subspace than if we were still back trying to beat the speed of light in our own universe?" broussard asked him. "oh, stop looking for a dangling neurosis somewhere, broussard," hawkins said, managing a smile. "you know quite well that i've got absolutely nothing at all against the use of subspace for 'rapid transportation,' so to speak. it's just that i'm the sort of man who likes to know where he's going _all_ the time. and out here, in this stuff, you lose your sense of direction. there's no up, no down, no in between. it took spacemen a long time to get accustomed to the wild freedom they found out in the middle of normal space. but at least there you could always head for a star if you got lost. out here ..." he gestured futilely towards the blackness staring in at them from the window. they stood silently contemplating it for several moments. "eight minutes until zero. no noticeable deviations, captain," came the voice from the bridge again. "very well," captain hawkins replied, breaking the brief silence between the two men. then he went on, "broussard, have you ever been out there in that stuff? oh, i don't mean like now, in a ship or a rescue craft. i mean in a spacesuit, all by yourself." the psychologist shook his head. "no, i never have." he paused for just a second, then added, "what's it really like?" there were times, hawkins thought, when even the phrasing of a simple question on broussard's part carried a slight sting. but like the brief pain that accompanies the probing point of a hypodermic needle, the tiny barbs contained in the man's questions were soon forgotten. hawkins smiled. "it's my own private guess of what hell will turn out to be. 'god forsaken,' did we say? that's just about it. we stopped to repair a ship once, and some of us had to go outside to work on it. i guess i was out there for less than three hours--no more than that. and yet i was almost a madman by the time they hauled me back inside. i can't explain why." his voice trailed off into nothingness. "i guess it was just the blackness that did it." "six minutes until zero. no noticeable deviations, captain." "very well." for the first time hawkins turned to face the psychologist. "during my training at the academy they locked me up in a closet once, just as a joke. i was without light for hours, but it was nothing like that out there. you should know, broussard. why does it look so much blacker in that window now than any other black i've ever seen?" broussard looked the man over carefully before answering, wondering just exactly what sort of reply might be called for. "i think the reason is that you've got close to optimum conditions for it here in the observatory," he said momentarily. "you always get the blackest shade of black inside a ring of white light. look at the window." hawkins turned to do as directed. "there you've got a white frame surrounding the complete absence of light. that's just about as good as you can get. no wonder it looks so black to you." hawkins shook his head, not so much in disbelief as in wonder. "as a matter of fact," the psychologist continued almost in a hurry. "if you stayed out in subspace all by yourself, with no ship near you and no light of your own, after a while it wouldn't seem black to you at all. you'd get cortical adaptation, and things would just look gray. and not too long after that, you'd stop 'seeing' entirely, as we think of seeing. or, as a friend of mine once said, under those conditions you'd 'see' as much with your elbows as you would with your eyes. funny, isn't it? we usually think of black as being the absence of light. and yet, in order to 'see' black, we've got to have at least a little light around every once in a while." the watchman on the bridge droned out the time again. "four minutes until zero. no noticeable deviations, captain." allen hawkins gave a large sigh, then readjusted the cap on his head. he had the feeling that broussard's little lecture on science, while factually accurate, was delivered more to obscure the facts than to illuminate. "i'd better get to the bridge now, broussard. not that they really need me, but ..." he left the sentence dangling, then turned and walked briskly out of the observation room. * * * * * once in the control room, he gave the dials and the illuminated screens a rapid, practiced glance and then sat down in his chair to one side of the operations panel. there was actually no known danger to this shifting back and forth from one space to another. no ship had ever encountered any difficulties whatsoever in doing so; there had never been an accident of any kind during transition. the whole thing was as completely automatic as man could make it, and apparently entirely safe. but still hawkins had never made the shift one way or another without feeling a telltale tightening of muscles deep inside him, and without wondering just what would happen if they got _stuck_ in all that darkness. "one minute, captain," the watch officer reminded him. hawkins nodded in reply, his face illuminated by the flashing lights on the control panel in front of him. he watched their changing signals calmly with knowing eyes. "thirty seconds ... all drives off," sang out a voice. the hands on the clock crept slowly around the dial. "zero...." there was no sound, no feeling, no jerk nor jar, no noise to mark the transition--nothing at all different from the moment before except a slight increase in the total light flux in the room. _stars._ captain allen hawkins smiled softly to himself. stars ... something to cling to, he whispered under his breath. "bridge from navigation," came a voice close to his ear. "go ahead, navigation," he said after pressing the communications button. "looks like we hit it right on the nose, captain," the navigator told him. "can't tell just yet, of course, until i feed the positions of the nearest stars into betsy and she decides where we are. but it looks good from here, and if i'm right, the one we're hunting for is about eight o'clock high from the nose of the ship as she sits now. i'll plot a course there right now. do you want to wait until betsy decides that's the one, or shall we take a chance and head for it first?" the navigator always asked the question, but he knew what the answer would be. "we'll start just as soon as you can give us the course," hawkins replied. "aye, aye, captain," the navigator replied. hawkins turned to the officer on duty. "mr. smith, you will remain as you are until you receive the course from the navigator. once you have it, you will get underway immediately." "aye, aye, captain," smith replied. "i'll be in my cabin if you want me," hawkins said as he left the bridge. he was rather tired and he meant to go straight to bed, but somehow he found himself stopping by the observation room en route. broussard was still there, looking out of the window at the stars. "lovely, aren't they, broussard?" hawkins said. "so you feel the stars are lovely?" the psychologist answered slowly. "yes, i do. they give us light, and hope for the future, and more than that, a frame of reference when we fly through the dark reaches of our universe. they're more than beautiful--they're necessary." as he turned to leave, hawkins chuckled to himself. just let the head-shrinker try to read a neurosis into that! * * * * * it took them three weeks from the day they arrived back in normal space to make sure that they had found a sun with planets, and another three weeks from then to make landfall on the second of the four satellites this particular solar system had to offer. almost from the very beginning they were elated with their luck, for the planet seemed to be a first class find. the _sunward_ and her crew had been exploring this section of space for more than six years, and out of the thirty-eight systems they had investigated, this was the first that offered any promise of eventual human habitation. man had been in space less then one hundred years. at first he had thrown himself towards the stars with crude rocket-driven craft. a few years later he had invented a type of atomic drive which allowed him to approach the speed of light. but it was the discovery of the subspace technique of travel which had theoretically given him the whole universe to live in. there were drawbacks, however, and they were important ones. to tear himself from the matrix of normal space he still needed huge machines, and probably always would. this meant the building of exceedingly large space vessels, like the _sunward_, which could contain not only the equipment necessary to propel him into the blackness of subspace, but which also could be equipped with the mammoth control mechanisms necessary to regulate the change-over. the switch to subspace could never be made near the surface of a planet, for the field forces generated during the change had far-flung effects and were quite capable, even under tightest control, of tearing loose a huge chunk of a planet and dropping it into subspace with the ship. big ships meant big money, and even now there were fewer than a thousand of the large exploration craft in operation. each ship could average fewer than ten new worlds a year. so while man had taken a lease on the universe, it seemed that at his present rate of exploration a great many centuries would pass before he finished the charting of even the stars in his own back yard. but if at times he became discouraged at the immensity of the task, there were always moments of great joy which helped to spur a man on. the men of the _sunward_ named the new star clarion, and the habitable planet they called trellis. it was the second of three large and one very small planets which circled clarion. the _sunward_ spent more than two weeks circling over trellis, making maps and checking the atmosphere. then the council of scientists on board picked a landing site and captain hawkins brought the ship down on the spot they had chosen. exactly twenty-seven days from the hour they landed, the council voted unanimously that trellis was safe for human habitation, and allen hawkins gave the orders to have the hatches opened to the trellian air. the captain, as was customary, was the first man to set foot on the soil. he led the brief ceremonies that claimed the world as earth's own and then planted the terran flag. he also took the customary measure of declaring it a ship's holiday, and even threw out the first baseball when the inevitable game started up later in the afternoon. but he didn't stay to watch, preferring to stroll around the landscape by himself for a little while. he had been walking for a little more than an hour, traveling in a wide circle around the ship, when he came upon dr. broussard, sitting quietly under a shady tree, a book in one hand and a container of beer in the other. the beer looked good and cold, and the shade looked comfortable. "mind if i join you?" hawkins asked, and since he was captain of the ship, scarcely waited for an invitation before he sat down and opened himself a beer. it tasted as good as it had looked, and hawkins soon found himself in an expansive mood. "tell me, broussard," he said good-naturedly. "how come you aren't out snooping around, making sure that the crew's libidos aren't acting up or something." cocking an ear towards the distant ball field, rife with the excited noise that always accompanies such a game, broussard replied, "it sounds to me as if the crew is getting about as much libidinal discharge as i could hope for under the circumstances. that being the case, i saw no reason why the ship's alienist shouldn't have a little time off." hawkins leaned back comfortably against the tree. "alienist. that's a pretty strange word these days, broussard. used to be what they called psychiatrists in england back in the old days, right?" hawkins was of vaguely english descent and felt it behooved him to know such things. "that's right. they revived the term briefly a hundred years ago when we first got out into space, because they thought that psychologists might be needed for the first contacts with alien cultures." a slight frown came over the man's face. "the word's fallen into disuse again of late, however," he continued. captain hawkins grunted in assent. "no aliens, eh?" "that's right. no aliens. thousands of new worlds, thousands upon thousands of new species, but not one of them intelligent enough to hold a candle to our earthside chimpanzee. but still they go on outfitting each of the exploration vessels with psychologists, and outfitting all of the psychologists for the double task of soothing the crew's _psyches_ and making contact with mythical intelligent races that so far we've only dreamed about." broussard emptied his container of beer and with a single vicious movement threw it as far away from him as he could. "i must say, however, that of late they've been spending more time training us to be mind doctors than to be official greeters to unknown cultures." suddenly broussard straightened up. "but why should you twit me about deserting my work today. i saw you throw out the first baseball. how come you didn't stay for the game? surely that falls under the province of a captain's job." allen hawkins smiled. "i learned long ago, broussard, that there are times when the presence of the commanding officer has an undesired influence on the spirits of the crew. after all, as captain of the _sunward_, i can't very well take part in the game itself. who'd dare to strike me out when i came to bat?" he stopped to think about that for a moment. "or, maybe i should have said, i don't _think_ anybody would dare to strike me out." "ah, yes, the father figure," broussard said laughing. "that's right. so i can't play. nor can i umpire, for half the fun of baseball is arguing with the umpire and i couldn't allow any of that. and if i just watched without playing the game itself, a lot of the crew might think that i felt myself too high and mighty to take part in their proletarian type of recreation. so i'm damned if i do and damned if i don't. so what did i do...?" "you left the field," broussard answered, lighting up a cigarette after offering the other man one. "that's right, i left the baseball field and went walking." "that's not quite what i meant when i said 'you left the field,'" broussard went on. "it's a psychological term, first used by lewin many centuries ago. any time a man is in a conflict situation, faced with two or more alternatives that he finds it difficult to choose among, he may solve his problem by choosing none of them." hawkins stretched his legs out restfully on the grass in front of him. as he thought about it, there had been few times in the past when he had given the psychologist his head and let the man talk. probably, hawkins thought to himself, broussard spends most of his time listening to the petty confessions of all of us and never gets the opportunity to unload a bit himself. he caught himself wondering just who on earth confesses the pope.... and so he uttered the magical words, "i don't think i quite understand...." broussard scarcely needed the encouragement to continue. "lewin liked to think of psychological situations as approximating physical situations. he spoke in terms of valences and attractions, of vectors and forces operating through psychological distances. for example, let's consider the case of a child put into a long hallway. at one end of the hall is a large, fierce dog. at the other end is an ugly man with a big switch. we tell the child that he has to go to one end of the hall or the other. this becomes an 'avoidance-avoidance' situation in the lewinian terminology. both the man with the switch and the fierce dog carry negative valences--that means that the child actually doesn't want to approach either of them--and the closer the child comes to one of them, the more powerfully it repels him. just as with magnets--the closer you bring one negative charge to another negative charge, the more powerful is the force of repulsion." captain hawkins smiled. it wasn't going to be as bad as he had feared. "what does all this have to do with baseball?" "we'll get back to home plate in just a moment. but first, let's continue with the child. we put him in the hallway, tell him to go to one end or the other, and then we just sit back and watch. at first he stands about as close to the center of the hall as he can, assuming that the two negative valences are about of equal strength. he's undecided--can't make up his mind which is worse, the man or the dog. so we prompt him to action--shock him or tell him that he has to keep moving. then he begins to move back and forth, vacillating between the two undesirable objects. so we apply more and more pressure to try to force him to a decision. but the closer he moves to the dog, for example, the more distasteful _it_ becomes, and the less dangerous does the _man_ seem to be. so the child turns around and starts towards the man. but here the situation is repeated. it's a beautiful example of a conflict situation." giving vent to a well-disciplined snort, captain hawkins said, "and eventually the child either gets well switched or badly bitten, eh?" "no, that's where you're wrong. eventually the child tries to escape from the hallway altogether. sometimes he'll try to climb the walls, or break down a door, or anything like that which will release him from what has become an impossible psychological environment." "so," said hawkins. "i think you left me stranded on first base." broussard laughed. "pardon the sermon, captain. what i was trying to point out was that the baseball game represented just about the same sort of thing to you as the hallway did to the child. any time a human being is faced with two impossible decisions like that, he usually ends up by 'leaving the field' of conflict altogether. nowadays we can even predict the exact field forces necessary to bring on this type of behavior." "and what do you predict i'm going to do right now?" hawkins asked with a bit of a laugh in his voice. "that's an easy one. i predict you're going to ask for another beer--and that i'll give it to you. no conflict there." he opened a container that chilled itself automatically as he handed it to his superior officer. hawkins blew the foam from it and then took a long, satisfying swallow. "there are times when i'm glad i'm just an uncomplicated space officer," he said presently. broussard grinned. "sorry if i seemed to be giving you a lecture, captain. i'm afraid you would have enjoyed a good, healthy discussion of freud much more. my own particular problem is that i'm much more interested in thinking about the remote possibilities of man's encountering new types of intelligences than i am in playing father confessor to a bunch of space rats. back on earth the social psychologists felt that lewin's work offered a fruitful means of analyzing the motivational components in any alien society we might encounter. i guess my trotting out the vector charts was just a neat example of wishful thinking." captain allen hawkins didn't bother to answer the remark for some time. he was too busy watching something move slowly towards them across the grassy plain. finally he half-whispered to his companion, "don't put those charts away too soon, broussard. you finally may have a chance to use them." * * * * * bells clanged loudly. red and yellow lights flashed insistently in front of the man, demanding his attention. the clattering noise of a computer working at high speed added to the unholy din of the small spaceship's control room. surveyor lan sur ran his deft fingers rapidly over the studs on the control panel in front of him. he scarcely looked at the controls as he manipulated them, concentrating instead on the screens before him--screens which showed the attack patterns of the seven large warships that surrounded him. one of the attacking enemy ships loomed incredibly large directly ahead of him. lan sur's fingers hesitated, and then, at precisely the proper second, pressed the firing studs. the scout ship seemed to dance lightly upward as it passed high above the larger, slower enemy craft. lan sur whirled his ship around just in time to witness the total disintegration of the enemy. "one down," he thought, but took no particular pride in his accomplishment. there were still six left. the enemy regrouped, spreading out into a cone-like formation. he knew the trick well, and aimed his ship to make its next pass high above the open mouth of this formation. but the enemy opened up the top of the cone as fast as lan sur tried to avoid it. he fired a warning salvo and tucked his defensive screens in tight around him. but the uppermost enemy ship incredibly picked up more speed, sliding off into an extremely intricate maneuver. lan sur knew that if it could hold to this path, it would pass several miles above him, neatly sandwiching him between the enemy vessels below. he could have turned aside at once, but that would have been an admission of possible defeat, and he could never admit defeat. if he could beat the other ship to the topping maneuver, he would destroy not only it, but the ships at the small end of the cone as well when he came crashing down on them from above. for just a moment he felt certain that he could succeed. the scout ship vibrated tensely as it hurled itself forward. the red lights on the control panel doubled in number, then tripled. the computer roared instructions so rapidly that he could hardly keep up with them. the warning bells went mad with ringing. "i think i can make it," he told himself. but he refused to become excited. he had come this close to victory before, and had still failed. now he saw he was gaining on the enemy ship, but it was a thin margin of safety indeed. the computer screamed with danger signals as the huge craft came closer and closer. lan sur leaned forward slightly in his seat, a little strain showing on his usually relaxed face. to his surprise, he found himself saying aloud, "yes, i think i can." but he did not. suddenly the enemy craft shot by above him and belched forth a thick burst of light. the huge black warships immediately beneath him echoed the call, catching his smaller, fleeter ship in a double barrage. and it was all over. the red lights on the control panel blinked out quickly, one by one. the warning bells ceased their claxons, the computer settled down to a quiet hum. the screens went blank. a thin piece of tape spewed forth from the computer. it read, "this scout ship utterly annihilated. end of problem." * * * * * lan sur looked the tape over sourly. "damn," he said, leaning back in his seat. he tore the tape into little pieces and deposited them angrily in the reclaim box. reluctantly he pressed the "analysis" button on the computer. the machine would issue him a complete dissection of the whole mock war game, pointing out with deadly accuracy the mistakes he had made. "damn," he said again, thinking over the past battle. he got up from the control panel and walked over to his relaxation chair. sitting down, he took a small bit of food from a container and began chewing on it viciously. it wasn't really so bad that he lost the engagement, he told himself. the pre-battle odds were greatly against him. and as often as he had tried it, he had never been able to take on seven enemy ships and still survive. sometimes it seemed an almost impossible task to him. however, he had a deep desire to solve the problem, because the computer told him it might be solvable if he took the proper course of action. evidently, it would take a lot more work, a great deal more study on his part before he found the solution. "but time is something i have plenty of," he said aloud, stretching out comfortably in the chair. for several hours he puzzled over the thing, taking time out to digest the taped analysis of his mistakes, and then attacked the problem afresh. eventually, out of sheer exhaustion, he slipped off into a deep, restful sleep, quite confident that the next time he tried the seven-ship problem, or at most the time following that.... * * * * * lan sur awoke to quietness. he stretched his lean, lithe legs, slowly, returning to normal awareness as he did so. once he was completely awake, he sat down in front of the control panel again. a single amber light beamed from the board. while he had been asleep, the scout ship had come out of its c^{2} drive and had slowed to a stop. they had reached their immediate destination, and since he was asleep, the computer had simply turned on the protective screens around the ship and had begun a survey of the sun system they had arrived at. he pressed a button on the computer and then leaned back to digest the information that the machine began feeding him at once. the sun was of the a/34.79lu type, just as had been forecast before his voyage. it had three large inner planets and a tiny fourth much too far away from the solar furnace and much too small to be of any practical value. lan sur read the report carefully, noting with pleasure certain of the facts presented him. he was in the midst of an interesting section concerning the chemical composition of the atmosphere on the second of the planets when a small bell on the computer rang and the machine became silent for just a second or two, then began pouring out material at a furious rate. lan sur, who had been yards of tape behind in his reading, dropped the atmosphere discussion and began to read the new information being spewed forth. a frown crossed his face as he read the first few words, "alien contact established...." he hoped this new development would not take him away from his games for too long a time. the computer had detected the emanation of modulated energy waves coming from the second planet. immediately it had withdrawn its wide-flung detector beams and had concentrated fully upon the source of the waves. lan sur reset the computer so that only a very small part of the huge machine would carry on the routine work of new investigation, while the greater part would be put to work in an attempt to decode what was obviously a language being broadcast in some obsolete manner. he noted with pride that the aliens, whoever they might be, had not at the moment reached the point of development where c^{2} communication was available to them, but were still limited to the raw speed of light for the transmission of messages, and hence, he felt sure, for the transmission of space ships too. this meant, he knew, that he had probably stumbled onto a race of beings still new to the reaches of space who would be helpless in the face of even his own lightly armed scout ship. however, according to patrol instructions, he activated a switch that relayed all pertinent information by means of a sealed c^{2} beam back to the nearest dakn patrol base, and put in a formal call for the presence of patrol battleships. one way or another, they would be needed.... * * * * * it took the computer less than a day and a half, as lan sur figured time, to break the language of the aliens discovered on the second planet. the surveyor spent this time working feverishly on a new idea he had for the solution of the seven-ship problem, and was quite upset when the computer finished its problem of decoding the new tongue before lan sur had worked out all the details of his latest attack on the mock war games. reluctantly he put himself into a light trance, during which the machine taught him the new language. he did not actually learn to think in the new tongue, for that would have imposed limiting strictures on his mental processes. rather, his mind was turned into a kind of translating factory. he had the freedom to think in the terms and in the concepts that he was accustomed to, and his mind simply expressed these thoughts as best it could in the newly-learned way of speaking. the computer had also arrived at an incredibly clear knowledge of the socio-politico-psychological structure of the new civilization, but aside from a brief glance at some of the more intriguing points, lan sur ignored this information and simply relayed it along to the galactic base where social scientists could pore over it in their own bemused leisure. for his tasks lan sur hardly felt that he needed it. once lan sur had memorized the language, he put his scout ship under a screen of complete invisibility and landed it some few miles away from the space ship the aliens were using as their permanent base. he let the computer drink up what additional information it required to make sure both that the planetary conditions were suitable to his own particular chemical make-up, and that the aliens were indeed as impotent as his previous estimates had seemed to indicate. once the computer gave him its blessing, he walked out into the bright planetary sunlight. * * * * * psychologist j. l. broussard sat up puzzled. "what do you mean, don't put away my lewinian vector charts too soon? i may have a chance to use them on _whom_?" captain allen hawkins simply stared straight ahead of him, his lips forming unanswerable questions. broussard took his cue from the man's head and stared too. and then he understood. the alien, for from its dress alone it obviously _was_ an alien, was still quite a distance away from them. it came walking towards them with a kind of protective sparkle about it--and even from that distance they could sense a feeling of power about the man. "man?" broussard caught himself thinking. yes, it did seem very much like a man--not only like a human, but like a masculine human. but immediately broussard told himself that this might not be the case. true, humanoid it was, but because it displayed a certain lack of the more obvious female sexual characteristics it did not follow that it was _male_. "why, they could even have _ten_ different sexes for all we know," broussard thought to himself. "i think it's coming towards _us_," hawkins said quietly. broussard watched the alien move a few more yards and then agreed. hawkins activated a small radio that he carried in one of his shirt pockets. "hello, communications," he spoke rapidly into the microphone. "this is hawkins. put me through to the bridge at once. and make sure you record every word that i say." the words "aye, aye, captain," were forthcoming immediately from the tiny loudspeaker. the captain rated a special communications channel that was guarded by the radio shack at all times, and it came as no surprise to hawkins that the reply was prompt. he had expected it to be. "bridge here, go ahead." "this is captain hawkins, bridge. who's the duty officer?" hawkins knew who the man was, but asked to give the man a chance to realize fully that the captain was aware with whom he was speaking. "lieutenant medboe, captain, ready for instructions." hawkins thought for just a moment and then answered. "mr. medboe, the information that i am about to pass along to you is not to leave the bridge under any circumstances. as soon as i finish, you will contact the radio shack and make certain that what i have said, if it has been monitored, is not passed along from that particular point either. do you understand me." medboe's voice sounded a little puzzled, "of course, captain. your instructions will be followed to the letter." "now then," hawkins continued. "you might as well know at once that i think we've made contact with an alien race. i don't know what this means to you personally, but to the human race it means a great deal and we can under no circumstances risk the occurrence of any incident. you will therefore send someone to find commander petri and inform him that as executive officer, he will be in charge of the ship until i return to it. and while you are doing that, you will summon all the men to return to the ship at once. you may not give them the real reason--tell them that there is a bad storm coming and that i have ordered them all inside. it is imperative that none of them realizes the true reason. do you understand?" medboe's voice sounded almost hurt. "aye, aye, captain," he said. "good. once everyone is back inside the ship, have petri summon all officers not on watch and all scientists to the large meeting hall. they will be given a chance to observe and listen to the contact as it is made. which reminds me--have the communications department set up a long range television camera on me at once, and pipe the image down into the hall. you will have them record both sight and sound for later use. you will also inform petri that a state of emergency exists as of this moment by my personal order, and that if necessary he is to blast off from the planet without making any attempt either to protect or rescue me. and once it has been established that we are in fact dealing with an alien culture, navy headquarters must be informed immediately via subspace radio." hawkins wanted to make sure that in the event the entire ship was captured, earth would know that an alien contact had been made and could take steps to protect itself. he only wished, now that he thought of it, that he could have taken more adequate steps to protect the men and the ship. but for the moment the _sunward_ and her crew would have to remain where they were and as they were. and if the alien had not attacked them up to that point, perhaps no attack would be made at all. hawkins wanted to tell medboe a thousand other things--simple, obvious things that surely both medboe and petri would be cognizant of. but, as always, the man who had to delegate responsibility simply had to depend on the perspicacity of the men to whom he gave the power. "any questions?" hawkins asked after a brief pause. "i don't believe so, captain," medboe answered. hawkins could tell from the sound of the man's voice that he had hundreds of things he would have liked to ask, but none of them were of the type that he could have expected his superior officer to answer. "good," hawkins replied formally. "one more thing. you will under no circumstances attempt to contact me on this radio set--there's no need in letting the alien know any more about us or our abilities than we absolutely have to." "right, captain," came the obedient answer. hawkins turned the switch to the "sustained talk" position and informed the officer of the deck of his actions. then he turned to broussard. "anything you have to add to all that?" he asked. the psychologist indicated a negative by a shake of his head. "very well, mr. medboe. you may carry out your orders," hawkins said with a sigh. then he turned to broussard again. "well, louie. i guess it's up to you from here on out. you're the alienist." and with that, hawkins reluctantly relinquished completely his normal command of the situation. * * * * * during the time that captain hawkins had been giving his orders, broussard had been deep in thought, paying only scant attention to the instructions that the other man had passed along. the psychologist's mind had been racing over the possibilities of this first contact, and more than once during the brief period of time, it had dwelt on his own particular fears that he would not be up to the encounter. "i think you had better give the radio to me," broussard said. "i'll probably be closer to the alien during the first stages of contact at least, and certainly i should be doing most of the talking." the statement made sense to hawkins, and he passed the device over without comment. broussard tucked it away in one of his pockets. "i don't think we should bother walking towards him," broussard said a moment later, answering an unspoken question. "he's obviously coming toward us and it would seem better if we weren't too eager." broussard felt no need to describe the alien over the radio since by this time the communications division back on board the _sunward_ would have set up their long range television cameras. captain hawkins shifted about on his feet a bit like a boxer doing warm-up footwork prior to a battle. "i wonder where he's put his space ship," broussard said. hawkins looked puzzled. "how do you know he's got one?" he asked. "well, it's just a hunch. but unless i miss my guess, that shining air the--the--" broussard groped for the right noun, then fell back again on a sheer perceptual analysis. "the shining air the _man_ coming towards us has is a defensive screen of some sort. and we've certainly found no evidence on trellis of any civilization at all, much less one so advanced that it could dream up gadgets like that. i figure he must be from somewhere else. maybe he's just a visitor here too, like us." hawkins inwardly admitted the logic of the reasoning. as the alien came closer, they could both see why they had instinctively felt from the first that it was of the male gender. the creature's hair was cut a little longer than men wore theirs back on earth, but this was almost the only difference. the alien was a bit taller than either of them, but not beyond the limits produceable by the human race. his shoulders were the widest part of his body, and formed the broad top of the inverted triangular shape that most human men admired. his clothes were of some peculiar, clinging material, but the bottom half of his body was fitted out in a close approximation of earthside trousers. the man was handsome even by their own standards of masculine beauty. "well," said hawkins. "this is it. man is no longer 'alone.'" broussard realized suddenly that the other man was just as nervous as he himself was. "no, man is no longer alone," broussard replied. and then he added, "but neither is _he_." the alien was less than one hundred yards away when broussard said quietly, "i don't think we'd better talk any more. let's just stand here and wait for him to make the first move." * * * * * lan sur walked towards the two aliens at a comfortable rate of speed. when he was still some distance off the computer back on his scout ship informed him of the first of the messages going back and forth from one of the men to the ship, and then of the gradual withdrawal of the rest of the ship's crew to the sanctuary of the _sunward_. it was with no surprise at all that he listened to the computer, as it did a remote physical and chemical analysis of the aliens. eons ago the dakn people had come to the conclusion, first in theory and then in fact, that intelligent life capable of reaching the stars had to fall within the humanoid pattern. the aliens confronting him were well within the theoretical tolerance limits on every count. but still it amused him to see the slight obesity of one of the men and the thick body hair of the other. these were two minor points of difference between the races. at exactly the right psychological distance from the two aliens, lan sur stopped. he was quite close enough to be heard and understood, but not so close that his physical presence suggested too much of a threat. he waited just long enough before speaking. "it is customary in your culture to begin with introductions," he said in a strong voice. "i am lan sur, possessed of the rank of senior surveyor in the galactic patrol of the dakn empire. i welcome you officially to the communion of the stars." lan sur could almost feel the sinking sensation inside the larger of the two aliens when he began to speak to them in their own tongue. it amused him to think that these two had probably expected to begin by drawing pictures in the dirt. well, they would learn. "you should know at once that the dakn empire comprises some 700 quadrillion people of the same general humanoid characteristics as obtain in your race. we populate planets on some hundred thousand suns, most of which lie much further toward the opposite end of the galaxy than does the system in which we find ourselves at the moment. we have explored great reaches of the universe, but this is the first time we have penetrated as far into this particular district as this star you call clarion. that explains why our races have never before come into contact." the two aliens leaned forward a little on their feet, as caught up in his words as children might be when told a new and fascinating story. "the dakn empire is the only other political system that exists in this entire galaxy, as far as we know." lan sur paused for a moment, to let the significance of his words sink in. "there have been others, of course, but they soon passed under our control. just as your civilization will now pass under our control." he read the sudden, stark fear that appeared in their eyes correctly without needing the affirming echo from the computer. "the dakn empire has learned that whenever it discovers a new civilization, it must absorb this new culture immediately. there is no other choice. and your race must follow the pattern of the thousands we have encountered in the past. there is no choice. as of this moment, you and your people are, from our point of view, just as much a part of our empire as our own home planets. this does not appeal to you, i know. but there is no other way." the computer informed him that the _sunward_ had brought all of its gun turrets to bear on him, but lan sur ignored the fact as being irrelevant. he continued. "no, you do not have a choice about becoming a part of our system. but you do have a choice about the method by which this action will be taken." the involuntary sigh that one of the aliens gave briefly amused him. the alien would find that the sigh of relief was a short one. "the choice is this--either you will join with us peacefully, in which case the whole period of transition will take less than one of your years. or...." he let the word dangle momentarily before his booming voice continued. "or, if you choose to oppose us, the transition time will take even less than that. we will simply destroy you and all of your worlds. "you have no alternatives." the alien's voice grew louder. "you will want to know what absorption into our system will mean to you. by now you will surely have realized how far superior we are to you in every way, and i include specifically the factor of intelligence in this statement. my analysis of your potential intellectual and rational powers shows me that you are not capable of contesting on an equal basis with any of the other races that comprise our empire. you are the lowest of the low, and as such, your race will be put into a slave category. we always have room for more slaves." the two aliens in front of him seemed in a state of shock. lan sur felt he might as well finish the thing off and get it over with. "if you choose to come with us peacefully, what will happen is this: we will take over all of your worlds at once, evacuating your people from them in less than a month. your race will be spread out over our empire, sent to the places where they are needed the most. "of course you will not be allowed to retain either your own personalities or your memories. as slaves you would scarcely need them. so they will be stripped from you en route to your new homes, and suitable new slave personalities will be implanted in your minds. you find this thought distasteful i know, but it is the only logical action we can take. you will be born again, so to speak, knowing our language, feeling at home in our way of life and not retaining even a shred of your old patterns of culture. this is the simplest, most efficient way in which your race can become a part of our much larger scheme of things. "if you do _not_ choose to come peacefully ..." again lan sur stopped for dramatic effect, "the warships i have already summoned, coming at the square of the speed of light, will search out every planet, every world in this whole sector, and will utterly annihilate every solar system you have contaminated. we have, in the past, met obstinate races who tried to resist our rule. the results were rather spectacular from an astronomical point of view. perhaps your scientists have wondered what caused the nova of stars, or even the explosions of whole regions of space. now you have the answer. we would hate to destroy your race, but if you resist us, we have no choice." a strange, intense smile came over lan sur's face. "our history relates of one race that tried to avoid its destiny. these peoples scattered to the four winds in millions of ships in their attempt to hide from us." fire lighted the alien's eyes. "it took more than a thousand of your years to track them all down, and we covered more than half the galaxy in doing so. it was a glorious thing. now they are dead. all of them." slowly the smile died away. lan sur looked back at the two earthlings before him. "you will see the necessity for all of this when you have exhausted your emotional reactions to this information and are capable of thinking logically again. in the long run it matters little to any of us which action we are forced to take. but because i realize that a race as untutored as yours is, cannot be expected to control its emotions in such a situation, i will not demand an immediate answer from you. i will give you more than ample time in which to think the problem through. "you have exactly twenty-four hours in which to make up your minds." * * * * * in his younger days at the academy, captain allen hawkins had been a boxer, and a good one. most of his fights he had won easily and decisively. the few that he lost had been close matches and split decisions. then had come the day when he had persuaded himself to fight outside his own weight and experience classifications, and he had matched himself against a classmate much larger than himself. hawkins still remembered that fight at times. after the first round he had been completely dazed, scarcely conscious of his surroundings. again and again he found himself lying stretched out on the canvas and had to force himself back to his feet to re-enter the fray. the fight terminated rather suddenly in the third round when hawkins went down to the canvas for a full count. all of this had happened years before, but the emotions that gripped the man now, as he stood facing the incredible alien from the center of the galaxy--these emotions reminded him of that fight. he felt now as he had felt when he regained consciousness in the dressing room--a little out of his senses, the wind still knocked out of him, and emotionally completely stunned. the fact that lan sur had spoken perfect english had been the first blow. every sentence that the alien had spoken was like a sharp jab, a sudden punch to a vital area. as in his boxing days, after a few brief moments of listening, hawkins had stopped thinking with his brain--and had begun thinking with his stomach. but he was completely open and unguarded for the sunday punch. "you have exactly twenty-four hours in which to make up your minds." * * * * * the three men stood facing each other for at least a full minute, none of them speaking. broussard recovered his voice before hawkins could and said feebly, "you can't mean it." lan sur's face gave no expression of emotion. "i realized that you would be incapable of comprehending what i have said so soon after i had said it. this is why i am giving you a length of time in which to make your decision. but you might as well realize that this high emotional index rating of your race is one of the main reasons you rate so low. it is a trait that we will have to breed out of your race." hawkins came to life suddenly, reacting violently, his emotional control shattered. he almost shouted at the alien, "if we're in such bad shape, why can't you just go off and leave us alone? you've got all the rest of the universe. why can't you just leave us alone in our little corner of it?" "if you were not so emotionally aroused at the moment, you would understand why we cannot 'leave you alone,' as you put it," the alien told him calmly. "it is completely impossible for two differing cultures to exist in this galaxy, as large as it is. eventually the two cultures would have to come into contact, and this would cause friction. we do not care for friction, and we always seek to avoid it. by forcing you to join us now--or by destroying you if you refuse--we make absolutely sure that your race will never be the cause of any friction to us in the future." "friction?" asked broussard slowly. "if we allowed you to go your own way, your population would expand and you would be forced to take over more and more of this area of the universe. we have our own plans for this part of the galaxy which do not include fighting constant wars with you for the possession of each new planetary system that one of us sees fit to colonize." the alien spoke to them as he might have spoken to children. hawkins refused to abandon the train of thought. "but we could promise to give up all our worlds except our own home planet. you could have all the rest." lan sur shook his head. "at the present moment, you will promise anything to rid yourself of the painful necessity of making the decision that i have demanded of you. you might even be quite willing to live up to your promise of retiring to your home planet, never to voyage forth again. but your children and their children would grow discontent and restless. eventually, either a hundred or a thousand or a hundred thousand years from now, you would come forth to challenge us again." lan sur's face grew a trifle grim. "and next time you would be better equipped and stronger. you would be able to put up a better fight than you can at the moment." then he smiled. "oh, of course, the dakn empire would win eventually. we always do. but we would be back at exactly the same point that we are at right now. we would be forced to absorb you into our empire, or to destroy you utterly. and, in the meantime, we would, of necessity, be forced to keep a careful watch on everything you did." he shook his head. "no, you must realize that we cannot tolerate anything but absolute surrender. you have my terms. you must make your decision. there is nothing more to say." hawkins felt the numbing hand of deep fear within him. like a losing boxer, he fought for any advantage that he might be able to take. "but, good lord, man," he said quickly. "you don't understand the situation at all. twenty-four hours isn't nearly enough time to make a decision that will affect our entire population. we can't even inform our home base of what's going on in that length of time, much less get a message _back_ from them. and this is the sort of thing that would have to be submitted to our population as a whole, for them to decide. we're just a very, very small part of our race. why, we ... we don't have the authority to make a decision that would affect the people back home. you _must_ give us more time." "your complete lack of insight amazes me, even though i expected it," the alien said. "surely you must understand that the more time i give you, the more time you have to prepare your physical defenses. i am just as aware as you are that, lacking the c^{2} communications methods, it is impossible for you to contact your home planet in the time that i have allowed you. but the war ships that i have already summoned will be here shortly, and even before they arrive, there is much that i must do to ready you and your people for the change if you decide to come with us. if you do not decide to come with us, then i must begin the search for your home planet, so that it may be destroyed. in either event, the sooner your choice is made, the better it is for me. already i have allowed you more time than is actually necessary for you to overcome your emotion and to think the problem through logically." "but i simply haven't got the _authority_ to make such a choice!" hawkins found himself shouting. "can't you understand that?" lan sur paused a moment to let the other man regain some of his composure. then he said simply but firmly, "i am in control here now. i have the authority, and i delegate it to you. _you_ must decide for everyone." broussard's reactions were perhaps a little less emotionally tinged than might have been thought from his facial reactions. he had held back what he felt to be a highly pertinent question until he felt that the alien was preparing to conclude the interview. he asked it now. "you seem to know a great many things about us, lan sur. and we seem to know very little about you. in a sense, this is strong evidence of your race's superiority. and yet you cannot really expect us to capitulate our entire culture to yours without giving us very conclusive proof that you are able to carry out your threats. after all, we are a large ship full of fighting men, and you seem to be one man all by yourself. what is to keep us from...." deliberately the psychologist let the question hang uncompleted. lan sur smiled. "at least you respond in a semi-logical fashion. the point is well taken, and if you had not brought it up now, i would have had to do so myself at a later time. i am therefore prepared to demonstrate to you the strength of our technology. you two will return to your ship, and i will remain here. you will then, for the next two hours, have the opportunity to attack me by any means you see fit. i will simply defend myself, without endangering you or your ship in any fashion. when you have discovered that even as undefended as i appear to be at the moment, all of your weapons are powerless to harm me, perhaps you will understand that i can carry out my threats if i so choose to." the alien gestured with his hand. "and now, you must return to your ship. during the two hours at which i place myself at your mercy, you may naturally maneuver your vessel as you desire. but at the end of the two hours, you must have returned to your landing place here--or to whatever other spot on this planet that i may choose to indicate to you by radio. any attempt on your part to escape either now, or during the period following, or any attack you attempt on me except during these first two hours, or any effort to summon additional help, will mean the instant destruction of your ship--and of your race. i hope that you will both understand what i have said and will believe that i have the power to achieve my ends." surveyor lan sur crossed his arms. "this interview is at an end." after a few seconds of stunned silence, the two men turned and walked the long and lonesome way back to the _sunward_. * * * * * all of the scientists aboard the _sunward_ and most of the ship's officers were assembled in the central meeting hall when broussard and hawkins arrived. hawkins walked directly to the central podium and turned to face the group. "gentlemen," he began slowly, his features a mask of repressed emotion. "i know that i do not have to give you any fuller explanations than you have already received. we have been given a challenge that seems to be insoluble. but we must face the situation, as the alien lan sur has suggested, with a minimum of emotionality and with a maximum of good, hard logic. i would welcome any comments, suggestions you might have to offer." there was a general shuffling of feet and clearing of throats among the crowd. it seemed to hawkins as if each member present was waiting for someone else to speak first. finally the communications officer broke the silence. "captain, it has occurred to me that if the alien's powers are as great as he claims, he may well be able to monitor every word any of us speaks, even here. i think we must take that into consideration." the crowd murmured an assent, feeling, hawkins was sure, that it gave them an excellent excuse for not being able to propose any solution to the problem. "i think you are quite right," hawkins answered. "however, i feel that for the moment we must operate as if he couldn't monitor us. in the meantime, the communications department must take what precautions it can to assure us that our future conversations are held in complete privacy." a touch of bitter defeat crept into his voice. "and i would imagine that even if he _is_ listening right now, he'll gain precious little in the way of useful information." the group shuffled its feet again, embarrassed at its own impotence. "are there any further comments?" hawkins asked. there seemed to be none, until the gunnery officer spoke up. "captain," he said, a slight smile on his broad face. "i'd sort of like to see just how much punishment the bastard can take." hawkins laughed, breaking the tension. "i think we all agree with you. suppose we put off any further discussion until after we've put the alien through his paces. it will give us an opportunity to test his strength--and to test our own. "many of you--" hawkins indicated with a wave of his hand the officers in the room "--are familiar with the offensive strength of this vessel. she is one of the most powerfully armed ships that earth has. what i intend to do, then, is this: we'll give our friend out there just as much hell as the _sunward_ can dish out. but while we're doing it, i want photographs of every attack we make, fast photos that will give us, perhaps, an inkling of how he overcomes all of our weapons, if he does. i think this is extremely important." he looked the crowd over. "we'll begin the attack just as soon as all of you have indicated to me that your departments are ready. that is all, gentlemen." * * * * * half an hour later the _sunward_ rose from her landing site and floated gently into the atmosphere. she came to a halt about ten thousand feet up and drifted into an optimum firing position. every gun and camera the ship possessed was trained on the now scarcely visible figure of the alien almost two miles beneath her. hawkins was on the battle bridge, his experienced hand controlling the ship firmly, belying the nervousness he felt. "gunnery all ready, sir!" came the report. "fire!" shouted hawkins a little louder than he meant to. he strained forward in his seat to watch the scene on the screen in front of him. the heat guns opened up first. in less than a second the area of maximum temperature was less than two feet away from the alien's body. a space of ground 300 yards in diameter suddenly went up in smoke at the intensity of the rays. slim shreds of fire licked at the edge of the ring, and in the center all was fierce flame and smoke as the heat actually melted the earth. for a full five minutes the guns remained firing at maximum intensity. no organic substance known to man could withstand such violence. "cease firing," hawkins called. he leaned back slowly in his chair. it would take a few minutes for the smoke to clear, but he knew in his heart what they would see once it had. and even before the wind had blown enough of the smoke away to make things visible, they saw the figure of the alien come walking briskly out of the hellish ring of destruction and wave his arm to them. "god," said hawkins quietly. after a moment he threw open a communications switch that connected him to the gunnery officer. "well, what's next?" he asked quietly. next came a huge ball of electricity that spat sparks as it hurtled through space and shattered itself into a million bolts of lightning at the very feet of the alien. the resulting burst of light was painful to the eyes, but when vision cleared, they saw the alien again, still standing erect and still waving. they tried launching a dozen space torpedoes at once, filled with the highest chemical explosives known to man. they crashed in criss-cross fashion about the alien, ripping the very air asunder with their fantastic devastation. they left a crater almost a mile wide, and standing in the middle of it, still untouched, the enemy. then the ship bombarded the small figure below with every wavelength known to man, still without effect. finally the gunnery officer called hawkins on the intercom. "i'm sorry, captain, but we did our best. i guess there's only one thing left to do." "i guess you're right," hawkins admitted reluctantly. and turning to his helmsman he said, "take her up." the _sunward_ was almost fifty miles from the alien when she unleashed her final weapon. she had dropped tattle-tale robots behind to feed her information both before and after the blast. and then she aimed the mightiest atomic weapon man had created straight at lan sur. the very planet shook at its detonation, so powerful was the bomb. the fire and clouds rose miles into the sky, and the _sunward's_ delicate instruments indicated the presence of a radiation so intense that it was certain an area hundreds of miles in size was completely destroyed. it took several minutes before enough of the aftermath of the explosion had cleared away for them to find him, but they located the alien sitting calmly in a crater at the very center of the affected area, obviously still unharmed. hawkins contemplated the situation for several minutes, and then wearily stretched out his hand and turned on the radio. after a moment he said simply, "all right, lan sur, you win. where do you want us to land?" lan sur answered immediately. "you will place your vessel in an area almost directly beneath your present position which i have caused to be marked in red. any attempt to move the vessel without my permission will result in your immediate destruction. if, during the waiting time, you have any further questions to ask of me, i will be available. however, if you have not come to any conclusion by the end of that time, i shall be forced to destroy you without further hesitation. you have exactly twenty-two hours and nine minutes left." * * * * * when the ship had landed, hawkins returned to the conference room. most of the executive personnel were there, although some of the scientists were absent, ostensibly still analyzing the results of the futile attack on the alien. hawkins strode briskly to the podium and faced the group. "gentlemen," he said, "you saw what happened. perhaps some of you refused to believe that the alien could enforce his demands on us--and i'm sure that all of us hoped that this would be the case. but now we must accept the fact that the choice we were told to make will _have_ to be made, unless we can come up with some means of destroying this creature or of escaping his wrath. "i want you to know that although it might well be within my province as captain of the _sunward_ to decide which of the alternatives we will take, i will not do so. what is decided here will affect all of earth's peoples everywhere. neither one man nor one small group can make this choice. therefore, exactly one hour before the deadline, we will hold a plebiscite. every person aboard the _sunward_ will have exactly one vote, and the majority decision will hold. i will refrain from voting and will decide the issue in the event of a tie. "in the meantime, i want you to think. to think not only of a means of escape from our dilemma, if this be possible, but also how you will vote. if any of you have any ideas, or if you simply wish to talk about something, you will find me available at any hour. "i do not know how each of you will react to this situation. perhaps the alien is right. perhaps man is far too emotional an animal to merit more than slave status in the councils of the stars. but i hope that our actions will prove otherwise--and that this, man's darkest hour, will also become his finest." hawkins turned from the group and walked quietly from the room. he knew that his speech had been anything but an example of clear logic devoid of emotional context, and he had no idea why he had let himself be so carried away. but with the inborn and well-trained sense he had of men and situations, he knew that he could not have spoken otherwise. the men on board the _sunward_ faced the crisis in various fashions. a few of the scientists worked with erratic bursts of speed to finish up their analyses of the data they had gathered during the bombardment of the alien. some of the crew wrote letters home. the communications department was swamped with personal messages to be relayed back to earth. the chaplain gave up his attempt at private counseling and held hourly open services. the routine jobs were still performed, albeit in a perfunctory manner. but mostly the men just gathered around in small groups and talked, usually in low voices. a few of the luckier ones got drunk. captain hawkins remained in his room, completely isolated from the rest of the ship, for almost four hours. during that time he simply sat in his easy chair and thought. at the beginning of the fifth hour he broke a precedent and opened a bottle of whiskey. at the beginning of the sixth hour he broke still another precedent and sent for broussard. hawkins was neither too drunk nor too sober when the psychologist arrived. he told the scientist to sit down and offered him a drink. "i know it's unethical for me to take you away from the men when they need your help more than ever before," hawkins began slowly, choosing to stare moodily at the table instead of directly at the man he was talking to. "but for once i am exercising a captain's perogatives. "you must have realized some of the problems that face anyone in a position of command. usually we have to operate on pretty rigid rules, but things always go better if it seems as though we aren't quite as rigid as we really must be. the men under you always feel better if they think they have some free choice about things. in any military set-up you can't allow much of this free will at all. the best commander is the one who decides what it is his men must do in a given situation, and then finds some way of making the men want to do it." again he paused, then looked up, facing broussard squarely. "i have decided what the result of the balloting must be--and i want you, as a psychologist, to help me make sure that i get that result without anyone else being aware that we've rigged things." he got up from the table and began nervously pacing the floor. after a few moments he stopped and turned to face the psychologist, both his fists clenched tightly on the back of his easy chair. he said nothing. after several moments of silence, broussard cleared his throat and asked, "and which choice have you decided it must be?" hawkins collapsed into the chair. finally his mouth opened, his lips trembled, and he said, "slavery, of course. it's the only choice. "you're the psychologist, perhaps you can understand the fierce pride i'd take in knowing that the men would have the ... the _guts_ to want to end it all instead of bowing down to that bastard out there who holds us in the very palm of his hands." hawkins paused in this outburst, blinked his eyes briefly, and then continued. "but that's just the emotion showing through. from the logical point of view, our race must continue. if we choose slavery we'll live and breathe and die just as we always have. we'll do all of these things on alien planets, having forgotten the earth we sprang from and all our past history, as sorry as some of that has been. we'll have forgotten who _we_ are. we will have lost ourselves." he banged a fist down on the table. "but we _will_ exist! the protection of the race comes first, and we've got to make sure that it is protected, that the _sunward_ makes the logical decision. i'll steer things as best i can, but i'll need help." he turned to broussard. "i'm not a psychologist. i won't tell you how to go about it. i don't care what you do. all i want are the results." for a space of several seconds the two men sat without speaking. then hawkins said, "and i guess that unless you have something to add, that's all for now. let me know what you're doing, if you have time to tell me. but more important than that, let me know if you think you're going to fail. we may have to rig the ballots if you do." broussard gave a deep sigh and rose to leave. he could understand the torment the captain was going through, but there was little that he could do for the man at the moment. he was almost at the door when hawkins stopped him. "broussard!" hawkins shouted. "what in god's name makes a man's personality so dear to him? why has it always been just about the last thing that a man will give up? you're the psychologist. you must know the answer. even a man with a diseased mind who knows that he's sick and wants help badly will fight back tooth and nail when you try to change even one small part of his personality make-up. didn't you once tell me that? didn't you?" the captain's voice grew louder and louder. "that's why therapy is so hard, isn't it? that's why constructive education is so difficult, isn't it? that's why politicians who appeal to existing fears and hates and loves get elected instead of those men who try to shift public opinion for the better. "oh, why in god's name are we so proud of this tiny, puny, weak, insignificant, miserable thing inside each of us we call the real _me_!" he picked up the whiskey bottle and hurled it with full force against the wall. it shattered in a thousand pieces. the dark liquor inside ran down the wall leaving long thin fingers of stain behind it. captain hawkins' personal steward came rushing into the room at the sound of the crash, and looked, horrified, at the mess on the wall. "oh, get out! get out, both of you, and leave me alone!" hawkins shouted. * * * * * after they were gone, hawkins threw himself on his bunk and buried his face in his pillow. the mood of fierce hot anger passed rapidly, leaving only the warm sting of shame. although he had made the decision to capitulate to the alien, at least at an intellectual level, he could not really bring himself to believe that there was no means of escape. his head ached from his emotional outburst and every effort toward constructive thinking seemed to end in a blind alley. he had been tossing restlessly for perhaps two hours when the communications officer brought him a message from earth that had just been received. hawkins reached for the message blank eagerly at first, his befuddled mind thinking for just an instant that here were instructions from home telling him how to meet the crisis, telling him of a means of escape, or just taking the awful responsibility of the decision from him. but then he remembered that communications, even when they passed through subspace, took several days to get from earth to here. earth was still unaware of the crisis on trellis, and this message that had just been received had begun its journey long before they were made so painfully aware of the existence of the alien. the radiogram was of a semi-routine nature, but one that, in normal circumstances, would have demanded an immediate answer. "shall we bother replying to it?" the communications officer asked. "of course not," hawkins said angrily. "it wouldn't be necessary, even if we dared break radio silence to reply." the communications officer's eyes opened wide in a startled fashion. "radio silence?" he said feebly. "but, captain, we've ... we've...." hawkins sat bolt upright in his bunk. "good lord, man, do you mean to say that you've been sending messages to earth right along?" the communications officer nodded. "we started relaying from the moment you contacted the alien. we've sent out all the talks, speeches, reports, everything. just as you ordered." the man was cringing in fright. "but didn't you hear the alien tell us to make no attempt to contact our home base or he'd destroy us at once?" hawkins demanded. the other officer felt like crawling out of the room without bothering to open the door. "i'm sorry, captain," he managed to stutter. "but i must have missed that ... that part of what he said. i ... i was called out of the office during part of the contact when something went wrong with one of our main transmitters." the man had turned a very pale shade of white. "but i'll stop transmission at once," he said, turning nervously towards the door. hawkins looked at his watch. "if he hasn't blasted us for it by now, i don't guess he ever will. but all the same, you'd better stop sending immediately." as the communications officer left the room, hawkins cursed mildly under his breath. after all of his plans and sweat and pains, it would take something like this to bring the whole house of cards crashing about him, some little insignificant something that he had overlooked. "for want of a nail...." he said aloud, reminding himself of the age-old parable. "but if he meant what he said about not notifying earth, why hasn't he already destroyed us?" hawkins asked himself. perhaps lan sur wasn't as cruelly logical and unfeeling as they had thought. hawkins pushed the thought from his mind, knowing that it would lead him to too much false hope if he pursued it further. it would be too easy to hope that simply because lan sur had not acted upon one of his threats, he might not act on the rest of them. as he thought, hawkins found himself pacing the floor of his room anxiously--first to one wall, then a stop, an about face, and back to the opposite side of the room. he stopped his walking and slumped down into his chair. "back and forth," he said out loud. "from one side to another. i'm just like the child in broussard's story. only instead of a man with a stick at one end of the hall and a dog at the other, i've got lan sur at both ends. death, or a kind of slavery which is just about as bad. a real 'avoidance situation' if ever one existed." he laughed bitterly. "the closer i come to one choice, the worse it seems and the better the other choice appears." he shrugged his shoulders sadly. "but eventually i'll have to realize that there's no escape. unfortunately, unlike the child in broussard's example, i can't...." hawkins stopped suddenly as something occurred to him. "good god," he said after a moment. he sat upright in the chair. "it couldn't be. it just _couldn't_," he told himself. "and yet, i bet, i bet it is!" he got up from the chair and walked quickly to the wall communicator. "hello, bridge?" he demanded. "inform all officers not on watch and all the scientific personnel that i want to see them in the council chamber in thirty minutes. exactly thirty minutes, do you understand?" there was a broad smile on his face as he marched out of his stateroom to talk with some of the officers and scientists before the meeting. * * * * * after all of the men had crowded into the meeting hall, they closed and locked the doors. the group kept up a low but excited chatter while they waited for captain hawkins to begin. "gentlemen," he said finally, calling the meeting to order. "i am informed by the electronics specialists aboard that they have made this meeting room as 'spy-proof' as is humanly possible, but i think we've learned not to trust the power of human technology too much these past few hours. therefore, i'm going to tell you just as little of my plans as i possibly can, on the theory that the best-kept secret is the one that the fewest people know about." the crowd seemed anxious, and a little apprehensive, but still hopeful. "within the past hour, i have made what i think are several remarkable discoveries. i shall not tell you what they are, but i think i have discovered a way out of the dilemma that we are facing." the crowd breathed a unanimous sigh of relief. smiles broke out on several faces. "i cannot tell you just at the moment what this mode of escape is. but i have discussed it with a few of you--the fewest number possible--and all of them agree that there is an excellent chance that it will work. if it does, we of earth will still face a great many problems. but we shall, at least, be free, and that is the important thing. if we fail...." hawkins let his voice trail off for a moment. "if we fail, we can expect instant destruction not only for us, but for all of mankind." he waited for the meaning to sink in, his face set in a firm frown. and then, purposefully, he let his facial muscles relax into a broad smile. "but i do not think that we will fail. i think we will win. and i have come to ask your permission to risk all our lives on the venture. i cannot give you any more information. i can only ask for your confidence--and for your votes of approval." he looked around the room deliberately, pausing for just the right length of time. and then he said, "will all of you who have sufficient faith in me and my judgment please rise in assent?" broussard had given him the trick of mass decision--had told him that if you make people commit themselves openly, the decision has a better chance of unanimity. hawkins smiled to see how well the device worked. every man in the room was on his feet, most of them cheering. he waited for the shouting to die down and then said simply, "thank you. and now to battle stations." * * * * * captain allen hawkins sat in his control seat on the _sunward's_ bridge, staring at the button that turned on his radio set. "the purpose of a position of responsibility is to make decisions," he told himself. a green light burst into life on the control panel, indicating that all of the preparations he had asked for were in readiness. such signals would be his only means of communications during the entire maneuver, for he had given orders that no one was to utter one word aloud during the entire operation. he was taking no chances. hawkins grinned. "and the devil take the hindmost," he told himself. pressing down on the radio button, he said aloud, "this is captain allen hawkins of the _sunward_ calling surveyor lan sur of the dakn empire." almost at once he heard a voice answering, "you may go ahead." "i think we have finally reached our decision," hawkins said soberly. "but before we announce it, we have one request to make, and i do not think you will find it an unreasonable one. as you yourself pointed out, ours is an incredibly emotional race. had we not been so, we could have given you our answer much sooner." the alien's voice came booming into the control room. "i will listen to your request, but you surely realize that none of the terms that i have given you can be changed." "yes, we realize that, and our request is along slightly different lines," said hawkins. "as i said, we are an emotion-ridden race. but you must have realized that we aboard the _sunward_ are probably much more stable than are the majority of our peoples back on our home planets. it is always so with explorers and scientists. therefore, we were able to reach a logical decision, and we will be able to hold to it. "unfortunately, we anticipate a little more trouble than this with 'the folks back home,' if you understand that term. and to make things much easier, not only for us, but also for you, we have a request to make." "i understand the semantic import of the term and will give you my decision on the request if you will but come to the point," came the alien's voice. "we are wasting valuable time, and i have other things to do." hawkins was beginning to sweat a little. he was purposefully needling the alien, and he had no idea of how far he dared to go. "well, we of the _sunward_ are convinced that you can carry out your threats if we attempt any rebellion. we have seen you stand untouched by all the power this ship could muster. but defense against our meager weapons is one thing. the ability to destroy a star is another.... "the folks back home would accept our decision without hesitation, and would never dream of giving you or your people any trouble, if we could show them authentic pictures of how powerful you are offensively. we request, therefore, that you unleash your weapons and turn this entire solar system into a nova while we photograph the procedure." lan sur's answering voice sounded frighteningly loud to hawkins. "what you request is impossible for several reasons. first, the dakn empire has no desire to destroy potentially valuable property simply to demonstrate its powers. second, the procedure would occupy too much time, for while my small ship could outrace the enveloping flames of the nova, your larger ship, unequipped as it is with the c^{2} drive, would be caught in the destruction and you would perish. i recognize that from the emotionality index of your race, such a demonstration would probably aid in the peaceful absorption of your culture into ours, but it is impossible." hawkins allowed himself the luxury of a quick smile. his analysis of the situation had been absolutely correct. "well, look," he said in reply. "according to our survey, the outer planet in this system is pretty small and of little use to anybody. could you possibly destroy it instead?" he paused for just the smallest fraction of a second, but then hurried on before the alien could reply. "of course, if you can't do it without destroying all the rest of the planets too, why, we'll understand. but it would help...." the alien's voice boomed back, interrupting the man. "you obviously still underestimate the technological level of the dakn empire." the alien paused, as if checking something. "according to my analysis of this system, the fourth and outer planet is of no value whatsoever to my people. therefore, i accede to your request. the planet will be destroyed at once." "hey, wait a minute," hawkins cried in a startled tone of voice. "you need not worry," came the alien's flat response. "i fully realize that your visual recording equipment cannot function at such a distance. therefore, you will raise ship at once and locate yourself to take advantage of the best recording angles." hawkins had to hold himself in his chair to keep from dancing a jig. he had set a trap for the alien, and somehow, some incredible how, it had worked. at least he dared hope that it had.... * * * * * the _sunward_ came to a full stop just inside the orbit of the third planet. the alien ship danced on ahead of them towards the tiny outer world. "you can come closer than that," lan sur informed hawkins, noting that the _sunward_ had stopped sooner than expected. "no, thank you," hawkins replied. "we can get excellent pictures from this distance, and you must remember that we haven't the protective devices that you have." hawkins noted that lan sur's voice carried with it an almost petulant, disdainful note. "there is a great deal of difference between the destruction of one small planet and the creation of a nova. however, if you feel safer there, you may remain where you are." a few moments later, the alien added, "are your recording devices in readiness?" hawkins indicated to the alien that they were. "then watch," lan sur said. it took perhaps three minutes for the first burst of light to reach their position. the tiny planet, scarcely 500 miles in diameter, began to glow slightly, then suddenly came alive with fire. bursts of flame danced up hundreds of miles above its surface, then fell back, exhausted, into the boiling cauldron the planet had become. for almost ten minutes the small world seethed in agonized torment, and then, all at once, it seemed to shake apart at the seams. there was no sound, but those watching on board the _sunward_ mentally supplied the missing component to the greatest explosion they had ever witnessed. the cameras recorded the scene noiselessly. a few minutes later, after most of the fragments of the once-world had disintegrated in flaming splendor, lan sur's voice broke the silence. "i used only one of many possible means of destruction. however, it promised to be, under the circumstances, the most spectacular. and so you have seen the offensive might of the dakn empire. are you ready to give me your decision?" the control board in front of hawkins displayed all green signals. "yes," he said. "i think we're finally ready. here is our answer to the choice you gave us." his finger pressed firmly on a single red key. * * * * * the _sunward_ had been hurling itself back towards earth for almost an hour when broussard discovered captain hawkins, standing by himself in the observation room, staring out into the black of subspace. "well," the psychologist said. "i don't suppose it looks quite so bleak to you now as it did on the trip out." hawkins turned and smiled at the man. "no, i don't guess it does. funny what the presence of one small pinpoint of light does to the blackness of a field, eh?" broussard nodded in assent. "i wonder what our alien friend thought when suddenly clarion, trellis, the two other planets, and us too, just up and disappeared and left him behind?" hawkins laughed. "you're the alienist. you tell me." "i'd rather ask you something. how did you know it would work?" "you might say i became an expert in psychology over night," hawkins replied. "oh, not the scientific kind that you practice--but the every day kind that most people mean when they use the word. i discovered, for example, that because of a misunderstanding on the part of the communications people, we continued to send messages home after the alien had specifically warned us not to do so. at first i thought he might be ignoring this infraction of his rules, but then i began to wonder if it didn't mean that he just wasn't aware of what we were doing. i remembered that he talked a great deal about a c^{2} drive system which he claimed was so much better than the type we used. but when i asked the navigator to do a little figuring, i discovered that by using subspace, we can actually get places much faster than his race does. "it all added up to the fact that his race had never stumbled onto the use of subspace. i know that sounds incredible, but when i checked with one of the top physicists, i found out that we happened onto it by sheer accident--and an impossibly stupid one at that--and not through any high-level theorizing. the theory came later, after the process had been demonstrated in a laboratory. "for a while i still couldn't believe it. but when we discovered that his space ship was a very small one--too small to utilize the subspace drive--i knew my guess had been correct. so i tricked him into letting us get into position where we could activate the drive--and had the engineers increase the effective radius so that we could pull clarion and her three planets into subspace with us." hawkins paused for a few seconds as he turned back to the observation window. "we'll need every sun and every planet we can lay our hands on." broussard leaned comfortably back against the door. "i think you were wise to take the pictures of the destruction of that fourth planet. we may need them to convince 'the folks back home' that this was the only solution to the problem." hawkins agreed with him. "they won't like giving up all the universe they've come to be used to, just to run away and hide in subspace. and you know, i think the poets and the sailors and the young people in love will hate us most of all." "how do you mean?" asked broussard. "no more heaven full of stars to write poems about, to sail true courses by, and to sing love songs under. i guess a lot of us will be lonely for all the stars." "do you think they'll ever find us?" broussard asked, changing the subject. "from the look on lan sur's face when he told about that other world, i suspect they'll move heaven and earth to find out where we've run to." "find us? the dakn empire? i just don't know. we've got a thousand ships equipped with the subspace drive. that's a thousand or so solar systems we can pull through into subspace before they can catch up with us--i hope. but we'll have to be careful. if one of our ships is ever caught, and they discover the drive, we're all done for. i doubt that they'll show us much mercy. "a thousand suns--and only a handful of usable worlds in the whole lot of them. not much for a race that's grown as fast as ours has. and to some of us, i guess, subspace will never be quite the same as the one we grew up in--and came to know and love." hawkins shook his head sadly. "but _if_ they find us?" broussard insisted. "well, at least we'll have had time to prepare. perhaps a year, perhaps ten, perhaps a thousand. but we beat them this time, and maybe we can do it again." for a long time he continued to stare quietly into the blackness. "i just don't know...." transcriber's note: extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. first lensman e. e. "doc" smith pyramid books · new york _to e. everett evans_ first lensman a pyramid book published by arrangement with the author fantasy press edition published 1950 pyramid edition published december, 1964 second printing july, 1966 third printing april, 1967 fourth printing september, 1967 fifth printing may, 1968 copyright 1950 by edward e. smith, ph.d. all rights reserved. no part of this book may be reprinted without written permission of the publishers. printed in the united states of america pyramid books are published by pyramid publications, inc. 444 madison avenue, new york, n.y. 10022, u.s.a. * * * * * _attack from space_ the enemy spacefleet arrowed toward the armored mountain--nerve center of the galactic patrol. the patrol battle cruisers swerved to meet them, and a miles-long cone of pure energy ravened out at the invaders, destroying whatever it touched. but the moment before the force beam struck, thousands of tiny objects dropped from the enemy fleet and, faster than light, flashed straight at their target--each one an atom bomb powerful enough to destroy patrol headquarters by itself! the galactic patrol--and civilization itself--had seconds to live. unless a miracle happened.... a lensman adventure _second in the great series_ chapter 1 the visitor, making his way unobserved through the crowded main laboratory of the hill, stepped up to within six feet of the back of a big norwegian seated at an electrono-optical bench. drawing an automatic pistol, he shot the apparently unsuspecting scientist seven times, as fast as he could pull the trigger; twice through the brain, five times, closely spaced, through the spine. "ah, gharlane of eddore, i have been expecting you to look me up. sit down." blonde, blue-eyed dr. nels bergenholm, completely undisturbed by the passage of the stream of bullets through his head and body, turned and waved one huge hand at a stool beside his own. "but those were not ordinary projectiles!" the visitor protested. neither person--or rather, entity--was in the least surprised that no one else had paid any attention to what had happened, but it was clear that the one was taken aback by the failure of his murderous attack. "they should have volatilized that form of flesh--should at least have blown you back to arisia, where you belong." "ordinary or extraordinary, what matter? as you, in the guise of gray roger, told conway costigan a short time since, 'i permitted that, as a demonstration of futility.' know, gharlane, once and for all, that you will no longer be allowed to act directly against any adherent of civilization, wherever situate. we of arisia will not interfere in person with your proposed conquest of the two galaxies as you have planned it, since the stresses and conflicts involved are necessary--and, i may add, sufficient--to produce the civilization which must and shall come into being. therefore, neither will you, or any other eddorian, so interfere. you will go back to eddore and you will stay there." "think you so?" gharlane sneered. "you, who have been so afraid of us for over two thousand million tellurian years that you dared not let us even learn of you? so afraid of us that you dared not take any action to avert the destruction of any one of your budding civilizations upon any one of the worlds of either galaxy? so afraid that you dare not, even now, meet me mind to mind, but insist upon the use of this slow and unsatisfactory oral communication between us?" "either your thinking is loose, confused, and turbid, which i do not believe to be the case, or you are trying to lull me into believing that you are stupid." bergenholm's voice was calm, unmoved. "i do not _think_ that you will go back to eddore; i know it. you, too, as soon as you have become informed upon certain matters, will know it. you protest against the use of spoken language because it is, as you know, the easiest, simplest, and surest way of preventing you from securing any iota of the knowledge for which you are so desperately searching. as to a meeting of our two minds, they met fully just before you, operating as gray roger, remembered that which your entire race forgot long ago. as a consequence of that meeting i so learned every line and vibration of your life pattern as to be able to greet you by your symbol, gharlane of eddore, whereas you know nothing of me save that i am an arisian, a fact which has been obvious from the first." in an attempt to create a diversion, gharlane released the zone of compulsion which he had been holding; but the arisian took it over so smoothly that no human being within range was conscious of any change. "it is true that for many cycles of time we concealed our existence from you," bergenholm went on without a break. "since the reason for that concealment will still further confuse you, i will tell you what it was. had you eddorians learned of us sooner you might have been able to forge a weapon of power sufficient to prevent the accomplishment of an end which is now certain. "it is true that your operations as lo sung of uighar were not constrained. as mithridates of pontus--as sulla, marius, and nero of rome--as hannibal of carthage--as those self-effacing wights alcixerxes of greece and menocoptes of egypt--as genghis khan and attila and the kaiser and mussolini and hitler and the tyrant of asia--you were allowed to do as you pleased. similar activities upon rigel four, velantia, palain seven, and elsewhere were also allowed to proceed without effective opposition. with the appearance of virgil samms, however, the time arrived to put an end to your customary pernicious, obstructive, and destructive activities. i therefore interposed a barrier between you and those who would otherwise be completely defenseless against you." "but why now? why not thousands of cycles ago? and why virgil samms?" "to answer those questions would be to give you valuable data. you may--too late--be able to answer them yourself. but to continue: you accuse me, and all arisia, of cowardice; an evidently muddy and inept thought. reflect, please, upon the completeness of your failure in the affair of roger's planetoid; upon the fact that you have accomplished nothing whatever since that time; upon the situation in which you now find yourself. "even though the trend of thought of your race is basically materialistic and mechanistic, and you belittle ours as being 'philosophic' and 'impractical', you found--much to your surprise--that your most destructive physical agencies are not able to affect even this form of flesh which i am now energizing, to say nothing of affecting the reality which is i. "if this episode is the result of the customary thinking of the second-in-command of eddore's innermost circle ... but no, my visualization cannot be that badly at fault. overconfidence--the tyrant's innate proclivity to underestimate an opponent--these things have put you into a false position; but i greatly fear that they will not operate to do so in any really important future affair." "rest assured that they will not!" gharlane snarled. "it may not be--exactly--cowardice. it is, however, something closely akin. if you could have acted effectively against us at any time in the past, you would have done so. if you could act effectively against us now, you would be acting, not talking. that is elementary--self-evidently true. so true that you have not tried to deny it--nor would you expect me to believe you if you did." cold black eyes stared level into icy eyes of norwegian blue. "deny it? no. i am glad, however, that you used the word 'effectively' instead of 'openly'; for we have been acting effectively against you ever since these newly-formed planets cooled sufficiently to permit of the development of intelligent life." "what? you have? how?" "that, too, you may learn--too late. i have now said all i intend to say. i will give you no more information. since you already know that there are more adult arisians than there are eddorians, so that at least one of us can devote his full attention to blocking the direct effort of any one of you, it is clear to you that it makes no difference to me whether you elect to go or to stay. i can and i will remain here as long as you do; i can and i will accompany you whenever you venture out of the volume of space protected by eddorian screen, wherever you go. the election is yours." gharlane disappeared. so did the arisian--instantaneously. dr. nels bergenholm, however, remained. turning, he resumed his work where he had left off, knowing exactly what he had been doing and exactly what he was going to do to finish it. he released the zone of compulsion, which he had been holding upon every human being within sight or hearing, so dexterously that no one suspected, then or ever, that anything out of the ordinary had happened. he knew these things and did these things in spite of the fact that the form of flesh which his fellows of the triplanetary service knew as nels bergenholm was then being energized, not by the stupendously powerful mind of drounli the molder, but by an arisian child too young to be of any use in that which was about to occur. arisia was ready. every arisian mind capable of adult, or of even near-adult thinking was poised to act when the moment of action should come. they were not, however, tense. while not in any sense routine, that which they were about to do had been foreseen for many cycles of time. they knew exactly what they were going to do, and exactly how to do it. they waited. "my visualization is not entirely clear concerning the succession of events stemming from the fact that the fusion of which drounli is a part did not destroy gharlane of eddore while he was energizing gray roger," a young watchman, eukonidor by symbol, thought into the assembled mind. "may i take a moment of this idle time in which to spread my visualization, for enlargement and instruction?" "you may, youth." the elders of arisia--the mightiest intellects of that tremendously powerful race--fused their several minds into one mind and gave approval. "that will be time well spent. think on." "separated from the other eddorians by inter-galactic distance as he then was, gharlane could have been isolated and could have been destroyed," the youth pointed out, as he somewhat diffidently spread his visualization in the public mind. "since it is axiomatic that his destruction would have weakened eddore somewhat and to that extent would have helped us, it is evident that some greater advantage will accrue from allowing him to live. some points are clear enough: that gharlane and his fellows will believe that the arisian fusion could not kill him, since it did not; that the eddorians, contemptuous of our powers and thinking us vastly their inferiors, will not be driven to develop such things as atomic-energy-powered mechanical screens against third-level thought until such a time as it will be too late for even those devices to save their race from extinction; that they will, in all probability, never even suspect that the galactic patrol which is so soon to come into being will in fact be the prime operator in that extinction. it is not clear, however, in view of the above facts, why it has now become necessary for us to slay one eddorian upon eddore. nor can i formulate or visualize with any clarity the techniques to be employed in the final wiping out of the race; i lack certain fundamental data concerning events which occurred and conditions which obtained many, many cycles before my birth. i am unable to believe that my perception and memory could have been so imperfect--can it be that none of that basic data is, or ever has been available?" "that, youth, is the fact. while your visualization of the future is of course not as detailed nor as accurate as it will be after more cycles of labor, your background of knowledge is as complete as that of any other of our number." "i see." eukonidor gave the mental equivalent of a nod of complete understanding. "it is necessary, and the death of a lesser eddorian--a watchman--will be sufficient. nor will it be either surprising or alarming to eddore's innermost circle that the integrated total mind of arisia should be able to kill such a relatively feeble entity. i see." then silence; and waiting. minutes? or days? or weeks? who can tell? what does time mean to any arisian? then drounli arrived; arrived in the instant of his leaving the hill--what matters even inter-galactic distance to the speed of thought? he fused his mind with those of the three other molders of civilization. the massed and united mind of arisia, poised and ready, awaiting only his coming, launched itself through space. that tremendous, that theretofore unknown concentration of mental force arrived at eddore's outer screen in practically the same instant as did the entity that was gharlane. the eddorian, however, went through without opposition; the arisians did not. * * * * * some two thousand million years ago, when the coalescence occurred--the event which was to make each of the two interpassing galaxies teem with planets--the arisians were already an ancient race; so ancient that they were even then independent of the chance formation of planets. the eddorians, it is believed, were older still. the arisians were native to this, our normal space-time continuum; the eddorians were not. eddore was--and is--huge, dense, and hot. its atmosphere is not air, as we of small, green terra, know air, but is a noxious mixture of gaseous substances known to mankind only in chemical laboratories. its hydrosphere, while it does contain some water, is a poisonous, stinking, foully corrosive, slimy and sludgy liquid. and the eddorians were as different from any people we know as eddore is different from the planets indigenous to our space and time. they were, to our senses, utterly monstrous; almost incomprehensible. they were amorphous, amoeboid, sexless. not androgynous or parthenogenetic, but absolutely sexless; with a sexlessness unknown in any earthly form of life higher than the yeasts. thus they were, to all intents and purposes and except for death by violence, immortal; for each one, after having lived for hundreds of thousands of tellurian years and having reached its capacity to live and to learn, simply divided into two new individuals, each of which, in addition to possessing in full its parent's mind and memories and knowledges, had also a brand-new zest and a greatly increased capacity. and, since life was, there had been competition. competition for power. knowledge was worth while only insofar as it contributed to power. warfare began, and aged, and continued; the appallingly efficient warfare possible only to such entities as those. their minds, already immensely powerful, grew stronger and stronger under the stresses of internecine struggle. but peace was not even thought of. strife continued, at higher and even higher levels of violence, until two facts became apparent. first, that every eddorian who could be killed by physical violence had already died; that the survivors had developed such tremendous powers of mind, such complete mastery of things physical as well as mental, that they could not be slain by physical force. second, that during the ages through which they had been devoting their every effort to mutual extermination, their sun had begun markedly to cool; that their planet would very soon become so cold that it would be impossible for them ever again to live their normal physical lives. thus there came about an armistice. the eddorians worked together--not without friction--in the development of mechanisms by the use of which they moved their planet across light-years of space to a younger, hotter sun. then, eddore once more at its hot and reeking norm, battle was resumed. mental battle, this time, that went on for more than a hundred thousand eddorian years; during the last ten thousand of which not a single eddorian died. realizing the futility of such unproductive endeavor, the relatively few survivors made a peace of sorts. since each had an utterly insatiable lust for power, and since it had become clear that they could neither conquer nor kill each other, they would combine forces and conquer enough planets--enough galaxies--so that each eddorian could have as much power and authority as he could possibly handle. what matter that there were not that many planets in their native space? there were other spaces, an infinite number of them; some of which, it was mathematically certain, would contain millions upon millions of planets instead of only two or three. by mind and by machine they surveyed the neighboring continua; they developed the hyper-spatial tube and the inertialess drive; they drove their planet, space-ship-wise, through space after space after space. and thus, shortly after the coalescence began, eddore came into our space-time; and here, because of the multitudes of planets already existing and the untold millions more about to come into existence, it stayed. here was what they had wanted since their beginnings; here were planets enough, here were fields enough for the exercise of power, to sate even the insatiable. there was no longer any need for them to fight each other; they could now cooperate whole-heartedly--as long as each was getting more--and _more_ and more! enphilisor, a young arisian, his mind roaming eagerly abroad as was its wont, made first contact with the eddorians in this space. inoffensive, naive, innocent, he was surprised beyond measure at their reception of his friendly greeting; but in the instant before closing his mind to their vicious attacks, he learned the foregoing facts concerning them. the fused mind of the elders of arisia, however, was not surprised. the arisians, while not as mechanistic as their opponents, and innately peaceful as well, were far ahead of them in the pure science of the mind. the elders had long known of the eddorians and of their lustful wanderings through plenum after plenum. their visualizations of the cosmic all had long since forecast, with dreadful certainty, the invasion which had now occurred. they had long known what they would have to do. they did it. so insidiously as to set up no opposition they entered the eddorians' minds and sealed off all knowledge of arisia. they withdrew, tracelessly. they did not have much data, it is true; but no more could be obtained at that time. if any one of those touchy suspicious minds had been given any cause for alarm, any focal point of doubt, they would have had time in which to develop mechanisms able to force the arisians out of this space before a weapon to destroy the eddorians--the as yet incompletely designed galactic patrol--could be forged. the arisians could, even then, have slain by mental force alone all the eddorians except the all-highest and his innermost circle, safe within their then impenetrable shield; but as long as they could not make a clean sweep they could not attack--then. be it observed that the arisians were not fighting for themselves. as individuals or as a race they had nothing to fear. even less than the eddorians could they be killed by any possible application of physical force. past masters of mental science, they knew that no possible concentration of eddorian mental force could kill any one of them. and if they were to be forced out of normal space, what matter? to such mentalities as theirs, any given space would serve as well as any other. no, they were fighting for an ideal; for the peaceful, harmonious, liberty-loving civilization which they had envisaged as developing throughout, and eventually entirely covering the myriads of planets of, two tremendous island universes. also, they felt a heavy weight of responsibility. since all these races, existing and yet to appear, had sprung from and would spring from the arisian life-spores which permeated this particular space, they all were and would be, at bottom, arisian. it was starkly unthinkable that arisia would leave them to the eternal dominance of such a rapacious, such a tyrannical, such a hellishly insatiable breed of monsters. therefore the arisians fought; efficiently if insidiously. they did not--they could not--interfere openly with eddore's ruthless conquest of world after world; with eddore's ruthless smashing of civilization after civilization. they did, however, see to it, by selective matings and the establishment of blood-lines upon numberless planets, that the trend of the level of intelligence was definitely and steadily upward. four molders of civilization--drounli, kriedigan, nedanillor, and brolenteen, who, in fusion, formed the "mentor of arisia" who was to become known to every wearer of civilization's lens--were individually responsible for the arisian program of development upon the four planets of tellus, rigel iv, velantia, and palain vii. drounli established upon tellus two principal lines of blood. in unbroken male line of descent the kinnisons went back to long before the dawn of even mythical tellurian history. kinnexa of atlantis, daughter of one kinnison and sister of another, is the first of the blood to be named in these annals; but the line was then already old. so was the other line; characterized throughout its tremendous length, male and female, by peculiarly spectacular red-bronze-auburn hair and equally striking gold-flecked, tawny eyes. nor did these strains mix. drounli had made it psychologically impossible for them to mix until the penultimate stage of development should have been reached. while that stage was still in the future virgil samms appeared, and all arisia knew that the time had come to engage the eddorians openly, mind to mind. gharlane-roger was curbed, savagely and sharply. every eddorian, wherever he was working, found his every line of endeavor solidly blocked. gharlane, as has been intimated, constructed a supposedly irresistible weapon and attacked his arisian blocker, with results already told. at that failure gharlane knew that there was something terribly amiss; that it had been amiss for over two thousand million tellurian years. really alarmed for the first time in his long life, he flashed back to eddore; to warn his fellows and to take counsel with them as to what should be done. and the massed and integrated force of all arisia was only an instant behind him. * * * * * arisia struck eddore's outermost screen, and in the instant of impact that screen went down. and then, instantaneously and all unperceived by the planet's defenders, the arisian forces split. the elders, including all the molders, seized the eddorian who had been handling that screen--threw around him an impenetrable net of force--yanked him out into inter-galactic space. then, driving in resistlessly, they turned the luckless wight inside out. and before the victim died under their poignant probings, the elders of arisia learned everything that the eddorian and all of his ancestors had ever known. they then withdrew to arisia, leaving their younger, weaker, partially-developed fellows to do whatever they could against mighty eddore. whether the attack of these lesser forces would be stopped at the second, the third, the fourth, or the innermost screen; whether they would reach the planet itself and perhaps do some actual damage before being driven off; was immaterial. eddore must be allowed and would be allowed to repel that invasion with ease. for cycles to come the eddorians must and would believe that they had nothing really to fear from arisia. the real battle, however, had been won. the arisian visualizations could now be extended to portray every essential element of the climactic conflict which was eventually to come. it was no cheerful conclusion at which the arisians arrived, since their visualizations all agreed in showing that the only possible method of wiping out the eddorians would also of necessity end their own usefulness as guardians of civilization. such an outcome having been shown necessary, however, the arisians accepted it, and worked toward it, unhesitatingly. chapter 2 as has been said, the hill, which had been built to be the tellurian headquarters of the triplanetary service and which was now the headquarters of the half-organized solarian patrol, was--and is--a truncated, alloy-sheathed, honey-combed mountain. but, since human beings do not like to live eternally underground, no matter how beautifully lighted or how carefully and comfortably air-conditioned the dungeon may be, the reservation spread far beyond the foot of that gray, forbidding, mirror-smooth cone of metal. well outside that farflung reservation there was a small city; there were hundreds of highly productive farms; and, particularly upon this bright may afternoon, there was a recreation park, containing, among other things, dozens of tennis courts. one of these courts was three-quarters enclosed by stands, from which a couple of hundred people were watching a match which seemed to be of some little local importance. two men sat in a box which had seats for twenty, and watched admiringly the pair who seemed in a fair way to win in straight sets the mixed-doubles championship of the hill. "fine-looking couple, rod, if i do say so myself, as well as being smooth performers." solarian councillor virgil samms spoke to his companion as the opponents changed courts. "i still think, though, the young hussy ought to wear some clothes--those white nylon shorts make her look nakeder even than usual. i told her so, too, the jade, but she keeps on wearing less and less." "of course," commissioner roderick k. kinnison laughed quietly. "what did you expect? she got her hair and eyes from you, why not your hard-headedness, too? one thing, though, that's all to the good--she's got what it takes to strip ship that way, and most of 'em haven't. but what i can't understand is why they don't...." he paused. "i don't either. lord knows we've thrown them at each other hard enough, and jack kinnison and jill samms would certainly make a pair to draw to. but if they won't ... but maybe they will yet. they're still youngsters, and they're friendly enough." if samms père could have been out on the court, however, instead of in the box, he would have been surprised; for young kinnison, although smiling enough as to face, was addressing his gorgeous partner in terms which carried little indeed of friendliness. "listen, you bird-brained, knot-headed, grand-standing half-wit!" he stormed, voice low but bitterly intense. "i ought to beat your alleged brains out! i've told you a thousand times to watch your own territory and _stay out of mine_! if you had been where you belonged, or even taken my signal, frank couldn't have made that thirty-all point; and if lois hadn't netted she'd've caught you flat-footed, a kilometer out of position, and made it deuce. what do you think you're doing, anyway--playing tennis or seeing how many innocent bystanders you can bring down out of control?" "what do _you_ think?" the girl sneered, sweetly. her tawny eyes, only a couple of inches below his own, almost emitted sparks. "and just look at who's trying to tell who how to do what! for your information, master pilot john k. kinnison, i'll tell you that just because you can't quit being 'killer' kinnison even long enough to let two good friends of ours get a point now and then, or maybe even a game, is no reason why i've got to turn into 'killer' samms. and i'll also tell you...." "you'll tell me nothing, jill--i'm telling _you_! start giving away points in anything and you'll find out some day that you've given away too many. i'm not having any of that kind of game--and as long as you're playing with me you aren't either--or else. if you louse up this match just once more, the next ball i serve will hit the tightest part of those fancy white shorts of yours--right where the hip pocket would be if they had any--and it'll raise a welt that will make you eat off of the mantel for three days. so watch your step!" "you insufferable lug! i'd like to smash this racket over your head! i'll do it, too, and walk off the court, if you don't...." the whistle blew. virgilia samms, all smiles, toed the base-line and became the personification and embodiment of smoothly flowing motion. the ball whizzed over the net, barely clearing it--a sizzling service ace. the game went on. and a few minutes later, in the shower room, where jack kinnison was caroling lustily while plying a towel, a huge young man strode up and slapped him ringingly between the shoulder blades. "congratulations, jack, and so forth. but there's a thing i want to ask you. confidential, sort of...?" "shoot! haven't we been eating out of the same dish for lo, these many moons? why the diffidence all of a sudden, mase? it isn't in character." "well ... it's ... i'm a lip-reader, you know." "sure. we all are. what of it?" "it's only that ... well, i saw what you and miss samms said to each other out there, and if that was lovers' small talk i'm a venerian mud-puppy." "_lovers!_ who the hell ever said we were lovers?... oh, you've been inhaling some of dad's balloon-juice. _lovers!_ me and that red-headed stinker--that jelly-brained sapadilly? _hardly!_" "hold it, jack!" the big officer's voice was slightly edged. "you're off course--a hell of a long flit off. that girl has got everything. she's the class of the reservation--why, she's a regular twelve-nineteen!" "huh?" amazed, young kinnison stopped drying himself and stared. "you mean to say you've been giving her a miss just because...." he had started to say "because you're the best friend i've got in the system," but he did not. "well, it would have smelled slightly cheesy, i thought." the other man did not put into words, either, what both of them so deeply knew to be the truth. "but if you haven't got ... if it's o.k. with you, of course...." "stand by for five seconds--i'll take you around." jack threw on his uniform, and in a few minutes the two young officers, immaculate in the space-black-and-silver of the patrol, made their way toward the women's dressing rooms. "... but she's all right, at that ... in most ways ... i guess." kinnison was half-apologizing for what he had said. "outside of being chicken-hearted and pig-headed, she's a good egg. she really qualifies ... most of the time. but i wouldn't have her, bonus attached, any more than she would have me. it's strictly mutual. you won't fall for her, either, mase; you'll want to pull one of her legs off and beat the rest of her to death with it inside of a week--but there's nothing like finding things out for yourself." in a short time miss samms appeared; dressed somewhat less revealingly than before in the blouse and kilts which were the mode of the moment. "hi, jill! this is mase--i've told you about him. my boat-mate. master electronicist mason northrop." "yes, i've heard about you, 'troncist--a lot." she shook hands warmly. "he hasn't been putting tracers on you, jill, on accounta he figured he'd be poaching. can you feature that? i straightened him out, though, in short order. told him why, too, so he ought to be insulated against any voltage you can generate." "oh, you did? how sweet of you! but how ... oh, those?" she gestured at the powerful prism binoculars, a part of the uniform of every officer of space. "uh-huh." northrop wriggled, but held firm. "if i'd only been as big and husky as you are," surveying admiringly some six feet two of altitude and two hundred-odd pounds of hard meat, gristle, and bone, "i'd have grabbed him by one ankle, whirled him around my head, and flung him into the fifteenth row of seats. what's the matter with him, mase, is that he was born centuries and centuries too late. he should have been an overseer when they built the pyramids--flogging slaves because they wouldn't step just so. or better yet, one of those people it told about in those funny old books they dug up last year--liege lords, or something like that, remember? with the power of life and death--'high, middle, and low justice', whatever that was--over their vassals and their families, serfs, and serving-wenches. _especially_ serving-wenches! he likes little, cuddly baby-talkers, who pretend to be utterly spineless and completely brainless--eh, jack?" "ouch! touché, jill--but maybe i had it coming to me, at that. let's call it off, shall we? i'll be seeing you two, hither or yon." kinnison turned and hurried away. "want to know why he's doing such a quick flit?" jill grinned up at her companion; a bright, quick grin. "not that he was giving up. the blonde over there--the one in rocket red. very few blondes can wear such a violent shade. dimples maynard." "and is she ... er...?" "cuddly and baby-talkish? uh-uh. she's a grand person. i was just popping off; so was he. you know that neither of us really meant half of what we said ... or ... at least...." her voice died away. "i don't know whether i do or not," northrop replied, awkwardly but honestly. "that was savage stuff if there ever was any. i can't see for the life of me why you two--two of the world's finest people--should have to tear into each other that way. do you?" "i don't know that i ever thought of it like that." jill caught her lower lip between her teeth. "he's splendid, really, and i like him a lot--usually. we get along perfectly most of the time. we don't fight at all except when we're too close together ... and then we fight about anything and everything ... say, suppose that that could be it? like charges, repelling each other inversely as the square of the distance? that's about the way it seems to be." "could be, and i'm glad." the man's face cleared. "and i'm a charge of the opposite sign. let's go!" * * * * * and in virgil samms' deeply-buried office, civilization's two strongest men were deep in conversation. "... troubles enough to keep four men of our size awake nights." samms' voice was light, but his eyes were moody and somber. "you can probably whip yours, though, in time. they're mostly in one solar system; a short flit covers the rest. languages and customs are known. but how--_how_--can legal processes work efficiently--work at all, for that matter--when a man can commit a murder or a pirate can loot a space-ship and be a hundred parsecs away before the crime is even discovered? how can a tellurian john law find a criminal on a strange world that knows nothing whatever of our patrol, with a completely alien language--maybe no language at all--where it takes months even to find out who and where--if any--the native police officers are? but there must be a way, rod--there's _got_ to be a way!" samms slammed his open hand resoundingly against his desk's bare top. "and by god i'll find it--the patrol _will_ come out on top!" "'crusader' samms, now and forever!" there was no trace of mockery in kinnison's voice or expression, but only friendship and admiration. "and i'll bet you do. your interstellar patrol, or whatever...." "galactic patrol. i know what the name of it is going to be, if nothing else." "... is just as good as in the bag, right now. you've done a job so far, virge. this whole system, nevia, the colonies on aldebaran ii and other planets, even valeria, as tight as a drum. funny about valeria, isn't it...." there was a moment of silence, then kinnison went on: "but wherever diamonds are, there go dutchmen. and dutch women go wherever their men do. and, in spite of medical advice, dutch babies arrive. although a lot of the adults died--three g's is no joke--practically all of the babies keep on living. developing bones and muscles to fit--walking at a year and a half old--living normally--they say that the third generation will be perfectly at home there." "which shows that the human animal is more adaptable than some ranking medicos had believed, is all. don't try to side-track me, rod. you know as well as i do what we're up against; the new headaches that inter-stellar commerce is bringing with it. new vices--drugs--thionite, for instance; we haven't been able to get an inkling of an idea as to where that stuff is coming from. and i don't have to tell you what piracy has done to insurance rates." "i'll say not--look at the price of aldebaranian cigars, the only kind fit to smoke! you've given up, then, on the idea that arisia is the pirates' ghq?" "definitely. it isn't. the pirates are even more afraid of it than tramp spacemen are. it's out of bounds--absolutely forbidden territory, apparently--to everybody, my best operatives included. all we know about it is the name--arisia--that our planetographers gave it. it is the first completely incomprehensible thing i have ever experienced. i am going out there myself as soon as i can take the time--not that i expect to crack a thing that my best men couldn't touch, but there have been so many different and conflicting reports--no two stories agree on anything except in that no one could get anywhere near the planet--that i feel the need of some first-hand information. want to come along?" "try to keep me from it!" "but at that, we shouldn't be too surprised," samms went on, thoughtfully. "just beginning to scratch the surface as we are, we should expect to encounter peculiar, baffling--even completely inexplicable things. facts, situations, events, and beings for which our one-system experience could not possibly have prepared us. in fact, we already have. if, ten years ago, anyone had told you that such a race as the rigellians existed, what would you have thought? one ship went there, you know--once. one hour in any rigellian city--one minute in a rigellian automobile--drives a tellurian insane." "i see your point." kinnison nodded. "probably i would have ordered a mental examination. and the palainians are even worse. people--if you can call them that--who live on pluto and _like_ it! entities so alien that nobody, as far as i know, understands them. but you don't have to go even that far from home to locate a job of unscrewing the inscrutable. who, what, and why--and for how long--was gray roger? and, not far behind him, is this young bergenholm of yours. and by the way, you never did give me the lowdown on how come it was the 'bergenholm', and not the 'rodebush-cleveland', that made trans-galactic commerce possible and caused nine-tenths of our headaches. as i get the story, bergenholm wasn't--isn't--even an engineer." "didn't i? thought i did. he wasn't, and isn't. well, the original rodebush-cleveland free drive was a killer, you know...." "_how_ i know!" kinnison exclaimed, feelingly. "they beat their brains out and ate their hearts out for months, without getting it any better. then, one day, this kid bergenholm ambles into their shop--big, awkward, stumbling over his own feet. he gazes innocently at the thing for a couple of minutes, then says: "'why don't you use uranium instead of iron and rewind it so it will put out a wave-form like this, with humps here, and here; instead of there, and there?' and he draws a couple of free-hand, but really beautiful curves. "'why should we?' they squawk at him. "'because it will work that way,' he says, and ambles out as unconcernedly as he came in. can't--or won't--say another word. "well in sheer desperation, they tried it--and it worked! and nobody has ever had a minute's trouble with a bergenholm since. that's why rodebush and cleveland both insisted on the name." "i see; and it points up what i just said. but if he's such a mental giant, why isn't he getting results with his own problem, the meteor? or is he?" "no ... or at least he wasn't as of last night. but there's a note on my pad that he wants to see me sometime today--suppose we have him come in now?" "fine! i'd like to talk to him, if it's o.k. with you and with him." the young scientist was called in, and was introduced to the commissioner. "go ahead, doctor bergenholm," samms suggested then. "you may talk to both of us, just as freely as though you and i were alone." "i have, as you already know, been called psychic," bergenholm began, abruptly. "it is said that i dream dreams, see visions, hear voices, and so on. that i operate on hunches. that i am a genius. now i very definitely am _not_ a genius--unless my understanding of the meaning of that word is different from that of the rest of mankind." bergenholm paused. samms and kinnison looked at each other. the latter broke the short silence. "the councillor and i have just been discussing the fact that there are a great many things we do not know; that with the extension of our activities into new fields, the occurrence of the impossible has become almost a commonplace. we are able, i believe, to listen with open minds to anything you have to say." "very well. but first, please know that i am a scientist. as such, i am trained to observe; to think calmly, clearly, and analytically; to test every hypothesis. i do not believe at all in the so-called supernatural. this universe did not come into being, it does not continue to be, except by the operation of natural and immutable laws. and i mean _immutable_, gentlemen. everything that has ever happened, that is happening now, or that ever is to happen, was, is, and will be statistically connected with its predecessor event and with its successor event. if i did not believe that implicitly, i would lose all faith in the scientific method. for if one single 'supernatural' event or thing had ever occurred or existed it would have constituted an entirely unpredictable event and would have initiated a series--a succession--of such events; a state of things which no scientist will or can believe possible in an orderly universe. "at the same time, i recognize the fact that i myself have done things--caused events to occur, if you prefer--that i cannot explain to you or to any other human being in any symbology known to our science; and it is about an even more inexplicable--call it 'hunch' if you like--that i asked to have a talk with you today." "but you are arguing in circles," samms protested. "or are you trying to set up a paradox?" "neither. i am merely clearing the way for a somewhat startling thing i am to say later on. you know, of course, that any situation with which a mind is unable to cope; a really serious dilemma which it cannot resolve; will destroy that mind--frustration, escape from reality, and so on. you also will realize that i must have become cognizant of my own peculiarities long before anyone else did or could?" "ah. i see. yes, of course." samms, intensely interested, leaned forward. "yet your present personality is adequately, splendidly integrated. how could you possibly have overcome--reconciled--a situation so full of conflict?" "you are, i think, familiar with my parentage?" samms, keen as he was, did not consider it noteworthy that the big norwegian answered his question only by asking one of his own. "yes ... oh, i'm beginning to see ... but commissioner kinnison has not had access to your dossier. go ahead." "my father is dr. hjalmar bergenholm. my mother, before her marriage, was dr. olga bjornson. both were, and are, nuclear physicists--very good ones. pioneers, they have been called. they worked, and are still working, in the newest, outermost fringes of the field." "oh!" kinnison exclaimed. "a mutant? born with second sight--or whatever it is?" "not second sight, as history describes the phenomenon, no. the records do not show that any such faculty was ever demonstrated to the satisfaction of any competent scientific investigator. what i have is something else. whether or not it will breed true is an interesting topic of speculation, but one having nothing to do with the problem now in hand. to return to the subject, i resolved my dilemma long since. there is, i am absolutely certain, a science of the mind which is as definite, as positive, as immutable of law, as is the science of the physical. while i will make no attempt to prove it to you, i _know_ that such a science exists, and that i was born with the ability to perceive at least some elements of it. "now to the matter of the meteor of the patrol. that emblem was and is purely physical. the pirates have just as able scientists as we have. what physical science can devise and synthesize, physical science can analyze and duplicate. there is a point, however, beyond which physical science cannot go. it can neither analyze nor imitate the tangible products of that which i have so loosely called the science of the mind. "i know, councillor samms, what the triplanetary service needs; something vastly more than its meteor. i also know that the need will become greater and greater as the sphere of action of the patrol expands. without a really efficient symbol, the solarian patrol will be hampered even more than the triplanetary service; and its logical extension into the space patrol, or whatever that larger organization may be called, will be definitely impossible. we need something which will identify any representative of civilization, positively and unmistakably, wherever he may be. it must be impossible of duplication, or even of imitation, to which end it must kill any unauthorized entity who attempts imposture. it must operate as a telepath between its owner and any other living intelligence, of however high or low degree, so that mental communication, so much clearer and faster than physical, will be possible without the laborious learning of language; or between us and such peoples as those of rigel four or of palain seven, both of whom we know to be of high intelligence and who must already be conversant with telepathy." "are you or have you been, reading my mind?" samms asked quietly. "no," bergenholm replied flatly. "it is not and has not been necessary. any man who can think, who has really considered the question, and who has the good of civilization at heart, must have come to the same conclusions." "probably so, at that. but no more side issues. you have a solution of some kind worked out, or you would not be here. what is it?" "it is that you, solarian councillor samms, should go to arisia as soon as possible." "arisia!" samms exclaimed, and: "arisia! of all the hells in space, why arisia? and how can we make the approach? don't you know that _nobody_ can get anywhere near that damn planet?" bergenholm shrugged his shoulders and spread both arms wide in a pantomime of complete helplessness. "how do you know--another of your hunches?" kinnison went on. "or did somebody tell you something? _where_ did you get it?" "it is not a hunch," the norwegian replied, positively. "no one told me anything. but i _know_--as definitely as i know that the combustion of hydrogen in oxygen will yield water--that the arisians are very well versed in that which i have called the science of the mind; that if virgil samms goes to arisia he will obtain the symbol he needs; that he will never obtain it otherwise. as to _how_ i know these things ... i can't ... i just ... i _know_ it, i tell you!" without another word, without asking permission to leave, bergenholm whirled around and hurried out. samms and kinnison stared at each other. "well?" kinnison asked, quizzically. "i'm going. now. whether i can be spared or not, and whether you think i'm out of control or not. i believe him, every word--and besides, there's the bergenholm. how about you? coming?" "yes. can't say that i'm sold one hundred percent; but, as you say, the bergenholm is a hard fact to shrug off. and at minimum rating, it's got to be tried. what are you taking? not a fleet, probably--the _boise_? or the _chicago_?" it was the commissioner of public safety speaking now, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. "the _chicago_, i'd say--the fastest and strongest thing in space." "recommendation approved. blast-off; twelve hundred hours tomorrow!" chapter 3 the superdreadnought _chicago_, as she approached the imaginary but nevertheless sharply defined boundary, which no other ship had been allowed to pass, went inert and crept forward, mile by mile. every man, from commissioner and councillor down, was taut and tense. so widely variant, so utterly fantastic, were the stories going around about this arisia that no one knew what to expect. they expected the unexpected--and got it. "ah, tellurians, you are precisely on time." a strong, assured, deeply resonant pseudo-voice made itself heard in the depths of each mind aboard the tremendous ship of war. "pilots and navigating officers, you will shift course to one seventy eight dash seven twelve fifty three. hold that course, inert, at one tellurian gravity of acceleration. virgil samms will now be interviewed. he will return to the consciousnesses of the rest of you in exactly six of your hours." practically dazed by the shock of their first experience with telepathy, not one of the _chicago's_ crew perceived anything unusual in the phraseology of that utterly precise, diamond-clear thought. samms and kinnison, however, precisionists themselves, did. but, warned although they were and keyed up although they were to detect any sign of hypnotism or of mental suggestion, neither of them had the faintest suspicion, then or ever, that virgil samms did not as a matter of fact leave the _chicago_ at all. samms _knew_ that he boarded a lifeboat and drove it toward the shimmering haze beyond which arisia was. commissioner kinnison _knew_, as surely as did every other man aboard, that samms did those things, because he and the other officers and most of the crew watched samms do them. they watched the lifeboat dwindle in size with distance; watched it disappear within the peculiarly iridescent veil of force which their most penetrant ultra-beam spy-rays could not pierce. they waited. and, since every man concerned _knew_, beyond any shadow of doubt and to the end of his life, that everything that seemed to happen actually did happen, it will be so described. virgil samms, then, drove his small vessel through arisia's innermost screen and saw a planet so much like earth that it might have been her sister world. there were the white ice-caps, the immense blue oceans, the verdant continents partially obscured by fleecy banks of cloud. would there, or would there not, be cities? while he had not known at all exactly what to expect, he did not believe that there would be any large cities upon arisia. to qualify for the role of _deus ex machina_, the arisian with whom samms was about to deal would have to be a super-man indeed--a being completely beyond man's knowledge or experience in power of mind. would such a race of beings have need of such things as cities? they would not. there would be no cities. nor were there. the lifeboat flashed downward--slowed--landed smoothly in a regulation dock upon the outskirts of what appeared to be a small village surrounded by farms and woods. "this way, please." an inaudible voice directed him toward a two-wheeled vehicle which was almost, but not quite, like a dillingham roadster. this car, however, took off by itself as soon as samms closed the door. it sped smoothly along a paved highway devoid of all other traffic, past farms and past cottages, to stop of itself in front of the low, massive structure which was the center of the village and, apparently, its reason for being. "this way, please," and samms went through an automatically-opened door; along a short, bare hall; into a fairly large central room containing a vat and one deeply-holstered chair. "sit down, please." samms did so, gratefully. he did not know whether he could have stood up much longer or not. he had expected to encounter a tremendous mentality; but this was a thing far, far beyond his wildest imaginings. this was a brain--just that--nothing else. almost globular; at least ten feet in diameter; immersed in and in perfect equilibrium with a pleasantly aromatic liquid--a brain! "relax," the arisian ordered, soothingly, and samms found that he _could_ relax. "through the one you know as bergenholm i heard of your need and have permitted you to come here this once for instruction." "but this ... none of this ... it isn't ... it _can't_ be real!" samms blurted. "i am--i must be--imagining it ... and yet i know that i _can't_ be hypnotized--i've been psychoed against it!" "what is reality?" the arisian asked, quietly. "your profoundest thinkers have never been able to answer that question. nor, although i am much older and a much more capable thinker than any member of your race, would i attempt to give you its true answer. nor, since your experience has been so limited, is it to be expected that you could believe without reservation any assurances i might give you in thoughts or in words. you must, then, convince yourself--definitely, by means of your own five senses--that i and everything about you are real, as you understand reality. you saw the village and this building; you see the flesh that houses the entity which is i. you feel your own flesh; as you tap the woodwork with your knuckles you feel the impact and hear the vibrations as sound. as you entered this room you must have perceived the odor of the nutrient solution in which and by virtue of which i live. there remains only the sense of taste. are you by any chance either hungry or thirsty?" "both." "drink of the tankard in the niche yonder. in order to avoid any appearance of suggestion i will tell you nothing of its content except the one fact that it matches perfectly the chemistry of your tissues." gingerly enough, samms brought the pitcher to his lips--then, seizing it in both hands, he gulped down a tremendous draught. it was good! it smelled like all appetizing kitchen aromas blended into one; it tasted like all of the most delicious meals he had ever eaten; it quenched his thirst as no beverage had ever done. but he could not empty even that comparatively small container--whatever the stuff was, it had a satiety value immensely higher even than old, rare, roast beef! with a sigh of repletion samms replaced the tankard and turned again to his peculiar host. "i am convinced. that was real. no possible mental influence could so completely and unmistakably satisfy the purely physical demands of a body as hungry and as thirsty as mine was. thanks, immensely, for allowing me to come here, mr....?" "you may call me mentor. i have no name, as you understand the term. now, then, please think fully--you need not speak--of your problems and of your difficulties; of what you have done and of what you have it in mind to do." samms thought, flashingly and cogently. a few minutes sufficed to cover triplanetary's history and the beginning of the solarian patrol; then, for almost three hours, he went into the ramifications of the galactic patrol of his imaginings. finally he wrenched himself back to reality. he jumped up, paced the floor, and spoke. "but there's a vital flaw, one inherent and absolutely ruinous fact that makes the whole thing impossible!" he burst out, rebelliously. "no one man, or group of men, no matter who they are, can be trusted with that much power. the council and i have already been called everything imaginable; and what we have done so far is literally nothing at all in comparison with what the galactic patrol could and must do. why, i myself would be the first to protest against the granting of such power to _anybody_. every dictator in history, from philip of macedon to the tyrant of asia, claimed to be--and probably was, in his beginnings--motivated solely by benevolence. how am i to think that the proposed galactic council, or even i myself, will be strong enough to conquer a thing that has corrupted utterly every man who has ever won it? who is to watch the watchmen?" "the thought does you credit, youth," mentor replied, unmoved. "that is one reason why you are here. you, of your own force, can not know that you are in fact incorruptible. i, however, know. moreover, there is an agency by virtue of which that which you now believe to be impossible will become commonplace. extend your arm." samms did so, and there snapped around his wrist a platinum-iridium bracelet carrying, wrist-watch-wise, a lenticular something at which the tellurian stared in stupefied amazement. it seemed to be composed of thousands--millions--of tiny gems, each of which emitted pulsatingly all the colors of the spectrum; it was throwing out--broadcasting--a turbulent flood of writhing, polychromatic light! "the successor to the golden meteor of the triplanetary service," mentor said, calmly. "the lens of arisia. you may take my word for it, until your own experience shall have convinced you of the fact, that no one will ever wear arisia's lens who is in any sense unworthy. here also is one for your friend, commissioner kinnison; it is not necessary for him to come physically to arisia. it is, you will observe, in an insulated container, and does not glow. touch its surface, but lightly and very fleetingly, for the contact will be painful." samms' finger-tip barely touched one dull, gray, lifeless jewel: his whole arm jerked away uncontrollably as there swept through his whole being the intimation of an agony more poignant by far than any he had ever known. "why--it's _alive_!" he gasped. "no, it is not really alive, as you understand the term ..." mentor paused, as though seeking a way to describe to the tellurian a thing which was to him starkly incomprehensible. "it is, however, endowed with what you might call a sort of pseudo-life; by virtue of which it gives off its characteristic radiation while, and only while, it is in physical circuit with the living entity--the ego, let us say--with whom it is in exact resonance. glowing, the lens is perfectly harmless; it is complete--saturated--satiated--fulfilled. in the dark condition it is, as you have learned, dangerous in the extreme. it is then incomplete--unfulfilled--frustrated--you might say seeking or yearning or demanding. in that condition its pseudo-life interferes so strongly with any life to which it is not attuned that that life, in a space of seconds, is forced out of this plane or cycle of existence." "then i--i alone--of all the entities in existence, can wear this particular lens?" samms licked his lips and stared at it, glowing so satisfyingly and contentedly upon his wrist. "but when i die, will it be a perpetual menace?" "by no means. a lens cannot be brought into being except to match some one living personality; a short time after you pass into the next cycle your lens will disintegrate." "wonderful!" samms breathed, in awe. "but there's one thing ... these things are ... priceless, and there will be millions of them to make ... and you don't...." "what will we get out of it, you mean?" the arisian seemed to smile. "exactly." samms blushed, but held his ground. "nobody does anything for nothing. altruism is beautiful in theory, but it has never been known to work in practice. i will pay a tremendous price--any price within reason or possibility--for the lens; but i will have to know what that price is to be." "it will be heavier than you think, or can at present realize; although not in the sense you fear." mentor's thought was solemnity itself. "whoever wears the lens of arisia will carry a load that no weaker mind could bear. the load of authority; of responsibility; of knowledge that would wreck completely any mind of lesser strength. altruism? no. nor is it a case of good against evil, as you so firmly believe. your mental picture of glaring white and of unrelieved black is not a true picture. neither absolute evil nor absolute good do or can exist." "but that would make it still worse!" samms protested. "in that case, i can't see any reason at all for your exerting yourselves--putting yourselves out--for us." "there is, however, reason enough; although i am not sure that i can make it as clear to you as i would wish. there are in fact three reasons; any one of which would justify us in exerting--would compel us to exert--the trivial effort involved in the furnishing of lenses to your galactic patrol. first, there is nothing either intrinsically right or intrinsically wrong about liberty or slavery, democracy or autocracy, freedom of action or complete regimentation. it seems to us, however, that the greatest measure of happiness and of well-being for the greatest number of entities, and therefore the optimum advancement toward whatever sublime goal it is toward which this cycle of existence is trending in the vast and unknowable scheme of things, is to be obtained by securing for each and every individual the greatest amount of mental and physical freedom compatible with the public welfare. we of arisia are only a small part of this cycle; and, as goes the whole, so goes in greater or lesser degree each of the parts. is it impossible for you, a fellow citizen of this cycle-universe, to believe that such fulfillment alone would be ample compensation for a much greater effort?" "i never thought of it in that light...." it was hard for samms to grasp the concept; he never did understand it thoroughly. "i begin to see, i think ... at least, i believe you." "second, we have a more specific obligation in that the life of many, many worlds has sprung from arisian seed. thus, _in loco parentis_, we would be derelict indeed if we refused to act. and third, you yourself spend highly valuable time and much effort in playing chess. why do you do it? what do you get out of it?" "why, i ... uh ... mental exercise, i suppose ... i like it!" "just so. and i am sure that one of your very early philosophers came to the conclusion that a fully competent mind, from a study of one fact or artifact belonging to any given universe, could construct or visualize that universe, from the instant of its creation to its ultimate end?" "yes. at least, i have heard the proposition stated, but i have never believed it possible." "it is not possible simply because no fully competent mind ever has existed or ever will exist. a mind can become fully competent only by the acquisition of infinite knowledge, which would require infinite time as well as infinite capacity. our equivalent of your chess, however, is what we call the 'visualization of the cosmic all'. in my visualization a descendant of yours named clarrissa macdougall will, in a store called brenleer's upon the planet ... but no, let us consider a thing nearer at hand and concerning you personally, so that its accuracy will be subject to check. where you will be and exactly what you will be doing, at some definite time in the future. five years, let us say?" "go ahead. if you can do that you're _good_." "five tellurian calendar years then, from the instant of your passing through the screen of 'the hill' on this present journey, you will be ... allow me, please, a moment of thought ... you will be in a barber shop not yet built; the address of which is to be fifteen hundred fifteen twelfth avenue, spokane, washington, north america, tellus. the barber's name will be antonio carbonero and he will be left-handed. he will be engaged in cutting your hair. or rather, the actual cutting will have been done and he will be shaving, with a razor trade-marked 'jensen-king-byrd', the short hairs in front of your left ear. a comparatively small, quadrupedal, grayish-striped entity, of the race called 'cat'--a young cat, this one will be, and called thomas, although actually of the female sex--will jump into your lap, addressing you pleasantly in a language with which you yourself are only partially familiar. you call it mewing and purring, i believe?" "yes," the flabbergasted samms managed to say. "cats do purr--especially kittens." "ah--very good. never having met a cat personally, i am gratified at your corroboration of my visualization. this female youth erroneously called thomas, somewhat careless in computing the elements of her trajectory, will jostle slightly the barber's elbow with her tail; thus causing him to make a slight incision, approximately three millimeters long, parallel to and just above your left cheek-bone. at the precise moment in question, the barber will be applying a styptic pencil to this insignificant wound. this forecast is, i trust, sufficiently detailed so that you will have no difficulty in checking its accuracy or its lack thereof?" "detailed! _accuracy!_" samms could scarcely think. "but listen--not that i want to cross you up deliberately, but i'll tell you now that a man doesn't like to get sliced by a barber, even such a little nick as that. i'll remember that address--and the cat--and i'll never go into the place!" "every event does affect the succession of events," mentor acknowledged, equably enough. "except for this interview, you would have been in new orleans at that time, instead of in spokane. i have considered every pertinent factor. you will be a busy man. hence, while you will think of this matter frequently and seriously during the near future, you will have forgotten it in less than five years. you will remember it only at the touch of the astringent, whereupon you will give voice to certain self-derogatory and profane remarks." "i ought to," samms grinned; a not-too-pleasant grin. he had been appalled by the quality of mind able to do what mentor had just done; he was now more than appalled by the arisian's calm certainty that what he had foretold in such detail would in every detail come to pass. "if, after all this spokane--let a tiger-striped kitten jump into my lap--let a left-handed tony carbonero nick me--uh-uh, mentor, uh-uh! _if_ i do, i'll deserve to be called everything i can think of!" "these that i have mentioned, the gross occurrences, are problems only for inexperienced thinkers." mentor paid no attention to samms' determination never to enter that shop. "the real difficulties lie in the fine detail, such as the length, mass, and exact place and position of landing, upon apron or floor, of each of your hairs as it is severed. many factors are involved. other clients passing by--opening and shutting doors--air currents--sunshine--wind--pressure, temperature, humidity. the exact fashion in which the barber will flick his shears, which in turn depends upon many other factors--what he will have been doing previously, what he will have eaten and drunk, whether or not his home life will have been happy ... you little realize, youth, what a priceless opportunity this will be for me to check the accuracy of my visualization. i shall spend many periods upon the problem. i cannot attain perfect accuracy, of course. ninety nine point nine nines percent, let us say ... or perhaps ten nines ... is all that i can reasonably expect...." "but, mentor!" samms protested. "i can't help you on a thing like that! how can i know or report the exact mass, length, and orientation of single hairs?" "you cannot; but, since you will be wearing your lens, i myself can and will compare minutely my visualization with the actuality. for know, youth, that wherever any lens is, there can any arisian be if he so desires. and now, knowing that fact, and from your own knowledge of the satisfactions to be obtained from chess and other such mental activities, and from the glimpses you have had into my own mind, do you retain any doubts that we arisians will be fully compensated for the trifling effort involved in furnishing whatever number of lenses may be required?" "i have no more doubts. but this lens ... i'm getting more afraid of it every minute. i see that it is a perfect identification; i can understand that it can be a perfect telepath. but is it something else, as well? if it has other powers ... what are they?" "i cannot tell you; or, rather, i will not. it is best for your own development that i do not, except in the most general terms. it has additional qualities, it is true; but, since no two entities ever have the same abilities, no two lenses will ever be of identical qualities. strictly speaking, a lens has no real power of its own; it merely concentrates, intensifies, and renders available whatever powers are already possessed by its wearer. you must develop your own powers and your own abilities; we of arisia, in furnishing the lens, will have done everything that we should do." "of course, sir; and much more than we have any right to expect. you have given me a lens for roderick kinnison; how about the others? who is to select them?" "you are, for a time." silencing the man's protests, mentor went on: "you will find that your judgment will be good. you will send to us only one entity who will not be given a lens, and it is necessary that that one entity should be sent here. you will begin a system of selection and training which will become more and more rigorous as time goes on. this will be necessary; not for the selection itself, which the lensmen themselves could do among babies in their cradles, but because of the benefits thus conferred upon the many who will not graduate, as well as upon the few who will. in the meantime you will select the candidates; and you will be shocked and dismayed when you discover how few you will be able to send. "you will go down in history as first lensman samms; the crusader, the man whose wide vision and tremendous grasp made it possible for the galactic patrol to become what it is to be. you will have highly capable help, of course. the kinnisons, with their irresistible driving force, their indomitable will to do, their transcendent urge; costigan, back of whose stout irish heart lie erin's best of brains and brawn; your cousins george and ray olmstead; your daughter virgilia...." "virgilia! where does _she_ fit into this picture? what do you know about her--and how?" "a mind would be incompetent indeed who could not visualize, from even the most fleeting contact with you, a fact which has been in existence for some twenty three of your years. her doctorate in psychology; her intensive studies under martian and venerian masters--even under one reformed adept of north polar jupiter--of the involuntary, uncontrollable, almost unknown and hence highly revealing muscles of the face, the hands, and other parts of the human body. you will remember that poker game for a long time." "i certainly will." samms grinned, a bit shamefacedly. "she gave us clear warning of what she was going to do, and then cleaned us out to the last millo." "naturally. she has, all unconsciously, been training herself for the work she is destined to do. but to resume; you will feel yourself incompetent, unworthy--that, too, is a part of a lensman's load. when you first scan the mind of roderick kinnison you will feel that he, not you, should be the prime mover in the galactic patrol. but know now that no mind, not even the most capable in the universe, can either visualize truly or truly evaluate itself. commissioner kinnison, upon scanning your mind as he will scan it, will know the truth and will be well content. but time presses; in one minute you leave." "thanks a lot ... thanks." samms got to his feet and paused, hesitantly. "i suppose that it will be all right ... that is, i can call on you again, if...?" "no," the arisian declared, coldly. "my visualization does not indicate that it will ever again be either necessary or desirable for you to visit or to communicate with me or with any other arisian." communication ceased as though a solid curtain had been drawn between the two. samms strode out and stepped into the waiting vehicle, which whisked him back to his lifeboat. he blasted off; arriving in the control room of the _chicago_ precisely at the end of the sixth hour after leaving it. "well, rod, i'm back ..." he began, and stopped; utterly unable to speak. for at the mention of the name samms' lens had put him fully en rapport with his friend's whole mind; and what he perceived struck him--literally and precisely--dumb. he had always liked and admired rod kinnison. he had always known that he was tremendously able and capable. he had known that he was big; clean; a square shooter; the world's best. hard; a driver who had little more mercy on his underlings in selected undertakings than he had on himself. but now, as he saw spread out for his inspection kinnison's ego in its entirety; as he compared in fleeting glances that terrific mind with those of the other officers--good men, too, all of them--assembled in the room; he knew that he had never even begun to realize what a giant roderick kinnison really was. "what's the matter, virge?" kinnison exclaimed, and hurried up, both hands outstretched. "you look like you're seeing ghosts! what did they do to you?" "nothing--much. but 'ghosts' doesn't half describe what i'm seeing right now. come into my office, will you, rod?" ignoring the curious stares of the junior officers, the commissioner and the councillor went into the latter's quarters, and in those quarters the two lensmen remained in close consultation during practically all of the return trip to earth. in fact, they were still conferring deeply, via lens, when the _chicago_ landed and they took a ground-car into the hill. "but who are you going to send first, virge?" kinnison demanded. "you must have decided on at least some of them, by this time." "i know of only five, or possibly six, who are ready," samms replied, glumly. "i would have sworn that i knew of a hundred, but they don't measure up. jack, mason northrop, and conway costigan, for the first load. lyman cleveland, fred rodebush, and perhaps bergenholm--i haven't been able to figure him out, but i'll know when i get him under my lens--next. that's all." "not quite. how about your identical-twin cousins, ray and george olmstead, who have been doing such a terrific job of counter-spying?" "perhaps ... quite possibly." "and if i'm good enough, clayton and schweikert certainly are, to name only two of the commodores. and knobos and dalnalten. and above all, how about jill?" "jill? why, i don't ... she measures up, of course, but ... but at that, there was nothing said against it, either ... i wonder...." "why not have the boys in--jill, too--and thrash it out?" the young people were called in; the story was told; the problem stated. the boys' reaction was instantaneous and unanimous. jack kinnison took the lead. "of course jill's going, if anybody does!" he burst out vehemently. "count _her_ out, with all the stuff she's got? _hardly_!" "why, jack! this, from _you_?" jill seemed highly surprised. "i have it on excellent authority that i'm a stinker; a half-witted one, at that. a jelly-brain, with come-hither eyes." "you are, and a lot of other things besides." jack kinnison did not back up a millimeter, even before their fathers. "but even at your sapadilliest your half wits are better than most other people's whole ones; and i never said or thought that your brain couldn't function, whenever it wanted to, back of those sad eyes. whatever it takes to be a lensman, sir," he turned to samms, "she's got just as much of as the rest of us. maybe more." "i take it, then, that there is no objection to her going?" samms asked. there was no objection. "what ship shall we take, and when?" "the _chicago_. now." kinnison directed. "she's hot and ready. we didn't strike any trouble going or coming, so she didn't need much servicing. flit!" they flitted, and the great battleship made the second cruise as uneventfully as she had made the first. the _chicago's_ officers and crew knew that the young people left the vessel separately; that they returned separately, each in his or her lifeboat. they met, however, not in the control room, but in jack kinnison's private quarters; the three young lensmen and the girl. the three were embarrassed; ill at ease. the lenses were--definitely--not working. no one of them would put his lens on jill, since she did not have one.... the girl broke the short silence. "wasn't she the most perfectly _beautiful_ thing you ever saw?" she breathed. "in spite of being over seven feet tall? she looked to be about twenty--except her eyes--but she must have been a hundred, to know so much--but what are you boys staring so about?" "_she!_" three voices blurted as one. "yes. she. why? i know we weren't together, but i got the impression, some way or other, that there was only the one. what did _you_ see?" all three men started to talk at once, a clamor of noise; then all stopped at once. "you first, spud. whom did you talk to, and what did he, she, or it say?" although conway costigan was a few years older than the other three, they all called him by nickname as a matter of course. "national police headquarters--chief of the detective bureau," costigan reported, crisply. "between forty three and forty five; six feet and half an inch; one seventy five. hard, fine, keen, a big time operator if there ever was one. looked a lot like your father, jill; the same dark auburn hair, just beginning to gray, and the same deep orange-yellow markings in his eyes. he gave me the works; then took this lens out of his safe, snapped it onto my wrist, and gave me two orders--get out and stay out." jack and mase stared at costigan, at jill, and at each other. then they whistled in unison. "i see this is not going to be a unanimous report, except possibly in one minor detail," jill remarked. "mase, you're next." "i landed on the campus of the university of arisia," northrop stated, flatly. "immense place--hundreds of thousands of students. they look me to the physics department--to the private laboratory of the department head himself. he had a panel with about a million meters and gauges on it; he scanned and measured every individual component element of my brain. then he made a pattern, on a milling router just about as complicated as his panel. from there on, of course, it was simple--just like a dentist making a set of china choppers or a metallurgist embedding a test-section. he snapped a couple of sentences of directions at me, and then said 'scram!' that's all." "sure that was all?" costigan asked. "didn't he add 'and _stay_ scrammed'?" "he didn't _say_ it, exactly, but the implication was clear enough." "the one point of similarity," jill commented. "now you, jack. you have been looking as though we were all candidates for canvas jackets that lace tightly up the back." "uh-uh. as though maybe _i_ am. i didn't see anything at all. didn't even land on the planet. just floated around in an orbit inside that screen. the thing i talked with was a pattern of pure force. this lens simply appeared on my wrist, bracelet and all, out of thin air. he told me plenty, though, in a very short time--his last word being for me not to come back or call back." "hm ... m ... m." this of jack's was a particularly indigestible bit, even for jill samms. "in plain words," costigan volunteered, "we all saw exactly what we expected to see." "uh-uh," jill denied. "i certainly did not expect to see a woman ... no; what each of us saw, i think, was what would do us the most good--give each of us the highest possible lift. i am wondering whether or not there was anything at all really there." "that might be it, at that." jack scowled in concentration. "but there must have been _something_ there--these lenses are real. but what makes me mad is that they wouldn't give you a lens. you're just as good a man as any one of us--if i didn't know it wouldn't do a damn bit of good i'd go back there right now and...." "don't pop off so, jack!" jill's eyes, however, were starry. "i know you mean it, and i could almost love you, at times--but i don't need a lens. as a matter of fact, i'll be much better off without one." "jet back, jill!" jack kinnison stared deeply into the girl's eyes--but still did not use his lens. "somebody must have done a terrific job of selling, to make you believe that ... or _are_ you sold, actually?" "actually. honestly. that arisian was a thousand times more of a woman than i ever will be, and she didn't wear a lens--never had worn one. women's minds and lenses don't fit. there's a sex-based incompatibility. lenses are as masculine as whiskers--and at that, only a very few men can ever wear them, either. very special men, like you three and dad and pops kinnison. men with tremendous force, drive, and scope. pure killers, all of you; each in his own way, of course. no more to be stopped than a glacier, and twice as hard and ten times as cold. a woman simply _can't_ have that kind of a mind! there is going to be a woman lensman some day--just one--but not for years and years; and i wouldn't be in her shoes for anything. in this job of mine, of...." "well, go on. what is this job you're so sure you are going to do?" "why, i don't know!" jill exclaimed, startled eyes wide. "i thought i knew all about it, but i don't! do you, about yours?" they did not, not one of them; and they were all as surprised at that fact as the girl had been. "well, to get back to this lady lensman who is going to appear some day, i gather that she is going to be some kind of a freak. she'll have to be, practically, because of the sex-based fundamental nature of the lens. mentor didn't say so, in so many words, but she made it perfectly clear that...." "mentor!" the three men exclaimed. each of them had dealt with mentor! "i am beginning to see," jill said, thoughtfully. "mentor. not a real name at all. to quote the unabridged verbatim--i had occasion to look the word up the other day and i am appalled now at the certainty that there was a connection--quote; mentor, a wise and faithful counselor; unquote. have any of you boys anything to say? i haven't; and i am beginning to be scared blue." silence fell; and the more they thought, those three young lensmen and the girl who was one of the two human women ever to encounter knowingly an arisian mind, the deeper that silence became. chapter 4 "so you didn't find anything on nevia." roderick kinnison got up, deposited the inch-long butt of his cigar in an ashtray, lit another, and prowled about the room; hands jammed deep into breeches pockets. "i'm surprised. nerado struck me as being a b.t.o.... i thought sure he'd qualify." "so did i." samms' tone was glum. "he's big time, and an operator; but not big enough, by far. i'm--we're both--finding out that lensman material is _damned_ scarce stuff. there's none on nevia, and no indication whatever that there ever will be any." "tough ... and you're right, of course, in your stand that we'll have to have lensmen from as many different solar systems as possible on the galactic council or the thing won't work at all. so damned much jealousy--which is one reason why we're here in new york instead of out at the hill, where we belong--we've found that out already, even in such a small and comparatively homogeneous group as our own system--the solarian council will not only have to be made up mostly of lensmen, but each and every inhabited planet of sol will have to be represented--even pluto, i suppose, in time. and by the way, your mr. saunders wasn't any too pleased when you took knobos of mars and dalnalten of venus away from him and made lensmen out of them--and put them miles over his head." "oh, i wouldn't say that ... exactly. i convinced him ... but at that, since saunders is not lensman grade himself, it was a trifle difficult for him to understand the situation completely." "you say it easy--'difficult' is not the word i would use. but back to the lensman hunt." kinnison scowled blackly. "i agree, as i said before, that we need non-human lensmen, the more the better, but i don't think much of your chance of finding any. what makes you think ... oh, i see ... but i don't know whether you're justified or not in assuming a high positive correlation between a certain kind of mental ability and technological advancement." "no such assumption is necessary. start anywhere you please, rod, and take it from there; including nevia." "i'll start with known facts, then. interstellar flight is new to us. we haven't spread far, or surveyed much territory. but in the eight solar systems with which we are most familiar there are seven planets--i'm not counting valeria--which are very much like earth in point of mass, size, climate, atmosphere, and gravity. five of the seven did not have any intelligent life and were colonized easily and quickly. the tellurian worlds of procyon and vega became friendly neighbors--thank god we learned something on nevia--because they were already inhabited by highly advanced races: procia by people as human as we are, vegia by people who would be so if it weren't for their tails. many other worlds of these systems are inhabited by more or less intelligent non-human races. just how intelligent they are we don't know, but the lensmen will soon find out. "my point is that no race we have found so far has had either atomic energy or any form of space-drive. in any contact with races having space-drives we have not been the discoverers, but the discovered. _our_ colonies are all within twenty six light-years of earth except aldebaran ii, which is fifty seven, but which drew a lot of people, in spite of the distance, because it was so nearly identical with earth. on the other hand, the nevians, from a distance of over a hundred light-years, found _us_ ... implying an older race and a higher development ... but you just told me that they would _never_ produce a lensman!" "that point stopped me, too, at first. follow through; i want to see if you arrive at the same conclusion i did." "well ... i ... i ..." kinnison thought intensely, then went on: "of course, the nevians were not colonizing; nor, strictly speaking, exploring. they were merely hunting for iron--a highly organized, intensively specialized operation to find a raw material they needed desperately." "precisely," samms agreed. "the rigellians, however, were _surveying_, and rigel is about four hundred and forty light-years from here. we didn't have a thing they needed or wanted. they nodded at us in passing and kept on going. i'm still on your track?" "dead center. and just where does that put the palainians?" "i see ... you may have something there, at that. palain is so far away that nobody knows even where it is--probably thousands of light-years. yet they have not only explored this system; they colonized pluto long before our white race colonized america. but damn it, virge, i don't like it--any part of it. rigel four you may be able to take, with your lens ... even one of their damned automobiles, if you stay solidly en rapport with the driver. but _palain_, virge! pluto is bad enough, but the home planet! you can't. nobody can. it simply can't be done!" "i know it won't be easy," samms admitted, bleakly, "but if it's got to be done, i'll do it. and i have a little information that i haven't had time to tell you yet. we discussed once before, you remember, what a job it was to get into any kind of communication with the palainians on pluto. you said then that nobody could understand them, and you were right--then. however, i re-ran those brain-wave tapes, wearing my lens, and could understand them--the thoughts, that is--as well as though they had been recorded in precisionist-grade english." "_what?_" kinnison exclaimed, then fell silent. samms remained silent. what they were thinking of arisia's lens cannot be expressed in words. "well, go on," kinnison finally said. "give me the rest of it--the stinger that you've been holding back." "the messages--_as messages_--were clear and plain. the backgrounds, however, the connotations and implications, were not. some of their codes and standards seem to be radically different from ours--so utterly and fantastically different that i simply cannot reconcile either their conduct or their ethics with their obviously high intelligence and their advanced state of development. however, they have at least some minds of tremendous power, and none of the peculiarities i deduced were of such a nature as to preclude lensmanship. therefore i am going to pluto; and from there--i hope--to palain seven. if there's a lensman there, i'll get him." "you will, at that," kinnison paid quiet tribute to what he, better than anyone else, knew that his friend had. "but enough of me--how are you doing?" "as well as can be expected at this stage of the game. the thing is developing along three main lines. first, the pirates. since that kind of thing is more or less my own line i'm handling it myself, unless and until you find someone better qualified. i've got jack and costigan working on it now. "second; drugs, vice, and so on. i hope you find somebody to take this line over, because, frankly, i'm in over my depth and want to get out. knobos and dalnalten are trying to find out if there's anything to the idea that there may be a planetary, or even inter-planetary, ring involved. since sid fletcher isn't a lensman i couldn't disconnect him openly from his job, but he knows a lot about the dope-vice situation and is working practically full time with the other two. "third; pure--or rather, decidedly impure--politics. the more i studied _that_ subject, the clearer it became that politics would be the worst and biggest battle of the three. there are too many angles i don't know a damned thing about, such as what to do about the succession of foaming, screaming fits your friend senator morgan will be throwing the minute he finds out what our galactic patrol is going to do. so i ducked the whole political line. "now you know as well as i do--better, probably--that morgan is only the pernicious activities committee of the north american senate. multiply him by the thousands of others, all over space, who will be on our necks before the patrol can get its space-legs, and you will see that all that stuff will have to be handled by a lensman who, as well as being a mighty smooth operator, will have to know _all_ the answers and will have to have plenty of guts. i've got the guts, but none of the other prime requisites. jill hasn't, although she's got everything else. fairchild, your relations ace, isn't a lensman and can never become one. so you can see quite plainly who has got to handle politics himself." "you may be right ... but this lensman business comes first...." samms pondered, then brightened. "perhaps--probably--i can find somebody on this trip--a palainian, say--who is better qualified than any of us." kinnison snorted. "if you can, i'll buy you a week in any venerian relaxerie you want to name." "better start saving up your credits, then, because from what i already know of the palainian mentality such a development is distinctly more than a possibility." samms paused, his eyes narrowing. "i don't know whether it would make morgan and his kind more rabid or less so to have a non-solarian entity possess authority in our affairs political--but at least it would be something new and different. but in spite of what you said about 'ducking' politics, what have you got northrop, jill and fairchild doing?" "well, we had a couple of discussions. i couldn't give either jill or dick orders, of course...." "wouldn't, you mean," samms corrected. "couldn't," kinnison insisted. "jill, besides being your daughter and lensman grade, had no official connection with either the triplanetary service or the solarian patrol. and the service, including fairchild, is still triplanetary; and it will have to stay triplanetary until you have found enough lensmen so that you can spring your twin surprises--galactic council and galactic patrol. however, northrop and fairchild are keeping their eyes and ears open and their mouths shut, and jill is finding out whatever she can about drugs and so on, as well as the various political angles. they'll report to you--facts, deductions, guesses, and recommendations--whenever you say the word." "nice work, rod. thanks. i think i'll call jill now, before i go--wonder where she is? ... but i wonder ... with the lens perhaps telephones are superfluous? i'll try it." "jill!" he thought intensely into his lens, forming as he did so a mental image of his gorgeous daughter as he knew her. but he found, greatly to his surprise, that neither elaboration nor emphasis was necessary. "ouch!" came the almost instantaneous answer, long before his thought was complete. "don't think so hard, dad, it hurts--i almost missed a step." virgilia was actually there with him; inside his own mind; in closer touch with him than she had ever before been. "back so soon? shall we report now, or aren't you ready to go to work yet?" "skipping for the moment your aspersions on my present activities--not quite." samms moderated the intensity of his thought to a conversational level. "just wanted to check with you. come in, rod." in flashing thoughts he brought her up to date. "jill, do you agree with what rod here has just told me?" "yes. fully. so do the boys." "that settles it, then--unless, of course, i can find a more capable substitute." "of course--but we will believe that when we see it." "where are you and what are you doing?" "washington, d.c. european embassy. dancing with herkimer third, senator morgan's number one secretary. i was going to make passes at him--in a perfectly lady-like way, of course--but it wasn't necessary. he thinks he can break down my resistance." "careful, jill! that kind of stuff...." "is very old stuff indeed, daddy dear. simple. and herkimer third isn't really a menace; he just thinks he is. take a look--you can, can't you, with your lens?" "perhaps ... oh, yes. i see him as well as you do." fully en rapport with the girl as he was, so that his mind received simultaneously with hers any stimulus which she was willing to share, it seemed as though a keen, handsome, deeply tanned face bent down from a distance of inches toward his own. "but i don't like it a bit--and him even less." "that's because you aren't a girl," jill giggled mentally. "this is fun; and it won't hurt him a bit, except maybe for a slightly bruised vanity, when i don't fall down flat at his feet. and i'm learning a lot that he hasn't any suspicion he's giving away." "knowing you, i believe that. but don't ... that is ... well, be _very_ careful not to get your fingers burned. the job isn't worth it--yet." "don't worry, dad." she laughed unaffectedly. "when it comes to playboys like this one, i've got millions and skillions and whillions of ohms of resistance. but here comes senator morgan himself, with a fat and repulsive venerian--he's calling my boy-friend away from me, with what he thinks is an imperceptible high-sign, into a huddle--and my olfactory nerves perceive a rich and fruity aroma, as of skunk--so ... i hate to seem to be giving a solarian councillor the heave-ho, but if i want to read what goes on--and i certainly do--i'll have to concentrate. as soon as you get back give us a call and we'll report. take it easy, dad!" "you're the one to be told that, not me. good hunting, jill!" samms, still seated calmly at his desk, reached out and pressed a button marked "garage". his office was on the seventieth floor; the garage occupied level after level of sub-basement. the screen brightened; a keen young face appeared. "good evening, jim. will you please send my car up to the wright skyway feeder?" "at once, sir. it will be there in seventy five seconds." samms cut off; and, after a brief exchange of thought with kinnison, went out into the hall and along it to the "down" shaft. there, going free, he stepped through a doorless, unguarded archway into over a thousand feet of air. although it was long after conventional office hours the shaft was still fairly busy, but that made no difference--inertialess collisions cannot even be felt. he bulleted downward to the sixth floor, where he brought himself to an instantaneous halt. leaving the shaft, he joined the now thinning crowd hurrying toward the exit. a girl with meticulously plucked eyebrows and an astounding hair-do, catching sight of his lens, took her hands out of her breeches pockets--skirts went out, as office dress, when up-and-down open-shaft velocities of a hundred or so miles per hour replaced elevators--nudged her companion, and whispered excitedly: "look there! quick! i never saw one close up before, did you? that's him--himself! first lensman samms!" at the portal, the lensman as a matter of habit held out his car-check, but such formalities were no longer necessary, or even possible. everybody knew, or wanted to be thought of as knowing, virgil samms. "stall four sixty five, first lensman, sir," the uniformed gateman told him, without even glancing at the extended disk. "thank you, tom." "this way, please, sir, first lensman," and a youth, teeth gleaming white in a startlingly black face, strode proudly to the indicated stall and opened the vehicle's door. "thank you, danny," samms said, as appreciatively as though he did not know exactly where his ground-car was. he got in. the door jammed itself gently shut. the runabout--a dillingham eleven-forty--shot smoothly forward upon its two fat, soft tires. half-way to the exit archway he was doing forty; he hit the steeply-banked curve leading into the lofty "street" at ninety. nor was there shock or strain. motorcycle-wise, but automatically, the "dilly" leaned against its gyroscopes at precisely the correct angle; the huge low-pressure tires clung to the resilient synthetic of the pavement as though integral with it. nor was there any question of conflicting traffic, for this thoroughfare, six full levels above varick street proper, was not, strictly speaking, a street at all. it had only one point of access, the one which samms had used; and only one exit--it was simply and only a feeder into wright skyway, a limited-access superhighway. samms saw, without noting particularly, the maze of traffic-ways of which this feeder was only one tiny part; a maze which extended from ground-level up to a point well above even the towering buildings of new york's metropolitan district. the way rose sharply; samms' right foot went down a little farther; the dillingham began to pick up speed. moving loud-speakers sang to him and yelled and blared at him, but he did not hear them. brilliant signs, flashing and flaring all the colors of the spectrum--sheer triumphs of the electrician's art--blazed in or flamed into arresting words and eye-catching pictures, but he did not see them. advertising--designed by experts to sell everything from aardvarks to martian zyzmol ("bottled ecstacy")--but the first lensman was a seasoned big-city dweller. his mind had long since become a perfect filter, admitting to his consciousness only things which he wanted to perceive: only so can big-city life be made endurable. approaching the skyway, he cut in his touring roadlights, slowed down a trifle, and insinuated his low-flyer into the stream of traffic. those lights threw fifteen hundred watts apiece, but there was no glare--polarized lenses and wind-shields saw to that. he wormed his way over to the left-hand, high-speed lane and opened up. at the edge of the skyscraper district, where wright skyway angles sharply downward to ground level, samms' attention was caught and held by something off to his right--a blue-white, whistling something that hurtled upward into the air. as it ascended it slowed down; its monotone shriek became lower and lower in pitch; its light went down through the spectrum toward the red. finally it exploded, with an earth-shaking crash; but the lightning-like flash of the detonation, instead of vanishing almost instantaneously, settled itself upon a low-hanging artificial cloud and became a picture and four words--two bearded faces and "smith bros. cough drops"! "well, i'll be damned!" samms spoke aloud, chagrined at having been compelled to listen to and to look at an advertisement. "i thought i had seen everything, but _that_ is really new!" twenty minutes--fifty miles--later, samms left the skyway at a point near what had once been south norwalk, connecticut; an area transformed now into the level square miles of new york spaceport. new york spaceport; then, and until the establishment of prime base, the biggest and busiest field in existence upon any planet of civilization. for new york city, long the financial and commercial capital of the earth, had maintained the same dominant position in the affairs of the solar system and was holding a substantial lead over her rivals, chicago, london, and stalingrad, in the race for inter-stellar supremacy. and virgil samms himself, because of the ever-increasing menace of piracy, had been largely responsible for the policy of basing the war-vessels of the triplanetary patrol upon each space-field in direct ratio to the size and importance of that field. hence he was no stranger in new york spaceport; in fact, master psychologist that he was, he had made it a point to know by first name practically everyone connected with it. no sooner had he turned his dillingham over to a smiling attendant, however, than he was accosted by a man whom he had never seen before. "mr. samms?" the stranger asked. "yes." samms did not energize his lens; he had not yet developed either the inclination or the technique to probe instantaneously every entity who approached him, upon any pretext whatever, in order to find out what that entity _really_ wanted. "i'm isaacson ..." the man paused, as though he had supplied a world of information. "yes?" samms was receptive, but not impressed. "interstellar spaceways, you know. we've been trying to see you for two weeks, but we couldn't get past your secretaries, so i decided to buttonhole you here, myself. but we're just as much alone here as we would be in either one of our offices--yes, more so. what i want to talk to you about is having our exclusive franchise extended to cover the outer planets and the colonies." "just a minute, mr. isaacson. surely you know that i no longer have even a portfolio in the council; that practically all of my attention is, and for some time to come will be, directed elsewhere?" "exactly--_officially_." isaacson's tone spoke volumes. "but you're still the boss; they'll do anything you tell them to. we couldn't try to do business with you before, of course, but in your present position there is nothing whatever to prevent you from getting into the biggest thing that will ever be. we are the biggest corporation in existence now, as you know, and we are still growing--fast. we don't do business in a small way, or with small men; so here's a check for a million credits, or i will deposit it to your account...." "i'm not interested." "as a binder," the other went on, as smoothly as though his sentence had not been interrupted, "with twenty-five million more to follow on the day that our franchise goes through." "i'm still not interested." "no ... o ... o ...?" isaacson studied the lensman narrowly: and samms, lens now wide awake, studied the entrepreneur. "well ... i ... while i admit that we want you pretty badly, you are smart enough to know that we'll get what we want anyway, with or without you. with you, though, it will be easier and quicker, so i am authorized to offer you, besides the twenty six million credits ..." he savored the words as he uttered them: "twenty two and one-half percent of spaceways. on today's market that is worth fifty million credits; ten years from now it will be worth fifty _billion_. that's my high bid; that's as high as we can possibly go." "i'm glad to hear that--i'm _still_ not interested," and samms strode away, calling his friend kinnison as he did so. "rod? virgil." he told the story. "whew!" kinnison whistled expressively. "they're not pikers, anyway, are they? what a _sweet_ set-up--and you could wrap it up and hand it to them like a pound of coffee...." "or you could, rod." "could be...." the big lensman ruminated. "but _what_ a hookup! perfectly legitimate, and with plenty of precedents--and arguments, of a sort--in its favor. the outer planets. then alpha centauri and sirius and procyon and so on. monopoly--all the traffic will bear...." "slavery, you mean!" samms stormed. "it would hold civilization back for a thousand years!" "sure, but what do _they_ care?" "that's it ... and he said--and actually believed--that they would get it without my help.... i can't help wondering about that." "simple enough, virge, when you think about it. he doesn't know yet what a lensman is. nobody does, you know, except lensmen. it will take some time for that knowledge to get around...." "and still longer for it to be _believed_." "right. but as to the chance of interstellar spaceways ever getting the monopoly they're working for, i didn't think i would have to remind you that it was not entirely by accident that over half of the members of the solarian council are lensmen, and that any galactic councillor will automatically _have_ to be a lensman. so go right ahead with what you started, my boy, and don't give isaacson and company another thought. we'll bend an optic or two in that direction while you are gone." "i was overlooking a few things, at that, i guess." samms sighed in relief as he entered the main office of the patrol. the line at the receptionist's desk was fairly short, but even so, samms was not allowed to wait. that highly decorative, but far-from-dumb blonde, breaking off in mid-sentence her business of the moment, turned on her charm as though it had been a battery of floodlights, pressed a stud on her desk, and spoke to the man before her and to the lensman: "excuse me a moment, please. first lensman samms, sir...?" "yes, miss regan?" her communicator--"squawk-box", in every day parlance--broke in. "first lensman samms is here, sir," the girl announced, and broke the circuit. "good evening, sylvia. lieutenant-commander wagner, please, or whoever else is handling clearances," samms answered what he thought was to have been her question. "oh, no, sir; you are cleared. commodore clayton has been waiting for you ... here he is, now." "hi, virgil!" commodore clayton, a big, solid man with a scarred face and a shock of iron-gray hair, whose collar bore the two silver stars which proclaimed him to be the commander-in-chief of a continental contingent of the patrol, shook hands vigorously. "i'll zip you out. miss regan, call a bug, please." "oh, that isn't necessary, alex!" samms protested. "i'll pick one up outside." "not in any patrol base in north america, my friend; nor, unless i am very badly mistaken, anywhere else. from now on, lensmen have absolute priority, and the quicker everybody realizes exactly what that means, the better." the "bug"--a vehicle something like a jeep, except more so--was waiting at the door. the two men jumped aboard. "the _chicago_--and blast!" clayton ordered, crisply. the driver obeyed--literally. gravel flew from beneath skidding tires as the highly maneuverable little ground-car took off. a screaming turn into the deservedly famous avenue of oaks. along the avenue. through the gate, the guards saluting smartly as the bug raced past them. past the barracks. past the airport hangars and strips. out into the space-field, the scarred and blackened area devoted solely to the widely-spaced docks of the tremendous vessels which plied the vacuous reaches of inter-planetary and inter-stellar space. spacedocks were, and are, huge and sprawling structures; built of concrete and steel and asbestos and ultra-stubborn refractory and insulation and vacuum-breaks; fully air-conditioned and having refrigeration equipment of thousands of tons per hour of ice; designed not only to expedite servicing, unloading, and loading, but also to protect materials and personnel from the raving, searing blasts of take-off and of landing. a space-dock is a squat and monstrous cylinder, into whose hollow top the lowermost one-third of a space-ship's bulk fits as snugly as does a baseball into the "pocket" of a veteran fielder's long-seasoned glove. and the tremendous distances between those docks minimize the apparent size, both of the structures themselves and of the vessels surmounting them. thus, from a distance, the _chicago_ looked little enough, and harmless enough; but as the bug flashed under the overhanging bulk and the driver braked savagely to a stop at one of the dock's entrances, samms could scarcely keep from flinching. that featureless, gray, smoothly curving wall of alloy steel loomed so incredibly high above them--extended so terrifyingly far outward beyond its visible means of support! it _must_ be on the very verge of crashing! samms stared deliberately at the mass of metal towering above him, then smiled--not without effort--at his companion. "you'd think, alex, that a man would get over being afraid that a ship was going to fall on him, but i haven't--yet." "no, and you probably never will. i never have, and i'm one of the old hands. some claim not to mind it--but not in front of a lie detector. that's why they had to make the passenger docks bigger than the liners--too many passengers fainted and had to be carried aboard on stretchers--or cancelled passage entirely. however, scaring hell out of them on the ground had one big advantage; they felt so safe inside that they didn't get the colly-wobbles so bad when they went free." "well, i've got over _that_, anyway. good-bye, alex; and thanks." samms entered the dock, shot smoothly upward, followed an escorting officer to the captain's own cabin, and settled himself into a cushioned chair facing an ultra-wave view-plate. a face appeared upon his communicator screen and spoke. "winfield to first lensman samms--you will be ready to blast off at twenty one hundred?" "samms to captain winfield," the lensman replied. "i will be ready." sirens yelled briefly; a noise which samms knew was purely a formality. clearance had been issued; station pixny was filling the air with warnings. personnel and material close enough to the _chicago's_ dock to be affected by the blast were under cover and safe. the blast went on; the plate showed, instead of a view of the space-field, a blaze of blue-white light. the war-ship was inertialess, it is true; but so terrific were the forces released that incandescent gases, furiously driven, washed the dock and everything for hundreds of yards around it. the plate cleared. through the lower, denser layers of atmosphere the _chicago_ bored in seconds; then, as the air grew thinner and thinner, she rushed upward faster and faster. the terrain below became concave ... then convex. being completely without inertia, the ship's velocity was at every instant that at which the friction of the medium through which she blasted her way equaled precisely the force of her driving thrust. wherefore, out in open space, the earth a fast-shrinking tiny ball and sol himself growing smaller, paler, and weaker at a startling rate, the _chicago's_ speed attained an almost constant value; a value starkly impossible for the human mind to grasp. chapter 5 for hours virgil samms sat motionless, staring almost unseeing into his plate. it was not that the view was not worth seeing--the wonder of space, the ever-changing, constantly-shifting panorama of incredibly brilliant although dimensionless points of light, against that wondrous background of mist-besprinkled black velvet, is a thing that never fails to awe even the most seasoned observer--but he had a tremendous load on his mind. he had to solve an apparently insoluble problem. how ... _how_ ... how could he do what he had to do? finally, knowing that the time of landing was approaching, he got up, unfolded his fans, and swam lightly through the air of the cabin to a hand-line, along which he drew himself into the control room. he could have made the trip in that room, of course, if he had so chosen; but, knowing that officers of space do not really like to have strangers in that sanctum, he did not intrude until it was necessary. captain winfield was already strapped down at his master conning plate. pilots, navigators, and computers worked busily at their respective tasks. "i was just going to call you, first lensman." winfield waved a hand in the general direction of a chair near his own. "take the lieutenant-captain's station, please." then, after a few minutes: "go inert, mr. white." "attention, all personnel," lieutenant-captain white spoke conversationally into a microphone. "prepare for inert maneuvering, class three. off." a bank of tiny red lights upon a panel turned green practically as one. white cut the bergenholm, whereupon virgil samms' mass changed instantly from a weight of zero to one of five hundred and twenty five pounds--ships of war then had no space to waste upon such non-essentials as artificial gravity. although he was braced for the change and cushioned against it, the lensman's breath _whooshed!_ out sharply; but, being intensely interested in what was going on, he swallowed convulsively a couple of times, gasped a few deep breaths, and fought his way back up to normalcy. the chief pilot was now at work, with all the virtuoso's skill of his rank and grade; one of the hall-marks of which is to make difficult tasks look easy. he played trills and runs and arpeggios--at times veritable glissades--upon keyboards and pedals, directing with micrometric precision the tremendous forces of the superdreadnaught to the task of matching the intrinsic velocity of new york spaceport at the time of his departure to the i. v. of the surface of the planet so far below. samms stared into his plate; first at the incredibly tiny apparent size of that incredibly hot sun, and then at the barren-looking world toward which they were dropping at such terrific speed. "it doesn't seem possible ..." he remarked, half to winfield, half to himself, "that a sun could be that big and that hot. rigel four is almost two hundred times as far away from it as earth is from sol--something like eighteen billion miles--it doesn't look much, if any, bigger than venus does from luna--yet this world is hotter than the sahara desert." "well, blue giants are both big and hot," the captain replied, matter-of-factly, "and their radiation, being mostly invisible, is deadly stuff. and rigel is about the biggest in this region. there are others a lot worse, though. doradus s, for instance, would make rigel, here, look like a tallow candle. i'm going out there, some of these days, just to take a look at it. but that's enough of astronomical chit-chat--we're down to twenty miles of altitude and we've got your city just about stopped." the _chicago_ slowed gently to a halt; perched motionless upon softly hissing jets. samms directed his visibeam downward and sent along it an exploring, questing thought. since he had never met a rigellian in person, he could not form the mental image or pattern necessary to become en rapport with any one individual of the race. he did know, however, the type of mind which must be possessed by the entity with whom he wished to talk, and he combed the rigellian city until he found one. the rapport was so incomplete and imperfect as to amount almost to no contact at all, but he could, perhaps, make himself understood. "if you will excuse this possibly unpleasant and certainly unwarranted intrusion," he thought, carefully and slowly, "i would like very much to discuss with you a matter which should become of paramount importance to all the intelligent peoples of all the planets in space." "i welcome you, tellurian." mind fused with mind at every one of uncountable millions of points and paths. this rigellian professor of sociology, standing at his desk, was physically a monster ... the oil-drum of a body, the four blocky legs, the multi-branchiate tentacular arms, that immobile dome of a head, the complete lack of eyes and of ears ... nevertheless samms' mind fused with the monstrosity's as smoothly, as effortlessly, and almost as completely as it had with his own daughter's! and _what_ a mind! the transcendent poise; the staggeringly tremendous range and scope--the untroubled and unshakeable calm; the sublime quietude; the vast and placid certainty; the ultimate stability, unknown and forever unknowable to any human or near-human race! "dismiss all thought of intrusion, first lensman samms ... i have heard of you human beings, of course, but have never considered seriously the possibility of meeting one of you mind to mind. indeed, it was reported that none of our minds could make any except the barest and most unsatisfactory contact with any of yours they chanced to encounter. it is, i now perceive, the lens which makes this full accord possible, and it is basically about the lens that you are here?" "it is," and samms went on to cover in flashing thoughts his conception of what the galactic patrol should be and should become. that was easy enough; but when he tried to describe in detail the qualifications necessary for lensmanship, he began to bog down. "force, drive, scope, of course ... range ... power ... but above all, an absolute integrity ... an ultimate incorruptibility...." he could recognize such a mind after meeting it and studying it, but as to finding it ... it might not be in any place of power or authority. his own, and rod kinnison's, happened to be; but costigan's was not ... and both knobos and dalnalten had made inconspicuousness a fine art.... "i see," the native stated, when it became clear that samms could say no more. "it is evident, of course, that i cannot qualify; nor do i know anyone personally who can. however...." "what?" samms demanded. "i was sure, from the feel of your mind, that you ... but with a mind of such depth and breadth, such tremendous scope and power, you must be incorruptible!" "i am," came the dry rejoinder. "we all are. no rigellian is, or ever will be or can be, what you think of as 'corrupt' or 'corruptible'. indeed, it is only by the narrowest, most intense concentration upon every line of your thought that i can translate your meaning into a concept possible for any of us even to understand." "then what ... oh, i see. i was starting at the wrong end. naturally enough, i suppose, i looked first for the qualities rarest in my own race." "of course. our minds have ample scope and range; and, perhaps, sufficient power. but those qualities which you refer to as 'force' and 'drive' are fully as rare among us as absolute mental integrity is among you. what you know as 'crime' is unknown. we have no police, no government, no laws, no organized armed forces of any kind. we take, practically always, the line of least resistance. we live and let live, as your thought runs. we work together for the common good." "well ... i don't know what i expected to find here, but certainly not this...." if samms had never before been completely thunderstruck, completely at a loss, he was then. "you don't think, then, that there is any chance?" "i have been thinking, and there may be a chance ... a slight one, but still a chance," the rigellian said, slowly. "for instance, that youth, so full of curiosity, who first visited your planet. thousands of us have wondered, to ourselves and to each other, about the peculiar qualities of mind which compelled him and others to waste so much time, effort, and wealth upon a project so completely useless as exploration. why, he had even to develop energies and engines theretofore unknown, and which can never be of any real use!" samms was shaken by the calm finality with which the rigellian dismissed all possibility of the usefulness of inter-stellar exploration, but stuck doggedly to his purpose. "however slight the chance, i must find and talk to this man. i suppose he is now out in deep space somewhere. have you any idea where?" "he is now in his home city, accumulating funds and manufacturing fuel with which to continue his pointless activities. that city is named ... that is, in your english you might call it ... suntown? sunberg? no, it must be more specific ... rigelsville? rigel city?" "rigelston, i would translate it?" samms hazarded. "exactly--rigelston." the professor marked its location upon a globular mental map far more accurate and far more detailed than the globe which captain winfield and his lieutenant were then studying. "thanks. now, can you and will you get in touch with this explorer and ask him to call a meeting of his full crew and any others who might be interested in the project i have outlined?" "i can. i will. he and his kind are not quite sane, of course, as you know; but i do not believe that even they are so insane as to be willing to subject themselves to the environment of your vessel." "they will not be asked to come here. the meeting will be held in rigelston. if necessary, i shall insist that it be held there." "you would? i perceive that you would. it is strange ... yes, fantastic ... you are quarrelsome, pugnacious, anti-social, vicious, small-bodied and small-brained; timid, nervous, and highly and senselessly excitable; unbalanced and unsane; as sheerly monstrous mentally as you are physically...." these outrageous thoughts were sent as casually and as impersonally as though the sender were discussing the weather. he paused, then went on: "and yet, to further such a completely visionary project, you are eager to subject yourself to conditions whose counterparts i could not force myself, under any circumstances whatever, to meet. it may be ... it must be true that there is an extension of the principle of working together for the common good which my mind, for lack of pertinent data, has not been able to grasp. i am now en rapport with dronvire the explorer." "ask him, please, not to identify himself to me. i do not want to go into that meeting with any preconceived ideas." "a balanced thought," the rigellian approved. "someone will be at the airport to point out to you the already desolated area in which the space-ship of the explorers makes its so-frightful landings; dronvire will ask someone to meet you at the airport and bring you to the place of meeting." the telepathic line snapped and samms turned a white and sweating face to the _chicago's_ captain. "god, what a strain! don't ever try telepathy unless you positively have to--especially not with such an outlandishly _different_ race as these rigellians are!" "don't worry; i won't." winfield's words were not at all sympathetic, but his tone was. "you looked as though somebody was beating your brains out with a spiked club. where next, first lensman?" samms marked the location of rigelston upon the vessel's chart, then donned ear-plugs and a special, radiation-proof suit of armor, equipped with refrigerators and with extra-thick blocks of lead glass to protect the eyes. the airport, an extremely busy one well outside the city proper, was located easily enough, as was the spot upon which the tellurian ship was to land. lightly, slowly, she settled downward, her jets raving out against a gravity fully twice that of her native earth. those blasts, however, added little or nothing to the destruction already accomplished by the craft then lying there--a torpedo-shaped cruiser having perhaps one-twentieth of the _chicago's_ mass and bulk. the superdreadnaught landed, sinking into the hard, dry ground to a depth of some ten or fifteen feet before she stopped. samms, en rapport with the entity who was to be his escort, made a flashing survey of the mind so intimately in contact with his own. no use. this one was not and never could become lensman material. he climbed heavily down the ladder. this double-normal gravity made the going a bit difficult, but he could stand that a lot better than some of the other things he was going to have to take. the rigellian equivalent of an automobile was there, waiting for him, its door invitingly open. samms had known--in general--what to expect. the two-wheeled chassis was more or less similar to that of his own dillingham. the body was a narrow torpedo of steel, bluntly pointed at both ends, and without windows. two features, however, were both unexpected and unpleasant--the hard, tough steel of which that body was forged was an inch and a half thick, instead of one-sixteenth; and even that extraordinarily armored body was dented and scarred and marred, especially about the fore and rear quarters, as deeply and as badly and as casually as are the fenders of an earthly jalopy! the lensman climbed, not easily or joyously, into that grimly forbidding black interior. black? it was so black that the port-hole-like doorway seemed to admit no light at all. it was blacker than a witch's cat in a coal cellar at midnight! samms flinched; then, stiffening, thought at the driver. "my contact with you seems to have slipped. i'm afraid that i will have to cling to you rather more tightly than may be either polite or comfortable. deprived of sight, and without your sense of perception, i am practically helpless." "come in, lensman, by all means. i offered to maintain full engagement, but it seemed to me that you declined it; quite possibly the misunderstanding was due to our unfamiliarity with each others' customary mode of thought. relax, please, and come in ... there! better?" "infinitely better. thanks." and it was. the darkness vanished; through the unexplainable perceptive sense of the rigellian he could "see" everything--he had a practically perfect three-dimensional view of the entire circumambient sphere. he could see both the inside and the outside of the ground car he was in and of the immense space-ship in which he had come to rigel iv. he could see the bearings and the wrist-pins of the internal-combustion engine of the car, the interior structure of the welds that held the steel plates together, the busy airport outside, and even deep into the ground. he could see and study in detail the deepest-buried, most heavily shielded parts of the atomic engines of the _chicago_. but he was wasting time. he could also plainly see a deeply-cushioned chair, designed to fit a human body, welded to a stanchion and equipped with half a dozen padded restraining straps. he sat down quickly; strapped himself in. "ready?" "ready." the door banged shut with a clangor which burst through space-suit and ear-plugs with all the violence of a nearby thunderclap. and that was merely the beginning. the engine started--an internal-combustion engine of well over a thousand horsepower, designed for maximum efficiency by engineers in whose lexicon there were no counterparts of any english words relating to noise, or even to sound. the car took off; with an acceleration which drove the tellurian backward, deep into the cushions. the scream of tortured tires and the crescendo bellowing of the engine combined to form an uproar which, amplified by and reverberating within the resonant shell of metal, threatened to addle the very brain inside the lensman's skull. "you suffer!" the driver exclaimed, in high concern. "they cautioned me to start and stop gently, to drive slowly and carefully, to bump softly. they told me you are frail and fragile, a fact which i perceived for myself and which has caused me to drive with the utmost possible care and restraint. is the fault mine? have i been too rough?" "not at all. it isn't that. it's the ungodly noise." then, realizing that the rigellian could have no conception of his meaning, he continued quickly: "the vibrations in the atmosphere, from sixteen cycles per second up to about nine or ten thousand." he explained what a second was. "my nervous system is very sensitive to those vibrations. but i expected them and shielded myself against them as adequately as i could. nothing can be done about them. go ahead." "atmospheric vibrations? _atmospheric_ vibrations? atmospheric _vibrations_?" the driver marveled, and concentrated upon this entirely new concept while he-1. swung around a steel-sheathed concrete pillar at a speed of at least sixty miles per hour, grazing it so closely that he removed one layer of protective coating from the metal. 2. braked so savagely to miss a wildly careening truck that the restraining straps almost cut samms' body, space-suit and all, into slices. 3. darted into a hole in the traffic so narrow that only tiny fractions of inches separated his hurtling juggernaut from an enormous steel column on one side and another speeding vehicle on the other. 4. executed a double-right-angle reverse curve, thus missing by hair's breadths two vehicles traveling in the opposite direction and one in his own. 5. as a grand climax to this spectacular exhibition of insane driving, he plunged at full speed into a traffic artery which seemed so full already that it could not hold even one more car. but it could--just barely could. however, instead of near misses or grazing hits, this time there were bumps, dents--little ones, nothing at all, really, only an inch or so deep--and an utterly hellish concatenation and concentration of noise. "i fail completely to understand what effect such vibrations could have," the rigellian announced finally, sublimely unconscious that anything at all out of the ordinary had occurred. for him, nothing had. "but surely they cannot be of any use?" "on this world, i am afraid not. no," samms admitted, wearily. "here, too, apparently, as everywhere, the big cities are choking themselves to death with their own traffic." "yes. we build and build, but never have roads enough." "what are those mounds along the streets?" for some time samms had been conscious of those long, low, apparently opaque structures; attracted to them because they were the only non-transparent objects within range of the rigellian's mind. "or is it something i should not mention?" "what? oh, those? by no means." one of the nearby mounds lost its opacity. it was filled with swirling, gyrating bands and streamers of energy so vivid and so solid as to resemble fabric; with wildly hurtling objects of indescribable shapes and contours; with brilliantly flashing symbols which samms found, greatly to his surprise, made sense--not through the rigellian's mind, but through his own lens: "eat teegmee's food!" "advertising!" samms' thought was a snort. "advertising. you do not perceive yours, either, as you drive?" this was the first bond to be established between two of the most highly advanced races of the first galaxy! the frightful drive continued; the noise grew worse and worse. imagine, if you can, a city of fifteen millions of people, throughout whose entire length, breadth, height, and depth no attempt whatever had ever been made to abate any noise, however violent or piercing! if your imagination has been sufficiently vivid and if you have worked understandingly enough, the product may approximate what first lensman samms was forced to listen to that day. through ever-thickening traffic, climbing to higher and ever higher roadways between towering windowless walls of steel, the massive rigellian automobile barged and banged its way. finally it stopped, a thousand feet or so above the ground, beside a building which was still under construction. the heavy door clanged open. they got out. and then--it chanced to be daylight at the time--samms saw a tangle of fighting, screaming _colors_ whose like no entity possessing the sense of sight had ever before imagined. reds, yellows, blues, greens, purples, and every variation and inter-mixture possible; laid on or splashed on or occurring naturally at perfect random, smote his eyes as violently as the all-pervading noise had been assailing his ears. he realized then that through his guide's sense of perception he had been "seeing" only in shades of gray, that to these people "visible" light differed only in wave-length from any other band of the complete electromagnetic spectrum of vibration. strained and tense, the lensman followed his escort along a narrow catwalk, through a wall upon which riveters and welders were busily at work, into a room practically without walls and ceiled only by story after story of huge i-beams. yet _this_ was the meeting-place; almost a hundred rigellians were assembled there! and as samms walked toward the group a craneman dropped a couple of tons of steel plate, from a height of eight or ten feet, upon the floor directly behind him. "i just about jumped right out of my armor," is the way samms himself described his reactions; and that description is perhaps as good as any. at any rate, he went briefly out of control, and the rigellian sent him a steadying, inquiring, wondering thought. he could no more understand the tellurian's sensitivity than samms could understand the fact that to these people, even the concept of physical intrusion was absolutely incomprehensible. these builders were not workmen, in the tellurian sense. they were rigellians, each working his few hours per week for the common good. they would be no more in contact with the meeting than would their fellows on the other side of the planet. samms closed his eyes to the riot of clashing colors, deafened himself by main strength to the appalling clangor of sound, forced himself to concentrate every fiber of his mind upon his errand. "please synchronize with my mind, as many of you as possible," he thought at the group as a whole, and went en rapport with mind after mind after mind. and mind after mind after mind lacked something. some were stronger than others, had more initiative and drive and urge, but none would quite do. until-"thank god!" in the wave of exultant relief, of fulfillment, samms no longer saw the colors or heard the din. "you, sir, are of lensman grade. i perceive that you are dronvire." "yes, virgil samms, i am dronvire; and at long last i know what it is that i have been seeking all my life. but how of these, my other friends? are not some of them...?" "i do not know, nor is it necessary that i find out. you will select ..." samms paused, amazed. the other rigellians were still in the room, but mentally, he and dronvire were completely alone. "they anticipated your thought, and, knowing that it was to be more or less personal, they left us until one of us invites them to return." "i like that, and appreciate it. you will go to arisia. you will receive your lens. you will return here. you will select and send to arisia as many or as few of your fellows as you choose. these things i require you, by the lens of arisia, to do. afterward--please note that this is in no sense obligatory--i would like very much to have you visit earth and accept appointment to the galactic council. will you?" "i will." dronvire needed no time to consider his decision. the meeting was dismissed. the same entity who had been samms' chauffeur on the in-bound trip drove him back to the _chicago_, driving as "slowly" and as "carefully" as before. nor, this time, did the punishment take such toll, even though samms knew that each terrific lunge and lurch was adding one more bruise to the already much-too-large collection discoloring almost every square foot of his tough hide. he had succeeded, and the thrill of success had its usual analgesic effect. the _chicago's_ captain met him in the air-lock and helped him remove his suit. "are you _sure_ you're all right, samms?" winfield was no longer the formal captain, but a friend. "even though you didn't call, we were beginning to wonder ... you look as though you'd been to a valerian clambake, and i sure as hell don't like the way you're favoring those ribs and that left leg. i'll tell the boys you got back in a-prime shape, but i'll have the doctors look you over, just to make sure." winfield made the announcement, and through his lens samms could plainly feel the wave of relief and pleasure that spread throughout the great ship with the news. it surprised him immensely. who was _he_, that all these boys should care so much whether he lived or died? "i'm perfectly all right," samms protested. "there's nothing at all the matter with me that twenty hours of sleep won't fix as good as new." "maybe; but you'll go to the sick-bay first, just the same," winfield insisted. "and i suppose you want me to blast back to tellus?" "right. and fast. the ambassadors' ball is next tuesday evening, you know, and that's one function i can't stay away from, even with a class a double prime excuse." chapter 6 the ambassadors' ball, one of the most ultra-ultra functions of the year, was well under way. it was not that everyone who was anyone was there; but everyone who was there was, in one way or another, very emphatically someone. thus, there were affairs at which there were more young and beautiful women, and more young and handsome men; but none exhibiting newer or more expensive gowns, more ribbons and decorations, more or costlier or more refined jewelry, or a larger acreage of powdered and perfumed epidermis. and even so, the younger set was well enough represented. since pioneering appeals more to youth than to age, the men representing the colonies were young; and their wives, together with the daughters and the second (or third or fourth, or occasionally the fifth) wives of the human personages practically balanced the account. nor was the throng entirely human. the time had not yet come, of course, when warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing monstrosities from hundreds of other solar systems would vie in numbers with the humanity present. there were, however, a few martians on the floor, wearing their light "robes du convention" and dancing with meticulously mathematical precision. a few venerians, who did not dance, sat in state or waddled importantly about. many worlds of the solarian system, and not a few other systems, were represented. one couple stood out, even against that opulent and magnificent background. eyes followed them wherever they went. the girl was tall, trim, supple; built like a symphony. her callistan vexto-silk gown, of the newest and most violent shade of "radio-active" green, was phosphorescently luminous; fluorescent; gleaming and glowing. its hem swept the floor, but above the waist it vanished mysteriously except for wisps which clung to strategic areas here and there with no support, apparently, except the personal magnetism of the wearer. she, almost alone of all the women there, wore no flowers. her only jewelry was a rosette of huge, perfectly-matched emeralds, perched precariously upon her bare left shoulder. her hair, unlike the other women's flawless coiffures, was a flamboyant, artistically-disarranged, red-bronze-auburn mop. her soft and dewy eyes--virgilia samms could control her eyes as perfectly as she could her highly educated hands--were at the moment gold-flecked, tawny wells of girlish innocence and trust. "but i _can't_ give you this next dance, too, herkimer--_honestly_ i can't!" she pleaded, snuggling just a trifle closer into the embrace of the young man who was just as much man, physically, as she was woman. "i'd just _love_ to, really, but i just simply _can't_, and you know why, too." "you've got some duty-dances, of course ..." "_some?_ i've got a list as long as from here to there! senator morgan first, of course, then mr. isaacson, then i sat one out with mr. ossmen--i can't _stand_ venerians, they're so slimy and fat and repulsive!--and that leathery horned toad from mars and that jovian hippopotamus ..." she went down the list, and as she named or characterized each entity another finger of her left hand pressed down upon the back of her partner's right, to emphasize the count of her social obligations. but those talented fingers were doing more--far, far more--than that. herkimer third, although no little of a don juan, was a highly polished, smoothly finished, thoroughly seasoned diplomat. as such, his eyes and his other features--particularly his eyes--had been schooled for years to reveal no trace of whatever might be going on inside his brain. if he had entertained any suspicion of the beautiful girl in his arms, if anyone had suggested that she was trying her best to pump him, he would have smiled the sort of smile which only the top-drawer diplomat can achieve. he was not suspicious of virgilia samms. however, simply because she was virgil samms' daughter, he took an extra bit of pain to betray no undue interest in any one of the names she recited. and besides, she was not looking at his eyes, nor even at his face. her glance, demurely downcast, was all too rarely raised above the level of his chin. there were some things, however, that herkimer herkimer third did not know. that virgilia samms was the most accomplished muscle-reader of her times. that she was so close to him, not because of his manly charm, but because only in that position could she do her prodigious best. that she could work with her eyes alone, but in emergencies, when fullest possible results were imperative, she had to use her exquisitely sensitive fingers and her exquisitely tactile skin. that she had studied intensively, and had tabulated the reactions of, each of the entities on her list. that she was now, with his help, fitting those reactions into a pattern. and finally, that that pattern was beginning to assume the grim shape of murder! and virgilia samms, working now for something far more urgent and vastly more important than a figmental galactic patrol, hoped desperately that this herkimer was not a muscle-reader too; for she knew that she was revealing her secrets even more completely than was he. in fact, if things got much worse, he could not help but feel the pounding of her heart ... but she could explain that easily enough, by a few appropriate wiggles ... no, he wasn't a reader, definitely not. he wasn't watching the right places; he was looking where that gown had been designed to make him look, and nowhere else ... and no tell-tale muscles lay beneath any part of either of his hands. as her eyes and her fingers and her lovely torso sent more and more information to her keen brain, jill grew more and more anxious. she was sure that murder was intended, but who was to be the victim? her father? probably. pops kinnison? possibly. somebody else? barely possibly. and when? and where? and how? she _didn't know_! and she would have to be _sure_ ... mentioning names hadn't been enough, but a personal appearance ... why _didn't_ dad show up--or did she wish he wouldn't come at all...? virgil samms entered the ball-room. "and dad told me, herkimer," she cooed sweetly, gazing up into his eyes for the first time in over a minute, "that i must dance with every one of them. so you see ... oh, there he is now, over there! i've been wondering where he's been keeping himself." she nodded toward the entrance and prattled on artlessly. "he's almost _never_ late, you know, and i've ..." he looked, and as his eyes met those of the first lensman, jill learned three of the facts she needed so badly to know. her father. here. soon. she never knew how she managed to keep herself under control; but, some way and just barely, she did. although nothing showed, she was seething inwardly: wrought up as she had never before been. what could she do? she _knew_, but she did not have a scrap or an iota of visible or tangible evidence; and if she made one single slip, however slight, the consequences could be immediate and disastrous. after this dance might be too late. she could make an excuse to leave the floor, but that would look very bad, later ... and none of them would lens her, she knew, while she was with herkimer--_damn_ such chivalry!... she _could_ take the chance of waving at her father, since she hadn't seen him for so long ... no, the smallest risk would be with mase. he looked at her every chance he got, and she'd _make_ him use his lens ... northrop looked at her; and over herkimer's shoulder, for one fleeting instant, she allowed her face to reveal the terrified appeal she so keenly felt. "want me, jill?" his lensed thought touched only the outer fringes of her mind. full rapport is more intimate than a kiss: no one except her father had ever really put a lens on virgilia samms. nevertheless: "_want_ you! i never wanted anybody so much in my life! come in, mase--quick--_please_!" diffidently enough, he came; but at the first inkling of the girl's news all thought of diffidence or of privacy vanished. "jack! spud! mr. kinnison! mr. samms!" he lensed sharp, imperative, almost frantic thoughts. "listen in!" "steady, mase, i'll take over," came roderick kinnison's deeper, quieter mental voice. "first, the matter of guns. anybody except me wearing a pistol? you are, spud?" "yes, sir." "you would be. but you and mase, jack?" "we've got our lewistons!" "you would have. blasters, my sometimes-not-quite-so-bright son, are fine weapons indeed for certain kinds of work. in emergencies, it is of course permissible to kill a few dozen innocent bystanders. in such a crowd as this, though, it is much better technique to kill only the one you are aiming at. so skip out to my car, you two, right now, and change--and make it _fast_." everyone knew that roderick kinnison's car was at all times an arsenal on wheels. "wish you were in uniform, too, virge, but it can't be helped now. work your way--_slowly_--around to the northwest corner. spud, do the same." "it's impossible--starkly unthinkable!" and "i'm not _sure_ of anything, really ..." samms and his daughter began simultaneously to protest. "virgil, you talk like a man with a paper nose. keep still until after you've used your brain. and i'm sure enough of what you know, jill, to take plenty of steps. you can relax now--take it easy. we're covering virgil and i called up support in force. you _can_ relax a little, i see. good! i'm not trying to hide from anybody that the next few minutes may be critical. are you pretty sure, jill, that herkimer is a key man?" "pretty sure, pops." _how_ much better she felt, now that the lensmen were on guard! "in this one case, at least." "good! then let him talk you into giving him every dance, right straight through until something breaks. watch him. he must know the signal and who is going to operate, and if you can give us a fraction of a second of warning it will help no end. can do?" "i'll say i can--and i would love to, the big, slimy, stinking skinker!" as transliterated into words, the girl's thought may seem a trifle confused, but kinnison knew exactly what she meant. "one more thing, jill; a detail. the boys are coming back in and are working their partners over this way. see if herkimer notices that they have changed their holsters." "no, he didn't notice," jill reported, after a moment. "but i don't notice any difference, either, and i'm looking for it." "nevertheless, it's there, and the difference between a mark seventeen and a mark five is something more than that between tweedledum and tweedledee," kinnison returned, dryly. "however, it may not be as obvious to non-military personnel as it is to us. that's far enough, boys, don't get too close. now, virge, keep solidly en rapport with jill on one side and with us on the other, so that she won't have to give herself and the show away by yelling and pointing, and ..." "but this is preposterous!" samms stormed. "preposterous, hell," roderick kinnison's thought was still coldly level; only the fact that he was beginning to use non-ballroom language revealed any sign of the strain he was under. "stop being so goddam heroic and start using your brain. you turned down fifty billion credits. why do you suppose they offered that much, when they can get anybody killed for a hundred? and what would they do about it?" "but they couldn't get away with it, rod, at an ambassadors' ball. they _couldn't_, possibly." "formerly, no. that was my first thought, too. but it was you who pointed out to me, not so long ago, that the techniques of crime have changed of late. in the new light, the swankier the brawl the greater the confusion and the better the chance of getting away clean. comb _that_ out of your whiskers, you red-headed mule!" "well ... there might be something in it, after all ..." samms' thought showed apprehension at last. "you know damn well there is. but you boys--jack and mase especially--loosen up. you can't do good shooting while you're strung up like a couple of cocoons. do something--talk to your partners or think at jill ..." "that won't be hard, sir." mason northrop grinned feebly. "and that reminds me of something, jill. mentor certainly bracketed the target when he--or she, or it, maybe--said that you would never need a lens." "huh?" jill demanded, inelegantly. "i don't see the connection, if any." "no? everybody else does, i'll bet. how about it?" the other lensmen, even samms, agreed enthusiastically. "well, do you think that any of those characters, particularly herkimer herkimer third, would let a harness bull in harness--even such a beautiful one as you--get close enough to him to do such a davey the dip act on his mind?" "oh ... i never thought of that, but it's right, and i'm glad ... but pops, you said something about 'support in force.' have you any idea how long it will be? i _hope_ i can hold out, with you all supporting me, but ..." "you can, jill. two or three minutes more, at most." "support? in force? what do you mean?" samms snapped. "just that. the whole damned army," kinnison replied. "i sent two-star commodore alexander clayton a thought that lifted him right out of his chair. everything he's got, at full emergency blast. armor--mark eighty fours--six by six extra heavies--a ninety sixty for an ambulance--full escort, upstairs and down--way-friskers--'copters--cruisers and big stuff--in short, the works. i would have run with you before this, if i dared; but the minute the relief party shows up, we do a flit." "if you _dared_?" jill asked, shaken by the thought. "exactly, my dear. i don't dare. if they start anything we'll do our damnedest, but i'm praying they won't." but kinnison's prayers--if he made any--were ignored. jill heard a sharp, but very usual and insignificant sound; someone had dropped a pencil. she felt an inconspicuous muscle twitch slightly. she saw the almost imperceptible tensing of a neck-muscle which would have turned herkimer's head in a certain direction if it had been allowed to act. her eyes flashed along that line, searched busily for milli-seconds. a man was reaching unobtrusively, as though for a handkerchief. but men at ambassadors' balls do not carry blue handkerchiefs; nor does any fabric, however dyed, resemble at all closely the blued steel of an automatic pistol. jill would have screamed, then, and pointed; but she had time to do neither. through her rapport with her father the lensmen saw everything that she saw, in the instant of her seeing it. hence five shots blasted out, practically as one, before the girl could scream, or point, or even move. she did scream, then; but since dozens of other women were screaming, too, it made no difference--then. conway costigan, trigger-nerved spacehound that he was and with years of gun-fighting and of hand-to-hand brawling in his log, shot first; even before the gunman did. it was costigan's blinding speed that saved virgil samms' life that day; for the would-be assassin was dying, with a heavy slug crashing through his brain, before he finished pulling the trigger. the dying hand twitched upward. the bullet intended for samms' heart went high; through the fleshy part of the shoulder. roderick kinnison, because of his age, and his son and northrop, because of their inexperience, were a few milli-seconds slow. they, however, were aiming for the body, not for the head; and any of those three resulting wounds would have been satisfactorily fatal. the man went down, and stayed down. samms staggered, but did not go down until the elder kinnison, as gently as was consistent with the maximum of speed, threw him down. "stand back! get back! give him air!" men began to shout, the while pressing closer themselves. "you men, stand back. some of you go get a stretcher. you women, come here." kinnison's heavy, parade-ground voice smashed down all lesser noises. "is there a doctor here?" there was; and, after being "frisked" for weapons, he went busily to work. "joy--betty--jill--clio," kinnison called his own wife and their daughter, virgilia samms, and mrs. costigan. "you four first. now you--and you--and you--and you...." he went on, pointing out large, heavy women wearing extremely extreme gowns, "stand here, right over him. cover him up, so that nobody else can get a shot at him. you other women, stand behind and between these--closer yet--fill those spaces up solid--there! jack, stand there. mase, there. costigan, the other end; i'll take this one. now, everybody, listen. i know damn well that none of you women are wearing guns above the waist, and you've all got long skirts--thank god for ballgowns! now, fellows, if any one of these women makes a move to lift her skirt, blow her brains out, right then, without waiting to ask questions." "sir, i protest! this is outrageous!" one of the dowagers exclaimed. "madam, i agree with you fully. it is." kinnison smiled as genuinely as he could under the circumstances. "it is, however, _necessary_. i will apologize to all you ladies, and to you, doctor--in writing if you like--after we have virgil samms aboard the _chicago_; but until then i would not trust my own grandmother." the doctor looked up. "the _chicago_? this wound does not appear to be a very serious one, but this man is going to a hospital at once. ah, the stretcher. so ... please ... easy ... there, that is excellent. call an ambulance, please, immediately." "i did. long ago. but no hospital, doctor. all those windows--open to the public--or the whole place bombed--by no means. i'm taking no chances whatever." "except with your own life!" jill put in sharply, looking up from her place at her father's side. assured that the first lensman was in no danger of dying, she had begun to take interest in other things. "you are important, too, you know, and you're standing right out there in the open. get another stretcher, lie down on it, and we'll guard you, too ... and don't be too stiff-necked to take your own advice!" she flared, as he hesitated. "i'm not, if it were necessary, but it isn't. if they had killed him, yes. i'd probably be next in line. but since he got only a scratch, there'd be no point at all in killing even a _good_ number two." "a _scratch_!" jill fairly seethed. "do you call that horrible wound a _scratch_?" "huh? why, certainly--that's all it is--thanks to you," he returned, in honest and complete surprise. "no bones shattered--no main arteries cut--missed the lung--he'll be as good as new in a couple of weeks." "and now," he went on aloud, "if you ladies will please pick up this stretcher we will move en masse, and _slowly_, toward the door." the women, no longer indignant but apparently enjoying the sensation of being the center of interest, complied with the request. "now, boys," kinnison lensed a thought. "did any of you--costigan?--see any signs of a concerted rush, such as there would have been to get the killer away if we hadn't interfered?" "no, sir," came costigan's brisk reply. "none within sight of me." "jack and mase--i don't suppose you looked?" they hadn't--had not thought of it in time. "you'll learn. it takes a few things like this to make it automatic. but i couldn't see any, either, so i'm fairly certain there wasn't any. smart operators--quick on the uptake." "i'd better get at this, sir, don't you think, and let operation boskone go for a while?" costigan asked. "i don't think so." kinnison frowned in thought. "this operation was _planned_, son, by people with brains. any clues you could find now would undoubtedly be plants. no, we'll let the regulars look; we'll stick to our own ..." sirens wailed and screamed outside. kinnison sent out an exploring thought. "alex?" "yes. where do you want this ninety-sixty with the doctors and nurses? it's too wide for the gates." "go through the wall. across the lawn. right up to the door, and never mind the frippery they've got all over the place--have your adjutant tell them to bill us for damage. samms is shot in the shoulder. not too serious, but i'm taking him to the hill, where i know he'll be safe. what have you got on top of the umbrella, the _boise_ or the _chicago_? i haven't had time to look up yet." "both." "good man." jack kinnison started at the monstrous tank, which was smashing statues, fountains, and ornamental trees flat into the earth as it moved ponderously across the grounds, and licked his lips. he looked at the companies of soldiers "frisking" the route, the grounds, and the crowd--higher up, at the hovering helicopters--still higher, at the eight light cruisers so evidently and so viciously ready to blast--higher still, at the long streamers of fire which, he now knew, marked the locations of the two most powerful engines of destruction ever built by man--and his face turned slowly white. "good lord, dad!" he swallowed twice. "i had no idea ... but they might, at that." "not 'might', son. they damn well would, if they could get here soon enough with heavy enough stuff." the elder kinnison's jaw-muscles did not loosen, his darting eyes did not relax their vigilance for a fraction of a second as he lensed the thought. "you boys can't be expected to know it all, but right now you're learning fast. get this--paste it in your iron hats. _virgil samms' life is the most important thing in this whole damned universe!_ if they had got him then it would not, strictly speaking, have been my fault, but if they get him now, it will be." the land cruiser crunched to a stop against the very entrance, and a white-clad man leaped out. "let me look at him, please..." "not yet!" kinnison denied, sharply. "not until he's got four inches of solid steel between him and whoever wants to finish the job they started. get your men around him, and get him aboard--fast!" samms, protected at every point at every instant, was lifted into the maw of the ninety-sixty; and as the massive door clanged shut kinnison heaved a tremendous sigh of relief. the cavalcade moved away. "coming with us, rod?" commodore clayton shouted. "yes, but got a couple minutes' work here yet. have a staff car wait for me, and i'll join you." he turned to the three young lensmen and the girl. "this fouls up our plans a little, but not too much--i hope. no change in mateese or boskone; you and costigan, jill, can go ahead as planned. northrop, you'll have to brief jill on zwilnik and find out what she knows. virgil was going to do it tonight, after the brawl here, but you know as much about it now as any of us. check with knobos, dalnalten, and fletcher--while virgil is laid up you and jack may have to work on both zabriska and zwilnik--he'll lens you. get the dope, then do as you think best. get going!" he strode away toward the waiting staff-car. "boskone? zwilnik?" jill demanded. "what gives? what are they, jack?" "we don't know yet--maybe we're going to name a couple of planets..." "piffle!" she scoffed. "can _you_ talk sense, mase? what's boskone?" "a simple, distinctive, pronounceable coined word; suggested, i believe, by dr. bergenholm ..." he began. "you know what i mean, you ..." she broke in, but was silenced by a sharply lensed thought from jack. his touch was very light, barely sufficient to make conversation possible; but even so, she flinched. "use your brain, jill; you aren't thinking a lick--not that you can be blamed for it. stop talking; there may be lip-readers or high-powered listeners around. this feels funny, doesn't it?" he twitched mentally and went on: "you already know what operation mateese is, since it's your own dish--politics. operation zwilnik is drugs, vice, and so on. operation boskone is pirates; spud is running that. operation zabriska is mase and me checking some peculiar disturbances in the sub-ether. come in, mase, and do your stuff--i'll see you later, aboard. clear ether, jill!" young kinnison vanished from the fringes of her mind and northrop appeared. and what a difference! his mind touched hers as gingerly as jack's had done; as skittishly, as instantaneously ready to bolt away from anything in the least degree private. however, jack's mind had rubbed hers the wrong way, right from the start--and mase's didn't! "now, about this operation zwilnik," jill began. "something else first. i couldn't help noticing, back there, that you and jack ... well, not out of phase, exactly, or really out of sync, but sort of ... well, as though ..." "'hunting'?" she suggested. "not exactly ... 'forcing' might be better--like holding a tight beam together when it wants to fall apart. so you noticed it yourself?" "of course, but i thought jack and i were the only ones who did. like scratching a blackboard with your finger-nails--you _can_ do it, but you're awfully glad to stop ... and i _like_ jack, too, darn it--at a distance." "and you and i fit like precisely tuned circuits. jack really meant it, then, when he said that you ... that is, he ... i didn't quite believe it until now, but if ... you know, of course, what you've already done to me." jill's block went on, full strength. she arched her eyebrows and spoke aloud--"why, i haven't the _faintest_ idea!" "of course not. that's why you're using voice. i've found out, too, that i can't lie with my mind. i feel like a heel and a louse, with so much job ahead, but you've simply got to tell me something. then--whatever you say--i'll hit the job with everything i've got. do i get heaved out between planets without a space-suit, or not?" "i don't think so." jill blushed vividly, but her voice was steady. "you would rate a space-suit, and enough oxygen to reach another plan--another goal. and now we'd better get to work, don't you think?" "yes. thanks, jill, a million. i know as well as you do that i was talking out of turn, and how much--but i had to know." he breathed deep. "and that's all i ask--for now. cut your screens." she lowered her mental barriers, finding it surprisingly easy to do so in this case; let them down almost as far as she was in the habit of doing with her father. he explained in flashing thoughts everything he knew of the four operations, concluding: "i'm not assigned to zabriska permanently; i'll probably work with you on mateese after your father gets back into circulation. i'm to act more as a liaison man--neither knobos nor dalnalten knows you well enough to lens you. right?" "yes, i've met mr. knobos only once, and have never even seen dr. dalnalten." "ready to visit them, via lens?" "yes. go ahead." the two lensmen came in. they came into his mind, not hers. nevertheless their thoughts, superimposed upon northrop's, came to the girl as clearly as though all four were speaking to each other face to face. "what a _weird_ sensation!" jill exclaimed. "why, i never _imagined_ anything like it!" "we are sorry to trouble you, miss samms...." jill was surprised anew. the silent voice deep within her mind was of characteristically martian timber, but instead of the harshly guttural consonants and the hissing sibilants of any martian's best efforts at english, pronunciation and enunciation were flawless. "oh, i didn't mean that. it's no trouble at all, really, i just haven't got used to this telepathy yet." "none of us has, to any noticeable degree. but the reason for this call is to ask you if you have anything new, however slight, to add to our very small knowledge of zwilnik?" "very little, i'm afraid; and that little is mostly guesses, deductions, and jumpings at conclusions. father told you about the way i work, i suppose?" "yes. exact data is not to be expected. hints, suggestions, possible leads, will be of inestimable value." "well, i met a very short, very fat venerian, named ossmen, at a party at the european embassy. do either of you know him?" "i know of him," dalnalten replied. "a highly reputable merchant, with such large interests on tellus that he has to spend most of his time here. he is not in any one of our books ... although there is nothing at all surprising in that fact. go on, please, miss samms." "he didn't come to the party with senator morgan; but he came to some kind of an agreement with him that night, and i am pretty sure that it was about thionite. that's the only new item i have." "_thionite!_" the three lensmen were equally surprised. "yes. thionite. definitely." "how _sure_ are you of this, miss samms?" knobos asked, in deadly earnest. "i am not _sure_ that this particular agreement was about thionite, no; but the probability is roughly nine-tenths. i _am_ sure, however, that both senator morgan and ossmen know a lot about thionite that they want to hide. both gave very high positive reactions--well beyond the six-sigma point of virtual certainty." there was a pause, broken by the martian, but not by a thought directed at any one of the three. "sid!" he called, and even jill could feel the lensed thought speed. "yes, knobos? fletcher." "that haul-in you made, out in the asteroids. heroin, hadive, and ladolian, wasn't it? no thionite involved anywhere?" "no thionite. however, you must remember that part of the gang got away, so all i can say positively is that we didn't see, or hear about, any thionite. there was some gossip, of course: but you know there always is." "of course. thanks, sid." jill could feel the brilliant martian's mental gears whirl and click. then he went into such a flashing exchange of thought with the venerian that the girl lost track in seconds. "one more question, miss samms?" dalnalten asked. "have you detected any indications that there may be some connection between either ossmen or morgan and any officer or executive of interstellar spaceways?" "_spaceways!_ isaacson?" jill caught her breath. "why ... nobody even thought of such a thing--at least, nobody ever mentioned it to me--i never thought of making any such tests." "the possibility occurred to me only a moment ago, at your mention of thionite. the connection, if any exists, will be exceedingly difficult to trace. but since most, if not all, of the parties involved will probably be included in your operation mateese, and since a finding, either positive or negative, would be tremendously significant, we feel emboldened to ask you to keep this point in mind." "why, of course i will. i'll be very glad to." "we thank you for your courtesy and your help. one or both of us will get in touch with you from time to time, now that we know the pattern of your personality. may immortal grolossen speed the healing of your father's wound." chapter 7 late that night--or, rather, very early the following morning--senator morgan and his number one secretary were closeted in the former's doubly spy-ray-proofed office. morgan's round, heavy, florid face had perhaps lost a little of its usual color; the fingers of his left hand drummed soundlessly upon the glass top of his desk. his shrewd gray eyes, however, were as keen and as calculating as ever. "this thing smells, herkimer ... it _reeks_ ... but i can't figure any of the angles. that operation was _planned_. sure fire, it _couldn't_ miss. right up to the last split second it worked perfectly. then--blooie! a flat bust. the patrol landed and everything was under control. there _must_ have been a leak somewhere--but where in hell could it have been?" "there couldn't have been a leak, chief; it doesn't make sense." the secretary uncrossed his long legs, recrossed them in the other direction, threw away a half-smoked cigarette, lit another. "if there'd been any kind of a leak they would have done a lot more than just kill the low man on the ladder. you know as well as i do that rocky kinnison is the hardest-boiled character this side of hell. if he had known anything, he would have killed everybody in sight, including you and me. besides, if there had been a leak, he would not have let samms get within ten thousand miles of the place--that's one sure thing. another is he wouldn't have waited until after it was all over to get his army there. no, chief, there couldn't have been a leak. whatever samms or kinnison found out--probably samms, he's a hell of a lot smarter than kinnison is, you know--he learned right there and then. he must have seen brainerd start to pull his gun." "i thought of that. i'd buy it, except for one fact. apparently you didn't time the interval between the shots and the arrival of the tanks." "sorry, chief." herkimer's face was a study in chagrin. "i made a bad slip there." "i'll say you did. one minute and fifty eight seconds." "_what!_" morgan remained silent. "the patrol is fast, of course ... and always ready ... and they would yank the stuff in on tractor beams, not under their own power ... but even so ... five minutes, is my guess, chief. four and a half, absolute minimum." "check. and where do you go from there?" "i see your point. i don't. that blows everything wide open. one set of facts says there was a leak, which occurred between two and a half and three minutes before the signal was given. i ask you, chief, does that make sense?" "no. that's what is bothering me. as you say, the facts seem to be contradictory. somebody must have learned something before anything happened; but if they did, why didn't they do more? and murgatroyd. if they didn't know about him, why the ships--especially the big battlewagons? if they did think he might be out there somewhere, why didn't they go and find out?" "now i'll ask one. why didn't our mr. murgatroyd do something? or wasn't the pirate fleet supposed to be in on this? probably not, though." "my guess would be the same as yours. can't see any reason for having a fleet cover a one-man operation, especially as well-planned a one as this was. but that's none of our business. these lensmen are. i was watching them every second. neither samms nor kinnison did anything whatever during that two minutes." "young kinnison and northrop each left the hall about that time." "i know it. so they did. either one of them _could_ have called the patrol--but what has that to do with the price of beef c. i. f. valeria?" herkimer refrained tactfully from answering the savage question. morgan drummed and thought for minutes, then went on slowly: "there are two, and only two, possibilities; neither of which seem even remotely possible. it was--_must_ have been--either the lens or the girl." "the girl? act your age, senator. i knew where _she_ was, and what she was doing, every second." "that was evident." morgan stopped drumming and smiled cynically. "i'm getting a hell of a kick out of seeing you taking it, for a change, instead of dishing it out." "yes?" herkimer's handsome face hardened. "that game isn't over, my friend." "that's what _you_ think," the senator jibed. "can't believe that any woman _can_ be herkimer-proof, eh? you've been working on her for six weeks now, instead of the usual six hours, and you haven't got anywhere yet." "i will, senator." herkimer's nostrils flared viciously. "i'll get her, one way or another, if it's the last thing i ever do." "i'll give you eight to five you don't; and a six-month time limit." "i'll take five thousand of that. but what makes you think that she's anything to be afraid of? she's a trained psychologist, yes; but so am i; and i'm older and more experienced than she is. that leaves that yoga stuff--her learning how to sit cross-legged, how to contemplate her navel, and how to try to get in tune with the infinite. how do you figure _that_ puts her in my class?" "i told you, i don't. nothing makes sense. but she is virgil samms' daughter." "what of it? you didn't gag on george olmstead--you picked him yourself for one of the toughest jobs we've got. by blood he's just about as close to virgil samms as virgilia is. they might as well have been hatched out of the same egg." "physically, yes. mentally and psychologically, no. olmstead is a realist, a materialist. he wants his reward in this world, not the next, and is out to get it. furthermore, the job will probably kill him, and even if it doesn't, he will never be in a position of trust or where he can learn much of anything. on the other hand, virgil samms is--but i don't need to tell you what _he_ is like. but you don't seem to realize that she's just like him--she isn't playing around with you because of your overpowering charm...." "listen, chief. she didn't know anything and she didn't do anything. i was dancing with her all the time, as close as that," he clasped his hands tightly together, "so i know what i'm talking about. and if you think she could _ever_ learn anything from me, skip it. you know that nobody on earth, or anywhere else, can read my face; and besides, she was playing coy right then--wasn't even looking at me. so count her out." "we'll have to, i guess." morgan resumed his quiet drumming. "if there were any possibility that she pumped you i'd send you to the mines, but there's no sign ... that leaves the lens. it has seemed, right along, more logical than the girl--but a lot more fantastic. been able to find out anything more about it?" "no. just what they've been advertising. combination radio-phone, automatic language-converter, telepath, and so on. badge of the top skimmings of the top-bracket cops. but i began to think, out there on the floor, that they aren't advertising everything they know." "so did i. you tell me." "take the time zero minus three minutes. besides the five lensmen--and jill samms--the place was full of top brass; scrambled eggs all over the floor. commodores and lieutenant-commodores from all continental governments of the earth, the other planets, and the colonies, all wearing full-dress side-arms. nobody knew anything then; we agree on that. but within the next few seconds, somebody found out something and called for help. one of the lensmen could possibly have done that without showing signs. but--at zero time all four lensmen had their guns out--and _not_ lewistons, please note--and were shooting; whereas none of the other armed officers knew that anything was going on until after it was all over. that puts the finger on the lens." "that's the way i figured it. but the difficulties remain unchanged. _how?_ mind-reading?" "space-drift!" herkimer snorted. "my mind can't be read." "nor mine." "and besides, if they could read minds, they wouldn't have waited until the last possible split second to do it, unless ... say, wait a minute!... did brainerd act or look nervous, toward the last? i wasn't to look at him, you know." "not nervous, exactly; but he did get a little tense." "there you are, then. hired murderers aren't smart. a lensman saw him tighten up and got suspicious. turned in the alarm on general principles. warned the others to keep on their toes. but even so, it doesn't look like mind-reading--they'd have killed him sooner. they were watchful, and mighty quick on the draw." "that could be it. that's about as thin and as specious an explanation as i ever saw cooked up, but it _does_ cover the facts ... and the two of us will be able to make it stick ... but take notice, pretty boy, that certain parties are not going to like this at all. in fact, they are going to be very highly put out." "that's a nice hunk of understatement, boss. but notice one beautiful thing about this story?" herkimer grinned maliciously. "it lets us pass the buck to big jim towne. we can be--and will be--sore as hell because he picks such weak-sister characters to do his killings!" * * * * * in the heavily armored improvised ambulance, virgil samms sat up and directed a thought at his friend kinnison, finding his mind a turmoil of confusion. "what's the matter, rod?" "plenty!" the big lensman snapped back. "they were--maybe still are--too damn far ahead of us. something has been going on that we haven't even suspected. i stood by, as innocent as a three-year-old girl baby, and let you walk right into that one--and i emphatically do not enjoy getting caught with my pants down that way. it makes me jumpy. this may be all, but it may not be--not by eleven thousand light-years--and i'm trying to dope out what is going to happen next." "and what have you deduced?" "nothing. i'm stuck. so i'm tossing it into your lap. besides, that's what you are getting paid for, thinking. so go ahead and think. what would you be doing, if you were on the other side?" "i see. you think, then, that it might not be good technique to take the time to go back to the spaceport?" "you get the idea. but--can you stand transfer?" "certainly. they got my shoulder dressed and taped, and my arm in a sling. shock practically all gone. some pain, but not much. i can walk without falling down." "fair enough. clayton!" he lensed a vigorous thought. "have any of the observers spotted anything, high up or far off?" "no, sir." "good. kinnison to commodore clayton, orders. have a 'copter come down and pick up samms and myself on tractors. instruct the _boise_ and the cruisers to maintain utmost vigilance. instruct the _chicago_ to pick us up. detach the _chicago_ and the _boise_ from your task force. assign them to me. off." "clayton to commissioner kinnison. orders received and are being carried out. off." the transfers were made without incident. the two super-dreadnaughts leaped into the high stratosphere and tore westward. half-way to the hill, kinnison called dr. frederick rodebush. "fred? kinnison. have cleve and bergenholm link up with us. now--how are the geigers on the outside of the hill behaving?" "normal, all of them," the physicist-lensman reported after a moment. "why?" kinnison detailed the happenings of the recent past. "so tell the boys to unlimber all the stuff the hill has got." "my god!" cleveland exclaimed. "why, that's putting us back to the days of the interplanetary wars!" "with one notable exception," kinnison pointed out. "the attack, if any, will be strictly modern. i hope we'll be able to handle it. one good thing, the old mountain's got a lot of sheer mass. how much radioactivity will it stand?" "allotropic iron, u-235, or plutonium?" rodebush seized his slide-rule. "what difference does it make?" "from a practical standpoint ... perhaps none. but with a task force defending, not many bombs could get through, so i'd say ..." "i wasn't thinking so much of bombs." "what, then?" "isotopes. a good, thick blanket of dust. slow-speed, fine stuff that neither our ships nor the hill's screens could handle. we've got to decide, first, whether virgil will be safer there in the hill or out in space in the _chicago_; and second, for how long." "i see ... i'd say here, _under_ the hill. months, perhaps years, before anything could work down this far. and we can _always_ get out. no matter how hot the surface gets, we've got enough screen, heavy water, cadmium, lead, mercury, and everything else necessary to get him out through the locks." "that's what i was hoping you'd say. and now, about the defense ... i wonder ... i don't want everybody to think i've gone completely hysterical, but i'll be damned if i want to get caught again with...." his thought faded out. "may i offer a suggestion, sir?" bergenholm's thought broke the prolonged silence. "i'd be very glad to have it--your suggestions so far haven't been idle vaporings. another hunch?" "no, sir, a logical procedure. it has been some months since the last emergency call-out drill was held. if you issue such another call now, and nothing happens, it can be simply another surprise drill; with credit, promotion, and monetary awards for the best performances; further practice and instruction for the less proficient units." "splendid, dr. bergenholm!" samms' brilliant and agile mind snatched up the thought and carried it along. "and what a chance, rod, for something vastly larger and more important than a continental, or even a tellurian, drill--make it the first maneuver of the galactic patrol!" "i'd like to, virge, but we can't. my boys are ready, but you aren't. no top appointments and no authority." "that can be arranged in a very few minutes. we have been waiting for the psychological moment. this, especially if trouble should develop, is the time. you yourself expect an attack, do you not?" "yes. i would not start anything unless and until i was ready to finish it, and i see no reason for assuming that whoever it was that tried to kill you is not at least as good a planner as i am." "and the rest of you...? dr. bergenholm?" "my reasoning, while it does not exactly parallel that of commissioner kinnison, leads to the same conclusion; that an attack in great force is to be expected." "not _exactly_ parallel?" kinnison demanded. "in what respects?" "you do not seem to have considered the possibility, commissioner, that the proposed assassination of first lensman samms could very well have been only the first step in a comprehensive operation." "i didn't ... and it _could_ have been. so go ahead, virge, with...." the thought was never finished, for samms had already gone ahead. simultaneously, it seemed, the minds of eight other lensmen joined the group of tellurians. samms, intensely serious, spoke aloud to his friend: "the galactic council is now assembled. do you, roderick k. kinnison, promise to uphold, in as much as you conscientiously can and with all that in you lies, the authority of this council throughout all space?" "i promise." "by virtue of the authority vested in me its president by the galactic council, i appoint you port admiral of the galactic patrol. my fellow councillors are now inducting the armed forces of their various solar systems into the galactic patrol ... it will not take long ... there, you may make your appointments and issue orders for the mobilization." the two super-dreadnaughts were now approaching the hill. the _boise_ stayed "up on top"; the _chicago_ went down. kinnison, however, paid very little attention to the landing or to samms' disembarkation, and none whatever to the _chicago's_ reascent into the high heavens. he knew that everything was under control; and, now alone in his cabin, he was busy. "all personnel of all armed forces just inducted into the galactic patrol, attention!" he spoke into an ultra-wave microphone, the familiar parade-ground rasp very evident in his deep and resonant voice. "kinnison of tellus, port admiral, speaking. each of you has taken oath to the galactic patrol?" they had. "at ease. the organization chart already in your hands is made effective as of now. enter in your logs the date and time. promotions: commodore clayton of north america, tellus...." in his office at new york spaceport clayton came to attention and saluted crisply; his eyes shining, his deeply-scarred face alight. "... to be admiral of the first galactic region. commodore schweikert of europe, tellus ..." in berlin a narrow-waisted, almost foppish-seeming man, with roached blond hair and blue eyes, bowed stiffly from the waist and saluted punctiliously. "... to be lieutenant-admiral of the first galactic region." and so on, down the list. a marshal and a lieutenant-marshal of the solarian system; a general and a lieutenant-general of the planet sol three. promotions, agreed upon long since, to fill the high offices thus vacated. then the list of commodores upon other planets--guindlos of redland, mars; sesseffsen of talleron, venus; raymond of the jovian sub-system; newman of alphacent; walters of sirius; van-meeter of valeria; adams of procyon; roberts of altair; barrtell of fomalhout; armand of vega; and coigne of aldebaran--each of whom was actually the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of a world. each of these was made general of his planet. "except for lieutenant-commodores and up, who will tune their minds to me--dismissed!" kinnison stopped talking and went onto his lens. "that was for the record. i don't need to tell you, fellows, how glad i am to be able to do this. you're tops, all of you--i don't know of anybody i'd rather have at my back when the ether gets rough ..." "right back at you, chief!" "same to you rod!" "rocky rod, port admiral!" "now we're blasting!" came a melange of thoughts. those splendid men, with whom he had shared so much of danger and of stress, were all as jubilant as schoolboys. "but the thing that makes this possible may also make it necessary for us to go to work; to earn your extra stars and my wheel." kinnison smothered the welter of thoughts and outlined the situation, concluding: "so you see it may turn out to be only a drill--but on the other hand, since the outfit is big enough to have built a war-fleet alone, if it wanted one, and since it may have had a lot of first-class help that none of us knows anything about, we may be in for the damndest battle that any of us ever saw. so come prepared for _anything_. i am now going back onto voice, for the record. "kinnison to the commanding officers of all fleets, sub-fleets, and task-forces of the galactic patrol. information. subject, tactical problem; defense of the hill against a postulated black fleet of unknown size, strength, and composition; of unknown nationality or origin; coming from an unknown direction in space at an unknown time. "kinnison to admiral clayton. orders. take over. i am relinquishing command of the _boise_ and the _chicago_." "clayton to port admiral kinnison. orders received. taking over. i am at the _chicago's_ main starboard lock. i have instructed ensign masterson, the commanding officer of this gig, to wait; that he is to take you down to the hill." "what? of all the damned...." this was a thought, and unrecorded. "sorry, rod--i'm sorry as hell, and i'd like no end to have you along." this, too, was a thought. "but that's the way it is. ordinary admirals ride the ether with their fleets. port admirals stay aground. i report to you, and you run things--in broad--by remote control." "i see." kinnison then lensed a fuming thought at samms. "alex _couldn't_ do this to me--and wouldn't--and knows damn well that i'd burn him to a crisp if he had the guts to try it. so it's _your_ doing--what in hell's the big idea?" "who's being heroic now, rod?" samms asked, quietly. "use _your_ brain. and then come down here, where you belong." and kinnison, after a long moment of rebellious thought and with as much grace as he could muster, came down. down not only to the patrol's familiar offices, but down into the deepest crypts beneath them. he was glum enough, and bitter, at first: but he found much to do. grand fleet headquarters--_his_ headquarters--was being organized, and the best efforts of the best minds and of the best technologists of three worlds were being devoted to the task of strengthening the already extremely strong defenses of the hill. and in a very short time the plates of gfhq showed that admiral clayton and lieutenant-admiral schweikert were doing a very nice job. all of the really heavy stuff was of earth, the mother planet, and was already in place; as were the less numerous and much lighter contingents of mars, of venus, and of jove. and the fleets of the outlying solar systems--cutters, scouts, and a few light cruisers--were neither maintaining fleet formation nor laying course for sol. instead, each individual vessel was blasting at maximum for the position in space in which it would form one unit of a formation englobing at a distance of light-years the entire solarian system, and each of those hurtling hundreds of ships was literally combing all circumambient space with its furiously-driven detector beams. "nice." kinnison turned to samms, now beside him at the master plate. "couldn't have done any better myself." "after you get it made, what are you going to do with it in case nothing happens?" samms was still somewhat skeptical. "how long can you make a drill last?" "until all the ensigns have long gray whiskers if i have to, but don't worry--if we have time to get the preliminary globe made i'll be the surprisedest man in the system." and kinnison was not surprised; before full englobement was accomplished, a loud-speaker gave tongue. "flagship _chicago_ to grand fleet headquarters!" it blatted, sharply. "the black fleet has been detected. ra twelve hours, declination plus twenty degrees, distance about thirty light-years...." kinnison started to say something; then, by main force, shut himself up. he wanted intensely to take over, to tell the boys out there exactly what to do, but he couldn't. he was now a big shot--damn the luck! he could be and must be responsible for broad policy and for general strategy, but, once those vitally important decisions had been made, the actual work would have to be done by others. he didn't like it--but there it was. those flashing thoughts took only an instant of time. "... which is such extreme range that no estimate of strength or composition can be made at present. we will keep you informed." "acknowledge," he ordered randolph; who, wearing now the five silver bars of major, was his chief communications officer. "no instructions." he turned to his plate. clayton hadn't had to be told to pull in his light stuff; it was all pelting hell-for-leather for sol and tellus. three general plans of battle had been mapped out by staff. each had its advantages--and its disadvantages. operation acorn--long distance--would be fought at, say, twelve light-years. it would keep everything, particularly the big stuff, away from the hill, and would make automatics useless ... _unless_ some got past, or _unless_ the automatics were coming in on a sneak course, or _unless_ several other things--in any one of which cases _what_ a god-awful shellacking the hill would take! he grinned wryly at samms, who had been following his thought, and quoted: "a vast hemisphere of lambent violet flame, through which neither material substance nor destructive ray can pass." "well, that dedicatory statement, while perhaps a bit florid, was strictly true at the time--before the days of allotropic iron and of polycyclic drills. now i'll quote one: 'nothing is permanent except change'." "uh-huh," and kinnison returned to his thinking. operation adack. middle distance. uh-uh. he didn't like it any better now than he had before, even though some of the big brains of staff thought it the ideal solution. a compromise. all of the disadvantages of both of the others, and none of the advantages of either. it _still_ stunk, and unless the black fleet had an utterly fantastic composition operation adack was out. and virgil samms, quietly smoking a cigarette, smiled inwardly. rod the rock could scarcely be expected to be in favor of any sort of compromise. that left operation affick. close up. it had three tremendous advantages. first, the hill's own offensive weapons--as long as they lasted. second, the new rodebush-bergenholm fields. third, no sneak attack could be made without detection and interception. it had one tremendous disadvantage; some stuff, and probably a lot of it, would get through. automatics, robots, guided missiles equipped with super-speed drives, with polycyclic drills, and with atomic war-heads strong enough to shake the whole world. but with those new fields, shaking the world wouldn't be enough; in order to get deep enough to reach virgil samms they would damn near have to destroy the world. could _anybody_ build a bomb that powerful? he didn't think so. earth technology was supreme throughout all known space; of earth technologists the north americans were, and always had been, tops. grant that the black fleet was, basically, north american. grant further that they had a man as good as adlington--or that they could spy-ray adlington's brain and laboratories and shops--a tall order. adlington himself was several months away from a world-wrecker, unless he could put one a hundred miles down before detonation, which simply was not feasible. he turned to samms. "it'll be affick, virge, unless they've got a composition that is radically different from anything i ever saw put into space." "so? i can't say that i am very much surprised." the calm statement and the equally calm reply were beautifully characteristic of the two men. kinnison had not asked, nor had samms offered, advice. kinnison, after weighing the facts, made his decision. samms, calmly certain that the decision was the best that could be made upon the data available, accepted it without question or criticism. "we've still got a minute or two," kinnison remarked. "don't quite know what to make of their line of approach. coma berenices. i don't know of anything at all out that way, do you? they could have detoured, though." "no, i don't." samms frowned in thought. "probably a detour." "check." kinnison turned to randolph. "tell them to report whatever they know; we can't wait any ..." as he was speaking the report came in. the black fleet was of more or less normal make-up; considerably larger than the north american contingent, but decidedly inferior to the patrol's present grand fleet. either three or four capital ships ... "and we've got six!" kinnison said, exultantly. "our own two, asia's _himalaya_, africa's _johannesburg_, south america's _bolivar_, and europe's _europa_." ... battle cruisers and heavy cruisers, about in the usual proportions; but an unusually high ratio of scouts and light cruisers. there were either two or three large ships which could not be classified definitely at that distance; long-range observers were going out to study them. "tell clayton," kinnison instructed randolph, "that it is to be operation affick, and for him to fly at it." "report continued," the speaker came to life again. "there are three capital ships, apparently of approximately the _chicago_ class, but tear-drop-shaped instead of spherical ..." "ouch!" kinnison flashed a thought at samms. "i don't like that. they can both fight and run." "... the battle cruisers are also tear-drops. the small vessels are torpedo-shaped. there are three of the large ships, which we are still not able to classify definitely. they are spherical in shape, and very large, but do not seem to be either armed or screened, and are apparently carriers--possibly of automatics. we are now making contact--off!" instead of looking at the plates before them, the two lensmen went en rapport with clayton, so that they could see everything he saw. the stupendous cone of battle had long since been formed; the word to fire was given in a measured two-second call. every firing officer in every patrol ship touched his stud in the same split second. and from the gargantuan mouth of the cone there spewed a miles-thick column of energy so raw, so stark, so incomprehensibly violent that it must have been seen to be even dimly appreciated. it simply cannot be described. its prototype, triplanetary's cylinder of annihilation, had been a highly effective weapon indeed. the offensive beams of the fish-shaped nevian cruisers of the void were even more powerful. the cleveland-rodebush projectors, developed aboard the original _boise_ on the long nevian way, were stronger still. the composite beam projected by this fleet of the galactic patrol, however, was the sublimation and quintessence of each of these, redesigned and redesigned by scientists and engineers of ever-increasing knowledge, rebuilt and rebuilt by technologists of ever-increasing skill. capital ships and a few of the heaviest cruisers could mount screen generators able to carry that frightful load; but every smaller ship caught in that semi-solid rod of indescribably incandescent fury simply flared into nothingness. but in the instant before the firing order was given--as though precisely timed, which in all probability was the case--the ever-watchful observers picked up two items of fact which made the new admiral of the first galactic region cut his almost irresistible weapon and break up his cone of battle after only a few seconds of action. one: those three enigmatic cargo scows had fallen apart _before_ the beam reached them, and hundreds--yes, thousands--of small objects had hurtled radially outward, out well beyond the field of action of the patrol's beam, at a speed many times that of light. two: kinnison's forebodings had been prophetic. a swarm of blacks, all small--must have been hidden right on earth somewhere!--were already darting at the hill from the south. "cease firing!" clayton rapped into his microphone. the dreadful beam expired. "break cone formation! independent action--light cruisers and scouts, _get those bombs_! heavy cruisers and battle cruisers, engage similar units of the blacks, two to one if possible. _chicago_ and _boise_, attack black number one. _bolivar_ and _himalaya_, number two. _europa_ and _johannesburg_, number three!" space was full of darting, flashing, madly warring ships. the three black super-dreadnaughts leaped forward as one. their massed batteries of beams, precisely synchronized and aimed, lashed out as one at the nearest patrol super heavy, the _boise_. under the vicious power of that beautifully-timed thrust that warship's first, second, and third screens, her very wall-shield, flared through the spectrum and into the black. her chief pilot, however, was fast--_very_ fast--and he had a fraction of a second in which to work. thus, practically in the instant of her wall-shield's failure, she went free; and while she was holed badly and put out of action, she was not blown out of space. in fact, it was learned later that she lost only forty men. the blacks were not as fortunate. the _chicago_, now without a partner, joined beams with the _bolivar_ and the _himalaya_ against number two; then, a short half-second later, with her other two sister-ships against number three. and in that very short space of time two black super-dreadnaughts ceased utterly to be. but also, in that scant second of time, black number one had all but disappeared! her canny commander, with no stomach at all for odds of five to one against, had ordered flight at max; she was already one-sixtieth of a light-year--about one hundred thousand million miles--away from the earth and was devoting her every energy to the accumulation of still more distance. "_bolivar!_ _himalaya!_" clayton barked savagely. "get him!" he wanted intensely to join the chase, but he couldn't. he had to stay here. and he didn't have time even to swear. instead, without a break, the words tripping over each other against his teeth: "_chicago!_ _johannesburg!_ _europa!_ act at will against heaviest craft left. blast 'em down!" he gritted his teeth. the scouts and light cruisers were doing their damndest, but they were out-numbered three to one--christ, what a lot of stuff was getting through! the blacks wouldn't last long, between the hill and the heavies ... but maybe long enough, at that--the patrol globe was leaking like a sieve! he voiced a couple of bursts of deep-space profanity and, although he was almost afraid to look, sneaked a quick peek to see how much was left of the hill. he looked--and stopped swearing in the middle of a four-letter anglo-saxon word. what he saw simply did not make sense. those black bombs should have peeled the armor off of that mountain like the skin off of a nectarine and scattered it from the pacific to the mississippi. by now there should be a hole a mile deep where the hill had been. but there wasn't. the hill was still there! it might have shrunk a little--clayton couldn't see very well because of the worse-than-incandescent radiance of the practically continuous, sense-battering, world-shaking atomic detonations--_but the hill was still there_! and as he stared, chilled and shaken, at that indescribably terrific spectacle, a black cruiser, holed and helpless, fell toward that armored mountain with an acceleration starkly impossible to credit. and when it struck it did not penetrate, and splash, and crater, as it should have done. instead, it simply spread out, _in a thin layer_, over an acre or so of the fortress' steep and apparently still armored surface! "you saw that, alex? good. otherwise you could scarcely believe it," came kinnison's silent voice. "tell all our ships to stay away. there's a force of over a hundred thousand g's acting in a direction normal to every point of our surface. the boys are giving it all the decrement they can--somewhere between distance cube and fourth power--but even so it's pretty fierce stuff. how about the _bolivar_ and the _himalaya_? not having much luck catching mr. black, are they?" "why, i don't know. i'll check ... no, sir, they aren't. they report that they are losing ground and will soon lose trace." "i was afraid so, from that shape. rodebush was about the only one who saw it coming ... well, we'll have to redesign and rebuild ..." * * * * * port admiral kinnison, shortly after directing the foregoing thought, leaned back in his chair and smiled. the battle was practically over. the hill had come through. the rodebush-bergenholm fields had held her together through the most god-awful session of saturation atomic bombing that any world had ever seen or that the mind of man had ever conceived. and the counter-forces had kept the interior rock from flowing like water. so far, so good. her original armor was gone. converted into ... what? for hundreds of feet inward from the surface she was hotter than the reacting slugs of the hanfords. delousing her would be a project, not an operation; millions of cubic yards of material would have to be hauled off into space with tractors and allowed to simmer for a few hundred years; but what of that? bergenholm had said that the fields would tend to prevent the radioactives from spreading, as they otherwise would--and _virgil samms was still safe_! "virge, my boy, come along." he took the first lensman by his good arm and lifted him out of his chair. "old doctor kinnison's peerless prescription for you and me is a big, thick, juicy, porterhouse steak." chapter 8 that murderous attack upon virgil samms, and its countering by those new super-lawmen, the lensmen, and by an entire task force of the north american armed forces, was news of civilization-wide importance. as such, it filled every channel of universal telenews for an hour. then, in stunning and crescendo succession, came the staccato reports of the creation of the galactic patrol, the mobilization--allegedly for maneuvers--of galactic patrol's grand fleet, and the ultimately desperate and all-too-nearly successful attack upon the hill. "just a second, folks; we'll have it very shortly. you'll see something that nobody ever saw before and that nobody will ever see again. we're getting in as close as the law will let us." the eyes of telenews' ace reporter and the telephoto lens of his cameraman stared down from a scooter at the furiously smoking, sputteringly incandescent surface of triplanetary's ancient citadel; while upon dozens of worlds thousands of millions of people packed themselves tighter and tighter around tens of millions of visiplates and loud-speakers in order to see and to hear the tremendous news. "there it is, folks, look at it--the only really impregnable fortress ever built by man! a good many of our experts had it written off as obsolete, long ago, but it seems these lensmen had something up their sleeves besides their arms, heh-heh! and speaking of lensmen, they haven't been throwing their weight around, so most of us haven't noticed them very much, but this reporter wants to go on record right now as saying there must be a lot more to the lens than any of us has thought, because otherwise nobody would have gone to all that trouble and expense, to say nothing of the tremendous loss of life, just to kill the chief lensman, which seems to have been what they were after. "we told you a few minutes ago, you know, that every continent of civilization sent official messages denying most emphatically any connection with this outrage. it's still a mystery, folks; in fact, it is getting more and more mysterious all the time. _not one single man of the black fleet was taken alive!_ not even in the ships that were only holed--they blew themselves up! and there were no uniforms or books or anything of the kind to be found in any of the wrecks--no identification whatever! "and now for the scoop of all time! universal telenews has obtained permission to interview the two top lensmen, both of whom you all know--virgil samms and 'rod the rock' kinnison--personally for this beam. we are now going down, by remote control, of course, right into the galactic patrol office, right in the hill itself. here we are. now if you will step just a little closer to the mike, please, mr. samms, or should i say...?" "you should say 'first lensman samms'," kinnison said bruskly. "oh, yes, first lensman samms. thank you, mr. kinnison. now, first lensman samms, our clients all want to know all about the lens. we all know what it _does_, but what, really, _is_ it? who invented it? how does it work?" kinnison started to say something, but samms silenced him with a thought. "i will answer those questions by asking you one." samms smiled disarmingly. "do you remember what happened because the pirates learned to duplicate the golden meteor of the triplanetary service?" "oh, i see." the telenews ace, although brash and not at all thin-skinned, was quick on the uptake. "hush-hush? t. s.?" "top secret. very much so," samms confirmed, "and we are going to keep some things about the lens secret as long as we possibly can." "fair enough. sorry folks, but you will agree that they're right on that. well, then, mr. samms, who do you think it was that tried to kill you, and where do you think the black fleet came from?" "i have no idea," samms said, slowly and thoughtfully. "no. no idea whatever." "what? are you _sure_ of that? aren't you holding back maybe just a little bit of a suspicion, for diplomatic reasons?" "i am holding nothing back; and through my lens i can make you certain of the fact. lensed thoughts come from the mind itself, direct, not through such voluntary muscles as the tongue. the mind does not lie--even such lies as you call 'diplomacy'." the lensman demonstrated and the reporter went on: "he is _sure_, folks, which fact knocked me speechless for a second or two--which is quite a feat in itself. now, mr. samms, one last question. what is all this lens stuff really about? what are all you lensmen--the galactic council and so on--really up to? what do you expect to get out of it? and why would anybody want to make such an all-out effort to get rid of you? and give it to me on the lens, please, if you can do it and talk at the same time--that was a wonderful sensation, folks, of getting the dope straight and _knowing_ that it was straight." "i can and will answer both by voice and by lens. our basic purpose is ..." and he quoted verbatim the resounding sentences which mentor had impressed so ineradicably upon his mind. "you know how little happiness, how little real well-being, there is upon any world today. we propose to increase both. what we expect to get out of it is happiness and well-being for ourselves, the satisfaction felt by any good workman doing the job for which he is best fitted and in which he takes pride. as to why anyone should want to kill me, the logical explanation would seem to be that some group or organization or race, opposed to that for which we lensmen stand, decided to do away with us and started with me." "thank you, mr. samms. i am sure that we all enjoyed this interview very much. now, folks, you all know 'rocky rod', 'rod the rock', kinnison ... just a little closer, please ... thank you. i don't suppose you have any suspicions, either, any more than...." "i certainly have!" kinnison barked, so savagely that five hundred million people jumped as one. "how do you want it; voice, or lens, or both?" then on the lens: "think it over, son, because _i suspect everybody_!" "bub-both, please, mr. kinnison." even universal's star reporter was shaken by the quiet but deadly fury of the big lensman's thought, but he rallied so quickly that his hesitation was barely noticeable. "your lensed thought to me was that you suspect _everybody_, mr. kinnison?" "just that. everybody. i suspect every continental government of every world we know, including that of north america of tellus. i suspect political parties and organized minorities. i suspect pressure groups. i suspect capital and i suspect labor. i suspect an organization of criminals. i suspect nations and races and worlds that no one of us has as yet heard of--not even you, the top-drawer newshawk of the universe." "but you have nothing concrete to go on, i take it?" "if i did have, do you think i'd be standing here talking to you?" * * * * * first lensman samms sat in his private quarters and thought. lensman dronvire of rigel four stood behind him and helped him think. port admiral kinnison, with all his force and drive, began a comprehensive program of investigation, consolidation, expansion, redesigning, and rebuilding. virgilia samms went to a party practically every night. she danced, she flirted, she talked. _how_ she talked! meaningless small talk for the most part--but interspersed with artless questions and comments which, while they perhaps did not put her partner of the moment completely at ease, nevertheless did not quite excite suspicion. conway costigan, lens under sleeve, undisguised but inconspicuous, rode the ether-lanes; observing minutely and reporting fully. jack kinnison piloted and navigated and computed for his friend and boat-mate: mason northrop; who, completely surrounded by breadboard hookups of new and ever-more-fantastic complexity, listened and looked; listened and tuned; listened and rebuilt; listened and--finally--took bearings and bearings and bearings with his ultra-sensitive loops. dalnalten and knobos, with dozens of able helpers, combed the records of three worlds in a search which produced as a by-product a monumental "who's who" of crime. skilled technicians fed millions of cards, stack by stack, into the most versatile and most accomplished machines known to the statisticians of the age. and dr. nels bergenholm, abandoning temporarily his regular line of work, devoted his peculiar talents to a highly abstruse research in the closely allied field of organic chemistry. the walls of virgil samms' quarters became covered with charts, diagrams, and figures. tabulations and condensations piled up on his desk and overflowed into baskets upon the floor. until: "lensman olmstead, of alphacent, sir," his secretary announced. "good! send him in, please." the stranger entered. the two men, after staring intently at each other for half a minute, smiled and shook hands vigorously. except for the fact that the newcomer's hair was brown, they were practically identical! "i'm certainly glad to see you, george. bergenholm passed you, of course?" "yes. he says that he can match your hair to mine, even the individual white ones. and he has made me a wig-maker's dream of a wig." "married?" samms' mind leaped ahead to possible complications. "widower, same as you. and...." "just a minute--going over this once will be enough." he lensed call after call. lensmen in various parts of space became en rapport with him and thus with each other. "lensmen--especially you, rod--george olmstead is here, and his brother ray is available. i am going to work." "i _still_ don't like it!" kinnison protested. "it's too dangerous. i told the universe i was going to keep you covered, and i _meant_ it!" "that's what makes it perfectly safe. that is, if bergenholm is _sure_ that the duplication is close enough ..." "i am sure." bergenholm's deeply resonant pseudo-voice left no doubt at all in any one of the linked minds. "the substitution will not be detected." "... and that nobody knows, george, or even suspects, that you got your lens." "i am sure of that." olmstead laughed quietly. "also, nobody except us and your secretary knows that i am here. for a good many years i have made a specialty of that sort of thing. photos, fingerprints, and so on have all been taken care of." "good. i simply can not work efficiently here," samms expressed what all knew to be the simple truth. "dronvire is a much better analyst-synthesist than i am; as soon as any significant correlation is possible he will know it. we have learned that the towne-morgan crowd, mackenzie power, ossmen industries, and interstellar spaceways are all tied in together, and that thionite is involved, but we have not been able to get any further. there is a slight correlation--barely significant--between deaths from thionite and the arrival in the solarian system of certain spaceways liners. the fact that certain officials of the earth-screen service have been and are spending considerably more than they earn sets up a slight but definite probability that they are allowing space-ships or boats from space-ships to land illegally. these smugglers carry contraband, which may or may not be thionite. in short, we lack fundamental data in every department, and it is high time for me to begin doing my share in getting it." "i don't check you, virge." none of the kinnisons ever did give up without a struggle. "olmstead is a mighty smooth worker, and you are our prime coordinator. why not let him keep up the counter-espionage--do the job you were figuring on doing yourself--and you stay here and boss it?" "i have thought of that, a great deal, and have...." "because olmstead can not do it," a hitherto silent mind cut in, decisively. "i, rularion of north polar jupiter, say so. there are psychological factors involved. the ability to separate and to evaluate the constituent elements of a complex situation; the ability to make correct decisions without hesitation; as well as many others not as susceptible to concise statement, but which collectively could be called power of mind. how say you, bergenholm of tellus? for i have perceived in you a mind approximating in some respects the philosophical and psychological depth of my own." this outrageously egotistical declaration was, to the jovian, a simple statement of an equally simple truth, and bergenholm accepted it as such. "i agree. olmstead probably could not succeed." "well, then, can samms?" kinnison demanded. "who knows?" came bergenholm's mental shrug, and simultaneously: "nobody knows whether i can or not, but i am going to try," and samms ended--almost--the argument by asking bergenholm and a couple of other lensmen to come into his office and by taking off his lens. "and that's another thing i don't like." kinnison offered one last objection. "without your lens, _anything_ can happen to you." "oh, i won't have to be without it very long. and besides, virgilia isn't the only one in the samms family who can work better--sometimes--without a lens." the lensmen came in and, in a surprisingly short time, went out. a few minutes later, two lensmen strolled out of samms' inner office into the outer one. "good-bye, george," the red-headed man said aloud, "and good luck." "same to you, chief," and the brown-haired one strode out. norma the secretary was a smart girl, and observant. in her position, she had to be. her eyes followed the man out, then scanned the lensman from toe to crown. "i've never seen anything like it, mr. samms," she remarked then. "except for the difference in coloring, and a sort of ... well, stoopiness ... he could be your identical twin. you two must have had a common ancestor--or several--not too far back, didn't you?" "we certainly did. quadruple second cousins, you might call it. we have known of each other for years, but this is the first time we have met." "quadruple second cousins? what does that mean? how come?" "well, say that once upon a time there were two men named albert and chester...." "what? not two irishmen named pat and mike? you're slipping, boss." the girl smiled roguishly. during rush hours she was always the fast, cool, efficient secretary, but in moments of ease such persiflage as this was the usual thing in the first lensman's private office. "not at all up to your usual form." "merely because i am speaking now as a genealogist, not as a raconteur. but to continue, we will say that chester and albert had four children apiece, two boys and two girls, two pairs of identical twins, each. and when they grew up--half way up, that is...." "don't tell me that we are going to suppose that all those identical twins married each other?" "exactly. why not?" "well, it would be stretching the laws of probability all out of shape. but go ahead--i can see what's coming, i think." "each of those couples had one, and only one, child. we will call those children jim samms and sally olmstead; john olmstead and irene samms." the girl's levity disappeared. "james alexander samms and sarah olmstead samms. your parents. i didn't see what was coming, after all. this george olmstead; then, is your...." "whatever it is, yes. i can't name it, either--maybe you had better call genealogy some day and find out. but it's no wonder we look alike. and there are three of us, not two--george has an identical twin brother." the red-haired lensman stepped back into the inner office, shut the door, and lensed a thought at virgil samms. "it worked, virgil! i talked to her for five solid minutes, practically leaning on her desk, and she didn't tumble! and if this wig of bergenholm's fooled _her_ so completely, the job he did on you would fool _anybody_!" "fine! i've done a little testing myself, on the keenest men i know, without a trace of recognition so far." his last lingering doubt resolved, samms boarded the ponderous, radiation-proof, neutron-proof shuttle-scow which was the only possible means of entering or leaving the hill. a fast cruiser whisked him to nampa, where olmstead's "accidentally" damaged transcontinental transport was being repaired, and from which city olmstead had been gone so briefly that no one had missed him. he occupied olmstead's space; he surrendered the remainder of olmstead's ticket. he reached new york. he took a 'copter to senator morgan's office. he was escorted into the private office of herkimer herkimer third. "olmstead. of alphacent." "yes?" herkimer's hand moved, ever so little, upon his desk's top. "here." the lensman dropped an envelope upon the desk in such fashion that it came to rest within an inch of the hand. "prints. here." samms made prints. "wash your hands, over there." herkimer pressed a button. "check all these prints, against each other and the files. check the two halves of the torn sheet, fiber to fiber." he turned to the lensless lensman, now standing quietly before his desk. "routine; a formality, in your case, but necessary." "of course." then for long seconds the two hard men stared into the hard depths of each other's eyes. "you may do, olmstead. we have had very good reports of you. but you have never been in thionite?" "no. i have never even seen any." "what do you want to get into it for?" "your scouts sounded me out; what did they tell you? the usual thing--promotion from the ranks into the brass--to get to where i can do myself and the organization some good." "yourself first, the organization second?" "what else? why should i be different from the rest of you?" this time the locked eyes held longer; one pair smoldering, the other gold-flecked, tawny ice. "why, indeed?" herkimer smiled thinly. "we do not advertise it, however." "outside, i wouldn't, either; but here i'm laying my cards flat on the table." "i see. you _will_ do, olmstead, if you live. there's a test, you know." "they told me there would be." "well, aren't you curious to know what it is?" "not particularly. _you_ passed it, didn't you?" "what do you mean by _that_ crack?" herkimer leaped to his feet; his eyes, smoldering before, now ablaze. "exactly what i said, no more and no less. you may read into it anything you please." samms' voice was as cold as were his eyes. "you picked me out because of what i am. did you think that moving upstairs would make a boot-licker out of me?" "not at all." herkimer sat down and took from a drawer two small, transparent, vaguely capsule-like tubes, each containing a few particles of purple dust. "you know what this is?" "i can guess." "each of these is a good, heavy jolt; about all that a strong man with a strong heart can stand. sit down. here is one dose. pull the cover, stick the capsule up one nostril, squeeze the ejector, and sniff. if you can leave this other dose sitting here on the desk you will live, and thus pass the test. if you can't, you die." samms sat, and pulled, and squeezed, and sniffed. his forearms hit the desk with a thud. his hands clenched themselves into fists, the tight-stretched tendons standing boldly out. his face turned white. his eyes jammed themselves shut; his jaw-muscles sprang into bands and lumps as they clamped his teeth hard together. every voluntary muscle in his body went into a rigor as extreme as that of death itself. his heart pounded; his breathing became stertorous. this was the dreadful "muscle-lock" so uniquely characteristic of thionite; the frenzied immobility of the ultimately passionate satisfaction of every desire. the galactic patrol became for him an actuality; a force for good pervading all the worlds of all the galaxies of all the universes of all existing space-time continual. he knew what the lens was, and why. he understood time and space. he knew the absolute beginning and the ultimate end. he also saw things and did things over which it is best to draw a kindly veil, for _every_ desire--mental or physical, open or sternly suppressed, noble or base--that virgil samms had ever had was being _completely satisfied_. every desire. as samms sat there, straining motionlessly upon the verge of death through sheer ecstasy, a door opened and senator morgan entered the room. herkimer started, almost imperceptibly, as he turned--had there been, or not, an instantaneously-suppressed flash of guilt in those now completely clear and frank brown eyes? "hi, chief; come in and sit down. glad to see you--this is not exactly my idea of fun." "no? when did you stop being a sadist?" the senator sat down beside his minion's desk, the fingertips of his left hand began soundlessly to drum. "you wouldn't have, by any chance, been considering the idea of...?" he paused significantly. "what an idea." herkimer's act--if it was an act--was flawless. "he's too good a man to waste." "i know it, but you didn't act as though you did. i've never seen you come out such a poor second in an interview ... and it wasn't because you didn't know to start with just what kind of a tiger he was--that's why he was selected for this job. and it would have been so easy to give him just a wee bit more." "that's preposterous, chief, and you know it." "do i? however, it couldn't have been jealousy, because he isn't being considered for your job. he won't be over you, and there's plenty of room for everybody. what was the matter? your bloodthirstiness wouldn't have taken you _that_ far, under these circumstances. come clean, herkimer." "okay--i hate the whole damned family!" herkimer burst out, viciously. "i see. that adds up." morgan's face cleared, his fingers became motionless. "you can't make the samms wench and aren't in position to skin her alive, so you get allergic to all her relatives. that adds up, but let me tell you something." his quiet, level voice carried more of menace than most men's loudest threats. "keep your love life out of business and keep that sadistic streak under control. don't let anything like this happen again." "i won't, chief. i got off the beam--but he made me so _damn_ mad!" "certainly. that's exactly what he was trying to do. elementary. if he could make you look small it would make him look big, and he just about did. but watch now, he's coming to." samms' muscles relaxed. he opened his eyes groggily; then, as a wave of humiliated realization swept over his consciousness, he closed them again and shuddered. he had always thought himself pretty much of a man; how could he _possibly_ have descended to such nauseous depths of depravity, of turpitude, of sheer moral degradation? and yet every cell of his being was shrieking its demand for more; his mind and his substance alike were permeated by an over-mastering craving to experience again the ultimate thrills which they had so tremendously, so outrageously enjoyed. there was another good jolt lying right there on the desk in front of him, even though thionite-sniffers always saw to it that no more of the drug could be obtained without considerable physical exertion; which exertion would bring them to their senses. if he took that jolt it would kill him. what of it? what was death? what good was life, except to enjoy such thrills as he had just had and was about to have again? and besides, thionite couldn't kill _him_. he was a super-man; he had just proved it! he straightened up and reached for the capsule; and that effort, small as it was, was enough to bring first lensman virgil samms back under control. the craving, however, did not decrease. rather, it increased. months were to pass before he could think of thionite, or even of the color purple, without a spasmodic catching of the breath and a tightening of every muscle. years were to pass before he could forget, even partially, the theretofore unsuspected dwellers in the dark recesses of his own mind. nevertheless, from the store of whatever it was that made him what he was, virgil samms drew strength. thumb and forefinger touched the capsule, but instead of picking it up, he pushed it across the desk toward herkimer. "put it away, bub. one whiff of that stuff will last me for life." he stared unfathomably at the secretary, then turned to morgan and nodded. "after all, he did not _say_ that he ever passed this or any other test. he just didn't contradict me when i said it." with a visible effort herkimer remained silent, but morgan did not. "you talk too much, olmstead. can you stand up yet?" gripping the desk with both hands, samms heaved himself to his feet. the room was spinning and gyrating; every individual thing in it was moving in a different and impossible orbit; his already splintered skull threatened more and more violently to emulate a fragmentation bomb; black and white spots and vari-colored flashes filled his cone of vision. he wrenched one hand free, then the other--and collapsed back into the chair. "not yet--quite," he admitted, through stiff lips. although he was careful not to show it, morgan was amazed--not that the man had collapsed, but that he had been able so soon to lift himself even an inch. "tiger" was not the word; this olmstead must be seven-eighths dinosaur. "it takes a few minutes; longer for some, not so long for others," morgan said, blandly. "but what makes you think herkimer here never took one of the same?" "huh?" again two pairs of eyes locked and held; and this time the duel was longer and more pregnant. "what do _you_ think? how do you suppose i lived to get as old as i am now? by being dumb?" morgan unwrapped a venerian cigar, settled it comfortably between his teeth, lit it, and drew three slow puffs before replying. "ah, a student. an analytical mind," he said, evenly, and--apparently--irrelevantly. "let's skip herkimer for the moment. try your hand on me." "why not? from what we hear out in the field, you have always been in the upper brackets, so you probably never had to prove that you could take it or let it alone. my guess would be, though, that you could." "the good old oil, eh?" morgan allowed his face and voice to register a modicum, precisely metered, of contempt. "how to get along in the world; lesson one: butter up the boss." "nice try, senator, but i'll have to score you a clean miss." samms, now back almost to normal, grinned companionably. "we both know that if i were still in the kindergarten i wouldn't be here now." "i'll let that one pass--this time." under that look and tone morgan's underlings were wont to cringe, but this olmstead was not the cringing type. "don't do it again. it might not be safe." "oh, it would be safe enough--for today, at least. there are two factors which you are very carefully ignoring. first, i haven't accepted the job yet." "are you innocent enough to think you'll get out of this building alive if i don't accept you?" "if you want to call it innocence, yes. oh, i know you've got gunnies all over the place, but they don't mean a thing." "no?" morgan's voice was silkily venomous. "no." olmstead was completely unimpressed. "put yourself in my place. you know i've been around a long time; and not just around my mother. i was weaned quite a number of years ago." "i see. you don't scare worth a damn. a point. and you are testing me, just as i am testing you. another point. i'm beginning to like you, george. i think i know what your second point is, but let's have it, just for the record." "i'm sure you do. any man, to be my boss, has got to be at least as good a man as i am. otherwise i take his job away from him." "fair enough. by god, i _do_ like you, olmstead!" morgan, his big face wreathed in smiles, got up, strode over, and shook hands vigorously; and samms, scan as he would, could not even hazard a guess as to how much--if any--of this enthusiasm was real. "do you want the job? and when can you go to work?" "yes, sir. two hours ago, sir." "that's fine!" morgan boomed. although he did not comment upon it, he noticed and understood the change in the form of address. "without knowing what the job is or how much it pays?" "neither is important, sir, at the moment." samms, who had got up easily enough to shake hands, now shook his head experimentally. nothing rattled. good--he was in pretty good shape already. "as to the job, i can either do it or find out why it can't be done. as to pay, i've heard you called a lot of things, but 'piker' was never one of them." "very well. i predict that you will go far." morgan again shook the lensman's hand; and again samms could not evaluate the senator's sincerity. "tuesday afternoon. new york spaceport. space-ship _virgin queen_. report to captain willoughby in the dock office at fourteen hundred hours. stop at the cashier's office on your way out. good-bye." chapter 9 piracy was rife. there was no suspicion, however, nor would there be for many years, that there was anything of very large purpose about the business. murgatroyd was simply a captain kidd of space; and even if he were actually connected with galactic spaceways, that fact would not be surprising. such relationships had always existed; the most ferocious and dreaded pirates of the ancient world worked in full partnership with the first families of that world. virgil samms was thinking of pirates and of piracy when he left senator morgan's office. he was still thinking of them while he was reporting to roderick kinnison. hence: "but that's enough about this stuff and me, rod. bring me up to date on operation boskone." "branching out no end. your guess was right that spaceways' losses to pirates are probably phony. but it wasn't the _known_ attacks--that is, those cases in which the ship was found, later, with some or most of the personnel alive--that gave us the real information. they were all pretty much alike. but when we studied the total disappearances we really hit the jack-pot." "that doesn't sound just right, but i'm listening." "you'd better, since it goes farther than even you suspected. it was no trouble at all to get the passenger lists and the names of the crews of the independent ships that were lost without a trace. their relatives and friends--we concentrated mostly on wives--could be located, except for the usual few who moved around so much that they got lost. spacemen average young, you know, and their wives are still younger. well, these young women got jobs, most of them remarried, and so on. in short, normal." "and in the case of spaceways, not normal?" "decidedly not. in the first place, you'd be amazed at how little publication was ever done of passenger lists, and apparently crew lists were not published at all. no use going into detail as to how we got the stuff, but we got it. however, nine tenths of the wives had disappeared, and none had remarried. the only ones we could find were those who did not care, even when their husbands were alive, whether they ever saw them again or not. but the big break was--you remember the disappearance of that girls'-school cruise ship?" "of course. it made a lot of noise." "an interesting point in connection with that cruise is that two days before the ship blasted off the school was robbed. the vault was opened with thermite and the whole administration building burned to the ground. all the school's records were destroyed. thus, the list of missing had to be made up from statements made by friends, relatives, and what not." "i remember something of the kind. my impression was, though, that the space-ship company furnished.... oh!" the tone of samms' thought alerted sharply. "that was spaceways, under cover?" "definitely. our best guess is that there were quite a few shiploads of women disappeared about that time, instead of one. austine's college had more students that year than ever before or since. it was the extras, not the regulars, who went on that cruise; the ones who figured it would be more convenient to disappear in space than to become ordinary missing persons." "but rod! that would mean ... but where?" "it means just that. and finding out 'where' will run into a project. there are over two thousand million suns in this galaxy, and the best estimate is that there are more than that many planets habitable by beings more or less human in type. you know how much of the galaxy has been explored and how fast the work of exploring the rest of it is going. your guess is just as good as mine as to where those spacemen and engineers and their wives and girl-friends are now. i am sure, though, of four things; none of which we can ever begin to prove. one; they didn't die in space. two; they landed on a comfortable and very well equipped tellurian planet. three; they built a fleet there. four; that fleet attacked the hill." "murgatroyd, do you suppose?" although surprised by kinnison's tremendous report, samms was not dismayed. "no idea. no data--yet." "and they'll keep on building," samms said. "they had a fleet much larger than the one they expected to meet. now they'll build one larger than all our combined forces. and since the politicians will always know what we are doing ... or it might be ... i wonder...?" "you can stop wondering." kinnison grinned savagely. "what do you mean?" "just what you were going to think about. you know the edge of the galaxy closest to tellus, where that big rift cuts in?" "yes." "across that rift, where it won't be surveyed for a thousand years, there's a planet that could be earth's twin sister. no atomic energy, no space-drive, but heavily industrialized and anxious to welcome us. project bennett. very, _very_ hush-hush. nobody except lensmen know anything about it. two friends of dronvire's--smart, smooth operators--are in charge. it's going to be the navy yard of the galactic patrol." "but rod ..." samms began to protest, his mind leaping ahead to the numberless problems, the tremendous difficulties, inherent in the program which his friend had outlined so briefly. "forget it, virge!" kinnison cut in. "it won't be easy, of course, but we can do anything they can do, and do it better. you can go calmly ahead with your own chores, knowing that when--and notice that i say 'when', not 'if'--we need it we'll have a fleet up our sleeves that will make the official one look like a task force. but i see you're at the rendezvous, and there's jill. tell her 'hi' for me. and as the vegians say--'tail high, brother!'" samms was in the hotel's ornate lobby; a couple of uniformed "boys" and jill samms were approaching. the girl reached him first. "you had no trouble in recognizing me, then, my dear?" "none at all, uncle george." she kissed him perfunctorily, the bell hops faded away. "so nice to see you--i've heard _so_ much about you. the marine room, you said?" "yes. i reserved a table." and in that famous restaurant, in the unequalled privacy of the city's noisiest and most crowded night spot, they drank sparingly; ate not-so-sparingly; and talked not sparingly at all. "it's perfectly safe here, you think?" jill asked first. "perfectly. a super-sensitive microphone couldn't hear anything, and it's so dark that a lip-reader, even if he could read us, would need a pair of twelve-inch night-glasses." "goody! they did a marvelous job, dad. if it weren't for your ... well, your personality, i wouldn't recognize you even now." "you think i'm safe, then?" "absolutely." "then we'll get down to business. you, knobos, and dalnalten all have keen and powerful minds. you can't all be wrong. spaceways, then, is tied in with both the towne-morgan gang and with thionite. the logical extension of that--dal certainly thought of it, even though he didn't mention it--would be ..." samms paused. "check. that the notorious murgatroyd, instead of being just another pirate chief, is really working for spaceways and belongs to the towne-morgan-isaacson gang. but dad--what an idea! can things be _that_ rotten, really?" "they may be worse than that. now the next thing. who, in your opinion, is the real boss?" "well, it certainly is not herkimer herkimer third." jill ticked him off on a pink forefinger. she had been asked for an opinion; she set out to give it without apology or hesitation. "he could--just about--direct the affairs of a hot-dog stand. nor is it clander. he isn't even a little fish; he's scarcely a minnow. equally certainly it is neither the venerian nor the martian. they may run planetary affairs, but nothing bigger. i haven't met murgatroyd, of course, but i have had several evaluations, and he does not rate up with towne. and big jim--and this surprised me as much as it will you--is almost certainly not the prime mover." she looked at him questioningly. "that would have surprised me tremendously yesterday; but after today--i'll tell you about that presently--it doesn't." "i'm glad of that. i expected an argument, and i have been inclined to question the validity of my own results, since they do not agree with common knowledge--or, rather, what is supposed to be knowledge. that leaves isaacson and senator morgan." jill frowned in perplexity; seemed, for the first time, unsure. "isaacson is of course a big man. able. well-informed. extremely capable. a top-notch executive. not only _is_, would _have_ to be, to run spaceways. on the other hand, i have always thought that morgan was nothing but a windbag...." jill stopped talking; left the thought hanging in air. "so did i--until today," samms agreed grimly. "i thought that he was simply an unusually corrupt, greedy, rabble-rousing politician. our estimates of him may have to be changed very radically." samms' mind raced. from two entirely different angles of approach, jill and he had arrived at the same conclusion. but, if morgan were really the big shot, would he have deigned to interview personally such small fry as olmstead? or was olmstead's job of more importance than he, samms, had supposed? "i've got a dozen more things to check with you," he went on, almost without a pause, "but since this leadership matter is the only one in which my experience would affect your judgment, i had better tell you about what happened today...." * * * * * tuesday came, and hour fourteen hundred; and samms strode into an office. there was a big, clean desk; a wiry, intense, gray-haired man. "captain willoughby?" "yes." "george olmstead reporting." "fourth officer." the captain punched a button; the heavy, sound-proof door closed itself and locked. "_fourth_ officer? new rank, eh. what does the ticket cover?" "new, and special. here's the articles; read it and sign it." he did not add "or else", it was not necessary. it was clearly evident that captain willoughby, never garrulous, intended to be particularly reticent with his new subordinate. samms read. "... fourth officer ... shall ... no duties or responsibilities in the operation or maintenance of said space-ship ... cargo ..." then came a clause which fairly leaped from the paper and smote his eyes: "when in command of a detail outside the hull of said space-ship he shall enforce, by the infliction of death or such other penalty as he deems fit...." the lensman was rocked to the heels, but did not show it. instead, he took the captain's pen--his own, as far as willoughby was concerned, could have been filled with vanishing ink--and wrote george olmstead's name in george olmstead's bold, flowing script. willoughby then took him aboard the good ship _virgin queen_ and led him to his cabin. "here you are, mr. olmstead. beyond getting acquainted with the super-cargo and the rest of your men, you will have no duties for a few days. you have full run of the ship, with one exception. stay out of the control room until i call you. is that clear?" "yes, sir." willoughby turned away and samms, after tossing his space-bag into the rack, took inventory. the room was of course very small; but, considering the importance of mass, it was almost extravagantly supplied. there were shelves, or rather, tight racks, of books; there were sun-lamps and card-shelves and exercisers and games; there was a receiver capable of bringing in programs from almost anywhere in space. the room had only one lack; it did not have an ultra-wave visiplate. nor was this lack surprising. "they" would scarcely let george olmstead know where "they" were taking him. samms was surprised, however, when he met the men who were to be directly under his command; for instead of one, or at most two, they numbered exactly forty. and they were all, he thought at first glance, the dregs and sweepings of the lowest dives in space. before long, however, he learned that they were not all space-rats and denizens of skid rows. six of them--the strongest physically and the hardest mentally of the lot--were fugitives from lethal chambers; murderers and worse. he looked at the biggest, toughest one of the six--a rock-drill-eyed, red-haired giant--and asked: "what did they tell you, tworn, that your job was going to be?" "they didn't say. just that it was dangerous, but if i done exactly what my boss would tell me to do, and nothing else, i might not even get hurt. an' i was due to take the deep breath the next week, see? that's just how it was, boss." "i see," and one by one virgil samms, master psychologist, studied and analyzed his motley crew until he was called into the control room. the navigating tank was covered; no charts were to be seen. the one "live" visiplate showed a planet and a fiercely blue-white sun. "my orders are to tell you, at this point, all i know about what you've got to do and about that planet down there. trenco, they call it." to virgil samms, the first adherent of civilization ever to hear it, that name meant nothing whatever. "you are to take about five of your men, go down there, and gather all the green leaves you can. not green in color; sort of purplish. what they call broadleaf is the best; leaves about two feet long and a foot wide. but don't be too choosy. if there isn't any broadleaf handy, grab anything you can get hold of." "what is the opposition?" samms asked, quietly. "and what have they got that makes them so tough?" "nothing. no inhabitants, even. just the planet itself. next to arisia, it's the god damndest planet in space. i've never been any closer to it than this, and i never will, so i don't know anything about it except what i hear; but there's something about it that kills men or drives them crazy. we spend seven or eight boats every trip, and thirty-five or forty men, and the biggest load that anybody ever took away from here was just under two hundred pounds of leaf. a good many times we don't get any." "they go crazy, eh?" in spite of his control, samms paled. but it couldn't be like arisia. "what are the symptoms? what do they say?" "various. main thing seems to be that they lose their sight. don't go blind, exactly, but can't see where anything is; or, if they do see it, it isn't there. and it rains over forty feet deep every night, and yet it all dries up by morning. the worst electrical storms in the universe, and wind-velocities--i can show you charts on that--of over eight hundred miles an hour." "whew! how about time? with your permission, i would like to do some surveying before i try to land." "a smart idea. a couple of the other boys had the same, but it didn't help--they didn't come back. i'll give you two tellurian days--no, three--before i give you up and start sending out the other boats. pick out your five men and see what you can do." as the boat dropped away, willoughby's voice came briskly from a speaker. "i know that you five men have got ideas. forget 'em. fourth officer olmstead has the authority and the orders to put a half-ounce slug through the guts of any or all of you that don't jump, and jump fast, to do what he tells you. and if that boat makes any funny moves i blast it out of the ether. good harvesting!" for forty-eight tellurian hours, taking time out only to sleep, samms scanned and surveyed the planet trenco; and the more he studied it, the more outrageously abnormal it became. trenco was, and is, a peculiar planet indeed. its atmosphere is not air as we know air; its hydrosphere does not resemble water. half of that atmosphere and most of that hydrosphere are one chemical, a substance of very low heat of vaporization and having a boiling point of about seventy-five degrees fahrenheit. trenco's days are intensely hot; its nights are bitterly cold. at night, therefore, it rains: and by comparison a tellurian downpour of one inch per hour is scarcely a drizzle. upon trenco it really _rains_--forty seven feet and five inches of precipitation, every night of every trenconian year. and this tremendous condensation of course causes wind. willoughby's graphs were accurate. except at trenco's very poles there is not a spot in which or a time at which an earthly gale would not constitute a dead calm; and along the equator, at every sunrise and every sunset, the wind blows from the day side into the night side at a velocity which no tellurian hurricane or cyclone, however violent, has even distantly approached. also, therefore, there is lightning. not in the mild and occasional flashes which we of gentle terra know, but in a continuous, blinding glare which outshines a normal sun; in battering, shattering, multi-billion-volt discharges which not only make darkness unknown there, but also distort beyond recognition and beyond function the warp and the woof of space itself. sight is almost completely useless in that fantastically altered medium. so is the ultra-beam. landing on the daylight side, except possibly at exact noon, would be impossible because of the wind, nor could the ship stay landed for more than a couple of minutes. landing on the night side would be practically as bad, because of the terrific charge the boat would pick up--unless the boat carried something that could be rebuilt into a leaker. did it? it did. time after time, from pole to pole and from midnight around the clock, samms stabbed visibeam and spy-ray down toward trenco's falsely-visible surface, with consistently and meaninglessly impossible results. the planet tipped, lurched, spun, and danced. it broke up into chunks, each of which began insanely to follow mathematically impossible paths. finally, in desperation, he rammed a beam down and held it down. again he saw the planet break up before his eyes, but this time he held on. he _knew_ that he was well out of the stratosphere, a good two hundred miles up. nevertheless, he _saw_ a tremendous mass of jagged rock falling straight down, with terrific velocity, upon his tiny lifeboat! unfortunately the crew, to whom he had not been paying overmuch attention of late, saw it, too; and one of them, with a bestial yell, leaped toward samms and the controls. samms, reaching for pistol and blackjack, whirled around just in time to see the big red-head lay the would-be attacker out cold with a vicious hand's-edge chop at the base of the skull. "thanks, tworn. why?" "because i want to get out of this alive, and he'd've had us all in hell in fifteen minutes. you know a hell of a lot more than we do, so i'm playin' it your way. see?" "i see. can you use a sap?" "an artist," the big man admitted, modestly. "just tell me how long you want a guy to be out and i won't miss it a minute, either way. but you'd better blow that crumb's brains out, right now. he ain't no damn good." "not until after i see whether he can work or not. you're a procian, aren't you?" "yeah. midlands--north central." "what did you do?" "nothing much, at first. just killed a guy that needed killing; but the goddam louse had a lot of money, so they give me twenty five years. i didn't like it very well, and acted rough, so they give me solitary--boot, bandage, and so on. so i tried a break--killed six or eight, maybe a dozen, guards--but didn't quite make it. so they slated me for the big whiff. that's all, boss." "i'm promoting you, now, to squad leader. here's the sap." he handed tworn his blackjack. "watch 'em--i'll be too busy to. this landing is going to be tough." "gotcha, boss." tworn was calibrating his weapon by slugging himself experimentally on the leg. "go ahead. as far as these crumbs are concerned, you've got this air-tank all to yourself." samms had finally decided what he was going to do. he located the terminator on the morning side, poised his little ship somewhat nearer to dawn than to midnight, and "cut the rope". he took one quick reading on the sun, cut off his plates, and let her drop, watching only his pressure gages and gyros. one hundred millimeters of mercury. three hundred. five hundred. he slowed her down. he was going to hit a thin liquid, but if he hit it too hard he would smash the boat, and he had no idea what the atmospheric pressure at trenco's surface would be. six hundred. even this late at night, it might be greater than earth's ... and it might be a lot less. seven hundred. slower and slower he crept downward, his tension mounting infinitely faster than did the needle of the gage. this was an instrument landing with a vengeance! eight hundred. how was the crew taking it? how many of them had tworn had to disable? he glanced quickly around. none! now that they could not see the hallucinatory images upon the plates, they were not suffering at all--he himself was the only one aboard who was feeling the strain! nine hundred ... nine hundred forty. the boat "hit the drink" with a crashing, splashing impact. its pace was slow enough, however, and the liquid was deep enough, so that no damage was done. samms applied a little driving power and swung his craft's sharp nose into the line toward the sun. the little ship plowed slowly forward, as nearly just awash as samms could keep her; grounded as gently as a river steam-boat upon a mud-flat. the starkly incredible downpour slackened; the lensman knew that the second critical moment was at hand. "strap down, men, until we see what this wind is going to do to us." the atmosphere, moving at a velocity well above that of sound, was in effect not a gas, but a solid. even a spaceboat's hard skin of alloy plate, with all its bracing, could not take what was coming next. inert, she would be split open, smashed, flattened out, and twisted into pretzels. samms' finger stabbed down; the berg went into action; the lifeboat went free just as that raging blast of quasi-solid vapor wrenched her into the air. the second descent was much faster and much easier than the first. nor, this time, did samms remain surfaced or drive toward shore. knowing now that this ocean was not deep enough to harm his vessel, he let her sink to the bottom. more, he turned her on her side and drove her at a flat angle into the bottom; so deep that the rim of her starboard lock was flush with the ocean's floor. again they waited; and this time the wind did not blow the lifeboat away. upon purely theoretical grounds samms had reasoned that the weird distortion of vision must be a function of distance, and his observations so far had been in accord with that hypothesis. now, slowly and cautiously, he sent out a visibeam. ten feet ... twenty ... forty ... all clear. at fifty the seeing was definitely bad; at sixty it became impossible. he shortened back to forty and began to study the vegetation, growing with such fantastic speed that the leaves, pressed flat to the ground by the gale and anchored there by heavy rootlets, were already inches long. there was also what seemed to be animal life, of sorts, but samms was not, at the moment, interested in trenconian zoology. "are them the plants we're going to get, boss?" tworn asked, staring into the plate over samms' shoulder. "shall we go out now an' start pickin' 'em?" "not yet. even if we could open the port the blast would wreck us. also, it would shear your head off, flush with the coaming, as fast as you stuck it out. this wind should ease off after a while; we'll go out a little before noon. in the meantime we'll get ready. have the boys break out a couple of spare number twelve struts, some clamps and chain, four snatch blocks, and a hundred feet of heavy space-line.... "good," he went on, when the order had been obeyed. "rig the line from the winch through snatch blocks here, and here, and here, so i can haul you back against the wind. while you are doing that i'll rig a remote control on the winch." shortly before trenco's fierce, blue-white sun reached meridian, the six men donned space-suits and samms cautiously opened the air-lock ports. they worked. the wind was now scarcely more than an earthly hurricane; the wildly whipping broadleaf plants, struggling upward, were almost half-way to the vertical. the leaves were apparently almost fully grown. four men clamped their suits to the line. the line was paid out. each man selected two leaves; the largest, fattest, purplest ones he could reach. samms hauled them back and received the loot; tworn stowed the leaves away. again--again--again. with noon there came a few minutes of "calm". a strong man could stand against the now highly variable wind; could move around without being blown beyond the horizon; and during those few minutes all six men gathered leaves. that time, however, was very short. the wind steadied into the reverse direction with ever-increasing fury; winch and space-line again came into play. and in a scant half hour, when the line began to hum an almost musical note under its load, samms decided to call it quits. "that'll be all for today, boys," he announced. "about twice more and this line will part. you've done too good a job to lose you. secure ship." "shall i blow the air, sir?" tworn asked. "i don't think so." samms thought for a moment. "no. i'm afraid to take the chance. this stuff, whatever it is, is probably as poisonous as cyanide. we'll keep our suits on and exhaust into space." time passed. "night" came; the rain and the flood. the bottom softened. samms blasted the lifeboat out of the mud and away from the planet. he opened the bleeder valves, then both air-lock ports; the contaminated air was replaced by the ultra-hard vacuum of the inter-planetary void. he signaled the _virgin queen_; the lifeboat was taken aboard. "quick trip, olmstead," willoughby congratulated him. "i'm surprised that you got back at all, to say nothing of with so much stuff and not losing a man. give me the weight, mister, fast!" "three hundred and forty eight pounds, sir," the super-cargo reported. "my god! and all pure broadleaf! _nobody_ ever did _that_ before! how did you do it, olmstead?" "i don't know whether that would be any of your business or not." samms' mien was not insulting; merely thoughtful. "not that i give a damn, but my way might not help anybody else much, and i think i had better report to the main office first, and let them do the telling. fair enough?" "fair enough," the skipper conceded, ungrudgingly. "what a load! and no losses!" "one boatload of air, is all; but air is expensive out here." samms made a point, deliberately. "air!" willoughby snorted. "i'll swap you a hundred flasks of air, any time, for any one of those leaves!" which was what samms wanted to know. captain willoughby was smart. he knew that the way to succeed was to use and then to trample upon his inferiors; to toady to such superiors as were too strong to be pulled down and thus supplanted. he knew this olmstead had what it took to be a big shot. therefore: "they told me to keep you in the dark until we got to trenco," he more than half apologized to his fourth officer shortly after the _virgin queen_ blasted away from the trenconian system. "but they didn't say anything about afterwards--maybe they figured you wouldn't be aboard any more, as usual--but anyway, you can stay right here in the control room if you want to." "thanks, skipper, but mightn't it be just as well," he jerked his head inconspicuously toward the other officers, "to play the string out, this trip? i don't care where we're going, and we don't want anybody to get any funny ideas." "that'd be a lot better, of course--as long as you know that your cards are all aces, as far as i'm concerned." "thanks, willoughby. i'll remember that." samms had not been entirely frank with the private captain. from the time required to make the trip, he knew to within a few parsecs trenco's distance from sol. he did not know the direction, since the distance was so great that he had not been able to recognize any star or constellation. he did know, however, the course upon which the vessel then was, and he would know courses and distances from then on. he was well content. a couple of uneventful days passed. samms was again called into the control room, to see that the ship was approaching a three-sun solar system. "this where we're going to land?" he asked, indifferently. "we ain't going to land," willoughby told him. "you are going to take the broadleaf down in your boat, close enough so that you can parachute it down to where it has to go. way 'nuff, pilot, go inert and match intrinsics. now, olmstead, watch. you've seen systems like this before?" "no, but i know about them. those two suns over there are a hell of a lot bigger and further away than they look, and this one here, much smaller, is in the trojan position. have those big suns got any planets?" "five or six apiece, they say; all hotter and dryer than the brazen hinges of hell. this sun here has seven, but number two--'cavenda', they call it--is the only tellurian planet in the system. the first thing we look for is a big, diamond-shaped continent ... there's only one of that shape ... there it is, over there. notice that one end is bigger than the other--that end is north. strike a line to split the continent in two and measure from the north end one-third of the length of the line. that's the point we're diving at now ... see that crater?" "yes." the _virgin queen_, although still hundreds of miles up, was slowing rapidly. "it must be a big one." "it's a good fifty miles across. go down until you're dead sure that the box will land somewhere inside the rim of that crater. then dump it. the parachute and the sender are automatic. understand?" "yes, sir; i understand," and samms took off. he was vastly more interested in the stars, however, than in delivering the broadleaf. the constellation directly beyond sol from wherever he was might be recognizable. its shape would be smaller and more or less distorted; its smaller stars, brilliant to earthly eyes only because of their nearness, would be dimmer, perhaps invisible; the picture would be further confused by intervening, nearby, brilliant strangers; but such giants as canopus and rigel and betelgeuse and deneb would certainly be highly visible if he could only recognize them. from trenco his search had failed; but he was still trying. _there_ was something vaguely familiar! sweating with the mental effort, he blocked out the too-near, too-bright stars and studied intensively those that were left. a blue-white and a red were most prominent. rigel and betelgeuse? could that constellation be orion? the belt was very faint, but it was there. then sirius ought to be about there, and pollux about there; and, at this distance, about equally bright. they were. aldebaran would be orange, and about one magnitude brighter than pollux; and capella would be yellow, and half a magnitude brighter still. there they were! not too close to where they should be, but close enough--it was orion! and this thionite way-station, then, was somewhere near right ascension seventeen hours and declination plus ten degrees! he returned to the _virgin queen_. she blasted off. samms asked very few questions and willoughby volunteered very little information; nevertheless the first lensman learned more than anyone of his fellow pirates would have believed possible. aloof, taciturn, disinterested to a degree, he seemed to spend practically all of his time in his cabin when he was not actually at work; but he kept his eyes and his ears wide open. and virgil samms, as has been intimated, had a brain. the _virgin queen_ made a quick flit from cavenda to vegia, arriving exactly on time; a proud, clean space-ship as high above suspicion as calpurnia herself. samms unloaded her cargo; replaced it with one for earth. she was serviced. she made a fast, eventless run to tellus. she docked at new york spaceport. virgil samms walked unconcernedly into an ordinary-looking rest-room; george olmstead, fully informed, walked unconcernedly out. as soon as he could, samms lensed northrop and jack kinnison. "we lined up a thousand and one signals, sir," northrop reported for the pair, "but only one of them carried a message, and it didn't make sense." "why not?" samms asked, sharply. "with a lens, _any_ kind of a message, however garbled, coded, or interrupted, makes sense." "oh, we understood what it said," jack came in, "but it didn't say enough. just 'ready--ready--ready'; over and over." "what!" samms exclaimed, and the boys could feel his mind work. "did that signal, by any chance, originate anywhere near seventeen hours and plus ten degrees?" "very near. why? how did you know?" "then it does make sense!" samms exclaimed, and called a general conference of lensmen. "keep working along these same lines," samms directed, finally. "keep ray olmstead in the hill in my place. i am going to pluto, and--i hope--to palain seven." roderick kinnison of course protested; but, equally of course, his protests were over-ruled. chapter 10 pluto is, on the average, about forty times as far away from the sun as is mother earth. each square yard of earth's surface receives about sixteen hundred times as much heat as does each of pluto's. the sun as seen from pluto is a dim, wan speck. even at perihelion, an event which occurs only once in two hundred forty eight tellurian years, and at noon and on the equator, pluto is so bitterly cold that climatic conditions upon its surface simply cannot be described by or to warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing man. as good an indication as any can be given, perhaps, by mentioning the fact that it had taken the patrol's best engineers over six months to perfect the armor which virgil samms then wore. for no ordinary space-suit would do. space itself is not cold; the only loss of heat is by radiation into or through an almost perfect vacuum. in contact with pluto's rocky, metallic soil, however, there would be conduction; and the magnitude of the inevitable heat-loss made the tellurian scientists gasp. "watch your feet, virge!" had been roderick kinnison's insistent last thought. "remember those psychologists--if they stayed in contact with that ground for five minutes they froze their feet to the ankles. not that the boys aren't good, but slipsticks sometimes slip in more ways than one. if your feet ever start to get cold, drop whatever you're doing and drive back here at max!" virgil samms landed. his feet stayed warm. finally, assured that the heaters of his suit could carry the load indefinitely, he made his way on foot into the settlement near which he had come to ground. and there he saw his first palainian. or, strictly speaking, he saw part of his first palainian; for no three-dimensional creature has ever seen or ever will see in entirety any member of any of the frigid-blooded, poison-breathing races. since life as we know it--organic, three-dimensional life--is based upon liquid water and gaseous oxygen, such life did not and could not develop upon planets whose temperatures are only a few degrees above absolute zero. many, perhaps most, of these ultra-frigid planets have an atmosphere of sorts; some have no atmosphere at all. nevertheless, with or without atmosphere and completely without oxygen and water, life--highly intelligent life--did develop upon millions and millions of such worlds. that life is not, however, strictly three-dimensional. of necessity, even in the lowest forms, it possesses an extension into the hyper-dimension; and it is this metabolic extension alone which makes it possible for life to exist under such extreme conditions. the extension makes it impossible for any human being to see anything of a palainian except the fluid, amorphous, ever-changing thing which is his three-dimensional aspect of the moment; makes any attempt at description or portraiture completely futile. virgil samms stared at the palainian; tried to see what it looked like. he could not tell whether it had eyes or antennae; legs, arms, or tentacles, teeth or beaks, talons or claws or feet; skin, scales, or feathers. it did not even remotely resemble anything that the lensman had ever seen, sensed, or imagined. he gave up; sent out an exploring thought. "i am virgil samms, a tellurian," he sent out slowly, carefully, after he made contact with the outer fringes of the creature's mind. "is it possible for you, sir or madam, to give me a moment of your time?" "eminently possible, lensman samms, since my time is of completely negligible value." the monster's mind flashed into accord with samms' with a speed and precision that made him gasp. that is, a part of it became en rapport with a part of his: years were to pass before even the first lensman would know much more about the palainian than he learned in that first contact; no human beings except the children of the lens ever were to understand even dimly the labyrinthine intricacies, the paradoxical complexities, of the palainian mind. "'madam' might be approximately correct," the native's thought went smoothly on. "my name, in your symbology, is twelfth pilinipsi; by education, training, and occupation i am a chief dexitroboper. i perceive that you are indeed a native of that hellish planet three, upon which it was assumed for so long that no life could possibly exist. but communication with your race has been almost impossible heretofore ... ah, the lens. a remarkable device, truly. i would slay you and take it, except for the obvious fact that only you can possess it." "what!" dismay and consternation flooded samms' mind. "you already know the lens?" "no. yours is the first that any of us has perceived. the mechanics, the mathematics, and the basic philosophy of the thing, however, are quite clear." "what!" samms exclaimed again. "you can, then, produce lenses yourselves?" "by no means, any more than you tellurians can. there are magnitudes, variables, determinants, and forces involved which no palainian will ever be able to develop, to generate, or to control." "i see." the lensman pulled himself together. for a first lensman, he was making a wretched showing indeed.... "far from it, sir," the monstrosity assured him. "considering the strangeness of the environment into which you have voluntarily flung yourself so senselessly, your mind is well integrated and strong. otherwise it would have shattered. if our positions were reversed, the mere thought of the raging heat of your earth would--come no closer, please!" the thing vanished; reappeared many yards away. her thoughts were a shudder of loathing, of terror, of sheer detestation. "but to get on. i have been attempting to analyze and to understand your purpose, without success. that failure is not too surprising, of course, since my mind is weak and my total power is small. explain your mission, please, as simply as you can." weak? small? in view of the power the monstrosity had just shown, samms probed for irony, for sarcasm or pretense. there was no trace of anything of the kind. he tried, then, for fifteen solid minutes, to explain the galactic patrol, but at the end the palainian's only reaction was one of blank non-comprehension. "i fail completely to perceive the use of, or the need for, such an organization," she stated flatly. "this altruism--what good is it? it is unthinkable that any other race would take any risks or exert any effort for us, any more than we would for them. ignore and be ignored, as you must already know, is the prime tenet." "but there is a little commerce between our worlds; your people did not ignore our psychologists; and you are not ignoring me," samms pointed out. "oh, none of us is perfect," pilinipsi replied, with a mental shrug and what seemed to be an airy wave of a multi-tentacled member. "that ideal, like any other, can only be approached asymptotically, never reached; and i, being somewhat foolish and silly, as well as weak and vacillant, am much less perfect than most." flabbergasted, samms tried a new tack. "i might be able to make my position clearer if i knew you better. i know your name, and that you are a woman of palain seven"--it is a measure of virgil samms' real size that he actually thought "woman", and not merely "female"--"but all i can understand of your occupation is the name you have given it. what does a chief dexitroboper do?" "she--or he--or, perhaps, it ... is a supervisor of the work of dexitroboping." the thought, while perfectly clear, was completely meaningless to samms, and the palainian knew it. she tried again. "dexitroboping has to do with ... nourishment? no--with nutrients." "ah. farming--agriculture," samms thought; but this time it was the palainian who could not grasp the concept. "hunting? fishing?" no better. "show me, then, please." she tried; but demonstration, too, was useless; for to samms the palainian's movements were pointless indeed. the peculiarly flowing subtly changing thing darted back and forth, rose and fell, appeared and disappeared; undergoing the while cyclic changes in shape and form and size, in aspect and texture. it was now spiny, now tentacular, now scaly, now covered with peculiarly repellent feather-like fronds, each oozing a crimson slime. but it apparently did not _do_ anything whatever. the net result of all its activity was, apparently, zero. "there, it is done." pilinipsi's thought again came clear. "you observed and understood? you did not. that is strange--baffling. since the lens did improve communication and understanding tremendously, i hoped that it might extend to the physical as well. but there must be some basic, fundamental difference, the nature of which is at present obscure. i wonder ... if i had a lens, too--but no...." "but yes!" samms broke in, eagerly. "why don't you go to arisia and be tested for one? you have a magnificent, a really _tremendous_ mind. it is of lensman grade in every respect except one--you simply don't _want_ to use it!" "me? go to arisia?" the thought would have been, in a tellurian, a laugh of scorn. "how utterly silly--how abysmally stupid! there would be personal discomfort, quite possibly personal danger, and two lenses would be little or no better than one in resolving differences between our two continua, which are probably in fact incommensurable." "well, then," samms thought, almost viciously, "can you introduce me to someone who is stupider, sillier, and more foolish than you are?" "not here on pluto, no." the palainian took no offense. "that was why it was i who interviewed the earlier tellurian visitors and why i am now conversing with you. the others avoided you." "i see." samms' thought was grim. "how about the home planet, then?" "ah. undoubtedly. in fact, there is a group, a club, of such persons. none of them is, of course, as insane--as aberrant--as you are, but they are all much more so than i am." "who of this club would be most interested in becoming a lensman?" "tallick was the least stable member of the new-thought club when i left seven; kragzex a close second. there may of course have been changes since then. but i cannot believe that even tallick--even tallick at his outrageous worst--would be crazy enough to join your patrol." "nevertheless, i must see him myself. can you and will you give me a chart of a routing from here to palain seven?" "i can and i will. nothing you have thought will be of any use to me; that will be the easiest and quickest way of getting rid of you." the palainian spread a completely detailed chart in samms' mind, snapped the telepathic line, and went unconcernedly about her incomprehensible business. samms, mind reeling, made his way back to his boat and took off. and as the light-years and the parsecs screamed past, he sank deeper and deeper into a welter of unproductive speculation. what were--really--those palainians? how could they--really--exist as they seemed to exist? and why had some of that dexitroboper's--whatever _that_ meant!--thoughts come in so beautifully sharp and clear and plain while others...? he knew that his lens would receive and would convert into his own symbology any thought or message, however coded or garbled or however sent or transmitted. the lens was not at fault; his symbology was. there were concepts--things--actualities--occurrences--so foreign to tellurian experience that no referents existed. hence the human mind lacked the channels, the mechanisms, to grasp them. he and roderick kinnison had glibly discussed the possibility of encountering forms of intelligent life so alien that humanity would have no point whatever of contact with them. after what samms had just gone through, that was more of a possibility than either he or his friend had believed; and he hoped grimly, as he considered how seriously this partial contact with the palainian had upset him, that the possibility would never become a fact. he found the palainian system easily enough, and palain seven. that planet, of course, was almost as dark upon its sunward side as upon the other, and its inhabitants had no use for light. pilinipsi's instructions, however, had been minute and exact; hence samms had very little trouble in locating the principal city--or, rather, the principal village, since there were no real cities. he found the planet's one spaceport. what a thing to call a _port_! he checked back; recalled exactly this part of his interview with pluto's chief dexitroboper. "the place upon which space-ships land," had been her thought, when she showed him exactly where it was in relationship to the town. just that, and nothing else. it had been his mind, not hers, that had supplied the docks and cradles, the service cars, the officers, and all the other things taken for granted in space-fields everywhere as samms knew them. either the palainian had not perceived the trappings with which samms had invested her visualization, or she had not cared enough about his misapprehension to go to the trouble of correcting it; he did not know which. the whole area was as bare as his hand. except for the pitted, scarred, slagged-down spots which showed so clearly what driving blasts would do to such inconceivably cold rock and metal, palainport was in no way distinguishable from any other unimproved portion of the planet's utterly bleak surface. there were no signals; he had been told of no landing conventions. apparently it was everyone for himself. wherefore samms' tremendous landing lights blazed out, and with their aid he came safely to ground. he put on his armour and strode to the air-lock; then changed his mind and went to the cargo-port instead. he had intended to walk, but in view of the rugged and deserted field and the completely unknown terrain between the field and the town, he decided to ride the "creep" instead. this vehicle, while slow, could go--literally--anywhere. it had a cigar-shaped body of magnalloy; it had big, soft, tough tires; it had cleated tracks; it had airand water-propellers; it had folding wings; it had driving, braking, and steering jets. it could traverse the deserts of mars, the oceans and swamps of venus, the crevassed glaciers of earth, the jagged, frigid surface of an iron asteroid, and the cratered, fluffy topography of the moon; if not with equal speed, at least with equal safety. samms released the thing and drove it into the cargo lock, noting mentally that he would have to exhaust the air of that lock into space before he again broke the inner seal. the ramp slid back into the ship; the cargo port closed. here he was! should he use his headlights, or not? he did not know the palainians' reaction to or attitude toward light. it had not occurred to him while at pluto to ask, and it might be important. the landing lights of his vessel might already have done his cause irreparable harm. he could drive by starlight if he had to ... but he needed light and he had not seen a single living or moving thing. there was no evidence that there was a palainian within miles. while he had known, with his brain, that palain would be dark, he had expected to find buildings and traffic--ground-cars, planes, and at least a few space-ships--and not this vast nothingness. if nothing else, there _must_ be a road from palain's principal city to its only spaceport; but samms had not seen it from his vessel and he could not see it now. at least, he could not recognize it. wherefore he clutched in the tractor drive and took off in a straight line toward town. the going was more than rough--it was really rugged--but the creep was built to stand up under punishment and its pilot's chair was sprung and cushioned to exactly the same degree. hence, while the course itself was infinitely worse than the smoothly paved approaches to rigelston, samms found this trip much less bruising than the other had been. approaching the village, he dimmed his roadlights and slowed down. at its edge he cut them entirely and inched his way forward by starlight alone. what a town! virgil samms had seen the inhabited places of almost every planet of civilization. he had seen cities laid out in circles, sectors, ellipses, triangles, squares, parallelopipeds--practically every plan known to geometry. he had seen structures of all shapes and sizes--narrow skyscrapers, vast-spreading one-stories, polyhedra, domes, spheres, semi-cylinders, and erect and inverted full and truncated cones and pyramids. whatever the plan or the shapes of the component units, however, those inhabited places had, without exception, been understandable. but this! samms, his eyes now completely dark-accustomed, could see fairly well, but the more he saw the less he grasped. there was no plan, no coherence or unity whatever. it was as though a cosmic hand had flung a few hundreds of buildings, of incredibly and senselessly varied shapes and sizes and architectures, upon an otherwise empty plain, and as though each structure had been allowed ever since to remain in whatever location and attitude it had chanced to fall. here and there were jumbled piles of three or more utterly incongruous structures. there were a few whose arrangement was almost orderly. here and there were large, irregularly-shaped areas of bare, untouched ground. there were no streets--at least, nothing that the man could recognize as such. samms headed the creep for one of those open areas, then stopped--declutched the tracks, set the brakes, and killed the engines. "go slow, fellow," he advised himself then. "until you find out what a dexitroboper actually does while working at his trade, don't take chances of interfering or of doing damage!" no lensman knew--then--that frigid-blooded poison-breathers were not strictly three-dimensional; but samms did know that he had actually seen things which he could not understand. he and kinnison had discussed such occurrences calmly enough; but the actuality was enough to shake even the mind of civilization's first lensman. he did not need to be any closer, anyway. he had learned the palainians' patterns well enough to lens them from a vastly greater distance than his present one; this personal visit to palainopolis had been a gesture of friendliness, not a necessity. "tallick? kragzex?" he sent out the questing, querying thought. "lensman virgil samms of sol three calling tallick and kragzex of palain seven." "kragzex acknowledging, virgil samms," a thought snapped back, as diamond-clear, as precise, as pilinipsi's had been. "is tallick here, or anywhere on the planet?" "he is here, but he is emmfozing at the moment. he will join us presently." damnation! there it was again! first "dexitroboping", and now this! "one moment, please," samms requested. "i fail to grasp the meaning of your thought." "so i perceive. the fault is of course mine, in not being able to attune my mind fully to yours. do not take this, please, as any aspersion upon the character or strength of your own mind." "of course not. i am the first tellurian you have met?" "yes." "i have exchanged thoughts with one other palainian, and the same difficulty existed. i can neither understand nor explain it; but it is as though there are differences between us so fundamental that in some matters mutual comprehension is in fact impossible." "a masterly summation and undoubtedly a true one. this emmfozing, then--if i read correctly, your race has only two sexes?" "you read correctly." "i cannot understand. there is no close analogy. however, emmfozing has to do with reproduction." "i see," and samms saw, not only a frankness brand-new to his experience, but also a new view of both the powers and the limitations of his lens. it was, by its very nature, of precisionist grade. it received thoughts and translated them precisely into english. there was some leeway, but not much. if any thought was such that there was no extremely close counterpart or referent in english, the lens would not translate it at all, but would simply give it a hitherto meaningless symbol--a symbol which would from that time on be associated, by all lenses everywhere, with that one concept and no other. samms realized then that he might, some day, learn what a dexitroboper actually did and what the act of emmfozing actually was; but that he very probably would not. tallick joined them then, and samms again described glowingly, as he had done so many times before, the galactic patrol of his imaginings and plannings. kragzex refused to have anything to do with such a thing, almost as abruptly as pilinipsi had done, but tallick lingered--and wavered. "it is widely known that i am not entirely sane," he admitted, "which may explain the fact that i would very much like to have a lens. but i gather, from what you have said, that i would probably not be given a lens to use purely for my own selfish purposes?" "that is my understanding," samms agreed. "i was afraid so." tallick's mien was ... "woebegone" is the only word for it. "i have work to do. projects, you know, of difficulty, of extreme complexity and scope, sometimes even approaching danger. a lens would be of tremendous use." "how?" samms asked. "if your work is of enough importance to enough people, mentor would certainly give you a lens." "this would benefit me; only me. we of palain, as you probably already know, are selfish, mean-spirited, small-souled, cowardly, furtive, and sly. of what you call 'bravery' we have no trace. we attain our ends by stealth, by indirection, by trickery and deceit." ruthlessly the lens was giving virgil samms the uncompromisingly exact english equivalent of the palainian's every thought. "we operate, when we must operate at all openly, with the absolutely irreducible minimum of personal risk. these attitudes and attributes will, i have no doubt, preclude all possibility of lensmanship for me and for every member of my race." "not necessarily." _not necessarily!_ although virgil samms did not know it, this was one of the really critical moments in the coming into being of the galactic patrol. by a conscious, a tremendous effort, the first lensman was lifting himself above the narrow, intolerant prejudices of human experience and was consciously attempting to see the whole through mentor's arisian mind instead of through his tellurian own. that virgil samms was the first human being to be born with the ability to accomplish that feat even partially was one of the reasons why he was the first wearer of the lens. "not necessarily," first lensman virgil samms said and meant. he was inexpressibly shocked--revolted in every human fiber--by what this unhuman monster had so frankly and callously thought. there were, however, many things which no human being ever could understand, and there was not the shadow of a doubt that this tallick had a really tremendous mind. "you have said that your mind is feeble. if so, there is no simple expression of the weakness of mine. i can perceive only one, the strictly human, facet of the truth. in a broader view it is distinctly possible that your motivation is at least as 'noble' as mine. and to complete my argument, you work with other palainians, do you not, to reach a common goal?" "at times, yes." "then you can conceive of the desirability of working with non-palainian entities toward an end which would benefit both races?" "postulating such an end, yes; but i am unable to visualize any such. have you any specific project in mind?" "not at the moment." samms ducked. he had already fired every shot in his locker. "i am quite certain, however, that if you go to arisia you will be informed of several such projects." there was a period of silence. then: "i believe that i _will_ go to arisia, at that!" tallick exclaimed, brightly. "i will make a deal with your friend mentor. i will give him a share--say fifty percent, or forty--of the time and effort i save on my own projects!" "just so you _go_, tallick." samms concealed right manfully his real opinion of the palainian's scheme. "when can you go? right now?" "by no means. i must first finish this project. a year, perhaps--or more; or possibly less. who knows?" tallick cut communications and samms frowned. he did not know the exact length of seven's year, but he knew that it was long--_very_ long. chapter 11 a small, black scout-ship, commanded jointly by master pilot john k. kinnison and master electronicist mason m. northrop, was blasting along a course very close indeed to ra17: d+10. in equipment and personnel, however, she was not an ordinary scout. her control room was so full of electronics racks and computing machines that there was scarcely footway in any direction; her graduated circles and vernier scales were of a size and a fineness usually seen only in the great vessels of the galactic survey. and her crew, instead of the usual twenty-odd men, numbered only seven--one cook, three engineers, and three watch officers. for some time the young third officer, then at the board, had been studying something on his plate; comparing it minutely with the chart clipped into the rack in front of him. now he turned, with a highly exaggerated deference, to the two lensmen. "sirs, which of your magnificences is officially the commander of this here bucket of odds and ends at the present instant?" "him." jack used his cigarette as a pointer. "the guy with the misplaced plucked eyebrow on his upper lip. i don't come on duty until sixteen hundred hours--one precious tellurian minute yet in which to dream of the beauties of earth so distant in space and in both past and future time." "huh? beauties? plural? next time i see a party whose pictures are cluttering up this whole ship i'll tell her about your polygamous ideas. i'll ignore that crack about my mustache, though, since you can't raise one of your own. i'm ignoring you, too--like this, see?" ostentatiously turning his back upon the lounging kinnison, northrop stepped carefully over three or four breadboard hookups and stared into the plate over the watch officer's shoulder. he then studied the chart. "_was ist los_, stu? i don't see a thing." "more jack's line than yours, mase. this system we're headed for is a triple, and the chart says it's a double. natural enough, of course. this whole region is unexplored, so the charts are astronomicals, not surveys. but that makes us prime discoverers, and our commanding officer--and the book says 'officer', not 'officers'--has got to...." "that's me, now," jack announced, striding grandly toward the plate. "amscray, oobsbay. _i_ will name the baby. _i_ will report. _i_ will go down in history...." "bounce back, small fry. you weren't at the time of discovery." northrop placed a huge hand flat against jack's face and pushed gently. "you'll go down, sure enough--not in history, but from a knock on the knob--if you try to steal any thunder away from _me_. and besides, you'd name it '_dimples_'--what a _revolting_ thought!" "and what would you name it? '_virgilia_', i suppose?" "far from it, my boy." he had intended doing just that, but now he did not quite dare. "after our project, of course. the planet we're heading for will be zabriska; the suns will be a-, b-, and c-zabriskae, in order of size; and the watch officer then on duty, lieutenant l. stuart rawlings, will engross these and all other pertinent data in the log. can you classify 'em from here, jack?" "i can make some guesses--close enough, probably, for discovery work." then, after a few minutes: "two giants, a blue-white and a bluish yellow; and a yellow dwarf." "dwarf in the trojan?" "that would be my guess, since that is the only place it could stay very long, but you can't tell much from one look. i can tell you one thing, though--unless your zabriska is in a system straight beyond this one, it's got to be a planet of the big fellow himself; and brother, that sun is _hot_!" "it's got to be here, jack. i haven't made _that_ big an error in reading a beam since i was a sophomore." "i'll buy that ... well, we're close enough, i guess." jack killed the driving blasts, but not the bergenholm; the inertialess vessel stopped instantaneously in open space. "now we've got to find out which one of those twelve or fifteen planets was on our line when that last message was sent.... there, we're stable enough, i hope. open your cameras, mase. pull the first plate in fifteen minutes. that ought to give me enough track so i can start the job, since we're at a wide angle to their ecliptic." the work went on for an hour or so. then: "something coming from the direction of tellus," the watch officer reported. "big and fast. shall i hail her?" "might as well," but the stranger hailed first. "space-ship _chicago_, na2aa, calling. are you in trouble? identify yourself, please." "space-ship na774j acknowledging. no trouble...." "northrop! jack!" came virgil samms' highly concerned thought. the superdreadnaught flashed alongside, a bare few hundred miles away, and stopped. "why did you stop _here_?" "this is where our signal came from, sir." "oh." a hundred thoughts raced through samms' mind, too fast and too fragmentary to be intelligible. "i see you're computing. would it throw you off too much to go inert and match intrinsics, so that i can join you?" "no sir; i've got everything i need for a while." samms came aboard; three lensmen studied the chart. "cavenda is there," samms pointed out. "trenco is there, off to one side. i felt sure that your signal originated on cavenda; but zabriska, here, while on almost the same line, is less than half as far from tellus." he did not ask whether the two young lensmen were sure of their findings. he knew. "this arouses my curiosity no end--does it merely complicate the thionite problem, or does it set up an entirely new problem? go ahead, boys, with whatever you were going to do next." jack had already determined that the planet they wanted was the second out; a-zabriskae two. he drove the scout as close to the planet as he could without losing complete coverage; stationed it on the line toward sol. "now we wait a bit," he answered. "according to recent periodicity, not less than four hours and not more than ten. with the next signal we'll nail that transmitter down to within a few feet. got your spotting screens full out, mase?" "_recent_ periodicity?" samms snapped. "it has improved, then, lately?" "very much, sir." "that helps immensely. with george olmstead harvesting broadleaf, it would. it is still one problem. while we wait, shall we study the planet a little?" they explored; finding that a-zabriskae two was a disappointing planet indeed. it was small, waterless, airless, utterly featureless, utterly barren. there were no elevations, no depressions, no visible markings whatever--not even a meteor crater. every square yard of its surface was apparently exactly like every other. "no rotation," jack reported, looking up from the bolometer. "that sand-pile is not inhabited and never will be. i'm beginning to wonder." "so am i, now," northrop admitted. "i still say that those signals came from this line and distance, but it looks as though they must have been sent from a ship. if so, now that we're here--particularly the _chicago_--there will be no more signals." "not necessarily." again samms' mind transcended his tellurian experience and knowledge. he did not suspect the truth, but he was not jumping at conclusions. "there may be highly intelligent life, even upon such a planet as this." they waited, and in a few hours a communications beam snapped into life. "ready--ready--ready...." it said briskly, for not quite one minute, but that was time enough. northrop yelped a string of numbers; jack blasted the little vessel forward and downward; the three watch officers, keen-eyed at their plates, stabbed their visibeams, ultra-beams, and spy-rays along the indicated line. "and bore straight through the planet if you have to--they may be on the other side!" jack cautioned, sharply. "they aren't--it's here, on this side!" rawlings saw it first. "nothing much to it, though ... it looks like a relay station." "a _relay_! i'll be a...." jack started to express an unexpurgated opinion, but shut himself up. young cubs did not swear in front of the first lensman. "let's land, sir, and look the place over, anyway." "by all means." they landed, and cautiously disembarked. the horizon, while actually quite a little closer than that of earth, seemed much more distant because there was nothing whatever--no tree, no shrub, no rock or pebble, not even the slightest ripple--to break the geometrical perfection of that surface of smooth, hard, blindingly reflective, fiendishly hot white sand. samms was highly dubious at first--a ground-temperature of four hundred seventy-five degrees was not to be taken lightly; he did not at all like the looks of that ultra-fervent blue-white sun; and in his wildest imaginings he had never pictured such a desert. their space-suits, however, were very well insulated, particularly as to the feet, and highly polished; and in lieu of atmosphere there was an almost perfect vacuum. they could stand it for a while. the box which housed the relay station was made of non-ferrous metal and was roughly cubical in shape, perhaps five feet on a side. it was so buried that its upper edge was flush with the surface; its top, which was practically indistinguishable from the surrounding sand, was not bolted or welded, but was simply laid on, loose. previous spy-ray inspection having proved that the thing was not booby-trapped, jack lifted the cover by one edge and all three lensmen studied the mechanisms at close range; learning nothing new. there was an extremely sensitive non-directional receiver, a highly directional sender, a beautifully precise uranium-clock director, and an "eternal" powerpack. there was nothing else. "what next, sir?" northrop asked. "there'll be an incoming signal, probably, in a couple of days. shall we stick around and see whether it comes in from cavenda or not?" "you and jack had better wait, yes." samms thought for minutes. "i do not believe, now, that the signal will come from cavenda, or that it will ever come twice from the same direction, but we will have to make sure. but i can't see any _reason_ for it!" "i think i can, sir." this was northrop's specialty. "no space-ship could possibly hit tellus from here except by accident with a single-ended beam, and they can't use a double-ender because it would have to be on all the time and would be as easy to trace as the mississippi river. but this planet did all its settling ages ago--which is undoubtedly why they picked it out--and that director in there is a marchanti--the second marchanti i have ever seen." "whatever _that_ is," jack put in, and even samms thought a question. "the most precise thing ever built," the specialist explained. "accuracy limited only by that of determination of relative motions. give me an accurate enough equation to feed into it, like that tape is doing, and two sighting shots, and i'll guarantee to pour an eighteen-inch beam into any two foot cup on earth. my guess is that it's aimed at some particular bucket-antenna on one of the solar planets. i could spoil its aim easily enough, but i don't suppose that is what you're after." "decidedly not. we want to trace them, without exciting any more suspicion than is absolutely necessary. how often, would you say, do they have to come here to service this station--change tapes, and whatever else might be necessary?" "change tapes, is all. not very often, by the size of those reels. if they know the relative motions exactly enough, they could compute as far ahead as they care to. i've been timing that reel--it's got pretty close to three months left on it." "and more than that much has been used. it's no wonder we didn't see anything." samms straightened up and stared out across the frightful waste. "look there--i thought i saw something move--it _is_ moving!" "there's something moving closer than that, and it's really funny." jack laughed deeply. "it's like the paddle-wheels, shaft and all, of an old-fashioned river steam-boat, rolling along as unconcernedly as you please. he won't miss me by over four feet, but he isn't swerving a hair. i think i'll block him off, just to see what he does." "be careful, jack!" samms cautioned, sharply. "don't touch it--it may be charged, or worse." jack took the metal cover, which he was still holding, and by working it back and forth edgewise in the sand, made of it a vertical barrier squarely across the thing's path. the traveler paid no attention, did not alter its steady pace of a couple of miles per hour. it measured about twelve inches long over all; its paddle-wheel-like extremities were perhaps two inches wide and three inches in diameter. "do you think it's actually _alive_, sir? in a place like this?" "i'm sure of it. watch carefully." it struck the barrier and stopped. that is, its forward motion stopped, but its rolling did not. its rate of revolution did not change; it either did not know or did not care that its drivers were slipping on the smooth, hard sand; that it could not climb the vertical metal plate; that it was not getting anywhere. "what a brain!" northrop chortled, squatting down closer. "why doesn't it back up or turn around? it may be alive, but it certainly isn't very bright." the creature, now in the shadow of the 'troncist's helmet, slowed down abruptly--went limp--collapsed. "get out of his light!" jack snapped, and pushed his friend violently away; and as the vicious sunlight struck it, the native revived and began to revolve as vigorously as before. "i've got a hunch. sounds screwy--never heard of such a thing--but it acts like an energy-converter. eats energy, raw and straight. no storage capacity--on this world he wouldn't need it--a few more seconds in the shade would probably have killed him, but there's no shade here. therefore, he can't be dangerous." he reached out and touched the middle of the revolving shaft. nothing happened. he turned it at right angles to the plate. the thing rolled away in a straight line, perfectly contented with the new direction. he recaptured it and stuck a test-prod lightly into the sand, just ahead of its shaft and just inside one paddle wheel. around and around that slim wire the creature went: unable, it seemed, to escape from even such a simple trap; perfectly willing, it seemed, to spend all the rest of its life traversing that tiny circle. "'what a brain!' is right, mase," jack exclaimed. "_what_ a brain!" "this is wonderful, boys, really wonderful; something completely new to our science." samms' thought was deep with feeling. "i am going to see if i can reach its mind or consciousness. would you like to come along?" "_would_ we!" samms tuned low and probed; lower and lower; deeper and deeper; and jack and mase stayed with him. the thing was certainly alive; it throbbed and vibrated with vitality: equally certainly, it was not very intelligent. but it had a definite consciousness of its own existence; and therefore, however tiny and primitive, a mind. although its rudimentary ego could neither receive nor transmit thought, it knew that it was a fontema, that it must roll and roll and roll, endlessly, that by virtue of determined rolling its species would continue and would increase. "well, that's one for the book!" jack exclaimed, but samms was entranced. "i would like to find one or two more of them, to find out ... i think i'll _take_ the time. can you see any more of them, either of you?" "no, but we can find some--stu!" northrop called. "yes?" "look around, will you? find us a couple more of these fontema things and flick them over here with a tractor." "coming up!" and in a few seconds they were there. "are you photographing this, lance?" samms called the chief communications officer of the _chicago_. "we certainly are, sir--all of it. what are they, anyway? animal, vegetable, or mineral?" "i don't know. probably no one of the three, strictly speaking. i'd like to take a couple back to tellus, but i'm afraid that they'd die, even under an atomic lamp. we'll report to the society." jack liberated his captive and aimed it to pass within a few feet of one of the newcomers, but the two fontemas did not ignore each other. both swerved, so that they came together wheel to wheel. the shafts bent toward each other, each into a right angle. the angles touched and fused. the point of fusion swelled rapidly into a double fist-sized lump. the half-shafts doubled in length. the lump split into four; became four perfect paddle-wheels. four full-grown fontemas rolled away from the spot upon which two had met; their courses forming two mutually perpendicular straight lines. "beautiful!" samms exclaimed. "and notice, boys, the method of avoiding inbreeding. upon a perfectly smooth planet such as this, no two of those four can ever meet, and the chance is almost vanishingly small that any of their first-generation offspring will ever meet. but i'm afraid i've been wasting time. take me back out to the _chicago_, please, and i'll be on my way." "you don't seem at all optimistic, sir," jack ventured, as the na774j approached the _chicago_. "unfortunately, i am not. the signal will almost certainly come in from an unpredictable direction, from a ship so far away that even a super-fast cruiser could not get close enough to her to detect--just a minute. rod!" he lensed the elder kinnison so sharply that both young lensmen jumped. "what is it, virge?" samms explained rapidly, concluding: "so i would like to have you throw a globe of scouts around this whole zabriskan system. one detet[a] out and one detet apart, so as to be able to slap a tracer onto any ship laying a beam to this planet, from any direction whatever. it would not take too many scouts, would it?" [footnote a: detet--the distance at which one space-ship can detect another. ees.] "no; but it wouldn't be worth while." "why not?" "because it wouldn't prove a thing except what we already know--that spaceways is involved in the thionite racket. the ship would be clean. merely another relay." "oh. you're probably right." if virgil samms was in the least put out at this cavalier dismissal of his idea, he made no sign. he thought intensely for a couple of minutes. "you _are_ right. i will have to work from the cavenda end. how are you coming with operation bennett?" "nice!" kinnison enthused. "when you get a couple of days, come over and see it grow. this is a fine world, virge--it'll be ready!" "i'll do that." samms broke the connection and called dronvire. "the only change here is for the worse," the rigellian reported, tersely. "the slight positive correlation between deaths from thionite and the arrival of spaceways vessels has disappeared." there was no need to elaborate on that bare statement. both lensmen knew what it meant. the enemy, either in anticipation of statistical analysis or for economic reasons, was rationing his small supply of the drug. and dalnalten was very much unlike his usual equable self. he was glum and unhappy; so much so that it took much urging to make him report at all. "we have, as you know, put our best operatives to work on the inter-planetary lines," he said finally, half sullenly. "we have secured quite a little data. the accumulating facts, however, point more and more definitely toward an utterly preposterous conclusion. can you think of any valid reason why the exports and imports of thionite between tellus and mars, mars and venus, and venus and tellus, should all be exactly equal to each other?" "_what!_" "precisely. that is why knobos and i are not yet ready to present even a preliminary report." then jill. "i can't prove it, any more than i could before, but i'm pretty sure that morgan is the boss. i have drawn every picture i can think of with isaacson in the driver's seat, but none of them fit?" she paused, questioningly. "i am already reconciled to adopting that view; at least as a working hypothesis. go ahead." "the fact seems to be that morgan has always had all the left-wingers of the nationalists under his thumb. now he and his man friday, representative flierce, are wooing all the radicals and so-called liberals on our side of both senate and house--a new technique for him--and they're offering plenty of the right kind of bait. he has the commentators guessing, but there's no doubt whatever in my mind that he is aiming at next election day and our galactic council." "and you and dronvire are sitting idly by, doing nothing, of course?" "of course!" jill giggled, but sobered quickly. "he's a smooth, _smooth_ worker, dad. we are organizing, of course, and putting out propaganda of our own, but there's so pitifully little that we can actually _do_--look and listen to this for a minute, and you'll see what i mean." in her distant room jill manipulated a reel and flipped a switch. a plate came to life, showing morgan's big, sweating, passionately earnest face. "... and who _are_ these lensmen, anyway?" morgan's voice bellowed, passionate conviction in every syllable. "they are the hired minions of the classes, stabbers in the back, crooks and scoundrels, tools of ruthless wealth! they are hirelings of the inter-planetary bankers, those unspeakable excrescences on the body politic who are still grinding down into the dirt, under an iron heel, the face of the common man! in the guise of democracy they are trying to set up the worst, the most outrageous tyranny that this universe has ever...." jill snapped the switch viciously. "and a lot of people _swallow_ that ... that _bilge_!" she almost snarled. "if they had the brains of a ... of even that zabriskan fontema mase told me about, they wouldn't, but they _do_!" "i know they do. we have known all along that he is a masterly actor; we now know that he is more than that." "yes, and we're finding out that no appeal to reason, no psychological counter-measures, will work. dronvire and i agree that you'll _have_ to arrange matters so that you can do solid months of stumping yourself. personally." "it may come to that, but there's a lot of other things to do first." samms broke the connection and thought. he did not consciously try to exclude the two youths, but his mind was working so fast and in such a disjointed fashion that they could catch only a few fragments. the incomprehensible vastness of space--tracing--detection--cavenda's one tiny, fast moving moon--back, and solidly, to detection. "mase," samms thought then, carefully. "as a specialist in such things, why is it that the detectors of the smallest scout--lifeboat, even--have practically the same range as those of the largest liners and battleships?" "noise level and hash, sir, from the atomics." "but can't they be screened out?" "not entirely, sir, without blocking reception completely." "i see. suppose, then, that all atomics aboard were to be shut down; that for the necessary heat and light we use electricity, from storage or primary batteries or from a generator driven by an internal-combustion motor or a heat-engine. could the range of detection then be increased?" "tremendously, sir. my guess is that the limiting factor would then be the cosmics." "i hope you're right. while you are waiting for the next signal to come in, you might work out a preliminary design for such a detector. if, as i anticipate, this zabriska proves to be a dead end, operation zabriska ends here--becomes a part of zwilnik--and you two will follow me at max to tellus. you, jack, are very badly needed on operation boskone. you and i, mase, will make appropriate alterations aboard a j-class vessel of the patrol." chapter 12 approaching cavenda in his dead-black, converted scout-ship, virgil samms cut his drive, killed his atomics, and turned on his super-powered detectors. for five full detets in every direction--throughout a spherical volume over ten detets in diameter--space was void of ships. some activity was apparent upon the planet dead ahead, but the first lensman did not worry about that. the drug-runners would of course have atomics in their plants, even if there were no space-ships actually on the planet--which there probably were. what he did worry about was detection. there would be plenty of detectors, probably automatic; not only ordinary sub-ethereals, but electros and radars as well. he flashed up to within one and a quarter detets, stopped, and checked again. space was still empty. then, after making a series of observations, he went inert and established an intrinsic velocity which, he hoped, would be close enough. he again shut off his atomics and started the sixteen-cylinder diesel engine which would do its best to replace them. that best was none too good, but it would do. besides driving the bergenholm it could furnish enough kilodynes of thrust to produce a velocity many times greater than any attainable by inert matter. it used a lot of oxygen per minute, but it would not run for very many minutes. with her atomics out of action his ship would not register upon the plates of the long-range detectors universally used. since she was nevertheless traveling faster than light, neither electromagnetic detector-webs nor radar could "see" her. good enough. samms was not the system's best computer, nor did he have the system's finest instruments. his positional error could be corrected easily enough; but as he drove nearer and nearer to cavenda, keeping, toward the last, in line with its one small moon, he wondered more and more as to how much of an allowance he should make for error in his intrinsic, which he had set up practically by guess. and there was another variable, the cut-off. he slowed down to just over one light; but even at that comparatively slow speed an error of one millisecond at cut-off meant a displacement of two hundred miles! he switched the spotter into the berg's cut-off circuit, set it for three hundred miles, and waited tensely at his controls. the relays clicked, the driving force expired, the vessel went inert. samms' eyes, flashing from instrument to instrument, told him that matters could have been worse. his intrinsic was neither straight up, as he had hoped, nor straight down, as he had feared, but almost exactly half-way between the two--straight out. he discovered that fact just in time; in another second or two he would have been out beyond the moon's protecting bulk and thus detectable from cavenda. he went free, flashed back to the opposite boundary of his area of safety, went inert, and put the full power of the bellowing diesel to the task of bucking down his erroneous intrinsic, losing altitude continuously. again and again he repeated the maneuver; and thus, grimly and stubbornly, he fought his ship to ground. he was very glad to see that the surface of the satellite was rougher, rockier, ruggeder, and more cratered even than that of earth's luna. upon such a terrain as this, it would be next to impossible to spot even a moving vessel--if it moved carefully. by a series of short and careful inertialess hops--correcting his intrinsic velocity after each one by an inert collision with the ground--he maneuvered his vessel into such a position that cavenda's enormous globe hung directly overhead. breathing a profoundly deep breath of relief he killed the big engine, cut in his fully-charged accumulators, and turned on detector and spy-ray. he would see what he could see. his detectors showed that there was only one point of activity on the whole planet. he located it precisely; then, after cutting his spy-ray to minimum power, he approached it gingerly, yard by yard. stopped! as he had more than half expected, there was a spy-ray block. a big one, almost two miles in diameter. it would be almost directly beneath him--or rather, almost straight overhead--in about three hours. samms had brought along a telescope, considerably more powerful than the telescopic visiplate of his scout. since the surface gravity of this moon was low--scarcely one-fifth that of earth--he had no difficulty in lugging the parts out of the ship or in setting the thing up. but even the telescope did not do much good. the moon was close to cavenda, as astronomical distances go--but really worth-while astronomical optical instruments simply are not portable. thus the lensman saw something that, by sufficient stretch of the imagination, could have been a factory; and, eyes straining at the tantalizing limit of visibility, he even made himself believe that he saw a toothpick-shaped object and a darkly circular blob, either of which could have been the space-ship of the outlaws. he was sure, however, of two facts. there were no real cities upon cavenda. there were no modern spaceports, or even air-fields. he dismounted the 'scope, stored it, set his detectors, and waited. he had to sleep at times, of course; but any ordinary detector rig can be set to sound off at any change in its status--and samms' was no ordinary rig. wherefore, when the drug-mongers' vessel took off, samms left cavenda as unobtrusively as he had approached it, and swung into that vessel's line. samms' strategy had been worked out long since. on his diesel, at a distance of just over one detet, he would follow the outlaw as fast as he could; long enough to establish his line. he would then switch to atomic drive and close up to between one and two detets; then again go onto diesel for a check. he would keep this up for as long as might prove necessary. as far as any of the lensmen knew, spaceways always used regular liners or freighters in this business, and this scout was much faster than any such vessel. and even if--highly improbable thought!--the enemy ship was faster than his own, it would still be within range of _those_ detectors when it got to wherever it was that it was going. but how wrong samms was! at his first check, instead of being not over two detets away the quarry was three and a half; at the second the distance was four and a quarter; at the third, almost exactly five. scowling, samms watched the erstwhile brilliant point of light fade into darkness. that circular blob that he had almost seen, then, had been the space-ship, but it had not been a sphere, as he had supposed. instead, it had been a tear-drop; sticking, sharp tail down, in the ground. ultra-fast. this was the result. but ideas had blown up under him before, they probably would again. he resumed atomic drive and made arrangements with the port admiral to rendezvous with him and the _chicago_ at the earliest possible time. "what is there along that line?" he demanded of the superdreadnaught's chief pilot, even before junction had been made. "nothing, sir, that we know of," that worthy reported, after studying his charts. he boarded the gigantic ship of war, and with kinnison pored over those same charts. "your best bet is eridan, i think," kinnison concluded finally. "not too near your line, but they could very easily figure that a one-day dogleg would be a good investment. and spaceways owns it, you know, from core to planetary limits--the richest uranium mines in existence. made to order. nobody would suspect a uranium ship. how about throwing a globe around eridan?" samms thought for minutes. "no ... not yet, at least. we don't know enough yet." "i know it--that's why it looks to me like a good time and place to learn something," kinnison argued. "we know--almost know, at least--that a super-fast ship, carrying thionite, has just landed there. this is the hottest lead we've had. i say englobe the planet, declare martial law, and not let anything in or out until we find it. somebody there must know something, a lot more than we do. i say hunt him out and make him talk." "you're just popping off, rod. you know as well as i do that nabbing a few of the small fry isn't enough. we can't move openly until we can strike high." "i suppose not," kinnison grumbled. "but we know so _damned_ little, virge!" "little enough," samms agreed. "of the three main divisions, only the political aspect is at all clear. in the drug division, we know where thionite comes from and where it is processed, and eridan may be--probably is--another link. on the other end, we know a lot of peddlers and a few middlemen--nobody higher. we have no actual knowledge whatever as to who the higher-ups are or how they work; and it's the bosses we want. concerning the pirates, we know even less. 'murgatroyd' may be no more a man's name than 'zwilnik' is...." "before you get too far away from the subject, what are you going to do about eridan?" "nothing, for the moment, would be best, i believe. however, knobos and dalnalten should switch their attention from spaceways' passenger liners to the uranium ships from eridan to all three of the inner planets. check?" "check. particularly since it explains so beautifully the merry-go-round they have been on so long--chasing the same packages of dope backwards and forwards so many times that the corners of the boxes got worn round. we've got to get the top men, and they're smart. which reminds me--morgan as big boss does not square up with the morgan that you and fairchild smacked down so easily when he tried to investigate the hill. a loud-mouthed, chiseling politician might have a lock-box full of documentary evidence about party bosses and power deals and chorus girls and martian tekkyl coats, but the man we're after very definitely would not." "you're telling me?" this point was such a sore one that samms relapsed into idiom. "the boys should have cracked that box a week ago, but they struck a knot. i'll see if they know anything yet. tune in, rod. ray!" he lensed a thought at his cousin. "yes, virge?" "have you got a spy-ray into that lock-box yet?" "glad you called. yes, last night. empty. empty as a sub-deb's skull--except for an atomic-powered gimmick that it took bergenholm's whole laboratory almost a week to neutralize." "i see. thanks. off." samms turned to kinnison. "well?" "nice. a mighty smart operator." kinnison gave credit ungrudgingly. "now i'll buy your picture--what a man! but now--and i've got my ears pinned back--what was it you started to say about pirates?" "just that we have very little to go on, except for the kind of stuff they seem to like best, and the fact that even armed escorts have not been able to protect certain types of shipments of late. the escorts, too, have disappeared. but with these facts as bases, it seems to me that we could arrange something, perhaps like this...." * * * * * a fast, sleek freighter and a heavy battle-cruiser bored steadily through the inter-stellar void. the merchantman carried a fabulously valuable cargo: not bullion or jewels or plate of price, but things literally above price--machine tools of highest precision, delicate optical and electrical instruments, fine watches and chronometers. she also carried first lensman virgil samms. and aboard the war-ship there was roderick kinnison; for the first time in history a mere battle-cruiser bore a port admiral's flag. as far as the detectors of those two ships could reach, space was empty of man-made craft; but the two lensmen knew that they were not alone. one and one-half detets away, loafing along at the freighter's speed and paralleling her course, in a hemispherical formation open to the front, there flew six tremendous tear-drops; super-dreadnaughts of whose existence no tellurian or colonial government had even an inkling. they were the fastest and deadliest craft yet built by man--the first fruits of operation bennett. and they, too, carried lensmen--costigan, jack kinnison, northrop, dronvire of rigel four, rodebush, and cleveland. nor was there need of detectors: the eight lensmen were in as close communication as though they had been standing in the same room. "on your toes, men," came samms' quiet thought. "we are about to pass within a few light-minutes of an uninhabited solar system. no tellurian-type planets at all. this may be it. tune to kinnison on one side and to your captains on the other. take over, rod." at one instant the ether, for one full detet in every direction, was empty. in the next, three intensely brilliant spots of detection flashed into being, in line with the dead planet so invitingly close at hand. this development came as a surprise, since only two raiders had been expected: a battleship to take care of the escort, a cruiser to take the merchantman. the fact that the pirates had become cautious or suspicious and had sent three super-dreadnaughts on the mission, however, did not operate to change the patrol's strategy; for samms had concluded, and dronvire and bergenholm and rularion of jupiter had agreed, that the real commander of the expedition would be aboard the vessel that attacked the freighter. in the next instant, then--each lensman saw what roderick kinnison saw, in the very instant of his seeing it--six more points of hard, white light sprang into being upon the plates of guileful freighter and decoying cruiser. "jack and mase, take the leader!" kinnison snapped out the thought. "dronvire and costigan, right wing--he's the one that's going after the freighter. fred and lyman, left wing. hipe!" the pirate ships flashed up, filling ether and sub-ether alike with a solid mush of interference through which no call for help could be driven; two super-dreadnaughts against the cruiser, one against the freighter. the former, of course, had been expected to offer more than a token resistance. battle cruisers of the patrol were powerful vessels, both on offense and defense, and it was a known and recognized fact that the men of the patrol were _men_. the pirate commander who attacked the freighter, however, was a surprised pirate indeed. his first beam, directed well forward, well ahead of the precious cargo, should have wrought the same havoc against screens and wall-shields and structure as a white-hot poker would against a pat of luke-warm butter. practically the whole nose-section, including the control room, should have whiffed outward into space in gobbets and streamers of molten and gaseous metal. but nothing of the sort happened--this merchantman was _no_ push-over! no ordinary screens protected that particular freighter and the person of first lensman samms--roderick kinnison had very thoroughly seen to that. in sheer mass her screen generators out-weighed her entire cargo, heavy as that cargo was, by more than two to one. thus the pirate's beams stormed and struck and clawed and clung--uselessly. they did not penetrate. and as the surprised attacker shoved his power up and up, to his absolute ceiling of effort, the only result was to increase the already tremendous pyrotechnic display of energies cascading in all directions from the fiercely radiant defenses of the tellurian freighter. and in a few seconds the commanding officers of the other two attacking battleships were also surprised. the battle-cruiser's screens did not go down, even under the combined top effort of two super-dreadnaughts! and she did not have a beam hot enough to light a match--she must be _all screen_! but before the startled outlaws could do anything about the realization that they, instead of being the trappers, were in cold fact the trapped, all three of them were surprised again--the last surprise that any of them was ever to receive. six mighty tear-drops--vastly bigger, faster, more powerful than their own--were rushing upon them, blanketing all channels of communication as efficiently and as enthusiastically as they themselves had been doing an instant before. being out simply and ruthlessly to kill, and not to capture, four of the newcomers from bennett polished off the cruiser's two attackers in very short order. they simply flashed in, went inert at the four corners of an imaginary tetrahedron, and threw everything they had--and they had plenty. possibly--just barely possibly--there may have been, somewhere, a space-battle shorter than that one; but there certainly was never one more violent. then the four set out after their two sister-ships and the one remaining pirate, who was frantically devoting his every effort to the avoidance of engagement. but with six ships, each one of which was of vastly greater individual power than his own, at the six corners of an octahedron of which he was the geometrical center, his ability to cut tractor beams and to "squirt out" from between two opposed pressors did him no good whatever. he was englobed; or, rather, to apply the correct terminology to an operation involving so few units, he was "boxed". to blow the one remaining raider out of the ether would have been easy enough, but that was exactly what the patrolmen did not want to do. they wanted information. wherefore each of the patrol ships directed a dozen or so beams upon the scintillating protective screens of the enemy; enough so that every square yard of defensive web was under direct attack. as rapidly as it could be done without losing equilibrium or synchronization, the power of each beam was stepped up until the wildly violet incandescence of the pirate screen showed that it was hovering on the very edge of failure. then, in the instant, needle-beamers went furiously to work. the screen was already loaded to its limit; no transfer of defensive energy was possible. thus, tremendously overloaded locally, locally it flared through the ultra-violet into the black and went down; and the fiercely penetrant daggers of pure force stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. the engine room went first, even though the needlers had to gnaw a hundred-foot hole straight through the pirate craft in order to find the vital installations. then, enough damage done so that spy-rays could get in, the rest of the work was done with precision and dispatch. in a matter of seconds the pirate hulk lay helpless, and the patrolmen peeled her like an orange--or, rather, more like an amateur cook very wastefully peeling a potato. resistless knives of energy sheared off tail-section and nose-section, top and bottom, port and starboard sides; then slabbed off the corners of what was left, until the control room was almost bared to space. then, as soon as the intrinsic velocities could possibly be matched, board and storm! with dronvire of rigel four in the lead, closely followed by costigan, northrop, kinnison the younger, and a platoon of armed and armored space marines! samms and the two scientists did not belong in such a melee as that which was to come, and knew it. kinnison the elder did not belong, either, but did not know it. in fact, he cursed fluently and bitterly at having to stay out--nevertheless, out he stayed. dronvire, on the other hand, did not like to fight. the very thought of actual, bodily, hand-to-hand combat revolted every fiber of his being. in view of what the spy-ray men were reporting, however, and of what all the lensmen knew of pirate psychology, dronvire had to get into that control room first, and he had to get there _fast_. and if he _had_ to fight, he could; and, physically, he was wonderfully well equipped for just such activity. to his immense physical strength, the natural concomitant of a force of gravity more than twice earth's, the armor which so encumbered the tellurian battlers was a scarcely noticeable impediment. his sense of perception, which could not be barred by any material substance, kept him fully informed of every development in his neighborhood. his literally incredible speed enabled him not merely to parry a blow aimed at him, but to bash out the brains of the would-be attacker before that blow could be more than started. and whereas a human being can swing only one space-axe or fire only two ray-guns at a time, the rigellian plunged through space toward what was left of the pirate vessel, swinging not one or two space-axes, but four; each held in a lithe and supple, but immensely strong, tentacular "hand". why axes? why not lewistons, or rifles, or pistols? because the space armor of that day could withstand almost indefinitely the output of two or three hand-held projectors; because the resistance of its defensive fields varied directly as the cube of the velocity of any material projectile encountering them. thus, and strangely enough, the advance of science had forced the re-adoption of that long-extinct weapon. most of the pirates had died, of course, during the dismemberment of their ship. many more had been picked off by the needle-beam gunners. in the control room, however, there was a platoon of elite guards, clustered so closely about the commander and his officers that needles could not be used; a group that would have to be wiped out by hand. if the attack had come by way of the only doorway, so that the pirates could have concentrated their weapons upon one or two patrolmen, the commander might have had time enough to do what he was under compulsion to do. but while the patrolmen were still in space a plane of force sheared off the entire side of the room, a tractor beam jerked the detached wall away, and the attackers floated in en masse. weightless combat is not at all like any form of gymnastics known to us ground-grippers. it is much more difficult to master, and in times of stress the muscles revert involuntarily and embarrassingly to their wonted gravity-field techniques. thus the endeavors of most of the battlers upon both sides, while earnest enough and deadly enough of intent, were almost comically unproductive of result. in a matter of seconds frantically-struggling figures were floating from wall to ceiling to wall to floor; striking wildly, darting backward from the violence of their own fierce swings. the tellurian lensmen, however, had had more practice and remembered their lessons better. jack kinnison, soaring into the room, grabbed the first solid thing he could reach; a post. pulling himself down to the floor, he braced both feet, sighted past the nearest foeman, swung his axe, and gave a tremendous shove. such was his timing that in the instant of maximum effort the beak of his atrociously effective weapon encountered the pirate's helmet--and that was that. he wrenched his axe free and shoved the corpse away in such a direction that the reaction would send him against a wall at the floor line, in position to repeat the maneuver. since mason northrop was heavier and stronger than his friend, his technique was markedly different. he dove for the chart-table, which of course was welded to the floor. he hooked one steel-shod foot around one of the table's legs and braced the other against its top. weightless but inert, it made no difference whether his position was vertical or horizontal or anywhere between; from this point of vantage, with his length of body and arm and axe, he could cover a lot of room. he reached out, hooked bill of axe into belt or line-snap or angle of armor, and pulled; and as the helplessly raging pirate floated past him, he swung and struck. and that, too, was that. dronvire of rigel four did not rush to the attack. he had never been and was not now either excited or angry. indeed, it was only empirically that he knew what anger and excitement were. he had never been in any kind of a fight. therefore he paused for a couple of seconds to analyze the situation and to determine his own most efficient method of operation. he would not have to be in physical contact with the pirate captain to go to work on his mind, but he would have to be closer than this and he would have to be free from physical attack while he concentrated. he perceived what kinnison and costigan and northrop were doing, and knew why each was working in a different fashion. he applied that knowledge to his own mass, to his own musculature, to the length and strength of his arms--each one of which was twice as long and ten times as strong as the trunk of an elephant. he computed forces and leverages, actions and reactions, points of application, stresses and strains. he threw away two of his axes. the two empty arms reached out, each curling around the neck of a pirate. two axes flashed, grazing each pinioning arm so nearly that it seemed incredible that the sharp edges did not shear away the rigellian's own armor. two heads floated away from two bodies and dronvire reached for two more. and two--and two--and two. calm and dispassionate, but not wasting a motion or a millisecond, dronvire accomplished more, in less time, than all the tellurians in the room. "costigan, northrop, kinnison--attend!" he launched a thought. "i have no time to kill more of them. the commander is dying of a self-inflicted wound and i have important work to do. see to it, please, that these remaining creatures do not attack me while i am doing it." dronvire tuned his mind to that of the pirate and probed. although dying, the pirate captain offered fierce resistance, but the rigellian was not alone. attuned to his mind, working smoothly with it, giving it strengths and qualities which no rigellian ever had had or ever would have, were the two strongest minds of earth: that of rod the rock kinnison, with the driving force, the indomitable will, the transcendent urge of all human heredity; and that of virgil samms, with all that had made him first lensman. "tell!" that terrific triple mind demanded, with a force which simply could not be denied. "where are you from? resistance is useless; yours or that of those whom you serve. your bases and powers are smaller and weaker than ours, since spaceways is only a corporation and we are the galactic patrol. tell! who are your bosses? tell--tell!" under that irresistible urge there appeared, foggily and without any hint of knowledge of name or of spatial co-ordinates, an embattled planet, very similar in a smaller way to the patrol's own bennett, and-even more foggily, but still not so blurred but that their features were unmistakeably recognizable, the images of two men. that of murgatroyd, the pirate chief, completely strange to both kinnison and samms; and-back of murgatroyd and above him, that of-big jim towne! chapter 13 "first, about murgatroyd." in his office in the hill roderick kinnison spoke aloud to the first lensman. "what do you think should be done about him?" "murgatroyd. hm ... m ... m." samms inhaled a mouthful of smoke and exhaled it slowly; watched it dissipate in the air. "ah, yes, murgatroyd." he repeated the performance. "my thought, at the moment, is to let him alone." "check," kinnison said. if samms was surprised at his friend's concurrence he did not show it. "why? let's see if we check on that." "because he does not seem to be of fundamental importance. even if we could find him ... and by the way, what do you think the chance is of our spies finding him?" "just about the same chance that theirs have of finding out about the samms-olmstead switch or our planet bennett. vanishingly small. zero." "right. and even if we could find him--even find their secret base, which is certainly as well hidden as ours is--it would do us no present good, because we could take no positive action. we have, i think, learned the prime fact; that towne is actually murgatroyd's superior." "that's the way i see it. we can almost draw an organization chart now." "i wouldn't say 'almost'." samms smiled half-ruefully. "there are gaping holes, and isaacson is as yet a highly unknown quantity. i've tried to draw one a dozen times, but we haven't got enough information. an incorrect chart, you know, would be worse than none at all. as soon as i can draw a correct one, i'll show it to you. but in the meantime, the position of our friend james f. towne is now clear. he is actually a big shot in both piracy and politics. that fact surprised me, even though it did clarify the picture tremendously." "me, too. one good thing, we won't have to hunt for him. you've been working on him right along, though, haven't you?" "yes, but this new relationship throws light on a good many details which have been obscure. it also tends to strengthen our working hypothesis as to isaacson--which we can't prove yet, of course--that he is the actual working head of the drug syndicate. vice-president in charge of drugs, so to speak." "huh? that's a new one on me. i don't see it." "there is very little doubt that at the top there is morgan. he is, and has been for some time, the real boss of north america. under him, probably taking orders direct, is president witherspoon." "undoubtedly. the nationalist party is strictly _a la_ machine, and witherspoon is one of the world's slimiest skinkers. morgan is chief engineer of the machine. take it from there." "we know that boss jim is also in the top echelon--quite possibly the commander-in-chief--of the enemy's armed forces. by analogy, and since isaacson is apparently on the same level as towne, immediately below morgan...." "wouldn't there be three? witherspoon?" "i doubt it. my present idea is that witherspoon is at least one level lower. comparatively small fry." "could be--i'll buy it. a nice picture, virge; and beautifully symmetrical. his mightiness morgan. secretary of war towne and secretary of drugs isaacson; and each of them putting a heavy shoulder behind the political bandwagon. _very_ nice. that makes operation mateese tougher than ever--a triple-distilled toughie. glad i told you it wasn't my dish--saves me the trouble of backing out now." "yes, i have noticed how prone you are to duck tough jobs." samms smiled quietly. "however, unless i am even more mistaken than usual, you will be in it up to your not-so-small ears, my friend, before it is over." "huh? how?" kinnison demanded. "that will, i hope, become clear very shortly." samms stubbed out the butt of his cigarette and lit another. "the basic problem can be stated very simply. how are we going to persuade the sovereign countries of earth--particularly the north american continent--to grant the galactic patrol the tremendous power and authority it will have to have?" "nice phrasing, virge, and studied. not off the cuff. but aren't you over-drawing a bit? little if any conflict. the patrol would be pretty largely inter-systemic in scope ... with of course the necessary inter-planetary and inter-continental ... and ... um ... m...." "exactly." "but it's logical enough, virge, even at that, and has plenty of precedents, clear back to ancient history. 'way back, before space-travel, when they first started to use atomic energy, and the only drugs they had to worry about were cocaine, morphine, heroin, and other purely tellurian products. i was reading about it just the other day." kinnison swung around, fingered a book out of a matched set, and riffled its leaves. "russia was the world's problem child then--put up what they called an iron curtain--wouldn't play with the neighbors' children, but picked up her marbles and went home. but yet--here it is. original source unknown--some indications point to a report of somebody named hoover, sometime in the nineteen forties or fifties, gregorian calendar. listen: "'this protocol'--he's talking about the agreement on world-wide narcotics control--'was signed by fifty-two nations, including the u.s.s.r.'--that was russia--'and its satellite states. it was the only international agreement to which the communist countries'--you know more about what communism was, i suppose, than i do." "just that it was another form of dictatorship that didn't work out." "'... to which the communist countries ever gave more than lip service. this adherence is all the more surprising, in view of the political situation then obtaining, in that all signatory nations obligated themselves to surrender national sovereignty in five highly significant respects, as follows: "'first, to permit narcotics agents of all other signatory nations free, secret, and unregistered entry into, unrestricted travel throughout, and exit from, all their lands and waters, wherever situate: "'second, upon request, to allow known criminals and known contraband to enter and to leave their territories without interference: "'third, to cooperate fully, and as a secondary and not as a prime mover, in any narcotics patrol program set up by any other signatory nation: "'fourth, upon request, to maintain complete secrecy concerning any narcotics operation: and "'fifth, to keep the central narcotics authority fully and continuously informed upon all matters hereinbefore specified.' "and apparently, virge, it worked. if they could do that, 'way back then, we certainly should be able to make the patrol work now." "you talk as though the situations were comparable. they aren't. instead of giving up an insignificant fraction of their national sovereignty, all nations will have to give up practically all of it. they will have to change their thinking from a national to a galactic viewpoint; will have to become units in a galactic civilization, just as counties used to be units of states, and states are units of the continents. the galactic patrol will not be able to stop at being the supreme and only authority in inter-systemic affairs. it is bound to become intra-systemic, intra-planetary, and intra-continental. eventually, it must and it shall be the _sole_ authority, except for such purely local organizations as city police." "_what_ a program!" kinnison thought silently for minutes. "but i'm still betting that you can bring it off." "we'll keep on driving until we do. what gives us our chance is that the all-lensman solarian council is already in existence and is functioning smoothly; and that the government of north america has no jurisdiction beyond the boundaries of its continent. thus, and even though morgan has extra-legal powers both as boss of north america and as the head of an organization which is in fact inter-systemic in scope, he can do nothing whatever about the fact that the solarian council has been enlarged into the galactic council. as a matter of fact, he was and is very much in favor of that particular move--just as much so as we are." "you're going too fast for me. how do you figure that?" "unlike our idea of the patrol as a coordinator of free and independent races, morgan sees it as the perfect instrument of a galactic dictatorship, thus: north america is the most powerful continent of earth. the other continents will follow her lead--or else. tellus can very easily dominate the other solarian planets, and the solar system can maintain dominance over all other systems as they are discovered and colonized. therefore, whoever controls the north american continent controls all space." "i see. could be, at that. throw the lensmen out, put his own stooges in. wonder how he'll go about it? a _tour de force_? no. the next election, would be my guess. if so, that will be the most important election in history." "if they decide to wait for the election, yes. i'm not as sure as you seem to be that they will not act sooner." "they can't," kinnison declared. "name me one thing they think they can do, and i'll shoot it fuller of holes than a target." "they can, and i am very much afraid that they will," samms replied, soberly. "at any time he cares to do so, morgan--through the north american government, of course--can abrogate the treaty and name his own council." "without my boys--the backbone and the guts of north america, as well as of the patrol? don't be stupid, virge. they're _loyal_." "admitted--but at the same time they are being paid in north american currency. of course, we will soon have our own galactic credit system worked out, but...." "what the hell difference would _that_ make?" kinnison wanted savagely to know. "you think they'd last until the next pay-day if they start playing that kind of ball? what in hell do you think _i'd_ be doing? and clayton and schweikert and the rest of the gang? sitting on our fat rumps and crying into our beers?" "you would do nothing. i could not permit any illegal...." "permit!" kinnison blazed, leaping to his feet. "permit--hell! are you loose-screwed enough to actually think i would ask or need your permission? listen, samms!" the port admiral's voice took on a quality like nothing his friend had ever before heard. "the first thing i would do would be to take off your lens, wrap you up--especially your mouth--in seventeen yards of three-inch adhesive tape, and heave you into the brig. the second would be to call out everything we've got, including every half-built ship on bennett able to fly, and declare martial law. the third would be a series of summary executions, starting with morgan and working down. and if he's got any fraction of the brain i credit him with, morgan knows damned well _exactly_ what would happen." "oh." samms, while very much taken aback, was thrilled to the center of his being. "i had not considered anything so drastic, but you probably would...." "not 'probably'," kinnison corrected him grimly. "'certainly'." "... and morgan does know ... except about bennett, of course ... and he would not, for obvious reasons, bring in his secret armed forces. you're right, rod, it will be the election." "definitely; and it's plain enough what their basic strategy will be." kinnison, completely mollified, sat down and lit another cigar. "his nationalist party is now in power, but it was our cosmocrats of the previous administration who so basely slipped one over on the dear pee-pul--who betrayed the entire north american continent into the claws of rapacious wealth, no less--by ratifying that unlawful, unhallowed, unconstitutional, and so on, treaty. scoundrels! bribe-takers! betrayers of a sacred trust! _how_ rabble-rouser morgan will thump the tub on that theme--he'll make the welkin ring as it never rang before." kinnison mimicked savagely the demagogue's round and purple tones as he went on: "'since they had no mandate from the pee-pul to trade their birthright for a mess of pottage that nefarious and underhanded treaty is, _a prima vista_ and _ipso facto_ and _a priori_, completely and necessarily and positively null and void. people of earth, arouse! arise! rise in your might and throw off this stultifying and degrading, this paralyzing yoke of the monied powers--throw out this dictatorial, autocratic, wealth-directed, illegal, monstrous council of so-called lensmen! rise in your might at the polls! elect a council of your own choosing--not of lensmen, but of ordinary folks like you and me. throw _off_ this hellish yoke, i say!'--and here he begins to positively froth at the mouth--'so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth!' "he has used that exact peroration, ancient as it is, so many times that practically everybody thinks he originated it; and it's always good for so many decibels of applause that he'll keep on using it forever." "your analysis is vivid, cogent, and factual, rod--but the situation is not at all funny." "did i act as though i thought it was? if so, i'm a damned poor actor. i'd like to kick the bloodsucking leech all the way from here to the great nebula in andromeda, and if i ever get the chance i'm going to!" "an interesting, but somewhat irrelevant idea." samms smiled at his friend's passionate outburst. "but go on. i agree with you in principle so far, and your viewpoint is--to say the least--refreshing." "well, morgan will have so hypnotized most of the dear pee-pul that they will think it their own idea when he re-nominates this spineless nincompoop witherspoon for another term as president of north america, with a solid machine-made slate of hatchet-men behind him. they win the election. then the government of the north american continent--not the morgan-towne-isaacson machine, but all nice and legal and by mandate and in strict accordance with the party platform--abrogates the treaty and names its own council. and right then, my friend, the boys and i will do our stuff." "except that, in such a case, you wouldn't. think it over, rod." "why not?" kinnison demanded, in a voice which, however, did not carry much conviction. "because we would be in the wrong; and we are even less able to go against united public opinion than is the morgan crowd." "we'd do _something_--i've got it!" kinnison banged the desk with his fist. "that would be a strictly unilateral action. north america would be standing alone." "of course." "so we'll pull all the cosmocrats and all of our friends out of north america--move them to bennett or somewhere--and make morgan and company a present of it. we won't declare martial law or kill anybody, unless they decide to call in their reserves. we'll merely isolate the whole damned continent--throw a screen around it and over it that a microbe won't be able to get through--one that would make that iron curtain i read about look like a bride's veil--and we'll _keep_ them isolated until they beg to join up on our terms. strictly legal, and the perfect solution. how about me giving the boys a briefing on it, right now?" "not yet." samms' mien, however, lightened markedly. "i never thought of that way out.... it _could_ be done, and it would probably work, but i would not recommend it except as an ultimately last resort. it has at least two tremendous drawbacks." "i know it, but...." "it would wreck north america as no nation has ever been wrecked; quite possibly beyond recovery. furthermore, how many people, including yourself and your children, would like to renounce their north american citizenship and remove themselves, permanently and irrevocably, from north american soil?" "um ... m ... m. put that away, it doesn't sound so good, does it? but what the hell else can we do?" "just what we have been planning on doing. we must win the election." "huh?" kinnison's mouth almost fell open. "you say it easy. how? with whom? by what stretch of the imagination do you figure that you can find anybody with a loose enough mouth to out-lie and out-promise morgan? and can you duplicate his machine?" "we can not only duplicate his machine; we can better it. the truth, presented to the people in language they can understand and appreciate, by a man whom they like, admire, and respect, will be more attractive than morgan's promises. the same truth will dispose of morgan's lies." "well, go on. you've answered my questions, after a fashion, except the stinger. does the council think it's got a man with enough dynage to lift the load?" "unanimously. they also agreed unanimously that we have only one. haven't you any idea who he is?" "not a glimmering of one." kinnison frowned in thought, then his face cleared into a broad grin and he yelled: "_what_ a damn fool i am--_you_, of course!" "wrong. i was not even seriously considered. it was the concensus that i could not possibly win. my work has been such as to keep me out of the public eye. if the man in the street thinks of me at all, he thinks that i hold myself apart and above him--the ivory tower concept." "could be, at that; but you've got my curiosity aroused. how can a man of that caliber have been kicking around so long without me knowing anything about him?" "you do. that's what i've been working around to all afternoon. you." "huh?" kinnison gasped as though he had received a blow in the solar plexus. "me? me? hell's--brazen--hinges!" "exactly. you." silencing kinnison's inarticulate protests, samms went on: "first, you'll have no difficulty in talking to an audience as you've just talked to me." "of course not--but did i use any language that would burn out the transmitters? i don't remember whether i did or not." "i don't, either. you probably did, but that would be nothing new. telenews has never yet cut you off the ether because of it. the point is this: while you do not realize it, you are a better tub-thumper and welkin-ringer than morgan is, when something--such as just now--really gets you going. and as for a machine, what finer one is possible than the patrol? everybody in it or connected with it will support you to the hilt--you know that." "why, i ... i suppose so ... probably they would, yes." "do you know why?" "can't say that i do, unless it's because i treat them fair, so they do the same to me." "exactly. i don't say that everybody likes you, but i don't know of anybody who doesn't respect you. and, most important, everybody--all over space--knows 'rod the rock' kinnison, and why he is called that." "but that very 'man on horseback' thing may backfire on you, virge." "perhaps--slightly--but we're not afraid of that. and finally, you said you'd like to kick morgan from here to andromeda. how would you like to kick him from panama city to the north pole?" "i said it, and i wasn't just warming up my jets, either. i'd like it." the big lensman's nostrils flared, his lips thinned. "by god, virge, i will!" "thanks, rod." with no display whatever of the emotion he felt, samms skipped deliberately to the matter next in hand. "now, about eridan. let's see if they know anything yet." the report of knobos and dalnalten was terse and exact. they had found--and that finding, so baldly put, could have filled and should fill a book--that spaceways' uranium vessels were, beyond any reasonable doubt, hauling thionite from eridan to the planets of sol. spy-rays being useless, they had considered the advisability of investigating eridan in person, but had decided against such action. eridan was closely held by uranium, incorporated. its population was one hundred percent tellurian human. neither dalnalten nor knobos could disguise himself well enough to work there. either would be caught promptly, and as promptly shot. "thanks, fellows," samms said, when it became evident that the brief report was done. then, to kinnison, "that puts it up to conway costigan. and jack? or mase? or both?" "both," kinnison decided, "and anybody else they can use." "i'll get them at it." samms sent out thoughts. "and now, i wonder what that daughter of mine is doing? i'm a little worried about her, rod. she's too cocky for her own good--or strength. some of these days she's going to bite off more than she can chew, if she hasn't already. the more we learn about morgan, the less i like the idea of her working on herkimer herkimer third. i've told her so, a dozen times, and why, but of course it didn't do any good." "it wouldn't. the only way to develop teeth is to bite with 'em. you had to. so did i. our kids have got to, too. we lived through it. so will they. as for herky the third...." he thought for moments, then went on: "check. but she's done a job so far that nobody else could do. in spite of that fact, if it wasn't for our lenses i'd say to pull her, if you have to heave the insubordinate young jade into the brig. but with the lenses, and the way you watch her ... to say nothing of mase northrop, and he's a lot of man ... i can't see her getting in either very bad or very deep. can you?" "no, i can't." samms admitted, but the thoughtful frown did not leave his face. he lensed her: finding, as he had supposed, that she was at a party; dancing, as he had feared, with senator morgan's number one secretary. "hi, dad!" she greeted him gaily, with no slightest change in the expression of the face turned so engagingly to her partner's. "i have the honor of reporting that all instruments are still dead-centering the green." "and have you, by any chance, been paying any attention to what i have been telling you?" "oh, lots," she assured him. "i've collected reams of data. he could be almost as much of a menace as he thinks he is, in some cases, but i haven't begun to slip yet. as i have told you all along, this is just a game, and we're both playing it strictly according to the rules." "that's good. keep it that way, my dear." samms signed off and his daughter returned her full attention--never noticeably absent--to the handsome secretary. the evening wore on. miss samms danced every dance; occasionally with one or another of the notables present, but usually with herkimer herkimer third. "a drink?" he asked. "a small, cold one?" "not so small, and _very_ cold," she agreed, enthusiastically. glass in hand, herkimer indicated a nearby doorway. "i just heard that our host has acquired a very old and very fine bronze--a neptune. we should run an eye over it, don't you think?" "by all means," she agreed again. but as they passed through the shadowed portal the man's head jerked to the right. "_there's_ something you really ought to see, jill!" he exclaimed. "look!" she looked. a young woman of her own height and build and with her own flamboyant hair, identical as to hair-do and as to every fine detail of dress and of ornamentation, glass in hand, was strolling back into the ball-room! jill started to protest, but could not. in the brief moment of inaction the beam of a snub-nosed p-gun had played along her spine from hips to neck. she did not fall--he had given her a very mild jolt--but, rage as she would, she could neither struggle nor scream. and, after the fact, she knew. but he _couldn't_--couldn't _possibly_! nevian paralysis-guns were as outlawed as was vee two gas itself! nevertheless, he had. and on the instant a woman, dressed in crisp and spotless white and carrying a hooded cloak, appeared--and herkimer now wore a beard and heavy, horn rimmed spectacles. thus, very shortly, virgilia samms found herself, completely helpless and completely unrecognizable, walking awkwardly out of the house between a businesslike doctor and a solicitous nurse. "will you need me any more, doctor murray?" the woman carefully and expertly loaded the patient into the rear seat of a car. "thank you, no, miss childs." with a sick, cold certainty jill knew that this conversation was for the benefit of the doorman and the hackers, and that it would stand up under any examination. "mrs. harman's condition is ... er ... well, nothing at all serious." the car moved out into the street and jill, really frightened for the first time in her triumphant life, fought down an almost overwhelming wave of panic. the hood had slipped down over her eyes, blinding her. she could not move a single voluntary muscle. nevertheless, she knew that the car traveled a few blocks--six, she thought--west on bolton street before turning left. why didn't somebody lens her? her father wouldn't, she knew, until tomorrow. neither of the kinnisons would, nor spud--they never did except on direct invitation. but mase would, before he went to bed--or would he? it was past his bed-time now, and she had been pretty caustic, only last night, because she was doing a particularly delicate bit of reading. but he would ... he _must_! "mase! _mase!_ mase!" and, eventually, mase did. deep under the hill, roderick kinnison swore fulminantly at the sheer physical impossibility of getting out of that furiously radiating mountain in a hurry. at new york spaceport, however, mason northrop and jack kinnison not only could hurry, but did. "where are you, jill?" northrop demanded presently. "what kind of a car are you in?" "quite near stanhope circle." in communication with her friends at last, jill regained a measure of her usual poise. "within eight or ten blocks, i'm sure. i'm in a black wilford sedan, last year's model. i didn't get a chance to see its license plates." "that helps a lot!" jack grunted, savagely. "a ten-block radius covers a hell of a lot of territory, and half the cars in town are black wilford sedans." "shut up, jack! go ahead, jill--tell us all you can, and keep on sending us anything that will help at all." "i kept the right and left turns and distances straight for quite a while--about twenty blocks--that's how i know it was stanhope circle. i don't know how many times he went around the circle, though, or which way he went when he left it. after leaving the circle, the traffic was very light, and here there doesn't seem to be any traffic at all. that brings us up to date. you'll know as well as i do what happens next." with jill, the lensmen knew that herkimer drove his car up to the curb and stopped--parked without backing up. he got out and hauled the girl's limp body out of the car, displacing the hood enough to free one eye. good! only one other car was visible; a bright yellow convertible parked across the street, about half a block ahead. there was a sign--"no parking on this side 7 to 10." the building toward which he was carrying her was more than three stories high, and had a number--one, four--if he would _only_ swing her a little bit more, so that she could see the rest of it--one four-seven-nine! "rushton boulevard, you think, mase?" "could be. fourteen seventy nine would be on the downtown-traffic side. blast!" into the building, where two masked men locked and barred the door behind them. "and keep it locked!" herkimer ordered. "you know what to do until i come back down." into an elevator, and up. through massive double doors into a room, whose most conspicuous item of furniture was a heavy steel chair, bolted to the floor. two masked men got up and placed themselves behind that chair. jill's strength was coming back fast; but not fast enough. the cloak was removed. her ankles were tied firmly, one to each front leg of the chair. herkimer threw four turns of rope around her torso and the chair's back, took up every inch of slack, and tied a workmanlike knot. then, still without a word, he stood back and lighted a cigarette. the last trace of paralysis disappeared, but the girl's mad struggles, futile as they were, were not allowed to continue. "put a double hammerlock on her," herkimer directed, "but be damned sure not to break anything at this stage of the game. that comes later." jill, more furiously angry than frightened until now, locked her teeth to keep from screaming as the pressure went on. she could not bend forward to relieve the pain; she could not move; she could only grit her teeth and glare. she was beginning to realize, however, what was actually in store; that herkimer herkimer third was in fact a monster whose like she had never known. he stepped quietly forward, gathered up a handful of fabric, and heaved. the strapless and backless garment, in no way designed to withstand such stresses, parted; squarely across at the upper strand of rope. he puffed his cigarette to a vivid coal--took it in his fingers--there was an audible hiss and a tiny stink of burning flesh as the glowing ember was extinguished in the clear, clean skin below the girl's left armpit. jill flinched then, and shrieked desperately, but her tormentor was viciously unmoved. "that was just to settle any doubt as to whether or not i mean business. i'm all done fooling around with you. i want to know two things. first, everything you know about the lens; where it comes from, what it really is, and what it does besides what your press-agents advertise. second, what really happened at the ambassadors' ball. start talking. the faster you talk, the less you'll get hurt." "you can't get away with this, herkimer." jill tried desperately to pull her shattered nerves together. "i'll be missed--traced...." she paused, gasping. if she told him that the lensmen were in full and continuous communication with her--and if he believed it--he would kill her right then. she switched instantly to another track. "that double isn't good enough to fool anybody who really knows me." "she doesn't have to be." the man grinned venomously. "nobody who knows you will get close enough to her to tell the difference. this wasn't done on the spur of the moment, jill; it was planned--minutely. you haven't got the chance of the proverbial celluloid dog in hell." "jill!" jack kinnison's thought stabbed in. "it isn't rushton--fourteen seventy-nine is a two-story. what other streets could it be?" "i don't know...." she was not in very good shape to think. "damnation! got to get hold of somebody who knows the streets. spud, grab a hacker at the circle and i'll lens parker...." jack's thought snapped off as he tuned to a local lensman. jill's heart sank. she was starkly certain now that the lensmen could not find her in time. "tighten up a little, eddie. you, too, bob." "stop it! oh, god, stop it!" the unbearable agony relaxed a little. she watched in horrified fascination a second glowing coal approach her bare right side. "even if i do talk you'll kill me anyway. you couldn't let me go now." "kill you, my pet? not if you behave yourself. we've got a lot of planets the patrol never heard of, and you could keep a man interested for quite a while, if you really tried. and if you beg hard enough maybe i'll let you try. however, i'd get just as much fun out of killing you as out of the other, so it's up to you. not sudden death, of course. little things, at first, like we've been doing. a few more touches of warmth here and there--so.... "scream as much as you please. i enjoy it, and this room is sound-proof. once more, boys, about half an inch higher this time ... up ... steady ... down. we'll have half an hour or so of this stuff"--herkimer knew that to the quivering, sensitive, highly imaginative girl his words would be practically as punishing as the atrocious actualities themselves--"then i'll do things to your finger-nails and toe-nails, beginning with burning slivers of double-base flare powder and working up. then your eyes--or no, i'll save them until last, so you can watch a couple of venerian slasher-worms work on you, one on each leg, and a martian digger on your bare belly." gripping her hair firmly in his left hand, he forced her head back and down; down almost to her hard-held hands. his right hand, concealing something which he had not mentioned and which was probably starkly unmentionable, approached her taut-stretched throat. "talk or not, just as you please." the voice was utterly callous, as chill as the death she now knew he was so willing to deal. "but listen. if you elect to talk, tell the truth. you won't lie twice. i'll count to ten. one." jill uttered a gurgling, strangling noise and he lifted her head a trifle. "can you talk now?" "yes." "two." helpless, immobile, scared now to a depth of terror she had never imagined it possible to feel, jill fought her wrenched and shaken mind back from insanity's very edge; managed with a pale tongue to lick bloodless lips. pops kinnison always said a man could die only once, but he didn't know ... in battle, yes, perhaps ... but she had already died a dozen times--but she'd keep on dying forever before she'd say a word. but-"tell him, jill!" northrop's thought beat at her mind. he, her lover, was unashamedly frantic; as much with sheer rage as with sympathy for her physical and mental anguish. "for the nineteenth time i say _tell him_! we've just located you--hancock avenue--we'll be there in two minutes!" "yes, jill, quit being a damned stubborn jackass and _tell him_!" jack kinnison's thought bit deep; but this time, strangely enough, the girl felt no repugnance at his touch. there was nothing whatever of the lover; nor of the brother, except of the fraternity of arms. she belonged. she would come out of this brawl right side up or none of them would. "tell the goddam rat the truth!" jack's thought drove on. "it won't make any difference--he won't live long enough to pass it on!" "but i can't--i won't!" jill stormed. "why, pops kinnison would...." "not this time i wouldn't, jill!" samms' thought tried to come in, too, but the port admiral's vehemence was overwhelming. "no harm--he's doing this strictly on his own--if morgan had had any idea he'd've killed him first. start talking or i'll spank you to a rosy blister!" they were to laugh, later, at the incongruity of that threat, but it did produce results. "nine." herkimer grinned wolfishly, in sadistic anticipation. "stop it--i'll tell!" she screamed. "stop it--take that thing away--i can't _stand_ it--i'll tell!" she burst into racking, tearing sobs. "steady." herkimer put something in his pocket, then slapped her so viciously that fingers-long marks sprang into red relief upon the chalk-white background of her cheek. "don't crack up; i haven't started to work on you yet. what about that lens?" she gulped twice before she could speak. "it comes from--ulp!--arisia. i haven't got one myself, so i don't know very much--ulp!--about it at first hand, but from what the boys tell me it must be...." * * * * * outside the building three black forms arrowed downward. northrop and young kinnison stopped at the sixth level; costigan went on down to take care of the guards. "bullets, not beams," the irishman reminded his younger fellows. "we'll have to clean up the mess without leaving a trace, so don't do any more damage to the property than you absolutely have to." neither made any reply; they were both too busy. the two thugs standing behind the steel chair, being armed openly, went first; then jack put a bullet through herkimer's head. but northrop was not content with that. he slid the pin to "full automatic" and ten more heavy slugs tore into the falling body before it struck the floor. three quick slashes and the girl was free. "jill!" "mase!" locked in each other's arms, straining together, no bystander would have believed that this was their first kiss. it was plainly--yes, quite spectacularly--evident, however, that it would not be their last. jack, blushing furiously, picked up the cloak and flung it at the oblivious couple. "p-s-s-t! _p-s-s-t! jill!_ wrap 'em up!" he whispered, urgently. "all the top brass in space is coming at full emergency blast--there'll be scrambled eggs all over the place any second now--_mase!_ _damn_ your thick, hard skull, snap out of it! he's always frothing at the mouth about her running around half naked and if he sees her like this--especially with _you_--he'll simply have a litter of lizards! you'll get a million black spots and seven hundred years in the clink! that's better--'bye now--i'll see you up at new york spaceport." jack kinnison dashed to the nearest window, threw it open, and dived headlong out of the building. chapter 14 the employment office of any concern with personnel running into the hundreds of thousands is a busy place indeed, even when its plants are all on tellus and its working conditions are as nearly ideal as such things can be made. when that firm's business is colonial, however, and its working conditions are only a couple of degrees removed from slavery, procurement of personnel is a first-magnitude problem; the personnel department, like alice in wonderland, must run as fast as it can go in order to stay where it is. thus the "help wanted" advertisements of uranium, incorporated covered the planet earth with blandishment and guile; and thus for twelve hours of every day and for seven days of every week the employment offices of uranium, inc. were filled with men--mostly the scum of earth. there were, of course, exceptions; one of which strode through the motley group of waiting men and thrust a card through the "information" wicket. he was a chunky-looking individual, appearing shorter than his actual five feet nine because of a hundred and ninety pounds of weight--even though every pound was placed exactly where it would do the most good. he looked--well, slouchy--and his mien was sullen. "birkenfeld--by appointment," he growled through the wicket, in a voice which could have been pleasantly deep. the coolly efficient blonde manipulated plugs. "mr. george w. jones, sir, by appointment.... thank you, sir," and mr. jones was escorted into mr. birkenfeld's private office. "have a chair, please, mr. ... er ... jones." "so you know?" "yes. it is seldom that a man of your education, training, and demonstrated ability applies to us for employment of his own initiative, and a very thorough investigation is indicated." "what am i here for, then?" the visitor demanded, truculently. "you could have turned me down by mail. everybody else has, since i got out." "you are here because we who operate on the frontiers cannot afford to pass judgment upon a man because of his past, unless that past precludes the probability of a useful future. yours does not; and in some cases, such as yours, we are very deeply interested in the future." the official's eyes drilled deep. conway costigan had never been in the limelight. on the contrary, he had made inconspicuousness a passion and an art. even in such scenes of violence as that which had occurred at the ambassadors' ball he managed to remain unnoticed. his lens had never been visible. no one except lensmen--and clio and jill--knew that he had one; and lensmen--and clio and jill--did not talk. although he was calmly certain that this birkenfeld was not an ordinary interviewer, he was equally certain that the investigators of uranium, inc. had found out exactly and only what the patrol had wanted them to find. "so?" jones' bearing altered subtly, and not because of the penetrant eyes. "that's all i want--a chance. i'll start at the bottom, as far down as you say." "we advertise, and truthfully, that opportunity on eridan is unlimited." birkenfeld chose his words with care. "in your case, opportunity will be either absolutely unlimited or zero, depending entirely upon yourself." "i see." dumbness had not been included in the fictitious mr. jones' background. "you don't need to draw a blue-print." "you'll do, i think." the interviewer nodded in approval. "nevertheless, i must make our position entirely clear. if the slip was--shall we say accidental?--you will go far with us. if you try to play false, you will not last long and you will not be missed." "fair enough." "your willingness to start at the bottom is commendable, and it is a fact that those who come up through the ranks make the best executives; in our line at least. just how far down are you willing to start?" "how low do you go?" "a mucker, i think would be low enough; and, from your build, and obvious physical strength, the logical job." "mucker?" "one who skoufers ore in the mine. nor can we make any exception in your case as to the routines of induction and transportation." "of course not." "take this slip to mr. calkins, in room 6217. he will run you through the mill." and that night, in an obscure boarding-house, mr. george washington jones, after a meticulous service special survey in every direction, reached a large and somewhat grimy hand into a screened receptacle in his battered suitcase and touched a lens. "clio?" the lovely mother of their wonderful children appeared in his mind. "made it, sweetheart, no suspicion at all. no more lensing for a while--not too long, i hope--so ... so-long, clio." "take it easy, spud darling, and _be careful_." her tone was light, but she could not conceal a stark background of fear. "oh, i _wish_ i could go, too!" "i wish you could, tootie." the linked minds flashed back to what the two had done together in the red opacity of nevian murk; on nevia's mighty, watery globe--but that kind of thinking would not do. "but the boys will keep in touch with me and keep you posted. and besides, you know how hard it is to get a baby-sitter!" * * * * * it is strange that the fundamental operations of working metalliferous veins have changed so little throughout the ages. or is it? ores came into being with the crusts of the planets; they change appreciably only with the passage of geologic time. ancient mines, of course, could not go down very deep or follow a seam very far; there was too much water and too little air. the steam engine helped, in degree if not in kind, by removing water and supplying air. tools improved--from the simple metal bar through pick and shovel and candle, through drill and hammer and low explosive and acetylene, through sullivan slugger and high explosive and electrics, through skoufer and rotary and burley and sourceless glow, to the complex gadgetry of today--but what, fundamentally, is the difference? men still crawl, snake-like, to where the metal is. men still, by dint of sheer brawn, jackass the precious stuff out to where our vaunted automatics can get hold of it. and men still die, in horribly unknown fashions and in callously recorded numbers, in the mines which supply the stuff upon which our vaunted culture rests. but to resume the thread of narrative, george washington jones went to eridan as a common laborer; a mucker. he floated down beside the skip--a "skip" is a mine elevator--some four thousand eight hundred feet. he rode an ore-car a horizontal distance of approximately eight miles to the brilliantly-illuminated cavern which was the station of the twelfth and lowest level. he was assigned to the bunk in which he would sleep for the next fifteen nights: "fifteen down and three up," ran the standard underground contract. he walked four hundred yards, yelled "nothing down!" and inched his way up a rise--in many places scarcely wider than his shoulders--to the stope some three hundred feet above. he reported to the miner who was to be his immediate boss and bent his back to the skoufer--which, while not resembling a shovel at all closely, still meant hard physical labor. he already knew ore--the glossy, sub-metallic, pitchy black luster of uraninite or pitchblende; the yellows of autunite and carnotite; the variant and confusing greens of tobernite. no values went from jones' skoufer into the heavily-timbered, steel-braced waste-pockets of the stope; very little base rock went down the rise. he became accustomed to the work; got used to breathing the peculiarly lifeless, dry, oily compressed air. and when, after a few days, his stentorian "nothing down!" called forth a "nothing but a little fine stuff!" and a handful of grit and pebbles, he knew that he had been accepted into the undefined, unwritten, and unofficial, yet nevertheless intensely actual, fellowship of hard-rock men. he belonged. he knew that he must abandon his policy of invisibility; and, after several days of thought, he decided how he would do it. hence, upon the first day of his "up" period, he joined his fellows in their descent upon one of the rawest, noisiest dives of danapolis. the men were met, of course, by a bevy of giggling, shrieking, garishly painted and strongly perfumed girls--and at this point young jones' behavior became exceedingly unorthodox. "buy me a drink, mister? and a dance, huh?" "on your way, sister." he brushed the importunate wench aside. "i get enough exercise underground, an' you ain't got a thing i want." apparently unaware that the girl was exchanging meaningful glances with a couple of husky characters labelled "bouncer" in billposter type, the atypical mucker strode up to the long and ornate bar. "gimme a bottle of pineapple pop," he ordered bruskly, "an' a package of tellurian cigarettes--sunshines." "p-p-pine...?" the surprised bartender did not finish the word. the bouncers were fast, but costigan was faster. a hard knee took one in the solar plexus; a hard elbow took the other so savagely under the chin as to all but break his neck. a bartender started to swing a bung-starter, and found himself flying through the air toward a table. men, table, and drinks crashed to the floor. "i pick my own company an' i drink what i damn please," jones announced, grittily. "them lunkers ain't hurt none, to speak of ..." his hard eyes swept the room malevolently, "but i ain't in no gentle mood an' the next jaspers that tackle me will wind up in the repair shop, or maybe in the morgue. see?" this of course was much too much; a dozen embattled roughnecks leaped to mop up on the misguided wight who had so impugned the manhood of all eridan. then, while six or seven bartenders blew frantic blasts upon police whistles, there was a flurry of action too fast to be resolved into consecutive events by the eye. conway costigan, one of the fastest men with hands and feet the patrol has ever known, was trying to keep himself alive; and he succeeded. "what the hell goes on here?" a chorus of raucously authoritative voices yelled, and sixteen policemen--john law did not travel singly in that district, but in platoons--swinging clubs and saps, finally hauled george washington jones out from the bottom of the pile. he had sundry abrasions and not a few contusions, but no bones were broken and his skin was practically whole. and since his version of the affair was not only inadequate, but also differed in important particulars from those of several non-participating witnesses, he spent the rest of his holiday in jail; a development with which he was quite content. the work--and time--went on. he became in rapid succession a head mucker, a miner's pimp (which short and rugged anglo-saxon word means simply "helper" in underground parlance) a miner, a top-miner, and then--a long step up the ladder!--a shift-boss. and then disaster struck; suddenly, paralyzingly, as mine disasters do. loud-speakers blared briefly--"explosion! cave-in! flood! fire! gas! radiation! damp!"--and expired. short-circuits; there was no way of telling which, if any, of those dire warnings were true. the power failed, and the lights. the hiss of air from valves, a noise which by its constant and unvarying and universal presence soon becomes unheard, became noticeable because of its diminution in volume and tone. and then, seconds later, a jarring, shuddering rumble was felt and heard, accompanied by the snapping of shattered timbers and the sharper, utterly unforgettable shriek of rending and riven steel. and the men, as men do under such conditions, went wild; yelling, swearing, leaping toward where, in the rayless dark, each thought the rise to be. it took a couple of seconds for the shift-boss to break out and hook up his emergency battery-lamp; and three or four more seconds, and by dint of fists, feet, and a two-foot length of air-hose, to restore any degree of order. four men were dead; but that wasn't too bad--considering. "up there! under the hanging wall!" he ordered, sharply. "_that_ won't fall--unless the whole mountain slips. now, how many of you jaspers have got your emergency kits on you? twelve--out of twenty-six--what brains! put on your masks. you without 'em can stay up here--you'll be safe for a while--i hope." then, presently: "there, that's all for now. i guess." he flashed his light downward. the massive steel members no longer writhed; the crushed and tortured timbers were still. "that rise may be open, it goes through solid rock, not waste. i'll see. wright, you're all in one piece, aren't you?" "i guess so--yes." "take charge up here. i'll go down to the drift. if the rise is open i'll give you a flash. send the ones with masks down, one at a time. take a jolly-bar and bash the brains out of anybody who gets panicky again." jones was not as brave as he sounded: mine disasters carry a terror which is uniquely and peculiarly poignant. nevertheless he went down the rise, found it open, and signalled. then, after issuing brief orders, he led the way along the dark and silent drift toward the station; wondering profanely why the people on duty there had not done something with the wealth of emergency equipment always ready there. the party found some cave-ins, but nothing they could not dig through. the station was also silent and dark. jones, flashing his head-lamp upon the emergency panel, smashed the glass, wrenched the door open, and pushed buttons. lights flashed on. warning signals flared, bellowed and rang. the rotary air-pump began again its normal subdued, whickering whirr. but the water-pump! shuddering, clanking, groaning, it was threatening to go out any second--but there wasn't a thing in the world jones could do about it--yet. the station itself, so buttressed and pillared with alloy steel as to be little more compressible than an equal volume of solid rock, was unharmed; but in it nothing lived. four men and a woman--the nurse--were stiffly motionless at their posts; apparently the leads to the station had been blasted in such fashion that no warning whatever had been given. and smoke, billowing inward from the main tunnel, was growing thicker by the minute. jones punched another button; a foot-thick barrier of asbestos, tungsten, and vitrified refractory slid smoothly across the tunnel's opening. he considered briefly, pityingly, those who might be outside, but felt no urge to explore. if any lived, there were buttons on the other side of the fire-door. the eddying smoke disappeared, the flaring lights winked out, air-horns and bells relapsed into silence. the shift-boss, now apparently the superintendent of the whole twelfth level, removed his mask, found the station walkie-talkie, and snapped a switch. he spoke, listened, spoke again then called a list of names--none of which brought any response. "wright, and you five others," picking out miners who could be depended upon to keep their heads, "take these guns. shoot if you have to, but not unless you have to. have the muckers clear the drift, just enough to get through. you'll find a shift-boss, with a crew of nineteen, up in stope sixty. their rise is blocked. they've got light and power again now, and good air, and they're working on it, but opening the rise from the top is a damned slow job. wright, you throw a chippie into it from the bottom. you others, work back along the drift, clear to the last glory hole. be sure that all the rises are open--check all the stopes and glory holes--tell everybody you find alive to report to me here...." "aw, what good!" a man shrieked. "we're all goners anyway--i want _water_ an'...." "shut up, fool!" there was a sound as of fist meeting flesh, the shriek was stilled. "plenty of water--tanks full of the stuff." a grizzled miner turned to the self-appointed boss and twitched his head--toward the laboring pump. "too damn much water too soon, huh?" "i wouldn't wonder--but get busy!" as his now orderly and purposeful men disappeared, jones picked up his microphone and changed the setting of a dial. "on top, somebody," he said crisply. "on top...." "oh, there's somebody alive down in twelve, after all!" a girl's voice screamed in his ear. "mr. clancy! mr. edwards!" "to hell with clancy, and edwards, too," jones barked. "gimme the chief engineer and the head surveyor, and gimme 'em _fast_." "clancy speaking, station twelve." if works manager clancy had heard that pointed remark, and he must have, he ignored it. "stanley and emerson will be here in a moment. in the meantime, who's calling? i don't recognize your voice, and it's been so long...." "jones. shift-boss, stope fifty nine. i had a little trouble getting here to the station." "what? where's pennoyer? and riley? and...?" "dead. everybody. gas or damp. no warning." "not enough to turn on _anything_--not even the purifiers?" "nothing." "where were you?" "up in the stope." "good god!" that news, to clancy, was informative enough. "but to hell with all that. what happened, and where?" "a skip-load, and then a magazine, of high explosive, right at station seven--it's right at the main shaft, you know." jones did not know, since he had never been in that part of the mine, but he could see the picture. "main shaft filled up to above seven, and both emergency shafts blocked. number one at six, number two at seven--must have been a fault--but here's chief engineer stanley." the works manager, not too unwillingly, relinquished the microphone. a miner came running up and jones covered his mouth-piece. "how about the glory holes?" "plugged solid, all four of 'em--by the vibro, clear up to eleven." "thanks." then, as soon as stanley's voice came on: "what i want to know is, why is this damned water-pump overloading? what's the circuit?" "you must be ... yes, you are pumping against too much head. five levels above you are dead, you know, so...." "dead? can't you raise _anybody_?" "not yet. so you're pumping through dead boosters on eleven and ten and so on up, and when your overload-relief valve opens...." "_relief_ valve!" jones almost screamed, "can i dog the damn thing down?" "no, it's internal." "christ, what a design--i could eat a handful of iron filings and _puke_ a better emergency pump than that!" "when it opens," stanley went stolidly on, "the water will go through the by-pass back into the sump. so you'd better rod out one of the glory holes and...." "get conscious, fat-head!" jones blazed. "what would we use for time? get off the air--gimme emerson!" "emerson speaking." "got your maps?" "yes." "we got to run a sag up to eleven--fast--or drown. can you give me the shortest possible distance?" "can do." the head surveyor snapped orders. "we'll have it for you in a minute. thank god there was somebody down there with a brain." "it doesn't take super-human intelligence to push buttons." "you'd be surprised. your point on glory holes was very well taken--you won't have much time after the pump quits. when the water reaches the station...." "curtains. and it's all done now--running free and easy--recirculating. hurry that dope!" "here it is now. start at the highest point of stope fifty nine. repeat." "stope fifty-nine." jones waved a furious hand as he shouted the words; the tight-packed miners turned and ran. the shift-boss followed them, carrying the walkie-talkie, aiming an exasperated kick of pure frustration at the merrily-humming water pump as he passed it. "thirty two degrees from the vertical--anywhere between thirty and thirty five." "thirty to thirty five off vertical." "direction--got a compass?" "yes." "set the blue on zero. course two hundred seventy five degrees." "blue on zero. course two seven five." "dex sixty nine point two zero feet. that'll put you into eleven's class yard--so big you can't miss it." "distance sixty nine point two--_that_ all? fine! maybe we'll make it, after all. they're sinking a shaft, of course. from where?" "about four miles in on six. it'll take time." "if we can get up into eleven we'll have all the time on the clock--it'll take a week or more to flood twelve's stopes. but this sag is sure as hell going to be touch and go. and say, from the throw of the pump and the volume of the sump, will you give me the best estimate you can of how much time we've got? i want at least an hour, but i'm afraid i won't have it." "yes. i'll call you back." the shift-boss elbowed his way through the throng of men and, dragging the radio behind him, wriggled and floated up the rise. "wright!" he bellowed, the echoes resounding deafeningly all up and down the narrow tube. "you up there ahead of me?" "yeah!" that worthy bellowed back. "more men left than i thought--how many--half of 'em?" "just about." "good. sort out the ones you got up there by trades." then, when he had emerged into the now brilliantly illuminated stope, "where are the timber-pimps?" "over there." "rustle timbers. whatever you can find and wherever you find it, grab it and bring it up here. get some twelve-inch steel, too, six feet long. timbermen, grab that stuff off of the face and start your staging right here. you muckers, rig a couple of skoufers to throw muck to bury the base and checkerwork up to the hanging wall. doze a sluice-way down into that waste pocket there, so we won't clog ourselves up. work fast, fellows, but make it _solid_--you know the load it'll have to carry and what will happen if it gives." they knew. they knew what they had to do and did it; furiously, but with care and precision. "how wide a sag you figurin' on, supe?" the boss timberman asked. "eight foot checkerwork to the hangin', anyway, huh?" "yes. i'll let you know in a minute." the surveyor came in. "forty one minutes is my best guess." "from when?" "from the time the pump failed." "that was four minutes ago--nearer five. and five more before we can start cutting. forty one less ten is thirty one. thirty one into sixty nine point two goes...." "two point two three feet per minute, my slip-stick says." "thanks. wright, what would you say is the biggest sag we can cut in this kind of rock at two and a quarter feet a minute?" "um ... m ... m". the miner scratched his whiskery chin. "that's a tough one, boss. you'll hafta figure damn close to a hundred pounds of air to the foot on plain cuttin'--that's two hundred and a quarter. but without a burley to pimp for 'er, a rotary can't take that kind of air--she'll foul herself to a standstill before she cuts a foot. an' with a burley riggin' she's got to make damn near a double cut--seven foot inside figger--so any way you look at it you ain't goin' to cut no two foot to the minute." "i was hoping you wouldn't check my figures, but you do. so we'll cut five feet. saw your timbers accordingly. we'll hold that burley by hand." wright shook his head dubiously. "we don't want to die down here any more than you do, boss, so we'll do our damndest--but how in _hell_ do you figure you can hold her to her work?" "rig a yoke. cut a stretcher up for canvas and padding. it'll pound, but a man can stand almost anything, in short enough shifts, if he's got to or die." and for a time--two minutes, to be exact, during which the rotary chewed up and spat out a plug of rock over five feet deep--things went very well indeed. two men, instead of the usual three, could run the rotary; that is, they could tend the complicated pneumatic walking jacks which not only oscillated the cutting demon in a geometrical path, but also rammed it against the face with a steadily held and enormous pressure, even while climbing almost vertically upward under a burden of over twenty thousand pounds. an armored hand waved a signal--voice was utterly useless--up! a valve was flipped; a huge, flat, steel foot arose; a timber slid into place, creaking and groaning as that big flat foot smashed down. up--again! up--a third time! eighteen seconds--less than one-third of a minute--ten inches gained! and, while it was not easy, two men could hold the burley--in one-minute shifts. as has been intimated, this machine "pimped" for the rotary. it waited on it, ministering to its every need with a singleness of purpose impossible to any except robotic devotion. it picked the rotary's teeth, it freed its linkages, it deloused its ports, it cleared its spillways of compacted debris, it even--and this is a feat starkly unbelievable to anyone who does not know the hardness of neocarballoy and the tensile strength of ultra-special steels--it even changed, while in full operation, the rotary's diamond-tipped cutters. both burley and rotary were extremely efficient, but neither was either quiet or gentle. in their quietest moments they shrieked and groaned and yelled, producing a volume of sound in which nothing softer than a cannon-shot could have been heard. but when, in changing the rotary's cutting teeth, the burley's "fingers" were driven into and through the solid rock--a matter of merest routine to both machines--the resultant blasts of sound cannot even be imagined, to say nothing of being described. and always both machines spewed out torrents of rock, in sizes ranging from impalpable dust up to chunks as big as a fist. as the sag lengthened and the checkerwork grew higher, the work began to slow down. they began to lose the time they had gained. there were plenty of men, but in that narrow bore there simply was not room for enough men to work. even through that storm of dust and hurtling rock the timbermen could get their blocking up there, but they could not place it fast enough--there were too many other men in the way. one of them had to get out. since one man could not _possibly_ run the rotary, one man would have to hold the burley. they tried it, one after another. no soap. it hammered them flat. the rotary, fouled in every tooth and channel and vent under the terrific thrust of two hundred thirty pounds of air, merely gnawed and slid. the timbermen now had room--but nothing to do. and jones, who had been biting at his mustache and ignoring the frantic walkie-talkie for minutes, stared grimly at watch and tape. three minutes left, and over eight feet to go. "gimme that armor!" he rasped, and climbed the blocks. "open the air wide open--give 'er the whole two-fifty! get down, mac--i'll take it the rest of the way!" he put his shoulders to the improvised yoke, braced his feet, and heaved. the burley, screaming and yelling and clamoring, went joyously to work--both ways--god, what punishment! the rotary, free and clear, chewed rock more viciously than ever. an armored hand smote his leg. lift! he lifted that foot, set it down two inches higher. the other one. four inches. six. one foot. two. three. lord of the ancients! was this lifetime of agony only one minute? or wasn't he holding her--had the damn thing stopped cutting? no, it was still cutting--the rocks were banging against and bouncing off of his helmet as viciously and as numerously as ever; he could sense, rather than feel, the furious fashion in which the relays of timbermen were laboring to keep those high-stepping jacks in motion. no, it had been only one minute. twice that long yet to go. god! nothing _could_ be that brutal--a bull elephant couldn't take it--but by all the gods of space and all the devils in hell, he'd stay with it until that sag broke through. and grimly, doggedly, toward the end nine-tenths unconsciously, lensman conway costigan stayed with it. and in the stope so far below, a new and highly authoritative voice blared from the speaker. "jones! god damn it, jones, answer me! if jones isn't there, somebody else answer me--_anybody_!" "yes, sir?" wright was afraid to answer that peremptory call, but more afraid not to. "jones? this is clancy." "no, sir. not jones. wright, sir--top miner." "where's jones?" "up in the sag, sir. he's holding the burley--alone." "_alone!_ hell's purple fires! tell him to--how many men has he got on the rotary?" "two, sir. that's all they's room for." "tell him to quit it--put somebody else on it--i _won't_ have him killed, damn it!" "he's the only one strong enough to hold it, sir, but i'll send up word." word went up via sign language, and came back down. "beggin' your pardon, sir, but he says to tell you to go to hell, sir. he won't have no time for chit-chat, he says, until this goddam sag is through or the juice goes off, sir." a blast of profanity erupted from the speaker, of such violence that the thoroughly scared wright threw the walkie-talkie down the waste-chute, and in the same instant the rotary crashed through. dazed, groggy, barely conscious from his terrific effort, jones stared owlishly through the heavy, steel-braced lenses of his helmet while the timbermen set a few more courses of wood and the rotary walked itself and the clinging burley up and out of the hole. he climbed stiffly out, and as he stared at the pillar of light flaring upward from the sag, his gorge began to rise. "wha's the idea of that damn surveyor lying to us like that?" he babbled. "we had oodles an' oodles of time--didn't have to kill ourselves--damn water ain't got there _yet_--wha's the big...." he wobbled weakly, and took one short step, and the lights went out. the surveyor's estimate had been impossibly, accidentally close. they had had a little extra time; but it was measured very easily in seconds. and jones, logical to the end in a queerly addled way, stood in the almost palpable darkness, and wobbled, and thought. if a man couldn't see anything with his eyes wide open, he was either blind or unconscious. he wasn't blind, therefore he must be unconscious and not know it. he sighed, wearily and gratefully, and collapsed. battery lights were soon reconnected, and everybody knew that they had holed through. there was no more panic. and, even before the shift-boss had recovered full consciousness, he was walking down the drift toward station eleven. there is no need to enlarge upon the rest of that grim and grisly affair. level after level was activated; and, since working upward in mines is vastly faster than working downward, the two parties met on the eighth level. half of the men who would otherwise have died were saved, and--much more important from the viewpoint of uranium, inc.--the deeper and richer half of the biggest and richest uranium mine in existence, instead of being out of production for a year or more, would be back in full operation in a couple of weeks. and george washington jones, still a trifle shaky from his ordeal, was called into the front office. but before he arrived: "i'm going to make him assistant works manager," clancy announced. "i think not." "but listen, mr. isaacson--_please_! how do you expect me to build up a staff if you snatch every good man i find away from me?" "you didn't find him. birkenfeld did. he was here only on a test. he is going into department q." clancy, who had opened his mouth to continue his protests, shut it wordlessly. he knew that department q was-department q. chapter 15 costigan was not surprised to see the man he had known as birkenfeld in uranium's ornate conference room. he had not expected, however, to see isaacson. he knew, of course, that spaceways owned uranium, inc., and the planet eridan, lock, stock, and barrel; but it never entered his modest mind that his case would be of sufficient importance to warrant the personal attention of the big noise himself. hence the sight of that suave and unrevealing face gave the putative jones a more than temporary qualm. isaacson was top-bracket stuff, 'way out of his class. virgil samms ought to be taking this assignment, but since he wasn't-but instead of being an inquisition, the meeting was friendly and informal from the start. they complimented him upon the soundness of his judgment and the accuracy of his decisions. they thanked him, both with words and with a considerable sum of expendable credits. they encouraged him to talk about himself, but there was nothing whatever of the star-chamber or of cross-examination. the last question was representative of the whole conference. "one other thing, jones, has me slightly baffled," isaacson said, with a really winning smile. "since you do not drink, and since you were not in search of feminine ... er ... companionship, just why did you go down to roaring jack's dive?" "two reasons," jones said, with a somewhat shamefaced grin. "the minor one isn't easy to explain, but ... well, i hadn't been having an exactly easy time of it on earth ... you all know about that, i suppose?" they knew. "well, i was taking a very dim view of things in general, and a good fight would get it out of my system. it always does." "i see. and the major reason?" "i knew, of course, that i was on probation. i would have to get promoted, and fast, or stay sunk forever. to get promoted fast, a man can either be enough of a boot-licker to be pulled up from on high, or he can be shoved up by the men he is working with. the best way to get a crowd of hard-rock men to like you is to lick a few of 'em--off hours, of course, and according to hoyle--and the more of 'em you can lick at once, the better. i'm pretty good at rough-and-tumble brawling, so i gambled that the cops would step in before i got banged up too much. i won." "i see," isaacson said again, in an entirely different tone. he did see, now. "the first technique is so universally used that the possibility of the second did not occur to me. nice work--_very_ nice." he turned to the other members of the board. "this, i believe, concludes the business of the meeting?" for some reason or other isaacson nodded slightly as he asked the question; and one by one, as though in concurrence, the others nodded in reply. the meeting broke up. outside the door, however, the magnate did not go about his own business nor send jones about his. instead: "i would like to show you, if i may, the above-ground part of our works?" "my time is yours, sir. i am interested." it is unnecessary here to go into the details of a civilization's greatest uranium operation; the storage bins, the grinders, the wilfley tables and slime tanks, the flotation sluices, the roasters and reducers, the processes of solution and crystallization and recrystallization, of final oxidation and reduction. suffice it to say that isaacson showed jones the whole immensity of uranium works number one. the trip ended on the top floor of the towering administration building, in a heavily-screened room containing a desk, a couple of chairs, and a tremendously massive safe. "smoke up." isaacson indicated a package of jones' favorite brand of cigarettes and lighted a cigar. "you knew that you were under test. i wonder, though, if you knew how much of it was testing?" "all of it." jones grinned. "except for the big blow, of course." "of course." "there were too many possibilities, of too many different kinds, too pat. i might warn you, though--i could have got away clear with that half-million." "the possibility existed." surprisingly, isaacson did not tell him that the trap was more subtle than it had appeared to be. "it was, however, worth the risk. why didn't you?" "because i figure on making more than that, a little later, and i might live longer to spend it." "sound thinking, my boy--really sound. now--you noticed, of course, the vote at the end of the meeting?" jones had noticed it; and, although he did not say so, he had been wondering about it ever since. the older man strolled over to the safe and opened it, revealing a single, startlingly small package. "you passed, unanimously; you are now learning what you have to know. not that we trust you unreservedly. you will be watched for a long time, and before you can make one false step, you will die." "that would seem to be good business, sir." "glad you look at it that way--we thought you would. you saw the works. quite an operation, don't you think?" "immense, sir. the biggest thing i ever saw." "what would you say, then, to the idea of this office being our real headquarters, of that little package there being our real business?" he swung the safe door shut, spun the knob. "it would have been highly surprising a couple of hours ago." costigan could not afford to appear stupid, nor to possess too much knowledge. he had to steer an extremely difficult middle course. "after the climax of this build-up, though, it wouldn't seem at all impossible. or that there were wheels--plenty of 'em!--within wheels." "smart!" isaacson applauded. "and what would you think might be in that package? this room is ray-proof." "against anything the galactic patrol can swing?" "positively." "well, then, it _might_ be something beginning with the letter" he flicked two fingers, almost invisibly fast, into a t and went on without a break "m, as in morphine." "your caution and restraint are commendable. if i had any remaining doubt as to your ability, it is gone." he paused, frowning. as belief in ability increased, that in sincerity lessened. this doubt, this questioning, existed every time a new executive was initiated into the mysteries of department q. the board's judgment was good. they had slipped only twice, and those two errors had been corrected easily enough. the fellow had been warned once; that was enough. he took the plunge. "you will work with the assistant works manager here until you understand the duties of the position. you will be transferred to tellus as assistant works manager there. your principal duties will, however, be concerned with department q--which you will head up one day if you make good. and, just incidentally, when you go to tellus, a package like that one in the safe will go with you." "oh ... i see. i'll make good, sir." jones let isaacson see his jaw-muscles tighten in resolve. "it may take a little time for me to learn my way around, sir, but i'll learn it." "i'm sure you will. and now, to go into greater detail...." * * * * * virgil samms had to be sure of his facts. more than that, he had to be able to prove them; not merely to the satisfaction of a law-enforcement officer, but beyond any reasonable doubt of the hardest-headed member of a cynical and skeptical jury. wherefore jack kinnison and mase northrop took up the thionite trail at the exact point where, each trip, george olmstead had had to abandon it; in the atmosphere of cavenda. and fortunately, not too much preparation was required. cavenda was, as has been intimated, a primitive world. its native people, humanoid in type, had developed a culture approximating in some respects that of the north american indian at about the time of columbus, in others that of the ancient nomads of araby. thus a couple of wandering natives, unrecognizable under their dirty stormproof blankets and their scarcely thinner layers of grease and grime, watched impassively, incuriously, while a box floated pendant from its parachute from sky to ground. mounted upon their uncouth steeds, they followed that box when it was hauled to the white man's village. unlike many of the other natives, these two did not shuffle into that village, to lean silently against a rock or a wall awaiting their turns to exchange a few hours of simple labor for a container of a new and highly potent beverage. they did, however, keep themselves constantly and minutely informed as to everything these strange, devil-ridden white men did. one of these pseudo-natives wandered off into the wilderness two or three days before the huge thing-which-flies-without-wings left ground; the other immediately afterward. thus the departure of the space-ship from cavenda was recorded, as was its arrival at eridan. it had been extremely difficult for the patrol's engineers to devise ways and means of tracing that ship from departure to arrival without exciting suspicion, but it had not proved impossible. and jack kinnison, lounging idly and elegantly in the concourse of danopolis spaceport, seethed imperceptibly. having swallowed a tiny service special capsule that morning, he knew that he had been under continuous spy-ray inspection for over two hours. he had not given himself away--practically everybody screened their inside coat pockets and hip pockets, and the cat-whisker lead from lens to leg simply could not be seen--but for all the good they were doing him his ultra-instruments might just as well have been back on tellus. "mase!" he sent, with no change whatever in the vapid expression then on his face. "i'm still covered. are you?" "covered!" the answering thought was a snort. "they're covering me like water covers a submarine!" "keep tuned. i'll call spud. spud!" "come in, jack." conway costigan, alone now in the sanctum of department q, did not seem to be busy, but he was. "that red herring they told us to drag across the trail was too damned red. they must be touchier than fulminate to spy-work on their armed forces--neither mase nor i can do a lick of work. anybody else covered?" "no. all clear." "good. tell them the zwilnik blockers took us out." "i'll do that. distance only, or is somebody on your tail?" "somebody; and i mean _some body_. a slick chick with a classy chassis; a blonde, with great, big come-hither eyes. too good to be true; especially the falsies. wiring, my friend--and i haven't been able to get a close look, but i wouldn't wonder if her nostrils had a skillionth of a whillimeter too much expansion. i want a spy-ray op--is it safe to use fred?" kinnison referred to the grizzled engineer now puttering about in a certain space-ship; not the one in which he and northrop had come to eridan. "definitely not. i can do it myself and still stay very much in character.... no, i don't know her. not surprising, of course, since the policy here is never to let the right hand know what the left is doing. how about you, mase? have you got a little girl-friend, too?" "yea, verily, brother; but not little. more my size." northrop pointed out a tall, trim brunette, strolling along with the effortless, consciously unconscious poise of the professional model. "hm ... m ... m. i don't know her, either," costigan reported, "but both of them are wearing four-inch spy-ray blocks and are probably wired up like christmas trees. by inference, p-gun proof. i can't penetrate, of course, but maybe i can get a viewpoint.... you're right, jack. nostrils plugged. anti-thionite, anti-vee-two, anti-everything. in fact, anti-social. i'll spread their pictures around and see if anybody knows either of them." he did so, and over a hundred of the patrol's shrewdest operatives--upon this occasion north america had invaded eridan in force--studied and thought. no one knew the tall brunette, but-"i know the blonde." this was parker of washington, a service ace for twenty five years. "'hell-cat hazel' deforce, the hardest-boiled babe unhung. watch your step around her; she's just as handy with a knife and knock-out drops as she is with a gun." "thanks, parker. i've heard of her." costigan was thinking fast. "free-lance. no way of telling who she's working for at the moment." this was a statement, not a question. "only that it would have to be somebody with a lot of money. her price is high. that all?" "that's all, fellows." then, to jack and northrop: "my thought is that you two guys are completely out-classed--out-weighed, out-numbered, out-manned, and out-gunned. undressed, you're sitting ducks; and if you put out any screens it'll crystallize their suspicions and they'll grab you right then--or maybe even knock you off. you'd better get out of here at full blast; you can't do any more good here, the way things are." "sure we can!" kinnison protested. "you wanted a diversion, didn't you?" "yes, but you already...." "what we've done already isn't a patch to what we can do next. we can set up such a diversion that the boys can walk right on the thionite-carrier's heels without anybody paying any attention. by the way, you don't know yet who is going to carry it, do you?" "no. no penetration at all." "you soon will, bucko. watch our smoke!" "what do you think you're going to do?" costigan demanded, sharply. "this." jack explained. "and don't try to say no. we're on our own, you know." "we ... l ... l ... it sounds good, and if you can pull it off it will help no end. go ahead." the demurely luscious blonde stared disconsolately at the bulletin board, upon which another thirty minutes was being added to the time of arrival of a ship already three hours late. she picked up a book, glanced at its cover, put it down. her hand moved toward a magazine, drew back, dropped idly into her lap. she sighed, stifled a yawn prettily, leaned backward in her seat--in such a position, jack noticed, that he could not see into her nostrils--and closed her eyes. and jack kinnison, coming visibly to a decision, sat down beside her. "pardon me, miss, but i feel just like you look. can you tell me why convention decrees that two people, stuck in this concourse by arrivals that nobody knows when will arrive, have got to suffer alone when they could have so much more fun suffering together?" the girl's eyes opened slowly; she was neither startled, nor afraid, nor--it seemed--even interested. in fact, she gazed at him with so much disinterest and for so long a time that he began to wonder--was she going to play sweet and innocent to the end? "yes, conventions _are_ stupid, sometimes," she admitted finally, her lovely lips curving into the beginnings of a smile. her voice, low and sweet, matched perfectly the rest of her charming self. "after all, perfectly nice people do meet informally on shipboard; why not in concourses?" "why not, indeed? and i'm perfectly nice people, i assure you. willi borden is the name. my friends call me bill. and you?" "beatrice bailey; bee for short. tell me what you like, and we'll talk about it." "why talk, when we could be eating? i'm with a guy. he's out on the field somewhere--a big bruiser with a pencil-stripe black mustache. maybe you saw him talking to me a while back?" "i think so, now that you mention him. too big--_much_ too big." the girl spoke carelessly, but managed to make it very clear that jack kinnison was just exactly the right size. "why?" "i told him i'd have supper with him. shall we hunt him up and eat together?" "why not? is he alone?" "he was, when i saw him last." although jack knew exactly where northrop was, and who was with him, he had to play safe; he did not know how much this "bee bailey" really knew. "he knows a lot more people around here than i do, though, so maybe he isn't now. let me carry some of that plunder?" "you might carry those books--thanks. but the field is so _big_--how do you expect to find him? or do you know where he is?" "uh-uh!" he denied, vigorously. this was the critical moment. she certainly wasn't suspicious--yet--but she was showing signs of not wanting to go out there, and if she refused to go.... "to be honest, i don't care whether i find him or not--the idea of ditching him appeals to me more and more. so how about this? we'll dash out to the third dock--just so i won't have to actually lie about looking for him--and dash right back here. or wouldn't you rather have it a twosome?" "i refuse to answer, by advice of counsel." the girl laughed gaily, but her answer was plain enough. their rate of progress was by no means a dash, and kinnison did not look--with his eyes--for northrop. nevertheless, just south of the third dock, the two young couples met. "my cousin, grace james," northrop said, without a tremor or a quiver. "wild willi borden, grace--usually called baldy on account of his hair." the girls were introduced; each vouchsafing the other a completely meaningless smile and a colorlessly conventional word of greeting. were they, in fact as in seeming, total strangers? or were they in fact working together as closely as were the two young lensmen themselves? if that was acting, it was a beautiful job; neither man could detect the slightest flaw in the performance of either girl. "whither away, pilot?" jack allowed no lapse of time. "you know all the places around here. lead us to a good one." "this way, my old and fragrant fruit." northrop led off with a flourish, and again jack tensed. the walk led straight past the third-class, apparently deserted dock of which a certain ultra-fast vessel was the only occupant. if nothing happened for fifteen more seconds.... nothing did. the laughing, chattering four came abreast of the portal. the door swung open and the lensmen went into action. they did not like to strong-arm women, but speed was their first consideration, with safety a close second; and it is impossible for a man to make speed while carrying a conscious, lithe, strong, heavily-armed woman in such a position that she cannot use fists, feet, teeth, gun or knife. an unconscious woman, on the other hand, can be carried easily and safely enough. therefore jack spun his partner around, forced both of her hands into one of his. the free hand flashed upward toward the neck; a hard finger pressed unerringly against a nerve; the girl went limp. the two victims were hustled aboard and the space-ship, surrounded now by full-coverage screen, took off. kinnison paid no attention to ship or course; orders had been given long since and would be carried out. instead, he lowered his burden to the floor, spread her out flat, and sought out and removed item after item of wiring, apparatus, and offensive and defensive armament. he did not undress her--quite--but he made completely certain that the only weapons left to the young lady were those with which nature had endowed her. and, northrop having taken care of his alleged cousin with equal thoroughness, the small-arms were sent out and both doors of the room were securely locked. "now, hell-cat hazel deforce," kinnison said, conversationally, "you can snap out of it any time--you've been back to normal for at least two minutes. you've found out that your famous sex-appeal won't work. there's nothing loose you can grab, and you're too smart an operator to tackle me bare-handed. who's the captain of your team--you or the clothes-horse?" "clothes-horse!" the statuesque brunette exclaimed, but her protests were drowned out. the blonde could--and did--talk louder, faster, and rougher. "do you think you can get away with _this_?" she demanded. "why, you ..." and the unexpurgated, trenchant, brilliantly detailed characterization could have seared its way through four-ply asbestos. "and just what do you think you're going to do with me?" "as to the first, i think so," kinnison replied, ignoring the deep-space verbiage. "as to the second--as of now i don't know. what would you do if our situations were reversed?" "i'd blast you to a cinder--or else take a knife and...." "hazel!" the brunette cautioned sharply. "careful! you'll touch them off and they'll...." "shut up, jane! they won't hurt us any more than they have already; it's psychologically impossible. isn't that true, copper?" hazel lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew a cloud of smoke at kinnison's face. "pretty much so, i guess," the lensman admitted, frankly enough, "but we can put you away for the rest of your lives." "space-happy? or do you think i am?" she sneered. "what would you use for a case? we're as safe as if we were in god's pocket. and besides, our positions _will_ be reversed pretty quick. you may not know it, but the fastest ships in space are chasing us, right now." "for once you're wrong. we've got plenty of legs ourselves and we're blasting for rendezvous with a task-force. but enough of this chatter. i want to know what job you're on and why you picked on us. give." "oh, does 'oo?" hazel cooed, venomously. "come and sit on mama's lap, itty bitty soldier boy, and she'll tell you everything you want to know." both lensmen probed, then, with everything they had, but learned nothing of value. the women did not know what the patrolmen were trying to do, but they were so intensely hostile that their mental blocks, unconscious although they were, were as effective as full-driven thought screens against the most insidious approaches the men could make. "anything in their hand-bags, mase?" jack asked, finally. "i'll look.... nothing much--just this," and the very tonelessness of northrop's voice made jack look up quickly. "just a letter from the boy-friend." hazel shrugged her shoulders. "nothing hot--not even warm--go ahead and read it." "not interested in what it says, but it might be smart to develop it, envelope and all, for invisible ink and whatnot." he did so, deeming it a worth-while expenditure of time. he already knew what the hidden message was; but no one not of the patrol should know that no transmission of intelligence, however coded or garbled or disguised or by whatever means sent, could be concealed from any wearer of arisia's lens. "listen, hazel," kinnison said, holding up the now slightly stained paper. "'three six two'--that's you, i suppose, and you're the squad leader--'men mentioned previously being investigated stop assign three nine eight'--that must be you, jane--'and make acquaintance stop if no further instructions received by eighteen hundred hours liquidate immediately stop party one'." the blond operative lost for the first time her brazen control. "why ... that code is _unbreakable_!" she gasped. "wrong again, gentle alice. some of us are specialists." he directed a thought at northrop. "this changes things slightly, mase. i was going to turn them loose, but now i don't know. better we take it up with the boss, don't you think?" "pos-i-_tive_-ly!" samms was called, and considered the matter for approximately one minute. "your first idea was right, jack. let them go. the message may be helpful and informative, but the women would not. they know nothing. congratulations, boys, on the complete success of operation red herring." "ouch!" jack grimaced mentally to his partner after the first lensman had cut off. "they know enough to be in on bumping you and me off, but that ain't important, says he!" "and it ain't, bub," northrop grinned back. "moderately so, maybe, if they had got us, but not at all so now they can't. the lensmen have landed and the situation is well in hand. it is written. selah." "check. let's wrap it up." jack turned to the blonde. "come on, hazel. out. number four lifeboat. do you want to come peaceably or shall i work on your neck again?" "you could think of other places that would be more fun." she got up and stared directly into his eyes, her lip curling. "that is, if you were a _man_ instead of a sublimated boy scout." kinnison, without a word, wheeled and unlocked a door. hazel swaggered forward, but the taller girl hung back. "are you sure there's air--and they'll pick us up? maybe they're going to make us breathe space...." "huh? they haven't got the guts," hazel sneered. "come on, jane. number four, you said, darling?" she led the way. kinnison opened the portal. jane hurried aboard, but hazel paused and held out her arms. "aren't you even going to kiss mama goodbye, baby boy?" she taunted. "better not waste much more time. we blow this boat, sealed or open, in fifteen seconds." by what effort kinnison held his voice level and expressionless, he hoped the wench would never know. she looked at him, started to say something, looked again. she had gone just about as far as it was safe to go. she stepped into the boat and reached for the lever. and as the valve was swinging smoothly shut the men heard a tinkling laugh, reminiscent of icicles breaking against steel bells. "hell's--brazen--hinges!" kinnison wiped his forehead as the lifeboat shot away. hazel was something brand new to him; a phenomenon with which none of his education, training, or experience had equipped him to cope. "i've heard about the guy who got hold of a tiger by the tail, but...." his thought expired on a wondering, confused note. "yeah." northrop was in no better case. "we won--technically--i guess--or did we? that was a god-awful drubbing we took, mister." "well, we got away alive, anyway.... we'll tell parker his dope is correct to the proverbial twenty decimals. and now that we've escaped, let's call spud and see how things came out." and costigan-jones assured them that everything had come out very well indeed. the shipment of thionite had been followed without any difficulty at all, from the space-ship clear through to jones' own office, and it reposed now in department q's own safe, under jones' personal watch and ward. the pressure had lightened tremendously, just as kinnison and northrop had thought it would, when they set up their diversion. costigan listened impassively to the whole story. "now _should_ i have shot her, or not?" jack demanded. "not whether i _could_ have or not--i couldn't--but _should_ i have, spud?" "i don't know." costigan thought for minutes. "i don't think so. no--not in cold blood. i couldn't have, either, and wouldn't if i could. it wouldn't be worth it. somebody will shoot her some day, but not one of us--unless, of course, it's in a fight." "thanks, spud; that makes me feel better. off." costigan-jones' desk was already clear, since there was little or no paper-work connected with his position in department q. hence his preparations for departure were few and simple. he merely opened the safe, stuck the package into his pocket, closed and locked the safe, and took a company ground-car to the spaceport. nor was there any more formality about his leaving the planet. eridan had, of course, a customs frontier of sorts; but since uranium inc. owned eridan in fee simple, its customs paid no attention whatever to company ships or to low-number, gold-badge company men. nor did jones need ticket, passport, or visa. company men rode company ships to and from company plants, wherever situated, without let or hindrance. thus, wearing the aura of power of his new position--and gold badge number thirty eight--george w. jones was whisked out to the uranium ship and was shown to his cabin. nor was it surprising that the trip from eridan to earth was completely without incident. this was an ordinary freighter, hauling uranium on a routine flight. her cargo was valuable, of course--the sine qua non of inter-stellar trade--but in no sense precious. not pirate-bait, by any means. and only two men knew that this flight was in any whit different from the one which had preceded it or the one which would follow it. if this ship was escorted or guarded the fact was not apparent: and no patrol vessel came nearer to it than four detets--virgil samms and roderick kinnison saw to that. the voyage, however, was not tedious. jones was busy every minute. in fact, there were scarcely minutes enough in which to assimilate the material which isaacson had given him--the layouts, flow-sheets, and organization charts of works number eighteen, on tellus. and upon arrival at the private spaceport which was an integral part of works number eighteen, jones was not surprised (he knew more now than he had known a few weeks before; and infinitely more than the man on the street) to learn that the customs men of this particular north american port of entry were just as complaisant as were those of eridan. they did not bother even to count the boxes, to say nothing of inspecting them. they stamped the ship's papers without either reading or checking them. they made a perfunctory search, it is true, of crewmen and quarters, but a low number gold badge was still a magic talisman. unquestioned, sacrosanct, he and his baggage were escorted to the ground-car first in line. "administration building," jones-costigan told the hacker, and that was that. chapter 16 it has been said that the basic drive of the eddorians was a lust for power; a thought which should be elucidated and perhaps slightly modified. their warrings, their strifes, their internecine intrigues and connivings were inevitable because of the tremendousness and capability--and the limitations--of their minds. not enough _could_ occur upon any one planet to keep such minds as theirs even partially occupied; and, unlike the arisians, they could not satiate themselves in a static philosophical study of the infinite possibilities of the cosmic all. they had to be _doing_ something; or, better yet, making other and lesser beings do things to make the physical universe conform to their idea of what a universe should be. their first care was to set up the various echelons of control. the second echelon, immediately below the masters, was of course the most important, and after a survey of both galaxies they decided to give this high honor to the ploorans. ploor, as is now well known, was a planet of a sun so variable that all plooran life had to undergo radical cyclical changes in physical form in order to live through the tremendous climatic changes involved in its every year. physical form, however, meant nothing to the eddorians. since no other planet even remotely like theirs existed in this, our normal plenum, physiques like theirs would be impossible; and the plooran mentality left very little to be desired. in the third echelon there were many different races, among which the frigid-blooded, poison-breathing eich were perhaps the most efficient and most callous; and in the fourth there were millions upon millions of entities representing thousands upon thousands of widely-variant races. thus, at the pinpoint in history represented by the time of virgil samms and roderick kinnison, the eddorians were busy; and if such a word can be used, happy. gharlane of eddore, second in authority only to the all-highest, his ultimate supremacy himself, paid little attention to any one planet or to any one race. even such a mind as his, when directing the affairs of twenty million and then sixty million and then a hundred million worlds, can do so only in broad, and not in fine. and thus the reports which were now flooding in to gharlane in a constantly increasing stream concerned classes and groups of worlds, and solar systems, and galactic regions. a planet might perhaps be mentioned as representative of a class, but no individual entity lower than a plooran was named or discussed. gharlane analyzed those tremendous reports; collated, digested, compared, and reconciled them; determined trends and tendencies and most probable resultants. gharlane issued orders, the carrying out of which would make an entire galactic region fit more and ever more exactly into the great plan. but, as has been pointed out, there was one flaw inherent in the boskonian system. underlings, then as now, were prone to gloss over their own mistakes, to cover up their own incompetences. thus, since he had no reason to inquire specifically, gharlane did not know that anything whatever had gone amiss on sol three, the pestiferous planet which had formerly caused him more trouble than all the rest of his worlds combined. after the fact, it is easy to say that he should have continued his personal supervision of earth, but can that view be defended? egotistical, self-confident, arrogant, gharlane _knew_ that he had finally whipped tellus into line. it was the same now as any other planet of its class. and even had he thought it worth while to make such a glaring exception, would not the fused elders of arisia have intervened? be those things as they may, gharlane did not know that the new-born galactic patrol had been successful in defending triplanetary's hill against the black fleet. nor did the plooran assistant director in charge. nor did any member of that dreadful group of eich which was even then calling itself the council of boskone. the highest-ranking boskonian who knew of the fiasco, calmly confident of his own ability, had not considered this minor reverse of sufficient importance to report to his immediate superior. he had already taken steps to correct the condition. in fact, as matters now stood, the thing was more fortunate than otherwise, in that it would lull the patrol into believing themselves in a position of superiority--a belief which would, at election time, prove fatal. this being, human to the limit of classification except for a faint but unmistakable blue coloration, had been closeted with senator morgan for a matter of two hours. "in the matters covered, your reports have been complete and conclusive," the visitor said finally, "but you have not reported on the lens." "purposely. we are investigating it, but any report based upon our present knowledge would be partial and inconclusive." "i see. commendable enough, usually. news of this phenomenon has, however, gone farther and higher than you think and i have been ordered to take cognizance of it; to decide whether or not to handle it myself." "i am thoroughly capable of...." "i will decide that, not you." morgan subsided. "a partial report is therefore in order. go ahead." "according to the procedure submitted and approved, a lensman was taken alive. since the lens has telepathic properties, and hence is presumably operative at great distances, the operation was carried out in the shortest possible time. the lens, immediately upon removal from the patrolman's arm, ceased to radiate and the operative who held the thing died. it was then applied by force to four other men--workers, these, of no importance. all four died, thus obviating all possibility of coincidence. an attempt was made to analyze a fragment of the active material, without success. it seemed to be completely inert. neither was it affected by electrical discharges or by sub-atomic bombardment, nor by any temperatures available. meanwhile, the man was of course being questioned, under truth-drug and beams. his mind denied any knowledge of the nature of the lens; a thing which i am rather inclined to believe. his mind adhered to the belief that he obtained the lens upon the planet arisia. i am offering for your consideration my opinion that the high-ranking officers of the patrol are using hypnotism to conceal the real source of the lens." "your opinion is accepted for consideration." "the man died during examination. two minutes after his death his lens disappeared." "disappeared? what do you mean? flew away? vanished? was stolen? disintegrated? or what?" "no. more like evaporation or sublimation, except that there was no gradual diminution in volume, and there was no detectable residue, either solid, liquid, or gaseous. the platinum-alloy bracelet remained intact." "and then?" "the patrol attacked in force and our expedition was destroyed." "you are sure of these observational facts?" "i have the detailed records. would you like to see them?" "send them to my office. i hereby relieve you of all responsibility in the matter of the lens. in fact, even i may decide to refer it to a higher echelon. have you any other material, not necessarily facts, which may have bearing?" "none," morgan replied; and it was just as well for virgilia samms' continued well-being that the senator did not think it worth while to mention the traceless disappearance of his number one secretary and a few members of a certain unsavory gang. to his way of thinking, the lens was not involved, except perhaps very incidentally. herkimer, in spite of advice and orders, had probably got rough with the girl, and samms' mob had rubbed him out. served him right. "i have no criticism of any phase of your work. you are doing a particularly nice job on thionite. you are of course observing all specified precautions as to key personnel?" "certainly. thorough testing and unremitting watchfulness. our mr. isaacson is about to promote a man who has proved very capable. would you like to observe the proceedings?" "no. i have no time for minor matters. your results have been satisfactory. keep them that way. good-bye." the visitor strode out. morgan reached for a switch, then drew his hand back. no. he would like to sit in on the forthcoming interview, but he did not have the time. he had tested olmstead repeatedly and personally; he knew what the man was. it was isaacson's department; let isaacson handle it. he himself must work full time at the job which only he could handle; the nationalists must and would win this forthcoming election. and in the office of the president of interstellar spaceways, isaacson got up and shook hands with george olmstead. "i called you in for two reasons. first, in reply to your message that you were ready for a bigger job. what makes you think that any such are available?" "do i need to answer that?" "perhaps not ... no." the magnate smiled quietly. morgan was right; this man could not be accused of being dumb. "there is such a job, you are ready for it, and you have your successor trained in the work of harvesting. second, why did you cut down, instead of increasing as ordered, the weight of broadleaf per trip? this, olmstead, is really serious." "i explained why. it would have been more serious the other way. didn't you believe i knew what i was talking about?" "your reasoning may have been distorted in transmittal. i want it straight from you." "very well. it isn't smart to be greedy. there's a point at which something that has been merely a nuisance becomes a thing that _has_ to be wiped out. since i didn't want to be in that ferry when the patrol blows it out of the ether, i cut down the take, and i advise you to keep it down. what you're getting now is a lot more than you ever got before, and a _hell_ of a lot more than none at all. think it over." "i see. upon what basis did you arrive at the figure you established?" "pure guesswork, nothing else. i guessed that about three hundred percent of the previous average per month ought to satisfy anybody who wasn't too greedy to have good sense, and that more than that would ring a loud, clear bell right where we don't want any noise made. so i cut it down to three, and advised ferdy either to keep it at three or quit while he was still all in one piece." "you exceeded your authority ... and were insubordinate ... but it wouldn't surprise me if you were right. you are certainly right in principle, and the poundage can be determined by statistical and psychological analysis. but in the meantime, there is tremendous pressure for increased production." "i know it. pressure be damned. my dear cousin virgil is, as you already know, a crackpot. he is visionary, idealistic, full of sweet and beautiful concepts of what the universe would be like if there weren't so many people like you and me in it; but don't ever make the mistake of writing him off as anybody's fool. and you know, probably better than i do, what rod kinnison is like. if i were you i'd tell whoever is doing the screaming to shut their damn mouths before they get their teeth kicked down their throats." "i'm very much inclined to take your advice. and now as to this proposed promotion. you are of course familiar in a general way with our operation at northport?" "i could scarcely help knowing _something_ about the biggest uranium works on earth. however, i am not well enough qualified in detail to make a good technical executive." "nor is it necessary. our thought is to make you a key man in a new and increasingly important branch of the business, known as department q. it is concerned neither with production nor with uranium." "q as in 'quiet', eh? i'm listening with both ears. what duties would be connected with this ... er ... position? what would i really do?" two pairs of hard eyes locked and held, staring yieldlessly into each other's depths. "you would not be unduly surprised to learn that substances other than uranium occasionally reach northport?" "not _too_ surprised, no," olmstead replied dryly. "what would i do with it?" "we need not go into that here or now. i offer you the position." "i accept it." "very well. i will take you to northport, and we will continue our talk en route." and in a spy-ray-proof, sound-proof compartment of a spaceways-owned stratoliner they did so. "just for my information, mr. isaacson, how many predecessors have i had on this particular job, and what happened to them? the patrol get them?" "two. no; we have not been able to find any evidence that the samms crowd has any suspicion of us. both were too small for the job; neither could handle personnel. one got funny ideas, the other couldn't stand the strain. if you don't get funny ideas, and don't crack up, you will make out in a big--and i mean _really_ big--way." "if i do either i'll be more than somewhat surprised." olmstead's features set themselves into a mirthless, uncompromising, somehow bitter grin. "so will i." isaacson agreed. he knew what this man was, and just how case-hardened he was. he knew that he had fought morgan himself to a scoreless tie after twisting herkimer--and he was no soft touch--into a pretzel in nothing flat. at the thought of the secretary, so recently and so mysteriously vanished, the magnate's mind left for a moment the matter in hand. what was at the bottom of that affair--the lens or the woman? or both? if he were in morgan's shoes ... but he wasn't. he had enough grief of his own, without worrying about any of morgan's stinkeroos. he studied olmstead's inscrutable, subtly sneering smile and knew that he had made a wise decision. "i gather that i am going to be one of the main links in the primary chain of deliveries. what's the technique, and how do i cover up?" "technique first. you go fishing. you are an expert at that, i believe?" "you might say so. i won't have to do any faking there." "some week-end soon, and _every_ week-end later on, we hope, you will indulge in your favorite sport at some lake or other. you will take the customary solid and liquid refreshments along in a lunch-box. when you have finished eating you will toss the lunch-box overboard." "that all?" "that's all." "the lunch-box, then, will be slightly special?" "more or less, although it will look ordinary enough. now as to the cover-up. how would 'director of research' sound?" "i don't know. depends on what the researchers are doing. before i became an engineer i was a pure scientist of sorts; but that was quite a while ago and i was never a specialist." "that is one reason why i think you will do. we have plenty of specialists--too many, i often think. they dash off in all directions, without rhyme or reason. what we want is a man with enough scientific training to know in general what is going on, but what he will need mostly is hard common sense, and enough ability--mental force, you might call it--to hold the specialists down to earth and make them pull together. if you can do it--and if i didn't think you could i wouldn't be talking to you--the whole force will know that you are earning your pay; just as we could not hide the fact that your two predecessors weren't." "put that way it sounds good. i wouldn't wonder if i could handle it." the conversation went on, but the rest of it is of little importance here. the plane landed. isaacson introduced the new director of research to works manager rand, who in turn introduced him to a few of his scientists and to the svelte and spectacular red-head who was to be his private secretary. it was clear from the first that the research department was not going to be an easy one to manage. the top men were defiant, the middle ranks were sullen, the smaller fry were apprehensive as well as sullen. the secretary flaunted chips on both shapely shoulders. men and women alike expected the application of the old wheeze "a new broom sweeps clean" for the third time in scarcely twice that many months, and they were defying him to do his worst. wherefore they were very much surprised when the new boss did nothing whatever for two solid weeks except read reports and get acquainted with his department. "how d'ya like your new boss, may?" another secretary asked, during a break. "oh, not too bad ... i guess." may's tone was full of reservations. "he's quiet--sort of reserved--no passes or anything like that--it'd be funny if i finally got a boss that had something on the ball, wouldn't it? but you know what, molly?" the red-head giggled suddenly. "i had a camera-fiend first, you know, with a million credits' worth of stereo-cams and such stuff, and then a golf-nut. i wonder what this dr. olmstead does with his spare cash?" "you'll find out, dearie, no doubt." molly's tone gave the words a meaning slightly different from the semantic one of their arrangement. "i intend to, molly--i _fully_ intend to." may's meaning, too, was not expressed exactly by the sequence of words used. "it must be tough, a boss's life. having to sit at a desk or be in conference six or seven hours a day--when he isn't playing around somewhere--for a measly thousand credits or so a month. how do they get that way?" "you said it, may. you _really_ said it. but we'll get ours, huh?" time went on. george olmstead studied reports, and more reports. he read one, and re-read it, frowning. he compared it minutely with another; then sent red-headed may to hunt up one which had been turned in a couple of weeks before. he took them home that evening, and in the morning he punched three buttons. three stiffly polite young men obeyed his summons. "good morning, doctor olmstead." "morning, boys. i'm not up on the fundamental theory of any one of these three reports, but if you combine this, and this, and this," indicating heavily-penciled sections of the three documents, "would you, or would you not, be able to work out a process that would do away with about three-quarters of the final purification and separation processes?" they did not know. it had not been the business of any one of them, or of all them collectively, to find out. "i'm making it your business as of now. drop whatever you're doing, put your heads together, and find out. theory first, then a small-scale laboratory experiment. then come back here on the double." "yes, sir," and in a few days they were back. "does it work?" "in theory it should, sir, and on a laboratory scale it does." the three young men were, if possible, even stiffer than before. it was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that a director of research would seize credit for work which he was not capable of doing. "good. miss reed, get me rand ... rand? olmstead. three of my boys have just hatched out something that may be worth quite a few million credits a year to us.... me? hell, no! talk to them. i can't understand any one of the three parts of it, to say nothing of inventing it. i want you to give 'em a class aaa priority on the pilot plant, as of right now. if they can develop it, and i'm betting they can, i'm going to put their pictures in the northport news and give 'em a couple of thousand credits apiece and a couple of weeks vacation to spend it in.... yeah, i'll send 'em in." he turned to the flabbergasted three. "take your dope in to rand--now. show him what you've got; then tear into that pilot plant." and, a little later, molly and may again met in the powder room. "so your new boss is a _fisherman_!" molly snickered. "and they say he paid over _two hundred credits_ for a _reel_! you were right, may; a boss's life must be mighty hard to take. and he sits around more and does less, they say, than any other exec in the plant." "_who_ says so, the dirty, sneaking liars?" the red-head blazed, completely unaware that she had reversed her former position. "and even if it _was_ so, which it isn't, he can do more work sitting perfectly still than any other boss in the whole works can do tearing around at forty parsecs a minute, so there!" george olmstead was earning his salary. his position was fully consolidated when, a few days later, a tremor of excitement ran through the research department. "heads up, everybody! mr. isaacson--himself--is coming--_here_! what for, i wonder? y'don't s'pose he's going to take the old man away from us already, do you?" he came. he went through, for the first time, the entire department. he observed minutely, and he understood what he saw. olmstead led the big boss into his private office and flipped the switch which supposedly rendered that sanctum proof against any and all forms of spying, eavesdropping, intrusion, and communication. it did not, however, close the deeper, subtler channels which the lensmen used. "good work, george. so _damned_ good that i'm going to have to take you out of department q entirely and make you works manager of our new plant on vegia. have you got a man you can break in to take your place here?" "including department q? no." although olmstead did not show it, he was disappointed at hearing the word "vegia". he had been aiming much higher than that--at the secret planet of the boskonian armed forces, no less--but there might still be enough time to win a transfer there. "excluding. i've got another good man here now for that. jones. not heavy enough, though, for vegia." "in that case, yes. dr. whitworth, one of the boys who worked out the new process. it'll take a little time, though. three weeks minimum." "three weeks it is. today's friday. you've got things in shape, haven't you, so that you can take the week-end off?" "i was figuring on it. i'm not going where i thought i was, though, i imagine." "probably not. lake chesuncook, on route 273. rough country, and the hotel is something less than fourth rate, but the fishing can't be beat." "i'm glad of that. when i fish, i like to catch something." "it would smell if you didn't. they stock lunch-boxes in the cafeteria, you know. have your girl get you one, full of sandwiches and stuff. start early this afternoon, as soon as you can after i leave. be sure and see jones, with your lunch-box, before you leave. good-bye." "miss reed, please send whitworth in. then skip down to the cafeteria and get me a lunch-box. sandwiches and a thermos of coffee. provender suitable for a wet and hungry fisherman." "yes, _sir_!" there were no chips now; the red-head's boss was the top ace of the whole plant. "hi, ned. take the throne." olmstead waved his hand at the now vacant chair behind the big desk. "hold it down 'til i get back. monday, maybe." "going fishing, huh?" gone was all trace of stiffness, of reserve, of unfriendliness. "you big, lucky stiff!" "well, my brilliant young squirt, maybe you'll get old and fat enough to go fishing yourself some day. who knows? 'bye." lunch-box in hand and encumbered with tackle, olmstead walked blithely along the corridor to the office of assistant works manager jones. while he had not known just what to expect, he was not surprised to see a lunch-box exactly like his own upon the side-table. he placed his box beside it. "hi, olmstead." by no slightest flicker of expression did either lensman step out of character. "shoving off early?" "yeah. dropped by to let the head office know i won't be in 'til monday." "o.k. so'm i, but more speed for me. chemquassabamticook lake." "do you pronounce that or sneeze it? but have fun, my boy. i'm combining business with pleasure, though--breaking in whitworth on my job. that fairplay thing is going to break in about an hour, and it'll scare the pants off of him. but it'll keep until monday, anyway, and if he handles it right he's just about in." jones grinned. "a bit brutal, perhaps, but a sure way to find out. 'bye." "so long." olmstead strolled out, nonchalantly picking up the wrong lunch box on the way, and left the building. he ordered his dillingham, and tossed the lunch-box aboard as carelessly as though it did not contain an unknown number of millions of credits' worth of clear-quill, uncut thionite. "i hope you have a nice week-end, sir," the yard-man said, as he helped stow baggage and tackle. "thanks, otto. i'll bring you a couple of fish monday, if i catch that many," and it should be said in passing that he brought them. lensmen keep their promises, under whatever circumstances or however lightly given. it being mid-afternoon of friday, the traffic was already heavy. northport was not a metropolis, of course; but on the other hand it did not have metropolitan multi-tiered, one-way, non-intersecting streets. but olmstead was in no hurry. he inched his spectacular mount--it was a violently iridescent chrome green in color, with highly polished chromium gingerbread wherever there was any excuse for gingerbread to be--across the city and into the north-bound side of the superhighway. even then, he did not hurry. he wanted to hit the inspection station at the edge of the preserve at dusk. ninety miles an hour would do it. he worked his way into the ninety-mile lane and became motionless relative to the other vehicles on the strip. it was a peculiar sensation; it seemed as though the cars themselves were stationary, with the pavement flowing backward beneath them. there was no passing, no weaving, no cutting in and out. only occasionally would the formation be broken as a car would shift almost imperceptibly to one side or the other; speeding up or slowing down to match the assigned speed of the neighboring way. the afternoon was bright and clear, neither too hot nor too cold. olmstead enjoyed his drive thoroughly, and arrived at the turn-off right on schedule. leaving the wide, smooth way, he slowed down abruptly; even a dillingham super-sporter could not make speed on the narrow, rough, and hilly road to chesuncook lake. at dusk he reached the post. instead of stopping on the pavement he pulled off the road, got out, stretched hugely, and took a few drum-major's steps to take the kinks out of his legs. "a lot of road, eh?" the smartly-uniformed trooper remarked. "no guns?" "no guns." olmstead opened up for inspection. "from northport. funny, isn't it, how hard it is to stop, even when you aren't in any particular hurry? guess i'll eat now--join me in a sandwich and some hot coffee or a cold lemon sour or cherry soda?" "i've got my own supper, thanks; i was just going to eat. but did you say a _cold_ lemon sour?" "uh-huh. ice-cold. zero degrees centigrade." "i _will_ join you, in that case. thanks." olmstead opened a frost-lined compartment; took out two half-liter bottles; placed them and his open lunch-box invitingly on the low stone wall. "hm ... m ... m. quite a zipper you got there, mister." the trooper gazed admiringly at the luxurious, two-wheeled monster; listened appreciatively to its almost inaudible hum. "i've heard about those new supers, but that is the first one i ever saw. nice. all the comforts of home, eh?" "just about. sure you won't help me clean up on those sandwiches, before they get stale?" seated on the wall, the two men ate and talked. if that trooper had known what was in the box beside his leg he probably would have fallen over backward; but how was he even to suspect? there was nothing crass or rough or coarse about any of the work of any of boskone's high-level operators. olmstead drove on to the lake and took up his reservation at the ramshackle hotel. he slept, and bright and early the next morning he was up and fishing--and this part of the performance he really enjoyed. he knew his stuff and the fish were there; big, wary, and game. he loved it. at noon he ate, and quite openly and brazenly consigned the "empty" box to the watery deep. even if he had not had so many fish to carry, he was not the type to lug a cheap lunch-box back to town. he fished joyously all afternoon, without getting quite the limit, and as the sun grazed the horizon he started his putt-putt and skimmed back to the dock. the thing hadn't sent out any radiation yet, northrop informed him tensely, but it certainly would, and when it did they'd be ready. there were lensmen and patrolmen all over the place, thicker than hair on a dog. and george olmstead, sighing wearily and yet blissfully anticipatory of one more day of enthralling sport, gathered up his equipment and his fish and strolled toward the hotel. chapter 17 forty thousand miles from earth's center the _chicago_ loafed along a circular arc, inert, at a mere ten thousand miles an hour; a speed which, and not by accident, kept her practically stationary above a certain point on the planet's surface. nor was it by chance that both virgil samms and roderick kinnison were aboard. and a dozen or so other craft, cruisers and such, whose officers were out to put space-time in their logs, were flitting aimlessly about; but never very far away from the flagship. and farther out--well out--a cordon of diesel-powered detector ships swept space to the full limit of their prodigious reach. the navigating officers of those vessels knew to a nicety the place and course of every ship lawfully in the ether, and the appearance of even one unscheduled trace would set in motion a long succession of carefully-planned events. and far below, grazing atmosphere, never very far from the direct line between the _chicago_ and earth's core, floated a palatial pleasure yacht. and this craft carried not one lensman, or two, but eight; two of whom kept their eyes fixed upon their observation plates. they were watching a lunch-box resting upon the bottom of a lake. "hasn't it radiated _yet_?" roderick kinnison demanded. "or been approached, or moved?" "not yet," lyman cleveland replied, crisply. "neither northrop's rig nor mine has shown any sign of activity." he did not amplify the statement, nor was there need. mason northrop was a master electronicist; cleveland was perhaps the world's greatest living expert. neither of them had detected radiation. ergo, none existed. equally certainly the box had not moved, or been moved, or approached. "no change, rod," doctor frederick rodebush lensed the assured thought. "six of us have been watching the plates in five-minute shifts." a few minutes later, however: "here is a thought which may be of interest," dalnalten the venerian announced, spraying himself with a couple pints of water. "it is natural enough, of course, for any venerian to be in or on any water he can reach--i would enjoy very much being on or in that lake myself--but it may not be entirely by coincidence that one particular venerian, ossmen, is visiting this particular lake at this particular time." "what!" nine lensmen yelled the thought practically as one. "precisely. ossmen." it was a measure of the venerian lensman's concern that he used only two words instead of twenty or thirty. "in the red boat with the yellow sail." "do you see any detector rigs?" samms asked. "he wouldn't need any," dalnalten put in. "he will be able to see it. or, if a little colane had been rubbed on it which no tellurian could have noticed, any venerian could smell it from one end of that lake to the other." "true. i didn't think of that. it may not have a transmitter after all." "maybe not, but keep on listening, anyway," the port admiral ordered. "bend a plate on ossmen, and a couple more on the rest of the boats. but ossmen is clean, you say, jack? not even a spy-ray block?" "he couldn't have a block, dad. it'd give too much away, here on our home grounds. like on eridan, where their ops could wear anything they could lift, but we had to go naked." he flinched mentally as he recalled his encounter with hazel the hell-cat, and northrop flinched with him. "that's right, rod," olmstead in his boat below agreed, and conway costigan, in his room in northport, concurred. the top-drawer operatives of the enemy depended for safety upon perfection of technique, not upon crude and dangerous mechanical devices. "well, since you're all so sure of it, i'll buy it," and the waiting went on. under the slight urge of the light and vagrant breeze, the red boat moved slowly across the water. a somnolent, lackadaisical youth, who very evidently cared nothing about where the boat went, sat in its stern, with his left arm draped loosely across the tiller. nor was ossmen any more concerned. his only care, apparently, was to avoid interference with the fishermen; his under-water jaunts were long, even for a venerian, and he entered and left the water as smoothly as only a venerian--or a seal--could. "however, he could have, and probably has got, a capsule spy-ray detector," jack offered, presently. "or, since a venerian can swallow anything one inch smaller than a kitchen stove, he could have a whole analyzing station stashed away in his stomach. nobody's put a beam on him yet, have you?" nobody had. "it might be smart not to. watch him with 'scopes ... and when he gets up close to the box, better pull your beams off of it. dalnalten, i don't suppose it would be quite bright for you to go swimming down there too, would it?" "very definitely not, which is why i am up here and dry. none of them would go near it." they waited, and finally ossmen's purposeless wanderings brought him over the spot on the lake's bottom which was the target of so many tellurian eyes. he gazed at the discarded lunch-box as incuriously as he had looked at so many other sunken objects, and swam over it as casually--and only the ultra-cameras caught what he actually did. he swam serenely on. "the box is still there," the spy-ray men reported, "but the package is gone." "good!" kinnison exclaimed, "can you 'scopists see it on him?" "ten to one they can't," jack said. "he swallowed it. i expected him to swallow it box and all." "we can't see it, sir. he must have swallowed it." "make sure." "yes, sir.... he's back on the boat now and we've shot him from all angles. he's clean--nothing outside." "perfect! that means he isn't figuring on slipping it to somebody else in a crowd. this will be an ordinary job of shadowing from here on in, so i'll put in the umbrella." the detector ships were recalled. the _chicago_ and the various other ships of war returned to their various bases. the pleasure craft floated away. but on the other hand there were bursts of activity throughout the forest for a mile or so back from the shores of the lake. camps were struck. hiking parties decided that they had hiked enough and began to retrace their steps. lithe young men, who had been doing this and that, stopped doing it and headed for the nearest trails. for kinnison _pere_ had erred slightly in saying that the rest of the enterprise was to be an ordinary job of shadowing. no ordinary job would do. with the game this nearly in the bag it must be made absolutely certain that no suspicion was aroused, and yet samms had to have _facts_. sharp, hard, clear facts; facts so self-evidently facts that no intelligence above idiot grade could possibly mistake them for anything but facts. wherefore ossmen the venerian was not alone thenceforth. from lake to hotel, from hotel to car, along the road, into and in and out of train and plane, clear to an ordinary-enough-looking building in an ordinary business section of new york, he was _never_ alone. where the traveling population was light, the patrol operatives were few and did not crowd the venerian too nearly; where dense, as in a metropolitan station, they ringed him three deep. he reached his destination, which was of course spy-ray proofed, late sunday night. he went in, remained briefly, came out. "shall we spy-ray him, virge? follow him? or what?" "no spy-rays. follow him. cover him like a blanket. at the usual time give him the usual spy-ray going-over, but not until then. this time, make it _thorough_. make certain that he hasn't got it on him, in him, or in or around his house." "there'll be nothing doing here tonight, will there?" "no, it would be too noticeable. so you, fred, and lyman, take the first trick; the rest of us will get some sleep." when the building opened monday morning the lensmen were back, with dozens of others, including knobos of mars. there were also present or nearby literally hundreds of the shrewdest, most capable detectives of earth. "so _this_ is their headquarters--one of them at least," the martian thought, studying the trickle of people entering and leaving the building. "it is as we thought, dal, why we could never find it, why we could never trace any wholesaler backward. none of us has ever seen any of these persons before. complete change of personnel per operation; probably inter-planetary. long periods of quiescence. check?" "check: but we have them now." "just like that, huh?" jack kinnison jibed; and from his viewpoint his idea was the more valid, for the wholesalers were very clever operators indeed. from the more professional viewpoint of knobos and dalnalten, however, who had fought a steadily losing battle so long, the task was not too difficult. their forces were beautifully organized and synchronized; they were present in such overwhelming numbers that "tails" could be changed every fifteen seconds; long before anybody, however suspicious, could begin to suspect any one shadow. nor was it necessary for the tails to signal each other, however inconspicuously, or to indicate any suspect at change-over time. lensed thoughts directed every move, without confusion or error. and there were tiny cameras with tremendous, protuberant lenses, the "long eyes" capable of taking wire-sharp close ups from five hundred feet; and other devices and apparatus and equipment too numerous to mention here. thus the wholesalers were traced and their transactions with the retail peddlers were recorded. and from that point on, even jack kinnison had to admit that the sailing was clear. these small fry were not smart, and their customers were even less so. none had screens or detectors or other apparatus; their every transaction could be and was recorded from a distance of many miles by the ultra-instruments of the patrol. and not only the transactions. clearly, unmistakeably, the purchaser was followed from buying to sniffing; nor was the time intervening ever long. thionite, then as now, was bought at retail only to use, and the whole ghastly thing went down on tape and film. the gasping, hysterical appeal; the exchange of currency for drug; the headlong rush to a place of solitude; the rigid muscle-lock and the horribly ecstatic transports; the shaken, soul-searing recovery or the entranced death. it all went on record. it was sickening to have to record such things. more than one observer did sicken in fact, and had to be relieved. but virgil samms had to have concrete, positive, irrefutable evidence. he got it. any possible jury, upon seeing that evidence, would know it to be the truth; no possible jury, after seeing that evidence, could bring in any verdict other than "guilty". oddly enough, jack kinnison was the only casualty of that long and hectic day. a man--later proved to be a middle-sized potentate of the underworld--who was not even under suspicion at the time, for some reason or other got the idea that jack was after him. the lensman had, perhaps, allowed some part of his long eye to show; a fast and efficient long-range telephoto lens is a devilishly awkward thing to conceal. at any rate the racketeer sent out a call for help, just in case his bodyguards would not be enough, and in the meantime his personal attendants rallied enthusiastically around. they had two objects in view; one, to pass a knife expeditiously and quietly through young kinnison's throat from ear to ear; and: two, to tear the long eye apart and subject a few square inches of super-sensitive emulsion to the bright light of day. and if the big shot had known that the photographer was not alone, that the big, hulking bruiser a few feet away was also a bull, they might have succeeded. two of the four hoods reached jack just fractionally ahead of the other two; one to seize the camera, the other to swing the knife. but jack kinnison was fast; fast of brain and nerve and muscle. he saw them coming. in three flashing motions he bent the barrel of the telephoto into a neat arc around the side of the first man's head, ducked frantically under the fiercely-driven knife, and drove the toe of his boot into the spot upon which prize-fighters like to have their rabbit-punches land. both of those attackers lost interest promptly. one of them lost interest permanently; for a telephoto lens in barrel is heavy, very rigid, and very, _very_ hard. while battling jack was still off balance, the other two guards arrived--but so did mason northrop. mase was not quite as fast as jack was; but, as has been pointed out, he was bigger and much stronger. when he hit a man, with either hand, that man dropped. it was the same as being on the receiving end of the blow of a twenty-pound hammer falling through a distance of ninety seven and one-half feet. the lensmen had of course also yelled for help, and it took only a split second for a patrol speedster to travel from any given point to any other in the same county. it took no time at all for that speedster to fill a couple of square blocks with patterns of force through which neither bullets nor beams could be driven. therefore the battle ended as suddenly as it began; before more thugs, with their automatics and portables, could reach the scene. kinnison _fils_ cursed and damned fulminantly the edict which had forbidden arms that day, and swore that he would never get out of bed again without strapping on at least two blasters; but he had to admit finally that he had nothing to squawk about. kinnison _pere_ explained quite patiently--for him--that all he had got out of the little fracas was a split lip, that young northrop's hair wasn't even mussed, and that if everybody had been packing guns some scatter-brained young damn fool like him would have started blasting and blown everything higher than up--would have spoiled samms' whole operation maybe beyond repair. now would he please quit bellyaching and get to hell out? he got. * * * * * "that buttons thionite up, don't you think?" rod kinnison asked. "and the lawyers will have plenty of time to get the case licked into shape and lined up for trial." "yes and no." samms frowned in thought. "the _evidence_ is complete, from original producer to ultimate consumer; but our best guess is that it will take years to get the really important offenders behind bars." "why? i thought you were giving them altogether too much time when you scheduled the blow-off for three weeks ahead of election." "because the drug racket is only a small part of it. we're going to break the whole thing at once, you know, and mateese covers a lot more ground--murder, kidnapping, bribery, corruption, misfeasance--practically everything you can think of." "i know. what of it?" "jurisdiction, among other things. with the president, over half of the congress, much of the judiciary, and practically all of the political bosses and police chiefs of the continent under indictment at once, the legal problem becomes incredibly difficult. the patrol's department of law has been working on it twenty four hours a day, and the only thing they seem sure of is a long succession of bitterly-contested points of law. there are no precedents whatever." "precedents be damned! they're guilty and everybody knows it. we'll change the laws so that...." "we will _not_!" samms interrupted, sharply. "we want and we will have government by law, not by men. we have had too much of that already. speed is not of the essence; justice very definitely is." "'crusader' samms, now and forever! but i'll buy it, virge--now let's get back down to earth. operation zwilnik is all set. mateese is going good. zabriska tied into zwilnik. that leaves operation boskone, which is, i suppose, still getting nowhere fast." the first lensman did not reply. it was, and both men knew it. the shrewdest, most capable and experienced operatives of the patrol had hit that wall with everything they had, and had simply bounced. low-level trials had found no point of contact, no angle of approach. middle level, ditto. george olmstead, working at the highest possible level, was morally certain that he had found a point of contact, but had not been able to do anything with it. "how about calling a council conference on it?" kinnison asked finally. "or bergenholm at least? maybe he can get one of his hunches on it." "i have discussed it with them all, just as i have with you. no one had anything constructive to offer, except to go ahead with bennett as you are doing. the concensus is that the boskonians know just as much about our military affairs as we know about theirs--no more." "it _would_ be too much to expect them to be dumb enough to figure us as dumb enough to depend only on our visible grand fleet, after the warning they gave us at the hill," kinnison admitted. "yes. what worries me most is that they had a running start." "not enough to count," the port admiral declared. "we can out-produce 'em and out-fight 'em." "don't be over-optimistic. you can't deny them the possession of brains, ability, man-power and resources at least equal to ours." "i don't have to." kinnison remained obstinately cheerful. "morale, my boy, is what counts. man-power and tonnage and fire-power are important, of course, but morale has won every war in history. and our morale right now is higher than a cat's back--higher than any time since john paul jones--and getting higher by the day." "yes?" the question was monosyllabic but potent. "yes. i mean just that--_yes_. from what we know of their system they _can't_ have the morale we've got. anything they can do we can do more of and better. what you've got, virge, is a bad case of ingrowing nerves. you've never been to bennett, in spite of the number of times i've asked you to. i say take time right now and come along--it'll be good for what ails you. it will also be a very fine thing for bennett and for the patrol--you'll find yourself no stranger there." "you may have something there ... i'll do it." port admiral and first lensman went to bennett, not in the _chicago_ or other superdreadnaught, but in a two-man speedster. this was necessary because space-travel, as far as that planet was concerned, was a strictly one-way affair except for lensmen. only lensmen could leave bennett, under any circumstances or for any reason whatever. there was no out-going mail, express, or freight. even the war-vessels of the fleet, while on practice maneuvers outside the bottle-tight envelopes surrounding the system, were so screened that no unauthorized communication could possibly be made. "in other words," kinnison finished explaining, "we slapped on everything anybody could think of, including bergenholm and rularion; and believe me, brother, that was a lot of stuff." "but wouldn't the very fact of such rigid restrictions operate against morale? it is a truism of psychology that imprisonment, like everything else, is purely relative." "yeah, that's what i told rularion, except i used simpler and rougher language. you know how sarcastic and superior he is, even when he's wrong?" "_how_ i know!" "well, when he's right he's too damned insufferable for words. you'd've thought he was talking to the prize boob of a class of half-wits. as long as nobody on the planet knew that there was any such thing as space-travel, or suspected that they were not the only form of intelligent life in the universe, it was all right. no such concept as being planet-bound could exist. they had all the room there was. but after they met us, and digested all the implications, they would develop the colly-wobbles no end. this, of course, is an extreme simplification of the way the old coot poured it into me; but he came through with the solution, so i took it like a little man." "what was the solution?" "it's a shame you were too busy to come in on it. you'll see when we land." but virgil samms was quick on the uptake. even before they landed, he understood. when the speedster slowed down for atmosphere he saw blazoned upon the clouds a welter of one many-times repeated signal; as they came to ground he saw that the same set of symbols was repeated, not only upon every available cloud, but also upon airships, captive balloons, streamers, roofs and sides of buildings--even, in multi-colored rocks and flower-beds, upon the ground itself. "twenty haress," samms translated, and frowned in thought. "a date of the bennettan year. would it by any chance happen to coincide with our tellurian november fourteenth of this present year?" "bright boy!" kinnison applauded. "i thought you'd get it, but not so fast. yes--election day." "i see. they know what is going on, then?" "everything that counts. they know what we stand to win--and lose. they've named it liberation day, and everything on the planet is building up to it in a grand crescendo. i was a little afraid of it at first, but if the screens are really tight it won't make any difference how many people know it, and if they aren't the beans would all be spilled anyway. and it really works--i get a bigger thrill every time i come here." "i can see where it might work." bennett was a fully tellurian world in mass, in atmosphere and in climate; her native peoples were human to the limit of classification, both physically and mentally. and first lensman samms, as he toured it with his friend, found a world aflame with a zeal and an ardor unknown to blase earth since the days of the crusades. the patrol's cleverest and shrewdest psychologists, by merely sticking to the truth, had done a marvelous job. bennett knew that it was the arsenal and the navy yard of civilization, and it was proud of it. its factories were humming as they had never hummed before; every industry, every business, every farm was operating at one hundred percent of capacity. bennett was dotted and spattered with spaceports already built, and hundreds more were being rushed to completion. the already staggering number of ships of war operating out of those ports was being augmented every hour by more and ever more ultra-modern, ultra-fast, ultra-powerful shapes. it was an honor to help build those ships; it was a still greater one to help man them. competitive examinations were being held constantly, nor were all or even most of the applicants native bennettans. samms did not have to ask where these young people were coming from. he knew. from all the planets of civilization, attracted by carefully-worded advertisements of good jobs at high pay on new and highly secret projects on newly discovered planets. there were hundreds of such ads. most were probably the patrol's, and led here; many were of spaceways, uranium incorporated, and other mercantile firms. the possibility that some of them might lead to what was now being called boskonia had been tested thoroughly, but with uniformly negative results. lensmen had applied by scores for those non-patrol jobs and had found them bona-fide. the conclusion was unavoidable--boskone was doing its recruiting on planets unknown to any wearer of arisia's lens. on the other hand, more than a trickle of boskonians were applying for patrol jobs, but samms was almost certain that none had been accepted. the final screening was done by lensmen, and in such matters lensmen did not make many or serious mistakes. bennett had been informed of the first lensman's arrival, and kinnison had been guilty of a gross understatement indeed in telling samms that he would not be regarded as a stranger. wherever samms went he was met by wildly enthusiastic crowds. he had to make speeches, each of which was climaxed by a tremendous roar of "to liberation day!" "no lensman material here, you say, rod?" samms asked, after the first city-shaking demonstration was over. one of his prime concerns, throughout his life, was this. "with all this enthusiasm? sure?" "we haven't found any good enough to refer to you yet. however, in a few years, when the younger generation gets a little older, there certainly will be." "check." the tour of inspection and acquaintance was finished, the two lensmen started back to earth. "well, my skeptical and pessimistic friend, was i lying, or not?" kinnison asked, as soon as the speedster's ports were sealed. "can they match that or not?" "you weren't--and i don't believe they can. i have never seen anything like it. autocracies have parades and cheers and demonstrations, of course, but they have always been forced--artificial. those were spontaneous." "not only that, but the enthusiasm will carry through. we'll be piping hot and ready to go. but about this stumping--you said i'd better start as soon as we get back?" "within a few days, i'd say." "i wouldn't wonder, so let's use this time in working out a plan of campaign. my idea is to start out like this...." chapter 18 conway costigan, leaving behind him scores of clues, all highly misleading, severed his connection with uranium, inc. as soon as he dared after operation zwilnik had been brought to a successful close. the technical operation, that is; the legal battles in which it figured so largely were to run on for enough years to make the word "zwilnik" a common noun and adjective in the language. he came to tellus as unobtrusively as was his wont, and took an inconspicuous but very active part in operation mateese, now in full swing. "now is the time for all good men and true to come to the aid of the party, eh?" clio costigan giggled. "you can play that straight across the keyboard of your electric, pet, and not with just two fingers, either. did you hear what the boss told 'em today?" "yes." the girl's levity disappeared. "they're so _dirty_, spud--i'm really afraid." "so am i. but we're not too lily-fingered ourselves if we have to be, and we're covering 'em like a blanket--kinnison and samms both." "good." "and in that connection, i'll have to be out half the night again tonight. all right?" "of course. it's so nice having you home at all, darling, instead of a million light-years away, that i'm practically delirious with delight." it was sometimes hard to tell what impish mrs. costigan meant by what she said. costigan looked at her, decided she was taking him for a ride, and smacked her a couple of times where it would do the most good. he then kissed her thoroughly and left. he had very little time, these days, either to himself or for his lovely and adored wife. for roderick kinnison's campaign, which had started out rough and not too clean, became rougher and rougher, and no cleaner, as it went along. morgan and his crew were swinging from the heels, with everything and anything they could dig up or invent, however little of truth or even of plausibility it might contain, and rod the rock had never held even in principle with the gentle precept of turning the other cheek. he was rather an old testamentarian, and he was no neophyte at dirty fighting. as a young operative, skilled in the punishing, maiming techniques of hand-to-hand rough-and-tumble combat, he had brawled successfully in most of the dives of most of the solarian planets and of most of their moons. with this background, and being a quick study, and under the masterly coaching of virgil samms, nels bergenholm, and rularion of north polar jupiter, it did not take him long to learn the various gambits and ripostes of this non-physical, but nevertheless no-holds-barred, political mayhem. and the "boys and girls" of the patrol worked like badgers, digging up an item here and a fact there and a bit of information somewhere else, all for the day of reckoning which was to come. they used ultra-wave scanners, spy-rays, long eyes, stool-pigeons--everything they could think of to use--and they could not _always_ be blocked out or evaded. "we've _got_ it, boss--now let's _use_ it!" "no. save it! nail it down, solid! get the facts--names, dates, places, and amounts. prove it first--then save it!" _prove it! save it!_ the joint injunction was used so often that it came to be a slogan and was accepted as such. unlike most slogans, however, it was carefully and diligently put to use. the operatives proved it and saved it, over and over, over and over again; by dint of what unsparing effort and selfless devotion only they themselves ever fully knew. kinnison stumped the continent. he visited every state, all of the big cities, most of the towns, and many villages and hamlets; and always, wherever he went, a part of the show was to demonstrate to his audiences how the lens worked. "look at me. you know that no two individuals are or ever can be alike. robert johnson is not like fred smith; joe jones is entirely different from john brown. look at me again. concentrate upon whatever it is in your mind that makes me roderick kinnison, the individual. that will enable each of you to get into as close touch with me as though our two minds were one. i am not talking now; you are reading my mind. since you are reading my very mind, you know exactly what i am _really_ thinking, for better or for worse. it is impossible for my mind to lie to yours, since i can change neither the basic pattern of my personality nor my basic way of thought; nor would i if i could. being in my mind, you know that already; you know what my basic quality is. my friends call it strength and courage; pirate chief morgan and his cut-throat crew call it many other things. be that as it may, you now know whether or not you want me for your president. i can do nothing whatever to sway your opinion, for what your minds have perceived you know to be the truth. that is the way the lens works. it bares the depths of my mind to yours, and in return enables me to understand your thoughts. "but it is in no sense hypnotism, as morgan is so foolishly trying to make you believe. morgan knows as well as the rest of us do that even the most accomplished hypnotist, with all his apparatus, can not affect a strong and definitely opposed will. he is therefore saying that each and every one of you now receiving this thought is such a spineless weakling that--but you may draw your own conclusions. "in closing, remember--nail this fact down so solidly that you will never forget it--a sound and healthy mind can not lie. the mouth can, and does. so does the typewriter. but the mind--never! i can hide my thoughts from you, even while we are en rapport, like this ... but i can not lie to you. that is why, some day, all of your highest executives will have to be lensmen, and not politicians, diplomats, crooks and boodlers. i thank you." as that long, bitter, incredibly vicious campaign neared its vitriolic end tension mounted higher and ever higher: and in a room in the samms home three young lensmen and a red-haired girl were not at ease. all four were lean and drawn. jack kinnison was talking. "... not the party, so much, but dad. he started out with bare fists, and now he's wading into 'em with spiked brass knuckles." "you can play _that_ across the board," costigan agreed. "he's really giving 'em hell," northrop said, admiringly. "did you boys listen in on his casper speech last night?" they hadn't; they had been too busy. "i could give it to you on your lenses, but i couldn't reproduce the tone--the exquisite way he lifted large pieces of hide and rubbed salt into the raw places. when he gets excited you know he can't help but use voice, too, so i got some of it on a record. he starts out on voice, nice and easy, as usual; then goes onto his lens without talking; then starts yelling as well as thinking. listen:" "you ought to have a lensman president. you may not believe that any lensman is, and as a matter of fact _must_ be incorruptible. that is my belief, as you can feel for yourselves, but i cannot _prove_ it to you. only time can do that. it is a self-evident fact, however, which you can feel for yourselves, that a lensman president could not lie to you except by word of mouth or in writing. you could demand from him at any time a lensed statement upon any subject. upon some matters of state he could and should refuse to answer; but not upon any question involving moral turpitude. if he answered, you would know the truth. if he refused to answer, you would know why and could initiate impeachment proceedings then and there. "in the past there have been presidents who used that high office for low purposes; whose very memory reeks of malfeasance and corruption. one was impeached, others should have been. witherspoon never should have been elected. witherspoon should have been impeached the day after he was inaugurated. witherspoon should be impeached now. we know, and at the grand rally at new york spaceport three weeks from tonight we are going to prove, that witherspoon is simply a minor cog-wheel in the morgan-towne-isaacson machine, 'playing footsie' at command with whatever group happens to be the highest bidder at the moment, irrespective of north america's or the system's good. witherspoon is a gangster, a cheat, and a god damn liar, but he is of very little actual importance; merely a boodling nincompoop. morgan is the real boss and the real menace, the operating engineer of the lowest-down, lousiest, filthiest, rottenest, most corrupt machine of murderers, extortionists, bribe-takers, panderers, perjurers, and other pimples on the body politic that has ever disgraced any so-called civilized government. good night." "wow!" jack kinnison yelped. "that's high, even for him!" "just a minute, jack," jill cautioned. "the other side, too. listen to this choice bit from senator morgan." "it is not exactly hypnotism, but something infinitely worse; something that steals away your very minds; that makes anyone listening believe that white is yellow, red, purple, or pea-green. until our scientists have checked this menace, until we have every wearer of that cursed lens behind steel bars, i advise you in all earnestness not to listen to them at all. if you do listen your minds will surely be insidiously decomposed and broken; you will surely end your days gibbering in a padded cell. "and murders? _murders!_ the feeble remnants of the gangs which our government has all but wiped out may perhaps commit a murder or so per year; the perpetrators of which are caught, tried, and punished. but how many of your sons and daughters has roderick kinnison murdered, either personally or through his uniformed slaves? think! read the record! then make him explain, if he can; but do not listen to his lying, mind-destroying lens. "democracy? bah! what does 'rod the rock' kinnison--the hardest, most vicious tyrant, the most relentless and pitiless martinet ever known to any armed force in the long history of our world--know of democracy? nothing! he understands only force. all who oppose him in anything, however small, or who seek to reason with him, die without record or trace; and if he is not arrested, tried, and executed, all such will continue, tracelessly and without any pretense of trial, to die. "but at bottom, even though he is not intelligent enough to realize it, he is merely one more in the long parade of tools of ruthless and predatory wealth, the monied powers. _they_, my friends, never sleep; they have only one god, one tenet, one creed--the almighty credit. _that_ is what they are after, and note how craftily, how stealthily, they have done and are doing their grabbing. where is your representation upon that so-called galactic council? how did this criminal, this vicious, this outrageously unconstitutional, this irresponsible, uncontrollable, and dictatorial monstrosity come into being? how and when did you give this bloated colossus the right to establish its own currency--to have the immeasurable effrontery to debar the solidest currency in the universe, the credit of north america, from inter-planetary and inter-stellar commerce? their aim is clear; they intend to tax you into slavery and death. do not forget for one instant, my friends, that the power to tax is the power to destroy. the power to tax is the power to destroy. our forefathers fought and bled and died to establish the principle that taxation without rep...." "and so on, for one solid hour!" jill snarled, as she snapped the switch viciously. "how do you like _them_ potatoes?" "hell's--blazing--pinnacles!" this from jack, silent for seconds, and: "rugged stuff ... very, _very_ rugged," from northrop. "no wonder you look sort of pooped, spud. being chief bodyguard must have developed recently into quite a chore." "you ain't just snapping your choppers, bub," was costigan's grimly flippant reply. "i've yelled for help--in force." "so have i, and i'm going to yell again, right now," jack declared. "i don't know whether dad is going to kill morgan or not--and don't give a damn--but if morgan isn't going all out to kill dad it's because they've forgotten how to make bombs." he lensed a call to bergenholm. "yes, jack?... i will refer you to rularion, who has had this matter under consideration." "yes, john kinnison, i have considered the matter and have taken action," the jovian's calmly assured thought rolled into the minds of all, even lensless jill's. "the point, youth, was well taken. it was your thought that some thousands--perhaps five--of spy-ray operators and other operatives will be required to insure that the grand rally will not be marred by episodes of violence." "it was," jack said, flatly. "it still is." "not having considered all possible contingencies nor the extent of the field of necessary action, you err. the number will approach nineteen thousand very nearly. admiral clayton has been so advised and his staff is now at work upon a plan of action in accordance with my recommendation. your suggestions, conway costigan, in the matter of immediate protection of roderick kinnison's person, are now in effect, and you are hereby relieved of that responsibility. i assume that you four wish to continue at work?" the jovian's assumption was sound. "i suggest, then, that you confer with admiral clayton and fit yourselves into his program of security. i intend to make the same suggestion to all lensmen and other qualified persons not engaged in work of more pressing importance." rularion cut off and jack scowled blackly. "the grand rally is going to be held three weeks before election day. i _still_ don't like it. i'd save it until the night before election--knock their teeth out with it at the last possible minute." "you're wrong, jack; the chief is right," costigan argued. "two ways. one, we can't play that kind of ball. two, this gives them just enough rope to hang themselves." "well ... maybe." kinnison-like, jack was far from being convinced. "but that's the way it's going to be, so let's call clayton." "first," costigan broke in. "jill, will you please explain why they have to waste as big a man as kinnison on such a piffling job as president? i was out in the sticks, you know--it doesn't make sense." "because he's the only man alive who can lick morgan's machine at the polls," jill stated a simple fact. "the patrol can get along without him for one term, after that it won't make any difference." "but morgan works from the side-lines. why couldn't he?" "the psychology is entirely different. morgan _is_ a boss. pops kinnison isn't. he's a leader. see?" "oh ... i guess so.... yes. go ahead." * * * * * outwardly, new york spaceport did not change appreciably. at any given moment of day or night there were so many hundreds of persons strolling aimlessly or walking purposefully about that an extra hundred or so made no perceptible difference. and the spaceport was only the end-point. the patrol's activities began hundreds or thousands or millions or billions of miles away from earth's metropolis. a web was set up through which not even a grain-of-sand meteorite could pass undetected. every space-ship bound for earth carried at least one passenger who would not otherwise have been aboard; passengers who, if not wearing lenses, carried service special equipment amply sufficient for the work in hand. geigers and other vastly more complicated mechanisms flew toward earth from every direction in space; streamed toward new york in earth's every channel of traffic. every train and plane, every bus and boat and car, every conveyance of every kind and every pedestrian approaching new york city was searched; with a search as thorough as it was unobtrusive. and every thing and every entity approaching new york spaceport was combed, literally by the cubic millimeter. no arrests were made. no package was confiscated, or even disturbed, throughout the ranks of public check boxes, in private offices, or in elaborate or casual hiding-places. as far as the enemy knew, the patrol had no suspicion whatever that anything out of the ordinary was going on. that is, until the last possible minute. then a tall, lean, space-tanned veteran spoke softly aloud, as though to himself: "spy-ray blocks--interference--umbrella--on. report." that voice, low and soft as it was, was picked up by every service special receiver within a radius of a thousand miles, and by every lensman listening, wherever he might be. so were, in a matter of seconds, the replies. "spy-ray blocks on, sir." "interference on, sir." "umbrella on, sir." no spy-ray could be driven into any part of the tremendous port. no beam, communicator or detonating, could operate anywhere near it. the enemy would now know that something had gone wrong, but he would not be able to do anything about it. "reports received," the tanned man said, still quietly. "operation zunk will proceed as scheduled." and four hundred seventy one highly skilled men, carrying duplicate keys and/or whatever other specialized apparatus and equipment would be necessary, quietly took possession of four hundred seventy one objects, of almost that many shapes and sizes. and, out in the gathering crowd, a few disturbances occurred and a few ambulances dashed busily here and there. some women had fainted, no doubt, ran the report. they always did. and conway costigan, who had been watching, without seeming even to look at him, a porter loading a truck with opulent-looking hand-luggage from a locker, followed man and truck out into the concourse. closing up, he asked: "where are you taking that baggage, charley?" "up ramp one, boss," came the unflurried reply. "flight ninety will be late taking off, on accounta this jamboree, and they want it right up there handy." "take it down to the...." over the years a good many men had tried to catch conway costigan off guard or napping, to beat him to the punch or to the draw--with a startlingly uniform lack of success. the lensman's fist traveled a bare seven inches: the supposed porter gasped once and traveled--or rather, staggered backward--approximately seven feet before he collapsed and sprawled unconscious upon the pavement. "decontamination," costigan remarked, apparently to empty air, as he picked the fellow up and draped him limply over the truckful of suitcases. "deke. front and center. area forty-six. class eff-ex--hotter than the middle tailrace of hell." "you called deke?" a man came running up. "eff-ex six--nineteen. this it?" "check. it's yours, porter and all. take it away." costigan strolled on until he met jack kinnison, who had a rapidly-developing mouse under his left eye. "how did _that_ happen, jack?" he demanded sharply. "something slip?" "not exactly." kinnison grinned ruefully. "i have the _damndest_ luck! a woman--an old lady at that--thought i was staging a hold-up and swung on me with her hand-bag--southpaw and from the rear. and if you laugh, you untuneful harp, i'll hang one right on the end of your chin, so help me!" "far be it from such," costigan assured him, and did not--quite--laugh. "wonder how we came out? they should have reported before this--p-s-s-t! here it comes!" decontamination was complete; operation zunk had been a one-hundred-percent success; there had been no casualties. "except for one black eye," costigan could not help adding; but his lens and his service specials were off. jack would have brained him if any of them had been on. linking arms, the two young lensmen strode away toward ramp four, which was to be their station. this was the largest crowd earth had ever known. everybody, particularly the nationalists, had wondered why this climactic political rally had been set for three full weeks ahead of the election, but their curiosity had not been satisfied. furthermore, this meeting had been advertised as no previous one had ever been; neither pains nor cash had been spared in giving it the greatest build-up ever known. not only had every channel of communication been loaded for weeks, but also samms' workers had been very busily engaged in starting rumors; which grew, as rumors do, into things which their own fathers and mothers could not recognize. and the baffled nationalists, trying to play the whole thing down, made matters worse. interest spread from north america to the other continents, to the other planets, and to the other solar systems. thus, to say that everybody was interested in, and was listening to, the cosmocrats' grand rally would not be too serious an exaggeration. roderick kinnison stepped up to the battery of microphones; certain screens were cut. "fellow entities of civilization and others: while it may seem strange to broadcast a political rally to other continents and to beam it to other worlds, it was necessary in this case. the message to be given, while it will go into the political affairs of the north american continent of tellus, will deal primarily with a far larger thing; a matter which will be of paramount importance to all intelligent beings of every inhabited world. you know how to attune your minds to mine. do it now." he staggered mentally under the shock of encountering practically simultaneously so many minds, but rallied strongly and went on, via lens: "my first message is not to you, my fellow cosmocrats, nor to you, my fellow dwellers on earth, nor even to you, my fellow adherents to civilization; but to the enemy. i do not mean my political opponents, the nationalists, who are almost all loyal fellow north americans. i mean the entities who are using the leaders of that nationalist party as pawns in a vastly larger game. "i know, enemy, that you are listening. i know that you had goon squads in this audience, to kill me and my superior officer. know now that they are impotent. i know that you had atomic bombs, with which to obliterate this assemblage and this entire area. they have been disassembled and stored. i know that you had large supplies of radio-active dusts. they now lie in the patrol vaults near weehauken. all the devices which you intended to employ are known, and all save one have been either nullified or confiscated. "that one exception is your war-fleet, a force sufficient in your opinion to wipe out all the armed forces of the galactic patrol. you intended to use it in case we cosmocrats win this forthcoming election; you may decide to use it now. do so if you like; you can do nothing to interrupt or to affect this meeting. this is all i have to say to you, enemy of civilization. "now to you, my legitimate audience. i am not here to deliver the address promised you, but merely to introduce the real speaker--first lensman virgil samms...." a mental gasp, millions strong, made itself tellingly felt. "... yes--first lensman samms, of whom you all know. he has not been attending political meetings because we, his advisers, would not let him. why? here are the facts. through archibald isaacson, of interstellar spaceways, he was offered a bribe which would in a few years have amounted to some fifty billion credits; more wealth than any individual entity has ever possessed. then there was an attempt at murder, which we were able--just barely--to block. knowing there was no other place on earth where he would be safe, we took him to the hill. you know what happened; you know what condition the hill is in now. this warfare was ascribed to pirates. "the whole stupendous operation, however, was made in a vain attempt to kill one man--virgil samms. the enemy knew, and we learned, that samms is the greatest man who has ever lived. his name will last as long as civilization endures, for it is he, and _only_ he, who can make it possible for civilization _to_ endure. "why was i not killed? why was i allowed to keep on making campaign speeches? because i do not count. i am of no more importance to the cause of civilization than is my opponent witherspoon to that of the enemy. "i am a wheel-horse, a plugger. you all know me--'rocky rod' kinnison, the hard-boiled egg. i've got guts enough to stand up and fight for what i _know_ is right. i've got the guts and the inclination to stand up and slug it out, toe to toe, with man, beast, or devil. i would make and will make a good president; i've got the guts and inclination to keep on slugging after you elect me; before god i promise to smash down every machine-made crook who tries to hold any part of our government down in the reeking muck in which it now is. "i am a plugger and a slugger, with no spark of the terrific flame of inspirational genius which makes virgil samms what he so uniquely is. my _kind_ may be important, but i individually am not. there are _so_ many of us! if they had killed me another slugger would have taken my place and the effect upon the job would have been nil. "virgil samms, however, _can not be replaced_ and the enemy knows it. he is unique in all history. no one else can do his job. if he is killed before the principles for which he is working are firmly established civilization will collapse back into barbarism. it will not recover until another such mind comes into existence, the probability of which occurrence i will let you compute for yourselves. "for those reasons virgil samms is not here in person. nor is he in the hill, since the enemy may now possess weapons powerful enough to destroy not only that hitherto impregnable fortress, but also the whole earth. and they would destroy earth, without a qualm, if in so doing they could kill the first lensman. "therefore samms is now out in deep space. our fleet is waiting to be attacked. if we win, the galactic patrol will go on. if we lose, we hope you shall have learned enough so that we will not have died uselessly." "die? why should _you_ die? _you_ are safe on earth!" "ah, one of the goons sent that thought. if our fleet is defeated no lensman, anywhere, will live a week. the enemy will see to that. "that is all from me. stay tuned. come in, first lensman virgil samms ... take over, sir." it was psychologically impossible for virgil samms to use such language as kinnison had just employed. nor was it either necessary or desirable that he should; the ground had been prepared. therefore--coldly, impersonally, logically, tellingly--he told the whole terrific story. he revealed the most important things dug up by the patrols' indefatigable investigators, reciting names, places, dates, transactions, and amounts. only in the last couple of minutes did he warm up at all. "nor is this in any sense a smear campaign or a bringing of baseless charges to becloud the issue or to vilify without cause and upon the very eve of election a political opponent. these are facts. formal charges are now being preferred; every person mentioned, and many others, will be put under arrest as soon as possible. if any one of them were in any degree innocent our case against him could be made to fall in less than the three weeks intervening before election day. that is why this meeting is being held at this time. "not one of them is innocent. being guilty, and knowing that we can and will prove guilt, they will adopt a policy of delay and recrimination. since our courts are, for the most part, just, the accused will be able to delay the trials and the actual presentation of evidence until after election day. forewarned, however, you will know exactly why the trials will have been delayed, and in spite of the fog of misrepresentation you will know where the truth lies. you will know how to cast your votes. you will vote for roderick kinnison and for those who support him. "there is no need for me to enlarge upon the character of port admiral kinnison. you know him as well as i do. honest, incorruptible, fearless, you know that he will make the best president we have ever had. if you do not already know it, ask any one of the hundreds of thousands of strong, able, clear-thinking young men and women who have served under him in our armed forces. "i thank you, everyone who has listened, for your interest." chapter 19 as long as they were commodores, clayton of north america and schweikert of europe had stayed fairly close to the home planet except for infrequent vacation trips. with the formation of the galactic patrol, however, and their becoming admiral and lieutenant-admiral of the first galactic region, and their acquisition of lenses, the radius of their sphere of action was tremendously increased. one or the other of them was always to be found in grand fleet headquarters at new york spaceport, but only very seldom were both of them there at once. and if the absentee were not to be found on earth, what of it? the first galactic region included all of the solar systems and all of the planets adherent to civilization, and the absentee could, as a matter of business and duty, be practically anywhere. usually, however, he was not upon any of the generally-known planets, but upon bennett--getting acquainted with the officers, supervising the drilling of grand fleet in new maneuvers, teaching classes in advanced strategy, and holding skull-practice generally. it was hard work, and not too inspiring, but in the end it paid off big. they knew their men; their men knew them. they could work together with a snap, a smoothness, a precision otherwise impossible; for imported top brass, unknown to and unacquainted with the body of command, can not have and does not expect the deep regard and the earned respect so necessary to high morale. clayton and schweikert had both. they started early enough, worked hard enough, and had enough stuff, to earn both. thus it came about that when, upon a scheduled day, the two admirals came to bennett together, they were greeted as enthusiastically as though they had been bennettans born and bred; and their welcome became a planet-wide celebration when clayton issued the orders which all bennett had been waiting so long and so impatiently to hear. bennettans were at last to leave bennett! group after group, sub-fleet after sub-fleet, the component units of the galactic patrol's grand fleet took off. they assembled in space; they maneuvered enough to shake themselves down into some semblance of unity; they practiced the new maneuvers; they blasted off in formation for sol. and as the tremendous armada neared the solar system it met--or, rather, was joined by--the patrol ships about which morgan and his minions already knew; each of which fitted itself into its long-assigned place. every planet of civilization had sent its every vessel capable of putting out a screen or of throwing a beam, but so immense was the number of warships in grand fleet that this increment, great as it intrinsically was, made no perceptible difference in its size. on rally day grand fleet lay poised near earth. as soon as he had introduced samms to the intensely interested listeners at the rally, roderick kinnison disappeared. actually, he drove a bug to a distant corner of the spaceport and left the earth in a light cruiser, but to all intents and purposes, so engrossed was everyone in what samms was saying, kinnison simply vanished. samms was already in the _boise_; the port admiral went out to his old flagship, the _chicago_. nor, in case any observer of the enemy should be trying to keep track of him, could his course be traced. cleveland and northrop and rularion and all they needed of the vast resources of the patrol saw to that. neither samms nor kinnison had any business being with grand fleet in person, of course, and both knew it; but everyone knew why they were there and were glad that the two top lensmen had decided to live or die with their fleet. if grand fleet won, they would probably live; if grand fleet lost they would certainly die--if not in the pyrotechnic dissolution of their ships, then in a matter of days upon the ground. with the fleet their presence would contribute markedly to morale. it was a chance very much worth taking. nor were clayton and schweikert together, or even near each other. samms, kinnison, and the two admirals were as far away from each other as they could get and still remain in grand fleet's fighting cylinder. cylinder? yes. the patrol's board of strategy, assuming that the enemy would attack in conventional cone formation and knowing that one cone could defeat another only after a long and costly engagement, had long since spent months and months at war-games in their tactical tanks, in search of a better formation. they had found it. theoretically, a cylinder of proper composition could defeat, with negligible loss and in a very short time, the best cones they were able to devise. the drawback was that the ships composing a theoretically efficient cylinder would have to be highly specialized and vastly greater in number than any one power had ever been able to put into the ether. however, with all the resources of bennett devoted to construction, this difficulty would not be insuperable. this, of course, brought up the question of what would happen if cylinder met cylinder--if the black strategists should also have arrived at the same solution--and this question remained unanswered. or, rather, there were too many answers, no two of which agreed; like those to the classical one of what would happen if an irresistible force should strike an immovable object. there would be a lot of intensely interesting by-products! even rularion of jove did not come up with a definite solution. nor did bergenholm; who, although a comparatively obscure young lensman-scientist and not a member of the galactic council, was frequently called into consultation because of his unique ability to arrive at correct conclusions via some obscurely short-circuiting process of thought. "well," port admiral kinnison had concluded, finally, "_if_ they've got one, too, we'll just have to shorten ours up, widen it out, and pray." "clayton to port admiral kinnison," came a communication through channels. "have you any additional orders or instructions?" "kinnison to admiral clayton. none," the port admiral replied, as formally, then went on via lens: "no comment or criticism to make, alex. you fellows have done a job so far and you'll keep on doing one. how much detection have you got out?" "twelve detets--three globes of diesels. if we sit here and do nothing the boys will get edgy and go stale, so if you and virge agree we'll give 'em some practice. lord knows they need it, and it'll keep 'em on their toes. but about the blacks--they may be figuring on delaying any action until we've had time to crack from boredom. what's your idea on that?" "i've been worried about the same thing. practice will help, but whether enough or not i don't know. what do you think, virge? will they hold it up deliberately or strike fast?" "fast," the first lensman replied, promptly and definitely. "as soon as they possibly can, for several reasons. they don't know our real strength, any more than we know theirs. they undoubtedly believe, however, the same as we do, that they are more efficient than we are and have the larger force. by their own need of practice they will know ours. they do not attach nearly as much importance to morale as we do; by the very nature of their regime they can't. also, our open challenge will tend very definitely to force their hands, since face-saving is even more important to them than it is to us. they will strike as soon as they can and as hard as they can." grand fleet maneuvers were begun, but in a day or so the alarms came blasting in. the enemy had been detected; coming in, as the previous black fleet had come, from the direction of coma berenices. calculating machines clicked and whirred; orders were flashed, and a brief string of numbers; ships by the hundreds and the thousands flashed into their assigned positions. or, more precisely, _almost_ into them. most of the navigators and pilots had not had enough practice yet to hit their assigned positions exactly on the first try, since a radical change in axial direction was involved, but they did pretty well; a few minutes of juggling and jockeying were enough. clayton and schweikert used a little caustic language--via lens and to their fellow lensmen only, of course--but samms and kinnison were well enough pleased. the time of formation had been very satisfactorily short and the cone was smooth, symmetrical, and of beautifully uniform density. the preliminary formation was a cone, not a cylinder. it was not a conventional cone of battle in that it was not of standard composition, was too big, and had altogether too many ships for its size. it was, however, of the conventional shape, and it was believed that by the time the enemy could perceive any significant differences it would be too late for him to do anything about it. the cylinder would be forming about that time, anyway, and it was almost believed--at least it was strongly hoped--that the enemy would not have the time or the knowledge or the equipment to do anything about that, either. kinnison grinned to himself as his mind, en rapport with clayton's, watched the enemy's cone of battle enlarge upon the admiral's conning plate. it was big, and powerful; the galactic patrol's publicly-known forces would have stood exactly the chance of the proverbial snowball in the nether regions. it was not, however, the port admiral thought, big enough to form an efficient cylinder, or to handle the patrol's real force in any fashion--and unless they shifted within the next second or two it would be too late for the enemy to do anything at all. as though by magic about ninety-five percent of the patrol's tremendous cone changed into a tightly-packed double cylinder. this maneuver was much simpler than the previous one, and had been practiced to perfection. the mouth of the cone closed in and lengthened; the closed end opened out and shortened. tractors and pressors leaped from ship to ship, binding the whole myriad of hitherto discrete units into a single structure as solid, even comparatively as to size, as a cantilever bridge. and instead of remaining quiescent, waiting to be attacked, the cylinder flashed forward, inertialess, at maximum blast. throughout the years the violence, intensity, and sheer brute power of offensive weapons had increased steadily. defensive armament had kept step. one fundamental fact, however, had not changed throughout the ages and has not changed yet. three or more units of given power have always been able to conquer one unit of the same power, if engagement could be forced and no assistance could be given; and two units could practically always do so. fundamentally, therefore, strategy always has been and still is the development of new artifices and techniques by virtue of which two or more of our units may attack one of theirs; the while affording the minimum of opportunity for them to retaliate in kind. the patrol's grand fleet flashed forward, almost exactly along the axis of the black cone; right where the enemy wanted it--or so he thought. straight into the yawning mouth, erupting now a blast of flame beside which the wildest imaginings of inferno must pale into insignificance; straight along that raging axis toward the apex, at the terrific speed of the two directly opposed velocities of flight. but, to the complete consternation of the black high command, nothing much happened. for, as has been pointed out, that cylinder was not of even approximately normal composition. in fact, there was not a normal war-vessel in it. the outer skin and both ends of the cylinder were purely defensive. those vessels, packed so closely that their repellor fields actually touched, were all screen; none of them had a beam hot enough to light a match. conversely, the inner layer, or "liner", was composed of vessels that were practically all offense. they had to be protected at every point--but how they could ladle it out! the leading and trailing edges of the formation--the ends of the gigantic pipe, so to speak--would of course bear the brunt of the black attack, and it was this factor that had given the patrol's strategists the most serious concern. wherefore the first ten and the last six double rings of ships were special indeed. they were _all_ screen--nothing else. they were drones, operated by remote control, carrying no living thing. if the patrol losses could be held to eight double rings of ships at the first pass and four at the second--theoretical computations indicated losses of six and two--samms and his fellows would be well content. all of the patrol ships had, of course, the standard equipment of so-called "violet", "green", and "red" fields, as well as duodecaplylatomate and ordinary atomic bombs, dirigible torpedoes and transporters, slicers, polycyclic drills, and so on; but in this battle the principal reliance was to be placed upon the sheer, brutal, overwhelming power of what had been called the "macro beam"--now simply the "beam". furthermore, in the incredibly incandescent frenzy of the chosen field of action--the cylinder was to attack the cone at its very strongest part--no conceivable material projectile could have lasted a single microsecond after leaving the screens of force of its parent vessel. it could have flown fast enough; ultra-beam trackers could have steered it rapidly enough and accurately enough; but before it could have traveled a foot, even at ultra-light speed, it would have ceased utterly to be. it would have been resolved into its sub-atomic constituent particles and waves. nothing material could exist, except instantaneously, in the field of force filling the axis of the black's cone of battle; a field beside which the exact center of a multi-billion-volt flash of lightning would constitute a dead area. that field, however, encountered no material object. the patrol's "screeners", packed so closely as to have a four hundred percent overlap, had been designed to withstand precisely that inconceivable environment. practically all of them withstood it. and in a fraction of a second the hollow forward end of the cylinder engulfed, pipe-wise, the entire apex of the enemy's war-cone, and the hitherto idle "sluggers" of the cylinder's liner went to work. each of those vessels had one heavy pressor beam, each having the same push as every other, directed inward, toward the cylinder's axis, and backward at an angle of fifteen degrees from the perpendicular line between ship and axis. therefore, wherever any black ship entered the patrol's cylinder or however, it was driven to and held at the axis and forced backward along that axis. none of them, however, got very far. they were perforce in single file; one ship opposing at least one solid ring of giant sluggers who did not have to concern themselves with defense, but could pour every iota of their tremendous resources into offensive beams. thus the odds were not merely two or three to one; but never less than eighty, and very frequently over two hundred to one. under the impact of those unimaginable torrents of force the screens of the engulfed vessels flashed once, practically instantaneously through the spectrum, and went down. whether they had two or three or four courses made no difference--in fact, even the ultra-speed analyzers of the observers could not tell. then, a couple of microseconds later, the wall-shields--the strongest fabrics of force developed by man up to that time--also failed. then those ravenous fields of force struck bare, unprotected metal, and every molecule, inorganic and organic, of ships and contents alike, disappeared in a bursting flare of energy so raw and so violent as to stagger even those who had brought it into existence. it was certainly vastly more than a mere volatilization; it was deduced later that the detonating unstable isotopes of the black's own bombs, in the frightful temperatures already existing in the patrol's quasi-solid beams, had initiated a chain reaction which had resulted in the fissioning of a considerable proportion of the atomic nuclei of usually completely stable elements! the cylinder stopped; the lensmen took stock. the depth of erosion of the leading edge had averaged almost exactly six double rings of drones. in places the sixth ring was still intact; in others, which had encountered unusually concentrated beaming, the seventh was gone. also, a fraction of one percent of the manned war-vessels had disappeared. brief though the time of engagement had been, the enemy had been able to concentrate enough beams to burn a few holes through the walls of the attacking cylinder. it had not been hoped that more than a few hundreds of black vessels could be blown out of the ether at this first pass. general staff had been sure, however, that the heaviest and most dangerous ships, including those carrying the enemy's high command, would be among them. the mid-section of the apex of the conventional cone of battle had always been the safest place to be; therefore that was where the black admirals had been and therefore they no longer lived. in a few seconds it became clear that if any black high command existed, it was not in shape to function efficiently. some of the enemy ships were still blasting, with little or no concerted effort, at the regulation cone which the cylinder had left behind; a few were attempting to get into some kind of a formation, possibly to attack the patrol's cylinder. indecision was visible and rampant. to turn that tremendous cylindrical engine of destruction around would have been a task of hours, but it was not necessary. instead, each vessel cut its tractors and pressors, spun end for end, reconnected, and retraced almost exactly its previous course; cutting out and blasting into nothingness another "plug" of black warships. another reversal, another dash; and this time, so disorganized were the foes and so feeble the beaming, not a single patrol vessel was lost. the black fleet, so proud and so conquering of mien a few minutes before, had fallen completely apart. "that's enough, rod, don't you think?" samms thought then. "please order clayton to cease action, so that we can hold a parley with their senior officers." "parley, hell!" kinnison's answering thought was a snarl. "we've got 'em going--mop 'em up before they can pull themselves together! parley be damned!" "beyond a certain point military action becomes indefensible butchery, of which our galactic patrol will never be guilty. that point has now been reached. if you do not agree with me, i'll be glad to call a council meeting to decide which of us is right." "that isn't necessary. you're right--that's one reason i'm not first lensman." the port admiral, fury and fire ebbing from his mind, issued orders; the patrol forces hung motionless in space. "as president of the galactic council, virge, take over." spy-rays probed and searched; a communicator beam was sent. virgil samms spoke aloud, in the lingua franca of deep space. "connect me, please, with the senior officer of your fleet." there appeared upon samms' plate a strong, not unhandsome face; deep-stamped with the bitter hopelessness of a strong man facing certain death. "you've got us. come on and finish us." "some such indoctrination was to be expected, but i anticipate no trouble in convincing you that you have been grossly misinformed in everything you have been told concerning us; our aims, our ethics, our morals, and our standards of conduct. there are, i assume, other surviving officers of your rank, although of lesser seniority?" "there are ten other vice-admirals, but i am in command. they will obey my orders or die." "nevertheless, they shall be heard. please go inert, match our intrinsic velocity, and come aboard, all eleven of you. we wish to explore with all of you the possibilities of a lasting peace between our worlds." "peace? bah! why lie?" the black commander's expression did not change. "i know what you are and what you do to conquered races. we prefer a clean, quick death in your beams to the kind you deal out in your torture rooms and experimental laboratories. come ahead--i intend to attack you as soon as i can make a formation." "i repeat, you have been grossly, terribly, _shockingly_ misinformed." samms' voice was quiet and steady; his eyes held those of the other. "we are civilized men, not barbarians or savages. does not the fact that we ceased hostilities so soon mean anything to you?" for the first time the stranger's face changed subtly, and samms pressed the slight advantage. "i see it does. now if you will converse with me mind to mind...." the first lensman felt for the man's ego and began to tune to it, but this was too much. "i will not!" the black put up a solid block. "i will have nothing to do with your cursed lens. i know what it is and will have none of it!" "oh, what's the use, virge!" kinnison snapped. "let's get on with it!" "a great deal of use, rod," samms replied, quietly. "this is a turning-point. i _must_ be right--i _can't_ be that far wrong," and he again turned his attention to the enemy commander. "very well, sir, we will continue to use spoken language. i repeat, please come aboard with your ten fellow vice-admirals. you will not be asked to surrender. you will retain your side-arms--as long as you make no attempt to use them. whether or not we come to any agreement, you will be allowed to return unharmed to your vessels before the battle is resumed." "what? side-arms? returned? you swear it?" "as president of the galactic council, in the presence of the highest officers of the galactic patrol as witnesses, i swear it." "we will come aboard." "very well. i will have ten other lensmen and officers here with me." the _boise_, of course, inerted first; followed by the _chicago_ and nine of the tremendous tear-drops from bennett. port admiral kinnison and nine other lensmen joined samms in the _boise's_ con room; the tight formation of eleven patrol ships blasted in unison in the space-courtesy of meeting the equally tight formation of black warships half-way in the matter of intrinsic velocity. soon the two little sub-fleets were motionless in respect to each other. eleven black gigs were launched. eleven black vice-admirals came aboard, to the accompaniment of the full military honors customarily granted to visiting admirals of friendly powers. each was armed with what seemed to be an exact duplicate of the patrol's own current blaster; lewiston, mark seventeen. in the lead strode the tall, heavy, gray-haired man with whom samms had been dealing; still defiant, still sullen, still concealing sternly his sheer desperation. his block was still on, full strength. the man next in line was much younger than the leader, much less wrought up, much more intent. samms felt for this man's ego, tuned to it, and got the shock of his life. this black vice-admiral's mind was not at all what he had expected to encounter--it was, in every respect, of lensman grade! "oh ... how? you are not speaking, and ... i see ... the lens ... the lens!" the stranger's mind was for seconds an utterly indescribable turmoil in which relief, gladness, and high anticipation struggled for supremacy. in the next few seconds, even before the visitors had reached their places at the conference table, virgil samms and corander of petrine exchanged thoughts which would require many thousands of words to express; only a few of which are necessary here. "the lens ... i have dreamed of such a thing, without hope of realization or possibility. _how_ we have been misled! they are, then, actually available upon your world, samms of tellus?" "not exactly, and not at all generally," and samms explained as he had explained so many times before. "you will wear one sooner than you think. but as to ending this warfare. you survivors are practically all natives of your own world. petrine?" "not 'practically', we are petrinos all. the 'teachers' were all in the center. many remain upon petrine and its neighboring worlds, but none remain alive here." "ohlanser, then, who assumed command, is also a petrino? so hard-headed, i had assumed otherwise. he will be a stumbling-block. is he actually in supreme command?" "only by and with our consent, under such astounding circumstances as these. he is a reactionary, of the old, die-hard, war-dog school. he would ordinarily be in supreme command and would be supported by the teachers if any were here; but i will challenge his authority and theirs; standing upon my right to command my own fleet as i see fit. so will, i think, several others. so go ahead with your meeting." "be seated, gentlemen." all saluted punctiliously and sat down. "now, vice-admiral ohlanser...." "how do you, a stranger, know my name?" "i know many things. we have a suggestion to offer which, if you petrinos will follow it, will end this warfare. first, please believe that we have no designs upon your planet, nor any quarrel with any of its people who are not hopelessly contaminated by the ideas and the culture of the entities who are back of this whole movement; quite possibly those whom you refer to as the 'teachers'. you did not know whom you were to fight, or why." this was a statement, with no hint of question about it. "i see now that we did not know all the truth," ohlanser admitted, stiffly. "we were informed, and given proof sufficient to make us believe, that you were monsters from outer space--rapacious, insatiable, senselessly and callously destructive to all other forms of intelligent life." "we suspected something of the kind. do you others agree? vice-admiral corander?" "yes. we were shown detailed and documented proofs; stereos of battles, in which no quarter was given. we saw system after system conquered, world after world laid waste. we were made to believe that our only hope of continued existence was to meet you and destroy you in space; for if you were allowed to reach petrine every man, woman, and child on the planet would either be killed outright or tortured to death. i see now that those proofs were entirely false; completely vicious." "they were. those who spread that lying propaganda and all who support their organization must be and shall be weeded out. petrine must be and shall be given her rightful place in the galactic fellowship of free, independent, and cooperative worlds. so must any and all planets whose peoples wish to adhere to civilization instead of to tyranny and despotism. to further these ends, we lensmen suggest that you re-form your fleet and proceed to arisia...." "arisia!" ohlanser did not like the idea. "arisia," samms insisted. "upon leaving arisia, knowing vastly more than you do now, you will return to your home planet, where you will take whatever steps you will then know to be necessary." "we were told that your lenses are hypnotic devices," ohlanser sneered, "designed to steal away and destroy the minds of any who listen to you. i believe _that_, fully. i will not go to arisia, nor will any part of petrine's grand fleet. i will not attack my home planet. i will not do battle against my own people. this is final." "i am not saying or implying that you should. but you continue to close your mind to reason. how about you, vice-admiral corander? and you others?" in the momentary silence samms put himself en rapport with the other officers, and was overjoyed at what he learned. "i do not agree with vice-admiral ohlanser," corander said, flatly. "he commands, not grand fleet, but his sub-fleet merely, as do we all. i will lead my sub-fleet to arisia." "traitor!" ohlanser shouted. he leaped to his feet and drew his blaster, but a tractor beam snatched it from his grasp before he could fire. "you were allowed to wear side-arms, not to use them," samms said, quietly. "how many of you others agree with corander; how many with ohlanser?" all nine voted with the younger man. "very well. ohlanser, you may either accept corander's leadership or leave this meeting now and take your sub-fleet directly back to petrine. decide now which you prefer to do." "you mean you aren't going to kill me, even now? or even degrade me, or put me under arrest?" "i mean exactly that. what is your decision?" "in that case ... i was--must have been--wrong. i will follow corander." "a wise choice. corander, you already know what to expect; except that four or five other petrinos now in this room will help you, not only in deciding what must be done upon petrine, but also in the doing of it. this meeting will adjourn." "but ... no reprisals?" corander, in spite of his newly acquired knowledge, was dubious, almost dumbfounded. "no invasion or occupation? no indemnities to your patrol, or reparations? no punishment of us, our men, or our families?" "none." "that does not square up even with ordinary military usage." "i know it. it does conform, however, to the policy of the galactic patrol which is to spread throughout our island universe." "you are not even sending your fleet, or heavy units of it, with us, to see to it that we follow your instructions?" "it is not necessary. if you need any form of help you will inform us of your requirements via lens, as i am conversing with you now, and whatever you want will be supplied. however, i do not expect any such call. you and your fellows are capable of handling the situation. you will soon know the truth, and know that you know it; and when your house-cleaning is done we will consider your application for representation upon the galactic council. good-bye." thus the lensmen--particularly first lensman virgil samms--brought another sector of the galaxy under the aegis of civilization. chapter 20 after the rally there were a few days during which neither samms nor kinnison was on earth. that the cosmocrats' presidential candidate and the first lensman were both with the fleet was not a secret; in fact, it was advertised. everyone was told why they were out there, and almost everyone approved. nor was their absence felt. developments, fast and terrific, were slammed home. cosmocratic spellbinders in every state of north america waved the flag, pointed with pride, and viewed with alarm, in the very best tradition of north american politics. but above all, there appeared upon every news-stand and in every book-shop of the continent, at opening time of the day following rally day, a book of over eighteen hundred pages of fine print; a book the publication of which had given samms himself no little concern. "but i'm afraid of it!" he had protested. "_we_ know it's true; but there's material on almost every page for the biggest libel and slander suits in history!" "i know it," the bald and paunchy lensman-attorney had replied. "fully. i hope they _do_ take action against us, but i'm absolutely certain they won't." "you hope they do?" "yes. if they take the initiative they can't prevent us from presenting our evidence in full; and there is no court in existence, however corrupt, before which we could not win. what they want and must have is delay; avoidance of any issue until after the election." "i see." samms was convinced. the location of the patrol's grand fleet had been concealed from all inhabitants of the solarian system, friends and foes alike; but the climactic battle--liberating as it did energies sufficient to distort the very warp and woof of the fabric of space itself--could not be hidden or denied, or even belittled. it was not, however, advertised or blazoned abroad. then as now the newshawks wanted to know, instantly and via long-range communicators, vastly more than those responsible for security cared to tell; then as now the latter said as little as it was humanly possible to say. everyone knew that the patrol had won a magnificent victory; but nobody knew who or what the enemy had been. since the rank and file knew it, everyone knew that only a fraction of the black fleet had actually been destroyed; but nobody knew where the remaining vessels went or what they did. everyone knew that about ninety five percent of the patrol's astonishingly huge grand fleet had come from, and was on its way back to, the planet bennett, and knew--since bennettans would in a few weeks be scampering gaily all over space--in general _what_ bennett was; but nobody knew _why_ it was. thus, when the north american contingent landed at new york spaceport, everyone whom the newsmen could reach was literally mobbed. however, in accordance with the aphorism ascribed to the wise old owl, those who knew the least said the most. but the telenews ace who had once interviewed both kinnison and samms wasted no time upon small fry. he insisted on seeing the two top lensmen, and kept on insisting until he did see them. "nothing to say," kinnison said curtly, leaving no doubt whatever that he meant it. "all talking--if any--will be done by first lensman samms." "now, all you millions of telenews listeners, i am interviewing first lensman samms himself. a little closer to the mike, please, first lensman. now, sir, what everybody wants to know is--who are the blacks?" "i don't know." "you don't know? on the lens, sir?" "on the lens. i still don't know." "i see. but you have suspicions or ideas? you can guess?" "i can guess; but that's all it would be--a guess." "and my guess, folks, is that his guess would be a very highly informed guess. will you tell the public, first lensman samms, what your guess is?" "i will." if this reply astonished the newshawk, it staggered kinnison and the others who knew samms best. it was, however, a coldly calculated political move. "while it will probably be several weeks before we can furnish detailed and unassailable proof, it is my considered opinion that the black fleet was built and controlled by the morgan-towne-isaacson machine. that they, all unknown to any of us, enticed, corrupted, and seduced a world, or several worlds, to their program of domination and enslavement. that they intended by armed force to take over the continent of north america and through it the whole earth and all the other planets adherent to civilization. that they intended to hunt down and kill every lensman, and to subvert the galactic council to their own ends. this is what you wanted?" "that's fine, sir--_just_ what we wanted. but just one more thing, sir." the newsman had obtained infinitely more than he had expected to get; yet, good newsmanlike, he wanted more. "just a word, if you will, mr. samms, as to these trials and the white book?" "i can add very little, i'm afraid, to what i have already said and what is in the book; and that little can be classed as 'i told you so'. we are trying, and will continue to try, to force those criminals to trial; to break up, to prohibit, an unending series of hair-splitting delays. we want, and are determined to get, legal action; to make each of those we have accused defend himself in court and under oath. morgan and his crew, however, are working desperately to avoid any action at all, because they know that we can and will prove every allegation we have made." the telenews ace signed off, samms and kinnison went to their respective offices, and cosmocratic orators throughout the nation held a field-day. they glowed and scintillated with triumph. they yelled themselves hoarse, leather-lunged tub-thumpers though they were, in pointing out the unsullied purity, the spotless perfection of their own party and its every candidate for office; in shuddering revulsion at the never-to-be-sufficiently-condemned, proved and demonstrated villainy and blackguardy of the opposition. and the nationalists, although they had been dealt a terrific and entirely unexpected blow, worked near-miracles of politics with what they had. morgan and his minions ranted and raved. they were being jobbed. they were being crucified by the monied powers. all those allegations and charges were sheerest fabrications--false, utterly vicious, containing nothing whatever of truth. they, not the patrol, were trying to force a show-down; to vindicate themselves and to confute those unspeakably unscrupulous lensmen before election day. and they were succeeding! why, otherwise, had not a single one of the thousands of accused even been arrested? ask that lying first lensman, virgil samms! ask that rock-hearted, iron-headed, conscienceless murderer, roderick kinnison! but do not, at peril of your sanity, submit your minds to their lenses! and why, the reader asks, were not at least some of those named persons arrested before election day? and your historian must answer frankly that he does not know. he is not a lawyer. it would be of interest--to some few of us--to follow in detail at least one of those days of legal battling in one of the high courts of the land; to quote verbatim at least a few of the many thousands of pages of transcript: but to most of us the technicalities involved would be boring in the extreme. but couldn't the voters tell easily enough which side was on the offensive and which on the defensive? which pressed for action and which insisted on postponement and delay? they could have, easily enough, if they had cared enough about the basic issues involved to make the necessary mental effort, but almost everyone was too busy doing something else. and it was so much easier to take somebody else's word for it. and finally, _thinking_ is an exercise to which all too few brains are accustomed. but morgan neither ranted nor raved nor blustered when he sat in conference with his faintly-blue superior, who had come storming in as soon as he had learned of the crushing defeat of the black fleet. the kalonian was very highly concerned; so much so that the undertone of his peculiar complexion was turning slowly to a delicate shade of green. "how did _that_ happen? how _could_ it happen? why was i not informed of the patrol's real power--how could you be guilty of such stupidity? now i'll have to report to scrwan of the eich. he's pure, undiluted poison--and if word of this catastrophe ever gets up to ploor...!!!" "come down out of the stratosphere, fernald," morgan countered, bitingly. "don't try to make _me_ the goat--i won't sit still for it. it happened because they could build a bigger fleet than we could. you were in on that--all of it. you knew what we were doing, and approved it--all of it. you were as badly fooled as i was. you were not informed because i could find out nothing--i could learn no more of their bennett than they could of our petrine. as to reporting, you will of course do as you please; but i would advise you not to cry too much before you're really hurt. this battle isn't over yet, my friend." the kalonian had been a badly shaken entity; it was a measure of his state of mind that he did not liquidate the temerarious tellurian then and there. but since morgan was as undisturbed as ever, and as sure of himself, he began to regain his wonted aplomb. his color became again its normal pale blue. "i will forgive your insubordination this time, since there were no witnesses, but use no more such language to me," he said, stiffly. "i fail to perceive any basis for your optimism. the only chance now remaining is for you to win the election, and how can you do that? you are--must be--losing ground steadily and rapidly." "not as much as you might think." morgan pulled down a large, carefully-drawn chart. "this line represents the hide-bound nationalists, whom nothing we can do will alienate from the party; this one the equally hide-bound cosmocrats. the balance of power lies, as always, with the independents--these here. and many of them are not as independent as is supposed. we can buy or bring pressure to bear on half of them--that cuts them down to this size here. so, no matter what the patrol does, it can affect only this relatively small block here, and it is this block we are fighting for. we are losing a little ground, and steadily, yes; since we can't conceal from anybody with half a brain the fact that we're doing our best to keep the cases from ever coming to trial. but here's the actual observed line of sentiment, as determined from psychological indices up to yesterday; here is the extrapolation of that line to election day. it forecasts us to get just under forty nine percent of the total vote." "and is there anything cheerful about that?" fernald asked frostily. "i'll say there is!" morgan's big face assumed a sneering smile, an expression never seen by any voter. "this chart deals only with living, legally registered, bona-fide voters. now if we can come that close to winning an absolutely honest election, how do you figure we can possibly lose the kind this one is going to be? we're in power, you know. we've got this machine and we know how to use it." "oh, yes, i remember--vaguely. you told me about north american politics once, a few years ago. dead men, ringers, repeaters, ballot-box stuffing, and so on, you said?" "'and so on' is right, chief!" morgan assured him, heartily. "everything goes, this time. it'll be one of the biggest landslides in north american history." "i will, then, defer any action until after the election." "that will be the smart thing to do, chief; then you won't have to take any, or make any report at all," and upon this highly satisfactory note the conference closed. and morgan was actually as confident as he had appeared. his charts were actual and factual. he knew the power of money and the effectiveness of pressure; he knew the capabilities of the various units of his machine. he did not, however, know two things: jill samms' insidious, deeply-hidden voters' protective league and the bright flame of loyalty pervading the galactic patrol. thus, between times of bellowing and screaming his carefully-prepared, rabble-rousing speeches, he watched calmly and contentedly the devious workings of his smooth and efficient organization. until the day before election, that is. then hordes of young men and young women went suddenly and briefly to work; at least four in every precinct of the entire nation. they visited, it seemed, every residence and every dwelling unit, everywhere. they asked questions, and took notes, and vanished; and the machine's operatives, after the alarm was given, could not find man or girl or notebook. and the galactic patrol, which had never before paid any attention to elections, had given leave and ample time to its every north american citizen. vessels of the north american contingent were grounded and practically emptied of personnel; bases and stations were depopulated; and even from every distant world every patrolman registered in any north american precinct came to spend the day at home. morgan began then to worry, but there was nothing he could do about the situation--or was there? if the civilian boys and girls were checking the registration books--and they were--it was as legally-appointed checkers. if the uniformed boys and girls were all coming home to vote--and they were--that, too, was their inalienable right. but boys and girls were notoriously prone to accident and to debauchery ... but again morgan was surprised; and, this time, taken heavily aback. the web which had protected grand rally so efficiently, but greatly enlarged now, was functioning again; and morgan and his minions spent a sleepless and thoroughly uncomfortable night. election day dawned clear, bright, and cool; auguring a record turn-out. voting was early and extraordinarily heavy; the polls were crowded. there was, however, very little disorder. surprisingly little, in view of the fact that the cosmocratic watchers, instead of being the venal wights of custom, were cold-eyed, unreachable men and women who seemed to know by sight every voter in the precinct. at least they spotted on sight and challenged without hesitation every ringer, every dead one, every repeater, and every imposter who claimed the right to vote. and those challenges, being borne out in every case by the carefully-checked registration lists, were in every case upheld. not all of the policemen on duty, especially in the big cities, were above suspicion, of course. but whenever any one of those officers began to show a willingness to play ball with the machine a calm, quiet-eyed patrolman would remark, casually: "better see that this election stays straight, bud, and strictly according to the lists and signatures--or you're apt to find yourself listed in the big book along with the rest of the rats." it was not that the machine liked the way things were going, or that it did not have goon squads on the job. it was that there were, everywhere and always, more patrolmen than there were goons. and those patrolmen, however young in years some of them might have appeared to be, were space-bronzed veterans, space-hardened fighting men, armed with the last word in blasters--lewiston, mark seventeen. to the boy's friends and neighbors, of course, his lewiston was practically invisible. it was merely an article of clothing, the same as his pants. it carried no more of significance, of threat or of menace, than did the pistol and the club of the friendly irish cop on the beat. but the goon did not see the patrolman as a friend. he saw the keen, clear, sharply discerning eyes; the long, strong fingers; the smoothly flowing muscles, so eloquent of speed and of power. he saw the lewiston for what it was; the deadliest, most destructive hand-weapon known to man. above all he saw the difference in numbers: six or seven or eight patrolmen to four or five or six of his own kind. if more hoods arrived, so did more spacemen; if some departed, so did a corresponding number of the wearers of the space-black and silver. "ain't you getting tired of sticking around here, george?" one mobster asked confidentially of one patrolman. "i am. what say we and some of you fellows round up some girls and go have us a party?" "uh-uh," george denied. his voice was gay and careless, but his eyes were icy cold. "my uncle's cousin's stepson is running for second assistant dog-catcher, and i can't leave until i find out whether he wins or not." thus nothing happened; thus the invisible but nevertheless terrific tension did not erupt into open battle; and thus, for the first time in north america's long history, a presidential election was ninety nine and ninety nine one-hundredths percent pure! evening came. the polls closed. the cosmocrats' headquarters for the day, the grand ballroom of the hotel van der voort, became the goal of every patrolman who thought he stood any chance at all of getting in. kinnison had been there all day, of course. so had joy, his wife, who for lack of space has been sadly neglected in these annals. betty, their daughter, had come in early, accompanied by a husky and personable young lieutenant, who has no other place in this story. jack kinnison arrived, with dimples maynard--dazzlingly blonde, wearing a screamingly red wisp of silk. she, too, has been shamefully slighted here, although she was never slighted anywhere else. "the first time i ever saw her," jack was wont to say, "i went right into a flat spin, running around in circles and biting myself in the small of the back, and couldn't pull out of it for four hours!" that miss maynard should be a very special item is not at all surprising, in view of the fact that she was to become the wife of one of the kinnisons and the mother of another. the first lensman, who had been in and out, came in to stay. so did jill and her inseparable, mason northrop. and so did others, singly or by twos or threes. lensmen and their wives. conway and clio costigan, dr. and mrs. rodebush, and cleveland, admiral and mrs. clayton, ditto schweikert, and dr. nels bergenholm. and others. nor were they all north americans, or even human. rularion was there; and so was blocky, stocky dronvire of rigel four. no outsider could tell, ever, what any lensman was thinking, to say nothing of such a monstrous lensman as dronvire--but that hotel was being covered as no political headquarters had ever been covered before. the returns came in, see-sawing maddeningly back and forth. faster and faster. the maritime provinces split fifty-fifty. maine, new hampshire, and vermont, cosmocrat. new york, upstate, cosmocrat. new york city, on the basis of incomplete but highly significant returns, was piling up a huge nationalist majority. pennsylvania--labor--nationalist. ohio--farmers--cosmocrat. twelve southern states went six and six. chicago, as usual, solidly for the machine; likewise quebec and ottawa and montreal and toronto and detroit and kansas city and st. louis and new orleans and denver. then northern and western and far southern states came in and evened the score. saskatchewan, alberta, britcol, and alaska, all went cosmocrat. so did washington, idaho, montana, oregon, nevada, utah, arizona, newmex, and most of the states of mexico. at three o'clock in the morning the cosmocrats had a slight but definite lead and were, finally, holding it. at four o'clock the lead was larger, but california was still an unknown quantity--california could wreck everything. _how_ would california go? especially, how would california's two metropolitan districts--the two most independent and free-thinking and least predictable big cities of the nation--how _would_ they go? at five o'clock california seemed safe. except for los angeles and san francisco, the cosmocrats had swept the state, and in those two great cities they held a commanding lead. it was still mathematically possible, however, for the nationalists to win. "it's in the bag! let's start the celebration!" someone shouted, and others took up the cry. "stop it! no!" kinnison's parade-ground voice cut through the noise. "no celebration is in order or will be held until the result becomes certain or witherspoon concedes!" the two events came practically together: witherspoon conceded a couple of minutes before it became mathematically impossible for him to win. then came the celebration, which went on and on interminably. at the first opportunity, however, kinnison took samms by the arm, led him without a word into a small office, and shut the door. samms, also saying nothing, sat down in the swivel chair, put both feet up on the desk, lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply. "well, virge--satisfied?" kinnison broke the silence at last. his lens was off. "we're on our way." "yes, rod. fully. at last." no more than his friend did he dare to use his lens; to plumb the depths he knew so well were there. "now it will roll--under its own power--no one man now is or ever will be indispensable to the galactic patrol--_nothing_ can stop it now!" epilogue the murder of senator morgan, in his own private office, was never solved. if it had occurred before the election, suspicion would certainly have fallen upon roderick kinnison, but as it was it did not. by no stretch of the imagination could anyone conceive of "rod the rock" kicking a man after he had knocked him down. not that morgan did not have powerful and vindictive enemies in the underworld: he had so many that it proved impossible to fasten the crime to any one of them. officially, kinnison was on a five-year leave of absence from the galactic patrol, the office of port admiral had been detached entirely from the fleet and assigned to the office of the president of north america. actually, however, in every respect that counted, roderick kinnison was still port admiral, and would remain so until he died or until the council retired him by force. officially, kinnison was taking a short, well-earned vacation from the job in which he had been so outstandingly successful. actually, he was doing a quick flit to petrine, to get personally acquainted with the new lensmen and to see what kind of a job they were doing. besides, virgil samms was already there. he arrived. he got acquainted. he saw. he approved. "how about coming back to tellus with me, virge?" he asked, when the visiting was done. "i've got to make a speech, and it'd be nice to have you hold my head." "i'd be glad to," and the _chicago_ took off. half of north america was dark when they neared tellus; all of it, apparently, was obscured by clouds. only the navigating officers of the vessel knew where they were, nor did either of the two lensmen care. they were having too much fun arguing about the talents and abilities of their respective grandsons. the _chicago_ landed. a bug was waiting. the two lensmen, without an order being given, were whisked away. samms had not asked where the speech was to be given, and kinnison simply did not realize that he had not told him all about it. thus samms had no idea that he was just leaving spokane spaceport, washington. after a few miles of fast, open-country driving the bug reached the city. it slowed down, swung into brightly-lighted maple street, and passed a sign reading "cannon hill" something-or-other--neither of which names meant anything to either lensman. kinnison looked at his friend's red-thatched head and glanced at his watch. "looking at you reminds me--i need a haircut," he remarked. "should have got one aboard, but didn't think of it joy told me if i come home without it she'll braid it in pigtails and tie it up with pink ribbons, and you're shaggier than i am. you've got to get one or else buy yourself a violin. what say we do it now?" "have we got time enough?" "plenty." then, to the driver: "stop at the first barber shop you see, please." "yes, sir. there's a good one a few blocks further along." the bug sped down maple street, turned sharply into plainly-marked twelfth avenue. neither lensman saw the sign. "here you are, sir." "thanks." there were two barbers and two chairs, both empty. the lensmen, noticing that the place was neatly kept and meticulously clean, sat down and resumed their discussion of two extremely unusual infants. the barbers went busily to work. "just as well, though--better, really--that the kids didn't marry each other, at that," kinnison concluded finally. "the way it is, we've each got a grandson--it'd be tough to have to share one with _you_." samms made no reply to this sally, for something was happening. the fact that this fair-skinned, yellow-haired blue-eyed barber was left-handed had not rung any bells--there were lots of left-handed barbers. he had neither seen nor heard the cat--a less-than-half-grown, gray, tiger-striped kitten--which, after standing up on its hind legs to sniff ecstatically at his nylon-clad ankles, had uttered a couple of almost inaudible "meows" and had begun to purr happily. crouching, tensing its strong little legs, it leaped almost vertically upward. its tail struck the barber's elbow. hastily brushing the kitten aside, and beginning profuse apologies both for his awkwardness and for the presence of the cat--he had never done such a thing before and he would drown him forthwith--the barber applied a styptic pencil and recollection hit samms a pile-driver blow. "well, i'm a...!" he voiced three highly un-samms-like, highly specific expletives which, as mentor had foretold so long before, were both self-derogatory and profane. then, as full realization dawned, he bit a word squarely in two. "excuse me, please, mr. carbonero, for this outrageous display. it was not the scratch, nor was any of it your fault. nothing you could have done would have...." "you know my name?" the astonished barber interrupted. "yes. you were ... ah ... recommended to me by a ... a friend...." whatever samms could say would make things worse. the truth, wild as it was, would have to be told, at least in part. "you do not look like an italian, but perhaps you have enough of that racial heritage to believe in prophecy?" "of course, sir. there have always been prophets--_true_ prophets." "good. this event was foretold in detail; in such complete detail that i was deeply, terribly shocked. even to the kitten. you call it thomas." "yes, sir. thomas aquinas." "it is actually a female. in here, thomasina!" the kitten had been climbing enthusiastically up his leg; now, as he held a pocket invitingly open, she sprang into it, settled down, and began to purr blissfully. while the barbers and kinnison stared pop-eyed samms went on: "she is determined to adopt me, and it would be a shame not to requite such affection. would you part with her--for, say, ten credits?" "_ten credits!_ i'll be glad to give her to you for nothing!" "ten it is, then. one more thing. rod, you always carry a pocket rule. measure this scratch, will you? you'll find it's mighty close to three millimeters long." "not 'close', virge--it's _exactly_ three millimeters, as near as this vernier can scale it." "and just above and parallel to the cheek-bone." "check. just above and as parallel as though it had been ruled there by a draftsman." "well, that's that. let's get finished with the haircuts, before you're late for your speech," and the barbers, with thoughts which will be left to the imagination, resumed their interrupted tasks. "spill it, virge!" kinnison lensed the pent-up thought. if carbonero, who did not know samms at all, had been amazed at what had been happening, kinnison, who had known him so long and so well, had been literally and completely dumbfounded. "what in hell's behind this? what's the story? give!" samms told him, and a mental silence fell; a silence too deep for intelligible thought. each was beginning to realize that he never would and never could know what mentor of arisia really was. * * * * * the secret planet no human had ever landed on the hidden planet of arisia. a mysterious space barrier turned back both men and ships. then the word came to earth; "go to arisia!" samms of the galactic patrol went--and came back with the lens, the strange device that gave its wearer powers no man had ever possessed before. samms knew the price of that power would be high. but even he had no idea of the ultimate cost, and the weird destiny waiting for the first lensman a pyramid book 60¢ cover: jack gaughan printed in u.s.a. * * * * * novels of science-fiction by "doc" smith _the skylark series_ the skylark of space skylark three skylark of valeron skylark duquesne _the lensman series_ triplanetary first lensman galactic patrol gray lensman second stage lensman children of the lens * * * * * 